RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
PRIDE
(St. Augustine says): "Swollen by pride, this very swelling hindered him from returning through the narrow gate. He who, in fact, has made for us the way, cries out, 'Enter by the narrow gate'. He makes attempts to enter, but the swelling hinders him; and the more the swelling hinders him, the more his efforts are harmful to him. For the strait is a torment to a swollen man, and makes him more swollen; and if he still increases in volume, how can he enter? How? By taking the medicine of humility; let him drink this bitter but salutary potion, the potion of humiliation. Why should he try to shrink? The mass does not allow it; not big, but bloated. For magnitude or corpulence is an indication of solidity, swelling is bloating".
As is evident, the holy doctor deals here with pride, and affirms that pride is not greatness but swelling, that is, being full of nothing, an empty shell that seems big because it is inflated, like a helium balloon. But pride is swelling without real weight, because it is empty inside. And the doctor says that only true greatness has weight, even if it does not seem great like pride. [...] And because we are swollen with emptiness, with wind, we are not heavy and we are moved by all the winds of the world. We go after fashions, we want to follow the latest opinions in order to 'fit in', in order not to be rejected from 'social' circles. Our swelling makes us look big, but we have no real weight, we are not firm in faith and in the truth of things, and deceived by our apparent greatness we lurch from side to side, from here to there according to the rhythm of fashionable ideologies. Our ideals are the ideals of the moment, what the media tells us, what 'public opinion' tells us.
That is the difference between swelling and greatness. Greatness must first and foremost be a greatness of soul, through faith, grace and virtues. The rest is straw. That is the true greatness, the true nobility, that will enable us to stand with our principles intact in the midst of a changing and crumbling world." [..]"
Blog Itinerariummentis
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
PRIDE
(St. Augustine says): "Swollen by pride, this very swelling hindered him from returning through the narrow gate. He who, in fact, has made for us the way, cries out, 'Enter by the narrow gate'. He makes attempts to enter, but the swelling hinders him; and the more the swelling hinders him, the more his efforts are harmful to him. For the strait is a torment to a swollen man, and makes him more swollen; and if he still increases in volume, how can he enter? How? By taking the medicine of humility; let him drink this bitter but salutary potion, the potion of humiliation. Why should he try to shrink? The mass does not allow it; not big, but bloated. For magnitude or corpulence is an indication of solidity, swelling is bloating".
As is evident, the holy doctor deals here with pride, and affirms that pride is not greatness but swelling, that is, being full of nothing, an empty shell that seems big because it is inflated, like a helium balloon. But pride is swelling without real weight, because it is empty inside. And the doctor says that only true greatness has weight, even if it does not seem great like pride. [...] And because we are swollen with emptiness, with wind, we are not heavy and we are moved by all the winds of the world. We go after fashions, we want to follow the latest opinions in order to 'fit in', in order not to be rejected from 'social' circles. Our swelling makes us look big, but we have no real weight, we are not firm in faith and in the truth of things, and deceived by our apparent greatness we lurch from side to side, from here to there according to the rhythm of fashionable ideologies. Our ideals are the ideals of the moment, what the media tells us, what 'public opinion' tells us.
That is the difference between swelling and greatness. Greatness must first and foremost be a greatness of soul, through faith, grace and virtues. The rest is straw. That is the true greatness, the true nobility, that will enable us to stand with our principles intact in the midst of a changing and crumbling world." [..]"
Blog Itinerariummentis
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
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FATHER LEONARDO CASTELLANI
"Liberalism changed the ontological and moral substance of the country... Is it not a political and economic system? What does morality have to do here?
Liberalism has been the economic and political system of capitalism (free exchange, economic individualism, commercial warfare, the hidden springs of the slave trade, work based on paper and credit, stock exchange and banking... with its social results, on the one hand; democratism, parliament, division of powers, universal suffrage... with its political results on the other), that is well known; what is not so easy to see are the conditions of possibility of this system (which at the end lf tje day is the emergence of the power of Gold and the ethos of the trader - and not of the good trader, of adehala - (own note: adehala means: "that which is given as a grace or fixed as compulsory on the price of that which is bought or taken on lease. ") consisting in a profound subversion of the ethics of the West; and even more profoundly, in a new conception of Man and Universe, which can be called "ontological".
Werner Sombart and Max Weber have thoroughly studied the ethics of capitalism and its roots in Calvinist theology: job done.
It is necessary to realise that morality has been changed; liberal religion has created its own morality, profoundly disrupting Christian morality, people must be made aware of this. A number of sins and crimes have ceased to be sins (such as usury, plunder and financial swindling for a start) and others have become of inordinate importance. Western morality not only collapsed, but in a sense turned upside down: the stern and a funnel rose to the heights as the bow sank, like the Titanic when it capsized. And the "iceberg" was a new conception of man, the homo oeconomicus, the human being considered only as a subject of production and consumption. To hang a man for stealing a sheep (as was done in England from 1750 to 1890) and not to hang the owner of the sheep, who stole them all from a monastery before also stealing the whole monastery, may be a crude image of what we are saying.
The very sanctity of the family paled in the face of the sanctity of the Bank and the State (...) Crimes against the spirit became as invisible as the spirit itself: heresy, which the ancients said was "similar and worse than counterfeiting money", became even a merit; and today, an undoubted advantage; while kings, by means of "inflation" (the first of all Henry VIII of England) counterfeited money on a regular basis (...) If this is what today they call Catholicism, I am a Muslim (...).
"Pen at the ready" - Father Leonardo Castellani.
#CHESTERTONCASTELLANIJMPRADA
"Liberalism changed the ontological and moral substance of the country... Is it not a political and economic system? What does morality have to do here?
Liberalism has been the economic and political system of capitalism (free exchange, economic individualism, commercial warfare, the hidden springs of the slave trade, work based on paper and credit, stock exchange and banking... with its social results, on the one hand; democratism, parliament, division of powers, universal suffrage... with its political results on the other), that is well known; what is not so easy to see are the conditions of possibility of this system (which at the end lf tje day is the emergence of the power of Gold and the ethos of the trader - and not of the good trader, of adehala - (own note: adehala means: "that which is given as a grace or fixed as compulsory on the price of that which is bought or taken on lease. ") consisting in a profound subversion of the ethics of the West; and even more profoundly, in a new conception of Man and Universe, which can be called "ontological".
Werner Sombart and Max Weber have thoroughly studied the ethics of capitalism and its roots in Calvinist theology: job done.
It is necessary to realise that morality has been changed; liberal religion has created its own morality, profoundly disrupting Christian morality, people must be made aware of this. A number of sins and crimes have ceased to be sins (such as usury, plunder and financial swindling for a start) and others have become of inordinate importance. Western morality not only collapsed, but in a sense turned upside down: the stern and a funnel rose to the heights as the bow sank, like the Titanic when it capsized. And the "iceberg" was a new conception of man, the homo oeconomicus, the human being considered only as a subject of production and consumption. To hang a man for stealing a sheep (as was done in England from 1750 to 1890) and not to hang the owner of the sheep, who stole them all from a monastery before also stealing the whole monastery, may be a crude image of what we are saying.
The very sanctity of the family paled in the face of the sanctity of the Bank and the State (...) Crimes against the spirit became as invisible as the spirit itself: heresy, which the ancients said was "similar and worse than counterfeiting money", became even a merit; and today, an undoubted advantage; while kings, by means of "inflation" (the first of all Henry VIII of England) counterfeited money on a regular basis (...) If this is what today they call Catholicism, I am a Muslim (...).
"Pen at the ready" - Father Leonardo Castellani.
#CHESTERTONCASTELLANIJMPRADA
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RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
"St. Vincent de Paul, as we read in his life written by Coste (...) narrates an event that happened when he was a student at a certain college: "One day I was told: "Your father is coming to see you". But as my father was a rustic farmer, I did not want to go out to see him and talk to him. When my father took me to the city, his condition saddened me, I was ashamed of my father".
The same saint, speaking later, when he had already founded the Congregation, said: "The son of a brother of mine came to visit me at the College where I was superior, and I, considering the very modest condition of my nephew - he dressed badly, like the other peasants - I gave orders for him to be presented to me secretly. But I immediately changed my mind with the resolution to repair this movement of self-love; I went down to the porter's lodge, hugged my nephew and led him by the hand to the common room where my brothers (of religion) were, saying to them: "Here is the most honourable person in my family". Thus St. Vincent de Paul conquered his self-love, fearing that the more subtle self-love would not be hidden in his victory against it (...)".
"The union of the priest with Christ, priest and victim" - Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
"St. Vincent de Paul, as we read in his life written by Coste (...) narrates an event that happened when he was a student at a certain college: "One day I was told: "Your father is coming to see you". But as my father was a rustic farmer, I did not want to go out to see him and talk to him. When my father took me to the city, his condition saddened me, I was ashamed of my father".
The same saint, speaking later, when he had already founded the Congregation, said: "The son of a brother of mine came to visit me at the College where I was superior, and I, considering the very modest condition of my nephew - he dressed badly, like the other peasants - I gave orders for him to be presented to me secretly. But I immediately changed my mind with the resolution to repair this movement of self-love; I went down to the porter's lodge, hugged my nephew and led him by the hand to the common room where my brothers (of religion) were, saying to them: "Here is the most honourable person in my family". Thus St. Vincent de Paul conquered his self-love, fearing that the more subtle self-love would not be hidden in his victory against it (...)".
"The union of the priest with Christ, priest and victim" - Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
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RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
OF EUCHARISTIC MIRACLES
"[...] Dr. Odoardo Linoli, professor of pathological anatomy and histology, chemistry and clinical microscopy at the Arezzo hospital (...) had the help of Professor Ruggero Bertelli, from the University of Siena. It was corroborated that the Flesh and blood were of human nature: it is cardiac tissue, specifically the endocardium, and blood (...) of group AB. It contains veins, arterioles and nerve fibers. He also pointed out that there were no preservative substances and that the blood could not have come from a corpse, since it would have deteriorated quickly. Leukocytes cannot survive more than a few minutes in water without dissolving for more than an hour once separated from the living organism or after its death. And the relic is now 13 centuries old! In 1973, the WHO high council appointed a commission to verify Linoli's conclusions. Over fifteen months, a total of 500 examinations were carried out, and the conclusions confirmed the results previously published in Italy, recognizing the impossibility of science to explain the phenomenon. (...) [Another case] Analyzed by Dr. Stanislaw Sulkowski and Professor Sobaniec-Lotowska, from the Institute of Pathological Anatomy of the Faculty of Medicine in Bialystok, it turned out to be muscle tissue from a living dying person. The cardiac fibers and the structure of the bread were intertwined so closely that it is impossible to achieve through human intervention. [Another case] Professor Linoli, who confirmed that it was from cardiac tissue similar to that of Lanciano. It was part of the left ventricle of a person in his 30s. Castañón was an atheist and converted as a result of his research; Since then he has given several lectures on Eucharistic miracles. In 2002 the sample was sent to Dr. John Walker, from the University of Sydney, without telling him that it was a consecrated Sacred Form. Walker confirmed that it was cardiac tissue with leukocytes. And even after six years had already passed since the miracle. It still had red and white blood cells and cells that beat, when a needle is stuck in it, blood would come out. Later, in 2004, Castañón sent a sample to Dr. Zugibe, now deceased but then one of the most prestigious forensic experts in New York, without indicating the origin of the sample. It was reiterated that it was inflamed cardiac muscle of the left ventricle with numerous white blood cells from a person who had suffered many blows and traumas. Finally, Dr. Castañón asked a laboratory to compare the laboratory reports of the Buenos Aires miracle with those of Lanciano, without revealing the origin of both samples. The experts concluded that both reports referred to the same person; Not only did the AB blood group matched, but also the DNA. [...]"
Source
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
OF EUCHARISTIC MIRACLES
"[...] Dr. Odoardo Linoli, professor of pathological anatomy and histology, chemistry and clinical microscopy at the Arezzo hospital (...) had the help of Professor Ruggero Bertelli, from the University of Siena. It was corroborated that the Flesh and blood were of human nature: it is cardiac tissue, specifically the endocardium, and blood (...) of group AB. It contains veins, arterioles and nerve fibers. He also pointed out that there were no preservative substances and that the blood could not have come from a corpse, since it would have deteriorated quickly. Leukocytes cannot survive more than a few minutes in water without dissolving for more than an hour once separated from the living organism or after its death. And the relic is now 13 centuries old! In 1973, the WHO high council appointed a commission to verify Linoli's conclusions. Over fifteen months, a total of 500 examinations were carried out, and the conclusions confirmed the results previously published in Italy, recognizing the impossibility of science to explain the phenomenon. (...) [Another case] Analyzed by Dr. Stanislaw Sulkowski and Professor Sobaniec-Lotowska, from the Institute of Pathological Anatomy of the Faculty of Medicine in Bialystok, it turned out to be muscle tissue from a living dying person. The cardiac fibers and the structure of the bread were intertwined so closely that it is impossible to achieve through human intervention. [Another case] Professor Linoli, who confirmed that it was from cardiac tissue similar to that of Lanciano. It was part of the left ventricle of a person in his 30s. Castañón was an atheist and converted as a result of his research; Since then he has given several lectures on Eucharistic miracles. In 2002 the sample was sent to Dr. John Walker, from the University of Sydney, without telling him that it was a consecrated Sacred Form. Walker confirmed that it was cardiac tissue with leukocytes. And even after six years had already passed since the miracle. It still had red and white blood cells and cells that beat, when a needle is stuck in it, blood would come out. Later, in 2004, Castañón sent a sample to Dr. Zugibe, now deceased but then one of the most prestigious forensic experts in New York, without indicating the origin of the sample. It was reiterated that it was inflamed cardiac muscle of the left ventricle with numerous white blood cells from a person who had suffered many blows and traumas. Finally, Dr. Castañón asked a laboratory to compare the laboratory reports of the Buenos Aires miracle with those of Lanciano, without revealing the origin of both samples. The experts concluded that both reports referred to the same person; Not only did the AB blood group matched, but also the DNA. [...]"
Source
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JUAN MANUEL DE PRADA
"The etiology of this disease is very simple, since it is the same as that of the plant that has been uprooted from the soil that gave it sustenance. Civilizations always wither and rot when they are uprooted from the source of their joy and vigor, which ultimately it is religious; but, absurdly, they think that they will be able to supply this source of joy and vigor through various idols. The most useful substitute idol throughout the centuries has been Money; in this phase of History, Money amalgamates with a series of very excentrical political fetishes, all of them presented in a civic and solidarity costume, although in reality invented to satisfy particular selfishness. But such idols are foods that do not nourish, medicines that do not cure, blessings that do not bless; they are placebos that, sooner or later, reveal their ineffectiveness in the face of the most sincere and lasting needs of the human being, which are spiritual in nature. So societies, as the gangrene of fatigue advances in their organisms, realize that such idols are inane placebos; but since the source of joy has been taken away from them, they can only console themselves by seeking another more 'intense' and 'stimulating' (more destructive, in reality) placebo. Chesterton said that men, once they have sinned, always look for more complex sins that stimulate their jaded senses. " [...] "Decay always arises from the boredom caused by material progress unmoored from moral demands."
Article "Decadence" - Juan Manuel de Prada
#CHESTERTONCASTELLANIJMPRADA
"The etiology of this disease is very simple, since it is the same as that of the plant that has been uprooted from the soil that gave it sustenance. Civilizations always wither and rot when they are uprooted from the source of their joy and vigor, which ultimately it is religious; but, absurdly, they think that they will be able to supply this source of joy and vigor through various idols. The most useful substitute idol throughout the centuries has been Money; in this phase of History, Money amalgamates with a series of very excentrical political fetishes, all of them presented in a civic and solidarity costume, although in reality invented to satisfy particular selfishness. But such idols are foods that do not nourish, medicines that do not cure, blessings that do not bless; they are placebos that, sooner or later, reveal their ineffectiveness in the face of the most sincere and lasting needs of the human being, which are spiritual in nature. So societies, as the gangrene of fatigue advances in their organisms, realize that such idols are inane placebos; but since the source of joy has been taken away from them, they can only console themselves by seeking another more 'intense' and 'stimulating' (more destructive, in reality) placebo. Chesterton said that men, once they have sinned, always look for more complex sins that stimulate their jaded senses. " [...] "Decay always arises from the boredom caused by material progress unmoored from moral demands."
Article "Decadence" - Juan Manuel de Prada
#CHESTERTONCASTELLANIJMPRADA
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HAPPINESS
Frankl's study, Ignored Presence of God, demonstrates the existence of this repression of religiosity, which is a factor in what he calls the neurotic triad (depression, dependence on toxic agents and aggressiveness), a true poison for the personality. (...) The great Brazilian writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade poetized with ease: "I'm tired of being modern, now I want to be eternal." It seems that so many people with their apathy and indolence are telling us the same thing, people we meet at work, at school, in the family, on the street...: I'm tired of fooling around with love all day, I'm tired of "wandering" on the beach, tired of so much "beer", tired of sleeping with the same woman or the same man, tired of this crappy life; now I want to be something different... I want something else... deep down they are saying: now I want to be eternal... This wanting to be eternal, this repressed desire for eternity, brings with it serious consequences.
Poets do not shy away from talking about it: it is a delicate, vital matter... In English literature there are two parallel poems written one opposite the other. Edgar Allan Poe, in The Raven, lets this ominous bird pronounce, throughout the entire rhyme, the fatal word: nevermore -for never again-: happy childhood that you have already passed... nevermore, for never more... ., joyful youth that you already said goodbye to me, nevermore, never again... When this instinct of eternity is repressed there is something very intimate in us that suffers. One ends up being dominated by those infinite nostalgias that the fateful nevermore carries within itself. How sad, how little human and how little Christian this nostalgic feeling...! Something within us demands another leitmotif that marks the rhythm of our existence: forever, forever... And this was precisely the refrain that Grandfelow used, throughout a poem of his that seems like a reply to Edgar Allan Poe : for ever, repeating, forever, for ever, forever... The first years of my life have remained in me forever, the experiences of youth, of maturity have been consolidated in me forever... forever. That deep love that is stronger than death will last in me... because I am going to live forever...
How joyful life is when we know that what passes, remains, that what is gone, remains; that love, self-denial, the spirit of sacrifice, lived throughout life, will shape our eternal personality forever! Saint Teresa of Jesus immortalized this expression when she told us, in the book of her life, that, when her brother Rodrigo cried frightened at the thought of death, she repeated to him: «Rodrigo, there in Heaven we will live forever Rodrigo, it will be forever, forever, forever..."
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
#HAPPINESS
Frankl's study, Ignored Presence of God, demonstrates the existence of this repression of religiosity, which is a factor in what he calls the neurotic triad (depression, dependence on toxic agents and aggressiveness), a true poison for the personality. (...) The great Brazilian writer Carlos Drummond de Andrade poetized with ease: "I'm tired of being modern, now I want to be eternal." It seems that so many people with their apathy and indolence are telling us the same thing, people we meet at work, at school, in the family, on the street...: I'm tired of fooling around with love all day, I'm tired of "wandering" on the beach, tired of so much "beer", tired of sleeping with the same woman or the same man, tired of this crappy life; now I want to be something different... I want something else... deep down they are saying: now I want to be eternal... This wanting to be eternal, this repressed desire for eternity, brings with it serious consequences.
Poets do not shy away from talking about it: it is a delicate, vital matter... In English literature there are two parallel poems written one opposite the other. Edgar Allan Poe, in The Raven, lets this ominous bird pronounce, throughout the entire rhyme, the fatal word: nevermore -for never again-: happy childhood that you have already passed... nevermore, for never more... ., joyful youth that you already said goodbye to me, nevermore, never again... When this instinct of eternity is repressed there is something very intimate in us that suffers. One ends up being dominated by those infinite nostalgias that the fateful nevermore carries within itself. How sad, how little human and how little Christian this nostalgic feeling...! Something within us demands another leitmotif that marks the rhythm of our existence: forever, forever... And this was precisely the refrain that Grandfelow used, throughout a poem of his that seems like a reply to Edgar Allan Poe : for ever, repeating, forever, for ever, forever... The first years of my life have remained in me forever, the experiences of youth, of maturity have been consolidated in me forever... forever. That deep love that is stronger than death will last in me... because I am going to live forever...
How joyful life is when we know that what passes, remains, that what is gone, remains; that love, self-denial, the spirit of sacrifice, lived throughout life, will shape our eternal personality forever! Saint Teresa of Jesus immortalized this expression when she told us, in the book of her life, that, when her brother Rodrigo cried frightened at the thought of death, she repeated to him: «Rodrigo, there in Heaven we will live forever Rodrigo, it will be forever, forever, forever..."
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
#HAPPINESS
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OTHER SCIENTIFIC CONSIDERATIONS
INCOMPATIBILITY OF SCIENCE AND FAITH?
Science has nothing to say about issues that do not touch parameters of activity or matter. And theology has nothing to say except about God and his plan for us. Therefore, there can be no conflict. The conflict, when there is or has been one, occurs when one's own methodology is passed from one cognitive field to another where the theological methodology is not applicable. Or when faced with a theological question you want to answer with an experimental methodology. Absurd in both cases.
Therefore, asking whether science says that God exists or not is as absurd as asking whether my car's engineering tells me whether “Don Quixote” is a work of great literary value or not. Physical science, which is the science that studies matter, has nothing to say about what is not the activity of matter. Therefore, anyone who maintains that science says that God does not exist must immediately explain what experiment is used to determine whether God exists or not. There will be no response.
On the other hand, theology is not going to tell me anything about the behavior of matter. Nor is it going to tell me if the matter began more than billions of years ago or less, nor if it began hot or cold, in high density or in low density. It's not his turn. The revelation is not to avoid scientific work for me. There is a phrase from Saint Augustine that Cardinal Baronio repeated when dealing with Galileo's problem: “The Bible does not tell me how the heavens go, but how to go to heaven.” Let's not mix things up. There are both equivocal attitudes: that of those who say that physical science must be the one that decides whether God exists or not, and that of those who affirm that the Bible must give me scientific knowledge of how the world began. Neither one nor the other is acceptable.
Thus says Lord Kelvin: “Do not be afraid to be freethinkers. If you think deeply enough, you will be pushed by science to believe in God. You will find that science is not antagonistic, but a friend of religion.” Naturally, Lord Kelvin was a believer, but we can also adduce beautiful testimonies from non-believers, such as that of the great American physicist Richard Feyman, who stated: “Many scientists certainly believe in God – the God of revelation – in a perfectly coherent way (… ) Another different matter is whether one personally is a believer or a non-believer, admits more metaphysics or less metaphysics. But the fact that there is no incompatibility and that there is even quite a bit of coherence in many aspects, it seems to me to be a fact that is peacefully accepted today (…).”
The physicist Peter Higgs, aware that part of his fame is due to the popular nickname by which the boson is known (the “God particle”), in the dialogue he held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, once again made it clear that He doesn't like the nickname at all: "First of all, because I'm not a believer. But even if I were, I wouldn't like it, because it encourages people to confuse physics with theology." What does Peter Higgs, a confessed atheist, think about the compatibility of science and faith? Professor Higgs does not share the militant atheism of some of his colleagues, such as the Darwinian biologist Richard Dawkins, author of the book 'The God Delusion', on the contrary, the 'father' of the boson admits that he knows "many colleagues who are scientists and believers", and considers that science and religion "can be compatible, as long as one is not dogmatic". In fact, Dawkins's position seems like another form of fundamentalism: "I am not against religious people, unless they behave like extremist fanatics. Dawkins' problem is that he concentrates all his attacks against fundamentalists, but obviously not all of them." believers are. In that sense, I think that sometimes it is Dawkins himself who ends up adopting a fundamentalist position, at the opposite extreme."
#SCIENCEANDFAITH
INCOMPATIBILITY OF SCIENCE AND FAITH?
Science has nothing to say about issues that do not touch parameters of activity or matter. And theology has nothing to say except about God and his plan for us. Therefore, there can be no conflict. The conflict, when there is or has been one, occurs when one's own methodology is passed from one cognitive field to another where the theological methodology is not applicable. Or when faced with a theological question you want to answer with an experimental methodology. Absurd in both cases.
Therefore, asking whether science says that God exists or not is as absurd as asking whether my car's engineering tells me whether “Don Quixote” is a work of great literary value or not. Physical science, which is the science that studies matter, has nothing to say about what is not the activity of matter. Therefore, anyone who maintains that science says that God does not exist must immediately explain what experiment is used to determine whether God exists or not. There will be no response.
On the other hand, theology is not going to tell me anything about the behavior of matter. Nor is it going to tell me if the matter began more than billions of years ago or less, nor if it began hot or cold, in high density or in low density. It's not his turn. The revelation is not to avoid scientific work for me. There is a phrase from Saint Augustine that Cardinal Baronio repeated when dealing with Galileo's problem: “The Bible does not tell me how the heavens go, but how to go to heaven.” Let's not mix things up. There are both equivocal attitudes: that of those who say that physical science must be the one that decides whether God exists or not, and that of those who affirm that the Bible must give me scientific knowledge of how the world began. Neither one nor the other is acceptable.
Thus says Lord Kelvin: “Do not be afraid to be freethinkers. If you think deeply enough, you will be pushed by science to believe in God. You will find that science is not antagonistic, but a friend of religion.” Naturally, Lord Kelvin was a believer, but we can also adduce beautiful testimonies from non-believers, such as that of the great American physicist Richard Feyman, who stated: “Many scientists certainly believe in God – the God of revelation – in a perfectly coherent way (… ) Another different matter is whether one personally is a believer or a non-believer, admits more metaphysics or less metaphysics. But the fact that there is no incompatibility and that there is even quite a bit of coherence in many aspects, it seems to me to be a fact that is peacefully accepted today (…).”
The physicist Peter Higgs, aware that part of his fame is due to the popular nickname by which the boson is known (the “God particle”), in the dialogue he held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, once again made it clear that He doesn't like the nickname at all: "First of all, because I'm not a believer. But even if I were, I wouldn't like it, because it encourages people to confuse physics with theology." What does Peter Higgs, a confessed atheist, think about the compatibility of science and faith? Professor Higgs does not share the militant atheism of some of his colleagues, such as the Darwinian biologist Richard Dawkins, author of the book 'The God Delusion', on the contrary, the 'father' of the boson admits that he knows "many colleagues who are scientists and believers", and considers that science and religion "can be compatible, as long as one is not dogmatic". In fact, Dawkins's position seems like another form of fundamentalism: "I am not against religious people, unless they behave like extremist fanatics. Dawkins' problem is that he concentrates all his attacks against fundamentalists, but obviously not all of them." believers are. In that sense, I think that sometimes it is Dawkins himself who ends up adopting a fundamentalist position, at the opposite extreme."
#SCIENCEANDFAITH
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RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
"(...) Conversion is a personal encounter with Christ, in which the entire person and the entire future life is committed. This means leaving many values, many precious things for others that are discovered to be better. Sometimes, It involves a long and painful mental process in which you have to readjust all the values and mental schemes with which one has lived peacefully for years. Frequently, there are many cases of people who become convinced of the truth of the Catholic faith, but they are not capable of giving up their comforts and securities (...)"
"Atheists and converted Jews" - Fr. Ángel Peña O.A.R
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
"(...) Conversion is a personal encounter with Christ, in which the entire person and the entire future life is committed. This means leaving many values, many precious things for others that are discovered to be better. Sometimes, It involves a long and painful mental process in which you have to readjust all the values and mental schemes with which one has lived peacefully for years. Frequently, there are many cases of people who become convinced of the truth of the Catholic faith, but they are not capable of giving up their comforts and securities (...)"
"Atheists and converted Jews" - Fr. Ángel Peña O.A.R
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
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VARIOUS ARTICLES
"[...] Hypocrisy formerly consisted of pretending to be better than you really were. You tried to appear generous and honest when you were nothing more than a thief. But today, morally reprehensible attitudes are displayed when for example, some boast about the "big money" they earn, without hiding the bad practices with which they earn it, or how they betray their own wife, adding exaggerations or falsehoods to all of that to appear to have a less scrupulous conscience than which they really have. (They would probably feel bad if their friends found out that they pray every night or make a donation to their parish...).
In short, the hypocrisy of before was "the tribute that vice paid to virtue." While today's seems to be, quite the contrary, "the tribute that virtue pays to vice." It is as if today we were afraid to be virtuous, as if virtue had to blush before vice.[...]"
"Human values" - Bernabé Tierno
#VARIOUSARTICLES
"[...] Hypocrisy formerly consisted of pretending to be better than you really were. You tried to appear generous and honest when you were nothing more than a thief. But today, morally reprehensible attitudes are displayed when for example, some boast about the "big money" they earn, without hiding the bad practices with which they earn it, or how they betray their own wife, adding exaggerations or falsehoods to all of that to appear to have a less scrupulous conscience than which they really have. (They would probably feel bad if their friends found out that they pray every night or make a donation to their parish...).
In short, the hypocrisy of before was "the tribute that vice paid to virtue." While today's seems to be, quite the contrary, "the tribute that virtue pays to vice." It is as if today we were afraid to be virtuous, as if virtue had to blush before vice.[...]"
"Human values" - Bernabé Tierno
#VARIOUSARTICLES
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CONVERTS
"I know the case of a person who for years was distant from God. During all that time he lived with his back turned to morality and only God knows how many things he did and how low he fell in his moral degradation. Furious enemy of religion, of the priests, of the images, of everything that looked like spirituality. He mocked, insulted and despised the believers every time he could. He even went to jail a couple of times for "minor crimes", petty thefts, small lawsuits. Well, in such a state it would have been completely useless for someone to approach such a character and propose something like, for example, explaining the 5 Thomistic ways to prove the existence of God. The only thing he would have probably obtained would have been a sovereign laughter or even physical aggression.
But lets see and admire the paths of God! On the advice of a friend, he became a volunteer at a home for the terminally ill, and went on Saturday afternoons to distribute food to the patients and chat with them for a while. As the days went by he increased the frequency of visits and came up to 4 times a week. He began to invest a good part of his salary in financial aid to the site and felt “happy to be able to help.” After a few months and almost without realizing it, a complete change had occurred in him. He no longer frequented his old vice friends. He spent almost all of his free time at the institution, not only serving food, but also helping in a thousand different ways such as washing the dishes, making small home repairs, organizing outings and parties to celebrate birthdays and things like that. That place had made him a better person. It was then that he became friends with a priest who used to visit the place to bring communion to the sick. He was a holy priest, very advanced in years, possessed of a very kind conversation. With the help of this priest our friend returned to the Church. And then he repeated almost with tears in his eyes, "How come I didn't see this before?"
"Politically incorrect reflections" - Leonardo Rodríguez
#CONVERTS
"I know the case of a person who for years was distant from God. During all that time he lived with his back turned to morality and only God knows how many things he did and how low he fell in his moral degradation. Furious enemy of religion, of the priests, of the images, of everything that looked like spirituality. He mocked, insulted and despised the believers every time he could. He even went to jail a couple of times for "minor crimes", petty thefts, small lawsuits. Well, in such a state it would have been completely useless for someone to approach such a character and propose something like, for example, explaining the 5 Thomistic ways to prove the existence of God. The only thing he would have probably obtained would have been a sovereign laughter or even physical aggression.
But lets see and admire the paths of God! On the advice of a friend, he became a volunteer at a home for the terminally ill, and went on Saturday afternoons to distribute food to the patients and chat with them for a while. As the days went by he increased the frequency of visits and came up to 4 times a week. He began to invest a good part of his salary in financial aid to the site and felt “happy to be able to help.” After a few months and almost without realizing it, a complete change had occurred in him. He no longer frequented his old vice friends. He spent almost all of his free time at the institution, not only serving food, but also helping in a thousand different ways such as washing the dishes, making small home repairs, organizing outings and parties to celebrate birthdays and things like that. That place had made him a better person. It was then that he became friends with a priest who used to visit the place to bring communion to the sick. He was a holy priest, very advanced in years, possessed of a very kind conversation. With the help of this priest our friend returned to the Church. And then he repeated almost with tears in his eyes, "How come I didn't see this before?"
"Politically incorrect reflections" - Leonardo Rodríguez
#CONVERTS
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CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE
"(...) the current marital disaster (...) derives from love understood not in the Christian sense, but in the romantic one, which was transmitted to us by the bourgeoisie of the 19th century. Love as passion, physical attraction, feeling, as sweetness of boyfriend and girlfriend with Cupids and initials engraved on the bark of the trees, sweet words, little messages (...) When all this is over - (and eventually it will be over for everyone), once the magic of the "nascent state" has been exhausted - the conclusion that is drawn is that love is over, since only that type of "love" justifies being together, and it is time to start over with another person, to find the romantic emotion again, to feel something again.
For Rosanna and me there also existed, thank God as for every couple, the delicious "nascent state." But there has also always existed the awareness that, from the Christian perspective, the law of the union of diverse realities always applies: thus, marriage as affection, but also as a bond, for good and bad, as a personal and, at the same time, social link; as a pleasure, but also as a duty, often arduous; as a feeling, but also as a will to maintain the initial dream even if one no longer "feels"; as attraction, but, sometimes, also as impatience, even as annoyance; as a sexual dimension, but also as fraternal solidarity. Etc. In a word: the realism of those who believe in the Gospel and are aware that, to find love as a solid foundation of that eternal tragicomedy that is the encounter-confrontation between man and woman, one must decontaminate oneself from the feeling (which not by chance derives from "feel"), and not infrequently is also derived from sentimentality presented as love for too many songs, novels and films. (...)"
"Why I believe" - Vittorio Messori
#CHASTITYANDMARRIAGE
"(...) the current marital disaster (...) derives from love understood not in the Christian sense, but in the romantic one, which was transmitted to us by the bourgeoisie of the 19th century. Love as passion, physical attraction, feeling, as sweetness of boyfriend and girlfriend with Cupids and initials engraved on the bark of the trees, sweet words, little messages (...) When all this is over - (and eventually it will be over for everyone), once the magic of the "nascent state" has been exhausted - the conclusion that is drawn is that love is over, since only that type of "love" justifies being together, and it is time to start over with another person, to find the romantic emotion again, to feel something again.
For Rosanna and me there also existed, thank God as for every couple, the delicious "nascent state." But there has also always existed the awareness that, from the Christian perspective, the law of the union of diverse realities always applies: thus, marriage as affection, but also as a bond, for good and bad, as a personal and, at the same time, social link; as a pleasure, but also as a duty, often arduous; as a feeling, but also as a will to maintain the initial dream even if one no longer "feels"; as attraction, but, sometimes, also as impatience, even as annoyance; as a sexual dimension, but also as fraternal solidarity. Etc. In a word: the realism of those who believe in the Gospel and are aware that, to find love as a solid foundation of that eternal tragicomedy that is the encounter-confrontation between man and woman, one must decontaminate oneself from the feeling (which not by chance derives from "feel"), and not infrequently is also derived from sentimentality presented as love for too many songs, novels and films. (...)"
"Why I believe" - Vittorio Messori
#CHASTITYANDMARRIAGE
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VARIOUS ARTICLES
OF SPORT TAKEN AS AN END INSTEAD OF A MEAN
“[…] Gymnastics and sports, whose importance no one is unaware of, take care of our body, but not of ourselves. The cultivation of exact and empirical sciences, as well as manual and technical preparation, deal with things related to our body, but they do not take into account what we intimately are or the purpose of existence. This is why Socrates necessarily concludes:
SOCRATES. - When you take care of the things that are yours, you don't take care of yourself.
From which it still follows that we can improve the things that belong to us, even our own body, which is a substantial but inferior and subordinate part, without making ourselves better, without perfecting our own being. (…)
It is dangerously often forgotten that the body must be cultivated for the soul, as Aristotle already teaches in the Politics; Consequently, it is not primarily a question of health, vigor, endurance or skill, but of the best physical disposition for the works of the soul. Furthermore, the first and main reason for sport is the relief and purification of the youthful soul; It is about relieving and clarifying it from the overwhelming dreams that invade it and the malicious anxiety that devours it, through systematic distraction and fatigue of the devil. (…) Physical health and vigor lack true human meaning by themselves, and when applying a value of end to them, they can furthermore become an obvious contradiction taking into account this aphorism of Aristotle: “It is better to live a single year for a high goal than to drag out a long existence in vain.”
The human question is not defined or decided in the achievement and maintenance of perfect corporal health, but in the use that man makes, in this case, of such a splendid and prolonged physical state. (...) What is truly regrettable is to forget that the soul must carry the body with ease, instead of the body being the one that drags the soul heavily. […]”
"The philosopher and the sophists" - Jordán B. Genta
#VARIOUSARTICLES
OF SPORT TAKEN AS AN END INSTEAD OF A MEAN
“[…] Gymnastics and sports, whose importance no one is unaware of, take care of our body, but not of ourselves. The cultivation of exact and empirical sciences, as well as manual and technical preparation, deal with things related to our body, but they do not take into account what we intimately are or the purpose of existence. This is why Socrates necessarily concludes:
SOCRATES. - When you take care of the things that are yours, you don't take care of yourself.
From which it still follows that we can improve the things that belong to us, even our own body, which is a substantial but inferior and subordinate part, without making ourselves better, without perfecting our own being. (…)
It is dangerously often forgotten that the body must be cultivated for the soul, as Aristotle already teaches in the Politics; Consequently, it is not primarily a question of health, vigor, endurance or skill, but of the best physical disposition for the works of the soul. Furthermore, the first and main reason for sport is the relief and purification of the youthful soul; It is about relieving and clarifying it from the overwhelming dreams that invade it and the malicious anxiety that devours it, through systematic distraction and fatigue of the devil. (…) Physical health and vigor lack true human meaning by themselves, and when applying a value of end to them, they can furthermore become an obvious contradiction taking into account this aphorism of Aristotle: “It is better to live a single year for a high goal than to drag out a long existence in vain.”
The human question is not defined or decided in the achievement and maintenance of perfect corporal health, but in the use that man makes, in this case, of such a splendid and prolonged physical state. (...) What is truly regrettable is to forget that the soul must carry the body with ease, instead of the body being the one that drags the soul heavily. […]”
"The philosopher and the sophists" - Jordán B. Genta
#VARIOUSARTICLES
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PORNOGRAPHY
"In lust, as we have already seen, there is no true love. The elements of all love are missing: either the giving of oneself to another is missing (as in masturbation and pornography), or the commitment (as in fornication) is missing, or the fruit is excluded (as in contraception), or lacks true complementarity (as in homosexuality), or harms (as in abuse, rape, corruption). Every form of lust eliminates some value proper to love: the other (masturbation), marriage (fornication, adultery, concubinage), the child (abortion and contraception), otherness (homosexuality).
It is very important to take this into account, because this intrinsic disorder of lust, together with the fact that it is rooted in one of the basic inclinations of the human being (the sexual instinct) explains why it easily and quickly degenerates into addiction. The same thing happens with the other basic instincts: the survival instinct, when deformed (or not maturing), degenerates into selfishness, self-reference, illness of complaint, feeling of inferiority and infantile complex; The religious instinct deviated from its center of balance turns into superstition, credulity, a morbid search for the magical and the demonic.
The addiction resembles the strangler ficus, a parasitic and cannibalistic plant that consumes the trees in which it takes root; When a ficus seed is deposited on a high branch of a tree by a monkey or bat that leaves its excrement there, it germinates, sending out roots that wind around the host tree, downward, seeking the earth; The more it grows, it envelops and suffocates the other tree, which finally dies, rots and hollows out. In the American jungles you can see the spectacle of these hollow, dead trees in which the cannibal plant that the natives rightly call “matapalo” (woodkiller) has come to life. "This is what happens with addiction, which eats away at the character and psychology of the addict until he is left with nothing more than an inner emptiness surrounded by a large compulsive shell."
"Chastity is possible" – Fr. Miguel Ángel Fuentes
#CHASTITYANDMARRIAGE
"In lust, as we have already seen, there is no true love. The elements of all love are missing: either the giving of oneself to another is missing (as in masturbation and pornography), or the commitment (as in fornication) is missing, or the fruit is excluded (as in contraception), or lacks true complementarity (as in homosexuality), or harms (as in abuse, rape, corruption). Every form of lust eliminates some value proper to love: the other (masturbation), marriage (fornication, adultery, concubinage), the child (abortion and contraception), otherness (homosexuality).
It is very important to take this into account, because this intrinsic disorder of lust, together with the fact that it is rooted in one of the basic inclinations of the human being (the sexual instinct) explains why it easily and quickly degenerates into addiction. The same thing happens with the other basic instincts: the survival instinct, when deformed (or not maturing), degenerates into selfishness, self-reference, illness of complaint, feeling of inferiority and infantile complex; The religious instinct deviated from its center of balance turns into superstition, credulity, a morbid search for the magical and the demonic.
The addiction resembles the strangler ficus, a parasitic and cannibalistic plant that consumes the trees in which it takes root; When a ficus seed is deposited on a high branch of a tree by a monkey or bat that leaves its excrement there, it germinates, sending out roots that wind around the host tree, downward, seeking the earth; The more it grows, it envelops and suffocates the other tree, which finally dies, rots and hollows out. In the American jungles you can see the spectacle of these hollow, dead trees in which the cannibal plant that the natives rightly call “matapalo” (woodkiller) has come to life. "This is what happens with addiction, which eats away at the character and psychology of the addict until he is left with nothing more than an inner emptiness surrounded by a large compulsive shell."
"Chastity is possible" – Fr. Miguel Ángel Fuentes
#CHASTITYANDMARRIAGE
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RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
"Being a priest is something so great that we can never sufficiently understand in this world, and not all eternity will be enough to thank God for this gift. Hugo Wast said: “When you think that a priest, when he celebrates mass, He has an infinitely greater dignity than a king, when you think that none of the angels can do what a priest does when celebrating a mass... Then, you can understand why a priest is needed more than a king, more than a soldier, more than a banker, more than a doctor, more than a teacher; because he can replace everyone and no one can replace him." (...)
A priest is:
A parish that does not die.
A Church that should not be closed.
A tabernacle, where Jesus is always, waiting for us to bless us.
A priest is a daily mass for 40 or 50 or more years.
A multitude of baptized children, a multitude of educated young people, and a multitude of old and dying people brought to God.
A priest is a countless number of sick visited, consoled and saved and a multitude of converted sinners.
A priest, in a word, is an army of souls saved and taken to heaven.
[...] A spiritual father, who gives encouragement and comfort to everyone and guides them on the path to God. They, “far from losing the prerogative of paternity, increase it immensely as they do not generate children for this perishable life, but for the one that will last eternally.”
"The joy of loving" - Father Ángel Peña O. A. R.
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
"Being a priest is something so great that we can never sufficiently understand in this world, and not all eternity will be enough to thank God for this gift. Hugo Wast said: “When you think that a priest, when he celebrates mass, He has an infinitely greater dignity than a king, when you think that none of the angels can do what a priest does when celebrating a mass... Then, you can understand why a priest is needed more than a king, more than a soldier, more than a banker, more than a doctor, more than a teacher; because he can replace everyone and no one can replace him." (...)
A priest is:
A parish that does not die.
A Church that should not be closed.
A tabernacle, where Jesus is always, waiting for us to bless us.
A priest is a daily mass for 40 or 50 or more years.
A multitude of baptized children, a multitude of educated young people, and a multitude of old and dying people brought to God.
A priest is a countless number of sick visited, consoled and saved and a multitude of converted sinners.
A priest, in a word, is an army of souls saved and taken to heaven.
[...] A spiritual father, who gives encouragement and comfort to everyone and guides them on the path to God. They, “far from losing the prerogative of paternity, increase it immensely as they do not generate children for this perishable life, but for the one that will last eternally.”
"The joy of loving" - Father Ángel Peña O. A. R.
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
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VARIOUS ARTICLES
OF UNIVERSITIES AND STUDENTS
"John Paul II, addressing university students (...) stated incisively: «The interest and taste that university students have for a study carried out seriously develops, sometimes, in an environment devoid of authentic values. Many of your friends (...) they consider the University as something tending toward utilitarianism, with a view to a simple individual self-affirmation. It seems that in this way the well-known slogan is corroborated: "knowledge is power." The Pope considers that this impoverishing "knowledge in order to be able", worse still, "knowledge for profit", is an attitude unworthy of human beings, a kind of cynical pragmatism. The university vocation must be defended from the attacks of the consumer society and the utilitarian and financial mentality that surrounds it. The consumer society seems to value man by the size of his bank account: having has more weight than being. And the university student can fall into the temptation of subordinating his professional vocation, his noble intellectual and social ambitions, to the demands of the labor market. As we have already said before, when choosing a profession or a specialty, instead of listening to his most intimate desires and listening to what his vocation tells him deep down, the student may allow himself to be diverted - he may allow himself to be hypnotized - by the calls of a market that urges you to acquire the right qualities to sell yourself better. And right there has its roots that poor, reductive, pragmatic, standardized, depersonalized university education, alien to the great aspirarions of intelligence and spirit, where professionals - engineers, doctors, computer scientists, architects, economists, physicists, biologists, lawyers ...- come out as mass-produced, all the same, like cars on an assembly line (...) Warren Bennis, insists on a similar idea: «The university is preparing a multitude of myopic specialists who can be masters at making money, but as people they are unfinished. These specialists have been taught how to do, but they have not learned how to be (...)
(...) the university student seems to navigate, between baits and hooks, through a sea of merchants and charlatans who try to attract his attention and retain him. But this student is not convinced; These proposals do not satisfy him: he wants more. It seems as if he was saying: "I am a human being in formation; Help me to fully train and develop my true potential." Most teachers, on the other hand, are not in a position to satisfy him, because they only understand his limited specialty. For this reason, that restless and questioning university student makes them uncomfortable; he becomes an annoying student.
(...) Elisabeth Anscombe, a professor at Oxford, says incisively, and with a lucidity that will surely bother a certain deja vu agnostic scientism: "the decisive criterion for endorsing a university is to check whether it knows or does not know that God is the truth." If God is the Truth and the university seeks the paths that lead us to all the truths, God and the university must also be as united as the "psyche" and the "soma", like the form and matter that make up a sculpture. (...)"
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
OF UNIVERSITIES AND STUDENTS
"John Paul II, addressing university students (...) stated incisively: «The interest and taste that university students have for a study carried out seriously develops, sometimes, in an environment devoid of authentic values. Many of your friends (...) they consider the University as something tending toward utilitarianism, with a view to a simple individual self-affirmation. It seems that in this way the well-known slogan is corroborated: "knowledge is power." The Pope considers that this impoverishing "knowledge in order to be able", worse still, "knowledge for profit", is an attitude unworthy of human beings, a kind of cynical pragmatism. The university vocation must be defended from the attacks of the consumer society and the utilitarian and financial mentality that surrounds it. The consumer society seems to value man by the size of his bank account: having has more weight than being. And the university student can fall into the temptation of subordinating his professional vocation, his noble intellectual and social ambitions, to the demands of the labor market. As we have already said before, when choosing a profession or a specialty, instead of listening to his most intimate desires and listening to what his vocation tells him deep down, the student may allow himself to be diverted - he may allow himself to be hypnotized - by the calls of a market that urges you to acquire the right qualities to sell yourself better. And right there has its roots that poor, reductive, pragmatic, standardized, depersonalized university education, alien to the great aspirarions of intelligence and spirit, where professionals - engineers, doctors, computer scientists, architects, economists, physicists, biologists, lawyers ...- come out as mass-produced, all the same, like cars on an assembly line (...) Warren Bennis, insists on a similar idea: «The university is preparing a multitude of myopic specialists who can be masters at making money, but as people they are unfinished. These specialists have been taught how to do, but they have not learned how to be (...)
(...) the university student seems to navigate, between baits and hooks, through a sea of merchants and charlatans who try to attract his attention and retain him. But this student is not convinced; These proposals do not satisfy him: he wants more. It seems as if he was saying: "I am a human being in formation; Help me to fully train and develop my true potential." Most teachers, on the other hand, are not in a position to satisfy him, because they only understand his limited specialty. For this reason, that restless and questioning university student makes them uncomfortable; he becomes an annoying student.
(...) Elisabeth Anscombe, a professor at Oxford, says incisively, and with a lucidity that will surely bother a certain deja vu agnostic scientism: "the decisive criterion for endorsing a university is to check whether it knows or does not know that God is the truth." If God is the Truth and the university seeks the paths that lead us to all the truths, God and the university must also be as united as the "psyche" and the "soma", like the form and matter that make up a sculpture. (...)"
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
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HAPPINESS
"(...) This type of bourgeois lives with a considered sufficiency: he lives calmly enough not to have too many responsibilities, he is generous enough not to be called selfish, he is hardworking enough not to be considered a parasite, it is kind enough to have a few friends with whom to satisfy his need for company, virtuous enough so that his conscience does not protest and no one can say that he is a scoundrel, busy enough not to fall into transcendental thoughts that would leave him, like he says, "neurotic"; that is, he lives sufficiently dazed to not have to think about the fundamental problems of life.
This is not just any escape. It is a "civilized" escape. A "liberal philosophy of life." A true system with a set of principles and rules that defend it from any annoying surprise. It is not a vulgar selfishness. It is an intelligent and functional selfishness. Really, its existence is that of a "civil servant" in life: well-adjusted schedules, family parties, lazy weekends, the compensations of good food or sensual love... that plant-like life fearful of any surrender of oneself, domesticated by the attractions of the horizontal way of living and the security of money, that gliding through moderately pleasant, warm, carefree days... that mediocre life that starts out pleasant and ends up becoming unbearable. Unbearable especially when the "good bourgeois" wakes up frightened by a misfortune, an illness, an unavoidable and compromising decision, a task that requires an effort for which he is not prepared, a random event that screams at him: Get up! Think! Someone needs you! You are not a sleepwalker! God awaits you!... That's when the lazy bourgeois gets irritated like a dog sleeping in the sun that gets woken up with a kick. He becomes irritated and scared when faced with real life, which has invaded the borders of the feud in which he was so peacefully installed (...).
(...) Many feel presumptuously secure within his egocentric shell. Time, however, like ants, does his work. Little by little human horizons fade; Little by little, the motivations and the strength to fight are lost. In an imperceptible way. Only inside. And, without prior warning, a setback, an illness, a small blow... and their entire life is dismantled. Depression comes, loaded with questions: what usefulness will my life have in the future? Where am I going? How is going to be the end of all this?... And they begin to talk about going to a psychiatrist because their philosophy of life is becoming unbalanced, because their defense mechanisms no longer work, because what was fundamental before (purely banalities!) now it is no longer, because they have never felt anguish like this... They do not realize that what they call imbalance is simply an awareness, an opening of their eyes to reality, a liberation from their own turtle shell, an awakening of the fleeing nature of earthly life in the light of God, which is glimpsed in the form of nostalgic absence (...)"
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
"(...) This type of bourgeois lives with a considered sufficiency: he lives calmly enough not to have too many responsibilities, he is generous enough not to be called selfish, he is hardworking enough not to be considered a parasite, it is kind enough to have a few friends with whom to satisfy his need for company, virtuous enough so that his conscience does not protest and no one can say that he is a scoundrel, busy enough not to fall into transcendental thoughts that would leave him, like he says, "neurotic"; that is, he lives sufficiently dazed to not have to think about the fundamental problems of life.
This is not just any escape. It is a "civilized" escape. A "liberal philosophy of life." A true system with a set of principles and rules that defend it from any annoying surprise. It is not a vulgar selfishness. It is an intelligent and functional selfishness. Really, its existence is that of a "civil servant" in life: well-adjusted schedules, family parties, lazy weekends, the compensations of good food or sensual love... that plant-like life fearful of any surrender of oneself, domesticated by the attractions of the horizontal way of living and the security of money, that gliding through moderately pleasant, warm, carefree days... that mediocre life that starts out pleasant and ends up becoming unbearable. Unbearable especially when the "good bourgeois" wakes up frightened by a misfortune, an illness, an unavoidable and compromising decision, a task that requires an effort for which he is not prepared, a random event that screams at him: Get up! Think! Someone needs you! You are not a sleepwalker! God awaits you!... That's when the lazy bourgeois gets irritated like a dog sleeping in the sun that gets woken up with a kick. He becomes irritated and scared when faced with real life, which has invaded the borders of the feud in which he was so peacefully installed (...).
(...) Many feel presumptuously secure within his egocentric shell. Time, however, like ants, does his work. Little by little human horizons fade; Little by little, the motivations and the strength to fight are lost. In an imperceptible way. Only inside. And, without prior warning, a setback, an illness, a small blow... and their entire life is dismantled. Depression comes, loaded with questions: what usefulness will my life have in the future? Where am I going? How is going to be the end of all this?... And they begin to talk about going to a psychiatrist because their philosophy of life is becoming unbalanced, because their defense mechanisms no longer work, because what was fundamental before (purely banalities!) now it is no longer, because they have never felt anguish like this... They do not realize that what they call imbalance is simply an awareness, an opening of their eyes to reality, a liberation from their own turtle shell, an awakening of the fleeing nature of earthly life in the light of God, which is glimpsed in the form of nostalgic absence (...)"
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
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ABORTION
"[...] Personality cannot be determined by a temporal issue (having certain number of days of existance), nor by a location (being nested in the uterus or on the way to it), nor by a extrinsic relationship to the subject (being accepted or rejected by their parents), nor by the appeareance of a particular organ (not even the brain), nor by a particular state (such as self-consciousness). All these elements are qualities and accidents of the person, but they are not the person. As Robert Spaemann says, there is only one criterion for being a person: biological belonging to the human species: "The being of the person is the life of a man. (...) And therefore a person is the man and not a quality of the man.”
Therefore, if in the case of the barely conceived embryo we are faced with an individual strictly belonging to the human species, autonomous in his individual project (that is, in the evolutionary plan that he will develop with mathematical rigor throughout the days, subsequent months and years), even if he is not autonomous in his subsistence (and he will not be autonomous for a long time after he is born), then he is a human person. If it is not now, why should it be later? Is the person something so accidental that it can be “produced” by a mere local or temporal accident? Hence the judgment that rounds off the reflections of all the cited documents, despite not wanting to enter into metaphysical disquisitions: "He will never become human if he is not already human then" [...]"
Source
#ABORTION
"[...] Personality cannot be determined by a temporal issue (having certain number of days of existance), nor by a location (being nested in the uterus or on the way to it), nor by a extrinsic relationship to the subject (being accepted or rejected by their parents), nor by the appeareance of a particular organ (not even the brain), nor by a particular state (such as self-consciousness). All these elements are qualities and accidents of the person, but they are not the person. As Robert Spaemann says, there is only one criterion for being a person: biological belonging to the human species: "The being of the person is the life of a man. (...) And therefore a person is the man and not a quality of the man.”
Therefore, if in the case of the barely conceived embryo we are faced with an individual strictly belonging to the human species, autonomous in his individual project (that is, in the evolutionary plan that he will develop with mathematical rigor throughout the days, subsequent months and years), even if he is not autonomous in his subsistence (and he will not be autonomous for a long time after he is born), then he is a human person. If it is not now, why should it be later? Is the person something so accidental that it can be “produced” by a mere local or temporal accident? Hence the judgment that rounds off the reflections of all the cited documents, despite not wanting to enter into metaphysical disquisitions: "He will never become human if he is not already human then" [...]"
Source
#ABORTION
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EDUCATION
HOW TO KNOW A CHILD'S INCLINATION
"[...] Experiment to discern the peculiar talent of each child. It would be very convenient if very varied objects were offered to the children's view, leading them to see situations where the particular disposition of each one could be stimulated by the presence of what best suits him. Then, left to their instincts, an intelligent observer would of course form different classifications. Expose a clock machine to the view of a group of children of ten or twelve years old, and it is quite certain that if among them there is some of very advanced mechanical genius, he will immediately make himself known by the curiosity of examining, by the discretion of the questions, and the ease in understanding the construction he is contemplating. Read them a poetic piece, and if there are among them some Garcilaso, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderón or Meléndez, you will see his eyes sparkle, you will know that his heart beats, that his mind shakes, that his fantasy inflames under an impression that he himself does not understand. Be careful with changing roles: from two extraordinary children it is very possible that you will make two very ordinary men. The swift and the eagle are distinguished by the strength and lightness of their wings; and yet the eagle could never fly in the manner of the swift, nor could it imitate the queen of birds. [...]
"The criterion" - Jaime Balmes
#VARIOUSARTICLES
HOW TO KNOW A CHILD'S INCLINATION
"[...] Experiment to discern the peculiar talent of each child. It would be very convenient if very varied objects were offered to the children's view, leading them to see situations where the particular disposition of each one could be stimulated by the presence of what best suits him. Then, left to their instincts, an intelligent observer would of course form different classifications. Expose a clock machine to the view of a group of children of ten or twelve years old, and it is quite certain that if among them there is some of very advanced mechanical genius, he will immediately make himself known by the curiosity of examining, by the discretion of the questions, and the ease in understanding the construction he is contemplating. Read them a poetic piece, and if there are among them some Garcilaso, Lope de Vega, Ercilla, Calderón or Meléndez, you will see his eyes sparkle, you will know that his heart beats, that his mind shakes, that his fantasy inflames under an impression that he himself does not understand. Be careful with changing roles: from two extraordinary children it is very possible that you will make two very ordinary men. The swift and the eagle are distinguished by the strength and lightness of their wings; and yet the eagle could never fly in the manner of the swift, nor could it imitate the queen of birds. [...]
"The criterion" - Jaime Balmes
#VARIOUSARTICLES
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RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
"(...) Sometimes we find ourselves in a vicious circle. We think: I do not approach God because I do not find Him; when we should rather think: I do not find God because I do not approach Him. In this regard I remember a trivial event from my childhood. We were on vacation and I visited a friend of mine on a bicycle, in a distant farm. Without realizing it, it was getting dark. I had to return home and I couldn't see almost anything and I didn't know the road well. I was a bit afraid. My friend told me: "You won't have any problems; I know the road and there are no holes in it: you just have to pedal confidently and the dynamo will make the bicycle light come on; the more you run, the more it will illuminate." So I did. I started pedaling in the dark, at first with fear... I could hardly see. But I followed his advice. As I pedaled harder and risked more, the better it looked. Then, at full speed , the road seemed like an open, illuminated avenue. Sometimes we don't set out because we don't see, but other times we don't see because we don't set out. This can be a small lesson for the process of strengthening faith (...)"
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
"(...) Sometimes we find ourselves in a vicious circle. We think: I do not approach God because I do not find Him; when we should rather think: I do not find God because I do not approach Him. In this regard I remember a trivial event from my childhood. We were on vacation and I visited a friend of mine on a bicycle, in a distant farm. Without realizing it, it was getting dark. I had to return home and I couldn't see almost anything and I didn't know the road well. I was a bit afraid. My friend told me: "You won't have any problems; I know the road and there are no holes in it: you just have to pedal confidently and the dynamo will make the bicycle light come on; the more you run, the more it will illuminate." So I did. I started pedaling in the dark, at first with fear... I could hardly see. But I followed his advice. As I pedaled harder and risked more, the better it looked. Then, at full speed , the road seemed like an open, illuminated avenue. Sometimes we don't set out because we don't see, but other times we don't see because we don't set out. This can be a small lesson for the process of strengthening faith (...)"
"In search of the meaning of life" - Rafael Llano Cifuentes
#RELIGIOUSARTICLES
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CHASTITY AND MARRIAGE
THE FEMALE QUESTION
"[...] it does not take much psychological insight to know that the irascible passions predominate in the man, while in the woman are the concupiscible passions the ones that predominate.
The man has prompt and impetuous passions suitable for combat, and those passions have more complex aspects, because the ends or arduous goods inherent to these passions are wrapped in evil, in the difficulty of achieving them. On the other hand, in women, simpler affections of the concupiscible passions, love and hate, predominate. - let's say it - the woman is a terrible enemy. Because the man can fight his enemy, wound him and even kill him, and yet he recognizes his value, and immediately after the fight he can toast with his adversary - if he is still alive - with the loyal friendship of peace. On the other hand, a woman does not feel so much anger with her enemies, but hate, which is very different: she either loves or hates, everything or nothing, she does not make distinctions. With her, war – if she declares it – is always one of extermination. : It does not end until the enemy has disappeared. In marital conflicts, the husband sees the woman as an adversary with whom he can fight to make peace; On the other hand, the woman sees evil in her husband, and it is true that she cannot make a pact with evil, but only eliminate it from her own life. (...) A woman gets into trouble when she stops understanding that what is characteristic of her is to be spiritually attractive, which is given especially by her chastity, and wants to be attractive physically. (...) The woman who traps the man because of her physical attraction prepares her misfortune, because all her dimensions become carnalized. It doesn't matter that she is sweet, but suggestive; Her honesty becomes nonsense. The sexy woman is an inverted woman; So much that not even her face is what is looked at. She is a woman who does not dominate her life, because virtue is acquired by the merit of good will, while the physical form depends on pure chance, and with the course of time the former remains and grows, while the latter very soon fades away. (...) It is true that the sexy woman immediately arouses everyone's attention, while the pure woman takes time to conquer one's interest, because the former is merchandise on display, while the latter is a hidden treasure. But her relationship with the man offends her, because her passion, divorced from her spiritual appeal, becomes selfish and contemptuous. And this is how the conflict begins: to handle the man, this woman only has the accelerator of desire to attract him, and the brake of her resistance to achieve respect. But instead of taming the man, as the pure woman does, she exasperates him, because she becomes for him the most arduous of goods and the most aggressive of evils.
(...) May our women disallow themselves to be seduced by the false ideal of the modern woman, which we already see how it drags society into a pit with no way out. Grace is deceptive, beauty fleeting; “The woman who fears God is to be praised” (Prov. 31 30). (...) It is very difficult for a young girl to cultivate that ideal when she does not see it up close, nor does she feel that anyone appreciates it. But if our young women begin to know true Christian women, strong women, much more feminine and more loved, then they will be encouraged to imitate them. And if we have real women, we will have real men, and there will be families and there will be priests. To restore all things in Christ we must begin with the woman.
(...) The ideal Woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is how Our Lord always calls His Mother in the Gospels: Woman. Imitate the Blessed Virgin, be feminine in her manner [...] "
#CHASTITYANDMARRIAGE
THE FEMALE QUESTION
"[...] it does not take much psychological insight to know that the irascible passions predominate in the man, while in the woman are the concupiscible passions the ones that predominate.
The man has prompt and impetuous passions suitable for combat, and those passions have more complex aspects, because the ends or arduous goods inherent to these passions are wrapped in evil, in the difficulty of achieving them. On the other hand, in women, simpler affections of the concupiscible passions, love and hate, predominate. - let's say it - the woman is a terrible enemy. Because the man can fight his enemy, wound him and even kill him, and yet he recognizes his value, and immediately after the fight he can toast with his adversary - if he is still alive - with the loyal friendship of peace. On the other hand, a woman does not feel so much anger with her enemies, but hate, which is very different: she either loves or hates, everything or nothing, she does not make distinctions. With her, war – if she declares it – is always one of extermination. : It does not end until the enemy has disappeared. In marital conflicts, the husband sees the woman as an adversary with whom he can fight to make peace; On the other hand, the woman sees evil in her husband, and it is true that she cannot make a pact with evil, but only eliminate it from her own life. (...) A woman gets into trouble when she stops understanding that what is characteristic of her is to be spiritually attractive, which is given especially by her chastity, and wants to be attractive physically. (...) The woman who traps the man because of her physical attraction prepares her misfortune, because all her dimensions become carnalized. It doesn't matter that she is sweet, but suggestive; Her honesty becomes nonsense. The sexy woman is an inverted woman; So much that not even her face is what is looked at. She is a woman who does not dominate her life, because virtue is acquired by the merit of good will, while the physical form depends on pure chance, and with the course of time the former remains and grows, while the latter very soon fades away. (...) It is true that the sexy woman immediately arouses everyone's attention, while the pure woman takes time to conquer one's interest, because the former is merchandise on display, while the latter is a hidden treasure. But her relationship with the man offends her, because her passion, divorced from her spiritual appeal, becomes selfish and contemptuous. And this is how the conflict begins: to handle the man, this woman only has the accelerator of desire to attract him, and the brake of her resistance to achieve respect. But instead of taming the man, as the pure woman does, she exasperates him, because she becomes for him the most arduous of goods and the most aggressive of evils.
(...) May our women disallow themselves to be seduced by the false ideal of the modern woman, which we already see how it drags society into a pit with no way out. Grace is deceptive, beauty fleeting; “The woman who fears God is to be praised” (Prov. 31 30). (...) It is very difficult for a young girl to cultivate that ideal when she does not see it up close, nor does she feel that anyone appreciates it. But if our young women begin to know true Christian women, strong women, much more feminine and more loved, then they will be encouraged to imitate them. And if we have real women, we will have real men, and there will be families and there will be priests. To restore all things in Christ we must begin with the woman.
(...) The ideal Woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is how Our Lord always calls His Mother in the Gospels: Woman. Imitate the Blessed Virgin, be feminine in her manner [...] "
#CHASTITYANDMARRIAGE
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FORGIVENESS
"[...] The following story was told by a missionary in China; it took place in a Chinese town after a bloody prosecution against Christians. “On the day of the massacre, the missionary said, an entire family of eight people perished , except for the two old men who were absent. After the bloodstorm, when the survivors managed to reach the hut, it was empty. The old grandfather thought he was going crazy. He ran through the streets of the town, with terrified eyes, looking for his friends, children and grandchildren. So great was his shock that he remained nervously trembling until death. The fact that the murderer of his family was one of his former students, especially esteemed with respect to the others, and for whom he had done many favors was driving him crazy, it made the crime seem even more horrendous. Upon learning of the Christians' return, the criminal had fled, considering that the first to find him could do nothing but kill him.
One day, five months after that and when I was in the town, the catechist, guide of the Christians, came to me:
— Father, I have bad news: the murderer asks to be allowed to enter the town, and I can't deny him. We have no right to stop him and, furthermore, we cannot take revenge. Either we are Christians or we are not. I will notify the Christian families and I am sure that everyone will forgive him wholeheartedly. But there is that poor old man, Wang. How to act so that he can bear the blow?
— But, what can i do?...
— You would have to persuade him to forgive, Father.
—What a task awaits me, my friend; Well, I will try.
So I called good Wang and told him: My friend, you have saints in your descendants, and you must be worthy of them.
— What do you mean, Father?
— If your family's murderer returned to town and you met him, what would you do?
— I would pounce on him and jump on his neck.
It was sad to see it. I grabbed him by the hands and said: "You know what we always say, that either we are Christians or we are not... You wouldn't jump on his neck..."
He felt like a sob, he hesitated for a moment, wiped away two tears and said: "Okay, Father, let him come back."
And as I looked at him without saying a word, he added: "Yes, yes, tell him to come back: then he will see if I am a Christian."
In the evening, the Christians were gathered around me, like every afternoon, in the catechist's patio. We talked together drinking tea and smoking huge pipes. It was the best time of the day. But there was a big tension in the air and we didn't have the courage to talk about it. Poor Wang was next to me, trembling and pale. The others were standing around me. The murderer was going to come and everyone knew it.
Suddenly, the circle opens. In the background, under the glow of the lanterns that tremble in the trees of the patio, I see the murderer advance, with his head lowered and his step slow, as if he were carrying the weight of the curses of all those men. He stood before me and fell to his knees, in the midst of a terrifying silence. I had a lump in my throat, and I could barely say the following: —Friend, you see the difference. If we had mutilated your family and you came back here as a victor, what would you do?
We heard first a moan and then there was silence. Old Wang had got up: he leaned tremblingly towards the executioner of his family, lifted him up to his height and embraced him.
Two months later, the murderer came to me: —Father, I didn't understand his religion before, but now I see it clearly. They have truly forgiven me. I am miserable, but could I also become a Christian?
I don't need to tell you what my answer was. Then, he asked me:
— Father, I would like to ask for something impossible. I would like old Wang to be my godfather.
— My friend, I prefer that you ask him yourself.
Some time later, Wang, now without descendants, accepted the murderer of his family as his spiritual son.
It is true that it is always hard to forgive without suffering; But it can be done. [...]
"Therapy of forgiveness" - Fr. Miguel Ángel Fuertes
#FORGIVENESS
"[...] The following story was told by a missionary in China; it took place in a Chinese town after a bloody prosecution against Christians. “On the day of the massacre, the missionary said, an entire family of eight people perished , except for the two old men who were absent. After the bloodstorm, when the survivors managed to reach the hut, it was empty. The old grandfather thought he was going crazy. He ran through the streets of the town, with terrified eyes, looking for his friends, children and grandchildren. So great was his shock that he remained nervously trembling until death. The fact that the murderer of his family was one of his former students, especially esteemed with respect to the others, and for whom he had done many favors was driving him crazy, it made the crime seem even more horrendous. Upon learning of the Christians' return, the criminal had fled, considering that the first to find him could do nothing but kill him.
One day, five months after that and when I was in the town, the catechist, guide of the Christians, came to me:
— Father, I have bad news: the murderer asks to be allowed to enter the town, and I can't deny him. We have no right to stop him and, furthermore, we cannot take revenge. Either we are Christians or we are not. I will notify the Christian families and I am sure that everyone will forgive him wholeheartedly. But there is that poor old man, Wang. How to act so that he can bear the blow?
— But, what can i do?...
— You would have to persuade him to forgive, Father.
—What a task awaits me, my friend; Well, I will try.
So I called good Wang and told him: My friend, you have saints in your descendants, and you must be worthy of them.
— What do you mean, Father?
— If your family's murderer returned to town and you met him, what would you do?
— I would pounce on him and jump on his neck.
It was sad to see it. I grabbed him by the hands and said: "You know what we always say, that either we are Christians or we are not... You wouldn't jump on his neck..."
He felt like a sob, he hesitated for a moment, wiped away two tears and said: "Okay, Father, let him come back."
And as I looked at him without saying a word, he added: "Yes, yes, tell him to come back: then he will see if I am a Christian."
In the evening, the Christians were gathered around me, like every afternoon, in the catechist's patio. We talked together drinking tea and smoking huge pipes. It was the best time of the day. But there was a big tension in the air and we didn't have the courage to talk about it. Poor Wang was next to me, trembling and pale. The others were standing around me. The murderer was going to come and everyone knew it.
Suddenly, the circle opens. In the background, under the glow of the lanterns that tremble in the trees of the patio, I see the murderer advance, with his head lowered and his step slow, as if he were carrying the weight of the curses of all those men. He stood before me and fell to his knees, in the midst of a terrifying silence. I had a lump in my throat, and I could barely say the following: —Friend, you see the difference. If we had mutilated your family and you came back here as a victor, what would you do?
We heard first a moan and then there was silence. Old Wang had got up: he leaned tremblingly towards the executioner of his family, lifted him up to his height and embraced him.
Two months later, the murderer came to me: —Father, I didn't understand his religion before, but now I see it clearly. They have truly forgiven me. I am miserable, but could I also become a Christian?
I don't need to tell you what my answer was. Then, he asked me:
— Father, I would like to ask for something impossible. I would like old Wang to be my godfather.
— My friend, I prefer that you ask him yourself.
Some time later, Wang, now without descendants, accepted the murderer of his family as his spiritual son.
It is true that it is always hard to forgive without suffering; But it can be done. [...]
"Therapy of forgiveness" - Fr. Miguel Ángel Fuertes
#FORGIVENESS
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