“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” (Philippians 4:8)...
"There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."
"When I began reading Alice von Hildebrand’s By Love Refined: Letters to a Young Bride a couple years ago, her description of the Tabor vision metaphor and reflections on the threat of irreverence pervasive in society, especially as per irreverence within relationships, stayed with me beyond when I finished the book. When I observed the male and female genitalia Christmas ornaments for purchase on Esty, I realized in that moment how irreverent our society has become. What is sacred is desecrated and what is profane is celebrated. Irreverence is edgy, accepted, and popular. Treating nothing as sacred transforms society into a base, crass, and uncreative culture in which sacred relationships become jokes, natural design and law a farce, people items of use and abuse, and things more sacred than persons but all disposable nonetheless...
Jesus Christ warned in the Gospel of the attitude of the Pharisees, “They tie up heavy burdens [hard to carry] and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.” (Matthew 23:4) In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus repeats a variation of this warning, “And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.” (Luke 11:46)...
