 |
|
Serving Catholics for 25 Years
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| Note from the Managing Editor |
There are two distinct attitudes towards suffering that I have observed in my adult life.
The first is summed up by the question, "What did I do to deserve this?" I've done everything right — I've followed the rules (even the hard ones), gone to Confession, practised virtue. And yet I'm beset with sickness, or a bad marriage, or ruinous finances.
The second was piercingly demonstrated to me in a children's book, Saint Louis and the Last Crusade. Asked how he could peacefully accept suffering, Saint Louis replies that when he looks back on his life, he knows he has done something to deserve it.
I have never seen these two attitudes so perfectly explained until I read Fr. Paul Scalia's meditation on the parable of the prodigal son, "The Father's Gifts without the Father."
The second attitude we know well: it is of the prodigal, the sinner. "By rejecting his father, he had become alienated from his very self, less than an animal. The only way back to himself is to return to his father."
The first attitude involves this same rejection, via different means: "Convinced of his own righteousness, the older son has actually made the same mistake as his younger brother: he has separated his father from his father's gifts."
"To separate the things of God from God. To want God out of the picture so that we can have what is His, but without the difficulty of Him. This is fundamental to all sin."
In these last weeks of Lent, we can embrace the difficulty of God — even God on the Cross. - Meaghen Gonzalez
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
|
"We must be pure. I do not speak merely of purity of the sense. We must observe great purity in our will, in our intentions, in all our actions. To possess purity of life — in this, all consists." - St. Peter Julian Eymard
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| The Only One Who Makes Us Well |
| Msgr. Luigi Giussani, At the Origin of the Christian Claim |
| The law of human existence is love in its dynamic reality, which is offering, the gift of self. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| "Fasting" from sin isn't a thing |
| Leila Miller, Leila Miller |
| Sometime over the past few years, it became popular for Catholics to talk about fasting in a way that makes no sense and is foreign to Catholic tradition. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| A Man Who Fasts |
| John Cuddeback, Life Craft |
| "To any ladies who wish to get married, I suggest: Marry a man who can fast." - a Benedictine |
|
|
| |
|
| Catholic Bishops Fail in Defending Conscience |
| Public Discourse |
| Several Catholic dioceses have conflated the teaching of the Church with scientific or prudential judgment about the common good during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led many bishops to dismiss legitimate concerns about COVID vaccines felt by individuals with sensitive consciences. In so doing, these bishops ignore the Church's teachings about the grave duty to obey one's conscience. |
|
|
| |
|
| Lenten Assignment: Be Grateful! |
| Community in Mission |
| The "command" of Scripture to give thanks is not a moral cliché but a truth and a description of what flows from a transformed heart. |
|
|
| |
|
| St. Margaret of Cortona |
| The Path Less Taken |
| Too often, men and women only think of how they have been wronged in their sexual relationships and less about their own part. |
|
|
| |
|
| The Hell of Unforgiveness |
| Catholic Exorcism |
| Demons observe our past sinful behavior and may taunt us with it, trying to make us believe that we are not forgiven or forgivable. This is yet another demonic lie. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
