"We live submerged at the bottom of an ocean of elementary air. . . ."

"Noi viviamo sommersi nel fondo d’un pelago d’aria elementare. . . ."

"We live submerged at the bottom of a sea of elementary air. . . ."

     Evangelista Torricelli, in a letter to Michelangelo Ricci dated 11 June 1644.  Opere di Evangelista Torricelli, ed. Gino Loria and Giuseppe Vassura, 3 vols. in 4, vol. 1.2 (Faenza:  G. Montanari, 1919), 472.

     Remember:  air was one of the four elements ("uno de'quattro elementi"), and "elementary" had first in English that sense, as in c. 1440, "God is not fyre elementare", or in 1652, "The whole Elementary air being of its owne nature most subtile" (OED).

Titus on Aquinas on "the flawed saint"

"Moral virtue may be considered either as perfect or as imperfect. An imperfect moral virtue, temperance for instance, or fortitude, is nothing but an inclination in us to do some kind of good deed, whether such inclination be in us by nature or by habituation. If we take the moral virtues in this way, they are not connected: since we find men who, by natural temperament or by being accustomed, are prompt in doing deeds of liberality [(opera liberalitatis)], but are not prompt in doing deeds of chastity [(opera castitatis)]."

     St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II.65.1.Resp., underscoring mine.  See also ad 1:  "if he exercise himself by good deeds in regard to one matter, but not in regard to another, for instance, by behaving well in matters of anger, but not in matters of concupiscence; he will indeed acquire a certain habit of restraining his anger; but this habit will lack the nature of virtue, through the absence of prudence, which is wanting in matters of concupiscence."


     "Aquinas also identifies a fourth type of virtue, which Jean Porter does not discuss (to my knowledge).  This is the infused virtue that is not connected with the others.  Aquinas explains the possibility of possessing infused virtue in merely habitual or inchoate states (habituales formae).  Although all the virtues are infused with charity, they are not necessarily exercised, as when there is an impediment . . . or as when one exhibits perfect faith but imperfect charity."

     Craig Steven Titus, "Moral development and connecting the virtues:  Aquinas, Porter, and the flawed saint," in Ressourcement Thomism:  sacred doctrine, the sacraments, and the moral life:  essays in honor of Romanus Cessario, O. P. (Baltimore:  The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 348 (330-352), underscoring mine.
     Yet in one of the very passages Titus cites in support of this, Thomas says explicitly that "faith may be without charity, but not as a perfect virtue [(fides est quidem sine caritate, sed non perfecta virtus)]" (ST I-II.65.4.Resp.).  So I need to follow up on those passages in De virtutibus cardinalibus.
     In any case, this is an important response to Jean Porter's discussion of Martin Luther King Jr. in "Virtue and sin:  the connection of the virtues and the case of the flawed saint," Journal of religion 74, no. 4 (1995):  521-539, the full complexities of which I won't attempt to reproduce here, but only these sentences from the Conclusion (351, italics mine):

for St. Thomas, charity (as a fledgling disposition [not yet a more or less established virtue confirmed in act]) neither guarantees its own full development or the connection of the other infused virtues nor guarantees a coherent psychological structure of the acquired virtues (as dispositions [not yet more or less established virtues confirmed in act]).  Aquinas explains that in the exercise of infused moral virtues we can 'experience difficulty in their works, by reason of certain ordinary dispositions remaining from previous acts.  This difficulty does not occur in respect of acquired moral virtue:  because the repeated acts by which they are acquired remove also the contrary dispositions.'

For Aquinas there can be "an imperfect connection of charity and the other infused virtues" (350), as well as "growth" in or a falling away on the level of the acquired virtues (351).  "A static point does not exist.  At any moment, either a person advances toward a more coherent connection of these dispositions [infused and acquired], or he regresses" (351).  From p. 352:

Aquinas's approach. . . . construes moral development as a process of habitualizing, connaturalizing, and connecting the virtues, while not losing hope for any 'flawed saint,' a term that Aquinas would not use.  In particular, God can revive the person—after a grave sin—to repent, to seek forgiveness, and to repair (when possible) the damage done.  The person thus returns to the pathway of development with renewed charity and infused virtue, which includes the possibility of further connecting the virtues, sanctifying desire, and even being disposed to martyrdom in a state of grace.

     See also Eleanore Stump:

Considered in this way, courage can fail to be a moral disposition; and it can be had even by those who are not moral people.

     Cf. St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on Matthew, as trans. NPNF:  "there are many who show mercy, and who commit no rapine, nor are covetous, who yet are guilty of fornication and uncleanness [(πορνεύουσι δὲ και ἀσελγαίνουσι)] ; to signify that the former alone suffices not, He hath added this, much in the same sense as Paul, writing to the Corinthians, bore witness of the Macedonians, that they were rich not only in almsgiving, but also all other virtue" (Greek from Homiliae in Matthaevm, ed. Field (1836), vol. 1, p. 194).

"He alone of all the prophets"

Dieric Bouts I (c. 1415-1475),
Ecce Agnus Dei (1464/66),
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

"He alone of all the prophets pointed out the Lamb of redemption."

"ipse solus omnium prophetarum Agnum redemptionis ostendit."

     Preface for the Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist, Roman missal.
     As the sources make clear, the emphasis here should be on "pointed out" (ostendit).  John's predecessors, too, foretold (praenuntiavit) his coming, but only John was in a position to point to an individual present in flesh and blood and say, "Behold, the Lamb of God".  "Leonine" (i.e. Veronese) sacramentary no. 254, Supplement (Supplementum Anianense) to the Gregorian sacramentary no. 1630, and so forth:

solusque omnium prophetarum redemptorem mundi quem praenuntiavit ostentit.

and alone of all the prophets pointed out the redeemer of the world whom he foretold.

See Ward and Johnson, The prefaces of the Roman missal:  a source compendium with concordances and indices (Rome:  Congregation for Divine Worship, 1989):  420-421.  See also Corpus praefationum no. 464, and especially on pp. 221-222 of the first volume of the Apparatus, where those earliest sacramentaries (and more) are referenced, but the profound enrichment this Preface has undergone since is noted:  "the Leonine and Gelasian original has been here profoundly recast and enriched" (222).
     On pp. LXXIV and LXXXII of his critical edition of the "Leonine" or Veronese sacramentary, Mohlberg, citing p. 115 of vol. 1 (1948) of Bourque's Étude sur les sacramentaires romains, traces this to the layer of that sacramentary dated 468-c. 500 (or the early 6th century).
     If I'm not mistaken, the pre-1962 missal made no use of this Preface.

Preferring nothing whatsoever to Christ because he preferred nothing whatsoever to us

Ultimate source unknown

"All Christ did, all he taught, was the will of God. Humility in our daily lives, an unwavering faith, a moral sense of modesty in conversation, justice in acts, mercy in deed, discipline, refusal to harm others, a readiness to suffer harm, peaceableness with our brothers, a wholehearted love of the Lord, loving in him what is of the Father, fearing him because he is God, preferring nothing to him who preferred nothing to us, clinging tenaciously to his love, standing by his cross with loyalty and courage whenever there is any conflict involving his honor and his name, manifesting in our speech the constancy of our profession and under torture confidence for the fight, and in dying the endurance for which we will be crowned—this is what it means to wish to be a coheir with Christ, to keep God’s command; this is what it means to do the will of the Father."

"Voluntas autem Dei est quam Christus et fecit et docuit.  humilitas in conuersatione, stabilitas in fide, uerecundia in uerbis, in factis iustitia, in operibus misericordia, in moribus disciplina, iniuriam facere non nosse et factam posse tolerare, cum fratribus pacem tenere, Dominum toto corde diligere, amare in illo quod pater est, timere quod Deus est, Christo nihil omnino praeponere, quia nec nobis quicquam ille praeposuit, caritati eius inseparabiliter adhaerere, cruci eius fortiter ac fidenter adsistere, quando de eius nomine et honore certamen est, exhibere in sermone constantiam qua confitemur, in quaestione fiduciam qua congredimur, in morte patientiam qua coronamur:  hoc est coheredem Christi uelle esse, hoc est praeceptum Dei facere, hoc est uoluntatem patris inplere."

     St. Cyprian of Carthage, De dominica oratione 15, trans. Liturgy of the hours.  Latin from CSEL 3.1, ed. Hartel (1868), 277-278 (265-294).  =CCSL 3A, ed. Moreschini (1976) =ed. Reveillaud (1964) =PL 4, col. 546 (537 ff.).  There are many translations of this treatise into English.  The header is based on the 2004 Popular patristics series translation by Stewart-Sykes.

"Let me see the pure light; when I am there, I shall be truly a man at last."

ἄφετέ με καθαρὸν φῶς λαβεῖν·  ἐκεῖ παραγενόμενος ἄνθρωπος ἔσμαι.

     St. Ignatius of Antioch, Romans 6, trans. Liturgy of the hours.  Lake:  "Suffer me to receive the pure light; when I have come thither I shall become a man."  Ehrman:  "Allow me to receive the pure light; when I have arrived there, I will be a human."  ANF 1 reflects a variant reading sidelined in Loeb editions of both Lake and Ehrman:  "Suffer me to obtain pure light:  when I have gone thither, I shall indeed be a man God."

If natural and human history is "historically contingent", then faith is "the behavior that is, in the last analysis, alone appropriate to reality."

     Wolfhart Pannenberg, "Contingency and natural law" (1970), trans. William C. Linss, in Toward a theology of nature:  essays on science and faith, ed. Ted Peters (Louisville, KY:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), 76 and 116n11 (72-122).  An important additional "if" has been left out of this one sentence in particular:  and if there is this claim that the Judeo-Christian God is "the lord of the world" (112-113n5).

He had the right perspective on everything else, just not MY cause du jour

"If [Simon] Leys [(Pierre Ryckmans)] had an Achilles heel, it was his deep-seated Catholicism which in 1995 led him to defend the traditional family, 'the most successful experiment in the entire cultural history of mankind', against the prospect of same-sex marriages."

Wikipedia

     David Coward, "The man who did for Mao:  an academic polemicist who was 'a mixture of Don Quixote, George Orwell, Mother Teresa and Confucius'," the Times literary supplement no. 6003 (20 April 2018):  4 (3-4).  According to Coward, Leys was the bane of "people dazzled by propaganda, fake news, and their own agendas", just not (apparently) Coward's own.  As, indeed, two correspondents later pointed out on p. 6 of issue no. 6005, dated 4 May 2018.  Tom Dilworth:

it would have been fair if the reviewer had also credited Catholicism a little with abetting or at least enabling Leys's political criticism, if only because having a real religion, Christian (which Catholicism, beneath all its encrustations, contains), probably helped keep Leys from falling for the false religion of Maoism.

And Christopher Abbott:

this condescension towards Catholicism - not at all rare in print these days - echoes Coward's own observation of the liberal Left's long resistance to any voices that threatened their pro-Soviet or pro-Mao orthodoxies.

The rest of Coward's article is full of only praise for Ryckmans' clear-sightedness.