I could talk until the cows come home about the minority status of
Catholics in the North of Ireland. But that ground has been gone over a lot. I
would say that the more important Catholic thing is the actual sense of eternal
values and infamous vices which our education or formation gives us. There's a
sense of profoundness, a sense that the universe can be ashimmer with
something, and Catholicism - even if I don't like sentimentalizing it - was the
backdrop to that whole thing. The world I grew up in offered me a sense that I
was a citizen of the empyrean - the crystalline elsewhere of the world.
Seamus Heaney, Irish Nobel Laureate
The grudge against God is the keystone to all one's
unhappiness. Follow all your petty, middling, and major grudges back to
this keystone grudge, and then ask yourself the question, "Is it more
likely that God was wrong to make the world this way, or that I am somehow
wrong in the way I'm looking at it?" If you decide that God is wrong
--- or that there is no God, just a faceless, mechanical universe that cares
nothing about the human drama --- then there isn't much you can do. But
if you realize that you can always adjust your perceptions of the world, you
can start learning and contributing again. This seems to be the way to
both humility and power. D. Patrick Miller, A Primer on Forgiveness,
"The Sun", 9/94
When I fed
the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why they were poor, they called
me a communist.
Archbishop Dom Helder Camara, Brasil
The Latin
Church, which I find myself admiring more and more despite its frequent,
astounding imbecilities, has always kept clearly before it the fact that
religion is not a syllogism but a poem. H. L. Mencken
The saints
in heaven were hell on earth. Richard Cardinal Cushing
If you
bungle raising your children, it doesn't much matter what else you do well.
Jackie Kennedy Onassis
More tears
are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. St. Teresa of Avila.
We, ignorant
of ourselves, beg often our own harms, which the wise powers, deny us for our
good;
so we find
profit by losing our prayers. Shakespeare
"There
are two kinds of people in the world; those who say to God, 'Thy will be done',
and those to
whom God says, 'Go ahead, then, have it your way'."
The horror
is we get what we want. Oscar Wilde (a deathbed convert to Catholicism)
The
petition, then, is not merely that I may patiently suffer God's will but also
that I may vigorously do it... "Thy will be done - by me - now"
brings one back to brass tacks. C.S. Lewis
Boredom is
rage spread thin. Paul Tillich
According to
Aquinas, sin is always accompanied by: 1.) loss of splendor, and 2.) loss of
proportion.
Sin is a
disproportionate seriousness. Fulton Sheen
The one
thing the devil cannot stand is laughter - especially when it is directed at
him.
Don't dread
sin. Dread is sin. Alan Watts
***
Matthew 5:43-48
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and
hate your enemy.’ 44 But
I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may
be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the
evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love
those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax
collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people,
what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be complete,
therefore, as your heavenly Father is complete.
Matthew 5:43-48
The Message
43-48 “You’re
familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten
companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love
your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone
gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are
working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God
does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone,
regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the
lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to
those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does
that. “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re
kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live
generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”
***
If someone
steals your cloak, give him your shirt as well.
I say to
you:: this woman who has given two pennies has given more than all the others.
***
There was
some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon the
earth;
and I have
sometimes fancied that it was his mirth.
Power tends
to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Almost always, great men
are bad men. Lord Acton
All Truth
passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second, it is violently
opposed, third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenauer
...strange
times are these in which we live when the old and the young are taught
falsehoods in the schools of learning. And the one man that dares to tell the
truth is called at once a lunatic and a fool... Plato
He
who sings prays twice.
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