I’d love to read a collection of scholarly essays taking up each of the documents of Vatican II and resolving their related theological controversies from a Lonergan view. This would faithfully enhance understanding of VII and template constructive dialectic for its shaping of future church praxis.

It’s a bold judgment but over the last couple years I’ve come to believe Lonergan is the preeminent problem solver of pre-Vatican II tensions. Heaps’ *Ambiguity of Being* is a case in point. A Lonergan view gives a sense of dramatic irony in witnessing tragic arguments over problems already solved.

Insights are “emergent leaps” as Lonergan says.

"*Mystikos* stems from the objective *mysterion* [mystery]. ... 'Mystical' is originally everything that has to do with the divine reality hidden under the forms of the human and worldly in the Bible and liturgy." Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Understanding Christian Mysticism"

“Grace goes before us that we might live a holy life, and it follows us that we might live with God forever; now it goes before us to call us, then it follows us to glorify us.” - Lonergan quoting Augustine in *Grace and Freedom* his study of Thomas’ theology of grace

This paper accords with Lonergan’s cognitional theory and suggests a common phylogenetic inheritance for a pervasive metacognitive error. Monkeys, like humans, are susceptible to the bias that knowing is “taking a good look” rather than resulting from a dynamic and iterative process of inquiry.

If you like poems about angels this one by James Merrill is fun: www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

“To become fully involved you have to be extremely detached.” - Lonergan

If we really want to do honour to our name as followers of Christ, then let us not be afraid to transform into life and blood, into truth and history, this doctrine that comes from the pages of the Gospels —St Oscar Romero, June 1978 #StOscarRomero

Balthasar and Lonergan are the yin and the yang of Fr. Doran’s two ways of being conscious. ☯️

Pope to Jesuit Colleges and Universities: “Your institutions are called not only to teach your students about the injustices faced by those on the margins of society, but also to be powerful channels in promoting systemic change through proposing new models rooted in solidarity and the common good.”

Lonergan thinks like a physicist. I read “Natural right and historical mindedness” with this Q&A lingering in memory. There Lonergan seeks understanding of cultural and social differentiation in human history (a variable) through contrast with the iterating fixed base of authentic

Augustine, Sermo 293 Ioánnes vox ad tempus, Christus Verbum in princípio ætérnum. Juan era una voz pasajera para un tiempo; Cristo el Verbo eterno desde el principio. John is a passing voice for a time; Christ, the Word eternal from the beginning.

“[L]ike the poor of the gospel, the obscurantist, the obtuse, and the merely routine mind may be expected always to be with us. But however exasperating such minds may be in the short run, in the long run they are negligible;

This is a mind-bending conversation that helped me understand Einstein, spacetime, and how Lonergan recounts a brief history of development in modern physics to evoke invariant features of the cognitive process. substack.com/@johnkrambuh...

“As natural forms evolve in accord with schedules of probabilities, so too man’s grasp of natural forms & of their evolution develops in accord with the probabilities of new discoveries. What is scientific method? It’s what makes further discoveries probable. It can’t make them certain.” B. Lonergan

I think John Henry Newman says more than once that if the development of ideas were linear, they could be anticipated. (Or it’s Lonergan’s reading of Newman.) But it’s not, so you have to know the history of doctrine instead.

Pope tells Vacation Bible Camp at Vatican: “Phones are a kind of addiction that, on purpose, put in the programs, the apps. They try to make us dependent on this technology. Many times, therefore, it would help a lot to set limits, to say: ‘After a certain time I don't look at my phone anymore.’”

Best Father’s Day gift ever! ⚾️

Folks at @commonwealmagazine.org created discussion questions for my February article on Bernard Lonergan’s philosophy & theology of history. If you want to use it in your classroom or elsewhere, reach out & I’d be glad to join yr crew virtually if I can: www.commonwealmagazine.org/sites/defaul...

I enjoyed researching Lonergan’s personal and intellectual development and letting it frame *Insight* as intensely focused on redemption and progress in human history. And there’s a poem by @catholickungfu.bsky.social embedded within! Thank you Anne!! open.substack.com/pub/johnkram...

Sacred Heart of Jesus, 12 June (Carmel Scotland)

The Sacred Heart is not a closed door - it’s Christ’s open heart. In a world quick to exclude, Jesus gathers the wounded, the searching, the different, and says: you are loved, you belong, you are mine. ❤️‍🔥 #SacredHeart Image credit IG @gusdaguerreilustraciones

Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart! My favorite depiction is probably this composition by Maurice Denis, which he painted a number of times.

“Come to me… I will give you rest… for I am meek and humble of heart… you will find rest” - Mt 11 Surprisingly, our restlessness, of heart, of mind, is a privileged entry into contemplative relationship with Jesus. (I learned this from a beautiful spiritual nun.)

Lonergan is a sneaky kind of funny. I found this part of Insight where he explains that metaphysics is general, and so can’t tell you everything, and ALSO… a lot like knowing thermodynamics won’t make you warm, so knowing metaphysics won’t make you experience things. (subtext: duh, you fools)

We who are from different countries, different races, and different categories are like those grains of wheat — gathered together in our faith, moulded by love and hope, united by Christ in the Eucharist —St Oscar Romero, Corpus Christi 1978 #StOscarRomero

“I once gave a talk to psychiatrists at Halifax General Hospital and at the end of the talk one of the doctors said to me, ‘Our patients have all kinds of insights; the trouble is they're wrong!' Well that is the basis of the distinction between essence and existence. They have hold of an essence,

“A completely genuine development of the thought of St. Thomas will command in all the universities of the modern world the same admiration and respect that St. Thomas himself commanded in the medieval University of Paris.“ – Lonergan, *Verbum* p. 227

God shows himself while in the act of saving us. The saving is by the love of the Spirit poured into our hearts, gift of the Father and of the Son; In this love we know the Son who by becoming man, dying and rising, shows us his love for the Father, and the Father’s love for us.

True worship of God must be worship that incarnates the awe, the love, the adoration, the faith in absolute transcendence and in the historical moment we are now living —St Oscar Romero, Trinity Sunday 1978 #StOscarRomero

“…Mary’s constant yes to God and Gods plan, and at the same time her no to injustice… no to the sin of indifference which makes victims of others. Mary, the perfect figure and expression of the faithful people, the handmaid of the Lord, is also a prophetic woman who takes on God’s word

“…the critical problem… is not a problem of moving from within outward, of moving from a subject to an object outside the subject. It is a problem of moving from above downwards, of moving from an infinite potentiality commensurate with the universe towards a rational apprehension that seizes

Dr. Taylor Nutter offers incisive critiques of picture thinking, Kant’s project, and determinism while articulating a pedagogical key to unlocking *Insight*. open.substack.com/pub/johnkram...

“Schools are not called to follow the pace of the digital world, but to offer that which the digital sphere by itself cannot provide, namely a shared time for learning and developing trustworthy relationships.” #MagnificaHumanitas 147

You made today a special day just by being you. There’s no one else in the whole world just like you and people can like you just the way you are.

“…consciousness is like a polyphony, or like a concerto that blends many themes in endless ways… religious experience within consciousness may be a leading voice or a middle one or a low one; it may be dominant and ever recurrent; it may be intermittently audible…” – Lonergan

Ps 73,16-17 Et cogitábam, ut cognóscerem hoc; labor erat in óculis meis, donec intrávi in sanctuárium Dei I strove to fathom this problem, too hard for my mind to understand, until I entered the holy place of God,

Power is a vital value. Power is necessary for survival and flourishing. If power is to be credible, it must be sourced in Divine Love. This sourcing inspires the personal authenticity of authorities, the cultural progress of civilizations, and the social collaboration of communities.

“School is the place where new generations can learn to seek and love the truth, to reflect on the meaning of life and to recognize the dignity of every person… A genuinely healthy attitude is needed, requiring rhythms that incorporate silence, in-depth study, reading and judicious analysis,

Dr Lushombo is one of the brilliant scholars in the *Insight* reading group organized by the BC Lonergan Institute and expertly led by Dr Taylor Nutter. Our faces were shining as we discussed Chapter 11: The Self-Affirmation of the Knower.

Vetera novis augere et perficere

I’m re-reading *Insight* with a group of very brilliant scholars and scientists and our faces were shining while discussing Chapter 11: The Self-Affirmation of the Knower. “I am a knower.” In context this concrete judgment is an emergent leap that feels like a miracle instilling human dignity.

My hunch is that the drama of 21st century education will turn on a shift from institutions designed to foster theoretical meaning making to those that bring forth interiority in people and culture.

📖 Looking to learn more about the inspiring life and groundbreaking work of Elinor Ostrom? My book, The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom, is on sale! She was the 1st woman to win the Nobel Prize in economics for her work on collaborative environmental governance. It's an easy intro to her work.

The main theological sources for Doran’s *TDH* are Lonergan’s cognitional theory and scale of values, Balthasar’s aesthetic and dramatic theory, and the concrete preferential option for the poor of liberation theology. Now, if you had a Lonerganian, a Balthasarian, and a Liberation Theologian

I got to visit Falling Water last week, inside and out one of the most pure aesthetic experiences I’ve had in recent memory. Organic Architecture!

The true force of Christianity: love —St Oscar Romero, 6th Sunday of Easter (A), 1978 #StOscarRomero

The subtle mirth on Jesus’ face this moment right before he disappears 🤗

I experience this too, being moved to interiority and transcendence through encounters with Lonergan’s texts and with the Lonergan community.