Currently reading: The Once and Future King by T. H. White 📚
Turkey: seasoned. Grill: cleaned out. Served at mass this morning then took care of some year-end admin stuff for work. Everyone seems to be laying low, as it should be. Another wave of cooking will start later. Tomorrow morning is the Turkey Trot, followed by food & football. God bless you all!
Another formation weekend is behind us, and all that remains of Trinity and Salvation are a couple of papers to submit sometime before the end of December. Plenty to think about, especially the stuff on eschatology.
Our next class is a Liturgical Practicum, and the various rituals have been sitting here for a while now. We just need to review all the praenotandae and any general instructions beforehand. The final for that one will be to record an instructional video on some facet of what we’re studying, which will wrap up the semester. Looking ahead, our final semester will be Moral Theology and Canon Law, two weekends apiece.
This past weekend was one of our potluck sessions. One weekend per semester, our families join us for Sunday mass, bring a covered dish, and then we all get together and eat. It’s all great fun, and for our kids, it’s one of the highlights of the year. I came home from that, lazed on the couch a little, dipped into Four Quartets, napped, and watched football. Grandkids and in-laws rolled in a bit later and a good time was had by all.
Georgia won yesterday, so life is good. Regarding pro teams, I’m kind of non-committal. I’ll watch whoever is on. The kids root for the Titans, which makes sense, and the Vols, which does not. My wife and I both went to Georgia. None of the kids go to UT, though several go to MTSU, which is having a dismal season as usual. We were a house divided when the Dawgs ran roughshod over Tennessee last weekend.
So this morning, for the first time, I preached (or more accurately, ‘delivered a reflection’). It went well and I avoided heresy. Got several compliments and good feedback from Fr. Last night at OCIA we discussed the liturgical calendar and I went way too deep on the dating of Christmas.
I spent last week in Las Vegas for work. The event was fine, but I’m not big on the whole hotel/casino/resort thing. I get it: the business is gambling, and all things are ordered to it, but that means there’s nowhere to chill inside without betting on something. I get it; just don’t like it. 2/10.
The forgiveness of particular venial sins comes about only through an act of fervor in the charity already possessed habitually. Aquinas rightly points out that this movement of contrition does not always occur. He writes, “it can happen that after someone has committed a venial sin, he will not actually think anything about abandoning the sin or holding to it, but he thinks perhaps that a triangle has three angles equal to two right angles; and in this thought he falls asleep and dies.“²⁷ Obviously, according to Aquinas’s argument, this geometer has not yet been forgiven for his sin. The guilt remains. Nevertheless, because he maintained the love of God, he would ultimately still be destined for the beatific vision.
— Fr. Luke Wilgenbusch, Saved as Through Fire: A Thomistic Account of Purgatory, Temporal Punishment, and Satisfaction
The clear takeaway is that excessive, habitual thoughts about math are not necessarily good for your soul. The footnote references Aquinas’s commentary on the Sentences, lib. 4, dist. 21, q. 1, a. 3, qc. 1: “Potest autem quod aliquis postquam veniale peccatum commisit, nihil actualiter cogitet de peccato vel dimittendo vel tenendo; sed cogitet forte quod triangulus habet tres angulos aequales duobus rectis; et in hac cogitatione obdormiat, et moriatur.”
Christian life on earth is eternal life already begun. Sanctifying grace and charity endure eternally. St. John of the Cross speaks thus: “In the evening of our life we shall be judged by our love for God and neighbor.”
— Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.
Tiny nest. Hummingbird, maybe? I found it in the grass under one of our trees.
Un nidito (posiblemente de un colibrí) que encontré abajo de nuestros arboles.
Estoy empezando a soña en español como era joven y estudiante en la universidad. A veces practico en mente, describiendo cosas o conceptos teologicós, y por eso puedo contestar cuando hay preguntas sobre, por ejemplo, las ultimas cosas (el juzgo particular, etc). Esto pasó anoche en OCIA cuando terminamos la clase. Las otras catequistas ya saben que estoy preparando con estudios formales y frecuentemente refirén a mi las preguntas difíciles o complicadas. Bueno - aqui puedo tambien practicar como escribir (y lo siento si me falta acentos o otras marcas - no he configurado los caracteres…corto y pego desde otra terminal).
I subscribed to the paid version of Claude and want to give it a run for a bit. So far I like it. I had it review some stuff I had written and it came up with some pretty good suggestions and (probably not accidentally) a couple of compliments. Grist for the mill, so to speak. One thing I appreciate is the disclosure straight out of the gate that it won’t try to give precise citations (“which question in the Summa addresses XYZ,” for example). For larger, complicated issues it seems to do a pretty good job of breaking them down and some occasional serviceable synthesis of ideas.
I pasted the full text of a Wikipedia article that I was having some trouble parsing. It confirmed my unspoken hunch about some bias and provided what I thought to be an ample theological response.