St. Thomas Aquinas

 

First off: If you haven’t already, today is the perfect day to check out the wonderful Aquinas 101 series:

 

 

Over the past couple of years, this date has ended up being one of my Living Faith days. Here’s last year’s. 

 2017: 

Who is he? Who is this man–this Lord, friend, teacher–full of power but hanging powerless on a cross?

Our faith is marked by questions. We seek, trusting that there must be a source to satisfy the hungers we have been born with. St. Thomas Aquinas was a man of questions and answers, all born of deep hunger and love for God. Balanced, he prayed the Mass with intense devotion, wrote beautiful hymns, sacrificed much to give himself wholly to God and share with the world the fruit of his search.

Also, if you have seen Bishop Robert Barron’s Pivotal Players series, you know that Aquinas is featured in the first set. Here’s a teaser:

I wrote the prayer book that accompanies the first series, and so did several chapters on Thomas.  There are no excerpts available online, as far as I can tell, but here’s a couple of paragraphs from the first chapter:

Catholicism is not all theology. It is caritas . It is sacrament, communion, art, family life, religious life, the saints. It is all of this and more, but what we can’t help but notice is that even these seemingly uncomplicated aspects of the disciples’ lives lead to questions. What is “love” and what is it proper for me to love and in what way? How does Jesus come to meet me through the sacraments of his Body, the Church? How do I know the Scriptures that I’m supposed to be living by are God’s Word? God is all-good, why does evil and seemingly unjust suffering exist? How can I sense God’s movement and will in the world, in my own life? And what is the difference?  Theological questions, every one of them.

So our own spiritual lives, like Thomas’ call for balance. Emphasizing the intellect too much, I find a cave in which to hide, avoid relationship and communion with God and others.  But in disparaging theology, I reject the life of the mind, a mind created by God to seek and know him, just as much as my heart is. I may even avoid tough questions, not just because they are challenging, but because I’m just a little bit afraid of the answers.  Theological reflection from people with deep understanding helps me. It opens me to the truth that God is more than what I feel or personally experience, and this “more” matters a great deal.

He’s in the Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints not surprisingly,  under “Saints are People Who Help Us Understand God.”  Here’s a page:

In the Glades

We’re in south Florida for a few days. A very few days. Our travel is restricted (and that’s probably for the best) by various schedules – really, until mid-May, We’re restricted to Sunday afternoon-Wednesday afternoon if he doesn’t want to miss anything. For sure he can’t miss his weekend work and his Thursday biology class except maybe once every couple of months.

So while a return to New Orleans, Nashville and other spots in driving distance was certainly in the cards, the question struck me – where can we fly direct? For, you know, if you’re flying, that’s the big time-eater: connecting between flights. But if we could get on a plane and get off a couple of hours later in a different place? That might work…and of course there are not many choices in that regard with Birmingham. Basically, whatever hubs Delta, American, United or Southwest fly to: Atlanta (yah), DC, NYC sometimes, Dallas, Houston, Vegas, Chicago, Charlotte and the Florida cities – including Miami. Hey, Miami….I’d been to a Marlins game years ago, but that’s my extent of travel to that part of the world. Kid wanted to see the Everglades and eat Cubans, it’s two-hour flight, fairly cheap, and even if it was on the hated AA, I figured if there were no connections to be made, the chances of them screwing it up were far less.

So far so good – flight left on time on Sunday, arrived fifteen minutes early. Car rented,

off we go. First stop, a late dinner here– it was on the way, in between the airport and our hotel, open at 9:30, popped up on a search with good reviews. The Cuban was met with approval, as was my croquetas and some roasted pork.

We’re staying in Homestead, which is…not South Beach. But it’s fine and closer to what we want to do. And it’s about a quarter of the cost of even a mid-level hotel closer to the city. Lots and lots of Europeans here with us. The place is super clean and while it’s just off Highway 1, manages to be fairly quiet.

Day one was all about the Everglades National Park- which is tricky to figure out because it’s vast and there are three main entrances in different parts of the park. I knew that we would center our energies on Shark Valley and the Coe entrance, since the third entrance is way on the west side, more convenient if Naples/Fort Myers were our base. Which they might be on another trip – years ago, I took a couple of the older kids to the Edison House, which was great – and I’d like to return.

I thought I’d have to choose one or the other, but as it turns out we were able to fit both parts of the park in, with time for lunch in between. If we hadn’t done lunch, or if this were a time of year when the sun set later, we could have made it down to Flamingo on the very tip, but it didn’t work this time.

So first was the drive up to the Shark Valley entrance, off the Tamiani Trail. It was slow going until we hit the Trail because of road construction, but we’d left early because i wanted to make sure we got both parking and bikes – the parking lot there is small, and visitors regularly have to park on the road and walk in – and bikes for riding the 15-miled loop trail are at a premium as well. I had called a couple of days ago and asked if we should be sure to get there right at opening in order to get a bike, and the woman said, “Normally, a Monday wouldn’t be an issue, but more people are here because of the Super Bowl….so…”

Well, we didn’t get there right at opening, but about 45 minutes later, and there were only four adult bikes left for rental by the time we arrived.

With stops, it took us about three hours to do the trail – and there were a lot of stops because there was a lot to see. Going was a little tougher because the wind was against you, but coming back on the loop was much easier.

Highlights: the birds, three sets of baby gators and a monster munching on a large bird of some kind. I’d say a heron, but the feet jutting from the gator’s mouth don’t quite look like a blue heron’s, but what do I know. More than the bird, at this point, so there’s that.

Pachamama gets hungry you know. So by all means, let’s divinize and idealize nature. That’s realistic.

(Video of all of this on Instagram)

I also wondered, idly, if mother gators use their babies, in a way, for bait. The big group of babies we saw (photo on left above) was clustered on the water’s banks, with the mother underwater. Was she under there waiting for food to swim in her direction, or was she expecting a hungry bird to spy her babies, venture near and – become her family’s lunch instead?

You can walk the trail, of course, and while hardly anyone would walk 15 miles, we did see walkers doing small sections of it . They also run a tram. Most people do the tram.

(No we didn’t do airboats – I have no interest and I don’t think they’re great for the environment and they frighten the animals away, so why? They’re not allowed in the Park, proper, anyway.)

Lunchtime – no pouncing on live birds for us.  I did a quick search in the parking lot for “Cuban” – and this place came up with a good set of reviews, so we made our way out of the park, and found this very small place in a strip mall. Excellent food, with a helpful …owner, I think? ….who gave me helpful directions on their specialties. I was going to get Ropa Viejas, but he suggested Vaca Frita (fried cow) – which is basically Ropa Viejas, but without the sauce and fried with onions. Very good!

Quick stop at the hotel, then 15 minutes over to the other entrance to the park, first stopping at the Coe Visitor’s Center and then to the Royal Palm center, where there are two trails: the Anhinga Trail and the Gumbo Limbo Trail. 

My take? I’m glad we went, but I’m even more glad that we did Shark Valley and did it first. The two trails at Royal Palm are easy and short , through different landscapes – a hardwood hammock and a slough, so that was interesting. We saw a couple of gators, turtles, some birds  – our favorite being the Purple Gallinule, which delicately walks and hops on lily pads. 

If we’d only done the trails at the Royal Palm center, we wouldn’t have had a very good sense of the place – the vastness of it that you can see from the observation tower at Shark Valley, as well as the essence of the Glades – which is the “River of Grass” as Marjory Stoneman Douglas called it. Perhaps if you get more a sense of that if you venture further down that road towards Flamingo, but as I said, the encroaching dusk made that decision for us. And I do think that the Big Cypress area in the west gives an even richer experience. My point is that doing those easy trails from the Royal Palm Center, while convenient (only 15 minutes from Homestead/Highway 1), give a rather narrow view of the place. The Shark Valley trail is harder work, but doing it – even if you ride the tram – is much, much better.

But, what you do have near that east entrance is the Robert Is Here fruit stand – famed for, yes, fruit, but also milkshakes – Key Lime and (of course) chocolate for us.

(The name? When the present owner was a child, his father put him out with the then much-smaller fruit stand, instructing him that he was in charge for a while. No one paid him any mind, so he made a sign that said, “Robert is Here.”)

Random animals in the back and enormous avocados.

We then decided to shoot down to Key Largo for a bite. We weren’t hungry, but perhaps by the time we arrived, we’d be ready for something small. It wasn’t the best idea, probably – nothing bad happened, but darkness fell on the way (I’d been hoping for some Gulf sunset views), so it was kind of pointless – ah well, the shrimp that we got at the Key Largo Fisheries Cafe were very fresh (they should be!) and good.

Come back, a bit of pool time, and then ready for tomorrow.

Final thought:

There’s no doubt that the Everglades needed to be preserved and managed in the face of human encroachment.  It’s a good, important thing. But I have to say that coming here, I actually have a little more sympathy for those early 20th century boosters and developers who thought it would be a great idea to drain it and transform it into farmland.

No, it shouldn’t have been done – any more than it was (for all that farmland  you see around “the Everglades” – was once part of, well, the Everglades) – but seeing it from their point of view, with what was and was not understood about the way this particular ecosystem worked and why it was important to maintain that ecosystem – well, I really can’t blame them. Without that big ecological picture that was slowly understood over the course of the past decades, and before the vagaries of extreme weather exposed the folly of a complete transformation, it really doesn’t look that much different than, say, The Great Plains except it’s muddier, so why not?

I thought a lot about technology and the human vision and power to change things. It seems as if we develop a certain level of expertise and power before we gain the understanding we need to use that expertise wisely. Or is it that the wisdom and understanding can’t come until we make mistakes?

 

Sunday

I don’t usually do a random Sunday post, but we’ll be traveling soon,  so that will occupy blog space here (and Instagram), so might as well get some recent events and thoughts out of the way.

• If it weren’t Sunday, we’d be celebrating the memorial of Sts. Timothy and Titus. More on them here.
• Tomorrow? St. Thomas Aquinas. Come back for that.
• This is Catholic Schools Week – maybe check out my convoluted thoughts on schooling, starting here.
• We went and saw City Lights at our local art house cinema last week. It was a late Friday afternoon showing, following a Wednesday night show – Wednesday nights are generally out for us, but Friday worked. Interesting demo of the tiny audience: One older (even than me) woman, Me & my 15-year old, a father and about 10-year old daughter, and a couple with their two tween sons.

So…maybe, instead of just showing recent animated features and dumb modern comedies, movie houses might try digging up some of these silent classics? That it might actually appeal to families? Just a thought.

I’d never seen the film – it was made in the beginning of the sound era, but Chaplin was not a fan of the new technology  – his art had, of course, been formed in the silent era. Art which is full flower in this film – the good thing about it having been produced after the advent of sound is that there’s a music soundtrack – partly composed by Chaplin himself.

It’s a lovely film, with an ending that will undoubtedly leave you misty. A beautiful, gentle and deeply satisfying moment.

And a moment that’s only made possible because The Tramp had made a sacrifice. That’s where the power is – in the sacrifice. Always.

• As the temperature cools, I cook. With only the two of us here now, it’s quite important for me to have stew-soup kind of food already prepared and on hand. I don’t want to bother with meat n’ three type meals for just us (not that I’m a fan of them anyway – stews/soups/salads are my favorites), so if don’t want to eat out a lot (at least *I *don’t, since I’m paying), it pays to, as I said – be prepared. So over the past week, I’ve made beef stew (basic, from the Fannie Farmer cookbook, with a bit of wine added); this pork-poblano soup which is just about my favorite; this French lentil soup which is so basic and simple, but absolutely delicious(I think it’s the bacon); and then this chicken tomatillo stew, which is also great.And to go with, a batch of no-knead bread, and another day,these cornmeal biscuits, and now that I, at the age of almost 60, have figured out that you can, you know, freeze biscuit dough, I no longer have the excuse of “I’m not going to bake for just two of us.”
• Son #5 had a performance today at his grammar school alma mater’s Fine Arts Festival. He played this Brahms Scherzo, and did well. No recording because I was employed as page-turner (he doesn’t have it memorized yet).
• Off to Miami soon – a place I’ve never really been. At least it will be warmer….
• And that’s it. I’m sitting at the airport, absorbing the sad news of the death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and other helicopter passengers. Praying for those left behind, especially Vanessa and the three other children. What a difficult, painful road. In Christ, may they someday find peace.

 

Timothy and Titus

If it weren’t a Sunday, we’d be celebrating the memorial of Sts. Timothy and Titus. But even so – since it’s also, what…Word of God Sunday? And since thinking about them might deepen our Biblical literacy, let’s talk about them anyway:

It wouldn’t take too much to read these letters today: You can find them in your very own Bible, of course, but also just pop over here to read them online. 

And if you do read those books: 1 &2 Timothy and Titus – what you will encounter is a very familiar scene: a Christian community struggling to figure out what it means to be disciples in a hostile world, dealing as well with distortions of the faith from outside – and in.

B16 on the the two here, giving a good introduction:

Timothy is a Greek name which means “one who honours God”. Whereas Luke mentions him six times in the Acts, Paul in his Letters refers to him at least 17 times (and his name occurs once in the Letter to the Hebrews).

One may deduce from this that Paul held him in high esteem, even if Luke did not consider it worth telling us all about him.

Indeed, the Apostle entrusted Timothy with important missions and saw him almost as an alter ego, as is evident from his great praise of him in his Letter to the Philippians. “I have no one like him (isópsychon) who will be genuinely anxious for your welfare” (2: 20).

Timothy was born at Lystra (about 200 kilometres northwest of Tarsus) of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father (cf. Acts 16: 1).

The fact that his mother had contracted a mixed-marriage and did not have her son circumcised suggests that Timothy grew up in a family that was not strictly observant, although it was said that he was acquainted with the Scriptures from childhood (cf. II Tm 3: 15). The name of his mother, Eunice, has been handed down to us, as well as that of his grandmother, Lois (cf. II Tm 1: 5).

When Paul was passing through Lystra at the beginning of his second missionary journey, he chose Timothy to be his companion because “he was well spoken of by the brethren at Lystra and Iconium” (Acts 16: 2), but he had him circumcised “because of the Jews that were in those places” (Acts 16: 3).

Together with Paul and Silas, Timothy crossed Asia Minor as far as Troy, from where he entered Macedonia. We are informed further that at Philippi, where Paul and Silas were falsely accused of disturbing public order and thrown into prison for having exposed the exploitation of a young girl who was a soothsayer by several unscrupulous individuals (cf. Acts 16: 16-40), Timothy was spared.

When Paul was then obliged to proceed to Athens, Timothy joined him in that city and from it was sent out to the young Church of Thessalonica to obtain news about her and to strengthen her in the faith (cf. I Thes 3: 1-2). He then met up with the Apostle in Corinth, bringing him good news about the Thessalonians and working with him to evangelize that city (cf. II Cor 1: 19).

According to the later Storia Ecclesiastica by Eusebius, Timothy was the first Bishop of Ephesus (cf. 3, 4). Some of his relics, brought from Constantinople, were found in Italy in 1239 in the Cathedral of Termoli in the Molise….

….Then, as regards the figure of Titus, whose name is of Latin origin, we know that he was Greek by birth, that is, a pagan (cf. Gal 2: 3). Paul took Titus with him to Jerusalem for the so-called Apostolic Council, where the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles that freed them from the constraints of Mosaic Law was solemnly accepted.

In the Letter addressed to Titus, the Apostle praised him and described him as his “true child in a common faith” (Ti 1: 4). After Timothy’s departure from Corinth, Paul sent Titus there with the task of bringing that unmanageable community to obedience….

…To conclude, if we consider together the two figures of Timothy and Titus, we are aware of certain very significant facts. The most important one is that in carrying out his missions, Paul availed himself of collaborators. He certainly remains the Apostle par excellence, founder and pastor of many Churches.

Yet it clearly appears that he did not do everything on his own but relied on trustworthy people who shared in his endeavours and responsibilities.

Another observation concerns the willingness of these collaborators. The sources concerning Timothy and Titus highlight their readiness to take on various offices that also often consisted in representing Paul in circumstances far from easy. In a word, they teach us to serve the Gospel with generosity, realizing that this also entails a service to the Church herself.

These thematically-composed General Audience talks were collected into book form by several publishers, including Our Sunday Visitor. I wrote study guides for two of them, including these talks on the Apostles and other great figures of the apostolic era.

And here’s a pdf of the study guide for The Fathers. 

I still maintain that for many people, this kind of group study is far more appealing than those centered on the eternal and infernal question..How did that make you feel?

He spoke again about them in another GA, this time focused on Paul’s pastoral letters, during the Year of Paul, in early 2009:

Another component typical of these Letters is their reflection on the ministerial structure of the Church. They are the first to present the triple subdivision into Bishops, priests and deacons (cf. 1 Tm 3: 1-13; 4: 13; 2 Tm 1: 6; Ti 1: 5-9). We can observe in the Pastoral Letters the merging of two different ministerial structures, and thus the constitution of the definitive form of the ministry in the Church. In Paul’s Letters from the middle period of his life, he speaks of “bishops” (Phil 1: 1), and of “deacons”: this is the typical structure of the Church formed during the time of the Gentile world.

However, as the figure of the Apostle himself remains dominant, the other ministries only slowly develop. If, as we have said, in the Churches formed in the ancient world we have Bishops and deacons, and not priests, in the Churches formed in the Judeo-Christian world, priests are the dominant structure. At the end of the Pastoral Letters, the two structures unite: now “the bishop” appears (cf. 1 Tm 3: 2; Ti 1: 7), used always in the singular with the definite article “the bishop”. And beside “the bishop” we find priests and deacons. The figure of the Apostle is still prominent, but the three Letters, as I have said, are no longer addressed to communities but rather to individuals, to Timothy and Titus, who on the one hand appear as Bishops, and on the other begin to take the place of the Apostle.

This is the first indication of the reality that later would be known as “apostolic succession”. Paul says to Timothy in the most solemn tones: “Do not neglect the gift you received when, as a result of prophesy, the presbyters laid their hands on you (1 Tm 4: 14). We can say that in these words the sacramental character of the ministry is first made apparent. And so we have the essential Catholic structure: Scripture and Tradition, Scripture and proclamation, form a whole, but to this structure a doctrinal structure, so to speak must be added the personal structure, the successors of the Apostles as witnesses to the apostolic proclamation.

Lastly, it is important to note that in these Letters, the Church sees herself in very human terms, analogous to the home and the family. Particularly in 1 Tm 3: 2-7 we read highly detailed instructions concerning the Bishop, like these: he must be “irreprehensible, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children under control and respectful in every way, for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s Church?…. Moreover he must be well thought of by outsiders”. A special note should be made here of the importance of an aptitude for teaching (cf. also 1 Tm 5: 17), which is echoed in other passages (cf. 1 Tm 6: 2c; 2 Tm 3: 10; Ti 2: 1), and also of a special personal characteristic, that of “paternity”. In fact the Bishop is considered the father of the Christian community (cf. also 1 Tm 3: 15). For that matter, the idea of the Church as “the Household of God” is rooted in the Old Testament (cf. Nm 12: 7) and is repeated in Heb 3: 2, 6, while elsewhere we read that all Christians are no longer strangers or guests, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God (cf. Eph 2: 19).

Let us ask the Lord and St Paul that we too, as Christians, may be ever more characterized, in relation to the society in which we live, as members of the “family of God”. And we pray that the Pastors of the Church may increasingly acquire paternal sentiments tender and at the same time strong in the formation of the House of God, of the community, and of the Church.

St. Francis de Sales

Wish not to do all, but only something, and without doubt, you will do much. 

-St. Francis de Sales, letter, 7/20/1607.

Today’s the feastday of St. Francis de Sales. Which of course you know because all the bloggers and writers are posting: Francis de Sales…my patron saint! 

And really, yes. You should read St. Francis de Sales. But as you do,  try to catch, not simply the ways that he confirms your expectations, but perhaps the way he challenges them.

Over the years – decades– I have been interested in the ways that we modern, post-Conciliar Catholics approach, use and well, perhaps appropriate great spiritual figures of the past. Well, you ask – how can we appropriate them if they are ours? If we share the same faith?

Well, that’s the conundrum, isn’t it?

For we can pick bits and pieces of Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila and Francis of Assisi, and we can collect their sayings that comfort us, we can tack attractively calligraphied sayings of theirs on our walls and make pillows and mugs out of them, but really –

-do we believe everything they believe?

Do we buy it?

So take St. Francis de Sales. We like him, we celebrate him because he’s the patron saint of writers and journalists – yay us – and because he wrote specifically for the laity – YAY us – but what happens when you actually read him? What happens when you try to reach beyond what comforts you?

For the truth is, most of us reading St. Francis de Sales today have been formed to believe that belief and conversion is essentially coming to believe that I am important, and I am loved by God, that I have a place in the universe. God loves me, God accepts me as I am. 

The essence of the spiritual life seems to be: Rest in God’s love. You’re doing your best. Don’t worry.  Be assured. Come as you are. 

Well, when you read Francis de Sales – and, of course, other spiritual teachers of the past – you might pick up on some differences. Yes (as we’ll see) Francis de Sales advises against scrupulosity all the time, and both he and Jane de Chantal warn against excessive interiority and obsession with one’s spiritual state.

But this moderation is advised, not because they’re communicating that where ever you are, you’re fine and embrace your imperfections and mess. It’s a little different than that. It’s more: You’re a person, so yes you’re an imperfect mess. But God calls you to shed that mess and move towards perfection, and he gives you the tools and the grace to do so. 

And further, if you recognize this, you have an obligation to do so. A duty.

So, although I am spiritually slothful myself, I have mused about this distinction for a long time and critiqued it in various ways, but last night, I was re-reading some Francis de Sales, a bit of clarity came to me, clarity about the world we’ve lived in since the Enlightenment. And with that clarity, came, I think, some understanding, and yes, acceptance.

Modern people – that means you and me – live in a world without God. Even if we are churchgoers and say we believe in God, we actually live in a world without God, because, we admit, everyone believes what they like and who are we to judge?

That’s a world without God.

Just admit it.

And living in a world without God means living in a world of anxiety. It means living on this world that exits – why? – not knowing why or how you came to be, not having any firm, objective sense of your own value or purpose, and certainly  not knowing if your life is any more meaningful than the weed you just pulled from your garden.

So in that radically non-transcendent universe, what is “salvation?”

It is, simply, the revelation that yes, you matter. Yes, you are here, not accidentally, but because Someone wants you to be, which means that you are loved.

And so that is the core of the meaning of conversion in 2019: Accepting your own value.

I’ve spent a lot of time puzzling over that persistent theme and critiquing it, but this evening, after reading St. Francis de Sales for a while, and trying to figure out the distinctions between his message and most of what I hear today – I think that’s it, and I get it.

In an empty, meaningless universe, if we can start there – you matter – well, that’s where we have to start. It may strike me as solipsistic and goopy, but if you have been formed to believe that your life means whatever you want  which means, in essence your life means nothing –  to learn that: your life has happened because the Creator of the Universe wants  it to…

….is, indeed, transformative.

But here we are, back with St. Francis de Sales. And he won’t let you rest there. He won’t let you rest with I’m okay, I’m loved, I’m here for a reason, I have amazing gifts and talents. 

Nope.

Traditional Catholic spirituality – as expressed by today’s saint – is not about resting on our laurels and delighting in our unique gifts and talents. It’s about honestly looking at ourselves, seeing what trash we’ve allowed in, and sucking it up, embracing hard discipline, and moving forward.

We post-Vatican II babies were raised to look back at this type of spirituality and shudder: Scrupulosity! God loves you just as you are!

The basic difference has been:

Salvation = understanding and accepting that God made you and loves you as you are

Salvation = cooperating with the grace of God to restore the you he made. 

And this is why St. Francis de Sales is so wonderful. He bridges this gap, he is realistic on every score, reminding us that we are not perfect and that we should be striving for perfection, but warning us against unrealistic expectations as well:

 My God ! dear daughter, do not examine whether
what you do is little or much, good or ill, provided it is
not sin, and that in good faith you will to do it for God.
As much as you can, do perfectly what you do, but when
it is done, think of it no more ; rather think of what
is to be done quite simply in the way of God, and do
not torment your spirit. We must hate our faults,
but with a tranquil and quiet hate, not with an angry
and restless hate ; and so we must have patience when
we see them, and draw from them a profit of a holy-
abasement of ourselves. Without this, my child,
your imperfections which you see subtly, trouble you
by getting still more subtle, and by this means sustain
themselves, as there is nothing which more preserves
our weeds than disquietude and eagerness in removing
them.

To be dissatisfied and fret about the world, when we
must of necessity be in it, is a great temptation. The
Providence of God is wiser than we. We fancy that
by changing our ships, we shall get on better; yes, if
we change ourselves. My God, I am sworn enemy of
these useless, dangerous, and bad desires : for though
what we desire is good, the desire is bad, because God
does not will us this sort of good, but another, in
which he wants us to exercise ourselves. God wishes
to speak to us in the thorns and the bush, as he did to
Moses; and we want him to speak in the small wind,
gentle and fresh, as he did to Elias. May his good-
ness preserve you, my daughter ; but be constant
courageous, and rejoice that he gives you the will to
be all his. I am, in this goodness, very completely
your, &c.

That’s from his letters “to persons in the world,” collected here in this book found at the Internet Archive. (I’m sure they are in more contemporary bound versions but this is online…and free).

It is well worth downloading and keeping on hand. So much pertinent, valuable, wise advice and insight. Perhaps begin with his 10/14/1604 letter to Jane de Chantal. It’s long and rich and contains, among other bits, tremendous insight on true liberty in Christ.

The effects of this liberty are a great suavity of
soul, a great gentleness and condescension in all that
is not sin or danger of sin ; a temper sweetly pliable to
the acts of every virtue and charity.

For example : interrupt a soul which is attached to
the exercise of meditation ; you will see it leave with
annoyance, worried and surprised. A soul which has
true liberty will leave its exercise with an equal coun-
tenance, and a heart gracious towards the importunate
person who has inconvenienced her. For it is all one
to her whether she serve God by meditating, or serve
him by bearing with her neighbour : both are the will
of God, but the bearing with her neighbour is necessary
at that time.

The occasions of this liberty are all the things which
happen against our inclination ; for whoever is not
attached to his inclinations, is not impatient when they
are contradicted.

This liberty has two opposite vices, instability and
constraint, or dissolution and slavery. Instability, or
dissolution of spirit, is a certain excess of liberty, by
which we change our exercises, our state of life, with-
out proof or knowledge that such change is God’s
will. On the smallest occasion practices, plan, rule
are changed; for every little occurrence we leave our
rule and laudable custom : and thus the heart is dissi-
pated and ruined, and is like an orchard open on all
sides, whose fruits are not for its owners, but for all
passers by.

Constraint or slavery is a certain want of liberty by
which the soul is overwhelmed with either disgust or
anger, when it cannot do what it has planned, though
still able to do better.

For example : I design to make my meditation every
day in the morning. If I have the spirit of insta-
bility, or dissolution, on the least occasion in the
world I shall put it off till the evening for a dog
which kept me from sleeping, for a letter I have to
write, of no urgency whatever. On the other hand,
if I have the spirit of constraint or servitude, I
shall not leave my meditation at that hour, even
if a sick person have great need of my help at the
time, even if I have a dispatch which is of great
importance, and which cannot well be put off, and
so on.

And go ahead – get a head start on Lent with What St. Francis de Sales wants you to know about fasting. 

Oh, and check out Bearing Blog’s many posts on Introduction to the Devout Life. 

7 Quick Takes

—1 —

Apologies for the earlier, incomplete version of this post that a few of you were confused by. I had scheduled it, then gotten too tired to finish writing it…then forgot I’d scheduled it. It’s gone. You’ll never see that again.

— 2 —

Secondly,  welcome Catholic Herald readers and thanks to the Herald for the link to my Young Pope ramblings! Come back on Monday (probably – in the evening) for thoughts on the first three episodes of The New Pope. 

Check out my St. Francis de Sales post from today. 

— 3 —

We’re here in the Ham, as we call it, while Son #4 is up on his March for Life #3 – the first as a college student. What? No dire-threats-not-to-break them curfews? I can head into DC on Saturday…without a chaperone? What is this new life I’m leading?!

Very pleased and proud that he’s there, along with a huge group from his (Catholic) college.

— 4 —

From First Things: The Myth of Medieval Paganism:

When we encounter “pagan-­seeming” images or practices in ­medieval Christianity, we should consider the probability that they were simply expressions of popular Christianity before positing the existence of secret pagan cults in ­medieval Western Europe. Once we accept that most culturally alien practices in popular Christianity were products of imperfectly catechized Christian cultures rather than pockets of pagan resistance, we can begin to ask the interesting questions about why popular Christianity developed in the ways it did. Rejecting the myth of the pagan Middle Ages opens up the vista of medieval popular Christianity in all its inventiveness and eccentricity. After the first couple of centuries of evangelization, there were no superficially Christianized pagans—but there remained some very strange expressions of Christianity.

— 5 –

In my earlier post this week, I focused on things I’ve been wasting my life watching lately.

I forgot one, though:

My 15-year old is a music guy and a fan of odd humor, so I figured it was time to introduce him to these geniuses. Yes, there will be a few moments that we’ll skip over, but for the most part it’s just fine, content-wise. And has prompted one of those much-beloved teachable moments , this one about the difference between New Zealand and Australian accents.

And yes, this particular video has been on replay constantly for the past few days and prompted other teachable moments about French – which was the main language I studied in school (besides Latin) but which he (Spanish and Latin guy) has little understanding of. So those have been decent conversations, too, that end up comparing these two romance languages, with the original, and then with the Craziness that is English…

Another watch, for trip prep, has been the PBS American Experience  – The Swamp– about the Everglades. Running at almost two hours, it’s about thirty minutes too long, but other than that, it’s worth your time if you’re interested in the subject – it’s a history of the conflicts and problems surrounding the Everglades since the late 19th century when people actually started living down in South Florida – both the Seminoles, driven there as they attempted to escape US government forces -and white settlers, followed in the 20’s and 30’s by substantial migrant populations, mostly black from the deep south or the Caribbean.

So yes, that’s where we’re heading soon – a part of the state I’ve never been to. Looking forward to a quick adventure in warmer climes – son is disappointed we’ll probably miss the falling iguanas though – although he’d rather have warmer weather, as well.

— 6 —

Coming tomorrow  – the Conversion of St. Paul.
The event is included in The Loyola Kids Book of Bible Stories and The Loyola Kids’ Book of Heroes. 

EPSON MFP image

 

— 7 —

It’s coming…

 

(Feel free to take the graphic and use where ever.)

Next week – some suggestions on resources from my end.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Even a fool is silent…

Since today is the memorial of St. Marianne Cope,I went back and read the poem Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote about her.

Perhaps you know Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote an “open letter” in defense of Fr. Damien, against a gossipy, bigoted accusatory published piece written by a Presbyterian minister in Hawaii. Stevenson had visited Molokai – after Fr. Damien’s death – and was strongly affected by it, and was moved to defend the priest.

You can read that letter here.

During his bit more than a week on Molokai, he spent time with Sr. Marianne Cope, of course, and even purchased a piano for the colony. He also wrote a poem about the experience, the gist of which is that even though the sufferings of those with Hansen’s Disease might cause one to doubt the existence of God, that course is corrected by the loving presence of the Sisters:

To the Reverend Sister Marianne, Matron of the Bishop Home, Kalaupapa. 
To see the infinite pity of this place, 
The mangled limb, the devastated face, 
The innocent sufferers smiling at the rod, 
A fool were tempted to deny his God. 
He sees, and shrinks; but if he look again, 
Lo, beauty springing from the breasts of pain! 
He marks the sisters on the painful shores, 
And even a fool is silent and adores.