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886
All grains of truth found in various philosophies come from one source which is God
"Since, therefore, truth is one (for falsehood has ten thousand by-paths); just as the Bacchantes tore asunder the limbs of Pentheus, so the sects both of barbarian and Hellenic philosophy have done with truth, and each vaunts as the whole truth the portion which has fallen to its lot. But all, in my opinion, are illuminated by the dawn of Light. Let all, therefore, both Greeks and barbarians, who have aspired after the truth â both those who possess not a little, and those who have any portion â produce whatever they have of the word of truth.
Eternity, for instance, presents in an instant the future and the present, also the past of time. But truth, much more powerful than limitless duration, can collect its proper germs, though they have fallen on foreign soil. For we shall find that very many of the dogmas that are held by such sects as have not become utterly senseless, and are not cut out from the order of nature (by cutting off Christ, as the women of the fable dismembered the man), though appearing unlike one another, correspond in their origin and with the truth as a whole. For they coincide in one, either as a part, or a species, or a genus. For instance, though the highest note is different from the lowest note, yet both compose one harmony. And in numbers an even number differs from an odd number; but both suit in arithmetic; as also is the case with figure, the circle, and the triangle, and the square, and whatever figures differ from one another. Also, in the whole universe, all the parts, though differing one from another, preserve their relation to the whole. So, then, the barbarian and Hellenic philosophy has torn off a fragment of eternal truth not from the mythology of Dionysus, but from the theology of the ever-living Word. And he who brings again together the separate fragments, and makes them one, will without peril, be assured, contemplate the perfect Word, the truth."
St. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.13.
"Any statements by those who are called philosophers, especially the Platonists, which happen to be true and consistent with our faith should not cause alarm, but be claimed for our own use, as it were from owners who have no right to them. [...]
These treasuresâ like the silver and gold, which they did not create but dug, as it were, from the mines of providence, which is everywhereâ which were used wickedly and harmfully in service of demons must be removed by Christians, as they seperate themselves in spirit from the wretched company of pagans, and applied to their true function, that of preaching the Gospel."
St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book II
*Since the writings of pagans and non-Christian philosophers contain also significant errors in them, St. Bonaventure recommended to prioritise our reading in the following order: Sacred Scripture, Church Fathers and Saints, Catholic authors 4.other secular philosophers
886
By loving our neighbour, we love God Himself
"One may, indeed, hope for pardon who does not love, but he hopes in vain; but no one can despair who loves. Therefore, where there is love, there of necessity will there be faith and hope; and where there is the love of our neighbor, there also of necessity will be the love of God. For he that loves not God, how loves he his neighbour as himself, seeing that he loves not even himself? Such an one is both impious and iniquitous; and he that loves iniquity, manifestly loves not, but hates his own soul. Let us, therefore, be holding fast to this precept of the Lord, to love one another; and then all else that is commanded we shall do, for all else we have contained in this. But this love is distinguished from that which men bear to one another as such; for in order to mark the distinction, it is added, as I have loved you. And wherefore is it that Christ loves us, but that we may be fitted to reign with Christ? With this aim, therefore, let us also be loving one another, that we may manifest the difference of our love from that of others, who have no such motive in loving one another, because the love itself is wanting. But those whose mutual love has the possession of God Himself for its object, will truly love one another; and, therefore, even for the very purpose of loving one another, they love God. There is no such love as this in all men; for few have this motive for their love one to another, that God may be all in all."
From Tractate 83 of his Tractates on John
886
Commentary on Book of Genesis and Manichaeism
St. Lawrence of Brindisi
"The Septuagint, Symmachus, and Theodotion translated bereshith as 'In the beginning'. Aquila rendered it 'In the little head'. The Aramaic version has beqadmin instead of bereshith; however, in Aramaic qdmin means the beginning of time. The second Aramaic translation of the Old Testament, called the Jerusalem Targum, rendered the Hebrew as bechokma, 'In wisdom'. This rendering rebuts the error of the impious founder of Manichaeism (who supposed two beginnings of things: one of good things, a second of bad; one of spiritual things, the other of bodily things) since in Genesis God is said to have created in the beginning, i.e. in the Son, the heavens and the earth.
However, this last rendering is more in accordance with the sense than the letter. Moreover, it wonderfully supports Tertullian (in his treatise Against Praxeas), Origen, Hilary, and Augustine, who think that the phrase 'In the beginning' must be explained as meaning 'in wisdom', i.e., in the Son, Who is the Word and Wisdom of the Father and the beginning of all things, by whom all things were made (as is clear in the first chapter of John), Who also says of Himself in John 'I am the beginning who also speak unto you'. Also in support of this rendering is what God says of Himself in the Psalms: 'In the head of the book it is written of me', i.e. in the beginning of Genesis. In accordance with this reading, the word bereshith can be translated (1) 'in the beginning' or (2) 'with the beginning' and (3) 'by the beginning', because the Hebrew preposition for 'in' has three accepted usages. The first is the pre-eminent and most frequent; the second we find in Isaiah 7, 'they shall go there with bow and arrows.' The third usage we see in Genesis: 'I swear by myself.' However, the sacred theologians assert that God created the world in His Son and with His Son and by His Son...."
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, St. Lawrence of Brindisi on Creation and the Fall, Toth, tr., Warkulwiz, ed., The Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation (Mount Jackson, VA: 2018), p. 4.
886
St. Lawrence of Brindisi on the Sacraments
"The excellence of Baptism is that it turns the darkness into light, the curse of eternal death into the glory of heaven, the status of slaves of the devil into that of being children of God! The excellence of Confirmation is that it makes us soldiers of Christ, champions and like God in invincible courage and unconquerable strength in combating all the enemies of the living spirit of Christ! The excellence of Penance is that it makes sinners just, and changes them from being vessels of wrath into vessels of grace who are worthy of glory, from being Godâs enemies into Godâs friends! The excellence of Matrimony is that it weds our souls to God! The essence of Extreme Unction is that it that it enables us to enter the tabernacles of paradise! The excellence of Holy Orders is that it gives us the dignity, the honour and the power to almost be kings on earth! However, this most divine sacrament of the most holy Eucharist deifies us and unites us with God, transforms us into God and makes us many gods.
The other sacraments are so many vessels of Christâs grace, this sacrament contains Christ himself who is the plentiful source of grace, merit, glory and divinity."
From Concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar (Patrick Colbourne, OFMCap, tr.)
886
Memory of a nation
Feliks Koneczny
"Culture is born and nourished by tradition; tradition is the backbone of all culture. The only thing that belongs to tradition from the past is what has entered the consciousness of subsequent generations and continues to have influence on their minds.
To the national tradition belong the deeds of ancestors who are "non omnes mortui", who co-operate with the living from beyond the grave, and even sometimes lead them, using a later generation as the executor of their ideas. The communion of generations is the essential certainty of historical experience, historical continuity..."
The excerpt comes from "Polish Logos and Ethos"
*A human being imprints himself permanently (with his life and his deeds) in the book of history. This trace is a sign of what is spiritual in us, and which we can read through the centuries. There are smaller and larger traces. A great man imprints a great mark. It may be a piece of music like Chopin's polonaises, it may be a sculpture like Michelangelo's 'Pieta', or it may be a great sacrifice like the death of St Maximilian Kolbe. Each of these traces, regardless of the passage of the years, can speak to us, building us up from within, helping us to grow. For a nation, the priceless treasure is its history, its tradition, its memory. Whoever wishes to destroy a nation, he erases it's memory.
886
How Is My iPhone Changing Me? Neuroscience and Thomistic Psychology | Prof. Joshua Hochschild
886
Popes and sinlessness
St. Maximilian Kolbe
(...)
- The infallibility of the pope was declared a dogma not long ago, and yet it cannot be said that all popes have never in history strayed from the right path.
- So you mean to say that the Pope can sin?
- No one denies him that either. Yes, I can assure you that the Pope also confesses, and as often as any other member of the clergy, that is, every week. I even personally knew a priest who was the confessor of the late Pope Benedict XV. He was Fr Alexander Basile, a Jesuit. It is therefore necessary to distinguish well between infallibility and sinlessness.
- Even in this sense, however, I would not call the Pope infallible; for can one suppose that a Pope, because he is Pope, already possesses all knowledge and can correctly answer every question?
- Sir, you must not have read about the dogma of papal infallibility. After all, no one demands it of the Pope. The pope is infallible only in matters of faith and morals, and not whenever he speaks or writes about these matters, but only when, as shepherd of the whole Church, he confirms with his greatest apostolic solemnity that a given statement concerning faith and morals is a revealed truth or is closely connected with revealed truths and therefore must be accepted by everyone.Thus the Pope is by no means infallible in matters pertaining only to natural sciences, politics etc., or even in matters pertaining to faith and morals, when he speaks as an ordinary priest or scholar.
Thus, for example, the numerous works of Pope Benedict XIV, although they have great solemnity as great works of a scholar, do not at all belong to dogma.
And in matters of faith and morals, indeed, it could not be otherwise, for what kind of church would it be in which nothing was certain, where it was impossible to know what to believe and how to act? What would then be the use of the teaching of Jesus Christ? How could the Lord Jesus then threaten with condemnation those who would not believe the Apostles, if they could all preach falsehood together?
What would be the meaning of the Saviour's words, spoken to Peter: "I beseech for thee, that thy faith fail not: and thou, in the future, having been converted, confirm thy brethren", if he were fallible ? How could he then confirm others? And finally, how would Christ's words to Peter be fulfilled: "You are the rock, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of hell will not prevail against it ?". After all, if the Pope were teaching falsehood or moral evil, falsehood and evil would already be triumphant.
- So I guess it is up to the Lord God to reveal to the Pope in such cases what is true?
- This is not needed at all; it is enough for the Lord God not to allow the Pope to go astray, after all, the dogmatic definition is preceded by a thorough study by scholars of Scripture and Church Tradition from the first centuries and the Pope speaks only the final word on the matter.
- In any case, there is something extraordinary about it.
- Of course, but does the matter of the salvation of souls not deserve this ? It is, moreover, not more difficult for the Lord God to work extraordinary things than what we call ordinary. It only makes a difference to us, because things and phenomena that we experience with our senses have already become familiar to us, and what we have rarely or never seen before seems to be extraordinary.
*source: 'Why I Believe', Niepokalanow 1937, published by the Central Office of the Militia Immaculatae. (By permission of the Spiritual Authority), pp. 92-94.
886
Adultery commited in the heart
St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo
"...every act of sexual lust is a sin either because of the disorder of the act or even because of the disorder of teh desire alone, which disorder primarily and intrinsically belongs to sexual lust. For Augustine says in the City of God: "Sexual lust is not the sin of beautiful and pleasant bodies but of souls wickedly loving bodily pleasures to the neglect of moderation, which makes us fit for things that are spiritually more beautiful and pleasant."
(p. 422)
"Consent to what is a venial sin by reason of its kind is not a mortal sin. But pleasure in thinking about fornication is a mortal sin by reason of its kind just as much as fornication itself. And that pleasure in thinking about fornication happens to be a venial sin is accidental to it because of the incomplete nature of the act, the deliberation of reason being lacking. And at the advent of deliberation, deliberate consent restores the act to the nature of its kind so as to constitute a mortal sin.
(p. 449)
886
True brotherhood is precious
Brotherhood by Br Denis Read, ocd
How beautiful, how noble is a band of brothers, friends...
Friendship for a lifetime, for a life that never ends,
Dedicated to a much, much larger life than theirs,
To a world-Church that's open to everyone who shares
In the mystery of Communion, built on faith and always open
To the healing of whatever tears the fabric of our peace:
Peace transcendent! overcoming human failings and the hurts
That our kind cannot escape;
Brothers find a strategy to put things back in place,
In a band of honest brothers, a noble band of friends.
A brother you can go to when your heart is broken up
By the darkness of the conflicts that are mankind's sorry lot;
For counsel, and the quieting of passions surging up
Into jealousy or anger, which can only call us back
To the mercy of the Christ, and all that He has taught.
Brothers, friends to share your thoughts with, however late the day,
Mentors, soothers, insight-givers to guide you on the way.
How blest the man with brothers who can give you what you need!
A brotherhood of noble men and noble women too,
Grouped around a Virgin Mother, with sisters, fathers,
Sons and daughters, cousins, all who grew
Into the Vine of Jesus Christ, now risen from the dead,
Fathered in a Upper Room, all wrapped in silent prayer
For a "Paraclete" He promised--to watching, waiting trust
Until His living Spirit overcame them in a gust
Of wind and flame, and Gospel fervor, turning into faith and love,
Making that noble band into the Kingdom from above
Of light most blessed, love most simple,
Koinonia once and always for the ages that are coming...
That noble band of brothers bearing fruit of apostolic charity,
Springing from the root of Jesus, seed of Mary, shoot of Jesse;
Source of gifts that ever flow from the Pentecostal brotherhood,
That noble band of friends.
Ah brothers, how we miss you in our far-off mission land,
Your gifts of understanding, your hearty grasp of hand--
True brotherhood is precious, much more precious than it seems.
Thank you for your brotherhood, today and yesterday
And celebrate it always,
For the Son of God is Brother to us all along the way.
886
Ambiguity, a Tactic of Innovators
Pius VI
* taken from Auctorem Fidei, in which he exposes the errors of false council of Pistoia. In this passage he speaks of certain methods used by innovators and heretics; in particular, he is criticizing the persistent use of ambiguous language and formulas in theology. Formulas are adopted which open the way to opposing doctrines by introducing ambiguities into theology.
In order not to shock the ears of Catholics, the innovators sought to hide the subtleties of their tortuous maneuvers by the use of seemingly innocuous words such as would allow them to insinuate error into souls in the most gentle manner. Once the truth had been compromised, they could, by means of slight changes or additions in phraseology, distort the confession of the faith that is necessary for our salvation, and lead the faithful by subtle errors to their eternal damnation. This manner of dissimulating and lying is vicious, regardless of the circumstances under which it is used. For very good reasons it can never be tolerated in a synod of which the principal glory consists above all in teaching the truth with clarity and excluding all danger of error.
Moreover, if all this is sinful, it cannot be excused in the way that one sees it being done, under the erroneous pretext that the seemingly shocking affirmations in one place are further developed along orthodox lines in other places, and even in yet other places corrected; as if allowing for the possibility of either affirming or denying the statement, or of leaving it up the personal inclinations of the individual â such has always been the fraudulent and daring method used by innovators to establish error. It allows for both the possibility of promoting error and of excusing it.
It is as if the innovators pretended that they always intended to present the alternative passages, especially to those of simple faith who eventually come to know only some part of the conclusions of such discussions, which are published in the common language for everyone's use. Or again, as if the same faithful had the ability on examining such documents to judge such matters for themselves without getting confused and avoiding all risk of error. It is a most reprehensible technique for the insinuation of doctrinal errors and one condemned long ago by our predecessor St. Celestine who found it used in the writings of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, and which he exposed in order to condemn it with the greatest possible severity. Once these texts were examined carefully, the impostor was exposed and confounded, for he expressed himself in a plethora of words, mixing true things with others that were obscure; mixing at times one with the other in such a way that he was also able to confess those things which were denied while at the same time possessing a basis for denying those very sentences which he confessed.
In order to expose such snares, something which becomes necessary with a certain frequency in every century, no other method is required than the following: Whenever it becomes necessary to expose statements that disguise some suspected error or danger under the veil of ambiguity, one must denounce the perverse meaning under which the error opposed to Catholic truth is camouflaged."
886
The Inner Life and the visible Church
"The Wisdom of the Desert" by James Hannay
During the earlier stages of the monastic movement the hermits came very little into contact with Church authority. They lived, at first, outside the sphere of clerical activity. They were often far out of reach of village churches, and a priest in order to minister to them must have been himself prepared to become a hermit. They were, I believe, at first almost entirely uninterested in the controversies which rent the Church. Their devoted loyalty to St. Athanasius was less the result of their dogmatic orthodoxy than a tribute to the noble unworldliness of the great patriarch's character.
For them the entire interest of religion centred in the effort to keep the commandments of God and follow the example of Jesus Christ. Afterwards, of course, their spirit changed, and they became the earnest and sometimes even fanatical opponents of positions deemed heretical. Long before that time came, however, they had been obliged to adjust their relations to ecclesiastical authority.
It is not to be supposed that even the earliest hermits were in any way hostile to the clergy or opposed to the system of Church government, still less that they were contemptuous of the means of grace committed to the Church's guardianship. Rather, we must think of them as men so absorbed in fostering and perfecting the inner life of personal communion with God, that they did not feel the need of absolution or of Sacraments.
It was inevitable that as their numbers grew, and as they gathered into the communities of the lauras, this position must give way. The change was a very critical one. There was the possibility of a revolt against all the external machinery of religion. It is quite easy to understand that this was the most likely consequence of the earlier aloofness. Men who are genuinely on fire with a love for holiness are sure to resent the marks of corruption and insincerity which must ever be visible in the garments of the Church on earth.
Men of intense spirituality are likely to revolt against the claims of authority which sometimes must seem to break in upon their own communion with God. It is not the least wonderful thing in the history of Egyptian monasticism that it never produced even the beginnings of a schism..."
source
886
On the Significance of the Church Building
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
âTurning toward the eastâŚsignifies that cosmos and saving history belong together. The cosmos is praying with us. It, too, is waiting for redemption. It is precisely this cosmic dimension that is essential to Christian liturgy. It is never performed solely in the self-made world of man. It is always a cosmic liturgy. The theme of creation is embedded in Christian prayer. It loses its grandeur when it forgets this connection. That is why, wherever possible, we should definitely take up again the apostolic tradition of facing the east, both in the building of churches and in the celebration of the liturgy.
In the synagogue the worshippers looked beyond the âArk of the Covenant,â the shrine of the Word, toward Jerusalem. Now, with the Christian altar, comes a new focal point. Let us say it again: on the altar, what the Temple had in the past foreshadowed is now present in a new way. Yes, it enables us to become the contemporaries of the Sacrifice of the Logos. Thus it brings heaven into the community assembled on earth, or rather it takes that community beyond itself into the communion of saints of all times and places. We might put it this way: the altar is the place where heaven is opened up. It does not close off the church, but opens it upâand leads it into the eternal liturgyâŚ
The Liturgy of the Eucharist is celebrated as we look up to Jesus. It is our looking up to Jesus. Thus, in the early church buildings, the liturgy has two places. First the Liturgy of the Word takes place at the center of the building. The faithful are grouped around the bema, the elevated area where the throne of the Gospel, the seat of the bishop, and the lectern are located. The Eucharistic celebration proper takes place in the apse, at the altar, which the faithful âstand around.â Everyone joins with the celebrant in facing east, toward the Lord who is to come.â
Part Two, Chapter Two of Joseph Cardinal Ratzingerâs The Spirit of the Liturgy. San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2000. Geist der Liturgie: Eine EinfĂźhrung. Freiburg, Verlag Herder, 2000.
#architecture
