Doug McManaman is a Deacon and a Religion and Philosophy teacher at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario, Canada. He is currently the President of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He maintains the following web site for his students: A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page.
Contact: dmcmanaman@sympatico.ca
Website:fmmh.ycdsb.ca/teachers/fmmh_mcmanaman/pages/index.html
It has been said that character is what you do when no one is looking. That’s what I thought of when I read this verse of the gospel that speaks of being faithful in small matters, when no one is looking. And no one is looking, because they are small matters, and people generally interested in the big things. But one’s true character is revealed in the small things.
Date posted: 2009-11-07
Today is the feast of All Saints. This is an important feast, for we believe in the Communion of Saints. What does this mean? It means there is a family of saints, thousands of saints, and they are our older siblings. You and I have older brothers and sisters who lived in previous times, suffered hardship, professed the same faith in Christ, entered into communion with the same Christ in the Eucharist, which is what we are about to do here.
Date posted: 2009-11-05
Synopsis: Man naturally seeks God, the essential One, True, Good, and Beautiful. The religions of the world are really man's attempts to articulate this mystery and its implications for his life. And since they are man's attempts to understand and articulate it, we can expect these articulations to be a mixture of truth and error. If this God chooses to reveal Himself, however, perhaps then we can expect that revelation to be free from error.
Date posted: 2009-10-26
Every one of us lives in circumstances that give us the opportunity to love others with supernatural charity, to smile at others and rejoice in them for God's sake, and in doing so channel that divine love to them. That's what it means to proclaim the good news.
Date posted: 2009-10-22
If you truly love someone who you see is suffering, you will want to share their suffering in some way. You will not allow them to suffer alone. To allow someone to suffer at a distance, without entering into his/her suffering in any way, is not love at all.
Date posted: 2009-10-11
Synopsis: Hell is one of the greatest signs of God's love for us. He loves us so much that He will allow us to reject Him for all eternity.
Date posted: 2009-09-29
Synopsis: Our obligation is to love our patients, not for our sake, but for theirs, to care for them even when they cannot thank us or when they are not apparently aware of us. Our duty is to make them as comfortable as possible.
Date posted: 2009-09-19
The basic error of the Pharisees is that they misunderstood the meaning of holiness. The word "sacred" means "to be set apart". One who is holy is set apart, not in terms of social status, or clerical status, but in terms of love, or charity. The one who is holy has extraordinary charity, an exceptional or extraordinary love of God and love of neighbour.
Date posted: 2009-08-27
The faith of the Church is expressed in Peter's words: "To whom shall we go?" If Christ is God, then there is no one to whom we can go who has anything but a human word and a passing life to impart. Outside of Christ, there is nothing, nowhere to go. Wherever you have the Church, you have that faith; for that is the faith of the Church.
Date posted: 2009-08-20
The priesthood involves a very profound sharing in the mystery of the cross. That is why vocations are best promoted by appealing to those who seek the Lord and his cross, that is, to those who have come to love the Lord not for his benefits, but on account of his goodness and the glory of his love. Vocations must appeal to those who see that the Lord is supremely deserving of love and perfect worship.
Date posted: 2009-08-02
As Russian Philosopher and former Marxist Nicholas Berdyaev pointed out, the social failures of Christianity were the result of being too much wrapped up in this world, not as a result of being too other-worldly. Rather, it is when people have secretly sought their kingdom of heaven here, on earth, that they began to compromise with justice, and little by little silence the voice of their own conscience, and gradually sell their soul for an earthly paradise.
Date posted: 2009-07-30
St. Therese of Lisieux, whom Pius the X called the greatest saint of modern times, actually taught that doing ordinary acts with extraordinary love of God has far reaching effects around the globe.
Date posted: 2009-07-24
The marvellous thing about Christ's Passion is that we now have power in persecution, namely his power, because he was persecuted, and whatever he touches, he makes holy and imparts to it his power to give life. That is why the cross is "all power". Jesus is "God entered into" the suffering of every human person, giving it His own life. We participate in Christ's saving work ultimately by sharing in that life, which is a way of the cross.
Date posted: 2009-07-19
Synopsis: Lying involves a kind of meditation, and although it is the mind that thinks, it is the spirit that meditates, and when the liar thinks of the best way to craft his lie, his spirit is open to the best suggestions. Spirit opens upon spirit, not flesh, and the spirit of the liar does not open upon God, who is Spirit and Truth, but upon the spirit whom Christ refers to as "the father of lies".
Date posted: 2009-07-03
What we do when we receive the sacrament of confession is we make ourselves a tabernacle capable to housing the Blessed Sacrament. Consider what happens to a place in which is contained a tabernacle that houses the Blessed Sacrament. It becomes a sacred space. When we make ourselves a fit tabernacle, through confession, in order to house the Eucharist, we are carrying a tabernacle with us wherever we go.
Date posted: 2009-05-08
Synopsis: Being a liberal or a conservative in the political realm is perfectly legitimate, because politics is a branch of ethics, and ethics is principally about prudence. In order to legitimize their own dissent, those unfaithful to the teachings of the Church adopted the labels "liberal" and "conservative", "left" and "right", thus appearing less unorthodox - not to mention heretical - than they were justifiably "left", like their political counterparts.
Date posted: 2009-05-05