Ecce Verbum

Even for for Blessed in heaven God remains in a certain sense incomprehensible Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Providence Part II The Perfections of God, section 11. The Divine Incomprehensibility The light and shade in the mysteries of God’s life

Fr. Faber on the signs of spiritual progress "Growth in Holiness, or the progress of the spiritual life" pages 25-28

The value of solitude Sounding Solitude by Sr Mary Paul Cutri, ocd pages 39-42 If persons enter into solitude and taste its fruits, one certain effect is that they will no longer see as they saw before, no longer behold themselves, others, or God as they did formerly. Solitude provides another way of seeing. We will be given new lenses to in-sight. Our eyes will have been purified by the mystery of solitude changing the heart and therefore changing the vision. The obvious is always to be discovered anew! The mystery of solitude purifies the sight, the seeing, the beholding of each person, when we are open to discovering and to receiving. When solitude brings us to God, God brings us into new vision. 'Open my eyes, so that I may behold wondrous things..." (Ps 119:18)"

The beauty of humility St. Gregory I, Moralia in Iob, Part VI, Book XXXV "All human wisdom, however powerful in acuteness, is foolishness, when compared with Divine wisdom. For all human deeds which are just and beautiful are, when compared with the justice and beauty of God, neither just nor beautiful, nor have any existence at all. Blessed Job therefore would believe that he had said wisely what he had said, if he did not hear the words of superior wisdom. In comparison with which all our wisdom is folly. And he who had spoken wisely to men, on hearing the Divine sayings, discourses more wisely that he is not wise. Hence it is that Abraham saw, when God was addressing him, that he was nothing but dust, saying; I speak unto my Lord, though I am dust and ashes. [Gen. 18, 27] Hence it is that Moses, though instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, as soon as he heard the Lord speaking, discovered that he was a person of more hesitating and slower speech, saying; I beseech Thee, O Lord, I am not eloquent; for from yesterday, and the day before, since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant, I am of a more hesitating and slower tongue. [Ex. 4, 10] Hence Ezekiel speaking concerning the four animals, says; When there was a voice above the firmament, which was over their heads, they stood, and let down their wings. [Ez. 1, 25] For what is designated by the flying of the animals but the sublimity of evangelists and doctors? Or what are the wings of the animals, but the contemplations of saints raising them up to heavenly things? But when a voice is uttered above the firmament which is over their heads, they stand, and let down their wings, because when they hear within the voice of heavenly wisdom, they drop down, as it were, the wings of their flight. For they discern, in truth, that they are not able to contemplate the loftiness itself of truth. To drop down their wings then at the voice which comes from above, is, on learning the power of God, to bring down our own virtues, and from contemplating the Creator, to think but humbly of ourselves. When holy men, therefore, hear the words of God, the more they advance in contemplation, the more they despise what they are, and know themselves to be either nothing, or next to nothing." #humility

Augustine on Beauty From his Confessions "Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all. You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you. I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace." •Augustine ponders this perennial question of “what is beauty” and comes to conclude that that which is beautiful is something that cannot be seen with our eyes at all, but we can know more clearly than sight: it is the knowledge of the very source and Creator of all beauty, God Himself through light of faith and virtue. “How can we love anything but the beautiful?  What, then, is a beautiful thing, or beauty itself? Can anything compel us that is not beautiful and fitting?”(p.75)   •As such, beauty has its place, beauty temporarily exists to attract and raise its perceiver to a higher order of being, to reflect the beauty of its originator, the Creator of all beauty, God Himself. •Augustine reflects on his discovery of true beauty in persons who are virtuous.  He says, “I was drawn to the peace I found in virtue, and repelled by the rancor I found in vice, attributing the former to unity, the latter to division.” •Virtuous people just seem easier to be friends with; they tend to put others first and themselves last.  Whereas, the person who lacks virtue is often difficult to be friends with, hard to be around, critical and a source of division.  He continues, “Unity was the sphere of the ordered mind, of real truth and the highest good, while in division I thought I saw some status of the disordered mind, of the highest evil as a reality, having not only a state of its own but a life as well…I called unity the Monad, pure mind without gender, and division I called the Dyad, pure anger to hurt and lust to despoil.  It was my ignorance speaking, since I had not grasped or been told that evil has no reality of its own and mind is not the highest and changeless good.”  •It is much easier to destroy than to create, to divide than to unite, to criticise than to praise, to create chaos than to maintain order, so too in our own lives.  Our minds can change!  This is a great thing, but the fact that our mind can change itself is also a sign of our inherent lack of unity of the mind, with our body and soul, all of which yearn for balance, order, the ideal, and the truth in order to achieve interior peace of person, overall. We need to start with peace in our soul in order to have order in our mind and body.  Augustine says, “You, Lord my God, ‘light a lamp for me to bring light into my darkness.’ For ‘we all partake of your fullness,’ since you are ‘the true light, giving light to every man who comes into this world.  In you ‘there is no alteration or dimming by time.’ (p.78) •Physical beauty is subject to time, experiencing deterioration. That which is not altered by time is holiness. Holy people reflect etarnal beauty by virtue.

St. Thomas Aquinas on faith vs. individualism "Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith." "The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal aspect of the object, without which the species of the habit cannot remain. Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will." (Summa Theologica IIa-IIae, q. v, art. 3)

On kindness 1.The Necessity of Kind Listening Father Faber observes: “Many persons whose manners will stand the test of speaking, break down under the trial of listening. But all these things ought to be brought under the sweet influences of religion. Kind listening is often an act of the most delicate interior mortification, and is a great assistance towards kind speaking.” Moreover, “those who govern others must take care to be kind listeners, or else they will soon offend God and fall into secret sins.” “Weak and full of wants as we are ourselves, we must make up our minds, or rather take heart, to do some little good to this poor world while we are in it. Kind words are our chief implements for this work. A kind-worded man is a genial man; and geniality is power. Nothing sets wrong right so soon as geniality. There are a thousand things to be reformed, and no reform succeeds unless it be genial. No one was ever corrected by a sarcasm, crushed, perhaps, if the sarcasm was clever enough, but drawn nearer to God, never.” “Men want to advocate changes, it may be in politics, or in science, or in philosophy, or in literature, or perhaps in the working of the Church. They give lectures, they write books, they start reviews, they found schools to propagate their views, they coalesce in associations, they collect money, they move reforms in public meetings, and all to further their peculiar ideas. They are unsuccessful. From being unsuccessful themselves, they become unsympathetic with others. From this comes narrowness of mind; their very talents are deteriorated. The next step is to be snappish, then bitter, then eccentric, then rude, after that they abuse people for not taking their advice; and, last of all, their impotence, like that of all angry prophets, ends in the shrillness of a scream..Without geniality no solid reform was ever made yet.. Nothing can be done for God without geniality. More plans fail for want of that than for the want of anything else. A genial man is both an apostle and an evangelist—an apostle because he brings men to Christ; an evangelist because he portrays Christ to men.” Frederick William Faber, Kindness (London: R. & T. Washbourne, 1901).

The Light of Faith Fr. Józef Pelczar I am the light of the world (Jn 8:12), I am the truth (Jn 14:6), so says Christ the Lord to all mankind. Before his coming, darkness reigned on earth because man, in the feeble light of reason, could know neither God nor himself well, and the remaining rays of the original revelation were almost lost in the darkness of error. But now, "in the fullness of the ages", the Light comes to earth. It is the Word who from all eternity has been with God as the only-begotten Son of God, who in time became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth (Jn 1:14). This Word Incarnate, that is, Jesus Christ, is - in the words of St Bonaventure - like a lamp suspended over the world and constantly burning, whose oil is his divinity and whose vessel is his humanity; for he has brought to men the light of revelation, that is, supernatural truth which he has placed under the guardianship of the teaching Church. This truth is truly divine and infallible, because it came from the mouth of the Supreme Wisdom, because it is proclaimed by the Church, which is "the pillar and confirmation of the truth". This truth is perfect and immutable, so that nothing can be taken from it, nothing can be added to it. It is a universal and all-embracing truth that, like the sun, enlightens valleys and peaks, the simple and the wise. This truth, as far as its content is concerned, is half light and half dark, like that cloud which led Israel through the wilderness; it gives as much light as the human spirit cannot even grasp, but it also has mysteries inaccessible to geniuses, because it is impossible for a small stream to contain an infinite ocean. This truth, accepted by faith, widens the scope of reason in a strange way; and just as an astronomer, standing on a high mountain, sees stars through a telescope, which the naked eye cannot see, so the believing Christian, in the light of faith, learns what the wisdom of all philosophers has not been able to discover. No wonder, then, that for this light the great prince of philosophy himself, Plato, sighed, and looked forward to Revelation as if it were a safe ship that would carry us across the sea of error. O, if he were now to rise from the grave and read our catechism, how deeply he would honour Him who alone could say, I am the light of the world. The doctrine of this Light, proclaimed by the Church, has enlightened all the minds that have accepted it, has brought to earth a new body of truths, has civilised dark and savage peoples, has given a mighty increase to the sciences, has opened up rich sources of Christian education from which mankind still draws. It is only in the last hundred years that false sages, with greater audacity than before, have attempted to extinguish the light of Revelation, replacing it with the light of reason and science. Worse still, secret or overt associations have sprung up with the sole aim of fighting the Catholic religion, which they call darkness and superstition. Unfortunately, their work is not fruitless. With the help of bad laws, bad schools, bad books and journals, they have succeeded in extinguishing or dimming the light of the faith in many minds, with which they have been delighted to advise the eradication of God's truth from legislation, from politics, from public upbringing and from family life, in order thus to de-Christianise, as they say, society and to set it backwards into paganism. But also for this, the world is growing darker and darker, because not only is there less faith, but also less common sense, and instead there is more and more monstrous error or gloomy doubt. [...] My dearest friends. There is still, thank God, a rich store of faith in Polish society [...]. However, since the evil currents of the age are pressing in everywhere, one can also find people among us who disregard the light of Revelation, thinking that for them the light of reason and science is enough. [...] Józef Sebastian Pelczar, Speeches and Sermons, 1877-1899, Krakow 1998, pp. 352-354.

On the meaning of Eser kenegdo (a helper) in the book of Genesis St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross source: Essays on Woman

God's Justice and Mercy are inseparable St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 6 on the Song of Songs "Happy is the man then in whose soul the Lord Jesus once sets these feet of his. There are two signs by which you may recognize such a one, for he cannot but bear upon him the imprint of these divine footsteps. These signs are fear and hope, the former presenting the imprint of judgment, the latter that of mercy. Truly, the Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him, and in them that hope in his mercy, for the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, hope the growth of wisdom. Its perfection charity reserves to itself. If all this be true, then obviously this first kiss, given to the feet, brings forth no small fruit. But of one thing you must beware, that you do not neglect either of these feet. If, for instance, you feel deep sorrow for your sins along with the fear of the judgment, you have pressed your lips on the imprint of truth and of judgment. But if you temper that fear and sorrow with the thought of God's goodness and the hope of obtaining his pardon, you will realize that you have also embraced the foot of his mercy. It is clearly inexpedient to kiss one without the other; a man who thinks only of the judgment will fall into the pit of despair, another who deceitfully flatters God's mercy gives birth to a pernicious security."

Saint John Chrysostom speaking of women in Ministry [Saint] John Chrysostom writes: “Saint Paul does not forbid Priscilla to teach and instruct Apollos in the faith. (Acts 18:26) The women of those days were wise and were spirited ‘as lions’ sharing with the Apostles their labors for the Gospel’s sake.(Romans 16:1) In this way, they went traveling with the Apostles, and also performed all other ministries. And even in Christ’s day they followed the women, ‘who ministered unto Him of their substance [Lk. 8:3], and waited upon the Teacher’.” Saint John Chrysostom writes that Saint Paul, “points out the woman as receiving Apollo, and instructing him in the way of the Lord”. Saint John then asks, “In what sense does he (Saint Paul) say, ‘I suffer not a woman to teach’? [1 Tim. 2:12]” Saint John himself answers, “He (the Apostle) means to hinder her from publicly coming forward, and from the seat on the Altar, not from the world of teaching, and if she had an unbelieving husband, she had to try to teach him the Christian faith in order to be saved [1 Cor. 7:16].” The holy couple was still in Ephesus when the Apostle, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, closes the Epistle with addressing salutations. We learn from this source that Aquila and Priscilla, the loadstones of piety, had a church in their house [1 Cor. 16:19]. Their home became a regular place of assembly for Ephesian believers. They had established a well organized congregation in Ephesus, where they called the Apostle Paul and Timothy for the work of the Gospel. The holy couple greatly aided Paul in his missionary labors. A strong and loving bond in the Lord developed between them. In the Apostle’s Second Epistle to Timothy he closes sending salutations to “Priscilla and Aquila” [4:19]. The fact that Paul first greets them also indicates their close relationship with the Apostle. Saint John Chrysostom writes: “He names the woman first, as being I suppose, more zealous, and more faithful, for she had then received and taught Apollo”.     It is clear from St. John Chrysostom (the mouthpiece of St. Paul), then, that women are permitted to teach, but not in a liturgical setting. The woman’s place as a teacher is, however, testified to both in the Scriptures, “And after Aquila and Priscilla heard him [Apollos], they took him to themselves, and set forth the way of God to Him more accurately” (Acts 18:26), and in Tradition. There are countless examples of Christian women who exemplified the virtue of teaching. Did St. Photini not spend three years in the Roman prisons teaching and converting local Romans? Did St. Catherine the Great-martyr not teach the 50 philosophers whom she converted, the 200 soldiers? Did St. Synclektiki not teach the nuns, and many others, who came seeking her counsel? Did St. Mary Magdalene not travel around teaching Christ crucified, Christ resurrected? Did St. Tabitha the Deaconess of Rome not teach the Christians in the catacombs? Of course they did. But did they do so in a liturgical capacity? No. Therefore, a woman will teach but she will not serve at the altar nor usurp the position of a deacon. Paul consistently specifies men as having the leadership role in a church, as deacons. (1Timothy 3: 8-13). For “the Body is not made up of one part, but many” (1 Cor. 12:14). Therefore, a woman will teach but she will not serve at the altar. And she will be sanctified in fulfilling her role as a woman as best she can, just as a man will be. *(authentein, gr.- to assume a stance of independent authority, give orders to or dictate to, lead in specific ways in which deacons are expected to lead). Citations taken from "Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles" and "Homilies on First Timothy" by St. John Chrysostom Sources: Acts of the Apostles: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2101.htm First Timothy, sermon 9: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230609.htm First Timothy, sermon 8: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230608.htm