Since every living being lives by its operations, as the philosophers say, and the soul's operations are in God though its union with him, it lives the life of God. Thus it changed its death to life, its animal life to spiritual life.
The intellect, which before this union understood naturally by the vigor of its natural light by means of the natural senses, is now moved and informed by another higher principle of supernatural divine light, and the senses are bypassed. Accordingly, the intellect becomes divine, because through its union with God's intellect both become one.
And the will, which previously loved in a base and deadly way with only its natural affection, is now changed into the life of divine love, for it loves in a lofty way with divine affection, moved by the strength of the Holy Spirit in which it now lives the life of love. By means of this union God's will and the soul's will are now one.
And the memory, which by itself perceived only the figures and phantasms of creatures, is changed through this union so as to have in its mind the eternal years mentioned by David [Ps. 77:5].
And the natural appetite that only had the ability and strength to relish creatures (which causes death), is changed now so that its taste and savor are divine, and it is moved and satisfied by another principle: the delight of God, in which it is more alive. And because it is united with him, it is no longer anything else than the appetite of God.
Finally all the movements, operations, and inclinations the soul had previously from the principle and strength of its natural life are now in this union dead to what they formerly were, changed into divine movements, and alive to God. For the soul, like a true daughter of God, is moved in all by the Spirit of God, as St. Paul teaches in saying that those who are moved by the Spirit of God are children of God himself [Rom. 8:14].
Accordingly, the intellect of this soul is God's intellect; its will is God's will; its memory is the memory of God; and its delight is God's delight; and although the substance of this soul is not the substance of God, since it cannot undergo a substantial conversion into him, it has become God through participation in God, being united to and absorbed in him, as it is in this state. Such a union is wrought in this perfect state of the spiritual life, yet not as perfectly as in the next life. Consequently the soul is dead to all it was in itself, which was death to it, and alive to what God is in himself. Speaking of itself, the soul declares in this verse: "In killing you changed death to life."
The soul can well repeat the words of St. Paul: I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me [Gal. 2:20]. The death of this soul is changed to the life of God.
---
Source: St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. by K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1991), 2.34.
Showing posts with label interior life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interior life. Show all posts
Friday, February 13, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Internal Semiosis, Resonance, and the Interior Life
Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange compared the interior life to the internal conversation that occurs in a man. If this interior life is natural, the conversation occurs simply with oneself, making oneself the ultimate referent of all experience: "As soon as a man ceases to be outwardly occupied, to talk with his fellow men, as soon as he is alone, even in the noisy streets of a great city, he begins to carry on a conversation with himself [....] If a man is fundamentally egotistical, his intimate conversation with himself is inspired by sensuality or pride." (Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. M. Timothea Doyle, ch. 2, http://christianperfection.info/tta6.php).
At the moment that a man seeks the good in honesty, the nature of this conversation changes: "He converses with himself, for example, about what is necessary to live becomingly and to support his family. This at times preoccupies him greatly; he feels his weakness and the need of placing his confidence no longer in himself alone, but in God" (ibid.). Even in the state of grace, egoism confuses and mangles this interior conversation, pushing God out as much as possible despite the soul's clearer vision of its inadequacy and dependence on God. In fact, Garrigou-Lagrange suggests that this interior conversation cannot end and implicitly points to man's need for God as well as man's final fulfillment in God, who alone can finally satisfy this interior dialogue: "The soul must converse with someone other than itself. Why? Because it is not its own last end; because its end is the living God, and it cannot rest entirely except in Him" (ibid.).
Modern psychology at its best provides scientific precision to analytical explanations of the interior, psychological processes of the intellect and soul. Often, however, where psychology gets something correct, we find such points already explicated in the writings and experiences of the Saints, at least in nascent or unscientific form. St. Paul famously experienced the interior struggle between what he saw was good and what he hated as evil:
Perhaps a semiotic analysis of human psychology would provide some helpful insights for spiritual growth. We know from experience that when a man works on growing in self-knowledge and discernment, the unconscious aspects of his moral actions eventually come to light. We also know from the experience of the Saints that where sinful tendencies reside in these unconscious dimensions, grace and asceticism eventually purify and heal the psyche of these tendencies. Here is a simple refutation of the omnipotence of the unconscious. Transformation in Christ is where the Saint may say truly, "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
This internal dialogue, often the source of many self-destructive tendencies, especially to despair in various forms, is nothing other than a process of "private semiosis," the internal activity of signs in the human mind as it processes its environment and itself in some unified way. Conversation is speech, and speech consists of signs; human language is nothing other than that form of sign use unique to humans: anthroposemiosis. This semiosis is private insofar as it occurs immanently in the mind, seen in its immediate, raw form only by the individual and God although it may be expressed in a mediated way to others—mediated because only we can experience the fullness of what we experience.
But sign activity, or semiosis, for humans occurs in multiple dimensions since the human alone of all animals can distinguish between signs as such and all other forms of reality, between subject and object, between actual and ideal. Much of the activity that informs our conscious semiosis is subconscious. For example, when we read a novel, we subconsciously take on the role of a reader who understands that we are entering into a fictional world. Did we make the conscious, private semiosic choice to take on this interpretive stance? No (although we could if we so chose). We switch between interpretive modes for all genres of text, and we do something similar when we enter different social settings and engage with different people. Even where there is the conscious awareness of making certain switches, for example, "I must not use vulgarity when I'm around grandma," we might tell ourselves privately, there are other aspects of this switch that we often are not aware of; for example, what is the prior condition that prompts us to tell ourselves that we ought not to use vulgarity around our elders? This prompting is a semiosic process that we might become aware of, just like we might become aware of our breathing at any moment if we so chose to pay attention and knew what to look for, but just like our breathing, these processes often remain on the subconscious level.
Perhaps we can see the distinction between conscious and subconscious precisely in terms of relation, a relation to intentional awareness or the lack thereof. Following a Lacanian line of thinking regarding the unconscious, the unconscious is precisely everything other than the conscious remaining in human experience, encompassing the aspects of the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic; this residue or overflow occurs because conscious processing of our experience always leaves something to be desired, something missing; language is often insufficient—we find ourselves at a loss for words as the saying goes. Hence analogously, just as God is precisely everything other than created, finite beings (and by extension, the concept of God is precisely a concept consisting of an amalgamation of relations by which we conceive that God is not this, nor that, nor that), so too our unconscious is everything other than consciously filtered experience through our private semiosis.
Hence the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious all converge simultaneously to create the presently processed experience of our environments. Deepening our self-knowledge allows us to identify these different strands and how they are functioning at any given moment. Perhaps this lack of self-knowledge or despair of possibly attaining to it in atheistic psychologies has led to the idea that the unconscious inescapably dominates all our behavior. There is truth to the experience that often we seem to lose control of ourselves, that our emotions seem to be out of our control, our thoughts run on endlessly, often laboriously (even St. Teresa of Avila complained about this on multiple occasions). Much of this lack of control for the average person certainly stems from a lack of self-knowledge and the tools to deal with and integrate the different dimensions of our experience. (We might also postulate that this lack of control may be the result of a sensitive temperament that is more attuned to the multiple effects of one's surrounding and/or the result of a sensitivity that comes from ascetic and mystical purification by which one is keenly aware of the different spirits affecting our behaviors, thoughts, etc.; maybe some combination of the above was the case with St. Teresa, whose almost constant contemplation bombarded her soul with new infusions of grace, overwhelming her and overflowing into the bodily dimension of her being, sometimes painfully.) With self-knowledge and discipline, these different dimension can be identified, organized, and trained even on the natural plane.
But first, we need to understand why the process of the constant bombardment of shifting emotions and internal dialogue occurs. To begin metaphysically, all being contains positive and negative dimensions, positive perfections and negative lacks due to its finite structure and the circumstances that may have vitiated its due development towards its final end. Being is simultaneously communicative and receptive, sharing its proper perfections around it and receiving the perfections of other beings, hopefully in ways complementary to its own teleological needs—e.g. rain is necessary for plant growth, but too much rain may drown the plant. Hence we may say there is complementary communication and non-complementary communication (where complementary is understood in relation to aiding a being's fulfillment of its final end).
Our relation to reality encompasses these perfections in an intentional form, and our semiosis communicates these intentional realities and perfections, which in turn constantly are those elements that bombard us. So much of this communication is occurring all the time that it seems impossible for any individual to process all of it, and we know from neuroscience just how much processing our brain does behind the scenes in order to maintain our practical functionality at any given moment. Within this bombardment is the opportunity for help or hurt. It is a common experience that we find ourselves in pain or ambient anxiety, and it seemingly arises from nowhere. Demonic influence and psychological disorder momentarily set aside for theoretical reasons in this analysis, it may very well be that a steady bombardment of non-complementary being has slowly accumulated within our souls, leading to affective experiences of pain, anxiety, etc. It may also be that this accumulation resonates in a certain way with already present stores of past accumulations of pain, going back even into early childhood or gestation. Psychology has been able to show just how influential these formative years are and how devastating they may be if a child is not given a properly nurturing upbringing.
The old children's rhyme about sticks, stones, and words never hurting us is simply a child's denial of a very painful reality, its attempt to gain control over what feels beyond its control, the overwhelming overflow of communicated being (or perhaps non-being in the sense of moral evil) leading to pain. The rhyme then seeks to contain the pain through the use of words, but this misses the point because the child clearly does not have the experience or psychological maturity or discernment in order to properly face such pain.
As different webs and spirals of semiosis accumulate in the soul by forming qualities in the manner of habits—and here I am being more speculative than before—perhaps it is precisely in this way that the soul informs the body in a secondary manner—the primary manner being that the soul provides the basic constitutive framework of this kind of living animal—, in the manner of how quality is respect to form as quantity is respect to matter. Habits, while being qualities in the soul, clearly have physical effects in the body; neural networks are formed in habits, for example. As the soul is informed by semiosic processes, so too the body responds accordingly. And perhaps the movement is reciprocal: as the body is affected by external forces beyond the soul's control, the soul is affected, or at least its full and proper expression through the body. Hence, physical and mental disabilities that impede the proper development and expression of normative human intellectual activity.
Regardless of how the above process works, the accumulations of semiotic webs within the soul, both conscious and unconscious, then lead to qualities that affect bodily development and render certain patterns of behavior easier, swifter, and accompanied by a certain spiritual and bodily delight. The quality of a soul informed by a habit and its subsequent informing of the body renders a person apt for the actualization of these habits, creating what we might call a "resonance."
Just as in acoustics, room resonance depends on the wall matter, sound, and location all interacting simultaneously to create a booming effect, or just as pitch resonances may create sympathetic vibrations when certain conditions are met, when certain semiosic processes converge in a human informed with this habitual quality, a resonance may occur, rendering the actualization of the habit immediate, facile, and delightful, perhaps even overwhelming in a certain sense.
Thus the pain of a person trapped in vice—the convergence of these semiosic processes is nothing other than what is called a temptation. At the moment of this convergence, the communication of intentional non-complementary being creates a certain resonance, striving to activate the soul, whose vicious quality renders it apt for reacting in this vicious way. Thus the psychological experience of the temptation may feel overwhelming.
Similarly, for a person formed in a virtuous habit, when the proper semiosic conditions converge, the virtue is activated, the morally good action executed with delight, sometimes with a deep relish at having accomplished the good, even simple goods.
And just as conditions may create resonance based on the qualitative predisposition of a soul formed in this habit, so too opposite conditions may resonate very poorly if at all in people with the opposite qualities respectively. Hence what used to be a temptation to a soul now is hardly a blip in its habitual, qualitative orientation towards the good; likewise, a stimulus to good may be experienced for a soul trapped in sin as painful, dissonant, and hardly moving. The semiosic communication is jarring with the quality of the soul; the being that is being communicated is not converging properly with the soul informed or disformed by these qualities. We see analogous clashes in the realm of physical organisms all the time, where external conditions and the subjective constitution of an organism or seed do not converge to lead to the flourishing of the organism.
But lest this process seem to be another form of omnipotence, shifting from the unconscious to these semiosic processes, it must be remembered that conscious semiosis in the human is the discursive reason, guiding and directing the will, creating the conditions for freedom. Clearly the freedom of a soul trapped in sin is encumbered but can never be totally destroyed without destroying discursive reason itself. Hence these semiosic processes are both the condition for freedom as well as the possibility for either its hindrance or development, just as water is a necessary condition for the growth of plant life, but too little, too much, or contaminated water will kill the plant. The will must still choose, and the will can direct the intentionality of these semiosic processes, guiding them in certain limited ways, depending on the various conditions, both external and internal. Qualities are supposed to aid the soul in the proper guidance of these processes, in the proper flourishing of the rational aspect of human nature.
Grace enters. We say that grace perfects nature. Grace is a communication in the divine life, a participation, or in other words, a relation. This is precisely semiosis on the divine level, entering through an analogous, accidental, created, physical mode into the soul. Without grace, the private semiosis of an individual would begin at conception and crash into oblivion at death. Grace thus creates a relation between the soul and God and creates an elevation of those dimensions that exist in the soul, giving them an orientation to the divine or at least the conditions that make possible the development of this orientation. Hence the accumulated semioses remain, but grace now offers and provides a "defrag" program for the soul. There is certainly an extent to which the soul may do this itself—the active purifications and ascetical stages of the spiritual life constitute this extent. But the end for which God has made man goes beyond man's natural, immanent capacities, and besides which, the wounds of sin that remain render the accumulation of harmful semioses sometimes overwhelming, something experienced sometimes as loss of total control, addiction.
The conversation, the private semiosis, may now turn to God. God's semiosis enters into the soul; the Trinity makes its dwelling in the heart. The Logos communicates the fullness of the divinity. The Holy Ghost consumes and transforms. The Father guides the soul lovingly, teaching, listening, aiding, assuring.
We also believe there is a Communion of Saints. Communion involves communication, reception, relation, a sharing, a participation. The semiosis of grace extends not only to the Deity but to those who are linked by grace to God.
These are the helps that the soul needs. Nevertheless, those resonances remain, the resonances of already formed habits. The struggle is arduous, but the soul is assured of divine assistance, a true omnipotence, the omnipotence of God and the shared, participated omnipotence of the Blessed Mother, who obtains for us all that we need. The theological virtues create wellsprings, new qualities in the soul, by which the old resonances may be combatted not only on the natural plane but also the supernatural.
Here it must be remarked one particular difficulty people have in allowing grace to establish a new, supernatural quality. Faith is the virtue by which we attain to God as revealed and revealing Truth. St. John of the Cross interestingly argues that living faith alone is the proximate and proportionate means of union with God. What does this mean semiotically? Simply that the semiosis of faith is experienced psychologically as pure emptiness, darkness, nothing except the will's constant clinging to God despite all other competing strands of semiosis in the psyche.
Here we can see why so many people get lost in secondary matters of faith and, although they intellectually adhere or profess to the matters of faith and their extensions to different aspects of the Church and Christian life, this faith doesn't seem to transform them as it ought. For example, focusing on issues, such as the pro-life movement, personal devotions, political topics, like women priests, sexual morality, marriage, or issues of liturgy, tradition, and doctrine—these are all secondary to faith. Faith primarily attains to God and secondarily applies to all else insofar as it stands in relation to God revealing. Hence faith is meant to unite us perfectly to God and not to these secondary matters. St. John of the Cross insists that a person who places importance on these secondary issues is, despite these issues being related to faith, hindering their union with God through faith. The following quotation focuses only on devotions and the Mass, for example:
To repeat: meditation is not a clinging to human semiosis, but an efficient tool to redirect human semiosis to free the soul of its accumulated vicious qualities so that these accumulations don't completely stifle and freeze the flowering of faith in the soul. Meditation should be leading us to become more and more humble and detached from our private conceptions and semiosis and becoming more and more attached to God, conversing with Him, remaining recollected in Him, not ourselves, going out of ourselves as St. John of the Cross would say, forgetting ourselves.
Someday, by God's grace, we shall attain to that state where our private semiosis is directed by the Holy Ghost perfectly, so that although we experience reality with our accumulated past and individuality, it is filtered and subsumed harmoniously and without resistance by the divine semiosis of Christ: "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
At the moment that a man seeks the good in honesty, the nature of this conversation changes: "He converses with himself, for example, about what is necessary to live becomingly and to support his family. This at times preoccupies him greatly; he feels his weakness and the need of placing his confidence no longer in himself alone, but in God" (ibid.). Even in the state of grace, egoism confuses and mangles this interior conversation, pushing God out as much as possible despite the soul's clearer vision of its inadequacy and dependence on God. In fact, Garrigou-Lagrange suggests that this interior conversation cannot end and implicitly points to man's need for God as well as man's final fulfillment in God, who alone can finally satisfy this interior dialogue: "The soul must converse with someone other than itself. Why? Because it is not its own last end; because its end is the living God, and it cannot rest entirely except in Him" (ibid.).
Modern psychology at its best provides scientific precision to analytical explanations of the interior, psychological processes of the intellect and soul. Often, however, where psychology gets something correct, we find such points already explicated in the writings and experiences of the Saints, at least in nascent or unscientific form. St. Paul famously experienced the interior struggle between what he saw was good and what he hated as evil:
For that which I work, I understand not. For I do not that good which I will; but the evil which I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I will not, I consent to the law, that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will, is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not. For the good which I will, I do not; but the evil which I will not, that I do. Now if I do that which I will not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law, that when I have a will to do good, evil is present with me. For I am delighted with the law of God, according to the inward man: But I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin. (Romans 7:15–25; DR trans.)And Psalm 19 says, "Who can understand sins? from my secret ones cleanse me, O Lord" (v. 12). These verses posit that there exists a dimension of the broken personality, caught up in sin, in conflict with the conscious striving towards virtue. There is a contrast in Paul between flesh and mind yet almost as if the flesh had a mind and will of its own. Modern psychology would distinguish these dimensions as the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious. The exact nature of these different aspects can lead to serious error in a philosophy of human nature, and it's clear that much of modern psychology has tended towards a mechanistic reductionism of the human psyche, where the unconscious takes on some kind of overwhelming force. Without going to these extremes, it seems reasonable that we often act out of a plurality of motives, some of which we do not discern until we reflect later on our actions with deeper insight. The increase of self-knowledge is not merely quantitative—I know more and more truths about my personality—but also qualitative—I know my personality more deeply than before, its patterns, tendencies, weaknesses, and also very importantly, its strengths, some of which due to my God-given temperament.
Perhaps a semiotic analysis of human psychology would provide some helpful insights for spiritual growth. We know from experience that when a man works on growing in self-knowledge and discernment, the unconscious aspects of his moral actions eventually come to light. We also know from the experience of the Saints that where sinful tendencies reside in these unconscious dimensions, grace and asceticism eventually purify and heal the psyche of these tendencies. Here is a simple refutation of the omnipotence of the unconscious. Transformation in Christ is where the Saint may say truly, "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
This internal dialogue, often the source of many self-destructive tendencies, especially to despair in various forms, is nothing other than a process of "private semiosis," the internal activity of signs in the human mind as it processes its environment and itself in some unified way. Conversation is speech, and speech consists of signs; human language is nothing other than that form of sign use unique to humans: anthroposemiosis. This semiosis is private insofar as it occurs immanently in the mind, seen in its immediate, raw form only by the individual and God although it may be expressed in a mediated way to others—mediated because only we can experience the fullness of what we experience.
But sign activity, or semiosis, for humans occurs in multiple dimensions since the human alone of all animals can distinguish between signs as such and all other forms of reality, between subject and object, between actual and ideal. Much of the activity that informs our conscious semiosis is subconscious. For example, when we read a novel, we subconsciously take on the role of a reader who understands that we are entering into a fictional world. Did we make the conscious, private semiosic choice to take on this interpretive stance? No (although we could if we so chose). We switch between interpretive modes for all genres of text, and we do something similar when we enter different social settings and engage with different people. Even where there is the conscious awareness of making certain switches, for example, "I must not use vulgarity when I'm around grandma," we might tell ourselves privately, there are other aspects of this switch that we often are not aware of; for example, what is the prior condition that prompts us to tell ourselves that we ought not to use vulgarity around our elders? This prompting is a semiosic process that we might become aware of, just like we might become aware of our breathing at any moment if we so chose to pay attention and knew what to look for, but just like our breathing, these processes often remain on the subconscious level.
Perhaps we can see the distinction between conscious and subconscious precisely in terms of relation, a relation to intentional awareness or the lack thereof. Following a Lacanian line of thinking regarding the unconscious, the unconscious is precisely everything other than the conscious remaining in human experience, encompassing the aspects of the Real, Imaginary, and Symbolic; this residue or overflow occurs because conscious processing of our experience always leaves something to be desired, something missing; language is often insufficient—we find ourselves at a loss for words as the saying goes. Hence analogously, just as God is precisely everything other than created, finite beings (and by extension, the concept of God is precisely a concept consisting of an amalgamation of relations by which we conceive that God is not this, nor that, nor that), so too our unconscious is everything other than consciously filtered experience through our private semiosis.
Hence the conscious, unconscious, and subconscious all converge simultaneously to create the presently processed experience of our environments. Deepening our self-knowledge allows us to identify these different strands and how they are functioning at any given moment. Perhaps this lack of self-knowledge or despair of possibly attaining to it in atheistic psychologies has led to the idea that the unconscious inescapably dominates all our behavior. There is truth to the experience that often we seem to lose control of ourselves, that our emotions seem to be out of our control, our thoughts run on endlessly, often laboriously (even St. Teresa of Avila complained about this on multiple occasions). Much of this lack of control for the average person certainly stems from a lack of self-knowledge and the tools to deal with and integrate the different dimensions of our experience. (We might also postulate that this lack of control may be the result of a sensitive temperament that is more attuned to the multiple effects of one's surrounding and/or the result of a sensitivity that comes from ascetic and mystical purification by which one is keenly aware of the different spirits affecting our behaviors, thoughts, etc.; maybe some combination of the above was the case with St. Teresa, whose almost constant contemplation bombarded her soul with new infusions of grace, overwhelming her and overflowing into the bodily dimension of her being, sometimes painfully.) With self-knowledge and discipline, these different dimension can be identified, organized, and trained even on the natural plane.
But first, we need to understand why the process of the constant bombardment of shifting emotions and internal dialogue occurs. To begin metaphysically, all being contains positive and negative dimensions, positive perfections and negative lacks due to its finite structure and the circumstances that may have vitiated its due development towards its final end. Being is simultaneously communicative and receptive, sharing its proper perfections around it and receiving the perfections of other beings, hopefully in ways complementary to its own teleological needs—e.g. rain is necessary for plant growth, but too much rain may drown the plant. Hence we may say there is complementary communication and non-complementary communication (where complementary is understood in relation to aiding a being's fulfillment of its final end).
Our relation to reality encompasses these perfections in an intentional form, and our semiosis communicates these intentional realities and perfections, which in turn constantly are those elements that bombard us. So much of this communication is occurring all the time that it seems impossible for any individual to process all of it, and we know from neuroscience just how much processing our brain does behind the scenes in order to maintain our practical functionality at any given moment. Within this bombardment is the opportunity for help or hurt. It is a common experience that we find ourselves in pain or ambient anxiety, and it seemingly arises from nowhere. Demonic influence and psychological disorder momentarily set aside for theoretical reasons in this analysis, it may very well be that a steady bombardment of non-complementary being has slowly accumulated within our souls, leading to affective experiences of pain, anxiety, etc. It may also be that this accumulation resonates in a certain way with already present stores of past accumulations of pain, going back even into early childhood or gestation. Psychology has been able to show just how influential these formative years are and how devastating they may be if a child is not given a properly nurturing upbringing.
The old children's rhyme about sticks, stones, and words never hurting us is simply a child's denial of a very painful reality, its attempt to gain control over what feels beyond its control, the overwhelming overflow of communicated being (or perhaps non-being in the sense of moral evil) leading to pain. The rhyme then seeks to contain the pain through the use of words, but this misses the point because the child clearly does not have the experience or psychological maturity or discernment in order to properly face such pain.
As different webs and spirals of semiosis accumulate in the soul by forming qualities in the manner of habits—and here I am being more speculative than before—perhaps it is precisely in this way that the soul informs the body in a secondary manner—the primary manner being that the soul provides the basic constitutive framework of this kind of living animal—, in the manner of how quality is respect to form as quantity is respect to matter. Habits, while being qualities in the soul, clearly have physical effects in the body; neural networks are formed in habits, for example. As the soul is informed by semiosic processes, so too the body responds accordingly. And perhaps the movement is reciprocal: as the body is affected by external forces beyond the soul's control, the soul is affected, or at least its full and proper expression through the body. Hence, physical and mental disabilities that impede the proper development and expression of normative human intellectual activity.
Regardless of how the above process works, the accumulations of semiotic webs within the soul, both conscious and unconscious, then lead to qualities that affect bodily development and render certain patterns of behavior easier, swifter, and accompanied by a certain spiritual and bodily delight. The quality of a soul informed by a habit and its subsequent informing of the body renders a person apt for the actualization of these habits, creating what we might call a "resonance."
Just as in acoustics, room resonance depends on the wall matter, sound, and location all interacting simultaneously to create a booming effect, or just as pitch resonances may create sympathetic vibrations when certain conditions are met, when certain semiosic processes converge in a human informed with this habitual quality, a resonance may occur, rendering the actualization of the habit immediate, facile, and delightful, perhaps even overwhelming in a certain sense.
Thus the pain of a person trapped in vice—the convergence of these semiosic processes is nothing other than what is called a temptation. At the moment of this convergence, the communication of intentional non-complementary being creates a certain resonance, striving to activate the soul, whose vicious quality renders it apt for reacting in this vicious way. Thus the psychological experience of the temptation may feel overwhelming.
Similarly, for a person formed in a virtuous habit, when the proper semiosic conditions converge, the virtue is activated, the morally good action executed with delight, sometimes with a deep relish at having accomplished the good, even simple goods.
And just as conditions may create resonance based on the qualitative predisposition of a soul formed in this habit, so too opposite conditions may resonate very poorly if at all in people with the opposite qualities respectively. Hence what used to be a temptation to a soul now is hardly a blip in its habitual, qualitative orientation towards the good; likewise, a stimulus to good may be experienced for a soul trapped in sin as painful, dissonant, and hardly moving. The semiosic communication is jarring with the quality of the soul; the being that is being communicated is not converging properly with the soul informed or disformed by these qualities. We see analogous clashes in the realm of physical organisms all the time, where external conditions and the subjective constitution of an organism or seed do not converge to lead to the flourishing of the organism.
But lest this process seem to be another form of omnipotence, shifting from the unconscious to these semiosic processes, it must be remembered that conscious semiosis in the human is the discursive reason, guiding and directing the will, creating the conditions for freedom. Clearly the freedom of a soul trapped in sin is encumbered but can never be totally destroyed without destroying discursive reason itself. Hence these semiosic processes are both the condition for freedom as well as the possibility for either its hindrance or development, just as water is a necessary condition for the growth of plant life, but too little, too much, or contaminated water will kill the plant. The will must still choose, and the will can direct the intentionality of these semiosic processes, guiding them in certain limited ways, depending on the various conditions, both external and internal. Qualities are supposed to aid the soul in the proper guidance of these processes, in the proper flourishing of the rational aspect of human nature.
Grace enters. We say that grace perfects nature. Grace is a communication in the divine life, a participation, or in other words, a relation. This is precisely semiosis on the divine level, entering through an analogous, accidental, created, physical mode into the soul. Without grace, the private semiosis of an individual would begin at conception and crash into oblivion at death. Grace thus creates a relation between the soul and God and creates an elevation of those dimensions that exist in the soul, giving them an orientation to the divine or at least the conditions that make possible the development of this orientation. Hence the accumulated semioses remain, but grace now offers and provides a "defrag" program for the soul. There is certainly an extent to which the soul may do this itself—the active purifications and ascetical stages of the spiritual life constitute this extent. But the end for which God has made man goes beyond man's natural, immanent capacities, and besides which, the wounds of sin that remain render the accumulation of harmful semioses sometimes overwhelming, something experienced sometimes as loss of total control, addiction.
The conversation, the private semiosis, may now turn to God. God's semiosis enters into the soul; the Trinity makes its dwelling in the heart. The Logos communicates the fullness of the divinity. The Holy Ghost consumes and transforms. The Father guides the soul lovingly, teaching, listening, aiding, assuring.
We also believe there is a Communion of Saints. Communion involves communication, reception, relation, a sharing, a participation. The semiosis of grace extends not only to the Deity but to those who are linked by grace to God.
These are the helps that the soul needs. Nevertheless, those resonances remain, the resonances of already formed habits. The struggle is arduous, but the soul is assured of divine assistance, a true omnipotence, the omnipotence of God and the shared, participated omnipotence of the Blessed Mother, who obtains for us all that we need. The theological virtues create wellsprings, new qualities in the soul, by which the old resonances may be combatted not only on the natural plane but also the supernatural.
Here it must be remarked one particular difficulty people have in allowing grace to establish a new, supernatural quality. Faith is the virtue by which we attain to God as revealed and revealing Truth. St. John of the Cross interestingly argues that living faith alone is the proximate and proportionate means of union with God. What does this mean semiotically? Simply that the semiosis of faith is experienced psychologically as pure emptiness, darkness, nothing except the will's constant clinging to God despite all other competing strands of semiosis in the psyche.
Here we can see why so many people get lost in secondary matters of faith and, although they intellectually adhere or profess to the matters of faith and their extensions to different aspects of the Church and Christian life, this faith doesn't seem to transform them as it ought. For example, focusing on issues, such as the pro-life movement, personal devotions, political topics, like women priests, sexual morality, marriage, or issues of liturgy, tradition, and doctrine—these are all secondary to faith. Faith primarily attains to God and secondarily applies to all else insofar as it stands in relation to God revealing. Hence faith is meant to unite us perfectly to God and not to these secondary matters. St. John of the Cross insists that a person who places importance on these secondary issues is, despite these issues being related to faith, hindering their union with God through faith. The following quotation focuses only on devotions and the Mass, for example:
These people attribute so much efficacy to methods of carrying out their devotions and prayers [....] They put more trust in these methods than they do in the living prayer [....] For example, they demand that the Mass be said with a certain number of candles, no more nor less; or that it be celebrated at a particular hour, no sooner nor later; or that it be said after a certain day, not before; [...] And regarding other ceremonies in vocal prayers and other devotions, one should not become attached to any ceremonies or modes of prayer other than those Christ taught us." (Ascent of Mount Carmel, 3.43.2, 44.4)St. John of the Cross says the way to the top of the mountain is: nada, the emptiness of pure faith, a total clinging to God in absolute darkness of intellectual and finite semioses. The divine semiosis of faith stands in absolute difference (but not indifference) to all human semioses, and to inject human semiosis into the divine semiosis of faith is to kill faith. Meditation, as St. John of the Cross teaches, is a heuristic process, temporary, by which the soul is actively weaning itself of previous vicious habits and working towards developing virtuous qualities. Think of St. Teresa of Avila's comparison of meditation to drawing water out of a well with a bucket. Meditation simply frees up the soul to a sufficient degree so that its accumulated semioses may not get in the way of the divine semiosis of faith because it often is the case that our accumulations stifle and mute faith without our even intending it to. Perhaps more precisely we should say our accumulations stifle and mute the expression and development of faith but not faith itself; otherwise, it would be impossible to remain in a state of grace unless we were already perfect! No, God, seeing our weakness, accepts the conscious intention of our will to adhere to the faith, and this is sufficient for faith to remain in the soul. Nevertheless, this state is only the beginning, and it's easy for the individual, so accustomed to created, finite semiosic processes, to confuse the divine semiosis of faith with these other finite processes, which extend to our conceptions of the Mass, of the Pope, of what the Church really should look like, and even what our spiritual life should look like. As long as we cling to human semiosis, we hinder faith.
To repeat: meditation is not a clinging to human semiosis, but an efficient tool to redirect human semiosis to free the soul of its accumulated vicious qualities so that these accumulations don't completely stifle and freeze the flowering of faith in the soul. Meditation should be leading us to become more and more humble and detached from our private conceptions and semiosis and becoming more and more attached to God, conversing with Him, remaining recollected in Him, not ourselves, going out of ourselves as St. John of the Cross would say, forgetting ourselves.
Someday, by God's grace, we shall attain to that state where our private semiosis is directed by the Holy Ghost perfectly, so that although we experience reality with our accumulated past and individuality, it is filtered and subsumed harmoniously and without resistance by the divine semiosis of Christ: "And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20).
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Why Self-Knowledge Is Difficult
Notes from Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 41–44.
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Aside from the distorting effects of our fallen nature, there are two fundamental reasons for the difficulty of attaining self-knowledge: 1) "the natural bent of our attention"; 2) "the complexity and mobility of our psychic experience" (41).
1. Our attention wanders seemingly aimlessly, drawn by present sensibles, current feelings and their relations to their causes (beliefs, worries, anticipations, regrets, etc.). The flux of consciousness is so fast and fluid that it's hard to identify single factors and motions, unless they are especially pronounced or prolonged. Sometimes we dismiss what is important, thinking it is unimportant, and sometimes we exaggerate what is less important or an aftereffect.
2. The inner motions of our experience are so interrelated and numerous that often it is hard to begin somewhere, and once we have begun, it is hard to isolate one motion. Hence motions that God may introduce into us for spiritual purposes may end up being passed over as said above; they are "never brought to the scrutiny of faith-enlightened intelligence and integrated into our Christian life of free choice and love" (42). And on the other hand, due to ignorance and lack of self awareness, evil motions can hold a sway over us.
It must be remembered that awareness is difficult but possible, even necessary, to advance in the spiritual life. Repeated effort will increase the capacity for self-reflection and understanding.
Those who think that they are an open book to themselves should be warned. "They are probably reading their hearts very superficially, finding what they want to find or what they have been led to expect to find. Their easy confidence may be a barrier to real self-knowledge, which is not easily achieved" (43).
There is a great need for prayer, especially to the Holy Spirit, a prayer of trust and openness. The Holy Spirit can give us a superabundance of helps to come to understand ourselves and develop self-reflection. He alone can protect us from deceptions.
Finally, we need help from others, help from, say, St. Ignatius' rules and experienced guides. These are the human helps, or natural guides, through which Providence works and perfects in order to bring us to supernatural guidance.
Ignatius notes in his rules that these are "some rules," implying that they are neither exhaustive nor univocal. Their application must be adapted to circumstances, guided by an experienced, learned, and holy director. This application falls under the realm of prudence and discretion (44)
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Aside from the distorting effects of our fallen nature, there are two fundamental reasons for the difficulty of attaining self-knowledge: 1) "the natural bent of our attention"; 2) "the complexity and mobility of our psychic experience" (41).
1. Our attention wanders seemingly aimlessly, drawn by present sensibles, current feelings and their relations to their causes (beliefs, worries, anticipations, regrets, etc.). The flux of consciousness is so fast and fluid that it's hard to identify single factors and motions, unless they are especially pronounced or prolonged. Sometimes we dismiss what is important, thinking it is unimportant, and sometimes we exaggerate what is less important or an aftereffect.
2. The inner motions of our experience are so interrelated and numerous that often it is hard to begin somewhere, and once we have begun, it is hard to isolate one motion. Hence motions that God may introduce into us for spiritual purposes may end up being passed over as said above; they are "never brought to the scrutiny of faith-enlightened intelligence and integrated into our Christian life of free choice and love" (42). And on the other hand, due to ignorance and lack of self awareness, evil motions can hold a sway over us.
It must be remembered that awareness is difficult but possible, even necessary, to advance in the spiritual life. Repeated effort will increase the capacity for self-reflection and understanding.
Those who think that they are an open book to themselves should be warned. "They are probably reading their hearts very superficially, finding what they want to find or what they have been led to expect to find. Their easy confidence may be a barrier to real self-knowledge, which is not easily achieved" (43).
There is a great need for prayer, especially to the Holy Spirit, a prayer of trust and openness. The Holy Spirit can give us a superabundance of helps to come to understand ourselves and develop self-reflection. He alone can protect us from deceptions.
Finally, we need help from others, help from, say, St. Ignatius' rules and experienced guides. These are the human helps, or natural guides, through which Providence works and perfects in order to bring us to supernatural guidance.
Ignatius notes in his rules that these are "some rules," implying that they are neither exhaustive nor univocal. Their application must be adapted to circumstances, guided by an experienced, learned, and holy director. This application falls under the realm of prudence and discretion (44)
St. Ignatius' Meaning of Interior Motions
[37] What Ignatius refers to by motions in the soul is the flux of thoughts (such as judgments about God, self, the world, plans, lines of reasoning, lines of association, or imaginings), and of affective acts (such as love, hate, desire, or fear), and of affective feelings (such as peace, warmth, coldness, sweetness, bitterness, buoyancy, or depression). Among all these motions Ignatius sees some to be of special interest for anyone who is trying to open himself to the Holy Spirit and to resist the influence of the evil spirit. These are motions which of themselves, and therefore in every instance, tend to build up or to tear down the Christ-life in us. Their unvarying thrust is toward having a beneficial or harmful influence on faith, hope, charity, prayer, personal relationships, apostolic work, decisions that give direction to our life as Christians, and the like. [...]
[38] [These motions] are such that, if they are accepted and allowed to work or are cooperated with, they will inevitably have such effects; but they do not necessarily, of themselves, have an actual constructive or destructive effect. Those which of themselves tend to a destructive effect can be resisted and become the occasion of actual spiritual growth. Those which of themselves tend to have a constructive effect can be ignored, resisted, or even misused, and so be the occasion for sin and regression in Christian life. What effect they actually have depends on what we do with them. No person who experiences them is worthy of praise or condemnation only for having had one or other of them. "I am not going to be saved," Ignatius writes elsewhere in reference to these motions, "because of the good works of the good angels"—that is, because of the good motions they prompt in me—"and I am not going to be condemned because of the evil thoughts and the weaknesses the bad angels, the flesh, and the world bring before my mind" (Letter of Sept. 11, 1536 to Sister Teresa Rejadell). [...]
[40] Understanding a motion comprises [41] at least three things. First, we recognize the characteristic features by which it is distinguished from other motions. Second, we see the direction in which it of itself points or leads us, its likely or actually effected consequences. Third, we know its origin. In a spiritual understanding, we recognize those features which distinguish spiritually significant motions from others; and among the former, we distinguish one sort from another. We see the good or evil consequences for a Christian life to which the motion of itself tends; and from these two elements of spiritual understanding, we infer the good or evil origin.
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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 37–38, 40–41.
[38] [These motions] are such that, if they are accepted and allowed to work or are cooperated with, they will inevitably have such effects; but they do not necessarily, of themselves, have an actual constructive or destructive effect. Those which of themselves tend to a destructive effect can be resisted and become the occasion of actual spiritual growth. Those which of themselves tend to have a constructive effect can be ignored, resisted, or even misused, and so be the occasion for sin and regression in Christian life. What effect they actually have depends on what we do with them. No person who experiences them is worthy of praise or condemnation only for having had one or other of them. "I am not going to be saved," Ignatius writes elsewhere in reference to these motions, "because of the good works of the good angels"—that is, because of the good motions they prompt in me—"and I am not going to be condemned because of the evil thoughts and the weaknesses the bad angels, the flesh, and the world bring before my mind" (Letter of Sept. 11, 1536 to Sister Teresa Rejadell). [...]
[40] Understanding a motion comprises [41] at least three things. First, we recognize the characteristic features by which it is distinguished from other motions. Second, we see the direction in which it of itself points or leads us, its likely or actually effected consequences. Third, we know its origin. In a spiritual understanding, we recognize those features which distinguish spiritually significant motions from others; and among the former, we distinguish one sort from another. We see the good or evil consequences for a Christian life to which the motion of itself tends; and from these two elements of spiritual understanding, we infer the good or evil origin.
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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 37–38, 40–41.
The Astounding Truth of God's Relationship with Us
Ignatius shows no hesitancy in accepting in its fullness the central truth of Christian faith and all its consequences—unlike most of us who, if not in theory, at least in practice, are hesitant to accept the full astounding truth. If God so loves us as to send his Beloved, Jesus Christ, to be one with us in the flesh; to be a sacrifice for our sins; to give us all that the Father gave him, his life, his truth, his love, his joy, his glory; to give us his body to eat, his blood to drink; to give us the Holy Spirit who makes us children of God in Christ, who lives in us, enlightens us about Jesus and his teachings, pours out God's agape, defends and cherishes the Christ-life in us—if God so loves us as to do all this, then after that there is no problem in believing that God is constantly attending to each of his children, calling each of them by name, speaking to them, listening to them, sometimes in extraordinary ways but usually through the ordinary motions of their own minds and hearts, and giving them power to discover when it is he who is speaking and what he is saying. Given what a Christian is called to believe about his relationship with God, is it not surprising to our way of thinking that God does not speak and act in our lives even more obviously than Ignatius, with all genuine Christian tradition, has said he does?
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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 32.
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Source: Fr. Jules J. Toner, S.J., A Commentary on Saint Ignatius' Rules for the Discernment of Spirits: A Guide to the Principles and Practice (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1982), 32.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Fray Deigo de Yepes on the Light of God in the Saint
Among the depositions of the processes for St. Teresa's canonization, Fray Deigo de Yepes, confessor and member of her traveling party, gives an account of how she received the idea of this approach to prayer growth from God Himself.
Source: Deigo de Yepes, Depositions, p. 70, in Thomas Dubay, Fire Within (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1989), 79.
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This quotation from Fr. Diego suggests that the mystical experience that occurs interiorly cannot be shared outside of the individual; its existence is known only by its effects in the behavior of the mystic. Hence the light experienced within shines out by way of charity towards one's neighbor.
She [St. Teresa of Avila] was asked to write a treatise on prayer as she knew it from her own experience. On the eve of Holy Trinity when she was wondering what theme to take for her treatise, God gave it to her by showing her a very beautiful globe of crystal like a castle with seven concentric dwellings. The seventh which was in the centre [sic] was the King of Glory in great splendour [sic] who lit up and adorned all the dwellings as far as the outer ring. The nearer the centre the greater the light. This light did not shine beyond the outer ring.---
Source: Deigo de Yepes, Depositions, p. 70, in Thomas Dubay, Fire Within (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1989), 79.
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This quotation from Fr. Diego suggests that the mystical experience that occurs interiorly cannot be shared outside of the individual; its existence is known only by its effects in the behavior of the mystic. Hence the light experienced within shines out by way of charity towards one's neighbor.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange on the One Thing Necessary
[4] As soon as a man seriously seeks truth and goodness, this intimate [interior] conversation with himself tends to become conversation with God. Little by little, instead of seeking himself in everything, instead of tending more or less consciously to make himself a center, man tends to seek God in everything, and to substitute for egoism love of God and of souls in Him. This constitutes the interior life. No sincere man will have any difficulty in recognizing it. The one thing necessary which Jesus spoke of to Martha and Mary (Luke 10:42) consists in hearing the word of God and living by it.
The interior life [...] is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. [...]
[The] interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. [...]
There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in purgatory. No one enters heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every [5] sin, though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into purgatory to be purified.
The interior life of a just man who tends toward God and who already lives by Him is indeed the one thing necessary. To be a saint, neither intellectual culture nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. [...] If people sacrifice so many things to save the life of the body, which must ultimately die, what should we not sacrifice to save the life of our soul, which is to last forever? Ought not man to love his soul more than his body? "Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?" our Lord adds (Matt. 16:26). "One thing is necessary," He tells us (Luke 10:42). To save our soul, one thing alone is necessary: to hear the word of God and to live by it. Therein lies the best part, which will not be taken away from a faithful soul even though it should lose everything else.
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Source: Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. by M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989), 4–5.
The interior life [...] is something far more profound and more necessary in us than intellectual life or the cultivation of the sciences, than artistic or literary life, than social or political life. [...]
[The] interior life, or the life of the soul with God, well deserves to be called the one thing necessary, since by it we tend to our last end and assure our salvation. [...]
There are those who seem to think that it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint. It is clearly not necessary to be a saint who performs miracles and whose sanctity is officially recognized by the Church. To be saved, we must take the way of salvation, which is identical with that of sanctity. There will be only saints in heaven, whether they enter there immediately after death or after purification in purgatory. No one enters heaven unless he has that sanctity which consists in perfect purity of soul. Every [5] sin, though it should be venial, must be effaced, and the punishment due to sin must be borne or remitted, in order that a soul may enjoy forever the vision of God, see Him as He sees Himself, and love Him as He loves Himself. Should a soul enter heaven before the total remission of its sins, it could not remain there and it would cast itself into purgatory to be purified.
The interior life of a just man who tends toward God and who already lives by Him is indeed the one thing necessary. To be a saint, neither intellectual culture nor great exterior activity is a requisite; it suffices that we live profoundly by God. [...] If people sacrifice so many things to save the life of the body, which must ultimately die, what should we not sacrifice to save the life of our soul, which is to last forever? Ought not man to love his soul more than his body? "Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?" our Lord adds (Matt. 16:26). "One thing is necessary," He tells us (Luke 10:42). To save our soul, one thing alone is necessary: to hear the word of God and to live by it. Therein lies the best part, which will not be taken away from a faithful soul even though it should lose everything else.
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Source: Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. by M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989), 4–5.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Distinction: Looking At and Looking Into
Relevant to modesty, there are two kinds of looking. First is looking at and second is looking into.
We look at a body when a body draws attention to itself in order to arouse desire. Of course, bodies cannot do anything by themselves but are controlled by people. It would be more accurate to say that a person draws attention to his or her own body in order to arouse desire. Lust is looking at bodies with such a desire and to arouse further such desire.
The desire in turn creates a fantasy in which the desire can be ultimately satiated although this satiation sometimes can even take the form of endlessly building up desire rather than releasing it. The fantasy focuses on the body, but its underlying mechanism and energy is found in desire.
The basic reason for creating this desire through the body is narcissism, and the root of narcissism is a lack of love. Love (as a noun) is a state of wholeness and integrity by which a person can live harmoniously according to the nature of his own being as a person—a substance who gives and receives of itself in relation to other beings. In order to reach this state, a person must first be loved (as a verb), and in the process of receiving love, the person is filled with love and can give it to others. When this love is lacking, the person lives on the verge of death, creating fear and despair.
Unable to withstand the pain of this proximity to death, the person seeks to create desire in the hopes that someone may love him. But the fatal mistake is made by drawing attention not to the deficient and suffering person, but to the body. The body, which becomes a vehicle of attention, the hook with a worm to drawn in fish, suddenly and paradoxically becomes its own end. Everything goes wrong. Instead of desiring the person, an attracted person desires only the body of the person that is doing the attracting. And the attracting person, forgetting or not knowing that he is seeking love and not merely the attention of another, mistakes that attention for love itself and thus finds ways to bolster the attraction of the body. Love is confused for attention, which is only the first step on the way to giving love (for we can love only what we actively attend to).
As for those who look at the body, because they remain fixated on the body and the fantasy—the image—, they cannot descend deeper into their soul and hence they either have no interior life other than the imagination or whatever interiority is present is quickly stifled. This is why the Desert Fathers noted that lust or sins of the flesh in general were one of the quickest ways of totally destroying the spiritual life and leading to what they called a distaste for prayer.
I would also note that looking at may also apply not only to bodies but to other creatures and things. Any-thing that is physical or at least can be visualized in some way and made the object of a fantasy can become an object looked at. Reading, watching movies, and all sorts of activities. Here, however, we shift from merely looking at and remaining on the surface to a slightly different but related notion of where one's attention is placed. When attention is not placed on the interior life, then the interior life is stifled. Hence attention has always been a necessary condition for effective prayer according to the formula that God does not listen to those who do not listen to themselves while praying.
But, on the other hand, we look into a soul and through the body when we exercise purity of heart. Purity of heart is the constant realization of and clinging to what is true and what is false in matters of true love. By doing so, the attention can never remain on the body because it sees the futility of doing so. Rather the person looks through the body to the soul and sees the truth. What truth is seen? Ultimately, purity sees the truth that most people defile purity, even by those who claim to uphold it.
Immodest dress always reveals an impure soul. A pure soul is not fooled by narcissism and thus would never dress narcissistically. Even if the immodest person is unaware of the mechanisms of immodesty and narcissism at work, that doesn't mean that those mechanisms are not in fact at play.
A person who draws attention specifically to the body cannot have an interior life beyond the imaginative realm for the very reason that the attention remains on the physical surface in order to produce a fantasy. Even those who focus intemperately on a certain spiritual faculty, such as the intellect or imagination, by being over-studious, for example, typically give little attention to the body and hence draw little attention. Although body and soul are not opposed in goodness, for both by being manifestations of being are intrinsically good, immodesty draws attention to the body to the neglect of the interior soul as well as the distraction of the will and desires away from the interior, where God is, to the exterior, where the fantasy thrives. Hence anyone who encourages this psychological-spiritual activity, whether consciously or not, is revealing a lack of interiority. If the activity is unconscious, as in many cases it seems to be, then the reason may firstly be due to ignorance and a lack of self-reflection, which would quickly reveal the emotional traps that a person has been going through, say in abusive relationships.
Just as grace can overflow to the body and have sanctifying effects on it—for this reason do we venerate the relics of Saints because in doing so, we can "touch" God in a way distantly similar to how we receive Christ in the Eucharist [1]—so too sin can have vicious effects on the body. There are some who are so depraved that one can see the emptiness of sin in their faces and eyes.
Nevertheless, modest dress does not necessarily reveal a pure soul. Attention to the externals of dress may be due not because of intrinsic purity but because of adherence to rules, a sense of duty, or the fear of punishment (and many other circumstances around the decision to dress modestly). A person can still obey the law even if they do not desire or appreciate the law or its deepest spirit and sentiments. Thus the law of purity demands modest dress, but the reason for this demand may be completely unapparent to a modestly-dressed person.
But what about those who know that and why the law of purity demands modesty and nevertheless are still impure? The only remaining possibilities are either weakness or malice in their character. And sometimes weakness can give way to malice and vice versa.
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Footnotes:
1. Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want To See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 30: "The transforming union extends its influence too over the sense powers and even radiates out to the body.... The body itself is sanctified by the radiation of grace; it is by virtue of this that it is honored in the case of the saints, and that God Himself sometimes glorifies it even here below."
We look at a body when a body draws attention to itself in order to arouse desire. Of course, bodies cannot do anything by themselves but are controlled by people. It would be more accurate to say that a person draws attention to his or her own body in order to arouse desire. Lust is looking at bodies with such a desire and to arouse further such desire.
The desire in turn creates a fantasy in which the desire can be ultimately satiated although this satiation sometimes can even take the form of endlessly building up desire rather than releasing it. The fantasy focuses on the body, but its underlying mechanism and energy is found in desire.
The basic reason for creating this desire through the body is narcissism, and the root of narcissism is a lack of love. Love (as a noun) is a state of wholeness and integrity by which a person can live harmoniously according to the nature of his own being as a person—a substance who gives and receives of itself in relation to other beings. In order to reach this state, a person must first be loved (as a verb), and in the process of receiving love, the person is filled with love and can give it to others. When this love is lacking, the person lives on the verge of death, creating fear and despair.
Unable to withstand the pain of this proximity to death, the person seeks to create desire in the hopes that someone may love him. But the fatal mistake is made by drawing attention not to the deficient and suffering person, but to the body. The body, which becomes a vehicle of attention, the hook with a worm to drawn in fish, suddenly and paradoxically becomes its own end. Everything goes wrong. Instead of desiring the person, an attracted person desires only the body of the person that is doing the attracting. And the attracting person, forgetting or not knowing that he is seeking love and not merely the attention of another, mistakes that attention for love itself and thus finds ways to bolster the attraction of the body. Love is confused for attention, which is only the first step on the way to giving love (for we can love only what we actively attend to).
As for those who look at the body, because they remain fixated on the body and the fantasy—the image—, they cannot descend deeper into their soul and hence they either have no interior life other than the imagination or whatever interiority is present is quickly stifled. This is why the Desert Fathers noted that lust or sins of the flesh in general were one of the quickest ways of totally destroying the spiritual life and leading to what they called a distaste for prayer.
I would also note that looking at may also apply not only to bodies but to other creatures and things. Any-thing that is physical or at least can be visualized in some way and made the object of a fantasy can become an object looked at. Reading, watching movies, and all sorts of activities. Here, however, we shift from merely looking at and remaining on the surface to a slightly different but related notion of where one's attention is placed. When attention is not placed on the interior life, then the interior life is stifled. Hence attention has always been a necessary condition for effective prayer according to the formula that God does not listen to those who do not listen to themselves while praying.
But, on the other hand, we look into a soul and through the body when we exercise purity of heart. Purity of heart is the constant realization of and clinging to what is true and what is false in matters of true love. By doing so, the attention can never remain on the body because it sees the futility of doing so. Rather the person looks through the body to the soul and sees the truth. What truth is seen? Ultimately, purity sees the truth that most people defile purity, even by those who claim to uphold it.
Immodest dress always reveals an impure soul. A pure soul is not fooled by narcissism and thus would never dress narcissistically. Even if the immodest person is unaware of the mechanisms of immodesty and narcissism at work, that doesn't mean that those mechanisms are not in fact at play.
A person who draws attention specifically to the body cannot have an interior life beyond the imaginative realm for the very reason that the attention remains on the physical surface in order to produce a fantasy. Even those who focus intemperately on a certain spiritual faculty, such as the intellect or imagination, by being over-studious, for example, typically give little attention to the body and hence draw little attention. Although body and soul are not opposed in goodness, for both by being manifestations of being are intrinsically good, immodesty draws attention to the body to the neglect of the interior soul as well as the distraction of the will and desires away from the interior, where God is, to the exterior, where the fantasy thrives. Hence anyone who encourages this psychological-spiritual activity, whether consciously or not, is revealing a lack of interiority. If the activity is unconscious, as in many cases it seems to be, then the reason may firstly be due to ignorance and a lack of self-reflection, which would quickly reveal the emotional traps that a person has been going through, say in abusive relationships.
Just as grace can overflow to the body and have sanctifying effects on it—for this reason do we venerate the relics of Saints because in doing so, we can "touch" God in a way distantly similar to how we receive Christ in the Eucharist [1]—so too sin can have vicious effects on the body. There are some who are so depraved that one can see the emptiness of sin in their faces and eyes.
Nevertheless, modest dress does not necessarily reveal a pure soul. Attention to the externals of dress may be due not because of intrinsic purity but because of adherence to rules, a sense of duty, or the fear of punishment (and many other circumstances around the decision to dress modestly). A person can still obey the law even if they do not desire or appreciate the law or its deepest spirit and sentiments. Thus the law of purity demands modest dress, but the reason for this demand may be completely unapparent to a modestly-dressed person.
But what about those who know that and why the law of purity demands modesty and nevertheless are still impure? The only remaining possibilities are either weakness or malice in their character. And sometimes weakness can give way to malice and vice versa.
---
Footnotes:
1. Fr. Marie-Eugène, I Want To See God, trans. by M. Verda Clare (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1953), 30: "The transforming union extends its influence too over the sense powers and even radiates out to the body.... The body itself is sanctified by the radiation of grace; it is by virtue of this that it is honored in the case of the saints, and that God Himself sometimes glorifies it even here below."
Monday, February 3, 2014
Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez on Preparing for the Apostolate
It is certain that to be in a state to labor profitably for the advancement of our neighbor, we ought first of all to have labored for our own; and it is this the apostle recommends to us in the first place as the foundation for all the rest, when he says, attend to thyself (1 Tim. 4:16). Each one ought first of all to attend to himself, and seriously apply himself to his particular advancement. For God, who is the author of grace as well as of nature, who reacheth from end to end mightily, and disposeth all things sweetly (Wisdom 8:1), keeps the same order in the works of grace as he does in those of nature, wherein (to speak philosophically) every like produces its like. Since then in natural things, we see that besides the general causes of their production, there ought to be also a near and immediate cause, and of the same species, to give to each being that particular form which it ought to have that there ought to be fire, for example, to produce another fire; and light, to produce another light; so in spiritual things, it is God's pleasure that to produce patience, charity, and humility, in a heart, the preacher or confessor, who is the immediate cause he makes use of, should be humble, patient, and charitable. Moreover, as in natural things, we see, for example, that a plant produces no seed for the multiplication of its own species, till it be grown great; so in things of grace, God will have us be great in virtue and spirituality, to bring forth spiritual children, and to be able to say with the apostle, by means of the gospel I have begotten you in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 4:15). [...]
St. Ephraim deplores this abuse [of rushing into the apostolate before developing personal holiness], and says it is a sentiment that springs not from the spirit of God, but from the spirit of presumption and pride. They would begin, says he, to teach before they know anything themselves. They would intrude themselves to give laws and rules to others, before they have learned the law or rules themselves; they would take upon them to give their opinion in everything, before they have, begun to spell; and before they are capable of receiving correction, they take upon them to correct others. St. Gregory, speaking of those who are guilty of this fault, treats this subject perfectly well; and to render things more sensible, he makes use of some familiar comparisons. Such persons as these, says he, ought to be admonished to consider, that little birds, who would fly before their wings are fully feathered, fall upon the ground, instead of flying in the air. Likewise when a wall is fresh and new made, if the roof is put upon it, it rather destroys than makes a building [...] (3p. Pastor. adm. 26).
The employments that regard the help of our neighbor require a great fund of virtue and mortification. If without this you engage herein, you will have more reason to fear than to hope; and you will rather imbibe the spirit and sentiments of the world, than the world will imbibe yours. The same St. Gregory therefore observes, that though Jesus Christ, the eternal wisdom of the Father, was infinitely wise from the first moment of his conception, yet he began not to teach others till he was thirty years of age, and till he had prepared himself for it, by his retreat in the desert, by forty days fast, and many other austerities. It is not that he stood in need, says this great saint, of any preparation; but he would teach us by his own example, how great preparation and perfection is required for so great a ministry. Also when he was twelve years of age, when he stayed in Jerusalem, and his parents went there to seek him, they found him in the temple in the midst of the doctors, disputing with them. And hence, continues this father, those that are still weak and infants in virtue, ought to learn not to meddle with teaching of others, nor intrude themselves before their time into so sublime a ministry; since Jesus Christ himself would, at the age of twelve years, be instructed by those whose master he himself was; and was contented to hear and to ask them questions, though it was he who inspired them with all the light and knowledge they had to answer him. It was also for this reason, says the same saint, that Jesus Christ having commanded his apostles to go and preach the gospel throughout the whole world; and having then the power to give them grace necessary for this end, yet he would not do it, nor permit them, in the weak and imperfect state they were, to go and preach his word, but commanded them, saying, go into the town, and remain there till ye shall be replenished with the virtue of the Holy Ghost. And this he did to let us see, that we ought to be very well grounded in humility, mortification, and all other virtues, in order that the employments which engage us to treat with our neighbor may be profitable for their salvation, without being prejudicial to our own.
St. Bernard upon this subject makes use of these words of the Canticles, our sister is little, and as yet has not any breasts (Cant. 8:8), and applying them to the state of the church before the descent of the Holy Ghost, he says: The church was then very little, and at that time had neither breasts nor milk to nourish its spiritual children; but when the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles, he replenished them with milk and with his gifts and graces. All were filled with the Holy Ghost, says the scripture, and they began to announce in different languages, the wonderful works of God (Acts 2:4), and to work conversions without number. If you would therefore produce fruit in souls, and raise spiritual children to God, you ought to have your breasts full of milk: one of them ought to be filled with the milk of all the virtues, and the other will the milk of pure and wholesome doctrine.
St. Jerome explaining these words, when the clouds shall be filled, they shall pour down rain upon the earth in abundance (Eccl. 11:3), says, that the preachers of the word of God are clouds; and that as the clouds water the earth when they are full of rain, so when preachers are full of the wholesome water of evangelical doctrine, they water the hearts of men. [...] When therefore these clouds shall be full of the celestial rain of grace, they may let the earth hear the words of my mouth, let my doctrine be poured down like rain, let my discourse fall like dew; let it be like rain upon the grass, and as drops of water upon the meadows (Deut. 32:1). It is then they will be able to render the earth fruitful. Then they will be able to soften and temper the dryness of men's hearts, and render them capable of producing the fruits of justice and salvation.
But if these clouds have no water, what will happen? Would you know? Behold what St. Jude in his canonical epistle says: They are clouds without water, which the winds drive every way (Jude 12). So that as the clouds which are not full of water, are easily carried by the wind from one side to the other, because of their great lightness; even so, if a preacher be not full of the spirit of humility and mortification, if he be not filled with all sorts of virtue, he will infallibly be carried from one side to the other with the wind of vainglory and self-love; and this quality of an evangelical preacher, this quality of the cloud, which is raised above the earth, will serve him for nothing else than to make him be the more easily turned, and tossed up and down by all sorts of winds. [...]
St. Bernard, writing upon these words of the Canticles, your name is like oil spread abroad (Cant. 1:2), treats this matter perfectly well. He says that the Holy Ghost works two things in us: the one, by which he first establishes us in virtue for our own advancement, he calls infusion; the other, by which he communicates to us his gifts and graces, for the profit and advantage of our neighbor, he calls effusion, or pouring forth; because it is a grace that is given us to bestow upon others. Now this infusion, he says, ought to precede the effusion. We ought first be well filled with virtue, before we can fill others therewith. And hereupon he makes a comparison, which explains his thoughts very well. He says, there is this difference between a channel, or pipe that serves to conduct the water from a fountain, and the basin that receives it; that the channel receives and renders the water at the same time without retaining anything of it; whereas, the basin first fills itself, and afterwards the superfluous water runs over; which it cannot do, without still keeping itself full. You will do very wisely then, says he, to become like the basin, and not like the channel (Serm. 78 supr. Cant.); and that you may not contemn this counsel, continues the saint, as coming from myself, know that it is not I, but the Holy Ghost that gives it: A fool uttereth all his mind; a wise man deferreth, and keeps it till afterwards (Prov. 29:11). [...]
[So many souls] wish to lead and help others, and know not at all how to help themselves. There is a great deal of folly and no charity at all in this, because there is no degree of charity above that which the wise man advises us to have for ourselves, when he says, take pity on your own soul, by rendering it pleasing to God (Eccl. 30:24). [...]
Let my soul, says the prophet, be filled with exquisite and delicious meat; and then, O Lord, my mouth shall sing hymns of joy and thanksgiving (Ps. 62:6). Our hearts therefore ought first be filled, that it may be from the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks [....]
St. Augustine, explaining these words of our Savior in the gospel, you are the light of the world (Mt. 5:14), says, that light contracts no uncleanness by passing through foul places (Tract. 4, supr. Joan.), but on the contrary, that it purifies them, and chases away their bad smell, without receiving any impression thereof in itself. It is in this manner that our light ought to make manifest the sins of the world, and penetrate their filth, without contracting any corruption from them.
It is thus that it ought to purify the hearts of sinners, and drive away the bad exhalations of vice. But to do this, we ought to have a great application to our spiritual exercises, to prayer, examens, spiritual reading, penance, and mortification. Above all, we must never neglect our prayer, which each of us is obliged daily to make for our spiritual progress. This is a thing of which we cannot take too much care; because the devil, who perceives that he cannot hinder us from laboring form the advancement of our neighbor, as we are particularly obliged thereunto [...], endeavors to make us apply ourselves so to it that we come at length to forget the care of our own, and to neglect the means necessary for it. [...] So that the greater affairs we have in that way, the more we ought to give ourselves to prayer, to obtain of God a blessing upon our ministry, and to make it succeed. It was thus the saints arranged matters. [...]
Jesus Christ himself has also given us an example of this practice, by withdrawing himself to mountains and retired places, and there passing whole nights in prayer. He employed the day in preaching [...], in healing [...], in casting out devils; and as the gospel says, he passed the whole night in prayer to God. He did this, as St. Ambrose very well takes notice, not because he stood in need of the help of prayer, but that he might hereby give us an example of what we ought to do. [...]
Albert the Great was wont to say that in divine sciences, a greater advancement was made by piety and prayer than by study. [...] It is also by this means that St. Thomas, who studied under him, became so learned and enlightened; and it was this that made him say, that for all he knew he was more indebted to prayer than to his own labor or studies. We read also of St. Bonaventure, that when he taught divinity at Paris, with a great deal of reputation, and when by his works he attracted to himself the esteem and admiration of all the world, St. Thomas [Aquinas], going one day to see him, begged of him to show him those books he made use of for his studies. Whereupon [St. Bonaventure showed St. Thomas] his oratory, upon which he had a crucifix. Behold, father, says he, all my books; and behold the chief books from which I derive all I teach and all I write; and it is by casting myself at the feet of this crucifix—it is by supplicating light in my doubts, it is by assisting at mass, that I have made greater progress in sciences, and that I have gained more true knowledge, than by the reading of any books whatsoever.
---
Source: Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez, The Practice of Christian Perfection, vol. 3, tr. 1, ch. 4-5, pp. 9-15.
St. Ephraim deplores this abuse [of rushing into the apostolate before developing personal holiness], and says it is a sentiment that springs not from the spirit of God, but from the spirit of presumption and pride. They would begin, says he, to teach before they know anything themselves. They would intrude themselves to give laws and rules to others, before they have learned the law or rules themselves; they would take upon them to give their opinion in everything, before they have, begun to spell; and before they are capable of receiving correction, they take upon them to correct others. St. Gregory, speaking of those who are guilty of this fault, treats this subject perfectly well; and to render things more sensible, he makes use of some familiar comparisons. Such persons as these, says he, ought to be admonished to consider, that little birds, who would fly before their wings are fully feathered, fall upon the ground, instead of flying in the air. Likewise when a wall is fresh and new made, if the roof is put upon it, it rather destroys than makes a building [...] (3p. Pastor. adm. 26).
The employments that regard the help of our neighbor require a great fund of virtue and mortification. If without this you engage herein, you will have more reason to fear than to hope; and you will rather imbibe the spirit and sentiments of the world, than the world will imbibe yours. The same St. Gregory therefore observes, that though Jesus Christ, the eternal wisdom of the Father, was infinitely wise from the first moment of his conception, yet he began not to teach others till he was thirty years of age, and till he had prepared himself for it, by his retreat in the desert, by forty days fast, and many other austerities. It is not that he stood in need, says this great saint, of any preparation; but he would teach us by his own example, how great preparation and perfection is required for so great a ministry. Also when he was twelve years of age, when he stayed in Jerusalem, and his parents went there to seek him, they found him in the temple in the midst of the doctors, disputing with them. And hence, continues this father, those that are still weak and infants in virtue, ought to learn not to meddle with teaching of others, nor intrude themselves before their time into so sublime a ministry; since Jesus Christ himself would, at the age of twelve years, be instructed by those whose master he himself was; and was contented to hear and to ask them questions, though it was he who inspired them with all the light and knowledge they had to answer him. It was also for this reason, says the same saint, that Jesus Christ having commanded his apostles to go and preach the gospel throughout the whole world; and having then the power to give them grace necessary for this end, yet he would not do it, nor permit them, in the weak and imperfect state they were, to go and preach his word, but commanded them, saying, go into the town, and remain there till ye shall be replenished with the virtue of the Holy Ghost. And this he did to let us see, that we ought to be very well grounded in humility, mortification, and all other virtues, in order that the employments which engage us to treat with our neighbor may be profitable for their salvation, without being prejudicial to our own.
St. Bernard upon this subject makes use of these words of the Canticles, our sister is little, and as yet has not any breasts (Cant. 8:8), and applying them to the state of the church before the descent of the Holy Ghost, he says: The church was then very little, and at that time had neither breasts nor milk to nourish its spiritual children; but when the Holy Ghost descended upon the apostles, he replenished them with milk and with his gifts and graces. All were filled with the Holy Ghost, says the scripture, and they began to announce in different languages, the wonderful works of God (Acts 2:4), and to work conversions without number. If you would therefore produce fruit in souls, and raise spiritual children to God, you ought to have your breasts full of milk: one of them ought to be filled with the milk of all the virtues, and the other will the milk of pure and wholesome doctrine.
St. Jerome explaining these words, when the clouds shall be filled, they shall pour down rain upon the earth in abundance (Eccl. 11:3), says, that the preachers of the word of God are clouds; and that as the clouds water the earth when they are full of rain, so when preachers are full of the wholesome water of evangelical doctrine, they water the hearts of men. [...] When therefore these clouds shall be full of the celestial rain of grace, they may let the earth hear the words of my mouth, let my doctrine be poured down like rain, let my discourse fall like dew; let it be like rain upon the grass, and as drops of water upon the meadows (Deut. 32:1). It is then they will be able to render the earth fruitful. Then they will be able to soften and temper the dryness of men's hearts, and render them capable of producing the fruits of justice and salvation.
But if these clouds have no water, what will happen? Would you know? Behold what St. Jude in his canonical epistle says: They are clouds without water, which the winds drive every way (Jude 12). So that as the clouds which are not full of water, are easily carried by the wind from one side to the other, because of their great lightness; even so, if a preacher be not full of the spirit of humility and mortification, if he be not filled with all sorts of virtue, he will infallibly be carried from one side to the other with the wind of vainglory and self-love; and this quality of an evangelical preacher, this quality of the cloud, which is raised above the earth, will serve him for nothing else than to make him be the more easily turned, and tossed up and down by all sorts of winds. [...]
St. Bernard, writing upon these words of the Canticles, your name is like oil spread abroad (Cant. 1:2), treats this matter perfectly well. He says that the Holy Ghost works two things in us: the one, by which he first establishes us in virtue for our own advancement, he calls infusion; the other, by which he communicates to us his gifts and graces, for the profit and advantage of our neighbor, he calls effusion, or pouring forth; because it is a grace that is given us to bestow upon others. Now this infusion, he says, ought to precede the effusion. We ought first be well filled with virtue, before we can fill others therewith. And hereupon he makes a comparison, which explains his thoughts very well. He says, there is this difference between a channel, or pipe that serves to conduct the water from a fountain, and the basin that receives it; that the channel receives and renders the water at the same time without retaining anything of it; whereas, the basin first fills itself, and afterwards the superfluous water runs over; which it cannot do, without still keeping itself full. You will do very wisely then, says he, to become like the basin, and not like the channel (Serm. 78 supr. Cant.); and that you may not contemn this counsel, continues the saint, as coming from myself, know that it is not I, but the Holy Ghost that gives it: A fool uttereth all his mind; a wise man deferreth, and keeps it till afterwards (Prov. 29:11). [...]
[So many souls] wish to lead and help others, and know not at all how to help themselves. There is a great deal of folly and no charity at all in this, because there is no degree of charity above that which the wise man advises us to have for ourselves, when he says, take pity on your own soul, by rendering it pleasing to God (Eccl. 30:24). [...]
Let my soul, says the prophet, be filled with exquisite and delicious meat; and then, O Lord, my mouth shall sing hymns of joy and thanksgiving (Ps. 62:6). Our hearts therefore ought first be filled, that it may be from the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks [....]
St. Augustine, explaining these words of our Savior in the gospel, you are the light of the world (Mt. 5:14), says, that light contracts no uncleanness by passing through foul places (Tract. 4, supr. Joan.), but on the contrary, that it purifies them, and chases away their bad smell, without receiving any impression thereof in itself. It is in this manner that our light ought to make manifest the sins of the world, and penetrate their filth, without contracting any corruption from them.
It is thus that it ought to purify the hearts of sinners, and drive away the bad exhalations of vice. But to do this, we ought to have a great application to our spiritual exercises, to prayer, examens, spiritual reading, penance, and mortification. Above all, we must never neglect our prayer, which each of us is obliged daily to make for our spiritual progress. This is a thing of which we cannot take too much care; because the devil, who perceives that he cannot hinder us from laboring form the advancement of our neighbor, as we are particularly obliged thereunto [...], endeavors to make us apply ourselves so to it that we come at length to forget the care of our own, and to neglect the means necessary for it. [...] So that the greater affairs we have in that way, the more we ought to give ourselves to prayer, to obtain of God a blessing upon our ministry, and to make it succeed. It was thus the saints arranged matters. [...]
Jesus Christ himself has also given us an example of this practice, by withdrawing himself to mountains and retired places, and there passing whole nights in prayer. He employed the day in preaching [...], in healing [...], in casting out devils; and as the gospel says, he passed the whole night in prayer to God. He did this, as St. Ambrose very well takes notice, not because he stood in need of the help of prayer, but that he might hereby give us an example of what we ought to do. [...]
Albert the Great was wont to say that in divine sciences, a greater advancement was made by piety and prayer than by study. [...] It is also by this means that St. Thomas, who studied under him, became so learned and enlightened; and it was this that made him say, that for all he knew he was more indebted to prayer than to his own labor or studies. We read also of St. Bonaventure, that when he taught divinity at Paris, with a great deal of reputation, and when by his works he attracted to himself the esteem and admiration of all the world, St. Thomas [Aquinas], going one day to see him, begged of him to show him those books he made use of for his studies. Whereupon [St. Bonaventure showed St. Thomas] his oratory, upon which he had a crucifix. Behold, father, says he, all my books; and behold the chief books from which I derive all I teach and all I write; and it is by casting myself at the feet of this crucifix—it is by supplicating light in my doubts, it is by assisting at mass, that I have made greater progress in sciences, and that I have gained more true knowledge, than by the reading of any books whatsoever.
---
Source: Fr. Alphonsus Rodriguez, The Practice of Christian Perfection, vol. 3, tr. 1, ch. 4-5, pp. 9-15.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Fr. Jordan Aumann on Sanctification Through Action
A [...] source of confusion possible is the identification of 'life' with 'action'. The second in ordinary speech almost invariably means transitive action. The first, in turn, suggests vital operations, understood generally as external actions, even if the scholastic definition of life does insist that it is immanent activity. From such usage arise such expressions as 'formation through action' or the 'spirituality of action'. Should 'action' here be understood as exterior activity sufficient to itself as a form of 'life', without an interior source, then we have the 'heresy of action', referred to by Pope Pius XII (Letter to the Superior General of the Jesuits, June 16, 1944; cf. Documentation Catholique XIII, p. 7). Taken in this way, these expressions would even be inaccurate philosophically; external action receives a properly human value from interiority, from the immanent operations of life. On a truly human level the active life can never mean merely the execution of external activity, but necessarily involves the acts of mind and will, immanent activities. [...]
The phrase 'sanctification through action' is apt if certain qualifications are kept in mind. The first, that it be understood in the context of an accurate concept of the virtue of charity. In recent times there has been a tendency to exaggerate the love of neighbour [sic] to the point of an erroneous theology. This is a logical sequel to the identification of life with action, action with transitive action and charity with transitive action. Some have gone so far as to prefer to call charity by the name 'service'. This is to ignore the truth: charity's specifying objective is God himself, it is a theological virtue uniting us to God's lovable goodness in our love of him, self and neighbour.
As a result the 'disinterestedness' of charity is confused. Not all disinterested love of others is charity. Nor is the disinterestedness of charity itself such that it excludes love for God from love of neighbour. The contrary is, of course, true. It is love of God that makes love of neighbour charity at all. Any other concept of love of neighbour would reduce the apostolate to a level of mere philanthropy or social work, and have serious consequences upon the theology of the spiritual life.
The command of charity is that a man must love God with all his heart and soul and strength and his neighbour as himself (Luke 10, 27). Charity's objectives are, then, God, self, neighbour. This is why in repeated papal teaching there has been insistence upon apostolic works being performed with personal sanctification as preparation and source. It is not external activities themselves that sanctify a person, but the intensity of love for God with which they are done. The measure of holiness always remains the intensity of charity. And charity itself is intensified in the sense of being more deeply rooted in the person's will; this comes about through its own immanent activity. An intensification of charity's own immanent activity is not opposed to the work of the active life. Rather it is the indispensable prerequisite. In fact there can only be a true intensification of the love of neighbour, thus of a true apostolate, where there is an intensification of the love of God. The love of God is the motive for the love of neighbour.
---
Source: Fr. Jordan Aumann, "Appendix 6: Action and the Interior Life," in Summa Theologiæ: Volume 46: Action and Contemplation, trans. by Jordan Aumann (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1966), 117-119.
The phrase 'sanctification through action' is apt if certain qualifications are kept in mind. The first, that it be understood in the context of an accurate concept of the virtue of charity. In recent times there has been a tendency to exaggerate the love of neighbour [sic] to the point of an erroneous theology. This is a logical sequel to the identification of life with action, action with transitive action and charity with transitive action. Some have gone so far as to prefer to call charity by the name 'service'. This is to ignore the truth: charity's specifying objective is God himself, it is a theological virtue uniting us to God's lovable goodness in our love of him, self and neighbour.
As a result the 'disinterestedness' of charity is confused. Not all disinterested love of others is charity. Nor is the disinterestedness of charity itself such that it excludes love for God from love of neighbour. The contrary is, of course, true. It is love of God that makes love of neighbour charity at all. Any other concept of love of neighbour would reduce the apostolate to a level of mere philanthropy or social work, and have serious consequences upon the theology of the spiritual life.
The command of charity is that a man must love God with all his heart and soul and strength and his neighbour as himself (Luke 10, 27). Charity's objectives are, then, God, self, neighbour. This is why in repeated papal teaching there has been insistence upon apostolic works being performed with personal sanctification as preparation and source. It is not external activities themselves that sanctify a person, but the intensity of love for God with which they are done. The measure of holiness always remains the intensity of charity. And charity itself is intensified in the sense of being more deeply rooted in the person's will; this comes about through its own immanent activity. An intensification of charity's own immanent activity is not opposed to the work of the active life. Rather it is the indispensable prerequisite. In fact there can only be a true intensification of the love of neighbour, thus of a true apostolate, where there is an intensification of the love of God. The love of God is the motive for the love of neighbour.
---
Source: Fr. Jordan Aumann, "Appendix 6: Action and the Interior Life," in Summa Theologiæ: Volume 46: Action and Contemplation, trans. by Jordan Aumann (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1966), 117-119.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Bl. JPII on Evangelization and Authenticity
Brothers, Christ is the purpose and the measure of our lives. In the knowledge of Christ, your vocation took its origin; and in his love, your life is sustained. [...] You follow him in sacrifice and willing generosity. You follow him in joy, "singing gratefully to God from your hearts in psalms, hymns, and inspired songs" (Col 3 :16). And you follow him in fidelity, even considering it an honor to suffer humiliation for the sake of his name (cf. Acts 5:42). [...]
Let me begin by reminding you of the personal qualities needed to share effectively with Christ in his mission. In the first place, you must be interiorly free, spiritually free. The freedom of which I speak is a paradox to many ; it is even misunderstood by some who are members of the Church. Nevertheless it is the fundamental human freedom, and it was won for us by Christ on the Cross. As Saint Paul said, "We were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men" (Rom 5 :6). [...]Source: Pope John Paul II, "Address of His Holiness John Paul II to Religious Men on the Feast of Saint Francis" (address presented in Chicago, IL, October 4, 1979), nn. 1-5, 8-10, accessed October 4, 2013, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1979/october/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19791004_chicago-st-francis_en.html.
[T]his freedom of an undivided heart (cf. 1 Cor 7 :32-35) must be maintained by continual vigilance and fervent prayer. If you unite yourselves continually to Christ in prayer, you will always be free and ever more eager to share in his mission.
Secondly, you must center your life around the Eucharist. While you share in many ways in the passion, death and Resurrection of Christ, it is especially in the Eucharist where this is celebrated and made effective. At the Eucharist, your spirit is renewed, your mind and heart are refreshed and you will find the strength to live day by day for him who is the Redeemer of the world.
Thirdly, be dedicated to God's word. Remember the words of Jesus: "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice" (Lk 8 :21). If you sincerely listen to God's word, and humbly but persistently try to put it into practice, like the seed sown in fertile soil, his word will bear fruit in your life.
The fourth and final element which makes effective your sharing in Christ's mission is fraternal life. Your life lived in religious community is the first concrete expression of love of neighbor. It is there that the first demands of self-sacrifice and generous service are exercised in order to build up the fraternal community. This love which unites you as brothers in community becomes in turn the force which supports you in your mission for the Church. [...]
Never forget the specific and ultimate aim of all apostolic service: to lead the men and women of our day to communion with the Most Holy Trinity. In the present age, mankind is increasingly tempted to seek security in possessions, knowledge and power. By the witness of your life consecrated to Christ in poverty, chastity and obedience, you challenge this false security. You are a living reminder that Christ alone is "the way, the truth and the life" (Jn 14 :6). [...]
For the measure of your effectiveness will be the degree of your love for Jesus Christ.
Finally, every form of apostolic service, of either an individual or a community, must be in accord with the Gospel as it is put forward by the Magisterium. For all Christian service is aimed at spreading the Gospel; and all Christian service incorporates Gospel values.
Therefore be men of God's word: men whose hearts burn within them when they hear the word proclaimed (cf. Lk 24 :32); who shape every action according to its demands; and who desire to see the Good News proclaimed to the ends of the earth.
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