Query:
I want to understand what the sin of acedia is, and what the remedies for it are. I would also welcome any reading suggestions.
This article first appeared in the blog. The link takes you to Part 1; each part ends with a link to the next one (14 in all). This is all copyrighted, of course.
The Beatty Memorial Lecture, delivered at McGill University, Montreal, January, 1999, published the same year in The Newman Rambler Journal 3:2.
The two natural purposes of the sexual powers are the procreation of children and the union of the procreative partners.
People tend to get the first purpose wrong. They call it reproduction.
Query:
I am deeply distressed about what I consider a leadership crisis in the Church. My immediate problem, though, is that I constantly struggle to know whether my feelings of frustration and indignation stem from God, guiding me to keep the Faith, or from the Enemy, using my pride to sow doubt in my heart.
A certain little man of my acquaintance found ants in the house. He began to squish them. Squish, squish, squish. You must understand that he is very small.
His grandmother said, “Don’t squish those ants. You’ll make a mess. I’ll take care of them.”
Everyone notices that the culture is drenched in sex. What not many notice is that many of the people in the ocean are hypersensitive about reference to the water.
Although they are immersed in it, they can’t bear hearing it mentioned in certain ways.