The distinction between the natural and the supernatural is a distinction between two abstract aspects, not two concrete things.
The claims the Catholic Church makes are a little like the claims Christ makes: so superhuman that it becomes impossible to take a comfortable, middle-of-the-road attitude toward them, unless we are e...
Suffering together builds togetherness, and if togetherness is more important for us and for our joy than freedom from suffering is, then God is good to allow this suffering.
St. Thomas would have agreed with Leon Bloy, who often wrote that in the end there is only one tragedy in life: not to have been a saint.
St. Thomas is as practical and plain and reasonable in ethics as Aristotle, or Confucius, or your uncle.
Spirit means essentially two things: 1. The power of thinking—conscious, deliberate, rational understanding. Not sense perception; that’s the work of a bodily organ, like the eye. 2. The power of will...
Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Some say that to the gods we are like flies that boys idly swat on a summer day. Others say that not a feather from a sparrow falls to the ground without the will of the Heavenly Father. Those are the...
Seek and you shall find does not refer to anything else: long life, conquest of earthly enemies, freedom from pain, disease, death, betrayal, weakness, and so on. But it does refer to God and to that...
Reason is flawless, de jure, but reasoners are not, de facto.
Play and mirth is also necessary for the intercourse of human life and to cheer the heart of man. This is why God invented not just water but also wine (Ps 104:15).
Paradoxically, sloth reigns most in our technologically busy world where leisure has been abolished and life has been programmed and scheduled down to the last detail.
One of the reasons lust is bad (not the only reason) is that it makes you stupid. Like any addiction, it blinds your vision to everything else and focuses it on the one thing that is the object of you...
Of course we should use all our powers, of mind and will and imagination, but not trust in them, for that is trusting in ourselves.
Not all prayer is in words, because not all conversation is in words.
John’s privilege among prophets is somewhat analogous to Mary’s privilege among women. No prophet is closer to Christ than John. Christ did not call him the greatest of all the prophets and more than...
It is much easier to fail to love your parents than to fail to love your children. That is why there is a commandment that commands love and respect to parents, but not to children. In an age of abort...
God’s solution to the problem of evil is his Son Jesus Christ. The Father’s love sent his Son to die for us to defeat the power of evil in human nature: that’s the heart of the Christian story.
God’s Spirit is most powerfully at work in us during emotional troughs, the dry times, not the high times. All the saints teach that. When the aid of feelings is removed, we can move forward only by h...
God loves us more than we love Him.