In Chapter 10 of Matthew?s Gospel, Our Lord has some strong words for His Apostles. After giving them their initial instructions, He states ?You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved.? (Mt 10:22) The good news is that their endurance will bring about a happy ending, but the bad news is that what comes before that happy ending could be painful.

The Church teaches that we are all called to carry on the Apostles? mission of spreading the ?Good News? and it?s often a difficult task. Have you ever tried to inform someone that an activity they are engaged in goes against the teaching of The Church? No matter how gentle you are, you will usually be met with a reaction ranging from total indifference to extreme rage. Don?t feel bad?it happened to Jesus too.

Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus tell us that being a Christian will be ?one big party?. If we want to be followers of Christ and share in His mission, there is a price to be paid. The key is to ?endure to the end? by charitably proclaiming the truth. By doing so, we may not only assist in saving the souls of others?we will hopefully save our own soul as well!

First it was Facebook and now The Catholic Truth is officially on Twitter! We are extremely excited to see what The Lord has in store for us! Eight months ago, I created our website, followed by this blog and our email newsletter. At the time I didn’t even know what Facebook and Twitter were, let alone imagine that we would be using them to evangelize!

Please visit our sites and spread the word to your family and friends. So many Catholics don’t understand their Faith and lack a personal relationship with Christ. By simply mentioning our various sites to others, you may allow the peace of Christ to enter their hearts. They may really need to hear Jesus speak through His Church and you can be the one that delivers the message.

Will you give it a try?

Do you ever get tired of people accusing the Catholic Church of making up rules? How about when non-Catholic Christians state that faith in Christ is all that is needed for salvation and that no works or other requirements are necessary? I don?t usually get into this type of thing, but I can?t pass this one up. While researching another matter, I ran into this quote from the 2nd century:

When we hear, ?Your faith have saved you? (Mt 9:22, Mk 5:34, Lk 8:48), we do not understand (The Lord) to say simply that they will be saved who have believed in whatever manner, even if works have not followed. To begin with, it was to the Jews alone that He spoke this phrase, who had lived in accord with the law and blamelessly, and who lacked only faith in The Lord.

– St. Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis; circa. 202 A.D)

Pretty good refutation of Martin Luther?s concept of ?sola fide? (faith alone), wouldn?t you say? In other words, the Jews already had the ?law? part down and Jesus was emphasizing that they also needed to have faith. Pretty cool, huh? St. Clement wrote this less than 200 years after the death of Christ. Wouldn’t you agree that he had a better idea of Jesus’ teachings than Luther who didn’t come around for another 1300 years?

Just one more reason to read the writings of the early Church fathers!

The world tells us that power and success go hand in hand. If we are to succeed in life, we need to be powerful. Money, fame and the ability to stand up for oneself are all ways to achieve success in this life. In the Second Reading from today?s Mass, however, St. Paul tells us that his strength comes from weakness (2 Cor 12:7-10). How is that possible? Has Paul taken leave of his senses?

Paul?s statement actually makes perfect sense, if we acknowledge one important fact: Without God?s help we would not be able to accomplish anything. Many times we fool ourselves into thinking that we are responsible for our success in this life. We sometimes attribute it to hard work and strong drive, but fail to give any credit to The Lord. While our hard work is important and expected, without God?s help we wouldn?t be take a single breath, put together a coherent thought or move our arms and legs!

On the flip side, we sometimes ?sell ourselves short? and feel that we don?t have the necessary skills to accomplish a particular task. We forget that, with God?s help, we can perform tasks far beyond our capabilities. Mother Angelica founded the incredibly successful EWTN Catholic television and radio network despite having no technical knowledge in that area. How was this possible? She felt the call to establish the operation and knew that God would help. And He did! God?s strength was able to compensate for her lack of technical expertise. She received the proper resources and today EWTN broadcasts the ?Good News? all over the world.

For a long time I felt a desire to proclaim the Gospel over the Internet, but I had no web design experience or funds. I finally decided to give it a try and eight months later The Catholic Truth has a website, blog, monthly newsletter and a Facebook fan page. We have reached people in 82 different countries and are adding new followers every day. While I still get nervous at times, I trust that God will help me if He wants our apostolate to succeed. If that thinking is good enough for St. Paul, Mother Angelica and countless others ? it?s good enough for me!

Have you ever felt God?s call to accomplish a task, but felt you lacked the necessary skills or resources? Did you try praying, in the hopes that God will turn your weakness into strength or did you just give up? If God is truly asking you to accomplish something, He will not leave you abandoned. He may just be waiting for you to ask for help. Give it a try today and see what wonders The Lord can accomplish in your life!

St. Thomas the Apostle, whose feast the Church celebrates today, is probably best known for his refusal to believe the other disciples when they informed him of their encounter with the risen Christ (Jn 20:24 -29). But did ?Doubting? Thomas (as he is often called) really have a weak faith or was he just being cautious?

I would propose that nothing Thomas did indicated that his faith was lacking. While he did tell the other disciples that he needed proof of the Resurrection, as soon as Our Lord appeared and allowed him to touch His wounds, Thomas proclaimed ?My Lord and My God?! Jesus was all the proof that he needed.

Most of us have questioned elements of the Catholic Faith from time to time. It is a characteristic of being human and should not be considered wrong. However, what we do with our doubts is very important. Do we allow Jesus to enlighten us by studying the teachings of our Faith as presented by His Church? When we find the Church?s answer do we obey or do we ignore it?

Thomas questioned, but believed as soon as he encountered Christ. Can the same be said for us?

As a lay person, one of the best things that I can do to celebrate the current ?Year of the Priest? is to meditate on the awesome gift that Our Lord has granted us in the priesthood. It is easy to take our priests for granted, falling into the trap of criticizing the way they say Mass or finding fault with their homilies. The media blames priestly celibacy for everything from the shortage of priests to any number of sexual indiscretions. Looking at the priesthood in purely human terms causes us to miss the supernatural element of this noble vocation.

I recently wrote an article for Catholic Exchange that attempts to look at the priesthood from a Divine perspective. My hope is that by reading it, you will be able to better understand the words of St. Jean Vianney when he said, ?If I were to meet a priest and an angel, I should salute the priest before I saluted the angel. The latter is the friend of God; but the priest holds His place?.

You can read the full article at: http://catholicexchange.com/2009/07/01/120001/

Today we remember St. Josemaria Escriva, who died on June 26, 1975. He is best known as the founder of the Opus Dei movement, which is based on the idea that our sanctity can be achieved through the performance of our daily work. Even the most mundane tasks, such as scrubbing the floor or collecting garbage become supernatural when done for the glory of God.

We can learn a lot from the teachings of St. Escriva. Often times we look for a magnificent or elaborate way to serve God, while ignoring the many little tasks that await us each day. Doing each of those ordinary tasks well will do more for our salvation than the large task that never comes along.