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
by Stephen Hand In Evelyn Waugh’s stunning classic, Brideshead Revisited, there is a scene which presses on my mind these days as I ponder so many forces gathering against a Church weakened greatly by the sins of her own children, both clerical and lay. All of us. It is the time when Sebastian, Lord Alex… Read More Lord Marchmain’s Long Hate
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
“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
“May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. — St. Paul, Galatians 6:14. “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent,… Read More Kerygma. Finding Our Way Home Again.
And Fulton J Sheen on the meaning of Palm Sunday. Homily of Benedict XVI, Palm Sunday, 2006. To understand what occurred on Palm Sunday and to know what it meant not only for that time but for all times, a detail is important, which became for his disciples the key to understand that event when,… Read More “The Cross Is the Tree of Life” – Benedict XVI
A brilliant philosopher who found the ultimate truth in Christ, St. Edith Stein, once an atheist and intellectual, underwent a radical conversion that led her to embrace the Cross. From studying philosophy to becoming a Carmelite nun, her journey ended in martyrdom at Auschwitz—but her legacy of faith and wisdom lives on. Teresa Benedicta of… Read More From Philosophy to the Cross: St. Edith Stein
The objective of the modernist has always been to force ‘God’ into a relative obscurity in order to make more room for the autonomy of man. In order to do so it is necessary for the modernist to utterly reject the traditional understanding of the Incarnation, whereby God consummated His love and revelation of Himself… Read More The “Specious Pretext”. Modernism.
America as true religion, the real, syncretist light of the world, and “city set on a hill” for all peoples, “endlessly reforming,” and to live and die for. The Hillsdale College professor Richard Gamble teaches a class on “civic faith,” and how American nationalism incorporated religious elements and symbolism during the Cold War. Richard M.… Read More American Civil Religion. A C-Span presentation.
Malcolm Muggeridge. “The coming of Jesus into the world is the most stupendous event in human history. . . . As it is, belonging to a civilization which began with the birth of Jesus some two thousand years ago, and reaching the conclusion—to me inescapable—that whatever is truly admirable in the achievements of the succeeding… Read More Fiat Lux. Into History Comes the Light
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
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
First, the Problem. The famous Thomist philosopher Etienne Gilson writes, surely accurately, in his Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, “… at the very place where the Summa of Alexander and the Commentary of St. Bonaventure undertake to show that the existence of God is evident, St. Thomas devotes an article to proving that it… Read More Gilson, Saint Thomas and The Self-Attesting God
“Today, there is a great silence. The Savior has died. He rests in the tomb. Many hearts were filled with uncontrollable grief and confusion. Was He really gone? Had all their hopes been shattered? These and many other thoughts of despair filled the minds and hearts of so many who loved and followed Jesus. It is… Read More Holy Saturday. Silence of the Tomb.
“There is only one recorded time in the life of our blessed Lord that he ever sang. And that is the night he went out to his death.” “You can sell the Blessed Lord. But you can never buy Him”. + Archbishop Sheen on the Last Supper and Agony. + Death March to Jerusalem +… Read More The Supper and the Cross
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 death of selfishness In the Verba Seniorum [Words of the Elders] we read of Abbot Ammonas, who spent fourteen… Read More Perseverance, Patience, Penance.
“There would be tares as well as wheat in the harvest, good as well as bad fish in the catch, foolish virgins as well as wise virgins; there would be scandals, false sheep, jealousy, seeking first places at table, craving to lord it over others—until the final reckoning, when He would come in the clouds… Read More The Mystical Body of Christ by Fulton J. Sheen
Rom. 8:22 For we know that every creature groans and travails in pain, even till now. 23 And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body. 24 For we are saved by hope.… Read More The Whole Creation Groans
I arise todayThrough a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,Through a belief in the Threeness,Through confession of the OnenessOf the Creator of creation. I arise todayThrough the strength of Christ’s birth and His baptism,Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,Through the strength of His… Read More The Prayer and Breast plate of St. Patrick Against All Harms
“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?
Quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, John Paul wrote: “When through sin, the soul commits a disorder that reaches the point of turning away from its ultimate end God to which it is bound by charity, then the sin is mortal; on the other hand, whenever the disorder does not reach the point of a turning away… Read More Pope St. John Paul II on Mortal and Venial Sin
“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.
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
Venerable Fulton J. Sheen: the Meaning of the Cross of Jesus Christ. By Way of The Cross He leads us through both light and darkness. “Your care for me is greater than all the care I can take of myself… If You wish me to be in darkness, I shall bless You. And if You… Read More The Meaning of the Cross
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
How did he do it? Sept. 22, 2021 By Francis Dottloff How did Christ endure the ignominy of his people, being branded a criminal, tortured, cursed and crucified, lashed, nailed, pierced, and crowned. He doubted, felt forsaken, yet he used his last breath to forgive, as love oozed from his pores more red than blood. Strong, serene,… Read More Crucifixion
Their lives amazingly intersected. And he prayed in her convent’s chapel. Hear the story. —- Divine Mercy and the Lonely
Let all the evolutionary philosophers,* whose brains must evidently still be “evolving” towards some unknown terminus, keep silent with their opinions. The Catholic Tradition, arrested by Saints and Fathers, tells us that March 25 is the greatest of all days in the history of the World, after the Resurrection. God’s liturgical love It was, according to… Read More March 25 in the Whole History of the world
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”
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
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
A Personal Account. July 3, 2021 Brother Lawrence Mary, Tert. M.I.C.M. Have you ever paused on the edge of a life-changing decision, one in which you contemplated an irreversible choice that would separate you forever from everything that you know and love? Maybe you traveled to a new country, knowing you would never return. Or… Read More Standing on the Edge
Credo Of The People Of God.Pope Paul VI – 1968. “Complete and Explicit …We believe…” With this solemn liturgy we end the celebration of the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and thus close the Year of Faith. We dedicated it to the commemoration of the holy apostles in… Read More The Credo Of The People of God. Pope Paul VI.
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