Abandoned is the daily prompt. So here are a few thoughts I have that are related to the idea of abandonment somehow. St. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle were abandoned by Descartes. This was a colossal blunder in the history of…
Blog Archives
Abandoned
Tagged with: abandoned, abandonment, books, catholic, jesus, movies, music, television, the Cross
Posted in Ascent of Mt Carmel, Etc
Posted in Ascent of Mt Carmel, Etc
Faith is not a special way of feeling
If I am waiting, hoping, looking, or longing for some subjective feeling or other to certify my belief in God, I am barking up the wrong tree. Completely. Not to pick on them especially (because they are by no means…
Tagged with: Faith, faith and reason, walk by faith not by sight
Posted in Ascent of Mt Carmel, Faith, Faith Seeking Understanding, Fides et Ratio
Posted in Ascent of Mt Carmel, Faith, Faith Seeking Understanding, Fides et Ratio
The Way of the Cross
The way of the Cross is the way of suffering. It makes me happy to be suffering for you now, and in my own body to make up all the hardships that still have to be undergone by Christ for…
Tagged with: suffering, way of the cross
Posted in Aquinas - Theology, Ascent of Mt Carmel, Suffering
Posted in Aquinas - Theology, Ascent of Mt Carmel, Suffering
Bloom where you are planted
Quoth The Author: It is best to love first what you are fitted to love, I suppose; you must start somewhere and have some roots. We Westerners are restless people. We move around (literally and figuratively) more than is probably…
Tagged with: ambition, bloom where you are planted, contentment, satisfaction
Posted in Ascent of Mt Carmel, Books, Charity, Western Civilization
Posted in Ascent of Mt Carmel, Books, Charity, Western Civilization
True Virtue
St. Teresa says this in Interior Castle, about the soul in mortal sin: While in a state like this the soul will find profit in nothing, and hence, being as it is in mortal sin, none of the good works…
Tagged with: grace, merit, mortal sin, St. Teresa, virtue
Posted in Apologetics, Ascent of Mt Carmel, Merit, Sola Gratia
Posted in Apologetics, Ascent of Mt Carmel, Merit, Sola Gratia
The Greatest of all Concerns
But let us remember, Philothea, so to pass our time of recreation that we may never lose sight of the greatest of all concerns–eternity. (St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life III.27) We can’t work all the time.…
Interior Struggle
[T]here is indeed no radical deliverance for humanity which is not the fruit of an interior struggle, in which suffering, distress accepted in faith, is the condition of a truly new life. (Louis Bouyer, Introduction to the Spiritual Life) Suffering,…
Tagged with: Bouyer, Faith, interior struggle, suffering, tribulation
Posted in Ascent of Mt Carmel, Faith Seeking Understanding, Suffering
Posted in Ascent of Mt Carmel, Faith Seeking Understanding, Suffering
Perfectly Broken
How can you possibly expect to remain always in the same state of virtue when the angels in heaven and the first man in paradise failed to do so? (The Imitation of Christ) Speaking as a recovering perfectionist (if there…
Big Circumstance(s)
I like this snip from St. Francis de Sales: But would you know, Philothea, which are the best abjections, I tell you plainly, that those are the most profitable to our souls, and most acceptable to God, which befall us…
Tagged with: patience, sainthood, suffering
Posted in Deus Caritas Est, Humility, Imitation of Christ, Saints, Suffering
Posted in Deus Caritas Est, Humility, Imitation of Christ, Saints, Suffering
Devout Living
In 1609 St. Francis de Sales published a book called Introduction to the Devout Life. Unlike some other books (like, for example, The Imitation of Christ, which I love) St. Francis wrote this Introduction for folks like you and me.…
Aquinas, Etc. 