Ijournal entry 092115 #38 Month of September- dedicated to the Seven Dolours (Sorrows) of Mary. Quotes Bl. Thomas of Cori, By St. Edmund, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Avila, Bl. Jordan of Saxony, and St. Francis of Assisi. Article: "Are You Hating Reverence?", by Fr. Chris Pietraszko. Article: "How St. John Vianney was Persecuted by Demons". Homily by Fr. Chad Ripperger: "Return to Reverence".
Month of September- dedicated to the Seven Dolours (Sorrows) of Mary.
"O broken-hearted Mother! by the grief which then wrung thy maternal heart, by the fidelity which made thee stand by the Cross of Jesus, and bravely associate thyself with Him in His hour of ignominy and of pain, pray for us to God, that our hearts may be torn with true contrition for our sins. Mayest thou stand by us in the last hour of our life, and give us courage to pass through the portals of death to the feet of Our Judge". By Fr. Francis Cuthbert Doyle, 1896
"O broken-hearted Mother! by the grief which then wrung thy maternal heart, by the fidelity which made thee stand by the Cross of Jesus, and bravely associate thyself with Him in His hour of ignominy and of pain, pray for us to God, that our hearts may be torn with true contrition for our sins. Mayest thou stand by us in the last hour of our life, and give us courage to pass through the portals of death to the feet of Our Judge". By Fr. Francis Cuthbert Doyle, 1896
SAINTS 19 BUCS 26
What a sin to not play hard win and win 😓
Cheese & Crackers
🔵“If the heart does not pray, the tongue works in vain. The Divine Office is to be recited slowly and reverently". By Bl. Thomas of Cori
⚪️“It is better to say one Our Father fervently and devoutly than a thousand with no devotion and full of distraction". By St. Edmund
🔵“Purposely to allow one’s mind to wander in prayer is sinful and hinders the prayer from having fruit.” By St. Thomas Aquinas
⚫️ "Never address your words to God while you are thinking of something else". By St. Teresa of Avila
🔴"The best form of prayer: The way in which you can pray most fervently.” By Bl. Jordan of Saxony
⚪️“Worldly and frivolous thoughts, stay here at the door until I return.” St. Francis of Assisi would say this whenever he was about to enter church for Mass or to pray, then he would go inside and pray with complete devotion.
The Veggies
Isaiah 29:13 “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
One day after reading the following quote by St. Jean Vianney, my awareness was heightened about how easily we now fall so short in seeing things with a keen spiritual eye. In never would have occurred to me to label "profane behavior" in church for what it is: "profane". Don't think it is possible these days for one in the middle of fraternal correction to use that term, for sure a fight could very well break out.
"There are others, and you can see them sleeping as soundly as if they were in a comfortable bed. The first thought that comes to them when they awake is not that they have been profaning so holy a place but: "Oh, Lord, this will never be over....".
If sleeping is "profaning ", wonder what he would say about eating, talking, drinking, laughing, fraternizing, in "so holy a place". When we lose the sense of what is holy, that's an indication that our spiritual barometer is broken. This highly alters one's behavior. All that said, there is a great need for me to seriously take note of my behavior in regards to becoming a better christian. Paramount is reverently worshiping and serving The Lord as He desires and justly deserves. Reading the article that is being served up today as a meatball dish, surely was an eye opener. Hope someone will get a chance to read, for it may be helpful in the department of reparation, serving to shave off some purgatory time.
What's up now? A lil poetry from me: "Can't help sharing a lil Poetry ~ Cause of the inspiration given to Me"
🔸Only the humble of heart will see with right sight
🔸And be able to fight the good fight of faith with all their might
🔸It won't be about succumbing to doing as one so please
🔸A surrendered soul will be entrapped in the Holy Spirit's seize
🔸Enraptured & focused not on self or things below, but on what's above
🔸Neither will others be the main attraction, capturing one's love
🔸Long gone from da mind will be da need for so much chitter chatter
🔸Willful distractions will be driven out, it'll disperse & quickly scatter
🔸One will clearly see who should be receiving da strictest of attention
🔸In spirit & truth God will be acknowledged & not just in pretension
🔸It is time, long over do, to let go of that childish kind of behavior
🔸And truly reverence da Eucharistic presence of Christ our dear Savior
🔸If the belief is really held that He is truly unequivocally present
🔸Then there should be to irreverent behavior a very serious amendment
🔸When coming into the Lord's presence it really is about "the how"
🔸Displeasure is a reality when irreverence is something we willfully allow
🔸May God given graces foster a true change of attitude and of heart
🔸By mercy, may His presence strengthen one & all to begin a fresh start
🔸A contrite spirit & authentic prayer will help us get to da problem's root
🔸Then we will be able to worship the Lord our God in spirit & in truth
🔸Open hearts allow the light of Christ to dispel any darkness
🔸And walking humbly in His power, true Christians give right witness
One day after reading the following quote by St. Jean Vianney, my awareness was heightened about how easily we now fall so short in seeing things with a keen spiritual eye. In never would have occurred to me to label "profane behavior" in church for what it is: "profane". Don't think it is possible these days for one in the middle of fraternal correction to use that term, for sure a fight could very well break out.
"There are others, and you can see them sleeping as soundly as if they were in a comfortable bed. The first thought that comes to them when they awake is not that they have been profaning so holy a place but: "Oh, Lord, this will never be over....".
If sleeping is "profaning ", wonder what he would say about eating, talking, drinking, laughing, fraternizing, in "so holy a place". When we lose the sense of what is holy, that's an indication that our spiritual barometer is broken. This highly alters one's behavior. All that said, there is a great need for me to seriously take note of my behavior in regards to becoming a better christian. Paramount is reverently worshiping and serving The Lord as He desires and justly deserves. Reading the article that is being served up today as a meatball dish, surely was an eye opener. Hope someone will get a chance to read, for it may be helpful in the department of reparation, serving to shave off some purgatory time.
What's up now? A lil poetry from me: "Can't help sharing a lil Poetry ~ Cause of the inspiration given to Me"
🔸Only the humble of heart will see with right sight
🔸And be able to fight the good fight of faith with all their might
🔸It won't be about succumbing to doing as one so please
🔸A surrendered soul will be entrapped in the Holy Spirit's seize
🔸Enraptured & focused not on self or things below, but on what's above
🔸Neither will others be the main attraction, capturing one's love
🔸Long gone from da mind will be da need for so much chitter chatter
🔸Willful distractions will be driven out, it'll disperse & quickly scatter
🔸One will clearly see who should be receiving da strictest of attention
🔸In spirit & truth God will be acknowledged & not just in pretension
🔸It is time, long over do, to let go of that childish kind of behavior
🔸And truly reverence da Eucharistic presence of Christ our dear Savior
🔸If the belief is really held that He is truly unequivocally present
🔸Then there should be to irreverent behavior a very serious amendment
🔸When coming into the Lord's presence it really is about "the how"
🔸Displeasure is a reality when irreverence is something we willfully allow
🔸May God given graces foster a true change of attitude and of heart
🔸By mercy, may His presence strengthen one & all to begin a fresh start
🔸A contrite spirit & authentic prayer will help us get to da problem's root
🔸Then we will be able to worship the Lord our God in spirit & in truth
🔸Open hearts allow the light of Christ to dispel any darkness
🔸And walking humbly in His power, true Christians give right witness
John 4:23-24 "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."
Psalm 145:18 "The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth"
The Potatoes
Article: "Are You Hating Reverence?", by Fr. Chris Pietraszko,
Link to article: http://www.courageouspriest.com/hating-reverence?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+courageouspriest%2FqTKF+%28Courageous+Priest%29
"We begin the movement of the Ark of the Covenant, 2 Samuel 6:1-23, known to be the most holy possession of Israel.
The Ark Brought to Jerusalem. David again assembled all the picked men of Israel, thirty thousand in number. Then David and all the people who were with him set out for Baala of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which bears the name “the LORD of hosts enthroned above the cherubim.” They transported the ark of God on a new cart and took it away from the house of Abinadab on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the cart, with Ahio walking before it,5while David and all the house of Israel danced before the LORDwith all their might, with singing, and with lyres, harps, tambourines, sistrums, and cymbals.d6As they reached the threshing floor of Nodan, Uzzah stretched out his hand to the ark of God and steadied it, for the oxen were tipping it. Then the LORDbecame angry with Uzzah; God struck him on that spot, and he died there in God’s presence.8David was angry because the LORD’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah. Therefore that place has been called Perez-uzzah even to this day. David became frightened of the LORD that day, and he said, “How can the ark of the LORDcome to me?”10So David was unwilling to take the ark of the LORD with him into the City of David. David deposited it instead at the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household. When it was reported to King David that the LORD had blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that he possessed because of the ark of God, David went to bring up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the City of David with joy. As soon as the bearers of the ark of the LORD had advanced six steps, he sacrificed an ox and a fatling. Then David came dancing before the LORD with abandon, girt with a linen ephod. David and all the house of Israel were bringing up the ark of the LORD with shouts of joy and sound of horn. As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal, daughter of Saul, looked down from her window, and when she saw King David jumping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart. They brought in the ark of the LORD and set it in its place within the tent which David had pitched for it. Then David sacrificed burnt offerings and communion offerings before the LORD. When David had finished sacrificing burnt offerings and communion offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts,19and distributed among all the people, the entire multitude of Israel, to every man and every woman, one loaf of bread, one piece of meat, and one raisin cake. Then all the people returned to their homes. When David went home to bless his own house, Michal, the daughter of Saul, came out to meet him and said, “How well the king of Israel has honored himself today, exposing himself to the view of the slave girls of his followers, as a commoner might expose himself!” But David replied to Michal: “I was dancing before the LORD. As the LORD lives, who chose me over your father and all his house when he appointed me ruler over the LORD’s people, Israel, not only will I make merry before the LORD, but I will demean myself even more. I will be lowly in your eyes, but in the eyes of the slave girls you spoke of I will be somebody.” Saul’s daughter Michal was childless to the day she died.
Why does God expect reverence from us?
Sometimes people will suggest that God is so humble that He would never demand reverence from us. This is true, only insofar as God would never demand reverence from us out of some ego-centric motive. However, God will demand reverence from us if it is for our own good. The opposite of reverence is familiarity, whereby we seek intimacy’s counterfeit. Familiarity is reducing a mystery into an object to which we claim to know everything about. Consider couples who beginwith romance and end in familiarity; they begin with respect, but end with possessiveness and entitlement. This is an example of people who have lost a sense of the genuine mystery in the one to whom they are married to, and how much more true is it when applied to our relationship with God.
God expects reverence out of Justice. Keep in mind that God wants us to be righteous people, because that is good for the soul. Avoiding the poison of injustice helps us find inner-peace and peace with our neighbour. Therefore God wants us to be people of Justice. It is truly right and just, therefore, everywhere to give God thanks and praise. That is to say: in order for us to be “good” as far as justice goes, we need to be able to give credit where it is due, thanksgiving where it is due: and this begins with God. If it doesn’t begin with God who is responsible for everything, then our whole lives lack the proper orientation. How could we give more credit and thanksgiving to someone who is less responsible for all that is good? Would not our neglect of God become a twisted form of injustice?
Furthermore, we must understand why reverence is important from a Trinitarian perspective. The Father loves His Son, and out of that love expects us to Love him also. He does not appreciate when we defy or neglect His Son, to whom he Loves infinitely. Therefore out of love for His Son, he demands our reverence. Likewise, the Son is utterly in love with His Father, that he demands we respect Him. It is no wonder that the Father told us to Listen to Christ, and Christ told us everything He had heard from His Father. They are a united front, and expect us to respect them both. It is not as if they are seeking their own glory, but rather are seeking to glorify each other. Therefore, in this sense, out of Love for each other, the Trinity demands our respect.
Therefore, God seeks our reverence out of Love for each person within the Trinity and for our own good; thus the law of Christ (To love God and neighbour) is perfectly recapitulated in His demand for our reverence.
Spiritual Death: Entitlement to Grace
Being aware of our own motives may help us to critically examine why we may or may not be overly critical of various forms of reverence. It may simply be that we have just grown accustom to the status quo in this regard. But if we are in Love with Christ, the status quo will never suffice. Perhaps change in the way others pray is perceived as a distraction: but sometimes distractions are good when they awake us out of a spiritual sleep and spiritual deafness to God’s presence. Perhaps they seem to draw attention to ourselves, and thus people automatically consider this a vain and unproductive activity. Aha, if this is the case, you must read the office of readings we encountered today. How easy it is to fall into the same trap that Michal fell into!
Before we examine Saul’s daughter’s reaction to King David dancing in the street before the presence of God, let us begin by examining what led up to such exaltation of the Presence of God. We note that Uzzah witnessed the Ark of the Covenant tipping, and so he stretched out His hands to steady it. On the surface, this might seem to be a fairly reasonable thing to do. However, God was utterly furious at Uzzah’s action that he was struck dead. Why?
Uzzah was not a Levite, and therefore not a priest. He took it upon himself to fulfill a role that God had not ordained him to accomplish. This means that Uzzah, who was not worthy of the task (election), was not permitted to take on the role of one of the priests. The priests had been consecrated to this particular task, and the whole established order that God had created around the Ark was meant to establish within the social-mindset of the Israelites a deep and profound reverence: the Ark was not something to be “familiar” with, but rather required a Divine-calling to handle. The Ark therefore became a tangible means to understand our relationship with God in a properly ordered fashion. The organization of the various roles/vocations of the Israelites became a means to teach people how to approach God, and in what spirit.
Applying this logic to the Church we realize that the way the Church organizes the liturgy has a profound impact on how we approach God. This is something few seem to grasp in our day and age, which explains why the liturgy is often reduced to a symbol in the minds of many. If we treat the Eucharist as if He is a symbol, people will naturally begin to believe it. The way we pray, shapes what we believe in. Furthermore, after Vatican II it became clear that priests reacted to clericalism by reinforcing clericalism, albeit unintentionally. Instead of approaching their office without a spirituality of entitlement they shared that spiritual sickness of entitlement with the laity. All of a sudden people began to feel as if they had a “right” to approach the sanctuary and preform duties that were strictly assigned to the priest. Therefore, instead of defacing entitlement we hid it by encouraging it in everyone. No longer was grace (gift) even in our minds: entitlement was. And as Pope Francis suggests, we priests clerlicalized the laity, passing on our own sickness, rather than building up the laity in their own vocation.
Uzzah’s extended hand did not convey a reverence for the Ark, but was actually the exact opposite: he felt entitled to approach the presence of God, something that was clearly spelled out to be forbidden. God was therefore not punishing Uzzah’s intention of saving the Ark but rather his spirit of entitlement. Consider this passage in this way: when we approach God with presumption and entitlement we are spiritually dead. We cannot receive “grace” authentically if we perceive “grace” as something we are entitled to. It will never take root in us. If this is our attitude we have reversed the entire order of justice, suggesting that God owes us reverence, and that it is truly right and just for us to be able to be in the presence of God. How spiritually twistedand vile for any human being to consider “grace” a right in the spiritual-sense. For grace is a gift, that we receive with gratitude, not possessiveness. Truly Uzzah was spiritually dead when he reached out to the Presence of God in the Ark.
King David was shaken by this experience and as a result welled up with reverence for the Presence that he could not fathom it being brought to Him in a deserving manner. In other words, David understood the pride of Uzzah and therefore sought to ground Himself in a spirit of gratitude that God had chosen Him and the Israelites to enjoy such a procession of God’s presence.
Michal and Reverence-haters
Michal is a fantastic analogy for the spirituality of many who are off-put by reverence today. As David welcomes the Ark of the Covenant into the City, he dances and seemingly makes a fool of himself. However, David is over-the-top excited that God has chosen to be present to Him, and he can only appreciate this because all entitlement within Him is entirely vanquished. His gratitude is grounded in the very fact that he is dust, but with God’s abiding presence (grace) he is elevated from dust to life. What an incredible and exciting realization to have that a self-affirming culture cannot ever comprehend. When we affirm ourselves in the right-spirit it involves giving no credit to ourselves, but rather to the one who made us. We do not make our own heartbeat, nor do we design ourselves: that is all God’s doing. Therefore, when we affirm ourselves in an inordinate way it means we confuse our behaviour with our being: we think we are responsible for creating ourselves. This narcissism will naturally lead to one conclusion: entitlement and despair.
Michal who has lost her inheritance after David replaces her Father Saul is filled with jealousy and therefore allows her bitterness to guide her interpretation of David’s leadership. She is disposed against Him, and will therefore always resent his actions and find fault with them, even when there is no fault. In this case, she accuses King David of the same thing so many nay-sayers today accuse those who demonstrate reverence: “How the King of Israel has honoured himself today.” In other words, Michal is convinced that David has honoured himself or is showing reverence to God as a façade of actually receiving honour from others for himself. While it is more than possible that false piety can be twisted in such a sense, we must keep in mind that the external action of King David was actually in synch with a proper spiritual attitude. As a result Michal is judgmental and incorrect in her judgment. David responds that he would love to be dishonoured before the presence of God if only it builds up people’s view of God’s presence. What a profoundly humbling statement for David to say: something that is stated from a man who genuinely loves God.
Michal is later said to have lived without being able to conceive until the day she died. Perhaps, interpreting this in a spiritual light, we might be able to say that because her heart was hardened against authentic reverence (borne of her hatred for King David and therefore his example), she was not able to contribute new life to the Assembly of God. Without the spiritual fruit of reverence, it is impossible to add new life to the Church, in the spiritual sense. Our love for God will naturally draw other people into a relationship with God. A love for our neighbour is secondary to a love for God, and rightfully so, lest our neighbour becomes deserving of more honour then God.
Liturgy, Ritual, and Worship that is Pleasing
God gives us ritual as a means to express our love for God with our entire-being. We are body and soul: therefore our worship ought to be comprised of both body-and-soul. With a purely abstract love of God, we develop spiritual disorder within ourselves, and naturally with our neighbour. Do we give God worship in our mind, but not in our body, yet we show honour and respect in both ways to our neighbour? Why would we dare to give God less than what we would give one of His creatures? Ritual and Liturgy are the very means to bestow upon God this reverence. Two friends of mine gave a perfect example of why this makes sense. For the sake of propriety I will give them other names. Matt went to mass with his girl-friend Kelly. He went to mass because he really liked Kelly, but the faith was still growing within him. One day Kelly noticed that Matt’s but was leaning on the pew during consecration (and he had no back-problems). She told him: get your butt off of that pew. His response was swift: “I’m pretty sure God doesn’t care.” She gave him a head-flip, and then flipped back, and said, “If you cannot honour God, who can you honour?”
I love this true-story because it demonstrates a common attitude amongst people today, which is that God doesn’t care about our reverence. God doesn’t care about a “show” of piety, but He does want us to place Him in the highest throne in our own soul. Not because he needs such adulation, but rather, in order for us to be good, we need to place Him there out of justice. Furthermore, our love for our neighbour cannot ever be authentic, if we do not put God in the highest place first. Otherwise, we honour who we prefer, rather than who deserves it, and we cannot be grounded in justice if we are grounded in our preference over truth.
Sometimes we are like Uzzah who consider ourselves entitled to approach God with a spirit of familiarity. One might think acting with familiarity presents ourselves as “down-to-earth” but in reality we are only perceived as down to earth by the people because the people perceive what is base to be down-to-earth. Likewise, we become base and spiritually dead when we buy into such a counterfeit.
One of the practices in our diocese, for instance, is that only the ordained ministers (and those who have received the ministry of Acolyte from the Bishop) are permitted to purify the vessels used after consecration. This often is perceived as “off-putting” because people feel as if they are entitled to touch the sacred vessels whenever it pleases them. People are found to be put-off when one suggests that they are unworthy of such a task. This is the wrong attitude, and it springs from a spirituality of narcissistic entitlement.
An ordained minister who rightly understands his vocation understands this to be something given to Him as a gift and a responsibility. He should never perceive such tasks as being something He is entitled to, but rather elected to accomplish. But when a priest perceives all of ministry under the lens of entitlement he might project that into the role of the laity, and therefore relax such rules, making everyone seemingly “entitled.” The unfortunate thing about such an attitude is it ultimately never uproots the spiritual disease, it simply enables it amongst everyone.
God elects certain people for such tasks as a means to bring about humility: and so when these tasks are blurred between the laity and the clergy what happens is we remove ourselves from a very tangible method of making the Church filled with gratitude and reverence. We do not see the wisdom in the social-dynamic of allowing for such order to be supported, because we only perceive things through the lens of our fallen-nature. We also lack the prophetic vision we are to have, in how God’s little laws and rubrics are actually impactful in an authentic spirituality. We are constantly attempting to be progressive in sin, and totally unaware of this as the objective method and goal of our aims.
A priest has been made worthy, not by His own merit, but by the election and will of God. And with that gift, He is called to holiness as everyone else is: but in his particular task. If we were to internalize the Little-Flower a bit more realistically, we would come to the conclusion that such a task as handling the divine mysteries is incredibly debasing to our own ego.
The solution is in realizing that we demonstrate reverence not because we are worthy of God or showing our own holiness to others, but rather, we are debasing our pride that God may be the Rose that is noticeable amongst us, the little white-flowers that merely draw your attention to the real-deal: God.
Regardless of our vocation in life: life isn’t about any of us: it is about the glory of God. The quicker we learn this, the more abandoned we become from our own glory: the more we will experience God’s glory and all the joy that comes from such exciting love."
Why does God expect reverence from us?
Sometimes people will suggest that God is so humble that He would never demand reverence from us. This is true, only insofar as God would never demand reverence from us out of some ego-centric motive. However, God will demand reverence from us if it is for our own good. The opposite of reverence is familiarity, whereby we seek intimacy’s counterfeit. Familiarity is reducing a mystery into an object to which we claim to know everything about. Consider couples who beginwith romance and end in familiarity; they begin with respect, but end with possessiveness and entitlement. This is an example of people who have lost a sense of the genuine mystery in the one to whom they are married to, and how much more true is it when applied to our relationship with God.
God expects reverence out of Justice. Keep in mind that God wants us to be righteous people, because that is good for the soul. Avoiding the poison of injustice helps us find inner-peace and peace with our neighbour. Therefore God wants us to be people of Justice. It is truly right and just, therefore, everywhere to give God thanks and praise. That is to say: in order for us to be “good” as far as justice goes, we need to be able to give credit where it is due, thanksgiving where it is due: and this begins with God. If it doesn’t begin with God who is responsible for everything, then our whole lives lack the proper orientation. How could we give more credit and thanksgiving to someone who is less responsible for all that is good? Would not our neglect of God become a twisted form of injustice?
Furthermore, we must understand why reverence is important from a Trinitarian perspective. The Father loves His Son, and out of that love expects us to Love him also. He does not appreciate when we defy or neglect His Son, to whom he Loves infinitely. Therefore out of love for His Son, he demands our reverence. Likewise, the Son is utterly in love with His Father, that he demands we respect Him. It is no wonder that the Father told us to Listen to Christ, and Christ told us everything He had heard from His Father. They are a united front, and expect us to respect them both. It is not as if they are seeking their own glory, but rather are seeking to glorify each other. Therefore, in this sense, out of Love for each other, the Trinity demands our respect.
Therefore, God seeks our reverence out of Love for each person within the Trinity and for our own good; thus the law of Christ (To love God and neighbour) is perfectly recapitulated in His demand for our reverence.
Spiritual Death: Entitlement to Grace
Being aware of our own motives may help us to critically examine why we may or may not be overly critical of various forms of reverence. It may simply be that we have just grown accustom to the status quo in this regard. But if we are in Love with Christ, the status quo will never suffice. Perhaps change in the way others pray is perceived as a distraction: but sometimes distractions are good when they awake us out of a spiritual sleep and spiritual deafness to God’s presence. Perhaps they seem to draw attention to ourselves, and thus people automatically consider this a vain and unproductive activity. Aha, if this is the case, you must read the office of readings we encountered today. How easy it is to fall into the same trap that Michal fell into!
Before we examine Saul’s daughter’s reaction to King David dancing in the street before the presence of God, let us begin by examining what led up to such exaltation of the Presence of God. We note that Uzzah witnessed the Ark of the Covenant tipping, and so he stretched out His hands to steady it. On the surface, this might seem to be a fairly reasonable thing to do. However, God was utterly furious at Uzzah’s action that he was struck dead. Why?
Uzzah was not a Levite, and therefore not a priest. He took it upon himself to fulfill a role that God had not ordained him to accomplish. This means that Uzzah, who was not worthy of the task (election), was not permitted to take on the role of one of the priests. The priests had been consecrated to this particular task, and the whole established order that God had created around the Ark was meant to establish within the social-mindset of the Israelites a deep and profound reverence: the Ark was not something to be “familiar” with, but rather required a Divine-calling to handle. The Ark therefore became a tangible means to understand our relationship with God in a properly ordered fashion. The organization of the various roles/vocations of the Israelites became a means to teach people how to approach God, and in what spirit.
Applying this logic to the Church we realize that the way the Church organizes the liturgy has a profound impact on how we approach God. This is something few seem to grasp in our day and age, which explains why the liturgy is often reduced to a symbol in the minds of many. If we treat the Eucharist as if He is a symbol, people will naturally begin to believe it. The way we pray, shapes what we believe in. Furthermore, after Vatican II it became clear that priests reacted to clericalism by reinforcing clericalism, albeit unintentionally. Instead of approaching their office without a spirituality of entitlement they shared that spiritual sickness of entitlement with the laity. All of a sudden people began to feel as if they had a “right” to approach the sanctuary and preform duties that were strictly assigned to the priest. Therefore, instead of defacing entitlement we hid it by encouraging it in everyone. No longer was grace (gift) even in our minds: entitlement was. And as Pope Francis suggests, we priests clerlicalized the laity, passing on our own sickness, rather than building up the laity in their own vocation.
Uzzah’s extended hand did not convey a reverence for the Ark, but was actually the exact opposite: he felt entitled to approach the presence of God, something that was clearly spelled out to be forbidden. God was therefore not punishing Uzzah’s intention of saving the Ark but rather his spirit of entitlement. Consider this passage in this way: when we approach God with presumption and entitlement we are spiritually dead. We cannot receive “grace” authentically if we perceive “grace” as something we are entitled to. It will never take root in us. If this is our attitude we have reversed the entire order of justice, suggesting that God owes us reverence, and that it is truly right and just for us to be able to be in the presence of God. How spiritually twistedand vile for any human being to consider “grace” a right in the spiritual-sense. For grace is a gift, that we receive with gratitude, not possessiveness. Truly Uzzah was spiritually dead when he reached out to the Presence of God in the Ark.
King David was shaken by this experience and as a result welled up with reverence for the Presence that he could not fathom it being brought to Him in a deserving manner. In other words, David understood the pride of Uzzah and therefore sought to ground Himself in a spirit of gratitude that God had chosen Him and the Israelites to enjoy such a procession of God’s presence.
Michal and Reverence-haters
Michal is a fantastic analogy for the spirituality of many who are off-put by reverence today. As David welcomes the Ark of the Covenant into the City, he dances and seemingly makes a fool of himself. However, David is over-the-top excited that God has chosen to be present to Him, and he can only appreciate this because all entitlement within Him is entirely vanquished. His gratitude is grounded in the very fact that he is dust, but with God’s abiding presence (grace) he is elevated from dust to life. What an incredible and exciting realization to have that a self-affirming culture cannot ever comprehend. When we affirm ourselves in the right-spirit it involves giving no credit to ourselves, but rather to the one who made us. We do not make our own heartbeat, nor do we design ourselves: that is all God’s doing. Therefore, when we affirm ourselves in an inordinate way it means we confuse our behaviour with our being: we think we are responsible for creating ourselves. This narcissism will naturally lead to one conclusion: entitlement and despair.
Michal who has lost her inheritance after David replaces her Father Saul is filled with jealousy and therefore allows her bitterness to guide her interpretation of David’s leadership. She is disposed against Him, and will therefore always resent his actions and find fault with them, even when there is no fault. In this case, she accuses King David of the same thing so many nay-sayers today accuse those who demonstrate reverence: “How the King of Israel has honoured himself today.” In other words, Michal is convinced that David has honoured himself or is showing reverence to God as a façade of actually receiving honour from others for himself. While it is more than possible that false piety can be twisted in such a sense, we must keep in mind that the external action of King David was actually in synch with a proper spiritual attitude. As a result Michal is judgmental and incorrect in her judgment. David responds that he would love to be dishonoured before the presence of God if only it builds up people’s view of God’s presence. What a profoundly humbling statement for David to say: something that is stated from a man who genuinely loves God.
Michal is later said to have lived without being able to conceive until the day she died. Perhaps, interpreting this in a spiritual light, we might be able to say that because her heart was hardened against authentic reverence (borne of her hatred for King David and therefore his example), she was not able to contribute new life to the Assembly of God. Without the spiritual fruit of reverence, it is impossible to add new life to the Church, in the spiritual sense. Our love for God will naturally draw other people into a relationship with God. A love for our neighbour is secondary to a love for God, and rightfully so, lest our neighbour becomes deserving of more honour then God.
Liturgy, Ritual, and Worship that is Pleasing
God gives us ritual as a means to express our love for God with our entire-being. We are body and soul: therefore our worship ought to be comprised of both body-and-soul. With a purely abstract love of God, we develop spiritual disorder within ourselves, and naturally with our neighbour. Do we give God worship in our mind, but not in our body, yet we show honour and respect in both ways to our neighbour? Why would we dare to give God less than what we would give one of His creatures? Ritual and Liturgy are the very means to bestow upon God this reverence. Two friends of mine gave a perfect example of why this makes sense. For the sake of propriety I will give them other names. Matt went to mass with his girl-friend Kelly. He went to mass because he really liked Kelly, but the faith was still growing within him. One day Kelly noticed that Matt’s but was leaning on the pew during consecration (and he had no back-problems). She told him: get your butt off of that pew. His response was swift: “I’m pretty sure God doesn’t care.” She gave him a head-flip, and then flipped back, and said, “If you cannot honour God, who can you honour?”
I love this true-story because it demonstrates a common attitude amongst people today, which is that God doesn’t care about our reverence. God doesn’t care about a “show” of piety, but He does want us to place Him in the highest throne in our own soul. Not because he needs such adulation, but rather, in order for us to be good, we need to place Him there out of justice. Furthermore, our love for our neighbour cannot ever be authentic, if we do not put God in the highest place first. Otherwise, we honour who we prefer, rather than who deserves it, and we cannot be grounded in justice if we are grounded in our preference over truth.
Sometimes we are like Uzzah who consider ourselves entitled to approach God with a spirit of familiarity. One might think acting with familiarity presents ourselves as “down-to-earth” but in reality we are only perceived as down to earth by the people because the people perceive what is base to be down-to-earth. Likewise, we become base and spiritually dead when we buy into such a counterfeit.
One of the practices in our diocese, for instance, is that only the ordained ministers (and those who have received the ministry of Acolyte from the Bishop) are permitted to purify the vessels used after consecration. This often is perceived as “off-putting” because people feel as if they are entitled to touch the sacred vessels whenever it pleases them. People are found to be put-off when one suggests that they are unworthy of such a task. This is the wrong attitude, and it springs from a spirituality of narcissistic entitlement.
An ordained minister who rightly understands his vocation understands this to be something given to Him as a gift and a responsibility. He should never perceive such tasks as being something He is entitled to, but rather elected to accomplish. But when a priest perceives all of ministry under the lens of entitlement he might project that into the role of the laity, and therefore relax such rules, making everyone seemingly “entitled.” The unfortunate thing about such an attitude is it ultimately never uproots the spiritual disease, it simply enables it amongst everyone.
God elects certain people for such tasks as a means to bring about humility: and so when these tasks are blurred between the laity and the clergy what happens is we remove ourselves from a very tangible method of making the Church filled with gratitude and reverence. We do not see the wisdom in the social-dynamic of allowing for such order to be supported, because we only perceive things through the lens of our fallen-nature. We also lack the prophetic vision we are to have, in how God’s little laws and rubrics are actually impactful in an authentic spirituality. We are constantly attempting to be progressive in sin, and totally unaware of this as the objective method and goal of our aims.
A priest has been made worthy, not by His own merit, but by the election and will of God. And with that gift, He is called to holiness as everyone else is: but in his particular task. If we were to internalize the Little-Flower a bit more realistically, we would come to the conclusion that such a task as handling the divine mysteries is incredibly debasing to our own ego.
The solution is in realizing that we demonstrate reverence not because we are worthy of God or showing our own holiness to others, but rather, we are debasing our pride that God may be the Rose that is noticeable amongst us, the little white-flowers that merely draw your attention to the real-deal: God.
Regardless of our vocation in life: life isn’t about any of us: it is about the glory of God. The quicker we learn this, the more abandoned we become from our own glory: the more we will experience God’s glory and all the joy that comes from such exciting love."
The Meat
Article: "How St. John Vianney was Persecuted by Demons"
Info from this site:
http://catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/St.%20John%20Vianney%20Persecuted%20by%20Demons.html
Excerpts from the article:
"The following dialogue is declared to have been found in a narrative of undoubted authenticity, and bearing every mark of incontestable truth. It is entitled, "Dialogue between a Possessed, from the neighbourhood of Puy, in Velay, and the Cure d'Ars." This colloquy took place in the afternoon of January 23, 1840, in the chapel of Saint-John Baptist, and in the presence of eight witnesses:
The Possessed--'I am immortal.'
Cure-- 'Are you then the only person who will not die?'
The Possessed--'I have never committed but one sin in my life, and the fruit of that sin I am ready to share with all who will. . . .'
The Cure-- 'In quis es?'
The Possessed-- 'Magister caput.' Then continuing in French, 'Vilain crapaud noir! How you torment me! It is a mutual warfare between us, which shall overcome the other; but, do what you will, you are often doing my work. You think your people well disposed; they are not. Why do you examine the consciences of your penitents? What is the use of so much investigation? Is not my examination sufficient?'
The Cure--'You say you examine the conscience of my penitents? Have they not recourse to God before all?'
The Possessed--'Yes, with their lips. I tell you it is I who examine them. I am oftener in your chapel than you think. My body goes out, but my spirit remains . . . . . I like to hear plenty of talking . . . . All who come to you are not saved. You are a miser.'
The Cure--'It would be difficult for me to be a miser. I have but little, and that little I give with all my heart.'
The Possessed--'It is not of that kind of avarice that I speak. You are a miser of souls. You rob me of all you can, but I shall endeavour to get them back again. You are a liar! You said, a long while ago, that you wished to depart from this place, and here you still remain. What do you mean by that? Why do you not retire and rest, as others do? you have worked long enough. You wished to go to Lyons.' [This was true. M. Vianney thought much, at that time, of Fourvieres.] ' At Lyons you would have been as avaricious as you are here. You talked of retiring into solitude.' [This was also true. He was anxious to make a retreat to Fourvieres, or to La Trappe.] 'Why do you not do so? '
The Cure--'Have you anything else to reproach me with?'
The Possessed--' I sifted you well last Sunday, during the mass, you remember?' [The Cure confessed that he had, at that precise time, experienced extraordinary trouble and embarrassment.] 'Your violet robe has just written to you, but I so managed it that he forgot what should have formed an essential part of his letter, and he is greatly vexed thereby.' [M. Vianney had that day received a letter from his Bishop.]
The Cure--'Will my lord allow me to depart?'
The Possessed--'He loves you too much. . . Your violet robe is as great a miser as you are, and he equally embarrasses me; but, no matter, we have lulled him to sleep with respect to an abuse in his diocese. . . . Come, lift up your hand over me, as you do over so many others who come here every day. You imagine that you convert them all. You are mistaken. It is very well for a moment, but I find them again. I have some of your parishioners on my list.'
The Cure--'What do you think of . . . ?' naming a priest of great piety.
The Possessed--'I do not like him.' [These words were pronounced in a tone of concentrated rage, accompanied by frightful grinding of the teeth.]
The Cure--'And of . . . ?' naming another.
The Possessed--'Very well. He lets me do what I like; there are crapauds noirs, who do not embarass me as you do. I perform their mass; they say mine.'
The Cure--'Do you perform mine?'
The Possessed--'You weary me. Ah, if the Virgin did not protect you; but, patience, we have brought greater than you to ruin; you are not dead yet. Why do you rise so early? You disobey your violet robe, who has ordered you to take more care of yourself. Why do you preach so simply? You will pass for an ignorant man. Oh, how I like those grand sermons which disturb no one, and which allow people to live in their own way, and do as they like! Many sleep at your catechisms, but there are others who are touched to the heart by your simple words.'
The Cure--'What yo you think of the dance?'
The Possessed--'I surround a dance as a wall surrounds a garden.'
On one occasion an unhappy woman, who gave proof of possession, said to Vianney: 'Why do you make me suffer so much? If there were three upon earth like you, my kingdom would be destroyed. You have robbed me of eighty thousand souls.' The Cure addressed himself to the daughter of this unfortunate woman. 'You will commence,' said he, 'this day a neuvaine to Sainte-Philomene, and you will bring her to me to-morrow in the sacristy. I will hear her confession after I have performed the mass. In the meantime, let her kneel down, and I will give her my blessing.'
The poor child implored him to deliver her mother, but he refused, saying he was not authorised.
This poor woman passed ten days at Ars, made a general confession, and left in a much more tranquil state. She exclaimed before several people, at a moment when she was much agitated: 'Ah, if all the lost could come to Ars, they would profit by it more than you all.'
Some one asked her what made the tables turn. She answered, 'It is I; magnetism, somnambulism--all that is my affair.'
The Dessert
Homily by Fr. Chad Ripperger
Link to homily:
http://www.sensustraditionis.org/webaudio/MC/rr.mp3