“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
“…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
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
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.
How many futile roads there are in this life. I have strayed into some of them. Somehow He always reached after me and showed me the way to penance. 2 Cor. 7:10: “For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto salvation; but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” Joel 2:12-13: Yet… 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
“…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
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 kind of death of our own being, our own self. No matter how hard we try, we resist this… Read More Perseverance, Patience, Penance.
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, wonders and temptations. Few of us came through it unwounded. There is little romanticism in not being a hero. Many men and women courageously crawl through their… Read More Our Saving Wounds
“The Christian may not despair; i.e ., he may not give up hoping that God will forgive his sins, or help him in adversity. Cain despaired when he said: “My sin is too great to be forgiven” ( Gen . iv. 13 ). Saul despaired by throwing himself on his sword when hard pressed in… Read More The Christian may not despair.
by Malcolm Muggeridge The coming of Jesus into the world is the most stupendous event in human history. Is our [modern] skepticism one more manifestation of our having–in Bonhoeffer’s unhappy phrase–come of age? It would be difficult to support such a proposition in the light of the almost inconceivable credulity of today’s brain-washed public, who… Read More Jesus the Man Who Lives, And the Credulity of Our Age
Their lives amazingly intersected. And he prayed in her convent’s chapel. Hear the story. —- Divine Mercy and the Lonely
“Straights and Anguish of Dying Christians Who Have Been Negligent During Life About the Duties of Religion“. The “narrow gate”. 2 Cor. 7:10: “For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto salvation; but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” By Saint Alphonsus Liguori,Doctor of the Church. “Render, therefore, to Cæsar the… Read More St. Alphonsus Liguori on Presumption in the Face of Death
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, the Skull, and the Abbot
Penitential Practices for Today’s Catholics was originally published as a resource for the Jubilee Year 2000. 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 practices as intimately related to… Read More Penitential Practices for Catholics
What is meant by the Predominant Fault? The noted theologian Reginald Garrigou – Lagrange explains, “The predominant fault is that defect in us that tends to prevail over the others, and thereby over our manner of feeling, judging, sympathizing, willing, and acting. It is a defect that has in each of us an intimate relation… Read More Judas Did Not Fight His Predominant Fault… and so was blown away
John Paul II: “To do penance means, above all, to re-establish the balance and harmony broken by sin, to change directions at the cost of sacrifice” (Reconciliation and Penance, 26, emphasis added) Looking back, it seems to me I was only somewhat converted (if one can say that) to my Catholic Faith when I was… Read More Late A Disciple
Catholic Critique 