Rugwig

A State of Contant Total Amazement

2011-09-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement." - Patricia Graynamore.

A Dominican brother once told me, "Most people, most of the day, are practical atheists. I know I am. I'm a religious, and most of the day I don't think about how God's grace is actively working in my life."

"[4] Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!
[5] Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near.
[6]Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.
[7]Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
[8] Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
Philippians 4:4-8, NAB.

[The first quotation is taken from: http://joeversusthevolcano.blogspot.com/.]

Vincentian Missioner Prayer

2011-03-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

Divine Savior, transform me into yourself. May my hands be your hands. May my tongue be your tongue. Grant that every faculty of my body may serve only to glorify you. Above all, transform my soul and all its powers that my memory, my will, and my affections may be the memory, the will, and the affections of you. I pray you to destroy in me all that is not of you. Grant that I may live but in you and by you and for you, that I may truly say with Saint Paul, “I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.” Amen.

(Shared by the Association of the Miraculous Medal [click here to go to their website].)

"A Sign of Contradiction" by Joseph Roy

2011-03-11T18:02:00.000-08:00

A true Christian

is a sign of contradiction;

a living symbol of the Cross.

He or she is a person who

believes the unbelievable,

bears the unbearable,

forgives the unforgivable,

loves the unlovable,

is perfectly happy not to be perfect,

is willing to give up one's will,

becomes weak to be strong,

sees some good in every bad

and

finds love by giving it away.

A Christian transcends the natural

with the immeasurable power of love

and becomes a supernatural person.

(Attributed to Joseph Roy; discovered at the monastery for the Contemplatives of St. Joseph.)

"On the Practice of Particular Virtues"

2011-03-04T14:40:00.000-08:00

[Note: The following is the practical application of these previous two articles: 1) "The Christian Lives for Christ"; 2) "The General Nature of Christ's Life in His Members."]

The truths we have been considering have important consequences….

Prayer. The soul will no longer pray for its own cribbed and narrow interests, but will regard its prayer as an extension and continuation of Christ’s prayer, once it has penetrated the meaning of the words spoken to the Apostles: “And whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do …. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full” (Jn. 14:13; 16:24).

During the Mass the soul will worship …, intercede in the name of Christ for the conversion of innumerable souls both in the present and in the future; it will also make reparation in the name of Christ by accepting generously every annoyance; it will thank God in the name of Christ not only for individual benefits but also for the universal gifts of creation, elevation to the life of grace, the Incarnation, the Redemption and the Eucharist….

Such a soul will speak to our Blessed Lady as though with the voice of Christ and will find in her title of “Mother” hitherto unsuspected depths of meaning. It will understand better the wealth of Mary’s spiritual motherhood for those struggling toward salvation.

The soul at this stage finds it easier to prolong its prayer throughout the day, offering at each hour the various actions of the Savior….

During its visits to the Blessed Sacrament this Christ-like soul offers to God the acts of the Infant Jesus, the acts of His hidden life, of His public life, of His Passion, of His risen and Eucharistic life. Christ lives in that soul as fully as possible, radiating, so to speak, His own contemplative prayer and salvific love into that soul.

Humility. This devoted soul begins to detest a life lived only for self; it begins to despise itself in comparison with Christ. More than ever before it sees how limited, confined, base, and opposed to the freedom of the sons of God is any excessive thought of self….

It begins to shun self-love in all its forms as the chief obstacle to Christ living within us….

Such a soul is ready to delight in humiliations and to accept contempt with little or no distress—it is only right that its defects should be noted in order that the excellence of Christ who must dwell within us should stand out in vivid contrast. Now it sees more clearly the significance of Christ’s request: “Allow me to live in you while you die to yourself,” and His promise: “While you are stricken with extreme poverty, I am rich and my riches will suffice for you.” His riches are to be ours, our own personal property.

The soul learns to belittle its own limited virtues and to extol as its own possession the unlimited perfections of Christ Himself. That which is highly prized by the proud and ambitious is reckoned of no account, since the soul has ceased caring for its own glory.

Brotherly love. The Christian soul begins to see others as Christ sees them, discovering in all a trait of beauty worthy of imitation, just as beauty can be found in each and every wild flower. She has a special love for the poor as the sorrowing members of Christ, and also for the children because of their innocence…. She loves the aged whom others have forsaken, finding in many of them greater wisdom than elsewhere.

The faith of this soul is more and more enlightened by the gifts [of the Holy Spirit], becoming more penetrative and lucid. She looks at everything from Christ’s point of view, asking herself what would Jesus think about this, what is He actually thinking about it. The soul realizes better the true value of the Mass, Holy Communion and sacramental absolution. She has a keener insight into the spiritual meaning of everyday events, seeing the higher good which God intends through permitting evil. She says to herself: “Christ sees this higher good,” and even she herself foresees it to some extent.

In a similar way her confidence increases, because the confidence of Christ has supplanted trust in self. The encouragement of Christ is constantly before her: “Have confidence, I have overcome the world…”; and the soul replies by putting all her trust in God, no longer daring to hope in her own strength—like St. Paul: “For when I am weak, then am I powerful.” St. Philip Neri used to say: “Whenever I lose hope in myself, then I can trust all the more in the grace of God.” …

The love of God increases noticeably, … causing a spiritual ecstasy wherein the ardent soul goes out of itself, so to speak, and is carried toward God…. [The] man in whom Christ lives begins to think almost continually of God. His love for God is fully sincere…. This love has no other purpose but the giving of greater glory to God in which he finds peace and joy…. Then it is that the soul dedicates itself without reserve to God, abandoning itself entirely into the hands of God.

And so is realized that prayer of St. Nicholas of Flüe: “My Lord and my God, remove from me all that stands in the way of my coming to you; give me everything that will bring me closer to you; rid me of myself and take me completely into your possession.”

Then the soul generously accepts the cross permitted by God so that it may cooperate more effectively in the saving of souls…. [The] sick, for example, … suffer night and day without complaint, offering their sorrows in union with Christ for the conversion of sinners, knowing that without suffering the world can never enjoy true peace.

The reason why certain souls choose to make this generous offering … is because Christ, having foreseen their sufferings, inspires them to do so. He himself bears their pains as though He were suffering in them; in this sense He continues His agony until the end of time….

And it is in this spirit which inspires the prayer of many at the present time: “Lord, in this time of worldwide strife, when a spirit of pride is being spread abroad denying all religion and God’s existence, give me a deeper understanding of the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation and of Thy holy self-abasement in the Passion. Make me desire to share in Thine own humiliations and sorrows to the extent which Thy Providence desires. Make me discover in this desire peace, strength, and even at times joy, according to Thine own good pleasure, in order to give strength to me and confidence to others.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Priest in Union with Christ, p. 37-40; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The General Nature of Christ's Life in His Members"

2011-03-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

What is required from our side so that we may share in this life of Christ? We must frequently call to mind and repeat to ourselves this truth: Christ desires to live in me, to pray, love, act and suffer in me. Then we will be ready to lay aside freely our former self with its inordinate, lower and limited desires in exchange for the desires of Christ Himself. This renunciation of our old self is of vital importance. Gradually we will come to realize the meaning of these words of St. John the Baptist: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). Morally speaking, it is essential to forget one’s own personality, to lose it—in the good sense of the word—for the sake of living in Christ as members in the head; in other words, we must think, desire and act with Him and in Him, in the same way as our hand moves under directions from the head.

By degrees, the spirit of Christ will take the place of our spirit—a way of thinking, feeling, judging, loving, willing, doing and suffering, a mental outlook which is extremely cramped and superficial since it is materially dependent on our physical temperament, on our heredity, on the influence of our surrounding circumstances and on the ideas of our time and locality. It is this spirit which must slowly yield ground to the spirit of Christ, to His way of looking at things, of judging, feeling, loving, acting and suffering. Only then is Christ truly living within us.

And thus we find the Saints attaining a higher self-less state in their spiritual life, a state vastly superior to that in which they possessed their own natural personality. As an example in the field of learning we can think of St. Thomas—the universal Doctor of the Church—who never speaks of himself in his works but remains completely objective; as examples in the active life there are many Saints who vividly portray the life of Christ in their actions, such as St. John Vianney. These Saints have amply fulfilled the words of St. Paul: “To live is Christ.” They alone have realized that our moral personality cannot be brought to its full perfection unless it is in some way lost in the person of Christ, just as a river only reaches its term when it flows into the sea. Consequently, the Saints have substituted for their own ideas and judgments the judgments of Christ accepted on faith; their own will has made way for the holy will of Christ, and their own activity for His sanctifying activity. In this way they have become God’s servants in the fullest sense of the word, just as our hand is the servant of the will. And so St. Paul could say: “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20). St. John Chrysostom said that the heart of Paul was the heart of Christ….

We must offer ourselves to Him, so that He may live in us His own divine life which far surpasses our own. Thus, when we pray, we must unite ourselves to the powerful prayer of Christ, so that our prayer then becomes, so to speak, an extension or continuation of Christ’s prayer.

If we adopt this way of life, our soul will not merely become more perfect but will also surrender itself completely so as to live in utter self-forgetfulness. It will then appreciate Christ’s invitation to so many of the Saints: “Allow me to live in you, while you die to yourself.” That was the way followed by St. Benedict, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Vincent de Paul; these obtained the true freedom of the sons of God.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Priest in Union with Christ, p. 35-36; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Christian Lives for Christ"

2011-03-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

Christ Himself said: “I am the true vine … you are the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing” (John 15:1-5). Nothing at all—not a single salutary act, and therefore no act which merits eternal life. Even the beginning of belief is due to the antecedent grace of Christ—contrary to the teaching of the Semi-Pelagians.

St. Paul preached a similar doctrine: We have been planted together in Christ (Rom. 6:5), who is so to speak the root of all holiness, “and if the root be holy, so are the branches” (Rom. 11:16). The same truth is expressed in another metaphor: “You are the body of Christ, and members of member” (1 Cor. 12:27), and this St. Paul often repeats.

Through our Baptism we have “died like him” to sin, we have been “buried with him,” and “come to life again with him” (cf. Rom. 6:4). In writing to the Galatians, the Apostle says: “For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27). And so “for me, to live is Christ: and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). St. Thomas explains that just as the hunter lives for the chase, the soldier for war and military service, the student for study, so also the Christian—and especially the saint—lives for Christ, who ardently desires to live in him, and he in his turn lives in an atmosphere of faith and trust in Christ and of love for Him. “The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whosoever I shall have said to you” (John 14:26). By the gifts of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, piety, fortitude and even fear, He will recall to your minds everything I have said to you, so that the words already spoken in the Gospel may become for you “words of eternal life,” since they are “spirit and life.”

We could not desire any clearer witness to the truth of Christ’s life within us. “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me” (Gal. 2:20).

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Priest in Union with Christ, p. 33-34; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Spirit of Detachment"

2011-02-28T15:16:00.001-08:00

In The Ascent of Mount Carmel (1), St. John of the Cross sets forth a profound doctrine on the perfect abnegation of self-will. He indicates the most direct route to reach lofty …. If we recall the elevation of the end he has in view, we will not consider the abnegation he demands exaggerated. A man who wishes to climb a mountain does not stop at the first difficulties….

We should detach ourselves from exterior goods, riches and honors…. St. Paul says: "The time is short. . . and they that rejoice, as if they rejoiced not; . . . and they that use this world, as if they used it not" (2). Even those who do not effectively practice the counsel of evangelical poverty ought to have its spirit if they wish to tend to perfection.

We must detach ourselves from the goods of the body, from beauty, from health itself; it would be an aberration to cling to them more than to union with God. And we cling to health far more than we think; if it were irremediably taken from us, it would be a true sacrifice for us, and one that may be asked of us. All these things will pass away like a flower that withers.

We must avoid all complacency in the virtues we may have. To entertain any complacency would be vanity and perhaps amount to scorn of our neighbor. The Christian ought to esteem the virtues, not inasmuch as they are in him like a personal possession, but inasmuch as they lead the soul to God.

When we receive consolations in prayer, we must not dwell on them with satisfaction; to do so would be to make of this means of drawing near to God an obstacle that would hinder us from reaching Him…. All that glitters is not gold; and we must be careful not to confound an imitation diamond with a real one. We should remind ourselves of our Savior's words: "Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice; and all these things (all that is useful to your soul and even to your body) shall be added unto you" (3).

Therefore we understand that adversity is good for us in order to deliver us from illusion and make us find the true road again….

Live in holy detachment … at the same time recalling the words of St. Paul: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" (4). Christ also says to His apostles: "But yet rejoice not in this, that spirits are subject unto you (that you drive out demons); but rejoice in this, that your names are written in heaven" (5).

On the subject of eloquence, St. John of the Cross says: " … though the senses be charmed and the understanding delighted, but little or no substantial warmth reaches to the will. In general, the will remains dull and weak as before in good works, though marvelous things have been marvelously told it. . . . Though men may be wonderful preachers, yet their sermons are soon forgotten if they kindle no fire in the will" (6).

This teaching of St. John of the Cross demonstrates how necessary it is that the preacher greatly purify his intention that his words may truly bear life-giving fruit, which will last for eternity. To effect this purification, his soul must live according to the spirit of immolation or of sacrifice, which assures the first place in the soul to the love of God and of souls in God.

The fruit of the purification of the will ... is peace, the tranquility of order in which the soul is established with respect to God and its neighbor. This peace is not always joy, but it tends to become more profound and more lofty and to radiate even on the most troubled souls, giving them the light of life. This is what Christ says: "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." They will make Him known and loved.

As a practical conclusion, each one ought, in his examination of conscience, to ask himself whether his spirit of self-abnegation is increasing or diminishing. If there is no longer the minimum of exterior mortification, it is a sign that interior mortification has disappeared, that he no longer tends toward perfection, and that he is like salt which has lost its savor.

Here it should be remembered that on the journey toward God, he who does not advance falls back…. This progress should … be so to speak uniformly accelerated, like the movement of a stone that tends toward the center of the earth which attracts it. Souls ought, in fact, to advance more rapidly toward God, the nearer they approach Him and are more drawn by Him (7).

We should pray as follows: "My God, make me know the obstacles …” [Note: This prayer can be found in its entirety here: http://rugwig.blogspot.com/2010/06/prayer-for-transformation.html.]

He who would say this prayer frequently would make great progress…. Undoubtedly he would receive many crosses, but he would be borne by them more than he would bear them, as a bird is borne by its wings more than it bears them. This is what The Imitation says: "If thou carry the cross willingly, it will carry thee, and bring thee to thy desired end, namely, to that place where there will be an end of suffering, though here there will be no end" (8). This is the true road by which one enters the inner courts of the kingdom of God.

Footnotes:

1. Bk. III, chaps. 15 ff.

2. See I Cor. 7:29-31.

3. Matt. 6: 33.

4. Cf. I Cor. 13:1.

5. Luke 10: 20.

6. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. III, chap. 44.

7. St. Thomas, In Epist. ad Hebr., 10:25: "The natural movement increases in proportion as it draws near its end. The contrary is true of violent movement (e.g., of a stone cast into the air). Grace likewise moves one according to the natural mode. Therefore those who are in the state of grace ought to grow so much the more as they draw nearer the end." Cf. Ia IIae, q.35, a.6: "Every natural movement is more intense in the end."

8. The Imitation of Christ, Bk. II, chap. 12.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Ages of the Interior Life, p. 374-378; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Purification of the Will by Progress in the Love of God"

2011-02-28T14:39:00.001-08:00

How can we restore to our more or less weakened and vitiated will its power for good, the real power that makes it conquer spiritual sloth and also pride, which is a weakness hidden under the mask of energy? … As long as man's will was docile and conformable to that of God, it had the grace and strength to dominate the passions, to prevent every fault, whence spring disorder and discouragement. To renew our spiritual energies we must, therefore, render our will increasingly docile to the will of God, who will then give us ever new graces to advance along the way of perfection.

The training of the will must be made by progress in the virtues which it ought to possess: the virtue of justice, which renders to everyone his due; of religion, which renders to God the worship we owe Him; of penance, which repairs the injury of sin; of obedience to superiors; of veracity or of loyalty; above all, of charity, of love of God and neighbor (1).

From this higher point of view, the strength of will of a Napoleon seems insignificant compared to that of the sublime beggar, St. Benedict Joseph Labre, or that of the humble Cure of Ars. In the first centuries, the strength of will of Christian virgins, like Agnes and Cecilia, was incomparably superior to that of their executioners.

In the practice of all the virtues, docility to the divine will presupposes abnegation of self-will, that is, of the will not conformed to that of God. The spirit of sacrifice alone, by putting to death our inordinate self-love, can assure the first place to the love of God and give us peace. Profound peace of soul is impossible without the spirit of sacrifice. Therefore our Lord says: "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself" (2); and also, "Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life (selfishly) shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world (who leads a sacrificed life) keepeth it unto life eternal" (3) In the spirit of abnegation we must be ready to abandon everything in order to do the will of God as it shall be manifested to us. We must say with the Psalmist: "My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready" (4). Like St. Paul at the moment of his conversion, we must daily pray thus: "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" (5) ….

Only the love of God, which is the fruit of grace, can triumph over self-love and put it to death; but if the love of God grows in us, what was at first difficult becomes easy. With this meaning Christ said: "My yoke is sweet and My burden light" (6)….

To succeed in purifying and strengthening the will, a person must act according to the profound convictions of Christian faith, and not according to his own spirit, which is more or less variable, according to circumstances and the fluctuations of opinion. When anyone has reflected before God and prayed to obtain His grace, he must act with decision in the way duty directs or in that which seems most conformable to the divine will. We have only one life, and it is short; it must not be wasted in trifles. Moreover, we must with persevering courage firmly and persistently will what appears to us to be our duty. In this way we avoid both the fluctuations of successive inclinations, some opposed to others, and unreasonable violence. True strength of will is calm; in calmness it is persevering so that it does not become discouraged by momentary lack of success or by any wounds received. No one is conquered until he has given up the struggle. And he who works for the Lord puts his confidence in God and not in himself.

Lastly, the strong will is the one that rests, not on the careening of obstinate pride, but on God, on His grace, which we ought to ask for daily with humility and confidence. If with humility, confidence, and perseverance we implore the graces necessary for our sanctification and salvation, they will infallibly be granted us in virtue of Christ's promise: "Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you" (7). Genuine strength of will, the effect of divine grace, is drawn from humble, trusting, and persevering prayer (8). Therein is found the true supernatural training of the will. Prayer is our strength in our weakness. Knowledge of its power made St. Paul say: "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me" (9). This should be the sentiment of one who sees himself obliged to undergo martyrdom rather than deny his Christian faith. God never commands the impossible and gives to those who truly ask it the grace to be faithful in the midst of the greatest trials. Then the will becomes strong, with that divine strength of which the Psalmist speaks when he says: Dominus fortitudo mea. By divine grace the human will then shares in the power of God and frees itself from self-love, from the attraction of everything that turns it away from God and hinders it from being wholly His. Thus abnegation and the spirit of sacrifice are the inevitable way of divine union, in which the love of God is finally victorious over self-love or egoism. He who has this holy hatred of his ego, which is made up of self-love and pride, saves his soul for eternity and obtains even here on earth a peace and union with God which are a foretaste of eternal life.

Footnotes:

1. St. Thomas discusses at length each of these virtues and the opposing vices in IIa IIae. A profound study on the training of the will might be drawn from this part of the Summa, since all these virtues, whether acquired or infused, have their seat in that faculty.

2. Matt. 16: 24.

3. John 12: 24 f.

4. Ps. 107:2.

5. Acts 9:6.

6. Matt. 11:30.

7. Matt. 7:7.

8. Cf. Summa, IIa IIae, q.83, a.2, 16.

9. Phil. 4:13.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Ages of the Interior Life, p. 372-374; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The First Step Must Be Purifying the Soul."

2011-02-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

"THE flowers appear on the earth,” (Cant. ii. 12.) says the Heavenly Bridegroom, and the time for pruning and cutting is come. And what, my child, are our hearts’ flowers save our good desires? Now, so soon as these begin to appear, we need the pruning-hook to cut off all dead and superfluous works from our conscience. When the daughter of a strange land was about to espouse an Israelite, the law commanded her to put off the garment of her captivity, to pare her nails, and to shave her head; (Deut. xxi. 12.) even so the soul which aims at the dignity of becoming the spouse of Christ, must put off the old man, and put on the new man, forsaking sin: moreover, it must pare and shave away every impediment which can hinder the Love of God. The very first step towards spiritual health is to be purged from our sinful humours. S. Paul received perfect purification instantaneously, and the like grace was conferred on S. Magdalene, S. Catherine of Genoa, S. Pelagia, and some others, but this kind of purgation is as miraculous and extraordinary in grace as the resurrection of the dead in nature, nor dare we venture to aspire to it. The ordinary purification, whether of body or soul, is only accomplished by slow degrees, step by step, gradually and painfully.

The angels on Jacob’s ladder had wings, yet nevertheless they did not fly, but went in due order up and down the steps of the ladder. The soul which rises from out of sin to a devout life has been compared to the dawn, which does not banish darkness suddenly, but by degrees. That cure which is gradually effected is always the surest; and spiritual maladies, like those of the body, are wont to come on horseback and express, while they depart slowly and on foot. So that we must needs be brave and patient, my daughter, in this undertaking. It is a woeful thing to see souls beginning to chafe and grow disheartened because they find themselves still subject to imperfection after having made some attempt at leading a devout life, and well-nigh yielding to the temptation to give up in despair and fall back; but, on the other hand, there is an extreme danger surrounding those souls who, through the opposite temptation, are disposed to imagine themselves purified from all imperfection at the very outset of their purgation; who count themselves as full-grown almost before they are born, and seek to fly before they have wings. Be sure, daughter, that these are in great danger of a relapse through having left their physician too soon. “It is but lost labour to rise up early and late take rest,” unless the Lord prosper all we do.

The work of the soul’s purification neither may nor can end save with life itself;—do not then let us be disheartened by our imperfections,—our very perfection lies in diligently contending against them, and it is impossible so to contend without seeing them, or to overcome without meeting them face to face. Our victory does not consist in being insensible to them, but in not consenting to them. Now to be afflicted by our imperfections is certainly not to consent thereto, and for the furtherance of humility it is needful that we sometimes find ourselves worsted in this spiritual battle, wherein, however, we shall never be conquered until we lose either life or courage. Moreover, imperfections and venial sins cannot destroy our spiritual life, which is only to be lost through mortal sin; consequently we have only need to watch well that they do not imperil our courage. David continually asks the Lord to strengthen his heart against cowardice and discouragement; and it is our privilege in this war that we are certain to vanquish so long as we are willing to fight.

(St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Bk. I, ch. 5; available online for free here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/desales/devout_life.)

The Act of Spiritual Communion

2011-02-26T23:53:00.000-08:00

[Note: The following is taken from http://www.ourcatholicprayers.com/spiritual-communion.html.]

SPIRITUAL COMMUNION

Do you feel too busy to make time for our Lord? An Act of Spiritual Communion can help! No matter what your day is like, Jesus can help make it better, or at least more bearable, if you ask him for His help and guidance in prayers such as this one, composed by St. Alphonsus Liguori in the 18th century:

My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You have already come, and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.

The best way to receive Christ is in Holy Communion at Mass. (The picture above from a 19th century holy card commemorates the first Communion given out by our Lord Himself at the Last Supper.)

Yet for those times you can’t make Mass, or can’t take Communion because of an unconfessed mortal sin (for which you can ask for and receive God’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance), you can still reach out to Him by making a Spiritual Communion in prayer!

St. Thomas Aquinas once defined a Spiritual Communion as “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament [in Communion at Mass] and in lovingly embracing Him as if we had actually received Him.”

You can receive the Lord in Holy Communion up to twice a day as discussed here. However, you can make a Spiritual Communion as whenever and wherever you'd like, using the prayer given above, others like it such as the one below, or your own heartfelt thoughts.

It is an important part of Church teaching that the consecrated bread (in the form of wafers we call hosts) becomes what is known as the Blessed Sacrament, referred to in St. Alphonsus’s prayer above.

Those hosts not used in Holy Communion at Mass are placed in a special box known as the Tabernacle to be given out later to the sick or the dying who cannot attend Mass, and to be exposed otherwise for adoration in what is known as the Rite of Eucharistic Exposition and Benediction.

You can make a Spiritual Communion such as this one below during Mass, or before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, or anywhere else where the Spirit moves you.

Oh Jesus, I turn toward the holy tabernacle where You live hidden for love of me. I love you, O my God. I cannot receive you in Holy Communion. Come, nevertheless, and visit me with Your grace. Come spiritually into my heart. Purify it. Sanctify it. Render it like unto Your own. Amen.

Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.

This last sentence is drawn from Matthew’s Gospel (Matt 8:6), in which a Roman Centurion expressed his deep faith in our Lord’s healing powers (in this case to cure his servant rather than his soul). Jesus was quite moved by the soldier’s faith, and healed his servant at once.

Christ might not answer us quite so instantaneously, but rest assured, He can and will respond to anyone who comes to Him in love and humility for His Divine assistance. After all, didn’t he say in the Sermon on the Mount, concerning the power of prayer, “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find” (Matt 7:7)?

Indeed, our Lord loves each of us so much that he gives us great opportunities to be with Him on a daily basis. If the Pope came to your parish, you’d probably have to elbow your way through crowds of people to catch a glimpse of him.

And yet, think of it! You can have your own private “audience” with Christ at Mass in Holy Communion or in Spiritual Communion in front of the Blessed Sacrament! Countless Saints and theologians throughout the centuries have extolled the virtues and great spiritual benefits we can receive from this time spent with our Lord.

Remember, however, that you can “turn toward the holy tabernacle” and receive Jesus in your heart from anywhere you might happen to be, at any time, day or night!

You just need to approach Him with sincerity, humility and a desire to follow in His footsteps in acts of faith and charity. And He’s delighted when we do so! The Baltimore Catechism notes that a Spiritual Communion “is an act of devotion, and one very pleasing to God.”

St. Jean-Marie Vianney, a French priest famous for converting countless souls to Christ in his parish of Ars in the 19th century, once said “when we feel the love of God growing cold, let us instantly make a Spiritual Communion. When we cannot go to the church, let us turn towards the tabernacle; no wall can shut us out from the good God.” We can indeed be grateful for that!

(The following is also an excellent and informative article on Spiritual Communion: http://www.fisheaters.com/TLMmissingmass.html.)

The Divine Mercy Chaplet

2011-02-26T23:33:00.000-08:00

To learn about the devotion to the Divine Mercy and its origins, go here: http://thedivinemercy.org/message/acts/.

We highly recommend that this prayer be said as often as possible for the salvation of souls.

Also, read the following linked article to learn more about the importance of God's mercy in the spiritual life: http://chastitysf.com/q_mercy.htm.

The Universal Prayer

2011-02-26T22:58:00.000-08:00

Lord, I believe in you: increase my faith.

I trust in you: strengthen my trust.

I love you: let me love you more and more.

I am sorry for my sins: deepen my sorrow.

I worship you as my first beginning,

I long for you as my last end,

I praise you as my constant helper,

And call on you as my loving protector.

Guide me by your wisdom,

Correct me with your justice,

Comfort me with your mercy,

Protect me with your power.

I offer you, Lord, my thoughts:

to be fixed on you;

My words: to have you for their theme;

My actions: to reflect my love for you;

My sufferings:

to be endured for your greater glory.

I want to do what you ask of me:

In the way you ask,

For as long as you ask,

Because you ask it.

Lord, enlighten my understanding,

Strengthen my will,

Purify my heart,

and make me holy.

Help me to repent of my past sins

And to resist temptation in the future.

Help me to rise above my human

weaknesses

And to grow stronger as a Christian.

Let me love you, my Lord and my God,

And see myself as I really am:

A pilgrim in this world,

A Christian called to respect and love

All whose lives I touch,

Those under my authority,

My friends and my enemies.

Help me to conquer anger with gentleness,

Greed by generosity,

Apathy by fervor.

Help me to forget myself

And reach out toward others.

Make me prudent in planning,

Courageous in taking risks.

Make me patient in suffering,

unassuming in prosperity.

Keep me, Lord, attentive at prayer,

Temperate in food and drink,

Diligent in my work,

Firm in my good intentions.

Let my conscience be clear,

My conduct without fault,

My speech blameless,

My life well-ordered.

Put me on guard against my human

weaknesses.

Let me cherish your love for me,

Keep your law,

And come at last to your salvation.

Teach me to realize that

this world is passing,

That my true future

is the happiness of heaven,

That life on earth is short,

And the life to come eternal.

Help me to prepare for death

With a proper fear of judgment,

But a greater trust in your goodness.

Lead me safely through death

To the endless joy of heaven.

Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Attributed to Pope Clement XI.)

"Anyway" by Bl. Mother Teresa

2011-02-26T22:43:00.000-08:00

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

(Attributed to Bl. Mother Teresa; available across the internet.)

Prayer for Purity and Chastity

2011-02-26T15:55:00.000-08:00

Dearest Jesus! I know well that every perfect gift, and above all others that of chastity, depends upon the most powerful assistance of Thy Providence, and that without Thee a creature can do nothing. Therefore, I pray Thee to defend, with Thy grace, chastity and purity in my soul as well as in my body. And if I have ever received through my senses any impression that could stain my chastity and purity, do Thou, Who art the Supreme Lord of all my powers, take it from me, that I may with an immaculate heart advance in Thy love and service, offering myself chaste all the days of my life on the most pure altar of Thy Divinity. Amen.

(Attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas; available across the internet.)

"Six Works of Humility"

2011-02-25T13:06:00.000-08:00

[Note: We wholeheartedly recommend St. Josemaría Escrivá's works, available for free online here: http://www.escrivaworks.org/.]

Prayer is the humility of the man who acknowledges his profound wretchedness and the greatness of God. He addresses and adores God as one who expects everything from Him and nothing from himself.

Faith is the humility of the mind which renounces its own judgement and surrenders to the verdict and authority of the Church.

Obedience is the humility of the will which subjects itself to the will of another, for God’s sake.

Chastity is the humility of the flesh, which subjects itself to the spirit.

Exterior mortification is the humility of the senses.

Penance is the humility of all the passions, immolated to the Lord.

—Humility is truth on the road of the ascetical struggle.

(St. Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, n. 259; available here: http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/furrow.htm; published with permission.)

The Seventeen Evidences of a Lack of Humility

2011-02-25T00:37:00.000-08:00

Allow me to remind you that among other evident signs of a lack of humility are:

[1.] Thinking that what you do or say is better than what others do or say;

[2.] Always wanting to get your own way;

[3.] Arguing when you are not right or — when you are — insisting stubbornly or with bad manners;

[4.] Giving your opinion without being asked for it, when charity does not demand you to do so;

[5.] Despising the point of view of others;

[6.] Not being aware that all the gifts and qualities you have are on loan;

[7.] Not acknowledging that you are unworthy of all honour or esteem, even the ground you are treading on or the things you own;

[8.] Mentioning yourself as an example in conversation;

[9.] Speaking badly about yourself, so that they may form a good opinion of you, or contradict you;

[10.] Making excuses when rebuked;

[11.] Hiding some humiliating faults from your director, so that he may not lose the good opinion he has of you;

[12.] Hearing praise with satisfaction, or being glad that others have spoken well of you;

[13.] Being hurt that others are held in greater esteem than you;

[14.] Refusing to carry out menial tasks;

[15.] Seeking or wanting to be singled out;

[16.] Letting drop words of self-praise in conversation, or words that might show your honesty, your wit or skill, your professional prestige...;

[17.] Being ashamed of not having certain possessions...

(St. Josemaría Escrivá, Furrow, n. 263; available here: http://www.escrivaworks.org/book/furrow.htm; published with permission.)

Maxims to Obtain Perfection in the Love of Jesus Christ

2011-02-25T00:29:00.000-08:00

Maxims for the Direction of a Soul that Desires to Obtain Perfection in the Love of Jesus Christ

1. To desire ardently to increase in the love of Jesus Christ.

2. Often to make acts of love towards Jesus Christ. Immediately on waking, and before going to sleep, to make an act of love, seeking always to unite your own will to the will of Jesus Christ.

3. Often to meditate on his Passion.

4. Always to ask Jesus Christ for his love.

5. To communicate often, and many times in the day to make spiritual Communions.

6. Often to visit the Most Holy Sacrament.

7. Every morning to receive from the hands of Jesus Christ himself your own cross.

8. To desire Paradise and death, in order to be able to love Jesus Christ perfectly and for all eternity.

9. Often to speak of the love of Jesus Christ.

10. To accept contradictions for the sake of Jesus Christ.

11. To rejoice in the happiness of God.

12. To do that which is most pleasing to Jesus Christ, and not to refuse him anything that is agreeable to him.

13. To desire and to endeavor that all should love Jesus Christ.

14. To pray always for sinners and for the souls in purgatory.

15. To drive from your heart every affection that does not belong to Jesus Christ.

16. Always to have recourse to the most holy Mary, that she may obtain for us the love of Jesus Christ.

17. To honor Mary in order to please Jesus Christ.

18. To seek to please Jesus Christ in all your actions.

19. To offer yourself to Jesus Christ to suffer any pain for his love.

20 To be always determined to die rather than commit a willful venial sin.

21. To suffer crosses patiently, saying, "Thus it pleases Jesus Christ."

22. To renounce your own pleasures for the love of Jesus Christ.

23. To pray as much as possible.

24. To practice all the mortifications that obedience permits.

25. To do all your spiritual exercises as if it were for the last time.

26. To persevere in good works in the time of aridity.

27. Not to do nor yet to leave undone anything through human respect.

28. Not to complain in sickness.

29. To love solitude, to be able to converse alone with Jesus Christ.

30. To drive away melancholy.

37. Often to recommend yourself to those persons who love Jesus Christ.

32. In temptation, to have recourse to Jesus crucified, and to Mary in her sorrows.

33. To trust entirely in the Passion of Jesus Christ.

34. After committing a fault, not to be discouraged, but to repent and resolve to amend.

35. To do good to those who do evil.

36. To speak well of all, and to excuse the intention when you cannot defend the action.

37. To help your neighbor as much as you can.

38. Neither to say nor to do anything that might vex him. And if you have been wanting in charity, to ask his pardon and speak kindly to him.

39. Always to speak with mildness and in a low tone.

40. To offer to Jesus Christ all the contempt and persecution that you meet with.

41. To look upon [religious] Superiors as the representatives of Jesus Christ.

42. To obey without answering and without repugnance, and not to seek your own satisfaction in anything.

43. To like the lowest employments.

44. To like the poorest things.

45. Not to speak either good or evil of yourself.

46. To humble yourself even towards inferiors.

47. Not to excuse yourself when you are reproved.

48. Not to defend yourself when found fault with.

49. To be silent when you are disquieted.

50. Always to renew your determination of becoming a saint, saying, "My Jesus, I desire to be all Yours, and You must be all mine."

(St. Alphonsus Liguori, The Incarnation, Birth, and Infancy of Jesus Christ [1927].)

R. Garrigou-Lagrange on Study and the Interior Life

2011-02-24T22:57:00.000-08:00

The relation between the study of theology and the interior life

There is often too great a separation between study and the interior life; we do not find sufficiently observed, that beautiful gradation spoken of by St. Benedict which consists in: reading, cogitation, study, meditation, prayer and contemplation (1). St. Thomas, who received his first education from the Benedictines, retained this wonderful gradation when speaking of the contemplative life (2).

Several defects result from separating study too much from prayer. Thus the hardship and difficulty that not infrequently accompany study are no longer considered a salutary penance, nor are they sufficiently directed to God. Thus weariness and disgust sometimes result from study, without any spiritual profit.

St. Thomas speaks about these two deviations (3) when discussing the virtue of studiousness or application to study, which must be commanded by charity as a check to inordinate curiosity and sloth, so as to study those things which one ought to study, how, when, and where one ought, especially with regard to the spiritual end in view, this being for the acquisition of a better knowledge of God and for the salvation of souls.

To avoid the above-mentioned defects that are opposed to each other, it is good to recall how our intellectual study can be sanctified, by considering first what benefit the interior life receives from a study that is properly directed, and then, on the other hand, what the study of theology can hope to receive in an increasing degree from the interior life. It is in the union of these two functions of our nature that we find the best verification of the principle "Causes mutually interact, but in a different order." There is a mutual causality and priority among them, which is truly wonderful.

The indebtedness of the interior life to study

By the study of theology the interior life is especially preserved from the two serious defects of subjectivism in piety and particularism. Subjectivism, as it applies to piety, is often now called "sentimentalism." It consists in a certain affected love which lacks a true deep love for God and souls. This defect arises from the fact the natural inclination of our sensitive nature prevails in prayer according to each one's disposition. An emotion of our sensitive nature prevails, and this emotion sometimes expresses itself certain outbursts of praise which are quite without solid foundation in reality. In our days several skeptical psychologists, such as Bergson in France, think that even Catholic mysticism is the result of some prevailing and noble emotion that arises from the subconscious self, and that afterward finds expression in the ideas and judgments of the mystics. But a doubt always remains whether these judgments are true that result from the impulse of the subconscious self and the affections.

Contrary to this, our interior life must be founded on divine, truth. It already has this from infused faith that rests upon authority of God revealing. But study that is properly directed is of great help in fully realizing what the truths of the faith are strictly in themselves, independently of our subjective dispositions. Study is of special help, indeed, in forming a true concept of God's perfections, of His goodness, love, mercy, justice, as also of the infused virtues of humility, religion, and charity, and this without any admixture of emotion that has not its foundation in truth. Therefore St. Theresa says (4) that she received much help by conversing with good theologians, so that she might not deviate from the path of truth in difficult straits.

When our study is rightly ordered, it frees the interior life not only from subjectivism but also from particularism resulting from the excessive influence of certain ideas prevalent at some period of time or in some region, ideas which after thirty years will appear antiquated. Some years ago ideas of this or that particular philosophy prevailed, which now no longer find favorable acceptance. It is so in every generation. There is a succession of opinions and events that arouse one's admiration; they pass with the fashion of the world, while the words of God remain, by which the just man must live.

Thus, in truth, study that is well ordered preserves intact the objectivity which the interior life should have above all the deviations of our sensitive nature, and it also preserves the universality of the same which is founded upon what the Church teaches everywhere and at all times. Thus it becomes increasingly clear that the higher, the deeper, and the more vital truths are none other than the elementary truths of Christianity, provided they are thoroughly examined and become the subject of daily meditation and contemplation. Such are the truths enunciated in the Lord's Prayer and in the following words from the first page of the catechism: "What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven? To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and serve God in this world." Equally so it becomes increasingly clear that the fundamental truth of Christianity is: "God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son" (5).

It is a matter of great importance that these truths profoundly influence our lives, without our deviating into the subjectivism, sentimentalism, and particularism prevalent at some period of time or in some region. In this, however, our interior life is in many ways benefited by good study; and the choicest fruit of penance is to be found in the arduousness of study. It is a fruit much more precious than the natural pleasure to be found in study that may consist in intellectual labor not sufficiently sanctified or directed to God. In diligent study that is commanded by charity, we find pre-eminently verified the common saying: If the roots of knowledge are bitter, its fruits are the sweetest and best. We are not considering here the knowledge that inflates, but that which, under the influence of charity and the virtue of studiousness, is truly upbuilding.

The interior life, which study saves from a number of deviations, therefore remains objective in its tendency and is truly founded on what has been universally and at all times the traditional doctrine. On the other hand the interior life influences the study of theology.

What the study of theology owes to the interior life

Often this study remains lifeless, whether viewed in its positive, or in its speculative and abstract aspect. Sometimes it lacks the noble inspiration and influence of the theological virtues and of the gifts of understanding and wisdom. Hence theological wisdom is sometimes not that "savory knowledge" which St. Thomas speaks of in the first question of the Theological Summa.

At times our mind is occupied too much with dogmatic formulas, in the analysis of their concepts, in the conclusions deduced from them, and it does not by means of these formulas penetrate the mystery of faith sufficiently to taste its spiritual sweetness and live thereby.

Here it is fitting to state that a number of saints, who were incapable of such serious studies as we engage in, penetrated these mysteries of faith more deeply. Thus St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catharine of Siena, St. Benedict Joseph Labre, and many others, who certainly did not attempt to analyze in an abstract and speculative manner the dogmatic concepts of the Incarnation, the Redemption, and the Eucharist, and did not deduce theological conclusions that are known to us. Yet from the fountainhead of these mysteries with a holy realism they drew abundant life for themselves.

Through the formulas they reached by a vital act, in the obscurity of faith, the divine reality itself. As St. Thomas says: "The act of the believer does not terminate in a proposition, but in a thing" (6), in a revealed truth.

Even without the great grace of contemplation, a number of very good Christians, by humility and self-denial, penetrate in their own way the depths of these mysteries. And if this fact is verified in these good Christians among the faithful, with far more reason it must be verified in the religious or priest who has truly understood the dignity of his vocation. Daily the priest must celebrate the Holy Sacrifice with a firmer faith, a more vivid hope, and a more ardent charity, so that his Eucharistic Communion may be almost every day substantially more fervent, and not only preserve but also keep on increasing in him the virtue of charity.

St. Thomas well says: "The more a physical motion approaches its terminus, the more it is intensified. It is just the opposite with a violent motion (the throwing of a stone). But grace inclines in a way similar to that of nature. Therefore (as the physical motion of a falling stone is always accelerated), so for those who are in a state of grace, the nearer they approach the end, the more they must increase in grace" (7); because the nearer they approach God, the more they are enticed or drawn by Him, just as the stone is drawn toward the center of the earth.

If our interior life were to receive such increase of grace every day, it would have a most favorable influence upon our study, and each day this would become more vigorous. Thus study and the life of prayer are causes that interact in beautiful harmony.

The fruit of this mutual influence

When the priest's interior life is one of great and solid piety, his theology is always more vigorous. After this theologian has made the descent from faith for the purpose of acquiring theological knowledge by the discussion of particular questions, he desires to return to the source, namely, to ascend from the theological knowledge thus acquired by the discussion of particular questions to the lofty peak of faith. The theologian is like a man who is born on the top of a mountain, for instance, Monte Cassino, and who afterward descends into the valley to acquire an accurate knowledge of individual things. Finally this man wishes to return to his lofty abode, that he may contemplate the whole valley from on high and in a single glance.

There are some men who prefer the plains, but others are more attracted by the mountains: "Wonderful is the Lord on high" (8). So the good theologian must daily breathe the mountain air and derive from the Apostle's Creed an abundance of spiritual nourishment for himself, and also, at the end of the Mass, from the Prologue of St. John's Gospel, which is, as it were, the synthesis of all Christian revelation. Daily, in like manner, he must live his life on a higher plane, directed by the Lord's Prayer, the beatitudes, and the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety, which is a synthesis of all Christian ethics in its wondrous elevation.

When the priest has, as he should have, the spirit of prayer, then his interior life urges him to search more in dogmatic theology and in moral theology for that which savors preferably of vitality and fecundity. For then, under the influence of the gifts of understanding and wisdom, faith becomes more penetrating and savory.

Then the most beautiful quasi-obscurity in Christian doctrine becomes apparent, or the harmonious blends of light and shade which, like chiaroscuro in a painting, hold the intellect spellbound and are the subject of contemplation for the saints. As an example of this, gradually all the great questions of grace are reduced to these two principles: on the one hand, "God does not command what is impossible, but by commanding, both admonishes thee to do what thou art able, and to pray for what thou art not able to do," as St. Augustine says, who is quoted by the Council of Trent against the Protestants (9). On the other hand, against the Pelagians and Semipelagians we have: "For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?" (10). As St. Thomas says: "Since God's love is the cause of goodness in things, no one thing would be better than another, if God did not will greater good for one than for another" (11).

These two principles taken separately are clear and most certain; but their intimate reconciliation is very obscure, the obscurity resulting from too great a light. To perceive this intimate reconciliation, we would have to see how infinite justice, mercy, and liberty are reconciled in the eminent Deity.

Likewise there is another example; for in proportion as the interior life develops within us, so much the more do we realize the sublimity of the treatise on the Incarnation accomplished for the purpose of our redemption; and we are especially impressed with the motive of the Incarnation of the Son of God, "who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and became man."

In the same way, under the influence of a life of prayer, the treatise on the Incarnation is presented to us in a more striking light, and among the various opinions concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass we more and more realize that the teaching of the Council of Trent surpasses them all, when it states: "The victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the Cross, the manner of offering being different" (12). Increasingly Christ appears as the high priest, "always living to make intercession for us" (13), especially in the Mass, which is therefore of infinite value. Thus we gradually discover in the councils those most precious adamantine rocks, and likewise in the Theological Summa the dominant chapters or the more sublime articles are by degrees made known to us, which are, as it were, the higher peaks by which the whole mountain range is clearly outlined.

If we were to apply ourselves to the study of theology in a true spirit of faith, prayer, and penance, we would find verified in us these words of St. Thomas: "Doctrine and preaching proceed from the fullness of contemplation" (14), somewhat in the manner of the preaching of the apostles after the day of Pentecost.

Theology, understood in this sense, is of great importance in the ministry of souls. It thoroughly imbues a priest with the spirit of sound judgment according to the mind of Christ and the Church, so that souls are exhorted to strive after perfection in accordance with true principles, by showing one, for instance, that according to the supreme precept, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart," all Christians must strive after the perfection of charity, each one, however, according to the manner of his state in life.

And we cannot reach this fullness of perfection in the Christian life unless our lives are profoundly influenced by the mystery of the Incarnation in its redemptive aspect and by the Eucharist, and unless, by faith, enlightened by the gifts of wisdom and understanding, we penetrate these mysteries and taste their sweetness. For this, indeed, the study of theology is of great help provided it be properly directed, not for the satisfaction we get from it, but for the purpose of knowing God better and for the salvation of souls.

Thus these beautiful words of the Vatican Council become increasingly possible of verification in us: "Reason, enlightened by faith, when it seeks earnestly, piously, and calmly, attains by a gift of God some, and that a very fruitful, understanding of mysteries; and this both from the analogy of those things which it naturally knows, and from the relations which the mysteries bear to one another and to the last end of man" (15).

The study of sacred theology, which sometimes is hard and arduous, though fruitful, thus disposes our minds for the light of contemplation and of life, which is, as it were, an introduction and a beginning of eternal life in us.

Footnotes:

1. Rule of St. Benedict, chap. 48.

2. Summa theol., IIa IIae, q.180, a.3.

3. Ibid., q. 166.

4. Autobiography, chap. 13.

5. John 3: 16.

6. Summa theol., IIa IIae, q. 1, a.2 ad 2um.

7. Com. in epist. ad Hebr., 10: 25.

8. Ps. 92: 4.

9. Denz., no. 804.

10. 1 Cor 4:7.

11. Summa theol., Ia, q.20, a.3.

12. Denz., no. 940.

13. Heb. 7: 25.

14. Summa theol., IIa IIae, q.188 , a.6.

15. Denz., no. 1796.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The One God: A Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas’s Theological Summa, Introduction; trans. by Dom Bede Rose, O.S.B., S.T.D.; available here: http://www.thesumma.info/one/index.php.)

St. Maximilian Kolbe on Interior Recollection

2011-02-24T22:35:00.000-08:00

What are we to do if we are to overcome our weakness of soul? There are two means: prayer and detachment from self. Our Lord Jesus counsels us to watch. We must be on the watch if we want our heart to be pure, but our watching must be peaceful if our heart is to be touched. Because it can be moved by good things or bad, within or without. Thus we need to watch carefully.

As a general rule God's inspiration is an unobtrusive grace; we mustn't turn it away...; if our heart's aren't awake, grace turns back. Divine inspiration is very exact; just as a writer guides his pen so the grace of God guides the soul. So let us try hard to attain greater interior recollection.

Our Lord wants us to desire to love him. The watchful soul notices when it falls and realises that, of itself, it cannot reach its destination. That is why it experiences the need for prayer. Our petition is founded on the conviction that we can do nothing of ourselves but God can do all. Prayer is needed to obtain light and strength.

(St. Maximilian Kolbe, Conference of Feb. 13, 1941.)

“Self-Love is the Greatest Hindrance to the Highest Good”

2011-02-24T22:19:00.001-08:00

The Voice of Christ

My Child, you should give all for all, and in no way belong to yourself. You must know that self-love is more harmful to you than anything else in the world. In proportion to the love and affection you have for a thing, it will cling to you more or less. If your love is pure, simple, and well ordered, you will not be a slave to anything. Do not covet what you may not have. Do not possess anything that can hinder you or rob you of freedom.

It is strange that you do not commit yourself to Me with your whole heart, together with all that you can desire or possess. Why are you consumed with foolish sorrow? Why are you wearied with unnecessary care? Be resigned to My will and you will suffer no loss.

If you seek this or that, if you wish to be in this place or that place, to have more ease and pleasure, you will never rest or be free from care, for some defect is found in everything and everywhere someone will vex you. To obtain and multiply earthly goods, then, will not help you, but to despise them and root them out of your heart will aid. This, understand, is true not only of money and wealth, but also of ambition for honor and desire for empty praise, all of which will pass away with this world.

The place matters little if the spirit of fervor is not there; nor will peace be lasting if it is sought from the outside; if your heart has no true foundation, that is, if you are not founded in Me, you may change, but you will not better yourself. For when occasion arises and is accepted, you will find that from which you fled and worse.

A Prayer for Cleansing the Heart and Obtaining Heavenly Wisdom

Strengthen me by the grace of Your Holy Spirit, O God. Give me the power to be strengthened inwardly and to empty my heart of all vain care and anxiety, so that I may not be drawn away by many desires, whether for precious things or mean ones. Let me look upon everything as passing, and upon myself as soon to pass away with them, because there is nothing lasting under the sun, where all is vanity and affliction of spirit. How wise is he who thinks thus!

Give me, Lord, heavenly wisdom to learn above all else to seek and find You, to enjoy and love You more than anything, and to consider other things as they are, as Your wisdom has ordered them. Grant me prudence to avoid the flatterer and to bear patiently with him who disagrees with me. For it is great wisdom not to be moved by the sound of words, nor to give ear to the wicked, flattering siren. Then, I shall walk safely in the way I have begun.

(Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Bk. III, Chapter 27.)

"Man Has No Good in Himself and Can Glory in Nothing"

2011-02-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

The Disciple

Lord, what is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You visit him? What has man deserved that You should give him Your grace? What cause have I, Lord, to complain if You desert me, or what objection can I have if You do not do what I ask? This I may think and say in all truth: "Lord, I am nothing, of myself I have nothing that is good; I am lacking in all things, and I am ever tending toward nothing. And unless I have Your help and am inwardly strengthened by You, I become quite lukewarm and lax."

But You, Lord, are always the same. You remain forever, always good, just, and holy; doing all things rightly, justly, and holily, disposing them wisely. I, however, who am more ready to go backward than forward, do not remain always in one state, for I change with the seasons. Yet my condition quickly improves when it pleases You and when You reach forth Your helping hand. For You alone, without human aid, can help me and strengthen me so greatly that my heart shall no more change but be converted and rest solely in You. Hence, if I knew well how to cast aside all earthly consolation, either to attain devotion or because of the necessity which, in the absence of human solace, compels me to seek You alone, then I could deservedly hope for Your grace and rejoice in the gift of new consolation.

Thanks be to You from Whom all things come, whenever it is well with me. In Your sight I am vanity and nothingness, a weak, unstable man. In what, therefore, can I glory, and how can I wish to be highly regarded? Is it because I am nothing? This, too, is utterly vain. Indeed, the greatest vanity is the evil plague of empty self-glory, because it draws one away from true glory and robs one of heavenly grace. For when a man is pleased with himself he displeases You, when he pants after human praise he is deprived of true virtue. But it is true glory and holy exultation to glory in You and not in self, to rejoice in Your name rather than in one's own virtue, and not to delight in any creature except for Your sake.

Let Your name, not mine, be praised. Let Your work, not mine, be magnified. Let Your holy name be blessed, but let no human praise be given to me. You are my glory. You are the joy of my heart. In You I will glory and rejoice all the day, and for myself I will glory in nothing but my infirmities.

Let the Jews seek the glory that comes from another. I will seek that which comes from God alone. All human glory, all temporal honor, all worldly position is truly vanity and foolishness compared to Your everlasting glory. O my Truth, my Mercy, my God, O Blessed Trinity, to You alone be praise and honor, power and glory, throughout all the endless ages of ages.

(Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Bk. III, Chapter 40.)

Recommendation: Chastity SF

2011-02-22T00:16:00.000-08:00

We highly recommend the reader to Chastity -- In San Francisco? It is a website dedicated to "Psychological Healing in the Roman Catholic Mystic Tradition." This website is a source of many graces. It works in conjunction with the author's other website, A Guide to Psychology. Both websites provide tools for deep, psychological and spiritual self-examination. For many, the material found on the websites will undoubtedly present a challenge. However, we believe that these websites challenge in the same way that Christ is a challenge to our sinful complacency.

Q&A: Why doesn't God heal amputees? / Why doesn't God "show" Himself, once and for all?

2010-08-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

The question stated, in condensed form:

I am generally a good Catholic, meaning that I pray the Rosary daily, go to mass on Sundays, and try to go to confession at least once a month. However, I have nagging doubts about my faith and have since I was six years old.... My faith has not been a source of comfort to me, but simply a practice.... My mindset is that it is generally better to believe and not be sorry....
My family is mostly lukewarm and I believe that one of my siblings does not even go to church anymore. There is nothing actively hostile in them, no rebellion, just the sense that it is there and it may be true, it may be not.... [My mother] says that we’re adults now and we can do what we want, but for her, religion helps keep her on track....
I always have more anxiety about if God does or does not exist. Deep down I do not know. In fact, I recently looked at a website called why doesn’t God heal amputees and I was not satisfied with any of the answers that religious people gave to this question. To me, they seemed evasive. One person said something like “Amputees feel no pain.” Another said, “God is so far above me I do not question him.” Another said something like “The spirit is more important than a missing foot.” These answers bothered me because they’re not answers at all, but statements that hover in ambiguity and doubt, and seem to hide pain and confusion. Yet, I see the atheistic attack as insensitive and missing the point because they will “go in for the kill”....
I don’t understand why God doesn’t heal amputees, and, as always, I am on the fence on the issue of religion.

Here, we offer a startling response from Dr. Richmond, one that Dr. Peter Kreeft, a noted Christian philosopher and speaker, speaks of in his commentary on Paschal's Pensées, looking at the same issue from a different "light," so to speak. Although the blog is not strictly for apologetics, the point relating to the spiritual life is made clear by both answers. Linked to, first, is Dr. Richmond's answer; secondly, embedded, a video of Dr. Kreeft on the issue of God "showing" Himself.

Why doesn't God heal amputees?

Peter Kreeft on the Existence of God, Pt. 2.

(Permission is granted from Dr. Richmond to link to his website.)

"Jesus, Our Father, Mary, Our Mother"

2010-08-07T19:35:00.000-07:00

"My child... I will always be with thee and act as thy Father, and she shall be thy Mother," He said, pointing to Our Lady of Dolors. "Paternal help shall never be wanting to those who place themselves in My hands. Nothing therefore, shalt thou lack, even though I Myself have deprived thee of every consolation and help in this world." - Jesus to St. Gemma Galgani.

(Ven. Fr. Germanus, C.P., The Life of St. Gemma Galgani, p. 43; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

[Please note, we are not here, and obviously neither is the Saint, declaring God the Father to be the same person as God the Son and vice versa.]

"External Circumstances to Dispose Oneself for Contemplation"

2010-08-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

We considered these supernatural dispositions for infused contemplation at considerable length.... That teaching on the subject is classical, and it would be an unpardonable fault to neglect it. These dispositions, as we have seen, are chiefly: 1) great purity of heart, "Blessed are the clean of heart"; 2) great simplicity of mind which seeks only the truth; 3) profound humility; 4) habitual recollection; 5) perseverance in prayer; 6) fervent charity. This last disposition is the most important together with a profound humility. In the order of material preparation, humility is fundamental ... inasmuch as it removes the principal obstacle which is pride, intellectual pride so frequent in a certain type of learning, or spiritual pride (1).... Too much insistence cannot ... be placed on the supernatural dispositions to contemplation. And who can answer that he is unable to have this purity of heart, simplicity of mind, profound humility, spirit of prayer, and charity? We ought to beg God to give us these dispositions.

We have, moreover, considered the external conditions that favor contemplation and union with God. they are: a certain solitude, silence, sufficient time given to prayer, no overburdening, no useless reading, no preoccupations foreign to our vocation. To these external conditions must be added natural aptitude and also enlightened direction. If many of these exterior conditions are lacking, it is difficult to reach contemplation, which no longer has its normal environment. Profound humility and ardent charity, however, may supply this lack, especially if joined with great devotion to the Blessed Virgin and to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus (2). He who habitually begins his prayer with these two mediators, will be led by them to intimate union with God, since the object of the Blessed Virgin's influence is to lead us to her Son, and that of Christ to lead us to the Father.

When suitable external conditions are lacking, it may happen that generous souls will reach contemplation only after a period of time longer than the usual span of life; but they tend to it as to the normal prelude of the beatific vision....

Sanctifying grace is, in fact, a beginning of eternal life (inchoatio vitae aeternae, semen gloriae), it is of itself inamissable and should continually increase, especially through daily communion. But we hold this treasure in a fragile vessel and, because of the subject or of the defectibility of our free will, grace can be lost or may increase very little.... Whoever does not advance in the spiritual life, retrogresses.

Footnotes:

1. See IIa IIae, q. 161, a. 5: "Humility makes a man a good subject to ordinance of all kinds and in all matters." Ibid., ad 2um: "First, by way of removing obstacles: and thus humility holds the first place, inasmuch as it expels pride, which God resisteth, and makes man open to receive the influx of divine grace. Hence it is written (Jas. 4:6): God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. In this sense humility is said to be the foundation of the spiritual edifice."

2. Cf. [St.] Grignion de Montfort, [Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin], chap. 4, art. 5, and the summary of this treatise, [The Secret of Mary], made by [St.] Grignion. With a view to mental prayer, it is also well to meditate often on the office and mass of the Sacred Heart, and also on the office and mass of the Eucharistic Heart....

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 416-418; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Recognizing Grace in the Soul"

2010-08-05T10:36:00.001-07:00

In Ia IIae, q. 112, a.5: "Without special revelation the presence of God in us and His absence cannot be known with certainty.... But things are known conjecturally by signs; and thus anyone may know that he has grace, when he is conscious of delight in God, and of despising worldly things, and inasmuch as a man is not conscious of any mortal sin. And thus it is written (Rev. 2:17): 'To him that overcometh I will give the hidden manna...which no man knoweth, but he that receiveth it,' because whoever receives it knows, by experiencing a certain sweetness, which he who does not receive it, does not experience." It is with this meaning, moreover, that this text of [Revelation] is generally quoted by mystics.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 306, footnote 115; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

In IIIa, q. 68, a. 2: "God, Whose power is not tied to visible sacraments, sanctifies man inwardly. Hence Ambrose says of Valentinian, who died while yet a catechumen: "I lost him whom I was to regenerate: but he did not lose the grace he prayed for."

[See also Ia IIae, q. 112, a.5 for more about recognizing the presence of grace in the soul.]

"The Desire of Contemplation"

2010-08-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

But with regard to the graces of the mystical union, whose nature and degrees we have described, may we desire and pray for them?

If a soul has already received a beginning of mystical union, it has always been admitted that she may desire further progress in these ways. God has given a true vocation and deposited a germ; to desire that this should be developed is to will what God wills. This is applicable even to those who are as yet in the passive purgation of the senses; they have only one foot in the ordinary kinds of prayer, the other is already planted in the mystical way; God is calling them, and wishes to lead them on to further heights....

We do not see why a soul, already arrived at the state of quiet, or at that of full union, might not desire an increase of light and of infused love, even though the alienation of the senses should be the result. Her intentions are pure, this hope animates her to practice virtue, and, after the favors already received, is in no way presumptuous, nor does she desire this to take place in public; in what, then, is she to be blamed?

If a person has not yet entered upon mystical contemplation, may he desire and ask it? ...

The common and almost universal opinion is, that they may desire and ask the gift of supernatural contemplation, provided that this desire does not arise from pride or sensuality, and that it is accompanied with an humble submission to the Divine Will.

These graces of prayer spring in fact from love; they have for principle the Holy Ghost and His better gifts; for object, God; for end, divine union, God tasted and possessed; they enrich the soul with many merits, urge it on to heroic virtues, dispose it to do great things for God and for one's neighbor, are a powerful lever to raise her from earth and to unite her to the sovereign good; they are even a foretaste of the occupations and the happiness of our heavenly home. How, then, is it possible not to desire them? ...

Aught not humility then prompt us to avoid them? No more than it should prompt us to avoid Holy Communion and all commerce with God by prayer. For, who would venture to believe himself worthy to converse with Infinite Majesty, or to be united intimately with the God of the Eucharist? The voice of our needs cries out more loudly than that of our respect. Let us adore, and let us also desire....

In contemplation, God shows us so much love! Should we dare to receive His caresses? We dare to receive Holy Communion. During prayer, too, as well as at the Holy Table, we adore, we humble ourselves, we make ourselves quite little; but, nevertheless, we love and eat because we need to do so.

One may misuse contemplation! One may also misuse the consolations of ordinary meditation.... All the gifts of God, without exception, may be abused and turned aside from their end. It is supremely unjust to condemn what is good on account of possible abuses. Let us guard against dangers and illusions, by humility, by abnegation and obedience to a wise director. Let us keep our intention right, our heart detached, our will submissive to Divine Providence, and then we may desire ardently, and ask with confidence these graces of prayer.

But there is a danger for humility. "On the contrary, no kind of prayer is better calculated to crucify self-love and to penetrate a man with the sense of his own nothingness, none other is more apt to exclude every movement of pride" (1).

"At present ... if any one aspires to some gift of prayer a little above the common way, he is clearly told ... that we must neither desire nor ask them; thus the door is closed for ever upon these gifts. This is a great abuse" (2).

This, too, is the opinion of St. Thomas. St. Teresa maintains the same in more than twenty passages of her writings (3). St. John of the Cross composed his work for the sole purpose of leading souls to the summit of mystical union. We must also mention St. Peter Damian, Richard of St. Victor, Louis of Blois, [St.] Albert the Great, Ruysbroeck, Lanspergius, St. Ignatius, Alvarez de Paz, the Ven. Louis da Ponte, etc., etc. (4).

Let us be satisfied with citing our own great St. Bernard. Everywhere he admits the lawfulness of this desire....

The more a soul advances the better she knows the greatness and sanctity of God and her own nothingness and misery. The graces of prayer appear to her in the highest degree precious and she has an ardent desire of them, while at the same time she feels that she does not deserve them. Sometimes this desire predominates, and she exclaims: "Oh that He would give me one kiss of His mouth"; at other times, humility prevails, and she says: "O Lord, I am not worthy." It is this alternating rhythm of desire and humility, which ravishes the heart of God (5).

The view of the responsibilities which so elevated a state entails, the humble fear of failing to correspond sufficiently with its graces, the danger of illusions, may all serve to lead the soul to moderate this desire by a complete abandonment of herself into the hands of God who knows what is best for us. This filial and loving abandonment does not exclude desire; but, fearing to be deceived in a matter so far above her own feeble lights, she leaves herself to the wisdom and goodness of Him, who possesses all her love and confidence. No other disposition seems to us so calculated to charm God and induce Him to bestow His gifts.

Footnotes:

1. Lejune, Theol. Myst., chap. 2, no. 11.

2. Fr. Louis Lallemant, Doc. spirit., 7th principle, chap. 1, art. 3, sec. 2.

3. Fr. Poulain, Graces of Prayer, chap. 35, no. 17, 18, 19.

4. Fr. Poulain, Graces of Prayer, chap. 25, 20 and ff.

5. Fr. Poulain, Graces of Prayer, chap. 25, no. 11.

(Rt. Rev. Dom Vitalis Lehodey, O.C.R., The Ways of Mental Prayer, p. 399-404; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Transforming Union"

2010-08-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

The supreme goal of mystical union is the spiritual marriage of the soul with God, or transforming union, consummated union, deification. St. Teresa calls this the seventh mansion.

God has made captive the will, in the prayer of quiet, all the powers, in the state of full union, and the very body, in ecstasy; but now He is about to take hold of the substance of the soul and of its life; her whole being will now be taken hold of in a more perfect, permanent and definite way. God will no longer have any need to bind the faculties, for they now move at His good pleasure. The other unions were only transitory states, this one is stable (1). The union of all the powers was "the preparation for, and, as it were, the road to" spiritual marriage, and, so to speak, the preliminary interviews, before the espousals (2). These latter have been celebrated in a sublime rapture; numerous ecstasies have made known to the soul the riches of the infinite perfections, the boundless love of Him who wishes to become her Spouse; these divine favors elevate her mind, inflame her heart, adorn her as with so many jewels; the torments of love have completed her purification, and all is now ready for the celebration of the spiritual wedding.

This ceremony takes place in the very center of the soul (3), where the Holy Trinity dwells in a special manner, having there erected Its throne. Into this God introduces His betrothed, showing Himself to her, not indeed in the full light of the intuitive vision, but in a very clear and distinct intellectual vision. The sacred Humanity of Our Lord also manifests Itself to the soul, at first in a vision of the imagination, afterwards in an intellectual vision. Then it is that this most happy contract is signed by mutual consent. The form of the ceremony and of the secondary details may vary; the essential point is, that this contract establishes henceforth a permanent and indissoluble union of the soul with God.

The two spouses will dwell together in the inmost center of the soul. Already God dwelt there by His sanctifying grace without the soul's being conscious of it. Here, however, the soul constantly enjoys and intellectual view of the Holy Trinity who is her companion. This view was very clear at first, and will become so again whenever God so pleases; but, generally, it is more obscure, otherwise "the soul could not attend to anything else, nor even live amongst human beings." This view is almost uninterrupted, even in the midst of exterior occupations; even when engaged in the works of Martha, the soul enjoys the repose of Mary. Every time she thinks upon Him, she enjoys the company of her Divine Spouse; if she should cease to be attentive to Him, He Himself arouses her (4).

There is in this state something infinitely more precious than even this continual perception of the Divine presence. "This is the total transformation of the soul into her Well-Beloved, a transformation in which ... God raises the soul above herself, makes her divine, and renders her, so to speak, a participator in the Divine nature, as far at least as such a thing is possible in this world" (5). Sanctifying grace had already made her sharer in the Divine nature and the life of God in a way as real, but not accompanied by a consciousness of it. Here it is impossible for the soul to doubt that the Holy Trinity is within her, communicating to her divine life, and aiding her to perform divine acts. "She sees clearly, by certain secret but very vivid affections of love, that it is her God who is giving her life, that He is within her like a living fountain, watering her with graces, that it is He who shoots the arrows by which she is wounded, that He is the life of her life, and the sun that sheds its light from her inmost center upon all her powers" (6).

This perception of transformation in God is something very strange; its effects are not less so. The soul forgets, so to speak, her own interests, and thinks only of those of God.... She wishes only the pleasure of God. The impatient longing she previously had to die in order to be with her Well-Beloved, has given place to such a desire to serve Our Lord and procure His glory, that she would willingly consent to live for long years to come; yet she regards death rather as a "sweet rapture"....

St. Teresa affirms that "the soul arrived at this state hardly ever again experiences those impetuous raptures of which she had spoken; ecstasies and even flights of the spirit become very rare, and hardly ever happen to her in public.... The distinguishing feature of this mansion is that there hardly ever occur in it any aridities" ... a profound peace reigns therein.... [Sometimes] concupiscence awakens, and attacks them fiercely, but this trial occurs only at rare intervals ... to show these souls how much they stand in need of Him, to incline them to live in an humble watchfulness, in a continual fear of losing His favors. These souls, therefore, have their own trials, but they have also greater strength, and God protects them with jealous care (7)....

According to St. Teresa, she can commit only imperfections and "indeliberate" venial sins; "from mortal sins committed with advertence, she is exempt.... [However,] the soul is not assured of her salvation, nor of ever again falling away" (8).

Footnotes:

1. Castle, 7th mans., chap. 2.; St. Liguori, Praxis, 138.

2. Ibid., 5th mans., chap. 4.

3. Castle, 5th mans., chap. 1, 2.

4. Castle, 7th mans., chap. 2, 3.

5. St. John of the Cross, Spir. Cant., stanza 22.

6. Castle, 7th mans., chap. 2.

7. Castle, 7th mans., chap. 3, 4.

8. Castle, 7th mans., chap. 2, 4.

(Rt. Rev. Dom Vitalis Lehodey, O.C.R., The Ways of Mental Prayer, p. 361-365; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Mystical Contemplation"

2010-08-01T15:05:00.000-07:00

Mystical contemplation is a passive contemplation; or, if you prefer it, a manifestly supernatural, infused and passive contemplation, wherein God, who generally makes the soul feel His presence, becomes known in an ineffable manner, and is possessed by a loving union, which communicates to the soul repose and peace, and exerts an influence upon the senses.

It is a contemplation, a prayer of simple look which proceeds from love and rests in love. So long as the soul has not reached this simple, amorous, and peaceful attention, she is still engaged in the noisy and complicated labor of meditation, or in the more simplified work of affective prayer....

In every kind of prayer there must be both God and man, grace and co-operation with grace. In acquired contemplation, the action of God remains hidden, we know it by faith and prove it by reason; in mystical prayer it is manifest, we feel it, it is a fact of our experience. St. Teresa never loses an opportunity (1) of reminding us that mystical contemplation is supernatural, entirely supernatural, manifestly supernatural; she asserts that this is so even from the prayer of quiet.

Now, "she calls supernatural, whatever we cannot acquire of ourselves, no matter what care and diligence we employ. In this respect, all we can do is to dispose ourselves for it, and a great point, too, is this disposing of ourselves for it" (2). Speaking elsewhere of the prayer of quiet, the Saint says: "Just as we cannot make the day dawn nor prevent the night from succeeding to it, so we cannot either procure for ourselves so great a good, nor retain it a single instant beyond the time fixed by the will of Our Lord. It is a favor entirely supernatural, we ourselves have no part in it, our own efforts cannot attain to it" (3). Alas! We can only too easily banish God by our infidelities, or oppose His action by doing things incompatible with prayer. "The impurity and the imperfections of the soul are the only obstacles to this grace, just as the spots of dirt upon a window-pane are obstacles to the light" (4). We can, on the other hand, remove the obstacles and positively dispose ourselves for this grace, as we have shown. Notwithstanding all this, God remains master of His gifts: "He distributes all His favors, when He pleases, in what manner He pleases, and to whom He pleases" (5). Here is the reason why all authors, with St. Teresa (6), so strongly recommend us not to seek to thrust ourselves into supernatural contemplation. This would be to deprive ourselves of meditation without reaching contemplation; a culpable presumption, a foolish attempt, a labor absolutely thrown away. By disposing herself, indeed, the soul reaches the door, but God alone can open it.

Since mystical prayer is supernatural, it is consequently infused on God's part, passive on the part of the soul (7). These expressions recur unceasingly in the writings of St. John of the Cross. Now, God shows Himself to the soul whenever it seems good to Him: at prayer, at spiritual reading, at manual work, during conversation, or sometimes in the midst of the most ordinary thoughts and occupations. Sometimes the soul expects a visit, but God does not come; at other times He shows Himself "at the moment when He is least expected and when the soul is very far from aspiring to any such favor" (8).... God gives Himself to the soul in whatever manner He Himself wills: the contemplation will be consoling or dry, according as He judges it well to inflame the soul or to purify it. However well prepared a soul may be, the divine favors remain favors, and never become a right or the salary of our efforts. God gives such form and such intensity to her prayer as He wills; sometimes He inebriates her with light and love; at others, He only half satisfies her hunger, or hardly throws her some few crumbs; and it is not in our power to render this infusion more copious.... Finally, He withdraws Himself when He wills, and none can keep Him when He wills it not....

However, if the soul is faithful, and if such is the good pleasure of God, the level of the prayers, taken all together, should ascend to a higher point, and the virtues should ever be on the increase....

During the whole time that God is pouring into her His lights and His love, the soul should be attentive to gather in what God deigns to give her. If she tries to meditate as formerly, to multiply distinct acts, "other than those which God inclines her to," to seek spiritual relish and fervor by the old methods, in a word, to act by herself instead of lovingly yielding herself up to receive, she thereby hinders God's action.... "This is," in the words of St. Teresa, "to throw water on the fire" (9)....

For the very reason that contemplation is infused on God's part, and passive on the part of the soul, it demands less labor, in proportion as it is more elevated; in complete union, the labor is reduced to almost anything....

In short, "it is very seldom" (10) that contemplation is completely passive. The co-operation of the will is necessary....

Footnotes:

1. Way, chap. 26, 32, etc.; Life, chap. 12, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 29, etc.; Castle, 4th mans., chap. 1, 2, 3; 5th mans., chap. 1, etc.

2. Il. Rd to Fr. Rodr. Alvarez. [?; the footnote, faded here, is difficult to read]; Ascent, bk. 3, chap. 1.

3. Way, chap. 32.

4. Ascent, bk. 2, chap. 16.

5. Castle, 4th mans., chap. 1.

6. Life, chap. 12.

7. The expressions "supernatural" and "infused" are here synonymous, we use them both only because they serve to mutually explain each other.

8. Ascent, bk. 2, chap. 26, 32.

9. Life, chap. 15.; Way, chap. 32.

10. Life, chap. 27.

(Rt. Rev. Dom Vitalis Lehodey, O.C.R., The Ways of Mental Prayer, p. 287-293; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Particular Obstacles to Contemplation"

2010-08-01T14:43:00.000-07:00

Souls that have not received the contemplation may question whether they themselves are setting up some obstacle to contemplation.

The obstacle always comes from an inordinate attachment, from selfishness. In many souls it is in the will; they choose their own way; in other words, they wish to go to God by using means of their own selection, and they demand, as it were, that God should come to them according to their way. They count not a little on their own activity instead of allowing God to act in them, and they desire to build up their perfection without His help. No slight obstacle is interposed when a soul wishes to direct itself in matters that should not be under its direction; it runs the risk of more or less consciously opposing the superior direction of the Holy Ghost. To want to be a center, to wish that good be done by us, or at least by our religious family or convent, and in our way, is an ineffectual preparation for contemplation, which is characterized precisely by being God's way. "I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones." Occasionally, it is in the poorest little convents, which seem to have no influence, that the most contemplative and holiest souls are to be found.

In other souls, the obstacle to contemplation is found in the mind. They try to analyze everything psychologically, and to record it in order to evaluate their slight progress. Consequently they turn their gaze upon themselves instead of on God. True, self-knowledge is always necessary even in the highest states (1), but this self-scrutiny should not be separated from the soul's attention to God. Is not the best examination of conscience that which questions sincerely what record of the day has left in the Book of Life? If this is done, the light of the Holy Ghost will effect what St. Augustine asked in his prayer: "That I may know Thee, O Lord, and that I may know myself." "In my opinion," says St. Teresa, "we will never succeed in knowing ourselves well unless we try to know God; by contemplating His greatness, we will discover our baseness.... If, on the contrary, we never rise above our own miseries, we will reap distinct harm.... Self-knowledge becomes warped if we never take our thoughts off ourselves, and I am not a bit astonished at that. That is why I maintain, my daughters, that we should fix our eyes on Jesus Christ, our treasure, and on the saints; there we shall learn true humility. By this way, I repeat, our intellect will be ennobled, and self-knowledge will cease to make us fearful and cowardly" (2).

Among those who analyze themselves too much, some leave off their prayer to find out whether it conforms to the descriptions given by mystical authors, and also to ascertain what degrees they have reached. Others imagine that, in order to live by these things, it is sufficient to know them exteriorly, and they try of themselves "to eliminate images and to empty their minds." By so doing they expose themselves to every kind of illusion; they confound a simple intellectual speculation about the Deity, which is superior to the divine perfections that it contains in its eminence, a speculation within the reach of every philosopher, even though he is in the state of mortal sin, with the infused contemplation described by Dionysius when he speaks of the great darkness (3). They forget that the principle which leads to Christian contemplation is to love God for Himself. They lose themselves in abstract speculations and do not comprehend the love of Christ. With a great amount of unconscious pride, they might thus go completely astray and end in a theosophical or [Buddhist] contemplation.

Lastly, certain souls appear better prepared in some respects, since they would willingly allow God to operate in them, and do not pride themselves on knowing everything; but their heart seeks in God enjoyment rather than God Himself. In this they are deceived, for it is a crucified God whom we must love, and intimacy with Him is often found in suffering. Undoubtedly joy and unequaled happiness come later, but this is not what the soul should seek.

Some souls that have opposed all these obstacles to the grace of God have had the happiness of seeing Him overthrow them all in order to prove once more that He came to seek sinners and to save that which was lost. Perhaps the intimacy of prayer was necessary for their salvation; if they had not obtained it, they might have wished to enjoy their faculties for themselves and to find in a forbidden love or in the satisfactions of pride what exists in divine love alone. Priceless treasures are often wasted by shutting oneself up in self. We should invoke God's help in the following prayer: "O Lord, take me from myself, and give me strength to give myself completely to Thee."

Footnotes:

1. St. Teresa, The Interior Castle, first mansion, chap. 2: "This knowledge of self is so necessary, even to souls admitted by God to His own dwelling, that they should never depart from it no matter how high they may be raised. Moreover, even though they should wish to do so, they could not do it."

2. Ibid.

3. This error fails to take cognizance of the fact that infused knowledge is infused, that it presupposes a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and that it proceeds, not from the love of the joys of knowledge, but from love of God.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 395-398; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Preparation and Thanksgiving for Holy Communion"

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283. B) Dispositions to profit well by the reception of the Eucharist. ... Whatever in our preparation and thanksgiving fosters union will increase the effects of Holy Communion. a) The preparation will have the form of an anticipated union with Our Lord. We take for granted the union of the soul with God by sanctifying grace as already existing; without it, Communion would constitute a sacrilege (1).

1) There is first the more perfect accomplishment of all our duties of state in union with Jesus and in order to please Him.... "For I do always the things that please Him" (2).

2) The second disposition should be a sincere humility, based, on the one hand, on the exalted sanctity of Jesus Christ and, on the other, upon our lowliness and our unworthiness: "Lord, I am not worthy..." This humility creates, so to speak, a void within the soul, emptying it of its egotism, its pride, its presumption. Now, the more we empty ourselves of self, the more ready we make the soul to let itself be inhabited and possessed by God.

3) To this humility we must add an ardent desire to be united to God in the Eucharist.... Such a desire will, by dilating the soul, throw it wide open to Him Who in turn desires to give Himself to us [and fill that void in us]: "With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you" (3).

284. b) The best thanksgiving will be to prolong our union with Jesus.

1) It should begin by an act of silent adoration (4), of self-abasement and complete surrender of ourselves to Him Who being God, gives Himself all to us: "O Hidden God, devoutly I adore Thee..." (5). In union with Mary, the most perfect adorer of Jesus Christ, we shall abase ourselves before the majesty of the Godhead to bless it, praise it, thank it, first, in the Word-made-Flesh, and then with Him and through Him, in the Most Blessed Trinity. "My soul doth magnify the Lord... He Who is mighty hath done great things unto me, and holy is His name" (6). Nothing so enables Jesus to take complete possession of the soul, to penetrate its very depths, as this act of self-abasement. This is the manner in which we poor creatures can give ourselves to Him Who is All. We shall give Him whatever good is in us since all this good proceeds from Him and has never ceased to be His. We shall further offer Him our miseries that He may consume them with the fire of His love and place in their stead His perfect dispositions. What a wondrous exchange!

285. 2) Then take place sweet colloquies between the soul and the Divine Guest: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth... Give me understanding that I may know thy testimonies... Incline my heart unto the words of thy mouth...." Listen attentively to Our Master and Our Friend, to speak to Him with reverence, with candor, with love. This is the moment in which Jesus instills into us His dispositions and His virtues. We may lay our soul open to the divine communications and not only receive them, but also relish them and assimilate them.... It will be good to vary ... the subject of our colloquies [from time to time.]

286. 3) One must not fail to thank God for the lights and the loving sentiments He has vouchsafed to us, to thank Him, too, for the very darkness and weariness of soul in which He has at times allowed us to remain. Even these are profitable to us unto humility, unto the acknowledgment of our unworthiness to receive divine favors; profitable, because they enable us to adhere more frequently by will to Him Who even in the midst of our aridity, pours into us in a hidden and mysterious manner His life and His virtues.... We beg Him to accept and transform the little good within us: "Take, Lord, and accept my liberty" (7).

287. 4) We promise to make the sacrifices required to reform and transform our lives, especially in this or that particular point, and conscious of our weakness we beg earnestly for the courage of carrying this promise into effect. This point is of capital importance: each Communion should be received with this end in view, to advance in the practice of some particular virtue.

288. 5) This is likewise the moment to pray for all who are dear to us, for the vast interests of the Church, for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff, for bishops and priests. Let us have no fear of making our prayer too universal: this rather gives assurance that we shall be heard.

Finally, we conclude by asking Our Lord to vouchsafe us the grace of abiding in Him as He does in us, the grace of performing all our actions in union with Him, in a spirit of thanksgiving. We entrust to the Blessed Virgin that same Jesus she guarded so well, in order that she may aid us in making Him grow in our hearts. Thus strengthened by prayer we pass on to action.

Footnotes:

1. Hence, were one conscious of mortal sin, it would be imperative, first of all, to confess it with contrition and humility of heart, not being content with an act of contrition no matter how perfect. [A. Tanquerey, here, is speaking of confessing the mortal sin in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, hence he adds, "not being content with an act of contrition no matter how perfect."]

2. John 8:29.

3. Luke 22:15.

4. Many, forgetting this first act, begin at once to ask for favors without considering the fact that our requests will be all the better received, if first of all, we render our homage to Him who honors us with His presence.

5. Hymn of ST. THOMAS.

6. Luke 1:46 and following.

7. Prayer of S. Ignatius in the Contemplation on the love of God.

(Very Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., The Spiritual Life, p. 147-150; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Let Nothing Disturb Thee"

2010-07-31T20:18:00.001-07:00

Written by St. Teresa of Avila

Let nothing disturb thee;
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.

Translated by Longfellow.

"Progress in the Practice of Charity" - Part III

2010-07-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

1233. D) This conformity leads us to friendship with God. Friendship implies, besides benevolence, reciprocity or the mutual giving of self. Now this is well realized in charity.

This love is a true friendship, says St. Francis de Sales (1), "for it is known and acknowledged to exist on both sides; for God cannot be ignorant of our love for Him, since He Himself enkindles it in our hearts; nor can we have a doubt of His eternal predilection for us, since He has so frequently assured us of it... and He incessantly speaks to our hearts by the inspirations of His grace." The Saint adds: "The mutual love subsisting between God and His creature is not what is termed simple friendship; it is a friendship of benevolent preference, that is, a special love of God founded on our choice and our preference."

1234. This friendship consists in the gift of Himself, which God makes to us, and the gift of self we make to Him. We must, therefore, see what is God's love for us in order to understand what must be our love for Him.

a) His love for us is 1) eternal: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love" (2); 2) it is disinterested, for being absolutely self-sufficient, He simply loves us for our good; 3) it is generous, for He gives Himself entirely, coming Himself to live lovingly in our soul; 4) it is prevenient, for not only has He loved us first, but He solicits our love and begs for it as if He were in need of it: "My delight is to be with the children of men... Son, give me thy heart" (3). No one could ever dream of such delicate thoughtfulness.

1235. b) We must, therefore, correspond to this love with a love that is as perfect as possible: "Who would not love Him Who loves us so much!" (4).

1) Our love must be forever growing. Not having been capable of loving God from all eternity and never being able to love Him as He deserves, we must at least love Him more each day, placing no limits to our affection for Him, refusing Him no sacrifice that He may demand, and ever seeking to please Him: "I do always the things that please him" (5). 2) Our love must be generous, expressing itself in loving affections, frequent [ejaculatory prayers] and such simple acts of love as: "I love Thee with all my heart"; but it must also express itself by actions, chiefly by the entire gift of self. God must be the center of our entire being: of our intelligence, by the frequent thought of Him; of our will, by a humble submission to His least desire; of our sensitive nature, by not allowing our heart to become entangled in affections that would only be an obstacle to God's love; of all our actions, by ever striving to please Him. 3) Our love must be disinterested. We must love God far more than we love His gifts. Hence we must love Him whether in desolation or consolation, protesting to Him again and again that we want to love Him and for His own sake. It is in this way that in spite of our weakness we respond to His friendship.

Footnotes:

1. Love of God, Bk. 2, chap. 22.

2. Jer. 31:3.

3. Prov. 8:31, 23:26.

4. Adeste fideles.

5. John 8:29.

(Very Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., The Spiritual Life, p. 577-578; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Progress in the Practice of Charity" - Part II

2010-07-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

1230. B) From the love of complacency springs the love of benevolence, that is to say, an ardent desire of glorifying the object of our love and of causing it to be glorified. This may be done in two ways in regard to God.

a) In what concerns His interior perfections, to which we can add nothing, we can give glory only in a hypothetical way, saying, for example: "If (assuming the impossible) I could procure Thee any good, I would unceasingly desire it, even at the cost of my life. If, being what Thou art, Thou couldst receive an increase of perfection, I would desire it with all my heart."

1231. b) In what touches His outward glory, we desire unconditionally to increase it both in ourselves and in others, and with this end in view we desire to know and love Him better, in order that we may in turn make Him better known and better loved. That this love be not a merely speculative love, we strive to study in detail the beauties and the perfections of God, to praise them and cause them to be blest, sacrificing to this end studies and occupations which would naturally be more agreeable to us.

Filled, then, with esteem and admiration for God, we long to have His Holy Name blessed, exalted, praised, honored, adored all over the earth. And as we are of ourselves incapable of doing this in a perfect manner, we call upon all creatures to praise and bless their Maker: Let all the works of the Lord praise the Lord (1). We rise in spirit to Heaven there to join the Angelic choirs and the host of the Saints and sing in unison with them: "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord..." (2). We join the Blessed Virgin, who raised above the Angels, renders to God more glory than all other creatures, and we repeat with Her: "My soul doth magnify the Lord" (3). We join ourselves especially to the Incarnate Word, the Great Worshipper of the Father, Who, being God and Man, offers the Most Blessed Trinity a praise that is infinite.
Lastly, we unite with God Himself, that is to say, with the Three Divine Persons, in their mutual praise and congratulation. "Then we exclaim: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost! And in order to prove that the object of this aspiration is not the accidental glory of created praise, but the essential, eternal glory which God has in Himself, by Himself, from Himself, and which is, in a word, nothing else than Himself, we add immediately: 'As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end,' wishing that God be ever glorified with that infinite eternal glory, which he possessed in Himself before the formation of creatures" (4).

Religious and Priests realize that they are by virtue of their vows or of their priesthood specially bound to promote God's glory. Burning with the desire of glorifying Him, they never cease, even in the midst of their occupations, to bless and praise the Almighty, and they have but one end in view, one ambition, that of extending the Kingdom of God and of procuring the eternal praise of Him Whom they love as the only portion of their inheritance.

1232. C) The love of benevolence is manifested by the love of conformity. Nothing strengthens the reign of God in the soul more effectively than the accomplishment of His Holy Will: "Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Love is above all else a union, a fusion of two wills into one; and, since the Will of God is alone good and wise, it is evidently we who must conform our will to His: "Not my will, but Thine be done" (5).

As we have explained ... this conformity comprises obedience to the Commandments, the Counsels, the inspirations of grace, and the humble and loving submission to providential events whether fortunate or unfortunate: failure, humiliations, all sorts of trials sent to us for our sanctification and God's glory. Conformity in turn produces a holy indifference to whatever does not concern itself with God's service. Persuaded that God is everything and the creature nothing, we want but God, His love and His glory, and our will remains indifferent to all else. This indifference is not a stoical insensibility, for we continue to feel the attraction of those things that please us, but it is an indifference of mind and will. Neither does this indifference consist in letting things take their course, as the Quietists pretended. We are not indifferent to our salvation; on the contrary, we ardently desire it, but we desire it only in agreement with the Divine Will.
This holy abandon produces a profound peace of soul. We know that nothing can happen to us that will not be profitable unto our sanctification: "To them that love God all things work together unto good" (6). Hence we joyfully embrace trials and the Cross, out of love for the Divine Crucified and in order to become more like unto Him.
Thus, perfect conformity to the will of God, as Bossuet says (7), "makes us find our rest whether in pain or in joy, according to the pleasure of Him Who is our good. It makes us rest, not in our satisfaction, but in that of God, ever praying Him to be well pleased and to do ever with us as He pleases."

Footnotes:

1. Dan. 3:57.

2. Rev. 4:8.

3. Luke 1:46.

4. ST. FRANCIS DE SALES, The Love of God, Bk. 5, chap. 12.

5. Luke 22:42.

6. Rom. 8:28.

7. Elevations, 13, 7.

(Very Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., The Spiritual Life, p. 575-577; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Progress in the Practice of Charity" - Part I

2010-07-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

1224. General principle. Love being the gift of self, our love for God will be more perfect the more completely we give ourselves to Him, without reserve and forever, with our whole soul, with our whole heart, with our whole strength. Since on earth we cannot make the gift of self without self-sacrifice, our love will be more perfect the more unselfishly we practice this spirit of self-sacrifice for the love of God (n. 321).

1225. 1. Beginners practice the love of God by striving to avoid sin, especially mortal sin, and its causes.

a) They practice repentant love by bitterly regretting having offended God and having deprived Him of His due glory (n. 743-745).

This love has two effects: 1) it removes us further from sin and from creatures to which pleasure had made us cling; 2) it reconciles us with God and unites us with Him, not only be removing sin, the great obstacle to divine union, but also by infusing into our heart those sentiments of contrition and humiliation which constitute the beginning of love, and which under the action of grace are often transformed into perfect love. "For," as St. Francis de Sales says, "perfect love wants God and needs Him; penance seeks and finds Him; perfect love possesses and holds Him fast." At all events, our sins are more perfectly remitted, the purer and the deeper is our love.

1226. b) They also practice, in its first degree, the love of conformity with the divine will, by obeying God's commandments and those of the Church, and manfully withstanding the trials that Providence sends them for the purification of their souls (n. 747).

c) Soon their love becomes a grateful love. Realizing that despite their sins, God continually showers upon them His blessings, and grants them such generous pardon, they evince a sincere sense of gratitude towards Him, praise His goodness, and strive to profit better by His graces. This is in itself a noble sentiment which constitutes an excellent preparation for pure love; we easily rise from the benefaction received to the love of the Benefactor, and we desire His goodness to be recognized and praised the world over. This is perfect love, or charity.

1227. 2. Those advancing in the way of perfection practice the love of complacency, of benevolence, of conformity to the will of God, and thereby arrive at the love of friendship.

A) The love of complacency (1) is born of faith and reflection.

a) Through faith we know and through meditation we realize that God possesses the fullness of being, of perfection, of wisdom, of power, of goodness. Now, with but a little good-will, we cannot help taking complacency in such infinite perfection; we rejoice at seeing that our God is rich in goodness, we delight more in God's pleasure than in our own, and we show our joy by acts of admiration, approbation and praise.

b) Thereby we draw unto ourselves the perfections of the Godhead. God becomes our God; we live on the thought of His perfection, His goodness, His sweetness, His Divine life; for the heart feeds upon such things as it delights in. Thus we are enriched by the divine perfections, which we make our own by a loving complacency.

1228. c) But in thus attracting to ourselves the divine perfections, we attract God Himself, and we give ourselves entirely to Him, as St. Francis de Sales (2) well explains:

"It follows that through this love of complacency we not only enjoy the perfections of God as if they were our own; but also, that since the divine perfections are infinitely above the powers and capacity of our mind and heart, we could not attract them into us to enjoy and possess them without being also possessed by them in turn. The love of complacency is then a reciprocal donation, in virtue of which we may truly assert that we belong to God, Who is also our possession." Thus, "the soul inflamed with the love of complacency exclaims from the midst of its repose and sacred silence: 'It suffices to my happiness to know that God is God; that His perfections are boundless, that His goodness is infinite. I am indifferent to life and death, since the object of all my love lives, and will live eternally, surrounded by the unfading splendor of endless glory.' Death cannot terrify a heart which breathes but to love, and which is aware that its sovereign good lives forever. It suffices to her to know, that He Whom she loves more than herself is overwhelmed with bliss: she lives more in the object of her predilection than in herself."

1229. d) This love, when it contemplates the Suffering Christ turns into compassion and sympathy. A devout soul, beholding the depths of dejection and grief wherein the Divine Lover is plunged, cannot but share in the holy love that makes Him endure such afflictions. It was this love that caused the stigmata to be imprinted upon the flesh of St. Francis of Assisi, and the Sacred Wounds upon that of St. Catherine of Sienna. Complacency produced compassion, and compassion produced a wound like that of the Beloved.

Footnotes:

1. ST. FRANCIS DE SALES, The Love of God, Bk. 5, chap. 1-5.

2. The Love of God, Bk. 5, chap. 3.

(Very Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., The Spiritual Life, p. 574-575; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Sanctifying Power of the Love of God"

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1218. I. Charity is of itself the most excellent and the most sanctifying of all virtues. This we have already proved by showing that it is the very essence of perfection, that it embodies all virtues, and that it imparts to them all a singular perfection, by causing all their acts to converge towards God loved above all (n. 310-319).

This is proclaimed by St. Paul in lyric language:
"If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels,
and have not charity,
I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And if I should know all mysteries, and all knowledge,
and if I should have all faith,
so that I could remove mountains,
and have not charity,
I am nothing.
And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor,
and if I should deliver my body to be burned,
and have not charity,
it profiteth me nothing.
Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil: rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never falleth away... And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity" (1).

1219. In its power to unite the soul to God and to transform it, charity far excels all other virtues.

a) It unites to God the whole soul with all its faculties and powers. It unites the mind to God through the esteem conceived for Him and the frequent thought of Him. It unites the will by perfect submission to the Divine Will. It unites the heart by the subordination of all our affections to the Divine Love. It unites our energies by dedicating them all to the service of God and of souls.

b) In thus uniting the whole soul to God, charity transforms it. Love takes us away from self, raises us up to God, and inclines us to imitate Him, to reproduce in ourselves the divine perfections. We desire, in truth, to become like the one we love, because we consider him a model worthy of imitation, and we wish, by becoming more like him, to advance further in our intimacy with him.

1220. 2. In its effects, charity contributes most effectively to our sanctification.

a) It establishes between the soul and God a certain fellowship, sympathy, or affinity which causes us to understand and to relish better God and divine things. It is this mutual sympathy that makes friends understand one another, and become more and more intimately united. Many a simple, untutored soul, seized by love for God, relishes and lives the great Christian truths far better than the learned. This is an effect of charity.

1221. b) It increases our energies for good a hundredfold by communicating to us an indomitable strength to overcome obstacles and to perform the highest acts of virtue, "for love is strong as death" (2). How great is the strength a mother derives from love for her child!

Perhaps no one has described better the effects of divine love than the author of the Imitation (3). It lightens our sufferings and our burdens: "For it carrieth a burden without being burdened, and maketh all else that is bitter, sweet and savory." It lifts us unto God, because it is born of God: "For love is born of God, and cannot rest but in God." It gives us wings to fly with joy unto the doing of the most perfect actions, unto the entire gift of self: "The lover flieth, runneth, and rejoiceth... he giveth all for all;" thus, it urges us to do great things and to aim at the highest perfection: "The noble love of Jesus impelleth us to do great things, and exciteth us always to desire that which is the more perfect." It is ever watchful, uncomplaining of fatigue, untroubled by fear; rather, like a living flame it soars ever higher and passes securely through the midst of dangers: "Love watcheth... When weary, it is not tired; when straitened, is not constrained; when frightened, is not disturbed; but, like a vivid flame... it mounteth upwards, and securely passeth through all."

1222. c) Charity, likewise, is productive of great joy and expansion of soul; for it is the initial possession of the Sovereign Good, the beginning of eternal life in us, and such possession fills our soul with joy: "Giving true joy of heart" (4).

The Imitation goes on to say: "Nothing sweeter than love... nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller or better in heaven or on earth" (5). The cause of such joy is that we begin to be more keenly aware of the presence of Jesus and of the presence of God within us: "to be with Jesus is a sweet paradise (6). When Thou art present, all things yield delight; but when Thou art absent, all things grow loathsome" (7).

1223. d) This joy is followed by a profound peace. Once we are convinced that God dwells within us and that He exercises a paternal action, a paternal solicitude over us, we abandon ourselves with sweet truth into His hands, we confide all our interests to His care, and thus we enjoy perfect peace and serenity: "Thou makest a tranquil heart, great peace, and festive joy" (8). Now, there is no disposition more favorable for spiritual growth than inward peace: "In silence and in solitude the devout soul maketh progress" (9).

Hence, from whatever point of view we consider charity, in itself or in its effects, it is of all the virtues the most potent to unite us with God and to sanctify us; it is, indeed, the bond of perfection.

Footnotes:

1. 1 Cor. 13:1-13.

2. Cant., 8:6.

3. Imitation, Bk. 3, chap. 5.

4. Hymn for the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.

5. Imit., Bk. 3, chap. 5.

6. Imit., Bk. 2, chap. 8.

7. Imit., Bk. 3, chap. 34.

8. Ibid.

9. Imit., Bk. 1, chap. 20.

(Very Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., The Spiritual Life, p. 571-573; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Motive and Degrees of Charity"

2010-07-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

1214. 2. The motive of charity is not the good one has received from God or that which one expects to receive from Him; it is God's infinite perfection, at least as the predominant motive. Other motives may be joined with this, motives of wholesome fear, of hope, of gratitude, provided that the said motive be truly predominant. Consequently, love of self, in so far as it is subordinated to the love of God, is compatible with charity. Hence, when the Saints so harshly condemn self-love, it is the inordinate love of self they have in mind....

1215. A) Once more, St. Francis de Sales explains well this doctrine in the following lines: "If there could be an infinite good, with which we had no relation, no communication, and, consequently, no prospect of union (which is also impossible) we should still esteem it more than ourselves... This, properly speaking, is not to love, because love tends to union, which in this supposition is impossible. Still less could we be animated with love of charity for such an object, as this love is a real reciprocal friendship, terminating in union" (1).

1216. B) We may ask ourselves whether the motive of gratitude suffices for perfect charity. Here there is room for distinction: if gratitude does not rise above the benefaction received to the Benefactor Himself, it does not suffice as a motive of charity, since it remains self-centered; but, if from the love of such benefaction we pass on to the love of the Benefactor, and if this love for Him is based on His infinite goodness, then this motive becomes one with that of charity.

As a matter of fact, gratitude easily leads to pure love, for it is a most worthy sentiment; and so, Holy Writ and the Saints often propose to us God's benefits as an incentive to the love of God. Thus, St. John, after saying that perfect love banishes fear, exhorts us to love God, "because God first hath loved us" (2). Many are the souls that have learned to love God with the purest love whilst pondering the love He has shown us from all eternity, and the love of Jesus for us in His Passion and in the Holy Eucharist.

If we desire a rule whereby to distinguish pure from interested love, we may put it thus: the former consists in loving God because He is good and in wishing Him well; the latter consists in loving God inasmuch as He is good to us and in desiring our own good.

1217. 3. As to the degrees of love, St. Bernard distinguishes four (3): 1) First, man loves himself for his own sake, since he is flesh, and he cannot have any taste except for things in relation to himself. 2) Then, seeing that he is not able to subsist by himself, he begins to seek God by faith and to love Him as an indispensable aid; in this second degree man loves God, not as yet for God's sake, but for his own. 3) But soon, by approaching God, living close to Him, and realizing the need of His help, man gradually sees how sweet the Lord is, and begins to love Him for His own sake. 4) Finally, the last degree, attained by few in this life, consists in loving solely for God, and consequently, in loving God exclusively for His own sake.

If we leave aside the first degree, which is nothing but self-love, there remain three degrees of the love of God that correspond to the three stages of perfection [beginners, proficients, and the perfect] which we have already explained in numbers 340, 624-626.

Footnotes:

1. The Love of God, Bk. 10, chap. 10.

2. 1 Jn. 4:19.

3. De diligendo Deo, chap. 15; Epistola XI, n. 8.

(Very Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., The Spiritual Life, p. 570-571; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Nature and Precept of Charity"

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1211. The first object of charity is God. Since He possesses the plenitude of being, the perfection of beauty and of goodness, He is infinitely lovable. It is God, considered in all the infinite reality of His perfections, and not some particular Divine attribute. The consideration of any given attribute, His mercy, for instance, readily leads us to the consideration of all His perfections; but it is not necessary to know them in detail. Simple souls love Almighty God as faith makes Him known to them, without analyzing His attributes....

1212. 1. The Precept. A) Already formulated in the Old Testament, it is reenacted by Our Lord in the New and proclaimed by Him as the sum-total of the Law and of the Prophets: "Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind" (1). This is equivalent to saying that we must love God above all things and with all the faculties of our soul.

St. Francis de Sales explains this well: "Our love for Him should exceed all other affections, and reign over all the passions. He wishes that it should be the most sincere, that it should proceed from the heart and rule over its affections; He desires that we should consider it the most precious, the most valuable; He requires that it should fill the capacity of our souls; that it should be universal, extending to all our powers; that it should be elevated, and occupy the whole attention of the mind; and, in fine, that it should be generous and unalterable" (2). The Saint ends with a magnificent effusion of love: "Yes, Lord, I belong to Thee alone: I live more in Thee than in myself, therefore, my love should be wholly centered in Thee: I should love Thee as the origin of my being, and as the term of my repose: I should love Thee more than myself, since I only exist in Thee" (3).

1213. B) The precept of charity, then, is very extensive. In itself it has no limits, for the measure of love of God is to love Him without measure. Therefore, it obliges us to tend unceasingly towards perfection, (n. 353-361) and our charity must continue to grow until death. According to the doctrine of St. Thomas (4), the perfection of charity is commanded as an end to be attained; hence we must want to attain it. Cajetan explains this by saying that "precisely because it is an end, it is enough in order not to fail in the precept, to be in a fit condition to attain this perfection some day, even though this be in eternity. Whoever possesses charity, even in the least degree, and thus advances towards Heaven, is in the way of perfect charity and thereby keeps the precept, which is necessary for salvation."

However, souls aiming at perfection are not content with this first degree; they climb ever higher, striving to love God not only with their whole soul, but with all their strength as well.

Footnotes:

1. Luke 10:27.

2. The Love of God, Bk. 10, chap. 6.

3. Ibid., chap. 10.

4. Sum. theol., IIa IIae, q. 184, a. 3; Comment. of Cajetan on this article; CARDINAL MERCIER, Vie interieure, 1919, p. 98; [R.] GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, [Christian Perfection and Contemplation, TAN Books ed., 2003, chap. 4, art. 5, A. Is the First Precept Without Limit?, p. 178-188.]

(Very Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., The Spiritual Life, p. 569-570; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Fervent Charity"

2010-07-30T22:36:00.000-07:00

Fervent charity toward God and our neighbor is the last of the dispositions that we listed as requisite for contemplation. The love of God for man unites us to Him; and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are the principles of infused contemplation, being connected with charity, develop with it. "Wisdom as a gift of the Holy ghost judges aright about them (divine things) on account of connaturality with them.... This sympathy or connaturality for divine things is the result of charity, which unites us to God" (1). Hence it is inconceivable that a soul should reach a high degree of charity without having a proportionate degree of the gift of wisdom as an habitual disposition, because the Holy Ghost inspires and illumines souls, as a general rule, according to the degree of their habitual docility. These souls not only earnestly desire and humbly ask for the grace of contemplation, which will increase their love and adoration, but they cannot restrain themselves from exclaiming: "God is so beautiful; everything in Him deserves admiration even to the forgetfulness of all else. He should indeed be the sole object of our love. It is painful to see how little He is known and how few souls admire His infinite grandeur. How many Christians would love Him if they knew by experience His goodness and tenderness, which are so different from what these words usually connote! They would love Him, even to the complete forgetfulness of self and the world, that they might find again all souls in Him, since these souls are loved by Him...."

Evidently the principal conditions ordinarily required for the mystical life are not, as a rule, lacking in generous interior souls, even if they are detained in the world and are unable to enjoy the silence and solitude of the cloister. Like St. Catherine of Siena, they can build an interior cell in their hearts and find God there.

Footnotes:

1. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 45, a. 2.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 394-395; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Love of Recollection"

2010-07-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

Love of recollection, fidelity to the grace of the present moment, and perseverance in prayer are also dispositions which should not be lacking in generous souls. These dispositions necessitate a reaction against the agitation of what today is called a strenuous life. As a matter of fact, it is not life, but a fever, a deadly illness; it is materialism in action. After turning away from God and from the true life of the soul, it seeks its equivalent in multiplied and increasingly intense activity, which is often a complete loss; for the finite can never equal or become the Infinite. To a true contemplative, people who are devoted to an exaggerated intensity of life must seem like walking corpses; dead men running, as an old ballad says.

"Is the decay of faith astonishing," asks a recent translator of the works of Tauler, "since no one any longer has time to think of faith? Materialism has snuffed out spirituality. Yet the desire for God, who is man's end, still persists in human hearts, with the result that more than ever before there is an indefinable uneasiness in the world. Souls are suffering and dying of this unconscious desire for the Infinite" (1). The reaction from this uneasiness should raise up many contemplative vocations. This is an important argument for the doctrine we are defending here, namely, that an unfavorable environment provokes a salutary reaction in good souls.

Materialism in action extends unfortunately to the things of the spirit and prevents many souls from believing they are called to contemplation. It turns them away from recollection and perseverance in prayer. Even spiritual subjects have been developed along the lines of a material science which, instead of giving us a doctrinal judgment founded on principle, presents us with a jumble of material information which is often useless and impossible to classify. Apparently the more there is, the more science grows. In reality, this entirely material multiplicity puts a great distance between us and the unification of learning, that higher view of the whole which deserves to be called wisdom, and to be called contemplation when it is accompanied by the love of God....

We can scarcely exaggerate the importance of Tauler's teaching on the dangers of a completely material study for a religious who should aspire to contemplation.... He says these intellectuals, infatuated with themselves and their intellect, which is nourished solely by creatures, are cisterns. Their mental attainments cannot support them in trials and will be confounded at death (2).

In his explanation of the parable of those who refused the invitation to the feast, Tauler says, "Who could count today the number of men who act in the same way.... Everyone, I speak not only of lay people, but also of ecclesiastics and religious, is busy about his affairs. What negotiations and innumerable occupations continually distract and absorb the world! The very thought of it all is enough to set one reeling. We surround ourselves with so many things, whereas a tenth of them would suffice; for, after all, time on earth is short and uncertain. We ought to remember that this world is merely a passage to eternity, and then we would use temporal things with moderation and be satisfied with the necessities of life. It would be better to die of hunger on the way than to let ourselves be encumbered and crucified by so many occupations" (3).

Tauler is not speaking here of apostolic work which is the radiation of the interior life, but of countless useless, or at least unsanctified, occupations. If his words were true of his time, what must be said of ours? [Note: John Tauler was a Dominican mystic, alive in the 14th century; Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. was writing over 70 years ago] With such conditions it is not astonishing that only a small number of souls attain to contemplation. These conditions, however, represent essential disorder, which turns souls away from the recollection and prayer necessary to any interior life. Keeping this in mind, we easily understand why our Lord said at the end of the parable of the wedding feast: "Many are called, but few are chosen."

Footnotes:

1. Cf. OEuvres de Tauler, translated into French by Father Noel, O.P., IV. 215-16, translator's note.

2. Cf. Tauler, First Sermon on the Ascension (Noel ed.), II, 401.

3. Tauler, Second Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity (Noel ed.), IV, 215.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 391-394; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Humility of Heart"

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Humility of heart is no less attainable.... In fact, it is born of them at the realization of the distance separating the infinite perfection of God from the nothingness of creatures, which of themselves are incapable of existing, acting, and directing themselves as they should. Anyone who already possesses this virtue in a high degree, who is happy to recognize his nothingness and abjection before God, who loves to be nothing so that God may be all, to humble himself before what is divine in every other soul, is prepared for the grace of contemplation. Our Lord Himself says: "I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones" (1). "Unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (2). If you become as little children, you shall enter heaven; and by contemplation the soul enters it in a quasi-experimental manner even in this life. "Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls" (3).

This rest for the soul is to be found especially in loving contemplation. "God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble" (4). He makes them humble in order to load them with His gifts. Humility prepares the soul for contemplation, for it already sings the praise of God's glory. The Imitation says that contemplatives are few in number because there are few souls profoundly humble. To receive the grace of contemplation, ordinarily the soul must have made a profound act of true humility which colors its whole life. When a soul has often and practically recognized the fact that its entire existence depends absolutely on God, that it continues to exist only by Him, that it acts well only by reason of His grace, which works in us both to will and to accomplish, that it directs its energies only by His light, that it has sinned frequently, and that it is an unprofitable servant deserving of scorn; then the soul generally obtains the grace we are speaking of.

Footnotes:

1. Matt. 11:25.

2. Matt. 18:3.

3. Matt. 11:29.

4. Jas. 4:6.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 390-391; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Simplicity of Spirit"

2010-07-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Simplicity of spirit is born on this cleanness of heart and, like it, should be keenly desired by everyone. Holy Scripture often mentions it: "His communication is with the simple" (1). "If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome" (2). "Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves" (3). Without simplicity it is impossible to have a high degree of wisdom, which is learned from God without guile (4). Simplicity of spirit evidently does not consist in unceremoniously telling our every thought and feeling, at the risk of contradicting ourselves from day to day when circumstances and impressions are changed. In spite of appearances, such conduct is quite the contrary of simplicity; it leads to confusion, disturbance, incoherence, and rambling. The simplicity of which we are speaking shares in that of God and consists in seeing in God all things, all events, whether happy or unhappy, all persons, friends or enemies, and all we have to do, whether agreeable or painful. It produces unity of spirit, for he who possesses it sees that everything is willed, or at least permitted, by God for His glory and that of His elect. Consequently, that all ought to aspire to this superior unity and simplicity of spirit, is evident. The presence of simplicity in the soul indicates that the gift of wisdom is already well developed, and that the soul possessing it habitually is very close to mystical contemplation, if it does not already have it.

This simplicity is manifested by a great rectitude of life; from this point of view, St. Thomas speaks of it when he is discussing the virtue of truth or veracity as opposed to falsehood. "Simplicity," he says, "is contrary to duplicity, by which a man makes himself out to be something other than what he is interiorly." It is a perfect uprightness and even a certain candor, in the good sense of the word, which leads us to acknowledge our defects easily because we do not cease to see the one thing necessary above all others. To have ordinarily in our relations with our neighbor the undiminished simplicity of the dove together with the prudence of the serpent evidences a high degree of the light of divine wisdom. It is a proximate disposition for mystical contemplation. Who can say that this superior simplicity is not, upon the whole, within the reach of generous souls?

Footnotes:

1. Prov. 3:32.

2. Matt. 6:22.

3. Matt. 10:16.

4. Wis. 7:13.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 389-390; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Purity of Heart"

2010-07-30T21:55:00.000-07:00

The purity of heart mentioned in the beatitude, "Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God," is the fruit of exterior and interior mortification, which is not practiced without suffering. We must not be attached to sin, must not condone our faults or make peace with them. The soul must enter upon the narrow way that leads to true life; better than ever before, it will understand our Lord's words, "Many are called, but few are chosen." It must also be ready to pass through the fire of sufferings, for purity of heart should grow with contemplation through the purifying trials which God sends to those humbly and ardently desiring His divine intimacy. As Scripture tells us, He is jealous; He removes the persons and the things to which the soul might become attached and makes it pass through a crucible to cleanse it of all its blemishes. When inordinate inclinations and the disorders of sensuality, egoism, self-love, and intellectual and spiritual pride have disappeared, and purified heart is like a spotless mirror reflecting the beauty of God. Who can say that he is unable to have a clean heart?

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 388-389; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Great Spiritual Means of the Church Leading to Contemplation"

2010-07-30T20:43:00.001-07:00

Anyone who wishes to advance in the spiritual life and to prepare himself for the grace of contemplation must, to the best of his ability, use the great means which the Church gives us all. The assiduous reception of the sacraments, daily hearing of Mass, frequent communion, love of the Eucharist, devotion to the Holy Ghost, filial and incessant recourse to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1) and to the Blessed Virgin, mediatrix of all graces, are evidently necessary.

Contemplation is a fruit of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin, as explained by [St.] Grignion de Montfort (2). He says that, without a great love for her, a soul will attain union with God only with extreme difficulty. "It is necessary to pass through dark nights, combats, strange agonies, sharp thorns, and frightful deserts. By the way of Mary, the soul advances with greater sweetness and tranquility. Along this way it encounters many crosses and great difficulties to overcome, but our good Mother keeps so close to her faithful servants ... that, in truth, this virginal road is a path of roses in spite of the thorns." It thus leads more easily and surely to divine union. Mary, wonderful to relate, makes the cross easier and, at the same time, more meritorious: easier, because she sustains us with her gentle hand; more meritorious, because she obtains for us a greater charity, which is the principle of merit, and because, by offering our acts to our Lord, she increases their value. By reason of her pre-eminent charity, Mary merited more while performing the easiest acts than all the martyrs in their tortures.

Another great means to prepare for the grace of contemplation, a means within the reach of all interior souls, is found in the liturgy, in an ever more intimate union with the great prayer of the Church. "The graces of prayer and of the mystical state have their type and source in the hieratic life of the Church; they reflect in the members the likeness of Christ which is perfect in the body" (3). Liturgical prayer recited with recollection, in union with our Lord and His mystical body, obtains for us holy lights and inspirations which illumine and inflame our hearts. Consequently it is advisable to make mental prayer after the psalmody which prepares us for it; just as after Mass and holy communion, it is well to prolong our thanksgiving, and if possible devote an hour to it.

Lastly, the frequent reading of Scripture and the study of sacred doctrine, undertaken in a truly supernatural manner, are other excellent means to prepare the soul for contemplation. Thus the ancients (4) used to say that divine reading (lectio divina) by pious study (studium) leads to meditation (meditatio), then to prayer (oratio), and finally to contemplation (contemplatio) (5).

Of course certain interior dispositions are necessary if we are to make good use of the great means which the Church proposes to all. These dispositions constitute the chief conditions ordinarily required for the mystical life (6).... In very generous souls, they may supply for exterior conditions if these cannot be had.

Spiritual authors group these dispositions as follows: 1) purity of heart; 2) simplicity of spirit; 3) profound humility; 4) love of recollection and perseverance in prayer; 5) fervent charity (7).

Who can say that these interior dispositions are beyond the strength and graces offered him? St. Jerome writes: "One man may tell me that he cannot fast; but can he declare that he cannot love? Another may affirm that he cannot preserve virginity, or sell all his goods in order to give the price to the poor; but can he tell me that he cannot love his enemies? All that is necessary is to look into one's own heart ..., for what God asks of us is not found at a great distance" (8). On the other hand, if we become even a little negligent, how easy it is to fail in the interior conditions we have just enumerated!

Footnotes:

1. It is fitting to unite ever more closely devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and that to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in devotion to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, in order to thank our Lord for the act of supreme love by which He gave us the Holy Eucharist.

2. True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, chap. 4, art. 5 (1909 ed., p. 119) [available from Montfort Publications (click here); available, also, for free (click here)].

3. Father Clerissac, O.P., Le mystere de l'Eglise, p. 102.

4. The Rule of St. Benedict, chap. 48.

5. See IIa IIae, q. 180, a. 3.

6. They are not, however, always required, for mystical contemplation is sometimes granted to souls that are still very imperfect.

7. Phillip of the Blessed Trinity, O.C.D., Summa theologiae mysticae, II, 305.

8. St. Jerome, Comm. in Matth., chap. 5.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 386-388; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

Q&A: How do we bring loved ones who are fallen-away Catholics back?

2010-07-27T23:25:00.000-07:00

We offer this profound article by Dr. Richmond as an answer to this question (click here to read).

(Permission is granted from Dr. Richmond to link to his website.)

"The One Thing Necessary"

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There are circumstances that cause a man to retire into the interior of his own soul and think things over, and then the Utopias in which he has hitherto placed his confidence vanish. He feels himself in presence of severe reality—reality confronts him.

In our day, however, good sense has become confused to such an extent that things have lost their names. Which is Utopia? Which is reality? Which are the dream things? Which are the things that belong to our waking hours?

One day a woman was preparing a meal for a Guest Who had come to rest for a while in her house. "Master," she said, "my sister is not helping me." And the Guest replied: "Only one thing is necessary."

Martha understood—in a certain measure, at least—the remark by which Our Lord established Mary's superiority. Martha understood, but the future generations, for whose instruction God also spoke, have never understood to this day.

All through the centuries to this very day, men have believed Christianity to be, as it were, a speciality—the speciality of those who fix their thoughts on another life, the speciality of mystics; and mysticism has been regarded as one of the forms assumed by dreams—worthy of a certain respect, perhaps, but assuredly useless.

And so the centuries, with their real, practical, pressing needs, have placed all their confidence in their own strength and skill.

The result is that to-day the nations of the world no-longer know how to surmount the innumerable difficulties of their situation. Yet they have what they wanted. They wanted to question matter, to probe it, to dominate it; they have done so. And now, confronted by questions that concern the very life of nations, they cannot but see that matter does not solve them—that, on the contrary, it complicates them. Their discoveries contain no answer, their industry remains dumb. Weapons have been invented which give death; no instrument has been discovered which can give life. The advance of nations has raised a host of problems, just as the advance of armies raises clouds of dust; and in the obscure night which they have made around them, the nations have lost their way.

It was reserved for the age in which we live to spread out before man's eyes all the marvels of industry, to enthrone the conqueror in the midst of his conquests, and then to say to him: "You have placed your confidence in your inventions, and now you are going to die in the midst of them, to die on them, to die by them."

In preceding centuries, humanity was embarrassed first by one set of details, then by another. Now it suffers from universal embarrassment. It is struggling in a labyrinth, and it is unable to set anything in order. However much trouble it takes, it always arrives at the same result—confusion.

Until now, man was tormented by various passions, such as love, hate, jealousy, avarice. To-day, a society and a literature have sprung up which prove all too clearly that the trouble has struck at the very roots of the soul, changing even the old sources of disorder. Behind the passions that can be known and named, we see the return of another passion which had neither name nor existence during the Christian centuries, but which was called by the pagans taedium vitae [weariness or loathing of life; an all-pervasive boredom].

Now, to be weary of life is nothing else but to have an immense need of God.

The modern man, because he has succeeded in putting matter to all kinds of new uses, imagines that, among its thousand and one new forms, it will assume the form of a Savior.

He treats as dreams those who speak to him of faith, hope, charity, and adoration.

He thinks that He was not a practical man who said: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you."

This is why the modern man is at the end of his resources.

He has abandoned his hold on the prey, and grasped at the shadow. Wise positivist though he deemed himself, he does not yet even know that he has lost his foothold on the positive. He has made use of his success to bury himself in his Utopia. As his sleep has become deeper and deeper, his dream has become more and more unlike reality. And just as in his exterior life, man has turned night into day, day into night, so, in his interior life, he has tried to turn a dream into a reality, and a reality into a dream; only the nature of things has resisted the attempt, and the dream has remained a dream, the reality has remained a reality.

Jesus Christ remains what He always has been—the Corner Stone of this world, of all worlds.

He remains the one universal necessity. Men do not want Him—they say that He is a dream; but He is the Reality, and nothing can ever get on without Him.

Since matter, brought to bay and closely questioned, acknowledges its impotence, there is only one prudent thing left to do—to be converted.

The supreme necessity of the intellect, which is Justice and Truth, thus becomes the supreme necessity of life. The necessity for Jesus Christ has moved out of the region of Thought into the region of Fact. Christianity is no longer only the moral necessity of the world; it is also the material necessity. It is so urgent, this necessity, that one might well say it is the one remedy left to us. Palliatives are exhausted; truth alone is now practicable. There are no longer two different Saviors for this world and the next—there is only One for both; and it is He Who spoke nearly two thousand years ago to Martha and to Mary.

On a land a sailor is sometimes blasphemous and drunken. But one day he embarks, and then, at the moment of farewell, a wife or a sister ties round his neck a medal of Our Lady, and when the wind rises, he remembers. The terrible voice of the tempest warns him of the limit set to the captain's skill, and busy though he is obeying orders, he finds time to lift his cap.

Thus, engaged as he is in the most material of occupations, he is reminded by the most material of all dangers of the most spiritual, the most mystical of all necessities—the necessity of prayer. And so the sailor, who perhaps a short time ago was drinking and swearing, is suddenly brought into complete harmony with a Carmelite monk praying a thousand miles away.

He has been led into the domain of the spiritual by the material violence of the raging elements, and it may be he will rise to great heights. Perhaps with one bound he will leave behind him those who were once his teachers, for moments sometimes do the work of centuries. The howling of the wind is terrible, the ship very fragile, the sea very deep, Eternity something quite unknown.

Everything conspires to reveal to all of us to-day the same great spiritual necessity which the storm revealed to the sailor.

Unum est necessarium [One thing is necessary]. The one thing necessary, the one thing which men do not want, the thing which they declare antiquated and absurd, is that which all things are demanding as their principle, their bond of union, their very light. Without Christianity, everything will fall to pieces and we shall perish.

(Ernest Hello, Life, Science, Art, p. 23-30.)

"The Conditions of a Fervent Communion"

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The upright and pious intention mentioned ... must be supernatural, that is, inspired by a motive of faith.... If, with this principal intention, a person had a secondary intention of vanity ... this secondary and non-determinant motive ... would diminish its fruit. This fruit is so much the greater as the upright and pious intention is purer and stronger. These principles are positive. One very fervent Communion is, therefore, more fruitful in itself alone than many tepid Communions.

THE CONDITIONS OF A FERVENT COMMUNION

In her Dialogue, St. Catherine states the conditions of a fervent communion by using a striking figure:

If thou hast a light, and the whole world should come to thee in order to take light from it, the light itself does not diminish, and yet each person has it all.... Suppose that there are many who bring their candles, one weighing an ounce, others two or six ounces, or a pound, or even more, and light them in the flame; in each candle, whether large or small, is the whole light, that is to say, the heat, the color, and the flame; nevertheless thou wouldst judge that he whose candle weights an ounce has less of the light than he whose candle weighs a pound. Now the same thing happens to those who receive this sacrament. Each one carries his own candle, that is, the holy desire with which he receives this sacrament, which of itself is without light, and lights it by receiving this sacrament (1).

How is this desire shown? The holy desire, which is the condition of a fervent Communion, should manifest itself first in removing all attachment to venial sin, slander, jealousy, vanity, sensuality, and so on. This attachment is less reprehensible in poorly enlightened Christians than in those who have already received much and are ungrateful....

That Communion may be fervent, attachment to imperfections must be combated; that is, attachment to an imperfect manner of acting, such as characterizes the actions of one who, possessing five talents, acts as if he had only three (modo remisso), and only struggles feebly against his defects. Attachment to imperfections may also be found in the seeking after permissible but useless natural satisfactions, such as taking some refreshment which one can get along without. The sacrifice of these satisfactions would be agreeable to God; and the soul, by thus evidencing greater generosity, would receive many more graces in Communion. It ought to remember that it has as a model Christ Himself, who sacrificed Himself even to the death of the cross.... The removal of venial sin and imperfection is a negative disposition.

The positive dispositions for a fervent Communion are humility (Domine, non sum dignus [translation: Lord, I am not worthy...]), a profound respect for the Eucharist, a living faith, an ardent desire to receive our Lord, the bread of life. All these positive conditions may be summed up as hunger for the Eucharist.

All food is good when we are hungry.... If we hungered for the Eucharist, our Communion would be most fruitful. We should recall what this hunger was in St. Catherine of Siena; so great was it that one day when she had been harshly refused Communion, a particle of the large host became detached at the moment when the priest broke it in two, and was miraculously brought to the saint in response to the ardor of her desire.

How can we hunger for the Eucharist? The answer lies in our being firmly convinced that the Eucharist is the indispensable food of our soul and in generously making some sacrifices every day....

The food par excellence ... is the Eucharist. Our sensible appetites, inclined to sensuality and to sloth, need to be vivified by contact with the virginal body of Christ, who endured most frightful sufferings for love of us. We, who are always inclined to pride, to lack of consideration, to forgetfulness of the greatest truths, to spiritual folly, need to be illumined by contact with the sovereignly luminous intellect of the Savior.... Our will also has its deficiencies; it lacks energy, it is cold because it lacks love.... Who can restore to it the ardor, the flame necessary to its life so that it may ascend instead of descending? ... The Eucharistic heart of Jesus, ardent furnace of charity, immutably fixed in the good, and source of merits of infinite value.... We have great need of this union with the Savior, which is the principal effect of Communion.

If we were profoundly convinced that the Eucharist is the necessary food of our souls, we would have the spiritual hunger which is found in the saints....

To make a good Communion, we should also ask Mary to make us share in the love with which she herself received the Eucharist from the hands of St. John.

The fruits of a fervent Communion are proportionate to the generosity of our dispositions.... "He that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound" (2).... [Elijah] ate and drank, and with the strength that this food gave him, he walked for forty days.... This is a figure of the effects of fervent Communion.

We should remember that each of our Communions ought to be substantially more fervent than the preceding one.... As a stone falls so much the more rapidly as it approaches the earth ... so souls ought to advance ... as they approach nearer to [God].... [The saints] made much more rapid progress during the last years of their lives than during the earlier years. This is notably true of the end of St. Thomas's life. Such acceleration in progress toward God was realized above all in Mary, the model of Eucharistic devotion....

God grant that ... if sensible fervor is lacking, substantial fervor, which is the promptness of the will in the service of God, may not fail....

...If we only knew how to answer God's call with generosity...

Footnotes:

1. The Dialogue, chap. 110.

2. Matt. 13:12.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, p. 417-421; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Beatitudes and Contemplation, Expanded" - Part II

2010-07-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

There are other holy joys which the just man finds when, freed from evil, he seeks the good with his whole heart. The man of action, who allows himself to be carried away by pride, declares that happy is that man who lives and acts as he pleases, who is not subject to anyone, and who imposes his will on others. Christ says: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.” Justice, in the broad sense of the word, consists in rendering to God what is due Him, and then for the love of God giving also to the creature what is due him. In recompense, the Lord gives Himself to us. This is the perfect order, in perfect obedience that is inspired by love which enlarges the heart. Blessed are they who desire this justice, even to the extent of hungering and thirsting for it. In a certain sense, they will be filled even in this life by become more just and more holy. This is a blessed thirst, for Christ says: "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture saith: Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (1). That we may keep this thirst when sensible enthusiasm falls away, and preserve this hunger and thirst for justice in the midst of contradictions, hindrances, and disillusions, we must receive with docility the inspirations of the gift of fortitude. This gift prevents us from weakening, from letting ourselves be disheartened, and it lifts up our courage in the midst of difficulties. St. Thomas says: "The Lord wishes to see us hunger and thirst for this justice to such an extent that we can never be satiated in this life, as the miser never has enough gold." These hungering souls "will be satiated only in the eternal vision, and on this earth in spiritual goods.... When men are in the state of sin, they do not experience this spiritual hunger: when they are free from all sin, then they experience it" (2).

In a Christian's action this hunger and thirst for justice should not be accompanied by a bitter zeal toward the guilty. Therefore Christ adds: "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." In our life, as also in that of God, justice and mercy should be united. We cannot be perfect without going to the help of the afflicted, of the sick, as the good Samaritan did. The Lord will give the hundredfold to those who give a glass of water for love of Him, to those inviting to their table the poor, the crippled, the blind, who are mentioned in the parable of the guests. The Christian should be happier to give than to receive. He ought to pardon offenses, that is, to give to those who have offended him more than is due them; he ought to forget insults and, before offering his gift at the alter, go and be reconciled with his brother. The gift of counsel inclines us to mercy, makes us attentive to the sufferings of others, makes us find the true remedy, the word that consoles and uplifts.

If our activity were frequently inspired by these two virtues of justice and mercy and by the gifts corresponding to them, our souls would find even here on earth a holy joy and would be truly disposed to enter into the intimacy of God.

Footnotes:

1. John 7:37 f.

2. St. Thomas, In Matth. 5:6.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, p. 168-169; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

Note: Part III deals with the remaining beatitudes, relating to the contemplative life, union with God, and the way of the spiritually perfect; this final part can be found following the above passage in The Three Ages of the Interior Life, available online and from TAN Books in two volumes. We urge readers to please purchase this book to receive the fullness of its uplifting and beautiful contents.

"The Beatitudes and Contemplation, Expanded" - Part I

2010-07-23T16:31:00.001-07:00

The beatitudes of the deliverance from sin correspond to the purgative way, which is proper to beginners.... Whereas the world declares that happiness is in the abundance of exterior goods, of riches, and in honors, Christ states without any other preamble, with the calm assurance of absolute truth: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Each beatitude has many degrees. Happy are they who are poor without murmuring, without impatience, without jealousy, even if bread should be lacking, and who work while placing their trust in God. Blessed are they who, though more fortunate, have not the spirit of riches, pomp, and pride, but are detached from the goods of earth. More fortunate still are they who will leave all to follow Christ, who will make themselves voluntarily poor, and who will truly live according to the spirit of this vocation. They will receive the hundredfold on earth and eternal life. These poor are they who, under the inspiration of the gift of fear, follow the road which, though narrow at first, becomes the royal road to heaven, on which the soul dilates more and more, whereas the broad road of the world leads to hell and perdition. Elsewhere Christ declares: "Woe to you that are filled: for you shall hunger" (1). On the other hand, blessed is that poverty which, as the life of St. Francis of Assisi shows, opens the kingdom of God that is infinitely superior to all wealth, to the miserable riches in which the world seeks happiness.

Blessed are the poor, or humble of heart, who do not cling to the goods of the body, or to those of the spirit, or to reputation, or to honor, and who seek only the kingdom of God.

The desire of riches divides men, engenders quarrels, lawsuits, violence, and war among nations; but Christ says: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land." Blessed are they who do not become irritated against their brethren, who do not seek to take vengeance on their enemies, to dominate others. "If one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other" (2). Blessed are the meek who do not judge rashly, who do not see in their neighbor a rival to be supplanted but a brother to be helped, a child of the same heavenly Father. The gift of piety inspires this meekness in us with a filial affection toward God our common Father. The meek are not stubbornly attached to their own judgment; they express themselves quite simply in a straightfoward manner, and do not feel the need to call heaven to witness in trivial matters (3).

To be thus supernaturally meek, even with those who are acrimonious, demands a great union with Him who said: "Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart"; with Him who did not crush the broken reed or extinguish the smoking flax. According to Bossuet, the broken reed is sometimes our angry neighbor, who is broken by his own anger. We must not crush him by taking vengeance on him. Christ has been compared to the lamb which lets itself be led to the slaughter without uttering a complaint.

The meekness we are discussing is not that which does not offend anyone because it is afraid of everything; rather, it is a virtue which presupposes a great love of God and of one's neighbor, the flower of charity, as St. Francis de Sales says. This meekness doubles the value of the service rendered. Moreover, it succeeds in stating the whole truth, in making counsel and even reproaches acceptable; for he who receives them feels that they are inspired by a great love. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land, the true, promised land. Even now they possess spiritually the hearts that trust in them.

Whereas the world says that happiness lies in pleasures, Christ declares: "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted." To the evil rich man it was said: "Thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented" (4). Blessed are they who, like the beggar Lazarus, suffer patiently without consolation from men, for their tears are seen by God. More blessed still are those who weep for their sins, and through an inspiration of the gift of knowledge know experimentally that sin is the greatest of evils, and by their tears obtain its pardon. Lastly, more blessed, says St. Catherine of Siena (5), are those who weep for love at the sight of the infinite mercy, of the goodness of the Savior, of the tenderness of the good Shepherd, who sacrifices Himself for His sheep. These receive even here on earth consolation infinitely superior to that which the world can give.

Such are the beatitudes which are found in the flight and deliverance from sin.

Footnotes:

1. Luke 6:25.

2. Matt. 5:39.

3. Ibid., 3:34.

4. Luke 16:25.

5. Dialogue, chap. 89.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Ages of the Interior Life, p. 165-168; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Grandeur of Christian Perfection and the Beatitudes"

2010-07-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

The common teaching of theologians on [rising towards spiritual perfection] seems clearly founded on the very preaching of the Savior, especially that of the beatitudes.... This page of the Gospel admirably expresses all the elevation of Christian perfection to which Christ calls all of us. The Sermon on the Mount is the abridgment of Christian doctrine...; and the eight beatitudes given at its beginning, are the abridgment of this sermon....

Why does He speak first of all of happiness? Because all men naturally wish to be happy. They pursue this end unceasingly, whatever they may wish; but they often seek happiness where it is not, where they will find only wretchedness. Let us listen to our Lord, who tells us where true and lasting happiness is, where the end of our life is, and who gives us the means to obtain it.

The end is indicated in each of the eight beatitudes. Under different names, it is eternal happiness, whose prelude the just may enjoy even here on earth; it is the kingdom of heaven, the promised land, perfect consolation, the full satisfaction of all our holy and legitimate desires, supreme mercy, the sight of God our Father. The means are quite contrary of those suggested by the maxims of worldly wisdom, which proposes an entirely different end.

St. Augustine and St. Thomas admirably explain the order of these eight beatitudes. An ascending order, it is the inverse of that of the Our Father, which descends from the consideration of the glory of God to that of our personal needs and of our daily bread. The first three beatitudes tell the happiness that is found in the flight from sin and deliverance from it, in poverty accepted for love of God, in meekness, and in the tears of contrition. The two following beatitudes are those of a Christian's active life: they correspond to the thirst for justice and to mercy exercised toward one's neighbor. Then come those of the contemplation of the mysteries of God: the purity of heart which prepares the soul to see God, and the peace which springs from true wisdom. Finally, the last and most perfect of the beatitudes unites all the preceding ones in the very midst of persecution endured for justice' sake. These are the final trials, the conditions of sanctity (1)....

Christian perfection goes beyond the limits of asceticism, or of the exercise of the virtues according to our own activity, and that it implies the eminent exercise of the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

Footnotes:

1. In Luke 6:20-22, only four beatitudes are mentioned; but among them is found the highest, that of those who suffer persecution for justice' sake. It follows that of the poor, that of those who hunger after justice, and that of those who weep.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Ages of the Interior Life, p. 164-165; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Beatitudes and Contemplation"

2010-07-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (1). The virtue of poverty may inspire the detachment that makes us use the goods of the earth with moderation; but it is the gift of fear that inspires scorn of them in comparison with superior goods.

“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” It is the gift of knowledge which shows us the vanity of transitory good, the gravity of sin as a spiritual evil, as an offense against God. Happy is he who sheds the tears of a holy contrition.

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.” The virtue of meekness makes us completely overcome … anger; but it is especially the gift of piety that bestows calmness, serenity, perfect self-possession, and entire submission to the will of God.

These are the beatitudes of … deliverance from sin. The next two … are the beatitudes of the active life of a Christian who, freed from evil, engages in the pursuit of good with all the ardor of his heart.

“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill.” To desire justice, perfect order, is the effect of the virtues; but to hunger and thirst after it, to be tormented by this hunger, is the fruit of a loftier inspiration.

This thirst for justice should not become a bitter zeal…; consequently our Lord says: “Blessed are the merciful….” Attentive to the sufferings of others, the merciful are able to give that counsel which reanimates and encourages. Accordingly the spirit of counsel corresponds to this beatitude.

This union of justice and mercy is one of the most striking signs of the presence of God in the soul; for He alone can intimately harmonize [these virtues].

Lastly we have the beatitudes of the contemplative life. “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.” A truly pure heart is like a limpid fountain where God is reflected even in this life. The gift of understanding enables us to catch a glimpse of the divine beauty, in proportion to the growing purity of our intention.

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” … This beatitude corresponds to the gift of wisdom which makes us see … all things in God; for every good thing comes from Him, and evil occurs only when it is permitted in view of a greater good…. Now, peace is the tranquility of order. A contemplative soul not only possesses peace; it can communicate it to others. A contemplative soul does not allow itself to be troubled …; it receives all from the hand of God as … an occasion of approaching closer to Him. Wisdom bestows a radiant peace, leading us to love our enemies…. At the beginning of its life, a soul … was stained with egoism … and perhaps referred everything to self; now it is the thought of God which possesses it, and it refers everything to Him. This peace, which is the fruit of the gift of wisdom and which the world cannot give, is found fully on earth only in the mystical life, which is characterized precisely by this gift, united to perfect charity and very lively faith. This is what makes St. Paul say to the Philippians (2): “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice…. Be nothing solicitous; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

Such is the fruit of that wisdom which Scripture praises in these words: “And I preferred her before kingdoms and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her…. For all gold in comparison of her, is as a little sand, and silver in respect to her shall be counted as clay…. I have learned without guile, and communicate without envy, and her riches I hide not. For she is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use, become the friends of God” (3). “She knoweth things past, and judgeth of things to come: she knoweth the subtilties of speeches, and the solutions of arguments” (4). … “Lord of mercy, … give me wisdom that sitteth by Thy throne, and cast me not off from among Thy children…. Send her out of thy holy heaven, and from the throne of Thy majesty, that she may be with me … that I may know what is acceptable with Thee…. Who can think of what the will of God is? … And who shall know Thy thought except Thou give wisdom, and send Thy holy Spirit from above” (5). What more beautiful prayer could be found by which to ask God with humility and confidence for the spirit of wisdom, which is the principle of contemplation and the source of peace?

“Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” When man is confirmed in … the other beatitudes, persecution is powerless to detach him from these goods and to deprive him of interior peace and joy…. It comprehends in a practical way our Lord’s words: “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for My sake. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven” (6). Are not these the words that gave birth in the hearts of the saints to their thirst for suffering and martyrdom?

In this way the gifts of the Holy Ghost which are in every just soul and which develop normally, … prepare us progressively for the loftiest and most heroic acts of the spiritual life. The word “mystical” is rightly applied to the spiritual life that has reached this degree of intimacy with God.

Footnotes:

1. Matt. 5:3.

2. Phil. 4:4-9.

3. Wis. 7:8-14.

4. Ibid., 8:8 f.

5. Wis., chap. 9.

6. Matt. 5:11.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, p. 332-336; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Dispositions for Frequent and Daily Communion"

2010-07-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

From the Decree Approved by Pope St. Pius X, December 20, 1905.

1. Frequent and daily Communion, as a thing most earnestly desired by Christ Our Lord, and by the Catholic Church, should be open to all the Faithful, of whatever rank and condition of life; so that no one who is in the state of grace, and who approaches the Holy Table with a right and devout intention, can lawfully be hindered therefrom.

2. A right intention consists in this: that he who approaches the Holy Table should do so, not out of routine, or vainglory, or human respect, but for the purpose of pleasing God, or being more closely united with Him by charity, and of seeking this divine remedy for his weaknesses and defects.

3. Although it is more expedient that those who communicate frequently or daily should be free from venial sins, especially from such as are fully deliberate, and from any affection thereto, nevertheless it is sufficient that they be free from mortal sin, with the purpose of never sinning mortally in the future; and, if they have this sincere purpose, it is impossible but that daily communicants should gradually emancipate themselves from even venial sins, and from all affection thereto.

4. But whereas the Sacraments of the New Law, though they take effect ex opere operato, nevertheless produce a greater effect in proportion as the dispositions of the recipient are better; therefore, care is to be taken that Holy Communion be preceded by serious preparation, and followed by a suitable thanksgiving according to each one's strength, circumstances, and duties.

5. That the practice of frequent and daily Communion may be carried out with greater prudence and more abundant merit, the confessor's advice should be asked. Confessors, however, are to be careful not to dissuade any one (ne quemquam avertant) from frequent and daily Communion, provided that he is in a state of grace and approaches with a right intention.

6. But since it is plain that, by the frequent or daily reception of the Holy Eucharist, union with Christ is fostered, the spiritual life more abundantly sustained, the soul more richly endowed with virtues, and an even surer pledge of everlasting happiness bestowed on the recipient, therefore parish priests, confessors, and preachers—in accordance with the approved teaching of the Roman Catechism (Part ii, cap. 4, n. 63)—are frequently, and with great zeal, to exhort the Faithful to this devout and salutary practice.

(Pope St. Pius V, The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Appendix IV, p. 640-641; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"The Spirit of Contradiction"

2010-07-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

As long as I can remember, I have noticed that men are continually disputing together, and doubtless you too have noticed it. Universal contradiction is a universal fact. Division covers the earth. It is not between enemies that we find the deepest division; it is between friends....

The intellectual condition of the human race is a masterpiece of division....

The fact is, there is in the world a monster called the Spirit of Contradiction.

Everything I consider in the world, I can consider under several aspects, and so can you.

Paul sees a thing on a certain side; it looks to him white.

Peter sees the same thing on the other side; it looks to him black.

Both are right, both are wrong, for the thing is white on one side and black on the other.

"It is white!" cries Paul.

"It is black!" cries Peter.

And behold two enemies!

The Spirit of Contradiction shuts their eyes and embitters their hearts and blinds and separates their souls....

They were two intelligent men, made to understand each other. Now they are two enemies, stupidly obstinate, stupidly blind, all because the Serpent of Contradiction has raised his head between them....

If Peter is to show Paul to any good purpose the black side which he sees, he must first perceive as clearly as Paul the white side which Paul sees, and he must tell him so. If he does not frankly tell him so, each will hopelessly entrench himself behind his individual point of view.

This is why kindness of heart has such an immense role to play in the reconciliation of minds. If you are irritated with your enemy, who perhaps, after all, is your friend, you will never convince him....

I have seen clearly that the Spirit of Contradiction is Satan himself, the father of all lies.

Father Faber holds that we shall never convince a man unless we first prove to him that we have thoroughly grasped all his objections and entered into his point of view. Nothing is more true.

Father Faber also says that there is one thing in the world which can never, in any case, do any good.

This unique thing is sarcasm.

You have an antagonist. Laugh at his point of view: he will never see yours. Never! You have shut off from this man the sources of Life.

Father Faber further says that if a man were suddenly to begin to look with friendship on all other men, and to put a favorable construction on their conduct, this man would find existence as completely altered as if he had been transported to another planet....

St. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi adopted the following for her rule of life: Never refuse anybody anything, unless it be an absolute impossibility to grant it.

Here is the spirit which is the exact opposite to the Spirit of Contradiction.

The experience of centuries teaches that men need consoling first, instructing afterwards. They do not understand the instruction until they have received the consolation. The Spirit of Contradiction violates this law. It will begin by speaking of the cause of irritation; it puts the obstacle in the foreground. It sets out by a reproach. It irritates before it tries to pacify. That is why its teaching is sterile and fatal, even were it a hundred times in the right.

Begin with argument, and all will be sterile.

Begin with love, and all will be fertile.

The Spirit of Contradiction resides in the soul and gives the man who speaks a certain tone.... Tone indicates the attitude of the mind. The tone is more important than the words used.

Let us suppose that Father Faber's hypothesis has been realized, and that this very day men have adopted kindness as the principle of all their actions....

We shall be astounded if we one day see the small proportions to which [our differences] are reduced.

(Ernest Hello, Life, Science, and Art, p. 73-78.)

A Method for Lectio Divina

2010-07-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

From http://www.ourgardenofcarmel.org/lectio.html.

Lectio Divina, Framework of Teresian Prayer

Fr Sam Anthony Morello, Discalced Carmelite

To begin this section on a personal note, until I discovered lectio divina, my daily practice of prayer took twice as much effort. Now, for many years, I look forward to the time for prayer, and experience not only a greater facility in praying but much greater liberty of spirit. I hope others will experience the same coming home in this time-tested prayer of the monastic ages!

We should not be put off by the mention of monastic prayer. The monks prayed as simple Christians with the good sense to base their prayer on the sacred Scriptures. What they had that we lack is an ideal environment, the great monastic setting of classical times. But some of us suspect that monastic prayer created the setting before the setting sustained the prayer! You will see how easy the practice is and how the busy meditator of our age can settle down in a short time and enter into the interior castle of deep recollection. We don't always need a quiet place; we need the resolve to be still! It takes a little discipline.

It is not our purpose to discuss the tragic demise of monastic prayer in the West. The fact is that elements of monastic prayer survived, but the basic method was nearly lost even in monastic circles. Teresa was heir to a monastic tradition, but the spirituality of the times was rather thin and a long chain of events over two centuries left the monastic practice of prayer infirm, to say the least. Happily, modern studies in spirituality have revealed again the simplicity and inner unity of monastic prayer. The Teresian spirit feeds and is fed by this rediscovered tradition.

The Elements of Lectio.

Lectio divina means literally the divine reading. It is a monastic designation for the meditative reading of the Scriptures. Its elements are ingredients of a spiritual frame of mind, a holy discipline that intuitively and affectively dwells on a biblical text as a means of seeking communion with Christ. The practice could also be described as dwelling on a scriptural text in the divine presence for the sake of radical change in Christ. Yet again, we could say that lectio is making one's own a small selection, phrase, or word of the Bible, in pursuit of greater faith, hope, and charity. In any event, lectio divina is prayer over the Scriptures. The monastics of the early and medieval church developed this into a fine art.

The elements are four: 1) lectio itself, which means reading, understood as the careful repetitious recitation of a short text of Scripture; 2) meditatio or meditation, an effort to fathom the meaning of the text and make it personally relevant to oneself in Christ; 3) oratio, which means prayer, taken as a personal response to the text, asking for the grace of the text or moving over it toward union with God; and 4) contemplatio, translated contemplation, gazing at length on something. The idea behind this final element is that sometimes, by the infused grace of God, one is raised above meditation to a state of seeing or experiencing the text as mystery and reality; one comes into experiential contact with the One behind and beyond the text. It is an exposure to the divine presence, to God's truth and benevolence.

A classic exposition of these four elements can be found in The Ladder of Monks, a twelfth century monastic letter by Guigo II on the contemplative life, where lectio, meditatio, oratio, and contemplatio are presented as four rungs leading from earth to heaven. With this work as a general guide, let us consider each element in turn.

Reading.

Reading in the monastic tradition involved placing the divine word on the lips. It was a focusing and centering device. One would gently read a selection from the Bible, and when a thought, line, or word stood out and captured the reader's attention, he or she would stop there and dwell on that text, carefully repeating it over and over. At each distraction one would simply return to this repetition. He or she would stay with that same text until it dried up, and would then move on with the reading until finding another engaging text. Classically, the monk would do this repetitious reading out loud, proclaiming the word to his or her own senses, praying with the whole body. This first element is very simple, nothing more than verbal focus on a biblical thought, like placing the word as food in the mouth. In this way monks committed to memory the word of God bit by bit.

Meditation.

Once the word of God is on the lips and in the mouth, one begins to bite and chew it; one begins to meditate on it. To meditate means to ruminate, to chew the word, dwelling at leisure on a morsel to extract the meaning of the text. Every word of Scripture was seen as intended for oneself. Every text spoke of Christ and of the pray-er. The monk personalized the text, entering into the meaning and identifying with it. This is the second element of lectio divina. Meditation employs in an intuitive way all the faculties. One does not work hard at this prayer, but simply keeps listening to the words being repeated, letting them suggest their own images, reflections, intuitive thoughts. The whole process is basically intuitive, a right-brain activity (as is said today), like reading a love letter over and over again. Every word is savored and every thought made one s own. (Lovers even memorize their favorite passages!) The meditator ponders and perceives the hidden lessons in the word of God in such a way that wisdom for life is learned. Meditation seeks to acquire the mind of Christ. One slowly begins to see what the scriptures are saying. The meditator begins the lifetime task of hearing the word of God so as to keep it. Meditation is basically hearing the word that lectio (reading) is repeating.

Prayer.

With the help of grace, devout thought engenders prayer, the third element of lectio divina. The word of God moves from the lips to the mind, and now into the heart. Oratio or prayer is the response of the heart to the word of God we have heard addressing us through the Scriptures. Basically, prayer in this sense desires the grace of the text so ardently that it demands the needed graces of God. (Guigo II speaks of imperium, a command issued to God from our dire poverty that desperately depends on the salvation only God can give.) Prayer here is the whole affective component of meditation. It is petition, it is affective conversation with sentiments of love, it is resolution to grow in the virtues of Christ, it is compunction of heart for one s sins, it is silent company-keeping, it is the loving gaze. Like the other elements of lectio, the affective dimension grows and develops. It moves toward simplicity and on into an acquired contemplation. Prayer desires God.

Contemplation.

The fourth element is contemplation. Here God slakes the soul's thirst and feeds its hunger, according to Guigo II. God gives the meditator a new wine and lifts him or her above the normal meditative self into the sphere of experienced transcendence. Here at last is an infused element of prayer. Here the Spirit prays in the human spirit. One experiences a state of inner harmony; carnal motions are quieted; the flesh is not at odds with the spirit; the person is in a state of spiritual integration. The light of God's presence shines through the soul experientially. The love of God is no longer abstract, but concretely poured into the receiving self. One can see oneself being loved and loving in return. Clearly, we are speaking of pure gift at this point. These moments can be fleeting or prolonged, subtle or pronounced. They can go and come again. They can mingle with the flow of meditative words repeated, thoughts reflected, intuitions enjoyed, resolutions enacted. But the person is more still and passive; our God is passing by.

We might sum up what Guigo II says of the four elements of lectio divina in the following ways: reading seeks; meditation finds (meaning); prayer demands; contemplation tastes (God). Or again: reading provides solid food; meditation masticates; prayer achieves a savor; contemplation is the sweetness that refreshes. Or yet again: reading is on the surface; meditation gets to the inner substance; prayer demands by desire; contemplation experiences by delight.

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"Pax in Veritate."

2010-06-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

And thus, in the words of St. Thomas, man lives no longer for himself, but for God (1). He may say, with St. Paul: "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (2). Life for me is not study, not work, or natural activity of any kind, but Christ.

Such is the way that leads to this quasi-experimental and almost continuous knowledge of the Blessed Trinity dwelling within us. And this is what makes St. Catherine say at the end of her Dialogue (3):

"O eternal Trinity, O Godhead, O divine Nature that gavest to the Blood of Thy Son so great a price, Thou, O eternal Trinity, art a bottomless sea into which the more I plunge the more I find, and the more I find the more I seek Thee still. Of Thee it is never possible to say: Enough. The soul that is sated in Thy depths desires Thee yet unceasingly, for it hungers ever after Thee.... Thou art the fire that burns ever and is never quenched, the fire that consumes in itself all the self-love of souls, that melts all ice and gives all light. This light is an ocean into which the soul plunges ever more deeply and there finds peace."

What better commentary could we find on those sublime words of St. Paul to the Philippians (4): "The peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." This is the fruit of the third conversion [into the Unitive Way], in very truth a prelude to the life of heaven.

Footnotes:

1. II-IIae, Q. xvii, art. 6, ad 3.

2. Phil. 1:21.

3. Ch. 167.

4. 4:7.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life, p. 104; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

A Prayer for Transformation

2010-06-09T23:12:00.000-07:00

"Lord, teach me to know the obstacles that, consciously or unconsciously, I am placing in the way of Thy grace in me. Give me the strength to put them aside, and if I am negligent therein, vouchsafe Thyself to remove them, howsoever I may suffer thereby. What wouldst Thou have me to do for Thee this day, my God? Show me what it is in me that displeaseth Thee. Teach me rightly to value the Precious Blood which Thou didst shed for me, of the sacramental or spiritual communion by which we are enabled to drink that Blood from the wound of Thy most loving Heart.

"Make me, O Lord, to grow in love of Thee. Grant that our inner conversation may never cease; that I may never separate myself from Thee; that I may receive all that Thou dost deign to give me; and that I may not stand in the way of the grace which through me should be poured out upon other souls to give them light and life."

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life, p. 103-104; available from TAN Books and online for free; published with permission.)

"Comments on Prayer"

2010-06-09T22:59:00.000-07:00

Prayer, instead of tending to bring down the Most High to us, is an elevation of our soul to God. Dionysius compares the man who prays to a sailor, who, in order to land, pulls a cable fastened to a rock on the shore. This rock, which rises above the water, is motionless; to the man in the boat, however, the rock appears to be advancing; although in reality, only the boat is moving.... We begin to will in time what God has willed for us from all eternity....

Obviously prayer must be sincere. To ask for grace to overcome a passion without avoiding the occasions of sin, to ask for the grace of a happy death without trying to lead a better life, is not to formulate a true prayer, a true desire; it is scarcely indeed a vague wish. Prayer must also be humble, since it is the petition of a beggar. It must be confident, trusting in the mercy of God, never doubting His infinite goodness. It must be persevering to show that it springs from a profound desire of the heart....

Let us thus learn our indigence, that we are really poor and that it is fitting for a poor man to ask for aid. All his life a Christian must ask for the supernatural energy necessary to work out his salvation. The human soul cannot attain heaven unless it is propelled by God. Once it is launched on its way, it must fly. Prayer is like the beating of the wings of a little bird which has been thrown out of its nest and needs help....

A simple soul immediately understands Christ's words: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you." ... Prayer is the breath of the soul.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Christian Perfection and Contemplation, chap. 5, art. 1, I, p. 203, 205, 207; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Faith Purifies the Intellect"

2010-06-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

St. John of the Cross tells us that obscure faith enlightens us. It is obscure because it makes us adhere to mysteries we do not see; but these mysteries, which are those of the inner life of God, ...express to us the goodness of God....

It illumines our intellect in our journey toward eternity....

Faith is very superior to all the sensible and intellectual evidences that can be had on earth. What is evident for our senses, is sensible, not spiritual; therefore it is not God Himself. What is evident for our reason...is not the inner life of God, which surpasses our reason....

Obscure faith enlightens us somewhat like the night, which, though surrounding us with shadows, allows us to see the stars, and by them the depths of the firmament. There is here a mingling of light and shade which is extremely beautiful. That we may see the stars, the sun must hide, night must begin. Amazingly, in the obscurity of night we see to a far greater distance than in the day; we see even the distant stars, which reveal to us the immense expanse of the heavens.

In the same way, the senses and reason allow us to see only what belongs to the natural order, only what is within their reach, whereas faith, although obscure, opens up to us the supernatural world and its infinite depths....

St. Thomas [says,] "Faith is a habit of the mind whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent...."

To live by faith, we should consider everything under its light.... [We must purify] our mind of curiosity, by no longer preferring the study of...what is useless to the attentive meditation of the one thing necessary [and what] can truly nourish the soul (1)....

We may recall with profit what St. Paul says (Rom. 12:3): "[Do not be] more wise than it behooveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety" (2)....

If we followed this rule, the consideration of details would no longer make us lose sight of the whole, as so often happens, just as trees seen too near hinder one from seeing the forest....

When a Christian child sees the starry sky, he finds in it a splendid sign of the infinite grandeur of God. Later on...he may forget the view of the whole, to which the intellect must finally return the better to comprehend its loftiness and profundity. It has been said that if a little learning withdraws a person from religion, great learning brings him back to it (3).

Likewise the great supernatural facts..., such as the fact of Lourdes, are rather easily grasped by the clean of heart. They quickly see the supernatural origin, meaning, and import of these facts.... Then, while learned men discourse endlessly without being able to reach a conclusion, God does His work in the clean of heart. Finally, [after humbly engaging in more profound learning,] the soul delights in returning to the simplicity of faith of the patriarchs, ...to the words of the psalms, to the parables of the Gospel.

Footnotes:

1. [The Imitation, Bk. I, chap. 5]: "All holy Scripture should be read in the spirit in which it was written.... Inquire not who may have said a thing, but consider what is said. Men pass away, but the truth of the Lord abideth forever. God speaketh to us in divers ways, without respect of persons. Our curiosity is often a hindrance to us in reading the Scriptures, when we wish to understand and to discuss where we ought to pass on in simplicity.... Read with humility, with simplicity, and with faith.... Be fond of inquiring and listen in silence to the words of the saints; and let not the parables of the ancients be displeasing to thee, for they are not uttered without a cause."

2. St. Thomas, In Epist. 1 Cor. 8:1, [explains]: "Knowledge, if alone and without charity, puffs one up with pride. Add charity to knowledge, then knowledge will be useful." ... "There are those who wish to know for the purpose of knowing a great deal, and this is curiosity; some that they may know, and this is vanity; some that they may sell their knowledge, and this is base gain; some that they may be edified, and this is prudence; some that they may edify, and this is charity."

3. ...There are two simple beings: the child who does not yet know evil; and the sanctified old man who has forgotten it by dint of conquering it. Therefore the old man loves the child and is loved by it.

The intelligible being of sensible things and truth in general are the object of the first natural gaze of the human intellect; without this gaze, all knowledge and all philosophy would be impossible.... Likewise all ethics proceed from this first gaze: "We must do good and avoid evil."

The first gaze in the order of supernatural faith is that which we see in the patriarchs of the Old Testament; they believe that God is...and that in this case God is considered not only as the Author of nature, but as the Author of salvation.

[This gaze is expressed in] these words of St. Matthew (7:28f.): "When Jesus had fully ended these words, the people were in admiration at His doctrine. For He was teaching them as one having power...." The first gaze is again that of a child at Christmas before the Savior's crib. The profound view is that of a contemplative at the end of his life, that of a St. John, a St. Augustine, a St. Thomas, a St. John of the Cross.

In the case of a religious also, [it may be] the call of God in his youth, ...more elevated than many of the [later complications]. Blessed are they who find it again later on in a profound view, the view of wisdom on all of life.

(Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The Three Ages of the Interior Life, p. 360-364; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Duties Towards the Most Holy Trinity"

2010-06-09T18:48:00.001-07:00

97. The God that lives in us is not merely the God of nature, but the Living God, the Blessed Trinity, the infinite source of divine life, whose only longing is to make us share in His holiness....

Our soul, therefore is made the temple of the Living God, a sanctuary reserved to the Most High, a Holy of Holies, a throne of mercy where He is pleased to be lavish with His heavenly favors and which He enriches with every virtue. It follows that the presence within us of a Thrice Holy God, as just described, cannot but sanctify us. The Most Adorable Trinity living and acting within us must, indeed, be the principle of our sanctification, the source of our interior life....

OUR DUTIES TOWARDS THE MOST HOLY TRINITY LIVING WITHIN US.

98. Possessing such a treasure as the Most Holy Trinity, we ought to make it the object of frequent meditation--"to walk inwardly with God." Such a thought awakes in us chiefly three sentiments: adoration, love and imitation.

99. A) The very first impulse of the heart is that of adoration: "Glorify and bear God in your body" (1). How could we do otherwise than glorify, bless, and thank that Divine Guest who transforms our soul into a sanctuary? From the time Mary received the Incarnate Word in her virginal womb her life was but one perpetual act of adoration and thanksgiving: "My soul doth magnify the Lord... He who is mighty hath done great things to me, and holy is his name" (2). Such are, even if lesser in degree and intensity, the sentiments that lay hold of the Christian on becoming aware of the Holy Ghost's presence within him. He understands that being God's dwelling he ought to offer himself constantly as a sacrifice of praise unto the glory of the Triune God. a) He begins his actions by making the Sign of the Cross, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and thus he consecrates them all to the Three Divine Persons; he ends them by acknowledging that whatever good he has done must be attributed to Them: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. b) He loves to repeat the liturgical prayers that proclaim Their praises: the Gloria in excelsis Deo, which so well expresses all the religious sentiments towards the Most Holy Trinity, especially towards the Incarnate Word; the Sanctus...; the Te Deum.... c) This Divine Guest the Christian recognizes as his first beginning and last end. He realizes his inability to praise Him adequately and unites himself to the Spirit of Jesus who alone can render to God that glory which by right is His: "...The Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings" (3).

100. B) After having adored God and proclaimed his own nothingness, the Christian gives vent to sentiments of the most confiding love. Infinite as He is, God nevertheless stoops down to us like a loving father toward his child, asking us to love Him and to give Him our heart: "My son, give me thy heart" (4). He has a strict right to demand this love, yet He prefers to entreat us with the sweetness of affection so that our return may be, so to speak, more spontaneous, and our recourse to Him more confident and childlike. Could we refuse our trustful love to such thoughtful advances, to a solicitude so truly maternal?

Our love should be a repentant..., grateful love.... Above all, it should be the love of friend for friend holding sweet converse with...the most generous of friends, whose part we should take, whose glory we should make known, whose name we should forever bless. This love then should not be a mere feeling, but a generous, daring love, forgetful of self to the point of sacrifice....

101. C) Such love will lead us to imitate the Most Adorable Trinity in the measure in which this is compatible with human weakness. Adopted children of an all-holy Father, living temples of the Holy Ghost, we can better appreciate the reason why we must be holy in body and soul. [Hence St. Paul says,] "Know you not that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if any man violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you are" (5). Experience is witness to the fact that with generous souls this is the most powerful motive to turn them away from sin and incite them to the practice of virtue. Temples wherein the thrice Holy One resides can never be too rich in beauty, too glorious in sanctity. It is remarkable that when our Lord wished to propose to us an ideal, a model of perfection, He pointed to God Himself: "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (6). At first sight this ideal does seem too high. But when we recall that we are adopted children of God and that He lives in us in order to impress upon us His image and to collaborate in our salvation, then we realize that a high rank imposes obligations, noblesse oblige, and that it is no more than our plain duty to approach ever nearer the divine perfections.... Jesus Christ demands of us to keep before our eyes this perfect model, the indivisible oneness of the Three Divine Persons: "That they all may be one, as thou, Father in me and I in thee; that they also be one in us" (7)....

To sum up, we may say that the Christian life consists above all in an intimate, affectionate and sanctifying union with the Three Divine Persons who sustain us in the spirit of religion, love and sacrifice.

Footnotes:

1. I Cor. 4:10.

2. Luke 1:46, 49.

3. Rom. 8:26.

4. Prov. 23:26.

5. I Cor. 3:16-17.

6. Matt. 5:48.

7. John 17:21.

(Very Rev. Adolphe Tanquerey, S.S., D.D., The Spiritual Life, p. 52-54; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Catholic Dogmas and True Progress"

2010-06-09T18:09:00.000-07:00

Our dogmas which are the true laws of eternal life, far from being incompatible with true progress (which is the modern accusation), presuppose and intimate a progress so prodigious that it knows no limit other than deification. They would make men like unto God in being, life, knowledge, love, and work. They would unite men to God in such a way that they are engulfed in Him and transformed into Him (1)....

Faith without good works performed under the influence of the Holy Ghost [is] dead (2).

Catholicism, "instead of giving to its heroes the immobility of statues cast in the mold of an imputed, uniform, and immutable justice, incessantly spurs them to activity. It stimulates their most generous efforts and encourages them in the struggle. Nor does it hesitate to place the infinite ideal of sanctity at a distance far beyond even the most perfect" (3).

Catholicism continually commands all men in the words of St. Paul to "walk worthy of God, in all things pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (4). The desire of the Church is expressed in the words of St. John: "and he that is just, let him be justified still; and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still" (5). The Apostle admonishes us: "For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord. Walk, then, as children of the light. For the fruit of the light is in all goodness and justice and truth; proving what is well pleasing to God; and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them" (6). "For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die; but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live" (7). So we shall live by God's grace as communicated to us by the Holy Ghost, and this is eternal life in Jesus Christ. Living in Jesus and animated by His Spirit, we shall be His members and true sons of God....

We shall effect the growth and perfection of that mystical body to which we belong. [St. Augustine remarks,] "Let us admire and rejoice, for we have become Christ; since the Church is, as the Apostle says (Eph. 1:23), His body and His fullness (8)...."

No one can know the true God the Father except through the Son (9); so neither does anyone hear the Son, if he does not hear His Church (10). The Church announces to all men, with St. John, the eternal life which was in the Father and which was manifested to us....

The truly Christian spirit is incompatible with the mundane spirit.... "Whosoever is born of God, committeth not sin; for His seed abideth in him, and he cannot sin.... Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth not us because it knew not Him" (11)....

We should exercise ourselves in every manner of virtue and good works and through them glorify the Father and become resplendent with His light. Then we shall not appear empty and without fruit in the presence of Jesus Christ.... "Therefore, brethren, labor the more, that by good works you may make sure your calling and election. For doing these things, you shall not sin at any time" (12)....

All things in the kingdom of God are hidden mysteries which the wise of this world know not, nor can they know. But we Catholics, who are sons of God, know them; and we experience them because God revealed them to us and made us feel them through His Spirit, who penetrates all things. He did this that we might not be seduced by the snares of the world nor be infected by its harmful influence. To the world, which lacks understanding, those lofty truths which constitute the life and experience of the Church seem foolish and extravagant. Actually the foolishness is in him who loses himself in the search for vain appearances, illusions, and snares.... But he who has a living faith and hope becomes holy, just as God is holy (13); and perfect, just as the heavenly Father is perfect (14).

Footnotes:

1. See II Cor. 3:18: "But we all...are transformed into the same image."

2. Jas. 2:26: "For even as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead."

3. Bellamy, La vie surnaturelle, p. 284. "If there is any doctrine," he adds, "that favors the true development of human activity and impresses on liberty a continuous ascent to the supreme good, it is certainly the Catholic dogma of variable justification and progressive sanctity with no limit but the infinite. Grace, then, truly merits the name of supernatural life and has, therefore, the phases of growth and virility...."

Jaffre, Sacrifice et sacrement, pp. 135 f.: "We are but the beginning of a divine creature, and we must offer to God what we are in order to become that which as yet we are not."

4. Col. 1:10.

5. Rev. 22:11. 1 Pet. 3:15: "But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts."

6. Eph. 5:8-11.

7. Rom. 8:13.

8. In Joan., XXI.

9. Luke 10:16.

10. "The voice of God and that of the Church are one and the same thing, for He it is who speaks through the mouth of the Church, our Mother, in the teachings, counsels, and commands which she gives us" (Tauler, as quoted by Denifle in Das Geistliche Leben, chap. 7).

11. See I John 5:19 f.; 3:9 f., 1 f.

12. II Pet. 1:9 f.

13. See I John 3:3.

14. Matt. 5:48.

(Fr. John Arintero, O.P., The Mystical Evolution, p. 98-102; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)

"Two Kinds of Saints"

2010-06-09T16:57:00.001-07:00

Fr. Paul O'Sullivan's book, An Easy Way to Become a Saint, is available from TAN Books for $8.50 and from Amazon.com for $7.

See the first blog post on this book here.

The following is an excerpt from An Easy Way to Become a Saint.

Chapter 1

TWO KINDS OF SAINTS

There are saints and saints. Some we may call "extraordinary saints" and some "ordinary saints."

Extraordinary saints are raised up by God for some extraordinary mission, and to these God gives extraordinary means to carry out that mission.

Such were, for instance, St. Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola and a host of others.

St. Dominic was raised up by God to defend the Church against the Albigensian heretics, who taught the vilest doctrines and perpetrated the most hideous crimes. Kings sent armies against them, the Pope sent holy men to check them, but all in vain.

God then raised up St. Dominic who, by the holiness of his life and his earnest preaching, converted 100,000 of these hardened sinners in a remarkably short time.

Notwithstanding his austere life and incessant labors, there was no one more joyful, more lovable than St. Dominic. He was sad only when he heard of the sorrows of others or of offenses committed against his dear Lord.

The Saint founded three religious orders, which have given to the Church notable saints, missionaries, martyrs, bishops and popes.

What especially endears him to us is the fact that it was he who gave us the Rosary, which God's Holy Mother had given to him.

Who has not heard of the seraphic St. Francis of Assisi, so famous for his profound humility, his extreme poverty and his burning love of God, as a reward of which he received on his hands and feet and in his side the Sacred Stigmata, the marks of Christ's five wounds.

He, too, founded three religious orders, which have given many and great saints to the Church, people such as St. Bonaventure, St. Anthony of Padua, St. Clare [et al], saints who shine as bright stars in the firmament of Heaven....

Now these extraordinary saints, inspired by God, used extraordinary means to achieve their great ends. They labored incessantly, spent long hours in prayer, fasted rigorously and did severe penance. God favored them with supernatural visions and revelations and gave them the power of working miracles.

Ordinary Christians are not called upon to do such mighty deeds, nor are they asked or advised to imitate the long prayers, the rigorous fasts of these extraordinary saints.

ORDINARY SAINTS

There is, however, a second class of saints, ordinary saints. Bear in mind that these saints are no less saints than the others; they are true saints and have reached exalted heights of sanctity, though in a different way.

They lead humble, simple lives, performing their daily duties well and using the ordinary but abundant means of sanctity given by God to all Christians.

These means we too can use, and by them we can attain a high degree of holiness.

Here is a good example of the ordinary saint.

THE TWO LADIES

The great St. Anthony, the abbot who had spent long years in the desert, passing whole nights in prayer and performing severe penances, aware of how important the virtue of humility is in the spiritual life, asked God to make him profoundly humble.

In answer to his prayer, the Almighty directed him to visit two ladies in the neighboring city, who though simple and unpretentious in their manner of life, were, so God told Anthony, holier than he who had spent long years in the practice of rigorous penance and unceasing prayer.

On entering their home, the Saint sought to discover the secret of such remarkable holiness; he asked them many questions as to the fasts they made, the length of their prayers, their austerities and the like, so that he might imitate them.

He was not a little surprised to learn that they did nothing exceptional. They observed the fasts of the Church; they said their prayers devoutly; they gave what little alms they could afford; they frequented the Sacraments, heard daily Mass and practiced the ordinary Christian virtues.

What impressed the Saint most was that they loved God very simply but very sincerely. God was the great reality in their lives. They did all their actions for love of Him. They performed their daily duties, seeing God in all they did. They accepted what happened to them, joys as well as sorrows, as coming directly from His hand.

That was all, but it sufficed to explain to the Saint the secret of their wonderful sanctity, viz., they performed their duties well and they loved God.

There are thousands of such hidden, ordinary saints in the Church now, as there have been at all times.

ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX

We have a striking example in our own days of a canonized saint who was actually given to us as an example of how to become holy, by what she herself tells us is the easy, the "little way" to Heaven.

St. Therese of Lisieux never worked a miracle, never enjoyed heavenly visions, never did anything extraordinary, but she did well all that she did. She tells us that she went to Heaven in an elevator (a lift).

In the Carmelite convent in which she lived, none of the sisters remarked anything wonderful in her conduct. She was sweet and joyful and was the sunshine of the community. Possibly some of the other sisters prayed longer and did more rigorous penances than she did.

An incident which took place before her death shows how simple and unpretentious was her life.

It was the custom of the convent for the prioress to write a short account of the life of each sister after that sister's death. During the illness of St. Therese, two sisters were heard speaking of this. One said to the other, "Poor Mother Prioress, whatever will she find to write about poor little Sister Therese?"

Yet this dear little saint began to work so many wonders after her death and obtain so many favors for those who had recourse to her that the whole world rang with her praises. She was solemnly canonized after a remarkably short time....

No matter how weak we are, [we, too, like St. Therese,] can go to Heaven.

(Fr. Paul O'Sullivan, O.P., An Easy Way to Become a Saint, chap. 1, p. 1-6; available from TAN Books; published with permission.)