Wednesday, 13 November 2013
A short poem
Tardy robin in an orange tree, waiting for snowflakes
making sure winter has come to Illinois.
It holds a noble head up to the wind, sensing the
change, but I wonder why it is so late, so alone.
A squirrel runs back and forth, up and down the
yellow tree next to Mr. Robin's perch. With pieces
of pumpkin in its mouth, the squirrel scurries up the
rough bark, stops, eats, and runs back to the
welcoming porch below. Someone feeds it
on a regular basis, as it knows the territory.
Finally, the robin moves out, perhaps south,
perhaps to another orange tree somewhere
in this peaceful suburb. Autumn ends early
this year and white snow interrupts this idyll of
orange and yellow.
making sure winter has come to Illinois.
It holds a noble head up to the wind, sensing the
change, but I wonder why it is so late, so alone.
A squirrel runs back and forth, up and down the
yellow tree next to Mr. Robin's perch. With pieces
of pumpkin in its mouth, the squirrel scurries up the
rough bark, stops, eats, and runs back to the
welcoming porch below. Someone feeds it
on a regular basis, as it knows the territory.
Finally, the robin moves out, perhaps south,
perhaps to another orange tree somewhere
in this peaceful suburb. Autumn ends early
this year and white snow interrupts this idyll of
orange and yellow.
More, more on discernment
Returning to St. Ignatius
seems a good thing to do today. Talking with someone revealed yet more
confusion about the term discernment, and the major understanding of
discernment for us comes through the writings and direction of St. Ignatius, as
well as the Doctors of the Church. I have written about this before, so check
out the tags.
I think the problem is that the new agers and the
charismatics have co-opted the term to mean something which it is not.
Discernment for all is the recognition of the movements of the soul and the
movements of God in one’s spiritual life.
Now, some people need a confessor or a spiritual director to
do this type of examination. But, discernment is connected to wisdom, and to
our baptismal virtues and gifts. A child can experience discernment, and some
do, if they are in the state of grace.
That is the first key to understanding discernment. One must
be in the state of grace to see and hear the Voice of God in one’s soul. Meditation, using the Scriptures and daily
examination of conscience develop discernment.
If one is working on one’s predominant faults, discernment
grows.
The intellect and the will are involved in the development
of discernment, which is why so many anti-intellectual charismatics do not
exhibit discernment.
Sadly, there are too many false prophets and teachers, who
are not orthodox and do not understand the basics of either sacramental theology or the theology of
prayer. I have met too many people who are leading Catholics astray by a
false emphasis on feelings and experiences, and I have many articles on such
here on this blog. That the charismatic emphasis on experience has infiltrated
many retreat and conference centers reveals a weakness in the Church.
The enemy of the soul can take a small bit of truth and wrap
it up in heresy.
If a person who is giving a talk or presenting a retreat or
workshop is not absolutely, completely orthodox, do not go and do not listen.
Recently, I encountered someone who was off on some aspects of Church teaching.
I cannot trust him, as he is thinking like a Protestant. Satan will use such
people not only to undermine the authority of the Church, but to cause
confusion as to the process of becoming holy.
I can see that the person has a gift, but because of the
imperfections and sin of heresy, the gift is not free to be used as God would
want it used. The need for purgation would clarify that man’s soul so that the
gift would be available for the building up of the Catholic Church and not for
the building up of that person’s personal ministry.
There is no such thing as a personal ministry, but only
calls within the Church and within the Tradition and Teachings of the Church.
Anything else must be suspect. One of the weaknesses of the Church in our times
has been the undermining of the authority of the Church by those who are off
doing their own thing. There is no
automatic virtue in being on the fringes of the institutional Church. Can
people be called to such? Yes, but rarely, and the numbers doing so do not
indicate necessarily the movement of the Holy Spirit, but the egos of those
setting up their own patch.
Discernment comes with obedience to Mother Church
There are too many false leaders claiming infused knowledge,
which again, is a grace at the later stages of holiness.
Discernment is built on orthodoxy, and there is no
difference between doctrinal and pastoral approaches to truth. If a person
claims that something pastoral trumps a doctrine of the Church, that person is
in error. The Holy Spirit works in order
and in and through the Church.
Please remember that. Those false prophets who are going
about “discerning” spirits or vices, or the need for “inner healing” and who
are not straight down the wicket orthodox will be deceiving you as they have
deceived themselves. They will do more damage than good.
Again, the real gifts come to fruition in the Illuminative State
To be anti-intellectual is not to be a Catholic. To be
caught up in thinking that theology is not part of discernment is to be in
serious error.
Discernment involves the intellect and the will. True
discernment follows the heart and the mind of the Church.
More on the choice of following Christ
Two, if not the greatest evils, of our times are the mad
pursuits of comfort and the avoidance of suffering at all costs. Immorality
provides a symptom of this headlong rush away from the Cross.
Only those who fall in love with Christ and willingly accept
suffering of any kind will enter the Kingdom, as those who avoid pain deceive
themselves regarding sin and judgment.
Now, the pursuit of comfort is more of a problem with those
in the West, and I am particularly thinking of the Americans and the English,
than some other cultures, which cannot avoid less than perfect conditions.
Satan lies to us, tempting us to believe that we deserve comfort.
On the contrary….and those few who allow God to take them in
to the transforming union, have also faced great suffering.
The suffering of the soul in the Illuminative and then, the
Unitive stages is a different type of suffering. It is the suffering of the
absence of complete union with God.
I have tried to wean people away from this term, as it is
misleading. Contemplation comes in the Dark Night, as a darkness and moved into
a peaceful, clear knowledge of God, as He is revealing Himself in the Trinity.
Contemplation comes in the Tranforming Union.
Here is a little summary of this process from St. John . He is referring
to the bride of Christ.
“First, her soul is
detached and withdrawn from all things.
Second, the devil is
conquered and put to flight. Third, the passions are subjected
and the natural
appetites mortified. Fourth and fifth,
the sensory and lower part is reformed, purified, and brought into conformity
with the spiritual part. The sensory part not only offers no obstacle to the
reception of these spiritual blessings, but is even accommodated to them since
it participates according to its capacity in the goods the souls now possesses…
The bride sets all
this perfection and preparedness before her beloved, the Son of God, with the
desire that He transfer her from the spiritual marriage, to which He desired to
bring her in this Church Militant, to the glorious marriage of the Triumphant.
May the most sweet Jesus, bridegroom of faithful souls, be pleased to bring all
who invoke His name to this glorious marriage. To Him be honor and glory,
together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, in saecula saeculorum. Amen.”
I am not going to write more on the sacred movements of the
Transforming Union, as there is always a danger that people will think they are
farther ahead then they really are on the road to perfection.
Again, the timing of the Dark Night is completely personal.
I know some people who have gone through this stage for many years. And,
obviously, many of the saints took no time at all in the mysterious state of
darkness.
Pay Attention, Get Ready, Pray
“My God and all
things.”
What have the Illuminative
State and the Unitive State
Some readers understand that only those who truly love God
and His Church will be able to withstand the tribulations to come. And, this
fact has always been so in times of trouble for the Church. The great martyrs,
such as St. John Houghton and his companions, mentioned many times on this
blog, were ready for the horrible torments they suffered at Tyburn.
But, the ability to withstand physical pain and endure
martyrdom to receive the palm of victory are not the only reasons for pursuing
the way of perfection now, in these times of uncertainty.
As I have noted many times, the Church realizes a strength
and perfection if Her members are perfected, and experiences weakness and loss,
if Her members do not pursue the love of God in all things.
But, the Illuminative and Unitive States
Because in these states, the person is one with God as far
as possible on this earth, there is a unity of God and person in the
Trinity. In other words, God is present
in the person experiencing this transcendent relationship, and that person is
in God in all Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Such a transcendent relationship cannot help but change the
world, as God is Present in, with, and through the person. The person communicates God to all.
This powerful experience of the Divine brings life, God’s
life, to the world in an overflowing of love.
Of course, the problem is that most of the time, the world
does not want this love and purposefully thwarts those who bring the Trinity
into its midst.
Such is the irony of the human condition, that the very
persons who could and do change the world are usually the ones persecuted by
the world.
That God reveals His attributes to the person in these
states means that the person experiences, understands and lives in beauty,
truth, wisdom, peace, and so on.
Such is the witness of the saint.
That some people do not experience this oneness with God,
this spiritual marriage, until right before death does not diminish the
witness. However, as we see in the lives of the saints, those generous souls
who have allowed God to perfect them give us a tremendous witness of love and
grace.
Just think of the cloud
of witnesses, like Theresa, the Little Flower, Gemma Galgani, Edmund
Campion, Oliver Plunkett, Pius X, Fulton J. Sheen and so on--these men and
women who give us a glimpse of life in the Trinity.
There is too much facile theology floating around about
living in the life of the Trinity. That we are given this life in baptism and
confirmation is true, but that those graces can only be released through
purgation of sin and the tendency to sin is also true.
You will know if you are in the presence of one who is in
the Illuminative or Unitive
State
Sadly, this does not happen often enough in our day and age,
as there are so many choices and so many distractions for most people.
I have met many people in the Dark Night and even the last
stages of the Dark Night. I saw twice, and touched once, Blessed John Paul II,
but before his long purgation and suffering. I believe we watched him become a
saint.
Some readers may have met saints, even some who have been
martyred. Those Catholics are role
models for all of us.
As to the main thesis of this post, that these states most
likely are necessary for Catholics to withstand the coming persecutions, I
would say that those who went before us were a bit smarter at reading the signs
of the times.
I cannot imagine that the earliest Catholics were caught off
guard concerning trials. And, it is obvious that such saints as Edmund Campion
were trained to face the certain death when leaving the Venerable
English College
in Rome and traveling to England . As
some of you know, St. Philip Neri would stand outside the Venerabile and bless those young priests going to England ,
saying, “There go the Flowers of the Martyrs”.
Are you preparing yourself and your children for trials by
pursuing holiness, which is another word for perfection?
Are you too caught up in trivia to make holiness a priority
in your family? Are you all pursuing sports, entertainments, unnecessary
shopping, vacations, and ignoring prayer, formation, penances, frequent
confession and Holy Communion?
Are you acting as if
your children will not need to be different, special, super-Catholics and saints
in the days to come?
Do you think they will face a world like yours and mine
growing up?
Are you forming saints? I see too many families wasting time
on trivia.
Do not lie to yourselves and think holiness just
“happens”. Even St.
Thomas More admitted that he needed his long time in prison to get ready for
death after watching the singing of the Charterhouse monks, going to their
deaths, “like bridegrooms to the wedding.”
Such are the actions of the perfect, those who have gone
through the Illuminative and Unitive
States
I have met many people lately who are acting as if they have
all the time in the world to pursue holiness. I have met too many people who
are in denial regarding the signs of the times. And, these people are not
young.
I have met too many people who think Catholics can live in America or Europe
with the freedoms experienced by their forefathers.
I have met too many people who are wasting time and may be
swept away, and compromise when the going gets tough.
For the past several weeks, the urgency of allowing God to
make one holy has been a recurring theme on this blog.
God is pouring out His grace and mercy on us now. The time of grace will end. Look the history
of the Church.
Do not think you can
act as you have always acted.
“When the Son of Man
comes, all will be as it was in the days of Noe; in those days before the
flood, they went on eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until
the time when Noe entered the ark, and they were taken unawares, when the flood
came and drowned them all; so it will be a the coming of the Son of Man.”
Matthew 24:37-39
Let these ideals be your guide. Be open to suffering
anything in order to become one with God. Be generous is saying yes to graces
God wants to give. Be willing to be
different than all those around you and your families-even other Catholics who
are not paying attention.
Give yourselves to God entirely now. Then, like St. Francis, as quoted by St. John of the Cross,
you will be able to pray, “My God and all
things.”
To be continued….
Frustration And A Mini-Rant
The idiocy of so many Catholics these days is that they are
arguing about the wrong issues.
The famous phrase of “rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic” comes to mind after listening to some conversations which indicate
that the vast majority of Catholics cannot see the imminent
dangers facing their religious freedoms.
Idiocy means to me that one has the capacity to find out the
truth about situations, but one refuses to do so.
Why are so many American Catholics believing that things are
going to be OK in America, and that the European situation is different?
Nope.
Americans are losing rights at such a fast rate that most
people are not realizing what will conspire in a short period of time, which
will be no freedom of religion for anyone who disagrees with
the new state religion-whatever that will be, which includes abortion,
contraception mandates, same-sex marriage, core curriculum
and so on.
When a government creates laws and programs separated from
the natural law and from the Ten Commandments, which are
expressions of natural law,
one’s freedoms become arbitrary. To
separate governance from God, and specifically from the
one true faith, which is
Catholicism, will lead more and more to morals being interpreted by those in
power. Period.
Someone pointed out to me the
illegality of the martial law situation in Boston neighborhoods after the bombings this
past summer. Did anyone
object? Are there lawsuits against the police, or the CIA, or any other special
ops?
Our Founding Fathers would not
have believed the house to house search without personal warrants, or the
curfews.
For this type of tyranny, they
wrote out our Constitutional rights.
Hey, these are going, going, gone.
And, who seems to care? Some
of us did not like the Patriot Act, seeing it as a knee-jerk reaction which
would
erode the rights of
citizens. This has happened.
Few voices have sounded above
the great silence of ignorance, idiocy or just plain ennui.
Few voices in Europe have sounded
the alarms at the growing power of the
Hague and the losing of national sovereignty
among the nation-states.
Why the silence? Comfort? Money? Apathy?
Those parents with children
need to pay attention. Government is out of hand, out of ours hands and it is
supposed to be in
our hands. Teach your children well.
A Bit on The Illuminative and Unitive States....more to come
Kieran Kavanaugh, whose translation and notes I have been
using in the past few weeks, clarifies St.
John of the Cross’ poetry by clearly translating the
commentaries.
Two points stand out on the characteristics of the
Illuminative and Unitive Stages, to which I have been referring during the
perfection and Dark Night series in the past two years.
Those people who enter into the Illuminative, and finally,
the Unitive States
Here is one of the key stanzas from The Spiritual Canticle concerning this stress on love.
If, then, I am no
longer
Seen or found on the
common,
You will say that I am
lost,
That sticken by love,
I lost myself, and was
found.
The soul lost is love becomes one, as it were, contra
mundi. The world rejects the beloved,
“and think(s) these person excessive in their conduct, estrangement, and
withdrawal, and asset that they are useless in important matters and lost to
what the world esteems”.
Too often, those of us who seek the love of God and find
Him, are misunderstood, and, indeed, judged by the world, which wants all
people to not only conform to the flesh and the world, but applaud the pursuits
of wealth and status as well.
Here is a longer comment by St. John on this point. This comment is
damning and reveals, again, the lack of generosity of most who want to follow
Christ and serve His Church but pull back.
“Few spiritual persons
reach such daring and determination in their works. Though some do act this
way, and are considered far advanced, they never lose themselves entirely in
some matters, whether worldly or natural, and never execute works fr Christ
with perfection and nakedness of spirit and without thought of what others will
say or how their work will appear. Since these persons are not lost to
themselves in their work, they cannot declare, ‘You will say that I am lost.’
They are still ashamed to confess Christ before others by their works. Because
of their human respect they do not live entirely in Christ.”
One cannot lose one’s self in Christ, in love, until after
the purging of the ego. How many good works in the Church have been ruined by
those who think they are doing God’s work, but are merely stroking their own
egos? The lack of love is key. If one
truly has found the Bridegroom, nothing else matters but Christ and His Church-nothing.
Again, a generosity of spirit is not only necessary, but
vital, giving life to the hard walk to perfection. And, the goal is Christ
Himself.
Those who are canonized by the Church have reached this
level of forgetfulness of self while on earth.
Those who have been canonized show us the way not only of
perfection, but of love for God, in God, and with God-the one thing necessary.
So, an easily seen sign of the Illuminative and Unitive States
To be continued….
Pushing Augustine
Many, many years ago, in a great on line college, I taught
some of the works of St. Augustine
for beginners. I covered Confessions
and the City of God
Recently, I have dipped into City of God again and I am happily surprised how timely St. Augustine ’s message is
for us today.
Two points, merely, to show this great Doctor of the
Church’s relevance.
One, his discussion on hell is complete and covers
Scriptural references in a clear manner. If anyone needs some ammunition in
conversations with those who are denying the existence of hell or the fact that
there may or may not be people in hell, St.
Augustine is your source. Part
Five, The Ends of the Two Cities, would be the source for some information.
And, as I pointed out to some dear TAC students many years ago, one is a bit
arrogant to argue with St. Augustine ,
at least on this point.
Two, his discussion on those who live in the flesh and those
who live in the spirit may help many readers who are struggling with these hard
times to get some perspective.
In Book XIV, one
reads a description of the City of Man
as if one is watching the news.
Take time to dip into St. Augustine ’s
Confessions and City of God
Pass wisdom on to your children by knowing the great Doctors.
You can also read my mini-series on the Doctors of the Church on this
blog. Follow the tags.
On Recognizing Cults
I am concerned about the emergence of some new cults seemingly
connected to the Church.
I am concerned about some which at first do not look like
cults, but are.
I am going to list a few ways to discern is something is
cultic. If more than four are answered in the negative or if the answers are
vague, beware.
1) Are
the founders treated like gods and not like humans?
2) Are
the founders holy men or holy women?
3) Are
the founders’ lives transparent?
4) Is
there a cult of personality connected with the founders? If so, this is a bad
sign.
5) Are
the rules and regulations of the group open and on line?
6) Can
one ask questions and get answers concerning the group?
7) If
one asks questions, and one does not get a reply, are reasons given?
8) Are
the ministries of the group approved by the Vatican ?
9) Are
the ministries in keeping with long established ministries in the Church?
10) Are the lay
people free to come and go and discuss openly the group?
11) If there
are writings, books, speeches by the members, as these readily available?
12) Does the group
have diocesan approved spiritual directors, and not “roaming” priests?
13) If there
are spiritual directors, are these priests under the authority of a bishop or
bishops?
14) If the
works of the group have nihil obstats or imprimaturs, are these from bishops
who are noted for their integrity?
15) Has there
been any whiff of a scandal regarding the group?
16) Are the
financial backings clear and available?
17) Can people
who belong to the group have friends and companions outside the group?
18) Can people
who belong to the group talk freely about the events and even the organization
of their day with those outside the group?
19) Are the
teachings of the group in line with the Teaching Magisterium of the Church?
20) Does the
group support spurious, unapproved apparitions or visionaries?