For my newsletter readers: It turns out that the way I’ve been sending out this newsletter over the past 7 (!) years is becoming too labor intensive.
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Newsletter update & New spiritual stuff on squidoo and Katinka Hesselink Net
Paul Harvey Ever wondered about the philosophy and business model of the spirituality catch-all website Belief.net. And who exactly owned it anyway? Yeah, neither did I
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Selling God on the Net: Beliefnet’s Affinity Group
According to recent surveys, Americans increasingly are describing themselves as unaffiliated with any particular religious tradition. More than 16 percent of those questioned in the biggest of these surveys, the 2007 “U.S. Religious Landscape” report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, say they are unaffiliated:
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Spirituality vs. religion
N.B., this post is a kind of “exploratory” post. I’m not yet ready to take a definite position on the question. One of the reasons why many theologians have been attracted to the theory of a “fundamental option” is that it seems in certain respects to correspond better to real-life experience.
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Mortal Sin and Fundamental Option
In the previous post I attempted to describe a man who, as far as morally possible, related to his family in a manner analogous to the manner a Christian relates to God, so that even things that normally are not incompatible with marital love would exclude it. We could also consider a more realistic case, in
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Mortal Sin and Fundamental Option 2
From the De Malo to the Summa Theologiae Aquinas apparently makes a shift in his judgment about drunkenness. While in the De Malo he says that getting drunk is of itself a venial sin, in the Summa Theologiae and in the Commentary on Romans (as well as the Commentary on 1 Corinthians), which are widely
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Aquinas on the Sin of Drunkenness
Though Aquinas clearly affirms that the influence of passions on the will can decrease the degree of voluntariness, and thus the merit or demerit of good actions or sins, when it comes to gravely disordered acts, such as fornication, masturbation, or theft, he still sees the issue as basically black or white: either the act
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Aquinas on Mortal Sins of Passion
In the early Church, the practice of the sacrament of confession was not a very common affair. While there is certainly testimony to the confession of light sins in the sacrament of confession, it was most associated with severe sins that demanded a canonical and public penance.
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St. Augustine, Penance, and the Forgiveness of Sins
When speaking about the influence of passions on the will, Aquinas takes the position that so long as people retain the use of reason and free will, if they are moved by passion to do a gravely disordered act, then they sin mortally. Only if they are so overcome by passion that they no longer
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Aquinas on Mortal Sins and Ignorance
When a person commits a mortal sin out of ignorance, when does he commit he a mortal sin, and in what does it consist? Take the case of a married person believes that contraception is not intrinsically wrong, and consequently judges in a particular case that he or she is obliged to use artificial contraception
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Mortal Sins and Ignorance II – Where and When is the Mortal Sin?
I just finished reading Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See . Rohr’s aim is to help us get beyond dualistic thinking by encouraging us to live “in the naked now, the ‘sacrement of the present moment,’ that will teach us how to actually experience our experiences, whether good, bad, or ungly, and how to let them transform us.” Nonduality is not a principle unique to Christian mystical thought; as Rohr points out in his book, the Hindu, Mahayana Buddhist and Chinese Taoist religions all proceed from a worldview of nonduality. But it takes on a disctinctive form in Christianity.
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What it Means to Follow Jesus
Thielicke, speak to us about Spurgeon . . . For Spurgeon the really determinative foundation of the education of preachers was naturally this work on the spiritual man. The education of preachers must not be directly pragmatic; it must not be immediately directed to preaching as its goal. Otherwise the process of education becomes an act of mere training, the teaching of technical skills. The preacher must read the Bible without asking in the back of his mind how he can capitalize homiletically upon the text he studies. He must first read it as nourishment for his own soul
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Borrowed Light
Learning that Russell is fascinated with Hinduism, Hindu scholar Rajan Zed says, ‘Almost any Hindu scholar would gladly assist Russell to clarify its philosophy, spirituality, teachings and practice.’
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Hindu Leaders Welcome Russell Brand’s Interest in Their Religion
Learning that Russell is fascinated with Hinduism, Hindu scholar Rajan Zed says, ‘Almost any Hindu scholar would gladly assist Russell to clarify its philosophy, spirituality, teachings and practice.’ Hindu leaders have welcomed Russell Brand ‘s …
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Hindu Leaders Welcome Russell Brand’s Interest in Their … – AceShowbiz
One of the things many of us struggle to fully embrace is the reality that we are loved unconditionally by God. It is hard to us to accept that we do not need to do anything to earn God’s love, that God truly loves as as we are, despite all of our imperfections.
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Dare to Believe
Today’s first Mass reading is a passage from the Second Letter of St. Paul to Timothy that always moves me. Paul realizes he is “the time of [his] departure is at hand.” Looking back at his life, he writes: “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” Since I am always so affected by those words, I spent some time reflecting on what Paul is saying in his letter
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I Have Competed Well
New online Short Quotes To the Ancients, Earth was a Living Being New online All Considering Spiritual Blog Buddha on Good and Bad Karma (quotes and explanation) (11) My spiritual quotes Buddha quotes on karma Buddhist quotes about rebirth, reincarnation and karma Squidoo Best Zen Buddhism Books Celtic Calendars and Planners 2010-2011 Religion, Spirituality and the Near-Death Experience (book review) Buddhism and Buddha bags Buddhist Goddesses Art by Romio Shrestha Short Quotes Buddha, Dhammapada , Translation Juan Mascaro 165 By oneself the evil is done, and it is oneself who suffers: by oneself the evil is not done, and by one’s Self one becomes pure.
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NDE, Buddha on karma, Zen Buddhism books
As I was thinking back on my post of yesterday on reading the Gospels, I remembered a discussion with one of my former spiritual directors, a Jesuit named Bill Walsh, about the Gospels. Once Bill suggested that I pray through the Gospels one by one, rather than simply using the daily Mass readings for my daily prayer (which is often, although not always, my practice)
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Gospel Differences
So, if you were a college senior and you went to Woodstock, how old would you be today? It’s hard not to think about questions like that one while reading the Washington Post report about a new AARP sex survey , yet another story that demonstrates that there is nothing about Baby Boomer life that will escape newspaper headlines. Guess what?
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AARP Woodstock: Sex & spirituality
Contextual Notes : The prophecy of Isaiah is one of the most beautiful, towering, and significant books of the Old Testament. Its messages of judgment are set against great visions of comfort and hope. Isaiah has been called the Fifth Gospel, for it is the most Messianic and Christological (Christ-centered and Christ-predicting) in the OT.
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Isaiah 1:1-20 – The Remedy for Rebellion
When a man is affected by a passion, things seem to him greater or smaller than they really are, as to a lover, what he loves seems better, and to him who fears, what he fears seems more dreadful. Consequently owing to the defect of right judgment, every passion, considered in itself, hinders the ability
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More Notes on the Goodness of the Passions
How should a rational civil authority regulate marriage, supposing that the state does not accept a particular religious revelation or tradition as definitive, and that the citizens of the state recognize various religious authorities? Since most of us leave us in civil states like this, the question is not unimportant. But this is the actual
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Rational Civil Authority and Marriage
The leaders of the Legionary of Christ wrote a communiqué to the Legion’s members, its friends, and to all those affected or wounded by the actions of their founder, Fr Marcial Maciel. They apologized for the injuries that were done and for their failure to listen to those who had brought these things to their attention. Moreover they commented on their attitude towards the future.
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Legionaries of Christ – Communiqué
Why do natural inclinations of human nature give rise to an obligation of natural law? The International Theological Commission presents a mean between two extremes: one, which it labels “physicalism,” takes the natural inclinations as absolutes that are not subordinate to any higher principle; the other extreme takes the natural inclinations as mere “matter” for human action, devoid of any intrinsic human teleology. On the one hand, the human subject is not a union or juxtaposition of diverse and autonomous natural inclinations, but a substantial and personal whole called to respond to the love of God and to unite himself through a recognized orientation towards a last end, which hierarchizes the partial goods manifested by diverse natural tendencies…
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Natural Law and Natural Inclinations
Paul Harvey At Killing the Buddha , our contributor Michael Pasquier has posted his first documentary production: “An Interest in Women: The Bellocq Brothers’ Catholic New Orleans.” Killing the Buddha is an online religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the “spirituality” section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. Since it was founded by Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseau in 2000, it has published uncommon commentary, journalism, reviews, fiction, art, and more about religion, politics, and culture
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An Interest in Women: The Bellocq Brothers’ Catholic New Orleans
If there is any person in American life who symbolizes the whole “spiritual” vs. “religious” storyline , that person would, for me, have to be Oprah Winfrey. About a decade ago, in an interview with HomeliticsOnline.com , I summed up this whole “feelings and experience trump doctrine and history” trend with the term “OprahAmerica.” Please note that I also included George W
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Oprah struggles with our ‘spiritual’ age?
Hospitality has always been viewed by Christians as an important virtue and it is one for which the Benedictines are especially known. One of the original Rules of Benedict states, “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for him himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matt
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Hospitality