Daily Archives: 14 January 2007

EXCERPT:
Without this bidirectional love of charity, our “prayer after communion” is just a still life rather than a living landscape. It is like a painting of a glorious bowl of fruit beginning to rot, rather than a vista in which life thrives. The Italian term for a still life is “natura morta”, a “dead nature”. It is a beautiful, but dead. All our prayers can have a lovely ring to them, but without charity and the proper sense of order the ring is that of the struck brass of St. Paul’s gong in 1 Cor 13: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Charity calls us to act outwardly as we ought according to our interior disposition and vocation. Continue reading →

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EXCERPT:
There is a great difference between the peace the world can offer and the peace that God offers. This world of temporal goods (and ills) is passing and fragile, always susceptible to loss. The goods of heaven are lasting, enduring, solid and dependable. We must never fall into the sin of putting any created thing or person in the place which only eternal God may properly have. No infinite and passing thing can provide lasting joy or eternal peace. Any created thing can be lost through theft, wear and time. The vicissitudes of this passing world roar over us like an inexorable wave and can sweep away any material thing to which we have clung, perhaps even in idolatry. Our wealth, our family, our health, our appearance and our reputation can be taken in the blink of an eye. God alone endures. Continue reading →

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