Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
One trait that's deeply cultivated in this country--to a fault, really--is perseverance. How many times have we heard that "winners never quit and quitters never win"? How many times have we heard stories about people who have "pursued their dream" often a great cost (to someone) and accomplished what they set out to do. Isn't …
Continue reading "The Real Enemies of Perseverance–and Success"
Oblate OBLP 1001 (1981) Followers of this blog know that, if an album combines "Texas" and "Catholic," I'm generally interested. This album, which is a little later than most of the albums on this site, goes against the grain of where Christian music was going in the early 1980's (and that's also somewhat true of …
Century 30441 1968 One of those early, pre-NOM works, it was led by Rev. Nicholas Freund. The best way to describe this album is "eclectic." It has some of the "space age" effects of Leo Nestor's Sons of the Morning, but doesn't venture into the refined realms of that work. It explores the combination of …
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"
Positive Infinity 