Tomorrow is the feast of St. Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order from which many noteworthy theologians and saints have emerged. Thomas Aquinas, Torquemada, and Yves Congar. There's a joke that's told a lot amongst Roman Catholics - especially ones like I was who discerned religious life with the Jesuits. The Dominicans were founded to get rid of the Albigensians, … [Read more...]
Is Flight From the World To Be Understood as an Act of Piety or Despair?
“There are on record examples of men who, forsaking marriage and the administration of the Commonwealth, have hid themselves in monasteries. This they called fleeing from the world, and seeking a kind of life which would be more pleasing to God. Neither did they see that God ought to be served in those commandments which He Himself has given and not in commandments devised by … [Read more...]
Spiritual Anarchism Violent and Pacific: Franciscans, Anabaptists, and Huguenots
If you consider the communal and almost monastic lifestyle of the Amish of modern times, and the pacificism of contemporary Anabaptists some of this history may be disturbing. More familiar would be the words and descriptions of St Francis' and his followers below. "If we had any possessions we should need weapons and laws to defend them." -St. Francis of Assisi "Possessing … [Read more...]
Luther on Christ Our Righteousness
The famous verse of the Reformation was Jeremiah 23:6, specifically the naming of God's people "The LORD our Righteousness". Many in the years since, have located salvation within (Wesley) or made it based upon a person's choice (Charles Finney). Yet in reality, justification for the early reformers was something extra nos (outside of us). In a beautiful exposition of this … [Read more...]
Ricoeur's Wisdom
""repentance" belongs to the same thematic universe as transgression and merit, and it is no accident that it was precisely Judaism that laid emphasis on this concept. For "repentance" signifies that "return" to God, freely chosen, is always open to man; and the example of great and impious men who have "returned" to the Eternal attests that it is always possible for a man to … [Read more...]