Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
We're starting yet again another Lenten season. The streets of New Orléans (and doubtless other cities which go out for Mardi Gras and Carnival in a big way) are full of trash but quiet. If you're not Roman Catholic and on fast and abstinence, it's a great time to eat in the French Quarter. But …
Continue reading "Broken Windows and Spiritual Warfare: An Ash Wednesday Reflection"
I spend a great deal of time on the Anglican/Episcopal world, to the extent that I'm listed in Anglican blogs such as StandFirm, Anglican Curmudgeon, and Locusts and Wild Honey (and for these listings I am grateful, their links are in the blogroll). Evidently the Roman Catholics are starting to find a kindred spirit, as …
Continue reading "Maybe I'm in the Catholic Blogosphere Too"
The greeting video that Pope Francis sent to Kenneth Copeland's conference has created a stir. There are the usual Protestant vs. Catholic kinds of issues being brought up, and of course the obvious one: why a Pope who has pushed Catholic social teaching back to the forefront--to the discomfort of American conservatives--would even give a …
Continue reading "The Big Differences Between Pope Francis and the Prosperity Charismatics"
Former Nashotah House Dean Robert Munday's "If I had to do it over again..." is an excellent response to a sorry episode. I know it's hard for someone who has put his life into a work which others delight in unravelling to watch that take place. Some comments on what he had to say: To …
Continue reading "Robert Munday's Doing It Over Again, and a Note on Systematic Theology"
Dale Coulter's moving piece on adoption, image and God's love (including extensive reference to St. Thomas Aquinas) brought back a more prosaic incident that happened to me while working in the family business. About thirty years ago, between trips to China, I had to make a trip to Holland for an offshore hammer repair. With …
Continue reading "Head and Heart Knowedge: Doing What They Said Couldn't Be Done"
From St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 3, q. 26 a. 1: Properly speaking, the office of a mediator is to join together and unite those between whom he mediates: for extremes are united in the mean [medio]. Now to unite men to God perfectively belongs to Christ, through Whom men are reconciled to God, according …
The confirmation (against a lot of pushback) that the Carthaginians really, truly did sacrifice their children bring to mind this memorable passage from G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man: There was established on the opposite coast of the inland sea a city that bore the name of the New Town. It was already much older, more …
Continue reading "Chesterton on the Carthaginian Sacrifice of Children"
He confidently states that "extremist religions" are at the bottom of conflict these days: Referring to wars and violent confrontations from Syria to Nigeria and the Philippines, Blair, writing in the Observer, argues that "there is one thing self-evidently in common: the acts of terrorism are perpetrated by people motivated by an abuse of religion. …
Two summers ago I posted a piece on my favourite pastor, my first parish priest. Protestants in general and Pentecostals in particular like their pastor to be a great pulpiteer to boot. With the advent of Christian (well, part of the time) television, people have an opportunity to follow preachers other than their own pastor …
Continue reading "My Favourite Preacher: Jaques-Benigne Bossuet"
From St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, 3 q. 2 a. 6: ...we must know that two heresies have arisen with regard to the mystery of the union of the two natures in Christ. The first confused the natures, as Eutyches and Dioscorus, who held that from the two natures one nature resulted, so that they …
Continue reading "Taking the Middle Ground on the Union of God and Man"
Positive Infinity 