Q. The American civil holiday Labor Day was established to recognize the hard work, sacrifices, and contributions of workers. Does the Catholic Church calendar have anything similar to Labor Day? A. The feast of St. Joseph the Worker (May 1), though primarily devoted to honoring the foster father of Our Lord, also serves as something like a “Catholic Labor Day.” It was established in 1955 by Pope Pius XII as a Catholic alternative to the worldwide Communist-sponsored May Day

Dear St. Catherine Parish Family, This weekend, we will be kicking off our parish stewardship program: Live Courageously, Love Heroically. Stewardship, for many, is simply associated with a sense of burden, compelling us to give of our resources (typically the biblical tithe of 10%). But stewardship is so much more. It means first acknowledging our deepest identity as God’s children and trusting in His providence, recognizing that everything we have is a gift from Him. Conseq

Q. Wouldn’t Jesus have appeared to His mother after His resurrection? Why is there no biblical account of that event? A. Biblical commentators have long speculated about this matter. Some think that Jesus didn’t appear to Mary because her faith required no evidence of that sort for His resurrection. Others conjecture that the encounter happened, but knowledge of the event is not necessary for our salvation, so the Gospel writers passed over the incident in silence. Personally

Q. If Mary is Queen, and Jesus is King, wouldn’t that make her His wife? A. Recall that King David’s reign over the ancient Israelites was a foreshadowing of the later, universal reign of his descendant Jesus Christ, “the Son of David” (Matthew 1:1). Jesus’ kingship is in fact a fulfillment of God’s age-old promise that David’s throne would be established forever (2 Samuel 7:16; Luke 1:32–33). Now David, his son and royal heir Solomon, and their successors on the throne often

Q. We celebrate the Assumption of Our Lady this week (August 15). When she was assumed body and soul into heaven, had she died first, or was she spared death? A. The dogma of the Assumption was infallibly defined in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. It teaches that “having completed the course of her earthly life, [Mary] was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” (Munificentissimus Deus, 44). The words “having completed the course of her earthly life” carefully avoid a dogmatic stat