Tuesday, January 31, 2017

QUOTATION: Perversion


Debauchery is another effect of personal sin which seeks eternal expression, in this case by corrupting others. For the inwardly empty cannot bear their burden alone- they tend to empty society of whatever values it possesses. Solitariness of the soul creates its own atmosphere and makes a solitary world. Self-expression, understood as the expression of the animal self whose satisfactions are external, thus begets not only its own destruction but also the dissolution of peaceful society. The traditional restraints and moral sanctions of society come to be regarded more and more as worthless, outworn taboos or as cruel checks placed upon individual egotism, which now goes under the name of freedom. A stage is eventually reached where there is no acknowledged limit to self-expression. The most traitorous deeds are defended as civil rights; the defense of even the natural law is ridiculed as “medieval.” This lawlessness, if widespread, creates such confusion in society that a tyrant soon arises to organize the chaos through force. Thus is fulfilled the dictum of the Dostoevski that “unlimited freedom leads to unlimited tyranny.”
--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul, 1949

Monday, January 30, 2017

QUOTATION: Women in the Gospel

Alice von Hildebrand
If you read the Gospel, women play a very secondary role. Even the Holy Virgin is mentioned very rarely and speaks very little. The very moment that you put on supernatural lenses you are going to come to the strange conclusion that it is a privilege to be a woman. It is a privilege precisely because, to be in the background, from a secularistic point of view, to be humiliated, which often happens, is a tremendous supernatural advantage.
--Alice von Hildebrand, “The Secular War on the Supernatural.”

Sunday, January 29, 2017

QUOTATION: Why Prayer?

St. Alphonsus Liguori
Say not, But where is the need of disclosing to God all my wants, if he already sees and knows them better than I ? True, he knows them; but God makes as if he knew not the necessities about which you do not speak to him, and for which you seek not his aid. Our Saviour knew well that Lazarus was dead, and yet he made as if he knew it not, until the Magdalene had told him of it, and then he comforted her by raising her brother to life again.
--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Way of Salvation and Perfection

Saturday, January 28, 2017

QUOTATION: God's Love for Sinners

To say that God turns away from the sinful is like saying that the sun hides from the blind. 

--St. Anthony of Egypt

Friday, January 27, 2017

QUOTATION: Angry

G.K. ChestertonIn short, the theory that we must not be angry is the very charter of escape for all evil-doers who are strong enough to awaken anger."
--G.K. Chesterton,  "Vengeance"

Thursday, January 26, 2017

QUOTATION: Souls

St. Amrbose of MilanIt is better to save souls for the Lord than to save treasures.
--St. Ambrose of Milan

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

QUOTATION: We Belong to God

Blessed John Henry NewmanWe are not our own, any more than what we possess is our own. We did not make ourselves; we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We cannot be our own masters. We are God's property by creation, by redemption, by regeneration.
--Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman, “Remembrance of Past Mercies”, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 6

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

QUOTATION: Self-Rule

St. Philip NeriThere is nothing more dangerous to the spiritual life than to wish to rule ourselves after our own way of thinking.
--St. Philip Neri

Monday, January 23, 2017

QUOTATION: Politics and Religion

G.K. Chesterton
I never discuss anything except politics and religion. There is nothing else to discuss.
--G.K. Chesterton

Sunday, January 22, 2017

QUOTATION: Prayer and Penance

St. Francis XavierIt is impossible to find a Saint who did not take the “two P’s” seriously: prayer and penance.
--St.Francis Xavier

Saturday, January 21, 2017

QUOTATION: Isolation

Pope Francis
Isolation is always a bad counselor.

--Pope Francis, Mexico, February 2016

Friday, January 20, 2017

QUOTATION: Voting

Consequently, there is a heavy responsibility on everyone, man or woman, who has the right to vote, especially when the interests of religion are at stake; abstention in this case is in itself, it should be thoroughly understood, a grave and a fatal sin of omission.
--Pope Pius XII,  Allocution of Pope Pius XII to the Congress of the International Union of Catholic Women's Leagues, Rome, Italy, September 11, 1947.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

QUOTATION: Blaming God

The feeling that God is silent or absent, whether voiced as an accusation or as a complaint, is an almost spontaneous reaction to the experience of pain and injustice. The very people who do not credit God with their joy hold Him responsible in detail for human suffering.
--Pope St. John Paul II, Master in the Faith, 1990

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

QUOTATION: Trials

St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier,
In sending us trials, God proportions them to our weakness.

--St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, Conferences and Instructions

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

QUOTATION: Old Doesn't Mean Bad

St. Josemaria EscrivaIs the idea of Catholicism old and therefore unacceptable? —The sun is older and has not lost its light; water is more ancient, and it still quenches the thirst and refreshes us.
--St. Josemaria Escriva

Monday, January 16, 2017

QUOTATION: Truth

Alice von Hildebrand
Christianity has done something which is totally revolutionary. Christ did not say “I have the truth”, he said “I am the truth”, Moses did not say so, Buddha did not say so, Mohammed did not say so. Christ alone claims that He is The Truth, capital T. Now, the very moment that you are confronted with the Truth, and you suddenly discover all the lies that are in us, there are two possibilities. Either you kneel down and adore and recognise Christ to be God, or you run away and say “depart from us, we can do without you”.
--Alice von Hildebrand, “The Secular War on the Supernatural.”

Sunday, January 15, 2017

QUOTATION: Public Faith

Crystalina Evert
Jesus died for you in public, so don’t just live for Him in private.
--Crystalina Evert

Saturday, January 14, 2017

QUOTATION: The Argument from Consciousness


How does a materialist account for the stubborn fact of consciousness? If it’s nothing but physical brain activity, then what is my consciousness of my physical brain activity? Remember, the knowledge of a thing one of the parts of the thing known. This can be proved by formal logic alone. For the alternative would make accurate knowledge (knowledge that matches the thing known) impossible. For in the very act of knowing all the facts about a thing you create a new fact about that thing: that it was known. And that fact can be only known still by another act of knowing, et cetera ad infinitum.
--Peter Kreeft, Letters to an Atheist, 2014

Friday, January 13, 2017

QUOTATION: Faith and Action

Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman
Life is for action. If we insist on proofs for everything, we shall never come to action: to act you must assume, and that assumption is faith.
--Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman

Thursday, January 12, 2017

QUOTATION: Beautiful Losers?

Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
When you stand on the side of God, you do not necessarily stand on the side of success. Good fortune often seems to pamper precisely the cynics. How are we to understand this? The psalmist finds the answer by standing before God, in whose presence he grasps the ultimate insignificance of material wealth and success and recognizes what is truly necessary and what brings salvation.
--Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

QUOTATION: Christophobia

G.K. Chesterton
A strange fanaticism fills our time: the fanatical hatred of morality, especially of Christian morality.

--G.K. Chesterton

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

QUOTATION: Right and Wrong

Fulton J. Sheen
Sins do not become virtues by being widely practiced. Right is still right if nobody is right, and wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong.
--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Peace of Soul, 1949

Monday, January 9, 2017

QUOTATION: Tell God Everything


Never, then, forget his sweet presence, as do the greater part of men. Speak to him as often as you can; for he does not grow weary of this nor disdain it, as do the lords of the earth. If you love him, you will not be at a loss what to say to him. Tell him all that occurs to you about yourself and your affairs, as you would tell it to a dear friend. Look not upon him as a haughty sovereign, who will only converse with the great, and on great matters. He, our God, delights to abase himself to converse with us, loves to have us communicate to him our smallest, our most daily concerns. He loves you as much, and has as much care for you, as if he had none others to think of but yourself. He is as entirely devoted to your interests as though the only end of his providence were to succor you, of his almighty power to aid you, of his mercy and goodness to take pity on you, to do you good, and gain by the delicate touches of his kindness your confidence and love. Manifest, then, to him freely all your state of mind, and pray to him to guide you to accomplish perfectly his holy will. And let all your desires and plans be simply bent to discover his good pleasure, and do what is agreeable to his divine heart : Commit thy way to the Lord: l and desire of Him to direct thy ways, and that all thy counsels may abide in Him. [Tobit. 4:20]

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Way of Salvation and Perfection

Sunday, January 8, 2017

QUOTATION: Acquired Virtues in Purgatory


If we restrict the question to acquired virtues, the answer cannot be doubtful. Souls in purgatory can grow in virtue by repetition of natural acts. On earth these virtues, justice, say, or fortitude, grow even in the state of mortal sin, wherein man cannot merit. Further, defective habitudes, the "remains of sin," disappear step by step. They are replaced by acquired virtues. This seems reasonable, above all for such souls as have entered purgatory only by absolution at the moment of death, souls which before, we may say, had acquired no virtue. Acquired virtue, we have seen, prepares for infused virtue, as finger agility subserves the art of the musician. Hence acquired virtues can grow in purgatory, at least those which are in the faculties purely spiritual, as, for instance, prudence and justice. But virtues which involve sense powers, chastity, say, cannot thus grow.
--Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting

Saturday, January 7, 2017

QUOTATION: How to Keep from Sin

St. Philip Neri
One of the most efficient ways of keeping ourselves sinless is to have compassion for those who fall due to frailty, and never to boast of our rightness, but with real humility acknowledge that if we are in a state of grace, it is by the mercy of God.

--St. Philip Neri

Friday, January 6, 2017

QUOTATION: Self-Sufficiency



But when men take it for granted that they are natural objects of God's favour,—when they view their privileges and powers as natural things,—when they look upon their Baptism as an ordinary work, bringing about its results as a matter of course,—when they come to Church without feeling that they are highly favoured in being allowed to come,—when they do not understand the necessity of prayer for God's grace,—when they refer everything to system, and subject the provisions of God's free bounty to the laws of cause and effect,—when they think that education will do everything, and that education is in their own power,—when, in short, they think little of the Church of God, which is the great channel of God's mercies, and look upon the Gospel as a sort of literature or philosophy, contained in certain documents, which they may use as they use the instruction of other books; then, not to mention other instances of the same error, are they practically Pelagians, for they make themselves their own centre, instead of depending on Almighty God and His ordinances.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, “Righteousness not of us, but in us”, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. 5

Thursday, January 5, 2017

QUOTATION: Abortion

Pope Francis
Abortion is never the lesser evil, it’s a crime. It’s to discard one to save another one. It’s what Mafia does; it’s a crime, an absolute evil.

--Pope Francis,  February 17, 2016

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

QUOTATION: Evangelization

St. Mary Euprasia Pelletier
Young and inexperienced religious often fall into the mistake of imagining they can convert souls by constant preaching. No, this is not a good way; it only wearies them. If you wish to gain their hearts soften their characters and correct their faults, you must first conciliate and take care of them, showing them much care and consideration. The greater number are ignorant when they come and take pleasure in evil. It is not possible to win them to God except by treating them with extreme consideration.

--St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier, Conferences and Instructions

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

QUOTATION: Priestly Celibacy

If you lose sight of the supernatural, you will never understand why there should be a celibate clergy.

--Alice Von Hildebrand

Monday, January 2, 2017

QUOTATION: Salvation

Everyone wants God to save them from Hell, few want God to save them from sin.
--G.K. Chesterton

Sunday, January 1, 2017

QUOTATION: Transcendence

It is essential, therefore, that the values chosen and pursued in one's life be true, because only true values can lead people to realize themselves fully, allowing them to be true to their nature. The truth of these values is to be found not by turning in on oneself but by opening oneself to apprehend that truth even at levels which transcend the person. This is an essential condition for us to become ourselves and to grow as mature, adult persons.

--Pope St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, 25