Catholic Q&A

Q: What day does Lent begin in 2010?

A: Lent beings on Ash Wednesday, which in 2010 falls on February 17th.

Q: Why did Mary and Joseph need to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem?

A: Luke 2:1-7 tells the story of the Birth of Christ in Bethlehem. Bethlehem was known as the City of David because it was the hometown of King David, Joseph's ancestor. Because Caesar Augustus had demanded a census, all men had to take their families to register in their ancestral cities (this was simply how they organized the information). While they were registering in the census at Bethlehem, Jesus was born in the city of his ancestor David, whose reign as king Jesus would fulfill.

Q: What did Tudors believe when you die...the three stages of heaven, hell, and...?

A: Heaven, hell, and purgatory are not stages, but states of being in the afterlife. Heaven is the place of eternal beatitude, blessedness, holiness, and happines. Purgatory is often referred to as the antechamber of heaven, a place of final purification before entering heaven. Those who go to purgatory immediately after death are destined for heaven, but they are not equipped for heaven, since they are still suffering from an attachment to sin. A popular analogy would be this: if you spend your life in a very dark world and are suddenly taken into overwhelming light, you would go blind. It is too much for your eyes. Rev 21:27 states that nothing unclean shall enter heaven. Rather than exclude from heaven those who are in the state of grace but are still attached to sin, God's mercy places you in a dark room where He slowly turns up the light. Purgatory is a place of cleansing from sin and its effects where a person may be healed and made capable of life in heaven. It does involve suffering, in the same way that being exposed to light after darkness might hurt, but it is a hopeful suffering, because it comes with the knowledge that healing is going on and that heaven lies ahead.

Hell is an entirely different state of being and cannot be confused with purgatory. Hell is a state of being experienced by those souls who have rejected God's grace through unrepentant mortal sin. It is the absence of God and His goodness.

Q: Who speaks the words "Hail Mary" to pregnant Mary?

A: In the original Greek of Luke 1:28, the angel greets Mary saying, "χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη (kI-reh kek-kar-it-ah-men-ay)" which Catholic translate as "hail, full of grace." Although the name of Mary is not explicitly used, the verse is very clear that he is speaking to her. κεχαριτωμένη implies a completeness of the process of being given grace, that is, Mary has been given grace to the fullest degree.

Q: Is a Catholic not supposed to prepare in prayer before Mass?

A: The teachings of all the saints who have addressed this topic, while not officially a doctrinal teaching of the Church, should be considered with a level of certainty, and what the saints have said unanimously is that preparation in prayer before Mass is vitally important to the experience at Mass, as is praying in thanksgiving after Mass. The language of the Church states quidquid recipitur recipitur secundum modum recipientis - whatever is received is received according to the mode of the recipient. In other words, the Mass is able to help us to the degree that we have a proper disposition to receive grace. Many who complain of experiencing nothing at Mass would change their experiences completely by putting an effort into prayerfully placing themselves in a proper state of mind and heart before Mass.

His Servant and Yours,


Micah