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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 7m

Barron's schtick (for example) is that anything about the poor or society is all a "moral derivative of the Gospel," so I've been going hard on JP2's "not simply charity, it's a page of Christology." Leo's "not mere kindness, but encountering the Lord of history" will make it a nice pair.

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 36m

It seems like no. 5 is a beautiful new rendition of NMI 49

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 1h

Dilexit Te no. 5 is a new NMI 49, and I’m loving it

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 15h

And in between the two, I was asked to lightly adapt one of my (not-online) writings about "God the Most Vulnerable" for a peer-reviewed journal. Still working on this—but feeling encouraged today!

(The not-online piece is in a similar vein to this: contemplativeinthemud.com/2024/02/01/g... )

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 15h

Last month, Bishop Hansen CSsR up in the NWT contacted me about my work on First Nations governance values & methods and what we make of synodality:
contemplativeinthemud.com/2024/10/22/d...

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 15h

I'm feeling pretty grateful today. An LDS guy just wrote a note of appreciation that makes it seem like I'm doing something right.
(re: contemplativeinthemud.com/2024/09/30/l... )

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 22h

It's such a noteworthy project. For me it's healing to hear people actually talk about this. There is so much silence.

Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 1d

“It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” — Walter Brueggemann

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 2d

“There are others who... are so confident in their own cleverness that they ignore [others'] comments... and rely on their own exegesis. ... They are like people who imagine that bells they hear chiming are saying whatever they themselves happen to be thinking of.” — Humbert of Romans

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 2d

“Knowledge attained in prayer exceeds that attained through our own reasoning and conjectures.” — St. John of Ávila

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 3d

I’ll place it on my mental list of recommendations, next to

“Ditto for the hysteria.” – Robert Barron

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 3d

To be clear, Mi'kmaw and Peskotomuhkati-Wolastoqey are two different languages. But as a New Brunswicker with a heart for reconciliation, I'm glad that the latter (presumably) is being taught in the Passamaquoddy area.

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 3d

One of the short quotes that, in a formative period, made the greatest impression on me; I was introduced to through Jacques and Raïssa Maritain:

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Reposted by Ben (Contemplative in the Mud)

Henri Nouwen @henrinouwen.bsky.social · 4d

"The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity and held safe in an everlasting embrace."

Book Name: The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 4d

Also just remarkable how much he apparently talked about Clare... on Francis' feast day (it usually, of course, going the other way around with Francis and Clare, Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal, etc.).

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Reposted by Ben (Contemplative in the Mud)

Da Pope @deepdishpapa.bsky.social · 5d

Only a contemplative gaze can change our relationship with creation and bring us out of the ecological crisis brought on by the breakdown of our relationship with God, with our neighbors, and with the earth that is the effect of sin. #SeasonOfCreation

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 5d

It's been so long since I've read Jane Austen, but I love Jane Austen!

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 5d

I think the importance of angelology is in part that it’s so often a battlefield over this-worldly ideology (cf. Barron, 2025).

Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · May 2

But in Barron’s case it’s so crass and transparent. His main premise for arguing to love some ppl more than others, is that God loves the angels more than us. This only works if love is correlated to nature and status. 10/

Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 5d

I’m not saying this feast 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 exist; I’m just dreaming that it might.

Dreaming Between the Feasts of the Guardian Angels and St. Francis

I found myself—it’s weird, I don’t recall how—in a church during Mass. It was today. But it also wasn’t today. Something was very different. I wasn’t sure if the technologies around me were far bey…

contemplativeinthemud.com

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 6d

“The angels who minister to God see God in humanity.” — St. Hildegard of Bingen

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Reposted by Ben (Contemplative in the Mud)

Angela @inspiredangela.bsky.social · 7d

Pope Leo XIV is calling for what the Judeo Christian Scriptures have called us to since ancient times; repentance and conversion.

It is political and ideological warfare that have attempted to rip apart the concept of holiness from ecology. In the beginning, it was not so.

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 7d

Although I've never seen the Sisters of the Little Way make the connection explicitly, there's a little-known story in Thérèse's life that makes her an appropriate patron of their projects:

Thérèse of Lisieux Against Abuse, Before and After Death

The reason for this brief post is that, in my own life, I have recently run into a situation which seems to use Thérèse’s teaching in a way that would call into question her deep concern for abuse …

contemplativeinthemud.com

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 7d

I don't listen to many podcasts (I quite dislike formats other than text), but for the Sisters of the Little Way, I'll make an exception.

First installment of an audio documentary on boundary violations and spiritual abuse in Catholic settings:

I: Sacred Trust Shattered

Listen now | What happens when a spiritual leader you trust turns out to be someone very different than you believed?

www.sistersofthelittleway.com

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 7d

“Contemplation depends on a spirituality of poverty; that is one way of interpreting what it means to be poor in spirit, knowing how to live with the spirit of poverty and identifying with the cause of the poor, understood as God’s cause.” — Ignacio Ellacuría

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Ben (Contemplative in the Mud) @contemplativeinthemud.com · 7d

I've used this sometimes when the lesson affords it, and I think it's both fun and effective
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_...

Jigsaw (teaching technique) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org