Evangelization

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. (Tape, Side 1) Our Conference this evening is on the cost of sharing Christ. Our subtitle is the heart of St. Paul. It is impossible to read much of St. Paul’s letters without being struck by the price he paid for his zeal in proclaiming Jesus Christ. So the […]

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. (Tape, Side 2) St. Paul’s greatest trials, I repeat, St. Paul’s greatest trials were not the physical hardships he endured. Although we know they were extreme, they were not the humanly impossible travels that he made. They were by any estimation, heroic. His worst anguish was the rejection he […]

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. We get some idea of the gigantic task awaiting the missionary work in Russia from the opening sentence of the policy statement of the Soviet Union in the heyday of Communism. The government told the people that, “The Soviet school, as an instrument for the Communist education of the […]

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. This is my 31st year in working for the Holy See. And the single most important responsibility which Holy Father and the Vatican have given me is to inspire the laity, the faithful devoted laity to preserve and promote the Catholic Faith. I would like to summarize what I […]

The Need for Spiritual Martyrdom in Living the Catholic Faith By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. If there is one theme that Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, keeps stressing to the faithful it is the imperative, “Proclaim Christ!” We do well to examine what this means. To proclaim Christ means to make Christ […]

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. This title is surprising. You might object that human beings have always been living in a sin-laden world. That is true. But the twentieth century has been the most sin predominated world in human history. There have been more wars fought in our century with more death casualties than […]

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. By The Catholic Reformation I mean the spontaneous resurgence of Catholic thought and spirituality that spanned the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. During these three hundred years, the Catholic Church lost whole nations by their separation from the papacy. But she also experienced an unprecedented renewal in every aspect […]

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. This will be no ordinary lecture. It will be a call to military action. The modern world has been seduced by the evil spirit who is, in Christ’s words, a murderer from the beginning. He is still a murderer today. Therefore every act of violence is mysteriously inspired by […]

By Father John A. Hardon, S.J. The Catholic Church is going through the most remarkable development of her twenty centuries. At the heart of this development is her growth in understanding the revealed faith bequeathed to her by Jesus Christ. Another term for this growth in understanding the faith is development of doctrine. No other […]

A Meditation by Father John Hardon, S.J. The Holy Father Pope John Paul II celebrated the tenth anniversary of his pontificate last month. To mark the occasion, our contributing editor, Father John Hardon has set down these reflections on what this pontificate means to the history of the Church. In conversation with Mother Teresa shortly […]

by Father John Hardon, S.J. Whenever St. Paul is referred to without identifying him, he is simply called the Apostle. He was so completely identified with the mission of preaching Christ that his name and the apostolate are almost synonymous. No one in the Church’s history is more worthy of the title Apostle, because no […]

by Father John Hardon, S.J. We do not normally think of America as a mission country. On the contrary, we have for generations been sending missionaries to other countries: to the people of Asia and Africa. We have mission-aid societies and Mission Sunday. Over the years, thousands of American priests and religious from our nation […]