'God come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me.' The opening line from morning Prayer, whether you are a machine and pray 'Matins' or just begin with 'Laudes.' It seems that I repeat this line often throughout the day without recourse to any Psalm. The reason? More often than not I meditate upon my potential impending priesthood and society's current 'metaphysical crisis.'
I have blogged before about 'Truth.' What is Truth? To paraphrase Pontius Pilate's words to Christ. Yet, today nobody seems to want to search for Truth anymore. Well a ray of light happened this morning, that before training, myself and two of my teammates had a conversation regarding Philosophy, from the pre Socratics, to the Greeks (Plato and Aristotle) to Aquinas (Woohoo!) all the way to the so-called modern era, as in Descartes, Spinoza right up to contemporary, Heidegger and Schelling. As I've mentioned before, (you can search the archives..) I have always divided thinkers into those seeking objective Truth and those who look at things through their own particular lenses, subjectivists and phenomenologists. Whether or not we agree is a different story, but the fact is that the conversation took place outside of a traditional intellectual arena, but three guys about ready to train chokes, armlocks, and other takedowns.
Leaving Gracie Barra, and assisting at Mass, saw me especially meditate upon today's First Reading. (2 Corinthians 11: 1-11) St Paul speaks and warns again of how easy it is for people to preach another 'Jesus.' The Holy Spirit has a habit of sometimes winking at me, (in my case smacking me upside the head..) This new 'Jesus' is the result of subjectivist thought. How many of our generation grew up in the 1980s? Our experience in the Parish was at times painful, Fr 'Nice' talked about how 'nice' Jesus is and that He is our friend, and we love crayons and bunnies and blah blah blah,.. The other type of priest was the so-called 'social justice' (closet marxist) preaching a false liberation theology turning Jesus into a revolutionary. Their formation reflected the times, so they were taught Karl Marx, Fuerbach,..etc,.but Maritain? Nooo, that's too rigid! Today's heresy is more along the lines of rehashed gnosticism, and voila! Oprah's Jesus, (who I believe is a creation of satan.) The problem through all of this was that there was no anchor. Meaning that these false 'Jesus's' and false Gospels are due to lack of proper intellectual training. So us, the younger guys are called 'rigid' and 'Traditionalist' and all sorts of buzz words because in the end, we believe that objective Truth does exist and that reason can lead you there! (Aristotle, Aquinas, Maritain, Gilson...) Philosophy properly ordered will always be the handmaid of Theology.
Our generation drank the kool aid, and we have been in recovery since. It is by Grace that I can make it through the day. I am a sinner, a sex addict, a drunkard and tempermental, yet through it all it is Jesus who Redeems me. If I fall, I get back up and frequent the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I will not however let my experience override Truth! Truth just is! We don't make it up. We can't decide that gravity doesn't exist because we (our ego) possess a desire to fly on our own.
My ADD kicked in, so I'll stop writing for now.
St Thomas Aquinas,...........................ora pro nobis!
I have blogged before about 'Truth.' What is Truth? To paraphrase Pontius Pilate's words to Christ. Yet, today nobody seems to want to search for Truth anymore. Well a ray of light happened this morning, that before training, myself and two of my teammates had a conversation regarding Philosophy, from the pre Socratics, to the Greeks (Plato and Aristotle) to Aquinas (Woohoo!) all the way to the so-called modern era, as in Descartes, Spinoza right up to contemporary, Heidegger and Schelling. As I've mentioned before, (you can search the archives..) I have always divided thinkers into those seeking objective Truth and those who look at things through their own particular lenses, subjectivists and phenomenologists. Whether or not we agree is a different story, but the fact is that the conversation took place outside of a traditional intellectual arena, but three guys about ready to train chokes, armlocks, and other takedowns.
Leaving Gracie Barra, and assisting at Mass, saw me especially meditate upon today's First Reading. (2 Corinthians 11: 1-11) St Paul speaks and warns again of how easy it is for people to preach another 'Jesus.' The Holy Spirit has a habit of sometimes winking at me, (in my case smacking me upside the head..) This new 'Jesus' is the result of subjectivist thought. How many of our generation grew up in the 1980s? Our experience in the Parish was at times painful, Fr 'Nice' talked about how 'nice' Jesus is and that He is our friend, and we love crayons and bunnies and blah blah blah,.. The other type of priest was the so-called 'social justice' (closet marxist) preaching a false liberation theology turning Jesus into a revolutionary. Their formation reflected the times, so they were taught Karl Marx, Fuerbach,..etc,.but Maritain? Nooo, that's too rigid! Today's heresy is more along the lines of rehashed gnosticism, and voila! Oprah's Jesus, (who I believe is a creation of satan.) The problem through all of this was that there was no anchor. Meaning that these false 'Jesus's' and false Gospels are due to lack of proper intellectual training. So us, the younger guys are called 'rigid' and 'Traditionalist' and all sorts of buzz words because in the end, we believe that objective Truth does exist and that reason can lead you there! (Aristotle, Aquinas, Maritain, Gilson...) Philosophy properly ordered will always be the handmaid of Theology.
Our generation drank the kool aid, and we have been in recovery since. It is by Grace that I can make it through the day. I am a sinner, a sex addict, a drunkard and tempermental, yet through it all it is Jesus who Redeems me. If I fall, I get back up and frequent the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I will not however let my experience override Truth! Truth just is! We don't make it up. We can't decide that gravity doesn't exist because we (our ego) possess a desire to fly on our own.
My ADD kicked in, so I'll stop writing for now.
St Thomas Aquinas,...........................ora pro nobis!
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