November 14, 2015

My apologies to those who have commented recently; I confess I’ve not been paying much attention. As I might have mentioned a few weeks ago, the project I’d been on for many years came to an abrupt end, meaning that I need to quickly transition onto something else. I’m now working on two projects, each half-time, which means that I’m trying to climb not just one but two learning curves at the same time. What’s worse, the two projects are... Read more

November 10, 2015

This past Sunday, the Western Province of the Dominican Order opened the Order’s 800-year Jubilee with mass at the various Dominican parishes around the province—or, at least, that’s what happened at St. Dominic’s in Eagle Rock, where my Lay Dominican chapter meets. The opening of the Jubilee year was celebrated at each of the masses on Sunday, and I and several of my chapter sisters had the privilege of representing the Dominican Laity at the 9AM mass on Sunday morning.... Read more

November 4, 2015

So the Synod on the Family concluded recently, as you very well know if you’ve been following Catholic social media recently; and as a result, I’ve been pondering. During the past weeks I heard two major areas of concern, from two disparate groups. The first was that the Synod was rigged to change Catholic pastoral discipline in a way counter to Catholic teaching on marriage. Sufficient pixels have been spilled about this, and I’m not going to add to them.... Read more

November 2, 2015

We’re blogging through St. Thomas Aquinas’ Compendium Theologiae, sometimes called his Shorter Summa. Find the previous posts here. Today’s post is from Chapter 54, “Relations in God Not Accidental”. Thomas has explained that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinguished from each other by their relations with each other. The Father is the begetter, the Son the begotten; the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and not the other way around. Now he goes on to explain that these... Read more

October 25, 2015

When we say that God is Three in One we’re understanding something real; it isn’t simply a useful way to think about God. Read more

October 19, 2015

Just a point of administrivia: blogging has been light recently (you might have noticed) due to upheavals at work* and the beginning of the school year; and now I’m off to a conference for the rest of the week. I hope to have “Today’s Aquinas” up next week, and get back into a normal blogging schedule sometime after that. ____ * For the record, my job is not endangered. However, prayers for peace and a better attitude will be gratefully... Read more

October 14, 2015

And yet, and yet, no purely created thing, no matter how massive, no matter how complex, no matter how variegated, no matter how beautiful, can fully express the infinite perfection of God. Yet God can only express Himself perfectly. What can fill up the infinite gap between the finitude of Creation and the infinity of God? Only God Himself. And so God entered His creation, incarnate as the man Jesus Christ—Jesus, wholly human, wholly divine, the pinnacle of creation and the most the perfect communication of God to His creation. Read more

October 12, 2015

We’re blogging through St. Thomas Aquinas’ Compendium Theologiae, sometimes called his Shorter Summa. Find the previous posts here. Today’s post is from Chapter 52, “Solution of the Difficulty: Distinction in God According to Relations”. In the previous chapter, Thomas posed a problem: how can God be three persons, yet remain metaphysically simple? It’s a serious question: if God were not metaphysically simple, then God’s existence must have been caused by something else, and God simply wouldn’t be God as Thomas (and the Church)... Read more

October 6, 2015

And for once, surprisingly, conventional wisdom has the right end of the stick.  We are who we are.  To put it into figurative terms: If you want a retriever, don’t bring home a pit bull.  You can’t make an oak tree produce apples.  And if you befriend a rattlesnake you should lay in a supply of antivenin. Read more

October 5, 2015

We’re blogging through St. Thomas Aquinas’ Compendium Theologiae, sometimes called his Shorter Summa. Find the previous posts here. When Thomas considers a proposition in his magisterial Summa Theologiae, he does so in the form of a debate.  First he states the proposition in the form of a question.  Then he gives a list of objections: brief arguments as to why the answer to the question is “No!”  He makes it a point to be fair; he lists all of the serious objections he’s... Read more


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