|
"SUFFERED UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, WAS
CRUCIFIED, DEAD, AND BURIED"
[THE ROMAN CATECHISM, Article IV] The Passion
Fr. Leonard Goffine
INSTRUCTION CONCN THE ABUSE OF THE TONGUE
There is no member of the body more dangerous and pernicious than the tongue.
The tongue, says the Apostle St. James, is indeed a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold how small
a fire kindleth a great wood. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members,
which defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell. (James iii.
5. 6.)
The tongue no man can tame: an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison. By it we bless God and the Father; and by it
we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. (ibid.
iii. 8-10.)
There is no country, no city, scarcely a house, in which evil tongues do not cause
quarrel and strife, discord and enmity, jealousy and slander, seduction and debauchery. An impious tongue reviles
God and His saints, corrupts the divine word, causes heresy and schism, makes one intemperate, unchaste, envious,
and malevolent; in a word, it is according to the apostle a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue of the serpent
seduced our first parents, and brought misery and death into the world. (Gen. iii.)
The tongue of Judas betrayed Jesus. (Matt. xxvi. 49.) And what is the chief cause
of war among princes, revolts among nations, if it is not the tongue of ambitious, restless men, who seek their
fortune in war and revolution? How many, in fine, have plunged themselves into the greatest misery by means of
their unguarded tongue? How can we secure ourselves against this dangerous, domestic enemy?
Only by being slow to speak according to the advice of St. James, (i. 19.) to speak very few, sensible, and well-considered
words. In this way we will not offend, but will become perfect. (James iii. 2.) As this cannot happen without a
special grace of God, we must according to the advice of St. Augustine beg divine assistance, in the following
or similar words:
ASPIRATION. O Lord, set a watch before my mouth, and a door round about my lips, that I may not
fall and my tongue destroy me. (Ps. cxl. 3.)
The Reason For The Last Judgment
Fr. Francis Hunolt
“Give an account of thy stewardship.”St. Luke 16: 2.
Is it not an article of faith that every man shall be judged immediately after death, and sent into eternal glory
or eternal torments? Why, then, should men appear again to hear another sentence? Is not the first one good and
just enough,
as it is pronounced by an infallible Judge? Not a doubt of it!
What is, then, the object of a new examination and judgment? Will the last judgment
perhaps make some change in the
first? Not at all; the sentence once uttered shall not be recalled. On the last day each one shall hear the same
sentence that was pronounced on him at the particular judgment on the last day of his life, at the moment of death,
and no other.
If I am then condemned to hell, I shall certainly hear in the last judgment the
words: “Depart, accursed!” If I am then admitted to the kingdom of heaven, I shall certainly hear on the last day
the words: “Come, ye blessed!”
What is then the use of a general judgment. Several reasons are assigned for it,
from which I shall select two principal
ones, the first of which concerns God, and the second us mortals. The first I shall speak of to day
I. There must necessarily be a general judgment that God may publicly, in
the sight of the whole world,
make good His lessened honor.
II. There must necessarily be a general judgment, that God may publicly,
in the sight of the whole
world, justify His now incomprehensible providence.
Go to: http://www.alcazar.net/the_reason_for_the_last_judgment.pdf
The Church and the Catholic Faith
Kingdoms and empires have passed away; peoples once renowned for their history
and civilization have disappeared; time and again the nations, as though overwhelmed by the weight of years, have
fallen asunder; while the Church, indefectible in her essence, united by ties indissoluble with her heavenly Spouse,
is here today radiant with eternal youth, strong with the same primitive vigor with which she came from the Heart
of Christ dead upon the Cross. Men powerful in the world have risen up against her. They have disappeared, and
she remains. Philosophical systems without number, of every form and every kind, rose up against her, arrogantly
vaunting themselves her masters, as though they had at last destroyed the doctrine of the Church, refuted the dogmas
of her faith, proved the absurdity of her teachings. But those systems, one after another, have passed into books
of history, forgotten, bankrupt; while from the Rock of Peter the light of truth shines forth as brilliantly as
on the day when Jesus first kindled it on His appearance in the world, and fed it with His Divine words: "Heaven
and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass" (Matth. xxiv. 35).
--------------
We, strengthened by this faith, firmly established on this rock, realizing to the full all the heavy duties that
the Primacy imposes on Us - but also all the vigor that comes to Us from the Divine Will - calmly wait until all
the voices be scattered to the winds that now shout around Us proclaiming that the Church has gone beyond her time,
that her doctrines are passed away for ever, that the day is at hand when she will be condemned either to accept
the tenets of a godless science and civilization or to disappear from human society. Yet at the same time We cannot
but remind all, great and small, as Pope St. Gregory did, of the absolute necessity of having recourse to this
Church in order to have eternal salvation, to follow the right road of reason, to feed on the truth, to obtain
peace and even happiness in this life.
IUCUNDA SANE
Encyclical of POPE PIUS X on POPE GREGORY THE GREAT, March 12, 1904
|