St Francis de Sales on “detachment”

[mary15]

will arrange a Mass to be said for your intentions too

Can you explain very simply what it means to have a mass said? and for my intentions?

Is this something that you ask the priest to do before hand?

Is this what is done in the parish bulletin before the mass each week, when they say that a mass is being said for…?

What exactly does this do for the person its being said for?

@TominAdelaide, also, I thought I just heard in a Fr Ripperger presentation that ones prayers are not heard if one is not in a state of grace. I beleive him. I dont think it is as simple as the list above from the other source…

@TominAdelaide On Opus dei, well, Im thinking that it would be the sin of pride to induce even more pain onto ourselves, as if the crosses God allows us to have to bear are not enough and we therefore become over God and decide to intentionally harm ourselves further, which userps the authority of God. God can stop the pain at any time as He is the total authority of everything. The way to holiness is not this way at all, but rather the intentional seeking out of being in a daily state of grace. Do not self harm. Do not intentionally sin by causing self harm to ones body which is the very temple of the Holy Spirit.

Rein in ones passions and imagination, because this is the route satan uses to mess with us. Dont give him a foothold.

 

[TominAdelaide]

Can you explain very simply what it means to have a mass said? and for my intentions?

Is this something that you ask the priest to do before hand?

Is this what is done in the parish bulletin before the mass each week, when they say that a mass is being said for…?

What exactly does this do for the person its being said for?

To arrange for a Mass to be said for someone or for a specific intention, one would normally just call their local parish office and ask the parish secretary to arrange for the parish priest to say Mass for their specific intention. It is considered a polite custom to pay the suggested Mass stipend usually around $10 (although if you can’t afford that just tell the parish secretary that you can’t afford to and I’m sure your parish priest will say Mass for you without cost). Also, if you live in a city with a Cathedral, you could call the Cathedral office and arrange the same. I live in Adelaide and there are 3 masses said every day at the Cathedral here. Aid to the Church in Need (a Pontifical Foundation) allows Mass Offerings to be booked online. The Mass stipend (of US$10) goes to poor priests in Africa, South-East Asia, etc who will say Mass for your intentions. I arrange Masses to be said for the Poor Souls on a regular basis so I use Aid to the Church in Need to book my Mass intentions. Apparently, every 22 seconds a Mass is celebrated around the world for the intentions of an ACN donor. This is the link to Aid to the Church in Need for US residents:

Request Mass Offerings Online

In terms of the theology behind this practice, here are a couple links discussing this:

What are Mass intentions and why do Catholics pay for them?

Mass Intentions

 

[TominAdelaide]

Is this what is done in the parish bulletin before the mass each week, when they say that a mass is being said for…?

Yes, the parish bulletin could state a Mass intention. Also, often the priest himself will state the Mass intention at the start of Mass by saying something like, “I’m offering Mass today for XYZ’s intentions.”

 

[TominAdelaide]

@TominAdelaide On Opus dei, well, Im thinking that it would be the sin of pride to induce even more pain onto ourselves, as if the crosses God allows us to have to bear are not enough and we therefore become over God and decide to intentionally harm ourselves further, which userps the authority of God. God can stop the pain at any time as He is the total authority of everything. The way to holiness is not this way at all, but rather the intentional seeking out of being in a daily state of grace. Do not self harm. Do not intentionally sin by causing self harm to ones body which is the very temple of the Holy Spirit.

Rein in ones passions and imagination, because this is the route satan uses to mess with us. Dont give him a foothold.

As Fr Tanqueray and Fr Marin note above, unless God is calling a Christian to be a victim soul, which is to be discerned with the help of a learned and wise spiritual director, a Christian should not ask God to send into their lives extraordinary sufferings, but patiently bear the “ordinary” trials of each day that God sends us. In terms of the theology of voluntary corporeal penances, this article summaries how I understand the Church’s view of corporeal penances:

Taking Up the Cross Daily by Praying with Our Senses - Homiletic & Pastoral Review

 

[TominAdelaide]

@TominAdelaide, also, I thought I just heard in a Fr Ripperger presentation that ones prayers are not heard if one is not in a state of grace. I beleive him. I dont think it is as simple as the list above from the other source…

Which list above are you referring too?

 

[TominAdelaide]

God can stop the pain at any time as He is the total authority of everything.

Yes, I consider this to be one of the “secrets” of the spiritual life or of total peace of mind. That God can miraculously come to the aid of any person at any time to help them or to cease their suffering is a very great blessing and a powerful remedy against despair too!

 

[TominAdelaide]

I dont think it is as simple as the list above from the other source…

Oh sorry I just realised you were referring to St Alphonsus’ sermon on the conditions of prayer. In the sermon, St Alphonsus says there are various exceptions to our prayers being heard. One exception is the example you mentioned (people in a state of mortal sin). St Alphonsus refers to these people as being “proud” Christians and that God doesn’t answer their prayers:

St. James tells us, that God rejects the prayers of the proud: “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (iv. 6). He cannot bear the proud; he rejects their petitions, and refuses to hear them. Let those proud Christians who trust in their own strength, and think themselves better than others, attend to this, and let them remember that their prayers shall be rejected by the Lord.

Although St Alphonsus does note that God will hear the prayer of these people if they sincerely repent of their sins:

The Lord cannot despise even the most obdurate sinners, when they repent from their hearts, and humble themselves before him, acknowledging that they are unworthy to receive any favour from him. ”A contrite and humble heart, God, thou wilt not despise." (Ps. l, 19.)

He also notes that there are some things God will never grant:

For example: if a person asked help from God to be revenged of an enemy, or to accomplish what would be offensive to God, the Lord will not hear his prayers; because, says St. Chrysostom, such a person offends God in the very act of prayer; he does not pray, but, in a certain manner mocks God. ”Qui orat et peccat, non rogat Deum, sed eludit."

St Alphonsus also notes that a Christian should also “remove every obstacle which may render [a person] unworthy of being heard”, such as not avoiding occasions of sin:

Moreover, if you wish to receive from God the aid which you ask, you must remove every obstacle which may render you unworthy of being heard. For example: if you ask of God strength to preserve you from relapsing into a certain sin, but will not avoid the occasions of the sin, nor keep at a distance from the house, from the object, or the bad company, which led to your fall, God will not hear your prayer. And why? Because “thou hast set a cloud before thee, that prayer may not pass through.” (Thren. iii. 44.) Should you relapse, do not complain of God, nor say: I have besought the Lord to preserve me from falling into sin, but he has not heard me. Do you not see that, by not taking away the occasions of sin, you have interposed a thick cloud, which has prevented your prayers from passing to the throne of divine mercy.

He also notes that God will not necessarily grant all the temporal favors we ask for:

It is also necessary to remark that the promise of Jesus Christ to hear those who pray to him does not extend to all the temporal favours which we ask such as a plentiful harvest, a victory in a law-suit, or a deliverance from sickness, or from certain persecutions. These favours God grants to those who pray for them; but only when they are conducive to their spiritual welfare.

 

[Heavenward]

Hi!

@TominAdelaide, I can’t help but admire at the beauty of this thread and wish to participate as well, but having the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas in mind as I think he has a lot to contribute. The thread is already long by this point so I might be a bit off in my contribution.

When it comes to detachment, ever since I started reading on St Thomas Aquinas, I have understood “detachment” to be the lack of any antecedent passions and the predominance of consequent actions in everything good. Antecedent passions are emotions that arise before you do a willful action. They reduce the goodness or the evil of a deliberate action because they cloud the judgment and deliberation of the rational mind before acting. For example, the fear one feels before doing anything is an antecedent passion because it comes before you make the act: not only does it make it harder to judge whether the act is correct or not, but it also lessens the conviction of the act.

That does not mean that all emotions reduce responsibility: consequent passions arise after a deliberate action, and they increase one’s moral culpability with the action: “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6).

Looking at this, “holy indifference” is the lack of any antecedent passion in regards to obtaining, keeping, or losing something, while “immoderate attachment” is to have an antecedent passion on obtaining (over-eagerness), keeping (over-solicitous), and losing (over-sentimental) a thing.

 

[TominAdelaide]

obtaining (over-eagerness), keeping (over-solicitous), and losing (over-sentimental)

Thanks very much for the awesome information you provided @Heavenward! The information from St Thomas Aquinas makes a lot of sense. Purified passions play a huge role in detachment to protect us from the dangers you mention of over-eagerness, over-solicitude and over-sentimentalism. Fr Tanqueray in his work provides a summary of what our “purified” passions should look like too:

THE DIRECTION OF PASSIONS TOWARDS GOOD

We have said that the passions are not in themselves evil; all can without exception be turned to good.

a) Love and joy can be directed towards pure and lawful family-affection, towards good and supernatural friendship, but chiefly towards Our Lord, Who is the most tender, the most generous, the most devoted of friends. This, then, is what matters most, that we center our hearts on Him by reading, meditation, and by actually carrying out in our lives the teachings contained in the two chapters of the Following of Christ, “On the love of Jesus above all things,” and “On familiar friendship with Jesus.”

b) Hatred and aversion can be turned against sin, against vice, and against whatever leads to them, in order that we may loathe them and fly from them: “I have hated iniquity.” (Psalm 118:163)

c) Desire is transformed into lawful ambition; into the natural ambition of doing honor to one’s family, one’s country, and into the supernatural ambition of becoming a saint, an apostle.

d) Sadness, instead of degenerating into melancholy, becomes a sweet resignation under trials, which are for the Christian soul a seed of glory; or it is changed into tender compassion for the suffering Christ, loaded down with insults; or it is turned towards afflicted souls.

e) Hope becomes a Christian virtue of unfailing trust in God and multiplies our energies for good.

f) Despair takes the form of a rightful mistrust of self, based upon our own insufficiency and our sins, but tempered by trust in God.

g) Fear is no longer that sense of depression which weakens the soul; but in the Christian it is a source of power. The Christian fears sin, he fears hell; but this righteous fear inspires him with courage in the struggle against evil. He fears God above all, he dreads to offend his Maker and treads under foot human respect.

Even when the passions are directed towards good, one must know how to temper them, that is to say, one must know how to make them obey the dictates of reason and the control of the will, both reason and will being guided in turn by the light of faith and by grace. Without this restraining influence, the passions would at times run to excess, for they are by nature too impetuous.

Thus, the desire to pray fervently may become a strain; love for Jesus may manifest itself in forced emotions which wear out both body and soul; untimely zeal results in overstrain, indignation degenerates into anger, and joy into dissipation of mind.

 

[mary15]

@TominAdelaide

Dear Tom

I will be getting back to you soon. I deeply appreciate all of this very kind and very generous offering that you are giving of your time and talents. Glory to God!

I really needed this help. May God bless you abundantly and grant you the graces you need to fulfill your spiritual goals in this life.

I will be able to reply I hope more often in the near future.

It is obvious to myself at least that you have taken your vows seriously and live by them to the best of your ability with the help of the HS, Blessed Mother and all the saints.

 

[mary15]

@TominAdelaide thank you so much for the information on mass intentions. It seems somewhat mystical, in that the mass itself helps the prayers of the intended to be heard by God.

I remember asking my parish to include a mass for my mother before the anniversary of her death, and they told me that all the mass intentions for the entire year were already taken.

I simply had nowhere to ask to honor her as there were no spots left for over a year.

Thank you for the link to the website where I can get a mass said for her and it will help other priests overseas who need monetary help and are glad to offer up a mass.

I never heard of this website and it seems no one else has either in my parish including the staff.

I will share it with them as well as my Archdiocese. More should be made aware of these options that also help the global Church, Amen!

PS-Have you read the many books that you share with us? Just curious. There are so many of them, I have about 30 books I am trying to look at simultaneously, lol!!

 

[TominAdelaide]

@mary15 Yes, the Aid to the Church in Need is an awesome apostolate. It’s makes it very easy to book Masses online in just a few clicks. I use the ACN Australian website. In the past the ACN Australian online store has sold rosaries which have been blessed by the popes. So I have a rosary blessed by Benedict XVI and just last month they had a fundraiser where I bought a rosary which has been blessed by Pope Francis! I can’t see an online store for the US ACN website but if you want to check the Australian store from time to time you may be able to buy a rosary blessed by Pope Francis also (although unfortunately currently there are none available). This is the Australian ACN website:

https://www.aidtochurch.org

And yes, I have read all the books I have referred to in the posts above. I am an avid reader so it has been a labour of love for almost 17 years now!

 

[Heavenward]

Great summation of the reformed passions! St. Thomas Aquinas also gave great recommendations on how to achieve this reformation of the lower appetite. For one, he gave the wrong way of reforming them. In quoting Aristotle, he wrote:

the reason governs the irascible and concupiscible [passions] not by a “despotic supremacy,” which is that of a master over his slave; but by a “politic and royal supremacy,” whereby the free are governed, who are not wholly subject to command. (ST I-II Q. 17 A. 7)

What this means is that the will cannot command the passions like how it can command our thoughts or voluntary movements “despotically”. You cannot just make yourself stop feeling sad or afraid or any other passion, nor can you make yourself feel happy or hopeful or courageou, just because you want to. That is not how God made the passions, like how He made us unable to command our body at will to stop growth in one part and to promote growth in another part. Instead, for our bodies we have to understand the rules of the body to make it grow how we want it to: give it the exercise, rest, nutrients and other factors it needs, and the human body will grow healthy and strong. And so it is with the passions: we must respect, understand, and give what out lower appetite needs so it will be healthy and strong. Or, to use St. Thomas’ words, our will must understand and obey the politics of our emotions so that they will obey the royal authority of the will.

Fortunately the politics of the emotions can be summarized in two statements, although unpacking the statement can be tricky:

Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.(ST II–II, Q. 35, A. 4, Ad. 2)

That is why we are commanded to “Rejoice always” by St. Paul two times in the Bible (1 thessalonians 5:16, Philippians 4:4).

Although isn’t it weird that St. Thomas Aquinas said that we cannot command out passions, but here St Paul says that we must rejoice, which is a command? The answer to this is that “Joy” is not strictly a passion but is also an affection.

Affections are “intellectual emotions”, reactions of the mind to intellectual concepts. This is the reason why God and the angels seem to have emotions in the Scriptures: they “signify simple acts of the will having like effects, but without passion.” And since humans have intellectual souls like God and the angels, we have them too (ST I-II Q. 22 A. 3 Ad. 3).

 

[Heavenward]

The validity of the above statements actually can be easily validated and used in practice. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote:

Hence the most effective remedy against intemperance is not to dwell on the consideration of singulars. (ST II-II, Q. 142, A. 3)

Singulars are the characteristics of a thing that make it unique: it’s shape, color, size, smell, etc. These characteristics are picked up by the senses, and thus they affect the Passions.

Universals on the other hand are the characteristics of a thing that make it in common with other things. These characteristics are concepts: for example, a cake is food, with nutrients, used for sustenance, is a dessert, etc. Since the Universals are concepts, they are not reacted to by the passions, but rather by the affections.

Therefore let’s say you are tempted to intemperance, for example junk food against abstinence, or porn or a beautiful person against chastity, then use St. Thomas Aquinas’ suggestion. Do not focus on the Singulars, those things that make the tempting thing unique. Do not dwell on how delicious the junk food would taste, or how it smells, or how it looks; rather, acknowledge that it is food, and its nutritional value is not so good, and that besides you are fasting right now. Or again, do not focus on how beautiful a certain person is, or how certain parts of the anatomy accentuate the person’s attractiveness; instead, focus on the fact that the person is a child of God, that they are somebody’s parent or spouse or daughter/son, etc.

What then happens is that the passions get starved of sense information and thus they quiet down. On the other hand, the affections become more active because of the concepts being fed to it and thus can make rational judgements. In fact, you may notice that you may want to distance yourself from the tempting object because you want to enjoy more the joy of dwelling in and respecting the concepts aroused by this.

Of course this is just a stopgap measure to avoid sin; one’s spiritual joy cannot be solely this. And besides, this only gives one the reprive to be able to willfully avoid or deal with the tempting object; if one chooses otherwise the sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and the resulting passions will overwhelm the affections. But it is a start and a good way to illustrate the truth of St. Thomas Aquinas’ teachings.

 

[mary15]

@TominAdelaide, Dear Tom, I am gradually getting through the very great homily you linked me to that explains all the ways we can self mortify, both with corporeal penances as well as interior. They don’t have to be very big sacrifices, but there are very excellent examples of the small ones we can choose to do on the daily.

This homily you posted was the most excellent help to me. I am not yet done reading it.

https://www.hprweb.com/2015/08/taking-up-the-cross-daily-by-praying-with-our-senses/

@TominAdelaide, @Heavenward, something new has come up that applies here, I think, and its the recent request that I learn how to stop an attachment to something that is a disordered attachment.

My priest asked me to do this and I got very upset. However, tonight, I watched a Father Ripperger video on saying the rosary and near the end of the video, he mentioned how Mary was subject to her husband, and therefore she was sweet. And Joseph took really good care of her and loved her.

So I have been in tears over my lack of obedience to the authority of my priest by not saying yes like Mary, as my priest is a man who has authority over me.

I know letting go of my attachment is for my own good and for my own healing.

I can’t do it yet and am stricken with grief over all the things I have to keep giving up, in order to clean up my life, my soul, and to strive to become sanctified.

 

[TominAdelaide]

Thanks very much for your very interesting posts on St Thomas Aquinas’ teachings on the theology of detachment @Heavenward. I have never read the Summa Theologica in full (other than small selections on specific topics) so was unaware of these teachings until now. I will endeavour to put St Thomas’ teachings into practice in my life, considering only “universals” and thus starve my passions into some sort of submission!

Man cannot live without joy; therefore when he is deprived of true spiritual joys it is necessary that he become addicted to carnal pleasures.(ST II–II, Q. 35, A. 4, Ad. 2)

With regard to the quote above, yes, alas, as theologians teach “nature abhors a vacuum” and one can be only going forward or backward in the spiritual life, there is no standing still. This explains the western world’s (or should I say mankinds) endless pursuit of the “3Ps” of pleasure, power and possessions. And you would no doubt be aware St Thomas Aquinas provides the reason why this is so:

Inordinate love of self is the source of all sin and darkens the judgment; for when will and sensibility are ill-disposed (that is, when they tend to pride and sensuality) everything that is in conformity with these inclinations appears to be good. (ST, I-IIae, Q. lxxvii, art 4)

The proper and direct cause of sin is to be considered on the part of the adherence to a mutable good; in which respect every sinful act proceeds from inordinate desire for some temporal good. Now the fact that anyone desires a temporal good inordinately, is due to the fact that he loves himself inordinately; for to wish anyone some good is to love him. Therefore it is evident that inordinate love of self is the cause of every sin. (ST, la-IIae, qu. 77, art. 4)

St Catherine of Siena, in “The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena” makes a similar point:

Thou knowest that every evil is founded in self-love, and that self-love is a cloud that takes away the light of reason.

St Alphosus Ligouri, in his “Sunday Sermons” also makes similar points:

In a word, sinners lose their reason, and imitate brute animals, that follow the instinct of nature, and seek carnal pleasures without ever reflecting on their lawfulness or unlawfulness. But to act in this manner is, according to St. Chrysostom, to act not like a man, but like a beast. To be men we must be rational: that is, we must act, not according to the sensual appetite, but according to the dictates of reason. If God gave to beasts the use of reason, and if they acted according to its rules, we should say that they acted like men. And it must, on the other hand, be said, that the man whose conduct is agreeable to the senses, but contrary to reason, acts like a beast.

Brute animals that have been created for this world, enjoy peace in sensual delights. Give to a dog a bone, and he is perfectly content; give to an ox a bundle of hay, and he desires nothing more. But man, who has been created for God, to love God, and to be united to him, can be made happy only by God, and not by the world, though it should enrich him with all its goods.

continued….

 

[TominAdelaide]

What are worldly goods? They may be all reduced to pleasures of sense, to riches, and to honours. “All that is in the world," says St. John, ”is the concupiscence of the flesh," or sensual delights, and “the concupiscence of the eyes," or riches, and “the pride of life" that is, earthly honours. (1 John ii. 16.) St. Bernard says, that a man may be puffed up with earthly goods, but can never be made content or happy by them. And how can earth and wind and dung satisfy the heart of man? In his comment on these words of St. Peter ”Behold, we have left all things" the same saint says, that he saw in the world different classes of fools. All had a great desire of happiness. Some, such as the avaricious, were content with riches; others, ambitious of honours and of praise, were satisfied with wind; others, seated round a furnace, swallowed the sparks that were thrown from it these were the passionate and vindictive; others, in fine, drank fetid water from a stagnant pool and these were the voluptuous and unchaste. O fools! adds the saint, do you not perceive that all these things, from which you seek content, do not satisfy, but, on the contrary, increase the cravings of your heart? Of this we have a striking example in Alexander the Great, who, after having conquered half the world, burst into tears, because he was not master of the whole earth.

Every sin produces darkness in the understanding. Hence, the more sins are multiplied by a bad habit, the greater the blindness they cause. The light of the sun cannot enter a vessel filled with clay; and a heart full of vices cannot admit the light of God, which would make visible to the soul the abyss into which she is running. Bereft of light, the habitual sinner goes on from sin to sin, without ever thinking of repentance. “The wicked walk round about," (Ps. xi. 9.) Fallen into the dark pit of evil habits, he thinks only of sinning, he speaks only of sins, and no longer sees the evil of sin. In fine, he becomes like a brute devoid of reason, and seeks and desires only what pleases the senses. ”And man, when he was in honour, did not understand: he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them.” (Ps. xlviii. 13.) Hence the words of the Wise Man are fulfilled with regard to habitual sinners. “The wicked man when he comes into the depth of sin, contemneth." (Prov. xviii. 3.) This passage St. Chrysostom applies to habitual sinners, who, shut up in a pit of darkness, despise sermons, calls of God, admonitions, censures, hell, and God, and become like the vulture that waits to be killed by the fowler, rather than abandon the corrupt carcass on which it feeds.

Also, on a related topic to this, if you are interested, I recently read an interesting article here (Self-Love and the Sin of Avarice) reconciling the apparent discrepancy between the 2 theological maxims that “pride is the root of all sin” vs St Paul’s teaching that “money is the root of all sin”.

 

[TominAdelaide]

So I have been in tears over my lack of obedience to the authority of my priest by not saying yes like Mary, as my priest is a man who has authority over me.

Hi Mary, I have never been commanded by a priest to do something before (other than perform the work of penance given during confession) so am not sure of the theological implications to this question

 

[TominAdelaide]

Affections are “intellectual emotions”, reactions of the mind to intellectual concepts. This is the reason why God and the angels seem to have emotions in the Scriptures: they “signify simple acts of the will having like effects, but without passion.” And since humans have intellectual souls like God and the angels, we have them too (ST I-II Q. 22 A. 3 Ad. 3).

In “Friends of the Cross”, St Louis de Montfort talks about having joy in the different parts of the soul:

When we are told to love the cross, that does not refer to an emotional love, impossible to our human nature.

There are three kinds of love: emotional love, rational love, and the supernatural love of faith. In other words, the love that resides in the lower part of man, in his body; the love in the higher part, his reason; and the love in the highest part of man, in the summit of the soul, that is, the intelligence enlightened by faith.

God does not ask you to love the cross with the will of the flesh. Since the flesh is subject to sin and corruption, … of itself, cannot be submissive to the will of God and his crucifying law. It was this human will our Lord referred to in the Garden of Olives when he cried out, “Father, let your will be done, not mine.” (Matthew 26:39) If the lower part of Christ’s human nature, although so holy, could not love the cross continuously, then with still greater reason will our tainted nature reject it. It is true that we may sometimes experience even a sensible joy in our sufferings, as many of the saints have done; but that joy does not come from the body, even though it is experienced in the body. It comes from the soul, which is so overwhelmed with the divine joy of the Holy Spirit that it overflows into the body. In that way, someone who is suffering greatly can say with the psalmist, “My heart and my flesh ring out their joy to God, the living God.” (Psalm 84:2)

There is another love of the cross which I have called rational love and which is in the higher part of man, the mind. This love is entirely spiritual; it springs from the knowledge of how happy we can be in suffering for God, and so it can be experienced by the soul, to which it gives interior joy and strength. But although this rational and perceptible joy is good, in fact, excellent, it is not always necessary in order to suffer joyfully for God’s sake.

And so there is a third kind of love, which is called by the masters of the spiritual life the love of the summit of the soul, and which is known to philosophers as the love of the intellect. In this, without any feeling of joy in the senses or pleasure in the mind, we love the cross we are carrying, by the light of pure faith, and take delight in it, even though the lower part of our nature may be in a state of conflict and disturbance, groaning and complaining, weeping and longing for relief. In this case, we can say with our Lord, “Father, let your will be done, not mine;” or with our Lady, “I am the slave of the Lord: let what you have said be done to me.”

It is with one of these two higher loves that we should love and accept the cross.

 

[TominAdelaide]

Note for the scrupulous: St Alphonsus Ligouri in the quotes I have just posted from his sermon above is taking about “sinful” and “disordered” pleasure, not licit and reasonable pleasure. This is Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen in “Divine Intimacy”:

[St John of the Cross] does not mean that you must live without out any pleasure or satisfaction; this would be impossible, as man is created for happiness. However, he does tell you to renounce all the pleasures that are displeasing to God. … If your way of acting or speaking satisfies your self-love, but you know that it does not please God, then you must give it up. If a conversation, a friendship, or a comfort pleases you, but you doubt whether it is pleasing to God, you must give it up. If your will urges you to do anything which may be even slightly contrary to the will of God, you must refrain from doing it.

Also, when St John of the Cross tells us “to endeavor always to incline oneself, not to that which is easier, but to that which is more difficult; … not to that which gives rest, but to that which demands effort, etc”, Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen notes the following:

[St John of the Cross] does not expect us always and in everything to choose what is most difficult, painful, or tiring – which would be impossible. Both because of the circumstances in which we live and because of our physical constitution, which always needs a certain amount of relaxation - but he does ask that we be disposed to this choice, that is, we must cultivate a desire for it. He wants us to develop within ourselves the inclination and habit of doing what is opposed to our own tendencies, so that when the opportunity occurs, we can do so without being hindered by our natural repugnance. … It is most important that we make a firm decision to bend our will by this practice of renunciation, that we never give up on account of cowardice, and that, when we have to allow ourselves a little relaxation, because of expediency or duty, we do so with detachment, that is, with a will detached from the pleasure we may find in it.

Also, Fr Marin in the “Theology of Christian Perfection” gives this useful definition for “detachment”:

As soon as anything outside of God Himself becomes a goal or end in itself rather than a means to God, the soul is diverted from its proper orientation to God. This applies not only to the obvious dangers, such as wealth and pleasure and ambition, but to the study of theology, the liturgy, devotion to particular saints, penitential practices—even the use of the means to sanctity itself. All of these, if exaggerated or sought after with a selfish spirit, can become obstacles to union with God and the operation of the gift of wisdom which flows from that union.