We continue what be began in our last number, a three-part study of spiritual childhood by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964).
St. Teresa of the Child Jesus reminds us that the principal virtues of the child of God are those in which are reproduced in an eminent degree the innate qualities of the child, minus his defects. Consequently the way of spiritual childhood will teach us to be supernaturally ourselves minus our defects.
Brother Thomas Mary wrote an article many years ago that deserves wider circulation and attention. It’s called, simply, “Doctrinal Summary” — an accurate name, as the piece summarizes Father Feeney’s doctrinal stance, but a too modest name to arouse readers’ attention. Please consider this an invitation to read Brother …
(This is dedicated to Heidi Beirich, director of “research” at the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose intelligent, nuanced writing style I attempt to imitate.)
The radical mercenary leftist fundraisers at the Southern Poverty Law Center are busily spewing out their trademark caterwauling again. Yes, the enemies of free speech and Christian social order are howling about the frenzied maniacs ready to escort Adolf Hitler himself down Main Street, U.S.A.
MERRIMACK, N.H. (TMC Press Release) – The Virginia-based Young America’s Foundation recently recommended the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts as one of the nation’s top conservative colleges in its sixth annual “Top Conservative Colleges” list.
Commenting on the list, Young America’s Foundation President Ron Robinson explained, “Given the liberal bias in higher education today, it is critical that we make these recommendations.
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
I just read on the New Advent website the Catholic Encyclopedia’s excellent account of the life of Erin’s great apostle. I would highly recommend it if you can spare fifteen minutes today. I can’t think of anything I’ve read elsewhere over the years about the saint that …
That’s the motion that was debated last week in London, at an event hosted by the Spectator and held at the Royal Geographical Society. And guess what — “the 700-strong sell-out audience voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motion”!
Excerpt from The Catholic Herald:
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, author Piers Paul Read and Dom Anthony Sutch, former headmaster of Downside, spoke for the motion.
Anime cartoons and their characters are a huge cultic phenomenon, the most popular of all escapist media venues. It is very addictive and very dangerous, to the soul and the mind. I don’t post weird stories, but this blog by Zoe Romanowski from Inside Catholic, along with another, even …
One of the commentators on the relevant CWN article expressed it well: “It’s past time someone said this. Too often ecumenism is taken to mean the weakening of the teachings of the Church and the addition of non-Catholic ritual and beliefs.” A-m-e-n-!
Past time is better than no time — or, “better late than never.” All the scandal that has transpired, and is ongoing, in the name of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue should cease at these words of Cardinal Levada defining its purpose (or “final cause” to you Aristotelians out there): “Union with the Catholic Church is the goal of ecumenism.”
Our 2010 conference will be held on October 8 and 9 at Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire.
The information currently available is as follows:
Theme: “The Romance of Wisdom”
Cost: $100 for both days (Friday and Saturday). This includes meals. Single days without meals: $40.
Note: This year, Friday and Saturday will both be full days. There will be eight speakers giving presentations in addition to the master of ceremonies, our Prior, Brother Andre Marie.
Archbishop Alberto Bottari de Castello, apostolic nuncio to Japan, has a very perceptive insight into the subversive effects Buddhist doctrine has on the soul of a suffering devotee confronting hopelessness. From Sandro Magister’s latest column: “Why Life is Worth So Little in Prosperous Japan.”
“The Japanese do not have a personal …
[March 5, 2010 - Rome Reports (with hat tip to Rorate Caeli)]
Benedict XVI has formed a commission to investigate if Our Lady truly appeared in Medjugorje, a small town in Bosnia.
The commission is part of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Camillo Ruini will preside over the commission. Ruini is the pope’s former vicar of Rome’s diocese. Ruini goal will be to explain to the pope what’s happening at the sanctuary which has become the third most visited in Europe.
Allegedly, at least 6 people have witnessed the Virgins apparitions there since 1981.
Before the creation of the material universe God created the angels, billions of them. All at once they came into existence. One moment they were not, the next moment they were. Imagine that! Imagine being fully cognizant of yourself and your fellow celestial spirits all at once. Awesome, is it not? All of your knowledge of everything around you and your Almighty Creator, one God in Three Persons, was infused at your creation. You were a child of God from the start, gifted with the infused virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity; and all that you had to do to see God face to face forever was to love Him and obey Him.
The angels have no body; they are pure spirits, unmixed with matter. They have no need of a language for they communicate directly by one intellect engaging another, thought to thought, concept to concept. What tremendous minds they have! They see all the effects directly and immediately in their causes, all the conclusions in the premises. Therefore, they have no need to reason as we do. Philosophers call their intellectual activity “intuition.” They intuit, rather than think. They see the truth of things directly, so it is not possible for an angel to make an erroneous judgment. They do not know everything, of course. They can be ignorant. But they can never be wrong about what they do know.
Angels also have a will. It is their intellect and will, and sanctifying grace, that makes them the image and likeness of God. Because the angels have a free will, they could chose in their trial state to obey or disobey God. Did they receive a specific command from God, like Adam and Eve? Yes. They were commanded to adore God’s Son in a nature inferior to their own, the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Before it came about, God revealed to all the angels the creation of man and the Incarnation to come. And, the mother of this God-man would be their Queen.
The good angels joyfully obeyed and were taken in to the beatific vision of the Blessed Trinity, whom they had known before only by Faith. The tradition is that two-thirds of the angels obeyed God. The one third that refused, and chose to follow the rebellious Lucifer, were cast into hell. Some of these demons are allowed to take their hell with them and roam the earth where they can tempt men. So, too, the more powerful, good angels, take their heaven with them, and roam the earth doing good to men. A guardian angel is assigned by God to every man at birth.
Susan Brinkmann of Women of Grace website reports: A long-time video gamer and devout Catholic is sounding the alarm about a new breed of satanically-themed video games that target God and the Catholic Church, invite players to make pacts with the devil, and elevate Satan to hero status. Read full article here.
I promised last September that I would post answers to questions I received from a high school student about the angels. It’s been over four months now since I have done that. My apologies to anyone who was waiting for the next entry.
Does every human being have a guardian angel?
Yes, every human being, whoever was, is, or will be, has a guardian angel. Read More »
The daughter of a friend of mine asked me some years ago if, for her class project, I could answer some questions about the angels. She sent me twenty-six questions. And very intelligent questions they were. Some were not so easy to answer. I did answer all of her questions, twenty-four pages, single-spaced. I thought that over the next few months I would share now and then some of these Q&A’s with you. Here’s a good place to start. Read More »
Father Charles had just finished his sermon on Hell. Being a good orator — partly his native “Irish gift,” partly his good seminary training and experience — he had kept the congregation on the edge of their seats. True, the chandelier falling midway through the sermon (causing one lady to faint), added some dramatic tension, but this sermon was good even without the unintended special effects. As the preacher was taking off his surplice and stole in the sacristy, a native-born Irish lady entered therein, to say that his was a superlative piece of sacred eloquence. The priest thanked her graciously. Read More »
Two feasts every year.
One a double major, the other a double of the first class! Read More »
The Kensington Runestone is a slab of greywacke stone — 36 inches long, 16 inches wide, and 6 inches thick — with a fourteenth-century runic inscription on it. Unearthed in 1898, in a rural area of Northern Minnesota, it was named after the nearest settlement, Kensington. What the runes say, and the significance of the message, I’ll get to presently. Let me begin by saying I am neither an archaeologist, nor a philologist, nor a runologist, nor an ancient Scandinavian linguist. The Kensington Runestone has some controversy surrounding it, and Read More »
(This story is recorded in John Gilmary Shea’s New History of the Catholic Church in the United States., pg. 187, and retold here in our own words.)
THE LAST THING a German Lutheran family by the name of Livingston expected to be confronted with when they moved to the American wilderness was a ghost. Undoubtedly, the Livingstons would have preferred wild bears or Indians – at least then they could see their foe. Read More »
Before the dawn of the material creation there was a lot of immaterial (though hardly in the sense of unimportant) and awesome activity going on. At one point it developed into warfare. Read More »
OUR SAVIOR OFTEN compared heaven to a kingdom. And indeed it is more majestic than any kingdom that could be conceived; and in such a kingdom, wherein dwells the King of kings, there must surely be a most glorious court. Read More »
An Issue[1] dedicated to the angels would not be complete without a Look at the historical activity of the “ministering spirits” on earth, as we know it from the Old and New Testaments. From the time of Adam their most important occupation had been to keep alive the primitive revelation concerning the One True God and the Savior to come, as well as inspiring virtue and warding off the evil influences of the demons. Read More »
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