and why is it not really a Mass? Answer from Wiki: the Mass of the Presanctified (Latin: missa præsanctificatorum, Greek: leitourgia ton proegiasmenon) is a Christian liturgy traditionally celebrated on Good Friday in which the Sacrifice of Calvary is not re-presented, and in which Holy Communion is given from an oblation consecrated at a previous Mass which had been reserved. It had developed by the time of the Quinisext Council (Second Trullan Synod, 692). In the Latin Rites it is used only on...

Answer from Fr. Z : http://wdtprs.com/blog/2009/03/passiontide-veils/ We lose things during Lent. We are being pruned through the liturgy. Holy Church experiences liturgical death before the feast of the Resurrection. The Alleluia goes on Septuagesima. Music and flowers go on Ash Wednesday. Today, statues and images are draped in purple. That is why today is sometimes called Repus Sunday, from repositus analogous to absconditus or “hidden”, because this is the day when Crosses and other...

Palm Sunday: The Solemn Procession Explained The Solemn Procession is designed to create a liturgical contrast between the worlds idea of a Messiah and our God’s.  We are so willing to accept Jesus as the glorious king, Jesus instead chooses the path to the Cross.  For more on this contrast check out Sunday’s Homily on my blog.  Images from the Palm Sunday Solemn procession and the other Palm Sunday Liturgies can be found on our Liturgy photo gallery.

So how many commandments are there in the Old Testament? Do we need to follow them all? What’s the difference between Catholics and Protestants? Ever want to know the answer to a question about the faith but feel embarrassed to ask?  This is the place to do it.  Questions asked will be answer by an expert in the field(s) of theology, morals, biology, medicine, technology, you name it.  Be warned though–really interesting questions might be used for homilies, youth group meetings, or...

Q. What is the fundamental difference that the existence of God, and His self-Revelation, makes in our human life. A. God is the source of all life. God is the source of existence and God’s existence gives our human life and all creation both an origin and destination. As we read at the end of the book of the Apocalypse, ” I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning and the end.” Why any thing exists is not a physical question that can be answered by the natural sciences but...

Q. Can someone who commits suicide get to heaven? A. Maybe. Its important as Catholics to realize that ultimately God is in charge and that there are realities that we can’t say much about because they haven’t been revealed to us. That is why St. Paul tells us to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.” None of us deserves Heaven, all of us deserve Hell, and yet Jesus came that we might have life. This contradiction between our own fallibility and the goodness...

Q. Is it ever ok to take a life? A. This is the question for discussion for the next youth group meeting, Monday, April 5th. I would like to propose several parts to this question: Suicide, Murder, War, and the Death Penalty, as separate but related questions. The answers we come up with and the Church proposes will be posted after our next meeting. Q1. Suicide Q2. Murder Q3. War Q4. The Death Penalty

Q. Why do we pray, fast, and give to the poor during lent? A.  For the Holy Cure of Ars—Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving were not only Lenten disciplines but an every day way of life. Because while Lent is a time that reminds us of the heroic struggle between our Lord and the Devil in the wilderness the fact of the matter is that this struggle for our souls continues feast or fast throughout our entire lives. As we read in the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians (9:24-25) While all the...