The Virtue of Studiosity

Father Chad Ripperger has been one of the most influential priests in my life via his amazing set of talks and some personal input. He is the reason I am in the third order which he started. His intellect and spiritual insights are gifts from God.

One of the things he has pointed out is something I have written on this blog-the sin of curiosity.

This sin causes people to run after approved and unapproved apparitions. We do not need to concern ourselves with visions, but we do need to study our faith.

Recently, Father noted that curiosity is a vice, even when it is connected to wanting to know the latest about certain apparitions, even approved ones.

The virtue which is the opposite of this vice is studiosity, the virtue connected to temperance, which is a search for the truth which is disciplined and ordered. 

We are responsible for knowing the Faith, and we are also responsible for dulling our own intellects.

Raissa, as I noted, cried out in her diary for people to know their religion, the Catholic religion.

Without knowledge of the Faith, one easily falls into many other vices, and we are responsible for that type of falling away.

Studiosity is a virtue. If one is an adult and never studies the Faith in the Catechism or the encyclicals, or other excellent books, one is committing two sins at least. One is sloth and the other is neglect of conscience.

Ask yourselves honestly in your examination of conscience whether you are studying. If one merely chooses one author, such as St. Alphonsus, or the Pope Emeritus, or St. Augustine, or St. Therese of Liseiux, one is doing one's duty.

But the virtue demands that we study not only spirituality and prayer, but doctrine and dogma.

Studiosity is connected to the great virtue of temperance, the virtue which strengthens our reason. Temperance prepares us to combat temptation. Studiosity allows us to know the Faith so that we can avoid temptations and prepare for holiness.

Are you studying anything solid with regard to the Faith?

For those caught up with seers and visions, even approved ones, I challenge you to set those books aside and begin to study your Faith.

We are required to do this, and the fact that there is a virtue which helps us do so should be comforting.

Thomas Aquinas makes this distinction between curiosity, which actually is connected to lust and greed, and studying.  Curiosity connects us with the senses, not the intellect. Whereas studying increases our knowledge in order to help us know God and ourselves.

To be constantly distracted by trivia may be an indication that one has fallen into the vice of curiosity.



to be continued...

Perfection Series VIII Part XV The Intellect and Prayer

Twenty-three years ago in Sherborne, I had this set of dishes!

A holy man told me recently that it is easier for those who have trained the intellect to pray. Those who have had a classical education learned how to think. Most people react to stimuli and do not know how to think.

But, to make a connection between holiness and intellectual acumen was something I had not thought of to the extent that he did. I knew, of course, that the intellect and will were involved in finding and meeting God, but to say that those who actually are gifted in such have an easier time becoming holy, is another step of thought I had not taken.

Honestly, I was surprised by this, as we have been raised in a time where such saints as Gemma Galgani, Bernadette, and little ones like Jacinta have been held up as examples of the simplicity necessary for prayer.

But, what contemporary man has forgotten, is that even some of the so-called "simple" saints had either trained intellects from school and home, or infused knowledge from God.

St. Therese of Lisieux proves to be a case in point. Her education and training of the intellect aided her road to holiness. Most, if not all the priests canonized by St. John Paul II has superb theological studies, and even most of those saints who were martyred and canonized under both the Pope Emeritus and Pope Francis had catechetical training not seen in the West for forty years. In other words, these lay people had rigorous training of the faith.

Raissa's life is unusual because of the extraordinary intellectual gifts both her husband and she were given by God. They came out of that background and ministered to people, were friends with people, who were intellectuals.

That the intellect must be trained, unless a person has natural deficiencies, such as dear St. Joseph Cupertino, is a truism ignored by many Catholics. I partly blame the charismatics for emphasizing experience over intellect, making false oppositions to either prayer or grace, when there are none.

Those Catholics who are caught up in seers and visions do not understand that one must use one's intellect in order to discern truth and error. Discernment is a gift connected to the gifts of wisdom and knowledge we are all given in Confirmation. But, these gifts do no operate in an intellectual vacuum.

The Holy Spirit inspires a person to do things, to act, to pray, to meditate. If one thinks the Holy Spirit pushes one or takes over a person's freedom, one is actually falling into heresy. God inspires and we decide to do or not to do. We are not automatons.

Neither satan nor God takes away our free will and our intellect. This idea. of  "taking over", forms a dangerous paradigm in some lay people's minds. They do not understand that religious efforts as a combination of the intellect, the heart, the soul, the will. Much poor preaching from the pulpit seems to have taught people in the pew that emotions trump the intellect. It is the other way around.

All the gifts of the Holy Spirit inform the intellect. The virtues must be practiced with intellectual consent and awareness. To think that one is like a porridge bowl, completely passive, waiting to be filled from the stove, cannot be the Catholic paradigm for either grace or gifts.

Raissa writes something which I have repeated on this blog many times.

Pay attention!

She writes, Be attentive to divine impressions. Be attentive to all the movements of my heart.

Notice, this call to attention involves both the intellect and the heart. One is "attentive" in the mind. Then, one becomes attentive to the heart. Attention is an intellectual act.

One reason the Church is lacking in saints is that too many people chase after mushy feeling rather than real love. The Love of God takes decision, willing. As many of you who read this blog know, one of my repeated phrases is that "love is in the will".

And, to become a contemplative, takes discipline of the mind and the heart. Here is Raissa again:

Vocation of the contemplative. He must be still – cease all occupation. And see. See God in the eternal present. See him face to face, although under the veil of faith....The apostle has to live in the eternal future.

This seeing of God in the eternal present involves the intellect. The Dark Night of the Soul first cleanses the senses, then the spirit. And, the intellect rests in the spirit. Some saints are given infused knowledge, and at a certain stage, this infusion is to be expected. But, the training of the intellect, sadly neglected by our education systems and many parents, denies a person the way to God which is necessary. Simplicity is not stupidity. Simplicity is not "unthinking". 

Go back and read the posts on the imagination and how we must purify it over and over and over. This purification of memory, understanding and finally, that of the will, takes choice, decision, a honing of the intellect.

Our Church, as I wrote last week and right after the Synod, is not served by anti-intellectualism.

Raissa admits that she had to spend years in purifying the intellect. I understand this. As a poet and writer, God gave me the ability to use images and to be extremely observant in the world. In contemplative prayer, one must move away from images, which serve meditation, but not contemplation. This purification is part of my own Dark Night of the spirit. One cannot be silent before God with an over-active imagination, but only, only the intellect can deal with this, in grace and through grace.

Remember the posts on Thomas Merton's brilliant insight into the evil of television?  Without a strong intellect, one cannot properly deal with the bombardment of images, good or bad, in this hyperactive world. Even to get on the bus in order to attend daily Mass and Adoration demands a working of the mind not to become involved with images and people. But, this I must do. And, Raissa managed this balancing act. I pray for the grace to do this.

to be continued...

On The Growing Evil

One of the most obvious things to me being back in America for three months is the obviously raw evil which is bombarding the people here.

I am not referring to the evils of abortion or same-sex marriage, which is growing. I have never seen such an onslaught of satanism as I have seen in the past two months, such as the real satanic chants on the Grammies and the satanist lyrics of the band which sang at the Super Bowl.

Is anyone paying attention? Does anyone care? If anyone is watching these things on their television, that person is allowing the demons of the air in his or her own home.

Get real! So many leaders are into satanism. An exorcist told me years ago that in some cities in the Midwest, the main governmental leaders, including mayors, were into satanist cults.

Get real! Satan gives temporal power. He gives money. He makes agreement with people who want their own kingdoms on earth.

If you are letting your children watch television, you will be responsible to God for any evil which these children encounter.

Many, many home schoolers do not have televisions.

Computer games are also problems. This is so obvious to see-obvious evil-coming from Europe after three years.

The frog in the water..................most people do not see this.

Do not let your own children become hostage in satan's games.

Be watchful, but do not watch Hollywood...

Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8

Many social commentators, including Christians, see the 1960s as the turning point in American morals.

I disagree. Looking at some of the cultural icons in fashion and entertainment from thirty years earlier, I have discovered several trends which were already forming the minds of youth as early as the mid-thirties. My mini-thesis is that what happened in the sixties was already in the culture, already becoming main-stream.

In the past few weeks, I have been doing a little reflection on this blog on entertainment. I have been introduced to a short history of entertainment in America, and I have been truly shocked at what I have been discovering. 

If one actually listens to the words of songs and follows stories, one sees the unraveling of morals much earlier than most people want to admit.

We have an idea of an America which was morally homogeneous before WWII. This is not true.

As earlier as the mid-1930s, loose sexual morality was more than hinted at in famous movies, such as the famous ones of Fred Astaire. I want to list some of the serious anti-Christian points made in movies which were supposed to be entertainment, and not serious drama since about 1935.

The reason why such a reflection is important is that the movies were aimed at taking people out of the sadness of the financial depression and also to prepare them for war, as the war effort in manufacturing began years before America actually came into WWII.

This is happening now, as people are still using movies and television to escape from the reality of the spiritual life and the reality of hardships.

Here are some of the points I have gleaned by examining some of the most popular movies of the 1930s and 1940s.

One, men were already being depicted as weak in sexual matters, and sex before marriage was strongly hinted at, if not portrayed. 

Two, men did not want to get married and were frequently tricked into it by the scheming women.

Three, women and men did not reveal respectful relationships, speaking rudely with each other and being sarcastic.

Four, entertainment was being pushed within entertainment, in obvious self-promotion. How many movies actually involved stories about plays, shows, dances, etc., revealing this obsession with promoting Hollywood?

Five, marriage was based on sex and not on homemaking or children.

Six, lies in relationships were common and accepted as either cute or necessary. Lying was used to get the girl or get the man and so on.

Seven, selfishness were rewarded in men especially. 

Eight, women were portrayed as having to pretend to be stupid in order to "get the guy".

Nine, yelling in movies and even arguing was considered normal in couples who were supposed to be in love.

Ten, rarely were children discussed as part of the future marriages and, in fact, many of the couples just went into show-business; see point four.

Eleven, women had to manipulate "to get the guy", either in lying, or in changing their looks or even compromising their ideals.

Twelve, romance never, never included God or a spiritual dimension.

All of these American characteristics show a contempt of most of the virtues. They relationships between the couples depended on exterior beauty and sex.

Now, some readers would say these early movies were harmless. I disagree. 

The formation of conscience is a delicate and steady process. The conscience needs to be cultivated with a long perspective of truth and prayer.

Sadly, in the States, billions of dollars has been spent over the last century on entertainment. Gone by the 1930s were the ideals of family, brought back briefly after the War, when people were settling down again.

I challenge readers to really listen to the words of the songs that were sung, the attitudes in the relationships, and the general atmosphere of the stories.

A culture does not suddenly decay. The process is long and complicated. I would state that several generations, before the wild sixties, engaged in watching stories which were just as damaging as those thirty years later.

to be continued....