Knights of Columbus Elder Council 1195

"I have been driven many times to my knees, by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day."

"...is it surprising that today we have become so morally blind (for wickedness blinds) that we save the baby whales at great cost, and murder millions of unborn children?"

“Notre Dame’s leadership has done a real disservice to the Church, and now seeks to ride out the criticism by treating it as an expression of fringe anger. But the damage remains, and Notre Dame’s critics are right. The most vital thing faithful Catholics can do now is to insist – by their words, actions and financial support – that institutions claiming to be “Catholic” actually live the faith with courage and consistency. If that happens, Notre Dame’s failure may yet do some unintended good.”

"Satan is having a heyday in our midst, because he has managed to remain invisible in the culture of death, and our laxity has granted him that luxury. Since we are not steeped in the Word of God as we should be, we do not recognize his darkness in our society."

"All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms."

"America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has shown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts ~ a child ~ as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign.”

"Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three quarters of its victims are women: Half the babies and all the mothers."

"If nothing in this world satisfies me, perhaps it is because I was made for another world."

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point."

"God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain."

“Many politicians, like much of the American public, seem to be unaware that abortion and euthanasia are serious violations of the inalienable right to life. These are not just 'Church' issues but are governed by the natural law of God, which is binding upon all human beings. The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights, since a person deprived of life has no other rights.”

“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.”

Four Fundamentals

• Principle of Non-contradiction

  Each and every thing either is or is not.

• General Reliability of the Senses

  Our senses correspond to reality as it exists.

• Principle of Causality

  That anything that happens does so for a definite reason.

• Self-Consciousness

  Everything that is, exists.

"Though you may have not formally studied philosophy, though you may not have imagined yourself as a champion of inalienable rights and the common good or seen yourself as a defender of the intrinsic dignity of personhood within the culture, there is no one more suited to the task of rescuing the culture than you...Whatever our call might be, no matter how grand or small, we must commit ourselves to doing something, for this is true freedom."

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."

"It is still bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian."

"Everywhere there is the persistent and insane attempt to obtain pleasure without paying for it....'Let us have the pleasure of conquerors without the pains of soldiers; let us sit on sofas and be a hardy race.' ...All around us is the city of small sins, abounding in backways and retreats, but surely, sooner or later, the towering flame will rise from the harbor announcing that the reign of the cowards is over and a man is burning his ships."

"If someone were to ask me what is the most general symptom of this spiritual anemia, I would surely reply: indifference to both truth and falsehood. Today, propaganda proves whatever it wants to, and people more or less passively accept whatever it suggests... Called upon to side with truth or falsehood, good or evil, Christian man pledged his soul at the same time, that is to say he risked his salvation. Metaphysical faith was in him an inexhaustible source of energy. Modern man is still capable of judging, since he is still capable of reasoning. But his judgment doesn't function anymore than a motor functions without fuel, no part of the motor is missing, but there is no gas in the tank."

"To many people, this indifference to truth and falsehood seems more comic than tragic. I find it tragic...For years, millions and millions of people in the world have not only allowed their freedom of thought to be torn away by force; they have voluntarily abandoned it, and will again, as in Soviet Russia. They consider this sacrifice laudable. Or rather, it isn't any sacrifice for them, but a habit which simplifies man terribly. The killers for the totalitarian regimes are recruited from among these terribly simplified men."

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you... "

"All persons of good will need to understand the clear and present danger with which the US is being menaced by the health reform proposed by the Obama Administration. Abortion will be multiplied, the U.S. will move ahead on the road towards euthanasia, conscience rights will be in jeopardy: but what is worse, the United States would start moving towards a tyrannical, socialist government that would be the source of all sort of moral evils."

"This direct destruction of an innocent human life can never be justified, however difficult the circumstances that may lead some to consider taking such a grave step. When you preach the Gospel of Life, remind your people that the right to life of every innocent human being, born or unborn, is absolute and applies equally to all people with no exception whatsoever."

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves"

“The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life? The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother's body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law— the same right we have.”

"Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more needs and desires it finds. "

Look at my unworthiness; look at your kindness, Jesus, Son of Man, my Lord and my God. Forgive me and accept my thanks for allowing me another chance. I know my weakness. I know that without you I am nothing. Help me! Alone I cannot make one step. Let me see myself as I am.

Make me realize these graces that you have allowed. Give me tolerance, understanding, humility, patience! Above all, inflame my heart with an unquenchable love for you. Make me an alert servant, not a sloppy, tired, lazy one as I have been until now. Do not allow me, sweet Lord, to take unto myself any pride about my achievement; make me humbly realize that I am only an instrument. You know it is all for your glory.

Make me more charitable, more gentle, more understanding with people. Give me humility - then I shall be able to serve you as I must. Cure my laziness. Give me strength and determination for sacrifices and mortifications. Make me patient, controlling all irritability, anger, impatience.

Help me, O Master. Look not at the unworthiness of your servant but only on my desire to serve you. Enkindle that desire until, as a flame, it consumes me entirely! Bless all the things I do in your name. Give me understanding of what I should do and what I should run away from. Give me your love! In temporal things, give me my daily bread, and the rest as you will. Your will be done, not mine.

In some causes silence is dangerous.

"Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger."

"If I had to advise parents, I should tell them to take great care about the people with whom their children associate ... Much harm may result from bad company, and we are inclined by nature to follow what is worse than what is better."

"Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you."

"The Magi brought gold; you bring a temperate and virtuous spirit. They brought incense; you must offer pure prayers, which are the incense of the soul. They brought myrrh; you must bring a humble and contrite heart along with alms."

"Jesus must increase; I must decrease."