Catching up …

I’ve been out of town for several days, and I returned yesterday evening to find all sorts of interesting blog posts in my RSS feed.

First, a very sad post from Dr Peter Gilbert at De unione ecclesiarum, announcing his intention to suspend his blog (for the time being?). I appreciate his kind words about this blog, and I look forward to reading his published work on John Bekkos.

For all of you Zoghbyites out there (which I can’t say that I am, though I am intrigued by his writings and career), Wei-Hsien Wan of Torn Notebook is posting the late Archbishop’s own explanation of his concept of “double communion” between the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch:

• Part One – I Love the Roman Church; I Also Love the Orthodox Church
• Part Two – Acts of Rupture; Acts of Communion
• Part Three – My Project of Double Communion; Negative Reactions from Rome
• Part Four – Reflections on the Roman Response
• Part Five – Reflections on the Roman Response (continued)
• Part Six – The People of God Want Unity and Try to Live It; In All Conscience: No to Schism

Father Zuhlsdorf has the text of the sermons of Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew delivered last Sunday at the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome, the inauguration of the Pauline Year.

Sandro Magister, of Chiesa magazine, explains the Pauline Year as an expression of “the ecumenical dream of Pope Benedict”, with the stated objective “to create the unity of the ‘catholica’, of the Church formed from Jews and pagans, of the Church of all peoples.”

Fr Gregory Jensen of Koinonia has just completed a monumental eight post series on the psychology of polemics (specifically, Orthodox-Catholic polemics). I am so grateful to Fr Gregory for his unique perspective as both an Orthodox priest and a psychologist. Wisdom, let us attend!

• Part One – What Grace Doesn’t Do
• Part Two – Tradition and the Passions
• Part Three – Polemics, Zeal and St Isaac the Syrian
• Part Four – “Sanctify Those Who Love the Beauty of Your House” (I)
• Part Five – ”Sanctify Those Who Love the Beauty of Your House” (II)
• Part Six – Neurosis Isn’t Necessarily Bad
• Part Seven – Toward & Away; Against & With
• Part Eight – An Anthropology of Reconciliation
• Part Nine - “For I Desire Mercy and Not Sacrifice”

I also see that Fr Gregory has added the quote by Gregory Nazianzus from Dr Gilbert’s last post: “Not to everyone, friends, does it belong to philosophize about God, not to everyone; the subject is not so cheap and low. And, I will add, not before every audience, nor at all times, nor on all points; but on certain occasions, and before certain persons, and within certain limits.” Every Christian blogger should have this quote printed in bold letters and framed above their computers, alongside an icon print of Saint Gregory the Theologian, and perhaps also of Saint Thomas Aquinas (who also knew when to shut his mouth in silent adoration).

I am flattered that two of my posts have been mentioned in “Patristic Carnival XIII” hosted at The God Fearin’ Forum.

And finally, a humorous but admiring tribute to the Eastern Orthodox knack for naming holy stuff, from the “Random Things the Orthodox Do So Much Better Than Us” File over at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping.