Living in the (Increasingly Narcissistic) World

Here is an interesting reflection for Catholics who take their salvation seriously. It makes for an interesting examen....

Casting Out the Demons

CARYLL HOUSELANDER

The devil knows that the soul whose heart is fixed on God is lost to hell, so he must drag the gaze back from God to self.

But when it comes to someone who has arrived at some measure of strongly conscious spirituality, who has proved a willingness to suffer for God and his truth, the devil must find subtler ways: he must find something which resembles God in this — that it is always present.

What could be better than self? — and what more certain to imprison and ultimately obsess a sensitive soul than awareness of something wrong with self?

Somehow or other the soul must be made to strive to attain a certain level of holiness, a certain peace or at least untroubledness, before abandoning itself to God. It will be held back by this, prevented from seeing more and more the beauty of God. The devil knows that the soul whose heart is fixed on God is lost to hell, so he must drag the gaze back from God to self. He whispers, through a clergyman or friend, or just your own prompting: "You are doing wrong. Of course you have no peace; you are putting your peace of soul before the happiness of better souls, anyway" — and so on and so on. If you listen, you half agree; you begin again to examine your motives; you let conflict and anxiety rage in you — which is in itself exhausting. A vicious circle begins: you are too tired to pray; you think all consolation has been taken from you, aridity sets in....

I feel sure that the treatment is to ignore the suggestions. Even ignore your own soul: keep your mind on God, on his love....

Do not wait until you feel not uneasy; do not wait to be doing a more prayerful act; do not wait to feel more unity and completeness: offer yourself, your will to do right, your anxiety about not doing it, your being interrupted just now, the act of taking So-and-so's temperature — all, just as it is, to God. Leave it to God to transform all this into himself. It's all you've got, and he gave it to you.

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This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

On the Contemporary U.S. Scene

M ichael Flynn made a lot of enemies inside the government during his career. When he exposed himself as vulnerable these pounced. How?? Anonymous and possibly illegal leaks of private conversations with a foreign national. Now, we aren't supposed to spy on Americans without probable cause, nor disclose the results of our spying in the pages of the Washington Post because it suits a partisan or personal agenda (overturning the results of an election). Current and former national security officials used their position, their sources, and their methods to destroy a political enemy. Why aren’t all Americans upset by this? Mr. Flynn is not the only recent occurrence of such. The New York Times reports that civil servants at the EPA lobbied Congress to reject Donald Trump's nominee to run the agency because Pruitt was critical of the way the EPA was run during the Obama years. Traditionally, civil servants follow the direction of the political ap...

Things Catholic

In my second chapter I discuss why the political terms "liberal" and "conservative" are misnomers for adjectives modifying the term "Catholic." This is especially important now, when, following the resignation of Benedict XVI, pundits will misuse these terms in discussing the Holy father's legacy. Read more on this here.

Women Warriors?

A s a Catholic man and history teacher, I always tell my classes that, for reasons of masculinity and chivalry, I oppose women in the military (I teach at an all-female Catholic girls high school). So this article gives a better explanation of my view from a Catholic man's perspective: WOMEN DON'T DESERVE COMBAT by Mr. Gabe Jones “For whenever man is responsible for offending a woman’s personal dignity and vocation, he acts contrary to his own personal dignity and his own vocation.” (Pope St. John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 10) December 3, 2015 ought to be remembered as the date that any remaining vestiges of our country’s collective sense of chivalry died a tragic death. It was on this day that Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced his decision to require combat positions in every branch of the United States military – including the Marine Corps – be opened to women. Despite being one of the most significant news items in recent memory, if you did not p...

Pope Francis' Family

S ince his elevation to the Chair of Peter Pope Francis has almost tripled the size of crowds attending papal audiences, Masses and other events in Vatican City. What explains this suddenly renewed interest in Catholicism? What need is Pope Francis meeting in people? As is well-known, the Church was beset by allegations of scandal and mismanagement in its bureaucracy and its bank, its reputation besmirched by the sexual abuse scandal. John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter: "The dominant narrative about the Catholic Church today is 'rock star Pope takes the world by storm'….If that's not a revolution, at least at the level of perception, then we have never seen one." The revolution is seen in the Pope's decision to include a Muslim woman when he washed the feet of young offenders last Easter, and his instinctive hug for a man whose face was badly disfigured by disease. It is seen by his refusal to live in the papal apartment or to wear the re...

Desperate Despair of Hooking Up

I have posted here and here on the hook-up culture, but am unlikely to surpass Maloney's analysis, printed here in its entirety. This makes for a reality check for parents excited about sending their offspring off to university and for anyone concerned about the real war on women (and men). The best defense for serious Catholics? Right Here . JUNE 14, 2016 What the Hook-up Culture Has Done to Women ANNE MALONEY A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. ∼ Henry David Thoreau, Walden A few months ago, a young woman at Stanford University was raped by a virtual stranger, and her rapist received a ridiculously light sentence. The story grabbed headlines everywhere, and caused a firestorm on social media. This “dumpster rape” is being blared about eve...

DANCIN' WITH MR. D: The Anti-Christian Alt-Right by Matthew Rose | Articles | First Things

The Anti-Christian Alt-Right by Matthew Rose | Articles | First Things : 'via Blog this'

Nuns' Story, or Call the Sisters

(Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham / Fr James Bradley) I have been watching the PBS series, Call the Midwives , which f ollows the nurses, midwives and nuns from Nonnatus House, who visit the expectant mothers of Poplar, providing the poorest women with the best possible care. As I observe the way these Anglican nuns are portrayed, it strikes me that they are more like Catholic nuns than many Catholic nuns after Vatican II (see chapter 5 of my book). Thus, the story featured in this post does not surprise me, especially after Pope Benedict's launching of the United States’ ordinariate for disaffected Anglicans seeking communion with the Catholic Church. From the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus , given in Rome, at St. Peter’s, on Nov. 4, 2009: “In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately.”

Lord Save Us

I was saddened to hear of the following death of a great evangelizer.. .

The End of Fortress Catholicism?!

John Gehring in the Post editorializes: Something unexpected and extraordinary is happening in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis is rescuing the faith from those who hunker down in gilded cathedrals and wield doctrine like a sword. The edifice of fortress Catholicism – in which progressive Catholics, gay Catholics, Catholic women and others who love the church but often feel marginalized by the hierarchy – is starting to crumble. I, as one endlessly pointing out the fruitlessness of using adjectives to describe Catholics , could not resist the following, penned by Pat Archibold of the NCR (NOT Reporter!!) Proof of Liberalism in the Pope: "It is true that the Muslim world is not totally mistaken when it reproaches the West of Christian tradition of moral decadence and the manipulation of human life." "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from ...

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