One body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Father of us all” — Eph. 4: 4-6 Every ecclesial community brings its tradition(s) to bear in the exegesis and understanding of Scripture. Even independent Protestant Fundamentalist pastors and larger Protestant denominations(1) employ their traditions [i.e., their received community understanding of texts] as a… Read More Catholicism, Tradition and Protestantism
Christ came not only to justify us by His grace but also to truly sanctify us by his grace. “Strive for peace with all men, and for holiness without which no one shall see the Lord.”— Hebrews 12:14 “What is Purgatory but a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who depart this life… Read More On Purgatory
“Let Us Make Good Use of Time“. By Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D. 1. Time passes and does not return. God has assigned to each of us a definite time in which to fulfill His divine plan for our soul; we have this time and shall have no more. Time ill spent is… Read More Time Passes and Does Not Return
The story is told of an archaeologist scholar who specialized in the earliest era of Christianity. He decided to take some students to visit ancient monasteries near the Sinai in Egypt. He was no believer. Upon arriving at one such site after a long journey he knocked on the entrance door hoping to be allowed… Read More The Scholar and the Abbot
By Father Gabriel of St Mary Magalene, 1953. O Lord, increase my confidence in Your help and grant that in this confidence, I may always find courage to begin again. What most distresses souls of good will who are seriously trying to live a spiritual life, is to find themselves falling so many times, despite… Read More The Courage To Begin Yet Again
David Suchet’s most beautiful recital below. The Seven Penitential Psalms are united by themes of repentance, confession, and pleas for mercy. They express sorrow for sin and a longing for reconciliation with God. As sinners trying to do penance for our sins it is a good thing to meditate on them daily. David Suchet profoundly… Read More The Seven Penitential Psalms
“LORD JESUS CHRIST, Who revealed the infinite mercy of Thy SACRED HEART in saying, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you (Matt. 5:44), and again, Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you (Luke 6:28): Give me, I beseech Thee, grace to obey these commandments of Thine and to… Read More Beginning Again. A Prayer of Forgiveness, Reparation, and Penitential Love.
[As used by the Franciscan Fathers on their missions]. See also: Christ’s Victory Over Death and Postmodern Despair. + First Station: Jesus is Condemned to Death 0 Jesus So meek and uncomplaining, teach me resignation + Second Station: Jesus Carries His Cross My Jesus This Cross should be mine, not Thine! My sins crucified thee!… Read More A Short Way of The Cross
Like the Cross of Christ which for three hours appeared like the most terrible defeat, Truth can sometimes sound pessimistic, but Christians know that the terminus of all things lies far beyond pedestrian ideas of optimism / pessimism. The final word in the history of salvation is Optimistim beyond all earthly conceptions and expectations. Cardinal… Read More Like a Boat taking in water on every side…
“…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith“— Hebrews 12. By St. Francis de Sales.Introduction to the Devout Life. “…Whensoever you urgently desire to be delivered from any evil, or to attain some good thing, strive above all else to keep a… Read More Seeking deliverance from sins and doing penance — without panic
Alas, it’s been a tough winter here in New England where I live. A couple of weeks ago, while shoveling some of our winter snow, I slipped on hidden ice and took an impressive fall. I immediately knew my right shoulder was likely broken. For about ten minutes I was alone on my back on… Read More A Last Things Podcast
What Fulton J. Sheen saw so clearly that others seek to forget: We are only sojourners here in a strange and foreign land. “Our whole life ought to be one continued penance“. — Frs. Francis Spirago, Richard F. Clarke on Penance. Joel 2:12-13 “Yet even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all of your heart,with… Read More Repentance and / or the American Dialectic
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from… Read More The Climate Has Changed
“Our peace in this life is found in humbly enduring suffering rather than in being free from it. He who knows best how to suffer will enjoy the greater peace, because he is the conqueror of himself, the master of the world, a friend of Christ, and an heir of heaven.”— Thomas a Kempis, Imitation… Read More The Cross of Jesus Christ and Suffering Love.
“Failure is a better teacher than success.” Variants of this old saying have been attributed to a number of different people over the years. It has also been the rallying cry of sports teams, working professionals, academics, entrepreneurs and almost anyone else who has struggled, failed and been determined to come back stronger. People make… Read More 7 Famous Sinners and What We Can Learn From Them
The Imitation of Christ, and the Contempt of All the Vanities of the World. Ch. 1. HE that followeth me, walketh not in dark-saith our Lord. Jn 8:12. These are the words of Christ, by which we are admonished, that we must imitate his life and manners, if we would be truly enlightened, and delivered… Read More The doctrine of Christ surpasses all the doctrines of the saints
We who are alive today have lived in extraordinary times. Never in history were so many ordinary people lured off the narrow way by so many lying signs, technological wonders and temptations. Few of us have walked through it unwounded. There is little romanticism in not being a hero. Many of us men and women… Read More Our Saving Wounds
Reginald Garrigou Lagrange and St. Alphonsus Ligouri. The New Oxford Review has been interested in this important subject recently and so I thought the following might assist those likewise interested and / or baffled by it all. See also other essays by following links regarding predestination, grace, free will, etc at this website. 1. Catholic… Read More Harmony and Differences on Predestination in Catholic Theology
CCC 2784: “The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life.“ Philippians 1: 6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5: 24 The one who calls you is… Read More Continual Conversion in and towards Christ Daily
Brad S. Gregory is Dorothy G. Griffin Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Notre Dame, a world-class historian, and award-winning author of Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe and The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard… Read More The Reformation: Historical Conditions, Unintended Consequences
Modern de facto Paganism often caves to the passions, but in ancient times it was not always so. Stoic wisdom is not theology, but is often good psychology in harmony with Christian ideals. The Magi also brought their gifts. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever is true, whatsoever is honorable, whatsoever is just, whatsoever is pure, whatsoever is… Read More Stoic Gems: The Porch and the Cross
“Our whole life ought to be one continued penance“. Joel 2:12: “Yet even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all of your heart,with fasting, weeping, and with mourning“ “if the wicked do penance. . . . .I will not remember all his iniquities.”—Ezek.xviii.21 The Nature and the Necessity of Penance — > “As soon as… Read More Frs. Francis Spirago, Richard F. Clarke On Penance
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen writes, “If we save our life in this world, we lose it in the next; if we lose our life in this world, we save it in the next. If we sow in sin, we reap corruption; if we sow in truth, we reap life everlasting. But we cannot do both.… Read More The fast or the feast?
The American Solidarity Party is based in the tradition of Christian democracy. We acknowledge the state should be pluralistic while upholding a vision of the common good of all and of each individual conscience informed by Christian tradition and acknowledging the primacy of religion in each person’s life. Our Principles 1. Sanctity of LifeHuman life… Read More An Alternative to Trump-Biden-Harris. The American Solidarity Party.
The need to be in a state of grace to receive Communion (CCC 1385) Leila Miller: … Christ said marriage is a one flesh union. So anytime you’re ripping that living flesh apart, something is dying. I mean, something pretty serious is being lost. Trent Horn: Yeah, because we think about divorce, it’s always so… Read More Trent Horn on the Evil of Divorce and the Way to Healing.
Brother Gabriel of St Mary Magalene, 1953, writes, “There are many who desire to make progress in the spiritual way and constantly entreat God to draw them and let them advance to this state of perfection [the state of union], but when it pleases God to begin to bring them through the first trials and… Read More The Temptation to Escape The Cross
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his… Read More If We Say
Ps. 50:2 Douay – Rheims. When Nathan the prophet came to David after David had sinned with Bethsabee. 3 Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy. And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity. 4 Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.… Read More Miserere Mei Deus, Have Mercy on Me O God (Psalm 50(51)) – Gregorio Allegri
At the dawn of the 20th century Pope Pius X warned against the teachings of the theological Modernists who were already infiltrating the Church: “… in their books you find some things which might well be expressed by a Catholic, but on the next page you find other things which might have been dictated by… Read More On the Doctrine of the Neo-Modernists
“A little error in the beginning becomes a great error in the end”— St. Thomas Aquinas. Against Polygenism.By: Dr. Kevin Mark, Kolbe CenterApril 22, 20230 “Would that We had not learned by experience how many ‘false apostles’ the present age has spawned! These are ‘deceitful workmen who transform themselves into apostles of Christ.’ Unless we… Read More Error In the Beginning. Great Error.
By Thomas a Kempis(b)1380 – (d)1471 It is good for us to have sometimes troubles and adversities: for they make a man enter into himself, that he may know that he is in a state of banishment, and may not place his hopes in anything of this world. It is good that we sometimes suffer contradictions… Read More The Utility of Adversity
“While the Sacraments of Confession (also called Reconciliation or Penance) and Baptism are distinct, they share some profound similarities because both are sacraments of forgiveness and restoration. Similarities: 1. Both Forgive Sins: – Baptism forgives all sins—both original sin, which we inherit from Adam and Eve (cf. Romans 5:12), and any personal sins committed… Read More Confession is Like “A Second Baptism”
By Karl Keating, New Oxford Review “…I have a favorite line from Pope Leo XIII. It’s from Rerum Novarum (1891), the first of the social encyclicals. Nearly every pope since his time has written one or more social encyclicals. The line I remember isn’t quite as Leo wrote it. Often we remember lines a little… Read More A Life’s Worth of Failure, an Abundance of Gratitude
On Confession, by Fr.Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD. “Penance is the sacrament of Christ’s Precious Blood in which God — according to the eloquent words of St. Catherine of Siena — “has bathed us in order to cleanse the face of our souls from the leprosy of sin.” If mortal sin only is the… Read More On Confession. By Fr.Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD.
Patience in Penance. Fourteen Years the Abbot spent on Overcoming One Fault. “Love demands a complete inner transformation – for without this we cannot possibly come to identify ourselves with our brother… And this involves a death of selfishness In the Verba Seniorum [Words of the Elders] we read of Abbot Ammonas, who spent fourteen… Read More Perseverance, Patience, Penance.
Apostolic Exhortation onReconciliation and PenanceDec. 2, 1984 Over the course of generations, the Christian mind has gained from the Gospel as it is read in the ecclesial community a fine sensitivity and an acute perception of the seeds of death contained in sin, as well as a sensitivity and an acuteness of perception for identifying… Read More John Paul II on The Loss of the Sense of Sin
How many futile roads there are in this life. I have strayed or backslid into some of them in the course of my life. Somehow the Lord reached after me and pointed the way to repentance and penance. 2 Cor. 7:10: “For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto salvation; but the… Read More Penance
“We are surprised at falling: an evident mark that we scarcely know ourselves. We ought, on the contrary, to be surprised at not falling more frequently, and into more grievous faults, and to return thanks to God for the dangers from which He preserves us. We are troubled every time that we are beguiled into… Read More St. Francis de Sales on Spiritual Self-knowledge
Penitential Practices for Today’s Catholics was originally published as a resource for the Jubilee Year 2000. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. This resource is presented as a pastoral tool for cultivating the penitential practices in one’s daily life. While its focus is limited to a discussion of the Church’s penitential practices, it serves to promote these… Read More Penitential Practices for Catholics
“…The Christmas season represented rich pickings for the priest hunters [in Elizabethan England]. As one of the great celebrations of the Catholic Church, it was disapproved of by some Protestant reformers. More than that, it was a great opportunity to flush out Catholic priests – all of whom had been outlawed by the state during… Read More The Secret ‘Priest Holes’ of England
Catholic Critique 