Category Archives: Spiritual Theology

The Better Part: The Religious or Priestly Vocation

14 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in Articles Published in Other Venues, Spiritual Theology

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(This was written in preparation for a series of conferences on vocations and states in life that I gave at Saint Benedict Center in the Spring of 2005. Please see the end of this piece for a small table of contents with links to the other conferences.)

In the previous conference, we introduced the general subject of states in life. We said that the importance of choosing the right state in life, which we call a “secondary vocation” has to do with the fact that your primary vocation — to the life of grace here and of glory hereafter — is very much related to it. We talked about the teaching of St. Alphonsus and others that your salvation has very much to do with choosing that state in life that God had already chosen for you from all eternity. We gave an overview of the four states in life and made the point that, contrary to popular belief, discerning your vocation is not very difficult. Continue reading →

What Happened in the Tomb?

14 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in Christology, Spiritual Theology, Theology

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[We’re posting this at a liturgically inopportune time. It’s a matter of scheduling. Read it after the Easter Vigil, if you will.]

Every year around Holy Week, the refuse that forms America’s popular reading material comes out with a volley of blasphemies against our Lord’s holy Resurrection. Citing one or another perfidious “noted scholar,” the glossy-covered journals that accost us at the checkout counter vie with one another to see who can pervert the populace with greater contempt for the divine. These reheated leftovers from last year’s editions would be laughable in their dogmatic adherence to pseudoscientific “scholarship,” but we dare not laugh at the offense against our Savior. Continue reading →

Why God Hates Sin

23 Thursday Dec 2010

Posted by in Articles Published in Other Venues, Moral Theology, Spiritual Theology

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[Originally posted on January 22, 2009]

To hear the words, “God hates sin,” may, for certain modern men, invoke images of a deity too demanding to be very comfortable. Such moderns would find the proposition savoring of a dogmatism that borders on the primitive. For them, it sounds so arbitrary for God to label certain forms of behavior — often forms we find enjoyable — to be evil and therefore “sinful.” Continue reading →

The Mystical Incarnation

21 Thursday Jan 2010

Posted by in Articles Published in Other Venues, Spiritual Theology, Theology

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Saint Louis de Montfort says that the true Slaves of Jesus through Mary will have a special devotion to the Incarnation (True Devotion , No. 243). Those who desire to be disciples of this great spiritual writer of the Church — an inspiration to so many other saints1 — would do well to consider what a devotion to the Incarnation entails. Continue reading →

The General Relationship between the Virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Ghost

06 Thursday Aug 2009

Posted by in Articles Published in Other Venues, Spiritual Theology, Theology

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The gifts of the Holy Ghost resemble the infused virtues in a number of ways. Both are operative habits which have God as their efficient cause and the perfection of man as their final cause. Both reside in the human faculties and have right behavior as their material object. Continue reading →