January 2008
74 posts
“Some years ago I was in Jerusalem, and was attending an early morning Divine...”
– Fr Gregory (Valentine), Holy Ghost Orthodox Church (Bulgarian Patriarchate), Sterling Heights, MI. (via the Young Fogey)
Ecclesiastical Latin Resources →
Κυριε Ελεησον
These words ‘have mercy’ are used in all the Christian Churches and, in Orthodoxy, they are the response of the people to all the petitions suggested by the priest. Our modern translation ‘have mercy’ is a limited and insufficient one. The Greek word which we find in the gospel and in the early liturgies is eleison. Eleison is of the same root as elaion, which means olive...
Eric Mascall (1905-1993) on the Eucharist →
“Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything...”
– Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a.k.a. Edith Stein (via Thulcandra)
Clarifying Purgatory
The language of punishment, debt, and satisfaction awkwardly and imperfectly expresses the penitential life consummated in Purgatory. Within Western culture this language no doubt assisted the faithful in accessing these realities; but it also misrepresented these realities and distorted the Church’s apprehension of the love and mercy of God—-hence the necessity today to clarify the...
Purifying Purgatory
God wills only the good of his creatures, and Purgatory must be seen as an expression of his goodness. In his infinite love, he purifies, sanctifies, and liberates sinners that we might perfectly enjoy eternal life in the beatific vision; in his infinite justice he refuses to allow evil to retain even the tiniest foothold within the souls destined for glory. As George MacDonald astutely observes,...
Red Hot Library Smut →
On Schism
Others, mutually divided, drive East and West into confusion, and God has abandoned them to their flesh, for which they make war, giving their name and their allegiance to others: my god’s Paul, yours is Peter, his is Apollos. But Christ is pierced with nails to no purpose. For it’s not from Christ that we’re called, but from men, we who possess his honor by hands and by blood. So much have...
Fr Reardon on contemporary Orthodox theology
What almost always passes for Orthodox theology among English-speaking Orthodox these days is actually just a branch of the larger Orthodox picture. Indeed, it tends sometimes to be rather sectarian. The Orthodox Church is an ancient castle, as it were, of which only two or three rooms have been much in use since about 1920. These two or three rooms were furnished by the Russian émigrés in...
Agnes beatæ virginis
FAMA REFERT SANCTOS DUDUM RETULISSE PARENTES AGNEN CUM LUGUBRES CANTUS TUBA CONCREPUISSET NUTRICIS GREMIUM SUBITO LIQUISSE PUELLAM SPONTE TRUCIS CALCASSE MINAS RABIEMQUE TYRANNI URERE CUM FLAMMIS VOLUISSET NOBILE CORPUS VIRIBUS INMENSUM PARVIS SUPERASSE TIMOREM NUDAQUE PROFUSUM CRINEM PER MEMBRA DEDISSE NE DOMINI TEMPLUM FACIES PERITURA VIDERET O VENERANDA MIHI SANCTUM DECUS ALMA...
"Women Priests?" by E. L. Mascall (1972) →
"Priestesses in the Church" by C. S. Lewis (1948) →
“When my mother reached Milan, she found the church there not fasting on...”
– Saint Augustine of Hippo, Letter 54, 2.
Grace
“… [T]he distinction between uncreated and created energies can be expressed in Western terminology by the distinction between the natural and the supernatural … The East is concerned … with what it is in God that makes it possible for Him to give Himself; while the West is also concerned–though not to the exclusion of all else–with what it is in man that makes it possible for him to receive and...
A vision appearing
Monks in Oklahoma are creating a cloistered compound built to last 1,000 years. HULBERT — A vision born 35 years ago on the campus of the University of Kansas and nurtured in a monastery in France moved closer to reality this week, as monks at Our Lady of Clear Creek Monastery moved into their new residence building. The building is the first part of a monastic complex...
Anglican Eucharistic Theology: Case Studies (by... →
“I can unite in myself, in my own spiritual life, the thought of the East and the...”
– Thomas Merton (from his journal, April 28, 1957)
Prayer, Fasting, Alms
The Gospel of St. Matthew, after listing the differences between Gospel righteousness and the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (5:17-48), extends that series of contrasts in a discussion of practical piety (6:1-18). The chief practical deeds of traditional piety were almsgiving, prayer, and fasting - a triad first codified in the Book of Tobit: “Prayer is good with fasting and alms...
“… pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not...”
– Evelyn Waugh, Helena
Multiformis nominem Christi dispensatio
The dispensation of Christ has a name of many forms: God, who is spirit; the word, who is God; the Son, who is only-begotten of the Father; the man, who was born of the virgin; the priest, who offered himself as a sacrifice; the shepherd, who is the guard; the worm, who rose from the dead; the mountain, which is strong; the way, which is straight; the harbour, which one may pass through...
The Pope on Augustine (1) →
A favorite whipping boy
One of the areas of favorite themes of Orthodox anti-Catholics polemics is Western Christianity’s dependence upon the thought of St Augustine and West’s subsequent deviation from sound theological anthropology. Having first read Augustine in college some 30 years ago (where has the time gone?), I have always had trouble recognizing the Augustine I encountered in his Confessions, On...
“Men and women of every generation, in this their pilgrimage, have need of...”
– Pope Benedict XVI (Angelus, Jan. 6, 2008)
In praesepi iumentorum Panem angelorum
Of the Sacrament we may well say, Hoc erit signum. For a sign it is, and by it invenietis Puerum, ‘ye shall find this Child’ (Luke 2: 12). For finding His flesh and blood, ye cannot miss but find Him too. And a sign, not much from this here. For Christ in the Sacrament is not altogether unlike Christ in the cratch. To the cratch we may well liken the husk or outward symbols of it. Outwardly it...