GLUTTONY VS TEMPERANCE - Day 5

For those of you following my Devote Life Series, you have probably been wondering if I fell off the face of the planet.  :-)

I would say that life has been busy, or other more immediate projects came up, etc., and both these would be true, but the main reason the series froze was because every time I sat down to write something about temperance or gluttony, I couldn't think of anything to write and I couldn't find anything I wanted to reblog.

So, I apologize for the writer's block.

Since yesterday was Thanksgiving, I thought about temperance and gluttony all day. I resolved not to get second helpings and to not indulge in sweet unhealthy/unnecessary drinks. In regard to the food I was very good, minus the extra spoonful of stuffing. :-)  I normally don't drink alcohol; I don't like the taste of it. However, surprisingly I had way more alcohol than I average in a month.  My uncle made me a vodka drink and then my aunt handed me a huge glass of wine which I was only able to half finish. I also had two glasses of hot apple cider, coffee and one glass of sprite. So, basically I failed yesterday.

I feel very blessed to not have alcohol as a temptation in my life.  However, I do struggle with saying no to fatty, fried, gooey and sweet items. They always look or smell so good... yet I always know that my body doesn't need them at the time I devour them.

Our bodies need very little food to be healthy and functional. Our stomach is as big as our fists.  I am much better at not over-indulging then I used to be.  My will power has improved and second helpings are becoming less of a temptation.  However, I am still very bad at choosing healthy options that actually nutritionally fill and sustain me.

Eating unhealthy foods is gluttony because we are choosing taste over health. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and not protecting and maintaining His dwelling place is a capital sin.

Despite what the world says: that I deserve to eat bad because of a holiday, stress, working hard, etc., I know that when I do as it advises, as soon as I am conscious that I fell for and accepted the temptation, I must stop and go to confession. On this Black Friday, that is the only line I'll be in.

COVETOUSNESS vs GRATITUDE - Day 6

A series inspired by the Introduction to the Devote Life would not be complete without a snippet from St. Francis De Sales.

Meditation III: Of the Benefits of God

Preparation

1. Place yourself in the presence of God.

2. Ask him to inspire you.

Considerations

1. Consider the bodily gifts which God has bestowed upon you; your body, so many conveniences for its support, so many lawful consolations for it, such friends, such helps. And compare your case with that so so many others who are worth more than you, and who have not received these benefits: some disabled in body, in health, in limb; others abandoned to the mercy and reproaches, and of contempt and dishonor; others oppressed with poverty; and God has not willed that you be so miserable.

2. Consider your gifts of the mind; how many persons are there in the world who are dull-witted, raving, insane; and why not you of that number? God has been favorable to you. How many there are who have been brought up boorishly and in extreme ignorance; and Divine Providence has allowed you to receive a good education and honorable upbringing.

3. Consider your spiritual graces: O Philothea, you are a child of the Church; God has taught you to know Him from your youth, How many times has He given you His Sacraments? How many times has He given you inspirations, interior lights and reproaches you for correction? How many times has He delivered you from the occasions of spiritual ruin, to which you have been exposed? And during these past years have you not had leisure and opportunity to make progress in the good of your soul? Consider a little in detail how sweet and gracious God has been to you.

Affections and Resolutions

1. Marvel at the goodness of God. Oh! how good God is towards me! Oh how good He is! O Lord, how rich in mercy is Thy Heart, and generous in loving kindness. O my soul, let us recount for ever the graces which He has given us.

2. Marvel at your ingratitude. But what am I, O Lord, that Thou are mindful of me? Oh! how great is my unworthiness! Alas! I have trampled underfoot Thy benefits; I has dishonored Thy graces, misusing them in contempt of Thy sovereign goodness; I have opposed the abyss of my ingratitude to the abyss of Thy grace and favor.

3. Stir yourself up to gratitude. Well then, O my heart, be no longer faithless, ungrateful and disloyal to this great Benefactor. And shall not my soul henceforth be subject to God, who has wrought so many wonders and graces in me and for me?

4. Ah, then, Philothea, withdraw your heart from such and such pleasures, consecrate it to the service of God who has done so much for it; apply the powers of your soul to know Him and be grateful to Him, by such and such exercises which are conductive to that purpose; make a careful use of the means which are in the Church to save yourself and to love God. Yes, I will be assiduous in prayer, in the frequentation of the the Sacraments, I will listen to the Word of God, I will put into practice the inspirations and counsels that I receive.

Conclusion

1. Thanksgiving -- Thank God for the knowledge which He has now give you of your duty, and all the benefits which you have hitherto received.

PRIDE vs HUMILITY - Day 2

Meditation I: Of Creation 

 by St. Francis De Sales

Preparation

1. Place yourself in the presence of God.

2. Ask Him to inspire you.

Considerations

1.  Consider that but a few years ago you were not in the world at all, and that you did not exist. Where were you, O my soul, at the time? The world has already lasted such a long time, and it had no news of you.

2.  God brought you forth out of this nothingness, to make you what you are merely of his goodness, for he had no need of you.

3. Consider the being that God has given you; for it is the highest form of being on earth, capable of living eternally and of being perfectly united to His divine Majesty. 

Affections and Resoulutions

1. Humble yourself profoundly before God, saying from your heart with the Psalmist: O Lord, I am nothing before thee. And why hast thou been mindful of me to create me? Alas! my soul, thou were in the abyss of nothingness, and have remained there, if God had not drawn you hence; and what could you do in this nothingness?

2. Give thanks to God. O my great and good Creator, how much do I owe You, since You have vouchsafed to take me in my nothingness, in order to make me in Your mercy what I am. What shall I ever be able to do in order to worthily bless Your Holy Name and give thanks to Your inestimable goodness?

3. Be filled with confusion. But Alas! my Creator; instead of uniting myself to You by love and service, I have made myself altogether a rebel by my inordinate affections, separating and withdrawing myself from You, in order to attach myself to sin, giving You no more honor than if You had not been my Creator.

4. Cast yourself down before God. O my soul, know that the Lord is your God; He made you, and you did not make yourself. O God, I am the work of Your hands.

5. Therefore, I do not wish any longer to take pleasure in myself, who for my part am nothing. Why do you do glorify yourself, O dust and ashes? Yes rather, O true nothingness, why do you lift yourself up? And, in order to humble myself, I will do such or such thing, bear with such or such contempt. I will change my life and henceforth follow my Creator, and glory in that condition of being which He has given me, making use of it entirely in obedience to His will, by such means as shall be taught me, and concerning which I will enquire of my spiritual Father.

Conclusion

1. Thanksgiving. -  Give thanks to God. Bless your God, O my soul, and let all who are with me bless His Holy Name; for His goodness has drawn me forth from nothingness, and His mercy has created me.

2. Oblation. - O my God, I offer You the being which You have given me, with all my heart; I dedicate and consecrate it to You.

3. Petition. -  O God, strengthen me in these affections and resolutions; O holy Virgin recommend them to the mercy of Your Son, with all those for whom I ought to pray, etc. 

Pater Noster, Ave.

At the conclusion of your prayer walk about a little and gather a bouquet of devotion, from the considerations which you have made, in order to inhale its perfume throughout the day.

 

Gratitude

With the recent holiday season and advent of a fresh new year, I am reminded of the importance of gratitude as a vital part of my character.

This goes further than simply saying that I ought to be "thankful" for everything in life.  Instead, I am interested in the virtue of gratitude and what it entails. In particular, how it follows from humility and how it is a precursor for forgiveness.

Gratitude is a vital virtue. It is fundamental to holiness.  Rev. Ronald Rolhesier, OMI expresses that "at the age 75 you need to only have one word left in your spiritual vocabulary, gratitude, and that maturity is attained precisely at that moment when gratitude begins to drown out and cauterize the hurts in your life...Just as smoke follows fire, forgiveness follows gratitude. Gratitude ultimately undergirds and fuels all genuine virtue, is the real basis of holiness, and the source of love itself."  - Taken from June 3, 2011 issue of the Tidings 

While I agree with the Reverend, I would like to add that humility alone precedes even this virtue and allows for the development of gratitude.

One example that I think illustrates this clearly is "pickiness".  When I go over to somebody's house and refuse to eat what they have prepared for me, or pick around everything, it is because not only am I not truly thankful for the hospitality, but I lack a certain humility. It is pride that says, "I refuse to eat this." Pickiness that comes simply from the will, I believe is prideful.   

Another example of pride is not thanking a gift-giver, host, the person who opens the door for me at the mall, etc... While the latter is obviously a tiny sign of ingratitude, or unthoughtful behavior, I think that even this minute lack of action stems from pride: "that person is not worth the time it will take me to give an expression of gratitude to."

We are all called to a twofold charity: love of God and love of neighbor. What is love of neighbor? At its most basic, I think it is acknowledging the existence of the people around us in a positive way.  If this is so, and if not acknowledging a person when I encounter him is a sin against charity, then failing to be grateful to someone who has extended himself for me is a sin against gratitude. I heard a priest once say in a homily that the one sin that is rarely confessed is the sin of omission, that is, for all the good things failed, forgot or deliberately avoided.

The reason that the virtue of gratitude is acquired by being humble is because in humility, I realize that I am not owed anything (click here). Gratitude is anti-cultural as it goes against the highly individualistic attitude of "my life is all about me" and "these are all my rights".  Once this attitude is dropped, I am more able to accept everything as a grace, a gift, as opposed to "what is owed to me". 

With true humility, gratitude no longer is forced: "ok, let me stop and count my blessings";  instead it is lived. Counting the blessing occurs as the blessing happens. This awareness that everything is a gift, provides more joy in my soul and provides true peace.

Forgiveness follows from this because the awareness that I am really nothing, enables me to see that I am not better than my neighbor. "Yes, his offense against me was hurtful, but I am not better than him. I have hurt others also." If, I wish for the gift of forgiveness for my errors, I realize I must also give it.  The more humble I am, the more grateful I become, and it becomes easier and easier to forgive.

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Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
— Aesop (620-550 BC), Androcles

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
— Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC-43 BC), Pro Plancio (54 BC)  

If I only have the will to be grateful, I am so.
— Seneca (8 BC-65 AD) 

No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.
— Saint Ambrose (340-397 AD), De Spiritu Sancto

And as it is the most generous souls who have most gratitude, it is those who have most pride, and who are most base and infirm, who most allow themselves to be carried away by anger and hatred.
— René Descartes (1596-1650), Passions of the Soul (1649), CCI  

Thanksgiving is good but thanks-living is better.
— Matthew Henry (1662-1714)  

He enjoys much who is thankful for little; a grateful mind is both a great and a happy mind.
— Thomas Secker (1693-1768), Archbishop of Cantebury  

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
— Samuel Johnson (1709-1784),
     Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides (1785) [Sept. 20, 1773]  

If gratitude is due from children to their earthly parent, how much more is the gratitude of the great family of men due to our father in heaven.
— Hosea Ballou (1771-1852)  

Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.
— Henry Clay (1777-1852) 

Postal officials say that before Christmas they receive tons of letters written to Santa Claus, but after Christmas how few letters of thanks are sent to him! From childhood onward, human beings seem to be characterized by thanklessness.
— Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)   

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soul out of which thanks naturally grows, A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he gives.
— Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)  

Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.
— John Henry Jowett (1864-1923)  

A true Christian is a man who never for a moment forgets what God has done for him in Christ and whose whole comportment and whose activity have their root in the sentiment of gratitude.
— Jacques Maritain (1886-1960), A Diary of Private Prayer (1936)  

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.
— Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), Reflections On The Human Condition (1973)  

One can never pay in gratitude; one can only pay "in kind" somewhere else in life.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001), Listen! the Wind (1938), Ch. 19  

The best way to show my gratitude to God is to accept everything, even my problems, with joy.
— Mother Teresa (1910-1997)  

God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?"
— William A. Ward (1921-1994)  

http://www.wisdomportal.com/Gratitude/Gratitude-Quotes.html