—- See also, Dickens and Thomas Malthus, the father of global population control. Melvyn Bragg and guests (In Our Time, BBC) discuss Charles Dickens’ novella, written in 1843 when he was 31, which has become intertwined with his reputation and with Christmas itself. Ebenezer Scrooge is the miserly everyman figure whose joyless obsession with money… Read More Dickens and the meanings of ‘A Christmas Carol’. Melvyn Bragg.
+++ “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,… Read More Can A Mother Forget?
Malicious gossip and hatred delights in the troubles of another. It is often manifest, sometimes very subtly, by the sins of whispering and detraction. The apostle John warns: “He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness.”— 1 Jn. 2:9 We Christians— no matter how nice, proper or… Read More Religious Whisperers. The Sin of Detraction. “Triple Murder.”
“…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
“For a more Christian view of life, the best books I have run across are “In Defense of Purity” by Dietrich von Hildebrand … the Encyclical on “Christian marriage” by Pope Pius XI, and the “Nuptial Mass” in the Missal.” — Dorothy Day. Her Faith was ever the same.. The Distributism Review. Dorothy Day wrote, “I… Read More Dorothy Day’s Cross
In this 1945 meditation on Christmas, Dorothy Day reflects that it is not too late for any of us to welcome Christ, “who is always asking for room in our hearts” in the guise of our contemporaries, especially the poor. — Catholic Worker.org It is no use to say that we are born two thousand years too… Read More Dorothy Day: It Is Not Too Late to Make Room for Christ
In one of Saint Therese of Lisieux’s favorite books, End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life, the author, Fr. Charles Arminjon (1824-1885) writes among many important things on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. And he draws a most important moral Gospel lesson: “There are circumstances when even… Read More Even the Wicked Are Rewarded In This Life.
By Laura Loker.The Pillar. America is facing a crisis of loneliness. With nationwide declines in social connectivity, even the U.S. surgeon general is concerned about the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” facing Americans. And Catholics are not exempt from the crisis. But parishioners at St. Thérèse Little Flower in South Bend, Indiana, might just have… Read More Household’ gatherings offer intentional community at South Bend parish
O Jesus. Meek and humble of heart, Hear me.From the desire of being esteemed,Deliver me, Jesus.***From the desire of being loved…From the desire of being extolledFrom the desire of being honored…From the desire of being praisedFrom the desire of being preferred to others…From the desire of being consultedFrom the desire of being approvedFrom the fear… Read More Litany of Humility
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
“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?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to… Read More The Image of God in Our Turning Techno-logical Moment
Our Lord Jesus Christ gives up(1) on none. Nobody. God help us from ever holding on to any Pharisee within. Brennan Manning writes of brokenness, “My life is a witness to vulgar grace — a grace that amazes as it offends. A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same… Read More Vulgar Grace
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
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”
Dr. Martin’s compassionate meditation here reminds us never to lose saving Hope and to see and reach out to others in our postlapsarian human condition, from the foot of the Cross. — Pray the most beautiful Sorrowful Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary for the Sick and Suffering. Rom.8 22 We know that the whole creation… Read More The Irreducible Loneliness of Life on Earth
Catholic Critique 