and I think that The Atlantic has changed since the older days...
Blogger alert.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/a-map-of-all-the-flights-snowden-could-take-without-being-extradited/277205/
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Aquinas Series on Greed and the Virtues of Temperance and Justice
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| The Last Judgement in the Albi STtCecile Cathedral in France |
To us, it should be obvious that Justice is the virtue which counteracts Greed. But, Greed is not just about money or property. The most common sort of Greediness is the desire for power.
Here is Thomas on Greed, just a bit, as there is so much more, of course: 2:2:118. This is the section dealing with greediness for money and acquisitions.
Greed have another name and that is Avarice and it is one of the Deadly Sins. Here are people depicted in hell as being boiled in oil for Greed.
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| Detail of Above |
Covetousness denotes immoderation with regard to riches in two ways. First, immediately in respect of the acquisition and keeping of riches. On this way a man obtains money beyond his due, by stealing or retaining another's property. This is opposed to justice, and in this sense covetousness is mentioned (Ezekiel 22:27): "Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood . . . and to run after gains through covetousness." Secondly, it denotes immoderation in the interior affections for riches; for instance, when a man loves or desires riches too much, or takes too much pleasure in them, even if he be unwilling to steal. On this way covetousness is opposed to liberality, which moderates these affections, as stated above (117, 2, ad 3, 3, ad 3, 6). On this sense covetousness is spoken of (2 Corinthians 9:5): "That they would . . . prepare this blessing before promised, to be ready, so as a blessing, not as covetousness," where a gloss observes: "Lest they should regret what they had given, and give but little."
Reply to Objection 1. Chrysostom and the Philosopher are speaking of covetousness in the first sense: covetousness in the second sense is called illiberality [aneleutheria] by the Philosopher.
Reply to Objection 2. It belongs properly to justice to appoint the measure in the acquisition and keeping of riches from the point of view of legal due, so that a man should neither take nor retain another's property. But liberality appoints the measure ofreason, principally in the interior affections, and consequently in the exterior taking and keeping of money, and in the spending of the same, in so far as these proceed from the interior affection, looking at the matter from the point of view not of the legal but of the moral debt, which latter depends on the rule of reason.
Reply to Objection 3. Covetousness as opposed to justice has no opposite vice: since it consists in having more than one ought according to justice, the contrary of which is to have less than one ought, and this is not a sin but a punishment. But covetousness as opposed to liberality has the vice of prodigality opposed to it.
Although Thomas notes that Greed is connected to Lust, he puts this sin in the category of a SPIRITUAL MORTAL SIN rather than a corporal or fleshy sin. It is the desire and the mental pleasure associated with Greed which is the greatest sin. Sadly, for centuries, Greed has hidden in the idea that those who are blessed by God and heaven bound are signed by wealth. Greed can hide as piety and even as a virtue.
But, it is a spiritual vice. It shrivels the heart and clouds the mind. Temperance, as well as Justice, can counteract Greed. But, to me, the greatest antidote to Greed is voluntary poverty.
The denial of one's self to be attached to goods for the sake of Christ allows one to become objective and breaks the stranglehold of Greed. Such is the modern world, that Greed is glorified by those on the political left and those on the right.
Greed is self-centeredness gone wild.
Gregory (Moral. xxxi) numbers covetousness among spiritual vices.
I answer that, Sins are seated chiefly in the affections: and all the affections or passions of the soul have their term in pleasure and sorrow, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. ii, 5). Now some pleasures are carnal and some spiritual. Carnal pleasures are those which are consummated in the carnal senses--for instance, the pleasures of the table and sexual pleasures: while spiritualpleasures are those which are consummated in the mere apprehension of the soul. Accordingly, sins of the flesh are those which are consummated in carnal pleasures, while spiritual sins are consummated in pleasures of the spirit without pleasure of the flesh. Such is covetousness: for the covetous man takes pleasure in the consideration of himself as a possessor of riches. Therefore covetousness is a spiritual sin.
Reply to Objection 1. Covetousness with regard to a bodily object seeks the pleasure, not of the body but only of the soul, forasmuch as a man takes pleasure in the fact that he possesses riches: wherefore it is not a sin of the flesh. Nevertheless by reason of its object it is a mean between purely spiritual sins, which seek spiritual pleasure in respect of spiritual objects (thus pride is about excellence), and purely carnal sins, which seek a purely bodily pleasure in respect of a bodily object.
Reply to Objection 2. Movement takes its species from the term "whereto" and not from the term "wherefrom." Hence a vice of the flesh is so called from its tending to a pleasure of the flesh, and not from its originating in some defect of the flesh.
Reply to Objection 3. Chrysostom compares a covetous man to the man who was possessed by the devil, not that the former is troubled in the flesh in the same way as the latter, but by way of contrast, since while the possessed man, of whom we read in Mark 5, stripped himself, the covetous man loads himself with an excess of riches.
Here is a bit of Thomas on Temperance and remember that the Cardinal Virtues lie not only in the heart, but in the head. Thomas reminds us of this below. If we are reasonable, we shall fear the Lord.
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| The Cardinal Virtues, Strasbourg Cathedral |
Reply to Objection 1. Nature inclines everything to whatever is becoming to it. Wherefore man naturally desires pleasures that are becoming to him. Since, however, man as such is a rational being, it follows that those pleasures are becoming to man which are in accordance with reason. From such pleasures temperance does not withdraw him, but from those which are contrary to reason. Wherefore it is clear that temperance is not contrary to the inclination of human nature, but is in accord with it. It is, however, contrary to the inclination of the animal nature that is not subject to reason.
Reply to Objection 2. The temperance which fulfils the conditions of perfect virtue is not without prudence, while this is lacking to all who are in sin. Hence those who lack other virtues, through being subject to the opposite vices, have not the temperance which is a virtue, though they do acts of temperance from a certain natural disposition, in so far as certain imperfect virtues are either natural to man, as stated above (I-II, 63, 1), or acquired by habituation, which virtues, through lack of prudence, are not perfected by reason, as stated above (I-II, 65, 1).
Reply to Objection 3. Temperance also has a corresponding gift, namely, fear, whereby man is withheld from the pleasures of the flesh, according to Psalm 118:120: "Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear." The gift of fear has for its principal object God, Whom it avoids offending, and in this respect it corresponds to the virtue of hope, as stated above (19, 09, ad 1). But it may have for its secondary object whatever a man shuns in order to avoid offending God. Now man stands in the greatest need of the fear of God in order to shun those things which are most seductive, and these are the matter of temperance: wherefore the gift of fear corresponds to temperance also.
Very interesting on false information coming from NSA
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/2-senators-say-the-nsa-is-still-feeding-us-false-information/277187/
a snippet from the article
this same fact sheet states that under Section 702, "Any inadvertently acquired communication of or concerning a US person must be promptly destroyed if it is neither relevant to the authorized purpose nor evidence of a crime." We believe that this statement is somewhat misleading, in that it implies that the NSA has the ability to determine how many American communications it has collected under section 702, or that the law does not allow the NSA to deliberately search for the records of particular Americans. In fact, the intelligence community has told us repeatedly that it is "not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority" of the FISA Amendments Act.
a snippet from the article
this same fact sheet states that under Section 702, "Any inadvertently acquired communication of or concerning a US person must be promptly destroyed if it is neither relevant to the authorized purpose nor evidence of a crime." We believe that this statement is somewhat misleading, in that it implies that the NSA has the ability to determine how many American communications it has collected under section 702, or that the law does not allow the NSA to deliberately search for the records of particular Americans. In fact, the intelligence community has told us repeatedly that it is "not reasonably possible to identify the number of people located in the United States whose communications may have been reviewed under the authority" of the FISA Amendments Act.
When one cannot get to daily Mass
I sprained my ankle a week ago and it still hurts. Missing daily Mass is hard for me. I want to live next to Jesus in the Eucharist. Please pray for my house of Adoration. Please pray for two more women to love Christ enough to want to worship Him daily in the lay life. Pray for a benefactor for the house and community, please.
My Jesus,
I believe that You
are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love You above all things,
and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment
receive You sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.
Amen.
Read more:http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/blsac4.htm#ixzz2XCbrR4ey
My Jesus,
I believe that You
are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love You above all things,
and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment
receive You sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.
Amen.
Read more:http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/prayers/blsac4.htm#ixzz2XCbrR4ey
Persecutions Postings Revisited
06 Apr 2013
A sign of the stages of persecution. Posted by Supertradmum. Last year I said we were at the end of the fourth out of five steps of persecution. Here is another indication, just in case some readers do not believe this.
01 Feb 2013
I have written this post before...and it was accidentally deleted with many others. Stages four and five of persecution are clear. We are in stage four in the States and entering into it is Great Britain. Stage Four is criminalization.
01 Feb 2013
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history/Modern_History/1914-1948/The_Holocaust/Early_Stages_of_Prosecution.shtml. And from a great site, from talks in 1998 on the stages of persecution of the Jews. This would be the ...
01 Feb 2013
As I am the one who has to rewrite my own ideas, I am trying to be patient with myself. Stages one, two and three in the United States and Europe are long gone. The beginnings of stage one are in the educational systems of ...
22 Feb 2013
The last stage of persecution witnesses laws directly aimed at the target group, making their activities unlawful and forcing them into poverty and fines if they do not cooperate. This happened here 500 years ago and the ...
01 Feb 2013
Long gone is stage two of persecution. Posted by Supertradmum. Stage Two is the vilification of Catholics. Again, this happened years ago in America, with the Ku klux Klan and Masons printing anti-Catholic material, as well ...
05 Dec 2012
Since last January, I have highlighted the five stages of persecution now and then. You can ... We as Catholics were in the fourth stage of persecution before the election in America, which is a turning point for the entire world.
20 Jan 2012
There have been since World War II, psychologists and sociologists who have defined stages of persecution for religions. The first is stigmatizing the targeted group. This has already happened in the United States under the ...
01 Feb 2013
(5) Persecuting the targeted group outright. I think we are in stage four. Catholics who refuse to face the reality of new laws in GB and the USA should be directed to the myriad posts I have on persecution. Just type in that tag ...
12 Jan 2013
And, as laymen, we only have ourselves to blame if we find ourselves marginalize, persecuted, imprisoned, martyred. See my post below on the stages of persecution and the ideologies which push these heresies. The one I ...
Placet-A Manifesto on Love
Be love. Be in love, all the time. Love is not a feeling, it is a decision. Ask Christ for His Heart.
I have been "in love" and also "willed love" in my life. Love is an amazing experience. My own experience is that of mostly unrequited love, but that makes no difference in the long run. Love is a gift. It is a gift for the giver as much, if not more, than the receiver. So, unrequited love, although a suffering, is a good. One learns about one's self in love, whether answered or not. In fact, unanswered love is the love from the Cross.
One can be single and love. But, more than others, this takes creativity and persistence. One must look for opportunities to love. A single person must be pro-active in prayer and in serving others.
As God has not given me the physical strength to join the great nuns at Tyburn, this is my call.
I went to Tyburn to find Love, and He found me and sent me out. This is my cross and His, as He chose this for me. When Christ chooses our cross, He is offering His own to us. For many in this modern age of dysfunctional families and isolation, loneliness or at least, alone-ness, can be for many the Cross.
I do not think we have "many crosses" but one. And, for all of us, it is the same-suffering. I am reminded of St. Therese' "unfelt joy". There is a mystery to this awareness of God's Love but not feeling this consolation. It is deeper, it is the Love found in Faith.
Love means that one is not thinking of one's self, but others. Love means that the needs and even desires of others, as long as these are moral and good, can be met. Love is getting out of one's self.
Sometimes, all one can do is pray for another. That, too, is love. Persistent prayer is committed love.
Love is liberating and life changing.
Love is gratefulness and humility at the very thought of being love. Humility is the awareness that one does not deserve to be loved but is. And, with humility comes purity of heart.
For those of us who are more like Joan of Arc than Zelie Martin, love is an adventure which God directs and we follow like good soldiers. We cannot choose our personalities and talents, but God perfects these in His Own way and time.
But, I have loved and do love, and wish all who have not been fortunate enough to do so to experience love at least once and that once is the Love of God. I am concerned that too many young people are afraid to love or to be loved, really, and therefore, shield themselves from God.
Do not be afraid.
Love is in the will and the will controls the heart.
Willing is the key. One must be open to love. If one is open, love comes. If one is closed, it does not.
One must be willing to be hurt. That is not masochistic, that is reality. One forgives and loves even more in the forgiveness. Sometimes, love must begin in forgiveness, which is fertile soil for love. When one forgives, one dies to one's self, but one is, therefore, transformed and changed.
Love, which comes to us, is a Person, Who is God and He wants to come into the hearts, minds, souls of each man and woman.
He waits for us to be open. He will not force His Love upon us. Just as we cannot force someone to love us or even to accept our love, so too, God waits for us. He holds out His Heart to us every day, every hour, every minute, every second. What wondrous Love is this, states the song....as His Love suffers for us. The Eucharistic Heart of Jesus suffers in humility and vulnerability. Can we do anything less?
I call Christ the Vulnerable God.
In the Song of Songs, Love waits. From Chapter 2, DR:
I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and the harts of the, fields, that you stir not up, nor make the beloved to awake, till she please.
Say "placet" to God. He will do the rest.
Monday, 24 June 2013
Waiting for God and Waiting on God vs. the Self-Hug of Indulgence: Weil and Jones
I also attended, over thirty years ago, a superb conference on her at Notre Dame. I had already read her books but the conference presenters were top-drawer. Sadly, it was not well attended.
Already, the need to listen to spirituality of love and suffering was becoming too tedious for most young people.
Suffering is part of the journey to God and cannot and should not be avoided. Weil has a few points I would like to highlight today.
The first is that she says that Christianity is the religion of slaves. What she means is that only those who are humbled in this world can appreciate this religion. She couples this with the extreme poverty of St. Francis. Her desire to be a vagabond was born of the ideal of purity, separating herself out from the world, and being totally dependent on God.
A slave is totally dependent on his or her master. Louis de Montfort uses this imagery in his consecration to Mary. We are repealed by the idea of slavery, as we identify ourselves as sons and daughters of God.
However, those of us who have had the good fortune of being in love understand the ideal of waiting on a person's every need or desire. Indeed, in the Scriptures, we have this phrase from Psalm 132:2 DR:
Behold as the eyes of the servants are on the hands of their masters, As the eyes of the handmaid are on the hands of her mistress: so are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until he have mercy on us.
The second idea I want to note is that Weil experienced a personal love relationship with God, which even in the midst of great suffering, sustained her. The mystery of His Presence was given to her, and she notes that His Presence of Love was there even in suffering. I understand this. One can be suffering intensely and know all the time that Christ is with one. This Presence is Love, but He is not the Comforter at this point.
The third point is key. Weil notes that Christ wants us to prefer Truth to Him. What she means it that if we seek Truth, and Christ is Truth, we shall find Him. But, if we stray from Truth, we lose Him.
Those who seek consolations are not seeking Truth. These people kid themselves that they are seeking God, but in reality, they are seeking only themselves, in a self-hug of indulgence.
Another point to highlight for today, and I shall come back to her another day, is that one can meditate and contemplate using the Our Father alone. For years, Weil contemplated the Our Father daily, and from that prayer came great graces for her. We do not have to be complicated in our prayers. Christ Himself gave us the Our Father, and in that prayer is all we need for Love to blossom.
I read Weil over and over as a young woman, and her love for and in Christ is ever new. The greatest sadness to me is that she could not bring herself to be baptized, although Christ met her again and again. She decided for the sake of her Jewish brothers and sisters, to stay outside in the vestibule of the Church.
One more last point is key. Weil states that God uses rejects, castaways, wastes. I can identify with that for many reasons. God shines forth most clearly in those who are low and lowly. But, the world does not see this. Neither do some Catholics, who are so bent on middle-class spirituality, that they miss God, who is waiting for them. They miss Him, as David Jones writes, "For it is easy to miss him, at the turn of a civilisation."
(If and when I eventually get to heaven, after seeing Christ, Mary and Bernard of Clairvaux, I want to see David Jones. I am sad I never met him, but he died in 1974, six years before I came to England.)
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| Thanks to Wiki for Photo |
A, a, a, DOMINE DEUS
The 70th anniversary of Simone Weil's death is on August 24th.
to be continued....
Catholic Priest Killed in Syria by Rebels
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/nel-mondo/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/siria-syria-siria-25916/
Were they armed by the United States?
Were they armed by the United States?
Thomas Aquinas Series Continued on Virtues and Perfection
from 1:2;61 http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2061.htm
Reply to Objection 1. The Philosopher (Aristotle-supert) is speaking of these virtues according as they relate to human affairs; for instance,justice, about buying and selling; fortitude, about fear; temperance, about desires; for in this sense it is absurd to attribute them to God.
Reply to Objection 2. Human virtues, that is to say, virtues of men living together in this world, are about the passions. But the virtues of those who have attained to perfect bliss are without passions. Hence Plotinus says (Cf. Macrobius, Super Somn. Scip. 1) that "the social virtues check the passions," i.e. they bring them to the relative mean; "the second kind," viz. the perfecting virtues, "uproot them"; "the third kind," viz. the perfect virtues, "forget them; while it is impious to mention them in connection with virtues of the fourth kind," viz. the exemplar virtues. It may also be said that here he is speaking of passions as denoting inordinate emotions.
One must be moving into the perfecting virtues, as the true flowering of the virtues happens at the Illuminative State; before that state, there is too much "me" and not enough Christ.
Reply to Objection 3. To neglect human affairs when necessity forbids is wicked; otherwise it is virtuous. Hence Cicero says a little earlier: "Perhaps one should make allowances for those who by reason of their exceptional talents have devoted themselves to learning; as also to those who have retired from public life on account of failing health, or for some other yet weightier motive; when such men yielded to others the power and renown of authority." This agrees with what Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xix, 19): "The love of truth demands a hollowed leisure; charity necessitates good works. If no one lays this burden on us we may devote ourselves to the study and contemplation of truth; but if the burden is laid on us it is to be taken up unde r the pressure of charity."
I smile, because sometimes this "hallowed leisure" is unemployment, serious illness, such as cancer, or alienation from family. God has his ways of perfecting our intellect if we let him do this.
Charity demands that I write this blog, not my own desires, although the two can coincide. Charity demands that to whom something is given it must be given back freely, even in the face of poverty, which is the Face of Christ on the road to Calvary, as Veronica knew.
Reply to Objection 4. Legal justice alone regards the common weal directly: but by commanding the other virtues it draws them all into the service of the common weal, as the Philosopher declares (Ethic. v, 1). For we must take note that it concerns the human virtues, as we understand them here, to do well not only towards the community, but also towards the parts of the community, viz. towards the household, or even towards one individual.
The socialist and communist agendas deny the good of the one. But, the virtues never forget the community, the household, the one.
To be continued...
To be baptized means this....and how to spot spiritual charlatans
Some preach, some fight, some do both....but none preach but Christ Jesus and His Resurrection and His Church...
For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord; and ourselves your servants through Jesus. 2 Cor:4:5. DR
From Edmund Campion:
My charge is, of free cost to preach the Gospel, to minister the Sacraments, to instruct the simple, to reforme sinners, to confute errors– in brief, to crie alarme spiritual against foul vice and proud ignorance wherewith many my dear Countrymen are abused.
How to spot spiritual charlatans:
1) If they charge for spiritual direction or spiritual counseling or spiritual healing;
2) If they work outside the Sacramental Life of the Church;
3) If they are not interested in instruction in the doctrines of the Church;
4) If they do not demand personal responsibility, reformation; and if they do not talk of sin as a reality, and instead dwell on victimization;
4) If they permit any vice, any;
5) If they do not address, as Campion notes, proud ignorance, which is another phrase for the stubborn refusal to learn the teaching of the Catholic Church. And, to benefit from that refusal, as did those who benefited in the Protestant Revolt in England with money and status.
And the great Archbishop Chaput has something to say concerning this theme.
http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/World.php?id=7918
Thomas Aquinas Series--
Questions have come to me on the perfection series regarding the flowering of the virtues.
Thomas Aquinas clarifies this issue, and of course, Garrigou-Lagrange is a great Thomist.
Here is one section to chew on today. Unpacking follows in blue. More to come later....
As Augustine says (De Moribus Eccl. vi), "the soul needs to follow something in order to give birth to virtue: this something is God: if we follow Him we shall live aright." Consequently the exemplar of human virtue must needs pre-exist in God, just as in Him pre-exist the types of all things. Accordingly virtue may be considered as existing originally in God, and thus we speak of "exemplar" virtues: so that in God the Divine Mind itself may be called prudence; while temperance is the turning of
God's gaze on Himself, even as in us it is that which conforms the appetite to reason. God's fortitude is His unchangeableness; His justice is the observance of the Eternal Law in His works, as Plotinus states (Cf. Macrobius, Super Somn. Scip. 1).
How extraordinarily beautiful this above section is. God's Divine Mind is Prudence and Temperance is His Looking on Himself. God's Fortitude is His Absolute Unchangeableness (in contradistinction from Islam, where Allah does change), and His Justice is His Eternal Law, and may I add, His Order for the Universe.
Again, since man by his nature is a social [See above note on Chrysostom] animal, these virtues, in so far as they are in him according to the condition of his nature, are called "social" virtues; since it is by reason of them that man behaves himself well in the conduct of human affairs. It is in this sense that we have been speaking of these virtues until now.
Without social virtues, we sink either into tyranny or into anarchy, which both we see coming in greater strength as the Catholic Church weakens from within owing to a lack of holiness.
But since it behooves a man to do his utmost to strive onward even to Divine things, as even the Philosopher declares in Ethic. x, 7, and as Scripture often admonishes us--for instance: "Be ye . . . perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48), we must needs place some virtues between the social or human virtues, and the exemplar virtues which are Divine. Now these virtues differ by reason of a difference of movement and term: so that some are virtues of men who are on their way and tending towards the Divine similitude; and these are called "perfecting" virtues.
I cannot emphasize enough that these are given in baptism for our individual perfection, which in turn, if acquired, strengthens the Church. I think Fortitude is what is lacking in many Catholics or fallen-away Catholics who state Catholicism is "just too hard". Sadly, some priests give into lowering the bar on holiness and accepting the status quo for so-called "pastoral reasons."
Thus prudence, by contemplating the things of God, counts as nothing all things of the world, and directs all the thoughts of the soul to God alone: temperance, so far as nature allows, neglects the needs of the body; fortitude prevents the soul from being afraid of neglecting the body and rising to heavenly things; and justice consists in the soul giving a whole-hearted consent to follow the way thus proposed. Besides these there are the virtues of those who have already attained to the Divine similitude: these are called the "perfect virtues." Thus prudence sees nought else but the things of God; temperance knows no earthly desires; fortitude has no knowledge of passion; and justice, by imitating the Divine Mind, is united thereto by an everlasting covenant. Such as the virtues attributed to the Blessed, or, in this life, to some who are at the summit of perfection. I:2;61
The beauty of the words challenge us today to pursue perfection, cooperating with the myriad graces God gives us daily. To me, the imitation of the Divine Mind, the process and the goal, is paramount. What is not known cannot be loved.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2061.htm
To be continued...
Super Moon Photos
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346857/Supermoon-June-2013-Amazing-pictures-solar-systems-best-lunar-weekend.html
I saw the moon this morning early, as it was cloudy when I went to bed. It was not large at that time, but very, very bright.
I saw the moon this morning early, as it was cloudy when I went to bed. It was not large at that time, but very, very bright.
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