The Disconnect Between Catholic Academics and Daily Living

One of my personal complaints against Catholic philosophy and theology for the past 100 years or so has been its increasingly academic, specialized nature and consequently its lack of immediate application to daily Catholic living. Of course, there are many counterexamples to this sentiment, but even in many of those counterexamples, one will find the same specialized, technical handling hindering its consumption by a wider, literate lay audience.

For example, take the notion of the universal call to holiness, promoted officially in Lumen Gentium, ch. 5. Bishop Sheen famously said we have entered the age of the laity. Paul VI and John Paul II promoted the same notion when they advocated repeatedly for evangelization efforts to be taken up by the lay faithful, which is tied up with the universal call to holiness since the soul of the apostolate is sanctity and the end point of evangelization is sanctity. In this ongoing academic discussion, what have we instead witnessed? Decades and decades (if not over a century) of theological disagreements over the exact nature of the development of the spiritual life and its application to apostolic work, all under the heading of spiritual theology. These are necessary debates, to be sure, but what certain, concrete conclusions may be drawn from them and given to the layman for use? Instead, many will find it much easier and more practical to read one of the classic works of spirituality, such as the Introduction to the Devout Life or the Spiritual Combat or a book of meditations by St. Alphonsus. In other words, the theological battles of the 20th century that led to the promotion of this idea that we are in the age of the laity and that the laity have a newfound responsibility to promote the causes of Our Lord through the sanctification of the world have no palpable application for actual laypeople living in the world. They must return to older works by the Saints and Doctors who had no such theological concerns in order to begin to live in a manner that the 20th century theologians have called for. Hence the disconnect between academic, specialized life and concrete lay life. 

Or take another example, the case of aesthetics. Especially in the past few decades, we have heard touted the famous line, "Beauty will save the world." Bishop Barron has been an ardent proponent of this approach to evangelization--we draw people in by beauty. Peter Kreeft has mentioned that he was partly converted by the beauty of older Catholic Churches (never mind that he was also converted by a serious reading of the Church Fathers). Yet when one skims through the academic literature conducted by Catholic philosophers and theologians on aesthetics, one is left scratching his head whether we stand on firm ground by upholding such an approach or what such a pithy phrase even means metaphysically, let alone in its concrete application to a methodology for evangelization. In the conversation between Bp. Barron and the Protestant philosopher and apologist William Lane Craig, Craig almost scoffed at the idea that we can merely evangelize through beauty. Craig's experience (and his reference to sociological data to support his experience) is that people leave the faith or question the faith because they perceive it to be intellectually bankrupt. The moral bankruptcy of ecclesiastical figures then "seals the deal" on their leaving the practice of religion. In Craig's estimation (and many of his colleagues who have spent decades in Christian philosophy and evangelization work), people need the assurance and proof that the Christian faith has deep, intellectual anchors, and that these anchors have real application to daily living. While beauty might appeal and draw a person in, that intuitive attraction needs to be fleshed out conceptually if the person is to stay since intuitions, like emotions, are fleeting, but convictions rest on habits of thinking.

Hence in Barron's approach, one can see that a "Catholic" commentary on culture and the arts is interesting and provides much food for thought, it doesn't actually explain why the Catholic faith is true or how the Catholic conception of religious life applies to daily living. A commentary on a movie or a song may serve a springboard for an interesting conversation and may open one's aesthetic appreciations, it is hard to perceive that such an approach would have anything close to the corrective effects that Craig's and other apologists' approach has been, which directly addresses the errors of thinking in modern society and how these errors in turn trickle down into wider culture.

To be fair, the approaches of Barron and Craig are not mutually exclusive, and these two men are approaching their goals based on their very different experiences. It is conceivable that some complementary, third way or tiered method of evangelization that makes use of both approaches may be conceived and developed, but this very need to do so, and the technical precision with which it must be done for philosophical and theological accuracy, affirm my initial contention: the theology of evangelization is fundamentally disconnected from the practice of it.

The Church in fact had encountered this difficulty with Catholic Action. Fervent Catholic men and women leading political causes on behalf of Christ the King ended up being more political than Catholic, and the Church was often pressed into the difficult decision of how to support these movements in the midst of very difficult political maneuvering from the 19th century and on. Reflecting on the role of Catholic Action, perhaps one may say that the multifaceted causes that feed political and social movements are almost impossible to fully analyze especially in the moment, and an apostolic effort to steer or influence those movements, to avoid getting lost in the uncertainty of the present, must remain firmly grounded on the supernatural foundation of prayer, trust in God, and sacrifices. And the fruits of one's efforts may not be seen in one's lifetime since these movements were centuries in the making.

And for a third example, it has often been remarked that Catholic morality has nothing to do with daily life. What this sentiment typically means is something twofold: 1) the Church has nothing to do with how I conduct my private or public life; and 2) the convoluted, casuistic reasoning of theological writings has little application for my daily living since there is no one to translate that reasoning into concrete norms suitable for a lay audience.

Of course, the first half of the sentiment is completely wrong and predicated on the success of post-Enlightenment liberalism + the way of life made possible by industrial, technical, medical advances (=modernity), but the second half is often reflecting a truth. The moral reasoning that upheld Catholic living increasingly not only disagreed with modern moral sentiments, but it also increasingly had nothing to do with how modern moral frameworks conceived and articulated themselves and hence nothing to do with how people went about their daily moral decision-making once those frameworks trickled down into popular culture. These are points far better articulated and discussed by Alasdair MacIntyre in his works for the past 40 years. 

In other words, the arguments of Humanae Vitae literally have nothing to say to the "modern man" (whatever that means). It is inconceivable to a modern person how metaphysical and theological arguments around the nature of the marital act could have conclusions against acts like contraception since the marital act is not even conceived as reserved to marriage, and certainly not with any outdated metaphysical or theological accoutrements.

Pro-life arguments often take a mostly secular line of reasoning and not even from natural law considerations but arguments from the science/biology of conception, the application of a liberal society's conception of human rights and dignity, etc. One can retroactively or anachronistically apply natural law "tailoring" to those argumentative approaches, but for the pro-life movement to have such widespread support, it must fundamentally appeal to modern sentiments: liberalism, science, dignity, rights, etc. These all make the most sense within a Catholic metaphysics, but they cannot be articulated as such by the widespread; otherwise we would lose the support of the Evangelicals and pro-life secularists, and the movement would most likely fall apart. Hence one even has the paradox that abortion is conceivable as a "right" only within a liberal paradigm and yet one argues against that right using the same paradigm that makes it possible. Within a Catholic milieu, there would be no possible way of thinking that one had a "right" to abortion and hence no need to argue against it using the same conceptual framework.

But regardless, moral arguments from the Catholic tradition are stereotypically caricaturized as debates on "how many angels dance on the head of a pin." To summarize: they are useless, impractical, academic, convoluted, etc.

This all of course being a long-winded preface to my next consideration, the morality surrounding the Covid vaccine. To be continued...

Dangers of Modern Fashions and Social Codes for Women (1928)

[8] "THERE IS STILL ANOTHER lurking danger in connection with fashion and social codes. Our Catholic women are practically everywhere in the minority. In aspiring to social prominence, some accept prevalent standards that are manifestly unchristian. As every Catholic woman individually should be herself and stand firmly on Catholic principles, refusing absolutely to make concessions to the pagan spirit of the day, whether it be noisy, or cultured, or intriguing; so every group of Catholic women in the minority must likewise stand inflexibly against the insidious encroachments of neo-pagamism in our modern social life. This is not because we have the least desire to stand as a group apart, but because we cleary recognize that for us there can be no possible compromise where the very fundamental principles of Christian morality are at stake.

"If our Catholic women are to exercise the powerful influence that it is possible for them to exercise, they should have thought not so much of their numbers, or of political affiliations, but rather of the high and ennobling principles by which they must be guided and which are guaranteed by their divine religion. It is simply impossible for any group of women to live truly Catholic lives and to stand unalterably for basic Christian principles without influencing profoundly and permanently the community in which they live."—From Archbishop McNicholas' Sermon at the Cleveland Convention of the N. C. C. W.

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Source: "Archbishop McNicholas Points Out Dangers in Connection with Modern Fashions and Social Codes," National Catholic Welfare Council Bulletin 10, no. 6 (November 1928): 8.

Duties of Catholic Women (1928)

[7] MOST REVEREND JOHN T. McNICHOLAS, Archbishop of Cincinnati, sounded the keynote of the Eighth Annual Convention for the National Council of Catholic Women when, in a sermon delivered at the Solemn Pontifical Mass at St. John's Cathedral, Cleveland, he stressed the present day need of trained leadership in all fields which Catholic women have entered, urgently insisted that Catholic women should be mindful of their civic obligations and urged constructive work in behalf of an endangered youth and the promotion of womanly modesty.

At the very beginning of his sermon, Archbishop McNicholas emphasized that the Convention has no political significance, but would be "an example of that dignity, liberality and tolerance, and that freedom from any tendency to use the organization of your Church as a political instrument, which should characterize Catholic women."

After calling attention to the fact that the day chosen for the opening of the Convention was the Feast of our Blessed Mother, under one of her most endearing titles—"Queen of the Holy Rosary," Archbishop McNicholas asked: "What are the special lessons we should learn from Mary—those that will aid in giving us the help and the inspiration to meet the conditions of our times?"

ONE of the greatest works awaiting Catholic women, he declared, is to make their influence felt upon youth. He pointed to the "incredible change" which has taken place among youth in modern times, characterized by indifference to religion and a distorted view of liberty. Liberty in its true sense, he insisted, does not mean merely a restriction which enables one to escape the penalty of the law," but "a perfecting, not a demoralizing power—a gift of God, a gift which neither the Church nor the State has the right to take away but rather has the obligation to safeguard." Much of the law-making today shows a tendency not to protect this God-given liberty of individuals, he said, but rather to exercise compulsion. He declared it the duty of mothers to teach their children a true concept of liberty—that it is not license.

"Under this false concept of liberty," His Grace continued, "the public virtue of modesty is considered as something hampering the development of young women." Christian mothers, he warned, must not leave wholly to the schools the combating of this trend.

"We must face the fact," continued the Archbishop, "that the daily press, the ephemeral literature, the sensational and too frequently suggestive moving picture, the general tone of the conversation of youth, the abuses brought about by the automobile, the immodest manner of dress now in vogue among women, the weakening of home ties and the lessening of home influence, the rejection of the wisdom and experience of the older generation, not perhaps by disrespect but by regarding it as an outworn philosophy of life not applicable to our modern times—all these necessarily make their impress on the mind and character of youth and tend to lower the ideals inculcated during their school years. Youth must be in fashion, and unfortunately at the present time pagans are dictating the fashions, not only in the matter of dress but of conduct as well. And this is the precise state of affairs which offers to Catholic women today a field in which there are exceptional opportunities of achievement.

"THERE is no doubt that women can exert a much greater influence over youth than men, but it must be wisely exercised. Mere fault-finding does no good whatever, but simply alienates those whom we wish to influence. It makes them feel that there is no sympathy for them on the part of the older generation, nor any understanding of their youthful problems. Who so well as our Catholic women, who hold our Blessed Mother as their model, can help to reestablish the sense of Christian modesty and bring about the observances of those delicacies and refinements of life—not to speak of the ordinary decencies of life—which are too little appreciated today?"

"OUR Catholic women," continued Archbishop McNicholas, "must study Mary especially as a mother. The lives of our Catholic women must be a manifest challenge to the women of the whole world with regard to the sacred obligations of marriage, and especially of Christian motherhood.

[8] "Marriage today outside the Catholic Church is reduced practically to the level of a business contract, to be terminated whenever it proves unsatisfactory to the contracting parties. The marvel is, with divorce so readily accepted in principle in our country, that public opinion has not brought about the abrogation of all official procedure leading to it. One trembles at the thought of the consequences to society when this comes about. And come it must unless Catholic women and Catholic principles are able to stem the tide of divorce, the cause of which, however much we may try to disguise the fact, is in its true analysis sensuality.

"IT is not surprising under these circumstances that the home should lose almost entirely its influence; that it should be no longer the center of true family life, where Christian virtues bear fruit, but merely a place to eat and sleep."

"Other things that are undermining the stability of the home," the Archbishop pointed out, "are the immoderate pursuit of temporal goods and the craze for pleasure. The modern world is frankly engrossed in material things, eager for power and place and for all the advantages and pleasures that go with them. There is no wish to discourage a laudable ambition to rise in the world. It is the right of every human being to acquire by industry and the proper use of God's gifts a share of all that the world has to offer, provided things be held in their true proportion, and that in the pursuit of temporal prosperity the spiritual life be not choked and deadened.

"IT is possible to acquire even great wealth and yet remain poor in spirit, recognizing ever and always that wealth means a stewardship, to be strictly accounted for, rather than personal ownership and the unrestrained indulgence of luxurious tastes. If the home is to be restored to its proper place and to exercise its divine influence, it must be through our women. Catholic women must be the leaders in this restoration. They are not called upon in an heroic degree to emulate Mary, who with the sublimest vocation ever given to a creature lived in extreme poverty in her little home in Nazareth, but they are required at least to take her as the model in the home."

WORK in which diocesan councils could well engage, with the approval of their Bishops, said His Grace, is the training of a number of Catholic young women for leadership, "and this in all fields where women are active today." Here he made a practical suggestion: That intellectual women of fine character who have completed their college course, or even girls of promise who have finished high school, be selected and given additional opportunities for study in university centers. A group of women in the diocese might unite to finance such a project, he said. After emphasizing that they should have the advantage of Catholic philosophy and the sane direction of the Church, he exclaimed:

"Who can measure what ten outstanding women who would command the attention of the whole country would mean to the Church if we had them at the present moment! What a simple task it would be for the Church, through groups of women of means in many of the principal centers, to give opportunities to intelligent, sensible, laudably ambitious Catholic women to attain eminence in the professions and in public life!"

"GREAT praise," said His Grace, "is due to the National Council of Catholic Women for the establishment of the School of Social Service at Washington. Generous patrons have helped to support it, but it deserves also the interest of every Catholic woman and the encouragement of every society of Catholic women throughout the country." [emphasis original]

In concluding his sermon, Archbishop McNicholas referred to the persecution of the Church in Mexico as follows:

"We have within recent years given our Blessed Mother the beautiful title, 'Queen of Peace.' During the World War we fervently invoked her intercession to bring about a cessation of hostilities. Shall we not now with equal fervor implore her good offices to restore to the afflicted Church of Mexico the rights of which a tyrannical government has deprived her and to deliver her from the cruel persecution from which she has long suffered. Resolve today to join the women of Mexico, your sisters in the South, in imploring the Queen of the Rosary to obtain for their unhappy country the blessings of peace and religious liberty."

When Archbishop McNicholas had concluded his sermon, Bishop Schrembs, before resuming the Mass, thanked him and declared: "You have spoken with fine poise the watchword of the Convention."

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Source: "Archbishop McNicholas Calls for Catholic Leadership: Outlines Duties of Catholic Women in Forceful Sermon at Opening of Cleveland Convention," National Catholic Welfare Council Bulletin 10, no. 6 (November 1928): 7–8.

Fr. Antonio Royo Marín on the Theology of the Apostolate

[800] Article 4

The Apostolate

664. The apostolate, in whatever its form, carried out with a true supernatural spirit, can and ought to provide to the Christian a true source of sanctification. We are going to examine the concept of the apostolate, its degrees, obligation, forms, and relations to Christian perfection.

665. I. Concept. We are going to detail its nominal meaning and its real content.

a) NOMINALLY, the word “apostle” comes from the Greek term ἀπόστολος, derived from the verb ἀποστέλλω (“to send”), and signifies an envoy, messenger, or ambassador.

In the New Testament this word is sometimes used to designate the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, to which there is added the names of Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, [801] who are apostles by antonomasia (par excellence); but at other times the name of “apostle” is also given to every kind of preacher of the Gospel, including those not belonging to the church hierarchy. Thus St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Romans: “Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and fellow prisoners: who are of note among the apostles” (Rom. 16:7).

It should be noted that the words “mission” and “apostolate,” as well as “missionary” and “apostle,” are etymologically equivalent. “Mission” and “missionary” come from the Latin verb mitto, which means “to send”; this is exactly the same as the words “apostle” and “apostolate,” which as we have said before come from the Greek verb ἀποστέλλω, which also means “to send.”

b) REAL MEANING. The nominal or etymological significance of the word apostle has set us on the path to its true meaning or real content. For in the understanding of the Church which interests us here, an apostle is, in the end, nothing but an envoy of God sent to preach the Gospel to men. St. Paul expressly says so (Rom. 1:1), and it is the common doctrine of the entire tradition of the Church. The expression apostolate has no meaning other than the work and activity proper to the apostle.

666. 2. Degrees. However, the word apostle is undoubtedly analogous and is applied in many different ways to different subjects of attribution. Accordingly, we can distinguish without effort, based on the data of Sacred Scripture and of tradition, up to six degrees or distinct categories of apostolate:

1. The apostolate in its most eminent grade, as the supreme analogate in its analogical scale, corresponds by right to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is sent by the Father in order to bring to the world the good news and message of redemption (Jn. 3:17, 8:16, 17:3, 8, 18, 21, etc.). From Him all other apostles receive the mandate and apostolic mission (Jn. 20:21).

2. In the second place, the apostolate corresponds to those apostles par excellence, in other words, the twelve apostles chosen by Christ, to which is added the names of Matthias, Paul, and Barnabas, and those sent by Him to preach the Gospel to every creature (Mk. 16:15).

3. Occupying the third place is the Roman Pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the remaining apostles and heirs of the ordinary mission that Jesus Christ has committed to them although not of the extraordinary mission as founders of the Church nor of the personal charisms if we make exception for the Roman Pontiff in referring to the privilege of infallibility.

4. Fourthly, simple priests sent by the Pope and the bishops with any jurisdictional mission that participates directly in the authority of the Church.

5. The laity involved in any apostolic organization, among which Catholic Action stands out, which, without participating in any manner in properly ecclesiastical or jurisdictional authority, nevertheless partakes in the official activities of that authority under the direction of the hierarchy and as their instruments. [802]

6. In the broadest sense, finally, the name of apostle can be applied to any person who performs some action of the apostolate (catechesis, giving good council, etc.) although it would be through his own initiative and not with any official mission.

667. 3. Obligation. Having explained the notion of the apostle, the apostolate, and the different degrees in which one can participate in the latter, it will be of interest to demonstrate before all the obligation of the apostolate on all the members of Christ without exception. No one may be excused from this sacred obligation although it affects Christians in many, diverse ways according to the higher or lower position in which they have been placed by Divine Providence on the scale of analogous degrees that we finished enumerating above.

Here are the principle reasons or theological foundations of the universal obligation of the apostolate:

1. It is a requirement of charity in relation to God, to our neighbors, and to ourselves.

a) RELATING TO GOD. The love that is selfish and sensual is exclusive: it does not want anyone to participate in its joy; it wants to savor it by itself. It is very easily understood because of the limitation and smallness of the creature upon which this love has fallen. But the love of God, which rests on an infinite and inexhaustible object, far from diminishing, grows and becomes truly massive even when in the depths of one’s being one does not feel the blazing of the fire of the apostolate. A love of God that remained indifferent to apostolic concerns would be completely false and illusory. “There is only one thing I desire,” said St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus: “to make God loved.” It is the fundamental and primary desire of all souls who are authentically in love with God. We will come back to this when discussing the relationship between perfection and the apostolate.

b) RELATING TO NEIGHBOR. The charity relating to our neighbor obliges us to desire and procure every kind of good for him, principally those in the spiritual order that are ordained to his eternal beatitude. It is impossible, therefore, to love one’s neighbor with a true love of charity without the affective and effective practice of the apostolate, at least to the measurement and degree compatible with our state in life and with the means and methods within our reach.

c) RELATING TO OURSELVES. It has rightly been said that material charity benefits more the one who gives than the one who receives because, in exchange for something material and temporal, one acquires a right to a spiritual and eternal reward. This same principle should apply, for greater reason, [803] to the great spiritual charity of the apostolate. It is certain that the recipient also benefits in the order of the spiritual and transcendent, but without any prejudice, even before this, comes a great benefit to the benefactor. By submitting ourselves to apostolic labors for the good of our brothers, we accrue on a grand scale our capital of merit before God. Hence in this manner the apostolate is not only an obligation but simultaneously an excellent practice of the love of God, our neighbor, and ourselves.

2. It is a consequence of the dogma of the Mystical Body of Christ.

God used the apostle St. Paul to give to His Church the doctrinal treasure of the theology of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is an infinite treasure of inexhaustible fecundity for the Christian life. Much has been written on it, and we have the fortune of possessing a wonderful synthesis in the enlightening encyclical of Pope Pius XII.¹ Perhaps in no other aspect of this doctrine are offered possibilities as magnificent for the theologian as those relating to the universal duty of the apostolate that flow from it naturally and without effort. In fact it is inconceivable that the members of one and the same supernatural organism should remain indifferent to the health and well-being of the others.

a) BAPTISM, by which we are incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, has linked us in such a way to our Divine Head and each one of us to the other that no one can “wash one’s hands of” the other without committing an attack, a true crime against the members of that same Mystical Body, which has inevitable repercussions even to its Divine Head. The “you did it to Me” of the final judgment will have its perfect application both in the line of the good and the bad (Mt. 25:40, 45).

b) CONFIRMATION. The demands of Baptism are invigorated and reinforced with the sacrament of Confirmation, which makes us soldiers of Christ and gives us the necessary strength to wage the battles of the Lord. The mission of the soldier is to defend the common good. A selfish soldier is a contradiction. For this reason he must be confirmed an apostle by an intrinsic demand stemming from his own fallen condition.²

668. 4. Forms. However, even here there is room for distinct modes and grades. Not all Christians are obliged to practice the apostolate in the same degree and, above all, in the same form. It is possible to characterize the apostolate as a state, as a life, and as a practice.

a) AS A STATE, the apostolate corresponds properly to the Roman Pontiff and the bishops, the legitimate successors of the apostles, to whom [804] Christ has entrusted the august mission of perpetuating the apostolic functions and ministries even to the consummation of the ages (Mk. 16:15).

b) AS A LIFE, it corresponds to any priest who has legitimately received the apostolic mission to announce the Gospel to the people. Within this fierce phalanx of the apostles of Jesus Christ, priests occupy an outstanding place because of the transcendent importance of their apostolate, these missionaries in a land of infidels and charged with expanding the dominion of the Christian faith until it has invaded the entire world.

c) AS A PRACTICE, it is the exercise of any apostolic activity whether with a canonical mission or not. This latter is that which extends also to the lay faithful, who must exercise the apostolate—in virtue of those demands that we noted above—at least in their particular environment with all the means at their disposal.

669. 5. Relations between the Apostolate and Christian Perfection. Having examined the concept of the apostolate, even if only with the extreme brevity that the extension and nature of our work obliges us, let us now see what its intimate relations with Christian perfection are.

a) THE APOSTOLATE, A FORMAL PART OR EFFECT OF PERFECTION. St. Thomas beautifully proves that apostolic zeal is an effect of charity.³ Above all, when charity attains to a great intensity, it tends to overflow into the exterior. It is impossible to love God “with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength”—the first commandment of the Law, in the perfect practice of which Christian perfection consists—without the soul feeling a devouring zeal for the glory of God and an insatiable craving for the apostolate. In this way the apostolate is inevitably a formal effect of Christian perfection. There is not nor can there be any form of Christian perfection that can prescind from or not want to have anything to do with this apostolic giving of one’s self towards others. In the Church of Christ all is united and collective. Egotistic isolation is a sin, and the sanctity that cares not for the good of others is an illusion. None, not even cloistered nuns or contemplative religious, can renounce being an apostle without committing a crime against the Mystical Body of Christ and without destroying the very contemplative life in its integrity. The nun of the cloister and the contemplative too have a most elevated apostolic mission that, at the same time that it is an indispensable duty, constitutes for them one of their most precious peals of glory. They are not to be apostles through the exercise of the word or exterior activities diametrically opposed to the spirit of their contemplative vocation, but they are to be, in an eminent [805] degree, apostles through their prayer, through their sacrifices, through their example and witness before the pagan society of our day.

Our immortal Donoso Cortés wrote the following phrase: “I believe that those who pray do more for this world than those who fight and that if the world goes from bad to worse, this consists in that there are more battles than there are prayers.”⁴ As a missionary bishop once affirmed, ten Carmelite nuns praying could help him more than twenty missionaries preaching.

There can be no doubt. The love of God when legitimate and true enkindles within our souls a love of neighbor. The apostle St. John arrives at the saying that he lies who says that he loves God but does not also love his neighbor (1 Jn. 4:20), and among the acts of love, not one is more authentic than the apostolic zeal and ardor for procuring our neighbor’s spiritual good.

b) INTIMATE UNION, NECESSARY FOR PERFECTION TO BE AUTHENTIC AND THE APOSTOLATE FRUITFUL. Between perfection and the apostolate there must be—necessarily so when authentic—a most strict relationship and a reciprocal and continual influence. It is a classic formula that the interior life is the soul of the whole apostolate and the guarantee of its efficacy. This affirmation is supported by very firm principles of Catholic theology.

As it is known, in establishing the comparison between the active life and the contemplative, the Angelic Doctor concludes that the latter is more perfect and meritorious than the active since, among other reasons that he explains there, the direct exercise of the love of God, which is the object of the contemplative life, is more perfect and meritorious than the love of neighbor, which is the immediate object of exterior activities.⁵ But a little afterwards he adds that the mixed life is more perfect than either of the others considered in isolation because it unites the best aspects of both and more closely imitates the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, the supreme model of perfection.⁶

The difficulty is in specifying the true concept of the mixed life, for there is no state of active life that does not claim for it some directing principle or source influence from the contemplative life. Hence if one does not proceed with much caution and theological rigor, one will come to the danger of concluding that the properly active life does not exist and that all apostolic activity—whatever may be its origin, end, and manner of fulfilling—enters fully into the concept of the mixed life and is, therefore, superior to the merely contemplative life. This would be a [806] most grave error that would affect not only the serene realm of theoretical principles but would also have enormous and pernicious repercussions in practice.

No! Not all apostolic activity is beneficial when it is cut off from the further excellencies of the mixed life and as if it worked in an ex opere operato manner. This excellence, according to the Angelic Doctor and the universal theological tradition, is what proceeds from the fullness of contemplation.⁷ It is an overflowing of one’s own supernatural life. It has two absolutely inseparable aspects: to contemplate and to communicate to others what has been contemplated: contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere.⁸ Neither of the two aspects can be neglected without damaging in a radical manner the concept of the mixed life. Without the contemplative element, we would have pure exterior activity: the active life. Without the apostolic giving of one’s self in exterior activity, we would have pure contemplation: the contemplative life. And in neither of these two cases would we have achieved the concept of the mixed life. The mixed life is, therefore, only that in which apostolic activities would be an effect and a redounding of one’s own contemplation. From which it must be concluded that when these apostolic activities, however numerous and intense they may be, do not emanate from an authentically contemplative soul that is ablaze with the love of God, they cannot claim to be part of the dignity and excellence of the mixed life: they are mere exterior activity, the active life pure and simple, greatly inferior in itself to the contemplative life and—a fortiori—to the authentic mixed life as well. That is why the Angelic Doctor carefully insists that when a contemplative is called to apostolic activities, this ought not to be done in a manner of subtraction, subtracting and reducing anything from the contemplative life, but in a manner of addition, adding in a manner that further enkindles one’s own life of union with God: hoc non fit per modum substractionis, sed per modum additionis (“this is done by way not of subtraction but of addition”).⁹

Is this to say that an apostle who does not live a profound and exuberant interior life is unforgivably condemned to sterility and failure? Applied to the priest in the totality of his ministry, it seems to us not to be the case. It would do no good here to invoke the argument that “one cannot give what one does not have.” The reason is that a good part of the ministerial activities of the priest has an intrinsic efficacy—ex opere operato—that functions independently of the personal worthiness of the one who administers the sacraments. In this sense, the priest does not give of his own but only what is of God, that is, that which God puts into his hands, however unworthy and sinful those hands may be. This is true. But one cannot entertain the slightest doubt that in all those other activities the efficacy of which depend in a good part on the proper dispositions of the instrument—ex opere operantis—(and these are all those activities of the priest except those we referred to in the valid administration of the sacraments), the supernatural efficacy of his apostolate will be in direct and immediate proportion to the degree of sanctity and perfection of the minister of God, and a poor curate in Ars, ignorant and scorned but aflame with divine love, will convert [807] more sinners and bring more souls to God than all the professors of the Sorbonne in Paris combined.

Hence, an intimate and deep union between the contemplative life and the active is indispensable in order to come to the authentic notion of the mixed life and to assure the authenticity of Christian perfection and the fruitfulness of the apostolate. Therefore it is necessary to avoid with all caution the errors and dangerous deviations of both extremes.

c) ERRORS AND DANGEROUS DEVIATIONS OF BOTH EXTREMES. Without any doubt, in the field of the apostolate there are greater errors and dangers that arise from an exaggerated overestimation of the active life than from an unhealthy exaltation of the contemplative life: the activism or Americanism, which was called by the most recent Popes the heresy of action, is a much deadlier error than quietism. In any case, every error is pernicious, and we ought carefully to avoid both vicious extremes in order to come to the just and balanced middle in which virtue consists.

a) The excess of uncontrolled activity almost always leads to the heresy of action and the personal failure of the man who lives in such a way. Well known are the words of a man as apostolic as Cardinal Lavigerie: “For an apostle there is no middle ground between complete sanctity—at least desired and pursued with fidelity and tenacity—and absolute perversion.” Unfortunately, experience daily confirms the somber perspective of this phrase. The man, devoured by the fever of action, submits himself more and more to exterior activities: paperwork, statistics, organizations, the press, radio, cinema, the devouring fever of movement…

Does he live a life of profound piety, of continual and intense prayer? Does he recite the breviary digne, attente, ac devote (“worthily, attentively, and devoutly”)? Does he make a long preparation in order to celebrate the Holy Mass and deepen and prolong his thanksgiving afterwards? Does he do spiritual reading, meditation, and acts of personal piety? “There is no time for this!” he says. “The times are very bad; the forces of evil have organized themselves to oversee everything more and more; it is necessary to oppose them by the barricade of our resistance, from organization to organization, activity to activity. If only we could attend to everything! We would love very much to live the life of prayer, to keep in constant contact with our Lord in the tabernacle… What a pity! We do not have the time for this.” Such is how these poor souls run astray. The result of this insensible reasoning tends to be the loss of the spirit of faith, lukewarmness and boredom in the prayer life, and, all too often, a noisy and belligerent defection and the scandal of final apostasy.

b) Quietism. In diametrical opposition to this great error, another great aberration disguised as supernatural prudence tries to take refuge in darkness and sloth. It is quietism, a ridiculous caricature of recollection and the contemplative life, which coincides in reality with the most repugnant selfishness when it does not fall into the abyss of sensuality as history has so often testified. The quietist “does not want to meddle in anything.” Under the pretext of concentration and prayer, he fortifies himself into a castle of isolation and idleness without thinking of anyone outside of himself or preoccupying himself with anything other than his own interests. He has not heard—or does not want to hear—the anguished cry [808] of the Divine Redeemer: “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled?” (Lk. 12:49).

He is very comfortable not “meddling in anything” or to abandon for a single instant his sweet idleness—il dolce far niente—, but it is not acceptable, when he has such a contemptible attitude, to call himself a disciple of that divine Master Who precisely for meddling in every affair was put to death on the height of the cross.

d) THE JUST AND BALANCED SOLUTION. It is precisely to avoid carefully and equally both vicious extremes. The just and balanced solution was given to us by the Angelic Doctor in that gem of an expression which we have already mentioned above: Contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere: To contemplate the divine realities through prayer and study and then to communicate to others the clean and crystalline waters that spill over from the fullness of our own supernatural life.

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Footnotes:

1 We have collected an extensive summary of this encyclical in another place in this work (cf. n. 78).

2 Cf. III,72,2.

3 I-II,28,4.

4 Donoso Cortés, Obras completas t.2 p.227 (BAC, Madrid 1956).

5 Cf. II-II,182,1,2.

6 Cf. II-II,188,6.

7 «Ex plenitudine contemplationis derivatur» (II-II,188,6). “Proceeds from the fullness of contemplation.”

8 «Et hoc praefertur simplici contemplationi. Sicut enim maius est illuminare quam lucere solum, ita maius est contemplata aliis tradere quam solum contemplari» (ibid.). “And this work is more excellent than simple contemplation. For even as it is better to enlighten than merely to shine, so is it better to give to others the fruits of one's contemplation than merely to contemplate.”

9 Cf. II-II,182,1 ad 3.

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Source: Fr. Antonio Royo Marín, OP, The Theology of Christian Perfection, trans. by Richard Grablin (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 2015), 800–808.

Ora et Labora and the Heresy of Action

The Benedictine phrase is "ora et labora" (pray and work), not "oratio est labor" (prayer is work) or some variation. The difference is key: it is the difference between a true spiritual life that balances the active and contemplative, each dimension aiding the other, and the heresy of action.

New Catholic Encyclopedia: Apostolate and Spiritual Life

[578] From the Greek ἀποστολὴ [apostoli], a sending, commission, or expedition. The Greek term is more indefinite than the Latin apostolatus, which refers more to the condition and office of the messenger than to his action. The Koine (NT) is of course greatly influenced by the Latin. The word came to signify in particular the active mission of the Church in the world. The normal relationship between the apostolate and the spiritual life is a mean standing be-[579]tween the various species of activism, on the one hand, and another extreme less easily denominated, the main feature of which would be solicitude about the "disturbances" consequent upon the exercise of the apostolate, on the other. This article provides a brief introduction to the question of how the two complement one another and how, under some conditions, the apostolate is apparently opposed to the spiritual life.

The Church has been in a mission status from the very beginning of its existence. Those who first constituted the new people of God were given the title "apostles." The community founded upon them is essentially apostolic, not merely in the sense of being in historical continuity with that small group through the apostolic succession of episcopal consecration but also in the sense of having the mission, at the present time, of preaching the gospel to the whole of creation. (Mk. 16.15).

The Church, however, is a community in whose members the word of the Gospel has borne fruit in various degrees, and it is also a community that is organized hierarchically. Both these factors determine the exercise of the apostolate—the former because it is assumed that apostolic works are somewhat the overflow of communion with God in the Church, the latter because the whole apostolate of the Church is under the direction of the episcopal hierarchy, who stand in place of the Apostles.

The exercise of the apostolate, by those who share in this mission of the Church, normally bears fruit in the interior life of the apostle himself. Experience witnesses to the fact, and that it should be so is to be expected because such activity is in the likeness of trinitarian [sic] life. In God, the Father unceasingly generates the Son without losing anything of Himself. Rather, the Son abides in the bosom of the Father and gives Himself to Him in love, so that from their mutual embrace proceeds the Holy Spirit. The apostle exercises, in one degree or another, a spiritual paternity, through which real relations are established between himself and those to whom he is sent. "I became our Father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel," says St. Paul (1 Cor. 4.15b). This does not mean that the persons brought forth "in Christ Jesus" remain in some infantile way dependent upon the Father-Apostle, for "through the Gospel" they receive a share not in his life but in God's. Nonetheless, if the exercise of the apostolate is authentic, those who are spiritually engendered thereby, as they grow up in Christ Jesus, remain united to their apostle-father by love and piety. The communion thus established must obviously bear fruit in his interior life.

What, then, in this context, is an authentic apostolate? Reference here is not primarily to the so-called canonical mission, which gives a certain juridical authenticity to the work of the apostle who receives such a mandate, even though the canonical mission should normally be the sign and guarantee of the overall authenticity of a given work. Here the word "authentic" refers more to the moral quality of the apostolate, its genuineness as an exterior and visible expression of the apostle's interior life.

St. John provides the best possible description of this authenticity: "[T]hat which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ" (1 Jn 1.3). The order is clear: seeing and hearing come first, then proclamation, and this in turn is for the sake of fellowship, i.e., deeper communion with God in the Church. An authentic apostolate, therefore, in terms of the spiritual life, is one that is based upon a measure of "seeing and hearing" and is motivated by a desire for sharing. Of course, St. John refers to an experience wherein Jesus was physically present to those whom he chose as Apostles, but the sensible contact scarcely exhausts what he means. The Apostles saw and heard by faith what the Father revealed in Jesus, especially through his "enactment" of the paschal mysteries. Living faith, then, is the heart of the apostolate, together with that work of charity called mercy. The interior life of any apostle is constituted by an acceptance and assimilation of the living truth of God's love for mankind in Christ Jesus, together with the urge to share the joy that is the normal fruit of being "in the truth." "The love of Christ urges us on" (2 Cor. 5.14a).

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Source: M. B. Schepers and F. Klostermann, "Apostolate and Spiritual Life," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Thomas Carson and Joann Cerrito (Detroit: Thomson-Gale, 2003), 578-579.

New Catholic Encyclopedia: Activism

[83] A teaching or orientation that emphasizes action in contradistinction to passivity. Thus, in a learning situation, the functionalism advocated by John Dewey or the method of teaching children promoted by Maria MONTESSORI [sic] is sometimes called activism. As a philosophic notion, it is opposed to intellectualism and gives precedence to practice and activity over theory. In this sense contemporary EXISTENTIALISM [sic] can be called activism in that it repudiates speculation in favor of action.

However, in Catholic circles, particularly in the U.S., it has come to denote an excessive activity of the apostolate that is detrimental to the spiritual life, especially in religious orders and congregations: exterior work of the apostolate absorbs the interest of the one engaged in it to the extent that his interior life suffers as a consequence. [84] It is also referred to as naturalism. Although such activism is not a formal doctrine, but rather a tendency of human nature, it is sometimes called the "heresy of action" and may be said in a general way to have a spirit opposed to the QUIETISM [sic] promoted by Miguel de MOLINOS [sic] and condemned by Innocent XI in 1687 (H. Denzinger, Enchiridion symbolorum, ed. Schönmetzer, 2210-69).

Activism should not be confused with the salutary work of the apostolate performed with the proper spiritual motives. Far from being an obstacle to spiritual growth, the giving of oneself in the service of others out f charity fosters the interior life of the soul. Activism, therefore, should not be equated with activity or a multiplicity of works. In its modern connotation, it has reference only to spiritual activity prompted by an indiscreet zeal and lacking a spiritual foundation. In the encyclical Menti nostrae Pius XII refers to it as "that kind of activity which is not based on divine grace and does not make constant use of the aids provided by Jesus Christ for the attainment of holiness" [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42 (1950) 677].

Safeguards against activism include proper spiritual formation, the constant exercise of humility and prayer, and a wholesome spiritual outlook concerning the work of the apostolate. Those engaged in the apostolate should keep the words of St. Paul foremost in mind: "So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth" (1 Cor. 3.7). The avoidance of activism should not, on the other hand, give way to a negativism characterized by a turning away from the performance of good works. In fact, there is great necessity for an increase in apostolic work to counteract growing materialistic tendencies.

Activism is also called AMERICANISM [sic]. Such a spiritual pragmatism was condemned by Leo XIII in the apostolic letter TESTEM BENEVOLENTIAE [sic], addressed to Cardinal James Gibbons in 1899. While the pope praised the Church and the people of the U.S. for their spirit of progress and accomplishment, he nevertheless cautioned them, among other things, not to place too great an emphasis on externals and outward activity to the detriment of the spiritual life. Thus the term Americanism is often used, especially by European writers, to denote an excessive apostolic activity lacking the proper spiritual motivation.

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Source: L. F. Bacigalupo, "Activism," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Thomas Carson and Joann Cerrito (Detroit: Thomson-Gale, 2003) 83-84.

New Catholic Encyclopedia: Active Life, Spiritual

[83] A life of external activity as opposed to contemplation. In the third century, Origen identified the active life with Martha and the contemplative life with her sister Mary. Before the Christian era the Greeks had differentiated the theoretical life from the practical life. The practical life was that which busied itself with the affairs of the family or the city. St. Paul used the Greek word "askein" to express the practical matter of working out one's salvation, of striving for perfection or making a spiritual effort to purify one's conscience in the sight of God. Gradually this word acquired the meaning of an exercise of the spiritual faculties in the acquisition of the virtues of learning, or exercise, in a physical sense. St. Paul often made reference to the efforts of athletes in the games when urging his Christians to the practice of perfection.

Origen was again the first to apply the word "ascetic" to Christians who practiced virginity and devoted themselves to works of mortification. With St. Augustine, the term active life became almost synonymous with ascetical striving, by making it consist of the practice of virtues, as apart from contemplation of truth. St. Gregory the Great, [sic] seconded this doctrine by identifying the active life with the practice of the corporal works of mercy, and to some extent the spiritual works and this tradition persisted through St. Thomas and Suarez.

The active life reaches a new plane when it concerns itself with the care of souls. From the time of Augustine authors point out that bishops, to whom the care of souls properly belongs, lead the active life in its fullest sense, as well as the contemplative life, since all their activity must be richly impregnated with contemplation. It follows that those who are not bishops lead the active life more fully, the more they participate in the care of souls, a work that is proper to bishops. That is why St. Thomas can rank those religious orders whose concern is to give to others the fruit of their contemplation in the first place. Historically, religious orders, at the beginning, were concerned only with the perfection of their own members. Gradually, the need of souls forced them into the apostolate proper to bishops. Religious orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans in the 13th century, were founded with a view of doing the work that bishops could no longer handle alone. The revolutionary Society of Jesus (1540), which set the pattern for many of the more modern religious institutes, moved into whatever area was necessary for the good of souls, whether it was the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, or preaching and the administration of the Sacraments. In modern times, the next logical step was taken by the participation of the laity in the apostolate of the hierarchy, or what is known as Catholic Action, a way of living the active life of the spirit while remaining in the world.

The secret of the successful practice of the active life is charity in action. As St. Thomas teaches, charity is the root of merit. Affective charity,consisting in internal acts of the love of God is common to both the active and the contemplative lives, and must be made effective in the external worship of God in the contemplative life. St. Augustine says that it is "only the compulsion of charity that shoulders necessary activity" (Civ. 19.19). Affective charity is the real measure of perfection, but is itself best gauged by this effective charity of good works. Effective charity means carrying out God's commands. The whole purpose of the active life is to attain union with God by service to the neighbor, whom God has commanded us to love. One leading the active life does not so much leave God for God, as the popular phrase puts it, but finds God always and everywhere in the activity done for the love of God.

Obviously the term "active life" is an analogous term. In a non-spiritual sense it would be the opposite of quiet. In a spiritual sense it is ambiguous, for it can either mean the opposite of the contemplative life or the life that flows from contemplation. When used in the context of the spiritual as a univocal term, it usually refers to the life of virtue, the pursuit of virtue, the life of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and all those things that are indirectly connected with charity.

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Source: J. F. Conwell, "Active Life, Spiritual," in New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, ed. Thomas Carson and Joann Cerrito (Detroit: Thomson-Gale, 2003), 83.

Memo: Theology of Apostolate and Its Modern Applications

There must be a theology of the apostolate that not only summarizes once again the timeless principles of the spiritual life in its application to apostolate work (e.g. Soul of the Apostolate) but also spells out concretely, rigorously, and simply the specific applications and consequences of these principles in a 21st century context. The following list, while not exclusive, absolutely must be addressed:

The place of social media, specifically media such as Facebook, YouTube, forums, blogs, news websites
Entertainment and the culture industry
Philosophy and psychology of technology
Forms of debate and argumentation, considerations of context
An analysis of pluralism and the fact of general cultural-historical ignorance
Pluralism will include diversity of traditionalisms
The psychology of popularity, identity, and sexuality
Tribal mentalities, in-group thinking, confirmation biases
The subtle influence of foreign mentalities into Catholicism, especially different aspects of modernism, liberalism, and Protestantism--in the areas of Biblical interpretation, morality, philosophy, politics.

I believe that some issues pertaining to the above categories can be resolved logically by a thorough explanation of the universally accepted principles of the theology of the apostolate and spiritual life.

St. Thomas Aquinas on States of Life and Temperament

He that is prone to yield to his passions on account of his impulse to action is simply more apt for the active life by reason of his restless spirit. Hence Gregory says (Moral. vi, 37) that "there be some so restless that when they are free from labor they labor all the more, because the more leisure they have for thought, the worse interior turmoil they have to bear." Others, on the contrary, have the mind naturally pure and restful, so that they are apt for contemplation, and if they were to apply themselves wholly to action, this would be detrimental to them. Wherefore Gregory says (Moral. vi, 37) that "some are so slothful of mind that if they chance to have any hard work to do they give way at the very outset." Yet, as he adds further on, "often . . . love stimulates slothful souls to work, and fear restrains souls that are disturbed in contemplation." Consequently those who are more adapted to the active life can prepare themselves for the contemplative by the practice of the active life; while none the less, those who are more adapted to the contemplative life can take upon themselves the works of the active life, so as to become yet more apt for contemplation.

Summa Theologiæ 2a2ae.182.4 ad 3

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3182.htm#article4

The Apostolate Flows from the Nature of Love

The love which has been poured out on us cannot remain static in our souls. It must ascend once more whence it came, having made us the instruments of a further giving of itself. Taking us captive, the Wisdom of Love introduces us into the inner current of the divine life in the bosom of the Trinity, enlisting us as her co-operators in attaining her divine designs, making us channels of grace and instruments of her action. Love is essentially dynamic [....]

The apostolate is not a work of supererogation. It is the normal sequel to contemplative love. To think only of intimate union with God is to be ignorant of the nature of love, to arrest its movement. For it would be the destruction or at least the diminution of love to confine it within any kind of selfishness no matter how spiritual this might seem.

Holy Wisdom is concerned with souls less for themselves than for her own divine purpose. And this only purpose is the Church. She chooses us as members of the Church, that we may hold a place in it and fulfil [sic] a mission.

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Source: Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want to See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 335–336.

Dietrich von Hildebrand on Patience, pt. 2: Holy Patience

[325] Patience respects the hierarchy of goods

The patient man, in the first place, preserves the right order in the scale of his interests. The requirements of the moment, no matter how imperious, can never displace or overshadow his attention to higher values. The intensity of his attention to a thing will not be determined by its dynamic appeal, its aggressive presence at a given moment or the noise with which it is advertised, but by the objective weight of its content. His emotional accents are ordered in a fashion proportionate to the objective order of values. He possesses a prompt readiness to bear any cross that he cannot avert from himself without injury to charity or infringement of some duty.

He has the art of waiting, and he knows that, though he might justly reproach somebody with having caused him a needless loss of time, a loveless rebuke sometimes amounts to a greater evil before God than a measure of lost time. Our neighbor's sluggishness, too, as his other awkward and annoying traits, belongs to the things we must bear in charity.

It is because he generally refrains from letting himself go that the patient man achieves this order. He maintains himself at a certain distance from his nature and its stirrings. Even when intensely set upon attaining a purpose, he does not lapse from the status of habitare secum [dwelling within oneself]. He watches lest he overestimate a thing [326] merely because he is striving after it at the moment. He is on guard against delivering himself over to the autonomous logic of that striving which tends to impart an undue weight to any chosen aim merely on the strength of its being chosen.

Patience never pursues limited aims inordinately

In the second place, he never engages himself totally for a partial aim—which means that he never becomes blind to the consideration he owes to others, restricting his vision to himself and his own affairs as an exclusive whole. He knows that such a total engagement is illicit; that God demands of us a confrontation of all things with Him and with one another. Still less would he push such a total engagement to its extreme limit, at the cost of sacrificing even his own important concerns of another order. He would not stake everything on a card, to the point of dissolving his fundamental nexus with God—as the Flying Dutchman who, impatient to round a cape more rapidly, wagers his soul thereon; or as Esau who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage.

Though we are at liberty, and in certain cases, in duty to bound to do everything in our power to attain a legitimate purpose, no obstacle and no ill-success must ever be allowed to throw us off our balance. The true Christian is determined to preserve in all circumstances his open and devoted attitude to God: that basic constitution of his soul which guards him against ever losing hold of the habitare secum; for he is well aware that he cannot remain in communion with God except in such a state of composure and self-possession.

Patience recognizes the sovereignty of God over time

Above all, the true Christian never pretends to a false position of supremacy over the universe. Indeed, Christian patience issues [327] from religio: the consciousness of being a creature of God, whose property we are, without whom we can achieve nothing, and in whose hands all our endeavors, actions, and accomplishments are placed. The true Christian assents to his creaturely dependence on God, and consciously derives from it the informing principle of his life. "My days are in Thy hands" (Ps. 30:16).

He knows that God is also the Lord over Time; that He has assigned to the course of events its temporal extension; that we must recognize the interval of time that separates the taking of a decision from the reaching of the intended aim as a reality willed by God: "All things have their season: and in their times all things pass under heaven" (Eccles. 3:1).

He loathes the hybris [hubris] which lies in the pretension to override the autonomous operation of the causae secundae and to secure effects by a mere fiat. That is why patience in this first and inferior sense, too, is an integral component of a life centered in Christ. It contains a specific response to the omnipotence of God and to our absolute dependence on Him, as well as an acceptance of our creaturely finiteness. He who has patience abides by the Truth; the impatient man, posing at least in a partial sense as though he were God, submits to the bondage of the illusions of pride.

Patience is appropriate even when pursuing high goods

The second form of patience belongs to a much higher level. It refers to the realization of things valuable in themselves, and in particular, the spreading of the kingdom of God. It is in this context, again, that the second dimension of patience—that which makes it akin to constancy and perseverance—assumes its full significance. Here it is a question of intrinsically noble and all-important aims, whose furtherance we ought to seek with impetuous zeal. The moral advancement of ourselves and of others, the triumph of justice, the dissemination of the true Faith, the [328] conversion and the progress of a soul specially entrusted to our care—these, to be sure, are things for which we must yearn in our every fiber and strive after with our whole being; our concern for these can never be too intense.

Woe to those who can take but a moderate and conditional interest in these aims. With a burning eagerness should we engage in their service; for "the kingdom of God suffers violence." So far as these things are concerned, it would be wrong of us to take our time. Rather we should emulate the response of St. Matthew the Apostle to the inexorable call, Sequere me: "Jesus... saw a man sitting in the customhouse, named Matthew; and he saith to him: Follow me. And he arose up and followed him" (Matt. 9:9).

Thus, too, did St. Peter and St. Andrew leave their fishing nets and all their work, and without glancing back, follow Christ. No less immediate and wholehearted was the response of St. Anthony, who, upon hearing the words of the Gospel, at once went to live as a hermit in the desert. No less eager and integral, many centuries later, was the response of St. Francis of Assisi.

And yet, even in this zeal, holy patience is absolutely necessary, and an essential part of holiness. For holy patience means our response to the truth that it is not we but God alone who determines the proper day and hour for the fruitful performance of certain actions and even more exclusively, the ripening of our seed and the harvest of our labors.

The rapidity of our immediate response may sometimes differ in our inward dedication and our outward actions

A keen distinction must be made between our inward dedication to God and to His kingdom in ourselves and in others, and our action proper (on ourselves and on others). The call of God once perceived, our response cannot follow quickly enough. We should immediately and unconditionally respond to the sequere me, giving [329] ourselves to God without demur or reserve as did Mary: "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word." All hesitation here would be a perilous error.

But this unhampered inward dedication to God does not by itself involve the performance of all single acts which it entails in a general and essential sense. Particularly does this caution apply to extrinsic and public action, that is, the works of the apostolate. 

Certain saints—among them, as we have seen, St. Francis and St. Anthony the hermit—immediately drew the full consequences from their conversion. But this is a great privilege of grace. Our sense of discretion must enlighten us about whether we may take the decisive step with its full implications at once, or had better remain for a period in inward maturing. There exists a danger of skipping over necessary stages.

Sometimes it also happens that a sincere but not so highly privileged Christian, instead of awaiting a more unmistakable and concrete call of God, overreaches himself in a kind of natural enthusiasm and anticipates certain acts fraught with grave obligations, without being able to posit them with a true inward decisiveness. Many converts immediately want to enter a religious Order, though they lack actual vocation and have not measured the whole significance of such an enhanced dedication to God.

The Church knows this danger; that is why she requires an adequate interval of inner maturing for all great steps in religious life. Unless a particular and a rare grace makes up for it, man needs an appropriate space of time for all deep and great things.

The attitudes deep things require cannot, in general, attain their complete validity and reality except after a period of organic development, whose length varies greatly according to each case. For every deep, fateful word there is a fullness of time in which alone it can be legitimately and fruitfully spoken. Anticipate it hastily by acting without discretion, and your utterance of it will be shadowy, devoid of maturity, and invalid. Again, let the "destined hour" pass [330] unused, and you will no longer be able to speak that word except in an empty and purely formal fashion.

It is touching to read how the chamberlain in the Acts of the Apostles hastens to be baptized by the deacon Philip; for him, thanks to a special grace of God, the destined hour—the fullness of time—was at hand there and then. But the Church by no means modelled [sic] her general practice in admitting converts upon these cases, recorded in apostolic times, of an instantaneous and definitive conversion.

On the contrary, in the first centuries she imposed on the catechumens a long course of preparation through the successive stages of which they had to pass before being admitted to Baptism. Even today, every adult baptism must be preceded by a certain period of instruction and maturing. As regards the preparation for monastic life, the Church only allows the taking of temporary vows at first; final vows require a preparatory stage. Nor does she admit a definitive private vow of virginity without an antecedent temporary one. Thus, in forming these decisive resolutions concerning our inner and personal life, too, we must exercise holy patience, and accord time the significance in human affairs with which God has invested it.

Evangelization also calls for patience

Even more does the same caution apply to the apostolate or our activity devoted to the winning of other people's souls. Anxious as we may be at once to communicate the Truth we have unmeritedly [sic] received and to light up other souls with the fire Christ has kindled in ours, we must always bear in mind that we ourselves cannot fruitfully sow before the divine seed has unfolded to a certain degree in our own souls—which, again, means a period of maturing.

Undoubtedly a special grace of God may overrule this, too; but generally speaking, a time of silence must precede the time to [331] speak. St. Paul, after his conversion, lived in silence for several years before he started his work. Nay, the Savior Himself only began His public activity after thirty years of complete privacy; not that He, in whom the fullness of Divinity resides, needed a process of maturing: but He chose to give us an example of the rhythm which God has imposed on human life.

Notwithstanding all our zeal, then, we must observe the obligation of patience even as workers in the vineyard of the Lord. With careful discretion we must try to perceive the striking of God's own hour for our work to start in His vineyard rather than insist, in a spirit of natural enthusiasm and impatience, on determining it by ourselves. Suppose we are animated by a glowing zeal: if, at the same time, we have patience, we may be infallibly sure that we no longer live by our nature but by a supernatural principle of life.

To be sure, we are not in all circumstances obliged to make the time of our action dependent on the degree of receptivity we may suppose to exist in the souls we deal with. There are cases when, with St. Paul, we must set forth the truth opportune, importune ("in season, out of season"). Yet, even then, we are not relieved of the duty of patience; for St. Paul says further: "Reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine" (2 Tim. 4:2).

Still more is patience our duty in regard to the blossoming of the seed which we are allowed to sow in the Lord's vineyard. As Pascal wrote, "Christ will us to fight with Him, not to conquer with Him." We must be humble enough to renounce any pretension to determine ourselves the time of the harvest. While doing everything in our power to hasten the extension of the kingdom of God for which we are working, we must let God alone decide when He shall grant it.

Even in cases when our business concerns some object eminently pleasing to God, which indeed we ought to pursue with consuming zeal, we must not cease saying, "Not as I will but as Thou wilt." At the start of his activity. St. Dominic lived for four [332] years among the Albigensian heretics without converting a single one of them. Yet, he became neither impatient nor discouraged; he did not give up his effort. By the end of his life, he and his sons had converted sixty thousand people. It is in this higher sphere that the second dimension of patience—the aspect of perseverance and indefatigable zeal—reveals its full importance.

Holy patience frees zeal from impatience

Once more, we encounter here the fact, repeatedly stressed in the foregoing pages, of an organic mutual union on the supernatural plane between aspects apparently antithetic. The nearer we draw to God, the more we see develop in ourselves a coincidentia oppositorum—a reconciliation between two equally valid demands which seem to imply an opposition or at least a tension.

It is only on a basis derived from Christ that we can achieve an accord between these two attitudes: hunger and thirst after justice and holy patience. In the natural framework, zeal appears inseparable from impatience.

But the saints accomplish the miracle: on the one hand, they say with the Apostle of the Gentiles, "The love of Christ presseth us," and live up to the message of Christ, "I am come to cast fire on the earth. And what will I, but that it be kindled?" (Luke 12:49); on the other hand, they await in holy patience and inward peace the time when God shall choose to manifest the fruits of their labors.

What holy patience expresses is a living recognition of the truth that the Lord God alone can bring forth the fruit; that, even in this highest sphere, man—with whatever blessings of grace—can do no more than disseminate the seed he has received from God, thus establishing the conditions for the operation of grace in his fellow man's soul. As St. Paul put it: "I have planted, Apollo watered: but God gave the increase" (1 Cor. 3:6).

[333] Holy patience is an ultimate act of surrender to God

Holy patience, seen from another angle, embodies an ultimate act of our surrender to God, and therefore a status of consummate self-possession. For only in the measure that we have surrendered our inmost being to God do we possess ourselves. He who has holy patience has accomplished the process of dying unto himself, and entered the peace of Christ which "surpasseth all understanding." "In your patience you shall possess your souls" (Luke 21:19).

In holy patience, we become children of Him who with inconceivable longanimity "maketh his sun to rise upon the good and bad and raineth upon the just and the unjust" (Matt. 5:45) and who does not weed out the cockle but sorts the chaff from the wheat at the harvest only.

In this sense, holy patience may be described as a sister of wisdom and of contemplation. As these virtues cause us to consider and appreciate everything in a perspective centered on God, thus evoking to the full the beauty and depth of all things, so also in the attitude of patience we emphatically let God act, thus allowing all things to unfold from above—as proceeding from their Origin—and by so experiencing their operation again render to God what is God's.

Holy patience is the fruit of faith, hope, and charity

Holy patience is a fruit of faith, hope and charity. Faith teaches us that God the universal Lord is also the Lord of Time; that He alone appoints the proper hour to everything; that we must place the success of all endeavors, including such as are eminently pleasing to Him, in His hands; that we must believe in the possibility of success though no pledge of it be visible to the human eye; and that consequently we must labor for the kingdom of God whatever the odds seem to be.

[334] Hope keeps us from getting discouraged in spite of all failures and all delays in achieving success and expects "against hope" everything from the goodness of Him "with whom nothing is impossible." Charity impels us to love God and His holy will above everything, and prevents us from expostulating with Him or renouncing our work in His vineyard on account of any defeat sustained. Particularly is patience an offspring of charity insofar as it is assimilable to constancy and perseverance—an offspring of the charity, that is, which in St. Paul's words "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1 Cor. 13:7).

The fruits of holy patience, finally, are meekness and that inner peace of Christ "which the world cannot give." Patience, then, is closely related to the very flower and perfume of Christian life.

Holy patience acknowledges man's creaturely status.

It constitutes one of the basic traits that distinguish a true Christian in statu viae, in the sense even that it connotes in a twofold fashion as specific reference to the character of earthly existence as a status viae—a journey destined to lead us to our ultimate goal. First, it expresses our assent to our creaturely and finite condition, and more particularly, our response to the significance of time as an aspect of the divine plan of creation, as an essential constituent of the status viae, the world of "that which passes" in contradistinction to eternity. Second, patience represents a basic condition for winning through to our eternal salvation, since it implies a capacity for waiting without despairing of our effort for the kingdom of God, an attitude of perseverance in the midst of all obstacles and all sufferings, an intrepid hope for victory, and a humble but sustained preparation for eternity.

Not only is patience an indispensable virtue; beyond that, it discloses a formal apprehension of the basic condition of status viae [335] and of the relation between terrestrial life and eternal life. Thus are the mysterious words of Our Lord on patience related to these others: "He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved" (Matt. 24:13).

He alone who possesses patience—encompassed by disappointments, worn down by defeats, painfully aware of the narrowness of the road to salvation—can yet give proof of the constancy demanded by God, and hold on to the one thing necessary with a devotion not only unflagging but ever increasing. In him alone can the hunger and thirst after justice unquenchable on earth—which is Christ Himself—and the undying fire that the Lord came down to kindle, burn throughout his entire life. Only the patient man, who lives by Christ, can persevere unto the end: "In your patience you shall possess your souls" (Luke 21:19).

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Source: Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2001), 325–335.

Marriage and the Political Battle

1. Is marriage a purely social construct or is it intrinsic to the structured nature of sexual beings and discovered as such?

This is an either/or question. If marriage is discovered as intrinsic to nature, then it has a social construction but is not reducible to such.

If the first part of 1 is affirmed, then:

2.1) By whom is marriage constructed? (A similar question is: by what process does this social construction solidify?)

If part 2 of 1 is affirmed, then:

2.2) What is marriage in its fundamental essence among the animal kingdom? And among the human species?

Once either 2.1 or 2.2 are answered, then we can ask:

3) Who shall be given the power to protect this understanding of marriage?

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The Sacrament of Marriage crystalizes and perfects natural marriage. As a Sacrament, it receives its essence from Christ and is protected by Christ through the Church. Hence, whatever non-Catholics may want to say, marriage in the Church transcends the dialogue (if there is any) about the nature of marriage on the natural level but may contribute to that dialogue because it has the clarity of truth as to what marriage should be.

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Why would one give the State the power to determine and enforce what marriage is? And then, having given that power to the State, how could one in any meaningful way object to the Church's "intrusiveness" into peoples' private sex lives when those very private lives have been handed over on a silver platter to the State, which is far more powerful and omnipresent than the visible Church?

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A secular person answering the above questions will quickly reveal that the only possible reason that Christians could become involved in the political process surrounding the definition of marriage and hence family life would be to protect the family from its disintegration, i.e. to protect the children especially.

Nevertheless, the only real way to protect the family from its disintegration is by living a holy life and fostering holy families, which is not a political action although it has political consequences.

And while there is division among Christians themselves as to what constitutes marriage, to what purpose and effect shall a Christian engage those political processes to "defend" marriage?

It seems the only reasonable option is actually to live a holy life and, if one is married, to foster a holy family through the example of holiness.

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Relatedly, a Christian must ask himself if the urge to uphold the traditional understanding of marriage in the public sphere is actually an unconscious sense of taking responsibility for the actions of others. And further, to what extent is such an urge a manifestation of the desire to be loved by the world, by the Other, and hence also by one's own parents? Finally, if the Christian does not have the sufficient degree of purity to determine his true intentions in such work, then how effective can the Christian really be in the political process?

Let the wicked continue in their wicked ways, the depraved in their depravity! The virtuous must live on in their virtue and the holy ones in their holiness!
“Remember, I am coming soon! I bring with me the reward that will be given to each man as his conduct deserves. . . . Happy are they who wash their robes so as to have free access to the tree of life and enter the city through its gates! Outside are the dogs and sorcerers, the fornicators and murderers, the idol-worshipers and all who love falsehood.” (Revelation 22:11-15)

Wolves—More Influential Than We Think

I came across an intriguing blog post earlier today that flipped the image of the wolf in sheep's clothing on its head: http://marysaggies.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-wolves-evangelize.html. The post links to this video, which I highly recommend. I thought it was very cool:

The video illustrates how a species can have a huge impact on the environment. In this specific case, the wolves have a very positive impact on the environment at Yellowstone. The blog post takes this idea and suggests that these certain positive traits of the wolves can be effective in the work of evangelization.

I want to suggest that this analogical application of specific "positive" traits of wolves can just as equally be applied to negative circumstances that have positive appearances. In other words, I'm returning to Christ's own image of the wolf in sheep's clothing and exploring it in light of the above video.

The mental image of a wolf in sheep's clothing conjures up something ridiculous and obvious. Only sheep would fall for it (but, of course, many times humans act like sheep). I think also of Little Red Riding Hood—"What big teeth you have!"

But these influential traits of the wolves on the surrounding environment suggest several applications to evangelical work where there may be wolves in sheep's clothing, both of insidious and innocent intent. What do I mean?

I mean the activists of the Church who wish to "do" something good when they are not prepared—these are the wolves of innocent intent, leading sheep to slaughter without meaning to and with the best of intentions (at least on the conscious level...). There are the insidious wolves, those of malicious intent, who use their positions of power and charisma for selfish ends. 

But if the wolf is so influential to the environment, in hundreds of different ways, some of which are subtler than others, others of which have results that follow from a kind of chain reaction, then we ought also to note how people in the apostolate can have similar influences.

When I was talking about the necessity for holiness in doing authentic evangelical work with other seminarians, one seminarian remarked how a pastor he had worked with and was close to was tremendously popular and successful at his parish but admitted to not always praying the Breviary or not putting such a huge emphasis on holiness. This apparently was supposed to counter my point about the necessity of holiness, but we can see now, from the example of the wolves, how even on the human or natural level alone, influence and persuasion can work very deeply in an environment.

Take another example to show its immediate absurdity: look at popular social Gospel people and pastors at mega churches. How do we "calculate" "success"? This same seminarian, incidentally, several months later in a somewhat related conversation made the counter to me that success in evangelization isn't about "numbers." (At this point, I have no idea what "success" to that seminarian really means, but he has my prayers.)

Just because a person is having huge, observable influences around him—what does it amount to? And what standard is being used? People often point to Medjugorje and remark, "Look at all the good that is coming from it!" Hundreds of thousands of conversions with a particular emphasis in devotion to the Blessed Mother. Of course, that is the ostensible behavior. But at what cost? What might Satan see, for example? Perhaps he sees the opportunity to sneak in an attitude of outright disobedience to Church authority. Perhaps he sees the opportunity to sneak in slightly heretical notions of eschatology and Marian devotion as well as the nature of private revelations. I don't know. I suppose on this specific matter, we will see when Rome comes out with their final report on the phenomenon within the next few years. 

My point, to repeat and summarize, is this: on the natural level, humans can have a huge impact on their environments with effects that ripple out in ways we can't imagine nor take into account. Those around us, using standards that we derived from who knows where, judge these effects to be good or ill. But I want to question, not so much how much good is really being done, but whether we are really in any position to judge such a matter, and especially in light of what we know from the example of the Saints in doing evangelizing work, what are the odds that the situation really is all well or that we are judging it properly? The fact of the matter is that the majority often isn't trustworthy with respect to judging these matters because the majority is precisely the group who needs evangelizing! 

Food for thought.

Holiness is like an Overflowing Fountain, not a Pipeline

I attended a talk the other day on theology and culture, and one of the speakers shared an experience he had speaking with his spiritual director. He told his spiritual director that he had an insight that we are to be holy, and in effect, our holiness is a kind of pipeline through which God's grace pours out onto other souls for their sanctification; he also compared this to how the image of God within us shines through most effectively when it is Christ (the image of God) that is seen rather than our ego (the image we put up). The spiritual director said that a better "image" is a fountain that overflows since a pipeline keeps nothing for itself and hence isn't "holy" itself. I was a bit surprised by the response since it's exactly what St. Bernard said in one of his sermons (perhaps the spiritual director was/is familiar with it!).

I copy the sermon below in its entirety for the benefit of the reader since it is not a very long sermon. Imagine hearing this on Sunday! It's a brilliant compendium of the entire spiritual life and the apostolate that flows from contemplative love. One thing I'm struck by in this sermon is how many times St. Bernard insists that we are safe to undertake apostolic work only after and insofar as we have been fully penetrated by the love of the Holy Ghost. Then, he says, will apostolic works be performed "truly and safely," implying before we reach such a state, we do these works at our spiritual peril. And yet one can already hear the cascade of objections amounting to especially, "But then nothing will get done!"

Well, take it from the Mellifluous Doctor, or leave it.

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"Your name is oil poured out." Of what truth of our interior life does the Holy Spirit wish to assure us by means of this text? He refers to the experience of a twofold operation, one by which he inwardly strengthens the virtues that lead us to salvation, the other by which he outwardly endows us with serviceable gifts. The former is of benefit to ourselves, the latter to our neighbors [NB: these are the charismatic gifts, some of which are listed by St. Paul in his letters; St. Thomas Aquinas expands on them in his Summa Theologiæ]. For example, faith, hope and charity are given to us for our own sake, without them we cannot be saved. But the gift of wise and learned speech, the power to heal, to prophesy, and endowments of this kind without which we can fully achieve our own salvation, are undoubtedly meant to be used for our neighbor's salvation. And these operations of the Holy Spirit, that we take note of either in ourselves or in others, are named from their method of functioning: we call them infusion and effusion. To which of them may we suitably apply the words: "Your name is oil poured out"? Is it not to effusion? If he had meant infusion he would have said "poured in." When the bride says: "Your name is oil poured out," she refers to the perfumes sprinkled on her breasts, attributing their scent to the Bridegroom's name, as if it were an unguent poured on her breasts. Any man who perceives that he is endowed with an exterior grace enabling him to influence others, can also say to the Lord: "Your name is oil poured out."

2. At this point we need to be warned not to give away what we have received for our own welfare, nor to retain for ourselves what must be expended for others. For example, you keep for yourself what belongs to your neighbor, if along with your full endowment of interior virtues you are also adorned with the external gifts of knowledge and eloquence, and, through fear or sloth or ill-judged humility, smother this gift of speech that could be of help to so many, in a useless and even pernicious silence; for "the people's curse is on the man who hoards the wheat." On the other hand, you squander and lose what is meant to be your own if, before you are totally permeated by the infusion of the Holy Spirit, you rashly proceed to pour out your unfulfilled self upon others; you contravene the law which says: "You must not put the first-born of your herd to work, nor shear the first-born of your flock." You deprive yourself of the life and salvation which you impart to another if, lacking right intention and inspired by self you become infected with the poison of worldly ambition that swells into a deadly ulcer and destroys you.

3. The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then discharges the overflow without loss to itself. He knows that a curse is on the man who allows his own property to degenerate. And if you think my opinion worthless, then listen to one who is wiser than I [NB: the Saint here is subtly appealing to the authority of the Holy Ghost in confirming his teaching by quoting Him as speaking through Solomon]: "The fool," said Solomon, "comes out with all his feelings at once, but the wise man subdues and restrains them." Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare [NB: Bernard spoke these words in the 1130s!]. So urgent is the charity of those through whom the streams of heavenly doctrine flow to us, that they want to pour it forth before they have been filled; they are more ready to speak than to listen, impatient to teach what they have not grasped, and full of presumption to govern others while they know not how to govern themselves.

I am convinced that no degree of the charity that leads to salvation may be preferred to that suggested by the Wise Man: "Have pity on your own soul, pleasing God." If I have but a little oil, sufficient for my own anointing, do you suppose I should give it to you and be left with nothing? I am keeping it for myself, utterly unwilling to proffer it to anyone except at the Prophet's bidding. And should any of you, thinking me to be better than I seem or than my words suggest, insist on asking for it, here is my answer to him: "There may not be enough for us and for you; you had better go to those who sell it and buy some for yourselves." But charity, you reply, does not seek what is its own. And do you know why? It does not seek what is its own precisely because it has it. Who seeks for what he possesses? Charity never lacks what is her own, all that she needs for her own security. Not alone does she have it, she abounds with it. She wants this abundance for herself that she may share it with all; and she reserves enough for herself so that she disappoints nobody. For charity is perfect only when full.

4. But you, my brother, your salvation is not yet assured; your charity as yet is either non-existent or so meager and reed-like that it bends with every breeze, puts its trust in every spirit, and is carried along by every wind of doctrine; or it is so great that you transcend the limits of the commandment by loving your neighbor more than yourself, or yet again so unsound that, contrary to the commandment, it bows to flattery, flinches under fear, is upset by sadness, shriveled by avarice, entangled by ambition, disquieted by suspicions, tormented by insults, exhausted by anxieties, puffed up by honors, consumed by envy. If you discover this chaos in your own interior, what madness drives you to insinuate yourself into other people's business? But listen to what a prudent and vigilant charity advises: "This does not mean that to give relief to others you ought to make things difficult for yourselves: it is a question of balancing." "Do not be over-virtuous." It is enough that you love your neighbor as yourself; this is the balancing to which the Apostle refers. David says: "My soul will feast most richly, [and after feasting, then shall there be] on my lips a song of joy and, in my mouth, praise." To preclude a mere empty yawning, he wishes that infusion should precede the effusion, an infusion to the fullest capacity that gushes out. In this he shows prudence, his relieving of others does not embarrass himself; and he has a right intention, since he imitates him of whose fullness we have all received. You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God. The reservoir resembles the fountain that runs to form a stream or spreads to form a pool only when its own waters are brimming over. The reservoir is not ashamed to be no more lavish than the spring that fills it. And so, he who is the primal Fountain of life, full in himself and filled with himself, gushed forth and danced into the secret places of the heavens about him, to fill them all with his favors. And having endowed these remotest heights and recesses, he burst upon our earth, saving men and beasts through his munificence, multiplying his mercies everywhere. When he had first filled up the secret places, his teeming mercies billowed over; they poured upon the earth and drenched it, to multiply its riches. You must imitate this process. First be filled, and then control the outpouring. The charity that is benign and prudent does not flow outwards until it abounds within. "My son," said Solomon, "do not let yourself drift away." And the Apostle says: "We ought then to turn our minds more attentively than before to what we have been taught, so that we do not drift away." See what is involved here. Are you holier than Paul, wiser than Solomon? [NB: Or St. Bernard, for that matter?] Besides, I cannot see myself being enriched by your wasting of your powers. For if you are mean to yourself, to whom will you be good? Help me out of your abundance if you have it; if not, then spare yourself the trouble.

5. But I wish to remind you now of the principles necessary for our salvation and how to apply them, the truths that must be infused into us and their order of importance, before we can presume to pour ourselves out. Circumstances oblige me to be as brief as possible, for the time's quick passage demands that I bring this sermon to a close. Just as a doctor comes to a wounded man, so the Holy Spirit comes to the soul. Is it possible to find any person whom the devil's sword does not wound, even after the wound of original sin has been healed by the medicine of baptism? Therefore, when the Spirit draws near to a soul that says: "My wounds grow foul and fester because of my foolishness," what is the first thing he should do? Before all else he must amputate the ulcerous tumor that has grown upon the wound and prevents its healing. This ulcer, caused by inveterate bad habits, must be sliced away with the scalpel of piercing sorrow. The pain will be bitter, but it can be alleviated with the ointment of devotion which is nothing other than the joy born of the hope of pardon. This in turn springs from the power of self-control, from victory over sin. Soon the victor is pouring out words of thanks: "You have loosed my bonds, I will offer you the thanksgiving sacrifice." He then applies the medicine of penance, a poultice of fastings, vigils, prayers, and other tasks that penitents perform. And as he toils he must be fed with the food of good works that he may not falter. We are not left in doubt about what the necessary food is: "My food," said Christ, "is to do the will of my Father." Hence works motivated by love, that are a sure source of strength, should accompany the performance of penances. For instance it is said: "Alms is a most effective offering for all those who give it in the presence of the Most High." Food causes thirst, therefore one must drink, so let the food of good works be moistened with the beverage of prayer, that a work well done may rest quietly in the stomach of conscience and give pleasure to God. In prayer one drinks the wine that gladdens a man's heart, the intoxicating wine of the Spirit that downs all memory of the pleasures of the flesh. It drenches anew the arid recesses of the conscience, stimulates digestion of the meats of good works, fills the faculties of the soul with a robust faith, a solid hope, a love that is living and true; it enriches all the actions of our life.

6. The sick man has had his food and drink; what should he do now but take his ease and let the sweat of his labors dry while he enjoys the quiet of contemplation? Falling asleep in the midst of his prayer he dreams of God; what he sees is a dim reflection in a mirror, not a vision face to face. However, although it be but a vague apprehension and not an actual vision, a fleeting glimpse of the sparkling glory as it passes, utterly delicate in its impact, yet he burns with love and says: "At night my soul longs for you and my spirit in me seeks for you." A love like this is full of zeal; it is a love becoming the Bridegroom's friend, the love that must inspire the faithful and prudent servant whom the Lord appoints over his household. It fills the soul's capacity, grows heated and brims over, gushing with abandon into streamlets. This is the love that cries out: "Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is scandalized and I am not inflamed?" Let such a man preach, let him bear fruit, let him show new signs and do fresh wonders, for vanity can find no toehold in the man whom charity totally possesses. A total love is the law in all its fullness, it can effectively fill the heart's capacity. Finally God himself is love, and nothing created can satisfy the man who is made to the image of God, except the God who is love, who alone is above all created natures. The man who has not yet attained to this love is promoted to office at the gravest risk to himself, no matter how distinguished he be with other virtues. Even if he knows everything, if he gives all his goods to the poor and lets his body be taken for burning, without charity he is worthless. See how precious the graces that must first be infused, so that when we venture to pour them out we may dispense them from a spirit that is filled rather than impoverished.

We need first of all compunction of heart, then fervor of spirit; thirdly, the labor of penance; fourthly, works of charity; fifthly, zeal for prayer; sixthly, leisure for contemplation; seventhly, love in all its fullness. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, accomplished by the process called infusion [NB: to reiterate, all of the above form the process of personal sanctification; afterwards comes "effusion," or in modern terminology "apostolate" or "evangelization"]; and, in so far as it has taken place those services called effusion can be truly and hence safely performed to the praise and glory of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the same Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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Source: St. Bernard, "Sermon 18 on the Song of Songs: The Two Operations of the Holy Spirit," Pathways of Love, accessed March 19, 2014, http://www.pathsoflove.com/bernard/songofsongs/sermon18.html.