A Rift Between Worlds (Potency and Act, Part 1)
So much television sci-fi is about the dangers attendant upon a Tear in the Fabric of Reality, or a Tear in the Universe, or a Rift Between Worlds, because scriptwriters need their fictional dangers to...
View ArticleAristotle versus the Rift (Potency and Act, Part 2)
So – to continue with the journey/destination analogy in the previous post – Aristotle saw that all beings, at any given moment, have arrived at one destination or another, and he saw that that...
View ArticleA Catechumen’s Test – Have I Left Anything Out?
So, a friend of mine is to be baptised in a couple of weeks, and I’m godmother! Naturally, I have to check that he’s learned his stuff before I let him in the big day, so I’ve prepared a test which...
View ArticleA Catechumen’s Test – the Answers
Well, my friend is now my brother in Christ, and has made his third Communion, which is a very happy-making thing to see. His baptism brought a tear to my eye and was proof that great show is not...
View ArticleAnimals Have Souls, But They Can’t Receive Grace. Here’s Why. (Potency and...
One way to move beyond woe is to think about things other than woe – so, today, not a post about burnout or grief, but about philosophy. In this post, I mentioned that there are different kinds of...
View ArticleNature and Person
Jokes abound about how agonising it is to have to preach on Trinity Sunday. One priest told the story of a friend of his, who slaved over his sermon, only to overhear one elderly woman saying to...
View ArticleIn Thanksgiving for Converts
Every cradle Catholic loves a conversion story, because conversion stories contain all the best elements of adventure and romance. There’s discovery and detection, the obstacles to be overcome,...
View ArticleLinkage
Because I should be writing job applications right now: Here’s the transcript of a debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston about the existence of God. The Do Re Mi you learned from...
View ArticleInteresting Questions I’ve Been Asked
Questions about the faith arrive in all kinds of ways. Bitter experience has taught me that if a guy asks me out for coffee, it’s not because he’s thinking I might be the future mother of his children,...
View ArticleAgnostic Questions and My Answers
An agnostic friend prompted me with some of the questions below. Thinking them over, I asked myself more questions from her viewpoint. This is her/my interview of me/myself: Q: How much of you belongs...
View ArticleLet’s be Non-Binary
I’m not talking about gender! (I’m also not talking about Early Music – I’m not a great fan of mixed-voice and tend to say that, as far as chant goes, the more binary it is, the better.) I’m talking...
View ArticleWe are the Culture
Those who have never been seriously hurt by their religious communities will think of apostasy in terms of truth and non-truth. Your religion is true, and that is the only thing that matters, so the...
View ArticleGreat News for Murderers! Science Disproves Free Will!
You can probably deduce my mood from this post’s title. To those who believe in free will, I apologise for my tone and add that I do not claim to be a saint. To those who do not believe in free will,...
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