Awareness of God

Welcome to Sabbath Moments, the meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Visit her to read other bloggers’ moments this week when they were especially touched by God.

We’ve had colder than normal weather this October.  The orange maple we put in a few years ago is starting to turn color.  The welcome rain has allowed all our trees to hold on to their leaves a bit longer and the crisp air has me longing to get ahold of some fermented apple cider.  There’s nothing like that fizzy stuff to make sitting on a porch in the sunshine just perfect.  It’s good the Lord lets us enjoy these blessings and gives us the grace to realize they are from Him.

Friendship with God

This week the subject of the Divine Intimacy meditations has been the apostolate of every Christian: to participate with Christ in the salvation of souls. Today’s theme is the soul of the apostolate.  Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene has these words:

The first degree of friendship with God, which consists in the absence of serious sin, does not suffice to fulfill the purposes of the apostolate.  [Staying out of mortal sin isn't enough.  It's just skating by.  God asks much more of us.] A deeper friendship is required, one which creates such uniformity of will, desire and affection that the apostle is enabled to act according to God’s Heart; he is moved not by his own impulses, but by the Holy Spirit.

It is a very significant fact that Jesus made His apostles live for three years in intimacy with Him, treating them like dear friends, before sending them out to convert the world: “I will not now call you servants…but I have called you friends” (Jn. 15:15).  Friends, not only because He shared the treasures of His divine life with them, but also because He wanted them to be the collaborators, and in a certain sense, the successors of His mission as Redeemer.

Only if we are friends of God can we be apostles; God Himself invites us to this friendship, but we must correspond by living an intense interior life, one which makes our relations with God ever more intimate and richer in love.

The growth of Eucharistic Adoration in the past ten years is a great sign of spiritual renewal.  What better way to build a friendship with God than by spending time with Jesus in person?  The Holy Spirit works with willing hearts.  That’s what counts.

I used to be a little jealous of the apostles and everyone who got to know Jesus while He was on earth.  But thanks to His loving mercy, I can, through the sacraments and sacred scripture, know Him better every day until that time when I no longer have to see “through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12).  It’s a long road filled with many pitfalls and an uphill battle every day, but “the armor of God” (Eph. 6:13) is invincible.

Sure, I’ve turned my ankle many times, skinned my shins, gotten a bloody lip and cracked my head severely on this path.  At times I turned around and started down hill because I wanted to take the easy way out.  I even threw the armor off, which only made things far worse.

Now I know this: as long as I don’t take the armor off again, and as long as I practice my spiritual martial arts every day, I’ll grow in that friendship of God that is the soul of the apostolate.  I hope to see many people in heaven some day that helped me and whom I have helped, all of us apostles of Jesus Christ.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Awareness of God

Welcome to Sabbath Moments, a meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace.  Please visit her to read other Catholic bloggers moments of awareness of God.

Extra time with God

It must be the prednisone.  I’m waking up at 5:30 in the morning, giving me quite a bit of extra time with the Lord.  Prednisone = bad.  Extra time with the Lord = good Sabbath Moments.  This must be the idea behind turning lemons into lemonade.

Puttering

Beautiful weather Friday morning allowed me to putter in the garden and yard and get plenty of sunshine.  I always feel God’s presence when I’m digging, weeding, pruning and harvesting.  God bless my friend Steve, the physical therapist who works out in the therapy pool when I do.  He told me about a small tractor we decrepit people can sit on and roll wherever we need to go to get those pesky weeds out, and do other close to the ground chores.  Hubby and I bought it on sale over a year ago and it’s made doing outside work so much easier and fun.

Spiritual Progress

One of my meditations for this week from Divine Intimacy gave me much to think about throughout the following days.

It’s tempting to try to gauge our spiritual progress by ourselves.  The minute we start focusing on ourselves and worrying about being holy, our eye is off the ball, the ball being God.  The opposite of sin is virtue.  We are either practicing sin or we are practicing virtue.  Real spiritual progress comes with the practice of virtue.

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, OCD has good news for us:

Infant Baptism - Catholic

In fact, although God has infused the virtues into us at Baptism without any merit on our part, He does not make them grow without our collaboration; it remains for us, always with the help of grace, to put into practice the virtuous principles He has given us.  Only in this way shall we acquire good habits of virtue and facility in practicing them.

Therefore, if we desire to cooperate with the action of God who wishes to make us like to Himself, we should apply ourselves with great zeal to the practice of the virtues.

…”the obligation to advance in the love of God – and therefore, in all the other virtues as well – lasts even unto death” (St. Francis de Sales).  No one, however advanced in the spiritual life, can consider himself dispensed from the practice of the virtues.

In certain Catholic circles there seems to be an over emphasis equating holiness or spiritual progress with spiritual consolations and contemplation alone.  The incursion of transcendental meditation (a New Age practice) and its off-shoots pushed by well-meaning but misled people has deceived more than a few.  On the other hand, there are Catholics that really believe that if you cannot engage in charismatic prayer the Holy Spirit is not working in you and you are not holy.  I’ve met both types.

I think we have no greater expert on spiritual progress in prayer and living than the Doctor of the Church, St. Teresa of Avila.   She alerts us to pitfalls and shows us how to avoid them.

Father Gabriel continues:

St. Teresa of Jesus in describing the high states of the life of union with God, often digresses to urge the practice of virtue.  “You must not build,” she wrote to her daughters, “upon the foundation of prayer and contemplation alone, for unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs” (Interior Castle VII, 4); and elsewhere she expressly says that, by means of the virtues, “even though not greatly given to contemplation, people who have them can advance a long way in the Lord’s service, while, unless they have them, they cannot possibly be great contemplatives” (Way, 4).

It is not essential that God should lead us by the path of high contemplation in order to make us saints; [note: We do not make ourselves saints.  It is not in our power to do this.  Only God can make us holy.] besides, this does not depend upon our will. What does depend upon us, and is essential, is that we maintain the practice of virtue.  Whether God wills for us a family life or one dedicated to the duties of a professional life, whether He calls us to the apostolate or to the contemplative life, in each case we shall become saints only in the measure in which we practice virtue.

…However, we shall never reach perfect, much less heroic, virtue unaided by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the end of which is precisely to perfect the virtues.  Although the task of practicing the virtues is ours, it is only God who can actuate the gifts, and ordinarily He does this in proportion to our zeal in practicing virtue. The assiduous practice of the virtues opens our soul wide to God’s action, rendering it apt to receive and follow the motions of the Holy Spirit.

Thinking on this, I see how important it is

• to ask God’s help in identifying a key virtue to develop,
  
• to recognize the opportunities God gives us to practice this virtue, and
• to examine our conscience daily for our omissions when we let the chance go by, as well as our commission of sins opposed to the virtue.
  

If we’ve blown it, we simply tell God we’re sorry – and really mean it – and ask Him to wize us up.  A little penance or mortification in both repentance and thanksgiving for His generosity to us in the many graces He gives us daily keeps us in the right frame of mind to persevere.

This simple approach keeps our eyes on the prize: eternal union with God starting now.  If we don’t have some degree of this union before we die, we aren’t going to find it after death.

Spiritual progress can’t be accomplished by prayer alone St. Teresa says.  We shouldn’t get hung up on whether we can actually engage in contemplative prayer even though the writings of St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross and other contemplatives make it very attractive. Who doesn’t want to experience what they did?  The same goes for getting hung up on whether or not we can pray in tongues. Both instances makes the prize a particular satisfaction with ourselves in prayer – an end in itself.  It sets up a false measure of something only God can truly assess and leads to pride and vainglory, the opposite of several virtues including humility.

We have to be careful about making assumptions about our own holiness based on any other person and what he or she experiences in prayer or even what we experience in prayer.  We can be sure God is always calling us to union with Him every minute of every day. His call is always individual.  Co-operating with God’s action in our souls is the main thing, and what Sabbath Moments are all about.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Welcome to Sunday Snippets, a meme hosted by RAnn at This That and the Other Thing. Join us over there to catch up on other Catholic bloggers’ posts for the week.

I’m still battling hives so my posts are few.

Road Number One is a commentary on a line of dialogue spoken by a North Korean communist in the series of that name.  Our Lady of Fatima said that unless converted, Russia would spread her errors throughout the world; she wasn’t and she did. Road Number One is one of the best depictions of the Korean War I’ve seen with many teachable moments from a historical and moral viewpoint.

Christian Patience in Suffering was a particularly appropriate meditation for me and may be helpful to you, too.

Sabbath Moments: Perseverance highlights this useful virtue that we need when we’d rather yell, “Stop the world, I want to get off!”

Last week I posted a gorgeous photo of the northern lights by Stephane Vitter at Nuit Sacrées. October, the month of the Holy Angels, is coming up and here is a striking image Vitter took at Burnkirch, Illfurth in Alsace one July night. If we are to keep ourselves going in this mad, mad world, it’s always good to feed ourselves on beauty.

Un Ange foudroye, Burnkirch, Illfurth

This photo is of Mont Sainte Odile taken during the conjunction of the moon, Jupiter, and the Pleiades by Vitter.  A famous monastery in Strasbourg, Alsace, Mont Ste. Odile is a favorite place of pilgrims.  St. Odile is the patroness of Alsace and also of the blind.  I wonder how many other places on earth can say this: they have had Perpetual Adoration at Mont Ste. Odile since 1931.  If you’d like to know more about the long history of this place or plan a trip there, visit here.

Mont Ste. Odile during the conjunction of the moon, Jupiter, and the Pleiades by Stephane Vitter

Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Awareness of God

Welcome to this meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace. Please visit her to read others’ Sabbath Moments of the week.

This week we got some good and lengthy rain showers – just the right kind to soak the earth after a parching summer.  Rainy days are good days for resting in the Lord.

My experiment with late sowed zucchini failed.  I’m getting 4 inch veggies that just won’t grow longer or bigger.  We’ve had such weather extremes – very hot then dropping into the upper 40s at night – that I think, along with the angle of light changing, conditions aren’t good for normal growth.  However, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and nothing learned.  I’ll move the second planting up a couple of weeks next summer and see what happens.  And here’s hoping next summer won’t be so hot.  God is my partner in gardening and He always gives me a lot to think about as I try to coax the best out of the plants and apply the knowledge of those more experienced than I whom He puts in my path.

Hives are still a problem.  At times they drive me crazy and I have to deal with the trade-off of having more of them and itching worse with taking more prednisone than I want.  Right now I’m opting for less drug and more itch.  This is a test of perseverance, which happens to be the lesson from Divine Intimacy today.

Father Gabriel writes:

The angel, a pure spirit, is stable by nature; if he makes a resolution, he holds to it; but this is not the case with us.  We, being composed of spirit and matter, must suffer the consequences of the instability and fluctuations of the latter.

As stability is characteristic of spirit, so instability is characteristic of matter; hence it becomes so difficult for us to be perfectly constant in the good.  Although we have formed good resolutions in our mind, we always feel handicapped by the weakness of the sensible part of our nature which rebels against the weariness of sustained effort, and seeks to free itself from it, or at least to reduce it to a minimum. [No kidding.]

Our bodies are subject to fatigue; our minds are disturbed by emotions which are always fluctuating.  That which at one moment fills us with enthusiasm may, at the next, become distasteful and annoying to such a point that we think we can no longer endure it. This is our state while on earth and no one can escape it.

However, God calls us all to sanctity, and since sanctity requires a continual practice of virtue, He, who never asks the impossible, has provided a remedy for the instability of our nature by giving us the virtue of perseverance, the special object of which is the sustaining of our efforts. Though fickle by nature, we can, by the help of grace, become steadfast.

Physical and mental obstacles to bearing up under life’s difficulties seem, at times, to be monumental.  Sometimes it looks like a lot of things pile up on us all at once and all our good intentions fly out the window in a second.  It’s especially difficult to come to terms with chronic conditions that fluctuate in severity and are badly affected by other temporary difficulties.  Father Gabriel notes:

Sometimes just a momentary inattention, an unexpected happening, a little weariness or emotion, is enough to make us commit some fault that we had sincerely resolved to avoid at any cost, and here we have failed again!  This, however, is no reason for being discouraged or sad; rather it is a motive for humbling ourselves, for recognizing our weakness and begging more insistently for God’s help to rise at once and begin again.

Because our human nature is so unstable, our perseverance will usually consist in continually beginning again.  This is the perseverance to which we should all attain, because it depends on our good will, in the sense that God has infused this virtue in our soul, giving us at every moment sufficient grace to practice it.

It is not in our power to free ourselves from this instability of our nature, and therefore we cannot avoid every slackening in virtue, every negligence, weakness, or fault; but it is within our power to correct ourselves as soon as we perceive that we have failed. This is the kind of perseverance, that God demands of us, and when we practice it faithfully, and are always prompt in rising after each fall, He will crown our efforts by granting us the supreme grace of final perseverance.

So dealing with hives along with everything else is God’s way of strengthening the virtue of perseverance in me.  Just as an athlete doesn’t get to be a gold medal winner in the Olympics without daily intensive practice, so we will not achieve heaven without rigorous practice of perseverance.  I’m going for the eternal gold.  How about you?

Thanks to everyone who’s been praying for me.  I’m sure your prayers are helping.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Because I watch quite a bit of Asian art films and drama, I am struck by the fatalistic response to suffering that is an outgrowth of Buddhist beliefs and finds its expression in the dialogue of many of the works.  Life without Christ is so grim.  If I had to believe that the trials of this life were karma and that I was going to have to come back and deal with this world all over again I’m not sure how I would handle it. Fortunately we have a loving Father who sent His Son to redeem us from the misery of this world and to make sense out of suffering in the human condition.

St. Teresa of Avila, Peter Pawel Rubens

Father Gabriel writes in Divine Intimacy for today:

Christian patience is not the forced resignation of the fatalist or the philosopher who submits to suffering because he cannot escape it, nor is it the attitude of one who submits because he is not able to react through lack of strength and resources; it is the voluntary acceptance of suffering in view of God and eternal happiness, an acceptance sustained by the knowledge that suffering is absolutely necessary to purify us from sin, to atone for our faults, and to prepare us to meet God.  Christian patience incites us to accept suffering serenely, and gradually to esteem and love it, not because we see it as an end in life, but rather as a necessary means for attaining the end, which is love of God and union with Him. If Jesus willed to live a life of martyrdom and to die on the Cross in order to kindle the fire of charity in us and restore us to friendship with God, how can we expect to attain the plenitude of love and intimacy with God if we do not follow in His footsteps?

“Christ, therefore, having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought” cries St. Peter (1Pet. 2:1).  Let us embrace suffering then, with the same sentiments which Jesus had: to do the heavenly Father’s will to atone for sin and to give Him proof of our love.

Christian patience is not merely a passive attitude in the face of suffering; it is also active and voluntary.  The latter is the more important because it is this which makes suffering meritorious. A patient man is passive because he wills to be passive, because he uses his free will to submit to all the sufferings which he meets on his way, because he voluntarily bows his shoulders under the yoke of suffering, just as Jesus bowed His under the weight of the Cross, because He willed to do so, “quia ipse voluit” (Is. 53:7).

A Christian is not a forced Cyrenean, but a willing one, not in the sense that he goes spontaneously in search of suffering — this would not be feasible for all, and sometimes would be imprudent — but in the more modest sense whereby he accepts willingly all the suffering which he encounters on his way, recognizing in this the Cross offered him by God for his sanctification.

St. Teresa of Avila is known for this great quote, a few words of which you might see in a stained glass window of a Carmelite monastery like the one in my area:

O Jesus, what greater proof of Your love could You give me than to choose for me all that You willed for Yourself?  To die or to suffer: this is what I should desire (T.J. Way, 18; Life, 33- 11).

The Freudians would call us masochists.  We are, however, Christians with purpose sent to reach out to our fellow man and bring him the hope of the Cross.

Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Awareness of God

Welcome to Sabbath Moments, a weekly meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace.  We invite you to join her and share your moments when you “rested in the Lord” or were especially conscious of finding Him in the ordinary things of life.

Daisies and recipes

A couple of days ago I went over to visit the home schooling mom across the street to discuss my sharing of the Shasta daisies we’ll be digging and dividing in the next few weeks.  While I was there we got to talking about recipes and she showed me a cookbook a friend of hers published that had one of her recipes in it.  We traded some of our favorites.  Good neighbors are a priceless treasure and gift from God as is the fun we have sharing with them.

Simplicity of soul

Yesterday the meditation from Divine Intimacy was on simplicity.  Whenever I think about simplicity I see the little children crowding around Jesus and His delight in them.  The simplicity of little children is always a joy to behold and a lesson to me not to over think or complicate things in any way.  It goes hand in hand with purity of heart which Jesus taught in the sermon on the mount.  Father Gabriel writes:

A simple soul leans on God at every moment, at every step of its life, seeking in Him its sole support and strength. In whatever difficulty it finds itself, it immediately looks to God for help, and with complete confidence, convinced that only in Him will it find the strength necessary to sustain its weakness, and that this strength will never be refused.  It is not prevented, however, from seeking the help of wise, prudent persons, but it does so with detachment, and does not become troubled or disturbed when God permits it to be deprived of this help.

I take it from this that if we are deprived of help it is because the Holy Spirit is working in us to make firm our trust in God, prudence and patience in waiting, purity of heart, humility, and a number of other virtues that we need the opportunity to practice.

This next part on purity of intention calls to mind the pollution of our motives, something difficult to avoid since we are always in some state of relative blindness to our faults and inclinations.  The more intelligent and capable we are, the greater the danger of pride and self-seeking in dealing with problems in life. Here Father Gabriel brings us back to simplicity of focus:

In everything, a simple soul considers but one end, God, and has but one intention, to serve God and to please Him.  Therefore, it watches very carefully lest any secondary intention arising from self-love ever insinuate itself into its actions, as, for example, a desire of making a good appearance, of procuring the esteem of others, or of satisfying its own curiosity or love of ease.

These secondary intentions are like the little foxes of which the Canticle of Canticles speaks; they stealthily penetrate into the blossoming vine of the soul and destroy the flowers and fruits of our good works.  How many good actions begun out of love for God lose at least half their value because, before they are completed, they are contaminated by some secondary intention not sufficiently suppressed or rectified!  And how many others which also began well are transformed into evil by lack of rectitude in the intention.

…free from all cares and useless preoccupations, the simple soul goes straight to God, as rapidly and directly as an arrow. The one light, the one strength, the one end of its life is God, and because of this, its whole life attains a purity, a strength, and an enchanting unity — a pale reflection of the divine perfections.

Our lives are way too complicated.  Inventions that were supposed to make life easier have instead made more demands on us.  Today multi-tasking is considered high virtue.  It, in reality, I believe it is a trap that interferes with the virtue of simplicity. I am convinced that the inflated expectations placed on workers based on multi-tasking is responsible for bad stress and the monumental physical and mental health problems that result.

One of the great attractions of monasteries and contemplative life is its simplicity. Whether it is sweeping the floors, plowing the garden, herding the sheep, studying or reading, chanting the Divine Office or recreating with fellow religious, only one thing is done at a time, and that thing is totally dedicated to God.  Perhaps we should take a lesson from them and before we start anything, dedicate the task or project to God, and secondly, trim all extraneous and competing activities from our lives that would get in the way of doing it with complete focus on God.

Bird with broken wing - Jim Fenton photo

Questions I ask myself are:

• Do I really need to be doing all this?

• Is what I’m doing and how I’m going about it leading me into a closer relationship with God or is it feeding my ego and concupiscence?

• Am I making a habit of taking all my worries, concerns, and difficulties straight to God and making enough quiet time to let Him help me or am I flapping about uselessly like a bird with a broken wing?

Lord, grant me simplicity of soul, purity of heart, and calmness of spirit in the storm of life.

Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.

V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote on The Virtue of Religion. Today in Divine Intimacy Father Gabriel wrote on religion and justice saying:

…yes, Jesus has shown us in what the true virtue of religion consists.  it is interior worship, because “God is a spirit, and they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4:24); but it is also exterior, because our whole being, including our bodies, must take part in the homage we render to God.

Religious who are wholly consecrated to the service of God by their vows practice the virtue of religion in the highest degree, provided they fulfill their obligations “in spirit and in truth.”  But even those who are not bound by vows should try in all their acts to have the intention of performing them for the glory, honor, and service of God; therefore, they should do them in such a way that they can be presented to Him as acts of homage, offering, and sacrifice.  Thus, the virtue of religion is not confined to the hours of prayer; it embraces our whole life, transforming it into one continual act of homage to God, in imitation of the life of Jesus and in union with it.

This gives me a chance to mention one of my favorite American bishops, Bishop Slattery of Tulsa, Oklahoma.  While we all have a responsibility to build up the body of Christ, bishops are our immediate leaders as successors to the apostles.  What they do to foster the virtue of religion makes a huge difference in how close the people under their care come to living Catholic life fully. Some of the things I really appreciate about Bishop Slattery are:

1) When other bishops were literally persecuting and treating as third class citizens those of us who desired access to the Traditional Latin Mass, he invited the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter to Tulsa for a congregation that began with 12 people in 1995.  Still under the care of the FSSP, St. Peter Parish is now poised to take over Our Lady of Sorrows convent in Broken Arrow and start a Catholic school for girls.  (The FSSP already has St. Gregory’s Academy for boys in Scranton, Pennsylvania.)

2) In 1999 he invited the Benedictine monks of Fontgombault in France to found Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek in Hulbert, Oklahoma. Starting with only 13 monks living in log cabins and sheds and celebrating the sacred liturgy in a converted horse barn, the monastery now has over 30 monks and has become self-sustaining and independent of Fontgombault with its own abbot.  This group of contemplative monks has brought the full Benedictine life and spirituality to eastern Oklahoma with enormous benefits, including founding a convent for contemplative nuns.

3)  A few years ago Bishop Slattery founded a diocesan Benedictine monastery in Tulsa with Father Mark Kirby, OSB, called Our Lady of the Cenacle.  Father Mark’s charge is to form women who adopt priests of the diocese, becoming their spiritual mothers according to a request to all bishops from the Congregation of the Clergy.  The bishop instituted a formal program for these women under the direction of Father Mark who is also spiritual director for priests of the diocese and writes Vultus Christi blog.

4)  In recent years he founded a diocesan liturgical institute (Te Deum Institute of the Liturgy) to restore the sacred liturgy, inviting one of the great Benedictine liturgists and former Abbot Primate, Father Abbot Marcel Rooney, OSB, to head it up.  The ongoing training for those involved in the sacred liturgy is second to none.

5)  Bishop Slattery continues to strengthen the Let’s Talk program for married couples begun in 1992.  This program was featured in the most recent issue of The Eastern Oklahoma Catholic. It’s purpose is to help preserve and strengthen marriages.

6)  The bishop also supports Natural Family Planning as a means for conversion and holiness, with feature articles in the magazine from time to time.

He has done much more, including supporting the growth of other Catholic rites within his diocese such as the Greek and Chaldean rites, and many programs for the laity (youth and adults) aimed at helping them live a strong Catholic identity.

The Tulsa diocese is a great place to live as a Catholic with all the opportunities to weave the virtue of religion into daily life and steady reminders to focus on God.  I can say that I wish my husband and I were able to move there, but God has His reasons for keeping us where we are.  Maybe the extra effort we must make in our spiritual lives because of conditions in our own diocese is making us stronger followers of Christ.

How do we know good works are pleasing to God?  Are we just pleasing ourselves when we throw ourselves wholeheartedly into tasks that we enjoy even when they bring good to others?

Discernment of God’s will must be a lifelong process if we are to avoid fooling ourselves and getting sidetracked by willfulness.  Fortunately, we have ways to test our impulses as to whether they be of God or ourselves.  Father Gabriel of Mary Magdalene, OCD, writes about diligence in Divine Intimacy, and in the process shows us how we can tell if what we are doing is of God:

A negligent person goes to his work unwillingly, slowly, and with needless delay, whereas the diligent man hastens to it cheerfully, with promptness and concern.

The prompt doing of a thing that should be done, even when it would be more convenient to do something else, is the fruit of diligence.

Above all, one who is bound to a definite rule of life, either privately or in a community, must observe it punctually and exactly. [Married people, mothers and fathers, have a rule of life that applies, too.]

In fact, any rule which has been approved by one who represents God, is, for the soul who is bound to it, a manifestation of the divine will, which must be carried out without delay or postponement.  Punctuality exacts self-discipline and detachment; it often asks us to interrupt some interesting, pleasant work in order to give ourselves to another kind, perhaps less attractive or less important.  However, it would be a great mistake to esteem our duties and to dedicate ourselves to them according to the attraction we have for them or according to their more or less apparent importance.

All is important and beautiful when it is the expression of the will of God, and the soul who wishes to live in this holy will at every minute of the day, will never omit the slightest act prescribed by its rule of life.

To prolong what we are doing beyond the prescribed time, or to dispense ourselves from a duty without a serious reason, is to abandon the will of God; it shows an attachment to our own will, and often enough, to our own convenience.

This is how we often fool ourselves into doing our own will and miss chances to grow in the love of God and neighbor. The answer is simple: do our duty diligently and perform it with a joyful heart.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Today’s meditation in Divine Intimacy illuminates an area most of us cannot escape – that of being judgmental towards others.  Outside of having the authority and the grace to judge another person’s behavior because of our position, we sin against charity when we criticize others – even when we don’t voice it but do it in our hearts.

It is one thing to have discernment that an act of another is objectively wrong and quite another to judge the person. The number of opportunities to sin against charity by judging others staggers me.  The blabbering on the radio, internet and television, let alone the iPhones and other technologies means the airwaves are carrying all sorts of gossip, rash judgment, and criticism to anyone who presses the “start” button on an electronic gizmo.  And the above list doesn’t include what happens at church and in our groups of friends or co-workers.

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. writes:

“Judge not, that you may not be judged” (Mt. 7:1).  Charity to our neighbor begins with our thoughts, as many of our failings in charity are basically caused by our judgments.  We do not think highly enough of others, we do not sufficiently consider their manifest good qualities, we are not benevolent in interpreting their way of acting.  Why?  Because in judging others, we almost always base our opinion on their faults, especially on those which wound our feelings or which conflict with our own way of thinking and acting, while we give little or no consideration to their good points.

It is a serious mistake to judge persons or things from a negative point of view and it is not even reasonable, because the existence of a negative side proves the presence of a positive quality of something good, just as a tear in a garment has no existence apart from the garment.  When we stop to criticize the negative aspect of a person or of a group, we are doing destructive work in regard to our own personal virtue and the good of our neighbor.  To be constructive we must overlook the faults and recognize the value of the good qualities that are never wanting in anyone…

St. Teresa of Jesus [Avila] said to her nuns, “Often commend to God any sister who is at fault and strive for your own part to practice the virtue which is the opposite of her fault with great perfection” (Way of Perfection, 7).

Judgment belongs to God; it is reserved to Him alone, for He alone can see into our hearts, can know what motives and intentions make us act as we do….Therefore, anyone who judges another — unless he is obliged to do so by his office, as superiors [parents, supervisors, etc.] — usurps, in a sense, God’s rights and puts himself in the place of God. To presume to judge one’s brethren always implies a proud attitude toward God and toward the neighbor. [These are really scary thoughts.] Besides, one who is quick to judge others lays himself open to committing great errors, because he does not know the intentions of others and has not the sufficient prerequisites for formulating a correct judgment.

In the face of an act which is blameworthy in itself, we are evidently not obliged to consider it good; nevertheless, we must excuse the intention of the one who committed it and not simply attribute it to a perverse will. “If our neighbor’s acts had one hundred facets, we should see only the best one; and then, if the act is blameworthy, we should at least excuse the intention” (St. Teresa Margaret of the Heart of Jesus).

Every day I, too, commit many faults; I too fall into many defects, but this does not signify that all these stem from bad will.  My faults are often committed inadvertently, through frailty; and because I detest these failings of mine the Lord continues to love me and wants me to retain complete confidence in His love.  he regards others the same as He does me; therefore, I have no right to doubt my neighbor’s good will simply because I see him commit some faults, nor have I the right to diminish, for this reason, my love and esteem for him…

St. Teresa of Avila, Carmelite Monastery, Varroville, NSW, Australia, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The last sentence is a perfect example of why the virtue of charity is so difficult to practice.  My stomach grinds at following the precepts above when someone has offended me greatly.  It’s much easier to judge the person and carry a grudge than to forgive. The deadly sin of pride is at the bottom of it all, of course.  We must recognize in this all too human tendency to judge others harshly the work of the devil to separate us from our focus on Christ.  After all, grumbling in our hearts or with our tongues takes time away from focusing on Jesus and our relationship with Him.

St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi wrote:

Teach me, O Lord, not to judge my neighbor for any fault I may see him commit, and if I should see him commit a sin, give me the grace to excuse his intention which is hidden and cannot be seen.  But even if I should see that his intention was really bad, give me the grace to excuse my neighbor because of temptation, from which no mortal is free.

St. Teresa of Avila on the same subject:

O Lord, help me not to look at anything but at the virtues and good qualities which I find in others and to keep my own grievous sins before my eyes so that I may be blind to their defects.  This course of action, though I may not become perfect in it all at once, will help me to acquire one great virtue — to consider all others better than myself.  To accomplish this, I must have Your help; when it fails, my own efforts are useless.  I beg You to give me this virtue.

Lord, help me develop the habit of commending others to You whenever I am tempted to judge them and gripe about their faults or sins.  I want to be in heaven with You some day, and regardless of my feelings about others, I want them to be there with You, too.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Welcome to RAnn’s Sunday meme where Catholic bloggers share their posts for the week.  Visit her blog, This That and the Other Thing, to catch up with interesting posts others have written.

This week I wrote about The Royal Scent of Spikenard.

As I promised last Sunday, I blogged on The Virtue of Religion.

There’s a great religious community serving the indigenous peoples of the Andes called the Missionary Servants of the Poor of the Third World.

From their newsletter I took the story of A Modern Day St. Maria Goretti which I published at the Community of Catholic Bloggers.

My Sabbath Moments consisted of dilled asparagus beans and Japanese beetles.

Prayer from the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost:

O God, Whose providence faileth not in its designs, we humbly entreat Thee: put from us all that might be harmful and give us all that will be profitable.  Through our Lord Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with Thee in the Unity of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Laus Deo (Praise God)

Yesterday I wrote about the virtue of religion, prompted by the Mass prayer from the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost.  A good Christian sincerely wants all people to know, love, and serve God in this world and to spend eternity with Him by living a virtuous life on earth. The virtue of religion is central to this motivation.

This month the newsletter I receive from the Benedictine monastery of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek in Oklahoma contained a letter and an announcement from the Missionary Servants of the Poor of the Third World.  Father Giovanni Salerno reveals in his letter a great discovery of the value of the virtue of religion:

For our Missionary Servants of the Poor it is a great privilege to represent the Church and the Holy Father in the midst of the poor.  When the missions of the Third World are spoken of, many think that the best way to help the poor is to address their material needs: clothing, medicine, food, etc. In my life as missionary, after forty-six years, I have realized that the greatest gift we can give the poor is God and His divine grace through the Sacraments of the Church.

The Missionary Servants of the Poor of the Third World was founded to obey the Holy Father John Paul II who told us: “God and serve the poor with empty hands, but with the treasures of the Church.”  Because of this our charism is marked by a profound love of the Holy Eucharist, with a tender and filial devotion to Mary, the Mother of Jesus and all the poor, and an absolute fidelity to the Holy Father and the Magisterium.  If we have asked for help from the Benedictine Abbey of Clear Creek, it is not primarily for economic help but for assistance in circulating our newsletter in English so that in this way American youths, full of faith and generosity, might dedicate their lives to God and come to serve the indigenous of the Andes Mountains.  We believe that the greatest gift to the needy is God.

…By virtue of our statutes, as Missionary Servants of the Poor, we can ask for collections in any parish or anywhere in the world, but instead we ask for a true conversion in those we meet because there is no greater service to the poor than to provide a deep transformation in ourselves.  If we truly focus on this — our own conversions in Christ — the material needs will take care of themselves.

What a great example of having priorities straight!  Father Salerno draws the same direct line between the virtue of religion and service to our neighbor as Jesus did when he said in Matt. 22: 35-39:

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

All around us we have the poor.  We witness to hope for them when we first, through the virtue of religion, show our love of God and a right relationship with Him and second, when we kindly and lovingly meet their needs.

If you would like to support the Missionaries of the Poor in some way or receive their newsletter, you can contact them here for the United States office at Clear Creek:

To read an inspiring story from their newsletter visit my post : A Modern Day St. Maria Goretti.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

kneeling in prayer

In last Sunday’s Mass prayer we ask God to “graft in our hearts the Love of Thy name, and grant us an increase of religion….”

What is “religion” and why do we need an increase of it?  We don’t hear much if anything about this important virtue, but the lack of it in society today is due to man enthroning himself in the place of God.

The Catholic Encyclopedia says this about the virtue of religion:

Of the three proposed derivations of the word “religion”, that suggested by Lactantius and endorsed by St. Augustine seems perhaps to accord better with the idea than the others. He says it comes from religare, to bind. Thus it would mean the bond uniting man to God.

The notion of it commonly accepted among theologians is that which is found in St. Thomas’s “Summa Theologica”, II-II, Q. lxxxi. According to him it is a virtue whose purpose is to render God the worship due to Him as the source of all being and the principle of all government of things.

There can be no doubt that it is a distinct virtue, not merely a phase of another. It is differentiated from others by its object, which is to offer to Almighty God the homage demanded by His entirely singular excellence. In a loose construction it may be considered a general virtue in so far as it prescribes the acts of other virtues or requires them for the performance of its own functions.

It is not a theological virtue, because its immediate object is not God, but rather the reverence to be paid to Him. Its practice is indeed often associated with the virtues of faith and charity. Still the concordant judgment of theologians puts it among the moral virtues, as a part of the cardinal virtue justice, since by it we give God what is due to Him.

St. Thomas teaches that it ranks first among moral virtues. A religious attitude towards God is essentially the product of our recognition, not only of His sovereign majesty, but also of our absolute dependence on Him. Thus, as Father Rickaby says, He is not merely “the Great Stranger”, our behavior towards whom must be invested with awe and admiration; He is besides our Creator and Master and, in virtue of our supernatural filiation in the present order of things, our Father. Hence we are bound to cherish habitually towards Him sentiments of adoration, praise, thanksgiving, loyalty, and love.

Such a demeanor of soul is inexorably required by the very law of our being…. Our composite nature [body and soul ] needs to express itself by outward acts in which the body as well as the soul shall have a part — this not only to spur on our inner feelings, but also because God owns us body and soul, and it is right that both should show their fealty to Him. This is the justification of external religion. [Kneeling, bowing, walking in procession, making the sign of the Cross, etc.]

Of course God does not need our worship, whether interior or exterior, and it is puerile to impugn it on that score. We cannot by our homage add anything to His glory….It is not because it is strictly speaking of use to Him that we render it, but because He is infinitely worthy of it, and because it is of tremendous value to ourselves.

The chief acts of this virtue are adoration, prayer, sacrifice, oblation, vows; the sins against it are neglect of prayer, blasphemy, tempting God, sacrilege, perjury, simony, idolatry, and superstition.

In this time after Pentecost, the time of the Holy Spirit, practicing the virtue of religion causes the gift of piety to blossom, leading to those good works on behalf of our neighbor that a generous heart offers for the glory of God.

My next post is about the relationship between the virtue of religion and missionary work.  Please join me to hear from a priest who has spent 46 years among the indigenous peoples of the Andes.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

Awareness of God

Welcome to the Sabbath Moments meme hosted by Colleen at Thoughts on Grace.  Visit her to read other Catholic bloggers’ moments this week when they rested in the Lord or when they recognized God in the ordinary.

This week we pulled up the zucchini because it wasn’t producing and, in spite of my spraying, was infested with squash bugs.  The southwest Missouri heat this year has been carrying on much higher and much longer than any year since we moved here in 1993, so the plants had a lot against them.  It reminds me that Jesus said the bad fig tree would have to be cut down and thrown into the fire.  If we associate with people who are giving themselves over to sin (the squash beetles), go to places that lead us to sin (the excessive and enduring heat), we are going to be torn up and thrown into the fire (hell).  Even my veggie garden has the lessons about how to live.

Yesterday, just as Roger and I started to gather veggies, rain started pouring down.  We stayed outside and got soaking wet, enjoying ourselves to the utmost while we picked the fruit of our labors.  I was thanking God for the rain and enjoying myself immensely, knowing that all those negative ions in the rain were doing something good for us and the plants.  Plus, getting wet in the rain is just plain fun.  I guess I’ve never grown up.  The kids across the street were playing outside in the rain, too.  We do have to release our inner child sometimes, don’t we?

Every day I read a life of the saint of the day from the Lives of the Saints by Father Alban Butler, from TAN books.  This week we celebrated the feast of St. Vincent de Paul.  He is a great example of a manly man. He grew up in a family of pig farmers, guarding his father’s pigs.  Shortly after his ordination to the priesthood, he was captured by pirates and carried off to the Barbary coast as a slave where he converted his master and fled with him to France.  Not long after that, he was appointed the chaplain-general of the galleys where he spread hope and joy among the prisoners.  On one occasion he took on a prisoner’s chains so that he could be released to his mother, serving out the sentence for him.

Like our modern day Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, he saw the face of Christ in the poor and suffering.  St. Vincent went into the streets of Paris to gather the children left there to die like Mother Teresa went into the streets of Calcutta to gather the dying. He taught the rich to do works of mercy and founded the daughters of Charity.

I’ve thought a lot about St. Vincent this week.  He is one of the incorruptibles.  God’s favor on his life is a body that didn’t decay in death and is a lesson that purity in a man is saintly, not wimpy. He died in 1660, which is a long time not to have been turned into dust. 

To me, St. Vincent is a great example of someone who made the most of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.  He inspires me to do my best in my circumstances. I won’t do the great things he did, but I can do quiet, small things greatly by following his example.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Last week in Confirmation for Young Children? I wrote that the time after Pentecost is the time of the Holy Spirit.  In The Action of the Holy Spirit I quoted Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene who wrote regarding the Holy Spirit: “He elevated us to the supernatural state.”  This means we are capable of performing supernatural acts because He has entered our souls to strengthen our intellect and will.  Traditional Catholic terminology refers to the intellect and will as “powers”.  Out of all creation, only angels and men have these powers.

At Baptism we received by the power of the Holy Spirit the infused divine virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which we call the theological virtues because they concern our relationship with God.

Divine Faith

We believe in God and the truths that He has revealed (faith).  This isn’t a halfway belief, either.  It’s not an “if I understand it fully I’ll believe” kind of thing.  It’s a “whether I understand or not, if God says it’s true, I firmly believe it and will seek understanding.” (Understanding is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit we receive at Confirmation, but we’ll talk about that another time.)  We don’t need to understand everything to exercise the theological virtue of faith.  We only need an act of will.  Exercising this divine virtue of faith is also a first step in acquiring the virtue of humility. Without being meek and humble of heart, we cannot be like Jesus.

Divine Hope

We hope in God – that He is true to His word; that He will give us eternal life and the means to obtain it. God wants all of us to be with Him in eternity – we were created for heaven.  He never sets us up for failure.  If we end up in hell, it’s because we have blocked His generous graces.  We have forestalled the work of the Holy Spirit in our souls to the point that we are permanently blind.  He will always give us the means to enjoy life with Him forever, but it is up to us to accept those means.

Divine Charity

Divine charity is loving God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God.  The theological virtue of charity is not a mushy, squishy, sentimental feeling.  With divine charity we would rather lose even our lives rather than offend Him by sin. (Think St. Maria Goretti here.) We get to this point of commitment by seeing God as His all wise, all good, and all beautiful self, deliberately setting aside time to think about Him and pray to Him.  Part of getting there is also passionately desiring our neighbor’s good, both here on earth and for eternity because we love God and even when we don’t like the person.

The Moral Virtues

The Holy Spirit also infuses the moral virtues of  justice, temperance, and fortitude in us.  Here’s what the Catholic Encyclopedia says about the moral virtues:

As the proper function of the moral virtues is to rectify the appetitive powers, i.e. to dispose them to act in accordance with right reason, there are principally three moral virtues: justice, which perfects the rational appetite or will; fortitude and temperance, which moderate the lower or sensuous appetite. Prudence, as we have observed, is called a moral virtue, not indeed essentially, but by reason of its subject matter, inasmuch as it is directive of the acts of the moral virtues.

Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D. writes in Divine Intimacy:

But the Holy Spirit does not stop there; like a good teacher, He continues to help us in our work, urging us to do good and sustaining our efforts.

He invites us by His interior inspirations, as well as by exterior means, especially Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church….[Meditation] on the sacred texts is somewhat like “attending the school” of the Holy Spirit.  Furthermore, the Holy Spirit continually teaches us and stimulates us to do good by the living word of the Church….

If we listen to the inspirations of the divine Paraclete and accept His invitations, He unites Himself to us, aiding us by actual graces, so that we are able to perform virtuous acts.  It is clear, therefore, that even when the spiritual life is in its first stages, and is concentrated on the correcting of faults and acquiring of virtues, the activity of the soul is entirely permeated and sustained by the action of the Holy Spirit.

It took me awhile to understand why St. Bernadette Soubirous would say that of herself she could only do evil.  Understanding how the Holy Spirit works in us helped me see that all the good that we do is inspired by Him, and that the concupiscence of our nature from original sin makes us, of ourselves, incapable of even thinking about doing good.

Our God is truly an awesome God.  His love and mercy towards us endures forever.

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Tomb of St. Henry, Emperor

Today’s feast in the 1962 liturgical calendar is St. Henry, Duke of Bavaria, who became one of the early Holy Roman Emperors, Otto being the first in 962.

Early in life he was a man of prayer and experienced supernatural visions.  As emperor he sought to reign for the honor and glory of God, spreading Christianity throughout Europe. In a battle with the Slavs he was victorious with a much smaller army because they saw large numbers of angels and saints leading his troops and fled.  Poland, Bohemia, Moravia, Burgundy, Hungary and Pannonia became united under his rule and Christian as well.

After settling an Antipope situation and bringing Benedict VIII back to Rome, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by that pontiff in 1014.  The night before his coronation St. Henry spent in prayer at St. Mary Major and saw Jesus Christ enter to offer Mass with St. Lawrence as deacon. He saw the entire church crowded with angels and saints, the angels singing gloriously.

During the remaining years of his rule he built many cathedrals, churches and monasteries, providing instruction in the faith to all the peoples under him.  He died in 1022.

In retrospect, it’s easy to see that God used St. Henry to spread Christianity throughout middle and eastern Europe and the Balkans.  In every age God raises up those who will spread His truth even though we may not recognize it at the time. Today with Europe effectively dropping its Christian heritage down a deep well, God is still in charge and will provide the right leaders to “restore all things in Christ” – Pope St. Pius X’s motto.

Another very interesting fact about St. Henry is that he entered into an arranged marriage with St. Cunegunda as was common in noble families, but both remained virgins, something today’s world would scoff at.  From reading their life stories I’m sure it was because they both agreed to sublimate the flesh for the spiritual good of others.  Because of that both were able to accomplish great things for the spread of Christianity.  It’s a sacrifice few would be willing to make in today’s sex-soaked society.

I think that the more unusual the sacrifice God asks of us, the greater the work is that He is asking of us. Certainly virginity within marriage falls into the category of unusual sacrifice.  We can always be confident, though, that He gives all the necessary graces to fulfill His will.  God never sets His children up for failure.

I also wonder if all politicians and businessmen were to spend entire nights on their knees in prayer before engaging in significant work as St. Henry did, how much holier, just, and truly charitable would our world be?

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V. Praised be Jesus Christ!

R. Now and forever. Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)