By Nick Jones, University of Rhode Island
I first started making these reviews one year ago, last January. Since then, things have gotten progressively crazier and crazier and just about every area of life. The great Saint Bruno as well as his Carthusian Order said it best when they remarked Stat crux dum volvitur orbis (The cross is steady while the world turns). Placing our faith in anything except for the ineffable, unchanging truth of the faith will never make us happy. Such faith is unsustainable. However, hope we allow ourselves to rest in God’s embrace here below, we’ll be all set. Without further ado, let’s try to dive deeper into some aspects of our faith and maybe grow in joy along the way. Have some memes.
Source: Catholic Memes, on Facebook
Source: Lit Catholic Memes, on Instagram
Source: Traditional Catholic Memes for Working Class Teens, on Facebook
I have a theory that the devil likes it when secular society celebrates Christmas from the day after Thanksgiving until December 25th and then totally forgets about it. In this way, we can focus solely on the materialistic aspects of the holiday, forgetting the supernatural character of the season, and depriving us of a fruitful Advent. Of course, our Holy Mother the Church, in her wisdom, reminds us that it is not Christmas until December 25th, and that the Christmas cycle of the liturgical year does not end until February 2nd at the latest. This is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, also known as the Purification of Mary or Candlemas, 40 days after Our Lord’s Nativity. Traditionally, Sundays before the Pre-Lent were counted from the Feast of the Epiphany, and their texts helped to continue to explicate all of the implications of both the Incarnation and the Epiphany. Suffice it to say, don’t wish someone a Merry Christmas until December 25th, and don’t stop until at least the Baptism of the Lord, if not Candlemas.
Source: Catholic Memes, on Facebook
Despite the equivocation proffered by modern secular academics, there is no getting around the fact that the calendar used almost universally is based upon the entrance of Our Lord into the human condition. That is to say, even if someone miscalculated the date somewhere along the line and the Nativity actually took place in 4 B.C., the intention behind the system is still to measure a new era from the date of the Nativity. On another level, even when people in contemporary culture insist on saying Before the Common Era instead of B.C., and After the Common Era instead of AD, they are still measuring this so-called Common Era from the birth of Our Lord. This is the way it ought to be. The Incarnation changed things in a manner such that they could never be the way that they were before. To be sure, it set off the most consequential and influential life in the history of humanity. There is no event more fitting for dividing time than this truly unprecedented condescension by our good and loving God.
Source: unknown, first seen on r/catholicmemes, on Reddit
This is a reference to the Book of Proverbs, full of similar gems of ancient but still useful wisdom. This is true of course for women looking at potential husbands. It would seem to be the case that one ought not lead with the criteria of beauty and charm. Rather, we should find someone who is holy and dedicated above all else to the Lord, as well as to the duties of their state in life. Plato teaches in his Symposium that we fall in love with beauty itself and then learn to recognize it within people whom we then love. From the Christian perspective, we can know God as Beauty Himself, and thus we can fall in love with those people who most image God in our life. We should trust that the man or woman who for love of God, “obtains wool and flax” will be the one whom we come to find more and more beautiful and charming as we spend our lives trying to help them get to heaven.
Source: Catechesis Memes, on Facebook
Everything in the Old Testament points to the New. Every foreshadowing of something good was fulfilled and made perfect once Christ established His Church. This is especially true of the sin offerings made under the Old Covenant. We learn from reading and praying the venerable Roman Canon that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the perfection of all the types of sacrifices offered in the Old Testament, particularly those of Abel, Abraham, and Melchizedek. No longer are mere bread and wine or the flesh of simple beasts offered. Rather, a new offering of bread and wine is transformed at each Mass into the only truly perfectly acceptable sacrifice, the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. We offer it in union with the priest who acts in the person of Christ, lifting it up to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. WHAT A GIFT WE HAVE! Let’s all make it a New Year’s resolution to assist more attentively at this most sacred exchange.
Source: Catholic Memes, on Facebook
Thank God for the message of the angel that told the Magi to not return to Herod! I like to think that the Magi constantly thought about their visit to Our newborn Lord. Such an adventure does not seem like something someone would easily forget. As it turns out, there was some speculation among early church fathers and biblical commentators that those same three Magi eventually converted to Christianity upon receiving the missionary Apostles. Some even speculate that they were willing to undergo martyrdom for that Faith which was first revealed to them when Our Lord was just a little babe. These men are the perfect example of a radical surrender and a spirit of poverty. These men were royalty and likely did not lack anything, but they learned to accept the sign and go humiliate themselves before a straight-up Baby in a foreign country. How much more should we be willing to do this now that we have the gift of supernatural Faith?
Source: u/drcoolio64, r/CatholicMemes, on Reddit
Source: u/CatholicMemer, r/CatholicMemes, on Reddit
As we say each week at Mass during the Creed, God the son is consubstantial with God the Father, as formulated by the fathers of the First Council of Niceæ. This means that they are of the same substance, which is a fancy way of saying they are both Divine in nature, both Persons of that one Divine Being. This means that the Son is coeternal with the father, having never been created. He, like the Holy Spirit, is adored and glorified. All three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are particular in Personhood, unified in their Divine essence, and equal in majesty. This stands in stark contrast to the Arian heresy, declared anathema by the Council of Niceæ. Arius maintained that the Son of God was a created being, higher than the angels, but still not Divine like the Father. When he refused to recant from this view, my namesake Saint Nicholas punched him out of frustration. This might not be the best evangelical approach when dealing with people who misunderstand the Trinity,but it’s definitely a fun little point of trivia!
Source: Bishop Umbers, on Instagram
Never let anyone convince you that permitting or promoting abortion is a Catholic value. Even the earliest Fathers of the Church wrote against it, contrary to what would become Jewish practice and contrary to the contemporary Roman practice. This is not a new idea, and it is certainly not designed to enslave women. Instead, the purpose is to not tempt anyone with such a way out. Recall that freedom does not have to do with a multiplicity of options, but rather with restricting oneself to do only that which will lead to flourishing. No one benefits when a child is killed. At the very best, legitimate hardship faced by mother and father is simply compounded by the guilt of taking the life of the most innocent person in the equation. Catholics of course believe in the value of every life from conception until natural death. No other single institution does more work to promote high quality of life across the entirety of the lifespan. As much as the pro-abortion lobby might like to draw caricatures of the pro-life movement, I can think of plenty of Catholics off the top of my head who both oppose abortion by their speech and are willing to adopt unwanted children and support women in crisis pregnancies. There is truly, as some say, a consistent life ethic within Catholic Social teaching. There is likewise, our pernicious element within the Church who often parrot the value of said consistent life ethic without ever actually decrying the evil of abortion. Let there be no misunderstanding, that there cannot be a truly provost culture until every single person regardless of age, disability, or race or any other qualifier is loved and cherished and nurtured until their life naturally runs its course.
Source: u/StalinbrowsesReddit, r/CatholicMemes, on Reddit
Christ promised that His Church would never defect. The gates of Hell will never prevail against her. Until He comes again and glory, Christ’s One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church has a safeguard preventing it from ever falling into the state of teaching a formally heretical position. Our Church guided the formation of the Canon of Scripture, allowing the Holy Spirit to inform us as to which books accurately reflected the Gospel message. Our Church exclusively possesses the fullness of the Deposit of Faith, combining scripture with Sacred oral Tradition passed down from the Apostolic age. Her living Magisterium functions through the actions of the Pope and the Bishops in union with him. They possess the fullness of Holy Orders, succeeding the Apostles by faithfully transmitting, interpreting, and applying sacred Doctrine throughout the ages.
Source: Unknown, first seen on Instagram
Inasmuch as God knows from all time who you will marry, if that is your vocation, you do not have a soulmate. There might be one person with whom a marriage could be more meritorious compared to another person, but there is not some person walking the Earth to whom your soul is ordered. It would seem to be the case that these sorts of things are so much more about your particular subjective circumstances than finding some person objectively perfect for you. What I mean is that if you go to X university chances are your dating pool will be limited to that place and you’ll be blissfully ignorant of all of the wonderful potential suitors at Y university. If there’s no one there that it works out with, it’s not the end of the world. There is not any shortage of eligible Catholic partners. God will guide you to someone if marriage is what He wants from you, and you will have the opportunity to love Him through that person. As regards to the scenario in the meme above, it is always better to go for the uncomfortable truth than settle for comfortable ambiguity. Tell him or her how you feel and don’t mince your words and ultimately everything will be better.
Source: nakedpastorstore.com, by way of wdtprs.com
Every creature in creation lives to further the glory of the Creator, God. This is especially true for non- human animals, given to man by God for his use and enjoyment. Thus, when Christ Who is both God and man needed a convenient place to deposit some recently exorcised demons, He was well within His rights to put them into the herd of swine. This is particularly fitting, according to the commentators, because swine were unclean under the Old Law. The demons asked to be placed there because they did not want to inhabit any animal that would be used for the benefit of man or that would be sacrificed in the temple to the glory of God. These demons preferred their own humiliation to potentially glorifying God, because of their supreme pride.
