Ave Maria!

Watch this video by Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, FI, STD as he gives a short biography of Mother Mary of Agreda and how her Marian theology, which is so often portrayed as being opposed to Vatican II, is actually very much in line with it, anticipating the Council by 300 years.

Fr. Peter highlights a new book on this subject, Venerable Mother Agreda and the Mariology of Vatican II by Enrique Llamas, OCD, STD of the International Pontifical Marian Academy, which has been published by the Academy of the Immaculate. A heated discussion on this topic is being carried on at Mark Shea’s blog under the post “… skeptical that … ‘Mary suffered no birth pains'”. A comment by Sandra Miesel of Crisis Magazine about halfway down the comment stack started it off.

PDF samples of our new book are available online: the Table of Contents and Foreward (pp i-xii)

English translations of Mother Mary of Agreda’s works can be purchased from Tan Books.

Ave Maria!

The post Video – Golden Thread #2 – Ven. Maria of Agreda and Vatican II first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Ave Maria!

Using the ever-present highway signs, “Buckle-up, Its The Law,” Fr. Peter Fehlner, F.I. springs into the subject of obligation and freedom according to the teaching of Bl. John Duns Scotus. These signs demonstrate the paradox that the more independent we get from God, the more arbitrary law becomes, the more buckling-up we must do and so the very freedom we seek is lost and along with it our very personhood. Freedom, in the sense of autonomy from God, is not what makes us true persons, but rather love, and love is never more pure than when loving God. And loving God involves being thankful to God for creating us and redeeming us on the Cross. Using the old version of “thank you,” which is, “much obliged,” he makes the connection between love and obligation and thus between obligation and being a true person.

He covers law, obligation, freedom, secularity, communes, license, conscience, synderisis, pragmatism, the difference between contentment and happiness. Whew! all in less than ten minutes. So buckle-up! You’ll need it with this one…

Ave Maria!

The post Video – Fr. Peter – The Golden Thread #4: Obligation, Freedom and Being a true Person first appeared on AirMaria.com.

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FRANCISCANS OF THE IMMACULATE, IN ASSOCIATION WITH A DAY WITH MARY

From an article by Charles Balic, OFM, written in 1966 to commemorate the seventh centenary of the birth of blessed John Duns Scotus

A disputed question…

Under the above heading, The Berwickshire News of Tuesday 12 April, 1966, printed a letter to the editor in which it was stated that we are still uncertain about the exact birthplace of the great British philosopher and theologian, John Duns Scotus…

It is not necessary to point out that in the field of history one cannot always expect to have obvious evidence leading to a kind of mathematical certainty. Often we must be content with arguments which afford moral certitude or give such a degree of probability as to exclude any other hypothesis. Now it seems to me quite certain that the documents and the historical arguments which we possess lead us with certainty to the conclusion that the town of Duns in Scotland was the birthplace of the Subtle Doctor, John Duns Scotus.

An Irishman, or an Englishman perhaps?

Two monographs on Duns Scotus appeared at the end of the second decade of this century, one by P?re Alexandre Bertoni, O.F.M., and the other by Padre Egidio Maria Giusto, O.F.M., and both mentioned the attempts to make our Doctor either an Irishman or an Englishman. The former wrote: ?Ceux qui veulent faire du Subtil Docteur un anglais, ont contre eux le terrible argument du nom Scotus, qui les repousse et les met hors de combat?; and the other writer supports him: ?Giacch? risulta da un lato che i coevi fanno del nostro Giovanni Duns Scoto uno Scozzese, e che dall’altro lato il suo nome Scotus significa per i contemporanei come per noi Scozzese, ogni critico imparziale dovr? perentoriamente risolvere la controversia in favore della Scozia.?

John, son of Scotland!

Ever since the fourteenth century the voice of the manuscripts says clearly that Duns Scotus belongs to Scotland. It suffices to glance at the description of the codices in the first volume of the Vatican edition of the works of Scotus. Thus, for example, in the Padua codex we read at the beginning: ?Summa about the first book of the Sentences, by Master John Dinus (!) of Scotland,? and afterwards: ?Summa of questions on the second book .of the Sentences, edited by the Reverend Master John of Scoland.? In the Cesena codex, in the lament for the death of Scotus, we read: ?Mourn, 0 Scotland, for thy uncommon glory has perished,? and the same poem is found in a more extensive form in the very ancient codex B.I. of Canterbury Cathedral Library, where Scotus is called plainly ?John, son of Scotland.? The immediate followers of Scotus also affirm in their writings that the Subtle Doctor is ?a Scot by nationality.?

An objection answered…

Whatever the names may have meant in earlier centuries, we find that at the time of our Doctor the names Scotland and Ireland were quite distinct in meaning. This appears from various documents, among which is the famous scroll of the year 1303 in which we read the names of the Franciscans who refused to sign the petition of King Philip the Fair against Pope Boniface VIII.

In this document, side by side with our Doctor, who is named ?Friar John, Scot,? we find ?Friar Richard, Irish,? ?Friar Odo, Irish,? and ?Friar Thomas, English.?

Duns Scotus himself clearly distinguishes Scotland from Ireland when he writes: ?The seas flow more rapidly the nearer they are to the ocean, like the northern seas, especially the sea between Norway and Scotland, and between Ireland and Spain.? Since the term Scotia minor, at the time of Duns Scotus, no longer distinguished Scotland from Ireland (Scotia maior), but Scotia simply meant what we call Scotland today, and since the earliest documents agree that John was born ?in Scotia,? it follows that we must seek his birthplace in that country, and not elsewhere.

If Scottish, where in Scotland?

Writing in 1921, and arguing from the fact that ?if the Subtle Doctor had been born in Ireland and not in Scotland, he could in no wise have been called Scotus,? Father Giusto suggested that the birthplace was ?the little town of Duns, not far from Berwick?, which had been destroyed in 1545. This opinion prevailed until, in 1929 and 1931, the Franciscan Fathers Longpr? and Callebaut drew attention to the writings of Marianus Brockie preserved at St. Mary’s College, Blairs, and thus orientated opinion in favour of the birth of Scotus in the estate of Littledean, at Maxton, in the county of Roxburghshire. But even before Reverend Henry Docherty
published his study entitled The Brockie Forgeries, Brockie’s evidence was not altogether convincing. Only once before his time had it been asserted that John was ?from Littledean,? whereas it was stated constantly from the first half of the fourteenth century that he was a native of Duns. Among the more important sources the first place belongs to codex 137 of the Municipal Library of Assisi, a manuscript which preserves the mediaeval critical edition of the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus, compiled about 1325 and based on the text corrected by Scotus in his own hand. Here we find the first book on the Sentences ?of Friar John of Duns, a Scot, of the Order of Friars Minor.?

In the Vatican manuscript (cod. lat. 876) of the fourteenth century, after the significant lines: ?Ioannes hic Scotorum, in scholis profecit Anglorum, in Ordine Minorum, fuit doctor Parisiorum,? we meet a valuable witness in the person of John’s own companion or secretary, who writes: ?Additions to the second book of Master John of Duns, the Subtle Doctor, extracted by Master William of Alnwick….? Numerous other codices of the fourteenth century make our Doctor a native of Duns?, to say nothing of the many codices of the fifteenth century which not only assert plainly that our Doctor was ?Scottish by nationality,? but also that he is called John Scotus, ?also known as John of Duns.? ?

John Dunensis? Perhaps not…

In the face of these early and unequivocal testimonies there seems no reason to engage in speculation and to propose hypotheses about other possible places where Duns Scotus might have been born, whether in Ireland or in England, on the plea that the Celtic particle dun appears in their place names. Thus Luke Wadding asserts that Scotus was born in Dun, an ancient city in the north of Ireland, and that Duns is only a contracted form of the adjective Dunensis or Dunius. Similarly Father Bertoni affirms that John was born at ?Downs, in the province of Ulster?.? Thomas Dempster is very annoyed with the Irish who assert that ?Duns is a contracted form of Dunensis, but do not produce any codex where that contraction can be found.?

John of Dunstan, a fellow of Merton College, Oxford?

There is no confirmation of the late evidence offered by the codices of the Bodleian and of Balliol College, written by Reynbold of Zierenberg in 1451 and 1460, namely that John Duns was born ?in a little village called Dunstan, in the parish of Emyldon, in the county of Northumberland, (a parish) belonging to Merton College in Oxford, and he was formerly a fellow of the same College.? Furthermore, there is no evidence whatever that Scotus was ever a fellow of Merton.

The 59 varieties of ?Duns?!

The fact remains that in all the earlier documents the Subtle Doctor is said to be ?of Duns,? of ?Dinis,? ?Dons,? ?Dunz,? or ?Duncz.? In one fourteenth century manuscript preserved at Oxford we find the two names ?Dons? and ?Douns? used in the same manuscript; and in the fifteenth century codex 525 of the Biblioth?que de l?Arsenal of Paris we read: ?John of Downs, Scottish by nationality.?

These variations, however, are not contractions of Dunstan or Dun, but simply different ways of writing the same word, Duns, as always happened with the names of persons or places.

Thomas Dempster proved himself a stout defender of the Scottish origin of Duns Scotus: ?There is as much discussion about his birthplace,? he said, ?as about Homer’s?. Wadding enlarged on this: ?The Irish, the English, and the Scots dispute about his fatherland; for the glory of so great a man makes each of these provinces eager to claim him as their own, just as the Greek cities of old fought bitterly about the birthplace of Homer.? After all his efforts to prove Duns Scotus to be an Irishman, the celebrated historian concluded that the matter was far from certain, and he ends with the na?ve plea that Scotus belongs to Ireland because neither the English nor the Scots have exerted themselves or made such sacrifices for his glory: ?If reward is due to merit, and recompense to labour, then Scotus can be awarded to nobody but to the Irish.? …

United in honouring a great saint…

I cherish the hope that the three countries which for centuries contested the claim to be Scotus’ native land will come together on the seventeenth of September [1966] in Duns, around the monument to be erected in his honour, with the inscription:

?Scotia habet cunas, famam Orbis,
funera Rhenus,
Caelum animam,
hic magni spirat
imago viri.?

?Scotland has his cradle,
the World his fame,
the Rhine his burial,
Heaven has his soul,
the figure of this great man
breathes here.?

For Information on The Symposium on the Mariology Duns Scotus in honor of the 700th Centenary of Scotus’ Death.

In England:
Symposium Secretariat
15 Carlton Crescent
Surrey SM3 9TS
England UK
Phone: 020 8641 6418
E-mail: trevor.symposium@talktalk.net

Ave Maria!

The post Where was Duns Scotus Born? first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Conferences #99 – Fr. Peter on Scotus and the Heart ( 20min) >>> Play

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Newman-Scotus Symposium – What is meant by Heart in Scotus, Bonaventure and the Franciscan tradition? Fr. Peter answers this question. Heart in Augustine really means the essence of a person. And this is used very similarly in Bonaventure in the Itinerarium with the interiorization. Father goes into considerable detail outlining the use of the world by Augustine, Bonaventure, Francis de Sales, Aquinas, and generally in the Franciscan school. He points out that the Franciscans make a strong distinction between doctrine and spirituality. St.Margaret Mary Alaquoqe, St. John Eudes, Two Hearts and Sacred Hearts which is related to the Church which is from Duns Scotus. He relates this to Scotus’ teaching of the absolute primacy of Christ. The devotion to the hearts of Jesus and Mary popularizes the scotistic teaching.

Ave Maria!

For more of this Symposium http://dev.airmaria.com/category/air-maria-shows/conferences/newman-scotus-symp-2010/

For the book that is the final fruit of this Symposium: https://academyoftheimmaculate.com/products/the-newman-scotus-reader-contexts-and-commonalities

Audio (MP3)

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The post Video – Conferences #99: Scotus Newman – Panel 1- Q2 – What is meant by Heart in Scotus first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Conferences #104 – Dr. Timothy Noone ( 49min) >>> Play

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Lecture 5 of the Newman-Scotus Symposium is by Dr. Noone: Bl. Duns Scotus and Bl. John Newman on Knowledge, Assent, and Faith

Dr. Noone basis his lecture on Scotus’ Tenet Philosphi Perfectionem Naturae addressing the need for natural and supernatural knowledge in faith and the place for each. Scotus teaches that natural intellect can come to some knowledge of God but cannot come to certainty that God is truly Triune and that we are destined to enjoy the beatific vision of Him.  A person can however at least understand what these concepts are saying.

Scotus deals with Philosophers pointing out the limits of their reasoning and conclusions and to use persuasion to show the continuity of the different elements of faith and so demonstrate its credibility. Some consider Scotus to be skeptical on this point but he is simply exhibiting his concern to maintain the distinction and coherence between reason and faith.

Newmanesque Intimations – Acquired natural faith is when we believe others on a natural level like the fact that Rome exists even if we have never seen it. This relates to Newman’s arguments that we accept that England is an island even without rowing around it, also, similarly argued by Augustine.

Dr. Noone then covers Scotus’ teaching on infused faith, how we believe with certainty, experiencing the higher forms of assent. He first outlines other forms of knowledge showing how complete Scotus’ analysis typically is. He then covers many points of comparison and contrast between Scotus and Newman.

Q and A

Fr Ed points out for reflection, if no universities start any earlier than Kant for philosophy and leave out Medieval Philosophyentirely, then how can we prepare our seminarians for ministry? And there are other interesting questions as well.

Ave Maria!

For more of this Symposium http://dev.airmaria.com/category/air-maria-shows/conferences/newman-scotus-symp-2010/

For the book that is the final fruit of this Symposium: https://academyoftheimmaculate.com/products/the-newman-scotus-reader-contexts-and-commonalities

Audio (MP3)

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The post Video – Conferences #104: Scotus Newman – Dr. Noone – Knowledge, Assent, and Faith first appeared on AirMaria.com.

Variety #173 – statue of Blessed John Duns Scotus in Cassino, Italy ( 7min) >>> Play

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In honor of the feast of one of the patrons of our FI house of studies (S.T.I.M.) here in Italy, we present this video of the Holy Mass celebrated in 2010 in Rome in the extraordinary form, with our co-founder Father Gabriele.  It’s a mixture of highlights and music from the Mass, as well as some thoughts from our blessed scholastic philosopher/theologian, who died in 1308.  The text is in both Italian and English.

Ave Maria!

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The post Video – Variety #173: Feast of John Duns Scotus Mass in Rome first appeared on AirMaria.com.