Bibliaclerus (found from Amy Welborn’s blog) is an AWESOME resource created by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy. It links scripture (NAB and RSV), commentaries, the early Fathers of the Church, Aquinas, and texts from the Magisterium in a cross referenced way.

In digging into it, I found a link to Aquinas’ “Whether Determinate Things Are Required For a Sacrament“[1] and I was reminded why I love Aquinas so much. He can pack SO much truth into just one sentence, it’s insane. The question he’s dealing with is basically ‘since Sacraments are spiritual in nature, they don’t need any physical thing at all (no stole, no wafer, no oil, etc)’. Aquinas answers (in short) that we as humans don’t have the power to sanctify anything. That is totally God’s. So God alone can determine what, if any, physical items are required for sanctification through the sacraments.

But buried in there, is this sentence: “Since, therefore, the sanctification of man is in the power of God Who sanctifies, it is not for man to decide what things should be used for his sanctification, but this should be determined by Divine institution.” That’s beautiful.

I may be dedicated enough to start reading the Summa again through this. Unfortunately, getting a printed copy of it is prohibitively expensive. I should have just had it printed while I was at GaTech… I’m pretty sure I had a soft copy at the time…

[1] Note for those new to the Summa Theologica: Each article is put together in this order: First is a question which Aquinas seeks to answer. Then there are some (usually 3) objections, which are usually very well argued, but subtly wrong thoughts on the matter at hand. Then there is ‘On the Contrary’ which is a basic statement of the true answer (according to Aquinas), and then answers to each of the objections.

Starting a new online forum from an existing mailing list is not easy. You have to convince some number of people (10? 20?) to stop simply receiving content, and to actively go out to $WEBSITE and get the content that way.

And people are lazy.

So, when the forum went 2-3 months without anyone but me (the admin) and spammers logging in, I just removed permissions to the directory, and went about my business.

And about a 8-12 months after that, there’s now a discussion on the mailing list which needs a forum (because most people don’t care about your Illuminati theories… kthxbai) I get to go resurrect upgrade and clean up the forum.

If I knew the formula to make all this work, I could make big money in a social networking company.

So, a decision was made.

I got the LG Voyager.

What changed? Well, two big things: First I discovered (through online reading, and a hands on demo at a Verizon Store) that the LG DOES have a text editor/notepad application. And this holds true for the Venus, and the Env. I realize I’m weird about this requirement, but hey, it’s my money.

The second big thing is that the Voyager (after discounts) costs the same as the Blackberry pearl. And it doesn’t have the Verizon mandated requirement of a data plan. Note: if you buy a blackberry from Verizon, you’re required to have a $30/month minimum data plan.

That adds up quick.

I may tack on a data plan to the Voyager later, but for now, I’m not going to use it.

A third huge bonus is that bitpim is really close to having full support for the Voyager, so I’ll be able to do the full sync dance easily.