William Barclay (it would appear), as prefaced by Lancelot Andrewes

"Take away, O Lord, the veil of our hearts while we read the scriptures. Help us to study your word, not only to know about our blessed Lord, but also to know him; not only to learn about him, but also to encounter him; not only to grow in knowledge, but also to increase in love; not only to love him with our hearts, but also to obey him with our lives.  So that in knowing him, and loving him, and obeying him, we too may say with the Apostle Paul: For me to live is Christ. This we ask for your love’s sake. Amen."

Here’s a link to the presence of all but the incipit from Lancelot Andrewes in William Barclay’s Introducing the Bible (London:  Bible Reading Fellowship; Nashville:  Abingdon, 1972), p. [7] (I've checked both, the Nashville printing on paper, and the original London printing via Google Books).

As I said back in early December of 2023, "the incipit [(at least)] is clearly Andrewes (riffing, of course, on 2 Cor 3:15), as translated by F. E. Brightman from the 1675 Oxford edition of the Preces privatae, as also edited by him (i.e. Brightman)." 

"Take away, o Lord, the veil of my heart while I read the Scriptures" (in your prayer this is changed only from the first person singular into the first person plural).

And here is Andrewes' original Latin:

"Tolle, Domine, velamen cordis mei, dum lego Scripturas"  (2 Cor 3:15 Vulgate:  "velamen est positum super cor eorum").

If, on the other hand, you compare the Preces privatae as they appear on p. 354 of vol. 10 of the standard 1841-1854 edition of Andrewes' Works, you’ll see stuff in Brightman’s English that doesn’t appear at that very point in the Latin:  not at this point in particular, but on that same page in Brightman’s English.  And in Brightman’s Preface there are some comments about moving things around a bit.

But because Andrewes had to modify the Latin of the Vulgate to turn it into a private prayer, that part, translated faithfully by Brightman, does indeed seem to come from Andrewes rather than the Vulgate directly (unless somebody else so modified it independently exactly as did Andrewes).

     My thanks to Dr. David Nienhuis for the diversion.

"actions belong to supposits and wholes and, properly speaking, not to parts and forms or powers"

 "Actiones . . . sunt suppositorum et totorum, non autem, proprie loquendo, partium et formarum, seu potentiarum".

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II.58.2.Resp., as trans. Aquinas Institute.

"A monastic pedagogy of self-knowledge differs from manoeuvering within the number-coded web of the Enneagram."

Source

     Bishop Eric Varden, OCSO, "The Monastery as Schola Dei," 26 October 2024, Aquinas Institute, Princeton, 23:15.

Sating one's hatred under cover of correction

"Third, he should strive in all charity to correct the sins of others, and this is indicated by the words judging without dissimulation, lest he should purpose to sate his hatred under cover of correction."

"Tertio requiritur ut caritative emendare peccata satagat, et hoc est quod dicit, iudicans sine simulatione, ne scilicet, correctionem praetendens, odium intendat explere."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II.45.6.ad 3.

"It belongs to charity to be at peace, but it belongs to wisdom to make peace by setting things in order"

 "caritatis est habere pacem, sed facere pacem est sapientiae ordinantis."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II.45.6.ad 1, "Whether the seventh beatitude corresponds to the gift of wisdom."

'Orthodox' means orthodox in life as well as faith

"Orthodoxy isn’t up for negotiation, and it isn’t subject to member surveys. Nor is it cleanly detachable from moral and social questions. The one clear case of excommunication we have from Paul’s letters involves a man who was sleeping with his stepmother. Sexual ethics, like other moral matters, is part of the Church’s witness and has been from the beginning."

     Brad East, "Mainlining nostalgia," a review of The vanishing church, by Ryan P. Burge, First things no. 362 (April 2026):  51.

for His own sake, for my sake

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

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

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

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

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

Liberal Christian nationalism

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

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

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

"multi habentes gratiam adhuc patiuntur mentis hebetudinem."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II.8.4.Praet 1, trans. FEDP (Shapcote).  Ad 1:  "Some who have sanctifying grace may suffer from dullness of mind with regard to things that are  not necessary for salvation; but with regard to those that are necessary for salvation, they are sufficiently instructed by the Holy Ghost, according to 1 John 2:27, His unction teacheth you of all things."

Faith is enigmatic knowledge

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

"est . . . fides cognitio aenigmatica."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II.67.5.Praet. 1.  Cf. the Resp.:  "faith is of the same genus, namely knowledge, as the beatific vision [(fides . . . cum visione patriae convenit in genere, quod est cognitio, faith comes together with the visio patriae in the genus cognition)]."
     But note the "But"!  For this is an impressively difficult Resp.  And most especially, "when you remove a specific difference, the substance of the genus does not remain identically the same".

 

 

Richard Rohr, Andreas Ebert, and the Enneagram

For what it's worth:

• Huggins, Ronald V. "The Enneagram’s False History and Occult Roots." Bibliotheca sacra 179, no. 714 (2022): 146–162.
• Cusack, Carole M. "Ṣūfism and the Gurdjieff 'Work': A Contested Relationship." In Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements, edited by Carole M. Cusack and Muhammad Afzal Upal. Brill, 2021.
• etc. (I stopped here, though there is more to be found).

The Blessed, "who have the glory of the soul[,] are not, properly speaking, said to hope for the glory of the body, but only to desire it."

Source

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

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

"without thee we are not able to please thee"

Vat. Reg. lat. 316, fol. 178v

"May the working of your mercy, O Lord, we pray, direct our hearts aright, for without your grace we cannot find favor in your sight.  Through".

"Dirigat corda nostra, quaesumus, Domine, tuae miserationis operatio, quia tibi sine te placere non possumus."

My translation: 

May the work of your compassion, O Lord we pray, set our hearts in order, because without you we cannot please you.

     Prayer for Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent, Liturgia horarum.  =Corpus orationum no. 2234, going back to the mid-8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary (Vat. Reg. lat. 316, fol. 178v, representing mid-7th-century practice) at least. 

BCP 1549:

"O GOD, for asmuche as without thee, we are not able to please thee; Graunte that the workyng of thy mercie maye in all thynges directe and rule our heartes; Through".

BCP 1662:

"O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant, that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through".

BCP 1979:

"O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through".

"O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through".

"the [twentieth-century] narrative concerning the medieval [Christian] reaction to [Hindu-Arabic numerals] and the number zero" constitutes "a bizarre funhouse mirror image of the Middle Ages"

Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 3 (1905), 155–195

"the way the introduction of the number zero as well as the whole system of Hindu-Arabic numerals into medieval Europe has been represented in modern scholarship and popular media" constitutes "a bizarre funhouse mirror image of the Middle Ages", "a rather depressing case study of the way careless scholarship and failure to check one’s sources can allow false narratives and made-up ‘facts’ to proliferate in the modern world."

     From a pre-pub version of C. Philipp Nothaft, "Medieval Europe’s satanic ciphers: on the genesis of a modern myth," British journal for the history of mathematics 35, no. 2 (2020): 107–136.

Friendship with God is unavailable to those who find the idea incredible and/or despair of it

"just as friendship with a person would be impossible if one disbelieved in, or despaired of, the possibility of his fellowship or familiar intercourse, so too, friendship with God, which is charity, is impossible without faith, so as to believe in this fellowship and intercourse with God, and to hope to attain to this fellowship."

"sicut aliquis non posset cum aliquo amicitiam habere, si discrederet vel desperaret se posse habere aliquam societatem vel familiarem conversationem cum ipso; ita aliquis non potest habere amicitiam ad Deum, quae est caritas, nisi fidem habeat, per quam credat huiusmodi societatem et conversationem hominis cum Deo, et speret se ad hanc societatem pertinere."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I-II.65.5.Resp., in the FEDP (or Shapcote) translation.  On the other hand, the requisite faith and hope must be infused!

Faith and works

"Deus, innocentiae restitutor et amator, dirige ad te tuorum corda servorum:  ut, spiritus tui fervore concepto, et in fide inveniantur stabiles et in opere efficaces."

God, restorer and lover of innocence, direct the hearts of [your] servants to you, in order that, seized by the fervor of your Spirit, they may be found steadfast in faith and effectual in deed.

     Prayer for Thursday of the Second Week in Lent, Liturgy of the hours.  Corpus orationum =Bruylants, no. 235 on p. 72 of vol. 2.  From the 9th century, but the incipit ("Deus, innocentiae restitutor et amator, dirige ad te tuorum corda") from the earlier Gelasian.  On the other hand, shouldn't concepto, if modifying servorum (genitive masculine plural) or corda (accusative neuter plural), be plural?   For what else could concepto be modifying?  Innocentia?  But innocentia would require concepta.
     Universalis:

God of love, bring us back to you.  Send your Spirit to make us strong in faith and active in good works.

'Orthodox' means orthodox in life as well as faith

"It was a sign of the times that in the discussion about the vertical and horizontal aspects of the faith, not only [at the W.C.C. Assembly] in Uppsala [in 1968] but also after the Assembly, the most frequently quoted sentence from this [(from my)] address was: 'It must become clear that church members who deny in fact their responsibility for the needy in any part of the world are just as much guilty of heresy as those who deny this or that article of the faith.' If I had known beforehand that this sentence would become so popular, I would have added a complementary phrase such as: 'And church members who deny that God has reconciled men to himself in Christ are just as much guilty of heresy as those who refuse to be involved in the struggle for justice and freedom for all men and who do nothing to help their brethren in need.' For it seems to me that the health of the ecumenical movement depends on our readiness to stand with equal firmness for these two convictions at the same time."

     W. A. Visser't Hooft, Memoirs (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973; 2nd ed., unchanged, Geneva: WCC Publications, 1987), 363.  The address in question was entitled "The Mandate of the Ecumenical Movement".

'Orthodox' means orthodox in life as well as faith

Index of Medieval Art (Public Image)

"orthodoxus est recte credens, et ut credit [recte] vivens."

The orthodox man is [the one who is] believing rightly, and, as he believes, living [rightly, too].

     St. Isidore of Seville (c. 560-636) in Etymologies 8.14.5.  Latin ed. (with the interpolation of that second recte) Lindsay, Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1911), vol. 1, n.p. (there are more recent critical editions that I haven't consulted).  Cf. PL 82, col. 294, which leaves that second recte out.  M. Sesan, "'Orthodoxie': histoire d’un mot et de sa signification," Istina 15, no. 4 (1970):  428 (425-434), cites PL 82, col. 388, but that is wrong.  The whole of sub-section 5 as trans. Barney, Lewis, Beech, & Berghof (Cambridge University Press) in 2006:

An 'orthodox person' (orthodoxus) is one who believes rightfully, and who lives [righteously] as he believes.  Now ὀρθῶς in Greek means 'rightly' (recte), δόξα is 'good repute' (gloria):  an orthodox person is a man 'of good and right repute' (recta gloria).  He who lives otherwise than as he believes cannot be called by this name.

And St. Isidore is right, both on the etymology (OED), and on the senses of δόξα; which, according to LSJ, can mean both opinion and repute.

 

"Nor did He stand in need of our service when He ordered us to follow Him; but He thus bestowed salvation upon ourselves."

"Not needing our service, but, bestowing salvation upon us [(nobis ipsis)], He commanded that we follow Him."

"Neque nostro ministerio indigens, iussit ut eum sequeremur, sed nobis ipsis attribuens salutem."

     St. Irenaeus, Adv. haer. IV.xiv.1, translation mine.  Latin from Liturgy of the hours (SC 100, 534-540); Ed. Harvey (1857), vol. 2, p. 184.  ANF 1:

"Nor did He stand in need of our service when He ordered us to follow Him; but He thus bestowed salvation upon ourselves."
 
Liturgy of the hours for the Saturday after Ash Wednesday:

"Nor did the Lord need our service. He commanded us to follow him, but his was the gift of salvation."