Oblate Program at Belmont Abbey, NC

Tag: human beings

Help Me Understand Attacks of the Devil

Dear Father John,  I seem to be constantly tempted to, or away from, one thing or another.  I would like to arm myself as much as possible against this spiritual darkness.  Would you help me understand attacks of the devil? SECULAR ATHEISTS CAN develop strong willpower and natural prudence,  and they can put them to… Read More ›

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The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus’ message

1. The Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus’ message. Lovingly received day after day by the Church, it is to be preached with dauntless fidelity as “good news” to the people of every age and culture. . . . 63. . . . the use of human embryos or fetuses as an… Read More ›

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The difference (Loneliness and isolation)

Loneliness is an experience that the vast majority of people go through; perhaps all but there is no way of knowing that.  There are people who experience aloneness all of their lives, but who are not necessarily isolated.   Those who have faith, who seek to deepen their understanding of what their tradition tells them, have… Read More ›

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What the Lord has lost on my account

[God] had made only two noble creatures who were sharers in reason and capable of blessedness: angels and human beings. Yet on my account he has lost many of the angels and all of the human beings. Therefore, so that they may know that I love the Father, let those whom he seems somehow to… Read More ›

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What Do You Weep For?

Evagrius of Ponticus, one of the early desert monastics, counseled young monastics: “First pray for the gift of tears, to soften by compunction the inherent hardness of your soul.” And fifteen centuries later, George Eliot wrote, too, “The beginning of compunction is the beginning of new life.” The point is clear: Weeping is a very… Read More ›

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What has always been

I think most people get a jump start when little, projecting them out of the Garden of Eden, and suddenly finding themselves naked and vulnerable.  An event happens that colors the rest of life, either for good or ill.  Perhaps it is the first time we really wake up to the unfairness and cruelty that… Read More ›

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Human Beings are Beloved by God

The Lord, both as man and as God, helps and benefits everyone. As God, he forgives sins; as man, he instructs us not to sin. Therefore human beings are rightly beloved by God, since they are his creatures. Other things were created by his command alone, but human beings were created by the work of… Read More ›

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God’s Love of Humanity

For God loved human beings, on account of whom he made the world, to whom he subordinated all things on the earth, to whom he gave reason and mind, whom alone he inclined to look above to himself, whom he made from his own image, to whom “he sent his one and only Son” [1… Read More ›

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God’s Love for Human Beings

For God loved human beings, on account of whom he made the world, to whom he subordinated all things on the earth, to whom he gave reason and mind, whom alone he inclined to look above to himself, whom he made from his own image, to whom “he sent his one and only Son” [1… Read More ›

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