Facebook's calling?

So I keep getting posts on the sidebar in my Facebook account that are pretty much asking me to become a monk of some sort. While it is a desirable state in life (I'll be writing about the Carthusians soon, hopefully, if God permits), I find it amusing that Facebook is trying to advertise, my usage of it through calling me to abandon it. Amusing. That's probably not amusing to you all, but it is to me.

Revelations 22:1-2, The River of Living Water that flows from the Lamb and God’s Throne

Catholic Nick over at his webpage has stumbled on to a very interesting phrase in Scripture that may point towards a Scriptural affirmation of the Filioque clause in Latin theology. The Filioque refers to a phrase inserted into the Constantinopolitan-Nicene Creed in the Latin West during the Middle Ages to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father AND the Son. It is a difficult theological question and deals with the theology of the Trinity. There is another very good reference and explanation of this in a Catholic website as well.

Fr. Cantalamesa's Good Friday homily: "I died, and behold I AM alive forever more"

“I DIED, AND BEHOLD I AM ALIVE FOR EVERMORE”

(Revelation 1:18)

Homily of Good Friday 2012 in Saint Peter’s Basilica

St. Ambrose on the Eucharist, Preliminary Look

Today’s post is written on this Holy Thursday, the day by which the Lord instituted the Eucharist, the offering of Himself in the appearances of bread and wine for our sake and goodness, that He and His offering might be in us and renew us. I would like to post a brief posting on St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who converted St. Augustine into Catholicism. St. Ambrose has quite a few things to say regarding the Eucharist, and is certainly more to the point than St. Augustine’s multifaceted perception of the Sacrament. St. Augustine does call Holy Communion the sacrifice, but his view of the Body and Blood of the Lord involves not only a consideration of Christ and the Gospel, but also His Body the Church and the elect. It would require me much time to consider St. Augustine’s doctrine of the Eucharist, as would it too to fully consider St. Ambrose’s addressing of the Most Holy Sacrament, but here I provide a snippet from other more worthy websites.

An Outline of “Miscellany of Questions in Response to St. Simplicianus”: The early Augustinian doctrine on Grace and Law (Question 1 of 2)

Not very much is known to us regarding St. Simplicianus other than what is told to us through the mouth of St. Augustine and other contemporaries. His importance to the Church and to history have mainly regarded his influence on Sts. Ambrose and Augustine, as well as the conversion of famed philosopher Marius Victorinus, as well as his own bishopric in Milan, succeeding St. Ambrose. Having said this, St. Simplicianus is a saint, who’s feast day is on August 14th in the Ambrosian rite and August 16th, sometimes 14th or 13th, but never the 15th as it once was since the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is celebrated on this day. St. Simplicianus is thought to have been born around 320 AD, and died around 400 AD or 401 AD, of which he spent from 396 or 397 AD to his death as the successor of St. Ambrose as bishop of Milan. I won’t go much farther into the biographical details of St. Simplicianus, which can be found in the Confessions of St. Augustine or otherwise online.

[To go to the summary of this long post and the post that goes along with this post, go here:

Summary]

It was during his ascension to the bishopric of Milan (around the same time as St. Augustine’s rise to the bishopric of Hippo) that he asked St. Augustine a variety of questions regarding difficulties in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and difficulties in the Old Testament references used in St. Paul’s Epistle or otherwise. We will consider then in this article the two questions dealt with by St. Augustine regarding the Epistle to the Romans. Specifically the questions were: