Recent Posts

Sunday 7 September 2014

As usual, a wonderful talk from Father Ripperger

http://www.sensustraditionis.org/webaudio/Impediments/Impediments.mp3

Do not forget to say a decade of the rosary for him after listening.

Father mentions in this talk an aspect of temperance, and the discipline of only knowing and finding out what one needs to know. I did not know he had included that in his talk when I began listening.

This aspect of temperance is called studiosity or studiousness. As I have noted in the posts on homeschooling, all people, even when young children, have a natural desire to learn. This gets ruined by our sin and other people's sins against us, like bad, nonspiritual teachers. or neglect. But, as adults, we have a responsibility to learn our faith, as I have written on this blog many, many times and which is why I continue the blog.

If our lives are too comfortable and if we seek pleasure more than knowledge, we create a dull intellect. I am reading Fr. Ripperger's book and he refers to dullness.

We are morally responsible for the deadening of our intellect. This can happen with the use of drugs, the abuse of alcohol or enjoying trivia too much. See my posts on entertainment.

It is also possible for our natural desire for the truth to be dulled because of a life of comfort, a real problem in Western culture. Decadence is much more prevalent in rich societies than poor ones. This concept of studiosity is from Thomas Aquinas and noted by one of my favorite authors I have taught, Josef Pieper. There are many good commentaries on Pieper online like this one.

The book of Ripperger is not only the work of a genius, but intense reading. Listening to his talks is good preparation for the book.