This site is dedicated to the publication and promotion of books and media that best portray all the wondrous dimensions of the true 
Catholic imagination with its faithful perception and contemplation of all visible and invisible reality made new by the living presence 
of the Word Incarnate.  May this array of exemplary books and blogs extol and instill a gladsome and playful experience of the Catholic 
sacrificial mindset and sacramental worldview.  May traipsing  through these pages whet your wits and brighten your witness to the 
beauty of truth at the Heart of the World , in the Face of the Word.
 Goodbooks Media
  • Home
  • Still Catholic
  • Books We Publish
    • How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad
    • Toward a 21st Century Catholic World-View
    • LAST CALL
    • PRAYER
    • PARADISE COMMANDER >
      • Interviews
      • Articles & Essays
    • 12 for Christmas
    • Christmas Is Forever
    • NUZZLE & FRITZAPAW
  • Blogs
    • RondaView >
      • Transformative Catholic Philosophy
      • Toward a 21st Century Catholic World View
    • Catacombs Post Office
    • Catholic Imagination
  • Book Salon
  • Audios
  • Get in Touch

God Alone Continued

10/7/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
Mechanisms of Manipulation




August 14, 2008
FAMILY STANCES
Holy Spirit:
Picture
Postures of Self-protection
Picture







Each child in a family develops defenses against being taken over by the 
other children. The price of love can often by slavery to the other’s wishes.


Picture






Later, 
some become so defensive that they choose isolation rather than risk being used.


Picture





Others attract companions, sometimes to replicate power positions of the past.



How tragic! How bleak!
Picture



We want to exit such a cycle. We want to help you do this. 
In the stories of the saints you see men and women who took in all the genuine love from their childhoods and the love that was there from others in their life as adults. They believed in the ideals of Christian love. Most of all they opened their hearts to Our love: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and of Mother Mary, the angels and saints. They were liberated from patterns of power, defensiveness and withdrawal.



Picture
Picture


It is a never ending battle between many sided evils and victory through the power of love. Over and over in the Old Testament you see defeat if people trust in their own strength and victory when they let themselves be the instruments of God’s will.

Picture



In the Gospels, overturning the seemingly invincible plots coming out of fear, 
pride, jealousy and power, you see the triumph of divine love. You can try to analyze every aspect of psychological and spiritual warfare in life. That can only take you so far. Insight can lead to despair instead of breakthroughs.
Pray! Pray! Pray! Not to win others over to your side, but that fresh streams of divine love may bring change, forgiveness and change.


Picture
1 Comment

Another excerpt from God Alone

10/6/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
August 13, 2008
God Within/God Above
Holy Spirit:
Each era in Christian history has a different way of wrongly emphasizing more or less of the divinity or humanity of Christ.
Picture









In your lifetime (1937 ff) Catholics first thought of the divine nature of 
Christ as so transcending the human that they could scarcely dare to imagine Jesus performing ordinary physical human acts.



Picture





By now, 2008, however, His humanity is 
so emphasized that some think of Him as being as weak as they are. Phrases like “the God above” or “the God within” can usually seem neutral, but can take on the flavor of such divergences from the Truth.


Picture









“God is above all 
thoughts” can become a way to keep Him away, so that your eyes are on the stars but your hearts are rooted in the world. “The God within” can become a way to keep Him imprisoned in your own categories, stripped of the power to change you.


Picture
Through Scripture and Tradition We teach you balancing images. Jesus offers parables of the Father’s close love, such as the parable of the Prodigal son, but also tells the disciples that “no one has seen the Father but Me.” God is shown both as the farmer, sower of seeds, but then as the Judge separating the weeds from the grain.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Let awe of the God above usher forth in praise while the heart opens to its all consoling guest: 
the God within.
Picture
0 Comments

If our Pontiff...

10/5/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture




Pope Francis said and did so many good things
 

on his visit to our benighted country...


 but how I wish that when Pope Francis praised Martin Luther King, Jr., he would also have praised heroines like Joan Andrews of Operation Rescue!
Picture
Picture
Picture
How I wish he would have visited a Planned Parenthood with 1,000 praying Christians, at a time when it closed for the day so as not to shame the women going in with 1,000 praying Catholics.
Picture
Here is a tribute to Joan Andrews Bell by Fr. Paul Nicholson:
Picture
In 1988 I was reading the prison letters of Joan Andrews, a young woman who had entered a Pensacola abortion chamber and disconnected it.  For this direct act of protest, Joan Andrews was imprisoned in a Florida jail.  She was given five years, solitary confinement.  Her prison became the source of an impassioned plea for the pro-life movement to “put its money where its mouth was”.  If we believed that little babies were dying, then we should act like it.  She, along with Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League of Chicago, John Cavanaugh O'Keefe of Maryland, Judie Brown of American Life League, and several others, began to argue the case for direct action at the abortion mills.  This direct action was to be non-violent “sit-ins”that would halt the killing for a day, flood the courts with grandmothers, and put pressure upon the conscience of the nation.
    Joan Andrews’ action alerted me first that something was terribly wrong.  She was the one who said in a soft, gentle way, that when the Roe v. Wade decision was affirmed January 22, 1973, she waited for the Church and her leaders to take to the street.  They didn't -- and she was thunderstruck.
    So Joan took to herself the incredibly heroic task of awakening the conscience of the Church.  She identified with the unborn child in all his helpless, defenceless state.  She went to the abortion chamber and attempted to stop the killing by standing between the assassin (the doctor) and the woman.  This effort merited for her an unheard of penalty of five years in solitary confinement.  
But she wrote those prison letters which were collected and eventually published by Ignatius Press.
Her witness inspired me and others to undertake the largest act of civil disobedience in American history in what became known as Operation Rescue. 

1 Comment
Forward>>

    Author

    Ronda Chervin received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Fordham University and an MA in Religious Studies from Notre Dame Apostolic Institute. She is a dedicated widow, mother, and grandmother.
    Ronda converted to the Catholic Faith from a Jewish, though atheistic, background and has been a Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Loyola Marymount University, the Seminary of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and Franciscan University of Steubenville. She is an international speaker and author of some fifty books about Catholic thought, practice and spirituality. One of her latest is LAST CALL, published by Goodbooks Media.
    Dr. Ronda is currently retired and living in Corpus Christi, Texas after her years of teaching philosophy at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut.
    You can contact her via e-mail by clicking here or by emailing [email protected] directly.

    Visit her websites:
    here and here.

    Archives

    April 2021
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    Bishop Flaget
    Body Language
    Comfort Zone
    Fr. Longenecker
    Healing For Insecurity
    Loud Voice
    Old People And Tech Transition
    Prayer Of Suffering
    Problems And Graces
    Richard And Ruth Ballard
    Soft Talk
    What Saints Said

    RSS Feed

    Check Out Religion Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Bob Olson on BlogTalkRadio
Web Hosting by FatCow