17 Thursday Jun 2010
St. Francis de Sales, the Bishop of Geneva, was responsible for the conversion of Lady Stafford, a Protestant noble woman, who had formerly been intransigent in her opposition to the Catholic Faith. After going to one of his Masses, she was moved to consider the Faith in more friendly terms, but she still harbored great feelings of hostility, especially regarding the doctrine of Purgatory.
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18 Thursday Feb 2010
Defenses against two common objections to the Holy Rosary, written, we hope, with a little humor.
“Vain Repetition” — The Big Canard
This is probably the objection Protestants have to the Rosary, that “vain repetition” is condemned by God. Continue reading
04 Thursday Feb 2010
We would do well to look beyond electioneering to the true hope of the Republic. This is not to dismiss politics — the way society is governed — as something of no account or something too worldly for the faithful to concern ourselves with, for neither is the case. Continue reading
28 Thursday Jan 2010
Sunday, October 28 is the Feast of Christ the King. That is, it is the feast in the 1962 Calendar followed by those who adhere to the “extraordinary form” of the Roman Liturgy. The feast is celebrated on November 25 this year in the Novus Ordo calendar. Why the difference? Continue reading
06 Saturday Oct 2007
Posted in Christology, Sacramental Theology, Spiritual Theology
Here is the assignment: “The Church teaches that Christ is truly human and truly divine. Comment on the significance of each of the aspects of the mystery of Christ with regard to our sanctification and our salvation.” The title I gave it for the blog uses the word “theandric,” which Father John Hardon, S.J. , defines as follows:
“Literally ‘God human,’ referring to those actions of Christ in which he used the human nature as an instrument of his divinity. Such were the miracles of Christ. Other human activities of Christ, such as walking, eating, and speaking, are also theandric, but in a wider sense inasmuch as they are human acts of a divine person. The purely divine acts, such as creation, are not called theandric.”
In The Mystery Hidden for Ages in God, Father Paul M. Quay, S.J., speaks of two inadequate kinds of Christology: that of modern theology, with its Subordinationist and Adoptionist tendencies, and the more common misunderstanding of “devout Catholics,” who sometimes tend toward Monophysitism.[1] These Christological errors, which detract from the divine and human natures respectively, are a particular concern for Father Quay because his systematic treatment of the spiritual life is an amplification of St. Irenaeus’ profound doctrine of the “recapitulation” (anakephalaiosis). Continue reading
01 Monday Oct 2007
Posted in Sacramental Theology, Society and Culture
It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien, the celebrated fantasy writer who gave us The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was a Catholic. He was not a writer who just happened to be also a Catholic; he was a writer whose Catholicism permeated his work.
Although there are those who object to a world of goblins, elves, and dwarves as an escapism that is not Catholic or wholesome, Tolkien’s Middle Earth was a very “sacramental” place which at times only thinly veils its author’s Catholic world view, and this we know by his own testimony. Tolkien’s Catholic principles impregnate his writings, particularly the Rings trilogy. I would include in these principles his monarchism, respect for hierarchy, fascination with matter as a conduit to unseen spiritual realities, deep sense of chivalry, respect for the principle of subsidiarity in government, high regard for virtue as a means to happiness, and a penetrating sense of the redeeming value of suffering. Continue reading