Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Christ ushered in a new dispensation, but not of medicine. He did not come to establish a medical clinic. He came to call sinners to repentance, that they might secure forgiveness for their past sins, overcome their moral faults, and serve Him in a life of virtue.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
In the Catholic Church there are two vocations open to a man who feels called by God to His service. Either he will feel called to be simply a Priest, or else, in addition, to enter a Religious Order. If called to be a Priest, he enters college and is prepared for parish work, in which he must provide for his own necessities. Th…
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
No. The convent system occurs in history after the Vestal Virgin system, but not because oi it. Chronological succession does not always imply derivation. It is true that the Vestal Virgins were women, and unmarried, claiming a religious significance. But there the likeness ends. Christianity is the negation of paganism, and the…
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Because they do not wish to be only natural. They wish to be supernatural. St. Paul was human, but he did not marry. And like St. Paul, Catholic Priests wish to centre their interests in Christ and share their hearts with no one else. Meantime, they are not forbidden to marry as human beings. They are forbidden as Priests. Prior…
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
The Catholic Church, with God’s approval and authority, following the example of Christ and the Apostles.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
You know Nuns only from a distance, if you know them at all. Nuns do not mistake excitement for happiness, but there are plenty of smiles in their own convent environment. In the streets you may not have seen a Nun laugh. But the sight of poor humanity in the streets, rushing and struggling, and worried even in the midst of its …
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Those Priests would have been more comfortable at home reading some pleasant book. Wriy should they put themselves out like that? Look at things from a Catholic standpoint. A Priest is obliged to do all he can that not one soul be lost through his indifference. If he knows that a Catholic is dying, he must do all he can to bring…
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Most things that Christ taught and recommended seem to be misguided to those who are completely irreligious. No one claims that Christian and materialistic principles are in harmony. However, the good Sisters have private grounds for recreation in the sunshine, contrary to the creation of your melodramatic imagination. As for th…
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Do you mean that no one with human nature can be pure and chaste? That every young couple entering matrimony can be quite sure that the other has led an evil immoral life up to that moment? If you do not mean that, do you mean that a young man in the world can lead a good life, but suddenly becomes corrupt when he gives himself …
The Church1 min read
From the aspect of civil law the parties would contract certain civil obligations. But before God and in conscience the marriage would not be valid, and the Catholic party would be living in a sinful alliance, violating her conscience. She would be deprived of the Sacraments of the Church until she repented and had her marriage …
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
No Catholic Priest would himself believe it were it not the doctrine of Christ. It would be the height of folly to believe it without solid evidence that Christ had taught it. God created substance and qualities, and we cannot deny to Him perfect control over them and ability to change them at His pleasure. And when Christ says,…
The Bible1 min read
Mary did not need Baptism in so far as that Sacrament was instituted for the destruction of original sin. She received that Sacrament in order to participate in its other effects, and chiefly in order to receive the Christian character which that Sacrament impresses upon the soul.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Only when they completely forget their Christian faith, for Christ Himself appointed this means of forgiveness.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
Since it is God who has been offended, God has the right to lay down the conditions of forgiveness. You cannot insist that God must forgive you on your own conditions. And Christ certainly did not give His Priests power to forgive sin knowing that no one would have to seek forgiveness from Priests at all
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
No. Who in this world could persuade thousands of good women to forego theatres, dances, and worldly amusements, and to take a strict vow of perfect chastity in the sight of God, merely that they might be at the service of Priests who offer them no remuneration, and who strangely enough bind themselves by similarly strict vows u…
Sacraments & Worship2 min read
The Catholic Church is the only Church which can oblige her people to worship God definitely on Sunday, and many of her churches are filled three or four times on that day. There is nothing wrong with innocent recreation provided it does not interfere with one’s duties to God and attendance at religious worship. Sunday is a day …
Sacraments & Worship2 min read
He was. But if he was so good a man, and the monastery so evil, he was a mighty long time living an iniquitous life before he got his conscientious scruples. Yet hear a few facts. After Martin had left the Catholic Church, he gave permission to Philip of Hesse to commit bigamy and have two wives. Does that sound good and Christi…
The Church1 min read
No. It is divine law that no Catholic may hand over any child to what he or she knows to be a false religion.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
You have got things wrongly again. The grille is not to keep the Nuns in, but to keep people out
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
As human beings—no; as called, not to the state of marriage, but to the Priesthood—yes. For this reason, whilst like all others who for one reason or another do not marry, they are obliged to avoid all sins against chastity; they also take upon themselves an additional obligation to do so under pain of sacrilege by vows of chast…
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
That is foolish, and will not better things. Will you neglect other obligations because you have failed in this, and give up religion on the principle that he who commits one sin might just as well commit a dozen sins? The only thing to do after failure is to repent as men do of other sins, and try again to be faithful.
Sacraments & Worship1 min read
In Exodus, XXVIII., 2-3, we read of God’s prescriptions of the vestments befitting the dignity of His religion. “Thou shalt make a holy vesture for Aaron thy brother; for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt speak to all the wise of heart, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom: that they may make Aaron’s vestments, in whi…
God & Faith1 min read
The Priest cannot tell the people just what he likes. He is obliged to teach just what Christ taught, and which has been taught him in the Name of Christ by the infallible Catholic Church.
The Bible2 min read
No. We read of some adult baptisms, but they were not administered precisely because the subjects were adults, but because they happened to be converted as adults. Acts XV commemorates the reception of two complete households into the Church by St. Paul, and we are not told that the adults only in those households were received.…