Wise tyrants don’t forbid: they tame. An oppressor with a surfeit of honesty or a deficit of cunning will proclaim that the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day is to be forbidden under pain of law in the hopes that the name of Patrick and the fruits of his labor shall eventually be forgotten and the … Continue reading The Taming of St. Patrick
Saints
Words of the Saints: St. John Henry Newman on Modernism
From one of future-Cardinal Newman's Tracts for the Times (written while he was still an Anglican) “Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshaling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of Christ as in a net, and preparing the way for a … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. John Henry Newman on Modernism
Words of the Saints – St. Alphonsus Liguori on Death
All confess that they must die, and die but once; and that there is nothing of greater consequence than this; for our eternal happiness or our eternal unhappiness depends upon the moment of death. We all know a happy or an unhappy death depends upon the life we have led. And yet, how is it … Continue reading Words of the Saints – St. Alphonsus Liguori on Death
Words of the Saints: St. Augustine on Beauty
"Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air, amply spread around everywhere, question the beauty of the sky, question the serried ranks of the stars, question the sun making the day glorious with its bright beams, question the moon tempering the darkness of the following … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. Augustine on Beauty
Words of the Saints: St. Thomas Aquinas on Revelation
From Summa Conta Gentiles, Book one, Chapter Five, on why it's fitting for some things to be accepted as revelation (emph. mine: St. Thomas didn't often use bold typefaces): "Again, this truth needed to be proposed to man as an object of faith so that he may have truer knowledge of God. For we only … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. Thomas Aquinas on Revelation
Words of the Saints: St. John Henry Newman on Miracles
The below comes (now, try to stay with me) from one of the appendices of Cardinal Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua, in which, to respond to the criticisms of Charles Kingsley, he quotes at length a passage in an earlier work of his discussing miracles. The words below are from that passage: "There is in … Continue reading Words of the Saints: St. John Henry Newman on Miracles
Feast of St. Louis
King Saint Louis'sLast Instructions to his Eldest Son, Philip III 1. To his dear first-born son, Philip, greeting, and his father's love.2. Dear son, since I desire with all my heart that you be well "instructed in all things, it is in my thought to give you some advice this writing. For I have heard … Continue reading Feast of St. Louis
Friday Flotsam: The Feast of St. Joseph
1. A blessed Feast of St. Joseph to you all! May the foster father of Our Lord Jesus intercede on behalf of everyone who reads this and for the Church and our nation as a whole. 2. A thought occurred to me this morning, listening to a sermon on St. Joseph (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OXUfeFFjXg). The priest points … Continue reading Friday Flotsam: The Feast of St. Joseph
St. Patrick’s Day
LatinEnglishSancti Patricii Hymnus ad Temoriam.The Lorica, Breastplate, of St. Patrick (The Cry of the Deer) Ad Temoriam hodie potentiam praepollentem invoco Trinitatis,Credo in Trinitatem sub unitate numinis elementorum.I arise todayThrough a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,Through belief in the Threeness,Through confession of the Onenessof the Creator of creation.Apud Temoriam hodie virtutem nativitatis Christi … Continue reading St. Patrick’s Day
All Saints
The doctrine of the Communion of Saints is rather simple. It's that Christians don't leave the Church when they die. The work they began in this life doesn't end when they enter the next. We have a perspective problem in this life. In fact, it's very like being in high school (our education system has … Continue reading All Saints
Serpent's Den 