Follow Up from The Perfection Series-ακηδία

Long ago in the perfection series, and in the posts on St. Bernard, I referred to the sin of accidie. Here is the long definition. It is not what people think it is, simple sloth. It is becoming distracted with useless things so that we are taken away from prayer, meditation and contemplation.

Discussing this with a seminarian today, I was struck with the idea that the noon-day devil is not merely low-blood sugar or high-blood sugar before or after lunch, but a demon who distracts us from times of prayer we even schedule.

St. Philip Neri preached that the afternoon in Rome was "the dangerous part of the day", when youth fell into mortal sins of fornication and even gang fighting. ακηδία sets in.

Looking at Psalm 90, one has to reckon with the pleasures of falling into sin and fight these. The noon-day devil is not poetry, but a real demon.

Here is the psalm.

Psalm 90 Douay-Rheims 

90 The praise of a canticle for David. He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob.

2 He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector, and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust.

3 For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word.

4 He will overshadow thee with his shoulders: and under his wings thou shalt trust.

5 His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night.

6 Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday devil.

7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee.

8 But thou shalt consider with thy eyes: and shalt see the reward of the wicked.

9 Because thou, O Lord, art my hope: thou hast made the most High thy refuge.

10 There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling.

11 For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways.

12 In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

13 Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.

14 Because he hoped in me I will deliver him: I will protect him because he hath known my name.

15 He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him.

16 I will fill him with length of days; and I will shew him my salvation.

Here is the definition from Ortho-Wiki.

Akedia (in Latin, accidie) is literally fatigue or exhaustion, but in technical usage refers to the spiritual and physical lethargy which can plague those pursuing the eremetic life. The reference in Psalm 90 (91 MT) to the "demon of noonday" is traditionally identified as akedia. It can take the form of listlessness, dispersion of thoughts, or being inattentively immersed in useless activity.

St.Thomas Aquinas calls it world-weariness, which causes a person to neglect both their physical and spiritual duties. This habit of thinking and feeling is a hard sinful habit to break, but one must do so.

One way to break the habit of negative and depressive thoughts it to constantly praise God all day.

The Office of the Hours is a perfect way to break this habit.

Also, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, to be said at 3:00, is another way to break accidie.

Listlessness can also be expressed in restlessness, like someone feeling like they "just have to get out" and go shopping.

Accidie may be seen in the need to watch television as well. One breaks a habit of vice by practicing the opposite virtue.

More later...

Overcoming Sin: On Memory Again

God will allow temptation for us to undo sins in our lives and break habits of sin. A priest told me this and it is a simple and good truth.

The body adjusts itself to the operations of the soul, and chemically a body readjusts to new stimuli of turning against the sin.

We actually have to turn away from sin physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As humans, we are body and soul, so we are tempted in both for most sins. There are triggers and to break habits of giving in to triggers, God gives us temptations to make "our inner person strong". We can be addicted to certain sins, even thinking negative thoughts. God can change this is we allow Him to enter into the memory, understanding and will.

Demons affect the cogitative powers.

When we decide or judge on something, we create a habit if we keep doing something...this is what St. Thomas calls the "intellective memory" in the positive intellect. This process works on those powers in the inward man, referred to in St. Paul's epistle as being made strong in grace. The sensitive memory is in the imagination.

Thank God for priests who have studied Thomas Aquinas. They are few and far between.

Ephesians 3:16Douay-Rheims

16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit with might unto the inward man,

Father Xavier One More Time

The reference to memory involves the purification of the imagination, which I have written into the perfection series.

First of all, stop putting things into your imagination which are evil. Remember, things are either good or bad, there is no neutral in the spiritual life.

Second, use custody of the eyes and ears.

Third, control curiosity and see my posts on this and some reposts.

Fourth, ask God to enter into your memory to purify it and take away images. Images are used by demons to tempt us and remind us of past sins.

Today's Gospel refers to not even committing venial sins, which also feed our imagination as well.

Matthew 5 DR

17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

On Memory Again--Some More Retreat Notes

One of the points of this past weekend's retreat was on the cleansing of the memory and the imagination. I have written on this before on this blog from

Father Xavier talked about the sensitive memory which is the image which one imagines, or what we have seen like on TV and in movies, or in life, which are physical--seen.

One must pray for the grace of forgetfulness of past sins and even temptations.

It helps you not to recall those things which will cause you to sin.

A friend of mine has experienced this as a complete gift; but most of us have to ask for this.

This is the gift of forgetting past sins we have committed so that the demons do not use these memories to tempt us or to discourage us from pursuing virtue.

Someone brought this up after the retreat so I wanted to write about this again from my notes.

St. Ignatius, may I add again, has the prayer, "Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me."

I hate the song, as it trivializes the experience which follows the prayer.

Giving God one's memory is serious business It means He has control over all our memories. Those which are connected to sin can disappear if we really become serious about being detached from that sin. 

Giving God our liberty means that we do not make any decisions outside His Will. We mean it when we say, "Thy will be done." Our liberty may be valid things we can do, but choose not to do as these things are not in the Perfect Will of God.

Our understanding, as Father Xavier noted, is marred by sin, and we must have that purified to that only the truth remains.

Perfection Series VIII Part XV The Intellect and Prayer

Twenty-three years ago in Sherborne, I had this set of dishes!

A holy man told me recently that it is easier for those who have trained the intellect to pray. Those who have had a classical education learned how to think. Most people react to stimuli and do not know how to think.

But, to make a connection between holiness and intellectual acumen was something I had not thought of to the extent that he did. I knew, of course, that the intellect and will were involved in finding and meeting God, but to say that those who actually are gifted in such have an easier time becoming holy, is another step of thought I had not taken.

Honestly, I was surprised by this, as we have been raised in a time where such saints as Gemma Galgani, Bernadette, and little ones like Jacinta have been held up as examples of the simplicity necessary for prayer.

But, what contemporary man has forgotten, is that even some of the so-called "simple" saints had either trained intellects from school and home, or infused knowledge from God.

St. Therese of Lisieux proves to be a case in point. Her education and training of the intellect aided her road to holiness. Most, if not all the priests canonized by St. John Paul II has superb theological studies, and even most of those saints who were martyred and canonized under both the Pope Emeritus and Pope Francis had catechetical training not seen in the West for forty years. In other words, these lay people had rigorous training of the faith.

Raissa's life is unusual because of the extraordinary intellectual gifts both her husband and she were given by God. They came out of that background and ministered to people, were friends with people, who were intellectuals.

That the intellect must be trained, unless a person has natural deficiencies, such as dear St. Joseph Cupertino, is a truism ignored by many Catholics. I partly blame the charismatics for emphasizing experience over intellect, making false oppositions to either prayer or grace, when there are none.

Those Catholics who are caught up in seers and visions do not understand that one must use one's intellect in order to discern truth and error. Discernment is a gift connected to the gifts of wisdom and knowledge we are all given in Confirmation. But, these gifts do no operate in an intellectual vacuum.

The Holy Spirit inspires a person to do things, to act, to pray, to meditate. If one thinks the Holy Spirit pushes one or takes over a person's freedom, one is actually falling into heresy. God inspires and we decide to do or not to do. We are not automatons.

Neither satan nor God takes away our free will and our intellect. This idea. of  "taking over", forms a dangerous paradigm in some lay people's minds. They do not understand that religious efforts as a combination of the intellect, the heart, the soul, the will. Much poor preaching from the pulpit seems to have taught people in the pew that emotions trump the intellect. It is the other way around.

All the gifts of the Holy Spirit inform the intellect. The virtues must be practiced with intellectual consent and awareness. To think that one is like a porridge bowl, completely passive, waiting to be filled from the stove, cannot be the Catholic paradigm for either grace or gifts.

Raissa writes something which I have repeated on this blog many times.

Pay attention!

She writes, Be attentive to divine impressions. Be attentive to all the movements of my heart.

Notice, this call to attention involves both the intellect and the heart. One is "attentive" in the mind. Then, one becomes attentive to the heart. Attention is an intellectual act.

One reason the Church is lacking in saints is that too many people chase after mushy feeling rather than real love. The Love of God takes decision, willing. As many of you who read this blog know, one of my repeated phrases is that "love is in the will".

And, to become a contemplative, takes discipline of the mind and the heart. Here is Raissa again:

Vocation of the contemplative. He must be still – cease all occupation. And see. See God in the eternal present. See him face to face, although under the veil of faith....The apostle has to live in the eternal future.

This seeing of God in the eternal present involves the intellect. The Dark Night of the Soul first cleanses the senses, then the spirit. And, the intellect rests in the spirit. Some saints are given infused knowledge, and at a certain stage, this infusion is to be expected. But, the training of the intellect, sadly neglected by our education systems and many parents, denies a person the way to God which is necessary. Simplicity is not stupidity. Simplicity is not "unthinking". 

Go back and read the posts on the imagination and how we must purify it over and over and over. This purification of memory, understanding and finally, that of the will, takes choice, decision, a honing of the intellect.

Our Church, as I wrote last week and right after the Synod, is not served by anti-intellectualism.

Raissa admits that she had to spend years in purifying the intellect. I understand this. As a poet and writer, God gave me the ability to use images and to be extremely observant in the world. In contemplative prayer, one must move away from images, which serve meditation, but not contemplation. This purification is part of my own Dark Night of the spirit. One cannot be silent before God with an over-active imagination, but only, only the intellect can deal with this, in grace and through grace.

Remember the posts on Thomas Merton's brilliant insight into the evil of television?  Without a strong intellect, one cannot properly deal with the bombardment of images, good or bad, in this hyperactive world. Even to get on the bus in order to attend daily Mass and Adoration demands a working of the mind not to become involved with images and people. But, this I must do. And, Raissa managed this balancing act. I pray for the grace to do this.

to be continued...

On Sedes and False Prophecies

Although there have been multiple articles on the Pope, Cardinal Burke and the chaos at the Synod, most of the authors, not all but most, have been guilty of the sin of fantasy. Extrapolating from sound bites and various translations of what the Pope says is fantasy.

What some of the more traditional bloggers and even newspapers have done is put their own agendas into the articles, none of which are true reporting (except for the few) but most which reveal antipathy towards the Pope.

The Pope has said nothing doctrinally binding, nothing from the Chair of Peter, except one encyclical, which was started by the Pope Emeritus and finished by Pope Francis.

Has the Pope causes confusion by saying too many things too quickly and encouraging consultation without considering results? Yes, but I remember the interview I put on this blog when the Pope was first elected, an interview of his press secretary, who said, point blank, that this Pope never does anything spontaneously. This comment is from a man who has known and worked intimately with Francis for a long time.

So, the Pope has unleashed the wiles of the enemies of God who have been within the Church for years, doing local damage and now wanting to do universal damage to and in Christ's Church.

Interesting. But, despite all of this "mess", none of this makes the Pope a heretic or the false pope of false prophecies.

Both sedevacantists and false prophets or false seers have something in common. They have judged wrongly. Do we have a lack of clear leadership? Perhaps, but if the Pope is allowing this confusion on purpose, not being a man who is spontaneous, one can only come to the conclusion that he, somehow, thinks the chaos is a good. Of course, chaos is never a good.

Sedes are calling him an anti-pope or a false pope, pointing to conspiracy theories about the resignation of the Pope Emeritus. Fantasy fiction based on the desire for someone other than who this pope is drives the sedes.

False prophets and false seers have a special place in hell for those who, in hubris, think they are better than others, holier than thous......

Heretics are in the sixth level of Dante's Inferno, and seducers, liars and false prophets are lower down, in the eighth level of Hell.

Too many good, traditional Catholics are caught up in wanting to know the supposed conspiracies behind closed doors in the Vatican. That is the sin of curiosity, Eve's sin, and a serious one.

We do not need to know everything, and most things are not our business. It is only because of the self-generating greed of the media that we have so much information which, in the long run, is not only useless, but can endanger our souls.

The sin of curiosity led Eve to do something she knew was wrong-listen to satan.

We do not have to know much. Better to pray more and read less at this time. Read the best sources, some of which I have put on this blog: Crisis Mag, Edward Feser, Rorate, etc.

Skip the rest.

If you are following false seers, you must stop and confess the sins of curiosity and pride. If you are veering into the sede camp, be concerned about your immortal soul. Most private revelation is false. And, we as Catholics, do not have to believe any private revelations. Some seers are spewing out heresies and schismatic ideals.

False seers are protestants.

Sedes are protestants.

Sedes and false prophets are the real heretics. Fraud is a type of malice. False seers hate. They hate the Church, and, push themselves forward as the real deal, the truth, when in fact they are far away from Truth, from Christ.

Choose wisely to whom you listen and what you read. Everything goes into one's imagination and memory which must be cleansed in purgatory or on earth in the Dark Night.

Do not choose to go with those who are so holy they cannot accept the Church which God has established on earth.

One's holiness is not about criticizing liturgy, it is not about understanding doctrine, but about obedience.

Whether one likes it or not, one must be obedient to the office of the Pope as the Holy Spirit protects that office. No heresy will be spoken from the Chair of Peter. Obedience is the key to perfection,

Perfection Series IV: Part Seven: Simple Signs of Illumination

Garrigou-Lagrange points to three characteristics of a person in the Illuminative State, a person who has gone through the Dark Night of the Senses and Spirit. Of course, the freeing of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the life of the virtues point to a person living in the Illuminative State.

I want to enlarge on his points.

In such a life the soul loves God, no longer only "with its whole heart" in the midst of sensible consolations, but "with all its soul," with all its activities, not yet however "with all its strength," as will happen in the night of the spirit, nor as yet "with all its mind," for the soul is not yet established in this superior region. That it may be established there, the passive purification of the higher part of the soul will be needed, a purification that brings about the disappearance of all the spiritual or intellectual pride which still mingles in the facility for prayer and action, which we have just mentioned. The soul has still a long road to travel, like Elias who had to walk forty days and forty nights even to Mt. Horeb; but the soul grows, its virtues develop and become solid virtues, the expression of a love of God and souls, which is not only affective, but effective or efficacious.

One, the heart has been totally renewed and is centered on God Alone. No other attachments get in the way of God, His Will, His Providence.

But, beyond that, the soul, involving the intellect, memory, understanding and will, is focused totally on God. These two characteristic traits were achieved through the intense suffering of the Dark Night.

Only in the Illuminative State is the soul strengthened by the unleashing of the virtues and the Gifts. The mind is then taken over by the Holy Spirit, the mind which has been purified in the Dark Night of the spirit.

As the soul walk on, God shows His Love to the lowly, humble, purified person. Such is the second conversion referred to in other posts, and such is the beginning of the Illuminative State.

Have you ever seen a person like this? Totally focused on God, this person moves in the virtues. The soul avoids and perhaps does not commit even venial sins. She is free to love and love she does.

She radiates joy and love to all she meets. And, in her presence, evil cannot abide. In fact, evil sees the light of those in this state.

I am thinking of one young person I know like this. She is only 35. But, she has suffered and become humble. She was re-coverted to Catholicism after years of intellectual pride and error.

She is an example of the Illuminative State and God gives her love and infused knowledge. She works in a simple store and she is married. She and her husband live in Ireland. She will never be able to have children, and this is her cross. The fact that adoption costs about 20k Euros means that she and her husband will be childless, something they did not expect to happen in their excellent Catholic marriage.

When she goes to Holy Communion, she is in another world after reception. But, few noticed her deep goodness.

I have been privileged to meet her.

The virtues are natural to her and when she speaks of Christ, one knows she is one of His brides.

With her whole heart, and mind and soul, she serves Christ and others.

May God continue to bless her and her husband.

to be continued....

The Dominant Passion Part Three on The Emotions

Garrigou-Lagrange reminds us that one can have a dominant passion which must be dealt with before one can grow in the virtues.

For example, I have seen grown-up people, even the elderly, wrapped up unhealthy fear, or middle-aged people caught in anger.

Some people have a dominant passion which becomes a real vice, like gluttony or greed.

I cannot make up in this blog for fifty years of a lack of teaching on the importance of not living a life controlled by the emotions, the passions.

Once, however, a person has been through the painful process of purification, the passions which are also purified, contribute to the growth of holiness in the person. For example, missionaries find that they have a passion for spreading the Gospel. One can love Christ passionately, and at first, as St. Bernard writes in his sermons which I am reading, even in a carnal way. But, soon, one passes beyond imagery into a level of purity in loving Christ. The emotions or passions are then purified to a degree where these no longer hinder the growth in the interior life.

Such happens in the Dark Night of the Spirit, when all imagery, all preconceived ideal and subjective thoughts about God die.

A middle-aged man said to me about a month ago something, which of course, I contradicted. He said that we live like animals through our passions.

He was justifying years of fornication, drinking and not going to church on Sunday. He has limited his soul to that of an animal.

He is living in a state of spiritual death. But, those who seek God in perfection need to be warned as to not jumping ahead of where they really are. I have warned against this before. In fact. some spiritual directors do not let their people read the mystics at all. One can imagine one is in a different place than one really is. I have highlighted some of the passage below in boldface type.

Here is Garrigou-Lagrange:

 THE PASSIONS FROM THE ASCETICAL POINT OF VIEW
According to the principles we have just recalled, we shall consider the passions from the ascetical point of view in their relation to the interior life. From these principles it follows that the passions, being in themselves neither good nor bad, ought not to be extirpated like vices, but should be moderated, regulated; properly speaking, they should be disciplined by right reason illumined by faith. If they are immoderate, they become the roots of vices; if they are disciplined, they are placed at the service of the virtues. A man must not be inert and, as it were, made of straw, nor should he be violent and irascible.
Little by little the light of reason and the superior light of infused faith must descend into our sensible appetites that they may not be like those of an animal without reason, but those of a rational being, of a child of God, who shares in the intimate life of the Most High.
We should direct our thoughts to Christ's sensible appetites, which were pure and strong because of the virtues of virginity, patience, and constancy even to the death of the cross.(7) Let us also think of the sensibility of Mary, Virgin most pure and Mother of Sorrows, coredemptress of the human race. We shall thus see how our sensible appetites ought to be ever more and more subjected to our intellect illumined by faith, to our will vivified by charity, and how the light and living flame of the spirit ought to radiate over our emotions to sanctify them and place them at the service of God and of our neighbor. St. Paul exhorts us, saying: "Rejoice with them that rejoice; weep with them that weep." (8) This is characteristic of the saints; they manifest admirable delicacy of feeling for the afflicted; at times they alone can find words which uplift and fortify.
From this point of view, the passions must be moderated, not materially but proportionately to what reason requires in relation to a more or less lofty given end to be reached in given circumstances. Thus, without sinning, a person may experience great sadness, great fear, or lively indignation in certain grave circumstances. We read in Exodus II that Moses, seeing the Israelites adoring the golden calf, crushed this idol to dust and punished with great severity those who were most guilty. In the First Book of Kings,(10) the priest Heli is reprimanded for not having become indignant at the evil conduct of his sons. On the road to perfection, those who are naturally meek must become strong, and those who are naturally inclined to be strong-willed must become gentle. Both are climbing toward the summit by different slopes.
To drive a horse well, now the bit must be used, and now the
whip; the same applies to the governing of the passions. At times they must be checked, and at other times awakened, jolted, in order to react against sloth, inertia, timidity, or fear. At times a great effort is required to break an impetuous horse; the same is true of disciplining certain temperaments capable of great things. How beautiful it
is to see these temperaments transformed by the profound impress of a Christian character after ten or fifteen years of self-discipline!
With a view to the interior life, one must be particularly attentive, above all at the beginning, to a special point: that is, to be on guard against precipitation and also against the dominant passion, that it may not become a predominant fault. As we have already spoken of the predominant fault, we here insist on precipitation to be avoided or, as the expression goes, on impulsiveness, which inclines one to act without sufficient reflection.
With rash haste many beginners, otherwise very good, at times wish to make too rapid progress, more rapid than their degree of grace warrants. They desire to travel rapidly because of a certain unconscious presumption; then, when trial comes, they sometimes let themselves be cast down at least for a moment. This condition is similar to what happens also in young students at the beginning of their curiosity in their work; when it is satisfied or when application becomes too painful, negligence and sloth follow. As a matter of fact, the happy medium of virtue, which is at the same time a summit above two opposing vices, like strength above temerity and cowardliness, is not attained immediately.
Properly speaking, what is precipitation? St. Thomas (11) defines it as a manner of acting by impulsion of the will or of the passion, without prudence, precaution, or sufficient consideration. It is a sin directly opposed to prudence and the gift of counsel. It leads to temerity in judgment and is comparable to the haste of one who descends a staircase too rapidly and falls, instead of walking composedly.
From the moral point of view, one should descend in a thoughtful manner from reason, which determines the end to be attained, to the operations to be accomplished without neglecting the steps that intervene, that is, the memory of things past, intelligent attention to present circumstances, shrewdness in foreseeing obstacles that may arise, docility in following authorized advice. One must take time to deliberate before acting; "one should deliberate slowly and without haste," as Aristotle used to say. Afterward one must sometimes act with great promptness.
If, on the contrary, a person is inclined to action by the impulse of the will or of the passion, while neglecting the intervening steps we have just mentioned, the memory of the past, attention to the present, foresight of the future, and docility, such a person stumbles and falls. This is inevitable.
What are the causes of precipitation? As spiritual writers say, this defect comes from the fact that we substitute our own natural activity for the divine action. We act with feverish ardor, without sufficient reflection, without prayer for the light of the Holy Ghost, without the advice of our spiritual director. At times this natural haste is the cause of extremely imprudent acts that are very harmful in their results.
Natural haste often arises from the fact that we consider only the proximate end to be attained today, without seeing its relation to the supreme end toward which we must direct our steps. Seeing only this immediate human end, we direct our efforts toward it by natural. activity, without sufficient recourse to the help of God.
We can see in the training that Christ gave His apostles how often He warned them against this precipitation or natural haste, which causes a man to act without sufficient reflection and without a sufficiently great spirit of faith. Some pages back, we recalled that James and John on returning from their first apostolate, during which a town refused to receive their preaching, asked our Lord to send fire from heaven on this village. With divine irony, Christ then called them Boanerges,(12) or "sons of thunder," to remind them that they should be sons of God and, like Him, should also be patient in awaiting the return of sinners. James and John understood; so well indeed, that John at the end of his life could only say: "Love one another, this is the commandment of the Lord." In Christ's school, the Boanerges become gentle; yet they do not lose their ardor or their zeal, but this zeal becomes patient, gentle, and less fiery, and bears lasting fruits, the fruits of eternity.
We would do well also to remember how St. Peter, who was called to a high degree of sanctity, was cured of his rash haste and presumption. When our Lord announced His passion, Peter said to Him: "Although all shall be scandalized in Thee, I will never be scandalized. Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, that in this night before the cock crow, thou wilt deny Me thrice." (13) Humbled by his sin, Peter was cured of his presumption. He no longer counted on himself, but on divine grace by asking to be faithful to it; and grace led him to the very heights of sanctity by the way of martyrdom.
The precipitation we are speaking of sometimes leads young, generous, and ardent souls to wish to reach the summit of perfection more rapidly than grace, without any delay en route, without taking into consideration the intermediary degrees and the mortification necessary for disciplining the passions, as if they had already reached divine union. They sometimes read works on mysticism with avidity and curiosity, and gather from them beautiful flowers before fruit has time to form. They thus expose themselves to many illusions and, when disillusionment comes, they expose themselves to the danger of falling into spiritual sloth and pusillanimity. We should walk at a good pace, indeed with an ever firmer and more rapid step in proportion as we draw near to God who attracts us the more, but we must avoid what St. Augustine calls "great strides off the right road."
The effects of this haste and of the self-satisfaction that accompany it, are the loss of interior recollection, perturbation, and fruitless agitation, which has only the outward appearances of productive action, as glass beads counterfeit diamonds.
The remedies for precipitation are easily indicated. Since this defect comes from the fact that we substitute our natural, hasty action for that of God, the chief remedy is to be found in a complete dependence in regard to God and in the conformity of our will to His. For this, we must reflect seriously before acting; pray humbly for the light of the Holy Ghost, and also heed the advice of our spiritual director, who has the grace of state to guide us. Then gradually precipitation will be replaced by habitual docility to the action of God in us. We shall be a little less satisfied with ourselves, and we shall find greater peace and, from time to time, true joy in God.

Perfection Series III Part Five

Most Catholics go to St. John of the Cross or St. Teresa of Avila for the description of the Illuminative and Unitive States. However, I find St. Bernard's writings more clear. St. Teresa was, despite her descriptions of the Mansions, not as systematic as St. John, who studied St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. Bernard, who had a fantastic genius.

The Illuminative State, as I have discussed through some of the Doctors of the Church and Garrigou-Lagrange, follows the Dark Night and the purgation of both the senses and the spirit.

St. Bernard, one of the most mystical of the Doctors, has much to say about this state. Let me put his words into bullet points to make this discussion easier to understand.

• The Illuminative State follows trials and purgation. It follows the time of Faith, when one walks in darkness without consolations.
• Great temptations precede this state, as part of the purification process.
• As God purifies the emotions, imagination and memory, one is ready to meet God without preconceived images. However, the Incarnation becomes more real and one falls in love with Christ in an affective way.
• This sensible love is imperfect and comes before the Illuminative Stage.
• God comes to the soul in "life and efficacy". These moments of God entering the person as in a movement of the heart and soul marks the beginning of the Illuminative Stage.
• It is Divine Love Who visits the soul, but not for long, for moments now and then.
• Bernard uses the term "ecstasy" to mean the Illumination from God.
• The soul, the imagination and knowledge are exalted.
• In Bernard's own words, "Each time that you hear or read that the Word and the soul speak together and gaze upon one another, do not think that there is question of voices in the ear or visions seen in the imagination. The speech of the Word is his goodness which grants this grace, and the speech of the soul is its ardent love." Sermon 45:7
• Note that the soul must be so purified that it is free of sensory images. This is harder today with television and movies of Christ, imo.
• Intellectual rapture comes in this Illuminative State. This involves "the infusion of joys, a revealing of mysteries, a marvelous and indistinguishable blending of the divine light with the enlightened mind...When all the stain and rust of vice has been consumed by this flame and the conscience is cleansed and filled with peace there follow a certain swift and unaccustomed dilation of the soul and an inpouring flood of light for the understanding of Scriptures and the penetration of the divine mysteries." Sermon 57:8

All this is because of Love--the soul loves as it is loved. "If it loves perfectly, then it is wed to him". Sermon 83:3. This describes the Mystical Marriage, which is now the herald of the State of Union.

I shall go on to the State of Union in the next post.

But, let me share this, which I also shared in posts past.  None of the Illumination can happen until the purgative states are finished. And, no one should be in a leadership position, states Bernard, with authority over others spiritually, unless one is in the Unitive State. How far our clerics and nuns have fallen from this goal.

To be continued....

Memory and Memoricide Continued

I am still thinking of finishing my doctorate which has to do with the the Traditional Liturgy and continuity in the Anglican community, leading to the Ordinariate.

I have interviewed some clergyman on the point both in the states and in England.

My idea is one connected to this concept that the Liturgy keeps the memory of Catholicism alive in a community, and that "memoricide" totally disrupts the Catholic community in order to make it disappear.

Henry VIII tried this, as did Elizabeth I. The Muslim conquests attempted this as well. To destroy the liturgical infrastructure of the Church is to destroy the Church.

No Mass, no sacraments, no Catholic marriages, no vocations and so on...

Memoricide works. The Czech Republic, before the Soviet invasion, was a country with a long, alive heritage of Catholicism. The Soviet government succeeded in making it one of the most secular countries in Europe.

Memoricide destroys family histories as well. Those of my readers who have been following my ancestor series know how important oral tradition is in families, especially Catholic families.

Oral tradition is exactly what we have in the Traditional Mass.

Pray, that if it is God's Will, I can finish this study. Money is a problem, but so is the lack of stability in my life.

Liturgical Memory vs. Memoricide

Luke 22:19

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

¹⁹ Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Luke 18:8

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

⁸ I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

http://lesalonbeige.blogs.com/my_weblog/2011/10/le-plan-dextermination-de-la-vendée-militaire-un-génocide.html

The term "memoricide" is used in this article above, a post which is a plea for the French to stop covering up the genocide of the Vendeans by ignoring this history. Memoricide can only be combated by the truth.

Many religions, including the Jewish and the Catholic use memory daily in liturgies. For example, we read the Doctors of the Church and the lives of the saints in the Office. We read the Psalms of David, which remind us to remember the Goodness of the Lord.

Memoricide has been part of the ideology of all governments, all tyrannies which hate the Catholic Church.

The Nazi regime wanted to erase the memory of the Jewish people from the nations over-run by Hitler.

Turkey denies the Armenian genocide and attempts to wash away all memory of that horrible time.

The Catholics is China and Japan not only were killed, martyred for the Faith, but their memories forgotten, except by the few.

This can and may happen to us. Our Catholic identity may become a mere memory. 

The history of the Vendee reminds us the memoricide is alive and well in the world.

As long as there is the Mass and the Eucharist, we shall be a people of memory.

Let this love of God never disappear....

The Exterior Reveals The Interior Life Part One

The traditional communities are much weaker than seven years ago. I have several observations as to why. Part of the problem is that the older TLM communities included many of us pre-Vatican II types, who remember what the EF was actually like and could lead the congregations in proper lay responses and deportment.

Part of the problem, therefore, is the rupture of continuity taking its toll on the younger members who simply have no record, no memory and no way of knowing how to think or act as a Catholic.

The second huge problem has been the number of converts who either have been trained properly, or brought in by priests who verge on being on the margins of the Church. This leaves a small proportion of trads with idiosyncratic ideas and habits.

A third part of the problem is the lack of appropriateness in the lives of the younger Gen Xers. On Sunday, at a TLM, people applauded in the Church for a reason some saw as appropriate. Now, we have guidelines from Rome concerning the need for absolutely no applause in the Church before, during or after Mass.

I was glad I was not at this particular Mass, as I would have had words with those who applauded.

A fourth problem is the unwillingness to learn proper lay deportment, because society no longer requires certain rules of deportment. Unless people travel and see the wide-world of the Latin Mass, people will not see the real need for behavioral changes in the Mass.

I am not referring to modesty of dress or mantillas, but a sense of decorum.

Can this be changed, I wonder?

Deportment comes from a sense of the virtues of religion, piety and temperance. We are given these virtues in baptism and these virtues get a boost of spiritual energy and insight in confirmation.

So, what is needed may be simply the realization that religion, piety and temperance change our behavior, if one cooperates with grace.

to be continued...

Re-post on the Dark Night

Wednesday, 23 October 2013

The Fear of Being Loved and the Dark Night of the Spirit

Pysche and Eros

I have written on this subject before on this blog. In ourselves, as one approachs God in the Dark Night, 

one begins to realize that for a long time, fear has blocked one's openness to the love of God and the love of other people.

When I wrote about this phenomenon before, I was thinking of particular people I knew in the past who never 

became intimate with another person. I thought of one beautiful young woman who was hurt several times in

 love affairs and finally decided never to love or be loved again.

She decided to live in the shadows of what it means to be human.

Like a grey ghost, her life was circumscribed to choosing death rather than life, because the soul curls up

 and dies without love. She decided that the suffering of love was not worth the joy of love. She decided that it 

was too painful to both love a person who was imperfect and to love herself as imperfect.

Thanks to Wiki for Teresa in Ecstasy 

I thought of three men I knew who closed their lives to the adventure of love for three completely different reasons. The first only wanted to give and not take. He was too afraid to take, which meant that his emotional life was stunted by pain from his past.

The second could only take and not give. He was incapable of breaking through defensiveness and pain, moving into a forgiveness, and letting go of his past so that he could love those in his present life. Again, his life remained ghostly and on the edges of human potential. Although he wanted love, he did not learn how to give and get out of himself.

The third person was too afraid to engage at all in either giving or taking love. The traumas of his life caused to live in a safe world, not taking any chances to love or be loved. Of all these three men, this one remained the most haunted and circumscribed, again, like a familiar ghost, stuck in his small surroundings and highly organized world, not letting anyone break down the walls of fear and self-hatred.

How sad.

In the Dark Night, one faces the real fear of both losing God's love through sin and self-will, and gaining God's 

love in humility and truth.

Real love demands that one see one's gross failings and yet remains open to love, not hiding, not saying no out

 of a false pride or false self-loathing.

The balance is all.

In the Dark Night, God comes again and again into the shadow world of the loss of memory, understanding and 

will to meet one in a completely new way.

A wise priest who understands the way of perfection told me three things today I would like to share with you. 

I have added ideals from the myth of Psyche and Eros, one of my favorite myths, to help clarify these words.

The first is not to give up on the slow process of perfection, paying attention as one goes along and even finding 

joy in the painful stages. But, one must pray for all blocks to God to be removed. One of these blocks can be the 

fear of being loved by a God...remember the myth of Psyche. She did not know she was being loved by God and 

was tricked into trying to see who it was who was loving her. She should have waited and trusted in the darkness

of the night and not lit the candle to see Love. She was rushing illumination and infused knowledge, which the god would have given her if she would have waited. She thought that the most beautiful god in the heavens was a beast

 who was deceiving her. So, too, one must learn to trust God in the Dark Night.

This joy is part of the knowledge that one is truly following God to the best of one's ability and that God is faithful 

in His pursuit of His beloved. One must wait for God but also wait for one's self and not do damage to the natural process of the growth to perfection, which leads to the second point.

The second is that the process is faster for some and slower for others totally depending on God's Will and plan for that person. One cannot push the process to go faster, or to slow it down without doing great harm to the soul. Psyche had to perform tasks in order for her to be reunited with Eros. She could not rush these, and several things aided her in these tasks because she was open and humble. So too, one must do the work, but in humility, not always knowing the way. One is afraid that if the other person who loves really knows one, that the love would end. The tasks given to each one of us strengthen one's trust in God. The tasks demand that one learns to be humble enough to accept love even though one is imperfect and still sinning those little venial sins.

The third wise thing the priest said was that God wants to give each one of us more than one can imagine. He desire to reveal Himself to us and to be one with us. So, too, with Pysche, who not only ended up marrying her beloved god, Eros, but having 

a child with him, named Joy. Sometimes people are afraid of what God will ask of them if they accept God's Love. 

This fear of responsibility fades away in the Face of Divine Providence.

What the ancients tell us is also what the mystics tell us in that joy only comes through trials and trust and loving God. Joy comes eventually, after fear and false pride die. One must not be afraid. One must trust.

Such are hints for those in the Dark Night of the Spirit....

On Knowledge and God

Through-out my life, I have had a love affair with truth. I love teaching logic and reading essays, encyclicals, and documents which follow exquisite rational discourse.

Our faith embraces reason and rationality. We are made in the image and likeness of God and our intellect and rationality are part of that image and likeness. Along with the will and the immortal soul, reason marks each one of us as human, made for eternity.

When I try and speak with youth, especially, or the Gen-Xers on faith being reasonable, I find that there is a resistance to the idea that we can reason out many truths in our religion. The sign of an adult faith formation is the use of reason with regard to doctrine and spirituality.

But, the world, the flesh and the devil conspire to deny the use of reason with regard to the Faith. The over-emphasis on the appetites, the sensual, the idea that religion is always primarily "experiential", stop people of all ages of appropriating an adult faith.

I have written on this many times under the label "thinking like Catholics", which many of you have read.

Why logical reasoning has been denigrated has partly been for political reasons, partly because of the "Protestantization" of some Catholic circles, and partly because of laxity in the training of young minds.

Without reasonable discourse being trained in schools, at home, and even in the workplace, the ability to reason atrophies and one becomes either the cog in the machine or a emotionally reactive person, only.

This is what satan and his minions want; non-thinking Catholics, Catholics who only react, never reflect, do not read, do not study the Faith and do not want to apply the principles of religion to themselves. The unthinking Catholic cannot form a correct, right conscience and cannot critique the deceit of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

But, none of the intellectual capacities truly "work" with grace. Grace purifies and hones the intellect. The Benedictines have known this since the beginning of the Rule. The love of learning in the abbey schools was always connected to the desire for God, as one of my favorite books explained to me so long ago when I first read this masterpiece.

Since I started my blog in 2007, I have been referring to this book, but even though one may not read the book, the ideal is presentable is a simple phrase.

If one desires God, one will seek Him in learning.

Simple, really.

When St Anselm, in order to renew the seminaries, introduced the classical Trivium and Quadrivium into the training for the priesthood, he got his ideas from his own Benedictine order. Included in those studies were geometry, astronomy, music, art, mathematics, grammar. The study of the Scriptures, the Doctors of the Church, and  other Catholic literature, as well as philosophy, theology, and logic, brought alive the intellect to be cleaned from the cobwebs of the world in order to shine forth for the building of the Kingdom of God.

Some of the oldest libraries in the world are monastic.

What are you reading?

What are you studying?

Are you learning to think like a Catholic?

Ask yourself today, why this is more important now than ever before in the history of the world.

Oh, my soul, how much longer do you wish to be so stingy with Jesus? Why so negligent towards Jesus who made You? Why so lazy towards Jesus who redeemed you? Who do you want to love, if you do not want to love Jesus?  St. Gemma Galgani.

To know is to love and to love is to want to know. The pursuit of knowledge, using logic and reason, brings us closer to the One is Knows Himself and knows us intimately. There is a great mystery in learning and remembering, in that one creates, as Henri Gilson notes, a sort of metaphysical background to the soul"

Slowly, through the Dark Night, when one's intellect and soul are cleansed, one comes to the real knowledge of self and God, as much as He reveals Himself this side of death.

This knowledge become a huge oasis, or universe surrounding one with the omnipresence of God, as Gilson notes, with the growing knowledge of the Indwelling of the Trinity.

Except for the chosen few mystics, like St. Gemma Galgani, or the young saints like St. Therese, the Little Flower who have infused knowledge, for most of us, the way through the years and years of learning and seeking, through the Dark Night into the Illuminative State is one of intense suffering and pain.

Those Catholics who refuse to start on the journey of learning, cannot get to the mystic places they believe come through experience, and this is the tragedy of so many good people who do not grow in holiness

They do not desire God enough to get out of their comforts zones in order to really learn, use the reason God has given them, and not only for themselves, but for the world, which is starving for reason.

Brno Capuchin
Library

Those who deny themselves the time, or waste time instead of pursuing the knowledge of God may one day stand in heaven and see the great saints they could have been, if they had responded to the grace of learning.

Only in the Dark Night of the Soul is one then allowed to die to memory and understanding, as God takes that which has been learned and changes all into the infused knowledge of sheer grace.

This can only happen after the purification of the imagination and memory. Do not waste any time. Read, study, think, reflect, pray, act.

Be a Catholic. Think like St. Bernard below....from On Loving God.

   There is no glory in having a gift without

   knowing it. But to know only that you have it, without knowing that it

   is not of yourself that you have it, means self-glorying, but no true

   thou that thou didst not receive? Now, if thou didst receive it, why

   glory in God. And so the apostle says to men in such cases, What hast

   dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? (I Cor. 4.7). .. .....

   The apostle shows how to discern the true glory from the false, when he

   says, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord, that is, in the

   Truth, since our Lord is Truth (I Cor. 1.31; John 14.6).

   We must know, then, what we are, and that it is not of ourselves that

   we are what we are. Unless we know this thoroughly, either we shall not

   glory at all, or our glorying will be vain. ...

   And this is right. For man, being in honor, if he know not his

   thou know not, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock' ..

   own honor, may fitly be compared, because of such ignorance, to the

   beasts that perish. Not knowing himself as the creature that is

   is own true glory which is within, he is led captive by his curiosity

   distinguished from the irrational brutes by the possession of reason,

   he commences to be confounded with them because, ignorant ...

   and...   concerns himself with external, sensual things. So he is made to

   resemble the lower orders by not knowing that he has been more highly

   endowed than they.