Month: December 2023

I was listening to EWTN Radio yesterday and a young, 12 year old girl called in. She said she had suffered from depression and anxiety for years. There is much to say regarding suffering, depression and anxiety but I thought this talk from Friar Anthony was good to keep in mind whenever the attacks are strong. Just grip tight to the Lord.

I remember reading that Saint Teresa of Calcutta said that anytime she had doubts or faced spiritual dryness she would “cling to Christ”. Friar Anthony echoes this. All words below are his (my bold):

Finally the habit of prayer – the source of divine help in every kind of assault. Well when you’re being assaulted in grave temptation obviously it doesn’t feel like prayer is helpful but that’s the whole point. your prayer becomes very very simple at that point it’s just constantly trying to look to God it’s not like you have to be able to be absorbed and not have any thoughts in your head and be sitting there completely wrapped in God. No, you got all these Temptations going on okay when you’re in the middle of a hurricane your prayer is very very simple:

“Save me Lord.” I mean you’re not trying to like act like you’re not in a hurricane and pretend that everything’s calm and peaceful around you and you’re just offering your heart up to God and there’s no distractions no. There’s like, you know, buses flying at you and all kinds of stuff so the point of it is is to have a very simple prayer because it’s a very effective prayer. When you’re temptations are being

inundated with thoughts or those images are flying into your head you just kind of grip something that is God and just keep crying out the same thing because as St (Alfonso) says “if you’re praying you’re not sinning”. That’s the thing to remember if you’re praying you’re not sinning so the simple prayer would just be The Hail Mary or mother help me or dear Lord whatever it is but as long as you’re raising your heart and your mind to God in all of its simplicity then there you are – you’re praying and you’re not going to be sinning. I don’t care how filthy those thoughts are coming into your head if you don’t want that thought you don’t want to engage that thought and you keep praying you are not sinning.

I don’t care what effect it has on you. Thought comes in it affects you even physically somehow, but you’re not engaging that and you’re still praying but it’s so it’s such an onslaught, but you keep praying and you’re not thinking about it – you’re not sinning you’re not sinning. You just have to remember that – you’re not sinning. Don’t let him think he’s beaten you all the time he’s not. You can be at complete peace. The body’s the body, the soul makes the choice, the body doesn’t make the choice.

So if your soul stays on target of gripping on to God and you keep praying no matter what that effect is having on you you just keep praying keep your mind up you stay off of it there you go, you did not sin. He who prays doesn’t sin St Alfons is very clear about it. But you can’t be

engaging in it and trying to pray at the same time that’s blasphemy. Do you understand the difference? Don’t trick yourself with stupid stuff you have to understand the very simple principle is that you don’t consent in any way to these things but we can become such a target from the devil that we can be flooded with so much impurity into our mind’s eye you have no idea where it even came from and for anyone who’s engaged in that stuff for extended period of time which so many young people have today there’s a lot of stuff there that can be just brought back out it’s like vomit coming back up and you see like the little nuggets of the little hot dogs but because you’re hungry you might want to eat the little hot dog nuggets that are in the vomit and things like that well no it’s still just vomit coming up so you have to just avoid the vomit. But it’s not your fault that the whatever reflex stuff happens.

We have a duty – we are obligated – we must – stand up for what is right, says Pope Leo XIII. The below is copied directly from https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/n167_doctrine_2.htm:

Pope Leo XIII exhorted us in Sapientiae Christinae of January 10, 1890, to defend and proclaim the truth of the Catholic Faith at all times without fail. To safeguard the integrity of the Faith, he insists, is a duty that belongs to each one of the faithful and not just those with power of rule. Further, one who keeps silence in face of error is repulsive to God and unworthy of eternal salvation. These are important lessons for the progressivist clergy and laymen in our days.

Pope Leo XIII

But in the same matter, touching Christian Faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance necessary at all times in the interest of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days.

Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion it is, as we have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping.

But when necessity compels, not only those who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of the Faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains, each one is under obligation to show forth his faith either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.

To recoil before an enemy or to keep silence when from all sides such clamor is raised against truth, belongs to a man either devoid of character or one who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is shameful and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of Faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good.

Moreover, lack of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions. And, by always exerting themselves more strenuously, they might count upon being successful.

“Chastity makes us like the angels.”
There is so much beauty in this talk by Friar Anthony on Christian Purity (embedded below) that there is no way for me to sum it up. This is not a transcription of his talk, just my notes from it. All bold is mine, all words below are Friar Anthony’s.

(Overcoming the temptations) The gift is so much sweeter afterwards. The happiness of a man in Heaven because (he) fought through the temptations of the flesh and the concupiscence of the world, that means the desire for pleasure – its all around us, because we’ve had to fight through this, they say that it makes us greater than the angels. It’s in this where we become greater than the angels. It’s not because we’re smarter than them, because the dignity of a man, a man has to fight through all the barrage that he feels in his flesh, that he sees with his eyes, that he hears with his ears, that his flesh longs to touch, all these things he has to fight through so that he can actually arrive at that purity, so he can maintain that purity, so he never loses that purity. And if he loses it, to gain it back through greater violence like St. Mary Magdalene had to do. This is what makes us greater than the angels – it’s the struggle, to stay, remain and arrive in Heaven, in purity.

The angels take great delight being around men that are pure.

Chastity means violence to the flesh. Your flesh desires something and you say no to it, that’s a violence. You have to suffer something to say I’m not going to do that, I’m not going to have this, I’m not going to touch that, I’m not going to say this, I’m not going to listen to that, there’s a violence that happens in that.

If you have a friend that starts using bad language, there’s a violence in standing up for your faith and telling them I’m not going to listen to this.

St. Paul says we carry it (our purity) in earthen vessels. It is delicate. If you slip, its gone. It is the same thing with our purity, with our chastity. We have to very delicately take care of it with all zealousness so that we see it through to the end.

Someone that has a pure soul – they’re not speaking about foul things, they’re not thinking about foul things, they’re not doing foul things, they’re not desiring foul things. Someone like this lives like a little child in the presence of God and as they grow in that purity they grow upwards before God and they walk before the face of God.

In Easter time they put all the beautiful lilies in the church, and they smell so good after a long Lent.

The saints talk about the odor of the soul. St. Pio could smell the odor of the soul. And the soul doesn’t smell good because of impurity. Our Lady of Fatima said it is impurity that sends the most souls to hell.

But purity causes the greatest fragrance in the soul. St. Pio could smell the sin on people, and he smelled the putrid disgust in them.

One time a guy smelled St. Pio and he thought, this friar, he’s wearing perfume. St. Pio didn’t wear perfume and so St. Pio’s soul would emanate a beautiful aroma and that’s what they smelled.

Our Lord had a great love for those who were chaste. He made His mother the Immaculate Virgin. St. Joseph had an angelic type of purity. St. John the Baptist was preserved in his mother’s womb. His beloved disciple was St. John. All of these were lilies about Him, that He placed about Himself. Our Lord likes to be in the presence of the pure.

So chastity is a penance, a lily among thorns.

Self discipline – we have to be disciplined on our time because we know if we don’t take care of our time well, if we have lots of free time just sitting around we can become prone to vice.

Self denial – we may want to eat more than we should, or do things we shouldn’t do, or think about something we shouldn’t think about. We have to mortify this. We have to have self denial, tell yourself, I will not do that because those are the things that will make me slow and dumb like everybody else who is on the road to hell instead of the road to Heaven. We seek purity, the upright before God. So that we can have a mind that works clearly, a heart that loves purity.

Self restraint – no more pieces of pizza.

Mortification

Watchfullness – keeping a close eye. You have to be watchful because it only takes an instant to lose purity.

Segregation – just stay away from certain people. Stay away from certain people because they’re not going to lead us to Heaven.

Sacrifice – these are sacrifices, because sometimes we like to be around those types of people. But Heaven is worth it and so we make these choices.

Conformity to God’s will. We conform ourselves to the will of God.

We beg for fortitude and courage so we can do this kind of stuff.

So purity of heart gives us health of our soul, it gives us health of our mind. It makes things clear, it makes us long to be around other people who are pure.

We want to exist as a mountain that is untouched it’s what we want. And it’s sin that ruins it. Creates the avalanche in our life to start tending downward pulling us ever downward and then life becomes difficult because once we enter into these unchaste and impure things, once we allow this room to – to defile our beautiful little souls, once that starts to happen things get hard. It’s harder to make decisions, it’s harder to do what’s right, it’s harder to stay on the right course. Things get more difficult but as long as we fight and we do that penance and we stay pure and we do that struggling and that wrestling so that we’re equal to the Angels, when we do that we get stronger and we get clear in our mind and we’re able to come to things like, hopefully to understand the beauty of what St. John said and to penetrate in truth.

In the case that we find that maybe there has been an offense against our purity, there has been an offense against our chastity in some capacity, we know from St. Mary Magdalene we can always repent. We can repent and through the deepness of love and the penance that Mary Magdalene did she was reputed at the time of her death as having a virginal soul, which it was at a great cost.

Modern life wants you to ‘hustle’ all the time. You have a side hustle, right? That’s the hustle you do after you’re done with your main hustle. Success in america is determined by how much money you make whilst hustling. But not for us. Throw all that out of the window, and do one of these:

Go on a walk with your family and pray the Rosary.

Sit and think of the majesty of God.

Follow your kids around and be a kid with them. Let their imagination be the guide.

Turn on the fireplace, get cozy and read a book.

Microwave popcorn, turn on a movie.

Go to bed early, wake up early when it’s still dark outside and pray.

Put your favorite meal in the oven.

Write a poem.

Sing a song, play the guitar, turn on your favorite music.

Invite someone to go to Mass with you.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. in her book A Right to Be Merry said: “When St. Clare sent her Sisters out of the monastery for any reason, she would remind them to praise God for every flowering tree they saw, to exult in every little blade of grass.” So do that. Exult every little blade of grass. Praise every flowering tree.

Call friends and family you don’t often talk to. Wish them a Merry Christmas. If you don’t talk to them during the holidays you probably won’t the rest of the year.

Just a couple ideas…

In the eyes of God there is no ‘better’ way of making a living – if you are doing it for Him.

Let’s say that you’re a housekeeper cleaning the rooms of a low-rent motel. It’s not glamorous or easy. But you do good work. You’re working there to feed your family, in accordance with your state in life. Or you’re a nurse changing sheets at the nursing home. You’re doing work equivalent to or probably better than the greatest tycoon.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., in her book A Right to Be Merry, says of the old sister who can only clumsily sew from her infirmary bed:
“Sister would be propped up in bed, mending someone’s undergarments with great clumsy patches and generous stitches. But this was all the work she could do now. And so it must be shown to Mother Abbess. Foolish? Oh, no! The young nun writing books or painting canvases in oils may perhaps be doing something far less important in God’s eyes than is the old child in the infirmary patching under-tunics.”

She speaks of the obedience which is key:

“This is another of the marvels of living in obedience. No one is ever doing anything more important than you are, if you are obeying. A broom, a pen, a needle are all the same to God. The obedience of the hand that plies them and the love in the heart of the nun who holds them are what make an eternal difference to God, to the nuns, and to all the world.”

She writes about the joy of working on that which you’re supposed to be working on:
“Contemplative nuns freely elect to obey a monastic Rule inspired by God. The girl (ed: out in the world) pounding her typewriter may be pounding for nothing but dollars’ sake and wishing she could stop. The Poor Clare sweeping the monastery cloisters is doing it for God’s sake and prefers sweeping, at that particular hour, to any other occupation in the world.”

So don’t worry about moving up the ladder, or getting a great job or position at a prestigious company. Follow the example of the Poor Clare’s, who do what they are supposed to do, do it with obedience and joy, and do it as though it is the greatest job in the world – because it is.

Preparing the way for Christ – Advent.

“You will face that moment. But will it find you prepared already in its advent? That’s the thing to think about. We are in the advent of Christ’s coming. And I don’t mean Christmas, but your end. Our preparation for Christmas is a reminder to prepare for our end, our meeting Christ. Whether He comes with a trumpet blast or He comes with our death, we have to prepare. This is the Church saying, prepare. Repent. Live the gospel which means to be crucified with Christ. See the kingdom in God’s Heavenly glory. This is the advent because you don’t know when the end comes, but we should be prepared. God love you.” Friar Anthony

Notes from Friar Anthony’s talk: Death in Christ, our Preparation for Christmas – Advent Retreat Part 1.

Life is so much about getting rid of our attachments to this world, because we are not of this world. This life is but a fleeting moment. I’ve read that this life is like a bird which flies in one window of a castle and right out another. The time the bird spends in the castle – but a fleeting moment – represents our life here on earth. So we must get rid of our attachments now. And Advent is a time to do it, because Christ is coming.

All words below are notes taken from Friar Anthony’s talk. They are not comprehensive but just my own highlights. Bold is mine.


“We’re attracted to the sentimentality of Christmas.

Sentimentality robs our attention. The lower faculties of our soul take our eyes off of what we’re supposed to be paying attention to. The goal and object of our life – God. And (the) obtaining God according to His desire and will for us.

It’s not about being fed, see that’s putting us in the center again. It’s all about us. Mass is about us going to the table.

The reality of your Christmas is not like it is on the movies or how it is in the song.

“Behold, I come quickly.”

“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world the charity (love) of the Father is not in him.”

The essence of sin is disordered love.

When men take their eyes off what they ought to be having their eyes on, that is, God, (He should be their only love), willing to die and sacrifice and suffer every trial and torment for the love of Him, who deserves never to be offended by us. When we turn our eyes away from Him, and fix them on to something else that might bring us some kind of happiness, and things do, we see it as a good thing and that’s why we do it. If you saw it as the monstrous blasphemy that it is or how horrendous and disgusting the thing is before God, of course you would never do that thing that you shouldn’t do.

So if a man falls in love with another woman – or thinks he’s in love with another woman because it would essentially be disordered love, and that is sin.

It is difficult to be in the world. House, cars, etc. But when the attachments start coming in because we’re sensual people. When they start coming in and we’re not focused on our goal, little by little, your prayer life starts to go down, worldly secular lifestyles start to come into the house, before you know it you really don’t pray much, then you find yourself compromising. “My daughter wants to get married outside of the Church to a man who is not even Catholic, they’re living together.”

God knows these things are hard. These are real choices that have to be made everyday. But that’s death. That’s the hard part. See that fear, that anxiety that comes from death? It’s not only in the moment when we stop breathing, it’s in those choices that we have to make everyday, to keep following the objective, which is, the charity of the Father, the love of God.

Look at the way we live our Christian faith. We don’t really strive for it. We live out there and do what they do. We act like they act. They don’t know we’re Christians by our charity anymore. They can’t see it. They hear us complain like everybody else.

We have to examine ourselves, how much effort we’re really putting into it. That’s meditation. We think about the saints, we look at the life that our Lord lived and we remember that He tells us to imitate Him, and to follow Him and to pick up His cross and to die with Him. So we have to reflect in meditation and say “Where am I at?” “Why do I get so upset when this happens or that happens?”. Why am I so worried about this, why am I so worried about that? The saints lived a heroic way. Why is it so hard for me to live in a heroic way, when it just seemed so effortless for them to die like a dog in a hut and then just go straight to Heaven? Why was it so easy for them to do that but yet I’m so worried about even being brought to the hut?

Living completely for God. Little by little chiseling away those things that you’re attached too. It’s a life of mortification and love for God.

The one in 10,000 is all those obstacles, all those temptations, all those things you have to face, those are the odds. And if you heroically face it you’re going to go to Heaven.

Other people force things on us, like asking us to watch their marriage outside of the Church. As St. Paul says, “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. A little leaven corrupteth the whole lump.”

“Or what part your attachments to eternity, your sins with perfection.”

It’s all about eternity.

“And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God; as God saith: I will dwell in them, and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Wherefore, Go out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing: 18 And I will receive you; and I will be a Father to you; and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

See the benefit of heroically putting yourself against the 10,000, that is, all the temptations, the difficulties, the misunderstandings? It’s worth it.

This is a passing world. If we be dead, then what are these things to us but a false attachment to what we want the reality to be? The reality is, this is all passing away. Either you’re going to go to Heaven or hell.

O my soul, keep watch and reflect upon the awesome day, prepare your oil and keep your lamp burning bright for you do not know when you will hear the cry, “Behold, your bridegroom is come. Be watchful then my soul. Lest you fall into a deep slumber and the door be closed to you. But be resolved and watchful so that you may go out in all brightness to meet Christ our God. That He may admit you to the bridal chamber of His Divine Glory. Be resolved and watch. For Christ says to us, “Behold, I come quickly.”

You will face that moment. But will it find you prepared already in its advent? That’s the thing to think about. We are in the advent of Christ’s coming. And I don’t mean Christmas, but your end. Our preparation for Christmas is a reminder to prepare for our end, our meeting Christ. Whether He comes with a trumpet blast or He comes with our death, we have to prepare. This is the Church saying, prepare. Repent. Live the gospel which means to be crucified with Christ. See the kingdom in God’s Heavenly glory. This is the advent because you don’t know when the end comes, but we should be prepared. God love you.“

So you want to be joyful…

The world tells us that in order to be happy we need to make lots of money, be retired, travel the world, eat great food and drink expensive wine, wear luxurious clothes and drive fancy cars.

But look at these cloistered nuns. They literally own nothing. They have no money, no property. They never travel, they never even leave the convent. They eat minimally, sleep in small cots. They’re beggars. Yet they are the most joyful people I’ve ever seen.

Someone has been lying to us. The powers that be say we need a big house, go to the best schools, invest wisely, plan for retirement. They’re wrong. All you have to do is follow the King, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Forget about the world, live for God and never take our eyes off of Him.

It’s good to be reminded.

As my wife and I run our kids to soccer practice, make dinner, see that they do their homework, it is good to be reminded of our true purpose in raising them. The priest in the video below says that virtually all parents want their kids to be happy, and that is a good thing. “All parents should want their children to be happy. But we have to question, what kind of happiness are they talking about? Happiness in this life or the next?”

He says, “Our primary role is to help get our kids and spouse into Heaven.“

He talks about those good parents who do much right, “yet they fail to truly catechize their children. Parents who receive the sacraments, baptism, penance, communion, confirmation, maybe they’re even married in the Church, and yet they fail to truly catechize their children about the four last things, about the things that never end. And so their children grow up, thinking little about God and loving Him. They spend all their time in life concerned with sports, school, going to the best colleges, making a lot of money, worried about their inheritance, degrees, a nice house, and giving little to no thought about what’s really at stake. Eternal life or eternal damnation. Parents must understand their job is not only to provide temporally for their children, but above all, spiritually.”

On St. Rita’s feast day, “Let the rose remind you of the precious gift of your family and let the lesson of St. Rita, your primary focus is Heaven for those who you love. St. Rita knew that if her family made it to Heaven they would never have to say goodbye again.”

“Far more than any passing thing of this world, in the Heavenly reunion, they would be truly happy.”

Say a Hail Mary for this beautiful priest, who used the life of St. Rita as an example for us on how to live.

St. Rita, Pray for Us!