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 [...]

One of the things I find fascinating about Special Forces guys in the US Military is that they are usually soft-spoken.  One of the things I find fascinating about fully-certifiable narcissists is that they are always the opposite:  Whereas narcissists frequently speak about themselves in a self-centered manner, they secretly have extremely low self-confidence. So, what is the relationship between self-confidence and humility?  The pious answer goes like this:  "One should have confidence in God, not oneself."  While this is true, it does not take into consideration the difficult balance that St. Thomas Aquinas makes between magnanimity and humility.  In the Second Part of the Second Part of his Summa Theologiae, St. [...]

by Andromeda “I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish.” Luke 13:3 The novel idea which claimed, and still claims, that modern man is exempt from the precepts of the Gospel, ‘because times have changed,’ entered into, and firmly established itself in the Catholic ethos during the post conciliar period of the Church. We were, it was proclaimed, to enter into a new Springtime, throwing off the dark and dowdy ways of thinking and being, and by so inaugurating a new human fraternity which would bring about a heaven right here on earth.  It followed as a natural consequence of this happy hypothesis, [...]

by Guest Writer “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’” - Luke 23:34 I’ll admit that I’ve long harbored an idea, albeit subconsciously, that only God could forgive heroically. What I mean is that only an infinite God of infinite magnanimity towards the most treacherous of His creatures could speak words of forgiveness while wasting away on the cross. For the rest of us finite humans, there has to be a limit. It’s the same mentality that St. Peter had when he thought he hit it out of the park with his question of forgiving a brother who sins against him seven times.  In [...]