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seminarian Jonathan Daniels, saint and martyr in the Episcopal Church, participating in the Great March on Washington of 1963.

During the first centuries of the Church, it was usual for all the faithful to be like missionary disciples and to commit themselves personally to evangelization. The ordained ministry was at the service of this mission shared by all. Today, we feel strongly that we must return to this participation of all the baptized in witnessing to and proclaiming the Gospel. […] I would like to say to the formators that priests must also be trained in this, not to think of themselves as lone leaders, nor to live out the ordained priesthood with a sense of superiority. We need priests who are able to discern and appreciate in lay people the grace of Baptism and the charisms that flow from it, perhaps even helping them to open up these gifts and then to find the courage and enthusiasm to commit themselves to help the life of Church and society. In concrete terms, this means that the preparation of future priests must be increasingly immersed in the reality of the People of God and carried out with the contribution of its members: priests, laity, and consecrated men and women.

Pope Leo XIV, in his Address to Formators and Xaverian Brothers on July 25th, 2025.

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If I were to find a novena to pray for my wedding starting on the 18th of September, would anyone want me to post it so you can pray alongside me and my wife-to-be?

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latter day saints? oh you mean like carlo acutis?

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“[T]he root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.”

— John Paul II (Centesimus annus, §44e)

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I meant to post this when I got really emotional reading it a few months ago, but since it's his feast day... ... you know, Peter Claver spent his whole life evangelizing the slave community; he sought to take care of their material well being, he prioritized giving his time to them over their owners, he sought to live his life for the sakes of their lives. And in his old age, he is given over to the care of a slave who proceeded to neglect and abuse him nearly until the end. And, without saying it would have been the right path of action, I can say that I would understand how one could become really embittered by that experience; to have spent so many decades working with the members of this community, only to live forgotten and in pain when placed under the watch of a member of that community. But that he instead saw it as a mystical act of reparation... that up until now "he had slaved for but not been a slave of" the slaves he worked with because "he could not divest himself of the privilege of his race," but now that he had been handed over to the power of someone who was himself under the power of someone else his entire life... that up until now "the sacrifice he offered was a voluntary sacrifice, and there is a world of difference between the voluntary consecration of one's labor and of one's time and that complete subjection of which slavery consists"... But now, through the very situation that might have embittered many others, "God had answered his prayer. In his own person, he was helping to pay the debt that had been incurred by the brutal slave traders." And I understand why Pope Leo XIII could say that, after Christ, no life has touched him more than that of Peter Claver.

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Bishop Barron perfuming the Monstrance with incense during the Eucharistic Pilgrimage on June 7th, 2024. (x)

I believe that one of the major problems we have in evangelizing our culture is that many Christians don’t walk with Jesus personally. Evangelization is not, finally, a sharing of ideas —though this can be very important at the level of pre-evangelization or clearing the ground— but rather the sharing of a relationship. But as the old adage has it, “Nemo dat quod non habet” (No one gives what he doesn’t have). If we don’t speak to Jesus as “thou,” we won’t draw others into a real friendship with him, and the establishment of that friendship is the goal, the terminus ad quem, of real evangelizing.

Bishop Robert Barron (An Introduction to Prayer, pages 32-33)

Bishop Robert Brennan, celebrating the Mass during the Eucharistic Revival on April 20th, 2024. (x)

How often has each of us, in our ministry, spoken about the difference about knowing about Jesus, and actually knowing Jesus? We use that [distinction] in teaching all the time. Our retreat master [Cardinal Raneiro Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap.] put it this way: 'Is Jesus a personality, a celebrity, or is He a Person we can talk with, and enter into friendship?' Unfortunately, for a vast majority of Christians, Jesus is a… personality, not a Person; part of a set of dogmas, and doctrines, and ideas, one whom we remember on an objective level as a piece of history. I ask you this: is it any wonder, then, that there is a crisis of faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? If we don't know Jesus as a real Person, how can we speak about Him being really present in the Eucharist? The root of any revival has to be the rediscovery of Jesus as a real Person, and a meaningful encounter with Him.

Bishop Robert Brennan of Brooklyn Queens, in his 2023 Chrism Mass homily.

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hey, you guys? you… might want to see this *shows you the truth at the center of the universe and it is love*

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the only reliable, effective way of "protecting children" is education. but people don't want to hear that because they don't actually care about protecting children, they care about protecting a mythologised ideal of innocence

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A divine 'punishment' is also a divine 'gift', if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make 'punishments' […] produce a good not otherwise to be attained[.]

J.R.R. Tolkien (unsent letter to Rhona Beare, written in October of 1958)

Endure your trials as discipline; God treats you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? […] At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

the Book of Hebrews (12:7, 11)

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This is the definition for moral dignity, which is damaged when we act in a way that is beneath us (and is juxtaposed with ontological dignity, which can never be lost) in the Vatican document, Dignitas infinita (§7b):

When we speak of moral dignity, we refer to how people exercise their freedom. While people are endowed with conscience, they can always act against it. However, were they to do so, they would behave in a way that is "not dignified" with respect to their nature as creatures who are loved by God and called to love others. Yet, this possibility always exists in human freedom, and history illustrates how individuals —when exercising their freedom against the law of love revealed by the Gospel— can commit inestimably profound acts of evil against others. Those who act in this way seem to have lost any trace of humanity and dignity. This is where the present distinction can help us discern between the moral dignity that de facto can be "lost," and the ontological dignity that can never be annulled. And it is precisely because of this latter point that we must work with all our might so that those who have done evil may repent and convert.

"this is unbecoming of me" is genuinely a useful thing to have in your mental toolbox

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DIOCESAN DAY OF PRAYER AND FASTING FOR PEACE will be on Monday, September 15th, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Bishop Brennan asks all the faithful to unite in prayer and penance particularly in solidarity with those suffering in war torn area of the world and with victims of unspeakable violence, especially at Annunciation Parish in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As Bishop Brennan states: ���The tears of Our Lady and the compunction of our hearts can indeed have a transformative effect in our families, communities, nation, and in the world.”

from a local church bulletin

Hey, the Bishop of Brooklyn-Queens has announced his intention for this September 15th to be a day of prayer and fasting for peace in his diocese; this is on the recommendation of Pope Leo, who requested that particular churches designate days for such prayer after his call for August 22nd to be a day of prayer for peace throughout the Universal Church.

Something to put on your calendar, if you would like to pray in communion with the Church in Brooklyn-Queens, and a reason to write to your own bishop, if they haven’t established a day of prayer for peace yet.

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Lament of the Evening Star, by Jian Guo

It was also the Elvish (and uncorrupted Númenórean) view that a 'good' Man would or should die voluntarily by surrender with trust before being compelled (as did Aragorn). This may have been the nature of unfallen Man; though compulsion would not threaten him, he would desire and ask to be allowed to 'go on' to a higher state. The Assumption of Mary, the only unfallen person, may be regarded as in some ways a simple regaining of unfallen grace and liberty: she asked to be received, and was, having no further function on Earth. Though, of course, even if unfallen she was not 'pre-Fall'. Her destiny (in which she had cooperated) was far higher than that of any 'Man' would have been, had the Fall not occurred. It was also unthinkable that her body, the immediate source of Our Lord's (without other physical intermediary), should have been disintegrated or 'corrupted', nor could it surely be long separated from Him after the Ascension. There is of course no suggestion that Mary did not 'age' at a normal rate of her race; but certainly this process cannot have proceeded or been allowed to proceed to decrepitude or loss of vitality and comeliness. The Assumption was in any case as distinct from the Ascension as the raising of Lazarus from the (self) Resurrection.

J.R.R. Tolkien (unsent letter to Rhona Beare, written in October of 1958)

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If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Sirius Black (J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, page 525)

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Let the name of Christ reign within us. May this blessed and limitlessly graceful name become our food, our drink, our clothing, our oxygen, our life, our heart, and our nous--may it become everything. When it becomes everything to us, then we will acquire Him Who has created everything.

The Art of Salvation by Elder Ephraim of Arizona

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Moisturize me

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Part of the story of modernity is simply the story of Christianity's subversion of itself[.]

David Bentley Hart (Interview with Larry Chapp)