Blog

The identification of four temperaments—choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic—goes back to ancient sources such as Hippocrates and Galen and was taken up again and developed in the Middle Ages. The enduring character of this doctrine reveals that it has struck on something perennially rooted in human nature. Most people have a predominant temperament (even if they have a secondary temperament and indeed some elements of all four) that has a predominant emotion associated with it as wel …

Raising children to be strong and lasting in the Faith requires teaching, affirming, and disciplining them in ways that suit them best according to their individual characteristics.As we noted earlier, for instance, the conviction that the Catholic faith will bring happiness must be instilled in children gradually and in an age-appropriate manner. For little children, who are not capable of understanding the kinds of goods that make for true and lasting happiness, we must use language they can u …

The final book of the Bible, Revelation, was written by St. John while he was in exile on the island of Patmos (Rev. 1:9). It contains information about our future, but perhaps not as much as many people suppose. The book was addressed to a group of seven churches in the province of Asia Minor (in modern Turkey) for a specific purpose: “to show to [Christ’s] servants what must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1). It thus encourages Christians to hold fast to their faith in the face of persecution and th …

When my father was a Chemistry major at Notre Dame in the mid-1950s, he was required (as were all Notre Dame students) to take the core religion courses. Catholic priests with advanced degrees taught him that the main thing someone had to do to be a faithful Catholic was to take care of the poor (a teaching he took completely to heart, much to his credit). They also taught him that there was no devil and no hell. (God loves everyone too much for that kind of thing.) According to those priests, f …

One of the signs of a mature spiritual life is a stable view of happiness: an understanding of happiness that both corresponds to our experience and remains unmoved in the midst of the vicissitudes of life. Until someone reaches this understanding of happiness, he will be like “a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed about by the wind” (James 1:6). True happiness is what really satisfies the human heart in every circumstance, not just for a time or in this or that circumstance. The greatest …