Koskela on the importance of proclamation to apostolicity

"Only by proclaiming the gospel it has faithfully maintained can the church be truly apostolic."

Douglas M. Koskela, "'But who laid hands on him?'  Apostolicity and Methodist ecclesiology," Pro ecclesia 20, no. 1 (Winter 2011):  41 (28-42), italics mine.  This sentence stresses two of the "three primary ideas" the concept of apostolicity "has been employed to convey":  "continuity with the historical and visible church, the integrity of the church's life and witness, and the calling of the church to proclaim the gospel in word and deed" (29, italics original).

"Declaring the Southern Baptists (or at least the Revd R. Albert Mohler) off-side"

"The union of physical and spiritual praxis was possible for ancient Indians and remains a real goal for many contemporary yogis.  This sort of combination is affirmed by an old joke about a Jesuit priest who, when his bishop forbade priests to smoke while meditating, dutifully agreed but argued that surely there would be no objection if he occasionally meditated while he was smoking.  That one can, however, choose merely to smoke or merely to meditate is denied both by Christians of the Reverend R. Albert Mohler ilk and by Hindus of the Hindu American Foundation ilk, both of whom insist that yoga is only and always a religious system."

     Wendy Doniger, "Assume the position" (a largely enthusiastic review of Yoga body:  the origins of modern posture practice, by Mark Singleton, and a fine summary of the extremely complex history of "yoga"), Times literary supplement no. 5631 (March 4, 2011), 11 (10-11).

Farkasfalvy on the argument ex convenientia

"in Mariology sorting out arguments 'ex convenientia' is much more important than looking for compelling reasons of necessity."

Denis Farkasfalvy, "Reconstructing Mariology:  Mary's virginity and the future of Mariology," Communio:  international Catholic review 37, no. 1 (Spring 2010):  63n30.

Farkasfalvy on vocations

"while all shades of doubt about Mary's virginity in partu and post partum became fashionable and theologians grew more and more tolerant of such statements, thousands of religious communities, primarily of women, for reasons that are not very well known, suddenly lost much of their membership and began a painful journey along the road to extinction."

Denis Farkasfalvy, "Reconstructing Mariology:  Mary's virginity and the future of Mariology," Communio:  international Catholic review 37, no. 1 (Spring 2010):  57-58.

The Christocentrism of the Marian invitatoria

COMMON OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
MEMORIAL OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY ON SATURDAY
Come, let us worship Christ, the Son of Mary.
Christum, Fílium Maríæ, veníte, adorémus.  OR:

Let us sing to the Lord as we keep this day in memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Memóriam beátæ Maríæ Vírginis celebrántes, iubilémus Dómino.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION (8 December)
Come, let us celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary; let us worship her Son, Christ the Lord.
Immaculátam Conceptiónem Vírginis Maríæ celebrémus: Christum, eius Fílium, adorémus Dóminum.

1960:
Let us celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary:  Let us adore her Son, Christ the Lord.
Immaculatam Conceptionem Virginis Mariæ celebremus:  Christum eius Filium adoremus Dominum.

MARY, MOTHER OF GOD (1 January)
Let us celebrate the motherhood of the Virgin Mary; let us worship her Son, Christ the Lord.

1960 (MATERNITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, 11 October):
Let us keep holy-day in honour of the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary:  Let us worship Christ her Son, our Lord.
Maternitatem Beatae Mariae Virginis celebremus:  Christum eius Filium adoremus Dominum.

ANNUNCIATION (25 March)
The Word became flesh; come, let us worship him.
Verbum caro factum est:  veníte, adorémus.

1960 (not sure about this one):
Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Ave Maria, gratia plena:  Dominus tecum.

VISITATION (31 May)
Let us sing to the Lord as we celebrate the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Visitatiónem beátæ Maríæ Vírginis celebrántes, iubilémus Dómino.

1960 (2 July):
Let us keep holiday for the Visitation of the Virgin Mary.  Let us worship Christ, her Son, and her Lord and ours.
Visitationem Virginis Mariae celebremus:  Christum ejus Filium adoremus Dominum.

ASSUMPTION (15 August)
Come let us worship the King of kings; on this day his Virgin Mother was taken up to heaven.
Veníte adorémus Regem regum, cuius hódie ad æthéreum Virgo Mater assúmpta est cælum.

1960:
O come let us worship the King of kings.  This day was His Mother taken to the heavens above.
Venite adoremus Regem regum, Cuius hodie ad aethereum Virgo mater assumpta est caelum.

QUEENSHIP OF MARY (22 AUGUST)
Come, let us worship Christ who crowned his mother as Queen of heaven and earth.
Christum regem, qui suam coronávit Matrem, veníte, adorémus.

1960 (IMMACULATE HEART OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY):
Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
Sancta Maria, Dei Genitrix Virgo, Intercede pro nobis.

BIRTH OF MARY (8 September)
Come, let us celebrate the birth of the Virgin Mary, let us worship her Son, Christ the Lord.
Nativitátem Vírginis Maríæ celebrémus: Christum eius Fílium adorémus Dóminum.

1960:
Let us keep the Birthday of the Virgin Mary.  Let us worship Christ, her Son, and her Lord and ours.
Nativitatem Virginis Mariae celebremus:  Christum eius Filium adoremus Dominum.

PRESENTATION OF MARY (21 NOVEMBER).  See the COMMON, above.


     Striking to me is how typical this (all taken from the current Liturgy of the hours and, for 1960, http://divinumofficium.com/) is of the Proper of Saints in general.  The celebration of the feast is but an occasion of the worship of the one God alone.

In essentials (including morals), unity; or Unity in morals is not a non-essential, not a non-necessarium

"There is a Reformation slogan that sums up the impossibility here: 'What the law demands, the gospel bestows.' The law demands righteousness, the gospel bestows righteousness, and it does so by bringing Christ to us and us to Christ. He is the living fulfillment of the law, the one in whom all that the law requires is fully and unquestionably realized. His righteousness covers our sin, when we become one with him by faith, but at the same time, he lives in us, which means that righteousness dwells in us, alive and triumphant, and we begin to live a new kind of life. But if the gospel bestows what the law demands, then without agreeing substantially on what the law demands, we cannot agree on what the gospel bestows. And pushed to the end, such disagreement will easily turn into disagreement about Jesus Christ and his saving righteousness."

     David S. Yeago, "Facing reality in the ELCA:  remarks delivered to the South Carolina Synod 'Day of Holy Conversation', Newberry, South Carolina, February 6, 2010.

Conway Morris on the brain as an antenna, and on "a 'time-line' for creatio ex nihilo"

"Suppose we were to think of the brain, which is by implication ultimately 'only' a chemical 'machine', as an 'antenna' that has evolved (convergently!) for life to 'discover' the mental world and thereby become conscious by default. . . . Properties such as memory and sleep clearly have some physical basis.  Neither, however, readily explains such matters as the construction of a 'memory palace' (as by Matteo Ricci), unprompted recall (as in Coleridge's famous instance of a servant girl spouting Latin, Greek and Hebrew, that upon investigation was 'learned' when employed by a savant, but only emerged much later when she was in the grips of fever), or, in the case of sleep, its pre-cognitive dreams.  So too imaging studies of the brain may indeed localize some activities; other activities, however, are far more diffuse, and in no case does the region of neural activity reveal anything of the qualia, be it the chess piece or the antiphonal singing.  Not only that:  even when we feel we are the most intensely conscious, almost the entire brain remains a 'black box', silent and ostensibly entirely unengaged.  And this latter paradox is perhaps less surprising with the discovery that in vegetative states, where by definition there is no brain activity, the patients still appear to be conscious.  That too makes it more believable that in well-documented 'out-of-body' experiences, where the individual may be technically 'dead', conscious experience clearly continues for the simple reason that it is subsequently reported.
"All this seems inexplicable from a panpsychic, let alone naturalist, perspective.  If, however, there is a mental world and the brain is the 'antenna' that makes first contact with it, then not only do we have access to new realities, which the intuition of qualia has long indicated, but we find a world where theological discourse is not divorced, but integral.  It is true that, even if this idea wins further acceptance, it could in principle be applied to any world-picture that accepts the supernatural.  On the other hand, there are rival explanations for our perception of such worlds.  [And] These are notoriously not easy to reconcile with each other, apart from via some syncreistic mishmash, of which the present day supplies some splendid examples.  Christianity, of course, makes some highly specific claims that are built on both Judaic experience and wisdom, but argue uniquely for particular interactions between the divine and the mundane.  These certainly find echoes, resonances and rumours in other traditions, but none approaches (even remotely) the concrete specifications of the Christian claim for the incarnation and the resurrection.  Indeed, so far as they are even entertained, they are rejected as a monstrous scandal, if not an insult.  In addition, but I believe consistently with these tenets, Christianity embraces the concept of creatio ex nihilo.  This too is in conflict with Aristotelian philosophy (which is still the main underpinning of science), as well as many eastern religions.
". . . Yet just as many are deeply offended by the Christian scandal of particularity (although I suspect the scandal tells one more of a given perspective on the world), so scientists are justly suspicious of singularities.  Does this not apply to creatio ex nihilo?  At first sight it does, but the Christian narrative seems to point to instances where, from our stance, creatio ex nihilo has recurred. . . .
"Thus, standing (as I hope I do) within the walls of Christian orthodoxy, I would suggest the most compelling examples of creatio ex nihilo are the incarnation via Mary and the resurrection. . . . But I would speculate that the Transfiguration and Ascension may also help to define creatio ex nihilo, i.e., as the time-line that not only serves to link the incarnation and resurrection, but also points to its culmination.  Our perception of these events is begged in the very term 'time-line', but when we approach the eternal and ineffable our language predictably fails.  A metaphor of a 'time-line' for creatio ex nihilo does have a further advantage, however, in not only reconciling our imagination to the ostensibly impossible, but also reminding us that Christian orthodoxy claims to identify a narrative—one set in a historical context in which the story developed, culminated and apparently ended.  So too the 'time-line' of creatio ex nihilo argues that since its original definition in Roman Judea it has remained temporally accessible to all via the Eucharist but must also terminate in the Eschaton.  At that point, when time ends, we will fully understand creatio ex nihilo."

Simon Conway Morris, "What is written into creation?," in Creation and the God of Abraham, ed. David B. Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet Martin Soskice, and William R. Stoeger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 188-191 (176-191).