Sadly, some former Catholics today have expressed a sense of emptiness in their spiritual lives. They may have gone to Mass on Sundays and found themselves just “going through the motions”. They may not have felt close to the Lord, or welcomed in their home parish. They may have thought the music wasn’t as good as it could be, or discovered that the people around them weren’t as friendly as they hoped they would be. All in all, those feelings may have led to some sensing like they were just not being fed in the Catholic Church. Sometimes, these feelings cause people to decide to drift away from the Church. Maybe they choose to just stop practicing their faith altogether, or they go to a local non-Catholic church that seems more exciting and upbeat. But the solution to the problem of not being fed actually lies in the Catholic Church. Whether or not the music or preaching or programs are the way we may wish them to be, it is in the Catholic Church that we find the one and only place where we can be truly fed with the Bread from Heaven: Jesus Christ, in the Holy Eucharist. Our closest encounter to Jesus is when He gives Himself to us, at each and every Mass in the Eucharist. It doesn’t get any more exciting than that. 
 
Once we realize that our deepest yearning can only be fulfilled in the Eucharist, we will begin to see that it is in the Eucharist that we find the true life and liveliness of our faith. Only the Catholic Church can feed us with this food that fully satisfies, and only with this food—the Eucharist—will your yearning be fulfilled, and your restlessness ended. 
 
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28 ). 
 
“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst…I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh’” (John 6:35,51).

It is important to realize that if you want to call yourself Catholic, but you want to pick and choose for yourself which of the Church’s teachings to accept and which to reject, you give everyone else who calls themselves Catholic the right to do the same thing. For example, you believe women should be priests…in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1577 states, “Only a baptized man validly receives ordination…For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.” Perhaps you believe that contraception is okay. Paragraph 2370 says contraception is intrinsically evil. When you choose to throw out certain teachings you don’t like, you undermine the authority that Christ gave to the Catholic Church, and you start to follow the “catechism of your own church” rather than the teachings of Christ’s Catholic Church. 
 
If we don’t believe in all of it, if we each appoint ourselves Pope and throw out a doctrine here or a doctrine there, then our faith is no longer Catholic. Yes, it can sometimes be a challenge to follow all of the teachings of Christ and the Catholic Church that carries on His teachings, but we should see those seemingly difficult teachings as traffic lights that help guide us on our journey and keep us from getting into accidents that can damage us and prevent us from living lives of happiness and grace.

On New Years Day, Catholics will celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, with a feast. This celebration is the octave of Christmas. An octave is an eight-day extension of the feast. In the modern Roman Calendar. This holiday is a celebration of Mary’s motherhood of Jesus. It is a reminder of the role she played in the salvation of humankind. The title “Mother of God” is a western derivation from the Greek Theotokos, which means “God-bearer”. Mary being chosen by God, the Father, to bring Jesus Christ into this world, and her willingness to do so is great cause for celebration. Without her role, Jesus would not have been able to die for the sins of humans, thus giving them a second chance at redemption. 
 
The honoring of Mary as the Mother of God can be traced back to the Council of Ephesus in 431. By the 7th century, January 1st was observed as a celebration of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the 13th century, the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ had come to replace the feast honoring Mary. However, in 1751, Pope Benedict XIV allowed Portugal’s churches to devote a feast to Mary on the first Sunday in May. This was because of a push in Portugal for an official feast day celebrating Mary’s divine maternity. Eventually, the feast was expanded to include other countries. 
 
In 1914, the feast started to be observed on October 11. In 1931, Pope Pius XI extended the feast to the entire church. In 1974, Pope Paul VI removed the feast of the Circumcision of Christ from the liturgical calendar. He replaced it with the feast of the “Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God”, bringing Mary’s feast day back to the first day of the calendar year.