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.
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.
When the enemies of the Church, the enemies of Christianity in general, and those who want to “hold” the Catholic hierarchy’s “feet to the fire” constantly jabber about Pius XII’s supposed complicity in the Nazi murder of Jews, it becomes necessary to defend the truth as well as the honor of the Holy Father. He was, after all, not only innocent of the crime of which he stands accused by an angry mob, but was also proactive in the protection of innocent Jews. That’s history. Catholics have a particular duty to defend the Church’s honor, but even secular historians of the era ought to vindicate Pius XII, if only to protect the integrity of their science.
In changing the traditional Douay-Rheims rendering of Genesis 3:15 from “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” to the Catholic Revised Standard Version translation (based on the King James Bible), “I will put enmities between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel,” the scriptural foundation for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is compromised. So, too, is the traditional doctrine concerning Our Lady’s essential role in salvation history, which has been translated into her more modern title of “Co-redemptrix.”
“The United Nations estimated that 683 Christians fled Mosul between February 20 and February 27. Chaldean Catholic Bishop Emil Shimoun Nona of Mosul estimated that ‘about 400 families’ had left the city’s community of 4,000 Christians.”
This disheartening data comes from an article in Catholic World News. The Iraqi Catholic bishops themselves are bemoaning the situation. But that’s not all they are doing; they are also praying, fasting, and organizing their people to protest peacefully. The facts are not to be denied, and they are not the “spin” of liberal news pundits trying to make a Republican effort look bad.
The holiest places on earth are our own sanctuaries in our Catholic Churches and chapels where the Blessed Sacrament is preserved. There are highly indulgenced shrines as well, which are often the destination of pilgrimages, such as Chartres in France, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, Lourdes, Fatima, and so many others. Some shrines, such as that of the North American martyrs in Auriesville, New York, give honor to an event, as this one does for the eight Jesuit martyrs, three of whom shed their blood near this site. The shrine may commemorate a sacred event, apparition, or miracle; or it may house a relic directly related to Our Lord or Our Lady. Some shrines were built to honor a saint, such as Compostella in Spain, which honors St. James the Greater; and Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, which honors the protector of the Holy Family, the Spouse of Our Lady and Patron of the Universal Church.
A place becomes holy when it is specially linked to God. There can be no greater “link” to God than the place that houses God Himself. That is why the tabernacle is the holiest of all places, the Holy of Holies. Since Our Lady, preeminently, and the saints participate more intimately in the divine life, wherever they have walked on this earth is holy ground. The most highly indulgenced of all shrines is the place where the Holy Family lived, the Holy House of Nazareth. Transported by the angels to Loreto in Italy about seven hundred years ago, the original walls of this modest domicile still stand, and within them, as the inscription reads at the door, Hic Verbum Caro Factum Est (Here the Word Was Made Flesh).
The fact that there are physical miracles still being granted to the ill at these holy places is a wonderful testimony of God’s continued mercy. However what really makes these sanctae loca (holy places) even more holy are the miracles of conversion that take place there. Saint Augustine explains why: “the conversion of a sinner,” he says, “is a greater act of divine omnipotence than the creation of the world.”
Even the Royal Air Club of Zaragoza sent two planes to drop flowers from the heavens. And two F-18s from the military did a fly over. With the socialist government doing all it can to undermine the Catholic Faith in Spain this is a very encouraging response: the humble children of Sant’ Iago still love the Blessed Mother. Read article here.
The Church in the United States has always been predominately Irish as an institution. Even today, with Hispanics obviously bound to become the Catholic majority in the near future, she remains essentially Irish-American in character and spirit. Read More »
ROME (Catholic Online) – On this feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Servant of God John Paul II, in the year 1992, instituted the “World Day of the Sick”, calling the faithful to pray for those who are sick and to offer their own sickness and struggle, joined to the sufferings of Christ, on behalf of those in need. Catholic Online presents this marvelous letter from one who many believe is the next Saint of our age:
Full text here.
(Last time, I promised to follow up Ad Rem 89 with some concrete advice. This will come, God willing, but first something more timely for November.)
Fingerprints burned into a prayer book. A clearly visible charred hand print on a wooden table. Similar marks on shirt sleeves, a night cap, and aprons. These are among the curiosities to be seen in Rome’s Purgatory Museum. Read More »
I’m back from this two-week trip to Rome, but I haven’t gotten the Eternal City out of my mind. Not by a long shot. Thus, this entry, which has a ghoulish picture in it. I think it’s an appropriate meditation on death for November.
In Rome there is a famous church dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, and run by the Capuchins. What is most famous about this church is nothing in the church itself, but the nearby crypt cemetery, which the Capuchins decorated in a macabre way. Read More »
For most of my stay here in Rome, I have been worshipping at a church that the Holy Father gave to The Fraternity of Saint Peter as a “personal parish,” i.e., a church with all the privileges and duties of a parish, but with no territorial boundaries. In granting this church to the Fraternity, the Holy Father set an example for his brother bishops, to whom he had suggested personal parishes as a way of assisting traditionalists. Read More »
This past Sunday, I went to Mass at the Church of Jesus and Mary: Chiesa di Gesu e Maria. This Church, built by a rich cardinal in the 1600’s, is on the Via Del Corso, a main street in Rome, and one that has quick access to many historical landmarks, both pagan and Christian. Walking into the church, I was struck with the impression that it was obviously Augustinian, because of the saints commemorated in its iconography (Saints Rita of Cascia, Nicholas of Tolentino, Thomas of Villanova, and Saint Augustine himself). Read More »
Here in the Eternal City, I’ve been seeing many of the holy places, and attending Mass every day in the traditional rite. What follows are some notes and impressions of an American pilgrim in Rome, blessed with wonderful opportunities here, and many new friends who are helping me to find my way around.
In his Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer presents a series of charming stories told by his colorful medieval characters. These holy and not-so-holy fourteenth-century pilgrims were on their merry way to the shrine of St. Thomas á Becket, long before the days when modern transit made pilgrimages an easy-going affair. But roughing it for Christ is not a thing of the past. There are even Americans today who still do it the old-fashioned way — on foot. To them, it is the best way, because it is more spiritually rewarding. Read More »
A century ago, a very remarkable miracle took place in this country, that just now seems to be making the headlines. The people who witnessed it were very excited and jubilant indeed, but surprisingly little mention is made of it in any written form — and then only briefly; to me this is the mystery of the miracle. Read More »
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