RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
"At the beginning of the last century, theological modernism emerged, where many errors of the philosophical and theological thought of the time converge. Among other errors, modernism adopted the Lutheran motif of faith as a feeling, making dogma an expression of the religious feeling that springs from the subconsciousness. Saint Pius explocitrly condemned this theory "I have for certain that religi9n is not a blind feeling that comes from the bottom of subconsciousness under the pressure from the heart and the submitting of the will, but a true assent of the understanding of the truth received from the outside, an assent by which we believe because of the authority of God whose veracity is absolute, everything that has been said, witnessed and revealed by God, our creator and our Mister." (St. Pius X, Antimodernist Oath, (DS 3542).)"
In the encyclical Humani Generis, Pius XII made more statements about the intelectual character of the faith and its rational fundaments against some trends that were trying to underestimate the functions of human reason in what comes to divine truths.
"Deeping into Our Faith" - Vol I - Father Lucas Prados
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
"At the beginning of the last century, theological modernism emerged, where many errors of the philosophical and theological thought of the time converge. Among other errors, modernism adopted the Lutheran motif of faith as a feeling, making dogma an expression of the religious feeling that springs from the subconsciousness. Saint Pius explocitrly condemned this theory "I have for certain that religi9n is not a blind feeling that comes from the bottom of subconsciousness under the pressure from the heart and the submitting of the will, but a true assent of the understanding of the truth received from the outside, an assent by which we believe because of the authority of God whose veracity is absolute, everything that has been said, witnessed and revealed by God, our creator and our Mister." (St. Pius X, Antimodernist Oath, (DS 3542).)"
In the encyclical Humani Generis, Pius XII made more statements about the intelectual character of the faith and its rational fundaments against some trends that were trying to underestimate the functions of human reason in what comes to divine truths.
"Deeping into Our Faith" - Vol I - Father Lucas Prados
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
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JUAN MANUEL DE PRADA
"I prefer the man who raises his voice to say clearly what he thinks, even if what he thinks is wrong, than the man who hides or disguises what he thinks: because the first is fully human, even if he insists on error (or precisely because of it). While the 'moderate', under his perfidious appearance of friendly neutrality, is a perfidious being.
(...) The most characteristic feature of the 'moderate' is his willing permanence in the fold of received ideas, which he repeats like a parrot, waiting for the ration of hemp seeds that rewards his conformity. The 'moderate' never has initiative, he always adopts the customs of the world, he always assumes the fashions of the time, he always chants or imitates (with ventriloquist virtuosity) the voices of the moment. Anything that deviates from the established guidelines seems like exaggeration and outrage; Everything that involves expressing oneself with enthusiasm, with ardor, with crudeness, with vehemence, provokes disgust, aversion, and scandal. The 'moderate', although deep down he does not sincerely profess any principles, can conceal from the outside that he professes them; but with the condition that they are empty principles, mere rhetorical statements, principles that are not applied or can be applied loosely. And, of course, if someone expresses those same principles in a fiery tone and tries to apply them without reservation, he will seem like a madman; and he will prefer the one who proclaims the contrary principles, as long as he does so with correctness, with moderation, with cold and polite warmth. Of course, to the 'moderate', clear affirmations or denials cause horror, because they force him to take sides; He prefers the opinions that pick from all the baskets, the misty expressions, the ambiguous syncretism, the empty blurriness, the platitude, the nuance. How the 'moderate' likes nuances, and if, in addition to qualifying, he can get a 'consensus', then he is already exploding in pleasure. The 'moderate' likes nothing so much as giving up a portion of what he thinks (since everything he thinks is worthless) in exchange for taking a portion of the opposite opinion; for he knows that in this stupidity of mind his stupidity and inanity go unnoticed.
The 'moderate' hates the man who commits himself and commits his prestige to defending a position, because he knows that his gallant attitude reveals his cowardice. If, furthermore, the committed person is a man of easy speech and lush writing that is poured out with irrepressible frankness and even with a certain lack of modesty, the hatred of the 'moderate' will reach diabolical heights; and he will commit his forces to discredit the committed man, accusing him of charlatanry, radicalism, intemperance, or any real or invented vice that makes him appear in the eyes of the world as an idiot. The 'moderate' hates the committed man as the eunuch hates the virile man; and he will not hesitate to obtain his ostracism sentence (but always in a painless way, which is why it is 'moderate').
The 'moderate' considers that in every opinion there is something good and something bad and that every thought that is expressed without ambiguity is an expression of blind pride. Naturally, all of this is treacherous tricks to convince us that his lukewarmness and cowardice are prudence, tolerance, common sense. The 'moderate' defends acquired habits, prejudiced inertia, established conventions and, in short, everything that envelops people and towns in the cobwebs of mental laziness, of flabby repetition, of stereotype; On the other hand, he hates authentic traditions, which he tries to convert into mechanical customs devoid of meaning (and thus, for example, the 'moderate' can participate in a Holy Week procession and even Corpus Christi so wildly, with the same aseptic complacency with which he can also participate in a Gay Pride float parade). [...]"
Extracted from the article "Moderaditos" - Juan Manuel de Prada
#CHESTERTONCASTELLANIJMPRADA
"I prefer the man who raises his voice to say clearly what he thinks, even if what he thinks is wrong, than the man who hides or disguises what he thinks: because the first is fully human, even if he insists on error (or precisely because of it). While the 'moderate', under his perfidious appearance of friendly neutrality, is a perfidious being.
(...) The most characteristic feature of the 'moderate' is his willing permanence in the fold of received ideas, which he repeats like a parrot, waiting for the ration of hemp seeds that rewards his conformity. The 'moderate' never has initiative, he always adopts the customs of the world, he always assumes the fashions of the time, he always chants or imitates (with ventriloquist virtuosity) the voices of the moment. Anything that deviates from the established guidelines seems like exaggeration and outrage; Everything that involves expressing oneself with enthusiasm, with ardor, with crudeness, with vehemence, provokes disgust, aversion, and scandal. The 'moderate', although deep down he does not sincerely profess any principles, can conceal from the outside that he professes them; but with the condition that they are empty principles, mere rhetorical statements, principles that are not applied or can be applied loosely. And, of course, if someone expresses those same principles in a fiery tone and tries to apply them without reservation, he will seem like a madman; and he will prefer the one who proclaims the contrary principles, as long as he does so with correctness, with moderation, with cold and polite warmth. Of course, to the 'moderate', clear affirmations or denials cause horror, because they force him to take sides; He prefers the opinions that pick from all the baskets, the misty expressions, the ambiguous syncretism, the empty blurriness, the platitude, the nuance. How the 'moderate' likes nuances, and if, in addition to qualifying, he can get a 'consensus', then he is already exploding in pleasure. The 'moderate' likes nothing so much as giving up a portion of what he thinks (since everything he thinks is worthless) in exchange for taking a portion of the opposite opinion; for he knows that in this stupidity of mind his stupidity and inanity go unnoticed.
The 'moderate' hates the man who commits himself and commits his prestige to defending a position, because he knows that his gallant attitude reveals his cowardice. If, furthermore, the committed person is a man of easy speech and lush writing that is poured out with irrepressible frankness and even with a certain lack of modesty, the hatred of the 'moderate' will reach diabolical heights; and he will commit his forces to discredit the committed man, accusing him of charlatanry, radicalism, intemperance, or any real or invented vice that makes him appear in the eyes of the world as an idiot. The 'moderate' hates the committed man as the eunuch hates the virile man; and he will not hesitate to obtain his ostracism sentence (but always in a painless way, which is why it is 'moderate').
The 'moderate' considers that in every opinion there is something good and something bad and that every thought that is expressed without ambiguity is an expression of blind pride. Naturally, all of this is treacherous tricks to convince us that his lukewarmness and cowardice are prudence, tolerance, common sense. The 'moderate' defends acquired habits, prejudiced inertia, established conventions and, in short, everything that envelops people and towns in the cobwebs of mental laziness, of flabby repetition, of stereotype; On the other hand, he hates authentic traditions, which he tries to convert into mechanical customs devoid of meaning (and thus, for example, the 'moderate' can participate in a Holy Week procession and even Corpus Christi so wildly, with the same aseptic complacency with which he can also participate in a Gay Pride float parade). [...]"
Extracted from the article "Moderaditos" - Juan Manuel de Prada
#CHESTERTONCASTELLANIJMPRADA
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VARIOUS ARTICLES
“[…] In his book “For an examination of oneself recommended for this time”, the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard summarizes the problem in an explicit and brilliant way: “If this entire current Christian situation can be said to be a disease and I am the doctor, if someone asked me: “in your opinion, what is the remedy?”, my answer would be: “what is absolutely essential is called silence. Silence, silence, give us silence again. This is how the Word of God is heard better. Well, if it must be proclaimed out loud, then it is no longer the Word of God. Therefore, silence!” Oh, it's all noise. And just as it is said about an exciting drink that stirs the blood, so in our time every event, even the most banal, even the silliest shout, only seeks to stir the senses or move the crowd, the public, the noise. And that unreasonable being called “man” spends his nights inventing new means to increase the noise, to spread the commotion and stupidity more quickly. Yes, we are on the verge of achieving full reversal: Now that the media has almost reached the peak of speed and unlimited breadth, we are at the same time at the lowest point of lack of significance of communications. So great is the current rush to shout everything about everyone, so great is the extent of gossip. Oh, please: silence […] Saint Ignatius of Loyola does not hesitate to write in his spiritual exercises: “The more our soul is alone and separated, the more apt it becomes to approach and reach its Creator and Lord” […] ]”
"The Force of Silence: facing the dictatorship of noise" - Cardinal Robert Sarah
#VARIOUSARTICLES
“[…] In his book “For an examination of oneself recommended for this time”, the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard summarizes the problem in an explicit and brilliant way: “If this entire current Christian situation can be said to be a disease and I am the doctor, if someone asked me: “in your opinion, what is the remedy?”, my answer would be: “what is absolutely essential is called silence. Silence, silence, give us silence again. This is how the Word of God is heard better. Well, if it must be proclaimed out loud, then it is no longer the Word of God. Therefore, silence!” Oh, it's all noise. And just as it is said about an exciting drink that stirs the blood, so in our time every event, even the most banal, even the silliest shout, only seeks to stir the senses or move the crowd, the public, the noise. And that unreasonable being called “man” spends his nights inventing new means to increase the noise, to spread the commotion and stupidity more quickly. Yes, we are on the verge of achieving full reversal: Now that the media has almost reached the peak of speed and unlimited breadth, we are at the same time at the lowest point of lack of significance of communications. So great is the current rush to shout everything about everyone, so great is the extent of gossip. Oh, please: silence […] Saint Ignatius of Loyola does not hesitate to write in his spiritual exercises: “The more our soul is alone and separated, the more apt it becomes to approach and reach its Creator and Lord” […] ]”
"The Force of Silence: facing the dictatorship of noise" - Cardinal Robert Sarah
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NATURAL LAW
"Cicero warned us two thousand years ago, in his treatise De legibus: "If rights were constituted by the suffrages or ordinances of the multitude, there would be a right to theft or a right to adultery. Because if such great power has the will or the opinion of fools so that by their votes the nature of things is subverted, why should they not decide that what is bad and pernicious is good and healthy? Only by the nature of things can we distinguish a good law from a bad law. And to think that everything is based on will or opinion and not on nature is typical of a madman." Two thousand years later, the insane law that is based on will or opinion has completely replaced the law founded on the nature of things. In this way, there is not only a right to larceny or a right to adultery, but in general a "right to decide", even if what is decided is bad and harmful.
This hegemony of the law based on opinion and not on the nature of things (pure and simple voluntarism) protects the rights most unrelated to nature, such as the right to change sex. That is why it is grotesque that, at a time when there is no political formation that does not enthusiastically defend the "right to decide" to change one's sex, they instead try to deny the "right to decide" to change one's nationality. And it is even more grotesque that there are people so naive as to believe that those who defend the right to change sex are going to be the champions of the unity of Spain. The change of sex and the independence of Catalonia are expressions of the same voluntarist concept of law, according to which opinion can subvert the nature of things; with the only difference that, while those who change their sex deny a biological reality, the Catalan independentists only deny a historical reality in which, however, there is no lack of biological ties. [....]"
Article "Losing Catalonia" - Juan Manuel de Prada
#VARIOUSARTICLES
"Cicero warned us two thousand years ago, in his treatise De legibus: "If rights were constituted by the suffrages or ordinances of the multitude, there would be a right to theft or a right to adultery. Because if such great power has the will or the opinion of fools so that by their votes the nature of things is subverted, why should they not decide that what is bad and pernicious is good and healthy? Only by the nature of things can we distinguish a good law from a bad law. And to think that everything is based on will or opinion and not on nature is typical of a madman." Two thousand years later, the insane law that is based on will or opinion has completely replaced the law founded on the nature of things. In this way, there is not only a right to larceny or a right to adultery, but in general a "right to decide", even if what is decided is bad and harmful.
This hegemony of the law based on opinion and not on the nature of things (pure and simple voluntarism) protects the rights most unrelated to nature, such as the right to change sex. That is why it is grotesque that, at a time when there is no political formation that does not enthusiastically defend the "right to decide" to change one's sex, they instead try to deny the "right to decide" to change one's nationality. And it is even more grotesque that there are people so naive as to believe that those who defend the right to change sex are going to be the champions of the unity of Spain. The change of sex and the independence of Catalonia are expressions of the same voluntarist concept of law, according to which opinion can subvert the nature of things; with the only difference that, while those who change their sex deny a biological reality, the Catalan independentists only deny a historical reality in which, however, there is no lack of biological ties. [....]"
Article "Losing Catalonia" - Juan Manuel de Prada
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SPIRITUAL PERFECTION
"Says the Lord (…) What is good and just, do it well, justly and thoughtfully. The business of our heavenly goods and perfection is not in doing things, but in doing them well (…) Saint Jerome says (…) It is not praiseworthy to live in Jerusalem, but to live well in Jerusalem (...) that our spiritual goodness and improvments in life are not in multiplying (...) extraordinary works, nor in doing other high and exalted offices, but in doing them with perfection (. ..) ordinary works (...) If we do these works perfectly we will be perfect; and if we do them imperfectly, we will be imperfect. And (...) that is the difference between who is good and perfect (...) and who is imperfect and lukewarm (...) in doing what he does, with perfection or imperfection.
(…) But let's see what it means to work well, so that we go to the means that will help us to do them well (…) that we do them purely for God (…) [and] in such a way and so well done (… ) that there be nothing in them unworthy of his eyes and his presence (...) as one who does them before God, who is looking at him.
(…) at how little cost can we be perfect, since with the same things we do, without adding more works, we can be (…) If we asked you to discipline yourselves every day until blood was shed, or to fast on bread and water, or that you walked barefoot and with a perpetual hair shirt, you could say that you did not feel the strength to do so; but we do not ask that of you (…) With the same works that you do, if you want, you can be perfect (…) you do not need to add more works. Who will not be encouraged by this to be perfect, perfection being so close at hand and in something so homemade and so doable?"
"Exercise of perfection and Christian virtues" - Father Alonso Rodríguez
#SPIRITUALPERFECTION
"Says the Lord (…) What is good and just, do it well, justly and thoughtfully. The business of our heavenly goods and perfection is not in doing things, but in doing them well (…) Saint Jerome says (…) It is not praiseworthy to live in Jerusalem, but to live well in Jerusalem (...) that our spiritual goodness and improvments in life are not in multiplying (...) extraordinary works, nor in doing other high and exalted offices, but in doing them with perfection (. ..) ordinary works (...) If we do these works perfectly we will be perfect; and if we do them imperfectly, we will be imperfect. And (...) that is the difference between who is good and perfect (...) and who is imperfect and lukewarm (...) in doing what he does, with perfection or imperfection.
(…) But let's see what it means to work well, so that we go to the means that will help us to do them well (…) that we do them purely for God (…) [and] in such a way and so well done (… ) that there be nothing in them unworthy of his eyes and his presence (...) as one who does them before God, who is looking at him.
(…) at how little cost can we be perfect, since with the same things we do, without adding more works, we can be (…) If we asked you to discipline yourselves every day until blood was shed, or to fast on bread and water, or that you walked barefoot and with a perpetual hair shirt, you could say that you did not feel the strength to do so; but we do not ask that of you (…) With the same works that you do, if you want, you can be perfect (…) you do not need to add more works. Who will not be encouraged by this to be perfect, perfection being so close at hand and in something so homemade and so doable?"
"Exercise of perfection and Christian virtues" - Father Alonso Rodríguez
#SPIRITUALPERFECTION
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THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
"When I came out of prison in 1989, I received a letter from Mother Teresa of Calcutta in which she told me: What matters is not the number of our activities, but the intensity of all the love we put into them.
During the 13 years that I was imprisoned, there were periods when I could not pray, I experienced the abyss of my physical and mental weakness. More than once, I have cried out like Jesus on the cross: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? But God did not abandon me.
In prison I tried to take advantage of my time. Sometimes, I taught the police themselves even Latin. One day, one of them asked me: Can you teach me a Latin song?
- Yes, but there are many, each more beautiful.
- You sing and I listen and choose.
I sang the Ave Maris Stella, Salve Mater, Veni Creator…
And he chose the Veni Creator Spiritus.
I could never have imagined that an atheist police officer could memorize this entire hymn and, even less, that he would start singing it every morning, around seven, when he went down the stairs to do gymnastics and bathe in the garden... At first, I was very surprised, but, little by little, I realized that it was the Holy Spirit, who used a communist policeman to help a imprisoned bishop to pray, when he was so weak and sick and depressed that he could not do so. Only a policeman could sing the Veni Creator out loud.”
How much can be done for others, despite being sick or helpless! God is truly wonderful and he has ways incomprehensible to our Western and materialistic mentality! Suffering and death, offered to the Lord, are the best medicines to save the world."
"Beyond suffering" - Father Ángel Peña
#PROBLEMOFEVIL
"When I came out of prison in 1989, I received a letter from Mother Teresa of Calcutta in which she told me: What matters is not the number of our activities, but the intensity of all the love we put into them.
During the 13 years that I was imprisoned, there were periods when I could not pray, I experienced the abyss of my physical and mental weakness. More than once, I have cried out like Jesus on the cross: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? But God did not abandon me.
In prison I tried to take advantage of my time. Sometimes, I taught the police themselves even Latin. One day, one of them asked me: Can you teach me a Latin song?
- Yes, but there are many, each more beautiful.
- You sing and I listen and choose.
I sang the Ave Maris Stella, Salve Mater, Veni Creator…
And he chose the Veni Creator Spiritus.
I could never have imagined that an atheist police officer could memorize this entire hymn and, even less, that he would start singing it every morning, around seven, when he went down the stairs to do gymnastics and bathe in the garden... At first, I was very surprised, but, little by little, I realized that it was the Holy Spirit, who used a communist policeman to help a imprisoned bishop to pray, when he was so weak and sick and depressed that he could not do so. Only a policeman could sing the Veni Creator out loud.”
How much can be done for others, despite being sick or helpless! God is truly wonderful and he has ways incomprehensible to our Western and materialistic mentality! Suffering and death, offered to the Lord, are the best medicines to save the world."
"Beyond suffering" - Father Ángel Peña
#PROBLEMOFEVIL
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VARIOUS ARTICLES
"Allow me to refer to a personal recollection. At present I have my habitual residence in the glorious convent of San Esteban, in Salamanca. We are more than two hundred religious, most of them young students in our Faculty of Theology which there develops it's activities. But it also houses the general infirmary of the Dominican Province of Spain. The elderly fathers come there to wait quietly for the end of their days, after a life consecrated entirely to the service of God and the salvation of souls. I have seen many of them die. I have also witnessed the death of young religious, who died joyfully in the springtime of life because they were going to heaven forever. And I confess to you, gentlemen, that the deepest and most intense emotions of my religious life are those I have experienced at the bedside of our dying. How good and peacefully the Dominican religious die, gentlemen! I suppose the same thing happens in other religious Orders, but I tell you what I have seen and witnessed for myself. Listen:
The sick religious has already received, very slowly, the Holy Sacraments and the other aids of the Church. The sight of the whole community accompanying the Lord to the sick man's room is impressive for its beauty and emotion. But the scene of his last moments is even more moving. As the supreme moment approaches, the convent bell calls the whole community with a characteristic, unmistakable ringing. We all go to the infirmary, and Father Prior, dressed in surplice and stole, begins to pray to the sick person the recommendation of the soul, alternating with the whole community. And when the supreme moment draws near, the main cantor of the convent intones the Salve Regina, which has a very soft melody in our Order. And lulled by the notes of the most beautiful Marian prayer sung by the whole community..., with the peace of his pure soul reflected in his calm face, with a sweet smile on his lips, serenely, placidly, like one who gives himself naturally to daily sleep, the Dominican religious falls asleep before us to the things of the earth to wake up in the arms of the Virgin of the Rosary among the choirs of angels...".
"The mystery of far beyond" - Father Antonio Royo Marín
#VARIOUSARTICLES
"Allow me to refer to a personal recollection. At present I have my habitual residence in the glorious convent of San Esteban, in Salamanca. We are more than two hundred religious, most of them young students in our Faculty of Theology which there develops it's activities. But it also houses the general infirmary of the Dominican Province of Spain. The elderly fathers come there to wait quietly for the end of their days, after a life consecrated entirely to the service of God and the salvation of souls. I have seen many of them die. I have also witnessed the death of young religious, who died joyfully in the springtime of life because they were going to heaven forever. And I confess to you, gentlemen, that the deepest and most intense emotions of my religious life are those I have experienced at the bedside of our dying. How good and peacefully the Dominican religious die, gentlemen! I suppose the same thing happens in other religious Orders, but I tell you what I have seen and witnessed for myself. Listen:
The sick religious has already received, very slowly, the Holy Sacraments and the other aids of the Church. The sight of the whole community accompanying the Lord to the sick man's room is impressive for its beauty and emotion. But the scene of his last moments is even more moving. As the supreme moment approaches, the convent bell calls the whole community with a characteristic, unmistakable ringing. We all go to the infirmary, and Father Prior, dressed in surplice and stole, begins to pray to the sick person the recommendation of the soul, alternating with the whole community. And when the supreme moment draws near, the main cantor of the convent intones the Salve Regina, which has a very soft melody in our Order. And lulled by the notes of the most beautiful Marian prayer sung by the whole community..., with the peace of his pure soul reflected in his calm face, with a sweet smile on his lips, serenely, placidly, like one who gives himself naturally to daily sleep, the Dominican religious falls asleep before us to the things of the earth to wake up in the arms of the Virgin of the Rosary among the choirs of angels...".
"The mystery of far beyond" - Father Antonio Royo Marín
#VARIOUSARTICLES
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HAPPINESS
"The cultural milieu in which we live, the remains of an outdated rationalism which equates religiosity with superstition and Christianity with medievalism, acts as an immense corset which oppresses the concerns, which represses the instinct of eternity and the religious yearnings of the hearts of our contemporaries, thus giving rise to real pathological situations (...) up to now little has been said about the psychoses and neuroses produced by the repression of the instinct of eternity.
Victor Frankl - who was a Jew, not a Christian - the famous psychiatrist who succeeded Sigmund Freud in the chair of Psychopathology at the University of Vienna, verified the repressed religiosity among his patients. He tells us, for example, of a patient's dream. "She said: "I know which direction I must take, because there is a light shining in the sky, and I am going to meet it. This light shines brighter and brighter, and at last it takes the form of a figure". I then asked her what this image she saw was. She was visibly uncomfortable and, after much hesitation, asked me with a pleading look: "Do I really have to talk about it? Only after much prodding did she reveal her secret and murmured: "The figure was Christ. Her conscience, in dreams, demanded that she serve Christ, but she was wary or ashamed to talk about it. We see here and in many other cases that (...) there is (...) repressed religiosity. "One of my patients once confided to me spontaneously: "Why is it that I am ashamed of everything that is religious, why do I find it embarrassing and ridiculous? I myself know perfectly well why I am so ashamed of my religious yearnings: every psychotherapeutic treatment I have undergone for the last twenty-seven years has been based on the more or less tacit conviction that these yearnings are nothing more than unrealistic and unfounded speculations. As they say, there is only what can be seen and heard, the rest is nonsense, provoked by some trauma or escapist desire to escape from life. So, whenever I have expressed my longing for God, I was almost afraid that they would bring the straitjacket, as if I were a raving lunatic.
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
#HAPPINESS
"The cultural milieu in which we live, the remains of an outdated rationalism which equates religiosity with superstition and Christianity with medievalism, acts as an immense corset which oppresses the concerns, which represses the instinct of eternity and the religious yearnings of the hearts of our contemporaries, thus giving rise to real pathological situations (...) up to now little has been said about the psychoses and neuroses produced by the repression of the instinct of eternity.
Victor Frankl - who was a Jew, not a Christian - the famous psychiatrist who succeeded Sigmund Freud in the chair of Psychopathology at the University of Vienna, verified the repressed religiosity among his patients. He tells us, for example, of a patient's dream. "She said: "I know which direction I must take, because there is a light shining in the sky, and I am going to meet it. This light shines brighter and brighter, and at last it takes the form of a figure". I then asked her what this image she saw was. She was visibly uncomfortable and, after much hesitation, asked me with a pleading look: "Do I really have to talk about it? Only after much prodding did she reveal her secret and murmured: "The figure was Christ. Her conscience, in dreams, demanded that she serve Christ, but she was wary or ashamed to talk about it. We see here and in many other cases that (...) there is (...) repressed religiosity. "One of my patients once confided to me spontaneously: "Why is it that I am ashamed of everything that is religious, why do I find it embarrassing and ridiculous? I myself know perfectly well why I am so ashamed of my religious yearnings: every psychotherapeutic treatment I have undergone for the last twenty-seven years has been based on the more or less tacit conviction that these yearnings are nothing more than unrealistic and unfounded speculations. As they say, there is only what can be seen and heard, the rest is nonsense, provoked by some trauma or escapist desire to escape from life. So, whenever I have expressed my longing for God, I was almost afraid that they would bring the straitjacket, as if I were a raving lunatic.
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
#HAPPINESS
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FORGIVENESS
"(...) Jean Vanier tells what happened in a high security prison in Kingston, Canada. He spoke to the prisoners about God's love. But one of the inmates, full of resentment, shouted at him: You have had an easy life, you don't understand what we live. When I was four years old, I saw my mother raped before my eyes. When I was seven, my father sold me to homosexuals; when I was thirteen, men in blue (policemen) came looking for me... And if anyone comes to this prison again to talk to us about love, I will kick his head in.
I listened to him without saying anything and prayed. Then I said to him: It is true that my life has been easy. It is true that I don't know your life, but what I do know is that everything you have just said is very important. Do you authorise me to tell outside what you have told me?
- Yes, he replied.
Then I added: "You have good things to tell us, but one day you will get out of here and you may need to hear certain things. After the talk, I shook his hand and I was inspired to ask him if he was married, and when he said yes, I said: "Tell me about your wife". And that violent man, who had so much hatred inside him, burst into tears and told me about his wife, who was in a wheelchair, lived in Montreal and whom he had not seen for two years.
This man, so full of hatred for society, felt love for his wife. It was enough to talk to him about her, to take an interest in her, for his hatred to break down. So how much love we can give to those who have been rejected and oppressed by others! How much good we can do with our love! More than words, others need the real witness of our love in order to forgive.
When German tanks invaded her family home in the south of France in 1940, Maïti Girtanner, a young French girl, rebelled and decided to join the Resistance. Some time later, she was arrested and tortured by a German doctor, whose speciality was torture applied to the central nervous system. She was the only survivor out of a group of 20 people, but from then on her life was marked by horrible and constant suffering. In 1984, she received a phone call in her small Paris flat and instantly recognised the voice of the German doctor. They met and talked. She was able to forgive him. In the meantime, he had been appointed mayor of an Austrian town. On his return, after visiting Maïti, he gathered his family and the villagers and told them all about his life. He died of cancer two weeks later (...)".
"Self-esteem, love and happiness" - Father Angel Peña O. A. R.
#FORGIVENESS
"(...) Jean Vanier tells what happened in a high security prison in Kingston, Canada. He spoke to the prisoners about God's love. But one of the inmates, full of resentment, shouted at him: You have had an easy life, you don't understand what we live. When I was four years old, I saw my mother raped before my eyes. When I was seven, my father sold me to homosexuals; when I was thirteen, men in blue (policemen) came looking for me... And if anyone comes to this prison again to talk to us about love, I will kick his head in.
I listened to him without saying anything and prayed. Then I said to him: It is true that my life has been easy. It is true that I don't know your life, but what I do know is that everything you have just said is very important. Do you authorise me to tell outside what you have told me?
- Yes, he replied.
Then I added: "You have good things to tell us, but one day you will get out of here and you may need to hear certain things. After the talk, I shook his hand and I was inspired to ask him if he was married, and when he said yes, I said: "Tell me about your wife". And that violent man, who had so much hatred inside him, burst into tears and told me about his wife, who was in a wheelchair, lived in Montreal and whom he had not seen for two years.
This man, so full of hatred for society, felt love for his wife. It was enough to talk to him about her, to take an interest in her, for his hatred to break down. So how much love we can give to those who have been rejected and oppressed by others! How much good we can do with our love! More than words, others need the real witness of our love in order to forgive.
When German tanks invaded her family home in the south of France in 1940, Maïti Girtanner, a young French girl, rebelled and decided to join the Resistance. Some time later, she was arrested and tortured by a German doctor, whose speciality was torture applied to the central nervous system. She was the only survivor out of a group of 20 people, but from then on her life was marked by horrible and constant suffering. In 1984, she received a phone call in her small Paris flat and instantly recognised the voice of the German doctor. They met and talked. She was able to forgive him. In the meantime, he had been appointed mayor of an Austrian town. On his return, after visiting Maïti, he gathered his family and the villagers and told them all about his life. He died of cancer two weeks later (...)".
"Self-esteem, love and happiness" - Father Angel Peña O. A. R.
#FORGIVENESS
VARIOUS ARTICLES
"Do things exist and do I know them as they are, or are they what I want them to be? (...) for ideology the first thing is not reality, but the idea I have of reality. Ideology puts on yellow glasses and says that reality is yellow. Ideology makes the box, and only then measures the dead man: if he is shorter, it stretches him; if he is longer, it cuts off his legs. Gender ideology is no exception (...) For gender ideology, natural data is irrelevant. What counts is how I perceive myself. What matters is not the reality - what I am - but the idea - what I think I am, or what I want to be. (...) If someone perceives apples as elephants, that's their problem: let them perceive them as they wish. But if that person tells me that I have to call apples elephants and that society must establish mechanisms -even legal ones- to make it so, there is where everything changes. (...) if what I am is based on my self-perception, my dignity is also based on it. And if the value of dignity depends on perception, what prevents us from moving from self-perception to the perception of the other? The other is no longer what he is, but what I want him to be, and he has the value I decide to give him. Hitler would have loved gender ideology (...) The fact that reality is what it is and not what I want it to be is not a limit to my freedom: it is a safeguard, a guarantee. If I am what I perceive and I perceive myself as a bird and I pretend to fly out of the third-floor window, reality imposes itself. If someone says to me: "No, you're not a bird", it doesn't take away my freedom: it preserves me from smashing my teeth against the pavement. "But nobody perceives themselves as a bird," someone will say. No, but "non-binary-trans-inter-bi-gender-fluid". Now that's reasonable, isn't it? [...]"
#VARIOUSARTICLES
"Do things exist and do I know them as they are, or are they what I want them to be? (...) for ideology the first thing is not reality, but the idea I have of reality. Ideology puts on yellow glasses and says that reality is yellow. Ideology makes the box, and only then measures the dead man: if he is shorter, it stretches him; if he is longer, it cuts off his legs. Gender ideology is no exception (...) For gender ideology, natural data is irrelevant. What counts is how I perceive myself. What matters is not the reality - what I am - but the idea - what I think I am, or what I want to be. (...) If someone perceives apples as elephants, that's their problem: let them perceive them as they wish. But if that person tells me that I have to call apples elephants and that society must establish mechanisms -even legal ones- to make it so, there is where everything changes. (...) if what I am is based on my self-perception, my dignity is also based on it. And if the value of dignity depends on perception, what prevents us from moving from self-perception to the perception of the other? The other is no longer what he is, but what I want him to be, and he has the value I decide to give him. Hitler would have loved gender ideology (...) The fact that reality is what it is and not what I want it to be is not a limit to my freedom: it is a safeguard, a guarantee. If I am what I perceive and I perceive myself as a bird and I pretend to fly out of the third-floor window, reality imposes itself. If someone says to me: "No, you're not a bird", it doesn't take away my freedom: it preserves me from smashing my teeth against the pavement. "But nobody perceives themselves as a bird," someone will say. No, but "non-binary-trans-inter-bi-gender-fluid". Now that's reasonable, isn't it? [...]"
#VARIOUSARTICLES
SPIRITUAL PERFECTION
"St Bonaventure says that there are some who have good intentions and desires, but never succeed in overcoming themselves and never find the strength to carry them out, according to the Apostle (Rom 7:18): I have the will, but I cannot find the way to do good. Often these are not true intentions or desires, but just a kind of whims, which would like to, but do not want to. The wise man says (Prov 13:4): The sluggard desires and does not want (Prov 21:25): Desires consume him, because he does not want to lay hands on work. Everything goes away from him with just desires. Bl. Father Maestro Avila compares these very well to those who in their dreams think they do great things, and when they wake up, everything turns upside down, according to Isaiah (29, 8): It happens that he who is hungry or thirsty is dreaming that he eats or drinks, but when he wakes up he finds himself as hungry and thirsty as before; so it seems to these in prayer that they desire to suffer, and to be despised and minusvalorated, and when they come out, when the occasion offers itself, they do everything backwards: they dreamed it, they were not true desires. Others compare them saying that they are like soldiers painted on parament, who are always with the sword on the enemy, and never finish discharging the blow, according to that of the Prophet (Ps 38:7), that man passes as a shadow and appearance. Thus some spend their whole lives in feigning and not giving. The Prophet Isaiah (37:3) compares them to a woman who is in labour and never brings forth her child. So these are always in labour and never finish giving birth. St. Jerome, referring to the words of St. Matthew (24, 19): Woe to those who are with child and to those who give birth in those days, says: Woe to those who do not bring forth the good desires they have conceived, but drown the children they have conceived, for never to bring them to the light of the work is to drown them and kill them in the womb".
"Exercises of Christian Perfection" - Father Alonso Rodriguez S. J.
#SPIRITUALPERFECTION
"St Bonaventure says that there are some who have good intentions and desires, but never succeed in overcoming themselves and never find the strength to carry them out, according to the Apostle (Rom 7:18): I have the will, but I cannot find the way to do good. Often these are not true intentions or desires, but just a kind of whims, which would like to, but do not want to. The wise man says (Prov 13:4): The sluggard desires and does not want (Prov 21:25): Desires consume him, because he does not want to lay hands on work. Everything goes away from him with just desires. Bl. Father Maestro Avila compares these very well to those who in their dreams think they do great things, and when they wake up, everything turns upside down, according to Isaiah (29, 8): It happens that he who is hungry or thirsty is dreaming that he eats or drinks, but when he wakes up he finds himself as hungry and thirsty as before; so it seems to these in prayer that they desire to suffer, and to be despised and minusvalorated, and when they come out, when the occasion offers itself, they do everything backwards: they dreamed it, they were not true desires. Others compare them saying that they are like soldiers painted on parament, who are always with the sword on the enemy, and never finish discharging the blow, according to that of the Prophet (Ps 38:7), that man passes as a shadow and appearance. Thus some spend their whole lives in feigning and not giving. The Prophet Isaiah (37:3) compares them to a woman who is in labour and never brings forth her child. So these are always in labour and never finish giving birth. St. Jerome, referring to the words of St. Matthew (24, 19): Woe to those who are with child and to those who give birth in those days, says: Woe to those who do not bring forth the good desires they have conceived, but drown the children they have conceived, for never to bring them to the light of the work is to drown them and kill them in the womb".
"Exercises of Christian Perfection" - Father Alonso Rodriguez S. J.
#SPIRITUALPERFECTION
RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
"(...) I laugh at certain modern theologians who point out as a great novelty the fact that some mental illnesses can be confused with diabolical possession. And so do certain psychiatrists or parapsychologists: they think they have discovered America with such statements. If they were a little more educated, they would know that the first experts to warn against this possible error were the ecclesiastical authorities. As early as 1583, in the decrees of the Synod of Rheims, the Church had warned against this possible misunderstanding, stating that some forms of suspected diabolical possession could simply be mental illnesses. But psychiatry had not yet been born and theologians believed in the Gospel (...)".
"An exorcist speaks" - Father Gabriel Amorth
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
"(...) I laugh at certain modern theologians who point out as a great novelty the fact that some mental illnesses can be confused with diabolical possession. And so do certain psychiatrists or parapsychologists: they think they have discovered America with such statements. If they were a little more educated, they would know that the first experts to warn against this possible error were the ecclesiastical authorities. As early as 1583, in the decrees of the Synod of Rheims, the Church had warned against this possible misunderstanding, stating that some forms of suspected diabolical possession could simply be mental illnesses. But psychiatry had not yet been born and theologians believed in the Gospel (...)".
"An exorcist speaks" - Father Gabriel Amorth
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
VARIOUS ARTICLES
OF THE NECESSITY OF THE USE OF FORCE ON OCCASIONS
"[...] If reasoning were sufficient to make men good (...) it would be necessary to provide them; but, (...) although it seems that they have sufficient force to exhort and stimulate generous young people and to instill enthusiasm for virtue in a noble character and truly lover of goodness, they are incapable of exciting goodness and nobility in the common people, who naturally obey not out of modesty, but out of fear, nor do they depart from what is vile out of shame, but out of fear of punishment. Since most men live at the mercy of their passions, they pursue the pleasures that are their own and the means that lead to them and flee from contrary pains and what is; beautiful and truly pleasant they have no idea, having never tried it (...) he who lives according to his passions will not listen to reason that tries to dissuade him, nor will he even understand it, and how can he persuade the one who has it to change this disposition? In general, passion seems not to yield to reasoning, but to force. (...) legislators must invite and exhort to the practice of virtue for the sake of good (to) those who are advanced in the formation of good habits; impose punishments and corrections on those who are disobedient and without a natural disposition for good; and banish the incurably miserable (...) the vile man who only aspires to pleasure must be punished with pain, like a yoke animal. That is why they say (...) that the pains that are inflicted must be such that they are as opposed as possible to the pleasures that they love".
"Ethics to Nicomachus" - Aristotle.
"But just as there are also rebellious individuals prone to vice, whom it is not easy to persuade with words, these had to be repelled from evil by force and fear."
"Summa theologiae" - Saint Thomas Aquinas.
#VARIOUSARTICLES
OF THE NECESSITY OF THE USE OF FORCE ON OCCASIONS
"[...] If reasoning were sufficient to make men good (...) it would be necessary to provide them; but, (...) although it seems that they have sufficient force to exhort and stimulate generous young people and to instill enthusiasm for virtue in a noble character and truly lover of goodness, they are incapable of exciting goodness and nobility in the common people, who naturally obey not out of modesty, but out of fear, nor do they depart from what is vile out of shame, but out of fear of punishment. Since most men live at the mercy of their passions, they pursue the pleasures that are their own and the means that lead to them and flee from contrary pains and what is; beautiful and truly pleasant they have no idea, having never tried it (...) he who lives according to his passions will not listen to reason that tries to dissuade him, nor will he even understand it, and how can he persuade the one who has it to change this disposition? In general, passion seems not to yield to reasoning, but to force. (...) legislators must invite and exhort to the practice of virtue for the sake of good (to) those who are advanced in the formation of good habits; impose punishments and corrections on those who are disobedient and without a natural disposition for good; and banish the incurably miserable (...) the vile man who only aspires to pleasure must be punished with pain, like a yoke animal. That is why they say (...) that the pains that are inflicted must be such that they are as opposed as possible to the pleasures that they love".
"Ethics to Nicomachus" - Aristotle.
"But just as there are also rebellious individuals prone to vice, whom it is not easy to persuade with words, these had to be repelled from evil by force and fear."
"Summa theologiae" - Saint Thomas Aquinas.
#VARIOUSARTICLES
👍1
HAPPINESS
"In nothing (...) should one be more careful (...) than not to follow, like sheep, the footsteps of the other sheep ahead lf us. Without paying attention to where the path is leading us, but rather, paying attention only to the characteristics of the path itself. For nothing entangles us in greater evils than to allow ourselves to be carried away by opinion, judging as good what we have received by the consent of many, following their example and governing ourselves, not by reason, but by imitation, which results in us running over one another, causing what happens in the great ruins of towns, in which no one falls without many others following him, the first ones being the occasion of the loss of all the rest. [...] If we turn away from the mob, we shall gain health, because the people are staunch defenders of their errors against reason, and this what happens in бюelections, in which the electors, when the weak favour returns to them, admire the judges whom they themselves have appointed. The same thing that we approved of before, we come to reprove. That this is the end of all business in which the greatest number of votes are cast. [...] When it is a question of the blessed life, it is not right to answer what is usually said when voting: "This is the opinion of the majority," for that is the worst thing, because the things of men are not in such a good state that the majority is pleased with what is best; but rather it is a sign of being bad to approve it by the mob. Let us seek what is well done, and not that which is more worn out; that which will place us in the possession of eternal happiness, and not that which the vulgar, the erroneous investigator of truth, classifies. And I call vulgar, not only those who wear vulgar clothes, but also those who wear precious ones; for I do not look at the colours with which bodies are covered, nor do I give credit to the eyes to judge of man; I have another better and surer light by which to discern the false from the true. (...)".
"Moral Treatises" - Seneca.
#HAPPINESS
"In nothing (...) should one be more careful (...) than not to follow, like sheep, the footsteps of the other sheep ahead lf us. Without paying attention to where the path is leading us, but rather, paying attention only to the characteristics of the path itself. For nothing entangles us in greater evils than to allow ourselves to be carried away by opinion, judging as good what we have received by the consent of many, following their example and governing ourselves, not by reason, but by imitation, which results in us running over one another, causing what happens in the great ruins of towns, in which no one falls without many others following him, the first ones being the occasion of the loss of all the rest. [...] If we turn away from the mob, we shall gain health, because the people are staunch defenders of their errors against reason, and this what happens in бюelections, in which the electors, when the weak favour returns to them, admire the judges whom they themselves have appointed. The same thing that we approved of before, we come to reprove. That this is the end of all business in which the greatest number of votes are cast. [...] When it is a question of the blessed life, it is not right to answer what is usually said when voting: "This is the opinion of the majority," for that is the worst thing, because the things of men are not in such a good state that the majority is pleased with what is best; but rather it is a sign of being bad to approve it by the mob. Let us seek what is well done, and not that which is more worn out; that which will place us in the possession of eternal happiness, and not that which the vulgar, the erroneous investigator of truth, classifies. And I call vulgar, not only those who wear vulgar clothes, but also those who wear precious ones; for I do not look at the colours with which bodies are covered, nor do I give credit to the eyes to judge of man; I have another better and surer light by which to discern the false from the true. (...)".
"Moral Treatises" - Seneca.
#HAPPINESS
VARIOUS ARTICLES
"It is rather enigmatic how a scientist can adopt scientism because science and scientism are incompatible. Science owes its success in large part to the fact that it adopts particular or restricted points of view, avoiding questions that fall outside its scope. Scientists concentrate on very specific issues and use rigorous methods to study them, avoiding extrapolations and unwarranted generalisations. In contrast, scientism is an unfounded generalisation, a bad philosophy that presents itself as science or as a consequence of science. To use Dawkins' terminology, scientism is a virus of the mind. Many scientists are probably somewhat accidentally and unconsciously so. But when scientism is taken seriously, it becomes a kind of pseudo-religion that provides a meaning to life and an ideal to strive for. Conversion to such robust scientism is usually due to two factors: disillusionment with some form of religion, and the discovery that science is wonderful and seems to provide meaning and values as well as knowledge".
"Oracles of science, famous scientists against God and religion" - Mariano Artigas and Karl W Giberson
#VARIOUSARTICLES
"It is rather enigmatic how a scientist can adopt scientism because science and scientism are incompatible. Science owes its success in large part to the fact that it adopts particular or restricted points of view, avoiding questions that fall outside its scope. Scientists concentrate on very specific issues and use rigorous methods to study them, avoiding extrapolations and unwarranted generalisations. In contrast, scientism is an unfounded generalisation, a bad philosophy that presents itself as science or as a consequence of science. To use Dawkins' terminology, scientism is a virus of the mind. Many scientists are probably somewhat accidentally and unconsciously so. But when scientism is taken seriously, it becomes a kind of pseudo-religion that provides a meaning to life and an ideal to strive for. Conversion to such robust scientism is usually due to two factors: disillusionment with some form of religion, and the discovery that science is wonderful and seems to provide meaning and values as well as knowledge".
"Oracles of science, famous scientists against God and religion" - Mariano Artigas and Karl W Giberson
#VARIOUSARTICLES
RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
"In the way of God, not to go forward is to turn back (...) He who has taken the cross and begun the way of perfection, and turns back, is not fit for the kingdom of Heaven (...) St. Augustine says: (...) we do not turn back when we strive to go forward, it is when we stop when we start to turn back (...) if we do not want to turn back, we must always walk and strive to go forward (...) St. Bernard follows this thought at greater length in two of his epistles....) if we do not want to turn back, we must always walk and strive to go forward (...) There he speaks to the (...) lazy and lukewarm man, who is content with a common life, and does not want to go forward in his own advantage, and he argues with him in this way:
- Dont you want to go forward?
- No.
- Then do you want to go back?
- No.
- What do you want then?
- I want to be as I am; I don't want to be better or worse.
- You want to do what is impossible to do. For in this world there is nothing that can remain (...) of God alone is that (...) All the things of the world are in continual change (...)
(...) Christ himself (...) while he was seen on earth and conversed with men, did he perchance stand still? No. (...) as he grew in age, so he grew in wisdom and grace before God and man (...) And the Prophet says that he prepared himself to run this way (Ps 18:6): He was glad as a giant to run his race. For if we want to remain with Christ, we must walk as he walked, says St. John (1 Jn 2, 6). For if, while Christ is running, you do not run after him, but stand still, it is clear that you will fall far behind him and be left far behind (...).
Jacob saw (Gen 28, 12) a ladder reaching from the ground to Heaven; and he saw angels on it, but none of them were sitting or standing, but they were either ascending or descending; only God was sitting at the top of the ladder (...) in this life in the way of virtue there is no middle way between ascending and descending, between going forward and going backward, but in the same case that one does not go forward, one goes backward (...).
Thus at sea, the calm is a kind of serious storm, (...) very dangerous for sailors, because they use up the provisions they had for the journey, and then they were left without provisions in the middle of the sea, and so it happens to those who sailing on the stormy sea of this world, who have become becalmed in virtue (...) consume and spend what they have acquired, and the virtue they had runs out, and then they are left with nothing in the midst of many waves and storms of temptations that arise and other occasions of sin, for which they were in need of more provision and more abundance of virtue. Woe to him who has become becalmed in virtue! (Gal 5:7). You were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? You began to run well at the beginning, when you entered into religion, and now you have run around and become calm in virtue (1 Cor 4:8): You have had your fill, you have become rich, and what you have is enough for you. See that you have a long way to go (1 Ry 19, 7), and many occasions will offer themselves to you for which you will need more humility, more patience, more mortification and indifference, and you will find yourselves unnoticed and far behind, at the time of the greatest need [...]".
"Exercise of perfection and Christian virtues" - Father Alonso Rodriguez S. J.
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
"In the way of God, not to go forward is to turn back (...) He who has taken the cross and begun the way of perfection, and turns back, is not fit for the kingdom of Heaven (...) St. Augustine says: (...) we do not turn back when we strive to go forward, it is when we stop when we start to turn back (...) if we do not want to turn back, we must always walk and strive to go forward (...) St. Bernard follows this thought at greater length in two of his epistles....) if we do not want to turn back, we must always walk and strive to go forward (...) There he speaks to the (...) lazy and lukewarm man, who is content with a common life, and does not want to go forward in his own advantage, and he argues with him in this way:
- Dont you want to go forward?
- No.
- Then do you want to go back?
- No.
- What do you want then?
- I want to be as I am; I don't want to be better or worse.
- You want to do what is impossible to do. For in this world there is nothing that can remain (...) of God alone is that (...) All the things of the world are in continual change (...)
(...) Christ himself (...) while he was seen on earth and conversed with men, did he perchance stand still? No. (...) as he grew in age, so he grew in wisdom and grace before God and man (...) And the Prophet says that he prepared himself to run this way (Ps 18:6): He was glad as a giant to run his race. For if we want to remain with Christ, we must walk as he walked, says St. John (1 Jn 2, 6). For if, while Christ is running, you do not run after him, but stand still, it is clear that you will fall far behind him and be left far behind (...).
Jacob saw (Gen 28, 12) a ladder reaching from the ground to Heaven; and he saw angels on it, but none of them were sitting or standing, but they were either ascending or descending; only God was sitting at the top of the ladder (...) in this life in the way of virtue there is no middle way between ascending and descending, between going forward and going backward, but in the same case that one does not go forward, one goes backward (...).
Thus at sea, the calm is a kind of serious storm, (...) very dangerous for sailors, because they use up the provisions they had for the journey, and then they were left without provisions in the middle of the sea, and so it happens to those who sailing on the stormy sea of this world, who have become becalmed in virtue (...) consume and spend what they have acquired, and the virtue they had runs out, and then they are left with nothing in the midst of many waves and storms of temptations that arise and other occasions of sin, for which they were in need of more provision and more abundance of virtue. Woe to him who has become becalmed in virtue! (Gal 5:7). You were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? You began to run well at the beginning, when you entered into religion, and now you have run around and become calm in virtue (1 Cor 4:8): You have had your fill, you have become rich, and what you have is enough for you. See that you have a long way to go (1 Ry 19, 7), and many occasions will offer themselves to you for which you will need more humility, more patience, more mortification and indifference, and you will find yourselves unnoticed and far behind, at the time of the greatest need [...]".
"Exercise of perfection and Christian virtues" - Father Alonso Rodriguez S. J.
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
VARIOUS ARTICLES
"Social networks have a preference for image, favouring exposure through images, in such a way that through images they propose to the user to represent everything: their life, their behaviour, their daily life, even their 'thoughts' with the famous 'memes', which are short messages accompanied by... an image. One perceives an absence of space for an expansion of the world of the idea, which requires a development for which there is no 'time' in the immediacy of the networks, where everything must be said now and hopefully in funny and creative ways... hopefully with images.
Even when topics are addressed that would require a greater argumentative development, as when on Facebook someone talks about abortion, for example, the comments area is full of people who want to settle the issue in two lines, the solidity of the idea matters little, what is sought is to impress with some short but witty phrase that crushes the 'opponent' or ridicules him in front of others. [...]
[...] We repeat that it is not our intention to elaborate here an apocalyptic plea against social networks, nothing of the sort. But we would like to draw attention to the model of 'thinking' that derives from their irrational use. And by 'irrational' we mean the use made of it by people who spend hours and hours daily in front of their 'networks', as if oblivious to the real world around them.
We believe that such a model of 'thinking' centred on the image, on immediacy, on the concrete, on the individual, etc., if turned into a habit through an almost addictive use of the networks, could inevitably lead to a weakening of the abstract capacities of human intelligence, negatively impacting not only the possibility of thinking in depth about transcendent and truly important issues, but at the same time, and given the connection between the cognitive and volitional spheres, reducing the person's actions to the material and sensitive universe, which is the one that belongs to the image sold by the networks. [...]"
Source
#VARIOUSARTICLES
"Social networks have a preference for image, favouring exposure through images, in such a way that through images they propose to the user to represent everything: their life, their behaviour, their daily life, even their 'thoughts' with the famous 'memes', which are short messages accompanied by... an image. One perceives an absence of space for an expansion of the world of the idea, which requires a development for which there is no 'time' in the immediacy of the networks, where everything must be said now and hopefully in funny and creative ways... hopefully with images.
Even when topics are addressed that would require a greater argumentative development, as when on Facebook someone talks about abortion, for example, the comments area is full of people who want to settle the issue in two lines, the solidity of the idea matters little, what is sought is to impress with some short but witty phrase that crushes the 'opponent' or ridicules him in front of others. [...]
[...] We repeat that it is not our intention to elaborate here an apocalyptic plea against social networks, nothing of the sort. But we would like to draw attention to the model of 'thinking' that derives from their irrational use. And by 'irrational' we mean the use made of it by people who spend hours and hours daily in front of their 'networks', as if oblivious to the real world around them.
We believe that such a model of 'thinking' centred on the image, on immediacy, on the concrete, on the individual, etc., if turned into a habit through an almost addictive use of the networks, could inevitably lead to a weakening of the abstract capacities of human intelligence, negatively impacting not only the possibility of thinking in depth about transcendent and truly important issues, but at the same time, and given the connection between the cognitive and volitional spheres, reducing the person's actions to the material and sensitive universe, which is the one that belongs to the image sold by the networks. [...]"
Source
#VARIOUSARTICLES
❤1
VARIOUS ARTICLES
"The more talented a man is, the more he should listen to the advice of another. For talent puffs up and makes one think he knows everything. And, therefore, it exposes one to error in many things that a man of talent does not know. For to have talent is not to have wisdom".
"Formación de selectos" - Ángel Ayala
#VARIOUSARTICLES
"The more talented a man is, the more he should listen to the advice of another. For talent puffs up and makes one think he knows everything. And, therefore, it exposes one to error in many things that a man of talent does not know. For to have talent is not to have wisdom".
"Formación de selectos" - Ángel Ayala
#VARIOUSARTICLES
JUAN MANUEL DE PRADA
[...] Islam has for some time now been engaged in stirring up contradictions in the West, taking refuge in the doctrine advocated by Libya's Gaddafi: ‘Allah will guarantee the Islamic victory without swords, without guns, without conquest. We need no terrorists, no suicide bombers. The more than fifty million Muslims in Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent in a few decades'. And while the victory comes [...] Islam entertains itself by proposing Sadducean traps that will shorten those few decades [...].
[...] civilisations are founded by religions; and, with the decline of religions, civilisations die out, to the point of extinction. Human coexistence requires a collective bond, an adherence to a particular vision of the world that only a common religious belief provides: when such a common belief takes root, as in Islam, it is possible to undertake joint undertakings with enthusiasm; when such a common belief is disintegrated, corrupted or replaced by idolatries of different political sign, as in the West, not only is it impossible to undertake joint undertakings, but human coexistence itself becomes unsustainable. ‘A great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within’, wrote Will Durant; and in Islam they know well how to precipitate that destruction [...].
‘Removing the veils from the eyes’ - Book “Swimming against the current” pages 55 to 56.
#CHESTERTONCASTELLANIJMPRADA
[...] Islam has for some time now been engaged in stirring up contradictions in the West, taking refuge in the doctrine advocated by Libya's Gaddafi: ‘Allah will guarantee the Islamic victory without swords, without guns, without conquest. We need no terrorists, no suicide bombers. The more than fifty million Muslims in Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent in a few decades'. And while the victory comes [...] Islam entertains itself by proposing Sadducean traps that will shorten those few decades [...].
[...] civilisations are founded by religions; and, with the decline of religions, civilisations die out, to the point of extinction. Human coexistence requires a collective bond, an adherence to a particular vision of the world that only a common religious belief provides: when such a common belief takes root, as in Islam, it is possible to undertake joint undertakings with enthusiasm; when such a common belief is disintegrated, corrupted or replaced by idolatries of different political sign, as in the West, not only is it impossible to undertake joint undertakings, but human coexistence itself becomes unsustainable. ‘A great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within’, wrote Will Durant; and in Islam they know well how to precipitate that destruction [...].
‘Removing the veils from the eyes’ - Book “Swimming against the current” pages 55 to 56.
#CHESTERTONCASTELLANIJMPRADA
HAPPINESS
"The true good of the body is perfectly reconciled and harmonised with the good of the soul. The first good of the body is health, and nothing so procures and preserves health as the victory over the evil passions. Therefore, by condemning the passions and helping us to overcome them, the Church frees us from most of the destructive causes of our bodily well-being.
Let ambition, avarice, impurity, drunkenness, sloth, with all the evils which these degrading vices bring with them, be suppressed, and the majority of men will enjoy sweet well-being and true happiness. On the other hand, it is easy to prove that fortitude, prudence, justice, temperance, and the other virtues which flow from them, procure for the Christian pure and delicate joys, infinitely superior to the gross enjoyments of the senses.
Man is the happier the more industrious, the more sober, the more charitable, the less desire he has, and the greater the peace he enjoys. In former times, when religion was better practised than it is today, there were very many citizens who enjoyed this happiness.
As for the sufferings, which are inseparable from human life, the Church diminishes and alleviates them. She diminishes them by the resignation and patience which she inspires; she alleviates them by all the means of her inexhaustible charity.
Therefore, the Church procures for the man who practices her divine teachings happiness even on earth. [...]"
"Religion Demonstrated" - Father Hillarie
#HAPPINESS
"The true good of the body is perfectly reconciled and harmonised with the good of the soul. The first good of the body is health, and nothing so procures and preserves health as the victory over the evil passions. Therefore, by condemning the passions and helping us to overcome them, the Church frees us from most of the destructive causes of our bodily well-being.
Let ambition, avarice, impurity, drunkenness, sloth, with all the evils which these degrading vices bring with them, be suppressed, and the majority of men will enjoy sweet well-being and true happiness. On the other hand, it is easy to prove that fortitude, prudence, justice, temperance, and the other virtues which flow from them, procure for the Christian pure and delicate joys, infinitely superior to the gross enjoyments of the senses.
Man is the happier the more industrious, the more sober, the more charitable, the less desire he has, and the greater the peace he enjoys. In former times, when religion was better practised than it is today, there were very many citizens who enjoyed this happiness.
As for the sufferings, which are inseparable from human life, the Church diminishes and alleviates them. She diminishes them by the resignation and patience which she inspires; she alleviates them by all the means of her inexhaustible charity.
Therefore, the Church procures for the man who practices her divine teachings happiness even on earth. [...]"
"Religion Demonstrated" - Father Hillarie
#HAPPINESS
CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE
THE HUSBAND'S DECALOGUE:
1. Get your life sorted out - at least fundamentally - before you start a family.
2. Your work is important, but don't let it absorb you in such a way that it takes time that you owe to your loved ones.
3. Good humour, a permanent serenity of spirit, is the most valuable gift you can offer your wife and children.
4. Your wife should be your best friend and companion. And you should have at least the same attentions towards her as you had when she was just your girlfriend.
5. Respect her field of work. There are few things so ridiculous and harmful as a fussy husband who is meddling in his wife's own affairs.
6. If your wife is fit for a profession - except for housekeeping - let her have it.
7. In relation to your children, don't forget that educating is an art. A difficult and delicate art, made up of a little science, a lot of good sense and, above all, a lot of love.
8. Example is the key to education. Earn respect and obedience by your actions.
9. Be very manly in everything, but bear in mind that this is perfectly compatible with the signs of affection that your loved ones need.
10. And if you are fortunate enough to be a believer, may Christ be the light and joy of your life in the fulfilment of your duties as a father and husband.
THE WIFE'S DECALOGUE:
1. The home will be what you make of it. That must be the great work of your life.
2. The immediate administration of property is yours. Be far-sighted, prudent and with great common sense.
3. May your good taste and your care - more than your money - make your home a welcoming refuge for all those who make up your family.
4. Always try to remain your husband's bride. And let it show in your words as well as in your presentation.
5. Never forget that before your own children - and of course your parents - there is your husband.
6. May your words, your joy and your peace of mind be a relief and rest to all who make up your home, or come near it.
7. Your first duty to your children is called tenderness. On it, as a basis, it will be easy for you to exercise, together with your husband, that difficult and delicate art which is called education.
8. Don't shout and don't lose your temper. You will be better obeyed if you tell your children things calmly.
9. Take special care in the order and administration of the household: in mealtimes, and in prudent economy.
10. Finally, if you are fortunate enough to have faith, seek your support in God, for in Him you will always find the strength and grace you need to carry out your beautiful mission in life.
"To save your soul" - Father Jorge Loring
#CHASTITYANDMARRIAGE
THE HUSBAND'S DECALOGUE:
1. Get your life sorted out - at least fundamentally - before you start a family.
2. Your work is important, but don't let it absorb you in such a way that it takes time that you owe to your loved ones.
3. Good humour, a permanent serenity of spirit, is the most valuable gift you can offer your wife and children.
4. Your wife should be your best friend and companion. And you should have at least the same attentions towards her as you had when she was just your girlfriend.
5. Respect her field of work. There are few things so ridiculous and harmful as a fussy husband who is meddling in his wife's own affairs.
6. If your wife is fit for a profession - except for housekeeping - let her have it.
7. In relation to your children, don't forget that educating is an art. A difficult and delicate art, made up of a little science, a lot of good sense and, above all, a lot of love.
8. Example is the key to education. Earn respect and obedience by your actions.
9. Be very manly in everything, but bear in mind that this is perfectly compatible with the signs of affection that your loved ones need.
10. And if you are fortunate enough to be a believer, may Christ be the light and joy of your life in the fulfilment of your duties as a father and husband.
THE WIFE'S DECALOGUE:
1. The home will be what you make of it. That must be the great work of your life.
2. The immediate administration of property is yours. Be far-sighted, prudent and with great common sense.
3. May your good taste and your care - more than your money - make your home a welcoming refuge for all those who make up your family.
4. Always try to remain your husband's bride. And let it show in your words as well as in your presentation.
5. Never forget that before your own children - and of course your parents - there is your husband.
6. May your words, your joy and your peace of mind be a relief and rest to all who make up your home, or come near it.
7. Your first duty to your children is called tenderness. On it, as a basis, it will be easy for you to exercise, together with your husband, that difficult and delicate art which is called education.
8. Don't shout and don't lose your temper. You will be better obeyed if you tell your children things calmly.
9. Take special care in the order and administration of the household: in mealtimes, and in prudent economy.
10. Finally, if you are fortunate enough to have faith, seek your support in God, for in Him you will always find the strength and grace you need to carry out your beautiful mission in life.
"To save your soul" - Father Jorge Loring
#CHASTITYANDMARRIAGE
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