Love and Fidelity

What is love without fidelity? In the ultimate analysis, it is nothing but a lie. For the deepest meaning of ever love, the inner “word” uttered in love, is the orientation toward and giving of oneself to the beloved, a giving that knows no time limit. No fluctuation in the course of life can shatter it. Only a deep change in the beloved person can affect our love if it be true love. A man who would say, “I love you now, but how long it will last, I cannot tell,” does not truly love; he does not even suspect the very nature of love. Faithfulness is so essentially one with love, that everyone, at least as long as he loves, must consider his devotion an undying devotion. This holds good for every love, for parental and filial love, for friendship and for spousal love. The deeper a love, the more it is pervaded by fidelity.

~ Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Art of Living

In Your Hands

This is the law of life on earth:
for every thing that comes to birth,
man and woman, child and mother,
the life of each is in the other.

This is the law of life in Heaven:
we must forgive to be forgiven.
Hands that close and will not give,
cannot receive, and will not live.

Thus by Thy divine decree,
to each other, as to Thee,
we must say with trepidation,
“In your hands is my salvation.”

~ Peter Kreeft, “In Your Hands,” An Ocean Full of Angels

St. Augustine on the Incarnation

Man’s Maker was made man, that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breasts; that the Bread might be hungry, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired from the journey; that the Truth might be accused by false witnesses, the Judge of the living and the dead be judged by a mortal judge, Justice be sentenced by the unjust, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Vine be crowned with thorns, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might be made weak, that He who makes well might be wounded, that Life might die. He was made man to suffer these and similar undeserved things for us, that He might free us who were undeserving; and He who on account of us endured such great evils, merited no evil, while we who through Him were so bountifully blessed, had no merits to show for such blessings. Therefore, because of all this, He who before all ages and without a beginning determined by days was the Son of God, saw fit in these latter days to be the Son of man; and He, who was born of the Father but not made by the Father, was made in the mother whom He had made, that He might sometime be born here on earth of her who could never have been anywhere except through Him.

~ St. Augustine, Christmas Sermon 191

A New Thing Comes

Even in the old days [God] never asked men to do what was reasonable. Men can do that for themselves. They can buy and sell, heal and govern. But then out of some deep place comes the command to do what makes no sense of all – to build a ship on dry ground; to sit among the dunghills; to marry a whore; to set their son on the altar of sacrifice. Then, if men have faith, a new thing comes.

~ William Golding, The Spire

The Rules of the Drink

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.

~ G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

The World as a Theater

Both men departed to that place where everything is true. The stage sets were removed and the masks were taken off. In a theater of this world at mid-day the stage is set and many actors enter, playing parts, wearing masks on their faces, retelling some old story, narrating the events. One becomes a philosopher, though he is not a philosopher. Another becomes a king, though he is not a king, but has the appearance of a king for the story. Another becomes a physician without knowing how to handle even a piece of wood, but wearing the garments of a physician. Another becomes a slave, though he is free; another a teacher, though he does not even know his letters. They appear something other than what they are, and they do not appear what they really are. One appears to be a physician, another appears to be a philosopher by wearing a hairy mask, and another appears to be a soldier by bearing the equipment of a soldier. The appearance of the mask deceives us, but it does not falsify the nature, for it truly changes the character which is represented. As long as the audience remains in their seats, the masks are valid; but when evening overtakes them, and the play is ended, and everyone goes out, the masks are cast aside. He who is king inside the theater is found to be a coppersmith outside. The masks are removed, the deceit departs, the truth is revealed. He who is a free man inside the theater is found to be a slave outside; for, as I said, the deceit is inside, but the truth is outside. Evening overtakes them, the play is ended, the truth appears. So it is also in life and its end. The present world is a theater, the conditions of men are roles: wealth and poverty, ruler and ruled, and so forth. When this day is cast aside, and that terrible night comes, or rather day, night indeed for sinners, but day for the righteous — when the play is ended, when the masks are removed, when each person is judged with his works — not each person with his wealth, not each person with his office, not each person with his authority, not each person with his power, but each person with his works, whether he is a ruler or a king, a woman or a man, when He requires an account of our life and our good deeds, not the weight of our reputation, not the slightness of our poverty, not the tyranny of our disdain — give me your deeds if you are a slave but nobler than a free person, if you are a woman but braver than a man. When the masks are removed, then the truly rich and the truly poor are revealed. When the play ends, one of us looking out an upper window sees the man who is a philosopher inside the theater but a coppersmith outside, and says, “Hey! Wasn’t this man a philosopher inside? Outside I see that he is a coppersmith. Wasn’t this other man a king inside? Outside I see that he is some humble person. Wasn’t that man rich inside? Outside I see that he is poor.” The same thing happens when this life ends.

– St. John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty, Discourse II

Church Fathers on Animals

Martin Luther, upon seeing a dog, whose tail had been mangled by a wagon wheel said: “Take comfort, small friend, in the Resurrection, you too shall have a little golden tail.” Martin Luther, Letter to J. Goritz, 1544

“I beg you to show kindness to animals. The very least you can do is to put out food and water for them. Animals are like us, they love, suffer, feel happiness and pain. Do not subject them to the same treatment which you would abhor receiving at their hands.”
John Chrysostom

“The dog is the most faithful of animals
and would be much esteemed
were it not so common.
Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts
the commonest.” Martin Luther

“A cat is a most perfect work of God.”
Philip Neri

“[Through] the practice of cruelty toward animals
is fostered also inhumanity toward our neighbor.”
Martin Chemnitz, Loci II:706

“There is need for virtue
which allows neither hatred nor envy to lodge in the soul, neither fraud nor any such thing as malice, which does not allow foolish habits of speech, but orders all things rightly, which does not permit slanderous or foul tongue, which knows not to bear a grudge or to do evil,
which honors the virtuous and makes common cause with those who live rightly,
which wishes to keep the body in health. Such a virtue is the loving of dogs, which, though they suffer blows, do not bear a grudge.”
Basil the Great