The greatest evils for the laity are the constant distractions and movements of modern life which stop the natural growth of the soul. Just as the body grows, so, too, must the soul, or it will die.
Modern society has lost the rhythm of nature. Electric lights keep us up late and get us going early. Commuting is a huge waste of time and cause of stress for millions of people. The constant movement of activities creates families and, therefore, a culture, which can no longer reflect.
Most people waste an incredible amount of time talking senselessly, watching television, seeking daily entertainment.
In the past, and in most monasteries, the rhythm of life, which includes work and prayer, with very little recreation, creates and created a lifestyle which was created for one reason and that was and is the worship of God in the Kingdom of God on earth, His Church.
Until we re-discover the silence outside and within us, we shall not grow spiritually.
One must simplify one's life, or the soul shrivels and dies.
Purgatory is punishment, and suffering on earth can lead to great perfection, and hopefully the union with God which He intends all of us to experience.
Here is a long passage which should help define the path to the last stage of perfection.
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| Thanks to wiki for a log cabin in Iowa |
THE LOVE OF CONFORMITY AND OF SUBMISSION TO GOD'S GOOD PLEASURE
Lastly, in this state of trial, the soul should, as St. Francis de Sales well shows,(21) be penetrated with Christ's words: "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." (22) In spiritual tribulations and afflictions, the soul should nourish itself with the will of God so that self-love may die definitively in it, that the soul may be truly stripped of self-love, and that the reign of the divine will may be established in the depths of its will. The soul will obtain this grace if it accepts, for love of God, to do and suffer all that He wishes, as obedience, circumstances, and the interior light of the Holy Ghost may indicate.
Too many people are running around doing what they think is God's Will, which is really nothing else but self-aggrandisement and self-will. Self-love must die, as only then can the heart have room for the Love of God.
We can only love the Other insofar as we are free to love. Having hearts and minds cluttered with the goo of selfishness does not permit the Love of God into one's being. God remains on the outside, calling, knocking, but not in the intimate relationship He so desires.
Consequently the soul should be penetrated with the evangelical beatitudes: blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who shed the tears of contrition; those who hunger and thirst after justice and preserve this zeal in spite of all difficulties; blessed, too, are the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers; blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice, when they are insulted and persecuted because of the Savior. Their reward is great in heaven, and even on earth they will receive the hundredfold of all that has been taken from them; they will receive it especially in close union with God and in working for the salvation of their neighbor.
In our times, listening to another may be the greatest love we can give. Stopping and paying attention to our neighbor is of primary importance. But in this stage, one does this for the love of God, and not for the love of self or even the person. Christ is seen in others.
Souls that pass through this denudation and are calumniated ought often to reread what St. Paul says to the Romans: "If God be for us, who is against us? . . . Christ Jesus. . . maketh intercession for us.. Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or persecution, or the sword? . . . But in all these things we overcome, because of Him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor might nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God," (23) nor be able to make God abandon the just, if they do not abandon Him first.
Judgement comes swift and heavy to one in the state of passive purification. Some people sense a spiritual reality which threatens them. Some hate goodness and want to undermine it. Some are envious, but do not want to go through the suffering necessary to enter into union with God. One adult person made fun of me recently because I was in the chapel praying. She was threatened, for some reas
on, by me being able to pray. I was kind. The next list of items is very important.
In this period of purification, one should ask our Lord for the love of the cross, for the desire to share in His holy humiliations in the measure willed by Providence.
You will not be understood for loving the cross. Just do it.
The soul should ask Him also to let it find in this desire the strength to bear whatever may come, the peace, and sometimes the joy, to restore its courage and that of souls that come to it.(24)
Courage is essential in the passive purification. One must endure.
Then this trial, hard as it may be at times, will seem good to it; at least the soul will believe that it is salutary and sanctifying for it.
Thomas a Kempis, rightly so below, reminds us that the cross protects us from enemies. What can anyone or anything do to us if we accept all suffering? Life becomes much more bearable and easier if one stops fighting suffering, if one takes up the Cross.
Then it will more readily grasp the great meaning of the words of The Imitation on the royal road of the cross: "In the cross is salvation; in the cross is life; in the cross is protection from enemies. In the cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the cross is strength of mind; in the cross is joy of spirit; in the cross is height of virtue; in the cross is perfection of sanctity. . . . No man hath so heartfelt a sense of the Passion of Christ as he whose lot it hath been to suffer like things. . . . If thou carry the cross willingly, it will carry thee. . . . If thou carry it unwillingly, thou makest it a burden to thee, and loadest thyself the more. . . . For the sufferings of this life are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come." (25)
Do we actually believe these words? If one does not want to join with the Beloved, who is Christ, one will not attain heaven, or even the possibilities of becoming the peson God wants you to be.
Do we actually believe these words? If one does not want to join with the Beloved, who is Christ, one will not attain heaven, or even the possibilities of becoming the peson God wants you to be.
The painful purification we are speaking of creates a great void in the soul by driving out self-love and pride, and gives it an increasingly eager desire for God. St. Francis de Sales explains this effect, saying:
As man can be perfected only by the divine goodness, so the divine goodness can scarcely so well exercise its perfection outside itself as upon our humanity. The one has great need and capacity to receive good, the other great abundance and inclination to bestow it. Nothing is so suitable to indigence as a liberal abundance; nothing so agreeable to a liberal abundance as extreme indigence. . . . The more needy the indigent man is, the more eager he is to receive, as a vacuum is to be filled. Therefore the meeting of abundance and indigence is sweet and desirable; and if our Lord had not said that it is better to give than to receive, one could hardly say which has greater contentment, abundant good in diffusing and communicating itself or failing and indigent good in receiving. . . . Divine goodness has, therefore, more pleasure in giving its graces than we in receiving them.(28)
Even in human love, one must learn to love selflessly, without hidden motives or great insecurities. If we put ourselves and needs first, the love is not real, and needs to be purified.
Loving others for the sake of God alone and loving God for His Own sake are the highest loves of all.
The void created in the soul that is stripped of self-love and pride causes it to become, therefore, increasingly capable of receiving divine grace, the abundance of charity. In this sense the Apostle says: "God. . . giveth grace to the humble," and He makes them humble in order to fill them to overflowing.
Why the humble? Very simple. If one has self-love, one is still a sinner and motivated by pride and not by the love of God in ministry. Recently, I read a comment by a false seer who claimed that her mistakes was that she was a sinner. St. Bernard and the other Doctors of the Church which I have placed on this blog, state repeatedly that sin and even the tendency towards sin stops discernment and the ability to really work for God in ministries.
Self-love in all the nooks and crannies of the soul must be routed out and destroyed.
Why the humble? Very simple. If one has self-love, one is still a sinner and motivated by pride and not by the love of God in ministry. Recently, I read a comment by a false seer who claimed that her mistakes was that she was a sinner. St. Bernard and the other Doctors of the Church which I have placed on this blog, state repeatedly that sin and even the tendency towards sin stops discernment and the ability to really work for God in ministries.
Self-love in all the nooks and crannies of the soul must be routed out and destroyed.
All we have just said shows the profound truth of St. Thomas' words: "The love of God is unitive (congregativus), inasmuch as it draws man's affections from the many to the one; so that the virtues, which flow from the love of God, are connected together. But self-love disunites (disgregat) man's affections among different things, so far as man loves himself, by desiring for himself temporal goods, which are various and of many kinds." (27) The love of God causes the light of reason and that of grace to shine increasingly in us, whereas sin stains the soul, taking away from it the brilliance of the divine light.(28) The purification of the spirit removes these stains, which are in our higher faculties, that they may be resplendent with the true light, which is the prelude of that of eternity.
There are no short-cuts to holiness...to be continued.
There are no short-cuts to holiness...to be continued.