Perfection of the Soul
I've been reading a very good book for the last few days called The Spiritual Combat and a Treatise on Peace of Soul, by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli (available through TAN).
The text has been around since the late 16th century, and is said to have been a favorite of St. Francis de Sales - I can see why.
This book, combined with St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life, ought to be required reading for everyone, Catholic and non-Catholic alike (any non-Catholic who reads these books and takes to heart the principles taught would not be able to remain outside the Catholic Church for very long).
Spiritual Combat is an appropriate title, if somewhat misleading. It deals with the perfection of the soul, and how to attain to that perfection. Here are a few of the principles and teachings that I'm reading about ...
People mistakenly confuse spiritual perfection and true piety with the external devotions they perform. We think that if we pray 15 decades of the Rosary a day, say all sorts of novenas, attend Holy Mass whenever we can, etc., that we're attaining (or have attained) perfection.
But the problem is that these external actions and devotions are meant to effect a change in our interior, in our souls - and so many people lose sight of this. This is probably why St. John of the Cross, as a spiritual director, was in the habit of taking external devotions away from those under his care.
Not that these things are bad, mind you. But they are meant to be tools, and when the tools get in the way and we begin to confuse the tools for the effects they are meant to produce, then the tools need to be abandoned until we recover the right perspective.
It should be, ideally, that our interior disposition - the change of our souls as we grow in love for God - will bear the fruit of external devotion.
That is to say, we should not pray the Rosary for the purpose of serving ourselves, expecting great consolations and spiritual ecstasies. We should not attend the Holy Mass expecting to have our hearts warmed and stirred.
No, we should pray the Rosary purely out of love for God and Our Lady; we should assist at Holy Mass to offer a pleasing sacrifice to God. It should all be for His honor and glory, not for the benefits we may or may not derive from these acts.
This inverted perspective that we have is exactly what tends to make us unstable. If I pray my Rosary expecting great spiritual consolations, and then I don't get what I came for, I'm more likely to become frustrated and abandon the practice altogether (or at least become less constant in my devotion).
I must confess I am still very much a novice in this regard, because I'm constantly making these mistakes. If I don't "get anything out of" praying the Rosary, I tend to think I must be doing something wrong, and I give up the practice too easily.
According to the book, a lot of the problem stems from pride. The first few chapters of the book stress in no uncertain terms just how necessary is a strong humility.
Here's an interesting question: when you fall into sin, do you react with shock and wonder how you could have done such a thing? Scupoli says you shouldn't - you shouldn't be surprised at all, if you have a healthy sense of humility and an understanding of your own weakness. Rather, you should renew your humility in those moments and say, "Yes, this is precisely the way I am, this is exactly how weak I am, and I fell into sin because I forgot just how naturally it comes to me."
It's one thing to acknowledge our weakness and dependence upon God - it's quite another thing to live as though we mean those words.
This is not to say we should abandon the Rosary, the Mass, etc. We should cling to those things, but with the understanding that they are necessary helps given to us by God precisely because we are so weak. We aren't strong enough to live by faith alone, which is why we require external devotions.
I can see the analogy when I pray with my daughter. She's too young to grasp the concepts of an Invisible God who hears her prayers, or the concept that God became Man and died for her sins. So the only way to cultivate devotion in her is to rely on tangible things: icons, statues, crucifixes, etc.
St. Louis de Montfort says something related to all of this in his The Secret of the Rosary. He says that we need not muster all of our strength when we come to prayer, in order to make sure we pray well - because we aren't capable of making ourselves ready or worthy to engage in such a sublime act. Rather, he says, it suffices to simply state our intentions and resolutions before we begin, including our intentions to not be distracted. We may not live up to those intentions or meet those resolutions as we pray, but what matters is that we intend to do so. God looks upon the heart.
I've been thinking that over a lot lately. If I'm honest with myself, I can't even really say to God "I desire to be holy." An honest examination of my heart reveals the lie - I don't desire holiness. I desire comfort, consolation, the easy path, pleasures, and material gain. The minute some slight suffering or inconvenience presents itself, I - like most people - run away and try to avoid those things. So, if I'm really being honest in prayer, I have to say to God, "I may not desire to be holy ... but I do desire to have that desire."
That's about as close as I can come. Thankfully, one of the saints (I want to say St. Augustine, or perhaps St. Ignatius Loyola) said that even the desire to desire is in itself a great grace from God.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
The text has been around since the late 16th century, and is said to have been a favorite of St. Francis de Sales - I can see why.
This book, combined with St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life, ought to be required reading for everyone, Catholic and non-Catholic alike (any non-Catholic who reads these books and takes to heart the principles taught would not be able to remain outside the Catholic Church for very long).
Spiritual Combat is an appropriate title, if somewhat misleading. It deals with the perfection of the soul, and how to attain to that perfection. Here are a few of the principles and teachings that I'm reading about ...
People mistakenly confuse spiritual perfection and true piety with the external devotions they perform. We think that if we pray 15 decades of the Rosary a day, say all sorts of novenas, attend Holy Mass whenever we can, etc., that we're attaining (or have attained) perfection.
But the problem is that these external actions and devotions are meant to effect a change in our interior, in our souls - and so many people lose sight of this. This is probably why St. John of the Cross, as a spiritual director, was in the habit of taking external devotions away from those under his care.
Not that these things are bad, mind you. But they are meant to be tools, and when the tools get in the way and we begin to confuse the tools for the effects they are meant to produce, then the tools need to be abandoned until we recover the right perspective.
It should be, ideally, that our interior disposition - the change of our souls as we grow in love for God - will bear the fruit of external devotion.
That is to say, we should not pray the Rosary for the purpose of serving ourselves, expecting great consolations and spiritual ecstasies. We should not attend the Holy Mass expecting to have our hearts warmed and stirred.
No, we should pray the Rosary purely out of love for God and Our Lady; we should assist at Holy Mass to offer a pleasing sacrifice to God. It should all be for His honor and glory, not for the benefits we may or may not derive from these acts.
This inverted perspective that we have is exactly what tends to make us unstable. If I pray my Rosary expecting great spiritual consolations, and then I don't get what I came for, I'm more likely to become frustrated and abandon the practice altogether (or at least become less constant in my devotion).
I must confess I am still very much a novice in this regard, because I'm constantly making these mistakes. If I don't "get anything out of" praying the Rosary, I tend to think I must be doing something wrong, and I give up the practice too easily.
According to the book, a lot of the problem stems from pride. The first few chapters of the book stress in no uncertain terms just how necessary is a strong humility.
Here's an interesting question: when you fall into sin, do you react with shock and wonder how you could have done such a thing? Scupoli says you shouldn't - you shouldn't be surprised at all, if you have a healthy sense of humility and an understanding of your own weakness. Rather, you should renew your humility in those moments and say, "Yes, this is precisely the way I am, this is exactly how weak I am, and I fell into sin because I forgot just how naturally it comes to me."
It's one thing to acknowledge our weakness and dependence upon God - it's quite another thing to live as though we mean those words.
This is not to say we should abandon the Rosary, the Mass, etc. We should cling to those things, but with the understanding that they are necessary helps given to us by God precisely because we are so weak. We aren't strong enough to live by faith alone, which is why we require external devotions.
I can see the analogy when I pray with my daughter. She's too young to grasp the concepts of an Invisible God who hears her prayers, or the concept that God became Man and died for her sins. So the only way to cultivate devotion in her is to rely on tangible things: icons, statues, crucifixes, etc.
St. Louis de Montfort says something related to all of this in his The Secret of the Rosary. He says that we need not muster all of our strength when we come to prayer, in order to make sure we pray well - because we aren't capable of making ourselves ready or worthy to engage in such a sublime act. Rather, he says, it suffices to simply state our intentions and resolutions before we begin, including our intentions to not be distracted. We may not live up to those intentions or meet those resolutions as we pray, but what matters is that we intend to do so. God looks upon the heart.
I've been thinking that over a lot lately. If I'm honest with myself, I can't even really say to God "I desire to be holy." An honest examination of my heart reveals the lie - I don't desire holiness. I desire comfort, consolation, the easy path, pleasures, and material gain. The minute some slight suffering or inconvenience presents itself, I - like most people - run away and try to avoid those things. So, if I'm really being honest in prayer, I have to say to God, "I may not desire to be holy ... but I do desire to have that desire."
That's about as close as I can come. Thankfully, one of the saints (I want to say St. Augustine, or perhaps St. Ignatius Loyola) said that even the desire to desire is in itself a great grace from God.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
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