Clothed in Virtue

     December 12th, 2021.   Gaudete Sunday           What is joy?  Joy is  achieving what is good.       Winning a race you trained hard for.  Getting a job you worked hard to get.  Joy is the attainment of a good thing, something that you worked hard to achieve. This is different from mere sensory  pleasure,  which is gratification of the senses and faculties.       What leads to joy? — virtue.       Virtue is necessary for the pursuit of happiness:          1.  Modesty.  — An absolutely essential virtue to being happy because modesty moderates the senses.  Paul says to us today,  “let your modesty be known.”  Through modesty, we mortify the senses by controlling them. If we constantly gratify our senses, letting them have whatever they want, then we are seeking pleasure as an end ...

October 31st, 2021 The Feast of Christ the King Read Quas Primas.  More than  ever we need to hear these words. Quas Primas: Reminds bishops of the evils in the world and their cause: they have thrust Jesus Christ and His laws out of their lives. This is still manifest today. Christ is meant to be king here on earth, firstly because he is God —he has a right to rule creation Christ is not only king by nature, but by conquest. He conquered sin. My kingdom is not of this world — He did not come to establish an earthly kingdom like all the others. Enter the kingdom by faith and baptism: opposed to the kingdom of Satan. To belong to Christs kingdom is to carry the cross because it is the mode of salvation. We must imitate Christ Purchased the Church with his own blood. Christ is king as priest and victim; the one who offers the sacrifice as well as the one who is offered as sacrifice. To be part of his kingdom we must offer ourselves too Reverence Christ as king of kings All autho...

A successful life is one that achieves its purpose. Happiness is not pleasure. Pleasure is on the level of the senses — something that feels good when the senses are appeased. Pleasure is when our appetites are satisfied. It’s in the emotion. It’s not permanent, it does not last.  Happiness is in the will — it is a good that we achieve. It’s something that is lasting and cannot be taken away. This is why we can be happy amidst our suffering because when we do God’s will, we are achieving our end (our purpose). “Happiness” that the word pushes upon us is really just pleasure — seeking instant gratification and calling that happiness. But that’s not real happiness. Happiness comes from virtue, not through pleasure-seeking. A majority of millionaires in the world are not truly happy. They seek more and more because they are never satisfied You can be happy without having your senses appeased. Many of the saints had nothing and yet were still happy. Often times the poor are more dispos...

September 26th, 2021 *FL      In this Gospel, we witness Our Lord being approached by a few men, one of whom is sick with paralysis. Our Lord, seeing their faith, contents Himself to say that this man’s sins are forgiven.      What is notably absent is that he does not immediately heal this man of his physical problem. It appears that the only reason He healed him physically was because of the scribes accusing him in their thoughts of blaspheming. It is notable that the man was not disappointed by not being physically healed. Was he complaining? No, he seems content to hear that his sins are forgive. This indicates that this is what he wanted, to be made right with God through Jesus, more than he wanted to be able to walk.       The lesson for us is that if we are right with God, in the state of grace, then we truly have all that our heart can desire. It is nothing more than to be a friend of Almighty God, to be a companion with Our Lord...

"Restore all things in Christ."        Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Pius X, our patron.       It is good to look back and see the first of St. Pius' encyclicals. This encyclical letter which began his pontificate gave the bishops his mission and goal which can be summed up in this short sentence: to restore all things in Christ.      It’s an interesting letter that we can profit from. At the beginning, he expresses his doubts — he says he sees the pontificate as a difficult burden that he can’t bear alone. He then says but I have accepted because I know it is from God, and God will help me to bear this burden and get through this difficulty. He didn’t jump into the pontificate thinking it would be a breeze but that it would be very difficult. We are often faced with difficult tasks — what is our response? Do we ask for divine help or do we just give up?      Why did he choose the name Pius? — he says “as I ...

  "And behold all generations shall me blessed."      Today we celebrate the beautiful feast of the Assumption. The Assumption is the culmination of Mary's earthly life, which began at her Immaculate Conception and finished here, at the Assumption. She continues to be an advocate in Heaven, showering graces upon us.      What does this feast mean? What are we celebrating? Let’s pause today and see what it is that we truly celebrate and what it means for us.      The Immaculate Conception is when we celebrate Mary’s conception in her mother’s womb, the womb of Ann, conceived without sin.  Today, we  celebrate Our Lady being taken up, body and soul, into heaven, being assumed by God into heaven. This is different from the Ascension of Jesus Christ where Jesus used his own divine power to ascend into heaven. He raised Himself at the Ascension, whereas the Assumption is God bringing Mary into heaven. It wasn’t by her own power, it ...