Saint Francis Dixit

“Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the imposible.”

Saint Francis of Assisi

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FAITHFULNESS

IMMODESTY SHOULD NOT ONLY CONCERN ADULTS BUT ALSO CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS

"The good of our soul is more important than that of our body; and we have to prefer the spiritual welfare of our neighbor to our bodily comforts. . . If a certain kind of dress constitutes a grave and proximate occasion of sin, and endangers the salvation of your soul and others, it is your duty to give it up... O Christian mothers, if you knew what a future of anxieties and perils, of ill-guarded shame you prepare for your sons and daughters, imprudently getting them accustomed to live scantily dressed and making them lose the sense of modesty, you would be ashamed of yourselves and you would dread the harm you are making of yourselves, the harm which you are causing these children, whom Heaven has entrusted to you to be brought up as Christians."

Pius XII to Catholic Young Women's Groups of Italy.

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Chesterton Dixit

"Right is right even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong about it."

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It Is Good to Remember This and Have it Always Present

Taken from the Catechism of Saint Pius X: The Way to Assist at Mass

15 Q. What is required in order to assist at Holy Mass well and profitably? 

A. To assist at Holy Mass well and profitably two things are necessary: (1) Modesty of person and (2) Devotion of heart. 

16 Q. In what does modesty of person consist? 

A. Modesty of person consists especially in being modestly dressed, in observing silence and recollection and, as far as possible, in remaining kneeling, except during the time of the two Gospels which are heard standing. 

17 Q. In hearing Holy Mass which is the best way to practice true devotion? 

A. In hearing Holy Mass the best way to practice true devotion is the following: 

(1) From the very beginning to unite our intention with that of the priest, offering the Holy Sacrifice to God for the ends for which it was instituted. 

(2) To accompany the priest in each prayer and action of the Sacrifice. 

(3) To meditate on the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ and to heartily detest our sins, which have been the cause of them. 

(4) To go to Communion, or at least to make a spiritual Communion while the priest communicates. 

18 Q. What is spiritual Communion? 

A. Spiritual Communion is a great desire to be united sacramentally with Jesus Christ. saying, for example: "My Lord Jesus Christ, I desire with my whole heart to be united with Thee now and forever;" and then make the same acts that are to be made before and after sacramental Communion. 

19 Q. Does the recitation of the Rosary or other prayers during Mass prevent us from hearing it with profit? 

A. The recitation of the Rosary and other prayers during Mass does not prevent us from hearing it with profit, provided we try as far as possible to ollow the parts of the Holy Sacrifice. 

20 Q. Is it advisable to pray for others while assisting at Mass? 

A. Yes it is advisable to pray for others while assisting at Mass; nay more, the time of Holy Mass is the most suitable of all times to pray for the living and the dead. 

21 Q. What should we do after Mass? 

A. After Mass we should give God thanks for having allowed us to assist at this great Sacrifice, and we should ask pardon for all the faults we may have committed while assisting at it.

A General Rule for Distinguishing the Truth of the Catholic Faith from the Falsehood of Heretical Pravity

I have often then inquired earnestly and attentively of very many men eminent for sanctity and learning, how and by what sure and so to speak universal rule I may be able to distinguish the truth of Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical pravity; and I have always, and in almost every instance, received an answer to this effect: That whether I or any one else should wish to detect the frauds and avoid the snares of heretics as they rise, and to continue sound and complete in the Catholic faith, we must, the Lord helping, fortify our own belief in two ways; first, by the authority of the Divine Law, and then, by the Tradition of the Catholic Church.

Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation.

Moreover, in the Catholic Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense Catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we shall observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at the least of almost all priests and doctors.

EXAMPLES OF HOW TO APPLY THE RULE

What then will a Catholic Christian do, if a small portion of the Church have cut itself off from the communion of the universal faith?

-What, surely, but prefer the soundness of the whole body to the unsoundness of a pestilent and corrupt member.

What, if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of the Church, but the whole?

-Then it will be his care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.

But what, if in antiquity itself there be found error on the part of two or three men, or at any rate of a city or even of a province?

-Then it will be his care by all means, to prefer the decrees, if such there be, of an ancient General Council to the rashness and ignorance of a few.

But what, if some error should spring up on which no such decree is found to bear?

-Then he must collate and consult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in various times and places, yet continuing in the communion and faith of the one Catholic Church, stand forth acknowledged and approved authorities: and whatsoever he shall ascertain to have been held, written, taught, not by one or two of these only, but by all, equally, with one consent, openly, frequently, persistently, that he must understand that he himself also is to believe without any doubt or hesitation.

Saint Vincent of Lerins

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