Leave me as I am. The one who gives me strength to endure the fire will also give me strength to stay quite still on the pyre, even without the precaution of your nails (Saint Polycarp, +155)
Year: 2021
A Brief History of Eminent Atheists
Here is a sober thought. Let us suppose we might be looking for the first atheists in the history of the world. My candidates would be Adam and Eve. They chose, at least briefly, to believe at the behest of the serpent that they could be like God by eating the forbidden fruit of a[…]
The Feast of the Chair of Peter
On Monday February 22 we celebrate the Feast of the Chair of St Peter. What do we mean by the Chair of Peter and what significance does it have for the Papacy vis-a-vis the Church and the world at large? Obviously when we are talking about the Chair of St Peter we are in no[…]
The gates of hell shall not silence this confession of faith; the chains of death shall not bind it. Its words are the words of life. As they lift up to heaven those who profess them, so they send down to hell those who contradict them. (Pope Saint Leo the Great)
John Paul II and Cathedra Petri
EUCHARISTIC CELEBRATION WITH THE NEW CARDINALS HOMILY OF JOHN PAUL II Thursday, 22 February 2001 Feast of Saint Peter’s Chair 1. “‘Who do you say that I am?’. Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (Mt 16: 15-16). This conversation between Christ and his disciples, which we have just heard again, is always[…]
An Apologia, and Some Light in the Darkness
Someone pointed out a new-ish on-line magazine, for Catholic Insight is not the only voice out there, and gratias Deo for it: Intellectual Take-Out lives up to its name, in the couple of articles I have perused. Not to draw you away from these pages, for we’re all in this together, but give it a[…]
If in Christ we have been tempted, in him we overcome the devil. Do you think only of Christ’s temptations and fail to think of his victory? See yourself as tempted in him, and see yourself as victorious in him. He could have kept the devil from himself; but if he were not tempted he[…]
How Busy People Pray
“Pray always.” (1 Thessalonians 5.17) If we are to take Saint Paul’s words seriously, we see that there must be different forms of prayer; we can’t be on our knees or in church all the time. And given that fact, we are immediately invited to put these forms in some sort of order, starting with[…]
Doubt on Doubling Down
Are we still permitted to question and debate the mask and lockdowns, or is the new inquisition muzzling us in more than a figurative way? For all the anti-bullying rhetoric going around, people can sure bully when they feel their cause is just. We all might want to take a deep breath. Many – including[…]
Chastity: Appreciating An Underappreciated Virtue
”Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged” (John 19: 1) The visions of the 19th century German mystic, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, vividly depict the flagellation of Christ. All in all very few realize that the fact that the body of our Lord was torn to shreds and looked like one wound, was not[…]