A new series on this blog. Each Monday I’ll be posting a gem from our Catechism of the Catholic Church that is interesting or remarkable. (I missed Monday this week, so here is the belated Monday post.)

This week’s Interesting Catechism talks about forsaking everything in the world that does not give true happiness, for we find happiness in God alone, "the source of every good and of all love". It includes a great quote from John Henry Cardinal Newman addressing the lures of the world that include even "newspaper fame". Challenging words for a blogger like me who can get caught up in chasing after page views.

1723 The beatitude we are promised confronts us with decisive moral choices. It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else. It teaches us that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in human fame or power, or in any human achievement - however beneficial it may be - such as science, technology, and art, or indeed in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love:

All bow down before wealth. Wealth is that to which the multitude of men pay an instinctive homage. They measure happiness by wealth; and by wealth they measure respectability. . . . It is a homage resulting from a profound faith . . . that with wealth he may do all things. Wealth is one idol of the day and notoriety is a second. . . . Notoriety, or the making of a noise in the world - it may be called "newspaper fame" - has come to be considered a great good in itself, and a ground of veneration.

(John Henry Cardinal Newman, "Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle," in Discourses to Mixed Congregations (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1906) V, 89-90.)