Engaging the Faith

Our lives should be ordered to what is good. The observation is so commonplace that it can sound trite. In English, we compare good to great. ...

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

I suppose there are few difficulties more universally felt than that of making a good thanksgiving after Communion. Spiritual writers tell us we ought not to use books, at least not for some time afterward.

I believe that old age is a gift, a very precious gift, not a calamity.

When students come to know God and are immersed into Catholic culture, they still must learn how to live the faith in the world, especially after they graduate.

After the [Gulf] war, Patty and I completed our degrees and started our family.

One of the most eye-opening statements I have ever read was Peter Kreeft’s discussion of stuff.

When we actually start acting the Gospel out in the lived reality of economics, politics, and culture, we start getting into trouble.

A French Catholic writer of a century ago, Léon Bloy, frequently wrote this sentence. It is one of the most profound sentences I have ever read: “There is only one tragedy, in the end: not to have been a saint.”

...Seeing family size as proportional to sanctity is gravely unjust to those with medical or other hardships that place large families – or having children at all – out of reach.

The rejection of reason and nature has taken root … through the replacement of critical thinking with critical theory. The latter has been the engine of academic thought for decades, and its methods pervade every discipline and subject.

Do not give in to political correctness. It is a kind of terrorism.

Another sign of the strength of American Catholicism in the 1950s was the number of converts who were received into the Church.

I once read a story about an atheist who came to faith through the witness of Christians who were living radically altered lives. This man went to work amongst the poorest of the poor in violent, crime-ridden areas.

In 1917, during one of Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the three shepherd children were given a vision of hell. Our Lady warned that if people didn’t stop offending God, then another war would come.

I've never figured out why Americans can be so enthusiastic about equality. It’s necessary in many areas, of course – in math equations, in human rights, and in voting – but it’s dull. If values had color, courage would be red, joy yellow, hope green, peace blue, comfort tan, creativity purple, and equality gray.

Another Sunday without the Eucharist. I pray my other prayers with some extra zeal to mark the Lord’s day.

[We must abide by] our faithfulness to daily duty, whether as a doctor, a farmer, a lawyer, a homeschooling mother of eight, a divorced dad of three striving to live a chaste life, a religious-order priest, a diocesan priest, a cloistered nun within a monastery enclosure, an active religious sister teaching in the classroom, a retired grandparent, a working grandparent, a recently widowed grandparent, a middle school or high school student, a college student, or whatever else we might be called to as part of our vocation and state in life.

The strong will, as we are using the term here, is not to be confused with the will that seeks greatness. The will that seeks greatness courageously discerns and chooses the good and directs the appetite toward it. The strong will, on the other hand, is dominated by taking action and often asserts independently of the intellect or the consideration of anyone else.

My parents had their share of struggles in their marriage and in raising a family of six children. One son died in infancy, and then they lost another when he was just eighteen. I suppose one of the strongest lessons I learned from both my parents was that whatever we were facing, we could always turn to our Catholic faith for strength and support.