Words to Live By – From Catholic Tradition

Mortifying Our Passions and Desires Helps Us Much More Than Choosing to Perform Unusual Voluntary Penances

Here is how St. John of the Cross, Mystical Doctor of the Church, counsels us:

One must greatly lament the ignorance of certain men, who burden themselves with extraordinary penances and with many other voluntary practices, and think that this practice or that one will suffice to bring them to the union with Divine Wisdom. But such will not be the case if they endeavor not diligently to mortify their desires. If they were careful to bestow half of that labor on this, they would profit more in a month than they profit by all the other practices in many years.

For, just as it is necessary to till the earth if it is to bear fruit, and unless it be tilled it bears nothing but weeds, so likewise is mortification of the desires necessary if the soul is to profit. Without this mortification, I make bold to say, the soul no more achieves progress on the road to perfection and to the knowledge of God of itself, however many efforts it might make, than the seed grows when it is cast upon untilled ground. Wherefore the darkness and rudeness of the soul will not be taken from it until the desires be quenched. For these desires are like cataracts, or like motes in the eye, which obstruct the sight until they be taken away.

Ascent Of Mount Carmel, St. John of the Cross, Bk.1, ch.8, §4.

Words to Live By – From Catholic Tradition

God Sends to Us Life’s Blows and Disappointments for Our Own Good

St. Anthony of Padua, Doctor of the Church, invokes the teaching of Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church, about the Crosses that God sends for our own good:

Constant temporal success is a sure sign of
eternal damnation.

St. Anthony of Padua, Sermon for the 6^th Sunday after Pentecost, quoting Pope St. Gregory the Great, from his work entitled de Moralis, XXVI, 18:35.

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:

• A “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 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.