Today is the feast day of St Alphonsus Rodriguez, a writer whose Jesuit Spanish spiritual methods I embrace humbly as my own. Identifying, I embrace his centering upon self-perfection, refining one’s self interiorly. I see no other way. The journey is interior. The conquering is interior. The victory is interior.

Here is a link to a Catholic website, Traditional Catholic Priest, that intelligently and concisely informs about saints during their feast days. I find the priest’s blog interesting in the sense it is the perspective of an extremely conservative Catholic mindset. Recently, he posted an entry on Sedevacantist, schismatic churches declaring there has been no true pope since Pope John XXIII–post Vatican II. Today’s post is a powerful repost from another blog. I see his recent efforts as a wrestling with the thoughts and ways of Pope Francis. I admire insight into a priest struggling with the Church. Giving his loving heart, staunch loyalty and worthy mind to Catholicism, how does a conservative priest reconcile with a pope redirecting the Church away from his predispositions and opinions. I contrast the situation with a liberal priest who says mass at St Paul Shrine, who never stops speaking with elation, excitement, and joy about the words and actions of Pope Francis. Pope Francis is an absolute celebration of his deepest beliefs, a flowering of his priestly vocation. The Church is a mystery, complex and all-embracing, beyond individuals, truly the body of Christ here upon earth.

St Alphonsus Rodriguez elaborating upon the Eucharist:

…the goodness of God does not rest here: He is not content with coming only into our houses, and remaining in our churches but he will also have us possess him within ourselves; he will remain within our breast, he will make that his temple and tabernacle. O ineffable love! O unheard of liberality! That I should receive into my breast and heart, Jesus Christ, true God and true man, the same Savior whom the Blessed Virgin carried nine months in her sacred womb! And if St. Elizabeth on seeing Your holy mother, who bore You in her sacred womb, and entering into her house cried out in astonishment, and filled with the Holy Ghost, “whence comes this grace and favor on to me, that the mother of my Lord should come unto me;” what shall I say, O my God, on seeing You enter not only into my house but into myself. With how far greater reason may I say, whence comes this grace granted me who have been for so long a time the devils habitation; to me who have so often offended You, and been so ungrateful and unfaithful for so many benefits? Whence proceeds this grace and favor but from the access of thy mercy, and because thou art goodness itself, “to make it thy delight to be with the sons of men,” and because your love of them is infinite. –St Alphonsus Rodriguez ‘The Practice of Christian Perfection & Religious Perfection’

St Alphonsus Rodriguez