It seems rather odd that no sooner have the Apostles been warned against gazing into the starry heaven in pursuit of Jesus’ Ascended nature than their Elizabethan successors have taken to exhorting us to do precisely that. The Angels of the Lord –two men standing by the Apostles in white apparel rebuke the Apostles. Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. (Acts … [Read more...]
Passions of the Human Soul: Thomas Aquinas with Commentary
According to St. Thomas Aquinas: Love is something pertaining to the appetite; since good is the object of both. So love and appetite are words used to describe a spiritual perception that begins in the body and ends in the soul. Appetite is the first instance of love, and thus we move from physical need to spiritual desire. Wherefore love differs according to the difference of appetites. There are different kinds of appetites depending upon the object of desire. For there is an appetite which … [Read more...]
Trinity XIX Epistle: Thomas Aquinas with Commentary
Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: But rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. (Ephes. iv. 27, 28) THE Apostle lays down three propositions in this Epistle. Firstly, he exhorts the faithful lest they should give place to the devil in their heart. Neither give place to the devil. Secondly, he bids them avoid those things which prepare a place for him: Let him that stole steal … [Read more...]
Quinquagesima’s Love
St. Paul uses a word for love rarely employed among his contemporaries. It seems as if he carefully avoided any of those terms, and they were many, which make it easy to associate the supreme virtue with desires which spend themselves in their own satisfactions, and through instinctive in human nature, are often degraded by man's perversity. English people have never found a word entirely equivalent to St. Paul's term. Our word love stands for a wide range of feeling. It may represent merely … [Read more...]
Suffering the Word…
It is more than slightly disturbing to see how seemingly sensible Christians fall apart completely when visited with one sort or another of earthly unhappiness, calamity, or suffering. The only conclusion that can be drawn from such a violent shift and sudden change in temperament is that such a man was only a seemingly sensible Christian. In all truth, such a man is not truly a sensible Christian. And this because suffering is not an habit of his customary life. Suffering is, of course, a … [Read more...]
Plato on Narcissism
The most serious vice innate in most men's souls is one for which everybody forgives himself and so never tries to find a way of escaping. You can get some idea of this vice from the saying that a man is in the nature of the case 'his own best friend,' and that it is perfectly proper for him to have to play this role. It is truer to say that the cause of each and every crime we commit is precisely this excessive love of ourselves, a love which blinds us to the faults of the beloved and makes us … [Read more...]
Saints Peter and Paul
Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ… (1 St. Peter i. 6,7) Many people like to undermine the credibility of the ancient Christian witness because so little is known of those early Christian disciples and martyrs who gave … [Read more...]
Becoming Little Christs
THESE DAYS, being a faithful Christian is no easy task. By reason of our society’s obsessions with strange ideas and new mores, we are often persecuted and thwarted in our efforts to embrace traditional Christianity. It seems so natural to become filled with despair. What we hate ends up defining us too much. The opposition becomes a bette-noire, and we might rightly be accused of idolatry. Far from radiating and mirroring the truth that is under assault, we manifest depression and despair -- … [Read more...]
Prayer Before Holy Communion
Blessed be my God who is pleased to call me once again to the Reconciliation Feast: and after all my breaches with Him, and all my sins against Him, yet to grant me a new indulgence; and to seal my pardon afresh in the precious blood of His Dear Son, that was shed to take away the sins of the world. At thy gracious invitation, Lord, I am bold to come, looking for that blessed benefit, which I know myself so unworthy to receive; that thou mightest justly bar up the doors or mercy against me, and … [Read more...]
The Tudor Machine
It is remarkable how popular historical fiction creates expressions such as ‘the Tudor machine', a term hitherto unfamiliar in historical circles. Dominic Selwood, writing for the Telegraph on yesterday’s 481st anniversary of Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, seems to have been dwelling in the realm of these historical romances when he remarks that Henry VIII’s divorce was “the event that started the English Reformation.” Furthermore, and here historical fiction triumphs … [Read more...]