"Courage in war and courage of thought are two different courages"

"I touch upon this subject carefully and rarely.  They are still paralyzed not only by Stalin’s hypnosis and fear, but also by their former faith.  They cannot stop loving what they used to love.  Courage in war and courage of thought are two different courages.  I used to think they were the same."

     Svetlana Alexievich, The unwomanly face of war [У вайны не жаночы твар]:  an oral history of women in World War II, trans. Richard Pevear and Laurissa Volokhonsky (New York:  Random House, 2018 [1988]), xxvii.  "their former faith" was in | "what they used to love" was Communism and Stalin and the nobility of The Great Patriotic War, in which they displayed great martial courage.  The "courage of thought" to question all or parts of that was what, I gather (for I haven’t yet read more than this paragraph and the pages preceding it), they were still struggling to muster.  Cf. Solzhenitsyn.

Grant that we may become the kinds of people in whom you deign to dwell

Vat. Reg. lat. 316 I.lxv (p. 90). DigVatLib

"O God, who teach us that you abide in hearts that are just and true, grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling place pleasing to you.  Through."

"Deus, qui te in rectis et sinceris manere pectoribus asseris, da nobis tua gratia tales exsistere, in quibus habitare digneris.  Per."

"Deus, qui te rectis et sinceris manere pectoribus asseris, da nobis tua gratia tales exsistere, in quibus habitare digneris.  Per."

O God, who declare that you abide in hearts [that are] upright and pure, grant that we may become by grace the kinds [of people] in whom you deign to dwell.

     8th-century-or-earlier collect for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Roman Missal.  =Corpus orationum 2128a (vol. 3, p. 189).

"And sometimes their soul is in a state just like everyone else's."

Ἄλλοτε ὥσπερ εῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων γίγνεται.

Interdum ut quivis hominum fit.

     Pseudo-Makarios/Macarius (late 4th/early 5th cent.), spiritual homily 18.9, as trans. for the Office of Readings, Friday of Week 4 in Ordinary Time, by Universalis.  Greek from PG 34, col. 640D, not the critical edition.  A. J. Mason's Fifty spiritual homilie of 1921 appears to leave this sentence out, though I have requested the critical edition.  But it is there in the Maloney translation of 1992, albeit as follows (Pseudo-Macarius:  the fifty spiritual homilies and the Great letter, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York:  Paulist Press, 1992), 145):

At another time one becomes one with all human beings.

"But behold again a Virgin, a tree, and a death"

"The Cross is the Father’s will, the glory of the Only-begotten, the Spirit’s exultation, the beauty [(κόσμος)] of the angels, the guardian of the Church. Paul glories in the Cross; it is the rampart of the saints, it is the light of the whole world."

     St. John Chrysostom, Homily De coemetrio et de cruce 2, trans. for the Office of Readings, Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by Universalis.  Greek from PG 49, cols. 396-397.

in your concord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung

"by your concord and harmonious love Jesus Christ is being sung."

ἐν ὁμονοίᾳ ὑμῶν καὶ συμφώνῳ ἀγάπῃ Ἰσοῦς Χριστὸς ᾄδεται.

     St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians 4, trans. Kirsop Lake.  Context:  "it is fitting that you should live in harmony with the will of the bishop" and his presbytery.

"we can know the true and unchanging meaning of dogmas"

". . . it must be stated that the dogmatic formulas of the Church's Magisterium were from the beginning suitable for communicating revealed truth, and that as they are they remain forever suitable for communicating this truth to those who interpret them correctly. It does not however follow that every one of these formulas has always been or will always be so to the same extent. . . .

"As for the meaning [(sensus)] of dogmatic formulas [(formularum)], this remains ever true and constant in the Church, even when it is expressed with greater clarity or more developed. The faithful therefore must shun the opinion, first, that dogmatic formulas (or some category of them) cannot signify truth in a determinate way, but can only offer changeable approximations to it, which to a certain extent distort or alter it; secondly, that these formulas signify the truth only in an indeterminate way, this truth being like a goal that is constantly being sought by means of such approximations. Those who hold such an opinion do not avoid dogmatic relativism and they corrupt the concept of the Church's infallibility relative to the truth to be taught or held in a determinate way.

". . . the meaning of dogmas which is declared by the Church is determinate and unalterable. . . .

". . . we can know the true and unchanging meaning of dogmas. What is new and what [John XXIII] recommends in view of the needs of the times pertains only to the modes of studying, expounding and presenting that doctrine while keeping its permanent meaning. . . ."

     Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mysterium ecclesiae, or Declaration in defense of the Catholic doctrine on the Church against certain errors of the present day 5, 24 June 1973.  Latin at AAS 65 (1973):  396-408, and here.

"Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?"

"Sometimes it is necessary to drink a little more, play, jest, or even commit some sin in defiance and contempt of the devil [(atque adeo peccatum aliquod faciendum in odium et contemptum diaboli)] in order not to give him an opportunity to make us scrupulous about trifles [(ut conscientiam nobis faciat de rebus levissimis)].  We shall be overcome if we worry too much about falling into some sin.
     "Accordingly if the devil should say, 'Do not drink,' you should reply to him, 'On this very account, because you forbid it, I shall drink, and what is more, I shall drink a generous amount.'  Thus one must always do the opposite of what Satan prohibits.  What do you think is my reason for drinking wine undiluted, talking freely, and eating more often if it is not to torment and vex the devil who made up his mind to vex and torment me?  Would that I could [(Utinam possem)] commit some token sin simply for the sake of mocking the devil [(aliquid insigne peccati designare modo ad eludendem diabolum)], so that he might understand that I acknowledge no sin and am conscious of no sin.  When the Devil attacks and torments us, we must completely set aside the whole Decalogue [(Omnino totus decalogus amovendus est nobis ex oculis et animo)].  When the devil throws our sins up to us and declares that we deserve death and hell, we ought to speak thus:  'I admit that I deserve death and hell.  What of it?  Does this mean that I shall be sentenced to eternal damnation?  By no means.  For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction in my behalf.  His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Where he is, there I shall be also.'"

     Martin Luther, letter no. 1670 to Jerome Weller, July 1530, as trans. Theodore G. Tappert on p. 86-87 (84-87) of Luther:  letters of spiritual counsel, LCC 18 (Philadelphia:  The Westminster Press, 1955), underscoring mine.  Latin from WA Br 5, 518-520.  Would that I could.  some token of sin.  Still, . . .
     I get the point of the hyperbole.  And yet Luther seems downright irresponsible here.  In order to do always "the opposite of what Satan prohibits" should we do also what God does (i.e. probibits) explicitly?  Probably Luther has in mind really only diabolic interpretations of the Decalogue.  But this language is too reckless for me.