53 articles from the existing collection.
Nowhere. But He invited some people to renounce all things and to follow Him by close imitation. “If you wish to be really perfect, sell all you have, give to the poor, and come, follow Me.” If a man marries he cannot do that. He has a duty to his wife and children, and cannot sell the house and furniture over their heads, leavi…
At least, Christianity is the superior religion in historical foundation, reasonableness, and in loftiness of teaching and destiny.
Any fuss was caused by bigoted Protestants who hoped to work up a scandal against the Catholic Church, and who persuaded the Sister to sue the Bishop for $25,000 for wrongful arrest and detention in the Reception House for deranged people. The verdict was given for the Bishop. In his summing up, after all the evidence of that fa…
If the word Nunnery sounds more suspicious and suggestive of evil to you than Convent, then I think you should. Otherwise you would not be speaking with all the bigotry and uncharitableness you might.
Those walls, too, are not to keep the Sisters in, but to keep curiosity-mongers out, and to give the Sisters undisturbed tranquility in their attention to God and to their spiritual lives.
I am grateful for that admission that they try to be good. Meantime, if to take definite means to live a better life is to be guilty of a selfish moral end, then I wish that more men would labor for that selfish moral end. Those who enter monasteries or convents may escape certain classes of temptations, but they always have sel…
You must have been reading Stevenson’s Suicide Club, and then eaten cucumbers and gone to bed with the fond hope that you would not have a nightmare after all! There is a Carmelite Convent in your suburb at Dulwich Hill, but it is not a Death Order. It is an Order devoted wholly to the life which alone really counts—that of God’…
The duties of a Priest are very different from those of Nuns. Priests have parochial obligations, necessitating the visitation of the people, sick calls, the organizing of parochial functions, etc. Also the Nun belongs to a Religious Order, her vocation involving necessarily a retired life and Community observance. A Secular Pri…
No. Nor would any reasonable man. Why should the private dwellings of any citizens who transgress none of the laws of the land be subjected to such an indignity? But submit your reasons for the inspection of convents to the Chief of Police. He will soon put you right. The police do not even want to inspect convents. Should any v…
Inspection of what? Even if admission were free to the public, the public would not wish to inspect convents. It is rather dreary work to walk through empty corridors, inspect ordinary kitchen tables, wooden chairs, and bedrooms which differ little from the common boarding-house variety. In fact it would be a pity to destroy you…
That they prefer to give their hearts entirely to Christ rather than to any earthly lover. As the ordinary wedding ring signifies that a woman has vowed absolute and permanent fidelity to her husband, so the ring worn by a Nun signifies that she has vowed fidelity to her vocation of poverty, chastity and obedience.
To your mind. But things are not always what they seem. You measure Nuns by your idea of happiness. The man who said, “Eat, drink, and be merry,” was branded as a fool by Christ. If you ever fall ill, go to a Catholic hospital and let the gloomy Nuns nurse you back to health. It will be an eye-opener to you.
The thousands of members in the Religious Orders giving their services to God in the Catholic Church without wages do so cheerfully and freely. The Church has no obligation to pay those who refuse to be paid. And this self-sacrifice of so many Religious is really sparing millions of workers further expense. Nor are these Religio…
No, not in general. An individual superior might be exacting; but remember that superiors are not allowed to exact more than the rules of the Order demand, and every Nun has had those rules carefully explained to her before she has made her profession. If she makes her profession, she does so because she wishes to live a life of…
In so far as you are sincere, Our Lord overlooks your mistaken notions and accepts your love for Him. But the fact remains that you serve Him in your way, and not in His, and that He does not obtain from you all that He desires. Also what He overlooks in you He would not overlook in a Catholic who has known the truth.
Dr. Robertson, J.P., was a Protestant. Maria’s mother was a Protestant. The gentlemen who inspected the convent were Protestants. All the Protestant papers in Montreal denounced Maria Monk.
The thousands of Nuns are not weak, but women of very strong character as a rule. If a girl of weak character enters a religious Order, she soon leaves and resumes an easier life in the world. I admit that, if the Catholic Church were merely human, she would be pretty clever. But she would be too clever. She could not possibly i…
Yes. There is not a single Nun who cannot leave any convent, if she insists that she wants to go. No one will detain her by force and against her will. She can secure a dispensation from her vows on making due application through her superiors or directly to the Bishop.
Is one broad-minded whose mind suspects evil and unspeakable proceedings in every building to which she does not happen to have access? And what of your own Anglican Sisterhoods? They model themselves on the lives of our Catholic Nuns. Those modest ladies, living prayerful and retired lives, do not throw their private rooms open…
It would not. The only fear of a novice when she enters is that she will be found unsuitable and not be accepted. Open the doors, and the Nuns will close them again, as they did in the first place, imploring the Church to let them do so with her blessing. They are happy in their self-chosen state. If you threw open the doors of …
No Nun is ever obliged to take vows as a young immature woman, or at any other stage of life. If you can find one Nun who was compelled in any way at all to take her vows, then the Catholic Church says that her vows are quite invalid and not binding. If a Nun freely takes her vows for life, of course she understands mat it is as…
No. It is because, being perhaps experts in their own line, they consider themselves expert in every line, and condemn the Church on insufficient data. Other scientists, equally expert in their scientific lines, realize that they are not therefore qualified in matters of religion any more than they would be fitted by a knowledge…
Is the Wesleyan religion not above board because the minister’s Manse is not open to public inspection? If women wish to live bad lives, could they not obtain such lives without bothering to enter convents, renouncing money and all worldly pleasures? The last thing an immorally inclined woman would think of would be to enter a c…
I know of many Nuns who have left, even at times with a dispensation from final vows. Some were sane before they left, and remained sane after they left. Some were not quite well-balanced before they entered, were discovered not to be eminently sane, and were sent away without being allowed to take their final vows, or, if they …
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