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Converting by force
Benedict XVI

“Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. ‘Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God.’”

(2006 Regensburg Lecture)

Authentic truth is discovered through dialogue, conscience, and faith, not through force or ideological imposition. Whenever violence is used in the name of truth, the truth itself is corrupted: “The truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth.”

(Dignitatis Humanae)

“The Church proposes; she imposes nothing. She respects individuals and cultures, and she honors the sanctuary of conscience.”

(Homily, Jan 2006)

24th of April: Conversion of St. Augustine

Augustine of Hippo, growing up, chose a hedonistic lifestyle. He became involved with the Manichaean sect and began to believe in the teachings it proclaimed. His mother, St. Monica, undeterred by difficulties, prayed for her son's conversion. Worried about him, she followed him to Carthage, Rome, and Milan. A certain bishop prophesied: "Mother, I am certain that a son of so many tears must return to God." In his liberation from belief in astrology, Augustine was helped by a conversation in 386 with Firminus, one of his friends. Since he read many Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophical works, translated from Greek into Latin by Gaius Marius Victorinus, a famous rhetorician and philosopher who converted in 355, Augustine began to study the Holy Scriptures, primarily the letters of St. Paul. At the end of August 386, Pontician, a high imperial official from Africa—a deeply believing Catholic—visited him. He told him about his two companions who, in Trier, had joined the order founded by St. Anthony the Great. Augustine was seized by a strong desire to do likewise as those unlearned men: "What they can do, should you not be able to do as well?"

Augustine definitively decided to abandon his previous occupation, fulfilled his last duties as a professor of rhetoric, and went to the countryside at the foot of the Alps to regain his strength and prepare for receiving baptism. In the countryside, he began writing the Soliloquies and other dialogues about the soul. The ultimate reason for his complete transformation was a certain event. One day, weeping under the influence of inner turmoil, he ran into the garden to lie down under a tree in a distant corner and pray. Then he heard from the neighboring garden the song of a child repeating the words: "Tolle, lege! - Take up and read!" Augustine took these words to himself, interpreting them as a sign of Divine Providence. He returned home and took up the Letter to the Romans. His eyes fell on random words: "Let us live decently as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts." (Rom 13:13-14)

In this experience, he was freed from attachment to sex, and in his heart arose the desire to maintain celibacy. This experience permanently changed his life. Soon he told his mother about it, who had prayed so long for his conversion. In early March 387, he returned to Milan, where on Holy Saturday he received baptism from Bishop Ambrose along with his son Adeodatus and his friend Alypius. Family and friends decided to return to their native Africa. However, upon arriving in the port of Ostia, St. Monica fell seriously ill with fever and died.

Augustine always considered his conversion an undeserved gift from God. In the "Confessions," he addressed the errors of his youth and described the experiences that were the reason for the complete change in his life. The intention of this work was to glorify God and thank Him for guiding him through life. The feast of St. Augustine's conversion should be a day of joy and thanksgiving for the fact that God can, for everyone in the darkness of unbelief and lostness, kindle the bright light of faith, hope, and love.

#converts

A note on masculinity and purity

The greatest and hardest battle of a man is the battle for purity: thoughts, glances, touches in relation to women, and the absence of betrayals and manipulations in relation to the woman with whom he lives. If someone loses it, he fabricates an ideology that justifies it. This is what Christianity has been saying for centuries.

Betrayals, manipulations clearly testify to a lack of masculine strength and love for the wife to whom one pledged one's love. It is also proof of a lack of honor and a lack of respect for one's own words that were spoken.

Real men are mature and do not live like playboys—they take care of and cherish the woman they married and the family they have founded. Infidelity, casual flings, and Don Juanism are foreign to them.

Virtuous women won't allow themselves to be treated like that because they respect their own dignity. Today's problem in the world in the realm of chastity is immature men and immature women.

#men

Preventive war in modern context

“The concept of a ‘preventive war’ does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church… It was right to resist the war and its threats of destruction. It should never be the responsibility of just one nation to make decisions for the world… Given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a ‘just war.’”

Benedict XVI
https://fff.org/2008/04/17/pope-benedict-bushs-war-iraq/

*Preemptive/preventive wars have been illegal in the West since the Treaties of Westphalia (1648) - and are illegal under the UN Charter

#war

Communion under both kinds

The whole Christ is present in each form

It is also worth remembering that, according to the Church's teaching, when we receive Holy Communion under one species, we always receive the whole Christ—His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Therefore, Communion under one species is in no way sacramentally deficient, nor does it contradict Christ's command to consume His Body and Blood. The Council of Trent: "It is true that under each of the two species the same thing is contained as under both. For Christ, whole and entire, is under the species of bread and under each of its parts, just as he is whole and entire under the species of wine and its parts."

Although the practice of receiving Communion under both kinds was common in the Church for a time, with the growing external reverence for the Blessed Sacrament and awareness of the risk of profanation, the Church deemed it appropriate to limit it for the faithful. Although the form of receiving Communion (under one or both kinds) is a matter of variable Church discipline, the obligation to reverence and care for the Blessed Sacrament remains an unchanging element of dogmatic teaching, as it is directly linked to faith in the real presence of Christ, the God-Man. Council of Constance: "In some parts of the world certain people rashly dare to assert that the Christian people should receive the holy sacrament of the Eucharist under both kinds...contrary to the praiseworthy custom of the Church, with its rational foundations, which they condemnably seek to reject as sacrilege, referring to the origins... Just as this custom was rightly introduced to avoid certain dangers and scandals, so for a similar and even more serious reason the present custom could be introduced and reasonably observed. Although in the early Church the faithful received this Sacrament under both kinds, later on it was received under both kinds only by the consecrator, and by the faithful only under the species of bread. However, it must be believed with certainty and not doubted that the body and blood of Christ are contained in their entirety under both the species of bread and wine."

Listening to Christ's response to St. Thomas's profession of faith: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," let us ask ourselves sincerely whether we truly believe that Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, to whom we should render the highest veneration, is truly present under the consecrated species of bread and wine, and whether our actions, including external ones, follow this faith. It is not enough to believe in the Real Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. We must also pay Him due reverence.

#eucharist

Communion under both kinds

Although the practice of receiving Communion under both kinds was common in the Church for a time, with the growing external reverence for the Blessed Sacrament and awareness of the risk of profanation, the Church deemed it appropriate to limit it for the faithful. Although the form of receiving Communion (under one or both kinds) is a matter of variable Church discipline, the obligation to reverence and care for the Blessed Sacrament remains an unchanging element of dogmatic teaching, as it is directly linked to faith in the real presence of Christ, the God-Man. Council of Constance: "In some parts of the world certain people rashly dare to assert that the Christian people should receive the holy sacrament of the Eucharist under both kinds...contrary to the praiseworthy custom of the Church, with its rational foundations, which they condemnably seek to reject as sacrilege, referring to the origins... Just as this custom was rightly introduced to avoid certain dangers and scandals, so for a similar and even more serious reason the present custom could be introduced and reasonably observed. Although in the early Church the faithful received this Sacrament under both kinds, later on it was received under both kinds only by the consecrator, and by the faithful only under the species of bread. However, it must be believed with certainty and not doubted that the body and blood of Christ are contained in their entirety under both the species of bread and wine."

Listening to Christ's response to St. Thomas's profession of faith: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed," let us ask ourselves sincerely whether we truly believe that Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, to whom we should render the highest veneration, is truly present under the consecrated species of bread and wine, and whether our actions, including external ones, follow this faith. It is not enough to believe in the Real Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. We must also pay Him due reverence.

My Lord and my God! - on the duty to honor the Blessed Sacrament

The Savior comments on the titular confession of faith in the divinity of Christ by St. Thomas, which is mentioned in the Gospel fragment for White Sunday, with the words: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

The Real Presence of Christ

Remaining faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ: "My body is true food, and my blood is true drink," and to His words at the institution of the Eucharist: "This is my body...", the Church teaches us that in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, although invisibly, our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, is really and substantially present. The real presence of the Savior under the species of bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Eucharist is a dogma of faith that all Christians must profess. Council of Trent: "Canon 1. If anyone denies that in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ are truly, really, and substantially contained, but says that He is in it only as in sign, image, or power, let him be anathema."

The necessity of venerating the Blessed Sacrament

Because of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, we are obligated to accord the Blessed Sacrament the highest reverence, latria (adoration, adoration), which belongs solely and exclusively to God. Furthermore, as the Church dogmatically teaches us, this worship cannot be solely interior, but should also be exterior. As a spiritual-corporeal being, man expresses the attitude of his spirit outwardly through his body. Therefore, in addition to this essential interior attitude, the exterior attitude with which we receive Holy Communion is also crucial, as are the external gestures expressing our adoration of the Blessed Sacrament—whether exposed for adoration, present in the tabernacle, or on the altar. Council of Trent: "Canon 6. If anyone says that in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, should not be adored with the cult of praise, even externally... - let him be anathema."

Necessary care for particles

Faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is also expressed through caring for the particles, or separated fragments of the host or wine, in which the whole Christ is also present. This is an element of the external reverence we are commanded to have for the Blessed Sacrament. Council of Trent: "Canon 3. If anyone denies that in the venerable sacrament of the Eucharist the whole and entire Christ is present under every species and in every separated part, let him be anathema."

🔗p.2- Communion under both kinds

#eucharist