Pride

December 10, 2014

Turning Conflict Into Personal Growth

Elbert Hubbard quoteI want to share with you a very powerful technique for changing the way you respond to offensive  or critical comments.  This technique has the potential of turning what is usually a very painful and unpleasant experience into an opportunity for personal growth and wisdom.

February 23, 2013

The Sins of a Holy Priest

Fr. John Hardon talking with Pope John Paul, II

Fr. John Hardon talking with Pope John Paul, II

February 23, 2013

The Three Temptations of Christ

The Modern Catholic Dictionarys definition of Lent includes the following: “Originally the period of fasting in preparation for Easter did not, as a rule, exceed two or three days.  But by the time of the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) forty days were already customary.  And ever since, this length of time has been associated with Christ’s forty-day fast in the desert before beginning his public life.”

December 9, 2012

A Culture of Football, Guns, & Sin

If you’re a sports fan or if you pay attention to national events, you know about the National Football League (NFL) Kansas City Chiefs’ linebacker who shot and killed his girlfriend last week and then committed suicide.  The football player was Jovan Belcher.  What caught my attention was the immediate rush to judgment by journalists and commentators in the sports and news media, most of whom wanted to place the blame on. the “gun culture” and the “violent game of football.”

November 18, 2012

Predominant Tendencies and Primary Faults

We were all born with a strong tendency toward pride, the mother of all sins.  Because of our fallen human nature, we were also born with a tendency toward each of the other root passions of lust, anger, avarice, envy, gluttony, and sloth; furthermore, as a result of the individual unique traits that each of us were born with, combined with the environment we grew up in and our life experiences, we each entered adolescence, and later adulthood, with a predominant tendency toward one of the other six root passions.

November 3, 2012

An Apostle Speaks Out

As you know, last week Bishop Jenky issued a directive to all the priests in the Diocese of Peoria to read a letter at each of the weekend Masses.  I have some observations about the letter, but first, here’s what Bishop Jenky wrote:

October 31, 2012

The Mother of all Sins

Of the seven root passions or sins – pride, lust, anger, avarice, envy, gluttony, and sloth – the most deadly is pride.  It was an appeal to pride that persuaded Eve to defy her Creator:  “…you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.”  (Genesis 3:6)

October 24, 2012

Unruly Passions

Eve responded, “Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die.”  Genesis 3:2-3.  Every time a sin is committed, something within us dies.  The result of sin is always death.  This has been true from the beginning of time.

October 6, 2012

The Age of the Woman

One Friday afternoon during my first year in law school (1979), while I was sitting in the law library, a girl who was in one of my classes walked over to me and asked, “What is that book you’re reading?”  She had seen the title of the book, The Woman Shall Conquer, and was wondering what it was about.