Part One was on the blog yesterday.
Nothing comes easily in the spiritual
life. Those who think that the saints, because of an excess of grace
experienced little suffering need only read the great autobiographies
of the holiest who have gone before us.
For the past week, I have shared a few
of Father Alphonsus Rodriguez thoughts and counsels on the virtue of
humility. My decision for highlighting this virtue must be seen in
the context of four things: one's salvation; perfection; the times
in which we live; and the coming synod.
Not only must we acquire, through
practice and diligence the virtue of humility through prayer and
practice for the sake of becoming perfect, on order to be with God
after death, but to actually acquire the merits needed for salvation.
The acceptance of humiliating situations involves not only the
purification of the senses and the spirit, but the very call to
salvation. To become meek and humble forms the basis of the Christian
life, but these virtues remain misunderstood.
Meekness may mean speaking the truth to
family members about sin. Humility may mean removing one's self from
family gatherings which cause sins, such as gluttony or drunkenness,
or gossip. But, humility may also mean standing up firmly for the
beliefs of the Catholic Church, which are the truths taught in the
Catholic Church.
Yesterday, a protestantized Catholic
gave me an almost hateful tirade about the wealth of the Church in
Europe. I tried to steer the conversation to the fact that great
cathedrals and basilicas did not necessary mean worldly wealth, but
the person could not understand latria, worship including
beauty, which is due to God. The person could not understand why the
Vatican did not support seminarians in America and why Americans had
to pay for the training of their own priests. I tried to explain that
this had always been done on the local level, and that vocations come
out of parishes and dioceses which support vocations.
His problem was a lack of humility
regarding the Church. Why? If one is humble enough to admit that the
duty of supporting vocations is local, and that if it is not
happening there are sins at the local level which stop vocations from
flourishing, one is not looking at personal sin or the sins of the
community.
To think, first of all, that the Church
is rich, reveals a rebellious protestant iconoclasm. The European
Catholic Church, except in Germany, where there exists the church
tax, is extremely poor.
But, pride always points to the sins of
others instead of to one's own sins. I could not convince this man
that the lack of vocations was due to bad parenting, contraception,
and, yes, miserliness towards the Church, not the lack of financial
support from Rome. His pride blocked his ability to think clearly. I
could not impress upon him the need for looking at local problems in
the Church.
Humility gives one self-knowledge.
People are beginning to panic about the lack of vocations, and things
will get worse when priests are fined and jailed for not performing
so called gay marriages, but until the laity take responsibility for
the crisis of vocations, nothing will change.
I use this example for two reasons-one
to show the falseness of the American and liberal Catholic mindset
that is one throws money at a problem, that problem will disappear;
again, exterior change is not interior conversion. And, two, to
indicate that too many Catholics see the crises in the Church as
someone else problem, not theirs. These attitudes reflect a serious
lack of humility and meekness, which would cause a person to first
look at their own sins, and completely disregard the sins of others.
This is the problem I have with some
commentators on line. To keep looking at the evils of such and such a
cardinal or priest will not change the crises in the Church. This
brings me to the third point of the times in which we live. Unless we
practice humility to the point of being joyful under duress and
painful circumstances, the Church in certain areas will disappear.
For years, I have predicted swaths of
land in the US without dioceses, bishops, priests, Masses. Once
priests are fined and dioceses will have to sell schools, churches,
land, and as soon as some bishops and priests are placed in jail,
there will be no sacraments.
How does one remain in sanctifying
grace without the sacraments?
Humility.
Imagine not being able to get to
confession but once a year. Imagine having Mass only three or four
times a year. Imagine not being able to get married as there are no
priests. Imagine not being able to have public rosaries, Adoration,
processions, even Catholic art in your community. Imagine the stress
of having to avoid mortal sin and working on venial sin without holy
books or holy priests, or confessors.
Imagine not having the Last Rites, or
Masses said for your soul in purgatory.
This is coming.
The only virtue which will help us all
get through these times until God calls us home is humility.
To pray daily, to avoid temptation, to
work on venial sins, to allow God to perfect one must happen NOW.
Do not pass up any opportunities to go
to daily Mass.
I have lived for almost four months
without daily Mass. In this time, it is the merits of the four months
before of going to daily Mass which has sustained me. Imagine not
having the Mass for six or eight months.
This has all happened before in Mexico,
in England, in Spain, in the Middle East, in Africa.
It will happen here.
At this time in history, God needs the
Church Militant to be full of saints committed to humility.
Moving on to the last point, on the
Synod, all the problems we see there relate to a lack of humiity, not
only among the clerics who push to change the Church's long teaching,
which comes from Christ, on marriage, but from those proud laity who
do not want to admit they are living in sin.
Self-knowledge brings the humility to
say, “I cannot receive Christ because I am in sin. I need to
change.”
The greatest evil in the world at this
time is the tolerance of great sins-adultery, sodomy and greed. Until
the laity in all humility beg God for His forgiveness in the
toleration of these evils, in ourselves, in our families, in others,
the tribulation will become worse for the members of the remnant who
have humble themselves before God, and live in fear and trembling for
their particular judgment.
The pride of prelates who see the
Church as a numbers game, to gain money in certain countries, also
reveals a lack of humility. The desire for money, and the comforts
which money brings, kills humility.
People ask me, as a pre-Vatican II
person who remembers well the daily Tridentine life and the Catholic
ethnic cultures which supported the Church what the biggest
difference was in those days to now.
The answer is simple. People were more
humble, because they were poorer. People relied on God, and lived
lives of simple contentment with much, much less material goods than
now.
Consumerism killed the soul of America,
leading to the abortion law, and now the enshrining of unnatural sex
and lust into law.
Only a humble Church, which cries out
to God for mercy and forgiveness for the sins of the nation will
survive the coming persecution.
Christ promised that His Church will
last until He comes again, but maybe, not in Springfield, not in
Illinois, not in the Midwest, not east of the Mississippi, not in
America.
The great Jesuit saints traveled to
lands where they were seen an enemies of the state, such as China,
Japan, or even the native America nations. They were hated, but what
kept them true to their call and the Gospel was humility.
We need, in this time, a renewal of the
Jesuit Order. We need the type of men who came to the north woods of
New York, to Paraguay, to Japan, to England, knowing they would be
martyred after much torture.
We need to adopt this attitude of
facing the worst pain with equanimity in order to spread the Gospel
of Christ.
I think people have two choices at this
time-to join a monastic community and adopt Benedictine spirituality
as I noted in a post several weeks ago, or to become Jesuit in
spirituality, daily working on perfection and learning to live in
courage with humility.
These two rules of life were created
for times of persecution. One rule demands perfection among
communities separate from the world, communities praying for the
world. The other demands perfection in the world, in the midst of the
worst anti-Catholicism possible.
Pray for a Jesuit heart. Some are
called to be in the world and fight the good fight by converting
others despite great persecution. I challenge parents to raise
children according to the Jesuit method of education, noted on this
blog, and in the daily Examen.
Raise saints, Parents.
Become saints, Single People
But all to all of us, I say that the
only way forward is through the living out of the virtue of humility.
Starting Sunday, a new theme.
