From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Angels-Their Confirmation in Grace   
      
   The trial of the Angels was one that required a far more complete   
   submission than that which God asks of us, for the Angels could not   
   help knowing the superior excellence of their own nature. Yet they   
   never hesitated for one moment in their obedience, but paid to the   
   Manhood of Jesus, to His Sacred Body, made though it was of the dust   
   of the ground, the supreme homage due to God alone. This it was that   
   made their obedience so meritorious, and earned for them the privilege   
   of sinlessness forever, and the joy of continually seeing the face of   
   their God. How God loves those who are willing to stoop!   
      
   Their intimate union with God makes it impossible for the Angels to   
   fall away, or even to depart in the least particular from the will of   
   God. The joy of serving God is so great that every other motive   
   disappears before it. The sweetness of the Beatific Vision is so   
   overwhelming that they could not find satisfaction in anything else   
   for a single instant. This is the reward of humility. It breaks down   
   the barrier that hides God from us.   
      
   Every one of the Holy Angels knows that he is safe for all eternity,   
   that he is beyond the power of any temptation. To many humble Saints,   
   God has often given in confidence. It does not make them careless, but   
   only more eager to serve God perfectly. It is the greatest happiness   
   possible for any created being. It turns the happiness of certain hope   
   into the happiness of an assured expectation. It makes their life on   
   earth an anticipation of the reward which is already theirs in spe   
   (hope) though in in re (reality).   
      
      
   <<>><<>><<>>   
   November 8th - Bl. Duns Scotus   
   (1266?-1308)   
      
   Medieval Christian scholars used to bestow honorary titles upon their   
   most brilliant colleagues. They named St. Thomas Aquinas “Doctor   
   Angelicus” (“Angelic Doctor”); Roger Bacon “Doctor Mirabilis”   
   (“Marvelous Doctor”); St. Bernard of Clairvaux, “Doctor Mellifluus”   
   (“Honey-spoken Doctor”), etc. The brilliant young Franciscan   
   theologian, Blessed Duns Scotus, was given the title “Doctor Subtilis”   
   (“Subtle Teacher”). And sharp-minded he was!   
   There has been some debate over John’s nationality. Because both the   
   Irish and Scottish were anciently called “Scots,” the Irish have tried   
   to claim him as an Irishman. By now, however, it seems pretty clear   
   that he was a Scotsman, born in the little town of Duns in   
   southeastern Scotland.   
      
   John’s family seems to have had the same name as the town. His   
   paternal uncle, a Franciscan friar of Dumfries, Scotland, was named   
   Elias Duns. It was Elias who gave John his earliest education. When he   
   was 15, John himself entered the Franciscans, and around 1290 was sent   
   for further schooling to Oxford University. Once ordained a priest in   
   1291, he was dispatched to Paris to study for the masterate of   
   theology. His teacher was the eminent Spaniard Gonzalvo of Balboa.   
   Friar John came back to Oxford in 1296, and from 1297 to 1301 lectured   
   on the theology of Peter Lombard. (Peter’s book, the Sentences, was   
   then the standard theological text.)   
      
   In 1302 Father John returned to Paris, hoping to finish his   
   magisterial degree. After a year or so, however, he hit a snag. King   
   Philip of France appealed from Pope Boniface VIII to an ecumenical   
   council in a matter in which he and the pope had been disputing. It is   
   wrong to appeal from a pope to a council, for the pope is head of the   
   council; so Duns refused to sign the King’s protest. For his refusal   
   he was sent into exile. His exile from the university was brief,   
   however, and after he had received his degree in 1305, Duns taught two   
   more years in Paris. In late 1307 he was sent to teach at Cologne,   
   Germany. There he died on November 8, 1308, aged about 42. He was   
   buried in the Minoriten (Franciscan) Church at Cologne. His Latin   
   epitaph reads: “Scotland bore me, England received me, France taught   
   me, Cologne holds me fast.”   
      
   Fr. Duns’ chief writings are his lecture notes on the Sentences, notes   
   that he constantly revised. Over the years some of his alleged   
   theological views have been disputed by scholastic theologians of   
   other schools of thought. Frequently he has been criticized for works   
   that were wrongly attributed to him. Although Duns did take a fresh   
   and independent look at Catholic teachings, what this influential   
   scholar taught was basic Catholic doctrine: God’s infinite love;   
   Christ as “God’s greatest work” (a very Franciscan point of view); and   
   Mary’s role in our redemption. Regarding Mary, it was Blessed John who   
   evolved the arguments in proof of her immaculate conception. Five   
   centuries after he wrote, the Immaculate Conception was defined as a   
   dogma of faith.   
      
   Duns’ theological disciples were called Scotists. During the 16th   
   century, first the Renaissance scholars and then the Protestant   
   Reformers (both despisers of medieval culture), ridiculed the Scotists   
   as hair-splitting sophists, and labeled their followers as “dunses”   
   (or “dunces”). Hence, our familiar English word “dunce” for a stupid   
   person!   
      
   The Church, however, has always considered Fr. John to be no “dunce”,   
   but a genius and a holy man. The Franciscans have long regarded him as   
   a saint, and in 1991 Pope John Paul II officially approved, thus   
   equivalently declaring him “blessed”.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Shun evil and do good" (Ps. 34:14), that is to say, fight the enemy in   
   order to diminish the passions, and then be vigilant lest they   
   increase once more. Again, fight to acquire the virtues and then be   
   vigilant in order to keep them. This is the meaning of "cultivating"   
   and 'keeping" (cf. Gen. 2:15).   
   --St. Maximos the Confessor   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   “The learned will shine like the brilliance of the firmament,   
   and those who train many in the way of justice   
   will sparkle like the stars for all eternity.”  [Daniel 12:3]   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Take pride in the title of Christian   
      
    If with faith and religious feeling you take pride in the title of   
   Christian, value the grace of this reconciliation at its true worth.   
   Once you were cast off, driven from paradise, dying in weary exile.   
   Reduced to dust and ashes, you have no further hope of life; but now   
   through the incarnation of the Word you have the power to return from   
   afar to your Creator, to recognize your Father, to be freed from   
   slavery, and raised from the status of a stranger to that of a child.   
   You were born with a nature liable to decay, but now you can be reborn   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)