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| Thanks, Wiki-John Chrysostom |
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Doctors of the Church Series Update
After Cyril of Jerusalem, I shall continue with perfection series with John Chrysostom and Peter Chrysologus, the two with the golden names. Chrysostom means "golden-mouthed" and Chrysologus means "golden-worded". Such orators and preachers are rare!
Part 100: Doctors of the Church and Perfection-Cyril of Jerusalem
I am looking at this Doctor's copious works on catechesis and the mystagogia. One of the things which stands out in his writing is, thankfully, he insistence on seeking a life of perfection, but only after purification.
Cyril warns us of the dangers of this journey, as he knows that vice can look like virtue. He also, like all the Doctors so far, emphasizes orthodoxy, which must be accepted by those wanting to enter the Kingdom of God.
Here is a snippet and my comments are in blue"
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, &c.
1. Vice mimics virtue, and the tares strive to be thought wheat, growing like the wheat in appearance, but being detected by good judges from the taste. The devil also transfigures himself into an angel of light639; not that he may reascend to where he was, for having made his heart hard as an anvil640, he has henceforth a will that cannot repent; but in order that he may envelope those who are living an Angelic life in a mist of blindness, and a pestilent condition of unbelief.
The devil is not obvious in his deceit. He is more than cunning, he is brilliant intellectually and watches us for weaknesses. But, what does Cyril mean when he states that vice mimics virtue? We see this daily in the false use of the words "love", "committment", "care" and so on with regard to abortion, contraception, euthenasia and same-sex unions. Language is twisted to seem virtuous when the ideals depart from Revelation and natural law.
Many wolves are going about in sheeps’ clothing641, their clothing being that of sheep, not so their claws and teeth: but clad in their soft skin, and deceiving the innocent by their appearance, they shed upon them from their fangs the destructive poison of ungodliness. We have need therefore of divine grace, and of a sober mind, and of eyes that see, lest from eating tares as wheat we suffer harm from ignorance, and lest from taking the wolf to be a sheep we become his prey, and from supposing the destroying Devil to be a beneficent Angel we be devoured: for, as the Scripture saith, he goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour642. This is the cause of the Church’s admonitions, the cause of the present instructions, and of the lessons which are read.
Grace, as defined and described in the mini-series of the last few days, is absolutely necessary. And, grace is connected to the acceptance and belief in the doctrines of the Church.
2. For the method of godliness consists of these two things, pious doctrines, and virtuous practice: and neither are the doctrines acceptable to God apart from good works, nor does God accept the works which are not perfected with pious doctrines. For what profit is it, to know well the doctrines concerning God, and yet to be a vile fornicator? And again, what profit is it, to be nobly temperate, and an impious blasphemer? A most precious possession therefore is the knowledge of doctrines: also there is need of a wakeful soul, since there are many that make spoil through philosophy and vain deceit643.
Sadly, in this day of television and Internet evangelization, there are too many false prophets. Men and women who claim to know God but support contraception or same-sex unions.
One must be always looking at preachers of all kinds with the eyes of Christ. If one is in a prayer group which is not upholding the teachings of the Catholic Church and yet claims to be spirit-filled, beware.
The Greeks on the one hand draw men away by their smooth tongue, for honey droppeth from a harlot’s lips644: whereas they of the Circumcision deceive those who come to them by means of the Divine Scriptures, which they miserably misinterpret though studying them from childhood to old age645, and growing old in ignorance. But the children of heretics, by their good words and smooth tongue, deceive the hearts of the innocent646, disguising with the name of Christ as it were with honey the poisoned arrows647 of their impious doctrines: concerning all of whom together the Lord saith, Take heed lest any man mislead you648. This is the reason for the teaching of the Creed and for expositions upon it.
The road to perfection begins with the Creed.
To be continued....
Readings for Today: the Jews, Purification and the Good Shepherd
Ezekiel 37:21-28 |
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The Lord says this: ‘I am going to take the sons of Israel from the nations where they have gone. I shall gather them together from everywhere and bring them home to their own soil. I shall make them into one nation in my own land and on the mountains of Israel, and one king is to be king of them all; they will no longer form two nations, nor be two separate kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and their filthy practices and all their sins. I shall rescue them from all the betrayals they have been guilty of; I shall cleanse them; they shall be my people and I will be their God. My servant David will reign over them, one shepherd for all; they will follow my observances, respect my laws and practise them. They will live in the land that I gave my servant Jacob, the land in which your ancestors lived. They will live in it, they, their children, their children’s children, for ever. David my servant is to be their prince for ever. I shall make a covenant of peace with them, an eternal covenant with them. I shall resettle them and increase them; I shall settle my sanctuary among them for ever. I shall make my home above them; I will be their God, they shall be my people. And the nations will learn that I am the Lord, the sanctifier of Israel, when my sanctuary is with them for ever.’
| Jeremiah 31:10-13 |
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The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
O nations, hear the word of the Lord,
proclaim it to the far-off coasts.
Say: ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him
and guard him as a shepherd guards his flock.’
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
has saved him from an overpowering hand.
They will come and shout for joy on Mount Zion,
they will stream to the blessings of the Lord.
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
Then the young girls will rejoice and dance,
the men, young and old, will be glad.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will console them, give gladness for grief.
The Lord will guard us as a shepherd guards his flock.
| John 11:45-56 |
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Many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him, but some of them went to tell the Pharisees what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting. ‘Here is this man working all these signs’ they said ‘and what action are we taking? If we let him go on in this way everybody will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy the Holy Place and our nation.’ One of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, said, ‘You do not seem to have grasped the situation at all; you fail to see that it is better for one man to die for the people, than for the whole nation to be destroyed.’ He did not speak in his own person, it was as high priest that he made this prophecy that Jesus was to die for the nation – and not for the nation only, but to gather together in unity the scattered children of God. From that day they were determined to kill him. So Jesus no longer went about openly among the Jews, but left the district for a town called Ephraim, in the country bordering on the desert, and stayed there with his disciples.
The Jewish Passover drew near, and many of the country people who had gone up to Jerusalem to purify themselves looked out for Jesus, saying to one another as they stood about in the Temple, ‘What do you think? Will he come to the festival or not?’
DoC and Perfection: Cyril of Jerusalem: Part 99
I usually do not think it necessary to relate any of the biographical details of the Doctors of the Church in this series, but here are some fascinating details from here. Another interesting detail in Cyril's life was that he was made a deacon at the age of twenty. I am sorry that I did not get to him for the celebration of his feast day on March 18th, but world events and the grace series took up my time....to be continued.
That Cyril, whether a native of Jerusalem or not, had passed a portion of his childhood there, is rendered probable by his allusions to the condition of the Holy Places before they were cleared and adorned by Constantine and Helena. He seems to speak as an eye-witness of their former state, when he says that a few years before the place of the Nativity at Bethlehem had been wooded2, that the place where Christ was crucified and buried was a garden, of which traces were still remaining3, that the wood of the Cross had been distributed to all nations4, and that before the decoration of the Holy Sepulchre by Constantine, there was a cleft or cave before the door of the Sepulchre, hewn out of the
rock itself, but now no longer to be seen, because the outer cave had been cut away for the sake of the recent adornments5.
rock itself, but now no longer to be seen, because the outer cave had been cut away for the sake of the recent adornments5.
This work was undertaken by Constantine after the year 326 a.d.6; and if Cyril spoke from remembrance of what he had himself seen, he could hardly have been less than ten or twelve years old, and so must have been born not later, perhaps a few years earlier, than 315 a.d.
A Repeat On Efficacious Grace; Part Five on the Mini-Series on Grace
Christian Perfection and Contemplation According to St. Thomas Aquinas
and St. John of the Crossby Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. (What would I do without this great man?)
Copyright 1937, Herder Book Co., 1937
Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, 1937
ARTICLE IV
The Practical Consequences of the
Doctrine of St. Thomas on Grace
Page 1
St. Thomas, following St. Augustine and opposing Pelagian or semi-Pelagian naturalism, grasped the depth and the height of our Lord's words: "Without Me you can do nothing," [1] and of St. Paul's words: "For it is God Who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good will." [2] "For who distinguisheth thee? Or what hast thou that thou hast not received?" [3] In the work of salvation we cannot distinguish any part that is exclusively ours; all comes from God, even our free co-operation, which efficacious grace gently and mightily stirs up in us and confirms.
This grace, which is always followed by its effect, is refused to us, as we said, only if we resist the Divine, auxilium praeveniens, sufficient grace, in which the efficacious help is already offered us, as fruit is in the flower. If we destroy the flower, we shall never see the fruit, which the influence of the sun and of the nourishment of the earth would have produced. Now man is sufficient to himself to fall; drawn from nothingness, he is by nature defectible. He is sufficiently assisted by God so that he falls only through his own fault, which thus deprives him of a new help. This is the great mystery of grace. We have elsewhere explained what St. Thomas and his best disciples teach about this mystery. [4]
With him and St. Augustine we must submit our intelligence before this Divine obscurity, and as Bossuet says, "confess these two graces (sufficient and efficacious), one of which leaves the will without excuse before God, and the other does not permit the will to glory in itself." [5] Is this not in conformity with what our conscience tells us? According to this doctrine, all that is good in us, naturally or supernaturally, has its origin in the Author of all good. Sin alone cannot come from Him, and the Lord allows it to happen only because He is sufficiently powerful and good to draw from it a greater good, the manifestation of His mercy or justice.
All grace is from God, all....and our free will either hinders or encourages holiness.
This teaching of the great doctors of grace lifts our mind to a lofty contemplation of God's action in the innermost depths of our heart. To prove this, we have only to demonstrate that this doctrine should lead those who understand it well to profound humility, to almost continual interior prayer, to the perfection of the theological virtues and of the corresponding gifts of the Holy Ghost. Besides, we find it in the writings of all the great masters of the spiritual life. Considering the importance and the difficulty of the problem, we shall affirm nothing in this article except according to the very words of Scripture, as the greatest doctors explain them.
This doctrine leads first of all to profound humility. According to this doctrine man has as his own, as something coming exclusively from himself, only his sin, as the Council of Orange declared.[6] He never performs any natural good act without the natural aid of God, or any supernatural good act without a grace which solicits or attracts him, and also efficaciously moves him to the salutary act. As St. Paul says: "Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God." [7] Even holy souls that have reached a high degree of charity are always in need of an actual grace in order to merit, to advance, to avoid sin, and to persevere in goodness.
At every state, we need grace.
[8] They should say: "For the thoughts of mortal man are fearful, and our counsels uncertain," [9] "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven . . . and lead us not into temptation." After striving greatly, they should admit: "We are unprofitable servants," [10] for the Lord might have chosen others who would have served Him much better. In all truth we should say, according to the teaching of St. Thomas, that there is no sin committed by another man which I might not commit in the same circumstances by reason of the infirmity of my free will, and of my own weakness (the Apostle Peter denied his Master three times). And if actually I have not fallen, if I have persevered, this is doubtless because I worked and struggled, but without Divine grace I should have done nothing. [ll] "Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to Thy name give glory"; [12] "as the potter's clay is in his hand, to fashion and order it . . . so man is in the hand of Him that made him." [13] "Thy hands have made me and formed me"; [l4] "Thou hast redeemed us to God, in Thy blood." [15] "If I have not perished, it is because of Thy mercy." [16] "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." [17] "This," says St. Augustine, "is what must be believed and said in all piety and truth, so that our confession may be humble and suppliant, and that all may be attributed to God." [18] Such is true humility. "Or what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" [19]
Efficacious grace
The Saints, considering their own failures, say to themselves that if such and such a criminal had received all the graces the Lord bestowed on them, he would perhaps have been less unfaithful than they. The sight of the gratuity of the Divine predilections confirms them in humility. They recall our Lord's words: "You have not chosen Me: but I have chosen you."
This doctrine leads also to continual intimate prayer, to profound thanksgiving, to the prayer of contemplation.
It leads to intimate prayer; for this is a very secret grace that must be asked. We must ask not only the grace which solicits and excites the soul to good but also that grace which makes us will it, which makes us persevere, which reaches the depths of our heart and of our free will; that grace which moves us in these depths, so that we may be delivered from the concupiscence of the flesh and the eyes, and from the pride of life. God alone saves and snatches us from these enemies of our salvation. At the same time He does not wound our liberty, but establishes it by delivering us from the captivity of these things of earth.
Thus Scripture teaches us to pray: "Have pity on me, O Lord, according to Thine infinite mercy. Be propitious to a sinner. Help my unbelief. Create a clean heart in me, and renew a right spirit within me. Convert me, O Lord, make me return to Thee, and I shall return. [20] Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." Give me Thy sweet and mighty grace in order that I may truly accomplish Thy holy will. As St. Augustine says: "Lord, give what Thou dost command, and command what Thou pleasest."
Thus again the Church prays in the Missal: "Lord, direct toward Thyself our rebellious wills; grant that unbelievers, who are unwilling to believe, may have a will to believe. Apply our hearts to good works. Give us good will. Convert us and draw us strongly to Thyself. Take from us our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh, a docile and pure heart. Change our wills and incline them toward what is good." [21]
Such is the holy confidence of the prayer of the Church because she is sure that God is not powerless to convert the most hardened sinners. What should a priest do who cannot succeed in converting a dying sinner? Persuaded that God can convert this guilty will, above all the priest will pray. If, on the contrary, he imagines that God holds this will only from without, by circumstances, good thoughts, good inspirations, which remain external to the consent to salutary goodness, will not the priest himself delay too long in the use of superficial means? Will his prayer possess that holy boldness which we admire in the Saints, and which rests on their faith in the potent efficacy of grace?
I love the term here, "holy boldness" which is missing in most Catholics, who only want to be nice.
Likewise prayer should be, in a sense, continual, since our soul needs a new, actual, efficacious grace for every salutary act, for each new merit. With this in mind, we clearly see the profound meaning of our Lord's words: "We ought always to pray, and not to faint." [22] This truth is fully realized only in the mystical life, in which prayer truly becomes, as the fathers say, "the breath of the soul," which hardly ceases any more than that of the body. The soul constantly desires grace, which is like a vivifying breath renewing it and making it produce constantly new acts of love of God. Such ought to be the prayer of petition. And we ought also to thank God for all our good actions, since without Him we could have done nothing. This is what makes St. Paul say: "Pray without ceasing. In all things give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you all." [23] "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father." [24]
This doctrine of the intrinsic efficacy of grace leads also directly to the prayer of contemplation, which considers chiefly the profound action of God in us to mortify and to vivify, and which is expressed by the fiat of perfect abandonment. In contemplation we see realized in the intimate depths of souls the words of Scripture: "Thou are great, O Lord, forever. . . . For Thou scourgest, and Thou savest: Thou leadest down to hell, and bringest up again." [25] "Thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things." [26] To utter a perfect fiat to this intense and hidden work of grace in us, even when it crucifies and seems to destroy all, is the most secret but also the most fruitful co-operation in God's greatest work. It is the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane and that of the Blessed Virgin at the foot of the Cross.
If we are not crucified with Christ we shall not be perfected. Sometimes, it does seem like God is destroying all. A spouse dies, a child walks away from God and the Church, one loses a job, one gets cancer. Yet, these are the raw material for holiness.
Lastly, this doctrine reminds us that even for prayer efficacious grace is necessary. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. And He that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what the Spirit desireth; because He asketh for the Saints according to God." [27]
I know this is true. I cannot pray, meditate, or read Scripture without the grace of God. Now, we begin to understand those in the Unitive State, that last level of perfection on earth.
This mystery is verified especially in the mystical union, often obscure and painful, in which the soul learns by experience what great need we have of grace in order to pray, as also to do good. But, says St. John of the Cross, [28] souls that have reached a certain degree of union "obtain from God all that they feel inspired to ask of Him, according to the words of David, 'Delight in the Lord, and He will give thee the request of thy heart' " (Ps. 36:4). Moreover, every humble, confident, persevering prayer by which we ask what is necessary or useful for our salvation is infallibly efficacious, because our Lord uttered such a promise and because God Himself caused this petition to well up in our hearts. Resolved from all eternity to grant us His benefactions, He leads us to ask them of Him. [29]
The life of the virtues follows a life of grace, the sharing of divine life.
This doctrine of the powerful efficacy of grace leads finally to great heights in the practice of the theological virtues. This it does because it is intimately bound up with the sublime mystery of predestination, the grandeur of which it fully preserves. St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, tells us: "And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be Saints. For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren. And whom He predestinated, them He also called. And whom He called, them He also justified. And whom He justified, them He also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who is against us?" [30] St. Paul teaches the same doctrine in the Epistle to the Ephesians. [31]
1. John 15:5.
2. Phil. 2:13.
3. See 1 Cor. 4:7.
4. God, His Existence and His Nature, II, 365 ff. It is not necessary that our failure precede the refusal of efficacious grace, in priority of time; priority of nature is sufficient, in the order of material causality, according to the principle of the mutual relations of causes explained by St. Thomas (Ia IIae, q.113, a.8 ad ium; cf. Ia IIae, q. l09, a. l, a. 8, 9, 10). It is God Who anticipates us by His grace when He justifies us, and it is we who are the first to abandon Him when we lose Divine grace: "God will not desert the justified, unless He is first deserted by them." Council of Trent, Sess. VI, chap. 2.
5. Bossuet, (Euvres complรจtes, 1845, I, 643. Cf. the general index of Bossuet's works for references to "grace" (resistance to grace). See particularly Defense de la tradition, Bk. XI, chaps. 19-27: Demonstration of the efficacy of grace by the permission of sins into which God allows the just to fall in order to humble them. Permission of the triple denial of St. Peter: "Peter was justly punished for his presumption by the withdrawal of an efficacious help which would have effectively hindered his denial." Bossuet shows that such is the doctrine not only of St. Augustine but of St. John Chrysostom, of Origen, of St. Gregory the Great, and of St. John Damascene, since they say that Peter was deprived of help, a statement which cannot apply to sufficient grace, for without this grace he would have been utterly powerless to avoid the sin. The statement applies to an efficacious help which would have made him effectively avoid this fall. From all of which we see that sufficient grace indeed leaves our will without excuse before God, and that the efficacious grace which St. Peter received later does not permit us to glory in ourselves.
6. Canon 22: "No one has anything of his own except his deceitfulness and his sin." Denzinger. no. 195.
7. See 2 Cor. 3:5.
8. Cf. Ia IIae. q. 109. a. 2. 8, 9, 10.
9. Wis. 9:14.
10. Luke 17:10.
11. Cf. Del Prado. O.P., De gratia, III, 151.
12. Ps. 113:1.
13. Eccles. 33:18; Jer. 18:6.
14. Ps. 118:73.
15. Apoc. 5:9.
16. Lam. 3:22.
17. Ps. 30:6; Luke 23:46.
18. De dono perseverantiae, chap. 13.
19. See 1 Cor. 4:7.
20. Lam. 5:21.
21. On these prayers of the Church, cf. St. Augustine, Epist. ad Vital., 217 (al. 107), and Bossuet, Defense de la tradition, Bk. X, chap. 10.
22. Luke 18:1.
23. See 1 Thess. 5:17-18.
24. Ephes. 5:19-20.
25. Tob. 13:2.
26. Wis. 16:12.
27. Rom. 8:25-27.
28. The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. II, chap. 20.
29. Cf. IIa IIae. q. 83, a. 2; St. Augustine. Enchirid., chap. 32; Bossuet. Defense de la tradition, Bk. XII, chap. 38.
30. Rom. 8:28-31.
31. St. Paul also says in the Epistle to the Ephesians. 1:3-6. 11-12: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath blessed us with spiritual blessings, in heavenly places, in Christ: as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself: according to the purpose of His will: unto the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He hath graced us in His beloved Son. . . . In whom we also are called by lot, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things according to the counsel of His will. That we may be unto the praise of His glory, we who before hoped in Christ."
32. De praedestinatione sanctorum, chaps. 3, 6-11, 14, 15, 17; De dona perseverantiae, chaps. 1, 6, 7, 12, 16-20, 23; De correptione et gratia, chaps. 9, 12, 13, 14. See also on these texts, Del Prado, De gratia et Libero arbitrio, III, 555-564; II, 67-81, 259; and Bossuet, Defense de la tradition, Bk. XII, chaps. 13-20.
33. In Ep. ad Rom. 8:28; In Ep. ad Ephes., I, no. 5; Ia, q.23.
34. Cf. 2 Pet. 3:9.