The Three Ages of the Interior Life | Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP | Catholic Spiritual Teaching

"Without God, the seriousness of life gets out of focus. If religion is no longer a grave matter but something to smile at, then the serious element in life must be sought elsewhere. Some place it, or pretend to place it, in science or in social activity; they devote the selves religiously to the search for scientific truth or to the establishment of justice between classes or peoples. After a while they are forced to perceive that they have ended in fearful disorder and that the relations between individuals and nations become more and more difficult, if not impossible. As St. Augustine and St. Thomas (6) have said, it is evident that the same material goods, as opposed to those of the spirit, cannot at one and the same time belong integrally to several persons. The same house, the same land, cannot simultaneously belong wholly to several men, nor the same territory to several nations. As a result, interests conflict when man feverishly makes these lesser goods his last end."

A friend in Poland tipped me off to the availability on the www of the classnotes in English for the course which Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, taught for years at the Angelicum University in Rome (long before I was born). I hope to have time to read them during my upcoming vacation. Take a look yourself and see whether these same things aren't timeless in terms of the value in the discussion of life priorities. To my mind, this is another "grand old man" who deserves to be read and discussed by the youth of today. Here is page 1

Weathering the Storm

The Church Confronts Modernity,

Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era,

by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., (Kindle edition) Columbia University Press, New York, 2004.

Every once in a while, I pick up a book on a lark and I hit pay dirt. This was the case with this very readable book which focuses on the first 20 years of the 20^th Century and the contrasts between the so-called “progressives” and the American Catholic intelligentsia on topics like philosophy, sociology, education theory, labor and economics. Very simply stated, I learned a lot from the book and will continue to draw on it concerning any number of matters I am trying to think through these days.

The most captivating part of the book for me was the Epilogue, which addresses the issue of American Catholicism pre and post Vatican II. It contextualizes for me as never before the issues involved in the critique of the pre-Vatican II Church in the U.S. as it stands accused of being a form of ghetto Catholicism. Two points surface for me in particular: a) the renaissance of Thomism and a strict adherence to the principles of natural law enabled the Catholic Church to respond to the devastation of World War I which totally eclipsed or bankrupt pre-war “progressive” optimism; b) Catholic institutional prosperity in the United States from 1920 until 1960 was fostered by its clear and constructive identity. The bottom line being: syncretism was (is?) the spirit of the age; it does not represent a cogent response to pluralism in society; it certainly is not a Catholic option.

In his epilogue, Thomas Woods expresses reservations about the serviceability of the documents of Vatican II for a Church like that in the U.S., immersed as it is in a pluralistic society. He makes a most convincing case from a historical point of view for the salutary effect of the anti-modernist oath on Catholic leadership in the U.S. Woods quotes authors of the period to explain the hardy institutional dynamism at work in the pre-conciliar Church in the U.S., which was anything but a simple ghetto (cf. Kindle edition, Epilogue):

 “By the Church's plausibility structure is meant the series of interlocking social institutions (e.g., parishes, seminaries, educational organizations, mass media outlets, professional and voluntary associations) that, in toto, are theoretically capable of producing a Catholic environment generating and making "real" among its inhabitants authentic Catholic thought and behavior. At its very best, this "Catholic  ghetto"-as it has been referred to by its Catholic detractors-does  not shield away all non-Catholic influence but allows for the formation of authentic Catholic identity and character development capable of engaging in a critical dialogue with the outside world."

Believe it or not, the first thing which came to my mind was a lecture I had just heard in Dallas at the 23^rd Workshop for Bishops, presented by the National Catholic Bioethics Center (February 14-16, 2011) - A Universal Moral Language: Bioethics and the Natural Law. The first talk of the day was given by Janet E. Smith, PhD., who holds the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. It was entitled “Universality and Natural Law and the Irreducibility of Personalism”. She did a marvelous job all the way around and especially concerning the central role Thomism has to play in seminary education and the intellectual life of the Church. She made a plea for cultivating along side it Wotylian Personalism (think: Pope John Paul II and the Theology of the Body, etc.).

After the talk and discussion, I asked a learned bishop friend of mine whether he shared her enthusiasm for the future of “personalism” and as I had suspected, he did not and for reasons slightly different from my own. In any case, common to both Woods and Smith was a tendency to underline that on the part of Americans of both periods (Progressive Era and today) to balk at St. Thomas’ sweet yoke, not so much as burdensome but chafing a bit at the collar and less than colorful. It would seem that Americans are bent on finding ways of dealing with a minority report or what I consider an elitist cross-section of humanity – those who seek a measure of personal satisfaction in their philosophy. St. Thomas is for me more in touch with the broad base of humanity and might be less emotionally rewarding but for his pragmatism ultimately reaches farther in providing universals applicable to real human psychology.

In any case, I’m wondering what the Catholic Church today needs to do to become for its own folk and for the sake of the salvation of the world more of a “player”. The pluralistic society is a constant; where is the voice or witness to call it to task and effectively shepherd the flock at the same time? For more than half a century, thanks to what my book here describes as “plausibility structure” the Catholic Church in the U.S. was indeed a player, not abstracted from everyday reality, but offering its own and others ready to dialogue the reason for our hope. For our own Catholic people today, where are the “interlocking social institutions” which could channel energy and offer a real option for contributing to the betterment of society? Woods reflects on the stir caused in the media by Dominus Jesus (2000, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), a document which many outside of the Church considered a betrayal of the Church’s perceived post-conciliar stance. Could it not be said, that in failing to clearly identify ourselves (institutionally) we indeed not only risk to but do indeed deceive, failing grievously in our prophetic role for the life of the world?

While not harping for a return to the “good olde days” of terse statements and anathema sits, Woods certainly credits the papacy of Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X with offering the beacon needed by the Catholic Church in the U.S. to sort through a massive and not inarticulate assault on revealed truth. He and certainly I am wondering if we couldn’t use a new “plausibility structure” to weather today’s storm…

Beginning a New Church Year

Governance Skills?

          Would you believe that the First Sunday of Advent has brought me (among other things) to reaffirm in my own life one of those common sense pieces of wisdom that just about everyone seems to know? Not that I didn’t know this before, but I guess I am appropriating it to myself in a new and different way, as never before.

The basic issue could be treated as theological; it certainly has something to do with canon law. It is the question of the importance of “governance skills” especially as a prerequisite for those to be entrusted with the office of bishop in the Church. My new insight, on this 28 November 2010, has to do with the superiority of law to governance skills. The governance of a small group, as an association of like-minded people in the private sphere, as if the Church were a club of hobbyists, does not fit the Catholic Church; it is not and cannot be the Catholic Church. We as Church are by nature expansive; we are and must be public; we are governed not only by by-laws but (and not only in the moral sphere) reflect eternal verities, which should have been clear to Adam and Eve in the Garden, but will certainly be clear when all, from least to greatest, stand before the Judgment Seat of God. Law, social order and commonly held values cannot be dispensed with for “multi-“ anything; it is not so much that I choose my destiny this side of the grave, but our world has an ultimate destiny as willed by the God Who made us for happiness forever with Him in heaven.

          Multiculturalism, as a strategic refusal to bend to this truth, if it is not already totally discredited and branded (obs.) in all dictionaries then it should be yet in my lifetime. This silly notion will certainly merit no more attention in history books than does the politically correct, non-judgmental German term Völkerwanderung, as opposed to the Latin and English notion of barbarian invasion, which renders better the devastating effect these movements of peoples had on the Roman world and civilization as it was known up until that time.

The fact that there is such a thing as the truth which is objective absolutizes truth and makes it what only truth can be. Truth as true takes things out of the dominion of my persuasive skills. Objectivity as idea places truth under the protection of the law and takes law out of the realm of social compromise; law is exalted in its possibilities to more than the least common denominator or other such folly, which can do little more than keep cattle, sheep and little children from sauntering onto busy super highways.

          This “appropriation” of something familiar but in a new and different way started this morning as I read for maybe the 36^th time in my life the passage assigned as the 2^nd Reading for the Office of Readings for the First Sunday in Advent, from St Cyril of Jerusalem, entitled “The twofold coming of Christ”:

“We do not preach only one coming of Christ, but a second as well, much more glorious than the first. The first coming was marked by patience; the second will bring the crown of a divine kingdom…

  At the first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as in a garment. In the first coming he endured the cross, despising the shame; in the second coming he will be in glory, escorted by an army of angels…

  The Saviour will not come to be judged again, but to judge those by whom he was judged. At his own judgement he was silent; then he will address those who committed the outrages against him when they crucified him and will remind them: You did these things, and I was silent.

  His first coming was to fulfil his plan of love, to teach men by gentle persuasion. This time, whether men like it or not, they will be subjects of his kingdom by necessity.”

What struck me as new, at least for me this year, was Cyril’s point in expressing the distinction between the two comings: the first as he says being aimed at teaching by gentle persuasion and the second at establishing Christ’s kingdom by necessity. I remember our canon law professor’s lecture in the basic seminary course on the law talking about the authority of Church law being rooted not in its power to punish but in its basic merit, reasonableness or (to borrow from St. Cyril) its persuasiveness. Later, doing the license courses and seeing the 1983 Code just as it came out with even less possibility of punishing the disobedient than the 1917 Code had had, the point was again made about the authority of the law stemming not from its coercive force but from its reasonableness and sublime purpose. Once again the professor’s argument in favor of a law without a penal code failed to convince me in my youth and zeal of its adequacy for the task of defending the truth and keeping order within the body Catholic. Although I certainly would not have welcomed a return to a situation where the recalcitrant were turned over to the secular arm of the law for the added “persuasion” that corporal punishment could provide, I guess I was skeptical about the truthfulness or rightness of an argument winning the day. The sublimity and rightness of a law did not seem to be enough to command respect or obedience. No doubt my thought, not much different from the reasoning of a righteous teenager, might have been summed up in the maxim: “Fear, once burnt twice shy, is also common wisdom”.

Perhaps I, like so many, have simply turned my back on the law as the primary servant of the truth. From then until today, consciously or unconsciously, I’ve always sort of despaired of the efficacy of the law and hoped for the best from people’s good will and believed that without the “courageous standard bearer” to rally the troops, all is lost. Needless to say, the bishop or parish priest who refuses to take a stance, who gives no directives at all, cannot be: those without principle and the courage to assert and stand up for their beliefs need not apply for positions in the hierarchy. Shepherds must shepherd. But shepherding is not a free creation; it has a physionomy; it is governed by principles.

My point is that, for leadership and Church order in the service of truth as something real, charisma (a persuasive or convincing aura) is not enough. Here and everywhere society, now and always, civilization and Church flourish on the basis of law. Old Testament or New, it is the Law which provides the sheltering Temple near to the altar of the Lord of Hosts, where even the sparrow and the swallow find a home.

In this sense, not only St. Cyril but also the 1^st Reading from the First Sunday of Advent – Year A (Isaiah 2:1-5) started me off on what was a new and different meditation for me starting my Church Year:

“The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In the days to come

the mountain of the Temple of the Lord

shall tower above the mountains

and be lifted higher than the hills.

All the nations will stream to it,

peoples without number will come to it; and they will say:

  ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

  to the Temple of the God of Jacob

  that he may teach us his ways

  so that we may walk in his paths;

  since the Law will go out from Zion,

  and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem.’

He will wield authority over the nations

and adjudicate between many peoples;

these will hammer their swords into ploughshares,

their spears into sickles.

Nation will not lift sword against nation,

there will be no more training for war.

O House of Jacob, come,

let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

          When Isaiah prophesied that the Law would go out from Zion and that the Lord would wield authority over the nations and adjudicate between many peoples he was promising something right, true and good. Peace is the fruit of the rule of God’s Law, of the Law as Truth. In the Coming of Christ Isaiah’s hope was fulfilled as promise. In freedom, we can choose to place ourselves under His Kingship; there are no other options or choices out there in some imagined supermarket of ideas. Ultimately, it is Christ Who will be all in all; it is Christ Who will come on the clouds of heaven. St. Francis Xavier, the great patron saint of the missions, understood the urgency of the task and would have done his best to coerce all those university students he had known in Europe to put themselves to the task of proclaiming this Law of Love. While not condemning others who do not see it as we do, we certainly cannot be complacent about their ignorance of Christ or fail to do our best to preserve those we know and love from having to live the utter chaos of a society from which the Gospel has been excluded or reduced to something it is not, something less than truly good news.

Thinking of past precedents and of how bad things got after the fall of the Roman Empire where reasoned discourse no longer seemed to have its place and St. Benedict, the Father of Western Monasticism and one of the Patrons of Europe, withdrew from regular social intercourse and founded bastions of work and prayer (Ora et Labora), I guess I’m hoping we’re not yet that far gone. I’m hoping that the prayer on the street in front of abortion mills, that the Vespers and Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament in favor of life by the Holy Father in St. Peters will have a transformative power on life. I would hope that a genuine monastic renewal would be one of the factors, but that perhaps despite tragedies like Louvain which no longer wishes to be Catholic, there might be yet Catholic Universities where the truth is served and people still think the great thoughts.

Not wanting to give up hope in the viability of the diocesan structure and presbyterates as colleges surrounding their bishop with counsel and support, I think that it would be good if, as happened early in the 20^th Century and even earlier in modern times, bishops and clergy would organize law-based synods both on the diocesan and provincial levels, which would publish and seek to implement a precis of the law already on the books aimed at countering for our day and time those errors and challenges which are most acute.

In 2008, I expressed the hope that other bishops would follow the example of the Bishop of Tulsa, Oklahoma and give ad Orientem worship a try, as well as inviting priests to adhere to the rubrics for the celebration of Holy Mass as they presently exist on the books. A precis of rubrics, guidelines for sacred music and the like, elaborated for a specific diocese in the context of a diocesan synod, while at the same time touching on the full spectrum of topics which embrace Catholic life as lived today (laws of fast and abstinence, sanctification of Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, education of children in the faith, marriage law, etc.) would be closer to my wish or hope now two years later.

Be it far from me to want to dot the Holy Father’s i’s or cross his t’s, but good example and ordered discourse are the provenance of theologians. As a canonist, I wish to do my part not only for the reform of the liturgical reform but for the sake of the truth. Pope Benedict XVI eloquently appeals to men and women of good will and not only in Europe for a return really to civilization. My point is that he’s doing the part which Pope St. Leo the Great did to save Rome and the Western Empire or at least to slow their demise. I think the barbarians are once again at the door. They may not be on horseback, but it’s getting dangerous just the same for a good christian man or woman to be out and about. Reasoned discourse certainly flourishes under the aegis of law. Let the multi- be banished and the truth reign supreme this Advent!

 “All the nations will stream to it,

peoples without number will come to it; and they will say:

  ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

  to the Temple of the God of Jacob

  that he may teach us his ways

  so that we may walk in his paths;

  since the Law will go out from Zion,

  and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem.’

He will wield authority over the nations

and adjudicate between many peoples;

these will hammer their swords into ploughshares,

their spears into sickles.”

Isaiah is the inspired word of God for then and now.

As One Who Serves

Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper
Holy Thursday, 5 April 2007
Rosary Monastery, St. Ann’s, Port of Spain
Homily


For many of us the ritual foot washing each Holy Thursday helps us identify a powerful and predominant sentiment, let’s call it “gratefulness” or “love”, welling up within us as we see that God’s love for us, made flesh, made seeable and touchable in His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, that this love goes beyond affection for us creatures and lets itself be described by the word “service”.
Holy Thursday is an occasion for us to recognize and say thank you for His greatness, as we confess the truth in love and namely that God indeed has and continually does serve our good and save us. Nobody does it better; no one is better for us than God. This is not an impression or a dream. No, God sent His Son Jesus to us to save us by His suffering and death, leaving us an example of heroic virtue to follow through service of our neighbor, and which never stops to count the cost. We are not only served and saved but we are taught the path we are to follow in living out our daily lives.
The hand extended to us by God in Jesus Christ is not a demand to pay up; it is arms open to embrace; it is service; it is gift. It is Jesus’ gift of the Eucharist to His Church; it is Jesus’ gift of the ministerial priesthood given for the sake of the Eucharist: given for the Church and given for you and for me.
Holy Thursday: it’s another way for Jesus to say to you and to me what he says elsewhere in the Gospel: “Come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome and I will refresh you. Come and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart.” Enjoy, rest in, take your rest in the great mysteries we celebrate this evening through sign and symbol, and be refreshed for life’s journey!
Does Holy Thursday really provide answers? Do the great mysteries we celebrate this evening really deliver? Does the foot washing, does this liturgy, does this day, this night on which Jesus was betrayed, say something to the world? Were Eucharist and Priesthood given to us by God in Jesus to respond to some sort of felt need? Which one would it be? What is it that God, that we His Church, that we the Mystical Body of Christ have to offer to the world? What makes us special? What is it that we have to say to others? The community of the Church, the baptized one and all, as well as all those who seek God with a pure heart should see with our help the rightness, the worth, the inestimable worth of the Sacrifice of the Altar, which recalls and renews for us the Sacrifice of the Cross, offered once and for all for the forgiveness of sins, once and for all to reconcile us with God.
There’s nothing marginal or minority about these mysteries. They are not ethnic or peripheral, not bound to a given culture or race. They are at the center of all human life. They are right and absolutely so for everyone and for all times. The matter really lies there does it not? Is the Bread of Life truly light and life for the world? If that were not the case then when we talk about the practice of the faith of our Baptism are we not talking about an acquired taste for something that may just be a luxury or an option like leather upholstery in a new car? Is the Catholic faith, is the Eucharist, and is Priesthood something essential to life, something we cannot do without “yes” or “no”?
On the night He was betrayed, He (Jesus), He who? (He, the Only Begotten Son of God), took bread, took the cup, said the blessing and then said, “Do this in memory of me.” The Mystery of Faith: We speak to God in Christ and we proclaim: “Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restored our life… Lord, by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free, you are the savior of the world”.
The civil holidays for Easter here in T&T run from this evening through Easter Monday. That you are here this evening probably means that you have not opted for a beach holiday package in Venezuela. With no cards to write and no gift shopping to do, I would ask you to spend as much time as you can with the Lord of your life these days. Go beyond being touched by the ritual of the foot washing. Stir up the flame of faith within you, which goes beyond sentiment.
Sad to say, our world is Godless or idolatrous in lots of different ways. Some people deny God exists; others claim they don’t know Him and have no way to get to know Him; others, with ears itching (as the Scriptures say), go off in search of preachers to fit their fancy. The One True God is much more elemental, much more basic. His priorities are not wealth, beauty, material means, vacation homes, jewelry or power. He washes feet, shows His love, and bestows life everlasting, joy in His presence. Move from sentiment to action, move from meditation and prayer in these holy days to conquest of a world in search of hope. Never apologize for being a good person; never regret seeking holiness, oneness with your Creator and Savior.
On Mount Horeb, God presented Himself flashy to Moses and the Chosen People such that Moses’ face remained radiant with an afterglow, which he hid with a veil from the people. In the New Testament our faces are unveiled to reveal the radiant glory of the face of God’s Only Son, not flashy but beautiful just the same, one like us in all things but sin. The Blessed Mother and Mother Church present themselves in just the same way, not flashy but proclaiming good news. Self-gift after the manner of Jesus Christ, service in His Name, where charity and love prevail, there are we and there our world can and should be, with God now and for ever more.
“When he had washed their feet and put on his clothes again he went back to the table. ‘Do you understand’ he said ‘what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.’”