A MAN is raised up from the earth by two wings—simplicity and purity. There must be simplicity in his intention and purity in his desires. Simplicity leads to God, purity embraces and enjoys Him.
If your heart is free from ill-ordered affection, no good deed will be difficult for you. If you aim at and seek after nothing but the pleasure of God and the welfare of your neighbor, you will enjoy freedom within.
If your heart were right, then every created thing would be a mirror of life for you and a book of holy teaching, for there is no creature so small and worthless that it does not show forth the goodness of God. If inwardly you were good and pure, you would see all things clearly and understand them rightly, for a pure heart penetrates to heaven and hell, and as a man is within, so he judges what is without. If there be joy in the world, the pure of heart certainly possess it; and if there be anguish and affliction anywhere, an evil conscience knows it too well.
As iron cast into fire loses its rust and becomes glowing white, so he who turns completely to God is stripped of his sluggishness and changed into a new man. When a man begins to grow lax, he fears a little toil and welcomes external comfort, but when he begins perfectly to conquer himself and to walk bravely in the ways of God, then he thinks those things less difficult which he thought so hard before.
Or, as my father would have put it, “things aren’t as hard as you’d like them to be.”
Just today my wife and I were discussing people who get married just so they can be “not alone” and how, in the end, those marriages never worked. It was, surely, no coincidence that just earlier in the day I had read this from Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Transformation in Christ (and yes, I’m finally only a few pages from finishing it):
True self-surrender … implies that we are entirely centered upon the object in which we lose ourselves. The value of that which holds us, and by no means the pleasure of being held, dominates our consciousness. One who seeks that pleasure for its own sake errs just as they do who yearn for the thrill of love rather than thinking of the beloved person, and hence never attain real love at all.
There is no point in our longing to lose ourselves in general. What we should long for is exclusively to lose ourselves in Christ. Let us never forget that, though an intense love or enthusiasm as such is undoubtedly a great experience and a fine sight, its value essentially depends on whom or what we love; on the person or thing that evokes our enthusiasm.
(I meant to post this yesterday but, well, life intervened.)
In this Friday’s Morning Prayer we have a reading from the letter to the Galatians that made me really, truly, stop and think. We read:
I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in me. I still live my human life, but it is a life of faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:19b-20)
For some reason every time I’ve read this passage I’ve always at least partially dismissed it as Paul’s description of himself. I don’t think there is any arguing that St. Paul was a zealot, so seeing such strong and complete language from him isn’t very surprising. But yet this is far more than a reflective statement – more than just Paul explaining why he acts the way he does. Behind these words is the cry, “I have come this far, come with me, live only in and for Him!” It is, as is only fitting, a call to follow.
So … all those times you have the opportunity to do what you want or do what you ought, which do you pick? And when you do do what you ought, do you do it begrudgingly or with the joy of knowing you are following Christ’s call to charity? Do you find joy in the freedom of being yoked with Christ or look askance at your perceived loss of freedom? It may be that in surrendering what we perceive to be our freedom we find ourselves only then to be truly free.
You look around at the world about you and can’t help but feel a twinge of concern mixed with anger and frustration. The world seems to be spinning on an unstable axis, wobbling ever closer to Babel than Jerusalem. The world tells you there’s nothing you can do and no reason you should try. God, however, has other ideas. Improve the world by improving yourself, then those around you, always with charity. It’s time we take this responsibility seriously.
Last evening I had the opportunity to attend a concert put on by the Chroale and Schola Cantorum from Holy Family Academy here in town. The concert was held, as so many wonderful things in this city, at Ste. Marie’s church, which provided magnificent acoustics, even for those young men and women who were a little nervous in front of the good-sized crowd that had assembled. Seeing them give glory to God in their singing, and particularly so in the many pieces of sacred music, was a truly powerful experience of hope. When they intoned the Kyrie to start the concert I quite literally felt a chill run down my spine.
This is the future of the Church – this new generation of children and young adults growing up receiving a more full education both in the world and in the Faith than has been seen in decades, and growing up in love with Christ and His Church. As much damage has been done in the past decades by terrible-to-nonexistent catechesis, the future looks even more bright. Deo gratias!
Tonight was our last RCIA session of the year and, as per usual with this group, we ran off into some rather interesting topics and some pretty deep water. In what was supposed to be initially a discussion about prayer we spent the first half hour talking about the abortion case in Phoenix and how excommunication works and what it is. It quickly digressed to a discussion based largely on nuance and detail. This has been making me think – in an age of Twitter and soundbite journalism are people really ready for nuance and fine details?
One question though really struck me as symbolic – “how can someone get excommunicated?” It’s a question with seemingly a thousand answers, all different and all correct. But yet saying “it’s complicated” seems to translate into “it’s an arcane holdover without an ounce of Christian charity”. Somehow there needs to be a way to answer questions like this without delving into heavy theological and ecclesiological issues. I think in many ways it’s the inability to provide these Baltimore Catechism-style answers to common questions that has helped put the Church into the corner it finds itself trying to fight out of modern days. What do you think?
No excuses, only apologies. Life has been incredibly busy, and I have allowed it to become so. My apologies for the length of this excerpt, but it has helped me see where I’ve twisted myself around and just maybe it can help someone else as well. This is from Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Transformation in Christ.
I once proposed a paper for my senior English thesis dealing with the role of organized religion in an individualistic society. I was told that the modern society was not individualistic but rather formed of a series of group-think and peer-pressure groups. Lo these many years since, and look where we have come.
Ubi Petrus ibi ecclesia, et ibi ecclesia vita eterna. Where there is Peter there is the Church,where there is the Church there is life eternal! — St. Ambrose of Milan
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If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. -- Jeremiah 20:9
