Note: Citing what I regard as a significant insight from an important author clearly does not imply an unconditional endorsement of the author’s entire philosophy, theology or worldview. SH ~~ — Excerpt from Mariology by Michael Schmaus in The Concise Sacramentum Mundi edited by theologian Karl Rahner. Michael Schmaus (17 July 1897 – 8 December 1993)… Read More Christology and Mariology. Karl Rahner.
How to pray in moral anguish. Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene shows the way, “O Truth, light of my soul, do not permit the darkness to frighten me. You have allowed me to walk in it, and now I am in obscurity. But even from the darkness, even from there, I have loved You.… Read More Do not permit the darkness to frighten me.
What follows is a critique of Calvinist Apologist James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.. “…that you may know how you ought to behave yourself self in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” — 1 Timothy 3:15 By Stephen Hand The living… Read More White Lies
“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 need of reflecting on the interior life of the Savior is particularly great in the present period of general confusion, when individuals and entire peoples misunderstand the ultimate end of human life and forget the profound difference between perishable, material goods and immutable, spiritual goods. Material goods divide us in the measure that we… Read More Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange: What Christ Must Be for Us
Aridity and Spiritual Progress By Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. Even without the presence of other causes, it is possible to pass from a state of sensible spiritual fervor to one of absolute aridity. This happens by the direct work of God which makes it impossible for the soul to pray with the help of… Read More If God invites the soul by means of aridity…
by John Daniel Davidson. G. K. Chesterton said, “Some say it is impossible to return to the past; but the truth is that there is now nothing before us but the choice between two paths which both return to the past. We can return to some sort of Catholic fellowship, or we can return to… Read More Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come
A Light, Too Bright For Our Eyes. Father Gabriel of Saint Mary Magdalene Teach me to believe, O Lord, even in darkness and obscurity; teach me to believe by relying only on Your word. Through its own efforts, the human mind is able to attain to a knowledge of God the Creator by considering created… Read More The Sacred Darkness
“The natural man does not understand the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” — 1 Corinthians 2:14 Tim Staples, a Catholic writer, says, “…from a philosophical perspective, the soul is pure spirit and is the form of… Read More The Natural Man Does Not Understand
What is actual grace? Actual grace is a supernatural help from God that enlightens the mind and moves the will to shun evil and do good 1 2. It is a transient help given by God for the performance of salutary acts, present only during the action itself 2 3. Here’s a breakdown of actual grace: Nature of Actual… Read More Actual Grace. What Is It?
“…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
“It is fashionable for Catholic liberals to decry the pre-conciliar Church as concerned with little more than personal piety and indifferent to the injustice and suffering in the world. This is a monstrous travesty of the truth as every adult Catholic must surely know. Never in the history of our planet has so much concern… Read More Michael Davies on the Merciful, Ever Welcoming Church
Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer, writes, “When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and behind it, the small space that I fill, or even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces which I know not, and which know not me, I am… Read More Pascal and Grace: Piercing The Blindness of Pride
“Man cannot get back onto his feet unaided: he needs the help of the Holy Spirit. If he refuses this help, he commits what Christ called “the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”, “the sin which “will not be forgiven” (Mt 12:31). Why will it not be forgiven? Because it means there is no desire for… Read More Pope John Paul II on the Unpardonable sin
The value of sufferings in Christ By Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D. O Jesus Crucified, teach me the science of the Cross. 1. The Passion of Jesus teaches us in a concrete way that in the Christian life we must be able to accept suffering for the love of God. This is a… Read More Personal knowledge of the Cross
By Fr. Gabriel of St Mary Magalene, 1953 Grant, O Lord, that by Your grace I may persevere unto the end. 1. To become a saint, it is not enough to be courageous and patient and to practice the other virtues for a few days or a few months, or even for a few years.… Read More Perseverance
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
Larry Chapp seems to express a kind of anxiety or apprehension in this video discussion about the obvious problem of the traditional magisterium as he comes “out of the closet” and reveals himself to be, of all things, an eschatological “universalist” wherein, in the end, we can all hope that Scripture and Tradition will be… Read More A Note on Dr. Larry Chapp — at the edge of Hell. Nothing to lose.
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
Romans 8: 18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of… Read More Holding On, Pressing On
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene writes, “The Blessed Virgin teaches us to believe in our vocation to sanctity, to divine intimacy. We did believe in it when God revealed it to us in the brightness of interior light, and the words of His minister confirmed it; but we should also believe in it when… Read More Mary’s Faith
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.
‘In him we live and move and have our being’…‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ — Acts 17:28. A Breviary of Philosophy from the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas by Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper. The Creature is vanity in so far as it comes from nothingness, but not in so far as it is an… Read More St. Thomas On Being and Nothingness.
Fundamentalist Protestant incomprehension of the Catholic doctrine regarding Mary as the Mother of God is largely and essentially an incomprehension of the Incarnation itself, whereby the Word, who is God, was made flesh (John 1:1; 14). It is rooted in a failure to contemplate, with the Catholic Church, the stupendous implications of this wondrous mystery.… Read More Our Blessed Mother, Mary, in the Order of Grace
“If You wish me to be in darkness, I shall bless You. And if You wish me to be in light, again I shall bless You. If You stoop down to comfort me, I shall bless You, and if You wish me to be afflicted, I shall bless You forever.” — Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ,… Read More In Darkness, A Light Too Bright for Our Eyes
“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”
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
I DECLARE I have the grace I need for today. I am full of power, strength, and determination. Nothing I face will be too much for me. I will overcome every obstacle, outlast every challenge, and come through every difficulty better off than I was before. This is my declaration. — via #women of prayer
By Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, 1951. The meaning of biblical, patristic Christology vs. speculative, merely academic versions. Our Savior and His Love For Us: Catholic Doctrine on the Interior Life of Christ as it relates to our own. “For to me, to live is Christ.”Phil. 1:21. We are “not the Center of the Universe” IN ORDER first… Read More The Interior Life and the Mystery of Christ
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
The will to power and the privatio boni — St. Augustine “… the worshipers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious. Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish and abound in resources; let it be… Read More Augustine and the Nihil
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 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”
Catholicism is more than the approximate metaphysical core which Lewis called “mere Christianity,” but it is certainly not less. C.S. Lewis remains an important ally to all Catholic believers in a way that liberal-neomodernist “Catholics” (who are really unbelievers) can never be. Begin with the Gospel of John. 2.) Lewis on The Shocking Alternative 3.)… Read More C.S. Lewis on Cultural Religious Skepticism. The Invasion.
Here is our Hope and Consolation… wherever we are.
Catholic Critique 