Ecclesiology

Spiritual Platitudes

Pope Francis leads the Angelus Sept. 16 from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Favio Frustaci, EPA) See POPE-ANGELUS-FAITH Sept. 17, 2018.

-by Junno Arocho Esteves • Catholic News Service •  September 17, 2018

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — True followers of Jesus profess their faith not through pre-packaged platitudes but rather through concrete actions of love for their neighbors, Pope Francis said.

When He asks the disciples who they think He is, Jesus wasn’t interested in “ready-made responses (or) quoting famous personalities of Sacred Scriptures because a faith that is reduced to formulas is a myopic faith,” the pope said Sept. 16 during his Sunday Angelus address.

After praying the Angelus prayer, the pope welcomed the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square and said he wanted to give them a gift to commemorate the Sept. 14 feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

Pope Francis said the gift, a silver crucifix distributed by the papal almoner’s office, wasn’t an “ornamental object” but a “sign of the love of God Who, in Jesus, gave His life for us.”

“I invite you to receive this gift and place it in your homes, in your children’s room or your grandparent’s (room); in any place but it must be seen in your home,” he said. “By looking at Jesus crucified, we are looking at our salvation.”

Before praying the Angelus prayer, the pope reflected on the Sunday Gospel reading in which Peter professes his faith in Christ, and Jesus explains the price that is paid for following Him.

“Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the Gospel will save it,” Jesus said. (-Mt 16:24)

Christ’s words, the pope explained, affirm that His mission and those of His disciples “isn’t carried out on the wide road of success but on the arduous path of the suffering servant: humiliated, rejected and crucified.”

Like Peter who objected to Jesus’ assertion, Christians can also “protest and rebel because this doesn’t meet our expectations,” he said.

Professing one’s faith in Christ, Pope Francis added, doesn’t “stop at words but must be authenticated by concrete choices and gestures, by a life marked by God’s love, a great life, a life with so much love for one’s neighbor.”

“Often in life, for many reasons, we take the wrong path, looking for happiness only in things or in people who we treat like things,” the pope said. “But we can only find happiness when love, that true love, finds us, surprises us and changes us. Love changes everything.”

Love,
Matthew

November, Purgatory

Nov 1-8: Visit a cemetery, get souls out of Purgatory!!!

Bored? Looking to get a new vibe on? You’ve come to the right place, friend!!


-by Melissa Guerrero

“During All Souls Day, Catholics are encouraged to visit cemeteries to gain plenary indulgences for our loved ones who are no longer with us. Catholics cemeteries are also consecrated grounds. Yes, we have our memento mori thoughts in cemeteries and we mourn our losses, but there is also hope. (1 Thess 4:13-18)

We pray for the Poor Souls, hoping that our prayers, Masses, and indulgences get them out of Purgatory quicker. That means that we provide hope to get them to Heaven sooner, so they can finally spend eternity with God. Not only this, but we can also hope that someday they will be in Heaven, praying for us. Furthermore, we hope that future generations will be doing the same for our souls when we’ve passed on.

Are you interested in receiving an indulgence – either plenary or partial – for the soul of a loved one while visiting their grave? Here is what you can do.

Requirements for obtaining a plenary indulgence:
1. Be in a state of grace, at least when performing the indulgence act
2. Have complete detachment from sin, even venial sin
3. Confession (having gone either 20 days before or go 20 days after the indulgence act)
4. Communion (received either 20 days before or go 20 days after the indulgence act)
5. Prayers for the Supreme Pontiff (prayed either 20 days before or go 20 days after the indulgence act) or/and his intentions.
6. Complete the indulgence act; a special good work with special conditions of place and time.

What are the indulgence acts you can do to obtain a plenary indulgence?
1. Visit a cemetery between November 1st and 8th and say a mental prayer for the poor souls; you can do this once a day, every day during the 8 days.
2. On November 2nd, you can visit a church or an oratory where they’re praying an Our Father and the Creed.

If you can’t get a plenary indulgence, a partial indulgence can be obtained at any time by simply visiting a cemetery and praying for the poor souls in Purgatory with this prayer:

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the rest in peace. Amen.

If you don’t have anyone to pray for, you can always pray and ask God to apply the indulgence for a poor soul who has no one praying for them. As Venerable Fulton Sheen once said, when we die, those souls we’ve prayed for—even people who we never met on earth—will be “coming toward us and thanking us. We will ask who they are and they will say: ‘A poor soul you prayed for in purgatory.’”

Now, get out to your local cemetery and get some souls out of purgatory!”

Love & purification!!
Matthew

Theodicy, Theology

Good vs Evil

We moderns look askance at such a dialectic.  However, my experience has shown me life is exactly this, every day, ever moment, every instant. I wish I had more soothing news, a way out, a loophole. Rather, there is no nuance.  No dissembling.  Straight up.  It has.  It is.  Woe to them that accept it not. Woe to them. Evil is NOT an equal to good. It is the absence of good. Good is a reality. Evil is a vacuum of reality. Hence, evil can never truly overcome good. It can tempt towards despair, but it has no power other than what we acquiesce to. Good is. Evil is not. God allows evil to exist as part of His passive will, that which He allows, only as a means of bringing good out of evil because He is God, and He alone can do this, and does and will.

“I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the Faith!!” -2 Tim 4:7. This scripture was engraved on the base of the youthful statue of the patron of my young adult parish, St Paul’s.  My mother asked her catechetical students, see where I get it?  She asked them not to say, “Hello, Mrs. McCormick!” But, rather, “Keep the Faith!” “If my children lose their Faith, I have failed as a mother!” -MDM

Rm 12:21


-by Br Hyacinth Grubb, OP

““He who endures to the end will be saved” (-Mt 10:22)

It is good to start something, but it is better to finish it (see Eccl 7:8). To endure to the end, our ultimate end, means to die well, to die with our loving trust in God. Blessed are those who die in the Lord, because they will be saved, because they will live in perfect happiness with God in the communion of saints. The very essence of a good life is a good death, because a good death leads to eternal life.

This doesn’t mean that our actions now, before our deaths, are meaningless or unimportant. In fact, the only way to endure to the end is to belong firmly to God in grace, a belonging established throughout our lives.

In a way, all the many actions throughout our lives together make up only one choice. We are offered the possibility in grace of belonging to God forever, of knowing Him, loving Him, and finding perfect fulfillment in Him. We can choose to accept this possibility, to love God. Or, we can choose to reject God, to hate Him. We make this choice through the course of our whole life, a choice which is completed and finalized in our choice at death, a choice which has consequences beyond our death.

The angels were offered the same choice in the moment of their creation. Some chose God, and some chose their own pride. But because they are spiritual, and not bodily, because they have a higher perfection of being than us, they made this choice in a single act and in a single moment.

We are bodily persons, not angelic persons. We make our choice not in a single act, but through the whole course of our lives. That choice, to either accept His gift of grace and to love Him, or to reject Him and hate Him, is cemented at our death. Before that ultimate moment there is always the possibility of conversion, and likewise the possibility of falling away. The direction in which we turn is shaped by each and every one of our actions.

Our lives are, in a way, an anticipation and preparation for our deaths, and for what lies beyond our deaths.

But we are not alone in this preparation. God gives us His grace, purchased by the blood of Christ, and communicated to us in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The saints and angels stand by our side, interceding. Mary, our mother, is our foremost intercessor, as we petition her in the Hail Mary to pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

As we strive to endure to the end, we can turn again and again to Mary. Let us beg her to pray for us now, that we may love God in each of our actions, and at the hour of our death, that we may endure in God’s love until our end, and beyond our end.”

Love,
Matthew

All Souls, Liturgy, November

Nov 2 – Holy Souls

-by Rev Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD, Divine Intimacy, Baronius Press, (c) 1964

Presence of God – Grant, O Lord, eternal rest to the souls of the departed; and may the thought of death spur me on to greater generosity.

MEDITATION

“Holy Church, our good Mother, after having exalted with fitting praise all her children who now rejoice in heaven, strives also to help all those who still suffer in purgatory, and to this end intercedes with all her power before Christ, her Lord and Spouse, in order that as speedily as possible they may join the society of the elect in heaven.” These are the words of the Roman Martyrology.

Yesterday we contemplated the glory of the Church triumphant and implored her intercession. Today we consider the expiatory pains of the Church suffering and solicit for these souls the divine assistance: “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.” This is the dogma of the Communion of Saints put into practice. The Church triumphant intercedes for us, the Church militant; and we, in our turn, hasten to the help of the Church suffering. Death has taken from us those we love; yet, there can be no real separation from those who have died in the kiss of the Lord. The bond of charity continues to unite us, enfolding in one embrace earth, heaven, and purgatory, so that there circulates from one region to another the fraternal assistance which springs from love, which has as its end the triumph of love in the common glory of Paradise.

The liturgy of the day is pervaded with sadness, but it is not the grief of those “who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:12), for it is resplendent with faith in a blessed resurrection, in the eternal felicity which awaits us. The passages chosen for the Gospels of the three Masses for the faithful departed speak to us explicitly of all these consoling truths, and in a most authoritative way, since they repeat to us the very words of Jesus: “This is the will of the Father Who sent Me; that of all that He hath given Me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again in the last day” (Gospel for the 2nd Mass: John 6:37-40). Could there be a more consoling assurance?

Jesus presents Himself to us today as the Good Shepherd who does not want to lose even one of His sheep, nor does He spare any pains to lead them all to salvation. As if in response to the sweet promises of Jesus, Holy Mother Church, full of gratitude and enthusiasm, cries out: “For with regard to Thy faithful, O Lord, life is changed, not taken away; and the abode of this earthly sojourn being dissolved, an eternal dwelling is prepared in heaven” (Preface). Rather than an inexorable end, death is, for the Christian, a door opening into eternity, a door which admits the soul into eternal life.

COLLOQUY

“Grant, O Lord, that I may experience a reasonable sorrow at the death of those who are dear to me, shedding tears of resignation over our mortal condition, yet soon restraining them by this consoling thought of the faith: that in dying, the faithful have only withdrawn a little from us to go into a better world.

May I not weep as do the pagans who are without hope. I may have reason to be sad, but in my affliction hope will comfort me. With hope so great, it is not fitting, O my God, that Your temple should be in mourning. You dwell there, You who are our Consoler; and You cannot fail in Your promises” (-St. Augustine).

“O Master and Creator of the universe, Lord of life and death, You give our souls being and fill them with blessings: You carry out and transform everything by the work of Your Word, at the time foreordained and according to the plan of Your Wisdom; receive, today, our deceased brethren and give them eternal rest.

May You welcome us, in our turn, at the moment pleasing to You, after having guided us and left us in the body for as long as You think useful and salutary.

“Made ready in Your fear, without trouble, and without delay, may You receive us on the last day. Grant that we may not leave the things of this world with regret, like those who are too much attached to earth and the flesh; grant that we may advance resolutely and happily toward that blessed and unending life which is in Christ Jesus Our Lord, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (–St. Gregory Nazianzen).

Love,
Matthew

All Souls, Liturgy, November, Purgatory

Nov 2 – Holy Souls in Purgatory


-please click on the image for greater detail

The length of time souls are detained in Purgatory depends on:

1. the number of their faults;
2. the malice and deliberation with which these have been committed;
3. the penance done, or not done, the satisfaction made, or not made for sins during life;
4. Much, too, depends on the suffrages offered for them after death

“The prayer most pleasing to God is that made for others and particularly for the poor souls. Pray for them, if you want your prayers to bring high interest.”
– Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich

“The practice of recommending to God the souls in Purgatory, that He may mitigate the great pains which they suffer, and that He may soon bring them to His glory, is most pleasing to the Lord and most profitable to us. For these blessed souls are His eternal spouses, and most grateful are they to those who obtain their deliverance from prison, or even a mitigation of their torments. When, therefore, they arrive in Heaven, they will be sure to remember all who have prayed for them.” – St Alphonsus Ligouri

“I am the Mother of all the Poor Souls, for my prayers serve to mitigate their sufferings every single hour that they remain there.” -Our Lady to St Bridget

“The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon? Now a further question arises: if “Purgatory” is simply purification through fire in the encounter with the Lord, Judge and Savior, how can a third person intervene, even if he or she is particularly close to the other? When we ask such a question, we should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God’s time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me, too. As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them, too, the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.”
–Spe Salvi, by Pope Benedict XVI


-by Br Stephen Ruhl, OP

“Today we pray for the holy souls in purgatory. This idea of the holy souls in purgatory seems an odd notion to contemporary ears. One tends to think of heaven as the place where the holy souls go. Purgatory, one would think, is for unholy souls, an unpleasant place where it would be unfortunate to end up. As with most ideas, this has some truth and some error. Purgatory is not meant to be a pleasant place, but it is not a place for unholy souls. Rather, purgatory is for those souls who are holy, but not quite holy enough.

The souls in purgatory are holy souls. They loved God in this life, and sought to do his will. They did this, however, somewhat imperfectly. These souls in purgatory strove for God during their earthly life, but hit some stumbling blocks along the way. This striving, this desire for God, is what kept them from the perils of hell, but the stumbling blocks they tripped on have kept them from attaining the fullness of joy which awaits them in heaven.

Whereas yesterday’s solemnity of All Saints was a celebration of all the men and women who have gone before us and attained this fullness of joy, today’s commemoration is a day of prayer to keep the purgatorial conveyor belt moving, as it were. The holy souls in purgatory have a desire for God, but because their earthly life has ended, they are no longer capable of performing the deeds which, by God’s grace, merit heaven. Now that their earthly pilgrimage has run its course, they are entirely dependent upon God and the prayers of those who remain on earth.

This is where you and I come in. We pray for these souls, these souls who have no one else to pray for them. We can do penance for them, we can pray for them, and in the process we can grow in holiness ourselves. In doing so, we build bonds of charity with those for whom we pray, nameless though they are. And once they attain the joys of heaven, which they certainly will after their purgation is completed, we can be assured of their intercession for us, as we celebrate them on All Saints Day.

Today we pray for the holy souls in purgatory, that they may attain the joys of heaven and be enrolled among the saints, and, in doing so, may we gain new intercessors in heaven, helping us to grow in holiness ourselves.”

Love,
Matthew

June, Sacred Heart

Cease!! The Heart of Jesus is with me!!!

“I say to myself, I will not mention His name, I will speak in His name no more. But then, it becomes like a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones, I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.” -Jeremiah 20:7-10

It’s a difficult time to be Catholic.  The McCormick family has a very special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  In it we find inexpressible joy and peace, no matter what is occurring to us, or in  the world around us.  A little spooky we wound up at a parish named Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary!! My mother had a badge of the Sacred Heart on a small length of “ball and chain” ring of 3, maybe four inches. She kept her religious medals on this ring. I still have it today.

“You woo me…
with birdsong in the morning
daffodils in the garden
gentle waves on the shore
gifts of glass from the sea
a warm breeze in the evening
a playful, loving family
friends who listen and share
the kiss of Eucharist on my tongue
daily, intimate, hour-long conversations in a silent church
drawing me ever more deeply into the fire burning
within Your Sacred Heart, allowing me to feel the pain of sin
that consumes you, letting me experience
Your intense suffering for love of me and all of Your children,
sharing Your sorrow
with the one You love,
this little nobody
that You woo
so expertly,
so divinely,
so sweetly

I can’t resist Your desire for me

I am wooed into Your eternal embrace
so tender and loving….

Never let go
I am Yours forever…”
–Anne Bender, “Wooed by His Sacred Heart”

-by Rev Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD, Divine Intimacy, Baronius Press, (c) 1964

Presence of God – O Jesus, deign to take me into Your Sacred Heart. Grant that it may be the sanctuary where I may be recollected, sheltered, and find my rest.

MEDITATION

The liturgy of the Feast of the Sacred Heart presents to us the Heart of Jesus as the ark of salvation, our shelter and our refuge. “O Heart of Jesus, ark … of grace, pardon and mercy, O Heart, inviolable sanctuary of the New Law, Temple more sacred than the ancient ark!… Who would not want an eternal home in this Heart?” Sacred Heart our refuge(Roman Breviary). “Close to these blessed wounds in the Heart of Christ,” exclaims St. Peter Canisius, “I shall find refuge; in them I shall build my nest in full security.” This has always been the hope of contemplative souls, of interior souls: to take refuge in the Heart of Christ as in their chosen asylum. St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus wrote in her last resolutions: “My God, I wish to enclose myself now and forever in Your most loving Heart as in a desert, to live there in You, with You, and for You, a hidden life of love and sacrifice” (-Spirituality of St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus). The soul who wishes to sound the depths of the mysteries of Christ and to understand something of His infinite love, will find no better way than to enter within His Heart or, as St. John of the Cross says, “to hide itself in the breast of its Beloved, for to these clefts He invites it in the Canticle of Canticles saying: ‘Arise, and make haste, my love, my fair one, and come into the clefts of the rock, and into the cavern of the enclosure” (Spiritual Canticle 31,5). Let us take refuge then, in the Heart of Christ and contemplate His mysteries and His love, but seek there, too, a shelter for our interior life. This is a place of retreat which is always at our disposal and we can retire there even in the midst of occupations and duties. When rumors, curiosity, gossip, and the vanities of the world threaten to overwhelm us, let us quickly retire by a swift interior movement to the Heart of Jesus; there we shall always find recollection and peace.

COLLOQUY

“O most sweet Jesus, the treachery of my sins would forbid my entering Your Heart. But since an inconceivable charity enlarged Your Heart, and since You, who alone are holy, can purify what is defiled, cleanse me from my faults, O good Jesus, and deliver me from my sins. When I am purified by You, I can approach You, O purest One, and enter and abide in Your Heart all the days of my life, to know and to do what You wish me to do.” (–St. Bonaventure)

“Truly, where is there sure and lasting safety and rest for one who is weak if not in Your wounds, O my Savior? I dwell there all the more securely as You are powerful and can save me.

The world rages around me, the body weighs upon me, the devil lays snares for me, but I do not fall because I am founded on You, the firm rock…. If then, O Christ, the thought of Your wounds comes to my mind, if I recall such a powerful and efficacious remedy, I can no longer be terrified by the fear that any harm may befall me. Filled with confidence, I shall take what I need from Your Heart, O Lord, for mercies abound there, and Your wounds are open to permit these mercies to flow forth. They pierced Your hands and Your feet, they opened Your side with a spear; and through these clefts I am able … to taste and see how sweet You are, O Lord!…

The blade pierced Your soul and reached Your Heart so that You might know compassion for my infirmities. Through the wounds in Your Body, the secret of Your Heart, that great mystery of love, was revealed; the inmost heart of Your mercy was opened, through which You came to us from the heights of heaven. Where then can we see more clearly than in Your wounds, O Lord, that You are sweet, gentle and full of mercy? No one indeed shows greater mercy than He who gives His life for the condemned, for those sentenced to death. Hence, all my hope lies in Your mercy, O Lord, and I shall never be deprived of it so long as You are merciful.” (-St. Bernard)

Love,
Matthew

Doctrine, Eschatology, Salvation

How do Catholics know they’re “saved”?

A very dear friend recently posed the following question to me:

“Matt, what do I have to do in order to be saved? What must I do to know that I will go to heaven when I die?”

Here is my response:

“Dear (friend), Catholics, in this life, never know if they will be found worthy. This is a decision only Jesus as God can make in our particular judgment immediately after death, and we cannot. It is presumptuous to think otherwise. We trust in the promises of our Lord.

Neither can we be sure of the damnation of any. Again, this is a judgment of the Lord, and not ours. For Catholics, sanctifying grace, the life of grace, must be present within the Catholic for the hope of salvation. The idea of universal salvation because the Lord is so merciful is a heresy, although not the worst. Mt 25:10.

The saints (both specific and general, the communion of saints, as mentioned in the Nicene and Apostle’s creeds) are believed to be in Heaven. We hold with strongest belief this is true, but this is also why two miracles are required for canonization. Phil 2:12.

Those outside the church have the possibility, not necessarily the likelihood, of salvation (CCC 846). Within the Church exists the fullness of the life of grace and the sacraments which impart grace.

These might help, too:

https://soul-candy.info/2018/06/protestant-catholic-different-definitions-of-grace/
https://soul-candy.info/2015/08/explicit-implicit-faith-who-can-be-saved/”

Love,
Matthew

Ecclesiology

Here comes everybody!!


-James Joyce, Zurich, Switzerland, 1915

A very dear friend recently sent me a link to a scurrilous video on Youtube, much like Church Militant, and such, of which I am distinctly and decidedly not a fan.  Where is the Inquisition (you say it like it’s a bad thing? 🙂 when you need them!!?   He asked me what I thought.  Here is my response:

“Dear (friend),

Meh. Jn 8:31-58. “I have no need to fear the truth, what need have I to fear lies.” -Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 20 June 1816. A universal (Catholic) Church is just that, universal. It has everybody. “Here comes everybody.” -James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake, 1923, speaking of the Church. And, yes, we’ve got everybody. When I participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) which is how adults become Catholic, if a candidate says to me, “I’m not happy (not that that is the point, but ok), I can’t find X.” I say, “Hold on a minute. I will be your concierge. I know we’ve got it here somewhere.” And, we do.

Vatican II was an updating of the Church. A two thousand year old institution, the longest continuous in Western (the world’s?) history needs to do this from time to time. The Church’s cycle time is 400 years. The joke in the Vatican goes, “Come see me next Tue, and I’ll get back to you in 300 years.” But, seriously, the Church moves very intentionally slowly, and not quickly, to make sure the Church is clearly comprehending the truth the Holy Spirit is indeed revealing. Mt 16:18. Notice in that Scripture verse it did not say, rather it clearly said, they would try. And, they’ve been trying ever since. I am confident upon careful inspection of the authors of the video clip’s credentials, they would prove most scurrilous and discredited. Faith and Reason. Fides et Ratio.

Sometimes the Church and its Sacraments are used as weapons. You can tell when this is happening because they are being used to make people feel “other”, inferior, subordinate, unqualified, not worthy, etc., etc. We’ve got everybody: cranks, crackpots, loonies, wackos, nut jobs, freakazoids, you name it, on any side of any multi-dimensional spectrum you choose to hallucinate. We’ve got ’em. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That way, I know we are living up to our name, Universal.

People don’t like change, and get their jollies from conspiracy theory. “If it weren’t for people, we could all be holy!”-Mother Angelica. How true, Mother. How true. “Other people are Hell.” – Jean Paul Sartre.

We even have pervert priests and immoral bishops, priests who steal from their parishes, who do drugs, who murder, who commit suicide, suffer from mental illness, etc. Priests, and nuns, and lay people are sinners, too, regardless of their profession. Do not be too scandalized when people sin. It should be expected, even if highly saddening, disappointing, unwelcome, etc., just like our own. News Flash: The Church is full of sinners!!!! Eating with sinners, prostitutes, and tax collectors. Guess who we’re at Church with? It would seem that’s the idea.”

The problem with Catholics is Catholics.
https://soul-candy.info/2014/12/mean-greedy-nasty-catholics/

Love,
Matthew

Homosexuality

Made this way?

“October 11th was “National Coming Out Day”, and even if you haven’t heard of it, chances are that if you have teens in a public (or even a private) school, they were aware of it.

What does a teen do when faced with acceptance of homosexuality by his or her peers?

What do they say?

In 2017, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines released an ad that went viral on social media, but not for the reasons the company wanted. In an attempt to celebrate “gay pride” month, the ad displayed three sets of “rainbow” airplane seatbelts: one with male and female ends, one with only female ends, and one with only male ends.

The tagline? “It doesn’t matter who you click with.”

The irony of this statement was not lost on social media users as they correctly pointed out that it does matter if your seatbelt can’t actually click to restrain you in an accident. As countless jokes flew across cyberspace, it was good to see people have a moment of clarity in the midst of “gay pride” propaganda.

Everyone knows what a seatbelt is for, and where the parts go, just by looking at it. If you misuse it, you can be seriously injured or killed.

Likewise, we know what our genitals are for and where “the parts” go just by looking at them. And, like seatbelts, if people misuse these parts of the body (including through homosexual behavior) they risk grave physical and spiritual harm.

Both love and reason demand that we not be afraid to defy a wayward culture, and that we use logic to graciously explain why God’s design for our sexuality is the one we must embrace.

Right and Wrong vs. Nice and Nasty

The toughest challenges your teen will face are interactions with friends who either have same-sex attraction or know someone who has those feelings.

Even popular depictions of TV and movie characters who identify as gay or lesbian can reinforce the following idea in your teen’s mind: “I like these people and they’re gay, so I guess being gay isn’t bad after all.” This often leads to the belief that only “haters” or “bigots” would say that these nice people are doing things that could doom their immortal souls.

Even if your teen does believe homosexuality is wrong, he or she may not want to publicly admit it, because that might offend their peers or teachers. That’s why we have to remind our children that everyone struggles with sin, including people we truly like.

An action is not right or wrong because a nice or nasty person committed it. It’s rightness or wrongness comes from whether it corresponds to the natural law (and so it’s right) or it contradicts the natural law (and so it’s wrong).

Here is one of the most common objections that proponents of homosexuality use against natural law arguments – something that your teens are bound to hear:

Claim: “Homosexuality isn’t unnatural, because people don’t choose to be gay. They were born that way.”

Fact: We don’t know exactly what causes people to have same-sex attractions, but genes are not likely the key. Among people with same-sex attractions who have identical (same DNA) twin siblings, it’s common for their twin to be attracted to those of the opposite sex.

But whatever the cause, the belief that same sex attractions are innate (not chosen) does not mean they are natural. You could say, “You know, lots of men feel like they want to have sex with more than one woman. It feels very natural to them, and they may have felt this way that since puberty. But does that make adultery or polyamory natural, or morally right, for humans?” And what of other “sexual orientations” besides just “same sex” or “opposite sex”? I say this delicately, there is a danger in the claim that having a particular sexual desire or orientation means we are “born that way” for some serious (if little talked about) reasons.

When we use our minds and examine the human body, we can see what it is for. Some humans (those with a disorder called pica) have an innate feeling or desire to eat things like glass, hair, or paint, but that doesn’t mean this behavior is natural or healthy.

The digestive system attached to our mouth and throat only makes sense if eating is designed for food. Likewise, the reproductive systems attached to our genitals only make sense if sex is for the “one-flesh”/procreative union that only man and a woman can achieve.”

Love,
Matthew

Fathers of the Church, Martyrdom, Saints

Oct 17 – Enthusiasm for Martyrdom!!! :)


-fresco of St. Ignatius from Hosios Loukas Monastery, Boeotia, Greece

“The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” -Acts 5:41

Catholics are NOT NOT NOT to actively seek martyrdom!!!! That would make them Marcionites, who did, and NOT Catholics!!!!!! Catholics are to accept it if unavoidable. Enthusiasm, however….

I have two dear friends who are sisters. They are practically giddy protesting/dissuading/resisting outside abortion clinics. While there they may sit in a car together to rest or respite from the elements. Their giddiness stems not only from their holy action, but from the dream of martyrdom while so engaged. They also dream of the rocketing of their causes for beatification to the top of the list!!!! I imagine an attacker with a shotgun taking them both out while they sit in the front seats of the car together. Only Catholics!!!!

I have decided the color (and here) for our current martyrdom of reputation is black, as in “to blacken the name”.


-by Elijah Dubek, OP

“The letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch (35-108 AD) were some of the first writings of Church Fathers I ever read. One of my friends bought me a copy of The Apostolic Fathers, and the summer before I entered seminary, I read through them. Saint Ignatius’ excitement, even enthusiasm, for martyrdom, was striking and memorable:

Fire and cross and battles with wild beasts, mutilation, mangling, wrenching of bones, the hacking of limbs, the crushing of my whole body, cruel tortures of the devil—let these come upon me, only let me reach Jesus Christ! (St Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans 5:3)

This martyr begs the Roman Christians not to interfere with his impending martyrdom, but if they must, they should coax the beasts to devour him completely, that his body may not be left behind as a burden for anyone.

When I first encountered these words, the enthusiasm was contagious. As I return to them, it is their courage that strikes me. Here is a saint who knows that the only way to follow Jesus Christ is to take up one’s cross, which led St. Ignatius to his own death. His fear, however, is not of the wild beasts that will tear him apart and cause him pain. No, he worries that fellow Christians, well-intentioned perhaps, will “save” him from this cross. “For I am afraid of your love, in that it may do me wrong….I implore you: do not be unseasonably kind to me” (1.2, 4.1).

Violent martyrdom of this kind, especially enthusiasm for such, is often hard for us to swallow. It is not that we don’t hear the words of the Gospel: “Whoever wishes to follow me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt 16:24). Perhaps we have the same difficulty that Peter and the disciples had when Jesus first began predicting for them his coming Passion—Peter himself even tried to rebuke our Lord! We are happy to follow our Lord, but we fear the cross.

Saint Peter, of course, comes to understand, even enduring martyrdom himself, and perhaps it was St. Peter’s preaching that St. Ignatius heard in Antioch decades before his own martyrdom in Rome. So why are they no longer afraid of the cross, even eager to embrace it? Like St. Paul, they know that “the sufferings of the present time are nothing compared to the glory to be revealed in us” (Rom 8:18). Despite his enthusiasm, St. Ignatius is certainly not excited for mutilation, mangling, wrenching, and hacking for their own sake. No. He says, “Let these come upon me, only let me reach Jesus Christ!” The sufferings of the present are bearable because of the promise of Jesus, because through them, Jesus brings us to Himself.”

We MUST imitate Him in ALL things!!!!

Love & Martyrdom!!!!
Matthew

Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom