Was St. Magdalene the Sister of St. Lazarus?
Was St. Mary Magdalene the biological sister of Lazarus who Christ raised from the dead? Most of the early Fathers believe so. In fact, the 16th century Jesuit, Fr. Lapide, reveals the ancient dispute of the Fathers. Ultimately, however, he comes down on the side of the affirmative to that question. Here, we will just copy-and-paste that great scholar's clear and profound words without any commentary, except Lapide's own commentary on Sacred Scripture and the early Fathers: Ver. 36.—And one of the Pharisees desired that he would eat with him, and He went into the Pharisee’s house and sat down to meat. Ver. 37.—And behold a woman in the city. [...]
Who’s Your savior—The State or The Savior?
One headline I saw last week read “Biden says new covid shots ‘that work’ may be on the way for all Americans.” This is probably funny to most of my readers but the notion that a new injection “that works” obviously implies the last shot did not work. At all. Actually, it worked perfectly: It reduced the world's population as Bill Gates promised it would. And many of us lost a loved one who didn't listen to us. But why is a certain segment of leftists still blinded to this obvious truth? I think of when Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, trying to figure out the Truth (but still [...]
The Mass Was Never a Means of Evangelization
Thirty years ago this month, I attended World Youth Day (WYD) in Denver, CO with Pope John Paul II. It took place days before my 15th birthday. Some estimates believe one million people showed up to the events at the old Mile High Stadium (see above photo) and the final Mass at Cherry Creek Reservoir (see below photo.) My own mother was one of the chaperones for WYD '93 and my little brother (12 years old at the time) was one of thousands treated by Denver General Paramedics for dehydration at the final reservoir Mass. This was a special event for my family since Denver is where we were born [...]
You Can’t Please Your Enemies (So Don’t Try)
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. [...]
Maximalism and Minimalism
Recently, I read about a certain African female saint in the ancient Roman Martyrology: "At Cyrene, in Lybia, St. Cyrilla, a martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian. For a long while she held on her hand burning coals with incense, lest by shaking off the coals she should seem to offer incense to the idols. She was afterwards cruelly scourged, and went to her spouse adorned with her own blood." Notice that St. Cyrilla not only refrained from putting incense on idols (which certainly would have been enough to win her martyrdom under Diocletian) but many Catholics today might even add that she didn't "know her theology enough" to know [...]
The Roman Canon Is the Oldest Eucharistic Prayer
Really, the better title of this blog should be "The Roman Canon is the Oldest Eucharistic Prayer and those of the Eastern Liturgies." What is excluded from this? Obviously, the Novus Ordo's Eucharistic Prayer II, III and IV are all very new man-made prayers. They are not of Apostolic Origin. But for some reason, that isn't so "obvious" to most Catholic educators today. One of the strangest modern-myths pushed in my mainstream-seminary years ago (and probably still today) was that "Eucharistic Prayer II is older than Eucharistic Prayer I." (That sounds as silly as saying, "The New Mass is older than the Old Mass.") As most of you know, what [...]
Modernism Always Includes Narcissism
When I first started finding all the corruption in the Catholic Church hierarchy, I actually bent-over backwards to blame everything except Vatican II. (Yes, you read that correctly.) I really didn't want to admit the entire Catholic Church on seven continents got overturned in the 1960s, so I started telling myself that the US bishops were bad... ah, but the rest of the world had implemented Vatican II in a much more conservative way! Of course, I soon found out in my travels that I was wrong. The heresy of modernism came part-in-parcel with all the new sacraments and the new doctrine of ecumenism (read: religious indifferentism) in every country [...]
On Divine Omnipotence
"God is so mighty that after creating man free, He rules and directs him according to His good pleasure, without prejudicing man's liberty in any way."—Divine Intimacy, Day #240 on "Divine Omnipotence." I recently came across the above quote again in Divine Intimacy (DI) but I had never noticed that it may be one of the best short explanations of man's freedom and the world's suffering in light of God's sovereignty. All of world history and modern man's doubts about God seem to be answered in that stunning quote. Here's why I think that quote from Fr. Gabriel of DI is so profound: The issue of theodicy is the question [...]
The Cardinal Virtues Can’t Contradict Each Other
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 [...]
NFP Before Vatican II
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a way that many Catholics today space-out births of children based on their economic, social or medical reasons. Unfortunately, many Catholics also use NFP to decide when they are "done" having children, often based on lifestyle-preferences more than "grave reasons," as required by the Catholic Church. On the other hand, some traditional Catholics today erroneously believe NFP didn't exist before Vatican II. Pope Pius XII spoke about this aspect of the matrimonial-contract in an Address to Midwives on 29 October 1951. A small segment of his talk is copied below. His words are in italics and my commentary is found in orange-bold. The Bonum Prolis [...]