Voces Verbi USA

Happy Feast Day of Our Lady of Lujan, patroness of our Religious Family of the Incarnate Word!

Learn more: https://youtu.be/1Soi31SOIE0?si=m-rxm...

EXERCEPT FROM HOMILY OF ST. JOHN PAUL II
"Jesus entrusts us to Mary as our Mother, and Mary receives us all as her children! This is Christ's testament on the Cross. On the one hand, he entrusts the Church to the care of his own Mother, on the other, he entrusts his Mother to the care of the Church. The scene on Calvary reveals to us the secret of true Marian piety, which is a filial love of surrender and gratitude to Mary, a love of imitation and of consecration to her person


Just as St John, the beloved disciple, took Mary into his home, today too the Argentine people take her into their Roman home through the enthronement of her holy image of Luján. To take Mary in, to offer her the throne of our hearts and minds, has a profound meaning which is far deeper than mere sentiment: it is the experience of our own poverty, which turns confidently to Mary's all-powerful pleading with the Father; it is uniting our own will to Mary's, saying "yes" as she did, so that Christ Will fully enter our lives. Today, as we enthrone this image of Our Lady, all Argentine Catholics can hear Mary's motherly invitation to renew their love for Christ and to measure themselves by the truth of the Gospel, which renews individuals and institutions; at the end of our life, we will be judged according to our response."
-PASTORAL VISIT TO THE ARGENTINE NATIONAL CHURCH IN ROME

1 month ago | [YT] | 10

Voces Verbi USA

Hello Voces Verbi USA! Greetings from Voces in Dallas, Texas! ​​

We have a Voces pilgrimage going to Mexico next week for 6 days to visit many of the Cristero Martyrs and ending with the Basilica de la Virgen de Guadalupe en Mexico!

WE STILL HAVE THREE SPOTS OPEN AND WE ARE EXTENDING THE INVITATION TO VOCES IN THE USA!

Learn more: chat.whatsapp.com/KVONAAM6TeO0z6ItlXzxti

7 months ago | [YT] | 0

Voces Verbi USA

Fable of the wolf with sheep’s skin

thesower.iveamerica.org/fable-of-the-wolf-with-she…

A certain wolf could not get enough to eat because of the watchfulness of the shepherd. He tried day after day, but the shepherd was always keeping his eyes on his flock. One day the wolf found a sheep skin that had been cast aside and forgotten. He dressed in the skin and strolled into the pasture with the sheep. Soon after he led a little lamb outside of the group and was quickly eaten.

That evening the wolf, pretending that he was a sheep, entered the fold with the flock to sleep with them. But it happened that the shepherd wanted a mutton broth that evening, and, picking up a knife, he went to the fold. There the first one he laid hands on and killed was the wolf.

I would like to use this very well-known fable to reflect on the rectitude of intention as Christians and being an authentic Christian. The wolf had a double intention, he pretended to be just another sheep, but he was not; he covered himself with the sheep skin in order to present himself as a sheep, but he was a wolf.

When we focus more on pretending to be good Christians rather than actually being good ones, we are covering ourselves with the skin of a Christian while we actually are not. How do we know when we are doing this? Being Christian means belonging to Christ or being recognized as a member of Christ. Christ came to do God’s Will and not His own will: I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me (Jn 6:38). So, if we want to belong to Christ or to be His members, we must try to fulfill God’s Will in our lives as Jesus fulfilled it in His own life.

Even if fulfilling God’s Will is difficult or puts our life at risk, we must be ready to make whatever sacrifice our heavenly Father would ask us to make. We must imitate Jesus who was ready to lay down His life although it was very hard for Him as is clear during the agony in the Garden of Getsemani: Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done (Lc 22:42)

The better we fulfill God’s Will in our lives the more authentic Christians we will be. This means that it is not enough to try to see His Will in important things like our vocation or in big decisions, but also in small things. In order to really have rectitude of intention we must look for God’s Will in everything we do; we must be ready to renounce our own will when our plans are different than God’s plans and we must not try to follow our plans as if they were God’s plans. If we do this, we are covering our plans with Christian skin, but the reality is that it is not God’s Will. We must be sincere with ourselves and discern if our plan is according to God’s plan.

St. Theresa of Jesus says: “It is not a matter of having the habit of religion or not, but trying to exercise the virtues and to surrender our will to God’s Will in everything, and the development of our life should be what His Majesty wants it to be, and that we do not want our will to be done, but His.”

11 months ago | [YT] | 0

Voces Verbi USA

Is Sanctity Possible For Mentally Ill People?

catholicqa.org/is-sanctity-possible-for-mentally-i…


I would like to understand the position of Fr. Ennio Innocenti’s statements in Dialogue No. 11 that seem to reduce holiness to the state of full consciousness and to depend entirely on it. Wouldn’t denying the possibility of holiness to those who do not have a full conscience imply excluding a great number of people from holiness and from the Church?[1] [2].

Answer:

The State of the Question
First of all, I would like to delimit a concept: when Ennio Innocenti (like Leandro Ancona whom he refutes) speaks of ‘holiness’, he is not referring to the holiness that we could define, with apologies for the inaccuracy of the term, as ‘passive’: that is, the holiness that consists in the indwelling of the Trinity by grace in the soul of those who do not yet have the use of their faculties, as in the case of baptized children who have not yet reached the use of reason. On the contrary, it refers to ‘holiness that can serve as an example’[3]; holiness in the adult where grace and freedom are combined, and whose works can therefore be put as a model of union with God to other men; hence, Innocenti’s insistence that holiness ‘is greatness of conscience and freedom in God’[4], that ‘the saint is aware that his maximum freedom is divine at the very moment when it is his own, to the point of repeating with Christ: ‘what is mine is His, my living is His living’[5], and that certain sick people ‘do not enjoy any holiness that can serve as an example’[6].

Catholic Doctrine
The Catholic doctrine on the sanctity of those who are incapable of properly human acts, that is, free (among whom we can place children before the use of reason and the amentes who can be equated with them[7]) is that in them the habitual sanctifying grace, received in baptism, is present. However, they do not perform any personal meritorious act since they do not have the use of their faculties (intelligence and will). It is for this reason that if they come to the use of reason, they must perform an act of actual faith, at least implicitly. For those who lack the use of reason, habitual faith and habitual grace are sufficient for salvation. To them are also equated to those who have been alienated from their faculties while they were already adults, if at the time when this occurred they were in a state of grace. This case is not contemplated or considered by Fr. Innocenti in his article because L. Ancona does not assess the case either.

For adults, on the other hand, the act of faith is necessary for an actual act of faith.[8].

What happens with psychologically ill adults who are not totally devoid of the use of reason, but who either suffer a diminution in the use of their powers, or who alternate moments of lucidity with moments lacking it, or who mix in their activity lucid facets with altered facets? Sound psychology and sound morals teach that, in general, these patients are not totally deprived of freedom and, therefore, have a certain responsibility, more or less attenuated depending on the case. What H. Bless has written on this subject in his Pastoral Psiquiatrica[9] is still current and valid. Bless explains there how the abnormal are – as a rule – normal in everything that does not refer to their abnormality and how it must generally be assumed that they enjoy at least a minimum of freedom. If such sick people have a restricted use of freedom, their sanctity and their guilt will depend on the use they make of such freedom. Bless himself devotes, therefore, a long analysis of his book to the ‘spiritual direction of neuropaths and psychopaths’, to the ‘observance of divine and ecclesiastical laws’ and to the ‘reception of the sacraments’ by them.

For this reason, the minimum conditions required for an adult to validly receive the sacraments are demanded of such sick persons. In the new Code of Canon Law, only the case of the total amentee (assimilable to the child without the use of reason, as we have already said) is explicitly included; the other cases are presumably on the same level as adults. The previous Code, on the other hand, gave some guidelines that continue to be of value from a pastoral point of view[10]; it said this of the ‘lovers and the furious’[11]:

-If they have lucid intervals, let them be baptized, if they wish it, like infants.

-They should be baptized in imminent danger of death, if, before losing their reason, they manifested a desire to be baptized.

-The lethargic or frantic person must be baptized, but only if he is awake and desires it; but if danger of death threatens, what was said above applies.

On the sanctity of a sick person only God can judge; our parameters are very precarious. It is evident that having a limited and painful use of his freedom, an act that for a normal person represents an ordinary effort, for a sick person can imply something extraordinary, and as such, highly meritorious if it is done in the grace of God. Let it be clear, however, that the acts of sanctity of a sick person are not his pathological acts directly and insofar as they are pathological, but his more or less free acts[12]. On the other hand, we could say that his compulsive and instinctive unhealthy acts can also be a source of merit indirectly, to the extent that he resists and does not consent – with his limited freedom – to whatever they have of moral deformity and that he suffers them and offers them to God in what they have of mechanics and precedence to the freedom of the subject. In speaking of the nervous sick, John XXIII said: ‘believers know that their suffering, accepted and offered, united to that of Christ the Savior, has a redemptive value’[13].

Ancona’s Thesis and Innocenti’s Refutation
Taking into account what we have just said, Innocenti’s refutation of Ancona’s untenable position can be better seen. When the latter speaks of the sanctity of the sick person, he is not trying to say what we have stated in the previous paragraph, but precisely the opposite. For him holiness (and the concrete case of the mystical phenomena that he analyzes in St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi) will consist properly in the pathological act itself; this, insofar as pathological, is a mystical manifestation, that is, of the Holy Spirit.

In fact, according to Ancona, pathological manifestations, ‘whether depressive, obsessive or hysterical…, even if of instinctive origin, whether libidinal or aggressive…’ can be considered mystical manifestations by virtue of an action of the Holy Spirit that transforms the natural, instinctive and pathological, into something superior. Therefore, according to him St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi did not have ‘supernatural’ mystical manifestations, but these were instinctive sick manifestations (therefore not free) that acquired supernatural value by virtue of what the author calls surmilazione, This surmilazione would be a concept opposed to sublimation, and means the act by which the Holy Spirit transforms what is pathological in man into something holy.

In the article in question, it seems to me that Innocenti’s thesis against Ancona can be expressed as follows:

First, that it cannot be excluded a priori that mental illness (keep in mind what kind of illness is in Ancona’s mind) is in certain cases dependent on sinful acts (truly guilty) of the sick subject. Many manifestations of maniacal depravity are the result of free consent to sinful acts and the free acquisition of vicious habits, as can be seen in certain sexual and homicidal maniacs[14].

Second, in the acts in which a sick adult is a slave of the instincts that take place in him independently and independently of his will, his acts are not free, and therefore, they are neither fully human nor holy, nor meritorious nor guilty. They are acts of man but not properly human[15], proceeding from him, but neither sanctifying nor sinful. Contrary to Ancona: ‘even if they are of instinctive origin, both libidinal and aggressive, they find a new qualification in a higher dynamic which the whole surlimated person enjoys’[16].

Third, certainly such instinctive acts are not the manifestation of an action of the Holy Spirit, since they are pathological. ‘If we are not mistaken,’ says Innocenti, ‘by virtue of this surlimation, a product of the Holy Spirit, pathology becomes a superior, constructive and divine manifestation, even though it remains pathological’[17]. In fact, for Ancona, faithful to his principles, the sanctity of St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi is inserted in the phenomenon of sado-masochism[18]. A completely aberrant thesis. A recently published study by Fr. Leonardo Castellani addresses part of this same topic, refuting theses similar to those defended by the Italian psychiatrist[19].

Understood in this sense, we fully agree with the statements of Fr. Ennio Innocenti.



Miguel A. Fuentes, IVE

11 months ago | [YT] | 0

Voces Verbi USA

A basketball coach had twin sons. He wanted his sons to be professional basketball players when they grew up, so from an early age he took them to play basketball in the park. It was always the same, his sons wanted to play freely and to have fun and their father would not let them. They had to follow the principles and rules of basketball, even if they were alone, and even though they had gone to the park to have fun.

Since they had to obey their father, the children did not have much fun when they went to play with him. Yet, little by little they learned the rules and principles and little by little they were improving in the way they played. By the time they started high school, they knew and followed the rules and the principles pretty well. When they played in school, because they played according to the rules and principles, they not only played better than all the other classmates but also had much more fun than the others.

The same thing happens in life. Many times, we only want to have fun and enjoy the things that give us pleasure in this life. Therefore, we do not want to live according to the commandments and moral principles because they do not allow us to have fun and enjoy things as we would like.

However, if we succeed in learning to live according to the commandments, so that they are not a burden or an obligation, but a way of life, a virtuous habit that we build and follow, we will not only live much better, but also really enjoy life. Because the one who lives according to the Catholic moral principles and commandments, lives according to his own nature, because the moral principles are meant to help us live according to our nature.

If we live according to our nature and not according to our passions and our disordered desires for pleasure, we live life as it should be lived and that is what makes us really enjoy life. Living in search of pleasures does not make us enjoy life but rather we enjoy only that moment that gives us pleasure and then life becomes a burden again, because it is not lived according to the appropriate rules and principles. We can only really enjoy life if we live it as it should be lived, and the commandments and principles of morality help us to live it in this way

That was the secret of the saints. They lived this life enjoying little or nothing of what worldly people enjoy. However, they were happier than worldly people, because living according to the moral principles freed them from the bonds of worldly things and that freedom, which is true freedom, allowed them to enjoy life.

thesower.iveamerica.org/following-principles-and-r….

11 months ago | [YT] | 0

Voces Verbi USA

The Marian Threshold
totustuusmaria.net/the-marian-threshold/
There were three early thresholds that Karol Wojtyla crossed in becoming a slave of love for Jesus in Mary: his family home, the parish church of Wadowice, and the Shrine of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska.

An early pilgrim

Before he became the “Pilgrim Pope”, Karol Wojtyla was a frequent pilgrim to Marian shrines from an early age. The Marian shrine he visited the most in his “earliest youth” was Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. Kalwaria is located roughly 14km from Wojtyla’s hometown. Due to it’s proximity and the rich pilgrim tradition surrounding it, Kalwaria became an early place of refuge for Wojtyla in difficult moments. It was to this shrine that his father brought him and his older brother Edmund shortly after their mother’s death. Karol Sr. entrusted his sons to Mary, telling them that she would be the mother to watch over and care for them from then on.

What the future Pope experienced that day, thanks to his father’s deep Marian faith, was a truth John Paul II would proclaim decades later during his first papal visit to the same shrine. It was the mystery of a union; the union between a mother and a son. On the occasion of that visit to Kalwaria in 1979 he said, “what chiefly draws a person here again and again is the mystery of the union of the Mother with the Son and of the Son with the Mother.”

At Kalwaria in particular—but also at every Marian shrine he visited throughout his life—Karol Wojtyla not only found a Mother, but he also found Christ. He learned from his pilgrim experiences that it was Mary’s role to bring us to Christ.

Seeking Jesus in Mary

Besides visiting Kalwaria as a young boy, as a youth, and even in his early days as a priest, John Paul II also revealed on that first Papal visit to the shrine that he had gone there many times as bishop and cardinal as well. Although he made many visits to Kalwaria during the annual diocesan pilgrimages, he also made many private trips. These personal pilgrimages, in fact, were more “frequent” than the communal ones.

He made these private pilgrimages for the sake of seeking Jesus in Mary. He sought Christ in Mary to especially help him with the difficult task of shepherding his diocese.

More frequently, however, I came here alone and, walking along the little ways of Jesus Christ and his Mother, I was able to meditate on their holy mysteries and recommend to Christ through Mary the specially difficult and uniquely responsible problems in the complexity of my ministry. I can say that almost none of these problems reached its maturity except here, through ardent prayer before the great mystery of faith that Kalwaria holds within itself.

Finding Jesus in Mary

After taking just a brief look at what being a pilgrim to Marian shrines taught St. John Paul II, we can also learn from his experience how to better marianize our lives. What Wojtyla’s pilgrim witness teaches us is the essential truth of our total consecration to Mary: that through her we want belong more perfectly to Christ. We want to marianize our life, so as to better Christianize our life. It is the “mystery of the union of the Mother with the Son.”

More concretely, it means frequently making daily acts of humble entrustment to Mary. We cannot “put on Christ” through our efforts alone. To become more like Christ requires the work of grace as much as it does a consistent effort. The most perfect conduit of such grace is Mary. If it’s Christ’s patience that we want to acquire, then we should repeatedly turn to Mary for it. If it’s Christ’s humility that we want to imitate, then we should repeatedly turn to Mary for it. If it’s Christ holy daring in the face of life’s difficulties that we want to emulate, then we should repeatedly turn to Mary for it. And the list of virtues could go on….

Finally, it is true that we can call upon Mary’s aid at anytime and practically anywhere. But in admitting such, let us not overlook the truth that in doing so within the walls and across the thresholds of her chapels and shrines, we manifest a more sincere and effective willingness to entrust ourselves to her unfailing aid. A good slave does not demand that his master come to him, but rather, he quickly runs to the feet of his master. Mary is more than our master, she is our loving Mother, which makes running to her feet all the more worthwhile.



Seize the day and make it all Hers!

11 months ago | [YT] | 0

Voces Verbi USA

Are Transplants Lawful? And What Does “Criterion Of Death” Mean?

What is the problem with transplants, and what is the issue regarding “criteria for death” for the case of some transplants?
catholicqa.org/are-transplants-lawful-and-what-doe…


Answer:

The subject of transplants is a very long and arduous topic. I will limit myself to point out a few guiding principles from the Magisterium of the Church.

1. The Attitude of the Donor

The willingness to donate one’s organs is praiseworthy (provided that the parameters that make this action licit are met): “Over and above such outstanding moments, there is an everyday heroism, made up of gestures of sharing, big or small, which build up an authentic culture of life. A particularly praiseworthy example of such gestures is the donation of organs, performed in an ethically acceptable manner, with a view to offering a chance of health and even of life itself to the sick who sometimes have no other hope.”[1]. Also: “It must first be emphasized, as I observed on another occasion, that every organ transplant has its source in a decision of great ethical value: ‘the decision to offer without reward a part of one’s own body for the health and well-being of another person’”.[2] Precisely in this lies the nobility of the gesture, which is an authentic act of love. It is not a matter of simply donating something that belongs to us, but of donating something of ourselves, since “‘by virtue of its substantial union with a spiritual soul, the human body cannot be considered as a mere complex of tissues, organs and functions . . . rather it is a constitutive part of the person who manifests and expresses himself through it’[3].”[4]

2. The Consent

Regarding this, I emphasize the following two criteria:

1st: “It is morally inadmissible if the donor or his legitimate representatives have not given their explicit consent.”[5] “The consent of relatives has its own ethical validity in the absence of a decision on the part of the donor.”[6]

2nd: “Naturally, analogous consent should be given by the recipients of donated organs.”[7]

3. Dangers and Risks

“Organ transplantation is in conformity with the moral law if the physical and psychological harm and risks suffered by the donor are proportionate to the good sought for the recipient.”[8]

4. What organs can be donated and transplanted?

“Ethically, not all organs can be donated. The brain and the gonads may not be transplanted because they ensure the personal and procreative identity respectively. These are organs which embody the characteristic uniqueness of the person, which medicine is bound to protect.”[9]

5. In case of mutilation or death of the donor

“Furthermore, mutilation that leaves a person disabled or that directly causes death cannot be morally permitted, even if it is done to delay the death of other persons.”[10]

6. Transplant of single vital organs

Singular vital organs are those organs without which a human being cannot live (vital) and which, moreover, he possesses not in double but in single number (singular); for example, the heart. Pope John Paul II said: “vital organs which occur singly in the body can be removed only after death, that is from the body of someone who is certainly dead. This requirement is self-evident, since to act otherwise would mean intentionally to cause the death of the donor in disposing of his organs.”[11]

7. Transplants and disguised euthanesia

When the objective criteria of death are not respected, real euthanasia is concealed under the guise of transplants: “Nor can we remain silent in the face of other more furtive, but no less serious and real, forms of euthanasia. These could occur for example when, in order to increase the availability of organs for transplants, organs are removed without respecting objective and adequate criteria which verify the death of the donor.”[12]

8. Is the criterion of encephalic death valid?

Of all the problems presented by the issue of transplantation, the most serious one is certainly the confirmation of the donor’s death. The moral principle that should govern is the following: in the case of single vital organ transplantation done ex cadavere, the certainty of the donor’s death is required. We must say that if the transplantation is truly performed from a corpse to a living man, taking into account and respecting all the relevant ethical rules, there seem to be no moral objections, and it would be a “perfectly licit” act[13]. However, these “ethical rules” are determined by the following principles:

1) As long as there is life, even if it is only vegetative life, it is inviolable. As Bishop Sgreccia affirms: “One cannot introduce the distinction between ‘biological life’ and ‘personal life’ (life of conscience and relationship): in man, there is a unique vitality, and as long as there is life, it must be retained that it is the life of the person…”[14]. For his part, Pope John Paul II has said: “Respect for human life… is not for man one of the rights, but the fundamental right… Right to life means the right to come into existence and then to persevere in existence until its natural extinction: as long as I live I have the right to live’.”[15]

2) As a consequence of the above, one cannot proceed in doubt or on the basis of mere probability, but always and only on the certainty of death. Here the principle enunciated by John Paul II for the treatment of human embryos applies in its full extension: “…from the standpoint of moral obligation, the mere probability that a human person is involved would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention aimed at killing a human embryo.”[16]

With this in mind, can the criterion of encephalic death be accepted? On this very delicate subject, Pope John Paul II has said: “In this regard, it is helpful to recall that the death of the person is a single event, consisting in the total disintegration of that unitary and integrated whole that is the personal self. It results from the separation of the life-principle (or soul) from the corporal reality of the person. The death of the person, understood in this primary sense, is an event which no scientific technique or empirical method can identify directly. Yet human experience shows that once death occurs certain biological signs inevitably follow, which medicine has learnt to recognize with increasing precision. In this sense, the “criteria” for ascertaining death used by medicine today should not be understood as the technical-scientific determination of the exact moment of a person’s death, but as a scientifically secure means of identifying the biological signs that a person has indeed died. It is a well-known fact that for some time certain scientific approaches to ascertaining death have shifted the emphasis from the traditional cardio-respiratory signs to the so-called “neurological” criterion. Specifically, this consists in establishing, according to clearly determined parameters commonly held by the international scientific community, the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity (in the cerebrum, cerebellum and brainstem). This is then considered the sign that the individual organism has lost its integrative capacity.With regard to the parameters used today for ascertaining death – whether the “encephalic” signs or the more traditional cardio-respiratory signs – the Church does not make technical decisions. She limits herself to the Gospel duty of comparing the data offered by medical science with the Christian understanding of the unity of the person, bringing out the similarities and the possible conflicts capable of endangering respect for human dignity. Here it can be said that the criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology. Therefore a health-worker professionally responsible for ascertaining death can use these criteria in each individual case as the basis for arriving at that degree of assurance in ethical judgment which moral teaching describes as “moral certainty”. This moral certainty is considered the necessary and sufficient basis for an ethically correct course of action. Only where such certainty exists, and where informed consent has already been given by the donor or the donor’s legitimate representatives, is it morally right to initiate the technical procedures required for the removal of organs for transplant.”[17]

Fr. Miguel A. Fuentes, IVE.

1 year ago | [YT] | 1

Voces Verbi USA

This week, we had the grace to host our Annual Summer Retreat, Universitas 2025!

We are grateful to have had Greg Sterns as our speaker on this year's theme: the Truth. Bringing ourselves closer to Christ through the Sacraments, conferences, and a lot of fun!

More photos: photos.app.goo.gl/2KGMG6hTYjM5EF8F7

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1 year ago | [YT] | 1

Voces Verbi USA

Judging what is right

St. Benedict’s father sent him to Rome to study science and literature. However, soon after arriving in the city, St. Benedict became aware of the decadent life of the citizens of Rome. He immediately began to discern the situation and decided to flee Rome and go to a place where he could save his faith. His reason for this decision was that he preferred to live ignorant but in accordance with his faith, rather than being learned and living a vicious life.

We can say that St. Benedict put into practice what Our Lord Jesus Christ asks us in the Gospel of St. Luke: Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? (Lk 12:57). Throughout our lives we come across all kinds of people. However, instead of judging what is right or wrong (as Our Lord tells the crowd) in order to discern what action to take, we often allow ourselves to be carried away by the bad examples of others.

Judging what is right is fundamental in the Christian life because it is the only way to avoid occasions of sin. Many times when we fall into sin, we realize that we have not done the right thing. However, our previous actions were the ones that were leading us to sin because we did not judge if those actions were right or wrong.

In order to judge what is right and wrong, it is necessary to have good dispositions and not to be dominated by our passions. Our passions do not allow us to judge reality with clarity, but rather cause us to see reality colored by the inclination of that passion.

The good dispositions which are necessary to have, are the following: 1) Openness to God: to be willing to examine one’s own ideas towards life. To know God’s judgment means that one will always know what is right. The one who does not know this can never discern well what is right 2) The desire to do God’s will in our life: it is not reasonable to know what is right and not do it 3) Detachment from my own will: the one who wants to put his own will before God’s will is disposing himself to do what is wrong. God cannot will evil, hence the one who wants to judge what is right must have the disposition to put the Will of God before his own will, because God always desires what is right.
thesower.iveamerica.org/judging-what-is-right/?_gl….

1 year ago | [YT] | 2

Voces Verbi USA

Was Jesus A Virgin Or Was He Married?

catholicqa.org/was-jesus-a-virgin-or-was-he-marrie…

I would like to know if it appears anywhere in any of the Gospels that Christ did not have a wife. Thank you very much.

Answer:

Jesus Christ was a virgin. It can be said that this truth appears in the four Gospels where, giving many details of the life of Christ (more than many suppose) there is never any mention or allusion that Jesus Christ was married.

More explicitly, tradition has always seen an allusion to his state of consecrated virginity in Mt 19:10-12 where Jesus Christ speaks of virginity for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven and affirms: whoever is capable of such a doctrine, let him follow it. Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus Christ propose anything to the free will of men without first setting an example himself. That is why St. Peter says: [he left] you an example, so that you should follow in his steps (1 Pet. 2:21).

It is also expressed in Revelation 14:4, when it says that those who follow the Lamb (Christ) wherever he goes are those who have not defiled themselves with women, because they are chaste. Those who are virgins have special merit and can follow the Virgin Lamb.

It is also a teaching of the Magisterium, never questioned at any time in the history of the Church. Curiously, no heresy has affirmed until our time that Jesus Christ was married (until our time, where it has appeared in the neo-Gnostic and radical feminist versions which invented the myth of the Magdalene being married to Christ; but we will talk about this elsewhere).[1] Some have denied that He was God (Arius), that He had two natures (monophysites), or that the Church founded by Him was the Catholic Church (reformers), etc…, but no one denied His virginity. So, it seems evident!

For this reason St. John Paul II says: “Christ lives his life as a virgin, even while affirming and defending the dignity and sanctity of married life. He thus reveals the sublime excellence and mysterious spiritual fruitfulness of virginity.”[2]

I provide you with two magnificent texts.

The first is from Pius XII in the Encyclical Sacra Virginitas: “ As for those men ‘who were not defiled with women, being virgins’, the Apostle John asserts that, ‘they follow the Lamb wherever he goes.’ Let us meditate, then, on the exhortation Augustine gives to all men of this class: ‘You follow the Lamb because the body of the Lamb is indeed virginal. . . Rightly do you follow Him in virginity of heart and body wherever He goes. For what does following mean but imitation? Christ has suffered for us, leaving us an example, as the Apostle Peter says ‘that we should follow in his footsteps’. Hence all these disciples and spouses of Christ embraced the state of virginity, as St. Bonaventure says, “in order to become like unto Christ the spouse, for that state makes virgins like unto Him.’ It would hardly satisfy their burning love for Christ to be united with Him by the bonds of affection, but this love had perforce to express itself by the imitation of His virtues, and especially by conformity to His way of life, which was lived completely for the benefit and salvation of the human race. If priests, religious men and women, and others who in any way have vowed themselves to the divine service, cultivate perfect chastity, it is certainly for the reason that their Divine Master remained all His life a virgin. St. Fulgentius exclaims: ‘This is the only-begotten Son of God, the only-begotten Son of a virgin also, the only spouse of all holy virgins, the fruit, the glory, the gift of holy virginity, whom holy virginity brought forth physically, to whom holy virginity is wedded spiritually, by whom holy virginity is made fruitful and kept inviolate, by whom she is adorned, to remain ever beautiful, by whom she is crowned, to reign forever glorious.’”[3]

The second text is from Paul VI in Sacerdotalis Caelibatus: “Christ remained throughout His whole life in the state of celibacy, which signified His total dedication to the service of God and men […] He promised a more than abundant recompense to anyone who should leave home, family, wife and children for the sake of the kingdom of God. More than this, in words filled with mystery and hope, He also commended an even more perfect consecration to the kingdom of heaven by means of celibacy, as a special gift. The motive of this response to the divine call is the kingdom of heaven; similarly, this very kingdom, the Gospel and the name of Christ motivate those called by Jesus to undertake the work of the apostolate, freely accepting its burdens, that they may participate the more closely in His lot. To them this is the mystery of the newness of Christ, of all that He is and stands for; it is the sum of the highest ideals of the Gospel and of the kingdom; it is a particular manifestation of grace, which springs from the Paschal mystery of the Savior. This is what makes the choice of celibacy desirable and worthwhile to those called by our Lord Jesus.Thus they intend not only to participate in His priestly office, but also to share with Him His very condition of living.”[4]



Fr. Miguel A. Fuentes, IVE

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