Detachment From Creatures

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Tis_Bearself

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I’m hoping some other Catholics with more knowledge can provide insights on this topic. I keep reading in various stories of saints and other famous Catholics this concept of “detachment from creatures” that we must have in order to enter Heaven. If that means we do not place any humans (or other “creatures”) above God in our hierarchy of love, I understand that. For example, if your spouse was somehow preventing you from loving God by leading you into sin, then you need to detach from your attachment to that person and put God first. If you somehow loved your dog so much you put it above God, obviously you need to detach from that creature. If you have a religious vocation and join an order, obviously your vows need to come first and you can’t just disobey orders from your superior because your sister is demanding your attention back home.

I’m confused as to whether it means anything beyond that, though. Many of the saints clearly had deep platonic friendships with other saints and spiritual advisors/ advisees, or an affection for their parents that continued through their life (Padre Pio’s father visited him, and his late mother appeared to him when he was dying), or even an attachment to a spouse and/or children. It doesn’t seem to have gotten in the way of their relationship with God. Also, it’s hard for me to believe that those in Heaven are completely detached from us on earth given that the saints pray for us, occasionally “come down” to help us, and some people on earth have even reported getting help or a message from their own family members who presumably are in Heaven. Love for one’s deceased family members is also a powerful motivator to both pray for souls (praying your loved ones into heaven often leads to praying for other souls and an improved prayer life in general) and a motivation to live right in hopes of one day being reunited with your loved one in Heaven. Some of the official Catholic prayers for the dead on the USCCB site even mention this.

Even beyond this, I’m not sure how to balance “detachment” with a healthy appreciation for the glory of God in all the things he made, which includes creatures of all types. St. Francis was obviously a very holy guy, yet he and many other saints showed an appreciation for God’s animal creatures, while still putting God first.

What’s your understanding of “detachment from creatures”? Anyone have some wisdom to share on this concept which I am not quite following at this moment? Thanks in advance.
 
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Bear, do any of these links help? Link 3 is from a SaintThe
I do think that quite often the deep attachment to detachment often resides saints who were priests, nun, religious, who didn’t have children and spouses, to whom a high level of commitment is required

http://www.integratedcatholiclife.o...ripture-reflection-detachment-from-the-world/

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2016/07/31/understanding-detachment/

http://www.catholictradition.org/Classics/sanctity3.htm

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a0.htm

Bear, as always, we look to Jesus.
Jesus had friends, Mary, Martha, Lazarus. He wept over his friend’s death and the grief of Lazarus’ sisters, even though He know he’d raise Lazarus. He cared enough about a father’s grief, that He raised a little girl to life, he could have said, 'get over it, she’s in a better place" he freely returned her to her father…detachment obviously doesn’t mean not loving our family and friends…and
 
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Yes, I forgot to say in my post that Jesus obviously had deep human attachments to Mary, Joseph, and his apostles and good friends, but I was thinking of that too. Thanks for all the reference links, I’ll definitely check them out.
 
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I think it means this–in our earthly relationships we want something out of it, like love and appreciation and status, etc. and these wants can blind us to that we only need the approval of God. Also, other people can and do fail us, and then we get mad. Or we want their approval so much we fall into sin to get it.
So I think that detachment means to love, but not in a grasping way, always ready to relinquish the relationship to God.
 
God bless, Bear. Yes we have all these things in mind, thinking deeply but it’s hard to cover everything in one try. I’m forever re-editing… I don’t know the integrity of a couple of the sites, but they all carry something helpful.
I agree about the Saints. Saint Therese and her family were deeply devoted. There are two large volumes of letters between the sister, aunts, uncles during Therese’s life in the convent. At the same time, where her detachment showed was in asking no special favors, not special time with her beloved elder sister who was her superior. Later she wrote to her sister:
“Oh my little mother, how I suffered! I could not open my heart to you, and it seemed you no longer knew me!” [As a postulant, Saint Therese was appointed ‘aid’ to her sister Pauline, Sister Agnes of Jesus. Therese’s mother had died of breast cancer when Therese was very young, so Pauline had been a mother to her:. What is possible in a contemplative’s convent won’t work for a spouse. That kind of self discipline might well lead to divorce.]
Different states of life sometimes require different kinds of detachment.
The responsibilities and difficulties in family life require more than enough self-discipline and charity to promote detachment from selfishness.

In her final painful illness, her sisters, all but one of whom was in that Carmel monastery, spent loving time together. They noted down what was said, and there is a book with those records also. “Last Conversations”, I think it’s called.
Saint Teresa of Avila/Jesus, a very practical and holy, woman had some wonderful friendships. There was a difference between these mutually beneficial friendships, and the more frivolous ones that existed in her monastery before the reform.

There is a balance we must find, but it can feel confusing…and I found it particularly so when reading St John of the Cross.
At the same time, he wrote:
“A spark of pure love is more precious before God, more useful for the soul, and richer in benedictions for the Church than all other works taken together.” (St John of the Cross)
 
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To love with detachment, it seems such a foreign concept to us. How do we love something or someone and yet maintain a healthy detachment? I think it has to do with our sense of “possession”. Can we love without feeling something belongs to us? Without feeling we own or are entitled to?
 
Bear I’ve struggled and either I say something very simple to God, or there’s a deluge…eg “self Denial” supposedly to lead to detachment.

Jesus, my life is not always centred on You. Wincingly, I drag across the broken glass of trial and duty, inspired by Your willingness to accept responsibilities, regardless of joy or calamity. For in the self-denial of serving others we are freed from selfishness and sin.

You died agonisingly for each person, obeying God’s will despite Your human vulnerability and dread. I stand humbly at the foot of Your salvation, its totality of giving shaming my reluctance to sacrifice self wholly to You. I offer my own will, constrained though it is by cowardice and compromise.

Jesus, how can I carry the cross that Your true followers must bear? How shall I emerge to embrace true commitment in ministry of others? You who are Son of God, sweated blood in contemplation of such abandonment of self. You asked the Father that you might forgo such a burden.

Were not Your divine origin, Your innocence, and Your sacred prayer, enough to save and sanctify us? Yet in anguished awareness deeper than mine or any other’s, You complied humbly with the Father’s will to sever our bonds of unlove, with the shattering of every fibre of Your humanity. In Your example, therefore, I place my trust and my cause for others’ and my salvation and blessing. I give myself to You, trying to bargain, raising reluctant, pleading eyes to Your thorn-encircled face: “Not this, Lord! I cannot face this loss, that difficulty…”

Dear Jesus, I appeal to You for grace to relinquish my fearful grip, releasing to You the full extent of my bondage. Will You lift this burden with its splinters of lack of charity and trust? I offer the grief of a soul betrayed by itself, in plea for Your forgiveness, healing and for my freedom to love You above all and others as myself, in harmony with Your will

You know me in my human vulnerability and perfidy, my striving and hope—for You love each person with such depth that I flickeringly suspect its intensity and intimacy. If only I believed, understood and reciprocated! Please accept the teared jewel of this fragile communion of my desire with Yours. Please so draw me into Your love that it is revealed through me in glory and wonder!

You emptied Yourself to become subject to human limitation and suffering. You struggled against ignorance and selfishness, against dullness of spirit and mind in others, battling unto death the powers of evil for our sakes. Battle thus within me also, Jesus, defeating in each moment of my life the power of sin.

With Your flooding love, please drown my protests, pacify my fears and raise me from anxiety regarding pain, grief, disgrace, loss and abandonment. Live in me the cheerful, creative dedication owed to the duties of my vocation and relationships. Lead me to follow Your path all my life, then to share in Your eternal life with all my family, and friends.
 
Our western society teaches us to look out for number one. We admire a Mother Theresa, but in our own lives we’re keeping score (“I made his favorite dinner five times, and he can’t even do ___ for me?!?”).

I’m not sure it’s humanly possible , but I think we can with God’s grace…
 
St. Bernard of Clairvaux has an excellent paper on “Love” (“On Loving God”). I’ll try to give a very brief summary:
  1. We begin to love what we perceive (through our senses) - things and people - to be good for us. We love what looks good and pleases us to look at; we love what tastes good; we love people who make us feel good in some way, and so on.
  2. By divine gift (Baptism), we can receive a share in God’s love: holy charity. If we receive this, we begin to love God as our best and greatest benefactor: God is most good for us, and so we love Him first of all - BUT we also love many other things that are good for us. So we begin to love God and other things and other people, but - because they are good for us. That is, we begin to love God and others, but selfishly, in a “mercenary” manner (that is, we do it for the “payoff”).
  3. If we grow in knowing God, and who He is, we begin to learn that He is lovable in Himself, because of who He is. We begin to love Him not because He is good for us, selfishly, but because of His great beauty and goodness in Himself, for His sake and not for our sakes. We begin to love Him because He deserves our love, our worship, our service.
    BUT - still some mercenary love, some love for God for selfish reasons, still persists.
  4. The highest perfection of love can happen if a person loves God with his whole heart, and loves others (and himself) only in God and because of God and for His sake. These souls have “detached” themselves of self-seeking and they seek above all, and with their whole hearts, what God wants, and His glory, and to serve Him because He deserves it and NOT because it is good for “me” also.
This “journey” to perfect love is the path of renunciation of inordinate self-love, and detachment of disordered love of passing, temporal things. Our journey is to God and to the eternal things of God - His Kingdom.
 
Dear Bear ( if I may call you that) this subject has always been quite simple for me. Love for God has and will always come first. To me it is of course a different kind of love than I have for my mother, husband and children and of course my beloved pets. Would I leave them for Jesus as He Himself said, YES., Was that an easy yes, no but the love for Jesus is Eternal and if you really feel His Love in your heart, you no what I mean, The love I have for family is my world here, a gift from God, my children are the most precious gift God has ever given me here. His Son the Greatest Gift for all He did’ FOR ALL OF US. You can balance detachment look to your heart. You are right about those in heaven not being completely detached from us, it has already been proven that the saints " come down " to help us as well as family members, yet we know this is by the power of God and another gift from Him to allow this. Remember He wants us to love all His creatures. For the Love He has put into our lives here on earth I return my LOVE to HIM… God Bless You Bear:🦋.
 
Let’s not start the Pets in Heaven debate on here, please. I already have my mind made up on that as Pope Paul VI addressed the matter long ago, and also, when I wrote the thread I was thinking of my husband and parents first and foremost.

I was not called by God to the religious life where I would have to leave my parents behind, and He sent me a very good husband, so my main question was whether I would have to pursue a detachment from affection for them. I would of course prefer to not detach from the pets either, but it’s not quite on the same level.
 
I agree with Bear about debating here, I suggest you start a thread on the subject and I will be one of the first to give you my opinion on the video ( which you should include} I’ll be looking for it. God Bless.🦋
 
A key part of the idea is undue attachment. What qualifies as undue must be discerned.

It’s a big question in some ways that cannot easily be answered in a quick manner, it seems to me.

There are different kinds of detachment. Detachment from sin is an absolute necessity for salvation. But there are other levels of it.

Anything that could hinder the pure love of God would be a place where we can grow in detachment.

One of the biggest and probably one of the hardest form of detachment is that from detaching from our own will.

I am quite attached to my own will and it’s a hard thing for all of us to let go of!!!

I doubt I will get to a concise definition here. But Francis, for example, had love and affection for Clare, but it would have shown excessive attachment to see her too often. They saw each other very rarely. I can’t see the slightest thing that Francis was attached to in an inordinate way. He was the saint who literally gave away all that he had and followed the Lord. He even gave away his good health to an exceedingly high degree. Most of us are quite fond of our good health.

There are numerous examples in story of a soul of the higher forms of detachment that can be practiced by a person but that seems not to be what you are asking about here.

I’m attached to my books to some degree. I like them, though I hardly need them all. It would hurt me a little to give them away.

Some of us have our little pet affections for something that is not good, like gossiping, or some other such trifling thing that hinders us from perfect love of God.
 
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JamalChristophr said:
But Francis, for example, had love and affection for Clare, but it would have shown excessive attachment to see her too often.
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Yes, but Francis and Clare were called to religious life. They were not in the same position as a married couple. The Lord does not call all of us to religious life. Some of us are called to some degree of family life. Therefore, other than not letting our attachment to a spouse drive us away from our belief in all the things in the Creed and the practice of our Faith, the idea of detaching from one’s spouse, or telling someone “once you see God you won’t need anyone but Him and that includes your spouse, child, mom etc” rings a bit hollow.
 
I do believe we are to love God above all of creation, including persons. But obviously we deeply value family, friends, all others whom we are commanded to love as we love ourselves. We are commanded to love and care for creation and creatures (not starting in on pets).

I think this idea of detachment is a sort of hyperbole designed to remind us that our life in this world is temporary and that we need to keep our commitment to Christ at the center of our lives. We love everything else as a gift to us from Christ. Including people. This is also why creation is good. It is from Christ. But this life is passing. It is simply about not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed or consumed by cares, affections, concerns in this world. Including specific attachments.

There is also this idea of loving Christ in created things, persons. Seeing the love, joy of Christ in them. All of that leads you back to Christ and you treat everything accordingly, not for its own or your sake. Through God’s eyes.

Think of detachment the same way you would fasting. Not the same thing as cutting off. Putting into perspective.
 
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CajunJoy. you misunderstand and I apologize for that I really meant what I said about starting a thread I think it is a topic many are interested in, especially me so please 🦋:butterfly:think about it. GOD BLESS
 
Well, you are not called to “detach” from your spouse but you are called not to be inordinately attached to them. 🙂

I’m not married so I"m not sure I can best elucidate it. I think some people want to cling to their spouse with all their power and place all their hope and happiness in them. That is where those people would need to learn to be more detached, I suppose.

I was just thinking on a verse from Saint Paul that many Christians may not ponder very deeply. Maybe they do. Anyways…

This little passage came from a short article I found on detachment by Marcelino d’Ambrossio…

.… The Church teaches that we can serve the Lord and grow in holiness through any honest task, whether we be single or married. But St. Paul also tells us that the Christian engaged in secular activities must inwardly detach themselves from these pursuits and relationships: “those who have wives should live as though they have none . . . buyers should conduct themselves as if they owned nothing, and those who make use of the world as though they were not using it, for the world as we know it is passing away.” (I Cor. 7:29-31)


Honestly, though, Bear, I think you understand the concept perfectly well. Just one thing I was thinking of… the word “creatures” can mean any created thing. I suppose it can mean any THING, concrete or abstract, that is not God.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
… “detachment from creatures” …
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I quickly skimmed the replies and didn’t see the following point addressed:

In this context, “creatures” means any created thing. In modern usage, it means animals, or else movie monsters, but in theological writings it means any created thing, anything but God, and even some things which are rather abstract.

For example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church names all of the following as creatures:
  • man
  • gods, demons, Satan
  • fame
  • power
  • pleasure
  • race, ancestors
  • the state
  • riches
  • money
  • well-being
  • “the heavens and the earth, the sea”
  • “the sun and the moon, the cedar and the little flower, the eagle and the sparrow”
  • water
  • “human achievement… such as science, technology, and art”
To this list, each of us could add our own attachments and distractions. How about my photo collection? How about Catholic Answers Forums?

It’s not to say we may not enjoy these things. We should do so in moderation, with temperance, avoiding what is called “inordinate attachment.”
CCC 1809: Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods. It ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable. The temperate person directs the sensitive appetites toward what is good and maintains a healthy discretion: “Do not follow your inclination and strength, walking according to the desires of your heart.” Temperance is often praised in the Old Testament: “Do not follow your base desires, but restrain your appetites.” In the New Testament it is called “moderation” or “sobriety.” We ought “to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world.”
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You forgot to mention Catholic Answers, especially the forums.
 
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