When we think of the word “adoration,” we think of a high form of love, perhaps the highest. Theologically, we equate adoration with latria, the worship and love due to God alone. In the vernacular, to say “I adore you” is to indicate an intense and high form of love.
Liturgically, adoration of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament indicates a period during which one enters into the experience of loving God and gazing upon Him in that love. The Lord, too, extends a gaze of love to us, as is beautifully stated in the Song of Songs: Behold, he is standing behind our wall, He is looking through the window, peering through the lattice (Song 2:9).
In all these examples there is a sort of intense, yet resting love expressed; a love that is tender and deep, quiet and fixed.
However, the greatest act of adoration the world has ever known exhibits little of this quietude or restfulness. Indeed, one might call this act of adoration quite stormy; though intense, it was not restful. In fact, you might not consider it adoration at all. But consider this reflection by Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.:
Adoration of infinite value was offered to God by Christ in Gethsemane when he prostrated himself saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as though wilt.” Christ’s adoration of the Father recognized in a practical and profound manner the sovereign excellence of God … The Savior’s adoration continued on the cross (The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Vol 2, p. 251).
At the heart of this most perfect act of adoration was obedience, a heart that not only loved God but out of that love wanted only what He wanted. True adoration of God includes both a loving acknowledgment of His excellence and a submission of our will to His in loving obedience. Out of love we offer our whole life to God.
Thus adoration is more than mere feeling, no matter how intense; it is sacrifice; it is the willing offering of one’s very self as an act of love to God, who has so loved us. No greater love is there than to lay down one’s life for God and for those we love in Him.
Is obedience and sacrifice what you and I mean when we say that we are going to Eucharistic adoration or when we say that we adore God? The most perfect act of adoration was love expressed as obedience and sacrifice.
Perhaps like you, I have to see people I love and care about through some difficult periods in their lives. One neighbor and parishioner recently lost her eight-year-old daughter to cancer. A number of my parishioners are seeking work and praying daily for it, but no employment offers have been forthcoming. Still others cry out for relief from any number of different crosses. I, too, have lots of things for which I pray; sometimes I get discouraged or even angry when God seems to say, “No” or, “Wait.”
There is one thing that I have learned about true prayer: I have to be humble, very humble. The Scriptures say, We do not know how to pray as we ought (Romans 8:26). Many other translations of this text say even more emphatically, We do not know what we ought to pray for. Yet we are often so sure that we know what is best for us or best for others. But what we find is that the outcome we want is not necessarily the best one for us. This insight requires great humility. We see so little and understand even less. Though it is not wrong to ask for some particular outcome, we need to do so humbly. God alone knows the best answer and when to give it. Recognizing this requires humility.
There is an old teaching that basically says this: Many think of prayer as trying to get God to do your will, but true prayer is trying to understand what God’s will is and then doing it. I heard an African-American preacher put it this way: “You’ve got a lot of people that talk about naming and claiming and calling and hauling, but there’s just something about saying, ‘THY will be done!’ that we’ve forgotten.”
It’s not wrong to ask. The Book of James says, You have not because you ask not (James 4:2). But we do need to ask with great humility because we don’t really know what’s best. James and John came to Jesus one day seeking high positions in the new administration (Kingdom). Jesus said to them, You do not know what you are asking (Mk 10:38). And the truth is, we don’t.
So ask, but ask humbly.
St. Augustine writes beautifully on this matter in his letter to Proba:
Paul himself was not exempt from such ignorance … To prevent him from becoming puffed-up over the greatness of the revelations that had been given to him, he was given … a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, he asked the Lord three times to take it away from him … even such a great saint’s prayer had to be refused: “My grace is enough for you, my power is at its best in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).
So when we are suffering afflictions that might be doing us either good or harm, [we ought to remember that] we do not to know how to pray as we ought. [B]ecause they are hard to endure and painful, because they are contrary to our nature (which is weak) we, like all mankind, pray to have our afflictions taken from us. [But], we owe this much respect to the Lord our God, that if he does not take our afflictions away, we should not consider ourselves ignored and neglected. But [rather, we] should hope to gain some greater good through the patient acceptance of suffering. “For my power is at its best in weakness.”
These words are written so that we should not be proud of ourselves … when we ask for something it would be better for us not to get; and also that we should not become utterly dejected if we are not given what we ask for, despairing of God’s mercy towards us. [I]t might be that what we have been asking for could have brought us some still greater affliction, or it could completely ruin us through the corrupting influence of prosperity. In such cases, it is clear that we cannot know how to pray as we ought.
Hence if anything happens contrary to our prayer [request], we ought to bear the disappointment patiently, give thanks to God, and be sure that it was better for God’s will to be done than our own.
The Mediator himself has given us an example of this. When he had prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by,” he transformed the human will that was in him because he had assumed human nature and added, “Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it.” Thus, truly, by the obedience of one man many have been made righteous (St Augustine Letter to Proba (Ep 130 14.25ff)).
One of God’s greatest gifts is that of sleep, especially deep, peaceful sleep. Alas, like many hyperactive and overstimulated moderns, I sometimes struggle to find deep sleep. My mother often said that she was a light sleeper, so maybe I also got it from her. But when deep sleep does come, what a wonderful gift! A deep night’s sleep can be so refreshing, truly one of life’s great pleasures.
Some of the Psalms speak of sleep. This Psalm speaks with gratitude of the gift of God to fall asleep quickly and to sleep deeply:
I will lie down in peace and sleep comes at once for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety (Ps 4:9).
Another Psalm speaks to us of how God blesses us while we sleep:
In vain is your earlier rising, your going later to rest, you who toil for the bread you eat, when he pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber (Ps 127:2).
What a magnificent thing to think of God bestowing blessings on us while we slumber! The image I have in mind is that of a parent coming to the bedside of a sleeping child and gently kissing him on the forehead, making sure he is all tucked in for the night.
Yet another Psalm speaks of the blessing of not having to get up in the middle of the night (to take care of you know what):
I will bless the LORD who gives me counsel; even in the night he admonishes my kidneys (Psalm 16:7).
Yes, an unusual blessing that God would keep watch over my kidneys! Many of the translators, finding this peculiar, translate it that God keeps watch over our hearts at night. Now that’s a nice thing, too, but the first meaning of the Hebrew word kilyah is “kidney.” There’s something earthy and practical about God keeping watch over our kidneys. Thank you, Lord! Not having to arise several times at night allows me to sleep more deeply. Thank you, Lord, for watching over my kidneys!
So yes, restful and peaceful sleep is such a great gift, a blessing itself, and also a source of blessings. Grant us, good Lord, a restful night and a peaceful slumber!
Dr. Ralph Martin, commenting on a teaching by St. Therese of Lisieux, has this amusing and consoling reflection on the relation of sleep and prayer:
Therese shares about her own long struggle to refrain from falling asleep during prayer times and offers some interesting advice:
I should be desolate for having slept (for seven years) during my hours of prayer and my thanksgivings after Holy Communion; well I am not desolate. I remember that little children are as pleasing to their parents when they are asleep as well as when they are wide awake; I remember, too, that when they perform operations, doctors put their patients to sleep. Finally, I remember that: “the Lord knows our weakness, that he is mindful that we are but dust and ashes.
[Dr. Martin observes]: Those of us who are parents know that we sometimes love our children even more when they finally go to sleep! Therese’s message is one of great confidence in God’s love for us. He knows our weaknesses and loves us anyway. If we just do the little bit we can, he’ll be able to continue the process of transformation even if prayer is sleepy and dry … little by little, even imperfect prayer will change us (Dr. Ralph Martin, The Fulfillment of All Desire, pp. 283-284).
Of course it is also clear that one of the more unpleasant experiences in life is to have a restless or sleepless night, especially if it is accompanied by anxiety or fear. In the worst years of my struggle with anxiety in my mid-thirties, I was actually afraid to go to sleep. I would often fall asleep and then within an hour be startled awake, racked with fear and wrestling with a demonic presence in my room. Somehow, in falling asleep, all my psychological and spiritual defenses seemed to shut down and I would awaken to terrors and fearsome assaults. Those were the difficult years when I feared, as late night drew on, that it was time to try to sleep.
The Book of Job well describes the nights I once experienced:
When I say, “My bed shall comfort me, My couch shall ease my complaint.” Then you [O Lord] affright me with dreams, and with visions terrify me. In bed I say, “When shall I arise!?” But the night drags on; And I am filled with restlessness until the dawn (Job 7:13-14; 4).
I used to keep a printed version of this on my nightstand. And in those dark nights at three in the morning I read it out loud as a kind of complaint to God.
Thanks be to God, I am delivered from those awful times. Thank you, Lord! But I am sympathetic to those whose bed provides no comfort and whose couch permits no sleep. It is an awful thing and a difficult cycle to break. I can only, with sympathy, encourage them to make the journey I’ve had to make: growing in trust, finding greater serenity, and taking back what the devil stole—the gift of a restful night and the peace and serenity the Lord wants to give.
Ah, yes, the gift of restful sleep and quiet nights! It is a beautiful gift to seek from the Lord each night. In the night prayer of the Church, there are these beautiful lines:
Protect us Lord as we stay awake, watch over us as we sleep, that awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace.
The office ends with the beautiful wish: May the Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death. The Salve Regina having been sung, the lights are switched off and we rest in the arms of God.
Here is one of the most beautiful Night Prayer Hymns:
God, that madest earth and Heaven, darkness and light;
Who the day for toil hast given, for rest the night;
May Thine angel guards defend us,
Slumber sweet Thy mercy send us;
Holy dreams and hopes attend us, all through the night.
When the constant sun returning unseals our eyes,
May we, born anew like morning, to labour rise;
Gird us for the task that calls us,
Let not ease and self enthrall us,
Strong through Thee whate’er befall us, O God most wise!
Guard us waking, guard us sleeping, and when we die,
May we in Thy mighty keeping all peaceful lie;
When the last dread call shall wake us,
Do not Thou, our God, forsake us,
But to reign in glory take us.
For most of us, attachments to this world are THE struggle that most hinders our spiritual growth. 80% of the spiritual life is a battle about desire and the fundamental question, “What do you want most, the world and its pleasures, or God and his Kingdom?” So easily this world gets its hooks into us and we become attached to it. It is hard to break free from inordinate desires.
But what are attachments, and what are they not? Are there ways we can distinguish attachments from ordinary and proper desires? What are the signs that we are too attached to someone or something? To address questions like these, I want to turn to a great teacher of mine in matters spiritual, Fr. Thomas Dubay. Father died a few years ago, but he left us a great legacy of teaching through his books, audio recordings, and programs at EWTN. In addressing these questions, I would like to summarize what he teaches in his spiritual classic, Fire Within, in which he expounds on the teachings of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross.
The following excerpts are from pages 133-135 of Fr. Dubay’s book. Father’s teaching is shown in bold, black italics. My remarks are presented in plain, red text. You may wish to read only the excerpts from Fr. Dubay’s text to begin with, and then only read my commentary if you want some elaboration.
I. WHAT ATTACHMENT IS NOT: Sometimes it is easier to say what a thing is not than what it is. Fr. Dubay disabuses us of some wrongful and sometimes puritanical notions that are neither biblical nor Catholic, since they reject as bad what God has made as good and as a blessing. Scripture says, God created [things] to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:3-4).
First of all, attachment is not the experiencing of pleasure in things, not even keen, intense pleasure. The complete avoidance of pleasure is neither possible nor advisable in human life … There is no doubt that the pleasures of the five senses easily lead to a selfish clinging to them for their own sakes, but nonetheless, the pleasures themselves are not blameworthy. God made them, and they are good.
The remarks here are very balanced. Of itself, taking pleasure in what God has made is a kind of thanksgiving and surely an appreciation of what God has created and given.
Yet, due to our fallen nature, we must be cautious that our experience of pleasure, like all our passions, does not become unruly, improperly directed, or take on a life of its own. If we are not mindful, pleasures can divert our attention from the Giver (and His purpose) to the gift alone.
Consider that a husband properly enjoys intense pleasure in his intimate experiences with his wife. Correctly understood, he can hardly fail to enjoy this, other things being equal. But these intimate moments have a meaning beyond themselves. They summon him to greater intimacy, appreciation, and love for his wife and ultimately for the God who created her. Further, these moments draw him to share his love and appreciation through an openness to the fruit this love will bear in his children.
Hence, the gift of intimacy is wonderful and to be enjoyed to the fullest, but it is not an end in itself. When it becomes its own end and exists in our mind only for its own sake, we are on the way to attachment and idolatry.
Nor is possessing or using things an attachment to them. We must all make use of things in this world to accomplish what God has given us to do. God is surely pleased to equip us with what we need to do His will, to build the Kingdom, and to be of help to others.
Nor is being attracted, even mightily attracted, to a beautiful object or person an unhealthy attachment. As a matter of fact, we should be drawn to the splendors of creation, for that is a compliment to the supreme Artist. Saints were and are strongly attracted to the glories of the divine handiwork and especially to holy men and women, the pinnacles of visible creation.
A gift we should pray for is the gift of wonder and awe, wherein we appreciate and are joyful in God’s glory displayed not only in the greatest and most visible things, but also in the smallest and most hidden. We are also summoned to a deep love of, appreciation for, and attraction to the beauty, humor, and even quirkiness displayed in one another.
But here, too, these things are meant to point to God; they are not ends in themselves. It sometimes happens that we fail to connect the dots, as St. Augustine classically describes here: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love You! For behold, You were within, and I without, and there did I seek You; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty You made. You were with me, but I was not with You. Those things kept me far from You, which, unless they were in You, would not exist” (Confessions 10.27).
So, once again, to be attracted by beauty is, of itself, good. But it is not an end; it is a sign pointing to the even greater beauty of God and His higher gifts.
II. WHAT ATTACHMENT IS: St. John of the Cross [observes] that if anyone is serious about loving God totally, he must willingly entertain no self-centered pursuit of finite things sought for themselves, that is, devoid of honest direction to God, our sole end and purpose. St. Paul makes exactly the same point when he tells the Corinthians that whatever they eat or drink, or whatever else they do they are to do all for the glory of God … (1 Cor 10:31)
St John of the Cross explicitly states that he is speaking of voluntary desires and not natural ones‚ for the latter are little or no hindrance to advanced prayer as long as the will does not intervene with a selfish clinging. By natural desires the saint has in mind, for example, a felt need for water when we are thirsty, for food when hungry, for rest when fatigued. There is no necessary disorder in experiencing these needs … to eradicate these natural inclinations and to mortify them entirely is impossible in this life.
Of course even natural desires can become unruly and exaggerated to the point that we seek to overly satisfy them and they become ends in themselves. Fr. Dubay makes this point later on. St. Paul also lamented that there were some whose god was their belly and who had their mind set only on worldly things (cf Phil 3:19).
[More problematic and] especially damaging to normal development are what John calls, “habitual appetites,” that is, repeated and willed clingings to things less than God for their own sake. And here we come to some critical distinctions.
[W]e may ask when a desire becomes inordinate and therefore harmful. I would offer three clear signs.
The first is that the activity or thing is diverted from the purpose God intends for it. This is very common today with sex and with many matters related to the body.
The second sign is excess in use. As soon as we go too far in eating, drinking, recreating, speaking, or working, we show that there is something disordered in our activity. We cannot honestly direct to the glory of God what is in excess of what He wills. Hence, a person who buys more clothes than needed is attached to clothing. One who overeats is clinging selfishly to food.
Yes, beer, for example, is a sign that God loves us and wants us to be happy. A couple of beers is gratitude; ten beers is a betrayal. God gives in abundance to be sure, but He does so more that we can share with the needy and the poor than that we should cling to it selfishly as though it existed as its own end.
Sharing spreads God’s glory. As St Paul says, “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God” (2 Cor 4:15). And later he says, “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (2 Cor 9:11). Thus the abundance of God is directed to the spreading of His glory and to the widening of thanksgiving, not as an end in itself, that we should hoard it. God’s gifts point back to Himself.
The third sign of attachment is making means into ends. We have one sole purpose in life: the ultimate, enthralling vision of the Trinity in glory, in our risen body. Everything else is meant in the divine plan to bring us and others to this final embrace with Beauty and Love … As soon as honesty requires us to admit that this eating or that travel, this television viewing or that purchase is not directly or indirectly aimed at Father, Son, and Spirit, we have made ourselves into an idol. We are clearly clinging to something created for our own self-centered sake.
This is often the hardest of the three to discern, but I think the heart of the difference between a thing becoming an end rather than a means, is the question of gratitude. How consciously grateful are we to God for the things and pleasures we enjoy? Do they intensify our gratitude or do they merely distract us from thinking about God?
Further, do they help me in my journey upward to God or do they merely root me more deeply in this passing world?
Another (scary) question is, “How easily could I give this up if I discovered that it was hindering me from God or that God no longer wanted it in my life?” This is hard because we really enjoy certain things. But the key question is not that we enjoy them, but whether they lead us to God. And we must be honest about this, avoiding both puritanical notions and self-justifying ones.
Here, too, an important thing to seek from God is not merely the strength to give up things (with a sour face and a bad attitude) but that through His grace we actually begin to prefer good things in moderation to distracting things in excess. If we let God go to work, the good begins to crowd out the bad in an incremental, growing way.
[Therefore:] an attachment is a willed seeking of something finite for its own sake. It is an unreal pursuit, an illusory desire. Nothing exists except for the sake of God who made all things for Himself. Any other use is a distortion.
A text that was read at daily Mass last week features Jesus describing remarkable blessings received by the disciples. He states these blessings as a simple and obvious fact for them, blessings never before received by anyone!
Do you see your life this way? Are your blessings obvious to you? Do they distinguish you from those who never knew Christ? Does your relationship with Jesus Christ grant you obvious transformation or is that just misinformation and exaggeration?
Consider the following, which Jesus said to the disciples:
Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it (Lk 10:22-24).
What did they see and hear?
At one level, they saw and heard the fulfillment of hundreds of prophesies of the Messiah. What prophets pointed to and longed to see, these disciples were seeing fulfilled before their very eyes.
But more richly, what they saw and heard was the experience of having their lives changed—by having met, seen, and heard the Lord Jesus. They felt the God-sized hole in their heart beginning to fill, the deepest longings of the heart being satisfied. For the first time, they began to experience what the first Christians called “grace.”
Grace is the free gift of God that ushers forth in us a life-changing, transformative relationship with Jesus Christ. And by this relationship we begin to experience the life, love, joy, and serenity of God. God’s thoughts and priorities gradually become ours. We think more as He thinks and love more as He does. We start to see our life change. Sins are put to death and many particular graces spring from the sanctifying grace we receive. We become more joyful, confident, serene, chaste, patient, loving, forgiving, and generous. We are more courageous. We love the truth more and proclaim it with love and clarity less than with fear; we proclaim it with greater conviction and knowledge.
In short, by sanctifying grace and the actual graces that flow from and support it, we see our life changed. The old Adam dies and is buried in Baptism. In that same baptism we rise with Christ to new life, to His life, to the life of the New Adam; this becomes ours.
It was to the early apostles and disciples that Jesus spoke the words above. Indeed, they had seen their lives changed by the Lord whom they had met. His teachings set their hearts ablaze. They saw wonders and witnessed countless scriptures fulfilled. They heard a Word that unsettled them at times, but also undeniably gave them peace. They would never again be the same; they had met Jesus, the desire of the everlasting hills. For indeed, Scripture had said,
The blessings of thy father are strengthened with the blessings of his fathers: until the desire of the everlasting hills should come (Gen 49:26).
And now they looked upon Jesus, whom their forbearers had longed to see. Here was the desire of the everlasting hills. And they were blessed; they were whole, complete, and changed (all but the one who would betray Him).
But again, for us the question remains. Are your eyes and ears blessed?Is your life really all that different from the prophets, who longed to see what you see but did not see it, who longed to hear what you hear but did not hear it? Has your life been changed? Have you met Christ? Are you different and blessed, changed and transformed?
Many people I talk to wonder how such a text of Christ’s is really true in their own lives. They know they are blessed somehow in a way that exceeds the faithful of the Old Testament, but they are not sure how. Is their life really all that different from that of a Jew who lived in 290 B.C.? Jesus says it is and calls it being “blessed.” The theologians say it is and call it “grace.” But honestly, is there a noticeable difference?
There is! And any saint will swear it is so. So, too, will those who have met Christ and are experiencing deeper prayer and the first stages of contemplative prayer. Yes, I will testify and say to you, along with the saints and those blessed with deeper prayer, Jesus is real! He is changing my life and filling the God-sized hole in my heart. Yes, Jesus is real; grace is real. The difference is enormous; the desire of the everlasting hills has come. Blessed, blessed are we.
But why do so many, including faithful Catholics, never experience this? Perhaps because they have never been taught to expect it! Yet of course Jesus says it in the text above. But, sadly, few priests preach new life or total transformation. Low expectations bring poor results.
But then, too, there is also the mediocrity that sin so easily causes in us. This stymies the work of the Holy Spirit in us and means that many of us never attain to the normal Christian Life. Consider a text from Fr. Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange:
How is it possible that so many persons, after living forty or fifty years in the state of grace, receiving Holy Communion frequently, give almost no indication of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in their conduct and actions, take offense at a trifle, show great eagerness for praise, and live a very natural life?
This condition springs from venial sins which they often commit without any concern for them; these sins, and the inclinations arising from them, lead the souls toward the earth and hold the gift of the Holy Spirit as it were, bound like wings that cannot spread. These souls lack recollection; they are not attentive to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which passes unperceived … (The Three Ages of the Interior Life, Vol II, Tan Publications, P 233)
So, even venial sins have a way of clouding the lightsome work of the Holy Spirit in bringing us to the new life that prophets and kings longed for, that desire of the everlasting hills. Too easily do we minimize venial sins simply because they are not mortal. And while this is good, venial sins too easily accumulate like soot on a window and hinder the light from getting through.
The problem with venial sins is that because they are light, we make light of them. A BB is not a bowling ball. But thousands of BBs can add up to more than a bowling ball and weigh down the soul. Venial sins can be to us like the death by a thousand cuts. Individually, a venial sin is a small cut, but the collective loss of blood from many of them can leave one increasingly lifeless.
Fr. LaGrange also details another issue that hinders spiritual growth and the enjoyment of the new order grace:
If silence does not reign in our soul, if the voice of excessively human affections troubles it, we cannot of a certainty hear the inspiration to our interior Master. For this reason, the Lord subjects our sensible appetites to severe trials and in a way crucifies them that they may eventually become silent or fully submissive to our will animated by charity. If we are ordinarily preoccupied with ourselves, we shall certainly hear ourselves or perhaps a more perfidious, more dangerous voice which seeks to lead us astray. Consequently our Lord invites us to die to ourselves like the grain of wheat placed in the ground (Ibid).
So the lack of living a reflective life stymies growth and the inheritance of the blessings that the Lord offers. Most people today are in a big hurry. Most people reflect little, if at all. There is little or no interiority. An unreflective life is unmoored. It has little in the way of a destination and little sense of how to progress let alone measure that progress.
But the blessings of the Lord require a stillness and a recollection that says, “Here am I, Lord. Speak, your servant is listening.” Here is the quiet place where we meet the true desire of our heart and of the everlasting hills. Here is where we can finally hear the Lord say, “Blessed are your eyes and blessed are your ears. Indeed, blessed are you.”
In our hurrying about and our preoccupation with the world and our own self, we forfeit many blessings. Dulled in mind by overstimulation and lack of recollection, we cannot have eyes that are blessed because they see the Lord, or ears that are blessed because they hear the Lord, who alone can satisfy.
Tragically, as Fr. LaGrange notes, we hear only our own self and other even more sinister voices. Indeed, how pitiable it is to be no different from our ancestors, who lived before Christ and had not grace!
Don’t block your blessings! Find time to pray and reflect. Find time to seek Him, who alone can fill the God-sized hole in your heart.
Are you blessed more than were the kings and prophets of old who longed for what you have? Only if you have it! Pray and work for that blessedness that Jesus described:
Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it (Lk 10:22-24).
In the Letter to the Ephesians, St, Paul has this to say:
And [Christ] gave some as Apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the extent of the full stature of Christ, so that we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming. Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ (Eph 4:11-15).
Coming to maturity is a basic task in the Christian walk. We are expected grow and come to an adult faith. The Letter to the Hebrews has something very similar to say:
You are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil (Heb 5:11-14).
However, we live in times and in a culture in which maturity is often significantly delayed. In fact there are many in our culture who never grow up. I have argued elsewhere that one of the defining characteristics of our culture is its fixation on the teenage years. In psychological terms, a person with a fixation is one who has not successfully navigated one of the stages of childhood and thus remains stuck to some degree in the thinking and patterns of that stage. Our culture’s fixation on teenage issues and attitudes is manifest in some of the following:
Irrational aversion to authority
Refusal to use legitimately use the authority one has
Titillation and irresponsibility regarding sexuality
General irresponsibility and a lack of personal accountability
Demanding all of one’s rights while avoiding most of one’s responsibilities
Blaming others for one’s own personal failings
Being dominated by one’s emotions and carried away easily by the passions
Obsession with fairness, evidenced by the frequent cry, “It’s not fair!”
Expecting others (including government agencies) to do for me what I should do for myself
Aversion to instruction
Irrational rejection of the wisdom of elders and tradition
Obsession with being and looking young, aversion to becoming or appearing old
Lack of respect for elders
Obsession with having thin, young-looking bodies
Glorification of irresponsible teenage idols
Inordinate delay of marriage and widespread preference for the single life
Now it is true that some of the items in the list above have proper adult versions. For example, the “obsession with fairness” can mature and become a commitment to work for justice; aversion to authority can mature to a healthy and respectful insistence that those in authority be accountable to those whom they serve. You may take issue with one of more of the above and may wish to add some distinctions. It is also true that not every teenager has all of the issues listed above. All that is fine, but the point here is that the culture in which we live seems stuck on a lot of teenage attitudes and maturity is significantly delayed on account of it.
Some may also allege a kind of arrogance in my description of our culture as “teenage.” I accept that it is a less-than-flattering portrait of our culture and welcome your discussion of it. But if you reject my categorization then how would you describe our culture? Do you think that we live in a healthy and mature culture?
The call to maturity and the role of the Church – In the midst of all this is God’s expectation (through His Scriptures) that we grow up, that we come to maturity, to the fullness of adult faith. Further, the Church is expected, as an essential part of her ministry, to bring this about in us through God’s grace. Notice that the Ephesians text says that Christ has given Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, to equip the holy ones unto this. The Church is thus expected to be “the adult in the room.” She is to summon us to live responsible, mature lives. She summons us to be accountable before others, to be sober, serious, and deeply respectful of God’s authority over us by living lives that are obedient to the faith. She teaches us, by God’s grace, to master our emotions and gain authority over our passions. She holds forth for us the wisdom of tradition and the teachings of the Scriptures, insisting on reverence for these. She insists on correct doctrine and (as the text from Ephesians says) that we no longer be infants, tossed by the waves of the latest fads and stinking thinking, and that we not be swept along by every wind of false teaching arising from human illusions. We are to be stable and mature in our faith and judge the world by it.
Yes, the Church has the rather unpleasant, but necessary, task of being the adult in the room when the world is mired in things teenage, often exhibiting aversion to authority and rules, and crying out that orthodox teaching is “unfair” or “old-fashioned.”
But here we encounter something of an internal problem. The Church has faced the grave temptation to “put on jeans” and adopt the teenage fixations. Sadly, not all leaders in the Church have taken seriously their obligation to “equip the holy ones for the work of ministry … until we all attain to the unity of faith and … to mature manhood and the … full stature of Christ.” Preferring popularity to the negative cries that our teachings are “unfair,” many teachers and pastors have succumbed to the temptation to water down the faith and to tolerate grave immaturity on the part of fellow Catholics. Although it would seem that things are improving, we have a long way to go in terms of vigorously reasserting the call to maturity within the Church. Corruptio optimi pessima (the corruption of the best is the worst). Clergy and other Church leaders, catechists, and teachers must insist on their own personal maturity and hold one other accountable in attaining it. We must fulfill our role of equipping the faithful unto mature faith by first journeying to an adult faith ourselves.
The Church is not composed only of clergy and religious. Lay people must also take up their proper role as mature, adult Christians, active in renewing the temporal order. Many already have done this magnificently. But more must follow and be formed in this way. Our culture is in dire need of well-formed Christians to restore greater maturity, sobriety, and responsibility to our culture.
By God’s grace, we are called to be the adult in the room.
I realize that this post may cause controversy. But remember, this is a discussion. I am not pontificating (even though my name is Pope). I am expressing my opinion and trying to initiate a discussion based on a text from Scripture. What do you think?
Here’s a video (from a more mature time) on one aspect of maturity: proper self-reliance. It’s a little corny, but it does model something that is often lacking in families and in youth formation today. We should not usually do for others what they can and should do for themselves. Learning consequences as well as the value and need for hard work is part of maturing. And while there is an appropriate reliance to have on others and a complete reliance to have in God, there is also a proper self-reliance in coming to maturity.
One of the (many) troublesome aspects of the modern age is the demise of friendship. While the terms “friend” and “friendship” might be bandied about rather easily today, they do not usually mean friendship in its deeper and original sense. Rather, we use the terms to refer to “acquaintances” rather than friends. True friendship has a depth, history, and stability. It involves some sort of commonality of life and a deeper knowledge of the other.
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, drawing on the Thomistic tradition, has this to say about friendship:
Every true friendship, St Thomas tells us, implies three qualities: it is first of all the love of benevolence. By which a man wishes good to another as to himself … [Further] Every true friendship presupposes the love of mutual benevolence, for it is not sufficient that it exist on the part of one person only …. Lastly … friendship requires a community of life (convivere). It implies that people know each other, love each other, live together, spiritually at least, by the exchange of most secret thoughts and feelings. Friendship thus conceived tends to a very close union of thought, feeling, willing, prayer, and action (Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life, Vol II, pp. 188-189 Tan Publications).
Notice the emphasis on sharing private thoughts and feelings, as well as the close union of thoughts, feelings, actions, prayers, and wills. True friendship involves more than the knowledge of acquaintances.
A director of a clinic for the treatment of psychological matters once recounted that as he conducted entrance interviews for those beginning an inpatient treatment program, he would ask them how many friends they had. He would often receive expressive answers such as “Oh, I have lots of friends!” Their answers indicated that they did not really understand what he meant. So he would rephrase the question: “How many people do you share deeply with? How many people on this planet know almost everything about you? How many know that you’re here at this treatment program and why? Did any of them help to get you here?” Questions like these tended to generate blank stares.
Fewer and fewer people have relationships of this deeper nature. True friendships, with all the qualities described above, are increasingly rare in our culture today.
There are many reasons for this.
First, many people today are quite mobile. It is not unusual for people to move several times during their life. Fewer and fewer people grow up, live, and die in the same town. And even those who do have long roots in a certain community will tell you how dramatically it has changed over the years.
We are also very mobile in terms of our daily activity. Because of the automobile, trains, and especially planes, many no longer limit their activities to their home town or places nearby. They may commute a couple of hours each day and be involved in activities far away from their neighborhood churches, schools, doctors, and hospitals. They may not even frequent the neighborhood shopping centers. It seems there is little opportunity or need to interact with people who live close by.
And then there is the pace of life. We all seem to be in a big hurry to get somewhere else. The idea of lingering over a cup of coffee seems rare. The few times we do take our time to converse and such things, it is usually in loud bars where communication is actually quite difficult. And if perchance we are in a setting where we are in the presence of others for a lengthy period (e.g., a subway, train, or plane) most people are focused on their cell phones. We seem more interested in information about people far away, many of whom we have never even met.
None of these factors is the stuff that leads to the development of deep, lasting friendships. Most people in our lives are merely acquaintances. We know very little about most of the people we interact with, even those we encounter every day. Even family relationships are often cursory and shallow. Long dinners or extended conversations are rare as family members run off to practices, meetings, shopping, and work.
The lack of deep friendships in the true sense of the word causes many issues. True friends help form our personalities, completing what we lack. True friends rebuke sins and other troublesome quirks we can develop. True friends encourage and enrich us. Without true friends we remain incomplete. Without the necessary rebuke that friends can give, we suffer from pride and other egotistical character defects.
Scripture both commends friendship and warns against regarding mere acquaintances as friends.
Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up (Ecclesiastes 4:11).
Let your acquaintances be many, but your advisers one in a thousand (Sirach 6:5-6).
A faithful friend is a sure shelter, whoever finds one has found a rare treasure. A faithful friend is something beyond price, there is no measuring his worth. A faithful friend is the elixir of life, and those who fear the Lord will find one. Whoever fears the Lord makes true friends, for as a man is, so is his friend (Sirach 6:14-17).
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy (Prov 27:6)
A true friend loves at all times, And a brother is born for adversity (Prov 17:17).
A man of too many friends comes to ruin, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother (Prov 18:24).
Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother who is far away (Prov 27:10).
Therefore our friends should not necessarily be numerous. We ought to be selective in what we share with whom. But all the more reason, then, that we should have close friends with whom we share almost everything.
Do you have close friends?
Are there people who know almost everything about you?
Are there people who can rebuke you, correct you, or summon you to humility?
Are there people about whom you know almost everything and whom you can rebuke with love for their own good?
Is there anyone who looks to you for advice, and who can turn to you for necessary encouragement?
Is there anyone whom you love and esteem for his or her own sake, not merely for what you can get?
Is there anyone whom you are not anxious to impress, to whom you can speak the truth, and who will speak to you truthfully?
Is there anyone who would care enough about you to be present with you in great adversity?
Is there anyone whom you would gladly assist in his or her time of need?
If so, who? Please consider naming your true friends in your heart.
I pray that you do have true friends. But true friendship is rare in this changing, hurried, and polemic culture. Consider well the need for true friends, for deep friendships that are stable and lasting. We all need friends for the reasons stated and more.
What has happened to friendship in our culture? How do you see it?
This song is a rather good description of true friendship.
One of the beatitudes taught by Jesus is often misunderstood, largely due to the popular translations of it from the Greek text: “Blessed are the pure of heart,” or “Blessed are the clean of heart.” Let’s look at three facets of the beatitude: its fundamental meaning, its focus, and the freedom it gives.
I. Fundamental Meaning – While the words “pure” and “clean,” are not inauthentic translations of the Greek word καθαρός (katharos), a more literal translation is “to be without admixture, to be simply one thing.” Hence it means to purely and simply be that one thing with nothing else mixed in. Another helpful way of translating the Greek μακάριοι οἱ καθαροὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ (makarioi hoi katharoi te kardia) is “Blessed are the single-hearted.”
The reason I suggest that the phrase “single-hearted” is more descriptive is that in modern English the words “pure” and “clean” tend to evoke a moral sense of being free of sin, of being morally upright. And while this is surely a significant part, being single-hearted is a deeper and richer concept than simply being well-behaved, since to be well-behaved is the result of the deeper truth of being one thing, of not being duplicitous, of not having a divided heart.
II. Focus – Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange says, Simplicity is opposed not only to duplicity, but to every useless complexity, to all that is pretentious or tainted with affectation … Christ says to us “If thy eye be single thy whole body shall be lightsome” (Mat 6:22); that is, if our intention is upright and simple, our whole life be one, true and luminous, instead of being divided, like that of those who try to serve two masters … The perfect soul is thus a simplified soul … willing things only for God (Three Ages of the Interior Life, Tan Publishers, Vol 2, pp. 162-163).
The image of the rose window in my church (see upper right), which I have used before on this blog, is a good illustration of what it means to be single-hearted. It does not deny that life has different facets, but rather shows that every facet of life is ordered around and points to Christ, is subsumed in Jesus and His heavenly kingdom along with the Father and the Spirit as the ordering principle of every other thing. And thus career, family, marriage, finances, spending priorities, use of time, where one lives, and any other imaginable aspect of life is subsumed in Christ, points to Him, and leads to the Lord and His kingdom on high.
So the single-hearted life is a well-ordered life. Each step, each decision leads in the right direction. St. Paul said, This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). While Paul made many journeys to many places, he was really on one journey and headed to one place. This simplified and ordered his life. He was single-hearted.
A simple life is a well-ordered, singly focused life. But duplicity introduces many complexities and disorders. Jesus says, He who does not gather with me, scatters (Luke 11:23). Unfortunately, this image of scattering or being hindered describes many Christians whose lives are not ordered on the one thing necessary, who are not single-hearted, whose hearts are not focused on the one thing they should be. Such people have lives that are often scattered, confused, disordered, and filled with a jumble of conflicting drives that hinder them from the true goal of life. The double minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8).
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that simplicity is related to the virtue of veracity, since it opposes the duplicity that James denounced (Summa Theologica IIa IIae q. 109 art. 2, the 4th).
III. Freedom – Finally, being single-hearted, being pure of heart, not only orders our life but it also grants us freedom. In modern Western thinking, freedom is often equated with doing more rather than less. Freedom is interpreted as “being able to do anything I please.” This attitude has led to the kind of jumbled mess that much of modern life has become: a tangled web of contrary desires with little unifying direction or purpose. We tend to think of freedom in abstract terms and hence we tend to get abstract and disconnected results.
But biblically and spiritually, freedom is the capacity or ability to do what is right, best, and proper. And thus, paradoxically, freedom often means doing less, not more.
Being single-hearted helps to focus us and to pare away a lot of the unnecessary baggage of modern life. Life gets simpler, and simplicity is a form of freedom that allows us to focus on what is important more so than on what is urgent. We discover that what often seems to be urgent is not really so necessary or urgent after all. Regarding the good options in life, St. Paul said, All things are lawful to me, but not all things are expedient (1 Cor 6:12).
Pray for the gift to become more single-hearted. More than ever in this modern age, with its myriad distractions and endless possibilities, we need to learn the lesson of the rose window and center our lives on Christ, the one thing necessary.
I have used the video below in other posts. Please pardon a brief profane word in the clip, but it does help emphasize the point being made.
When we think of the word “adoration,” we think of a high form of love, perhaps the highest. Theologically, we equate adoration with latria, the worship and love due to God alone. In the vernacular, to say “I adore you” is to indicate an intense and high form of love.
