Reading in Exile

This past weekend I attended a silent retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, led by a priest and a brother from the order Miles Christi . It was an extraordinary experience (though, not having been on a retreat for 11 years, I have little to compare it to), and I strongly encourage all of you to go on a retreat like this, if you have the opportunity. You can see when and where the Miles Christi priests are preaching these retreats all over the country here . I'm very grateful to my wife and my cousin who each recommended that I go on this retreat. I hope that it has made a real difference in my life of prayer and seeking virtue. I wanted to share some thoughts after this retreat. The Spiritual Exercises are a series of meditations based around the life of Our Lord. But their aim, at least as they were preached this last weekend, is to evoke acts and affections of repentance and resolution to reform one's life. Too often I, at least, think about re...

The Western Catholic intellectual tradition is built as it were in layers of texts, with one writer commenting upon another, and then further writers commenting upon that one. Consider, for example, the following chain of commentaries: the Neo-Platonic philosopher Porphyry wrote his Isagoge , which was a commentary on and introduction to parts of Aristotle's logical texts (his Organon ); St. Boethius, in turn, wrote a commentary on the Isagoge , as well as on parts of Aristotle's Organon e.g. the Categories and the De interpretatione . Peter Abelard also wrote a commentary on the Isagoge as well as on various parts of the Organon , but his Isagoge commentary is in large part a commentary on Boethius' commentary on the Isagoge . Abelard in turn influenced later commentators on these logical works. To "comment" is to engage in a paradigmatically traditionary actitivty. It is not merely to merely explain the meaning of the text on which one is commenting. Rather, i...