Some thoughts on the necessity of genuine theological education...

As it happens I've recently started Blessed John Henry Newman's Idea of a University for my personal reading, both to celebrate his recent beatification and to consider such a brilliant, Catholic mind's meditations on the subject of university education, theology, and the relation between the two (the subject being peculiarly pertinent to me, obviously).  So imagine my delight at discovering this passage not forty pages into the work:

"I cannot so construct my definition of the subject-matter of University Knowledge, and so draw my boundary lines around it, as to include therein the other sciences commonly studied at Universities, and to exclude the science of Religion. For instance, are we to limit our idea of University Knowledge by the evidence of our senses? then we exclude ethics; by intuition? we exclude history; by testimony? we exclude metaphysics; by abstract reasoning? we exclude physics. Is not the being of a God reported to us by testimony, handed down by history, inferred by an inductive process, brought home to us by metaphysical necessity, urged on us by the suggestions of our conscience? It is a truth in the natural order, as well as in the supernatural. So much for its origin; and, when obtained, what is it worth? Is it a great truth or a small one? Is it a comprehensive truth? Say that no other religious idea whatever were given but it, and you have enough to fill the mind; you have at once a whole dogmatic system. The word "God" is a Theology in itself, indivisibly one, inexhaustibly various, from the vastness and the simplicity of its meaning. Admit a God, and you introduce among the subjects of your knowledge, a fact encompassing, closing in upon, absorbing, every other fact conceivable. How can we investigate any part of any order of Knowledge, and stop short of that which enters into every order? All true principles run over with it, all phenomena converge to it; it is truly the First and the Last. In word indeed, and in idea, it is easy enough to divide Knowledge into human and divine, secular and religious, and to lay down that we will address ourselves to the one without interfering with the other; but it is impossible in fact. Granting that divine truth differs in kind from human, so do human truths differ in kind one from another. If the knowledge of the Creator is in a different order from knowledge of the creature, so, in like manner, metaphysical science is in a different order from physical, physics from history, history from ethics. You will soon break up into fragments the whole circle of secular knowledge, if you begin the mutilation with divine."

Saint Ignatius of Antioch on heretics:

From his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans:

"I guard you beforehand from those beasts in the shape of men, whom you must not only not receive, but, if it be possible, not even meet with; only you must pray to God for them, if by any means they may be brought to repentance, which, however, will be very difficult. Yet Jesus Christ, who is our true life, has the power of [effecting] this."

Timeliness strikes again!

I just happened upon a blog (Standing on My Head) which has captured my attention with another quotation from Tolkien on the Blessed Sacrament, one which has struck a rather acute note with me:

"The only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals. Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children - from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn - open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. (It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand - after which [our] Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.)"

The Blessed Sacrament...

Tomorrow morning's Mass will mark the commissioning of new students to assist with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in various roles-- myself as a sacristan, altar server, and extraordinary minister (it's been a busy week).  In light of the last  item of the list, you can imagine how timely I found the following quote, which I came across at the Catholic Education Resource Center after it first caught my eye some months ago:

"Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth. . . by. . . which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained and take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man's heart desires."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

It's still more fitting in light of the fact that I'm currently making my way through the latter half of our good man Tolkien's The Two Towers.  They're certainly words worth bearing in mind as I both learn to distribute the Blessed Sacrament and continue my reading of The Lord of the Rings.