Thursday, April 9, 2026
"many who are in a state of grace suffer from dullness of mind"
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II.8.4.Praet 1, trans. FEDP (Shapcote). Ad 1: "Some who have sanctifying grace may suffer from dullness of mind with regard to things that are not necessary for salvation; but with regard to those that are necessary for salvation, they are sufficiently instructed by the Holy Ghost, according to 1 John 2:27, His unction teacheth you of all things."
Sunday, March 29, 2026
Faith is enigmatic knowledge
"est . . . fides cognitio aenigmatica."
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II.67.5.Praet. 1. Cf. the Resp.: "faith is of the same genus, namely knowledge, as the beatific vision [(fides . . . cum visione patriae convenit in genere, quod est cognitio, faith comes together with the visio patriae in the genus cognition)]."
But note the "But"! For this is an impressively difficult Resp. And most especially, "when you remove a specific difference, the substance of the genus does not remain identically the same".
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Richard Rohr, Andreas Ebert, and the Enneagram
For what it's worth:
- Huggins, Ronald V. "The Enneagram’s False History and Occult Roots." Bibliotheca sacra 179, no. 714 (2022): 146–162.
- Cusack, Carole M. "Ṣūfism and the Gurdjieff 'Work': A Contested Relationship." In Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements, edited by Carole M. Cusack and Muhammad Afzal Upal. Brill, 2021.
- etc. (I stopped here, though there is more to be found).
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
The Blessed, "who have the glory of the soul[,] are not, properly speaking, said to hope for the glory of the body, but only to desire it."
Saturday, March 21, 2026
"without thee we are not able to please thee"
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| Vat. Reg. lat. 316, fol. 178v |
"Dirigat corda nostra, quaesumus, Domine, tuae miserationis operatio, quia tibi sine te placere non possumus."
My translation:
May the work of your compassion, O Lord we pray, set our hearts in order, because without you we cannot please you.
Prayer for Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent, Liturgia horarum. =Corpus orationum no. 2234, going back to the mid-8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary (Vat. Reg. lat. 316, fol. 178v, representing mid-7th-century practice) at least.
BCP 1549:
"O GOD, for asmuche as without thee, we are not able to please thee; Graunte that the workyng of thy mercie maye in all thynges directe and rule our heartes; Through".
BCP 1662:
"O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through".
BCP 1979:
"O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through".
"O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through".
Sunday, March 8, 2026
"the [twentieth-century] narrative concerning the medieval [Christian] reaction to [Hindu-Arabic numerals] and the number zero" constitutes "a bizarre funhouse mirror image of the Middle Ages"
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| Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 3 (1905), 155–195 |
From a pre-pub version of C. Philipp Nothaft, "Medieval Europe’s satanic ciphers: on the genesis of a modern myth," British journal for the history of mathematics 35, no. 2 (2020): 107–136.
Saturday, March 7, 2026
Friendship with God is unavailable to those who find the idea incredible and/or despair of it
"just as friendship with a person would be impossible if one disbelieved in, or despaired of, the possibility of his fellowship or familiar intercourse, so too, friendship with God, which is charity, is impossible without faith, so as to believe in this fellowship and intercourse with God, and to hope to attain to this fellowship."
"sicut aliquis non posset cum aliquo amicitiam habere, si discrederet vel desperaret se posse habere aliquam societatem vel familiarem conversationem cum ipso; ita aliquis non potest habere amicitiam ad Deum, quae est caritas, nisi fidem habeat, per quam credat huiusmodi societatem et conversationem hominis cum Deo, et speret se ad hanc societatem pertinere."
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II.65.5.Resp., in the FEDP (or Shapcote) translation. On the other hand, the requisite faith and hope must be infused!



