It seems to me to be perfectly clear and explains how saints became saints.Such must be understood as the Church understands it …such does NOT mean that one cannot love things in this world.
John uses “world” in various senses.
God so loved the world…
It has become clear that what you are putting forth, in part, is different from what everyone else is. Is this verse to counter the verse that Sarcelle quoted? Because it doesn’t.“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him.”
-1 John 2:15
Yes is perfectly clear as the Church understands it. It must be understood as the Church understands it.It seems to me to be perfectly clear and explains how saints became saints.
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A complete abandonment of worldly pleasure is probably impossible given our fallen nature. Feeling pleasure out of love is perfectly OK to me, but this type of love is Heavenly love and ought to be sought. I hold much love in me! Again, once somebody experiences spiritual pleasure, all other pleasures fall short. Would you call John the Baptist scrupulous?It has become clear that what you are putting forth, in part, is different from what everyone else is. Is this verse to counter the verse that Sarcelle quoted? Because it doesn’t.
**What you seem to believe seems more than asceticism but is veering towards scrupulosity. I don’t know that it’s true scrupulosity but something close. **
If I say I love chocolate cake, do you see that as loving something in the world or what? If I say I love the smell of fresh cut grass? Can you say either of those (or something similar, if you don’t care for sweets or have allergies) or do you feel like you are not giving God his due?
You didn’t answer my questions. Why?A complete abandonment of worldly pleasure is probably impossible given our fallen nature. Feeling pleasure out of love is perfectly OK to me, but this type of love is Heavenly love and ought to be sought. I hold much love in me! Again, once somebody experiences spiritual pleasure, all other pleasures fall short. Would you call John the Baptist scrupulous?
I do not quite understand which of the questions you are referring to. I’m not really addressing.You didn’t answer my questions. Why?
These questions:I do not quite understand which of the questions you are referring to. I’m not really addressing.
Okay.I also believe that we are to fulfill all that God asks of us. This is where I can assure you that God desires different people to follow different paths, some of which requires asceticism.
No, I don’t. I do think that you are either misunderstanding it or not explaining it well because many PPs have given a better balanced, more Catholic description of asceticism.Do you think that asceticism is a waist of time?
What’s not okay is, for men especially, to be effeminate. St. Thomas Aquinas defines effeminacy as being an inability to separate one’s self from pleasure in order to pursue something arduous. In our culture, this inability is absolutely rampant.It’s OK to buy and drive an expensive car, I think, but is undesirable to feel any pleasure from it. The same with food; eat that you may gain the strength to better serve God, and not to gain pleasure from it.
Desiring a nice car because one is effeminate?What’s not okay is, for men especially, to be effeminate. St. Thomas Aquinas defines effeminacy as being an inability to separate one’s self from pleasure in order to pursue something arduous. In our culture, this inability is absolutely rampant.
It’s not bad to have pleasure or even to desire it. The problem occurs when we have a disordered attachment to pleasure. A man who can enjoy something without necessarily caring if he didn’t have it is in a good position. But our problem is that most of us will turn into a three year old having a fit the moment we have to do something that causes us to suffer and is not utterly pleasurable, easy, or completely comfortable. Think about that the next time you’re driving in traffic.
Using your example of a car: many people desire nice cars because, ultimately, they’re effeminate. The pleasure of being respected or of having enjoyment is so strong that they can’t separate themselves from it. They feel a compulsion towards it. They can’t do something as “arduous” as having a plain car, because the pleasure they get from a nice car is too strong, and they can’t resist pleasure.
But if *they *were strong and not effeminate, yes, they might desire a nice car and be able to enjoy it. But there isn’t a compulsion towards it, and neither do they particularly care if they acquire such a car or if they have to settle for something more plain and inexpensive. The same goes for food. They can say no and mean it. If they have to deal with being hungry or of resisting a temptation to eat three pounds of chocolate, they man up and do that.
The issue here is that they lack a certain vice, and they’re able to exist in a lack of comfort because they haven’t been entertaining themselves to death since childhood.
There are only two things God asks of us and they were given by Jesus Christ.I do not quite understand which of the questions you are referring to. I’m not really addressing.
I also believe that we are to fulfill all that God asks of us. This is where I can assure you that God desires different people to follow different paths, some of which requires asceticism.
Do you think that asceticism is a waist of time?
Because he posted on another thread about being tired of sex, and asked if anyone else was. No one was and no one understood why a single man would ask a group of people, including married people, if they were tired of sex.Robert, you’ve been skirting my question. What does your spiritual director say about you desiring to live a more ascetic life?
And why are you posting to a forum like this about your ascetic views? Did not Our Lord command us not to go about in ashes and sackcloth when we fast, i.e., not to draw attention to our asceticism?
There are only two things God asks of us and they were given by Jesus Christ.
- To love God with our entire strength, our entire heart and soul
- To love your neighbor as yourself.
While such is a kind of summation of sorts -those being the “greatest commandment and the other which is like it”…there is much involved in all that (the commandments, professing and living the Catholic Faith with faithfulness, obedience to the Teachings of the Church, taking up your cross, giving up all you own (at least via detachment), self denial, giving to the poor, being a disciple etc etc etc ) --all are part of loving God with all ones heart and mind and soul and strength and ones neighbor…(I noted this for some readers my not realize this)
Can we love God with all our soul, heart, mind and strength while indulging in worldly pleasure? And with such a strong love for God, are not we also to mortify the self and all its worldly affections?There are only two things God asks of us and they were given by Jesus Christ.
Anything else you want to pile upon yourself is your own doing and not what God desires.
- To love God with our entire strength, our entire heart and soul
- To love your neighbor as yourself.
Jim
How does this apply to women?What’s not okay is, for men especially, to be effeminate. St. Thomas Aquinas defines effeminacy as being an inability to separate one’s self from pleasure in order to pursue something arduous. In our culture, this inability is absolutely rampant.
It’s not bad to have pleasure or even to desire it. The problem occurs when we have a disordered attachment to pleasure. A man who can enjoy something without necessarily caring if he didn’t have it is in a good position. But our problem is that most of us will turn into a three year old having a fit the moment we have to do something that causes us to suffer and is not utterly pleasurable, easy, or completely comfortable. Think about that the next time you’re driving in traffic.
Using your example of a car: many people desire nice cars because, ultimately, they’re effeminate. The pleasure of being respected or of having enjoyment is so strong that they can’t separate themselves from it. They feel a compulsion towards it. They can’t do something as “arduous” as having a plain car, because the pleasure they get from a nice car is too strong, and they can’t resist pleasure.
But if *they *were strong and not effeminate, yes, they might desire a nice car and be able to enjoy it. But there isn’t a compulsion towards it, and neither do they particularly care if they acquire such a car or if they have to settle for something more plain and inexpensive. The same goes for food. They can say no and mean it. If they have to deal with being hungry or of resisting a temptation to eat three pounds of chocolate, they man up and do that.
The issue here is that they lack a certain vice, and they’re able to exist in a lack of comfort because they haven’t been entertaining themselves to death since childhood.
Obeying God and living a holy life will be different for each individual. I do not see a commandment to be all cookie cutter Catholics. Self-denial as practiced by one may look different than the self-denial practiced by the other.While such is a kind of summation of sorts -those being the “greatest commandment and the other which is like it”…there is much involved in all that (the commandments, professing and living the Catholic Faith with faithfulness, obedience to the Teachings of the Church, taking up your cross, giving up all you own (at least via detachment), self denial, giving to the poor, being a disciple etc etc etc ) --all are part of loving God with all ones heart and mind and soul and strength and ones neighbor…(I noted this for some readers my not realize this)
Yes of course - there is great variety in ways of faithfully following Christ in the Church.Obeying God and living a holy life will be different for each individual. I do not see a commandment to be all cookie cutter Catholics. Self-denial as practiced by one may look different than the self-denial practiced by the other.
Who said anything about “indulging in worldly pleasure”? He was not saying one ought to do that. Such would be “disordered” use of the gifts God has given us.Can we love God with all our soul, heart, mind and strength while indulging in worldly pleasure? And with such a strong love for God, are not we also to mortify the self and all its worldly affections?
.
Catechism:
III. POVERTY OF HEART
2544 Jesus enjoins his disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone, and bids them “renounce all that [they have]” for his sake and that of the Gospel.335 Shortly before his passion he gave them the example of the poor widow of Jerusalem who, out of her poverty, gave all that she had to live on.336 The precept of detachment from riches is obligatory for entrance into the Kingdom of heaven.
2545 All Christ’s faithful are to "direct their affections rightly, lest they be hindered in their pursuit of perfect charity by the use of worldly things and by an adherence to riches which is contrary to the spirit of evangelical poverty."337
IV. “I WANT TO SEE GOD”
2548 Desire for true happiness frees man from his immoderate attachment to the goods of this world so that he can find his fulfillment in the vision and beatitude of God. "The promise [of seeing God] surpasses all beatitude. . . . In Scripture, to see is to possess. . . . Whoever sees God has obtained all the goods of which he can conceive."344
scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a0.htm to see full context