Catholic Daily Brief

Sheen's thoughts on humility, egotism, and joy

"'Great works' (of art) and 'good works' (of charity) had better also be Good Work. Let choirs sing well or not at all. Otherwise we merely confirm the majority in their conviction that the world of Business, which does with such efficiency so much that never really needed doing, is the real, the adult, and the practical world; and that all this 'culture' and all this 'religion' (horrid words both) are essentially marginal, amateurish, and rather effeminate activities."

"It will be infallible judgment. If it is favorable we shall have no fear, if unfavorable, no hope, that it is wrong. We shall not only believe, we shall know, know beyond doubt in every fibre of our appalled or delighted being, that as the Judge has said, so we are: neither more nor less nor other."

The theological implications of extraterrestrial life

"Can we believe that God ever really modifies His action in response to the suggestions of men?"

"How is it right, or even psychologically possible, for creatures who are every moment advancing either to heaven or to hell, to spend any fraction of the little time allowed them in this world on such comparative trivialities as literature or art, mathematics or biology?"

The Seventh Word from the Cross: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit"

The Sixth Word from the Cross: "It is finished"

The Fifth Word from the Cross: "I thirst"

The Fourth Word from the Cross: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

Monica's death; Augustine's grief and prayers for her soul

The Third Word from the Cross: "Mother behold thy son; son, behold thy Mother"

The Second Word from the Cross: "This day you will be with me in Paradise"

The First Word from the Cross: "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock."

Augustine speaks of the joy of his conversion, and he abandons his teaching post; his friends both die baptized; he reads the Psalms and Isaiah; he is baptized along with his son, Adeodatus; he is inspired by the singing of hymns in Ambrose's church, Ambrose finds the incorrupt bodies of Sts. Gervasius and Protasius, which were the cause of several miracles

The Christian way to deal with those who are a bother to us

"Because we love something else more than this world we love even this world better than those who know no other."

Chapter 48: The Crucifixion

Chapter 47: Second Trial Before Pilate

Christianity "is the marriage of heaven and earth: perfect myth and perfect fact: claiming not only our love and our obedience, but also our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the scholar, and the philosopher."

Lewis fields questions on Christianity asked at a live event in 1944

A planned society will always tend to the tyranny of technocracy

A critique of the modern theory of punishment, which removes justice from the question of punishment, and ends in tyranny under the guise of therapeutic "curing".

Chapter 46: Judas at the Bottom of the List

Can the unchanging Christian dogmas survive the ever-growing body of scientific knowledge?

Chapter 45: Trial Before Pilate

The value of gaining a wider and more solid intellectual foundation by reading the wisdom of the past (which is really timeless wisdom)

Two brief articles by Lewis: One about the proper understanding of self-love and self-hate, the other contemplating the origin of the universe.

Can Jesus, based on the historical record, be anything other than God?

Augustine continues to struggle intensely with his sin of lust, but is finally overwhelmed by grace and converts to faith in Christ.

Can you lead a good life without Christianity?

How Christ's Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection make sense of all of history and nature.

The error in thinking that happiness (usually sexual happiness) is due to us, no matter what.

If we accept that our work works, why doubt that our prayer works?

How do we reconcile the laws of nature, our freedom, and God's Providence?

A dialogue concerning the possibility of miracles and the popular view of science's supposed triumph over religion

Chapter 44: The Denials of Peter

Chapter 43: The Religious Trial

A brief critique of Materialism and our modern obsession with the "Expert Class"

Augustine realizes that God is incorruptible; He comes to an understanding of the origin of evil; He recognizes his need for Christ

Chapter 42: The Kiss That Blistered

Chapter 41: The Agony in the Garden

Chapter 40: Our Lord's "My Father" (His High Priestly Prayer in John's Gospel)

Chapter 39: The Divine Lover's Farewell

Chapter 38: Judas

Chapter 37: The Servant of Servants

Chapter 36: The Last Supper

Chapter 35: The King's Son Marked For Death

Monica's love and admiration for Ambrose; Augustine begins to be persuaded by Ambrose's preaching and he reevaluates his opinion of Sacred Scripture; He is disillusioned with his worldly cares, and befriends Alypius and Nebridius; Augustine describes his struggle with chastity