Matins for the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle in the old Rite Roman Breviary includes this reading today: For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we [...]

Should you recall past sins?  The basic answer to this is one that most of you already know:  Do not beat yourself up about sins you have confessed because those sins have been washed away by the blood of Jesus.  (Or, if you are an adult convert, your sins were washed away in baptism.) Keep in mind in St. Luke chapter 15, we have the Prodigal Son parable:  After a significant stint of sin, he returns to the Father and he is planning on saying, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your [...]

One of the greatest works of the early Desert Fathers is The Ladder of Divine Ascent.  It is considered to be a masterpiece of ascetical theology, but it is primarily for monks.  Thus, I was surprised when a married man with children started telling me about how this is one of his favorite books.  This layman (about my age) usually does one hour of mental prayer a day and lives very impressive asceticism.  (He was not bragging to me, but he admitted he and his family try to make their home a little monastery.) Nevertheless, I still wondered if The Ladder of Divine Ascent should be the goal of the [...]

Even though he's not completely Thomistic in his treatment of the virtues, C.S. Lewis brilliantly explains in chapter 2 of Mere Christianity the difference between vanity and pride: That is why vanity, though it is the sort of pride which shows most on the surface, is really the least bad and most pardonable sort. The vain person wants praise, applause, admiration, too much and is always angling for it. It is a fault, but a childlike and even (in an odd way) a humble fault. It shows that you are not yet completely contented with your own admiration. You value other people enough to want them to look at you. [...]

Many seminarians and potential-seminarians to the Catholic Church are thrilled about salvation history.  And this is a good thing.  Indeed, new seminarians love to study how Joshua and Caleb took the Holy Land from the pagans.  We all love how the underdogs could beat the Canaanites and all surrounding tribes.  We all know the spoils of the Land of Milk and Honey did not go to merely the legalistic, but to the courageous.   In fact, Joshua and Caleb were the only two of the original twelve spies to even enter what we now call "Israel."  They obeyed the call to execute great fortitude against all odds: Have I not [...]

It hath also seemed good to the holy Synod, to subjoin, to the preceding doctrine on penance, the following on the sacrament of Extreme Unction, which by the Fathers was regarded as being the completion, not only of penance, but also of the whole Christian life, which ought to be a perpetual penance.—Council of Trent, Chapter 14, On the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, Second Session. The key words I want to focus on from Trent above is that "the whole Christian life...ought to be a perpetual penance."  Why does this sound distasteful to even traditional Catholics? First, even good Catholics today tend to see Christianity through a post-Protestant-revolt lens.  One [...]

Many of you already know that the best remedy to self-centeredness in the spiritual life is to do the corporal works of mercy {to feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to clothe the naked; to harbor the harborless; to visit the sick; to ransom the captive; to bury the dead.} However, since many of you already know that, I want to discuss some other remedies in this post. When I was a charismatic before becoming a traditionalist, I was discerning a good group of Franciscans in the Bronx.  (I still consider them quite faithful and evangelical, so this isn't a now I've moved on blogpost.)   One [...]

In the first century, following his martyrdom in Jerusalem, the body of St. James the Greater (one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ) was taken by angels and disciples back to the Northwest part of the country he had previously evangelized:  Spain, specifically Galicia.  His body was discovered nearly a millennium later, and pilgrims through the middle ages walked to Northwest Spain to the bones of the Apostle.  In fact, Santiago was one of the three greatest pilgrimage sites of the Middle Ages, next to Rome and Jerusalem. Our 2015 walking Pilgrimage across Spain By the 1970s, the Way of St. James (Camino De Santiago) had nearly [...]

The following was written for religious, but lay people can learn much from The True Spouse of Jesus Christ by St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.  The following excerpt is also found at www.saintsworks.net. 'Turn away your eyes lest they behold vanity; (cf. Ps. 119:37) for license causes souls to perish.'—St. Poemen Almost all our rebellious passions spring from unguarded looks; for, generally speaking, it is by the sight that all inordinate affections and desires are excited. Hence, holy Job made a covenant with his eyes, that he would not so much as think upon a virgin. Why did he say that he would not so much as think upon a [...]