Tweeting to the Choir: A Collection of Tweets

Tweeting to the Choir: A Collection of Tweets March 13, 2022
The diversity of thought within Catholic teaching, like variety within the strictures of sonnets,  is one of its most beautiful features. It is nevertheless important to listen, as much as we can, to a broad chorus of Catholic thinkers. I have found great consolation in the fact that someone holier and smarter than myself has likely asked my questions already; my job is to find them and to listen, and then to make as many people as possible read block quotations about it.
Sharon Kabel , OSB vs. UFO: Stanley Jaki and the Theology of Aliens (June 16, 2021)- OnePeterFive
Once again I find myself compelled to be the choir director of the BCCT.  There are always new members to add. This time I have been inspired to compile thoughts from the fertile ground of Twitter.  I can’t go on my Facebook feed without seeing someone who has posted a sweet neat tweet worth a repeat. And so in this post I’m posting some of the Nifty Pithy Tweets I have come across within the last few years. Reading Tweets has given me food for thought, made me and my wife laugh, helped me not to sin and has inspired me to pray right where I am reading.
My current writing motto
Anonymous Carmelite: I may not be the sharpest crayon in the box, but I’m the one with glitter in it that everyone likes to go to when they want a little bit of whimsy.
In this post, you will read some of my favorite Tweets from the world of Catholic Twitter. You will see some of the same people quoted over and over and over again. That is because they had a lot of good things to say worth remembering and sharing. A good number of them just happen to be priests. You will also find laypeople, well-known, no so well-known individuals,  and some non-Catholics as well. Anyone I post below had something interesting to say in an interesting way. In this post I am essentially Tweeting to the Choir. 
You can scan this overly long document and find something worth plucking out and posting in your social media feed, so you can share it with your inner circle. Use it as a resource to keep track of some great Twitter quotes. Perhaps you will now want to follow them on Twitter. There are others I wish I could add, if only I could find something worth quoting from them. That is why I didn’t add a whole bunch of  your favorite Tweeters. There may be future editions of this same post. I may add more Tweets as I discover them. I may let you start reading now.
I don’t know what the future will bring in terms of my future writing, but the present is now the time to read what I have written in what is now the past.
Janet@Mystagogy1013 Tweeting to the choir gives us all support and encouragement, which is much needed in these days.
A.M. Juster (#Petrarch w/W.W. Norton in 2023)@amjuster:·  warm Twitter welcome to writer & poet Catholic Bard, aka @BardCatholic
FINAL NOTE: It’s Lent and I’ve spent perhaps too much time looking up stuff, correcting stuff, fixing stuff. I have friends I should visit, a house to clean and a wife to spend time with. Not to mention prayers I should be praying. Perfecting this is sucking more time out of me when I should be spending time on other things. Their are sections of this I want to fine tune and organize. Their are tweets I want to add. But regardless of how much more I want to do, I need to let this be as it is, until another time so I can focus more on Lenten Type Stuff.
If you see a Tweet you think should be added and I agree, I might just add it . Later.

Acceptance

Fr. Tom Bombadil@calix517: “I had to continuously learn to accept God’s will—not as I wished it to be, not as it might have been, but as it actually was at the moment. It was through this struggle that spiritual growth and a greater appreciation of his will took place.”
-Fr. Walter Ciszek, He Leadeth Me

Adoration

Alexis Walkenstein@walkenstein· “Adoration will heal our Church and our nation and thus our world..Adoration touches everyone and everything..because it touches the Creator, Who touches everything & everyone…Adoration is more powerful for construction than nuclear bombs are for destruction.” – Peter Kreeft

A faithful servant@VConquisitor: Last night in Adoration someone accidently turned off the lights to that section of the Church. I was alone, in the dark and in complete silence with Our Lord. The only glimmer of light was the dim red candle. For an hour I felt completely peaceful, like no one else existed ⬇️

Shannon Monaghan@Shonomatopoeia: You ever walk into adoration, sit down, and go “Okay I’m angry and we need to TALK.”
June ⏰@arribas_june: If you are Catholic and you haven’t been to Adoration or Benediction, why haven’t you? Jesus is RIGHT there. You can spill your guts to Him and He is RIGHT there.
Bishop J. Strickland@Bishopoftyler: Let us all fall to our knees in adoration and humble supplication before the Lord. The times are hard but Jesus Christ the Lord of all is with us! Trust in Him, seek Him, Be strong in Him. Let us be Jesus Strong & trust in His Mother Mary’s Intercession for us all!
Emily, praying for peace ���@EmilyKath319: I had a really rare adoration hour tonight, I was the only one in the chapel.
So, I wasn’t relegated to silence the whole time (though I did sit in silence for a good part-)
I spoke right aloud what I was thinking. I sang songs of praise.
It was a good visit with Jesus ��

Advice

Mark Brumley@mabrumley: The Society of Ignatius Press
Life is often hard, for oneself and/or others. If one’s philosophy of life or religion is embraced or designed to avoid or minimize that fact, one either is going to be tempted to live in a pretend world or to become a nihilist. The challenge is to choose neither.
Patricia Heaton@PatriciaHeaton: If only you had been raised Catholic in the sixties! You would have learned early on that this life is filled with suffering so you should “offer it up” but also “go to a doctor.” Also, if you achieved anything it was by the grace of God. This has benefited me immensely in life.

Joseph Massey@jmasseypoet: “Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.” —Saint Teresa of Ávila

Sr. Miriam James@onegroovynun:“Do not fear what may happen tomorrow; the same understanding Father who cares for you today will take care of you then and every day. He will either shield you from suffering or will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace.”—St Francis de Sales

Miracles happen all of the time.

Grace pierces our heart at every moment and a sudden breakthrough of love is always possible.

Don’t give up.

Keep praying, keep doing the right thing.

Love never fails.

St. Padre Pio@PadrepioSaint “Pray, hope, and don’t worry…….Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayers.”

✝️St. Padre Pio, pray for us!

Carolyn Weber@CarolynWeber: Advice Mother Theresa gave Henri Nouwen about worrying+facing life’s troubles: “When you spend one hour a day adoring your Lord and never do anything which you know is wrong, you will be fine!”
Fr. Cassidy Stinson@TheHappyPriest: 

John Campea@johncampea: Reminded today of something dad told me when I was younger: “Life doesn’t owe you anything. You better get that real quick. Work for what you want. If you’re lucky enough to get it, share it with the next guy because he may have worked just as hard but not been as lucky as you”.

This new year remember that a good decision is not the same as a good result. Good results are outside of your control. Good decisions are not. Trust your good decision-making process and don’t be dissuaded if they sometimes lead to undesired results.

Education in Virtue@EDUinVIRTUE: Slow down. Smell the flowers as you go by, and then you won’t need too much of this world’s goods. Enjoy your work and you won’t need much time off. Enjoy being at home and you won’t have to go away so much” – Fr. Benedict Groeschel, The Virtue Driven Life

Roderick Vonhögen@FatherRoderick: ‎It is a method to achieve great results through small habits. It looks like Atomic Habits, but I found this book even more practical. The book convincingly explains that motivation or willpower are not enough to permanently change behavior. Tiny habits do.‎

Jim OShaughnessy@jposhaughnessy: Two thoughts from Walker Percy

“You can get all A’s and still flunk life.”

“Small disconnected facts, if you take note of them, have a way of becoming connected.”

Animals

Steven D. Greydanus@DecentFilms: Film critic, Catholic deacon, father of 7 decentfilms.com creator

Spider-Lion, Spider-Lion

Does whatever a spider-lion does

Can he weave antelope-catching nets ten lion-lengths wide

No he can’t he’s a lion

Yung Catholic ���@TheYungCatholic: If I hadn’t personally seen a moose up close before, I’m not sure if I’d believe they’re real.

Look at these guys! They’re Ice Age remnants, the last of the great prehistoric North American megafauna. What an animal.

Image

Jme@JmeBBK: Is there fur on the inside of a kangaroos pouch?
Or is it a rubbery membrane with cytoplasm extruding vicariously transatlantic tenchu ninja assassin badboy ina di house

Holadera@HolaDera: You know what animal I wouldn’t mind eating?

Penguins �

I dunno. They just look delicious lol

ItsAJ ����@itsAJHurts: If I were an animal I would be a penguin.
I have no scientific reason for this other than they’re cute.
And they waddle.

Fake History Hunter@fakehistoryhunt: I hunt fake history and correct it, but also post amazing real history stuff. Rude, obscene, vulgar, racist people who can’t act like grown-ups get blocked. Finally a book that’s actually useful.

Apologetics

Matt Fradd@mattfradd: Host of #PintsWithAquinas
The Ultimate Catholic Apologist would have:

Fr. Pine’s rhetoric
Trent Horn’s debating skills
Jimmy Akin’s brain
Scott Hahn’s bible knowledge
Ed Feser’s understanding of metaphysics
Fr. Mike Schmitz’s jaw line
Cameron Bertuzzi’s (upcoming) conversion story

What am I missing?

Trent Horn@Trent_Horn: I would rather a Christian be kind yet bad at apologetics than be a jerk who wins every debate (ideally we should kindly win debates!). That’s because the damage caused by mean-spirited behavior sticks around way longer than the damage cause by not being able to answer objections

Word on Fire@WordOnFire:

Art

Building Catholic Men | Husbands | Fathers@BldgCatholicMen

Every person is called to be an artist.

Some use pencils, paint, canvas, or clay.

The rest of us use land, houses, gardens, our bodies, families, businesses, ministries, acts of service, works of mercy.

These are our works of art.

Artvisionᴺᶠᵀ@ArtvisionNFT: “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”  – Thomas Merton

Josh Spiegel@mousterpiece:  Film Twitter rules to consider:

1. Tweet about Paddington and/or The Rocketeer.
2. When tweeting about other topics, think about how to make them about Paddington and/or The Rocketeer.
3. Why aren’t you tweeting about Paddington and/or The Rocketeer already?

Icona �@Iconawrites: You must never be afraid to put down the books that bore you. Life is incredibly short, and you have far less time left to read than you think. Instead of wasting it on what does not speak to you, invest it in what delights and enriches you.

Pope Francis@Pontifex: Sometimes, looking at our lives, we see only the things we lack and forget the talents we possess. Yet God gave them to us because He trusts us and asks us to make the most of the present moment, not yearning for the past, but waiting industriously for His return.
The Art Gremlin@madelynnotmadi:
You ever just want to.
Surround your life with beautiful things.
Artwork. Poetry. Flowers. Sketches. Love notes. Everything beautiful and everything divine
Beata Productions@beataproduction: “Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.” Flannery O’Connor #FlanneryOConnor

Atheists

Chezami@chezami: Postmodernity is that period in human history when a small but significant subculture of humans decided to declare “There is no God” but then rage at him when their species did monstrous things. Respect for consistent atheists who roll up their sleeves, do good, & don’t whine.

Emma Evans �@MelanieMoore: Here’s a thought that often amuses me, as an atheist.

I was raised Catholic and I’ve studied religions a fair bit. I absolutely know Xianity inside and out.

And I’ve liked to imagine that Jesus…does indeed come back one day. And it’s irrefutable. It’s Jesus, he’s back.

MalcontentAncap@AncapMalcontent: I was raised catholic, even went to catholic school for 13 years. Sometime, about 20 years ago I became an atheist. Now I’m 47, went to a church with my son today for a paper he has to write for college. I’m now open to God again. I need to ease back into this.

Baptists and Other Protestants

Obi-Wan Kenosis��JMJ✝️@elmago3221: Honestly gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that the baptists still find the Eucharist and traditional liturgical trappings spooky

Baptists see a Franciscan in a habit at Costco and are like “please sir do not turn me into a frog”

John Herreid@HerreidJohn: One of my favorite things in movies is when they introduce a character as being a die-hard fundamentalist Protestant and then the character’s house is full of crucifixes and images of the Sacred
“What do Protestants decorate their houses with?” “I dunno, Catholic stuff?”

My family had devout Protestant friends growing up and I remember one of their kids trying to smash one of our “idols” (a glow-in-the-dark St. Michael statue), which, fair enough, was pretty tacky

Beauty

s(k)piderman@SarahKateHey: somebody take me to amsterdam

Hans Urs von Balthasar@h_u_v_balthasar: Supreme beauty is the glory of the invisible God radiating in the visible materiality of the world.

angelina@noyeahitsfineee: goodnight to everyone who sleeps with socks on, people whose only personality trait is working out, anyone who wrecked their car recently, people with green eyes, people who wash their sheets weekly, everyone who writes with gel pens, everyone whose name starts with L, & all moms
Anna Merlan: @annamerlan: I know a lot is bad in the world, but I have just learned that when Dolly Parton visits the Madonna Inn, she gets a double order of garlic bread, a large steak, has “magnificent,” ever-changing hair, and is faultlessly sweet to the waitstaff, who she of course calls by name
Chezami@chezami: The Transfiguration gets highlighted twice a year: Now and again on the Feast in August. I think we get a taste of it every time our eyes are opened and we see how stunning and glorious somebody we took for granted is. Every act of falling in love is a little Transfiguration.

Being Catholic

Bishop Robert Reed@BpRobertReed: Auxiliary Bishop of Boston ✣@CatholicTV
Catholicism is faith and works, nature and grace, body and soul, head and heart, esoteric and exoteric, charismatic and liturgical, indulgent and strict, light and dark; it is love and it is fear of the Lord. – Clement J. Harrold
Fr. Dwight Longenecker@dlongenecker1: In church a mystery (like Love) is something that can be experienced even if it cannot be explained.
Satish Joseph@FrSatishJoseph: Here is the thing – if you consider yourself a genuine, authentic, traditional Catholic but your anonymous Twitter account condemns, labels, and blurts out insults against people whose Catholic views are different than yours, how is it doing traditional Catholicism any good?

Best Mass

Tweeting to the Choir about the Best Mass

Paul Keller, CMF@keller_cmf: The best Mass is the one that helps you grow closer to our Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit. This intimacy then bears fruit in one’s life by an increase in faith, hope and love…especially love
Greg Erlandson@GregErlandson: “Sometimes I think that those who have never been deprived of an opportunity to say or hear Mass do not really appreciate what a treasure the Mass is.”
— Fr. Walter Ciszek, SJ, who spent 23 years in the Soviet Union, most of it as a prisoner and slave laborer.
Mare….Prayer����@mare_hare: I’m actually shocked by the amount of people I see on here that knock the NO. The host IS consecrated at the Mass. Jesus Christ IS present at the Mass. There are Many good and holy, reverent people that attend them and priests that say them. Period.
Kaya Oakes@kayaoakes: My spiritual director: it seems the more you avoid getting involved in arguments about liturgy or what the church should or shouldn’t be the stronger your faith actually is. Damn he’s good.

 

Book It Sayers

Emily, praying for peace ���@EmilyKath319: Reading the life story of Dorothy Sayers is WILD.

You’d think from how homeschool moms enshrine her that she was really conservative or something but she had an affair with a married man, got pregnant, & then befriended his wife after he was discovered with yet *another* woman.

Jon M. Sweeney@jonmsweeney: Most good writers have also had other jobs, to make ends meet. Dorothy Sayers, for instance, worked in advertising. One of her accounts was Guinness. She’s credited with coining the phrase, “It pays to advertise.”

Book It Shakespeare

Shower Thoughts@TheWeirdWorld: Romeo and Juliet is not a love story. It’s a 3-day relationship between a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old that cause 6 deaths.

David M. Wagner@david_m_wagner:  True, the “great tragedies” (Coleridge’s term) are remarkably non-attached to a Christian order. Lear is the most radical. It has a pre-Xn setting, but even so, Gloucester’s remark about gods and flies seems to sum it up – and that’s a long long way from cheerful agnosticism.

In Othello, references to God and holy things turn up in ppls’ oaths, mainly Iago’s, and ofc there’s Iago’s “faith of man.” Also refs to Othello’s baptism.

Macbeth is interesting here bc it brings in a supernatural order – just not a Xn one; tho there is M’s tantalizing ref to having given his “eternal jewel” (usually parsed as soul) to “the common enemy of man” (usually parsed as the prince of the Bad Place).

But Hamlet, the 1st of this artificially defined tetralogy, brings the big exceptions, w the Ghost’s adventures in Purgatory, Hamlet’s speech on Claudius’s fate if killed at prayer, and the priest at Ophelia’s funeral.

Book It Tolkien

Mark@fom4life: The great works of literature are works of enchantment which have the power to re-enchant the most weary of souls. This side of the grave, there is no better company apart from the saints themselves. Like the lembas which sustained Frodo and Sam on their journey through Mordor to Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings, great literature is manna for the mind and food for the soul. -Joseph Pearce

tea with tolkien@TeawithTolkien:

my grandpa: i was born in 1937

me, nodding sagely: the year The Hobbit was published

grandpa: the what now

me talking to my relatives: if you watch the superbowl tomorrow you will see a commercial for the lord of the rings tv series that is coming out

relatives: the lord of the what

Boycott

Matt Walsh@MattWalshBlog: This idea that we must boycott companies who do not perfectly represent our political and ideological views is just extremely stupid. If a company is actually DOING something actively harmful then a boycott is warranted. Outside of that, boycotts are pointless temper tantrums.

Call of Christians

Steven D. Greydanus@DecentFilms: Christians are called to make God’s love visible in this world. So our concern for this world and for the world to come must be inseparable. If we fail *either* to promote greater justice and harmony in this world *or* to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s love remains invisible.

Cancel Culture

Zoraida Merlo✝️@Zoraida_Merlo: “When we can’t praise the good a person does because they also do bad we have become the cancel culture we complain about.”@ChrisStefanick

Canonize These Men

Fr Matthew P. Schneider LC @FrMatthewLC:
The Catholic Thought of Fr. Matthew P. Schneider LC | Mark Wilson (patheos.com)

It would be great to canonize Frs. Georges Lemaître & Gregor Mendell.

If the heroic virtue & miracles were there (TBD), it would be great to show how science & faith go together. (It would also be interesting to see how many people’s minds would be blown�) For those out of the loop, Fr Lemaître was the first to theorize the Big Bang & Fr Mendell was the first to do modern genetics. So, these 2 central ideas of modern science come from faithful Catholic priests.

bioplastic@plastic_bio: We want a fireworks theory of evolution. The last two thousand million years are slow evolution: they are the smoke and ashes of bright but very rapid fireworks.- Georges Lemaître

 Catholic Car Puns

Grant Hartley@TheGrantHartley: me reading in the Gospels how Jesus and the disciples went “in one accord”: “imagine Jesus AND twelve other dudes fitting in one Honda, that’s wild”

 @CurtJester: So I wonder how much time I will get in Purgatory for punning on a saint’s last name? Sill appropriate for today’s feast.

Catholic Guy Tweetermatic Universe

Tweeting to the Choir About The Catholic Guy Tweetermatic Universe

Lino Rulli@linorulli:
I am a man with a large nose. And a radio show on SiriusXM.

When I met the Pope last week, I said (in Italian): “I pray for you all the time.”
To which he replied, “For me or against me?”
I had to lean in closer to understand if I heard him correctly. And then I busted out laughing.
Was still laughing when he gave me a rosary.

Someone just emailed me that my book Sinner is 10 years old. And while it isn’t ranked in books about Catholicism or Biography… It’s ranked in the Terrorism category. Rude.

CIO of Life Teen, Co-host of “The Catholic Guy Show” on SiriusXM, Author, Speaker, ND Alum ☘️. Go Irish! I own a Bible that smells of rich mahogany.
When people annoy me I try to remember that Jesus called me to be a light. So then I like to pretend I’m the Pixar light… and I’m jumping on people’s heads.
God will put someone in your path today who doesn’t necessarily need you… but who desperately needs Christ in you. Be prepared. Pay attention. It’s not an inconvenience, it’s your mission.

Giraffes Are Like Werewolves@GiraffesAreFast·
Catholic and a Giraffe! � Typing with hooves ain’t easy!

@LT_TheBiblegeek you’re right that Easter doesn’t seem as big as Christmas or Halloween… but that’s also because of how commercialized those have become. �
Not sure we want Christ’s Resurrection to go down quite the same path. �

Found an interesting use for my iMissal app… cueing up the Nicene Creed for a coworker who honestly didn’t know (& had asked) if Catholics believed in Jesus.
Giraffes Are Like Werewolves @GiraffesAreFast

We aim to catalog all of the fantastic wisdom that is bestowed upon listeners of the @CatholicGuyShowby  the Nasty Muppet Producer.
This Day in BearsAreFast History: [5/5] Harmonica – An ancient Aramaic Instrument. Example: “I imagine that Jesus played “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” on his harmonica as he hung out with the apostles on their fishing boat.” (1/24/2018)
This Day in BearsAreFast History: Galossians (noun) –  the 74th book in the Bible, created by combining Galatians and Colossians.
Example: “My favorite Bible verse comes from Galossians: “For God so loved the world that he made fast the bears.” (6/12/2018)
Bears Are Fast @bearsarefast (Jun 12, 2020)

Catholic Culture

Domenico Bettinelli ��@bettnet: One thing about the Catholic church in Massachusetts is that there is a decided lack in parish culture for communal food, like Friday fish fry or other meals. Sure some parishes do it, but not nearly as common as the rest of the country.

Catholic Women Support

Anonymous Carmelite: Catholic women need support from other Catholic women. Priests are there for general advice and spiritual counsel, but can’t really be there for women the way religious sisters can. I encourage all Catholic women to regularly visit the local community of nuns for friendship.

Carrying Your Cross

Father Chris Pietraszko@FrChrisP: If we demand, resentfully, for others to carry their cross, it’s a sign that we aren’t carrying our own. It amounts to a type of log in our own eye. Carrying our own cross in a spiritual way, always bears the fruits of gentleness, self-control, peace, joy, patience, etc..

James Martin, SJ@JamesMartinSJ: The Spirituality of Fr. James Martin JUNE 23, 2021

Gospel: Today Jesus asks us to “take up our cross daily” (Lk 9). What does he mean? First, it means that all human life includes some suffering that cannot be avoided. This is part of our “cross.” Second, it means letting go of anything that prevents us from following God more closely. Finally, it means sometimes choosing a difficult path, which you know will lead to suffering, because it is the right thing to do. (St. Ignatius Loyola talks about the person who chooses the difficult path because it also means following Jesus more closely. But when we take up each of those crosses, we are not alone. Jesus, who understands the Cross, is with us.

Chair Celebrations

Fr. Andrew Hedstrom@ProtoApostoli: “Celebrating a feast day of a chair may sound strange, but no stranger than celebrating a crucifixion, or believing that God became flesh, or that a human woman gave birth to God.”

Taylor (Taylor’s Version)@twiterkmitchell: the irony of the server’s bench snapping in the middle of the homily DURING THE FEAST OF THE CHAIR OF ST PETER was a little much, even for me
Bears Are Fast@bearsarefast: This Day in BearsAreFast History: Feast of the Chair of St. Peter – the celebration of the actual act of St. Peter sitting on his chair. Example: “The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter is my favorite… it celebrates sitting, which is something I do in my spare time. (01/25/19)

Choices

C. S. Lewis@CSLewisDaily: “Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which…you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.”

(The) Church

Jυles@CatholicClod: It makes absolutely zero sense how the Church made it out of its first 1400 years beyond divine intervention. It’s both extremely funny and utterly baffling how one of the most corrupt and incompetently run organizations on the planet is still around and commands so many converts
Afcwest5@Afcwest51:  I don’t care if you memorize the Bible, or bathe in Holy Water every day, if your religion makes you a prick it’s not worth it.

Mark@fom4life: Christ established a Church, that built our civilization, brought us the sacraments, gave authority to the law and balanced justice with mercy and took care of the poor and chastised the rich and celebrated the marriages and blessed the babies & buried the dead.      -Dale Ahlquist

Greg7190@greg7190: One of the reasons joining the Catholic Church is it has so many different styles and school of prayer from Franciscan to Carmelite to Ignatian, some of which are more like the ‘pray for souls’ and others which are more justice based.  It doesn’t have to be ‘either/or.

Dave Armstrong@DaveArmstrong58: Biblical Evidence for Dave Armstrong

It’s the nature of the thought: IF Catholicism is true, there is no good reason to reject it. I accept it as true (for zillions of reasons); therefore, I don’t think there is any such reason to leave or reject it.

Consolation and Compassion

Chezami@chezami: A Tribute to Mark Shea 
There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer. (CCC 605) I find that deeply consoling.

Emily, praying for peace ���@EmilyKath319:A lot of people like to say “You don’t leave Jesus because of Judas,” but they forget that the people scandalized were very well likely *formed* by a Judas, and then *we* put the onus on someone purposely spiritually deformed by that Judas to sort it out themselves & have faith.

This is where accompaniment matters. Being cruel, condescending, patronizing to broken individuals is not helpful or encouraging them to reconsider the Church. They need time to untwist & untangle a LOT & they need someone to listen w/o jumping down their throat with apologetics.

Contemplative

♀️81581Mr Focus@Focuslikejesus1: The contemplative life must provide an area, a space of liberty, of silence, in which possibilities are allowed to surface and new choices-beyond routine choice-become manifest.” — Thomas Merton

Carl McColman@CarlMcColman: If a moment of silence is a word from God, then your heartbeat is the period at the end of the sentence.

No matter how noisy your “monkey mind” might be, beneath all the chatter is endless, limitless, vast silence. And the silence is loving.

Dad Jokes

KarinaFabian@KarinaFabian: 

I was reading a book about how the brain processes creating words. It’s mind-boggling.

Does February like March? No but April May

Disciples

Mark@fom4life We have a concept of the disciples as men who were laser-focused on Christ and his mission on earth — and to an extent, they were. But. They would try to take things too far (“shall we call down fire from heaven, Lord?” [see Lk 9:54]). They couldn’t stay awake during prayer time. And apparently one of them wasn’t wearing any underwear (just look up Mk 14:51-52).
Mac Barron,

Desiring Christ More

tommy@theghissilent: that my tweets be more about you than dune, the filet o fish, or absolutely anything else – Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. From the desire to be retweeted, deliver us Lord.

Disabled

Gregory Mansfield@GHMansfield:

If you exclude disabled people, I don’t want to hear how diverse you are.

If you exclude disabled people, I don’t want to hear how inclusive you are.

If you exclude disabled people, I don’t want to hear how accessible and accommodating you are.

Divine Providence

Sr. Helena Raphael Burns, fsp@SrHelenaBurns
In a ploy to get Ma to eat, I got her a Shamrock shake. She didn’t want it. I brought it to convent.
Nun: Is that a SHAMROCK SHAKE?!
Me: U want it? I hate mint.
Nun: I was JUST telling God how much I wanted one!
I told Ma abt this: Yup. I call that a ‘direct hit’ from God.
#MaSez

Fr. Goyo@FrGoyo: Today I am thanking God for protecting me from what I thought I wanted and blessing me with what I didn’t know I needed.

Fr. Bruce Wilkinson@PadreInAtlanta: Thank you, Lord, for that big bar of dark chocolate that I had placed in my refrigerator a while ago. Yesterday was so yuck yuck that only a big bar of chocolate could make it better. When life tries to give you lots of bitter lemons God lets us find some chocolate.
Punky Mantilla �@PunkyMantilla: Ugh my Facebook memory for today was another Catholic woman, who had never had cancer, accusing me of being against “God’s way” of healing people with cancer. What’s God’s way, you ask? Well, it involves ground-up apricot pits, mega-doses of vitamins and enemas full of coffee.

Divorce

Fr. Matthew Schneider��@FrMatthewLC: If there is abuse or abandonment divorce is not a sin, in fact it would often be the virtuous choice in such circumstances.

There is no obligation to live with an abuser.

Assuming your marriage was valid, another marriage isn’t an option, but the divorce is not sinful.

Chris Murphy@chrismurphyusa:  We weren’t allowed to watch “Divorce Court” as kids. Not because we were Catholic. Because it was poorly acted.

Easter

Heather �@heatherinthePNW
11 yrs ago we asked our kid what he wanted for his bday and he asked for us to quit smoking. He was 9. We quit the next day w/the help of a lot of Easter candy, particularly Starburst jelly beans. Like an excessive amount. Every year we celebrate by eating a crap ton more of them. Also the best gift he could have given to us. ♥️

Emily ✨@alottaem: Why is Easter Egg Chocolate always so much nicer than normal chocolate?

Edith 에디스 �@CatolicaEdith:When I say it’s always Easter in my heart I mean it. The people who know me know it’s true. My non-religious coworker started buying Easter decor � I have let Easter invade my life to the extreme. My Lord is alive!!!! How could I not celebrate every day

Pope Francis@Pontifex: This is the first #Easter message that I would offer you: it is always possible to begin anew, because there is a new life that God can awaken in us in spite of all our failures. From the rubble of our hearts, God can create a work of art.

Jimmy Akin@JimmyAkin3000: Yes. Catholics–like all historic Christians–believe in the resurrection of the body. The New Testament is rather insistent on it.

Mary Pezzulo@mary_pezzulo: You know how you can write a secret message in white wax on an Easter egg and it won’t show until you dip it in dye? I think saints are like dye. People seeking the Lord wholeheartedly will reveal what’s written in the hearts of the outwardly pious.

Steven D. Greydanus@DecentFilms: Why is the cross and not the resurrection the central Christian symbol?

Because while the resurrection is the foundation of our hope, the cross is our daily experience. Easter Sunday is what we look forward to. Good Friday is where we live.

Augustine of Hiphop @hiphopaugustine:

BOOYAH
alle-alleluia
no more bein blue y’all
this is more than hoopla
death’s sting is moot ha
tomb is a lacuna
hear the roar of Judah
alle-alleluia

Eschatology and the End Times

Rev. Benjamin Cremer@Brcremer: Imagine if our Christian view of the End Times was: centered on preparing for Christ rather than an antichrist. centered on the mark of the lamb rather than the beast. centered on preparing for redeeming the earth rather than escaping it. centered on hope rather than fear.

William Hemsworth@w_hemsworth: If you don’t understand eschatology please don’t stress. It isn’t the end of the world.

Evangelization

@CurtJester: Just how much of a jerk do you have to be on the most glorious day of the year to tape Chick Tracks to all the cars at a Catholic Church? Good thing I am still in a “Forgive them Father they don’t know what they are doing” mood.
Michael R. Heinlein@HeinleinMichael:  “The process of sanctification is a process of Christification: ‘until Christ be formed in you.’ Therefore, we will be saints in the measure in which we live the life of Jesus Christ—or better, in the measure in which Jesus Christ lives in us.” —Bl. James Alberione
Bishop Down Umber@BishopUmbers: One of the greatest sorrows for a Christian is to have been an obstacle for others getting to know Jesus Christ.
� Augustine of Hiphop ��@hiphopaugustine: 
God convert us errin punks
turn these monsters into monks
twist these sinnas into sons
shape the “nones” until they’re nuns
fah’Tim@FrGrumbach: Love the way how in Luke’s Gospel Jesus makes an important distinction between how fish and people are caught. He uses a different word for catching souls, that while fish die when they are caught, people are caught and become even more alive than before.
Spending too much time staying up thinking about how much mediocre graphic design hinders our mission. I mean, the Church already has the most intriguing and convicting message there is. Why do we settle for art that makes it clear “this is not the best we have to offer?”

Paul J. Kim@pjkmusic: I was blessed to know Fr Benedict Groeschel, who personally knew “Madonna’s” grandma. She would ask him to pray for her granddaughter who had a rough upbringing. Looks like the prayers haven’t worked yet, but let’s pray that she puts the crown on the actual Madonna soon.

Father John LoCoco@Father_LoCoco: This current generation of teenagers is not asking, “Did Jesus rise?” but rather, “So what if He did?”

We have to be better at responding to what they are actually asking us instead of what we think they should know. I am saying this to myself as much as everyone else, too.

Rabbi Dr Laura Duhan-Kaplan �����@OnSophiaStreet: Why do so many Christians feel everyone in the world should be Christian? Serious question, not a subtweet.

The Catholic Talk Show@CatholicTalkSho: How terrible would Christians be if they TRULY believed that Christianity is THE truth and leads to eternal life and happiness but NOT CARE if others would get the same? Any religion that doesn’t think everyone should follow it seems either lukewarm or selfish.

Fr. Jonathan Howell@JonathanHowelll: “To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda to convert people or in stirring them up to movements of hatred and violence against one another. It simply means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist” –Catherine Doherty

Annoymous Carmelite: Proclaiming the Catholic faith is the bravest thing we as Catholics must do, but we must do it charitably. When you tell people the truth on what Christ willed for the Church, they often say, “If He were alive now, He would do it differently.” He is alive now. Listen to Him.

Joseph ��@jsyreee: Just grateful voices like Trent Horn, Jimmy Akin, Karl Keating, Christopher West, and Fr. Gregory Pine are considered the faces of American Catholicism and not @ Trad Crusader 1488 who talks about Jews controlling central banks and the immorality of eye contact more than Jesus.

There’s nothing more disconcerting than seeing such a close relationship between some spheres of e-Catholicism and actual neo-Nazis.

Image

EVIL

Lyle Enright@YnysDyn:  “It is a mistake to try and find any deeper meaning or some grand divine design in the evils we suffer. The randomness and meaninglessness of evil is precisely what evil is and thus to invest it with a deeper clarity is to grant it a dignity it does not have.” — Larry Chapp

Catholic sinner praying for the Ukraine@RobertO54702108: “The saints are God’s water: they go to the lowest and driest places. Do you live in a society, or a situation, that is full of evil? Don’t complain; practice nursing. That’s why He put you there.”
—Peter Kreeft from his book Practical Theology #Catholic #CatholicTeachers

(The) Faith

Msgr Brian Bransfield@BrianBransfield: The Ascension is not an end or a conclusion. It is quite the opposite. As Jesus “goes away” from us into heaven, He actually becomes closer and more accessible to us in every time and place through His Church.
MrCasey@MrCasey62: Ed Feser: “A Catholic leaving the Church because he’s scandalized by heresy/sexual abuse/etc. is like fleeing the scene when one’s mother’s being attacked lest one suffer harm oneself. To abandon the Church to heretics/perverts rather than aid/suffer w/her while they assail her.”
CatholicBard@BardCatholic: In times of crisis—and there have been many crises throughout the Church’s history (and indeed there will be more)—the Church summons new heroes who are committed to holiness and driven to uproot whatever sin and evil have infected the spiritual family.-Brandon Vogt

Catholic Charm ✞ ☀️@CatholicCharm: I don’t get how someone can look at the Catholic Church and know it was established by Christ and our first pope was Peter, an actual apostle who met and followed Christ and decide the Church isn’t true and instead join a church started by Jim Bob 6 years ago

Gianna Bonello@feliixculpaa: One of my favorite parts about Catholicism is that it’s not dependent on our feelings or emotions. Jesus is still present in the Eucharist whether we ‘feel’ Him there or not. Mass is still valid whether we’re emotionally present or not. It’s an objective faith, not subjective.
Matt Fradd@mattfradd: A faithful Catholic should not only submit to what the church teaches authoritatively, he should also not demand uniformity where the church allows diversity of opinion or custom.
Peter Kreeft@ProfessorKreeft: The strongest enemy of faith is not doubt, but dullness. Just as the strongest enemy of love is not hate, but indifference.
Marcel LeJeune@MarcelLeJeune:
What do Jesus & Darth Vader have in common?
They both find your lack of faith disturbing.�
See the source image
Liberty Hangout@LibertyHangout: Christianity, like Judaism before Christ, is a physical religion. If God wanted us to be purely spiritual, this would defeat the point of the incarnation. The resurrected Christ told his Apostles he’s not a ghost. He made them touch him & became known in the breaking of the bread
webowop@webowop: I wonder if some people mistake the experience of aesthetic beauty for an experience of the Holy, cutting them off from seeing God in the efforts of regular folks trying their best to express their faith at Mass, even if they don’t sound as good as a pro choir singing Latin.
Anonymous Carmelite: I don’t adhere to any radical traditionalism nor do I adhere to any progressivism. I adhere to the Catholic faith, the magisterium, and authority of the Pope. Also though I am not a political person like at all and I voted only once in my life, so there’s that.
Pedro Gabriel Writer@pedrogabwriter:I trust that a person with good discernment who reads Pope Francis’ and V2’s own words, untainted by the propaganda issuing from those sites for years will be able to decide for herself what sites speak for Catholicism or not when she gets acquainted with the core of the religion

Saint John Henry Newman@JHNewman: When we feel that His mysteries are too severe for us, and occasion us to doubt, let us earnestly wait on Him for the gift of humility and love. Those who love and who are humble will apprehend them.

Carl McColman@CarlMcColman: If religion is only a source of sorrow, not joy; a source of repentance but not the assurance of forgiveness, no wonder many abandon it.

David Dark’s Soft Spot for Sci Fi@DavidDark: “Christianity is something to do, not a philosophical puzzle. It comes about not when someone affirms a creedal proposition, but when someone does something. It is a way to be witnessed, not a proposition to be proven.”John D. Caputo

Brian Holdsworth@briankeepsworth: When some think about Traditional Catholicism, it brings associations of superiority media & unwelcoming fringes. When I think about it, I think of the wholesome families that I meet each Sunday that inspire me to love Jesus more. The former has nothing to do with the latter.

Fatima and Marian Apparitions

Tweeting to the Choir About Fatima and Marian Apparitions 

Fr. Matthew Schneider@FrMatthewLC: When Sr. Lucia said JP2 consecrated Russia & an overwhelming amount of evidence supports this, we can say Russia was properly consecrated.

To claim otherwise, you have to twist some very complex web that is so astronomically unlikely as to be functionally impossible.

Emily, praying for peace ���@EmilyKath319: Has anyone considered… even if it doesn’t meet the specific conditions by Our Lady of Fatima, it’s still an objectively *good* thing for Russia and Ukraine to be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart (if we believe consecration is in any way efficacious) ???

Greg7190@greg7190: I think this rule should apply with apparitions – unless it helps with growth in Gospel values, following Jesus and faith, hope and charity, it can be safely ignored (especially if it has nonsense about the end of the world).

TheAmishCatholic@AmishCatholic: The truth of the Gospel does not hang upon whether the Blood of San Germano liquifies, whether Our Lady appeared to Ugandan schoolgirls, or whether the Divine Mercy was a real revelation to Faustina Kowalska. One can believe in all these things (I believe in some), but it’s emphatically secondary. Also, it seems to me that we shouldn’t lump together apparitions and private revelation with miracles, which at least seem patient of some kind of empirical verification. One doesn’t need to go far in the other direction and go around debunking cherished devotions, but it is actually very important not to confuse those devotions with public revelation.

Food, Glorious Food

fah’Tim@FrGrumbach: Eating ice cream with chopsticks is a fine art of delicate balance. Eat too slowly and it all melts and becomes a futile endeavor. Eat too quickly and you get the headache. I have practiced and worked out the proper patience to excel in this area.

Bob Rice@deaconbobrice: I ordered a dozen glazed donuts from@dunkindonuts and was told “we don’t have any.“ This is truly the end of civilization as we know it. The devil is driving a truck filled with my toilet paper and glazed donuts, laughing.

Maria Morera Johnson@bego: Today’s head-scratching moment: chocolate hummus. Why? WHY? Can’t you just make a nice chocolate dip and leave the delicious savory chick peas and olive oil to the hummus? #butwhy

The Catholic Talk Show@CatholicTalkSho: Did you know that the Popes used to drink a wine infused with cocaine? This Pope-Cocaine-Wine led a man to make his own cocaine-infused drink as a competitor. That drink? #CocaCola. Listen to the full story on the latest episode of The Catholic Talk Show! http://bit.ly/CatholicTalkShow-Ep9

CatholicBard@BardCatholic: I said to my husband that it is pancake day. He said oh, it’s the last day to eat meat day, because that is what he is giving up meat for lent. He eats a lot of meat so it is a real sacrifice for him. Happy Strove Tuesday everyone and a blessed Lent!

Feeling Loved

 Fr. Goyo @FrGoyo: Some years ago, I forgot I had to preach one Sunday. Full of nerves, I could only say,

“God loves you.”

When I got out, there was a line of people waiting. One by one they said, “thanks, I thought God forgot about me. You reminded me He hasn’t.”

Nadine Persaud@NPersaud5: A patient at our hospice once said to me “being here is the most loved I’ve felt my whole life”…she was 85. Don’t wait until someone is dying for them to feel like they matter. Make them matter every day so that when they are dying, feeling loved isn’t a new experience.

Sr. Miriam James@onegroovynun: Kindness, safety and truth are the fertile ground that brings forth healing, restoration and love.

Fr. Casey, OFM@caseyofm: In Defense of Fr. Casey Cole 

Everyone has something worthwhile to share. Everyone has something they can teach others.

Never forget that there are things out there that you don’t know, and that you’ll never know them if you don’t listen.

Seek out people who are different from you. Listen to them. Learn from them. Partner with them in a project. Let them lead. Let them make decisions you wouldn’t make and think are wrong. Mostly, stop thinking that it is mine to “let” them do anything, whoever “them” is.

Obi-Wan Kenosis��JMJ✝️@elmago3221: If you’re feeling a road block in your spiritual life instead of trying a multiplicity of spiritual exercises or reading a bunch of mystics think of something you don’t feel like doing that would make someone else feel loved and do it. I’m sure you can come up with something.

Pope Francis@Pontifex: How many sick and elderly people are living at home and waiting for a visit! The ministry of consolation is a task for every baptized person, mindful of the word of Jesus: “I was sick and you visited me” (Mt 25:36).

Forgiveness and Mercy

Fr. Philip Maikkula@PhilipMaikkula: The power of forgiveness is the power of transformation. Rather than continue the cycle of violence through retaliation, Christ on the cross said “Father forgive them,” and the violence of the cross was transformed into Paschal joy and life. Forgiveness transforms pain into life.

Bishop Fulton Sheen@Bishop_Sheen: Skeptics always want miracles such as stepping down from the Cross, but never the greater miracle of forgiveness.

Leey@LeeybrownP: Dear God, it is easy to fall into comparison and believe that one sinner is worse than another. But, thank you, Lord, that your forgiveness extends beyond our human understanding. Your son’s blood washed and covered all our sins – hallelujah! Good Morning families. Happy Sunday

Andy Thomas@sophiaseeker: It seems to me that some Catholics would condemn the woman caught in adultery, yes, the one whom Jesus refused to condemn. “Mortal sinner! You are going to hell!” They may shout. Christ’s mercy is greater than what we can fathom, but the devil tries to convince us otherwise.

Fun and Interesting

TheCheekyRunner�@cheekyrunner123·: Roughly 37 people are killed by vending machines every year.
2-5 people are killed by party balloons.
Falling out of bed kills 450 per year.
Not going anywhere with this. I just have a weird thing for statistics and an even weirder compulsion to share.

judymcdonald@judymcdonald: I enjoy running. I also enjoy tax audits, going to the all night dentist and being beaten with a sock full of nickels by clowns.

To Millennity and Beyond@Drake_OMalfoy: Turn popular locations into subtle haunted houses, but don’t tell anyone. Like Wal-Mart looks completely normal until the guy with the chainsaw just starts chasing people around the store.

Emily, praying for peace ���@EmilyKath319: My great-great-great-grandfather was the bastard of Tsar Alexander II. Unless trying to rebuild the Russian Empire benefits ME by putting me on the throne as Tsarina, it’s a horrible and terrible and bad idea and I reject it

JD Flynn@jdflynn: Lady at the grocery store told me I shouldn’t buy balloons unless I had to because of the helium shortage. The what?!?

emma@emahalli: did anyone else who went to Catholic school think the “Big Bang” referred to the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs- NOT the actual creation of the universe?? just me??

Lex Fridman@lexfridman: I had a dream where Darwin, Orwell, Twain & others called me on the phone, talking only to each other. After a while I said “Hello?” Orwell responded: “Hello, friend.”

I asked “Aren’t you all dead?” They laughed and hung up.

How did all that come from my mind? Can I call back?

Catharine@coffeecatharine:  I feel like we need another Mr. Rogers-like show but for grownups and maybe they could give us tours of things like breweries and the international space station

Kenneth Floyd@Kfloyd1890: Ok ok, hear me out… a Catholic confection company called “Mt. Caramel Caramels”

Side note: someone on Catholic Twitter needs to start a bakery called “The Little Flour”

Shannon Monaghan@Shonomatopoeia:  
Business idea – a card shop that exclusively has niche Catholic cards. Like “Happy Spiritual Direction anniversary!” or “Thank you for blessing my home” or “Encouragement for your Lenten penance”…the list is endless.

Jerry Kehl@GeraldKehl: At a sspx chapel i used to attend there was a guy who would wear a complete Confederate civil war officers uniform complete with sword and spurs. His wife would wear a period antebellum hoop dress with hat. You could hear the sword clanging as he went up for Communion

 Eve Tushnet@evetushnet: what is the opposite of an evergreen tweet. a nevergreen tweet. anyway it’s this

Troopers Andrea Pelachick & Lauren Lesher@PSPTroopFPIO:  Crash Update: All monkeys have been accounted for.

Gay Christian

Carolyn Schultz-Rathbun �@CarolynSchultzR: When my friend, a lesbian who accepted the historical teaching of the Church on sexuality, asked her pastors for a ceremony to celebrate a lifelong commitment to celibacy, they asked what she needed from the church. She said she needed them 2B the family she was giving up. They said, wasn’t gonna happen. Folks were too busy, had their own lives.

Gotta choose, traditional church. If you expect folks to sacrifice for chastity, you’re gonna have to sacrifice to support them. Melissa’s story:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4B6ZHvalSjwKCaZlC8E9SF…

Eve Tushnet@evetushnet: “Trusting that gay people have an understanding of our own experience which can offer insights to the rest of the people of God; and trusting that Scripture and church tradition have more to say to us than ‘no.'”

James Martin, SJ@JamesMartinSJ: In the story of Zacchaeus, Jesus invites himself to the tax collector’s house. The crowd’s response?  “All who saw it began to grumble” (Lk 19).

Showing mercy to people considered “other,” as with LGBTQ people today, always infuriates some people. It makes some people want to marginalize them even further.

What is Jesus’s response to the “grumbling”? To continue to reach out, to continue to listen to their stories, and to continue to welcome them into the community.  Basically, to show them mercy anyway.

Jesus reached out to people on the margins even when it made others uncomfortable. That included a Roman centurion (not Jewish); the woman at the well (Samaritan, married 5x, living with someone not her husband); and Zacchaeus (a tax collector for Rome)…. Re: #DontSayGay

God Almighty

Tweeting to the Choir The Triune God

Father Chris Pietraszko@FrChrisP: p God is often hidden in ordinary ways.  To those who seek him out, he lifts the veil on such ordinary experiences or perceived realities, and shows us His goodness, beauty, love, inner-unity, being, and truth.  Pray to know Him, hidden in ordinary things, people, and life.

Fr. Joseph Krupp@Joeinblack:  #talkedtotheboss God is worth your time, your energy, your sacrifice. He’s more important than hobbies, your children’s sports or your rest. The way to show we believe this is to act like we believe it. If we’ve failed this, ask forgiveness, start over.

Pope Benedict XVI@P_BenedictXV: The Word is flesh. It is given to us under the appearances of bread and thus truly becomes the Bread on which we live. This is the joy that God gives us: That he made himself one of us, that we can touch him and that he dwells among us. The joy of God is our strength.

Katherine Augustine @kebayf: “What a joyous mystery is Your presence within me, in that intimate sanctuary of my soul where I can always find You, even when I do not feel Your presence. Of what importance is feeling? Perhaps You are all the closer when I feel You less.” — St. Elizabeth of the Trinity

Sr. Miriam James@onegroovynun:  “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.”—St. John Paul II

132Kalpurrnia@kalpurrnia: “We can never attain a maximum love of God with only a minimum knowledge of God.” – Frank Sheed

God Creating Animals

God Creating Animals@GodAnimalBooks:

God: you’re a duck.

Duck:

God: you’re a duck.

Duck: God: you’re a duck.

Duck:

God: you’re a goose!

Goose: [starts chasing God around the circle while everyone cheers him on].

God Creating Animals

Fish: uh God, I think you might be obsessed with Fish.

God: why?

Fish: you’ve made like 32,000 different species of Me.

God: so, that doesn’t mean anything.

Jesus: did you guys see the new Earthly symbol Dad made for me? It’s a fish!

Fish:

God: ok that’s just a coincidence.

Gospel Analogy

MB@UnrighteousD: This is the gospel: imagine looking down on a pit of mud crabs, all pinching each other to establish rank as the alpha mud crab, and going “I am going to turn into a mud crab and teach them the love that rules the universe, knowing full well the other crabs will tear me apart.”

Gratitude

DarkKnightTheology@TheSpeedofGrace: I don’t feel like I even deserved it amidst all the suffering and chaos in the world, but tonight, for the first time in 2 years, I had a dinner with a friend and her family. A regular dinner with conversation, home made food and little moments of random grace. I’m grateful.

Dr Pooja Garg@poojagarg1111: Gratitude always increases you. You’re more yourself. When you’re thankful you’re confident and happier. Gratitude is precious stuff and should be vigilantly taken care of in yourself and others.#gratitude

Hell No

Dare We Have a Conversation About Hope 

Tweeting to the Choir About The After Life

Steve Skojec@SteveSkojec:The Wisdom of Steve Skojec 

Was discussing w/friend the traditional Catholic view that most of mankind is/will be damned. He replied, “The thought that most of creation is destined for eternal torment is bleaker and more nihilistic than an atheistic conviction that everything ends in nothing.” I agree 100%

Steven D. Greydanus@DecentFilms: Objectively speaking, the infinite and absolute God can neither “shove” nor “withdraw” his presence anywhere; by definition, there is nowhere he is not. The common Western idea of hell as the absence of God, then, can only refer to the subjective experience of the Lost.

In the Eastern Churches the fire of hell and the bliss of heaven are often understood as two different experiences of the same reality—the love of God, embraced by the Blessed, hated by the Lost. This very naturally supports a similar concept of purgatory.

But perhaps this isn’t possible either. Perhaps in eternity there is no hiding from reality (love it or hate it), even in the interiority of subjectivity. Or perhaps both are imperfect, complementary ways of expressing the same reality.

History, Don’t Know Much About

Its Lent w/TheReligiousHippie@HippieReligious: History is His story

Fr. Casey, OFM@caseyofm: Interesting fact for the day. One of the criticisms of the Spanish Inquisition was that accusations were kept anonymous, meaning anyone could accuse anyone. The reason? Prior, in the Medieval Inquisition, it was common for the accused to try to kill their accusers before trial
Abigail Favale@FavaleAbs: I’m suspicious of any Catholic perspective that idealizes one particular historical era and wants the Church to drop an anchor and just sit tight–whether that’s the 1570s or the 1970s.
Obi-Wan Kenosis��JMJ✝️@elmago3221: Feel like this is the case for many history nerds. By the time I saw a samurai I thought they were cool enough but Legionnares and European Knights had taken my heart by that point Legitimately 99% of my interest in Rome is because I saw a picture of a Legionnare when I was a kid and thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen
John Campea@johncampea: All atrocities in history have been committed by those who claim justification in committing them against those they deem deserve it. Thus instead of rejecting atrocities, we simply find ways to move the needle of who deserves it until we feel justified in committing it.
Tim Lucchesi (Far From Holy)@RealCatholicDad: Every American Catholic should be listening to the American Catholic History podcast on @sqpn

daniel mark w.@dmarkwiv“: History and legend are not an either/or game; one grows out of the other and becomes its own art form, representing universal truth and usually expanding upon a kernel of truth in a way we remember.” –Avellina Balestri

@FandFmagazine https://fellowshipandfairydust.com/2019/04/28/a-meditation-on-meeting-souls-gone-by/

Kaya Oakes@kayaoakes: It’s still weird to me to be listening to a serious history podcast hosted by academics going deep on Ukraine who suddenly start talking about meal kits and how great their mattresses are.

At some point we’re going to have to start inserting sponsored content in books if that hasn’t happened already.

Icons

it’s Em-mardi gras season �@EmilyKath319: One of the weirder things about my town is there’s a religious art company that also sells flavored popcorn and so they have a flavor called “Iconic Cheddar” with an image of Christ Pantocrator and I feel like having Jesus help sell popcorn is decidedly grifty?

Cuz also then you have a plastic bag with an icon image on it and like??? You probably shouldn’t just throw that away casually? Like maybe take off the paper part with the image to burn or bury it or something? Idk  Part of my issue is that it’s very Latin-centric if that makes sense? Like ok, have cutesy popcorn named after saints. Juan Diego’s Jalapeño. Sure. But icons are not intended to be the same as religious art- it’s not something for aesthetic appreciation, it’s a tool for prayer

Tony Capobianco@CaesarCap:  I think that Pope Pius X said that having an icon of a saint as your profile picture increases your chances of entering heaven by 33.33%. There might even be an indulgence for it. I’ll have to check the Raccolta.

Imagine of God

Gloria Purvis@gloria_purvis: You don’t have to a hero to be made in the image and likeness of God… you just have to be human.

Jesus Lover of My Soul

Tweeting to the Choir The Triune God

Pope Francis @Pontifex: The Lord knows that evil and sins do not define us; they are diseases, infections. And he comes to heal them with the Eucharist, which contains the antibodies to our negative memory. With Jesus, we can become immune to sadness.

St. Therese@SocLittleFlower: Most beautiful death “Our Lord died on the Cross in agony, and yet this is the most beautiful death of love. To die of love is not to die in transports.” -St. Therese of Lisieux

Mark@fom4life: To know Jesus, to hear Jesus, to love Jesus, to trust Jesus, to obey Jesus, to share His life in the deepest fiber of our being, and then to serve Him — this is our goal.The laity, like priests, aspire to give Christ to others, but they can’t give Him unless they’ve got him! That is holiness. -Cardinal Timothy M.  Dolan
Peter Kreeft@ProfessorKreeft: All good theology, all authentic morality is an unfolding of Jesus from within. All bad theology and morality are a diluting of Jesus.
Cy KellettCyKellett: “Peace be with you.” “And with your spirit.” These days it feels like we should just keep saying this constantly. I wish I could greet everyone this way, and be greeted in return. We are all so deeply in need of the peace of Christ. “Peace be with you!”

Fr. Matthew Schneider��@FrMatthewLC: Why be angry about what someone random posted online when you can be happy about Jesus?

Jim Sichko@JimSichko: Following Christ means more than walking in his footsteps along the Sea of Galilee. As those first apostles he called discovered: it means living like him. It means loving like him. Sometimes, he even means suffering like him.-Dcn Greg Kandra

Joy Contagious

Joy Marie Clarkson@joynessthebrave: I want you to know something: you affect the people around you. When you cultivate a perspective on life that is joyful and life-giving, it spills into the lives of others. And your joy will grow as see your joy set other people at ease. It is the opposite of a vicious circle.

Joy of Heaven

Tweeting to the Choir About The After Life

Meg Hunter-Kilmer@MegHunterKilmer:  Matthew 25:21

The NAB describes the entrance into heaven with this invitation: “Come share your master’s joy.” Other translations say: “Enter into the joy of your Lord.” I love the imagery of the latter, the idea of stepping into a place that is joy, a joy that permeates me and transforms me. But the former is powerful, too, giving a feeling that the Master’s joy is in some way caused by my faithfulness, that my salvation augments his joy.

Spending my holy hour today imagining this moment, imagining being greeted by him, seeing his face light up, his joy increased by my presence. I’m imagining the joy of heaven, of which the greatest earthly consolation is but a shadow. And I’m trying to let him take his time in bringing me home, but dang. I can’t wait.

#1YearBible day 52

Fr. Casey, OFM@caseyofm: Many Christians believe that Jesus came to redeem not just humanity, but to bring all creation to himself. Some, like me, have concluded that this means dogs will be in heaven.

But forget dogs. If this is true, will heaven have alien species from millions of light years away????

Judging Others

Jolz � Pray for Ukraine ��@Jolz_Aust: If we judged each other for sins against charity and justice the same way we judge each other for transgressions against chastity then we will all be shunned

Greg7190@greg7190: That’s why people trying to invent rules to exclude others from the sacraments and mass make no sense. They exist in my view for sinners, not for righteous and perfect people.

Your Kid’s Life

Tweeting to the Choir About Your Kid’s Life

tea with Tolkien @TeawithTolkien: saw a whole bunch of nerdy middle-schoolers at the park having lightsaber fights. it was beautiful. so wholesome

one of my kids came running into my room earlier, “mom!! can I go in the girls’ room because Lily is reading The Chwonicles of Nawnia to her stuffed animals and I wanna heaw too!” �

Steve Skojec@SteveSkojec: One of my boys asked me today about what happens if someone farts in a space suit – are they just trapped in there with the smell? And I realized that there are horrors I just haven’t even begin to contemplate.

A faithful servant@VConquisitor: My 5 year old daughter: “it’s not really Miss Universe because they are all from planet earth”….

Jackie Francois Angel@JackieFrancois:

 My 5.5 yr-old Zélie fires off rapid questions like right now:

Mom, is God greater than love?

Mom, does God love the devil?

Mom, how do we know we aren’t in a dream?

 #melancholicphilosopher

Dave Electronica@chicanokobe: Kid was acting like he wanted to lead prayer last night so I encouraged him to come up with something.

Kneels down, thinks real hard, comes up with

“God. Amen”

Fr. Goyo@FrGoyo: I went to the movies today and in front of me a little kid said to his mom, “mom there is a priest here.” And the mom responded, “yeah I know. Sometimes they let them out of the church.”

I am not usually shy, but this time I just didn’t know what to say

Merve Emre@mervatim:

4-yr-old [sobbing at 6 AM]: MOM. MOM.

Me: [run into room, expecting carnage]

4-yr-old [sobbing]: DID YOU KNOW THAT WHEN I WAS BORN IT WAS THE PAST? AND NOW IT’S NOT ANYMORE?

Metalifex@SamuelA88226271: When I became a father of several very disobedient little boys I finally came to realize how God could love me. I can discipline my children, but I can never disown them. For better or worse, they are mine. I cannot believe that I am more merciful than God.

Kindness and Tenderness

Fr. Goyo@FrGoyo: So it’s my birthday. What do I want you ask? consider being kind today, – to someone who suffers – to someone who’s alone – to someone who’s “your enemy” – to someone you love – to someone who’s sick – to someone who isn’t popular Oh & try going to confession #birthdayboy40?

Angela@TheWakingTulip:  “There is not an act of kindness or generosity, not an act of sacrifice done, or a word of peace and gentleness spoken . . . that does not sing hymns to God.”– Thomas Merton

Sr. Miriam James@onegroovynun: Kindness, safety and truth are the fertile ground that brings forth healing, restoration and love.

Mouse@CatholicMouse: Kindness and calmness on their own are not the answer to oppression.

A necessary ingredient in many conversations, sure, but attitude alone doesn’t solve everything. The content of a message matters too.

*drives off soapbox*

Beata Productions@beataproduction: “In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long cut off from the person of Christ, is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror.” Flannery O’Connor #FlanneryOConnor

Latin

Edward Peters@canonlaw: What a mess. People throw in some Latin and think they’ve invoked some mysterious truths that the rude have not the wits to inquire on. Societas perfectas, as you said, is a juridic term. It means the Church has all she needs to act. That’s it. It has nothing to do with liturgy.

ᴀᴛʜᴏʟɪᴄ ɢʀᴀʀɪᴀɴɪꜱᴛ@PSLM77_34:  After 9 years of praying the family Rosary, tonight we finally did the entire Rosary in Latin: two 6 year olds, a 7 year old, a 12 year old, a 15 year old, my wife & I.

Anonymous Carmelite: Now learn it in Spanish, Italian and French so you can pray it in all the Latin languages!

Amy Welborn@amywelborn2

Me: I set up your Latin tutoring for next week.
Son: Where?
Me: We’ll meet him at a brewery downtown.
Son: (Pause) Catholics are so weird.

Henry Karlson@HenryKarlsonIII:Using Latin is a thing of the past, not just the Tridentine Liturgy. It was good in its time, and it might have a place in certain liturgies, but we must remember why Latin was used in the first place. Not because it was holier. Rather, it was common speech, like English today.

Lent

Fr. Goyo@FrGoyo: Remember Lent is not what you can do or how big of a challenge you can take, but what God can do to/for/through you.#LentAllYearLong

Annoymous Carmelite: I lived off nothing but water and the Eucharist at morning weekday Mass one Lent. It was hard to do, I was cranky and lost weight and had head aches every day. I still never compared myself to others or claimed to be holy. Get out of here with the false humility.

Bishop Robert Barron@BishopBarron: Friends, instead of giving up desserts or smoking this Lent, give up gossiping. For forty days, try not to comment negatively to those who have no ability to deal with the problem.

Life Reflections

Meg Hunter-Kilmer@MegHunterKilmer: Went to a funeral for a 90yo Filipina American MD and mother of 6, including daughters Marianne, Marietta, Mary, and Marie. The priest said she spent more time in the adoration chapel than Jesus. I really hope I get to write her hagiography one day. Until then, pray for Danda.
McCoy Pauley@_DixieFlatline: One time in high school (before cell phones were ubiquitous), I called a friend’s house. His little sister picked up, and when I asked her if she could get him on the phone she told me that her “care level is on Zero, just like your chances with girls” & I still think about that

Limbo

Steve Skojec @SteveSkojec: If Limbo is a real place of perfect natural happiness where people who’ve been excluded from the Beatific Vision go, why aren’t the souls of all who do not choose God sent there? Why is it that we say these people choose hell? If a man can’t believe, should he be tortured for it?

niko@suckmeoffdumdog: What happens if Catholics were right and ghosts are only the dead people who’ve made it outta purgatory

Listening

Edith 에디스 �@CatolicaEdith: It’s good to remember that St. Thomas actively participated in discussions with others, was a key player in chapter meetings, etc. He wasn’t mute and absent-minded all the time like we often envision him. This perception hinders our devotion.

Steve Skojec@SteveSkojec:  If you grew up listening to Bill Cosby’s comedy, do you share it with your kids because it’s funny and clean, or not because he’s a frigging creep? I tend not to, but I was trying to explain the coin toss bit so I caved.

Fr. Matthew Schneider��@FrMatthewLC: God usually speaks to us through ordinary means.

He speaks to us through the Commandments, through ecumenical councils, through the voice of all Catholic bishops in unison, etc.

If your think God is telling you something contrary to that, it probably isn’t God speaking.

Little Things In Life

Sister Allison Regina Gliot@sister_allison: Way more excited than I should be about the fact that it’s going to be 200 years until there are more 2’s in the date than there are today. It’s the little things in life.
Ann@ITGeekCT: Lord Jesus, I give you my hands to do your work my feet to go your way my eyes to see as you do my tongue to speak your words my mind that you may think in me my spirit that you may pray in me. Above all, I give you my heart that you may love in me -Prayer from The Grail

Loving Your Enemy

Pope Francis@Pontifex: With the Spirit of Jesus, we can respond to evil with good, we can love those who do us harm. This is what Christians do. How sad it is, when people and populations proud to be Christians see others as enemies and think to wage war against each other!
MB@UnrighteousD: If I’m in heaven and the Great Burden imposed on me is welcoming in to heaven the guy who killed me, I would count myself lucky. Holy shit, we both made it, my man! I always kinda feared I was going to hell, then you killed me! Then you died! And we’re in heaven. Dudes rock!

Patrick Madrid ✌�@patrickmadrid: I’m grateful to God and pray every day for all my friends and for all those who, for whatever reason, consider themselves my enemies. ��

Bishop Scott McCaig@bishopscmc:  It’s easy to be embittered, speak with anger, and judge the motives of foes. But Jesus shows us another way: to love our enemies & bless our persecutors! Are we truly his disciples, or do we really posses his love, if we don’t seek the good of our “enemies,” pray & fast for them?

Martin Luther King@MLK_quote “There is a final reason I think that Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Loving Your Neighbor

G. K. Chesterton@GKChestertonian: “We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts.”— GK Chesterton

R Bratten Weiss@Prof_RBW: A Tribute to Rebecca Bratten Weiss 

This might not be a popular notion among Christians, but:

We do not need to “deal with the evil in our own hearts before we deal with the evils in society.”

People need access to food, shelter, medical care, and security even if I keep being petty, envious, and enraged.

If the nation ends up embroiled in a world war, at least the past two years have prepared us to know just how well equipped people in this culture are to come together, make sacrifices, and do the right thing for the sake of the common good.

Kevin Tierney@CatholicSmark: 

Guys, don’t debate people who are going through spiritual struggles or recently fell away from their faith.

What they are looking for is not an intellectual argument, and its not likely you doing such an argument does anyone good.

Don’t dunk on them either.

Fr. Casey, OFM@caseyofm: Charity without Truth isn’t real Charity. Truth without Charity isn’t real Truth.
Fr. Larry Richards@FrLarryRichards: The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Matthew 11:19 Am I like Jesus? Peace
��Fr. Matthew Schneider��@FrMatthewLC:

The Catholic response is BOTH-AND, not either-or.

BOTH pray AND work to help those. less fortunate.

Loving Your Spouse

David Mills@DavidMillsWrtng: Our second child writes of a study in which women rated pictures of men’s faces on how attractive the men were, before and after they ate broccoli for a couple weeks. The men’s attractiveness ratings increased.

An advertisement for marriage: You no longer have to eat broccoli.

fathermikeschmitz@frmikeschmitz:  The Church upholds the beauty, gift, and holiness of marriage. And also upholds the celibacy of Jesus, Saint Paul, and countless others. Celibacy doesn’t reject marriage, but chooses another good.

10Thomas ✝️@TSEliotRocks: St. John Chrysostom, on what young husbands should say to their wives:

“I have taken you in my arms, and I love you, and I prefer you to my life itself… I place your love above all things, and nothing would be more bitter or painful than to be of a different mind than you.”

Maddening Modernism

Fr. Dwight Longenecker@dlongenecker1: Catholics: It is just as possible to apostatize through extreme traditionalism as it is through extreme modernism.

Otti A. Okello@oaokello: Accusing the Church of modernism, like any other pernicious idea or ideology, is building a straw-man for divisive shadow boxing. The Church should be viewed through the lens of the Mystery of the Incarnation of Christ, in every age, time, and place, for such is Her communion.

Marian

TheAmishCatholic @AmishCatholic: It is so beautiful to think of Our Lady’s interior life and the secret meditations of her Immaculate Heart in those bright days in the Cenacle, between Ascension and Pentecost. (I wonder if she prayed for us – if even then, by the words spoken on the Cross, she knew she had been given the whole Church throughout history as her progeny. Not just the Church; for all mankind has been redeemed in the Blood of Christ. What a consoling thing it is to approach Our Mother’s hidden life in the Cenacle.

Mark@fom4life: In the midst of a simple prayer in front of a Mary statue in some unassuming corner chapel, mid-recitation, sore knees and all, . . . Our Lady would begin to speak!   Most people probably think this would be an amazing experience, like that of the children at Lourdes and Fatima, but it would terrify me. I never wanted it to happen, yet I thought there was always a chance it would.-Matt Weber

Fr. Dwight Longenecker@dlongenecker1: The Assumption of Mary: The DNA of the child remains in the mother’s body for the rest of her life. Mary was assumed into heaven because some of her son was still within her.
DEFCON Pezzulo@mary_pezzulo: When you think about it, mentally I mean: who told Joseph his betrothed was mysteriously pregnant? Mary was the one who had to tell someone about it. Far from never evangelizing anyone, she was the first evangelist after the Angel Gabriel.

Its Lent w/TheReligiousHippie@HippieReligious: A lot of anti Catholics seem to forget that Mary also RAISED Jesus. She didn’t just carry Him for 9 months and give birth.

Liberty Hangout@LibertyHangout: “When Gabriel says to Mary, ‘Hail!’, a salutation of profound honor reserved for royalty, it is God saying these words. Thus, we find the source & origin of Marian veneration is God Himself. Catholics did not invent honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary. God did.” – Fr. Blake Britton

Math

Jackie Francois Angel@JackieFrancois:  If when you’re multiplying something by 10, you just add a “zero” to the number, then multiplying by 5 (since it’s half of 10), you just halve the number. Half of 18 is 9. So 18×5 is just half of 18 with a zero added. 90.  

Meatless Fridays

Steve Skojec@SteveSkojec: Just a friendly reminder to all Latin Rite Catholics that if you deliberately eat a single bite of meat today and don’t repent of such an egregious act, the Church teaches you’ll burn in hell for all eternity, because proportionate justice doesn’t exist for God. Seems fair.

Satish JosephFrSatishJoseph: Ending up eating meat on Friday‘s of Lent is not worse than judging, condemning, and ignoring the hungry, homeless, naked, and those in prison. #Lent2022
Dr Taylor Marshall™️@TaylorRMarshall: It’s truly amazing that people treat “not eating meat on Friday in Lent” as something as hard as running a marathon or climbing a mountain. In reality, we are merely eating like most of the world. The older Lent fasting rule of “one meal and two snacks, not weighing more than 8 ounces each” is already probably more food than what most sedentary adults over 40 need to eat for every day of the year. There are exceptions, but we all eat too much, as is.

 Mental Illness

LizziesAnswers@LizzieReezay: I’m also getting more brain damaged from bipolar. Everything I do is slower, my reading speed/comprehension is down, so much more memory loss, decreased psychomotor skills. I’ve been researching & it’s normal for the brain to continually shrink even without being in an episode.

There’s currently no treatment to reverse the brain damage, but they’re researching it & hopefully in 5-10 years there will be a medication I can take that will do lots of neurogenesis! I really hate it, because I thought the permanent brain damage would end once I was medicated.

If you also have bipolar, know that the longer you stay off meds & are in a manic or depression episode, the more permanent brain damage, that will continually shrink your brain for the rest of your life. Looking back, I completely regret wanting to be manic & going off meds.

Missed It

Morris My Tweets are a Penetential Season❤️‍�@Uncouth_Bard: I’m always embarrassed by the time that I got to attend a small group with Dr. Peter Kreeft in University after he delivered a guest lecture and I squandered the opportunity by being a dumb undergrad since I didn’t know who he was.

Music and Musicians

@CONSCIOUSBEATS2@CONSCIOUSBEATS2: 
“Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.”―Maria von Trapp

emily 🙂 †@xemilysmile: Anybody else get this strong urge to belt out songs from Disney movies and veggie tales??
Elizabeth Herreid@eliz_herreid: What if I learned the same tune on banjo and fiddle, and then figured out how to record them together. What if I did that.
Alessandra Harris@AlessandraH17: I took a short hiatus from Twitter. But Divine Office played On Eagles Wings for Morning Prayer and I had to come tweet about my favorite hymn. Don’t @ me. I know it’s a controversial song.
� Augustine of Hiphop ��@hiphopaugustine:
not into CCM but I am a MC
praisin God wit some rhymes full of wit and whimsy
s(k)piderman@SarahKateHey: i have my songwriting organized into two folders. one for the typical happy lovely dovey songs (titled you la la) + one for the angsty stuff (titled this isn’t about you) + i think of them as my lil albums + they just make me �
Anna Mae@AMysticMuse:Billy Joel would had quite the time if he were writing “We Didn’t Start the Fire” in todays climate

Abigail Favale@FavaleAbs: Nothing like hearing the clocktower bells at my Quaker school sweetly peal out “Onward Christian Soldiers”

Nick Alexander@NickAlexCath: On Saturday, I prayed in an adoration chapel. Then I led the music in a charismatic men’s group. Then I went to a two hour Latin Mass. Before lunch

Movies and TV

Steven D. Greydanus@DecentFilms: So today I happened to read the Wikipedia page on Clerihews and watched the first half of PADDINGTON 2… …which means that twice in one day I was reminded that St. Paul’s in London was designed by Sir Christopher Wren WHAT ARE THE ODDS

Happiness is watching Saturday morning cartoons with the kids and discovering one more brilliant and hilarious Phineas & Ferb episode that you somehow missed all these years

Mark@fom4life: This is the one night I actually go on Twitter, usually I’m over on FB. But I don’t have cable or TV and well.. Got to keep up to date on the Oscarts.

Steve Skojec@SteveSkojec: It’s too bad The Witcher has so much boobage (esp. in the first season) because it’s the most fun show I’ve seen in a while, and you just can’t recommend it to people without significant caveats. It would be great if more shows took these needless issues off the table.
Mary Pezzulo@mary_pezzulo: I still only like the Adam West Batman.

Ally Cortés@TalkWithAlly: You wake up as the head of LucasFilm, what’s the first thing you do?

Eve Tushnet@evetushnet: children’s cartoon movie about two girls who are best friends and meet a Wookiee. I don’t know anything about Star Wars but I know what I like.

alternatively, remake “We Are the Best!” except that the Christian girl is also a Wookiee.

primal drew: exiled angel hell mode.@slawbunnygod42:*Ben Shapiro voice* In The Batman, Gotham is too dark and it’s also too wet. It’s always the same villains, like the Penguin, a water based animal that is moist and gross. My wife and I want to see Mr. Freeze again, he’s cold hearted and most importantly VERY dry.
Fr. Cassidy Stinson@TheHappyPriest: Now that I’ve had a while to think about the plot of Encanto, I can’t help wondering why the village priest wasn’t freaking out about the weird supernatural stuff going on with that family
fah’Tim@FrGrumbach: I didn’t know that what I wanted most from a Star Wars show was actually a kaiju battle.
Bob Rice@deaconbobrice: Star Wars is my peanut butter, but Jesus is my jam.
John Campea@johncampea: Just a reminder that the dress Leia was wearing in the Ewok village was in all likelihood taken from the mother of a family of 5 who Wicket and his friends murdered, burned alive over an open fire and then ate the week before. Enjoy the rest of your evening.
Morris My Tweets are a Penetential Season@Uncouth_Bard: Was sad today so I came home and put on a Sad Day Movie “The Great Muppet Caper” and it’s hard for me to define how much the Muppets influenced my sense of humor or that I think of
@jdflynn and @canonlawyered like this, since the film was my first exposure to Journalism.
Amy Charlotte Kean@keano81: “The Queen’s Gambit has been viewed by 62 million people. The producer, Allan Scott, is on BBC News talking about how it took 30 years, with 9 rewrites, and every studio he showed it to said that no one would be interested in chess.
Greg Willits@GregWillits: I can’t stop thinking about #ABeautifulDayMovie . Saw it last night and I feel like it is a movie that we as humanity can be studying for how to treat each other. Seriously thinking of seeing it again today. Wish I’d paid more attention to #MisterRogers when he was alive.

Nun Life

Tweeting to the Choir About Religious Life

Sister Bethany, fsp @SrBethanyFSP: My 15 year old baby brother has started getting up and skateboarding towards the sunrise every morning.
He sends all the siblings a good morning message with the sunrise, and it’s just really pure and makes me smile every morning.

I taught one of the Italian sisters (who is 91) to say “okey-dokey” and she liked it so much that she taught like seven other sisters. So now they’re all just waking around saying, “Okey Dokey” to each other and cracking up.

Hands down, biggest perk of religious life.

One of my favorite moments was giving a little talk to a 1st grade class and when I said that we have a chapel in our house, this little boy stood up and said,
“WAIT A MINUTE!! JESUS *lives* in your HOUSE!? I wanna be a nun!”

Sister Walburga@SisterWalburga:I entered the monastery #OTD 12 years ago! (Dec 12, 2021)

I work that out to be about 11,000 hours of the Divine Office.
With Mass, Adoration, Lectio and private prayer on top! �

Please keep me in your prayers as I pray for you �

Observations

210����� (wizened curmudgeon) ����@Not_OfTroy:  Stuff you don’t see unless you live in Steubenville: Dr. Scott Hahn running a stop sign Never meet your heroes

Other Religions

Brett? In this economy?? ��@PapaBret:

I’m Catholic, but I’m also striving for:

The endurance of the Jews

The dedication of the Muslims

The tenacity of the Protestants

The compassion of the Buddhists

The zest of the Hindus.

Each sees life from a different angle. Together maybe they explain what we’re here to do

Shari Lynn@LynnSharig8: I’m a Catholic, married to a Jewish man, with daughters who are agnostic. I have a sister in law who is Buddhist, and a cousin who is Sufi. One of my best friends is a Christian, and the other is an atheist. I respect them all.

The only thing I don’t respect, is intolerance.

Pacifism

Henry Karlson@HenryKarlsonIII: Many people confuse pacifism as being there is no potentiality for self-defense. That’s not the case. Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, and other pacifists allowed self-defense, even of nations — Hanh talked about how countries can have armies for this. Pacifism says not to be militant.

 Also, of course, one can follow the Orthodox/Eastern tradition which recognizes both the need for such defense, but also the pollution of the soul involved in it, so soldier need spiritual healing after even justified actions.

Philosophy

owen cyclops (+��)@owenbroadcast: if i was an ancient philosopher back when u could write anything i would write that babies are soft + fleshy because they eat from a boob, which transfers those qualities to them, + id make up a story about a baby from tunisia who drank from a stone cup + became hard and then later medieval philosophers would cite me like “in ‘natal theology’ by owenius a certain tale of a tunisian baby is recorded wherein …”

William C. Michael (CLAA)@wcmclaa: The reason why modern Christians talk about Socrates is because they know they can’t understand Aristotle so they pretend to understand Plato.
� Augustine of Hiphop ��@hiphopaugustine
I be bustin out philosophy
to guard against apostasy
I’m wreckin pagans constantly
cuz truth is just my policy

Political

I suggest our times are like the Hunger Games because of how the characters are all so broken and use and wound one another to survive. The big, bad government is merely the surface villain, an instrument of broken people. It’s our story and we’ve been doing it for a long time.
Fr. Timothy Grumbach @FrTimGrumbach

To Millennity and Beyond@Drake_OMalfoy: I keep thinking maybe political discourse and the prevalence of social media are the main sources of toxicity in the world and then a local comic con just announced they’re switching from badges to wristbands and people went ballistic, making me think people just like to whine.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker@dlongenecker1: Priest speaks out on politics: People who disagree with his POV: “Father, stay out of politics! You should mind your own business!” People who agree with his POV: “Preach it Father! Thanks for having the courage to speak out!”
Fr. Joseph Krupp@Joeinblack: When Catholics immerse themselves in a political party, they leave Catholicism. When they immerse themselves in Christ, they lose party loyalty.
Anonymous Carmelite: For me that means loving all the approved forms of the Mass, including Syro Malabar, and Maronite, Chaldean, Etc. I am also apolitical and do not vote, because the teachings of the church are apolitical too, I must just simply be a Catholic!
Stephen Colbert@StephenAtHome: Biden thinks it’s better to break up the Build Back Better bill to build Build Back Better back better.
Mike Lewis@mfjlewis: By@GregDalyon the role of faith in the public sphere:
“The problem is that it’s too easy to think that because Church and State should be separate, so too should faith and politics, as though our religious beliefs shouldn’t inform our values and how we think about the world.”
“Coins may bear the image of Caesar, but every single one of us bears the image of God. We shouldn’t be shy about pointing this out.”Also highly recommended:@leavenmag, the Magazine on Irish Catholicism@GregDalyedits.
Peter Kreeft@ProfessorKreeft:  In our hearts we should be ‘bleeding heart liberals’ and in our heads ‘stuck-in-the mud conservatives.’

(The) Poor

What we fear about the poor is what we fear about God: How much of my time will this person want? (I’ve got somewhere to go!) What will this person ask me to do for them? What does this person want me to give them of mine? –Fr. John Hollowell‏ @frjohnhollowell 

Pope

A Link to the Mass@ALinktotheMass1: If francis were to deny the divinity of Christ, would he still be pope? Honestly, open minded, good faith question

 Anonymous Carmelite: Of course he would be, St Peter who was the first pope, denied Christ 3 times. Why is this question posed at Pope Francis rather than “ A Pope” though?

Joe Tobin@CardinalJWTobin: Mother of Hope, comfort us and share with us your confidence in God’s mercy. Stay close to our Holy Father Pope Francis as he begins his 10th year of ministry as the successor of St. Peter. Bless him with your tenderness and compassion, and share with him your courage and joy.

Stephen Colbert@StephenAtHome: I don’t have a problem with the Pope owning a foosball table. But the white smoke every time he wins a game is a bit much.

Brownson_Review@Brownson_Review: I am not the first to observe that converts like Armstrong and Lofton reasoned themselves into Catholicism with papal authority being the main dish. So it shapes their views on everything else, which creates a distorted picture of what Catholicism really is.

Dave Armstrong@DaveArmstrong58:
I converted because of:

1. Newmanian development of doctrine.

2. Catholic moral theology.

3. A study of the Protestant Revolt from a Catholic perspective.

The words “pope” or “papacy” never even appear in my published story in “Surprised by Truth.”

“Protestants … can flat-out invent doctrines … No pope could even dream of doing that. They wouldn’t dare do it (on a few occasions when they came remotely close to that a mass uproar occurred). They are strictly dependent upon received precedent.”

Fr. Dwight Longenecker@dlongenecker1: It’s terrible to see friends begin in criticism of the Pope and end in sedevacantism. The worst ones are the crypto sedevacantists who deny they are sedevacantist while dissing everything the pope does and setting up their self righteous plans of “resistance”.
judymcdonald@judymcdonald:  I went fishing with the Pope last night. Still not sure if it was a dream or not.
Anonymous Carmelite: I don’t necessarily think it’s hatred, I think people have deep spiritual wounds and are trying to cope the best they can. Perhaps yes they are uncharitable to Holy Father and that is very sad to witness, but just pray for them. Most are not bad people, just angry and hurt.
Michael Lofton@michaelloftonRT·: I think some have let hatred in their heart for Pope Francis fester for so long that it skews the way they interpret everything he says and does.
I wonder if those who jumped the gun and said uncharitable things about Pope Francis will offer an apology.
Dave@avemaria76: Please pray for Taylor Marshall and all radical traditionalists today. Pray a rosary for them. At today’s Angelus, Pope Francis lamented how sad it was when people who are proud to be Christians “see others as enemies and think of waging war against each other.”
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Prayer

Tweeting to the Choir About Prayer

Father Josh Johnson@frjoshjohnson:The most fruitful evangelist, teachers, healers, miracle workers, prophets, helpers, intercessors, administrators, leaders, pastors, craftsman, writers & missionaries in our Church were rooted in daily prayer. If we’re too busy to pray then our ministries won’t bear much fruit.

Scapular Project@ProjectScapular: For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned towards heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. – St Thérèse of Lisieux

Matt Fradd@mattfradd: “From silly devotions, and sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us.” -St. Teresa of Avila
Fr. Cassidy Stinson@TheHappyPriest: I once received a spiritual bouquet from a parish kid who pledged that he would pray “10,000 holy hours” for me.

In my more optimistic moments, I like imagining that he decided to dedicate his life to prayer as a Carthusian hermit to make good on the promise.

tommy@theghissilent: reading the last book of the expanse series and came across something I’m going to start saying instead of “praying for you” moving forward:

“we’re hailing an *awful* lot of marys over here”

tea with tolkien@TeawithTolkien: Good morning, did you know Tolkien translated Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be into Quenya so you could almost pray the an entire Rosary in Elvish?

Prayers To Pray

Fr. Goyo@FrGoyo: “For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” At this moment, I don’t know what else to say or pray. #peace #peace #peace

Caroline Burt@Carolin80951797: I pray for all those who are finding it hard to buy the basic necessities for everyday living.

HolySoulsVocation@HolySouls3: 

Let’s say three Hail Marys for the souls who are closest to Heaven.

Let’s say three Hail Marys for the souls who died alone.

Let’s say three Hail Marys for the souls who died today.

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family.

The Jesus Prayer@TheJesusPrayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner

Dawn Eden Goldstein ��@DawnofMercy· Dear Guardian Angels, St. Michael, and all angels of peace, watch over the whole world, especially over all those who are suffering, and pray for the conversion of all hearts to God. #capitolhillrightnow

Priesthood

Tweeting to the Choir About Religious Life 

Fr. Casey, OFM@caseyofm Replying to @drew_deacon: I think my favorite criticism is when someone says that monks shouldn’t be spending time on the internet making videos which means I’m a bad monk.

Me: You’re right. I am a bad monk. Some might even say that I’m not a monk at all

I’m literally not a monk. I’m a friar, a member of a mendicant order not monastic one. Thomas Merton was a monk, St. Anthony of Padua was a friar.

Mark@fom4life: Monks are men of silence, but they are also men of many words… primarily the Psalms. — Fr. Stephanos Pedranos

A Monk’s Writing Life 

Fr. Goyo@FrGoyo: Hi, I am a Catholic priest, but you might know me by my greatest hits, -No, I don’t know the Pope. -No, I don’t have his number either. -No, I don’t know every priest. -Yes, I go to the movies. -Yes, you saw me at the store. -Yes, I’ll always say yes if you want confession.
Satish Joseph@FrSatishJoseph: I spent most of my morning anointing the sick and giving Sacraments to the dying. The last house I visited, the man had turned from God at some point and picked up the Satanic Bible. Today he received apostolic pardon and Holy Communion. That’s how great is the mercy of God!

Fr. Patrick Hyde, OP@frpatrickop:Why I wear a habit on a plane: Today, I met a woman who told me,
“Father, I was on my first flight as a mom with my son. I was so nervous. Then, you got on the plane & I knew it would be alright.”

Priests point others to Jesus.

I’ve also, while traveling, had people ask me to hear their confessions, to pray with them, and simply to listen.

This interaction struck me because it was years ago &, until today, I hadn’t the slightest idea my presence as a priest had so positively influenced someone.

@dismasop: We priests in the confessional try to be as merciful as we hope others would be to us, and as our Heavenly Father always is. In an unrelated matter, I will not be taking any questions at this time on the cookies that were on the kitchen counter.

Ashlyn Smith@ashlynjeffries: A few days ago a priest sent me a new rosary he personally touched to the Lord’s empty tomb.

Today, another priest told me he offered his Mass today for my intentions.

We are so blessed to have priests who often go unappreciated.

#ThankAPriest

Pro-Life and Social Justice Issues

Tweeting to the Choir About Pro-Life and Social Justice Issues

Chezami@chezami: “If anyone says, ‘I love the unborn child,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love the unborn child, whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20, sort of). – Michelle Arnold

Sherry Antonetti@sherryantonetti: Pro-life is always love for the others, Pro-life is sacrificial. Catholicism is always a call to embrace the cross of service, of sacrifice, of loving others –from conception to natural death, and all the moments, every moment in between. Love is faith in action.

Fr. Casey, OFM@caseyofm: A reminder that you can care about more than one thing at once and don’t need to wait for one colossal task to be completed before you start another.

We can stand against abortion

AND

Care about babies and families *at the same time.*

Rondell Treviño@Rondell_Trevino:

Are you pro-life? Then get vaccinated.

Do you want to love your neighbor? Then get vaccinated.

Do you love America and want it to be great? Then get vaccinated.

Do you care about social justice for Black Lives, Latinos, Immigrants, Asians, and the poor? Then get vaccinated.

Rondell Treviño@Rondell_Trevino: Being Pro-life and Doing Justice means:
Visit prisoners.
Adopt orphans.
Love the elderly.
Respect women.
Feed the hungry.
Protect the unborn.
House the homeless.
Welcome immigrants.
Speak up for the abused.
Care for Pregnant mothers.
Advocate for minorities of color.

Purpose

Decided Excellence Catholic Media@TweetDecided: 
Your life is not about you. It is
indeed your life, but your life has been
given by another and exists, finally, for
God’s purpose. -Bishop Barron

CatholicBard@BardCatholic:  In times of crisis—and there have been many crises throughout the Church’s history (and indeed there will be more)—the Church summons new heroes who are committed to holiness and driven to uproot whatever sin and evil have infected the spiritual family.-Brandon Vogt

Quips, Quibbles, and Questions

Mark@fom4life: Quiz Question: Quote “can the Quebec Queen Quibble Quintessential Quips Quite Quickly and Quietly? end Quote”

TheCryptoJac .eth��@jacknobers:

Gday!✅Want to grow your follower count?�A few proven paths

1) Genuine insight about a topic you’re an expert in

2) Summarizing Wikipedia articles in thread form

3) “Funny but true” quips about work & life

4) Copying successful tweets from accounts w/more followers than you

Friar Mario Conte@FriarMario: A sign on a Catholic church door, “There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us, that it is hard to tell which of us ought to reform the rest of us”.

Sinister Pixel@SinisterPixeLP:  Does anyone else disguise their innermost darkest thoughts as witty and sarcastic quips or are you doing ok mentally?

Steve SkojecSteveSkojec: Replying to @c_mateer

Thanks for asking this question. First time I think anyone has. I think that being a cradle Catholic imbued early on with a sense of mission, I just never allowed myself to question. When doubts arose, I buried them deep.
Tom Smith@Tom_Smith717: The funny thing about The Batman being called humorless is that it’s actually a pretty funny film. There just aren’t your standard one liner quips. It’s all clever humor.
Peel@RHPeel: This is a minor quibble, but could Catholic churches in a diocese schedule masses on days of obligation at different times? There are 7+ Catholic churches within 20 minutes of me and 6 have their mass tonight at 7.
Madelynn Lyons@MadelynnLyons: When you quarrel with a close friend, talk about the main dish, don’t quibble over the appetizers.
inessentials? in this economy?@inessentials: Quibble: Is GRAVITY science fiction? Do space suits automatically determine it as sci-fi? Not set in future, no new tech, no aliens.

Rite of Right Writing Poetry

CatholicBard@BardCatholic: Poetry fills me with the urge to write poetry, to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame to appear at the tip of my pencil. And along with that, the longing to steal, to break into the poems of others with a flashlight and a ski mask. Billy Collins, The Trouble with Poetry:

As it governs our everyday life

And when it doesn’t function properly

It can cause turmoil and strife.

But when crosses pop up

For us to carry along

They can inspire A Poem or a Song.

Rite of Right Writing

Tweeting to the Choir About The Rite of Right Writing

KarinaFabian@KarinaFabian: If you are a Catholic writer looking for a writing home, check it out.

Membership | Catholic Writers Guild

R Bratten Weiss@Prof_RBW: Odd when random individuals assume that because one has a writing career, one doesn’t know what work is.

As though writing isn’t work.

As though writers don’t often have other jobs.

As though the ability to write couldn’t be compatible with the ability to do physical labor.

Owl! at the Library ��‍♀️@SketchesbyBoze: stop shaming people for reading kids’ books. adult books are about sad people having affairs while kids’ books have a magic tree house or a worm driving an apple. you tell me who’s winning

Mark Brumley@mabrumley: As you get older and take to heart that there are fewer days ahead than behind, you realize you must choose well what you read or re-read.
Poets lie through their truths and speak truth through their lies.
J.R.R. Tolkien@JRRTolkien: “I write…because I find it easier so to say such things as I really want to say. If they are foolish or seem so, I am not present when they fall flat. My whispering asides are most often due to sheer pusillanimity, & a fear of being laughed at by the general company.” #Tolkien
Scott Eric Alt@ScottEricAlt: Scott Eric Alt Gives A Defence

Somehow I can’t imagine St Benedict approaching Pope Pelagius II and saying, “Holy Father, I’m the author of The Rule of St Benedict.”

William Hemsworth@w_hemsworth: My kids are blown away by all the things that the library has available online.  They have been reading non-stop for two days.  I’m not mad at that.

Sacraments

Daniel P. Horan, OFM@DanHoranOFM: ·It’s worth remembering that Sacraments are not magic and that the true minister of a Sacrament is always Christ. While Thomas Aquinas talked about validity according to Aristotelian categories of matter and form, he also said a lot about secondary causality. We don’t control God.

Kenneth@kennhistoria: I believe what the Church teaches. God uses the sacraments for salvation but is not bound by them. He applies efficacious graces where He sees fit. It’s not impossible for a non-Catholic to be in a state of sanctifying Grace (such as the baby John the Baptist, before baptism).

Michael Lofton@michaelloftonRT:  I trust God makes up for whatever is lacking when we don’t know about an invalid sacrament. Once we discover it, however, we are obligated to rectify it. God is not bound to the sacraments but we are. There is even a part in the byzantine rite of ordination that speaks of the Holy Spirit making up for whatever is lacking.

Sacrament of Baptism

Bishop Down Umber@BishopUmbers: As a Seminarian in Rome I lived, studied & worshipped with people from all parts of the globe, including two young catechists from Mongolia. The baptised are all members of the one body of Christ.
(((Simcha Fisher)))@SimchaFisher: You think it’s crazy that Catholics believe a single word matters, wait till you hear what we believe baptism DOES.

Scott Eric Alt@ScottEricAlt:  If the marital sacrament is permanent independent of my failures, so is my membership in the Body of Christ (which is the Church) by virtue of the sacrament of baptism.

These sacraments are permanent and unrepeatable, and no sin cancels them: baptism, initiation, marriage, and Holy Orders.

This is not opinion; it is dogma.

A laicized priest is still a priest; a separated or divorced spouse is still a spouse; an excommunicated or apostate or heretical Catholic is still a Catholic and still belongs to Jesus Christ.

JD Flynn@jdflynn: And the Christian life is about more than not going to hell. Do I think someone will go to hell b/c the priest said the wrong word. No. Don’t be ridiculous. That’s a childish cartoon version of Christianity- a strawman. But I do think baptism – real baptism – has actual effect.
The Penitential of Theodore@DiscipulusU:  In baptism sins are remitted; but not loose behavior with women, since the children who were born before the baptism of the parents are in such cases in the same status as those born after their baptism.
Catholic Answers@catholiccom: Will “We baptize” guarantee an invalid baptism? Yes. Will “We baptize” guarantee you go to hell? No. Does baptism still matter? Emphatically, yes.
23Feral Spamlet, Adorable Trash��@feralspamlet: It’s not a trivial point, Melanie. If you’re a baptized Catholic and also transgender then transgender persons can also be Catholic. That’s basic logic. You may quibble with how devout you think they are (or aren’t), but their ontological status remains unchanged.
Chezami@chezami: The first speculative fiction concerning what we now call “aliens” was created by late Roman and medieval Christians wrestling with whether creatures who look different from us, but are rational beings, counted as human and candidates for baptism. Consensus: yes.

Sacrament of Confession and Confirmation

Bishop Robert Reed �@BpRobertReed: The trial of St. Justin before the prefect of Rome and his subsequent martyrdom reminds me of the blessing at the end of the Rite of Confirmation:

Preserve in your faithful th e gifts of the Holy Spirit: may they never be ashamed to confess Christ crucified before the world!

Fr. Goyo@FrGoyo: HOT TAKE: I know many of you express the wonderful feelings you get after confession and those are great, but sometimes we feel nothing after confession and it doesn’t mean that confession was bad. Don’t let feelings bully you into thinking that they make confession good or bad
Catholic Centrist@catholicentrist: I can’t fathom how almost every single Catholic Church in my city doesn’t offer weekday confessions and only offers them on Saturday for 30-60 minutes at most. It’s infuriating

Dawn Eden Goldstein ��@DawnofMercy: Confession. Seriously. Just make a good confession and then you won’t have to fear death.

I make confession before I go on an airplane. Then, if it’s a turbulent flight, I have nothing to be scared of.

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Sacramentals

TalesFromTheForbiddenBlender@FromBlender:I somehow turned my scapular into a hula hoop while putting my shirt on this morning #catholicandquarantined #Quarantine #CatholicTwitter #imsomehowgettingworse
Fr. Dwight Longenecker@dlongenecker1:  Scapulars are not magic. You won’t save someone’s soul by hiding a scapular under their pillow.
Fr. Cassidy Stinson@TheHappyPriest: One day after Mass, a parishioner asked me to bless their St. Benedict medal. As I finished the prayer of exorcism, they asked, wide-eyed, “…Is it normal for the medal to get really hot when you do that?” No… but it was a nice reminder that these things are real, and serious
DEFCON Pezzulo@mary_pezzulo: I got such a rash from that wool scapular. Switched to a medal on a lanyard and it felt like cheating.
Christine Sarracino@ChrisMSarracino: A good Catholic man may be a keeper when you think you lost the St. Benedict medal on a chain you got at church and he offers you his. �

Ashlyn Smith@ashlynjeffries: A patient asked me about my medals today. I was trying to describe my Our Lady of Fatima medal.

The patient is hard of hearing and thought I was saying “Geez Lady you’re fat”.

She kept responding with “I know I’m fat, but what’s on your necklace!”

This is my life.

Anonymous Carmelite: The lack of people on Twitter who put medals on their rosaries is astonishing! Is this a long lost tradition? Do people just not care anymore about medals and devotionals or having their rosaries Blessed my priests or taken to cool places on pilgrimage or touching relics anymore?

Saints Blessed Life

Peter Kreeft@ProfessorKreeft: A saint isn’t somebody who tries harder. A saint is somebody who trusts more.

John Cavadini@JohnCavadini: Also, is it wrong to consider John of God a badass Saint? Let’s face it, he single handedly chopped a burning hospital free from the adjacent building and by himself pulled all of the patients out of the burning building. You judge. Also he has the coolest name of all saints.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker@dlongenecker1: I  met Mother Teresa and shook her hand. Would that make me a second class relic?
tommy@theghissilent: Catholicism is amazing because you could be martyred for the faith by being disemboweled and then 1,700 years later you’re getting bothered for help by some dude in Terra Haute who gets diarrhea after eating a bad burrito
Katie Prejean McGrady@KatiePMcGrady: Chiara Badano, knowing her illness was terminal, worried for her mom & dad. Fearing their marriage would suffer, she made a dinner res. for them for Valentine’s Day & insisted they go out & not sit in her room that night. Live that kind of generosity. It could change the world.
�Fr. Matthew Schneider��@FrMatthewLC: Today’s saint lived 1971-1990. Many of us were probably alive at the same time as Bl. Chiara Badano.
Fr John S. Hogan, ocds@jshocds: Irish Causes about to open: Fr Colm O’Brien (whom I knew), who lived a life of humble, dedicated priesthood, a man of prayer & service.
Fr. Cassidy Stinson@TheHappyPriest: HIGHLY recommend watching the documentary film on Sr. Clare Crockett’s life – I was impressed and very moved. The hype is deserved.e; & the more famous Sr Clare Crockett, vibrant, evangelical, full of joyful zeal. Two new apostles to assist the evangelisation of Ireland.
Anonymous Carmelite: Other saints thought to be on the autism spectrum are the close friend and companion of St Francis of Assisi, Brother Juniper.Leonie Martin did not become a Carmelite like her other sisters, but instead joined the religious order of the Visitation Sisters.  It is thought that St Therese of Lisieux and her sister Leonie were possibly on the autism spectrum, though post-mortem diagnosis isn’t a thing, biographers have noted they both exhibited certain behaviour traits, which may point to it. Everyone has a cross to bear!
Ave Maria Press@avemariapress: Do you ever think of the #saints as your friends? This week on #AveSpotlight special guest @MegHunterKilmer chats with host Chenele Shaw about how she has befriended saints who are different from her and how it has blessed her.� Listen now: https://avemariapress.com/spotlight/podcast-hunter-kilmer
Theresa W@thinkbossmom: Meaning of my name.

The name Theresa is a girl’s name of Spanish, Greek, Portuguese origin meaning “to harvest”. The popular appeal of the strong, intelligent Saint Teresa of Avila, combined with the selfless compassion of the more recent Mother Teresa.

#tbt #temperance Angela@TheWakingTulip: “The saints are present and available to us. They are family to us. They are elder siblings, only purified of all rivalry, impatience, and irritability. They want to help us become as they are (holy). They want to help us get all the way home.”— Scott Hahn

Saints Blessed Carlo

Melissa Marie-Therese Cecilia@MelissaCeciliaG: I received a copy of the chapter where the story of how Bl. Carlo Acutis’ intercession saved my life is included. Y’all, I want to cry. I’m not writing the book but I get a chance to approve what’s written. I’ll share book title & details when I know more.

Matt Swaim@mattswaim:

Halloween/All Saints Day

Save yourself the hassle of putting together two different costumes for the two different occasions: dress up as Blessed Carlo Acutis dressing up as Spider-Man.

 You’re welcome.

Anonymous Carmelite: Someone should publish a really cool book of all the Eucharistic miracles that have been documented around the world, with photographs and geological information and little history tidbits and dedicate it to Blessed Carlo Acutis.

Bishop Robert Barron@BishopBarron: Bl. Carlo Acutis, video gamer and computer programmer with a deep devotion to the Eucharist and the first millennial declared blessed, pray for us!

Science and Other Related Topics

TOM the Greek Atheist@ParosTom: I’m sorry there is no possible way that you can be intelligent and be religious.

Fr. David Paternostro, SJ@DavidPaternostr: The three astrophysicists, three lawyers, two medical doctors, two chemists, the historian, and the Rhodes scholar I’ve lived in religious community with would all like a word

Daniel Joachim@danieljoachim: But science isn’t “true”, just like chess, waltz or harvesting crops isn’t “true” (or false).

Science is an accumulation of human activities, that proceed according to set of methods, builds theories, that hopefully unveils something real about quantitative aspects of our world.

Alina Sabyr@alinasabyr: “I do astronomy because it gives me a sense of joy…C.S. Lewis, a religious writer, once described religious experiences as being surprised by joy. I find that parallel…Science is God’s way of telling me he loves me”-Dr. Guy Consolmagno

@specolations ,director of @VaticanObserv

CatholicScientists@SocCatholicSci: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other to a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.”–St. John Paul II, letter to Fr. George Coyne. https://vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1988/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_19880601_padre-coyne.html

 Jimmy Akin@JimmyAkin3000:Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious Interview
We have to look at the issue of who speaks for the Church, and it is not an informal society where a public opinion poll establishes what it supports or doesn’t support. Instead, it is hierarchically structured, and policy is set by the hierarchy.  Since the Church’s Magisterium (teaching authority) has set a pro-science policy, we thus can say that the Church is pro-science. That’s the Church’s policy. Even if one were to conduct an opinion poll, it would not turn out that the majority of Catholics are anti-evolution. There are a bunch of things that could be said here, but Traditionalist YEC Catholic are quite a small group. As to their being the most devout, they are more passionate than various other Catholic demographic groups, but one cannot judge the overall position of an organization by a passionate minority within it

Thy Geekdom Come@ThyGeekdomCome: I can control my home thermostat from an app. My wife, who works from home, just texted me at my office across town to turn on the heat. It was quicker that way.

What a time to be alive.

Screwtape Rip Offs

R Bratten Weiss@Prof_RBW: If I were to write one of those “Screwtape” rip-offs I’d have Screwtape saying “get people terrified that trends from non-white cultures are channels for evil forces, but tell them actual evils like racism, anti-semitism, or spreading a deadly virus are just “different views.”

Jeannie Gaffigan@jeanniegaffigan:  “My Dear Wormwood, Be sure that patient remains completely fixated on politics. Arguments, political gossip & obsessing on the faults of people they have never met serves as an excellent distraction from advancing in personal virtue, character, & the things patient can control.”

Sexual Moral Awareness

it’s Em-mardi gras season @EmilyKath319: The idea that the orgasm is some sort of inalienable right has caused untold damage to society.

Y’all need to take a step back and decide if having your nethers feel good for 15 seconds is really worth our world being the mess it is right now.

(Hint, it is not.)

David Mills@DavidMillsWrtng: “If Christianity is so difficult to know and therefore so hard to accept these days, it is because the only content of Christianity, for a century, has seemed to be the moral question…reduced to one point, the sixth & ninth commandments, in other words the problem of sex”

Abigail Favale@FavaleAbs: Seems a little weird to say to the Church: yes I totally buy that a 1st century Jewish man was actually God and he rose again from the dead and I get to eat his body at Mass, but you are totally wrong about that sex and marriage stuff, that’s crazy

My Catholic peeps: don’t be conservative, don’t be progressive, just be CATHOLIC

R Bratten Weiss@Prof_RBW:  Amusingly recalling the student who wrote in a course evaluation that I “should have assigned Theology of the Body.”

It was a class on women writers.

I taught that class for years. Loved teaching it. Almost every student who went through that class had only great things to say about it.

But, it would have been better if we’d read Theology of the Body. Clearly.

Bishop Down Umber@BishopUmbers: To be Catholic is to hold a countercultural understanding of life & marriage issues. It is epistemically taxing and invites much discussion about one’s own beliefs. As shepherds we need to provide good resources & support to prevent a slide into fideism or practical apostasy.

Sin

Brändøn@brannylives: The only thing thing that Jesus destroys — the only thing he takes away — is sin; everything else he elevates and perfects.-Fr. Gregory Pine

Daniel P. Horan, OFM@DanHoranOFM: The drive to ban books, censor ideas, erase reality, & create ‘safe spaces’ for white comfort and willful ignorance is not only a sign of moral weakness and perversion, but it is also sinful. It is that rare combination of a sin of commission that facilitates acts of omission.

Patrick Wyman@Patrick_Wyman: One of history’s great lessons is that you don’t have to be profoundly evil to do terrible things; stupidity and apathy are more than enough, and almost always a better explanationp
Father David Hogman@FatherHogman:Our addiction to sin, which the Apostle refers to as the sin that is in us, is also a strange cover for us. Our inability to stop sinning prevents us from seeing that we prefer sinning to righteousness. This is why the Saints accurately insist that they are the worst of sinners.
Anonymous Carmelite: What’s with so many anti-Semitic people identifying as traditional Catholics on Twitter? My old prayer books from before Vatican II are not anti-Semitic at all, in fact refer to Christ as Son of David. Jesus was and is Jewish. Deicide is also a heresy. Makes no sense to me.
(((Simcha Fisher)))@SimchaFisher:  Very often, when I say I’m tired of the Church, I really mean the weird, ugly little quasi-church I’ve built around myself out of sheer cynicism and snark and self righteousness. It’s a very flimsy, ugly, broke-down place. No wonder I don’t like it there.
Bishop Fulton Sheen@Bishop_Sheen: A Catholic may sin and sin as badly as anyone else, but no genuine Catholic ever denies he is a sinner. A Catholic wants his sins forgiven – not excused or sublimated.
Erin Stuvek@ErinStuvek: Someday I’ll give a talk on how I once angrily tossed the cocoa powder back into the pantry and it exploded, took me hours to clean, and everything I touched still had cocoa powder on it for months, and what was supposed to be something lovely WAS HORRIBLE because of my folly

Souls of the Faithfully Departed

Tweeting to the Choir About The After Life

Fr. Cassidy Stinson@TheHappyPriest: I offered the Last Rites this weekend for a parishioner.
Even as she prepared for her own death, she was still praying for her priests, and the repose of the souls of all her loved ones who had gone before her into heaven.

I hope I have that much faith at the end of my life.

Emily, praying for peace ���@EmilyKath319: So while in line for confession today (#NoSinGang – feels good!) I was reading the names of former parishioners on the stained glass windows & stations, etc. And I thought, what if the names aren’t there because they want recognition but because they want prayers when they die? So if you are ever waiting in line at Mass and you’re wondering whoever the person who paid for the 9th station might have been, you may as well offer a prayer for the repose of their soul.

And I thought, what if the names aren’t there because they want recognition but because they want prayers when they die?

So if you are ever waiting in line at Mass and you’re wondering whoever the person who paid for the 9th station might have been, you may as well offer a prayer for the repose of their soul.

Haley �️‍⚧️@pankhearst: Can ghosts exist underwater? Like, is the wreck of the Titanic haunted?

Gianna Bonello@feliixculpaa: There was nothing more chilling than having ashes sprinkled on my head today as the priest said ‘you are dust & to dust you shall return’ in Italian … hearing it in a different language in a big stone church gave me CHILLS

Ed Latimore@EdLatimore:

Remember that no matter what you do, you’re going to die.

And unless you do some Jesus or Hitler level crap, no one will even remember that you were ever alive.

You’ve only got 40 or so more *good* years on this rock.

Spiritual Direction

Free Spiritual Director from the Catholic Bard

 Sohrab Ahmari: @SohrabAhmari: Depressing how many Catholics can’t distinguish spiritual direction (which has a time and place — make an appointment) and public time set aside for the rest of the faithful for the Sacrament of Confession.
Celeste@Celeste_CC7: Much of “Catholic Twitter” affirms the fact that there is much need for sound spiritual direction and psycho-therapy.

 (The) Struggle

Rev. Benjamin Cremer@Brcremer: In times of crisis and despair, Christianity sounds like, “my heart is breaking with yours and I’m grieving with you,” not “everything happens for a reason.”
Catholic sinner praying for the Ukraine@RobertO54702108: “We waste a lot of time trying to determine whether our cross is from our neighbor or from the Lord, or from ourselves – what difference does it make? If you’ve got it, carry it. It’s to make you holy.”
—Mother Angelica Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality
Ijele ✝️@goldenlavender5: One must not think that a person who is suffering is not praying. He is offering up his sufferings to God, and many a time he is praying much more truly than one who goes away by himself and meditates his head off.–St. Teresa of Avila
Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, OP@FrAquinasOP: Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be exempt from trial. We progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except against an enemy or temptations.” –St. Augustine
Christine Hipp@hoya96mom: I think we often feel that way. It’s hard to “feel” God sometimes. Mother Theresa even admitted to having times when she didn’t feel Christ’s love. Our relationship with God, like those with family and loved ones, is not static-state.
Sr. Miriam James@onegroovynun:  Miracles happen all of the time. Grace pierces our heart at every moment and a sudden breakthrough of love is always possible. Don’t give up. Keep praying, keep doing the right thing. Love never fails.

Anonymous Carmelite: People struggle with the faith and understanding what true love really is and means, especially in the way of divine filiation. It isn’t easy being a Catholic in a fallen world, people have their own ideas of love and fall into despair or pride and need compassion.

The Simple Catholic@simplecatholic1: God has the power to transform our deepest sorrow into something greater. It’s always going to be sad but somehow He injects beauty, truth, and goodness into the sorrow.

Punky Mantilla �@PunkyMantilla·: “Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul, except sin.” Francis de Sales said that. As an anxiety and depression sufferer, I used to hate that quote until I noticed that it says …”except sin.”

Fear is not sin. But it is a plague sent from the Evil One.

Fr. Matthew Schneider��@FrMatthewLC·: In Gethsemane, Jesus had the most intense temptations to despair yet did not despair. We can look to him when we have similar temptations.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker@dlongenecker1: At this stage in my life and spiritual journey I am realizing how hard it is to persevere. The climb gets steeper and the air thinner as you attempt to ascend the mountain.

Sister Anne@nunblogger: Nobody likes obedience. (Well, maybe Jesus and the saints.) Obedience is hard. 43 years of vows hasn’t made it easier for me. It involves sacrifice: you have nothing to stand on but faith that God is in charge. Please pray hard for those whose faith is being tested.

#LatinMass

the moon’s wife@bookishseawitch: every time the world feels unbearable I have a hearty bowl of soup and suddenly everything is okay

the Pilgrim �@MyselfUnholy: I used to be such a good Catholic. I knew all the saint quotes & said my rosary everyday & did my morning offering.

I want to be a good human now, to enjoy the warmth of the sun & the smell of jasmine tea & the feel of rubbing lotion into my skin. I hope it’s just as holy.

Carl Strehlow@carlstrehlow: It’s so hard to be a Catholic. It seems nearly all the Church hierarchy, with the pope downwards hate tradition call people like me ‘ridgid’. Coming on here, I am being attacked by some Catholics for not being ridgid enough. I am just trying to be a faithful loving to the Church.

Fr. Stephen Vrazel@KeytarCatholic: The hierarchy are making it hard enough for people to want to become Catholic (sexual scandal, financial impropriety, etc.)

People have enough legitimate barriers to entry.

Let’s not make it unnecessarily worse by embracing geocentrism and young earth creationism.

Supernatural

Chezami@chezami: I certainly believe in the miracle taught by the Creed: the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So does Francis. I think history is crowded with the genuinely supernatural.

Theological Imagination

Fr. Tom badil@Bomcalix517:  When Mario dies, he has a halo. This implies that he immediately enjoys the Beatific Vision upon death. A likely explanation is that his death at the hands of Donkey Kong was in odium fidei, making him a martyr. In this essay I shall

Trinity

Tweeting to the Choir The Triune God

Augustine of Hiphop ��@hiphopaugustine

can’t measure God like a gram or a kilo

He created space-time, did it ex nihilo

three Persons, one God, one substance, one nature
if you call us polytheists betta check ya nomenclature

I aint no Arian
straight Trinitarian
three co-equal Persons
wit a love unvaryin

the word Trinity aint simply educational
it means the ground of all being is relational

Sachin Jose@Sachinettiyil: “The household of Jesus, Mary and Joseph became a ‘home away from home’ for the eternal Son of God. It was an outpost of heaven, an image of the Trinity in the world.” – Dr. Scott Hahn Father

Time After Time

St. Thomas Aquinas@Aquinas_Quotes: The intellectual soul is created on the borderline between eternity and time (ScG 3.61).

Glenn J. Devlin@gjdevlin:  So my WIP is a time travel story about a deaf historian with a hearing daughter child (CODA) and a deaf-blind son. She is hired to serve as a consultant in history and gets more than she bargains for when she and her family are trapped in the space-time continuum.
William Hemsworth@w_hemsworth: 
Social media this morning: “Daylight savings sucks. This is horrible”.
Me: “Did something change this morning?”
The rest of the country needs to follow Arizona in doing away with Daylight savings time.
The Vault of Lost Ideas@VaultOfLostIdea: Time Travel doesn’t #exist. Nakamura, who invented it, went back and prevented himself from creating the first time machine. What they didn’t realise was that since there was no reason for them to go back, the machine was built anyway. Time travel is a pain. Don’t do it.  #vss365
Pope Benedict XVI@P_BenedictXVI: Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness. The Lord has allowed you to live in this moment of history so that, by your faith, his name will continue to resound throughout the world.
Portfolio Carmel@PortfolioCarmel: Time will go by the way it did, before history, pure and unnoticed, a mystery that arose between the sun and moon before there was a word for dawn or moon or midnight —Billy Collins
CatholicBard@BardCatholic: Sometimes time flies faster than the speed of light and you suddenly realize a week has past or even a month You work, you pray and you help others, and you spend time with your family then you tweet about it then time keeps flying before you know it eternity will be yours

Theology

Hans Urs von Balthasar@h_u_v_balthasar: Theology is supposed to be the study of the white hot fire that burns at the center of creation.
Dr. Michael J. Svigel@Svigel: Theology 101: “It is worse than useless for Christians to talk about the importance of Christian morality unless they are prepared to take their stand upon the fundamentals of Christian theology.” (Dorothy Sayers)

Truth

Fr. Matthew Schneider@FrMatthewLC: Not all untruths are lies, so it’s better we use “untruth” when unsure of the subjective reality of the person.

A lie requires not only it be untrue but that the person knows, or has reasonable grounds to judge most probably, it is untrue.

Our language, even in non-religious circumstances, can often express our faith & worldview. For example, simply referring to “creation” shows a sense of Christian metaphysics.

Father Chris Pietraszko@FrChrisP: Wisdom differs from knowledge. One may know how to create a nuclear bomb, while another has the wisdom never to use it. One may know what is right and wrong, while the other does what is right.

Wayne Kasper@k3enteprises: “The Truth is like a lion; all you have to do is set it loose, and it will defend itself.” St Augustine

� Augustine of Hiphop ��@hiphopaugustine: 
just because I spit the truth don’t mean I’m virtue signallin
and I got a righteous dance I call it virtue wigglin
nah you best not be that joker in the church who gigglin
cuz the Spirit’s gonna find you when he search you little friend

Fake History Hunter@fakehistoryhunt: Nobody knows everything, even people on the internet can be mistaken. On top of that our ideas and knowledge of the past changes regularly. If you have doubts about something, do your own research, check several sources, never trust anyone blindly, and yes, that includes me.
Joseph Nolla, SJ@JosephNollaSJ: It’s ironic that some people who believe in a sinful fallen world will not accept that the market is untrustworthy, systemic racism exists, and climate change is real. I can’t tell you what the fix is, but it definitely isn’t complacency or denial.

Twitter Discourse

Tweeting to the Choir About Twitter Discourse

Chef Andrew Gruel@ChefGruel: 
FACT: Not a single mind has been changed during an argument in the comments section of Twitter. How valuable is your time?

Carlos A. Rodríguez@CarlosHappyNPO: Remember this and stay free:

I don’t have to reply
I don’t have to defend.
I don’t have to make time.
I don’t have all the info.
I don’t have to.

Fr. David Paternostro, SJ@DavidPaternostr: Aquinas would have been awful at Twitter. Never sarcastic or insulting, patient to understand, gentle in correcting, more apt to ask questions than give hot takes. A solid counter-balance for anyone on Twitter, and a good patron saint of Twitter
Marcel LeJeune@MarcelLeJeune: Topics to get #CatholicTwitter arguing:
1 – Latin Mass
2 – Yoga
3 – Vaccines
4 – The President (pick one)
5 – Essential oils
Fr. Stephen Vrazel@KeytarCatholic: There are three distinct parts of Catholic Twitter:
1. Rad trads who are impossible to talk to.
2. Common folk with reasonable differences of opinion but a shared communion of belief and goodwill.
3. Progressive Catholics who are impossible to talk to.
Be in the second group.
CatholicBard@BardCatholic: Everytime we come across another Catholic with a different opinion, how about not labeling them a heretic or fake Catholic as if we were so awesome to have the monopoly of truth discovered by our own brand of cleverness and not the grace of God.
Fr. Matthew Schneider��@FrMatthewLC: Part of Christian charity is that if someone writes or says something that has two possible interpretations, we should assume the more charitable interpretation unless solid evidence says otherwise.

Rene Albert ☕️✟@coffeencrucifix: Honestly, if anyone is ever interested in becoming Catholic, the best advice I can give for those who are easily troubled is to stay away from any Catholic social media.

 For many, it has led them to the Church and to connect with likeminded individuals. But for many others, it is enough to shatter any hope they have in humanity or in a loving, merciful God.

Jimmy AkinJimmyAkin3000: Though we have quite different views on various issues, it has not stopped Tim and I from having productive discussions. He’s been a gentleman toward me, and I seek to be one toward him–and to everyone. Differences of opinion don’t mean we can’t be charitable toward one another.

Ukraine

Christopher Miller@ChristopherJM: Zelensky: “We never wanted this war. But it was brought to us. We never dreamed of killing. But we have to knock out the enemy from our land and from our lives. We have to endure what no other European country has seen in 80 years.”
Pope Francis@Pontifex: For the followers of Jesus, now is not a time for sleeping, for letting our souls be sedated. One of the great tragedies of our time is the refusal to open our eyes to reality and instead to look the other way. #PrayTogether #Ukraine #Peace

Unicorn Cult

Кайл Де Вольф �@KyleDeWolf3: I once met a guy who believed in KJV only because it has “unicorns” while other translations just have “wild bulls.” He felt that “modern” translations (technically KJV is modern) changed the Bible to “hide the truth” about unicorns. Later, I spoke to an Assyrian Christian (ACOE) about the issue, and he said that there was an underground cult of people who worshipped unicorns in the Middle East. I never met any of these people, but he said that they are very secretive bc of Islamic strictures against idols. I don’t know if he was yanking my chain or not. He also said that I am not “allowed” to read the 2ce apocryphal Protogospel of James because it was “illegal.”
Maybe that’s the discipline of his church. I am not aware of it being “forbidden” to read apocryphal works in this era. Anyway, I have read somewhere (probably chabad) that the unicorn was a supernatural creature that appeared once in the mists of the shekhina at the dedication of the temple. I would honestly like to believe that is true. Strong’s concordance says that the same word could be translated “unicorn” or “wild bull.” The descriptions are ambiguous and could apply to either. Seriously this is the #1 theological issue that we need to address today. Are there unicorns in the Bible? What do you think?
Fr. Matthew Schneider��@FrMatthewLC: Maybe the best translation is “Rhinoceroses.”

Vatican II

fah’Tim@FrGrumbach:  Really excited to work with some of our honors students as we take a deep dive into Lumen Gentium. They likely have little idea how controversial VII is these days in some circles, so a faithful study of the documents will be a great way to introduce them to the spiritual depth.
Andre van Heerden@AndrevanHeerde2: I urge you to read ‘Reclaiming Vatican II” by Fr. Blake Britton. As ST. John Henry Newman pointed out, the problems we worry about in the Church in our time, are found in the Church in every age during the past 2000 years. The question is “How do we respond?’

Virtues and Grace

Brian Holdsworth@briankeepsworth: Overheard in the homily at mass yesterday: If the virtues are like beads on a rosary, then humility is the chain that binds them. Humility is the handmaid of all the virtues.
Jaymie Stuart Wolfe@YouFeedThem: Not every Saul becomes a Paul. But we must all be like Ananias: open to the possibilities of grace.

WAR! What Is It Good For?

TinaBob ™@TinaBob: Do people actually understand what nuclear war means?

 Anonymous Carmelite: The Japanese do, because they have so far been the only victims of a nuclear bomb and they know the horrors that come with it, even if on a small scale. The nuclear bombs we have now are like a million times more powerful to what existed in 1945 so no, people don’t understand.

Jay Black@jayblackisfunny: Hey, millennials and zoomers who are dealing with your first bout of World War III panic:

Find yourself a Gen X friend to see you through it.

We spent the entirety of our childhoods prepping for nuclear war, alone, while eating Pop Tarts cold from the foil.

We got you.

Jen Fulwiler is on tour@jenfulwiler: Last week we were live tweeting the Super Bowl and this week we’re live tweeting a war. Modern life is surreal

CRC@ICRC:  � The rules of war �

1. Civilians cannot be targeted.

2. Civilians cannot be used as human shields.

3. Civilians must have safe passage to flee.

4. Humanitarian organizations must have access to deliver aid to civilians.

Wedding

Fr. Brad’s �fasting after the feast�@fr_quizzical:  Have you ever danced so hard at a wedding reception that you got a workout?! If not, move to Louisiana and get a wedding invite.
Shannon Monaghan@Shonomatopoeia: One time, while meditating on the Wedding Feast at Cana, it hit me that the bride and groom probably had no idea there was even a problem. Jesus just took care of it. Every time I’ve heard it since, I wonder how many problems in my life He’s taken care of, unbeknownst to me.

Where You Are

Theresa Zoe Williams �@TheresaZoe

Too gay for the straights

Too straight for the gays

Too secular for the Catholics

Too Catholic for the seculars

…Right where God wants me

Word of God

Mark Brumley@mabrumley:  When you don’t like some part of the Word of God, you can always affirm its contrary and attribute the contradiction to ‘mystery’ or ‘transcendence’. When someone else tries that on something you like, you can insist on the need for ‘critical’ theology.
❄�Lauren�❄@lil_laur_: It’s a wonderful rainy Saturday morning to snuggle with my dog and listen to the Bible with Fr. Mike Schmitz ���

Wordle And Russia

Sr. Theresa Aletheia ️@pursuedbytruth: Wordle except the word is always “DEATH.”

Joy Marie Clarkson@joynessthebrave: wordle is a gateway drug to quordle. this hunger can’t be satisfied.

Mary Pezzulo@mary_pezzulo: As an elder Millennial whose first memories are from the 80s, it’s weird how we’re on the verge of a hot war with Russia and we’re all just playing Wordle and cracking jokes and pretending to have a good time.

I  remember being so young I’m not in preschool yet and watching Mr. Rogers go to Moscow to meet the Russian TV host. I remember being confused because I already knew Soviets are evil and hate us, yet Mr. Rogers was just talking through his puppet to some ordinary-looking kids.

Words

Stephen Simpson �� ProperGander �@BamaStephen

“You say Gestapo

I say Gazpacho

You say Nazi

I say Nacho

Gestapo! Gazpacho!

Nazi! Nacho!

Let’s call the whole thing off!” �

Steven D. Greydanus@DecentFilms: “Multiversal” seems like a decent enough adjective, but as I mull Spider-Man: No Way Home in comparison/contrast to Into the Spiderverse, I find myself driven to coin the term “multiversiferous.” Or possibly “multiversiverous,” I haven’t decided.

Mr. ((Vincent)(The Catholic)) Linguist: @FilologLX_X: “Have you found that what languages people speak affects how they see and celebrate their faith? I’m thinking of how different churches have different liturgical rites and traditions, and wondering if that extends to, or is caused by to some extent, the various languages spoken.”

! Overall, I am a weak Whorfian. That is to say, I do believe that our native language INFLUENCES but does not definitively determine the way that we see the world. It is my observation that in most of the Eastern Rites and the Orthodox, it isthe culture/language which influences and shapes the faith. My main exceptions to this are the Melkites, Maronites, and Chaldeans, as their faith does not transcend macro-cultural boundaries. However there are other communities, like the Lakota, who have had clear influence of their Catholic faith on their culture.
By the way, we as English speakers are not immune to the influence of our language on our faith. We love taking “becoming” from Scripture and turning it into “making.” We’re busy busy busy Saxons!

Fr. Matthew Schnieder:

AMEN comes from the Hebrew root אמן (‘MN) which is the verb to be firm, confirmed, reliable, faithful, have faith, believe.

  1. It has nothing to do with the word “men.”
  2. Most verb roots are 3 consonants in Hebrew, the first here is a silent consonant though.

Wonderful Womanhood

The thinkers’ views@thinkerviews #Inspirational #Quotes The heart is like a woman, and the head is like a man, and although man is the head of woman, woman is the heart of man, and she turns man’s head because she turns his heart. –Peter Kreeft, Jesus-Shock

Patricia Heaton @PatriciaHeaton: Being a mother is indescribable; joy, worry, delight, frustration, but ultimately the greatest satisfaction and deepest human love of your life. So grateful.

A.J. Jacobs@ajjacobs: “It’s odd that birthdays focus on the kid, when they should honor the mom. What did I do on that day long ago? I came out, cried, demanded food, got a mediocre score on my Apgar. The real hero is my mom. She’s the one who had her body dangerously distorted by my infant skull.”-Me

Cardinal Seán@CardinalSean:  A mother’s love is our first glimpse of God’s love for us. Mothers love their children tenderly & face any challenge to protect them from harm. We pray that all mothers receive the grace & strength to guide their children on a path of righteousness & holiness.  #HappyMothersDay

Peccatrix@CatholicAwesome: So many pregnant woman talk about how they miss laying on their stomachs but I miss being able to lay on my back without passing out.

Hans Fiene �@HansFiene: Gentlemen, if you stop playing video games and use that time to learn how to make furniture and stuff, attractive women will want to marry you and have your babies.

Steve Skojec@SteveSkojec: I’ll be sure to tell my beautiful wife, who has given me 8 children, that we must stop gaming together so she can marry me and have my babies.

Catholic Joe@catholicjose: Twitter fam, My bros, rather than your wife calling you “My Lord” to defeat toxic feminism (not all feminism is toxic). How about we change the culture by living like Paul exhorted us… “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” -Eph 5:25
judymcdonald@judymcdonald:  Bless me father for I have sinned. I just told the telemarketer that I was breast-feeding the baby and I’d call them back. I don’t have a baby and cancer took my boobs. Oops.

Nicky Gumbel@nickygumbel: 2000 yrs ago Jesus repeatedly liberated and affirmed women- treating men and women as equals.

Women were the last at the cross and the first at the tomb – the first to be entrusted with the news of the resurrection of Jesus.  #InternationalWomansDay2022

Leah Libresco Sargeant@LeahLibresco: One thing I love in the letters of St. Francis de Sales is his confidence that God sends us the pains and penances we need. He cautions a pregnant woman not to fast, since God has already sent her “holocausts enough” in her pregnancy.

There is no life the Cross is absent from.

☀️ Catholic Charm ☀️@CatholicCharm: Pregnancy is an absolute blessing and everything mothers go through to bring their child into the world is worth it- but that doesn’t mean the process isn’t hard.  If a pregnant friend of yours is venting, please don’t dismiss her feelings by saying “well just be happy”.  Of course we are happy.  It’s possible to feel grateful and still struggle with aspects of it at the same time.  It’s not one or the other.  Pregnancy and motherhood can already feel isolating in some ways, and it just makes it worse when others don’t acknowledge our feelings.

Puking sucks.  Having intense headaches sucks.  Seeing your body change can suck.  After labor, having bleeding nipples sucks.  If you have stitches and feel them throb every time you sneeze or go to the bathroom.. really sucks. Not every aspect of pregnancy is romantic and that’s okay.  I’d do it over and over again to have as many children as God will bless me with.

And it’s all worth it to have my son in my arms and to be expecting my second child.  I wouldn’t change it but it can still be tough.  I just hate seeing other women struggle and feel like they have no outlet.  If they complain they’re painted as ungrateful.  So they keep it in and feel all alone.  Please be there for your pregnant friends.

X-Mass Stuff

G. K. Chesterton@GKChestertonian: “What makes Christmas wonderful and merry, according to Dickens, is ‘keeping’ Christmas. Scrooge’s life changed overnight, and his conversion turned him from a miser to a giver. What if we had a night like Scrooge? What if we woke up changed?”— GKC, ILN, December 24, 1921.

“A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.” (GKC, The Everlasting Man)

Fr. Paul@BackwardsFeet: The Word becoming flesh was the most significant act in the history of the universe. That which holds the very universe in existence humbled Himself to enter the universe which turned away from Him.

Tomás Insua@tomasinsua: “One Person of the Trinity entered into the created cosmos, throwing in his lot with it. From the beginning of the world, but particularly through the incarnation, the mystery of Christ is at work in a hidden manner in the natural world” (#LaudatoSi 99)

Merry Christmas!

Michelle Ule@Michelleule: Thomas Howard wrote about the incarnation:

“He didn’t come to thin out human life; He came to set it free. All dancing & feasting & processing &singing & building & sculpting & baking & merrymaking that belong to us, &stolen into serving false gods, are returned in the gospel.”

A Tribute to Thomas Howard 

(((Simcha Fisher)))@SimchaFisher: who wants to hear my medieval Christmas hymn lyrics? all purpose

“Twas a garden, sin & death entered in, loo raloo.Then the little babe was born & he was like a rose, like milk, like a sweet little apple was he, loo ra, loo ra! Then he died and sweet Mary saw SO MUCH BLOOD, but he rose again!O happy little apple,Christmas day!Loo ra loo, amen”

I forgot to put in about a deer

Rod Jones ���@rj_cubed:  I’m not normally a hate mail sender, but in yesterday’s show Lino was wrong, totally wrong, about Saint Nick. Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus, in pop culture, have been the same person for hundreds of years.

Lino Rulli@linorulli: St Nicholas was a Catholic Bishop in the 4th century. He’s dead and is now in Heaven. Santa Claus lives at North Pole and brings me stuff for Christmas. Definitely not the same person. Bishops in Heaven never stop by with presents. Santa is awesome but not a Bishop. Boom.
Fr. Cassidy Stinson@TheHappyPriest: I got invited to a 12-year-old’s birthday party at an Italian restaurant where a professional Santa showed up and started singing Christological Christmas carols and now I’m not sure if anything is real.
Micah ��@MicahTGC: Hot Take: The only Christmas songs are chants, hymns, & carols about the Nativity. Secular “Christmas songs” should be categorized separately as “Christmas-adjacent.” They must not compete with proper Christmas songs. That’s like Dolly Parton losing the Parton look-alike contest.’
Ryan George@theryangeorge: Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” is about friends practicing witchcraft but then someone walks in and they have to suddenly play it cool
Augustine of Hiphop ��@hiphopaugustine:
Merry Christmas
y’all don’t wanna miss this
we was different continents
Christ is the isthmus
makin us his business
can I get a witness
out the Lord’s poverty
we been given richness

Yaks, Yoga and Yetis

Mark@fom4life: Yogi the Yetti Yawns Yodeling while Yogaing while Your Yellow Yackity Yak eats Yams
Glabau@allergyPhD: It feels like science fiction to me that a person can grow another person inside of them? Mini me enjoyed yoga this morning and is doing a vigorous tumbling act still, four hours later, so I can’t stop thinking about this
Jeremy McLellan@JeremyMcLellan: Doing yoga for my back pain but before any Catholics get mad I am doing all of the poses very poorly as an insult to the Hindu gods.
Raymond ✝️����@deux_raymond: Catholic twitter revealed the sinister reason women wear yoga pants was so that men would gouge their eyes out.
214vin; androgyne@hologramvin: ah, this reminds me of how my mom would only go to yoga classes if it was “catholic yoga” and poses were named after different parts of the rosary (im not kidding)
Christopher Stevenson@CBenStevenson: I wish I could be as excited about writing library science papers and I am fiction, but I can’t talk about yeti-werealligators in a paper about metadata application profiles.
Cryptids And The Unknown@AndCryptids: The Yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman, is an Asian Bigfoot found in the Himalayas. Inhabiting Nepal, Tibet, Russia, and India, the Yeti is probably the closest living relative to Gigantopithecus, a prehistoric ape that lived in Asia three hundred thousand years.

Zoo’s, Zombie and Generation Z

angelina.@whyangelinawhy: The one thing about West Side Story that NO one is talking about is the incredible Kushner line where Tony suggests getting beer and weed and hanging out at the zoo, instead of going to the rumble. Imagine that West Side Story.
Glenn J. Devlin@gjdevlin: Three Men and a Zombie When a Jew is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Ireland, he comes back from the dead and forces a gravedigger to carry him to Tipperary, USA before he decomposes and his soul ends up in Sheol (hell) #Producers #screenwriting

chrismpadgett@chrismpadgett: As the zombie apocalypse takes place all vegans will realize that lifestyle was a cute convenience.

The Gentle Freak@mitchysuch:Gen Z continues to be a generation too mentally weak to bring back catholic monk hair, just like millennials. Maybe next generation will be real.
Michael Paul@falcigl5: As a member of Gen Z, this is should be worrisome. As a true Catholic, seeing my Generation turning away from religion is sad and I pray for civilization to survive, because I don’t believe Western Civilization will survive without true religion.

GOODBYE

Katie Prejean McGradyKatiePMcGrady: I realized today while praying as the plane took off, that for the past 3 years I’ve said roughly the same thing to end my private prayers: “Lord, keep safe all those I’ve spoken to, done ministry with, who have read my books, & crossed my path” So consider yourself prayed for
Carmelite@Carmelcross7: Thank you to those following me. God bless all of you. Have a blessed Sunday and may Our Lady of Mount Carmel wrap her mantel around you.

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