Tag: reason
Religion and morality are indispensable supports
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men & citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious… Read More ›
Outcast
At times I get weary about who and what I am, what we are as a species, how we need to struggle to just be rational, yet often controlled by our deep sub-conscious, lip surface to a path chosen, yet in reality often possibly forced by inner forces to act otherwise, yet the will remains… Read More ›
Truly, this is the way of love
A brother once went out on a pilgrimage from the monastery of Abba Poemen, and came to a hermit, who lived in love towards all and received many visitors. The brother told the hermit stories of Abba Poemen. And when he heard of Poemen’s strength of character, he longed to see him. The brother returned to Egypt. And… Read More ›
Christianity a’la carte
If reason insists on shutting down every opening to the sacred, the result will be an eclipse of reason itself . . . The eclipse of the sacred has led to a do-it-yourself approach to the holy, to a kind of supermarket of religious faiths . . . Christianity a’la carte . . .By contrast,… Read More ›
Be who God intended you to be
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by… Read More ›
Universal Church to honor life and witness of St. Thomas More
CNA STAFF, Jun 20, 2010 / 05:08 am (CNA).- (Today) marks the feast day of St. Thomas More – husband, father, lawyer, politician and the first layman to serve as Lord Chancellor of England. St. Thomas is best known for being a devout and faithful Catholic whose staunch defense of the rights of conscience and… Read More ›
The Dangers of Avoiding Regular Times for Prayer
When you have given over the practice of stated prayer, you gradually become weaker without knowing it … Men first leave off private prayer; then they neglect the due observance of the Lord’s day (which is a stated service of the same kind); then they gradually let slip from their minds the very idea of… Read More ›
Why Do Ascetics Avoid Certain Things?
There was a certain old man who lived a life of such strict self-denial that he never drank wine. And when I arrived at his cell we sat down to eat. Dates were brought and he ate, and he took water and drank. And I said unto him laughingly, “So you are angry with absinthe,… Read More ›
America’s Poor Are Its Most Generous Givers
WASHINGTON — When Jody Richards saw a homeless man begging outside a downtown McDonald’s recently, he bought the man a cheeseburger. There’s nothing unusual about that, except that Richards is homeless, too, and the 99-cent cheeseburger was an outsized chunk of the $9.50 he’d earned that day from panhandling. The generosity of poor people isn’t… Read More ›
Divine Gift of Reason
The animal which we call man, endowed with foresight and quick intelligence, complex, keen, possessing memory, full of reason and prudence, has been given a certain distinguished status by the Supreme God who created him; for he is the only one among so many different kinds and varieties of living beings who has a share… Read More ›