Contentment

"The truly godly person is not interested in becoming rich. He possesses inner resources which furnish riches far beyond that which earth can offer." --William Hendricksen

Litany of Humility

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me. From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being loved... From the desire of being extolled ... From the desire of being honored ... From the desire of being praised ... From the desire of being preferred to others... From the desire of being consulted ... From the desire of being approved ... From the fear of being humiliated ... From the fear of being despised... From the fear of suffering rebukes ... From the fear of being calumniated ... From the fear of being forgotten ... From the fear of being ridiculed ... From the fear of being wronged ... From the fear of being suspected ...That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. That others may be esteemed more than I ... That, in the opinion of the world, others may, increase and I may decrease ... That others may be chosen and I set aside ... That others may be praised and I unnoticed ... That others may be preferred to me in everything... That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should…

Written by Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930), Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X.

HT: Justice Clarence Thomas, who referred to this in passing during remarks at UA Law School Oct. 23.

Faith and "Reason"

"Too often when [Christians] weary of . . . censorship, they rebound with the insistence that 'faith' (which may spring from and depend upon tradition and authority about the real and the good) be granted a place next to 'reason.' Nothing I say here should be understood to deny the wisdom of the hallowed alliance of faith and reason. But in the current climate, reliance on that formula risks conceding what need not and should not be conceded. Another procedure is called for. The citadel called “reason” must be attacked and shown to be false. In recommending this procedure, my aim is not to court either nonsense or nihilism. Christians must be realists--critical realists-- both as to what has been created and revealed, and as to the respective places of good and evil. What must be corrected, if the Christian believer is to return from exile on terms he or she can live by, is the Enlightenment's unrealistic fallback position, according to which in the human head--or pineal gland?--there exist two black boxes, one for faith and the other for reason, the two of them jointly exhaustive of human access to the real and the good-- with faith fit for private life and simple people, and “reason” for public life and law faculty.

What Christians must insist upon, albeit in their differing dialects and accents, is that each of us rational humans goes out from her or his interiority to embrace the real and the good, across the whole spectrum of human living and hope, through an intelligence (the term I prefer to 'reason' because it refuses to carry the Enlightenment's freight) that performatively combines and commingles elements of (what later get labeled) 'faith' and 'reason.'"

-Patrick Brennan, Book Review, 16 Journal of Law and Religion 667 (2001).

On Refusing Grace and Giving up Intelligence

"Schemes that once flourished lose their efficacy and cease to function; in an ever more rapid succession, as crises multiply and remedies have less effect, new schemes are introduced; feverish effort is followed by listlessness; the situation becomes regarded as hopeless; in a twilight of straitened but gracious living men await the catalytic trifle that will reveal to a surprised world the end of a once brilliant day."

-Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding 210 (1978).

HT: Patrick Brennan

Nice to know they apply somewhere . . .

Progress

"And why should physical strength survive in a world where there was never the need for physical labor? As for such qualities as loyalty, generosity, etc., in a world where nothing went wrong, they would be not only irrelevant but probably unimaginable. The truth is that many of the qualities we admire in human beings can only function in opposition to some kind of disaster, pain or difficulty. . . . Presumably . . . the inhabitants of Utopia would create artificial dangers in order to exercise their courage, and do dumb-bell exercises to harden muscles they would never be obliged to use. . . . It is as though a London stockbroker should go to his office in a suit of chain mail and insist on talking medieval Latin."

-George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937).

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Morning, June 10

“We live unto the Lord.”Romans 14:8

If God had willed it, each of us might have entered heaven at the moment of conversion. It was not absolutely necessary for our preparation for immortality that we should tarry here. It is possible for a man to be taken to heaven, and to be found meet to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light, though he has but just believed in Jesus. It is true that our sanctification is a long and continued process, and we shall not be perfected till we lay aside our bodies and enter within the veil; but nevertheless, had the Lord so willed it, He might have changed us from imperfection to perfection, and have taken us to heaven at once. Why then are we here? Would God keep His children out of paradise a single moment longer than was necessary? Why is the army of the living God still on the battle-field, when one charge might give them the victory? Why are His children still wandering hither and thither through a maze, when a solitary word from His lips would bring them into the centre of their hopes in heaven? The answer is—They are here that they may “live unto the Lord,” and may bring others to know His love. We remain on earth as sowers to scatter good seed; as ploughmen to break up the fallow ground; as heralds publishing salvation. We are here as the “salt of the earth,” to be a blessing to the world. We are here to glorify Christ in our daily life. We are here as workers for Him, and as “workers together with Him.” Let us see that our life answereth its end. Let us live earnest, useful, holy lives, to “the praise of the glory of His grace.” Meanwhile we long to be with Him, and daily sing—
“My heart is with Him on His throne,
And ill can brook delay;
Each moment listening for the voice,
‘Rise up, and come away.’”

-Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening