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 [...]

p/c Daily Wire. In early 2023, Jordan Peterson (above left) interviewed Chloe Cole (above right) with probably well over 10 million listens across all forums.  Chloe is an 18 year old woman who suffered gender-dysphoria and began to chemically "transition" at the age of 12.  At the age of 15, she had a double-mastectomy that she described on this interview as "barbaric."  She is now suing her surgeons and Kaiser Permanente of California as they proceeded into mutilating surgeries when she was not able to give informed-consent.  Obviously, she could not give informed-consent to a mutilating reproductive surgery firstly because it was a mutilating sexual surgery and secondly due to her [...]

Five years ago, Sensus Fidelium produced a talk I gave called Making Decisions Without Fear based on the teaching of St. Ignatius of Loyola.  Today we're going to delve much deeper into that oft-quoted parable of St. Ignatius "Don't make decisions in desolation."  That is correct. But the original version from the saint goes like this: In time of desolation, we should never make any change, but remain firm and constant in the resolution and decision which guided us the day before the desolation, or in the decision to which we adhered in the preceding consolation.  For just as in consolation the good spirit guides and counsels us, so in [...]

PATIENCE UNDER TEMPTATION & THE MEANS OF CONQUERING With what arms are we to fight temptations in order to conquer? by S. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop & Doctor of the Church The first and principal, and I may say the only, and absolutely necessary means for conquering temptations, is to have recourse to God by prayer.  This means is particularly necessary for conquering temptations against purity;  In temptations it is also very useful to make the Sign of the Cross. The second means of conquering temptations is to humble yourself, and to distrust your own strength.  Thus let us humble ourselves, and at the same time let us have recourse with [...]

The word for "world" in Greek is cosmos or κόσμος.   Jesus and St. John the Apostle seem to say contradictory things about loving "the world."  Arguably, the most famous Bible passage of history is when Jesus says:  For God so loved the world (κόσμον) that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.—John 3:16. However, this seems difficult to reconcile with what the Holy Spirit later says through St. John in one of his letters: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.—1 John 2:15. [...]

In seminary, my favorite professor taught both ascetical and Carmelite theology. I agree with him that St. John of the Cross was probably not a sullen melancholic. St. John is made out to be today as a debby-downer (especially by us perman-grin Americans) because he writes so much about detachment. But even a cursory study of the life of St. John of the Cross reveals his high levels of energy, not only towards the ascetical life, but even the evangelical life of helping the townsfolk outside his 16th century monastery in Spain. St. John of the Cross' pathway of the Nada, Nada, Nada is where we arrive at the apex [...]