Vatican II's Lumen Gentium's chapter five is titled "Universal Call to Holiness" and it includes this sentence:  "Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness." By "cared for by it," it simply means lay people. In other words, lay folks are also called to holiness. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with that sentence. But it's also super obvious, so something else is behind it. What is it? I don't know, but there's an old Protestant myth that Catholic priests and nuns told lay people they're not called to holiness.  Have modernists run with this in Vatican II?  We [...]

My post-Mass meditation usually comes from a 19th century book of Jesuit Meditations.  It's a phenomenal book.   The meditation following Sunday's Mass was about enduring persecutions in light of the Sermon on the Mount.  Before we get to the topic at hand, How To Pray for the Enemies of Holy Mother Church, I want to highlight a few other parts of Sunday's meditation on enduring persecutions. One of the most astonishing insights the anonymous Jesuit author made is that false-accusations make us already like Christ on earth.  It reads:  "And besides, is not the glory of being thus made like to the Son of God on earth before we [...]

Fr. Walter J. Ciszek S.J. wrote: Though our situation may have been somewhat unique, the temptation [to give up] was not. It is the same temptation faced by everyone who has followed a call and found that the realities of life were nothing like the expectations he had in the first flush of his vision and his enthusiasm. It is the temptation that comes to anyone, for example, who has entered religious life with a burning desire to serve God and him alone, only to find that the day-to-day life in religion is humdrum and pedestrian, equally as filled with moments of human misunderstanding, daily routines, and distractions. It is [...]