Just for the hell of it. One anonymous commenter once posted on my old blog this comment:
When the angels play before the Throne of God, they play Bach, but when they play for their own pleasure, they play Mozart … and God eavesdrops.
Does anyone know the origin of this quip, or was this guy just really clever?
Some notes on historical theology
Conclusion
This is of course a lot to digest and understand. From the metaphysical to the liturgical, the theological and the sociological aspects, Jansenism is a hard nut to crack. From a few reflections on grace in St. Augustine, it inflamed the national sentiment of the Gallican Church, spread into other countries, and threatened to change the very fabric of Catholicism on the European continent. While it reflected in many ways the tendencies of early modern thought, its defeat, I have argued, facilitated the growth of the “secularized” and “politicized” Catholicism that exists today, especially in the developed world. Most of the positive content of the Jansenist message (the fewness of the elect, the need for penance before absolution, the tendency of the Church to degenerate from its pristine origins) is as foreign to modern Catholicism as the doctrine of the transmigration of souls or millenarianism. But the methods of the Jansenists are alive and well, being used to carry out a program that is the mirror opposite of what they advocated.
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