Do angels really exist?
The Bible often refers to the "messengers" (in Greek the word is "angelos") sent by God to bring us messages and to help us. In the Bible there is not much by way of detailed descriptions of what these heavenly creatures are like, but Tradition and the reflection of theologians have helped to develop our understanding of what the Bible is suggesting when it makes mentions of the "angels." We believe that the term refers to spiritual beings, created by God but not sharing our same bodily form. The popular representation of winged figures in human form is an artistic convention and has no support from official Church teaching. However, The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC #328-36) certainly does affirm our continuing belief in angels and in their role as God's "helpers" on our behalf.

Why is Mary so important to Catholics?
Mary's holiness is a gift of God, a special privilege given to her because she was to be the Mother of the Savior. We call this grace her "Immaculate Conception," since we believe that God kept her free from all sin from the first moment of her conception. But Mary is also a model for us as believers, because she accepted the grace of God by her willingness to bear God's child in her womb. The story of the Annunciation is a story about Mary's response to God's grace, about her "yes" to God. Mary is important for us Catholics because of the crucial role she played in God's plan to save humanity from sin. As the mother of God's Son, she had a crucial role in the unfolding of salvation for all people. But she is also important to us because she is a model for all believers of how we should accept God's grace in our lives. We are joined to her in the "communion of saints" and therefore she is someone to whom we can turn in prayer for help and support. Her closeness to Jesus makes her the ideal intercessor for us in our earthly trials. Thus, we can sum up Mary's importance for Catholics by using three titles which capture her greatness: Mother of God, Model of Holiness, Help of Christians.

Were Jesus, Mary and Joseph really Jewish?
One of the most certain biographical details that we know about Jesus of Nazareth is that he was Jewish, born of Jewish parents. The Jewish identity of the Messiah is such an important aspect of the Jews' expectation of the Messiah that it is unthinkable that anyone other than a Jew should have been recognized by his contemporaries as the Messiah. The genealogy of Jesus that is given in Matthew's Gospel may contain certain historical inaccuracies (it has clearly been carefully constructed by Matthew to make his theological point), but it is beyond dispute that such a document only makes sense if Jesus and both of his parents were in fact Jews--and recognized as such by their contemporaries.

Did Mary and Joseph ever have to punish Jesus?
Children have a natural and very healthy curiosity about the childhood of Jesus. They wish to identify with him and want to know details about his life that simply are not available to us from the Gospels or other historical records. In their own way, children who ask such questions are grappling with the doctrine of the Incarnation, trying to understand what it means that Jesus was fully divine and yet fully human. In answering such questions it is important not to make up stories as if they were fact. We should admit our lack of knowledge, but then we can offer an answer based on our reasonable assumptions about the full humanity of Jesus. For example, we might say that Mary and Joseph surely never had to punish Jesus for being bad, but they might well have had to discipline him so that he could learn proper behavior as a young Jewish boy.

When did Joseph and Mary die?
We do not have any reliable historical information about when Joseph and Mary died. We know for certain that Mary was alive at the crucifixion, since she is mentioned in the gospels as being there. The fact that there is no mention of Joseph leads us to surmise that he had already died by that time. Indeed, our Catholic tradition has honored him as the patron of a happy death, since presumably Jesus and Mary would have been present with him when he died. Mary's death has long been the subject of Christian art (in scenes traditionally called the "dormition of Mary"). But we do not have any specific knowledge about how long after the crucifixion she died. There is an ancient tradition that St. John took her into his care and that they lived in the town of Ephesus, but there is really no historical evidence indicating how reliable that report may be.