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On May 13, 1917, on a hillside outside Fatima, Portugal, three shepherd children saw a lady "brighter than the sun, shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal glass filled with the most sparkling water and pierced by the burning rays of the sun." For the next six months, on the 13th day of the month, Our Lady of Fatima appeared to Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

The final apparition, on October 13, 1917, was accompanied by the "Miracle of the Sun." As many as 70,000 people saw the sun dance in the sky, then plunge toward the earth. The sheer number of witnesses weighed strongly in the decision to proclaim the apparitions at Fatima "worthy of belief" in 1930.

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In the comments on my post "Baptism for the Dead: It's Not for Catholics Anymore," a reader writes:

Does the Catholic Church recognize other chuches' baptisms as valid and saving ordinances? What about method of baptism--i.e., sprinkling, immersion?

I know that they don't accept LDS baptism but I am interested to know about other churches that have "valid" baptism in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

When the reader refers to "LDS baptism," he means a baptism performed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church. Ordinances is a Mormon term for religious rites that must be performed in order to achieve salvation.

To put the question in Catholic terms, what conditions must be met in order for a Christian baptism to be considered valid?

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The About.com Guide to Genealogy, Kimberly Powell, has news of a very important directive issued by the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy on April 5, 2008. As the Catholic News Service reported, the Congregation for the Clergy has directed all Catholic dioceses "not to give information in parish registers to the Mormons' Genealogical Society of Utah."

The reason is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons, engage in a practice of baptizing the dead. Any Mormon in good standing may stand in as a proxy for a dead relative, engaging in baptism on his or her behalf. Mormons believe that such posthumous baptisms allow those who did not have the opportunity to be exposed to the Mormon gospel while alive to accept or reject that gospel.

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The Catholic practice of assigning a special devotion to each month goes back to the early 16th century. Since the best known of those devotions is probably the dedication of the month of May to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it might come as a surprise that it wasn't until the late 18th century that this devotion arose among Jesuits in Rome. In the early years of the 19th century, it quickly spread throughout the Western Church, and, by the time of Pope Pius IX's declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, it had become universal.

May crownings and other special May events in honor of Mary, such as public recitation of the rosary, stem from this time. Sadly, such communal events are more rare today, but we can take the month of May as an opportunity to renew our own devotion to the Mother of God by dusting off our rosaries and adding a few more Marian prayers to our daily routine.

Parents, in particular, should encourage Marian devotion in their children, since their encounters with non-Catholic Christianity today often downplay (if not denigrate) the role that the Blessed Virgin played in our salvation through her fiat--her joyous "Yes" to the will of God.

Prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary:

• Invocations to the Blessed Virgin Mary
• For the Help of the Blessed Virgin Mary
• Prayer of Saint Augustine to the Blessed Virgin
• Petition to Mary by St. Alphonsus Liguori
• To Mary, Refuge of Sinners

When Pope Benedict XVI visited the United States in April, he told priests and religious assembled at St. Patrick's Cathedral that now is the time for "a new Pentecost for the Church in America." Such an event can occur, however, only if we open ourselves to the workings of the Holy Spirit.

Before Christ ascended into Heaven, He promised His disciples that He would send the Holy Spirit. After the Ascension, they, along with the Virgin Mary, retired to the Upper Room where the Last Supper had taken place to pray and prepare themselves for the descent of the Holy Spirit. The nine days between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost Sunday became the first novena.

The Novena to the Holy Ghost recalls that original novena, and for centuries, Catholics have been praying it between Ascension and Pentecost. In it, we ask for the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (and, on the final day, for the twelve fruits of the Spirit). This year, in light of Pope Benedict's call for renewal, why not join in praying the novena?

Most Catholics begin the novena the day after Ascension Thursday, which means that they pray the final prayer on the day before Pentecost Sunday. To make it easier to remember to pray the novena every day, I've created a nine-day course of e-mails. Sign up for the course, and each day you will receive an e-mail with the prayers for that day (as well as links to other articles about the Holy Spirit, Ascension, and Pentecost). After the nine days are over, the e-mails will simply quit coming. (If you'd like to pray the novena again, at any time of the year, you can sign up once more.)

Like the weekly About.com Catholicism newsletter, this Novena to the Holy Ghost e-course is absolutely free. Sign up today!

Thursday, May 1, 2008, is the 40th day of Easter. In other words, it is Ascension Thursday, the day on which (the Bible tells us) Jesus Christ, having risen from the dead on Easter Sunday, ascended into Heaven.

Historically, the Feast of the Ascension has been a Holy Day of Obligation--and it still is. However, in most parts of the United States today, Catholics will not attend Mass on Ascension Thursday--and they won't be violating the Precepts of the Church, which say that we have to assist at Mass on Holy Days, under pain of mortal sin. How can that be?

The answer is simple but confusing. The bishops of the United States, recognizing that attendance at Ascension Thursday Masses had dropped dramatically for years, petitioned the Vatican to allow them to transfer the celebration of Ascension to the following Sunday (the 43rd day of Easter). The Vatican agreed, but the decision was left up to each ecclesiastical province of the United States.

Several provinces continue to celebrate Ascension on Ascension Thursday, and you can find a list of them in Is Ascension a Holy Day of Obligation? Most provinces, however, transferred the celebration to the following Sunday, where it is still a Holy Day of Obligation. Since it coincides, however, with our Sunday Duty to assist at Mass, many people don't realize that they are, in fact, fulfilling their duty to attend Mass on a Holy Day of Obligation.

Related Resources:

• Is Ascension a Holy Day of Obligation?
• The Ascension of Our Lord
• The Precepts of the Church
• Date of Ascension 2008
• Catholic Liturgical Calendar 2008

As we prepare to celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord and look beyond it to the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it is appropriate that we celebrate this week the feasts of two great saints who taught us something about the Holy Spirit. Separated by 1,000 years, Saint Athanasius and Saint Catherine of Siena are joined in honor as two of the 33 Doctors of the Church.

On April 29, we celebrate the feast of Saint Catherine (1347-80), a courageous woman who bore the stigmata (the wounds of Christ) the last five years of her life and dared to tell Pope Gregory XI that he should return the papacy to Rome from its exile in Avignon, France. A mystic from an early age, she consecrated herself to Christ at the age of seven. She died on the Sunday before Ascension, at the age of 33--the same age as Christ at the time of His Crucifixion.

Among her many writings (all of which she dictated), Saint Catherine left a short Prayer to the Holy Ghost, asking Him for the grace to resist all temptation and to grow in charity.

The feast day of Saint Athanasius (c. 296-373) is May 2, and this bishop of Alexandria is known as the "Father of Orthodoxy" for his courageous defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation against the Arians, who taught that Christ was a mere man, and not the incarnate Son of God. His view prevailed at the Council of Nicaea (325), but the Arians, though defeated doctrinally, continued to persecute Athanasius for the rest of his long life.

Saint Athanasius left for us the Athanasian Creed, the longest of all the standard Christian creeds. Concerned with defining the doctrine of the Trinity (including the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son) and of the two natures of Christ, divine and human, the Athanasian Creed was traditionally recited on Trinity Sunday, one week after Pentecost Sunday.

Related Resources:

• Prayer to the Holy Ghost by Saint Catherine of Siena
• Athanasian Creed
• The Doctors of the Church

A reader writes:

What are Rogation days? Are they the same as Ember Days? How did they get started?

What an interesting question, and an appropriate one, too, since today--April 25--is known as the Major Rogation day. In addition, there are three Minor Rogation days, which fall on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Thursday. In 2008, that means that they will occur next week, on April 28-30.

While there is no direct connection between Rogation Days and Ember Days, both signal a change in the seasons. In the case of Rogation Days, they were timed to coincide with the spring planting. You can read more about them in The Tradition of Rogation Days in the Catholic Church, but, in brief, Rogation Days are an ancient Christian tradition that has pagan roots. While the Romans directed their prayers for good weather and an abundant harvest to a variety of gods, the Christians took the good parts and replaced Roman polytheism with monotheism.

With the reform of the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar in 1969, the celebration of Rogation Days has become optional, and very few parishes in the United States take note of them. If you would like to mark them on your own, however, you can find some suggestions on how to do so at the end of my article on Rogation Days.

If you have a question that you would like to have featured in our Friday "Reader Questions" series, send me an e-mail at catholicism.guide@about.com. Be sure to put "QUESTION" in the subject line, and please note whether you'd like me to address it privately or on the Catholicism blog.

Almost three decades ago, Pope John Paul II made his first apostolic journey to the United States. Young for a pope--he was only 59--he inspired America's youth in a way that no pope ever had. We still talk of the "John Paul II Generation"--those Catholics who knew no other pope until the death of John Paul and the election of Pope Benedict XVI. They are the first generation to have grown up in a Church marked by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and for many of them, John Paul represented the promise of Vatican II.

The first Polish pope was a tough act to follow, but last week, Pope Benedict XVI proved himself up to the challenge. Does he inspire the same outpouring of emotion as his predecessor did? Perhaps not. While there was no end to the expressions of joy at every stop on his tour, the emotions of the faithful were more subdued--or, perhaps, more mature. Even the stadium Masses, which by their very nature tend to be excessive, were characterized by dignity and solemnity.

That does not mean, however, that the faithful love Pope Benedict less. And, in a way, they may respect him more. While John Paul II wrote numerous encyclicals that will shape the Church for decades to come, most Catholics regard Pope Benedict as a scholar in a way that his predecessor was not. John Paul embraced Vatican II fully, trying to implement the true intentions of the Council fathers faithfully. Benedict had almost three decades more to watch, and think, and evaluate the fruits of the Council. He is no less committed to Vatican II than John Paul was, but he knows that what the Church needs now is continuity and unity, rather than change.

And that was Pope Benedict's message to the Church in America last week. When he repeatedly declared that he hoped that his trip would bring about a renewal in the Church in America, when he told priests and religious assembled at St. Patrick's Cathedral that now is the time for "a new Pentecost for the Church in America," he was calling for change, but a change that will bring American Catholics back in line with the faith of their fathers.

We cannot move forward and evangelize our culture if we cut ourselves off from the truths of our past. Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Our living encounter with the One Who comes in the Name of the Lord lets us see with the eyes of faith the unbroken continuity in the Mystical Body of Christ from the apostles on down to us today.

Pope Benedict did not come here to bask in adulation; he did not come here to influence the outcome of the next election; he did not even come, primarily, to speak truth to power. He came, as he said in spontaneous remarks at the end of his Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, "to be a worthy successor of the great Apostle, who also was a man with faults and sins, but remained in the end the rock for the Church."

Pope Benedict came to America to open our eyes of faith, so that we might view the world with hope, and transform it with love.

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