“Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream”—John Lennon Photo by Yoko Ono. Perhaps it is one of those curious fearful symmetries that the words of John Lennon quoted above are found in the Beatles’ album titled ‘Revolver’…and that he was finally gunned down, shot multiple times in the back by a “fan”. I… Read More John Lennon and The Seductions of Beautiful Nothing
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
Excerpt from The Mother of the Savior and Our Interior Life. [+ See also, Our Blessed Mother Mary in the Order of Grace. “Fundamentalist Protestant incomprehension of the Catholic doctrine regarding Mary, the Theotokos or Mother of God, is largely and essentially an incomprehension of the Incarnation itself, whereby the Word, who is God, was made… Read More The Predestination of Mary by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
“The man to whom all things are one, who bringeth all things to one, who seeth all things in one, he is able to remain steadfast of spirit, and at rest in God” — Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Ch. 3. 15th century + Laity, Obedience and the Pope
“Everything which comes to pass has been foreseen by God from all eternity, and has been willed or at least permitted by Him“. ”Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” (Prov. 19:21) Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange “Nothing comes to pass either in the material or in the spiritual… Read More Garrigou-Lagrange: Everything Which Comes to Pass Foreseen…
“For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.”— Romans 11 Historian Tom Holland writes, “Not even the gift of the Promised Land had been able to keep Israel from idolatry. ‘They chose new gods.’ In book after book the same cycle was repeated: apostasy, punishment, repentance. Jews, reading of… Read More As It Was For Our Forefathers, So for Ourselves
Josef Pieper, the renowned Thomist, in his 1953 study, The Silence of St. Thomas (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana) reminds theologians and students of St. Thomas Aquinas that while Pope Pius XI in his 1923 Encyclical Studiorum Ducem insisted that the Angelic Doctor is to be esteemed by all Schools of Theology, he also reminded all… Read More St. Thomas Aquinas and the “Life-blood of Catholic Theology”
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
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
In his 1987 encyclical letter, Redemptoris Mater, Pope Saint John Paul II writes, “Thanks to his special bond, linking the Mother of Christ with the Church, there is further clarified the mystery of that “woman” who from the first chapters of Genesis until the Book of Revelation, accompanies the revelation of God’s salvific plan for humanity. For Mary,… Read More Mary the Mother of May
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.
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
When after hundreds of years the LORD finally heard the prayers and cries of his people in Egypt and delivered them from slavery under Pharaoh, he led them into the desert where they suffered for another 40 or so years. And the people were not happy about it: Then they said to Moses, “Was it because there… Read More Real Faith is Not For the Fainthearted
…Last Sermon on the Immaculate Conception by Pope John Paul II Wednesday, 8 December 2004 1. “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” (Lk 1: 28). We address the Virgin Mary several times a day with these words of the Archangel Gabriel. Let us repeat them with fervent joy today, on the Solemnity… Read More “By One and the Same Decree.”
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
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