More Catholic Quotes

Angels

John Horgan His Angels at Our Side: Understanding Their Power in Our Souls and the World  (2018)

Apologetics

What hinders people in {certain} situations is often either fear or indifference: indifference, not caring enough to bring their faith to the other; fear, feeling unequipped to provide a convincing defense for the faith. Either way, the difficulty is easily cured. The remedy for indifference is to ask that the Lord give you zeal for souls and love for the faith. Easy enough. Overcoming fear requires more effort. To explain and defend the Catholic faith, you need not enroll in a doctorate program in theology or thoroughly study all the writings of the early Church Fathers. Any number of books and web sites will suffice to give you the confidence to explain your faith to others.
Jason Evert, Answering Jehovah's Witnesses (2014)   Catholic Answers

Art

For many centuries, before the invention of the printing press, most people in the world could not read. Therefore, in addition to preaching the Word of God, the Church used art to teach the faithful. St. Mary of Redford’s beautiful stained-glass windows continue to illustrate the profound story-telling ability of religious art. As a backdrop to the altar on which Christ’s Sacrifice is made sacramentally present at every Mass, the windows at St. Mary’s are well placed, because they collectively portray the biblical story that culminates in the same Sacrifice that Christ first made known to us at the Last Supper. Unfortunately, given their faith formation, many Catholics understandably do not have “eyes to see” the Mass’ biblical roots, nor do they really grasp how Christ’s Sacrifice can be made present throughout time. Indeed, many practicing Catholics do not really understand the biblical story of the Mass, a lack of understanding that is even more pronounced among those U.S. Catholics—more than 50 percent—who sadly do not even participate regularly in Sunday liturgy.  The rich meaning of God’s sacrificial love remains hidden from them, and too many know too little about the liberating message of the Mass.
Thomas Nash, Worthy Is The Lamb (2010) Ignatius Press

“The arts are one of our best protections against dogmatism of any stripe and a powerful weapon against complacency. But showing us how rotten reality is and how twisted we are, is not their sole purpose. Nor can it be said that the pursuit of complexity for its own sake is a valid aim. Unfortunately, that seems to be what much 20th-century art was about. Process became synonymous with progress, and a vast array of methodologies—artificially contrived systems and procedures based on mechanical or mathematical concepts—took the place of straightforward communication.”
― Robert R. Reilly, Surprised by Beauty: A Listener's Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music (2003)

Belief

“Just as many who were brought up to think of God as a bearded old gentleman sitting on a cloud decided that when they stopped believing in such a being they had therefore stopped believing in God, so many who were taught to think of hell as a literal underground location full of worms and fire...decided that when they stopped believing in that, so they stopped believing in hell. The first group decided that because they couldn't believe in childish images of God, they must be atheists. The second decided that because they couldn't believe in childish images of hell, they must be universalists.” - NT Wright

Bible

To be sure, the Bible is not a self-canonizing collection of books. Rather, living persons external to the Bible, guided by Jesus and the Holy Spirit (see Jn. 16:13), were needed to undertake the effort of selecting and excluding would-be biblical books. In addition, that the New Testament canon wasn’t settled until the late 300s further testifies to the importance of the apostles and their successors—as well as the teaching of the apostles—in sustaining the life of the early Church. This life included the proclamation of approved sacred writings, e.g., excerpts from the four Gospels and the letters of St. Paul, in the Church’s regular worship, i.e., liturgy. In summary, everything about the Catholic Church is rooted in Jesus and his actions. Catholics believe in the Church because Jesus founded it (see Mt. 16:16–19; see 1 Tim. 3:15). Catholics respect and submit to the Pope, because he is “the Vicar of Christ,” i.e., the priestly Successor of St. Peter who definitively teaches and governs in Christ’s name because he is sustained by the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus sent to lead his Church into all truth (Jn. 16:13; see Lk. 10:16). Catholics honor and seek the assistance of Mary, because she is the Mother of God (see Lk. 1:43), as well as the other saints, because they are alive to God in heaven (see Mt. 22:31–32). Despite distortions of Church teaching and missteps of Church leaders and rank-and-file Catholics over the centuries, the genius of Catholicism—the authentic power and mission of the Catholic Church—will always be found in Jesus Christ, who established the Church, his Mystical Body  or bride,  as “the universal sacrament of salvation.”
Thomas J Nash,  What Did Jesus Do?: The Biblical Roots of the Catholic Church(2017) Incarnate Word Media

Bible: Revelations

“Revelation” in Greek literally means “unveiling.” But if the last book of the Bible is supposed to contain the unveiling of God’s plan, we might be tempted to insist, “Put the veil back on!” Dragons, beasts, horsemen, a killer lamb—it’s almost too much to bear. It’s scary, it’s frightening—and it’s many people’s favorite biblical book. In fact, although Hollywood has virtually abandoned biblical movies (not to mention biblical morals!), our corner theaters display the names of “apocalyptic” movies week after week on their marquees. How many times have we seen it? The end of the world is coming because Kirk Cameron has discovered that he is among those “left behind” after the rapture. The world will endunless Arnold Schwarzenegger is able to prevent a woman from being impregnated with the seed of the Antichrist at the end of the millennium. Or (my personal favorite) an ancient Sumerian god is about to come to New York City in the form of a five hundred-foot Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man to destroy the world (starting with Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd). All of these movies, as well as scores of others like them, show that our culture is fascinated with the end of the world. But somehow I’m skeptical that such films will point us in the right direction. Does the coming of a giant marshmallow man really have anything to do with the unveiling of God’s plan?
Michael Barber,- Coming Soon:  Unlocking the Book of Revelation and Applying Its Lessons Today 

Books

“I often think . . . that the bookstores that will save civilization are not online, nor on campuses, nor named Borders, Barnes & Noble, Dalton, or Crown. They are the used bookstores, in which, for a couple of hundred dollars, one can still find, with some diligence, the essential books of our culture, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Plato, Augustine, and Pascal.”
― James V. Schall, On the Unseriousness of Human Affairs: Teaching, Writing, Playing, Believing, Lecturing, Philosophizing, Singing, Dancing

 “In a sense, we can tell a lot about anyone by looking at what books, if any, he reads, at what books are on his shelves. . . . I have always found books to be helpful, yet they must be good books.”
― James V. Schall, Another Sort of Learning

Novels, for example, are at their best when they capture the complexity and unpredictability of human behavior, the refusal of human beings to do what conventional logic dictates. We have statistics to tell us what human beings are likely to do en masse; we need literature to chronicle what individuals actually do in the concrete circumstances that constitute their real lives.
Human beings are free and literature mirrors that freedom.
Paul A. Cantor Literature and the Economics of Liberty: Spontaneous Order in Culture (12/04/2009)

In her essay “ Novelist and Believer”, Flannery O’ Connor explains the quality that makes human character believable by appropriating Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero for her Christian aesthetic: “The serious writer has always taken the flaw in human nature for his starting point, usually the flaw in an otherwise admirable character. Drama usually bases itself on the bedrock of original sin, Whether the writer thinks in theological terms or not”. For a work of art be it a novel, drama, or poem to be a “good work” does not mean that the characters are drawn to be morally good but that their speech and actions follow the laws of probability in the human or natural world. Good works of literature have intrinsic artistic merit because they avoid sentimentality-the depiction of moral innocence at the expense of qualities of character that remind us of our need for redemption. Catholic poems, as well as Catholic novels, remind us Of our need for Christ, regardless of whether the poets themselves explicitly profess this concept in their poems.
Ann B Mary Miller. St. Peter's B-List: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints (2014) Ava Maria Press

Catholics

For the future, when you no longer have me to remind you: Keep the Faith! Go to Mass, whatever the form of the liturgy! Pray the Rosary! Be resolute and stout-hearted! Love and honor the Pope, Christ’s Vicar on earth! Remember the he is YOUR Holy Father and do not spread attacks on him, any more than you would spread attacks on your own father. Only God is his judge; the Church is His. Pray that you may always be its defenders before men, and Christ will honor you for it at the Judgment.
Warren H. Carroll???

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is the oldest institution in the Western world. It can trace its history back almost two thousand years. It began in Jerusalem as a small nucleus of disciples who shared faith in the resurrection of Jesus, their crucified leader, and it spread quickly to countless cities of the Roman Empire. Its inflexible opposition to Roman culture, morals, and religion aroused the savage fury of the state, and many of the Church’s members perished when they refused to conform. But its spiritual power was only magnified by persecution, and its progress remained constant. Finally it won a decisive victory over the old paganism when it drew to its side the Emperor Constantine himself, who in 312 attached its emblem—the monogram of Christ—to the banners of his troops and granted it complete religious liberty.
Thomas Bokenkotter A Concise History of the Catholic Church (Revised Edition)  (2007)

A Roman Catholic is a Christian who accepts the doctrinal infallibilty and ecclesiastical authroity of the Bishop of Rome as head of the Church Christ founded; an Eastern Orghodox denies those two points of Roman Catholic belief but accepts all other major Catholic dogmas; a Protestant is any other Western Christian; a Jew is one who at least to some extent believes in Judaism.
Warren H. Carroll, A History of Christendom (6 books)

Carmelite

From Elijah has descended a long line of hermits who have heard the voice of the Lord calling them to leave everything behind and come and drink from the stream. Although Elijah physically went to the heights of Mount Carmel, where great expanses of breathtaking vistas abound and silence permeates the air, Carmelites of the future would find this beauty and the rare vistas in the deep stillness of their souls. There they would meet their Beloved.
Penny Hickey, Drink Of The Stream (2010) Ignatius Press

Christology

First, Jesus could and did suffer from anguish, worry, distress—and did that all his life long. It came to a head in Gethsemani, where St. Mark dares to say (14:34): "Then he began to be afraid and in distress." Raymond Brown (Critical Meaning of the Bible, p. 91) thinks he "should not have feared death . . . since he knew exactly how he would triumph." Does Brown think foreknowledge of resurrection should make the scourges and nails and cross painfree? Normal human nature would naturally shrink from such things. Further, one can live, as it were, on a split level. A friend of mine once took a prescription medicine, and then, an hour later, some Bufferin. Suddenly—a thing he had not anticipated, and so it was not suggestion—he found himself afraid, not of anything in particular; it was a generic fear. He reasoned: "This came from some bad chemistry. I will be all right in three or four hours." That came true; but for three or four hours he was simultaneously in fear and calm, knowing what it was all about. So too, Jesus, knowing the triumph, would still feel fear and distress. (St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God 9:12, explains further how such things can happen and have happened to other humans.)
Fr. William Most Fr. William Most Collection The MOST Theological Collection: Did Jesus ever worry?

Saint Thomas Aquinas say that a well-ordered self-esteem humbly recalls what God has done for us. The Father, the First Person of the Blessed Trinity, has created us. He destined us for eternal life as His adopted sons. When man strayed from God by sin, the Father sent the Son to be our Redeemer. Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. After dying on the Cross and rising from the dead, the Son sent the Holy Spirit. He is the Third person of the Blessed Trinity, the Spirit of Truth, who sanctifies us and maintains the Catholic Church in truth and love.
Richard J Rego"BLESSED BE THE HOLY TRINITY AND UNDIVIDED UNITY!” (July 25, 2007)

Church Fathers

“Therefore, the Church Fathers are in a way the protectors and guarantors of truth. They matter because without them, disagreements over the interpretation of Scripture would escalate to division—a reality that has plagued the Protestant world since the Reformation.”
― James L. Papandrea, Handed Down: The Catholic Faith of the Early Christians

Correcting Your Neighbor

It is necessary to suppose that every good Christian is more ready to put a good interpretation on another’s statement than to condemn it as false. If an orthodox construction cannot be put on a proposition, the one who made it should be asked how he understands it. If he is in error, he should be corrected with all kindness. If this does not suffice, all appropriate means should be used to bring him to a correct interpretation, and so to defend the proposition from error.
Note that Ignatius isn’t saying that we should play Mister Nice Guy and ignore mistakes and false beliefs. Error should be corrected—but “with all kindness.”  
Jim Manney When You Think Someone Is Wrong Jim Manney Reflections

Crucifix

I kneel in a dark church gazing at this old wooden Jesus and I am filled with awe. It is a visual, visceral reminder of the price God paid to rescue me from Satan's realm. Sometimes I feel the crucifix was put there just for me, the convert who would kneel here nearly a century after it was carved. I'd spent half a lifetime looking only at an empty, unbloody cross, hardly pausing to think hard about the price of true love. I have come to love looking at this crucifix, especially at those times when Christ beckons me to share in his suffering. There is always a message for me there.

We may never stare down a lion or face the gallows for the sake of our Faith, but we can be assured that if we follow Christ and the teachings of his Church closely, God will offer us many opportunities to enter into a deeper understanding of His own sacrificial love. The message of the crucifix is for all of us. Obedience, no matter how difficult, ends in resurrection to eternal life.
Kristine L. Franklin, Message from a Crucifix (Sep 28, 2000) Catholic Exchange

Development of Doctrine

Quite early, Christians realized that the Gospel did not provide a detailed exposition of every aspect of their faith. Rather, it was an embryo or seed, containing the whole of divine revelation but awaiting a gradual unfolding. Thus fidelity to Tradition is a paradox that has been at the heart of virtually all theological issues over the centuries—the faith must be handed on intact, but the Church’s understanding of that faith develops in ways that could not have been anticipated in earlier times. The development of doctrine is a progressive widening and deepening of the meaning of the original truth, and heresy can be either false innovation or a rigid adherence to older teachings. (Some heretics rejected the decrees of the Council of Nicaea as innovations.) Dogma is seldom officially defined unless it has first been questioned, and heresy perhaps serves the divine purpose of forcing the Church to reflect more deeply on her beliefs, to understand them in ever more comprehensive and precise ways.
James Hitchcock The Introduction to History of the Catholic Church: From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium (December 28, 2012)

Division

Devotion to Christ means absolute and passionate commitment to the unity of the Church. Christians today casually accept as a fact of life the existence of thousands of different Christian churches that are separated from and sometimes hostile to each other. Clement and other early Church Fathers, on the other hand, regarded division among Christians with utter horror.
Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers (2014) Franciscan Media

Doing Your Best

Magis is one of the more mysterious Ignatian terms. It’s a Latin word meaning “the greater, the excellent, the best.” It’s associated with restless striving to always do better, to undertake a greater project, to set more ambitious goals.   We’re asked to serve the King with something more than wholehearted service.   What can you imagine that would motivate you to do more than your best? It’s a question each of us can answer only for ourselves. It’s a question we can answer only as we get closer to our King.
Jim Manney Better Than Your Best? Jim Manney Reflections

Double Stream

The Catholic apologist Frank Sheed uses the term "double stream" to help us understand the union of human and divine in Jesus, as expressed by his words and actions. At times Jesus Christ speaks or acts simply as a man. He is tired, hungry, or sad. He prays to God the Father. He expresses feelings of grief in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:38) and abandonment on Calvary (Matt. 27:46). Christ, in his human nature, was a man like us in all things but sin (Heb. 4:15).

At other times he says and does things that go far beyond the words and actions of a mere man. He demands his followers love him above all others, even family. No one who comes to him will be confounded. All must learn of him, for he is the way, the truth, and the life. "No man has ever spoken like this!" He sealed his words with divine signs: giving light to the blind and life to the dead. Because he possessed a divine nature as well as a human one, Jesus accepted without hesitation the adoration of his followers (e.g., John 20:28-29).

The gospels are replete with accounts of the apostles' stumbling attempts to understand their master. While at times he evinced "merely" human compassion for a hungry crowd or a widowed mother, he responded in a manner truly divine: He fed the crowd and raised the dead son. He gently reproved the mother of James and John, saying it was not his but his Father's decision to grant a place of privilege in the kingdom (Matt. 20:20-23). Soon after, however, the Lord claimed authority to judge all men, to separate them, and to usher them to seats of glory or places of torment (Matt. 25).

This "double stream" is braided not only through the words and actions of the Lord Jesus but also through the meditation and reflection of his apostles and evangelists. Thus, Paul can affirm that Christ emptied himself of glory, took on the form of a servant, and humbled himself (Phil. 2:6-8), while also proclaiming that in Christ "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Col. 2:9).
Isaiah Bennett   The Mormon Christ (September 01, 1999) Catholic Culture

Early Christians

Clearly, the sixth commandment’s prohibition of adultery included for early Christians any relations outside of marriage between man and woman, whether heterosexual or homosexual. In the Greco-Roman society of the time, religion had very little to do with sexual morality. Adventuresome sexual exploration was the fashion, pedophilia included. Christians were to be starkly different in their lifestyle. In a culture of gladiator games and infanticide where human flesh was cheap, the Christians were to witness to a culture of life, dignity, and charity. Not only were murder and adultery forbidden, but generosity was expected and commanded: Do not hesitate to give and do not give with bad grace; for you will discover who He is that pays you back a reward with a good grace. Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. For if you have what is eternal in common, how much more should you have what is transient!
Marcellino D'Ambrosio, When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers (2014) Franciscan Media

Evangelization

The gut reaction of a genuine Christian evangelist is that he isn’t trying to foist God on anyone. His goal is not coercion or a demand that everyone line up and become carbon copies of his admirable, Trinitarian-believing self. An authentic evangelist is far more interested in the very real person who’s sitting next to him, talking about last night’s thunderstorm or the Pixar movie he took his kids to see last week. He cares more about living, breathing, messy human beings than about fashioning religious clones.

The evangelist chooses meaningful discussion over clever, well-timed lectures. In short, the evangelist shares his life—the spiritual life that Jesus Christ gave him. That evangelist, simply put, is you and I. We are already evangelizing when we chat with friends, keep a neighbor company, and dig into the stuff of this world—mundane daily tasks, humble little jobs, or huge, sobering responsibilities. It’s happening when we catch up with coworkers on Monday morning or offer quiet intercessory prayer on Friday night. It happens when we befriend people from all walks of life, not because our goal is to mass-produce spiritual copies, but because we have found something incredible—life in Jesus Christ—and we want to share it with everyone we know. So we talk about what we’ve found, this thing that is worthy of sharing. We can’t help but share it. These facets of evangelism—components of friendship and respect, really—say, “There’s something out there that’s bigger than we are, and Someone who cares about us, who wants us to band together.”
Karen Edmisten, You Can Share the Faith: Reaching Out One Person at a Time (2016) Our Sunday Visitor

Eucharistic Conversion

I needed to be certain that I should become Catholic. I walked into the Newman Center at NDSU, knelt down, and prayed earnestly to God that He would grant me the gift of faith. Praised be Jesus Christ for He calmed the storm raging in my heart through the same mystery that initially drew me closer to Him: the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. After the consecration, when the priest held up the host, my heart was filled with a consuming love and for the first time, I knew that this truly was the Body & Blood of Christ.  This desire for the Eucharist was the final piece of a divinely orchestrated series of events that led me to enroll in RCIA.
Laura Johnson,  Laura Johnson’s Story

Eucharistic Feast

Mothers have been telling children for years, “You are what you eat.” Eat healthy food and you will be a healthy person; eat junk food and you will feel like junk.
Church Fathers tell us the same is true in the supernatural world: to become divine, we must live on divine food (their own mothers, surely, taught them this!).
The Mass is the place to find this divinized diet, and it is a meal which consists of two principle courses—the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist: “The Church is nourished spiritually at the twofold table of God’s word and of the Eucharist: from the one it grows in wisdom and from the other in holiness” (Introduction, Lectionary for Mass, 10).
Eating from the “table of the Eucharist” is perhaps the clearer image of the two. For from the altar we eat and drink much like we do from any table at any banquet. But unlike any natural eating, this divine meal works a supernatural change in us.
Christopher Carstens  You Are What You Eat…and What You Hear and Sing (November 28, 2018)

Eucharistic Jesus

The Eucharistic Jesus is here with us as a brother, as a friend, as spouse of our souls. He wishes to enter within us to be our Food for eternal life, our love, our support. He wants to make us part of His mystical Body in which He would redeem us and save us, and then take us into the kingdom of Heaven to settle us in an everlasting bliss of love.
Father Stefano M Manelli FI,. Jesus Our Eucharistic Love: (2014)   

Eucharistic Miracles

Eucharistic miracles are God's extraordinary interventions, meant to confirm faith in the real presence of the body and blood of the Lord in the Eucharist. Based on Jesus's words according to which what seems like bread is no longer bread, and what seems wine is no longer wine. In fact, in the Eucharistic miracles the flesh and blood—or one or the other—appear, depending on the situation. The purpose of these miracles is to show that we must not look at the external appearance (bread and wine) but at the substance, to the true reality of the thing, which is flesh and blood.

Medieval theologians have carefully examined the matter of Eucharistic Miracles (which were very frequent in their day) and have given various interpretations; but the best founded and most reasonable one seems to be that of St. Thomas Aquinas, the “Eucharistic Doctor” par excellence (Summa Theolgica III, q. 76, a. 8).

He says that the body and blood which appear after a miracle are due to the transformation of the Eucharistic species, namely, of the accidents, and do not touch the true substance of the body and blood of Christ. In other words, the species of bread and wine are miraculously changed into the species of flesh and blood; but the true body and true blood of Jesus are not those which appear but those which, even before the miracle, were hidden beneath the species of flesh and blood.
Father Roberto Coggi, O.P., The Eucharistic Miracles of the World

Evangelization

I’m a cradle Catholic and a product of Catholic School (elementary, middle school, high school, even college). Every day of my academic life, time was spent learning about the teachings of the Church.

We learned about the saints, Sacraments, schisms, Scripure, shrines, sin, stigmata, synods, sacrilege and scapulars. We learned when to kneel, when to sit, when to genuflect, when to bow, when to strike our chest when to cross our lips and when to stand. We learned what to believe, how to behave, and where we belong. As I think back on those hours of learning what it means to be Catholic, I can’t remember ever talking about evangelization. I can’t even remember a single teacher ever just saying the word “evangelization”.  It was as if “evangelization” was a four-letter word.

Pope John Paul 2 believed in the importance of and the need for evangelization so much that he made it one of the main focuses of his pontificate. Why? Because when John Paul 2 took a look around, he saw that the world needed the transforming Word of God, and the Church should be stepping up her efforts to bring that Word into the world. Quite frankly, he was saying that our evangelization needed a swift kick in the butt.

There are things in life we can’t help but talk about. Things we can’t help but share with others. Our relationship with Christ should be one of those things. When we truly encounter Him, when we let Him take over our whole life, Jesus is incredibly contagious.

The Person who has been evangelized goes on to evangelize others…it is unthinkable that a person should accept the Word and give himself to  the kingdom without becoming a person who bears witness to it and proclaims it in his turn.” Pope Paul VI

What about you? Who’s stopping you? Who or what are the bad guys in your life? Fear? Pride? Doubt? IF you have a real relationship with Christ, you should be busting at the seams to tell the world about it. That seems like a good way to measure what most people claim is immeasurable faith. If your faith is strong enough, nothing should be able to stop you from sharing it.

You may not be an evangelism expert and you may not have gone to seminary, but you may well be the most qualified person to share Christ with the people in your world.” Steve Douglas
Michael Marchand The E Word 

Evil

“To be evil at all, Satan needs good things he can abuse, things like intelligence, power and will. Those good things come from God.”
― J. Budziszewski, How to Stay Christian in College

Faith

There is the marvel of Abraham’s faith. He believed God’s promise, even to the extent of “hoping against hope” (Rom 4:18) and considered that God was able to raise up Isaac even from the dead. That is faith. That is why Abraham truly is our father in faith. In fact, he teaches us the essence of faith, which is to believe God’s Word, to believe that God is faithful to his promises, to believe that God is faithful even if it seems impossible. Now, as our father in faith, Abraham is the complete opposite of our mother in doubt: Eve. After all, unlike Eve, Abraham refused to give in to the temptation to think that God is a liar, to think that God doesn’t keep his promises, to think that God is not good. May Abraham’s example of faith help us to overcome the effects of original sin caused by Eve’s doubt.
Michael E Gaitley,  33 Days to Merciful Love: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat in Preparation for Marian Consecration (2016) Marian Press. 

Hitler
Alas, the truth is often obscured by an atmosphere of prejudice and hate for Rome…[but] Catholics need have no doubts…. Rather, they have every reason to feel proud. Two reigning popes and three future popes in significant ways offered resistance to Hitler. The facts are well-attested. Wherever Nazism held sway, it found an unrelenting foe in the pope and the Catholic Church. [p. 258]
Peter Bartley, Catholics Confronting Hitler: The Catholic Church and the Nazis (2016). Ignatius Press

Forgiveness

Chrysostom had learned well the lessons of the cross, how Jesus had prayed for those who crucified him. In his sermon On the Cross and the Thief, St. John urged his hearers to imitate the Savior’s example by praying for their enemies. On the numerous occasions he returns to this theme with the hope that their hearts would expand with love. He juxtaposes two words which capture the essence of forgiveness. He calls all to “put away enmity and pusillanimity” because the former inevitably leads to the latter. What is the difference between people that are generous, open-minded, and giving (i.e. magnanimous) and those who are selfish, self-interested, and closed off from others (i.e. pusillanimous)? Enmity, hatred, and anger shrink the soul and close it off from the enormous love for humanity that flows from the heart of God.
Kenneth J. Howell  St. John Chrysostom: The Golden Voice of Love (September 18, 2014)

Galileo

History is always messy and complex because people are messy and complex, and the Galileo Affair particularly so. But we like our simple dichotomies and sound bites because it makes everything easier to understand, more satisfying and more under our control. While issues of science and religion do play their part, things could have ended far differently. The personalities of the major players were of major significance. If Galileo, with his vehement personality and confidence in his power of persuasion, had not gone to Rome to force the issue, it is very likely that there would have been no condemnation of Copernicus in 1616—which sets the stage for the trial of 1633.

We see the same over-confidence in his persuasive power (and in his friendship with Urban VIII) in his writing a book which he must have known was the not the book Urban VIII had allowed him to write. Urban VIII, with his extreme touchiness and need for control, was the not a man to play with. While Urban VIII had serious reasons for his negative response to the book (the skeptical attitude toward knowledge which I discuss in my book), one cannot ignore the profound sense of betrayal, of being used, that also animates him.
Paschal Scotti Revisiting and understanding the “Galileo Affair” (November 16, 2017) CWR Staff Features,

God

Like all human pilgrims, I came to the realization that God is forever beyond the grasp of our minds. Yet, this same God can be known and loved by hearts willing to fall down before the mystery of His presence and grace. I found that such a God is the end and purpose of life. Nothing less will do. Something greater, much greater, still awaits us in the Beatific Vision.
Kenneth J. Howell, Something Greater is Here (2015)   

Holiness

Christians indeed are called to be holy (1st Cor 1:2). God did not call us to impurity, but to holiness (1 Thess. 4:3, 7). But God in his mercy, knowing our weakness, is ready to forgive us as often as we come to Him in love and sorrow repenting our sins (1 John 1:8-10; 5:16-17). We must have a firm purpose of amending our lives. He has given us the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, in which sins are forgiven (James 5:13) in serious illnesses. He has also given us the Sacrament of Penance or Confession in which sins are forgiven (James 5:16; John 20:21-23).
Sin happens among Christians. Read Galatians and 1st and 2nd Corinthians. But God's mercy is infinite and the sinner may repent and be forgiven.
There is nothing sinful in drinking beer in moderation and partying. There are parties, and then there are parties. God blesses innocent recreations. Remember that Jesus drank wine and went to parties. He even supplied the wine on one occasion. (John 2:11).
Please read Luke 6:37 and Romans 14:4-12.
-Father Mateo   Father Mateo Archives

Homosexuality

The Church encourages individuals experiencing same-sex attraction to pursue the virtues of chastity, self-mastery, and friendship, instead of acting upon those inclinations, romantically or sexually—as is the current norm in much of secular society.
Dr. Daniel Guernsey Serving LGBT Students in Catholic Schools (April 28, 2016)

In accord with the natural moral law, the majority of men and women have a natural physical attraction to the opposite sex, and this attraction is meant to lead to an intimate permanent union of a man and a woman in marriage who look forward to children. We call this complementarity. There cannot be a true communion of bodies in homosexual-genital intercourse. Some years ago a mother who was part of a team conducting an engagement encounter retreat privately asked me about homosexual behavior: “How do they do it?” I described how they did it, and she just smiled at me as she said, “The parts don’t fit.”
Fr. John F. Harvey O.S.F.S., (2013) Homosexuality & the  Catholic Church: Clear Answers to Difficult Questions Ascension Press. 

So, the Catechism is saying to us that all sinful activity is disordered—not just homosexual tendencies—and because of that no human being can ever be considered slime, or “trash.”- Margie:

Inner Being

“One of his closest friends, Owen Barfield, once said of Lewis that “what he thought about everything was secretly present in what he said about anything.”  
― Michael Ward, The Narnia Code: C. S. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens (2010) Tyndale House Publishers

Islam

Even today, some Islamic ascetics forbid the use of music in religious acts. In fact, the music one hears in mosques does not go beyond the sound of tambourines, an instrument not conducive to the creation of great musical scores. The curious result was that, in Andalusia, the best “Arabic” music turns out to be mozarabic— that is, the music of Catholics under Muslim domination: Catholics could and did adapt “Muslim” sounds to a religious ritual—the Mass—which had no problems with using music for spiritual purposes and which as a result has produced impressiveorchestral and choral compositions.

The existence of a Muslim kingdom in Medieval Spain where different races and religions lived harmoniously in multicultural tolerance is one of today’s most widespread myths. University professors teach it. Journalists repeat it. Tourists visiting the Alhambra accept it. It has reached the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, which sings the virtues of the “pan-confessional humanism” of Andalusian Spain (July 18, 2003).So anyone who dislikes Western culture or Christianity—for any reason, be it religious, political, or cultural—goes on happily pointing out, regardless of the facts, how bad Catholic Spain was when compared to the Muslim paradise.
Dario Fernandez-Morera The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise (Fall 2006) Intercollegiate Review

Jesus and the Church

Pope John Paul II’s call to engage in “the new evangelization” is a commission to preach the message of the gospel in fresh ways, not just to those who have never heard it but to those who have become used to hearing it—such as church-going Catholics. I propose that the Holy Father is seeking to turn all Catholics into converts.

As the Pharisees failed to recognize God in Jesus Christ, a significant number of Catholics fail to recognize Jesus in the Church. Many have yet to apprehend what was so plain to Joan of Arc: "About Jesus Christ and the Church I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter" (Acts of the Trial of Joan of Arc; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 795). The union of Christ with his Bride is so profound that when Saul persecuted the Church, our Lord asked: "Why do you persecute me?" (Acts 9:4). To those who disregard the teachings of the Church today, might not Jesus ask: "Why do you disregard me?"
Mary Beth Kremski Making Converts of Cradle Catholics (2/1/2005) Catholic Answers

Jewish Catholics

Latin

Some, especially new Catholics, struggle with the use of Latin in the Sunday Mass, in particular, with the singing of the Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. As active participation is encouraged, some find it hard and a bit put off by the loss of understanding that comes with Latin.
Actually, the liturgy uses other languages besides Latin. For example, when the early Church sought to celebrate the Holy Mass in the language of the common people, i.e. Latin, she chose to leave some prayers in New Testament Greek. So even today, the Latin Mass retains the Kyrie in Greek, although it is permitted to use the vernacular, Lord have mercy. We get other prayers from Hebrew, such as the Alleluia, Hosanna and Amen.
So, why doesn’t the Church just translate these words into English, Spanish, Polish, or other vernacular languages when she translates the Mass?
Sense of mystery
We must make the Holy Mass our own—a truly personal prayer through which each one of us actively enters into dialogue with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet, as liturgy, the Mass is the public prayer of the whole Church, the one Bride in dialogue with her one Lord and Bridegroom. Using sacred languages manifests this universality. When we attend the Mass in Africa, Japan, Europe, or in South America we are entering into the universal prayer of love of the whole Church throughout the centuries, both past and future.
What better way to express the unified love of the Church for Christ than through these common words of love and praise? May we deepen our appreciation of the mystery of God’s love through our common language.
Fr. John Waiss Using Latin (Greek and Hebrew) at Holy Mass (January 13, 2017)

Last Things

Fr Wade Menezes  The Four Last Things: A Catechetical Guide to Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell (2017)

Last Things: Purgatoy

Purgatory (to say nothing of Hell), penance, expiation, God’s holy Justice: these just do not fit in with today’s cheerfully cheap religiosity. However, the truth remains that man has to be “sound and flawless before God the Father” when, after death, he appears before Him to render an account of his life. Only holy souls have direct access to the blissful abode where “nothing unclean shall enter.”3 Therefore, “every trace of attachment to evil must be eliminated, every imperfection of the soul corrected.”4 The place for this correction of the soul’s imperfections is Purgatory. This is not only a profound and holy mystery but also an appalling mystery, whose frightening aspects cannot be glossed over. But the reality should not terrify us. John Paul teaches us that penance and pain in Purgatory are mitigated by the comfort of mercy. In the final analysis, Purgatory is the mercy of Christ working through his Mystical Body, the Church.
Gerard J. M. Van Den Aardweg Hungry Souls: Supernatural Visits, Messages and Warnings from Purgatory (2010) TAN Books

Liturgy of the Hours

“The position and role of monastic and diocesan clergy evolved as the Church grew, and so did the liturgies they used. As cathedrals or monasteries were the anchors of society in the early Middle Ages, the bells that called priests and monks to prayer also drew in the laity from village and field. They would gather to listen as Lauds or Vespers were chanted. According to historians, the Divine Office was the daily liturgy most available during the week, for daily Mass, offered in public by parish priests, was not a universal custom at that time.”
― Daria Sockey, The Everyday Catholic's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours

Love

“Love is not concerned with a person’s accomplishments, it is a response to a person’s being: This is why a typical word of love is to say: I love you, because you are as you are.”
― Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Art of Living

Lust

Unbridled lust clouds the truth and can carry us into a den of lies where legions chant, “Indulge!” Satan is a liar who aims to seduce us into his lonely, dark place of perpetual rebellion and disobedience to God’s law of love. He is a thief who aims to rob us of our inheritance with God. He will never get over the incarnation of the Son of God that is his eternal undoing. Therefore the human being, body and soul, is his battlefield. What is God’s provision for us? The Sacraments! The sacramental life, an intentional spiritual life, affords necessary grace for spiritual battles. But, do we really want victory over sin? Hans Urs von Balthasar penned, “Sin is precisely this: I do not want what God wants.”
Kathleen Beckman, The Good Fight: Battles of the Flesh

Male/Female

Mothers and fathers bring unique and complementary gifts to their children. Contrary to the logic of same-sex marriage, the gender of parents matters for the healthy development of children. We know, for example, that the majority of incarcerated men did not have their fathers in the home. Fathers by their nature secure identity, instill direction, provide discipline, boundaries, and risk-taking adventures, and set lifelong examples for children. But fathers cannot nurture children in the womb or give birth to and breast-feed babies. Mothers nurture children in unique and beneficial ways that cannot be duplicated by fathers.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that men and women are anatomically, biologically, physiologically, psychologically, hormonally, and neurologically different from each other. These unique differences provide lifelong benefits to children that cannot be duplicated by same-gender “legal” parents acting out different gender roles or attempting to substitute for the missing male or female role model in the home.
Dawn Stefanowicz A Warning from Canada: Same-Sex Marriage Erodes Fundamental Rights (April 24, 2015)

Marriage

“ A marriage with Christ at the center of it pulls you right out of yourself. It teaches each partner, the husband and the wife, to forget about self for a while in care and sacrifice for the other. We come to ourselves by losing ourselves.”
― J. Budziszewski, How to Stay Christian in College

Friendship makes it worthwhile to give up the radical independence of being single. Only if the person you marry is your best-friend will you be truly happy for the rest of your life in your marriage. This is really the most important–if not only–thing you need to think about when you are looking for “The One.”
Gregory Bottaro, Psy.D.The One Most Important Quality to Look for in a Spouse (April 19, 2015) CatholicMatch.com

Man is a social being. Though parts of his life take place in private, in the normal course of things even those private aspects have public manifestations. Indeed, public social life is organized in such a way as to ensure privacy for certain things. We learn what should be private from the public way in which certain privacies are protected. So by private we do not mean things that are nobody else’s business. The private, in this sense, is everybody’s business. For example, certainly the sexual intimacy between a husband and wife is held to be private and inviolate. But what are the public manifestations of this privacy? Obviously, wedding rings, children, private property, homes, schools, communities—the whole structure and fabric of society, in fact, is built to protect and maintain the conditions for that intimacy and its results. The whole social and political order is supportive of this privacy. It is encouraged and protected by law because it is held to be of benefit to all.
Robert Reilly, Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything (2015)  Ignatius Press

Martyr

Life is a journey. As part of God’s plan, every person appears at a certain time, in a certain place in the history of mankind, and then leaves, at a different time and usually from a different place.

The history of the Church is the history of holiness. By virtue of our Baptism, we all (bishops, priests, and deacons; religious; and the lay faithful) are called to be holy witnesses to Christ in all circumstances.

In every age, those who follow Christ have suffered rejection.  The first 300 years of the Church’s public ministry saw many Christians die for Christ during persecutions first at the hands of the Jewish authorities and then under the Roman emperors. Persecution and martyrdom of the Christian faithful, however, is not a phenomenon relegated to the dusty annals of history; Christians have died for their faith in every century and on every continent. During World War II, for example, millions of Christians were killed by Communist and Nazi leaders for witnessing to Christ. Many more people died as martyrs in the twentieth century than in the early Church. Although most of us probably will not be required to shed blood for Christ in this manner, he expects all of us to strive to become saints in our ordinary lives. The universal call to holiness demands nothing less than to live always with the ultimate goal of Heaven in our hearts.
James Socias, Introduction to Catholicism for Adults (2017) Midwest Theological Forum 

Mass

Each Mass offers a feast of God’s Word not only in the readings but in the prayers and acclamations which are often direct quotes or paraphrases from Scripture. The Word of God in the liturgy is like a double-edged sword (see Hebrews 4:12) that penetrates deep, challenging us, healing our wounds, enlightening our minds, directing our steps. It stimulates the eyes of faith to recognize the Body and Blood of Christ under the humble signs of bread and wine. The Eucharist is indeed the most substantial food he offers us. We are called to be the Body of Christ. Why did he give us his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity under the forms of bread and wine? Because you are what you eat.
Marcellino D'Ambrosio, 40 Days, 40 Ways: A New Look at Lent (2014)  

Mass Participation

Boredom at Mass is not something that should be eliminated. The moment in which we find ourselves bored while listening to the readings and the homily, bored while hearing the same Eucharistic Prayer offered once again, and bored while singing this same hymn we chant every Advent, is also the moment in which we are invited to participate more fully in the love of God poured out in Christ.

To let our minds be distracted by the way that incense fractures the colored light, revealing the beauty of a beautiful God, or to let our imaginations wander during the homily, may be less a matter of frittering away the time and more a moment in which God’s voice speaks in the stillness of our hearts. To lose our attention during the praying of the Eucharistic Prayer and find ourselves fascinated by the crucifix is not something that should be stopped but is instead our own particular way of participating in the mass this day. For Catholics, fruitful participation in the Mass requires this ability to let the mind wander and wonder alike.

Our rejection of the state of boredom, therefore, makes it quite possible that full, conscious, and active participation in the Mass is actually made more difficult; for it is saving boredom that gives rise to wondrous contemplation of the Eucharistic love of Christ
Timothy P O’Malley Bored Again Catholic: How the Mass Could Save Your Life (2017)

Middle Ages

Aside from these urgent tasks necessitated by the changed social conditions of the Middle Ages, we should not forget the most central goal of the Church, “that in everything God may be glorified” (1 Pt 4: 11)— the regular work of prayer, contemplation, and worship that must go on in any and all historical conditions. While rarely registering on the radar of historians, this work was clearly at the very heart of medieval Christianity, as all of the sources bear witness. The tireless and unceasing prayer of Christians in chapels and shrines, the journeys of pilgrims, the chanting of the Divine Office in the monasteries, the solemn meditation of contemplatives and hermits, and the daily Eucharistic sacrifice formed and crowned it all. The fervency and sincerity of medieval piety is proven by the great monastic movements that flourished in this period (the Benedictine, Franciscan, and Dominican orders, for example), the soaring architectural achievement of medieval cathedrals, and the unparalleled intellectual accomplishments of the medieval scholars such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Anselm. The cultivation of knowledge and love of God was not just an extraneous hobby of the medieval world: it was its beating heart.
Jamie Blosser, Positively Medieval: The Surprising, Dynamic, Heroic Church of the Middle Ages (2016)  Our Sunday Visitor

It was in “Dark Age” Europe that the university system, a gift of Western civilization to the world, was developed by the Catholic Church. Historians have marveled at the extent to which intellectual debate in those universities was free and unfettered. The exaltation of human reason and its capabilities, a commitment to rigorous and rational debate, a promotion of intellectual inquiry and scholarly exchange— all sponsored by the Church— provided the framework for the Scientific Revolution, which was unique to Western civilization.

Thomas E Woods Jr.,  How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (2005)   Regnery History

Miracles

Consider a scenario where miracles are as common as rain. In such a scenario, it would be difficult (though not impossible) to distinguish between the supernatural and the natural, since we can only know the supernatural by contrast with the natural.

So, one may conclude that God doesn’t will a more overwhelming presence of miracles to stop physical evil for the sake of not obscuring the distinction between the natural and supernatural orders of reality.

If God never allowed the choices of man to have bad effects, there would be no real value in man’s ability to do good or evil.  In this case the alternative of a bad choice would never be a real alternative. Why give humans the capacity to choose evil if there would never be any real effects from that choice?
Karlo Broussard   Why Wouldn’t God Perform More Miracles? Strange Notions

Monks

“(Catholic) monks taught metallurgy, introduced new crops, copied ancient texts, preserved literacy, pioneered in technology, invented champagne, improved the European landscape, provided for wanderers of every stripe, and looked after the lost and shipwrecked.”
― Thomas E. Woods Jr.

Myth

“Since God is the Father of lights, even the dim and guttering lights of paganism could be ascribed ultimately to Him. Christians should feel no obligation to quench the smouldering flax burning in pagan myths: on the contrary, they should do their best to fan it into flame.”
― Michael Ward, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis (2008)  Oxford University Press

“Myth is necessary because reality is so much larger than rationality.”
― Rolland Hein

I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into? Sam muses to his master Frodo in J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord of th Rings, as they near the completion of their courageous epic journey. As they talk, they are aware that their actions are a part of a story being written on the high level of myth, and they wonder if their story will be an heroic one. So it is with people. In an inmost region of our beings we sense that our lives are part of a great story forming, with the quality of our actions determining the level upon which the finished story will exist. When the story is complete, we will be “home” in the eternally Real. “The real world is beyond time,” Northrop Frye wrote, “but can be reached only by a process that goes on in time.” Such perceptions come to us through myth. Myth is something people desperately need, cannot, on fact, live without. No other demand so profoundly defines our humanity. When true myths are absent, false ones rush in to fill the vacuum. Discursive statements, important as they are, will not satisfy the human spirit; mere intellectualization starves it. The imagination in its highest reaches must have myth; it is a bridge that spans the gap between man and the eternal.
Rolland Hein, Clyde S. Kilby Christian Mythmakers: (January 8, 2014)
C.S. Lewis,
Madeleine L'Engle,
 J.R.R. Tolkien,
George MacDonald,
G.K. Chesterton,
Charles Williams,
Dante Alighieri,
John Bunyan,
Walter Wangerin,
Robert Siegel,
Hannah Hurnard 

Natural Law

Natural law is the idea that the world is ordered in a certain way, morally and physically, and that we can draw practical conclusions about how to live based upon what we learn about this order. Natural law means that there are objective moral truths built right into the fabric of the natural world. It means that things work in a particular way because they have been designed with a specific purpose. It means that there are better and worse ways for human beings, individually and collectively, to live.
John Lawrence Hill The History, Enemies, and Importance of Natural Law (May 10, 2016), Catholic World Report

Other Religions

We cannot truly pray to God the Father of all if we treat any people in other then brotherly fashion, for all men are created in God’s image. Man’s relation to God the Father and man’s relation to his fellow-men are so dependent on each other that the Scripture says “he who does not love, does not know God” (1 Jn. 4:8)
Jacques Jomier The Bible and the Qur'an (2002)

For the religious man or woman on the streets of Chicago, Rome, Jerusalem, Damascus, Calcutta, and Bangkok, the words of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Krishna, and Buddha mean something far greater than any individual’s rendering of them. And even to the less-than-devout reader, the words of these great religious leaders are clearly not equal in their meaning.”
― Robert Spencer

Papacy

The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour.

The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty million; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty million.

Thomas J. Nash, What Did Jesus Do?: The Biblical Roots of the Catholic Church (2017 )  Incarnate Word Media

Priests must baptize, say Mass, and consecrate marriages without interference from the state. A fear of state power structured Church thought: the Caesars had killed Peter and Paul, and Jesus.  The pope therefore did not have one role, but two. He had to render to God what was God’s, and keep Caesar at bay. Every pope was in part a politician; some led armies.

For the tectonic pull of opposing tensions, of spiritual and temporal imperatives, opened a fissure in the foundations of the Church that could not be closed. Ideally, a pope’s spiritual function ought not clash with his political one. But if and when it did, which should take precedence? That was always a difficult question—but never more difficult than during the bloodiest years in history, when Pius the Twelfth would have to choose his answer.

― Mark Riebling, Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler (2015)

Peace

While we are working for peace, we must keep in mind that there are real enemies, both human and demonic, that oppose this work. The weak and innocent will always need to be defended. And it is the duty of the nation-state and those entrusted with the care of the common good to ensure that provisions are made for the common defense.

Peace should never to be reduced to just a slogan, but, rather, should be both the means and the end by which we sustain and strengthen our relationship with God and all others in God. We seek his gift and commit ourselves to his cause—the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.
Msgr. Stuart Swetland A Primer on Peace, (March 01, 2007)

Pelvic Issues

The reason God hates sin is that it damages and even destroys the thing he loves the most: his children. Aquinas wrote, “For we do not offend God except by doing something contrary to our own good” (Summa Contra Gentiles III, 122.2).  Jesus can say to the woman caught in adultery “Do not sin again” (John 8:11) only because sin is foreign to her nature, to her identity, to her being—and grace makes possible the avoidance of sin and the growth in virtue in the highest sense: to holiness of life. 

The teaching of Christ about adultery and divorce, therefore, includes a number of other unchaste actions: masturbation, fornication, contraception—and homosexual activity. Unchastity of any kind opposes two virtues: temperance, which regulates sense pleasure according to right reason; and, equally important, the virtue of justice, which regulates relationships. In a word, to be unchaste is to be selfish in some degree, whereas chastity advances the self-giving that fulfills our nature.

Jesus’ new commandment of love expresses the fact that, like the one in whose image we are created, we are made to give ourselves in a chaste manner: “Love one another; even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Self-giving after the heart of Christ disposes the heart for the joy of Christ.
Fr. Paul Check True Compassion for the Sexual Sinner  (July 01, 2013)

Simply put, sex matters. The powerful mating instinct built into the human species, with its enormous potential for both pleasure and pain, consumes an extraordinary amount of our time and energy as we attempt to figure out how to satisfy it and domesticate it, with whom and when, so as to maximize pleasure and minimize pain to ourselves and others. The mating instinct can be harnessed to build families, contribute to a stable and nurturing society generally, and promote happiness; but it can also destroy these social goods. Consequently, much is at stake on nearly any issue involving sexual ethics.
Robert A. J Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice(2010)    Abingdon Press

Even the love that man and woman show by becoming one flesh expresses the great dignity of man and woman as the image and likeness of God. Love—the union of spirits—is truly divine and its physical expression is something sacred.
John R. Waiss, Born to Love: Gay-Lesbian Identity, Relationships, and Marriage  (2011)  Outskirts Press

Praising God

“There was certainly a time when I wondered why we were supposed to praise God so much. Was the Lord eternally fishing for compliments, like a once-beautiful woman now past her prime? So egotistical that he needed us telling him how wonderful he was every single day? Would he be offended if we didn’t remember to commend him for his goodness on a regular basis? I knew that God couldn’t really be like that, but figured this was one of those mysteries, like the Trinity, that we would only understand completely in heaven. Fortunately, it’s not so great a mystery that we can’t understand it pretty well right now. Simply put, God does not demand our praise because he needs it, but because we need it. It is for our benefit, not his. If the whole world neglected to ever utter a single word of praise to God, he would not be hurt or diminished in any way. But we, the non-praisers, would be sadly crippled. Praise — call it admiration or appreciation — is the most natural response in the world to beauty, truth, and goodness. You are not in the least worried about offending a beautiful sunset by not praising it. On the contrary, you just can’t help it. Your heart leaps, and words such as, “Wow! That’s incredible!” come to your lips.”
― Daria Sockey, The Everyday Catholic's Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours

Pslams

The psalms are poetry. A particular type of poetry that remains poetry no matter what language it is translated into, and even remains poetry despite the worst  modern translations. Here's why:

1. The Psalms speak to every condition of the human heart: joy , anger, despair, mourning, exaltation, confusion, hope, love. And all these in relation to God and to ourselves.
2. The Psalms rely on a poetic device that works no matter what the translation. It's called parallelism. That means (in extremely non-scholarly terms) that the poem says something, and then says it again in a different way for emphasis. Here's a few random examples from the psalter, with letters a.&b. added to make the parallelism clear.
Daria Sockey The Psalms as Poetry Coffee and Canticles: Ordinary Catholics Loving the Liturgy of the Hours

Pope Francis

I’d call myself a “Catholic atheist,” if that makes any sense to you. I lack the belief piece, but one of my favorite quotes is by Oriana Fallaci - “The atheist should behave as if God exists.” So, I go to Mass, and recently, in the Vatican, after meeting Pope Francis, I even went to Confession in the Jesuit Curia - my soul was rocked to its core.
Gerald Korson SPECIAL TO CRUX (Jun 16, 2016

Popular Culture

Religious mysticism radiates through the popular culture. And as mysticism is a more universal and exciting form of religious expression than dogma, it’s also where the American people are increasingly getting their spiritual nourishment.
They don’t need to know St. Thomas Aquinas or Hans Urs von Balthasar to understand the awesome beauty of God and the splendor of creation—they just have to see the film Gravity. They don’t need Billy Graham to tell them that love is stronger than death—they just have to turn on the radio or listen to the Beatles. They don’t need a National Review subscription to tell them that liberals and central planners are often resentful people with emotional problems who are simply out for control—they just saw The Dark Knight Rises. The popular culture is exploding with art, creativity, and mysticism. And in response conservatives get an occasional Star Trek joke from Jonah Goldberg.

We need filmmakers, cartoonists, dreamers, and novelists. We don’t need more think tanks. We need romantics and God-seeking artists. Ten years ago this February, Mel Gibson releasedThe Passion of the Christ. Rather than a ham-fisted and hectoring right-wing lecture, it was, particularly in the early scenes, a work of gorgeous mysticism. In the decade since, conservatives have done little to follow up. There have been some bright spots, perhaps, pointing to the power such projects can have.
Mark Judge Pop Culture Mysticism (Feb 2, 2014)

Rosary

Tradition links the rosary to St. Dominic (1170-1221), who is said to have received it from the Virgin Mary to combat the Albigensian heresy. This legend seems to be derived from the writings of Alan de la Roche (1428-1475), that indefatigable Dominican preacher of the rosary. Modern critical scholarship from Dominicans and others reveals a far more complicated history, though one having nothing to do with Hindus and Muslims.

Medieval monks had a practice of daily praying the 150 psalms. Since lay brothers of the orders were illiterate and couldn't read the psalms, among them arose the practice of reciting the Our Father 150 times. Beads were used to keep track of the prayers. (The word "bede" in Middle English, from which we derive the word "bead," originally meant "prayer.") This practice spread among the laity, and other easily-remembered prayers were added. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the rosary settled into its present form. It now consists of the Apostles' Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Gloria.
T. L. Frazier THE ROSARY DISSECTED (September, 1994)    "This Rock," Catholic Answers

The Rosary is not merely a series of prayers to be recited; it is a series of thoughts to be dwelt on, to be turned over in the mind, to be applied in daily life. To say the Rosary well demands that it show results, that those who have prayed their beads get up from their knees and live different lives.
Fr. Patrick Peyton, Fr. Peyton's Rosary Prayer Book (2012)  Ignatius Press

Sainthood (achieving)

The comforting, and disturbing, truth is that we have everything St. Faustina had in order for us to become saints too. God offers the grace to do just that. We have “only” to take Him up on His offer and use His freely given gift. You and I can become a saint. And there’s a bonus! In the same way, we can avoid purgatory too. There’s no magical formula, but there is a mystical one: we can seek the grace of conversion through prayer — and, through prayer, we can better and better live that grace. But as we all know, prayer can be far from easy. It demands time and effort. And a deeper conversion, a stronger conversion, often means more time. More effort. It calls for an increasing surrender to God and an abandonment of selfishness, which is the core of sin and an impediment to prayer. “Impossible!” you might say. But apparently not. Others have done it. The Church has a whole canon — a list — of those she has declared saints, and there are countless other souls in heaven whose names we don’t know and won’t know until we join them there.
Susan Tassone, St. Faustina Prayer Book for the Conversion of Sinners (2017)    Our Sunday Visitor

Saint Josephs

Joseph has arranged this birth in Bethlehem, the City of David (since he is of the House of David), and it is through Joseph that Jesus is legally a son of David. Here on Christmas in Bethlehem (which is Hebrew for "house of bread"), the Bread of Life lies personified and incarnate. His parents place him in a manger, which is, precisely, a food trough. Joseph will defend and protect this living Bread of Heaven for the life of the world.
Richard Gilsdorf Go to Joseph (Sep 5, 2009)


Finally, St. Joseph died, was buried, and for a century, this puzzling man who didn’t fit in anywhere was forgotten.  Then, in 1753, he was beatified.  A decade later he was canonized.  And the world was given a saint who was truly a bafflement.  No rockstar saint like a Maximilian Kolbe or an Augustine.  No intellectual giant like a Thomas Aquinas or Theresa of Avila.  In Joseph of Cupertino, we’re given a deeply distressing example of someone who was scored by the secular world for having no obvious use, and equally scorned by the religious world for the same reason.  He wasn’t smart.  He wasn’t articulate.  He had a horrible temper and demonstrated frightening supernatural abilities.
What do we do with a saint like Joseph?  For me, you call him brother, because he is a saint who looks familiar.  He is a saint who is perhaps familiar to lots of us.  Unable to fit into the secular world, enduring its mockery, we at the same time lack the obvious qualities admired by the religious world.  We don’t seem to be a useful fit anywhere.  We are weird and odd and outsiders everywhere.
But, if we can keep our hearts fixed on the sublime hand of God in all things, like Joseph did, maybe we can fly our weird selves into the heart of Christ, which is big enough to hold us all, oddballs included.
Cari Donaldson St. Joseph of Cupertino: A Saint Who Didn’t Fit In  (September 18, 2019)

Saint Therese

About the time the temptations to leave the seminary were the worst, I started reading Story of a Soul, the spiritual autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. It changed my life, because Thérèse’s spiritual doctrine (called “the Little Way”) gave me hope that even someone like me could become a saint. The only problem was that I also ran into a lot of “thieves of hope” after reading it. That’s the name I gave to the people I’d meet who would present Thérèse’s teaching not as “the Little Way” for souls like me but as “the big way” for spiritual elites. For example, they’d say things like, “That little Thérèse isn’t so little. She’s actually quite big!” And then they’d go on to describe how heroic she was in her sacrifices, sufferings, virtues, and desires. Hearing such things, I’d think to myself, “Maybe the Little Way is too big for me,” and I’d get depressed. But then I’d go back to Thérèse’s writings and find hope again … and then I’d listen to the thieves of hope again. So, my spiritual life became something of a roller coaster — high with hope one minute and down with discouragement the next. Alright, so when it came time for me to write my licentiate thesis (a big research paper for a degree in theology that most people have never heard of), I decided to take it as an opportunity to get off the roller coaster.

In other words, I diligently searched through nearly all of St. Thérèse’s writings in order to discover once and for all whether or not the Little Way really could give hope of becoming a saint even to someone like me. So what did I find? I found hope. Great hope. I discovered hidden treasures in Thérèse’s teaching that made me say over and over, “Why haven’t I heard this before?!” I read things that totally demolished the arguments of the thieves of hope, and those discoveries completely changed my life. To use Thérèse’s own words, her teaching set me “full sail upon the waves of confidence and love.”1 With this book, I now want to share those amazing treasures that gave me hope in the seminary and inspire me still. But before we begin, let me first connect the various dots that have come up as I’ve introduced you to my three friends.
Michael E Gaitley,  33 Days to Merciful Love: A Do-It-Yourself Retreat in Preparation for Marian Consecration (2016) Marian Press. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas

He's insightful, he's incisive, he's comprehensive, he's systematic, he's biblical, he's devout, and he's successful. By successful, I mean, first, how many other books are still being read 700 years later? Second, he single-handedly withstood the onslaught of intellectual Islam in the thirteenth century. He reversed the course of history.
Norman L. Geisler on Thomas Aquinas

SOCIAL JUSTICE   

Father Andrew Apostoli What To Do When Jesus Is Hungry: A Practical Guide To The Works Of Mercy (2011)

Jesús García Slaves in Paradise: A Priest Stands Up for Exploited Sugarcane Workers (2017)

Streetwalking with Jesus (2011) John Green and Francis Cardinal George

Matthew Kelly (Editor),Beautiful Mercy (2016)

Mark Shea The Work of Mercy: Being the Hands and Heart of Christ (2011)

Brandon Vogt Saints and Social Justice: A Guide to Changing the World (2014)

 “There is no greater joy nor greater reward than to make a fundamental difference in someone's life.”
― Mary Rose McGeady

For years, runaway children have been forced into abuse, slavery, and homelessness as a consequence of their decision. Father Bruce Ritter, is an ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church as a member of the Franciscan Order in Rome as of 1965. He fed them, gave them a bed, talked to them and understood them. He tells their stories with great detail and realism. By telling the stories of America's exploited street children, Bruce Ritter exposes this issue in hopes that we all take action before it is too late......for the children.
Bruce Ritter Sometimes God Has A Kid's Face (1988)

Kerry Weber Mercy in the City: How to Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Visit the Imprisoned, and Keep Your Day Job (2014)

Salvation Outside the Church

Because the Catholic Church distinguishes between full and partial communion, non-Catholics are not automatically “outside the Church”. Thus, the fearsome statement that “outside the Church there is no salvation” does not simply apply across the board to all non-Catholics. Salvation is not limited to members of the Catholic Church, nor even to those in communion with her, because God is not limited in his abilities to reach people, even when they lie outside his normative means.  Thus, the authors, along with the Catholic Church, embrace our Evangelical professors, mentors, students, colleagues, and friends “as brothers, with respect and affection. For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect. . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ’s body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.”
Douglas Beaumont Evangelical Exodus: Evangelical Seminarians and Their Paths to Rome (2016). Ignatius Press

Spiritual Life

 “Always keep in mind that the spiritual life is a journey of a thousand steps. For people of goodwill, at every point in the process, no matter how holy or unholy we think we are or were, we will always find potential areas of improvement and progress. The key is to remember to be patient and take the process one step at a time.”
 

“The seeker must make a life-time commitment to fight their way to God. They must commit to rising every time they fall, taking full responsibility for their spiritual life and growth, and never letting go of the idea that God is always ready to receive and strengthen us when we turn to Him; even when our falls are severe.”
 

“Only in a state of quiet reflection can we begin to really hear the voice of God and evaluate our lives in a meaningful way.”
Dan Burke and Fr. John Bartunek Navigating the Interior Life: Spiritual Direction and the Journey to God (2012)

Ten Commandments

From Adams first breath, God asked of us only that we love Him and one another. As children who have no experience with the world need detailed instructions that would be inappropriate when they have grown up, God prepared the Israelites by giving them in Torah detailed instructions that would focus their attention on Him, and on getting along with one another; to prepare them for the Messiahs arrival. Behold the Ten Commandments, which alone were written with the finger of God (Ex 31:18):
I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me;

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain;

Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy; the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God;

Honor your father and your mother;

You shall not kill;

You shall not commit adultery,

You shall not steal;

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor;

You shall not covet your neighbors wife;

You shall not covet your neighbors property (Ex 20; Dt 5).
The first three commandments three as in the Blessed Trinity lead us toward love of God. The remaining seven commandments seven as in the days of Creation lead us toward love and respect for one another.

Martin K. Barrack, Our Jewish Heritage, Catholic Education Resource Center

THEOLOGY and some Philosophy 

“The great mystery of our metaphysical situation, that God is nearer to us than we are ourselves, is manifest in the fact that we cannot even be wholly ourselves—in the sense of individuality as a unique divine thought—until we are reborn in Christ.”
― Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ: On the Christian Attitude

"Wonder does not make one industrious, for to feel astonished is to be disturbed."
— Josef Pieper (Leisure: The Basis of Culture)

This is serious business. Nineveh repented, prayed and was spared. Sodom and Gomorrah did not and were destroyed. Those options could be ours.

If we look at all this in merely human terms, our cause is hopeless. But we don't depend on our own strength. And we don't know everything. Don't be discouraged when bad things happen. "God permits everything," said St. Maximilian Kolbe, "in view of a greater blessing."[25] Trust God. Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J., who spent 23 years in Soviet prisons, said what God wants, especially in times of adversity or danger, is "an act of total trust," demanding "absolute faith: faith in God's existence, in his providence, in his concern for the minutest detail, in his power to sustain me, and in his love protecting me."[26]

Trust God. And pray, especially, to Mary, his Mother and ours. At Lepanto in 1571, the odds against the Christian fleet were so great that Las Vegas would have taken that bet off the board. But they prayed the Rosary and Mary gave the victory. She can take care of our problems today. This really is a great time for us to be here. We know we are on the winning side. God is not dead. He isn't even tired.
 Dr. Charles E. Rice "God is not dead. He isn't even tired." (May 17, 2010)|
Christendom College Commencement Address |, Professor Emeritus, Notre Dame Law School   

“Not only are people created in the image of God, but all people are spiritually equal before God. More than anything else, this idea separated Judaism, which was a national or ethnic religion, from Christianity. Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and free, Romans and barbarians, all were welcome in the church as equals.”
― Glenn S. Sunshine, Why You Think the Way You Do: The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home

Mary Ann Glendon  kindle The Forum and the Tower: How Scholars and Politicians Have Imagined the World, from Plato to Eleanor Roosevelt”. (2011)
Mary Ann Glendon  President Bush Nominates Pro-Life Law Professor as Vatican Ambassador

Time

Beyond the secular sense of the New Year, the Christian acknowledges the gift of time. A new year is a gift; a doorway to a future unknown but full of possibilities. It’s a time when we more readily embrace the mystery of the next twelve months. It’s an invitation to reflect, let go, declutter, focus, and renew. A new chapter begins. Even if the past year was a fantastic one, something greater beckons us onward. Such is life, we can’t go back. Each precious moment is unrepeatable; we can’t hold onto it. If the past year was tragic, the new year invites us to surrender it unto God’s healing mercy. We look to a new day.
God, who is outside of time, enters our time to lead us forward. It is not futile to create sincere New Year’s resolutions. It’s not a matter of failure or success. It’s a matter of hope; of acknowledging that some change for the better is called for.
Kathleen Beckman Lessons in Marian Silence, Serenity, Surrender (1/9/18)

Time Management

“Time management doesn’t mean being hyper-organized so that you can cram everything into your life with no space between commitments, ultimately sacrificing sleep to get it all done. That is just being a slave to the hamster wheel. Time management means learning how to say no to some people and some opportunities so that you can say yes to God, to your loved ones and friends, and to yourself. Only you can make those choices, but if you can work toward incorporating rhythms that allow you to stop and breathe and make clear-headed decisions (rather than just going along with your circumstances), you will live intentionally by making conscious, self-aware choices. The more you can order your life toward rhythm and not routine, the more you will feel that your lifestyle brings you peace and happiness.”
― James L. Papandrea, Spiritual Blueprint

Trinity

Heresy is a term that we don’t hear as much as we used to. That is probably for very good reasons: it is a harsh, arrogant-sounding word when hurled at others, and often isn’t helpful in working toward Jesus’ hope that his divided followers “may all be one” (John 17:21). Nevertheless, heresy is what sincere Christians, quite properly and prudently, are keen to avoid. It comes from the Greek word hairesis, which means “choice,” “opinion,” or “decision.” In the early Church, a heretic was someone who willfully chose to promote his or her own opinions (“heresies”) over and against the established teachings of mainstream Christianity. The opposite of heresy was orthodoxy, which is a combination of ortho-, “correct” or “straight,” and -doxa, “belief” or “praise” (in much the same way that orthodontics has to do with correcting or straightening teeth). Correct belief holds a central place in Christianity. It is far from being the only important thing, of course (see Jas 2:19). But Jesus felt it was significant enough to devote much of his own ministry to the subject.

The great majority of Christians do not want to be heretics, whether wittingly or unwittingly. They hope to be orthodox. They desire to believe correct doctrine—which is to say, they want to believe true things about God. And that is why they often go silent when the Trinity comes up. They don’t feel confident that what they believe, or what they think they believe, about the Trinity is fully orthodox. And feeling as they do, they certainly don’t want to lead anyone else astray on the topic either. “For you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes” (Jas 3:1–2).
Stephen Bullivant, The Trinity: How Not to Be a Heretic (2015)

God is a unity … of three.  True God … and true man.  We say these statements so often, it’s hard sometimes to realize just how outrageous, how logically self-contradictory, they seem to be on their surface.
The wisdom of the wise is foolishness.  The greatest one is the one who serves.  Blessed are those who mourn.  We hold a certain belief in things unseen.  Paradox — or, if you wish, apparent paradox — is everywhere in our faith.
How does paradox, then, work its way out in our spiritual lives?  How do our lives reflect God’s paradoxical (or, again, apparently-paradoxical) nature?  How do we daily live out the paradox of God?
Eric Pavlat, The God of Paradox (Oct 28, 2010) Crisis

Tolkien

That being said, I don’t need explicitly Christian comics. I don’t need more gritty realism, either. I need something that will console me, inspire me, and surprise me. In short, I need fairy-stories.

Tolkien knew a few bad eggs in his career. But he chose to write about heroes. And while the characters in Tolkien always had their darkness, they directed their will toward what was good. Gandalf, Aragorn, and Galadriel all knew that they could fall under the One Ring’s sway, but they all refused it, knowing their weakness. How popular would The Lord of the Rings be if Gimli had made repeated advances toward Eowyn, if Aragorn had plotted for years to win the throne from Denethor through Faramir’s aid, or if Sam had schemed to wrest the One Ring from Frodo?

But that mindset frames how a lot of comics are being written today. Tolkien had more fundamental things to write about than whether his characters were acting precisely like the people he knew: He wrote about the people he wanted to know. His characters weren’t pure and perfect, but they were heroes.

True escapism won’t work unless there’s a destination one wants to escape to — that place Tolkien simply calls "Faërie" and comics fans label "the Silver Age."
Eric Pavlat Tolkien and the Silver Age of Comics (March 21, 2008) Crisis
Vatican Councils

Violence

“The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence humans have ever committed.”
― Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads

Why Catholic?

Sometimes it’s more an accusation than a question. If the person asks, “Why did you become a Catholic?” with the emphasis on Catholic, he has a problem with the Church. If the emphasis is on you, he’s usually an intellectual elitist who believes that no educated person would become (or remain) Catholic. If the emphasis is on become, the questioner finds it possible that a person raised in the Church would remain in it, but inconceivable that someone with my background would choose to become Catholic.
I love to challenge such prejudices, because I too once held them.
Monsignor Stuart Swetland A Twentieth-Century Centurion Swears Allegiance to Christ (January 18, 2011)

Words

We try to be very thoughtful about the words we choose, because we want to be thoughtful about how they’ll be heard. One of the great points of St. Thomas Aquinas’s pedagogy is that “Things are received in the mode of the receiver.” So [human beings] have experiences and perceptions that color or filter or influence the way we hear things.
Father Paul Check Approaching Homosexuality With ‘True Compassion,’ Not ‘Sentimentality (May. 29, 2015)

Zeal

Ignatius often ended his letters to Jesuits going to the missions with the expression ite, inflammate omnia—“go, set the world on fire.” What did he mean by that? Maybe it was just a rah-rah expression, the kind of thing a football coach says when he tells the team to go out on the field and “kick butt.”
He wanted everyone to be set afire with passion and zeal for the Kingdom of God.
That’s the kind of fire that’s worth spreading.
Jim Manney Go Set the World on Fire Jim Manney Reflections