William C. Michael

Unless you’re independently wealthy and have no need of money, you’re going to need to work. When we look around at the work Catholics are doing, we often find them doing things that aren’t worthy of Catholic workers. How many Catholic women are going to try to sell essential oils or kitchen gadgets? How many Catholic men are going to work for secular companies? Why not work for an end that both provides income and serves a virtuous cause? The Catholic Church teaches that the role of the laity is to direct temporal affairs according to the will of God. … Continue

It is common today to hear young adults talking about their lives and claiming that their body is their own and they have the right to do with it whatever they please. This may be true legally in many ways, but it is not true morally. You have received your body freely from others. It was conceived by you mother, nurtured through pregnancy, delivered safely with the help of doctors, nurses and midwives, fed during infancy, protected from many dangers, provided for throughout childhood and led into adulthood. While you may make choices that avoid some troubles, you can in … Continue

As Catholic parents, we have a duty to evangelize our children, to raise them to know, love and serve God in this life. Outside of our relationship, there are billions of influences in the world that will seek to draw our children away from God, to their own service. There are a few influences in the world that will help us, but we will have the greatest influence on our children. The world seeks to separate our children from us, but how can they succeed? How can strangers possibly draw children away from Catholic parents who love them sincerely and … Continue

The pupils in Catholic Schools are trained to a two-fold service: the service of God and the service of country. Through the lesson in religion, the truths of God are inculcated, this standard of conduct explained and the true motives for perfect living introduced into young lives. Thus does the lesson in religion make for a higher service of country. For the child knows the significance of the words of our Lord, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Here is found the basic principle upon which Catholic education prepares pupils … Continue

I found this painting of Joan of Arc beautiful, before noticing her spiritual guests. See the description by Muther below. “The scene of the picture is a garden of Damvillers, painted exactly from nature, with its gray soil, its apple and pear trees clothed with small leaves, its vegetable beds, and its flowers growing wild. Joan herself is a pious, careworn, dreamy country girl. Every Sunday she has been to church, lost herself in long, mystic reveries before the old sacred pictures, heard the misery of Erance spoken of; and the painted statues of the parish church and its tutelary … Continue