Archbishop Fulton Sheen: Victory over Vice

The following comes from Catholic Exchange:

Fulton Sheen’s Victory over Vice is a joy to read and a nightmare to review.Why? It is so quotable. The matter is made worse by the fact that it is a relatively short book. There is no padding, no excess, just thought provoking prose, judicious observation, and interesting anecdote.

Is there anyone reading this who has not heard of Fulton Sheen? The man was a priest and a bishop, but his legacy remains chiefly around his gift as a communicator. He gave sermons, wrote books, and proclaimed the Gospel in ways one would expect of a man of his calling, but there was something else besides. He was one of the first to see the potential of the media. For many, the chief form of media in the 1930s was radio so he started the Catholic Radio Hour. It was a great success. By the 1950s, it was television that was in the ascendant, so he started a show there that ended up being broadcast on networks across America. Using both media he was able to access people’s free time, enter their living rooms, present his ideas at the very centre of the family home. One can only imagine how excited and active he would be with the possibilities offered by the Digital Age.

That said Sheen would have been all too aware of the dark side to this our Digital Age. Certain vices have never before been more available due to the freely had and anonymously consumed offerings online. And, here I speak not solely of one vice: lust. How much does the internet fuel envy, with so much on display and so many displaying what they have and what others want? And what of time wasted on line wanting what we see but know we can’t have? If gluttony is over consumption, then how many wasted hours, days even, are spent on line? How many duties abandoned due to the sloth induced by the easy lure of the website that captivates our interest? Or, the anger produced by reading on line what we should have avoided? And, behind it all, there is the pride of knowledge – knowing a little but not enough to know how little, or how superficial it all is? To examine the Seven Deadly Sins in our lives perhaps we need look no further than the screen in front of us.

We know of these problems, they are all around us, therefore, I was curious to see what Victory over Vice, written in 1939, and recently republished by Sophia Institute Press, had to say – would its pages have any relevance?

Sheen’s outline is simple enough. There are seven deadly sins, and so there are seven chapters. Each chapter is a brief look at each sin – anger, lust etc. – and the means to counter it. As I said at the beginning this is a hard book to review. The author was more than able to speak for himself, so I shall step aside and give you a taste, albeit all too brief, of Sheen’s thought and style:

Anger: 

It is not hatred that is wrong; it is hating the wrong thing that is wrong. It is not anger that is wrong; it is being angry at the wrong thing that is wrong. Tell me your enemy, and I will tell you what you are. Tell me your hatred, and I will tell you your character.

Envy:

…There is a bit of jealousy, a bit of envy, behind every cutting remark and barbed whispering we hear about our neighbor. It is always good to remember that there are always more sticks under the tree that has the most apples. There should be some consolation for those who are so unjustly attacked to remember that it is a physical impossibility for any man to get ahead of us who stays behind to kick us.

Lust:

Lust is selfishness or perverted love. It looks not so much at the good of the other, as to the pleasure of self. It breaks the glass that holds the wine; it breaks the lute to snare the music…Deny the quality of ‘otherness’, it seeks to make the other person care for us, but not to make us care for the other person.

Pride:

Nothing is more difficult to conquer in all the world than intellectual pride. If battleships could be lined with it instead of armour, no shell could ever pierce it. This is easy to understand, for if a man thinks he knows it all, there is nothing left for him to know, not even what God might tell him.

Gluttony:

The development of character depends on which hunger and thirst we cultivate…Tell me your hungers and your thirsts, and I will tell you who you are.

Sloth:

We lose our souls not only by the evil we do, but also by the good we leave undone…Heaven is a city on a hill. Hence we cannot coast into it; we have to climb…In any case, it is better to burn out than rust out.

Covetousness:

Man becomes like unto that which he loves, and if he loves gold, he becomes like it – cold, hard and yellow.

Read the rest here.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen on Character Building

The Spirit Reveals Who We Are

The following comes from Fr.Jerry J. Pokorsky at the Catholic Thing: 

Pius XII and John Paul II both lamented our “loss of the sense of sin.” It’s an intriguing concept in the abstract; at a personal level, it’s haunting. But do we really understand the phenomenon? And are we free ourselves from the patterns that lead us to that loss? For my part, I’ve become increasingly aware of the continuing need for invoking the Holy Spirit, not only to provide guidance, but to reveal who we really are.

Prominent politicians and celebrities are often unashamed of their public views and private lives. So it only seems fair to point to their life patterns as a warning to others: the news stories of a wealthy and obscene pop star going through another bitter divorce and custody battle. And so forth.

For those of us in the business of conversion from sin, it’s easy to identify the fork in the road where such people chose the path to immorality. In one such case, a celebrity admitted she left the Catholic Church as a teenager when she found herself mocking the notion that someone could be condemned to Hell for a single, willful impure fantasy. The refusal to repent this attitude started her on a life of sexual debauchery. It comes as no surprise to anyone with a true Catholic mind: we become what we freely choose. But are we truly aware of what we have become?

We all have – to one extent or another – demanding personal and work schedules. A schedule may enhance our lives by directing our work (and recreation). In executing our activities according to a schedule, we often experience a healthy sense of accomplishment. But when pressed for time because of distractions, we often cut a few corners and rush things, although we are usually not impatient over the “big things” such as getting a large task done on time.

We find ourselves far more impatient over the “little things” – those unexpected obstacles that interrupt an “important” daily routine or agenda. So when we’re “ambushed” by interlopers (salesmen, broken water pipes, electrical outages, and the like) we feel robbed of valuable time, and impatience wells up within us.

Read the rest here!

A Quote from St. John of the Cross

An act of virtue produces and fosters in the soul mildness, peace, comfort, light, purity, and strength, just as an inordinate appetite brings about torment, fatigue, weariness, blindness, and weakness. Through the practice of one virtue all the virtues grow, and similarly, through an increase of one vice, all the vices and their effects grow.

John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel

Fr. Robert Barron: Seven Deadly Sins; Seven Lively Virtues

The Charity of Cheerfulness

The following comes from Catholic Exchange:

Cheerfulness is a very great help in fostering the virtue of charity. Cheerfulness itself is a virtue. Therefore, it is a habit that can and should be acquired.

Cheerfulness is perhaps best represented in the word affability. St. Thomas Aquinas places affability under the general heading of the cardinal virtue of justice, the virtue that prompts us to give to others what is their due under any sense of duty or obligation. You are obliged to help and not hinder others around you in the world on their way toward Heaven. Not only are you to help the needy by your alms, and the erring by your advice, but you are also to help all whom you know or meet by your kindliness, pleasant­ness, and affability of manner.

Cheerfulness of attitude and manner is a great help to those who come into contact with you. If you are a sour, unsociable, gloomy-looking person, you will make people feel uneasy, and you will in­tensify your own temptations to give way to sadness. On the other hand, if you are cheerful, you will lift the spirits of people, invite their confidence, and increase their hope of serving God well.

If you consistently present a gloomy attitude toward life and everybody around you, it may be because you are suffering from a case of self-pity. You let your sorrows and misfortunes overwhelm you. Or you may be prompted by envy to refuse even an effort at being cheerful because you are thinking of the many good things others have that you are denied. Or you may be a victim of your feelings. Temperamentally you may be inclined toward sadness, and you take the position that you should let your temperament rule you.

Read the rest here.

Sport

Courage Needed

The following comes from Austin Ruse at The Catholic Thing:

The great Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn despaired of many things, not the least of which was courage, not in himself, but in others. He despaired of courage among the elite classes; politicians, Western business and intellectual leaders, and he knew their cowardice would naturally flow down to everyone else.

Like all virtues, courage is a habit built up by repeated acts over a lifetime, like a muscle, like all virtues. But courage may also be squandered.

There are moments when each of us has betrayed courage. Forty years later, I still see a basketball bounce a few feet from my grasp, back and forth between two guards on the opposing team. And how with the right timing, a few steps and a confident grab, there was nothing but open court before me. But I stood there frozen, and never grabbed that ball. That may sound a trifle, but it is a moment of cowardice that haunts me still.

A week later, it got worse. The coach looked down the bench to send in a scrub. His eyes met mine – and I looked away. Down and away. Message received. In the locker room, he told us that anyone who did not want to play ought to quit. So, I did. What a coward. Quitting, cowardice’s wicked companion, is an easy habit to start and hard to break.

I often think about Lenny Skutnick. Driving in Washington near the 14th Street Bridge, he heard that a passenger jet had just crashed into the icy water of the Potomac River. He nosed his car through stopped traffic, steered it close to the water’s edge, looked out at the freezing water, plane submerged and sinking, a wing sticking out with people clinging to it. He dove into the icy water over and over and saved them.

A lifetime of cowardice and quitting does not prepare you for that moment. Plenty of others had good reasons to stand mouths agape doing nothing. Not Skutnik. He dove in. How had he prepared for that moment?

I think I know why years ago I did not lunge for that ball – and almost certain, though momentary, glory. The kind of fear I experienced was not the kind of physical fear that kept those hundreds of people standing and watching Skutnik, and not helping him. Mine was the fear of embarrassment, perhaps the most common kind of fear in our age.

What if I lunged and missed? What if I got the ball and missed an easy layup down the court, or worse, got stuffed. Simply, what if I got caught out, laughed at? Better to do nothing.

I am not immune even now. A conservative friend was presenting his new book on national sovereignty at the Council on Foreign Relations. Around the table were top officials from the United Nations, U.S. State Department, and think tanks. My friend oddly mocked the way pro-lifers have critiqued a certain U.N. committee. Instead of stepping up and defending the critique, I sat there. It would have been an easy layup. But I sat there.

And this is the fear we must all grapple with in this day and age. Those Skutnick moments are mostly for soldiers, moments where you overcome a fear of physical harm and even death. For us, there is fear of embarrassment, fear of getting caught out, laughed at.

Who among us has not hesitated to engage social issues; contraception, abortion, stem cell research? Who among us has not hesitated to engage on the gay question with friends, family, or even strangers, for fear of getting caught out, knowing simple assertions, but not the second and third and fourth thing to say? And then there is the mockery, a specialty of the other side.

David French, who works for the American Center for Law and Justice, went from a state university to the Harvard Law School. Before he went he fretted about whether he was up to the intellectual cut and thrust of an Ivy League law school. What he found was no intellectual engagement at all. What he got from the other side was mockery, only mockery.

Of all the virtues, the Church teaches prudence is the queen, for she teaches what to be courageous about. But without courage, at least in some cases, prudence might be all good intentions and not much more. Churchill said courage is the supreme virtue because of that. Fine, Churchill was no theologian. Still, he was onto something, and that is prudence needs her muscular friend courage.

Read the rest here.

The Hard Way

The following comes from The Art of Manliness:

“The essential thing “in heaven and earth” is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” – Friedrich Nietzche, Beyond Good and Evil

In 1989, Wyoming-native Mark Jenkins set out with three Americans and four Russians to become the first to bicycle all the way across Siberia, starting at the Pacific port town of Vladivostok and ending 7,500 miles later in Leningrad. Battling mud, wind, injuries, and sub-zero temperatures, the 5-month journey took them through hundreds of villages, an 800-mile swamp, the Ural mountains, and a culture permanently hardened by the savage taskmaster of communism. The trip planted the team in the Guinness Book of World Records, but what made it remarkable was not that it was long, but that it was hard – brutally, numbingly, painfully…hard.

We don’t come across that word too often when discussing heroes or success. Everything we long for is easy and instant. Without a shortcut to the end we often conclude that the journey isn’t worth the time and effort. We want everything neatly packaged and ready for immediate consumption – our food, our friends, even our faith. Our lives have come to resemble those of tourists, wanting the experience, but not wanting to stay long enough to risk experiencing the realities that come with permanence and commitment. In fact, “hard” has become more of a scarlet letter rather than a badge of honor. Let’s face it, the idea of spending years busting your butt at the same job or pursuing the same goal has become downright antiquated, a fool’s game.

Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Carnegie are finding their stories of long persistence quickly displaced by those of the flash-in-the-pan celebrity tabloid genre. Teenage phenoms, reality “stars,” 20-something internet billionaires, and people for whom success and its spoils came swift and early are the new cultural heroes and idols. With each new fresh-faced superstar, the idea of success as a secret formula to be unlocked rather than something to be worked for is slowly cemented into our brains.

“He or she is naturally-gifted,” we proclaim, inwardly hoping that we too can find our own hidden talent or skill to make us famous, rich, or at least…noticed. The books and seminars that sell out most quickly are those that promise the easiest steps to a better life – the secrets that have been known for ages by the rich and famous, but somehow managed to escape your radar until this very moment.

This “easy” epidemic has reached every aspect of our culture from health to education to relationships. People don’t want to workout and eat healthy because it’s hard. No problem, according to the creators of 1,000 different diets promising a great body with little to no effort. As for expanding one’s knowledge, why waste time reading a whole book when you can get the gist from the Cliff Notes? And relationships? Well, working through marriages can be difficult, so “experts” have stepped in to hand you a Kleenex and pat your back as they tell you, “You deserve to be with someone who adores you for you, don’t feel bad about ending things and moving on to someone new who will better meet your needs.”

At some point it has become acceptable to avoid things because they’re hard. Success has become some sort of self-help scavenger hunt with all of us desperately wanting to find an easier way than just grinding it out, a magic solution to life’s equation waiting to be uncovered. We cut corners and call it “optimizing.” We take the path of least resistance and dress up our cowardice in the guise of efficiency. And in doing so, we’re killing ourselves, one life-hack at a time.

There’s nothing wrong with working smarter or making things more simple. There’s no reason to make something harder than it has to be. And I’m not suggesting we go back to plowing fields by hand or walking uphill both ways to work. The problem is that many of us have begun to think that if something is hard, it is automatically wrong and must be changed or substituted immediately. In the process we often fail to reach our real goals, substituting in ones that are more “realistic.” And more importantly, we rob our character of some much needed pruning. We’re missing out on a fundamental truth of manhood – doing things that are hard molds boys into men of strength and character.

http://www.sethskim.com/Spartans2jpg.jpg

http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/trailer/10012339/trailer_27.jpg

In the recent blockbuster smash 300, audiences and critics were shell-shocked by the ripped and chiseled bodies of the actors and stuntmen involved. How did they get so jacked? Surely they were Hollywood-ized, right? Wrong, says Mark Twight, the man behind the regime that molded these actors and stunt men into Spartan warriors. Writing to the critics he responded curtly:

“It appears everyone has an opinion about ’300′ and how the actors and stunt crew achieved the level of fitness €“ and consequentially, appearance €“ for the movie. I have read that it was all CGI, make-up, steroids, etc. However, no one has come right out and said, ‘those guys worked really hard and had the self-discipline to control what they put into their mouths.’”

In short, these guys got their stuff handed to them 10-12 hours a day, five days a week for four months. It wasn’t pretty and they didn’t get the usual, “Way to go buddy!” or “‘Atta boy!” after each set. Instead they were called losers and mocked for being fat. Not the kind of positive, feel-good, self-congratulation you would find most life-coach gurus promoting. It was brutal, it wasn’t fun, but it worked. It was hard, hellishly hard. Lead actor Gerard Butler summed up the experience saying, “Pretty much anything Mark Twight offered up was so difficult in the kind of way where you wish you had never been born – and even more than that, wished he had never been born.”

Absolutely nothing replaces hard work. No shortcuts, no 5-steps to success, no secrets. This may come either as a blessing or a curse depending on how one looks at it. But, what makes the hard way so important for men is not just the end result, but the character built along the way.

It may sound cliche, but the journey we take often matters much more than the destination. How we live our lives each hour, each day determines the type of men we will be in ten years. Knowing this, we should construct our lives to embrace difficult challenges which will mold our character into one of discipline and perseverance. In doing hard things on a daily basis we’re constantly training ourselves so that on other days, in other situations, we can remain solid.

The hard way may be scoffed at as old-fashioned, but it produces integrity and strength far more meaningful and concrete than any gold star along the way. This method of living produces men who remain faithful to their wives and children, decade after decade. Men who refuse to sacrifice their integrity for short-term results or gain. Men who at the end of the day are fulfilled with the fruit of their labor. Men who finish a marathon rather than simply starting a million sprints.

If we can develop in ourselves a certain zeal for the hard things in life we will reap the benefits for years to come. Not only victories won along the way and character developed, but a fulfilled life at the end of the day. As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once put it:

“But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”

What is the Universal Call to Holiness?

Don Bosco on Purity

Hat tip to Catholic Fire:

Every virtue in your soul is a precious ornament which makes you dear to God and to man. But holy purity, the queen of virtues, the angelic virtue, is a jewel so precious that those who possess it become like the angels of God in Heaven, even though clothed in mortal flesh.

St. John Bosco

Fr. Robert Barron comments on Sexuality, Sacrifice and Love

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

The Spirituality of St. Joseph

The following comes from Fides Service:

"Humility, generosity, unconditional devotion, enlivened by a genuine spirit of service, living in poverty, absolute obedience and chastity, all these virtues that distinguish St. Joseph, which the Church celebrates on March 19, are so relevant for men today." This is how a Beijing priest encouraged his flock during the Lenten retreat that started today, on the eve of the Solemnity of the Patron Saint of the Universal Church and Patron of the Mission in China.

According to information received by Fides, across China, especially in parishes dedicated to the Saint, the faithful are living the month of March intensely, focusing on St. Joseph, in the spirit of Lent. These include, for example, the Parish of St. Joseph in downtown Beijing, dating back to the church built by the two Jesuit missionaries, successors of Fr. Matteo Ricci: Fr. Louis Buglio and Fr. Gabriel de Magallanes. To mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Fr. Ricci, the parish has tried to unite the many spiritual aspects of the circumstance with the figure of St. Joseph. The diocesan religious congregation in Beijing that is dedicated to St. Joseph is preparing the final vows of the sisters to be held tomorrow, the day of the festival.

Since St. Joseph is also patron of workers, the priests also wanted to highlight the reality of Chinese immigrant workers, inviting them to celebrate it tomorrow with the Chinese community with this invitation: "Dear brothers and sisters, workers, the Church is your home, where you are received and where you breathe spiritual oxygen not only in the days of the Feast of St. Joseph, but all year."

In the Chinese Catholic world, fervent devotion to the Spouse of Mary and the guardian of the Child Jesus has a long tradition and history. Each year, the Solemnity of St. Joseph is a moment of great celebration, with prayers, novenas, Eucharistic Adoration, give great honor to the most humble Saint. For this reason, the Chinese faithful harbor a special affection for him, as evidenced by the many churches and ecclesial structures (seminaries and national and diocesan congregations), charitable institutions (orphanages, homes for the elderly), and Catholic schools that are dedicated to him and bear his name. Also, St. Joseph is also patron of a "good death", and this is resonant with the great Chinese tradition, which is very attentive to the spiritual aspects that affect life and death.

Hat tip to Spirit Daily on this one!

Men of Brave Heart: The Virtue of Courage in the Priestly Life

The following comes from the CNA:

Archbishop Jose Gomez, the Coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles, has written a brilliant and inspiring book, “Men of Brave Heart,” about the role of the virtue of courage in the life of priests.

He places his discussion within the context how the virtue of courage was understood in Greek and Roman culture and how that understanding was transformed by the coming of Christianity. He points out that Christianity brought about a new and persuasive approach to virtue training and acquisition.

Seminary professors and moral theologians will appreciate how Archbishop Gomez supplies extensive explanations of the role of the “infused” theological and cardinal virtues as God’s gifts, designed to produce in us the essentials of the life of holiness while at the same time purifying and perfecting the acquired natural virtues.

But this book can be read not only by priests and seminarians and formation directors. It will be helpful for anyone seeking to grow in virtue.

I especially liked the quotes the archbishop selected from St. Thomas Aquinas to support his eight themes about courage. One salient quote is this: “The acquired virtues ready one for civil life, but the infused virtues for a spiritual life, which comes only from grace as a result of the virtuous one’s membership in the Church.”

In general, Archbishop Gomez’ extensive treatment of St. Thomas treats him much more as a spiritual director than as an analytic philosopher or theologian, thereby making the great Church doctor more accessible to his readers.

Archbishop Gomez’s themes range from martyrdom, empowerment by Christ, letting go of fear. He insists that the traditional virtues — the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude — are the missing links in contemporary Catholic spiritual writings. His book is an urgent call to a return to the virtues. And it is a call he makes to those in families raising their children, in schools forming students, in seminaries forming future priests, and in convents shaping the future women religious of our country.

The popularity of “values” education in our country in recent years has resulted in focusing moral training on the subjective behavior of individuals; in the process, the traditional approach to character development and the development of virtues has been largely lost in the today’s education of the young. Archbishop Gomez links the need for virtues education to the Second Vatican Council’s “universal call to holiness.” And his call comes at a critical moment in the faith formation of our people. In plain language, he explains that there can be no holiness without virtue — and no growth in holiness without the specific virtue of courage.

Archbishop Gomez draws much of his thinking from his doctoral dissertation on courage where he reviewed the thinking of St. Augustine and other Church Fathers, as well as Aquinas. He adds to that academic background a deep understanding of the role of the virtues in the great spiritual writers of Church history. Nonetheless he has found a way to communicate this treasury of teaching in today’s idiom. He includes numerous inspirational stories of martyrs and other brave Catholics in Church history. His account of the “tough priest,” Jesuit Father Walter Cizek, is engaging, tragic and motivating — illustrating the truth that courage is based on radical dependence on God.

To all those who have been drawn to St. Paul’s devotion to the mystery of God’s strength made manifest in human weakness, the archbishop’s chapter on “power made perfect in weakness” will come as a long overdue message. I do not pretend to have lived this ideal, but it is a goal I would invoke the Spirit’s help to reach.

In my opinion, the final chapter is the crown of this book. Seldom in modern times have I read a better summons for the formation of priests and seminarians. His numerous quotes are positive prayer starters, such as the one from Italian Father Didimo Mantiero: “Christ won souls not by the force of his marvelous words, but by the power of his constant prayer.” Then there are the words of Aquinas, “The priest has only two acts, to consecrate the Body and the Blood of Christ and to prepare the people to receive this sacrament.”

In the seminary of days past I was nourished by the writings of the Benedictine Abbot Blessed Columba Marmion, whose tomb I visited at Maredsous, near Belgium, and at whose beatification I was present in 2000. I appreciated the Marmion quote in this book, “Ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten your intelligence and inflame your heart.”

This book tells us of the archbishop’s love of priests and his prayerful advice should be read by as many as possible. I also hope it will be used widely in the formation of seminarians.

Archbishop Chaput urges believers to find 'new spirit of knighthood'

The following comes from the EWTN site:

Addressing the faithful of three Canadian dioceses on Oct. 16, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver emphasized the importance of historical awareness for contemporary Christians. An accurate and faithful view of the past, he said, should inspire the faithful toward "an ideal of knighthood" that remains relevant today.

The Oct. 15 – 17 conference titled, “Faith in the Public Square: A Prophetic Conference,” is taking place in Victoria, British Columbia.

"The way we remember history conditions how we think and choose," Archbishop Chaput observed. He went on to describe how politicized distortions of history have caused many Catholics to dismiss, or simply ignore, many achievements of their forerunners in faith.

Archbishop Chaput pointed to "the standard modern criticism of the Crusades and the medieval Church," a "product of Protestant and Enlightenment resentment for the Catholic heritage of Europe."

Even many serious scholars, he said, tend to clear away proper context and objectivity, in order to dismiss the Church's historic achievements and read modern agendas into the past. The reality of the medieval Church, the archbishop pointed out, differs sharply from popular conceptions.

Quoting the 20th century German theologian Romano Guardini, the prelate said that "the medieval achievement ... stands with the loftiest moments of human history." Christians today, he indicated, must know and value their own history -- both for the sake of the inspiration and cautions it can provide, and to avoid being cowed by misrepresentations of complex events such as the Crusades.

While affirming that believers today should "acknowledge and repent of the sins committed by Catholics in the past," Archbishop Chaput spoke of an equal need to remember "the greatness of Catholic witness and the Church's transformative role throughout history." He then encouraged the faithful to seek inspiration for the Church's contemporary mission in these great achievements.

The Archbishop of Denver also noted that Catholics who examine their own history honestly, have the duty of “calling others, outside the Church, to the same self-examination and honesty," including adherents of other religions, whose convictions must be respectfully questioned.

He offered the example of Islam, noting that two different concepts of "jihad” – a spiritual "war" against oneself, on the one hand, and a violent struggle for domination on the other -- comprise one "basic element" of the religion. "Both forms of jihad can be legitimate in Muslim thought," he noted, as both "draw their authority from the very beginnings of Islam."

Turning his attention to the thoughts of St. Augustine, Archbishop Chaput drew a contrast between the ideology of political jihad, which aims for an earthly theocracy, and Augustine's notion of the "City of God," which emerges only at the end of human history and cannot be established on earth.

He offered Augustine's insights into human nature and history as "the 'Catholic' tools for judging the nations of man, including our own," and for putting the importance of public affairs into the proper perspective in light of eternity.

On the one hand, "Augustine believed that no perfect society and no perfect justice are possible because all human efforts are compromised by sin." Human imperfection and finitude, however, did not cause the saint to despair: "He also knew that the virtue of charity draws men into society and therefore inevitably into public affairs."

The prelate reflected that even as political winds change, human nature remains the same, as does the Christian vocation, "to follow Jesus Christ faithfully, and in following Jesus, to defend Christ's Church and to serve her people."

Invoking the spiritual militancy of the Jesuits' founder St. Ignatius Loyola, Archbishop Chaput went on to state that "the Catholic ideal of knighthood" was not a relic, but a necessary and living outgrowth of perennial truths. "The essence of Christian knighthood remains the same," he announced, describing it as "sacrificial service rooted in a living Catholic faith."

"A new 'spirit of knighthood' is what we urgently need now," he announced. "Unselfish, tireless, devoted disciples willing to face derision and persecution for Jesus Christ."

The Garden Is the World

Benedict XVI Encourages Prayer for Church's Purity

The following comes from the Zenit site:

Highlights Vocation to Belong Exclusively to Jesus

ROME, JUNE 24, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is underlining the importance of prayer for the Church's purity and holiness, especially through the intercession of those who have consecrated themselves to God.

Today the Pope visited a community of cloistered nuns in the Dominican convent of Santa Maria del Rosario in Rome's Monte Mario district.

In his homily, he told the nuns that through prayer, "which finds its culmination in the daily participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, your consecration to the Lord in silence and seclusion becomes fecund and full of fruits."

The Pontiff affirmed that these fruits are attained "not only for the path of sanctification and purification, but also for the apostolate of intercession that you carry out for the whole Church, so that it can appear pure and holy in the presence of the Lord."

He told the nuns, "You, who know well the efficacy of prayer, experience every day the many graces of holiness it can obtain in the Church."

"Be grateful to Divine Providence for the sublime and gratuitous gift of the monastic vocation, to which the Lord has called you without any merit of yours," the Holy Father exhorted.

Heart of the Church

He continued: "Even before you were born, the Lord had kept your heart for himself to be able to fill it with his love.

"Through the sacrament of baptism you received divine grace in yourselves, immersed in his death and resurrection, you were consecrated to Jesus, to belong to him exclusively."

Benedict XVI acknowledged that "the way of contemplative life, which you received from St. Dominic in the form of cloister, places you, as living and vital members, in the heart of the Lord's Mystical Body, which is the Church."

Thus, he added, "as the heart makes the blood circulate and maintains the whole body alive, so your hidden existence with Christ, interlaced with work and prayer, contributes to sustain the Church."

The Pope encouraged the nuns to continue with this prayer, "presenting in the presence of the Most High the spiritual and material needs of so many brothers in difficulty, the strayed lives of all those who separate themselves from the Lord."

He urged them to recognize "that in everything you do, beyond the personal moments of prayer, your heart continues to be led by the desire to love God."

The Pontiff offered a prayer that Our Lady, "who in silence received the Word of God, guide you in your daily virginal consecration, so that you will be able to experience in obscurity the profound intimacy she lived with Jesus."

He concluded by giving a blessing to those present, as well as to "the persons who entrust themselves to your prayers."

Pope John Paul II and 9 Days That Changed The World

Here is a new documentary on Pope John Paul II put together by Newt and Callista Gingrich.

The film explores Pope John Paul II's historic nine-day pilgrimage to Poland in June of 1979, which created a revolution of conscience that transformed Poland and fundamentally reshaped the spiritual and political landscape of the 20th Century.

Newt and Callista Gingrich, along with a Polish, American, and Italian cast, explore what transpired during these nine days that moved the Polish people to renew their hearts, reclaim their courage, and free themselves from the shackles of Communism.

Millions of Poles, almost one third of the nation, turned out to see the Holy Father in person, while the rest of the country followed his pilgrimage on television and radio. Within sixteen months, Solidarity became the first officially recognized free trade union in the Communist bloc, with over 10 million members. The momentum of this nine-day visit would eventually lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Featuring exclusive interviews with George Weigel, Michael Novak, John O'Sullivan, Jerzy Kluger, Father Adam Boniecki, Father Leon Knabit, Monsignor Jaroslaw Cielecki, Father Jan Andrzej Kloczowski, Father Thomas D. Williams, Father Wojciech Giertych, President Lech Walesa, President Vaclav Havel, Polish Free Trade Union Leaders Krzysztof Wyszkowski and Anna Walentynowicz, Former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey, and Secretary Jim Nicholson.

Nine Days that Changed the World is a story of human liberation, revealing the extraordinary power of Pope John Paul II's worldwide message of freedom through faith.

For more info please click here.

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