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One of the meanings of penitential fasting is to help us recover an interior life. The effort of moderation in food also extends to other things that are not necessary, and this is a great help to the spiritual life. Moderation, recollection and prayer go hand in hand. -Pope John Paul II via Amy

Let us also pray in the words of Psalms 102 - "I have eaten ashes as if it were bread" and 103 - " The merciful goodness of the Lord endures forever". Wear your ashes with humility, and remember that they are made from the Palms of last years triumph and celebration. --via Alicia of Fructis Ventris

I can't stand it when people appear not to "think"... or just to spout off without doing any apparent analysis or research...like that it's horrible to have abortions "as birth control" but not as backup birth control -- it's not your fault the contraceptives haven't been perfected yet! - Davey's Mommy

The unintentionally funny part of [Bruce] Bawer's book was that he accused other Christians of not being real Christians because, among other things, they accuse other Christians of not being real Christians.-Camassia of Camassia

The 8 cylinder turbo-charged traditionalist will not be seen with anything other than the Douay-Rheims. And for some few this will have to be the original, pre-Challoner version, poor old Bishop Challoner bearing the taint of having lived at the height of the 18th century enlightenment. The thin end of the wedge, doncha know. The Challoner Douay is met with in all categories once in a great while. But the pre-Challoner is a dead giveaway. This is your hard-core, not to be trifled with traditionalist. The somewhat less-earnest traditionalist is well-satisfied not only with the Douay, but also occasionally with the old Confraternity version or once in a while even the RSV-CE....The conservative seems to be married to the RSV-CE. Since it has not only the common-or-garden variety imprimatur of a bishop but also the more significant, albeit canonically unrecognized, imprimatur of Scott Hahn there is no gainsaying the RSV-CE to the conservative. The conservative views Scott Hahn with something only slightly less than hyperdulia and faces Steubenville to pray. The liberal in his various places along the left side of the right/left number line has no particular version with which to categorize him. But whatever version he does use must be a "New" version. Not a Jerusalem Bible or a Revised Standard for our free-thinking friend. Oh, no. A New Jerusalem or a New Revised Standard it must needs be. This way the existence of the masculine sex will in no way interfere with his devotions. -John of Inn at the End of the World on bibles

"Almsgiving saves one from death and expiates every sin," Tobit told his son. We have no such guarantee about giving money to the local orchestra...When he heard Jonah's prophecy, the King of Nineveh did not proclaim, "Neither man nor beast, neither cattle nor sheep, shall watch television." Jesus did not go into the desert to fast from chocolate and Starbucks. We should not begin building a tower we can't complete, but neither should we call the hut we do build a tower. As with almsgiving, the concept of fasting has been diluted. As with almsgiving, as a consequence of this dilution, people aren't fasting but think they are. As with almsgiving, people are missing out on the graces available through fasting. -Tom of Disputations

Garrigou-Lagrange says that to combat pride, the first step that must be done is that we must constantly remind ourselves that we are nothing without God...that we do not exist because of ourselves, and that "we have been saved from nothing by a pure act of Love on the part of God." --jesus Gil of Santificarnos

Bad taste makes the day go by faster. -- Andy Warhol

But shall we prepare ourselves, and encourage each other, for Lent? I want this to be a great, deeply meaningful, kind of difficult Lent for me. I want to suffer a little, read a little, pray a lot, submit and shut up a lot...I need something more active, as it were. Letting two cars merge in front of me on the expressway (although I don't know if that wouldn't incite Therese-i-cide by the drivers behind me)...I won't report on my final list, maybe, because pride might seep in there. Unless I can do it in real humility . -Therese Z of Santificarnos

To Contact Antony: Ask your own Guardian Angel for help - Enbrethiliel of Sancta Sanctis

But you gotta read de Lubac as an antidote to Garrigou-Lagrange's one most unfortunate mistake (on nature-grace). --Kevin Miller on Disputations

I want to say I stand in awe of those of you who are able to follow the story, remember the names of villages and kingdoms and shires, the inter-relations between them, what each is meant to stand for, and their relative positions on the map of Middle Earth...I did somewhat better at remembering the names this time because I made a point of it. Frodo, Sam, Rohan, Gandalf…and that's about it. There was someone named Erewhon or Earhorn or something like that, maybe someone else named Algore (but I’m not sure), and a shriveled homunculus named Speedle or Wheedle or Dopey or Sneezy, but after that it's all a fog. I can't remember the name of our warrior hero (the one who became King of Gondor), our elf warrior hero, our dwarf warrior hero, or why it's even important to become King of Gondor, and, worse, I'm not even sure I'm spelling it right. -Bill Luse of Apologia on the latest LOTR epic. I can relate.