The Life of Virtue

This morning, I happened to remember that today is the feast day of St. Justin Martyr, who lived, taught, and died in the second century A.D.  I found my copy of his most notable and commonly-read treatise, First Apology .  As I read that text, I found myself longing to read and ponder more of his rich teaching and devotion.  I want to live up to the example of this courageous Christian of antiquity. Several short passages stood out to me, but I found one that is now my favorite of his.  Of course, it deals with virtuous living.  He states: "And we have been taught, and are convinced, and do believe, that He accepts those only who imitate the excellences which reside in Him, temperance, and justice, and philanthropy, and as many virtues as are peculiar to a God who is called by no proper name." Indeed, God accepts us most fully when we are responding to His grace and cultivating virtue in our lives.  This is especially because they are His virtues....

This is the final reflection for our Advent retreat.  It is the culmination of everything that has come before it, just as the birth of Jesus Christ is the culmination of God’s history and work among humankind.  I do hope that these reflections have helped you during this season of waiting, watching, and preparing. This week of Advent reveals that God intends to do amazing things in the world and for individuals and for His chosen people.  However, the ways that He chooses to accomplish those things are far from usual or expected.  So, these final days of Advent offer an opportunity for us view reality from a new perspective, and to change the ways that we respond to God’s graces in our lives. In the Sunday readings, and during the next six days, one specific type of miracle stands out clearly above the rest.  Throughout the week, we hear four different stories of God placing life within the wombs of women who were not supposed to conceive.  An...

When we look around at the world, the culture, and human beings, there is little room for doubt that something needs to be fixed.  Our daily experience proves to us that relationships and the rhythm of life are fractured and broken.  Yet, we fool ourselves if we think that we can create the solution to the problem.  More efficient and effective legal justice, along with more technichal and governmental oversight, will probably only serve to illuminate more and deeper troubles. Something else is needed to save individuals, social groups, and the collective culture from its clear and present woes.  And, that something must come from outside of the same individuals, groups, and culture.  That something must come from the Divine Source of all created life.  That something is mercy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides a simple definition of mercy: "the loving kindness, compassion, or forbearance shown to one who offends" (Glossary of the 2nd Editi...

We all are aware that Thanksgiving, the great American holiday, happens tomorrow.  It seems, though, that the cultural awareness of the source of this celebration has been lost in recent years.  The first celebrants of this ritual gathered at table during shortly after the harvest season because of the gratitude in their hearts.  They were grateful for God's grace that allowed them to survive their first harsh winter in the New World; and for the assistance of their fellow man (native American Indians, specifically) in cultivating the crops and produce.  These were reasons for gratitude, indeed. Jennie Brownscombe, The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth (1914) Over the last three-plus centuries, the ritual has changed slightly.  There probably wasn't a grand exhibition of sport (like football) before, during, and immediately after the big meal.  It is very likely that folks didn't pack up for brief cross-country trips but, rather, they remained within ...

Merriam-Webster defines "renaissance man" as one who has interest and expertise in many areas.  The Urban Dictionary mentions that a person described by this term is "talented in all spheres of human endeavor."  A general (and incomplete) litany of such spheres would include language, philosophy, religion, science, sport, art, and, perhaps, food.  The person who attains noteworthy accomplishment in most or all of these realms, and who could pass on knowledge and wisdom to others, is considered to have attained the ideal. The historical figure who seems to have attained this ideal most notably (at least in the modern age) is Leonardo da Vinci.  Da Vinci receives credit as a painter, a botanist, an urban planner, a man of high intellect, and a designer of flying machines.  If all of this is attributable to him in fact, then it is right to place him in the limited company of true renaissance men.  Of course, there are also fictional expressions of this id...

In recent weeks, I have been conversing with young adults who are wrapping up their semester studies.  Despite the various institutions they attend and the various majors they have chosen, one common theme has shone itself through these conversations.  In the weeks leading up to final projects and exams, these students are quite tense and full of stress as they realize that they may not have learned all the necessary material in order to pass the test(s) and course(s).  They begin to wonder if they have procrastinated a bit longer than they should have, which elicits extra anxiety.  One young man even said to me, "I've learned how to re-learn an entire semester's material in a single afternoon so that I can pass the exam."  As I listen to these young people talk, I recall my own studies.  I freely admit that I did plenty of procrastinating and last-minute cramming during my college career.  Therefore, I know that procrastination and last-minute crammin...

It might be easy to glean, from a quick perusal of this blog, that I thoroughly enjoy thinking, speaking, and writing about the virtue of hope.  In my humblest opinion, it makes a fascinating topic for a number of reasons: 1) lots of modern people misunderstand this theological virtue; 2) it is what the world needs most right now; and 3) it reminds us of the end that is in store for us, Heaven, while it entices us to work diligently every day, here and now, to reach that Blessedness.  Imagine the glorious exaltation that I made to the Father when I realized that hope is the major theme running through the lectionary readings for the Third Sunday of Easter . Now, it would be excellent if I had time to offer, and my readers had patience to read, an extended article on several dimensions of the virtue of hope.  Since neither condition is present at the moment, I will limit my commentary solely to the knowledge we can gain from the Scripture readings that we heard just yest...

While I am not always able to do so (because of my own inner distractions as well as a few squirmy children), I do my very best to listen to every prayer that is said at Mass.  I was blessed during yesterday's Mass to struggle and strain to hear the words of the Preface, which is said before the Sanctus and the Eucharistic Prayer.  The prescribed preface for the First Sunday of Advent is as follows: For he assumed at his first coming the lowliness of human flesh, and so fulfilled the design you formed long ago, and opened for us the way to eternal salvation, that, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest, we who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope. That prayer reminded me why I so thoroughly enjoy the Advent season, and why I am so attracted to the virtue of hope.  The extraordinary seasonal joy that I experience, as well as the attraction to preparing now for what is to come, hap...

St. John of the Cross is not often though of as "a practical, thorough and safe spiritual guide." [1] However, one biographer says so and this author agrees. The reality is that people of all ages and vocations have the ability to grow into union with God through this saint's direction. Specifically, it is the virtue of humility, the centerpiece of St. John's mysticism, that makes him an able director for any person who seeks to climb God's Holy Mountain. According to the saint, a person must be free from all attachments, naked in spirit (cf. Mt. 5:3), before he or she can reach intimate union with God. A single poem by St. John captures this radical teaching, often called the "nada" doctrine. To reach satisfaction in all, desire its possession in nothing. To come to the knowledge of all, desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to possess all, desire the possession of nothing. To arrive at being all, desire to be nothing. To come to ...

The St. John Lateran Basilica has been dedicated to Our Lord's honor and memory for 1685 years. It is, without a doubt, one of the oldest legal Christian worship structures in the Western world. Further, it is among the most revered by the faithful because it is the arch-basilica of the Latin Rite Catholic Church; it is the Holy Father's cathedral for his post as Bishop of Rome. Each year on November 9, the Latin Rite Church celebrates the dedication of this cathedral with its own liturgical feast. In the liturgy of the day, faithful Catholics receive a fuller understanding of the Church as a living, breathing organism; a body that is life-giving rather than simply and institution marked by brick and mortar. Scripture readings are combined with prayers in order to produce an image of the New Jerusalem, the City of God, being built of "living stones" (i.e., "chosen people"). It is a powerful experience, for several reasons, to approach and enter this basilic...

Continuing the trend from yesterday's post, I have found another article entitled "To Study History Is to Become Catholic." I know that fact all too well.  When I didn't know Truth, I was brought to an understanding (by the Holy Spirit and the woman who would become my wife) that Christ founded the Catholic Church; that Peter was the first pope; and that Catholic bishops can trace their ministerial lineage all the way back to the Apostles.  Ultimately, I had to ask myself: "Do I want to be in the Church that Christ founded, or one that was begun by some other fellow?"  To Rome I made the journey!

This article by James Hitchcock provides wonderful insight into the time period and reasons for the development of Eucharistic Adoration as a devotional practice.  In addition to the great factual information, Hitchcock makes readers wonder why liturgists who dislike the devotion (some of whom he mentions in the article) have any credibility in the Catholic Church. Can you imagine a Church that doesn't seek to find direction, inspiration, and formation from the very Man who began the whole venture?  That would be like a Fortune 500 corporation failing to allow its founder to the board of directors' meeting!

INQUIRER: I'm confused and curious about human freedom (some call it free will).  I've been told that freedom means the ability to choose to do whatever I want to do as long as I feel that it's "right."  Can you clear up this questions for me? ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO: The freedom of the will is then true freedom when it does not serve vice and sins. [Personal addition from a layman with an Augustinian spirituality: In it's essence, free will is the ability to choose any action, right or wrong.  However, with a purified conscience, human freedom directs us toward doing that which is good, which brings more freedom.  Choosing vice and sin hinders our freedom and will eventually wrap us in slavery to those same vices.]

INQUIRER: St. Alexander, I've recently witnessed a lot of people who are angry at the Catholic Church; and I've even seen some who openly say that the Church is wrong.  Can the Catholic Church ever be destroyed? [caption id="attachment_245" align="alignnone" width="155" caption="St. Alexander of Alexandria"] [/caption] ST. ALEXANDER OF ALEXANDRIA: The one and only Catholic and Apostolic Church can never be destroyed, though all the world should seek to make war against it.  It is victorious over every impious revolt of the heretics who rise up against it.

This coming Sunday, I will begin presenting a parish/diocesan faith formation series, a Church History course entitled "Building the City of God."  The name was given to the seminar before the first time I taught it because of my deep affinity for St. Augustine; and because of the idea that our actions either build or destroy the City of God about which he wrote.  I only pray that my actions build up that city, not tear it down. The current seminar meets for eight sessions, during which I will present only the first half of the Church's 2000-year history.  I will take up the task of presenting the second half after the new year.  In the mean time, I'll be honing other Church History seminars or developing new ones.  There's always something in my brain and something in the works! It is likely that this seminar will be recorded on video, so I should be able to post clips to this website as well as send out promo videos.  I beg for your prayers, and I beg that you p...

St. Francis, the founder of the Order of Friars Minor, was known to have a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother.  Obviously, that devotion was a quality bequeathed to his spiritual posterity, and a compiled list of such heritage would include many friars in various communities of Franciscan lineage throughout the past eight centuries (e.g., Capuchin Friars of the Renewal, Third Order Regulars, et al).  One name, however, seems to reside near the top of that long list: St. Bonaventure, the "Seraphic Doctor." If Christ was at the center of St. Bonaventure's rich mystical theology and writing, Mary certainly occupied a place of near-equal importance (as should be the case with great catechesis and theology).  On many occasions, St. Bonaventure spoke or wrote with great passion and conviction about the blessedness and "excelling sublimity of the Virgin."  In fact, it was through one of his passionate exhortations that the Angelus prayer appeared in the Church's...

The UK's Telegraph has published an article that provides further evidence that Pope Pius XII was not complicit with the Nazi regime in Europe during the early 1940s.  According to the story, Pope Pius XII was willing to be arrested by Nazis, resign his duties as pontiff, and allow the election of a successor in a safe location (e.g., Portugal). As an historian, I am continually baffled by any "rationale" that attempts to place the Vatican in cahoots with Adolf Hitler.  One is a body committed to protecting the dignity of every human life; the other was a man committed to eugenics and murder.  "One of these things is not like the other." God bless!