First Sunday of Lent: Purified and Perfected by Penance
After Jesus was baptized, the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan (Mk. 1:12).
On...
Chastity: Appreciating An Underappreciated Virtue
”Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged” (John 19: 1)
The visions of the 19th century German mystic, Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, vividly depict...
The Psychology of Fasting
Fasting was an essential aspect of primitive Christianity, as it had been in Old Testament times. That the followers of Jesus would fast is...
Enforcing the Party Line – Or is that Lie?
We shall proclaim destruction – why? why? – well,
Because the idea is so fascinating. But we must get
a little exercise. We’ll have a few...
Quinquagesima Sunday
When I was a child, I spoke as child; I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a...
Adoration and Philosophy
All Catholics should go to Eucharistic Adoration. Most Catholics, myself included, should go to Adoration more than they do, whether they go regularly, occasionally,...
The Salvific Message of Lourdes
Our Lady of Lourdes is one of the few 'visions' of the Virgin Mary to be placed in the public Liturgical calendar of the...
Fraternal Trust and Care of the Sick
As has been the custom for the last thirty-eight years, on Thursday 11 February, precisely on the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes,...
The Gospel of Mark, Part IV: A Prelude to the Passion and Resurrection
Roughly half of the narrative of the public life of Jesus is devoted to miracles, selected with obvious care. To begin with are all...
Keeping the Republic
The most marked political tendency of the American people has been to interpret their government as a pure and simple democracy, and to shift...