The Devil and The Law

I have been travelling to various houses, families, in the Midwest since I landed in Chicago months ago. Because of being immersed in the culture and because of experiencing many different peoples, I have discovered two main reasons why America will fail as a country in the near future. These reasons have histories, which were planted in the foundations of this democracy. If you have never read de Tocqueville, now is the time to do so. It is never too late to understand the times.

The first reason is the philosophical mindset which the American Dream shares with communism and Marxism. This ideology, of course, is materialism, the belief that there is no afterlife and that life on earth can be some sort of material utopia. Materialism denies the soul, the operation of the spiritual in life, and the need for religion in the market place. Materialism worships the god, the demon, Mammon.

The second reason may, at first, not seem connected, but is an insidious, core belief which will bring America to its knees, and this is anarchism.

Anarchists do not want any rules: no guidelines, no Ten Commandments, no Common Law, no Rule of Law. Anarchy is the primal sin of satan.  All rebellion rests in anarchy, which holds that governance is always wrong. Anarchy grows out of the heart of pride and lawlessness.

There are more anarchists in Europe than America, but the attitude of getting by in small crime, and the tendency to rebel against laws seems obvious here.

A small example: fireworks and firecrackers are illegal in the State where I spent July 4^th with a family as a guest. Yet, in this town neighborhood, at least seven families displayed and used both fireworks and firecrackers. The people I stayed with did not want to phone the police, as they fear repercussions from so many neighbors, who not only broke the law for hours and hours, even until three in the morning, but who endangered the safety of their pets, children, and properties. Of course, I had a huge asthma attack from the smoke and chemicals in the air. The family tells me this happens yearly and will continue all weekend. I had no idea so many people were allowed to break the law. When I questioned the family members as to why they thought the police did not care, they replied that the police were busy on this day with drunk drivers and other breaches of the peace. The family just want to get along with their neighbors. As a guest, it was not my place to interfere, but I could see the lack of community in the neighborhood and the selfishness of a younger generation than mine who simply do not care about others or even their own children’s safety.

Such anarchy and hatred of law reveals contempt for society, not merely contempt for the law. Law exists for the common good, for the most part. Of course, there are unjust laws, and immoral laws, as Catholics understand. But, the reason for law is order and without a religious basis, law becomes whatever a government decides, instead of what is in the heart, but either ignored or suppressed by sin and arrogance.

Today, I am still suffering from asthma, wondering how people have so much money to waste on illegal activities. I wonder at the hours of television my guests watched regarding the glorification of America without any, not one, reference to God, Who gave years of freedom and plenty to this land.

Of course, stations like EWTN aired the Third Annual Mass for Religious Freedom ending the two weeks of prayer for religious freedom, which was not mentioned in any parish in this area, either from the pulpits or in bulletins , as the family, Church-going Catholics,  had known nothing about it, the prayers from the USCCB and the activities found in some dioceses not promulgated here.

It is ironic that those who should be preserving the law have either twisted it or ignored it. It is sad that too many Americans do not recognize law as ultimately from natural law and, therefore, from God.

I was speaking with one of this family’s members who said that she did not believe that the Catholic Church had all the truth. She had heard this from a course she took at the local Catholic college-a course which pushed relativism and undermined the Teaching Magisterium of the Church. Catholic teaching was the same or not superior to that of the Protestants or Buddhists, or even agnostics in her mind. She goes to Church weekly. Yet, she simply does not believe in the awesome truth of Catholic teaching. She is a product of this age-a relativist, a subjective thinker, not any different from those who set off the firecrackers behind her house.

Again, the Rule of Law in the Church has been destroyed in people’s minds. Church law and teaching no longer are seen as infallible, true, an expression of God’s order in the world.

This country is ripe for a huge downfall, as the souls of the citizens have died the death of materialism and anarchy. Their own lack of understanding as to the need of spiritual order will allow a tyrannical, overly bureaucratic government to take over, easily. I pity the children, who like dead leaves in the Autumn, will be blown away by the winds which will sweep over the plains once the fall comes. They have no moral frameworks, no connection with natural law or their own ignored souls to protect them.

These thoughts brought to mind the famous saying of the character of Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. If you did not understand the reference then, you will perhaps understand it now.

Mary Our Model

Continuing with the beautiful chapter on love and the will of God from Garrigou-Lagrange, one sees the movement of holiness coming from God, in His perfect will and in His love.

I think it is worth quoting him at length, as I do not want to miss any of the jewels in his paragraphs.

Some may be a repetition, but no one can over-meditate or contemplate in active contemplation on the love of God.

“We are love by God far more than we think. To realize the extent of his love for us, we should have to know fully the value of grace when it has reached its final development in the glory of heaven; we would have to see God, if only for an instant.”

This seeing God for an instant occurs at our particular judgment. So, we are condemned by love, or we are saved in love.

St. Thomas Aquinas is quoted many times in this chapter on love and God’s will. “It is always the best that God prefers.” This means that there is an order of love, to which I referred in the last post.

Aquinas continues…”for, since He is the source of all goodness, one thing would not be better than another, did He not love it with a great love”. (Ia, q.20, a.3)

The characteristics of God’s love are that it is universal, free, a manifestation of goodness and invincible.

All these characteristics lead to the predilection of God’s will. God calls sinners, us, over and over and over, in His love.

Our wills must be conformed to the divine will and to love, as Garrigou-Lagrange notes, again referring to Aquinas. Two aspects of God’s will provide us with the understanding of how to come into union with Him, the goal of perfection.

These two aspects are “the divine will of expression”. Let me let Garrigou-Lagrange explain this: “By the divine will of expression, we mean all those external signs that reveal God’s will—command, prohibitions, the spirit underlying the counsels, and everything that happens by His will or permission. The divine will thus expressed, especially in commands, comes within the domain of obedience, and as St. Thomas remarks, is what we refer to when we say in the Our Father, ‘Thy will be done.’”

Let me stop here for a moment and unpack this in light of the Mass of April 12^th.

Our Lady Mary was completely obedient from birth because of her unique grace. All the commands, prohibitions, and the counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience were perfected in her. She totally followed the divine will of expression. Here is the Collect of that day.

“O God, Who didst make the blessed Virgin Mary surpass all creatures as perfect partaker and image of Christ’s interior virtues, grant, we pray, that we may so venerate Mary’s interior life as to become through her conformed to Christ and through Him perfectly united to Thee. Through the same our Lord.”

This Collect describes the way of perfection perfectly. This prayer refers to the interior virtues which led Mary to live in the divine will of expression.

The second aspect of God’s will, “the divine will of pleasure”, is, Garrigou-Lagrange writes, “…the interior act of God’s will, which often is not yet revealed or expressed externally. Upon it depends our still uncertain future—future events, future joys and trials, whether of long or short duration, the hour and circumstances of our death, and so on. As St. Francis of Sales remarks and Bossuet after him, whereas the expressed will of God is the domain of obedience, the will of His good pleasure is the domain of obedience, the will of His good pleasure is the domain of trusting surrender….in making our will conform daily to the divine will as expressed, we must for the rest abandon ourselves in all confidence to the divine will of good pleasure, for we are certain beforehand that it wills nothing, permits nothing, unless for the spiritual and eternal welfare of those who love God, and persevere in that love.”

God’s love for us is sheer generosity. “O, Generous Love,” as Cardinal Newman writes in “The Dream of Gerontius”.

God states, as the Dominican author reminds us, “ You have not chosen me…but I have chosen you” (John 15:16).

How wonderful, how beautiful…how loving, how kind.

More later…much more

Love and Suffering

Victim Then Victor

I can now write a bit more about the experience I had of Christ’s Passion. This was not a physical experience, but an existential one.

For about fifteen minutes, I felt the complete abandonment of people and of God. It was hell. No love, no light, no peace, just a blackness of fear and emptiness. Gradually, after making an act of faith and act of love,  and understanding that this was a gift of understanding and knowledge, I was released from this horrible experience only to be led into the Harrowing of Hell, again, as an emotional and intellectual, not a physical experience, although fear and abandonment do cause physical reactions.

When Christ descended into hell, as we say in the Creed, He went down first as Victim, experiencing all the pain and agony of those who have sinned and turned against God. He experienced what a soul who needs salvation does, what all who need salvation do, except that He is All Perfect, All Good, the Only Pure Victim. He went down as a Victim and then, immediately as He conquered sin, death and satan, as Victor, over death and damnation, going through hell, freeing those who waited for Him. He literally unlocked the Gates of Heaven so that from that day forward, we all have the chance for eternal bliss. As Victor, He overcame Death and Decay through His Purity and Perfection, as God-Man, as the only valid Sacrifice Who could be made for our sins.

That Christ suffered for all men and women is a profound truth, pointing to the fact that only a God could do that.

The intense pain of Christ was our pains, our sins, not His, of course. His moment of death in all its existential horrors as well as physical ones, He allowed Himself to experience.

He made His Own act of confidence in God on the Cross, “Father, into Your Hands, I commend My Spirit.”

But, He accepted His Passion, the pain of His Entire Being totally in love, for love of us.

To love in the midst of such agony is sheer gift. This is what we all must desire, in our imperfections, allowing God to cleanse us of all which separates us from Him.

He allowed others to take control of His Holy Self. He allowed others to torture and disrespect Him. He allowed Himself to feel the brunt of hatred.

Love is the answer, the only answer to suffering. Love leads to forgiveness and new life, just as Christ was raised from the dead, so too, shall we, if we persevere.

In the morning light

I am a morning person. If I can live according to my own schedule, not other household’s, I am in bed between 10-11 and up at 6. I love going to morning mass, (not possible in the land of cars) and praying outside in the early morning sun.

My favorite animals are birds, and they love the morning as well. The morning chorus is their daily song of praise to God for their creation. They take joy in the morning.

This morning, the chickadees reminded me that the garden belongs to them. The solitary hummingbird came up to the pink hanging petunias. The roses are moving into their second bloom, the last, as in the Midwest, most roses only bloom twice, or even once. This is hard to see, as roses bloom into October in England. But, one enjoys the blooms while these grace the edges of the garden.

Morning is the time for introverts, as we have time to reflect, listen, watch, think of the day. One can begin the day in silence, and today, most people are enjoying the long weekend, sleeping in, which they should do, after a long week of work.

The robins, which descend in flocks, slowly disappear in the heat of the summer. Where they go, I do not know, but they will fly up here again towards the north, flock and leave again.

But, today, a few stragglers eat the worms which have been flushed out onto the sidewalks from the copious amount of rain.

This morning was the first time I heard the wing-song of the locusts, the ebbing and flowing of their call, another sound of praise to the Creator, who, unlike us, they do not know. I love the locusts’ song from their large wings in the oaks and elms which surround this property. Growing up with locusts and tree frogs serenading me most during most of my childhood, I love the soothing sound of the insects and amphibians, which point to earlier days, before men and women settled these lands.

This morning, I discovered, for the first time in my long life as a Catholic, in the 1962 Missal, the memorial, “The Interior Life of The Blessed Virgin”. In my many years of attending Mass on April 12^th, I do not think I have ever assisted at one which honored this memorial.

I refer to it because the overlap with Garrigou-Lagrange’s superb chapter “The Will and Holy Love of God” will be obvious.

First of all, let me quote the introductory paragraph.

“Mary was created immaculate, and therefore the grace of God streamed into her sould without check or hindrance. She began her journey along the road to perfection at a height to which other Saints arrive only at the end of a long life of saintliness. An intimate union with God, a continual and joyful remembrance of His presence, a perfect agreement of will with Him was the beginning of His gifts to Mary.”

Our first model on the road to perfection is, of course, Mary.

The Tract for this day also gives us insights into the entire chapter of Garrigou-Lagrange on God’s love.

The Tract is from the Song of Songs, (Cant. 2:3-5, 16;5:8,6; 6:2).

“I sat down under his shadow whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate. He brought me into the cellar of wine, he set in order charity in me. Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love. My beloved to me and I to him; my soul melted when he spoke. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you tell him that I languish with love.”

The phrases I want to attempt to explain in light of Garrigou-Lagrange’s work are these:

I sat down under his shadow…

he set in order charity in me..

that you tell him that I languish with love

First of all, like Mary of Bethany, one must sit before Christ, under his shadow. One must set time aside to reflect, such as early in the morning, listening, watching.

The shadow of God is all we can see until we are taken up into the Beatific Vision.

Second, Christ sets in us and sets us in an order of love. This order of love is not merely the Ten Commandments, but the higher walk of living the life of the virtues. This walk is absolutely an “order” and not chaos, or relativistic emotion.

That love orders us is part of the work of Divine Providence. In the next post, I shall go back to Garrigou-Lagrange for more on this point.

Third, we can invoke the saints to remind God that we are waiting for His love. We wait, in patience, and sometimes never experiencing for a long time consolation, but merely the assurance in faith, hope, and love, that He will come to us….

To be continued…

More Garrigou

Reading Garrigou-Lagrange is like eating Death by Chocolate Cake. One needs to stop and take a breath before continuing absorbing all the fantastic insights he gives one.

In the chapter “The Will and Holy Love of God”, the author looks at these points: a) in what way love is in God and in what way He loves Himself; b) and the nature of His love for us.

How wonderful to read a chapter on love.

There is a third section on “the will of expression in and the will of His good pleasure.”

Remember that there is no sensibility in God as He is pure spirit. Therefore, in God, “a wholly spiritual and eternal act of love for the good necessarily exists, and this good loved from all eternity is God Himself, His infinite perfection, which is the fullness of being. God loves Himself….infinitely.

Of course, our pea-brains cannot understand this “eternally subsisting burning flame, ignis ardens.”

We can only hope to have glimpses of this great love, by looking and meditating on the Cross of Christ and the Scriptures, and by partaking in the sacramental life of the Church.

One passage quoted by the author may help us perceive, a bit, this undying, eternal, infinite love:

“We read in the Gospel, ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: or they shall have their fill.’ (Matt. 5:6). This is that burning love for the good which is mightier than all contradictions, than all weariness and temptations to discouragement we may meet with, a love mighty as death, even mightier than death, as seen in our Lord and the martyrs. Yet this mighty, ardent love for the good, which must eventually dominate everything in our hearts, is but a spark springing from that spiritual furnace in God, the uncreated love for the sovereign good.”

To be continued…

Hello to Readers in Ireland

Hello to Friends from England

Hope to get back to you all today

Happy 4th to all the ex-pats in Europe.

Thoughts on The Fourth

Today, is perhaps, the saddest July 4th I have ever experienced. I am saddened by the false sense of freedom and the lack of spirituality among my people. On this day, we, as the Church in America, should be fasting and praying for God to withhold His Hand of punishment, which is coming. We should be entreating Our Lady, The Immaculate Conception, our patron, for repentance and melted hearts.

Few see what is coming.

Few.

The Answer Is Love

 I have entered into a deep suffering which I cannot explain. For the first time, I experienced a horror of abandonment not from my own experience, but from the experience of Christ on the Cross. Remember, His own people lead Him to death and abandoned Him. He allowed me to experience a bit of what He did-a blackness which is only accepted in love and mercy.

When Christ went down into Hell to lead the righteous into heaven, all saw Him as the One Who won the war over Satan and his minions. But, before victory, before the completion of salvation, of redemption, Christ felt the depths of rejection.

But, love swallows up such deep, deep pain.

Remember, He was allowed to feel, to experience what we do through sin-our own sin and the sins of others.

I can say no more...

Are you paying attention? Two items....

New Obama Law (Bill "H.R. #2847") passed July 1, 2014


and


http://www.christianpost.com/news/historic-127-year-old-catholic-church-is-now-a-mosque-122471/

Yay!

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/esorcismo-exorcism-exorcismo-35046/

Happy Feast of St. Thomas

Warm Hearts and Warm Food

I am in Davenport, Iowa for two weeks. Sitting in the Locust Street HyVee, I have just met Dan, the manager. I have known Kelly, who works here, since my son was a kid eating tons of Chinese dinners.

The new cafe is fantastic, with free wifi and excellent food.

Breakfast on Thursday is made up of two eggs, hash browns and two large pieces of whole-wheat bread, that is, four slices of thick toast.

Price? $4.99 plus a discount.

And the coffee is great.

Some come here to watch the sports television and eat-so IOWA. Tennis is on now. WIMBLEDON.

If you are in the area, go here and say I sent you. It is crowded-always a good sign for cafes.

Great service as well...It ain't purdy on the outside, but where there are warm hearts and warm food, plus wifi, that is OK with me.

The Inside, Not The Outside

St. Augustine, as quoted by Garrigou-Lagrange, notes that ours is an “evening vision”. We do not have the perfect wisdom of God to understand, or even know, the reasons and consequences of events in our lives.

The Dominican writes this: “Do what we may, we here on earth see the spiritual and the divine only through their reflection in material things. It is owing to this that we attach immense importance to material happenings, such as the loss of an eye, whereas events of the spiritual world, with consequences that are incalculable, are allowed to pass almost unnoticed, such as an act of charity in the order of goodness, or in the sphere of evil a mortal sin. In other words, we see the spiritual and the diine as in the twilight, in the shadow of the sensible…”

A priest friend of mine told me months ago that the psychologists and psychiatrists connected to a famous, local, university hospital were worse than useless at curing their patients. He noted that they only attempt to cure the physical, and, as agnostics or atheists, ignore the real source of many mental problems, the soul.

His interpretation was shared with person who is dealing with a bi-polar son and this woman disagreed, as she could not see the connection, the underlying reality that the soul forms the body, and that disturbances in the soul will, obviously, affect the brain.

The glorification of material science over theology and philosophy creates a false science of psychology, unless this newer science deals with the soul.

God in the greatness of His all-illuminating Wisdom sees the material in the greater context of the spiritual.

Here is Garrigou-Lagrange again: “It is not through the body that God views the soul of the just; it is rather through the soul that He views the body as a sort of radiation of the soul. Hence, His sight is not dazzled by outward show, by wealth and its trappings; what counts with God is charity. A beggar in rags but with the heart of a saint, is of incomparably greater worth in the sight of God than a Caesar in all the splendour of his human glory.”

St. Benedict Labre, as well as St. Joseph Cupertino, are two of my personal patrons.

Great saints on the inside, as it were, but hidden from the sight of so many….

To be continued…

Sometimes, it is difficult to smile at Him

Years ago, the woman who stood up in my wedding as matron of honor told me to “transcend difficulties”. I had to do this, as circumstances forced me to do so.  This great lady was almost my mother’s age, but a good friend of mine. She had been raised in India, in the Raj. Her father died early. Then, she and her mother came back to London to live. She had to leave her mom and live on a farm, as she was young enough to be sent out of harm’s way during the Blitz of London. Later, she married a wonderful man, but only had two children.

She and her husband took care of her mother until that old woman died. Her mother never learned to cook, or sew, or clean, as when she grew up, she had seventeen servants and lived in the luxury of the English in India. My friend had to pay for all her mother’s many needs.  As a person with many hardships to bear, my friend knew how to “transcend” trials. She was “self-possessed”; that is, she had control over her emotions, mind, soul. She was a peaceful woman. Another friend of mine is the same way. She is in her nineties and had an extremely hard life, living with a husband who was ill all their married life. She, too, was and is, “self-possessed”, able to transcend all types of difficulties.

This type of transcendence and self-control only comes with humility and prayer. There is a reality about people who live transcendently. Garrigou-Lagrange writes that we must become closer to God daily in simplicity of heart, “…without which there can be no contemplation of God and no true love.”

What does he mean by this? The death of the ego is the beginning of this emptying of the heart. Egotism must go, must, as I have written many times on this blog.

If we are “too full of ourselves”, there is no room for God. We must not desire attention, or fame, or status, or riches. We must find contentment in what is given to us. We must transcend the trials put on our paths. We need to meditate, and then, to contemplate.

Contemplation is not meditation, again, as I have noted on this blog. Contemplation, whether active, or passive, demands focusing on God Himself, and not on ourselves.

Do we think of ourselves and our problem before Christ in Adoration, or do we immerse ourselves in Him? Do we come with the proverbial laundry list of prayers, or do we just, like Mary of Bethany, sit in His Presence?

Purity of heart, mind, and soul comes with a combination of prayer and sheer gift. Some great saints have these gifts early. Most of us must walk the road of travail and suffering to get to such purity.  We must choose mortification, however, as the given trials may not be enough.

We may not become great saints, few of us will be Padre Pios or Mother Teresas. However, all of us are called to be saints and that means we are all called to purification and perfection.

It is rather ironic that I always  think and sometimes write that “this is my last post on perfection” but I can now see that as I learn and grow, taking the long road through suffering and dying to self.  May God be patient with me. Let me return to Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

My favorite photo of Mother Teresa is not one of her with her beloved dying, or with St. John Paul II, but one of her alone in prayer. Like all saints, like Christ, she needed to be alone with God. Sister Agnes, her helper, said once, “Every day we have Mass, half an hour of meditation, morning prayer, afternoon prayer, and in the evening we have a full hour of Adoration. It would not be possible to work otherwise. There must be a spiritual motive. You can work only for God. You can never work for any man.”

Mother Teresa said, “That is why we begin and end the day with prayer, because, when we pray, we are touching the body of Christ.  You people in the world might not have the time or leisure to pray. It is a beautiful gift of God for us to have that amount of time.”

We must make time. We must.

Mother Teresa also said, “I am not afraid to say I am in love with Jesus because He is everything to me.”

For all Catholics, our work should be for Jesus, and He can be All in All.

Here is the voice of a simple heart. Mother Teresa states that chastity is “undivided love”, that poverty is “freedom”, that total surrender is “obedience”.

“If I belong to God, if I belong to Christ, then He must be able to use me. That is obedience. ….If you really belong to the work that has been entrusted to you, then you must do it with your whole heart.  And you can bring salvation only by being honest and by really working with God. It is not how much we are doing, but how much love, how much honesty, how much faith, is put into doing it. It makes no difference what we are doing. What you are doing, I cannot do, and what I am doing, you cannot do. But all of us are doing what God have given us to do. ….”

And, I love Mother Teresa for saying this-as I have experienced the disrespect which comes to the poor, even from priests, sadly.

“The poor are not respected. People do not think that the poor can be treated as people who are lovable, as people like you and I. You know, the young are beginning to understand. They want to serve with their hands. And to love with their hearts. To the full, not superficially.”

I believe this as I believe that in the remnant will be many young people who have sought and found love.

And, Mother Teresa’s comment about doing the work God has called us to do is also a call to humility. Sometimes people want desperately to do something big for God. But, sometimes, we are called to do something small for God.

I blog. I pray. I do dishes, clean, do laundry, make coffee, take walks. Nothing grand in all of this… but more than that, I love. I am learning daily to live in love, to choose love, to walk, clean, make coffee in love. I blog in love, as that is what God wants me to do right now.

There is nothing to do but to love.

Some of us learn this by loving and being loved by another. Some of us learn this directly from Jesus, the Bridegroom. Either way, love hurts.

“True love hurts. It always has to hurt. It must be painful to love someone, painful to leave them, you might have to die for them. ….A young American couple told me once, ‘You know a lot about love; you must be married.’ And I said, Yes, but sometimes I find it difficult to smile at Him.”

Sweating the Small Stuff

I have been observing something in the past week, and I asked a question concerning this observation. I am typing this in a car, in a parking lot, waiting for people. I never waste time. If I am waiting for the bus, I say a rosary. We do not have much time to become holy.

Here is the question and the answer;

Why are so many people upset about small things? Why are so many American preoccupied with trivia and with the minutiae of passing things?

Garrigou-Lagrange answers this question:

“God’s simplicity…is an unalterable unity, the simplicity of unchanging wisdom and of the purest and strongest love of the good, remaining ever the same and infinitely surpassing our susceptibility and unstable opinions…

The complex soul, on the other hand, is one that bases all its judgments on the varying impressions caused by the emotions and that desires things from motives of self-interest with its changing caprices, now clinging to them obstinately, now changing with every mood or time and circumstances. And whereas the complex soul is agitated by mere trifles, the soul that has acquired its wisdom and unselfish love, is always at rest.”

There is an entire group of people who have not found this wisdom and unselfish love, which brings rest. They complain, almost constantly, and they lack simplicity of heart and soul and mind.

Garrigou-Lagrange refers to Bossuet, “This simplicity, says Bossuet, enables an introverted soul to comprehend even the heights of God, the ways of Providence, the unfathomable mysteries to which a complex soul are a scandal, the mysteries of infinite justice and mercy, and the supreme liberty of the divine good pleasure. “

This tendency to gripe and be negative among some shows me that those who are speaking are hurt, wounded, far from peace of mind and heart and soul.

How to bring such fellow humans to this peace is another question. One can begin with prayer.

Some of my relatives hate poverty so much that they cannot see the value of not having things, the freedom which the non-accumulation of wealth can bring. All they see is the shame, or the lack of status. They do not talk to me.

But, for those of us who have been or are being stripped of things and status, poverty is sheer gift. One cannot, as Garrigou-Lagrange notes, fall into naïveté, or shallowness, or stupidity, but one can choose a more perfect way, the shortcut to perfection. If God chooses it for us, it is less perfect, but can lead to perfection.

Garrigou-Lagrange points to the holiness of Jesus for a model of simplicity. He recalls Christ’s answer to the Pharisees, “’Which of you shall convince me of sin…’ Their duplicity aroused His holy indignation: ‘Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men, for you yourselves do not enter in; and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter…Woe to you, blind guides…you are like to whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness…’”

Of course, the key to this holiness is humility, and the key to not being complex is humility.

Pride causes complaining and irritation. Ask yourself this question today: “About what do I get upset?”

Sadly, priests are not helping the elderly get to heaven. Too many priests are the blind guides. They have not pursued holiness, and therefore, they do not know how to help others get there. Many older people have not reached wisdom and unselfish love. Why?

Why? Why?

To be continued…

Attributes continued...

Attributes Continued….

Simplicity must be sought. For some, it comes “naturally,” or at least, it seems like that. Saints like St. John Vianney or Our Lady Mary seem to have “natural” simplicity. But, this focus on God is a great grace. It is not only the grace of humility but the grace of focusing on love.

Love is the answer, as both Julian of Norwich and T. S. Eliot, who repeats her ideas, note. Love is the answer to all pride and negativity. Those who complain focus only on themselves and their own grievances. They have fallen into habits of selfishness, either repeating past hurts or dwelling on a lack of forgiveness. Love forgives and forgets.

Sometimes such negativity is a sign of depression, or some mental illness, but mostly, it is a sign of a lack of understanding of the love of God.

Garrigou-Lagrange states something important: “In us temperament is determined in one particular direction inclining us either to indulgence or to severity, to a broad and comprehensive view of things, or to practical details, but never both ways at once. If, then, the soul with perfect simplicity practices at one and the same time virtues that are apparently extreme opposites, it is because almighty God is very intimately present in the soul, impressing His likeness upon it.”

I pray for these graces.

I think of St. Paul’s verse on knowing how to enjoy plenty and how to be peaceful in want. The real peace which passes all understanding causes this in the open soul. We have the greatest example of such self-possession in Christ.

Can we all desire this gift of freedom, of simplicity in Christ?  Simplicity is one of the Attributes of God, which is most difficult to understand. Sometimes it is easier to understand something by looking at the opposite. See my attribute series.

When I am really old, I want to be peaceful with whatever comes: greater poverty, illness, weakness, loneliness, whatever.

One does not wait until old age to practice peace. One finds it early so that it can become a habit, a way of life, the life of being humble.

To be continued…

Fools for Christ

Perhaps those of us who have suffered different types of loss and failure can more easily crawl to the Feet of Christ and beg mercy. Perhaps those little ones, who have never been tempted to greatness, or high status, or have never had the chance to become rich are more fortunate than those who have been blessed by God. God does bless many people with gifts or riches, and these can be a way to holiness.

For example, to those to whom much is given, much is expected. Therefore, those who have been given many things are called to be generous or to give it all away and be, like St. Francis or St. Bernard, and choose voluntary poverty.

The way to holiness is as distinct and as unique as every person ever created.

The lives of the saints reveal the lifestyles of those who were rich and those who were poor. The lives of the saints reveals those who were middle class, those in business, in the military, in teaching, artists, actors, farmers, stewards.

But, whatever we do and whoever we are, we are all called to perfection, which is our participation in God.

Because of time constraints in my life now, I am not going to write about the Attributes of God as Infinite, Immense, Eternal, or Incomprehensible. I shall return to those later.

Skipping a few chapters to “ The Wisdom of God” and  “The Will and Holy Love of God” in Garrigou-Lagrange’s book, I want to emphasize a few ideas from these two chapters before moving back to a review of what I highlighted a month ago on Divine Providence.

Garrigou-Lagrange writes that the two “great attributes” of God’s intellect are wisdom and providence.

Interesting.

However, the author notes this: “…free will is an absolute perfection resulting from the intellect. The act of the divine will is love, and its two great virtues are justice and mercy.”

Love is in the will. Those of us who have been married, or who are married, know this truth. Love is not in the emotions, but in the intellect, in the act of the will. One loves whether one feels like it or not. This is the wisdom of love.

But, the wisdom of God must be understood, not we see the wisdom of the world, but as something else.

An entire paragraph is worth repeating: “That wisdom is a comprehensive view embracing all things, everyone is agreed. But after that, what divergences there are! We may view things from above, believing that they all proceed from a holy love, or at least are permitted by it, and that all things converge upon one supreme good. Or we may view things from below, considering them the result of a material, blind fatality without any ultimate purpose. Another divergence is that there is a wisdom characterized by a false optimism, shutting its eyes to the existence of evil, and there is a pessimistic, depressing wisdom that see no good in anything.”

In my immediate circle of persons at this time, I meet all these types of wisdom. The first is the wisdom of the saint. The second is the wisdom of the atheist, and the third is the wisdom of the consumerist. The fourth is the wisdom of the cynic, whether young or old.

Those who see things in only materialistic terms, not considering the soul, fall into the second category, whether avowed atheists or practical atheists. Many psychologists and psychiatrists fall into this category, trying to heal a human without considering the soul.

As Garrigou-Lagrange notes, “To adopt this attitude in our estimation of things, is to make of self the center of all things, unwittingly to adore self. Practically it amounts to a denial of God and a looking upon others as, so to speak, non-existent.”

Many people I know well, at this time, fall into this category, as do so many Americans. I pray daily for their conversion. Garrigou-Lagrange sadly writes that this way is the way of mediocrity and that those of us who aspire to Christian perfection are seen involved, “as much an excess in one direction as downright wickedness is in the other.”

If you are not understood by those around you, it is because they are stuck in the wisdom of the world. This following selection from Garrigou-Lagrange – describes my life. ”We must avoid extremes in everything, we are told. And so the mediocre comes to be called good, whereas it is nothing but an unstable, confused state lying between the good and the bad…Instead of rising higher, a man will remain permanently halfway. Hence the word charity is sometimes applied to a reprehensible moderation, this ‘wisdom of the flesh’ is equally indulgent to vice and indifferent to virtue.”

To choose to live the Gospel and live in the love of God causes division. Many cannot understand.

Scary that so many of us are separated from loved ones because they simply cannot understand our decision to follow Christ fully.

Such wisdom of God, we are reminded in the text, when the author quotes St. Paul, is the “foolishness of God”.

Many Catholics live in mediocrity and criticize those of us who choose not to do so as “fools” or even irresponsible. Why?

Because our lives are simply not understood by those who live in the wisdom of the world, we are called fools.

Sadly, the modern Church has not spoken out against mediocrity enough. Even at the TLMs, too many sermons are on subjects which no longer challenge those of us in the pews.

God’s wisdom is a “luminous knowledge” of Himself and all things. This light can be shared with us to some extent.

I shall return to this topic …to be continued…

Read This, Please

http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-party-spirit.html