"When attention to the theological meaning of femininity is not accompanied by reflection on masculinity, men are left without a sense of the existential and sacramental significance of their own sex."

A reading of a fascinating essay originally published in the journal Logos, about the work of Walter Ong, SJ.

In the wake of an emphasis on the “feminine genius” as delineated by Pope St. John Paul II and others, this article attempts to develop a profile of the masculine genius. It supplements the teaching of Pope Francis on this subject in order to balance the more complete articulation of the feminine genius already provided by the Magisterium.

Drawing primarily from the work of Walter J. Ong, whose presentation is corroborated and buttressed here with other studies, this article demonstrates that the masculine genius includes a set of gifts that complement those of women, both in the natural order and in the order of redemption.

In Search of the Masculine Genius: The Contribution of Walter J. Ong full text: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/librarypdf/Raab-Masculine-Genius.pdf

Text originally published by Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Volume 21, Number 1, Winter 2018.

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"These falls can be MOST CERTAINLY avoided when one knows how to use the precious balancing pole of the interior life. It is only the abandonment of this INFALLIBLE instrument that brings dizziness and the fatal false step into space."

Part Three of this classic work by the French Trappist monk, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard (1858-1935), warns of the spiritual perils of an active life divorced from a deep interior life, while offering the assurance of grace and progress in virtue for those who root their work in prayer and union with God.

Episode 3: Part Three

00:00 - Intro

00:52 - 1. Active Works, a Means of Sanctification for Interior Souls, Become, for Others, a Menace to their Salvation

14:07 - 2. The Active Worker Who Has No Interior Life

43:45 - 3. The Interior Life: Basis of the Holiness of the Apostolic Worker

Links

The Soul of the Apostolate full text: https://www.cmri.org/0-olmc-mission/catholic-books/soul_of_the_apostolate.pdf

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Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"The true light of the world offends more men than it attracts; and its divine origin is shown, not in its marked effects on the mass of mankind, but in its surprising power of elevating the moral character where it is received in spirit and in truth."

St. John Henry Newman's Oxford Sermons, delivered during his time as an Anglican preacher at the University of Oxford, were instrumental in shaping the Oxford Movement, which sought to revive High Church traditions within the Church of England and ultimately led to many conversions to Catholicism.

In addition to the profound influence these sermons had on both Anglican and Catholic theology, they also bore a personal significance for Newman’s own conversion to Catholicism years later.

These fifteen sermons, though deeply interconnected in theme and insight, are not sequential in nature; rather, each stands on its own as a distinct and self-contained reflection on faith and reason. Newman lays the groundwork for themes developed in later works, such as Grammar of Assent and Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

In this third sermon, Newman distinguishes the transcendent calling of the Christian from the achievement of ordinary virtue contemplated by "natural" religion or mere ethics.

Links

The Influence of Natural and Revealed Religion Respectively full text: https://newmanreader.org/works/oxford/sermon3.html

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Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"The life of action ought to flow from the contemplative life, to interpret and extend it, outside oneself, though at the same time being detached from it as little as possible."

Part Two of this classic work by the French Trappist monk, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard (1858-1935), further explores the inseparable interdependence of the active and the interior lives—each depends upon, presupposes, and completes the other.

Episode 2: Part Two

00:00 - Intro

00:46 - 1. The priority of the interior over the active life in the eyes of God

10:30 - 2. Good works should be nothing but an overflow from the inner life

16:36 - 3. Active works must begin and end in the interior life, and, in it, find their means

25:11 - 4. The active and interior lives are completely interdependent

36:22 - 5. The excellence of this union

Links

The Soul of the Apostolate full text: https://www.cmri.org/0-olmc-mission/catholic-books/soul_of_the_apostolate.pdf

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Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"If God calls me to apply my activity not only to my own sanctification, but also to good works, I must establish this firm conviction, before everything else, in my mind: Jesus has got to be, and wishes to be, the life of these works. My efforts, by themselves, are nothing, absolutely nothing."

Part One of this classic work by the French Trappist monk, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard (1858-1935), examines the relationship between exterior works and the interior life of the apostle, demonstrating how the fruitfulness of the former depends entirely upon the vitality of the latter.

Episode 1: Part One

00:00 - Intro

00:38 - Prologue

05:50 - 1. God wants good works, and therefore zealous action

13:00 - 2. God wills that the life-principle of our works be Christ

20:59 - 3. What is the interior life?

42:58 - 4. Ignorance and neglect of this interior life

49:55 - 5. Is the interior life lazy?

01:04:06 - 6. Is the interior life selfish?

01:16:54 - 7. No conflict between the interior life and the salvation of souls

The Soul of the Apostolate full text: https://www.cmri.org/0-olmc-mission/catholic-books/soul_of_the_apostolate.pdf

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Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"The Comforter who has come instead of Christ, must have vouchsafed to come in the same sense in which Christ came; I mean, that He has come, not merely in the way of gifts, or of influences, or of operations, as He came to the Prophets, for then Christ's going away would be a loss, and not a gain, and the Spirit's presence would be a mere pledge, not an earnest; but He comes to us as Christ came, by a real and personal visitation."

A powerful Pentecost sermon from St. John Henry Newman's Anglican period.

Links

The Indwelling Spirit full text: https://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume2/index.html

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Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"Prefer nothing whatever to Christ. And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!"

Episode 3: Ch. 39 - 73

00:00 Intro

00:38 Food, Work, and Silence (Chapters 39–47)

12:28 Labor, Hospitality, and Possessions (Chapters 48–57)

27:04 Entry and Community Structure (Chapters 58–62)

37:19 Leadership and Communal Unity (Chapters 63–73)

St. Benedict's Rule for Monasteries full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50040/pg50040-images.html#chapter-1

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Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.

"We believe that the divine presence is everywhere... But we should believe this especially without any doubt when we are assisting at the Work of God."

Episode 2: Ch. 8 - 38

00:00 Intro

00:38 Structuring Prayer (Chapters 8 - 20)

16:32 Order and Discipline (Chapters 21 - 30)

25:15 Community Life and Roles (Chapter 31 - 38)

St. Benedict's Rule for Monasteries full text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50040/pg50040-images.html#chapter-1

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Theme music: "2 Part Invention", composed by Mark Christopher Brandt, performed by Thomas Mirus. ©️2019 Heart of the Lion Publishing Co./BMI. All rights reserved.