Wisdom for the Ascent – 1 – St. John of the Cross

THE soul must of necessity—if we would attain to the divine union of God—pass through the dark night of mortification of the desires, and self-denial in all things. The reason is this; all the love we bestow on creatures is in the eyes of God mere darkness, and while we are involved therein, the soul is incapable of being enlightened and possessed by the pure and simple light of God, unless we first cast that love away. Light hath no fellowship with darkness, for as St. John saith, ‘The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.’

John of the Cross, S., Zimmermann, B., & Lewis, D. (2010). The Ascent of Mount Carmel (15–16). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

How much should a priest own?

Q: Dear Father John, I am a Catholic priest. Because I am in studies and do not have a rectory to call ‘home’, I’ve temporarily moved all my personal belongings back into my parent’s house. Looking over all the ‘stuff’ I’ve collected over the years, it’s dawned on me that I have A LOT. Too much, so that I am even nauseated at the amount: especially books, vestments, and clerical clothing, and some secular clothes. My regular spiritual director and I have been trying to discern what exactly a diocesan priest ‘needs’ as opposed to ‘wants’. How many books does a priest truly ‘need’? How do you discern needs vs. wants? How do you practice detachment, even radically if necessary?

A: The tricky part about this issue is that the principles are clear, but they can be – and need to be – applied in myriad ways.  It’s clear from your question that you know what the principles are: 1) material goods are not ends in themselves, and so we should never seek our soul’s satisfaction in their possession or enjoyment; 2) material goods are means to an end, and so if ever a possession or a practice is inhibiting me from achieving my end (holiness and spiritual fruitfulness as a father in Christ’s Church), then those possessions or practices need to be curtailed or eliminated.  The famous Ignatian “tantum quantum” comes into play there: material goods should be sought, welcomed, and used insofar as they help us achieve our purpose of glorifying God and helping to save souls.

The virtue that governs the application of general principles to specific situations (your situation, or mine, or your spiritual director’s) is prudence.  And there is the rub.  Prudence involves making a particular judgment, so it is always linked to the concrete circumstances of an individual’s life.  As a result, gospel simplicity may look very different for two different priests, and each one of them may be living in complete fidelity to what the Holy Spirit is asking of him.

So that doesn’t help you very much – at least not directly.  The development and application of prudence in our lives is linked to our spiritual maturity.  That means, basically, the more I grow in temperance, fortitude, and justice – which translates into “the more faithful I am to my life of prayer and to God’s will through fulfilling my basic responsibilities” – the more prudent I become.  Keep growing spiritually, and you will keep developing prudence.  As prudence grows, we are able to identify more easily and quickly the proper application of general principles to our particular situation.  Bottom line: there is no formula I can give you; you have to keep seeking God in your heart, and seeking his guidance in this area, and every other area, of your spiritual life.

That said, here are some thoughts that may help you reflect and discern.

1.      Money is the great deceiver.  So we need to keep it on a leash.  This consists primarily in having a personal annual budget.  A budget allows us to be responsible with our money – to decide ahead of time, based on life-priorities and not on spur-of-the-moment impulses, how much we will spend and on what.  This helps protect us from the latent materialism that’s always trying to seep into our hearts and minds through whimsical and indulgent culture of consumerism in which we live.  I don’t know if you are familiar with Veritas Financial Ministries, but they seem to offer some excellent tools for making and following budgets and tying money-matters into faith-matters.  I would recommend checking out their services and making a commitment to govern your money habits with a budget: http://www.veritasfinancialministries.com/.

2.      Keep in mind the possibility of scandal.  This matters.  As fathers of a spiritual community, we need to embody the principles we preach, to be good examples.  Everyone knows that Father needs a car.  But if a Toyota Camry will do the job for him, why does he have a BMW?  Everyone wants Father to have a refreshing and renewing vacation.  And they will be overjoyed and understanding if he takes a trip to Rome or the Holy Land for his time off, making a pilgrimage out of it.  But they may furrow their brows in confusion if he goes to the Bahamas.  They will be edified by his taking a fishing trip, but they may be confused by his taking a gambling trip.

3.      Gospel simplicity is not opposed to dignity and distinction.  A priest is a representative of Christ, and his bearing, along with his clothes, manners, and paraphernalia, should reflect the dignity and propriety of the King he serves.  Jesus’ tunic was of good enough quality that the soldiers didn’t want to tear it into pieces to pawn off the material, rather they threw dice to see who would get the whole thing.  When people see the Pope, they expect his cassock to be clean and well-ironed, and they rejoice in the elegance and dignity of the papal surroundings.  On the other hand, they also know that none of that belongs to Joseph Ratzinger – it belongs to the Church.  And it will stay in the Church after the current Holy Father has gone to his heavenly home.

4.      Practice self-denial on a regular basis.  We have to keep ourselves in spiritual shape.  We have to consciously and proactively exercise detachment on a regular basis in order to be able to exercise detachment in the face of unforeseen temptations.  As priests, we should be offering small sacrifices, the kind we offer during Lent, on a regular basis.  But this can also feed pride.  Be close to your spiritual director on this point (well, on all these points!).

5.      Consider your time to be a material possession.  Just as you budget your money, budget your time.  Plan ahead.  Enjoy the freedom that comes from knowing that how you are spending both your time and your money accurately reflects your life-priorities and is not just a function of spontaneous and whimsical improvisation all the time.

6.      Create a wish-list for your library.  Every time you want to buy a book, put the title on your wish-list.  Let your wish-list grow.  Don’t buy any books from the wish-list until you have finished the books you are already reading, or the ones that you have already bought and put on the “to-read-next” shelf.  Here again, planning ahead is incredibly freeing.  What will your reading goals be for this coming year?  You will want to read a couple of books on current issues, maybe some classical and contemporary literature (if you like that and find it enriching), definitely some books on theology or philosophy or church history or apologetics (whichever is your area of expertise), and probably some other books of social commentary or self-help.  Then you also have the books you will be using for spiritual reading and meditation during the year, in accordance with your program for personal spiritual growth.  Pick out the twelve or fourteen that you want to read this year.  Get them.  Put them on your “to-read-next” shelf.  Don’t buy any more until you have read those.  All the new ones that come onto your radar screen – add them to your wish-list, but don’t buy them yet.  If you want to change your year’s list mid-way through, run your reasons by your spiritual director (or some kind of accountability partner), not because you need “permission” strictly speaking, but because you want to keep your book-habit under control, so that it doesn’t create turbulence in your heart and clutter in your life.

7.      Know your weak points.  We all have them.  From your question, it seems like you are a book collector.  Other people just have to have the latest clothes.  Others just can’t resist buying new luggage all the time.  For others, its electronic gadgets – the latest, no matter what, no matter whether it will really help me be more efficient in my mission or not!  For others it’s music – the CD collection is gargantuan!  We don’t need to go into the psychological reasons behind these personal tendencies (though that would be an interesting study!).  But in whichever area you find yourself most tempted to be over-indulgent, keep vigilant.  Get an accountability partner to help you stay objective (maybe your spiritual director).

8.      Support ministries or charities that mean a lot to you personally.  If we have income, we should tithe, just like we recommend to all Catholics.  I have always been struck by the example of St. John Vianney in this regard.  He spent a lot of time and effort raising money to bring his parish up to snuff.  Once the chapels and church and other accoutrements were in place, he continued to raise money, even begging the many pilgrims for money.  And what did he use it for?  To endow annual missions in other parishes.  He kept track of how much he needed to endow a mission, and would raise money continually for that purpose.  And once he finished one, he would start right away on another.  Here is a man who understood that money is a means to an end!!

9.      Be proactive in your entertainment.  What activities really help you relax and provide you with your necessary recreation?  How often do you need to engage in them to keep your mind and body keen and focused?  We need to be very careful in this area, because of our special responsibility to be spiritual leaders.  Our interior life directly affects thousands of people – the people we serve.  We can’t afford to be careless about what we let into our minds and imaginations.  And we have to make sure that we don’t start depending on entertainment for our happiness.  Our happiness is to be found in loving and serving God and his people.  Entertainment (TV, movies, video-games…) can serve as necessary recreation (“the bow that is always strung soon loses its strength,” as St. John the Evangelist put it once), but it can also become a drain on our energy, and even an addiction.  Other forms of recreation can often be even more beneficial – sports, real games (cards, Scrabble, ping pong…) played with real people, reading literature, hiking or walking outdoors in nature…  In this area, it’s also very healthy for us to find a small group of friends with whom we can recreate and relax together.  Unhealthy obsessions with acquiring or using material goods can stem from a psychological thirst for rest, companionship, or relaxation that we are not meeting in a proper way.

Well, as I said, I can’t give you a formula. But I hope that those reflections are of some assistance.  With this email I am sending along a prayer for you and your ministry.  God bless you!

I know we have a lot of holy priests and religious who read our blog. I would also like to invite them to provide insight into how they make these decisions.

PS from Dan: The book “Happy Are You Poor” by Father Dubay provides a fantastic treatment of this subject.

Am I being selfish by denying help to my family or friends? Part II of II

Q: Dear Father John, if Christians are called to charity, and we assume that our charity must cost us something (like time, comfort, or money), is there a time when we can justifiably deny a request without being selfish? I’m an at-home mom and my friends often ask me to babysit for their children.  I always say “Yes”, but only because it is difficult for me to do so, and I wonder if God is increasing my capacity to give.

In our last post we laid the groundwork for balance in self-giving. In this post we will dig into a few practical ideas.

Saying “No” and Saying “Yes”

With those distinctions in mind, I think we can answer your question: “Is there a time when we can justifiably deny a request without being selfish?”  Absolutely!  The ultimate goal is not to go around looking for things that are hard for us to do and to do as many of them as possible.  The ultimate goal is give ourselves to God and our neighbor, out of love, out of a sense of what would please them and be good for them.  This provides us with a hierarchy of values that enable us to discern when to say “yes” and when to say “no.”

For example, as a married woman your first arena of love is in your friendship with God himself.  That friendship requires you to hold dear what God holds dear, and so you will never disobey his commands.  If someone asks you to babysit on Sunday, when you know God wants you to be with him at Mass, you can say, “I am so sorry, I am not available.”

Your second arena of love is your relationship with your husband – that is your sacrament.  Through that bond God promises to send his grace into your lives and, through you, into the world.  If you and your husband have instituted a weekly or monthly date-night in order to help keep your communication channels healthy, you won’t be able to babysit that night – you will have to deny that request.  You might actually enjoy the date-night more than the babysitting, but that doesn’t mean you are being selfish.  You are actually being faithful; you are loving as God wants you to love; you are saying “no” to one very good thing in order to say “yes” to an even better thing.

Vanity Disguised as Love

In some cases, it is actually a sign of selfishness NOT to deny a request.  Let’s take a radical case.  Your girlfriend is having an affair.  She wants to get together with her lover while her husband is at work.  She asks you to babysit her kids so she can have her tryst.  Part of you may want to say yes to this request, because you don’t want to alienate this friend (who is popular and influential in your social circles).  But you know that you should not encourage her in her infidelity.  If you were to babysit to help cover up her adultery, would you really be showing her Christ-like love?  Or would you be putting your own social status ahead of your responsibility as Christ’s follower to help people leave sin instead of dive into it?

Discerning God’s Path

The principle underlying these examples is always the same.  It has to do with keeping God first in our lives, with loving him by finding and following his will for us.  That is the true measure of love.  Sometimes that path will be steep and painful, just like Christ’s path to Calvary.  But even then, in the depths of our soul we will find a spiritual resonance, an interior peace and assurance that comes from the Holy Spirit.

If we don’t, if we only find turbulence and confusion even in our hearts, it could actually be a sign that we are making a wrong turn, that we are operating out of vanity or pride instead of Christ-like love.  How can we tell the difference?  Usually it is clear.  When it isn’t, we need to turn to God in prayer (and it’s much easier to do that if we have already developed a healthy prayer life), and get solid advice from someone we trust, like a spiritual director.  And, like all things in the spiritual life, practice makes perfect: the more we engage in Christ-like love, the more easily we discern the real thing from its distracting counterfeits.

“How” vs “How Much”

As a final comment, I would like to make an observation about St. Paul’s “Hymn to Charity,” which we find in 1 Corinthians 13.  This passage summarizes the characteristics of Christ-like love (which is why it is so popular as a Reading during wedding Masses).  Notice that St. Paul is much more interested in how we do things and how we treat each other than he is in how much we get done.  In our world of maniacal overachievers and merely material standards of success, that is a very, very important distinction to keep in mind.  If we say yes to so many things that we end up doing them all angrily, resentfully, and bitterly, we have probably lost the balance somewhere along the line and need to pull back.  It may be costly to decide to give of ourselves, but once we have made the decision, we should be able to let our trust in God banish the emotional resentment: “Each one should give as much as he has decided on his own initiative, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).   Let’s let St. Paul have the last word:

Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offense or store up grievances.  Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth.  It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. Love never comes to an end. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

Am I being selfish by denying help to my family or friends? Part I of II

Q: Dear Father John, if Christians are called to charity, and we assume that our charity must cost us something (like time, comfort, or money), is there a time when we can justifiably deny a request without being selfish? I’m an at-home mom and my friends often ask me to babysit for their children.  I always say “Yes”, but only because it is difficult for me to do so, and I wonder if God is increasing my capacity to give.

A: I know for certain that you are not the only reader of this blog who struggles with this issue.  We all experience the limitations of time and space (and energy!), and yet we believe we are called to be limitless in our love: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).  How can we reconcile the apparent contradiction?

A Gospel Paradox

First, we have to get somewhat theological.  Charity – Christ-like, self-forgetful love – is by nature sacrificial.  We give of ourselves to someone else, for their benefit instead of our own.  And that goes against the grain of the selfish tendencies deep within us, which we inherited with original sin.  Therefore, self-giving is often painful, or, as you put it, costly.  This is what Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta meant when she said, “This is the meaning of true love: to give until it hurts.”  This is also what Jesus had in mind when he taught that “the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14).  Following Christ, learning to love like Christ, involves a constant battle against our innate tendencies to self-indulgence (of any variety), which necessarily involves self-denial: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).

But in a true gospel paradox, the initial pain of self-denial out of love for God and neighbor doesn’t last.  It is transformed into interior peace and deep joy: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35), our Lord promised, and again “Give, and it shall be given to you” (Luke 6:38).  Love, Christ-like love, touches a deeper chord in our soul than selfishness.  And so, when we obey the law of Christ-like love, we experience a spiritual satisfaction and tranquility that can actually coexist with the discomfort caused by denying our selfish tendencies.  On the surface, we feel the pain of self-giving, and in the depths, we know we are doing the right thing; we experience interior peace.  In the end, this deeper level outweighs the more superficial, emotional tantrums.

Think of the mother whose young child is seriously ill.  She has to stay up night after night to care for and watch over the child.  At times she feels that she simply can’t go on.  Exhaustion is wreaking physiological and psycho-somatic havoc.  And yet, she would have it no other way.  In her heart she experiences a spiritual peace because she knows that this is what God is asking of her, that this is what a mother should do, regardless of the cost to herself.

Costliness Is not the Essence of Love

And so, although Christ-like love will always be costly, we cannot really equate the love with the costliness.  The costliness is more like a byproduct, which comes from the automatic resistance of our innate selfishness.  And it is not the only byproduct – interior peace and inner joy are also the byproducts of true love.  When we give of ourselves out of love, and not out of vanity or fear, we experience spiritual satisfaction, because that’s what we were made for.  We are created in God’s image, and God is love.

In our next post we will give some examples of our “yes and no” in relation to charity.

Sayings of Light and Love #15

Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?

Saint John of the Cross

More ”Sayings of Light and Love”