Blog Posts

Remember Me - Tuesday After the Fourth Sunday in Lent

3/24/2020

Among other things needful in the spiritual combat, one is the perseverance with which we must strive continually to mortify our passions, which in this life never die, but on the contrary like evil weeds shoot up every hour.

And this is a battle from which, as it ends only with life, there is no escape; and he who fights not in it is of necessity either taken captive or slain. Besides we have to deal with enemies who bear us an unceasing hatred, so that from them we can never hope either for peace or a truce, because they slay those most cruelly who strive most to make friends of them.

Thou hast no cause however to fear either their power or their number; for in the battle none can be a loser but he who wills it; the whole strength of our enemies is in the hand of the Captain for whose honor we have to fight. And not only will He guard thee from all treachery, but He will even fight for thee, a being mightier than all these enemies. He will give the victory into thy hands, if only thou wilt fight manfully together with Him, and trust not in thyself, but in His power and goodness. And if the Lord give thee not so speedy a victory, be not disheartened, but be the more assured that all things which shall befall thee, those even which to thee may seem furthest from, yea most opposed to thy victory, all will He turn to thy good and profit, if thou wilt but bear thyself as a faithful and generous warrior.
- Scupoli

The soldier's fidelity is proved in battle, and blessed is he who is faithful in adversity.
- St. Alphonsus Liguori

Remember Me - Monday After the Fourth Sunday in Lent

3/23/2020

Blessed is the soul which frequently considereth the last hour, when all must be ended in, this life—joys or sorrows, honors and reproaches. Happy the soul that is as a poor pilgrim traveling towards God—that despiseth all the pomp of the world, however great and enticing. For in that last hour all shall perish—cities, castles, villages, vessels of gold and silver, all dainty meats and flowers, cups of smelling wine. Then shall be dumb the lyre, trumpet, pipe and harp. Then shall be no more sport nor mirth, no more dance nor loud applause, no more songs nor merry laughter, no more the sound of revelry in street or bower—for the hearts of all living shall fail, and the whole earth shall tremble at the presence of God. O how wise is he that daily considereth these things ! Blessed is he that of his own desire keepeth himself away from the many snares and dangers of the world. Blessed is he that watcheth day and night against temptation; for so long as the soul is united to the body, and the body is nourished with the fruit of the earth, man cannot be exempt from sin nor free from temptation, nor assured that he may not fall.

There is nothing that endureth, nothing that abideth on this earth, of which the body of Adam and his sons were formed. Then in all thy works, whatever they may be, wherever thou goest, to what place soever thou proceedest, remember the end of life, and the last hour, which shall come at a time thou thinkest not.
- Thomas a Kempis

He who has made you what you are has the right to require that you should be wholly His.
- St. Augustine.

Remember Me - The Fifth Sunday in Lent - Passion Sunday

3/22/2020

The Prophet Elias, persecuted by impious Jezabel, retreats into the desert, and having made a day’s journey in it sinks at the foot of a tree with the prayer: "It is enough; let me die.’’ An angel descending from heaven, touching the prophet, said: '‘Rise and eat, for a long journey is before you.” Rising, he ate the food brought him by the angel, and in its strength journeyed forty days and forty nights until he reached the Mount of God.

The Prophet Elias is the Christian soul traveling through the desert of life. Often wearied by the weight of existence the exile casts himself down despondently in the shadow of the first rock he meets, and cries, “Lord, I have lived long enough, release me from this world ; the source of life and strength is withered within me.” Soul of little faith! Lift your eyes, and see the Angel who is at your side. He holds in his hand food prepared in heaven. Take this strengthening manna and you will rise in full strength for the journey that lies before you. Take this Bread. It is Jesus Christ, and “Christ is life, and life is bread,” as Tertullian says. {De orat.)

How many weak souls drag themselves wearily through the shades of mortal languor, because, though they have known the gift of God, they have forgotten to eat their bread, and their soul is enervated like the body of a man who for a long time has eaten no food.
- Msgr. Landriot

Remember Me - Fourth Sunday in Lent

3/22/2020

O dear brethren, anticipate the day of Judgment. Be beforehand with it. That day is coming as the rising of tomorrow's sun. The day is not far off when the Great White Throne will be set up, and we shall stand before Him; and the eyes that are as a flame of fire, will search us through and through ; and not His eyes alone, but the eyes of all men will be upon us ! and the ears of men will hear that which the accuser will say against us in that day. There will be no secrecy there; no hiding of our sins, nothing concealed from God, or from that multitude which is around the Great White Throne. What does He require of you now? The Great White Throne is veiled in His mercy. In the holy Sacrament of Penance He sits as the Judge, not arrayed in the splendors which will dazzle and blind us at the Last Day, but as the Good Shepherd, and as the Good Physician, the Friend of Sinners, who is come not to call the just, but sinners, to repentance. There He sits in His mercy. Come to Him then, one by one. Be beforehand with the Day of Judgment. That which you confess now will be blotted out and forgiven in that day. That which you hide now will be in the book of God’s remembrance, laid up for a record in the day of the great assize. It is not much that He requires of us to come and tell it in the ear of one man in His stead—If it be painful to you, if shame cover your face, offer up the pain and the shame as a part of the penance, as Mary Magdalene in the midst of that great banquet. It is precisely for this purpose that the salutary pain may be the medicine of our pride. Dear brethren, then, be beforehand with the Day of Judgment, while the day of grace lasts ; and come to Him as you are.
- Cardinal Manning

Remember Me - Saturday After the Third Sunday in Lent

3/21/2020

Love for our neighbor must be disinterested and generous, but it must be pure, not the indulgence—even at some cost of physical effort—of mere good nature, or, what it is a tendency, if not a fault of the present generation to make it, an outlet of energy, an object of business. Love for our neighbor must not be rash, but sage and discreet. We must render him the services due to him from us ; help to instruct ignorant brethren, to correct them, or soothe them in spiritual or corporal need. But we must not injure our own eternal interests by love to our neighbor. An Ancient philosopher was once asked by a neighbor to do him some kindness at the expense of his honour, and on his refusal was asked sharply, ‘‘What is the good of your being my friend, if your friendship is useless to me?” To which the philosopher answered wisely, “What good is yours to me, if it does me harm?” Our test should be a similar one, and none of us have any right to go beyond the line thus marked.
- Abbee Puyol

Though thou art bound to set a good example, thou must never do it solely with this view; else thou wilt lose all benefit to thyself.
- Scupoli

Remember Me - Friday After the Third Sunday in Lent

3/20/2020

Consider the marvel of Jesus' Heart as corresponding to an infirmity in the heart of man. Just because we love little we love few people; we shut ourselves up to love, we build ourselves a little nest wherein we place the beings most dear to us—a father, a mother, a wife, children, a few friends. What can we do? We have only a drop of love; we husband it, expending it on a few, for even while we give these few all we have, we are not sure of having given them enough.

How different the Heart of Jesus! He loves all men and all with the same zeal. Small and great, rich and poor, the just and the sinner, the waifs and strays of the world. Is there any one He forgets ? Whom has He not loved, tenderly, ardently? What being has ever been found too foul for this most pure Heart, too common for this most noble Heart, too haughty for this humble Heart, too small for this sublime Heart? It seems even as if immensity did not suffice Him, and in His prayers. His words, one surprises bursts of affection in which He embraces all created beings and even worlds unknown to us.
- Msgr. Bougaud

What shall I give back to the Lord for all that He has given to me?
- Psalm cxv.

Remember Me - Thursday After the Third Sunday in Lent

3/19/2020

Consider the mystery of the three resurrections wrought by the Savior of mankind, that of the Ruler's daughter, that of the young man of Naim, and that of Lazarus at Bethany. The young girl had only just died, and was not prepared for burial: she typifies the sinner who has fallen, but has not yet contracted the habit of sin and the indifference consequent upon it. The young man is the sinner who has made no effort to rise after his fall, and whose will has lost its spring; they are carrying him to the grave and if he did not meet our Lord on the way he would be laid among those who can never return. Lazarus is a still more terrible figure. He is already given over to corruption. A stone rolled over the tomb has condemned his body to a slow and inevitable decay. Is it possible for him to revive? Yes; if Jesus deigns to make him an object of His divine power.

In these days the Church prays and fasts, and we with her, that these three forms of death may hear the voice of the Son of God and arise. The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is about to produce its wondrous result in each of these degrees. Let us unite ourselves to this design of the divine mercy, praying urgently night and day to the Redeemer. Then when a few days hence we see the dead restored to life, then shall we cry with the inhabitants of Naim: ‘‘A great prophet has arisen among us ; God has visited His people.”
- Dom. Geuranger

A true conversion finds God always ready for it.
- St. Augustine

Remember Me - Wednesday After the Third Sunday in Lent

3/18/2020

Seek not to penetrate into futurity, neither encourage a habit of anticipating good or evil. Our trials do not always come from those occasions we may have foreseen— God frequently takes us by surprise, and sometimes in those objects on which we most fondly rest our hearts and in those moments when we think ourselves most secure. The evils which we have imagined for ourselves often vanish before the eye of reason and it is not in our own power to choose where the blow shall fall.

Let then, the obedience of every day be your daily bread: live upon the will of your God: He provides for you celestial manna. Be satisfied with it; it is not in your power to lay it up in store, or to say how much of it God shall give you. All that you have to do is to use it in such proportions as you receive it.

Strive to live your life in peace, simplicity and resignation. Place your hopes of happiness in God, and not in His creatures, and you will then be secure. For on Him you may rely with full confidence.
- Fenelon

Do all things with holy simplicity, without regard to anything but to please God.
- Scupoli

Remember Me - Tuesday After the Third Sunday in Lent

3/17/2020

What is trial? A rendezvous which God appoints to His creatures that He may test their love. Trial alone, indeed, can provide the opportunity for the proof of man’s free choice between his own will and the will of God ; and the severer the trial the better we can show our love by our generosity in triumphing over it.

When God destines a soul, says the Apostle, to the glory of the elect, He also destines it to reflect the image of His only Son. How can a soul reflect that image in itself? Through glory? Why, as to glory the Son of God was glorious on Thabor, but that glory lasted for an hour. Through strength? Hardly, for it is rare indeed that God predestines a creature to miraculous deeds.

Through holiness, then? Yes; and what is the most striking element in the holiness of the Son of man? The resignation His love evinced in His sufferings. Ecce Homo! Behold the Man! Look at Him as Pilate shows Him to you, with His reed. His crown of thorns, His bruised and disfigured face, dimmed by shame. This is truly the Man of Sorrows, with His burning Heart and His gentle glance. Look well at Him, for such is the model we must copy in its grief, if we are to reflect its rays when we enjoy its vision in the bosom of the Eternal glory.
- Pere Marchal.

When God has chosen a soul which he predestines to become great He marks it with His seal, and God’s seal is a cross.
- Abbe Mounier

Remember Me - Monday After the Third Sunday in Lent

3/16/2020

Whenever you do anything—that is, in general—do all things—that is, each thing in particular—in the name, not only to the name, of our Lord Jesus Christ ; and further give thanks to God through Him. (Col. iii. 17.)

As everything should be offered to God, so everything should be given thanks for to Him; since whatever you offer Him is really His gift. You are a river, grateful to its origin, but only a river; you have to bear back to the ocean what was given to you from it. Observe how the Church, directed in this matter by the Apostle Paul, has instituted two solemn prayers to be said one at the beginning and one at the end of every duty, to commend it to God and to thank Him for it. This thanksgiving is due to God Himself, to God as the Fountain of all good that flows to us, to God the Father and just as He gives us all through the medium of Jesus Christ, so He delights that we should thank Him for all by Jesus Christ.

But somehow the greater part of mankind seems to pay its debts after the pattern of animals feeding greedily under an oak on the acorns that fall abundantly from it, and never thinking of looking up to admire the origin of the gifts.—So few are there among them who really give thanks.
- P. Segneri S.F.
All that Thou takest from me I give Thee; and all that I have not given Thee I owe Thee.
- Madame Swetchine

Remember Me - Third Sunday After Lent

3/15/2020

The further humanity progresses, the more striking does Christ's power become. As each new horizon opens out, as each fresh need arrives, this power responds to it by a new illumination, by a remedy hitherto unguessed.

How many marvels for example are evident to us that the earliest Christians never dreamed of, but that we are compelled to confess always existed in His intention, and what marvels are there not that we cannot divine, but of which our children’s children will be constrained to say. He knew them of old, from before the ages.

And whilst this power wears through time, renewed to meet the least advances of civilization, its strength is undiminished. It impresses souls at the end of twenty centuries as in their first days. Napoleon said: “A man’s heart glows at the recital of Alexander’s conquests, but here is a conqueror who makes the whole human race His own, and makes it like to Himself—a miracle indeed!
- Mgr. Bougaud

Do you need such great knowledge to love God and deny yourself for His love? You already know a great deal more than you practice.
- Pension

Remember Me - Saturday after the Second Sunday in Lent

3/14/2020

In this world we have to live by faith, for all that we suffer comes from God’s hand. It is either willed or permitted by God—and for our good. Some trials indeed come straight from Him. Such are the interior anguish of dereliction, of desolation, of dryness, and others of the same kind. Our Lady suffered such a trial in the loss of her Son after the Feast. Think of this grief by the light of the love she bore Him. Think too, of the answer given her at the moment of her ecstasy at meeting Him again ; of another trial of hers when at the marriage in Cana He seemed to repel her suggestion. Did either shake her faith or cause her to protest ? Consider her gentleness whom His reproof rendered still meeker, and compare it with the impulse of our souls when God sends us trials. Where is our faith? We fail to find recollectedness in prayer, and we leave it off : we lose our old fervor in the reception of the Sacraments, and we
neglect them. In our spiritual desolation we turn to creatures for comfort and when God withdraws himself from us to prove our affection or to draw us to Him, we perhaps forsake Him.

O hard and foolish hearts ! Ask rather for crosses and trials and labor : they lead, as they well may, to a closer likeness to Mary’s holy heart, to a closer union with that of her Divine Son.
- P. Manfredini

Jesus, sick of heart. His friends asleep, and His enemies vigilant, places Himself entirely in His Father’s hands.
- Pascal

Remember Me - Friday After the Second Sunday in Lent

3/13/2020

Let us try to enter into the intentions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to infuse our hearts with the feelings that animated His when on earth—the glory of God by the cessation, or at least the diminuation of sin. Can our thoughts or desires find a more glorious object? One more worthy of our zeal? If to this is added the conversion of sinners, the thought alone excites the heart including as it does all those ills of human nature of which sin is the head and cause, the physical sufferings of sinners in time, the frightful eternity of infinite woe they cannot escape without repentance. If, again, from these general considerations, we pass to those which, among the mass of sinners enduring them, touch us more nearly, is it not impossible for us to help glowing with ardent desires of compassion and Christian charity?

Following Christ's example, then, we must sanctify ourselves to obtain the conversion and sanctification of our brethren then will sinners indeed repent—each offering of self will be a victory.

- Abbe Des Gennettes

If we wish to help our neighbors, we must reserve neither place, nor hour, nor season for ourselves.
- St. Philip Neri

Remember Me - Thursday After the Second Sunday in Lent

3/12/2020

My advice is to put confidence in prayer. I repeat it in prayer, whatever your state of mind. It is indeed a great, fatal delusion, to cease from prayer because a fault has been committed. Such discouragement is not in accordance with God's will, who well knows our pitiableness and never asks our confidence more than when all seems lost. Indeed God adopts in relation to us, many titles directly encouraging in times of great distrust. He is a father, a physician, a good shepherd, the prodigal's father even, and we have these names to choose from among them that which best suits our actual condition.

We ought, to give ourselves up to the feeling that corresponds to the one chosen, as, gratitude, love, or perhaps confusion, grief, and regret, though these last should be filial and accompanied by a lively confidence in God's goodness. Such is His way founded on His will; anything else arises from self-love for the natural man, and can lead us to no good. For the rest we must never neglect vigilance. Our Lord Jesus Christ linked these two rules together; watch and pray.

- Pere Cestac

Why should you suppose God is far off because you cannot perceive Him? He is always, you may be sure, near to those whose hearts are blank and sorrowful.
- Fenelon

Remember Me - Wednesday after the Second Sunday in Lent

3/11/2020

May you hope to receive temporal blessings from God? Yes, in the degree in which they are connected with your sanctification and salvation. It is plain that in themselves such gains cannot be the object of supernatural desires; they may, however, become one in any way by which they are more or less directly connected with our end. That is why, when He engages solemnly to hear our prayers, our Lord makes no categorical reserve. He says, ‘'All that you ask shall be granted you, or, all that you desire you shall see accomplished.'' And indeed in the sublime and universal prayer He taught us Himself, and which obviously is the guide for our hopes, no less than four of the seven petitions composing it regard temporal or earthly gifts. The remark is St. Augustine's. But be careful to observe that these good things have never more than a relative value for Christians, and that to consider them inside this connection is to be the victim of an illusion.

To desire and demand them for their own sake, is to set your foot on an insecure and perilous track; and even those who desire them in relation to a higher object, are bound invariably to keep in mind the character of superfluity attributed to earthly gifts by our Lord in the Gospel. They are thrown into the bargain, so to speak, when God grants them, and we should realize this as well as the fact that He gives them as necessary or useful adjuncts only. So while we ask for them with humble simplicity, we at the same time leave ourselves entirely to Him in the matter, without any shadow of disquietude.

- Msgr. Gay

Remember Me - Tuesday after the Second Sunday in Lent

3/10/2020

Of the three kinds of Pride. There are three, one of thought, that is when any one thinks himself more highly than he ought to think; against which it is said, ''Be not high-minded, but rather fear,’’ and which he denies to exist in himself who say, "Lord I am not high-minded, my looks are not proud.”

Another is of will, when anyone wants to be treated with more consideration than is his due; against which it is said, "How can ye believe who are receiving honor one from another?”

A third is in deed against which saith the Lord, "When thou art bidden to a feast sit not down in the highest place.” This, when a man treats himself better than he ought.

Against each of these forms many sayings are found in Holy Scripture, if they are sought out. Against all it is said, "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be humbled,” and "God resisteth the proud. And many other passages there are. Of these three, when each one is by itself that is the least which is in deed only, because it is done through ignorance alone, and yet since it is a fault it ought to be amended. Of the other two that which is in will alone is more to be condemned, because it errs knowingly. But that which is in thought is only the more foolish, since it does not manifest itself, and to itself appears quite just. * * *

If your prudence will frequently reconsider this, you will understand it more fully than is here set down.
~ St. Anselm

Remember Me - Monday After the Second Sunday in Lent

3/9/2020

When you think about making money, you do not for a moment consider those poorer than yourself, you aspire to level yourself with those richer. It is only in religious matters that you show a tendency to modesty and self efifacement. It is only there that you meekly quote your inferiors. Why do you not rather imitate Zaccheus, who gave half his goods to the poor. One is reduced to wishing that the Christians of the present day would imitate the Pharisees, who gave the tenth of what they possessed.

Jesus Christ has a kingdom. He has taxes, domains, treasures, a treasury in heaven ; that treasury is the purse of the poor, the common purse such as He had on earth with His disciples. Levy a tax on yourselves, a settled tax upon the annual income you receive from your possessions, or your earnings—be your own Customs-officer. Now, will you make it a tenth ? I hope so, even though that’s not much, since that is what the Pharisees gave, and if your justice does not exceed that of the Pharisees you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
~St. Augustine

The poor hold out their hands, but God receives what is given to them.
~Pere Chassay.

Remember Me - Second Sunday in Lent

3/8/2020

Nothing is more useful or wholesome for one who would fain come to life everlasting, than to meditate continually on the salvation of his soul. He that is more anxious for his soul’s good than for the increase of his fortune or comforts of his body is a merchant truly wise; for he valueth the spiritual riches which perish not more than the perishable good things of earth.

Blessed is that good servant who has been faithful over a little, who useth every moment of his life in a profitable way ; who is not busied with what doth not concern him, and who, to please God, becometh like one that is deaf and dumb. He goeth through the bustle of the world in peace, having his soul always in his hand.

Take therefore no thought of the behavior of thy neighbor, save and as far as the love of God and charity may require. Desire not the praises of men, seeing they are vain. Be not fearful of their reproach; for instead of doing harm to thy soul, humiliations cleanse it, and render it more meet to receive a brighter crown in heaven and none are worthy to be glorified in heaven who are unable to bear reproach on earth for the love of God.
~Thomas a Kempis.

Bear the annoyances of your condition in a penitential spirit; these are the penances God assigns you and far more useful than what you may choose for yourself.
~Fenelon.

Remember Me - Saturday After the First Sunday in Lent

3/6/2020

What is fervor? It does not mean emotion. Fervor consists in these three things: regularity, punctuality, and exactness—that is doing our duty to God by rule; doing it punctually at the right time; and, exactly, that is, as perfectly as we can. But if we have been indulging in venial sins, of any sort or kind, we begin to do our duty towards God in a slovenly way ; we neglect the right time : we do it irregularly, we put off God with imperfect service. Those venial sins are like the dust settling on a perfect machine. As the dust accumulates upon the timepiece, the motion of the timepiece becomes slower; and as it becomes sluggish it loses its perfection.

So, mortal sin is the death of the soul, but venial sin is the disease of the soul. Those who willingly allow themselves to fall into such infirmities and imperfections, which are not yet mortal are like men who are making bad blood, men in whom morbid humors are accumulating a lingering malady upon them. More than this, venial sins have the effect of giving a perverse inclination to the will. The will once united with God, and converted to God, has begun gradually to avert itself from God.

There is no such thing as an equilibrium between God and sin; that cannot be; and when the will loses its union with God, it immediately inclines itself towards sin.

Once more, such sins displease God ; and can any sin be small which displeases God?
~Cardinal Manning.

Remember Me - Friday After the First Sunday in Lent

3/5/2020

Learn the kindness of the Crucified. His enemies said, “His blood be upon us and upon our children." Not so Christ, but supplicating the Father, He said: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." For if His blood had indeed fallen upon them and upon their children, the apostles would not have been made out of their children, neither three thousand nor five thousand would have believed on the spot. See how barbarous and cruel those were towards their descendants! they ignored even nature itself, whilst God was more loving than all the fathers put together, and tenderer than any mother.

He did not at once let the chasement and penalty fall upon them, but He allowed forty years and more to pass after the cross. Our Lord Himself was crucified under Tiberius, and their city was destroyed under Vespasian and Titus. Now why did He allow so long a time to elapse after all these things? Because He wished to give them time for repentance, so that they might put off their impieties and be quit of their crimes. As, having a respite for conversion, they remained in their impenitence.

He at last inflicted punishment upon them, and destroying their city, sent them out wanderers over the, face of the earth. And this He did through love. He dispersed them that they might everywhere see that Christ whom they had crucified adored, and that seeing Him adored by all they might learn His power and acknowledge their own exceeding wickedness, and in acknowledging might come to the truth.
~ St. John Chrysostom.

Remember Me ~ Thursday After the First Sunday in Lent

3/4/2020

'‘The fear of the Lord is holy, remaining for ever and ever!"

The fear of God is of three kinds, all three good, just, sanctifying and proceeding from the Holy Spirit, but not equal in beauty nor in moral value. The first is the fear of the chastisement God inflicts on the sinner, the second the fear of the sin that offends God, the third is no other than an enlightened, profound, and practical conviction of the infinite and divine Majesty, and of the inefifable reverence that is His due.

The first fear diminishes as the second grows. The second in its progress closely follows that of love; and as St. John teaches, where love is perfect it destroys the earlier fear, not perhaps in its essential elements, here below, but in its exercise. As to the third, it not only believes, as the second does, but in one sense is charity itself, for it sees and feels that its object surpasses it on every side, in every way, and that infinitely. It is in this sense that fear dwells in Paradise, and there only is perfected.
~Msgr. Gay

He need not fear anything, nor be ashamed of anything, who bears the sign of the cross on his brow.
~ St. Augustine.

Remember Me - Wednesday After the First Sunday in Lent

3/3/2020

''Dear Lord! It is just when I am in the world that I have most need of Thee, because Thou knowest it is full of snares that the devil has set for me. Thou must hold my hand, dear Lord, if Thou wilt not abandon me. A little of the world is not bad for me; it is even good, for it teaches me how small it is, and I feel the greater happiness when I come back to Thee. But that I may surely do so, Thou must only loose Thy hold a little, that it may not try me too far, Thou must not entirely leave hold. Dost Thou see dear Lord ? I wish to clasp Thy hand do not refuse me!'’

All that one says to the Savior is prayer, and when the mind cannot apply itself to the effort of true prayer, a few simple words to Him become one. It is needful always to think of Him, even if it is only by the thought that one is thinking less of Him—one must be always thinking of Him and then bit by bit He draws one back entirely to Him, He is so good!

"As Thou wilt, my Lord ! I will all Thou dost will, because the only thing I do not will. Thou also dost not will it—that I shall cease to be Thy child."
~ Eugene de Ferronays.

I am Thine, I live for Thee, to Thee must I return - How high a destiny is mine!
~Pere Cestac

Remember Me - Tuesday After the First Sunday in Lent

3/3/2020

The iris has a dark-blue flower, with leaves shaped like a sword. Therefore it is often called the sword-lily, and has been chosen as the emblem of warfare. If thou dost aspire to be a lily of purity thou must seize the sword. If you wouldst live chase and spotless thou must not fear the battle, but must stand armed and prepared to fight. After the fall of our first parents and their expulsion from the garden of Paradise, a cherub with a flaming sword was placed at the entrance of it in order to guard it. St. Michael also was armed with a sword, and with it drove Lucifer and his followers out of heaven.

The flower of the sword-lily is of a dark-blue or purple color, the emblem of sorrow and penance. In time of Advent, when we are sighing for the coming of Christ, and purify our sighs and yearnings by penance, or in Lent, when with sorrow and contrition we contemplate the bitter sufferings and passion of our Savior, the Church assumes a purple coloring. Our hearts should be ever like the flower of the sword-lily, clad with the garment of sorrow and compassion—sorrow for our sins and compassion for the dead, who are always so grateful for our love and repay our remembrance of them a thousand fold.
~Louis Gemminger.

We cannot take too many precautions when eternity is in question.
~St. Gregory.

Indifferentism

3/2/2020

George Bergoglio teaches: "Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good... Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place." Pope Francis

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHES:

What is indifference to faith?
Indifference to faith is to care for no religion, to consider all religions equally good, or to neglect attending religious instruction.Our future and true home is heaven. Oh! how full of joy and sweetness is that one word, "heaven, paradise."

To the ear of the exile there is nothing sweeter than then name of home. What wonder, then, that the name of heaven should be so full of sweetness, since it is our true home, our home forever? When blessed Egidio heard any one speak of heaven, he was so overcome with joy that he was lifted up into the air in an ecstasy of delight.

Now, no one can go to heaven unless he knows the way to heaven. If we wish to go to a certain city, the first thing we do is to ask the way that leads to it. If we do not know the way, we cannot expect to arrive at that city. So, too, if we wish to go to heaven, we must know the way that leads to it. Now, the way that leads to it is the knowing and doing of God's will. But it is God alone who can teach us his will; that is, what he requires us to believe and to do, in order to be happy with him in heaven.

The end for which man was created is everlasting union with God says the Vatican Council, is far above the human understanding. It was, therefore, necessary that God should make himself known to man, and teach him the end for which he was created, and what he must believe and do in order to become worthy of everlasting happiness.

Now, God himself came and taught us the truths which we must believe, the commandments which we must keep, and the means of grace which we must use to work out our salvation. To know God's will is to know the true religion or the true way to heaven. As God is but one, so his holy will is but one, and therefore his religion is but one. In order that we might learn, with infallible certainty, this one true religion, Almighty God appointed but one infallible teaching authority the Roman Catholic Church and commanded all to hear her and believe her infallible doctrine, under pain of exclusion from eternal life.

Now, not to care to know the true religion, is to despise God and all he has done and suffered for our salvation. This indifference to faith is the enormous crime of the age, and especially of this country. The sins of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah cried to heaven for vengeance. "The sin of Sodom is become exceedingly grievous. We will destroy this place, because their cry is grown loud before the Lord." (Gen., xviii., 20.) Now, our Lord Jesus Christ tells us in the gospel that those who are indifferent to the true religion not caring to know it, and to listen to his apostles and their lawful successors, are far more guilty in the sight of God, and shall, on this account, be more severely judged than the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. "Whosoever shall not receive you (the Apostles) nor hear your words, going forth out of that house, or city, shake off even the dust from your feet for a testimony against them. Amen, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, in the day of judgment, than for that city." (Matt., x., 14, 15, and Luke, ix., 5.)

This severe judgment is executed even here below upon those who are guilty of the sin of indifference to the true religion. Their prayer, says the Lord, is an abomination. "He who turneth away his ears from hearing the law, his prayers shall be an abomination." (Prov.,xxviii., 9.) St. Paul tells us in plain words, in what the judgment consists which God passes and executes upon those who are indifferent to the true religion. He says that "those who did not like to have the knowledge of God (of the true religion) were delivered up by God to a reprobate sense to do such things as are unbecoming, to become filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, hateful to God, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy." (Rom., i., 28-32.) Now as there is and can be but one true religion, all the others must be false, must be opposed to God and hateful to him. Now that which is false and opposed to God cannot be good. Consequently it is false to say that all religions are good.

To maintain that all religions are good, is to maintain that truth and falsehood are equally pleasing to God; that God is just as well pleased with those who blaspheme him as with those who honor him. That to adore the devil is just as pleasing to God, as to adore the living and true God himself. Who can swallow such monstrous absurdities? There is a man. He is a notorious liar, a perjurer, a thief, a wretch without honor, without principle, and without morals. Now can you love and respect that man just as much as the man who is truthful, honest, and virtuous ? Would you introduce that perjured wretch into your family ? Would you allow him to associate with your pure wife, with your beautiful and virtuous daughters ?

Now if you love truth and virtue, does not God love them more ? If you hate falsehood and crimes, does not God hate them more ? Now the more precious a thing is in itself, the more dangerous, the more hateful is its counterfeit. A one hundred dollar counterfeit note is more dangerous than a ten dollar counterfeit note. Now the true religion is the most precious gift that God has bestowed on man. Consequently a counterfeit or caricature of it must be most hateful to God. Why did God forbid idolatry so strictly in the Old Law; why did he punish idolaters so severely, why did he even exterminate so many nations for practicing it, if all religions are equally good and pleasing to God ?

What need was there for Jesus Christ to come down from heaven to become man, to suffer and die on a cross, all in order to establish the true religion what need, I say, was there of all this if all religions are equally good, equally pleasing to God ? "But," some one will say, "at least all the Christian denominations are good" All the Christian denominations? How many denominations are there? And among all these, how many hold the same doctrines? How many of them hold even the same doctrines they held a few years ago ? What one of them believes in, the others reject. What one of them believed in yesterday, he rejects today. Show me one doctrine in which all the sects agree. Now, do you mean to say that Christ, who is God, can be the author of all these wrangling sects ? God is the
author of peace and unity. The devil alone is the author of wrangling sects, the promoter of discord. Can you believe that it is equally good, equally pleasing to God to adore Jesus as the living God, as we all do, or to hold that he is a mere man as do the Unitarians? All the truths of religion have been revealed by God. Now, do you mean to say that God would reveal one truth to one class of men, and reveal the opposite to another class! The Son of God became man precisely in order to establish the true religion, a perfect religion, free from all doubt and error. He taught and labored for thirty-three years. He founded a Church, committed to her care all his doctrines, and his sacraments. He sent to his Church, the Holy Spirit to remain with her always, and teach her all truth. He promised that he himself would remain with his Church all days even to the end of the world.

The Son of God sent his Apostles to preach to every nation all that he had taught. He confirmed those doctrines by numberless miracles. He sealed these doctrines with his own blood; he sealed them with the blood of millions of glorious martyrs. And yet you will tell me, after all this, after all that God has done to teach men the true faith, it matters little what a man believes. Jesus Christ says: "He that will not believe shall be damned," and you say, "he will not be damned at all, for all religions are good." What then do you make of Jesus Christ ? Will you dare assert that Jesus Christ told a lie? "If all religious are good," then there is no such thing as heresy. And yet St. Paul warns us against heresy. He classes heresy with wilful murder and adultery. He says that the heretic shall not enter the Kingdom of heaven. Even the apostle of love, St. John, forbids us to associate with a heretic.

If all religions are good, what need was there of so many councils, even from the days of the apostles down to the present? Why has the Church struggled so long against heretics and innovators ? Why has she fought and bled, and suffered so bravely for the perfect maintenance of the truth? If all religions are good, then all those martyrs who poured out their blood like water for the true faith, were fools; then all those converts Dr. Brownson, Mary of Ripon, Dr. Ives, and so many others, who have sacrificed every thing for the true faith, were fools; then all those Catholics in Ireland and elsewhere, who suffered and died for the faith, were fools! If all religions are good, what need is there of your Protestant Churches, and Protestant preachers? What need is there of your bible societies and foreign missionaries?

If all religions are good, why are Protestants, infidels, Freemasons and so on, so bitterly opposed to the Catholic Church? Why do they form secret societies sworn to exterminate the church? The Catholic religion is, after all, a religion and if all religions are good, why then the Catholic religion must be good, and if it be good, why did Martin Luther and the first Protestants leave it? "As for me I respect every man's Religion." Indeed! Now what does that mean: I respect every man's religion, or "I respect every religion?" for it is the same thing. A man, who speaks thus means to say: "I believe that all religions are doubtful," or "There is no absolutely true religion on earth," or "The question of religion is one of very little importance." Those who make use of this expression: "I respect every man's religion," look upon themselves as learned men, and pride themselves on their generosity and toleration. But in reality they are men of very shallow minds, and as for their learning: "Tis deep as the sky in a lake, Till the mire at six inches reveals the mistake." I ask you what kind of brains must that man have who tells you coolly that he respects or accepts two propositions exactly the reverse, aye, the very contradiction of each other ?

Philosophy comes from two Greek words meaning "love of wisdom,"; i.e. "love of truth." Now the man that loves and respects falsehood, can certainly be no philosopher. True charity forbids us to despise those who are in error, on the contrary, it teaches us to pity and love them. But there is an infinite difference between loving those in error, and loving the error itself; there is an infinite difference between loving the sinner, and loving his sins. To say: "I respect or esteem all religions," is not only unreasonable, but even blasphemous, for, by it, you assert that you esteem that which God abhors you respect and esteem falsehood.

Whenever you meet any of those men who, boastingly declares that he respects all religions, take a good look at him. If he is one of those grown up children, so common at the present day, who merely repeat what they have heard without understanding its meaning, then pity him from your heart and correct him kindly. If he is, how ever, one of those arrant knaves an agent of some secret society, tear off the mask at once from his brow and show him in all his hideous deformity the enemy of man the enemy of God! The man without religion pretends to be a philosopher. He tells you he is above the ignorant prejudices of the vulgar. Now the man without religion is certainly no philosopher. He can lay no claim whatever to true solid learning. The greatest pagan philosophers that we have any knowledge of were undoubtedly Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now these men spent nearly their whole lives in studying the questions: "What is the soul ? What be comes of us after death? What is God?" and so on. In a word, they studied continually those very questions that religion teaches us. To be indifferent to religion, then, is to be indifferent to all true philosophy. The man without religion is in reality but little higher than the beast of the field. To be indifferent to religion is to be indifferent to the highest and noblest truths that can occupy the human mind, the relations between God and man, between this life and the next, the evils we must avoid and the good we must gain. Doubt concerning such truths is the death of the intellect, but indifference with regard to such vital truths, shows that a man's intellect must indeed be on a level with the brute. What are you to think of a lawyer who tells you it is indifferent to him whether he wins his case or not. What are you to think of a doctor who assures you he is quite indifferent whether his patient recovers or not? What are you to think of a general who tells you that he cares little whether he conquers or is defeated?

Now the man who is indifferent with regard to religion is even far more blameworthy. Moreover, the man who boasts that he has no religion insults the good and holy God who made man to know, love and serve him, he insults that God who, as our Creator and Lord, has a perfect claim to our entire worship and obedience. What would you think of the woman who boasts that it is indifferent to her whether she lives with her husband or with another? What would you think of a son who boasts that he has no more respect for his father than he has for his enemy? Now the man who boasts of his religious indifference is a thousand times worse. He has as much respect for the synagogue of Satan as he has for the church of Christ; as much respect for the false inventions of bad priests as he has for the doctrines of Christ and the Apostles.

A certain infidel once boasted in company that he had no religion. "Oh" said the gentleman of the house, there are others here who are afflicted in the same way." "Who are they?" asked the infidel. "Why, our dogs and our horses," answered the gentleman. "Only these poor brutes have sense enough not to boast of their misfortune."

Nay, the infidel is even worse than the beast. He resembles the very demons of hell. They, too, refuse to worship God. They, too, hate and deny God. Yet with all this the infidel pretends to be a man of sense, a man of learning. He pretends to have made a more thorough study of religion than the very priests and doctors of the Church who have devoted their whole life to this sacred subject.

Remember Me - Monday After the First Sunday in Lent

3/2/2020

The iris has a dark-blue flower, with leaves shaped like a sword. Therefore it is often called the sword-lily, and has been chosen as the emblem of warfare. If thou dost aspire to be a lily of purity thou must seize the sword. If you wouldst live chase and spotless thou must not fear the battle, but must stand armed and prepared to fight. After the fall of our first parents and their expulsion from the garden of Paradise, a cherub with a flaming sword was placed at the entrance of it in order to guard it. St. Michael also was armed with a sword, and with it drove Lucifer and his followers out of heaven.

The flower of the sword-lily is of a dark-blue or purple color, the emblem of sorrow and penance. In time of Advent, when we are sighing for the coming of Christ, and purify our sighs and yearnings by penance, or in Lent, when with sorrow and contrition we contemplate the bitter sufferings and passion of our Savior, the Church assumes a purple coloring. Our hearts should be ever like the flower of the sword-lily, clad with the garment of sorrow and compassion—sorrow for our sins and compassion for the dead, who are always so grateful for our love and repay our remembrance of them a thousand fold.
~Louis Gemminger.

We cannot take too many precautions when eternity is in question.
~St. Gregory.