Saturday, December 29, 2012

Not (here) the dangers of holding one another accountable, but the dangers of a disingenuous "repentance"

"The first and fatal charm of national repentance is, therefore, the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailingbut, first, of denouncingthe conduct of others."

     C. S. Lewis, "Dangers of national repentance," in God in the dock:  essays on theology and ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), 190 (189-192).

Friday, December 28, 2012

Newman on the dormition of St. Peter

"The regalia Petri might sleep, as the power of a chancellor has slept; not as an obsolete, for it never had been operative, but as a mysterious privilege, which was not understood; as an unfulfilled prophecy."

     John Henry Newman, An essay on the development of Christian doctrine: the edition of 1845, ed. J. M. Cameron (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1974), 209 (III.iv.4).

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

"after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to the end of the Church"

Scripture "cannot, as it were, be mapped, or its contents catalogued; but after all our diligence, to the end of our lives and to the end of the Church, it must be an unexplored and unsubdued land, with heights and valleys, forests and streams, on the right and left of our path and close about us, full of concealed wonders and choice treasures."

     John Henry Newman, An essay on the development of Christian doctrine:  the edition of 1845, ed. J. M. Cameron (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England:  Penguin Books, 1974), 162 (II.ii.6).

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

"And then, in the fullness of time, God changed his hiding place."

     A lovely little "Christmas meditation" by Ronald A. Knox, in which the turning point is the Incarnation of course, but also the transition from the Wisdom of God in creation to "our Mother, come out to help in the search":  "Ostende," Pastoral and occasional sermons, ed. Evelyn Waugh (New York:  Sheed & Ward, 1960), pp. 359-361.

"We never doubted that the unorthodox opinions were honestly held: what we complain of is your continuing your ministry after you have come to hold them."

     C. S. Lewis, "Christian apologetics" (Easter 1945), God in the dock:  essays on theology and ethics (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970), 90.  Cf. Dietrich von Hildebrand.

"The real pacificus is he who promotes peace, not he who gasses about it."

     C. S. Lewis, "Delinquents in the snow," Time and tide 38 (7 December 1957):  1522 (1521-5122), as quoted in God in the dock:  essays on theology and ethics, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), 309-310.