Many of us suffer from depression and by nature worsen the condition by succumbing to it, feeling sorry for ourselves.
Another approach is to choose, by free will choice, another way. The saints took this approach and (effectively it can be argued) dealt with their depression through faith.
Two seventeenth-century French saints in particular suffered greatly from depression — for very different reasons. The Jesuit priest St. Noel Chabanel was one of the North American Martyrs; he worked among the Huron Indians with St. Charles Garnier. Missionaries often become very sympathetic toward those to whom they minister, but this was not the case for Fr. Noel; he felt a strong repugnance for the Indians and their customs. This, along with difficulty in learning their language and similar challenges, caused him a lasting sense of sadness and spiritual suffocation. How did he respond? By making a solemn vow never to give up or to leave his assignment — a vow that he kept until the day of his martyrdom.
A different form of heroic sanctity was practiced by St. Jane Frances de Chantal. She was happily married to Baron de Chantal for eight years; when her husband died, her father-in-law — a vain, stubborn old man — forced Jane and her three children to move in with him. It’s not surprising that Jane became very depressed. What is perhaps surprising (at least to our society, in which people make a high art of complaining and of claiming “victimhood” status) is how Jane responded: she chose to remain cheerful and to respond to the unkindness of her father-in-law with charity and understanding.
Link
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
What is Good and Evil
We must distinguish between what is good and what is evil. An absolute truth exists outside our own minds.
God tells us what is good and evil
The law of the Lord is the Truth onto which our conscience locks like radar. He is telling us what is good and evil. “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!” We heard it in this past Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps. 119) “Blessed” -- that is, deeply, deeply joyful -- sharing in the joy of the Lord, “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord.”
Of course, nowadays this passage has been retranslated by many people, given their misunderstanding of conscience. It now reads, “‘Pre-Vatican II’ are they who follow the law of the Lord, because, didn’t you hear about Vatican II? It said that our conscience is now the only law. We can choose what is good and evil.” This is the misinterpretation that has been given.
We are duty-bound to follow our consciences, yes!
But what are our consciences? They are like truth-seeking radars that we tune up and keep calibrated to follow the law of the Lord.
In the Gospel of this past Sunday, Jesus said to us, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill (Mt 5:17).” He came to bring us back to a life of Grace, so that, living within His Church and in Him, we might once again have the rightly calibrated consciences to follow the law!
Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! The conscience is made for the truth of the law of the Lord. And as it says at the end of the first reading, “God doesn’t give permission to sin (Sir 15:20).” And so many people today treat conscience as a dispensation machine, which allows them to disobey the law of the Lord, because after all, it’s my conscience, and I’m a big deal, just like Adam and Eve thought they were.
Link
God tells us what is good and evil
The law of the Lord is the Truth onto which our conscience locks like radar. He is telling us what is good and evil. “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!” We heard it in this past Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps. 119) “Blessed” -- that is, deeply, deeply joyful -- sharing in the joy of the Lord, “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord.”
Of course, nowadays this passage has been retranslated by many people, given their misunderstanding of conscience. It now reads, “‘Pre-Vatican II’ are they who follow the law of the Lord, because, didn’t you hear about Vatican II? It said that our conscience is now the only law. We can choose what is good and evil.” This is the misinterpretation that has been given.
We are duty-bound to follow our consciences, yes!
But what are our consciences? They are like truth-seeking radars that we tune up and keep calibrated to follow the law of the Lord.
In the Gospel of this past Sunday, Jesus said to us, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill (Mt 5:17).” He came to bring us back to a life of Grace, so that, living within His Church and in Him, we might once again have the rightly calibrated consciences to follow the law!
Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! The conscience is made for the truth of the law of the Lord. And as it says at the end of the first reading, “God doesn’t give permission to sin (Sir 15:20).” And so many people today treat conscience as a dispensation machine, which allows them to disobey the law of the Lord, because after all, it’s my conscience, and I’m a big deal, just like Adam and Eve thought they were.
Link
Monday, February 24, 2014
Eating Christ's Flesh
Consuming the Eucharist is essential to overcome suffering and death.
What does it mean to eat the "flesh" of the Son of Man?
There are many references to “the flesh” in New Testament Scripture, especially in the letters of St. Paul. The phrase confuses some who think it synonymous with the physical body, or sometimes with sexual sin.
What does it mean to eat the "flesh" of the Son of Man?
There are many references to “the flesh” in New Testament Scripture, especially in the letters of St. Paul. The phrase confuses some who think it synonymous with the physical body, or sometimes with sexual sin.
It is true that there are many times when Scripture uses the word “flesh” to refer to the physical body. However when the definite article “the” is placed before the word “flesh” we are dealing with something else. Only very rarely does the Biblical phrase “the flesh” (ἡ σὰρξ (he sarx), in Greek) refer only to the physical body (eg. John 6:53; Phil 3:2; 1 John 4:2), but almost always the phrase refers to something quite distinct from the physical body.
What then is meant by the term “the flesh” (ἡ σὰρξ)? Perhaps most plainly it refers to that part of us that is alienated from God. It is the rebellious, unruly and obstinate part of our inner self that is operative all the time. It is that part of us that does not want to be told what to do. It is stubborn, refuses correction, and does not want to have a thing to do with God. It bristles at limits and rules. It recoils at anything that might cause me to be diminished or something less than the center of the universe. The flesh hates to be under authority or to have to yield to anything other than its own wishes and desires. The flesh often desires something simply because it is forbidden.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Evil
One of the most significant intellectual breakthroughs of St. Augustine's life was the insight that evil is not something substantial, but rather a type of non-being, a lack of some perfection that ought to be present. Thus, a cancer is evil in the measure that it compromises the proper functioning of a bodily organ, and a sin is evil in the measure that it represents a distortion or twisting of a rightly functioning will. Accordingly, evil does not stand over and against the good as a kind of co-equal metaphysical force, as the Manichees would have it. Rather, it is invariably parasitic upon the good, existing only as a sort of shadow.
Occasionally, in the course of the liturgical year, Catholics are asked to renew their baptismal promises. One of the questions, to which the answer "I do" is expected, is this: "Do you reject the glamor of evil and refuse to be mastered by sin?" Evil can never truly be beautiful, for beauty is a property of being; it can only be "glamorous" or superficially attractive. The great moral lesson is that we must refuse to be beguiled by the glittering banality of wickedness and we must consistently choose the substance over the shadow.
Link
Occasionally, in the course of the liturgical year, Catholics are asked to renew their baptismal promises. One of the questions, to which the answer "I do" is expected, is this: "Do you reject the glamor of evil and refuse to be mastered by sin?" Evil can never truly be beautiful, for beauty is a property of being; it can only be "glamorous" or superficially attractive. The great moral lesson is that we must refuse to be beguiled by the glittering banality of wickedness and we must consistently choose the substance over the shadow.
Link
Monday, February 17, 2014
New Evangelization
Let's put our personal suffering and struggles into perspective:
1. God loves you and has plan for your life. – Yes, God the Father loves you and seeks you. And that ache in your heart, that longing, that yearning, and that “never satisfied” quality in your desires all point to God and he has written his name in your heart. He wants to turn you away from a passing and unsatisfying world, towards him. He wants to save you and prepare you to live with him for all eternity. He wants to fill the God sized hole in your heart and its infinite longing with his infinite Love.
2. Sin will destroy you. – Nothing is so destructive in your life and this world as sin. It is desire gone wrong, it is rooted in the lie that the creature rather than the Creator can help and save us. Cultivating sin will put you in bondage to desires gone mad that will not ultimately be satisfied. Satan is lying to you and saying that rebellion form the One who made will bring happiness to you. It will not. And you know this already don’t you? Sin and indulgence does not ultimately satisfy. The world cannot satisfy, for it is finite and your desire is infinite. Sin does not ultimately bring happiness, it brings bondage, addiction, dissatisfaction, and ultimately resentment and spiritual death.
3. Christ Jesus died to save you. – Into this mess of our wayward desires and our foolish grasping at worldly trinkets Jesus came. He met the woman at the well (who is us) and told her that every who drinks form this well (the world) will be thirsty again. In other words, the world cannot ultimately satisfy or save us. We must die to this world and rise to God. But our way to God was cut off by sin. Jesus came and reopened the way to the Father by dying to this world, to its lies and false claims. Rising and Ascending he has re-opened the way to the Father, our hearts true desire. Now we can be saved by being led back to the Father by the saving power of Jesus. And dying to this world, we can one day fully be satisfied by God.
4. Repent and believe the Gospel. – To repent means to come to a new mind, to come to understand and accept all that has been stated: that the Lord loves me, is calling me in my desires, and want to save me from the sinful drives that will destroy me. It is time for me to come to beleive in this Love God has form me and accept the promise and salvation of his love: Jesus Christ and the saving truth he proclaims.
5. Be Baptized and receive the Holy Spirit. – And thus in Baptism our sins are washed away, we are incorporated into Christ, we become a member of his body. And having done so, the Holy Spirit, the life, love, serenity, joy and wisdom of God comes to dwell in me and begins a work of transforming me, that includes the other Sacraments as well.
6. Abide in Christ and his body the Church. – Grow in this relationship with Jesus and His Father in the Holy Spirit by living in the life of the Church, which is Jesus presence and Body in this world. Abide there, that is go on dwelling there.
7. Go make disciples. – And so the cycle repeats with the newly Evangelized and more deeply rooted Christian calling others.
Link
1. God loves you and has plan for your life. – Yes, God the Father loves you and seeks you. And that ache in your heart, that longing, that yearning, and that “never satisfied” quality in your desires all point to God and he has written his name in your heart. He wants to turn you away from a passing and unsatisfying world, towards him. He wants to save you and prepare you to live with him for all eternity. He wants to fill the God sized hole in your heart and its infinite longing with his infinite Love.
2. Sin will destroy you. – Nothing is so destructive in your life and this world as sin. It is desire gone wrong, it is rooted in the lie that the creature rather than the Creator can help and save us. Cultivating sin will put you in bondage to desires gone mad that will not ultimately be satisfied. Satan is lying to you and saying that rebellion form the One who made will bring happiness to you. It will not. And you know this already don’t you? Sin and indulgence does not ultimately satisfy. The world cannot satisfy, for it is finite and your desire is infinite. Sin does not ultimately bring happiness, it brings bondage, addiction, dissatisfaction, and ultimately resentment and spiritual death.
3. Christ Jesus died to save you. – Into this mess of our wayward desires and our foolish grasping at worldly trinkets Jesus came. He met the woman at the well (who is us) and told her that every who drinks form this well (the world) will be thirsty again. In other words, the world cannot ultimately satisfy or save us. We must die to this world and rise to God. But our way to God was cut off by sin. Jesus came and reopened the way to the Father by dying to this world, to its lies and false claims. Rising and Ascending he has re-opened the way to the Father, our hearts true desire. Now we can be saved by being led back to the Father by the saving power of Jesus. And dying to this world, we can one day fully be satisfied by God.
4. Repent and believe the Gospel. – To repent means to come to a new mind, to come to understand and accept all that has been stated: that the Lord loves me, is calling me in my desires, and want to save me from the sinful drives that will destroy me. It is time for me to come to beleive in this Love God has form me and accept the promise and salvation of his love: Jesus Christ and the saving truth he proclaims.
5. Be Baptized and receive the Holy Spirit. – And thus in Baptism our sins are washed away, we are incorporated into Christ, we become a member of his body. And having done so, the Holy Spirit, the life, love, serenity, joy and wisdom of God comes to dwell in me and begins a work of transforming me, that includes the other Sacraments as well.
6. Abide in Christ and his body the Church. – Grow in this relationship with Jesus and His Father in the Holy Spirit by living in the life of the Church, which is Jesus presence and Body in this world. Abide there, that is go on dwelling there.
7. Go make disciples. – And so the cycle repeats with the newly Evangelized and more deeply rooted Christian calling others.
Link
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