Dashed Off VI

defining as different in act than predicating
- definition as act vs definition as object
- definition as act is good or bad, definition as object is true or false

philosophical dialogue as "a living being harmonious in all its parts" (Proclus, In Prm 659)

homily, catechesis, and prayer as the natural modes of theology

the link between friendship and wisdom

Much of what is commonly called 'passion' is really just having a mind and will to the task.

Things that affect imputability always affect possible alternatives, and the two are certainly related. (Ignorance, compulsion, passions, etc.)

interwoven aptitudes for friendship

The human mind will ache for story;
glory is a tale well told.

All material being is to human intellectual activity as knife is to cutting.

Philosophy lures more by showing argument than by arguing.

tradition as a method of testing

matter as the principle of measurability

Nothing can be determined about the 'gratuitousness' of particular goods or evils except in light of all relevant ends.

mimesis as the heart of civilization

A philosophy of discovery requires an account of mind-world union.

(1) teaching by insinuation
     (a) to make implausible the false
         (1) indirectly
         (2) directly
     (b) to make plausible the true
         (1) by exciting to pursuit of wisdom
         (2) by assisting the mind in pursuit of wisdom
(2) teaching by explicit instruction
     (a) through ratiocination
        (1) by resolving effects to causes, conclusions to principles, unknown to known
        (2) by drawing general conclusions from particulars
     (b) through exercise of authority
         (1) of the speaker (magisterial)
         (2) of the wise (traditional)

Mortality of Soul	Immortality of Soul
Metaphysical
a priori possibility of thinking matter	a priori impossibility of thinking matter
analogy to matter	association with abstract truth
parsimony (animals and plants)	gradation of being
problems with pre-existence	problems with dissolubility
Moral
nonadaptation to immortality	adaptation to eternal
a priori impossibility of determining relevant divine intentions	disposition to eternal as part of nature
moral inaptness of immortality wish-fulfillment vulgar souls boredom of immortality	moral aptness of immortality natural desire human dignity immortality as fulfillment
moral nihilism of infinite existence	infinite existence as moral destination
Physical
union of mind and body	universality in understanding
analogy to plants and animals	disanalogy with plants and animals
Logical
unreliability of arguments so far	arbitrariness of cut-off
beyond ordinary life	reasoning of ordinary life

propositional negation as predicate negation (Prior Ana 1.xlvi)

wild quantity & antisymmetry

Ps 50:1 El Elohim YHVH spoke and called it earth.

objectival indifference of intellect -> formal indifference of will -> objectival indifference of will -> formal indifference of intellect

* Everything made is made by another. For a thing that comes to be acquires being; but a thing that makes or produces is supposed to have being. Therefore nothing can make itself.
* Every being is either made or not made; but all beings in totality cannot be made. Therefore some being is not made.
* Everything made is made by another; therefore that other by which it is made is itself made or not. If not made, there is something unmade. If it is also made, it will be necessary for it to be made by another, and so forth. Thus we either stop with an unmade being or proceed to infinity or reason in a circle.
* If something is made by another that has been made by itself, it is at least mediately making itself, which is impossible. Likewise, because existence is supposed in a thing that makes another, if it's made to exist, it is therefore supposed that it has already been made. Therefore we cannot regress circularly.
* It is impossible that the whole collection of beings be dependent in its being and operation. Therefore there must be something independent.
* If every being distributively were dependent and made, the whole would be so, by a collection of dependences.
* Everything made is made by another. Thus everything dependent depends on another. If the whole were dependent it would depend on another. Were the whole dependent it would depend on another. But this is the whole, therefore the whole is not dependent.

the seven Socratic dialogues of Aeschines: Miltiades, Callias, Axiochus, Aspasia, Alcibiades, Jelanges, Rhino

All human goodness occurs within the field laid out by understanding and knowledge.

Passions take their moral quality from the loves of which they are a part.

Note that Timaeus begins with number (eis) and ends with being (on).

the receptacle as the 'imagination' of the universe
(imagination as the receptacle of the human person)

thymos-sublimity and nous-sublimity

romance as built out of clues

Love recognizes the preciousness of little things.

What is not Catholic/Orthodox slides slowly into opposition to Christianity.

superheroes as knights errant

symbolism as part of human identity

corporate exercise of religion & the scope of human intellect

Peirce's faith, hope, and love, & the pragmatic vindication of tradition

"Beauty alone can confer on man a social character." Schiller

Not men who are kings but kings involved in prudential practices (not necessarily their own) are sovereign.

Tradition as the natural witness of the Church.

virtue of faith : Catholic Orthodoxy :: honor of faith : Reformed tradition :: profit of faith : Evangelicalism :: tolerance of faith : Liberal Christianity

traditional unity by diffusion, traditional unity by convergence

Recognizing that human beings act corporately and not just individually is one of the bulwarks of a free society.

equity as making law a humanitarian tradition

First Amendment rights as community-formation rights

dance as communication of character

fiction // sports

prudence as the luck-improving virtue

thymos-sympathy vs. appetite-sympathy vs. reason sympathy

wisdom as the greater part of good fortune

hortatory argument in practical reasoning

the social kingship of Christ as a protection of human dignity

failure conditions as the measure of a constitution

habitus as strategic disposition

the philosopher as Hercules fighting the Hydra

nidus & vector in propagation of thought

holiness, prayer, testimony, almsgiving

One of the genuine benefits of the Reformed tradition was the generalizing of certain basic ascetic practices.

trust as an economy of testimony and profession

The teleological structure of practical reasoning is Socrates' most important principle. Classification of ends is what makes everything an occasion for philosophy.

the necessity of preludial work in the act of persuasion

justice as vindication of law

3 modes of cultivation or formation of conscience:
(1) synousia with the prudent
(2) study of moral philosophy and theology
(3) acting from infused virtue

The purpose of government is in part to make to possible for the people to do great things.

Rights require practical strategies of protection.
constitutions as interwoven strategies of protection for rights

the rhetorical ethos of giving arguments for positions

affinity in the classification of philosophical positions

A fortiori argumetns are modal arguments. Are slippery slope arguments modal as well?

presential witness and traditional witness

education as playful practice in attaining the ends of humanity

sweet vs bitter mortification

Civilization arises out of the interaction and sharing of skills.

'uniformity of nature' as a 'no anomalies' principle for nomological explanation

comfort as fortification

Love seeks natural symbols to express itself, and understanding requires natural expressive symbols to understand love. Love is symbol-making.
symbolism as part of love's unifying work

Private revelations have public value only when they clarify greater movements initiated by the Holy Spirit.

free society as a conversation between makers of law and receivers of law (active and passive legislation)

The canonical context of Scripture and its ecclesial setting are not separable.

Scriptures are the viva vox Dei insofar as they are proclaimed by the Church whose Head is the Son of God and whose Spirit is the Spirit of God.

By genealogies, real or invented, we participate symbolically in traditions.

the mitigating function of law (as opposed to the remedial or the preventative)

the grace-throne of God

A sharp-minded man must mind truth in word and work.

The modern tendency is to oversaturate narrative with the dramatic.

poetry & the use of linguistic analogies to discover new analogies of thing and meaning

ablaut meanings

Many of the confusions about the matter and form of marriage in history were due to the fact that marriage has many levels (office of nature, legal office, symbol, sacrament, etc.).

human bodies as the materia circa quam of the sacrament of matrimony

deliberation as preludial to law
rationales as instruments of law

maximizing charity in intensity, duration, certainty, immediacy, fecundity, purity, and extent as an aim of the Church

Pleasure and pain do not suffice to fulfill the intellect.

"What really makes the difference in education -- not only of the young but of ourselves -- is not so much the precepts one gives others as the way one exemplifies the precepts one would give to another." Plato Laws 729

All visions and views of the afterlife speak to a kind of incompleteness in human life.

the importance of the Old Testament as a way for converts from paganism to understand their relation to Christ and the New Testament

Hope is haven had beforehand.

'the roll, the rise, the carol, the creation'

existence, coexistence, succession, resemblance

the etiology, deontology, and teleology of human action

Events have probabilities only under description, i.e., intentional understanding.

The seeds of usurpation are almost always themselves legal; seizure of power begins to unfold under technicalities.

Emma's Swearing

In Jane Austen's Emma, Emma Woodhouse keeps swearing. Obviously it's not the sort of thing that would normally stand out to us as swearing, since we live in a much more deliberately vulgar society, and it wouldn't even usually be noticed as swearing by us, but it's there nonetheless. (Several of Jane Austen's novels have people using the name of the Lord profanely -- and in American editions this was often censored for New England sensibilities, since in Puritan-heritage New England all of the expressions would have sounded much stronger than they probably sounded to Austen herself. I'm not sure of the history of the American editions of Emma in particular, but I'm sure someone somewhere knows.) It is almost certainly not accidental that Emma swears seven times in Volume III, Chapters 10 and 11. It is perhaps a bit surprising, though, that she's the one almost always doing it throughout the book -- Mr. Elton does it once, and I'm not sure there's any other examples unless you account an occasional "Thank God!" that might be meant to be taken literally.

Volume III, Chapter 4: And secretly she added to herself, "Lord bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I never was equal to this."

Chapter 10: "Break it to me," cried Emma, standing still with terror.—"Good God!—Mr. Weston, tell me at once.—Something has happened in Brunswick Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it is."

Chapter 10: "Your word!—why not your honour!—why not say upon your honour, that it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!—What can be to be broke to me, that does not relate to one of that family?"

Chapter 10: Emma even jumped with surprize;—and, horror-struck, exclaimed, "Jane Fairfax!—Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it?"

Chapter 10: "Good God!" cried Emma, not attending to her.—"Mrs. Smallridge, too! Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself—to suffer her even to think of such a measure!"

Chapter 11: "Harriet!" cried Emma, after a moment's pause—"What do you mean?—Good Heaven! what do you mean?—Mistake you!—Am I to suppose then?—"

Chapter 11: "Good God!" cried Emma, "this has been a most unfortunate—most deplorable mistake!—What is to be done?"

Chapter 11: Harriet was too much agitated to encounter him. "She could not compose herself— Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmed—she had better go;"—with most ready encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through another door—and the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of Emma's feelings: "Oh God! that I had never seen her!"

Chapter 15: "Poor Jane Fairfax!"—thought Emma.—"You have not deserved this. You may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment beyond what you can have merited!—The kindness and protection of Mrs. Elton!—'Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.' Heavens! Let me not suppose that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!—But upon my honour, there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue!"

Chapter 18: "I mean that he has done it," answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but determined decision, "and been accepted." "Good God!" she cried.

Lent XXII

Sometimes, indeed, patent vices are overcome by other and hidden vices, which are reckoned virtues, though pride and a kind of ruinous self-sufficiency are their informing principles. Accordingly vices are then only to be considered overcome when they are conquered by the love of God, which God Himself alone gives, and which He gives only through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a partaker of our mortality that He might make us partakers of His divinity.

Augustine, City of God, Book 21, Chapter 16

Beauty and Sweetness

The sense of beauty may be analysed in a manner very similar to the sense of sweetness. It is an agreeable feeling or emotion, accompanied with an opinion or judgment of some excellence in the object, which is fitted by Nature to produce that feeling.

The feeling is, no doubt, in the mind, and so also is the judgment we form of the object: But this judgment, like all others, must be true or false. If it be a true judgment, there is some real excellence in the object. And the use of all languages shows, that the name of beauty belongs to this excellence of the object, and not to the feelings of the spectator.

Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay VIII, Chapter 4.

Lent XXI

The proper and direct cause of sin is to be considered on the part of the adherence to a mutable good; in which respect every sinful act proceeds from inordinate desire for some temporal good. Now the fact that anyone desires a temporal good inordinately, is due to the fact that he loves himself inordinately; for to wish anyone some good is to love him. Therefore it is evident that inordinate love of self is the cause of every sin.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2-1.77.4. [Added Later: I suppose it should be noted that the word translated by the Dominican Fathers here as 'inordinate' would probably be better translated as 'disordered': the claim is that all sin is caused by loving oneself in a disordered way.]

Lent XX

Let us then not be ashamed to confess our sins unto the Lord. Shame indeed there is when each makes known his sins, but that shame, as it were, ploughs his land, removes the ever-recurring brambles, prunes the thorns, and gives life to the fruits which he believed were dead. Follow him who, by diligently ploughing his field, sought for eternal fruit: "Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat, we are made as the offscouring of the world." If you plough after this fashion you will sow spiritual seed. Plough that you may get rid of sin and gain fruit. He ploughed so as to destroy in himself the last tendency to persecution. What more could Christ give to lead us on to the pursuit of perfection, than to convert and then give us for a teacher one who was a persecutor?

Ambrose, Concerning Repentance, Book II. Ambrose is talking, of course, of St. Paul.

Maronite Year XXVII

One of the formative events in the history of the Maronite Church was the rise of the Maronite movement, as people flocked to the mountains of Syria and Lebanon in order to follow the example of St. Maron. This movement flourished for quite some time, but the area was heating up greatly with the constant struggle between the Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the Persian (Sassanid) Empire, the two main Eastern powers. The worst and most terrible of these struggles was the Byzantine-Sassanid (or Byzantine-Sasanian) War, from 602-628, a vast and terrible war over almost the entire Middle East. In the midst of this, the Patriarch of Antioch, St. Anastasius II, died in 609. Because the entire area was in turmoil, the Patriarchs of Constantinople began choosing a titular patriarch of Antioch, who would reside in Constantinople, and just technically keep the title open. This was extraordinarily unpopular throughout Syria.

At some point, the bishops in the area just began choosing their own patriarch. This is a very murky period in history -- as one would expect from the all-out war throughout the region -- so it is difficult to get any precise evidence about how this occurred. However, it's widely thought that John Maron was chosen as the first Maronite Patriarch of Antioch in 685. There is a long tradition that the Maronites received approval for their move from Pope St. Sergius I; and it in fact would not be wholly surprising if they did seek the confirmation of Rome -- seeking out, at some point, some sort of recognition from other important sees would have been natural, and they certainly wouldn't have received any confirmation from Constantinople. In any case, it was John Maron that moved the primary see of the Maronites from Syria to Lebanon, one of the most significant events in Maronite history. It would be in the mountains of Lebanon that the Crusaders and the Maronites would meet, in the reign of Youssif al Jirjissi, the twenty-fourth patriarch from St. John Maron, the first. St. John Maron is on the universal calendar, so his feast day of March 2nd is shared by Latin Catholics and Maronite Catholics.


Feast of St. John Maron
Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 5:13-17

Where is the shepherd to watch over the flock?
The Lord would not forsake His little lambs!
Thus the Merciful One raised up a shepherd,
John Maron, loving father, faithful light;
diligent, his heart was set upon the Lord.
On the altar he offered Christ to Christ;
He was a priest and image of his High Priest.

Antioch's honor is its faith in Christ;
may they shine with bright rays, all the splendid stars,
the lights you have kindled for your people.
Our Lord Jesus calls out to His disciples:
"I will make you fishers of men; follow."
You are a great fisher of men, John Maron,
a template for all who would succeed you.

Lent XIX

The Psalm, you remember, goes on: And in His Law will he meditate day and night. The man achieves the perfection of happiness by unbroken and unwearied meditation in the Law. Now it may be objected that this is impossible owing to the conditions of human infirmity, which require time for repose, for sleep, for food: so that our bodily circumstances preclude us from the hope of attaining happiness, inasmuch as we are distracted by the interruption of our bodily needs from our meditation by day and night. Parallel to this passage are the words of the Apostle, Pray without ceasing. As though we were bound to set at naught our bodily requirements and to continue praying without any interruption! Meditation in the Law, therefore, does not lie in reading its words, but in pious performance of its injunctions; not in a mere perusal of the books and writings, but in a practical meditation and exercise in their respective contents, and in a fulfilment of the Law by the works we do by night and day, as the Apostle says: Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. The way to secure uninterrupted prayer is for every devout man to make his life one long prayer by works acceptable to God and always done to His glory: thus a life lived according to the Law by night and day will in itself become a nightly and daily meditation in the Law.

Hilary of Poitiers, Homily on Psalm 1.

A Poem Draft

Parnassus

By waters born of Helicon,
the glories ever flowing,
the loves dance through the laurel groves
in vernal verdure glowing,
upon each head a victor's crown
of living laughter growing.

By breath of breeze each little leaf,
each bough, is softly sighing;
the garlands thrown by leaping hours
with flowered grounds are vying,
and, midst it all, the Muses sing
in harmonies undying.

The poets flute with words of gold;
the graces make them bold.
The fountains spring with soaring thought
and visions crisp and cold.

Lent XVIII

But amongst these marvellous works of Divine Providence it yields us satisfaction to mark, how, for the enlightening the night of this present life, each star in its turn appears in the face of Heaven, until that towards the end of the night the Redeemer of mankind ariseth like the true Morning Star; for the space of night, being enlightened by the stars as they set and rise in their courses, is passed with the heavens in exceeding beauty. Thus in order that the ray of stars, darting forth at its appointed time, and changed in succession, might reach the darkness of our night, Abel comes to shew us innocency; Enoch, to teach purity of practice; Noah, to win admittance for lessons of endurance in hope and in work; Abraham, to manifest obedience; Isaac, to shew an example of chastity in wedded life; Jacob, to introduce patience in labour; Joseph, for the repaying evil with the favour of a good turn; Moses, for the shewing forth of mildness; Joshua, to form us to confidence against difficulties; Job, to shew patience amid afflictions. Lo what lustrous stars see we in the sky, that the foot of practice may never stumble as we walk this our night's journey; since for so many Saints as God's Providence set forth to man's cognizance, He, as it were, sent just so many stars into the sky, over the darkness of erring man, till the true Morning Star should rise, Who, being the herald to us of the eternal morning, should outshine the other stars by the radiance of His Divinity.

Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, Preface, 13.

The Poetics of Trump Insult Tweets

Josh Marshall notes that there are certain patterns in Donald Trump's insults on Twitter:

The metrical pattern is deceptively simple: Single clause declarative sentence, single clause declarative sentence, primary adjective/term of derision.

Strictly speaking, this is not a metrical pattern, and the single-clause isn't universal, but the pattern is in fact the sort of thing that can be a verse: a verse is a turn of language allowing a return, and this will do just fine. The 140-character limit also puts an upper limit to the total number of syllables, which provides a looser but still useful verse-characteristic.

So let's take the first example (@realDonaldTrump):

Ted Cruz does not have the right "temperment" to be President.
Look at the way he totally panicked in firing his director of comm.
BAD!

We have a thirteen-syllable declaration (eleven words), followed by a twenty-syllable declaration (thirteen words), followed by a single-syllable derision (one word), thirty-four syllables total. The second declaration clarifies and specifies the first; the derision evaluates the second declaration and confirms the first declaration.

The second example:

Have a good chance to win Texas on Tuesday.
Cruz is a nasty guy, not one Senate endorsement and, despite talk, gets nothing done.
Loser!

We have an eleven-syllable declaration (nine words), followed by a twenty-one syllable declaration (fifteen words), followed by a two-syllable derision (one word), thirty-four syllables total. As with the previous example, the second declaration clarifies and specifies the first declaration. The derision continues the evaluation begun in the second declaration and confirms the first declaration.

We get a slightly different version with the third example:

Ted Cruz should be disqualified from his fraudulent win in Iowa.
Weak RNC and Republican leadership probably won't let this happen!
Sad.

We have an eighteen-syllable declaration (eleven words), followed by a twenty-syllable declaration (ten words, although it's twelve words if you count R, N, and C as different words), followed by a one-syllable derision (one word), thirty-nine syllables total. The second declaration doesn't clarify or specify the first declaration; it contrasts with the first declaration. The derision, in turn, evaluates the second declaration, but since the second declaration sets up a contrast with the first, it doesn't confirm the first declaration the way the previous examples do.

In all of these cases, the second declaration is the longer declaration, syllable-wise, and this in fact seems to be the most common pattern. It is not perfectly universal, though:

The failing @WSJ Wall Street Journal should fire both its pollster and its Editorial Board.
Seldom has a paper been so wrong.
Totally biased!

We have a twenty-one syllable declaration (fourteen words) followed by a nine-syllable declaration (seven words) and a five-syllable derision (two words), forty-one syllables total. A possible reason for this: the second declaration tends to be the one that is emphasized: it brings the thought of the tweet to a point and thus gives us precisely what the derision evaluates. We see this in another case:

I only wish my wonderful father, Fred, gave me $200 million to start my business like lightweight Rubio says.
He didn't
- total fabrication!

The second declaration is must shorter, but it is the one being emphasized.

Sometimes, Marshall notes, the third line is not an evaluation but a exhortation:

Make sure you get on the Trump line and are not mislead by the Cruz people.
They are bad!
BE CAREFUL.

We have a seventeen-syllable imperative (sixteen words), a three-syllable declaration (three words) specifying the reason for the imperative, and a three-syllable imperative (two words) re-emphasizing the first imperative, for twenty-three total syllables. Here we are dealing with imperatives rather than declaratives.

So we seem to have something like the structure:

(1) preliminary declaration or exhortation
(2) emphasized declaration which will serve as reason for (3)
(3) derision or exhortation

Typically (2) will be the longer line, syllable-wise, but there may be exceptions when emphasis requires it. (3) is consistently the shortest line, syllable wise. Obviously in practice there will be variation, since the actual constraint on size is based on characters rather than syllables or words, but the word and syllable counts for (1) will usually be about ten to twenty, and the word and syllable count for (3) will be about one to five.

So, let's try it. Since these tweets basically work by idea-parallelism, like ancient Hebrew poetry, we'll adapt some verses from Proverbs for ours.

Do not travel in the way of the wicked;
they will not rest until they have harmed someone.
Avoid them!

When the wicked die, their hope perishes;
all they expected from their power comes to nothing.
Pathetic!

A heart knows only its own bitterness,
and no one else can share its joy.
Vanity!

Mockers avoid the wise.
They do it so they will not be corrected.
Fools!

A perverse person stirs up conflict;
a gossip divides even close friends.
Dangerous!

Those who bribe treat it as a charm --
they think it brings success at every term.
Simpletons!

The wicked pervert the course of justice.
They accept bribes in secret.
Totally corrupt!

At the harvest sluggards look but find nothing.
They can't because they did not plow in season.
Imprudent!

Do not exploit the poor because they are poor.
The Lord will take their side and exact life for life.
Be careful!

Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person!
You may learn their habits and be snared.
Be careful!

Lent XVII

The Christian finds in human work a small part of the Cross of Christ and accepts it in the same spirit of redemption in which Christ accepted his Cross for us. In work, thanks to the light that penetrates us from the Resurrection of Christ, we always find a glimmer of new life, of the new good, as if it were an announcement of "the new heavens and the new earth" in which man and the world participate precisely through the toil that goes with work. Through toil-and never without it. On the one hand this confirms the indispensability of the Cross in the spirituality of human work; on the other hand the Cross which this toil constitutes reveals a new good springing from work itself, from work understood in depth and in all its aspects and never apart from work.

John Paul II, Laborem exercens

Maronite Year XXVI

The Sunday of the Parable of the Prodigal Son is somewhat highlighted by its place in Lent, being set with two Sundays on both sides in which the readings are concerned with healing. It stands out as distinctive. All the Sundays of Lent in the Maronite calendar are about the nature of our salvation; but the Parable of the Prodigal Son is far more direct and explicit in its teaching about salvation: we who were lost, return.

Sunday of the Parable of the Prodigal Son
2 Corinthians 13:5-13; Luke 15:11-32

Parode
O Christ our God, you are the true Light;
You are the Way who leads to the Father;
You lived among us, showing Your love;
You brought consolation and forgiveness;
You fed the hungry and healed the sick;
You taught us penitence and compassion;
You gave to us the living water.
Let us remember the prodigal son,
who turned from error and turned to faith,
trusting his father, weeping for his sins.

Strophe
    The prodigal son wanders far,
    but at home a heart is full of love;
    how great is a father's sure love!
    The prodigal understands it not.
    With contrite heart he returns home;
    the father embraces his lost son,
    with rejoicing he comes forward:
    father's love is greater than folly.

Antistrophe
    The Son came from the Father's heart;
    from the pure Virgin He appeared,
    bringing the grace of true repentance.
    O Adam, you have wandered far!
    Test yourself! Return to your Father!
    Blessed is the one who trusts the Lord;
    he is like a tree by water's edge,
    defying heat, protected from drought.

Exode
O Lord, show Your great mercy to us,
bring us humility and repentance.
Our hearts break with grief and remorse,
but Your heart's love is greater than all things.
May those who have wandered far return.
May those who are in error receive truth.
May the suffering receive Your joy.
May the sorrowing receive great comfort.
And may we, weak, prodigal children,
be freed of pride and hatred by Your cross,
the beacon in the midst of Your Church.
Be our strength, our sure refuge, forever.