"Tumor of Solipsistic Attention Entitlement" is the best song Alanis Morrisette ever wrote.

I don't think that's what development means, but that is probably a larger conversation than we can have constructively on this platform. Thanks for the engagement though. Blessed Advent to you.

At least, regarding priesthood.

Well, as I point out to my students, you can take or leave the theology there, though I think there's enough there to be compelling. But the more definitive answer, which is less satisfying but historically undeniable, is that we simply don't have the power to change what Jesus did.

There is development in the understanding of all the Sacraments, and of Sacraments in general. But my point is that this idea of mapping marriage onto salvation and the Sacraments is not novel or ideological. It is deeply rooted in Scripture and Tradition.

How so?

It is the same Sacrament, but that doesn't mean the orders are interchangeable. The fact of receiving one does not necessitate openness to receiving the others.

Marriage is the only Sacrament that actually gets called a Sacrament in the Bible. Marriage between Christ and His Church is far more than just one metaphor among many. It speaks to the essence of what salvation is.

I don't think "degrees of the same sacrament" is the right way to look at it. They are distinct, though there is a shared basis in priesthood between bishops and priests. But deacons really are their own thing.

I have often been puzzled by this paradox.

Gosh, he was so good in Man in the High Castle.

that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead; we may rise to the life immortal; through the same Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Prayers not only for your patience and perseverance, but for your healing as well.

This right here is why we need tenure.

Mine is whenever there's an "it" without a noun reference, but I'm with you in pedantic solidarity.

So excited, but also so nervous.

A lot of likes on this, which I appreciate, but I'm wondering what you guys would prefer as content? What might be a helpful approach? I'm open to suggestions.

This is basically everything that drives me nuts about American Christianity in one sentence.