Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Sentimentality [concerning the baby Jesus]...is not to be scorned. Others may make neat distinctions between “authentic sentiment” and sentimentality, but these days of Christmas are a time for the suspension of neat distinctions. Sentimentality is all too human, and all too human is what God became. - Richard Neuhaus

Something is wrong with the traditional Western formulations of the doctrine of divine predestination. For fifteen hundred years theologians of the Church—Augustine, John Cassian, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, John Calvin, Luis de Molina, Robert Bellarmine, Jacobus Arminius, Karl Barth—have wrestled with this issue; but none have been unable to offer a resolution that has fully satisfied the sensus fidelium. With the exception of Barth, all have been condemned to circle around one of two poles of the question—absolute predestination or conditioned predestination—with each side anathematizing the other. Why this interminable disagreement?... Edward T. Oakes proposes that the problem begins with the move from a posture of gratitude before God to intellectual speculation on the fate of the unrepentant, either inside or outside the Church...Once we move from our response of gratitude for the blessings we have received in Christ to speculation on “the fate of others who seem to be not so similarly blessed and once the idle workshop of the logical mind gets to humming, the doctrine of predestination begins to cause problems on which theology has again and again run aground” (p. 213). The doctrine of predestination, as expressed in Holy Scripture, is intended to function to edify believers and strengthen them in their hope and perseverance. Yet the doctrine, in its Augustinian formulation, ends up leading people either into fear and despair (what if I’m not one of the elect?) or pride...Recognizing the insoluble problems inherent in the Western formulations of predestination, Christian pastors, both Catholic and Protestant, have generally abandoned the doctrine of predestination in their public preaching...Thomist or Molinist, Calvinist or Arminian, pastors do not publicly proclaim divine election. The doctrine of predestination is now silenced in the preaching of the Church. How far we have moved from the New Testament writers, who delighted in telling their readers that God had chosen them in Christ “before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless” and predestined them “to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will” (Eph 1:4-5). - Alvin Kimel of "Pontifications"

I'm the smeller at our house, a blessing and a curse... I'm even called on in forensic cases - "What is this stuff?" - Bill of 'Summa Minutiae' on refrigerator items of dubious freshness

One may well share much of [Mr. Weisberg's] evaluation of the LDS belief system without excluding the possibility of supporting Mitt Romney...First, what would people think of someone who abandoned the religion of his forebears in order to advance his political career? (Mr. Romney is apparently having difficulties enough in explaining some of his political changes.) Second, do we really want to exclude from high office millions of citizens born into a religion whose tenets strike most Americans as bizarre, especially when there is no evidence that those peculiar tenets would have a bearing on their public actions? Third, candidates should be judged on the basis of their character, competence, and public positions. That one was born a Mormon is not evidence of a character flaw. That one remains a Mormon may be evidence of theological naiveté or indifference. But we are not electing the nation’s theologian. And, it should be noted, there are very intelligent Mormons who are doing serious intellectual work to move their tradition toward a closer approximation of Christian orthodoxy, which is a welcome development. - Richard Neuhaus of "First Things"

So let's allow that the Christian can be joyful and glad in his hardships, because he lives now in Christ, and Christ in him, and in the future he will become as He is. Is such supernatural joy and gladness convertible to natural happiness, to the spirit of cheer associated with next week's secular holiday? In the past, when I've thought about such things, I've always been quick to downplay the connection between the spiritual and the physical. You can be both sad and joyful, I've repeated, and everyone agrees that no one is expected to be in a good mood every moment of every day -- all the more so the more we read about the effects of things like diet, sleep, and heredity on brain chemistry. But, having read an essay on "Dominicans and Happiness" by Fr. Paul Murray, OP -- reprinted in his excellent book, The New Wine of Dominican Spirituality: A Drink Called Happiness -- I'm now thinking that I've been underestimating the effect our faith ought to have on our cheerfulness...A cordial manner and a pleasant countenance sound like very minor things in a saint's catalog of virtues; in fact, these are quite likely to be dismissed as merely good secular manners, or even as masks for vices. Surely, though, the mercy God has commanded in the daytime extends to the whole of the persons we meet, and to be cordial and pleasant is to meet a natural desire that only we can meet (no one can be pleasant for you). While fasting might not make many of us more cordial and pleasant, we might ask ourselves whether a little more prayer might be in order. - Tom of Disputations

Karl Barth once said, "It is in the Marian doctrine and the Marian cult that the heresy of the Roman Catholic Church is apparent—that heresy which enables us to understand all the rest. The 'Mother of God' of Roman Catholic dogma is, quite simply, the principle, prototype, and summing-up of the human creature cooperating in its own salvation by making use of its prevenient grace; as such, she is also the principle, prototype, and summing-up of the Church...Thus, that Church in which there is a cult of Mary must be itself understood as at the [First] Vatican Council; is of necessity that Church of man who, by virtue of grace, cooperates with grace." (Dei kirchliche Dogmatik vol. 1 quoted in Henri de Lubac, "The Splendor of the Church")One of the fear and trembling facts about the Catholic Church is that she seems to focus so much on the mother of Jesus Christ that she becomes part of your life. Catholics have to explain to their Protestant brothers and sisters that they do not treat her as a goddess. This is not to say that she is not deified since the saints themselves partake in the divine nature, but that she too is adopted by God, a disciple of God, and a creature...Mary of Nazareth would not have been venerated so much if she was not the mother of God...Mary is the model of the Church, but there is something in her that we the Church cannot be and that is to be the natural mother of Christ. Only hyperdulia is appropriate. That is why even in the future age to come, the Church, Virgin and Mother, will also honor her member. There is hyperdulia even in the new heaven and earth. Where there is (a possible world where) Christ (is) there must be hyperdulia for his mother. - Apolonio of "Thoughts of Apolonio Latar III"

One of the points that becomes so clear about Catholicism as you study history is that in its universality, its complexity and its depth, it's a lot like the world: it takes all kinds. It takes the ritualists to care about points that the rest of us might not even notice. It takes charismatic figures to clear out the fog and point to the radical presence of Jesus right in our midst, in places where we wouldn't expect it, even if the ritual wasn't done correctly today.  It takes the organizers and the solitaries, the bureaucrats and the skeptics who push back against the bureaucrats. It takes the artists and the accountants, the workaholics and the wry, relaxed observers, the conformists and the iconoclasts. - Amy Welborn

I think Chesterton said something like that it takes God to force us to celebrate Holy Days and we wake up and find these are wonderful holidays for us men. - Jim of "Bethune Catholic"

I’m vigorously opposed to drunk driving, but I tip my long neck to this guy: “Police say a man they pulled over for driving drunk continued to swig his beer during his arrest.” - Eric Scheske of "The Daily Eudemon"

Scott Carson at An Examined Life makes the argument (assuming I understand it correctly) that doctrine develops only by applying deductive reasoning to a body of formally revealed facts and principles which were finalized at the time of the Apostles. I'll call this position sola deduction...If all valid doctrines follow from turning the formal crank of deductive reasoning on the raw material of facts and principles established at the time of the Apostles, and doctrines so established are not underdetermined by that deductive reasoning, then the Magisterium can be replaced by a computer. But the situation for sola deduction is even worse than is made clear by Mike's argument, though Mike's argument is in my opinion sufficient for his purposes. If we accept sola deduction on its own terms as a thought experiment, we ultimately (though not trivially) end up with a logical contradiction. An assertion of logic alone is itself quite literally illogical. - Zippy of "Zippy Catholic"