The Virtue of Compassion

Compassion must be the most misunderstood virtue in today's world.  It is increasingly obvious that few people in America have true compassion. The train wreck out East a few months ago created chaos, and witnesses noted that some passengers were walking over those who were injured. A lack of compassion....Lately, we saw a minority woman pleading with violent demonstrators not to wreck her business, as she was a single mom who had worked for years creating a decent lifestyle for her children...the business was torched anyway...a lack of compassion.

Narcissism stops the growth of personal virtue. Narcissistic societies reward narcissist and not the compassionate. One of my great-grandmothers, who came from Bohemia, lived in St. Louis. During the depression, my mother, who is 87, but was then a little girl, remembers her grandmother feeding tramps on the back porch, tea and sandwiches, without being able to speak with them as they only spoke English and she only spoke Czech---compassion.

Justice and mercy must grow out of compassion. We call Mary the "Mirror of Justice" as she gave us the Saviour, and as her humility reflects the clarity of justice and mercy of God. She is, as we say in the litany, prudent, faithful, merciful, just, wise....She, as the Model of Humility, reflects compassion.

But, over the past three generations of the passing on in families of gross individualism, the lack of virtue training in children, the ideal of getting rich, staying single, and having fun, the lack of teaching the needed moral framework of sacrifice and the Ten Commandments, has led to an increase in narcissism to the point where it is no longer considered either a psychological or an illness.

Even the word sacrifice is considered offensive and nasty.  A good friend of mine once said that he never considered sacrificing or doing penance, or mortification, as he saw that as unnecessary for humans. We talked about it for awhile and then I realized that he had chosen his single lifestyle in order not to engage with anyone or their problems. He had created a little bubble of narcissistic comfort and no one would pop this bubble, if he could help it...not even God. lad


Actually, the virtue of compassion comes after one has been stripped of one's own sins in the Dark Night, when one has come to the patience of humility, when one sees that one is part of the stream of the love of God flowing out into the world. Pride stops compassion. Arrogance nails it to the Cross. Gross selfishness mocks it.

Compassion makes one vulnerable, open, at the disposal of others, be it one's husband, baby, children or the larger community. Without compassion, there can be no community, no real family life, no holy marriages.

Purgation first, then one finds out the truth of one's self, that one is a sinner just like everyone else--this is the first step.

Then, the acquiring of humility through this purgation, which allows one to love God, because one is grateful for salvation and for the constant love of God.

Then, compassion for others, the result of loving them in God and with God.

We do not have the ability to be freely compassionate without the love of God flowing through us into the world.

But, compassion is not gooey love, but tough love. Real compassion cares not only for
bodies but for souls. I remind readers of my many posts on the  corporal and spiritual works of mercy. There was a man who spoke with compassion and with tough love. This man was Fulton J. Sheen. He captured the imagination of a generation with his unfailing honesty,  and his ability to speak the truth to millions in an attractive, intellectual, yet compassionate manner.

He was not liked by many of his fellow bishops, who wanted a comfortable life, and who chose faux-compassion by supporting abortion and birth-control, as well as the cozy false American dream.

Many people will go to hell because they refuse to pop their bubble of complacency and comfort. They chose a false heaven on earth and forfeit the real deal of everlasting joy with those to whom they could have shown compassion.

More later....

and here is a repost on narcissim, which kills or prevents the growth of compassion

In psychology, there is a part of the underdeveloped person who falls into the category of being narcissistic labelled "narcissistic awe".  Narcissistic awe may be described as the judgment of the narcissist who sees the parent or adult as either completely good and wonderful or completely bad. The person is incapable of seeing someone as a good person with faults and flaws.

This type of view is found among those with a narcissitic personality disorder. That person cannot see adults in authority as anything but in black and white terms.

A healthy child grows up realizing that his parents are good people but imperfect. He will not either demonize nor idolize the adult.

Now, I have been watching many people in the traditional camp of Catholicism turn against this present pope. They have demonized him to the point of denying any good in this man. Some of their judgment is based on faulty media reports, but some is based on the problem of  "narcissistic awe".

Those who blame this pope for the evils of other priests and for the evils of the Church are exhibiting the downside of the "cult of personality", which, imo, grows out of  "narcissistic awe." In other words, these people adore one pope unrealistically and hate another one unrealistically.

Popes, and, indeed, the Church of the past are idealized, into persons and institution which never really existed. I have written on the false romanticizing of the past concerning the Church before, but now I am writing about the root cause-narcissistic awe.

Very often, people who seem religious fall into this cult of personality growing out the inability to look at the adults in their lives realistically. One young person I know was abused as a child, but instead of demonizing the parent, she has fallen into deceitful idolization of that parent. She could not face her own pain, and her adult life reflected deceit in other relationships.

This may seem both impossible and amazing, but her own narcissism will not allow her to see the emotional truth of the situation.

So, too, with the pope blasters, who cannot see him as an imperfect man, chosen by the College of Cardinals, to be the pope. That he deserves the respect of office seems obvious.

Because of the decay of the healthy family, there seems to be more narcissists about than in the past. And, many of those in the Church are into papal blasting on a daily basis.

Time to look at narcissistic awe as the root of this cult of personality gone wild and on the negative side at this time in history.

to be continued....and see these posts

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-forgotten-past-has-been-romanticized.html

http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/05/memoricide-and-memory-continued.html

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...

Choosing Poverty

I thought that poverty was just foisted upon me and that I had to learn to accept it when a little memory came to my mind, or rather three little happenings, from a long time ago.

One of my first, if not my very first, spiritual director, was a sister from the Cenacle order. She told me one day that she wanted to be like Christ in every way even in poverty, chastity, and obedience. She loved Christ so much this was her only desire.

Being very young, I wanted to emulate her poverty of heart and prayed likewise to be like Christ, as much as I was supposed to be, in everything. Sister Elizabeth's prayer was based on the Scripture passage below:

Matthew 8:20

20 And Jesus saith to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Shortly after Sister shared this with me, and after I had hesitantly (and I have to admit, halfheartedly) said this prayer, two young men, one of whom I had known for a long time, proposed to me. They were both extremely wealthy, and in fact, one was a millionaire heir of a large, national company. I said "no" to each one, not loving either one, and wanting to marry for love, of course, despite, the fact that both were good men. I went on to enter a lay community for seven years, making a four year celibate commitment as well within that time, which meant I did not date and gave my self entirely up to God. After leaving the community and going back to graduate school, I ended up teaching in England and the rest, as they say, is history.

I lived simply in all those years, and even in marriage lived simply. This plan of God's became critical as I was thrust into being a single mum and so on. From that time to this, except for a few prosperous years, my life was marked and still is, by real poverty and even, penury.

This past week, I had the chance to rejoice in this poverty, realizing how God had taken my little prayer, so long ago, seriously. To be like Christ in this world, in my very being is still, and even more so, (being in the long Dark Night of purgation), a real desire of my heart. Once one embraces the love of poverty, joy follows.

Thanking God for being faithful to me despite myself and for giving me the ability to live without even the basics sometimes, I realized, finally, the fact that I had no "stuff" to clog my heart and mind, that poverty had carved out in my heart, mind, soul and will a place for God to rest.

I am in the enviable position of having less and less between me and the daily experience of God's Presence. I would not have chosen this way. 

The truth is that from baptism, God dwells within. This Indwelling of the Trinity lies within each baptized Catholic who is in sanctifying grace. One only has to allow God to remove the "stuff" which blocks the love of God in one's life to come forward in power and in peace.

I had other chances to be comfortable, through compromise, which I refused. Walking toward Christ means walking towards Golgotha. The way involves many choices, but if one is focused on Christ, one moves towards the same goal as He moved towards, the Cross. 

I have many crosses, as do most people. The greatest one is not material poverty, but the fact that I have been asked to give my son back to God, which I did when he was still a baby. Or rather, I sensed almost immediately after his birth, that this child did not belong to me, but that I was merely his caretaker until God called him away from me. This is real poverty for me, knowing that my son belongs to God alone, and that I must live so far away from him and not enjoy his company even once a week, or even once a month, or even once a year. But, there is a quiet joy in this giving up of happy family events. Poverty of spirit involves giving up the heart and mind, as well as the body, to God. The imagination and will must also be given over for joy to come forth, in a quiet, but perceptible manner. One must be poor in the mind, disciplining thoughts, as well as in the body, disciplining desires.

Purgation is death, which is why so many fight it, as we all have a survival instinct. But, to face the death of purgation is to allow God to make one poor, really poor. Each soul in purgatory is totally naked in his own eyes and in the eyes of God. One sees one's real poverty of self.

Recently, a friend of mine and I were discussing death. We had experienced several deaths since the turning of the year among friends and acquaintances.  All the people who had died in the past two months were younger than we are. One was a multi-millionaire, who died a strange and lonely death. In the last moments, she experienced a great poverty of spirit. No one was with her when she died. 

God waits for us to get serious about Him. He waits until we are ready to understand that His Life on earth must be chosen individually. To live in the Present Moment, without a safety net, is to allow God to be God every moment of the day and night.

As I write this, yet another storm will hit this city any minute. People will experience inconvenience and hardship. Some will die. But, death can be embraced daily so that the final death on earth is merely the last scene for which one has practiced all one's life. Poverty allows one to die daily and realize daily that the last day is like this death, only final. One has no fake stage props on which to rely.

I would not choose another life now, having finally seen the jewels which surround me in the form of graces of detachment and objectivity. Like someone waking out of a long dream, I am awake to a new reality of freedom and increasing Love, Who has a name, the Lord of Poverty, Jesus Christ. Christ was hungry, He was sore from lack of comforts, He was thirsty. He even had no room to call His own once He began His public life. He chose to be like all of us, poor. His poverty was so great because He left the throne of heaven to walk among men. We cannot even comprehend His great poverty.

Things are for us to use without attachment. Things are tools for life, not substitutes for love. Love can be expressed in things, but Christ wants more than this. He wants each one to desire to be like Him in all things. To be a "slave" means that one is directly and absolutely dependent on another. Christ became a slave so that we can be raised up with Him. This rising will be fulfilled at the last trumpet, but another rising can be experienced long before that last day. This is the rising of the mind, the heart, the imagination, the will, the body to God alone in every breath that one takes each day. 

Wait not until death to die to self, but follow the path now to death of self. Only when the last gasp of egotism leaves one's person can one experience the true Love of God. I am hoping for that day to happen here on earth, not only for my benefit, but for that of the entire Church, which I love more than my own self.  Like Sister Elizabeth, I only want to be, as much as God called me to be, like Christ.

Philippians 2:5-7

5 Let the same mind be in you that was[a] in Christ Jesus,

6 who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form

After Raissa Maritain died, Jacques left public life and went into seclusion to pray and meditate for the rest of his days. His death to the world in which he lived so fully mirrored the death of his beloved wife and sister in grace. I like to think that Raissa's death allowed Jacques to choose his real vocation at last, that of a contemplative, like her. His hidden life gained him great freedom of spirit and in this, he found the great love which Raissa knew before she left this world, the Love Who is Christ.

The hidden life is one of poverty of spirit. I end this little meditation with a prayer I say every Friday, the Litany of Humility by Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930), Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X:

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me. From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being loved... From the desire of being extolled ... From the desire of being honored ... From the desire of being praised ... From the desire of being preferred to others... From the desire of being consulted ... From the desire of being approved ... From the fear of being humiliated ... From the fear of being despised... From the fear of suffering rebukes ... From the fear of being calumniated ... From the fear of being forgotten ... From the fear of being ridiculed ... From the fear of being wronged ... From the fear of being suspected ... That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be esteemed more than I ... That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease ... That others may be chosen and I set aside ... That others may be praised and I unnoticed ... That others may be preferred to me in everything... That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…

Different Types of Gates

Matthew 7:13-14 Douay-Rheims 

13 Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat.

14 How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!

On the net recently on more than one site, the discussion of holiness has led to people expressing some less than Catholic ideas of saintliness. One of the tragedies of the post-Vatican II Church, which has nothing to do with the Council and everything to do with poor formation of priests, has been the dumbing down of the concept of holiness.

I have addressed this both on the occasion of All Saints' Day and in the long, several perfection series. But, what is new in internet circles is the vehemence connected to those who do not want to believe that we are all called to high levels of perfection while still on earth.

Now, if one has been following three years of blogs here, one will see the great insights regarding perfection from the Doctors of the Church, (all of them), the great saints and mystics, (such as Teresa and Therese among many others), and the writings of theologians on levels of prayers and holiness, (Lehodey, Garrigou-Lagrange, Aumann and many others).

What is blocking understanding of the universal call to holiness seems to be something connected to ideas that we cannot achieve union with God while on earth, or, worse, that we cannot become free of sin and the tendencies to sin.

God does not call us to do or be anything impossible. Therefore, the universal call to holiness must be attainable. as we have seen in the lives of canonized saints, whose biographies bear witness to great levels of union with God.

But, what is new in this discussion is the outward animosity of those who do not want to accept this universal call as either possible or probable. The center and key call to perfection comes from God Himself, as I have noted many times in the perfection series.

Matthew 5:48 Douay-Rheims  Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.

The concordances tell us that this ideal of perfection, in the use of the word tamin, means the following and is implemented the number of times in the Bible as indicated. :blameless (22), blamelessly (1), complete (1), entire (1), full (1), intact (1), integrity (4), perfect (5), sincerity (1), unblemished (2), uprightly (1), who is perfect (1), whole (2), without blemish (12), without defect (36).

God spoke to Abraham and asked him to be perfect, with this call being repeated again and again in the Old Testament.

Genesis 17:1 Douay-Rheims And after he began to be ninety and nine years old, the Lord appeared to him: and said unto him: I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be perfect.

When Christ used the term, His listeners had 2,000 years of revelation by which to judge the word perfect. It is used 91 times in the Old Testament.The psalmists employ the word and concept of perfection more times than I have the ability to trace at this time. One may look here for more on this subject.

In the New Testament, the word used is teleios, with these definitons: (a) complete in all its parts, (b) full grown, of full age, (c) specially of the completeness of Christian character.In the New Testament, teleios is used 19 times. One can see this on this page. SS. Paul and James write particularly clearly on this subject of attaining perfection.

So, why is there so much animosity to the idea that we are called to be without faults, without sin?

I have come to the conclusion that it is merely the hatred of the Good, the hatred of God in this world which desires to undermine God's Presence in each person who chooses to love Him fully.

Those who do not want to enter by the narrow gate take sledge hammers and attempt to make the gate larger or even destroy it.

These people want a larger gate, a huge one in which to live and to pass into the next world. They want a gate, perhaps, of their own making, not a Godly gate.

The Protestant Revolt involved millions of people who no longer wanted to be perfect, but who wanted an easier Church, watered down teachings, false ideals and worldly gain.

One, perhaps, can see more easily the compromising attitudes of those who gained wealth off the backs of the abbots, priests, monks and nuns turned out on the roads in England, for example. These ruffians hatred goodness and the pursuit of goodness in their midst, eschewing righteousness for their own doctrines and even for gain. To be once saved and never needing absolution from a priest became the hallmark of Protestantism. The road to perfection was destroyed with the chalices, chasubles and choirs of the abbeys and cathedrals.

But, now, we are facing new enemies of perfection, those who want to water down the call and undermine those who follow that call. These people lack the stamina and courage of the Church Militant. They do not want to be in the remnant. They do not want to be with the few.

So, what happened to the Catholics of the 21st Century, to have lost this concept of holiness and to now accept much less than perfection from the saints and from themselves?

One may point to the Enlightenment philosophies or to modernist heresies.



But, to me it is the enshrining of democracy and the lie that all people are the same, ideas denying excellence, which are to blame. No one is allowed to be better than anyone else. No one is allowed to be holier than anyone else. No one is allowed to think holier thoughts, state the thought police.

To dumb down sanctity is to deny the entire role of the Catholic Church on earth, the institution which exists to enable us to become saints. The narrow gate is being demolished by those who want saints just to be like everyone else without grace or effort. The universal call to holiness means that some say only a few become saints, while the denial of perfection indicates that no one can obtain this state. These Catholics want no gates at all, no challenges, no measurement of holiness. Perhaps, they cannot make that individual, personal decision to fight evil in themselves.

Then, there is a weird idea that one is perfected without purgation, which is the modern hatred of suffering. Either we go through purgatory now on earth, and therefore enter heaven at death, which is the lot of the saint, who has become perfect, or we go to purgatory.

There is no imperfection in heaven. And the resting in the Beatific Vision is the completion of perfection. Those who deny holiness on earth do not have zeal for the Kingdom of God. Why should they? Mediocrity has become the rule of most Catholics-just to get by, just to make it to purgatory.  

Death is the end of purification or the beginning. There is no purification in heaven. I did not realize how many people thought they were perfected in their particular judgment until last week in discussions.

No, the time of judgment is just that. Judgment.

So, some must pound at the narrow gate with hammers in order to justify their own sloth. One reason why martyrs were killed was out of hatred for the good, for the perfect, for God.

We shall and are hated for following Christ, Who Is All Goodness. We have been warned. And, those who want to avoid pain and persecution, deny the way to holiness and perfection.

2 Timothy 3:12 Douay-Rheims  And all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution.

Only the perfect see God. And we have hundreds of guides to follow in order to learn how to be perfect.

(spacing gremlin in the works today-apologies; cannot correct-we are having a storm, so it may be that)