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Author Topic: Informal Book club  (Read 1137 times)

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Re: Informal Book club
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2026, 04:39:33 AM »
I briefly came across an architecture book on the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which looks just like a cathedral. For the longest time I thought it was because of the science worshippers making it into a cathedral or they stole a cathedral and turned it into a museum. I was wrong. It was actually built by people that highly respected God and had chosen gothic style to honour God for His creation because they believed that science is to honour God as His handmaid and the whole universe is God's museum. I'm not particularly interested in history so I had that very wrong assumption. It's quite fascinating to learn how much love for God architects put into buildings back then even for a building that is not for religious use.

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Re: Informal Book club
« Reply #11 on: March 15, 2026, 05:38:02 AM »
I finished reading The Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost by Cardinal Edward Manning.  Very good.  Cardinal Manning goes through all the Gifts how we naturally have knowledge ( example) but we can have Supernatural with the help of the Holy Ghost.  It is very well explained how we can achieve this or lose it.  I have never read anything so well explained.

Now I am reading The Memoirs of Pope Leo XIII, original/reprint 590 pages.  Very very good.  I am half way through it.
Cardinal Manning is great. I finished "The Glories of the Sacred Heart", and I found it very helpful in understanding conformity to the Sacred Heart, as well as some edifying quotes.

E.g. "The sanctity and the love and the truth and the mercy of Jesus were the very same divine attributes and perfections as the sanctity, mercy, justice, and truth of God."

The chapter on dogma and devotion also good, that in knowing the dogmas of the Faith we may grow in devotion, and by devotion we preserve dogma.


Re: Informal Book club
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2026, 04:19:55 PM »
I am about to finish Raymond Ibrahim's book "The Two Swords of Christ". (I read "Defenders of the West" and "Sword and Scimitar" before that one). All three have expanded my understanding of the evils that were committed by muslims against Christians, and their real hatred for the truth. They also show how much men (and women) suffered for the faith. One goes over battles fought over the centuries against muslims, another tells about particular men who fought against jihad, and the last is about the warrior monks (the knights of the Temple and Hospital). I might read them again.

Re: Informal Book club
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2026, 07:16:26 PM »
Yesterday I re-read Paddie’s Lament, about the so-called Potato Famine and its consequences for Ireland, having bad effects to this day. It was, in reality, an Irish-Catholic attempted genocide of the Irish by the British Protestants and Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ. 
I read every year at this time in moemory of my Irish ancestors who died of starvation, were cruelly evicted from their homes, persecuted for their Faith, and those that God saved by sending them to the USA where they found more sufferings, discrimination, and different kinds of religious persecution. Nonetheless, the Irish who arrived as unwanted refugees in New York City still dominate essential aspects of city politics, public service, and religious life.If not for a few of them, I’d not be writing this comment.  

Re: Informal Book club
« Reply #14 on: March 24, 2026, 10:18:39 PM »
"The Triumph of the Blessed Sacrament", by Fr. Michael Müller (1877), is a book about the famous exorcisms of Nicola Aubry, who was possessed multiple times, and received complete freedom from the demons who possessed her, only due to the power of the Blessed Sacrament. It is truly soul-stirring to read.

The account of her story provides an amazing testimony to the hatred that evil spirits have for this most Holy Sacrament, and at the same time, the power of Our Lord in humbly hiding Himself beneath the species of bread, for our salvation. Many Calvinists converted from witnessing Nicola's various deliverances. These exorcisms took place in the 16th century.

It is also interesting to note how the demons spoke through Nicola; how truly wicked and dishonest they are, how ardently they desire our destruction, and is therefore a good lesson for discerning the inspirations of evil spirits, as opposed to good spirits. It may also help us to examine ourselves, to see whether we behave more like demons in our daily lives.

Fr. Müller gives a good summary for discerning the difference between the inspirations of God, and the insidious suggestions of the devil, on p. 116-117:

“The visitations or communications of God, or of His angels, bring peace and holy joy; while the communications or visitations of the devil, on the contrary, bring trouble and discord. When the Lord comes in His gracious visitations, all is sweetness and peace. No disturbance of the physical system, no whirling and howling, no storm and tempest, no wringing and twisting of the arms and legs, no violent and indecent postures, no abnormal development or exercise of the faculties, mark the incoming of the Holy Ghost. All is calm and serene. The understanding is illuminated, the heart is warmed, the will is strengthened, and the whole soul is elevated by the infusion of a supernatural grace. There is no crisis, no forgetfulness, or awaking from a trance.”

https://archive.org/details/triumphofsacram00meuluoft/mode/2up?ref=ol