It is 1535 London. The prior of the Carthusian monks at the London Charterhouse tries to prepare his brothers for a coming persecution, martyrdom for many of them. The Prior, John Houghton exhorts his brother Carthusians to prepare their hearts by a general confession to God, and gives leave that every one should choose any […]
“It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.” 2 Macc. 12:46 “There shall not enter into it anything defiled…” Apoc. 21:27 I lost my Dad in 1999. He was a wonderful father and certainly considered by all to be a good man. He […]
St. Thomas Aquinas writes: God foresees with prudence all future things, good or bad. Before they happen, He knows them and sees the good or evil that will result from them. This would seem pretty difficult to imitate at first glance; after all we can’t predict the future. On the other hand, I recently read […]
Thomas Aquinas writes: …all goodness is pleasing to Him by nature, always and everywhere, whether it be in angels, in men, or in other creatures…Similarly all evil displeases God everywhere and always and in whatever it exists. Dads, do we delight in the accomplishments of our kids? I’m sure we do most of times. If […]
In every family there are there are three primary relationships for the father. In descending order of importance: the first is the father with God; the second is the father with the mother; the third is the father with his children. Constancy in love: Dad must pray every day-on his own and with his family. […]
Thomas Aquinas writes: In God there is a primary perfection, which is that He never changes His nature. … Let us strive therefore to acquire a stability of spirit… God does not change. His ‘anger’ or ‘wrath’ we sometimes read about in Holy Scripture is not really God changing His mood or His feeling for […]
Some years ago a group of men from my parish were providing escorts and security for an all-night Eucharistic Adoration vigil for life. I drew one of the wee hours. My relief didn’t show up, so I stayed on for some more hours. I brought with me a little book: The Ways of God by […]
Many have noted that sports can teach young people valuable lessons which are transferrable to life: submission to authority, working as a team, practice and hard work to achieve goals, etc. I was never a star athlete, but I did play on some teams in high school and have done my share of coaching. Whether […]
In talking to my mother the other day, she told me she had found a couple of the Christmas video greetings we used to make and send every year since we moved 900 miles away. I apologized for not getting them made in recent years. “I thought when the children got older we would have […]
When our first son was born, my oldest daughter was 7. She had been an only child for so long, we believed she might have some concerns and insecurities over this new addition. I remember talking to her the night our son was born. Mom was still in the hospital. I explained that the addition […]
There was a piece on National Public Radio (NPR) a week or so ago charting the influence of novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand in today’s politics, specifically in economic policy touted by certain Republicans in Congress. Ayn Rand was a proponent of “objectivism,” that is quoting from the NPR piece: It is, she says, a system of […]
Thousands of people rallied in protest to newly announced $5 debit card fees. It only took about one month for Bank of America to rethink and eliminate the fee. Surely if 10 or 20 thousand can move the biggest bank in Americato change its fee policy so quickly and apologetically, then 50 million ardent pro-lifers […]
Ever since the industrial revolution and the mass migration of Americans from rural areas to cities, there have been periodic fledgling back-to-the-land movements. Each of these trends was a reaction to the low wages and exploitation of factory workers. Nostalgia for “simpler times” and the desire for more self-determination inspired many to move back to […]
