Self-knowledge and the spiritual life – Part II

In Part I of this series we discussed the problem of spiritual delusion and darkness as a consequence of the lack of a God-ward self-knowledge. The purpose of this awareness is simply this: To reveal the sin(s) that hinder our relationship with God and that keep us from the fullness of God’s person, love, and provision for us in this life and the life to come. As well, we desire to respond to this great love by a life of devoted service to him and for him for all eternity. To do this, we need to identify the barriers to growth and pursue those things that propel us deeper into the heart of God.

In our first post, we established – through our brake light analogy – that that there are things we cannot know unless someone else reveals them to us. So then, how is it possible that we can discover these challenges within our soul on our own? Doesn’t “self” knowledge imply we have that knowledge within our grasp? The answer is no… and yes. A God-illuminated self-knowledge is often beyond our reach, but we can work to acquire it with the help of the Holy Spirit and others. In fact, only with this help can we ever hope to really grow to the degree that God desires for us.

So, what are the key elements necessary for one to begin the lifelong quest to understand ourselves in the context of God and develop the ability to route out those soul-tainting defects that hold us from fully loving and being loved by him?

Silence: The noise and relentless busy-ness of modern life is a blight on our souls and a favored tool of the enemy to drown out the still small voice of God. Often we welcome this evil ambiance in order to to hide from the thoughts and feelings that cause us pain and anxiety. As with substance abuse, hiding from our thoughts and avoiding the discomfort of quiet doesn’t solve anything. Similarly, ignoring the signs of a serious illness like cancer allows the disease to progress unchecked in our bodies. So too, our hidden (or not-so-hidden) faults promise the same result in our souls. Silence is one of the most basic elements necessary for us to come face-to-face with these issues, with God, to hear his voice, and see our way clear to healing and growth. In the classic Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis reveals a demonic diatribe (a senior demon on a rant to an apprentice demon) about the value of noise to the enemy of our souls. An important side note here is that when the demon is talking about music he is speaking about sacred music:

Music and silence—how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell—though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express—no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise—Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end! We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of heaven will be shouted down in the end!

For most in modern society the enemy’s plan has worked. Between tweets, texts, telephone calls, TV, Internet, radios, computers and iPods, we wake up to noise, we are inundated with noise as we move through the day, we get in our cars and turn on the noise, we work with the noise in the background, we leave work with noise in our cars again, we return home to noise. Where in all this noise will we find God? How can we hear the voice of God when our hearts, minds, and hearing are constantly bombarded by the endless “noise” of modern life?

The truth is, we can’t. There is no way around this problem. We may limit the noise to those things compatible to our faith like contemporary Christian music or great programming like EWTN; however, regardless of the degree of piety or putrification we allow to occupy our souls, there is no way we can claim to hear God if we don’t first create space to listen to him in silence.

In Part III, we will explore exactly what we mean by silence and begin to identify ways we can incorporate it into our lives.

Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him

Dan

Sayings of Light and Love #6

A tree that is cultivated and guarded through the care of its owner produces its fruit at the expected time.

St. John of the Cross

Self-knowledge and the spiritual life – Part I

How are the brake lights on your car? Are they working properly? I have an experiment for you. Go out to your car all by yourself and try to verify that they are working. Back already? How did it go? Did you cheat and do the exercise in your head? That’s ok, let’s just go with it. The bottom line is this; in the normal course of life, you would never know that one of your brake lights was broken unless someone else revealed it to you.

The same is often true in the spiritual life. Because of the effect of concupiscence (our inclination to sin) we are prone to self-deception and to fall prey to the lies of the world and the enemy of our souls. These deceptions are often subtle and have worked their way into our persons in such a way as to blind us to them. Our natural adaptation to ways of living, thinking, and acting become second nature and thus they disappear from our sight because they are familiar to us. These hidden faults might come from a series of choices we have made in life or they can come from patterns of behavior common to our families of origin. They can also come from the habitual clinging to imperfections or venial sins that provide some temporal benefit to us. Regardless of their source they are moral defects or patterns of sin and spiritually destructive behaviors that we are often unable to see without the help of others.  They are the broken brake lights that significantly increase the probability of a serious spiritual crash.

How can we be sure we are driving through life with all our lights functioning properly? The answer lies in a life-long commitment to spiritual practices that foster self-awareness. St. Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Siena, along with many other spiritual doctors of the Church, strongly emphasize the necessity of a God-centered self-awareness in order to have a vibrant and healthy relationship with God and others. St. Teresa says this about self-knowledge and spiritual development (in the second chapter of the First Dwelling Places of Interior Castles):

Knowing ourselves is something so important that I wouldn’t want any relaxation ever in this regard, however high you may have climbed to the heavens… So I repeat that it is good, indeed very good, to try to enter first into the room where self-knowledge is dealt with rather than to fly off to other rooms… Rather, let’s strive to make more progress in our self-knowledge. In my opinion we shall never completely know ourselves if we don’t strive to know God. By gazing at His grandeur, we get in touch with our own lowliness; by looking at His purity, we shall see our own filth; by pondering His humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble.

Regardless of the level of delusion we suffer, the challenge is that if these patterns of deception find a home deep within our makeup, it is very difficult to diagnose and then effectively deal with them. Failure to deal with them can result in serious spiritual calamity. The good news is that the beginning of freedom comes with the beginning of self knowledge. The beginning of self knowledge comes through the exploration of God’s love and provision for us. In our next post, we will explore a few ways we can uncover these challenges hiding in the dark corners of our souls that hinder the great love and peace that God has prepared for us in Christ.

Seek Him – Find Him – Follow Him

Dan

Sayings of Light and Love #5

Whoever wants to stand alone without the support of a master and guide (spiritual director) will be like the tree that stands alone in a field without a proprietor (caregiver and protector). No matter how much the tree bears, passers-by will pick the fruit before it ripens.

Saint John of the Cross

Note: The notes in the brackets above are translation helps for the reader. St. John wrote these sayings individually, but they often follow themes. This saying and a number of others that follow  are on the topic of spiritual direction. Essentially, St. John indicates that without a spiritual director for protection and guidance, any potential fruit that the pilgrim might bear will be plundered before it even has a chance to emerge.

Does the Holy Spirit work in the un-baptized?

Q: Dear Father John, I thought I understood, more or less, how the Holy Spirit works in our lives. But in a recent faith sharing group, a question came up that made me wonder. Someone asked if the Holy Spirit would or would not be with un-baptized persons if they ask Holy Spirit to dwell in them or to give them fortitude in a difficult situation. This came up while we were discussing how God’s grace can touch the lives of those who have never even heard of Jesus. I was hoping you could shed some light on this for me.

A: I am glad you asked this question. It reminds us that the vast treasure of theological reflection that our Church has accumulated through the centuries isn’t just irrelevant abstraction. It has grown up organically, in order to help us understand better and better how God works, so that we can cooperate with him more and more effectively.

In the first place, remember that God is not limited to working through the sacraments. Therefore, he can make saints without them if he so pleases; he can pour his grace into souls however and whenever he sees fit. At the same time, however, he himself established the sacraments as the normal, ordinary way to communicate his grace. For us to belittle them or treat them as optional, therefore, is presumptuous. He established them because in his wisdom he knows that human nature always experiences and expresses spiritual realities through material realities. And so, something real changes in our souls at baptism: God comes to dwell in us, adopts us, and actually alters (elevates) our souls at a deep, ontological level. In other words, it is not indifferent whether or not someone gets baptized.

“Types” of Baptism

The Church has long pointed out, however, that this grace of baptism can come in three ways: through the validly administered sacrament of baptism; through baptism by blood; and baptism of desire.

• Baptism of blood refers to the martyrdom of someone who dies for the Christian faith before actually receiving the sacrament of baptism. In this case, the effects of martyrdom include some of the effects of baptism: the complete remission of sin and the privilege of immediate entrance into heaven. This concept of baptism of blood came into focus during the first centuries of the Church’s existence. During the many waves of Roman persecution, men and women who were still only catechumens (receiving instruction in the faith and preparing for baptism), and pagans who suddenly converted to the faith (for example, upon seeing the heroic courage of a martyr) were often executed along with baptized Christians.
• Baptism of desire is a bit different, a bit more mysterious. It too is the equivalent of sacramental baptism, and therefore sufficient for obtaining the state of grace and the promise of salvation. Yet the circumstances by which it comes to pass or known only to God. Here’s how the Second Vatican Council explained it: “Those who through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictate of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation” (Constitution on the Church, I, 16).

As you can see, we simply cannot fathom all the wonderful ways in which God works in the souls of us sinners. God’s action is so rich!

The “Types” of Grace

As regards your specific question, about someone who is not baptized asking for help from the Holy Spirit, it may be useful to recall the different types of grace.

• There is sanctifying grace (the state of being in friendship with Christ, of being an adopted child of God, of having been redeemed from original sin). This is introduced into our lives at baptism, and it is increased, or deepened, through prayer, fidelity to God’s will, and the other sacraments.
• There is also sacramental grace, a specific strengthening or benefit unique to each sacrament. For example, the sacramental grace of confession is the forgiveness of personal sins and the strengthening of our will towards future fidelity. The sacramental grace of marriage is the marriage bond which helps both spouses grow in communion with God through living their communion with each other, etc.
• Then there is what is commonly referred to as actual grace. This is a boost of supernatural help that comes to assist us in a specific situation. When we talk about “graces,” this is usually what we mean – a light from the Holy Spirit, an added dose of patience when I really needed it… These actual graces are distinct from sanctifying grace. So, when non-baptized persons, who probably don’t have sanctifying grace, ask for help from the Holy Spirit, they are asking for this kind of grace, actual grace. And God is always ready to give actual graces, even when we don’t ask, to draw us closer to him.

These distinctions may seem persnickety. But let’s not lose sight of the forest for the trees. Reflecting on the many ways in which God reaches out to us and stays involved in our lives reminds of the most important thing: that he is our Father, passionately interested in the smallest details of our little, limited world.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC, ThD