Spirit & Life Blog

“No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light.” — Luke 8:16 There is a moving scene in the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In it Fr. Zosima, a…

The Truly Radical Revolution that Accompanied Christianity “It is essential, therefore, that the values chosen and pursued in one’s life be true, because only true values can lead people to realize themselves fully, allowing them to be true to their nature. The truth of these values is to be found not by turning in on…

Children, the Supreme Gift of Marriage Last year Christian musician Nichole Nordeman shared a humorous but tragic anecdote. She described overhearing a couple at the airport on a video chat with their “baby” and the baby’s “grandparents.” The parents, she said, were clearly suffering separation anxiety. “They are cooing and gushing and exclaiming ‘well look…

A Glimmer of Hope for the U.S. and World Were its effects not so unspeakably evil and ongoing, one could rightly dismiss Roe v. Wade as one of the most embarrassing legal decisions ever made by any court. With a vote and a pen-stroke, seven of the so-called greatest legal minds of their generation disregarded the most…

In 1996 Pope St. John Paul II, speaking to a group of teachers of Natural Family Planning (NFP), boldly declared: “The moment has come for every parish and every structure of consultation and assistance to the family and to the defense of life to have personnel available who can teach married couples how to use…

“[U]sing the natural [family planning] methods requires and strengthens the harmony of the married couple, it helps and confirms the rediscovery of the marvelous gift of parenthood, it involves respect for nature and demands the responsibility of the individuals. According to many authoritative opinions, they also foster more completely that human ecology which is the…

Birth Control is a name given to a succession of different expedients by which it is possible to filch the pleasure belonging to a natural process while violently and unnaturally thwarting the process itself. — G.K. Chesterton   “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if…

Ruining Respectful Relationships Between the Sexes  “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church… Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church… This is a great…

“Contraception Leads to Falsification, Deception…” Released in 1968, at the height of the hippie revolution with its optimistic doctrines of “free love” and emancipation from tradition and authority, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae was widely dismissed as the proverbial killjoy at the greatest party the world had yet seen: the sexual revolution. St. Paul…

Pope Paul VI Re-Affirms Church Teaching on Inherent Dignity of Marriage  “False teachers, many belonging to an intellectual elite in the worlds of science, culture and the media, present an anti-gospel…When you ask them, “What must I do?” their only certainty is that there is no definite truth, no sure path….Consciously or not, they advocate an…