Joking With Immortals: The Document

JOKING WITH IMMORTALS

“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” -Rupertus Meldeniu

INTRODUCTION: R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. To avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way:  Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favorable interpretation to another's statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved.
CCC 2477-2478

It seems as if a lot of Catholic thought and discussion on the internet goes into ‘What’s Wrong With this Catholic”, or “Here is why So and So Catholic is wrong about Such and Such”, and “I’m outraged by this conservative/liberal idea”. While there is a place for honest criticism and civil (that is CIVIL) debate about This and That important philosophical, theological, moral or political topic, too much time is spent on negative Ad Hominem attacks on fellow Catholics who are as Mother Church teaches brothers and sisters baptized into the family of God.

Patheos Cathoic: You know who makes ad hominem arguments? Ugly people, that's who!
1PeterFive Catholic: No, your FACE is an ad hominem fallacy.

I don't want to argue with people on this website, but I can't just let them keep being wrong, either.
Steve Skojec (Aug 18, 2019) Twitter


               It’s easy to find something we don’t like about someone else’s thoughts or actions and write or video a lengthy tirade about how wrong they are, with the attitude in mind ‘I am saving souls by bashing this erroneous and heretical idea’ usually by bashing the person holding the idea. It’s a lot harder to find something positive to say about someone we don’t like and disagree with.

“I could be having a great day and a nasty exchange on the Internet will always bring me down. Whether I am involved or not, uncivil discourse sucks the joy out of the Internet for me. I suspect it does for most people who are not secret psychopaths. I am especially discouraged when I see Christians ripping each other apart for the whole world to see. “
Rebecca Taylor: My Rules for Discourse on the Internet: (Jul 10, 2014) Catholic Lane

A lot of the vitriol I’ve noticed that we have for someone often comes from the method and tone of how someone expresses an idea rather than the idea itself. We would rather lash out at what we think is being said then in listening to what is being said. Authentic dialogue and communication are substituted for rant fests about our latest grips about what we find wrong with certain individuals views on life.

“Here's something: Let's agree to try to understand the people with whom we strongly disagree. That way we can be certain wherein we disagree and where, perhaps, we only seem to. What's more, we may then be better equipped to communicate. “          
                                                                                                                                                                                                   -Mark Brumley

If people are to know we are Christians by our love, we should start loving one another. We should view our fellow Catholics as those whom Christ loves and died to save. Afterall were planning on spending eternity together and will probably be in purgatory till we learn how to love the person we least like.

“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” ― Dorothy Day

So I thought it would be beneficial, encouraging, inspiring and charitable to compile a book of quotes and small paragraphs from some of the most popular, unpopular, liberal, conservative, moderate, and average joe Catholic (and some Christian writers) posting, blogging, writing, publishing, and youtubing in the world today.  Catholics I like. Catholics I don’t like. Catholics whom I agree with most everything they say and Catholics whom I disagree with most everything they say. Catholics who are diametrically opposed to other Catholics and whom seem to be in a perpetual civil war with them.

“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.” ― Marlene Dietrich

I have tried to give an actual source for the quotes I have chosen, but have sometimes failed to do so.

I hope aspiring apologists will keep in mind that they should not be satisfied with unsourced quotes. Before you cite anything in your formal writing (e.g., articles, books), track down the original quote.  It’s best to do so in all of your writing—including Facebook conversations and discussion forums sites—but even there you can at least admit you don’t have the original quote on hand. 
It takes some work to find an original quote, but doing so means that you not only have proof of the text for doubters but also the context in which the statement was made
Michelle Arnold Quotes and Rumors of Quotes (5/1/2013) Catholic Answers

I have tried to keep the quotes short for reasons of being able to digest them easily and so that I don’t violate any copyright laws. I use these in the spirit of fair use.

You’ve probably heard that using short quotes is safe. Usually, but not always.
The general rule is that short phrases are not protected by copyright because they are too short to contain sufficient original expression. That’s ironic since it is harder to write something short and good than to write something long and bland.
There is no safe-harbor rule on how many words you may quote before you get into infringement territory. I can’t say that you are safe if you use 10, 50 or 100 words, but it’s best to use only what you need. The shorter, the better.
Helen Sedwick How to Legally Use Quotations in Your Book (August 29, 2016) thebookdesigner.com


I looked and searched for something quotable from a wide variety of Catholic writing and or videos. Certain authors whom I am not too fond of or familiar with, or who mostly post videos and not writing, or only write or talk specifically about one topic, or who are just overall negative I had some trouble finding something positive, reflective, redeemable, or appropriate for this book. But I managed to find some morsel or breadcrumb of wisdom and insight from these people. Certain Authors whom I really like and have a plethora of writing available I may have included more of.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  Philippians 4:8

Just because I like one author more than another doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say and write or approve of all their methods of how they deal with others in their writing or videos.

"Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate." --Rick Warren

Also, just because I don’t like an author and most of what they write or say doesn’t mean there is nothing I cannot learn from them. You can always find something positive in those whom are striving to love God and communicate him to the world. Even those Catholics who in their effort to communicate the gospel end up only communicating toxic Christianity. 

“Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name; and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you.” Luke 9:49-50

Of course, some preach Christ from envy and rivalry, others from good will.
The latter act out of love, aware that I am here for the defense of the gospel;
the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not from pure motives, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment. What difference does it make, as long as in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is being proclaimed?  And in that I rejoice.* Indeed I shall continue to rejoice. Philippians 15: 15-18

“How can you honor anyone when you consistently criticize or make a mockery of those you disagree with? David disagreed with the leadership abilities of Saul. However, David was still able to honor Saul. Don't allow bitterness to manipulate your ability to honor someone, and not just those who are on your side.- “ Ryan Johnson

I’m not saying who is who. Whom I really like and don’t. I’m not naming names of who is on the naughty list and who is on the nice list. I am just putting together a book of Catholic Thought of all those whom are on the journey to God and who have the vocation of writing and or speaking.   I’m keeping away from quotes that are directly negative about other people and things as we see enough of that in some of our everyday internet browsing. 

“Did you know that you can disagree with someone and still be their friend? Did you also know that being a jerk isn’t going to bring people to your side? And a final fact: you can disagree with a post and scroll right on by it without commenting.
Just a PSA”.- Lisa Williams Webb

I’m attempting to throw an olive branch out to opposing battling Catholics so that they can see those they disagree with are doing their best to love and serve the God who loves and serves them.

Christians too can be caught up in networks of verbal violence through the internet and the various forums of digital communication. Even in Catholic media, limits can be overstepped, defamation and slander can become commonplace, and all ethical standards and respect for the good name of others can be abandoned. The result is a dangerous dichotomy, since things can be said there that would be unacceptable in public discourse, and people look to compensate for their own discontent by lashing out at others. It is striking that at times, in claiming to uphold the other commandments, they completely ignore the eighth, which forbids bearing false witness or lying, and ruthlessly vilify others. Here we see how the unguarded tongue, set on fire by hell, sets all things ablaze (cf. Jas 3:6). — Gaudete et Exsultate, 115

“I see too many smart, thoughtful, honorable people on both sides for me to find either opinion self-evidently indefensible. (There are also, obviously, stupid and immoral people on both sides.)

I'm well aware that we're all fallible and have blind spots, and even smart, thoughtful, decent, honorable people can wind up holding opinions that are self-evidently indefensible. I'm so aware of this, in fact, that I think it behooves us to reflect deeply that this is a petard on which any of us may find ourselves hoist, however, smart, thoughtful, decent and honorable we may be.
Out of intellectual and epistemological humility, I am reluctant to make very sweeping, very final judgments placing myself among the smart, thoughtful, decent, honorable people who are also brilliantly right in our prudential opinions, and consigning other smart, thoughtful, decent, honorable people who disagree with me to the shameful ranks of the crashingly wrong. “
Deacon Steven D. Greydanus

The title for this book comes from this quote regarding how we see our fellow man, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (1942)

“Beware of condemning any man’s action. Consider your neighbor’s intention, which is often honest and innocent, even though his act seems bad in outward appearance. —St. Ignatius Loyola”


Respecting Others and Internet Discourse

A Church that is more concerned with moral “righteousness,” pointing fingers, and slapping bandaids onto spiritual diseases is much less attractive than one that is constantly seeking to draw nearer to the heart of Christ.

The “answer” to any problem will never be one that humans themselves generate…it will only come from us growing in awareness of His presence…of He who is the answer to the “problem” of the human heart.

So before pointing the finger at anyone, remember: You are the problem. You are not holy enough. And the pope has been trying to tell you this. Will you open your heart, eyes, and ears, and start listening?
Stephen G. Adubato YOU are the reason the Church has problems (but you’re also the answer) (September 2, 2018)   Cracks in Postmodernity 

I’d love to be proven wrong on this matter. So far, though, I’m not seeing much evidence of how wrong I am and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

But there’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true. And my thus-far unplucked eye doesn’t see all, so perhaps I’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn of marvelous things just beyond my gaze. - Mark Brumley

Isn’t it time to break out of the endless loop of “Express outrage, offer prayers, do nothing, repeat”? The message of Jesus is a message of love and peace, not fear, hatred and war. The marginalized, the poor, the refugees, all of us are the Body of Christ. Will we welcome the Body or reject the Christ? If we truly believe the message of Jesus than everything must change.
Patrick Carolan The Disease of Apathy (October 17, 2017) Franciscan activist

When we are civil to those we engage with, however abhorrent we find their position, we make it that much more likely that we will actually change hearts and minds.
Ben Conroy Does Civility Matter? (September 12, 2014) Shadows on the Road

What is WebMD Catholicism? I use that term, first, to reflect the fact that we have thousands of documents, statements, books, letters and other publications that give the average lay Catholic tremendous knowledge concerning all branches of Catholic theology and worship. Want to understand the Church's position on love? Read Deus Caritas Est. Want to know about mortal and venial sin? Check the Catechism. Want to know how American Catholic Bishops treat marriage and family? Navigate to usccb.org. Want to question the Bishop's decision on the distribution of communion? Consult the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
In addition to official Church teaching, there are limitless blogs and other forums where people are speaking about, on, or on behalf of Catholicism. Patheos alone features a total of twenty columns and blogs on the Catholic portal (including four added in the past two months). Jennifer Fulwiler links - last time I checked - to 53 other blogs under the heading "Faith and Life." The National Catholic Register features ten bloggers, Commonweal 24 and America 23. And that is only a tiny portion of the thousands more out there.
Matt Emerson The Rise of WebMD Catholicism (November 03, 2011) After Manresa

I plan tomorrow to do what I can to try to make the world a better place than it is today. Our ideals may differ in some respects, but I am human and you are human, and I bet we have some things in common. Deacon Steven D. Greydanus


Pope Francis likes to say that while differences are divine, division is diabolical. He also says that the Holy Spirit creates unity out of differences while respecting diversity, and that without the Holy Spirit you get either stifling uniformity or polarizing division.

We need diversity in the Church, and a vigorous public discourse. In Evangelii Gaudium, Francis observes that differences in philosophy, theology and pastoral practice, “if open to being reconciled by the Spirit in respect and love, can enable the Church to grow, since all of them help to express more clearly the immense riches of God’s word.”

Such variety, he adds, “serves to bring out and develop different facets of the inexhaustible riches of the Gospel.”
Respect and love and openness to the Spirit - there’s the basis for dialogue. How to disagree without dividing; how to be one, yet different - there’s the challenge for querulous Catholic commentators.
Austen Ivereigh: An apology for needless offense — and how to disagree better (Aug 12, 2017) Crux: Taking the Catholic Pulse

There is no doubt that the internet and social media have changed the way many Catholics interact with the world. If the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century succeeded, it was also thanks to the new invention of the printing press.
Religion in the 21st-century global world has changed also thanks to the internet and social media. It has made believers more connected between themselves and at the same time more isolated.
All this takes the religious message out of context. What we say and write online tends to be made for a virtual, impersonal sphere: It does not consider the impact on real people. This happens often also for religious messages, especially in light of the success of religious and Catholic blogs
The pope’s novelty, therefore, is not just about the social and existential world he comes from: Buenos Aires of the slums, a capital of the Southern Hemisphere where devotional religion and secularism coexist, instead of Catholic Poland (John Paul II) or Bavaria (Benedict XVI).
It is also about recontextualizing the whole social message of Catholicism in a world where religion is often perceived more about abstract values than about everyday concerns of our fellow human beings.
Francis’ emphasis on the importance to consider the real lives of real people has many implications for the Catholic Church at many levels.
Massimo Faggioli Two key takeaways from the pope's TED talk (May 1, 2017) ncronline.org


In the polarized state of Catholic discourse today, that admission of respect is enough for partisans on both sides to throw me in with their other enemies. You have to be all in or you’re out. Worse, you have to be completely against the other side or you’re out.

People choose symbols for their side, and symbols for the other side — heroes with whom they will identify themselves and villains they will battle. Other times they encourage divisions that shouldn’t be encouraged, like “Novus Ordo Catholics” vs. “Traditionalists.” It’s a Catholic version of identity politics. It’s an ancient version too, having vexed St. Paul (see 1 Corinthians 1:12).

Some will object that these arguments appear among Catholics engaged on Twitter and Facebook, and that social media encourage such division. But that’s only to say that the problems with the way Catholics talk to each other appear among Catholics talking to each other.

In any case, the same division into opposing sides appears in almost every Catholic publication and among Catholics of public weight and stature, and I don’t exaggerate the bitterness with which some on both sides speak of the other. These are not random people on Facebook, but Catholics with a name and following. (I could quote examples, but then someone would google them and I’d find myself in an argument with people I don’t want to argue with.)
Everyone laments division      
 David Mills: Let’s not talk about Fr. James Martin, Scott Hahn (Sep 25, 2017) aleteia


One of those ways is not to be angry all the time and to spend as many words on the things you love as on the enemies of the things you love. Maybe God has called some people to spend all their time looking for problems and exposing them, like investigative reports tasked with looking at dodgy corporations. I have my doubts, but maybe. If so, they should make sure people see the love that's behind their anger. People shouldn't only see their outrage

Even so, the real Church Militant is militantly missionary and evangelistic and caring for the least of these. It's militant about promoting and practicing the Faith. The title's almost always used not for that but for the effort to defeat enemies within (real or imagined or made).
The real Church Militant is the mother who listens to her sad friends talk when she'd rather do something else, and the businessman who gives up his lunch hour to pray at Mass for others or to stand praying in front of an abortionist, or the young woman volunteering at the thrift store, or any number of other people you can think of. They're the Church's military force pushing at the gates of Hell, which will not be able forever to withstand their assault. David Mills

And so each side digs in their heels further, each vilifying the other, and each taking the way the other vilifies his side as "proof" of how awful the other side is. If we started acting more like we really believed "the things [we] war against are not flesh and blood," we might actually be able to fight our battles with more charity. Joshua Pauley

Be the one today who lives without anger, without the need to hammer people who simply have different opinions. You do not have to spend your life pounding people into agreeing with your view; simply hearing the other person is enough to change much of the world.- Thomas Plummer

It’s much harder to be a witness than it is to be a watcher. A witness has to be in close proximity to those he wishes to influence. A witness has to get his hands dirty. A witness has to protect the dignity of all. A witness accepts the sinner where they are, and accompanies them out. A witness is the visible presence of Jesus Christ in a fallen world.

The next time you are drawn into a debate over the faith, look through the fog of war to see the person on the other side, put down your weaponry, and engage the person instead of the argument.

Be a witness, not a watcher.
Timothy Putnam Of Watchers and Witnesses (MAY 17, 2016) A Belief Observed

But not everyone can attend to every single issue. Are we going to get annoyed at Dominicans for not also being Franciscans? We can't presume someone is doing nothing because they don't speak on absolutely everything all the time. Shouldn't we all spend more time rejoicing in the good work someone does - explaining the faith - instead of tearing them down? Alisha Ruiss

I’m increasingly tempted to think there are very few controversial things many Christians can discuss in a Christian manner in public, anymore. And many Catholics are exemplars of the worst behavior and exchanges, in my opinion.

While most of us can occasionally lose our cool and say things we regret, for some of us our “righteousness”, indeed, exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. And the expressions of gratitude to God among our humble Tax Collectors that they’re not like those Pharisees have been honed with great literary skill and exquisite refinement.
A few years ago, I was in the comment boxes on a pretty nasty blog called Joe.My.God, engaging with a guy about who-knows-what, and we were going at it hammer and tongs when all of a sudden something happened. I don’t know if it was him or me but one of us showed a glimmer of humanity. Something about music. Totally off topic. With that, we began a lengthy and quite friendly discussion about his preference for classical and mine for jazz. He made recommendation to me. I made a recommendation to him. It was quite remarkable.
This is called “breaking the fourth wall,” you know, when an actor gives up on the fiction and addresses the audience directly. At some moment, we broke the fourth wall and viewed each other as more than a set of offensive opinions. It is hard to fight after that.
- Austin Ruse (July 20, 2018) Slowly Boiled Friendship? Crisis

I distinguish between people who don't always do the job perfectly and those who vend poison non-stop. We've got to stop bayonetting our own troops. Our talent for bayonetting our own best troops remains unabated. What seems to be ignored in a lot of these discussions is the simple reality that no one is going to appeal to everyone. We all have different personalities, aesthetics, interests, etc., and so some people are going to find, {a certain person’s} style, manner, and ideas more appealing, interesting, etc. than other people will, and there's nothing wrong with that. Mark Shea:

Why haven’t I been writing here?  Because too many of those who give feedback only want to destroy.  Only want themselves to be correct, their opinion to be known, their “truth” to be Truth.
“If I speak with the tongues of Angels, and comprehend all mysteries, but do not have Love, I am a clanging gong.”
I doubt I can change the hearts of some of the avaricious trolls who have bred so well in the wild west of the interwebs.   It’s usually the quiet ones who listen and at least question whether they should have picked up the stone – and wonder what Christ wrote in the sand – and stay to hear what He said to the woman they’d condemn.
“Neither do I condemn you.  Go forth, and do this thing no more.”
Emily C. A. Snyder Catholics, Avarice and Internet Trolls: Or, Why I’m Blogging Less ( March 18, 2019) Pop Feminist

Isn't it possible -- just possible, even if not in your mind probable -- that because of the deception in our own hearts, that we may be more harsh than we ought to be? That in fact, what we think is Christlike behavior doesn't strike many as genuinely favoring the aroma of Christ?  Is it possible you aren't contending for the faith but are just being a jerk?
Jared C. Wilson: Jerks for Jesus Why the Temple Cleansing (Etc.) Isn't Your Permission to Always Be Fighting (October 29, 2018) For the Church

The Internet can be such a nasty place. No matter where you look (Twitter, Facebook, the blogosphere), everybody seems to hate everybody. Although I’ve done it in the past (and regretted it), I now try very hard to avoid posting anything that could be interpreted as snarky or mean. Here’s something to consider. It’s just as easy to post a positive comment as it is to post a negative one. Because of the Holy Spirit living in us, we have the power to be a witness for Christ and comfort someone who really needs it.
Here’s what Jesus said before he ascended into heaven…
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Think about that for a minute. You have the power to be Jesus’ witness to the ends of the earth. One positive comment may be all it takes to comfort someone who is hopeless and needs to encounter Jesus. Wow.
Gary Zimak Before You Post That Nasty Comment, Read This… (July 27, 2019) Be Not Afraid with Gary Zimak

Variety of Thought
There is tremendous variety among traditional Catholics.
Some like the Divine Mercy Devotion, others do not.
Some believe in the Great King and Era of Peace, others don't.
Some are Distributists, others ardent Capitalists.
Some attend the EF Mass exclusively while others (like myself) go to the EF sometimes and the Novus Ordo sometimes.
Some trads are monarchists, others are not.
Some traditionalists are deep into the culture of smoking tobacco and drinking fine wines and beers, a kind of 'classy Catholicism', while others couldn't care a lick for smoking or drinking.
Some are willing to openly criticize a sitting pontiff, others believe this crosses the line.
 Some argue women should never wear pants, others aren't so strict on this.
Some pray in Latin, some don't.
Some attend SSPX Masses, others want nothing to do with the Society.
Some are Thomists, some Augustinians or followers of other theological traditions.
Some think the failed Consecration of Russia is the crux and center of all the modern Church's problems, others see this only as a small part of a larger picture.
You get the point. .
- Boniface No Trad Magisterium Friday, (February 20, 2015) Unam Sanctam Catholicam

Back in 1998 or 1999, when I was a very recent convert to Catholicism and full of boisterous, somewhat obnoxious delight in the Church, I told my best friend that as a Catholic, “It’s just that my worldview is so unified!”
I have many friends who love Eastern liturgies, spiritualities, and styles of worship—some Orthodox, some in Byzantine or Melkite churches (which are in communion with Rome). I’ve loved learning from them about the diversity of Christian worship, the diversity of the beauty available to us, and the diversity of the languages we can use to articulate our faith. It turns out that I am desperately Western: gory Spanish crucifixes, St. Anselm on the Cross as payment of our debts, statues and holy cards and the Corpus Christi procession. One of my favorite memories of church music is of “Amazing Grace” played on a Casio keyboard—it should be so chintzy, and yet it was so haunting! And there’s probably no document from the Vatican explaining why that was so good.
The Faith is more complex and strange than any precision-tooled theology can express.
The kinds of Catholicism you were raised with aren’t the only kinds; the vocations of the people who brought you into the Church aren’t the only paths of love.
Eve Tushnet Your Weirdness is Welcome Here: Letter from Eve Tushnet (April 24, 2019) thecatholicwoman.co


WHAT YOU WON’T FIND IN THIS BOOK
You won’t find the rantings and ravings of Radical Catholic Reactionary topics, but you will find some quotes by those who are considered Radical Catholic Reactionaries. A radical Catholic reactionary is defined as a “self-righteous, pharisaical, more-Catholic-than-the-pope Catholic who incessantly bash the Novus Ordo, Vatican II, popes since Pius XII, and ecumenism. -Dave Armstrong. No Bashing of those topics here. Most reactionaries are Orthodox Catholics who sometimes have their halos on too tight. Some Reactionaries are excellent writers who have some great things to say about ‘THE FAITH’, that can be edifying to all in the body of Christ. It is important to note that Reactionaries are distinct from ordinary traditionalists. “A traditionalist is usually defined as a Catholic who is devoted to the Latin Mass.”- Dwight Longenecker This is talked about later on in the book. Even thou I endorse some writings of Reactionaries I don’t endorse the overall totality of their writings or websites as they are toxically negative.

Combing through a reactionary website to find these edifying, positive and wonderful writings about the FAITH was hard as the only thing certain reactionaries love to write and post about is the constant bashing of everything talked about in the above definition plus bashing whom they consider evil neo-Catholics leading the world astray. Neo-Catholics are those who are “liberal / dissident / modernist / heterodox / cafeteria Catholics, those in bed with liberal modernist dissidents, a new kind of Catholic.” (Dave Armstrong).  When in reality we are all orthodox Catholics who in the words of Mark Shea “believes all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims; who accepts completely the Church's teaching on the pelvic issues; who hates abortion and euthanasia with a passion; who believes in the infallibility of the pope; who rejects gay "marriage" as an ontological impossibility; who believes in the Real Presence, honors our Lady as the Ever-Virgin, Immaculately Conceived, Assumed into Heaven Mother of God; who takes seriously just war teaching, and endorses capitalism (within the moral limits prescribed by Catholic social teaching.”

I tried to stay away from Sedevacantists who reactionaries are who don't believe the current Pope (or any since some specific time) is validly the successor of Peter and are in schism with the church. I also try to stay away from those Catholics who endorse heterodox dissident modernist views of Catholicism.

According to Modernism, religion is essentially a matter of experience, personal and collective. There is no objective revelation from God to the human race, on which Christianity is finally based, nor any reasonable grounds for credibility in the Christian faith, based on miracles or the testimony of history. Faith, therefore, is uniquely from within. Fr. John Hardon

But before I start, what is orthodoxy? The Catholic encyclopedia defines it as signifying “right belief or purity of faith,” and that “right belief” is “not merely subjective, as resting on personal knowledge and convictions, but is in accordance with the teaching and direction of an absolute extrinsic authority.
This authority, the definition goes on to say, “is the Church founded by Christ, and guided by the Holy Ghost. He, therefore, is orthodox, whose faith coincides with the teachings of the Catholic Church.” Heterodoxy, on the other hand, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “deviation from accepted or orthodox standards or beliefs,” although it falls short of being heresy. I prefer to see it as a sort of “going along to get along with the world,” rather than standing up for the Church’s perennial teaching and Tradition at risk of opposition and persecution. Some of you might prefer to call it simply modernism. Edward Pentin: Have Synods Become Vehicles for Legitimizing Heterodoxy?

http://www.catholicstand.com/heresy-dissidence-scandal/
https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-society-of-st-pius-x-and-dissident-traditionalism

A Beginning
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
“Now there were dwelling across the Internet Catholics, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in their own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Patheosi and Aleteians and Cruxians, and residents of EWTN, Ignitum Today and Commonweal, Big Pulpit and America, Pewsitter and Spirit Daily, Catholic Answers and the parts of ChurchMilitantTV belonging to the Vortex, and visitors from National Catholic Register, both online readers and home-delivery subscribers, Remnantoids and Grunerites, we hear them telling in our tongues the mighty works of God.’ And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?'”
Larry D An Update Of The Pentecost Narrative (May 25, 2015) Acts of the Apostasy

After my confirmation, though, I was given a Catholic book, and that began a reading frenzy. I began seeing a pattern of truth and beauty that I never knew existed. Soon, everywhere I looked, I recognized the pattern. Books I read, movies I watched, songs I heard were reflecting bits of the Truth that was God. I realized that this reality had been there all along. I just couldn’t see it before. It made everyday things glow. I couldn’t hold in my delight and began e- mailing friends with my discoveries.

We see echoes of heaven all around us, sometimes without ever knowing what we are seeing. I have a passion for quotes that point toward those truths. You’ll find everything here from movies to television to Scripture, from humor to seriousness to optimism and joy. In short, everything that draws back the veil and lets us connect with God. I hope it delights you as much as it does me. 
Julie Davis, Happy Catholic: Glimpses of God in Everyday Life( 2011)  Servant Books

Thanks to the Catholic world online, I could find other Catholics who not only shared my state in life, but also my enthusiasm for the Faith. It became a special kind of community.
Chances are you’re no stranger to the Internet and that you have some favorite Catholic sites, too. I’ve found, though, through my work both locally in our small parish — and through nationally speaking and writing — that many Catholics just don’t know what’s out there. The world of Catholic content on the Internet is an ocean, not a stream, and like the ocean, it has many hidden depths.
So let’s dive in, shall we?
Sarah Reinhard Untangling the Catholic Web  (June 4, 2014) Our Sunday Visitor

Advent
Fluffy Christianity gives me the creeps. I sometimes wonder how people can just pretend that everything is ok and not really stand in the reality of horror. Like when these kinds of Christians look at pictures of the Holocaust or the Rwanda genocide or some other tragedy do they say “well, God has a plan” and then go on with their lives? Part of the Christian faith is taking time to stand in the horror of sin.

Advent is one of those times. It is not horrible that God became man but dude, GOD BECAME MAN and was born and put in a feeding bin for animals. Fr. J gave a homily one year where he explained that putting the baby Jesus, who is God, in that trough was like placing him in the dog’s water bowl. That is pretty awful. The suffering of Our Lady and Joseph on that trip was not the kind of suffering that Christmas songs are made of. But fluffy Christianity has made that a thing. “Mary did you know”, Um, yes, she knew and it all sucked. That is what makes her faith so amazing, she knew and it sucked and she said yes to it all anyway, even the parts she later figured out. Even at the foot of the Cross.
 Leticia Adams First Day of Advent: Suffering Sucks (December 2, 2018) Through Broken Roses

Joy and happiness seem different to me somehow. The great Henri Nouwen wrote about this difference and how joy can persist in even the saddest times. While happiness is dependent on external conditions, Nouwen writes that joy is something deeper. It is "the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing -- sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death -- can take that love away."

This coming Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, is all about joy in the midst of darkness. 

"Gaudete" is the word's imperative form. We are commanded to rejoice. I probably need that sort of urgency from Paul. Of course, there are sad headlines every Gaudete Sunday, and every other day. Our celebration this week (and at Christmas) is a countercultural declaration that even in sadness, we rejoice because our hope is in the one who is stronger than death.
Mike Jordan Laskey This Gaudete Sunday, rejoice despite the heartbreak all around us (Dec 11, 2014) Young Voices ncronline.org

This will be the fourth Christmas since my father passed away. I suppose everyone misses deceased family members most this time of year; I know I do. My father loved Christmas! I sometimes wonder, in fact, what impact his larger-than-life celebrations of the birth of Christ had on the faith of his nine children, each of whom continues to practice the old Faith to this day. He believed that, just as Advent— the “mini-Lent”—was to be kept well, with plenty of spiritual and corporal works of mercy, so too should Christmas be fêted with all the merrymaking and gusto a Catholic family can muster He knew that children are not born theologians who can grasp the intricacies of the great mysteries of Faith at an early age. The Faith needed to be lovingly spoon-fed to them, and so the childlike customs of Christmas were for him tailor-made to instill love for the Faith before children were old enough to even begin to understand it.
Michael J. Matt EDITOR of the Remnant Waiting for the Christ Child  Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope (Advent/Christmas Newsletter 2019)

This is one of the reasons that early Christians began to celebrate Advent. They wanted to connect the daily work of their lives to a much larger hope. By taking time to reflect on the big story of God’s redemptive work, it helped the small stories in their own lives find greater meaning.
Think about your own life and share with others how what you are doing might be building something bigger than you regularly imagine.
Billy Kangas What are you building? (December 6, 2019) The Orant

It may be, and in my experience often happens, that instead of the inner silence we so desire, our emotions are upset and our thoughts tend to run off. We can feel very discouraged about this lack of inner peace, but there is no need to be. This is merely Temptation, the cross, In no way do these feelings come between God and us provided we quietly resist, and bear with ourselves sweetly and patiently. It may be, in fact, a far deeper Advent in that we realize our immence need of a Savior- and what a blessing that is!
Sister Ruth Burrows, O.C.D. quoted in in the Advent mist (December 9, 2018) searchingforabalance.blogspot.com

Ascension of Jesus
“In Matthew’s gospel, before Jesus ascends, he tells them, very simply, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.’ He urges them to baptize, to teach, to carry on the work that he has begun. But his first direction is so clear: ‘Go.’ The world is waiting. Act on what I have taught you.
And the reading from Acts even challenges them. As they have watched him disappear into the clouds, two men ask them: ‘Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?’

The apostles were not supposed to spend their time staring nostalgically at the stars. There was work to be done. They left the mountain, went into the city, and prepared for the phenomenal mission that was about to start – the spreading of the gospel to every corner of the world.

It is tempting on this feast of the Ascension to experience it the way the apostles did, to gaze into the heavens and to ponder the clouds and to pray over the miracle of this great moment.

But Christ’s words to his apostles are words to us all. ‘Go.’ The world will not be converted on a mountaintop. The message will not be spread in the clouds. It will happen in the streets and the synagogues, in public squares and private homes, in books and newspapers and media of all kinds. It needs to be lived in the world.
– Homily for Ascension Thursday, from 2008.
Deacon Greg Kandra “Why are you standing there looking at the sky?” (November 4, 2015) The Deacon's Bench

Adoration
I can tell that it has been some time since I’ve been to Adoration. The reason I know this is because I am tired. I have lacked patience, which normally is one of my rare—exceedingly rare—virtues. I am out of temperament, and morose. As water seeks its own level, so my less frequent visits to the adoration chapel can be gauged by my more frequent visits to the confessional. I can tell that I have not been to Adoration because even the word “water” sounds dry.

But I cannot handle myself, or my life, as in my maleness I do oft imagine I can. I need Christ; I need to be with Christ. The best description, in the Bible, of what it should mean to be with Christ is of John’s actions at the Last Supper (John 13:23): He laid his head on Christ’s breast. We think we are men, but before God we are children, and we need the comforter. That’s why we go to Eucharistic Adoration.
 -Scott Eric Alt, A Fulcrum and a Lever: Chiefly on Eucharistic Adoration (November 1, 2013) To Give a Defence

“Adoration appeals to postmoderns because it is experiential, mysterious, and accessible to everyone: the nonbaptized, the non-Catholic, the unchurched, the lapsed, the badly catechized, the wounded, the skeptical, the seeking, the prodigal, and those who aren’t sure that a relationship with God is even possible.”
― Sherry Weddell, Forming Intentional Disciples: The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus (2012) Our Sunday Visitor

Apostles
Just think of what they had seen.
Withered hands stretched back to wholeness. Sightless eyes granted vision. Leprous skin made clean. Food multiplied. Storms calmed. Graves surrendering their dead. Forgiveness granted. Pride laid low. Dignity restored. And the stories – the parables – were so approachable, yet so profound.
These men had seen the face of God revealed through the unlined face of a carpenter’s son.
Only now, they slept.
Tod Worner The Unheroic Heroism of the Disciples (September 28, 2016) A Catholic Thinker

Apologetics

Our task as apologists is to vigorously share and defend the truth, with charity and gentleness and wisdom. The results are up to God, since it is only His grace that moves any heart closer to Him in the first place. Sometimes we are opposed and seem to achieve no result whatever (like Jeremiah); other times there is abundant visible fruit (as on the day of Pentecost or with St. Francis de Sales, winning back many thousands of Calvinists). Jeremiah was not at fault; nor could St. Francis claim final credit for “his results.”

We mustn’t be naive enough to actually think that Satan and his demons won’t put up a vigorous fight against anyone who is effectively sharing and defending God’s truth and the fullness of the Catholic faith. We can count on it. It’s not peaches and cream and all method and PR and getting folks to like us. Apologetics is ultimately spiritual battle. We can be friendly, nice, charming; all that (and I sure hope we all strive to be that way), but that doesn’t nullify the fact that it is, bottom line, a battle (thus, “young guns” is a very apt metaphor indeed!).
- Dave Armstrong Apologetics is Always a Difficult Spiritual Battle & Struggle (December 3, 2018) Biblical Evidence for Catholicism

Showing the Catholic Faith is true should never be boiled down to a sound bite like “Two thousand years of tradition can’t be wrong” or to an emotional plea like “The Catholic Faith has really made me happy, and it can make you happy, too.” There is a time for showing how the Church has outlived its historical threats, as well as a place for personal testimonies of how God has changed our lives. But we should always keep them in the context of building up the Faith for someone one step or one floor at a time, always being ready to meet them where they are with sound answers for their honest questions.
Matt Fradd The Apologetics Mansion (5/1/2014)  catholic.com

As tempting as it may be to think of yourself as an apologetics gladiator (I have seen many people fall prey to this folly, especially among the current crop of Protestant pop apologists who love nothing more than to “do battle” with Catholics), if you really want to fight the good fight, strive to be polite, respectful, and kind even as you seek to vigorously and compellingly present the truth. Take it from me. As someone who had to learn this lesson firsthand, it really works.
Patrick Madrid, Envoy for Christ: 25 Years as a Catholic Apologist (2012)

The older I get, the more clearly I have come to see how bellicosity is antithetical to authentic apologetics. Or, in the words of St. Peter, we must “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you,” but we must also engage in this defense “with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15–16). This is a very important lesson for all who seek to explain and defend the Faith. I guess you could say that I myself learned it in the school of hard knocks. Bottom line: A cheerful, winsome presentation of the Truth will always do more  good for souls than one that is caustic or peremptory, plus it.
Patrick Madrid, Why Be Catholic?: Ten Answers to a Very Important Question (2014) 


Antisemitism
It is not enough to sit back and say “Antisemitism is wrong.” We cannot merely be passive bystanders. It is incumbent upon Christians – and Catholics, especially – to fight it where it appears. The priests and clergy who opposed the Nazis and then died in the death camps demand this of us. We must fight the dog whistles, the slurs, and the other small acts that lead towards reshaping the narrative.

The Holocaust did not just suddenly “happen.” It occurred through small acts of hate and discrimination over many years before it actually exploded into violence. Society allowed it to happen and turned a blind eye from the atrocities. It occurred in a nominally Christian culture. The Holocaust is a dark stain on the soul of Christianity and must never be allowed to happen again.

Someday, soon, we will live in a world without living witnesses to one of the greatest atrocities in history.
How we go forward in that world will be a measure of our humanity.
Angry Staff Officer How Will We Remember the Holocaust after those who Lived it are Gone? (September 2, 2019) With the Atheists in the Foxholes
America
America is wired Catholic, labeled Protestant, and currently functioning as secular. No wonder it has devolved into a secular state rife with bacchanalia, eugenics, and collectivism — symptoms of a republic in name only.
Timothy Gordon-Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome
Angels
References to angels are numerous within both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Some of these angel verses lead us to understand that all people have their own private angel―a guardian angel―to guide them throughout their lifetime on earth.
The word angel comes from the Greek word angelos, which means “messenger.” The primary job of all angels is to serve God, often by delivering important messages to people on earth. Guardian angels also serve God by watching over assigned individuals, often giving them subtle messages and nudges, striving to keep them safe and turned toward God throughout their lives.
Theresa Doyle-Nelson The Holy Guardian Angels—Custodians of Our Souls (Oct. 2, 2019) ncregister.com

Angels
Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.
Billy Collins, “Questions About Angels” (1991) Questions about Angels

Men can only see in a limited spectrum of light.  But some animals can see other bands of the spectrum, such as ultraviolet light.  The truth of the matter is that there is far more to the universe we live in that we do not see.  There is an invisible world all around us, and it is probably a mercy that God shields our vision from everything that takes place in the very room we sleep in.  And even if we could see this species, I have not the faintest idea what this would resemble.

While it is true that angels only occasionally take the form of men, in their spiritual form, I cannot say what they resemble.  They do not fill space the way we in the physical world do.  How can something exist somewhere but nowhere?  Are they phased out and at a different frequency than our reality?  Are they in a dimension that is adjacent to ours, one easy for them to see beyond but impossible for us to even grasp?  When it comes to the angelic species, we are animals on the ground, as to where those intelligences are like birds in the trees looking down at us and even beyond to the horizon.  When we try to conceive of the angelic realm, it is as though we are trying to look at all of the fish in the daytime, and all of the refracted light from the sky blinds us to all of the fish in the water of that lake.
Laramie Hirsch Guardian Angels In An Unseen World Around You (October 2, 2018)

As I lay there thinking about these things, I asked myself: couldn’t it be possible that there exists a world of spirits, an invisible world of ghosts, angels, and demons, one that is less than an inch away from our physical existence—a world that is mostly quiet (unless it’s out of balance), acts by its own rules, and is just as influential and important in our daily lives as our own bodies are?
Gary Jansen, Holy Ghosts (2010) Penguin Publishing Group

Why are cherubim portrayed by artists as chubby babies?It is purely artistic sentimentality, appearing only quite late in Western painting. Consider how the cherubim that Ezekiel saw took a dazzling, terrifying form, full of wings and wheels, faces and eyes, roaring and spewing forth bolts of lightning.
You may recall that whenever an angel appeared in the Old or New Testament narrative, his first message was “Do not be afraid.” Angels must be awesome creatures. I daresay artists who picture them as fat babies will have a great shock when they meet the angels in heaven. And the angels may have some sharp words of correction for the artists.
Father Ray Ryland, Why Are Cherubs Chubby? Simply Catholic


Art and Beauty
Art is the creation of man, therefore sub-creation, as Tolkien called it his essay "On Fairy Stories"; and a work of art is a crowning achievement of human culture insofar as it shares in the likeness of God and His Art. The more true, beautiful, and good it is, the more it acts as a conduit of His grace. So you will see me argue that thing likes Breaking Bad and Mumford & Sons can give one authentic spiritual insights. I am lifted up to God as I take in that show, that band, and also countless novels, plays, and even commercials.
Kathryn Brightly, Apologia: Why I'm Writing This Blog (September 8, 2013) Through a Glass Brightly 

The afterlife is very important, isn't it? Our storytelling around the afterlife is very important isn't it? Salvation is very important, isn't it? Actually, it's the only thing that matters. We can lose everything else, but if we lose at eternity we've lost everything forever. So choose well.
Helena Burns, FSP  MOVIES: "A GHOST STORY" (January 22, 2018)

I am often told, by a young Catholic gentleman of considerable intelligence, wit, and virtue, that I am an undiscerning consumer of narrative art.
When I express my approval for this book, that film, or the other animated series, this gentlemen will – as reliably and good-naturedly as the rising sun – protest: “but Ben, you like everything!” My general positivity about the stories I expose myself seems to him to speak ill of my aesthetic judgment.
God’s creation is good. Humans are part of God’s creation. One of the most amazing things about humans – one of the ways that we’re made in God’s image and likeness – is that we are capable of creative work, of what Tolkein called “sub-creation”. If a person or a group of people have gone to the bother of writing a book, or producing a film, then that is a wonder in itself. If it’s only all right? That’s still, in my view, pretty impressive.
Honestly trying to spin a good yarn will almost always yield at least some fruit. The second Night At The Museum film isn’t going to set anyone’s mind on fire – but it has Amy Adams playing Amelia Earhart, and if that isn’t self-recommending I don’t know what is.
Ben Conroy I like most films I watch. Am I a sucker? (October 13, 2014) Shadows On The Road

I also think there’s a difference between a good Christian or Catholic parent choosing for their children that Eminem is not appropriate and for me as an adult to listen to lyrics and to music and to say, “Boy, I don’t agree with him, but damn, that’s good music.” Perhaps the reason this seems radical and difficult is that there’s a strong temptation to blur the line and say that everything’s okay. Well, not everything’s okay. I don’t endorse Eminem from the pulpit because, among other reasons plenty of his lyrics do show a blatant disrespect for life, but, just like any author whose works we burned as a Church 50 years ago because there were radical ideas in them, I think he among other people really speaks to young people our society. And anybody that’s ministering to young people needs to be aware of that.
Fr. Dave Dwyer, CSP A Journey of Faith From MTV to the Priesthood(March 2, 2005) Busted Halo

If Human freedom is viewed under the aspect of the pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty, here too Christendom was a haven of true liberty in comparison with political modernity and its attendant cultural and moral degeneracy. For it was none other than the philosophers, scientists, composers, musicians and artists of the Christian centuries who gave the Western world deep insights in to the nature of man, the university system, innumerable scientific discoveries, and indisputably the greatest works of art, architecture, music and literature the world has ever seen. Who in this Age of Liberty has remotely approached the philosophical depth of Saint Thomas, or the creative triumph of Michaelangelo, Dante, Palestrina, or the mystery-imbued splendor of the architects of Notre-Dame de Chartes?
Christopher Ferrara: Liberty, the God that Failed (2012)

God created us for play and amusement just as he created us for work, prayer, and community. In particular he created us for art and culture: to create and look at images; to fashion stories and music and dance, and to perform and enjoy them; to explore imaginative scenarios of good and evil, of conflict and resolution.
It is in our nature to engage in and to enjoy these things, as it is the nature of stars to shine and plants to grow. And, just as the sun glorifies God by shining and plants by growing, so we please and glorify him when we participate in wholesome aesthetic activities and amusements. In fact, because man has free will, he pleases God in a special way when he freely participates in the goods proper to his nature. If he does so with a will to glorify God, it can even be meritorious.
Deacon Steven D. Greydanus What Are the Decent Films?

Can we praise the music of Bowie even though he was no saint? More broadly speaking, can a bad person create good art?
I sure hope so, otherwise my Caravaggio admiration will have to go (murder, beating up prostitutes, stabbing people, so very many other things), so will Beethoven (misanthrope, abusive uncle), every Renaissance artist who ever chased down a wayward apprentice with murder in his heart (more than you would think), Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Hart Crane, the list goes on.
Michael Rennier David Bowie Wings (January 2016) Dappled Things

Fill your soul with something beautiful. Watch a sunset. Hold a baby. Enjoy a nice meal with your family. Listen to some Gregorian chant. Decorate the art gallery of your soul with a beautiful collection.
- Taylor Marshall The Batman Massacre and the Art Gallery of Your Soul (July 20, 2012) taylormarshall.com

The Gospel message has inspired countless men and women to create works of art that speak directly to the human heart in unique ways that are impossible to replicate through other mediums.  An encounter with what is beautiful whether it is painting, literature, poetry or sculpture, moves the individual to seek the source of that beauty.  Rather than first explaining what we believe, we can lead others to experience the beauty that has its roots in the Gospel.  Just as a child is inspired to play a sport by first watching it played rather than by first learning the rules, we must allow people to experience Christianity in its totality before learning its intricacies.  Witnessing the beauty of a person loving selflessly is more effective evangelization than distributing one hundred catechisms.  The details of the faith make no sense unless one has experienced the beauty and goodness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Christian art fuels so much tourism throughout the world because people are attracted to its beauty.  The Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter Basilica may be the most prominent, but churches and museums throughout the world attract millions of visitors, both believers and nonbelievers.  We must find effective ways so that our rich and beautiful artistic heritage, which is inspired by the Gospel, continues to lead souls to encounter Christ.
Father Pablo Migone Beauty to evangelize, (April 25, 2019) Labyrinthine Mind

Sentimentality can be dangerous. Emotionalism can be dangerous. But so too can be a faith without beauty, a faith without wonder, a faith that does not allow for silly songs to be sung or epic tales to be told. A faith like this will never produce another Adoro Te Devote or Sistine Chapel.
Stefanie Nicholas Catholics Should Read Good Fiction, lest They Dry Out (December 17, 2019)

So when people experience the beautiful, the problem of the Garden of Eden is fixed. You know, the Garden’s temptation in Genesis was “You will be like God.” And this is still the paramount temptation for human beings. Well, when you experience beauty, you know you’re not God and you also feel that that’s OK. You feel good about your life and your very “un-Godness” because you’re filled with awe and gratitude. So, Pope Benedict makes the case that you can know everything in a book of theology and make a prayer that is proud and cold. Or, you can know almost nothing of theology but respond to a sunset and feel God’s presence there and it can be a prayer that is holy and that will be heard.
So just briefly, there are many, many, many goods that come to the Church through the arts, but the idea of the beautiful is the main one.
Barbara Nicolosi “The Real Patron of the Arts” (June 30, 2008) Church of the Masses

We have a need to sense the presence of eternity in our life here on earth.
Isn't this one of the reasons why experiences of beauty we find in walking the beach (for instance) or music and art, why these experiences are so important? Or why we cherish a moment of peace, forgiveness and the affection a child? Isn't this why community, family and friendship can be so life-giving? These are the quickenings which enable us to move forward in life with a deep hope.
And when we catch a glimpse of the eternal, we hang onto these experiences to help us through the difficult times. God is always calling us further down the path of life, into a life where our hopes will become reality.
And so...every time we come to this Holy Eucharist, we taste here on earth the gifts of the world to come.
Treasure these moments we have in prayer together this morning.
Be that good soil in which the seed of God's eternal plan can germinate and grow.
Bishop Robert Reed A Glimpse of the Eternal A homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (07/16/2017) CatholicTV.org

We must see that beautiful art truly is a means of propagating the faith.  We must see that beautiful Christian art is a means to shaping a culture into a Catholic one.  We must see that all beautiful Christian art is ultimately there to lift our minds to God, Who is that for which all things strive.
-Fr. Chad Ripperger, F.S.S.P., PhD

All great art is a visual form of prayer.
Sister Wendy Beckett

Flannery O’Connor is a beacon of light and sanity in the contested world of art and theology. “Writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eye for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable,” O’Connor said. “To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.” (“The fiction writer and his country” in Mystery & Manners: Occasional Prose, 1970)
Sister Rose Listening to Flannery O’Connor (July 1, 2012) Sister Rose at the Movies

I remember a Pentecostal woman I knew years ago who refused to listen to any kind of classical music because "Mozart and that whole lot were moral reprobates." That kind of insularity is just dumb. No one is without sin, and to cut ourselves off from every kind of beauty because its makers were sinners is to deny the work of God in us. Because God is the author of beauty; Mozart is only its channel. - Cynthia Schrage

I've been reading a biography of Rod Serling. I am really struck by how much of my early moral formation I owe to him, certain old science fiction movies, Frank Capra, and Mad Magazine. I don't know what that says about me. Pagans pretty much start with what luck throws us. I didn't have Aristotle or Plato. -Mark Shea

Because Catholics are obligated to live their faith fully in every aspect of their lives, Catholics are obligated to make Catholic art. Even when the artist has not set out explicitly to make art about The Church or about Jesus, their faith must influence their work on the deepest level possible. We are not obligated to do so alone, because that would be impossible. Only by inviting the Holy Spirit into our creative process can we hope to successfully accomplish what God is calling us to do. So, in that spirit, I am ending by offering a prayer for artists, as they set out to create in Christ’s name.
Oh Holy Spirit, guide me in my work.
Grant me permission to participate,
in some small way,
in your creative powers.
Let me not fall away from the path,
even as I wander.
And when I wrestle,
let me wrestle with angels,
so it is always You I encounter
on the other side of the journey.
Amen.
Emily Claire Schmitt Are Catholic Artists Obligated to Make Catholic Art? (March 9, 2020) Femina Ferox

It’s been a while since the Church was viewed by the non-Catholic world as such a central force for good, and so worthy of protecting. But there is nothing to keep it from becoming such again. We need merely to remember our incredible story, and the story of our Savior, and tell it to the world through not just apologetics and essays, but art and music, architecture and film, liturgy and devotion. We have more tools at our disposal to be creators of culture than ever before, and the power of Catholicism lies not merely in the present, but in the past. It lies in the hands not simply of the Church militant, but the Church triumphant. Like any family, we draw strength not only from our works, but from our customs and traditions. We cannot flourish if we do not remain connected to our history.
Steve Skojec  Our Unchangeable Faith: Catholicism as a Cultural Force (January 7, 2014) Catholic Vote

What we know is that anything good, or true, or beautiful is from God. Wherever you see these things, hear these things, experience these things, you have a direct experience of the Beatific Vision, even if you don’t know it.
There is so much ugliness in the world, everywhere you look; even worse, everywhere my young daughters look. But is it enough to call it out, legislate against it, campaign against ugliness? After all, this is what many of us do, perhaps most of us do. That is what I do.

Perhaps turning the other cheek in this day and age does not simply mean being nice to our enemies and meekly taking the blows. Perhaps it means all that and something more. Maybe it is about showing them a competing way, a better way, and inviting them to come and see, like Andrew said after he met Christ. Come and see this better way. I had always thought that meant getting someone to the sacraments. But I now know it can also mean getting someone to something like the Appaloosa Festival.

Beauty need not be just Mozart motets, the paintings of Michelangelo, or the philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas. It can also be what I saw in the Blue Ridge Mountains on Saturday. I saw the Gothard Sisters wailing on their violins, kicking up Celtic heels, and whooping out sweet harmonies. It certainly was for my daughters who have listened to little else since Saturday afternoon. This, too, is the good, the true and the beautiful, and what one of the organizers told me is “soft evangelization.”

There was a moment at Appaloosa when the scales from my eyes truly fell. Those same Gothard Sisters were giving a workshop on Celtic dance. My daughters were in the circle, bare feet in the dirt, kicking up dust, holding hands with their partners, people of all ages dancing and watching. And I thought this: The darkness cannot enter here. The darkness cannot find an opening here. All here is the good, the true and the beautiful. All here is light, light that cannot be overcome, light that will eventually and inevitably overcome the darkness that surrounds us. That is the good, the true and the beautiful.-
Austin Ruse Okay, Now I Get the Good, the True and the Beautiful (September 9, 2016) Crisis

The world was created to be beautiful.
And this in a deeper sense than we can ever truly know this side of heaven. We were created to be beautiful. “Beauty will save the world,” Dostoyevsky wrote in The Idiot. Beauty born of love will save the world. Beauty is love and Love illuminates beauty. Am I speaking only of physical beauty? No. Certainly, physical beauty can be deceiving. I am speaking of the beauty of a new baby in the arms of her mother. The beauty of late night coffee and conversation with a kindred spirit. The beauty of a declaration of faith in the midst of persecution. The beauty of the Savior mangled and dying on the cross to wipe away all sin and open the gates of Heaven. The beauty of saying, “Lord, I want to believe. Help my unbelief.” The beauty of painted toe nails.
The simple things can be an anchor to the wonder of the physical reality we’ve been gifted. But they can also be a diving board into the depths of Love. Ever deeper and deeper until we are positively drowning in love and beauty. This is how I wish to die– never forgetting and ever exploring the depths and beauty of Love, and with my toe nails painted.
Theresa Zoe Williams A Meditation on the Depths of Beauty of Painted Nails (January 23, 2019) Contemplatio Culture

Anxity
People of faith often feel guilty for being anxious.  They wonder if perhaps they are not praying hard enough or not trusting God enough.  The truth is, Christians get anxiety disorders at roughly the same rate as everyone else.  This should not be a surprise.  After all, Christians catch cold as often as everyone else and get cancer or heart disease or high blood pressure at the same rate as everyone else.  No one thinks of these things as spiritual failings.   Anxiety disorders are what happen to a person when the brain’s fire-alarm center—the amygdala—gets a “chemical burn” from bathing too long in stress chemicals, making it hypersensitive and over-reactive to new problems.  Anxiety Disorders are not a failure of character or spiritual maturity.  They are what happen when the brain’s stress-warning systems become overwhelmed and hyper-activated... 
Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak Be Not Afraid: A Christian Response to Anxiety (May 22, 2013) Faith on the Couch

Ash Wednesday
To paraphrase Jesus a little: If you fast or do righteous deeds… Show me love. Don’t loose track of the love that is at the base of your Lenten preparation, the reason for your fasting.
When we mark ourselves with ashes today, we remind ourselves that we are sinners and we are in need of redemption. Try not to give into pride. We don’t mark ourselves to be praised and exulted. We mark ourselves because we know we need help. We need preparation. We need to change. We need to be converted. We mark ourselves because we are sinners, sinners who have hope.
Eric Sundrup, SJ Now is the Time: Show me love (February 18, 2015) The Jesuit Post

For those who are among the cheeky in the Latin Church, Ash Wednesday is what they call a ‘Catholic coming out’ day, as the ashes on the foreheads of those who walk our streets, work in our campuses, and go about their everyday lives mark those who have attended mass that day, unless they are very traditional and have the ashes poured on top of their heads. I hear that term less this year, perhaps because I am Eastern Catholic, and not only are we on a different calendar that is a week apart this year, but our Great Fast begins with Forgiveness Vespers on the evening of Cheesefare Sunday.
Justin Tse The morality of the closet: for Cheesefare Week after the Latins’ Ash Wednesday (March 6, 2019) Eastern Catholic Person

Attention
Do you lack focus in class? Are you besieged by distractions at church, or procrastination at your job? In one way or another, most of us struggle to pay attention. The ability to be present is a crucial factor in a flourishing life. We need to pay attention to work and learn effectively, to care for others, and to deepen our relationship with God. But it’s hard to stay present.

Whatever your source of distraction is, make it more difficult. 

Don’t try to change one area of your life in isolation. It’s not effective. How can you expect to learn to pay attention in prayer, if you are distracted from when you get out of bed to the time you fall asleep? Practice paying attention in all things. 

Detect the variables that increase your distraction. Lack of sleep? No coffee, or too much coffee? Being alone, or being with friends?
Then, detect the variables that increase your attention. 

 Be persistent! Neurological changes happen slowly, through repetitive (and sometimes tedious) actions. But don’t give up and get discouraged; because of neuroplasticity, change is possible.
Sofia Carozza How to Pay Attention at Work and in Prayer (March 17, 2019)  Synapses of the Soul

Balanced Christian Life
Avoid each extreme — that’s how you drink like a Catholic. This is the art of Catholic drinking. There are plenty of our brethren who consider drinking somehow immoral, and there are plenty of others who think drinking must end with great intoxication. But the balanced approach — the Catholic approach — means having a good time, a good laugh, sometime a good cry, but always with joy and gratitude for God’s generosity in giving us such wonders as beer and burgundy. Remember that, and the lost art of Catholic drinking may not remain lost.
Sean P. Dailey The Lost Art of Catholic Drinking (April 13, 2012) Crisis

Baptism
God has a remarkable proclivity for accomplishing his work through the material things of this earth–but foremost among them, possibly, is water.
 If human beings cannot survive without water, it would seem that God cannot do some of his greatest acts except through water. Or, he could, but he doesn’t, which suggests to me that these acts are best achieved through water.
 God creates the Earth by separating the waters, and God creates the nation of Israel by separating the waters. Later, God creates the Church through another separation of water, after Christ has died but before he has been removed from the Cross: “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (John 19:34). The world, the nation of Israel, and the Church are all created through a separation of water. Something important–a great mystery–would seem to be involved in all that.
Through the waters of birth, we are born into life. Through the waters of baptism, we are born into the Kingdom of God. Baptism now saves you.
Scott Eric Alt Remember Your Baptism (January 13, 2013) To Give a Defense

You see, salvation is not a matter of pomp and circumstance, for it can come to a little baby, or to a 105 year old great-grandmother, neither of whom can walk or talk very well. God uses the very things the world takes for granted, like water, to show the “wise” that they must humble themselves before God to receive salvation.
Robert Sungenis, Ph.D - Jesus Teaches Us How to  Interpret the Bible – Catholic Style
 
Being Catholic
There’s a trend among Catholics today — enthusiastic, church-going, Gospel-spreading Catholics — to want to be sophisticated.  To want, like a desperate gaggle of tweenage schoolgirls, to show that we aren’t backwards Bible-thumpers getting our bonnets in a ruffle over the scruples that plague our provincial cousins.  We’re Catholic. We’re in the world, being the leaven.
A desire to engage the culture is fine as far as it goes, but it’s a relative (albeit vocal) minority who’s erring on the scrupulous side.  The bulk of us are so terrified of being found fools for Christ, or so unwilling to bend our necks, that, like the 4th Century Christians in Barcelona, we’d rather run around dressed like wild animals than be caught too pious at home.
Jennifer Fitz A Patron Saint for Rabble Rousers and their Bishops (March 10, 2015) Sticking the Corners

“Another way to look at Christ's yoke is to remember that yokes are designed for two oxen, an image that can apply to Jesus and the person who accepts the call to take on his easy yoke—made easy because Jesus is the other ox pulling our burden with us. As is generally true of oxen, one is stronger than the other, and the stronger ox pulls the greater weight with the yoke. In the case of the vocational yoke Christ places upon us, he is the stronger ox, doing the heavy pulling through our spiritual life and vocational struggles, constantly at our side.”
― Mitch Pacwa, How to Listen When God Is Speaking: A Guide for Modern-day Catholics

Beliefs and Christian Living
To the Catholic mind, not only can earthly, physical things be turned by the agency of God into channels of divine, invisible grace (as we see with the seven sacraments), but all creation is a sacramentum, or “divine sign,” pointing to the luminous goodness of God. Like William Blake, Catholics see a world in a grain of sand and a Heaven in a wildflower. And they even get a foretaste of that Heaven in the simple pleasures of table and tavern.
Michael P Foley, Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner's Guide to a Holy Happy Hour (2015-05-04). 

“Many people falsely believe that if you want to be holy, you are not allowed to enjoy life...Holiness brings us to life. It refines every human ability. Holiness doesn't dampen our emotions; it elevates them. Those who respond to God's call to holiness are the most joyful people in history. They have a richer, more abundant experience of life, and they love more deeply than most people can every imagine. They enjoy life, all of life.”
― Matthew Kelly, Rediscover Catholicism

You’re giving up meat for Lent? Well, I’m giving up solid foods.
You’re giving up profanity? Well, I’m going to run a mile every time I say “crap.”
You’re gonna pray a rosary every day? Well, I’m praying three a day… in Latin.
I’m giving away my mattress this Lent and sleeping on the floor. I’m giving up coffee, too. Yes, my family will just have to deal with the horrid, half-asleep monster I will become. Oh, and there will be no music, no television or movies, and ultimately, no joy. Yep, that’s my goal… to identify every small source of earthly joy I can and snuff it out like an altar candle after Mass.
I will cover myself in some sort of polyester blend and sit on a pile of dung, wailing aloud on social media about my love of God for all to hear (but not sharing Him face-to-face with a stranger, that’s just “too much”)
Here’s the thing about Lent: Your thing is your thing. What you give up and what you add on is between you and God, not you and your friends. If you want to bring them into it, asking them to walk with you or hold you accountable, all power to you. If you don’t want anyone but God to know, that’s okay, too.
If, however, you take every opportunity (consciously or unconsciously) to share just how much you’re giving up or how much you’re doing, it’s not holiness you’re seeking — it’s attention.
Pride is the root of all sin, which is why it cannot be allowed to flourish, especially amongst Christians. Truthfully, we shouldn’t “swallow our pride” — it’s even more poisonous than aspartame. We must carry our pride into the confessional and leave it there, frequently. We must bring our pride forward and place it on the altar… to die.
Mark Hart Holy Crap: The Unholy Art of Outdoing Another

As a Catholic, I speak earnestly to Jesus in my personal prayers but also pray the Divine Office, an ancient Christian liturgical prayer which unites me with the entire, global Catholic Church through all space and time. I have the app on my phone.

As a Catholic, I worship God by getting on my knees and repeating words right out of Scripture which talk about how holy and good He is; how unworthy I am. We sing the songs of the angels right from the words of Revelation (always off-key because that is the Catholic way).

As a Catholic I believe that I literally consume Jesus Christ—body, blood, and divinity—every single time I go to Mass. A belief that’s been held by Catholic Christians for two thousand years (a belief that all Christians held until 500 years ago). And, if I wanted to, I could go to Mass every single day.
What kind of closer relationship could there be than that?
K. Albert Little Why Are There so Many Bad Catholics (And What Should We Do)?  (February 21, 2019) The Cordial Catholic

So my superstitions about small stinging things are understandable. But it got me thinking about all the other types of similar “truths” I have tucked away in my mind. I’ve come to think of them as “shadow truths”: ideas that I would not assent to if we were to sit down and have an open conversation about them, but that I treat as true in my daily life. And it’s surprising how often they impact my actions.

It’s interesting to note that these superstitions crop up most powerfully in the areas where I have the most attachments: my writing, sleep, money, not being stung in the face by gigantic centipedes in the middle of the night. These are the parts of my life that I am least willing to turn over to God, because I have a white-knuckle attachment to them turning out a certain way. In a way, it’s oddly comforting to think that Joe can call centipedes into our house with mere words — because that means that by not speaking the words, he has the power to keep them out.
Jennifer Fulwiler Shadow beliefs and giant centipedes (October 9, 2013) jenniferfulwiler.com

Matthew 25.31-46.  We all know it.  Parable of the sheep and the goats.  In it, Jesus speaks nothing about confessing the Son of Man or believing or sinning no more or who comes through what gate.
He says we will be judged based on what we do to the ‘least of these.’  Did you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner?   If so, off to Heaven you go. If not?  Off to Hell.  And when you ask when you did or didn’t do these things, Jesus says that whether you did or didn’t do them, you did or didn’t do them to Him.
A powerful rebuttal to anyone who thinks religion is just an intellectual exercise, or mere confession of doctrine, or simply following a laundry list of ‘thou shalt nots.’
But – here’s the big part – Matthew 25 is not the sum total of Sacred Tradition.  It is not the whole Bible.  it is not the entire Gospel. There are other chapters in Scripture.  It finds itself in good company, of course. There is much, from the Old Testament to the New, insisting we care for the widow and orphan, feed the hungry, give to our brethren and wayfarers who are in want.
Yet there is more than good deeds.  Nonetheless, somehow it’s becoming about good deeds and nothing else.  Whatever you do wrong or believe doesn’t matter.  Jesus showed mercy to sinners, so fugetaboutit.  Assuming any of it is still sin, it’s forgiveness and mercy all around.  No condemnation, and barely an admonition to sin no more.
Dave Griffey When did the Catholic Left decide salvation is only about works?  (May 10, 2017) Daffey Thoughts


Catholicism is huge. I’m not referring to the fact that nearly 1.3 billion inhabitants of the earth are Catholic. That’s certainly huge. But I’m talking about the breadth and depth of the Catholic faith. There is so much to know and learn! A lifetime simply isn’t enough to plumb the depths! Catholicism is chock full of devotions, practices and rituals. Life in Christ is really simple. But with Catholicism, there are so many great ways to live out that life in Christ. Think of it like an ice cream shop.

The basics are chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. And those are great. Heck, I could eat chocolate ice cream for the
rest of my life and be perfectly content. But then I discover that there are other flavors out there. Not just a few, but hundreds. And as I sample other flavors, I discover that I like them as well. I’m not drawn to every flavor, but some I make a regular part of my ice cream diet. While an imperfect analogy, that’s kind of what the Catholic faith is like. There are so many other things that may be a blessing to you. Mass and the Sacraments are the essentials. But what if you could broaden your horizons? Would you be willing to try a few other things? Like a novena, or the Rosary or Lectio Divina or Eucharistic adoration, etc.?
Gus Lloyd, A Minute in the Church: Life in Christ: One Minute Explanations of Catholic Practice and Devotions (2017) 

Christianity’s great truths come to us through a Nazarene carpenter—a tekton, a builder—whose handiwork we have no clue to. Neither do we have the faintest inkling of his response to Herod’s monumental temple complex. The whole of it, with its plaza, porticos, columns, and stairs was a glory of limestone, marble and gold. Yet Jesus directed eyes to the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, to bread, weeds and mustard seeds.
The greatest cathedral of all, the only one capable of rising to the Paraclete, is the suffering human being next to us. Until we can worship on the crosstown bus, we have yet to greet the living God.
Maureen Mullarkey Cathedrals And The Crosstown Bus (May 8, 2014)

The truth is the truth, accessed through philosophy, science and reason, as well as divine revelation. Science and reason inform the teachings of the Church, just as the teachings of the Church further explain what science and reason points to about the human person and our shared destiny.
Lila Rose Lila Rose: Pro-life movement must feed hunger for truth by Charles C. Camosy (Jan 18, 2018) CRUX 

However, in reality, our beliefs are far less voluntary than we like to think. Most of the time, we don’t have a lot of conscious control over the information that we are exposed to. Even those of us who go to a lot of effort to be intentional about our reading still face a lot of unchosen constraints and limitations. We are influenced by the social media algorithms that control what news makes it into our feeds, by the availability of books at our local libraries, by the ways in which we have learned to find information on Google, by the recommendations of our peer groups, by the exposure to texts in formal education settings, by the media that we have been taught to trust, and by our own responses to texts.

This means the beliefs we arrive at are usually chosen from a fairly small range of real options. The circumstances of our lives dictate our philosophies to a much higher degree than most of us are comfortable acknowledging. Of course, this means that we are rarely willing to acknowledge the degree to which other people’s beliefs are the consequence of their experience rather than of conscious deliberation.
Melinda Selmys   Love Your Ideological Enemies (APRIL 21, 2018)  Catholic Authenticity


One of the glories of the Catholic faith is its pure simplicity and its simple purity, just like Our Blessed Mother. All children resemble their mother, and she is the Mother of the Church, so of course the Church resembles her in this area. All that is required of us is a purity of heart — a single-mindedness of desiring Heaven — like she had. It's why St. Augustine said, "Love [God] and do as you will."

Purity and simplicity share in common with each other the notion of clarity. Everything we need to know in the Catholic Church is very clear: purity and simplicity, bound together with clarity.

Another example is the teaching on the Blessed Sacrament — the Real Presence. This teaches that Jesus Christ is really, truly and substantially present — Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity — under the appearance of bread and wine.

It can't get much more straightforward than that. And don't make the mistake that just because something is cloaked in mystery, it isn't clear. The "how" or "why" or even "what" of something doesn't detract from its simplicity or purity. The Host, which looks and tastes like bread, is Jesus Christ, pure and simple.
- Michael Voris- Purity and Simplicity: His Mother reflects Him.  (January 29, 2020) Church Militant

“We train both body and soul when we discipline ourselves to withstand cold, heat, thirst, hunger, small portions of food, and hard beds, to avoid pleasure and endure pain with patience.”
― Kevin Vost, The Porch and the Cross: Ancient Stoic Wisdom for Modern Christian Living

Bible: Old Testament
Jonah’s stubbornness at the end of the book is precisely what addiction to adversity looks like. The idea that no one will listen to him and that they can therefore expect the punishment of God is so ingrained in him that he doesn’t know what to do when the people do in fact repent. Returning to Nineveh, he had perhaps expected persecution, maybe even death. And that presumably he could deal with. But he met something far worse – the mercy of God – and in the face of that mercy he, like so many of us, had no idea what to do.

And this is what is revealed to Jonah, his own pathetic bathos – except God’s point is that pathetic bathos or not, it has worth. Jonah’s petulant concerns have worth in all their stupidity and fragility. And if this is so, how much more worth does Nineveh have, where people don’t even know their left hand from their right hand? Upon discovery of this bodied, creaturely fragility, Jonah’s choice is also mine: between pity and hate. Like Jonah sitting and awaiting the destruction of Nineveh, I can sit waiting for God to smite me, my human fragility, the thing I despise. Or I can have pity, somehow seeing worth in the petty wants and needs of my small transient life, even as there is worth in Jonah’s bathetic and selfish love for the little plant, even as there is worth in the fragile creatures living in the heathen city of Nineveh. But like Jonah, I tend to problematically prefer apocalypse and destruction – an adversarial context – over peace and growing things.
Karl Persson Rescuing Small and Huddling Things from Adversarial Protectiveness (November 19, 2016) The Inner Room
Beer
 Beer may have been invented by the ancient Egyptians, but it was perfected by medieval monasteries, which gave us modern brewing as we know it. To this day, the world’s finest beer is made within the cloister.
Michael P Foley, Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner's Guide to a Holy Happy Hour (2015-05-04). 
https://michaelpfoley.info/

Benedict Cumberbatch Option
Still I think there is a “Benedict Cumberbatch Option”, that is you admit and then repent of your flaws and work to overcome them as in the story arc of Doctor Strange. How we do this might take us to Nursia or for that matter the Himalayas. It might also just take us to deeper prayer in our homes, serving others, or all of the above.
We do live in a toxic culture where living the faith is not easy. It is almost as if Jesus telling us that we would have to pick up our crosses was not just rhetorical.
So I am putting the “The Benedict Cumberbatch Option” out there as my hopeful character arc of acknowledging my sins and repenting of them.
Jeffrey Miller The Benedict Cumberbatch Option Curt Jester


Body of Christ
The notion of communion (koinonia in Greek) is an important concept to grasp in an effort to understand the doctrine. This term does not merely mean affiliation or association of like-minded folks. It is deeper and more foundational. Communion refers to the bonds of fellowship and interrelatedness formed by the Holy Spirit among the people of God. Because the Spirit is not bound by human laws, prejudices, borders, or any form of demarcation we establish among ourselves, the communion that is shared in the Spirit transcends space, time and even earthly life. For this reason, we can profess the Apostles' Creed with confidence, affirming St. Paul's insight in the New Testament that absolutely nothing, including death, can separate us from the love of God or the communion we share with one another in the Holy Spirit.
Daniel P. Horan (Mar 18, 2020) Communion of saints, an important tenet of our faith, can help during coronavirus times Faith Seeking Understanding
ncronline.org

The difference here is that of the Church as fortress vs. the Church as field hospital. The fortress has high walls and heavy gates, and the only ones who may enter are those admitted by the gatekeepers. The field hospital is chaotic and busy, is entered and exited from all sides, and the workers often run outside to approach and welcome the incoming wounded. The image of the field hospital is not unlike that of the spontaneous and organic work of the Holy Spirit; it is adaptable, mobile, and gets to work at a moment’s notice. It appears where it is most needed, and goes out to heal those most in need of care. The fortress, meanwhile, stands in place with its heavy stones. It remains until its stones crumble or its usefulness expires, when it becomes a monument or museum to be studied or photographed.
Mike Lewis Living in the World (February 9, 2020) Where Peter Is


I fail in love every day, no matter how much I try. Managing unconditional love for the people in my house, whom I like to think I would die for, is hard enough; my love is always imperfect and impatient, tsking and selfish. Loving everyone else? No wonder I give such scandal. And then, the blog; no matter how hard I try to observe politics with detachment, the mouth, the sarcasm, the ME still intrudes, every day, and my spiritual dismantling of myself (and, most abhorrently) of others, continues apace. God help me.

Then I consider that this is one of the beauties of Catholicism; we are an ancient church. If I am being chastised through the centuries by a spot-on homily, well I am also comforted to know that the people who lived in the second century, some of whom may have known Christ or his apostles, were struggling with these same human failings, were familiar with this human condition. Suddenly, we are all connected -reaching to each other through generations- and I relearn the lesson: we’re all in this together, and quite outside of time. It brings hope.
Elizabeth Scalia Prayer is ruining me for blogging… (November 12, 2009) The Anchoress

 The greatest riches of the Church are not found in our gorgeous legacy of art and architecture, our brilliant philosophical and scientific heritage, or even our nearly 700,000 institutions that currently serve the dignity and eternal destiny of human beings on this planet. All of these treasures, wonderful and critical as they are, are fruit borne by human beings who freely responded to and cooperated with the grace of God in their time and place. Our greatest earthly treasures are the 1.272 billion immortals and potential fruit-bearers who currently bear the surname “Catholic.”
Sherry A. Weddell, Fruitful Discipleship: Living the Mission of Jesus in the Church and the World (2017)  Our Sunday Visitor

Our inter-connectedness is obvious, even if we deny its relevance in our lives.
We, each of us each day, dispense fragments – chunks, really – of our humanity to those around us, whether for good or ill, whether separated by inches or miles.
No, perhaps we are not one in the sense that we act as if a single organism.
But we each necessarily affect the other. And we each either build up or diminish the rest.
It is by first acknowledging our own lack that we can let go and finally grow – because it is only then that we can turn to those around us to help fill in the daunting gaps, and replace the missing pieces of our perfection.
Tom Zampino Thomas Merton: We Are Not All Weak In The Same Spots (April 11, 2016) Grace Pending

Books
"Now we can travel with more books stored in our telephones than the ancient Egyptians kept in their vast library at Alexandria."
— Mike Aquilina

Reading for me is a whole kinetic mind-body experience. If the book is mine, I turn down pages, underline, scrawl notes, arguments, insults. I spill coffee and crumbs. When I finish a book I like, it's often bristling with little neon Post-Its, at which point I sit down and copy out (i.e., type) the quotes and passages that have struck me. That alone is a rudimentary form of "communication" with the author, a kind of paying homage by way of the effort required to copy out his or her words, to re-experience and more deeply absorb and imprint them upon my memory/soul.
You can't rest an iPad in a comforting little tent on your chest as you lean back and muse. You can't use an iPad as a makeshift pillow when you're lying on the grass and decide to take a nap in the sun. You can't prop up the leg of a desk, or hold down the corner of your beach towel when you run in to take a dip, or press leaves or ferns or wild violets between the pages of a Kindle. You can't surround yourself with e-books and thereby help make a cozy den redolent of civilization, the wisdom of the ages, God.
And how are we to size up a potential friend if we can't scan his or her bookshelves?
Heather King, And Then There Were Books (May 24, 2011) A Book of Sparks

I suppose I could hoard worse things than Catholic books.  I once saw a show on people’s collections and one person collected used oil can’s from the 1930’s, another had thousands of penguin stuffed animals lining every inch of her home, and another woman collected rooster salt and pepper shakers.  All entirely fine but may I say reading great Catholic books helps us not just in this life, but into eternity!  No rooster salt shaker can do that.  
Patty Knap   Book Hoarding: Reading Our Way to Holiness  (APRIL 15, 2018)    Born Again Catholic


Boycotts
If you went to your local Cinemaplex 2000 to watch Star Wars and it was also showing something blasphemous on one of the other 19 screens, why should you feel guilty?  You aren’t watching that thing.  And would you have to pledge to never go to that theatre ever again?  How many theatres would you have to boycott over time?  If you go to buy a can of beans at the store and they are selling The Da Vinci Code on the cheesy book rack, does make you guilty of shopping at your grocery store? What grocery or bookstore would ever be pure enough to meet such rigorous standards?

Stick with the Church’s teaching on remote material cooperation and don’t let the bullies ride you down.  Indeed, feel free to tell some other scrupulous person, “We don’t have to take this anymore!  The Church herself says so!” and explain to the remote material cooperation with evil.  Or if you want, just quietly go about your business.  But don’t let the bullies beat you up.  The gospel is about liberty from puny human rules and silly shibboleths.
Mark Shea Prayer Wednesday : A reader struggles with scruples about Netflix (March 11, 2020) Catholic and Loving It

My observation about boycotts has important implications about our society. There is often talk about a culture war. It is a war fought not only about cultural political issues but also over lifestyles and theological presuppositions. It seems that both sides in this war are of roughly equal strength. Thus, both sides of the war are strong enough to protect businesses supporting their causes. Since cultural conservatives and cultural progressives are of equal strength, they view each other as threats that must be stopped. This helps to explain the degree of vitriol we often pick up between cultural conservatives and cultural progressives. Those of us who perceive ourselves in neither camp have to watch them attack each other and this type of hostile attitude is not going away in the near future. Lucky us.
Neither cultural progressives nor cultural conservatives are terrorists, but both are desperate to win their social struggles and they are not only willing to avoid a Chick-Fil-A sandwich or a caffe latte but also will try to stigmatize those who do eat or drink those products. But, as I have pointed out, the energy on the other side of the struggle prevents those boycotts from succeeding.
George Yancey Let’s Boycott – Not (January 29, 2014)  Black, White and Gray by Where Christianity and Sociology Meet

Being Busy
By praying, working in service, loving others, worshiping, and striving to find God in everything we do we can avoid becoming idle to the point of opening ourselves up to temptation.
Keep busy, St. Francis says, by doing God’s will.
Be busy for the Lord. In prayer, fasting, good works, and worship.
This is a sure fire formula for minimizing temptation.
K. Albert Little St. Francis de Sales’ Advice for Lent: Prepare to be Tempted (March 5, 2019) The Cordial Catholic

Candles
The Church uses candles in many ways to represent Jesus, the Light of the World. Our scripture study group begins with lighting a blessed candle and placing it in the center of the room for all to see. It helps us to become centered and focused on the scripture passage, which is read aloud and discussed. It seems only appropriate that when the Word of God is read aloud, there should be the light of a candle present to accompany it. Catholics visit churches to light a candle and offer a prayer of petition for a sick friend or relative or to receive financial blessings, employment, or some other favor. We light the Paschal candle at Easter, Advent candles, and the all-important red tabernacle lamp, which is present indicating that Christ is truly present within the church.
Tina Mayeux Being Salt and Light for the Kingdom (February 4, 2020) The Way of the Wildflowers

Christmas
Every creature has gifts that science is gradually discovering, such as the almost mathematically improbable migratory habits of penguins and the telescopic vision of hawks. These are prodigies of God’s extravagant love. The Christ Child arranged to be born in a makeshift menagerie rather than in a hotel where pets might not have been allowed. This Child “…is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature ... And he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15, 17). Animals at least could provide some body warmth, which in that fragile first moment of the Child’s exposed human nature was more important than any rhetoric, and more practical than the lofty song of angels.
It may not be too fanciful to think that, as a donkey can live up to forty years, God’s providence might have arranged for a donkey in that stable to be the one that the Child grown into manhood rode into Jerusalem. At least it was some donkey, that with its hellish bray and flapping ears looked like the “devil’s walking parody” as Chesterton said.
Fr. George Rutler Lowly Animals Were Among the First to Gaze Upon the Face of God (Jan. 3, 2019)  ncregister.com

The gratuitous nature of goodness is the message of Santa Claus – that we are here through no merit of our own and live lives filled with breathtaking beauty and undeserved blessings. These things are true, even if there are no such things as flying reindeer to deliver them by sleigh, or a workshop full of elves somewhere above the arctic circle busily crafting them for our enjoyment. The truth is, there are better things even than these – nine choirs of flying angels bearing God’s gifts, and an eternal kingdom full of saints drawn from the lowliest places of the earth, praying for our salvation somewhere above the heavens.
Steve Skojec The Ethics of Jolly Old Elfland (November 30, 2018)

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and t(e lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

The Nativity scene is displayed during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Dec. 5. (CNS/Paul Haring)
Christmas draws near. The Advent candles, three purple and one rose-colored, adorn the altar. The "Gloria" has not been sung for three weeks now. The readings from Isaiah point us, as they pointed Israel, to the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of his kingdom. Along the Main Street in my town, most of the houses have candles in the windows, beckoning to the stranger that there is welcome from the bleak midwinter inside.

Outside the orbit of the church, a different Christmas has already arrived. The stores are crowded, on the weekends virtually impassable. FedEx and UPS trucks are omnipresent, delivering what was ordered on Cyber Monday. I noticed the first Christmas items at the grocery store the weekend after Halloween. The wreaths already have red ribbons, not purple. The lights of Christmas trees shine through the windows of many homes and, on the lawns, all manner of things appear, from inflatable Santas to wooden nutcrackers. Some houses are bedecked with garish lights.

It takes a conscious effort to preserve Advent and the sense of expectation that is proper to the season. It requires spiritual discipline to avoid the consumerism that has truly taken the Christ out of Christmas and replaced him with Mammon. In wrapping paper.
Michael Sean Winters Away in a manger, no room at the shopping mall (Dec 16, 2019) Distinctly Catholic: ncronline.org

Christmas carols were given to us by God to preserve the glorious reality of the Incarnation and Christology in general – through whatever horrors and distortions the modern world has to throw at the Faith-
Hilary White Silent night (Dec 24, 2018) whatisupwiththesynod.com

Caesar Augustus decreed that all should go to the town of their births to be registered for a census! ‘Are you kidding me, are you serious? I’m just about to give birth here. Joseph made this beautiful crib and everything is all ready.

‘And where are we going to find a hotel at this late date?’ And when they didn’t, they had the cave – and were grateful for it.
In the midst of all that suffering there were what we might today call ‘random acts of kindness’ from the shepherds and kings.
But their challenges were only beginning. Remember, they had to abandon their home to flee to Egypt. So in all likelihood a beautiful cradle that the carpenter painstakingly made for his Son would have never been used by the Child.

Even in Egypt, the Holy Family would have heard of the suffering ‘they’ had caused with Herod’s decree of killing all the children under two in the hunt to kill baby Jesus.

How then did Joseph and Mary in the midst of all these sufferings experience joy?

It is simple faith. They believed, with a faith with no doubt whatsoever, that God loved them. They knew the truth that God loved them more than any other ever could. A constant, faithful, ardent and true love which never fails and is more present in hardship than any other time.  They relied on this love, they lived in this love, they lived for this love.
John-Henry Westen editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com Christmas is actually about losing friends and family  (Dec 24, 2013)

Christology
Christ, even in our post-Christian world of positive science, space travel, and the internet, is a symbol inextricably linked to divinity.
Ryan Adams Why Dan Brown Desperately Needs Jesus to Have Sex (May 30, 2013) Suma

I sometimes wonder how all creation wasn’t annihilated by the Incarnation. I find it extraordinary and edifying that God, Being Itself, Omnipotent and Omniscient, Holiness Untouchable, chose to enter this world in a way that did not overwhelm us…that actually raised us, nothing that we are, to Divinity. As T.S. Eliot puts it, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.” Our continued existence after the Incarnation is a marvel of God’s infinite mercy and condescension as well as His love for us. The point is not even that we are sinful so much as that, in comparison with Infinite Being, we are cosmically insignificant. Yet God chooses to turn His gaze upon us, to love us, even to become one of us. We don’t reckon with this merciful condescension enough. The most fitting response is a profound sense of gratitude.
Rick Yoder Grace, Gratitude, and the Incarnation (December 30, 2019) amishcatholic.com

Jesus told the disciples to cast their nets, the disciples did so and hauled up a huge amount of fish. The disciples brought in their catch, but Jesus apparently did not use any of the disciples’ fish for the breakfast he was preparing. When they got to shore, Jesus already had fish cooking on a charcoal fire, along with a side of bread (vv. 8-9).

Why did Jesus tell the disciples to toss down their nets again if he already had fish? There is likely a lot of deep spiritual meaning to that request that I can’t get into here, the surface being that the catch acted as a sign to the disciples of his identity. For the purpose of this post, what interests me is that Christ already had fish to feed the disciples.

So far as I can tell, this seems to be the only place in the Gospels where Christ evidently provides food ex nihilo (Latin, “out of nothing”). The wine at Cana was transformed from water (John 2:7-9); the loaves and fish that prefigured the Eucharist were multiplied from those few donated by the crowd (John 6:5-11); the makings of the Last Supper, from which would come the Eucharist, were prepared by the disciples (Luke 22:7-8). Even the devil did not ask Jesus to provide himself food ex nihilo, only to change stones into bread (Matt. 4:2-4). Here though, after the Resurrection, Jesus does not feed the disciples with fish they have provided; he gives them fish that seems to have no earthly origin. It is one more sign of his divinity. In the centuries to come, the fish would become both a symbol of Christ and a code by which persecuted Christians knew they were among friends.
Michelle Arnold Breakfast with the Lord (3/1/2013) Catholic Answers

My fear is the domesticated Christ, which my generation got after the Council, and which the modern world is happy with. You know, Christ who is defanged, who is a bland spiritual teacher… a teacher of “timeless truths.” That [last part] is fine and true, but it’s domesticated. The Gospels rather present this ferocious figure, meaning “The New Lord.” He’s Jesus Kyrios, “Jesus the Lord,” which means that He has supplanted all the other Lords. His cross and resurrection is something that demands a complete conversion on our part. If He’s the King, then my entire life has to change. I wanted to recover that edgy, challenging, and deeply Biblical Jesus.
Father Robert Barron In Pursuit of the Imago Dei: An Interview With Fr. Barron Mark Nowakowski  (December 2, 2014) OnePeterFive


Today is traditionally called “Spy Wednesday” because this is the day that Judas Iscariot betrayed our Lord to the Sanhedrin. Judas became a spy for the Enemy. He watched Jesus and the Disciples and waited for the moment to betray them all, and he betrayed the Christ with a kiss.

In Matthew 26, Judas is confronted about his imminent betrayal of the Master. His reply is classic for those exposed of their crimes and sins:  “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?”

The Gospel narrative asks all of us hard questions. We see ourselves as far removed from Judas Iscariot, but if we are honest, are we not more like him than we would care to admit? Do we not betray our Lord in so many little ways? Is our faith strong enough? Do we see him as the Christ, the Son of God, or do we impose our own view upon him, trying to make him into our own image and desires? Do we test him rather than trust him?

In the end are we also spies for the darkness?
Matthew Bunson Spy Wednesday: Are We Spies for the Darkness?  (Apr. 17, 2019)  ncregister.com

Do you think your life tedious, fatiguing, boring, desperate, uneventful, humdrum, and monotonous? Your in good company… the company of the One who spent thirty years of hidden life at Nazareth.
Cardinal Timothy M.Dolan, Doers of the Word: Putting Your Faith Into Practice (September 2, 2009)

Do we see Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, or do we impose our own view upon him, trying to make him into our own image and desires?

Get behind me, Satan,” Jesus says on Peter’s refusal to understand.
Mark relates several stories where Jesus is apparently successful, but the success is only apparent. He performs miracles—casts out a demon, cures Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever, cures several other people, casts out several other demons. He ends up with crowds of people following him. It sounds like the opposite of the story in Luke where Jesus is rejected by his hometown.  But here too Jesus has a problem. You might call it the Messiah problem.
According to Mark nobody understood Jesus during his lifetime, not even his closest followers. Jesus’ miracles were signs of the coming of God’s Kingdom to everyone. People took them as proof that one person in their midst had a lot of power. Such a one would be able to win freedom from Rome. He would be the powerful Messiah, who would restore the glories of Israel’s past.
Jack Hartjes The Misunderstood Messiah: Jesus’ Friends Don’t Get It (April 10, 2019) Lost in a One-Acre Wood

Our Lord went into the air and went to Heaven, and we’ve been waiting for His return ever since. A door into another dimension did not open for Him on the ground. A spacecraft did not descend from the sky. He, Himself, went up into the air and into the clouds. So where shall we conclude is the home of Jesus Christ?
Let us consider the different clouds. The lowest clouds are at 6,500 feet. Did our Lord enter the doorway to Heaven through a puffy cumulus cloud? Was He welcomed into Paradise by puncturing a dreary gray sky filled with fog-like stratus clouds? Or did He disappear into a forest of stratocumulus clouds? Surely the door to Heaven is not in any of these clouds, for they are too low to the ground, and we would’ve found the gateway to Heaven by now. Perhaps the entrance to Heaven is higher. Did Christ go as high as ten thousand feet and disappear into a “sheep back” altocumulus cloud? Surely, Heaven’s door doesn’t reside in a nimbostratus rain cloud, does it? Where would be the dignity in that? Did Jesus go as high as twenty-thousand feet and disappear into an icy cirrus cloud?

Or maybe Jesus Christ went cosmic instead. Did He continue beyond the orbit of the Moon? Did He suffer from Van Allen Belt radiation? What were the effects of gamma and galactic radiation on His cellular structure? Did the absence of gravity begin to warp the shape of His eyeballs, confuse His vestibular system, and eat away at His bone density?
Laramie Hirsch The Theatrics of Christ’s Ascension ( May 19, 2018)


Jesus was a little baby once. Before Christmas, He was a fetus in Mary's womb–literally abiding in her flesh, having taken his DNA structure from her, and until his birth, taking in nourishment from her blood, his tiny heart beating beneath her Immaculate heart. Those were His real lungs sucking in air for the first time in that manger on the day He was born.
Jesus has a body right now, just like you do. If you were in heaven with Him, you could pinch Him or even tickle Him. You could touch your finger to the perspiration on His brow.

Or, if you wish, you can eat his flesh at any Catholic Mass (Jesus used the Aramaic word for "chew" in John 6). Do you see it yet? The beauty of it. The mystery of it? Because you are body and soul, and because Jesus had a body, you can take Him into your body. You can consume Jesus! This is real. This is intimate. This is your flesh and His flesh. This is union. The next time you go to Mass,remind yourself of this reality. That you are not merely a "mind," and because you exist in a body, you can have union with Christ–body, blood, soul, and divinity, as we Catholics say and say so well.
It's the kind of union you can chew. The and between "me and Jesus" becomes so close when we receive Holy Communion that our digestive systems can't even tell the difference between where He begins and we end

On her lap, He weighed no more than a laptop. Jesus was flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone–and smile of her smile, as she tickled Him and dried Him and held Him up to her breast to feed him. So eventually He could feed us. .
-Bud Macfarlane Understand the "And" CatholiCity

At the risk of greatly oversimplifying the history of the Christological controversies, we might say that people tended to err theologically in detecting and resolving contradictions (such as ‘Jesus is fully human’ and ‘Jesus is fully divine’) where in fact there was no such contradiction.  It is very understandable how someone might see a contradiction here.  The affirmation that Jesus is fully human seems to imply that he could not be fully divine.  For those of us with centuries of doctrinal development and theological reflection at our fingertips the answer (hypostatic union, communicatio idiomatum, etc., etc.) seems obvious enough.  This is an illusion fostered by our vantage point several centuries on.  We need to step out of our privileged place in ecclesiastical history, fire up our imaginations, and place ourselves in the awful mess of the theological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries.
Matthew Miller A plea for a measure of incoherence (April 24, 2016) Matthew Miller

In ancient Jewish Scripture, “I am” was the name of God—the God who had appeared to Moses in the burning bush on Mount Sinai (see Exodus 3:14). In a first-century Jewish context, for Jesus to take the name “I am” as his own is tantamount to claiming to be God. Should there be any doubt about this, notice that some of the people in Jesus’s Jewish audience get the point. That’s why they respond by accusing him of “blasphemy” for making himself “God” (Greek theos). They even take up stones to kill him.
Brant Pitre, The Case for Jesus  (2016)

At the heart of the Gospel lies the “great mystery” of the marriage of divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. In the fullness of time, the two—God and Man—became one in the flesh of the God-Man. Our belief in the Incarnation of God’s Son “is the distinctive sign of Christian faith” (CCC 463). It’s a mystery so resplendent and grand, so captivating and magnificent, it never ceases to ravish the hearts of those who glimpse its glory. But there’s more …
Christopher West, At the Heart of the Gospel (2012)  The Crown Publishing Group

In a Catholic Church, you do not only praise Christ with your lips, you eat him with your mouth in an act of intimacy shocking alike to the Muslims as to the Gnostic, who regard all matter as evil, and God too good to be incarnate. The shock of incarnation is still alive here, and still offending people.
John C Wright A Universal Apology Point Fifteen: ON SACRAMENT (July 20, 2013) scifiwright.com


CATHOLICS

I will never again think of the holy sites here without thinking of the living, breathing fellow Christians who struggle to make ends meet because they live in a place where they make up two percent of the population. If I told you that their family was comprised of a lawyer, a head accountant, a cosmetologist a manicurist, and a childcare provider, you would think that they lived in a three-story mansion in a place like Frontenac, Missouri, and drove a BMW and Mercedes Benz.
But that is just not so. Here, a Catholic head accountant makes about nine thousand dollars. A Catholic lawyer makes somewhat more, but not a lot. And the Catholic women work hard and are paid far less than their spouses.
Denise Bossert The House of Bread has taken on new meaning for me tonight. (November 9, 2014) Denise Bossert

 “Catholics live in an enchanted world, a world of statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures…hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility which inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation.”
Andrew Greeley’’

"The Church is a collection of poor sinners. The Catholic Church is a collection of 1.1 billion very poor sinners. That’s a lot of original sins, and it is no wonder we have trouble."
— Benedict J. Groeschel (The Journey of Faith: How to Deepen Your Faith in God, Christ, and the Church)

You Call Yourself a Catholic?
Do I call myself a Catholic? Yes. A proud, joyful, grateful and vociferous one. Jesus invited me, and I’m staying.

I’ve been trying so hard to explain to friends and other curious onlookers, sanely, a side of Catholicism that scares some people. I used to call it the “voodoo” side. The world of “reminders,” of statues, incense, candles and holy water.
It’s the side that turns to St. Anthony or St. Dismas when something is lost. Or to St. Expedite for financial assistance, or says Mother, or now Saint Teresa’s “express novena” nine times in a row when all seems lost.
Cynthia Dagnal-Myron Catholicism: The Enchanted Kingdom (September 30, 2016) Confessions

Although Catholic priests, religious brothers and sisters, and laity are broken, imperfect, and corrupt, Jesus still chooses to dwell with us. In fact, two thousand years ago, he chose twelve very broken, imperfect, and corrupt men to be his apostles. Since Jesus is fully human and fully divine, he knew all the ways his apostles were going to show their brokenness. He knew all of their sins, both those they had committed before he called them and all those they were going to commit in the future. But guess what? He still chose them.”
Fr. Josh Johnson Broken and Blessed: An Invitation to My Generation (2018) Ascension Press 

"Old women are closer to God than we'll ever be. They get to that age and they don't need the operator anymore. They've got the direct line."
Fr. Ted, Fr. Ted the TV Series

Sometimes people say that because God became man, and not some other animal like a dog or a cat, that God cares only for the salvation of humanity.
There are many things which can be said about this. First and foremost, this argument presumes that there are no other incarnations, that God only became man. Theologically, it is possible to consider whether or not God could and would have incarnated himself by assuming other natures.
Nonetheless, it is not necessary for God to become something other than man for him to incorporate the whole cosmos in him. By becoming human, God bridges the gap between the Creator with creation, and so through that incarnation, all of creation is capable of sharing in the kingdom of God. 
Henry Karlson Jesus and the Beasts (November 18, 2019) A Little Bit of Nothing

“The great Catholics of that time were not bishops but missionaries like the man known as the “gaucho priest,” Father José Gabriel Brochero (1840–1914), whom Francis, shortly after his election, placed on the road to sainthood. Father Brochero rode a mule, wore a poncho, smoked cheroots, drank mate tea from a gourd, and went about building churches, chapels, and schools, opening up paths and passages in the sierras of Córdoba, tending to the poorest in a model life of heroic self-abnegation.”
― Austen Ivereigh, The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope

My boys carried their banner of the Child in the March for Life. When they returned home, they hung it on our living room wall in a spot that competes with the computer screen. It’s a breathtaking painting. I researched the artist but could only find “Italian / Unknown.” And now this “Italian / Unknown” is among a handful of sojourners I hope to meet in heaven. Will he be skinny and slumped with the strong smell of oil paint on his skin? Will he tell me his model was his grandson, who had the face of an angel?
Sarah Johnson Thy Kingdom Come: Reflecting on What Really Matters (February 2, 2017) OnePeterFive

Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego, control, power, money, pleasure, and security. Then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else. We often gave them a bogus version of the Gospel, some fast-food religion, without any deep transformation of the self; and the result has been the spiritual disaster of “Christian” countries that tend to be as consumer-oriented, proud, warlike, racist, class conscious, and addictive as everybody else—and often more so, I am afraid. People were Catholic, for example, because they were Italian, Spanish, or Irish, not because they “did the steps” or had any “vital spiritual experience” that changed their lives.
Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water : Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (2011) Franciscan Media

Why are we crazy Catholics have all these smells and bells and beads and holy water and holy dirt? Why do we have all these tangible expressions of faith? Because if haven’t noticed were not angelic beings. You know were not just pure spirit. Were spirit and flesh and blood. Were soul and body. And we have a God who meets us where were at. He did that by becoming flesh 2000 years ago. He did that when he encountered a man who was born blind and he spit in the dirt and made mud with the saliva and smeared it on his eyes to heal him. He did that by leaving us a visible church. By leaving us sacraments so we could have these tangible encounters with him today. You see God doesn’t need any of that stuff. We do but
God meets us where were at. Because he made us this way. And because he loves us.
Chris Stefanick and Raymond L. Burke  Absolute Relativism (2011)

Maybe “Italian / Unknown” will share a story about how he painted his King because his earthly leaders had left him dismayed. This is what I think about when I stand there, staring up at those knowing brown eyes and that soft, sweet brow. Sometimes I pass the painting in a rush, without giving it a second thought. But sometimes that reaching hand, that dimpled chin slow me down, leading me to pray. And when I do, I often use the ancient words I’m sure “Italian / Unknown” uttered between brushstrokes: Thy Kingdom Come.

If people learn there are 12 apostles, 10 commandments and 7 sacraments, but don't know how to engage these and other issues, they will have a difficult time withstanding the allurements, pressures, and mindset of the secular world in which they live and breathe every day.
Edward P. Sri All Catholics Deserve to Know Their Story Catholic Education Resource Center

You’re the guy who fell in love the first time you went to Mass in the Extraordinary Form. Or the gal sneaking a peek at your Breviary app during your work meeting. Maybe you’re the new parent making sure your kids set up the corn, butter, and cake for St. Brigid and her cow on the eve of her relatively unknown feast day. You, my friend, are a Catholic hipster.
Tommy Tighe, The Catholic Hipster Handbook (2017) Ave Maria Press

I can’t say whether James Joyce had, as some people claim, the Catholic Church in mind when he spun the phrase, “Here Comes Everybody,’’ in Finnegan’s Wake. You’d have to ask Joe Henry what he meant when he used it in a song on his luminous CD, Civilians. I know this – "Here Comes Everybody" gets to the heart of last weekend’s conference at Notre Dame: “Trying to Say ‘God’: Re-enchanting the Catholic Literary Imagination.” Latino bishops and queer poets, Jesuit astronomers and everyday mystics, recovering alcoholics and college deans, all gathered in auditoriums, classrooms, and hallways, their conversations pulsing with creativity and generosity. Oh, yes – and love, too - the kind that changes lives. What better time and place to out yourself as a wretched Papist in a world that insists you keep such things to yourself.
Some personal highlights:  Talking to Brother Guy Conosolmago, Director of the Vatican Observatory, about “big-idea” science fiction and the unaccountable explanatory power of mathematics in a mysterious universe.
Brian Volck  Here Comes Everybody Tuesday, (June 27th, 2017)

CATHOLICISM
Dougal: " Ted, I've heard about those cults. Everyone dressing in black and saying our Lord's going to come back and judge us all."
Ted: "No... no Dougal, that's us. That's Catholicism you're talking about there."
Fr. Ted the TV Series

So far as a man may be proud of a religion rooted in humility, I am very proud of my religion; I am especially proud of those parts of it that are most commonly called superstition. I am proud of being fettered by antiquated dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds (as my journalistic friends repeat with so much pertinacity), for I know very well that it is the heretical creeds that are dead, and that it is only the reasonable dogma that lives long enough to be called antiquated.
Francis J. Beckwith, (2009) Return to Rome 

Let’s face it. Catholicism is weird. This is true for ignorant outsiders and for dissenting insiders. Like the Hebrews of old, Catholics are a peculiar people, a people set apart (Deuteronomy 14:2; Psalm 4:3; 1 Peter 2:9).That a man who grew up in Nazareth is the God of the universe and that He founded a Church (after suffering torture and death and rising from the dead) and gave her sacraments and the gift of infallibility – is by definition, weird.

See, once you accept the weird label, things get easier and become clearer.

Transubstantiation in which bread becomes the very body of God. Or the incorruptible saints whose bodies do not decompose. Or the miracle of Lanciano in which, during the eight century AD, the Host turned into myocardial (heart) tissue of an adult male with AB blood type – a phenomenon can be see to this day.

Weird, no?

Here’s my question: are these supernatural realities any weirder than some of the natural ones discovered by modern physics? The natural world around us features plenty of weirdness. What would be much stranger is if the teachings of the Church God founded were less weird than the world He made.-Patrick Coffin, Catholicism is Weird (May 24, 2017) National Catholic Register

What makes the teachings of the Catholic Church so suitable to good living are its abiding principles: natural law, natural rights, human dignity, subsidiarity, as well as its overarching focus on the other. These are the elements that make Catholicism special. The golden rule teaches that we should treat others the way we want others to treat us. This is true, but it is a platitude. Catholicism provides the meat on the bones it offers a more exacting guide to the attainment of the good society.
Bill Donohue Catholic League    News and defending the Catholic Church.

“To be Catholic . . . is to live one’s whole life ‘in’ the gospel”, “to rest one’s case in the pierced hands of Jesus Christ the Savior”; “to think of oneself as having been adopted into ‘the whole family in heaven and earth’ as St. Paul teaches”, “to be profoundly conscious of one’s place in an immensely ancient tradition . . . that stretches back to the beginning”. It is to have been set free by Christ for “the Dance” called Charity—with its healing rules of renunciation, self-mastery, and virtue, and its fruits of freedom and joy, glimpsed in the Beatitudes. “The image of Christ. That is a very taxing assignment”, our configuration to Christ. “To be Catholic is to confront all of this in the presence of the Crucifix.”
― Thomas Howard, On Being Catholic

No other worldview offers so exalted and foundational an understanding of love. No other religion places love so absolutely and utterly at the center of everything.

This is the most sublime and beautiful thought I have ever had: God is love, self-giving, community, and has created us for love. Our vocation is love. Love God with your whole being and love your neighbor as yourself. Love one another. Love never fails. The greatest is love. Love, and do as you will.
-Steven D. Greydanus The most sublime and beautiful thought I have ever had* Facebook

For Catholics it is always a challenge to keep the two models of the Church in proper perspective. The mystical, Marian model, without the practical guidance of the teaching hierarchy, can veer off into emotionalism and amorphous sentimentality. The Petrine model, stripped of the Marian warmth, can become cold and calculating.
The history of the Catholic Church is a history marked by success and failure, by sanctity and by sin, by splendor and by corruption. This of course is the history of the visible Church, the hierarchical model; through it all, the Marian Church remains pure and loyal. In good times and bad the sacraments are administered, the Eucharist is celebrated; Christ is with his Church, offering salvation. The invisible work of the Church is always the first priority.
Phil Lawler "The Smoke of Satan" from the Introduction Catholic Education Resource Center 


THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY  THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS A LOT LIKE NOAH’S ARK. Immense and capacious, it is also ungainly and lumbering, not built for speed but for endurance. It causes everyone to stop and stare. Some scoff, thinking it bizarre or comical. Others find themselves drawn to it, longing to get on board. It is freighted with an incredibly diverse array of unruly passengers, some of whom do not get along well with one another. It is also very

 Try to imagine getting a good night’s sleep on the Ark! Try to imagine what the Ark smelled like inside by the time the Flood waters receded. And yet, if you could go back in time to that fateful day, just as the floodgates opened and the rain really started to come down hard—knowing what you know now about what happened next—you surely would waste no time scrambling aboard, regardless of the noise, stench, messiness, and commotion. This is the Catholic Church I’d like to tell you about.
Patrick Madrid, Why Be Catholic?: Ten Answers to a Very Important Question (2014) 

 “So if anyone asks you to define Ignatian spirituality in a few words, you could say that it is: Finding God in all things Becoming a contemplative in action Looking at the world in an incarnational way Seeking freedom and detachment”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (2010)

Sometimes Catholicism reminds me of those Matryoshka dolls.
There’s layer upon layer of meaning behind every rule, rite and sacrament. And for those newly baptized who are not cradle Catholics, getting past that top layer can be daunting.
I chose Catholicism in part because it was so spiritually and intellectually challenging. I welcomed the rigor and the rituals. But sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed trying to listen to that “still, small voice” while grappling with the systematic spirituality of St. Ignatius and St. Teresa’s interior “castle.”
Cynthia Dagnal-Myron High Octane Brain: Father Mike Schmitz Breaks It Down For You ( September 23, 2016) Confessions

There have been some extremely beautiful and powerful movements in the Church since Vatican II.  These lay movements are analogous to collateral circulation.  Collateral circulation is when blood finds new routes through smaller arteries to perfuse the tissue with oxygen – despite the fact that there are still occluded larger arteries, originally intended for the bulk of the work.  The smaller arteries in my analogy could be things like FOCUS, the Augustine Institute, Theology on Tap, and even the charismatic movement (outside the Mass), where I have seen the hand of God work miracles.
 Father David Nix Back to the Four Marks: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic after Vatican II  (July 6, 2016)

What is revealed in Jesus — what is revealed at his Baptism and confessed every Sunday in the Creed — is that God is Triune, which is to say he is community, relationship, love, self-giving. In a word, God is love.
From this view of God flows an interpretation of the meaning and purpose of human life, of what it means to be human, that is unlike any other view of humanity.

Christianity told me that I had to be responsible for my actions, that I had to love in the face of hate and forgive in the face of accusation. No earthly evil could be justified, though all could be forgiven.

This was a religion that could illuminate a seemingly senseless world, a religion for the confused, the lost, and the melancholic. This was a religion for the sinner. Christianity demands holy foolishness of us.
 Chase Padusniak How I Came to be Christian (Full Essay) (July 23, 2019) Jappers and Janglers

The Catholic Gospel – shows how the Cross is a scalpel in the hands of God the Father who cuts into the soul and removes the sin and implants the very righteousness and life of Christ his Son. So justification (being saved) in the Catholic Gospel is not simply God the judge acquitting guilty criminals because Christ paid their penalty; rather, its God the Father making certain fatherly judgments about some runaway sons and daughters of His, about us prodigals, whereby through Christ, we’re brought back home in a covenant relationship. Justification is then God’s declaration, ‘You are, once again my beloved children and I am planting my Holy Spirit within you.
Jessie Romaro  G - O - S - P - E - L  (April 24, 2018) jesseromero.com

Catholic Culture
Cultural Catholicism tends to refer to a subset of people that hold tenuous ties to Catholicism, but don’t attend church or agree with doctrine. I would go further and say those that attend Church and don’t actually believe the teachings also can fall into this category. To put it another way, they are nonbelievers that merely embrace Catholicism in the most superficial way. They might go to mass on Easter, Christmas if at all. Some fast on Lenten Fridays, but more out of habit than actual understanding (or maybe they just love the deals on Fish). I point to this group of people not to shame them or ostracize them, but to point out there is a stranger problem that permeates this term. If Catholicism is merely just the idea that one maintains basic precepts at best, or just loves the imagery of the faith, then we are all at fault here.

The faith should extend beyond prayer before meals, and an hour on Sundays. Beyond the philosophers and theologians, there must be a larger more inclusive understanding of Catholicism that extends beyond just liking prominent well-known Catholic authors. In short, the world must be viewed through a Catholic lens and themes and images must be sought, rescued, and rehabilitated. This doesn’t just mean artists, we are called to live out our faith and do more than just go to mass on Sundays.
Sergio Bermudez Catholic Culture is more important now than ever (March 12, 2016) Dialogue of the Dogs

A hothouse is an environment meant to shelter plants from the outside ecosystem for their entire lives. A plant in a hothouse can't survive outside the artificial environment. A hothouse isolates and transforms the natural into the artificial. It is also unnecessary, something for the wealthy or the eccentric. That is not what a

Catholic culture is meant to look like.

A greenhouse, on the other hand, is a necessary part of any agricultural environment. It's for baby plants, for young plants, for damaged plants to grow and be nurtured and recover so that they can survive in the outside world. I believe that's what Catholic culture is meant to be, and what it does best. That's why Catholics have built schools and hospitals and retreat centers and rehab centers. That's why they operate nurseries, orphanages, and old-age homes. That's why current Catholic leaders like Pope Francis continually stress the importance of the Catholic family.

That's what Catholic fiction can do. It can support and nurture the imagination of young and growing Catholics. It can help older Catholics reorient themselves and find rest in leisure. And it can do this while being entertaining and FUN.
Regina Doman Why Catholic Fiction? (Feb 21st  2014)

Within a lifetime of St. Peter’s death, Justin Martyr was teaching Christianity as a philosophy in Rome, alongside other masters of philosophical schools; and the thought of writers such as Tertullian and Origen demonstrates the readiness of Christians to pursue the intellectual implications of their belief.
Henry Sire -Phoenix from the Ashes: The Making, Unmaking, and Restoration of Catholic Tradition (2015)

Catholic Education
At the heart of Catholic education,   God has created us to do some good in the world, and that education is a means to discovering what it is. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who in the Spiritual Exercises counseled that we use our imagination to discern what that good might be. The history of Jesuit education shows particular emphasis on the arts, in large part because of the way that art can provoke in us new ways of imagining ourselves and the world. The third point to highlight is the fact that education is a form of distributive justice, enabling Rusty to more fully participate in and contribute to the common good.
Tim Muldoon Become who you are (April 7, 2015) The Capstone


Catholic Imagination
Humans love heroes. They excite. They inspire.

The righteous assurance of the Right and Left has long kept me from embracing either side. I’ve had enough heroes fall. I’ve seen enough ends-justify-the-means thinking from people who claim to value character.

That’s one reason I enjoy comic books more than politics. Superman can save the day because he has all the powers; Barack Obama had executive orders and the veto.

When the disciples saw their hero being led to his death, they cowered in fear. But then their hero returned and said it isn’t about heroes, it’s about fishermen and tentmakers, sinners and tax collectors, widows, orphans, and immigrants.
More mysteriously still, it’s about “principalities” and “powers”, spiritual forces invisible except by their effects. Saruman is a problem, yes, but he’s only an instrument of Sauron.
Brad Fruhauff Humans Love Heroes (October 10, 2018) Good Letters

In 2009, Pope Benedict affirmed that Catholicism comes without an escape clause: Once a person is baptized or received into the Church, there is no getting out.

Baptism imparts sacramental graces and has a permanent impact on the soul. Then, if the person receives instruction in the Faith, and is raised in a Catholic context, that will have a further effect, regardless of how observant, or not, he or she is later in life.

The Catholic sacramental worldview informs everything we do. We don’t just work in words; we also work in symbol and metaphor. For us, things like water, smoke, candles, bells, chant, icons, images of saints, crucifixes — even ordinary objects, like a cup or keys, or nature itself — hold deep spiritual meaning and resonance.
The Catholic imagination has a whole language of images to draw upon. Our literature, art and movies don’t need to be sermons. We can make movies about Christ that depict Him and His followers, or we can make movies about Christ that never mention Him at all.
As in “The Lord of the Rings,” by Catholic writer J.R.R. Tolkien, we can read the symbolism behind the story, interpreting it back into Catholicism, like translating from one language to another.
Kate O'Hare Alfred Hitchcock: Cradle Catholic, Catholic Revert or Just Simply Catholic? (August 13, 2016) Kate O'Hare's Pax Culturati

The imagination is arguably the most powerful and important aspect of our minds. All the great art comes from the imagination. All great inventions begin with the imagination.  All great literatures is bred in the imagination. All prayer, religion, spirituality and inspiration springs from the imagination.
The imagination is our portal to eternity. It is the creatively human aspect of our mind which is most like God the Creator because God’s imagination is always working, always creating, always making unexpected connections and bringing about unexpected encounters.
This is also what it means to have an abundant and faith filled spirituality. The imagination should be alive and active in our prayer lives. The imagination is a great gift which opens us to understand more fully the creatively abundant mind of God.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker Mont St Michel, Angels and the Imagination (September 16th, 2019) dwightlongenecker.com

The mind-boggling reality that we know as the Incarnation—God becoming man—is an explicit affirmation of the created world, and thanks to this we Catholics look at the created world as something good. And we can enjoy the things of this world, everything from booze to bingo, in their proper context. We can even enjoy PokémonGo.

Because of this affirmation of the created world, as Catholics we can also celebrate human ingenuity. The fact that we can use our minds to do the extraordinary—putting a man on the moon—or simply the clever….like the creation of massive worldwide Internet games like PokémonGo, is a good and impressive thing. It is how we use such things that determines whether they are moral or immoral…or, at a minimum, a good use of our time or not.

So, in short, Catholics can absolutely enjoy what amounts to one of the more amazing and clever entertainments in the past few decades–PokémonGo. And, we should marvel at the cleverness of the game’s creators. Their tech platform has generated more activity and daily users than Facebook and Twitter—in just a few weeks time! Truly amazing. I’m simply saying that as parents and educators, we would serve ourselves—and those in our care well by reflecting on the “why” and “how” of such phenomena: Why do things like this happen and how will it affect our lives.
But I’ve got to run now. I just heard there’s a Pikachu near the movie theatre…and my kids are going to want to catch him.
MATTHEW PINTO PokémonGo and the Sublime Gifts of Being Catholic (July 29, 2016)

So, God has “written” two poems: the physical world and the Church. 
Go out at night and look at the sky –  ponder the masterpiece of God’s creation. Look at the symmetry and beauty of a flower, the power and creatures of the oceans, the majesty of mountains and thunderstorms. Then look at the Church around the world as she redeems sinners. Think of the billions of people that have accepted her embrace and been born into a heavenly family, a culture of love and blessings. Two marvelous, breath-taking creations.
Any you? You are part of God’s two creations, you are written into his poetry and painted on his canvas.  He treasures you.  You are not a random mass of molecules that happened to appear on lonely planet earth spinning meaninglessly around the sun. No, you are part of God’s glorious poetry that angels admire and God cherishes. Be proud, be thankful!  Live worthy of your place in God’s heart.
 Steve Ray Crap, Castration & Two Creations (May 28, 2010) catholicconvert.com

Our heritage is rich with stories, tales, and legends of unverifiable historical events. Before monasteries began developing books, our salvation history was passed down by word of mouth, much as we do today in our own families, as we talk and share stories. As Catholics, we too share many stories. We tell stories about our saints, about the symbolism of the Christmas Star or the legend of the cross in the blossom of a dogwood. There are a lot of stories about nature and religion, as varied as the countries and cultures that gave rise to them. Many of the analogies we use come from nature. Jesus too followed this narrative style as he spoke in parables to express in more concrete ways how a hidden God works visibly in our lives. The words of our faith, written or spoken, are as alive as nature.
Margaret Rose Realy  A Catholic Gardener’s Spiritual Almanac: Cultivating Your Faith Throughout the Year (2015) Ave Maria Press

To a child, magic is not at all an outlandish thing. They live every day in a world of endless possibilities. Around any corner, there might be a fire-breathing dragon; under every bed or in the dark corners of any closet, a horrible lurking monster. The living room sofas and their scattered pillows are merely islands of safety amidst a sea of molten lava. Fairies are no doubt real if you stay up late and go out deep enough into the woods to catch one. Countless hours are spent discussing amongst themselves just which three things they’ll wish for when they finally come across an ancient, genie-filled lamp.
 Steve Skojec The Ethics of Jolly Old Elfland (November 30, 2018)

I associate Hitchcock with Catholic intellectuals, although the ones I first saw were with evangelical, which is also to say that I thought of Catholics as smart. I think a number of us probably are, but the more time I spend in the Catholic family, I have gone back and forth and back again on something that Catholics claim to have and even see in Hitchcock. Some, like my brother Artur Rosman, have called it the Catholic imagination, but I prefer to call it the Catholic gaze, a uniquely Catholic way of looking out on the world and seeing something that approximates the supernatural in everything. My sense is that most of my intellectual sisters and brothers in the Latin Church would prefer that I say that their gaze can be equated with the supernatural, but I prefer to leave that an open question.
Justin Tse North by Northwest at Northwestern: on the Catholic gaze (January 24, 2019) Eastern Catholic Person

Catholic Popstars
Not so long ago—certainly within my parents’ lifetime—Catholics so influenced the culture in America that Archbishop Fulton Sheen ruled the television airwaves, Flannery O’Connor, the short story, and Walker Percy, the novel. The critics at the New York Times Review of Books must have gnashed their teeth each time Percy delivered a book deeply suffused with Catholic sense, but they could deny neither the brilliance of his prose nor the penetration with which treated the most mysterious and fundamental realities of human experience. I wonder if any of them ever understood that it was Percy’s Catholicism from which his genius derived?
In the same way, it’s no accident that from the Catholic heart of Frank Capra sprang forth so many motion-picture triumphs. His films gave eloquent and endearing expression to a Catholic understanding of family, community, and social justice
Christopher Check Release the Lion (3/18/2014) Catholic Answers

“But if we’re just concentrating on the poor, helping the poor, that leaves the rich out -- guys like me! … We need more help. The poor shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. A camel can get through the eye of a needle more than a rich man can get into heaven. I need help more than a poor person does.”
Stephen Colbert

In the photographs, they don’t look like people who might make you want to change your life. Flannery O’Connor’s black dress and big glasses suggest a pious and dutiful Georgia daughter. Thomas Merton seems to be uncomfortable in his Trappist habit—all the vitality is in the eyes. Walker Percy’s face frames a smile, as if he is just another duffer at the country club, nattering on about the Old South. In her castoff overcoat and kerchief Dorothy Day might be a nun or a social worker, not a radical under surveillance by the FBI.

Ordinary people, on the face of it—but for many of us these photographs are icons, ideals in black and white. O’Connor’s grim propriety is of a piece with her fiction, a pitiless enactment of the mystery and manners of the South. Merton’s unease with his monastic calling kept him always striving for more perfect solitude. Percy’s good mood is a great achievement, an escape from the pressures of his family history—inheritance, duty, war, fatal accidents, mortal illness, depression, suicide. Day’s overcoat is no better than those given out to the poor men who stand on line outside the Catholic Worker, an emblem of the rough equality of every person under God.
Paul Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own (2004)

Catholic Popstars Jimmy Akin

Woke up this morning with a maggot in his head. In traditional English music jargon, a maggot is what's now called an ear worm--i.e., a tune you can't get out of your head. This morning I woke up with a traditional English folk tune in my head, so... a maggot. At first it was pleasant, but now it's gotten annoying. The maggot has started to fester. Jimmy Akin

One of the reasons I am such a Jimmy Akin fanboy is that he is very careful concerning his answers to only impart what the Church teaches or what liturgical documents lay down instead of his own biases as to what they mean. When he gives an opinion he clearly lets you know it is an opinion. We should all be so careful with a concern for accuracy.
Jeffrey Miller Is Michael Voris right about kneeling? (August 3, 2011) The Curt Jester

As I drove home, I reflected on my meeting with the king of Fundamentalist kitsch. Chick came across as a kind, gentle old man. He was nothing but polite. He smiled. He laughed. Unlike the characters in his comic books, he didn’t say “Haw! Haw!” when he laughed. From meeting him one would never suspect him to be the most infamous broadcaster of hate and paranoia in the Christian comic book world.

Given Chick’s tendency to sometimes include real people in his comics—even as minor, unnamed characters—he might even record the incident. If you’re ever reading a Chick comic and see a young, bearded Jesuit agent dressed like a cowboy, it’ll probably be me.
Jimmy Akin Meet Jack Chick (October 23, 2016) jimmyakin.com

Catholic PopStars Chesterton
“According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

One of the benefits of reading Chesterton, as opposed to getting him filtered through other sources, is that you get Chesterton, and not a false “Toby Jug” caricature: the beer-swilling, cigar chomping, absent-minded journalist who was good with a quote and had a talent for paradox but is of little use otherwise.

Chesterton is undergoing a revival, but some of those promoting the revival like to indulge the caricature. I don’t know why. The reality is so much more exciting, moving, and interesting. If you decide to find out more about Chesterton, I implore you: read him for yourself and don’t trust anyone, not even me, to try to tell you about him.
- Sean P. Dailey Discover G.K. Chesterton (June 14, 2018) Chaos and Old Night

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions

“I’m a great fan of Chesterton, you know. He once said that he became a Catholic because we’re the only religion that sees no contradiction between a pint, a pipe, and a cross.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse

Catholic PopStars Dorthy Day
“Everything a baptized person does every day should be directly or indirectly related to the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.”
― Dorothy Day

We have never needed a saint like her more: a woman at once deeply Catholic, deeply counter-cultural, and deeply American in the very best sense of the word.   And she was a tough broad who didn’t hold with the celebrity stuff, as every real saint always does.
Mark Shea St. Dorothy Day, Now More Than Ever (August 18, 2018) Catholic and enjoying it.

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”
― Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist

Catholic Popstars Flannery O’ Connor
 “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Uncommon Grace offers a sympathetic look at her growth as a writer and a believing Christian who remained enthralled by the mystery of faith, and strengthened by her devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

Likewise, the documentary notes her prescient critique of moral relativism, which had established a beachhead in elite culture.
Yet, O’Connor never employed a traditional brand of religious piety to get her point across. Instead, her plots often turned on acts of violent, sometimes lethal force, and this shocked and mystified some of her fellow Christians.
The experts, who have studied O’Connor’s fiction and share their insights in Uncommon Grace, say she rejected “sugar coated pieties” in the belief that shock therapy was needed to grab the attention of jaded readers.
Joan Desmond An Uncommon Look at the Uncommon Grace of Flannery O’Connor (Mar. 2, 2017) ncregister.com

“If I even do get to be a fine writer it will not be because I am a fine writer, but because God has given me credit for a few of the things He kindly wrote for me.”
― Flannery O'Connor, A Prayer Journal
Catholic Pop Stars: Fr. Benedict J. Groeshel
"They said I would never live. I lived. They said I would never think. I think. They said I would never walk. I walked. They said I would never dance, but I never danced anyway."
— Benedict J. Groeschel

Fr. Benedict Groeschel of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in New York. A psychologist as well as a spiritual writer, his warm and humorous way of conveying truth has made him a favorite author, lecturer, and guest on EWTN. Because of his psychological training, Groeschel is especially thoughtprovoking (and convincing) on one topic that never was covered in parochial school when the nuns told the stories of Fatima or Lourdes or Guadalupe. That is the subject of human experience—and how all of it, even experience of divine messages in dreams, locution, visions, and the like, passes through the limited and individualized medium of a finite, faulty human being.
Ellen Wilson Fielding Responding to Revelations (11/1/1998) catholic.com

Catholic Popstars: C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy

“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Rather charmingly, Lewis was convinced that his works would not be read following his death and that he would be completely forgotten within a generation or so. How wrong he was. More people are reading Lewis today, half a century after his death, than ever read him during his own lifetime. 

In a purely worldly sense, JFK is now remembered for the wrong things while Lewis is remembered for the right ones. JFK is remembered for the very thing that stripped him of his power (the assassination) and not for anything he did with his power. He is remembered as a womanizer who had secret affairs with Hollywood stars or, to rephrase these activities in the language of the Catholic faith that he claimed to profess, he has the reputation of having been a serial fornicator who betrayed his wife and children in his egocentric wanderlust. Lewis, on the other hand, is remembered as he would have wished to be, as an indefatigable Christian apologist and as one of the finest writers in English literary history. Never in his wildest dreams did he foresee the enormity of the popularity of his works. Never would he have imagined that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe would become one of the top 10 bestselling books of all time.

There is, however, another judgment that is much more important than the judgment of time, and that, of course, is the Judgment of God. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter what the world thinks of us. It is what God thinks of us that matters. It is for this reason that Catholic art and literature through the ages has given us the memento mori, the reminder of death which leads us to contemplate the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.
Joseph Pearce John F. Kennedy and C.S. Lewis: Where Are They Now? (Nov. 22, 2019 )

“You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”
― John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage

Catholic Popstars Thomas Merton

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."
— Thomas Merton (Thoughts in Solitude)

For many of us, Dec. 10 brings to mind, and sadly so, the 50th anniversary of Thomas Merton's death in at a monastic conference in Samutprakarn near Bangkok, Thailand. The day also marks his arrival in 1941 at the Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Nelson County, Kentucky, where for the next 27 years his surging literary output, including the 1948 autobiographical The Seven Storey Mountain that sold over 600,000 copies in the first year, and enduring spiritual classics like The Sign of Jonas: Bread in the Wilderness, would earn him fame and a global following as a spiritual master.

Whatever the rigors of the Trappist cloistered monastic life — priests and lay brothers rose at 2:15 a.m. to chant the Psalms and retired at 7 p.m. after compline, communication by sign language, no newspapers or other pagan distractions allowed — Merton, whose monastic life included the name Fr. Louis, really led two lives: one public, one personal. One driven to write for a massive audience, one who wrote typewritten letters stuffed into an envelope meant for a sole reader — and all the while writing seven volumes of a journal with the first entry on May 2, 1939, from New York City to the last on Dec. 8, 1968, in Thailand.
Colman McCarthy When Thomas Merton called me 'utterly stupid' (Dec 17, 2018) It's Happening: ncronline.org

"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy."
— Thomas Merton

Catholic Popstars Mother Angelica
“Unless you are willing to do the ridiculous, God will not do the miraculous. When you have God, you don’t have to know everything about it; you just do it.”
― Mother Angelica

What distinguishes Mother Angelica from just about any other Church leader is her humble origins. She is truly of the people; the product of a working class, dysfunctional immigrant family. That tortured biography would make her more sensitive to the struggles of the common man and allow her to give voice to their greatest hopes. Hers is a story of faith's power to transform and redeem, not only one life, but millions of lives. Mother Angelica loved Christ enough to offer Him everything, even her voice and her independence.

Next time that you happen across something moving or insightful, inspirational or challenging on EWTN's television or radio feed, do me a favor. Stop for a moment and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the brave and battle scarred woman who gave so much for that message-- the cloistered nun who built a media empire on faith. Her love is still reaching millions around the world; quietly, gently, powerfully.
Raymond Arroyo Mother Angelica at 86 and Memories of A Friend Lost (April 24, 2009) Seen and Unseen

“Where most men work for degrees after their names, we work for one before our names: 'St.' It's a much more difficult degree to attain. It takes a lifetime, and you don't get your diploma until you're dead.”
― Mother Angelica

Catholic Popstars Frank Sheed
"The theologian can ask far profounder questions because he knows more about God; by that same knowledge he knows that there are depths that he will never know. But to see why one cannot know more is itself a real seeing; there is a way of seeing the darkness which is a kind of light."
— Frank Sheed (Theology and Sanity)

In discussing the Seven Deadly Sins of Catholic Apologetics, I feel a bit like Frank Sheed when he criticized a grave danger to the Faith he saw back in the 1960s. The Church suffers, the great apologist and street teacher then observed, in part because Christ has become irrelevant to many Catholics. To them, Christ is, to make reference to the title of one of Sheed’s books, “in eclipse.” They may identify with him, even pray to him. But they do not really give him much thought in their day-to-day lives. They do not ask themselves what he teaches or allow his doctrine to govern their choices and actions in a serious way. One Catholic newspaper dubbed this problem “Sheed’s disease”—not because Sheed had it but because he had diagnosed it. That made Sheed wonder whether Parkinson had had Parkinson’s disease, for, he admitted, “Sheed certainly has Sheed’s disease.” Similarly, one reason I can so easily identify the Seven Deadly Sins of Catholic Apologetics is that I have seen and continue to see them all too clearly in my own life.
Mark Brumley, The Seven Deadly Sins of Apologetics: Avoiding Common Pitfalls When Explaining and Defending the Faith (2014). Catholic Answers. 

“A Mystery in short is an invitation to the mind. For it means that there is an inexhaustible well of Truth from which the mind may drink and drink again in the certainty that the well will never run dry, that there will always be water for the mind’s thirst.”
― Frank Sheed, Theology and Sanity

CatholicPop Stars Fulton J. Sheen
“Because God is full of life, I imagine each morning Almighty God says to the sun, "Do it again"; and every evening to the moon and the stars, "Do it again"; and every springtime to the daisies, "Do it again"; and every time a child is born into the world asking for curtain call, that the heart of the God might once more ring out in the heart of the babe.”
― Fulton J. Sheen, Life is Worth Living

Sheen’s television show Life is Worth Living drew a weekly audience of 30 million viewers, and Barron credited Sheen’s vision as part of that success, saying “He was someone who, in his time, used the cutting edge media for the purpose of the Gospel. And he was someone who, before John Paul II put it this way, embodied the New Evangelization. John Paul said ‘new in ardor, new in method, and new in expression.’ And I think Fulton Sheen had all of that in place. … He was our model in how to do a smart, engaging evangelization that uses the cutting edge media of the time.”
Stephanie Foley Bishop Robert Barron on the Legacy of Archbishop Fulton Sheen (November 16, 2019)  relevantradio.com


“What Our Lord did say on the cross was to forgive. Forgive your Pilates, who are too week to defend your justice; forgive your Herods, who are too sensual to perceive your spirituality; forgive your Judases, who think worth is to be measured in terms of silver.”
-Fulton J.  Sheen

CatholicPop Stars Tolkien
“The Lord of the Rings was voted in 1997 as the ‘book of the century’ and Peter Jackson’s original film trilogy was nominated for 30 Academy Awards, winning Best Picture for the Return of the King, the first (and only) fantasy film ever to win that award. In addition, the number of Oscars the film won in 2004 (11) tied it with previous record holders Titanic and Ben-Hur.”
It fascinates me for these stories are entirely "antiquated," "medieval," even "anti-modern." Yet that doesn't stop the Lord of the Rings franchise from being one of the most successful of all time. Why is that?

Being divorced from our own traditions and culture appears to have awakened in many Americans a hunger for great tradition, tales, legends and historic languages. It is then no surprise that Tolkien’s Middle-Earth has become so popular over the past decade. As humans we need to be connected to a history that is beyond ourselves and that teaches us we are a part of a great drama that is unfolding before your eyes. May we understand that desire in our heart and never forget the past, especially the history of our own salvation, making sure that the next generation understands where they come from and where God has prepared a place for them at the end of all things.
Philip Kosloski On “Hobbit Day”, a Look at Why So Many People Love J.R.R. Tolkien Blogs (Sep. 22, 2016)

 “Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. . . . There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death.
J.R.R. Tolkien The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings, p. 219.

Being divorced from our own traditions and culture appears to have awakened in many Americans a hunger for great tradition, tales, legends and historic languages.

For me, the genius of Tolkien’s Hobbit, particularly in contrast with its more ambitious, more successful sibling, has always been that its protagonist is so ordinary, so life-sized. Bilbo's adventures are as influential in the future of Middle Earth as his nephew's, but he is blissfully unaware of that larger context. He doesn’t realize his role in the epic struggle taking place between the Light and the Darkness, and he doesn’t need to. His journey is personal rather than mythic; his virtues as applicable to everyday life (and everyday people) as they are to the Hero's Quest.
Joseph Susanka Wherein Peter Jackson Misses the Point (December 21, 2012) Summa This, Summa That 

Catholic Popstars Popular Fiction Writers
“Oh,' the priest said, 'that's another thing altogether - God is love. I don't say the heart doesn't feel a taste of it, but what a taste. The smallest glass of love mixed with a pint pot of ditch-water. We wouldn't recognize that love. It might even look like hate. It would be enough to scare us - God's love. It set fire to a bush in the desert, didn't it, and smashed open graves and set the dead walking in the dark. Oh, a man like me would run a mile to get away if he felt that love around.”
― Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory’’

Many Catholic writers have balked at being called that. They were Catholic and they wrote, all right, but they didn’t want to be read as if the point of their fiction was a religious message. As if you could earn an indulgence by reading them.
My characters were Catholic. They saw what they were doing through the lens of their faith; success and failure finally was a matter of grace or sin. Catholic fiction in this sense is not a matter of lore or the settings but of the nature of the eye through which the action is seen. J. F. Powers is an exquisite writer about Catholic things, and Flannery O’Connor, equally good, mentions things Catholic in only one of her short stories—but the sensibility of all her fiction is Catholic.
Ralph McInerny, On Being a Catholic Writer (September 3, 2012) Crisis

“Words are gold, split and shared as coinage, small pebbles, emblems offered back and forth-given, received; given, received-expanding the vocabulary of the soul.”
― Michael D. O'Brien, The Island of the World

“Jews wait for the Lord, Protestants sing hymns to him, Catholics say mass and eat him.”
― Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins

“Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Catholic PopStars Sci-Fi Writers
The existence of alien beings became popular in the medieval period. Sometimes they were used to frighten people (a la The Blob or Earth Versus the Flying Saucers) and sometimes they were used to illustrate virtues (ET: The Extraterrestrial) or vices (the Ferengi in Star Trek:The Next Generation). According to a Welsh poem, King Arthur fought with the creatures:
Michael F. Flynn   St. Christopher, ET, and the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages was an age of reason ... and yet we've been taught to think of it as an age of superstition. It probably glorified reason far more than the Age of Reason. The medievals invented the university, with a standard curriculum, courses of study, degrees and, of course, funny hats.
Michael F. Flynn   Book Review: Eifelheim by Michael Flynn (September 10, 2007) darwincatholic.blogspot.com

My fifty seethingly angry correspondents were furious with me because the story line of HIDEAWAY assumed the existence of God and Heaven. They accused me of corrupting the minds of innocent youth, of being a paid shill for the Vatican, and of being a moron.
Dean Koontz 10 reasons Catholics Should Read Dean Koontz by Michael Saltis (Nov 18, 2014)

 And we did get to Jerusalem, several times! As Catholics, we found that was kind of comprehension overload -- the realization that God walked right here, and according to tradition touched this particular stone, and died right here, is just disorienting. You only begin to appreciate it later, in pieces.
Tim Powers Three Days To Never: The Interview (September 08, 2006) jimmyakin.org

It has been remarked thousands of times that Christ died under torture. Many of us have read so often that he was “a humble carpenter” that we feel a little surge of nausea on seeing the words yet again. But no one ever seems to notice that the instruments of torture were wood, nails, and a hammer; that the man who built the cross was undoubtedly a carpenter too; that the man who hammered in the nails was as much a carpenter as a soldier, as much a carpenter as a torturer. Very few seem even to have noticed that although Christ was a “humble carpenter,” the only object we are specifically told he made was not a table or a chair, but a whip.
Gene Wolfe, A Catholic sci-fi classic: Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun by Thomas V. Mirus  (Apr 04, 2016)

I am a Catholic. In my world, every sunrise is the trumpet blast of Creation, more astonishing than the bomb burst, and every nightfall is the opening of a vast roof into the infinite dance of deep Heaven, where the stars and planets reel and waltz to the music of the spheres.

When I was in China, the tour guide saw me stop to give alms to beggars. He watched in wonder and asked me why I was ‘tipping’ the beggars. I told him our God walks the Earth in disguise dressed as a beggar, and any man who does not give alms with both hands is stricken with a curse and flung screaming into a lake of fire.

Two angels follow me unseen as I walk, and I live in a world of exorcists and barefoot friars, muses and prophets, healers who lay on hands, mighty spiritual warriors hidden in crippled bodies, and fallen angels made of pure malicious spirit obeying their damned and darkened Sultan from his darkest throne in Hell. And I live in a world where a holy Child was born a secret king beneath a magic star, and the animals knelt and prayed. And from that dread lord, the small Child will save us.

You might think my world inane, or insane, or uncouth, or false, but by the beard of Saint Nicholas, by the Breastplate of Saint Patrick, and by the severed head of Saint Valentine, no one can say it is not romantic.
John C. Wright Faith and Works in a Science Fictional Universe (August 1, 2016)

Catholics and Sci-Fi
All fiction is really science fiction.

I mean, despite its apparent realism, the political thriller ‘House of Cards’ is really an alternate universe story where someone other than John Major became prime minister after Margaret Thatcher, right?

Every single work of fiction takes place in a universe where history unfolded in a different way than it did in this one (sometimes with different laws of nature as well).

Even apparently realistic stories are about alternate universes with alternate histories.

So . . . everyone's a science fiction fan whether they realize it or not.
 -Jimmy Akin

God made our imaginations! If you have no "sense of wonder" or can’t manage "the willing suspension of disbelief" then this literature isn’t for you.
What Tolkien called the "sub-creation" of a Secondary Universe is an honorable way of imitating Primary Creation, whether one is designing an extraterrestrial planet or mapping some corner of Faeryland.
Sandra Miesel  Part 2 of Catholics & Science Fiction | An Interview with Sandra Miesel ignatiusinsight.com

Our culture has almost no place left where matters of philosophy and theology can be discussed freely in the public square. It’s out of court in politics, it does not sell beer and shampoo on television, our Chattering Classes are so ignorant of the most elementary points of both that the less said the better on almost any talk show you could name. But in the countless worlds of science fiction and fantasy, there is still limitless room for a talented Catholic writer to spin a yarn and proclaim the gospel thereby. God send more gifted apostles to this new Areopagus!
Mark Shea Science Fiction/Fantasy and the Areopagus (May 14, 2009) catholicexchange.com


I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked up at the stars in the night sky and wondered, what if…
And really, I think that the larger reason why science fiction has endured for me as a lifelong passion is that it embodies the one thing that makes stories utterly compelling: the thrill, and often the fear, of the unknown. Not knowing what’s out there, how dangerous it is, how inevitable it is, is an utterly terrifying concept that is uniquely exciting.
It’s like standing outside in a particularly powerful storm and wondering just how much destructive power it will bring to bear.
Steve Skojec SciFi & The Thrill of the Unknown in Storytelling (Jul 24, 2019) steveskojec.com



 Christmas
Anglicans have written some of the greatest Christmas hymns, the ones Catholics sing at Christmas Masses, like “Hark, the herald angels sing” (John Wesley), “O little town of Bethlehem” (Philips Brooks), “In the bleak midwinter” (Christina Rossetti), and “Good Christian Men, rejoice” (John Mason Neale, who also wrote “O come, O come, Emmanuel” for Advent and “Good King Wenseslas” for Boxing Day).
“What would Christmas be like without Anglicans?” asks an Episcopal minster, Timothy Matkin, in A Christmas Without Anglicans?. I take his point. But the better question would be: “What would Christmas be like if those people had been Catholics?” Think how much deeper would have been their hymns had they been able to draw upon and express the fullness of the Catholic faith.
David Mills Anglicanless Christmas (December 28, 2014) David Mills

The angel of the Lord appeared to them
and the glory of the Lord shone around them,
and they were struck with great fear.
Rightly so, because sometimes angels brought fearsome, angry messages from God.
Furthermore, angels came now and then to kill people.
Therefore, the shepherds had strong, Biblical reasons to be afraid, to be very afraid.
However, tonight was to be different.
The angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid”
“Do not be afraid!”
By now, the angel has said this four times.
Firstly, Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, met an angel who told him of the things to come.
“Do not be afraid!”
Secondly, Mary met an angel who greatly disturbed her with the greeting, “Hail to you, With-Grace-All-Filled!”
“Do not be afraid!”
Thirdly, Joseph met an angel who told him what was happening with Mary.
“Do not be afraid!”
Lastly, the shepherds met an angel telling them good news.
The angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid;
for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
And so, great fear is to give way to great joy.

The shepherds heard this angelic battle cry of Christ as they were keeping the night watch.
Until that moment, they were standing ready to do battle against wild beasts and thieves.
Similarly, if we would receive joy and victory from Christ, then we must watch.
We must stand ready to battle against sin that creeps forth like beast or thief in the darkened moments of our souls.
For the Savior is no longer in a manger, but in a moment of prayer or a celebration of worship.
The Lord is in anyone needing our mercy, service, charity and justice.
Christ is within us in our turning away from sin that strays from the glory of God and the good of our neighbor.
Thus, wherever Christ comes, we must turn and go to him as the shepherds turned straightaway to Bethlehem.
Turn. Love. Repeat. As often as you can, as often as you must.
Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, O.S.B.Do Not Be Afraid” Instead of “Merry Christmas” (December 24, 2019)


Christians in America speak ominously of a "war on Christmas.  Perhaps we will hear "happy holidays" when we prefer "Merry Christmas." Perhaps our local public school will have an annual "holiday concert" because a couple of atheist parents complained about the Christmas concert last year. These things are annoying. But the fact remains that we will attend Christmas services at beautifully decorated churches. We will celebrate the holiday with our families and no one will prevent us. We will open presents. Will eat and drink. We will do all of this without fear or hindrance. Billions of Christians across the globe can only dream of such a blessing. They will never, in this life, see it come to fruition.

We should keep this in mind as we celebrate. Not to damper our mood or detract from the merriment, but simply to remember those who are too often forgotten, and to realize and appreciate our good fortune. The Gospel of Matthew tells us about the children who were slaughtered in Bethlehem after Christ's birth. That is part of the nativity story we tend to ignore. For many Christians, it is the part that resonates most of all. Let us not forsake them today, or any other.
Matt Walsh : This Christmas, Remember The Persecuted Christians Across The World (December 24, 2018) The Blaze

Catholic Life
What does it mean to run out of wine today? We see it in the proliferation of pornography, the commonplace use of artificial contraception, the growing number of babies conceived through in vitro fertilization—a process that claims the lives of five-to-ten embryos with every cycle of IVF.
The wine runs out as we see our young people sexualized at earlier and earlier ages, as young women are objectified, as the unborn are sacrificed on the altar of our agendas, our pre-conceived plans, our ideas about the future.
The wine runs out when couples stop working at marriage, stop dating each other, stop putting faith and family at the top of the list.
The wine runs out when men and women stop advocating for marriage and new life, when those advocating for marriage are advocating a completely different reality than the Church has ever held.
The wine runs out when society tells the Church what a Sacrament should be, which lives to protect, when a marriage is over.
My Son, they have no wine.
Catholic
Denise Bossert A crisis threatens marriage, and the Blessed Mother steps into their midst. “My Son, they have no wine.” (May 25, 2015) Denise Bossert

Christian Communion
To engage with Christ means to engage with other people.
The sacraments educate us to the need to gather as “two or more” in Christ’s name, to recognize that we are parts of one whole Body (John 15), that we cannot baptize ourselves, that no matter how sorry we are, we cannot be reconciled to God without an intermediary person, and that we can’t achieve communion without the contributing “work of human hands.” Much as some would like to imagine themselves to be consumers who go to church as individual units in order to acquire their sacraments and leave, the liturgy asks us to beg to be made “one body, one spirit in Christ.” Knowing how hard-headed we can be, Christ also commanded us to “take and eat” his body: how could the fact that meaning comes from outside and penetrates us (and not the other way around) be any more concrete?
Salvation, then, is other people. These others give me my meaning and show me the truth of myself.
Suzanne M. Lewis Morality: Memory and Desire (1. Salvation) (March 8, 2019)

Change
One thing associated with Asperger’s and Autism is that change is a harder thing for people diagnosed with Aspergers and Autism to deal with change. Most people don’t like change, but they have the ability to suck it up, deal with it, and adjust. For me, the process of accepting and dealing with change takes a bit longer. This especially applies when it comes to losing a loved one
Monique Ocampo Dealing With Grief (October 24, 2014) Monique Ocampo Writes


Children’s Theology
Earlier today, I asked my children (ages 15, 13, 10, 7, and 5) what they thought Mary was really like.
“So you think she was funny?”
“Definitely funny.” There were unanimous head-nods at this.
“God likes joyful. He would never give his Son to someone who wasn’t funny.”
“Remember the way that Elizabeth ran out to meet her, all excited? You don’t run out the hug someone who’s not fun to be around. You watch them from the window and sigh.”
“This angel stands in front of her and says God sent him and she says ‘Why would God send you to me?’ She doesn’t even offer him water or a place to sit down. Hospitality was a big thing back then. She ignored all of that, and told him to explain himself. That’s sass.”
“And she bossed God around. He was her kid, but she knew he was God and she still had to tell him to clean his room and stuff. You can’t be totally meek and mild, and still be bossing Jesus to do his chores.”
Rebecca Frech The Perfectly Imperfect Mother of God (December 18, 2014) Shoved to Them

 “I don’t know that he was very fun though. I mean Jesus went to parties and joked around with people and all that, but John was like the un-fun guy who only talks about the Bible all the time. I mean, I know it’s important, but would it kill you to talk about sports or the weather or like movies or something?”
Rebecca Frech Jesus’s Stinky Cousin (February 2, 2015)  Shoved to Them

This past year with my first grade CCD class was pure joy.  Their curiosity about faith is so great, and their reactions and observations to Bible stories, learning about the Sacraments, the Mass, saints or prayers they’re learning for the first time can be quite entertaining!

We were reading the story of the Lost Sheep.  Andrew, who never raises his hand, calls out, “The guy stood there counting 99 sheep?? That’s a little weird!”

Lucas’s question of the day:  “Why did God come up with just 10 Commandments?  I mean there’s a bunch of other stuff we’re not supposed to do  My mom and dad have a lot more rules than just ten! ”  

Antonia wanted to know what Jesus’s last name was.  Two other kids answered, “Christ, Jesus Christ! That’s his full name.”

I alluded to salvation, heaven, eternal life at the end of our earthly life.  A few children mentioned a grandparent or someone in their family who had died.  Clearly Julie wasn’t convinced that heaven is such a special place.  “So far I really haven’t heard anything that great about heaven!” she announced.

Some of my students had no idea what a difference prayer makes.  “Just think, prayer is the most powerful force in the universe,” I said.  “What?!” one little girl said.  “Why didn’t anyone tell me that before?!”
Patty Knap   Faith: Jesus Amazes First Graders (DECEMBER 24, 2017) Born Again Catholic

“Does the priest ever run out of hosts?”
She gave me a quick and hushed response, “No, Pablo, he never does.”
My seven year old mind registered her answer with utter amazement.  The priest never runs out of hosts!  God must miraculously keep putting hosts in there!  In my little mind, I imagined angels dropping hosts into the ciborium to make sure there were plenty of them.
 Father Pablo Migone Does the priest ever run out of hosts? (April 18, 2019)  Labyrinthine Mind

“Now class, today we’re going to practice going to Confession. You don’t have to worry about what sins you are going to confess. Just make it up-you can wait until Father is here before you confess your real sins.
I opened my catechism to the Examination of Conscience in the back. Murder looked like my best bet. I’d use that today, but what would I do in there weeks, when a real priest would be sitting on the other side of the screen?
Then it hit me. I could lie to the priest at my first confession and then get back in line to confess that I had liked in Confession.  Would it be possible to return in line instead of to the seat? Besides, lying in Confession was probably a Mortal Sin.
It was too great a risk. If only lying in Confession were not so grievious. I mean grievous. Eureka, I had it.  A Venial Sin for sure, but a concrete one- I could disobey my father by pronouncing a word the way he told me not to. The word was grievious, but the matter wasn’t grievous, plus there wouldn’t be full consent of the will, because Sister pronounced it that way, and the teacher is always right, and in disobeying my father, I was obeying her, jumping off a cliff for just a moment. The Age of Reason was kind of fun.
Ed Stivender Raised Catholic: (can You Tell?) (1992)


“Yes, Matthew,” said my all-knowing religion teacher at Holy Cross Grammar School. “Why does my friend St. Francis have spots on his hands and feet?” I asked in prepubescent squeakiness. I remember wondering whether these spots were the result of “leopard-sy” or were caused by some other condition. “Well, Matthew,” she said, “those are holes, and they are called the stigmata, and it reflects the wounds Jesus suffered during his crucifixion.” “How did St. Francis get them?” I asked with queasy curiosity. “He was good, Matthew, . . . a good Catholic.”
After all being Catholic has taught me many things about what happens when we are bad. As children we are told that sinning makes Jesus cry, blackens the soul, and quite simply and scarily, sends you to hell. Conversely, all the lessons of being good point to bliss; heaven, closeness to Jesus, and happiness are all by-products of living a good Catholic life. Yet here I was, a now-confused nine-year-old wondering about this gaping inaccuracy and a possible outcome outlier of being good. Living the life of a “good Catholic” now meant the risk of something extremely painful: waking up one morning to four bloody holes and a dripping chest gash.
Matt Weber, Fearing the Stigmata: Humorously Holy Stories of a Young Catholic's Search for a Culturally Relevant Faith (2012) Loyola Press


Church Persecuted
In his World Day of Peace message, Pope Benedict made another important point about the state of religious freedom around the world. “At present,” he observed, “Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith.” The reality that Christians bear the brunt of persecution seems improbable to those of us living in the West, in countries where liberal secularists are accustomed to depicting Christians as the oppressors rather than the oppressed.

Sometimes the persecution of Christians is accomplished by governments, as in Saudi Arabia or China, where police routinely raid illegal church meetings. Sometimes the violence is done by extremist groups that the government cannot or will not control, as in Pakistan or Iraq. Sometimes the distinction between official persecution and unchecked gang violence is blurred, as in India, where police stand by while Hindu mobs attack churches. But in all these cases, government policies are to blame: for carrying out, or encouraging, or winking at, or failing to stop the persecution.
The persecution will surely continue, if the governments of the Western world do not exert more diplomatic pressure. And our governments’ policies are not likely to change unless we, the Christians of the West, demand it.
Philip F. Lawler -Time to Take Religious Freedom Seriously (April 28, 2011)

Citizenship
First, we’ll have to agree on what good citizenship is not. It is not defined merely by the rote performance of patriotic gestures like standing with hand over heart during the national anthem. Good citizenship is not about social media, endlessly posting, sharing, liking, tweeting, and otherwise launching our opinionated pixels into the often-foul air of cyberspace. Good citizenship doesn’t mean blindly aligning with this or that political tribe and repeating uncritically the tropes and slogans proffered by tribal leaders, as if ball caps and bumper stickers are all we owe each other and future generations. And good citizenship is not defined by the consumption of corporate media, which unfortunately is where 70% of us get our “news” these days.  Watching Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity doesn’t make us good citizens. I think we have to recover a sense of what authentic American citizenship looks like. We have to remember that good citizenship is rooted in affection … for principle, for community, and for neighbor. We are good citizens when we act out of love.
Mark Gordon Love and Citizenship (June 8, 2018) The Dorothy Option

Creed
The first thing our visitor notices about the Creed is that it’s another story. It’s not an essay detailing things I believe.  One little word changes everything. It’s what, or rather Who, I believe IN. When I say “I believe in you,” I’m not saying “I believe you exist.” This is not stating a fact, it’s putting myself into your story and on your side. With the first sentence of the Creed, I declare my loyalty to and trust in God, whose story includes some amazing deeds. I put myself in that story, which is not finished yet.
The next thing to notice is that this Creed is a poor summary of the stories we learn (or rather celebrate) in the Liturgy of the Word. When you summarize a story or a lesson, you can put the original aside. You have what you need with just the summary, especially if the whole point is to get on with living. The Christian Creed is no substitute for the Bible. It’s a guide to reading the Bible. And, the Liturgy of the Word isn’t just preparation. It’s living the story.
Jack Hartjes The Creed, a Story Not an Essay (November 13, 2019) Lost in a One-Acre Wood

Now consider how the language of the Nicene Creed—and indeed of many of our explanations of Christian doctrine—uses language that is unfamiliar to most modern people. Begotten? Consubstantial? Incarnate? Those are technical words. Even the phrases that sound more conversational are difficult: “true God from true God.”
The precise language of the Creed is very important, because it conveys an astounding amount of information in a relatively short space. This precision of language and this specificity of meaning is both essential and valuable for the Christian: the Creed helps keep us firm in the truth and prevents us from drifting off into error. But to benefit from it, people need a full, meaningful grasp of the words. Helping people to gain that grasp of the meaning is an essential part of discipleship and evangelization.
Dr. Holly Ordway Translating Shakespeare: or, How to Evangelize and Not Be Eaten by a Bear (May 14, 2018) Word On Fire

Communication
I hope this post serves to demonstrate how and why some thinking Christians have come to a different conclusion, based on scripture and using reason and tradition, that is different from the conclusion that Christians who are politically conservative have come to.
I hope that I have written respectfully enough (and biblically enough) that, even if they would not agree with me, she and those who agree with her would be willing to consider my perspective and recognize that it is at least as biblically-based as hers.
And I would, of course, hope just a little bit that they would come to see things my way.
David Schell Is Socialism Biblical?  (March 12, 2016) The Pickled Pencil @ Patheos Faith and Work

I long for a forum in which people of differing ideological perspectives can talk to each other, and it seems that our society has fewer and fewer of those. We all tend to preach to the choir–the left as well as the right. And we need to find ways of breaking out of that pattern.
Edwin Woodruff Tait Preaching to the choir? (July 4, 2016) The Pickled Pencil @ Patheos Faith and Work

Communion of Saints
The Pantheon is a place of grand seriousness. It was first established as a cathedral, meant to match the scale of St Paul’s in London and St Peter’s in Rome. It succeeded in this aim, it’s massive. It celebrates the legacy of Saint Genevieve, the Patron Saint of Paris whose works in the fifth and early sixth centuries helped bring comfort to a city upset by plagues, famine, and war. The large painted frescoes of her life are stunning.
Yet, on top of these religious roots a more secular tree has been forced. The Pantheon is a national necropolis, a resting place for France’s most celebrated residents as well as a tangible celebration of the French Republic. But, despite the large statue celebrating the National Convention where an altar should be, there are ghosts everywhere.
As Catholics, we too must listen more often to the dead. The dead who have never really left. The dead who like us, hope and look to the resurrection to come. Even in secularized, national spaces, these voices are never really silenced.
Tim Duffy Sharing Space with the Dead  (July 30, 2018)

Jesus is the music of eternity, and the liturgy is the place where the Church comes together to dance to the rhythms of his grace. The liturgy is a participation in the life of heaven for it is a participation in Christ.

If one were to accept my thesis that the liturgy is the place where the church dances to the melody of Jesus Christ himself, then it opens up a whole new set of lenses through which the history of the liturgy can be seen. Each development is a natural evolution of the dance as it encounters new cultures, places, and times, which bring with them their own dance steps. The melody is deepened, the dance becomes a improvisatory promenade of peculiar people from poles apart. In the liturgy we join hands with Christians from fourth century Jerusalem, ninth century Rome, thirteenth century Bavaria, and twenty-first century Colombia, each place and time helping to form, and reform, the dance with their own particular genius and style. The music is a form of call and response. God calls us in the person of Christ, and the Church responds my embodying Christ in their own time and culture throughout history. No matter who you were, within the life of the church, one could find people who danced with Jesus in your language and culture.
Billy Kangas In the liturgy, the the music of heaven has already begun (November 20, 2013) The Orant

On this Feast of All Saints, the Church declares in the Communion of Saints the manifestation of that Eucharistic Body. It is a body that stretches with Christ across all times, spaces and ages. Thus, the Communion of Saints comes with borders of a different kind, one that is open to both the past and the future and acts on it in the now. One sees an earthly manifestation of this in the Levitical law pertaining to the treatment of resident aliens (Lev 19:34), mandating the opening of borders to such aliens as part of the Mosaic program of training in holiness. The resident alien, in the Mosaic code is not a complete outsider, but a reminder to natives that even they were once aliens in a foreign land. In a similar way, the Body of Christ, who fulfils the Mosaic law, acts as a moment of judgement on the jealousy with which we in the civic body guard our borders, assert our presence, and demarcate outsiders. Matthew Tan   The Politics of All Saints Day (November 1, 2017) The Divine Wedgie

Corinia Times
We thought we'd take a break from all the worry and have a family movie night. What could be more innocent than some Little House on the Prairie. What adventures does Walnut Grove have to relieve us of our troubles? Oh just an epidemic where the whole town gets sick and almost dies. Let that be a lesson. There are no safe spaces.
Brian Holdsworth on FaceBook (March 26 2020)

We’ve been through this before, you know, thanks to all the apocalyptic literature. A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959) has the Catholic Church again collecting books, copying texts, and preserving knowledge for thousands of years following a full world nuclear exchange. One Second After (2009) reduces U.S. population in successive 90-day die-offs from 300 hundred million to 30 million following an electromagnetic pulse assault. 
Being an insulin-dependent diabetic my own survival beyond the first 90-day die-off is unlikely, but I know how to make “survivalist insulin.” All I need is a pig and its pancreas, five c.c. of concentrated sulfuric acid and, oh, an anatomy book to show me exactly what a pancreas might in fact look like. But a centrifuge, electricity to run it, a gun to protect it, and a supply of pigs and I am good to go.
Russell E. Saltzman Let ’em find doomsday on their own (February 7, 2020) The Vatican II Lutheran


Confession

There is almost no greater place to be than with someone when they are coming back to God. I said, “It would depressing if I had to watch someone leave God; I get to be with them when they come back to Him.” The Confessional is a place where people let God’s love win. The Confessional is the most joyful, humbling, and inspiring place in the world.

I see a saint in the making. I don’t care if this is the person’s third Confession this week; if they are seeking the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it means that they are trying. That’s all that I care about. This thought is worth considering: going to Confession is a sign that you haven’t given up on Jesus.
And if sins are like garbage, then the priest is like God’s garbage-man. If you ask a garbage-man about the gross-est thing he’s ever had to haul to the dump, maaaaaaybe he could remember it. But the fact is, once you get used to taking out the trash, it ceases to be noteworthy, it ceases to stand out.

But why is Confession a scary place for a priest? It is frightening because of the way in which Jesus trusts me to be a living sign of His mercy.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once told priests that we scarcely realize what is happening when we extend our hands over someone’s head in absolution. We don’t realize, he said, that the very Blood of Christ is dripping from our fingers onto their heads, washing the penitent clean.
Whether you have confessed a particular sin for the first time, or if this is the 12,001st time, every Confession is a win for Jesus. And I, a priest, get to be there. That’s what it’s like… I get to sit and watch Jesus win His children back all day.
It’s flippin’ awesome.
Fr. Mike Schmitz, My Side of the Confessional: What Is It Like for a Priest? Lifeteen


Confirmation
As the sacrament proceeded we got to listen to their confirmation names, which is always interesting. 
The choices this year surprised me. There was only one Therese and only one Teresa, which is down from last time. Usually there are two or three of each. There was the usual crowd of Francises, although this time a couple of them were young ladies. Possibly those were actually Frances of Rome or Mother Cabrini rather than Francis of Assisi, but there were a number of young ladies who definitely took male saints as their patrons, something I’ve not personally run into before. Dominican saints were down this year: there were two Roses, about par, a Martin, and a Thomas; but the Martin could just as easily be Martin of Tours as Martin de Porres, and I expect the Thomas was Thomas the Apostle. There were no Dominics or Benedicts, but there was a Maximilian, an Augustine, and a Perpetua! The biggest surprise was that we had not one but two Sharbels.
Will Duquette What’s in a Confirmation Name (May 23, 2016) Cry 'Woof'

This is what Confirmation really is, it is the fulfillment of the promises of Baptism. In Confirmation, we stand in front of God and accept both full responsibility for ourselves, and the Grace which is necessary to take on such an immense burden. It’s an important step on the road to adulthood, as their Faith stops being something their parents have chosen for them, and becomes something they have chosen for themselves.
Rebecca Frech Confirmation – Passing the Flame (April 18, 2016) Shoved to Them

Conscience
I hate my conscience. Being snarky is fun! I love snark. I love to write snark. A wise editor once told me never to be snarky. That is advice I hold fast to sometimes and try my best to ignore other times. It’s just that snark is so much fun. And people eat it up. They love it. Just like I love it.
Until it’s turned on me. I’ve been the target of some pretty snarky blog posts, comments, and entire forum threads. It’s not fun to be snarked at. But it’s even worse when they’re right. It’s worse because it takes twice as much time to get yourself to admit that yes, you’ve been a total asshat, because you’re so hurt and angry about the asshats who are laughing snarkily at you.
Calah Alexander Mea Culpa: Michael Voris, Leah Libresco, and Giving Scandal in Social Media (January 30, 2013) Barefoot and Pregnant

Contemplation
There’s a reason why Benedictine monks have as their motto Ora et Labora, which means “prayer and work.” Physical labor is a meaningful and valuable way to keep the body strong, and the mind focused on something other than its own interior drama. Even a task as simple as mowing the lawn or mopping the floor can help us remain grounded and stable. Kahlil Gibran said “Work is love made visible” — likewise, labora is ora made visible.
Carl McColman Is Contemplation Dangerous? (January 20, 2016) A Contemplative Faith

Conversion
The long answer is that Catholicism is a radical search for the truth. We don't hear nearly enough that grace costs. We don't hear nearly enough that to follow Christ more or less means being poor. We're not called to live in destitution but we're clearly called to not own much more than we can use, which is really not all that much. We're called to poverty, chastity, and obedience. And what I've found is that these are the most exciting, challenging states possible! They lead to a kind of freedom and a state of being awake is completely lacking in our narcotic culture.
I lost my marriage in part because I converted. I quit my job as a lawyer because I converted. I'm not sure I lost friends, but I may have lost a certain closeness with certain friends. That Catholicism is constantly misinterpreted, misunderstood, maligned, scorned, despised, spat upon I can accept. What bothers me more is the view of Catholicism as mindless eccentricity.
Heather King Freak for Christ: The Cost of Conversion (May 03, 2011)  A Book of Sparks

The good news is that, as members of Christ’s Mystical Body the Church, we have access to the very same grace that transformed the infamous “Saul of Tarsus” (Acts 9:11) into “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ”

As we have now entered into Holy Week, the final preparation for the Sacred Triduum, let us resolve to follow the example of St. Paul and the entire “white-robed army of Martyrs” (Te Deum) so that when our time comes to depart from this life, we too may say in truth: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7).
Matt Gaspers Suffering for Christ: Reflections on Saint Paul (March 28, 2018)

We don't have to do some kind of extraordinary thing. We don't have to do terrible penances. We merely need to turn toward Jesus, who is that visible image of the invisible God. Jesus will reach out and fill us with God's love. As long as we turn toward God seeking forgiveness, mercy, and love, it is there.
Thomas Gumbleton Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus (Nov 7, 2019) The Peace Pulpit: ncronline.org


Charity
One of the things I like best about the Catholic intellectual tradition is that, having passed through the storms of so many diverse cultures, it has picked up along the way a very rich vocabulary for discussing even humble matters. For instance, the Latin word (from a Greek root) caritas. What the word gives in the original is the name for the love proper only to God, white-hot and outward-going. It means the very energy that (as Dante put it) “moves the sun and other stars.” The primal energy of the universe. The energy that moves the world forward toward the good of each created thing in it. Especially human persons, the best images of God in all creation.
The poor translation for this term in English is “charity,” which in today’s connotations of almsgiving doesn’t at all get the richness of the tradition. Caritas means the love of God suffusing all creation, but also leaping heart to heart from one human to another – each of us touched by a little of God’s energy coursing through us. In other words, God wants humans to share in his caritas, if they so choose. There is even a classic, especially haunting hymn in Gregorian chant: Ubi Caritas et Amor, Deus Ibi Est. “Where there is caritas and love, there God is.”
 Michael Novak Millennia of Experience Matter (June 17, 2015) Coming Down to Earth

CHASTITY
“Often we are tempted to think that loving someone—a spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend, or even just a friend— means clinging to them, which is a subtle form of ownership. But love means embracing the poverty of not owning the other. So chastity might be able to teach the world about a free way to love and a loving way to be free.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (2010)

Nearby, a solitary monastery on a hill is often mistaken by casual visitors as a winery. I first stepped foot on the grounds when I was in the second-grade. As a special day-long retreat before our First Holy Communion, my teacher arranged for her students to visit the monastery, eat a packed-lunch outside near the beautiful oak trees and fountains, and then listen to a short talk from one of the friars. I never forgot it. The friars at the monastery are striking to someone from my generation because they too are from my generation. To the single chaste man, such as myself, their witness serves as a great model of chastity; that a man can be celibate, energetic, and young, but also masculine. That holiness isn’t something just for women. -
Joseph Sciambra Finding Faith in the Flames: How two young priests inspired me to not abandon God (November 24th, 2017) Sons of St. Joseph


Pray, pray, pray. Don’t wait until you’re already involved with someone to get involved with Jesus (though better late than never). Instead, get a spiritual life now. As a person who thought chastity was for naïve fools and those in religious orders, I can only attribute our success thus far to the powerful intercession of Saint Faustina Kowalska (who has entirely redeemed herself in my jaded eyes), the Virgin Mary, my beloved Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, and the grace of an entirely benevolent Jesus. Get some friends in Heaven. Pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Ask. For. Help. It is my utterly sincere belief that the saints are overjoyed and delighted to help.
Cynthia Schrage  How NOT to Have Sex with Your Boyfriend After the Ecstasy, the Laundry…

Creation
All I see is what is left of the engineering feat of a little creature that, without any help from me, constructed something so intricate, and beautiful, that all I can do is admire it.
In the Bible, spiders get short shrift. They are not lauded like the ant, the badger, the locust, or the lizard are. Regardless, they are another of the myriad of marvelous creatures that surround us on our journey.
Frank Weathers God Made The Little Spider, That In Turn Made This Amazing Web…  (October 4, 2014) Why I Am Catholic

Conquering Sin
If our passions escape the mastery of our reason and intellect, and we experience impure thoughts leading us into sin—“look away”! Don’t look back, either. Look away rather than commit sin.

But remember, concupiscence is not sin itself, it’s temptation to sin. Temptation can be fought and conquered with the help of God’s grace. So if your intellect and will can be moved to fight temptation with prayer and openness to God’s grace, then your task is to fight it.

Growth in virtue (striving for a “mature purity”) is therefore the means to equip ourselves to respond interiorly and virtuously to what we see. By staying vigilant, we can have “custody of the heart” and, by extension, full “custody of the eyes.” We can experience a true liberation of the heart that gives life to its “noble desires and aspirations” (TOB 48:5)—a task “truly worthy of man.”
- Deacon Jim Russell Truly Worthy of Man: Mature Purity and Custody of the Heart (January 29, 2014) Catholic Stand


Church Teaching
But hey, you belong to a religion that believes exploiting the poor is wrong, having a mother and father is right, and the Resurrection is real.  Catholics are crazy that way.
***
Is sticking to the Church’s teaching on usury that hard?  Based on my present understanding of what the Church actually teaches, I don’t think it really is.
Is sticking to the Church’s teaching on contraception that hard?  Eh.  Your mileage will vary.   The part people usually complain about is the “not having sex” part.  Well, lots of people manage to not have sex all the time, and lots more of us manage to not have sex some of the time.  If your spouse doesn’t wish to follow Church teaching, that can make it really difficult — same as it’s difficult to get to Mass on Sundays if your spouse is opposed.
As with all moral teachings, some of us are more tempted than others to give in to this or that sin.  Some of us might succeed at not contracepting but easily fall into other serious sins, related or not.
But none of that changes Church teaching.
Jennifer Fitz Usury vs. Contraception: Do Doctrines Die by Difficulty? (March 26, 2018) Sticking the Corners

My writing won’t be to everyone’s taste. No one will mistake it for the broadcasts of Mother Angelica. If you’re one of those people who gravitates toward red-hot culture warriors, I doubt I‘ll make your list of favorites. I make no bones about my ambivalence toward much of what I’ve seen and learned in the Church. Getting to work through that ambivalence is one of the perks of writing, and to my own ear, my voice is at its most authentic and convincing when I address it head-on.

One thing I will not do is misrepresent Church teaching — at least not on purpose. In Rome, Elizabeth told a gathering of colleagues that the Catholic blogosphere needs clarity. Indeed. If the Church teaches X, it does no good for a blogger to pretend she really teaches Y, just because he might prefer it that way. There are, I understand, certain questions about which teachings have been defined infallibly and which still afford the believer some wiggle room, but I freely admit to being out of my depth in most of those debates. If I ever blog on such an issue, I’ll probably present both sides (or all sides, if there are more than two) and let some of you theology whizzes hash it out for yourselves. Might be quite an education for me.
Max Lindenman Here I Blog; I Can Do No Other (May 31, 2011) Diary of a Wimpy Catholic

Cultural (Mystics)
In science, technology, economics, industry, agriculture, armaments, and democratic rule, America, Europe, and Japan are generations ahead. But the Islamic world retains something the West has lost: a desire to have children and the will to carry on their civilization, cultures, families, and faith.
-Patrick J. Buchanan

In the quest for big bold proposals it’s easy to forget that the macro is a synonym for the micro. What is the culture but a large set of collective micros forming a macro? Culture is our shared collectivity – the sum of our mores, taboos, unspoken rules, musical tastes, and architectural designs.
-Patrick Coffin Our culture is starving for a renewed devotion to beauty.: Small Is Huge and Beautiful  (Sep. 11, 2017) National Catholic Register

“You know there’s a problem in a culture when smoking’s a mortal sin and sleeping with your girlfriend is a virtue.”
- Fr. Chad Rippenger

I believe our call is to be cultural mystics, that is, mystics of the popular culture that pervades our lives. We are not to fight against it, point out everything that is evil in it, or condemn it. That’s the easy thing to do. Instead, we are to be the mystics who look at the world with love and contemplate the deep underlying desires, longings, needs and struggles present there in order to offer the world a message of hope, truth, beauty and goodness. In order to do this, we must take a step back intellectually and reflect on the beauty that is present within the created world and in the creations of cultural artists who seek to give expression to the existential desires of humanity. It requires us to take a sacred look. Through this theological aesthetics we can develop an anthropological-incarnational-sacramental foundation for a theology of popular culture.
Sr. Nancy Usselmann , A Sacred Look: A Call to Become Pop-Cultural Mystics, Fuller Studio

I believe if there were more cultural mystics in our world, there would be more people coming into the Church than walking out.
Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble David Bowie and the Call to Be Cultural Mystics (January 21, 2016) Pursued by Truth


Dance
We are people of joy because of our hope in the Lord–even in the midst of darkness and suffering. King David once danced ecstatically before the Ark of the Covenant–blowing horns all the way to Bethlehem and jumping for joy in the presence of the people of Israel –which rather annoyed his wife (see 2 Samuel 6:14-16). (Killjoys are nothing new.)
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that we humans are a unity of both body and soul, not just souls trapped in bodies, but a true unity that expresses one human nature (see: CCC 365). That nature images our luminous and beautiful God (see Gen 1:27). This is a beautiful truth that we should never forget.
But if  you’re like me, you tend to forget about the gift of your physical body and sit too long at a computer screen. Your neglected body–as well as your hard-working brain–is craving some healthy, oxygenating movement.
So in the spirit of joy in the Lord, I begin this series of posts urging the people of God to GET UP AND DANCE!
Lisa Mladinich It’s GET UP AND DANCE Wednesday! (September 30, 2015) Water into Wine

Death of Christ
Without question, it is the most infamous public execution of all time.
No death has been more depicted in art, in drama, in literature and, as we’ve just heard, in music.
On top of this, the one being put to death is the most quoted, cited, studied, revered person in human history—a solitary figure who literally changed the world. Jesus the Christ—Son of God and Son of Man. The Messiah.
Yet these, his last words, may strike us as shocking—shocking, because they are so simple.
In fact, they are so painfully human.
They are the words of an anguished man crying to his God.
They are the plea of a prisoner whose throat is parched.
They show the effort of a son trying to comfort his mother.
These are the words of a dying, broken, exhausted man, as his organs shut down and his body fails and his heart gives out.
At times this most extraordinary death is almost shockingly ordinary.
Deacon Greg Kandra Behold, the wood of the cross: Homily on the Seven Last Words (March 30, 2018) The Deacon's Bench

It should not be a controversy for Catholics. I know that Calvinists say Christ died only for the Elect. (Though they also say we can’t know the identity of the Elect, and would amend my title to read, “Jesus May Have Died for Castro, But We Don’t Know.”). Whereas, for Catholics (those who are rightly catechized) if we can’t know whether Castro is saved, we do know that Christ died for him. Christ died for him just as surely as he died for Mother Teresa.
At this point, it is always necessary to clarify what all of this does not mean.
It does not mean that Fidel Castro is saved. (Perhaps he’s not.)
It does not mean we can know the eternal destiny of Castro. (We can’t.)
It does not mean there is no Hell. (There most certainly is.)
It does not mean Castro did not do wicked things that merit Hell and that we ought to condemn. (He most certainly did.)
It does not mean Castro lived a virtuous life. (He most certainly did not.)
It does not mean those who suffered under Castro should not feel joy at his death. (Their joy is perfectly understandable and even just.)
It means that Christ died for all human beings, without exception, and that means that he died for Fidel Castro. End stop.
I can understand that this would be an issue of apologetic debate between Catholics and Calvinists. It should not be an issue of debate among Catholics.
Scott Eric Alt This Should Not Be a Controversy.Jesus Died for Fidel Castro. (November 28, 2016) To Give a Defense


Difficult People
People have many misconceptions about what living in a convent is like. One assumption people have is that religious sisters are so much easier to get along with than other people, (because a habit must be some kind of magical, automatic saint cloak). We put it on and BAM, we’ve got a saint on our hands.
I wish.
But unfortunately, religious life is not some kind of magic silver bullet to sanctity. The convent is a saint-making factory, and all of us are in various stages of completion.
Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble Jesus and the Secret to Dealing With Difficult People (February 2, 2016) Pursued by Truth

Discernment
With a life in Jesus as our foundation and nothing else, God’s call to us and our ultimate purpose in life tend to look very different. Thinking less about the decisions themselves and more about the life those decisions effect, we realize that what matters most to God is ultimately not what we
choose but the amount of love that those decisions create in our lives; where we go to school, what we do for a living, and our familial life matters to God only to the extent that what we choose enables us to live as Christ-like as we can. All that God wills and all that God calls us to be is his adopted sons and daughters. That’s it. As much as my fellow brothers and I were blessed to have answered what we believed to be the important discernment question of our day—what are you going to do with your life—what we realized was that the answer to that question was simply the means to answering the truly important question of life: “Lord, what do I need to do today to be a better disciple of yours?”
Casey Cole OFM, Called: What Happens After Saying Yes to God (2018).. Franciscan Media

Disabilities
Our increasingly secular and utilitarian world often does not share the perspective of my friend and his family regarding the disabled, as evidenced by the increasing trend of aborting babies in the womb who are suspected to have them. In fact, people with congenital disabilities “are facing extinction” due to abortion, according to conservative member of the British Parliament, Lord Kevin Shinkwin, who is disabled himself.
Our faith tells us that every disabled person possesses the same inherent human dignity as every other person, and he or she reminds us of our call to self-giving love as modeled by Christ. Many can tend to see the “burden” of disabled people and miss the extraordinary blessing that they are.
Matthew Pinto PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES ARE GIFTS TO BE CELEBRATED  (March 29, 2017)

Bipolar is so interesting in how it fragments your identity, but experiencing “hyper-spirituality” as a manic symptom throughout college makes me wonder what even is real. I felt like I was experiencing God SO strongly and intensely growing in the Faith... but it’s hard to fully know what is real and what is just bipolar symptoms. These are questions and struggles that will never fully rest and it’s part of my illness that affects the most important part of my life. I love you guys so much and if you have bipolar too and have been through depression, I understand too well what you’re going through with your faith. It’s okay to heal slowly and it’s okay to not be okay
Lizzie Reezay on Face book (October 16 2019)

 As Christians, we read in Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” If each of us is the image and likeness of God, we have to look at the good and bad in different traits. I’m 6’ 3” which makes reaching high places easy but also means I bump my head more often than many and I have to bend down to shower. I hope we can all agree that defining tallness just by bumping our head and the awkwardness of showers is inadequate. God made me autistic, or at the very least, he allowed it. In some ways, this is my cross to bear, in other ways, it makes certain things others struggle with easy. Embracing an autistic as the image and likeness of God includes embracing both the positive and negative aspects of being autistic.
Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC Christians Should Embrace Neurodiversity (December 2, 2019) Through Catholic Lenses

Desire
Countless saints and spiritual advisors have warned against the dangers of inordinate and improper desires, and ordering them correctly is a never-ending challenge for each of us. Yet some of our desires are essential to the working out of our salvation: our desire for knowledge, for example; or for truth; or beauty. God has given us these desires for our own good; they are some of the most transformative agents for change and self-mastery in all of human existence. It is the power of these desires—right-ordered and guided by His Grace—that is one of our greatest strengths.
Joseph Susanka Thank God for Desire (July 1, 2011) Summa This, Summa That 

Devotion
The midnight Mass of Christmas, when celebrated with all the “pomp and circumstance” that befits the Incarnation of the Son of God, can be a very powerful spiritual event in our lives, leaving in its wake impressions that can profoundly shape the course of our path in entering the new year to follow. Even those Catholics who sadly neglect their faith for most of the year feel instinctively drawn to it and show up in large numbers.

Devotions continue to teach and enshrine in the souls of the faithful a traditional understanding of who God is, the divinity of Christ, the Real Presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and the intercessional roles of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints.

Popular devotions make visible and tangible what we witness and profess invisibly in the sacred liturgy. When understood in this way, popular devotions can be seen for what they truly are, valid forms of Catholic worship that amplify the meaning of the sacred liturgy and its influence upon our lives.

In his description of the heavenly liturgy as recorded in the Book of Revelation, St. John speaks of seeing Christ as “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). The vivid funeral imagery of “the Lamb who was slain” in the Santo Enterro procession reminds us that the death of Christ wasn’t just a theological abstraction — that His sacrifice meant a death as real as our own. Devotional rites such as this help us to visualize the sacred mysteries that are veiled in the sacraments. And they communicate the eternal truths to us through our senses, inviting the human heart to respond to its Creator with love.
JAMES MONTI The Spiritual Power Of “Popular Devotions”   (January 23, 2020) The Wanderer

Disciples
We have a concept of the disciples as men who were laser-focused on Christ and his mission on earth — and to an extent, they were. But if you look closely, the Scriptures actually tell us that they could often be a bunch of clueless knuckleheads. The disciples were a bit like teenage boys: they were sometimes overly concerned with food and who would get to go first. They would try to take things too far (“shall we call down fire from heaven, Lord?” [see Lk 9:54]). They couldn’t stay awake during prayer time. And apparently one of them wasn’t wearing any underwear (just look up Mk 14:51-52).  They were human. They had many of the same problems as the rest of us, but they were blessed to walk alongside Our Lord for three years during his ministry in Galilee. Somehow, that proximity didn’t necessarily make them smarter. But their frequent bouts of cluelessness are a great reminder for us not to take ourselves too seriously. Jesus knows we just don’t get it … most of the time.
-Mac Barron,  Clueless in Galilee: A Fresh Take on the Gospels (2018)

Divorce
Through the suffering of my divorce, I learned to die to myself in different ways. First, through accepting the truth of my situation. Then, through finding forgiveness for all those who had betrayed me. Learning to pray for my ex-spouse instead of cursing him brought great healing. Taking these steps opened my heart and find love instead of hatred and bitterness.

Divorce is a horrible experience and a real sort of death. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. If you’ve been through a divorce, you understand what I’m talking about. But I pray that through this devastating event, you will experience the positive changes this sort of death will bring. There will be a resurrection, there will be new life. The best way to let this happen is in embracing your cross instead of cursing it.
Lisa Duffy 4 Words That Can Change Your Life: “Come Die With Me” (December 31, 2016) A Million Unheard Souls


DOCTRINE
Be careful with your words. Be particularly careful with words of criticism, accusation or condemnation, especially when talking about matters of faith.
For Catholics, many things are defined in our faith, but many more are not. One reason the faith develops over time is that new generations ask new questions and face new situations calling for new answers and new solutions. In our ever-changing world there are wide-open areas where Catholics may permissibly explore different approaches to many unanswered questions about the implications of our faith in the world today.
Saying something you disagree with does not make one wrong. Even being wrong doesn’t make one a dissenter or a cafeteria Catholic. Even being a dissenter doesn’t make one a heretic. Even being a heretic doesn’t make one an apostate.
Don’t call someone a cafeteria Catholic just because you consider their approach unhelpful, misguided or even wrong. Don’t call someone a heretic because they don’t accept everything that Catholics ought to accept. Don’t call someone an apostate because they fail to confess everything that we must believe with divine and Catholic faith. - Steven D. Greydanus
Easter
You go to bed to a cold and desolate world and awake to a warm and inviting sky and the ground aflame with bright and passionate flowers that carry their flame of life in such a manner that one would not believe that they could ever die, save for our previous experience with them.  Indeed, almost over night, our entire world is overrun by an army, the likes of which the world seldom sees, of things which had for so long been dead and forgotten.  But unlike the undead of our fiction, these are not zombies, they do not mimic life, instead they have it -truly have it.  It is far more frightening for something to rise from the dead and truly be alive than for it to just be an animated blob of flesh.

And so, in this season we also remember that Christ is Risen, and in exactly the same way.  He was dead, more truly dead than the hibernation of the natural world, but to our experience the deaths are the same.  Like the bees and the rabbits and the birds Christ is risen not as a zombie, but as one who has true life!  Christ, like the flame of the wildflowers, kindles a fire of hope within us, that we who follow him will some day rise like him, not as bruiting, mindless, flesh-hungry monsters which need to kill to sustain themselves, but instead as ones who have the true life within them.
We will be like the animals who are all but forgotten over the long and desolate winters, alive again and alive in fullness.  And the trees stand alive, topped with leaves like the green flames of the Holy Spirit upon the heads of the Apostles at Pentecost.

In this frightening and forceful display of strength and power, nature prefigures for us a look – albeit simple and flawed- at the reality of our own resurrection from the dead.
Ryan Adams The Horror of Springtime (May 3, 2012)

Easter is a reminder that the church's founding event was first labeled "fake news" by Jesus' followers. Luke's Gospel says the women who discovered the empty tomb dashed off to tell the apostles but that "it seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." Only when the risen Christ shows up in their circle, as he does in that and other accounts, do they grasp the astonishing claim.
Ken Briggs The Christian Fake News Problem (Mar 31, 2017) Roundtable: ncronline.org

“Like the rest of Holy Week, Easter is also a terrific story. It starts as tragedy: the hero broken and bloody, against all expectation dead, his followers' joyful hope in him entombed with his corpse, the rock rolled into place, sealing their despair.

But the curtain doesn't fall there. The next morning at dawn they discover the rock has been rolled back. The tomb is empty, the body's gone! A missing corpse? Great stuff. A whisper of comedy. Now a touch of farce as Mary Magdalen and the guys chase frantically around looking for help, or the corpse, when suddenly, out of nowhere, up it pops—alive!

Of course it's Jesus, who's done the impossible and beaten death.

And they're so amazed they think he's the gardener! It's a payoff way beyond the Hollywood ending: all the flooding emotion and uplift of a tragedy followed by all the bubbling joy and optimism of a comedy.

Is that possible? Not just to live happily ever after but to die—and still live happily ever after? It's the most audacious claim of Christianity, the one element that marks the brand indelibly, that trumps the claims of all other major faiths.”
― Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

Some theologians debate whether and what “death” would have been like had man not sinned. Would he have died? It’s hard to say—much the same way that the Church carefully declares in the dogma of the Assumption that “at the end of her earthly life, Mary was taken body and soul to heaven.” That is why the Orthodox East speaks of Mary’s “falling asleep” (and perhaps why “sleep” and “death” interface so effortlessly in the Church’s Night Prayer). Even if man’s earthly life would have in some way ended, theological consensus is that “death” would be fundamentally different from as we now know it, a “passing over” without the terror or disintegration, the disruption of body and soul, that we experience. It might have been taking on the kind of “resurrected body” in which the disciples encountered Jesus—truly human, truly flesh, but subject to the soul and beyond our spatio-temporal limitations—but without the experience of sin that made Good Friday.
John Grondelski I Believe in Life Everlasting (Dec. 11, 2019) ncregister.com

St. Thomas Aquinas, a revered doctor in the Church, in his Summa Theologica, speculated about the glorified body we will receive. He talked about the seven characteristics of the resurrected body. One wonderful quality was agility. Imagine having the ease of painless movement like an Olympic decathlon champion! We will be able to run, jump, move, and perhaps even fly. The pain, hurts, and sufferings of the past will be no more. I have had problems with my eyes, ears, thyroid, joints, and skin. Others I know are suffering with cancer, M.S., Parkinson’s, heart trouble, back problems, and a multitude of other maladies. St. Thomas taught that our bodies will enjoy enduring health with no more hurts or diseases. We will be immune from pain and death. It is hard to imagine such an existence because we are so used to dealing with the aches, pains, and limitations of life in our body now. One of the greatest anxieties that hangs over us like the sword of Damocles is our future death and dying process. But God says, “Death will be remembered no more.”
Fr Cedric Pisegna CP, (2013). Rise! Living the Risen Life  JC Productions



Apologetics is just one aspect of evangelization, and is often not the most important aspect. We are called to be witnesses, not just explainers. So how have we witnessed the Resurrection? We have experienced first-hand the power of the Resurrection in our own “resurrection” at baptism. After all, St. Paul says that in baptism, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Our first-hand witness of the power of the Resurrection doesn’t end with baptism, however. Every time we go to confession, we are raised from our sins into new life in Christ. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive the Risen Christ. Without the Resurrection, the sacraments have no power; they are just stale, man-made religious rites. When we tell people how Christ has changed our lives, we need to emphasize that it is the Risen Christ who has done this, for what can a man long dead do for us today?
Eric Sammons-The Resurrection and Evangelization 4/29/2019

Easter Vigil
There are lots of cool things about Catholic liturgy, especially when done by people who care about liturgy.  Chant.  Incense.  The darkness and candlelight of Easter Vigil.  Ooooh . . . the Easter Proclamation, and the Vigil readings.  The stripping of the altar on Holy Thursday.  The first time I was at a Catholic Good Friday service was actually at the University of Notre Dame:  the readings are chanted, the music include the Reproaches and the Trisagion — and then you get to the Veneration of the Cross, which is, well, to a Lutheran-at-the-time, a bit creepy.

People get up one at a time, and kiss the cross.

Is that not basically in line with all of the accusations levied at Catholics by Protestants:  “they’re idolaters, who worship relics and pray to saints”?
But it kind of grew on me, to the point that when I’d be a church where there was no individual Veneration, just a communal kneeling and hymn singing, I missed it.

Catholics, after all, have multiple stations for communion to get everyone in and out quickly.  Short homilies instead of long sermons.  Cut a few verses out of the songs if they’re taking too long.  And even that isn’t enough for individual Catholics who dash out as they personally feel they can without missing the Sunday Obligation.  But the Veneration of the Cross — well, I really started feeling bad for my 10 year old squirming next to me, and suddenly Notre Dame’s approach of mini-crosses for additional stations seemed very practical.
And that’s all I have to say.  Go get some Easter inspiration!
Elizabeth Bauer Good Friday: The Most (and Least) Catholic Liturgy (April 1, 2018) Jane the Actuary

Epiphany
In many countries of Europe Epiphany is as important as Christmas, and gifts are actually opened that day in remembrance of the wise men's gifts to the Christ child. In some northern countries, smaller gifts are given each of the twelve days of Christmas with the main celebration on Epiphany, January 6.
Other epiphanies, in addition to the wise men from the east coming to pay homage to the baby Jesus and thus revealing Him to all nations of the earth, include: the angels' message to the shepherds, who represent Israel, announcing that the Messiah has been born in Bethlehem; Jesus' baptism, where God the Father's voice is heard declaring that Jesus is His Son; and the wedding feast at Cana, when Jesus is revealed as divine with His first miracle turning water into wine.
Marcia Morrissey Bringing Our Own Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh (January 06, 2012) Guided Sight

In the Gospel for Epiphany Sunday, we see pagan starwatchers, “magi,” arrive in Bethlehem from some far country east of Israel.
These “wise men” throw themselves on the ground to worship the Child.
They offer him gifts that suggest what future has now been born in this Child who sleeps in a manger.
Bitter and intoxicating myrrh-spice of prophetic ecstasy.
Sweet frankincense of priestly sacrifice.
Gleaming gold of kingly wealth and glory.
With these three gifts, the Magi are paying homage to Him who is a prophet, a priest and a king.
Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, O.S.B. Christ’s Epiphany as the Greatest Show Anywhere and Anytime (January 5, 2020) Turn. Love. Repeat

Eternity
The other day, I looked in the mirror and saw some new lines and wrinkles in my face. At first, I was a little saddened. But then I thought, “Each line is a reminder that my time on earth is limited, and I have a lot of loving to do, so I’d better get busy.”
The thought made me so happy! Each time I look in the mirror, I see the impermanence of my physical body and the way signs of aging are a countdown to my ultimate destination: heaven.
Some fine day in heaven, I’ll be living in my glorified body.
I imagine that it will be flawless in ways that my puny human brain cannot conceive, now. The truth of our God-given beauty will be realized in each resurrected body, and it will show us how foolish human ideals of beauty really are.
True beauty is about love–always, always–because the source and summit of our beauty is Jesus Christ.
Lisa Mladinich Lines in My Face: Countdown to Eternity? (May 6, 2015) Water into Wine

ETERNAL DESTINY
It is interesting: The church has never ever said that any specific person is in hell. The church has many canonized saints, but when it comes to those who may never have said “yes” to God with their life, the church refuses to make any declaration about their salvation.
The church wisely does this because the truth of the matter is that we just don’t know.
But of course, these things are not what get us to heaven. Heaven is open to us solely by the free gift of God made possible by the cross and resurrection of Christ. We have the choice to cooperate with God’s grace (in our words and actions) or to ignore or reject them.
And I think that this is a very important point: I don’t have to expressly reject God’s grace. I may simply ignore it. I can live my life on my terms and not give God the position that belongs to him by right.
We choose either heaven or hell with our actions. Doing God’s will is how we cooperate with God. (It is, in fact, how we love him. See John 14:15.) Not doing God’s will (to the extent that we know it and of course by the power of his grace) is making a choice for life without him. Essentially, we get what we’ve chosen.
Father Mike Schmitz: Who is in heaven? Answer is — ‘We just don’t know’

One reason I love being Catholic is that we do not waste time arguing over whether someone has not been saved. People are basically in the “We don’t know but we hope” category or in the canonized Saint category.
The Catholic response to the Evangelical who asks us, “Have you been saved?” is, as Jimmy Akin puts it:
“I have been saved, I am being saved, and I hope to be saved.”
God can save people in the last moments of their life in whatever way he pleases. He does not require a pat formula of accepting Jesus into our hearts. He requires repentance. So we really can never know for sure whether someone has or has not been saved. In fact, even Judas, the betrayer of Jesus, could have been saved in the last moments of his life.
Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble David Bowie and the Call to Be Cultural Mystics (January 21, 2016) Pursued by Truth

While it may be frightful, I cannot exhort you enough to pursue God’s knowledge of yourself. When you die and stand before God, your judgment will consist in precisely this, i.e. God will show you who and want you are.  We can get small amounts of that here by asking God to show us how He sees us and in so doing, we ask for the opportunity to be made aware of our problems so that we can do away with them so that He will be pleased with us.  Before you go to Confession and when you do your examination of conscience at night, beg God for this knowledge of yourself so that you may make amends to Him Who is so good.  As St. Paul Says, act manly or courageously by embracing spiritual fortitude so that when God reveals your soul to you, you are able to accept with courage and have hope in God Who desires not the death of sinners, but that you may be made just in His eyes.
- Fr. Chad Ripperger, F.S.S.P., PhD

“We are in this world for one goal and one goal only: to achieve Heaven. It is the only measure of success there is. Merit Heaven and your life has been a success, regardless of whatever failures you experienced during your earthly life. Be damned, and your life has been a failure, regardless of what heights you rose to or successes you enjoyed on earth.”
― Michael Voris, Militant: Resurrecting Authentic Catholicism (2016)

For the past year — of earth time — my dad's love and fidelity for Our Blessed Lord and Our Lady, his deep, deep love of the Catholic faith, has been rewarded and will go on for eternity.
Even if he is still in Purgatory, which is most likely not the case since I had three sets of Gregorian Masses offered for him, he is still a saint. He is saved, safely out of the reach of the demonic forever. He died in a state of grace, in the full embrace of Holy Mother Church. His life was a success. He achieved his destiny — nothing else matters.
He may never be declared a saint by the universal Church, but most in Heaven aren't.
But see, when you are in love, you can't keep quiet about it. My dad loved the Faith, he loved truth, he loved the Church because it is Christ here on earth. And he loved all of this because he loved Our Blessed Lord.
Eternal rest grant unto my dad, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.
Dad, get me home safely as well.-
 Michael Voris: One Year Later (Jan 11, 2019) Church Militant


EUCHARIST
RORATE CÆLI International, traditional Catholic blog. We pray for and respect the hierarchical Church
And the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6)

What indeed is the feast of Corpus Christi about?  The Body of Christ. In so many ways this feast is the summation of all the feasts of the year:  Christmas, Epiphany, Holy Week, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity.  For this is the feast of the abiding reality, the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in his Church.  Corpus Christi.  It makes all things real. For Christ is not some mythical figure who came down from Mount Olympus to do his magic and then went away never to be seen again. This Jesus Christ, who ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father with his humanity, his humanity and your humanity and my humanity, whose glorified Body is in heaven, this Jesus Christ dwells among us truly and bodily as Corpus Christi, the Holy Eucharist, in which and by which he gives himself to us more deeply and more really than any of us can give ourselves to each other, no matter how much we love the other person.
Fr. Cipolla's Sermon for Corpus Christi By Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla  6/23/2019 


I strongly believe that the best thing the Catholic Church has is the Holy Eucharist.  That Jesus Christ would leave behind himself for each and everyone of us continues to amaze me.  It is was drew me to the priesthood.  It is what continues to nourish me as a priest.
Fr. Michael F. Duffy My Parish Started Offering THIS and What Happened Next Amazed Me! (April 15, 2015) Father Where Art Thou?

Jesus loves us so much that he gives to us His own Body and Blood so that we may be close to Him.  We can’t have the Eucharist without the priesthood. 
We can’t have the Church without the Eucharist.  Jesus gives us His own Body and Blood not for us to hold on to and have and hide, but to share with the world – so that we could become like Him and take Him out there.  We’re called to be like Mary – Christ-bearers.  The Eucharist impels us towards one another – it makes us one, it makes us the Church!
Fr. Michael F. Duffy Why I am a Catholic in less than 200 words: Holy Thursday (April 2, 2013) Father Where Art Thou?

We’re all sinners, but we’re all called to confess our sins and so we do.  It’s not that I’m suddenly immaculately conceived and deserve communion more than everyone else.  But if I’m openly living in sin, if I’m flagrantly indulging in that which the Church teaches against (or, FWIW, not indulging in what the Church teaches we should do), then I ought not take communion.
Dave Griffey Welcoming Gay Catholics with Open Arms (June 15, 2017) Daffey Thoughts

The Eucharist allows husbands to love their wives unconditionally, and vice versa; parents to love their children unconditionally, and vice versa.  It allows us to love coworkers, acquaintances, friends, relatives, and strangers.  It allows us to love those who annoy us, those who hurt us or frighten us.  Those most unlike us, and those we disagree with. It allows us to see each person as God sees them.
Holy Thursday Homily
Father Pablo Migone Does the priest ever run out of hosts? (April 18, 2019)  Labyrinthine Mind

Only one of the five senses gets to the truth. As St. Thomas Aquinas' Adoro Te Devote expresses, "Seeing, touching, tasting are in Thee deceived. What says trusty hearing that shall be believed?" The ears hear His words, "This is My Body; this is My Blood," and faith takes us beyond the veil of appearances.

The Eucharist is a sacrament of faith. The Consecrated Host looks no different after the consecration than before. It looks, smells, feels, and tastes like bread Christians are used to looking beyond appearances. The baby in the manger does not look like God; nor for that matter does the man on the cross. Yet by faith we know He is no mere man. The Bible does not have a particular glow setting it off from other books, nor does it levitate above the shelf. Yet by faith we know it is uniquely the Word of God. The Eucharist seems to be bread and wine, and yet by faith we say, "My Lord and My God!" as we kneel in adoration.-

The same dynamic of faith that enables us to see beyond appearances in these mysteries enables us to see beyond appearances in our neighbor. We can look at the persons around us, at the annoying person or the ugly person or the person who is unconscious in a hospital bed, and we can say, "Christ is there as well. There is my brother, my sister, made in the very image of God!" By the same dynamic we can look at the pre-born child and say, "There, too, is my brother, my sister, equal in dignity and just as worthy of protection as anyone else!"
Fr. Frank Pavone (8/24/2018) Published in Living Faith Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)

Alongside the Crucifixion, the Eucharist–and specifically the Real Presence, the literal transformation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ–was one of the aspects of Catholicism which first drew me to the faith. I could tell you that it was because the Catholic doctrine seemed most responsive to the Gospels; I wrote a paper, back when I was the only atheist in my History of Christian Doctrine section, arguing that Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, when you consider His insistence in the face of horrified disbelief in John 6:52 – 57, wasn’t simply a metaphor like “I am the vine.” But I have to admit that I loved (and love!) the doctrine of the Real Presence largely because it’s visceral, bizarre, bloody-minded. It seems like the kind of overturning, catastrophic, violent thing the God of Exodus and Good Friday would do–the kind of awful thing our world and our actions would require of Love. It is hardcore.
Eve Tushnet Breaking of the Bread (March 26, 2019 by Eve Tushnet

People hug really hard as though they would pull the entirety of the other person into them, fuse together, form an unbreakable union; so intense that they would practically be the same person, almost indistinguishable.
That's what you are looking at when you look at the manger, a union of the divine and human, God "hugging" humanity so closely, so strongly, that in this case, they are fused together inseparably — the God-Man, the Man-God.
No matter how deep the love, no matter how intense, two people cannot fuse together. The closest we have to this is the marital act, where the two become one flesh. But even there, physical separation occurs — and eventually death.
 The Blessed Sacrament is, in the last consideration, the supreme act of love, but in order for us to be physically united to Him, He had to become physical, material, touchable, consumable, unitable to our bodies, our flesh.
Divinity could not be transported through our veins, pumped through our cardiovascular system, pushed along by our beating hearts, unless the God who created those hearts for Himself would first unite Himself to our flesh.
In so doing, He fashioned, willingly captured His divinity in human DNA and then, becoming our food, passed His divine DNA onto those He loves most in the world.
When you go up to receive Holy Communion the Lord and King of the Universe is giving you a hug, and He means to never let go.
- Michael Vorris THE VORTEX: A CHRISTMAS HUG – From the Son of God ...12/25/18 Church Militant

Knowing the full meaning and reality of the Holy Eucharist will change your life—as it did mine. The knowledge and reality of this grace will change your life in every way – if you let it. Every living soul is a child of God. What Our Lady wants is for us to become an active child of God. We then begin to pay more attention to our faith and all things of a religious nature. We develop over time a better discernment of Holy Scripture and in the case of Marian apparitions, a deeper understanding of the messages given to us by the Blessed Virgin. God uses miracles to shock our senses and from that we either open up and surrender or we are dazzled for a short time before returning to what we call our normal life (like the parable of the seed in Holy Scripture). It’s a free will choice on our part. Frankly, I’m still dazzled and amazed that all of this is now my reason for being.
Weible, Wayne, Medjugorje and the Eucharist  (2015) 

Here is what I know about the Blessed Sacrament as a convert to the faith: The Holy Eucharist is Jesus. It is Jesus in true flesh and blood. It is a Holy Spirit grace that allows every child of God to literally consume the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, to become part of Him as He becomes a living part of everyone who receives Him. This is done through the inestimable act of God coming to earth as man, living as man and dying a painful death as man. If only this incomprehensible gift of grace was clearly understood and accepted by every potential active child of God!
Weible, Wayne, Medjugorje and the Eucharist  (2015) 

EVANGILZATION
Catholicism is not supposed to be the religion of nice. We recite The Apostles Creed, not the Profession of Acquiescence. We are not supposed to be a faith of wimps. Truth must be prioritized at some point. And truth has some sharp edges.
Shepherds should not play nice with the wolves gathering around the sheep. The shepherds staff is for guiding the sheep AND beating away attackers. Chuck Norris style if need be.
Nice, polite, and easy going isn't what we're called to be. Polite and nice does not mean good. Perfectly polite people can tell the Jews who came to their doors seeking shelter from Nazis, "No thank you." They are merely polite accomplices of evil. I'm sure people would say thank you if you held the door at Planned Parenthood. Polite doesn't cut it. Nice isn't enough. Good is countercultural. Doing good is difficult and often provokes a response.
Matthew Archbold Catholicism is NOT the Religion of Nice (Jun. 15, 2018) ncregister.com


We could use a little more Chuck Norris. And a lot more Jesus.

I think most people associate evangelization with Fundamentalist Christians and pseudo-Christian groups such as the Jehovah’s witness. But according to the teaching of Vatican II, it is the main duty of Catholic men and women to “bear witness to Christ” in our lives and in our works. In our home, on the job, in our social group or professional circle, we must show forth “the new man created according to God in justice and true holiness”. The Gospel of Jesus Christ must be proclaimed by what we say and do. This is evangelization.
The Key to sharing your faith is living always in the presence of God. In the first place this means living a sacramental life of frequent Communion and regular confession. You must also have an active prayer life. Being aware of God’ presence in your life means you will always be asking, “Lord what do YOU want me to do in this situation?” And I must tell you that living in the presence of god is essential in order to practice virtue and to keep away from sin. The Catholic Church needs laypeople who want to live in the presence of God, who know the truths of the Faith, and who are willing and able to share them with others.
Terry Barber How to Share Your Faith With Anyone  (2013)

The account of St. Paul’s address on the Areopagus in Athens, found in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, is a sort of master class in the evangelization of the culture, and anyone engaged today in that essential task should read it with care.
One might think that, in the wake of his magnificent address, Paul brought in boatloads of converts, but in fact the payoff was pretty slim: “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’” A handful of people who were willing to give Paul the benefit of the doubt — and yet, they were the seeds of European Christianity, and hence of a Christianity that would spread throughout the world. A final lesson for evangelists: in accord with Mother Teresa’s principle, don’t worry about being successful; worry about being faithful. Announce the Gospel, don’t count converts, and leave the increase up to God.
Bishop Robert Barron St. Paul on the Areopagus: A Master Class in Evangelization (Jun. 5, 2019) ncregister.com




On the one hand, the option of (re-)evangelization supposes, according to the CCEE, “find[ing] the paths for the voice of the Lord Jesus to return to the ears of European men and women in culture and society”. What makes it necessary? That “the Gospel of Jesus is the perennial source of European history, of its humanist civilization, democracy, human rights and responsibilities. And therefore the most secure guarantee!”
Cameron Doody Evangelization or Service? The Vocation of the Church in Europe (October 12, 2017) European Communion

"You will never attract the young by making Christianity easy, but a good many can be attracted by finding it difficult" T.S. Elliot

Our brothers and sisters are hungry, tired, overworked, commodified, drugged, abused, exploited, thirsty, naked, unwelcome, homeless, violated, killed. To evangelize requires that we honor and exalt the dignity of our neighbor. Let us come to satisfy every need – spiritual and material.
Keith Michael Estrada Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 11, 2017) Proper Nomenclature

I think we need to go into hostile environments because that's the only way we're going to be able to bust the myths out there that continue to circulate unchallenged in different professions and different walks of life. I think it's imperative that Catholics not shy away from the media, from universities, from teaching. It's critical. If we retreat and retreat among ourselves, I don't think that's what the Scriptures say we should do and it's not going to be helpful for the future of the Church. I think we need to evangelize and spread the good news.
Laura Ingraham  How Radio Star Talked Her Way Into the Church (Feb. 29, 2004) Judy Roberts National Catholic Register

In His address to the people in the Temple, using words formerly hidden in veiled utterances of prophecy, Jesus, the Messiah, speaks the good news of healing, forgiveness and new life. It is against this scriptural setting that we are able to define an evangelical call to follow the voice of the shepherd. It is against this backdrop that the CatholicTV Network “lives, and moves and has its being.” It is the essential mission of CatholicTV to spread this good news.

Indeed, it is good news that we face nothing alone. The prophet Jeremiah reminds us that the Father has a plan for us and it is a plan for our welfare, our well-being. It is a plan that will allow us to live in happiness and hope. It is the plan for salvation that Jesus offers
through all who evangelize. At CatholicTV, we know we are called to evangelize!

It was St. Ignatius of Loyola who invited his followers to look for Christ in the ordinary events of daily living. On Catholic TV’s We’ve Got To Talk (one of my favorite shows) we try each week to show there is NO aspect or part of our lives in which we don’t hear the loving voice of our God calling to us. Through green-screened, computer-generated special “effects,” we seek to highlight the God-generated special “miracles” that He works in everyday life, sometimes when we least expect it.  In the ordinary events of our lives, we are called to experience a call and conversion in extraordinary ways.
Father Dan O’Connell CatholicTV Monthly • July 2014 • www.CatholicTV.com

Fulton Sheen was known for his facility with extemporaneous remarks, particularly on his 1950s television program, Life Is Worth Living. Viewers marveled at his ability to speak coherently and movingly, for half an hour, without reference to notes. That was the impression, but it was not the reality. Sheen later remarked that his habit was to write out his remarks, reduce them to note cards, and then memorize the note cards. A consummate dramatist, Sheen knew that content and delivery should go together. The best content, if packaged poorly, will make little impression on an audience. Few people will read a book with an unattractive cover because the cover disinclines them from ever picking up the book in the first place. We may be advised not to judge a book by its cover, but most people do, and that suggests that publishers should not be satisfied only with well-manicured text; they also should ensure that the text is presented in a pleasing way. So it is with public speaking, whether on television, on radio, or at an open-air meeting in Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner. Even abstruse themes, such as the Trinity, can be made accessible if a speaker does sufficient preparation—something he should do anyway, even if only out of respect for the crowd.
Karl Keating, Booked for Life: The Bibliographic Memoir of an Accidental Apologist (2017)  Catholic Answers Press 

When I have to prepare a homily, I always try to place myself in the positon of those I’ll be talking t. What are the issues they deal with, and how can the Gospel help them in their daily lives? For communication to work, you need to speak the same language. If you want to communicate with a Wookiee, you need to learn how to speak Wookie.
So what if you find yourself sitting next to a Wookiee on the bus and you want to start a conversation? Or what if you, as a Wookiee are sitting in that same bus next to a Catholic who is on his way to church? What do you talk about? How can you find common ground?
Roderick Vonhogen   Geekpriest: Confessions of a New Media Pioneer (2013)

“Slain in the spirit”… “lay on hands”… “my toddler has a heart for missions”… the Bible as a “sword” or just “The Word”… “loving on *enter unfortunate person/people*”… ‘anointed’”… “calling you out in love”… “Let’s unpack this”… and especially among my Protestant friends, “saved” and “sovereignty.”

When among the like-minded, we Christians tend to revert to our own made-up language.
In under 2000 years, Christians have switched from being divinely inclusive to ridiculously exclusive with their language.

Connecting with others outside of my own echo chamber may mean sounding different from the echoes inside of it. And it’s not about sounding like others so that they’ll eventually agree with me. It’s about connecting with others, because others–even those with opposite thoughts and beliefs–matter.

Maybe that’s what loving our neighbor looks like.
Matt Lafleur Dark Devotional: Speak My Language (June 2, 2017) Sick Pilgrim

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, they say. Well, the Reformation wasn’t prevented, and now, for the past 500 years, we are applying the pound of cure, one soul at a time.
In the case of my friend Luke and his sister, it wasn’t a theological argument that was most needed but a demonstration of love from an older brother. I’ve often seen that this is the case: the message is valued only as much as the messenger is respected. People need to see that you care, that you love them, before they can weigh the evidence you present.
Devin Rose The Reformation’s Toxic Fruit (9/1/2017) catholic.com

The Early Church had people converted by preachers but it also had those who were converted by the witness of Christians. The Romans would say, “See how they love each other.” At different times, these two have worked together in different ways to bring others to the faith. If we look at the modern world, so many who leave the faith claim a poor witness of Christians, not necessarily the dislike of Christian doctrine. Many have left after the sex abuse crisis because of the anti-example it provides. Many are moved by the example of people like Mother Theresa. We also have to realize that even those convince partially with arguments or preaching are also dependent on the one giving the argument or piquing their interest to be consistently Christian.

In recent years, the Church has emphasized evangelization by drawing people to the beauty of Christian life, by example, by charity. This goes back to at least Paul VI.
Paul VI said, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”
Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC  Francis: Evangelize by Example, not Pushing Your Faith on Others (December 23, 2019) Through Catholic Lenses

God created men for heaven. God created all men to know Jesus Christ, to have supernatural life in Him and to achieve eternal life. To lead all men to Jesus Christ and to eternal life is, therefore, the most important mission of the Church.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider Bp. Schneider: Pope’s Revised ‘Diversity of Religions’ Take ‘Remains Insufficient’ (August 29, 2019)

All of us are called by Christ to serve, to spread His Gospel of mercy and life. What kind of disciples will we be? Will we be like the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John the Apostle and St. Mary Magdalene who stood faithfully at the foot of the Cross or will we be like Peter who denied Jesus, Judas who betrayed him, Pontius Pilate who condemned an innocent man or the crowd who called out for Barabbas?- Fr. Peter West


Equality
“I wouldn’t go to church with my plumber.” The speaker, dressed in a dark two-piece suit, with the aggressive pin-stripes favored by some businessmen, went to a traditionalist Episcopal parish out on Long Island where the average income sails far over the average American’s. I laughed, because I’d heard that line said as part of a joke, and then saw that he was serious. It was an awkward moment.
I understand snobbery. Everyone does, because almost everyone is a snob about something. I don’t understand saying this out loud. A Christian might feel this way, being formed by a social world that thinks skilled laborers inferior to bankers and investors, but those who feel that way should know how they sound when they say so.
Jesus died for the plumber, and if Jesus died for him, you can sit next to him. And like it. Annoyingly, the same thing applies for some of us to sitting next to the man in the pin-striped suit.
David Mills Christianity Is For Losers (November 12, 2014) David Mills
Evolution
What are we sure of? We can say that God created our first parents, as He did all creatures, and that they were highly complex organisms. That description applies whether Adam and Eve began as zygotes with human souls growing in maternal bodies or as naked adults in a garden. As we know, biological evolution will never fully account for humanity because we are persons, corporeal body and rational soul, made in the image and likeness of God. It is not unreasonable to assume humanity began with a miracle. And if this biological mystery of life from inanimate matter and remote human origins from a common ape-like ancestor troubles you, then consider something nearer. Biology tells us that sperm and egg fusion is the beginning of life, but none of us know down to the subatomic event on a femtosecond timescale what exactly happened as our electrons swirled when we began to live. And we never will. At its most precise resolution, all our lives begin mysteriously.

Using reason and revelation, Catholics can both roll up their sleeves to explore what evolutionary science discovers about human origins and, simultaneously, believe that Adam and Eve existed. Besides, we are forward-looking people of faith, hope, and love. Until we have our answers, we can be assured of a truth St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known.” I can live with that.
Stacy Trasancos How Do Adam and Eve Fit With Evolution? (Mar. 28, 2017) ncregister.com
Evil
The Gospel falls silent in regards to Herod after Matthew’s account of the massacre in Bethlehem. Herod’s kingdom would be divided among the sons he despised. Within less than a hundred years after his death, his great monuments, built to proclaim his glory for thousands of years, would be reduced to ruins. History remembers him as a petty tyrant. To this day, we mourn the children of Bethlehem, but no one weeps for Herod in the wake of his passing. By attacking Christ we assure our own destruction.
Fr. Steve Grunow The Warning of Herod and the Feast of the Holy Innocents (December 27, 2019) Word on Fire

It is striking that a world largely inured to murder on a vast scale still recognizes in Auschwitz an icon of radical evil: a barbaric grotesquerie no sane person would attempt to justify.
Libraries of books have been written in an attempt to grasp how Germany, a country renowned for its accomplishments in the arts and sciences, could have handed itself over to a genocidal maniac who looked like a Charlie Chaplin character and rabble-roused in screechy German colored by a strong Austrian accent. That question becomes even more urgent when, in the exhibits at Auschwitz I, the visitor ponders black-and-white photos of the “selection” process at the railroad tracks leading into Auschwitz II-Birkenau — and notices that the SS officers making instant decisions about the life and death of those being unloaded from the cattle cars in which they’d been transported across Europe are quite at ease; some are even smiling. Then you learn that the men who invented this horror included eight officials with the coveted German doctoral degree. And you ask again, “How? Why?”
we fool ourselves if we think humanity has learned its lesson and that an Auschwitz could never happen again. As the Italian Holocaust survivor Primo Levi put it, it did happen, so it can happen again. The form may be different; but the rationale will almost certainly be the same.
George Weigel Auschwitz and “intrinsic evil” (February 5, 2020) catholicworldreport.com

Experience of God
St. John learned from this experience in his own life. When he was a beginner in acquiring knowledge of God, God seemed to treat him as one treats a child – encourages the young striver with sweets, attention, affection. But when it is time for the child to become an adult, the mother begins to withdraw. As our faith becomes more mature, we need to learn that our God is not fully found in the sweet world of the senses. Rather, He dwells beyond sense experience.
Human experience itself suffices to teach us about this nothingness experienced by the voyager in pursuit of God. The literature of virtually every part of the world tells of the nothingness, the emptiness, the aridity. And the necessity of voyaging through it.
In addition, the New Testament teaches us that the Savior surprisingly, startlingly, comes not as the Powerful One but as the weak, abject, rejected, outcast one. Take up your cross. Go out into the desert. Pray. Fast! . . . Christian faith throws a deeper, more challenging light upon the darkness and aridity on this side of the human experience. It teaches us that in a certain emptiness is where alone the True God can be found. That is where our Savior bids us follow.
Michael Novak The Dark Night of the Soul (March 27, 2015) Coming Down to Earth


Exorcism
While the first Latin American pope references Satan on an almost weekly basis, today he went further, endorsing exorcism, which is accessed through the sacrament of baptism, as a potent weapon for doing battle against the Enemy and his legions. As an Argentine Catholic, Pope Francis subscribes to the widespread Latin American Christian belief in a literal Devil who sows discord and destruction in the world.  Furthermore the octogenarian pope’s savvy alignment of the Church’s goods and services with our high-tech zeitgeist is a brilliant strategy that features the use of new technologies, such as mobile phones, to deliver demons from a distance

As shocking as it may be to some observers and Catholics in the Global North, Pope Francis’s endorsement of exorcism and even performance of an informal one neatly captures the rise of the Christian Global South, where prayers for deliverance from evil are common Catholic and Pentecostal currency. It would appear that the first pope from the Global South has not only opted for the poor but also has adopted a preferential option for the Spirit.
Dr. Kate Kingsbury/ Andrew Chesnut Pope Francis Endorses Exorcism as Tool for Combating the Devil (April 27, 2018) The Global Catholic Review

Faith
We are incarnate beings living inside bodies in a world with other incarnate beings living inside bodies called into existence by a God who chose to live inside a body then established a community for us to live in that he called His Body. I am part of a church that feeds me with the Body of my Savior and calls me to feed the hungry in my midst.
From everything I can see, my God and my Church are telling me that faith is a tangible existence lived inside the flesh and experienced corporally and corporately. We live and breathe and have our being inside our bodies. We form one Body with our fellow humans. And we worship as a body of believers. If my faith is to be strong enough to bring the Kingdom of heaven down to meet us where we are, I’ve got to build up the bones of that body with spiritual strength and put muscle to that body with active work.
Colleen C. Mitchell So This Is the Place Where I Say the Things (June 17, 2018) Embodied Faith

Shortly after recovering from a nervous breakdown that culminated in a suicide attempt, William Cowper composed a hymn titled “Praise for the Fountain Opened,” which begins with the following verses:
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Running six stanzas, it proclaims essentially the same message as “Amazing Grace,” which it predates by several years. But its tone is more abject, its language closer to the raw. The speaker describes himself as “vile,” and apologizes for his “lisping, stuttering tongue.” In its own schmaltzy, fundie way, it is very powerful, and if Flannery O’Connor’s South really was Christ-haunted, hymns like this are the rattling chains.
Our faith is a living faith only because real blood flows through it. The shedding of Christ’s blood ransomed us, and continues to sustain us through the sacrifice in the Mass. It invests Christianity with a gravity beyond any thought system or do-right code. As Tertullian wrote, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Through the mysticism of depression, William Cowper knew this, but it’s awfully easy for most of us, living in peace and safety, to forget.
Max Lindenman A Little Blood Never Hurt Anyone (April 21, 2016) Diary of a Wimpy Catholic

Herod had FAITH, he believed; but his HOPE was a jealous lust for power; and he had no LOVE.
And so his was a dead and deadly faith.
What if Herod’s faith in signs and Biblical prophecy had moved him to conversion rather than mass murder?
What would that faith and conversion look like?

The words repentance and conversion both translate adequately the Greek word metanoia.

However, the two Greek roots of metanoia are meta and nous; and when combined as metanoia their meaning is more literally change of mind.
Change your minds and believe in the Gospel!
Herod believed in a “gospel” of signs and prophecy, but he would not change his mind.
Such a change would have had to touch his thoughts, choices and feelings, in short, his whole interior life.
Accordingly, Herod would have had to:
recognize his own jealous lust for power, and work to temper it;
accept humbly and justly the newborn king whom God chose, anointed and sent;
offer himself as the child’s servant, and be ready to step aside.
Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, O.S.B.Herod’s Dead and Deadly Faith (December 27, 2019) Turn. Love. Repeat



The widow who threw two small coins in the Temple collection heard and responded to the demand of God for all she had.  She was, perhaps, strengthened in faith because she knew that long ago God, through Elijah, had fed the widow of Zarephath and her son.  She had faith that God would “give food to the hungry” and “sustain the widow”—faith that was stronger than her own bitter experience, which probably told her that the poor and marginalized often went hungry while their “betters” ate their fill.   And in faith she said yes to God.
David Cruz-Uribe Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Widow’s Mite (November 8, 2015) Vox Nova

FAMILY
One of the best parts about being a parent is reliving your childhood vicariously through your kids. Adventure was always a part of my childhood. Whether fighting an intergalactic war or searching for buried treasure, one thing was certain – I was brave enough to face whatever my imagination could throw at me.

Today, my boys battle all the familiar foes - aliens, pirates, bad guys in general. Eavesdropping in on their adventures is especially easy in these winter months. As usual, the hero is noble, the danger is epic, the bravery is unshakable. They’re men after my own heart.
Stephen Lynch DiJulius  Don't Get In The Way Of Their Adventures (January 29th, 2018)

Who is fostering the myth that there is a correct way to handle every situation? Nearly everybody-the media, the experts, and most of all parents themselves.
Most problems can be handled any number of ways, and often the more creative ways work best, even though you wouldn’t find them in a book of “how to’s.” You and your child are unique, and books can only offer general suggestions. How cleverly you use those suggestions, or come up with your own, is up to you.

“Babies are the worst roommates. They’re unemployed. They don’t pay rent. They keep insane hours. Their hygiene is horrible. If you had a roommate that did any of the things babies do, you’d ask them to move out. “Do you remember what happened last night? Today you’re all smiles, but last night you were hitting the bottle really hard. Then you started screaming, and you threw up on me. Then you passed out and wet yourself. I went into the other room to get you some dry clothes, I came back, and you were all over my wife’s breasts! Right in front of me, her husband! Dude, you gotta move out.”
― Jim Gaffigan, Dad Is Fat

The reality is that your methods can be effective or ineffective, helpful or useless. Instead of judging your actions as right or wrong, apply the key question: Is this working or isn’t it? This is a much more meaningful test of your methods and it will make you less likely to downgrade yourself as a parent.
-Raymond N. Guarendi Ph.D., You’re a Better Parent Than You Think! A Common-Sense Parenting

For many the call to adopt comes when the phone rings, and they hear of a baby or child ready for them. The internal call has been ringing steadily, as they’ve been childless and long ready to be child-more. In other words, for those wanting to adopt to start a family, the call is pretty clear. It’s what they want, and it’s been what they’ve wanted. 

Granted, ten kids isn’t for everybody. There are simpler ways to get tax deductions. Nevertheless, as we asserted our lives though the years, obviously with no guarantees on the future, we really had no reason to keep us from seeking to adopt another child. Fortunately for us, we kept having no reasons for the next few kids.

Whether you’re thinking of expanding form none to one, one to two, two to three or nine to ten, do a little personal home study. Is your marriage solid? Is your home life a source of contentment? Are your finances manageable? Is your house able to accommodate another? Are your work schedules amenable? Are you emotionally healthy? Do you need another player for the soccer team?
-Raymond N. Guarendi Ph.D., Adoption: choosing it, living it, loving it.

You are not a perfect parent. But remember, Mary and Joseph left Jesus in a different city for three days. Life can be a mess. God is with you! -Fr. John Hollowell‏ @frjohnhollowell (Jan 4)

“Whenever a father fails to pray, suffer and do good works in order to merit graces for his wife and family, he fails in the most important task of husband and father." - Fr. Chad Rippenger

Fasting
While the Church does not require heavy fasting today like it did for centuries, the Tradition has not changed: fasting is required prior to receiving communion. As with the rule of fasting on Fridays, the Church of the 20th century realized that certain age-old rules were irrelevant or burdensome to some, and so looked to the people of God to act as mature adults and choose for themselves what seemed most appropriate. In the case of fasting on Fridays as well as fasting before mass, this effectively meant that most people abandoned the rule completely.
The Church wanted to make the fast clearer and easier, not nonexistent. There is still a required fast prior to receiving communion.
Father Casey Cole Fasting Before Communion? (February 18, 2020) breakinginthehabit.org

Failure
So, in place of the old, tired adage, I shall suggest the following: If you make a mistake (or if you fall down), do not make the mistake of not seizing the opportunity. This will make you what you are: Perfectly human, perfectly imperfect. Your life will be a work of art; your greatest creation.
Ego sum mea culpa – “I am my own fault”
Michael Mangione On the road with Tom (July 2012) https://mikemangione.com/blog Patheos Blog: Time and the Mystery 

Feminism
So what do feminism and Christianity share in common in this philosophical minefield? From my perspective, how we view women determines how we treat them. The basic principle of the feminist movement is for men to view them as equally human, not objects of gratification. The way Christians view biblical female figures truly affects their theology of how they ought to be treated; and one of the major factors is how we view Mary as the Mother of Christ. If the Ten Commandments tell us to honor our father and mother, why shouldn’t we honor His own Mother? While Eve was formed from Adam’s rib, God chose to be incarnated in Mary’s womb — a most humble inversion. This is why Catholics view Jesus as the New Adam (1 Cor. 15:45) and Mary as the New Eve.

The first Christian and greatest saint who ever lived was, in fact, a woman!
Respecting women to be equally human is really not much to ask for. It doesn’t make anyone less of a man, but more Christlike in character. From my perspective, it’s about humbling ourselves to the ones who gave birth to us and bear our children. It’s a recognition for women to be equally human as men, having the capacity to make their own decisions, having abilities that men do not retain and not to be viewed as mere objects of pleasure at our disposal. It is an utmost respect for all life from conception to seniorhood, and a willingness to put the livelihood of the vulnerable first ahead of our selfish desires.
René Albert Is Feminism Compatible With Christianity? (March 8, 2019) Coffee & Crucifix


Fiction
There is a niche in the Catholic publishing world that has steadily gained a foothold in the years since I began reviewing books. That niche is Catholic fiction. What makes good Catholic fiction? A great story and gentle nudges towards Church teachings without being heavy handed.
Pete Socks The Sleeping Witness. Discovering good Catholic fiction – Off the Shelf 080 (July 9, 2018) The Catholic Book Blogger
Freedom
“The only way to lead a truly free life is in virtue. Because in virtue, all of the lower faculties are subordinated and they don’t affect our judgment and therefore they don’t hack away at our freedom. True freedom consists in self-discipline, in interior self-control, . . . - Fr. Chad Rippenger

Focus
When life seems too big or overwhelming to deal with—even when it takes a swat at you—persistence, focus, confidence and enthusiasm can help you to reach your goal—or at least enjoy the journey.
Do not be faint-hearted.  (Jeremiah 51:46)
Patheos Daily Reflections August 8: When Life Takes a Swat at You (August 8, 2013) Daily Reflections

In Sweden, it’s tradition to eat waffles on the Solemnity of the Annunciation.
The Church’s liturgical calendar is replete with excuses for eating sweets. It’s traditional to eat almond biscotti on the Feast of St. Francis’ Transitus (Oct. 3), hot-cross buns on St. Clair’s feast day (Aug. 11), sfinge on St. Joseph’s feast Day (March 19), honey cakes on St. Abigail’s feast day (Feb. 11), chocolates on St. Valentine's Day, croissants on Our Lady of the Rosary and anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto (Oct. 7) and cuccia porridge on St. Lucy’s feast day (Dec. 13).
If I weren’t already Catholic, I’d run to the nearest baptismal font just for the chance at the dessert tray.
Each of the above sweet desserts has an extensive history and connection with a particular saint. Eating them is practically an act of piety — or so I keep telling my dietitian and the woman who lets out my trousers. And, in these days when our very religious freedoms are greatly put upon, I want to make sure I do my part in honoring the saints.
Interesting, in Sweden, Christians will eat waffles on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, because the feast’s name, in Swedish, is called Vårfrudagen (“Our Lady’s Day”). The name of the feast is similar to the Swedish pun Våffeldagen (Waffle Day). Thus, the pun has engendered a nationwide act of devotion to the Virgin even as far back as the 17th century. Both Catholics and Lutherans will indulge in gloriously sticky, sweet griddle cakes.
 Angelo Stagnaro It’s the Solemnity of the Annunciation, So Here's a Waffle Recipe (Mar. 25, 2020) ncregister.com

Forgiveness
When I was a kid, I used to think forgiveness takes an instant. But the truth is that forgiveness is something like instant for God – transcending all time means all mercy is already given – and something like every instant for me. We offer mercy imperfectly and repeatedly, a new mercy in each new moment.

I wonder what it will be like at the end of all things, when we face the altar of God with the ruptures we could not overcome. Ruptures beyond our power, or beyond our narrowness, or beyond the tiny cosmos of an individual life. I am sure that Christ, the great reconciler, will gather each broken thread together. 

I do not imagine that good deeds make up for bad ones. They repair the echo of the deed, the reverberation that continues into the present, in a way, but the deed is still done in the dead past. (Yes, there is memory, I know, but even that is the life of a ghost.)  There is only one for whom that past is alive, and that one is the God who sees all time from beginning to end, the Trinity for whom every moment in time is always also now. All of me, every action of mine, already stands before the Trinity’s eternal present. And there is nothing that the Triune God will not forgive (except the sin against the Spirit, whatever that is).
Anne Carpenter And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all things to myself (March 12, 2018) )  The Rule and the Raven

“My God is in the business of miracles. And my God does not want anyone to suffer in hell. He wants all of his children to come to him—yes, even those of us “monsters” that are in or have been in the abortion industry. Hate comes from hell. Mercy comes from Christ. When we have hate in our hearts, our spirits are damaged. Be careful with your words. Not only are you a living witness of Christ and his truth, but you could put your own soul at risk. “Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). When we hate, we are no better than those who kill.”
Abby Johnson― The Walls Are Talking: Former Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their Stories (2016) Ignatius Press

Someone once said to me that they would rather go to Hell than forgive the people who hurt them. To my surprise, a friend of mine who converted from Protestantism said that it’s something a lot of so-called Christians say. It’s hard for me to believe that people who claim to love their neighbor can hold on to a grudge so badly that they are willing to go to Hell for it. Believe me when I say this: Hell is not worth it.
There is a reason why CS Lewis said “The doors to hell are locked from the inside.” Hell is not worth staying angry or being judgmental or believing the lies of opportunistic politicians and fake news. Mercy and forgiveness aren’t just part of being a Christian, they are a part of having a healthy life.
I’m not saying to “forgive and forget.” I’m not saying you should reconcile to the people who hurt you. I’m not saying you should act like nothing happened. I’m asking you to let go. Let go of your anger. Let go of the hatred you feel. This is the greatest act of mercy you can do for the ones you and for yourself. The healing can’t begin until you let it all go.
Monique Ocampo Why We Still Need Mercy (December 19, 2016) Monique Ocampo Writes

“There is no way you or I can do God’s will if we do not forgive everyone who has hurt us. No excuses. No “everybody except for that one.” God says if you forgive, then I will forgive you. If you do not forgive, then I will not forgive you. Every time you say the Lord’s Prayer, you are saying, “Okay God, forgive me as I forgive.” So, if you are very forgiving, great job. You have nothing to worry about. If you are not very forgiving — not good — I’d worry a lot.”
― Larry Richards, Surrender!: The Life-Changing Power of Doing God's Will

Fr. Martin, I know you are aware of my work, as for years I’ve called out the pattern of ambiguity, confusion, and error that I believe you deliberately embrace relative to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. I’ll never waver in challenging that pattern, now or in future. But I ask your forgiveness for those times I’ve written about your work in ways that you found personally wounding and for any lack of charity or respect I’ve shown you in past. Perhaps you and I could one day “reason together” about such things, as brothers in Christ. I’d gladly do so cordially and charitably in private. I pledge that in future I’ll assiduously avoid similar pitfalls.

Christ is our victor, even in the midst of battles that seem lost or lopsided. I’d like to call on all Catholic writers to discern prayerfully whether this, too, might be your personal moment to rise to this new occasion and fresh need for voices of hope and healing. Every Catholic can do this—from professional writers to readers who are “combox warriors” for the faith—all across Catholic media.
Let us all work together to “write the good fight” with both truth and charity, and in a way that lets us finish the race knowing we’ve led others to the same glorious finish that is our deepest aspiration.
Jim Russell Writing the Good Fight (February 17, 2020 )

FUS
FUS is getting it from both sides now—with one side advancing against the University for being too Catholic and the other for not being Catholic enough. In fact, there has been a conscious, concerted effort over the past ten years to hire solidly orthodox Catholic scholars in theology, philosophy, sociology, psychology, the sciences, mathematics, nursing, education, etc.  The trend is towards more orthodoxy, not less, with every candidate for the faculty required to write a statement explaining how he or she will not only maintain, but also enrich, Franciscan’s passionately Catholic nature. Failing to do this means said applicants will not move on to the interview stage. Bottom line, friends, let’s be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. There are forces in this country that would like nothing better than to see small Catholic oases such as Franciscan University of Steubenville close their doors for good. Let’s not assist them by needlessly undermining one of the last schools standing that swears to uphold Catholic teaching.
Michael J. Matt IN DEFENSE OF FUS: Franciscan University Holds the Catholic Ground

I still believe, with all my heart, that Franciscan University of Steubenville is one of the best places in the country (if not the planet—and I’m not going for hyperbole there) to learn about the beauty of the Catholic faith, be surrounded in a community real Christian brotherhood and sisterhood, and be empowered to live saintly lives in a culture that seems trending toward darkness. Well, I do know this. Jesus Christ is Lord. And, for whatever reason, He has chosen the broken, sinful people of Franciscan University (like me) to do great work for His Kingdom. It is an honor to work here and be a part of our mission to “educate, evangelize, and send forth joyful disciples to restore all things in Christ.” Please pray for Franciscan University of Steubenville that we will be faithful to go where the Holy Spirit leads.
Bob Rice I (Still) Love Franciscan 01/10/2019

So, are there Steubenville grads blogging at Patheos Catholic?  Yes.
In fact, one of the things that I value from my education at FUS is that it has a better alumni network than my fancy grad school, which grad school I attended in the hopes that it would yield me professional connections.  Who would have supposed that FUS grads would be more generous out in the real world?  I’ve founded theatre companies with FUS grads, collaborated on audio books with FUS grads, been interviewed by FUS grads, done consulting work for FUS grads…
In short, the people I met at Steubenville are some of the best and brightest I’ve had the pleasure to work with.  I’m pleased to be blogging among other FUS graduates, here and across the blogosphere.  If this sounds like an endorsement for my alma mater, it probably is.
Emily C. A. Snyder Neo-Nazis at Steubenville! Liberals with Blogs! Responding to Church Militant (January 16, 2019) Pop Feminist


Giving It to God

I’ve tried very hard to make a practice of giving everything back to God. I’ve tried to practice, in both good and bad, offering every moment in life up to Him as an opportunity to do His will. Missed the bus on your way to work? It’s Yours, Lord. Burnt your dinner? It’s Yours, Lord. Get your car towed twice in one month? Still, yes. It’s Yours, Lord. Do everything in life for Him, and be filled with the peace that comes with surrendering your life.
In the book Love & Salt, one of the writers comments that the unfortunate part of being Christian is that we don’t have the luxury of giving up, because there is always hope in the resurrection. I believe she’s exactly right. Doesn’t it feel some days as though it’d be easier to just give up? To abandon our goals and our convictions for the sake of some instant, momentary satisfaction? Of course. But we can’t. Because through the resurrection, we know there are better days to come.
Mary Kate Knorr 25, Catholic, And Super Stressed Out.  25 and Catholic 

Everything you do can be done for Jesus. Preparing dinner, cleaning the bathroom, waiting on customers, changing diapers or working on the computer can all be offered to the Lord as a prayer. Keeping that in mind and remembering to chat with him as you work will increase your prayer time and decrease your stress level.
Gary Zimak  The Question Nobody Ever Asks About Martha And Mary… Be Not Afraid with Gary Zimak

Good Shepherd
The good shepherd is the one who leaves ninety nine sheep in search of the one that has been lost.
In this interpretation, you and I are the pearl of great price, the treasure in the field, and the lost coin.
Lately I’ve been imagining myself to be very, very small when I pray. Sometimes I imagine that I am an acorn because I’m hoping for new life out of my struggling faith. Sometimes I imagine that I am a hedgehog because, goodness knows, I can become prickly when I think about religion. Imagining that God can find me even if I have a hard shell or prickles is helpful. It’s a sort of personal parable. Thinking about the Good Shepherd makes me think that I’m on the right track. Maybe, for all my doubts, I will turn out to be a pearl of great price after all.
Maren Grossman Dark Devotional: What the Good Shepherd Teaches Us about Parables (May 10, 2019) Sick Pilgrim


God
But if God’s glory is beyond our comprehension, why would He not be intimidating? The Ancient Jews knew they were in the very presence of God when they worshiped the Holy of Holies, and acted accordingly. ¹ It seems as though people have created a false dichotomy that the God of the Old Testament suddenly turned into some apathetic, all-embracing hippy-messiah. If God is apparently the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, then His nature should not have changed even after Jesus’ time on earth. ²
René Albert Put The Tabernacle Back Where It Belongs! (March 20, 2019) Coffee & Crucifix

Sometimes I need God to be human-sized. I need to know that he became one of us and suffered as we suffer. I need that connection with Jesus so I know God gets it. He isn’t distant and observing human suffering from above. He got right down into it alongside us.

But sometimes I need God to be big. Bigger than big. When I start praying my nightly prayer and stating one prayer request leads me to thinking of another dozen people with urgent and unmet needs, I need God to be big. When I see how so many people revel in dehumanizing one another and exploiting the vulnerable and enabling abuse, I need God to be big.

I need to know God is bigger than us. I need to know this evil won’t endure forever. It’ll outlive me, but it will end.
Kristy Burmeister The World’s Largest Crucifix: When We Need God to be Big  (August 20, 2018) Way Station in the Wilderness

That’s one of the joys I get from doing science as a Jesuit; by playing with the Universe I play with God, and thus I get to know God. I get to see his quirks and his personality, His way of doing things, his special brand of subtlety—that is His sense of humour. That’s my aesthetic; that is what has trained my sense of the elegant.
Guy Consolmagno SJ, Astronomy, God, and the Search for Elegance, (Feb 10, 2020) magiscenter.com

“What does it mean to fear the Lord? It means to have awe and reverence for him. The woman who fears the Lord obeys from a heart of love for the God of the universe, who is also her heavenly Father! Her childlike fear of her heavenly Father leads her to faithful and faith-filled obedience.”
― Kimberly Hahn, Chosen and Cherished: Biblical Wisdom for Your Marriage

“Judgment, then, is not an impersonal, legalistic process. It is a matter of love, and it is something we choose for ourselves. Nor is punishment a vindictive act. God's "curses" are not expressions of hatred, but of fatherly love and discipline. Like medicinal ointment, they hurt in order to heal. They impose suffering that is remedial, restorative, and redemptive. God's wrath is an expression of His love for His wayward children.”
― Scott Hahn, The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth

Don't get me wrong. The Church teaches without error. When it comes to matters of faith and morals, we are called to live the teachings. What the Church has prescribed for liturgy, and the sacraments, we are supposed to adhere to. But, God wants more than rules. He wants you to know him. He wants you to not need the rules because, in love, you are already following them.
God is moving. He is moving in his Church. He is moving in Latin Masses, in English, and in Spanish. He is present in Charismatic prayer meetings, and he is even present at diocesan staff meetings. We know that because he told us, "where two or more are gathered."
We need to be ready to celebrate the work that God is doing, even when it doesn't happen the way we think it should. When people lift their voices in worship, we need to be ready to join them, and it doesn't matter if they are singing chant in Latin, or contemporary praise and worship.
Want to avoid Phariseeism? Then focus more on what he is doing.
He is moving. Usually, in unexpected ways. We need to be ready to celebrate.
Chris Mueller Don't Miss the Point everydaycatholic.com

The opposing tactic of Jesus is poverty. Whether material or spiritual, poverty means we rely on God. Our use of things, according to Ignatius, should only be for the sake of our growing in relationship with God and we should dispose of them if they don’t help us grow toward God and neighbour. It’s no surprise that poverty is one of the three vows religious women and men make. It’s a statement of reliance on God, not fleeting things.
Andy Otto (March 2, 2020) Jesus’ Paradoxical Life-Giving Tactics godinallthings.com

Writing about God is difficult. You can write about the idea of God, of course. You can defend God. Argue in favor of God’s existence. Argue endlessly about what God would probably want if He showed up and weighed in on the state of the modern world. It’s easy to write around God. But to write about God is a different thing.

Because God isn’t a concept, an idea, a champion or a moralizer. God is God. He is simultaneously so completely Other that anything we say about Him is kind of laughable and cartoonish. Even something like the use of male pronouns is misleading – though the use of female pronouns or impersonal pronouns would just be misleading in a different way. Any statement that we make about God, any analogy that we draw, is going to be more unlike than like God.

And yet, at the same time, all of the analogies do contain some truth.
Melinda Selmys A Monstrous Monstrance, or Why Does Religion Suck? (AUGUST 12, 2018) Catholic Authenticity

Good Friday
"For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Between the darkness of concupiscence and the clarity of Beatific Vision, we can spend our time learning to see ourselves, our neighbors, and all art ever more brightly. Domine ut videam.

It is Good Friday, and we are reminded of the day that promise gave way to despair.  A weak, powerless man hung before a crowd to be beaten, mocked, and killed.  All the rhetoric of salvation and eternal life reduced to naked, quivering flesh.
This is the death that we feel so heavily today on Good Friday.  As Christians, though, we know that the great paradox of the Resurrection is yet to come: when Life will come out of death.  The civilization of death tries to eliminate suffering and distort sexuality because both are intimately linked to the Cross through self-gift.  It was through Christ’s suffering on the Cross that he fully gave himself to us, and through the sacrifice of the Eucharist he continually gives himself to us.  Likewise, it is through the conjugal act that a man and a woman fully give themselves to one another to become two in one flesh.  When we profess our vows to Christ at the offertory of the Mass, we are participating in his Sacrifice by making ourselves into a full gift to him.  This union is then consummated as we eat his Body and drink his Blood, making us two in one flesh with Christ.  We must therefore be mindful that in order to rise with Christ on Easter Sunday, we first die to ourselves with Christ on Good Friday.
Anna Pfaff Suffering, Sexuality, and the Cross: John Paul II and Walker Percy on the Culture of Death (April 2, 2015) Love Among the Ruins


Good out of Evil
I was taught that only God can bring good out of evil. Not that he creates evil, evil is the deterioration of the good, but God can bring good out of evil choices we each make.
The biggest example of this is the Crucifixion. Jesus was beaten, battered, flogged, tortured and murdered for no good reason. He was executed in a brutal way as if He was the most dangerous of criminals even though He was sinless. Even if you believe the charges made against Him by those who called for His death, it did not warrant the evilness and brutality of His death. And yet, it was through that death on the Cross that we are saved.

I will always suffer from grief after losing my son to suicide, but the good that has come from it is that I have grown closer to God even in all my anger at Him. Also, my family has become so much closer and we rely on each other in ways that we never did before. I have also been blessed by so many people who don’t even know me but who have prayed for me and my family and Anthony. I have been loved through it which I needed because I don’t know if I have ever been loved through anything else in my life.
I do not know what good will come from the chaos in the Church right now, but God is not gone. We will find Him in the Truth of it all. And regardless of everything else, people on every side are unified in demanding the truth to be found.
 Leticia Adams Salvation through Judas (August 29, 2018) Through Broken Roses

Gregorian Chant
When the email circulated that there would be a traditional Latin Mass at our parish for the Feast of the Assumption on August 15, I immediately and foolishly wrote back that I wanted to be in the Schola Cantorum, the chant choir.

I’d read somewhere that chant comes so naturally, anyone can do it. But the Mass of the Assumption is a High Mass, with propers and antiphons trotted out only on the Marian feast days, some of them so complicated on the first listen that I laughed out loud. I was in way over my head.

When I showed up for the first practice, I did not find monks or choir nuns with years of experience. I found two other women, a Sony Megabass jambox, and a CD from the monks of Solesmes, one of the best chant choirs in the world. This is actually how it’s been done for centuries—not by CD, but viva voce, following the example of another’s voice, chants acquired by immersion, by many years of experience in a Schola Cantorum. We had exactly three weeks.

We practiced as often as we could, working around my infant’s erratic schedule, the other ladies driving well out of their way to accommodate me. I’d rush through dinner, hurriedly nurse the baby down, grab my rumpled and coffee-stained music and drive to the church, listening to the CD in the car.
Jessica Mesman Griffith I took a crash course in Gregorian chant. Literally. (September 21, 2016)  Sick Pilgrim

Saint Pius X insisted that Sacred Music must be composed of three elements: it must be holy; it must be true art; and it must be universal.
Saint Pius X held up Gregorian Chant as the infallible measuring rod by which all church music must be gauged:
“... Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the supreme model for Sacred Music, so that it is fully legitimate to lay down the following rule: the more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes: and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple.
John Vennari Fusion Catholicism

Graces
“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

No. Like most things in my life, I don’t deserve what has been given to me. I could pretend that everything I have accomplished has been because of my diligent hard work, clairvoyant planning, and herculean work effort. But the truth is, everything I have, and have accomplished, is an unearned grace. And in the great scheme of things, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if I don’t try to become a little Christ.
Still, I am grateful for all the blessings that have been bestowed upon me. For my life, my wife, my children, my health, etc. But I am especially grateful for having been called to be a Catholic, and to having access to the channels of grace that are provided by the sacraments of the Church, Christ’s body here on earth. I want others to know that this is something that I am grateful for and that what they are searching for can be found in the Catholic church, too.
Frank Weathers Because I Don’t Deserve The Graces That Have Been Bestowed Upon Me, Including Folks Reading This Blog (August 4, 2014)  Why I Am Catholic


Grief
The worst thing in moments like this are for the experts to weigh in. Expertise and grief are like baking soda and vinegar. The only time they should be combined is in a fourth grade science fair exhibition. 
Justin Tse They are us’: on having no words on Christchurch, Ethiopian Airlines, and the ecological crisis (March 18, 2019) Eastern Catholic Person

Head Covering
For 2000 years, Catholic women have worn some kind of head covering in Church. Though the particular reasons for doing so have varied (for example, modesty, submission to God, etc.), this practice has always focused on the transcendence of the place – the church, the very dwelling of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Having been given this magnficent Gift by Jesus himself, every Catholic church holds something not found anywhere else: the true, living presence of our Savior, hidden under the appearance of bread and wine.
Today, wearing a veil – any kind of covering – is a symbolic gesture that points to the amazing reality of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. As women, we are symbols of the Church – the Bride of Christ – and “the veil is meant to be a visible reminder of the perfect submission of the Church to the loving rule of Christ.”
Kathy Schiffer Wear the Veil Day: Catholic Young Women Veil in Devotion to the Real Presence (December 8, 2015) Seasons of Grace


HEALING
Our wounded hearts always drift from, but long for, the beloved. Our broken nature, no matter how much it shines in the eyes of the world, is always in need of purification through circumstances that cause us to reflect, to ask why, to weep, and to cry out for His help and healing.

It is a Divine kindness to allow us to fail and to fall that we might see our true state, our deepest need. When we cry out, He always steps back into view and with a gentle and heavenly touch calms the storm. If received, His perfect embrace of reunion releases the flow of holy tears and healing. If received…
Dan Burke This is the Dark Night, the Dance of Heaven, Our Redemption (Mar. 30, 2018) ncregister.com

I mean: the Bleeding Woman’s celebrated faith did drive her to press through the crowd, blood running down her legs, staining her robes, disgusting and infecting everyone she passed with uncleanness. She knew Jesus would heal her. That’s why she’s awesome.

The Scriptures tell us that when Jesus asks who touched him, “In the presence of all the people, she told why…” (Luke 8:47). The Bleeding Woman told Jesus that she had bled (meaning, blood running from her uterus through her vagina, into her undergarments, overflowing whatever rudimentary “pads” they used for 12 years) in front of everyone.

This is a story about a woman for women–and girls–of all ages. From girls stressing about their first periods to nursing moms covering their leaky boobs in a meeting to middle-aged woman breaking into a sweat standing still to elder women navigating a new normal for sex, Jesus says, Ignore those who giggle. Forget those who are repulsed. It’s cool. No need to hide. No need for shame.
Jessica Mesman Griffith The Bleeding Woman (October 9, 2017) Sick Pilgrim

History
When I, as an abuse survivor, encounter Jesus’s passion as I worship at Mass, I do so through the very same mental faculty through which I harbor the memories that are a source of my own passion. But whereas my passion is ongoing (for my memories of past trauma are always part of me, even if I am not bringing them to mind at a given moment), Jesus’s passion has come to a definitive end with his death and resurrection. And I likewise encounter Jesus’s death and resurrection at every Mass, dying with him and rising with him.
Thus, if in worship I encounter Jesus’s death and resurrection through my memory just as I encounter his passion through my memory, then my own memory cannot end with my own passion. It has to continue with my rebirth in Christ—the renewal that began with my own baptism and is intensified with each encounter with him, which will culminate one day in my own resurrection and divinization.
Dawn Eden Goldstein, S.Th.D., aka Dawn Eden Healing Through the Liturgy: Insights from Vatican II (January 27, 2020) The Dawn Patrol

Put another way, Jesus has entered history only insofar as Jesus becomes an event in his story and hers, insofar as he is woven into the fibres of circumstances and experiences. The incarnation, is not merely about a single historical event in the past, but in every node of history going right up to the present. This of course, includes his being deeply immersed in the circumstances that together make up our history.
Matt Tan How a Train Ride Taught Me the Presence of God (December 17, 2018) The Divine Wedgie


Humility
In our ever media driven world one thing we terribly lack as a society is humility. Every one of us wants to be right. With a few keystrokes and a press of the “enter” button we can create an atmosphere of superiority above those we are responding too. Frankly we need a dose of humility more than we ever have before.
 Pete Socks Book Review: We could all use a little humility (October 10, 2018) The Catholic Book Blogger

Holy Communion
I was struck by this picture of NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio at St. Patricks Cathedral during Communion yesterday.  It is clear from this picture Hizzoner has done his homework and knows how to be respectful to the Church’s teachings.  While he was baptized a Catholic, Mayor DeBlasio does not practice the faith.
When we are not practicing our faith, or when we are not in Communion with the Church’s teachings we should not present ourselves for Holy Communion.  If we find ourselves in that situation, we can either remain in our pew, or if we feel compelled to, present ourselves to the priest with arms folded over our chests.  This posture is the signal to the priest that you are asking just for a blessing.
Fr. Michael F. Duffy Respecting the Blessed Sacrament: A Model for those that are not in Communion with the Church Father Where Art Thou? (December 22, 2014)

God is still speaking the world into existence; He is still speaking His own very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity onto every Catholic church’s altar. And He is doing it in the words of consecration, the words that he spoke nearly two thousand years ago, in a voice that transcends time, an unbroken chain passed from generation to generation by the laying on of hands.
Have you seen how the entire world all but disappears for a split second at the consecration of the Host at Mass? It happens very quickly, and if you blink you will miss it. Everything in the created universe is revealed to be hanging as though suspended, as though the fabric of reality were as fragile as a bubble dangling from a leaf. The only thing that is fully real, fully true, fully grounded, is the elevated Host and the words pouring from the priest’s lips that telescope time and space to the Last Supper.
Dawn Eden Reflecting on the still, small voice that sustains us (September 3, 2013) Feast of Eden

When I received my First Holy Communion, there was a group of children, and the priest arranged everything in a very beautiful way. With a candle in hand, we went through the Communion rail to the high altar, to the highest step, and there
we received Holy Communion from the high altar, kneeling, as the deacon kneels on the top step: there I received my First Holy Communion. It was so beautiful for me—and unforgettable. My mother and the priest gave us a beautiful instruction. They said, “You will receive your Savior and God in this little Host. And He is living there.” And this I remember: “He is living. Be careful, He is living, and this is your Lord!” Since then, it has always been so for me: He is living there! I thought, when I received the Lord, He is living and He is entering into me. For me, the Host is so holy because there is my God, as both my mother and the priest had told me.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider -Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age  (2019)

Holy Days
It isn’t always easy to tell Christian and pagan holidays apart.  The Bible doesn’t tell us when Jesus was born, but we chose to celebrate his birth in late December in part because that is when the surrounding culture celebrated the rebirth of the sun after the winter solstice.  In English, the word we use for our most important holiday, Resurrection Day, is Easter, a word of Germanic origin likely related to a pagan goddess of the dawn (hence “east”).  Languages like French and Italian use more Christian – in fact, Jewish – language.  Pâques or Pasqua are from the Hebrew term for Passover (Pesach).
Brett Salkeld Halloween and All Saint’s Day (November 1, 2011) Vox Nova

Holy Family
In a similar way, not all holy families are alike. Some of the holiest families I’ve seen do not look like the traditional model on the Christmas card. And indeed, Mary was no 1950’s housewife. She was a vulnerable young woman who chose to place all her trust in God and become the mother of Jesus – not knowing what awful consequences she might face, but choosing to place all her trust in God. While many fathers take pleasure in noting their children’s physical resemblance to themselves, this was not a pleasure experienced by Joseph, who chose to marry a pregnant woman and love a child not biologically related to him. And Jesus, we believe, is the Divine Word incarnate – God who chose to come into the world at a particular time and place, born to a particular family. The Holy Family is a chosen family.
Jeannine Pitas There are many kinds of holy families (December 29, 2019) Vox Nova

Holy Spirit
Plenty of mystics and ordinary believers (there’s usually nothing ordinary about them) have already discovered and harnessed, or rather, have been harnessed, by this fire. It’s called the Holy Spirit.
Artur Rosman Every Human Life Begins with a (Little) Bang! (May 2, 2016) Cosmos The In Lost

Holy Saturday
In my opinion, Holy Saturday is the hardest day of Holy Week to really “enter into.” Is it a day of mourning? Not exactly. A day of rejoicing? Again, not exactly. The best description I’ve heard it is that it is a day of “quiet hope.” Here are some aids to cultivate a spirit of quiet hope as we make the massive transition from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, and as we commemorate Christ’s “harrowing of hell”:
Joe Heschmeyer Holy Saturday Soul Booster Shameless Popery

I didn’t use to love the Eucharist. I’ve already written on my near-suicidal childhood scrupulosity. During that time I’d beat myself up because, while I wished to believe all that the Church teaches about the True Presence, and I never actively doubted it—I simply couldn’t wrap my head around this teaching. I’m pretty imaginative normally, but I couldn’t imagine this one, and I would make myself sick trying to imagine that this odd-tasting white wafer and over-sweet wine are flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of a living God-man who loves me.

My friends ask me why I love the Eucharist so much, and I struggle to find an answer. It’s not intellectual, I try to explain. It’s a pull, an ache in my gut.

That ability to sense His presence hasn’t left since that retreat five years ago. I mostly take it for granted these days, but I still feel Him there when I walk into a Church. And sometimes it takes the emptiness to remind me, when the fullness is missing, that I do know Him now, that my heart still aches with that pull to Him.

And on Holy Saturday this ache intensifies. The church, usually a temple housing my Holy of Holies, becomes a hall—a mere structure, an empty shell of brick and paint and shards of grotesquely-colored glass. His presence, thick and permeating as incense, is gone. My God is dead, and I mourn.
Marie Kopp Holy Saturday Ponderings: Eucharistic Absence (April 1, 2018)  The Shoeless Banshee: Meanderings Beyond the Pale @Patheos Catholic


Hope
We can take comfort in the thought that the metaphysics of the universe are also at play in the minutiae of our personal experience. We can see the threads of our history that have come to an abrupt end – through disappointments, setbacks and tragedy – not to have a tragic finality, but to be highly revelatory moments.  While we viscerally experience the coming end, we can remember that the operations of divine love are at work behind the veil. Moreover, if we take the Book of Revelation seriously, we should be assured that where we are is at the point of beginning, not an end.
We thus have reason pray, as my priest friend Colin Parrish once wrote, that God give us hope that lies beyond the veil of our vision, and for God to run ahead and wait for us.
Matthew Tan Love at the End of the World (April 12, 2018) The Divine Wedgie @Patheos Catholic

St. Paul Miki and companions are rightly remembered for their bravery during their forced march of 600 miles to crucifixion in Nagasaki. This is exactly the same length St. Josephine Bakhita was forced to travel, barefoot, when kidnapped by slave traders at the age of nine.

I’m not sure why the detail of the 600 miles struck me, except that it reminds me that while we are bound by time and chronology, Christ isn’t. Unlike the Japanese martyrs, Sr. Bakhita’s sufferings predated her conversion–she wasn’t suffering for the sake of a faith she didn’t yet know. And yet somehow her Christianity gave her a way to understand and make sense of her earlier trials.

The same hope, the hope of a life destined for the love of Christ, both gave St. Paul Miki the courage to face martyrdom and gave Bakhita the courage to claim a life free from slavery and abuse.

The Japanese martyrs walked 600 miles in witness to that freedom. The little girl we know as Bakhita walked 600 miles and lived as a slave before she could claim that freedom.

How far would I walk?

What would change in my  life if I truly lived in that hope?
Kate Cousino Would I walk 600 miles? (August 9, 2018) Peace and Pekoe

Humanity
So just to see what happens, let’s stop hating on the most beautiful thing in the world — the human body — and instead see it as it is: The image and likeness of God, here on earth. Let’s love our bodies. Let’s not be scared of them. Let’s have awesome, mind-blowing, sacramental sex with them. Let’s see ourselves not as a soul in competition with the body, but as a soul and a body, inseparably intertwined. Let’s avoid the Puritanism that represses as well as the Puritanism that fears. In a word, let’s be Catholic. If nothing else, it’d be the polar opposite of this depressing, modern culture.
Marc Barnes Our Culture Sucks (February 6, 2012) Bad Catholic

Regina Magazine -  Inspiring. Intelligent. Catholic.
 “Glorify the Lord in your bodies,” St. Paul wrote in Corinthians. The way we treat the body, then, is a visible witness of discipleship. Of course, a healthy body alone does not encompass the fullness of St. Paul’s teaching.  Many great saints have been afflicted with less than ideal health, and acceptance of illness can often be part of our spiritual journey. 

From its foundation in the Resurrection of Jesus, Christianity alone among religions has expressed the deep connection, and ultimately, the permanent unity of body and soul. New Age philosophies, which are modern variations on eastern spiritual traditions, attempt to link body, mind, and spirit, but it is only in Christianity that we find the belief that each human person is a unique, unrepeatable, and eternal body and soul.

 Jesus, who by any measure has to be one of the most fit persons in history, continuously prayed, and referred all His actions and efforts to the Father in Heaven. For Jesus, and for us, prayer is the most essential element of fitness.

What about exercise? The Bible speaks of good stewardship; we honor our Creator by taking good care of his creation. And we can look to our Savior. He walked everywhere. Walking is great exercise, free, and available to almost everyone. Pilgrimage, a long and noble tradition in the Church, has the added benefit of directly combining prayer with physical effort.

Jesus makes clear that there are times to feast and times to fast. We take pleasure readily in the feast, but without a period of fasting, what is there to make the feast day special?

The Church long ago established every Friday as a fast day, and every Sunday as a feast day, corresponding to the day of Christ’s death and the day of His Resurrection. Even keeping this simple arrangement will help us focus more on what is and is not important about the food and drink choices we make. And as Catholics, we know that the Bread of Heaven itself, shared during Holy Communion is our ultimate nourishment.

The relationship of body to spirit is much more than incidental. Christians can honor the body through a program of health, fitness, and prayer, to increase physical and spiritual health, promote a deeper relationship with the Lord, and prepare our bodies and our souls for the life of the world to come. Our model is Christ himself. We should aim to make our earthly lives more like His: to pray, to fast, and to heal.
Losana Boyd   Prologue of   “Our Bodies, Our Souls.”  

Humility
I’m not saying that it’s easy to listen to different viewpoints. There’s a reason I avoid politics when I can, after all. I’m just saying that people need to be open to change and open to being able to laugh at themselves and admit that sometimes they’re wrong. Having the courage to change takes humility and that particular virtue is hard to find these days.

I think the fear of humility comes from the fact that most people don’t understand what humility is. Humility may involve some shame and embarrassment, but it doesn’t always. More often than not, humility is just knowing that you’re not always going to be right. That somebody knows more than you and that you have to learn from them. That you’re not a special snowflake, but at the same time, it’s okay that you’re not. Humility is the first step to embracing change and developing courage. And eventually, you’ll find that you’ve become fearless.
Monique Ocampo The Courage to Change (August 10, 2015) Monique Ocampo Writes

Humor
The chicken sandwich chain will run public health ads and billboards with its iconic cow mascots reminding people to "eat fewer bats" and "have a delicious chicken sandwich instead." Chick-fil-A restaurants will also host "People Who Don't Eat Bats Appreciation Day," where people who come in and don't eat a bat get a free chicken sandwich.
Babylon Bee  Chick-Fil-A Temporarily Changes Slogan To 'Eat Fewer Bats' (March 27th, 2020) /babylonbee.com

This generation will never know the joy of pushing a fully clothed person into a swimming pool without fear of damaging an overpriced phone.
 -caprice crane‏ Verified account @capricecrane 15 Apr 2015

“Our way of life as a church was changed just because some 33ad liberal fanatics thought that they needed to keep up with the ancient times. It’s just sad, because we do want unity with the Vatican, but we’re not going to give in to this modernist idea of Jesus as a savior just because he healed a bunch of people and rose from the dead. David Blaine has also done some pretty amazing things, but you don’t see us worshiping him, do you? No—we need to stand our ground and not stray from tradition no matter the cost.”
Eye of the Tiber Weird Sedevacantist Group Apparently Still Waiting for Messiah (October 4, 2017)  eyeofthetiber.com

: "It doesn't matter what day it is, Father. There is always time for a nice cup of tea! Didn't our Lord Himself on the cross pause for a nice cup of tea before giving Himself up for the world?"
Mrs Doyle- Fr. Ted the TV Series

“So be joyful. Use your sense of humor. And laugh with the God who smiles when seeing you, rejoices over your very existence, and takes delight in you, all the days of your life.”
― James Martin, Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life (2011)

“When things go awry, if they are mostly an inconvenience to you or a threat to your ego, instead of getting furious, can you laugh?
Sometimes the even the best-laid plans, the most carefully planned events can turn out quite differently than planned.”
― James Martin, Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life (2011)

VATICAN CITY—Numerous onlookers confirmed that His Holiness Pope Francis could be seen Thursday sprinting along the Holy See’s rooftops, darting between the chimneys and marble sculptures of the apostles atop St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel as he attempted to chase down a suspected sinner.
The Onion Pope Francis Pursues Sinner Across Vatican City Rooftops theonion.com

 “Be twice as funny as you are outrageous, because no one can resist the truth wrapped in a good joke.”
― Milo Yiannopoulos, Dangerous (2017)

Humor makes a thick and tasty sauce to flavor the rather pungent meat of Catholic metaphysics and morals – which is hearty, low-fat, and nutritious, but you must admit has kind of a "wild" taste, like deer meat or turtle. Sometimes joking about such things is useful and truthful. A humorless Faith is stereotypically brittle or repulsive, raising the obvious question: "If believing all this stuff will make me a prig like you, do I even want to consider it? What I've learned from secular comedy's counter-apostolate is this: People's hackles go up when you attack them and drop when you tickle them. Get someone laughing – as the best Catholic authors knew how to, from Waugh and Chesterton to Percy and O'Connor – and his barriers collapse.-
 John Zmirak A Spoonful of Splenda (March 30, 2011)- Crisis Magazine

Incarnation
It’s hard not to ask ourselves: what does it really mean to say God became Man?
The problem with asking that question is that, as the holiest, most intelligent, and most contemplative of the saints know far too well, after we have said all we might possibly say on the subject, the Incarnation has far too much of reality about it for us to even begin to comprehend what God did when the Logos united a human nature to His Divine Person.
So what is faith supposed to be in this realm where words themselves fall silent in the overwhelming presence of the Word Himself?

It seems wrong to fall back on emotion—the stirring up within ourselves in the face of this piercing truth—because this truth is more solid than our ability to grasp it can ever be. It seems an even greater travesty to turn to sentimentality—if only because sentimentality is perhaps best characterized as a “degraded feeling—emotional schmaltz and artistic schlock,” to borrow the philosopher Eva Brann’s description.
Marina Olson Advent and the Incarnation When Words Fail (December 6, 2018) Eating Peaches

We cannot endure Bliss, Joy, and Endless Delight, not in our current state. We must be thickened up, made more real. The Cosmos over which Christ is King, may be bound up in us, but the Cosmos is no bigger than a hazel nut, is no thing in comparison to the Creator. This is why Moses could not see God’s face and live. He did not have the benefit of the incarnation, but it was the incarnation that likely made his vision possible at all. And yet he would not survive that vision. We might survive longer, but it would kill us in the end. We are dust, however cosmos, and this dust must be made new before it can be ready to dwell in eternity.
David Russell Mosley Time and Eternity: Reflections before the Mass of Christ the King of the Universe (November 26, 2018)Letters from the Edge of Elfland

The incarnational wit of Christianity is most present in two places: Bethlehem and Calvary. The swaddling clothes prefigure the cloth that wrapped Christ in the tomb. (The cave as a birthplace is preferable to me for the same reason.) Myrrh is an embalming oil. The point seems to be that God so loved the world that he chose to become human and showed his humanity if the two most graphic moments of weakness: birth and death, womb to tomb.

We adore an infant in a manger and a young man on a Cross. A baby in a feeding trough and Jewish dissident being brutally tortured to death. This is our incarnate God and therein we find our salvation.
Sam Rocha Was Baby Jesus a Refugee? (December 26, 2016)  Sam Rocha


Irish
I spent some time in County Kerry, in the extreme Southwest of the country. It was like a cold jade rainforest, completely denuded of trees. I saw a stone fortress built 2,000 years ago. With my finger I traced circles that had been carved into stones 5,000 years ago. And I walked the ruins of the Derrynane Abbey, technically on an island, and only accessible by a bridge of beach.

In these places the horrors of history felt pierced by an elusive and transcendent permanence. The wind and water were slowly melting the rock away, but it was all held within a cohesive eternity that gave the grinding gears of nature an order and coherence that I felt (temporarily) attuned to. And I’m grateful.
“Concepts create idols; only wonder understands anything.”
― Gregory of Nyssa
Scott Beauchamp In From The Wilderness (May 13, 2016) Through the Threshold

My husband tells me that the poor Irish, the Catholic Irish, the very-large-family-indeed Irish developed this enviable gift in their evenings around the fire. Overworked, under-privileged, yet always lively, they cheered themselves by passing down stories of their ancestors.

Sad tales of love, happy tales of war, tales of heroism, revenge, faith, and… whiskey. These were savored and doubtless, flavored. It was an oral tradition like that of Homer, complete with saints and miracles, witches and leprechauns, always with a crackle of good Christian humor.

Every nation has its poets. In Ireland it’s the words themselves that are famous, not those who made them. It would seem that the good Lord thought it would be fun to spread the genius out over the entire race rather than bestow it all upon a single Shakespeare.
Susie Lloyd Lucky Enough to Be Irish Is Lucky Enough: Irish Gift of the Gab (March 17, 2019)

The Irish word for contemplation — or contemplative prayer — is rinnfheitheamh. Yes, that’s a mouthful! I only have enough Irish to be dangerous, and the pronunciation of Irish depends on which of several dialects you’re speaking, but to the best of my knowledge the pronunciation is something like RINN-eh-hev.
So why such a big word, for such a simple concept? To answer that question, let’s take rinnfheitheamh apart.
Rinn means a point or a tip, as in the sharp point of a sword. Fheitheamh means “waiting.”
So a literal translation of rinnfheitheamh would be “at the edge of waiting.”
Which could easily be the most evocative and useful word for contemplation I’ve ever come across, in any language.

Remember, Celtic spirituality is the spirituality of the edge of the world. It’s the spirituality that stands on windswept rocky shores, gazing westward to the open, stormy sea. It acknowledges that “edge” place in our hearts where time meets eternity, where words fade off into silence, and where heaven silently gazes into the turmoil of earthly life.
And we are always invited to gaze back, to gaze out of the chaos and the tensions and the paradoxes of our lives, into the silence, into the deep waters of eternity.
 Carl McColman At the Edge of Waiting — A Celtic Approach to Contemplation (June 9, 2017) A Contemplative Faith

There’s something about growing up Irish American that settles deep in your bones.  I don’t know when I first heard the bodhrán , but there was something in hearing that instrument that thrummed inside me.  It was primal.  It meant I had to tap my toes

There weren’t peat fires in my soul, but there were forests, and hills, and grass, and stones.  There were skirts and tea and wildflowers in my hair.

To be Irish was also to be Catholic.  No matter how you covered up your Irishness, how much you hummed “Rule Brittania” – you were also Catholic.  Defiantly Catholic.  Rebelliously Catholic.  You Can Take Our Country, and Starve Us Out, and Kill Our Tongue, and Make Us Flee – but you cannot Take Our Faith Catholic.  To be Irish, to be Catholic, was to suffer and endure and sing sad love songs and mad, hopeful songs of war and failure and the glorious Long Defeat. And to beat up your enemies by still being there tomorrow, having reproduced like hell in the meantime.  To be Irish, to be Catholic, to be American was to long for a home you’d never seen: in Heaven and on earth.  It was to talk as fondly of St. Paddy as it was to talk of your uncle Paddy; and as natural to speak and know the story and shortcomings of both.

So, to all my Irish brothers and sisters, to all my ancestors and those cousins I’ve yet to meet, to those who crossed the ships, and to those who stayed for home, and to those who will come, and those still looking for a way into the fair and Faerie, I say:
Éirinn go Brách
Emily C. A. Snyder LONGING FOR HOME: Being Irish in America (March 17, 2018) Pop Feminist

Jewish
One of the principal insights that brought Newman into the Church was his realization that Our Lord would not have left His Church without some certain way of knowing what is true and what is not true when differences of opinion arise among the faithful. The Cardinal is perfectly correct in stating that the Jewish religion is the foundation of our own faith. The Old Covenant is the foundation of the New Covenant, the Mass developed from Jewish rituals, the major part of our Bible consists of the Jewish Scriptures, which are cited on countless occasions in the New Testament and in our Missal and in the Breviary.
Michael Davies A Letter from London Published (May 31, 2001) The Remnant

Yom Kippur the holiest day of worship given to the Jewish People of the Old Covenant by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This year, for me, who grew up in a Jewish home celebrating this most Holy Day (Yom Kippur = the Day of Atonement), it is deeply moving.

So why am I sending this out as an email to you, most of whom do not come from a Jewish background? Because, dear ones, it is your heritage as well. There is nothing Catholic that does not stem from the Jewish roots of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It is what Our God, the only God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God Who sent His Son into the world, has given – to the Jewish People and to us, both Jew and Gentile, who would, by faith and baptism, be grafted and regrafted onto the Root which is Israel (Romans 11:11-24). And the only reason we can be grafted onto the Root is because that which Our Lord gave the Jewish People as a promise of redemption was fulfilled – after 1,500 years of the Mosaic Law – in the once-for-all sacrifice of the true Lamb of God, the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ. (cf. Leviticus chapter 16, especially vv. 29-34; also 1 Corintians 5:7, 1 Peter 2:4, Hebrews 9:8-14).
Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God Mother of Israel’s Hope.org  (October 11, 2019)

Jewish ethnicity in itself does not save. The Old Covenant is no longer salvific. Nevertheless, the Jewish people continue as a sign to the Gentiles, and Gentiles should revere the Jewish people as kinsmen of Christ. After all, is it not the case that Catholics worship a Jewish Rabbi as the very Son of God and identify Him as the Jewish Messiah? The faith and flesh of Israel are integral to the humanity of the Redeemer. Catholics also show great veneration for the Jewish maiden, Mary the Mother of the Messiah and extol her as the Queen of Heaven. The original Apostles, from which every Catholic bishop succeeds, were Jewish. Jewish authors wrote every book of the Catholic Bible, with the exception of the Gospel of Saint Luke and the Book of Acts. The liturgy of the Mass derives from the prayers of the Jewish synagogue and temple. We teach our children the Hebrew stories about Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Esther, and Daniel. We employ Hebrew words in our liturgy: “Amen” and “Alleluia.” The vestments, incense, candles, processions, jubilees, and many of the priestly customs likewise derive from Jewish practice. Many Jews who visit a Catholic Mass often comment that it all seems so very Jewish. The reason for this is that the Catholic Church grew out of the Judaism of its original Rabbi and High Priest, Jesus the Messiah.
Taylor Marshall-The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity (The Origins of Catholicism Book 1) 

Jesus was a Jew. This fact may escape the casual reader of the New Testament, but it is crucial to understanding Jesus and the book written about him—the Bible. Unhappily, in 21st century America we are far removed from the land of Israel and the ancient culture of Jesus and his Jewish ancestors.
Let me ask you a few questions. Were you born and raised in Israel? Did you study the Torah with the rabbis from an early age? Have you traversed the rocky hills and dusty paths to celebrate the mandatory feasts in Jerusalem? Do you speak Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic? I havn’t found anyone in my Catholic parish who has these credentials.
Without this background, we are at a great disadvantage when studying the Bible and its central character.
 Steve Ray Jesus Was A Jew and Why You Can’t Understand the Bible without Knowing That (December 28, 2018) catholicconvert.com

I also had the mistaken belief that the Catholic Faith was "anti-Semitic" and denigrated Jews and Judaism. Nothing could be further from the truth. What greater honor could be accorded Judaism than to say that it is the religion of God Himself, and when God became Man, He became a Jew? What greater honor could be accorded to the Jewish race than to say that they alone, among all the peoples of the earth, are related by blood to the incarnate God? Or that it was from their race that came the only perfect human creature, the Blessed Virgin Mary? Even as the most fervent, enthusiastic Jew, I never could have ascribed a glory to Judaism comparable to that assigned it by the Catholic Faith.
Roy H. Schoeman Ignatius Insight Interview (July 12, 2004)

Joy
real joy – infinite joy – is a deep, abiding, and other-worldly confidence. It’s a knowing and a realization that we were loved into existence, and that we each have some purpose beyond our day-to-day existence.
Still, that irritates us doesn’t it?
Because it means, in the end, that we are not our own. And it means that God is not some vending machine into which we deposit the currency of petitioning prayer and receive back an equivalent value to satisfy our latest hunger.
And then we just turn and walk away. Free.
Until the next time we hunger.
But this continual contact has a way of connecting us to the infinite.
And it can change us.
Forever.
Whether we want that to happen or not.
Tom Zampino The Infinite Breakthrough Of Joy (April 7, 2016) Grace Pending

Kingdom
The kingdom entails a struggle that took Jesus, as St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians reminds us, to the point of death on a cross (Phil 2:6-11). While some read Paul’s beautiful hymn as an instruction on doctrine, I join those who read it instead as an instruction on Christian living. Paul’s hymn professes that in the kingdom of God humility leads to exaltation for Christ and all who live like him. In the years immediately after the Galilean’s death, Paul’s claim must have been senseless to Jews who prized a legalistic understanding of their faith and morals. It must have been foolish to Greeks and Romans who valued the attainment of knowledge above all else.
Victor Carmona Virgilio Elizondo, a man of the marginalized (April 18, 2016) El Puente

As we prayed outside Corinth's city gates, acres upon acres of blooming mustard plants blessed our sun-drenched service.
As I gazed at the sea of yellow blossoms, I reflected on Jesus's brilliant parable that the kin-dom of heaven is like a mustard seed. All three synoptic texts are a bit misleading implying that this smallest of seeds grows into a large shrub or tree. But in ancient times, the mustard plant was considered a weed — ubiquitous and once rooted, unstoppable — quickly taking over everything else in the field (Matthew 13:31-32, Mark 4:30-32, Luke 13:18-19).
The message? God's reign starts with something very tiny but quickly grows everywhere. You cannot stop the reign of God.
Christine Schenk Despite looming pandemic, intrepid pilgrims honor church foremothers (Mar 23, 2020) Simply Spirit: ncronline.org

Last Things
The great woman Doctor of the Church. Saint Catherine of Siena stated: “The two most important moments of our life are now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” Of course this reminds us of the prayer that the Blessed Mother loves so much—the Angelic Salutation commonly known as the Hail Mary.

Given that the moment we die is of the greatest importance for every living human person, and that our eternal destiny depends on how we die, how we finish our brief earthly sojourn, we must all make a sincere, calm, serene, but also sober and serious effort to arrive at the end of our lives in the grace of God.

Therefore, let us converse calmly, serenely, and confidently on the all-important topic of our mortality, on the reality of death that nobody in this earthly residence can avoid.
Fr. Ed Broom DEATH THE GATEWAY TO ETERNAL LIFE (Nov 05 2019)

Heaven is usually identified with absolute joy and happiness, the ultimate paradise. A place where you will be at peace for all eternity. If this is true, how come we spend so much time and energy trying to avoid going there? I mean we hook people up to machines just to keep them alive, keeping them from experiencing eternal joy. I remember when my mom was getting older and was starting to fade. My siblings and I were with her one day. She looked at us and said: “I know you are all praying for me to get better, but I want you to stop. I am praying for God to take me home and I do not want him to get mixed messages.”
Patrick Carolan Building Heaven on Earth, Part 2 (October 9, 2017) Franciscan activist

Pope Francis said that in contemplating death we are reminded of our ultimate purpose – and how the choices we make here on earth will determine whether we eventually spend eternity in heaven.
“A fundamental mark of the Christian is a sense of anxious expectation of our final encounter with God,” the Pope said Nov. 3. “Death makes definitive the ‘crossroads’ which even now, in this world, stands before us: the way of life, with God, or the way of death, far from him.”
CNA Daily News Choose everlasting life, not death, Pope Francis says (November 3, 2017)   Catholic News

Death is an evil chapter, but it is by no means the final one. And so it makes good sense, while we are alive, still thinking, still choosing, still setting our course, to write the story of our lives like a good author: with some plan in mind. The details and the characters need to work themselves out, but the major plot points ought to be settled ahead of time. Happy new year! You’re going to die. 
Simcha Fisher Happy new year! You’re going to die. (January 1, 2019) I Have to Sit Down

“We priests do a lot of wakes and funerals, and I’ve seen all sorts of things go in the casket.”  He understood the natural impulse some people have to place objects representing a favorite activity in the casket.  “A football helmet, a baseball glove, a fishing rod…I’ve seen it all,” he continued.

Nothing wrong with celebrating the fun we’ve had.  But will it help at all at the moment of judgment?  Probably not.  It’s crucial that we are aware that the things and activities we love aren’t what our eternity is based on.
Patty Knap The Things We Put in the Casket (MAY 15, 2018)   Born Again Catholic

My isolation has given me time to think about how we are all going to die one day; we just don't know when. It is easy to ignore death when we are young or in good health, but sickness and other disasters force us to recognize our finitude. A pandemic makes it impossible not to think about death.
Death is the great leveler; it affects the rich and poor, the famous and the humble, the powerful and the weak, saints and sinners.
The Latin "Memento mori" — "Remember death" — was said to victorious Roman generals, lest they become arrogant and ambitious. The phrase was picked up by spiritual writers to remind Christians that someday they will face judgment.
St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits and a great spiritual guide, recommended meditating on death as part of his "Spiritual Exercises," a series of meditations to help a person on retreat come closer to God and discover what he wants us to do. Ignatius asks the retreatant, if you were on your deathbed looking back on your life, what decisions do you wish you had made? This helps the retreatant review past decisions but, more importantly, think about future decisions.
Thomas Reese, Meditating on death during a pandemic (Mar 23, 2020) Signs of the Times: ncronline.org


Memento mori is an ancient tradition dating back to the early church that involves one reflecting upon their death daily. That may sound a bit morbid…but it is quite a useful practice that has been encouraged by numerous saints through the centuries. What are the benefits? By spending some time each day remembering that indeed one will die and leave this earthly (no matter how hard we try to ignore that fact), we can regain a focus on what is truly important in this life. It allows us to put into check the consumeristic culture we are entrenched in and instead focus on the eternal life we are striving for after breaking the chains of this world.
Pete Socks Remember Your Death: Memento Mori Lenten Devotional (March 9th, 2019) Catholic Book Blogger

Last Things: Heaven
The great glory of the saints is the burning charity they hold toward the wayfaring soul — even us sinners. They have not ceased to yearn for your salvation since before you called upon them for aid. They still labor — if it can be called labor — for your eternal felicity and joy. At one with God, their only longing is to share this peace with more souls. Our Blessed Mother above all tenderly desires your union with all the saints in Christ. As the perfect mother, she burns with love for your soul.

Consider the sound of their chorus to which they invite you, rising infinitely in praising the mercy of God. The most beautiful and exquisite music you have ever heard is like foul noise in comparison. Once, St. Francis heard the sound of an angel playing an instrument, and he nearly died for joy [5]. Consider the beauty of the voice of the Virgin Mother above all the rest. De Sales says, “even as the newly-fledged nightingale learns to sing from the elder birds, so by our sacred communing with the Saints we shall learn better to pray and sing the praises of the Lord” [6].

Consider, too, the hope of finding in that heavenly country the loved ones we have lost. The baptized children who were lost before the age of reason will run to you. Perhaps others whose loss you have suffered will greet you — a departed father or mother or even a spouse. If they have gained eternal life, then without a doubt they have longed for you and prayed for you as all the saints. Consider the love of all the saints, beckoning you to lift your heart to paradise and come.
Timothy Flanders A Reflection on the Glory of Paradise (December 30, 2019)

Last Things: HELL

We know that hell is real, through Scripture and Tradition, but it should be our utmost hope, in Christian love, that all men, no matter how awful, have somehow opened themselves up to the salvation which God has offered to them.  No one knows the internal life of a man, except he himself, and God.
It is important to remember the torments of hell, for in fact we can know of at least one soul who truly “deserves hell,” our own.  With our sins ever before us, we should always seek out the Lord and His forgiveness, working out our salvation in fear and trembling, and loving our neighbor and praying for them, and seeking their prayers for us, never hoping for their damnation any more than we would hope for our own.
Ryan Adams Against Hope in Damnation (November 2, 2013) Summa

Apart from the Incarnation, God does not have a bodily, physical form from which one can be absent or present. It seems to me that speaking of being separated from God here refers to spiritual separation from him–some form of eternal opposition toward God rather than being in union with him in our hearts.

If the eternal separation of hell is understood this way then it could be compatible to say that all are ultimately confronted with the reality of God and, for those who are spiritually united (in harmony) with him it is a wonderful, glorious experience, while for those who are spiritually separated (in opposition) from him it is an unpleasant, painful experience.

I would therefore put the kind of thing that you and Peter are articulating in the category of permitted speculation about the nature of hell. It is one way of trying to envision and understand hell.
- Jimmy Akin: The Nature Of Hell (June 30, 2006) jimmyakin.com

Think of God’s life as a party to which everyone is invited, and think of Hell as the sullen corner into which someone who resolutely refuses to join the fun has sadly slunk. What this image helps us to understand is that language which suggests that God “sends” people to Hell is misleading. As C.S. Lewis put it so memorably: the door that closes one into Hell (if there is anyone there) is locked from the inside not from the outside. The existence of Hell as a real possibility is a corollary of two more fundamental convictions, namely, that God is love and that human beings are free. The divine love, freely rejected, results in suffering. And yet, we may, indeed we should, hope that God’s grace will, in the end, wear down the even the most recalcitrant sinner.
Bishop Robert Barron IS HELL CROWDED OR EMPTY? A CATHOLIC PERSPECTIVE (Mar 30, 2011) Word on Fire

Belief in Hell scares the hell out of me. For those Christians who no longer believe in it…well, I sincerely hope they have a change of heart before discovering too late that, yep, it’s a damned thing.
Larry D A Good Way To End Up In Hell Is To Deny It Exists (July 20, 2015) Acts of the Apostasy

The search for numbers in the demography of hell is futile. God in His wisdom has seen fit not to disclose any statistics All told, it is good that God has left us without exact information. If we knew that virtually everybody would be damned, we would be tempted to despair. If we knew that all, or nearly all, are saved, we might become presumptuous. If we knew that some fixed percent, say fifty, would be saved, we would be caught in an unholy rivalry. We would rejoice in every sign that others were among the lost, since our own chances of election would thereby be increased. Such a competitive spirit would hardly be compatible with the gospel.
We are forbidden to seek our own salvation in a selfish and egotistical way. We are keepers of our brothers and sisters. The more we work for their salvation, the more of God’s favor we can expect for ourselves. Those of us who believe and make use of the means that God has provided for the forgiveness of sins and the reform of life have no reason to fear. We can be sure that Christ, who died on the Cross for us, will not fail to give us the grace we need. We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, and that if we persevere in that love, nothing whatever can separate us from Christ (cf. Romans 8:28-39). That is all the assurance we can have, and it should be enough.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. The Population of Hell (May 2003) First Things

The Church has a doctrine. The Church exists (among other things) to proclaim the Gospel, and is being led by the Spirit into all truth, and in a sinful world, that entails not only saying what is the case, but also what is NOT the case. The way this is often done in authoritative Church documents (conciliar or papal) is through anathemas. An anathema is an official declaration that someone who believes something erroneous is placed outside the visible boundaries of the Church, because he does not hold the faith of the Church.
In every branch of Christianity, up and down the centuries, teachers of impeccable orthodox credentials have believed in a massa damnata–the vast majority will be damned–and others have believed in either universal salvation, or quasi-universal salvation (most will be saved). The same New Testament that says “few are chosen” also proclaims that God’s mercy is bigger than we can imagine and His iron will to save all mankind. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. All our traditions wrestle with this tension in various ways. 
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry A Quick Note About What An Anathema Does Or Does Not Mean (May 28, 2015) Inebriate Me

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in hell chose it. Without that self-choice there could be no hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened. ”
C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (1945)

Last Things: Kreeft
Jesus says the way to hell is broad and many find it and that the way to heaven is narrow and few find it. And he means it: you don't get to heaven simply by being born, by being nice, or by oozing into an eternal growth experience. But "few" here does not mean that less than half of mankind will be saved. For God speaks as our Father, not our statistician. Even one child lost is too many, and the rest saved are too few. The good shepherd who left his ninety-nine sheep safe at home to rescue his one lost sheep found even 99 percent salvation too "few".
- Peter Kreeft Hell (Feb 28 2018) Crossroads Initiative

"[The truth of God] is the essential nature of both heaven and hell. Heaven is truth embraced, hell is truth refused. Thus we could even say that heaven and hell are the same objective reality, experienced in opposite subjective ways. Metaphoracally, heaven and hell are the same place. Think of the dwarfs at the end of The Last Battle [the seventh Narnia-book]. Or think of a rocker and a opera buff sitting side by side at a rock concert or an opera. What is hell to one, is heaven to the other. So the very fires of hell may consist of the eternal truth and goodness and love of God, that is ultimate reality; every creature’s ultimate other. Those wo have cultivated what Lewis calls «the taste for the other,» love it when it finally appears. Those who have supressed and resented this taste are shocked and squashed by the other. Like Sartre, in «No Exit,» proclaiming the presice creed of the damned; «hell is the others.»" Time and Eternity,"
Peter Kreeft The Nature Of Hell (June 30, 2006) jimmyakin.com


“Only God is guaranteed. All who seek him find him. But only those who seek him find him: ‘You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord.’ Finding him is heaven. Seeking him is heaven’s door. Not finding him is hell, and not seeking is the door to hell. The road to hell is not paved with good intentions but with no intentions, with ‘I don’t give a damn’ or ‘the hell with it.”
—PETER KREEFT Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing (1980)

Last Things: Purgatory
I pray a Rosary every Sunday for people in Purgatory. It takes quite a while, since I name every single person I know who has died, and I mean died, ever. I include great-great-grandparents I never met and friends of friends.
It’s the least I can do for them. I only hope that when I die, someone will take the time to pray for me.

There are many theories about Purgatory, all of them far more authoritative than mine. But my belief is that in Purgatory we face what we have done from the viewpoint of those we did it to. If, say, you hit someone, in Purgatory you would experience the blow you gave in this life. If you gossiped about someone, in Purgatory you will feel the humiliation and hurt your words inflicted.

It would be terrible enough to experience this in this life. But in Purgatory, I think our souls will be so tender and so pure that the pain will be even more exquisite.

The souls in Purgatory are not being tortured. They are being educated about their real selves. They are seeing themselves as they are, and this insight hurts. It is the deepest grief imaginable to confront the full reality of your own sins. But from this grief comes conversion of a thorough and unalterable kind.
 Rebecca Hamilton Divine Mercy Novena, Praying for Those in Purgatory, Where We are Made Fit for a King (April 10, 2015) Public Catholic

Language and Words
God gave us the gift of language. Language is a beautiful, even sacred, thing. The universe began with language. “In the beginning was the Word.” The Word. That’s Christ. Our Savior. God’s only Son. The Word.  That is how important language is. So when people take the use and abuse of language seriously, I get it. I’m there, man. I like slang as much as the next person, but ignore the Oxford comma or text me with single-letter “words” that resemble nothing so much as an illiterate Egyptian’s hieroglyphs, and I will not be a happy English major.
Calah Alexander Those Damn Four-Letter Words (January 22, 2013) Barefoot and Pregnant

Fish in Greek is ichthus. It actually has five letters in Greek:
i (Greek letter iota)
x (chi)
0 (with horizontal slash in the middle) (theta)
u (upsilon)
s (sigma)

This was perhaps the original acronym: each letter stood for something else, which is why the fish was the Christian symbol (even before the cross, as I understand it).

i = Iesous = Jesus = Greek transliteration of the Hebrew Joshua
x = Christos = Christ = Messiah = literal meaning anointed
0 = Theos = God (“0” is the “th” sound; root of theology)
u = Huios = Son
s = Soter = Savior (root of soteriology)

Early Christians thus quickly identified each other (in those dangerous times) by use of the fish symbol. In so doing, they were saying they believed in “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.” It was the first Christian “creed,” so to speak.
Dave Armstrong “Xmas” & the Christian “Fish”: Etymology & History (December 23, 2016) Biblical Evidence for Catholicism


But if we really wanted to help young students to sort out their thoughts and place them in order, we would instill in them a love for the order of language itself, that is, grammar. Yes, reader, a love for grammar – and what is so strange about that? I take for granted that teachers whose eyes do not light up when they find odd shortcuts in arithmetic should not be teaching arithmetic, and teachers whose hearts do not skip a beat when they learn of a new tense should not be teaching grammar. And if they do love these fine things, they should feel no shame at all in showing students that they might well love them too.
Anthony Esolen Grammar Lesson of the Day: genitive of time (December 29, 2013) Word of the Day


So, what’s in a name?
In Biblical times – and still today – names had great meaning and Mary’s is no different. In the Hebrew language, Mary’s name would have been “Miryam,” which means “sovereign lady.”Although there are many other interpretations, the most commonly used translation of the name Mary is “Star of the Sea.”
For those of you who are not familiar with this beautiful Catholic tradition, let me explain. The word “litany” comes from a Greek word λιτή (litê) [lee-tay], meaning “prayer” or “supplication.” It’s an ancient Christian form of prayer that dates back to at least the third century and in which saints are invoked for the purpose of prayer on behalf of the one praying.
Marge Fenelon Why Venerate Mary’s Name? (September 12, 2015) Catholic to the Core

Latin
When the Tridentine Mass suddenly dissolved, many people were understandably upset. Some were furious to the point of blatant resistance, such as famed Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien. He was apparently so adamantly opposed to the English liturgy that he would boldly say the responses in Latin, much to the embarrassment of his grandchildren.

Most Catholics who knew Latin came from a background of higher education, though I personally believe the Gospel ought to be shared in a language that people can understand. Phillip’s discourse with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 comes to mind. Though the thought of attending a Mass in a different language adds an exciting level of heavenly mystery.
René Albert I Long For Catholic Unity (March 6, 2019 ) Coffee & Crucifix

I do not think there is no choir worthy of the name that can avoid facing to sing choral pieces in Latin. It’s like loving art and not visiting Italy. In some countries, however, it is more difficult to sing in Latin as their language is very far away from Latin itself. There are some strategies that I adopted in my work in China and judging by the outcomes, they worked well. There are various ways of pronouncing Latin. Mine is Roman Ecclesiastical.

You begin teaching the pronunciation of vowels and diphthongs well. The vowels, as said by Robert Shaw, are the backbone. This work on vowels should be a prerequisite to everything else.

After that the pronunciation of the vowels is assured: with the inclusion of the consonants the choir members can begin to understand the dynamics of the accents, the centrality of the tonic accent and its relationship with accents that precede and follow it.
At this point it will not be a bad idea to make people understand how many words in modern languages that they may be familiar with, are derived from Latin. This will let them understand that Latin isn’t a dead exotic language, but a familiar living one.
M° Aurelio Porfiri Proven Strategies to teach your Choir to Sing in Latin (April 13, 2016) Il Naufrago

Lent
This is the great trap of suffering: that we can focus too much on it rather than the real end state. Sacrifice in Lent is supposed to bring us into a state where we are mindful of the suffering of Christ. To do that, we cannot turn inward, but instead we must turn outward. We must look to the body of Christ that is here on this earth – our fellow humans – and minister to them. That is the real sacrifice: putting aside self for the other.

The point of suffering in the military is to either build endurance or replicate combat operations. If you are suffering for the sake of suffering, it’s probably a sign that you have a bad leader – or that you yourself are a bad leader.
Angry Staff Officer Lent: Don’t Make Suffering a Competition (March 18, 2019) With the Atheists in the Foxholes

Lent reminds us that spiritual warfare is real.  It is a call to arms in which we latch on to Jesus and head into battle.  We are not alone in this fight.  We have the communion of saints and our Lord Jesus Christ by our side.
Lent is not a time to give up something in an attempt to be fashionable.  Many give up a favorite food or desert and call it a day.  The whole point of giving up something is to replace it with a spiritual practice.  What spiritual practice you take up is totally up to you. 
Maybe you find yourself too busy to pray.  As a result, you may wake up 10 minutes early to pray to replace the 10 minutes you take eating your favorite candy bar.  Last year my wife gave up Starbucks, and she chose to take the money she would normally spend and give it to the St. Vincent De Paul Society at our parish. 
You may choose to take time throughout the day and pray the Liturgy of the Hours.  As previously stated, that is up to you and what you feel called to do.  However, fasting without prayer is merely dieting.  If you are obstaining or fasting, but not praying you are dieting.
William Hemsworth The Link Between Lent And Confession (February 22, 2020) The Pursuit of Holiness

Lent is hard. You’ve probably failed. We come to the end of Lent all raged and tired. But this doesn’t mean that we have wasted our Lent! In fact, it probably means that your Lent is going exceptionally well.
Steven Lewis 6 Ways to Know You are Having a Good Lent (March 31, 2017)  Time Off Purgatory with Steve the Missionary

Lent is a time to make more space for God. We give things up (including good things) to weaken our own attachment to them and to give us a little more time, energy, and attention to give to God. For almost everyone, a fast that leaves you thinking constantly about the act of fasting (whether the difficulty or the logistics) is a counterproductive fast. We give things up so we can take on more of what God wants to give us.
Leah Libresco Lenten disciplines draw on our weakness, not our strength (March 1, 2017) Unequally Yoked


Legalism
And of course, we should never forget that Jesus was put to death by the moral leaders of his own faith, by those who chose legalism over the spirit. It was the pharisees and the sadducees, not the prostitutes and tax collectors, who were the enemy of Christ and the antagonists to the Gospel.
Matthew Tyson There Are Serpents In The Church (January 19, 2019) Mackerel Snapper

Least of These
Last Sunday, at the conclusion of a food inequality simulation at my parish, the microphone was passed to a visiting priest. He described an experience years ago when, walking out of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, he was accosted by “bums” and “lowlifes” begging for change. According to the priest, they flocked to him precisely because he was wearing the Roman collar that signifies his identity as an “alter Christi,” another Christ. But when he ran out of change, said the priest, those same panhandlers insulted him. In return, he solemnly vowed that, “I would never return to New York City as a priest,” and, concluding, “I never did.”

How different is this attitude from the kenotic love of Jesus, who sought out the “bums” and “lowlifes” of the world; indeed, who was gladly counted as one among them. Jesus, who was “crushed for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities,” who, “though he was in the form of God did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant … and becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” What a betrayal of the poor. What a betrayal of Christ! How soon we forget that “God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That forgetfulness is the ground of our betrayal of the poor, who still languish on the cross while bearing the face of Christ.
Mark Gordon’’The Passion of the Poor (March 23, 2016) The Dorothy Option
Life
I think the natural world is terribly, terribly important, and not just because it’s pretty and often weirdly mysterious and amazing, but mainly because I have to live in it for the rest of my life.
Hilary White We Should Care For Animals, But They Don’t Have Rights (August 3, 2015)

Light
"It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness" -The Christophers

Jesus is the light apart from whom all other light is glaring and reflective. It is in His light that we see light itself. Whether decorating our houses with Christmas lights to signify His coming or proclaiming “lumen Christi” at the Vigil of Easter, we know that He is the greatest light; the light of all that begins and all that is renewed; the light that scatters darkness. He is the light at which we may look directly, without discomfort or glare or fear, because it is the very light with which we are created. Understanding this profound and heartening mystery should prompt us to let that light of Christ shine through us with the confidence that our Creator knows us and loves us and guides us toward our eventual reunion with Him.
“Let yourselves be taken over by the light of Christ, and spread that light wherever you are.”
– St. Pope John Paul II
Tony Rossi Jesus: The Light of the World (December 6, 2016) Christopher Closeup

Liturgy

I found the mass to be the most fulfilling way of worshiping and communicating with God. It implores all of our bodily senses. Holy water, incense, prayers, the sign of peace, the Eucharist, genuflecting, crossing ourselves and so forth, are all used so that we praise God with all of our body, heart, soul, and mind. Not to mention that we believe that the body and blood of our Savior are literally right in our presence. All these things bring us together in full communion with God.
But as I said before, this connection extends past this life and reaches to those who have already entered into Heaven and allows us to communicate with them. I’m talking, of course, about the Saints.
Matthew Tyson Saintly Communion (April 27, 2013) Mackerel Snapper

Liturgical Year
The calendar year for daily working life is the same for all of us, but there is a second calendar: the church calendar that refers to the birth, murder, and resurrection of Jesus, which is an absolutely archetypal story, a poetic rendition of any human life. The Mass, with its readings from the Gospel stories, and the the Eucharistic rite, repeated for centuries, is an account of the cooperation of transcendence with the ordinary. Liturgy, Fanny Howe, and the
Artur Rosman Horrors of Reality (March 27, 2014) Cosmos The In Lost

The first Sunday before Lent has an exotic name “Quinquagesima Sunday,” which only means it’s fifty days before Easter. As far as I know, correct me if I’m wrong, the first Sunday of Lent does not have a special name other than, maybe, “Quadragesima Sunday.”

This is strange, since all the readings on the first Sunday of Lent hone in on the mystery of Original Sin. The Gospel reading takes the dramatic crown by recounting Christ’s temptation in the desert (breathlessly retold in one of the most famous modern literary episodes in The Brothers Karamazov–something I’d like to return to later).
So, I’m surprised, and a little bit disappointed, that my crack research doesn’t indicate that the first Sunday of Lent is officially called “Original Sin Sunday.”
Can I claim copyright on that?
Artur Rosman True Lent Humility Starts with the Realization That You’re Divine (March 6, 2017) Cosmos The In Lost

Loving Our Enemies
Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been an unusual amount of drama in my particular corner of the social media world and it’s got me thinking about the problem of loving one’s enemies.

Christ clearly commands us to do this. He doesn’t say that we have to be friends with everyone, but He does say that we have to love everyone. He models this Himself in a truly astonishing way, praying for the guys who are literally driving nails through His hands. Not only does He forgive these men, but He prays that God will forgive them “for they know not what they do.”

One of the difficulties, of course, is that we don’t have the ability to read hearts. We have no idea whether the people who hurt us know exactly what they’re doing, or whether they are completely clueless. This is especially true when the folks who hurt us are strangers. With a close friend or relative, I can pretty easily step outside of myself and see why they are behaving in a way that causes me pain. But with a stranger? I have no idea.
Melinda Selmys   Love Your Ideological Enemies (APRIL 21, 2018)  Catholic Authenticity
Loving Our God
Do you know what is amazing and happy and wondrous to think about? Even when you’re not sure you love him, God still loves you (and when I say “you,” I mean me, too). And when you guess you love him but are also pretty mad and a little irritated with him and all his ways and annoying plans, he loves you. He loves you when you get overly excited and accidentally run off the path. And when when you take a leap of faith (maybe even a very, very ill-conceived leap) and fall flat on your face. He loves you when you’re mean to your kids and pretend not to see that person who needed your help at the store. He loves you when you put your foot in your mouth. He loves you when you *accidentally* spend your grocery budget at Sephora and when you eat the entire pizza (and maybe the gallon of ice cream, too) in one sitting. He loves you when you feel unlovable and broken and ashamed and are having a super bad hair day. And when you’re tired and frustrated, hopeless and heartsick and full of self-loathing, he loves you even more.
Hallie Lord When are you going to love you as much as I do? – God (September 28, 2018) hallielord.com

“I knew I had to please God, but I wasn’t trying to please Him for His sake, but for my own. I liked existing. The problem is, if the only reason we come to God and follow Him is because of fear of hell, then we are missing the point. Then who are we really loving? Ourselves! The idea that I only do what I do because I don’t want you to get mad at me is inherently selfish.”
― Larry Richards, Be a Man!

Loving Our Neighbors
Even for those of us who believe in God, making him affectively real to ourselves—interacting with him as a concrete person that we relate to—is incredibly difficult, because he is rarely if ever present to our senses (save in the Blessed Sacrament, and there he is concealed). Mystical experiences are rare. But our neighbor, whom we are told in no uncertain terms is God’s ikon and representative, is right there for us to practice on. How we love our neighbor reveals how we love God. We must come back and back and back to this; it is the incarnation of charity; it is the check on our potentially bottomless introspection, scrupulosity, and legalism. If we would be united in love to God, who is immeasurably other, we must begin by opening our hearts to those who are measurably other.
Gabriel Blanchard The Mark of the Pharisee (October 28, 2019) Mudblood Catholic

The Good Samaritan is not a story about faith – in fact, the religious folk come off badly in the story – but empathy across boundaries. Knowing that everyone – however objectionable their behaviour, or pitiful their demeanour – is a child of a loving God helps me, at least, turn towards, rather than away from, people in need. My own Catholic tradition is full of heroes who reach out over the boundaries of social prejudice and disgust, from Peter Claver tending suppurating lepers to Mother Teresa, whose mission was to bring dignity to the dying whom others recoiled from touching.
Austen Ivereigh Religious faith builds a civil society in a way secularism does not  (Sep 29, 2011)  theguardian.com

For days, the film and the epistle swirled simultaneously through my mind, while sudsing down dishes and babies or folding laundry.  The scene that stands out the most is of a grown daughter extending mercy to her dad, one who had failed her countless times in the most basic of ways but whom she cherishes nonetheless.  It’s a scene synonymous with the film’s message, which happens to be St. Paul’s timeless treatise as well:  The greatest of these is love, because it is.
Sarah Johnson Watching the Glass Castle With St. Paul (August 25, 2017) Backstage Pass (Patheos)


It seems to me that we live in a culture where most people are very eager to be heard, but fewer and fewer want to listen.
When I arrived as a student at Yale Divinity School, the great spiritual writer and teacher Henri Nouwen had left campus long ago. But I was surrounded by people who knew him and loved him. Whenever I asked what he was like, I often received a similar response. One former student said it best: "When he listened to you, you felt as if you were the only person in the world."

What an extraordinary gift Nouwen offered, making others feel truly heard and cared for, helping them realize how important they are. Nouwen's capacity for presence, it seems, not only showed others how much he loved them -- he gave them the sense that of how deeply God loved them, too.

When we truly love a person, we long to know them more fully. Perhaps that is the most painful reality of our increasing lack of presence: It compromises our ability to love one another well.

We spend much of Advent preparing for the extraordinary mystery that God so longed to know us and to be known to us that God chose to dwell among us, to become incarnate in a world both broken and beautiful, taking on a life that would bring about so much healing and endure so much pain.
The real beauty of the incarnation story is not simply that God hears us in our longing for God's presence, but that God's longs just as much to be present to us.
Jamie Manson Christmas calls us to be present  (Dec 23, 2013) Grace on the Margins: www.ncronline.org/

“When he was conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Artur Rodzinski said: “In our orchestra we have many nationalities, types, and temperaments. We have learned to forget individual likes, dislikes, and differences of temperament for the sake of music to which we have dedicated our lives. I often wonder if we could not solve the world’s problems on a similar basis of harmony.” “Think what a single individual in a symphony orchestra can accomplish,” the famous maestro continued, “by giving up his individual traits and ambitions in the service of music…. Suppose that in life you had the same all-embracing love for the whole of mankind and for your neighbor in particular. Only when every one of us and every nation learns the secret of love for all mankind will the world become a great orchestra, following the beat of the Greatest Conductor of all.”
Jonathan Morris, Light in the Darkness: The Teachings of Father James Keller, M.M., and The Christophers

“At the end of our lives, we will be judged by how we have loved or failed to love. That is the ultimate test: how we dealt with the least of our brothers and sisters, the people we can’t stand.”
― Larry Richards, Surrender!: The Life-Changing Power of Doing God's Will

Storge is the kind of fondness you have for a crossing guard you see every day, even if you’ve never had a deep conversation. It’s a love that comes from feeling that someone else is knit into our life—which, as it happens, everyone is meant to be. There’s a tiny foretaste of Heaven and the Beatific Vision in this humble kind of communion.

Inviting someone into my home sets me on the road to storge because it guarantees we share something, even if it winds up being the experience of watching me accidentally break my own garbage disposal (turns out you shouldn’t put too many eggshells down those things). We wind up with shared experiences, the kind you can refer to with a “Do you remember that time when…”
Leah Libresco Sargeant   The lazy way to fall in love with others (Nov 19, 2016) Aleteia

Years ago, when our neighborhood was first under construction, Jennifer and I bought the very first home on the street and vowed to help create a neighborhood where people lent cups of sugar and eggs when needed, where you’d tie balloons on each other’s mailboxes when a new baby was born, where you’d bring a casserole when someone was sick. Sadly, as more than a decade has passed, these hopeful aspirations have faded. Neighbors have come and gone, and our commitment to being neighborly has often been superseded by a desire for privacy, to live and let live. This makes it even more important for us to be aware of every situation, and to take advantage of every opportunity to be a good neighbor, to reach out in small and large ways and make a difference in the lives of others. To be a light to the world. The great news is that it’s easier to be a light than you may think. It involves being aware of others’ situations and taking advantage of opportunities to be good neighbors, to reach out in small and large ways and make a difference in the lives of others. It also requires a willingness to let your neighbors think you’re nuts.
Greg and Jennifer Willits, The Catholics Next Door: Adventures in Imperfect Living 2012 Franciscan Media

Making Mistakes
I think because of sin which confused us as to the specifics of what we want, and because we have bodies and want immediate things like a seventh helping of chocolate cake instead of to practice the less immediate and more immaterial virtue of moderating our desires, most of us have made the wrong decision a time or two. And after recovering from the food coma of seven helpings of chocolate cake, we know that messing up on what is actually the right thing to do can be painful. For those of you who are over 21, maybe try reading “helpings of chocolate cake” as “margaritas,” if you don’t believe me on this.
We make mistakes, and we know, at least in some way that those mistakes can have painful consequences in our life. So, with many, if not all, of the choices we make seek to minimize messing up our lives. A wrong turn could make you a few minutes late, and while annoying, is not the end of the world. However, other decisions, like drinking and driving, might end your world, or that of someone else.
Marina Olson So You’re Anxious About God’s Will: Three Thoughts on Figuring It Out (January 19, 2017) Eating Peaches


Marriage
Yes. It would be a beautiful thing if you could get a marital check-up every so often from someone who is experienced and knowledgeable. You could be asked questions, and the answers would indicate whether your marriage had problems, so you could deal with them rather than sweeping them under the rug or trying to work through them alone. The scary thing is I read the stuff that comes from the Pope about marriage, and it's so wonderful and beautiful and I think: How many people really have that? Maybe it's one in a thousand. It's kind of like reading about a saint. It can be very discouraging, because I'm not like that! Lucky for them—they have all these wonderful things—but I'm not like that. The beautiful stuff is the goal, but maybe we need a little more realism about what average people are experiencing. It's going to have ugliness in it. Let's not be so secretive about it; let's go fix it.

Studies show that marriages can be saved if the spouses commit to staying together. Of course, it's always easier to blame the other person and run away. But when you're unhappy with something in your marriage, it's usually partly your own fault—you can't blame the other person entirely. Everybody has emotional baggage, but when you're forced to have a relationship with one person for life, if you force yourself to be committed to the indissolubility of marriage, you will mature. So for a serious Catholic, just because you both want a divorce, that's still not a reason to get a divorce. You're morally obligated to go work it out.-
- Bai McFarland Divorce, American Style: An Interview with Bai Macfarlane (February 14, 2005) Godspy


Marriage is hard work. The difficulty primarily stems from the frustrating fact that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and according to my five-year-old who was recently studying the solar system, “Those planets are really, really different.” It’s not news to any members of the opposite sex who’ve  made a life-long commitment to occupying roughly the same space that this arrangement can be very grating at times. In my nearly eight years of marriage, I’ve discovered that the only way to avoid the near occasion of planetary collision is to take time and energy to put myself in my husband’s place—check out the view from Mars. This exercise is called empathy; and it is to a loving relationship what the sun is to the spheres.
Let’s Exchange the Experience: Relationship Help from Pink and Kate Bush
Kathryn E.  Let’s Exchange the Experience: Relationship Help from Pink and Kate Bush (March 15, 2015) Love Among the Ruins  

“The nerds are rich and successful, and those jocks are dumb divorced guys with beer bellies. By the way, in high school, I also played football and, yes, I have a beer belly. Jeannie can’t divorce me. We are Catholic. Thank you, Jesus.”
― Jim Gaffigan, Dad Is Fat

Marian
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux writes that when Saint Gabriel announced to Mary that she had been chosen to be the Mother of God, it was as though the angels in Heaven held their breath waiting for her reply.
Prior to that moment, the angels in Heaven were well aware that the Incarnation was to occur. It is believed, however, that the angels did not know exactly how the Incarnation was to occur. 
.
Then, on March 25—that glorious and wonderful day—what had been shrouded in mystery since Adam’s Fall became clear. Gabriel greeted Mary and informed her that God had chosen her to be the Mother of God…if she would say “yes.” After Gabriel spoke, the angels of Heaven awaited Mary’s response.

Consider the perspective of the angels. To that point, the angels had witnessed the first woman, Eve, betray God by partaking in a sin that devastated man. And now, Mary—the New Eve—was being asked to play a role in the redemption of man.
John Clark The Annunciation: When Angels Held Their Breath (Mar. 25, 2020) ncregister.com

Mary’s faith sustained her during her thirty years with Jesus at Nazareth and the three years of His public ministry. But it was especially her faith, from Calvary to Easter Sunday, that the Church has been commemorating since the first century. Every Saturday is appropriately called the day of faith. Mary alone had absolutely no doubt that her son, though crucified and buried, would rise from the dead. Talk about believing in the humanly impossible.
Fr. John Hardon Mary as Model Catechist for Parents ( Jan 25, 2017)

The Blessed Mother, bearer of the Logos Incarnate, had brought the logos to the warring, disillusioned, and defeated tribes of Mexico and had created out of this warring diversity one nation with a Messianic mission. Mexico was the "cosmic race." Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared as a mestiza, the mixture of European and Native American races. She was the cosmic symbol of the race mixing which the English had feared since the moment they had set foot on the soil of the New World. She was the symbol of Mexican identity. She was the symbol of Catholic race-mixing and the antithesis of England's (and later) America's and (still later) Germany's short-lived ideology of racial superiority.”
E. Michael Jones, Ethnos Needs Logos: Why I Spent Three Days in Guadalajara Trying to Persuade David Duke to Become a Catholic (2015)

Mary, Mother of God, finds her vocation as a servant, a handmaid alert to the slightest gesture of her mistress’s hand. For a second time, the finger of God crosses the infinite and timeless expanse between Spirit and matter, entering time and space to heal a broken world, imperceptible to all except the eye of this handmaid, so attuned was Mary to God’s will.

Everything is different as Good News races throughout the universe, a song resounding in every corner of creation, announcing within the DNA of all living things that a different destiny is possible for those who say yes to the fullness of grace revealed in Mary and now available to everyone. The Word of God comes to all of us, and if we say yes, becomes flesh in us, is born again in us for the sake of the world.
Pat Marrin Word made flesh (March 25, 2020) Pencil Preaching: ncronline.org
 
The most compelling thing to me, about Our Lady, is the way she exemplified perfect love in any situation. And she found herself in a lot of situations. Tradition tells us that she grew up in the temple, did her duty there and was perfectly loving, in the temple. Then she left and was perfectly loving, as the wife of Joseph. She loved perfectly, as a temporarily homeless person forced to give birth in a cave in overcrowded Bethlehem. Then they fled for their lives, fugitives and refugees headed for the border under cover of darkness, and Our Lady loved perfectly as a fugitive and a refugee. She loved perfectly as a disciple, a bereaved mother and the mother of the risen Christ. She does so now as the Queen of Heaven.
Mary Pezzulo Notes on Our Lady While Sick in Bed (January 4, 2018) Steel Magnificat

I like to write or say to people “Have a MARY Christmas” . I write Mary instead of Merry because Our Lady, Mary knew more than any person in history the meaning and purpose of Christmas. Jesus is the only reason for this season and all of human history points to Jesus for He is the Alpha and the Omega (beginning and the end ) of all creation. He is the why of why’s of all history and every event.
Fr. Philip Scott Have a MARY Christmas familiadejesusperu.org

I understood that Elijah and Enoch had been assumed into heaven, so if I considered Mary’s assumption at all, it was simply to shrug it off: “Mary was assumed into heaven. Sure, why not?” The whys and wherefores of the matter were so far above my paygrade that they didn’t seem worth pondering.
All of that changed for me when I took a class in anatomy and physiology. As marvelous as it was to learn about how “wonderfully and fearfully” we are made — what with blood cells forming and fading, and bones and tissue becoming oxygenated and cleansed via blood and breath — nothing presented in the class coaxed an audible reaction from me until we studied the process of microchimerism.

In the simplest of terms, microchimerism is the process by which a smattering of cells live within a host body but are completely distinct from it. In human fetomaternal microchimerism (or “fetal cell microchimerism”), every child leaves within his mother a microscopic bit of himself — every pregnancy, brought to delivery or not, leaves a small amount of its own cells within the body of the mother — and those cells remain within her forever.

 A small amount of Christ Jesus’ cells remained within Mary, for the whole of her life. Where we Catholics have a limited experience of Christ’s flesh commingling within our own upon reception of the holy Eucharist, Mary was a true tabernacle within which the Divinity did continually reside.

Our Lady’s body, holding Christ within it, could not remain on earth; of course, it would have to join itself to Christ in the heavenly dimension.
Elizabeth Scalia How Does Science Back Up a Theological Dogma? Like This: (August 14, 2016) The Anchoress

Hail, Holy Queen, Enthroned Above!
Today is the Memorial of the Queenship of Mary. What a lovely, lovely feastday. Let’s imagine the Blessed Mother, shall we? She has only been in Heaven for a week now, and still doubtlessly absorbing the wonder of the place. But what is this? Angels, coming for her? Again? And where are they taking her? And what are they placing on her shoulders? This ermine-trimmed robe, heavy with golden embroidery. And where are they leading her? To this astonishing court of thousands? Millions? Singing, shouting in triumph! She might not even know what to make of such grandeur. But, at the end of the red carpet (because of course), she can see her Son. Naturally she moves towards Him, because, in the end, there is nothing left to be done but to move toward the Son.

And He is there, smiling. And she kneels before Him, because of course. Every knee shall bend before Him, the King of kings. And he has a crown so wondrous, so spectacular, it beggars the imagination. Twelve stars, fresh from their orbits, endlessly swirling and twinkling (they make diamonds look dull). And He, grinning like only the Son of such a Mother can, places it on her bent head. And she weeps with joy. And He wipes every tear from her streaming eyes. Because of course. And He gives her His hand, and helps her sit on her throne, soft and cushiony, and covered with jewels and probably held slightly aloft by angels. Nothing is too good for Mary. Nothing.
Cynthia Schrage What Does It Mean to be a Queen? After the Ecstasy, the Laundry…

Within the Byzantine Christian tradition, the term “tree of life” usually refers to Our Lord’s cross. Yet here it refers to the Blessed Mother. I should not be surprised by this given that “Mary, Tree of Life” is a very popular and traditional icon among Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics.
I am blessed by this connection given its reminder that it is from the Blessed Theokos that Our Lord Jesus Christ received His humanity. Not just His human flesh but His whole human person. Without Mary as the Tree of Life, there would have been no hypostatic union between God and man at the Incarnation. It is through Mary, the Tree of Life, that Our Lord Jesus Christ made salvation possible.
Pete Vere “Rejoice, O Wood and Tree of Life, the Fount of Immortality”  (November 11, 2019)  Orthodoxy in Communion With Rome

It would be a lie if I said, I go forth now to fight injustice. I don’t. I go forth to weed the garden, because that is easier. And this is why we wretched Christians pray, after all: because we see the inequality with which grief is spread around, we see the wicked flourish, and even if I were holy enough to give my all, it would not be enough; we need God to multiply the harvest and enter into the desert places where not even the insects sing.

The feast of Mary Theotokos should be an occasion for women to ponder what it means that a human woman, one of us, was chosen to bear in her body the Second Person of the Trinity. But with the celebration of Mary as the Mother of God we see the female body, and all its powers, and hidden processes, and impure fluids, as something holy. Our giving birth is not just a passing-through, but a giving forth. Jesus took his earthly substance from his mother’s body, carried her genetics, probably resembled her. His body was born of her body. Looking at Mary as Mother of God perhaps provides us with a way of seeing mothering itself, the female body itself, as a living ikon of God-bearing.
Rebecca Bratten Weiss the feast of the theotokos, and the theology of the female body (January 2, 2017) suspended in her jar

We don’t see all that much of Mary in the Gospels. But when we do see her, she is not acting especially meekly or submissively. When she hears that Elizabeth is pregnant she “rushes off” to visit her, not waiting on permission to leave her home, or requiring a male protector. When she arrives and Elizabeth feels the miraculous quickening of the baby within her, Mary’s response is to sing a song of praise that could have gotten her arrested as a revolutionary:

Later, we see that she and the other women stay by the side of Jesus during his condemnation, torture, and death. Most of the men run away, but the women defy Roman authority and religious leadership. They stay.

Mary in the Gospels is acting in accordance with a long line of women who bring about divine will through unruly behavior. Yes, even Eve. If we are to say, as Christians, “o happy fault” – we need to give the woman credit for it. The disobedience of Eve may be deplored by male religious leaders, but it is repeated and reiterated through the Hebrew scriptures in the stories of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Esther, all of whom disobeyed and defied the men in their lives. Then we have Ruth, who crept into her boss’s bed at night – and Jael who drove a tent-stake into a general’s head – and Judith, who cut the head off of another general, entirely.

The history of women advancing salvation history in both the Old and the New Testaments is a history of unruliness, not submission. The model with which Mary of Nazareth presents us is one of daring autonomy, a woman claiming a direct line to God instead of deferring to a man as God’s representative.

I can see how unnerving this must have been for men at the time, even those who followed Jesus. His male disciples appear often to have been nonplussed by the presence of women in the retinue, trying to shoo them away and keep their teacher all to themselves. But Jesus was not having it.
 Rebecca Bratten Weiss Obsession With Feminine Submissiveness Serves Men – Not God (December 6, 2019) suspended in her jar

God must allow for our ignorance or the way we are prone to distort good impulses, sudden “inspirations,” or private interpretations of the Godinspired gospel. We know what hash even brilliant minds like Teilhard de Chardin can make of that, when they set out to see what they can see for themselves. Even when God or his Blessed Mother specially illumines a humble, holy persons such as Bernadette or Juan Diego to bear a special message to us, allowance is made for some natural refracting of the rays of divine light, so to speak, as it passes through the human medium.
In fact, evidence of God and our Lady taking account of these human frailties run all through approved apparitions; our Lady, for example, tailors not only her language but her dress and appearance to suit her audience.
Ellen Wilson Fielding Responding to Revelations (11/1/1998) catholic.com

MASS
–What do you call a Catholic service that is very very important?
A Critical Mass.

In my view—and Benedict XVI has written very well about this—there can be no opposition between the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form. I believe that it is important to keep alive the so-called Extraordinary Form of the Mass to maintain a stronger link with Tradition. I also celebrate many Holy Masses in the Ordinary Form, and it is not a problem for me, but I adhere strongly to the vision that Benedict XVI expressed in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. I think that it is a very good thing for the Church to celebrate the Rite of the Mass in its two forms.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CARDINAL RAYMOND BURKE (2) — Faith And Tradition (December 21, 2017) oclarim.com

In my view—and Benedict XVI has written very well about this—there can be no opposition between the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form. I believe that it is important to keep alive the so-called Extraordinary Form of the Mass to maintain a stronger link with Tradition. I also celebrate many Holy Masses in the Ordinary Form, and it is not a problem for me, but I adhere strongly to the vision that Benedict XVI expressed in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. I think that it is a very good thing for the Church to celebrate the Rite of the Mass in its two forms. - Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke

We all know the Mass-hopper: that restless type who constantly whines that he can’t take one more of Fr. Ted’s vanilla homilies at St. X’s. Nor can he abide the horrible teen “praise” band ruining Fr. Jim’s services at St. Y’s. So that leaves Fr. Bob at St. Z’s but have you ever seen an uglier sanctuary in your life? I mean, really.
I don’t wish to be That Guy and yet my own recent Mass-hopping in my area doesn’t seem to be driven by any liturgical nitpicking. It’s really Pope Francis’ influence.
We want a church which goes forth, as he puts it in Evangelii Gaudium, adding that “all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the ‘peripheries’ in need of the light of the Gospel” (paragraph 20).
Elias Crim Mass at the Peripheries (May 17, 2018) The Dorothy Option

A couple of years ago at a local parish, a guy started bringing his own bells to Mass and rang them during the epiclesis and elevations from his seat in the pew.
I don’t know what went on behind the scenes, but after a few months, there were bells in the sanctuary and the “altar servers” had been trained to use them (with uneven proficiency).
The result? Reverence. You can now hear a pin drop during these parts of the liturgy.
WARNING: I wouldn’t recommend firing up a thurible from your kneeler.
Curt Jester Commentator GK (June 14, 2006) - 

Looking up at St. Mary’s arches and its high-vaulted ceiling, I had the insight that this magnificent Gothic Revival structure was specifically built for the drama of the Latin Mass. The Irish immigrants who built St. Mary’s in 1869 did so with the Latin Mass in mind — a Mass that serves as a reminder of God’s majesty and the glories that await the faithful in heaven.

I still find Mass in the ordinary form to be edifying and more in line with my own spirituality, which I would describe as being rooted firmly in the Second Vatican Council. But the Catholic Church is a big tent, and there is plenty of room for different spiritualities, including for our brothers and sisters who own a Latin missal.
 Brian Fraga  Experiencing the beauty of the Latin Mass firsthand (November 13, 2019) On the Catholic Beat

Let me just say that I love guitar masses. And without Vatican II, there would be no guitar masses. As a millennial, I like that Vatican II brought me the liturgy in a language I can understand and relate to, along with the option of music that I can understand and relate to as well. This is not a theological dissection of Vatican II, just a way that some aspects of it have impacted me, personally and emotionally. I also love the Ecumenical aspect. I love a Church that reaches out and seeks to be truly Universal. Vatican II has lead to some great beauty. I love it. Justin Hertwig

My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Consecration in the Novus Ordo Mass I attend in my parish. Can't get more Catholic than that. He is also in persona Christi in the priest and the Scriptures. This is valid and licit. This is Mass. At our Novus Ordo Mass in my parish, we kneel for communion, we kneel after the Agnus Dei, and after the Holy, Holy, Holy, and there is often the use of Latin. Our Archbishop hired a liturgist to bring parishes into uniformity and reverence. So, not much disrespect going on here. We have Latin Masses, Spanish Masses, Novus Ordo, Vietnamese Masses. Some pretty holy, prayerful people here. People leave because the culture is more attractive to them than holiness and the narrow path. Also because some Catholics are snobs and cold shoulder people who are not in their socio economic groups or their preferred Mass groups.
 -Jane Howley

For those of us who are lead busy lives, getting to Mass can often be the last on the “list.”  And really there’s no excuse for that, with every Catholic church offering such a wide choice of Mass times, usually from Saturday evening through Sunday evening!  But excuses we make, always finding other things that need to be done instead of getting ourselves where God speaks to us.  Put Him on your list reminds us that God has called us to keep holy the Sabbath day (it’s not just ‘nice’ to go to church; it’s an obligation…one of the Ten Commandments!), and to refocus our lives on our authentic purpose – uniting ourselves to Him, submitting our will to His plan, and orientating our lives so we can live with Him forever in heaven.

However long it’s been since you’ve been to church – it doesn’t matter!  God’s waiting and ready to welcome you back with open arms…no questions asked!  Whatever else is on our Christmas list, let’s make sure getting closer to Jesus and following Him are on the list.
Find out more at www.PutHimOnYourList.org, and check Mass times at a parish near you, for weekdays or Sundays, at www.MassTimes.org.
Patty Knap   Put Jesus on Your Christmas List (DECEMBER 15, 2017) Born Again Catholic

Like many, I’m critical of the abuses of the new Mass–the dreadful architecture, banal art, saccharine and heterodox music, poor preaching etc etc that too often has gone along with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, but my point has always been that these are abuses and when you take the Ordinary Form of the Mass–simply what’s in the book–just the words and rubrics–there’s not much wrong with it.-
 Fr. Dwight Longenecker Twelve Things I Like About the Novus Ordo Mass (January 11th, 2019) dwightlongenecker.com

On Christmas day we went for Mass to a very famous, and very big, church in the major American city where our second child and his wife live. The Mass was lovely. A beautifully decorated church, a reverent celebration, lectors who made you hear the story afresh, a booming organ and a cantor with an astonishing voice.

The celebrant was, I think, a bishop. And his homily was . . . astonishingly pointless and trivial.

If he were a homiletics student, I’d give him a F.

But I’d survive a bad homily, because I’m someone who believes all this stuff. And after the homily I’d meet Jesus in His Body and Blood. Other people, maybe not. The bishop had several hundred people in front of him, a good number undoubtedly at Mass once or twice a year, and he gave them not a single reason to come more often.

The Church wastes a huge amount of her capital, her unique opportunities to speak to people who put themselves in the position of hearing what she has to say. Christmas Mass may be the biggest of these.

But instead of asking “How can we use these rare, precious chances to proclaim the Good News we have to proclaim?” the Church as an social institution says “Who’s on the rotation-?” or worse, “Who’s got the status to do the big Masses?” It’s business as usual in an institution that serves its own interests as an institution.

Which institutions do, of course. But we know that. It’s basic sociology. Knowing that, the Church should play against it. By, for example, finding priests — even if they’re young priests ordained a week ago — who can preach to preach at Christmas, and bring to people who come once a year the tidings of great joy.
David Mills Finding the Good in Every Homily (January 10, 2019)


The Church teaches that the four principle ends of Mass are adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and satisfaction, but there is an ancillary benefit to attending Mass. Seeing what happens at the Mass, reading the Gospel, listening to the homily, reciting the creed, witnessing the consecration, and comprehending the sacred dimension through which all these things transpire is fundamentally pedagogical. Almost everything you really need to know about being a Catholic and attaining eternal salvation can be obtained from regular Mass attendance.
- Steve Skojec   Bad Liturgy Is Not A Victimless Crime. Just Ask Jimmy Fallon. (February 22, 2014) CatholicVote

So when the Catholic Church refers to the Mass as a sacrifice, she means that is a participation in the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross through this unique understanding of remembering. Instead of just recalling that Jesus gave his life for our sins like I might try to recall that the Kansas City Royals won the World Series in 1985, the Mass allows me to participate in the Cross of Christ. Applied to my baseball memory, it would be like being able to sit in the stands of the 1985 World Series each time I “remembered” instead of having to settle for poor quality video or someone else recounting the event for me. So just as the merits of the Cross can be applied to me outside of time (since I wasn’t alive in 32 A.D.), the Mass allows me to participate in the Cross of Christ outside of time. In this way, the Mass is a “Holy Sacrifice” because it actually is our participation in the one sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.
Andrew Strobl “Does the Eucharist Re-Sacrifice Christ?”: The Remix Shameless Popery

Mass Latin

Fish Eaters:  The Whys and Hows of Traditional Catholicism
But the Latin High Mass is so long!

"Can you not watch one hour with Me?"

 Yes, the traditional High Mass is longer than the Novus Ordo Mass, but don't think of it that way; think of it as the amount of time it takes to watch a few episodes of "Friends."

 Look, a microwaveable McMass isn't healthy; you really need to slow down and eat something substantial. Take some time....

 Shhhhh...quiet yourself. Breathe in the sounds of bells that call you here, and the stillness between the chimes. Contemplate. Don't you know why you've been summoned? It is the Lord's Day! Christus resurrexit! -- and a miracle will occur again at the Altar when the bread and wine become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ -- the Pure Offering as predicted by Malachias (Malachias 1:10-11). Has the "Our Father" ever sounded so beautiful as when it is chanted in the same ancient melody heard by Sts. Augustine and Thomas, Catherine and Joan -- made our brothers and sisters by the very sacrifice which will be re-presented today? Pray for His coming. Offer your life to Him -- your joys, your sorrows, your suffering. Give yourself to Him as He gave Himself to you at Calvary and gives Himself to you now in the Eucharist. Look at the Crucifix above the Altar and behold the Lamb Who appears "as it had been slain"; He pours out His life for you, now and ever and unto Ages of Ages. Kneel when you receive Him, and tell me if it doesn't feel right and, more importantly, is not right. Savor the sweetness of the incense that blesses this holy place. Can you locate yourself in time, Christian, as you sit in that pew praying as your ancestors have done for two millenia and as the Saints do now in Heaven with the angels beside them? Or are you both in time and touching eternity?

 Here's the bottom line: though "emotional highs" and "good times" aren't the purpose of the Sacrifice, you will emotionally take from the Mass what you bring to it, and the more you understand the Mass, its Sacred purpose, its history, and, most of all, the more you pray the Mass, the more you will "get out of it" emotionally. Everyone has bad days - days they are sick, tired, distracted, easily bored, or just not "in the mood" to be at Mass (and that's OK); but it remains true that these challenges are problems with you, not the Mass. And it remains true that the Mass is not about us, but about honoring, glorifying, beseeching, and appeasing God, and offering to Him His Son. I imagine our Israelite ancestors didn't find the incessant slaying of lambs and red heifers entertaining after a thousand years or so.- The Traditional Mass: Introduction

Meaning
At the heart of any intellectual exercise is meaning-making. Whether I am using a microscope or a telescope, an ancient text or a new survey, a legal document or a recorded conversation, my desire to make meaning out of the raw material reflects something fundamental about being a homo sapiens, a “wise person.”
What is the meaning of meaning? Our participation in the life of God. Catholic intellectual life is the self-consciousness of this participation. Catholic universities are the institutions that encourage both meaning-making (like all good universities) and the reflective habits of understanding the meaning of meaning-making. These include habits of silence and self-awareness (which I teach my students), as well as habits of prayer and worship.
Tim Muldoon The meaning of meaning (March 30, 2015) The Capstone

Meat on Fridays
All most American Catholics have known for decades is “No more no meat on Fridays.” Many never got the message that Friday is still a day of penance that they’re still meant to observe in some meaningful way. They certainly haven’t been told “Your pastors, the bishops, hope and expect that Catholics as a community will ordinarily continue to practice Friday abstinence by free choice.”

he crucial point that Friday is a day of penance. Don’t let it be just like any other day. Whether or not you choose to abstain from meat — and I heartily recommend that you do — do something. Consider doing more than abstaining: consider fasting every Friday. Or perhaps do without your evening beer or glass of wine. If you’re a vegan and a teetotaler, that still doesn’t get you off the hook! Find something. It could be something positive: Pray the Liturgy of the Hours or the rosary if you don’t already do it every day, or do some extra spiritual reading.
Deacon Steven D Greydanus  Are Meatless Fridays Still a Thing? Does it Matter? (Apr. 8, 2016) ncregister.com


Mental Health
As a mental health advocate and a Catholic christian who suffers from General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), I believe that this example can be a very powerful tool for understanding that there is no room for worry nor negative self talk and low self esteem when it comes to the unconditional love God has for us in the hear and now.
God wants us to have compassion for ourselves as he has compassion and mercy for us; I believe he wants us to apply the Good Samaritan model to our lives and those exact moments our inner critics try to sneak in some very hurtful low blows to our morale.
Adam Paterno The Importance of Self Compassion; Making the Good Samaritan Story Work for Your life (November 23, 2019) On the Upside

Miracles
I believe in miracles, because as I’ve experienced them, they almost always occur in revelation rather than material change. The Holy Spirit opens my eyes, providing an awareness of where I stand before and in God.

The miracle is never that everyone and everything else is transformed while I remain the same. It’s the opposite. I am transformed. Nothing may have changed exteriorly. But the interior life is the only thing that matters.

When the interior is transformed, then slow change in my material circumstances begins to manifest, because I can no longer interact with my environment and in my relationships in the way I did before.

As long as I protect and encourage this Divine life, the longer the miracle lasts, and the larger it becomes. There is potential enough for an earthly lifetime, as physical pain in my knee, for instance, becomes not an obstacle, but an interior opportunity.
ELIZABETH DUFFY Miracles Don’t Happen If You Never Ask For Them  (APRIL 13, 2015)   Betty Duffy

I was going through a rough patch in my life and I said a very silly prayer.
I prayed that God would give me a sign.
 And God delivered.
Years later I was recounting this miracle to a friend. I prefaced it, much like I did here, as being something kind of silly. A cliche request met by a silly little answer that seemed meaningful but also pretty goofy.
“But it was meant for you,” he said. “It was a miracle—it was important and powerful and meaningful—just for you.”
Think about this with me. The amazing aspect of this miracle is not like Jesus feeding the five thousand or casting out demons in front of crowds of onlookers or even raising Lazarus from the dead to go out and evangelize. The incredible part of this miracle was that it was tailor-made for me. That the God of the universe condescended to bend down and demonstrate just to me that He cared.
It was the smallness of this miracle that made it that much more profound.
God of all Heaven and earth cared so much about me in particular—my life, His plans for me, His purposes—that He would reach down through all space and time and everything to send me a message. To let me know it’s all going to be OK. To answer my desperate cry. And, sure, the retelling of these silly little miracles—and I’m sure you may have some too—sound goofy sometimes. They are personal and profound and that’s exactly the point. God cares about us that much to reach out just to us. To you and me, on such an individual level. Isn’t that the most amazing miracle ever?
K. Albert Little The Most Incredible Miracle Ever (is a Surprising One!) (March 21, 2019) The Cordial Catholic

The problem of evil has always seemed to me to be the price we pay for having an intelligible world, one that we can investigate, understand, and love. If miracles were to be possible, they would have to stay below some threshold level of frequency so that they remained clear exceptions to the general course of causality instead of undoing the rule entirely.
Leah Libresco, Arriving at Amen: Seven Catholic Prayers That Even I Can Offer (2015)  Ave Maria Press

At Fatima, the miracle was ‘localized’ – though still within many miles of the town. The crucifixion darkness, even if a natural phenomena, would still be miraculous for its timing, ordained by God. I wonder too, hypothetically, what might a natural cause include. An unknown, massive astronomical body passing through the solar system or on long period orbit, transiting between the earth and sun? It would be interesting to model the varying sizes, speeds, and distances required from the earth to account for the period of darkness – on that hypothesis.
Steven O'Reilly The Historicity of the Crucifixion Darkness (March 25, 2018) Comment Section romalocutaest.com


Monastic Life
The bells began to ring just outside my window for Vigils, 3:15 am prayer, and I couldn’t help but roll over to doze off again until the next round of bells would awaken me a few hours later. I’m not sure how I was so lucky to receive a room with a view of the Abbey’s bell-tower and the monastery’s resting place for monks who have since left the world. I awoke each day overlooking the burial grounds of those who have prayed for decades before me, including Thomas Merton. In some way I felt all those monks overlooking me – showering my awake and resting moments in their lifetimes of prayer.
On this, my third visit to Gethsemani Abbey, I was not only awoken by bells but also to the sacredness of the “smallest” moments in my life. My times at monasteries have been encounters that continually strip away the layers of facade that the world covers me with. And as these false covers are peeled back – I am left raw, vulnerable, and opened to the sacredness before me. This inner stance then permits me to ease into a necessary detachment from the world – an exploration where I can once again see that the simplest of moments are filled with awe and full of the sacredness that they’ve always hosted.
Sometimes it’s difficult to see how this stripping away of layers could lead to such striking awareness and joy in the moment, especially at a monastery. Some find the daily tasks and routines of these monks to be an imprisonment that hinders their own self-discovery, but Gethsemani Abbey and other monasteries have long since proven otherwise. It may be precisely the paradox that provides the freedom – that daring step away from the world in order to deepen one’s relationship with the world; that deep exploration of our rough edges which leads us to greater unity with one another.
Culturally – any external that is a limitation is perceived as bad. But when you choose these self limits, do they open you to a reality that is only accessible because you’ve chosen those limitations? A Trappist Monk
Cassidy Hall The Sacredness of Now (July 14, 2016) The Inner Room

MORALITY
“Prudential judgment” does not free us from the moral law, or the duty to reflect it in our civil law. Prudential judgment is a question of how to do that, not whether to do that.-
Scott Eric Alt Yes, Virginia, Catholics Can Say Abortion Should Be Legal (September 7, 2016) To Give a Defense


Mortal Sin
It is not theologically correct to say “everyone who has an abortion commits mortal sin” or “everyone who misses Mass on Sunday has a mortal sin on their conscience.”
We can’t know if either of those two statements are true because we don’t know if “everyone” who has committed them has met the three criteria for mortal sin. It is more theologically precise to make statements such as “abortion is gravely sinful” or “contraception is an intrinsic evil, which means it is grave matter,” and leave the judging of the mortal sinfulness up to a person’s confessor and/or God Himself.
JoAnna Wahlund Common Misconceptions: The Difference Between Grave Sin and Mortal Sin (March 12, 2019) The Catholic Working Mother



MOTHERHOOD & Feminine Genius
The Nativity is astonishing. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, was born of a woman. The King of the Universe entered the world as a fragile infant, a bundle of needs who was utterly dependent on his mother. What a terrifying fact. The vulnerability of Our Savior’s gestation and early life is enough to take your breath away.

The human person develops through relationships with others, just as Christ did through the love of his mother Mary. The Virgin’s touch and voice helped Christ learn, think and speak; the coordination of their heartbeats helped him develop emotional and physiological regulation; her stress response supported his own; the synchrony of her brain waves with his shaped his attention and memory. Through the love of his young mother, this child grew into the man who died on the Cross for our salvation.
 Sofia Carozza The Advent Corrective to Locke's Lonely Liberalism (December 03, 2018) Synapses of the Soul

I have no issue with women who want to become astronauts or lion tamers. But … what about mothers?
The special gifts and graces God gives us as mothers are part of what I like to call our “momnipotence,” the kind of strength and power that belong uniquely to women. When we deny our call to motherhood and fail to recognize its intrinsic dignity and worth, we deny the very gifts that make us uniquely female. When we pretend that we are identical to men, we betray our feminine selves and reject our most important strengths. Betraying authentic femininity and squashing our true nature as women does not sound very empowering to me. What does sound empowering is the term “feminine genius.” John Paul II coined this phrase as a way of describing the unique and essential contributions women make to our families, our communities, and our Church.
Danielle Bean, (2014). Momnipotent: The Not-So-Perfect Woman's Guide to Catholic Motherhood . Ascension Press. 

Postpartum bodies don’t just snap back immediately after giving birth. Pregnancy changes our bodies in some dramatic ways. It takes time to heal from the intense, and painful, experience of giving birth.
For a mother, giving birth isn’t the end of the pregnancy. The recovery time takes at least 6 weeks, while many women require much more time for their bodies to fully heal, especially if they’ve experienced complications. Pregnancy isn’t just a nine-month commitment like we think. A mother spends almost an entire year either growing a human being inside of her or healing from that experience.
Kristy Burmeister  Sacred Forms: The Postpartum Body (December 13, 2019) Way Station in the Wilderness

The repulsive truth is that nothing will provide satisfaction in life but self-gift. Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, Married, Single or Religious, you have to find a way to give yourself to others, while expecting nothing meaningful back in return.

Motherhood is terribly difficult at times, and mothering many children can also be isolating and labor intensive. I know from experience that I make it worse by withholding myself and pretending I’m a martyr in someone else’s cause, and that my joy increases when I take responsibility for my actions, as well as my failures to act, and give myself wholeheartedly to whatever outcomes may befall me, even if they be children. And like any process of purification, the decision to give oneself is not once and forever, but has to be repeated every single day.

I refuse to fall into the trap of either fetishizing or denouncing the vocation of motherhood. I choose to be detached from the ridiculous ways people mischaracterize the Church’s teaching and those who follow it.
ELIZABETH DUFFY The Repulsive Truth  (APRIL 15, 2013)   Betty Duffy

“But truly, women are amazing. Think about it this way: a woman can grow a baby inside her body. Then a woman can deliver the baby through her body. Then, by some miracle, a woman can feed a baby with her body. When you compare that to the male’s contribution to life, it’s kind of embarrassing, really.”
― Jim Gaffigan, Dad Is Fat

When my first child was born, I heard my mother ask the doctor, “Is it a girl or a boy? A girl or a boy?” I didn’t hear the answer, because I was too busy shouting, “IT’S A BABY. IT’S A BABY!” A real, live, actual baby, with a head and legs, and making noise, and with a *face*! An actual baby, of all things, had come out of me! I couldn’t believe it.
It’s hard to explain why this came as such a shock, after 38 weeks of preparation, but I never forgot it. For subsequent children, I was more prepared for the insistent realness of the new baby, and wasn’t as thoroughly gobsmacked by the brazen individuality of each brand new person.

Am filming a video soon talking about how my protestant church I grew up in took the Bible verse “Women must be silent in the church” literally. I got reprimanded for teaching elementary school boys & for praying publicly. I was told by some people that if I majored in religion I could do nothing with that degree. NOT all churches in my denomination were like that, especially on the West Coast there was more equality. But during formative times of my life I endured this and it really wounded me. That being said, Catholicism has been this epic contrast. It has been the most shocking, empowering thing seeing all the ways women’s giftedness is used.
Lizzie Reezay on FaceBook October 19 , 2019

When a child is born, we brush with eternity, as she is delivered into the light from the shadows of the womb, and becomes herself, shows who she has always been – and also simultaneously takes on the heavy burden of human potentiality, beginning the long journey of becoming who she was made to be.
Simcha Fisher, The womb of the world is a private place, full of secrets (January 2, 2019) I Have to Sit Down

“What do you do all day?”
As a working mother, I rarely get this question. It’s most often posed to stay-at-home-moms, and it really makes no sense to me. Do the people who ask this question really have no idea of the massive amount of work it takes to manage a home, especially if you have multiple small children? There’s cleaning, laundry, meal planning, cooking, homework/homeschooling, home repair, yard work, paying bills… the list seems endless, and even if one parent stays at home there often don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done.
JoAnna Wahlund Making You a Priority (June 24, 2015) The Catholic Working Mother

Concealed within my body is a unique human person.
This person is very small and currently doesn’t look much like we think humans should look. But nonetheless, this person is present.
Concealed within bread and wine is the God of the universe. More powerful, more intelligent, and more loving than any other being in existence. Ever. In the bread and wine, He doesn’t much look like we think a Supreme Being should look. But nonetheless, He is there.
Theresa Zoe Williams Motherhood, Pregnancy, and the Eucharist (March 27, 2019) Contemplatio Culture

I started to wonder, if mothers have sort of a primary relationship with children on account of biology (they do spend 9+ months in a woman’s body…), perhaps the special role of men is to be the primary caretaker of the marriage. Perhaps.

I’ve noticed anecdotally that where men are committed to the marriage, not just being passively carried along in family life, that the marriages are different and better. The wife is happier. So are the children, if the couple is blessed to have children. And the husband is happier.
There’s a statistic – I don’t have it handy but you have the mighty interweb at your finger tips – that children are about 20% likely to follow the family’s practice of religion if it’s led by the mother. If led by the father, that number jumps to something like 80%. 

In some ways, I think women have a role that’s more natural in a biological consideration. 
Pia de Solenni #1 Thing That Men Can Do For Marriage (May 21, 2015) Pia de Solenni

Whatever my own mother’s shortcomings, I learned that motherhood is the greatest vocation, and one that God banned all men from. That’s why I think it’s sad that today’s feminists, as Chesterton observed, despise motherhood and all the other chief feminine characteristics. The idea that men and women shouldn’t be different — shouldn’t have different interests, strengths, and ways of relating to Creation — is insane, and it’s empirical fact that trying to deny these differences makes all of us less happy.[…]
 Milo Yiannopoulos , The Catholic Magazine Interview With Milo They Refuse to Print (October 11, 2017) Church Militant 

Movies
The Sound of Music. Tightly knit Catholic family stands up in heroic fashion to the Nazi regime while simultaneously putting on a performance as good as anything the Osmonds, the famous singing Mormons, ever did. Heavy Catholic fantasy content is brought into play when postulant Julie Andrews leaves convent to marry Austrian aristocrat and becomes instant mother of seven without ever (we trust) having had sex.
Jeffrey Stone, Mary Jane Frances Carolina Meara Growing Up Catholic

by
Music
Okay, just squidding, the Church didn’t invent music, it’s a supernatural human creation. I’d argue that we invented the most beautiful form of music, but whatever…
The point here is that the Church is largely responsible for the development of musical notation, the music we read today. Obviously, this was very nice of them, because it meant that fantastic music can be spread and learnt, far and wide, and that pieces don’t die with their composers. The man responsible? Guido of Arezzo (heehee, Guido,) a Benedictine monk regarded as the inventor of modern musical notation. He gave us do, re, mi, deriving the pitches from a hymn to John the Baptist:
Ut queant laxis resonāre fibris
Mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes.
Marc Barnes 5 More Things No One Knows Are Ridiculously Catholic, But Should (December 28, 2011) Bad Catholic

Those now-famous words of “Amazing Grace,” first sung in the small parish of Olney on New Year’s Day, 1773, lingered in obscurity for many years. Even as Newton counseled the young William Wilberforce and encouraged him to stay the course in the long battle against the slave trade, the words to “Amazing Grace” were little sung in England. But the Olney hymnal, later published by Newton, caught on in the Americas.

The words of “Amazing Grace” would surface again some 80 years later in a book that would change the course of this nation, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In it, the slave, Tom, at his lowest point, sings the words of “Amazing Grace.” Two verses hardly sung today were sung by Tom: “And when this mortal life shall fail/ And flesh and sense shall cease,/ I shall possess within the veil,/ A life of joy and peace.” These words of the ultimate hope in God, even in the face of deep injustice, forever entwined the words of “Amazing Grace” with the plight of the slaves.
Charles Colson ‘Amazing Grace’ (January 2, 2010) Catholic Exchange

Wherever the teaching of the Council is being followed, we will find a common practice of singing the Ordinary of the Mass, that is, the prayers that don’t change from day to day—the fixed prayers of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei; the responses like “Et cum spiritu tuo,” “Amen,” “Deo gratias,” and “Sed libera nos a malo.” These prayers that everyone sings together are some of the most important in the entire liturgy. And we sing them in Latin (or, for the Kyrie, in Greek). We are fulfilling the Council’s request. In such communities, one also finds the regular chanting of the Propers, the most beautiful melodies ever composed in human history. The same Council said: “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites” (SC 36.1).
Peter Kwasniewski  “Song Befits the Lover”: Understanding the Place of Gregorian Chant in the Mass  (September 2, 2015)

Musings
It shouldn’t surprise us that orthodoxy is complicated, in the same way that science is puzzling. We start off with a God Whose internal relationships are by their nature beyond anything our neurons are wired to savvy.

Prophets typically fast and pray. What I do is think, fast, and pray that what I write makes some kind of sense. That’s a critical difference. Besides, all public revelation ended with the death of St. John the Apostle. That’s when God stopped adding to the great ball of yarn and left it to the Church to untangle and knit into a sweater.

You think things are bad today, that they couldn’t get much worse? Think again. Use your imagination, or better yet, drink a dozen cans of Red Bull mixed with vodka, then sit down to watch the director’s cut of Blade Runner.
John Zmirak Heresy Gets Things Done (January 26th, 2013) The Imaginative Conservative

Mystery
Does Science like Mystery? I mean, really and truly embrace it. Because if you think about it, the entire reason for Science’s existence is to answer questions, solve riddles…demystify. So what happens when Science can’t answer certain questions? How does Science grapple with enduring Mystery?
Our everyday lives are suffused with Mystery. Will that car approaching the opposing red light stop or run through and T-bone me? Can this bridge support the weight of my car and the rest of these cars?
There will always be Mystery and the need to live life in the midst of uncertainty. The end of Mystery, the end of uncertainty means the end of Science. And it appears that Science is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Tod Worner What Pope Benedict XVI & G.K. Chesterton Understood (But Science Misses) About Mystery  (June 8, 2016) A Catholic Thinker

The wisdom of mystery, of being okay with not knowing, is a lesson always worth remembering. So much of the good of the spiritual life comes from the unexpected, from surprise, from moments we could not have planned or scheduled. When I visited Manresa and Montserrat, key places in the conversion of St. Ignatius, I sat there imagining how he must have felt, and what I thought was, He could not have known. He could not have known what he was getting into. He could not have known what would happen when he set out from Manresa -- that he would end up in Paris, meeting a few friends and forming the Society of Jesus, and creating one of the most consequential religious orders in world history. He let himself be led into the unknown; he let his life be a poem. And that, I often think, is what characterizes the life of a saint.
Matt Emerson The good of not knowing (October 21, 2015) After Manresa

Notre Dame
Catholic Family News Catholic Family News is a Traditionalist Catholic monthly publication of Catholic Family Ministries.

As Holy Week began and the Church was entering ever more deeply into the Passion of Our Lord, Divine Providence permitted an event that can serve as a deep allegory of our times.

Yesterday in Paris (Monday of Holy Week), the Cathedral of Notre Dame, icon of the Age of Faith and spiritual heart of France, erupted in a blazing inferno. Viewed from the air, the great cross shape of the cathedral could be seen ablaze.

In addition to its universally recognized towers and stained glass rose windows, Notre Dame also housed many priceless spiritual treasures, including the Crown of Thorns. St. Louis IX (1215-1270), King of France, brought the Crown back to France from the Crusades and commissioned the Sainte-Chapelle in the palace across the road from Notre Dame to house this incredible relic of the Passion. Since the French Revolution, the Crown of Thorns has been kept in the cathedral.

According to multiple news sources, a priest and several Parisian firefighters braved the flames to enter the building and rescue the Crown which Our Lord chose for His Kingship. According to reports, the linen tunic of St. Louis was also rescued. This relic of the Saint-King confounded scientists since linen should not have survived intact for so many centuries.

The events of this Holy Week can represent our times. As the Church of Christ is engulfed by the fire and smoke of the devil who tries with ever more vehemence to demolish the Church, for those with eyes to see through the haze of smoke, the Passion of Our Lord remains untouched, unassailed, offering us the grace to find our way out of this crisis.

Let us pray for the brave souls who rescued the Crown of Christ the King. May He Who reigns from the Cross reward their service by granting them the grace to remain in, or return to (as the individual case may be), the Faith of their fathers, the Faith that built this extraordinary monument to the worship of God and the continuation of His Sacrifice in the Mass.
Crown of Thorns Emerges from Notre Dame Inferno Brian McCall April 16, 2019
Numbers
Twelve Apostles; twelve articles of the Apostles Creed; twelve days of Christmas; twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost; twelve tribes of Israel; twelve loaves of proposition in the temple sanctuary; twelve chiefs of Ismael; Jesus was twelve-years-old when He was first teaching in the temple; twelve baskets of fragments left over after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes; the Woman of the Apocalypse had a crown of twelve stars; the tree of life in the vision of the Apocalypse bore twelve fruits; and, in the natural order, we have twelve months of the year.
Our Lord appeared to His Apostles and disciples twelve times during the forty days between His resurrection and His ascension. Two of the dozen apparitions are known from tradition; the other ten are recorded in Holy Scripture.
Brian Kelly Twelve Apparitions of Christ Between His Resurrection and Ascension, Jul 29, 2013 
Nuns
I was going to tell you about all the drama at the convent, but then remembered it’s nun of your business.
The world’s oldest Nun celebrated her 116th Birthday and revealed her secret to happiness.
Daughter of Charity Sister André Randon said the key to happiness is “Pray and drink a cup of chocolate every day.”
I guess she forgot to mention flame wars on Twitter and mixing it up with trolls in the Facebook combox.
Patrick Archbold World's Oldest Nun Reveals Her Secret to Happiness  (February 19, 2020) Creative Minority Report
https://www.creativeminorityreport.com/

What do you call a sleepwalking nun?
A “roamin'” Catholic.

Pants
The Catholic blogosphere (or at least the part of it that I read) has been abuzz this week over pants.
Pants.
This is not a joke. Apparently there are those among us who believe it is immoral to wear pants.
Pants.
I keep hoping if I repeat the word, somehow this will begin to make sense.
Pants.
Nope.
For the record, I love skirts. I think they’re pretty and feminine. I, however, wear pants because I am awkward and clumsy, and skirts don’t look that great with flip flops. And I only wear flip flops because they’re freaking awesome. (Also, I’m awkward and clumsy and I trip in anything besides flip flops and tennis shoes. And let’s face it, tying those laces is a lot of work.)
Silly as this debate is, one of the commenters has nevertheless coined a most amazing phrase to sum it all up. I give you…sola skirtura.
Calah Alexander Brilliant. 7 Quick Takes Friday: What the what? Edition (September 17, 2010) Barefoot and Pregnant

PAPACY
Beloved roly-poly Pope John XXIII (1958–1963) was once asked how many people work in the Vatican, to which he is supposed to have replied: “About half." Yet the Catholic Church, like any social movement, needs an institution with which it can organize its common life. Without an institution, a social phenomenon dies. It’s not enough for Roman Catholics merely to have the Pope as a symbolic figurehead. The Church needs structures with teeth in order to make decisions, and to keep its 1-billion-strong worldwide membership in some kind of basic unity. Decisions have to be made about what the Church teaches, how it worships, and what position it’s going to take on important issues. Thus the Catholic Church needs a central administrative system through which information can circulate, contacts can be maintained, and decisions can be communicated and enforced. If Roman Catholicism did not have the Vatican, it would have to invent it.
John L. Allen, Jr. All the Pope's Men (2007) The Crown Publishing Group

The Pope has repeatedly, almost weekly, decried what he calls our “throw away culture, according to which everything can be discarded.” This climate has led to a rampant disregard for the elderly, the pope charges, endless consumerism, an economy that ignores the poor, and the disposal of innocent human life. His disgust of the throw away culture and all it implies will continue to be a central complaint of this pontificate. Then there is Satan.

During his very first homily in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Francis said, “He who doesn’t pray to the Lord prays to the devil.” Over these many months he has spoken of the devil as a person, a distinctive being bent on man’s destruction. Francis credits the devil with Christian persecutions from Christ’s time to the present. On May 4th he said, “With the prince of this world, you can’t have dialogue. Let this be clear.” And just this last weekend he urged those gathered in St. Peter’s Square, “Let us renounce Satan and all his works and seductions because he is a seducer…” His full throated warnings about Satan are rarely covered, but they reveal a spiritual understanding that informs all he does, including the reform that consumes his days.
Raymond Arroyo The Gentle Revolution of Pope Francis (March 12, 2014)

All the pope can do is pass along what the Church knows and not a word more. He speaks as the Supreme Pontiff and the Vicar of Christ, the Pontifex Maximus, but even as those things, he speaks as a steward, not as an inventor. That’s all Pope Pius IX was doing on December 8, 1854, when he proclaimed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
David Mills Mary and the modest Church (Dec 11, 2019) Aleteia

"As a Catholic, I can't tell you how exciting it was just to be in the room, just to watch the Pope walk down the aisle, and give what I thought was a great pastoral speech. This wasn't a policy speech; this was a speech from a pastor, from the voice of Saint Peter, the vicar of Christ. He's been calling for a dialogue and talking about very important principles about the dignity of every human person and how we need to attend to this. And so, just as an American, as a Congressman, and as a Catholic, I thought it was just a great experience."
 Paul Ryan "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo" - Excerpts from Transcript: Paul Ryan Reflects on Pope Francis's Address to Congress (Sept. 23, 2015)

The theological weakness of sedevacantism is an inadequate concept of the nature of the Church. Without realizing it, they believe in a Church which can fail -- and such a Church is not the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church that He founded cannot fail, for it is indefectible (i.e. it cannot fail). It will continue to exist until the Second Coming as a visible, hierarchically governed body, teaching the truth and sanctifying its members with indubitably valid sacraments. To state that we have no pope is to claim that the Church is no longer visible and hierarchically governed, which, in effect, means that it has ceased to exist. Catholic theologians accept that a pope could lose his office through heresy, but it would have to be such notorious heresy that no doubt concerning the matter could exist in the minds of the faithful, and a statement that the Pope had deposed himself would need to come from a high level in the Church, most probably a general Council. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre warned in 1979:

"The visibility of the Church is too necessary to its existence for it to be possible that God would allow that visibility to disappear for decades. The reasoning of those who deny that we have a pope puts the Church into an inextricable situation. Who will tell us who the future pope is to be? How, as there are no cardinals, is he to be chosen? The spirit is a schismatical one. . . And so, far from refusing to pray for the Pope, we redouble our prayers and supplications that the Holy Ghost will grant him the light and strength in his affirmations and defense of the Faith."
Michael Davies:A Heretical Pope? A Heretical Pope? (12/7/2005, Free Republic

I hope you’re sitting down, because I have some earth shattering news about the pope. It seems that he had been engaging in some serious sensuality himself. He kept a number of mistresses. He fornicated with widows, and even with his own niece. He dealt with his opponents among the clergy with extreme severity; chopping off the hand of one cardinal, and killing another. He blinded his confessor. Moreover, he toasted the devil with wine, and invoked pagan deities when playing dice.
What can be done about such a pope?
Fortunately, we don’t have to deal with the problem, because the pope I’m describing has been dead for over one thousand and fifty years. I haven’t been describing Pope Francis, but Pope John XII.
Jack Quirk If He Did It (September 2, 2018) Christian Democracy

 “A poor Chruch for the poor” “A field hospital for the wounded”—Seven years on, Pope Francis continues to inspire the world with his moral leadership, his utmost concern for the poor and marginalized, and care for the plight of migrants and refugees. Ad multos annos, Francisco!
Rich Raho@RichRaho (Mar 13)

Ubi Petrus, Ibi Ecclesia. The famous quote from St. Ambrose of Milan which translates to - Where Peter is, there is the Church.

It is a statement identifying that the unity of the Church is centered on Peter, the papacy.  Without the papacy, there is no Church

To discredit the Pope himself is an assault on those who are weak in faith and could potentially abandon the faith. 

Making snide remarks about the pope, printing them, circulating them among average citizens, how is that different from what Martin Luther did.  He too thought that the Pope was corrupt and needed to be straightened out; that what he was doing was right.

Does the pope sometimes say things that are confusing or could be said better? Sure EVERYONE does.  But to raise those quotes to such a high level as the lefties do, or to denigrate them so badly as the opposite camp does is a disservice to the faithful.

Where Peter there is, there is the Church – even if a given Peter does need assistance or even correction – it shouldn’t be going on in the secular press and certainly shouldn’t be going almost as sport among Catholics.

Pray for the Holy Father, instead of sniping at him OR distorting and using him.

- Michael Voris: It always comes back to the Pope (3/13/14) Church Militant

Patheos Catholic
*Patheos is a useful model for Catholic bloggers in the new "agora".
Terry Nelson Thank you Pope. (Thursday, January 24, 2013) Abbey Roads

Unlike the bulk of Catholic media platforms that are driven by a single ideological focus, Patheos Catholic is able to provide our readers with an array of perspectives, not just with pieces that have been vetted to suit a specific agenda. Yes, some of our writers have a decided ideological slant, as many of you have probably noticed. I myself am responsible for producing some of the more radically leftist material to be found under our wide umbrella. But each writer’s slant is her own. If you read and dislike an article of mine, what you dislike is not “Patheos Catholic” but “Rebecca Bratten Weiss.” And chances are, if you spend time looking at our different columnists, you will find one who better suits your tastes.
What you will not find, however, is an echo chamber. At a time when ideological bubbles are becoming increasingly impermeable, Patheos Catholic is committed to remaining a “free speech zone,” within the bounds of journalistic responsibility, and beneath the broad aegis of “Catholic identity.”

But insofar as Patheos Catholic represents “catholicity” in a broad, genuine sense, I want to make sure that we are abiding by the revelations at the heart of our faith. First, the revelation that Truth is not a dogma, but a Person. Secondly, that this Person, both divine and human, manifests the presence of infinite love in the midst of the scandal and bitterness of human history. Thirdly, that this Person remains present to all the world not only in the sacrament received by baptized communicants, but in every living being bearing the divine image. “Whatever you have done to the least of these, this you have done to me.”
Pax et bonum,
Rebecca Bratten Weiss Catholic Readers: Pondering Our Identity In A Time Of Crisis (September 3, 2018) The Font Where Many Catholics Dip

[In what’s bound to shake the Catholic blogosphere to its foundations, OnePeterFive founder and executive director Steve Skojec announced this morning he is moving his popular site to the Patheos Catholic Portal.
“After months of careful deliberation, I have accepted an offer extended by Sam Rocha, editor of Patheos Catholic, to have 1Peter5 hosted at the world’s largest religious website. I am excited about expanding 1P5’s reach. I look forward to joining his well-established team of talented writers. I’m humbled that my little ol’ blog is considered worthy to be published along side such luminaries as The Divine Wedgie, Jappers and Janglers, and Daffey Thoughts.
“I’m sure many of my readers will be surprised by this move,” he continued, “but they’re ultra-faithful followers, totally dedicated to my cause, and they will continue to read me. You will read 1Peter5.”
Catholic Conspiracy

Parenthood
But what I’ve been chewing on a lot these last few days is this: the relationship between responsible parenthood and generosity.
What I’ve come away with: It’s complicated. Just like every other way in which we seek to live the Christian life, there are no easy answers here. No checklist, no bullet points of what “counts” as a good reason to limit family size. There’s no power point presentation with slides of what generosity looks like, everywhere, all the time. There’s no rubric for what responsible parenthood entails.

What there is, is grace. Is prayer. Is conscience. Is that still small voice that speaks in our hearts. Is the tender love of husband and wife, rightly ordered, that God uses to lead us gently toward more generosity. However, sometimes generosity is not another child.

Sometimes generosity is continuing to try, month after month, letting small springs of hope seep into a cracked and weary soul. Sometimes there is no visible proof of this generosity, this hope.
Sarah Babbs When Generosity Looks Like Selfishness (January 22, 2015) Fumbling Toward Grace

Yesterday after supper, the 6-year-old squeezed himself into the space between me and the back of the couch while I tried to catch up on reading. He does this often, using me alternately as pillow, footrest, jungle gym or whatever else suits his mood and restless muscles. It’s like having a cat except mine’s heavier, not furry, and talks. And doesn’t cause fits of sneezing.
I’m sure my son doesn’t realize it, but as I’m shepherding his heart and soul, he shepherds mine. He has such a simple and profound way of looking at the world and the bottom line of things. It’s almost heartbreaking to see him grapple with these thoughts and concerns at such a young age, but I am also deeply, infinitely blessed by his musings. What a privilege and a responsibility to tend to the little ones in His flock. I am awed at the wonder of it, and humbled and grateful that God saw it fit to make me his mother. Thank You, Lord.
Stef Patag  The Gentle and Arduous Task of Shepherding Little Souls (Oct 18, 2015) and these Thy gifts 


PERSECUTION
The danger comes when we lose sight of how luxurious our situation is, particularly compared to how Christians elsewhere in the world and throughout history have fared. If we delude ourselves on this point, we may think that our religious convictions have somehow been tested and proven when a guy we knew in high school unfriends us for posting spiritual memes on Facebook. I’ve more than once found myself in conversation with a Christian who recounts such a trauma as if it were her personal Passion. She hit the tiniest speed bump because of her religion and now she looks in the mirror and sees Joan of Arc.

I’m tempted by this trap myself. If I’m not careful, I may feel a stupid pride in the fact that hundreds of sad, lonely people send me vicious messages whenever I write something with a Christian theme. I may say to myself, “Oh, look at these slings and arrows I’m taking. How courageous I am to endure unpleasant emails for the sake of my faith!” Meanwhile, another group of Christians in Syria are marched into the desert and hacked to pieces or burned alive for theirs.

We may not face the prospect of a torturous death in this country, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to be authentically, actively Christian. It’s never easy, certainly not in this godless land. But it’s temptation that we face most of all, not persecution. Satan has had great success using the carrot rather than the stick in our case.

After all, from his perspective, why make martyrs of Christians when you can dangle materialism, worldliness, lust, perversion, apathy, ignorance, self-interest, and envy in front of their faces, and convince them that such a lifestyle can be lived in harmony with Biblical teaching? Why send them on the quick road to Heaven when you can put them on the slow and degrading road to Hell?

It’s always difficult to resist the pull of sin, but in our culture it’s made all the harder by the fact that sin and temptation are broadcast directly into our faces relentlessly, at all hours of the day, and each form has its own advocacy group, its own collection of heretics busily cutting and pasting the Bible together so that their favorite brand of evil can be excused. If we look, we can always find some “church” somewhere insisting that our pet sin is actually a blessing. Whatever temptation we fight, there will always be a sizable group of “Christians” erasing words from Scripture and filling them in again like Mad Libs so as to convince you that God wants you to succumb to it.
Matt Walsh: If You Find it Easy to be a Christian, You Probably Aren’t One (February 08, 2017) The Blaze
Priesthood
I dreamed of becoming a comic book artist, an astronaut, a movie director, an astronomer, or an exploerer. I wanted my life to be special, to mean something. Luke Skywalker embodied the kind of person I wanted to become. I wanted to dedicated my life to a cause that mattered-traveling beyond the boundaries of my own small world, learning about the mysteries of life, saving people from evil.

God probably had an idea where this was going. I didn’t have a clue yet.
Roderick Vonhogen   Geekpriest: Confessions of a New Media Pioneer (2013)

Pilgrimages
 The Camino (the way) to Santiago is a 1,000-year-old pilgrimage to the cathedral where the remains of St. James the Apostle are said to be enshrined.
For a thousand years people have been streaming to Santiago in pilgrimage. In the 12th and 13th centuries there were four great Christian pilgrimages: Jerusalem, Rome, Canterbury, and Santiago. The only one that still exists in its original form is Santiago.
In the Middle Ages as many as 200,000 people per year made their way to Santiago to pray at the Cathedral of St. James. A whole infrastructure had to be built to accommodate all these pilgrims, including hospitals and places to stay. Orders of knights had to protect the pilgrims. Kings and ambassadors had to agree to safe passage. People had to extend them aid and hospitality. Today, as you approach the modern city of Santiago there is an inscription in the path that reads, "Europe was made on the Camino to Santiago." Some walked for years. Many died on the Camino. Some never went home or went home completely changed.
 Fr. Peter Daly Walking the Camino de Santiago will change you (Nov 29, 2016) Priestly Diary: ncronline.org

Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Every sane person should have a shred of skepticism for what the experts tell them. They should also have a shred of trust. This is why people need to be trained in philosophy to know the difference. Without that love of wisdom, we inevitably become an apparatus of someone else's agenda.
Brian Holdsworth on FaceBook ( January 18 , 2020)

Priesthood
See, the Church teaches that Christ picked twelve apostles. When they died or, as required, those apostles anointed others with the imposition of hands to take up their places. Through this chain of authority, begun by Christ, the Church spread all over the world. As Catholics, we trace the hierarchy of our Church and the authority it can claim to act on God’s behalf, right back to the beginning. We believe, likewise, that the priest, in a very particular way, is the hands and feet of Christ on Earth.
The priest acts, we say, in persona Christi.
In the person of Christ.
This is why, tracing his authority back to the apostles, the priest can say, “You’re forgiven” in the confessional after I confess my sins. It isn’t the priest exercising his own special powers—he’s merely making use of the authority that Christ gave the apostles to “bind and loose.” An authority which the Catholic Church, in its ancient line of priests, has claimed throughout all of Church history.
K. Albert Little The Incredible Power of “In Persona Christi” (February 8, 2020) The Cordial Catholic @ Patheos Catholic

Pope and Vatican City
The Holy Father, of course, is correct that “true love is not rigid.” But as with the meaning of any infused virtue, the divine is in the details. For if we “dig, dig,” as Francis suggests we do, we discover there is no such thing as the vice of rigidity, or the virtue of charity, in the abstract. As I learned as an 18-year-old, and as the Supreme Pontiff no doubt knows as an 80-year-old, impulsive judgments, directed by uncritically inherited prejudices, formed by one’s own narrow experience, may themselves be manifestations of unjustified rigidity, even when they claim to be advancing the cause of human liberation.
This is why, for example, the Holy Father is correct in not believing that he engages in the vice of rigidity when he declares in starkly absolutist terms the impossibility of the ordination of female priests, the wrongness of capital punishment, the grave immorality of abortion, the responsibility of first world nations to distinguish migrants from refugees, the goodness of the invitation of God’s mercy, and the power of the papacy to issue authoritative apostolic exhortations and to later clarify or decline to clarify their meaning.
In other words, if Pope Francis were an equal opportunity critic of “rigidity in the abstract,” he would unwittingly be contributing to the undermining of his own ecclesial authority. If that were the case, Catholics would have no more reason to take his pronouncements seriously than they would the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Joel Osteen, or Donald Trump.
Francis J. Beckwith Mea Maxima Culpa: Who Am I to Judge? (November 25, 2016) The Catholic Thing

By today’s standards, it may seem hard to believe that over two centuries went by without a single pope being named a saint: St. Pius V (1504-1572) was raised to the altars on May 17, 1712, but not until St. Pius X (1835-1914) was canonized on May 29, 1954, did another Roman Pontiff join him.
I say that this seems difficult to believe since, looking backward at the 20th century, we have a trove of pope-saints, or popes en route to sainthood:
St. John Paul II
Venerable Servant of God John Paul I
Saint Paul VI
St. John XXIII
Venerable Servant of God Pius XII
And of course, St. Pius X.
That leaves only two popes elected this past century who are not being considered for sainthood (at least not yet). Who were these two outliers, and where do they fit in amongst the Venerable, Blessed and Sainted predecessors and successors to the throne of St. Peter?
Upon the death of Pope St. Pius X in 1914, Cardinal Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa was elected Pope Benedict XV.
The immediate successor to Benedict XV is also the only other 20th-century pope not en route to Sainthood: Pope Pius XI.
Kevin Di Camillo Benedict XV and Pius XI — the Popes Who Would Not Be Saints (Aug. 23, 2018) ncregister.com

Yesterday, was of course the Holy Father’s address to Congress, which I think was just an extraordinary tour de force. He said that in addressing the Congress he wanted to address the American people and the Congress is the face of the people, whose task is to defend the dignity of the people and to live in a tireless pursuit of the common good, which is the aim of all politics. He said especially the test must be to defend the vulnerable.

And then he pointed out image of Moses on the wall the House of Representatives and said that Moses was the great lawgiver of Israel, whose duty was to bring unity to God’s people by giving them the law – the law that leads them to God and that defends the transcendent dignity of every human being. The law that Moses gave was to protect the image and likeness of God in each person. I think the Holy Father in pointing to the image of Moses was, in a subtle way, reminding us of the spiritual roots of our democratic institutions.

He also spoke of the need to support families, as they sustain the life of society, generate solidarity and help those in need. He also spoke of the elderly as the storehouse of wisdom.

Then, he very artfully spoke of four different Americans from whom he gleaned inspiration: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. He talked of these individuals as being defenders of liberty and social justice and our capacity for dialogue and openness to God and for social justice. It was a very beautiful exposition.

He also spoke of the need to defend life and there was a great spontaneous applause and many rose to their feet. He went on to make a long appeal for the global abolition of capital punishment, saying that there must be hope in the ability to rehabilitate prisoners. He also spoke of about the evil of the arms trade.
Seán Patrick Cardinal O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap. With the Holy Father in Cuba and in Washington (September 2015) cardinalseansblog.org

Let us begin with the most recent faux pas.  If you are visiting Vatican City and you want to see the official Vatican City Nativity Scene, please remember to keep your shirt on and try not to take the baby Jesus as a souvenir.   This is considered very bad form and you will be exiled.  Having said that, let us take a exiled look through history:

Don’t be an idiot Visigoth.  Idiot Visigoths may ransack Rome but Saint Jerome or someone of his grandeur will take time out of their day to excoriate you with their words.  Jerome defended his dear friend, 85 year old Saint Marcella who was murdered by the idiot Visigoths.   Who won?  Well, all parties are dead . . . But there are no more idiot Visigoths, 1.2 Billion Christians (and not a few idiots in their own right) and 2000 years later we still have both the Latin Vulgate of Doctor Saint Jerome and know of the heroic virtue of Saint Marcella.  Idiot Saints beat Idiot Pagans every day of the week and twice on Sundays.  If you want to remain in Vatican City, don’t ransack Rome and tick off our doctor-saints.
Susan Windley-Daoust The Handy Dandy Hiney Guide to How Not to Get Kicked out of Vatican City (December 28, 2014) Ironic Catholic
New Blog Waterwalingtime.wordpress

I don’t want to brag or anything, but I had mass with the pope.
And not some big open air mass. Nope. This was a votive mass for Our Lady, Mother of the Church, in the glorious Basilica of Sts Peter and Paul in Philadelphia. I even got a plenary indulgence for participating. Take that, Martin Luther!
Thomas L. McDonald The Pope and I (October 1, 2015) God and the Machine

Ours is a time when the fierce and beautiful truth of Christ’s saving Gospel is being eclipsed and the Church is undergoing balkanizing fissures threatening her very stability. A time marked by widespread doctrinal confusion in the Church to a degree heretofore unknown in living memory.
Out of true Christian charity for the Holy Father and for the faithful; may they reaffirm Christ’s moral teachings and implore the Holy Father to boldly and unambiguously strengthen the brethren in the fullness of the faith of Christ.
Michael Sirilla Professor of dogmatic and systematic theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville
Took a Class with him but dropped out which is why I place him here.
Superstition, Dissent, and Scandal? A brief defense of Fr. Thomas Weinandy (November 5, 2017)
Catholic World Report


What doth it profit a man to attend Latin Masses, but not live like the Good Samaritan?
Whatever Francis may or may not have done can in no way be compared to iniquity of the High Priest Caiaphas, who orchestrated the greatest crime in human history, the crime of Deicide, who committed the gravest in of Blasphemy denying the Divinity of Our Lord. Did Jesus depose Caiaphas? No, He allowed Himself to condemned by the "Pope" of the Jewish Church, to be Crucified in obedience to His Father. When on the Cross did He succumb to the jeers of the Jews to come down from the Cross? No, He remained faithful even when it was most painful to do so.

We too must imitate Christ. Anything less is to re-crucify Him ourselves.

Father forgive them for they know not what they do, He prayed.

Can we do any less?

When are we going to start praying for the Pope, instead of cursing him? What doth it profit a man to attend Latin Masses, but not live like the Good Samaritan?
Toronto Catholic Witness -Part II: Pope Francis ~ Pope or Antipope? Is Pope Francis a heretic, schismatic?

Popes Said
“It is Jesus you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.
“It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
St. John Paul II Address at World Youth Day, Rome,  (August 19th, 2000)
If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge. You know that the foundation of the world is love, so that even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One that loves you
Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth

The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things. Saint Bonaventure teaches us that “contemplation deepens the more we feel the working of God’s grace within our hearts, and the better we learn to encounter God in creatures outside ourselves”.
― Pope Francis, Laudato Si (223)': On the Care of Our Common Home

PRIESTS
I wonder if priests fully realized that they’re in persona Christi— really, honestly in pesona Christi. They always are, when they hear confessions and say Mass, whether they behave well or not. Christ is still in them, and the sacraments are still valid, whether they conduct themselves in a Christ-like way or not. Mary Pezzulo

PRAYER

I have a ridiculously hard time praying. I probably feel like most people, who, “Instead of fluent conversation…can only manage a few, halting, scraps of the heavenly idiom” (Hans Urs’ von Balthasar, Prayer). The broken phrases are probably a little bit different and a little bit the same for everyone: snatches of the liturgy, mangled Scripture passages, and plenty of incoherent mumbling. Throw in some saint references and you have a Catholic.

Teresa of Avila says in her Interior Castle, “through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. … [Y]ou must understand that there are many ways of ‘being’ in a place. Many souls remain in the outer court of the castle [of their own soul], which is the place occupied by the guards; they are not interested in entering it, and have no idea what there is in that wonderful place, or who dwells in it, or even how many rooms it has.” Teresa gives us an image of a person who doesn’t really know how to dwell within themselves, or how to search themselves. They’re sitting there like normal, having lunch or something, but they’re also stuck “outside” of themselves.

There we go with self-knowledge again. These people with their interior castles and inner mirrors and whatever. So annoyingly, wonderfully consistent. (And inconsistent, but I don’t really want to talk about the different conceptions of the self over the centuries.) The point is that wanting is hard for us, but we can’t beat ourselves into submission. We have to know who we are to better learn what we want, and we have to draw nearer to God to learn even better what He wants. The whole dynamic assumes that God is there to help, since we’re devastatingly mediocre at this.
Anne Carpenter A Meditation on Prayer. Plus the Virgin Mary Appears at Some Point. (August 15, 2017)  The Rule and the Raven

Men and women everywhere are hungry and thirsty, voraciously yearning and seeking: rich and poor, wise and foolish, young and old, literate and illiterate, saints and sinners, atheists and agnostics, playboys and prostitutes. Some can explain their inner emptiness in words; most cannot, but everyone experiences it. That inner ache drives all our dreams, desires, and decisions--good and bad. Even your decision to pick up this book and read was triggered by this nameless desire.

Prayer life is therefore profoundly rooted in the needs of our human nature. Without it we are frustrated creatures. All the way from the beginnings in vocal prayer through meditation, which leads to the summit of contemplation, this prayerful immersion in the indwelling Trinity gradually transforms us from one glory to another as we are being turned into the divine image (2 Cor 3:18). Here alone do men and women become "perfect in beauty" (Ezek 16:13-14). We can understand why Henri de Lubac was prompted to say that man is truly man only when the light of God is reflected in a face upturned in prayer.
Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M Thirsting and Quenching From Prayer Primer: Igniting a Fire Within ignatiusinsight.com

So often in prayer, we hope for yes. A yes to our wishes. A yes to ourselves. A yes to tell us that, yes, indeed we are on the right path. We are deserving. We are fundamentally good. Yes, we are talented. Yes, everything will be ok. Yes, despite our failings, we will still find happiness. Yes, the kids will be ok. Yes, the future will bring good things. Yes yes yes. It can be done. It will be done. We will get there in the end. We shall overcome. We shall win.
Yet, it is in our “no” that the prayer life begins. A no to distractions. A no to despair. A no to cheaper, easier fixes. A no to ourselves. A no to our desires. A no to the world around us. It is also in this no that the rebellious and radical nature of the gospel can come to fruition.
We spend much of our lives waiting for a yes, but we can do so much by starting with a prayerful no of our own.
Tim Duffy Praying toward No (Anne Boyer, “No” ) (July 11, 2018)

St. Paul was right, when we spend time to sanctify every part of our day, even the fun ones, we have an incredible disposition towards Grace. This is what I would like to remind you, that there are powerful intercessory saints of God who are more than happy to help us out. It is just our choice whether or not we seek their help. I seriously recommend turning toward St. JPII when you’re outdoors because the dude was an awesome outdoorsmen. Let us also not forget to pray for those Souls in Purgatory as when we do and by the mercy of God they are released, we gain more saints to pray for us. All in all, I just wanted to remind us of the Church Triumphant and how it is so vastly important that we seek their aid in all that we do.
John Paul Gaston Skiing with a Saint (January 29, 2018) The Millennial Crusader

No matter how dark things get, He will always hear and answer us when we approach Him full of love and faith.  As He said to the woman, the blind man, and the leper, “thy faith hath made thee whole.”  Our Lord hears these prayers, and many prayers like them for one simple reason: He wishes us to have a life of hope, with Joy.
Michael Hichborn The Light Shineth in the Darkness (2017-01-11)

“If we do not fill our mind with prayer, it will fill itself with anxieties, worries, temptations, resentments, and unwelcome memories.”
― Scott Hahn, Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots

I can’t fathom the arrogance/narcissism to walk into a Church where people are praying silently and then you just start praying your prayers out loud/chanting/singing/rosary etc.
- Fr. John Hollowell‏ @frjohnhollowell Jan 2

Let’s face it: in a world where soccer practice, work, the gym, PTA meetings, school projects, Twitter, and Netflix dominate our lives, it can be challenging and seemingly impossible to find time to pray. There are deadlines to meet, bills to pay, babies to diaper, reports to file, gardens to weed, emails to answer, groceries to buy. And praying? Talking to God? Amid the stresses and strains of daily life, many of us take God’s name in vain, if we mention him at all.
We want to pray, but who has the time?
Well . . . you. You do. Yes, you. The busy person who can’t find your keys or this week’s grocery list can, in fact, find time to pray. It is not impossible.
I don’t intend to ladle out heavy theology or philosophy; I’m not going to be quoting exhaustively from encyclicals or treatises; I won’t be dissecting the mind of Aquinas. That’s not me. I’m just a writer, journalist, blogger, storyteller, preacher, husband, and deacon.
Deacon Greg Kandra It’s Here: ‘The Busy Person’s Guide to Prayer’ (March 20, 2019) The Deacon's Bench

How is your prayer life? Is it easy or difficult? Is it full of consolation, desolation, or just silence? Do you have someone to talk to about your prayer life? This is the most important question here. We all need a person or a group of people with whom we can be candid about our prayer life. It’s the reason God gave us a family of faith. Make sure to build this community based on prayer and the sharing of prayer around you
Steven Lewis How’s Your Prayer Life? (June 23, 2017)  Time Off Purgatory with Steve the Missionary



“GOD COMMUNICATES WITH US in many ways. But prayer is a special time when God’s voice is often heard most clearly because we are giving God our undivided attention. Whether in Ignatian contemplation, lectio divina, the colloquy, the examen, or any other practice, the “still small” voice can be heard with a clarity that can delight, astonish, and surprise you. So when you pray, however you pray, and feel that God is speaking to you—pay attention.”
― James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (2010)

To truly know the Bible, there are obvious advantages to spending time with the Author. Being a contemplative nun, Mother Angelica had an inside track. She literally spent hours each day meditating and conversing with God in prayer.

This daily regimen of faith is underappreciated in our age, but the benefits are enduring. Saint Teresa of Avila, the Spanish mystic, said of her experience with God during prayer: “He would take me into His room. This is a royal chamber filled with countless and immense riches. Introduced to the secrets of Heaven, like the great Saint Paul, the Bride sees invisible things and hears unutterable words.” Mother Angelica saw those invisible things and heard those unutterable words as well—but unlike her contemplative peers, she was able to share the fruit of her contemplation with millions over the airwaves.
Mother Angelica, Mother Angelica's Private and Pithy Lessons from the Scriptures (2008)
http://www.ewtn.com/v/library/search.asp

The next time you read a tragic story about a natural disaster, stop and ask God to bless those in harm’s way and ask yourself if you can spare a luxury for that day such as takeout for dinner to give to a cause that is helping the victims. I’m not saying do this every single time, as most of us are not endless supplies of funds, but the habit connects you back to humanity and helps to eliminate the tailspin of hopelessness. It is also an Act of Mercy!

While being physically in the presence of the Body of Christ is preferred, there are many livestreams available online. I recommend opening a window or tab any time you are online. To me, this is a great blessing of our connectivity. It requires a reverence and respect which will carry over to your time on the web.

From the birth of Jesus, Mary has had a contemplative heart (Luke 2), and I would venture to assume before His birth as well. She kept within her heart more to ponder than many of us could ever really imagine. Because of this I believe when we are in a state of information overload we would do ourselves a great service to ask her to help us learn what is good and what should be avoided in all things, but especially news we receive from the world.
Yvonne Meadows 5 Ways to Practice the Catholic Faith to Calm Information Overload  (September 13, 2017) Perchance Perpetuity

Part of prayer is learning to pray with all other Christians – where two or three are gathered together – and so among other things this means learning to pray and contemplate alongside Christians from the past. One of the ways we do this is by engaging traditional texts on spirituality and mysticism.

St. Francis will catch our eye when he is telling us to preach the gospel and, if necessary, use words; St. Augustine and his heart ever restless till it finds rest in God will always find a place in our hearts; Irenaeus will not go unnoticed for talking about the glory of God as a human being fully alive. However, I suspect that anyone who digs just a little deeper into old works and authors valued merely for such apothegemic spirituality will be disappointed. At places, the texts will alienate; at other places they will challenge; but I think what modern readers will find more disappointing than either of these are the places where the texts seems altogether too naively pious – perhaps more like the mild elderly lady down the pew saying her prayers like clockwork than the wonderful premodern site of protest against modernity we want these texts to be.

We so desperately want these old texts to serve as an Orientalist “other” – the golden age before the modern theological/philosophical fall – that we are fairly disappointed when we find them telling us to do much the same as what our modern priests and pastors (at their best) tell us to do: pray, engage Scripture, follow Christ in our actions, worship etc. If you’re looking in these texts for some exotic “lost key” to your faith and prayer life, you are bound to be disappointed, and frankly bored. There is no other key to faith than Christ – O Clavis! – and if you cannot appreciate Him in the words of your modern brother or sister whom you have seen, it will be doubtful that you can appreciate Him in the words of those from the past, whom you have not seen.
Karl Persson Why Do Old Spiritual Texts Seem Boring? (February 1, 2016) The Inner Room



For the record, I have become more or less resigned to the constant misunderstandings, the doctors who would explain away my prayer life and those Christians who would explain away everything else. I have become resigned to the kind of people who think that maybe one should work on getting better first and then worry about prayer later – yes, I want to say, and when will that be? – Godot is more likely to arrive before that happens. And they don’t understand the crushing need for prayer. Not the comfort (how is it comfortable?) – not the attraction (unless like a moth to a flame?) – but the thirst, the necessity. Teach us to pray – for we are crushed by it. Teach us to pray – for we are swallowed by the hollowness of it. Teach us to pray – but could you sometimes be gentle with us and listen to our stories?
I may have a bad memory (because hey – madness in my head!), but so far as I can recall, I haven’t read anything that “gets it” quite the way Anne does in her post. Prayer is hard, awful, and confusing for those of us who are mentally ill. But it is also what we need. So yes, teach us to pray, but be gentle. Our prayers may be nothing. But for many of us, their very poverty is all we have left.
Karl Persson Teach Us To Pray…But Be Gentle: Prayer and Mental Illness (April 14, 2016) The Inner Room

“The most important moments in life are the hours of prayer and adoration. They give birth to a human being, fashion our true identity; they root our existence in mystery.”
― Robert Sarah, God or Nothing (2015) Ignatius Press

During my hapless wanderings from California to New York to France, I tried to escape my past. One bright Spring day, while walking through a forest in rural Massachusetts,  nearby a monastery I was visiting, I asked the Lord for advice. Suddenly, I looked up from the dirt path in front of me and saw a flowering dogwood tree in the midst of a sea of green leaves. Tradition dictates that the Cross of Christ was made from dogwood. I got my answer.

I often pray and or meditate when exercising. Prayers that can be easily recited quietly, while walking for example, always include the Rosary. For this, I favor the small metal rosary rings. They do not swing with arm movements and can be easily stored in your pocket. Conversations with Christ, which is the purest form of prayer, can often reach a peculiar level of clarity when the body is occupied. Frequently, I would sit for hours in the chapel at a local monastery. Sometimes, the silence would overtake me and I felt fused with the Lord. More regularly, the attempts to propel myself into heaven left me spiraling down to the floor. My mind would often become preoccupied with other thoughts and past memories. Then, the chair seemed uncomfortable, or I felt tired and sleepy. As I tried to clear my head, I only became frustrated. When exercising, the body is lost in the rhythm of repetitive motion. The brain is then freed up.
-Joseph Sciambra (Probably Sons of Joseph Blog)

It is easy to be intimidated by the notion of “living a life of prayer”. One looks at the saints, floating and bilocating and being unruffled by being flayed alive and whatnot, and figure they’re some kind of Special Humans. Maybe it’s like the spiritual equivalent of genetics or something; some people are just born to be superheroes. Whatever the answer, you know one thing FOR SURE: that ain’t you. And you mostly just pray, when you remember to, that you’ll be spared the apparent ravages and social embarrassment of excessive saintliness, telling yourself that maybe Purgatory won’t be that bad, and anyway is probably the best you can aim at.

So, what is with all the floating and bilocating and stigmata and all that, anyway? How did the martyrs make jokes during their gruesome deaths? How did the seven sons of the Maccabees, with manly cheerfulness, declare their preference for being tortured to death rather than betray God? How did Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walk about in the midst of the flames of the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar singing hymns of praise to the Lord?

All the saints say the same thing: mental prayer is the way to get this super-abundant unction, the way to become a saint. “But what is it?” you ask the great Abba Antony, whose mountain you have climbed for a day and a night with great pains.
“Mental prayer?” he replies as though it is inconsequential. “Ah, nothing more than this: to think about divine things, to ask God for help and to thank Him for his gifts.”
-Hilary White Prayer is scary; do it anyway (Dec 01, 2018) whatisupwiththesynod.com

Prayer Contemplation
Indeed, my other favorite word for contemplation is a Hebrew word for silence, found only four times in the Hebrew scriptures, and always in the Psalms. That word is dûmiyyāh (דּוּמִיָּה), which means not only silence but a kind of repose, a kind of still waiting. We find it in Psalm 62, in the line “For God alone, my soul in silence waits.”

When we pray at the edge of waiting, silence becomes a surgical scalpel to carefully remove our attachments to transitory pleasures or addictive compulsions. The silence of waiting sets us free — but it doesn’t do so violently or instantaneously. That’s where the “waiting” part comes in.
We pray at the edge of waiting when we bring our patience into the silence, trusting that the roots and thorns of our graspings and our anxieties must be slowly and gently pruned away, measured by a process of unraveling that opens us up according to the leisure of eternity, not the relentless ticking of terrestrial time. And yet, this waiting, this silence, this edge of prayer is something we live into breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat, instant by instant.
Carl McColman At the Edge of Waiting — A Celtic Approach to Contemplation (June 9, 2017) A Contemplative Faith

Prayer Examen
 Where did God speak to you today? As you know, that’s the main question that you ponder when you do the Examen prayer every day. You look back over the day and try to see where God was present. But oftentimes we forget that when we pray to see where God was active or present, we are also seeing where God spoke to us. In other words, these moments of deep emotion, or surprising insight or even a moment of clarity, are more than moments to recall God. Rather, it’s God speaking to you in that moment during the Examen, now. So when you notice something in the Examen, it’s not simply noticing something interesting or seeing something that helps you see where God is at work, it’s something much more. It’s God inviting you to look at this particular part of your day, or have this particular insight, or notice this particular facet of your day. Experiences like that in the Examen, in other words, are God speaking directly to you. So, as my first spiritual director often said to me, “Pay attention!”
James Martin, S.J. (Where did God speak to you today? (July 02, 2018) America

All Christians can use the examen; his exercise of "prayerful mindfulness" at the end of the day focuses us on the awareness of God's constant presence and His direction in our daily lives. If we are paying attention, God can subtly move us through ordinary experiences, seeing Him in those "aha" moments.
 Marcia Morrissey The Conscience and the Examen (February 03, 2012) Guided Sight

Prayer Family
Sometimes prayer is all we can do. Sometimes prayer is all there is. And it is something mighty.
When a thirsty man comes to your door, you give him water. When we meet the suffering in our midst, we are called to comfort them. When the thirsty and suffering are thousands of miles away, and we are not free to leave and minister to them, then we go to war against violence and hatred and racism and greed with the weapons of our God. With our lips and hearts, with our penance and praise, with the weapons we are permitted and able to use.

Prayer in our homes – our domestic churches – for the healing of a broken and brutal world, is one of the most powerful gifts we as families can give. Our witness of trying and failing, and trying again, to build the culture of life and civilization of love, is strengthened by our prayers within the walls of our home. After going to Mass, prayer with our families at home is of utmost importance. Praying with the Church from our homes brings the liturgy out of the walls of church and onto ordinary streets where other people are living, and working, and dreaming. Maybe it gives us the strength and courage to make difficult choices for the sake of our family, or to stand up for justice even when it may cost us dearly.

Only being able to pray? Prayer and communion give us the courage to live our faith in the world, leaving the bubble to be with the broken. Being vulnerable enough to admit that inside the bubble, we’re all broken too. We need to do this. We need these prayers, and we need to say them as families.
Sarah Babbs When Prayer At Home Seems Lacking (August 13, 2014) Fumbling Toward Grace

Family prayer passes on the faith. Through it, faith is both caught and taught. Moreover, family prayer reminds our children that faith is not about what we say we know, but who we know. Prayer is an act of love, a conduit of grace that welcomes God in our midst, and aligns us in right relationship with Him and one another.
We take our example for family prayer from the Mass—the ultimate family prayer—where the entire family of God prays at the Sunday Eucharist. From this worship we are called to serve our own families—to make our homes a domestic church, as Vatican II suggested. This entails not only Sunday attendance, but also creating our families to become a school of prayer for our youngest members, and sturdy shelter of prayer for those who are older.
Pat Gohn Synod on the Family? Let us Pray, Please! (July 07, 2014) A Word In Season

Praying with small children can be difficult. They tend to be wiggly and have short attention spans. When little ones are involved, it’s easy for family prayer time to seem more like…Wrestlemania. But you can have a meaningful prayer time with small children if you remember that little people need different spiritual food than bigger people.
Faith develops in different stages from early childhood, to middle childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. 
By understanding the spiritual food that a small child’s faith requires, you can help fill their hunger for God.
Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak Praying With Small Children (May 8, 2019) Faith on the Couch

Prayer Intercessory
What a world it might be if, every time someone made us laugh or otherwise entertained or informed us, we prayed for him? What if we always prayed in thanksgiving and with the knowledge that we don’t know what lies beneath? Anyone who followed Williams’ career knew he had his struggles. We often don’t know. But it’s so often there — no matter how clever or talented. We’re only human.
We must pray. And be alert — looking and listening for opportunities and promptings. Our lives must be ones of prayer and we must set aside time and plead with God on behalf of those who suffer most. In front of us and a world away.
In Christ’s wounds, we are healed. We are set from the tyranny of the chains of sickness and sin that afflict us. May each one of us be instruments of Christ’s healing. Always seeing the Cross — living it, seeing its reflection in the mirror — we can be God’s instruments, touching His wounds, and bringing those who suffer into encounter with His love and Divine Mercy.
We can start by being people of prayer who see a person who is right in front of us — whether right next to us in the flesh or on a screen — TV or Facebook. Embrace humanity, inflamed by the love of Christ. One person at a time, seeing the spark of the Divine in him, helping him see it. Even one celebrity at a time.
Kathryn Jean Lopez Laugh. Pray. Live. Robin Williams, R.I.P. (August 12, 2014) K-Lo @ Large
Prayer Rosary
“For the sake of brevity, it is sufficient to note that Mary described the rosary as a song that God loves to hear and a tie that binds us to our spiritual mother.”
― Donald H. Calloway, Champions of the Rosary: The History and Heroes of a Spiritual Weapon

Now what options would a electonic Rosary have?
Vibrates when it detects you have fallen asleep while reciting the Rosary. Your Guardian Angel will thank you since he won’t have to pick up your slack.
Bead speed detection to remind you if you are praying it too fast to adequately meditate on the mysteries. Also being smart enough to detect if you are praying the Divine Mercy instead and make allowance.
Scriptural Rosary Mode. When you get to the large bead it narrates some scripture mathing the decade and the day of the week.
Set an audible clacking at a desired sound level to help future saints.
Jeffrey Miller Smart Beads – Now do the Rosary Curt Jester

It is pride to think the spiritual life must be “great” in terms of external practices, since these are only means to what is truly necessary — faith working charity (Gal. 5:6), which can often be invisible to observers. Rather, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed (Mt. 13:31). One cannot immediately begin praying the whole Divine Office or rosary every day and fasting twice a week as the saints did and more, and it is folly and pride to try.

Instead, begin small and steady. Are you not praying one third of the rosary (five decades) every day? Think about the duties of your state in life, then honestly think of how much time you can spend each day. Maybe it is only a decade a day. Or maybe you can do five decades on your commute every morning.
Timothy Flanders Here’s How the Devil Plans to Ruin Your Resolutions (January 7, 2020)

Praying for the Dead
That’s why it’s so important to pay our respects to deceased friends and relatives at the cemetery. Sometimes you hear people say that they don’t think that’s necessary because the person’s “not really there,” that he or she is “with God,” or that the best thing to do is “say a prayer” for the person’s soul. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it’s only half true. As we’ve said, after someone dies, only part of the person is with God. The other part—the person’s body—is still here with us on Earth. When we visit someone at the cemetery, we are showing that we understand and believe this truth: that the person we loved is not just a spirit, that he or she is going to be a whole person once again. Justin Martyr, writing a little more than one hundred years after Christ’s own bodily resurrection, summed it up perfectly: “If God has called humans to life and resurrection, he has called not a part, but a whole—and that is the soul and the body."
— Anthony DeStefano (A Travel Guide to Heaven)

I drove by a run-down, grey cemetery today while running an errand. Sadly, many graves were in disrepair and seemingly forgotten, like so many of those who have gone before us. The dreary scene was in stark contrast to the bright and sunny spring day and would have been easy to ignore or miss. The thought occurred, “How often do we pass by a cemetery without a second thought, when we should turn off the radio and say a prayer for the hundreds of souls buried there?” I stopped and offered a quick prayer and resolved to remember to do so again next time I encountered a graveyard or memorial park.

Praying for the living and the dead is one of the spiritual works of mercy. We are to show kindness through our prayers and good works to those around us and to those who have gone before us. When we pray for our deceased loved ones, they can also offer us their assistance since we remain in unity with them even after they have died. We should nurture and maintain our friendship with both the saints in heaven and the souls suffering in Purgatory, as we are in communion with them in the Body of Christ.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
Tina Mayeux Remembering Those Who Went Before (November 2, 2019)  The Way of the Wildflowers

Presence of Jesus
The charismatic style of prayer and worship is not for everyone; the Holy Spirit works through an infinite variety of characters and charisms. In the Eucharist, Jesus is as powerfully present to the reserved nun bowed in prayer, or the father stoically wrangling a toddler, as He is to the worshipers who lift their hands in ecstatic praise. Sadly, few realize this, so few receive His Presence frequently in faith and awe and openness to its burning transformative potential. But Jesus thirsts infinitely to pour out his True Blood into our hearts, until someday we will become like Him, and be able to behold His Presence, not as an oppressive weight, but face to face.
ACCIDENTAL MYSTIC The Real Presence of Jesus ( JUNE 3, 2018) Beyond All Telling

Prolife
This morning I drove through the mountains in California thinking about my twin. I thought about how I used to watch Mary Kate and Ashley with my sister, Rachel, growing up. I had a fascination, and almost a connection, with their “twin-ness.”
"That could be me!” I remember thinking. I wanted it to be!
When I found out that I was a twin, it shocked me. Had I wanted it to be true all of those years because it actually was?
They say that twins bond with their twin. I imagine that I witnessed what happened to my twin in pure heartbreak. I imagine I was fighting for my twin, wondering what was happening and wanting it to stop. It could have easily been me that was aborted but for some reason, they made a mistake, and they missed me.
Doctors say that survivors' bodies remember. I wonder if that is why I have chronic pain and fatigue. I wonder if that is what keeps me fighting so hard for what is right because subconsciously I remember what happened to my twin. I will never know but I will continue to fight for my twin, and so that others don’t have to be survivors like me, and so that another twin doesn’t walk this earth not knowing what it feels like to have their other half by their side.
#abortionsurvivor #twinabortionsurvivor #twins
Claire Culwell: Twin Abortion Survivor on FaceBook (April 7)

As a pro-lifer myself, I passionately believe that we need to defend the unborn, but let’s not stop there: let’s also defend and support the mother, the poor, the minority, the bullied, the immigrant, the refugee, the religious persecuted around the globe, the death-row inmate, and everyone else suffering from injustice and inequality in our country and in our world.
JOEL DE LOERA BY Pro-Lifers: Let’s Get Consistent!  (MARCH 6, 2019)  Among Thorns, Eucharist and Pizza 

We often talk of the lack of positive role models in society, and when it comes to role models for mothers, we can turn to Mary for inspiration. At Guadalupe in December 1531, Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego as an expectant mother, just about to bring the Son of God into the world. She was wearing a black maternity bow of the same type that the Aztec women wore to show that they were with child, called a ‘nahui ollin’.  Her womb was an inviolate sanctuary protecting Jesus, and so Mary is surely the perfect model of motherhood and also the protector of the unborn child.
Paul De Marco God’s Take on Abortion: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”   Sunday, (July 28, 2019) Remnant Newspaper

Today, we face ever-increasing assaults on the sanctity of human life. Unity among Catholics in defense of life can send a powerful message. Euthanasia, abortion, war and capital punishment differ in moral weight, but they all threaten human dignity, and we must work to end them. While we look forward to the day we can stand in unity with the other Catholic publications on each of these life issues, we stand today on the death penalty, strengthened by the teaching of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, and say, “Capital punishment must end.”
Jeanette DeMelo Why the Register Opposes the Death Penalty (Mar. 5, 2015) ncregister.com

My name is Gianna Jessen... I was aborted, and I did not die. My biological mother was 7 months pregnant when she went to Planned Parenthood in southern California, and they advised her to have a late-term saline abortion.

I was aborted and I did not die! ...Death did not prevail over me... and I am so thankful!
Gianna Jessen Teens Who Survived An Attempted Abortion  teenbreaks.com

And that sums it all up, does it not? The arrival of a newborn child is hope itself, perhaps even more so when the world around her seems to be darkening. I didn’t truly understand this until my daughter was born, but it is true. A child gives you a reason to fight harder for the things you love, to create a safe home for her to have a childhood, and to bear whatever burden you must to ensure that for a few precious years, she might live carefree. Yes, the world is often an ugly place. But that reality means that a little child creates a contrast so vivid than even those who do not like children cannot help but smile when they hear a baby’s giggle or see a huge, unfeigned smile of unrestrained joy.

That is why hundreds of thousands of people will march today: For those 3,000 little children that will be brutally killed today, and every day, until we end the killing and restore protection for every human being, regardless of age. That is why so many people will not stop staffing crisis pregnancy centers, and counseling outside of abortion clinics, and doing street outreach, and flooding social media with the pro-life message, and volunteering for candidates who promise to stand up for the pre-born. We have seen what abortion is, and what it has done to human beings just like us. We have seen their faces, and we cannot forget them.
Jonathon Van Maren Every newly created child should be a sign of hope to the world. That’s why pro-lifers march today (Jan 24, 2020)

Christians don't fear death, nor do they cause death. When the early Christians embraced the faith, they rejected abortion and infanticide that were common at that time. The Second Vatican Council called abortion and euthanasia infamies that poison human society. It said they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer the injury. Sin always hurts the sinner more than anyone. Judas and Pontius Pilate did more to harm themselves than they did to hurt Jesus.
-Fr. Peter West Self-Sacrifice in the Defense of Life (February 20, 2008) Catholic Exchange


Politics and Patriotism
Patriotism, rightly understood, is part of a genuinely Christian life. We’re creatures of place. The soil under our feet matters. Home matters. Communities matter. The sound and smell and taste of the world we know, and the beauty of it all, matter. As G. K. Chesterton would say, there’s something cheap and unworthy—and inhuman—in a heart that has no roots, that feels no love of country. Thus, believers don’t have the luxury of despair. And the idea that we can retire to the safety of some modern version of a cave in the hills isn’t practical. Our task as Christians is to be healthy cells in society. We need to work as long as we can, in whatever way we can, to nourish the good in our country and to encourage the seeds of a renewal that can enliven our young people.
Charles J.,  Chaput, Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World (2017). Henry Holt and Co

I pray that those of us who bear the title of Catholic may put our allegiance to our country and its laws and political party affiliations in second place while prioritizing our allegiance to Christ, His Holy Church, the Vicar of Christ and the Successors of the Apostles on matters of faith and morals.
JOEL DE LOERA   The Church as the Homeland for All People  (FEBRUARY 26, 2019) Among Thorns, Eucharist and Pizza 

At the same time, Catholic social teaching neither jibes with the late 20th century ideologies of the two main parties nor their contemporary views. Being a Catholic voter has in the last few decades generally meant compromise. As a religious minority in a predominantly Protestant country, European-style Catholic parties never took hold here. So today, the pro-life, pro-subsidiarity, anti-death penalty, pro-immigration, anti-secularism, social safety net loving “Catholic Social Doctrine Voter” (a rare breed, I grant you) is not going to find a comfortable home among the Nationalist Conservative GOP or the secular Social Democratic Democrats. Thus, as this shift continues – it’s time for Catholics to have a more serious conversation as to where these changes leave us; determine which issues we are willing to compromise on; and come to grips with the fact that our nation’s politics is becoming much more European. It’s not going to be easy.
Bradley Jensen Murg Is American Politics Becoming (Gasp) “European?” (June 15, 2016) Bradely Jensen Murg


“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” (Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara)

Is the Catholic Church Republican? Democrat? And what are you? As for me:
1.I’m against abortion, and they call me a Republican
2.I want greater justice for immigrants, and they call me a Democrat
3.I stand against “Gay” “Marriage,” and they call me a Republican
4.I work for affordable housing, and stand with unemployed in DC, and they call me a Democrat
5.I talk of subsidiarity and they say: “Republican, for sure.”
6.I mention the common good, and solidarity and they say, “Not only a Democrat, but a Socialist for sure.”
7.Embryonic Stem cell research should end, “See, he’s Republican!”
8.Not a supporter of the death penalty, standing with the Bishops and the Popes against it…”Ah, told you! He’s really a Democrat!…Dye in the wool and Yellow Dog to boot!”
Hmm, and all this time I just thought I was trying to be a Catholic Christian. I just don’t seem to fit in. And, frankly, no Catholic should. We cannot be encompassed by any Party as currently defined.
-Msgr. Charles Pope • THIS IS ME
http://blog.adw.org/…/to-what-political-party-does-the-cat…/

The Second Vatican Council, in a passage which retains all its relevance today, forcefully condemned a number of crimes and attacks against human life. Thirty years later, taking up the words of the Council and with the same forcefulness I repeat that condemnation in the name of the whole Church, certain that I am interpreting the genuine sentiment of every upright conscience: "Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed. They poison human society, and they do more harm to those who practise them than to those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonour to the Creator".5
St. John Paul II Evangelium Vitae (1995) Papal Encyclical

"In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness." –
 Pope Benedict XV Europe and Its Discontents (January 2006) First Things


In the person Jesus, the promised international reign of God has come, and this can be seen in our second reading as evidenced by Paul’s statement that the Gospel has come to the Thessalonians in power and in the Holy Spirit. However, it is important to recognize that the reign of the Lord Jesus is not that of a merely this-worldly kingdom, but a transcendent kingdom animated by the Spirit of Christ, who in his resurrection was appointed by God the Father as both Messiah and Lord of the nations.

As a result, the Kingdom of God is properly “trans-political” in that it transcends the political regimes of this age and demonstrates through the “work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope” to the in-breaking of the world to come where Christ reigns as Lord and all things are set right. However, we live between the inauguration of the Kingdom and its full consummation which leaves open the question as to how we should live out our lives as political animals. This leads to the Gospel reading for this Sunday, for not only does it contain one of the most famous sayings of Jesus, but it provides some essential principles for a properly Christian political life.

According to Augustine, while we can work to ensure as much justice as possible in the passing life of the city of man, in the end it is unable to demonstrate the true justice of God due to both the sinfulness of man and the fact that it is passing away along with the rest of the rulers of this age. However, this does not mean that the righteousness of God is unable to be demonstrated on earth, for Augustine elegantly suggests that it is through our eucharistic self-offering that true sacrifice is offered and serves to demonstrate a justice that the regimes of this age are unable to demonstrate.
John Kincaid The "Trans-political" Kingdom of God: The Twenty-Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Increasingly, Catholics who pride themselves on their faithfulness to Catholic teaching are completely ignorant of what the Church actually teaches concerning social justice, economics, immigration, environmental responsibility, and many other issues where Catholic Tradition indicts the policies of the American Republican party.

Pope Francis is thus seen as a heretic, a liberal, and a socialist when he asserts points of doctrine that have been part of Magisterial teaching for decades, centuries, millennia. The problem is not that the Pope has suddenly departed from the timeless teaching of the Church. Rather, the problem is that Catholic culture, at least in America, has abandoned the more unpopular aspects of that teaching in favor of a more politically acceptable narrative that brings in the clicks.
Melinda Selmys The Democratization of the Faith (June 1, 2018)  Catholic Authenticity

In seeking the influence of Catholic social teaching in society, it is important to remember where we stand in relation to that society. The United States is not a Catholic country. But it is to be hoped and prayed for that enough people will become persuaded of the value of Catholic social doctrine so that what it teaches us can find implementation through the nation’s legitimate democratic processes.
Jack Quirk The U.S. Is Not a Catholic Country (June 29, 2018) Christian Democracy

The Church is not, contrary to the fond wishes of some, supposed to stay out of politics. On the contrary, the Church’s mission in politics is to provide as much weight as is possible on the side of the poor, without losing sight of the fact that the rich are also created in the image of God. The position of the Church is basically this: Stop screwing people, whether they be unborn infants, working people, the impoverished, children, women, racial minorities, or immigrants; treat others as you would like to be treated; treat every human being as an end in himself or herself, even those who don’t conform to Catholic morality.
Jack Quirk Politics Is the Religion of the Devil (August 14, 2018) Christian Democracy

Popular Culture
Tom Hooper’s Christopher Award-winning film “Les Miserables” [is] the greatest ending in movie history. Why? Because it’s the story-ending to which we all aspire.
When the movie ends and Valjean dies, his passing isn’t sad and depressing; it’s celebratory and glorious! He is led into heaven by the bishop who showed him mercy – and by Fantine to whom he showed compassion. The lyrics sung during this scene state, “Take my hand / And lead me to salvation / Take my love / For love is everlasting / And remember the truth that once was spoken: / To love another person is to see the face of God.”
I’ve never seen a better, more emotionally-satisfying depiction of heaven and the communion of saints on the big screen. 
The reason is that Valjean’s ending is the ending we all want for ourselves, the ending that’s actually a new beginning in communion with all the people we’ve ever loved a lot or a little, the ending made possible by Jesus’.
Tony Rossi Why “Les Miserables” Has the Greatest Ending in Movie History (March 20, 2013) Christopher Closeup

Providence of God
God’s a jazz player, folks. God improvises, creatively adjusting things instantaneously without needing any time. God works with us in our present—that’s providence. History unfolds and our free undetermined choices play out in consequences. We co-author the music of our lives with God in our irreducible yeses and no’s. God takes up the notes, sour and sweet, and plays out God’s Jazz and Blues, improvising creatively. It’s all God’s work and being, but it happens in our yes or no.
Fellow Dying Inmate Omniscience: Does God Destroy Freedom by Seeing our Futures? (November 23, 2019) Messy Inspirations

Either this world with its horrors, wars, rapes, genocides, diseases, and natural disasters is all there is, and all this suffering goes unmended.

Or there is some mending that will transpire, something beyond anything I can now comprehend, beyond any stupid theodicy. It is in this darkness, not in any blaring projection of cash-flow fantasy, that I find the tiny whisper that is, I think, and I hope, God. And so I surround myself, often, with the morbid and the weird, with the ones who like me have doubts and inappropriate thoughts, bad dreams and bizarre recollections. We can talk about how crazy we feel sometimes. We find Christ in the strangest places.  We see the skull beneath the skin but also the rose in the blood.- Rebecca Bratten Weiss

Most of us don't have opportunities to make the sort of decisions that are recorded in history books: to abolish abortion or end world hunger or find a cure for cancer. Yet every day we do face decisions in our lives, and we do have opportunities to strengthen our families, influence our neighbors, and spread our faith. We should learn to recognize those opportunities and seize them. The "little things," it turns out, aren't so little at all. They add up. And if we are faithful in the "little things," bigger victories become more likely.- Phil Lawler

Our life begins with the closed-eyed dark of the womb and the cliff’s edge of that ordeal we call birth. Maybe we all cry for our Father to come and save us, then. Next thing you know we’re tumbling with no control, plummeting to a sudden stop we know is coming but can’t say when. We can’t direct what happens next, not really; we can’t control whether we land on our head or our feet. Our only choice is whether we will cry “My Lord and my God” and leave the whole matter up to Him before it’s too late.

Next thing we know, it’s over, and we wake up before the Throne of Mercy.
My Lord and my God.
- Mary Pezzulo A Plummeting Ghost (October 16, 2017) Steel Magnificat

God has a 'direct will' - that is when he directly causes something to happen by his own designs, like "the flood at the time of Noah", "parting the Red Sea for Moses", and "creating a soul to infuse a preformed human being at conception." God has a 'permissive will.' That is why God allows people to do dumb things and kill themselves or end their life early as a result of their own choices. God knows exactly what their going to do even before they do it, but he lets them follow their own free will.
Jessie Romaro Free Choice? (Mar 06, 2018) jesseromero.com

God’s ways are mysterious. He can bring good out of our own bad decisions and bad situations.
Sometimes we can act as virtuously as we can and yet things still go wrong.

In those cases, all we can do is trust God that there is a larger plan, and that He will bring good out of whatever bad situations we find ourselves in, whether or not those situations are the result of our own bad choices. Easier said than done, right?
However, we need to make the distinction between trusting God and tempting God. We trust God to take care of us, but in turn God trusts US to discern wisely and try our hardest to make decisions that are in conformity to His will.

We tempt God when we make decisions that are reckless or irresponsible, especially if we make those decisions on the basis of trusting God to protect us from the consequences of our actions — which He doesn’t always do. I can’t throw myself off a cliff and trust God to save me. He will allow me to suffer the consequences of my own bad choices, even if He chooses to somehow bring good out of them.
Okay? Okay. 
JoAnna Wahlund What the Catholic Church Teaches About Responsible Parenthood (April 5, 2018) The Catholic Working Mother

Also, and this is important for our equilibrium on the heaving deck of Peter’s storm tossed Barque, of all the possible universes God could have created, He created this one and not some other.  He knew every one of us before the creation of the cosmos, and He called us from nothingness into existence in this particular universe at this particular time according to His unfathomable plan.   We have a role to play in God’s economy of salvation.  We have to trust that we are exactly when and where God wants us to be.  If we have been born into troubling times, then we are precisely where we are to play our role.  We are in the right place and the right time.   Trust in God’s divine providence.  He knows what he is doing.
And I will remind you that we weren’t promised a bed of roses when we were baptized.  We who are Christ’s disciples will all drink at least some drops of the chalice He drank on Calvary.   It is our task to be faithful, brave and persevere.
-Fr. John Zuhlsdorf  ASK FATHER: “I’m seriously considering adopting some form of sedevacantism”  (January 7, 2019) Fr. Z’s Blog

Psalms
The book of Psalms can be read in many dimensions. The historical exegesis is most commonly applied. It often results in very boring results. There is also a powerful symbolic exegesis which can also be called allegorical or theological. This exegesis can only be practiced by high minds, like Saint Augustine.
In his commentary on Psalm 150, the great Saint Augustine says about the book of the Psalms:

“It is not random to me that the 50th psalm speaks of penance, the 100th of mercy and judgment, and the 150th of the praise of God in his saints. In fact, this is the order according to which we tend towards eternal and blessed life: first we detest our sins, then we live righteously so that, disapproving of bad life and practicing good life, we deserve eternal life “.

Augustine’s remark is very powerful because it shows us that Ps 150 cannot be considered separately from the other psalms. The 150 psalms constitute the movement of a great symphony: We cannot praise (Ps 150) if we have not been able to shed tears for our sins before (Ps 50).
This is why the joy expressed in Gregorian chant is contained and austere, a joy with gravitas. It has nothing to do with the superficial, silly joy which we encounter in so many modern Church songs.
M° Aurelio Porfiri The superficial joy contained in Many Modern Church Songs (October 9, 2018) Il Naufrago
Racism
Begging the reader’s pardon for being so personal, I begin with an odd confession, one that I hope will be fully justified sociologically and theologically in the lines that follow: I don’t identify as a white man.
No, I don’t mean that I identify as a black, brown, red, or yellow man, either; I mean I don’t think of myself as white. I think of myself first as a Catholic, a member of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, and only secondarily — by way of ancestry, of blood and DNA — as a European (a genuine Euro-mutt: French, Spanish, and German, with a dash of Polish). In light of my first identity, this latter is comparatively trivial. I emphasize comparatively because it is not utterly inconsequential. I love my parents, and my grandparents, and I rather like having their genetic matter as part of the material side of my hylomorphic composite. But what makes that ancestry trivial in comparison is that it comes from nature, whereas being Christ’s is a matter of super-nature. It is by supernatural adoption, not flesh and blood, that we are “born of God” (Cf. Jn. 1:13, 1 Jn. 3:9, 1 Jn. 4:7).
BROTHER ANDRÉ MARIE Racist Ideology and the Blood that Really Matters DEC 11, 2019

Redemption
It’s a safe bet that Satan could not possibly have imagined the consequences of wounding humankind’s primordial innocence, particularly that God would choose to identify with our fallen nature, rather than with the order of the angels to which Satan belonged. He could not possibly have foreseen “things more wonderful” such as the Incarnation; the Nativity; and the Redeemer rising from the dead after allowing his own creatures to brutally torture him to death, healing the ancient rift caused by the “truly necessary sin of Adam.”
Sean P. Dailey Mine instrument’ (December 7, 2018) Chaos and Old Night

"Though Jesus was in torture on the cross, He thought of praying for His persecutors, of caring for His mother, of securing the good thief's salvation."
— Thomas Dubay (Seeking Spiritual Direction: How to Grow the Divine Life Within)

It is the cross which roots us in history, it is the cross which intersects the present and the past. The Tradition of the Church is not just the Incarnation, but the Passion, a redemptive sacrifice which is unchanging and yet made present anew with the dawning of each day. It infuses us, it grounds us, it propels us. And the world still needs its message: that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
That man, no matter how fallen, can be redeemed.
Steve Skojec  Our Unchangeable Faith: Catholicism as a Cultural Force (January 7, 2014) CatholicVote

Quiz and Questions
Who has the most number of quotes attributed to them?
What is the earliest year listed?
When I can’t think of a question, I’ll give you a statement.
Why are there non-Catholics listed as Catholics?
Where are you going? Quo Vadis?
How many letters are missing as categories in this book/article?

Reflections
So much of our ability to play, it seemed, was made possible by having strong authority figures—the parents in the next room, teachers on duty, and the feeling of getting away with something. In order to really cut loose, to really be free, we needed to know there were boundaries in place to protect us. We might cross them, but the boundaries signaled the way back.

My grade school friends and I still get together once every two or three months, starting around seven, ending around eleven. When we first found each other again after our wayward early twenties, we drank wine in order to reach hilarity as quickly as possible because time was short. Still fun, but not how it was when we were kids and had lifetimes to experience group boredom, and ultimately, group creativity.

I sometimes wonder if we have all been through too much, have crossed too many boundaries in our lives to laugh like we once did. It has been one of the pivotal acts of becoming an adult, to seek, love, and be responsible for maintaining the walls of our own playgrounds, setting boundaries that can allow us, once again, to be free.

It may be that as we are drawn deeper and deeper into the body of Christ, play is replaced with something much finer, and more satisfying. Laughter to tears becomes tears to laughter, and we experience something that as a child always mystified me—Rejoicing. 
Elizabeth Duffy What Happened to Fun? (Mar 16, 2016) Betty Duffy


I came across an old home movie recently, of a picnic with my siblings and cousins when we were all on the cusp of adulthood. My sister and her fiance were manifesting their first timid acts of public affection, the rest of us were clowning around. Since that day, about twenty years ago, we have all married and had children, so that now, between all of us, there are roughly thirty new people in existence. The oldest of our children is just ready to start college.

It boggles my mind when I think about it. Who were we back then, without these new people in our lives? I thought I knew myself well at seventeen, but I had no idea.

A priest once told me that you can tell Catholic art from other religious art, because Catholic art is always relational–Mary is surrounded by the Christ child and St John. The subjects often make eye contact with each other or with the viewer rather than looking inward. We find Christ and ourselves in the transformative and redeeming grace of relationships.

Catholicism didn’t create the newer generation that is now picnicking and clowning in our stead. It didn’t conceive and bear my own six children, but it suggested them, and my life is certainly richer and more interesting because of it
ELIZABETH DUFFY Why I am Catholic, because… Life!… in Abundance! (APRIL 1, 2013) Betty Duffy

Relationships
Instead of teaching me to trust and believe in the commitment of others, my dad taught me to fear that the people I love don’t really love me in return. Ever since, I’ve found it very difficult to get close to people, even though I desire close friends more than almost anything. I’m torn between the impulse to make lifelong friends and the impulse to push everyone away.
Kyle Cupp What Abandonment Taught Me (April 19, 2016) Kyle Cupp

Reform
While prelates lived it up, laymen were founding hospitals and starting groups like the Oratory of Divine Love, where laity and clergy discussed reform, cared for the poor, and visited the sick and imprisoned.  Reform preceded upward from below, not from above. It was the laity who got the ball rolling. And it was through their influence that clergy, bishops and popes embraced reform and institutionalized it at Trent. That’s a good lesson for us today– if things are going to change in today’s Church (and they clearly need to), lay people have to make a difference where they are. It’s time for all of us to live out our baptismal vocation.
Pat McNamara The Council of Trent– And Church Reform Today (February 28, 2019) McNamara's Blog

Rubrics
Some of the most striking supernatural lessons are learned in the most ordinary ways. God infused things like the coffee bean, the grape, and the grain of wheat with a hidden nature that can only be experienced through something formulaic, even rigid. Whether roasting and brewing coffee, fermenting wine, or baking bread, man acts as a sort of priest over nature as he carefully oversees their transformation. Thus, if he is properly disposed, he will have an insight into the supernatural role of the ordained priest who consecrates bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord, thereby allowing us to experience and to adore His hidden nature.  

God imbues a sacramental order into the things of this world to help us grasp these higher concepts. God infused the world with order and beauty and goodness, and the paradigmatic expression of these attributes in created things takes place every time a Mass is said inside a church. We know from our kitchens, tables, vineyards, bakeries, art studios, and writer’s desks that all truly good things are to be prepared with care. Once this is accomplished, they are then to be savored and protected and enjoyed.
It is therefore only fitting that we thank God both after meals and after Mass. Maybe even after coffee.
Steve Skojec: The Rubrics of Coffee (September 16, 2010) Crisis

Sacred Music
If the oldest known music for the Gloria is simply "too hard" for our modern, educated selves what on earth did they before the 900's since Guido Aretinus de Arezzo was born in 995. When this monk first devised a method of writing down music on lines and spaces, this Gloria, the first written down by him was already being sung!

But you, dear reader, dear Canadian Catholic are too dumbed down to sing something which was written so long ago we only know that it is 1,100 years old because that is when quill was put to parchment.

You dear reader, dear Canadian Catholic are just too, too dumb and will find it much, much "too haaaaarrrrrd" to sing something sung by your Catholic ancestors so long ago that the Chinese had not yet invented gun powder and movable type.-
 David Anthony Domet Eleven hundred year old Gloria is "too hard" for you! – Vox Cantoris

On the last Sunday of Advent, the first word of the Introit or Entrance Antiphon in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms is "Rorate." Many of you are already familiar with the Advent Prose, Rorate Caeli from Mass (if it even sung) or from the new music player in the background. The prose is four verses and is not the same as the Introit, though they both take up the text in Latin, "Drop down ye heavens from above and let the sky rain down the Just One" - David Anthony Domet Another Rorate Vox Cantoris

Sacrifice and Love
What we fear about the poor is what we fear about God: How much of my time will this person want? (I’ve got somewhere to go!) What will this person ask me to do for them? What does this person want me to give them of mine?
-Fr. John Hollowell‏ @frjohnhollowell (28 Dec 2018)

Saints
·
Written and Performed by Lenny Kravitz
I hope that when I die I’ll be alive in paradise
Redeemed and sanctified
Forget those newspapers
I want a blurb within Butler’s and on the Calendar
I want to get a day / Get canonized a Saint
Yeah, yeah, yeah
The “S” is uppercase when canonized a Saint
Yeah, yeah, yeah
‎ Nick Alexander Get Canonized A Saint Parody of “Fly Away”Facebook (October 30, 2015) nickalexander.com

“Damian, who do you admire?’
I said, ‘St Roch, sir.’
The others stopped talking.
‘Who does he play for?’
‘No one, sir. He’s a saint.’
The others went back to football.
‘He caught the plague and hid in the woods so he wouldn’t infect anyone, and a dog came and fed him every day. Then he started to do miraculous cures and people came to see him – hundreds of people – in his hut in the woods. He was so worried about saying the wrong thing to someone that he didn’t say a word for the last ten years of his life.’ ‘
We could do with a few like him in this class. Thank you, Damian.’ ‘
He’s the patron saint of plague, cholera and skin complaints. While alive, he performed many wonders.’ ‘
Well, you learn something new.’
He was looking for someone else now, but I was enjoying being excellent. Catherine of Alexandria (4th century) came to mind.
‘They wanted her to marry a king, but she said she was married to Christ. So, they tried to crush her on a big wooden wheel, but it shattered into a thousand splinters – huge sharp splinters – which flew into the crowd, killing and blinding many bystanders.’ ‘
That’s a bit harsh. Collateral damage, eh?  Well, thank you, Damian.’ By now everyone had stopped debating players versus managers. They were all listening to me.
‘After that they chopped her head off. Which did kill her, but instead of blood, milk came spurting out of her neck. That was one of her wonders.’ ‘Thank you, Damian.’ ‘She’s the patron saint of nurses, fireworks, wheel-makers and the town of Dunstable (Bedfordshire). The Catherine wheel is named after her. She’s a virgin martyr. There are other great virgin martyrs. For instance, St Sexburga of Ely (670– 700).’
Everyone started laughing. Everyone always laughs at that name. They probably laughed at it in 670– 700 too.
‘Sexburga was Queen of Kent. She had four sisters, who all became saints. They were called—’
Before I could say Ethelburga and Withburga, Mr Quinn said, ‘Damian, I did say thank you.’
He actually said thank you three times. If that doesn’t make me excellent, I don’t know what does. I was also an artistic inspiration, as nearly all the boys painted pictures of the collateral damage at the execution of St Catherine. There were a lot of fatal flying splinters and milk spurting out of necks. Jake painted Wayne Rooney, but he was the only one.”
― Frank Cottrell Boyce, Millions
On St. Joseph's Day the Italians had street fairs in which they spread a family feast from one end of the country to the other in honor of Joseph, the just one, who protected the Virgin and raised the child Jesus in a holy family. And so that Holy Family became a model for us all. For committed children and faithful fathers and strong mothers.

On St. Patrick's Day, the Irish carried shamrocks to remind us of Patrick's exegesis of the Trinity which, we were told, converted the pagans of Ireland and were still a clear icon to us of the God whose presence is "three in one." It was the articulation of a 'mystery' that became clearer as we got older.

On Halloween, all the saints of the church were honored for their faithful lives and their models of goodness. We dressed up to look like Therese of Avila and Ignatius of Loyola and the Children of Fatima rather than Peter Pan and The Terminator and a vampire or two on Halloween.
Joan Chittister We need St Francis now (Sep 27, 2010) From Where I Stand: ncronline.org

Every patron saint had to start somewhere — and who knows, these candidates might catch on.
I thought I’d hit the hagiography lottery—a saint I could promote as the patron of pizza. Her name made her the obvious choice: St. Mary Mozzarella. Sad to say, my memory had a typo. Her name is Mazzarello.

I’ve been studying saints, and by extension patron saints, for almost fifty years. And I admit to a weakness for saints who are patrons of unexpected causes—the saint who nurses us through hangovers, the saint who keeps a protective eye on vampire hunters. Nonetheless, over time I have noticed that on the long list of patron saints, some types of people, phobias, and conditions of life are not represented.

For example, St. Anthony, St. Anne, St. Andrew, and St. Agnes will help a woman find a husband, but there is no saint to help her find a reliable auto mechanic. St. Erasmus shields us against attacks of appendicitis, but there is no saint to revv up our metabolism and make it easier to shed those excess pounds.
Thomas Craughwell There is Still No Patron Saint for Pizza (May. 26, 2017) ncregister.com


The Church uses funny criteria to assign patronage. Take St. Apollonia, who is the patron saint for those suffering from tooth pain because a violent mob, “by repeated blows, broke all her teeth.” Do you think she maybe rolls her eyes when she hears a petitioner ask, “Please ask God to miraculously heal my cavity. I hate to get fillings because novocaine makes me drool embarrassingly…”? When her tormentors built a pyre and threatened to burn her alive, St. Apollonia broke away and voluntarily jumped into the flames to deprive them of the pleasure of setting her afire. Perhaps we’re meant to feel abashed for complaining about our petty trials to someone so fierce.
Guest Contributor wormholes (January 4, 2019) by Convivium Salon

There is a strange thing that seems to happen when we discuss these great men and women of the faith.
We make them fluffy.
Our saints become much like the greeting card Cherubim or the  “my buddy Jesus” motif which took the incarnate Word of God and reduced Him to a winking, bearded, hippie giving you a “thumbs up” because “you’re awesome, man.”  Maybe you are awesome…man, but regardless it is impossible to ignore the fact that this is not the Jesus of the Gospels.  And just the same, our saints are leveled out into something palatable.
The most blatant example of this is St. Francis of Assisi.
St. Francis, in reality, was young, hot tempered, and radically devoted to God, His Church and His liturgy.  He was a man who was so dissatisfied with his father’s love for money that he stripped naked in order to remove all that his father had given him.   This is a man who, when not only refused entrance into a lodging of his own friars because they did not recognize him, but also beaten for fear that he was there to rob them, remarked that “this is perfect joy,” that is, joy in the unity with Christ’s sufferings on the Cross. He even went as far as to go before the Sultan and request that he convert to Christianity during the Crusades.
Instead of the fleeting “nice” there is a reality of the saints that should be called to attention whenever we discuss them, they are knights of faith.  They are, in Sartrean terms, the existential heros, if ever there were any.  They’re the one’s who hear the word of God, and act.
Ryan Adams The Disservice We Do Our Saints (February 8, 2013) Summa

St. Sebastian, or “the Christian Adonis pierced by arrows” as Camille Paglia refers to him, was the the 3rd century Roman martyr who was tied to a tree and shot with arrows, then managed to escape alive, only to be ordered to be beaten to death with cudgels by none other than Emperor Diocletian, and then thrown in a sewer. Throughout history, he’s been depicted in art as the embodiment of the juxtaposition between youthful beauty and the tragedy of death. His lean and attractive body, pierced with arrows and blood trickling down, his face crying out in agony and at the same time praising God for allowing him the grace to be crowned a martyr, represents the triumph of Christian virtue over pagan aesthetic beauty, which is embodied by Sebastian’s counterpart, the Greek god Adonis. His youthful, attractive beauty, free of wounds and ugliness of any sort, diverges dramatically from the Christian notion of beauty and glory. For it is through the wounds and the ugliness of humanity that Christ manifests his goodness. It is the poor, the meek, and the humble who are blessed, rather than the rich, famous, and glamorous, because they are by their condition made more aware of their need for God’s grace and love than those who fool themselves into thinking they are self-sufficient
Stephen G. Adubato The Mundanity of Terror: My take on the NZ shooting livestream (March 24, 2019) Cracks in Postmodernity 

Let’s get holy.  On this Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, a look at this extraordinary woman is going to deepen our friendship with Christ. Cast away your images of her in Jesus Christ Superstar, or The Last Temptation of Christ, or the myriad of other films and books about this woman our spiritually bankrupt age describes in no apparent order as a prostitute, the wife of Jesus, the founder of the Merovingian French dynasty of kings, a feminist icon, etc.  She is none of these things.  But she is an enigma, a hero and an apostle.

 Luke is not satisfied just to describe a Luke Skywalker vs. Darth Vader kind of fight between good and evil.  He wants to show the results Christ brings with his advent upon the world.  I’m reminded of C. S. Lewis, who in his Space Trilogy, described Earth as “enemy-occupied territory.”  In other words, the world belongs to Satan, and Christ has come to take it back. In the series of battles against Satan and his power, which Luke’s miracles describe, the evangelist tallies up victories of Christ against the devil that gradually lead up to the decisive victory of Christ on the Cross.  If this view is correct, then Mary Magdalene becomes a testimony to Christ’s power to deliver humanity from evil.  The exorcism of her demons aren’t important; what she becomes afterward is.  In her cooperation with Jesus, she throws off the power of Satan, embraces a new vision of her human existence, decides to follow the Lord Jesus, and becomes one of his greatest supporters.  Heroically, she defies any backsliding into her previous life and courageously testifies to the victory Christ wins over Satan and Death, even though she at first proclaims this only by herself.
Monsignor Eric Barr, STL ST. MARY MAGDALENE–ENIGMA, HERO, APOSTLE (July 22, 2019) Thin Places

 While some saints live their lives in the spotlight, God blesses others with lives of perfect anonymity, so that the fruits of their holiness become known only when their lives are complete.
Pier Giorgio was one of the latter. Blessed Pier Giorgio, pray for us!
 Will Duquette Pier Giorgio Frassati, Man of the Beatitudes (June 19, 2016) Cry 'Woof'

I think they all look like they had it pretty easy.  Even, in some respects, the martyrs.  Take your St. Lawrences, for example.  The ones who suffer shockingly abhorrent torture for love of Christ, and yet still manage to embrace their cross- and to do it with style.  Other than a love of snarky retorts, what is there that is familiar to the modern ear?
Cari Donaldson St. Joseph of Cupertino: A Saint Who Didn’t Fit In  (September 18, 2019)

For all the trials and hardships that the world has known, through the centuries ordinary people have stepped forward to live out those ideals.  God has given us examples.  He has given us saints.
They often come from unexpected places.  Consider the four people depicted here, on the reredos, the decorated wall, behind our altar. I was reading some parish history recently and learned more about them. These four figures were not people who would seem to be destined for holiness.
There’s an arrogant Italian playboy who scandalized and embarrassed his family —and then gave up everything for God. We know him today as St. Francis of Assisi.
There’s the son of a deacon who was kidnapped and held as a slave for years before he escaped, and found his way home, and found his way to God: St. Patrick.
There’s the spoiled, rich Spaniard who attended the finest schools.  But, when famine struck Spain, and he saw human suffering, he was so moved with pity that he sold all he had and joined a monastery. That man became St. Dominic.
And there’s that young man from a prosperous and prominent family in Germany who did everything his father didn’t want him to do – including, finally, becoming a priest.  That was St. Boniface.
They are all here, behind our altar – some of the greatest saints of the Church, and the greatest saints in THIS church, given a place of prominence.

On the one hand, they represent the immigrants who built this city and this parish – the Irish, the Spanish, the Italians, the Germans.
Deacon Greg Kandra Homily for November 1, 2012: All Saints Day (October 31, 2012) The Deacon's Bench

St. Monica wept, prayed and sacrificed for her son for many years. Her greatest desire in life was to see her son’s conversion to Catholicism, and once this happened, she believed her purpose in life had been fulfilled. 

Moms (and dads), don’t give up on your children, and don’t give up on God. I tell parents, “Get in ‘Begging Mode’ … Go ‘Full-On Monica!'” Get in a state of grace, pray the rosary, fast continuously, do novenas, recruit saints, especially St. Monica. Be obnoxious before God!
Fr Richard Heilman Has the World Laid Hold of Your Kids? Go “Full-On Monica” On Them! (August 27, 2019)
https://www.romancatholicman.com/author/frheilman/

Some dude who lived in Transylvania in the 1200s and died of the plague might have been holier than holy, but unless he converted Count Dracula, he’s not inspiring the majority of us these days. So I say, canonize me. In spite of my shortcomings and horrible mistakes (known in Church circles as “mortal sins”), you could identify with a St. Lino: A guy who does and says lots of stupid things. A saint who took seven spring breaks, though he was in college for only four years. A saint who isn’t interested in converting a count — though he does have, oddly, recurring dreams of Count Chocula chasing him with a lawnmower. A saint who celebrates his oddities and failures in the hope that he can encourage his brothers and sisters to join God in heaven. That’s me. That’s a saint you can relate to.
Lino Rulli, Saint: Why I Should Be Canonized Right Away (2013). Franciscan Media

Ven. Carlo Acutis is the ideal candidate for the patron saint of the internet. He created a database of Eucharistic miracles on a website so people could find out about them all while he was still a teenager. If you’ve seen a traveling exhibit with displays on different Eucharistic miracles, this is based right off his site.

Pope Francis approved a miracle in his case and this allows beatification to be scheduled. As he is the first saint to have extensively used the internet and the first saint who is most known for something he did online, I want to propose him as the patron saint of the Internet
Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC Patron Saint of the Internet? Carlo Acutis to Be Beatified (February 22, 2020) Through Catholic Lenses

BRANDON: What does it mean for someone to be a saint?
BERT: Most people think they could never be a saint. They imagine that saints are in a class by themselves, that they arrived on the scene in a state of perfection. But God wants everyone to be a saint, ordinary people that he wants to live extraordinary lives. A saint is a person who lives their life wholly for God. To paraphrase one of Bishop Robert Barron’s constant themes, they have stopped living for lesser goods like pleasure, honor, wealth or power and now live for God alone.
People often wonder how they⁠—sinners as they are⁠—could become a saint. When St. Thomas Aquinas’s sister asked him that question, he said, “Will it!” We become saints by making a decision, by choosing to be holy. Many of the saints even tell us when they decided to be a saint. In Saints at Heart I note that Therese of Lisieux decided to become a saint at age 3 and Francis of Assisi at 19. I wanted the book to make it easy for readers to decide to become saints.
Brandon Vogt How to Be a Saint: An Interview with Bert Ghezzi brandonvogt.com


I usually petition my patron saints (Thomas Aquinas, Matthew the Evangelist and Robert Bellarmine) every day to pray for me.
On this day, however, I give special recognition to all of those (including one daughter) who make up the communion of saints. It’s one of those mystical components of our faith that I really love.
This post is pretty simple: Who is your favorite saint, or what member of the communion of saints has had a profound impact on you?
TOM WEHNER, MANAGING EDITOR' I Believe ... in the Communion of Saints' (Nov. 1, 2010)

Raised Catholic, dePaola’s work often remains infused with a sense of the spiritual, and he has written several books about the saints, has illustrated Bible stories, as well as other books.
The theme of service to others is prominent in Pascual and the Kitchen Angels, a story of the young saint who joins a religious order hoping to serve the poor but ends up on kitchen duty cooking for his fellow friars. At a loss in the kitchen, Pascual begins to pray and is assisted by angels who cook such a delicious meal that the friars request that Pascual become the community’s permanent chef, thus compounding the problem. Finally, the friars’ curiosity about Pascual’s methods leads them to peek into the kitchen. The holy scene on display earns Pascual a chance to serve the poor at last, while still keeping the friars fed.
Kerry Weber  Tomie dePaola’s books help us find the sacred in stories of service and stillness(October 09, 2018) America

We see in the lives of the First Tier Saints that the key factor is the love of God, who is waiting to shower His gifts of grace on anyone who shows the slightest interest or puts in the least effort. Even the greatest sinners — prostitutes and profligates (St. Mary of Egypt), murderers and thieves (St. Moses the Black, St. Vladimir), apostates and demon-worshippers (St. Bartolo Longo), adulterers and fornicators (St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Margaret of Cortona) — have been completely changed by seeking this union. In mystical theology, it is called the “Transforming Union” for a reason.
Hilary White How to Become a Great, Wonderworking, Levitating, Bilocating, Ecstatic-Vision-Having Saint (May 2, 2019)

When, in the 1300s, nearly a third of Europe's population succumbed to the plague, great saints arose to serve the people and calm their fears. Naysayers were undoubtably busy then, too. But Catherine of Siena disregarded the women who wished to bar her from the Mantellate (a third order of St. Dominic); she cared for the sick, buried the dead and attracted a following. Not incidentally, she also convinced the true pope, then captive in Avignon, France, to return to Rome.

We know Catherine wrote some 400 letters and prayers. What could she have done with Zoom, Twitter and Facebook? But even today, her life, words and work can help model the contemporary church.
Phyllis Zagano Two popes and a plague, just like the 14th century (Mar 24, 2020) Just Catholic: ncronline.org


Saint Anthony
I tried doing a novena to him that one year when he was stalking me. I swear! He was! St. Anthony turned up everywhere I looked. It was freaky. I bought a painting at a thrift store and when I went to re-frame it there was a an old print and holy card of St. Anthony stuck back there. And I found a St. Anthony medal in the church parking lot. And my son said St. Anthony was his imaginary friend and reminded me to watch my language because St. Anthony was listening. Always listening. Creepy stuff I tell you. I never finished that novena so I think he was haunting me. Except saints don’t really haunt. But they do stalk. I know this for a fact
Katrina Fernandez St. Anthony and never ceasing to be amazed…(June 13, 2012) The Crescat

Today is the feast of St Anthony of Padova.
He was a priest, confessor, preacher...and now he's relegated to finding people's car keys and flip flops. Poor guy.
Lino Rulli (The Catholic Guy)  (June 13, 2019) Facebook

Saint Bridged
May we be reminded by the witness of Brigid, and of so many today, that women are not the “either/or” of virgin/whore, nun/mother, but the “all/and” of persons created in the image of God. May we celebrate the potential for fertility and creativity in every person, by God’s abundant grace. May we remember that this world can be a table of feasting as well as a vale of tears, and that Incarnation means we can make a prayer of every created gift. Brigid herself is said to have prayed
I should like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings, and every drop a prayer:
I should like the angels of Heaven to be drinking it through time eternal . . .
May we keep the fire of learning and poetry and music aflame in the Faith, and the door of Brigid’s unstinting hospitality open.
Joanne McPortland Bacon and Butter and Bathtub Beer: Why the Church Needs St Brigid, Bad (February 1, 2012) Egregious Twaddle
Saint Francis of Assisi
In Francis’s time homiletic training at Europe’s universities stressed scholarly acumen more than pastoral sensitivity. This resulted in sermons that were dry or harsh in tone, but Francis had not attended one of these universities so his preaching drew primarily from his conversion experience.22 It was also vibrant and energetic, and it was common for Francis to sing and dance with joy and then openly weep when talking about God’s mercy.23 Mark Galli says that Francis “imitated the troubadours, employing poetry and word pictures to drive the message home. When he described the Nativity, listeners felt as if Mary was giving birth before their eyes; in rehearsing the crucifixion, the crowd (as did Francis) would shed tears.”24 Francis himself said, “What are the servants of God if not his minstrels, who must move people’s hearts and lift them up to spiritual joy?”
Trent Horn, What the Saints Never Said: Pious Misquotes and Subtle Heresies (2018

Saint Joseph
Althought we call Joseph a carpenter, he was actually a “tekton”, an accomplished crafsman. His skills would have been a cross between a designer, an architect, and a construction engineer, not a simple furniture or cabinet maker. Working alongside Joseph, Jesus would have become an artisan in wood, stone, and even metal. Some modern archaeologists speculate that with expertise, Jesus and Joseph may even have worked on massive costruction projects commissioned by Herod the Great in Caesarea, which included a deep-sea harbor, batyhs and numerous public buildings.
Cardinal Timothy M.Dolan, Doers of the Word: Putting Your Faith Into Practice (September 2, 2009)

I think of him loving Mary so utterly, so fully, that he showed his Son the truly divine way of how to treat and love women. His Son learned that from Joseph–He learned of their dignity and worth firsthand as He was raised from a child into adulthood. And He carried His father’s tender love for women for the rest of His life, not even spurning the hysterical and dramatic exclamations of grief and repentance from prostitutes and peasants. He took their hands, dried their tears, embraced them, forgave them.
Jenn Riley St. Joseph: One of the Good Ones (March 19, 2019)  The Shoeless Banshee: Meanderings Beyond the Pale

Saint Patrick
Again and again, I hear folks say, “Everybody’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!” I daresay that’s true in a very different way today – at least for me.
It’s great to celebrate the culture and heritage of the Irish people (that includes me – for real – I have Irish blood). I want to do that, also. I’ll even have corned beef and beer later today in honor of this amazing saint, But, I think on this St. Patrick’s Day, everybody should be Irish for a different reason.
Just as during St. Patrick’s time in Ireland, there are “bloody men who have steeped themselves in the blood of innocent Christians.” St. Patrick prayed for, suffered for, and grieved for, the Christians killed by those who are to be called “sons of the devil.”  I do want to rejoice in this holy day of St. Patrick, but I also want to offer my day, my suffering, my prayers, for the persecuted Christians throughout the world who have, or are about to shed their blood for Christ. And, if I could be so bold as to predict such a thing, I would say that St. Patrick is doing that today as well.
Today, I stand in solidarity with St. Patrick.
Marge Fenelon In solidarity with St. Patrick – but not for the green beer (March 17, 2015) Catholic to the Core

Saint Nicholas
  I hold that this is the image of Santa Claus we need to reclaim. Because when you think about it, this was the original campaign to Put the Christ Back in Christmas. Arius would have made the nativity a non-event (woop-de-freakin-doo everyone, God made something else). He, majestically prefiguring the various sects of Happy-Holiday-ers, Winter Solstice-ers, and it’s-actually-a-pagan-holiday-ers (that’s the point, you muppets!) denied that Christmas need be a celebration of substance at all. So when the modern world promotes the consumerist image of Santa Claus over the image of Christ, it is not so much the wrath of Christ they should fear as it is the wrath of Santa Claus. He may very well climb down the chimney and wup yo ass.
Christmas is about this singular, terrible reality: That the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the spirit of St. Nick; accept no substitute.
All of which leads me to the belief that our Christmas carols need to be rewritten in light of the Grand Punch of St. Nicholas. It wouldn’t be too hard, we could sing: “Jolly Old St. Nicholas/Lend your fist this way,” “I saw Dawkins rocked by Santa Claus/flying from the podium last niiighht,” and of course, “He sees when you’re dissenting/he knows when you’ve blasphemed/he knows your schismatic doctrines/and so he’s gonna punch your face/Oh, you better not doubt/You better not divide/You better not bring scandal to the Holy Roman Catholic Church/I’m telling you why/Saaaanta Claus is smacking you down,” etc. etc.
So thank you St. Nicholas, for your inspired punch.
Marc Barnes On the St. Nick Punch (December 6, 2011) Bad Catholic

Nicholas:
Oh yeah, you snake? Cuz Jesus busted me out
so you’d better listen well and you’d better watch out.
I’m rewriting this creed cuz you’re causing a scandal
Our Lord’s begotten, not made, aka consubstantial
BT-Dubz, Our Lord gave me a warning for you
If you try to approach Him, you’ll be spelling your doom
He won’t let you get close, guilt will fill you with gloom
And you’ll die with all of your guts out in a public bathroom.
Monique Ocampo Epic Rap Battles of (Catholic) History: Nicholas vs Arius (December 6, 2016) Monique Ocampo Writes

Saint Mother Theresa
St. Mother Teresa was, and still is, an oddball to modernity. She had no filter, work-life balance, nor interest for self-care. She served the poorest of the poor in India and sacrificed her life to help those most in need, so much so that when donations of shoes came to her sisters, she always chose the worst ones to tread upon the hot Calcutta streets. The result, her toes were mangled and disfigured.
T.J. Burdick Social Media and Sanctity with Mother Teresa (May 28, 2019) tjburdick.com

Sister Nirmala, Mother Teresa’s immediate successor, is quoted as saying, “Her heart was big like the Heart of God Himself, filled with love, affection, compassion, and mercy. Rich and poor, young and old, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, saints and sinners of all nations, cultures and religions found a loving home in her heart, because in each of them she saw the face of her Beloved – Jesus.”
One of the reasons that Mother Teresa endeared herself to so many people was that she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty when it came to getting work done.
Tony Rossi Mother Teresa’s “Heart Was Big Like the Heart of God Himself” (September 1, 2016) Christopher Closeup

Saint Therese
The great female Doctor of the Church, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower, is, I believe, a theologian for the ages. A priest I know was furious that the Little Flower was made a Doctor of the Church in 1998 by Saint John Paul II. He said that her complete dogmatic theological corpus could fit on the back of a postage stamp, and indeed, he is correct. She is not a systematic theologian, but she is nonetheless a great theologian, one who seeks to deepen her relationship and ours with the Lord.

Not bad for a 24-year Carmelite nun — to stand alongside of such theological masters like Gregory the Great, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas! The Little Flower is a profound Doctor of the Church, a teacher par excellence. I encourage you this summer to spend some time reading, picking up the work of one of the most profound theologians of the ages, the Little Flower.
The Little Flower is a profound Doctor of the Church, a teacher par excellence.
Father John P. Cush Why the Little Flower is One of My Favorite Theologians (Oct. 1, 2019) ncregister.com

Teresa’s life was not an easy one.  She fell ill with malaria, then suffered a seizure which left her incapacitated for four days.  When she awoke, she found that  those surrounding her were so  certain she was dead that they had already dug a grave for her beside the house.  What followed were three years of paralysis, then a lifetime of continued illness which made it difficult for her to pray.
Because of the maladies which befell her, St. Teresa of Avila is called the patron of headache-sufferers.  Because her autobiographical and spiritual writings have led so many to greater sanctity, she has been named patron of Spanish Catholic writers.
Kathy Schiffer Happy Birthday, St. Teresa of Avila: Patron of Catholic Writers and Headache Sufferers! (March 28, 2015) Seasons of Grace

One of my favorite saints is St. Therese of Lisieux. She is all too often dismissed as one of those rose-and-rainbow saints who ascended into heaven on a cloud of cotton candy. But if you read her writings closely, you’ll find that she was very sympathetic with human frailty and had a deeply understanding heart. Here is one of my favorite quotes from St. Therese:
And it is the Lord, it is Jesus, who is my judge. Therefore I will try always to think leniently of others, that he may judge me leniently, or rather not at all, since he says: “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.”
Michelle Arnold One Size May Not Fit All (July 7, 2015) Michelle Arnold

St. Thomas Aquinis
One thing about Saint Thomas’ thought requires you to understand ideally all of the rest of it, but certainly a lot more than just the atomized section you’re looking at.
Scott Beauchamp Saint Thomas, Acedia, And Taedium Operandi (August 17, 2016) Through the Threshold

Sarah Reinhard Of your pursuits, what’s your favorite?
Kevin Knight Polishing the online version of the Summa Theologica. It amazes me how smoothly it translates to the Internet. It’s huge, concise, modular, and richly interlinked — almost as if St. Thomas Aquinas had the Web in mind when he wrote it 700 years ago. It’s also fun to soak in his wisdom and teaching as I work.
Sarah Reinhard Catholic Techie Kevin Knight (July 9, 2012) Catholic Mom

“St. Thomas saw memory systems as essential to full realization of the virtue of prudence; for to achieve virtuous goals in the future, we must act in the present, guided by the memories of what we have learned in the past.”
― Kevin Vost, Memorize the Faith! (and Most Anything Else): Using the Methods of the Great Catholic Medieval Memory Masters

Salvation
“Love cannot bear that. We must pray for all,” St. Silouan of Mount Athos once told a hermit who asked him why he was known to pray for those presumed to be damned.[1]  Instead of thinking everyone deserved to be damned so that we should not be concerned if anyone should perish in hell, St. Silouan believed that the Christian response was the response of love, the response of Christ. Love does what it can for the salvation of all. Because Christ died for all (cf. 2 Cor. 5:15), we should desire that all should be saved. While it might seem highly unlikely, we must pray for and hope for the salvation of all, for that is the hope of love. It is because God is love that Christ came to the world to save sinners; he came, not just for a few, but for all, and so we are to pray for all:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way.  This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1Tim. 2:1-4 RSV).
Henry Karlson Love All, Pray For All, and Hope For All, Because Grace Is Available To All (May 10, 2016) A Little Bit of Nothing

Science
Up until the mid Twenties, virtually all scientists (from ancients like Aristotle and Lucretius to the greats of early and modern science such as Newton and Einstein) had envisioned an essentially static universe. Lemaitre (a World War I veteran, Catholic priest, and physics/mathematics PhD) realized that Einstein's field equations equations implied an expanding universe, which must have had its origin in a "primeval atom" containing all matter in the universe. Lemaitre also made important contributions to "black hole" theory and other areas of theoretical physics.

He was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by Pope Pius XI and was made its president by John XXIII, who also (somewhat to Lemaitre's confusion) appointed him to the pontifical commission to study birth control. (Lemaitre died well before the commission provided its report to Paul VI.)
Darwin, The Day Without Yesterday (December 27, 2005) darwincatholic.blogspot.com
Scandals
I think of all the scandals in the media be it in the business world or in the church. And these people started off at point A and they were good people and they had everything going on, like good intentions in life and Z where they became a headline. Look and everytime I see one of these scandals I think dude between A and Z there B C D F a zoom, there’s a lot of points and I always wondered were you talking to anybody as you sped through all those points? So all that keeps us faithful to the Lord when we have are friends to keep us standing tall.
Tommy Tighe, The Catholic Hipster Handbook (2017) Ave Maria Press

SCRIPTURE
When I wondered away from my Catholic faith because I was unimpressed with the lack of Christian zeal in the church (despite my father being a living breathing saint) I didn’t lose all taste for being Catholic. I never become an anti-Catholic. I kept searching for the true church of Christ. I got a copy of a copy of the Christian Research Institute’s magazine where they talk of Catholicism and they quoted this author below. His argument in his easy found in the book ‘Fundamentals of the Faith’, convinced me to venture back in the Catholic Church. Mark the Catholic Bard

There are things wrong with the sola scriptura doctrine. First, it separates Church and Scripture. But they are one. They are not two rival horses in the authority race, but one rider (the Church) on one horse (Scripture). The Church as writer, canonizer, and interpreter of Scripture is not another source of revelation but the author and guardian and teacher of the one source, Scripture. We are not taught by a teacher without a book or by a book without a teacher, but by one teacher, with one book, Scripture.
-Peter Kreeft The Authority of the Bible Catholic Education Resource Center

Writing letters of Pauline length was not cheap. Paper (papyrus or parchment) was hand-made and expensive.
So were the secretaries who prepared the drafts and final copy for mailing (as well as the copy literary figures like Paul tended to retain for their records).
While it’s difficult to make cross-cultural cost comparisons, by one way of estimating it, Romans would have cost Paul $2,275 to produce (Richardson, p. 169).
This would have been no small amount for an itinerant preacher who eked out a living making tents on the side.
In fact, Paul was almost certainly dependent on the donations of wealthy patrons to be able to produce letters like this.

Between the impressive length and investment that Paul sank in writing his letters, one conclusion is clear: Paul knew he was doing something extraordinary.
Jimmy Akin Did Paul Know He Was Writing Scripture?  (Sep. 16, 2015)  ncregister.com

The practice of too many Catholics, who don't read the Bible at all, so as to not be “confused” or “led astray” is a sort of lamentable “kindergarten Christianity” and laziness. The same people manage to find plenty of time to devote to the “study” of sports, politics, or to a hundred different subjects they will learn all about in high school or college (spending thousands of hours), but somehow they can't find any time to read their Bibles and soak in the words of the very Lord they worship and receive every week?

Many Catholics seem to want Mother Church to spoon-feed everything to them (they want to remain “babes in Christ” who drink “milk,” as St. Paul says). The Catechism, Vatican II, and papal encyclicals are all filled with scriptural references. We Catholics need to read the Bible on our own as well. If we don't, then we don't love God as much as we think, because love demands that we want to know more and more about the One we love. The Bible is God's very inspired words. How, then, can any serious, committed Catholic not be passionately interested in it?

The more we show that “Bible” and “Catholicism” are not oxymoronic contradictions-in-terms, the more we appeal to Protestants with the truth of our overall message. I have made this very endeavor the leading emphasis of my own apologetics apostolate.
Dave Armstrong Why Are Catholics So Deficient in Bible-Reading (Nov. 22, 2017) National Catholic Register 

Next time you read through the Bible, pay close attention to the battle that takes place between stage left and stage right. The lesson we can glean from the land flowing with milk and honey is that God wants us to learn to live faithfully in the noisy and silent, the busy times and lonely times, the predictable and unpredictable, the easy and hard. In short, God wanted Israel (and by way of geographical typology, you and I) to possess the land flowing with both milk and honey. The key is looking to God in every situation and obeying His will.
Jeff Cavins – There’s Gold in Them Thar Hills crossroadsinitiative.com

Mark Mallett
January 20 ·

The writings of Servant of God Luisa, St. Faustina, etc. are not additions to Scripture but fuller understandings of what Jesus has already taught. In that sense, isn’t that what a homily is each Sunday?
The Catechism teaches:
"…no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries." (n. 66)

That’s what so-called "private" revelation, homilies, my writings, and millions of books do: explain the Scriptures. In the case of private revelation, it is the Lord (or Our Lady or other saints) who explain the deeper meaning and understanding of what has already been revealed in Scripture and Tradition. All that is necessary for salvation has already been revealed; all that is necessary for sanctification (ie. the million ways in which God can help us, make us holier, renew, restore, heal, refresh) is something that we are grasping in fuller significance over the centuries.
Mark Mallet on Facebook (January 20, 2020)

One smear is that you cannot trust something that was written thousands of years ago. Although, do you trust your schoolteacher when she says Hannibal crossed the Alps with a pack of elephants? Do you trust your museum guide when he says “King Tut” began to rule when he was nine years old? How do you know these people are correct? Ultimately, their sources for these facts are documents that were written thousands of years ago.
Trent Horn. Hard Sayings Catholic Answers Press

Seeking God’s Face
It is a time specifically designated for giving up on ourselves and our efforts, so that we can throw ourselves onto the heartbreaking mercy of God, so in the end we regain all that we have lost in the proper perspective, before God’s face, not in the deceiving reflections of our own willpower. If there was one thing that the Early Christians taught us, it’s that seeking the face of God should be our sole concern.
Artur Rosman Don’t Give Up For Lent (March 1, 2017) Cosmos The In Lost

Self Help
Tips for Reinventing Your Life
1. Focus on the positive and count your blessings. Even in the most trying circumstances, God’s blessings still surround you — and more are on their way.
2. Consider what you do want, rather than what you don’t want. People sometimes feel dissatisfied with circumstances in their lives, yet are often unsure of what to do about them. By focusing on your passions and talents, you increase feelings of fulfillment.
3. Get inspired. Pray, read a book, take up a new hobby, observe nature. Breaking up your routine may result in creativity, enthusiasm and wisdom.
4. Connect with others. We need to have others support us in our journeys. As Jesus says, “With God all things are possible.
Tony Rossi Reinvent Yourself to Find Success (June 21, 2016) Christopher Closeup
Sin
"Stop sinning. Because every time you sin, you wound yourself. Not only spiritually, but psychologically. Every single time you sin you’re messing up your psychological faculties so you just have to stop it.” - Fr. Chad Rippenger

Singing
Even after experiencing a graduate-level mystagogy in which I encountered all kinds of heavy-duty Eucharistic theology from Karl Rahner to Thomas Aquinas to the earliest liturgies of the ancient Church, I am all the more amazed by the well-developed and well-rounded sacramentality I still see in those Haitian communion hymns that first introduced me to Christ in the Eucharist.  Maybe because I find certain things easier to believe when sung, these songs that were substantial enough to speak to my rational mind also proved to be an accessible in-road to a sacramental theology that was new to me.  I couldn’t have found a better catechesis if I’d tried.
Julia Smucker Singing Is Believing (June 22, 2014)  Vox Nova

Sign of the Cross
Crossing Your Fingers
Unsurprisingly, it’s just a quick sign of the cross. Originally, it had nothing to do with luck and everything to do with casting out evil from your presence — Catholics believe that the symbol of the cross is a powerful weapon against Satan and all his works. We’re just old school that way. Of course, if you’re a real old-school Catholic you cross your forefinger and your thumb, but the beauty of the thing is this — what has devolved into superstition for the world can be restored to spiritual reality by the believer. Why not cross your fingers as a quick prayer in times of temptation?
Marc Barnes 5 More Things No One Knows Are Ridiculously Catholic, But Should (December 28, 2011) Bad Catholic

What’s the greater work: to teach a child the Sign of the Cross or to build the most magnificent edifice?

For Saint John Eudes, the answer is clear: “To teach even a child to make the sign of the cross or instruct one of God’s little ones, is a nobler work in the eyes of God than all human and natural undertakings.”

In basic catechesis for children and all those who are new to the faith, the Sign of the Cross is foundational.

It is the first external action we should perform when we wake up, and the last we should perform prior to falling asleep, and it should be done with the greatest reverence.
Keith Michael Estrada Saint John Eudes on the Sign of the Cross and the Primacy of Salvation (December 29, 2015) Proper Nomenclature

Sign of Peace
Kids will step on each other and knock the little ones down, which, of course, leads to the other kid shouting or crying. Parents are shushing, correcting, consoling while all this is going on. Sure, it can be aggravating. Yet during all of this, the faithful of all ages are extending signs of peace to one another before receiving our Lord.
Sure, sometimes it’s chaotic – but it’s a holy chaos. We aren’t porcelain statues, we’re complicated and emotional people, and our children are our best reminders of that fact.
The old adage would seem to apply here: “If You Don’t Hear Crying, the Church is Dying.”
Mike Lewis Peace (or chaos?) be with you (March 2, 2020) Where Peter Is

 Smells and Bells and other such things
“Satan is always attacking us through our senses,” he said. “So the liturgy itself needs to be a holy assault on our senses: our sight, our touch, our smells and hearing. We have prayed as a Church with all these sensual things, because she learned through millennia that this is what repels the enemy.”
Father Theophilus uses his altar or sanctus handheld bells. “When these consecrated bells are used at Mass it is to say, ‘Look at him, the Word made Flesh!’” he said. “The bell humiliates the devil because it’s a non-rational object that is doing what they were made to do. They don’t want to adore God.”
Just as the sanctus bells give glory to God, so too does the ringing of church bells, whether the church has an old cast-iron bell or an electronic recording, Father Theophilus explained. Both can be blessed. “Traditionally, church bells called us to prayer,” he said. “If you have an Angelus app on your phone, a bell will ring to alert you.”
Patti Armstrong An Exorcist Explains Why the Devil Hates Bells So Much  (Oct. 1, 2019) ncregister.com

The statue of Jesus as the “Lord of Patience,” kept at the church of San Bartolo in Cuautlalpan Mexico, was gruesome enough before an art restorer subjected it to x-rays. That’s when the blood-drenched figure of a suffering Jesus was discovered to have an unexpected feature: its teeth are human.
Thomas McDonald   Statue of Jesus Has Human Teeth (June 18, 2018) Weird Catholic


Spirituality
Even though I work diligently at bringing the Lord into my heart by pulling up the weeds of sinfulness and removing the clutter of bad habits, if I do not fill that space with the Word of God and his Mercy, then there is nothing to prevent the disorder from returning.
Like most things that run off course, the intrusion of unneeded objects or undesirable plants begins so small. A few items back on the shelf, a few weed seeds falling on exposed earth. Then without me really noticing, things are seven times worse than when first begun.
The determination to remove the unwanted, without equal desire to take the next step, leaves us vulnerable and open to fall again.
Lord, save me from the pride that empties and fails to fill the void with your ways.
Margaret Rose Realy, Obl. OSB Demons Love a Well-swept House (March 1, 2016) Morning Rose Prayer Gardens

While it may seem contradictory, placing community and solitude together here shows that the roomy house of Christian spirituality isn't a simplistic either/or, but a place for both/and. We need solos and we need a full chorus. The tradition has always emphasized the value of silence, entering into the stillness of our hearts to find God. If we fear silence, we risk becoming shallow or fickle, never quite sure what we believe or who we are.
Kathy Coffey A Spirituality Smorgasbord of Styles (September 20, 2011) Catholic Being

Silence
For me, listening to God means sitting and pondering about things: my problems, a scripture reading, a book I’m studying, the weather, or what have you. And as I ponder, I need to pay attention to the ideas that occur to me, and follow the threads to see where they go. It’s about testing the conclusions I come to, to see if they are consistent with what I know about God’s word, and God’s character, and that involves more pondering. And the essential thing is that when I sit down to ponder, I invite God to come along and I make Him welcome.
The thing I don’t do is simply sit there and try to be quiet. For me, at least, that means shutting out exactly the words I’m listening for.
Will Duquette UPDATED: Listening to God (November 21, 2013) Cry 'Woof'

It starts in a room of silence.  A room where disciples are gathered together in fear, in worry and in prayer.  An Inner Room where disciples behold the Christ in secret (Matthew 6:6).  It is fitting – this silence of the disciples – listening to and beholding this wounded yet risen Christ.  Silence mirroring the very heart of Christianity.
A silence that births a Spiritual Wisdom that cannot remain in a room.
A silence that speaks:  “Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev.21:5)
Kevin M. Johnson Revelation 21: 5 (May 14, 2016) The Inner Room

It is a paradox: we will not find time for rejoicing unless we sacrifice time to “do nothing,” to make a burnt offering of our life and our time before the Lord, in a silence without props, without scripts or safe paths or social support. Only by making a choice for inactivity, as it were, will we habituate ourselves to stop walking among noise and stop denying the voice
Peter Kwasniewski The Superiority of Silence (July 24, 2019)

“Sounds and emotions detach us from ourselves, whereas silence always forces man to reflect upon his own life.”
― Robert Sarah, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise

When it appears that God is silent, we must remember the lesson of Holy Saturday. Christ was not lifeless in the tomb; He was actively working out the salvation of mankind. Likewise today, even when we are surrounded by the apparent silence of God, we can be assured that He is working in the world. His work, however, is often accomplished beneath the surface, hidden from the world.
Eric Sammons The Silence of God   (August 11, 2016)
https://ericsammons.com/

Social Media
“Social media” has changed culture in ways that even the brilliance of Sylvester II and Bi Sheng could not have imagined, and the invention of the Internet has multiplied incalculably the impact of Gutenberg’s mechanical innovation. As with the sixteenth-century pamphleteers, the present reality and potential test the virtue of prudence. Sometimes aggressive journalism tells the truth in ways that embarrass defensive apologists. The idle mind might wonder whether Charles Borromeo or Francis de Sales would have used “blogs”, but the prolific correspondence of saints like these comes close to “tweeting,” their intellectual and literary superiority notwithstanding. Later, the saints Anthony Mary Claret in Cuba and Maximilian Kolbe in Japan would study printing and become exemplars of effective Catholic journalism.

This simply is a reminder that the scandals, vulgarities, and inarticulate thought that bombard social media may falsely give the impression that the present confusion in the Church is unprecedented. It may be singular in some ways, but it is certainly not without antecedent disgraces. It is fortunate that in the days of the Papal States, for instance, investigative journalists were rare. This is not to excuse the current state of affairs, but there might have been similar—or perhaps even worse—temptations to despair of had earlier ages had access to the Internet.
Fr. George W. Rutler Pollyanna Among the Prophets January 27, 2020 Crisis

SSA Catholics
When I became Catholic, all the other Catholics I knew were straight. I didn’t know any other gay people who were willing to accept the Church’s sexual ethic. I didn’t even know of anybody like that. For all my talk of having a unified worldview, there seemed to be no place for me—and especially for my longing to love and serve other women—in the Church. I acted like being Catholic gave me all the answers, when in fact I wasn’t even sure how to ask the questions.
As a gay woman I have had to rediscover forgotten ways of love: Scriptural practices of lifelong same-sex love, for example, like the covenant between David and Jonathan or the promises made by Ruth to Naomi.
Both Scripture and Christian history offer examples of people whose love of another man or another woman was intense, devoted, and chaste; self-giving, life-shaping; passionate, sacrificial, and beautiful.
Eve Tushnet Your Weirdness is Welcome Here: Letter from Eve Tushnet (April 24, 2019) thecatholicwoman.co

Stress
Jesus and Stress
If we think of Jesus as floating amiably three feet above earth, never dirtying his hands or his garments, always surrounded by a golden aura and enjoying a perpetual serenity, the gospels quickly correct that image. John 6, for instance, tells of Jesus crossing the Sea of Galilee, followed by a large crowd. Tired and hungry, he sits down to rest with his friends. But guess what? A large, demanding, hungry crowd invades their privacy.
Some of us would run the other way. But Jesus asks Philip where to buy bread to feed them. That leads to the miraculous feeding of five thousand. Afterwards, realizing the people want to make him king, Jesus "withdrew again to the mountain by himself" (15).

That alternation between action and prayer seems to be a constant rhythm in his life. He never says, "Today I fed five thousand, or cured a leper. I don't need to pray." Or, "Those Pharisees are really stressing me out! No prayer today!" He seems to draw the strength and energy for draining work from life-giving times apart with his Father. As regularly as we feed our bodies, he feeds his soul. And if he who was God needed such nourishment, how much more do we!
Kathy Coffey Stress: A Pathway to Prayer? (July 26, 2011) Catholic Being

SUFFERING
This is the tension of living in the here-and-now. Suffering and joy co-exist in this world. G.K. Chesterton said that in Catholicism “the cross, the pipe, and the pint all fit together.” We must not shut our eyes to the pain of others. To the extent that we can, we lean in, assist, and pray. But we cannot take on the sin of the entire world. We’re not the savior–Christ is. Mother Teresa said that if you can’t feed every person in need, just feed one.
Jackie and Bobby Angel, On Comic Books and Real Christian Suffering jackieandbobby.com

“Finding joy in times of pain begins with understanding that true joy is rooted in God. Thus, keeping one's relationship with God at the center of one's life is essential to discovering areas of joy, comfort and solace.”
― James Martin, Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life

All our trials are either God’s “positive” will or His “permissive” will (allowed by Him for our ulti­mate good). God must develop this “major league” faith so that we will not rely on pleasant feelings to remain faithful. In such trials God asks us to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10).  No matter how bad we may feel at times, He is still God and in control. Our understanding and feelings are so short sighted. We do not see well. So God asks of us to grow in “seeing” and   “know­ing”  that can only be developed in and through trials that will bring us to a state where little can really shake us. I came to realize that in the midst of my trial. I cannot lose my joy, otherwise, I have lost sight of God and the trial has been allowed to become bigger than God.
Fr. Philip Scott

We must be willing to suffer, but we’re not required to constantly ratchet up our own pain — especially when it’s the kind of pain that affects our ability to care for others. Like the saints, we may assign ourselves penances and disciplines to make amends for our sins and help detach ourselves from transient things; but this is something that should be done out of a love for Christ and a desire to console Him, and not out of some dark, wretched fear that our relationship with him is only authentic when it’s agonizing. Those who love God love life.
A Jewish Catholic woman told me, “Christ is our Sabbath.” He is our rest. Not our agony, not our terror, but our rest. He suffers when we suffer, but when it’s time to rest, He wants us to rest in Him.
Simcha Fisher: Must we seek out suffering to please God? (January 3, 2019) I Have to Sit Down

“Christian perfection consists in three things: praying heroically, working heroically, and suffering heroically.”
–St. Anthony Mary Claret

When I moved to New York City, I knew no one–ok, I knew one guy, but he was dating a jealous girlfriend who made sure I never saw him–so I was lonely a lot.
I remember singing the Ave Maria to myself as I wandered the city streets, to remind myself that even though no one was physically by my side, God, his Blessed Mother, and my Guardian Angel were always with me.
That still makes me laugh. Not because it’s crazy, but because it’s so trusting. Sometimes, I surprise myself
Earlier this week, I was speaking about this with a dear friend who has been enduring her own prolonged suffering, and she said something wise, as she always does.
Everybody’s cross can’t be the same… it’s the willingness to pick it up and move with it that matters.
That’s the key, isn’t it? To pick up the cross that we’ve been given and get going.
I’m amazed at how many of my friends have recently told me of their own sufferings. They’re all different–one friend’s mother is ill, for another friend it’s her husband, and yet another, his niece. God doesn’t give us all cancer or multiple sclerosis or ALS. He doesn’t give us all strokes or heart attacks. And, thank God, not all of us have to die by beheading. But as another one of my wise friends said to me as we discussed the meaning of life, the universe, and everything:
We’re ALL terminal.
We’re all dying. And let’s face it: we’re all suffering, too.
So what are we gonna do about it?
The thing I love about my faith is that it gives me something to do. It gives my life purpose. Every stupid little stinking thing that happens in my life could be one more reason why life sucks or it could be the opportunity for me to make a HEROIC ACT.  I am the one who gets to decide which it’s going to be.
God, that makes me so happy. When I remember it.
Diana von Glahn Heroic Suffering (February 17, 2015) The Faithful Traveler

Suffering doesn’t always lead to creative work, but I doubt creative work is possible without it, even in small doses. I remember, as a student, complaining about those contemptible compulsory attendance laws. No teacher ever acknowledge the plain truth – that school is, indeed, a “sentence” and that miserable students are justified in their feelings. The important point, then, is how do we respond to that frustration? There isn’t a correct answer to this question, but Martin Luther King Jr. gives us a heroic example.
Brandon Harnish The Prison Sentence of the American Student (October 10, 2016) The Pickled Pencil @ Patheos Faith and Work


“The saints tell us that usually, even in the very midst of exterior and interior trials, a deep-seated peace is felt. Persevering in the midst of these trials is a very important part of uniting our will to God's—and in His will is our peace.”
― Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of All Desire: A Guidebook to God Based on the Wisdom of the Saints

But there is a deeper level to God’s interference. The cross teaches us that God does not avoid human suffering nor does he always deliver us from it. Instead he plunges into the suffering. He does not take us out of suffering, but he goes with us through it. When the three Hebrew boys were thrown into the fiery furnace the king said there was a fourth one there with them. That was an epiphany of Christ the Lord and a lesson on the depth of the suffering of God himself. He feels our pain. He bears our iniquities. He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker Is Coronavirus God’s Judgment? (March 24th, 2020) dwightlongenecker.com

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
― Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

So, as He suffered in his own body, then he completes the work by applying that redemptive suffering to the members of His Mystical Body. That’s what makes our suffering, not just meaningful – “no pain, no gain” – that’s the motto of the serious athlete. We all understand how pain can have gain. The question is, “What gain is there really in pain?” The Catholic Church shows us that through Christ what we can gain through our pain is heaven itself; so that our pain takes on a redemptive significance (cf. 1 Cor 3:9), but precisely because Christ suffering and death on the cross was so sufficient, it could be reproduced by the power of the Spirit effectively in us.
Jessie Romaro  G - O - S - P - E - L  (April 24, 2018) jesseromero.com

After Israel makes the golden calf, Moses asks God that his own name be blotted from the book of life so that the nation may be spared. In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul wishes that he might be cut off from Christ if it would mean that Israel could be saved. Perhaps this way of thinking about suffering does not quite get at my original line of questioning, but neither is it wholly unrelated, since Paul and Moses are seeking to take on the burdens of others.  They are willing to make the potential sufferings of others their own, and in this sense, they stand in solidarity with those whose burdens they seek to accept.

To what extent can I truly enter into solidarity with the sufferings of others, even when the suffering persists? I can imagine a few ways of approaching this question, but one could be to consider the acts of religion: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I am struck by the fact that each of these practices weakens the practitioner in some way. The person who prays, fasts, and gives alms suffers, even if the suffering is mild. Certainly, one performs these acts, in the first place, to draw closer to God. But it seems appropriate that by drawing closer to the God who suffered (by virtue of Jesus’ human nature, of course) on the cross, one should also draw closer to women and men who suffer. In this sense, perhaps solidarity with those who suffer begins with prayer.
Aaron Matthew Weldon Far as the curse is found (January 4, 2013) Vox Nova

Taste and See
But whether soon or late, whether we are reluctant or eager, the Spirit eventually leads us here. Whether exhausted and compliant or kicking and screaming – just as I am, I come. And I find that here – where I am most vulnerable – where heat scathes and spirits torment – here in the desert of my heart is Christ. Here is where He speaks on my behalf the “No” I have no breath to breathe. Here is where the New Adam can begin anew.

“Will it take long?” you ask.
Yes, a thousand years – that is to say, a day.
“Does it hurt?” you ask.
Yes, it’s death.
“Is it worth it?”
We are not given an answer, but an invitation:
“Taste and see…”
Karl Persson Our Hearts Are Deadly Until They Find Rest In You (January 26, 2016) The Inner Room
Theology
There is a difference between the ordinary person who may discuss these things occasionally over a pint of beer at the local pub, or worry about them for a while before dropping off to sleep, and the person who makes a serious lifelong commitment to struggling with them and turns that commitment into a part of his or her very self-definition. For one cannot say, I’ve finished theology; now I’ll move on to another subject. There is a sense in which one might say something similar of Akkadian grammar or the family tree of the Hapsburg dynasty, but one cannot reasonably assert it of exploration into God’s revelation, which is, by definition infinite in its implications for human understanding. To be a theological student in the full sense of those words cannot be a temporary state or a preamble to something else, such as the ministerial priesthood or an all-round education. Rather, it is a solemn engagement to developing over a lifetime the gift of Christian wonder or curiosity, which is the specifically theological mode of faith. As theologians, then, we commit ourselves to the lifelong study and reflection which the satisfaction of such curiosity will need. Our faith is from now on, in St. Anselm’s words, fides quaerens intellectum, “a faith that quests for understanding.”
Aiden Nichols, OP  The Shape of Catholic Theology (1991), pp. 18-19.
Theology
Okay, if the tree of life was necessary for Adam and Eve to live forever, one might reasonably ask, did animals have access to the tree of life? The answer seems to be no.
If the tree of life was unique, it might have been enough for Adam and Eve to eat from, but it would never have been enough for all of the animals of the world to eat from. This may be another sign that the animals were not understood to have the tree of life for their food. If so, then the text of Genesis itself would suggest that, while man was meant to be immortal, animals were not. That would support the idea, based on St. Paul’s statement, that it was human death that entered the world through the Fall, not animal death.
Matt Fradd Was There Death Before the Fall? 5/28/2013 catholic.com

In the beginning, everything was perfect—just as God made it. But one bite—just one bite of the forbidden fruit—set the world on a trajectory toward brokenness and sin that would eventually be healed with one bite of the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb. But between the two poles of forbidden fruit and the ushering in of the victorious Supper of the Lamb, all of humanity would be at the center of a cosmic battle. And the weapon of choice between these two cosmic enemies is food!

We are what we eat—and God wants to feed us! That’s not merely a theological statement. It’s a biological, sociological, and psychological reality.
Father Leo Patalinghug, Epic Food Fight: A Bite-Sized History of Salvation (2014) Servant Books

A pure physical, organic evolution is only part of the truth of human origins because God has given every human being an individual and unique transphysical soul — something that is not reducible to physics or to a physical evolutionary process.
Since it is transphysical, it must have a transphysical cause – namely, God.
We take that as a matter of faith as Catholics.
Fr. Robert Spitzer 70,000 Years Ago, What Made Us Human: The Origin of a Soul? (Jul 25, 2016) magiscenter.com


Theology of the Body
The Church’s teachings on sex and love are among most provocative and the least understood things in Catholicism.  What difference does it make what we do in the bedroom?  Does God really care about our sex lives that much?
St John Paul’s Theology of the Body reminds us that the Church’s teachings on love and sex aren’t just about sex, they are ultimately the way that lay people can give their whole selves–soul, mind, and body–to Christ.  Because of the incarnation, Christianity is an embodied spirituality that has to be expressed not just spiritually or mentally, but concretely and physically.  Just like clergy and religious practice celibacy as a way of giving themselves totally and completely to God, living the Catholic vision of love and sex is the way lay Christians can make a total loving response to Jesus giving himself to us body, blood, soul, and divinity. God holds nothing back from us, even taking on a body so that we could feel his love more concretely. How can we hold anything back from Him. God doesn’t just deserve our minds and hearts. He deserves for us to dedicate our bodies to his service. Living the Catholic vision of love isn’t always easy, but it is a privilege that lets us make an embodied response to Christ’s gift of his body to us.
Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak When Sex Isn’t About Sex: 3 Things You Need to Know (August 22, 2017) Faith on the Couch

TIME AND PLACE
God: Like one second.
Man: What is a million dollars like to you?
God: Like one penny.
Man: Can I have a penny?
God: Just a second.

When applied to God, the term “eternal” doesn't mean “a long, long time.” It means he is outside of time altogether.
God therefore exists in what theologians refer to as an “eternal now” outside of time, a now where time does not pass from moment to moment. It is thus distinct from the “temporal now” we experience, where new moments arrive and then slip into the past.
A consequence of this is that there is no change in God. There is no progression from moment to moment in the eternal now, and so no change occurs in God.
Jimmy Akin 3 Views of Time and Eternity (Mar. 28, 2017) ncregister.com

Our Old English tid (long i) meant time, not as duration but as instance.  So, if you wanted to say, “That time I decked him,” tid was your word.  It was applied to the waves for the obvious reason that they are at their highest and their lowest at certain instances: hence, the tides.  Also, if you want to know what has happened or what is happening right now, you’re asking about the tidings.  The angel to the shepherds: “I bring you good tidings of great joy.”  The word kept its pride of place in German: Zeit, time.  You read the Zeitung, the newspaper, to get the tidings.  Whether they’re tidings of great joy is another matter.

The word time comes into English through French, after the Norman invasion in 1066, when William the Conqueror unloaded into English harbors whole boatloads of surplus words, and instead of throwing them overboard as the patriots did with the tea in Boston, the English people started to use them, and, voila!  We end up with French words everywhere we look: place, large, chief, munch, main, very, money, pay, people.  Our time is French temps, Latin tempus.
Anthony Esolen Word of the Day: tidings (November 23, 2013) Word of the Day

For him who seeks God and dwells in Him, life, however confusing and difficult, is never a parched and trackless desert in which one wanders aimlessly. For the atheist or nihilist or hedonist, however, could it be anything else? Our temporal pleasures are evanescent and, in a way, unreal, as they disappear into the maw of inexorable time, with the passing of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia. This, perhaps, explains the somewhat melancholy cast that, for many, hangs over the Christmas season and into the start of the New Year, a melancholy many attempt to drown in spirited celebrations that have, as their only lasting result, the killing of time.

Catholics, however, think and act differently about time. We find ourselves in the unfolding of the liturgy’s temporal and sanctoral cycle; we situate our lives upon a calendar that precedes and supersedes the civil calendar, and opens onto eternity.  The passage from life to death and death to life, a passage of which we never cease to be reminded by the cycle of seasons and the two off-rhythm calendars we live by, does not, fundamentally, leave the Christian melancholy. He see himself as a “work in progress,” even as is the entire cosmos, and the Church in those of her members who are living in time. Our reality is not all at once, like a “fact,” but a reality that God is shaping as He leads it towards Himself.
- Peter Kwasniewski At the End of One Year and the Start of Another: Stability within the Cycle (December 31, 2018) New Liturgical Movement

The Son of God is born from the Father “before all ages”; that is, before creation, before the commencement of time. Time has its beginning in creation. God exists before time, in an eternally timeless existence without beginning or end. Eternity as a word does not mean endless time. It means the condition of no time at all—no past or future, just a constant present. For God there is no past or future. For God, all is now.
Jessie Romaro The alpha and the omega! The beginning and the end! (November 13, 2017) jesseromero.com


 “The fact remains that man lives in two dimensions, the heavenly and the earthly. He is created for this life and for the next. Here below it is important to harmonize the two by responding to corporal and spiritual needs without neglecting either. A society that forgets God hungers, without realizing it, for the spiritual foods that man cannot do without. This is why the secularization process that reduces the religious dimension to the smallest possible extent results in a division of man by depriving him of one of his lungs. Man is both on earth and in heaven; but man’s only roots are in heaven!”
― Robert Sarah, God or Nothing (2015) Ignatius Press

In the long span of time we Homo sapiens have been around (roughly 200,000 years by best guesstimates), fully one third of that time has been spent with our entire race asleep eight hours out of each day. For every Caesar, Cleopatra, Napole-on, Thomas Edison, or Attila the Hun who blazes a fiery comet of fame and storied greatness across the firmament of history, there are millions and millions of anonymous people (chances are you and I are among them) who live and die and only God remembers them. A whole forest of leaves falls, and only one or two get saved in the scrapbook? What’s up with that? - Mark Shea: Empty Space (October 19, 2010) Catholic and Loving It

The Church’s liturgical year is both the safeguard and the promoter of Jesus’ primacy.  The climax of the Church’s liturgical year is the Feast of Christ the King. But then it begins again with Advent, the preparation for the Solemnity of the Nativity, the birth of Jesus, the incarnate Father’s Son.

Christmas is founded upon an event, a liturgical celebration, that took place nine months earlier on March 25, the Annunciation.  On that feast, the Church joyfully recalls the coming of the archangel Gabriel to Mary.  He is sent by the Father to announce to her that by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit she will conceive a son, whom she is to name Jesus – YHWH-Saves.  Gabriel informs Mary that her son will inherit the everlasting kingdom of David and will be called the Son of God.

In these conjoined events, we celebrate the singular significance of Jesus.  Yes, Jesus is a man conceived and born of a woman. But conceived in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit.  No other event in the history of the world comes close to this marvelous truth, and, therefore, no other human being, past or future, can be greater than Jesus, the eternal Son of the living God.
This is his divine identity, and it is unique to him.  No other religion lays claim to such a truth, and no founder of any other religion claims to have God as his very own divine Father.

The best Mohammed can do, for example, is to profess that he is the greatest prophet – a  far cry from the truth that Jesus is the Son, the very Word, of his heavenly Father.

Not surprisingly, then, the Church marks the dawn of the new calendar year, January 1, by celebrating the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, for with the birth of her son the dawn of a new and eternal life appears.  Mary, in herself, is the proclamation and the defender of the mystery of the Incarnation.  To honor Mary as the Mother of God is to honor her human son as the Father’s divine Son.
Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap. The Primacy of Jesus and the Church’s Liturgical Year Sunday, (December 8, 2019)


Tradition
Richard Dawkins himself cannot escape some religious instruction because he’s situated in a society formed by multiple religious traditions. He rejects these traditions and the teachings and practices they bear, but he can’t separate himself from them. They inform his world, his worldview, and his thinking. It’s in this context that Dawkins has learned to situate himself against the forces of religion. Religion is part of his being-in-the-world.
Kyle Cupp Teaching Your Children the Faith Doesn’t Mean Indoctrinating Them (February 25, 2015) Kyle Cupp

Traditionalists
People may decide what box to put me in. I think I’m in a pretty good place. I now use the word radical Catholic reactionary for folks who want to classify obedient, orthodox Catholics such as myself as somehow second-class Catholics. Hence, I’ve been called a modernist, neo-Catholic, neo-conservative, Vatican II lover, a Novus Ordo Catholic, an integrist, even a money-grubbing, unscrupulous apologist who makes a living by ill-gotten gains, by some.
But I’m just an . . . orthodox, obedient, devout Catholic, who loves Holy Mother Church, loves the Holy Father, and the Blessed Virgin Mary (to whom I have a great devotion: lots of writings defending her and Catholic Mariology)
- Dave Armstrong Am I a Catholic Traditionalist? (Well, YOU Decide!) (October 14, 2015) Biblical Evidence for Catholicism

There are many, many differences among trads, and with them all comes a variety of opinions on a whole host of matters. And our Tradition allows room for these sorts of diversifications. It's not that these differences are inconsequential; I have very strong opinions on most of these points, but I am not so certain in them that I would accuse those who don't agree with me of being subpar traditionalists. What I reject, as what Odendorf rejects in his article, is the idea that there is some sort of Traditionalist "magisterium" that can authoritatively define what a Catholic traditionalist ought to look like and proclaim those who do not adhere to this version of traditionalism to be "unacceptable."

The very existence of traditional Catholic blogs attests to the fact that there are many out there interested in examining Tradition, defining what a traditionalist is, and promoting a return to traditional Catholicism. But there is no one website or blog, no organization, no one author, no one order or society, no one publication, no one prelate, no one individual who authoritatively speaks for Catholic traditionalists, and whom to disagree with is to risk ostracism. There is no trad Magisterium.
- Boniface No Trad Magisterium Friday, (February 20, 2015) Unam Sanctam Catholicam

Since my departure from the Trad Wars™ I've begun to see #CatholicTwitter as a level of Hell on the Road to TRAdition (get it!? lol).
Mike "The KingDude" Church on Twitter

A traditionalist is usually defined as a Catholic who is devoted to the Latin Mass. A radical traditionalist or "rad trad" is one who is so is not only devoted to the Latin Mass but is also tied in with conspiracy theories and is often angry, exclusive and negative towards anyone with other opinions. I'm referring to the extremists--the anti semites, the racists, the flat earthers, the sedevacantists, the extreme right wing political ones. If they define the traditionalist cause (as they often do) its a shame and I'm sorry about that because I am on the side of tradition and don't like to see it characterized as such.
Dwight Longenecker (January 12, 2019) Facebook Post Conversation

I resolve to remember that I myself am not the Catholic Church, that I may have my own misconceptions regarding what she teaches, and that I cannot exclude my own pet heresy from the judgment of the whole of the Catholic Tradition.

I resolve not to waste any more time fretting about what Second Vatican Council said or did not say.

Viva Cristo Re!

Dr. John Rao. A Traditionalist New Year’s Resolution: (December 31, 2015.) The Remnant,

 I would say that anybody who believes the Catholic Tradition is a Traditionalist. Traditionalists tend to say that anybody who embraces a particular aesthetic is a Traditionalist, with the unfortunate corollary that those who do not embrace the aesthetic do not embrace the Tradition. That, unfortunately, is part of the message that tends to get telegraphed and those of us who embrace the Tradition, but can take or leave the aesthetic, feel as though we are regarded as second-class Catholics. It’s something Traditionalists urgently need to address.
-Mark Shea Am I a Catholic Traditionalist? (Well, YOU Decide!) (October 14, 2015) Quoted in Dave Armstrong’s Blog BEFC

I do believe that those of us who have been drawn to the majesty and solemnity of the ancient liturgy have a pearl of great price that should make us excited to be Catholic, and to share the goodness we’ve found with others. We should be happy at Mass, friendly to our fellow parishioners, welcoming to those who are new, and understanding to those who don’t yet see why we make so much effort to be a part of something so outside the norm.
Condemnations, judgments, specious arguments, and morose dispositions do no favors for our cause, or its future. We’ve got something great going on, and it’s about time we acted like it.
Steve Skojec They Will Know We Are Traddies by Our Love (October 4, 2010)

Vatican II (Pre)
I asked my mother (aged 83) once about what she remembered about the pre-Vatican II Church, and she said, “I remember going up to Father before Mass and saying, ‘Father, I swallowed some toothpaste when I was brushing my teeth this morning – may I still receive communion?’
“Father said something like, ‘yes, child, but you should be careful about that.'”
I told that story to a friend who is a Carmelite priest in his early seventies, and he chuckled and said, “I had that exact conversation with my priest when I was that age.”
I suspect that if you talk to virtually anyone older than their early sixties who was a practicing Catholic back in those days, they could tell very similar stories.
The “voice” of the Church hierarchy – that is, what it sounded like when it talked, as experienced by huge numbers of ordinary people before the early 1960s – was authoritarian, rule-bound, excessively rigorist, and resulted in a sometimes crippling scrupulosity in the everyday pew-sitter.
Matt Talbot Some Thoughts on Vatican II, Part 1  (May 21, 2017)  Vox Nova
Waiting
God, being God, could have done the efficient thing and sent His only Son at that moment to clear up this nasty little glitch in the program of Creation and Salvation. He did not. Instead, He allows creation to unfold naturally according to the laws of nature, human freedom, and dignity that He Himself created — resulting in vast periods of waiting, which explain why the Old Testament is so very much longer than the New. These periods of waiting exist in union with His creative governance and power over creation, so that He begins the long process of actually including us and our free choices in the work of redeeming the world. One need only read the Old Testament to see that mysterious process unfold, with its strange interplay of divine providence and knowledge, coupled with human freedom, dignity, and sin.
Mark Shea The Theology of Waiting Around (June 7, 2011) Catholic and Loving It

Virtues
We can live in loving kindness within ourselves and in our institutions. The change we seek for a world of love and justice begins in our daily practice of loving kindness. That is how we may yet make God's kingdom of love a reality "on earth as it is in heaven."
Alex Mikulich Balm of loving kindness: antidote in a time of fear (Oct 9, 2018) Decolonizing Faith and Society: ncronline.org

Veils
I wore a chapel veil to church for the first time ever yesterday. It’s something I’d wanted to/felt called to do for years, and I finally committed to doing it during Lent. I didn’t make it to Mass last week because, you know, snakes on a plane, so this Sunday’s Mass was my first shot at it.
 Fr. Uche began his homily. The Gospel reading was about the Transfiguration, and when he introduced the topic, he mused, “What did Jesus go up the mountain to do?” I jumped when a voice beside me shouted at the loudest possible volume:
“TO PWAY!!!!!”
That would be my sweet daughter’s pronunciation of “pray.” She’s so excited about Jesus and was so delighted to know the answer that she just had to scream it at the very top of her lungs — and, wow, who knew that a young child’s voice could fill an entire huge building like that? The church was packed with about 1, 100 people, and I am pretty sure that every single one of them looked over at us in that moment. I had already felt like THE WOMAN IN THE CHAPEL VEIL!!!!, and now I felt like THE WOMAN IN THE CHAPEL VEIL WHOM WE’RE ALL NOW STARING AT BECAUSE HER KID YELLS AT THE PRIEST DURING MASS!!!!
Jennifer Fulwiler  Notes from beneath the veil (February 25, 2013) jenniferfulwiler.com
Vocation
I left the world I knew in order to reenter it on a more profound level. Many people don’t understand the difference between a vocation and your own idea about something. A vocation is a call—one you don’t necessarily want. The only thing I ever wanted to be was an actress. But I was called by God.
Mother Dolores Hart O.S.B., The Ear of the Heart: An Actress' Journey from Hollywood to Holy Vows (2013). Ignatius Press

War
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were essentially civilian cities, not large military compounds or combatant training camps. In fact, Nagasaki was the cradle and epicenter of Japanese Catholicism. The two atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, were, to use a contemporary idiom, weapons of mass destruction. That is, each was chosen precisely for its capacity to cause massive and indiscriminate harm. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed by each, and the property at and around the respective ground zeros was reduced irreparably to rubble and ash.

We may confidently conclude without equivocation or doubt that the dropping of these bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki violated both the conditions of upright intention and proportionality. They rank among the great moral atrocities committed in military history.

Although neither the Second Vatican Council, nor any subsequent Church document, has ever condemned by name the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Council clearly meant for these acts to be subsumed under its condemnation of “total war” in Gaudium et Spes:

“Any act of war which aims indiscriminately at the destruction (destructionem indiscriminatim tendit) of entire cities, or of extensive areas along with their inhabitants is a crime against God (crimen contra Deum) and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation” (80; see also Catechism, 2314).
E. Christian Brugger Just War and the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Oct. 3, 2018) ncregister.com

I’ve just returned home from a screening of They Shall Not Grow Old, a World War I documentary by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) that uses never-before-seen archival footage from the British Imperial War Museum. Jackson has taken the footage, sharpened and colorized it, overlain it with archival audio from British veterans of the Great War, and created a deeply moving film.

Sitting there in the darkened theater, seeing for the first time the Tommies and Fritzes in the full flower of youth, I couldn’t help but reflect that nearly everyone on the screen – both German and British – was a baptized Christian, as were the princes and politicians that created such hellscapes. This was brought home in what for me is the most sickening footage, a scene where bodies are being lowered into improvised graves while an Anglican priest commits them to the ground, “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” No doubt the same prayers of committal were being offered on the other side of No Man’s Land, just past the wire and the mines. I was struck by the obscenity of it all: putative disciples of Christ killing their baptized brothers, and being killed by them. “This is no place for Christians,” I said again and again in my mind. But sadly, in Leonard Cohen’s words, “the blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and has overcome the order of the soul.” That is truer nowhere than on the battlefield, where the ontological mark of Christian baptism is the first casualty.
Mark Gordon Peter Jackson’s Reminder That War is Blasphemy  (December 27, 2018) Vox Nova
Forty Days, Forty Graces: Essays by a Grateful Pilgrim

Our current American culture presents another paradox: differing religious moral codes that call themselves Christian. Publicists, whose target audience is the evangelical community, organized the screening I attended. Evangelicals were in attendance as well as veterans. A former military chaplain was present in case any of the vets needed to talk.
The publicist triumphantly announced that due to negative feedback about the film’s language from test audiences in the evangelical community the filmmakers edited out every single bad word in the film. There was a small reaction rather than cheers to this statement because I think the veterans knew this was ridiculous or she embarrassed them because they actually used such language. It was such a surreal, weird moment for me. I wanted to tell her: You can look at horrific battle scenes, limbs being torn off, heads exploding, blood and extreme suffering everywhere — and an occasional swear word offends you? Don’t you think that your value system is a tad skewed if you believe that God is more offended by bad words uttered in the worst of circumstances than reality-defying violence and war?  ….
Sister Rose ‘Hacksaw Ridge,’ for all its heroism and love, remains a paradox (November 3, 2016) Sister Rose at the Movies


Why Stay Catholic?
I am still in the Church because no matter how bad things get, Jesus will always be truly and sacramentally present in the Holy Eucharist, and God’s grace will continue to infuse our souls through the sacraments Christ Himself instituted. Humans stumble and fall but God never fails and never breaks His promises.
JOEL DE LOERA   Why remain Catholic after all that’s happened? (FEBRUARY 26, 2019) Among Thorns, Eucharist and Pizza 

As awesome as I think the Catholic Church is; with Her brains, beauty and generous nature, that is not why I choose to remain a Catholic. It’s not the beer nor the bacon.
I remain Catholic because the Church is Truth.
I’ve seen the Truth. I’ve experienced it firsthand. I’ve been baptized in the Truth. Confirmed in it. I’ve tasted and drank the Truth. I’ve Adored it and received graces and forgiveness from the Truth.
I have looked plainly and unflinchingly at the Truth and to leave the Church would be to turn my back on all that I know, believe, and have experienced.
To leave the Church is to embrace Hell.
Amen. The end.
Katrina Fernandez Will Remain Catholic For Beer…(June 3, 2015) The Crescat


What kept me hooked to the Church was not philosophy, or theology, or Biblical scholarship, or agreement with the doctrines of the Church (I remember a vigorous argument with a priest about justification by faith alone; and as a hormone-filled teenager, the less said about my views on Christian sexual ethics the better). What kept me hooked, like an elastic rope tied around my waist, dragging me back whenever I wandered past the borders of the Church, was the Eucharist. The Bread of Life.
To this day, I cannot explain it, but if there is one thing, as far as I can remember (and I was too young to remember First Communion), that I have always believed, it is the doctrine of the Real Presence. Believe is too weak a word. Even “know” seems like too weak a word. For me it is simply the most obvious thing in the world. I can’t tell you why, or how. But it is the thing I am more certain of than anything else—that the eucharistic bread and wine truly and really are the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
I wish I could tell you there was some moment, some mystical experience perhaps, that anchored that belief in me. I wish I could tell you “I believe in the Real Presence because…” But no, I just do.
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry Why I Remain Catholic (June 4, 2015) Inebriate Me

The dumbest thing anti-religious people say is that religion is a crutch for the weak and feeble-minded. If I had to create a system of belief, this wouldn’t be it. I’d find something where I could sleep in on Sundays, ignore the needs of others, stick my genitals where-ever I want, lie a whole lot, treat my enemies without mercy, avoid contact with a lot of strangers I don’t like, and ignore this silly relationship with God thing.
Religion is hard.
Anything worth doing is hard.
The Church provides a shape and rhythm to life. It sanctifies time. The minutes, the hours, the days, the years, the life. From birth to death, the life of the believer is an hourglass, and each grain of sand that falls is blessed.
Time is the great mystery that’s vexed my mind since I was a child: its passing, its brutality, its inexorable quality. The pulse of the individual, the ebb and flow of life through all its majestic and tragic and ordinary moments, are all measured out, considered, and sacralized by the Church.
Thomas L. McDonald 14 Reasons I Stay Catholic #WhyRemainCatholic (June 4, 2015)   God and the Machine

Talk about diversity. The Communion of Saints transcends time, space, every preconceived notion of holiness. Ain’t no party like a Catholic party.
I love knowing that for all my learning, there are things that can’t be ‘splained, and don’t have to be.
The rhythms of the hours, the hallowing of life’s stages through the sacraments, the order of the liturgical seasons, the continuity of the Mass—that’s my heartbeat.
Joanne McPortland Why I Am Catholic, Again (March 28, 2013) Egregious Twaddle

The power of the sacraments are real. They change your life. Saint Therese of Lisieux said, “All is grace.” My experience coming back to the Faith made that crystal clear. There were a number of difficulties I struggled with before my return to the Faith; when I started accessing the sacraments of penance and the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord simply took many of them away, or so greatly reduced their power that they were no longer a struggle for me. The sacraments of the Catholic Church are life-changing, and life-giving.

Michael has said that the most important thing we do at this apostolate takes place in our chapel. Without prayer, we have nothing, and we cannot do the work we do. Our prayer life is everything; it starts our day, it punctuates our day throughout (we gather at noon to pray the Angelus as well as at 3 p.m. to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet), and prayer ends our day. Prayer is everything. It reminds us of our total dependence on God, and gives us the opportunity to thank Him for the great gift of being able to work to advance His Kingdom.
Christine Niles From Saigon to Surfing and Beyond: The Unlikely Saga of Church Militant’s Christine Niles Regina Mag

Why am I still Catholic? First and foremost reason before any other is the Eucharist, where my Savior is fully present: body, blood, soul, and divinity. No other Church can offer me what my Savior, the One who died for ME (and FOR YOU!!) gives me at every Mass. This is where the invisible is made visible, through the physical… through the Sacraments.
I’m still Catholic because Catholicism is where the answers are, and they’re not platitudes or “feel good” answers… which means I get to suffer. (Wahoo!!) Catholicism is the only place where suffering — my own, my neighbor’s, the world’s — make sense. Pain becomes bearable because it’s purposeful.
It’s where self sacrifice hurts for the time being, but we do it anyway because it leads to someone else’s ultimate happiness, which leads to our own. Catholicism calls me to real love, where even the person who has hurt me most is someone I could and should pray for.
I’m Catholic because I love being part of the Mystical Body of Christ. I love not only that I can attend Mass anywhere I go in the world because it’s the same Mass. I get to unite in spirit and pray with all the Catholics around the world, day in and day out. I not only praise my Lord with the Church Militant, but with the Saints and the Angels too.
Stef Patag  My Selfish Reasons for Staying Catholic (Jun 4, 2015) and these Thy gifts 

I’ve been drawn to religion my whole life. Some small children are drawn to soccer or science. I remember staying up late, because I had insomnia even then, developing elaborate rituals of song and rosary in prayer. My parents told me to pray until I fell asleep, but I would simply pray all night.
I don’t know if my stubborn attachment to the faith of my youth is intrinsic to me or if it’s simply a pattern I cemented in my own mind from hours of repetition. I’m also not sure it matters. The ability to pray, to reach out to something mystical beyond myself, was the only thing capable of pulling me out of my head during my worst times. And the healthier I become, the more I do it, not the other way around.
Emily Claire Schmitt 40 Days in the Desert: A Reflection on Lent Without Mass (March 16, 2020) Femina Ferox

I know Christ best.  Met Him several times throughout elementary and middle school, including viscerally once when He seemed to appear in my mind’s eye saying, “Emily, Emily, how long I have waited for you.”  To which I hung back, weeping, maybe eleven years old, and saying: “I’ve done so much wrong.”  To which He just gathered me in His arms and held me there.  I’ve seen Him dancing with His saints.  (He’s goofy.)  I’ve heard Him snap at me when I was going to miss a Good Friday service in college for no better reason than apathy – one of the only times He’s yelled at me – when He snarled: “Emily: It‘s My Death.”  Needless to say, I bolted out of bed immediately.

I’ve tasted Him a few times, usually the Blood.  For an extended time a few years ago during a period of utter devastation.  When I needed desperately to be touched, reassured, reminded that the world was not crumbling into ash.  I can no more disbelieve the Eucharist than I can disbelieve the ice cream at my elbow, or the touch of my lover’s lips against my own.  And the Church is the only place where my Lover lives.  Truly lives in Flesh and Blood – and I need His Flesh, His Blood.  As surely as I need a hug from a friend: the bone-crushing, breathless exorcism of false emotion and harmful thoughts. 
Emily C. A. Snyder How Can You Stay Catholic? Or, Yelling At God (August 31, 2018) Pop Feminist

Choosing to be Catholic is provocative. It’s countercultural. It’s literally the opposite direction our culture is going.
So, in a book titled Why I Am Catholic, I can’t avoid the elephant in the room, the most obvious reason not to be Catholic: the sexual abuse crisis. In response, I’ve written this preface to answer why I, a Millennial Catholic, young husband and father, remain Catholic despite these horrific cases of abuse and cover-up
It’s Jesus I’m drawn to, Jesus I’m committed to, and Jesus I trust. As a Catholic, my faith is in Jesus Christ, not his followers. When sin and evil swirl through the Church, I keep my eyes fixed on that reliable center, that untainted source of the Church’s authority and attraction: Jesus.
I know that the sexual abuse crisis is not indicative of the entire Church.
One reason there’s so much outrage over sexually abusive priests is because most people know, intuitively, that priests are supposed to be moral exemplars. I’m convinced most still are, and it’s a reason I remain close to them.
I remain Catholic because I want to be part of the solution. The Church is not just an institution but also a family, and when your family faces a crisis, you don’t flee—you stay and help. When we experience evil or terror, our natural reaction is to run. That’s understandable; we’re scared and scandalized.
But for Catholics, the Church is our family and home; and when evil threatens your family or home, you don’t give up and run away. You batten down the hatches. You plant your feet. You resolve, “This is my home, and I will not let evil destroy it.”
Or, to switch metaphors, when a family member has cancer, you don’t just give up on them and leave. You move closer to them. You resolve to stay by their side and help battle the cancer. You give all you can offer.
Brandon Vogt , Why I Am Catholic (and You Should Be Too) New Preface (2017) Ave Maria Press

Writing
I miss writing and interacting with all my far-flung internet friends. It sucks to be on these long, drawn-out creativity hiatuses because I feel like I’m bereft not only of a necessary outlet, but also of necessary social interaction.
I am, however, determined to get back to writing. Not because I feel like I miraculously have something interesting to say again, but because I’m beginning to suspect that the reason I think I have nothing to say is because I’m not writing. Sounds backward, right? But I’m wondering if, contrary to what I’ve always believed, it’s the habit of writing that sparks my creativity and gets me thinking, instead of the other way around.
Calah Alexander Accepting Time and Repetition (December 15, 2015) Barefoot and Pregnant

I try in my writings and in my lectures in my courses also, to make a case for the necessity for nuance when we look at Catholic history and the Catholic models that we wish to apply. There is no one perfect model, especially today, because we have Catholics now filling big churches in Asia, in Indonesia, in the Philippines, in China, and in Africa of course.
I see my job as not giving easy answers but to ask questions that raise the complexity of issues. I try to be a theologian bound by the rule of academics but at the same time to serve the church. And so what I do is also meant to make my contribution with a cautious, I’d say also pastoral approach to complicated issues.

When I travel internationally I am most of the time away from social media and all the time every day I am in touch with real people. It is very interesting, for example, the impression you have of Pope Francis’s pontificate on Twitter on one side and in a few days with Catholics in Brazil or Germany or Australia on the other side. It couldn’t be more different. So there is a distortion there that we should be aware of.
Massimo Faggioli  The Vatican II Option: An Interview with Massimo Faggioli  (Aug 6, 2018) thejesuitpost.org


In a nutshell.  It proved that if you just slap gratuitous violence and lots of sex on something, it will be popular.  Most of the HBO series are simply old ideas repackaged with the above additions to one extent or another.
I once read something to the effect that George R. R. Martin was a Conscientious Objector during Vietnam who never saw combat, who wrote a series filled with soft core torture porn and lowest denominators and base entertainment.  J.R.R. Tolkien survived the hell-pit of the Somme and penned a work of soaring beauty and profound insight.

Not that you have to survive the Somme to create something beautiful.  It’s just interesting that a generation that has never known anything close to such horrors has made Game of Thrones the biggest thing on cable television.
Dave Griffey Why I don’t do Game of Thrones (July 13, 2017) Daffey Thoughts

I pondered the possibility of adding one more spinning plate on the top of a stick to my balancing act. Could I do it? Maybe. But one of the things that kept nagging at me was the “tone” of my work — I’m not a controversy hound. I tend to err on the side of “niceness”, perhaps to a fault. Combox wars make my skin crawl and keep me up at night. So what on earth could I possibly contribute to a place like Patheos, where the conversation is intelligent, current, and never pulls any punches? Elizabeth’s assurances that I don’t need to try to blog boldly like Mark Shea or to be as holy and wise as Deacon Greg Kandra put some of those fears to rest.

So while I still love a good conversation about “how on earth to get your two year old to sit through Mass“, I’m ready to take on a few new topics too.
I like to give. I love sharing the good news about authors, musicians, and just generally cool people doing totally awesome stuff to share their faith. I like my life to be full of adventure, of loved ones and of busyness. My “measure” is ready to be packed together to make room for a bit more goodness. Its ready to be shaken down to welcome new friends, new thoughts, and new memories. I welcome that moment of overflowing, and invite you to join me in considering the possibilities of “yes” when the logical option is “no”. Guess what: He will provide, according to His plan, not Lisa’s.

Unimaginable gifts have already been given me, so abundant that I sometimes marvel at my life. How is it possible? Don’t ask me. But Luke’s exhortation to “Give and gifts will be given to you” sometimes feels like the theme of my life. I don’t give nearly enough to ever merit what I’ve been given, but I’ll keep trying.

Our call — each of ours — to be a part of the New Evangelization doesn’t come based upon our talents or abilities. It’s universal. We have the greatest gift ever to give: our faith in a God who loves us so unconditionally and a Church who — despite her flaws — acts every day to draw us closer in relationship with Jesus Christ and with one another. I’m thrilled to have this little corner of Patheos to do my best to share the joy (and occasional frustration) I find in being a Catholic.
Lisa M. Hendey A Good Measure (October 14, 2012)   Lisa M. Hendey

Look at your bookshelf. Take stock of the titles. Now narrow them down: How many of the books there were written by Catholics? …Got it? Now, among those, ignore the theological titles from your undergrad years, along with any titles you’d consider “devotional.” In other words, how many of those books are novels, testimonials, or collections of poetry?
And now, the final filter: How many were written in the past forty years?
Chances are that precious few remain after you put your books through all three filters. After the first two, most book buffs would pat themselves on the back for having some O’Connor, Powers, or Waugh on the shelf. But you have to admit that, when it comes to works outside the realms of theology and spirituality, the forty-year mark cuts away a significant swath of Catholic writers in the average reader’s collection. (Walker Percy would have made it past the last filter, as he continued to publish until close to his death in 1990. But he probably wouldn’t have much company on the common reader’s shelf.)
Why is this the case? Where are today’s Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor and Georges Bernanos? Or was the post-war generation of prominent Catholic writers just a fluke? As for today’s great writers – some of whom might be in your Kindle or on your second shelf – there must be Catholics among them. Do we even know who they are?
Jay Hooks, SJ Catholic Writers – Who’s on YOUR Shelf? (January 30, 2014) The Jesuit Post

George Orwell listed four reasons to write: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. Sitting here in Turkey, a Middle Eastern country transitioning from an illiberal democracy to an even less liberal confessional state – a country that’s become the unofficial crash pad for IS recruits – I feel them all.
Max Lindenman Here We Go Again, Folks (January 24, 2015) Diary of a Wimpy Catholic

I'm going to write an article entitled, "Why We Need Not (and Should Not) Accept the Opinions of Some Random Laypeople Over the Authority of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church." You think they will publish it for me? Daniel R. Levesque

Great writing is basically just great communication, and it understands that to last and to make a big impact, you should always speak to the reader’s humanity, not to their particular moment. Flannery O’Connor was great because she mastered the art of writing from the inside of her readers. She was very conscious of human psychology and the dynamic process that a reader goes on in a story. She wasn’t thinking about writing for Southerners, or for academics, or even for Christians or unbelievers. She was writing to any one who was engaged in the activity of dodging Divine Grace.
Barbara Nicolosi Who is Your Audience? Writing What Your Soul Knows (September 25, 2010) Church of the Masses

Pablo Neruda wrote odes on everything from socks to tomatoes to sadness, and  Sharon Olds, in her newest collection (um, Odes) praises the likes of tampons, condoms, trilobites, and the San Francisco Bay. Yes, the possibilities truly are endless.

So, having submerged myself in Celtic music over the past few years, I’ve decided to write a series of odes celebrating Irish musicians, many of whom dedicate themselves to instruments we don’t find in most elementary school bands, such as bodhrans, bouzoukis, and uilleann pipes.

I wanted to celebrate them by attempting to understand their language. While I am a musician, I have literally never touched a number of these instruments. Without enough time or money available to learn them, I’ve had to find fresh ways to encounter their essence.
Writing about music requires ekphrasis, or engaging a work of art through poetry. Without a visual form to hang onto, music writing almost always requires some sort of synesthesia, or mixing of senses, in order to tap into the spirit of a sound. Such an approach leads to figurative language, of course, a common feature of odes.

When writing a poem of celebration, you must know how you’re praising the subject and why, holding it to the light to inspect if from different angles. What results is a rich collection of colors and light, metaphor with “ripeness to the core.”
Tania Runyan On Writing Odes: Taking Time to Celebrate (October 8, 2018) Good Letters

I’ve always wanted to write an inspirational book. A book that helps others. Something that brings people closer to God. I want to be your spiritual guide.  Unfortunately, I’m a mess. I haven’t figured anything out.  Having me write a book about the Catholic faith is like having a really bad actor write a book about the craft of acting. (Speaking of which, why hasn’t Pauly Shore written a book about acting yet?) The only way I could wrap my head around writing this book was if I called it Sinner, because that sums me up. And I knew I had come up with the right name when not one person disagreed with it. If I called it The Catholic Guy’s Path to Sainthood or Holy Lino’s Guide to God, there would have been protests in the street and the burning of my image in effigy.  But it seemed everyone could agree on one thing: I’m a sinner. Pretty much every book I’ve read by a Catholic author is from the perspective of a fully converted person. They live some crazy, sinful life, then they convert and never look back. Or they lived a boring life and are now faithful. Either way, it seems they’ve got the whole faith thing figured out. Well, that’s not me. I’m a crazy, converted sinner. The lifestyle is tough—both on my liver and on my soul.
Lino Rulli, Sinner: The Catholic Guy's Funny, Feeble Attempts to Be a Faithful Catholic(2011)  St. Anthony Messenger Press

I glibly describe Will Wilder as Dennis the Menace meets Young Indiana Jones in the Exorcist. So you are not far off the mark. Rick Riordan has Greek gods at the center of his series. Ms. Rowling used wizardry and witchcraft. My series turns on sacred antiquities—historical items with supernatural powers.
Being from New Orleans, Catholicism is like air. You breathe it in so often you almost forget it is there—but it is. I’m certain that it had an influence on the book, though I would be hard pressed to deconstruct the Catholic elements from the secular or fantastical elements. My job is to tell an entertaining tale, situate it in a coherent moral universe and stay true to the characters I have created. Like the work of Graham Greene or Tolkien, it is Catholic in the sense that it is accessible to all audiences. I will leave the critical analysis to someone else.
I write for a particular audience. The writers I love most, the men and women I read over and over, include: Shakespeare, James Lee Burke, Roald Dahl, J.M. Barrie, Graham Green, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, Flannery O’Connor, Ron Hansen, Rex Stout, Truman Capote, Agatha Christie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  
Sean Salai, S.J. Catholic TV host on writing his first children’s book (March 16, 2016) America.

Fellow bloggers: blog on! Because we, and the blogs we write and communicate through, are relevant, increasingly so because people are reading them. Well, at least, they are stopping to look around and may read something!
This relevance status can always change because technology is dynamic and always developing. But the Internet today is the vast neighborhood with micro communities where people go for information, inspiration and entertainment. It’s the hub of connectivity.
But then, if the Zombies are right (as my sister thinks they are) the grid is about to go down and all our blogs will ever have done, hopefully, is inspire people to be disciples of Jesus, to be the change they want to see in the world – and tell great stories around the campfires.
Sister Rose Top 300 Christian Blogs for Ministry – check it out and blog on (before the zombie apocalypse) (April 29, 2014) Sister Rose at the Movies

I approach my writing with the attitude encouraged by Blessed James Alberione, the founder of my order, The Daughters of St. Paul (and the entire Pauline Family) who said:
We need to put down the scissors of censorship and pick up the camera and microphone. We need to speak in the language of our own time… because God is so beautiful.
And that is my approach to all the issues I write about. God is so beautiful. So even if I am writing about something that is difficult, heart-breaking or horrific, I will always try to approach it from a stance of truth rooted in hope, because our God is beautiful. If I ever veer from that approach, I trust my readers will help me get back on course.
Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble Pursued by Truth – Now at Patheos! (October 10, 2014) Pursued by Truth


There is a lot I still want to say, and I want to still find my voice among the Patheos channel. When first given this opportunity, I gave myself the idea that my old blogging ways weren’t the way to go, and that instead I needed to be constantly clever, funny, and apologetically authoritative.
But the truth is that I’m only clever sometimes, and funny on occasion. It’s not in my nature to be combative, and I certainly won’t bring my arguments online. So, why did I think I needed to be a copycat blog, and join the ranks of commentary?
I really don’t know.
So I’m not going to attempt to do that anymore.
Instead, I’m returning to what I know I can do, and what I did for 10 years with a lot of fun readers; write about our life, and share when I mess up.
 Mallory Severson When Nearly A Year Goes By (May 23, 2017)  Life Transparent

I love writing theology and philosophy, but my heart is in fiction. Our Lord, for the most part, did not give us bullet point lists of the systematic theology. Instead, He told fictional parables to illustrate profound theological principles. Stories are the most powerful theological medium, so long as they aren’t overly preachy or obvious.
Literature and entertainment for young people is becoming so crass and sexualized. I wanted to provide something that was fun, adventurous, but also noble. This novel Sword and Serpent is just that.
Fiction is much harder than non-fiction. There’s a vulnerability to writing something creative.
The danger with “Catholic fiction” is that it feels overtly Catholic or preachy. Solid fiction always sneaks up on you.
-Dr. Taylor Marshall  Sword and Serpent: An Interview with Dr. Taylor Marshall (January 7, 2015) Catholic Exchange

WORK

In our frenetic world of glowing glass screens and ADHD-fueled lifestyles, tarry stands out as a word full of melancholy loveliness. Tarrying is a great habit to develop. It’s not easy for people like me who are more go, go, go than slow, slow, slow. Nor does it mean laziness or the avoidance of duty. It means lingering on experiences of great beauty, which pass quickly and need to be savored. It’s the condition required for prayer. Tarrying is more “Mary” than “Martha,” and we know which mode of being was praised by our Blessed Lord in Luke 10.
What are you willing to slow down for? How long can you go without recharging? Patrick Coffin

Young people have been raised to reject delayed gratification. They are the products of society that glorifies immediate gratification  They want meaningful jobs…right now. They want to be art gallery directors, professors, CEOs, non-profit directors, film-directors, Facebook creators, authors, actors, and poets.
What they don’t see is that it takes a helluva lot of hard work to ascend to these professions.
The theology of waiting or delayed gratification is not one of passivity. You are active and waiting. So if you want a meaningful job, get up off your skinny jeans and produce something. Contribute. Nobody cares about your thoughts and feelings unless they contribute to something. If you’re an artist, it may take you 20 years to actually sell something. If you can’t accept that, then don’t throw a tantrum and complain about the world. Learn a little delayed gratification. Write down your goals and realize that it takes a long time to reach important goals.
Dr. Taylor Marshall. You Need a Theology of Delayed Gratification! Learn to wait and delay good things... (Nov 06, 2015)

Fatima Promoting the full messege of Fatima

This is St. Joseph’s workshop — old and quaint!
 So we will enter for a little space,
 And watch with loving eyes our favorite Saint,
 As to and fro he moves about the place.
 His placid brow no trace of care betrays,
 A heavenly look of peace is resting there,
 How calm his face — how self-controlled his ways!
 His very attitude suggests a prayer.[1]

At the beginning of time “the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). In part, Adam was created to work, to participate in the creativity of God through stewardship of the gifts bestowed on mankind by our Creator. In essence, Adam was a gardener, therefore work in the truest sense was ordained to be a blessing.

A prayerful work-ethic is a great bulwark against complacency and idleness. No matter our jobs, we will spend many of our waking hours working. We must seek ways to make holy our work days in order that our sinful inclinations will be perfected. Finally, in our culture that is increasingly hostile to the Gospel, a truly masculine Catholic man can make Christ known through the way he carries himself at work. Our actions and performance may be the only Gospel our coworkers have ever seen.  Saint Joseph, Model of Workmen, Pray for Us!
Kennedy Hall -Saint Joseph, Model of Workmen by Tuesday January 28th, 2020

Women Priests
1) Get yourself some D&D dice.
2) Roll a female cleric.
 And you won’t be ex-communicated latae sententiae, either! Bonus!
Larry D 2 Simple Steps On Becoming A Bona-Fide Woman Priest (December 21, 2015) Acts of the Apostasy

World Church
Mexicans will tell you that they are 90 percent Catholic but 100 percent Guadalupan. While the numbers aren’t entirely accurate anymore, it is definitely the case that the Virgin of Guadalupe has been a constituent part of Mexican national identity, reflected in the fact that millions of both women and men are named Guadalupe, many going by the nickname “Lupe,”.
Dr. Kate Kingsbury/Andrew Chesnut 15 Fascinating Facts About the Virgin of Guadalupe (December 8, 2018) The Global Catholic Review

Young People
120 young people from 57 universities on five continents around the world will come together at the Vatican from today for the Holy See’s first ever hackathon: a competition in which multi-disciplinary teams made up of software developers, graphic designers, program managers and the like square off against each other in a race to develop technological solutions to common problems. In this case, the 36-hour VHacks event “seeks to use technological innovation to overcome social barriers and embrace common values”, according to its website.
Cameron Doody Vatican Turns to Young People to “Hack” Social Problems (March 8, 2018) European Communion

But there is a steep price for delinquency, even for the Hollywood set.  During the teens and 20s, young people should be solidifying their values, emerging as adults with a sense of responsibility and a love for God and for mankind.  Without the practice of virtue in the early years, it will be ever more difficult to rebound and to become the men and women God intended them to be.  And despite their wealth and their notoriety, they too will stand before God to give an account for how they have used the gifts He has given.  Let us pray that they will, by that day, have redirected their energies toward His service.  Let us pray that our own teens and young adults, rather than being smothered by the barrage of Hollywood trivia, will find strength and love in Christ and will live their vocations with grace and wisdom.
Kathy Schiffer HOLLYWOOD RUMSPRINGA: Young Stars Run Amok Make Good Parents’ Job So Much Harder (February 9, 2011) Seasons of Grace

Zeal
God wants us here at this exact moment in time to serve His cause. Let that sink in deeply. There’s something very thrilling about this awareness. The Lord Himself, He who knitted us together in our mother’s womb and can number the hairs on our head, has recruited us to serve as warriors for Christ the King at this time of battle. He wills that we should emerge victorious, even if only in eternity. Who, therefore, can be against us?
How blessed are we!
Louie Verrecchio Blessed Are We! (October 4, 2013) Aka Catholic

Zombies
And so, our entertainment culture serves up a meager two-item menu: be the vampire, or be the zombie. Feast either upon the lifeblood of man, leaving the outer shell intact and comely, or upon the brain which extricates him from mere animality, making him exceptional. There is no option outside this dichotomy. And the insinuated answer is clear enough: embrace the vampire’s rote aestheticism, eroticism, selfishness. Paganize the magisterial values like love, reason, beauty. Or else you’re just a brain-eating zombie.
Timothy Gordon|Why Vampires and Zombies are So Popular with Secular Humanists (October 31st, 2013)

The grace of bodily incorruptibility is not given to all the Saints, but to a small handful.  And just a righteous man’s body may decay, so may it be reanimated as a flesh-mongering zombie.  For we know that “[b]y faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones” (Heb. 11:22).  Thus, while he lived and died by faith, his body was reduced to bones (Ex. 13:19).  For even Martha, the sister of Lazarus, feared that his body would stink of death (John 11:39), though she did not doubt of his sanctity (John 11:24).  And just as the bodies of the righteous can be skeletonized, or decay or rot in the earth, they can likewise zombify.
Joe Heschmeyer How the Summa Theologica Might Address a Zombie Uprising Shameless Popery

Now, as a Catholic I find that it’s pretty common to encounter people who are completely baffled by the idea that anybody would enjoy watching or reading contemporary horror. Some of these folks will make an exception for religious horror: blood, guts, vomit and demon-possessed children are all okay provided that by the end a priest shows up to do battle with the devil. Often, they have no problem with old horror: ghost stories, the original Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victorian gothic novels where white-clad virgins are locked up in decaying old mansions by creepy sadistic uncles. Provided the horror is burnished with a thick coating of dust and ideally a few specks of candle-wax, there’s no cause for suspicion.
Melinda Selmys It’s Lent, American Civilization is Crumbling, Let’s Talk About Zombies (March 9, 2017) Catholic Authenticity

Zombies have great anthropological, social, cultural and theological relevance to us.
I’m basically saying that zombies are theologically potent because they show us how much Jesus loves us (laughs). When Jesus loves us, he saves us not just at the level of ‘soul’ but at the level of ‘flesh’, by redeeming our dead flesh with his own living flesh, to borrow the image from Paul’s epistles.
Matthew Tan In the Public Square with: Matthew Tan (June 7, 2016) The Catholic Weekly





































































































 
 



















































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