Eucatastrophe

Pippin found the sound very pleasant to listen at first; but gradually his attention wavered. After a long time (and the chant showed no sign of slackening) he found himself wondering, since Entish was such an 'unhasty' language, whether they had yet got further than Good Morning; and if Treebeard was going to call the roll, how many days it would take to sing all their names.  I wasn't particularly happy with my last post .    When I look at its individual elements, I can't see anything irredeemably bad, but the parts don't fit together that well.   I think I was going for a kind of  braiding  essay, but ended up with more of a tangle.    I'll let it stand, though.  Blogging is a way of thinking through time... a kind of temporal braiding.   My main intention in writing it was to emphasize that the skills involved in encountering other peoples' opinions -- in reading discernment , if you will, in honor of St Ignatius whose fea...

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone. " " I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!”  The Hobbit Yesterday I  read John Henry Newman's Letter to the Duke of Norfolk .    Though written more than a century ago, it is quite relevant in many ways.    It is basically on the implications of the doctrine of papal infallibility , which had then just recently been defined by the Vatican I Council.   Much of what he writes in this letter is correcting Prime Minister William Gladstone's notions  on what the doctrine meant for Catholic citizens of the UK.    Though he did not fully succeed in altering Gladstone's opinions, he did provide a lucid explanation of the authority of the Church through history, the role of the doctrine of infallibility, and the cor...

 Before " and " there has to be something else. ..."be" being the operative word there.   That is, before you have some kind of joining or togetherness, before you can affirm or deny,  you have to have an implicit "IS". I am probably not saying it with maximum clarity, but that is kind of the point here.   Language itself, which is the medium for thought, is radically dependent on a preceding ground.    Chesterton is right to say that our English word "being" is not quite adequate to express this.   Now it unfortunately happens that the word ‘being’, as it comes to a modern Englishman, through modern associations, has a sort of hazy atmosphere that is not in the short and sharp Latin word. Perhaps it reminds him of fantastic professors in fiction, who wave their hands and say, “Thus do we mount to the ineffable heights of pure and radiant Being: or, worse still, of actual professors in real life, who say, “All Being is Becoming; and is ...

The War is not over (and the one that is, or the part of it, has been largely lost). But it is of course wrong to fall into such a mood, for Wars are always lost, and War always goes on; and it is no good growing faint. -- JRR Tolkien Reading Tracey Rowland's summary of what is now sometimes called " Strict Observance Thomism " revived my interest in Fr Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, a Dominican scholar who died in 1964.   He has been called the "monstre sacre" of Thomism, and someone called Richard Peddicord has written a book with that title: The Sacred Monster of Thomism Here's a short overview with list of table of contents. There are several reviews around the internet.   Of recent years there has been a revival of scholarly interest in Garrigou Lagrange, apparently.    The appellation of sacred monster was applied to Garrigou-Lagrange by Francois Mauriac, according to the book.  In French the term means   a venerable or popular public figure ...

 Where did you go to, if I may ask?' said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along. To look ahead,' said he. And what brought you back in the nick of time?' Looking behind,' said he.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit Yesterday I finished Tracey Rowland's book Catholic Theology which I wrote a bit about here .    Rather than write out a summary I will link to two reviews both of which describe the layout of the book.    Review by Dr Pravin Thevathasan Review by Dr Joshua Furnal  Dr Furnal is a Catholic theologian, and from scanning his published works it looks like he is interested in Kierkegaard, Thomism, and possibly ecumenism.    From the details of his criticisms, he thinks she is unduly negative about Consilium-style theology and dismissive of Pope Francis's thinking.      Dr Thevathasan's review is more like the review I would write if I did write one.    The part I think everyone agrees on, that she sketches out in the cours...

“Sam was chewing an apple thoughtfully. He had a pocket full of them: a parting present from Nob and Bob. ‘Apples for walking, and a pipe for sitting,’ he said. ‘But I reckon I’ll miss them both before long.'” Fellowship of the Ring,  ‘To give your language an individual flavour, it must have woven into it the threads of an individual mythology. … The converse indeed is true, your language construction will breed a mythology’. JRR Tolkien Continuing the topic of grammar.   Both/And  can't go against the  Principle of Non-Contradiction .   This principle as stated by St Thomas is both metaphysical and logical: Thomism’s metaphysical first principle of non-contradiction (PNC) reads, “Being cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.” Its sister first principles are those of  identity  and  excluded middle . Its logical form reads, “The same predicate cannot be affirmed and denied of the same subject.” Oh, and by the way,...

“Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit Catholicism, a bit simplistically, always has been considered the religion of the great ‘both/and’ – not of grand exclusivities, but of synthesis. The word ‘catholic’ means precisely ‘synthesis.’ “A good and truly Catholic pastoral approach means to live in the both/and; to live one’s own humanity and the humanism of man … and, at the same time, not to forget God. … Therefore, I’d say simply to commit myself to the great Catholic synthesis, to this ‘both/and.’ “In this sense, let’s live Catholicity joyously.  -- Pope Benedict XVI  A bit more on AND continued from the previous post .    Polarization is not Catholic. A Catholic cannot think either-or (aut-aut) and reduce everything to polarization. The essence of what is Catholic is both-and (et-et)... This [saying] is not m...