Highlights

Christmas Greetings

Faith

A custom to live better the Advent season at home

The Catholic Church has designated the four weeks preceding Christmas as Advent, a time to “prepare the way of the Lord” for His coming as our King and Savior. In addition, the Church teaches that: "[w]hen the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 524).  A custom that helps Chrisitans to live better this season of expectation is the Advent wreath. The candles in the wreath represent the four weeks of Advent and the number of candles lighted each week corresponds to the number of the current week of Advent. The rose candle is lighted on the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday.

T(H)INKER

 
The Theory of Knowledge

Theory of Knowledge is one of the main and crucial philosophical disciplines. It delves on the nature and scope of human knowledge, an issue that moulds the other philosophical branches and  entire fields of the sciences. What is it that man knows? Is our knowledge derived from the senses, or from rational intuition? Do we have any knowledge about the external world, or are we going to be always plagued by scepticism ? The human capacity to know has produced wonder among philosophers since ancient times. In recent times, the issue of its scope and validity has been the object of deep and subtle discussions. We present the new section "T(H)INKER" by offering slide presentations of the first part of a simple introductory course on the Theory of Knowledge given to young professionals. Access to these presentations is by using the drop-down menu on top of the web page, where you find the "T(H)INKER" tab.

refresher

Personal Sin

God became man so that we might be born again as children of God, a status which man lost through sin. The present time has witnessed an unprecedented loss of the sense of sin in not a few societies. "The loss of the sense of sin is ... a form or consequence of the denial of God: not only in the form of atheism but also in the form of secularism. If sin is the breaking off of one's filial relationship to God in order to situate one's life outside obedience to him, then to sin is not merely to deny God. To sin is also to live as if he did not exist, to eliminate him from one's daily life... The restoration of a proper sense of sin is the first way of facing the grave spiritual crisis looming over man today. But the sense of sin can only be restored through a clear reminder of the unchangeable principles of reason and faith which the moral teaching of the church has always upheld." (JOHN PAUL II, Reconciliatio et Poenitentiae, no. 17). We offer you a presentation used in a class about personal sin.

BOOKMARK

A website that's all about the early Christians

The website www.earlychristians.org offers a wealth of information about the life of the early Christian communities, the persecutions, the expansion of Christianity, the acts of the martyrs, the Fathers of the Church, and the Catacombs, among other topics. It also contains related documents, videos and audio files that can be downloaded. It offers lists of books and films related to the world of early Christianity, and audio files of the acts of the early martyrs and the situation of Christianity during the first four centuries. The website also has a special section for the Pope’s discourses on the early Christians and related documents.