Thomas always likes to start by giving the reader an outline of what he’s about (I think because they didn’t really have tables of contents in his day). In the previous chapter, he broke the world of Christian theology down into three headings, faith, hope, and charity; now he divides faith even further. Faith is a certain foretaste of that knowledge which is to make us happy in the life to come. The Apostle says, in Hebrews 11:1, that faith... Read more
On Saturday I made my life profession as a Lay Dominican, and that was a good day. But today, Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, was a day of great joy. Some background. I’ve been a member of our parish’s RCIA team this year, and for those who don’t know, RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) is the name of the usual process by which adults become members of the Catholic Church. For the last... Read more
Normally on Sundays I’ve been posting reflections on Lumen Fidei; but this has been a busy weekend, what with my life profession and all, and so I’ve elected to post the following video instead. See, my son David and his friend Grant had to do a project for their German class, and they elected to translate some recipes from German into English and prepare them for the class. They made a kind of chocolate cake, german potato salad, and soft... Read more
As I noted on Thursday, Edward Feser’s new book Scholastic Metaphysics came in the mail. Feser writes clearly about difficult topics, but in this book he’s going into a little more detail than in the past, and I’m finding that I need to work a little harder to dig into it. In Section 1.1.3, he discusses the concepts of Potency and Act, and breaks them down categorically, identifying all of the usual terms that relate to them and how they... Read more
This morning, I promised before God and everybody to live according to the Rule of the Lay Fraternities of St. Dominic for the rest of my life. As of this morning, I am now a fully professed lay member of the Dominican order, also known as the Order of Preachers. It seems like a good time to reflect on how I got here. Many years ago, when I was an Episcopalian, a man I knew became a tertiary of a... Read more
The neat thing about Pandora is that I hear songs I would never have heard otherwise. The weird thing about Pandora is that some of those songs are…odd. When Joseph Susanka brought Julie Fowlis to my attention and I added her to my Irish Traditional station (yeah, OK, she’s Scottish. Deal.) a number of other voices came with here, and one of them was Kate Rusby. I’m not that familiar with Rusby’s work, but she has a soft melancholy voice... Read more
Got two books in the mail, today: The Lion’s Gate, by Steven Pressfield Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, by Ed Feser I’ve read three of Pressfield’s historical novels; this new book is a look at the Six Day War drawn from mostly from around four hundred hours of personal interviews conducted by Pressfield with people who were involved. It sounds fascinating. And Ed Feser is increasingly well-known in philosophoblogging circles. He’s a scholastic philosopher, following in the footsteps of Thomas... Read more
Breslow looked as if he had been born flushed with anger and would die, when the time came, in character. — Rex Stout, The Silent Speaker I love Stout’s descriptions of minor characters, as channeled by Archie Goodwin. Read more
Here’s a round-up of writing-related stuff. Watchman for Daybreak is going well. I’ve revised most of the existing material to reflect my new understanding of Captain St. Cloude, and it appears that I’m going to have two viewpoint characters: the captain, and Fr. Consolmagno Higgins, the Prefect of the new colony. It’s not clear to me yet whether Higgins has some serious conflicts of his own, or whether he’s mostly a foil to the captain (in this book anyway). And... Read more
This post is part of a series. In Chapter 1 of the Compendium Theologiae, Thomas lays out his plan of attack. He always begins in this logical way, explaining just what it is that he is about: To restore man, who had been laid low by sin, to the heights of divine glory, the Word of the eternal Father, though containing all things within His immensity, willed to become small. This He did, not by putting aside His greatness, but... Read more
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