St. Augustine of Hippo on Loving God Late

Late have I loved You. O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

– St. Augustine of Hippo

Rev. Herbert H. J. Crees on Critical Thinking

You may have heard it said that Catholics are not allowed to think for themselves; you may even believe it. And as long as you can believe things like that you will remain safely out of reach of any appeal which the Catholic Church could make to your reason. But someone ought to warn you that if you are beginning to think for yourself, you won’t be able to believe it much longer. Your mind, becoming more critical with exercise, will reject this along with a number of other quaint superstitions. Another point you should consider seriously is this: you may be the kind of person who, having once begun to think about a subject, continues to do so logically until he arrives at certain definite conclusions. This phenomenon today is comparatively rare; but if you are that kind of person you will probably accept these conclusions, even though they turn your former opinions upside down, and change your whole outlook. Finally you may decide that these conclusions you have formed are so important that you cannot ignore them, and that you must do something about them. This is one of the penalties of real thinking: and it is a penalty that a man or woman is prepared to face who wishes to live a life which is really human and not just vegetable. If ever you get as far as this in thinking about the Catholic Church, then you will be in very real danger of becoming a Catholic.

By Rev. Herbert H. J. Crees B.A. – To Start You Thinking

G.K. Chesterton on the Thoughtless Keeping of Christmas

The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.

G.K. Chesterton –  “On Christmas,” Generally Speaking

Peter Sean Bradley on Poor Catechesis and Lapsed Catholics

When I find lapsed Catholics in other denominations, what strikes me is how ignorant they are of the faith that they rejected. I’ve been involved at times with Protestant groups, and when I have explained what Catholicism teaches, I get told by lapsed Catholics that they never heard any such thing. On the other hand, my experience with Protestant converts to Catholicism is that they are usually incredibly knowledgeable about their own prior tradition before they ever became Catholics. It’s a sad commentary on the status of catechesis after Vatican II.

Peter Sean Bradley – comment on Called to Communion

Anonymous on the Angst of Conversion

The angst gets worse the closer to the head of the line you get, depending on the tradition(s) you were raised in, of course. Just be prepared. There is a spirit that will stop at nothing to keep you from receiving the Eucharist.

Anonymous

G.K. Chesterton on “why I am a Catholic”

The difficulty of explaining “why I am a Catholic” is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.

G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton on resisting and embracing the Catholic Church

It is impossible to be just to the Catholic Church. The moment men cease to pull against it they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair.

G.K. Chesterton