Undusted Texts

I have added a number of old papers to my website.  One of them, "The Marriage Liturgy and the Married Life," is an interesting reflection based on the Byzantine Rite of Crowning; it certainly wasn't for a class, and I don't think I ever attempted publication of it.  (In connection with this essay, one might want to peruse my undergraduate thesis, "The Symbolism of the Mystery of Crowning." )  Most of the rest are old school papers, mostly from my graduate courses: "Θεία νύξ: The Mystical Union as Unknowing in St. Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite" (2012)  "The History and Legacy of Photios I, Patriarch of Constantinople" (2014) "The Exegetical Principles of Joseph Ratzinger" (2014) "The Spirituality of St. Hildegard of Bingen" (2015) "The Effects of Liturgy on Culture" (2016)  Finally, I have rescued from the abyss of the Internet my very first published writing, "The Best Meani...

  "The divinity is jointly a sole perfection, and many perfections diverse, one in simplicity, and many in valor and eminence."--Fray Luis de León, The Perfect Wife §I "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one!"  So declares the Shema of Deuteronomy, and so declares the Church: and yet we also declare that God is Three.  Not only does the Divinity have three Persons, but God manifests Himself to us in a multitude of ways.  These three Persons show themselves to us in many, many ways.  (They are not themselves merely manifestations of the Divinity, for this was the ancient heresy of Modalism.)  One tradition speaks of the different "books" by which one encounters God: first is the book of Scripture, of course, but there is also the book of nature, and the book of experience, among others.  We learn of God through prayer, through the liturgy, through contemplation, through study.  Yet it is always the one God we learn of, the On...

"Behold, God is great, and we know Him not; the number of His years is unsearchable... God thunders wondrously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend... The Almighty--we cannot find Him; He is great in power and justice, and abundant righteousness He will not violate. Therefore men fear Him."--Job 36:26,37:5,23-24a As I mentioned in my first post on mystery , God Himself is mysterious. One of the authors who understood this the best is Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite . This odd name comes from the fact that the writings of this author were originally connected to an Athenian converted by St. Paul named Dionysius the Areopagite, mentioned in Acts 17:34. However, these writings are from the 5th or 6th century, and thus they could not be written by someone from the apostolic times. The true writer of these works is unknown, so he is referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius to reference the tradition. Pseudo-Dionysius combines Neo-Platonism (such as the wo...