Catholic Culture Audiobooks
177 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 days ago - ★★★★★ - 86 ratingsVoice actor James T. Majewski brings to life classic Catholic works, with a special focus on St. John Henry Newman and the Fathers of the Church.
Over 100 recordings, including sermons, encyclicals, letters, poems, and full books like St. Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana, and St. Athanasius's Life of St. Anthony.
A production of CatholicCulture.org.
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Episodes
St. John Henry Newman - The Work of the Christian
April 20, 2024 16:46 - 27 minutes - 42.3 MB"It cannot be said, then, because we have not to bear the burden and the heat of the day, that therefore we have returned to paradise. It is not that our work is lighter, but our strength is greater." This sermon from Newman's Anglican period was originally preached on Septuagesima Sunday. In it, Newman addresses the misconception that grace exempts Christians from work, and he exhorts Christians to embrace their calling to work diligently for the glory of God. Links The Work of the Ch...
The Shepherd of Hermas | Pt. 3 (Parables 1-8)
April 12, 2024 14:40 - 1 hour - 88 MB“These mandates are advantageous for those who intend to repent. For, if they do not walk in them, their repentance is worthless. You who repent must cast off the wickedness of this world which wears you down; if you put on every excellence of justice, you can observe these mandates and keep from committing any additional sins.” The Shepherd of Hermas is an apocryphal text written in Rome in the 2nd century. It belongs to the category of "apocalyptic" literature, as it relates a series of ...
The Shepherd of Hermas | Pt. 2 (Mandates)
March 20, 2024 20:30 - 59 minutes - 81 MB“Put the Lord in your hearts, then, you who are empty and fickle in the faith. You will then know that nothing is easier, sweeter, or more gentle than these mandates. Be converted, you who walk in the commandments of the Devil, commandments that are hard, bitter, cruel, and foul. And do not fear the Devil either, because he has no power against you. I, the Angel of Repentance, who have overcome the Devil, am on your side.” The Shepherd of Hermas is an apocryphal text written in Rome in the...
The Shepherd of Hermas | Pt. 1 (Visions)
March 06, 2024 21:11 - 54 minutes - 79.2 MB“So I wrote the commands and parables as he bade me. If you hear them and keep them, and walk in them, and fulfill them in a pure heart, you will receive from the Lord what He promised you. But if you hear them and do not repent, or even add to your sins, you will receive the contrary from the Lord.” The Shepherd of Hermas is an apocryphal text written in Rome in the 2nd century. It belongs to the category of "apocalyptic" literature, as it relates a series of revelations given to its titu...
St. Francis de Sales - Introduction to the Devout Life | Pt. 5 & Conclusion
February 17, 2024 20:21 - 48 minutes - 70.9 MB“Consider the love with which our dear Lord Jesus Christ bore so much in this world, especially in the Garden of Olives and on Mount Calvary; that love bore you in mind, and through all those pains and toils he obtained your good resolutions for you, as also all that is necessary to maintain, foster, strengthen and consummate those resolutions. "How precious must the resolutions be that are the fruits of our Lord’s Passion! And how dear to my heart, since they were dear to that of Jesus! S...
St. Basil the Great - On the Right Use of Greek Literature
February 06, 2024 21:53 - 36 minutes - 54.6 MB"... it is incumbent upon us, for the present, to trace, as it were, the silhouette of virtue in the pagan authors. For those who carefully gather the useful from each book are wont, like mighty rivers, to gain accessions on every hand." Drawing from his deep understanding of both classical Greek literature and Sacred Scripture, St. Basil the Great—a towering figure of the early Church—advocates for the proper integration of the literary treasures of ancient Greece within the broader forma...
St. Francis de Sales - Introduction to the Devout Life | Pt. 4
January 26, 2024 21:43 - 1 hour - 108 MB"If anyone strives to be delivered from his troubles out of love of God, he will strive patiently, gently, humbly and calmly, looking for deliverance rather to God's goodness and providence than to his own industry or efforts; but if self-love is the prevailing object, he will grow hot and eager in seeking relief, as though all depended more upon himself than upon God." Part 4 (00:45) Chapter 1—We Must Not Trifle with the Words of Worldly Wisdom (06:16) Chapter 2—The Need of Good Coura...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Duties of the Church towards Knowledge
January 20, 2024 19:12 - 54 minutes - 80.2 MB"If the Catholic Faith is true, a University cannot exist externally to the Catholic pale, for it cannot teach Universal Knowledge if it does not teach Catholic theology. This is certain; but still, though it had ever so many theological Chairs, that would not suffice to make it a Catholic University... a direct and active jurisdiction of the Church over it and in it is necessary, lest it should become the rival of the Church with the community at large in those theological matters which to ...
St. Francis de Sales - Introduction to the Devout Life | Pt. 3 (Ch.36-41)
January 11, 2024 16:57 - 35 minutes - 54.3 MB"No indeed, I would not even have people wish for more wit or better judgment, for such desires are frivolous, and take the place of the wish everyone ought to possess of improving what he has. We ought not to desire ways of serving God that He does not open to us, but rather desire to use what we have rightly." Part 3 (00:38) Chapter 36—A Well-Balanced, Reasonable Mind (04:48) Chapter 37—Wishes (09:30) Chapter 38—Counsels to Married People (23:02) Chapter 39—The Sanctity of the Ma...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Religion
December 14, 2023 16:09 - 1 hour - 98.4 MB"True Religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dislodgement; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root in itself: it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers. It appeals to what is in nature, and it falls under the dominion of the old Adam. Then, like dethroned princes, it keeps up a state and majesty, when it has lost the real power. Deformity is its abhorrence; accordingly, since it cannot dissuade men from vice, therefore in order to escape the sight of its d...
St. Francis de Sales - Introduction to the Devout Life | Pt. 3 (Ch.23-35)
November 15, 2023 20:52 - 1 hour - 96.9 MB"Great occasions for serving God come seldom, but little ones surround us daily... If you do all in God's name, all you do will be well done." Part 3 (00:38) Chapter 23—The Practice of Bodily Mortification (11:15) Chapter 24—Society and Solitude (16:40) Chapter 25—Modesty in Dress (20:36) Chapter 26—Conversation: First, How to Speak of God (23:08) Chapter 27—Unseemly Words and the Respect Due to Others (27:34) Chapter 28—Hasty Judgments (37:44) Chapter 29—Slander (48:46) Ch...
St. Philip Howard - A Fourfold Meditation: On the Four Last Things
October 20, 2023 13:06 - 57 minutes - 83.5 MB"Thou findest here what thou wilt wish at last, And that account which none can ever shun; Then frame thy life before thy time be past, As thou wilt wish that thou in time hadst done: Lest thou in vain doth wail thy wretched state, When time is past and wailing comes too late." A poem by Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel (1557-1595), an English nobleman, translator, and one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. Links Lyra Martyrum: The Poetry of the English Ma...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Professional Skill
October 04, 2023 22:11 - 55 minutes - 81.2 MB"If then the intellect is so excellent a portion of us, and its cultivation so excellent, it is not only beautiful, perfect, admirable, and noble in itself, but in a true and high sense it must be useful to the possessor and to all around him; not useful in any low, mechanical, mercantile sense, but as diffusing good, or as a blessing, or a gift, or power, or a treasure, first to the owner, then through him to the world." In 1854, Newman was invited to Dublin by the Catholic Bishops of Ire...
St. Francis de Sales - Introduction to the Devout Life | Pt. 3 (Ch.11-22)
September 13, 2023 01:10 - 1 hour - 89.5 MB"In the world those who aim at a devout life require to be united one with another by a holy friendship, which excites, stimulates, and encourages them in well-doing." Part 3 (00:39) Chapter 11 - Obedience (06:04) Chapter 12 - Purity (09:26) Chapter 13 - How to Maintain Purity (13:09) Chapter 14 - Poverty of Spirit amid Riches (18:49) Chapter 15 - How to Exercise Real Poverty although Actually Rich (26:29) Chapter 16—How to Possess a Rich Spirit amid Real Poverty (30:11) Cha...
Pope St. John Paul II - Veritatis Splendor: Regarding Certain Fundamental Questions of the Church's Moral Teaching | Chapter III
August 18, 2023 16:40 - 1 hour - 114 MB“While exchanges and conflicts of opinion may constitute normal expressions of public life in a representative democracy, moral teaching certainly cannot depend simply upon respect for a process: indeed, it is in no way established by following the rules and deliberative procedures typical of a democracy... Opposition to the teaching of the Church's Pastors cannot be seen as a legitimate expression either of Christian freedom or of the diversity of the Spirit's gifts.” Veritatis Splendor,...
Pope St. John Paul II - Veritatis Splendor: Regarding Certain Fundamental Questions of the Church's Moral Teaching | Chapter II
August 10, 2023 13:20 - 2 hours - 169 MB“If acts are intrinsically evil, a good intention or particular circumstances can diminish their evil, but they cannot remove it. They remain irremediably evil acts; per se and in themselves they are not capable of being ordered to God and to the good of the person... Consequently, circumstances or intentions can never transform an act intrinsically evil by virtue of its object into an act subjectively good or defensible as a choice.” Veritatis Splendor, or “The Splendor of Truth”, was a ...
Pope St. John Paul II - Veritatis Splendor: Regarding Certain Fundamental Questions of the Church's Moral Teaching | Chapter I
August 02, 2023 21:42 - 1 hour - 89.7 MB“No damage must be done to the harmony between faith and life: the unity of the Church is damaged not only by Christians who reject or distort the truths of faith but also by those who disregard the moral obligations to which they are called by the Gospel.” Veritatis Splendor, or “The Splendor of Truth”, was a papal encyclical promulgated by Pope St. John Paul II on August 6, 1993. The encyclical addresses fundamental questions of the Church's moral teaching, especially in relation to the...
The So-Called Letter of Barnabas
July 22, 2023 17:18 - 56 minutes - 77.3 MB"The helpers of our faith are fear and patience; our allies are long-suffering and self-control." The so-called Letter of Barnabas is neither a letter nor by St. Barnabas. Written by an anonymous author sometime between the years 70 and 150 AD, it is a work of allegorical scriptural interpretation chiefly notable for its early date. Having been composed well before collection of the New Testament into a canon, the Letter of Barnabas attempts to illustrate the Old Testament's fulfillment in...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Learning
July 08, 2023 12:18 - 52 minutes - 76.8 MB"I say, a University, taken in its bare idea, and before we view it as an instrument of the Church, has this object and this mission; it contemplates neither moral impression nor mechanical production; it professes to exercise the mind neither in art nor in duty; its function is intellectual culture... It educates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it." In 1854, Newman was invited to Dublin by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland to serve as re...
St. Thomas More - Poems from the Tower of London
June 20, 2023 23:14 - 5 minutes - 13 MB"Give me thy grace, good Lord, To set the world at naught;" The 16th and 17th centuries produced a number of men whose courageous faith was accompanied by prodigious learning and literary talent. Among these was St. Thomas More, who wrote poems while languishing in the Tower of London, 1534-1535. Read here are "Lewis the Lost Lover" and "Davey the Dicer", titled after the popular tunes of the day to which he wrote the poems. According to his biographer and son-in-law William Roper, More ...
St. Francis de Sales - Introduction to the Devout Life | Pt. 3 (Ch.1-10)
June 07, 2023 00:21 - 1 hour - 101 MB"Anyone who will calmly consider what he has done without God, cannot fail to realize that what he does with God is no merit of his own; and so we may rejoice in that which is good in us, and take pleasure in the fact, but we shall give all the glory to God alone, who alone is its author." Part 3 Chapter 1 - How to Select That Which We Should Chiefly Practice (00:00:38) Chapter 2 - The Same Subject Continued (00:09:33) Chapter 3 - Patience (00:16:32) Chapter 4 - Greater Humility (0...
When artists feel lonely in the Church - w/ James Majewski and Thomas Mirus
May 16, 2023 09:00 - 1 hour - 70.9 MBIn this livestream, James Majewski and Thomas Mirus we discussed errors artists can fall into in pushing back against a moralistic approach to art found within the Church. Rather than reacting away from rigidity to excessive openness, the mature Catholic artist has to get over himself and be a servant. Also discussed: The relation between order and surprise in beauty, morality and culture. Note: the video begins abruptly in the middle of our introductory fundraising campaign pitch - beca...
Mike Aquilina Q&A on the Church Fathers
May 09, 2023 17:12 - 1 hour - 93.1 MBWe thought Catholic Culture Audiobooks listeners might be interested in this discussion with Mike Aquilina, host of Way of the Fathers, also on the Catholic Culture Podcast Network. For those who missed the YouTube livestream Q&A with Mike Aquilina on May 8th, 2023, here is the audio. It was a lively conversation where Mike fielded viewer questions about important cities of the early Church, early evidence for papal primacy, the role of charity in the early Church, Origen, the providential...
Livestream promo
May 04, 2023 06:12 - 2 minutes - 6.94 MBWe'll be doing YouTube livestreams on the next 3 Monday evenings, as part of CatholicCulture.org's May fundraising campaign. In these freewheeling conversations, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions and prompt discussion in the live chat box! 5/8, 8pm ET - Mike Aquilina (host, Way of the Fathers podcast) 5/15, 8pm ET - Thomas Mirus & James Majewski (hosts,Catholic Culture Podcast, Catholic Culture Audiobooks, Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast) 5/22, 8pm ET - Phil Lawler & Jef...
St. Cyril of Jerusalem - Mystagogical Lectures on the Eucharist
May 03, 2023 16:40 - 24 minutes - 34.1 MB“When the Master himself has explicitly said of the bread, ‘This is my body,’ will anyone still dare to doubt? When He is Himself our warranty, saying, “This is my blood,” who will ever waver and say it is not His Blood?” These the two final catechetical lectures given by Cyril to catechumens around 349 A.D are termed the Mystagogical Lectures. In them, Cyril instructs the newly baptized on the mysteries into which they had just been initiated: baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist. He ...
St. Ignatius of Antioch - Letter to the Magnesians
April 24, 2023 19:47 - 11 minutes - 20.6 MB"It is not enough to be Christians in name. It behooves us to be such in fact. [...] So let us become His disciples. Let us learn to live the life that Christianity calls for. No one with any other name than this can belong to God." St. Ignatius was the third bishop of Antioch. The only extant writings by St. Ignatius are the seven letters he wrote as a prisoner on his way to Rome to face martyrdom. In this letter, Ignatius encourages the Magnesian Christians to maintain their unity and av...
St. Melito of Sardis - On the Passover
April 10, 2023 21:03 - 48 minutes - 71.9 MB"For the one who was born as Son, and led to slaughter as a lamb, and sacrificed as a sheep, and buried as a man, rose up from the dead as God." A vernacular version of the earliest surviving Easter vigil homily by a second-century bishop about whom little is known. Full text: https://www.kerux.com/doc/0401A1.asp Alternate translation: https://sachurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/On-Pascha-Melito-of-Sardis.pdf Donate at: http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Theme music: 2...
Pope St. Leo the Great - Three Lenten Sermons
March 29, 2023 22:42 - 31 minutes - 48.8 MB"People are shown to be not particularly spiritual at other times if they do not prove themselves to be more spiritual in these days." St. Leo the Great's pontificate was described by Pope Benedict XVI as “undoubtedly one of the most important in Church history”. His 96 extant sermons, given during the period 440-461, reveal his great desire for the unity of the Church and his strong belief in the primacy of the papacy. These three Lenten sermons were given in the years 441, 442, and 443...
St. Patrick - Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus
March 17, 2023 00:29 - 16 minutes - 27.2 MB"I don't know which is the cause of the greatest grief for me: whether those who were slain, or those who were captured, or those whom the devil so deeply ensnared." St. Patrick's Letter to Coroticus is one of two extant works from the fifth century bishop who would come to be known as the “Apostle of Ireland.” Written several years into St. Patrick's missionary work in Ireland, this letter offers a stern rebuke to a British warlord named Coroticus and his soldiers, the latter of whom ha...
J.R.R. Tolkien - On Fairy-Stories
March 01, 2023 15:57 - 2 hours - 187 MB"God is the Lord, of angels, and of men—and of elves." In this 1939 essay, J.R.R. Tolkien expounds upon his personal theory of fantasy. Considered by many to be his most influential scholarly work, the essay is remarkable both as an analysis of a literary form by one of its most important pioneers and as a key to understanding Tolkien's own legendarium. This reading is unabridged, with the exception of Tolkien’s footnotes and endnotes. Links On Fairy-Stories full text: https://archiv...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Knowledge Its Own End
February 10, 2023 19:46 - 49 minutes - 67.5 MB"The artist puts before him beauty of feature and form; the poet, beauty of mind; the preacher, the beauty of grace: then intellect too, I repeat, has its beauty, and it has those who aim at it." In 1854, Newman was invited to Dublin by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland to serve as rector for the newly established Catholic University of Ireland, now University College, Dublin. Though he retired after only four years, during this time he composed and delivered the lectures that would become T...
St. Francis de Sales—Introduction to the Devout Life | Pt. 2 (Ch.16-21)
February 01, 2023 18:29 - 29 minutes - 45.1 MB"Therefore, my child, communicate frequently, as often as you can, subject to the advice of your spiritual Father... and by reason of adoring and feeding upon beauty, goodness, and purity itself in this most divine Sacrament you too will become lovely, holy, pure." St. Francis de Sales continues his instruction in the devout life with these eminently practical chapters on how the saints are united to us, how to hear and read God's Word, how to receive inspirations, how to go to confession,...
Pope Benedict XVI - Regensburg Address: Faith, Reason and the University
January 24, 2023 02:24 - 27 minutes - 42.2 MB"The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur—this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time." Pope Benedict XVI delivered this address to scientists at the University of Regensburg on September 12, 2006, where he was a professor and vice rector from 1969 to 1971. The Pope praised the university's traditional openness to approaching God through the use of reason. He went on to contrast th...
St. Francis de Sales—Introduction to the Devout Life | Pt. 2 (Ch.10-15)
January 16, 2023 21:45 - 28 minutes - 44 MB"Now, in the practice of this spiritual retreat and of these brief prayers the great work of devotion lies: it can supply all other deficiencies, but there is hardly any means of making up where this is lacking." In this installment, St. Francis De Sales delves further into his discussion of prayer, focusing his chapters on such subjects as Morning & Evening Prayer, how to receive Holy Communion, and on praying the other public offices of the Church. De Sales stresses the importance of dai...
New Year's "From the Archive" Special: The Lapse of Time, by St. John Henry Newman
December 30, 2022 15:57 - 21 minutes - 34.1 MB“We are now entering on a fresh stage of our life's journey; we know well how it will end, and we see where we shall stop in the evening, though we do not see the road.” Ring in the New Year with this New Year’s Day sermon by St. John Henry Newman, first released on this podcast in January 2020. Full text: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume7/sermon1.html DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donate/audio Go to http://www.catholicculture.org/getaudio to register fo...
Urban Hannon - The Politics of Hell
December 09, 2022 21:22 - 55 minutes - 81.8 MBOriginally delivered at the Pro Civitate Dei summer school in La Londe-les-Maures, France on June 12, 2022, The Politics of Hell is an in-depth examination of St. Thomas Aquinas' doctrine concerning the social order among angels and demons—and a commentary on the human governmental arrangements to which each most closely corresponds. Links: The Politics of Hell full text at The Josias: https://thejosias.com/2022/06/16/the-politics-of-hell/ DONATE at http://www.catholicculture.org/donat...
John Dryden - Two Poems in Honor of St. Cecilia's Day
November 22, 2022 21:22 - 13 minutes - 23.9 MBBut bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r; When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n, An angel heard, and straight appear'd Mistaking earth for Heav'n. "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day" full text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44185/a-song-for-st-cecilias-day-1687 "Alexander's Feast; or, the Power of Music" full text: https://poets.org/poem/alexanders-feast-or-power-music Happy feast of St. Cecilia! More links: DONATE at http://www.catholicc...
From the Archive: Pope Pius XI - Casti Connubii: On Christian Marriage | Full
November 10, 2022 16:56 - 1 hour - 170 MB“Matrimony was not instituted or restored by man but by God; not by man were the laws made to strengthen and confirm and elevate it but by God, the Author of nature, and by Christ Our Lord by Whom nature was redeemed...” Casti Connubii, or “of chaste wedlock”, was a papal encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius XI on December 21, 1930, in response to the approval by the Anglican Communion’s seventh Lambeth Conference of birth control for married couples. Over 90 years later, this encyclical...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Bearing of Other Branches of Knowledge on Theology
November 01, 2022 20:12 - 56 minutes - 77.8 MB"If you drop any science out of the circle of knowledge, you cannot keep its place vacant for it; that science is forgotten; the other sciences close up, or, in other words, they exceed their proper bounds, and intrude where they have no right... no science whatever, however comprehensive it may be, but will fall largely into error, if it be constituted the sole exponent of all things in heaven and earth, and that, for the simple reason that it is encroaching on territory not its own, and un...
Richard Crashaw - A Hymn to the Name and Honour of the Admirable Saint Teresa
October 15, 2022 16:51 - 10 minutes - 19.6 MB"Blest powers forbid thy tender life Should bleed upon a barbarous knife; Or some base hand have power to rase Thy breast’s chaste cabinet, and uncase A soul kept there so sweet; oh no, Wise Heav’n will never have it so; Thou art Love’s victim, and must die A death more mystical and high; Into Love’s arms thou shalt let fall A still-surviving funeral." Richard Crashaw was a 17th-century English poet and Anglican priest who later in life converted to Catholicism. He taught...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Bearing of Theology on Other Branches of Knowledge
September 21, 2022 17:14 - 54 minutes - 75.3 MB"In a word, Religious Truth is not only a portion, but a condition of general knowledge. To blot it out is nothing short, if I may so speak, of unravelling the web of University Teaching." In 1854, Newman was invited to Dublin by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland to serve as rector for the newly established Catholic University of Ireland, now University College, Dublin. Though he retired after only four years, during this time he composed and delivered the lectures that would become The Idea...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Theology a Branch of Knowledge
September 13, 2022 20:58 - 47 minutes - 65.8 MB" Religious doctrine is knowledge, in as full a sense as Newton's doctrine is knowledge. University Teaching without Theology is simply unphilosophical." In 1854, Newman was invited to Dublin by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland to serve as rector for the newly established Catholic University of Ireland, now University College, Dublin. Though he retired after only four years, during this time he composed and delivered the lectures that would become The Idea of a University. In this second ...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Introductory
September 06, 2022 20:09 - 33 minutes - 46.6 MB"The views to which I have referred have grown into my whole system of thought, and are, as it were, part of myself. Many changes has my mind gone through: here it has known no variation or vacillation of opinion..." In 1854, Newman was invited to Dublin by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland to serve as rector for the newly established Catholic University of Ireland, now University College, Dublin. Though he retired after only four years, during this time he composed and delivered the lecture...
St. John Henry Newman - The Idea of a University | Preface
August 31, 2022 19:33 - 28 minutes - 43.6 MB"The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following: That it is a place of teaching universal knowledge." In 1854, Newman was invited to Dublin by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland to serve as rector for the newly established Catholic University of Ireland, now University College, Dublin. Though he retired after only four years, during this time he composed and delivered the lectures that would become The Idea of a University. In The Idea of a University, St. John Henry Ne...
U.S. Supreme Court - Majority Opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health
August 18, 2022 15:26 - 1 hour - 159 MB"The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled." On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling of 1973, restoring the authority of individual states to regulate abortion. The landmark ruling came on a 6-3 vote, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the majority. Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined in the opinion, with Chief Justice Roberts adding a concurring opinion. Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan fil...
St. Francis de Sales—Introduction to the Devout Life | Part 1 (Ch.19-24)
August 05, 2022 19:26 - 20 minutes - 32.8 MB"There is no disposition so good but it may be made bad by reason of vicious habits, and neither is there any natural disposition so perverse but that it may be conquered and overcome by God's grace primarily, and then by our earnest endeavor." St. Francis de Sales ends this first part of the Introduction with instructions on making a general confession along with a firm resolution at amendment. He concludes with an exhortation that the devout soul be resolved to purge away all tendency to...
Gerard Manley Hopkins - The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo
July 27, 2022 15:07 - 6 minutes - 8.37 MBHow to keep–is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, . . . from vanishing away? Gerard Manley Hopkins was an English poet and Jesuit priest born on July 28, 1844 (tomorrow would have been his 178th birthday!). A convert from Anglicanism, Hopkins was received into the Church in 1866 by none other than St. John Henry Newman. Because of his commitment to...
St. Francis de Sales—Introduction to the Devout Life | Part 1 (Ch.9-18)
July 19, 2022 23:59 - 1 hour - 89 MB"Now, in order to attain this fear and this contrition, you must use the following meditations carefully; for if you practice them steadfastly, they (by God's grace) will root out both sin and its affections from your heart. It is to that end that I have prepared them: use them one after another, in the order in which they come, only taking one each day, and using that as early as possible, for the morning is the best time for all spiritual exercises—and then you will ponder and meditate on ...
St. Augustine - Letter to the Lady Felicia: On Bad Shepherds
July 02, 2022 12:28 - 11 minutes - 20.4 MB"I advise you not to be too deeply disturbed by these scandals, because their coming was foretold so that, when they came, we might remember that they had been foretold and might not be greatly troubled by them." ”Augustine’s correspondence, the mark and expression of the influential personality and apostolic zeal of the author, is rich in historical, philosophical, theological, exegetical, spiritual, literary, and autobiographical content” (Agostino Trapè). In this letter (Letter 208), he...
St. Francis de Sales—Introduction to the Devout Life | Part 2 (Ch.1-9)
June 25, 2022 15:19 - 29 minutes - 40.2 MB"It may be, my child, that you do not know how to practice mental prayer, for unfortunately it is a thing much neglected nowadays. I will therefore give you a short and easy method for using it..." We continue our reading series of St. Frances de Sales' spiritual masterpiece by jumping ahead a few chapters to Part 2, in which the Doctor of the Church breaks down each part of his method for meditation. The fuller explanation on mental prayer given within these chapters will help us when we ...