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 14^th, 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

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.