A most beautiful and critically important rosary (below). For our own sins and for the sins of the whole world. What sins are not covered in this particular formulation of the blessed timeless prayer? “Acknowledge that you have sinned. Everyone does this every day. We sin in ways we are aware of, but also in… Read More Repentance Rosary
Beyond excuses and worldly rationalizations, pornography represents an abuse of ‘liberty’ and makes a mockery of Western Law. It should be outlawed. It is a clear and present danger to human souls and threatens marriages, families, priestly vocations, every child of God. More… —May 2023: Testosterone levels ‘plummeting’ in young men due to porn consumption… Read More Pornography: and Spiritual Devastation.
“It is the truth which is assailed in any age which tests our fidelity. It is to confess we are called, not merely to profess. If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are… Read More Confessing the Faith
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave.” Are there any who are devout lovers of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Are there any who are grateful servants? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord! Are there any… Read More He is risen. St. John Chrysostom. St. Francis de Sales.
Jesus Christ Shows That Suffering and Peace are not Opposites. We have all been brought up in a culture—which is increasingly becoming a global culture—which says that through some uncanny stroke of good (?) “luck ” or “chance” we have been born into theworld; we exist; so now we have to squeeze every last pleasure… Read More The Cross: “Breaking With Sin.” 1 Pet. 4.
“…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. Joel 2:12: “Yet even now,” says the Lord, “return to me with all of your heart,with fasting, weeping, and with mourning” By St. Francis de Sales.Introduction to the Devout Life. “…Whensoever you urgently desire… Read More Seeking deliverance from sins and doing penance — without panic
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.
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
“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
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” —Isaiah 49:15-16″ All the wrong turns in the past, the… Read More Can A Mother Forget?
If there has been a better talk on Confession in recent years, I haven’t heard it.
Morgan appears to be wilfully theologically illiterate, practically an imbecile in these matters*. He seems to have no understanding of creation and the Creator’s binary commandments which exist for our good. He feigns sorrow over young people supposedly leaving the Church, but is blind to the fact that it is precisely the Wokish parts of… Read More Piers Morgan Votes Barrabas
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me. O God, forgive me for all the sins of my life; The sins of my youth and the sins of my age, The sins of my body and the sins of my soul, The sins I have confessed and the sins I have forgotten, The sins… Read More Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Forgive Me…
“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.
“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“ “But 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 the… Read More Frs. Francis Spirago, Richard F. Clarke On Penance
Their lives amazingly intersected. And he prayed in her convent’s chapel. Hear the story. —- Divine Mercy and the Lonely
“I wrote Letters from the Desert sitting on the arid dunes of the Sahara. They cost me ten years of suffering, and I love them for that. I tried to place myself naked, poor and alone, in the presence of God’s eternal majesty, totally committed to penetrating the logic of the Gospels, which is inexhaustible. I tried… Read More Carlo Carretto on the Pain of Failing
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
By Brian Kelly. It is written (Ezechiel 18:22): “I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice which he hath wrought, he shall live.” Saint Thomas in the third part of his Summa Theologica, Q. 86, art. 1 uses this quote from Ezechiel in his Sed Contra to refute the… Read More Forgiveness. “I Will Not Remember Their Sins”
…who kindly blesses each one us from the sidewalk when we come out of Church. Or when we pass on the street. Once when I needed to Confess my sins only to find it was one of those rare days when the church was closed and there would be no Confessions, he happened to be… Read More I know a priest
It is not without significance that Divine Mercy Sunday Follows Easter. For Mercy is the fruit of Easter. And Jesus came not to call the righteous but Sinners into his kingdom (Luke 5:32). He came “to seek and to save that which was lost”. Mercy is the revelation of the very heart of God and the Good… Read More Nihilism and the Divine Pity
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
We immerse ourselves daily in news, in reports, in never-ending drama and events. We see or hear the sins of many, many others, endlessly; but do we neglect our own souls, our own need for healing? Thomas a Kempis teaches, “Rest from the inordinate desire of knowledge, for therein is found much distraction and deceit.… Read More Saint Francis de Sales’ Consoling Words on Forgiveness and Self knowledge
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