Transcription
Thanks for tuning in to Everything Catholic again. And for this one, I've put together five clips for our reflections and lesson together.
Now, let's start with the first one on the list, which is this. Humility is losing one's way of reasoning. Listen to this.
>> The most perfect, the most sublime humility is that of losing one's way of reasoning, and of not discoursing on the why and on the how, but of abandoning oneself to God in one's own nothingness. And in so doing, the soul without realizing it finds itself immersed in God. This in turn produces in the soul the most intimate union, the most perfect love toward its highest good.
Now what does Jesus mean here when he says humility is losing one's way of reasoning? Does he saying abandon logic? No. Is he saying do not use your marbles? No. What does he mean by this? It does not suggest that one ought to abandon reason which is a gift from God. In fact, two gifts of the Holy Spirit are knowledge and understanding. That's using your smarts. So losing one's way of reasoning does not suggest that one ought to abandon reason before God and his representatives.
Take for example the blessed virgin Mary who humbly asked the angel Gabriel when he said that she would be the mother of God, "How can this be?" She was reasoning. See, faith and reason are two sisters that work together. They're both an integral means of discerning the will of God. So here the reason abandoning your reason is to abandon that form of rationalism not reason rationalism which seeks enlightenment without the guidance of faith. This is where we come up with these hackneed theories of Bible interpretations that suggest there were no miracles. They can all be explained scientifically. This is the sin of rationalism. It poo poos God's miracles, his strength, his power, his his omnipotence. That's rationalism. And that unfortunately is a plague in these modern times of ours, these end times.
So humility is very powerful. He tells her it's the most that which most exalts God. The virtue which most exalts God is humility. Why does it mostly exalt God more than any other? Because we give everything to God. We take nothing to our for ourselves. We do not take any credit and apply it to ourselves. All the merit is God's. Certainly we can develop through our cooperation and human effort that which God has given us. But even the effort engaged in developing is God's grace. Everything St. Paul says is a grace.
And the more we approach the light, the more we understand that daughter, here is the immense difference between my humility and the humility of creatures, even that of all of my saints, which pales before mine. The creature is always a creature and does not know, as I know, how great is the burden of sin. Although heroic souls who follow my example have offered themselves up to suffer the pains of others, their pains are not different from those of other creatures as they are made of the same clay. Furthermore, the creature is restricted within the boundaries in which God placed it. It cannot go out of those limits within which it has been circumscribed by God. But my divonized humanity had no limits. My humanity was filled with appropri and humiliations to the point in which they overflowed externally.
What does that mean? What does it mean when he says my humiliations overflowed externally? It means they became infectious as if they were almost efficacious grace moving other souls to be humble. My humanity was filled with humiliations to the point in which they overflowed externally. This is why heaven and earth tremble before my virtues. And the souls who live me, who love me, unite themselves to this staircase of my humanity, so that at so as to ascend and take in a few little drops of my virtues. My divinity, united to my humanity, operated prodigies at every step, at each word and with each work of mind. And yet I voluntarily constrained myself within the boundaries of my humanity. I showed myself as the poorest. I went so far as to mingle with sinners themselves. I could have accomplished the work of redemption in very little time and even with one single word. Yet during the course of my many years of hardships and sufferings, I wanted to make man's miseries my own.
Now, why did Christ do this if he could have done it with one word? So as to give us, as St. Augustine says, grace upon grace. He could have just given us grace. We could have been redeemed and that's it. But he gave us a super abundance of grace through his sacrifices, humiliations, appropri. He went far beyond the mile required of him to save us. And this is why St. Augustine says like Felix Kulpa happy fault through the incarnation Christ raised human nature to a greater level than it would have enjoyed had Adam and Eve committed no sin. Think of that. Christ's incarnation because he did not just say one word but went beyond the mile inquired of him elevated human nature far higher than it was placed in the garden of Eden. Elevated far far higher than the state of holiness it enjoyed in the garden of Eden.
The scriptures the letter to the Hebrews says there is no atonement of sin without the shedding of blood. There is no atonement of sin without the shedding of blood. Why does blood have to be shed? Because it is the essence of man. It enables the body and the soul to synergetically operate in God's one eternal will. Remember, there's a psychossematic indwelling in us when we live in God's divine will, just as there was one in Adam and Eve. God operated not just in Adam's will, but in his heartbeat. Christ did not just operate in Adam's mind but in his life blood and the Holy Spirit did not just operate in Adam's memory but in his breath. So here we have a psycho which is mind s body Greek s is body flesh in Greek is sarks but s is the body. So psychossematic means mind body indwelling. So the shedding of the blood is the payment to Satan in for the sin that Adam and Eve committed. Christ paid the wage of sin and death by the shedding of his blood on behalf of all of us. That's how he redeemed us. But he's only dies once as the letter to the Hebrew says.
And that subsequently is the reason why Moses could not be admitted to the promised land. He saw it from a distance. You know, back then, you know, if you go today to the promised land, Canaan, that area, Israel, that part, and now Israel of the Old Testament is not the Israel today. Completely different animal. Israel was much bigger back then in the old day. It was a different community of believers as well. And those who worship different gods obviously were put to death by the Mosaic law or they were excommunicated. You go there today, the holy land where Christ suffered, died, was buried, where he was born or was resurrected, ascended. If you go there, you see nothing but like desert, some trees say where how could this be the place flowing with milk and honey? But back then it was flowing. It was like it was like the the um the Amazon. It was like the Amazon. I mean like Egypt too. Remember where the pharaohs were in Moses. Today you go there it's a big desert. But back in the day that was where the Nile was fertile. There was vure everywhere in Egypt in the time of Moses. Same thing with the Holy Land.
So Moses was able to see it from a distance but he was never able to enter it. Why? Because God told him in Refodm to strike the rock and it would produce water. But God said, "Strike it once." Who is the rock? What is the symbol of the rock? Christ is the rock. He's the cornerstone. He says, "And the rock is struck only once. He dies only once in atonement for all sin." So when Moses struck at once and water did not immediately issue forth and the people were pressing him, they wanted to kill him because they didn't have what they wanted. They wanted at one moment they wanted meat. Then they wanted bread. Then they wanted then God sent them quail when they wanted quail. Then he sent them mana when they wanted bread. They were never happy. What could have taken them six weeks to go from Pharaoh's presence to the holy land took them 40 years because of their obstinacity. God deliberately allowed them to miss course over and over again till finally all the sinners were eliminated. So Moses struck the rock twice. He felt the pressure of the people and he was impatient and on account of that God was upset with him. And then what if it shoot forth? Naturally, it would have done it if he did it once and he waited a little bit. But God was testing Moses. He tested him a lot.
>> And then for the next clip, let's listen to this reminder on the need for us to pray for Christian unity.
>> Well, there there's a lot of confusion in the church and in the world today because of the lack of loyalty to the will of God on the part of many Catholics and Christians. You find today that there's a lot of division among Christians and they're very much polarized because of non-Christian issues, because of politics and this shouldn't be the case. So I think as Christians, the most important thing for all of us to focus on today is unity. We have to focus on what really is important and strip ourselves of these non-essential whether they're political or geopolitical or or um nonspiritual issues and focus on really what matters. And what matters now is the soul is the spirit. Then matters the body. If we have our souls right with God, the wall could fall apart and we're fine because we're in peace. We're at peace with God and all of us should be like that. So I think the most important thing for us right now as a church is unity among Christians. We have to know that we are one but mystical body of Christ. And we have to encourage one another despite our differences to be one in Jesus Christ in one common belief in his resurrection in his divinity and uh pray for unity. And this is exemplified. and on a concrete scale through the unification of the dates of Easter which the pope and the patriarch of the Orthodox churches were two years ago a year and a half ago tried to work on they're still trying to work on it pray for unity of churches always united of course with Jesus Christ and the Roman pontiff unity among all Christians
>> and here's on the difference between spiritual guidance and spiritual direction
>> people asked me to give spiritual direction from a distance and I told them My preference is I offer spiritual guidance not direction. The difference is guidance is not being a spiritual director guiding your daily life. Guidance is intermittent. It's like once a month once every two months and it's principles given upon which the person makes their own decision. Direction is more hands-on and it's more personal. And that's why I think people who get spiritual direction should do it from someone who's physically there at least from time to time because nothing can replace physical presence of another. And um God will provide for those who sincerely ask the Lord for help. Fina was looking for a spiritual director and she couldn't find one in her diary of divine mercy. So she was told to pray a novena to the Holy Spirit and she did so. And in day nine, she found her spiritual director. So you might consider something like that as well. But don't skip the days when you do an OB and do it in a way where you're sincerely asking God for a spiritual director to help lead you to the heights of holiness and to people. Not just doesn't have to be just one person, but to sources, good solid sources that lead you to the church, to Mary, to the Jesus in obedience to the church Jesus shed his blood for.
>> And I've also included this clip of him talking a little bit about making vows.
>> When a person makes a vow, they should never do it lightly. Number one, they should do it after some preparation, after some reflection, deliberation, knowing that it's a serious commitment. That's the first step. So, if someone just makes a vow flippantly, it doesn't have much weight. It's not a mortal sin to break it because they didn't invest anything in it and they don't know what a vow is really to begin with. But when a person takes it seriously like Louisa who was prepared by the blessed mother to do so in this book of the month of May, she progressively educated her and trained her on how to make a vow which eventually Louisa would do toward the middle of the book. But um if you get to that position where you and disposition where you know it's serious and you commit yourself to the Lord, it all depends on the material of the vow whether or not it's grave or non-grave. If it's Lord I vow never to commit another deliberate venial sin and you do it's not a mortal sin because it's not your intention to do so but you're influenced by various factors that lead you to do so. You may be partially in culpable wholly culpable or not all not at all culpable. It depends. And if the material however is grave then it's a grave sin. So if you say to yourself, I'm going to get married in the sacrament and commit myself to my husband and never break my vow and you break it. Well, of course that's a mortal sin because the material is grave. But if the vow made has the material that is not grave, it's not a mortal sin to break it even though you don't intend to. Don't be so quick to make a vow. have like a novena or something of days of preparation asking God and Mary for the gift to maintain the vow because a vow is something that should never be taken lightly and it's nothing that should be rushed into should be something that should be done with what Jesus explains in the gospel preparation remember he says a man who sets out to do something like build a house on sand and then it collapses becomes the laughing stock of others. He says if you set to do something, make sure you calculate it first. Make sure you don't just do it flippantly. Do it with deliberation, with calculation. So that when it's done, it's done for the Lord. It's done to last forever. So when you Yeah. make a vow, make it seriously.
>> I hope all of you have learned a lot from the video so far. And this will be the last clip in the video. Listen to this. But a quick lesson on how to go from the passive to the int active from the active to the passive um intellect when come when go when doing discursive prayer meditative prayer contemplative prayer John of the cross and St. Hannibal de Francha talk about contemplation being not possible continuously. Okay. So always being in a contemplative state is not possible in this earthly life. Why is that? It's because of our finite and imperfect human condition. The beatotific vision doesn't exclude that. Only the intuitive vision does which we enjoy on earth. Once we get to the botific vision is perpetual contemplation. Okay. So we are going in and out of discursive and contemplative prayer. The passive and the active um uh intellect if you will as you refer to them and you we need both in this life in order to spiritually grow. And that's the reason why we can stay in one or the other or we shouldn't. Consider a muscle. The muscle will not grow unless it has both rest and resistance. This does not apply apply in the next life. There's no resistance. The spirit is like the muscle on earth. There must be both rest, that's the passive intellect, and resistance, that's the active intellect. Both must work. And that's how the muscle grows. That's how the soul grows like a muscle by this res going uphill and going downhill. You're pedaling when you go up. That's resistance. And you're coasting when you're going down. That's resting. So there will be times when God will give you a cross and a time will he will give you rest, consolation. This is supposed to happen throughout your life till the day you die. If it stops, something's wrong with your spiritual life. That means you stop growing. You cannot grow if you plateaued in the resting state or in the active state. You have to have both in this life. So this is a fall. So that we living in the divine world brings us to a piece of like nirvana or perpetual um perpetual indifference to things in such a way that we don't experience joys or sorrows. We're completely indifferent to everything. That's not the Christian message. or the Christian life. Look at Jesus Christ. He never appeared like that. He showed the whole gamut of human emotion from anger in the marketplace to weeping over Lazarus and over Jerusalem to complaining that only one one of nine one of 10 lepers returned. He expressed all this these expressions of joy, happiness, sorrow, anger, but always in the will of God. And these external challenges that caused him to express himself in this way were tests just like he was tested in the desert. So when we go from the active to the passive, passive to the active intellect, this is something that will constantly happen in life. It's not like we get to one and we stop. We won't. And thank God for that because that helps us keep growing.
>> Well, that is all for the video this time. Again, thank you so much for taking a little bit of your time to be here with us. Always remember that if ever you have any feedback or suggestion, please don't ever hesitate to let us know in the comments below.