Category — Prayer

To the Virgins, to make much of Time Robert Herrick, 1591–1674

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Sadly, with the flying of time the relevance of this poem has dissipated for all but a graced few. The poetry of today erodes love and leaves people broken and wounded:

Starstrukk 3OH!3, 2009

Nice legs, Daisy dukes,
Makes a man go whoo-whoo
That’s the way they all come through
Like whoo-whoo whoo-whoo
Low-cut, see-through shirts That make you whoo-whoo
That’s the way she come through
Like whoo-whoo whoo-whoo

…

Tight jeans, Double D’s Makin’ me go whoo-whoo
All the people on the street Know [whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo]
Iced-out, lit-up
Make the kids go whoo-whoo
All the people on the street Know whoo-whoo whoo-whoo

…

I think I should know how
To make love to something innocent
Without leaving my fingerprints out now
L-O-V-E’s just another word I’ll never learn to pronounce
How do I say I’m sorry
‘Cause the word is
Never gonna come out no
L-O-V-E’s just another word I never learned to pronounce
Push it baby
Push it baby out of control
I got my guns cocked tight And I’m ready to blow
Push it baby
Push it baby out of control This is the same old dance That you already know (x2)

I think I should know how
To make love to something innocent
Without leaving my fingerprints out no
L-O-V-E’s just another word
I’ll never learn to pronounce

The vast majority of today’s youth and young adults have the same pronunciation issues. The language of Love is not only being destroyed but eradicated:

“Without stimuli, the human being does not reach it’s psychological telos. Children who hear no language before their tenth year will never learn to speak; for disuse, the corelation of no excitation, breeds decay.” - Dale C. Allison Jr., The Luminous Dusk at 34.

—

Lord, help me let life unfold slowly, like the small rosebud whose petals unravel bit by bit, and remind me that in hurrying the bloom along, I destroy the bud and much of the beauty therein. Instead, let me wait for all to unfold in its own time. Each moment and state of growth contains a loveliness. Teach me to slow down enough to appreciate life and all it holds. Amen.

Francis de Sales was born into a noble family on August 21, 1567. Intelligent and handsome, he studied at both the Universities of Paris and Padua, earning the title of “Doctor” in both Theology and Law. Despite lucrative offers in a variety of esteemed positions, Francis chose ordination over temporal wealth. His talents served the Church well and he was eventually consecrated as the Bishop of Geneva. He died on December 28, 1622 and was canonized in 1664.

His Introduction to the Devout Life (Download for Free) is a spiritual classic and this work, in addition to many other other significant writings, compelled Blessed Pope Pius IX to declare him a Doctor of the Church.

He is the patron of writers and journalists and of this blog.

The Everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost Heart. This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighed with His own Hands, to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His Holy Name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow. The same Everlasting Father, who takes care of you today, will take care of you tomorrow, and every day. He will either shield you from suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations!

This week I downloaded and listened to a podcast of Monday’s Openline on EWTN with John Martignoni. I was genuinely moved by a caller who asked for the host’s interpretation of Matthew 7:7-8:

7 “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. - NRSV

This particular caller seemed almost despondent as he expressed doubt that this passage had in any way proved accurate in his life. In his prayers he never asked for fame or fortune. He believed that all those things which he had requested were reasonable and spiritually desirable. He asked for gainful employment. He asked for opportunity. And he remained faithful in prayer and waiting. Yet after years of perceived silence and disappointment he was unsure he could accept Jesus’ words in this passage any longer. He was close to closing a door on prayer.

The caller’s experience is not unique. The scars of sadness, doubt and despair mark the prayer journey of all who seek to follow Christ. The man who claims that all his prayers have been answered as he would have liked surely stands alone. There’s a beautiful scene in the movie Rudy which confronts the reality that God’s response to our prayers is not always evident. Desperate to pursue his dream of playing football for Notre Dame but unable to meet the institution’s academic standards, Rudy Ruettiger had enrolled in Holy Cross Junior College. Under the guidance of Father Cavanaugh, the retired president of Notre Dame University, Rudy worked his way through college and his spiritual struggles but found himself stifled in successive attempts to transfer into Notre Dame. As Rudy prays in a church and awaits a decision on his final permissible transfer application, Father Cavanaugh approaches him:

Father Cavanaugh: You did a hell of a job, kid, chasing down your dream.
Rudy: I don’t care what kind of job I did. If it doesn’t produce any results, it doesn’t mean anything.
Father C: I think you’ll discover that it will.
Rudy: Maybe I haven’t prayed enough.
Father C: I’m sure that’s not the problem. Praying is something we do in our time. The answers come in God’s time.
Rudy: Have I done everything I possible can? Can you help me?
Father C: Son, in 35 years of religious studies, I’ve come up with only two, hard incontrovertible facts - there is a God, and I’m not Him.

Both Father Cavanaugh in counseling Rudy and John Martignoni in responding to his caller realized that God’s promises regarding prayer must be placed in their proper context. The verses immediately following Matthew 7:7-8 explain the true nature of what God’s assures us:

9 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10 Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Prayer does not always produce the temporal results we expect but it is always heard and answered. This pseudo-paradox is only understood by realizing that God’s response is to provide the spiritual “good gifts” which His children need. None of us are God and we are often unaware of what can most benefit our soul. Our Father in heaven, seeing the entire picture, often responds with a cross. By placing a burden on our shoulders God presents us with the opportunity to prove our love. Whether we reject it or carry it says much of whether we desire our pleasure or relationship with God.

Continued in Part II HERE

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
- T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

This Sunday’s lighting of the first advent wreath candle accompanies the beginning of a new liturgical year. There won’t be a countdown or confetti, no parties or Champagne. Rather, we enter a solemn season. During this time the Church calls the faithful to prepare themselves to celebrate the anniversary of our Lord’s coming into the world. It is a time for each Catholic to resolve to make their souls fitting abodes for the coming of Christ in the Eucharist and through grace. It is a time for each to resolve to be ready for Christ’s coming as judge, both at death and at the end of the world. In essence, it is a time for the faithful to reflect on what is required to live a holy and saintly life and resolve to make the necessary changes.

Yet sanctity can not be found in recreating ourselves. We have been wonderfully made and our full potential can only be realized by reshaping ourselves to God’s image. As that image is Christ, who took on the form of man to heal it, we must embrace our individual God-given natures and strive to improve them. Thus, determining how to grow spiritually requires us to recognize and cultivate our unique strengths and characteristics.

When I first began law school I continuously found myself confessing the same type of sin to my spiritual director. When I queried him as to why he thought I was persistently facing this particular struggle he replied by asking me if I knew what the greatest saints have in common. When I stumbled to respond he looked at me and said: “The greatest saints are those that are most uniquely themselves.”

Both our greatest spiritual struggles and our paths to salvation lie in what makes us most uniquely ourselves. The challenge is for each of us is to recognize the passions which form the quintessence of our nature and then divert them away from sin and direct them towards God’s greater glory.

As God places unique passions within each one of us, your spiritual journey will not necessarily resemble that of your associates any more than St. Joseph’s resembled St. Peter’s or St. Pio of Pietrelcina’s resembled St. Bernadette’s. Each of us must walk a different path to the same destination:

A brother questioned an old man saying, “What good work should I do so that I may live?” The old man said, “God knows what is good. I have heard it said that one of the Fathers asked Abba Nisterus the Great, the friend of Abba Anthony, and said to him, “What good work is there that I could do?” He said to him, “Are not all actions equal? Scripture says that Abraham was hospitable and God was with him. David was humble, and God was with him. Elias loved interior peace and God was with him. So, do whatever you see your soul desires according to God and guard your heart.”

God has placed unique passions within your heart and given you a unique role to play in salvific history. May your new year’s resolution be to acknowledge those passions and gifts and ask Him to direct them toward His greater glory so that “He will make straight your paths.” Have a blessed and holy new year!

…

I will begin praying a St. Jude Novena this Sunday (for a special intention, of course!). Please feel free to join me!: http://www.prayerbook.com/Novenas/judenove.htm

Can a city dweller hear God’s voice clearly or does the constant cacophony dull His diction? If St. John of the Cross is right in asserting that it is “great wisdom to know how to be silent” then is city living sane for the serious seeker of Christ?:

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…we need silence to be able to touch souls.” – Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Yet there have always been holy souls who have preferred human nature to the other kind. The late Fr. Richard Neuhaus regarded New York City as “the prolepsis of the New Jerusalem”, facetiously questioning why someone would deliberately live anywhere else. Even Thomas Merton, who was later to become a renowned contemplative monk, found happiness and contentment at Columbia University. Neither confused the spiritual with the temporal - God’s call is heard in the depths of the heart and only incidentally anywhere else.

Nonetheless, the city does influence its inhabitants. Like the emmet - ant - which loses it’s way in Blake’s “Dream”, some lose Christ among the multitude of paths the city presents.

A few months ago I was at St. Pancras station in London, waiting for a train which would take me to Paris. I ventured down the street in hopes of providentially stumbling upon a Church where I could pray or even attend Mass. I walked for a good ten minutes, but soon became convinced that if there was a spire in the vicinity the looming masonry brick buildings which lined the street probably obscured it from view.

Just as I was committing to abandoning my search, I came across an advertisement for a cellular phone company. The large megacorporation ironically offered a lament of the impersonality associated with communications industry in England. The poster presented two men and a woman, each in an indignant posture and donning a scowl. Below the photograph the caption declared: “I am not a number”.

Not a number…. Looking at the countenance of each I recalled the prototype structures I had passed along the way. Aside from the number outside each door, there had been little to differentiate one from another. I recounted the expressionless glances of commuters on the subway. I recollected the swarms that had passed by on the street without any nod of acknowledgment whatsoever. I recalled the words of Byron: “and was Jerusalem builded here, amongst these dark satanic mills?”

“Not a number”? Not even a number.

The stark reality is that most of us are no ones to most everyone. None of us are likely to ever meet the people in that advertisement and even if we did we’d never know them. Their lives, their personal crises, their hopes and dreams, their disillusionments and tragedies - all of these are unknown to us. Even the most prominent of figures face a similar fate. And even if a person obtains global prominence their legacy will be factual and cold.

Fame

“Who was the most famous person
In the empire of Trebizond?”
Blank complete – no body knew that.
I asked: “does it really matter?”
“Uh no”, they answered quietly.
I said: “I do not know either;”
“nor do I really care so much!”
“Such is fame!” I told my class.

- Wieslaw Nowak, May 9, 1997

St. Francis was most blunt in expressing this reality of our temporal nothingness, a reality made obvious in the city. Having walked atop Mount Subiaso and gazed upon the vastness of Perugia, he memorably exclaimed that we are nothing but worms. Speaking at the turn of the century, he could scarcely have envisaged the literal significance his statement would attain for those that commute to work each morning by subway. Whether the analogy be to emmets or worms, there’s something unsettling about a life in which we find similarity with the subhuman.

As bleak as the metaphor may be, St. Francis found in it not despair but hope. Focusing on the transcendental rather than the temporal, he realized that it was only in God that he could find eternal meaning. Unconstrained by temporal limits, God was able to know him to the fullest extent and to the depths of his being. Moreover, He was able to love him both completely and eternally, across time and space. Only by placing his temporal condition juxtapose God’s eternal ambition for his soul was Francis able to obtain the strength and courage - the grace - to renounce this world completely and pursue a relationship with Jesus with such unprecedented vigour.

Although Francis’ eventually chose the green martyrdom of monastic life, it was his vocation rather than the intrinsic nature of cosmopolitan life which led to this decision. He renounced the world in his heart before he ever did so externally. What mattered to Francis was not where he was, but that he was where he was best able to separate the spiritual from the temporal and embrace Christ most fully. The challenge presented to the modern city-dweller is to see Christ within her neighbour and embrace Him fully in her vocation. The temporal reality of his namelessness stands juxtapose one of God’s greatest miracles: that Jesus invites every person into a personal relationship. Each is known, loved and called by name. Always and forever. Even in the city. To God no one is a number.

Mary, Queen of the World Parish in Mount Pearl hosted a series of retreats presented by young adults from St. Johns. Each night between November 17-20, 2009, a different young adult recounted their personal conversion story and then elaborated upon some of the themes that have been central to their faith experience. Each incorporated aspects of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The talks are available for you to listen to and download. To download the file in mp3 format, right-click on the respective link and select “Save link as…”.

Laura Cooper - Tuesday, November 17, 2009
After recounting her conversion story, which was influenced by a summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Laura discussed the importance of accepting God’s Mercy and surrendering our lives to God. Download or listen to Laura’s story HERE (approx. 31.5 MB)

Brad Glynn - Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Brad’s conversion involved a series of falls which brought about the realization that he was heading in the wrong direction. The majority of Brad’s retreat talk focuses on the parable of the Prodigal son. He carefully guides a reflection on all three of the main characters involved, both before and after the younger son’s conversion. Download or listen to Brad’s story HERE (approx. 28.2 MB)

Theodoric Nowak - Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Theodoric’s conversion occurred in Rome during World Youth Day in 2000. He looks at Chapter Six of the Gospel of John and the story of Jesus’ disciples on the road to Emmaus. The Eucharist was central to his experience and he suggests that it is the main source of strength for maintaining ardency after the epiphany of conversion. Download or listen to Theodoric’s story HERE (approx. 38.4 MB)

Private Prayer [A Morning Prayer]

I awoke to the morning made glorious; Holy is the LORD creator of the universe, maker of galaxies, shaper of worlds, caster of weather, and He who protects and redeems people. I pray through the intercession of the most blessed Virgin of Nazareth, sublime is the Persanctissima in graces. I beg to remain under the protection of St. Michael, repeller of evil, Prince of Army Angelic. I pray through St. Joseph, saintly Church protector and guardian, helper of people. I invoke all the hierarchies of Archangels, Angels and Saints. I beg all the Saints, Blessed Ones and Venerables whose feast day it is, to protect me today, and every day. May all my Angel Guardians and Patron Saints show me their favour. Amen. - written by Wieslaw S. W. Nowak

Bowling Prayer

Lord, as we head out this night, we call upon you to bless us and guide us.

In bowling, as in life, some of our attempts to follow the straight path are destined to go astray. Let us not look upon these incidents as failures, but rather as opportunities for us to see our errors and improve upon ourselves.

Help us to remember, too, Your will. Each of us has a path which you desire us to lead. Though a life-long devotion to bowling may not be that will, help us to remain eternally devoted to You that we may see Your plan and be granted the perseverence necessary to follow Your will.

As we must remain focused on the pins, help us to remain even more diligently focused on You that we may inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.

We ask this through Christ, Our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever, Amen.

I wrote the second one

[I wrote this article in 2007. I believe the words still hold true. I certainly hope they do, as I've yet to find that special person that God has chosen for me!]

The themes of love and romance have always appealed to the appetites of mankind. Fictional works such as Electra, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Height , and Doctor Zhivago, portray relationships of tremendous intensity and passion. The emotions invoked in the audience are so great that many consider the relationships depicted to be idyllic. Even St. Augustine confessed that “in the theaters I rejoiced together with lovers when they took … delight in each other, though it was only pretended in the play.”

However, in spiritual maturity St. Augustine “pit[ied] whoever rejoice[d] in his own wickedness.” Far from presenting the idyllic relationship, writers often present a fraud which appeals to our desire for intensity and intimacy. The compacting of the life of a relationship into a couple of hours of viewing or reading makes this deception possible. True love must last forever and it demands the virtues and emotions which are able to sustain the struggles of each day.

In 2005 a documentary which many regarded to authentically represent a story of true love won an Academy Award. Contrary to many films which receive such accolades, the couples presented were neither particularly attractive nor fashionable. However, they did provide an inspiring example of the qualities needed for a relationship of profound beauty. March of the Penguins depicts the mating and breeding of emperor penguins. Once each year thousands of penguins undertake a hundred kilometer pilgrimage from open water to their traditional breeding grounds. When they arrive they will court a partner with whom they will attempt to bring new life into the world. The female only lays a single egg.

“After the female lays the egg, she transfers it to the feet of the waiting male with a minimal exposure to the elements, as the intense cold will kill the developing embryo. The male tends to the egg when the female returns to the sea, now even further away, both in order to feed herself and to obtain extra food for feeding her chick when she returns. She has not eaten in two months and by the time she leaves the hatching area, she will have lost a third of her body weight.

For an additional two months, the males huddle together for warmth, and incubate their eggs. They endure temperatures approaching -62 °C (-80 °F), and their only source of water is snow that falls on the breeding ground. When the chicks hatch, the males have only a small meal to feed them … By the time they return, they have lost half their weight and have not eaten for four months.” - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_the_Penguins)

March of the Penguins presents a number of elements that must be present and respected for a couple to find true love. These are the considerations and virtues that should be kept in my mind and worked on to be better prepared to receive true love:

(1) Patience

A hundred kilometer trek is not too an incredible distance – unless you’re a penguin! Male emperor penguins have to patiently wait for two months while their female partners walk to the water and then return to them! I often grow impatient just waiting for a ride to pick me up!

As difficult a virtue as patience is to foster, it is essential if you are to have a successful relationship. St. Paul tells us that “charity is patient, is kind.” (1 Corinthians 13) True love cannot exist without patience. The two are inseparable. Love is not for oneself, but must be directed towards another, reciprocated, and then shared. When one is impatient they wish to satisfy their own desires immediately. The selfish placing of one’s interests ahead of the interests of the one they claim to love will lead not to unity, but to division. However, “he that is patient, is governed with much wisdom” (Proverbs 14:29). A patient person is able to overcome the evil inclinations and carnal desires inherent within them (Genesis 8:21). A person’s heart is strengthened (James 5:8) by this victory - the heart with which they love. This leads to a greater victory: “A patient man shall bear for a time, and afterwards joy shall be restored to him.” (Ecclesiasticus 1:29)

Ask God that your heart, which is both His and yours, may be strengthened in this virtue so as to be able to love more purely and completely.

(2) Awareness of a Specific Time and a Specific Place

Penguins do not breed continuously, but once each year at roughly the same time. “All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). True love requires understanding the season in which the Lord has placed you and preparing for the season to come. If the penguins did not eat properly before their march, surely they would not be able to withstand the rigours imposed on them in bringing new life into the world. People often desire to be with a particular person as soon as they feel an attraction. It can be a struggle to understand why Our Lord does not will for two people to be together at a particular moment. However, use this is a time to prepare to receive His great gift, the gift of a spouse that can help you attain sanctity. Pray that you may prepare yourself well so that you can withstand the trials of the future to keep, hold, and provide for that person - temporally and spiritually.

The penguins also understand that God’s plan entails both a time and a place. Penguins have a particular breeding ground, and return to that spot yearly. When it came to pass that days of Jesus’ “assumption were accomplishing, … he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). If God that has brought two people together, it is He that will show them where we must go. When He shows them, they must then go wherever He desires. Set your face like flint and go; regardless of the uncertainty, regardless of the cost. As the penguins set out across the snow and ice, they did not know what awaited them at the end of the journey. As Noah set out in the Ark, to what end did he think he was sailing? When you set out to be near the person the Lord desires for you, you will face many uncertainties. However, know that Christ will be with you, and that in Him, through your spouses support and love, you will become a saint. You will both become saints! Why worry when we know we rest in His love!?

(3) Sacrifice

For the love of their children, for the love of their partners, the Penguins are prepared to lay down their own lives. Christ tells us that “[g]reater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Marriage is a calling to this greatest of love: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and delivered himself up for it” (Ephesians 5:25). You must pray and long to be able to give your life more completely. With every word you speak and pray together, your hearts must grow closer to God. In time, you must learn to love so completely that there is nothing that you would not do for your spouse with Gods grace. Your career, your thoughts, your prayers, your life, though it is all Gods, you must desire to give it to that person so that they might present it to Him on your behalf, that the grace received may be shared.

Give praise to His holy name with two mouths but one heart joined in sacrificing love!

(4) Perseverance

It is the yearly perseverance of love that allows the Emperor Penguin to survive. “[H]e that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 24:13). You must will “[p]ersevere under discipline” (Hebrews 12:7). If God has brought you together, God will never abandon you! You will persevere in love, because in each other you will see the manifestation of God who is Love!

If you are called to marriage, finding the person Jesus desires for you is the search for the person in whom you find Jesus. May you find the soul that magnifies His presence in your life!

“Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain.” (1 Corinthians 9:24)

[It's late and I'm tired, but I wanted to get this out. I will proof read it tomorrow. I may improve upon it in the future, as I'm passionate about this topic. I hope you find it fruitful nonetheless.]

On opening night of the “Passion of the Christ” I stood in line outside the theater with ticket in hand and trepidation in my heart. Amidst those that had pre-screened the movie and declared its emotive brilliance were many others who criticized the imagery as being too graphic and intense. I was worried that I might also be overwhelmed with the movies portrayals. I expressed these concerns to my friend (read his blog here) who urged me not to focus upon the great suffering which Jesus endured during His passion, but the infinite love which impelled Him to take up the cross. The story which he then recounted to me remains one of my favourite declarations of God’s love for humanity. Julian of Norwich was a medieval English mystic. Among the many ecstasies she experienced were a series of visions in which she witnessed Christ’s final agony on the cross. The face of Jesus was bloody, torn and ravaged, distended and disfigured to such a degree that He was scarcely recognizable. As she gazed upon our suffering Saviour and contemplated His agony, He suddenly opened his eyes and looked upon her:

The Lord: Are you well satisfied that I suffered for you?

Julian: Yes, good Lord, all my thanks to you; yes, good Lord, blessed may you be.

The Lord: If you are satisfied, I am satisfied. It is a joy, a bliss, an endless delight to me that ever I suffered my Passion for you; and if I could suffer more, I should suffer more.

(Revelations of Divine Love, Ch 22, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/julian/revelations.x.i.html)

God’s suffering for our sins, the laying down of His life, constitutes the greatest sacrifice of time memorial and eternal. One can not but be satisfied, comforted, by so loving a God. Yet Jesus’ love for us is divinely without limit. Though He suffered to the full extent permitted by His human nature, He was desirous to that He could manifest His love further: “if I could suffer more, I should suffer more.”

St. Bernard of Clairvaux similarly relates God’s superabundant passion for the good of man: “How great was this love! If Christ the Son of the living God had as many parts of His body as there are stars in the firmament of heaven, and if each of these parts had its own body, Christ would have exposed all of them to the Passion, rather that leave a single soul unredeemed from the clutches of the devil. O what mercy, and how great is the mercy of God!”

“Now the grace of our Lord hath abounded exceedingly with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus”, writes St. Paul. (1 Timothy 1:15 – DRB) God is not satisfied with mere satisfaction, but desires to do all good in excess. In explaining the writings of Peter Lombard, Richard Viladesau wrote in “The Beauty of the Cross”, “[b]y His passion and death, Christ merited something more than He had merited previously for Himself: namely, our salvation. He could not gain any higher degree of merit than He had simply by His virtuous life; but in the passion Christ obtained more merit – namely, for us. He did so by making himself, in death, a sacrificial offering for our liberation.”

In merit, grace and love – in all virtue – God desires more and He desires us to desire more. In reflection of the love shown on the cross, our service must be passionate. Passion for holiness is virtuous and pleasing to God. Writing on passion in the Summa, Aquinas addresses the question of whether moral virtue can exist without passion:

“If we take the passions as being inordinate emotions, as the Stoics did, it is evident that in this sense perfect virtue is without the passions. But if by passions we understand any movement of the sensitive appetite, it is plain that moral virtues, which are about the passions as about their proper matter, cannot be without passions. The reason for this is that otherwise it would follow that moral virtue makes the sensitive appetite altogether idle: whereas it is not the function of virtue to deprive the powers subordinate to reason of their proper activities, but to make them execute the commands of reason, by exercising their proper acts. Wherefore just as virtue directs the bodily limbs to their due external acts, so does it direct the sensitive appetite to its proper regulated movements.

Those moral virtues, however, which are not about the passions, but about operations, can be without passions. Such a virtue is justice: because it applies the will to its proper act, which is not a passion. Nevertheless, joy results from the act of justice; at least in the will, in which case it is not a passion. And if this joy be increased through the perfection of justice, it will overflow into the sensitive appetite; in so far as the lower powers follow the movement of the higher, as stated above (17, 7; 24, 3). Wherefore by reason of this kind of overflow, the more perfect a virtue is, the more does it cause passion.”

Jesus came that me have life and have it abundantly (cf. John 10:10). Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. Then love more. Pursue the greater glory of God with this passion and your cup will overflow.

Hi everyone,

Each of us should to do a charitable act each day. It doesn’t have to be something big, it’s just meant to get us thinking about doing small things for others each day, things that we can concretely identify as being done out of love for God and others.

We thought that writing down what you have done would have two purposes - it would encourage us to do things that we can distinctly identify as being outside of our daily duties to God and others, and secondly, it would help provide others examples of small things that can be done with great love for God (as were Saint Therese’s words). These can be posted anonymously.

Thanks everyone, hope you’re all having a great day
Anna-Claire