"in our days many evils . . . have come to be openly and habitually practiced, so that we are afraid not only to excommunicate a lay person for them but even to degrade a cleric."

"sic nostris temporibus ita multa mala, etsi non talia, in apertam consuetudinem iam uenerunt, ut pro his non solum excommunicare aliquem laicum non audeamus, sed nec clericum degradare."

      St. Augustine, Enchiridon on faith, hope, and charity 21, 80-22, 81, trans. , WSA I/8 (2005), 321-322.  Context, for analysis later (i.e., does St. Augustine think he has been "immoderately sorrowful" over this (below), or insufficiently attuned to "divine" (as distinguished from immoderately self-exculpatory "human") "judgment"?):

     We must also recognize that sins, however great and terrible, are thought to be small or non-existent when they become habitual, to such an extent that people think they should not only not be hidden but even be proclaimed and advertised when, as it is written, the wicked boast of the desires of their heart, and those who do evil are spoken well of (Ps 10:3). In holy scripture such wickedness is called a cry, as you read in Isaiah the prophet when he speaks of the evil vineyard: I expected him to do justice, but he did wickedness, I expected righteousness, but heard a cry! (Is 5:7) and similarly in Genesis: How great is the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah! (Gn 18:20) since not only did those sins already go unpunished among them but they were even practiced publicly and almost officially. So in our days many evils, if not the same ones, have come to be openly and habitually practiced, so that we are afraid not only to excommunicate a lay person for them but even to degrade a cleric. So, when a few years ago I was expounding the letter to the Galatians, at the place where the apostle says, I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted, I was compelled to cry out, "Woe on the sins of men, which horrify us only when we are unused to them! But as for habitual sins, to wash away which the blood of the Son of God was shed, although they are so serious that they cause God's kingdom to be entirely closed to those who commit them, we are often compelled to look on and tolerate them, and even to commit some of those we tolerate, and grant, O Lord, that we may not commit all of those that we are unable to forbid!" But I shall consider whether my immoderate sorrow caused me to speak somewhat incautiously.
     What I shall now say is what I have also often said in several places in my shorter works: there are two reasons why we sin, either because we do not see what we ought to do or because we do not do what we know ought to be done: the first of these evils comes from ignorance, the second from weakness. We should fight against both of them. But we cannot win without divine help not only to see what ought to be done but also in order that we may be healed and that pleasure in doing right may overcome within us the pleasure we take in things which we desire to have or fear to lose, which leads us to sin with knowledge and awareness. In this case we are not only sinners, which we were even when we sinned through ignorance, but also transgressors of the law, when we do not do what we already know should be done, or when we do what we already know should not be done. So we should pray to God not only that he will forgive us if we have sinned, which is why we say, Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors, but also that he will guide us so that we do not sin, which is why we say, And do not bring us to the time of trial (Mt 6:13). For these things we should pray to him to whom it is said in the psalm: The Lord is my light and my health (Ps 27:1), so that his light may take away our ignorance, and his health our weakness.

"To distinguish between trivial and serious sins is a matter for divine, not human, judgment."

"quae sint autem leuia quae grauia peccata, non humano sed diuino sunt pensanda iudicio."

      St. Augustine, Enchiridion on faith, hope, and charity 21, 78, trans. Bruce Harbert, WSA I/8 (2005), 319-320.  For "We see that some have been pardoned and permitted even by the apostles," while "There are also some . . . that might be thought very trivial were they not shown in the holy scriptures to be more serious than is thought" (21, 79).  Etc.  The point would seem (?) to be that revelation trumps human judgment (and especially the exculpatory judgment that a particular sin is but venial), not that human judgment is wholly incompetent in this regard.  Cf. the citation of this at DTC 12, col. 228.

"Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterwards."

 "Le vérité, elle délivre d’abord, elle console après."

The truth, it delivers first, it consoles afterwards.

      Le Curé de Torcy, in Georges Bernanos, The diary of a country priest 2, trans. Pamela Morris (New York:  Macmillan, 1937), 54.  French from p. 66 of the 1936 original.

"the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time"

"Let us . . . joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption.  Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time."

"Celebremus laeti nostrae salutis et redemptionis adventum.  Celebremus festum diem, quo magnus et aeternus dies ex magno et aeterno die venit in hunc nostrum tam brevem temporalem diem."

     St. Augustine, Sermon 185.2 on the Nativity (25 December 412/416), as translated in the Office of readings for 24 December, Liturgy of the hours.  Latin from PL 38, col. 998 (997-999).  Clearly no difference in the Latin between "eternal" and "endless."  "festal" vs. "great and "eternal" vs. ever "so brief [and] temporal."

"a gift so great, so unheard of"

James Doyle Penrose

"The Lord has exalted me by a gift so great, so unheard of, that language is useless to describe it, and the depths of love in my heart can scarcely grasp it. I offer then all the powers of my soul in praise and thanksgiving. As I contemplate his greatness, which knows no limits, I joyfully surrender my whole life, my senses, my judgment, for my spirit rejoices in the eternal Godhead of that Jesus, that Savior, whom I have conceived in this world of time."

"Tanto (inquit) me Dominus tamque inaudito munere sublimavit, quod non ullo linguae officio explicari, sed ipso vix intimi pectoris affectu valeat comprehendi, et ideo totas animae vires in agendis gratiarum laudibus offero, totum in contemplanda magnitudine ejus cui non est finis quicquid vivo, sentio, discerno, gratulanter impendo, quia et ejusdem Jesu, id est salutaris, spiritus meus aeterna divinitate laetatur, cujus mea caro temporali conceptione foetatur."

     St. Bede, paraphrasing the opening lines of Mary's Magnificat (Lk 1:46-47), as translated in the Office of readings for 22 December, Liturgy of the hours.  CCSL 120 (1960), .  Latin from the Latin edition of the Complete works ed. J. A. Giles, vol. 10 (1844), 295, which should be checked against CCSL 120 (1960), .

The Lowly Most High

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, c. 1490

The Most High is coming in lowliness | to save what had been amounting to nothing.

"excelsus venit humilis | salvare quod perierat."

     Verbum salutis omnium (11th cent.?), Hymn at Vespers, 17-24 December, Liturgia horarum, stanza 5.

"le Cœur des cœurs, le centre brûlant de tout amour"

      "Even the elect do not learn to love all by themselves.  To get beyond the absurdities, the failings, and above all the stupidity of people, one must possess a secret of love which the world has forgotten.  So long as this secret is not rediscovered, you will change human conditions [(les conditions humaines)] in vain.
     "I thought that it was selfishness which made me aloof from everything that concerns the economic and the social; and it is true that I was a monster of seclusion and indifference; but there was also in me a feeling, an obscure certitude, that all this serves for nothing to revolutionise the face of the world.  The world must be touched at its heart.  I seek Him Who alone can achieve that victory; and He must Himself be the Heart of hearts, the burning centre of all love."

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, II.xviii (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 177) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 274-275.

Nurture

       "Those who have the habit of being loved instinctively do all the things, and say all of the words, that attract people.  And I—I am so used to being hated and making people afraid that my pupils, my eyebrows, my voice, my laugh make themselves the obedient accomplices of this awful gift of mine and act in advance of my will."

     "Ceux qui ont l'habitude d'être aimés accomplissent, d'instinct, tous les gestes et disent toutes le paroles qui attirent les cœurs.  Et moi, je suis tellement coutumé à être haï et à faire peur, que mes prunelles, mes sourcils, ma voix, mon rire se font docilement les complices de ce don redoutable et préviennent ma volonté."

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, II.xvi (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 147) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 227.

No nature-lover

"[Luc] never troubled himself to go and see the moonlight on the terrace.  He had no 'feeling' for Nature because he was Nature itself, merged in it, one of its forces, one of its living springs among other springs."

"Il ne se dèrangeait jamais pour voir le clair du lune sur la terrasse.  Il n'avait pas le sentiment de la nature parce qu'il était la nature même, confoundu en elle, une de ses forces, une source vive entre les sources."

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, I.x (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 97) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 152.

"This man in his forties is my son; I know it, but I don't feel it. It is impossible to look a truth like that in the face."

"Ce quadragénaire est mon fils, je le sais, mais je ne le sens pas.  Impossible de regarder cette vérité en face."

This quadragenarian. . . .

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, I.iv (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 39) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 58.

Baptism

Source unknown

"Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon; behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia—'This one was born there,' they say.  And of Zion it shall be said, 'This one and that one were born in her'; for the Most High himself will establish her.  The Lord records as he registers the peoples, 'This one was born there.'"

     Ps 87:4-6 RSV.

""Que reste-t-il de toi, ce soir, Marinette, morte en 1900?"

      "What remains of you this evening, Marinette, dead in 1900?  What remains of a body buried these thirty years?  I remember the scent of you that night.  To believe in the resurrection of the flesh, perhaps one must have conquered the flesh.  The punishment of those who abuse it is that they cannot even imagine that it will rise again."

     "Que reste-t-il de toi, ce soir, Marinette, morte en 1900 ?  Que reste-t-il d’un corps enseveli depuis trente années ?  Je me souviens de ton odeur nocturne.  Pour croire à la résurrection de la chair, peut-être faut-il avoir vaincu la chair.  La punition de ceux qui en ont abusé est de ne pouvoir plus même imaginer  qu’elle ressuscitera."

     Louis, in François Mauriac, Vipers' tangle, trans. Warre B. Wells, I.viii (Garden City, NY:  Image Books, Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1957 [1932]), 85) =Le nœud de vipères:  roman (Paris:  Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1932), 133-134.

A worthy little habitation for the Verbum abbreviatum

Monasteriaka

"O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin prepared a worthy [little] dwelling [(dignum . . . habitaculum)] for your Son, grant, we pray, that, as you preserved her from every stain by virtue of the Death of your Son, which you foresaw, so, through her intercession, we, too, may be cleansed and admitted to your presence.  Through."

"Deus, qui per immaculatam Virginis Conceptionem dignum Filio tuo habitaculum praeparasti, quaesumus, ut, qui ex morte eiusdem Filii tui praevisa, eam ab omni labe praeservasti, nos quoque mundos, eius intercessione, ad te pervenire concedas.  Per."

     Collect for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  Habita-culum is morphologically a diminutive (Allen & Greenough no. 243), though the ICEL doesn't and the lexica don't emphasize the fact.  It is also post-classical, and not surprisingly quite common in the Vulgate, whence, presumably, it makes its way into the Gelasian Sacramentary.  It would be interesting to look further into the earliest occurrences of the word, but my assumption would be that it functioned in Christian circles as a term associated not just with churches and such, but also the doctrine the Verbum abbreviatum.

"Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to himself."

van der Weyden

"God begot the the Son, through whom all things were made, and Mary gave birth to him as the Savior of the world.  Without God's Son, nothing could exist; without Mary's Son, nothing could be redeemed."
     "Truly 'the Lord is with you,' to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to himself."

"Deus est Pater constitutionis omnium, et MARIA est mater restitutionis omnium.  Deus enim genuit illum per quem omnia sunt facta, et MARIA peperit illum per quem cuncta sunt salvata.  Deus genuit illum sine quo penitus nihil est, et MARIA peperit illum, sine quo nihil omnino bene est.  O vere »dominus tecum«, cui dedit dominus, ut omnis natura tantum tibi deberet secum."

     St. Anselm, Oratio 52 ad sanctam Virginem Mariam cum meditatione et laude meritorum ejus =PL 158, col. 956B (an edition that the 3rd rev. ed. of the ODCC calls "unsatisfactory") =Oratio 7 ad sanctam MARIAM pro impetrando eius et Christi amore =S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera omnia, ed. F. S. Schmitt (the critical edition), vol. 3 (Edinburgh:  Thomas Nelson, 1946), p. 22,  as translated in the Office of readings for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Liturgy of the hours, but with the addition of quotation marks around Lk 1:28.  I have taken the Latin from the latter, in which it differs slightly from the former.

"there are many people who reach God as Christians without being in charge of anything"

Vivarini & D'Alemagna, 1446

"we whom the Lord has deigned, thanks to no merits of ours, to set in this high station (about which a very strict account indeed has to be rendered) have two things about us that must be clearly distinguished: one, that we are Christians, the other, that we are placed in charge [(praepositi)]. Being Christians is for our sake; being in charge is for yours. It is to our advantage that we are Christians, only to yours that we are in charge. And there are many people who reach God as Christians without being in charge of anything [(multi qui christiani, et non praepositi)], and no doubt have all the easier a journey for traveling light, and carrying less of a burden. But we bishops, apart from being Christians, as which we shall render God an account of our manner of life, are also in charge of you, and as such will render God an account of our stewardship."

     St. Augustine, Sermon 46.2 On the shepherds, trans. Edmund Hill, WSA III/2, 263-264.

"I rather experience than understand it"

      "Now, if anyone should ask me how this [presence of the flesh of Christ in the Supper] takes place, I shall not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too lofty for either my mind to comprehend or my words to declare.  And, to speak more plainly, I rather experience than understand it [(experior magis quam intelligam | i’en sens plus par experience que ie n’en puis entendre)]. . . .
". . . such is the presence of the body (I say) that the nature of the Sacrament requires a presence which we say manifests itself here with a power and effectiveness so great [(quam tanta virtute tantaque efficacia hic eminere dicimus | laquelle nous y disons estre & apparoistre en si grande vertu & efficace)] that it not only brings an undoubted assurance [(indubitatam . . . fiduciam | indubitable confiance)] of eternal life to our minds, but also assures us [(securos nos reddat | nous rend certains & asseurez)] of the immortality of our [(nostrae | nostre)] flesh.  Indeed, it is now quickened by his [(eius | la . . . de Iesus Christ)] immortal flesh, and in a sense partakes of his [(eius | son)] immortality."

     John Calvin, Institutes IV.xvii.32, trans. Battles =COS 5, 390-391 | p. 894 in chap. 18 of the French edition of 1545.  I'm guessing that asseurez is a plural of the adjective asseuré (Gremais & Keane, Dictionnaire du moyen françois, s.v. asseurer) rather than of the verb asseurer.  A less (?) likely possibility might be the adjective asseur, though that might make it (and nous) a feminine (asseures).

     I was put onto this by Francis Higman, "Calvin et l’expérience," in Expérience, coutume, tradition au temps de la Renaissance, ed. M. T. Jones-Davies for the Centre de recherches sur la Renaissance (Editions Klincksieck, 1992), 250 (245-256).
     I, on the other hand, more "embrace" (amplector | acquiesce à la promesse de Iesus Christ) than "experience" it.

"They exchanged the truth . . . for a lie"

"In sum, what is new here is the turning of what really is a construct—the abstract 'individual'—into a new natural, so as to turn what is really natural—constitutive relations [to our parents, to the opposite sex, and to our children]—into a 'construct,' beginning with the reconfiguration of these relations on consensual terms."

     Margaret H. McCarthy, "Gender ideology and the humanum," Communio:  international Catholic review 43, no. 2 (Summer 2016), 294 (274-298).

"Oh my friend, my friend indeed, who at my need his life did spend."

"Nor could he have commanded anything more lovable, for this sacrament produces love and union.  It is characteristic of the greatest love to give itself as food [(Amoris enim maximi indicium est, seipsum dare in cibum)].  Had not the men of my tent exclaimed:  Who will feed us with his flesh to satisfy our hunger?"

     Albert the Great, Commentary on Luke 22:19, as trans. Liturgy of the hours, Second reading, Office of readings for the Feast of St. Albert the Great, 14 November.  Versions:

Albert the Great, Super Lucam 22:19, Opera omnia, ed. Jammy, vol. 10 (Lyon, 1651), p. 320, col. 1, second full paragraph; ed. Borgnet, vol. 19 (1894-1895), p. 673, col. 2.

Job 31:31 Douay-Rheims:  "If the men of my tabernacle have not said: Who will give us of his flesh that we may be filled?"

Job 31:31 Vulgate:  "si non dixerunt viri tabernaculi mei quis det de carnibus eius ut saturemur[?]"

Job 31:31 NETS:   "And if too my female attendants often said, 'Who might grant us to be filled with his flesh?'"

Job 31:31 LXX:  εἰ δὲ καὶ πολλάκις εἶπον αἱ θεράπαιναί μου Τίς ἂν δῴη ἡμῖν τῶν σαρκῶν αὐτοῦ πλησθῆναι;

Job 31:31 NRSV ("meaning of the Hebrew uncertain"):  "if those of my tent ever said, ‘O that we might be sated with his flesh!’"

Job 31:31 BHS:  אִם־לֹ֣א אָ֭מְרוּ מְתֵ֣י אָהֳלִ֑י מִֽי־יִתֵּ֥ן מִ֝בְּשָׂרֹ֗ו לֹ֣א נִשְׂבָּֽע

"a hope longer than time and stronger than misfortune"

"I find no solution for the future except in Christianity and in Catholic Christianity in particular. . . .  If there is to be a future, a mighty and free future, that future is still far off, far beyond the visible horizon; we will be able to reach it only with the help of that Christian hope whose wings grow in proportion as everything seems to betray it, a hope longer than time and stronger than misfortune."

     François-René de Chateaubriand, Mémoires d'outre-tombe 14.7 [=partie 4, livre x], as quoted by Jean-Luc Marion and translated by Stephen E. Lewis in A brief apology for a Catholic moment (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2021), 85.  French from pp. 468 and 472 of tome 6 of the new Garnier edition of 1898-1899 edited by Edmund Biré:

. . . je ne trouve de solution à l’avenir que dans le christianisme et dans le christianisme catholique. . . .
. . . si un avenir doit être, un avenir puissant et libre, cet avenir est loin encore, loin au delà de l’horizon visible; on n’y pourra parvenir qu’à l’aide de cette espérance chrétienne dont les ailes croissant à mesure que tout semble la trahir, espérance plus longue que le temps et plus forte que le malheur.

The line with which that second paragraph begins is "Si le ciel n’a pas prononcé son dernier arrêt;" "If heaven has not pronounced its last 'Halt!'" or, better, "sentence".

"as if [heretics] could be kept in the city of God indifferently without any correction"

     "But the devil, seeing the temples of the demons deserted, and the human race running to the name of the liberating Mediator, has moved the heretics under the Christian name to resist the Christian doctrine, as if they could be kept indifferently in the city of God without any correction, just as the city of confusion indifferently held the philosophers who were of diverse and adverse opinions.  Those, therefore, in the Church of Christ who savour anything morbid and depraved, and, on being corrected that they may savour what is wholesome and right, contumaciously resist, and will not amend their pestiferous and deadly dogmas, but persist in defending them, become heretics, and, going without, are to be reckoned as enemies who serve for her discipline.  For even thus they profit by their wickedness those true catholic members of Christ, since God makes a good use even of the wicked, and all things work together for good to them that love Him.  For all the enemies of the Church, whatever error blinds or malice depraves them, exercise her patience if they receive the power to afflict her corporally; and if they only oppose her by wicked thought, they exercise her wisdom:  but at the same time, if these enemies are loved, they exercise her benevolence, or even her benificence, whether she deals with them by persuasive doctrine or by terrible discipline."

     St. Augustine, City of God 18.51, trans. Dods.  =CSEL 40.2, 351-352.

"We . . . who are called and are Christians"

"Nos ergo qui sumus uocamurque Christiani. . . ."

     St. Augustine, City of God 18.54, trans. Dods. =CSEL 40.2, 362 l. 1.  Note that it is actually the reverse:  "We . . . who are are and are called Christians. . . ."  Search CAG for more examples of this, as something similar is present in some of the collects.

"he alone gives them a place in us"

"the Spirit of God, while he operates in our hearts, operates so that we feel [(sentiamus)] the virtue of Christ (Rom. 5:5).  For when we receive [(concipiamus)] the benefits of Christ with the mind, this happens by the illumination [(illuminatione)] of the Holy Spirit; it is by his persuasion [(persuasione)] that they are sealed [(obsignentur)] in our hearts [(French:  car il nous illumine pour nous faire congnoistre ses graces:  il les seelle et imprime en noz ames)].  In short, he alone gives them a place in us [(dat illis in nobis locum)] (Eph. 1:13).  He regenerates us and makes us new creatures (Tit. 3:5).  Hence whatever gifts are ours are offered [(offerentur)] us in Christ, [but] we receive [(recipimus)] them by virtue of the Spirit."

    John Calvin, Catechism of 1545, q. 91 (in c. 14), as trans. I. John Hesselink on p. 305 of The Calvin handbook ed. Selderhuis (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 2009) =COS 2, 88.

The problem with the language of "values"

      "Nietzsche explained it:  'what does nihilism mean?  T[hat t]he highest values become devalued' [(Nachgelassene Fragmente 1887, 9[35])].  But don't be fooled:  the highest values become devalued not because they lose their value as if by black magic, but because, suddenly, we notice that they consist only of that—their value" (59), and no longer of any things or realities in themselves.  For values are assigned by the evaluation of an evaluator exercising the sheer will to power, "a pure and simple will of [nothing but] will" (62), and to reduce something to a value is to annihilate the thing (61).  "the thing's reality in itself" is precisely what "the thing loses by becoming a value," such that "Nothing is more nihilist at the roots, or more in conformity with nihilism, than proclaiming values, because the value already and precisely is not, not in itself, not at all" (60).  Nietzsche himself:  "'That there is absolutely no truth; that there is no absolute composition of things, no "thing in itself"—that itself is a nihilism, and to be precise the most extreme sort.  It poses the value [(Werth)] of things precisely in the fact that no reality corresponds to this value, but only a symptom of strength among those who instituted values'" (60n3, italics harmonized with the emphases in Nietzsche Source; Nachgelassene Fragmente 1887, 9[35]).

     Jean-Luc Marion, A brief apology for a Catholic moment, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2021), 59 ff.

They love [the truth] when it shines, they hate it when it reproves.

"Deep down, the issue is not reproach for its past history but the fact that as silent as it seems to remain, the Church reproves the customs or the decisions that disrupt or even prevent the hearing of the Gospel and access to the life of the Spirit.  Under the glaring light of this veritas redarguens, nothing is more normal than that a majority in every society, ourselves included, ceaselessly clamors for the Church to evolve and 'adapt,' for it finally to end up approving our habits, in short for it to leave us in peace with our evils and the words we use to justify them.  And if the Church refuses, as it cannot but do, the majority protests; but with a contradictory protestation, since it thus acknowledges an in fact inordinate importance in the judgment of an institution that it nevertheless claims to impugn and hold as null and void.  The Church cannot 'change with the times' because it cannot change anything about what happens to it, about the call that summons and stirs it.  On the contrary the Church's only ambition must be to change the world of its time, without ever knowing with what success, since that is not in its power.  It is, however, solely up to the Church to improve its response, not to the complaints of the world, but to the initial and final word that Christ puts forth."

     Jean-Luc Marion, A brief apology for a Catholic moment, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2021), 18.  On "this veritas redarguens," see St. Augustine.

"Yet another effort, Frenchmen, if you would become tolerant!"

      Jean-Luc Marion, A brief apology for a Catholic moment, trans. Stephen E. Lewis (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 2021), 5.

"the word of the Lord is always fire"

Studies in Reformed Theology and History,
Princeton Theological Seminary

"semper ignis est verbum Domini".
"la parolle de Dieu soit tousiours feu".

      John Calvin, Harmonia ex tribus Evangelistis composita (1555 in both Latin (CO 45, cols. 809-810) and French) on Lk 24:32.

The ability to touch, share our food, and inhale and exhale our air

"the 'environmental senses' [of touch, taste, and smell] are essential to the Incarnation: . . . [the Son of God] had the ability to touch, shared our food, and inhaled and exhaled our air."

     José Granados, "The pandemic:  a sacramental reading," Communio:  international Catholic review 74, no. 3 (Fall 2020):  462 (455-470).

"each of us is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time and place, universal truth and everlasting life."

     J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 163 to W. H. Auden, 7 June 1955.  I was put on to this by someone else, and have not yet read the whole letter.

"the understanding of human weakness. . . . never means compromising and falsifying the standard of good and evil in order to adapt it to particular circumstances."

"'. . . God's command is of course proportioned to man's capabilities; but to the capabilities of the man to whom the Holy Spirit has been given; of the man who, though he has fallen into sin, can always obtain pardon and enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit.'
     "In this context, appropriate allowance is made both for God's mercy towards the sinner who converts and for the understanding of human weakness. Such understanding never means compromising and falsifying the standard of good and evil in order to adapt it to particular circumstances. It is quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask mercy for his failings; what is unacceptable is the attitude of one who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good, so that he can feel self-justified, without even the need to have recourse to God and his mercy. An attitude of this sort corrupts the morality of society as a whole, since it encourages doubt about the objectivity of the moral law in general and a rejection of the absoluteness of moral prohibitions regarding specific human acts, and it ends up by confusing all judgments about values."

     St. John Paul II, Veritatis splendor 103-104, underscoring mine.

The intrinsic and indissoluble bond of conjoined coherence between faith and morality

"Also, an opinion is frequently heard which questions the intrinsic and unbreakable bond between faith and morality [(intrinseco atque indissolubili vinculo copulatae cohaerentiae fidem inter et rem moralem, the intrinsic and indissoluble bond of conjoined coherence between faith and morality)], as if membership in the Church and her internal unity were to be decided on the basis of faith alone, while in the sphere of morality a pluralism of opinions and of kinds of behaviour could be tolerated, these being left to the judgment of the individual subjective conscience or to the diversity of social and cultural contexts."

     St. John Paul II, Veritatis splendor 4.  Sec. 26:

"From the Church's beginnings, the Apostles, by virtue of their pastoral responsibility to preach the Gospel, were vigilant over the right conduct of Christians [(prospexerunt probitatis morum christianorum)], just as they were vigilant for the purity of the faith and the handing down of the divine gifts in the sacraments [(consuluerunt fidei integritati atque supernorum munerum traditioni per sacramenta)]. The first Christians, coming both from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, differed from the pagans not only in their faith and their liturgy but also in the witness of their moral conduct [(non solum propter suam fidem suamque liturgiam, verum etiam ob testimonium moralis rationis agendi)], which was inspired by the New Law. The Church is in fact a communion both of faith and of life [(fidei simulque vitae communio)]; her rule of life is 'faith working through love' (Gal 5:6).
     "No damage must be done to the harmony between faith and life: the unity of the Church is damaged [(Nulla laceratio debet insidiari concordiae inter fidem et vitam: Ecclesiae unitati vulnus infligitur)] not only by Christians who reject or distort the truths of faith [(fidei veritatem respuentibus vel evertentibus)] but also by those who disregard the moral obligations [(moralia neglegunt officia)] to which they are called by the Gospel (cf. 1 Cor 5:9-13). The Apostles decisively rejected any separation between the commitment of the heart and the actions which express or prove it [(inter curam cordis dis[c]idium et actus eam enuntiantes et comprobantes)] (cf. 1 Jn 2:3-6). And ever since Apostolic times the Church's Pastors have unambiguously condemned the behaviour of those who fostered division by their teaching or by their actions [(doctrina sua suisque moribus)]."

Free service

Grant us, Lord, we pray, to serve [(servire)] your gifts with a free [(libera)] mind, that, your grace purifying us, we may be cleansed by the very mysteries we serve [(famulamur)].

"Tribue nos, Domine, quaesumus, donis tuis libera mente servire, ut, tua purificante nos gratia, iisdem quibus famulamur mysteriis emundemur.  Per. "

     Oratio super oblata, Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time , Roman Missal:

2010:

"Grant us, Lord, we pray, a sincere respect for your gifts, that, through the purifying action of your grace, we may be cleansed by the very mysteries we serve.  Through."

pre-2010 (which, for all of the many liberties it takes, at least sets the concept of freedom over against that of service):

"Lord God, may the gifts we offer bring us your love and forgiveness and give us freedom to serve you with our lives.  We ask this."

     This is no. 146 in the "Leonine" or Vernonese Sacramentary, and no. 146 is, according to the Mohlberg edition of 1956, to be dated to the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century, i.e. the period of the Vandal persecution (Verfolgung) in Africa (439-523) (group 46 on p. LXXVI); or to the early 7th-century Pope Boniface IV (608-614) (group 83 no. p. LXXXI).  What the scholarship has said since 1956 I have made no attempt to discover.  Corpus orationum no. 5916 lists, beside the "Leonine" or Veronese, no other occurrences!

"Tribue nos, domine, quaesumus, donis tuis libera mente seruire, ut purificante nos gratia tua hisdem quibus famulamur mysteriis emundemur:  per."

"nothing is so low that God would not be lower"

University of St. Andrews

"So the very majesty of God consists in the fact that nothing is so great that God would not be greater, and nothing is so small that God would not be smaller.  Nothing is so long that God would not be longer, but nothing is so short that God would not be shorter.  Nothing is so high that God would not be higher, and, important for kenosis, nothing is so low that God would not be lower.
     "In view of this understanding of the divine plerosis, of the plenitude of the divine majesty, do we [even] need a kenotic theology?  No.  Only as the modulation of the divine plerosis, which expresses the all-encompassing fulness of God’s Trinitarian self-giving."

     Christoph Schöbel, "Kenosis and divine self-giving in Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther" 49:10, The Trinity and the Kenosis of Christ, Angelicum, Rome, 21-22 February 2020.  Schwöbel appears to be channeling Martin Luther, Confession concerning Christ's supper (1528), trans. Robert H. Fischer, Luther's works 37, 228 (161-372) =WA 26, 261-509:  "Nothing is so small but God is still smaller, nothing so large but God is still larger, nothing is so short but God is still shorter, nothing so long but God is still longer, nothing is so broad but God is still broader, nothing so narrow but God is still narrower, and so on."

"His eyes look only into the depths, not to the heights"

     "Just as God in the beginning of creation made the world out of nothing, whence He is called the Creator and the Almighty, so His manner of working continues unchanged. Even now and to the end of the world, all His works are such that out of that which is nothing, worthless, despised, wretched, and dead, He makes that which is something, precious, honorable, blessed, and living. On the other hand, whatever is something, precious, honorable, blessed, and living, He makes to be nothing, worthless, despised, wretched, and dying. In this manner no creature can work; no creature can produce anything out of nothing. Therefore His eyes look only into the depths, not to the heights; as it is said in Daniel 3:55 (Vulgate): 'Thou sittest upon the cherubim and beholdest the depths'; in Psalm 138:6: 'Though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly; but the haughty He knows from afar.' Psalm 113:5, 6: 'Who is like the Lord, our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down upon the heavens and the earth?' For since He is the Most High, and there is nothing above Him, He cannot look above Him; nor yet to either side, for there is none like Him. He must needs, therefore, look within Him and beneath Him; and the farther one is beneath Him, the better does He see him [(Denn die weil er der aller hohist unde nichts uber yhn ist, mag er nit uber sich sehen, mag auch nit neben sich sehen, die weil yhm niemant gleich ist, musz er von not ynn sich selb unnd unter sich sehen, unnd yhe tieffer nemant unter yhm ist, yhe basz er yhn sihet)].
     "The eyes of the world and of men, on the contrary, look only above them and are lifted up with pride, as it is said in Proverbs 30:13: 'There is a people whose eyes are lofty, and their eyelids lifted up on high.' This we experience every day. Everyone strives after that which is above him, after honor, power, wealth, knowledge, a life of ease, and whatever is lofty and great. And where such people are, there are many hangers-on; all the world gathers round them, gladly yields them service, and would be at their side and share in their exaltation. Therefore it is not without reason that the Scriptures describe so few kings and rulers who were godly men. On the other hand, no one is willing to look into the depths with their poverty, disgrace, squalor, misery, and anguish. From these all turn away their eyes. Where there are such people, everyone takes to his heels, forsakes and shuns and leaves them to themselves; no one dreams of helping them or of making something out of them. And so they must remain in the depths and in their low and despised condition. There is among men no creator who would make something out of nothing, although that is what St. Paul teaches in Romans 12:16 when he says, 'Dear brethren, set not your mind on high things, but go along with the lowly.
     "Therefore to God alone belongs that sort of seeing that looks into the depths with their need and misery, and is near to all that are in the depths; as St. Peter says (1 Peter 5:5): 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' And this is the source of men’s love and praise of God. For no one can praise God without first loving Him. No one can love Him unless He makes Himself known to him in the most lovable and intimate fashion. And He can make Himself known only through those works of His which He reveals in us, and which we feel and experience within ourselves. But where there is this experience, namely, that He is a God who looks into the depths and helps only the poor, despised, afflicted, miserable, forsaken, and those who are nothing, there a hearty love for Him is born. The heart overflows with gladness and goes leaping and dancing. . . ."

     Martin Luther, Das Magnificat verdeutschet und ausgelegt (1521 March 10), trans. A. T. W. Steinhaeuser, Luther's Works 21, 299-300, underscoring mine = WA 7, 547-548.

The appropriation of the uniquely symbolic potentialities of what we are being forced today to call "heterosexual" marriage was very deliberate on God's part

"For Thomas, so far as the dignity of the human nature is concerned, the Word could have assumed the [(une)] body of a woman, for the Incarnation and the divine power are [both] indifferent by relation to the sex to be assumed:  'Ipse [Deus] potuit assumere quale corpus voluit'; it is for reasons of convenience (ad congruentiam) with the mission of Christ to be Head of the Church, to teach, to direct, [and] to defend humankind, that he assumed the [(une)] masculine sex. . . .  This position is far from being unanimous in the 13th century.  For Bonaventure, for example, the[se] reasons of convenience become reasons to affirm the impossibility of an assumption of the body of a woman by the Word. . . .  [And it is] the same for Thomas' teacher Albert the Great."

     Adriano Oliva, O.P., "Essence et finalité du marriage selon Thomas d'Aquin pour un soin pastoral renouvelé," Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 98, no. 4 (2014):  614n41 (601-668), translation mine.  Texts cited:  .
     According to Oliva, one should never adopt uncritically—which is to say without examining the works of St. Thomas in all of their sophisticated particularity—the contemporary prejudice that he insisted upon "the inferiority of women" (614).

"The quintessential deathwork of our time . . . is pornography."

      Carl R. Trueman, The rise and triumph of the modern self:  cultural amnesia, expressive individualism, and the road to sexual revolution (Wheaton, IL:  Crossway, 2020), 98.  "A [Rieffian] deathwork . . . represents an attack on established cultural art forms in a manner designed to undo the deeper moral structure of society. . . .  Deathworks make the old values look ridiculous.  They represent not so much arguments against the old order as subversions of it.  They aim at changing the aesthetic tastes and sympathies of society so as to undermine the commands on which that society was based. . . .  [A deathwork is] a symbol of something deeply sacred to the second world being presented in a form that degrades it and makes it utterly repulsive. . . . [It turns] it into something dirty, disgusting, and vile. . . .  The major problem with pornography is not what many religious conservatives might understand it to be—its promotion of lust and its objectifying of the participants.  It is certainly both of those things, but the problem is also much deeper:  it repudiates any notion that sex has significance beyond the act itself, and therefore it rejects any notion that it is emblematic of a sacred order" (96-99, paragraph breaks ignored).
     The reference is to the first book in the trilogy by Philip Rieff entitled Sacred order/social order:  My life among the deathworks: illustrations of the aesthetics of authority (Charlottesville, VA:  University of Virginia Press, 2006).

The greatest of human friendships

"if a husband were permitted to abandon his wife, the society of husband and wife would not be an association of equals, but, instead, a sort of slavery on the part of the wife [(non esset aequa societas viri ad mulierem, sed servitus quaedam ex parte mulieris)]."

"the greater the friendship is, the more solid and long-lasting will it be.  Now, there seems to be the greatest friendship [(maxima amicitia)] between husband and wife, for they are united [(adunatur)] not only in the act of fleshly union [(in actu carnalis copulae)], which produces a certain gentle association [(quandam suavem societatem)] even among beasts, but also in the partnership of the whole range of domestic activity [(ad totius domesticae conversationis consortium)].  Consequently, as an indication of this, man must even 'leave his father and mother' for the sake of his wife, as is said in Genesis (2:24).  Therefore, it is fitting for matrimony to be completely indissoluble [(omnino indissolubile)]."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, ScG (revised and completed 1260-65) III.123.4 & 6, trans. Vernon J. Bourke.  Latin from Corpus Thomisticum.  Note that ad by comparison with that in, both of which qualify adunatur:  "in the act of fleshly union," but "towards" or "with an eye to" or "for" partnership in the whole of domestic association.
     The sacramentality of marriage:  But then note that friendship (amicitia)—which is realized first and preeminently within the life of the triune God himself (Dictionnaire de philosophie et de théologie Thomistes, 18)—is, for Aquinas, precisely what the heavenly Bridegroom seeks with us.

"the perfect friendship of the sort which exists between a man and his wife [(perfecta amicitia qualis est inter virum et uxorum)], for whom man even leaves his father and mother (Gen 2:24), cannot be had with many wives."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Expositio super Isaiam ad litteram (1251/52, i.e. before the Commentary on the Sentences) 4.1.136, trans. Robert St. Hilaire.  "what, for Aquinas, is [truly] essential to marriage, the communion of life between the spouses and [their] perfect friendship, is the sole true reason for avoiding polygamy.  If, three years later, in the commentary on the Sentences, he evokes also the good of children and mutual aid, this is because he expresses himself [there] in a manner more complete.  [But] the early commentary on Isaiah manifests already very clearly the conception of the essence of marriage that we encounter [again and again] in the course of his teaching" later on (Adriano Oliva, O.P., "Essence et finalité du marriage selon Thomas d'Aquin pour un soin pastoral renouvelé," Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 98, no. 4 (2014):  611 (601-668), translation mine).
     Against the argument that this conception of the true essence (or first—as distinguished from consequent—perfection) of marriage renders it vulnerable to the reformulations of our time would have to stand, among other things, the fact that "male and female have different operations," and that "the vice of sodomy," as "entirely unnatural," can "in no manner stand with the stated end" (135 and both often elsewhere in the Thomistic corpus).  More important still:  "things that are ordered to some one thing are said to be united together in their ordering to it [(in ordine ad aliud)]. . . .  And so, since by marriage two people are ordered to [1] one single generation and education of children, and also to [2] one single domestic life, it is clear that in marriage there is a union, because of which a man and a woman are called 'husband' and 'wife'; and such a union, by the fact that it is ordained to some one thing [(ex hoc quod ordinatur ad aliquod unum, most distinctively that 'one single generation . . . of children')] is marriage" (In IV Sent. 27.1.1.1.Resp., italics mine).

PSEUDO St. Catherine of Siena: "What is it | you want to change? | Your hair, your face, your body? | Why? || For God is | in love with all those things | and He might weep | when they are gone."

YOUR HAIR, YOUR FACE

What is it

you want to change?

Your hair, your face, your body?

Why?

For God is

in love with all those things

and He might weep

when they are

gone.

     Daniel Ladinsky, Love poems from God:  Twelve sacred voices from the East and West (New York:  Penguin Compass, 2002), 203.  From the prefatory "Genesis of these poems" (xiii-xiv) a strong indication that this one, though attributed to St. Catherine of Siena, is inauthentic:

Penguin Random House

Any liberties I have taken with these poems was an act, I hope, void of self-interest and done with the sole intention of trying to help emancipate our wings. Several translators have been helpful to me with this work, though most of what is in this book could be said to be an avant-garde portrait of these remarkable historic figures. I have used and mixed whichever of their colors I felt were the most genuine, the most relative to the present, and were the most capable of bringing the reader into the extraordinary experience of these great souls. For their experience of God foretells our own.

What to say to academia about these poems? Well, I think scholars have made important contributions to unveiling God, yet millions of people continue to be persecuted by frightening untruths stemming from archaic concepts of Him that took root in many of us as children. I hope there is enough benevolence—and reality—in my interpretations of these poems to alleviate some of that suffering; truth frees and makes us laugh. We need to know that God is the source of all humor and that God is Infinite Intelligence, a Beloved that does not defy our deepest sensibilities and the innate, glorious compassion of the heart. . . .

"No one could ever paint a too wonderful picture of…God." But I feel He doesn’t mind that I tried. In studying the lives of these wonderful saints, I can’t imagine any of them saying "no" if they were asked if we could freely adapt their words to a few blue-grass tunes or whiskey-soaked jazz. I think they might shout, "Go for it, baby; set the world on fire if you can, kick ass for the Beloved with some great art."

     My suspicions have been confirmed in correspondence with two specialists in St. Catherine studies dated 6-7 October 2021, Dr. F. Thomas Luongo, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, Tulane University ("it doesn’t sound like anything Catherine would say. She is not exactly the patron saint of body-positivity!"  "I don’t think it’s something that Catherine or any other fourteenth-century author could have written"), and Dr. Karen Scott, Associate Professor of Catholic Studies and History, DePaul University ("Ladinsky's text is in no way a real translation of authentic texts by Catherine of Siena").