"I answer that, Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith.
The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal aspect of the object, without which the species of the habit cannot remain. Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will."
-Saint Thomas, Summa Theologica
"...In the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus comes into the midst of his timid band of disciples after his resurrection from the dead. (Jn. 20. 19-23) To say “timid” is putting it mildly. The disciples of Jesus were scared out of their mind. They had seen from a distance or had heard the graphic details of Jesus’ crucifixion. They knew how he had been tortured beyond recognition. His flesh had been whipped and torn. He hung suspended on the cross for three hours anguishing for every breath.
These images haunted them. Their own abandonment of the Lord in his hour of need tore at their souls and shamed them into hiding. Hiding is exactly what they were doing. Their fear and shame made them close and lock the doors. They were trapped in a prison of their own making.
They were also afraid of the fate that awaited them. If the authorities had so brutally tortured Jesus, what chances did they have of escaping the same treatment? The Lord Jesus had already warned of them of this earlier in the week during his last meal with them the night before he died. He told them: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.” (Jn. 15.18-19) These words too must have hovered over the disciples as they were gathered together.
Into this frightened huddle came the Lord Jesus and he said to them, “Peace be with you.” The Lord offered them peace. He offered them his peace. Now, keep in mind, that nothing has changed about their circumstances. The world was still a hostile place. Those who had sought Jesus’ death were still in power. The Roman soldiers were still patrolling the streets. Yet, the Lord Jesus offers his disciples peace. What peace could these disciples have if they were still hated and despised, shamed and belittled?
The Lord Jesus tells them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.” (Jn. 14.27) While the world was still a hostile and cruel place for the disciples, one thing had in fact changed. The Lord Jesus, who had died because of this hostility and cruelty, had overcome death and had returned to be with his disciples.
More than just rising from the dead, the risen Christ came back to his friends, to his chosen ones to give them peace by being with him them. He breathed out his spirit upon them and the disciples breathed in this Spirit. Those who had lost their breath from fear and shame now inhaled the energy and vitality of the risen Christ.
The disciples were still in lots of trouble. The Acts of the Apostles tells us that they would continue to get into trouble with the authorities but they were at peace even in the midst of their travails because Christ was with them. They had begun to live for God in Christ Jesus. Their peace of mind, their own tranquility even in the face of adversity was solely rooted in knowing Jesus, the Christ.
The fear and the shame that the disciples experienced was the result of sin, the sins of others and their own sins. Their being trapped and locked in the room because of fear is always the consequence of sin. Sin starts out with the notion that we can live without God. Sin takes root in our hearts when we start to live for ourselves. We begin to move away from God because it no longer suits us or because of illusions or temptations that make us think we can do better without God. Sin by thought, word, deed or omission is a decision to live for ourselves, not for God. How does living for ourselves become a sin?
St. Augustine tells us that our hearts are made for God and our hearts will be restless until they rest in God. We are made to live for God, for only in him will we find the happiness, peace, and beauty that our own being craves. By this design, God is the one who guides us to the way, the truth and the life that will make us truly happy, that will truly free us. When we begin to believe that our happiness is found in living for ourselves and doing what we want we begin to lose our bearings. We begin to get lost because we no longer know the way, the truth, or the life that was made for us.
More often than not, this begins with a distorted notion of freedom. Freedom has come to mean doing what we want when we want. Each person decides what happiness means and no one should keep us from seeking happiness according to our own design. Lots of people talk about being pro-choice, believing there are no bad choices since each one gets to choose what one wants. When this happens, then the only guide for our decisions becomes our own pleasure and our own ego. Anything that stands in the way of pleasing ourselves or glorifying ourselves is perceived as bad and must be feared or hated. This path will only lead to one place, a room where we are locked up by our own fears or chained by our pleasures..."
“For I am of opinion that there is a certain limit to the powers of human nature, although there may be a Paul, of whom it is said, “He is a chosen vessel unto Me;” or a Peter, against whom the gates of hell do not prevail; or a Moses, the friend of God: yet not one of them could sustain, without destruction to himself, the whole simultaneous assault of these opposing powers, unless indeed the might of Him alone were to work in him, who said, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
-Origen; De Principiis, Vol. 1, 32.
"Those who commit these types of scandals are guility of the spiritual equivalent of murder, but I am here among you to prevent something far worst for you. While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, those who take scandal- who allow scandals to destroy faith- are guilty of spiritual suicide."
-Saint Francis de Sales
"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right." - ILN 10-28-22For more Chesterton quotes go here.
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
- A Short History of England, Ch.10
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."
- ILN, 4/19/30
"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."
- Everlasting Man, 1925
"The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice."
- A Defense of Humilities, The Defendant, 1901
"There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it."
-("The Mercy of Mr. Arnold Bennett" Fancies vs. Fads)
"Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it."
- Autobiography, 1937
"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."
- ILN, 10/23/09
"In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn."
- The Speaker 2-2-01
"Every person is what he loves. Love becomes like unto that which it loves. If it loves heaven, it becomes heavenly; if it loves the carnal as a god, it becomes corruptible. The kind of immortality we have depends on the kind of loves we have. Putting it negatively, he who tells you what he does not love, also tells what he is. "Amor pondus meum: Love is my gravitation," said Saint Augustine. This slow conversion of a subject into an object, of a lover into the beloved, of the miser into his gold, of the saint into his God, discloses the importance of loving the right things. The nobler our loves, the nobler our character. To love what is below the human is degradation: to love what is human for the sake of the human is mediocrity: to love the human for the sake of the Divine is enriching: to love the Divine for its own sake is sanctity."
Three to Get Married, pg. 4Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Deacon Keith Fournier has written another insightful article on Catholic Online. If Sadie stays asleep longer I'd like to do a post of the article itself, but this quote jumped out at me and I thought that it definitely deserved it's own post. It sums up many of the challenges of our current culture perfectly. “How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking... The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and "swept along by every wind of teaching," looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” (emphasis mine)
-The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the concluding conclave where he was chosen to fill St. Peter's Chair