for His own sake, for my sake

"one may adhere to a thing in two ways: first, for its own sake; second, because something else is attained thereby. Accordingly charity makes us adhere to God for His own sake, uniting our minds [(mentem hominis, the mind of a man)] to God by the emotion of love [(affectum amoris)]. On the other hand, hope and faith make man adhere to God as to a principle wherefrom certain things accrue to us. Now we derive from God both knowledge of truth and the attainment of perfect goodness. Accordingly faith makes us adhere to God, as the source whence we derive the knowledge of truth, since we believe that what God tells us is true: while hope makes us adhere to God, as the source whence we derive perfect goodness, i.e., insofar as, by hope, we trust to the Divine assistance for obtaining [eternal] happiness" or "eternal life, which consists in the enjoyment of God Himself", plus the "other things . . . for which we pray God, . . . secondarily and as referred to eternal happiness."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II.17.6.Resp., as supplemented at the end by 17.2.Resp. & ad 1, trans. FEDP as modified (?) by the Aquinas Institute, italics mine.

"It is impossible to trust too much in the Divine assistance" properly understood (below)

"Thus faith can have no mean or extremes in the point of trusting to the First Truth [(in hoc quod innitatur primae veritati, in this, that it leans upon the First Truth)], in which it is impossible to trust too much; whereas on the part of the things believed [(ex parte eorum quae credit)], it may have a mean and extremes; for instance one truth is a mean between two falsehoods. So too, hope has no mean or extremes, as regards its principal object [(ex parte principalis obiecti)], since it is impossible to trust too much in the Divine assistance; yet it may have a mean and extremes, as regards those things a man trusts to obtain [(quantum ad ea quae confidit aliquis se adepturum, with respect to the things that a man trusts himself to obtain)], insofar as he either presumes above his [(suam)] capability, or despairs of things of which he [(sibi)] is capable."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II.17.5.Resp., trans. FEDP (i.e. Shapcote).  "It is impossible to trust too much in" God's ability to "lead [us] to an infinite good", i.e. "eternal life, which consists in the enjoyment of God himself" (17.2.Resp.:  "we should hope from Him for nothing less than Himself"), as well as the "other things . . . for which we pray to God, . . . secondarily and as referred to eternal happiness" (ad 2).

Liberal Christian nationalism

       "There is a name for [Ryan P.] Burge's preferred cocktail of religion and civics, Church and state.  It's Christendom.  Burge's book [The vanishing church] is one long lament for the passing of mainline Christendom in America.  You might even say it is both a paean and a dirge for a certain style of Christian nationalism—liberal Christian nationalism.  Make the mainline great again!"

     Brad East, "Mainlining nostalgia," a review, First things no. 362 (April 2026):  52. 

"many who are in a state of grace suffer from dullness of mind"

"multi habentes gratiam adhuc patiuntur mentis hebetudinem."

     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."

Faith is enigmatic knowledge

FEDP (i.e. Shapcote): "faith is knowledge in a dark manner."

"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".

 

 

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).

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."

Source

"illi qui habent gloriam animae, non proprie dicuntur sperare gloriam corporis; sed solum desiderare."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II.67.4.ad 3.  For "a good whose unerring cause [(inevitabilem causam)] we already possess is not related to us as something difficult."