St. Expeditus (WikiCommon: Piotr Rymuza)
LB writes: “Is praying a novena to this saint okay? I’ve read different things about leaving an offering of pound cake and that some people that practice voodoo pray to this saint. So that concerns me and I don’t want to invite the wrong things into my life. I know he has a huge following in Brazil, but given that I’ve read different things about this saint, I wanted to be sure. Is he not considered a true saint because there is no historical record of an actual date of death? Please advise.”
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MT asks:
“Can you please give me a list of the five to ten top reputable authorities you trust for assessing what is the real Catholic Contemplative Tradition.”
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NM writes:
“Thank you for providing this forum on New Age. I have been trying to find information about a type of prayer called Theophostic Prayer, a name coined by Ed Smith, a Protestant counselor who began to use this in his counseling sessions with great results and now he offers training in the technique. . .
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EW writes:
"I am writing for information about a gift that I received from some Catholic women friends. I have heard them talk about the practice of Reiki and Healing Touch. They are involved with it in the hospital settings. They call it a prayer blanket and they are hand-made from cloth material. It is 17" x 17", the back and front are beautifully quilted. In the front is a centered cross. The prayer blanket comes with a prayer blessing for the one that places it on the part of the body that needs prayer. I heard a priest in his homily that Catholic school children made prayer blankets and sent them to the missions for a school project. Does this have anything to do with the New Age?"
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By Connie Rossini
Former Trappist Abbot Father Thomas Keating passed away Oct. 25. Father Keating was the primary architect of the centering prayer movement, which has thousands of adherents throughout the world. From the beginning, centering prayer has been surrounded by controversy. What is centering prayer? Is it in keeping with the Catholic tradition? Should Catholics practice it?
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Move over Headspace! There’s a new meditation app in town – and this one is 100% Catholic.
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ST asks:
"What do you know about 'mindfulness meditation.'™ Is it okay for hospitals to be using it on patients?"
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Although Eastern meditation practices are being sold wholesale to the public as a panacea for everything from stress to digestive issues, experts say there can be very real – and very serious - consequences to these mind-control techniques.
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PG writes:
"I resigned from my job last year as a mental health LMSW, working in an out patient clinic. We were being trained in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which in fact, is based on Eastern Mysticism/Buddhism. We were told that we had to take the training and had to use this new mind control therapy on our clients. I knew it was wrong and I could no longer work for this agency. Have you heard of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy? It appears to be growing -unfortunately."
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In an effort to counter what the Nicaraguan bishops are calling an “irrational and disproportionate” level of violence against Catholics in that country, they are planning to say the prayer of exorcism to St. Michael the Archangel to combat the violence which is "spiritually rooted in evil."
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