March 21, Good
Friday, 2008 In other words,
Barabbas was a messianic figure. The choice of Jesus versus
Barabbas is not accidental; two messiah figures, two forms
of messianic belief stand in opposition. This becomes even
clearer when we consider that the name Bar-Abbas means "son
of the father." This is a typically messianic appellation,
the cultic name of a prominent leader of the messianic
movement. -Pope Benedict XVI,
Jesus of Nazareth, p40 January 30,
2008 As Christians, we
are called today, certainly not to set limits to reason and
to oppose it, but rather to refuse to reduce it to the level
of practical reason and to defend instead its ability to
perceive good and the One who is Good, what is holy and the
One who is Holy. -Cardinal
Ratzinger, Europe: Today and Tomorrow, 2007 September 7,
2007 But my concern is
not with open and direct opponents like Mr. Huxley; but with
all to whom I might once have looked to defend the country
of the Christian altars. They ought surely to know that the
foe now on the frontiers offers no terms of compromise; but
threatens a complete destruction. And they have sold the
pass. -G.K. Chesterton,
The Well and the Shadows, 1935 March 7,
2007 The kings rode by
and hurled such beggars a curse or a coin; they did not stop
laboriously to dismember their little families limb by limb;
that the human heart that feeds on its sad affections might
suffer the last and longest agony. -G.K. Chesterton,
The Return of Don Quixote, 1927 February 15,
2007 It is assumed that
equality means all men being equally uncivil, whereas it
obviously ought to mean all men being equally civil. Such
people have forgotten the very meaning and derivation of the
word civility, if they do not see that to be uncivil is to
be uncivic. -G.K. Chesterton,
Saint Francis of Assisi, p265 September 18,
2006 Saint Michael,
Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the
wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we
humbly pray. And you, Prince of the heavenly host, by the
power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and the other evil
spirits who prowl the world for the ruin of souls.
Amen. -Prayer to Saint
Michael (Pope Leo XIII) July 16,
2006 This unique
experience suffered by the Church, this fact that She alone
is attacked from every side, has been appealed to by Her
doctors throughout the ages as proof of Her central position
in the scheme of reality; for truth is one and error
multiple. -Hilaire Belloc,
Survivals and New Arrivals: The Old and New Enemies of the
Catholic Church, 1929, p2 March 24,
2006 For in Jesus' death
we have discovered the clue linking together Christology and
soteriology, the person of Jesus and his deeds and
sufferings. Although the Evangelists' accounts of the last
words of Jesus differ in details, they agree on the
fundamental fact that Jesus died praying. He fashioned His
death into an act of prayer, and act of
worship. -Pope Benedict XVI,
Behold the Pierced One, Part One, p22 January 28,
2006 It is for people
whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any
terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are
exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy
in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is Love, He is,
by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it
appears, from all the records, that though He has often
rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with
contempt. He has paid us the intolerable complement of
loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable
sense. -C.S. Lewis, The
Problem of Pain, Chapter 3 "Divine Goodness" October 20,
2005 The real trouble
with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable
world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest
kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not
quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for
logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and
regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its
inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in
wait. -G.K. Chesterton,
Orthodoxy, Chapter VI, p87 September 11,
2005 It is important for
the process of spiritual growth that you don't just pray and
study the faith at times when it happens to cross your mind,
when it suits you, but that you observe some discipline...
Faith also needs the discipline of the dry periods; then
something grows in the silence. -Pope Benedict XVI,
God and the World, Chapter 13, p320 August 24,
2005 It is inherent in
man to be a relational being... And it is precisely this
basic structure of his being that reflects God. For this is
a God whose essential being, in just the same way, rests on
relationships, as we learn from the doctrine of the
Trinity. -Pope Benedict XVI,
God and the World, Chapter 2, p111 August 1,
2005 And unfortunately,
nineteenth-century scientists were just as ready to jump to
the conclusion that any guess about nature was an obvious
fact, as were seventeenth-century sectarians to jump to the
conclusion that any guess about Scripture was the obvious
explanation. Thus, private theories about what the Bible
ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world
ought to mean, have met in loud and widely advertised
controversy, especially in the Victorian time; and this
clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance
was known as the quarrel of Science and
Religion. -G.K. Chesterton,
Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox, p66 July 9,
2005 A church without
the Eucharistic presence is somehow dead, even when it
invites us to pray. -Pope Benedict XVI,
The Spirit of the Liturgy, p90 June 11,
2005 I sometimes have
the impression that there is a temptation today to set up
beside the pastoral approach of faith, or even against it, a
pastoral approach based on one's own cleverness, an approach
that no longer actually trusts in faith's ability to call
men together today. -Pope Benedict XVI,
God Is Near Us, p125 May 24,
2005 His will is that,
without understanding how, the soul in that state does no
more than the wax when a seal is impressed upon it - the wax
does not impress itself; it is only prepared for the
impress: that is, it is soft - and it does not even soften
itself so as to be prepared; it merely remains quiet and
consenting. -St. Teresa of
Avila, Interior Castle, Fifth Mansion April 30,
2005 Are we not perhaps
all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into
our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not
afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not
perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something
unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not
then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom?
And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our
lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what
makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this
friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this
friendship is the great potential of human existence truly
revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty
and liberation. -Pope Benedict XVI,
April 24, 2005 April 19,
2005 Dear brothers and
sisters, After the Great Pope John Paul II, the cardinals
have elected me, a simple, humble worker in the Lord's
vineyard. I am comforted by the fact that the Lord knows how
to work and act even with insufficient instruments. And
above all, I entrust myself to your prayers. With the joy of
the risen Lord, and confidence in his constant help, we will
go forward. The Lord will help us and Mary his most holy
mother will be alongside us. Thank you. -Pope Benedict XVI,
April 19, 2005 April 6,
2005 Do not be afraid...
put out into the deep, and let down your nets for a
catch. -Pope John Paul
II February 25,
2005 At the end of the
second millennium, the Church has once again become a Church
of martyrs. -Pope John Paul II,
Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 37 February 7,
2005 Some souls, instead
of abandoning themselves to God and cooperating with him,
hamper him by their indiscreet activity or their resistance.
They resemble children who kick and cry and struggle to walk
by themselves when their mothers want to carry them; in
walking by themselves they make no headway, or if they do,
it is at a child's pace. -St. John of the
Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Prologue December 10,
2004 "Blessed are you
poor... Blessed are you that hunger... Blessed are you that
weep... Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they
exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as
evil..." We should not miss the shock value of Jesus'
words... they turn our expectations upside down. We
instinctively feel that it's a curse to be impoverished,
hungry, grieving, and slandered. But Jesus presents all
these circumstanes as moments of blessing. Suffering teaches
us detachment from the goods of this world, and so it frees
us to attach ourselves to the goods of heaven. This is true
of suffering that is actively sought... or suffering
passively endured. -Scott Hahn, Lord
Have Mercy: The Healing Power of Confession, Chapter
9 October 4,
2004 He should not
consider great what others esteem as great, rather he should
truthfully admit that he is but a worthless servant. It is
Truth Itself that teaches us: "When you have done all that
was commanded you, say to yourselves, we are unworthy
servants." -Thomas a Kempis,
The Imitation of Christ, 11:5 September 23,
2004 But the things
which this [earthly] city desires cannot justly be
said to be evil... For it desires earthly peace for the sake
of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order to
attain to this peace... This peace is purchased by toilsome
wars... Now when victory remains with the party which had
the juster cause, who hesitates to congratulate the victor,
and style it a desirable peace?... But if they neglect the
better things of the heavenly city... then it is necessary
that misery follow and ever increase. St. Augustine, City
of God, Book XV September 19,
2004 Be subject to every
human institution for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the
king as supreme or to governors as sent by him for the
punishment of evil-doers and the approval of those who do
good. For it is the will of God that by doing good you may
silence the ignorance of foolish people. Be free, yet
without using freedom as a pretext for evil, but as slaves
of God. Give honor to all, love the community, fear God,
honor the king. -1 Peter,
2:13-17 August 23,
2004 The last effort
[Islam] made to destroy Christendom... failed during
the last years of the seventeenth century, only just over
two hundred years ago. Vienna, as we saw, was almost taken
and only saved by the Christian army under the command of
the King of Poland on a date that ought to be among the most
famous in history - September 11, 1683. -Hilaire Belloc,
The Great Heresies, Chapter 4 August 8,
2004 For there are two
things inside me, competing with the human self which I must
try to become. They are the Animal self and the Diabolical
self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is
why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church
may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course,
it is better to be neither. -C.S. Lewis, Mere
Christianity, Chapter Five. July 25,
2004 For not even lions
or dragons have ever waged with their kind such wars as men
have waged with one another. -St. Augustine,
City of God, Book XII July 18,
2004 We are Christians
and Catholics not because we worship a key, but because we
have passed a door; and felt the wind that is the trumpet of
liberty blow over the land of the living. -G.K. Chesterton
"The Everlasting Man", II:V July 7,
2004 Every offense
committed against justice and truth entails the duty of
reparation, even if its author has been forgiven. When it is
impossible publicly to make reparation for a wrong, it must
be made secretly. If someone who has suffered harm cannot be
directly compensated, he must be given moral satisfaction in
the name of charity. This duty of reparation also concerns
offenses against another's reputation. This reparation,
moral and sometimes material, must be evalutated in terms of
the context of the damage inflicted. It obliges in
conscience. -2487, Catechism of
the Catholic Church June 23,
2004 Respect for the
reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely
to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty of rash
judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without
sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor; of
detraction who, without objectively valid reason, discloses
another's faults and failings to persons who did not know
them; of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth,
harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false
judgments concerning them. -2477, Catechism of
the Catholic Church May 17,
2004 To put it briefly,
the relation of Christians to the world is that of a soul to
the body...The flesh hates the soul, and wars against her
without any provocation, because she is an obstacle to its
own self-indulgence; and the world similarly hates the
Christians without provocation, because they are opposed to
its pleasures. All the same, the soul loves the flesh and
all its members, despite their hatred for her; and
Christians, too, love those who hate them. -The Epistle to
Diognetus, Early Christian Writings, p.145 Ch.
6 April 6,
2004 "One" does not add
any reality to "being;" but is only a negation of division:
for "one" means unidivided "being." This is the very reason
why "one" is the same as "being." Now every being is either
simple, or compound. But what is simple, is undivided, both
actually and potentially. Whereas what is compound, has not
being whilst its parts are divided, but after they make up
and compose it. Hence it is manifest that the being of
anything consists in undivision; and hence it is that
everything guards its unity as it guards its
being. -St. Thomas
Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Pt. 1, Q.11, Art.
1 March 7,
2004 The initial effort
to organize a Knights of Columbus council in Nashville,
Tennessee, met with, what seems to us today, an amazing
situation. On July 4, 1899, a group of Catholic gentlemen
from Nashville... went to Lousiville, Kentucky, intending to
make the necessary arrangements for an initiation in
Nashville. There they were astounded to learn that the Order
was not intended to be extended to Tennessee, Kentucky and
the deep South. -Sixty Years of
Columbianism in Tennessee, Eds: Joyce, Corkran, Gaines,
Weber, Flynn, 1962, p 18. March 6,
2004 When, after the
scourging, Jesus fell at the foot of the pillar, I saw that
Claudia Procla, Pilate's wife, sent to the Mother of God a
bundle of large linen cloths. -Anne Catherine
Emmerich, "The Life of Jesus Christ", IV:32 February 17,
2004 We sit by and watch
the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of
peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence,
his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed
creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are
watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these
faces there is no smile. -Hilaire Belloc,
cited by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Feb 2004, No.
140 January 31,
2004 If anyone look
carefully at the bitterness of our times, and if, further,
he consider earnestly the cause of those things that are
done in public and in private...the cause he will find to
consist in this - evil teaching about things, human and
divine, has come forth from the schools of
philosophers...and it has been received with the common
applause of very many. -Pope Leo XIII,
Encyclical Letter on the Restoration of Christian Philosophy
According to the Mind of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic
Doctor, 1879, Rome.. January 9,
2004 The Christian creed
is above all things the philosophy of shapes and the enemy
of shapelessness. -G.K. Chesterton,
The Everlasting Man, II:IV December 3,
2003 My son, if your
peace is founded on some individual who is likeable and
whose company you enjoy, you will always be restless and
find yourself ensnared. But if you turn to the ever living
and everlasting Truth, you will not be saddened when a
friend leaves you or a friend must die. -Thomas a Kempis,
The Imitation of Christ, Chapter 42. November 24,
2003 The Constitution
prohibits [recognition of] religious establishments
in order to prevent a powerful religious group from
legislating special legal privileges for its own members and
subjecting nonmembers to particular burdens. Yet in the
attempt to prohibit religious privilege, the Court saddled
religion itself with particular burdens. Religious groups
became the one group against whom legal discrimination was
allowed. -Vincent Phillip
Munoz, in First Things, December 2003, Number
138. November 16,
2003 Joy, which was the
small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the
Christian. -G.K. Chesterton,
Orthodoxy November 11,
2003 And consequently
wherever the Church shall be... there also shall be the camp
of the saints and the beloved city, and there it shall be
encompassed by the savage persecution of all its enemies...
that is, it shall be straitened, and hard pressed, and shut
up in the straits of tribulation, but shall not desert its
military duty, which is signified by the word
"camp." -St. Augustine,
City of God, XX:11 November 5,
2003 Anyone who eats the
bread and drinks the cup without discerning the body of the
Lord eats and drinks judgement upon himself -St. Paul, 1 Cor.
11:29 (AD 56) November 4,
2003 Live each day as if
it were your last. and live each day as if it were your
first. -Fr. Jim Brucz,
CSP, homily, October 2003. October 23,
2003 The most dangerous
thing you can do is to take any one impulse of your own
nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all
costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into
devils if we set it up as an absolute guide. You might think
love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you
leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements
and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity,"
and become in the end a cruel and treacherous
man. -C.S. Lewis, Mere
Christianity October 14,
2003 ...What will He
give to those whom He has predestined to life, who has given
such things even to those He has predestined to death? What
blessings will He in the blessed life shower upon those for
whom, even in this state of misery, He has been willing that
His only-begotten Son should endure such sufferings even to
death? -St. Augustine,
City Of God, XXII:24 October 11,
2003 The poet only asks
to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who
seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head
that splits. -G.K. Chesterton,
Orthodoxy September 20,
2003 An indulgence is a
remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins
whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful
Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain
prescribed conditions through the action of the Church
which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies
with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ
and the saints -Paul VI,
Indulgentiarum doctrina, Norm 1., cited in Catechism of the
Catholic Church: 1471 September 17,
2003 Lord, make me the
kind of person my dog thinks I am -Colloquial prayer
(Favorite of the Financial Secretary) September 9,
2003 For He will render
to every man according to his works: to those who by
patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and
immortality, He will give eternal life; but for those who
are factious and do not obey the Truth, but obey wickedness,
there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and
distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first
and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for every
one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God
shows no partiality. -Romans 2:6-11, in
Tim Staples "Nuts & Bolts: A Practical, How-to Guide for
Explaining and Defending the Catholic Faith" September 7,
2003 There is more of
the wisdom that is one with surprise in any simple person,
full of the sensitiveness of simplicity, who should expect
the grass to wither and the birds to drop dead out of the
air, when a strolling carpenter's apprentice said calmly and
almost carelessly, like one looking over his shoulder:
'Before Abraham was, I am'." -G.K. Chesterton,
The Everlasting Man August 31,
2003 Unless you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you shall have
no life in you. -John
6:54 August 25,
2003 Who can enumerate
the blessings we enjoy?...all these are but the solace of
the wretched and condemned, not the rewards of the blessed.
What then shall these rewards be, if such be the blessings
of a condemned state? What will He give to those whom He has
predestined to life, who has given such things even to those
whom He has predestined to death? What blessings will He in
the blessed life shower upon those for whom, even in this
state of misery, He has been willing that His only-begotten
Son should endure such sufferings even to
death? -St. Augustine,
City of God, Book XXII August 19,
2003 Why are young
adults who have grown up in a society saturated with
relativism... touting the truth claims of Christianity with
such confidence?... Could these young adults be proof that
the demise of America's Judeo-Christian tradition has been
greatly exaggerated? -Colleen Carroll,
The New Faithful (Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian
Orthodoxy) August 18,
2003 August 17,
2003 Remember that
receiving the Eucharist at Mass is a gift of Christ. The
Church wishes for all who attend Mass to receive Communion,
but it is necessary that we examine our conscience to make
sure we are truly prepared to receive
Jesus... 1) That we are in a
"state of grace", not conscious of any unconfessed grave
sin... 2) That we have
observed the one hour fast from food and drink (except for
water and medicine) before receiving Holy
Communion -Michael Dubruiel,
The How-To Book of the Mass August 14,
2003 And this is the
order of this concord, that a man, in the first place,
injure no one, and, in the second, do good to every one he
can reach. Primarily, therefore, his own household are his
care.... "Now, if any provide not for his own, and specially
for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is
worse than an infidel." (1 Tim. v.8) -St. Augustine,
City Of God July 31,
2003 Look at your life.
What is it made up of? Of innumerable unimportant actions.
It is just with these very things, so trifling in
themselves, that God is pleased to be satisfied. They are
the share that falls to the soul in the work of its
perfection. God himself makes his meaning too clear for us
to doubt this. "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this
is the whole duty of man." -Father J.P. de
Caussade, S.J., Self Abandonment to Divine
Providence July 30,
2003 July 29,
2003 "In celebrating
this annual cycle of the mysteries of Christ, [the]
Holy Church honors... Blessed Mary, Mother of God, with a
special love. She is inseperably linked with the saving work
of her Son. In her the Church admires and exalts the most
excellent fruit of redemption and joyfully contemplates, as
in a faultless image, that which she herself desires and
hopes wholly to be." -Sacrosanctum
concilium 103, cited in Catechism of the Catholic Church:
1172 July 28,
2003 July 27,
2003 God cannot give us
a happiness and peace apart from Himself, beacuse it is not
there. There is no such thing. -C.S. Lewis, Mere
Christianity July 26,
2003 But when I rose in
pride against you and made onslaught against my Lord, proud
of my strong sinews, even those lower things became my
masters and oppressed me, and nowhere could I find respite
or time to draw my breath. -St. Augustine,
Confessions July 25,
2003 Forgiveness is a
great gift, but it's a penultimate gift. It's intended to
prepare us for something still greater. Christians are saved
not only from sin, but for sonship - divine sonship in
Christ. We are not just criminals who have been exonerated,
we are sons and daughters who have been adopted. We are
children of God, "sons in the Son," and we share the life of
the Trinity. -Scott Hahn, "The
Themes from Deliverance," Envoy Scripture Matters, V5,
#6 July 24,
2003 Do not ask me what
is the secret of finding this treasure. There is no secret.
This treasure is everywhere. It is offered to us at every
moment and in every place. All creatures, both friendly and
hostile, pour it out with prodigality and make it pervade
every faculty of our body and soul, right to the depths of
our heart... Divine activity floods the whole universe...We
have but to allow ourselves to be carried forward on the
crest of its waves. -Father J.P. de
Caussade, S.J., Self Abandonment to Divine
Providence July 23,
2003 For the devilish
strategy of Pride is that it attacks us, not on our weak
points, but on our strong. It is pre-eminently the sin of
the noble mind - that corruptio optimi, which works more
evil in the world than all the deliberate vices. Because we
do not recognize pride when we see it, we stand aghast to
see the havoc wrought by the triumphs of human idealism. We
meant so well, we thought we were succeeding, and look what
has come of our efforts! -Dorothy Sayers,
Creed or Chaos? July 22,
2003 Oh! What a shocking
thing it is, that we Protestants should have received this
New Testament; this real and genuine "word of God;" these
"words of eternal life;" this book that points out to us the
means, and the only means, of salvation; what a shocking
fact, that we should have received this book from that Pope
and that Catholic Church..." -William Cobbett, A
History of the Protestant Reformation in England and
Ireland July 21,
2003 The worst judge of
all is the man now most ready with his judgements; the
ill-educated Christian turning gradually into the
ill-tempered agnostic, entangled in the end of a feud of
which he never understood the beginning, blighted with a
sort of hereditary boredom with he knows not what, and
already weary of hearing what he has never
heard. -G.K. Chesterton,
The Everlasting Man July 20,
2003 Much peace could be
ours if we did not occupy ourselves with what others say and
do, for such things are of no concern to us. how can we long
remain at peace if we involve ourselves in other people's
business, if we seek outside distractions, and if we are
rarely, or only to a small degree, interiorly
recollected? -Thomas a Kempis,
The Imitation of Christ July 19,
2003 Instances of goods
involve a [kind of] variety, for the reason that
they often have hurtful consequences. People have been
destroyed before now by their money, and others by their
courage -Aristotle,
Ethics July 18,
2003 The Church must be
herself, and must not strive to become what nonbelievers
might like her to be. Her first responsibility is to
preserve intact the revelation and the means of grace that
have been entrusted to her. -Avery Cardinal
Dulles, "True and False Reform," First Things, No.
135 July 17,
2003 The proud cannot
find you, even though by dint of study they have skill to
number stars and grains of sand, to measure the tracts of
constellations and trace the paths of
planets. -St. Augustine,
Confessions
