November is National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month. The Children's Bureau, within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, created this initiative through a partnership with AdoptUSKids and Child Welfare Information Gateway, to raise awareness of the need for adoption. This awareness might happen by examining our understanding of adoption, learning about the ways to adopt or discerning if God is calling us or someone we know to adopt. Adoption can be done in different ways: private, domestic or international, infant adoption through an adoption agency or attorney or the adoption of children More

All Saints' celebrates ultimate victory

All Saints' Day is the feast on which we celebrate those who have died and gone to heaven. Catholic teaching holds that all people in heaven are saints. This includes all saints, not just those who are known to us (those canonized by the Church). We, the faithful on earth, celebrate their triumph and seek to learn from their example in what it means to live holy lives. We also ask them to pray for us so that we go to heaven as well. This feast is celebrated on Nov. 1. It is so important that it is a holy day of obligation to attend Mass, except when it falls on a Saturday More

Pray for the dead on All Souls' Day

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, or All Souls' Day, is the feast day dedicated to praying for all those who have died and are in purgatory. Souls in purgatory "have not yet been purified" in order to enter heaven. That said, the Church teaches those in purgatory will get to heaven eventually and our prayers help them get there. "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven." More