Wednesday, September 30, 2015

QUOTATION: Martyrdom

George Weigel
Thus the prototype of the Christian witness is the martyr. Indeed, the original Greek word simply meant "witness".  Its usage was not confined to those who had died for the faith; rather, all who had suffered persecution "for the sake of the Name" (Acts 5:41) were witnesses, "martyrs". And their witness was not simply to their own convictions, powerful as they were, but to the demands of living in the truth as these witnesses had been grasped by that truth in the person of the Risen Christ.

--George Weigel, "The Sovereignty of Christ and the Public Church", in Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace, 2008

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

QUOTATION: Marriage

Pope Leo XIII
When the Christian religion is rejected and repudiated, marriage sinks of necessity into the slavery of man's vicious nature and vile passions, and finds but little protection in the help of natural goodness.

--Pope Leo XIII,  Arcanum

Monday, September 28, 2015

QUOTATION: If God Seems Dead...

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
If God appears dead in our nuclear age it is because Christians and arid people have isolated Christ from His Cross.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Sunday, September 27, 2015

QUOTATION: Boys Don't Cry?

St. Josemaria Escriva
You are crying? Don't be ashamed of it. Yes, cry: men also cry like you, when they are alone and before God. Each night, says King David, I soak my bed with tears. With those tears, those burning, manly tears, you can purify your past and supernaturalize your present life.

--St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, 216
  

Saturday, September 26, 2015

QUOTATION: Transcendence is the Answer

Pope Francis
The key is to understand the cross as the seed of resurrection. Any attempt to cope with pain will bring partial results, if it is not based in transcendence.

--Pope Francis, Pope Francis: His Life in His Own Words

Friday, September 25, 2015

QUOTATION: Erasing Venial Sins

St. Peter Julian Eymard
It is not necessary to confess every time you have committed a venial sin. He has placed in your hands the sacramentals, the Confiteor, the Pater, and above all holy water. Any one of these with an act of regret, purifies you.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

Thursday, September 24, 2015

QUOTATION: How to Bear the Cross

St. Faustina Kowalska
I do not ask, Lord, that You take me down from the Cross, but I implore You to give me the strength to remain steadfast upon it.

--St. Faustina Kowalska

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

QUOTATION: Think of What God Has Done for You

St. Francis de Sales
Assuredly, nothing so tends to humble us before the compassion of God as the multitude of His gifts to us; just as nothing so tends to humble us before His justice as the multitude of our misdeeds. Let us consider what He has done for us, and what we have done contrary to His will, and as we review our sins in detail, so let us review His grace in the same.

--St. Francis de Sales

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

QUOTATION: Healing & Faith

St. Andre Bessette
Those who are healed quickly are those who have no faith, or  have little faith, so that they have faith; whereas those who have a solid faith are not healed quickly because the Good Lord prefers to test them, to make them suffer in order to sanctify them more.

--St. Andre Bessette, as quoted in Frère André disait souvent... Recueil de paroles de Frère André rapportées par ses amis.

Monday, September 21, 2015

QUOTATION: Multiplying Time

Peter Kreeft
God really performs the miracle of multiplying our time, but only if we give it to him first.

--Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners

Sunday, September 20, 2015

QUOTATION: Agreement

St. Jean Vianney the Cure of Ars
The saints were so completely dead to themselves they cared very little whether others agreed with them or not.

--St. Jean Vianney, the Curé of Ars

Saturday, September 19, 2015

QUOTATION: Humour

Pope Benedict XVI
I believe [God] has a great sense of humor. Sometimes he gives you something like a nudge and says, ‘Don’t take yourself so seriously!’ Humor is in fact an essential element in the mirth of creation. We can see how, in many matters in our lives, God wants to prod us into taking things a bit more lightly; to see the funny side of it; to get down off our pedestal and not to forget our sense of fun.

--Pope Benedict XVI

Friday, September 18, 2015

QUOTATION: The Picture is Not All Bleak



Employing the new empirical rigor exemplified by the social magisterium of John Paul II, Catholic social ethicists of the 21st century would recognize that life expectancy is increasing on a global basis, including the Third World; that water and air in the developed world are clearner than in five hundred years; that fears of chemicals poisoning the earth are wildly exaggerated; that both energy and food are cheaper and more plentiful throughout the world than ever before; that "overpopulation" is a myth; that the global picture is, in truth, one of unprecedented human prosperity-- and, recognizing these facts, Catholic social ethicists would ask, why? What creates wealth and distributes it broadly? What are the systemic political, economic and cultural factors that have created this unprecedented prosperity, which is not (contrary to the shibboleths) limited to a shrinking, privileged elite? What can be done to make this prosperity even more broadly available? 

--George Weigel, "The Free and Virtuous Society", in Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace, 2008

Thursday, September 17, 2015

QUOTATION: Slavery

Even though you can come and go as you like, and do what you want, you are not free if you are living under the power error of or falsehood, deceit or sin.

--Pope John Paul II

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

QUOTATION: Studying Theology

Henri Nouwen
Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.

--Henri Nouwen

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

QUOTATION: Tears

Oscar Romero
There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried.

-- Archbishop Oscar A. Romero

Monday, September 14, 2015

QUOTATION: Despair

St. Augustine of Hippo
It was not the crime of Judas so much as his despair of pardon that brought him to total destruction. He killed himself in despair suffocating himself with a noose. What he did to his body is what happened to his soul. Just as those who pull something tight around their throats kill themselves by driving from their lungs the earthly spirit of air, so to do those who despair of God’s merciful kindness inwardly suffocate themselves and make it impossible for the Holy Spirit to remain in them.

--St. Augustine, Sermon 352

Sunday, September 13, 2015

QUOTATION: The Real Test of a Christian

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
The real test of the Christian is not how much he loves his friends, but how much he loves his enemies.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Saturday, September 12, 2015

QUOTATION: Guide to Confession

St. Peter Julian Eymard

1. Tell your sins in all simplicity, confessing them as you know them and are affected by them at the moment.

2. Accuse yourself with propriety, in becoming words, through respect for the priest and for yourself. Enter into no detail upon the way in which you committed the sin. The way falls not under the law of accusation. It is even prohibited when there is question of sins against chastity. Tell the nature of sins of thought without recounting them in detail, without explaining them, which is never obligatory. Mention your sins of words, but without repeating the words. Be satisfied with mentioning their species, namely, against charity, or authority, or chastity. As to sins of act, tell the nature of the sin, its grievousness. In sins of omission, state what duty you have omitted.

3. Accuse yourself with humility, as a guilty man who tells his fault to Him who already knows it better than he does himself, but who wishes by making him repeat it to test his sincerity and repentance. Let your humility consist in seeing and telling your faults truthfully, and not exaggerating them. Exaggeration is often the fruit either of sloth which does not want the trouble of examining, or of tepidity which clothes itself with false contrition.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard

Friday, September 11, 2015

QUOTATION: Anxiety

St. Francis of Assisi
By the anxieties and worries of this life Satan tries to dull man's heart and make a dwelling for himself there.

--St. Francis of Assisi

Thursday, September 10, 2015

QUOTATION: Christian Hope

Pope Francis
This is Christian hope: that the future is in God’s hands.

--Pope Francis

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

QUOTATION: Prayer Request

St. Andre Bessette
It's surprising, people often request healing from me, but rarely humility or the spirit of faith. And yet they are so important!

--St. Andre Bessette, as quoted in Frère André disait souvent... Recueil de paroles de Frère André rapportées par ses amis.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

QUOTATION: Poison

St. Francis de Sales

 There is a wide difference between having poison and being poisoned. A Christian who uses material things with the spirit of detachment would not be harmed by the possession of wealth.

--St. Francis de Sales

Monday, September 7, 2015

QUOTATION: The Power of Prayer

Peter Kreeft
One moment of prayer, of weak worship, confused contrition, tepid thanksgiving, or pitiful petition will bring us closer to God than all the books of theology in the world.

--Peter Kreeft, Prayer for Beginners

Sunday, September 6, 2015

QUOTATION: Freedom is Based On Truth

George Weigel
Freedom must be tethered to moral truth and ordered to human goodness if freedom is not to become self-cannibalizing.  If there is only "my" truth and "your" truth, but nothing that we both recognize as "the truth", then we have no basis on which to settle our differences other than pragmatic accommodation; then, when pragmatic accommodation fails (as it must when the issue is grave enough), either I will impose my power on you or you will impose your power on me. Truth and goodness shape the moral horizon against which the deliberations of free peoples can take place in an orderly and productive way.

--George Weigel, "The Free and Virtuous Society", in Against the Grain: Christianity and Democracy, War and Peace, 2008

Saturday, September 5, 2015

QUOTATION: The Christian Copernican Revolution

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
Being a Christian means having love; it means achieving the Copernican revolution in our own existence, by which we cease to make ourselves the center of the universe, with everyone else revolving around us.

—Joseph Ratzinger, (Pope Benedict XVI)

Friday, September 4, 2015

QUOTATION: Christ as Citizen

Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II)
When Christ is denied all rights of citizenship, those same rights are denied to men; and when the "death of God' is proclaimed, the "death of man" is being planned as well.

--Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, (Pope St. John Paul II), Sign of Contradiction, 1977

Thursday, September 3, 2015

QUOTATION: Delivery from Sin

Pope Innocent III
The mystery of the Cross delivers us from the power of sin ; the mystery of the Eucharist, from the will to sin.

--Pope Innocent III

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

QUOTATION: Obedience as Sacrifice

St. John of the Cross
Obedience is a penance of the soul, and for that reason a sacrifice more acceptable than all corporal penances. Thence it happens that God loves more the least degree of obedience in you, than all the other services you may think to render him.

--St. John of the Cross

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

QUOTATION: Humility and Pride

St. Vincent de Paul
Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying.

--St. Vincent de Paul