God & Faith1 min read
The kingdom of Christ is already in this world, though not of it. That kingdom is two-fold, perfect in heaven, imperfect on earth. We pray that God’s kingdom of grace may be extended in the souls of men, and that they may so fulfill the will of God that they may attain that final happiness of the kingdom of heaven. But the words…
Moral Life1 min read
If we consider some of the opinions people have formed for themselves from their private reading of Scripture there is need to be afraid. Christ’s method was to establish a teaching Church. Protestants have a peculiar method of their own, but you cannot blame the Catholic Church for not using the Protestant method, a method whic…
Moral Life1 min read
When Christ comes again it will be to judge mankind, not to teach and rule us in this world. He has put His Church on earth to do the teaching, and if men will not listen it is their own fault. Now is the time of our probation and we must make good use of the present life instead of relying upon future opportunities for preparat…
Moral Life1 min read
That may be so. But the law diminishes their number. The Church cannot accept mixed marriages as the normal thing, and she would not be wise to treat them as normal.
Moral Life1 min read
It would be still more comforting to think that they did not persist in sin. However comfort or discomfort has little to do with it. There are a thousand things we would like to be true, but that does not make them true.
God & Faith1 min read
I fully agree. Faith is a virtue, and a great gift of God. But it does not imply the burying of one’s head in the sand. It teaches us a number of things which are above reason, for the revealed truths known only to God must be a little above ordinary human thought. But whilst faith teaches some truths so profound as to be above …
Sacraments & Worship2 min read
No. The chief thing in Christianity is the forgiveness of sin to secure salvation, not the healing of the body to put off a little longer the death, which must come sooner or later. Christ gave the Apostles the power to forgive sin and to heal. The power to forgive sin was essential and necessary, and it has passed to all succee…
God & Faith1 min read
The temptation of Christ does not suggest that He doubted His Divinity. His clear calm replies show anything but doubt. At perfect peace interiorly, He allowed an external temptation in order to teach us how to behave on similar occasions.
Moral Life1 min read
The commandments do not. But the hopeless tangle most Protestants get into where this first commandment is concerned shows clearly that it needs to be stated precisely, without any substantial alteration. It is not a question of words, but it is a question of law, and Catholic children at least know and can clearly state the law…
Moral Life1 min read
CHAPTER 5. — SIN.
Moral Life1 min read
I admit that it has much less influence than it should have, but their not thinking of it does not alter the fact.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
He does not sin again because of his Confession; nor does his fall say that he was not truly repentant when he confessed. Christ said something about forgiving seventy times seven. How often would you forgive? And isn’t it better to try, fail through weakness, and repent, than to abandon all efforts to return to God’s grace?
God & Faith2 min read
That is true, if God failed to do so. But He did not. Your reason tells you that Christianity teaches certain mysterious things. You ask on what authority it so teaches. You are told that Almighty God has revealed those doctrines. At once the fact that the doctrines are extraordinary becomes of no account. God must know, and is …
Moral Life1 min read
That is not true. No Catholic is physically compelled to abstain from meat on Fridays. It is a moral obligation, adding the virtue of obedience to that of Chris-ian mortification. On your method of reasoning you should say that a man should voluntarily abstain from stealing, and that it is wrong to do so because God has said, ‘T…
Moral Life1 min read
We must disinguish between God’s positive will, and His permissive will. He positively wills all the good that happens. Suffering He permits to occur, and this only when he foresees that good can result from it. He positively wills that I should be holy. If He foresees that I will make use of good health to sin and to lose my so…
Moral Life1 min read
We all wish, perhaps, to go to the same place. But the difficulty is as to the right road to that place. One man says one way; another maintains that another way is the correct path. All sick men wish to get better. But you do not argue, “After all, they all hope to attain the same health, therefore let this sick man drink anyth…
Moral Life1 min read
Even granted a correct version, thousands of people have been harmed by the reading of Scripture, thinking themselves capable of interpreting it aright. The Pharisees read Scripture, yet managed to use, or misuse, quotations from the Bible as an argument against Christ, just as men to-day quote Scripture as an argument against t…
God & Faith1 min read
I do. A personal God exists. Intelligent human beings exist. Those human beings owe all they have to the personal God who made them, and, being intelligent, are able to recognize the fact. Reason demands that they do so, and render a suitable, practical acknowledgment of the fact to God.
Last Things & Salvation1 min read
When man’s soul departs from his body, that body returns to dust, and all his thoughts and schemes for this earthly life are over.
God & Faith1 min read
He did, but he called it their tradition, condemning their erroneous and merely human tradition, not the right traditions to which, according to St. Paul, we must hold fast. You quote this text merely because it happens to contain the word tradition, and without any appreciation of its true sense.
Moral Life1 min read
The only lawful sense of such a saying is, “Happy is he whose conduct never goes against what a right conscience allows.” With Luther it meant, “Happy is he whose conscience is twisted and distorted until it allows whatever one wishes to do.” If a Catholic Priest to day did what Luther did then, the Protestant world would hold u…
God & Faith1 min read
Let me give you a little parable. Almighty God established a paradise on earth, created Adam and Eve, and said, “Do anything you like, but do not eat of the tree which will give you acquaintance with evil. I forbid you to eat of that tree.” But a certain wily serpent came along and said to Eve, “Why has God forbidden you to eat …
The Church1 min read
If parents prevent their children from reading harmful literature, would you call that cunning censorship, or wise parental control? The Catholic Church is the mother of all her spiritual children, and she exercies a wise parental control over their spiritual formation. Other churches have not the same interest in their members …
Moral Life1 min read
These self-same bodies will rise, but not entirely as they are at present because while the substance remains the same, the qualities of that substance will be changed. They can never completely change their nature so as to become purely spiritual beings, such as God Himself, or the angels. Thus St. Paul says, “The dead shall ri…
