Tuesday, December 31, 2019

HIS MERITS CAN CHANGE US FROM SINNERS INTO SAINTS


Let us consider, besides, that infants also gain our affections because we consider them innocent: but all other infants are born with the infection oforiginal sin; Jesus was born an infant, but He was born holy innocent, unpolluted. My beloved, says the holy  spouse, is all ruddy with love, and all white with innocence, without a spot of any sin; chosen out of thousands. In this Infant did the eternal Father find his delight, because, as St. Gregory says, "in him alone he found no fault." Let us miserable sinners comfort ourselves, because this divine Infant has come down from heaven to communicate his innocence to us by means of his Passion. His merits, if we only know how to apply them to ourselves, can change us from sinners into innocents and saints: in these merits let us place all our confidence; through them let us continually ask for graces from the eternal Father, and we shall obtain everything."

Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
Meditations for Advent and Christmas
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Sunday, December 29, 2019

OUR DAILY CROSS


“Almost all come to Me to relieve their cross; very few are those that approach Me to teach them how to carry it.”

Padre Pio

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Thursday, December 26, 2019

DON’T BE FOOLED


Hell can't be made attractive, so the Devil makes attractive the road that leads there.

Saint Basil the Great

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Friday, December 20, 2019

TODAY, WHEN SO MANY PROPAGATE ERROR AND HERESIES, THERE ARE SOME WHO ADD A DROP OF WATER IN A CUP OF POISON


The worst kind of heretic is the one who, while teaching mostly true Catholic doctrine, adds a word of heresy, like a drop of poison in a cup of water.
Pope Leo XIII

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Wednesday, December 18, 2019

INFILTRATION IN THE CHURCH WAS DENOUNCED BY SAINT PIUS X MORE THAN A CENTURY AGO


It must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ's kingdom itself.

The partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear.

Though these men express astonishment themselves, no one can justly be surprised that We number such men among the enemies of the Church, if, leaving out of consideration the internal disposition of soul, of which God alone is the judge, he is acquainted with their tenets, their manner of speech, their conduct. 

Nor indeed will he err in accounting them the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For as We have said, they put their designs for her ruin into operation not from without but from within; hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain, the more intimate is their knowledge of her. 

Moreover they lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fires.

And having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to disseminate poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt.

 Further, none is more skilful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious arts; for they double the parts of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error.

And since audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance.

To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality.

Finally, and this almost destroys all hope of cure, their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.

Encyclical Letter 'Pascendi dominici gregis' of His Holiness Saint Pius X, September 8, 1907.

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Saturday, December 14, 2019

THE BEST KIND OF CHARITY


"Unquestionably, the pity which we show to the poor by relieving their needs is highly commended by God. But who will deny that a far higher place is held by that zeal and effort which applies itself to the work of instruction and persuasion, and thereby bestows on souls not the passing benefits of earth but the goods that last forever." 

Saint Pius X, Encyclical on the teaching of Christian doctrine, April 15, 1905

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Monday, December 9, 2019

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION


For the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord:

“We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”

Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment.

Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX solemnly defining the dogma of the Immaulate Conception, 8 December 1854.

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Sunday, December 8, 2019

The creation of the Angels


Both the existence and the creation of the Angels are dogmas of faith presenting one of the most inspiring and consoling aspects of our Religion. As the first creatures of this universe, the Angels were the first revelation of the Supreme Goodness of God and of His transcendent Beauty. Even though part of the universe, the Angels really constitute a world to themselves, the spirit world, so exalted and so different from our visible, material world.

It is an article of faith, firmly established in Scripture and Tradition, and clearly expressed in Christian Doctrine from the beginning, that this spirit world, our Angels, began with time and was created by God. This traditional belief of both the Old and the New Testament was given a more formal and solemn expression in the fourth Lateran Council in 1215: [God] "by his almighty power created together in the beginning of time both creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, namely the Angelic and the earthly, and afterwards the human, as it were an intermediate creature, composed of body and spirit." [D. 428. A similar definition was given in the Vatican Council in 1869, D. 1782, 1801.]

From this definition we learn that the Angelic spirits were created when time began and not from eternity. Like all other creatures they were produced by the almighty power of God, out of nothing. It would be heretical to affirm that the Angels are an emanation of the Divine substance. [Vatican Council [I], D. 1804] Spiritual substances do not divide or split or multiply in any form whatever, nor change one into another; their individual existence can only be explained by creation.

The creation of the Angels is implicitly affirmed in all those passages of Sacred Scripture in which it is stated that all things were made by God; explicitly and formally their creation is mentioned by Saint Paul in one of those incomplete enumerations of the Angelic orders: "In Him [the Son of God, the Logos] were all things created in Heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominations, or Principalities, or Powers: all things were created by Him and in Him." [Col. 1: 16]

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Thursday, December 5, 2019

JUST A PASSING VISITOR


A tourist visiting the Holy Father Pio was surprised to see that the room where he lived was very simple. There was only an old carpet and a kerosene lamp on it.

Tourist: - "Father, where is your furniture?" 
Father: - "Where is yours?" 
Tourist: - "Mine? But I'm just a visitor here." 
Father: - "Me too! I'm just a passing visitor in this world. My abode, God willing, will be in Heaven with Him."

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Tuesday, December 3, 2019

HOW PARENTS SIN IN REGARD TO THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN


“Parents sin if they don’t instruct their children in matters of faith. They should not imitate certain fathers and mothers who do not meet this duty moved by the desire to keep their children busy in other things. The consequence is that these poor children grow up without knowing how to make their confession, and are even ignorant of the principal articles of faith; they know not what is meant by the Trinity, by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, by mortal sin, judgment, hell, heaven, or eternity; and through their ignorance they are damned. But their parents will have to account to God for them.”



Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori



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Sunday, December 1, 2019

AVOID THIS TYPE OF PEOPLE


"Know also this, that, in the last days, shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked. Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness. Traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasures more than of God. Having an appearance indeed of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid."

Saint Paul, the Apostle 2 Tim 3: 1-5

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