Reflection on Leftist Slogans

What is most abstract, is most fit to be malleable. The abstract containing unconditional reality in thought, in their hands contains nothing at all. 

Reflection on the Motive for the Incarnation

The limp, plump hand of the Christ Child was born to be straightened and drained on the Cross. 

Reflection on False Modesty

Denying the gifts of God will not merit you an increase of them. 

Reflection on the Reform of the Reform

Any extraordinary attempt to infuse the Novus Ordo with solmenity and dignity is only a pale imitation of what is standard in the Old Rite. 

Reflection on Forgiveness

The pierced hand of Christ always lays outstretched to the sinner's constricted heart.

Reflection on State Provision

Where family and charity fail, Welfare prevails.

Relection on Politics

Legislation is generally the acceptable face of tyranny.

Reflection on the Pope and Tradition

For the Sovereign Pontiff, Sacred Tradition is both a support and a boundary.

Reflection on All Saints' Day

The saints are the masterpiece of Christ, painted with His Blood. 

Reflection on Politics

The much-vaunted centre ground of politics is often more a trough than a peak.

Reflection on the Creation and the Annunciation

As the "let there be" produces the natural order, so does the "let it be done to me" in the supernatural order. 

Reflection on the Holy Eucharist

The other Sacraments confer the grace they signify, but the Eucharist contains Him Who is the very source and consummation of those same graces.

Reflection on Hell

Hell is nothing other than the soul to find herself alone with God at last and for Him not to know her. 

Reflection on Catholic Tradition

Tradition is no more than the echo of our Lady's words of "Do whatever He tells you" throughout the ages. 

Reflection on Tranquility of Spirit

In this life, the slumber of the sinner is not to compared with the repose of the righteous. 

Reflection on the Unity of the Trinity

From the Principle, sets forth the Word who does not depart, from both pours forth the Spirit who doesn't scatter.

Reflection on the Wounds of Christ

For thoughtless sins of mortal man do pierce the hands of the Immortal One, while balm to the same doth compress, where hidden graces impress for sincere repentance. 

Reflection on Religious Liberty and The Social Reign of Christ

In public discourse the Church must not merely ask for a place at the table to be heard out but for a throne to be placed for Christ. 

More Photographs from Vienna

Photographs from Vienna

Some Photographs from Vienna

Reflection on Liberty of Thought

It is proper to man to have an opinion, but not any opinion at all. 

Reflection on Committees and Discussion

The consultative man is rarely one of a broad bent of mind but rather of none at all. 

Reflection on Governments and Laws

The acceleration of legislation can only mark the arrest of civilisation. 

Reflection on Republics and Monarchies

In a monarchy, an office granted can ennoble the most inferior of men. In a Republic, an office gained  can only be vulgarized by the most commonplace of characters. 

On the Spirit of Religion and the Unity of Peoples

''The more one examines things closely, the more one will be convinced that the social edifice rests entirely on the cross and that what still saves us from a general upheaval is that the various governments in this part of the world, perhaps by instinct and habit rather than by conviction and wisdom, continue to maintain the religious establishment. In France, the culpable foolishness of the government having favoured the spread of impiety or indifference became too generalised, we see the consequences.
 Whenever education ceases to be religious, there is no longer national education. You will still make mathematicians, physicists etc., but it is a question of making men, Moreover, a proper system of education to create real public spirit will be religious or it will not accomplish anything.
 Religion surrounds us on all sides; everything speaks its language to us. Its characters are imprinted on our flags, our coinage, our medals of honour, our ornaments, our buildings, and all our monuments. It animates, vivifies, perpetuates, and infuses our legislation. It sanctions our customs; it presides over our treatises. It has formed the great European family. Its gentle laws calmed our ferocity and helped unite our divergent spirits. From St Petersburg to Madrid, people made contracts in the name of the very holy and indivisible Trinity. It was the great family title and the proof of a common kinship. The hideous hand of revolutionary genius came to efface this sacred formula...''

- Joseph de Maistre

Reflection on the Word of God

By a word the world was created, by a cry it was redeemed. 

Reflection on the Pharisee and the Publican

Apparently virtuous acts when polluted by pride, invert the order of justice and, as it were, place God in a position of gratitude to us.

Reflection on the Rights of Man

The notion of the Rights of Man if borne aloft by moral virtue can only sink to the god in men's bellies. 

Repost: On Death

''Ivan Ilyich saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.
   In the depths of his soul Ivan Ilyich knew that he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to it, he simply did not, he could not possibly understand it.
   The example of a syllogism he had studied in Kiesewetter's logic - Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal - had seemed to him all his life to be correct only in relation to Caius, but by no means to himself. For the man Caius, man in general, it was perfectly correct; but he was not Caius and not man in general, he had always been quite, quite separate from all other beings; he was Vanya, with mama, with papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with toys, the coachman, with a nanny, then with Katenka, with all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood, boyhood, youth. Was it for Caius, the smell of the striped leather ball that Vanya had loved so much?  Was it Caius who had kissed his mother's hand like that, and was it for Caius that the silk folds of his mother's dress had rustled like that? Was it he who had mutinied against bad food in law school? Was it Caius who had been in love like that? Was it Caius who could conduct a court session like that?''
 The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy.
Human beings do not live in the abstract. The abstract, the proposition, the concept, these are all easy for the average man to assent to. However, they remain abstract, propositions and concepts. Man is untouched. The proposition may illumine but is often utterly irrelevant to man's experience.  Man does not exist in a textbook but lives as flesh and blood, limited by space and time. He is finite, restricted, bound. There was a vast amount of time on earth when he, the individual, was unknown. Even while existing, he is unknown, a statistic, a dot in a crowd to the multitude. He decays, passes away, turns to dust or ashes. I decay, pass away, turn to dust or ashes. My friend decays, passes away, turns to dust or ashes. We die, not humanity, we perish. We make plans for our future or for the enjoyment of present things, such is necessary for fruitful living. But what if we were to die in a few moments time? Us here, as the seconds tick by, death approaches surely but slowly. A particular hobby of mine is historical reading, especially that of Ancient Rome. I marvel at the adventures of Pompey Magnus throughout the east, I wonder at the military genius of Caesar as he destroys the Gallic tribes, I consider the rise to power of Octavian from a weak youth to the most powerful man in the world as the first Roman Emperor. What each of them achieved has had lasting effects on mankind and on the history of our continent. However, each of these individuals has died, two were violently murdered. Both betrayed. One at the end of his glorious career, one at the height of his power at the hands of men he had forgiven. Death came suddenly and unexpected to each, and judgement was shift. Both are no where to be seen among the sons of men. I shall reserve judgment on their eternal fate but neither was prepared for death.
 We assert that humanity will continue on, but we forget the fact that humanity does not exist as a shape-shifting mass of material, but is made up of actual, individual human persons of flesh and blood. Our common sense notions about the universal fact of death is only consented to as a concept, not as a reality. The faithful Christian recognises that he will stop breathing at one instant and be swept along to the Judgement Seat. All has been written, all decreed. We will be unable to renegotiate our choices, we ourselves have made them. We have not lived on paper or in the hypotheticals of the intellectually curious. We have lived and died. I make an appeal not to indulge your passions before the opportunity has passed, but to recognise the true end of man and once this is attained, man will joyfully await his end, certain in the hope our Lord promised to those who persevere to the end in His love. As the dawn fades to dark, may we awaken to the full and unending glory of day.

Lord, save us from a sudden and unprepared for death!

Reflection on Progressive Morality

A most unabashed liberty of morals can only be reinforced by a cringing totalitarianism. 

Reflection on Brexit and the European Union

A restoration of the position of the Catholic Church and the promotion of the Latin tongue would serve as a far greater source of European unity and cordiality of the peoples. Ten Commandments and  five declensions are easier to file than thousands of directives. 

Reflection on the Sacred Liturgy

The reverences, gestures and external ceremonies of the Sacred Liturgy are certain participations in the redemption of the flesh which is fully to come. 

Reflection on Penitence

In the silent, sorrowful breast of the penitent sinner, can only resound the rejoicing of the angelic host. 

Reflection on Righteous Anger

Righteous anger or holy hatred is obtained when one loves more what one defends than detests what one opposes. 

Reflection on the Sacred Heart

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the source of consolation to the penitent, a source of reproach to the obstinate. To one, the appears the crown, to the other, the thorns. 

Reflection on Party Politics

To attribute the most base motivations to one's opponents is often considered the most noble course in a democracy. 

Reflection on the Conciliar Church

To say that the documents of the conciliar Church can admit of a Catholic interpretation is to confess that the author's literal intent was to present something other than Catholicism. 

Reflection on Mary Immaculate

As the Word is the perfect image of the substance of the Father, so should Mary be the icon of the perfection of the Christian soul. 

Reflection on Prayer

In prayer, we seek not to direct the will of God to our pleasure but to order our will to His. 

Reflection on Ecumenism

To justify ecumenical activity as in response to the charity which urges us on, in opposition to divine faith is to posit a schism in the theological virtues, nay, even in the very divinity of the one God. 

Reflection on the Pope and Tradition

As our Lord was bound to the Cross in accordance with the chalice that His Father handed to Him, so the Roman Pontiff is bound to the Apostolic Doctrine commended to him. To pass over to the way of novelty is to come down from the Cross. 

Reflection on "Pastoral Accompaniment" and "Amoris Laetitia"

To do no more than to understand the current state of the wounded is to pass by on the other side. 

Reflection on Good Friday

For ungrateful souls, the Blood of Christ can only stain and His Wounds, only fester. 

Reflection on Feelings

The sole virtue in feelings is to fortify an already formed resolution of the will, so that the act may be carried out with greater ease. 

Reflection on Donald Trump and Building Walls

A fortress mentality can only be borne who has something valuable to preserve. The post-conciliar Church could never understand the importance of erecting barriers as it has little of worth to treasure and defend. 

Reflection on Respecting Differences

The tolerant individual may be said to have the noble qualities of a friendly neighbourhood dog, not of a man of virtue. 

Reflection on Philosophy

Profound human thought is achieved not by compromise but rather by synthesis. 

Reflection on the Political Moderate

The Serpent in the Garden was the first appearance of the moderate in political history.