Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Shalom Catholic Community
Paul VI Audience Hall - Monday, 4 September 2017
Shalom showed me that I am a child of God
My name is Javier Francisco Kovacs Benitez. I’m 32 years old, and I’m a pride Paraguayan! I was raised as a Catholic since I was a kid and although my family broke up when I was a child, I became quite involved with the church while attending school, but this dramatically changed when I was […]
Pentecost Joy – Fr Raniero Cantalamessa
On Sunday June 4 we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost wasn’t and isn’t a once only event but rather a perennial one in which we can expect to receive a fresh and new outpouring of the Holy Spirit – a new Pentecost, if you will. Fr Raniero […]
“There’s no human condition that can’t be healed, with love!”
“The Song of the Irias” is a play written by Wilde Fabio, a member of the Shalom Catholic Community. It has been performed all over Brazil to wide acclaim. It was originally written in Portuguese and has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Hungarian and most recently English. The central theme revolves around the same “Salvation […]
What is the Purpose of Lent?
Every year it is the same thing: Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of a new season in the Catholic Church. The Calendar of Catholic events doesn’t change. We are different persons, though. The Lenten season changes everything and strengthens the appeal of the Church in our present moment. It’s because we are different individuals that […]
The Choices of God
The choice of God towards the little shepherd David Moved by the readings of the book of Samuel, I felt motivated to meditate and pray upon the choice of God towards the little shepherd David. After personal prayer and meditation upon those passages of the book of Samuel I was amazed to see how God […]
Iceland knows the secret to stopping teen substance abuse
In the past 20 years, teen alcohol and drug abuse plummeted among Icelandic youth… but why? In the past 20 years, Iceland’s rates of teen drinking, smoking, and drug use rates have drastically plummeted. Mosaic Science reports that in 1998, the percentage of 14- to 16-year-olds who reported being drunk in the previous month was 42 percent […]
“Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy…”
The phrase “portal of grace” doesn’t appear in the Catechism, but it’s how I’ve always thought of Baptism; we might call the sacrament “The First Ephphetha,” the first means by which we are opened to Christ and to the Christian life which, if it is lived fully and mindfully, must be a continual opening and […]
How do we keep Christ in Christmas?
December reminds us of Christmas. However, what exactly does Christmas mean? How do we keep Christ in Christmas? Shalom missionaries and some friends who participate in the prayer group every Saturday had a Christmas celebration in a different way from what people generally do. On December 17th, 2016, during the prayer group they got together […]
Shalom Youth Congress in Italia moved the participants to a deeper meeting with Jesus
A deeper meeting with Jesus! The second day of Shalom Youth Congress, on Saturday, December 3rd, opened with the intervention of Moyses Azevedo, who preached to the Italian youth about the friendship with God and how to go “farther than where our feet can get” the central theme of the Congress. The founder of Shalom […]