Socrates says we must be either fools because we think we are wise, or wise because we know we are fools. Christ says we must be either sinners who think we are saints, or saints who know we are sinne...
Since (1) charity is supernatural, and comes only from the real presence of God in the soul (St. Thomas’ paragraph 3), and since (2) all men, and not only Christians, are capable of charity (as has be...
Presumption and despair are opposite deadly sins. We hear a lot about despair, and the need for hope; but what is presumption?
Our faith here can only be in God, not in our faith (that’s presumption). He will never abandon us, but we can abandon Him. That’s why we must be vigilant.
More accurately stated, man is not both angel and animal because he is neither angel nor animal; he is between angels and animals, a unique rung on the cosmic ladder.
Man's soul has three powers, and God left him prophets for all three: Jewish moralists for his will, Greek philosophers for his mind, and pagan mythmakers for his heart and imagination and feelings. O...
It is an a fortiori argument: if even the veneration of a beloved father’s relics after he dies is a good thing, how much more the veneration of a saint’s?
I often thought of comparing life to a dream, because death always seemed to be an awakening.
Heidegger says that the fundamental question of metaphysics is why is there anything at all rather than nothing? The fundamental question is not, as Plato thought, what a thing is (every Platonic dial...
Heart here refers especially to deep feeling or emotion. Heart means not only (1) intuitive reason (the heart has its reasons) and (2) will
Good theology is not the knowledge of theology but the knowledge of God. Bad theology is the theology of the theologian who died and went to Heaven and at the gates of Heaven God offered him the choic...
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...
For any act to be morally right, three things are necessary: (1) right act, (2) right motive, and (3) right circumstances. If any one of these factors is not right, the act is wrong.
For Socrates, there are only two kinds of people: the wise, who know they are fools; and fools, who think they are wise. Similarly, for Christ and all the prophets, there are only two kinds of people:...
Expect the world to be Heaven, and it will feel like Hell. Expect it to be Purgatory, and it will feel like Heaven. The two most salient facts about Purgatory are pain and hope, suffering and meaning.
Earthly life is full of soporifics, anaesthetics, pain-dullers. In fact, compared with Purgatory our whole life on earth will appear to have been life only half awake. In Purgatory we will be fully aw...
Each truth about God known by the mind is a new motive for loving Him with the will.
De Caussade makes this matter of duty very simple, too, as he makes everything simple: We have two duties to fulfill: we must actively seek to carry God’s will into effect and passively accept all tha...
Christ, the new Moses, liberates His people, the Church, the new Israel, from the spiritual slavery of sin and from the power of the world (symbolized by Egypt), which is under the dominion of Satan (...