Words to Live By – From Catholic Tradition
Beware of Pride Regarding How We View Ourselves!
Esteem not thyself better than others, lest, perhaps, thou be accounted worse in the sight of God, Who knows what is in man.
My Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, ©1982, Confraternity of the Precious Blood, 5300 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11219, Bk.1 ch.7.
Words
to Live By – From Catholic Tradition
A
Remedy for Our Sins during our Time of Apostasy
After our baptism, Our Lord has given us other daily remedies. The Lord’s Prayer is our daily purification. Let us say, and let us say with sincerity because it is an alms in itself: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” Give alms and all things are clean to you.”
St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, Sermon #261 For the Feast Of The Ascension
Catholic Candle note: It is true at all times of the Church that our sins are remitted through praying the Our Father well. How much more does Divine Providence make the Our Father efficacious for the remission of sins during the present Great Apostasy, when our Loving Heavenly Father has willed to withdraw the Sacraments from faithful and informed Catholics, most of whom do not currently have access to an uncompromising priest!
God has not abandoned us! Rather, He lovingly gives us different efficacious tools to use to help us to save our souls during these apostate times. Read these articles:
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“Good” Life is Possible in the Catacombs:
https://catholiccandle.org/2022/06/27/a-good-life-is-possible-in-the-catacombs/
Life
and Salvation in the Catacombs Without the Sacraments:
https://catholiccandle.org/2021/11/10/life-and-salvation-in-the-catacombs-without-the-sacraments/
Excuses for Compromise Confessions: http://www.catholiccandle.org/2020/09/01/excuses-for-compromise-confessions/
Words
to Live By – From Catholic Tradition
Let us beware of bad companions!
St. Gregory Nazianzen, Doctor of the Church, warns us:
It is an illusion to seek the company of sinners on pretense to reform or convert them; it is far more to be feared they will communicate their poison to us.”
Butler’s Lives of the Saints, vol. 2, June 14th, St. Basil the Great.
Catholic Candle note: This allusion (to which St. Gregory Nazianzen refers) is called “a temptation under the appearance of good”, about which St. Ignatius of Loyola also warns us.
For a thorough explanation of this tactic of Satan, read this article: https://catholiccandle.org/2022/03/27/lesson-8-explanation-of-the-second-week-rules-for-the-discernment-of-spirits/
Lent Will Soon Be Upon Us!
Very shortly, it will be Lent! This is a much-needed time to summon all of the generosity we can muster and to make extra efforts to remove our “moral flab” and to “scrape the barnacles” of sin and bad habits off of the “hull” of our soul.
We need to do much penance in order to save our souls. This is true throughout the year but especially during Lent. The Devil is behind the modern elimination of virtually all requirements of fasting and abstaining.
This is not the time to do the minimum! Catholic Candle recommends that you use the pre-Vatican II rules for fasting and abstinence which are found here: https://catholiccandle.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Traditional-Rules-for-Fast-Abstinance.pdf
Let us not be stingy with God! He is never outdone in generosity!
Words to Live By – From Catholic Tradition
Our
Life on Earth is Warfare!
We Must Fight Tirelessly for Christ
the King!
Nothing is so incongruous in a Christian, and nothing so foreign to his character, as to seek ease and rest. To be engrossed in the present life is foreign to our profession and enlistment [as Soldiers of Christ]. Thy Master was crucified, and dost thou seek ease? Thy Master was pierced with nails, and dost thou live delicately? Do these things become a noble soldier?
St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church, quoted from his sermon #13 on Philippians, 3:18-21 (bracketed words added to show the context).
Words to Live By – From Catholic Tradition
If
We Wish to Choose Christ,
Then We Must Wish to Receive the
Hatred of the World
A person refuses to be in the Mystical Body of Christ if he does not wish to receive, along with Christ our Head, the hatred of the world. We ought to patiently receive the hatred of the world out of the love for Christ. For it is necessary for the world to hate us because we resolve to reject what the world loves.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Greatest Doctor of the Church, Quoting St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, in the Catena Aurea on St. John’s Gospel, ch.15, §5.
Words to Live By – From Catholic Tradition
Spiritual Blindness Characterizes Our Times – Let Us Beware!
The sin of impurity brings with it blindness and obstinacy. Every vice produces darkness of understanding; but impurity produces it in a greater degree than all other sins.
St. Alphonsus de Liguori Sermon 45 – 16th Sunday after Pentecost – On Impurity, Point 1, section 2.
Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition
We Must Have Self-knowledge!
He who knows himself well is mean in his own eyes and is not delighted with being praised by men.
My Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, (c)1982, Confraternity of the Precious Blood, 5300 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11219, Bk.1 ch.2.
Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition
Let Us Be Manly Men!
The crisis in society and in the human element of the Church is principally caused by men much more than women or children. Men are the evil “fathers” of feminism and each of the principal evils of civil society and of the human element of the Catholic Church.
God made men to lead society, much more by their greater strength of mind than by their greater strength of body. Here is one way Catholic Candle stated this fact in the past:
A manly man must not be selfish, nor carried away by his emotions or passions. He must control himself and always live according to his reason. That is why a man can be a manly man and can show the truth of manliness even when he is 106 years old and is wheelchair-bound.1
Here is how St. John Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church, teaches this same truth:
Because we have strength of body, we are not therefore manly men. For he alone hath this virtue [viz., manliness] –yes, though he be confined to his bed — whose strength is from within; since without this, though a man should tear-up a mountain by his strength of body, I would call him nothing stronger than a girl.2
1 Quoted from: The Crisis in Society is Caused by Unmanly Men, which can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/07/22/the-crisis-in-society-is-caused-by-unmanly-men/
2 St. John Chrysostom, on the Epistle for the Feast of St. Lawrence, part of sermon 19 on 2nd Cor. 9:6-9 (bracketed words added to show context).
Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition
Whenever We Complain We Offend God, Harm Our Souls, and Scandalize Our Neighbor
St. John of the Cross, great Mystical Doctor, reminds us to never complain. Here are his words:
Anyone
who complains or grumbles is not perfect,
nor is he even a good Christian.
Words of St. John of the Cross, quoted from his work called Other Counsels,
#4.
Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition
Bad leaders in the Church and in Society are a Punishment for Sin
We are suffering from bad leaders in the Church and civil society as Divine retribution for the sins of people in the human element of the Church and in civil society.
Here is one way that St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Church, teaches this truth:
To deserve to secure from God the blessing of a good ruler, the people must desist from sin, for it is by Divine permission that wicked men receive power to rule as a punishment for sin, as the Lord says by the Prophet Osee [13:11]: “I will give you a king in my wrath” and it is said in Job [34:30] that he “makes a man that is a hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people.” Sin must therefore be done away with in order that the scourge of tyrants may cease.
St. Thomas, On Kingship, ch.7 (emphasis added).
Catholic Candle note: Of course, the fact that God punishes people for their sins by giving them bad rulers, does not exonerate those bad rulers from their own culpability for their sins. God is merely using the sins of bad rulers as a tool to punish the sins of the people.
Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition
We Must Live According to Reason – Not According to Inclination
Here is the teaching of St. John of the Cross, the Mystical Doctor of the Church:
Blessed is he who, setting aside his own liking and inclination, considers things according to reason and justice before doing them.
Quoted from
his work, Prayer Of A Soul Taken With Love, #42.
Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition
We Must Never, Ever Tell a Lie
To tell a lie is always evil and sinful. No end ever justifies a sinful means. Even if we were to suppose that a person had the very highest of all motives – which is to promote the glory of God – that would still never justify a lie.
Here is the very striking way in which St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, teaches this truth:
A lie must be shunned to such an extent that, even if it seemed that the lie would increase the glory of God, we should still not tell a lie.[1]
Let us consider an example: Suppose a pagan were on his deathbed with only minutes to live. Suppose also that we happen to know that he would convert to the Catholic Faith and agree to baptism if we were to tell him a small (so-called) “harmless” lie, such as that the dog he loved would go to heaven. We can never justify even such a (so-called) “white” lie even to save his soul.
[1] Here is the Latin:
Adeo enim vitanda sunt mendacia, ut etiam si cedere videantur ad landem Dei, non sunt dicenda.
St. Thomas Aquinas’ Lectures on St. John’s Gospel, ch.13, lecture #3, section #1776.
Words to Live by – from Catholic Tradition
Let Us Be Always Faithful to Our Faithful Divine Friend!
Concerning Our Lord Jesus Christ, My Imitation of Christ urges us in these words:
Love Him and keep Him for thy Friend, Who, when all go away, will not leave thee nor suffer thee to perish in the end.
My Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, (c)1982, Confraternity of the Precious Blood, 5300 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11219, Bk.2 ch.7.