"I will attempt to suggest to you on the present Festival some of the incentives to wonder and awe, humility, implicit faith, and adoration, supplied by the Ascension of Christ."

A powerful Ascension sermon from St. John Henry Newman's Anglican period.

Links

Mysteries in Religion full text: https://newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume2/sermon18.html

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"If, then, the infinite benevolence of God wins our love, certainly His justice commands it; and were we able, as the Saints made perfect are able, to combine the notion of both in their separate perfections, as displayed in the same acts, doubtless our awe and admiration of the glorious vision would be immeasurably increased."

St. John Henry Newman's Oxford Sermons, delivered during his time as an Anglican preacher at the University of Oxford, were instrumental in shaping the Oxford Movement, which sought to revive High Church traditions within the Church of England and ultimately led to many conversions to Catholicism.

In addition to the profound influence these sermons had on both Anglican and Catholic theology, they also bore a personal significance for Newman’s own conversion to Catholicism years later.

These fifteen sermons, though deeply interconnected in theme and insight, are not sequential in nature; rather, each stands on its own as a distinct and self-contained reflection on faith and reason. Newman lays the groundwork for themes developed in later works, such as Grammar of Assent and Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

In this sixth sermon, Newman opposes the sentimental tendency to portray God as mere benevolence, insisting instead that true religion acknowledges God's perfect justice together with His mercy.

Links

On Justice, as a Principle of Divine Governance full text: https://www.newmanreader.org/works/oxford/sermon6.html

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"Come—I sing of a splendid dream, a mighty marvel, that came at midnight when the tongues of men are silent. A strange tree—most wondrous strange!— stretched forth branches in a blast of light."

The Dream of the Rood is an ancient Anglo-Saxon poem, composed as early as the 8th century. It takes the form of a dream-vision in which the narrator sees the Cross on which Christ was crucified, and most of the poem consists of a speech given by the personified Cross, telling the story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, with the Wood sharing in the glory of the Word.

The virile style and the warrior ethos of Anglo-Saxon verse took on a Christian form in this poem, with Christ being depicted as a heroic warrior and the Cross as his loyal retainer, with self-sacrifice rather than a contest of arms gaining the victory.

James Majewski gives a dramatic reading of The Dream of the Rood, as recently translated by Tessa Carman and J.C. Scharl.

Links

The Dream of the Rood: A New Translation full text: https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/the-dream-of-the-rood-a-new-translation

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

Lives of the Popes on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lives-of-the-popes/id1885968422

Lives of the Popes on CatholicCulture.org: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/category/lives-of-popes-podcast/

"... we shall find it difficult to estimate the moral power which a single individual, trained to practice what he teaches, may acquire in his own circle, in the course of years. While the Scriptures are thrown upon the world, as if the common property of any who choose to appropriate them, he is, in fact, the legitimate interpreter of them, and none other; the Inspired Word being but a dead letter (ordinarily considered), except as transmitted from one mind to another."

St. John Henry Newman's Oxford Sermons, delivered during his time as an Anglican preacher at the University of Oxford, were instrumental in shaping the Oxford Movement, which sought to revive High Church traditions within the Church of England and ultimately led to many conversions to Catholicism.

In addition to the profound influence these sermons had on both Anglican and Catholic theology, they also bore a personal significance for Newman’s own conversion to Catholicism years later.

These fifteen sermons, though deeply interconnected in theme and insight, are not sequential in nature; rather, each stands on its own as a distinct and self-contained reflection on faith and reason. Newman lays the groundwork for themes developed in later works, such as Grammar of Assent and Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

In this fifth sermon, Newman contends that Christian truth spreads and endures in the world primarily through the personal character of holy individuals, rather than through the influence of institutions or intellectual arguments alone.

Links

Personal Influence, the Means of Propagating the Truth full text: https://newmanreader.org/works/oxford/sermon5.html

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"No work takes deep root, or has real stability, or will perpetuate itself, unless the apostle has begotten the interior life in other souls. Naturally, he cannot do this unless he himself is strong in the inner life."

This episode concludes Part Four of the classic work by the French Trappist monk, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard (1858-1935). Among other things, there is featured an illuminating description of the progressive stages of conversion, which Dom Chautard includes as an aid for spiritual directors.

Episode 4: Part Four (sections e - g)

00:00 - Intro

00:39 - e. Because the Interior Life Begets Interior Life, Its Results Upon Souls Are Deep and Lasting

20:09 - f. Importance of the Formation of “Shock Troops” and of Spiritual Direction

46:12 - (Stages of Conversion - Categories for Spiritual Directors)

57:48 - g. The Entire Success of the Apostolate Depends on One Thing: An Interior Life Centered on the Blessed Eucharist

Links

The Soul of the Apostolate full text: https://www.cmri.org/0-olmc-mission/catholic-books/soul_of_the_apostolate.pdf

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"Am I really one of those who depend upon their mental prayer, their visits to the Blessed Sacrament, above all upon their Mass or their Communion, to put real moving power into their preaching? If I am not, I may perhaps be a loudly 'tinkling cymbal,' or even give forth the more pompous din of 'sounding brass,' but I am not communicating to others any love, that love which makes the eloquence of the friends of God impossible to resist."

Part Four of the classic work by the French Trappist monk, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard (1858-1935), describes the many ways in which the interior life ensures the fruitfulness of active apostolic works.

Episode 4: Part Four (sections a - d)

00:00 - Intro

00:39 - The Interior Life is the Condition on which the Fruitfulness of Active Works Depends

07:36 - a. The Interior Life Draws Down the Blessings of God

15:18 - b. It Makes the Apostle Capable of Sanctifying Others by His Example

23:51 - c. It Makes the Apostle Radiate the Supernatural: the Efficacy of This Radiation

01:13:42 - d. It Makes the Gospel Worker Truly Eloquent

Links

The Soul of the Apostolate full text: https://www.cmri.org/0-olmc-mission/catholic-books/soul_of_the_apostolate.pdf

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"Human philosophy was beaten from its usurped province, but not by any counter-philosophy; and unlearned Faith, establishing itself by its own inherent strength, ruled the Reason as far as its own interests were concerned, and from that time has employed it in the Church, first as a captive, then as a servant; not as an equal, and in nowise (far from it) as a patron."

St. John Henry Newman's Oxford Sermons, delivered during his time as an Anglican preacher at the University of Oxford, were instrumental in shaping the Oxford Movement, which sought to revive High Church traditions within the Church of England and ultimately led to many conversions to Catholicism.

In addition to the profound influence these sermons had on both Anglican and Catholic theology, they also bore a personal significance for Newman’s own conversion to Catholicism years later.

These fifteen sermons, though deeply interconnected in theme and insight, are not sequential in nature; rather, each stands on its own as a distinct and self-contained reflection on faith and reason. Newman lays the groundwork for themes developed in later works, such as Grammar of Assent and Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

In this fourth sermon, Newman demonstrates how Reason oversteps its bounds when it sets itself up as the legitimate judge of religious truth, over and against childlike spiritual discernment.

Links

The Usurpations of Reason full text: https://www.newmanreader.org/works/oxford/sermon4.html

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"Two attitudes are possible: one, that the world is an absolute jungle and that the exercise of coercive power by rulers is only a manifestation of this; and the other, that it is both necessary and right that there should be this exercise of power, that through it the world is much less of a jungle than it could possibly be without it, so that one should in principle be glad of the existence of such power, and only take exception to its unjust exercise."

Elizabeth Anscombe was a prominent 20th-century British philosopher, known for her influential work in ethics and her deep commitment to Catholic doctrine. In her essay ‘War and Murder,’ Anscombe considers the morality of violent coercive power, critiques the influence of pacifist ideology, and defends the moral prohibition against killing the innocent -- grounding her arguments in the principle of double effect and its crucial distinction between intended and foreseen consequences.

Read “War and Murder” https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/spring06/papers/anscombeWarAndMurder.pdf

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"When attention to the theological meaning of femininity is not accompanied by reflection on masculinity, men are left without a sense of the existential and sacramental significance of their own sex."

A reading of a fascinating essay originally published in the journal Logos, about the work of Walter Ong, SJ.

In the wake of an emphasis on the “feminine genius” as delineated by Pope St. John Paul II and others, this article attempts to develop a profile of the masculine genius. It supplements the teaching of Pope Francis on this subject in order to balance the more complete articulation of the feminine genius already provided by the Magisterium.

Drawing primarily from the work of Walter J. Ong, whose presentation is corroborated and buttressed here with other studies, this article demonstrates that the masculine genius includes a set of gifts that complement those of women, both in the natural order and in the order of redemption.

In Search of the Masculine Genius: The Contribution of Walter J. Ong full text: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/librarypdf/Raab-Masculine-Genius.pdf

Text originally published by Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Volume 21, Number 1, Winter 2018.

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"These falls can be MOST CERTAINLY avoided when one knows how to use the precious balancing pole of the interior life. It is only the abandonment of this INFALLIBLE instrument that brings dizziness and the fatal false step into space."

Part Three of this classic work by the French Trappist monk, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard (1858-1935), warns of the spiritual perils of an active life divorced from a deep interior life, while offering the assurance of grace and progress in virtue for those who root their work in prayer and union with God.

Episode 3: Part Three

00:00 - Intro

00:52 - 1. Active Works, a Means of Sanctification for Interior Souls, Become, for Others, a Menace to their Salvation

14:07 - 2. The Active Worker Who Has No Interior Life

43:45 - 3. The Interior Life: Basis of the Holiness of the Apostolic Worker

Links

The Soul of the Apostolate full text: https://www.cmri.org/0-olmc-mission/catholic-books/soul_of_the_apostolate.pdf

SUBSCRIBE to Catholic Culture Audiobooks https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catholic-culture-audiobooks/id1482214268

SIGN UP for Catholic Culture's newsletter http://www.catholicculture.org/newsletter

DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.