St. Anselm. Doctor of the Church

Anselm is one of my favorites. He got sick and tired of stupid priests, so made all the seminaries use the Trivium and Quadrivium for curricula.

He made sure the discipline in the seminaries including study and spiritual guidance. His changes created ripples of change in seminary life not only in Great Britain, but in continental Europe.

Read more about him under the Doctors of the Church series, or the tag St. Anselm or Benedictines.

More on this topic here.

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/04/repost-of-benedictine-tradition-in.html

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/04/spirituality-behind-benedictine.html

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/04/repost-on-benedictine-education.html

No takers on the books for which I was begging...pray about it.

If our priests do not preach and teach, we must....

Some Doctors of the Church on Hell

"What do you think? How many of the inhabitants of this city may perhaps be saved? What I am about to tell you is very terrible, yet I will not conceal it from you. Out of this thickly populated city with its thousands of inhabitants not one hundred people will be saved. I even doubt whether there will be as many as that!"St. John Chrysostom, Doctor and Father of the Church

St. Augustine states that most people will go to hell. The Church does not hold this as doctrine, but several other saints have seen hell and written about it. And, many Doctors of the Church agree with him.

"Not all, nor even a majority, are saved. . . They are indeed many, if regarded by themselves, but they are few in comparison with the far larger number of those who shall be punished with the devil." St. Augustine, Doctor and Father of the Church

A few....and if you want to be one of the few, as St. Alphonsus states, go live with the few. We need excellent companions to help us be holy. Pursuing holiness on one's own can be extremely difficult.

"The saved are few, but we must live with the few if we would be saved with the few. O God, too few indeed they are: yet amongst those few I wish to be!'" St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Doctor of the Church

'If you would be quite sure of your salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few. Do not follow the majority of mankind, but follow those who renounce the world and never relax their efforts day or night so that they may attain everlasting blessedness." St. Anselm, Doctor of the Church

"Even if bishops are driven from their Churches, be not dismayed. If traitors have arisen from among the very clergy themselves, let not this undermine your confidence in God. We are saved not by names, but by mind and purpose, and genuine love toward our Creator. Bethink you how in the attack against our Lord, high priests and scribes and elders devised the plot, and how few of the people were found really receiving the word. Remember that it is not the multitude who are being saved, but the elect of God. Be not then affrighted at the great multitude of the people who are carried hither and thither by winds like the waters of the sea. If but one be saved, like Lot at Sodom, he ought to abide in right judgment, keeping his hope in Christ unshaken, for the Lord will not forsake His holy ones. Salute all the brethren in Christ from me. Pray earnestly for my miserable soul." St. Basil the Great, Doctor and Father of the Church

...the Elect are much fewer than the damned, for the reprobate are much more numerous than the Elect." St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, Doctor of the Church

Remember, only the perfect see God.

"Only a small number of souls achieve perfect love." St. John of the Cross, Doctor of the Church

more saints on hell may be found here...

Knowledge of Divine Things Part Sixteen Fides et Ratio Part Eight

Many people do not realize how, in this encyclical, and in other writings, St. John Paul II restored the eminence of St. Thomas Aquinas as the philosopher in the Catholic tradition. Beginning with the first scholastic, St. Anselm, John Paul II outlines the basic approaches to truth. I am quoting a long part of the encyclical as this is key to understanding how a Catholic thinks. Faith asks to be understood by reason.  Reason needs faith to be grounded in reality. 


In Scholastic theology, the role of philosophically trained reason becomes even more conspicuous under the impulse of Saint Anselm's interpretation of the intellectus fidei. For the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury the priority of faith is not in competition with the search which is proper to reason. Reason in fact is not asked to pass judgement on the contents of faith, something of which it would be incapable, since this is not its function. Its function is rather to find meaning, to discover explanations which might allow everyone to come to a certain understanding of the contents of faith. Saint Anselm underscores the fact that the intellect must seek that which it loves: the more it loves, the more it desires to know. Whoever lives for the truth is reaching for a form of knowledge which is fired more and more with love for what it knows, while having to admit that it has not yet attained what it desires: “To see you was I conceived; and I have yet to conceive that for which I was conceived (Ad te videndum factus sum; et nondum feci propter quod factus sum)”.⁴² The desire for truth, therefore, spurs reason always to go further; indeed, it is as if reason were overwhelmed to see that it can always go beyond what it has already achieved.

Love leads to work, We know this. We work at what we love. I love philosophy and theology, the mystic writers and heroes of the Church, and therefore work on these subjects. I love Christ, therefore I pray and read the Scriptures. I love the Church, therefore, I try to obey Her laws.

If we love Christ and His Church, we shall work to learn as much as possible about the basics. We start with asking who we are, what is our ultimate destiny, what does it mean to be human, and so on.

 It is at this point, though, that reason can learn where its path will lead in the end: “I think that whoever investigates something incomprehensible should be satisfied if, by way of reasoning, he reaches a quite certain perception of its reality, even if his intellect cannot penetrate its mode of being... But is there anything so incomprehensible and ineffable as that which is above all things? Therefore, if that which until now has been a matter of debate concerning the highest essence has been established on the basis of due reasoning, then the foundation of one's certainty is not shaken in the least if the intellect cannot penetrate it in a way that allows clear formulation. If prior thought has concluded rationally that one cannot comprehend (rationabiliter comprehendit incomprehensibile esse) how supernal wisdom knows its own accomplishments..., who then will explain how this same wisdom, of which the human being can know nothing or next to nothing, is to be known and expressed?”.⁴³

If we cannot understand something, we wait, we pray, and we obey without understanding.

The fundamental harmony between the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of philosophy is once again confirmed. Faith asks that its object be understood with the help of reason; and at the summit of its searching reason acknowledges that it cannot do without what faith presents.