Jimmy Akin on why he came to believe that Peter is the rock of Matthew 16:18 (Full Video: https://youtu.be/FUlmOqlCA5w)

"The victory of faith can always be achieved only in communion with Jesus Crucified."
— Pope Benedict XVI, What is Christianity? The Last Writings

"Sacred Scripture speaks only in the living community of the Church... Scripture, in terms of its totality, can be interpreted adequately only in the living Church."
— Pope Benedict XVI, What is Christianity? The Last Writings

Atheism, setting aside God, is contrary to human dignity.

"In setting God aside, man subjects himself to constraints that make him the slave of material forces and that thus are opposed to his dignity" (Pope Benedict XVI, What is Christianity? The Last Writings)

I've been reading the Rule of St. Benedict and Chapter 6 offered a good reminder. Everything I have read, from Scripture (e.g. Romans 8:26) to the Saints (e.g. Benedict's Rule, writers found within the Philokalia, and countless others), to modern figures such as Cdl. Sarah (The Power of Silence), have all spoken of the importance of silence.

I think this is something that needs to be taken into special consideration in light of the internet. For those of us who aren't called to be monastics, separated from the world, we cannot close ourselves off from the world but we also can't become devoured by it. We need to designate areas of our life where we engage in this willful silence and reorientation. The proverb quoted in the Rule says, "In much speaking, you will not avoid sin." How much more is this the case when we can speak with people around the world at all hours of the day? I know myself that the internet has been an occasion for sin due to this.

My solution, which I have been slowly implementing, is not to completely sever all connections but rather to simply be more intentional about when the noise of the world is allowed. There needs to be clear distinctions and boundaries so that aspects of the monastic life can be brought out. By being more intentional, limiting interaction to when/where it will be most fruitful, we can still engage and evangelize without becoming absorbed in the noise.

"The altar is the threshold of God's immanence. Through Christ, God ceased to be the Unknown, the Inaccessible One. He turned to us, came to us, and became one of us in order that we might go to Him and become one with Him."
— Meditations Before Mass by Romano Guardini

"No, the Church is not self-made; she was created by God, and she is continuously formed by him."
— Pope Benedict XVI, What is Christianity? The Last Writings

I have collected a selection of resources pertaining to the Catholic understanding of the Jews, from Church Fathers to Ecumenical Councils to miscellaneous books and articles. If you have any resources you think should be added you can send them to @JacksonFretheim or email resources+jews@fretheim.blog (English translations must be available to be added). I plan on using this, as well as other future resource pages, to help create an easy starting point to look into various issues of interest.

https://fretheim.blog/resources/jews/

"When we wish to propose something to powerful people, we do not presume to do so without humility and reverence. How much more should we petition the Lord God of the universe with great humility and total devotion" (The Rule of St. Benedict, Father of Western Monasticism).

Good article on screen-use, worthy of consideration:
https://newpolity.com/blog/screen-use

"In the early Church, Luther’s theology finds a counterpart only in Marcion, whose theory, however, was immediately ruled out in the early Church because it was considered heretical.
— Pope Benedict XVI, What is Christianity? The Last Writings

I am reading Fr. Terrence Kardong's translation of the Life of Saint Benedict by Pope St. Gregory the Great and I especially love his rendering: "Thus he left Rome learnedly ignorant and wisely uninstructed." It really drives home the fact that worldly knowledge is meaningless if it leads to destruction of the soul.

"St. Benedict wished to suffer the world's wrongs rather than its praises, and to be worn out by labors for God rather than flattered by worldly praise."

"With the waning of temptation, the man of God, like a field cleared of briars, brought forth a bumper crop of virtue."

"For the brave warrior of God [St. Paul] did not wish to be cooped up; he sought the battlefield."

Pope Benedict XVI on the development of priestly celibacy as it relates to frequent offering of the Mass (What is Christianity? The Last Writings).

"Thus celebrating the Eucharist in the early Church was connected from the beginning with the community of believers and thus with rigorous conditions for admittance... This has nothing to do with slogans like 'inclusive Church' or 'exclusive Church'; rather, the fact that the Church profoundly becomes one thing, one Body with the Lord, is presupposed, so that she can forcefully bring his life and his light into the world."
— Pope Benedict XVI, What is Christianity? The Last Writings

"The first fundamental gift that faith offers us is the certainty that God exists. A world without God can be nothing but a world without meaning."
— Pope Benedict XVI, What is Christianity? The Last Writings