Catholic Thought discussion

I thought this would be a great idea for a Catholic Chat folder, a place where we can post great quotes pertaining to our faith. I'll start with one in the next comment box.

Because [Christ] is born in a cave, all who wish to see him must bend, must stoop, and the stoop is the mark of humility. The proud refuse to stoop. Therefore they miss divinity. Those, however, who are willing to risk bending their egos to go into that cave, find that they are not in a cave at all; but they are in a universe where sits a babe on his mother’s lap, the babe who made the world.

—Archbishop Fulton Sheen
from Through the Year with Fulton Sheen

When we pray for others, our intention must always be for whatever is really best for them, not what we think is good for them, or even what they might fancy they want.... Leave it to God to decide what is best.

—Fr. Jerome Bertram
from Jesus, Teach Us to Pray

The formula "the Church is the Body of Christ" thus states that the Eucharist, in which the Lord gives us his body and makes us one body, forever remains the place where the Church is generated, where the Lord himself never ceases to found her anew; in the Eucharist the Church is most compactly herself - in all places, yet only one, just as he is one only.

-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
from Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today

With all the problems going on in the Catholic world these past two weeks, St. Faustina says it well:

“In difficult moments I will fix my gaze upon the silent heart of Jesus, stretched upon the cross, and from the exploding flames of His merciful Heart, will flow down upon me power and strength to keep fighting.”

– St. Faustina

Another great idea Manny, thanks... “A people “liberated” from God instantly becomes a people enslaved by the dictatorship and folly of materialism and sin, and thus most truly inhuman.” Benedict XVI

Susan wrote: "Another great idea Manny, thanks... “A people “liberated” from God instantly becomes a people enslaved by the dictatorship and folly of materialism and sin, and thus most truly inhuman.” Benedict XVI"

Ah, Pope Benedict XVI never fails. His way of expressing things have few equals.

"When you read the Old Testament on its own terms, you really get a sense of God’s love. But when you read it in light of the New Testament, you get a much deeper sense of how great that love is, and how much more the fulfillment of God’s promises exceeds that of the Israelites expectations. A fulfillment to be sure, but one that surpasses the wildest dreams, hopes, and prayers of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

- Dr. Scott Hahn, from What Every Catholic Needs to Know about the Bible

“And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way.”
— Matthew 2:12

“The three kings went home by a different route. Of course they did, for no one comes to Christ and goes back the same way he came.”
— the beautiful thought of Fulton Sheen

Frances wrote: "“The three kings went home by a different route. Of course they did, for no one comes to Christ and goes back the same way he came.”
— the beautiful thought of Fulton Sheen"

I had heard Bishop Barron express it this way, which makes me think he may have incorporated it from Sheen, or perhaps this insight goes back even further.

It’s a beautiful perspective and I can believe that many others have thought of it, too.

"It is better to cry than be angry because anger hurts others while tears silently flows down the soul and cleanses the heart''.

This is probably my favorite quote from St. John Paul II. With all the bitterness, rage, and division in the world, I think it really is better to cry than to be angry.

Joaquin wrote: ""It is better to cry than be angry because anger hurts others while tears silently flows down the soul and cleanses the heart''.

This is probably my favorite quote from St. John Paul II. With al..."

That is excellent! Normally my Italian temper leads me to anger, but I am getting better at it. Thanks Joaquin.

“For me, prayer is holding a constant openness in my heart that God exists.”

— Mother Dolores Hart

“It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you can live as you wish.”
—. St. John Paul II

I thought this was so good it was worth sharing:

"God is a gentleman and will not force heaven on anyone who says, ‘No thank you’. Implied in the encouraging words ‘seek and you shall find’ is a dire warning: If you do not seek, you will not find. Earth is automatic, but heaven is freely chosen and therefore can be freely refused."
—Peter Kreeft
from Heaven, the Heart's Deepest Longing

“Gentlemen, I am a Catholic. As far as possible, I go to Mass every day. This [taking a rosary from his pocket] is a rosary. As far as possible, I kneel down and tell these beads every day. If you reject me on account of my religion, I shall thank God that He has spared me the indignity of being your representative.”

– Hilaire Belloc, when running for Parliament, in response to his opponent who was telling people not to vote for "a Frenchman and a Catholic."

I came across this from Steven Ray.

"What is at the beginning and end of Jesus' ministry is water. At the very beginning we see the six stone jars at the wedding of Cana. Why six jars? Because six is the symbol for imperfection, seven is the symbol of perfection. There are seven Sacraments because that's the perfect number. The number of fullness, the number of God."
—STEVE RAY
from The Seven Sacraments: Explaining and Defending God's Channels of Grace

I never before paid attention to the number of jars. There is something in what he says. God created the world in six days and on the seventh rested.

"He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely."
— St. Catherine of Siena

I came across this quote and instantly thought of our book club.

"Certainly a life lived by faith resembles more an expedition up a mountain than a quiet evening spent reading in front of the fire; but anyone who embarks upon this expedition knows and experiences more and more that the adventure to which it invites us is worthwhile."
—Joseph Ratzinger
from Faith and the Future

Our reading is part of the expedition up a mountain! So much of Catholicism requires reading if you want to get to the heart of it.

Very nice! He was born in Marktl am Inn, a place I have yet to visit, right at the foot of the Alps.
https://www.turismo.it/typo3temp/pics...

I don't know how much hiking he did growing up ...though as a German you get that with your mother's milk as we say... When I imagine going up a mountain my mind sets the scenery up very much like it.

I don't know if this is a great Catholic quote, but it's a good one that came across my daily email from Daily Wisdom sponsored by Ignatius Press.

"God gathers up our despair, our wretchedness and fear, and works for good (Rom 8:28). He is like a father picking up the pieces of shattered crockery that a child has hurled onto the kitchen floor, and crafting them into something else, maybe something even better."
— Sally Read
from Annunciation: A Call to Faith in a Broken World

Sally Read is a poet from England who went from being an atheist to converting to Catholicism. I was hoping to squeeze in one of her books one day.

A beautiful quote, Manny. I'm reminded of a Japanese custom of mending broken pottery by filling in the cracks with gold. I've seen some of these lovely rescues in museums.

Madeleine wrote: "A beautiful quote, Manny. I'm reminded of a Japanese custom of mending broken pottery by filling in the cracks with gold. I've seen some of these lovely rescues in museums."

Is that true though? They filled cracks of pottery with gold?

Yes, I've heard this from more than one source. Saw one in a museum in Japan (can't remember which one) and if memory serves me (which it doesn't always), I believe there was at least one in the exhibition of modern Japanese pottery with a story about the practice. I doubt it's a common thing, though, because the price of gold.....

The exibition, I meant to say, was one in Dallas we took our grandson Alan to this past summer when he was here for a visit. His Dad lives in Tokyo with his second Japanese wife and their two girls. Our grandson is studying Asian studies at Berkeley. His mother is also Japanese.

Thanks. They must really value that pottery. Side question Madeleine. Are they practicing Catholics? Ever since I read the novel Silence I've been fascinated with Catholicism in Japan.

Manny asks, "Are they practicing Catholics?" Sadly, no. Our grandson, though, has been exploring Catholicism and Christianity in general, and made friends with one of the "missionaries" in the Newman Club there. He read Silence in one of his classes. I sent him the book. I pray with St. Monica every day that my kids will be drawn back to the Church and the grands with them. On one of my visits to Japan, I met a school administrator whose daughter ended up at the University of Dallas, and was converted there, but I have since lost touch with her. She went back to Japan after graduation. For awhile we sponsored a Japanese family--he was a doctor doing research at Parkland Hospital here, she had been a teacher at the same school. Their third child was born here. She attended a Christian Bible study while they were here, but I don't think they converted. I regret that during my two visits I did not insist that my son take me to Mass--there is a Cathedral in Tokyo. If I ever have a chance to go back, though....

Bear up, and don't give way to angry grief;
Nothing will come of sorrowing for your son,
Nor will you raise him up before you die.

Homer, The Iliad, 24.549-51

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
It was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

from "Seven Stanzas at Easter"
John Updike

That is excellent Frances. Thank you.

I believe, Frances, that's what Bishop Barron was getting at in his Good Friday homily.

This poem by St. Melito of Sardis was published in the April 2020 edition of Magnificat. It's absolutely beautiful. St. Melito of Sardis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melito_... was a second century bishop in what is now Turkey. He apparently was a very learned man and a great apologist of Christianity. I don't know if this piece was intended to be a poem or was shaped into found poetry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_p... by arranging the lines by subsequent editors. It really works well as a poem.

This Is the Pascha of Our Salvation
by St. Melito of Sardis

This is the Pascha of our salvation:
this is the one who in many people endured many things.
This is the one who is murdered in Abel,
tied up in Isaac,
exiled in Jacob,
sold in Joseph,
exposed in Moses,
slaughtered in the lamb,
hunted down in David,
dishonored in the prophets.

This is the one made flesh in a Virgin,
who was hanged on a tree,
who was buried in the earth,
who was raised from the dead,
who was exalted to the heights of heaven.

This is the lamb slain,
this is the speechless lamb,
this is the one born of Mary the fair ewe,
this is the one taken from the flock,
and led to slaughter.
Who was sacrificed in the evening,
and buried at night;
who was not broken on the tree,
who was not undone in the earth,
who rose from the dead and resurrected humankind
from the grave below.

I love the transition to the negative ("not broken," "not undone") victory toward the end of the last stanza. It emphasizes that all those efforts to defeat Christ were not successful.

Thank you so much, Manny.

In addition to its beauty, what struck me about this piece is how consistent Catholicism’s reflections on Jesus of Nazareth have been for over two thousand years.

Frances wrote: "Thank you so much, Manny.

In addition to its beauty, what struck me about this piece is how consistent Catholicism’s reflections on Jesus of Nazareth have been for over two thousand years."

Yes!

I had not heard of this saint. Will look him up and see what else he wrote. Definitely that piece is a poem. We have lost so much of the early Church writings. Diocletian alone burned much of those writings, some of which may have come from the apostles and their contemporaries, and who knows what may have been in the great lost library of Alexandria? Maybe those libraries await us in heaven?

This struck me as very insightful when I came across it, especially since my wedding anniversary will be coming up.

"Man is willed by the Creator as a relational being, as someone who is not sufficient unto himself but, rather, needs relationship, who is supposed to live with another and for another. Only in this relatedness to the other and for the other can he fulfill God’s will."
— Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI)
from Signs of New Life

Manny wrote: "This struck me as very insightful when I came across it, especially since my wedding anniversary will be coming up.

"Man is willed by the Creator as a relational being, as someone who is not suff..."

Happy Anniversary!

Susan wrote: "Manny wrote: "This struck me as very insightful when I came across it, especially since my wedding anniversary will be coming up.

"Man is willed by the Creator as a relational being, as someone w..."

Thank you Susan. It's still a couple of weeks away. But it's in June. :)

I was just reading the Mass readings from Trinity Sunday last week in Magnificat. The meditation was particularly penetrating, taken from the writings of St. Hildegard of Bingen.

Understanding The Trinity by St. Hildegard of Bingen

The creator and Lord of all so loved his people that for their salvation he sent his Son, the Prince and Savior of the faithful, who washed and dried our wounds. And he exuded the sweetest balm, from which flow all good things for salvation…For the Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and these three Persons are indivisible in the Unity of the Divinity…

As the flame of a fire has three qualities, so there is one God in three Persons. How? A flame is made up of brilliant light and red power and fiery heat. It has a brilliant light that it may shine, and red power that it may endure, and fiery heat that it may burn. Therefore, by the brilliant light understand the Father, who with paternal love opens his brightness to his faithful; and by the red power, which is the flame that it may be strong, understand the Son, who took on body born from a Virgin, in which his divine wonders were shown; and by the fiery heat understand the Holy Spirit, who burns ardently in the minds of the faithful….Therefore as these three qualities are found in one flame, so three Persons must be understood in the Unity of the Divinity.

And as three causes for the production of words are seen, so the Trinity in the Unity of the Divinityis to be inferred. How? In a word there is sound, meaning, and breath. It has sound that it may be heard, meaning that it may be understood, and breath that it may be pronounced. In the sound, then, observe the Father, who manifests all things with ineffable power, in the meaning; the Son, who was miraculously; and in the breath, the Holy Spirit, who sweetly burns in them….Therefore, in these three Persons recognize you God, who created you in the power of his divinity and redeemed you.
--St. Hildegard of Bigen, from Scivias, translated by Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop [taken from Magnificat magazine, June 2020, p. 106-107]

I have said that truly understanding the Trinity is nearly impossible, probably the hardest thing in Christianity to accept. This is possibly the best explanation I have ever seen.

Wow. I have lately been meditating on the Trinity, and praying for more grace to pour into our families, because I feel that in our current spiritual warfare, we who have been raising families or trying to stay close to our grandchildren as they grow, have a huge target on our backs. There is so much division within our famIlies in these times. It occurred to me that before Jesus was born on earth, our original model for the family is the Trinity. Maybe we need to move closer to that model? I am still trying to articulate this idea in terms of Adam and Eve and original sin (and a book about Hildegarde, coincidentally, has lately moved up on my to-read list.) You have given me more to work with. Thank you. I think the Holy Spirit moved me to read this right now, today. I hope this family tree will ultimately bear some of the Spirit's fruits .

Crisis Magazine has a recent article on St. Hildegarde , "How We Might Heal Our Nation," by Anthony Esolen.

Sally Reed was an atheist poet and very much secular who had a conversion experience to the Catholic Church. I just love this quote:

I was almost breathless at the swooning simplicity and completeness of God’s mercy. The Catholic Church, which I had always seen as wrapped in barbed wire and brambles, was as yielding, accommodating and nonjudgmental as a mother. I use those words in the sense I understand them as a Catholic—I gave myself to God and he accommodated me entirely, my past, my weaknesses, my (doubtless) future sin. In return he wanted the whole of my self.
— Sally Read
from Night's Bright Darkness

She details her conversion experience in Night's Bright Darkness: A Modern Conversion Story. That book is on my reading list and would love to have it as a book club read.

How wonderful this is for our Fourth of July.

Let America love its stars and stripes! But let it also realize that America will conquer by other stars and other stripes than those on our flag, namely, by the stars and stripes of Christ, by Whose stars we are illumined and by Whose stripes we are healed. We pray, too, that His Mother, who stood at the foot of the Cross, may intercede to her Divine Son, that our world may receive Him before it lies in ruins. ‘If God is with us, who can be against us?’
— Venerable Fulton Sheen
from Life Is Worth Living

I hope everyone had a blessed holiday.

Amen! Beautiful and eloquent, as always. We had a quiet day. Until the evening. haha

God is truth, and whoever seeks the truth is seeking God, whether he knows it or not.
— St. Edith Stein

Manny wrote: "God is truth, and whoever seeks the truth is seeking God, whether he knows it or not.
— St. Edith Stein"

I love that. It reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite teachers in high school, who was a nun at the time, and which I passed on to my grandson after answering a number of questions he had about the faith: "If you honestly seek the truth, God will find you."

Great quote!

"The Pope is not a tyrant, an authoritarian know-it-all, or a magician who can concoct a new revelation to satisfy all parties. He is a father figure that Christ has established over the family that He has purchased with His own Blood."
— Dr. Scott Hahn
from Why Do We Have A Pope?

I got this from one of my email subscriptions for Catholic meditations, and given we are reading a biography of St. Catherine I thought it would nice to share.

"He will provide the way and the means, such as you could never have imagined. Leave it all to Him, let go of yourself, lose yourself on the Cross, and you will find yourself entirely."
— St. Catherine of Siena

I don't recognize this quote, but it definitely sounds like her. I would guess it came from one of her letters. When I did a search on the entire quote, it did bring me up to this site called The Catholic Storeroom and it's on page 7 of 11 pages of quotes from St. Catherine. I had not seen The Catholic Storeroom before. It however does not cite where the quote came from.
http://www.catholicstoreroom.com/cate...

This quote came into my inbox and thought it worth sharing.

Hope is a holy thing, and insofar as we allow it to diminish, it is in that measure less holy.
— Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C.
from Cause of Our Joy

As I thought about it, hope is actually a prayer if directed toward providence. It is one of the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Mother Mary Frances' insight is worth remembering.

By the way, I had to look up Mother Mary Frances's religious order. P.C.C. stands for Poor Clares Colettine, which is a stricter branch of the Poor Clares. I always thought the Poor Clares were one of the more ascetic of the religious orders. How much more could the Colettines be?