"Who is your neighbor and what are you doing about it?"

By Paul Dion, STL

"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,with all your being,with all your strength,and with all your mind,and your neighbor as yourself." He replied to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live." (Luke 10; 27)

We have all heard the old saw, "You can choose your friends but you can't choose your relatives." As a matter of fact, we can't choose our neighbors either.

Just who are these people? How do we get to love them? Why do we even have to love them? If we love them, how do we prove that we love them?

We believe that love begets love and we observe that some of the love that we put out to some of our "neighbors" has not begotten love in return. As a matter of fact, some of the love that we have put out to some of our very own relatives has not begotten love in return.

We read the story as told by Luke in the gospel quote above and the thing that is striking here is that Jesus Himself throws the challenge back on to the conscience of the questioner, "...which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers' victim?" Jesus then tells the questioner to "...go and do likewise."

We too know that the answer to the question lies on our conscience. So, answer the Burning Question: Who is your neighbor and what are you doing about it?

"Do Catholics believe our salvation is a sure thing?"

By Paul Dion, STL

Lk 18:9-10: "Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else. "

This is a very powerful lesson from Jesus Himself. He has jumped into the argument two millennia before many of us have either heard it or used it ourselves. We usually hear it when someone says, "Lord, you can take me now, I'm ready." Or as I have heard a few times before in my life, "My father died suddenly but he told me that he was saved, so I don't worry about him." Lately we hear declarations like, "I'm glad that I am a Christian (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, etc.) it sure is easier to get to heaven from here."

That is not the lesson that Jesus gives us in this Gospel story as told by St. Luke. The question is:

"Do we as Catholics believe that we can ever be sure that we are saved and therefore a lock to get to heaven?"

CLICK HERE to see the answer to this Burning Question.

"Is it a sin to look to the horoscope for serious "guidance" in our lives?"

By Paul Dion, STL

Hey, Bro, what sign are you?
Aquarius, dude. You?

Pisces. Slick and smoothe in your wave.

What's your lady's sign?

She's a Scorpio. Good fit, I'll say.

My, my, what is going on here? This is a conversation that I overheard just outside the door of the Adult Confirmation catechism session. Two nice Catholic young men sizing one another up to see if they were going to be able to have a stable and friendly relationship if their Zodiac signs were right. I just shook my head and made a note that the next time I am in the room with this group that I would have a little fun with them about star alignments and what they mean to us...and what they don't mean.

Why would Catholics be intrigued by such fantasies? Would western Catholics have the same "matches" and "mismatches" as eastern ones? Would I be in in trouble if my western "pisces" were to be in conflict with my eastern "ox"?

When I was in parochial school some years ago, we were warned by the nuns that believing in the dictates of the Zodiac was against the first comandment. That didn't stop some of us from checking the horoscope in the newspaper every day to see what was going to happen to us the next day. (We had an evening newspaper.) Our big excuse was that it was only fun. Our big reason was that the stuff we read never happened anyway. I have to admit that a couple of us were more serious about checking out the stars than others.

Our question this week therefore is: "Is it against the first commandment to look to the horoscope for serious "guidance" in our lives?

Don't just say "yes" or "no", give us a reason why you have the opinion that you throw out on the table.

Click here to read the answer to the burning question.

Why don't we invoke saints from the Old Testament?

By Paul Dion, STL

To the members of the Communion of Saints, the hands, feet, eyes, ears and hearts of the Mystical Body, in the name of Jesus the Resurrected Lord and Savior through His very own Lifestyle Magazine, ParishWorld.net, blessings and prayers to you all.

This is a question that I have been asked twice in the last six or seven weeks. If you would like to share your thoughts or answers, we welcome you to do so. Please click here to post an swer.

I gave an answer that was similar to the one that you can find here. I have to say that this answer is very complete, short, clear and easy to understand. Please enjoy it. Parishworld.net offers it to you as one of the small gifts that the Church offers you for the month of All Saints.

CLICK HERE to view the answer to this Burning Question.