Peter Kreeft, author of Jesus Shock:

"[T]eachers are terrified of the thought that they might really have something divine to teach."

They are terrified ... of Thus says the Lord...

"Nietzsche was also contemptuous of professed Christians who did not really believe what the Church taught..."



This random snippet is loosely adapted from the Rev. Father James V. Schall's article "Heaven is not an abstraction," in the June 2009 issue of Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

"In the beginning of this essay, I cited a comment of Peter Kreeft about weak or effectively unbelieving bishops, pastors and teachers.

"In a graphic phrase, Kreeft said that many are terrified by what the Church teaches abut who Christ is, who Mary is.

"In Kreeft's phrase, these are shocking teachings if true.

"Nietzsche, in fact, said much the same thing, namely, that few Christians really believe and practice what they are to believe if one knows their own teachings.

"Nietzsche, the great analyzer of modern thought and its implicit contradictions, was also contemptuous of professed Christians who did not believe what the Church taught about Christ.

"They did not act on what they said they believed.

"This scandalized Nietsche and sent him off in other directions.."


Peter Kreeft's cited comment!


"The teachers are terrified of the thought that they might really have something divine to teach.

"They are terrified of dogma, or Tradition, or of Divine Revelation, of Divine Law, of authority, of Thus says the Lord. "

From his book, Jesus Shock.


Pope Benedict XVI's cited comment!


"Today's feast (Assumption) impels us to lift our gaze to Heaven; not the heaven consisting of abstract ideas or even an imaginary heaven created by art, but the Heaven of true reality which is God himself."

From Benedict XVI, Homily, Feast of the Assumption, 2008.


Saint Andrew of Crete's cited comment!


"Let there be one common festival for saints in heaven and for men on earth.

"Let everything, mundane things and those above, join in festive celebration.

"Today this created world is raised to the dignity of a holy place for him who made all things.

"The creature is newly prepared to be a divine dwelling place for the Creator."

From St. Andrew of Crete's Discourse on the Feast of the Nativity of Mary.