"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).