Where no judgments as to merit suffice

"Be pleased, O Lord, with our humble prayers and offerings, and, since we have no merits to plead our cause, come, we pray, to our rescue with the protection of your mercy. Through Christ our Lord".

"Placare, Domine, quæsumus, nostræ precibus humilitatis et hostiis, et, ubi nulla suppetunt suffragia meritorum, tuæ nobis indulgentiæ succurre præsidiis. Per Christum Dominum nostrum".

Be reconciled/appeased, O Lord, we pray, by the prayers and sacrifices of our humility, and, where no pleas/judgments/aids/supports of merits are at hand/in store/suffice, hasten to help us with the garrison/troops [(præsidiis, defenses/protections)] of your indulgence. Through Christ our Lord".

     Prayer over the offerings, Second Sunday of Advent.  That "since" may be too good to be true.  For I see no indication that ubi functions in that way in even the medieval Latin covered by the Dictionary of mediaeval Latin from British sources, let alone the classical.  That phrase should therefore run not "since no votes or backings of merits—i.e. no judgments of merit—suffice," but rather "where no votes or backings of merits—i.e. no judgments as to merit—suffice."  Corpus orationum, in which this appears as no. 4246, citing the Gregorian, the Old Gelasian, and so forth, gives the original word order as follows:

"Placare, Domine, quæsumus, humilitatis nostræ precibus et hostiis, et, ubi nulla suppetunt suffragia meritorum, tuæ nobis indulgentiæ succurre præsidiis."

1973 (very loose):
Lord, we are nothing without you. As you sustain us with your mercy, receive our prayers and offerings.

Neiman and Rieff on the land acknowledgment

Deutschlandfunk Kultur

"there are many things short of giving back the continent that could be done to improve the lives of Native Americans.  Solemnly reciting a land acknowledgement is not one of them. . . .  'The performative guilt of today's professional managerial class bears the same relationship to real shame and real guilt as Astro Turf does to grass.'"

     The philosopher Susan Neiman quoting David Rieff's Desire and fate (2024), in her review of that book entitled "Where wokeness went wrong," The New York review of books 72, no. 19 (December 4, 2025), 26 (26-28), an article eminently quotable throughout.  Neiman is, of course, the author of Left is not woke (Polity Press, 2023).

"What happens in a culture is partly dependent on what the collective consciousness of the culture allows"

Carlos "Eire’s [weird and wonderful] book [They Flew: A History of the Impossible] raises the question of a culture’s epistemic reality and whether that affects the kinds of events that can occur. . . . What happens in a culture is partly dependent on what the collective consciousness of the culture allows. This has nothing to do with the truth of the events; it involves the specific form the miracles took. St. Joseph [of Cupertino] levitated because this was an act expected of the holiest friars and nuns—the physical expression of metaphysical experience, the raptured body suspended between gravity and grace."

     Christian Wiman, "The tune of things:  Is consciousness God?," Harper's magazine (December 2025).

"being deified does not make anything depart from what it is by nature"

μηδαμῶς τῷ θεωθῆναι, τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν ἐκστᾷν.

     St. Maximus the Confessor, Opusculum 7, trans. DelCogliano in Christ:  Chalcedon and beyond, Cambridge edition of early Christian writings 4 (Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press, 2022), 513.  Greek:  PG 91, col. 81D (42).

Chrysostom on merit and the sola gratia

      "The Lord, however, does want them to contribute something, lest everything seem to be a work of grace, and they seem to win their reward without deserving it [(Εἶτα, ἵνα τι καὶ παρ' ἑαυτῶν εἰσφέρωσι, καὶ μὴ πάντα τῆς χάριτος εἶναι δοκῇ, μηδὲ εἰκῆ καὶ μάτην στεφανοῦσθαι νομίζωνται)].  Therefore he adds:  You must be clever as snakes and innocent as doves."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily 33.1-2 on Matthew, as trans. Office of readings, Thursday, Thirty-fourth week in ordinary time, Liturgy of the hours.  Ed. F. Field (1839), 461; PG 57, col. 389-390 (in Field misprinted as 379 (379-380)).  NPNF 10, trans. Prevost as rev. Riddle:

'After this, that they may contribute something on their own part also, and that all might not seem to be of His grace, nor they supposed to be crowned at random, and vainly, He saith, 'Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.'

"rather to reform the faith in us Christians than to give it to the Indians"

"'Our people here are such that there is neither good man nor bad who hasn't two or three Indians to serve him and dogs to hunt for him and, though it perhaps were better not to mention it, women so pretty that one must wonder at it.  With the last of these practices I am extremely discontented, for it seems to me a disservice to God, but I can do nothing about it, nor the habit of eating meat on Saturday [sic, for Friday] and other wicked practices that are not for good Christians.  For these reasons it would be a great advantage to have some devout friars here, rather to reform the faith in us Christians than to give it to the Indians [(más para reformar la fe en los christianos que para darla a los indios)].  And I shall never be able to administer just punishments, unless fifty or sixty men are sent here from Castile with each fleet, and I send there the same number from among the lazy and the insubordinate, as I do with this present fleet—such would be the greatest and best punishment and least burdensome to the conscience that I can think of.'"

     Christopher Columbus to Ferdinand and Isabella "Shortly after landing on Hispaniola in 1498," as trans. Felipe Fernández-Armesto on pp. 133-134 of his Columbus (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1991), and citing Crístobal Colón:  textos y documentos completos, ed. Varela (Madrid:  1984), 244.  Yet "Columbus's requests for friars to be sent to Hispaniola for the needs of the colonists rather than the natives were consciously ironic:  he was using the simple pagan in his traditional role as a commonplace of sententious literature, to point up the moral deficiencies of the Christians.  He was, beyond question, every bit as enthusiastic about converting the natives as his royal sponsors" (137).

The energy cost of AI

"In this domain, living organisms are unbeatable:  a human brain consumes about 25 watts.  By contrast, a computer possessing an equivalent power of information-processing consumes 25 megawatts, i.e. a million times more."

     Jean-David Fermanian & Isabelle Rak, "Démystifier l’Intelligence Artificielle," Communio:  revue catholique internationale 50, no. 5 =301 (septembre-octobre 2025):  27 (17-34).

Planck on the scientific virtue "akin to" faith

PLANCK:  ". . . The difficulty which organized religion finds in appealing to the people nowadays is that its appeal necessarily demands the believing spirit, or what is generally called Faith.  In an all-around state of scepticism this appeal receives only a poor response.  Hence you have a number of prophets offering substitute wares.

MURPHY:  "Do you think that science in this particular might be a substitute for religion?

PLANCK:  "Not to a sceptical state of mind; for science demands also the believing spirit.  Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrace to the gates of the temple of science are written the words:  Ye must have faith.  It is a quality which the scientists cannot dispense with. . . .
     ". . . As a matter of fact, Kepler is [on the contrary] a magnificent example of [this]. . . .  [W]hat rendered him so energetic and tireless and productive was the profound faith he had in his own science, not the belief that he could eventually arrive at an arithmetical synthesis of his astronomical observations, but rather the profound faith in the existence of a definite plan behind the whole of creation. . . .  Compare him with Tycho de Brahe.  Brahe had the same material under his hands as Kepler, and even better opportunities, but he remained only a researcher, because he did not have the same faith in the existence of the eternal laws of creation.  Brahe remained only a researcher; but Kepler was the creator of the new astronomy. . . .
     ". . . if we did not have faith but could solve every puzzle in life by an application of the human reason what an unbearable burden life would be.  We should have no art and no music and no wonderment.  And we should have no science; not only because science would thereby lose its chief attraction for its own followers—namely, the pursuit of the unknowable—but also because science would lose the cornerstone of its own structure, which is the direct perception by consciousness of the existence of external reality.  As Einstein has said, you could not be a scientist if you did not know that the external world existed in reality; but that knowledge is not gained by any process of reasoning.  It is a direct perception and therefore in its nature akin to what we call Faith.  It is a metaphysical belief.  Now that is something which the sceptic questions in regard to religion; but it is the same in regard to science.  However, there is this to be said in favour of theoretical physics, that it is a very active science and does make an appeal to the lay imagination.  In that way it may, to some extent, satisfy the metaphysical hunger which religion does not seem to be capable of satisfying nowadays.  But this would be entirely by stimulating the religious reaction indirectly.  Science as such can never really take the place of religion.  This is explained in the penultimate chapter of [Where is science going?]."

     Max Planck as interviewed by James Murphy in "Epilogue:  a socratic dialogue:  Interlocutors:  Einstein—Planck—Murphy," in Max Planck, Where is science going?, trans. & ed. James Murphy (London:  George Allen & Unwinn Ltd, 1933), 214-215, 218-219.

The rising sun as typus Christi

Iam noctis umbra linquitur,
polum caligo deserit,
typusque Christi, lucifer
diem sopitum suscitat.

     Stanza 2 of the anonymous 5th or 6th century hymn "Deus, qui caeli lumen es."  One hundred Latin hymns:  Ambrose to Aquinas, ed. Walsh & Husch, Dumbarton Oaks medieval library (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2012), 119 (118-121):

The shades of night are left behind,
the murk vanishes from the sky;
the light-bearer, symbol of Christ,
awakens now the slumbrous day. 

The Christian faith is "exceptionally rich"

"The 2,000-year old Western tradition, that of Christianity, provides, whether one believes in it or not, an exceptionally rich mythos – a term I use in its technical sense, making no judgment here of its truth or otherwise – for understanding the world and our relationship with it. It conceives a divine Other that is not indifferent or alien – like James Joyce’s God, refined out of existence and ‘paring his fingernails’ – but on the contrary engaged, vulnerable because of that engagement, and like the right hemisphere rather than the left, not resentful (as the Old Testament Yahweh often seemed) about the Faustian fallings away of its creation, but suffering alongside it. At the centre of this mythos are the images of incarnation, the coming together of matter and spirit, and of resurrection, the redemption of that relationship, as well as of a God that submits to suffer for that process. But any mythos that allows us to approach a spiritual Other, and gives us something other than material values to live by, is more valuable than one that dismisses the possibility of its existence."

     Iain McGilchrist, The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the western world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019), 441-442.  But McGilchrist then moves on from the body and religion to art, or, more generally, beauty.

McGilchrist on theological liberalism

     "The Western Church has, in my view, been active in undermining itself. It no longer has the confidence to stick to its values, but instead joins the chorus of voices attributing material answers to spiritual problems. At the same time the liturgical reform movement, as always convinced that religious truths can be literally stated, has largely eroded and in some cases completely destroyed the power of metaphoric language and ritual to convey the numinous. Meanwhile there has been, as expected, a parallel movement towards the possible rehabilitation of religious practices as utility. Thus 15 minutes Zen meditation a day may make you a more effective money broker, or improve your blood pressure, or lower your cholesterol."

     Iain McGilchrist, The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the western world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019), 441.  But see p. 316 for his comments on "the improbable doctrine of transubstantiation," which he treats as "the explicit analytical [(i.e. medieval scholastic)] left hemisphere attempt to untangle" the properly metaphorical "is" of the right, and thus does no more than mirror the parallel rejection of metaphor on the part of Protestant literalism (mere representationalism).

"Gotta serve somebody"

      "When we decide not to worship divinity, we do not stop worshipping:  we merely find something else less worthy to worship."

     Iain McGilchrist, The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the western world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019), 441.

"Hall of mirrors"

     "If the right hemisphere delivers 'the Other' – experience of whatever it is that exists apart from ourselves – this is not the same as the world of concrete entities 'out there' (it is certainly more than that), but it does encompass most of what we would think of as actually existing things, at least before we come to think of them at all, as opposed to the concepts of them, the abstractions and constructions we inevitably make from them, in conscious reflection, which forms the contribution of the left hemisphere. But what if the left hemisphere were able to externalise and make concrete its own workings – so that the realm of actually existing things apart from the mind consisted to a large extent of its own projections? Then the ontological primacy of right-hemisphere experience would be outflanked, since it would be delivering – not 'the Other', but what was already the world as processed by the left hemisphere. It would make it hard, and perhaps in time impossible, for the right hemisphere to escape from the hall of mirrors, to reach out to something that was truly 'Other' than, beyond, the human mind.
     "In essence this was the [culminating] achievement of the Industrial Revolution."

     Iain McGilchrist, The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the Western world, new revised edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019), 386.

"Receive us . . . not troubled, not shrinking back on that day of death or uprooted by force"

Index of Medieval Art, below

"O Lord and Maker of all, and especially of this body of ours! O God and Father and Pilot of mankind! O Master of life and death! O Guardian and Benefactor of our souls! O You who make and change all seasonably by Your creative Word, . . . receive us, ready and not troubled by fear of You, not turning away in our last days, nor forcibly drawn from things of earth, as is the misfortune of souls loving the world and the flesh, but eagerly drawn to the heavenly life, everlasting and blessed, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."

     St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Funeral oration On his brother, St. Caesarius 24, trans. McCauley, FC 22 (Funeral orations (Washington, DC:  Catholic University of America Press, 1953)), 25.  Trans. Liturgy of the hours for Friday in the 31st week of Ordinary time:

"Lord and Creator of all, and especially of your creature man, you are the God and Father and ruler of your children; you are the Lord of life and death, you are the guardian and benefactor of our souls. You fashion and transform all things in their due season through your creative Word, as you know to be best in your deep wisdom and providence. Receive. . . . us too at the proper time, when you have guided us in our bodily life as long as may be for our profit. Receive us prepared indeed by fear of you, but not troubled, not shrinking back on that day of death or uprooted by force like those who are lovers of the world and the flesh. Instead, may we set out eagerly for that everlasting and blessed life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen [(δέχοιο δὲ καὶ ἡμᾶς ὕστερον ἐν καιρῷ εὐθέτῳ, οἰκονομήσας ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ ἐφ' ὅσον ἂν ᾗ συμθέρον· καὶ δέχοιό γε διὰ τὸν σὸν φόβον ἑτοιμασθέντας, καὶ οὐ ταρασσομὲνους, οὐδὲ ὑποχωροῦντας ἐν ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τελευταίᾳ, καὶ βὶᾳ τῶν ἐντεῦθεν ἀποσπωμένους, ὃ τῶν φιλοκόσμων ψυχῶν πάθος καὶ φιλοσάρκων, αλλὰ προθύμος πρὸς τὴν αὐτόθεν ζωὴν τὴν μακραίωνά τε καὶ μακαρίαν, τὴν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ Κυρίῳ ἡμῶν, ᾧ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.)]."

     Greek from SC 405 (1995), , and PG 35, col. 788B-C.  A lovely illustration of this (St. Caesarius interpreted by me as both returning home upon exile as mentioned in this funeral oration and welcoming his brother and mother to "that everlasting and blessed life which is in Jesus Christ our Lord") would be Index of Medieval Art no. 49875.

"being and being known as a Christian"

"Although he possessed many important honors, his own first claim to dignity consisted in being and being known as a Christian."

     St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Funeral oration On his brother, St. Caesarius 10, trans. McCauley, FC 22 (Funeral orations (Washington, DC:  Catholic University of America Press, 1953)), 12.  Cf. "Their sole enjoyment in their children was that they be known as Christ's and called His" (4, p. 7).  This is, if memory serves, a theme of St. Gregory's.

"Every new object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ [of perception] in us"

"In his Anthropology, . . . Dr. Heinroth . . . calls my approach unique, for he says that my thinking works objectively.  Here he means that my thinking is not separate from objects; that the elements of the object, the perceptions of the object, flow into my thinking and are fully permeated by it; that my perception itself is a thinking, and my thinking a perception. . . .
     "I must admit that I have long been suspicious of the great and important-sounding task:  'know thyself.'  This has always seemed to me a deception practiced by a secret order of priests who wished to confuse humanity with impossible demands, to divert attention from activity in the outer world to some false, inner speculation.  The human being knows himself only insofar as he knows the world; he perceives the world only in himself, and himself only in the world.  Every new object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ of perception in us.
     "But the greatest help comes from our fellow men:  they have the advantage of being able to compare us with the world from their own standpoint, and thus they know us better than we ourselves can.
     "Since reaching the age of maturity, I have always paid strict attention to what others might know of me:  from them and in them, as in so many mirrors, I can gain a clearer idea of myself and what lies within me.
     "Here I exclude adversaries, for they find my existence odious, repudiate my goals, and condemn my means of reaching them as a mere waste of time.  Thus I pass them by and ignore them, for they offer me no help with the growth which is the point of my life.  But friends may call attention to my limitations or to the infinite in my being--in either case I listen to them and trust that they will truly instruct me."

"Hiebei bekenn' ich, daß mir von jeher die große und so bedeutend klingende Aufgabe: erkenne dich selbst, immer verdächtig vorkam, als eine List geheim verbündeter Priester, die den Menschen durch unerreichbare Forderungen verwirren und von der Thätigkeit gegen die Außenwelt zu einer innern falschen Beschaulichkeit verleiten wollten. Der Mensch kennt nur sich selbst, in sofern er die Welt kennt, die er nur in sich und sich nur in ihr gewahr wird. Jeder neue Gegenstand, wohl beschaut, schließt ein neues Organ in uns auf."

     Johann Wolfang von Goethe, "Significant help given by an ingenious turn of phrase [(Bedeutende Förderniß durch ein einziges geistreiches Wort)]," in Scientific studies, ed. & trans. Douglas Miller, Works 12  (New York:  Suhrkamp Publishers, 1988, 39 (39-41).  German:  Goethes Werke: Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen: II. Abtheilung: Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften: 11. Band: Zur Naturwissenschaft: Allgemeine Naturlehre: I. Theil,  58-64. Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 1893, p. 59, ll. 10-20.  I was put onto this by Iain McGilchrist, The master and his emissary, new expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press), 359-360, who, however, quotes a slightly different translation.

AI singularity as fundamental bug, not ultimate feature

     "The singularity of each [and every] AI machine is to be contrasted with the universality of human reason.  Rational activity consists . . . in a knowledge of the universal forms to be equated with neither the abstract symbolism of traditional informatics nor any generalizations from the concrete [that] artificial intelligence [might be capable of confecting].  Because [(De sorte que)] rational logic is truly [(elle-même)] universal, it is found in every human individual who is thinking straight; is communicable from one human being to another; [and] can be understood and communicated, agreed with or refuted.  AI machines, by contrast, are not designed to communicate their logic; rather, their [quite alien] internal logic is what one does not wish to see in their responses inasmuch as it has meaning for that one machine and it alone.
     "Among the myths surrounding artificial intelligence is the notion that, by dint of [a supposed] perfectability, AI machines, [having] become superintelligent, will begin to develop a moral sense, a consciousness of themselves, and thus attain to a personal 'singularity.'  In reality, singularity is not a perfection of the AI machine, but the opposite.  [For an AI machine] is already singular by its very logic, and that singularity is the inevitable by-product [(rançon directe)] of its incapacity to accede to the universality of human reason.  The more an AI machine is perfected in the imitation of the products of human reason, the more its logic becomes incommunicable and [the more it] finds itself entrapped within its singularity."

     Fr. Emmanuel Perrier, O.P., "Que fait l’intelligence artificielle?," Revue thomiste website, October (?) 2025.

"the amplitude of the glory of [the Father's] inheritance in the saints"

ὁ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης τῆς κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις 

     Eph 1:18 RSV:  "that you may know . . . what are the riches of his glorious inheritance [i.e. 'portion'] in the saints."  riches:  abundance, wealth, richness, plenitude, fulsomeness, plentifulness, plenteousness, sumptuosity, immensity, magnitude, clerete, lustre, dimensity, etc.
     "God seeks from our goods not profit, but glory, i.e., the manifestation of His goodness" ("Deus ex bonis nostris non quaerit utilitatem, sed gloriam, idest manifestationem suae bonitatis"; St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II.114.1 ("Whether a man may merit anything from God").ad 2).

Neither hero nor villain

"Thus Columbus-the-hero and Columbus-the-villain live on, mutually sustained by the passion which continuing controversy imparts to their supporters. No argument can dispel [either of] the[se two falsehoods], however convincing; no evidence, however compelling. They have eclipsed the real Columbus and, judged by their effects, have outstriped him in importance. For one of the sad lessons historians learn is that history is influenced less by the facts as they happen than by the falsehoods men believe."

     Felipe Fernández-Armesto, at the time Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford, and the author of an important Columbus biography published by Oxford University Press in 1991 ("arguably one of the best-written and most historically sensitive" available, according to Dr. Valerie I. J. Flint in the Encyclopaedia Britannica's Britannica Library), but now William P. Reynolds Professor of History, University of Notre Dame.  "Columbus - Hero or Villain?," History today 42, no. 5 (May 1992):  9 (4-9).
     And yet it seems clear that there are, in Fernández-Armesto's mind, respects in which Columbus was and remains the former at least, not (of course) to mention respects in which he was clearly a man of his own time, indeed more Genoese than Spanish, given that he "never understood [already contemporary] Spanish[/Castilian] scruples about slavery" (6).  And yet "Las Casas revered him, and pitied, rather than censured, the imperfections of his attitude to the natives."  (Though I suppose the question might be, Right up until his death in 1566, 61 years after Columbus'?)

"God be in my head and in my understanding"

Jesus soit en ma teste, et mon entendement, | Jesus soit en mes yeulx | et mon regardement, | Jesus soit en ma bouche et en mon parlement, | Jesus soit en mon cueur et en mon pensement, | Jesus soit en ma vie et en mon trespassement, | Ainsy soit-il.

[Jean ]Sonet-[Keith Val ]Sinclair 991.

But the incipit varied. See, for example, this JONAS entry (where there is a complete (?) list of manuscripts and early printings, with dates, the earliest (plural) being either 15th century or second half of 15th century):

Jesus soit en mon chef et mon entendement...

Sonet-Sinclair 993


Jhesus soit en mon ame et en mon entendement;
Jhesus soit en ma bouche et en mon parlement...

Sonet-Sinclair 992

And in this one, at least, possibly Sonet-Sinclair 993, other words (fin) did as well: 

Jhesus soit en mon chef et mo[n] entendement.
Jhesus soit en ma bouche et mon parlement.
Jhesus soit en mon cueur et en mon pensement.
Jhesus soit en ma fin et a mon trespasseme[n]t.

Paris. Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Ms. 2879 (15th cent.), fol. 73r-73v (whence the image above).

"Sleepwalking into the Abyss"

"Denial, a tendency to conformism, a willingness to disregard the evidence, a habit of ducking responsibility, a blindness to mere experience in the face of the overwhelming evidence of theory:  these [left-brain] characteristics might sound ominously familiar to observers of contemporary Western life."

"if I am right, that the story of the Western world is one of increasing left-hemisphere domination, we would not expect insight to be the key note.  Instead we would expect a sort of insouciant optimism, the sleepwalker whistling a happy tune as he ambles towards the abyss."

     Iain McGilchrist, The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the western world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019), 235, 237.

"the bishop of Syria shall be found at the setting of the sun, having [been] fetched . . . from the sun's rising"

Timothy A. Gonsalves

"God has vouchsafed that the bishop of Syria shall be found at the setting of the sun, having fetched him from the sun's rising.  It is good to set to the world towards God, that I may rise to him."

     St. Ignatius of Antioch, Romans II.2, as trans. Lake.

"I seek Him who died for our sake. I desire Him who rose for us."

"It is better for me to die in Christ Jesus than to be king over the ends of the earth.  I seek Him who died for our sake.  I desire Him who rose for us.  The pains of birth are upon me.  Suffer me, my brethren; hinder me not from living, do not wish me to die.  Do not give to the world one who desires to belong to God, nor deceive him with material things.  Suffer me to receive the pure light; when I have come thither I shall become a man [(ἄνθρωπος)].  Suffer me to follow the example of the Passion of my God."

     St. Ignatius of Antioch, Romans VI.1-3, as trans. Lake.

Being vs. being called

"pray for me or strength, both inward and outward, that I may not merely speak, but also have the will, that I may not only be called a Christian, but may also be found to be one."

     St. Ignatius of Antioch, Romans III.1, as trans. Lake. 

"In the beginning was. . . . Jesus Christ"

"by reading [the] houtos [of Jn 1:2] forward . . . as an anticipatory reference to Jesus of Nazareth . . . Barth is able then to claim that the identity of the one called provisionally the Word in v. 1 is an identity that is only finally disclosed in v. 15.  The concept of the Word appears in v. 1 as a 'placeholder' for the one whose identity is only made clear in v. 15. . . .  [T]he Word is a predicate of Jesus.  Jesus is not the predicate of a Word whose identity is already secure in himself without reference to Jesus.
Barth has thus “close[d] the door firmly on any attempt to find in John 1:1 a wholly abstract conception of the Word and, with that, an equally abstract conception of the Father’s relation to a Son who is not, in himself and as such, Jesus.  For John, there is no eternal Word as such, no eternal Word in himself that is not already defined by his relation to the Jesus who is still to come.  And that means too that the only-begotten Son is already in himself, in pretemporal eternity, Jesus Christ by way of anticipation of the event of the incarnation in time.
     "The Christological subject in [even] John’s Gospel has here been shown to be 'Jesus Christ.'  Jesus is the Word both in eternity (by anticipation) and in time (in concrete realization).  'Preexistence' is a less doubtful concept when speaking of the Johannine Prologue than it was in relation to the Synoptics.  A step [(or 'development' (238))] has been taken by John towards greater clarification.  But it is a step that remains in contact with the solutions provided in the Synoptics and ensures their commensurability with him.  For here, too, it is a human being of whom all these things are said, a human being who is proper to the identity of the eternal God. . . . As a relation already proper to the Son in pretemporal eternity, . . . Jesus Christ is something like 'the hypostatic realization in God of His electing purposes' [(McCormack himself)].  He is the second person of the Trinity.  So even when Jesus prays 'So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in our presence before the world existed,' this ['I'] is not to be understood in terms of a Logos who bears in himself no relation to Jesus but who is now speaking in the voice of the human Jesus as his instrument. . . . No, it is the human Jesus who prays this prayer.  And he can do so meaningfully because he is present by way of anticipation in the electing purposes of God that define him as a 'person' of the Trinity."

     Bruce Lindley McCormack, The humility of the eternal Son:  Reformed kenoticism and the repair of Chalcedon (Cambridge, UK:  Cambridge University Press, 2021), 243-245, underscoring mine.  Not sure yet what I think of this considered as a project of Chalcedonian "repair," I do nonetheless resonate with the specificity with which it rejects the diffusely "cosmic" character of certain Christologies.

Artificial nethermost intelligence

Aleteia

"the wealth of intelligence employed by the engineers [of such machines] does not in any way raise the machine towards intelligence.  [Quite] the contrary:  what the[ engineers] testify to is [rather] the [enormous] effort required to reduce rational tasks to the level of a natural [(which is to say, sub-intelligent and inanimate, corpse-like and inert)] operation among the most impoverished [of them all]."

"Dans la conception de telles machines, les trésors d’intelligence déversés par les ingénieurs n’élèvent donc aucunement la machine vers l’intelligence, ils témoignent au contraire de l’effort nécessaire à l’homme pour abaisser des tâches rationnelles au niveau d’une opération naturelle parmi les plus pauvres."

     Fr. Emmanuel Perrier, O.P., "Que fait l’intelligence artificielle?," Revue thomiste website, October (?) 2025.  "Artificial nethermost intelligence" is my attempt to reproduce the number of syllables in the phrase "Artificial general intelligence."

"'faith and love' . . . can be maintained only when docetism is rejected"

"Therefore adopt meekness and be renewed in faith, which is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, which is the blood of Jesus Christ."

ὑμεις οὖν τὴν πραϋπάθειαν ἀναλαβόντες ἀνακτήσασθε ἑαυτοὺς ἐν πίστει ὅ ἐστιν σὰρξ τοῦ κυρίου, καὶ ἐν ἀγάπῃ, ὅ ἐστιν αἷμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

     St. Ignatius, Trallians 8.1, as trans. Kirsopp Lake.  Cf. J. B. Lightfoot, The apostolic fathers:  Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp 2.2 (1889), 171; Walter Bauer, Die Briefe des Ignatius von Antiochia und der Polykarpbrief, Handbuch zum Neuen Testament, Ergänzungsband 2 (Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1920), 236; William R. Schoedel & Helmut Koester, Ignatius of Antioch:  a commentary on the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, Hermeneia (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1985), 149-150; etc. (I have not looked for any scholarship on this beyond (but not exhaustively!) the genre of the handy "commentary").  Schoedel & Koester, on the basis of a "study of the linking formula ('which is')":  "The basic concern seems to be the affirmation of the reality of the flesh (and hence of the suffering) of the historical Jesus. And this, in turn, is linked by Ignatius with the maintenance of true obedience and love (Sm. 6.2; cf. Tr. 2.1). For in Ignatius' mind 'faith and love' (cf. Sm. 6.1) can be maintained only when docetism is rejected."
     Cf. Romans 7.2-3, as trans. Lake, modifications mine:

[living (ζῶν)] I write to you[,] desiring [(ἐρῶν)] death.  My [desire (ἐρως)] has been crucified, and there is in me no fire of love [(πῦρ φιλόυλον)] for material things; but only water living and speaking in me [(ζῶν καὶ λαλοῦν, emended by Lightfoot (II.2 (1889), pp. 224-25) to ἁλλόμενον, from Jn 4:14 as interpolated into the long recension, welling up)] in me, and saying to me from within, 'Come to the Father.'  I have no pleasure in the food of corruption or in the delights of this life.  I desire [(θέλω)] the 'bread [(ἄρτον)] of God,' which is the flesh [(σὰρξ)] of Jesus Christ, who was 'of the seed of David,' and for drink I desire [(θέλω)] his blood [(αἷμα)], which is incorruptible love [(ἀγάπη ἄφθαρτος)].

"All the baptized in the Church have citizenship, on their sharing [1] the Creed and [2] the morality that comes from it."

 "Nella Chiesa tutti i battezzati hanno cittadinanza, se ne condividono il Credo e la morale conseguente."

      Robert Cardinal Sarah, as interviewed by Giacomo Gambassi on 12 September 2025.  Avvenire; Rorate Caeli.

A wilde faith

"The Catholic church is for saints and sinners [alone].  For respectable people, the Anglican church will do."

      Oscar Wilde, as quoted by Richard A. Kaye in "The path to Rome:  investigating the deathbed conversion of Oscar Wilde," Times literary supplement no. 6386 (August 22, 2025), 8 (7-8).  Richard Ellmann adds "alone", citing an undated letter of Reginald Turner to T. H. Bell "in Bell's unpublished MS. on Wilde (Clark)" (Oscar Wilde (New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1988, 583 and 621).  I have followed this trail no further.  In a number of ways, but this one in particular, Kaye implies that he has settled the matter of the deathbed conversion about which Wilde "admirers have often expressed unease" (7):  "Whatever prompted Wilde's lifelong attraction to Catholicism, the intensity of that attraction should now be beyond question" (8).

Ouch

Source

     "Do you want to honor Christ’s body? Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked. For he who said: This is my body, and made it so by his words, also said: You saw me hungry and did not feed me, and inasmuch as you did not do it for one of these, the least of my brothers, you did not do it for me. What we do here in the church requires a pure heart, not special garments; what we do outside requires great dedication.
     "Let us learn, therefore to be men of wisdom and to honor Christ as he desires. For a person being honored finds greatest pleasure in the honor he desires, not in the honor we think best. Peter thought he was honoring Christ when he refused to let him wash his feet; but what Peter wanted was not truly an honor, quite the opposite! Give him the honor prescribed in his law by giving your riches to the poor. For God does not want golden vessels but golden hearts.
     "Now, in saying this I am not forbidding you to make such gifts; I am only demanding that along with such gifts and before them you give alms. He accepts the former, but he is much more pleased with the latter. In the former, only the giver profits; in the latter, the recipient does too. A gift to the Church may be taken as a form of ostentation, but an alms is pure kindness.
     "Of what use is it to weigh down Christ’s table with golden cups, when he himself is dying of hunger? First, fill him when he is hungry; then use the means you have left to adorn his table. Will you have a golden cup made but not give a cup of water? What is the use of providing the table with cloths woven of gold thread, and not providing Christ himself with the clothes he needs? What profit is there in that? Tell me: If you were to see him lacking the necessary food but were to leave him in that state and merely surround his table with gold, would he be grateful to you or rather would he not be angry? What if you were to see him clad in worn-out rags and stiff from the cold, and were to forget about clothing him and instead were to set up golden columns for him, saying that you were doing it in his honor? Would he not think he was being mocked and greatly insulted?
     "Apply this also to Christ when he comes along the roads as a pilgrim, looking for shelter. You do not take him in as your guest, but you decorate floor and walls and the capitals of the pillars. You provide silver chains for the lamps, but you cannot bear even to look at him as he lies chained in prison. Once again, I am not forbidding you to supply these adornments; I am urging you to provide these other things as well, and indeed to provide them first. No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbor a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily 50 on Matthew, as trans. Liturgy of the hours for Saturday of Week 21 in Ordinary time.  Ed. Field (1839), vol. 2, p. 64 ll. 15 ff.(57-66) = PG 58, col. 508 ll. 46 ff.  NPNF 10 (1844), trans. Prevost:

"Wouldest thou do honor to Christ’s body? Neglect Him not when naked; do not[,]  while here thou honorest Him with silken garments, neglect Him perishing without of cold and nakedness. For He that said, 'This is my body,' and by His word confirmed the fact, 'This same said, “Ye saw me an hungered, and fed me not;' and, 'Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.' For This indeed needs not coverings, but a pure soul; but that requires much attention.
     "Let us learn therefore to be strict in life, and to honor Christ as He Himself desires. For to Him who is honored that honor is most pleasing, which it is His own will to have, not that which we account best. Since Peter too thought to honor Him by forbidding Him to wash his feet, but his doing so was not an honor, but the contrary,
     "Even so do thou honor Him with this honor, which He ordained, spending thy wealth on poor people. Since God hath no need at all of golden vessels, but of golden souls.
     "And these things I say, not forbidding such offerings to be provided; but requiring you, together with them, and before them, to give alms. For He accepts indeed the former, but much more the latter. For in the one the offerer alone is profited, but in the other the receiver also. Here the act seems to be a ground even of ostentation; but there all is mercifulness, and love to man.
     "For what is the profit, when His table indeed is full of golden cups, but He perishes with hunger? First fill Him, being an hungered, and then abundantly deck out His table also. Dost thou make Him a cup of gold, while thou givest Him not a cup of cold water? And what is the profit? Dost thou furnish His table with cloths bespangled with gold, while to Himself thou affordest not even the necessary covering? And what good comes of it? For tell me, should you see one at a loss for necessary food, and omit appeasing his hunger, while you first overlaid his table with silver; would he indeed thank thee, and not rather be indignant? What, again, if seeing one wrapped in rags, and stiff with cold, thou shouldest neglect giving him a garment, and build golden columns, saying, 'thou wert doing it to his honor,' would he not say that thou wert mocking, and account it an insult, and that the most extreme?
     "Let this then be thy thought with regard to Christ also, when He is going about a wanderer, and a stranger, needing a roof to cover Him; and thou, neglecting to receive Him, deckest out a pavement, and walls, and capitals of columns, and hangest up silver chains by means of lamps, but Himself bound in prison thou wilt not even look upon.
     "And these things I say, not forbidding munificence in these matters, but admonishing you to do those other works together with these, or rather even before these. Because for not having done these no one was ever blamed, but for those, hell is threatened, and unquenchable fire, and the punishment with evil spirits. Do not therefore while adorning His house overlook thy brother in distress, for he is more properly a temple than the other."

Ales diei nuntius lucem

          Prudentius.  Inge B. Milfull, The hymns of the Anglo-Saxon church:  a study and edition of the 'Durham hymnal.'  Cambridge studies in Anglo-Saxon England 17 (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1996) no. 18, pp. 149-150.

Jesus associated with the established just as much as with the outcast

     "This royal [Paulino-Lutheran] freedom governs also Jesus’ relation to the drive for profit, which he[, too,] quite obviously considers a behavior consistent with the [(zum . . . gehörendes)] the essence of man.  Characteristic in this respect is the Parable of the Talents, in which the rich man rebukes the servant who, having not made a profit on [(mit dem . . . nicht gewuchert hat)] the money entrusted to him, behaves so wholly uncapitalistically, and says to him, 'you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and . . . I should have received what was my own with interest.'  Not less characteristic is the fact that Jesus associated with the established [(den Etablierten)] just as much as with the outcast.  It was above all [(Erst)] this, that he associated with the former just as unreservedly as with the latter, that was the real provocation [presented by] his behavior (Mt 27:57; Lk 7:36 ff., 11:37, 14:1-14, 19:1 ff.; Mk 14:3 ff)."

     Eberhard Jüngel, "Gewinn im Himmel und auf Erden:  theologische Bemerkungen zum Streben nach Gewinn," Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 94, no. 4 (Dezember 1997):  551 (532-552).  Though this paragraph must be read in the light of those both before and after, the whole of section IV, and indeed the article at large, it is nonetheless a striking one.

"I'm standing my ground on the verge."

     Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) in In the loop (2009).

God is still, and will be forever incarnate

"The condescension of that Union, whereby His Divine and Human Natures are never to be divided, is for Eternity.  In all Eternity we shall, in the Light of the Godhead, see the especial lustre of those glorious Suns, the sacred Five, the Blessed Wounds, which for us He received.  In all Eternity, it will be a special glory to us, that it is our Nature, which forever exists enGodded, the own Body and Soul of God."

     E. B. Pusey, Address III, "God’s Love for each soul in the Incarnation," Eleven addresses during a retreat of the Companions of the Love of Jesus engaged in perpetual intercession for the conversion of sinners (Oxford:  James Parker, 1868), 26.  This, as I've said earlier, is an occurrence of the verb engod six years earlier than that (also from Pusey) in the OED at the moment (though I just submitted the correction).

Not mysteries (plural), but the mystery, one and whole

     "Our nature, in Jesus, was engodded, deified.  It shines throughout all space with the ineffable Glory of the Indwelling Godhead; but it was our nature, not ourselves.  And now, as the counterpart and complement of the Incarnation, as He took our manhood into God, He has sent His Spirit, The Holy Ghost, to dwell in us.  Truly it has been said, that men do amiss speak of mysteries of revelation.  For all is one mystery; all is one mysterious whole, of which you cannot detach part from part, without deforming the whole.  As well detach, if it were possible, one of the prismatic colours, and think that the light would remain ever the same, as think to sever from the rest one truth of God, the Father of lights, and think that the other truths would remain harmonious."

     E. B. Pusey, "[Grieve not the Spirit of God]," Sermon 14 in Sermons preached before the University of Oxford between A.D. 1859 and 1872 (Oxford:  J. Parker, 1872), 338-339.  Currently the OED gives Pusey 1874 as the first occurrence of the verb engod.  But here it is in 1872, also in Pusey.  Does it occur any earlier?  Yes, Pusey uses enGodded here in 1868, an "antedating" that I've just submitted via the OED's online form.  (But we need a far more sophisticated search than the rough-and-ready Hathi Trust searches I've just run.
     Interestingly, this was the Pusey's friend Newman's contention as well.)
     This by the way, is on the whole a good sermon, and would bear a re-reading.

"It is from us what befalls us"

      Mohammad Taqi Bahar (1884–1951), “It is from us what befalls us [(Az mast keh bar mast)],” as trans. Abbas Amanant in Iran:  a modern history (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 2017), chap. 6, p. 377.  Amanat cites Mohammad Taqi Bahar Malek al-Sho‘ara, Divan-e Ash’ar, ed. M. Bahar, 5th ed. (Tehran: Entesharat Tus, 1368/1984) 1:261–62.  I was put onto this by the Eli Lake podcast "Restless nation:  the making of modern Iran (Part 1)," Breaking history.  Beautiful poem.

"the higher you rise in your craft, skill or profession, the more you will be removed from its performance in order to manage it"

"since the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the last fifty years, we have created a world around us which, in contrast to the natural world, reflects the left hemisphere’s priorities and its vision. Today all the available sources of intuitive life – the natural world, cultural tradition, the body, religion and art – have been so conceptualised, devitalised and ‘deconstructed’ (ironised) by self-consciousness, explicitness and the systems and theories used to analyse them, that their power to help us see intuitively beyond the hermetic world that the left hemisphere has set up has been largely drained from them. . . . The cerebral and the abstract – for example, management and its systems – have become more highly valued than the hands-on task that management exists to serve, with the odd effect that the higher you rise in your craft, skill or profession, the more you will be removed from its performance in order to manage it. . . ."

     Iain McGilchrist, "Preface to the new expanded edition," The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the modern world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019 [2010]), xxiii.

The unicorn and his lion, the anima and his animus

". . . [the left hemisphere] works its necessary effects at an intermediate stage. Problems arise when this is treated as the end stage. . . [T]he Master realises the need for an emissary to do certain work on his behalf (which he, the Master, must not involve himself with) and report back to him. That is why he appoints the emissary in the first place. The emissary, however, knowing less than the Master, thinks he knows everything and considers himself the real Master, thus failing to carry out his duty to report back. The right hemisphere’s view is inclusive, 'both/and', synthetic, integrative; it realises the need for both. The left hemisphere’s view is exclusive, 'either/or', analytic and fragmentary – but, crucially, unaware of what it is missing. It therefore thinks it can go it alone. . . .
". . . reductionism has become a disease, a viewpoint lacking both intellectual sophistication and emotional depth, which is blighting our ability to understand what is happening and what we need to do about it. My current thoughts are directed towards illuminating what I see as a truer picture, a more helpful and, I believe, a more hopeful way of seeing our situation here on this planet, while we still have time.
". . . There are, it seems to me, four main pathways to the truth: science, reason, intuition and imagination. I also believe strongly that any world view that tries to get by without paying due respect to all four of these is bound to fail. Each on its own has its virtues and its vices, its gifts and its inherent dangers: only by respecting each and all together can we learn to act wisely. And each is a blend of elements contributed by either hemisphere.
     "However, the same proviso applies in each case, namely that for each to be successful, what the left hemisphere can offer must be used in service of what the right hemisphere knows and sees, not the other way round. This is as important in the case of science as in that of imagination, in the case of reason as in that of intuition. The left hemisphere is a wonderful servant, but a very poor master.
     "We also need to be aware of the sheer extent to which the left hemisphere is, in the most down-to-earth, empirically verifiable way, less reliable than the right – in matters of attention, perception, judgment, emotional understanding, and indeed intelligence as it is conventionally understood. And that means that we should be appropriately sceptical of the left hemisphere’s vision of a mechanistic world, an atomistic society, a world in which competition is more important than collaboration; a world in which nature is a heap of resource there for our exploitation, in which only humans count, and yet humans are only machines – not even very good ones, at that; a world curiously stripped of depth, colour and value. This is not the intelligent, if hard-nosed, view that its espousers comfort themselves by making it out to be; just a sterile fantasy, the product of a lack of imagination, which makes it easier for us to manipulate what we no longer understand. But it is a fantasy that displaces and renders inaccessible the vibrant, living, profoundly creative world that it was our fortune to inherit – until we squandered our inheritance.
Time is running out, and the way we think, which got us into this mess, will not be enough to get us out of it. . . . We need, I believe, to see the world with new eyes. . . ."

     Iain McGilchrist, "Preface to the new expanded edition," The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the modern world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019 [2010]), xxiv-xxvi.  Headline:  Fr. M. C. D'Arcy, The mind and heart of love:  Lion and unicorn:  a study of eros and agape (1947), not cited by McGilchrist.

Up with the binarchy

"Recognizing valid differences between two elements of a system is not to 'dichotomise.'  Some people fear dichotomies are simplistic.  But it is also simplistic to reject a perfectly valid dichotomy just because you happen to have a thing against dichotomies when they occur."

     Iain McGilchrist, "Preface to the new expanded edition," The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the modern world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019 [2010]), xvi.  Undoubtedly I'm misusing McGilchrist prematurely.

"The trees were passive to Orpheus; that's why they danced"

"the crucial point to observe here is that Mary is judged to have been purely receptive in relation to God and to God's reconciling purposes.  And yet, her receptivity is to be understood as active, not passive.  She 'goes forth to receive the Lord.'  And that is a point of considerable significance.  Emphasis is laid here on the active obedience of Mary, on her (human) power to receive the Holy Spirit rooted in her holiness.  To be sure, the 'person-forming' power (if I can again borrow a Christological caegory) remains God's.  Mary is given the power of 'Divine Maternity.'  She 'becomes heaven, and Her womb becomes the place of the overshadowing.'  Indeed, what she receives in her virginal conception is not a gift of grace so much as it is 'the Holy Spirit Himself in all the fullness of His divine nature.'  And so she was made the fit instrument of the incarnation of the Logos.  But she must voluntarily receive for any of this to happen.  A hierarchy of wills is envisioned; the lesser 'follows' the greater.  The same holds true in the hypostatic union itself - which brings us, in the second place, to Jesus."

     Bruce Lindley McCormack on Sergius Bulgakov, The humility of the eternal Son:  Reformed kenoticism and the repair of Chalcedon (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2021), 134.  The headline is from Austin Farrer.

Doomed to mistake it

"This solidarity of the ages is so effective that the lines of connection work both ways.  Misunderstanding of the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past.  But a man may wear himself out just as fruitlessly in seeking to understand the past, if he is totally ignorant of the present."

     "Aussi bien cette solidarité des âges a-t-elle tant de force qu’entre eux les liens d’intelligibilité sont véritablement à double sens. L’incompréhension du présent naît fatalement de l’ignorance du passé. Mais il n’est peut-être pas moins vain de s’épuiser à comprendre le passé, si l’on ne sait rien du présent."

     Marc Bloch, The historian's craft, trans. Peter Putnam (Manchester:  Manchester University Press, 2024 [1954]), 36; Apologie pour l'histoire; ou, Métier d'historiene, Cahiers des Annales [3] (Paris:  Librairie Armand Colin, 1949), 13.  I was put onto this by Richard Davenport-Hines, "A Stalinist chump at Oxford:  the Civil War historian who misjudged his own times," Times literary supplement no. 6364 (March 21, 2025):  21.