Today's Gospel

More and more of us are beginning to realize how many people are actually choosing hell over heaven.  Too many Catholics make the mistake of thinking that people are deceived by satan, without realizing that people choose to live in the here and now, seeking comfort, living in the sensual only, choosing satan.

We cannot "slide into heaven", but we can "slide into hell"--any one of us.

John 8:21-30Douay-Rheims 

21 Again therefore Jesus said to them: I go, and you shall seek me, and you shall die in your sin. Whither I go, you cannot come.

22 The Jews therefore said: Will he kill himself, because he said: Whither I go, you cannot come?

23 And he said to them: You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world.

24 Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin.

25 They said therefore to him: Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you.

26 Many things I have to speak and to judge of you. But he that sent me, is true: and the things I have heard of him, these same I speak in the world.

27 And they understood not, that he called God his Father.

28 Jesus therefore said to them: When you shall have lifted up the Son of man, then shall you know, that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as the Father hath taught me, these things I speak:

29 And he that sent me, is with me, and he hath not left me alone: for I do always the things that please him.

30 When he spoke these things, many believed in him.

Retreat Notes on The Virtues

Father Xavier spoke of the virtues with regard to breaking demonic influences of obsession and oppression.

The virtues on which he concentrated are the cardinal virtues, again defined on this blog in both posts on virtues and posts on the way to perfection.

Father assumed that his audience knew the definitions of these, but he did emphasize some rather than others.

Prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude provide means to counter demonic influences in our lives. Father said plainly that children must be confirmed, and that too many are not being confirmed. These virtues are necessary, not only as natural virtues, according to the ancient Greeks, but as supernatural virtues given as gifts for all confirmed Catholics to use daily.

Father noted that the demons do not want to attack a person who has control over their bodies and their emotions.

There are antecedent appetites which need to be controlled. Father gave the example of people sleeping too much. If one gives into such a pleasure, one is allowing the possibility of demonic  influences over the body. Prudence, which is right reason applied to practice, allows us to be temperate in our lives regarding food, sleep and other things, perhaps connected to the passions which can drive us.

The cardinal virtues inform reason, the intellective appetites, so that we can overcome sin, weaknesses, and demonic influences. Practicing the virtues also gives us confidence in fighting demonic influences. Obviously, if we are slothful, and bombarded by demons of sloth for example, the opposite virtue of temperance would be a necessary practice in our lives. Temperance is won through chastity, fasting, and abstinence, which combat demonic influences. Father emphasized the necessity in spiritual warfare for fighting demons with temperance.

The other virtues, justice, prudence and fortitude, also are necessary in combating evil in our lives.

The importance of battling daily cannot be underestimated. I came away from this retreat realizing that there is little "down time" in the effort to become perfect, to become holy. Father Xavier said to beg God for the virtues and the graces to become holy.

I am begging....And remembering that to overcome even venial sin with the virtues, one should do the opposite of the fault or vice.

One more point which slightly overlapped with my reading of the City of God.

Father said that there are people out there building on purpose the City of Satan. We cannot deny this.
Becoming holy means being a member of the Church Militant.

End of retreat notes....

Repeating Ideas on The Passions-Part Four

But the inordinate or undisciplined passions become vices because of their inordinateness: sensible love becomes gluttony or luxury; aversion becomes jealousy, envy; audacity becomes temerity; fear becomes cowardliness or pusillanimity.

Sadly, most of the world;s population lives in these undisciplined passions, which have become vices. We see this daily in wars and the excesses of entertainment and entertainers. Only the opposite virtues can wean us, or rather, tear us away from these vices.

And, I repeat, a parent cannot give what he or she does not have-the virtues. Virtue training in the home must be a regular and steady effort on the part of parents raising children.

Again, the Dominican Master, Garrigou-Lagrange, writes this to help us all:

 
The remedies for precipitation are easily indicated. Since this defect comes from the fact that we substitute our natural, hasty action for that of God, the chief remedy is to be found in a complete dependence in regard to God and in the conformity of our will to His. For this, we must reflect seriously before acting; pray humbly for the light of the Holy Ghost, and also heed the advice of our spiritual director, who has the grace of state to guide us. Then gradually precipitation will be replaced by habitual docility to the action of God in us. We shall be a little less satisfied with ourselves, and we shall find greater peace and, from time to time, true joy in God.
To discipline the passions, we must be alert to combat vivacity of temperament united to presumption, which springs from too great esteem of self; we must also contend against effeminacy, and against sloth, which would be even more harmful to the interior life. By this slow persevering work, on which we should daily examine ourselves, the ardent, the Boanerges, must become meek without losing true spiritual ardor, which is zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. And the meek also, who are perhaps inclined by nature to effeminacy, heedlessness, and negligence, must become strong. Both will thus ascend by different slopes toward the summit of perfection. And they will see that it is a great thing to know how to discipline themselves gradually, to conduct themselves well, or to put it better, to know how to remain habitually faithful to grace, without which, in the order of salvation, we can do nothing.

Then the passions, no longer inordinate but disciplined, will become powers truly useful for the good of our soul and that of others. Audacity will be at the service of a fortitude that will dominate thoughtless fear when, for example, there is a question of coming promptly to the help of our neighbor in distress. Likewise meekness, which presupposes a great mastery over self, will repress anger so that it may never be anything but the holy indignation of zeal, of a zeal which, without losing any of its ardor, remains patient and meek and is the sign of sanctity.