Levavi oculos meos in montes

 Fr Koterski actually didn't have much to say about the conjunction "aut" ("or) in the formulation of "meditari aut legere", at least, not in the written form of his lecture .  He says a lot of good things in general, though, and the article is well worth reading -- an interlacing of monasticism, Thomism, and solid Ignatian spirituality.    What he does say is in his conclusion: Meditari aut legere – to meditate or to read. Learning how to read well can be a way of learning how to meditate. It is not a matter of reading quickly or reading a lot of things but a case of reading well – non multa sed multum – not many things but going into much depth. For Aquinas, this is the union of the love of learning and the desire for God.  I could not find much else on the internet discussing conjunctions and their place in monasticism, but I did find where the phrase came from.   It is from chapter 48 of St Benedict's Rule, on Manual Labor  which also contai...

The next section of the study of monastic culture , guided by Jean Leclercq's book called L'Amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu or in English, Love of Learning and the Desire for God.   The link takes you to the page where I'm organizing the posts on the topic -- it's a work in progress.   The section is called The Rule of Benedict Supposes Learned Monks which begins on page 12 in my edition.    Leclercq briefly addresses the question of how learned St Benedict himself was, which has been much discussed throughout monastic history, but is of only passing importance to his main theme, so a paragraph is enough to deal with it and move on.  Basically, he restates the common understanding that Benedict did not try to be original in his Rule for Monks .   The influence of other early rules, such as Cassian's, is quite evident in his work.  As Leclercq says: "To cast light on St Benedict's culture, one could search for the sources of h...

 True education is a kind of never ending story — a matter of continual beginnings, of habitual fresh starts, of persistent newness. -- JRR Tolkien   Wherefore those that would give their minds to philosophical studies are not obliged to avoid poetry altogether, but rather to prepare themselves for philosophy by poems, accustoming themselves to search for and embrace that which may profit in that which pleaseth them, and rejecting and discarding that wherein they find nothing of this nature. For this discrimination is the first step to learning.  -- Plutarch I've written before about narrative as a power move , but of course, the reason narrative or Story has become subject to power moves is because it is such a key mode for learning in humans.   This is a large subject and so the purpose of this post is to bring up the topic and mention that Pope Francis has recently written a letter on the role of Literature in Formation .   He writes: ...

 Monsignor Charles Pope on his blog Community in Mission has a couple of recent posts that relate to things I have been writing about recently.     First, When Theology Must Fall Silen t:  In Scripture there is an “absolute” way of speaking that many of us moderns misconstrue. For example, Jesus says (quoting Hosea 6:6), For I desire mercy not sacrifice (Matt 9:13). To those untrained in Jewish and biblical idioms, the meaning would seem to be, “Skip all the sacrifice; God just wants you to be nice.” However, that misses the point of the idiom, which more accurately means this: “Practice mercy without neglecting sacrifice, for sacrifice is in service of mercy.” All of our rituals have the goal of drawing us to greater charity for God and neighbor. Caritas suprema lex (Charity is the highest law). Although charity is the highest law, that does not mean it is the only one.  The basic Jewish and biblical idiom goes like this: “I desire A, not B.” This means ...

“Hill. Yes, that was it. But it is a hasty word for a thing that has stood here ever since this part of the world was shaped.” -- Treebeard It's interesting that when Thomas Aquinas starts the Summa by talking about God, his preamble is about Sacred Doctrine (holy teaching) meaning how we as humans came to know about God.  His argument is that we could reason to the existence of God but that without revelation (God telling us about himself), even our natural knowledge would be difficult to acquire and limited in extent. Then in the section about the existence of God (I'm using Msgr Glen's Tour of the Summa which is available online, fortunately, since our copy fell to pieces a long time ago) he says that (1) God's existence is self-evident in itself, but not to us.   An example of a self-evident truth is "a circle is round".   Everyone who understands the words and has had experience with a circle knows this is true.   But the words "God" and "e...

 In order that both he who is giving the Spiritual Exercises, and he who is receiving them, may more help and benefit themselves, let it be presupposed that every good Christian is to be more ready to save his neighbor's proposition than to condemn it. If he cannot save it, let him inquire how he means it; and if he means it badly, let him correct him with charity. If that is not enough, let him seek all the suitable means to bring him to mean it well, and save himself.  St Ignatius, Presupposition I've quoted St Ignatius's presupposition often, because it's the most elegant formulation of dealing with disagreement that I've seen.   Obviously he's talking in the context of a retreat director and his/her retreatant.   So some starting trust is involved.    If it was a prospective martyr talking to his torturer, the dialogue would be a bit different.   But not altogether different.   It struck me recently that St Ignatius's proce...

 That structure is built thus: that Being precedes Truth, and that Truth precedes the Good. Indeed, the living fire at the heart of the dictum is the central mystery of Christian theology: that the Father begets the Eternal Word, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds out of the Father and the Word.”-- Josef Pieper Truth and love can never be opposed.    The object of both of them is God.     Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one can come to the Father but by me".    But truth and love taken together are also one of those both/ands that comprise a bigger picture.   By taking the extreme of one thing, you not only neglect the other one; you end up distorting even the one you chose.    The corollary of "seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; then all these things shall be added unto you,"   is that if you choose solely one of "all these things" you will end up losing even that one. Truth spoke...