The Christians are not removed from the world and its conflicts. Indeed, Jesus sends us "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Due to the complex nature of the human experience, the pressures of cultures that don't share Christian values, and the difficulty of living the Gospel, even people of good will have conflicts! The Church has disagreements within herself. This has been the case from the beginning. In the letters of Paul, we see him writing to churches who disagree on how to best live the Gospel in everyday life. And different teachers went to cities after Paul and sometimes preached conflicting messages on who Jesus was.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity consists of eight days beginning Jan 18, the feast of the Chair of Peter, and ending on Jan 25, the feast of the conversion of St. Paul. The Franciscan Friars at the Atonement, founded in the early 20th Century in Graymoor, New York, sought to promote unity among Anglicans and Roman Catholics. Paul James Wattson, a former Episcopalian priest, founded the community, which was formally accepted into the Catholic Communion.

From the earliest of days of St. John the Baptist, baptism has been a sign of repentance and forgiveness of sins. Now Jesus has instituted it as a sacrament, with real power to cleanse us from original sin and adopt us as children of God. But if Jesus wasn't affected by original sin, nor did he willingly choose sin, why would he need to be baptized?

Epiphany, like Christmas, is celebrated in various ways by different nationalities and cultures. The customs and traditions surrounding these daysgive them a distinct feel and meaning.

As human beings, we are both spiritual and corporeal. We are body and soul. This makes us unique in all creation. No other physical creature -- plant or animal -- possesses an immortal soul made in God's image and likeness. Like the distinction with plants and animals, angels have an entirely different sort of existence. Angels are pure immortal spirit, and they have been so since the moment of their creation. While they may take on an appearance of a body in Biblical history, they are not a body like we are. Angels are neither male nor female, despite the art we often see.

As the result of the Fall, human beings experience death. Our souls are temporarily separated from our bodies. However, we do not become something other than human. Every Sunday in the Creed we profess "I believe in the resurrection of the body." As Jesus was united with his body on the third day, so, too, will we be united with our bodies at the end of time.

Joachim and Anna are the parents of Mary, the mother of Jesus, yet there is absolutely no biblical reference to them whatsoever. So where do we get their names, and what is their story?

Sin is a deliberate thought, word, action, or omission contrary to God's law. Since the beginnings of the Church, sin has been distinguished by its gravity. "Grave matter" is traditionally defined by the Ten Commandments. If a person commits a grave sin with full knowledge of the action's evil and with the complete consent of their will, this is a mortal sin. The effects of mortal sin are grave - the loss of sanctifying grace, which can be restored by a fresh outpouring of God's mercy in the sacrament of Reconciliation.

Another term for the Sacrament of Confession is the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We go to this sacrament not only to confess our sins, but to be reconciled with God. Of course, this begs the question, "If I can pray to God on my own, why can't I be reconciled to God on my own?" In the seven sacraments, we recognize the importance of community. Sacraments like Baptism or Matrimony happen in the context of the wider church to remind us of the communal impact of our lives. We are not alone in our walk of faith!

There is always a struggle between culture and religion, and part of that struggle is politics. To be politically correct means that you must embrace the secular virtue of the moment so that you are "enlightened," "sensitive," "aware," and, most importantly, "open-minded." Unfortunately, common sense can be sacrificed in the race to be "PC."

The date set for John the Baptist's birth only came into existence once the date to celebrate Jesus' birth was set. Evidence shows that by the middle of the fourth century Christians were celebrating the birth of Jesus around December 25. No one at that time knew when Jesus was born, but the date seemed to be selected to counter the Roman festival to the sun god.Once December 25 had been selected for the birth of Jesus, a number of other dates could be set, using the biblical evidence at hand. When the angel appeared to Mary and she conceived, her cousin, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, was in her sixth month.