Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Alexander broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
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Source: George Eliot, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1871), 8:370, "Finale."
Showing posts with label humility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humility. Show all posts
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Thursday, June 18, 2015
The Perfect, the Extraordinary, and the Excellent
Perfectionism is trying to be extraordinary. The extraordinary here is beyond the ordinary and beyond the capacity of what is normal. Not everyone can be extraordinary; otherwise there would be no such thing as extraordinary.
Perfectionism is a rejection of limit, the limits imposed by our finitude. Every perfectionism pretends to overcome those limits but can do so only by imposing new limits. The person neurotically committed to perfectionism is not free from limits but enslaved to the demands of that "perfection."
We cannot aspire to the extraordinary because the extraordinary is a combination of chance talent, circumstances, and effort.
We can aspire only to what is within our capacity and potential, which when I begin, I do not know. All I do know is that my potential has a limit. Perhaps my potential is the extraordinary, but I cannot expect that.
The excellent is within the capacity of the ordinary and is the true perfection of the ordinary. Whatever is done, is done well, and this is excellent. If when achieving excellence, I attain to the extraordinary, that can be recognized only in hindsight. The extraordinary, for those with the potential for it, is the fruit of pursuing excellence, which all may and should pursue.
Perfectionism is a rejection of limit, the limits imposed by our finitude. Every perfectionism pretends to overcome those limits but can do so only by imposing new limits. The person neurotically committed to perfectionism is not free from limits but enslaved to the demands of that "perfection."
We cannot aspire to the extraordinary because the extraordinary is a combination of chance talent, circumstances, and effort.
We can aspire only to what is within our capacity and potential, which when I begin, I do not know. All I do know is that my potential has a limit. Perhaps my potential is the extraordinary, but I cannot expect that.
The excellent is within the capacity of the ordinary and is the true perfection of the ordinary. Whatever is done, is done well, and this is excellent. If when achieving excellence, I attain to the extraordinary, that can be recognized only in hindsight. The extraordinary, for those with the potential for it, is the fruit of pursuing excellence, which all may and should pursue.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange on the Practical Consequences of Efficacious Grace
[95] St. Thomas [...] grasped the depth and the height of our Lord's words: "Without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and of St. Paul's words: "For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will" (Phil. 2:13). "For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?" (Cf. 1 Cor. 4:7). In the work of salvation we cannot distinguish any part that is exclusively ours; all comes from God, even our free co-operation, which efficacious grace gently and mightily stirs up in us and confirms.
This grace, which is always followed by its effect, is refused to us, as we said, only if we resist the divine, auxilium praeveniens, sufficient grace, in which the efficacious help is already offered us, as fruit is in the flower. If we destroy the flower, we shall never see the fruit, which the influence of the sun and of the nourishment of the earth would have produced. [...] [Man] is sufficiently assisted by God so that he falls only through his own fault, which thus deprives him of a new help. This is the great mystery of grace. [1]
[96] [...] All that is good in us, naturally or supernaturally, has its origin in the Author of all good. Sin alone cannot come from Him, and the Lord allows it to happen only because He is sufficiently powerful and good to draw from it a greater good, the manifestation of His mercy or justice. [...]
[This] doctrine should lead those who understand it well to profound humility, to almost continual interior prayer, to the perfection of the theological virtues and of the corresponding gifts of the Holy Ghost. [...]
This doctrine leads first of all to profound humility. According [97] to this doctrine man has as his own, as something coming exclusively from himself, only his sin, as the Council of Orange declared (Canon 22: "No one has anything of his own except his deceitfulness and his sin." Denzinger, no. 195). He never performs any natural good act without the natural aid of God, or any supernatural good act without a grace which solicits or attracts him, and also efficaciously moves him to the salutary act. As St. Paul says: "Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God" (Cf. 2 Cor. 3:5).
Even holy souls that have reached a high degree of charity are always in need of an actual grace in order to merit, to advance, to avoid sin, and to persevere in goodness (Cf. Summa Th. 1a2ae.109.2, 8-10). [...] After striving greatly, they should admit: "We are unprofitable servants" (Lk 17:10), for the Lord might have chosen others who would have served Him much better. In all truth we should say, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, that there is no sin committed by another man which I might not commit in the same circumstances by reason of the infirmity of my free will, and of my own weakness [....] And if actually I have not fallen, if I have persevered, this is doubtless because I worked and struggled, but without divine grace I should have done nothing (Cf. Del Prado, De gratia, III, 151). "Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to Thy name give glory" (Ps 113:1); [...] "Thou hast redeemed us [98] to God, in Thy blood" (Apoc. 5:9). "If I have not perished, it is because of Thy mercy" (Lam. 3:22). "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit" (Ps. 30:6; Lk 23:46). "This," says St. Augustine, "is what must be believed and said in all piety and truth, so that our confession may be humble and suppliant, and that all may be attributed to God" (De dono perseverantiae, chap. 13). Such is true humility. "Or what has thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" (Cf. 1 Cor. 4:7).
The saints, considering their own failures, say to themselves that if such and such a criminal had received all the graces the Lord bestowed on them, he would perhaps have been less unfaithful than they. The sight of the gratuity of the divine predilections confirms them in humility. They recall our Lord's words: "You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you."
This doctrine leads also to continual intimate prayer, to profound thanksgiving, to the prayer of contemplation.
It leads to intimate prayer; for this is a very secret grace that must be asked. We must ask not only the grace which solicits and excites the soul to good but also that grace which makes us will it, which makes us persevere, which reaches the depths of our heart and of our free will; that grace which moves us in these depths, so that we may be delivered from the concupiscence of the flesh and the eyes, and from the pride of life. God alone saves and snatches us from these enemies of our salvation. At the same time He does not wound our liberty, but establishes it by delivering us from the captivity of these things of earth.
Thus Scripture teaches us to pray: "Have pity on me, O Lord, according to Thine infinite mercy. Be propitious to a sinner. Help my unbelief. Create a clean heart in me, and [99] renew a right spirit within me. Convert me, O Lord, make me return to Thee, and I shall return (Lam. 5:21). Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Give me Thy sweet and mighty grace in order that I may truly accomplish Thy holy will. As St. Augustine says: "Lord, give what Thou dost command, and command what Thou pleasest."
Thus again the Church prays in the Missal: "Lord, direct toward Thyself our rebellious wills; grant that unbelievers, who are unwilling to believe, may have a will to believe. Apply our hearts to good works. Give us good will. Convert us and draw us strongly to Thyself. Take from us our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh, a docile and pure heart. Change our wills and incline them toward what is good."
Such is the holy confidence of the prayer of the Church because she is sure that God is not powerless to convert the most hardened sinners. What should a priest do who cannot succeed in converting a dying sinner? Persuaded that God can convert this guilty will, above all the priest will pray. If, on the contrary, he imagines that God holds this will only from without, buy circumstances, good thoughts, good inspirations, which remain external to the consent to salutary goodness, will not the priest himself delay too long in the use of superficial means? Will his prayer possess that holy boldness which we admire in the saints, and which rests on their faith in the potent efficacy of grace?
Likewise prayer should be, in a sense, continual, since our soul needs a new, actual efficacious grace for every salutary act, for each new merit. With this in mind, we clearly see the profound meaning of our Lord's words: "We ought always to pray, and not to faith" (Lk 18:1). This truth is fully realized only in the mystical life, in which prayer truly becomes, as the fathers say, "the breath of the soul," which hardly ceases any [100] more than than that of the body. The soul constantly desires grace, which is like a vivifying breath renewing it and making it produce constantly new acts of love of God.
Such ought to be the prayer of petition. And we ought also to thank God for all our good actions, since without Him we could have done nothing. This is what makes St. Paul say: "Pray without ceasing. In all things give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you all" (Cf. 1 Thess. 5:17–18). "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father" (Eph. 5:19–20).
This doctrine of the intrinsic efficacy of grace leads also directly to the prayer of contemplation, which considers chiefly the profound action of God in us to mortify and to vivify, and which is expressed by the fiat of perfect abandonment. In contemplation we see realized in the intimate depths of souls the words of Scripture: "Thou are great, O Lord, forever.... For Thou scourgest, and Thou savest: Thou leadest down to hell, and bringest up again" (Tob. 13:2). "Thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things" (Wis. 16:12). To utter a perfect fiat to this intense and hidden work of grace in us, even when it crucifies and seems to destroy all, is the most secret but also the most fruitful co-operation in God's greatest work. It is the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane and that of the blessed Virgin at the foot of the cross.
Lastly, this doctrine reminds us that even for prayer efficacious grace is necessary. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. And He that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what the Spirit desireth; because He asketh for the saints [101] according to God" (Rom. 8:26–27). This mystery is verified especially in the mystical union, often obscure and painful, in which the soul learns by experience what great need we have of grace in order to pray, as also to do good. But, says St. John of the Cross (The Dark Night, Bk. II, chap. 20), souls that have reached a certain degree of union "obtain from God all that they feel inspired to ask of Him, according to the words of David, 'Delight in the Lord, and He will give thee the request of thy heart'" (Ps. 36:4). Moreover, every humble, confident, persevering prayer by which we ask what is necessary or useful for our salvation is infallibly efficacious, because our Lord uttered such a promise and because God Himself caused this petition to well up in our hearts. Resolved from all eternity to grant us His benefactions, He leads us to ask them of Him.
This doctrine of the powerful efficacy of grace leads finally to great heights in the practice of the theological virtues. This it does because it is intimately bound up with the sublime mystery of predestination, the grandeur of which it fully preserves. St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, tells us: "And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints. For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren. And whom He predestinated, them He also called. And whom He called, them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who is against us?" (Rom. 8:28–31). St. Paul teaches the same doctrine in the Epistle to the Ephesians. [2]
[102] St. Augustine [3] and St. Thomas [4] have explained these words of St. Paul without lessening their real meaning. Bossuet, their disciple, sums them up with his usual mastery by saying: "I do not deny the goodness of God toward all men, or the means which in His general providence He offers them for their eternal salvation. The Lord does not will that any should perish, but that all should return to penance (cf. II Pet. 3:9). But however great His designs may be on everyone, He fixes a certain particular gaze of preference on a number that is known to Him. All those on whom He gazes in this way, weep for their sins and are converted in their time. That is why Peter burst into tears when our Lord looked at him benignly. Peter's repentance was the result of the prayer which Christ had offered for the stability of his faith; for it was necessary, first of all, to rekindle his faith, and then to strengthen it that it might endure to the end. The same is true of all those whom His Father has given Him in a special manner. Of these He said: 'All that the Father giveth to Me shall come to Me.... Now this is the will of the Father who sent me: that of all that He hath given Me, I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again in the last day' (John 6:37, 39).
"And why does He make us penetrate these sublime truths? Is it to trouble us, to alarm us, to cast us into despair, [103] to disturb us and make us question whether or not we are of the elect? Far be it from us to indulge in such thoughts, which would make us penetrate the secret counsels of God, explore, so to speak, even into His bosom, and sound the profound abyss of His eternal decrees. The design of our Savior is that, contemplating this secret gaze which He fixes on those whom He knows and whom His Father has given Him by a certain choice, and recognizing that He can lead them to their eternal salvation by means which do not fail, we should thus learn first of all to ask for these means, to unite ourselves to His prayer, to say with Him: 'Deliver us from evil' (Matt. 6:13); for, in the words of the Church: 'Do not permit us to be separated from Thee. If our will seeks to escape, do not permit it to do so; keep it in Thy hands, change it, and bring it back to Thee'" (Bossuet, Méditations sur l'Évangile, part, II, 72nd day).
This prayer assumes its full value in the plenitude of the life of faith, which is the mystical life; faith, as practical as sublime, in the wisdom of God, in the holiness of His good pleasure, in His omnipotence, in His sovereign dominion, in the infinite value of the merits of Jesus Christ, and in the infallible efficacy of His prayer.
Faith in the wisdom of God: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways! ... Or who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made Him? For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory forever. Amen" (Rom. 11:33–36).
Faith in the holiness of the divine good pleasure. "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. Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in Thy sight" (Matt. 11:25–26). Jesus spoke in the same manner [104] to the Pharisees: "Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to Me, except the Father, who hath sent Me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day" (John 6:43–44).
Faith in the divine omnipotence. God can convert the most hardened sinners. "The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: withersoever He will He shall turn it" (Prov. 21:1). "For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will" (Phil. 2:13). "My sheep hear My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish forever, and no man shall pluck them out of My hand. That which My Father hath given Me, is greater than all; and no one can snatch them out of the hand of My Father. I and the Father are one" (John 10:27–30).
Faith in the sovereign dominion of the Creator. "Behold as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hands, O house of Israel" (Jer. 18:6). "Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction, that He might show the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He hath prepared unto glory?" (Rom. 9:21–23).
Faith in the infinite value of the merits and of the prayer of Jesus. "The Father loveth the Son: and He hath given all things into His hands" (John 3:35). "Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in Me, hath everlasting life" (John 6:47). "I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world. Thine they were, and to Me Thou gavest them; [105] and they have kept Thy word.... I pray for them.... Holy Father, keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given Me; that they may be one, as We also are.... While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name. Those whom Thou gavest Me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, and the Scripture may be fulfilled.... I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from evil.... And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in Me.... Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me; that they may see My glory which Thou hast given Me, because Thou hast loved Me before the creation of the world" (John 17:6, 9, 11, 12, 15, 20, 24).
This act of serene and invincible faith in the infinite merits of Christ ravishes the heart of God, who at times allows everything to seem outwardly lost, that He may give His children the opportunity to prove their faith in Him by such an act.
This doctrine of grace leads us also to an entirely supernatural hope composed of confidence in the divine mercy and abandonment to it. The formal motive of hope is, in fact, the infinitely helpful divine mercy (Deus auxilians). That this virtue of hope may be divine and theological, we must hope in God and not in the power of our free will. "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool; but he that walketh wisely, he shall be saved" (Prov. 28:26). Considering our weakness, we must "with fear and trembling work out our salvation" (Phil. 2:12), and "he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall" (see I Cor. 10:12). But, considering God's infinitely helpful goodness, we must say to Him: "In Thee, O my God, I put my trust; let me not be ashamed" (Ps. 24:2). "Into Thy hands I commend my [106] spirit" (Ps. 30:6). "O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet; blessed is the man that hopeth in Him" (Ps. 33:9). "Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in Thee" (Ps. 15:1). "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded" (Ps. 30:2). "Behold, God is my savior, I will deal confidently, and will not fear: because the Lord is my strength, and my praise, and He is become my salvation" (Is. 12:2). "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13).
Such is the abandonment which Christ wishes us to learn. It has no quietism in it, as Bossuet so well explains. He says: "We must abandon ourselves to the divine goodness. This does not mean that we need not act and work, or that, in opposition to God's command, we may yield to unconcern or to rash thoughts. Rather, while acting to the best of our ability, we must above all abandon ourselves to God alone for time and for eternity....
"A proud man fears that his salvation will be uncertain unless he keeps it in his own hand, but he is deceived. Can I rely on myself? I feel that my will escapes me at every moment. If Thou, O Lord, didst wish to make me the sole master of my fate, I should decline a power so dangerous to my weakness. Let no one tell me that this doctrine of grace and preference leads good souls to despair. How mad for me to think I can be reassured by being hurled back on myself and delivered up to my inconstancy! To this, O my God, I do not consent. I find assurance only in abandoning myself to Thee. And in this abandonment I find even greater trust, for those to whom Thou dost give this confidence in entire abandonment, receive in this gentle impulse the best mark we can have on earth of Thy goodness. Increase this desire in me; and by this means [107] put into my heart the blessed hope of being at last among the chosen number.... Heal me and I shall be healed; convert me and I shall be converted" (Bossuet, Médit. sur l'Évangile, Pt. III, 72nd day).
In the painful, passive purifications of the spirit, souls are often tempted against hope and are troubled about the mystery of predestination. In this temptation all created helps fail them, and they must hope heroically against all hope for this single, pure reason, namely, that God is infinitely helpful and does not abandon the just unless they desert Him, that He does not let them be tempted beyond their strength aided by grace, that He sustains them by His all-powerful goodness, as He said to St. Paul: "My grace is sufficient for the; for power is made perfect in infirmity." "Gladly, therefore," says the great Apostle, "will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am week, then am I powerful" (See. 2 Cor. 12:9, 10).
We ought in great difficulties to think of this formal motive of hope: God our helper; for He comes efficaciously to our assistance by the grace that urges us to the practice of goodness, and in a gentle and powerful way causes it to be accomplished (cf. Catechism of the Council of Trent, chap. 45, "On temptation"). "But the salvation of the just is from the Lord, and He is their protector in the time of trouble. And the Lord will help them and deliver them: and He will rescue them from the wicked, and save them, because they have hoped in Him" (Ps. 36:39f).
Lastly, this doctrine of the efficacy of grace confirms our charity toward God and souls. This charity is a friendship based on God's communication to us of the divine life through grace. Therefore the more intimate and efficacious the grace which is given us, the more we should love God and correspond [108] to His love. "Not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us" (See 1 John 4:10). The Master Himself said to His Apostles: "You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit: and your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name He may give it you" (John 15:16). And in the exercise of the apostolate, because he believed in the potent efficacy of grace, St. Paul wrote: "Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulations? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? ... But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present ... nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:35, 37–39). [...]
No power is gentler than the infallibly efficacious grace of God. It diffuses itself gently in the soul which begins to will; the more the soul wills and the greater its thirst for God, the more it will be enriched. When God becomes more exacting and wishes pure crystal where there has been only sin, then He will give His grace in abundance that the soul may correspond [109] to His demands: "I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). The purified soul ends by praising the power of God: "The right hand of the Lord hath wrought strength. I shall not die, but live: and shall declare the works of the Lord" (Ps. 117:17). [...]
St. Bernard says: "Grace is necessary to salvation, free will is equally so; but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.... Therefore we should not attribute part of the good work to grace, and part to free will. It is performed in its entirety by the common and inseparable action of both; entirely by grace, entirely by free will, but springing completely from the first in the second" (De gratia et libero arbitrio, chaps. 1 and 14.).
St. Bonaventure is of the same opinion: "Devout souls do not seek to attribute to themselves in the work of salvation some part that does not come from God. They recognize that all issues from divine grace" (See II Sent., dist. 26, q. 2).
Tauler speaks of the efficacy of grace as St. Thomas does.
In The Imitation of Christ we read: "Never esteem thyself to be anything because of thy good works.... Of thyself thou always tendest to nothing: speedily art thou cast down, speedily overcome, speedily disordered, speedily undone. Thou hast not whereof to glory, but many things for which thou oughtest to account thyself vile; for thou art much weaker than thou art able to comprehend." "For I am nothing and I knew it not. IF I be left to myself, behold I become nothing but mere weakness; but if Thou for an instant look upon me, I am forthwith made strong, and am filled with new joy." "From Me, as from a living fountain, the small and the great, the poor and the rich, do draw the water of life; and [110] they that willingly and freely server Me, shall receive grace for grace.... Thou oughtest, therefore, to ascribe nothing to thyself, nor attribute goodness unto any man, but give all unto God, without whom man hath nothing. I have given thee all, and My will is to have all again.... This is the truth whereby vainglory is put to flight, and if heavenly grace enter in and true charity, there will be no envy or narrowness of heart, neither will self-love busy itself. For divine charity overcometh all things and enlargeth all the powers of the soul" (Bk. IV, chap. 4, no. 2; chap. 8, no. 1). [...]
[St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross say the same doctrine.] [111]
St. Francis de Sales states this doctrine in the following terms: "The chains of grace are so powerful, and yet so sweet, that though they attract our heart, they do not shackle our freedom.... Our yielding to the impulse of grace is much [112] more the effect of grace than of our will, and resistance to its inspirations is to be attributed to our will alone.... 'If thou didst know the gift of God'" (Treatise on the Love of God, Bk. II, chap. 12) [5, 6]. [...]
All the difficulties of the mystery of grace are solved practically by humility. Bossuet says: "Behold a terrible danger for human pride. Man says in his heart: I have my free will. God made me free, and I wish to make myself just.... In my free will, which I cannot harmonize with this abandonment to grace, I wish to find something to cling to. Proud foe, do you wish to reconcile these things, or rather to believe that God reconciles them? He reconciles them in the way He wishes, without releasing you from your action and without ceasing to demand that you attribute to Him all the work of your salvation, for He is the Savior, and He said: 'I am the Lord; and there is no savior besides Me' (Is. 43:11). Believe firmly that Jesus Christ is the Savior, and all difficulties will vanish" (Bossuet, Elévations sur les mystères, 18th week, 15th elevation).
[...] This great doctrine [...] [113] manifestly turns souls toward the loftiest mystical union, which is none other than the fulness of the life of faith.
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Footnotes:
1. [...] It is God who anticipates us by His grace when He justifies us, and it is we who are the first to abandon Him when we lose divine grace: "God will not desert the justified, unless He is first deserted by them" (Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. 2).
2. St. Paul also says in the Epistle to the Ephesians, 1:3–6, 11–12: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings, in heavenly places, in Christ: as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself: according to the purpose of His will: unto the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He hath graced us in His beloved Son.... In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of His will. That we may be unto the praise of His glory, we who before hoped in Christ."
3. De praedestinatione sanctorum, chaps. 3, 6–11, 14, 15, 17; De dono perseverantiae, chaps. 1, 6, 7, 12, 16–20, 23; De correptione et gratia, chaps. 9, 12, 13, 14. See also on these texts, Del Prado, De gratia et libero arbitrio, III, 555–564; II, 67–81, 259; and Bossuet, Défense de la tradition, Bk. XII, chaps. 13–20.
4. In Ep. ad Rom. 8:28; In Ep. ad Ephes., I, nos. 5; Summa Th., Ia, q. 23.
5. The author says in the same chapter: "Grace is so gracious and so graciously seizes on our hearts to draw them, that it in no way offends the liberty of our will; it touches powerfully but yet so delicately the springs of our spirit that our free will suffers no violence from it."
6. Father Grou, S.J. (MAximes spirituelles, 2d maxim) writes as do the most faithful disciples of St. Thomas: "Grace alone can free us from the slavery of sin and assure us true liberty; whence it follows that the more the will subjects itself to grace , the more it will do all that depends on it to become absolutely, fully, and constnatly dependent, the more free it will be.... Thus for the will all consists in putting itself in the hands of God, in using its own activity only to become more dependent on Him.... Is not our salvation incomparably more certain in God's hands than in our own? And fundamentally what can we do to save ourselves except what God enables us to do?"
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Source: Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Christian Perfection and Contemplation, trans. by M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2003), 95–113.
This grace, which is always followed by its effect, is refused to us, as we said, only if we resist the divine, auxilium praeveniens, sufficient grace, in which the efficacious help is already offered us, as fruit is in the flower. If we destroy the flower, we shall never see the fruit, which the influence of the sun and of the nourishment of the earth would have produced. [...] [Man] is sufficiently assisted by God so that he falls only through his own fault, which thus deprives him of a new help. This is the great mystery of grace. [1]
[96] [...] All that is good in us, naturally or supernaturally, has its origin in the Author of all good. Sin alone cannot come from Him, and the Lord allows it to happen only because He is sufficiently powerful and good to draw from it a greater good, the manifestation of His mercy or justice. [...]
[This] doctrine should lead those who understand it well to profound humility, to almost continual interior prayer, to the perfection of the theological virtues and of the corresponding gifts of the Holy Ghost. [...]
This doctrine leads first of all to profound humility. According [97] to this doctrine man has as his own, as something coming exclusively from himself, only his sin, as the Council of Orange declared (Canon 22: "No one has anything of his own except his deceitfulness and his sin." Denzinger, no. 195). He never performs any natural good act without the natural aid of God, or any supernatural good act without a grace which solicits or attracts him, and also efficaciously moves him to the salutary act. As St. Paul says: "Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God" (Cf. 2 Cor. 3:5).
Even holy souls that have reached a high degree of charity are always in need of an actual grace in order to merit, to advance, to avoid sin, and to persevere in goodness (Cf. Summa Th. 1a2ae.109.2, 8-10). [...] After striving greatly, they should admit: "We are unprofitable servants" (Lk 17:10), for the Lord might have chosen others who would have served Him much better. In all truth we should say, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, that there is no sin committed by another man which I might not commit in the same circumstances by reason of the infirmity of my free will, and of my own weakness [....] And if actually I have not fallen, if I have persevered, this is doubtless because I worked and struggled, but without divine grace I should have done nothing (Cf. Del Prado, De gratia, III, 151). "Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to Thy name give glory" (Ps 113:1); [...] "Thou hast redeemed us [98] to God, in Thy blood" (Apoc. 5:9). "If I have not perished, it is because of Thy mercy" (Lam. 3:22). "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit" (Ps. 30:6; Lk 23:46). "This," says St. Augustine, "is what must be believed and said in all piety and truth, so that our confession may be humble and suppliant, and that all may be attributed to God" (De dono perseverantiae, chap. 13). Such is true humility. "Or what has thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" (Cf. 1 Cor. 4:7).
The saints, considering their own failures, say to themselves that if such and such a criminal had received all the graces the Lord bestowed on them, he would perhaps have been less unfaithful than they. The sight of the gratuity of the divine predilections confirms them in humility. They recall our Lord's words: "You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you."
This doctrine leads also to continual intimate prayer, to profound thanksgiving, to the prayer of contemplation.
It leads to intimate prayer; for this is a very secret grace that must be asked. We must ask not only the grace which solicits and excites the soul to good but also that grace which makes us will it, which makes us persevere, which reaches the depths of our heart and of our free will; that grace which moves us in these depths, so that we may be delivered from the concupiscence of the flesh and the eyes, and from the pride of life. God alone saves and snatches us from these enemies of our salvation. At the same time He does not wound our liberty, but establishes it by delivering us from the captivity of these things of earth.
Thus Scripture teaches us to pray: "Have pity on me, O Lord, according to Thine infinite mercy. Be propitious to a sinner. Help my unbelief. Create a clean heart in me, and [99] renew a right spirit within me. Convert me, O Lord, make me return to Thee, and I shall return (Lam. 5:21). Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Give me Thy sweet and mighty grace in order that I may truly accomplish Thy holy will. As St. Augustine says: "Lord, give what Thou dost command, and command what Thou pleasest."
Thus again the Church prays in the Missal: "Lord, direct toward Thyself our rebellious wills; grant that unbelievers, who are unwilling to believe, may have a will to believe. Apply our hearts to good works. Give us good will. Convert us and draw us strongly to Thyself. Take from us our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh, a docile and pure heart. Change our wills and incline them toward what is good."
Such is the holy confidence of the prayer of the Church because she is sure that God is not powerless to convert the most hardened sinners. What should a priest do who cannot succeed in converting a dying sinner? Persuaded that God can convert this guilty will, above all the priest will pray. If, on the contrary, he imagines that God holds this will only from without, buy circumstances, good thoughts, good inspirations, which remain external to the consent to salutary goodness, will not the priest himself delay too long in the use of superficial means? Will his prayer possess that holy boldness which we admire in the saints, and which rests on their faith in the potent efficacy of grace?
Likewise prayer should be, in a sense, continual, since our soul needs a new, actual efficacious grace for every salutary act, for each new merit. With this in mind, we clearly see the profound meaning of our Lord's words: "We ought always to pray, and not to faith" (Lk 18:1). This truth is fully realized only in the mystical life, in which prayer truly becomes, as the fathers say, "the breath of the soul," which hardly ceases any [100] more than than that of the body. The soul constantly desires grace, which is like a vivifying breath renewing it and making it produce constantly new acts of love of God.
Such ought to be the prayer of petition. And we ought also to thank God for all our good actions, since without Him we could have done nothing. This is what makes St. Paul say: "Pray without ceasing. In all things give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you all" (Cf. 1 Thess. 5:17–18). "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father" (Eph. 5:19–20).
This doctrine of the intrinsic efficacy of grace leads also directly to the prayer of contemplation, which considers chiefly the profound action of God in us to mortify and to vivify, and which is expressed by the fiat of perfect abandonment. In contemplation we see realized in the intimate depths of souls the words of Scripture: "Thou are great, O Lord, forever.... For Thou scourgest, and Thou savest: Thou leadest down to hell, and bringest up again" (Tob. 13:2). "Thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things" (Wis. 16:12). To utter a perfect fiat to this intense and hidden work of grace in us, even when it crucifies and seems to destroy all, is the most secret but also the most fruitful co-operation in God's greatest work. It is the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane and that of the blessed Virgin at the foot of the cross.
Lastly, this doctrine reminds us that even for prayer efficacious grace is necessary. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. And He that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what the Spirit desireth; because He asketh for the saints [101] according to God" (Rom. 8:26–27). This mystery is verified especially in the mystical union, often obscure and painful, in which the soul learns by experience what great need we have of grace in order to pray, as also to do good. But, says St. John of the Cross (The Dark Night, Bk. II, chap. 20), souls that have reached a certain degree of union "obtain from God all that they feel inspired to ask of Him, according to the words of David, 'Delight in the Lord, and He will give thee the request of thy heart'" (Ps. 36:4). Moreover, every humble, confident, persevering prayer by which we ask what is necessary or useful for our salvation is infallibly efficacious, because our Lord uttered such a promise and because God Himself caused this petition to well up in our hearts. Resolved from all eternity to grant us His benefactions, He leads us to ask them of Him.
This doctrine of the powerful efficacy of grace leads finally to great heights in the practice of the theological virtues. This it does because it is intimately bound up with the sublime mystery of predestination, the grandeur of which it fully preserves. St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, tells us: "And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints. For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren. And whom He predestinated, them He also called. And whom He called, them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who is against us?" (Rom. 8:28–31). St. Paul teaches the same doctrine in the Epistle to the Ephesians. [2]
[102] St. Augustine [3] and St. Thomas [4] have explained these words of St. Paul without lessening their real meaning. Bossuet, their disciple, sums them up with his usual mastery by saying: "I do not deny the goodness of God toward all men, or the means which in His general providence He offers them for their eternal salvation. The Lord does not will that any should perish, but that all should return to penance (cf. II Pet. 3:9). But however great His designs may be on everyone, He fixes a certain particular gaze of preference on a number that is known to Him. All those on whom He gazes in this way, weep for their sins and are converted in their time. That is why Peter burst into tears when our Lord looked at him benignly. Peter's repentance was the result of the prayer which Christ had offered for the stability of his faith; for it was necessary, first of all, to rekindle his faith, and then to strengthen it that it might endure to the end. The same is true of all those whom His Father has given Him in a special manner. Of these He said: 'All that the Father giveth to Me shall come to Me.... Now this is the will of the Father who sent me: that of all that He hath given Me, I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again in the last day' (John 6:37, 39).
"And why does He make us penetrate these sublime truths? Is it to trouble us, to alarm us, to cast us into despair, [103] to disturb us and make us question whether or not we are of the elect? Far be it from us to indulge in such thoughts, which would make us penetrate the secret counsels of God, explore, so to speak, even into His bosom, and sound the profound abyss of His eternal decrees. The design of our Savior is that, contemplating this secret gaze which He fixes on those whom He knows and whom His Father has given Him by a certain choice, and recognizing that He can lead them to their eternal salvation by means which do not fail, we should thus learn first of all to ask for these means, to unite ourselves to His prayer, to say with Him: 'Deliver us from evil' (Matt. 6:13); for, in the words of the Church: 'Do not permit us to be separated from Thee. If our will seeks to escape, do not permit it to do so; keep it in Thy hands, change it, and bring it back to Thee'" (Bossuet, Méditations sur l'Évangile, part, II, 72nd day).
This prayer assumes its full value in the plenitude of the life of faith, which is the mystical life; faith, as practical as sublime, in the wisdom of God, in the holiness of His good pleasure, in His omnipotence, in His sovereign dominion, in the infinite value of the merits of Jesus Christ, and in the infallible efficacy of His prayer.
Faith in the wisdom of God: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways! ... Or who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made Him? For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory forever. Amen" (Rom. 11:33–36).
Faith in the holiness of the divine good pleasure. "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. Yea, Father; for so hath it seemed good in Thy sight" (Matt. 11:25–26). Jesus spoke in the same manner [104] to the Pharisees: "Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to Me, except the Father, who hath sent Me, draw him; and I will raise him up in the last day" (John 6:43–44).
Faith in the divine omnipotence. God can convert the most hardened sinners. "The heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord: withersoever He will He shall turn it" (Prov. 21:1). "For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will" (Phil. 2:13). "My sheep hear My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them life everlasting; and they shall not perish forever, and no man shall pluck them out of My hand. That which My Father hath given Me, is greater than all; and no one can snatch them out of the hand of My Father. I and the Father are one" (John 10:27–30).
Faith in the sovereign dominion of the Creator. "Behold as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hands, O house of Israel" (Jer. 18:6). "Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction, that He might show the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He hath prepared unto glory?" (Rom. 9:21–23).
Faith in the infinite value of the merits and of the prayer of Jesus. "The Father loveth the Son: and He hath given all things into His hands" (John 3:35). "Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in Me, hath everlasting life" (John 6:47). "I have manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou hast given Me out of the world. Thine they were, and to Me Thou gavest them; [105] and they have kept Thy word.... I pray for them.... Holy Father, keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given Me; that they may be one, as We also are.... While I was with them, I kept them in Thy name. Those whom Thou gavest Me have I kept; and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, and the Scripture may be fulfilled.... I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from evil.... And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in Me.... Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me; that they may see My glory which Thou hast given Me, because Thou hast loved Me before the creation of the world" (John 17:6, 9, 11, 12, 15, 20, 24).
This act of serene and invincible faith in the infinite merits of Christ ravishes the heart of God, who at times allows everything to seem outwardly lost, that He may give His children the opportunity to prove their faith in Him by such an act.
This doctrine of grace leads us also to an entirely supernatural hope composed of confidence in the divine mercy and abandonment to it. The formal motive of hope is, in fact, the infinitely helpful divine mercy (Deus auxilians). That this virtue of hope may be divine and theological, we must hope in God and not in the power of our free will. "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool; but he that walketh wisely, he shall be saved" (Prov. 28:26). Considering our weakness, we must "with fear and trembling work out our salvation" (Phil. 2:12), and "he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall" (see I Cor. 10:12). But, considering God's infinitely helpful goodness, we must say to Him: "In Thee, O my God, I put my trust; let me not be ashamed" (Ps. 24:2). "Into Thy hands I commend my [106] spirit" (Ps. 30:6). "O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet; blessed is the man that hopeth in Him" (Ps. 33:9). "Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in Thee" (Ps. 15:1). "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded" (Ps. 30:2). "Behold, God is my savior, I will deal confidently, and will not fear: because the Lord is my strength, and my praise, and He is become my salvation" (Is. 12:2). "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13).
Such is the abandonment which Christ wishes us to learn. It has no quietism in it, as Bossuet so well explains. He says: "We must abandon ourselves to the divine goodness. This does not mean that we need not act and work, or that, in opposition to God's command, we may yield to unconcern or to rash thoughts. Rather, while acting to the best of our ability, we must above all abandon ourselves to God alone for time and for eternity....
"A proud man fears that his salvation will be uncertain unless he keeps it in his own hand, but he is deceived. Can I rely on myself? I feel that my will escapes me at every moment. If Thou, O Lord, didst wish to make me the sole master of my fate, I should decline a power so dangerous to my weakness. Let no one tell me that this doctrine of grace and preference leads good souls to despair. How mad for me to think I can be reassured by being hurled back on myself and delivered up to my inconstancy! To this, O my God, I do not consent. I find assurance only in abandoning myself to Thee. And in this abandonment I find even greater trust, for those to whom Thou dost give this confidence in entire abandonment, receive in this gentle impulse the best mark we can have on earth of Thy goodness. Increase this desire in me; and by this means [107] put into my heart the blessed hope of being at last among the chosen number.... Heal me and I shall be healed; convert me and I shall be converted" (Bossuet, Médit. sur l'Évangile, Pt. III, 72nd day).
In the painful, passive purifications of the spirit, souls are often tempted against hope and are troubled about the mystery of predestination. In this temptation all created helps fail them, and they must hope heroically against all hope for this single, pure reason, namely, that God is infinitely helpful and does not abandon the just unless they desert Him, that He does not let them be tempted beyond their strength aided by grace, that He sustains them by His all-powerful goodness, as He said to St. Paul: "My grace is sufficient for the; for power is made perfect in infirmity." "Gladly, therefore," says the great Apostle, "will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am week, then am I powerful" (See. 2 Cor. 12:9, 10).
We ought in great difficulties to think of this formal motive of hope: God our helper; for He comes efficaciously to our assistance by the grace that urges us to the practice of goodness, and in a gentle and powerful way causes it to be accomplished (cf. Catechism of the Council of Trent, chap. 45, "On temptation"). "But the salvation of the just is from the Lord, and He is their protector in the time of trouble. And the Lord will help them and deliver them: and He will rescue them from the wicked, and save them, because they have hoped in Him" (Ps. 36:39f).
Lastly, this doctrine of the efficacy of grace confirms our charity toward God and souls. This charity is a friendship based on God's communication to us of the divine life through grace. Therefore the more intimate and efficacious the grace which is given us, the more we should love God and correspond [108] to His love. "Not as though we had loved God, but because He hath first loved us" (See 1 John 4:10). The Master Himself said to His Apostles: "You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit: and your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My name He may give it you" (John 15:16). And in the exercise of the apostolate, because he believed in the potent efficacy of grace, St. Paul wrote: "Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulations? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? ... But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present ... nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:35, 37–39). [...]
No power is gentler than the infallibly efficacious grace of God. It diffuses itself gently in the soul which begins to will; the more the soul wills and the greater its thirst for God, the more it will be enriched. When God becomes more exacting and wishes pure crystal where there has been only sin, then He will give His grace in abundance that the soul may correspond [109] to His demands: "I am come that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). The purified soul ends by praising the power of God: "The right hand of the Lord hath wrought strength. I shall not die, but live: and shall declare the works of the Lord" (Ps. 117:17). [...]
St. Bernard says: "Grace is necessary to salvation, free will is equally so; but grace in order to give salvation, free will in order to receive it.... Therefore we should not attribute part of the good work to grace, and part to free will. It is performed in its entirety by the common and inseparable action of both; entirely by grace, entirely by free will, but springing completely from the first in the second" (De gratia et libero arbitrio, chaps. 1 and 14.).
St. Bonaventure is of the same opinion: "Devout souls do not seek to attribute to themselves in the work of salvation some part that does not come from God. They recognize that all issues from divine grace" (See II Sent., dist. 26, q. 2).
Tauler speaks of the efficacy of grace as St. Thomas does.
In The Imitation of Christ we read: "Never esteem thyself to be anything because of thy good works.... Of thyself thou always tendest to nothing: speedily art thou cast down, speedily overcome, speedily disordered, speedily undone. Thou hast not whereof to glory, but many things for which thou oughtest to account thyself vile; for thou art much weaker than thou art able to comprehend." "For I am nothing and I knew it not. IF I be left to myself, behold I become nothing but mere weakness; but if Thou for an instant look upon me, I am forthwith made strong, and am filled with new joy." "From Me, as from a living fountain, the small and the great, the poor and the rich, do draw the water of life; and [110] they that willingly and freely server Me, shall receive grace for grace.... Thou oughtest, therefore, to ascribe nothing to thyself, nor attribute goodness unto any man, but give all unto God, without whom man hath nothing. I have given thee all, and My will is to have all again.... This is the truth whereby vainglory is put to flight, and if heavenly grace enter in and true charity, there will be no envy or narrowness of heart, neither will self-love busy itself. For divine charity overcometh all things and enlargeth all the powers of the soul" (Bk. IV, chap. 4, no. 2; chap. 8, no. 1). [...]
[St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross say the same doctrine.] [111]
St. Francis de Sales states this doctrine in the following terms: "The chains of grace are so powerful, and yet so sweet, that though they attract our heart, they do not shackle our freedom.... Our yielding to the impulse of grace is much [112] more the effect of grace than of our will, and resistance to its inspirations is to be attributed to our will alone.... 'If thou didst know the gift of God'" (Treatise on the Love of God, Bk. II, chap. 12) [5, 6]. [...]
All the difficulties of the mystery of grace are solved practically by humility. Bossuet says: "Behold a terrible danger for human pride. Man says in his heart: I have my free will. God made me free, and I wish to make myself just.... In my free will, which I cannot harmonize with this abandonment to grace, I wish to find something to cling to. Proud foe, do you wish to reconcile these things, or rather to believe that God reconciles them? He reconciles them in the way He wishes, without releasing you from your action and without ceasing to demand that you attribute to Him all the work of your salvation, for He is the Savior, and He said: 'I am the Lord; and there is no savior besides Me' (Is. 43:11). Believe firmly that Jesus Christ is the Savior, and all difficulties will vanish" (Bossuet, Elévations sur les mystères, 18th week, 15th elevation).
[...] This great doctrine [...] [113] manifestly turns souls toward the loftiest mystical union, which is none other than the fulness of the life of faith.
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Footnotes:
1. [...] It is God who anticipates us by His grace when He justifies us, and it is we who are the first to abandon Him when we lose divine grace: "God will not desert the justified, unless He is first deserted by them" (Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. 2).
2. St. Paul also says in the Epistle to the Ephesians, 1:3–6, 11–12: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings, in heavenly places, in Christ: as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself: according to the purpose of His will: unto the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He hath graced us in His beloved Son.... In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of His will. That we may be unto the praise of His glory, we who before hoped in Christ."
3. De praedestinatione sanctorum, chaps. 3, 6–11, 14, 15, 17; De dono perseverantiae, chaps. 1, 6, 7, 12, 16–20, 23; De correptione et gratia, chaps. 9, 12, 13, 14. See also on these texts, Del Prado, De gratia et libero arbitrio, III, 555–564; II, 67–81, 259; and Bossuet, Défense de la tradition, Bk. XII, chaps. 13–20.
4. In Ep. ad Rom. 8:28; In Ep. ad Ephes., I, nos. 5; Summa Th., Ia, q. 23.
5. The author says in the same chapter: "Grace is so gracious and so graciously seizes on our hearts to draw them, that it in no way offends the liberty of our will; it touches powerfully but yet so delicately the springs of our spirit that our free will suffers no violence from it."
6. Father Grou, S.J. (MAximes spirituelles, 2d maxim) writes as do the most faithful disciples of St. Thomas: "Grace alone can free us from the slavery of sin and assure us true liberty; whence it follows that the more the will subjects itself to grace , the more it will do all that depends on it to become absolutely, fully, and constnatly dependent, the more free it will be.... Thus for the will all consists in putting itself in the hands of God, in using its own activity only to become more dependent on Him.... Is not our salvation incomparably more certain in God's hands than in our own? And fundamentally what can we do to save ourselves except what God enables us to do?"
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Source: Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Christian Perfection and Contemplation, trans. by M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2003), 95–113.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Ernest Hello on the Mediocre Man
It is said that the after reading the following passage by Ernest Hello in L'Homme, among others, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange left medical school and became a Dominican priest in order to dedicate his life to the highest excellence in pursuit of God.
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The characteristic trait of the mediocre man is his deference for public opinion. He never really talks; he only repeats what others have said. He judges a man by his age, his position, his success, his income. He has the profoundest respect for those who have attained notoriety, no matter how, and for authors with a large circulation.
The mediocre man may have certain special aptitudes; he may even have talent. But he is utterly wanting in intuition. He has no insight; he never will have any. He can learn; he cannot divine. Occasionally he allows an idea to penetrate into his mind, but he does not follow its various applications, and if it is stated in different terms, he denies its truth.
The mediocre man may, and often does, respect good people and men of talent. He fears and detests Saints and men of genius--he considers them exaggerated.
Of what use, he inquires, are the religious Orders, especially the contemplative Orders? He approves of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul because their work relates, partially at least, to the visible world. But the Carmelites, he says, what can be the good of them?
The mediocre man admires everything a little; he admires nothing warmly. If you confront him with his own thoughts, his own sentiments, expressed with enthusiasm, he will be displeased. He will declare that you are exaggerating. He prefers enemies, so long as they are cold, to friends who are warm. What he detests above all is enthusiasm.
To escape the reproach of intolerance aimed by him at all who think with consistency and decision, you would have to take refuge in absolute doubt; but even then you must be careful not to call doubt by its name. He considers every affirmation insolent, because every affirmation excludes the contradictory proposition. You must represent it as a modest opinion, which respects the rights of the contrary opinion, and appears to affirm something while affirming nothing whatever. But if you are slightly friendly and slightly hostile to all things, he will consider you wise and reserved. The mediocre man says there is good and evil in all things, and that we must not be absolute in our judgments. If you strongly affirm the truth, the mediocre man will say that you have too much confidence in yourself.
The mediocre man regrets that the Christian religion has dogmas. He would like it to teach only ethics, and if you tell him that its code of morals comes from its dogmas as the consequences comes from the principle, he will answer that you exaggerate. If the word "exaggeration" did not exist, the mediocre man would invent it.
The mediocre man, in his distrust of all that is great, maintains that he values good sense before everything. But he has not the remotest idea what good sense is. He merely understands by that expression the negation of all that is lofty.
The man of intelligence looks up to admire and to adore; the mediocre man looks up to mock. All that is above him seems to him ridiculous; the Infinite appears to him a void.
The mediocre man appears habitually modest. He cannot be humble, or he would cease to be mediocre. The humble man scorns all lies, even were they glorified by the whole earth, and he bows the knee before every truth.
The mediocre man is much more wicked than either he himself or anyone else imagines, because his coldness masks his wickedness. He never gets in a rage. He perpetrates innumerable little infamies, so petty that they do not appear to be infamous. And he is never afraid, for he relies on the vast multitude of those who resemble him.
When, however, a man mediocre by nature becomes a true and sincere Christian, he ceases absolutely to be mediocre. He may not, indeed, become a man of striking superiority, but he is rescued from mediocrity by the Hand that rules the world. THE MAN WHO LOVES IS NEVER MEDIOCRE.
The mediocre man, in his distrust of all that is great, maintains that he values good sense before everything. But he has not the remotest idea what good sense is. He merely understands by that expression the negation of all that is lofty.
The man of intelligence looks up to admire and to adore; the mediocre man looks up to mock. All that is above him seems to him ridiculous; the Infinite appears to him a void.
The mediocre man appears habitually modest. He cannot be humble, or he would cease to be mediocre. The humble man scorns all lies, even were they glorified by the whole earth, and he bows the knee before every truth.
The mediocre man is much more wicked than either he himself or anyone else imagines, because his coldness masks his wickedness. He never gets in a rage. He perpetrates innumerable little infamies, so petty that they do not appear to be infamous. And he is never afraid, for he relies on the vast multitude of those who resemble him.
When, however, a man mediocre by nature becomes a true and sincere Christian, he ceases absolutely to be mediocre. He may not, indeed, become a man of striking superiority, but he is rescued from mediocrity by the Hand that rules the world. THE MAN WHO LOVES IS NEVER MEDIOCRE.
---
Source: Ernest Hello, Life, Science, and Art, trans. by E. M. Walker (London: R. & T. Washbourne, 1912), 112–115.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Some Tactics for Chastity
1. Custody of the Eyes (and Imagination and Memory). This method is not simply about chastity but about self-control. The eyes may wander not only out of lustful intentions but harmful curiosity. Custody of the eyes is an exercise, small but continuous and sometimes arduous, in self-control.
We know from neuroscience now that pornography deteriorates the mind in a way similar to cocaine. Custody of the eyes takes on a real importance because the object of delight remains out of sight and helps provide opportunities for the brain to work in different ways.
Two particular helps for maintaining custody of the eyes: 1) prayer, focusing our attention and awareness on God; and 2) awareness of intention and attention, in which we maintain a recollected state of self-awareness of what we are doing and why. In any situation we enter, we enter with this recollection and mindfulness.
Cf. http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2014/07/10/ye-have-heard-that-it-was-said-by-them-of-old-time-thou-shalt-not-commit-adultery-but-i-say-unto-you-that-whosoever-looketh-on-a-woman-to-lust-after-her-hath-committed-adultery-with-her-already-in/
2. "As If" Technique. Visualize and live "as if" you have already achieved the goal. See all the concrete differences such living would require and simply go about as if these were well established facets of your daily living. This was the recommendation of Aristotle for building all virtue. It is a self-reinforcing process.
We can also apply this visualization to when we're tempted back into old patterns of behavior. For some behaviors, it may be good to imagine, "If I did such and such, here's what I would experience. Would it therefore be worth it?" This practice might be difficult for those suffering from addictive behavior.
Cf. http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2012/09/16/employing-the-as-if-technique-in-behavioral-modification/
3. Recollected Mindfulness. Maintaining self-awareness is important to avoid impulsive behavior and being swept away by stimuli. Recollection on God helps maintain this calm. When we have failed, simply turn back to God in contrition. This watchfulness also pays attention to the signs and beginnings of what tends to lead towards certain behaviors; this watchfulness will depend on remembering past experience and making records of how patterns begin and progress for us and in what circumstances. These should be all listed and learned for each person.
Mindfulness itself is developed first in little behaviors, such as in breathing, dressing, morning routines, walking, sitting, noticing ambient noises, etc.. Regular prayers before, during, and after activities that tend to distract us should be introduced.
Cf. http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2012/07/20/being-impulsive-a-problem-for-moderns-and-ancients/
http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2013/08/07/taking-captivity-captive-the-role-of-mindfulness-in-overcoming-mindless-compulsions/
4. Honestly Naming the Thought or Sin. Speaking aloud to another or to God an evil thought or sin that we are tempted to helps to neutralize its power. Herein lies some of the power of regular examination and confession. When we face the possibility and reality of admitting shameful behaviors to a person we respect, such as a priest, or a person we wouldn't want to see us in a bad light, such as a coworker or mentor, then we are much less likely to act out on a temptation. Where our fear of God is lacking, our fear of others may supply. This practice also keeps us humble and honest with ourselves and others: "This is who I am. I admit it. I'm working on it, but this is what I've done, thought, what I struggle with, etc."
Cf. http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2012/07/17/exposing-bad-thoughts-and-spiritual-healing/
5. Emotional Self-Understanding. Every temptation is preceded by emotional triggers that are deeply rooted in ourselves. We can come to recognize these feelings, their triggers, to see how they have been "solved" up until now by certain sinful behaviors. We can then admit these emotions honestly and openly. We can feel sorrow for the ways in which we have hurt ourselves and been fooled by the lies of the world around us into accepting harmful, self-destructive behaviors to run from our emotions and pain. We can connect our pain to past experiences and then see how they draw great power from childhood experiences or unresolved conflicts in ourselves or with others. Then we can bring all this to prayer, speaking our pain to God, asking Him to heal us, to help us, to comfort us.
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/q_masturbation.htm
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/4humility.htm
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/healing.htm
6. Practice Satiety Prevention. Seek to reduce the immediate gratification of desire—in eating, listening to music/radio, watching TV/movies, reading, texting, chatting, playing games, etc. Exercise self-control, fast, and learn to find comfort and fulfillment in God through prayer.
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/q_masturbation.htm
7. Develop a Sense of Gratitude. A mystical sense of gratitude by which we recognize everything around us is a gift from God helps foster a certain detachment by preventing us from becoming inordinately fixated on the objects of our awareness. Through gratitude, we recognize each thing reflects in some way God's beauty. Such gratitude helps foster recollection and mindfulness.
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/gratitude.htm
We know from neuroscience now that pornography deteriorates the mind in a way similar to cocaine. Custody of the eyes takes on a real importance because the object of delight remains out of sight and helps provide opportunities for the brain to work in different ways.
Two particular helps for maintaining custody of the eyes: 1) prayer, focusing our attention and awareness on God; and 2) awareness of intention and attention, in which we maintain a recollected state of self-awareness of what we are doing and why. In any situation we enter, we enter with this recollection and mindfulness.
Cf. http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2014/07/10/ye-have-heard-that-it-was-said-by-them-of-old-time-thou-shalt-not-commit-adultery-but-i-say-unto-you-that-whosoever-looketh-on-a-woman-to-lust-after-her-hath-committed-adultery-with-her-already-in/
2. "As If" Technique. Visualize and live "as if" you have already achieved the goal. See all the concrete differences such living would require and simply go about as if these were well established facets of your daily living. This was the recommendation of Aristotle for building all virtue. It is a self-reinforcing process.
We can also apply this visualization to when we're tempted back into old patterns of behavior. For some behaviors, it may be good to imagine, "If I did such and such, here's what I would experience. Would it therefore be worth it?" This practice might be difficult for those suffering from addictive behavior.
Cf. http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2012/09/16/employing-the-as-if-technique-in-behavioral-modification/
3. Recollected Mindfulness. Maintaining self-awareness is important to avoid impulsive behavior and being swept away by stimuli. Recollection on God helps maintain this calm. When we have failed, simply turn back to God in contrition. This watchfulness also pays attention to the signs and beginnings of what tends to lead towards certain behaviors; this watchfulness will depend on remembering past experience and making records of how patterns begin and progress for us and in what circumstances. These should be all listed and learned for each person.
Mindfulness itself is developed first in little behaviors, such as in breathing, dressing, morning routines, walking, sitting, noticing ambient noises, etc.. Regular prayers before, during, and after activities that tend to distract us should be introduced.
Cf. http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2012/07/20/being-impulsive-a-problem-for-moderns-and-ancients/
http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2013/08/07/taking-captivity-captive-the-role-of-mindfulness-in-overcoming-mindless-compulsions/
4. Honestly Naming the Thought or Sin. Speaking aloud to another or to God an evil thought or sin that we are tempted to helps to neutralize its power. Herein lies some of the power of regular examination and confession. When we face the possibility and reality of admitting shameful behaviors to a person we respect, such as a priest, or a person we wouldn't want to see us in a bad light, such as a coworker or mentor, then we are much less likely to act out on a temptation. Where our fear of God is lacking, our fear of others may supply. This practice also keeps us humble and honest with ourselves and others: "This is who I am. I admit it. I'm working on it, but this is what I've done, thought, what I struggle with, etc."
Cf. http://ancientchristianwisdom.com/2012/07/17/exposing-bad-thoughts-and-spiritual-healing/
5. Emotional Self-Understanding. Every temptation is preceded by emotional triggers that are deeply rooted in ourselves. We can come to recognize these feelings, their triggers, to see how they have been "solved" up until now by certain sinful behaviors. We can then admit these emotions honestly and openly. We can feel sorrow for the ways in which we have hurt ourselves and been fooled by the lies of the world around us into accepting harmful, self-destructive behaviors to run from our emotions and pain. We can connect our pain to past experiences and then see how they draw great power from childhood experiences or unresolved conflicts in ourselves or with others. Then we can bring all this to prayer, speaking our pain to God, asking Him to heal us, to help us, to comfort us.
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/q_masturbation.htm
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/4humility.htm
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/healing.htm
6. Practice Satiety Prevention. Seek to reduce the immediate gratification of desire—in eating, listening to music/radio, watching TV/movies, reading, texting, chatting, playing games, etc. Exercise self-control, fast, and learn to find comfort and fulfillment in God through prayer.
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/q_masturbation.htm
7. Develop a Sense of Gratitude. A mystical sense of gratitude by which we recognize everything around us is a gift from God helps foster a certain detachment by preventing us from becoming inordinately fixated on the objects of our awareness. Through gratitude, we recognize each thing reflects in some way God's beauty. Such gratitude helps foster recollection and mindfulness.
Cf. http://www.chastitysf.com/gratitude.htm
Monday, January 12, 2015
Humility and Relation
Humility depends on recognizing what is relative between us and God. God is All; relative to the All, we are nothing, purely contingent, existing solely by God's will. The more we recognize that God is All and that we are nothing, the more humble we shall be.
We must recall that the deeper a canyon is, the taller are the walls of that canyon; hence height and depth are two sides of the same coin, relative to where one stands. If one stands at the top of a canyon, the canyon is deep; if one stands at the bottom of the canyon, its cliffs are tall.
In our relation with God, we stand at the bottom of a canyon. We shall recognize that as we descend deeper and deeper through humility, God becomes more exalted through faith. But we also know through faith that God does not abandon us in our wretchedness but desires to save us. Hence the deeper we go, the more exalted God becomes, but also the more intimate and immanent God becomes through charity. The three work together simultaneously, enhancing each other. Humility, faith, hope, charity, humility, faith, etc.
We must recall that the deeper a canyon is, the taller are the walls of that canyon; hence height and depth are two sides of the same coin, relative to where one stands. If one stands at the top of a canyon, the canyon is deep; if one stands at the bottom of the canyon, its cliffs are tall.
In our relation with God, we stand at the bottom of a canyon. We shall recognize that as we descend deeper and deeper through humility, God becomes more exalted through faith. But we also know through faith that God does not abandon us in our wretchedness but desires to save us. Hence the deeper we go, the more exalted God becomes, but also the more intimate and immanent God becomes through charity. The three work together simultaneously, enhancing each other. Humility, faith, hope, charity, humility, faith, etc.
Monday, September 15, 2014
"Just Your Opinion"
In Western society (the society with which I am most familiar and in which I have grown up) there are a stock number of phrases the purpose of which is to dismiss others.
Sometimes dismissal is necessary, part of healthy boundaries—in job applications, when a person is looking to argue just to make a point, when there is some danger that one ought to avoid if one value's one's health.
Sometimes, however, dismissal is used unhealthily when it works against the pursuit of human flourishing as such.
Now, what human flourishing is requires conversation, dialogue, intelligence precisely because its notion is not self-evident but rather must be approached gradually.
Dismissal, then, works against this discussion; it relishes in solipsism, in brute individualism, in a radical ignoring of the other person.
"That's just your opinion"; "You're just being judgmental"; "That's bigoted." All of these statements betray a reaction to an opinion or sentiment strongly expressed. But there is nothing wrong with strong opinion as such on the condition that it is backed by argumentation and the dialectical process mentioned above. And even if strong opinion is not backed by rigor, it is hypocritical to dismiss it with a knee-jerk reaction.
Therefore, there must be more than simply—"that's just opinion." It must rather be: "that's your unfounded opinion," or "that opinion is wrong for these reasons x, y, and z." Two contrary opinions are not necessarily better than each other, and their butting heads do no good to humanity. Good is done when the dialogue is opened and encouraged.
A person, therefore, who dismisses someone else simply with "that's just your opinion" is showing that he is ensconced in a radically anti-human attitude even while he is dismissing what he legitimately believes to be anti-human itself! Sometimes, and this is a sad reality, the best way to deal with such people is to let them be, and that is, of course, a dismissal based on healthy boundaries. If they are not willing to dialogue, to explain, to understand, to humble themselves, to make themselves vulnerable, which is the essence of fruitful connection, nothing more can be done except to dismiss them precisely on the grounds that all has been done on one's end and that the ball is in their court and perhaps may forever stay that way.
We must respect free will but not necessarily the choices made by free will.
Sometimes dismissal is necessary, part of healthy boundaries—in job applications, when a person is looking to argue just to make a point, when there is some danger that one ought to avoid if one value's one's health.
Sometimes, however, dismissal is used unhealthily when it works against the pursuit of human flourishing as such.
Now, what human flourishing is requires conversation, dialogue, intelligence precisely because its notion is not self-evident but rather must be approached gradually.
Dismissal, then, works against this discussion; it relishes in solipsism, in brute individualism, in a radical ignoring of the other person.
"That's just your opinion"; "You're just being judgmental"; "That's bigoted." All of these statements betray a reaction to an opinion or sentiment strongly expressed. But there is nothing wrong with strong opinion as such on the condition that it is backed by argumentation and the dialectical process mentioned above. And even if strong opinion is not backed by rigor, it is hypocritical to dismiss it with a knee-jerk reaction.
Therefore, there must be more than simply—"that's just opinion." It must rather be: "that's your unfounded opinion," or "that opinion is wrong for these reasons x, y, and z." Two contrary opinions are not necessarily better than each other, and their butting heads do no good to humanity. Good is done when the dialogue is opened and encouraged.
A person, therefore, who dismisses someone else simply with "that's just your opinion" is showing that he is ensconced in a radically anti-human attitude even while he is dismissing what he legitimately believes to be anti-human itself! Sometimes, and this is a sad reality, the best way to deal with such people is to let them be, and that is, of course, a dismissal based on healthy boundaries. If they are not willing to dialogue, to explain, to understand, to humble themselves, to make themselves vulnerable, which is the essence of fruitful connection, nothing more can be done except to dismiss them precisely on the grounds that all has been done on one's end and that the ball is in their court and perhaps may forever stay that way.
We must respect free will but not necessarily the choices made by free will.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Distinction: "Lifelong Catholic" vs. Living Catholic
There is really only one use for describing oneself as a "lifelong Catholic": a statement of chronological fact regarding one's self conception. In other words, it describes a fact of time—that the lifelong Catholic was baptized soon after birth, confirmed, received First Communion, etc., continued attending Mass throughout life, receiving sacraments, perhaps praying.
But what good is a label in itself? I can call attention to any other "chronological fact" regarding myself—I'm a lifelong brown-haired male. Or I can state a fact regarding how I view myself (self-conception), a view that may change with time; e.g. in high school I believed I was ugly because I had acne.
The label and the self-conception are morally neutral, psychological qualities. These qualities may be harmful or beneficial to our flourishing and striving for happiness. There is, however, no intrinsic point in any of these labels. The labels are spoken so as to be used, to set oneself in relation to something else. Hence labels, while neutral qualities in themselves, are always concretely employed in relation to something else; hence enters their political dimension.
However, I want to draw attention to how a person will call himself a "lifelong Catholic." Usually this label is spoken in order to give moral or political weight and authority to what is said; it serves as a sometimes-very-subtle power play, a badge of honor or pride, saying, "Look at me. I've lived this all my life. My opinion therefore is worth something."
But the problem is that being a "lifelong" anything doesn't guarantee mastery. One could be a lifelong entrepreneur, manager, woodworker, painter, etc. Length of experience certainly exposes one to more possibilities, but it in itself does not guarantee mastery. Mastery requires deliberation and intentionality, usually growing through a slow, heuristic process; sometimes, however, such deliberation draws out an intrinsic genius and leads to spontaneous leaps (punctuated growth rather than gradual).
Hence, the label "lifelong x" is an expression of unconscious pride. The label of the Saint is "I am a sinner; don't listen to me but to Christ, to the doctors, to the Church" (paradoxically in so doing, the Saints then become listened to themselves precisely because they submit their experience and knowledge to the greater tradition and judgment of the Church). The self-styled expert, or "lifelong Catholic," reveals himself to be a novice. If the "lifelong Catholic" would only realize that salvation and sanctification can be lost in a single moment, a single moral act, that salvation is not guaranteed, that the grace of perseverance must always be begged for, that the mystical life, just as with any art and virtue, must be advanced upon by calm and persevering deliberation that is oblivious to time and the growth of which is not set in proportion to the length of time that has passed, then perhaps that lifelong Catholic may actually become a living Catholic, which is the only kind of Catholic that is worth anything for glorifying God, working for the salvation of souls, and being saved.
But what good is a label in itself? I can call attention to any other "chronological fact" regarding myself—I'm a lifelong brown-haired male. Or I can state a fact regarding how I view myself (self-conception), a view that may change with time; e.g. in high school I believed I was ugly because I had acne.
The label and the self-conception are morally neutral, psychological qualities. These qualities may be harmful or beneficial to our flourishing and striving for happiness. There is, however, no intrinsic point in any of these labels. The labels are spoken so as to be used, to set oneself in relation to something else. Hence labels, while neutral qualities in themselves, are always concretely employed in relation to something else; hence enters their political dimension.
However, I want to draw attention to how a person will call himself a "lifelong Catholic." Usually this label is spoken in order to give moral or political weight and authority to what is said; it serves as a sometimes-very-subtle power play, a badge of honor or pride, saying, "Look at me. I've lived this all my life. My opinion therefore is worth something."
But the problem is that being a "lifelong" anything doesn't guarantee mastery. One could be a lifelong entrepreneur, manager, woodworker, painter, etc. Length of experience certainly exposes one to more possibilities, but it in itself does not guarantee mastery. Mastery requires deliberation and intentionality, usually growing through a slow, heuristic process; sometimes, however, such deliberation draws out an intrinsic genius and leads to spontaneous leaps (punctuated growth rather than gradual).
Hence, the label "lifelong x" is an expression of unconscious pride. The label of the Saint is "I am a sinner; don't listen to me but to Christ, to the doctors, to the Church" (paradoxically in so doing, the Saints then become listened to themselves precisely because they submit their experience and knowledge to the greater tradition and judgment of the Church). The self-styled expert, or "lifelong Catholic," reveals himself to be a novice. If the "lifelong Catholic" would only realize that salvation and sanctification can be lost in a single moment, a single moral act, that salvation is not guaranteed, that the grace of perseverance must always be begged for, that the mystical life, just as with any art and virtue, must be advanced upon by calm and persevering deliberation that is oblivious to time and the growth of which is not set in proportion to the length of time that has passed, then perhaps that lifelong Catholic may actually become a living Catholic, which is the only kind of Catholic that is worth anything for glorifying God, working for the salvation of souls, and being saved.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Three Qualities to Guarantee Fruitful Dialogue
I've discovered that there are three basic qualities that may indicate the possibility of fruitful dialogue and intellectual encounter. Insofar and to the extent that these qualities are present in a person, that person may engage in honest conversation about intellectual convictions. The limit of these qualities in any person marks the limit of the possibility for conversation. These qualities are self-reinforcing and heuristic; i.e. as one increases, so too do the others; as one decreases, so too do the others. Finally, it should be noted and remembered that as a rule most people do not and in a certain sense cannot have these qualities or develop them. Many reasons exist for this restrictive circumstance, ranging from ignorance, malice, or the difficulty and "noisiness" of regular life. These qualities require silence, detachment, humility, and a constant openness to growth.
1. Self-reflectivity: most people live on a "surface" level in which they never reflect on their own intellectual capacity. For example, our minds allow us to analyze nature on different planes: 1) the physical and particular; 2) the mathematical and quantitative; 3) the metaphysical and qualitative. Each of these planes are deeper (or higher) manners of analysis. Likewise, one can act, but one can also reflect on one's actions. The depth of this reflection grounds the depth of self-reflectivity. To be open to the truth, a person must reflect on why they believe what they believe.
The self-reflective person not only adheres to a belief, or a proposition about some matter x. By being self-reflective, they also consider 1) the assumptions that make sense of that belief and justify it as well as 2) the conclusions and corollaries that follow from adherence to that belief. Beliefs do not exist in isolation within an intelligent subject; they exist in relation, in a web of interconnected support.
To challenge a belief is to pluck one corner of the web; such an action makes the entire web vibrate, whether the person being challenged is aware of this consequence or not. Such a challenge then unconsciously becomes processed as a threat to one's very way of life and existence.
Fruitful dialogue requires that a person be willing to examine the assumptions, the beliefs, and the conclusions; to remain consistent; or otherwise to consider the possibility of difference and error.
2. Vulnerability: vulnerability is the willingness to suffer the pain that may follow from serious change and honesty. As such vulnerability is primarily affective where self-reflectivity is intellective. Vulnerability accepts that oftentimes the truth hurts, but it hurts in order to heal similar to how a doctor may need to cut open a patient in surgery. But many, fearing pain and the unknown at all costs, will use any means to hide and numb this pain and even the possibility of the encounter with life-changing truth.
Vulnerability requires humility, an attitude of kneeling before the truth, an attitude of openness to growth and the possibility of change. Change is difficult and scary.
3. Maturity: maturity is personal integration. It takes the intellectual insights of self-reflectivity and the emotional strength of vulnerability and integrates them into a coherent whole; it uses these powers of the mind and heart to act. Integration occurs not simply by thinking and feeling but by acting and changing. Prudence as St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us is not simply the process of understanding and judging but, above all, acting (Summa Th. 2a2ae.47.2 and 8). Without acting, there is no prudence. Maturity is prudence.
1. Self-reflectivity: most people live on a "surface" level in which they never reflect on their own intellectual capacity. For example, our minds allow us to analyze nature on different planes: 1) the physical and particular; 2) the mathematical and quantitative; 3) the metaphysical and qualitative. Each of these planes are deeper (or higher) manners of analysis. Likewise, one can act, but one can also reflect on one's actions. The depth of this reflection grounds the depth of self-reflectivity. To be open to the truth, a person must reflect on why they believe what they believe.
The self-reflective person not only adheres to a belief, or a proposition about some matter x. By being self-reflective, they also consider 1) the assumptions that make sense of that belief and justify it as well as 2) the conclusions and corollaries that follow from adherence to that belief. Beliefs do not exist in isolation within an intelligent subject; they exist in relation, in a web of interconnected support.
To challenge a belief is to pluck one corner of the web; such an action makes the entire web vibrate, whether the person being challenged is aware of this consequence or not. Such a challenge then unconsciously becomes processed as a threat to one's very way of life and existence.
Fruitful dialogue requires that a person be willing to examine the assumptions, the beliefs, and the conclusions; to remain consistent; or otherwise to consider the possibility of difference and error.
2. Vulnerability: vulnerability is the willingness to suffer the pain that may follow from serious change and honesty. As such vulnerability is primarily affective where self-reflectivity is intellective. Vulnerability accepts that oftentimes the truth hurts, but it hurts in order to heal similar to how a doctor may need to cut open a patient in surgery. But many, fearing pain and the unknown at all costs, will use any means to hide and numb this pain and even the possibility of the encounter with life-changing truth.
Vulnerability requires humility, an attitude of kneeling before the truth, an attitude of openness to growth and the possibility of change. Change is difficult and scary.
3. Maturity: maturity is personal integration. It takes the intellectual insights of self-reflectivity and the emotional strength of vulnerability and integrates them into a coherent whole; it uses these powers of the mind and heart to act. Integration occurs not simply by thinking and feeling but by acting and changing. Prudence as St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us is not simply the process of understanding and judging but, above all, acting (Summa Th. 2a2ae.47.2 and 8). Without acting, there is no prudence. Maturity is prudence.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene on Unbounded Hope in God
[741] The story of Job is re-enacted in some way in the life of every soul dear to God [....] God permits the sufferings of the innocent, and even uses the consequences of sin—wars, disorders, social and personal injustices—for the greater good of His elected. It is often true, however, that when we are [742] undergoing a trial we neither see nor understand the reason for it. God does not account for His actions nor does He reveal His plans to us [....]
The least act of hope, of trust in God, made in the midst of trials, in a state of interior or exterior desolation, is worth far more than a thousand acts made in times of joy and prosperity. When we are suffering in mind or body, when we are experiencing the void of abandonment and helplessness, when we find ourselves a prey to the repugnances and rebellions of nature which would like to throw off the yoke of The Lord, we cannot pretend to have the comforting feeling of hope, of confidence; often we may even experience the opposite sentiment, and yet, even in this state we can make acts of hope and of confidence which are not felt but willed. The theological virtues are practiced essentially by the will. [...] When the acts must be made by the will alone, then this exercise is dry and cold, but is not for this reason of less merit; on the contrary, it is even more meritorious and therefore gives more glory to God. We should not, therefore, be disturbed if we do not feel confidence; we must will to have confidence, will to hope, to hope at any cost, in spite of all the blows God may inflict on us by means of trials. This is the moment to repeat with Job: "Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him" (Jb 13:15). [...] These feelings [of rebellion] do not offend God, provided we always try to react gently by making acts of confidence with our will. Every time a wave of discouragement tries to carry us away, we must react against it by anchoring ourselves in God by a simple movement of trust [....] It is precisely by going through these trials that we reach the [743] heroic practice of faith and hope; and the heroism of the virtues is necessary for the attainment of sanctity. [...]
[744] [God's] helpful power and His desire for our good, for our sanctification, infinitely exceed our most ardent hopes. This blind, unlimited hope is so pleasing to God that the more hope we have, the more He overwhelms us with favors: "The more the soul hopes, the more it attains" (St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, 7.2). [...]
The more wretched, weak, and powerless we find ourselves, the more we should hope in God. [...] The knowledge of our weakness ought to make us keenly aware of our need for God; indeed, our weakness itself ought to be an incessant cry, begging with complete confidence for His all-powerful aid. [...] God's mercy is waiting to come to us, to purify and sanctify us, [745] but it will not come until we open the doors of our heart by an act of complete confidence.
A soul that endeavors to apply itself with all the strength of its will to the practice of the virtues and the fulfillment of every duty, a soul that is determined to refuse nothing to Our Lord, should strive to maintain itself in an attitude of total trust in Him, in spite of inevitable falls. Yes, we should have complete confidence that God will come to sanctify us, regardless of our past faults, our present miseries, the aridity of our soul, the repugnances of nature, or the state of weariness and depression in which we may find ourselves. [...]
If we become discouraged, it is because we are seeking perfection not for God's glory alone, but for our own satisfaction as well, and also because we would prefer to find security in ourselves rather than to rely upon God alone. All this, in reality, is the result of a subtle pride. Instead of becoming disturbed and irritated by our imperfections, we must acknowledge them humbly, present them to God as a sick man shows his wounds to his doctor, ask pardon, and then immediately renew our efforts with great confidence. We must learn to make use of our miseries and failings to plead our cause, to show God how much we need His help, and to increase our confidence in Him. Hope in God is the great anchor of salvation for our poor soul, tossed by the billows of human frailty. [...]
[746] "O Jesus, how can a soul as imperfect as mine aspire to possess the plenitude of love? O Jesus, my first, my only Friend, You whom I love solely, tell me, then, what mystery is this? [...] I see myself as a feeble little bird with only a light down to cover me; I am not an eagle, yet I have an eagle's eyes and an eagle's heart; for, notwithstanding my extreme littleness, I dare to gaze on the divine Sun, the Sun of Love, and I burn to fly to You, resplendent Sun, who attract my gaze. I would imitate the eagles I see soaring [...] but alas, I can only flutter my little wings [....]
"What then, is to become of me? Must I die of sorrow because of my helplessness? Oh, no! I will not even grieve. With daring confidence, I shall remain here, gazing on my divine Sun. Nothing can frighten me, neither wind nor rain; and should impenetrable clouds come to conceal You from my eyes, O Jesus, I shall not change my place, knowing that beyond the dark clouds Your love shines always and that its splendor cannot be eclipsed for a single moment. Sometimes, it is true, my heart will be assailed by the tempest and I may feel as if I believe that beyond this life there is only the darkness which envelops me. This would be the hour of perfect joy... what happiness to remain here at all costs, to fix my gaze on the invisible Light which hides itself to my faith.
"Yet should You remain deaf to my plaintive cries, if You still veil Yourself... well then, I am content to remain benumbed with cold, and so I rejoice in such well-merited suffering.
"O Jesus, how sweet is the way of love. True, one may fall and be unfaithful to grace, but love knows how to draw profit from everything, and quickly consumes whatever may be displeasing to You, leaving in the heart only a deep and humble peace" (St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, 13-8).
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Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 741–746.
The least act of hope, of trust in God, made in the midst of trials, in a state of interior or exterior desolation, is worth far more than a thousand acts made in times of joy and prosperity. When we are suffering in mind or body, when we are experiencing the void of abandonment and helplessness, when we find ourselves a prey to the repugnances and rebellions of nature which would like to throw off the yoke of The Lord, we cannot pretend to have the comforting feeling of hope, of confidence; often we may even experience the opposite sentiment, and yet, even in this state we can make acts of hope and of confidence which are not felt but willed. The theological virtues are practiced essentially by the will. [...] When the acts must be made by the will alone, then this exercise is dry and cold, but is not for this reason of less merit; on the contrary, it is even more meritorious and therefore gives more glory to God. We should not, therefore, be disturbed if we do not feel confidence; we must will to have confidence, will to hope, to hope at any cost, in spite of all the blows God may inflict on us by means of trials. This is the moment to repeat with Job: "Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him" (Jb 13:15). [...] These feelings [of rebellion] do not offend God, provided we always try to react gently by making acts of confidence with our will. Every time a wave of discouragement tries to carry us away, we must react against it by anchoring ourselves in God by a simple movement of trust [....] It is precisely by going through these trials that we reach the [743] heroic practice of faith and hope; and the heroism of the virtues is necessary for the attainment of sanctity. [...]
[744] [God's] helpful power and His desire for our good, for our sanctification, infinitely exceed our most ardent hopes. This blind, unlimited hope is so pleasing to God that the more hope we have, the more He overwhelms us with favors: "The more the soul hopes, the more it attains" (St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, 7.2). [...]
The more wretched, weak, and powerless we find ourselves, the more we should hope in God. [...] The knowledge of our weakness ought to make us keenly aware of our need for God; indeed, our weakness itself ought to be an incessant cry, begging with complete confidence for His all-powerful aid. [...] God's mercy is waiting to come to us, to purify and sanctify us, [745] but it will not come until we open the doors of our heart by an act of complete confidence.
A soul that endeavors to apply itself with all the strength of its will to the practice of the virtues and the fulfillment of every duty, a soul that is determined to refuse nothing to Our Lord, should strive to maintain itself in an attitude of total trust in Him, in spite of inevitable falls. Yes, we should have complete confidence that God will come to sanctify us, regardless of our past faults, our present miseries, the aridity of our soul, the repugnances of nature, or the state of weariness and depression in which we may find ourselves. [...]
If we become discouraged, it is because we are seeking perfection not for God's glory alone, but for our own satisfaction as well, and also because we would prefer to find security in ourselves rather than to rely upon God alone. All this, in reality, is the result of a subtle pride. Instead of becoming disturbed and irritated by our imperfections, we must acknowledge them humbly, present them to God as a sick man shows his wounds to his doctor, ask pardon, and then immediately renew our efforts with great confidence. We must learn to make use of our miseries and failings to plead our cause, to show God how much we need His help, and to increase our confidence in Him. Hope in God is the great anchor of salvation for our poor soul, tossed by the billows of human frailty. [...]
[746] "O Jesus, how can a soul as imperfect as mine aspire to possess the plenitude of love? O Jesus, my first, my only Friend, You whom I love solely, tell me, then, what mystery is this? [...] I see myself as a feeble little bird with only a light down to cover me; I am not an eagle, yet I have an eagle's eyes and an eagle's heart; for, notwithstanding my extreme littleness, I dare to gaze on the divine Sun, the Sun of Love, and I burn to fly to You, resplendent Sun, who attract my gaze. I would imitate the eagles I see soaring [...] but alas, I can only flutter my little wings [....]
"What then, is to become of me? Must I die of sorrow because of my helplessness? Oh, no! I will not even grieve. With daring confidence, I shall remain here, gazing on my divine Sun. Nothing can frighten me, neither wind nor rain; and should impenetrable clouds come to conceal You from my eyes, O Jesus, I shall not change my place, knowing that beyond the dark clouds Your love shines always and that its splendor cannot be eclipsed for a single moment. Sometimes, it is true, my heart will be assailed by the tempest and I may feel as if I believe that beyond this life there is only the darkness which envelops me. This would be the hour of perfect joy... what happiness to remain here at all costs, to fix my gaze on the invisible Light which hides itself to my faith.
"Yet should You remain deaf to my plaintive cries, if You still veil Yourself... well then, I am content to remain benumbed with cold, and so I rejoice in such well-merited suffering.
"O Jesus, how sweet is the way of love. True, one may fall and be unfaithful to grace, but love knows how to draw profit from everything, and quickly consumes whatever may be displeasing to You, leaving in the heart only a deep and humble peace" (St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, 13-8).
---
Source: Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, Divine Intimacy, trans. by Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2005), 741–746.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Fr. Marie-Eugène on Humility of Soul
Respectful and loving before the divine Reality, [the humble soul] no longer dares to set up as an idol the brilliance of reason; it rejoices in knowing nothing, in being capable of nothing, in understanding nothing, in order that trusting in a faith that is now pure and strong, it may penetrate farther into the transluminous darkness of the mysteries that are proposed to it.
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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 397.
We Must Surrender Our Plans for Ourselves
[372] Handsome constructions whose irremediable vice is to have been made by the hand of man and outside the divine plan! To consecrate one's energies to such realizations is usually to depart from the will of God.
Meanwhile, God's real designs in our regard declare themselves, upsetting our own preconceived ones. The result, at least momentarily, is discouragement and disillusionment, unless we begin to reconstruct at once in our own fashion. And perhaps God will permit us to work things out as we foresaw, and to enjoy a success which might even appear brilliant, but which is always only mediocre because superficial and human under a supernatural veneer. Our generosity was spent for ourself and our own projects; it missed the plan of God because it did not make an undetermined gift.
It is truly in the dark that one must look for the design of God; for His thoughts are above human thoughts as heaven, earth. Our God dwells in darkness; the transcendent light of [373] His Wisdom blinds our poor eyes. What is our part, what is our place in His divine plan? He alone knows. The part that we must do, the place that we are to fill, in these is our perfection. The gift of self—which is meant to be made in view of the part and place reserved to us in the divine work and edifice—must seek them in mystery and surrender to that mystery which hides and guards them jealously, awaiting the hour for realization. Thus the gift of self must be indeterminate in order not to go astray in purely human projects, but to be at one with the divine reality and truth. [...]
The holy indifference which is its fruit frees the soul from those bitter disappointments that paralyze it for a moment and sometimes break one's spirit definitely.
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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 372–373.
Meanwhile, God's real designs in our regard declare themselves, upsetting our own preconceived ones. The result, at least momentarily, is discouragement and disillusionment, unless we begin to reconstruct at once in our own fashion. And perhaps God will permit us to work things out as we foresaw, and to enjoy a success which might even appear brilliant, but which is always only mediocre because superficial and human under a supernatural veneer. Our generosity was spent for ourself and our own projects; it missed the plan of God because it did not make an undetermined gift.
It is truly in the dark that one must look for the design of God; for His thoughts are above human thoughts as heaven, earth. Our God dwells in darkness; the transcendent light of [373] His Wisdom blinds our poor eyes. What is our part, what is our place in His divine plan? He alone knows. The part that we must do, the place that we are to fill, in these is our perfection. The gift of self—which is meant to be made in view of the part and place reserved to us in the divine work and edifice—must seek them in mystery and surrender to that mystery which hides and guards them jealously, awaiting the hour for realization. Thus the gift of self must be indeterminate in order not to go astray in purely human projects, but to be at one with the divine reality and truth. [...]
The holy indifference which is its fruit frees the soul from those bitter disappointments that paralyze it for a moment and sometimes break one's spirit definitely.
---
Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 372–373.
The Importance of Humility in Relation to God
[384] Saint Angela of Foligno writes:
The more the soul is afflicted, stripped, and deeply humiliated, the more it acquires, with purity, an aptitude for the heights. The elevation of which it becomes capable is measured by the depth of the abyss in which it has its roots and foundations (Cf. Sainte Angèle de Foligno; French trans. by Hello, ch. xix).[385] [...] Ruysbroeck remarks also that humility does not necessarily have its source in sin:
Our sins...have become for us sources of humility and of love. But it is important to be mindful of a source of humility much higher than this. The Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, has a humility more sublime than the Magdalen's. The latter was pardoned; the former was without spot. But that absolute immunity, more sublime than any pardon, causes a higher thanksgiving to mount from earth to heaven than does the conversion of Mary Magdalen (Cf. Ruysbroeck, French trans. by Hello, Bk. III, "L'Humilité").Saint Therese of the Child Jesus counts on this attractiveness of humility and of poverty to make the divine mercy descend to her soul. The love of poverty becomes the fundamental quality of her way of spiritual childhood. In a letter to her sister Marie [she] writes:
O my dearest Sister, please understand your little sister, understand that to love Jesus, to be His victim of love, the weaker one is, without desires or virtues, the more apt one is for the operations of that consuming and transforming Love. (Letter to Marie, Sept. 17, 1896; Collected Letters, p. 289) [...][387] Everywhere that [humility] is found, there God is. And everywhere that God is here below, He clothes Himself, as it were, with a garment that conceals His Presence from the proud and reveals it to the simple and the little ones. When Jesus came to this world, it was as an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. That was the sign given to the shepherds [....] The sign of humility always marks the Divine here below. [...]
[388] "Height and depth bring forth one another," declares Saint Angela of Foligno.
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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 384–388.
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Saint Angela of Foligno reveals that humility is fundamentally about relation. Height and depth are relative to where one stands. If one is at the bottom of a canyon, the canyon walls seem high, but from the top of the canyon, its depths are far below. Humility links the Infinite height of God with our finite miserableness. This is why the foundation of the spiritual life is humility: the depths of humility draw down the heights of Divine Mercy and to the precise proportion of one to the other. Further, when God wishes to raise us to the mystical heights, He no longer allows us to develop our humility based on our own efforts but fills us with transcendent light that so thoroughly reveals our littleness beyond any effort of our own, we cannot but simultaneously be filled with the mercy that this wretchedness calls out to.
Grace, like humility, establishes a relation and exists only in relation of the Creator to the creature. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis explains this unusual relationship when he comments on the verse from St. Matthew, "Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven" (5:44-45):
[238] "That you may become": the subjunctive mood here ought to instill fear and trembling. We will not become children of God until we put on his mind. It would be a plain evasion to qualify the verb here by translating 'we will not fully be' or something of the sort. One either is a child of someone or is not, just as a woman cannot be "partially pregnant". But the text contains rich seeds of hope. The Lord tells us to love our enemies "that we may become the children of our Father in heaven". A strange expression, since it implies that God can be our Father without our being his children. And so it is. This is a one-way parent-child relationship without analogy, since it refers to the absolute source of our existence on both the natural and the supernatural planes.
Spiritually we cannot be God's children without the interior revolution the Lord is here inviting us to; but, in seeking such an identity, we are not venturing out on a reckless illusion. God already is our Father, so that we will in some sense lack in being if we do not undertake to become his children by putting on his mind. Not only is this venture not something optional, something added as a decoration to the rest [239] of our already existing reality. It is, in fact, the only adventure worth giving one's entire substance to, because what is involved is nothing less than what we shall be and do, in our heart and in our soul and mind, for all eternity. (Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, vol. 1 [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1996], 238–239)Hence while all being children of the Father at least as Creator, through grace we become children of the Father through adoption. Grace establishes a reciprocal relationship of love that previously could not exist. Likewise, humility reveals to us the truth of our situation relative to God: without God we are incapable of even existing, and all that we have is misery and nothingness, according to St. Teresa of Avila:
I was wondering once why Our Lord so dearly loved this virtue of humility; and all of a sudden—without, I believe, my having previously thought of it—the following reason came into my mind: that it is because God is Sovereign Truth and to be humble is to walk in truth, for it is absolutely true to say that we have no good thing in ourselves, but only misery and nothingness; and anyone who fails to understand this is walking in falsehood. He who best understands this is most pleasing to Sovereign Truth because he is walking in truth. (Interior Castle, VI Mansions, 10: Peers, II, 323)
Friday, August 1, 2014
Distinction: Unworthy vs. Incapable
There is a difference between being unworthy of something and incapable of something. Unworthiness refers to being; incapacity refers to doing or activity. And although activity follows being (function follows form), one has to be careful in how this concept is applied.
For example, we are unworthy of salvation before God because we have sinned. Nevertheless, even if we hadn't sinned, as finite creatures we still could not save ourselves without God's grace because salvation transcends the capacity of finite power; it requires the infinite absolutely. Sin, on the other hand, makes us in a certain sense further incapable of salvation because it makes us unworthy by willfully rejecting the only thing which could save us, namely, God's grace.
Sometimes the Church makes this distinction. For example, She tells us that two persons of the same sex are incapable of marrying each other through the Sacrament of Matrimony. She tells us that women are incapable of ordination, and at one point, She decreed that women were incapable of singing in the choir because it is a liturgical function and hence reserved for men. In none of these instances does the Church decree that such people are unworthy so as to shame them. In a certain sense, all are unworthy of the grace of marriage, priesthood, and contributing to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. But most people take the notion of unworthiness as a stimulus for shame rather than humility.
This stimulus to shame rather than humility is fueled by a lack of healthy self-integration usually caused by childhood experiences in being raised poorly. Shame is fueled by falsehoods, pain, and hatred. Humility is fueled by truth, consolation, and love. Humility can feel painful, but it is a very different kind of pain than the pain that accompanies shame. The pain of humility is the pain of subduing one's pride, of resisting the allure of falsehood. The pain of shame is utterly destructive and usually leads to a form of overcompensation: either a person acts "nicely" and allows himself to be walked over without asserting healthy boundaries so as to avoid further pain; or the person acts like a jerk, stomping over others to give himself a false sense of power. Both reactions are extremes that try to hide from the simple presence of shame.
Hence when a person is told they "can't" do something, usually due to the above circumstances, this denial is used as a way to shame the person, confusing the notions of unworthiness and incapacity. In the past, others may have said, "You can't do that" so as to shame the person; e.g. "You can't watch TV/be with those people/eat this food/do that activity/etc." This "can't" took other forms as well: "Stop crying/don't be a cry baby/grow up/toughen up/don't talk about that/shut up/etc." These commands express one reality: you "can't" talk about your emotional state and what's really going on.
Rather than being a way to state a simple, humbling truth, "can't" becomes a powerful tool to place people into positions of shameful submission. Instead of something obvious, such as, "You can't fly because you don't have wings" or "You can't touch the stove or else you'll burn yourself real badly," can't takes on the form of unhealthy social dynamics that leads to shame.
Hence when the Church declares something very simple and pure and profound, such as, "You can't deliberately miss Sunday Mass without committing mortal sin," She isn't trying to shame us to go to Mass but reminding us of a very basic reality: the primacy of God in our lives, and the most obvious expression of that primacy is weekly worship as handed down to us from Christ Himself.
All the commandments and dogmas of the Church are interpreted as shaming mechanisms by people who themselves feel ashamed for whatever reason. They cannot be properly seen as humble statements of divine truth when a person is caught up in such a psychological-spiritual state. But in reality, these commandments and dogmas are lampposts to our happiness and freedom because they guide us to humility, and as Scripture tells us, "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble" (Jas. 4:6).
Friday, July 18, 2014
Distinction: Complaining vs. Honesty
There is a difference between complaining and honestly stating one's feelings. Complaints are not edifying for anyone, frequently encourage gossip or detraction, and reveal an implicit distrust in God's Providence. In sum, complaints are destructive acts.
The honest stating of one's feelings, either in an interaction with another person or in prayer with God, is a necessary condition for growing in humility and witnessing to the Truth, for honestly stating one's feelings should lead to trusting more deeply in God, Who loves us infinitely, and working constructively to find solutions to the problem(s) that have caused those feelings in the first place. Honesty is constructive.
Furthermore, whereas a complaint is an unconscious cry to be loved—in other words, the act of an infant who seeks the nurturing presence of its mother, honesty is the explicit expression of maturity—the act of an adult individual who, while finite and not impervious, can become vulnerable in such a way as to offer the chance of redemption between an offender and a victim. It is by way of "softness" or vulnerability, which is founded on honesty, that a malicious act or an accident may be recognized as such, the opportunity for reconciliation may arise, and amendment of life may occur. If a person simply complains, the shunning of honest interaction can lead only to a hardening of hearts and a further isolation of one individual from the other and, depending on the size of the circumstance, a group of people from another group.
Finally, honesty is necessary in one's prayer life because only by opening up to God can we grow closer to Him. He knows how we are even if we don't tell Him, but it is important for us that we open our hearts up rather than harden and shut them off, for in the measure that we give ourselves to Him by opening ourselves up to Him in trust, so does God give Himself to us.
The honest stating of one's feelings, either in an interaction with another person or in prayer with God, is a necessary condition for growing in humility and witnessing to the Truth, for honestly stating one's feelings should lead to trusting more deeply in God, Who loves us infinitely, and working constructively to find solutions to the problem(s) that have caused those feelings in the first place. Honesty is constructive.
Furthermore, whereas a complaint is an unconscious cry to be loved—in other words, the act of an infant who seeks the nurturing presence of its mother, honesty is the explicit expression of maturity—the act of an adult individual who, while finite and not impervious, can become vulnerable in such a way as to offer the chance of redemption between an offender and a victim. It is by way of "softness" or vulnerability, which is founded on honesty, that a malicious act or an accident may be recognized as such, the opportunity for reconciliation may arise, and amendment of life may occur. If a person simply complains, the shunning of honest interaction can lead only to a hardening of hearts and a further isolation of one individual from the other and, depending on the size of the circumstance, a group of people from another group.
Finally, honesty is necessary in one's prayer life because only by opening up to God can we grow closer to Him. He knows how we are even if we don't tell Him, but it is important for us that we open our hearts up rather than harden and shut them off, for in the measure that we give ourselves to Him by opening ourselves up to Him in trust, so does God give Himself to us.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
St. Teresa of Avila and Humility in Prayer
A patient and trusting humility must accompany perseverance:
What, then, will he do here who finds that for many days he experiences nothing but aridity, dislike, distaste and so little desire to go and draw water that he would give it up entirely if he did not remember that he is pleasing and serving the Lord of the garden; if he were not anxious that all his service should not be lost, so say nothing of the gain which he hopes for from the great labour [sic] of lowering the bucket so often into the well and drawing it up without water? ... What, then, as I say, will the gardener do here? He will be bold and take heart and consider it the greatest of favours [sic] to work in the garden of so great an Emperor; and, as he knows that he is pleasing Him by so working (and his purpose must be to please, not himself, but Him), let him render Him great praise for having placed such confidence in him; ... let him help Him to bear the Cross and consider how He lived with it all His life long; let him not wish to have his kingdom on earth or cease from prayer; and so let him resolve, even if this aridity should persist his whole life long, never to let Christ fall beneath the Cross. The time will come when he shall receive his whole reward at once. (Life, xi; Peers, I, 66-7)Such dispositions of loving and patient humility are already one of the fruits of spiritual dryness. Because they bring the soul to share in the providential design that permits and uses aridities for the sanctification of the elect, they very soon obtain high favors from God:
These trials bring their own reward.... It has become clear to me that, even in this life, God does not fail to recompense them highly; for it is quite certain that a single one of those hours in which the Lord has granted me to taste of Himself has seemed to me later a recompense for all the afflictions which I endured over a long period while keeping up the practice of prayer. (Ibid.; 67)Jesus conquered by a humble and loving patience. And this same disposition will assure the soul a triumph over the interior and exterior obstacles that hinder it from union with God.
In the Interior Castle, Saint Teresa sums up this doctrine:
As it has been such a troublesome thing for me, it may perhaps be so for you as well, so I am just going to describe it, first in one way and then in another, hoping that I may succeed in making you realize how necessary it is, so that you may not grow restless and distressed. The clacking old mill must keep on going round and we must grind our own flour: neither the will nor the understanding must cease working.
This trouble will sometimes be worse, and sometimes better, according to our health and according to the times and seasons. The poor soul may not be to blame for this, but it must suffer none the less.... And as we are so ignorant that what we read and are advised—namely, that we should take no account of these thoughts—is not sufficient to teach us, it does not seem to me a waste of time if I go into it farther and offer you some consolation about it; though this will be of little help to you until the Lord is pleased to give us light. But it is necessary (and His Majesty's will) that we should take proper measures and learn to understand ourselves, and not blame our souls for what is the work of our weak imagination and our nature and the devil. (IV Mansions, i; Peers, II, 235 f.)---
Source: Fr. Marie-Eugéne, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 248–249.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Making a Big Deal Out of Everything
There's a certain sense in which for the Christian everything is a BIG deal. Yet on the other hand, there's another sense in which everything is, in the big scheme of things, pretty inconsequential. Christianity super-focuses our inherent sense of wonder and curiosity; it sensitizes us to the smallest "flickerings." But it also gives us a broad perspective of things, a deep tranquility in the trust that all things are guided by Providence, that "the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18).
My suffering at the hands of another was a big enough deal for God to die for me, to suffer with me. At the same time, my suffering is something quite small, "not worthy to be compared" to what awaits me. It is something to be faced honestly, but in facing it honestly, we find that it's not really a big deal. Pride wants to puff it up, which is what pride does. Pride wants the slight to turn into a vendetta, ending in streets flowing with blood. Acknowledging the pain in honesty allows us to actually deal with the pain and to realize its smallness and be content with that.
My tendency to make things a big deal flows from my pride, my unwillingness to accept that I am a creature, dust. I want to be more than that, and in trying to be more, I cause chaos. It is only when I give up trying to be more and accepting what I am that God shines through in His full splendor. The humble creature is actually more.
My suffering at the hands of another was a big enough deal for God to die for me, to suffer with me. At the same time, my suffering is something quite small, "not worthy to be compared" to what awaits me. It is something to be faced honestly, but in facing it honestly, we find that it's not really a big deal. Pride wants to puff it up, which is what pride does. Pride wants the slight to turn into a vendetta, ending in streets flowing with blood. Acknowledging the pain in honesty allows us to actually deal with the pain and to realize its smallness and be content with that.
My tendency to make things a big deal flows from my pride, my unwillingness to accept that I am a creature, dust. I want to be more than that, and in trying to be more, I cause chaos. It is only when I give up trying to be more and accepting what I am that God shines through in His full splendor. The humble creature is actually more.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez on Vainglory in the Apostolate
Although all the world in general has reason to take precaution against vainglory; yet those who, by their institute and charge, are employed in the salvation of souls, have yet a more particular obligation to be always upon their guard in this respect. For their employment being so sublime, and so exposed to public view, they have a great deal more to be afraid of than others; and they will render themselves far more guilty, if in this function they only regard themselves and seek nothing else than the vain applause of men. This were to make use of the graces and gifts of God as instruments to rebel against him; and it is for this reason, St. Bernard cries out:— Unhappy are they, who have received the gift of speaking and thinking well of God, if they look upon piety as merchandise, and apply that to the profit and interest of vainglory, which they received to promote God's honour [sic]: if the greatness and generosity of soul that moves them to undertake so high enterprises, be not founded upon true humility of heart let them truly fear that they are not such as we read of in the prophet [Hosea]: I have given them silver and gold, wherewith they have made an idol of Baal.— that is, they have erected my gifts, as an idol to their own vanity.
On this subject, St. Gregory(Greg lib. ii. Mor. c. 17.) relates what St. Paul said to the Corinthians:—We are not like the great number of those who corrupt the word of God; but we speak with sincerity, we speak as those who are of God, and in his presence, and speak in Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. ii.17.) This passage, says he, admits of two explanations, and shews that we may corrupt the word of God two ways. The first is, when explaining the holy scripture after another manner than we ought, we draw thence innumerable falsities, which, like illegitimate children, are produced by our understanding; for, the Holy Ghost being the author and spouse of holy scripture, it ought to have that true and legitimate sense, which he declares to his church by the saints and doctors thereof. The second is applicable to our purpose, which this great saint gives us to understand after this manner: There is this difference, says he, between the spouse and the adulteress — the one proposes to have children, and the other thinks of nothing else than to gratify her passion: so that he who by his preaching, intends not to beget spiritual children to God, conformably to the obligation of his office, and according to these words of the apostle, I have begotten you by the gospel, (I Cor. iv. 15.) but only seeks his own satisfaction, and to gain for himself the esteem of men, is a mere adulterer, who corrupts the purity of the word of God. [...]
Let as not in effect seek our own ends in our employments, but let us always have the honour and glory of God alone before our eyes.
We ought in all our employments, to have the same fidelity to God he had to his prince, and we ought never desire that any one should attribute to us the glory of the conversion of souls, or any other good success, but refer it always to God alone; according to what the prophet says: Give not thy glory to us, O Lord, but to your name, (Ps. cxiii. 9. ) and according to the canticle the angels sung at our Saviour's [sic] birth: Glory be to God on high. (Luke ii. 14.)
We read in the life of St. Thomas [Aquinas], that he was never touched with the least sentiment of pride; and that neither his profound knowledge, nor his angelical talents, nor the other favours [sic] he had received from God in great abundance, ever moved him to take the least vain complacency in himself. We read also of St. Ignatius, that for many years before his death, he was not the least moved by temptations to vainglory; because the light of heaven, illuminating his mind, filled him at the same time with such knowledge of his nothingness, and with such contempt of himself, that he was accustomed to say, That there was no vice he less feared, than that of vainglory. See therefore after what models we ought to form ourselves, and what ought to be the subject of our confusion, when, even in our most frivolous and insignificant actions, we permit ourselves to be carried away by vanity. For if in these small things you shew so little moderation, how would you be transported, if you were eminent for learning — if you had the character of a great preacher — if you had converted and advanced in perfection a great many souls, and if you heard yourself applauded by the whole world? We ought therefore in small things to accustom ourselves betimes to set little or no value on the praises of men, and to do nothing at all through human respects; to the end that we may more easily do the like on other occasions of greater moment.
On this subject, St. Gregory(Greg lib. ii. Mor. c. 17.) relates what St. Paul said to the Corinthians:—We are not like the great number of those who corrupt the word of God; but we speak with sincerity, we speak as those who are of God, and in his presence, and speak in Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. ii.17.) This passage, says he, admits of two explanations, and shews that we may corrupt the word of God two ways. The first is, when explaining the holy scripture after another manner than we ought, we draw thence innumerable falsities, which, like illegitimate children, are produced by our understanding; for, the Holy Ghost being the author and spouse of holy scripture, it ought to have that true and legitimate sense, which he declares to his church by the saints and doctors thereof. The second is applicable to our purpose, which this great saint gives us to understand after this manner: There is this difference, says he, between the spouse and the adulteress — the one proposes to have children, and the other thinks of nothing else than to gratify her passion: so that he who by his preaching, intends not to beget spiritual children to God, conformably to the obligation of his office, and according to these words of the apostle, I have begotten you by the gospel, (I Cor. iv. 15.) but only seeks his own satisfaction, and to gain for himself the esteem of men, is a mere adulterer, who corrupts the purity of the word of God. [...]
We ought in all our employments, to have the same fidelity to God he had to his prince, and we ought never desire that any one should attribute to us the glory of the conversion of souls, or any other good success, but refer it always to God alone; according to what the prophet says: Give not thy glory to us, O Lord, but to your name, (Ps. cxiii. 9. ) and according to the canticle the angels sung at our Saviour's [sic] birth: Glory be to God on high. (Luke ii. 14.)
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Source: Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., The Practice of Christian Perfection, vol. 1, tr. 3, ch. 5, p. 49.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Fr. Dom Vitalis Lehodey on Receiving Humiliations
The humiliations we procure for ourselves are always too delicate and too infrequent to cause the destruction of self-love. What we require is that others should put us to shame, should bluntly tell us the truth about ourselves, should expose us, should repeatedly denounce us, and make us feel the world of misery and corruption that is seething within us. That is the reason why God deprives us of health, weakens our natural faculties, leaves us in helplessness and darkness, or afflicts us with other interior trials. That is why He buffets us by the hand of Satan, why He moves our superiors to reprehend us, and has imposed on the community the obligation of co-operating with us, according to our usages, in the correction of our faults. It is especially through our associates that He subjects us to the painful but salutary action of humiliation. He employs all in this enterprise, making use of both enlightened and bitter zeal, virtues and defects, good intentions, frailties, and even malice itself. Men are only His responsible instruments; and He will punish or reward them according to their works in His own good time. Let us allow Him this directive role. And attending only to Him, our God, our Savior, our Friend par excellence, let us forget whatever may be disagreeable to nature, and accept as from His hand this very beneficial, if distasteful, treatment of humiliations. Generally, they are light and passing. But if they were more painful and enduring, they would also be, through the mercy of God, in fuller measure "a compensation for our sins of the past, a title to the pardon of our daily offenses, a remedy for our infirmities, a treasure of merits and virtues, a proof of our loyal devotion to God, the purchase-price of intimate relations with Him, and the means of our perfection."
Humiliations foster pride when they are rejected with anger or accepted with discontent. This fact explains why "so many are humbled without becoming humble," as St. Bernard remarks. He alone profits by his humiliations who receives them with welcome; and he profits the more according as he receives them the more humbly, as from the hand of God, saying to himself, for example: "I have richly deserved this confusion, and have also great need of it. Since a slight offense, a little want of consideration, a disagreeable word suffices to fill me with trouble and agitation, pride must still be living and vigorous in my heart. Hence, far from regarding the humiliation as an evil, I ought rather to look upon it as a remedy; I ought to bless God Who deigns to cure me; and I ought to feel thankful to my brethren for the assistance they give me in conquering self-love. And besides, what I should really consider a proper subject for shame, confusion, and humiliation, is to feel myself still so full of pride, after my many years spent in the service of the King of the humble." Ah! if we but clearly realized our past transgressions and our present miseries, we should find it easy enough to convince ourselves that no creature can ever make us endure as much contempt, injury, and disgrace as we deserve. And instead of murmuring when God sends us humiliations, we should rather thank Him as for a wonderful favor, since in return for our acceptance of a slight and transient confusion, He conceals from nearly all mortal eyes the view of our countless miseries, and spares us the everlasting confusion of the lost. Let us not say that we are guiltless in the present instance. For there are doubtless many faults to our charge which have never been punished, and the expiation thereof is not the less due because so long deferred.
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Source: Dom Vitalis Lehodey, Holy Abandonment, trans. Ailbe J. Luddy (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2003), 216-218.
Humiliations foster pride when they are rejected with anger or accepted with discontent. This fact explains why "so many are humbled without becoming humble," as St. Bernard remarks. He alone profits by his humiliations who receives them with welcome; and he profits the more according as he receives them the more humbly, as from the hand of God, saying to himself, for example: "I have richly deserved this confusion, and have also great need of it. Since a slight offense, a little want of consideration, a disagreeable word suffices to fill me with trouble and agitation, pride must still be living and vigorous in my heart. Hence, far from regarding the humiliation as an evil, I ought rather to look upon it as a remedy; I ought to bless God Who deigns to cure me; and I ought to feel thankful to my brethren for the assistance they give me in conquering self-love. And besides, what I should really consider a proper subject for shame, confusion, and humiliation, is to feel myself still so full of pride, after my many years spent in the service of the King of the humble." Ah! if we but clearly realized our past transgressions and our present miseries, we should find it easy enough to convince ourselves that no creature can ever make us endure as much contempt, injury, and disgrace as we deserve. And instead of murmuring when God sends us humiliations, we should rather thank Him as for a wonderful favor, since in return for our acceptance of a slight and transient confusion, He conceals from nearly all mortal eyes the view of our countless miseries, and spares us the everlasting confusion of the lost. Let us not say that we are guiltless in the present instance. For there are doubtless many faults to our charge which have never been punished, and the expiation thereof is not the less due because so long deferred.
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Source: Dom Vitalis Lehodey, Holy Abandonment, trans. Ailbe J. Luddy (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 2003), 216-218.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Ven. John Arintero on the Humility Required for Sanctity
Our purification consists in cleansing our hearts from all stain of sin, in making satisfaction for our faults, and in rooting out all evil inclinations, banishing with them anything that may hinder us in the right practice of the virtues or impede in us the operations of grace and the communications of the Holy Ghost. Consequently we must mortify ourselves to destroy or rectify our depraved affections. We must deny ourselves in all things and completely renounce self, which is filled with vices, weaknesses, and snares, that we may be renewed by the virtue, strength, and fortitude of God, who frees us from our bondage.
I. Humility, the Basis of Sanctity
In order to construct the edifice of true and solid sanctity, we must lay the foundation of a profound and sincere humility. This is effected primarily by the destruction of pernicious self-love, which corrodes and vitiates everything and deceives and blinds us in all things, making us think we are something, when actually we are nothing (Gal. 6:3). Because of self-love we rely on our own knowledge, strength, and virtue without any more title to those things than our own ignorance, weakness, and misery. Further, self-love causes us to seek, unconsciously perhaps, our own selves, even when we think we are seeking only the glory of God.
Since God resists the proud and gives His grace only to the humble, it follows that, because of our hidden presumption, we continually place obstacles to the loving action of the Holy Ghost, who seeks to raise a spiritual edifice on our "nothingness" by creating in us a pure heart and by re-creating us in Jesus Christ in good works. We need, then, to recognize our own nothingness so that He may become our all and fill our emptiness with His plentitude. To hold ourselves in high esteem is to withdraw from Him even while He dwells in us, not only as our Comforter, but also as our Lord and Vivifier. Such action on our part grieves and oppresses Him, and our resistance makes Him abandon us. If He, the Spirit of truth who came to sanctify us in that truth which is the word of God, is to dwell in us and work in our souls according to His pleasure, He must find our dwelling place free and empty. We shall empty ourselves by recognizing our own nothingness on which He, the fullness of being, must work, and by proceeding in all things according to that conviction. [1] [...]
We should likewise realize the necessity of abandoning ourselves to Him without reserve. Doing that, we shall in no way resist His loving operation in us, but we shall always cooperate with the fervor and energy which He communicates to us.
Therefore, when the soul begins to feel within itself an immense emptiness which cannot be filled by any created thing (because God alone can fill it), it then truly begins to abandon itself to the hands of the divine Guest. This spiritual emptiness is the point of departure for marvelous advances in the mystical life. . . . [2] [3]
Since perfect union with the divine will is the norm of our spiritual life and the sure guide of its progress, we ought to renounce all self-interest, personal advancement, human viewpoints, personal caprices, tastes, and comforts, and our own will. We must have no other desire, no other affection, no other wish than those of the divine will.
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Notes:
1. "You must know, My daughter," said our Lord to St. Catherine of Siena (Life, I, X), "what you are and what I am. . . . You are that which is not, and I am He who is. If your soul is permeated with this truth, the enemy will never ensnare you. You will triumph over all his wiles, you will do nothing contrary to My commandments, and you will readily acquire grace, truth, and peace."
2. "Humility," says Ven. Mariana of Jesus, "is never foolishness, just as pride is never circumspect."
3. Interior Castle, sixth mansions, chap. 10: "I was wondering once why Our Lord so dearly loved this virtue of humility; and all of a sudden—without, I believe, my having previously thought of it—the following reason came into my mind: that is, because God is Sovereign Truth and to be humble is to walk in truth, for it is absolutely true to say that we have no good thing in ourselves, but only misery and nothingness; and anyone who fails to understand this is walking in falsehood. He who best understands it is most pleasing to Sovereign Truth because he is walking in truth."
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Source: John G. Arintero, The Mystical Evolution, trans. Jordan Aumann (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1978), 2:50-53.
I. Humility, the Basis of Sanctity
In order to construct the edifice of true and solid sanctity, we must lay the foundation of a profound and sincere humility. This is effected primarily by the destruction of pernicious self-love, which corrodes and vitiates everything and deceives and blinds us in all things, making us think we are something, when actually we are nothing (Gal. 6:3). Because of self-love we rely on our own knowledge, strength, and virtue without any more title to those things than our own ignorance, weakness, and misery. Further, self-love causes us to seek, unconsciously perhaps, our own selves, even when we think we are seeking only the glory of God.
Since God resists the proud and gives His grace only to the humble, it follows that, because of our hidden presumption, we continually place obstacles to the loving action of the Holy Ghost, who seeks to raise a spiritual edifice on our "nothingness" by creating in us a pure heart and by re-creating us in Jesus Christ in good works. We need, then, to recognize our own nothingness so that He may become our all and fill our emptiness with His plentitude. To hold ourselves in high esteem is to withdraw from Him even while He dwells in us, not only as our Comforter, but also as our Lord and Vivifier. Such action on our part grieves and oppresses Him, and our resistance makes Him abandon us. If He, the Spirit of truth who came to sanctify us in that truth which is the word of God, is to dwell in us and work in our souls according to His pleasure, He must find our dwelling place free and empty. We shall empty ourselves by recognizing our own nothingness on which He, the fullness of being, must work, and by proceeding in all things according to that conviction. [1] [...]
We should likewise realize the necessity of abandoning ourselves to Him without reserve. Doing that, we shall in no way resist His loving operation in us, but we shall always cooperate with the fervor and energy which He communicates to us.
Therefore, when the soul begins to feel within itself an immense emptiness which cannot be filled by any created thing (because God alone can fill it), it then truly begins to abandon itself to the hands of the divine Guest. This spiritual emptiness is the point of departure for marvelous advances in the mystical life. . . . [2] [3]
Since perfect union with the divine will is the norm of our spiritual life and the sure guide of its progress, we ought to renounce all self-interest, personal advancement, human viewpoints, personal caprices, tastes, and comforts, and our own will. We must have no other desire, no other affection, no other wish than those of the divine will.
---
Notes:
1. "You must know, My daughter," said our Lord to St. Catherine of Siena (Life, I, X), "what you are and what I am. . . . You are that which is not, and I am He who is. If your soul is permeated with this truth, the enemy will never ensnare you. You will triumph over all his wiles, you will do nothing contrary to My commandments, and you will readily acquire grace, truth, and peace."
2. "Humility," says Ven. Mariana of Jesus, "is never foolishness, just as pride is never circumspect."
3. Interior Castle, sixth mansions, chap. 10: "I was wondering once why Our Lord so dearly loved this virtue of humility; and all of a sudden—without, I believe, my having previously thought of it—the following reason came into my mind: that is, because God is Sovereign Truth and to be humble is to walk in truth, for it is absolutely true to say that we have no good thing in ourselves, but only misery and nothingness; and anyone who fails to understand this is walking in falsehood. He who best understands it is most pleasing to Sovereign Truth because he is walking in truth."
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Source: John G. Arintero, The Mystical Evolution, trans. Jordan Aumann (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1978), 2:50-53.
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