Many people are tempted to mess around with occultism in its various forms. Seances, tarot cards, crystal balls, Ouija boards and many other types of occultist hocus-pocus are much in demand. It's a disturbing sign of the times. It's a sign that our God-given human longing for the supernatural can easily be mischanneled into something unwholesome and dangerous. During the [...]
What happened on the high mountain was not without precedent. Centuries before, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, his face shone so brightly that he had to cover it with a veil when he spoke to the people at the foot of the mountain. He was too bright for them to look at. Moses was [...]
In Lent we are bidden to accompany Christ our Lord into the wilderness. What did He find in the Judean desert? He found hunger, coldness, dryness, emptiness. Most of all, He found temptation. He was tempted in all things as we are. Christ confronted all the demons that we ourselves have to confront, but in His case He did not [...]
St.Philip Neri fasted habitually, not only in Lent. He ate little and drank little. He did not impose his asceticism on others. He said that mortification of the razionale was more important than mortifying the body with excessive fasting and other forms of physical penance. Mortifying the razionale included submitting one’s will and private judgement to others, and obeying promptly without reasoning or questioning. [...]
