Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium - 1.3

(*Nota Bene: emphasis mine.)

I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”.1 

The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”. 

How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. Christ, who told us to forgive one another “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22) has given us his example: he has forgiven us seventy times seven. Time and time again he bears us on his shoulders.

 No one can strip us of the dignity bestowed upon us by this boundless and unfailing love. With a tenderness which never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and to start anew. Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, let us never give up, come what will. May nothing inspire more than his life, which impels us onwards!

1 Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete in Domino (9 May 1975), 22: AAS 67 (1975), 297.5 

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Joy is a byproduct of love; this fact is common to our experience, yet made explicit by St. Thomas Aquinas:

Now it is evident from what we have said about the passions (FS, Q[25], AA[2],4) that love is the first affection of the appetitive power, and that desire and joy follow from it. Hence the same virtuous habit inclines us to love and desire the beloved good, and to rejoice in it. But in as much as love is the first of these acts, that virtue takes its name, not from joy, nor from desire, but from love, and is called charity. Hence joy is not a virtue distinct from charity, but an act, or effect, of charity: for which reason it is numbered among the Fruits (Gal. 5:22).

If we love God, we will desire Him and our joy will be from Him. So. . . let us, AT THIS MOMENT make an act of love to our Beloved. 

God is waiting. . . 

SLOTH vs DILIGENCE

Grrr... one of my email accounts got hacked into over the weekend. It is stressful for me to try to minimize the damage.  I am also frustrated with all the time and energy that needs to be spent in re-securing my identity.  Without this invasion, I could be doing more things that are actually on my to do list, such as finishing my Devote Life Series.

However, this experience has provided me with two benefits:

1) It has given me immediate motivation to organize and minimize everything I have online.
2) It gives me an opportunity to extend mercy to the perpetrator via praying for his/her/their conversion/s. "Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those tresspasses against us" (Before you continue, I invite you to offer up a Glory Be or other preferred prayer for whoever did this.)

... thank you for your prayer.

When I get angry, it is easy for me to feel justified in remaining in my anger. Something unfair was done to me after all!!! However, I am learning more and more that anger just makes the bad situation last longer. Are these frustrating moments going to effect me two years from now? No.  So I am not going to spend another second more on a situation now out of my hands. Instead, I am going to consider sloth and it's virtue.

SLOTH:

Sloth is a sin associated with laziness.  It is apathy for both physical and spiritual duties.

Sloth is "sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good... [it] is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds." (2,35, ad 1) - St. Thomas Aquinas

What is it's corresponding virtue?  Diligence. 

"Diligence seems to be the same as solicitude*, because the more we love[diligimus] a thing the more solicitous are we about it. Hence diligence, no less than solicitude, is required for every virtue, in so far as due acts of reason are requisite for every virtue." (1,54, ad 1) - St. Thomas Aquinas

*Solicitude is an attitude expressing excessive attentiveness: to show great solicitude about his wife's health. 

January is a great time to learn (and keep) the habit of diligence as every one seems to be focused on it to some level -- New Year's resolutions and all.

Since St.Thomas believes that it is easier to be attentive to the things we love, I am trying a new approach to tackling laziness this year. If say, I want to shed some pounds, instead of scheduling exercise times for the sake of exercising, I will instead find an activity or a goal that will require me to meet the desired level of activity.  It will be a subplot to the story of my life.

Try turning your resolutions into stories too! How? 

Take five and pray. Ask God to inspire you.  Then write down the main goals you want to accomplish before 2014. Then rewrite the goals as individual events/stories:

1st draft:  I will lose weight.

vs.

2nd draft: I will run in a marathon on (date) to raise money for (cause) that will benefit (person I know).

Because your goal is now a subplot in your life, it is easier to avoid the temptations of laziness, and it gives you a purpose beyond a mere item on an overwhelming list. 

GLUTTONY vs TEMPERANCE - Day 4

St. Thomas Aquinas took a very expansive view of gluttony, going as far as to prepare a list of six ways to commit gluttony:

• Praepropere - eating too soon.
• Laute - eating too expensively.
• Nimis - eating too much.
• Ardenter - eating too eagerly.
• Studiose - eating too daintily (picky).
• Forente - eating wildly.

GLUTTONY vs TEMPERANCE - Day 3

A quick look at what St. Thomas says about temperance:

Article 1. Whether temperance is a virtue?

I answer that, As stated above (I-II, 55, 3), it is essential to virtue to incline man to good. Now the good of man is to be in accordance with reason, as Dionysius states (Div. Nom. iv). Hence human virtue is that which inclines man to something in accordance with reason. Now temperance evidently inclines man to this, since its very name implies moderation or temperateness, which reason causes. Therefore temperance is a virtue.

Article 2. Whether temperance is a special virtue?

I answer that, ... Accordingly the word "temperance" has a twofold acceptation. First, in accordance with its common signification: and thus temperance is not a special but a general virtue, because the word "temperance" signifies a certain temperateness or moderation, which reason appoints to human operations and passions: and this is common to every moral virtue. Yet there is a logical difference between temperance and fortitude, even if we take them both as general virtues: since temperance withdraws man from things which seduce the appetite from obeying reason, while fortitude incites him to endure or withstand those things on account of which he forsakes the good of reason.

On the other hand, if we take temperance antonomastically, as withholding the appetite from those things which are most seductive to man, it is a special virtue, for thus it has, like fortitude, a special matter.

Article 3. Whether temperance is only about desires and pleasures?

I answer that, As stated above (123, 12; 136, 1), it belongs to moral virtue to safeguard the good of reason against the passions that rebel against reason. Now the movement of the soul's passions is twofold, as stated above (I-II, 23, 2), when we were treating of the passions: the one, whereby the sensitive appetite pursues sensible and bodily goods, the other whereby it flies from sensible and bodily evils... Accordingly, just as the virtue of fortitude, which by its very nature bestows firmness, is chiefly concerned with the passion, viz. fear, which regards flight from bodily evils, and consequently with daring, which attacks the objects of fear in the hope of attaining some good, so, too, temperance, which denotes a kind of moderation, is chiefly concerned with those passions that tend towards sensible goods, viz. desire and pleasure, and consequently with the sorrows that arise from the absence of those pleasures. For just as daring presupposes objects of fear, so too such like sorrow arises from the absence of the aforesaid pleasures.

Article 4. Whether temperance is only about desires and pleasures of touch?

I answer that, As stated above (Article 3), temperance is about desires and pleasures in the same way as fortitude is about fear and daring. Now fortitude is about fear and daring with respect to the greatest evils whereby nature itself is dissolved; and such are dangers of death. Wherefore in like manner temperance must needs be about desires for the greatest pleasures. And since pleasure results from a natural operation, it is so much the greater according as it results from a more natural operation. Now to animals the most natural operations are those which preserve the nature of theindividual by means of meat and drink, and the nature of the species by the union of the sexes. Hence temperance is properly about pleasures of meat and drink and sexual pleasures. Now these pleasures result from the sense of touch. Wherefore it follows that temperance is about pleasures of touch.

Article 5. Whether temperance is about the pleasures proper to the taste?

I answer that, ...On these matters certain things are to be considered as principal and others as secondary. The principal thing is the use itself of the necessary means, of the woman who is necessary for the preservation of the species, or of food and drink which are necessary for the preservation of the individual: while the very use of these necessary things has a certain essential pleasure annexed thereto. In regard to either use we consider as secondary whatever makes the use more pleasurable, such as beauty and adornment in woman, and a pleasing savor and likewise odor in food. Hence temperance is chiefly about the pleasure of touch, that results essentially from the use of these necessary things, which use is in all cases attained by the touch. Secondarily, however, temperance and intemperance are about pleasures of the taste, smell, or sight, inasmuch as the sensible objects of these senses conduce to the pleasurable use of the necessary things that have relation to the touch. But since the taste is more akin to the touch than the other senses are, it follows that temperance is more about the taste than about the other senses.

Article 6. Whether the rule of temperance depends on the need of the present life?

I answer that, As stated above (1; 109, 2; 123, 12), the good of moral virtue consists chiefly in the order of reason: because "man's good is to be in accord with reason," as Dionysius asserts (Div. Nom. iv). Now the principal order of reason is that by which it directs certain things towards their end, and the good of reason consists chiefly in this order; since good has the aspect of end, and the end is the rule of whatever is directed to the end. Now all the pleasurable objects that are at man's disposal, are directed to some necessity of this life as to their end. Wherefore temperance takes the need of this life, as the rule of the pleasurable objects of which it makes use, and uses them only for as much as the need of this life requires.

Article 7. Whether temperance is a cardinal virtue?

I answer that, As stated above (123, 11; 61, 3), a principal or cardinal virtue is so called because it has a foremost claim to praise on account of one of those things that are requisite for the notion of virtue in general. Now moderation, which is requisite in every virtue, deserves praise principally in pleasures of touch, with which temperance is concerned, both because these pleasures are most natural to us, so that it is more difficult to abstain from them, and to control the desire for them, and because their objects are more necessary to the present life, as stated above (Article 4). For this reason temperance is reckoned a principal or cardinal virtue.

Article 8. Whether temperance is the greatest of the virtues?

I answer that, As the Philosopher declares (Ethic. i, 2) "the good of the many is more of the godlike than the good of the individual," wherefore the more a virtue regards the good of the many, the better it is. Now justice and fortitude regard the good of the many more than temperance does, since justice regards the relations between one man and another, while fortitude regards dangers of battle which are endured for the common weal: whereas temperance moderates only the desires and pleasures which affect man himself. Hence it is evident that justice and fortitude are more excellent virtues than temperance: while prudence and the theological virtues are more excellent still.

GLUTTONY vs TEMPERANCE - Day 2

There is a wealth of resources out there that cover over-indulging, the inability to say no to that extra serving. There is much out there about the proper way to abstain and how to acquire the virtue of fasting. I may even touch upon these later.  However, for now, I am considering spiritual gluttony: that is, to say, the inability to say no to sin.

Yes, gluttony is about the flesh; it is when fleshly pleasure conquers will. Fleshly pleasures involve the taste, and touch.  Nevertheless, I think gluttony can extend to not saying no to certain thoughts, and behaviors.  We may be gluttonous over a certain day-dream and try to always escape there. Or we may be gluttonous insofar as we are addicted to a tv show, sports stats, video games, gossip, to talking constantly, drinking, sleeping or finding unhealthy outlets to pain, and responsibility. We over indulge in things that take us away from God, our spouse, our family, our faith. We may know that there are limits to how much we should indulge in distractions, if at all, but we just can't resist doing it, saying it, thinking it, participating in it just one more time.

This is different than greed, because greed covets and seeks to have more for more sake, whereas, gluttony seeks to experience a pleasure and/or to escape pain because the body wants to inordinately be in a state other than what it is in. When our will is weakened by these addictions, whatever they may be, I feel that St. Thomas' definition of gluttony still holds:

"Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire... leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists."

It is an inordinate desire leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of the moral virtue consists. While it is most manifest in the appetite, can we admit gluttony in other areas of our lives, maybe the secret part of our lives? If so, when are we going to stop? When is enough, enough? When will it be the last time?

GLUTTONY VS TEMPERANCE

Why is Gluttony a capital sin?

St. Thomas Aquinas: "Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire... leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists." (2, 148, ad 1)

Saint Alphonsus De Ligouri: "He that gratifies the taste will readily indulge the other senses; for, having lost the spirit of recollection, he will easily commit faults, by indecent words and by unbecoming gestures. But the greatest evil of intemperance, is that it exposes chastity to great danger. 'Repletion of the stomach,' says St. Jerome, 'is the hotbed of lust.'

New Advent says, "Clearly one who uses food or drink in such a way as to injure his health or impair the mental equipment needed for the discharge of his duties, is guilty of the sin of gluttony."

The folowing Scriptures advise against over indulging:

Pr 23:20-21 Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.

Pr 28:7 He who keeps the law is a discerning son, but a companion of gluttons disgraces his father.

Mt 11:18-19 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."' But wisdom is proved right by her actions."

Php 3:18-19 For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.

Temperance is the cure. 

Ven. Mary of Agreda: "Temperance includes the two virtues of abstinence and sobriety... Abstinence also includes fasting. These virtues take the first place in treating of temperance; for nourishment, being necessary for the preservation of life, is among the principal objects coveted by the appetites."

Saint Catherine of Siena: "without mortifying the taste, it is impossible to preserve innocence, since it was by the indulgence of his appetite that Adam fell."

Russian Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov said, "Wise temperance of the stomach is a door to all the virtues. Restrain the stomach, and you will enter Paradise. But if you please and pamper your stomach, you will hurl yourself over the precipice of bodily impurity, into the fire of wrath and fury, you will coarsen and darken your mind, and in this way you will ruin your powers of attention and self-control, your sobriety and vigilance."

LUST vs CHASTITY - Day 5

Is chastity a negative or positive mindset? Many individuals think chastity is a stuffy and prudish word. It is a turn off, especially, the way that most people talk about it. For me it is easy to talk about lust, because everyone can understand what that is, what it looks like, what it feels like. But chastity is a concept more foreign to our society and often presented as something left to be desired. I stumbled upon an article which I believes gives a more positive outlook on the virtue, we, as individuals and a culture, so desperately need. Below are snippets of the article: (click here for the full discussion http://www.catholicculture.com/past_discussions/june28_july12_01.html)

Tonight’s discussion addressed the last section of Chapter Three called “The True Meaning of Chastity,” pages 166-173. Peter introduced this important section by saying that he found it to capture, in a certain sense, the essence of the book, and in fact the essence of the Pope. He focused our attention on the bottom of page 171, where Wojtyla writes, “The connection between chastity and love results from the personalistic norm, which — as we said in Chapter One — has a dual content: a positive content (‘thou shalt love!’) and a negative content (‘thou shalt not use!’).” Many people put inordinate weight on the negative, and think of chastity in a negative sense, while John Paul, said Peter, puts it first in the positive context of thou shalt love. Alberto concurred, adding that one of the most attractive qualities of John Paul II is that he is so positive, and this clearly requires more intellectual effort and understanding than merely prohibiting this or that action. Wojtyla explains that people are unwilling to acknowledge the enormous value of chastity to human love because they reject the full objective truth about the love of man and woman, and “put a subjective fiction in its place.” When the objective truth about love is accepted, chastity is understood as a great positive value and an essential element in “the culture of the person.” He then returns to his theme of the integration of love, asserting that “love is only psychologically complete when it possesses an ethical value, when it is a virtue. Only in love as a virtue is it possible to satisfy the objective demands of the personalistic norm, which requires "loving kindness" towards a person and rejects any form of ‘utilization’ of the person.” He then proceeds to explain chastity in the context of St. Thomas Aquinas's hierarchy of virtues from Summa Theologica. In St. Thomas’ system, chastity is linked with the cardinal virtue of “moderation.” Wojtyla writes, “The virtue of moderation strives to save a reasonable being from this perversion of his nature.... The virtue of moderation helps reasonable people to live reasonably, and so to attain the perfection proper to their nature.” Yet Wojtyla’s description of chastity transcends St. Thomas’ hierarchy of values (the Pope is “para-thomistic,” we joked). Wojtyla strives to emphasize the “kinship” between chastity and love. He says, “Chastity can only be thought of in association with the virtue of love. Its function is to free love from the utilitarian attitude.” As we know from our last section, this utilitarian attitude is grounded in carnal concupiscence, the subjectivism of emotions and the subjectivism of value judgments, and it can easily transition to “sinful love.” “To be chaste,” Wojtyla writes, “means to have a ‘transparent’ attitude to a person of the other sex — chastity means just that — the interior transparency without which love is not itself, for it cannot be itself until the desire to enjoy is subordinated to a readiness to show loving kindness in every situation.” Wojtyla cautions that chastity is often misunderstood to mean a blind inhibition of sensuality so that the value of the body is pushed into the subconscious — which explains why chastity is often mistaken for a negative virtue. He writes, “Chastity, in this view, is one long ‘no.’ Whereas it is above all the ‘yes’ of which certain ‘no’s’ are the consequence.” “The essence of chastity consists in quickness to affirm the value of the person in every situation, and in raising to the personal level all reactions to the value of ‘the body and sex.’ This requires a special interior, spiritual effort, for affirmation of the value of the person can only be the product of the spirit, but this effort is above all positive and creative ‘from within,’ not negative and destructive. It is not a matter of summarily ‘annihilating’ the value ‘body and sex’ in the conscious mind by pushing reactions to them down into the subconscious, but of sustained long term integration; the value ‘body and sex’ must be grounded and implanted in the value of the person.” The Pope writes that chastity is a difficult, long term matter, “and one must wait patiently for it to bear fruit, for the happiness of loving kindness which it must bring. But at the same time, chastity is the sure way to happiness.” Chastity involves a humility of the body. Part of this humility is recognizing that we live with concupiscence through the consequences of original sin — that we have these negative tendencies and must work to counter them. Wojtyla writes that the “body” must show humility in the face of human happiness. Happiness is not just mere enjoyment, the sum of pleasures the body can bring to a relationship between a man and woman. Man and woman “can and must seek their temporal, earthly happiness in a lasting union which has an interpersonal character since it is based in each of them on unreserved affirmation of the value of the person.” If the body is not humble, then it can obscure the full truth about the happiness of man — obscure the vision of the ultimate happiness: the happiness of the human person in union with a personal God. This, says Wojtyla is how we should understand Christ’s words from the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “It should be added that the truth about the union of the human person with a personal God, which will be fully accomplished within the dimensions of eternity, at the same time illuminates more fully and makes plainer the value of human love, the value of the union of man and woman as two persons.” Marriage is a lasting union on earth to prepare ourselves for permanent union with God; in this way, marriage is the image of our relation with God.

Stubborn Test

Recently, someone commented on how stubborn I am.  When I think of myself, I don't attribute this quality to myself; however, I am willing to accept this constructive criticism.

If I am stubborn, I wish to be so in the right way, that is, to have the virtue of constancy.  I want to be constant in the Lord, in my faith and in my values.  I don't want to be a pushover when it comes to truth.  Martyrs were constant, so were saints.  I wish to be like them, that is, faithful to the end.

However, I don't want to be unmovable in the things that don't matter, or in inordinate things that take away from my health, holiness and happiness.  If I relentlessly persevere in things that don't encourage in me the twofold love of God and neighbor, than I am stubborn, which is vicious.  One effect of stubbornness is a weakening of relationships for the sake of pride.  If I do this, then I definitely want to purge myself.

As with all vices, stubbornness stems from pride and the only cure is humility.

While I have already touched upon the virtue of humility, it is a subject for me that never gets old.  I view humility as a journey.  Since humility is seeing myself through the eyes of God and rightly ascertaining what and who I actually am (without over or underestimating), it will take me my whole life to become perfectly humble.  Layer by layer of disordered attachments or attitudes need to be taken away as virtue replaces it.

Stubborn Test


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" Constancy is the virtue by which a person endures the toil involved in persistently accomplishing a good work. It belongs to perseverance to persist in good for a long time until the end. Perseverance moderates the emotion of fear as it regards weariness or failure on account of the delay. It differs from constancy in that constancy makes a man persist firmly in good against difficulties arising from external hindrances.

The defect of perseverance is effeminacy. The effeminate are ready to forsake a good on account of difficulties which they cannot endure. Delicacy, according to Aquinas, is a kind of effeminacy and is thus a vice contrary to perseverance. The delicate, after considering the toil involved in a difficult work, will naturally recoil, whereas the effeminate are principally focused on the lack of pleasure involved in a particular work.

The excess of perseverance is pertinacity, which exceeds the mean of perseverance appointed by reason. The pertinacious man persists inordinately in something against many difficulties. He desires the proximate end too much. The pertinacious and the effeminate have something in common, for the pertinacious shun the pain involved in not realizing the pleasure of the end that he loves and pursues inordinately." from http://catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0283.html
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.Saint Augustine (354-430);
Roman Catholic Saint“No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday. ”
Alexander Pope (1688-1744);
Poet, Critic, Translator“Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.” Andrew Jackson (1767-1845);
7th U.S. President“An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” Orlando A. Battista (1917-1995);
Chemist, Author