John Senior’s list of 1,000 Good Books

 Culture, Education  Comments Off on John Senior’s list of 1,000 Good Books
Dec 292017
 

One Thousand Good Books that Should Be the Foundation of Christian Cultural Renewal.

College is the place for GREAT Books, K-12 (& adulthood) is the place for GOOD Books.

Students who don’t study, first, the book of nature, and the good books, no matter how smart, will revert to a Cliff Notes interpretation of the arts & letters of Western Civilization.

Dr. James Taylor on the topic of using the Good Books and the Great Books as part of teaching literature (Circe Institute, 2003, 56 minutes)

Propaedeutics or propedeutics is an historical term for an introductory course into a discipline, that is an art, or science.
Trivium - grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

The favorite song of these boys who’d been roughing it…by the end of camp…was a very melancholy Irish song….
(Margaret Berry, The Flower of Sweet Strabane – If I was king of Erin’s isle…)

John Senior’s 1,000 Good Books Enumerated

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Additional Videos:
Catholic Homeschool Radio Program 9: John Senior’s Great Books Program		 John Senior, Going Against the Grain, Diocese of Wichita

Continue reading »

Fr. James Schall’s Books Worth Reading

 Culture, Education  Comments Off on Fr. James Schall’s Books Worth Reading
Jan 052018
 

Here, I am more interested in someone who wants to begin, who does not know where to go. What I would hope is that these books, on reading them, will provide a solid but short “library,” if you will. – On Catholic Intelligence, Fr. James Schall

The First List
1) J. M. Bochenski, Philosophy—An Introduction
2) G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
3) E. F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed
4) Robert Spitzer, New Cosmological Proofs for the Existence of God
5) Joseph Pieper—an Anthology
6) Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason
7) Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien
8) Mario d’Souza, Being in the World: A Quotable Maritain Reader
9) Robert Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind
10) Pierre Manent, Seeing Things Politically		 The Second List
1) Robert Royal, A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century
2) Robert Sokolowski, The Phenomenology of the Human Person
3) Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, 3 Volumes
4) John D. Mueller, Redeeming Economics
5) Etienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophic Experience
6) Edward Feser, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction
7) David Schindler, A Robert Spaemann Reader
8) Robert Reilly, Making Gay Okay
9) Michael Chaberek, Catholicism and Evolution
10) David Walsh, The Politics of the Person as the Politics of Being

Video regarding Fr. Schall’s Book List in Another Sort of Learning

Christian Knights Participate in the Liturgy Most by Devout Reception of Holy Communion

 Devotional, Education, Exhortations, Family, Fatherhood, Heroes, Manhood, Ministers, Music, Priests  Comments Off on Christian Knights Participate in the Liturgy Most by Devout Reception of Holy Communion
Dec 242017
 

A Catholic Knight:
A Gentleman – A Man

  • Who is Mature and Pious.
  • Who is Willing to Make Sacrifices.
  • Who is Courageous in the Face of Challenges and of evil.
  • Who is Loyal to Those to Whom He Owes Services and Debts, and
  • Who Would Rather Die Than Sin.
     
  • He is Aware of a Hierarchy of Loves in His Life
  • He strives always to keep his Divine Captain and his King on the throne of his heart, and
  • He is willing to take on every task that his Lord sets him to.


  • Seek Justice.
  • Love Mercy.
  • Walk Humbly with your God.

Instruction on Sacred Music (“De Musica Sacra”) • Issued by Pope Pius XII in 1958

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf – Fr. Z’s Blog
Fr. Z – “Joe Bag of Donuts”

Address to Conference for Clarity on The Dubia

 Education  Comments Off on Address to Conference for Clarity on The Dubia
Apr 252017
 

The Roots of the Present Crisis

Douglas Farrow, Professor of Christian thought and holder of the Kennedy Smith Chair in Catholic Studies at McGill University, Montreal; given in Rome, on April 22, 2017

DoulgasFarrow_FafeChiarezza_04-22-2017

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It is not too much to speak of a crisis in the Church today, a crisis in several dimensions. There is a crisis of morality. There is a crisis of doctrine. There is a crisis of authority. There is a crisis of unity.

True, such crises are more common than some like to think. Perhaps the closest analog, however, comes from the sixteenth century. Half a millennium ago, the fathers of Trent had to defend the sacraments governing confession, communion, and conjugality from coordinated, if somewhat chaotic, attacks. The same three sacraments are threatened again today. They had to defend the Church’s unity and authority against the Protestant principle – against the inevitably divisive claim that the meaning of holy scripture could be determined independently of tradition and without accountability before the entire Church. That too is necessary today. They had to weed out persistent abuses both in the sacramental life and in the governance of the Church, while striving to recover a unified vision of Christian existence in which justification and sanctification, freedom and obedience, hold together. This also is urgently required in our own time. Continue reading »

Catholic Answers GRAPHIC NOVELS “The Truth is Out There” & “The Big Picture”

 Education  Comments Off on Catholic Answers GRAPHIC NOVELS “The Truth is Out There” & “The Big Picture”
May 022016
 


BigPictureAmadeusGraphicNovel

Order The Truth is Out There
Order The Big Picture

Read a Sample Chapter of The Big Picture – Brendan & Erc in Exile, Vol. 2

Contemplative monk creates comic book to teach faith

catholicnewsagency.com/news/contemplative-monk-creates-comic-book-to-teach-faith/

“The Truth is Out There,” by Eastern Catholic monk Amadeus.

By Carl Bunderson

Denver, Colo., Jul 17, 2013 / 04:10 am (CNA).– Building on his lifelong love of comic books, an Eastern Catholic monk has authored a short graphic novel, “The Truth is Out There,” to help explain the truths of the faith in an understandable way.

“The reason I did it in cartoon format was because I didn’t think my friends would read it any other way,” Amadeus — which is the author’s pen-name — told CNA in a recent interview.

“The Truth is Out There” tells the story of two space-age mail carriers who begin discussing the meaning of life at a coffee bar, and as they search for truth, one comes to find it resting in the Catholic Church.

In the book’s introduction, Amadeus recounts that the work began a few years before he entered the monastery, during a conversation he was having with three friends of his who were all “born and raised Catholic.”

“It became appallingly clear how little any of us knew our faith…I had just stumbled upon the greatest problem of my generation of Catholics,” wrote Amadeus. Continue reading »

Prospects for Success of The New Evangelization – The Crucial Role of Fathers

 Education, Family, Fatherhood  No Responses »
Jun 022014
 

Why the New Evangelization May Flop

SteveWoodThe call for a New Evangelization is a desperately needed initiative especially when it is directed at baptized Catholics who are secularized and distant from the Faith. A serious hemorrhage of Catholics, especially youth and young adults, is due to what St. John Paul II termed an “invasive secularism.” Yet, the New Evangelization may be a flop when it comes to evangelizing families.

Key to the long-term success of an evangelistic effort that results in widespread cultural transformation is the targeting of specific “people-groups” (a term used in missions and in evangelistic planning) that are keys for the conversion of others. In other words, instead of trying to evangelize everyone, the focus is put upon those who in turn will be instrumental in the conversions and reversions of others. As far as I can tell, the key “people-group” for the New Evangelization of families has yet to be identified, namely fathers.

Yes, it’s encouraging that we now have annual Catholic men’s conferences in many places, but that’s a long way from a full-court, year-long, and multi-faceted effort at evangelizing fathers.

The Southern Baptists, who are effective evangelizers, published these remarkable results from research done by their church resource division:
• If a child is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a
3.7 percent probability that the rest of the family will become Christians
• If mom is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a
17 percent probability that the rest of the family will follow
• If dad is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a
93 percent probability that everyone else in the family will follow his lead Continue reading »

VBRD – Anti-Bullying

 Education, Heroes  No Responses »
Nov 262013
 

vbrsVirtue Based
Restorative Discipline

A Catholic Response to Bullying

He who heeds discipline
shows the way to life, but
whoever ignores correction
leads others astray.
Proverbs 10:17

An outreach of the Catholic Education Center, Archdiocese of St. Louis.

www.virtuebase.org
www.virtuebase.com

 

VBRD HAS TWO KEY OUTCOMES
—• Decrease anti-social behaviors
→ Bullying
→ Problematic disruptions
• Increase faith practices
→ Education on virtue
→ Integration of faith in discipline at home and at school

PRINCIPLES
• Commit to Constructive Language
→ Eliminate judging, criticizing, labeling, gossip, rumors, diminishing statements
• Become a Student of Virtue
→ Learn them, live them, pick three per year
• Engage in Restorative Practices
→ Circles at every level: parents, staff, students; address harm with dignity, hope

 

SlideShow

The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God.
– Catechism of the Catholic Church §1803

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