God Is Known By His Works

"Concerning the question: What is God? not one of the masters who have ever been has succeeded in giving an explanation, for it is beyond all thought and intelligence. And yet someone who zealously and diligently seeks for some kind of knowledge of God will attain it, although in a very remote way... This is how some virtuous pagan masters sought him in former times, especially the wise man, Aristotle. He examined the course of nature..., sought passionately and thus found. From nature he deduced that that there must necessarily be a unique monarch, lord over all creatures, and this is what we call God...God's being is such a spiritual substance that mortal eye is unable to contemplate it as it is, but it can be seen in its works. As Saint Paul says: creatures are a mirror reflecting God (Rom 1:20). Let us stop here for a moment...: look above and around you, how immense and lofty is the heaven in its swift course, with what nobility has its Lord adorned it with its seven planets and how decorative it is by reason of its innumerable host of stars! When the sun shines gaily in a cloudless sky during the summer, what fruit, what good things it brings to the earth! How beautifully green are the meadows, how smiling the flowers, how the sweet song of little birds resounds in forest and field, and all the animals that went into hiding during the hard winter now hasten happily outside. How both young and old among men express their joy with the joy that brings such happiness to them. O loving God, if you are so worthy of being loved in your creatures, how beautiful and worthy of being loved you must be in yourself!"

-Blessed Henry Suso, Dominican Life, ch. 50

Ask A Father

Q: St. Justin Martyr, why can’t non-Catholics receive Communion at Mass?

A: “No one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, This do in remembrance of Me, this is My body; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, This is My blood; and gave it to them alone.”

-First Apology, Chapter 66

On this same theme, see this post.

Christ Is Risen!

"For Christ, death-however burdened and agonizing and essential-is only a passageway to fulfillment. 'Did not the Christ have to suffer these things before entering in to his glory?' he asks the disciples on the way to Emmaus (Luke 24:26). The Resurrection is the blossoming of the seed he has always borne within him. He who rejects it, rejects everything in Jesus' life and consciousness that is linked with it. What then remains, is not worth faith."

-Romano Guardini, The Lord

Easter Vigil Homily Of Pope Benedict XVI

Read the Holy Father's beautiful homily on the sacrament of Baptism, which by virtue of Our Lord's glorious Resurrection brings the sinner from death to life!

The Biblical View Of Covenant

“In the Bible, what we call ‘covenant’ is not a symmetrical relationship between two partners who make a contractual agreement involving reciprocal obligations and penalties: this idea of a partnership among equals cannot be reconciled with the biblical concept of God. According to the latter, man is in no position to create a relationship with God, let alone give him anything and receive something in return; it is quite out of the question that man should bind God to obligations in return for undertakings on his own part. If there is to be a relationship between God and man, it can only come about through God’s free ordinance, in which his sovereignty remains intact. The relationship is therefore completely asymmetrical, because God, for the creature, is and remains the ‘wholly other.’ The ‘covenant’ is not a two-sided contract but a gift, a creative act of God’s love. This last statement, it is true, goes beyond the philological issue. Although the covenant is patterned on Hittite and Assyrian contracts between states, in which the lord imposes his law on his vassal, God’s covenant with Israel is far more: here God, the King, receives nothing from man; but in giving him his law, he gives him the path of life.”

-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Many Religions—One Covenant: Israel, the Church and the World

1 Peter 2:24

The New York Times' Sorry Excuse For Journalism

Fr. Thomas Brundage, JCL, the presiding judge in the Fr. Murphy case, sets the record straight and provides more evidence that the New York Times is intent on attacking the Holy Father (and thus the entire Catholic Church) and isn't worth the paper it's printed on.