Christabel
Mater

Your friendship is still appreciated; thank you.

Ah! Happy birthday to you (again)! Now that I know the day..

Okay I will PM the link since I can't seem to put the url in the wall here. The town (Macharaviaya) is small and has a website. I was thinking that, since you like to travel, it is close by to where you live. If I remember from an (outdated) book I read the de Galvez family still has a chapel in the township.

May I send you a weblink? It is the website of the hometown of Bernardo de Galvez y Madrid, which is in Ancalucia, close to Malaga.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've looked at the thread you mention- but it's all in Spanish. I've been able to learn alot on this forum and from the Catholic Answers forum- my perspective of Christianity has changed tremendously in the past year or so. Knowledge of classical philosophy has helped as has my knowledge of Jewish writings.

Happy birthday again- keep in mind that after 30 time will go by very fast.

Wishing you a happy birthday; I'm not sure if it's early or late but I think it's sometime this month.

If you remember I was dabbling with various alternative belief-systems (Asatru, etc.). What I learned is that modern paganism is largely nonsense made up by modern people, who then project their made-up beliefs onto the past. The delusions that modern pagans persist in following can change from day-to-day, but it usually boils down to "Christianity is a syncretized religion created by scheming frauds who took the ancient myth of the dying-and-rising god, combined it with aspects of ancient Judaism, and then put it out into the world. Eventually Constantine came along and Christianity was forced on our noble pagan ancestors and bla-bla-bla. You see Jesus is really no different than Osiris or any other pagan deity who died and came to life again."

The Stoics taught me a great deal, however, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Christian interpreters of Stoical philosophy. Take care (again). =)

It has been eclectic reading thus far, but some of them are:

Thoughts of Saint Therese (of Lisieux).
Furrow by St. Josemaria Escriva.
The Lord of History: Christocentrism and the Philosophy of History by Msgr. Eugene Kevane. <<This book offers an excellent explanation of modernism and modernity. I didn't really understand what modernism was till I read this book.
The Rule of St. Benedict.
God and Philosophy by Etienne Gilson.
Christian Metaphysics by Claude Tresmontant.
Trinity by Joseph Girzone.
The Roots of Christian Mysticism by Oliver Clement.
Some of Origen's On First Principles.
Some of Augustine's Confessions.

I've also read some material from Orthodoxy, mainly hymnals. I found a nice one about Mother Mary if you want me to post it or somesuch (assuming I can find it online; it's a rather famous one by a guy named Romanos). Are there any suggestions that you might make?

Take care. =)

That's good! =)

I've recovered my faith in Christ after a period of time, not that it was easy to do. I've got to say that a great deal of it has to do with Catholic books that I've appropriated. I just consider myself as a "Christian" rather than of a specific denomination. There's a wide variety of Christian literature to examine and I've been devoting more time to it over the past months.

Stay well! =)