Ecclesiology, Filial Obedience, Virtue

Filial Obedience 2

-by Rev Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD, Divine Intimacy, Baronius Press, (c) 1964

Presence of God – O Jesus, teach me the secret of humble obedience which submits to every superior and every command.

MEDITATION

Although obedience is precious because it places our whole life in God’s will, nevertheless, in practice it has its difficulties and these arise chiefly because the command itself does not come directly from God but through His representatives. Thus it often happens that we fail to see God in our superiors and to recognize His authority in them. For example, when, as often happens in religious life, we have as our superior a former colleague or perhaps even a former pupil, younger and less experienced than we, one whose weaknesses and defects we know only too well, we could easily be tempted to have insufficient respect for his authority and his commands. Then a life of obedience becomes especially difficult: it is hard for us to obey, we do not have recourse to the superior with childlike trust, and what is worse, we justify this attitude to ourselves. Here we are making a great mistake in perspective; we forget that, no matter who the superior is, he is invested with authority which comes from God, authority placed on him solely because he has been called to this office. This authority is unchangeable and has the same force whether the superior is old or young, experienced and virtuous or inexperienced and less virtuous. Basically, if we find ourselves in these difficulties, we must lay the blame on our lack of a supernatural spirit, a spirit of faith. We are judging spiritual matters according to natural standards and from the point of view of human values, which makes it impossible for us to live a life of real obedience, a life entirely based on supernatural values and motives. We must learn how to rise above human views concerning the person of our superior—his good qualities or his faults, his actions in the past, and so forth—to look upon him only as the representative of God and of His divine authority. It is true, we often find it absolutely necessary to use all our strength and efforts to do this if we do not wish to lose the fruit of a life of obedience. It is certain that the more we force ourselves to see in our superiors the authority which comes from God, so much the more perfect and meritorious our obedience will be, and God Himself will guide us by through them.

COLLOQUY

“My sweet Savior, can I see You obedient to Your creatures for love of me, and refuse to be obedient out of love for You to those who represent You? Can I see You obedient unto death, the death of the Cross, out of love for me, without lovingly embracing this virtue and the Cross on which You consummated it?

“I will force myself to the utmost of my power to imitate Your example, and for love of You, obey all creatures—my superiors, equals, or inferiors—in all things, without argument, murmuring, or delay, but joyfully and lovingly. Therefore, I will not question the reasons why I am told to do this or that; I will not think about the way in which the order is given to me, or the person who gives it. I will consider Your will alone, letting myself be moved like You in any direction, by anyone, in agreeable or disagreeable, suitable or unseemly circumstances. It matters not! Grant me the obedience You desire.

“O Jesus, who willed to make reparation for Adam’s disobedience and mine at the cost of Your life; O Jesus who by Your death acquired for me the grace of knowing how to obey, I wish to live longer only to sacrifice my life by perfect, continual obedience” (St. Francis de Sales).

“O Lord, You desire to infuse obedience into our hearts, but You cannot because we will not recognize that You speak and work through our superiors, and also because we are attached to our own will” (St. Mary Magdalen dei Pazzi).”

Love,
Matthew

Advent, Lent, Liturgy

Laetare! Gaudete!

Laetáre, Jerúsalem, et conventum fácite, omnes qui dilígitis eam: gaudéte cum laetitia, qui in tristitia fuistis, ut exsultétis, et satiémini ab ubéribus consolatiónis vestrae. – Is 66:10 (Ps. 122:1-2) Laetátus sum in his, quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Dómini íbimus. Gloria Patri. Laetáre… (The Introit of the Fourth Sunday of Lent)

“Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together, all you who love her: rejoice with joy, you who have been in sorrow: that you may exult, and be filled from the breasts of your consolation. – Is 66:10

Ps. 122:1-2 “I rejoiced at the things that were said to me, We will go up to the house of the Lord. Glory be… Rejoice, O Jerusalem…”

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete

Tempus adest gratiae, hoc quod optabamus
Carmina laetitiae devote redamus

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete

Deus homo factus est natura mirante
Mundus renovatus est a Christo regnante

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete

Ezechielis porta clausa per transitur
Unde lux est orta salus invenitur

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete

Ergo nostra cantio psallat iam in lustro
Benedicat domino salus regi nostro

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete
Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria virgine, gaudete

Rejoice, rejoice!
Christ is born
Of the Virgin Mary –
Rejoice!

The time of grace has come—
What we have wished for;
Songs of joy
Let us give back faithfully.

Rejoice, rejoice!
Christ is born
Of the Virgin Mary –
Rejoice!

God has become man,
With nature marvelling,
The world has been renewed
By the reigning Christ.

Rejoice, rejoice!
Christ is born
Of the Virgin Mary –
Rejoice!

The closed gate of Ezekiel
Is passed through,
Whence the light is risen;
Salvation has been found.

Rejoice, rejoice!
Christ is born
Of the Virgin Mary –
Rejoice!

Therefore, let our preaching
Now sing in brightness
Let it bless the Lord:
Greeting to our King.

Rejoice, rejoice!
Christ is born
Of the Virgin Mary –
Rejoice!


-by Br Elijah Dubek, OP

“An old tradition still permits priests to wear rose-colored (not pink) vestments on two Sundays each year: Gaudete Sunday (Third Sunday of Advent) and Laetare Sunday (yesterday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent). Both are named for the first word of the entrance chant at Mass. Those of you who love your Latin may immediately link the two by their common titles—both are the command “rejoice.” The history of how rose-colored vestments arrived on the scene takes much more untangling than noting this similarity in language. This is the very short version:

Part I: Stational Churches

In the early centuries of the Church, a practice developed in Rome wherein the pope (or his legate) would celebrate a solemn Mass in one after another of the four major and the three minor basilicas. More churches were added to this list as the number of liturgical occasions increased, bringing the count of “stations” to over forty. On the day of a station, the faithful of Rome would gather and process to the church where Mass would be celebrated by the pope. In the pre-Vatican II Missal, a station was indicated for each Sunday, major feast days, and every weekday during Lent—a total of 89 stations! There has been a revival of these customs in recent decades, and the Church still attaches indulgences to those who participate in them.

Part II: Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem

The stational church for the Fourth Sunday of Lent is the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, whose story is fascinating. This church was built by St. Helena (mother of Constantine) after she brought relics of our Lord’s Passion and dirt from Golgotha back from her expedition to Jerusalem. The soil was spread over the site and the basilica built on top of it—the “in Jerusalem” of the basilica’s name refers to this soil on which it was built, a part of Jerusalem. Because of this soil and the relics inside the basilica, this church became a substitute pilgrimage site when Christians could not travel to the Holy Land itself.

Part III: The Golden Rose

With its own history far too long to adequately examine here, another custom developed in Rome: the papal blessing of the golden rose. Related to a popular festival in which flowers were worn to mark the “victory” of spring over winter, this rose found Christological symbolism: the thorns and the red tint given to the golden petals signified the passion of Christ; the fragrance of the rose symbolized his burial. The pope would bless this sacramental and bestow it on some deserving person or place. Before you think we’re off track: this blessing was given on the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Why? As a sacramental related to our Lord’s Passion, where better to bless it than where relics of the Passion were kept—and where the Pope celebrated Mass every year on the Fourth Sunday of Lent?

Part IV: Rose Vestments

Italians, especially Roman Italians, loved (and still love) festivals and parades. This celebration of the golden rose with the Fourth Sunday of Lent was extremely popular, so much so, in fact, that they called the day the “Sunday of the Rose.” Add the lack of fixed or standardized vestment colors, even for Lent, and the festive Roman mind of the sixteenth century needed little excuse to adopt rose vestments for the Sunday of the Rose. When the Church extended Roman liturgical customs to the whole Latin Church, Catholics everywhere could see these rose vestments two Sundays a year.

While it is fair to say that “rejoicing” is an official meaning of the custom of rose-colored vestments nowadays, the traditional roots of the rose tried to turn our focus more deeply on Jerusalem and Christ’s Passion there. Let us not forget to make pilgrimage with Jesus to Jerusalem.

I rejoiced when they said to me,

“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”

And now our feet are standing

Within your gates, O Jerusalem. (Ps. 122:1-2)”

Love,
Matthew

Holy Family, St Joseph

Joseph & Mary: a love affair, ite ad Joseph


-“San José con el Niño”, by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. circa 1660 and circa 1675, oil on canvas, H: 107 cm (1.1 yd); W: 85 cm (2.7 ft), Museum of Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid, Spain


-by Br Maximilian Maria Jaskowak, OP

“A few years ago, my father “was a young man, strong, virile, athletic, handsome, chaste, and disciplined; the kind of man one sees sometimes shepherding sheep, or piloting a plane, or working at a carpenter’s bench.” Even today, he is something of a renaissance man; a bonafide Leonardo da Vinci, precocious as a child and equally adept as an adult. Now he is “in the evening of life,” but I remember a time when he was yet in “its morning, bubbling over with energy, strength, and controlled passion.” I remember a time when—though I did not understand it then—he was “on fire with love.”

In both my mother and father, “there were youth, beauty, and promise.” They were two youths who, “before they knew the beauty of the one and the handsome strength of the other, willed to surrender these things for” the good of their children. Not two years after exchanging vows, they gave birth to a boy, a stubborn but silent fellow. Another child soon followed. He, too, was a boy, with red on the head and a lion in the heart. The next two arrived, accompanied with two pink cribs and four rosy cheeks. Leaning over the cribs, then, were youth and youth, the charming image of a radiant mother and a proud father: hand-in-hand, gazing into the eyes of their created love.

Years passed, almost twelve full, when a crib returned. A blue-eyed, dimpled face smile illuminated the home once again. With that winsome look of a child, the flames of love were renewed, and my mother and father recovered something of their youth, beauty, and promise. In fact, the elation of new life transformed us all.

After the birth of this little one, my father bubbled over with energy, strength, and controlled passion. I witnessed the vigor of youth return. I witnessed the joy of fatherhood.

When I consider the image of St. Joseph, the foster father of Our Lord, I envision this same energy, strength, and controlled passion. In fact, I am particularly fond of paintings and statues portraying St. Joseph as young and on fire with love. The quotations employed above (concerning my father) were originally written by Archbishop Fulton Sheen in honor of the young and promising St. Joseph. Sheen argued for the fittingness (or reasonableness) of such an ascription in his book The World’s First Love: Mary, Mother of God:

How much more beautiful Mary and Joseph become when we see in their lives what might be called the first Divine Romance! No human heart is moved by the love of the old for the young; but who is not moved by the love of the young for the young, when their bond is the Ancient of Days, Who is God? In both Mary and Joseph, there were youth, beauty, and promise. God loves cascading cataracts and bellowing waterfalls, but He loves them better, not when they overflow and drown His flowers, but when they are harnessed and bridled to light a city and to slake the thirst of a child. In Joseph and Mary, we do not find one controlled waterfall and one dried-up lake but rather two youths who, before they knew the beauty of the one and the handsome strength of the other, willed to surrender these things for Jesus.

If St. Joseph was young at the time of the Nativity, consider the joy he must have brought the Christ Child on account of his spirited embrace, merry disposition, and vitality. Can you imagine the privilege and delight that was his: to play with the Incarnate Word, who cooed and laughed in the manger?

If St. Joseph was young at the time of his romance with the Immaculate Virgin, consider the elevation of his power and promise. Consider the wondrous grace given to him from God in order to renounce paternity of the flesh for the paternity of the spirit. Consider the exceptional love that he would have had for this woman and child, set aflame in the morning of life. Can you imagine yourself wed to the Mother of God, she who was and is the fairest among women—the most stunning, elegant, and attractive woman of time immemorial?

St. Joseph, like my father, was once a young man full of youth, beauty, and promise. Go now and learn from him.”

“…the hidden love story of Joseph and Mary. All that Joseph took on to protect Mary and keep her safe was immense. I realized that in the love stories I appreciate, the man falls in love with a woman who belongs to someone else, someone more defined in the leading role. St. Joseph experienced this—he fell in love with a woman who is the immaculate spouse of the Holy Spirit. Who can compete with the Holy Spirit?!!! Yet God intervened and while Joseph was willing to take a back seat, God said no. God saw the inner desires of Joseph’s heart and fulfilled them in miraculous and unimaginable ways.” -Kat Larson, Ignitum Today

Love,
Matthew

Spirituality

excuses…

-by Rev Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD, Divine Intimacy, Baronius Press, (c) 1964

Presence of God – O Jesus, Who willed to be silent before him who condemned You to death, teach me the art of not excusing myself.

MEDITATION

In any failure, fault, or personal error, our ego instinctively tries to excuse itself. It is the tactic of pride–which is not willing to admit its mistakes and schemes–to hide them under more or less false pretexts, always finding some way to blame them on other people or on circumstances. Adam and Eve acted in this way after their sin; it is also the instinct of anyone who commits a fault. Herein lies great danger for the soul, because it is impossible for us to correct our faults if we are not willing to acknowledge them. It requires great courage to tear down these ingenious but inconsistent constructions of self-love, to expose our failings and look them squarely in the face, just as they are, without blaming them on anyone but ourselves. “When we commit a fault,” said St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Doctor of the Church, “we must not attribute it to a physical cause, such as illness or the weather, but we must attribute it to our own lack of perfection…. Occasions do not make man weak, but they do show what he is” (Counsels and Souvenirs).

Excusing our faults may satisfy our pride; but in reality, it is voluntarily blinding oneself and making oneself incapable of seeing the true situation. Thus our poor soul is not only unable to advance, but is condemned to grope in the dark with no possibility of escape. On the other hand, if we sincerely recognize our faults, we have already taken the first step toward correcting them. Yet it is not enough to avoid excusing ourselves interiorly; we must also guard against exonerating ourselves before others. In other words, after acknowledging our failings before God, we must also confess them before men, accept a correction humbly, and repair the bad example we may have given. At the same time, it would be of little value to receive an accusation or a reproach silently, if the soul–even at the cost of great struggle and effort–did not also avoid excusing itself interiorly.

COLLOQUY

O Lord, I pray that Your light will be so abundant in me that it will disperse, like fog before the sun, all those excuses by means of which my self-love tries to cover my failings and faults. Enable me to recognize all my defects and to judge them as You do. Rule over my heart so that it will not try to find subtle reasons for manufacturing excuses for my faults. And if, because of my weakness, I fall easily, grant that I may at least confess it humbly to You and to others. Take away from my conscience the mask of vain, pitiful excuses which prevents me from seeing myself as You see me and know me, as I really am in Your eyes. Then, O Lord, give me the humility necessary to accept with good will the corrections of others. With Your gentleness extinguish my sensitiveness which is ever ready to burst into flame and to be resentful, and grant me the grace to imitate Your meekness and humility in the presence of Your judges.

“O Lord, when I think in how many ways Thou didst suffer, and in all of them undeservedly, I know not what to say for myself or what I am doing when I make excuses for myself. Thou knowest, my God, that if there is anything good in me it comes from no other hands than Thine own. Should I desire that no evil be spoken of a thing so evil as myself, when they have said such wicked things of Thee, Who art good above all other good? It is intolerable, my God; nor would I that Thou shouldst have to tolerate anything displeasing to Thine eyes being found in Thy handmaiden. For see, Lord, I am blind, and I content myself with very little. Do Thou give me light and make me truly desire that all should hate me, since I have so often left Thee, Who hast loved me with such faithfulness.

What is this, my God? What does it matter to us if we are blamed by all, provided we are without blame in the sight of the Lord?” (Teresa of Jesus, Doctor of the Church, Way of Perfection, 15).

Love,
Matthew

Conscience

The Light of Conscience

In Catholicism, the conscience is the supreme authority for the individual. Not the Pope, not bishops, not Church law, not even Scripture, except where all of these inform and form the conscience. In a manner of speaking, the buck stops at the conscience, in Catholicism. Having revealed that, you knew this was coming didn’t you, (Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, Patroness of Lake Wobegon, MN, pray for us!) therein lies the obligation to form one’s conscience the best one possibly can.

In this fictional, but all too realistic and abbreviated account, our protagonist, Tom, let’s call him, is in a profound moral quandary.  Ill-catechized, and what’s more, having consciously and incorrectly chosen heresy, probably due to his faulty/too, too limited catechesis, his moral decision making is faulty, at best, especially for the real life challenges we all face, and our fictional protagonist now faces, in particular.  This unfortunate circumstance will inevitably lead Tom to incorrect conclusions/sin.  Bad thinking leads to bad action.  Just ask the victims of the Nazis, or the Communists, or the Khmer Rouge.


-by Br Barnabs McHenry, OP

“…According to St. Thomas (Aquinas), this other Tom finds himself in an eminently unenviable position. On the one hand, his conscience, formed by faulty reasoning, does oblige him to act. Our decisions are based upon our knowledge, even our objectively faulty knowledge and ways of thinking. To decide against one’s knowledge and reasoning process would constitute an internal contradiction of the self. If Tom believes that the situation calls for him to order his mother’s death by lethal injection, then his conscience binds him to this action. Aquinas says his will would be evil—he would be sinning—if it acted against his conscience, though it may objectively be malformed. His bad conscience binds him to sign his mother’s life away.

On the other hand, Aquinas teaches that though the bad conscience may bind, it does not excuse the person. The exception to this principle is the case where a person is morally ignorant through no fault of his or her own. Tom, however, had a Catholic education. Thus, he can be legitimately expected to know that innocent life cannot be harmed for any reason. Indeed, every person can know this truth through the natural law. Therefore, Tom sins if he abides by his bad conscience and carries out the evil action he perceives as good. An objective evil simply cannot become a good because one is under the mistaken impression that it is good.

The light of our human reason, dimmed by sin, is prone to fail. Given this fact, we have two roads set before us. The road of pride and popular relativism ignores this weakness, grasping onto the autonomy of our fragile wills. Conversely, the road of humility acknowledges, as the Angelic Doctor writes, that “the goodness of the human will depends on the Eternal Law much more than on human reason: and when human reason fails we must have recourse to the Eternal Reason” (ST I-II, q. 19, a. 4). We have a pressing need to adequately form our consciences so that they may be ever more in accord with the Eternal Law.

We can be certain of two things. First, a virtuous option always exists, even if it is difficult. Second, God will always offer us the grace to do that act of difficult virtue. In Tom’s case, if he had undertaken the difficult work and formed his conscience according to the Eternal Law, then he would not choose poorly in the sticky situation described above.

In these remaining weeks of Lent, a good practice to avoid finding ourselves in Tom’s predicament may be to seek more earnestly to educate our consciences according to the light of Sacred Scripture and the Sacred Tradition of the Church. Such an endeavor will require we undertake a killing—the death of our intellectual self-sufficiency and independent discernment of what is good and bad. As one hymn puts it:

O teach us all Thy perfect will

to understand and to fulfill.

When human insight fails give light

that will direct our steps aright.”

Love,
Matthew

Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Lent, Passiontide, Tenebrae, Triduum

Vere Languores Nostros – Truly He bore our griefs, Service of Tenebrae, Holy Thursday, (III Responsory of I Nocturn)


-please click on the image for more detail

Vere languores nostros ipse tulit,
et dolore nostros ipse portavit;
Cujus livore sanati sumus.
Dulce lignum, dulces clavos,
dulcia ferens pondera,
quae sola fuisti digna
sustinere Regem coelorum et Dominum.

Truly He bore our griefs,
and carried our sorrows;
by His wounds we are healed.
Sweet cross, sweet nails,
sweetly bearing the weight,
you alone were worthy
to bear the King of heaven and the Lord.

Love,
Matthew

New Testament, Scripture

Is the New Testament historically true?

One of the most disturbing recent developments is the rise of a phenomenon called “Mythicism,” which is a form of skepticism so extreme it denies that Jesus Christ ever existed.

Today there are countless people, many of them young, who know next to nothing about the historical basis of the Gospels but who have encountered Mythicist websites telling them that Jesus never existed and that the whole of the Christian faith is a lie.

Many Mythicists even claim that Jesus Christ is a legend based on a pagan god.

Believe me, Mythicist writings and videos like these give people all the excuse they need to dismiss the Christian faith, letting them sneer, “Why should I take Christianity seriously? Jesus wasn’t even real!”

And Mythicists Are Only the Tip of the Iceberg!

Not all skeptics are as extreme as the Mythicists. Many may not deny that Jesus existed, but they believe that the New Testament is fundamentally unreliable as history.

In recent years, countless authors have been part of what they call “the Quest for the Historical Jesus.”

The “Historical Jesus” is supposed to be different from the “Christ of Faith.” The idea is that whoever Jesus was and whatever he did, he wasn’t the figure that the Christian faith proclaims.

Instead, the true Jesus was “encrusted” with legends and myths as the New Testament took shape, and authors of this stripe say it’s their job to peel back these layers to get back to the original “Historical Jesus” and the first generation of Christians who followed him. They claim:

  • We can’t trust the Gospels to give us the story of Jesus
  • We can’t trust the book of Acts to give us the story of the early Church
  • We, fundamentally, can’t trust the New Testament to tell us what really happened

The bad news is: People of this stripe far outnumber even the Mythicists! And so many people today are easy pickings for the skeptics!

Most people today know nothing about history. Even most Christians would be floored if asked how to argue that the New Testament is historically reliable.

This  powerful presentation reveals:

  • How the ministry of Jesus fits into real history
  • How the early Church got started—and then experienced explosive growth
  • How even tiny details you’ve never noticed mesh together to show that the New Testament is giving us real history
  • How a famous archaeologist—who started as a skeptic—became convinced key New Testament books will “stand the keenest scrutiny” and were written by “a historian of the first rank” (watch the DVD to find out who!)

Love,
Matthew

Humility, Virtue

Christian humility: NOT an oxymoron

That God would take on the form of His creature to redeem said, demonstrates, profoundly, the value of the virtue of humility and the priority, and God’s desire that we should emulate Him.  Do so, even as I try.

-by Rev Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, OCD, Divine Intimacy, Baronius Press, (c) 1964

Presence of God – Out of the depths of my misery I have cried to Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice…. I trust in Thee.

MEDITATION

Christian humility does not lower, it elevates; it does not cast down, but gives courage, for the more it reveals to the soul its nothingness and abjection, the more it moves it toward God with confidence and abandonment. The very fact that in everything—in essence as in act, in the natural as in the supernatural order—we depend on Him, and that we can do nothing without Him, shows us that God wants to sustain us continually by His help and His grace. Consequently, the relations of a humble soul with God will be those of a child who confidently expects everything from its father. This is the lesson that Jesus wished to give His Apostles when they asked Him who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven: “Amen, I say to you, unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3,4). “To remain little,” explains St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, “is to acknowledge one’s nothingness and to expect everything from the good God, as the child expects everything from its father…. Even among the poor, a child, while he is very little, is given everything that is necessary, but when he has grown, his father no longer wants to support him, and says ‘Go to work now! You can rely on yourself.’ It is that I might never hear those words that I never wanted to grow up, because I felt incapable of earning my own living: eternal life” (Novissima Verba).

To the soul who humbly acknowledges its poverty and turns toward God with complete confidence, He is a very tender Father who delights in showering His gifts upon it and in doing for it what it cannot accomplish by itself. Then the smallest soul—that is, the one most thoroughly convinced of its own nothingness—becomes the greatest, since it has the greatness of God Himself at its command.

COLLOQUY

“I admit, O Lord, that I am very weak; I have salutary proof of it every day. But You deign to teach me the knowledge which makes me glory in my infirmities. This is a very great grace, and only in it do I find peace and contentment of heart, for now I understand Your ways: You give as God, but You want humility of heart” (Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Letters).

G[ood] Lord, Your light penetrates my soul and makes me understand how far from Your ways are mine! Instead of being disturbed on account of my miseries and discouraged by my falls and failures, instead of pretending to succeed in everything and to accomplish great things, I must humbly accept the fact that I am weak, needy, and absolutely unable to get along without Your help.

How sweet it is, O my God, for a soul who loves You, to need You so much that it can do nothing without You! It is sweet for me, for in this way I learn that You wish constantly to take part in my poor life, that You want to sustain me always by Your grace, and that You will never of Yourself abandon me. To give me the fullness of Your divine help, You are only waiting for me to come before You with the humble, trusting attitude of a child who, not being able to rely on his own strength and resources, expects everything from his father. You wish me to be thoroughly convinced of my nothingness and to accept with love the fact that I am nothing so that You may be my All.

Deprive me, O Lord, of every remnant of confidence in myself. Every man is like the grass of the field which springs up today and tomorrow is not, and what greater foolishness is there than to rely on the strength of a blade of grass! Free me, O Lord, from such stupidity and place me, I beg of You, in the way of truth. O You who are Truth, sanctify me in the Truth, in the truth of my nothingness.

You alone are good, my God, and You alone can make me good. You alone are just and You alone can justify me. You alone are holy and You alone can make me holy. The less I expect from myself, the more I can and will expect from You: good-will and constancy, strength and patience, purity and goodness, virtue and sanctity. Hasten, O Lord, to come to my aid! My nothingness implores You, my misery sighs for You!”

Love (& eternally struggling w/sin of PRIDE!!!!),
Matthew

Divine Attributes, Impassibility, Lent, Theology

The God Who does not feel


-by Br Isaiah Beiter, OP

“In this season of penance, we ask God to have mercy. Human mercy involves compassion, looking upon someone’s misery and feeling it as your own. But God, in His eternity, can’t feel misery—he can’t feel anything. I don’t mean that the Holy Trinity does not comprehend what misery is, nor that He does not love. He made our heart in His image (Ps 94:7-11):

They say, “The Lord does not see;
the God of Jacob takes no notice.”
Understand, you stupid people!
You fools, when will you be wise?
Does the One Who shaped the ear not hear?
The One Who formed the eye not see?
Does the One Who guides nations not rebuke?
The One Who teaches man not have knowledge?
The Lord knows the plans of man;
they are like a fleeting breath.

, and He knows most intimately all of our experiences, but not by enduring them Himself. This is because God doesn’t change: He perfectly enjoys an unchanging and infinite happiness beyond happiness.  (Impassibility) Feelings imply changeability and dependence on another. God is above this.

But don’t we hear about the depth of God’s feeling heart through His prophets? Don’t we hear God cry out, “I writhe in pain!” (Jer 4:10) or that “the Lord takes pleasure in His people” (Ps 149:4)? Does this contradict the unchangeability of God?

No. God speaks this way not to say that we are pulling on His heart, but that His heart is freely given to us: “I have graven you on the palms of My hands” (Is 49:16). The eternal Godhead doesn’t feel sorrow for our misery in the way that we do, but He establishes a covenant with us: “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God” (Ex 6:6–7). His mercy is no weaker for the fact that the Divinity has no heartstrings to pull. In fact, it is all the stronger because it flows from a choice that is infinitely free.

That should have been enough for us, but it wasn’t. God’s people continued to complain that He didn’t care for them, that He had tricked or abandoned them: “Why is the Lord bringing us into this land only to have us fall by the sword?” (Num 14:3). So all the passages from the prophets above, and many others, express God’s repeated pleas to his wayward people, trying to convey to them the depth of His love.

Consider what it means that God didn’t stop there. If it wasn’t enough for us to know His peace, now He takes upon Himself the ability to feel our misery and death. literally. If it wasn’t enough that He had made a covenant with us, He becomes a covenant Himself. For the Son of God became flesh, the Son to Whom it is said, “I have given you as a covenant to the people” (Is 49:8). God is still unchangeable in His divinity, but in the assumed humanity of Jesus Christ, He truly feels our misery and pain—even unto death. And the blood of this covenant stands forever.

What misery, what mystery, what mercy! He took upon Himself the Lent that belonged to us, and now we follow Him through it, yearning to see His Easter—and call it our own.”

Love,
Matthew

Order of Preachers, Saints, Suso

German mysticism: Suso, Eckhart, Tauler


-by Br Samuel Burke, OP (English Province)

“The Fourteenth Century Dominican, Henry Suso, is one of a trinity of famous Dominican “Founding Fathers” of German Mysticism, a form of spirituality prevalent in German speaking lands 1250-1470. The other two “Founding Fathers” were his teacher, Meister Eckhart, and his contemporary John Tauler. Of the three, Suso is the only one to have been Beatified: Pope Gregory XVI confirmed his veneration in 1831 on account of sustained popular devotion. Who was this German mystic? What makes him different to Meister Eckhart? Is he anything more than the acceptable face of German mystical theology?

Suso was born in Constance, we think, but he might have been born on the other side of the lake at Ueberlingen in Swabia. His father was Count von Berg but he took his Mother’s name instead and seemingly eschewed the more obvious worldly path as a courtier before him. One is tempted to think of him as something of a “mummy’s boy”. Yet what “mummy’s boy” would leave the comfort of his home and enter a fairly austere life with the Dominicans at the young age of 13, some two years earlier than the stipulated age? Suso, it seems, had was made of strong mettle. Indeed, in his early life, he would subject himself to eye-watering practices such as lying of a bed of thirty nails in cruciform shape.

At the age of about 18 he experienced a deeper form of spiritual conversion. From 1324 to 1327, he studied at the studium generale in Cologne. It was at Cologne that Suso fatefully came into contact with Eckhart, shortly before the latter’s death in c.1328. After Cologne, Suso returned to his home Priory at Constance. He became a lector but found himself in hot water over his defence of Eckhart, such as can be found in his “Little Book of Truth”, a short defence of Eckhart’s teching. He defended himself at a General Chapter of the Order at Maastricht in 1330. Luckily for Suso, the General Chapter seemed more concerned about the problems within the Franciscans and the schismatic acts of fr. Michael of Cesena than suspect theology from within their own ranks.

The Dominicans left Constance in 1348 in order to avoid swearing allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor, Louis of Bavaria, in the midst of a feud between the Empire and Pope John XXII. After nearly being murdered in a Rhineland village in a bizarre affair in which he was accused of poisoning the village well, he finally settled at Ulm, where after serving as Prior, he later died on 25th January 1365.

In his writings, Suso bequeathed us with a rich and intensely personal spirituality in which he stresses a self-emptying of oneself in order to allow the pouring in of God. Acts of self-surrender make us more like Christ, who made the ultimate sacrifice for our redemption. I couldn’t help think in reading Suso that there is much in his thinking that could be considered a precursor to St. John of the Cross; they explore similar themes of spiritual darkness in poetic form. Frank Tobin has described Suso, as having the ultimate aim of putting spiritual truths in literary form. His Vita, which despite its Latin title was written in German and is known in English as “The Life of the Servant”, can be seen as a continuation of an autobiographical tradition in spiritual writing that has strong echoes of St. Augustine’s Confessions. It should be said, however, that the work is said to be a joint-enterprise with Elisabeth Stagel, Dominican Nun and friend to Suso, who was sometime Prioress at Toss. Some doubt whether Suso had any hand in the work at all.

Suso was altogether more qualified and guarded than Eckhart. After an early scare with suspicion, he seems to have taken greater care not to be misconstrued or misunderstood, whilst retaining a focus on the interior life, and themes of detachment, discernment, freedom and mystical union. He was, we might say, less speculative than Eckhart, and more careful. In striving to combine mystical devotion with sound doctrine, Suso is much more than simply the acceptable face of German mysticism; his writings are a treasury for us to mine and his life. And if like me, you find the Swabian dialect of High Medieval German rather taxing, there are some excellent translations.”

Love,
Matthew

Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistencies and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” -St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Don't neglect your spiritual reading. Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom