Category: Spiritual Life

This category, of course, can cover many topics. We try to limit it in this section to articles that deal with the inner life of the soul elevated by grace or wounded by sin: virtue and vice, heroic Catholic men and women as seen under the light of the particular virtue they exemplified, the cardinal virtues, spiritual formation, growth, and purgation, and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

The Agony of the Resurrection

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Every year around Holy Week, the publishers of America’s popular reading material let loose a volley of blasphemies against our Lord’s Resurrection. Citing one or another perfidious “noted scholar,” the glossy-covered journals that accost us at the checkout counter vie … Continue reading →

What Distinguishes Spiritual Childhood from Natural Childhood

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To remain little is to recognize one’s nothingness, to expect everything from God, as a little child expects everything from his father; it is to be disturbed about nothing, not to earn a fortune.

Even among poor people, as long as the child is quite small, they give him what he needs; but as soon as he has grown up, his father no longer wishes to feed him and says to him: “Work now, you can be self-supporting.” Well, so as never to hear that, I have not wished to grow up. Continue reading →

The Innate Qualities of the Child

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Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (1877-1964) was one of the greatest theologians of modern times. He was a staunch anti-modernist, who engaged and exposed the twerpy upstarts responsible for the neo-modernist Nouvelle Théologie (“New Theology”). Much more than a controversialist, the … Continue reading →

Quinquagesima Sunday

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You will find nothing in the world’s literature that matches St. Paul’s “sublime Canticle of Charity” (Fr. Plassmann) in today’s epistle. This encomium to the divine love that is infused in our souls at baptism is singularly precious. Far from … Continue reading →

John Vennari on Blessed Columba Marmion’s Spiritual-Ecclesial Doctrine

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And just the way there is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ, likewise there is no salvation apart from His Mystical Body, the Catholic Church. Abbot Marmion insists that Jesus Christ and His one true Church form one mystery (emphasis his). It is not two separate entities, as if we can accept Christ and reject His Church. No! Christ and His Church, His Mystical Body, form one inseparable mystery, and to reject His Church is to reject His Body. The Catholic Church is the extension of the Incarnation in time. To reject His Holy Catholic Church is to reject Christ Himself. Continue reading →

Praying to the God That Ain’t

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Should we be surprised if the pseudo-mystical ecumenist babblings of neo-modernists lack coherence? I’m sorry if the question was abrupt in its asking. Let’s back up… There’s this book review in NCR, “Praying to a God who is larger than … Continue reading →

Sexagesima Sunday

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The Name. We are in Septuagesima season, which began last week, with Septuagesima Sunday — the name comes from the word for seventy. It’s about seventy days before Easter. Today is Sexagesima Sunday: about 60 days until Easter. The Gospel. … Continue reading →

The Mass Does Not Hinder Our Work, But Helps

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We may go farther, and say, not only does holy Mass not hinder our work: it does more, it furthers it, as experience has often proved. It is related of St. Isidore, a Spanish saint of comparatively humble birth, that he was engaged by a wealthy nobleman of Madrid to cultivate his lands for a fixed annual salary. He fulfilled his duty with exemplary industry, but without discontinuing Continue reading →