let’s go

our “elder brothers in the faith”, everyone

Robert Grosseteste, following Dionysius, deduces a fundamental law concerning the nature of divinely instituted hierarchy and it’s pretty insightful:

“Whatever is done hierarchically and in salvific mystery is done in order to recall a lower creature to God by the mediation of a higher agent, who neither:

-usurps powers which his place does not accord him
-neglects to do what is required of him
-hands on what is above the other’s capacity to receive
-refuses what befits the lower creature’s receptivity”

according to Grosseteste, this law has universal applicability across celestial, ecclesiastical, and human hierarchies

Pray for the Holy Father! I’m by no means alone in suspecting we could have a new conclave within a year or two, so while you’re praying for the Holy Father’s health, make sure to also pray that God will restore new life in the Church. The world needs it now more than ever, and very soon all eyes will be turning to Rome

https://twitter.com/breeadail/status/1522059641206808582?s=21&t=YDlgi_ylTU_lf4ar6XaPjA

still true https://twitter.com/classicaltheis/status/1520209549017427968?s=21&t=cWHbOWSeKIqKtUO9_daN6Q

There is a tendency among some to shy away from using natural analogies to describe the Trinity out of fear that they might accidentally lend support to some ancient heresy or another, but this is a grave error

It should just be a given that any natural analogy will fall short of capturing the ineffable mystery of God’s own inner Life, but if we are committed to the notion that all things bear in their very natures a finite likeness to the divine essence, we should expect the patterns a of nature to reflect the Triune Life of God

Hence, St John Damascene compares the Blessed Trinity to a fruit tree where the root signifies the Father as principle of origin; the branch signifies the Son as begotten of the root; and the fruit signifies the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the root through the branch

Similarly, in an equilateral triangle, a) each angle is really distinct from each other although not really distinct from the area of the triangle, b) each angle is equal (consubstantial) because they are constituted by one and the same the same surface (or essence), and c) though the angles are equal, there is an order of origin among them in that the first angle once drawn becomes the source of the second, after which the first and the second necessarily form the third angle.

These natural analogies should be embraced as illuminative and helpful so long as we have a firm grasp of the orthodox doctrine

if you wouldn’t ban abortion even if human life didn’t begin at conception we’re not really on the same team

Creation should never be conflated merely with God’s initial act of bringing the world into being at a particular moment in the past

rather every single divisible moment of time is God actively choosing to call forth the cosmos into existence out of pure nothingness.

“that kino casino stream totally buried AF into the ground”

AF literally two days later:

if God was active and fully alive prior to the creation of the cosmos, there should be an internal divine mechanism whereby God lives and acts within and for Himself wholly without any consideration of His decision to create

this conundrum is solved perfectly by the intra-divine relations among the Persons of the Blessed Trinity

Catholics and Orthodox come together and dwell perfect unity and harmony when a biblically illiterate Independent Fundamental Baptist oaf approaches

remember half of these people actually believe Jesus wore a suit and pants lol

I don’t mean any real hostility toward IFBs who are friendly with Catholics, but if go out of your way to mock sacramental, liturgical, and episcopal practices that are very obviously rooted in the early centuries of the Church I basically don’t see you as any different from Mormons

Answering a Patron: On Marriage and Celibacy https://youtu.be/lU3zllTYLz4

“The blessed see the Divine perfections, concentrated and harmonized in their common source, in the divine essence which contains them all, eminently and formally, in a far higher way than white light contains the colors of the rainbow.

Thus, the blessed see how the mercy the most tender, and justice the most inflexible, proceed from one and the same Love, infinitely generous and infinitely holy. They see how this same Love identifies in itself attributes apparently the most opposed. They see how mercy and justice are united in every work of God. They see how uncreated Love, even in decisions the most free, is identified with wisdom. They see how this Love is identified with sovereign Good, loved from all eternity. They see how wisdom is identified with the first truth, always known. They see how all these perfections are one in the essence of He Who Is. They contemplate this pre-eminent Simplicity, this purity and absolute sanctity, this quintessence of all perfection.” - Garrigou-Lagrange, Life Everlasting

Nick won.

I would highly recommend praying the 54 day rosary novena for the overturning of Roe v Wade (including any of your personal intentions). It requires 27 days of petition for whatever request you make, plus 27 days of thanksgiving, regardless of whether or not the favor is obtained. Each mystery also carries with it a petition for a particular grace and virtue for the cultivation of your own interior life.

This obviously demands committing yourself rigorously for roughly two months, but it’s very worth it! Certainly one of the strongest rosary devotions the Church has to offer.

https://www.stpatricks.org/documents/54-day-novena-for-nation-2020

One of St Thomas’ most overlooked philosophical contributions was discovering what was in my view the previously unsolved mystery of what truly distinguishes angelic being from divine being, since both are said to exist in a state of pure spirituality. Saint Thomas’ answer to this question is incredibly profound and unlocks the key to understanding what about God makes Him most characteristically divine. His answer is that the key metaphysical distinction that irreducibly distinguishes angelic being from divine being is that in angelic being, there still remains a real composition of essence and existence, whereas in God there is no such composition, nor even a real distinction between them at all in God.

Thus, for St. Thomas, the most distinguishing difference between divine and created being is that in all things other than God, there is a real composition of a thing’s essence or nature and its act of existence (participated existence); whereas in God, His essence is simply none other than the subsistent act of Existence itself in its unrestricted, unmodified purity (unparticipated existence).