Augustine A.

gelassenheit. Matthew 11:28-30

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

“For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land.”

Deuteronomy 15:11

[alex @dogslovecranmer]

this is such a trvke it’s insane

[chunguskitten @chunguskitten]

Did you know?

As a young boy, Athanasius baptized pagan children in the sea while “playing church”

Seeing this, Patriarch Alexander declared the baptisms valid, confirmed them with chrismation, and became the mentor of the future saint

[𝙷𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚖𝚊𝚗 @shagbark_hick]

One of the greatest things I learned in college came from an old ex-hippie prof who tried to convert to Buddhism in the 70's.

She went to Nepal to see the Dalai Lama speak. At one point, he addressed the hippies directly, saying:

"It's nice you came to see us from the West, and there is a lot you can learn here. But you did not need to travel to the other side of the planet to learn what is important. You could have just as well knocked at the door of the Church down the street from where you grew up. Never think that the West is devoid of spiritual truth." (I am paraphrasing, of course)

As a 19-year-old lapsed Catholic with an orientalist bent, an obsession with Lao Tzu, and a craving for all kinds of exotic spirituality, this hit me hard. It would stick with me for the rest of my life.

For some reason, I'd had this idea that all things Western were hopelessly corrupt, not worth considering, bogged down by a kind of hollow myopia that only non-Western cultures had the answer to.

I had assumed that Christianity was dead on arrival, and that Catholicism in particular was just shameless grift, power politics, and perversion -- and that somehow, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Sufism (and later, Eastern Orthodoxy) were all somehow "purer." I never thought about this very deeply; the idea was totally reflexive, like an instinct that came from nowhere.

But the way my old professor related the Dalai Lama's teachings on spiritual orientalism really changed that for me. It planted a seed that would eventually bring me back to the Church at the center of the most dynamic civilization in human history. It led me to recognize that just because something is foreign does not make it "purer" or "more true."

There's something profound in that. Something deeply nourishing about staying home, keeping it simple and even kind of boring. Because the thrust of the spiritual life probably ought not to be some kind of a high-drama sojourn into dizzyingly foreign worlds if we can help it.

Because the real core of the thing is simple prayer. It is the imitation of Christ and the reception of His sacred Flesh and Blood into our bodies. It is the quiet unity of the only truly global Church, in union with Rome, and the steadfastness of the old ladies praying the Rosary at the daily Mass. To participate in this is not to miss out on anything; it is not to err or stray or delve into a corrupt, impure world of control and power at all...

I ultimately concluded that there is simply no reason for a Westerner to ever "go East" for anything, unless it is simply to learn, to share the Gospel and to sow unity, and to make friends before taking the journey back home.

No disrespect to those who have not arrived at this conclusion too; all I will say to them is that if you ever get exhausted at being "the foreigner," know that you can come home anytime, and you will be just as fulfilled here as you would be "out there," if not moreso. That door is open, if you want it.

A blessed Sunday to all, praise to our Lord Jesus Christ.

[𝚛𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚝 @rawatthekiid]

in plotinus’ enneads (Ἐννεάδες V.8), plotinus wrote that “we ourselves possess beauty when we are true to our own being; knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.”

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

@nicotinerotter I know we have not spoken in a while but I appreciate the seriousness of a lot of these takes and I'm glad you are not permitting some of the difficulties to dissuade you from Catholicism

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

It is a high IQ sign to love Peter Abelard.

[CTrefugees @CTrefugees]

I say this with no endorsement, but rather by way of personal confession: in terms of intellectual temperament—not theological views—I have always been closer to the tenor of Peter Abelard than to that of St. Thomas, St. Augustine, or even St. Dominic, whose name I took when I came into the Church.

There is something about the passion and personal vigor he brought to intellectual matters that has always impressed me.

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

Curious how he would square this with the fact that there are numerous "non-essence-believing" Eastern traditions that predate nominalism by hundreds of years, such as various schools of Buddhistic thought, some schools of Hinduism, etc etc

[Defiant Ghost @TheDefiantGhost]

Jay Dyer on Tucker Carlson: How Medieval Philosophy Nominalism created modern transgender ideology:

“Nominalism is the idea that there are only names to things, not essences. So there’s no human nature. No dog nature. The ancient world believed things have real essences. Words described metaphysical reality.

Occam started denying that. It influenced Luther. Then Hume, Kant, the Enlightenment…

If things don’t have essences, then they don’t have genders objectively — everything is just a name.
So I can just name myself he, him, Zer, Z.

That’s the logical train from medieval philosophy to postmodern gender ideology.
It flies in the face of lived experience. You basically have to be indoctrinated to believe it.”

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

@nicotinerotter Not at all, beloved.

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

@LuxPatrum Does Dumbarton have Bonaventure? I could not find anything when I looked into it.

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

John Romanides is... le bad.

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

@_bonaventurian beautiful

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

@LuxPatrum what are the odds of you guys producing a hardcover edition of St. Bonaventure's works? Love your other stuff, would like to have a nice hardcover multi-lingual Bonaventure. Alternatively - would it be possible to perhaps produce an edition of the Periphyseon?

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

Based

[Haz @HazThomist]

Fr Garrigou-Lagrange, while holding firm to the traditional doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus, explains how non-Catholics can attain justification and the beatific vision:

"All persons, even those who have not had the Gospel preached to them, receive graces sufficient for them to save their souls. Certainly, they are helped far less than those born in the Catholic Church, but they receive help sufficient for salvation. If they correspond to the graces received, if they act according to the dictates of conscience, as they are prompted to do by actual grace, then by a series of graces and by constant fidelity to inspirations, they finally receive the light of faith and acquire that life of charity, by means known to God, even if He has to send an angel or a preacher of the faith to them, as He sent the Apostle St. Peter to Cornelius the centurion."

[🅱️askerville @WB_Baskerville]

Unimaginably based

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

exactly my thoughts

[Simple @SimonSimplicio]

1 and 4 yes, 2 and 3 no

[Augustine A. @augustineocd]

This might be the most based thing I've ever read

[chunguskitten @chunguskitten]

In light of the recent SSPX consecrations, my longstanding view remains:

[Le Teutonique 🇻🇦 @inconnu0connu]

The Novus Ordo is CRAZY