Author: Howie Cassan
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Amen, Amen: Faith, Works, Sacraments, and the Gospel of John
Brothers and sisters in Christ, and especially my Protestant brothers and sisters, I want to begin with a simple question. If every outward action connected with salvation is dismissed as a “work,” then what do we do with the Gospel of John? When we read John carefully, we find that Jesus repeatedly presents divine grace…
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The Catholic Gentleman: Manhood Is Not a Costume
A CatholicG33k Reflection on Sam Guzman’s The Catholic Gentleman: Living Authentic Manhood Today There is a way to read The Catholic Gentleman badly. You could read it as a Catholicized masculinity manual: dress like an adult, drink like an adult, work hard, protect your family, develop some discipline, stop looking at pornography, learn some manners,…
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The Holiness No One Sees
A Reflection on The Mother of the Saviour and Our Interior Life There is a kind of holiness the world will never understand. It does not build a platform. It does not announce itself. It does not need to be noticed, praised, followed, or remembered. It simply belongs to God. And perhaps no human life…
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The “Apocrypha” Points to Christ: The Deuterocanonical Books Protestants Are Missing
If you have ever opened a Protestant Bible and compared its Old Testament with a Catholic Bible, you probably noticed something strange. The Catholic Bible has more books. Tobias. Judith. Wisdom. Ecclesiasticus. Baruch. First and Second Machabees. Plus additional portions of Esther and Daniel. Protestants commonly call these books the Apocrypha. Catholics call them the…
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The Holiness of the Given Moment
A Reflection on St. Alphonsus de Liguori’s Uniformity with God’s Will There are spiritual books that give us new ideas, and there are spiritual books that quietly take away our excuses. St. Alphonsus de Liguori’s Uniformity with God’s Will belongs unmistakably to the second category. It is astonishingly small. In the edition before us, the…
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The Will Is Trained by What We Love
What if strengthening your will isn’t really about trying harder but learning to love the right things? A reflection on The Training of the Will, grace, temptation, attention, and the slow Catholic work of becoming free enough to choose the good.
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Is Purgatory Real? Beyond the Myths
The biblical, historical, and Catholic case for purification after death. The small Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Prati, on the banks of the Tiber, houses a most curious collection of artifacts: sixteen pieces of cloth, paper, or wood, each claimed to bear the scorched signs of hands and fingerprints from souls in…
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The Courage to Become the Man God Created You to Be
What does it truly mean to be a man? In Be a Man! Becoming the Man God Created You to Be, Fr. Larry Richards challenges the world’s definition of masculinity and points readers toward the only perfect example Jesus Christ. This reflection explores authentic manhood through the lens of Scripture, repentance, sacrificial love, and holiness,…
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From the Waters of Creation to the Throne of the Cross: Baptism, the Two Thieves, and the Hidden Glory of Christ
Christian Baptism cannot be understood merely as a religious washing, a public profession of faith, or an isolated Christian ceremony. Its roots reach back through the whole history of Israel, through the waters of creation, the Flood, the Red Sea, the Jordan, the ritual purifications of the Jewish people, the preaching of John the Baptist,…
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The Matrix and the Gospel: Seeing Christ in the Code
Popular culture often borrows from truths greater than itself. Stories of sacrifice, liberation, death, rebirth, and the triumph of truth continue to move us because they echo the deepest story of all: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One striking example is The Matrix. Although the film is a work of science fiction and should not…