Patrimony

We deny to claim "any Superiority to ourself
to defyne, decyde, or determyn any Article or Poynt
of the Christian Fayth and Relligion,
or to chang any Ancient Ceremony of the Church
from the Forme before received and observed
by the Catholick and Apostolick Church."

Norman Simplicity

Norman Simplicity
Click image for original | © Vitrearum (Allan Barton)

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Towards the "Collegium Novum"

From Inscrutable Being:

Though this dream was never realised, the ancient ideal of the college holds a strong appeal in today's ever-shifting world where intellectual breathing room, peaceful engagement with meaningful study, and space for genuine devotion are ever pressed to the margin of life. Particularly in the realm of theological education, the quest for truth and its exercise in the context of the ordinary and the routine has been supplanted by perpetual motion. Activities, exercises, placements, and work-experience have supplanted the slow, methodical, engaged manner which is the ideal both of the monastery and the academy ...

The model of the college, posited on the small scale at Wellingborough, seems a thoroughly excellent way of remedying the defects of hyperactivity and lack of perspective detailed above ... The structure of learning must harmonise with what is learned ...

It must be said that much of what is proposed here rubs against the grain of contemporary society; it is neither inclusive nor non-judgmental, at least not as those much-abused terms are commonly understood. Yet it must be recognised that, just as to include all is to relativise, to lack judgment is to open oneself to sloth and arrogance. Each of us knows in our hearts that not all of mankind's efforts are equally representative of the best to which the race can attain, nor are those strivings after perfect truth, beauty, and goodness, weak though they be, all of the same attainment. If any human activity is to be a gain rather than a loss, it must discriminate; it must judge between the good and the bad, the inferior, the mediocre, and the best.

The hacienda must be built.

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