But we can influence (not compel) each other’s choices through the mediating channels of imagination and emotion. So can angels. They can’t put judgments in your mind or choices in your will, but they...
Belief in angels makes an even bigger difference if you believe in God and pray, because your prayers to God to send angel help will be answered.
Because is ambiguous. It could mean only a subjective motive (Because I’m paranoid, I believe that man is going to kill me), or it could mean an objective reason (Because he’s pointing a gun at me and...
As C.S. Lewis says, God whispers in our pleasures but shouts in our pains. Pain is his megaphone to rouse a dulled world.
Aristotle had discovered only half the principle of inertia—that a body at rest remains at rest unless moved by another—but not the other half—that a body in motion remains in motion unless acted on b...
Angels just see it all at once; they see all the individual applications of the general principle in the general principle
And since perfected souls will be incapable of envy, all will rejoice in their lesser level of brightness, because it will be exactly what God wills for the common good; and all will identify with tha...
A habit is a stable disposition to act in a certain way, good or evil. Virtues are good habits; vices are bad habits.
For instance, it is a hate crime to quote certain politically incorrect verses from the Bible, especially the Old Testament, in any public arena.)
War between paralyzed telepaths.
Our ego is not God. In fact, it is often wrong, because it is fallen, foolish, and faithless.
[T]o scorn the dictate of reason is to scorn the commandment of God (I-II,19,5).
Therefore the prayers we offer in the Mass for the world are far more powerful than the prayers we offer outside the Mass, even if the prayers we offer outside the Mass are the same prayers, and even...
Therefore if we lack the feeling of repentance but nevertheless want to repent; if we choose repentance with the will; we are then repenting, since repentance is that choice of the will.
The two most popular forms of this are the Oriental form of ignoring real physical evils by creating a mystical inner paradise through yoga and meditation,
The meaning of life is to become a saint.
The good Jew, like the good Christian, sees behind the law to the Lawgiver, whose will is perfect love.
The deepest healing is the healing of the deepest wound. The deepest wound is the frustration of the deepest need. The deepest need is the need for meaning, purpose, and hope.
So nothing can be ours by right, by nature, or by necessity. But one thing is mine by my free choice: the self I give away in love. This is the thing even God cannot do for me. It really is my choice....
Since God writes history as man writes words, the literal events of history can be signs of other truths just as human words are signs of things other than themselves.