When you cannot see clearly and openly whether the sin is
deadly, you must not pass judgment in your mind, but be concerned
only about my will for that person. And if you do see it, you
must respond not with judgment, but with holy compassion,
for if you act this way your spirit will not be scandalized either
in me or in your neighbors. For you cast contempt on your neighbors
when you pay attention to their ill will toward you rather than
my will for them.
— St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue

Just finished another paper that will close out my online class, clearing the decks to start the preparatory reading for this month's OT course. 

It was a good one, too. Our assigned readings generally followed the pattern of the Apostle's Creed and ranged all over the place, including a fair amount of modern stuff: Bernard Lonergan, Frederick Crowe, Desmond and Mpho Tutu, René Girard, and more. Our instructor (John Dadosky) included his own work as well. I'll be chewing on a lot of these for years to come, I think.

7-year-old: I have a lot of reading to do.

Me: Same, brother. Same. The reading doesn’t stop until we die.

7-year-old: (pause) There aren’t that many Magic Treehouse Books.

“Where there is no love, put love, and you will draw out love.”

— St. John of the Cross

Currently reading: Jane Eyre (Enriched Classics) by Charlotte Bronte 📚 This one’s long overdue for me and has been sitting on the one-of-the-kids-had-this-for-school shelf. Starting it right before bed was a mistake; I got pulled in immediately.

When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery.
 — St Peter Chrysologus, Office of Readings, Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent

Christopher Alexander, a towering figure in architecture and urbanism—one of the biggest influences on the New Urbanism movement—died on Thursday, March 17, after a long illness, it was reported by Michael Mehaffy, a long-time collaborator and protege. Alexander was the author or principal author of many books, including A Pattern Language, one of the best-selling architectural books of all time.

Christopher Alexander, 1936 - 2018

(h/t MetaFilter)

In him the Old Testament finds its fitting close. He brought the noble line of patriarchs and prophets to its promised fulfillment. What the divine goodness had offered as a promise to them, he held in his arms...Remember us, Saint Joseph, and plead for us to your foster-child. Ask your most holy bride to look kindly upon us, since she is the mother of him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns eternally. Amen.

— St. Bernadine of Siena, Office of Readings, Solemnity of Joseph, Husband of Mary.

Latest paper for Foundations is nearly in the can: revisions, a run-through with grammarly, more revisions. I think it’s about done. This three-classes-at-a-time bit is crazy-making.

Currently reading: In the First Circle by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn 📚 It always pays to ask co-workers what they are reading! Just got this and can’t wait to start.

“Teach us to be loving not only in great and exceptional moments, but above all in the ordinary moments of life.

Lord, give us your Holy Spirit. “

— Intercession of Lauds, Ash Wednesday

Currently reading: Fundamental Theology (Sacra Doctrina) by Guy Mansini 📚

This came up in class this weekend and I’ll be using it in parallel with the required texts, though mostly for my own edification. The author’s at St. Meinrad to boot!

RSS, classes, Synodality, and Spenser

I have an unabashed love of RSS feeds and track about 40 right now. I used newsboat, which is a terminal client that works pretty well. If you like mutt, you'll like newsboat. It runs on my main workstation, though, so I found myself gravitating back to Feedly so that I could catch up on things when I wasn't sitting in my office. Somewhere along the way, I saw a reference to a self-hosted aggregator, and since my phone is tethered to the home network all the time anyway via wireguard, I figured I'd give it a shot. I looked at a few and finally landed on FreshRSS - mainly because I found a docker image for it and can run it on the NAS alongside HomeAssistant. Ten minutes later, I'm up and running. So far, so good. I like it! 

I'm more or less caught up with schoolwork. Grades are starting to come back to us, which is nice too. One final set of readings and an essay (Theodicy: Aquinas v. Anselm) is due before the next class but I'm ahead of schedule. Next week, I'm on deck to teach OCIA and will be doing Marriage and Morality (read: contraception, IVF, &c).

I also managed to step (along with my wife) into coordinating our parish's Synod-on-the-Synod activities, which should be interesting. The runway seems short - we need to have our summaries back to the diocese by the end of April - so the keys will be delegating as much as we can to individual ministries and school, hosting as many listening sessions as we can before the diocesean deadline, and ensuring bilingual access every step of the way.

Meanwhile, the temperatures are slowly climbing. The sun is out more and the days are getting longer, but we're still in that 60s-one-day-20s-the-next part of the year.  Spenser nailed it:

Therein the changes infinite beholde,
Which to her creatures euery minute chaunce;
Now, boyling hot: streight, friezing deadly cold:
Now, faire sun-shine, that makes all skip and daunce:
Streight, bitter storms and balefull countenance,
That makes them all to shiuer and to shake:
Rayne, hayle, and snowe do pay them sad penance,
And dreadfull thunder-claps (that make them quake)
With flames & flashing lights that thousand changes make.

Not sure what I was expecting out of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, but given its famous opening line, I guess the plot went the only way it could. This book (and the last) happens from me looking at our bookshelf and saying, huh - I didn't know we had this. I'm still not entirely sure where we got some of these. I think after this, I'll look for something on the lighter side.