Light Of The East

On this Sunday of Lent in many Eastern Catholic Churches a woman is put before our eyes who is a model of repentance, reverence for the Eucharist and hope for women experiencing shame.

The Great Spiritual Master, St. John Climacus will take us higher and higher on his Ladder of Divine Ascent. The first two rungs of this ladder will be renunciation and obedience.

Does abstaining from meat, dairy, sweets, wine, oil, iPhones and entertainment and adding more prayer seem unreasonable? It is actually the norm that Lent seeks to bring us back to.

Short but mighty, brief but powerful, the Prayer of St. Ephrem is the official prayer of the Great Fast in the Byzantine Catholic Church exposing our demons yet pointing to virtues.

If one picture is worth a thousand words, then the worth of a holy icon is priceless. Through the ages those who defended holy images against detractors are heroes of the True Faith.

'Hide not your face from your servant; for I am in distress.' The words of Adam and Eve as Lent, the season of the Great fast, now begins in the Eastern Catholic Churches.

A loving God would not really send someone to hell forever, would he? Why do Catholics pray do dead people? Learn what the Eastern Catholic Churches say about these and other related questions.

The Scripture parable of the Prodigal Son is our story - a choice for the delusion of ideology or a choice for reality, right reason and our ultimate glorious destiny.

Pope St. John Paul II reminds us that the Catholic "breathes with both lungs east and west." There are actually 21 different, ancient and venerable ways to be Catholic

In a temple, the Elder Simeon holds Christ in his hands and then asks to be dismissed from this world. What do we say with God entering our entire being.

Ah yes, the good old days of the Church, bar fights over who was the greatest among three great Fathers of the Byzantine Church. I know! Let's celebrate all three of them on the same day!

The calendar of the Church seems to be in a lull at this time, and, we are in the dog days of winter. Yet, in the Byzantine Liturgical calendar this time sparkles with brilliant saints.

Almighty God raises up in each age, certain persons who turn the Church and the world on its axis. Pope Benedict XVI in our age and the desert monastics in an early age are some examples.

As though being born and laid in a manger in Bethlehem was not humbling enough, Our Lord chose to lower himself in the lowest spot on the Earth’s surface, the river Jordan. There he would be baptized for our sake and God as Trinity would be revealed.

There was no room at the Inn for the Holy Family traveling to Bethlehem. Is there room in Iowa for a Byzantine Catholic priest and his community? Find out, from our special guest.

All families have their story, from sinners to saints, so it is with the family of Jesus Christ. But God still works out His divine plan which is the miracle of this season.

St. Pope John Paul II described monasticism as the "reference point for all the baptized." During this season, we return to our baptism through, monasticism. Our special guest will explain.

Do not celebrate Christmas. That's Right. Do not celebrate Christmas. Rather, rely on the Church's preparation for Christmas to help you enter the mystery of the Incarnation and be transformed by it."

As we draw near to the Nativity of Our Lord, we look back on the ancestry of Christ and the many foretellings and prefigurements of Christ in the Old Testament.

So which are you...? A 'Rad Trad', a Pro-Popolo Novus Ordo or maybe Ad Orientum Novus Ordo, or just plain confused and fed up? The Eastern Catholic Churches are here to help.