Book Reviews – July 2020

Catholic Marriage: A Pastoral and Liturgical Commentary By Edward Foley, ed. Reviewed by Christopher Siuzdak. (skip to review) Vocation to Marriage and the Christian Family By Thomas McGovern. Reviewed by Matthew Rose. (skip to … [Read more...]

Questions Answered – June 2019

Attending a Greek Orthodox Wedding Question: Is it permissible for a Catholic to attend either the ceremony or reception of a Catholic marrying a Greek Orthodox at a Greek Orthodox Mass without a Catholic priest present? Answer: The … [Read more...]

Requirements of Conjugal Love

Blueprinting for a Lasting Marriage in Christ

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the Sacrament of Matrimony as a “matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life . . . ordered toward the good of the spouses and t … [Read more...]

A God with Skin

Recapturing the Incarnational Nature of the Sacraments

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. (Jn 1:14) Since her beginning, the Catholic Church has been an incarnational institution, a B … [Read more...]

A Case for the Sacrament of Marriage

Did God intend marriage to be a union between one man and one woman, a union that is both permanent and indissoluble? Is marriage at its very essence meant to be a covenantal bond between a man and a woman, or is it just as easily entered … [Read more...]

Encountering Christ’s Love in the Sacraments

In every way, the sacraments are about God’s love, fully revealed in Jesus Christ. In them, Jesus makes Himself present as the one who loves us “to the end” (Jn 13:1). In each Sacrament, He says: “I love you; I have given my life for you (Jn … [Read more...]

Giving Nature Its Due—Even in Sacramental Matrimony

One of the “hot” debates in Catholic circles this past decade has been the so-called “pure nature” debate. The basic question underlying the whole topic is: “How should we parse the interactions, so to speak, between nature and grace, the na … [Read more...]

Early Fall Reading

The Concept of Woman: Volume III: The Search for Communion of Persons, 1500-2015. By Sister Prudence Allen, R.S.M., Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016. 546 pages. Reviewed by Joshua M. Evans, Ph.D. Revelation. Catholic Commentary on Sacred … [Read more...]

Questions Answered

Question:  If a couple is in the state of mortal sin because of cohabitation before marriage without confession, is the marriage still a valid sacramental marriage? If not, when does it become a sacramental marriage? Answer:  This q … [Read more...]

Love Is a Liturgical Act

“Christian marriage ... is in itself a liturgical action glorifying God in Jesus Christ and in the Church” (Familiaris Consortio, 56) (Man, Male and Female, is a "religious being" (CCC, 28[1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, hereafter CCC … [Read more...]

The Family: Expanded Sacrament

It has become a trite truism to say that the traditional family is under attack. The sources of the onslaught may be traced back at least to the 19th century’s exaltation of Romantic infatuation and its accompanying insistence that the s … [Read more...]

The Sacrament of Matrimony: A Conversation with Millennials

Abbreviations LG: Lumen Gentium, Second Vatican Council Dogmatic Constitution on the Church MR: Missale Romanum (Roman Missal) (2010) SC: Sacrosanctum Concilium, Second Vatican Council Constitution on the Sacred … [Read more...]

The Beauty of Chastity Today

Chastity is a costly pearl that must be guarded well. Well-lived chastity is a habitual disposition of the heart and mind that makes a person gracious and approachable. The transparent beauty of chastity sees life through a lens of … [Read more...]

“Go and Call Your Husband”: What Enables a Marriage to Endure?

The unity of will between a husband and wife that God establishes is realized also through a life that is fully shared. A marriage is contracted as a result of the consent of the spouses, and this consent needs to be renewed each … [Read more...]

The Holy Family, Celibacy, and Marriage: A Reflection on the “Passage” from the Jewish Rite of Marriage to the Sacrament of Marriage

If the sacrament of marriage came to be specified at a particular moment, then as the renewal of marriage was itself an indication of a new beginning ... it makes sense that the marriage of Mary and Joseph was precisely the implicitly … [Read more...]