ON this feast in honor of the Eucharist, of which there is nothing greater in creation, readings can be found here.

O precious and wonderful banquet, health-giving and full of all sweetness! What could be more precious than this banquet, in which no longer as under the law the flesh of calves and goats is eaten, but Christ the true God is set before us that we may receive Him? 

— St. Thomas Aquinas

Even in this time of the great apostasy, when this mystical bread has been withdrawn from us as a much deserved chastisement, we can honor this sacrament, and like the Israelites of old who received miraculous manna as nourishment, seek it as indispensable spiritual nourishment, expressing our gratitude for this heavenly food come from above. What are we wretches without Thee, Sweet Bread? Nothing at all.

Act of Spiritual Communion

O Jesus, my soul hungers and thirsts after Thee. I long to receive every day Thy most Holy Body. I implore, at least, Thy spiritual presence. I beg of Thee to descend into my soul and give me some share in the infinite merits of Thy death, the memory of which we celebrate in this Mass. Grant, O loving Saviour, that I may be made one in union with Thee and Thy Mystical Body.

(St. Andrew’s Missal)

Adoro Te Devote

I devoutly adore you, O hidden God,
Truly hidden beneath these appearances.
My whole heart submits to you,
And in contemplating you,
It surrenders itself completely.

Sight, touch, taste are all deceived
In their judgment of you,
But hearing suffices firmly to believe.
I believe all that the Son of God has spoken;
There is nothing truer than this word of truth. (more…)

THESE "four fundamental truths" come from a 1934 pastoral letter by the Austrian hierarchy of the Catholic Church in response to National Socialism.** Reflect on this simple and beautiful statement, which can be applied to any nation, as you peruse the Internet with its serious errors on these issues from both the left and right: "1. Mankind is one family built upon justice and love. Therefore, we condemn racial obsession which leads to racial hatred and conflict. Likewise, to be condemned, is the sterilization law, as it is contrary both to Catholic law and to Nature. "2. True Christian nationalism is of God and the Church; and love of one's people and country is ingrained in the nature of man. We preach the virtue of Christian patriotism and we condemn treason against one's country; and we also condemn radical, racial anti-Semitism. "3. Nation and State are different, and the State is above the Nation. Therefore, we condemn extreme nationalistic principles, defend the historic rights of our country, and favour the cultivation of the Austrian conception. "4. Over and above nationalism is religion, which is supernatural, and ennobles every nation." [Emphases added] **Quoted in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World by Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp. (Christian Book Club of America), First Printed, 1935; p. 314.  

"WE are sometimes ready to congratulate ourselves that our age has outgrown all superstitions. But the historian of the future will, I fancy, reckon in the same class as number-worship and astrology and the study of the gizzards of birds the strange superstition that, whenever money is invented, a percentage must be paid for ever afterwards as a propitiation to a banker. It is on that superstition that the whole empire of Mammon is built. There is no basis for it in reason, and in our day, when it has for the first time been overtly recognized and challenged, the defenders of it have utterly failed to justify their superstition ... It is inconceivable that the world will be content for long ... to tolerate want with abundance all around, the destruction of food while men and women and children are perishing for the lack of it. And if sound finance continues to put forward such a demand, then at the last, it will be so much the worse for sound finance." ---- Christopher Hollis, The Breakdown of Money, 1934  

  

"I was no longer the centre of my life and therefore I could see God in everything." --- St. Bede  

[T]HE multiplicity and distinction existing among things were devised by the divine intellect and were carried out in the real order so that the divine goodness might be mirrored by created things in variety, and that different things might participate in divine goodness in varying degrees. Thus, the very order existing among diverse things issues in a certain beauty, which should call to mind the divine wisdom. --- St. Thomas Aquinas  

Another blast from the past, this is from a 2012 entry.

JESSE POWELL writes:

The Economist recently featured a special report titled “Women and Work” (November 26, 2011). What struck me the most about all of the articles in the report was their anti-human utopianism. The central theme was that we are moving towards a better world of equality but that we aren’t there yet and that there are still many pesky differences between men and women in the workplace that we should try to overcome with changes in cultural practices and attitudes and perhaps with outright government-mandated quotas.

There was some acceptance by the authors that there are differences between the sexes, that men and women might have different temperaments and different preferences regarding the focus on work versus the focus on the family but even when these differences were pointed out there was a tendency to blame things on discrimination and cultural stereotypes; to suggest true inborn differences between men and women was condemned as “biological determinism.” The feeling was that maybe there are real differences between men and women but that these differences are bad and should be minimized. (more…)

"TALKING about the Jewish problem is entirely sane and sensible; not talking about the Jewish problem is what really leads to sensationalism instead of sense, and insanity instead of sanity." -- G.K. Chesterton  

  

"... THERE are hundreds of terms in the Hebrew Bible which are dim revelations of the Persons of the Trinity. "The first foundations of the Hebrew religion [were] laid by the Eternal Father Yaqara. The forms of nature, the knowledge of divine things, were given by Memra, the Word of God, the Wisdom of the Father, the Son of God. The ceremonial, law, tabernacle, Temple and Hebrew Church were founded by the Shekina, the Holy Spirit. The Apostles and converts were then, by reading the Old Testament, ready to receive the belief in the Trinity, first clearly revealed when Christ said, 'Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'" --- Rev. James L. Meagher, How Christ Said the First Mass: Of the Rites and Ceremonies of Jesus and the Apostles, Foretold in the Hebrew Passover (Pantianos Classic, 1906), p. 25    

A supernatural mystery makes us feel both small and enlarged. That is true of the idea of God loving God.

There is a famous story about the complex and sublime doctrine of the Trinity — One God, in three Persons — recounted by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger:

Saint Augustine “while occupied in searching into the mystery of the Holy Trinity, took a walk on the seashore, where he found a boy, who having made a small hole in the sand, poured water from the sea into it with a spoon. After watching the boy for a long time, the Saint asked him what he was doing. “I wish,” replied the boy, “to pour the sea into this hole.” “O my child!” said the Saint: “that is a useless attempt. So small a hole cannot contain the immense sea.” “And you,” replied the boy, ” will be still less able to contain and comprehend, with your human understanding, the stupendous mystery of the Holy Trinity!” After these words, the child, who doubtless was an angel, vanished. [Recounted by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger]

If man is the measure of all things, the mystery of the Trinity doesn’t matter.

If man is the measure of all things, we should honor man. We should hold sacred his happiness. We should make his desires come true. We should surrender to his will as long as it does not infringe on the happiness of others. If man is the measure of all things then whatever soothes man, whatever celebrates his chosen path, whatever makes him a success in the world must be good and worthy of our full attention.

But if man is a creature made in the image of God, and meant to share in His divine graces, then there is nothing more important than this, even though we cannot fully understand it. (more…)

PETER A. writes:

Thank you so much for all the information (your words and others) on life and world events.

Thank you for standing up for Our Father In Heaven and speaking the truth about life in this present world. So much has been resolved and so much evil and sickness continues, both in deed and disruption of human lives, families, and faith.

The Beautiful Thing is that Our Faith cannot be discarded. God knows the workings of evil. As we seek His Forgiveness for Our Trespasses, we are Forgiven. I Trust Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Our Savior, Our Holy God and Our Holy Ghost for loving, protecting and providing His Grace.

Laura, thank you so very much for sharing your thoughts and for your support, love and kindness. (more…)

Source  

THE LIST of famous authors accused of anti-Semitism at some point, either while living or dead, is quite long — so long in fact that one wonders if the whole literature racket shouldn’t be shut down, along perhaps with reading itself. Goodbye to The Great Gatsby, The Merchant of Venice, Oliver Twist and The Canterbury Tales. Anything short of a completely flattering portrayal of Jewish characters is enough to land an author in this gallery of rogues. Even Jewish authors have not escaped the charge. American author Philip Roth was accused of anti-Semitism for his negative portrayals of Jewish characters in his novels.

I did some random searches of well-known authors on the Internet and all of them except for E.B. White came up guilty. (I wasn’t surprised to find another New Yorker, the sassy Dorothy Parker, was among the charged.) It was a relief at least to know Stuart Little isn’t yet accused of being a Nazi. But I wonder about him ….  well, he was at least a white supremacist, I’d say, because of the lack of diversity in his environment and the natty way he dressed. The oldest surviving work of French literature, La Chanson de Roland, did not come up clean.

I found additional compilations (see sources below). Below are some of the literary deadbeats who, by today’s standards, belong behind bars. For Hypersensitive Hebrews, the canon of Western literature is similar to one of those shooting booths at a country fair. A figure pops up and — crack! — you try to shoot it down. It’s a sport, in a way. Contrary to what these sharpshooters believe, we cannot peer into the hearts of other human beings. But if we could, I’d be willing to bet we wouldn’t find an ounce of true hatred in any of these famous targets.

William Shakespeare
Geoffrey Chaucer
Christopher Marlowe
Charles Dickens
G.K. Chesterton
T.S. Eliot
Dante
W.B. Yeats
Mark Twain
Herman Melville
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Balzac
George Sand
Flannery O’Connor
Frank Norris
Theodore Dreiser
Ernest Hemingway
Celine
Henry Adams
George Eliot
George du Maurier
James Joyce
Virginia Woolf
Graham Greene
Evelyn Waugh
E.E. Cummings
Henry Miller
Dorothy Parker
Byron Scott
F. Scott Fitzgerald (more…)

A dark, truthful image.