Fraternus https://fraternus.net/ Fri, 07 May 2021 14:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://fraternus.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/cropped-fraternus-favicon-32x32.png Fraternus https://fraternus.net/ 32 32 The Charitable Man is filled with the Holy Spirit https://fraternus.net/the-charitable-man-is-filled-with-the-holy-spirit/ Thu, 13 May 2021 07:00:48 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7820 the tragedy of redemption Depending on how we define some things, Christianity can be called a tragedy.  Christianity is indeed a story – one that you are a part of – and seeing yourself as a part of a cosmic tragedy might give some keen insights to how you see your “place” in it, and …

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The Charitable Man is filled with the Holy Spirit

the tragedy of redemption

Depending on how we define some things, Christianity can be called a tragedy.  Christianity is indeed a story – one that you are a part of – and seeing yourself as a part of a cosmic tragedy might give some keen insights to how you see your “place” in it, and how you understand the grand and culminating feast days of the Ascension and Pentecost.  If these feasts come and go in some vague end-of-the-year blur for you, you’re missing something big about our faith.  In fact, the early Church would have even been confused at our lack of solemnity and care for the feast of the Ascension (many places in the world even moving this feast day from Thursday to the more convenient Sunday), which, for them, was the crown and completion of the drama of the Incarnation.

“Tragedy” is one of those words we use that has such a long history and evolution that sometimes we need to reach back to remember the power it actual contains (and, conversely, how callously and banally we use it today).  “Awesome” is a word like that, as in “behold the awesome majesty of God” vs. “wow, this pizza is awesome.”

According to Aristotle, tragedy occurs in a narrative when a hero goes from no fortune to good fortune or, more preferably, when a hero goes from good fortune to bad.  This often doesn’t happen because of some vice or fault, but a sort of fateful event that changes everything.  This sense of what is gained and/or lost is a good lens for the drama between God and man.

From the perspective of God, He can’t really “lose” anything in a way that diminishes What and Who He is.  However, we also know that He views man as His possession, unique among creation, Adam sharing dominion with God by sheer gift.  Man is made in God’s image and likeness and continues in a unique way His presence and action inside of creation.  God may not lose His nature when He loses man, but that doesn’t stop Him from coming after us to regain us.  Many struggle with a sense of self-worth, God’s pursuit of man should correct our deficient view of our own dignity.

When man sins, therefore, God “loses” man and man loses God.  This is tragedy.  In the Aristotelian view, we could simply stop here, and all good art kind of does.  While we love the redemption story, if you don’t start with feeling the emptiness and emotional sting of that loss, the saga of redemption becomes sappy sentimentality, and the story of Jesus gets drained and tamed.  (It may also be said forgetting the sting and sourness of sin allows us to forget the inner misery of those still wholly mired in it.)

The loss, however, is very lopsided.  God does not lose Himself.  He is still God, whole and perfect.  Man on the other hand is reduced to near nothingness.  He cannot be what he is, because he is a creature living in a conflicting reality of being made for God, inhabiting God’s creation, sensing God’s presence, yet being totally unable to reach God on His own.  He loses the life of God in himself while still living in the only reality there is, the reality that God is God and man is not.  As my old Protestant friends would often put it, there is a “God shaped hole” in man’s heart, but man has not within his power the means to fill it.  The only greater misery than this is when that misery is cemented into eternity – in hell.  In some ways, therefore, this life – despite its good elements – is but a foretaste of hell when we live without God, and the farther from God we get by personal and actual sin the more hell is all we can taste.

This helps us recognize the depth and power of the mystery of the “great exchange,” which is how we can understand the Ascension and Pentecost together.  These two feasts Jesus unites in His own words, when He says unless He returns to the Father (Ascension) the Spirit will not come (Pentecost). 

But this is a bit confusing.  God is everywhere, and the Son is God, and the Spirit is God.  What then is “swapping” around when Jesus says He’s going up and the Spirit is coming down?  What is happening is just that, the great exchange.  When Jesus Ascends to heaven, He is forever uniting the human nature that He assumed in the Incarnation with the inner life of the Holy Trinity.  It is the drawing in of our created, physical reality into the perfection that exists in heaven.  God is “gaining” man by the Ascension – it is the way that God “recovers” what He “lost” when His possession – man – fell from grace. 

Pentecost is how we fully gain and receive God.  When the Holy Spirit arrives, it is how man recovers what he lost when he sinned.  This is why the early Church saw these feasts as the culminating crown of the Incarnation.  If was amazing and astounding that God became man.  It was amazing and astounding that God dwelt amongst us, died on the cross, and then rose from the dead.  If the story stopped there we would be staggered by the implications.  But God wasn’t done at the Resurrection.  He then draws the life of man into Himself and gives Himself into the life of man by the Spirit.  That is why these feasts change everything, and why, for example, many rites still refer to all of the Sundays after Pentecost in relation to Pentecost instead of “ordinary time.”

Athanasius puts this mystery in startling words – “He became what we are that we might become what he is.”  Tradition holds that this very fact – that sinful man would not only be redeemed but be invited to share in the divinity of God – was so startling to the angels that it was the very reason Satan and the demons rejected their nature in the service of God and fell from heaven.  They served God before, but because they knew the awesomeness of His nature they refused to serve Him with man sitting next to Him “above” the angels. 

 

And that is the picture of heaven.  It is the invitation given to us.  It is the end of our tragedy.  Just consider what God “lost” to regain us, and how little we lose in embracing Him when we compare the reward we receive.  And if you’ve grown comfortable with that truth, time to wake up!  “See where I stand at the door, knocking; if anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will come in to visit him, and take my supper with him, and he shall sup with me. Who wins the victory? I will let him share my throne with me; I too have won the victory, and now I sit sharing my Father’s throne” (Revelation 3:20-21).  Our God has gone before us, and gives us the strength and power to join Him.  This is the truth we live by as Christians.

From St. Augustine’s commentary on the Psalms, on man “being gods”:

“For He has given them power to become the sons of God.” John 1:12 If we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods: but this is the effect of Grace adopting, not of nature generating. For the only Son of God, God, and one God with the Father, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, was in the beginning the Word, and the Word with God, the Word God. The rest that are made gods, are made by His own Grace, are not born of His Substance, that they should be the same as He, but that by favor they should come to Him, and be fellow-heirs with Christ. 

Catechism1287: This fullness of the Spirit was not to remain uniquely the Messiah’s, but was to be communicated to the whole messianic people. On several occasions Christ promised this outpouring of the Spirit, a promise which he fulfilled first on Easter Sunday and then more strikingly at Pentecost. Filled with the Holy Spirit the apostles began to proclaim “the mighty works of God,” and Peter declared this outpouring of the Spirit to be the sign of the messianic age. Those who believed in the apostolic preaching and were baptized received the gift of the Holy Spirit in their turn.

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The Charitable Man is Patient with His Family and Friends https://fraternus.net/the-charitable-man-is-patient-with-his-family-and-friends/ Thu, 06 May 2021 11:00:26 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7804 patient with those closest Let’s be clear on just what patience is. Some similar words and phrases are tolerance, easiness in the face of frustration, being non-critical and the like. And, impatience is intolerance, displeasure, exasperation, touchiness and so on. Can you think of any instances where you might have been impatient and frustrated with …

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The Charitable Man is Patient with His Family and Friends

patient with those closest

Let’s be clear on just what patience is. Some similar words and phrases are tolerance, easiness in the face of frustration, being non-critical and the like. And, impatience is intolerance, displeasure, exasperation, touchiness and so on.

Can you think of any instances where you might have been impatient and frustrated with friends and family? If so, it might mean that you think a lot more of yourself and less of your friends and family. You may lack humility. You might have a stuck up, “better than thou” attitude toward your friends; a warped self-esteem. Some may even say you are “spoiled” and have to have your way. And, think about this; are you taking for granted the Heavenly Father’s patience with you? Have you tested his patience?

So, what must we do to overcome impatience with someone and turn it into patience. Well, start getting rid of being self-centered and selfish and replace them with being humble, then add some understanding and respect for the person and that person’s needs and point of view. The virtue of charity also embraces kindness and politeness. We should keep all of these traits mentioned here on our mind, in focus and in practice to make sure we are patient with family and friends.

Your family members and your friends are all different; they have different personalities and different priorities which could be far distant from your personality and priorities. Think for a moment what life would be like if everyone else in the world thought and acted exactly like you, had the same priorities and interests. Wow! How boring would that be! So, understand that we are all different and should be respected and appreciated for those differences as long as they are charitable,  prudent and just.

This brings to mind the fruits of the Holy Spirit which the traditions of the Catholic Church list twelve (CCC 1832). Let’s extract those that have direct connection to the lesson at hand. They are the following seven: charity (love), peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. You can acquaint yourself with the remaining five by going to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1832.

A brief definition of these seven are:

Charity (Love) – The greatest of all virtues, the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.

Peace – Defined by St. Augustine as “the tranquility [calmness] of order” and which is the work of justice (fairness, level playing field).

Patience – As stated above, tolerance, easiness in the face of frustration, being non-critical.

Kindness – Kind-heartedness, thoughtfulness, being polite.

Goodness – Decency, honesty.

Gentleness – Calmness, softness.

Self-control – Self-discipline, willpower (mind rules flesh).

From The Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales:

 A brave man can easily bear with contempt, slander and false accusation from an evil world; but to bear such injustice at the hands of good men, of friends and relations, is a great test of patience.

Catechism 2843: Thus the Lord’s words on forgiveness, the love that loves to the end, become a living reality. The parable of the merciless servant, which crowns the Lord’s teaching on ecclesial communion, ends with these words: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” It is there, in fact, “in the depths of the heart,” that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.

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The Charitable Man Cherishes Friendships https://fraternus.net/the-charitable-man-cherishes-friendships/ Thu, 29 Apr 2021 07:00:23 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7781 why friendship? What is the point of friendship? Why is loneliness such a horrible thing? And why, in a culture where we “friend” and “follow” everyone do people feel like they are isolated? I don’t think that anyone would argue the fact that friends are necessary for a wholesome and fulfilling life. We are made …

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The Charitable Man Cherishes Friendships

why friendship?

What is the point of friendship? Why is loneliness such a horrible thing? And why, in a culture where we “friend” and “follow” everyone do people feel like they are isolated? I don’t think that anyone would argue the fact that friends are necessary for a wholesome and fulfilling life. We are made for communion with God, but that communion is also reflected in our relationships with others. While there is a special place for the relationship of a husband and wife and the relationship between parent and child, the relationship between friends cannot be overlooked or downplayed. In fact, throughout history friendships have played pivotal roles in people’s lives.

 

One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Steven E Ambrose and his book Band of Brothers about the Easy Company in World War II that went from Normandy on D-Day to Hitler’s Eagles Nest at the end of the war:

 

“They also found in combat the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They found selflessness. They found they could love the other guy in their foxhole more than themselves. They found that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them.”

 

Women seem to have more complex friendships and multiple friends on different levels. For men I think that the desire for friendship boils down to desiring someone to fight with you, someone who has got your back, someone you love to the point of giving your life for them because you know that he would do the same for you.

 

This is why helping each other reach heaven is so important in a friendship. This life is only passing, so while giving your life for someone is heroic, it is only the door to eternity. If you are on the path to virtue and you know that heaven and being with God is the greatest good you can achieve, then ignoring that in a friendship, to the detriment of your friend’s soul, proves you to be a sorry friend. If you have the truth, the Faith, and you truly care about someone, why would you not share it with them?

 

To be clear, that does not mean that you have to purely talk about the Bible with your friends or only meet up at the adoration chapel. In fact, that would be a bit weird, don’t do that. God gave us all these shared interests and people to share them with for a reason. But all those things should lead us closer to God, not further from him. A great measure of any relationship is to ask yourself, “does this person lead me to God or pull me away from him?”

St. Francis de Sales on friendship:

Friendship is the most dangerous of all love. Why? Because other loves can exist without communication, exchange, closeness. But friendship is completely founded upon communication and exchange and cannot exist in practice without sharing in the qualities and defects of the friend loved.

Not all love is friendship:

First of all, because one can love without being loved. It may then be love, but not friendship. For friendship is mutual, reciprocal, and if it is not reciprocated, it is not friendship.

Secondly, because it is not enough that it be reciprocal; it is also essential that those who love each other recognize their mutual love. If they are unaware of it, it is not friendship.

Thirdly, because in friendship there must exist some kind of exchange or communication, for such is the foundation of friendship.

Catechism 1829:   The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy; charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction; it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.

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The Charitable Man Loves His Enemies https://fraternus.net/the-charitable-man-loves-his-enemies/ Thu, 22 Apr 2021 07:00:02 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7759 you can’t love your enemies The capacity of man to tame Jesus is staggering.  I don’t mean to tame the reality of Our Lord, but to attempt to make what is hard into something that is easy.  To “tame” something is to make it suitable for our environment – to put the tiger in the …

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The Charitable Man Loves His Enemies

you can't love your enemies

The capacity of man to tame Jesus is staggering.  I don’t mean to tame the reality of Our Lord, but to attempt to make what is hard into something that is easy.  To “tame” something is to make it suitable for our environment – to put the tiger in the cage.

This can happen on different ends of the spectrum, and whatever end you easily judge as the problem, you probably need to examine the opposite end of it as it applies to you.  Here’s what I mean: the only thing worse than wimpy men is machismo men.  Or, conversely, the only thing worse than machismo men is wimpy men.  This spectrum of passivity/aggression is a human extreme, and the extreme you might tend toward is the place where you create the bars to build the cage to “tame” Jesus into affirming your ideas of how He (and we) should be.  The aggressive man might say “offer it up” when he really means “suck it up.”  The passive man might say “say it with charity” when he really means “just be nice.”  Both of them can point to Jesus and make it work for him, and both of them are in error in their understanding of one of Jesus’ precept. 

The problem is Jesus is a problem.  He disrupts us with His love, mercy, justice, virtue, and perfection.  Most of all, He disrupts us because He is a Person and not an idea.  His grace is active in us – it does something.  If allowed to act by the submission of faith, He will not be tamed.  And that means “the way” that is Jesus is not easy, but it means we are not alone in it.  The saints are the ones that hear the words of truth and allow themselves to be transformed, not the ones that transform the words of truth to fit their disposition and desires.  In short, you know you’re doing it right when the words of Our Lord are a constant challenge to you, and not merely tools you use to affirm your ways.

For us men I think there is one particular saying of Our Lord that is central to His witness and challenge to us that will also remain one of the hardest commands.  That is, “love your enemies.”  To think of those that have wronged us brings with it the natural impulse of justice, to both feel the wrong and long to make it right.  This is reasonable, even commendable insofar as one loves justice.  If you’re a man that finds this saying easy, you’re not a man I can easily relate to. 

The answer – or the deeper understanding – can really only come in one way, and that is to look to God.  When Cain goes to kill Abel, whom he obviously has come to see as an enemy, he refuses to look at God and looks to Cain (God attempts to reason with him, but Cain does not appear to hear a word).  When Jesus forgives His enemies from the cross, His eyes are raised to the Father.  When the first martyr St. Stephen cements the reality that Christians forgive their persecutors by forgiving them during his execution, he too is looking to heaven. 

When God offers a very hard way – one that seems almost insurmountable – He is at the same time reminding us that He is the way, that we cannot enact His words in deeds without grace.  This is why the loving of enemies is an act of charity, because it shows that God’s gift of charity has been given to you, because without it you would not love your enemies.  The theological virtue of charity does not contradict natural love, or even justice, but it does go beyond natural capabilities. 

This is why Aquinas says that loving one’s enemies is not “more meritorious” than loving our friends.  We would think that the love of enemies is “better” than the love of friends because it is harder.  To that, Aquinas simply says that there is no merit in loving that which is less loveable (your enemy) over that which is loveable (your friend).  He alludes to the verse where Jesus asks what good it is if we love only those that love us – “even the gentiles do that,” meaning that is the basics. In that sense, yes, our love of enemies goes beyond what is natural.  Interestingly, he says that there is a “second” way to think of loving our enemies which does make it more meritorious, and that is in the sense that there is only one reason to love our enemy: because we love God.  Our enemy does not offer us reason to love him – he is by definition unlovable because he causes harm to what we love – so the only way we can love enemies is to see them in a way that sees God in him, and sees his as God sees him. 

 

So, once again, this hard precept is only “solved” by the action of God’s grace in us, which is why charity is a theological virtue – one that comes from God be being infused in us.  To look to our enemy for reasons to love him, or just trying to “see the good” or white-knuckle some good vibes toward him, is not what Jesus wants us to do in order to “love our enemies.”  He wants to transform us, to be what we gaze toward.  Even we were once the enemies of Jesus by sin, and by looking to Him – or letting Him look to us! – we are made His friends.  This hard saying is not proposing an impossible way to live, but to show us once again we cannot live this way without Him, because He is the way.

From Dom Prosper Gueranger’s The Liturgical Year, on the Baptism:

Let us honour our Lord in this second Manifestation of his divinity, and thank him, with the Church, for his having given us both the Star of Faith which enlightens us, and the Water of Baptism which cleanses us from our iniquities. Let us lovingly appreciate the humility of our Jesus, who permits himself to be weighed down by the hand of a mortal man, in order, as he says himself, that he might fulfill all justice, (1 St. Matth. iii. 15.) for having taken on himself the likeness of sin, it was requisite that he should bear its humiliation, that so he might raise us from our debasement. Let us thank him for this grace of Baptism, which has opened to us the gates of the Church both of heaven and earth; and let us renew the engagements we made at the holy Font, for they were the terms on which we were regenerated to our new life in God.

Catechism 2303: Deliberate hatred is contrary to charity. Hatred of the neighbor is a sin when one deliberately wishes him evil. Hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm. “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”

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The Hopeful Man Trusts in God, Not Man https://fraternus.net/the-hopeful-man-trusts-in-god-not-man/ Thu, 15 Apr 2021 06:00:28 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7708 man, where is your heaven? Men, where is your heaven? Examine your goals, your desires – what do you pursue? What you pursue is what you are attached to, what you seek to find your satisfaction in. Do you pursue an eternity of communion with the Trinity in Heaven, or something else? Maybe the pursuit …

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The Hopeful Man Trusts in God, Not Man

man, where is your heaven?

Men, where is your heaven? Examine your goals, your desires – what do you pursue? What you pursue is what you are attached to, what you seek to find your satisfaction in. Do you pursue an eternity of communion with the Trinity in Heaven, or something else?

Maybe the pursuit of heaven is a goal among several, maybe it is even the primary goal of your life – is that enough? Christ Himself declared that the greatest commandment is that “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22: 37). All. Not some. Not most. All.

If you set your heart upon the Lord and heaven, will the Lord, who holds every detail of your life, not ensure that you fulfill every earthly responsibility and more? Will your family not be provided for? Do you trust Him to have everything else? 

I do not propose that we are all to shut ourselves up from the rest of the world, and attend to nothing else but prayer. I propose that we take up the example of Christ, Who’s food was to do the will of the One Who sent him and to finish His work (John 4: 34). To be in the world, working, sweating, eating, praying, celebrating, teaching – everything for the love and glory of God.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ Or ‘What are we to drink?’ Or ‘What are we to wear?’ All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” (Matthew 6: 25-33)

From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis:

Vain is the man who puts his trust in men, in created things.
Do not be ashamed to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ and to seem poor in this world. Do not be self-sufficient but place your trust in God. Do what lies in your power and God will aid your good will. Put no trust in your own learning nor in the cunning of any man, but rather in the grace of God Who helps the humble and humbles the proud.

Catechism 2112: The first commandment condemns polytheism. It requires man neither to believe in, nor to venerate, other divinities than the one true God. Scripture constantly recalls this rejection of “idols, [of] silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.” These empty idols make their worshippers empty: “Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them.” God, however, is the “living God” who gives life and intervenes in history.

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The Hopeful Man is Joyful https://fraternus.net/the-hopeful-man-is-joyful/ Thu, 08 Apr 2021 06:00:52 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7665 joy is more than it seems Sacred Scripture and the lives and writings of the Saints agree: as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, joy should not be an occasional state of being. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice”, St. Paul writes to the Philippians (Phil 4:4, RSV). St. Theophane Venard …

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The Hopeful Man is Joyful

joy is more than it seems

Sacred Scripture and the lives and writings of the Saints agree: as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, joy should not be an occasional state of being. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice”, St. Paul writes to the Philippians (Phil 4:4, RSV). St. Theophane Venard (quoted in the Fraternus book for this week) writes, “Be merry, really merry. The life of a true Christian should be a perpetual jubilee”. Think of recent Saints such as Pope Saint John Paul II or St. Teresa of Calcutta who were and are much loved for their contagious joy.

“What if I don’t feel happy all the time?”, one might ask, “Does that mean I’m not living up to the Christian standard of rejoicing always?” Contemporary language and culture often make it difficult to grasp the meaning of “joy”. “Joy” is often conflated with “happiness” and what is commonly valued in the culture can distort a man’s understanding of where joy resides or from Whom it arises. A closer look at this Christian joy is needed.

 

To attempt a recovery of distinction between “joy” and “happiness”, a look back at the origin and early usage of the words may be helpful. Linguists trace “happy” back to sometime in or around the 14th century with meanings of lucky, fortunate, prosperous, or being in advantageous circumstances. Even without the linguists, a layman can see that “happy” looks a whole lot like “happenstance”. The word “happy”, then, appears to point to material or perceived goods that elicit a feeling of pleasure. Feelings, by their nature, are fleeting. “Joy” traces back to about the same time as “happy” with meanings of gladness, delight, source of pleasure or happiness or, in the case of “rejoice”, to own, to possess, to enjoy the possession or fruition of. The words “joy” and “rejoice” point to the source of one’s gladness and, even more, to the possession of that source. 

 

Drawing the distinction between these words brings new meaning to St. Paul’s exhortation to “Rejoice in the Lord always”. It is not a matter of feeling good (being happy) in the Lord; rather, St. Paul is inviting the Christian to enjoy the possession of the Lord as the source of his joy. After giving Himself in the first Eucharist, Jesus prays for his disciples and all that will come to believe in Him, “even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21, RSV). It is the explicit will of the Father, revealed through the Son, and fulfilled by the Holy Spirit that man should share in (take possession of) the divine life of the Holy Trinity. This divine life is the source of man’s joy and true happiness. Through the virtue of hope, the Christian man takes possession of the yet unseen reality of union with God in Heaven. In so doing, his life becomes one marked by joy “so that the world may believe”. 

From St. Augustine in the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas:

And what is our joy, which he says shall be full, but to have fellowship with Him?  He had perfect joy on our account, when He rejoiced in foreknowing, and predestinating us; but that joy was not in us, because then we did not exist: it began to be in us, when He called us…

Catechism2500: The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral beauty.

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The Hopeful Man Trusts in God’s Mercy https://fraternus.net/the-hopeful-man-trusts-in-gods-mercy-2/ Thu, 01 Apr 2021 06:00:17 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7653 mercy toward your family At Ranch, this past summer a fellow captain from New York said to me something he had heard, “home is where you go when you are tired of being nice to people.” I shared this with my Exodus 90 group this past weekend and it got quite a chuckle out of …

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The Hopeful Man Trusts in God’s Mercy

mercy toward your family

At Ranch, this past summer a fellow captain from New York said to me something he had heard, “home is where you go when you are tired of being nice to people.” I shared this with my Exodus 90 group this past weekend and it got quite a chuckle out of everyone. The reason why it was so funny is because often it is so true.  Sadly.  But what if “being nice” was actually being merciful and patient with people, and when we go home to “quit being nice” we’re really going into our homes without mercy?  Are we imaging a merciful father to our family when we do that?

I regularly confess being unkind and impatient with my family. That might sound like a mundane kind of thing to a regular person, but it bothers me to think that I can muster up so much patience for coworkers and strangers and leave next to nothing left for my family sometimes. I have gotten better about when I do lose patience or my temper to apologize and acknowledge the fault that I showed. I am better than that. As a man, I ask myself, “how would my kids describe me if they were asked, tell me about your dad?” I would hope that I would be a man of virtue, which means I would be a man of gentleness and strength – a gentleman – but if they just get the leftovers of me, what do I expect?

I have cultivated a habit of praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet daily. This has helped me quite a bit in remembering that God shows mercy to those that are merciful. Mercy comes from the Latin word (misericordia) which means to see someone in their misery, their suffering. God can see us in our struggles and in our misery. May we hope in the Lord and trust that he will show us mercy.

If God is merciful, then fathers, who draw their nature from God (Eph. 3:15), must be merciful.  We can’t expend ourselves in the world and give our home only what is left, only the functional and discipline.  We must treat them as they ought to be treated in justice and charity.  Men, go home as a man of mercy, not wrath.

“Be not hasty in thy tongue: and slack and remiss in thy works. Be not as a lion in thy house, terrifying them of thy household, and oppressing them that are under thee” (Sirach 4:34-35).

From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis:

[God speaking to the soul:] “My Son, I the Lord am a stronghold in the day of trouble. Come unto Me, when it is not well with thee.

“This it is which chiefly hindereth heavenly consolation, that thou too slowly betakest thyself unto prayer. For before thou earnestly seek unto Me, thou dost first seek after many means of comfort, and refresheth thyself in outward things; so it cometh to pass that all things profit thee but little until thou learn that it is I who deliver those who trust in Me; neither beside Me is there any strong help, nor profitable counsel, nor enduring remedy. But now, recovering courage after the tempest, grow thou strong in the light of My mercies, for I am nigh, saith the Lord, that I may restore all things not only as they were at the first, but also abundantly and one upon another.

“For is anything too hard for Me, or shall I be like unto one who saith and doeth not? Where is thy faith? Stand fast and with perseverance. Be long-suffering and strong. Consolation will come unto thee in its due season. Wait for Me; yea, wait; I will come and heal thee. It is temptation which vexeth thee, and a vain fear which terrifieth thee. What doth care about future events bring thee, save sorrow upon sorrow. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.  It is vain and useless to be disturbed or lifted up about future things which perhaps will never come.

Catechism 2090: When God reveals Himself and calls him, man cannot fully respond to the divine love by his own powers. He must hope that God will give him the capacity to love Him in return and to act in conformity with the commandments of charity. Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; it is also the fear of offending God’s love and of incurring punishment.

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The Hopeful Man Trusts God When He Suffers https://fraternus.net/the-hopeful-man-trusts-god-when-he-suffers/ Thu, 18 Mar 2021 06:00:18 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7629 jesus defeated death, he didn’t remove suffering One of the cruelest banalities of soft (and false) Christianity is the idea that God alleviates the suffering of the righteous.  In America especially there’s a sense that the lessening of suffering is a sign of your election, of God’s love for you (Calvinism is hard to shake …

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The Hopeful Man Trusts God When He Suffers

jesus defeated death, he didn't remove suffering

 

“Hang in there; God will fix this.”

“There’s light at the end of this tunnel.”

“God helps those that help themselves.”

The reason I say they are cruel and hurtful sayings is that the person inflicted with suffering might not be delivered from their afflictions.  That might be God’s permissive will.  To proclaim their imminent relief might very well be to give them a false hope, and ultimately this could lessen their faith in God because they were misled about His ways and the reality of suffering itself.  Distorting the reality of suffering can actually distort the presentation of the Faith itself.

There are miraculous healings and deliverances, but this is not the norm either naturally or supernaturally.  The fact is: God has not removed suffering from this world though He has given us the means to have the eternal consequences of sin removed.

We do and should pray for the removal of suffering.  However, Jesus once prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me,” referring to His cross and suffering.  But God did not remove it.  This was not a sign of Jesus’ rejection.  Jesus’ great overcoming was over the power of death itself, but that happened through death itself.  Therefore, Christ has transformed suffering; He did not rid us of it.  Suffering itself has been baptized, so that offered to and consecrated to God it actually becomes the means of sanctification – it breaks the chains of sin.  Suffering is an unavoidable consequence of a world of sin, so to bring salvation to those still in the world, Christ had to change the reality of suffering itself.  As CS Lewis said in The Problem of Pain, “Christ came not to free us from our pains, but to transform them into his.”

The “trick” of faith is not to trick yourself into thinking positively about things that are negative – countering bad juju with good vibes sent into the Universe.  It is also not to pretend that suffering itself is not real, but only the improperly understood or perceived reality (this is the way of Eastern religions like Buddhism).  Suffering in itself is not a positive good.  All pain is not gain.  But, united to Christ and the cross, it can become a good in the soul.

Because Christ suffered with us, we can now suffer with Him.  And because His suffering becomes ours and our suffering become His, all of our suffering as Christians is wrapped up in the mystery of salvation.  St. Paul even hinted at a certain “need” of our suffering, as if Christ is awaiting our participation:

“Even as I write, I am glad of my sufferings on your behalf, as, in this mortal frame of mine, I help to pay off the debt which the afflictions of Christ still leave to be paid, for the sake of his body, the Church” (Col. 1:24, Knox).

Sometimes we suffer the effects of our own sin, sometimes we suffer the effects of other’s sins, and sometimes the source is indiscernible.  But, all suffering is tied to the reality of sin – just like Christ’s suffering.  United to Him, we see that the lie that God fixes the problems of the righteous is terrible, because our suffering can actually be a sign of God’s paternal care of us:

“Be patient, then, while correction lasts; God is treating you as his children. Was there ever a son whom his father did not correct?  No, correction is the common lot of all; you must be bastards, not true sons, if you are left without it. … For the time being, all correction is painful rather than pleasant; but afterwards, when it has done its work of discipline, it yields a harvest of good dispositions, to our great peace.  Come then, stiffen the sinews of drooping hand, and flagging knee, and plant your footprints in a straight track, so that the man who goes lame may not stumble out of the path, but regain strength instead” (Hebrews 12:7-8, 11-13).

When faced with unavoidable, necessary, or even confusing suffering, we can echo Christ’s words asking that the “cup” of suffering pass.  We can pray the same with and for others.  But, as sons of a good Father, we should also always remember the second part of that prayer that was prayed before the cross: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39, NAB).  In Him, no suffering is meaningless, and we never suffer alone.

St. Maximillian Kolbe commenting on difficult times:

“The cause of the causes” of our present crisis is the lack of honesty and the shirking of responsibility.  The failure to carry out our fundamental duties to God, to our neighbor and indeed to our very selves is commonplace in life today.  This is simply a total lack of genuine love, a substitution of sentiment for the reality of love and a failure to acknowledge it for what it is, an exercise in crass dishonesty. All of us, without exception, must examine our consciences and make a sincere confession and live as authentic Catholics.  You would be surprised at the rapidity in the renewal of entire countries to follow on this, the stabilization of their economic-financial order in support of all citizens and families, and their reaffirmation of the dignity of work. At the origin and core of every personal and social misery is sin. In Poland after the First World War we all began to live as lords and ladies. A great multiplication of meetings and a corresponding reduction of work-time to the level of insufficiency; all too frequent theft of public monies and little organization of work became commonplace. The Immaculate must show us the way out of the crisis. She must be present in Parliament, in Congress. Men cannot live for long if they insist on living as though God does not exist, as though Christ the Savior has not come.

Catechism 1818: The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity.

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The Temperate Man Dies to Self that He May Live https://fraternus.net/the-temperate-man-dies-to-self-that-he-may-live/ Thu, 11 Mar 2021 07:00:30 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7597 the hard paradox of the gospel The gospel is full of paradoxes but the one that seems most difficult to swallow is that we have to die in order to have life. We see this in John 12:24 when Christ talks about the grain of wheat that has to fall to the ground and dies …

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The Temperate Man Dies to Self that He May Live

the hard paradox of the gospel

The gospel is full of paradoxes but the one that seems most difficult to swallow is that we have to die in order to have life. We see this in John 12:24 when Christ talks about the grain of wheat that has to fall to the ground and dies in order to bear fruit. The world today tells us that we need to be free to do whatever we want, to “live life to the fullest”. But, this is not true freedom. Who is more free, a man who abuses alcohol or the man who is sober? The sober man has the freedom to enjoy a drink in a wholesome and healthy way without being consumed and controlled by his passions. The one who is master of himself is the man who is truly free.

Dying to self goes beyond just self mastery, though we certainly need that if we are to die to self. Life, as we saw with the seed, is full of examples of how we have to sacrifice for something greater. When a young man gets married, he “dies” to his bachelor way of life to have new life with his wife. When a couple has a child, they die to themselves and sacrifice themselves for their child. When we seek eternal life, we have to die to this earthly life.

Perhaps the most eloquent and stunning example of this is when Christ died and rose from the dead. He, of course, not only had eternal life for himself but he also bought it for us with his death. The story of the cross and the resurrection is told again and again in all the great stories all through the ages. You will find no perennial story that does not have some element of sacrifice for those the hero loves. Look at Maximus in the Gladiator, or William Wallace in Braveheart. Both men sacrificed their lives for their family, their people and their country. Look at any love story, if the man (in particular) is not sacrificing himself in some way for the one he loves then I can guarantee the story is not going to be very good.

The constant struggle we face on this earth is that we get blinded or sidetracked by all the many small goods that present themselves to us like pop-up ads. We need to constantly remind ourselves that God is the greatest good and being with him forever in heaven is worth any sacrifice or hardship this world can put forth because, in the end, we are not made for this life but for eternal life.

On denying ourselves and taking up the cross, from Thomas a Kempis’ classic Imitation of Christ:

My child, the more you depart from yourself, the more you will be able to enter into Me. As the giving up of exterior things brings interior peace, so the forsaking of self unites you to God. I will have you learn perfect surrender to My will, without contradiction or complaint.
Follow Me. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Without the Way, there is no going. Without the Truth, there is no knowing. Without the Life, there is no living. I am the Way which you must follow, the Truth which you must believe, the Life for which you must hope. I am the inviolable Way, the infallible Truth, the unending Life. I am the Way that is straight, the supreme Truth, the Life that is true, the blessed, the uncreated Life. If you abide in My Way you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free, and you shall attain life everlasting.

If you wish to enter into life, keep My commandments.

If you will know the truth, believe in Me. If you will be perfect, sell all. If you will be My disciple, deny yourself. If you will possess the blessed life, despise this present life. If you will be exalted in heaven, humble yourself on earth. If you wish to reign with Me, carry the Cross with Me. For only the servants of the Cross find the life of blessedness and of true light.

Catechism 1809: Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion: “Do not follow your inclination and strength, walking according to the desires of your heart.” Temperance is often praised in the Old Testament: “Do not follow your base desires, but restrain your appetites.” In the New Testament it is called “moderation” or “sobriety.” We ought “to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world.”

To live well is nothing other than to love God with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul and with all one’s efforts; from this it comes about that love is kept whole and uncorrupted (through temperance). No misfortune can disturb it (and this is fortitude). It obeys only [God] (and this is justice), and is careful in discerning things, so as not to be surprised by deceit or trickery (and this is prudence).

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The Temperate Man Gives Alms https://fraternus.net/the-temperate-man-gives-alms/ Thu, 04 Mar 2021 07:00:28 +0000 https://fraternus.net/?p=7571 the 10th commandment: vague placeholder or key to happiness? Have you ever thought that the ten commandments kind of start strong and peter out?  It’s like listening to a sermon that starts strong (“You shall have no gods before Me!”), gets appropriately practical (“Honor your parents”), but then gets so broad that it sounds like …

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The Temperate Man Gives Alms

the 10th commandment: vague placeholder or key to happiness?

Have you ever thought that the ten commandments kind of start strong and peter out?  It’s like listening to a sermon that starts strong (“You shall have no gods before Me!”), gets appropriately practical (“Honor your parents”), but then gets so broad that it sounds like a platitude.  I’m speaking of that last commandment, “you shall not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”  The ninth is a touch more specific – “you shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife” – but, really, that last one just sends us off in a way that makes it look like a placeholder.  In the full version in the scripture, it isn’t just don’t covet goods, but it is specific on lots of those goods: servants, livestock, and anything else he has.

Rene Girard, in his book I See Satan Fall Like Lightening, has an illuminating explanation of the tenth commandment, and shows us why it is so important.  In fact, the first and the last are the bookends of the commandments, and the whole moral and spiritual life is understood better when we recognize it. 

Girard points out that there is something very different about the last commandment: “The tenth and last commandment is distinguished from those preceding it both by its length and its object: in place of prohibiting an act it forbids a desire.” (pg. 7 of the 6th printing by Orvis Books and others).

Desire becomes the interpretive key that differentiates the tenth from the others, but also gives us the way to be faithful to them. 

Those of us with small children have a perfect image to understand this better.  Child A sees that Child B has something that either looks good, or maybe just notes that it seems to bring Child B with delight.  Child A, therefore, decides he wants that thing – and he is willing to do much to get it, including violence.  He might even make some case that the object in question is really “MINE!”  Or at least he wants it to be and he is willing to do all sorts of things to make it so.  We say to them, in tones satisfied in their maturity, “You only want that Tonka truck because you saw him with it!”  We go on: “You didn’t even want it a minute ago when you were playing with the trains!”

The fact is all desires are born from our encounter with the goods of others.  We all change what we want when we see our neighbor’s Tonka (or Corvette). 

Just consider something you desire… really, think hard on it.  What do you “want” as a result of this day and your work?  Do you want prestige?  A nice and clean car?  Big house?  Human respect?  Popularity?  To be a “leader?”  Seriously, stop and ask yourselves what things you want, and what things you want people to say you have.  We need to know the “why” of our actions.  Do you want people to think you are tough, balanced, nuanced, smart, hard-working, poetic, rich, or disciplined?  Really, what are the things you want, and where did that want come from?  You want it because you perceived it as a good possessed by your neighbor.

St. Francis de Sales never desired a Corvette, not just because he was a saint, but because he never saw one.  I have to first perceive a good before we want to make it “mine.”  In this desire to “make it mine,” according to Girard, we simultaneously violate the first commandments – making God the total object of our worship – and we create the source of human conflict.  The preceding commandments are all against acts of violence toward our neighbor: lying, stealing, killing.  The fact is, all of those things are done in order to protect what we possess or to get what he possesses.  What besides desires would motivate lying, stealing, and killing?

There is great wisdom in the religious life, when the members literally cut off from view the goods of others, and all-in sight possess the exact same things.

(As an aside, there is a way to see the good of others, to even desire it, without trying to make it yours.  It is called love.  Love delights in the good of the other, and insofar as it might receive those goods, it does so with gratitude to the giver, and without any sense of grasping or manipulating.)

Let’s make sure we state a truth of this world: God created the world with a cultivatable abundance that satisfies the true and natural needs of all men.  There is no need for war over resources, because there is enough for everyone.  Creation is not a reality TV show where heavenly viewers watch the inhabitants of earth fight over an insufficient amount of goods all while demanding they be nice.  Also, God made us for Himself, so our truest desire – the one that all others can only attempt to fulfill – is the desire for God.  God has also made Himself available to us by reason, revelation, and the direct gift of grace.  It is true what the Psalmist says, “There is nothing I shall want.”  That is, unless I peak over the fence at greener grass – and it is always greener not just because it is our neighbor’s grass, but because it isn’t yet ours.  When it comes to goods, the disorder of sin causes us to either hold them with hoarding jealously (a sin possible when we possess something) or to desire them in envy (the since that comes when we don’t yet possess something).

It wasn’t long after Adam and Eve desired autonomy from God that Cain wanted the good that Abel had and killed him for it.  Envy of God and envy of neighbor are the first two sins.  This should illuminate the logic of those “bookends” of commandments: desire God and don’t desire what your neighbor has.  The tenth commandment is not vague, but an all-encompassing correction of the source of so much disorder and sin.  Faithfulness to “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods” would not only stop my children’s first fight over Tonkas, but would stop wars, contentions, arguments, backbiting, and all conflicts of man.

This might enlighten and encourage us especially during Lent.  Prayer, alms, fasting.  In prayer we confirm and strengthen our true and good desire for God.  In alms we give to our neighbor instead of trying to take from him.  And in fasting we remind ourselves that earthly goods are made for man, not man for earthly goods.  So, no, that last commandment is not vague.  It is the protector of the others, setting us on the path of holy desire. 

From the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno by Pope Pius XI:

For justice alone can, if faithfully observed, remove the causes of social conflict but can never bring about union of minds and hearts. Indeed all the institutions for the establishment of peace and the promotion of mutual help among men, however perfect these may seem, have the principal foundation of their stability in the mutual bond of minds and hearts whereby the members are united with one another. If this bond is lacking, the best of regulations come to naught, as we have learned by too frequent experience. And so, then only will true cooperation be possible for a single common good when the constituent parts of society deeply feel themselves members of one great family and children of the same Heavenly Father; nay, that they are one body in Christ, “but severally members one of another,”[71] so that “if one member suffers anything, all the members suffer with it.”[72] For then the rich and others in positions of power will change their former indifference toward their poorer brothers into a solicitous and active love, listen with kindliness to their just demands, and freely forgive their possible mistakes and faults. And the workers, sincerely putting aside every feeling of hatred or envy which the promoters of social conflict so cunningly exploit, will not only accept without rancor the place in human society assigned them by Divine Providence, but rather will hold it in esteem, knowing well that everyone according to his function and duty is toiling usefully and honorably for the common good and is following closely in the footsteps of Him Who, being in the form of God, willed to be a carpenter among men and be known as the son of a carpenter.

2443 God blesses those who come to the aid of the poor and rebukes those who turn away from them: “Give to him who begs from you, do not refuse him who would borrow from you”; “you received without pay, give without pay.” It is by what they have done for the poor that Jesus Christ will recognize his chosen ones. When “the poor have the good news preached to them,” it is the sign of Christ’s presence.

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