Friday, January 31, 2025
Thursday, January 30, 2025
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Saturday, January 25, 2025
A GREAT number of men live and die without reflecting at all upon the state of things in which they find themselves. They take things as they come, and follow their inclinations as far as they have the opportunity. They are guided mainly by pleasure and pain, not by reason, principle, or conscience; and they do not attempt to interpret this world, to determine what it means, or to reduce what they see and feel to system. But when persons, either from thoughtfulness of mind, or from intellectual activity, begin to contemplate the visible state of things into which they are born, then forthwith they find it a maze and a perplexity. It is a riddle which they cannot solve. It seems full of contradictions and without a drift. Why it is, and what it is to issue in, and how it is what it is, and how we come to be introduced into it, and what is our destiny, are all mysteries.
In this difficulty, some have formed one philosophy of life, and others another. Men have thought they had found the key, by means of which they might read what is so obscure. Ten thousand things come before us one after another in the course of life, and what are we to think of them? what colour are we to give them? Are we to look at all things in a gay and mirthful way? or in a melancholy way? in a desponding or a hopeful way? Are we to make light of life altogether, or to treat the whole subject seriously? Are we to make greatest things of little consequence, or least things of great consequence? Are we to keep in mind what is past and gone, or are we to look on to the future, or are we to be absorbed in what is present? How are we to look at things? this is the question which all persons of observation ask themselves, and answer each in his own way. They wish to think by rule; by something within them, which may harmonize and adjust what is without them. Such is the need felt by reflective minds. Now, let me ask, what is the real key, what is the Christian interpretation of this world? What is given us by revelation to estimate and measure this world by? The event of this season,—the Crucifixion of the Son of God.
It is the death of the Eternal Word of God made flesh, which is our great lesson how to think and how to speak of this world. His Cross has put its due value upon every thing which we see, upon all fortunes, all advantages, all ranks, all dignities, all pleasures; upon the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It has set a price upon the excitements, the rivalries, the hopes, the fears, the desires, the efforts, the triumphs of mortal man. It has given a meaning to the various, shifting course, the trials, the temptations, the sufferings, of his earthly state. It has brought together and made consistent all that seemed discordant and aimless. It has taught us how to live, how to use this world, what to expect, what to desire, what to hope. It is the tone into which all the strains of this world's music are ultimately to be resolved.
Look around, and see what the world presents of high and low. Go to the court of princes. See the treasure and skill of all nations brought together to honour a child of man. Observe the prostration of the many before the few. Consider the form and ceremonial, the pomp, the state, the circumstance; and the vainglory. Do you wish to know the worth of it all? look at the Cross of Christ...
-St John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Friday, January 3, 2025
There was a man who did not believe in God and was never shy to tell everybody about his attitude towards religion. His wife, on the contrary, believed in God and reared their children in the faith in spite of the rancid remarks of her husband.
One winter night, the wife and the children went to a village church, expecting to hear a sermon about the Nativity of Christ. The wife invited her husband to go to the church with them but he declined. “All that story is absurd.” – he said. – “Why would God need to humiliate himself and appear on earth as a man? It's ridiculous!”
His wife and children left, and he was alone. After a while, a strong wind started blowing and a snowstorm broke out. The man looked into the window but all he could see was endless snow. He sat comfortably in the chair and prepared to spend the rest of the evening in front of the fireplace. All of a sudden, he heard a loud clap: something hit his window. He came closer to the window but he was unable to see anything. When the blizzard somewhat faded, he went outdoors to see what had caused the loud noise. He saw a flock of wild geese in the field near his house. They were heading south but got caught up in the snowstorm and could not go any further. They lost their way and found themselves at his farm without food or shelter. They were flying low above the field, blinded by the snow. It must have been one of those geese that knocked into the man's window. He sympathized with the poor birds and decided to help them. He thought that the cowshed was the most suitable place for them. It was warm and safe, and they could easily spend the night in the cowshed and wait for the blizzard to stop. He went to the cowshed and opened its doors wide. He was standing there, waiting for the geese to walk into the cowshed.
However, the geese were flying around in circles and apparently didn't notice the open cowshed door or didn't understand what it was for. The man tried to catch their attention but he only scared the geese. The man went back home and returned with a loaf of bread. He scattered breadcrumbs along the road leading to the cowshed. The geese didn't fall for it, either.
The poor man was on the brink of despair. He sneaked up on the geese from behind and tried to drive them to the cowshed but the geese were even more terrified and started flying in all directions, except the direction of the cowshed. There was nothing that could make them go to the cowshed, where they could be warm and safe. “Why don't the geese follow me?” the man exclaimed. “Can't they see that it's the only place where they can survive during this blizzard?” He stood there thinking and realised that the geese simply didn't want to follow a human being. “If only I were a goose, I could have saved them,” the man said aloud. He came up with a brilliant idea. He went to his cowshed, took one of his geese and brought it into the field, far from the wild geese who were flying in circles. He released the goose. The goose flew through the flock of wild geese and returned to the cowshed. One by one, all other geese followed him.
The man stood there quietly, and all of a sudden he once again heard the words that he had uttered moments before, “If I were a goose, I could save them.” Then he recalled the words he had said to his wife earlier, “Why would God become like us? It's ridiculous!” Suddenly, it dawned on him that it was precisely what God had done. We used to be like those geese: blind, forlorn, and doomed. God sent his son to become like one of us, so that He could show us the way to salvation.
When the wind and the blinding snow started to calm down, his soul was also relieved and comforted by this wonderful thought. He suddenly realised why Jesus had come. Years of doubt and disbelief dissipated together with the snowstorm. He fell to his knees in the snow and said his first prayer ever, “Thank you Lord for coming to this world in human form to deliver me from the tempest!”
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
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The only place where modern man does not like to visit - is himself. He cannot hear the silence, he does not want to hear the voice of his c...
