YOUCAT*: 1. In the name of the Father. 2. Apostles’ Creed. 3. Our Father. 4. Three Hail Marys. 5. Glory be to the Father. 6. Five decades each with one Our Father, 10 Hail Marys and a Glory be to the Father. The month of October is the month of the Rosary. There are four […]

YOUCAT: No. Jesus is the only son of Mary in the physical sense. [CCC 500, 510] I volunteer at my parish in our middle school youth ministry, and at a recent youth night one of the teens asked if Jesus had any brothers. Great question! Mary was a teen herself when she had Jesus, so […]

YOUCAT:* “God’s grace is freely bestowed on a person, and it seeks and summons him to respond in complete freedom. Grace does not compel. God’s love wants our free assent.” [CCC 2001-2002, 2022] A few weeks ago, I participated in my parish’s catechist retreat. Our pastor, Sacred Hearts Father Richard McNally, facilitated the day. The […]

YOUCAT*: “All men have the same dignity, but not all of them meet with the same living conditions. In cases where injustice is man-made, it contradicts the Gospel. In cases where men have been endowed by God with different gifts and talents, God is asking us to rely on one another: in charity one should […]

YOUCAT*: Baptism does snatch us from the power of sin and death and brings us into the new life of the children of God, but it does not free us from human weakness and the inclination to sin. That is why we need a place where we can be reconciled with God again and again. […]

YOUCAT*: Faith is knowledge and trust. It has seven characteristics: Faith is a sheer gift of God, which we receive when we fervently ask for it. Faith is the supernatural power that is absolutely necessary if we are to attain salvation. Faith requires the free will and clear understanding of a person when he or […]

YOUCAT:* A sin is a word, deed, or intention by which man deliberately and voluntarily offends against the true order of things, as God’s loving providence has arranged them. [1849-1851, 1871-1872] “Only someone who has seriously meditated on how heavy the Cross is can understand how serious sin is.” —St. Anselm of Canterbury Sin is […]

YOUCAT*: The Sacrament of Matrimony comes about through a promise made by a man and a woman before God and the church, which is accepted and confirmed by God and consummated by the bodily union of the couple. Because God himself forms the bond of sacramental marriage, it is binding until the death of one […]

YOUCAT*: Christians bring their life before God through the language of the body: they cast themselves down before God. They fold their hands in prayer or stretch them out. They genuflect or kneel before the all holy God. They listen to the Gospel while standing. They meditate while seated. A few weeks ago I was […]

YOUCAT: The right way to read Sacred Scripture is to read it prayerfully, in other words, with the help of the Holy Spirit, under whose influence it came into being. It is God’s Word and contains God’s essential communication to us. [109-119, 137] Pick up the Bible, open it, and start reading. Sounds easy, right? […]