Fast-Food Spirituality

Perhaps most Catholics do not know that some saints had to face the courts of the Inquisition and defend their writings, as well as their new orders.

Because of the numerous heretical writings and new orders, such as those spawning from the heresy of the Albigensians, some saints had to prove before Church officials, their true orthodoxy and obedience to Holy Mother Church.

SS. Ignatius of Loyola and Teresa of Avila had to submit to this type of investigation. Of course, as they were totally obedience and orthodox, their causes were upheld as good and true. That they were humble and followed the long teaching of the Church regarding waiting on God, proved their holiness.

What we find today is the opposite type of trial-the trial of those who are orthodox by those who are unorthodox.

Years ago, before Mr. Voris used the phrase, I wrote of the theology of nice, the prevailing religious opinion that peace, tranquility, and tolerance had become the stand of too many Catholics, including priests and nuns. The greatest good for decades in some areas, as Fulton J. Sheen noted as well, has been tolerance.

But, among Catholics, this religion of nicety means that difficult situations, or problems can never be brought up or discussed. The tyranny of silence has fallen over some parishes and even dioceses where one simply cannot bring up such issues as illegal Masses said daily by lax priests, or New Age spirituality being taught, or the heresies endemic among Charismatics. If one wants to help teach or correct errors, one finds that the vast majority of people in certain areas are unteachable.

One of my friends noted that people want short-cuts to holiness, and do not want to endure the work of study and the long journey to higher prayer and holiness. He told me that in this fast-food culture, people want holiness NOW, without the work.

And, if they are told that become a saint is hard and involves suffering, the conversation ends.

At one point in time, he was considering a Dominican vocation, (somewhere out east of here), and discovered what I saw in the vision of the Smarties, that those around him only wanted the consolations without the Cross.

We shall be caught up in the Cross whether we want to or not. Either we shall be crucified with Christ, sharing in His Passion, or we shall be one of those who stands and watches, even deriding those who choose to endure the long, painful way of the long teaching of the Church on prayer and penance.

Today, in prayer, it was clear to me that in order to be able to stand up against the disobedience and mediocrity in the Church, I would have to do more penance.

Most crucifixes depict a serene Christ, already dead. Few show the agony of the Dying Christ.

Those who want fast-food holiness or spirituality cannot endure the long suffering of purgation and penance.

There is no easy way to find God and be one with Him.

When I have tried to teach in the past, and I was thinking of this phenomenon this morning when contemplating the fact that those younger than I am do not relate to metaphors, I became aware, by 1982, at the latest, that my students no longer shared the same language in order to understand great literature.

For example, I was teaching a class on the Arthurian myths, and all my students, at ND had been valedictorians of their high school graduating class. And yet, one young woman did not know the word, "chalice". She had never heard it before we read the story of the Holy Grail. She was confused.

I told her what a chalice was, as we were discussing the text, and she said, "Oh, we call that the cup."

David Jones wrote about this sad phenomenon of the Western man and woman losing the common Catholic heritage, or even larger Western heritage of words referring to something in the common culture.

He described "the Break" in the consciousness of the West as occurring absolutely in World War I.

The "Break" now is obvious in the Church. Words no longer mean the same thing to Catholics. Concepts regarding the sacraments, or prayer, or worship do not resound with the same definitions as in early times.

We cannot share metaphors or, more seriously, theological concepts, or even basic religious truths as the language of Catholicism has become more and more distorted by either heretical or New Age interpretations, or by laziness.

A language of Faith must be reclaimed and this reclamation involves hard work on the part of those, like me, who want to teach the real meanings of words, or those who want to learn. The willingness to learn and not merely to get knowledge one's self is a sign of good will and humility.

Few want to learn. They want fast-food spirituality.

I have written before here on the fact that one cannot take short-cuts to holiness. First of all, as noted in the hundred of posts in the perfection series, one begins with and in orthodoxy.

If one cannot "pass" the test of basic truths of the Faith, one clearly has to go back to Square One.

When I was in the convent in the novitiate, I had to go back to Square One, as all women were treated the same, whether they had a degree in theology or not.

I found the test delightful, and I learned more and more going back to the basics. Nothing which is good and truthful can be boring.

But, then, I was always a cook who did everything the "long way", like making my own pie crust, making mayonnaise, not buying frozen dinners or much less frozen anything.

Like a good Montessori teacher, I taught my son to do things "from scratch" and to enjoy every slow step of the way.

In the land of spirituality, there are no fast-food prayers, or techniques, or ways to holiness. That was the teaching of the heretics over and over and over.

Unlike SS. Ignatius Loyola and Teresa of Avila who understood that prayer was a lifestyle and not a method. that prayer, as I noted in the Framing Prayer series, was more than mere adaptation, but a way of looking at life, those who want quick results, and who do not want to learn "the long way" will fall into deceit.

Satan has a common ploy to make people believe that they are holier than they really are. Fr. Chad Ripperger, in a talk I heard years ago and which is online somewhere, told a shocked audience that most people had not even begun to climb the ladder of holiness.

Prayer and study, quiet and simplicity, humility and self-knowledge.....a few of those key rungs on the ladder which bring us all back to the work of our lives-becoming saints.

Framing Prayer 16 Gratitude

"When I read in the Gospel that "Mary went in haste to the hill country of Judea," to perform her loving service to her cousin Elizabeth, I imagine her passing by, so beautiful, so calm and so majestic, so absorbed in recollection of the Word of God within her. Like Him, her prayer was always this: "Ecce. Here I am." Who? "The servant of the Lord," the lowliest of His creatures: she, His Mother! Her humility was so real, for she was always forgetful of self, free from all anxiety. And she could sing,"The Almighty has done great things for me; henceforth all people will call me blessed."

Gratitude is the mark of this young saint. More than many other holy people, Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity expressed gratitude over and over in her prayers, meditations, comments. She knew she was a grateful person and taught others to be grateful.

So many lay people complain, and some do so almost constantly. The prayer of gratitude never crosses their lips, except, perhaps, in the prayer before meals.

Gratitude indicates humility. One must know one has received something and not because one is worthy, but because one is needy.

Look at the simplicity of her gratitude here. We can all learn this lesson. I thank God almost daily for water, for baths or showers, for clothes, for housing....all is from Him. I thank Him for being able to write, to think, to read, to meditate. I thank God for my bed, my bedding, and my books...most of all, I thank God for my friends and for His care, especially in the sacraments.

I thank God for my very life.

"I sleep deeply on my straw mattress, something I never experienced before. The first night I did not feel very secure and I thought that before morning i would roll out of one side or the other, but nothing happened, and now my bed seems delightful to me. If you only knew how quickly time passes in Carmel, and yet it seems to me that I have always lived in this dear house. I can't find words to express my happiness. Here, there is no longer anything but Him. He is All. He suffices and we live by Him alone. 

I find Him everywhere, while doing the wash as well as while praying. Just picture to yourself Elizabeth in her little cell which is so dear to her; it is our sanctuary, just for HIM and for me... "

And, she wrote to a friend:"If you walk rooted in Christ, strengthened in your faith, you will live in thanksgiving, the love of the sons of God"

This thanksgiving bubbles over from the grace to accept either suffering or consolation equally.

Pray like this, dear lay readers. A prayer of Elizabeth of the Trinity....

"O Eternal Word, Word of my God. I want to spend my life in listening to you, to become wholly teachable that I may learn all from you. Then, through all nights, all voids, all helplessness, I want to gaze on you always and remain in your great light . . . O my Three, my all, my Beatitude, infinite Solitude, immensity in which I lose myself, I surrender myself to you as your prey. Bury yourself in me that I may bury myself in you until I depart to contemplate in your light the abyss of your greatness."

An Interesting Comment

"I may as well sin or do something less perfect, as I can't be a saint, anyway." Have you heard this before from a fellow Catholic? A person who was tempted to do something less than perfect in her life said this thought came into her mind when contemplating the deed. It was not actually a sin she was going to commit, but she was going to enact something less than perfect. She was thinking of compromising herself in a situation which would have caused her to do something imperfect.

She decided against the action. It would not have been "wrong", as she noted, but she took the higher moral ground and did not follow this thought.

Temptations to imperfections happen daily. The evil one wants us to believe that we cannot be saints and leads us to ideas, then actions, which are, indeed, less than perfect.

Examples?

Not going to local Adoration just because it takes time...

Buying something unnecessary for the house when one has all one needs...

Buying an expensive car, when one could get a less expensive one...

Saying no to a date, when you know that you would not marry that person...in other words, not using someone for a temporary relationship....

Choosing the best of anything, best shoes, best clothes-brands just because one can...

Having expensive parties for someone else instead of something modest...I know a woman who wasted thousands of dollars on a birthday party for her husband who was upset at the cost....

And so on..

Sometimes imperfections can reveal a sin, and one's predominant fault. Looking at patterns in one's life help one to see those predominant faults. Temptations to imperfections can be avoided by choosing a simplicity of lifestyle.

Just some thoughts from a comment....today.

Revisionist Church History

Matthew 8:20New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Having one of my degrees in history, I am able to spot false revisionist history. Revisionist history became a popular ideological tool of academia, a tool which is now used at every level of education, down to kindergarten. Revisionist history is one reason I did consulting for schools in the early 2000s, bringing them back to Classical Education, using original sources, instead of propaganda generated in the 1970s. Unfortunately, revisionist historians infiltrated the scholarly discipline of Church History, to the point where many things which are now normally accepted by Catholics in the pew can be traced to ideologies perpetrated by various revisionist Catholic historians who departed from centuries of Church teaching, including history.

Three dangerous developments worm their way into the minds and hearts of Catholic through the lies of revisionist history. More than three exist, but these are the most pernicious.

Some of these lies affect the nature of Christ's mission on earth, but let me start with the least "stupid" and move towards the worst revisionist ideal.

Today, the first one I want to consider is the lie that the Early Church was not persecuted and that the history of the martyrs is exaggerated. Secular historians have always desired to undermine the power of the Early Church, including some Protestant church historians, as it strengthens the argument that the Church was not that strong immediately after the Apostolic Age.

Early historians outside of Biblical texts testify to the large, planned extermination of Christians. As I noted in the series last year, February 24, 303, Christianity, or Catholicism, to be exact, came under the empirical title of "heresy", as paganism, and specifically, empire-emperor worship, was the state religion.

Those who try and undermine the impact of Catholicism need only read St. Augustine, and look at the number of dioceses, cathedrals, and churches which existed at the time of the Fall of Rome. At the Council of Carthage, six Catholic provinces of 466 dioceses just in Africa alone were represented by bishops. When Huneric, an Arian and King of the Vandals, exiled the African bishops, 464 went into hiding or moved out of their dioceses to other safe havens. Some were martyred. Ironically, the date of his removal of the bishops was February 24, 484,181 years after Diocletian's persecution began. And those numbers reflect the Church in northern Africa without consideration of the Church in the Levant or Europe.

The lie that the Church was, one, not large, and two, not persecuted, has popped up in articles online as late as two months ago.  What is behind this lie may be the growing worship of the State, which, of course, would never hurt Christians. This lie lulls people into a false sense of security, especially Catholics, as the State wants all to believe it supports religious freedom. Not so then, not so now. Many Catholics still trust the State when they should be very wary as there is a conflict of interests in most Western countries between Catholicism and State practices and beliefs.

The second revisionist lie involves the spreading of the falsity of the following of chastity for priests and bishops in the Early Church. One only needs to look at the writings of the Fathers on the importance of chastity and the growing discipline of celibacy in the priesthood, as well as the lives of the myriad celibate and chaste saints to bring this untruth into the light. Those who push for the married priesthood and who want to destroy the discipline of celibacy in the Church have developed this revisionist historical lie. Yes, some of the early bishops, and even the Apostles, were married. But, we know that these men entered into celibate relationships, even Peter leaving his family, when God called him to Rome.  The exhortation of St. Paul that a bishop should be a man with one wife is not a revisionist interpretation that there was polygamy, but that if the wife died, the cleric would not remarry. This is true today in the rule of the Ordinariates, those priests who have come in under the Personal Provision of St. John Paul II, and deacons. In fact, with the re-establishment of the deaconate, it was the desire of the Church that such men, and the new Ordinariate and PP priests, would enter into Josephite relationships with their wives. But, sadly, some bishops ignore this desire on the part of the Church, and also ask for exemptions. Celibacy has been, since the time of Christ, the norm which became the accepted discipline over the years.

The last and third revisionist lie of history is to me one of the most pernicious. I have referred to this many times on this blog, but as it reared its ugly head this week, I bring it up again.

This is the lie, perpetrated after Vatican II, that the Holy Family, specifically St. Joseph and Jesus, were "middle class".

When I hear this lie, from the pulpit and see it, as I have this week in a little Lenten book passed out at church, I want to break into laughter.

Those of us who have studied the history of the ancient and medieval world know one thing for sure. There existed the rich, about 5% of any given population, and the very poor, about 95%.

The middle class came into being in the late medieval, early Renaissance boom of banking and trade, and the term was not even in print until the mid-1700s. The word, bourgeoisie, originally meant a person who lived and worked in a town, rather than in the agricultural world.

The entire concept of a middle class as existing in the class structure of the Roman Empire is not only terribly unhistorical, but laughable.

There are several reasons for this creeping lie concerning workmen, such as Jesus and Joseph, who were carpenters, being middle class.

The first is the denial of holy poverty. The Protestant historians were the first to deny the value of poverty, following their guides, the Protestant theologians, who saw and still see, poverty as punishment for gross sin. Those who are middle class are blessed by God because they are holier than the poor, and so on. 

For centuries before the 1970s, holy poverty was held up as not only an ideal, as practiced by the great religious orders, but as a comfort for the vast majority of  Catholics in the world who were living in poverty. Priests pointed to the simplicity and poverty of the Holy Family as an example for all families to follow. One of the reasons the orders made vows of poverty was directly linked to Christ's own poverty, in an effort to live exactly as He did while on earth. Holy poverty links one to the denial of self and detachment from worldly goods, hardly a popular subject for priests in the pulpit these days.

The second reason for perpetuating the lie of the Holy Family as middle class is the constant re-definition of the working class in recent years. To blur the distinctions between labor or blue collar and white collar workers, some historians have purposefully looked to the Holy Family as an example of middle class wealth gotten by work of the hands.

Well, it is true that plumbers and carpenters make more money than I ever did teaching, but this comparison of modern workmen cannot be made with those of the past. I made $21 per hour as a college teacher, while I paid my plumber $70 per hour to fix a pipe. That the term "laborers" now covers those who make 100,000 USD a year or more in the construction business, or those who make expensive hand-made furniture, like someone I know who charges $800 for a hand-made chair, has nothing to do with the lot of the Holy Family.

Those who worked with their hands in the ancient times were either slaves, or just above the slave class, that is freemen, who worked for very poor wages. Even an independent furniture maker, or a builder of walls, would not be paid today's market prices for labor. These modern fees have come about because of the lack of skilled workers, or unions.

The ancient world upper class did not have any responsibility to pay fair wages, an idea which simply did not exist outside of Judaism and Christianity. There is a reason why one of the four sins which cry out to God for vengeance includes not giving a fair wage to workers....because it was a huge problem in the ancient world! That the one, true God through the prophets exhorted the Hebrews on this very point reveals the depth of the sins of greed and pride among the few rich.

Joseph and Jesus would have "gotten by", as we say in the Midwest, but just. The typical laborer in the Roman and Jewish world would have been poor by even today's standards-small houses of one or two rooms, dirt floors, work space connected to the house and so on. Mary's daily trip twice a day to the well reveals her poverty. They had no maid, no helpers, no family that we know of, only the Son of God who humbled Himself to live among the poorest of people in the ancient world, the Jews, long subdued and taxed mercilessly.

The third reason, but not the end of the list, for the perpetuation of the lie which states that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were middle class, is the worst reason of all.

When the Catholic Church members, especially in the United States, became middle class, they no longer wanted to remember their impoverished ancestors, or even their recent past. The new middle class wanted to forget the trials and sufferings of poverty and not be reminded of their duties to the still poor.

To purposefully forget one's past poverty means that a person has fallen into the sin of pride and desires the esteem of others in the society. To identify with a poor Christ means that one cannot forget that we are all poor, indeed, naked before God.

The comforts and consolations of the middle class prevent people from growing in the one virtue which invited God into the heart, and mind and soul--humility.

Today, there is about three feet of snow on the ground. Yesterday, I asked a couple to take me shopping as I am almost out of food. I can pay for it, but I have no way to get to the grocery stores unless I take a cab.

They said "no".

This type of thinking, even among Catholics, has to do with the revisionist history people hear from the pulpit and read in their Lenten meditations. Many priests themselves are too comfortable in middle class lifestyles, like going on extensive vacations, even more than once a year, driving expensive cars, eating out frequently at the best places. They cannot preach what they themselves do not live.

They do not understand the Holy Family. They do not understand what it means to create a holy family in their own parishes. They may not think of the necessity of Jesus giving Mary to John at the Cross. Why? She had no one else and would have been forced into the street--(and another proof of her ever-virginity, as there were no so-called brothers and sisters of Christ to take her in.)

Think on that.

Without Joseph and Jesus, Mary would have had to rely on her community for things. Perhaps, they would not have helped her, thus Jesus remembering her plight from the place of His Death.

I have no Joseph, no Jesus in my home to help me. How many others are overlooked, especially in these places of bad weather, because they do not measure up to the false idea of the middle class Jesus?

I shall nibble on what I have and be comforted by the thought that the Holy Family lived in poverty and had great joy even in suffering, and perhaps, having days without adequate food.

That is the model still for Catholics today. Revisionists allow themselves to judge and to not be involved with the plight of others because "their Jesus" did not suffer poverty.

He did. He still does.

From Philippians 2:

 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 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,
8     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Discernment Part Five

There is much more in Garrigou-Lagrange's book and much more on this subject, but I want to highlight only this selection below. I have found that in my life there have been people who have seemed holy only for me to discover that they do not love the Church, or desire the Eucharist. One wonders at the discrepancies, until one realizes that all the virtues come to be exhibited by the person who is truly holy. All the baptized are called to holiness. but without discernment, we can be fooled in following erroneous ideas or waste time in groups or endeavors which actually lead us into pride.

Too many people also fall into the category described below as "exotic". Eccentricity is not a sign of holiness.  Simplicity and a genuine humility are always signs of the spirit of God, whether in priests or in lay people. That God allows humiliation in one's life is a sign that He is working on the virtues, freeing one from the ego so that these virtues may flourish.

I have emphasized some characteristics of this topic in order to show that we are capable of developing the gift of discernment which has a real purpose in our lives. It is too easy for anyone to fall into self-deceit concerning progress on the road to perfection without a grounding in discernment.

Here are the last paragraphs for consideration at this time. One can see how these ideas follow some of the entries in Raissa's Journal. That Garrigou-Lagrange was part of the lives of the Maritains should surprise none of my readers.

Therefore the spirit which chafes under humiliation is not a perfect spirit: neither is the spirit which neglects to deny itself a spirit of solid virtue, since all the virtues ought to develop in unison as they are so closely related to each other.

It follows, therefore, that a spirit which prompts a man to numerous acts of mortification but not to ready obedience is imperfect, and must be regarded at least to some extent as having an evil intention, since it is so insistent on following its own will. True it is that such a spirit is often the cause of many good works but these are not inspired by any love of God, as is evident from the lack of growth in humble obedience the sure sign of loving conformity to the will of God.

Neither is that spirit to be trusted which is always urging man to paradoxical action, which is continually forming judgments that conflict with the common opinion of prudent men. Such a spirit is, so to speak, exotic and artificial; it is impulsive rather than virtuous.

Similarly, there cannot be any doubt about the evil nature of a spirit which fosters in man a desire for what is extraordinary and willingly speaks of this to all and sundry. God would never lead a soul to the higher planes of the spiritual life without making it at the same time extremely humble, since all the virtues arc inter-related and so are perfected together. That is why it is so easy to distinguish the truly high-minded person from one who is presumptuous. It is part of the devil's plan to incite in man a desire for what is new, curious, abnormal, amazing, unusual, and so to excite the wonder and admiration of others that they will think of him as a saint.

The same holds true of a person not yet firmly grounded in the virtues of humility and obedience, who while professing a desire to imitate the saints, concentrates on details of their lives which were never intended to be imitated but simply admired, and dedicates himself to a life of extraordinary forms of prayer and penance.

How foolish to commence erecting a spiritual mansion from the top, like a bird trying to fly without wings! We should never be misled by the apparent success of a soul which makes such an attempt; its flight into the realms of mysticism is deceptive, dangerous, and to no purpose.

Perfection Series VIII Part V Word to the Pressed Remnant!

Raissa Maritain employed two types of contemplative prayer, titles of which Jacques decided to leave in the French rather than try to translate. As these terms provide us with great insights and guidelines into the way to perfection, I shall explain these here.

The first is oraison.

Oraison is not meditation, and belongs to the level of prayer called contemplation. As defined several times on this blog, meditation begins with reflecting on the Life of Christ, and particularly images, events, and persons found in Scripture. Meditation can also flow from the writings of saints.

Oraison does not use images at all. Garrigou-Lagrange would call this the first level of contemplative  or acquired contemplative prayer, the prayer of complete silence, in which a person allows God to come and move the heart, mind, and soul. One may find that contemplating leads to thinking or reflecting or even the beginnings of experiencing the Attributes of God. (see tags) Some theologians call this simple prayer.

One usually does not enter this type of prayer without moving from the lower forms of prayer. (again, see tags)

Raissa went through the Dark Night of the Senses and Spirit, then moving from meditation to orsaison. 

As an orthodox and wise Catholic, she warns against not thinking about Christ in prayer, as one cannot empty one's mind, heart and soul without encountering demonic, deceitful influences. Christ, not ourselves or emptiness, must be the center of prayer.

Christ is always the starting point in prayer for the Catholic.

Oraison moves from meditating on the Incarnation to God as Father the Spirit, and the Trinity, but without images or concepts. Of course, this prayer is a gift to the purified soul, mind and heart.

At this level of prayer, one is not interceding for anyone or even against evil, The experience of God encompasses all those negative things and places them within the larger context of God's Providence and His Divine Will.

The simplicity of this prayer and the zeal for truth merge. Here are her own words.

But I do not wish to remove myself from the Cross. Every day I abandon myself to whatever suffering God wills. And the Cross of Jesus carries me over all the abyss.

Error is like the foam on the waves, it eludes out grasp and keeps reappearing. The soul must not exhaust itself fighting against the foam. Its zeal must be purified and calmed an, by the union with the divine Will, it must gather strength from the depths. And Christ, with all his merits and the merits of all the saints, will do his work deep down below the surface of the waters. And everything that can be saved will be saved.  For our God has chosen to reign in humility , and it really seems as if he wished to show himself only just as must as is necessary in order that the visible Church shall endure to the end and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (7th March 1924)

Too many Catholics are fighting directly in their minds, hearts and souls the errors seen popping up out of the darkness of late. We have been trained in politics in the Church but not in prayer.

The primary way to fight error is spiritual, notes Raissa above.  Let those in Rome fight the battles, but use the power of prayer to engage and overcome evil.

I have learned this the hard way here in Malta. Daily I meet heretics, and those who have grown up in ignorance about the Faith. These people do much damage ministering error. Some are priests.

I cannot put out all the fires, but I can go into silence before Christ and join with His sufferings in order to overcome evil.

I can do that, and you can do that.

Raissa notes that the world has a false optimism.  God permits, with full knowledge, evil.

He is not like a man who regretfully permits what he cannot prevent. He has let men go their own way armed with their freedom, ---win more or less, and perhaps will end by winning everything. God has simply reserved for himself in humanity one Man who is his Son. And this Man-God calls to himself for his own work--which he also has to do with men's freedom--call a small number of men, a handful in every century, to work in his own way. (quoted by Jacques in the Preface, from Brief Writings, 16th February 1935)

It dawned on my why I have been so exhausted here. I was working too hard to correct errors and not praying oraison.  This is what God wants of the remnant--some work, but much more, He wants prayer.

Not intercessory, but that simple prayer of love being in Christ's Presence, even experiencing deep suffering for the sake of the Church, is what causes change. Prayers are not being answered because Catholics are not willing to enter into the state of purity of heart, which allows one to join in the sufferings of Christ. In this state, prayers become efficacious.

In the next post, I shall move on to the second type of prayer as explained in the Journal.

to be continued...

Perfection Series IV: Part Nineteen; Simplicity in Unity; I

Too many people assume or think even after study that the state of Union with God means that one has to have a complicated spiritual life.

On the contrary, simplicity is a mark of unity in and with God I am going to devote the last two parts of this fourth series on simplicity as a mark of unity.

Simplicity actually begins or comes in the Illuminative State, but is seen most clearly in the mature saint.

Little Rose of Lima, whose feast day is tomorrow, was united to God at an early age, shows us the way of simplicity. So, too, do SS. Therese, the Little Flower, and Joseph Cupertino.

Here is the great Dominican again:

SUPERIOR SIMPLICITY, THE IMAGE OF THAT OF GOD

Another aspect of veracity, the superior simplicity of the saints, prepares the soul even more for contemplation. Simplicity is opposed not only to duplicity, but to every useless complexity, to all that is pretentious or tainted with affectation, like sentimentality which affects a love that one does not have. What falsity to wish to talk in a glowing style as if one were already in the seventh mansion of the interior castle, when one has not yet entered the fourth! How far superior is the simplicity of the Gospel!

We say that a child's gaze is simple because the child goes straight to the point without any mental reservation. With this meaning Christ says to us: "If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome"; that is, if our intention is upright and simple, our whole life will be one, true, and luminous, instead of being divided like that of those who try to serve two masters, God and money, at the same time. In the presence of the complexities, the pretenses, the more or less untruthful complications of the world, we feel instinctively that the moral virtue of simplicity or of perfect loyalty is a reflection of a divine perfection.

The simplicity of God is that of the pure Spirit who is Truth itself and Goodness itself. In Him are no thoughts that succeed one another; there is but one thought, ever the same, which subsists and embraces every truth. The simplicity of His intellect is that of a most pure gaze which, without any admixture of error or ignorance, has unchangeably as its object every knowable truth. The simplicity of His will or of His love is that of a sovereignly pure intention ordering all things admirably and permitting evil only for a greater good.

The most beautiful characteristic of God's simplicity is that it unites in itself perfections which in appearance are most contradictory: absolute immutability and absolute liberty; infinite wisdom and the freest good pleasure, which at times seems arbitrary to us; or again infinite justice, which is inexorable toward unrepented sin, and infinite mercy. All these perfections are fused and identified without destroying each other in the eminent simplicity of God.
We find a reflection of this lofty simplicity in the smile of a child and in the simplicity of the gaze of the saints, which is far superior to all the more or less untruthful intricacies of worldly wisdom and prudence.

What a false notion of simplicity we sometimes form when we imagine that it consists in telling frankly all that passes through our minds or hearts, at the risk of contradicting ourselves from one day to the next, when circumstances will have changed and the persons whom we see will have ceased to please us! This quasi-simplicity is instability itself and contradiction, and consequently complexity and more or less conscious untruth; whereas the superior simplicity of the saints, the image of that of God, is the simplicity of an unchanging wisdom and of a pure and strong love, superior to our impressionability and successive opinions.

St. Francis de Sales often speaks of simplicity.(11) He reduces it to the upright intention of the love of God, which should prevail over all our sentiments, and which does not tarry over the useless search for a quantity of exercises that would make us lose sight of the unity of the end to be attained. He says also that simplicity is the best of artifices because it goes straight toward its goal. He adds that it is not opposed to prudence, and that it does not interfere with what others do.

The perfect soul is thus a simplified soul, which reaches the point of judging everything, not according to the subjective impression of the moment, but in the divine light, and of willing things only for God. And whereas the complex soul, which judges according to its whims, is disturbed for a trifle, the simplified soul is in a constant state of peace because of its wisdom and its love. This superior simplicity, which is quite different from naivete, or ingenuousness, harmonizes perfectly, therefore, with the most cautious Christian prudence that is attentive to the least details of our acts and to their proximate or remote repercussion.

In my last section on the Unitive State, I shall go back to Garrigou-Lagrange on the childlike soul of the saint.

I know I have not exhausted this topic, but only given some hints, some indications as to the beauty of life in and with God.

We are ALL called to this state. Whether we cooperate with grace or not is our own decisions, made daily, until we die.

to be continued....

Doctors of the Church 2:47

St. Bernard tells us,

"What folly is this that we have have left great things should now cling with such detriment to small ones."

Little things get in the way of perfection.

The monks give up status, money, success, sex, houses, families, their wills...

and maybe, cling to their favourite bench...

One's favourite seat in the church..... one's favourite silver spoon, a picture, a book, a candle, anything can become a distraction, an obsession, a matter of pride.

A room with a view, a quilt, a chair, a space heater, a mug...can cause disruption in a community  in a family, in a relationship.

And, any small thing in a family, community or relationship which is "mine" and no one else can use it is a danger to one's soul.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Any desire, no matter how small plugs up the heart.

The heart must be empty to accept the simple things.

The heart must be empty to receive the big things.

The big thing for which the heart should be emptied is Love.

And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3 DR

Thank you, St. Bernard. To be continued....

A Message of Christmas

For me, the message of Christmas this year is simplicity. Christ in the manger reveals great simplicity.

St. Padre Pio wrote this, "Jesus said, ' Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.' But, before He taught us this by His words, he had already put it into practice. He became a Child and gave us the example of that simplicity He was to teach us later also by His words...We must try to keep our thoughts pure, our ideas upright and honest, and our intentions holy."