Do I Need a Spiritual Director? with Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

hello and welcome to heights with aquinas i am father gregory pine and uh here we are just doing it um so let's see for this week uh i posed the question of whether or not you need a spiritual director and i think it's a question that many people entertain or many people have thought about at some point in their lives and so maybe just to address here at greater length so last last week we talked about like what kind of problems merit spiritual direction what kind of problems merit counseling the idea there being that there are different kinds of human problems some of which touch more immediately on you know concerns of mental health whereas others touch more immediately on concerns of the spiritual life so we tried to draw some instinctions so as not to like compartmentalize but also yeah just to kind of permit for greater healing and elevating as it were by the operation of grace in one's life but while using all the resources that lie at our disposal so um uh in in answering that question uh it kind of came up in my mind as to whether or not you know people people wonder about whether they should have a spiritual director and uh so yeah i thought we could address it a little more directly uh with uh with the urgency uh that um that many experience it as okay so i don't actually know if that was a complete sentence i'm fumbling i'm stumbling it's not even football season okay so what would be the pertinent considerations that you would entertain when thinking about whether or not to have a spiritual director okay so maybe you have recently converted or maybe you're growing in your conversion deepening in your conversion growing in the faith and um you're wanting to do so more or more rapidly maybe you're thinking you know i perhaps i could i could advance more rapidly i can advance more quickly where i to address these concerns with someone else or maybe you think you know that you're you're kind of plateauing you haven't experienced growth and the reason for which is because there's some kind of as yet unknown or unaddressed obstacle so it's a matter of like doing some detective work some some real spiritual spade work to try to identify that thing and then so as to remove that obstacle okay now with these kind of considerations in the background then let's approach the uh the subject at hand should everyone have a spiritual director maybe that's the question i think the answer to that is no and then you have to answer the reason for why okay so you think about it in america i i read some statistics at a certain point i don't know if it actually holds up but um it's like there's one priest for every 2100 catholics and i want to say that like in the developing world like in certain parts of africa for instance there's one priest for every seven thousand catholics okay so if everyone were supposed to have a spiritual director and if the demands you know of spiritual direction were sufficiently weighty as to merit some time right it seems like that would be absolutely insupportable you just think about it they're 168 hours in the week um whatever that makes out to be a month he does rudimentary math he struggles to do rudimentary math like 600 700 you know hours hours a month and let's say you had 7 000 spiritual directees you would have time to meet with each of them for 45 minutes like once a year um which which seems like it's not the move okay so so given the present considerations it seems like it's impossible that everyone have a spiritual director but on a principle level should everyone were you know in ideal circumstances and ideal and ideal conditions would there be like a priest for every seven people and each priest would have those seven people as spiritual directees i i think the answer to that is also new um and the reason here kind of touches more on on the on the subject matter at hand i can only clear my throat for so long before it becomes evident that i'm throat clearing but i just love setting up problems before answering them so pardon that so i think that spiritual direction is good for addressing certain things it's good for addressing certain things but it's not it's not necessary for addressing most so you think about your spiritual life as it were well your spiritual life is just your human life but considered from a certain aspect or considered from a certain formality you are a human being inclined towards certain goods right the good um the good of preservation of existence of procreation education of children of knowing the truth about god of living peaceably in society like these are things towards which you were inclined and you seek to uh go about the obtension that's not the word i'm looking for you seek to go about the pursuit of these goods um you know with like a virtuous disposition and as you grow in virtue you get better and better at pursuing these goods and this is done in the context of an ecclesial life a sacramental life a life of divine friendship a life you know ordered towards faith and charity uh ordered towards the most blessed trinity and our lord jesus christ right so do you have the resources then to live this life and to live this life well i think the answer to that is yes so this is just like a kind of basic point about christian maturity i think that a lot of us feel that um without x without y without z we're not really able to live on integral we're not able to live a full christian life but i think that's a lie i think that's the lie um why well i think it's from the evil one insofar as it discourages the living of your life so for instance think about it in terms of the virtue of prudence how do you make good decisions well um you agonize about them now uh you think i'm through right you might consult people who are older and wiser than you provided that they're being older signifies that they are wiser you might consult with your friends uh you might test a particular theory out revisit it you know you might do any number of things but it's not necessarily the case that you need to have that decision approved by ecclesiastical authority like should i get my hair cut today i mean sure it doesn't really matter too terribly much but if you found yourself constantly paralyzed from making decisions for fear that it was sub-optimal for fear that it could be done better then that would signify something yeah seriously wrong so i think at a certain level we're meant just to live our humanity to comport ourselves virtuously to pursue our ends well and might there be other ways of going about it certainly but i think that it's just part and parcel of human life that you direct the course of your actions you know as best you can and that provided that it is done virtuously or you know as virtuously as you know how then it's going to be for the good right it might not necessarily be successful uh in the sense that the consequences of your actions may not necessarily be as you would have imagined them or hoped them to be but provided that you have virtuous ends it's going to go well so then take this logic of prudence and expand it to encompass right the entirety of life specifically you know here we're thinking about one spiritual life so i think that the lord just like he's given you what you need uh kind of sufficient resources to make good decisions so too he's given you what you need sufficient resources to live a good and happy life were he to have you know failed in such a unequipping uh it would seem to suggest that our nature is insufficient or that the gifts of supernatural you know the gifts of grace were insufficient but the lord wants to catch you out such that you can live your life and live it well so when you think about the spiritual life i often talk about five things i talk about prayer sacrament friendship penance and study you can add other things into the mix there you might add like service as it were or works of charity uh you might add something like kind of more specific and deliberate within prayer like reading the scriptures okay provided you're doing these things and you are trying to improve in your doing of these things you can trust that the lord is going to heal and elevate your desires and that your desires are going to become more plain to you they're going to be more evident to you and you can also trust that the lord gave you these desires with a particular purpose or calling in mind so the lord didn't make you in one way so as to scrap that and then save you in another way right the way in which he made you is somehow indicative how he intends to save you so that that kind of cashes out in the spiritual life so when you're trying to discern your vocation or when you're trying to discern you know like what the lord has in store or how these you know particular indications of the last few months might kind of unfold in your spiritual life i think like a good indication is what you love right what you desire um what you want what the lord is kind of stirred up or kindled in your heart now might your motivations be mixed yes okay or might they be off base certainly or might there be a better way by which to conduct you know the present course of action yeah um so and as in normal life right you might just chat it through with people so you have your experience of life but it's also good to be docile to the counsel of other individuals uh it's best if those other individuals are like i said wise uh specifically if their wisdom comes from a real deep profound life experience often once seasoned by suffering so we have all of these different kind of personal resources as it were but we were part of a bigger ecclesial body we're part of a human family and we can benefit from the experience of others and it's this insight which i think kind of um gives rise to the practice of spiritual direction but spiritual direction when you think about it is just it's just one form of relationship and we can benefit from a variety of relationships which can be um you know which can be instructive or which can uh help us concretely to make good decisions or to to grow in the spiritual life you know given the present topic um so yeah this this this really is then um impetus or cause for growth and friendship for growth in um you know uh like investing in those relationships which which are best investing in those relationships which are most fruitful not to like instrumentalize other human beings just as occasions for self-knowledge or helpers in the making of decisions right but invest in relationships with the understanding that it will redound right to a kind of greater prudence um so i think that sometimes it's helpful to check in with a priest right and and oftentimes in the tradition of the church spiritual direction is connected uh with the sacrament of confession so when it concerns sins oftentimes you know it's you're not comfortable discussing those with certain other people and it's it's rightly so um some shame should be kind of overcome but but other shame it's a kind of helpful check against over-revealing or over-sharing and so in those situations it might be good you know to check in with a priest but i can see for a lot of people that you might just um do that every every so often it doesn't need to be the type of thing that happens every three four five weeks it could be the type of thing that happens you know once a season or once a six month period or something like that like i've been living my life in this way i've been paying attention as it were to the type of feedback that i'm getting from my wife that i'm getting from my children that i'm getting from my work associates that i'm getting from the other parents at school um and it seems like like this is working or like this is not working but i don't necessarily know what the next step is or i don't know how to proceed um because yeah i've tried this i've tried that and i just can't see through it so in those situations it's good to talk to us talk to somebody else now some of your friends are just going to be cheerleaders like whatever happens in your life they're going to be like go you you're doing great everyone who says otherwise stinks just keep at it and those people are good for for buoying up your self-esteem uh maybe for bowing up your confidence but we also need people in our life who are able to um you know kind of rebuke us correct us not so as to depress us you know like the best of friends are able to do it in a way that's gentle but still firm it was said of saint dominic that you knew he had corrected you only days after the fact right so gentle was his approach but oftentimes the truth was so profound that it would that it would remain that it would abide so in these situations we want to have friends who are able to supply us with with a truth that has up to that moment perhaps evaded us or escaped our attention so in certain states of life this is this is provided for us ordinarily in the context of that vocation so like in marriage your your spouse should be an occasion of self-knowledge in this way a rebuke of correction of encouragement so too in religious life um it's often the case that brothers and sisters should correct each other in the lord right with this mentality like okay does this thing matter can this person really change and uh do i do i love them right am i motivated by love when i when i present this before their attention or like in in uh for a priest he ought often to be to be challenged chastened rebuked by his parish um and i think that there should be an openness in priests without you know like them being uh chronically unconfident and cowering before their parishioners lest he potentially upset them because sometimes there's going to be exchange which will be mutually upsetting especially if a community is growing in the lord and that involves some kind of give and take some tension some healthy tension right but i think that also a priest should not be you know he should not be isolated or alienated from from his parish you should be able to take to take a kind of correction from them um so yes so i think that you have all of these different relationships and you're saying like okay maybe i have not yet gotten married or maybe i have not yet discerned what it is that the lord hasn't sore well you still have friends right you still have people with whom you work you still have all of these ordinary means whereby the lord makes his will known to you in addition to the way in which he makes it known in prayer and liturgy and sacrament you know and all these different ordinary means whereby god makes his will known so i think that the key is to be attentive the key is to avail ourselves of all the resources that the lord has already placed on our disposal and with the recognition that we're not missing out right we only miss out to the extent that we blind ourselves or harden our hearts to the ordinary means whereby he reveals his face the face that we ought to seek and yes spiritual direction might be a good thing right it might be a good fit especially if you're kind of like new to the faith and just working out what it is that a conversion entails and you found that you make lots of mistakes and you want some kind of more constant care constant attention okay something like that um i think it's often that um you know that people who are discerning a vocation will have a spiritual director just because there's some you know kind of fine distinctions that need to be drawn or there's some parsing of desire that needs to take place and it can be an anxious thing and oftentimes it's it's very helpful to offload your anxiety so that you aren't alone in the interpretation of what it is that the lord has in store but um yeah in ordinary circumstances i think you live your life with the confidence that god is giving you what you need to live your life that you're not missing out that real life is not elsewhere but that real life is present before you and that by engaging you know well passionately um by engaging with with your life that the lord will make his will known um because the lord desires your destiny more than you do and so you can you can trust him to make it uh to make it plain if not plain uh perhaps still veiled but at the very least to make it possible okay so i think it's with that disposition that we might approach the question of whether you need a spiritual director i think oftentimes the answer is no but it's good right to check in with friends it's good to check in with the parish priest on questions that that might vex you that might um kind of stump you in present circumstances but the key is to talk it through to talk it through the with the lord to talk it through with those whom you already have in your life and maybe to talk it through with the spiritual director but don't necessarily jump to that as a conclusion okay well there you go all right i'm now going to scroll to the top and i'm going to start answering questions okay cristobal gomez gutierrez says explaining the ananias and sapphira episode to a non-believer friend i tried not to sound like saint peter killed them my bad she interpreted god as a revenger how to explain it better thanks yeah so that's a really dark passage okay so we often speak of dark passages in the scripture which would be the types of passages wherein um it's very obscure how the god uh you know like of love and mercy is operative in their pages or is operative and the scenes are counted now with certain things like um specifically with things in the old testament you want to do a lot more uh genre work okay so like things for instance in genesis 1 through 11. it's evident from the literary form that what is being communicated there is not like history in the strict sense and the way that we would understand like the present 21st century discipline of history uh so it's not a literal recounting of eyewitness events as it were or events recounted by an eyewitness yeah i'll just go ahead and make my sentence make sense and i'll thank you for it um it's it's more of like a kind of myth of poetic meditation upon the origins of man and the early history of israel and so within that genre certain things should be interpreted according to the mind of the human author so what we're doing you know like when we employ the historical critical method when reading the old testament is that we're often trying to gain access to authorial intent so all the scriptures are authored by god they have god for their author and as a result of which you know we look to those scriptures uh for um revelation right for enlightenment uh for encouragement as it were right so they have god they have the holy spirit for their principle author and as a result of which like we know them to be true we know them to be inspired or because they are inspired we know them to be true we know them to be inerrant and so then we're trying to get at the human author's intent we're trying to get out get at the particular words or images with which this divine intent is clothed so that way we can gain more easy uh more felicitous access to it now we're certainly deploying that in the old testament but i think there's a kind of temptation not to deploy it in the new testament because the new testament seems you know closer to our experience certainly it happened more recently in human history and the genre of like the gospels for instance is a genre that's far more kind of close to what we are accustomed to read um in the 21st century as it were so then you have the acts of the apostles right which is thought to be authored by luke the author of you know the third gospel as a kind of continuation of what takes place you know in the life of christ and his apostles and then kind of spills over into the life of the church and in that particular thing you have this meditation on how the community of believers holds all things in common right and no one lacks for anything so the life of the spirit is given particular expression in the christian community after the manner of dependence so cognizant of the fact that we are created by god we are meant to depend upon god for everything and that's that's instantiated in the early christian community in a particular way um and so because ananias and sapir withhold something from the christian community to which they are bound by profession right it's effectively saying that i cannot depend upon god or i cannot depend upon the christian community as an adequate instrument for you know like communicating as it were uh the will of god the abundance of god and so it amounts to like a sin of infidelity a sin of unbelief it seems you know kind of just from a surface you read that it's uh just a little bit of like a withholding of money you know like they give most of what they have but they don't get everything that they have so why are the the apostles why is peter being so greedy and i think here it's it's not so much that as it is a more radical or a more fundamental question of trust in the lord right of living out of one's created status of one's dependence upon god for everything for every good and perfect gift both of nature and of super nature so uh both of like our kind of ordinary human goods and then the goods of grace are they come to us from god and so anonymous fear by withholding the things that they had been given they effectively arrogate those things to themselves um so i think to see it in those terms is somewhat helpful whether or not that explains the entirety of it or makes it palatable to your friend is another question so sorry if that's not entirely helpful um all right caleb h says father pine why did st thomas after his vision stop writing and say that all that he had written was as so much straw did he no longer value philosophy and theology but only mysticism thank you hey uh so that's a great question um i think that there the question that we're asking is one of like relative goods okay so it's thought that on december 6 12 73 uh about four months before his death or three months before his death pardon me that saint thomas had a vision of god which was like unto the beatific vision saint thomas has some things to say about what that would entail in an article that he dedicates to the rapture it might even be a whole question that he dedicates to the rapture speaking there often or in those contexts of what saint paul describes in second corinthians i knew a man who was caught up to the third heaven whether in the body or out of the body i do not know so when saint thomas meditates on that particular passage he thinks about it in terms of the charismatic gifts those gifts which are described for us in first corinthians 11. and um he thinks about what it would be like for somebody who while yet living has an experience of god so profound is to be the beatific vision or like unto the beatific vision like what that would do to your humanity as it were and so what we think you know what we kind of speculate happened uh to st thomas aquinas on december 6 1273 was like that right that he had a vision of god which was so deep so wide so so exalted uh that it entirely consumed him as it were and made him long only for death there's some you know historians or revision of scholars who say like saint thomas just had a nervous breakdown get over yourselves um yeah i mean i suppose that could be the case but i don't feel like the lord's going to hold it against you if you believe that saint thomas saw the lord okay um so when saint thomas says that all that i have written by comparison to what i have seen is as so much strong he's talking about the type of stuff you know that you would feed to pigs that you would lay down in a stall for a horse the types of things that you would uh yeah burn for meager heat um but notice that saint thomas didn't burn his rice he doesn't he's not suggesting that they're misleading he's not suggesting that they are in any way bad nor is he even suggesting that like these are inadequate to the task of soccer doctrina right adequate to the task of what we may call theology or what we might call wisdom in a philosophical or theological register but he's saying that by comparison to what he has seen they're they're almost as if nothing and i think that st thomas has already acknowledged that explicitly in his writings so like in the summa theologiae when he talks about for instance um the knowledge of god uh in question three of the prima paris he says we can't even really know what god is he says we can only really so much say how god is not so saint thomas is you know has a has a deep appreciation for what we might call negative theology the fact that when we're when we're trying to like kind of lean into god oftentimes we're leaning into a mystery which is obscure uh we see through a glass darkly and as a result of which you know we're only going to have so much success in maybe ruling things out which cannot be attributed to god but not necessarily in getting to the heart of the matter in a comprehensive way and so in the beatific vision while as yet uh one does not have well while one does not have comprehensive knowledge of god because um only god can know god as well as god can be known that's a confusing sentence but it's true um yet the the beatific vision is beyond anything that we encounter in this world so saint thomas is making a relative claim he's not disparaging what he has written nor is he saying like don't read this it's trash he's just saying yeah i've seen something bigger better and i can't yeah i just can't go back to it okay um hello father i am a young catholic i try to abstain from meat on fridays but my parents don't let me what to do yeah so good question um maybe it's not the time for you to abstain from meat on fries that might be one solution certainly if you're kind of under the authority of your parents in the sense that you live in their home which it sounds like based on your description you do then there's certain aspects of of obedience which which kind of bind as it were so then the question would be to find a suitable substitute for that type of penance um which i think is one move i mean if you really want to if you feel really much really much very much called to abstain from meat on fries you may kind of make an argument to your parents about why it's why it's the move or why you feel drawn to do so and then suggest to them ways that you can go about it that are still healthy presumably they're concerned for your health uh they don't want you you know just eating leaks for the rest of your life but yeah you you propose something that's calorically equivalent nutritionally equivalent and say yes this is a great alternate solution in fact you know i have these excellent statistics which seem to suggest that it's better than me um i'm not i'm not advocating for that necessarily nor am i advocating for sophism when arguing against your parents i'm just saying you know these are options okay gavin asks is stealing always a mortar mortal sin or does it matter on uh does it matter how expensive valuable to a person the thing was why or why not so that's a great question it does matter how expensive the thing was so it's not you know defined by the church where the fault line is between venial and mortal acts of stealing but the typical requirements for uh for a mortal sin are that it be grave matter that one uh do it or endeavor it knowingly uh and that one consent to it in some way shape or form uh so the gravity here is the is the particular concern and i think that um like in the manuals like the ninth late 19th century early 20th century manuals oftentimes a fault line was described as whether or not this thing is more or less than a day's wage for the person from whom you stole it uh so if it's less than a day wage uh you know again pertaining to the person from whom you stole it it would then be venial more than it would be mortal um so i think that uh yeah i mean whether that means what what does that signify i think that like the reason that it's helpful to have a standard like that is for taxonomy right it's for categorizing things but it's not necessarily for informing your intent okay like you're not like oh this is just a venial sin so i can go for it right because that seems to suggest like a kind of contempt for the law which can actually affect the gravity of a sin um so if you do something contemptuously then it may in fact be mortal even if it is like less than a day's wage for the person from whom you stole it so i think that again this is helpful for taxonomy but it's not helpful for discernment discernment-wise you're always trying to limit expunge remove any uh occasion for stealing okay are catholics required to believe that homosexual marriage should be illegal or only that it is immoral uh so that's yeah that's a good question um the holy father weighed in on this right when he suggested that um while the archbishop of buenos aires he had uh you know proposed or thought about proposing that there be approbation given to same-sex unions as civil unions uh but not necessarily as marriages because he thought that it was inevitable that same-sex unions were going to be approved in some way but he proposed that as a way by which to avoid uh the repurposing of the definition of marriage and i think you've probably heard people weigh in on that since he said that or since the his comments which were recorded were incorporated in a documentary released a few months back so i think a lot of people would say that it's imprudence on the count on the part of the holy father to make that suggestion but not that it's immoral so catholics are required to believe right that marriage is between one man and one woman so the nature of the sacraments having been solemnly defined by the church at various stages in her life you can see one particular formulation thereof in the council of trent but on account of the fact that marriage is for procreation and education of children only those marriages which are naturally uh ordered to that you know you can bring in other considerations about sterility uh but only those those unions which are ordered to that are capable of being in genuine fact marriages so that would rule out same-sex unions and as a result of which it would make the approval of those same-sex unions uh immoral right so contrary to church teaching in a way that would kind of undermine the the catholic faith to which we are bound in belief right um but further considerations these proposals about civil unions as it were um as a kind of stop gap against full-blown marriages um one has a kind of liberty to speculate on these themes but i think most people that you hear just kind of catholic pundits nowadays would say that it's that it's imprudent at the very least to suggest it because it's it connotes a kind of tacit approbation of a certain sort so even though it's being proposed as a stop gap the way that it's interpreted by most people uh of those seven billion who read the news cycle is that the church is for same-sex marriage in some way so i think for that reason and because of the kind of ineluctable drive of the you know like same-sex advocacy uh as it's currently you know kind of being being undertaken towards marriage right so they it seems that it seems that uh same-sex unions would would be insufficient for the goals of the movement that that to propose that solution would be important potentially scandalous and misleading but not uh contrary to dividing catholic faith in the way that you know holding it to be okay would be okay uh hello father pine uh what do you think about the emmanuel community and do you think it could be a good place to grow in holiness i don't actually know anything about the emmanuel community unfortunately so sorry um next question is it good for a seminarian to have the same person as spiritual director and confessor good question and the answer to that i think is yes uh because in the context of spiritual direction while the goal of spiritual direction is perfection in the christian life and the goal of confession is the absolution of sins and growing in the grace of penitence right and being having been you know like being reunited to the body of christ in the you know in the bond of charity um those two goals do dovetail obviously um and confession is one of the most excellent or preeminent means towards the attainment of perfection confession perfection i think i said what i wanted to say so it's helpful uh if your spiritual director knows the trajectory of both pursuits because oftentimes after a good you know spiritual direction session you've been chatting for 30 minutes 35 minutes then you had the opportunity to say would you hear my confession and there's like less need basically for sussing out um all the particularities which may impinge upon a particular sin so yes all right pat murphy says yes uh okay here we go um so colin cormier says don't worry father pine i'm finishing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering and i struggle with basic math haha that's awesome all right uh angela jungbluth says father pine you're the best hey cheers i would like to ask for your tips for a mom of multiple young kids who has a deep desire to cultivate the intellectual life go okay um so yeah what are my thoughts i don't know much about this theme i have two sisters who are great and who have young kids and i have you know taken in some sweet tips and tricks from them i think that like there's a kind of temptation to get it all in as a mother right uh like you know it's it's lunchtime and your littlest usually goes down for a nap but then the older two are fine without a nap but you're like in the neighborhood where you need to make you need to like run some errands and so you're like well you know we can just keep the little guy up and it's not a big deal so let's go um there's this desire to kind of like get as much done as you possibly can with kids in tow and the way that that cash is out is like you know when you do come home and it's time for a nap and let's say that all your kids go down you're one you're wanting to what you know like empty the dishwasher you're wanting to plan meals for the week you're wanting to do some like basic food prep you're wanting to like get in some reading you're wanting to blah blah you've got all these desires that you're trying to get in the you know whatever hour and a half during which those kids are asleep because then once they're up it's just it's just a three-ring circus that's not to say that your kids are bad it's just to say the kids are wild and demanding so i've heard people say that like you know during those times just go to just like take a nap with your kids right because i think that uh i suspect that most moms who are trying to do it all suffer from pretty acute sleep deprivation and it just makes them sad and sometimes angry and then they're less happy as a mom so i think that like your holiness is to be realized as a mom and you are going to be a good human being to the extent and degree that you are a good mom so there's no like kind of dividing between those not that you suggested that in your question this is me kind of uh sussing it out as it were um so then what what would it mean concretely to have an intellectual life i think that the the most concrete steps would be not to watch netflix and to wake up early because i think that the temptation well whether it's a temptation or whether it's just an inclination i don't know but once your kids are down let's say you get them actually to bed at like 8 15 you just want to be like deep exhalation and then hanging out with your husband and then oftentimes it's like yeah there's this new show on it's really cool and we should watch an episode and then an episode becomes two episodes and then two episodes becomes three and then you stand up like a little later than you want to and then you're a little bit anxious about the fact that you stayed up a little later than you want to and then you're trying to go to bed but you're thinking about the fact and then blah blah and you start dreading the next day and then by like 4 o'clock the next afternoon you like come back home and your husband's there working from home and you're like take these kids off my hands or i'm going to start murdering um right so that's not ideal so i think that like while it may mean your life becomes a little more boring at the end of the day i think that it will become far more profound at the beginning of the day if you can just you know cut down netflix i'm not again i don't know what you do in the evenings um and then wake up a little early and get get prayers and then because that's like the one time that you can bank on that the house is going to be asleep and um yeah i think that the morning is a privileged time for prayer and for study so i think that everyone should pray for 20 minutes each day and i think it's you can have an intellectual life if you're reading something philosophical or theological or something engaging with you know historical literary whatever if you're doing that for like 10 15 minutes a day because you know if you're thinking about it as you read and if you're musing on it over the course of the rest of the day then it becomes part of a conversation that you conduct with your husband with your friends with those whom you know otherwise right um so yes so i think that um that's something that's not nothing that's my one suggestion but hopefully there are principles implicit in that description which are more broadly applicable um okay joseph paladin says hi father at the last supper was the bread and wine transformed in the same way um as in with the miracle stories today meaning visible change thanks a lot and greetings from croatia that's awesome um so how would the bread and wine have been changed well there's no real commentary in that story about the disciples having marveled at something miraculous taking place now what kind of argument can we make from an absence not a very strong one but um yeah i think what do i think um i feel like if if something miraculous had taken place in that um in that last supper that it would have been pointed out by the evangelists so i think we're to assume that what took place is like what takes place at the mass namely there's a change in substance but that there's no change in accidents to use aristotelian terminology to describe it right um so what you have with the multiplication of the loaves whether it be in the feeding of the 5000 or the feeding of the 4000 again it's not remarked upon that it was visibly noticeable to the crowds or we don't like kind of hear sound bites or hot takes from the apostles like whoa there were five and then all of a sudden there was a pile you get the impression that it's a little sneakier than that right that it's a little more subtle it's just like he breaks the bread they start distributing it and it probably would have been within seconds that they realized that they kept distributing it i don't know how that would have transpired but the miraculous nature of it is that it's inexhaustible and then he provides for them not only in abundance but in super abundance whereas the miracle as it were of the eucharist is that something changes in substance by divine power and that the accidents of that substance are suspended by the divine power alone uh so so the nature of the change is different um but yeah hopefully those are some helpful principles uh bernadette galvin says can one attend the wedding of two baptized catholics at an independent church where the priest does not have faculties from the bishop i think the answer to that is no um but it just it depends on the circumstances i don't know what you mean by independent church um if you're suggesting that it's a priest i i just i don't know what that would mean um right because because it just depends um it could be a schismatic church right or it could be um a heretical church like they could have corrupted sound doctrine um or they could just be uh in a state of division from uh from rome for whatever disciplinary reasons or something like that so so it may depend but i think the general the general move is no um yeah sorry to be more helpful but i think it's just it's just particular to the case um can a catholic in good conscience vote democratic uh yeah i mean that's a good question so i think that it just i mean it depends on the time the place it depends on the candidate so are there good you know democratic candidates there are um and and certainly there are there are there are goods which are more basic when it comes to human society so oftentimes we'll talk about those which which touch most um what would one say immediately or urgently upon the dignity of human life so like abortion euthanasia being a couple of them um and in those cases i think that those issues may force one's hand more um because it seems to me that without um yeah without attempts to repeal abortion law for instance that we as a nation kind of slide gradually into a tacit approval of the practice into a kind of um what will one say a state of despair a state of kind of civil and legislative despair or juridical despair on the matter so i think that we should always be contending against those policies that legislation which you know gravely imperils human lives in a basic sense but also our cultural appreciation of the dignity of human life uh and i think that that's that's the reason for which oftentimes uh catholics become associated with a particular party with the republican party but there are pro-life democrats for instance i don't wanna i don't wanna make it sound like like catholics should be one issue voters but i think the catholics should be orderly voters or hierarchical voters in the sense that they should vote according to the relative importance of the issues at stake and while you know sometimes people will say it's like comparing apples to oranges i think that the a deliberate attack on the innocent most gravely imperils the common good of a nation and effectively what we're what we're trying to contribute to in voting is to the common good of the nation so there you go hope that's helpful um okay lizzy sunshine says how about for someone who is in great physical suffering with two diseases that are not curable okay i need so much a spiritual director to help me suffer well right so um that's a good question and i i think i'm still getting through the questions that were posed at the top of the hour so um yeah so it will it will depe i think it will depend on the person um certainly what what everyone needs regardless of his or her state is companionship right it's friendship is relationships uh it's human communion because that's what we're made for we're made for well we're not made for human communion but we're made for a kind of human communion we're made for communion with father son and holy spirit and the second person the most blessed trinity took to himself a human nature so we're made for human communion with our lord jesus christ but a human communion that leads us into divine communion and so if that is the goal it seems like the lord has chosen that that also be the way recall our lord identifies himself as the way the truth and the life when the fathers of the church read that they say he's the way in his humanity he's the truth and the life in his divinity it's a little well whatever uh we don't need to tarry on that but um if that is the goal towards which we strive uh then it seems that may also be right the end or excuse me that may also be the means whereby we attain to it um so i think that everyone needs friendship and specifically those who suffer need friends um i'm seeing that uh my camera's blinking a little bit so if you're distracted by that my sincere apologies if you don't see that if it's just me then i take back my apology um so let's see i'm just gonna do a little this uh hopefully that addresses it maybe my camera was just kind of falling out there okay um so okay it's still blinking um so as to what that signifies in your particular life maybe maybe having a spiritual director is the move um but it may also not be i just i just don't know but what you know are good friends what you certainly need are people to accompany you uh along the way so that you might attain to the end right attained to the end of your striving um all right lord jesus please make this thing not blink anymore if it is in fact blinking amen all right next question oh still blinking battery problem perhaps excellent question father pine maybe it's the computer all right everyone you know better about computers than i do so unfortunately i think we're probably stuck with the blink all right next question um yuri koshulap says any treatment of the moments in the bible when it feels we are missing the context nathan converts when jesus tells him he saw nathan under the sycamore tree did nathan have a vision right that's a great question and i don't know the answer to that um i have heard people kind of muse on what that might signify or muse on what that might entail um and uh some people say that it corresponds to a rabbinic prophecy that uh our lord fulfills kind of like in his announcement um but i mean maybe for like us who aren't you know we're not like necessarily schooled next to jesus or in the history of israel or the pertinent old testament passages which illumine this one in a basic way our lord just says to him i see you right i see you and there's something to that which is good there's something to that which is very consoling and obviously that's not a sufficient a sufficient means whereby you know one is converted to belief in the incarnate word of god um but at a basic level i think that that's like the kind of basic message of john 1 in total namely that the lord sees us right so uh one of the verbs that occurs most frequently in um in the gospel of john is to remain to abide menno and you hear it in john 1 this idea that right so john the baptist is there with two disciples namely andrew and an unnamed disciple and the lord passes by and they follow after our lord and our lord turns and asks them what they seek and they uh um yeah they subsequently respond master where are you staying where do you abide uh and he says come and see and then they go they go and they stay with him they abide with him um and then it's it's in that abiding with him that they believe and that's a theme that comes up throughout the first few chapters of the gospel of john that the disciples believed in him we hear it said a few times so they've already believed in him in john 1 but then in john 2 at the end of the miracle of the wedding feast of cana we hear it again that they believed in him so you know like what's going on or what's at stake um so i think that with this particular instance where our lord sees uh nathaniel under the fig tree and he says i see you basically in a way that kind of communicates his you know being with nathaniel he's being present to nathanael and nathanael's as a result of which has the confidence or courage to be with the lord um and i think that that's just the kind of heart or nature of discipleship that we're meant to be with the lord and that we are good right we are happy to the extent and degree that we are so that's kind of a spiritual read um so i suspect that there's a more straightforward exegetical kind of historical critical read of the text i don't know it but that's just one one approach to it all right um is the so the question father pine is the priest in persona christie throughout the mass or only at the consecration great question uh so there's some people that would suggest that the priest acts in persona christie throughout the course of his day regardless of whether or not he's engaged in a liturgical act so but then there are other people who would say that it's more restricted or limited to liturgical events or kind of like liturgical acts uh i think we may have solved our blinking problem what's frustrating is that i have no idea what solved it what's encouraging is that it's done but uh yeah computers man they are just they're just a wild rodeo um so when it comes to a priest acting in persona christie he specifically acts in persona christi capitis so we believe that the church is one mystical person right una persona mystica and that it has the spirit for its animating force and that it has the sun or the incarnate word as its head and you know we can identify him as the head for a variety of reasons um you know it's an analogy so it's just going to be kind of arguments of fittingness but because he exhibits a peculiar perfection in the life of the church because he kind of like pre-contains all the all the graces in the life of the church because we associate the head with like thought and motive force and all of those things which our lord supplies to the church right and our lord wants it that you know the church exists in this present evil age right in in our earthly life in the earthly dispensation as both hidden members and so he gives a kind of vicarious headship to the hierarchy so that's instantiated in the holy father in a particular way and in the bishops but also in priests and certainly specifically in the sacrifice of the mass we see it in peculiar fashion because it's christ who offers the sacrifice of himself to god on our behalf there we go we are blinking again jesus is blessing the world um so um yeah it's my it's a problem with the cam link it's a problem with the digital encoder that's frustrating um so uh yes so i think that the the type of argument that we want to make is how is it that the priest is is giving expression to or is making christ present as head and i think that um each of the sacraments has a kind of logic right a logic of um like making god present but i think the priesthood does it in peculiar fashion so i think it's that one of the sacramental graces of the priesthood is that the priest kind of makes god near or makes god present to those uh you know whom god loves whom he has sent as priests to make manifest as it were the love of god is that actually a coherent sentence i'm not sure once you subordinate enough clauses you kind of lose track um so it's it's part of the priest's identity it's part of the priest's mission to be near to be close uh to love those um you know to whom he has sent as it were uh and i think that you see this in excellent fashion in the in the holy sacrifice of the mass because he is he makes god near not only sacramentally but substantially so so whereas he's given this character to give divine gifts which which divine gifts include all the sacraments but also like preaching proclamation of the word um the ministrations of charity in a priestly mode all these kinds of things and the sacrifice of the mass it's just it's unparalleled as it were i mean it's it's the the source and summit it's the um the kind of climax of the liturgical life of the church so um so i think that the the yeah you're going to have a difference of opinions on these types of things but i think that we want to make an argument for a priest acting in persona christi coppetes more than just at the consecration certainly throughout the context of the whole of the liturgy right because we talk about the table of the altar and the table of the word or the table of the word and the table of the altar there's a sense in which christ is made present in the liturgical act in a variety of ways certainly in most most especially in the eucharist but also in the priest in the proclamation of the word um in the people present um so there's there's a variety of variety of senses in which uh in which the lord is made present um and you know the the priest is one of them uh so so i would say not just at the consecration certainly throughout the context of the mass also in the administration of the other sacraments but i think more generally in his life of preaching which is a kind of ongoing act of revelation and in his life of charity which is something that's you know it issues not just from baptismal and confirmation graces right the sacramental grace is proper to the uh the sacraments of initiation but also in a peculiar way uh the character associated with with his priestly identity with his priestly ordination okay hope that's helpful [Music] all right um you might not get this far but question ad blockers yay or nay that's awesome uh yeah so let's bring it back down to earth with ad blockers um i am all for ad blockers uh yeah i guess why would i say that well because because they're ad blockers because they're awesome uh because they streamline your experience of the internet because i think that like the internet is a marketplace right it's just the com on.com stands for commerce so the internet is made to push things unto your nose so that you can desire them basically so as to inflame your desire for a variety of goods but i think that threatens to uh kind of subvert or overturn the order of goods as it ought to obtain um and as a result of which you know it becomes very difficult to navigate the internet without having your insights churned up stirred up messed up so yeah i put in ad blockers for the reason of kind of approaching the internet with the disposition that i've come here for a purpose and i want to achieve that purpose and i don't want to be deflected from that purpose because it can be very tempting on the internet just to like look something up and then click on something else and then find yourself wasting time and staying up too late and then not being well rested the next day and then finding that prayer drags and you know feels more of a punishment than it does a blessing and dot dot dot so i think it's yeah it's with this understanding that i would say ad blockers yay um okie dokie okay so we got a super chat here let's click on it is it sinful to violate civil laws such as drinking underage driving above speed limits on the highway or not wearing masks in places where it's demanded that's a great question from john david stendle um so uh it depends uh that's not to be a slippery answer but it's just to say that there are a variety of instances so you can't just say like unequivocally yes or unequivocally no i don't think but i think that there is a prima facie kind of duty to follow the law which prima facie means like at first look or at first glance or as you first approach it um because the the kind of genius of the law is that it's made to be there so that you don't have to think through at great length every individual decision so there's some decisions where you where you can exercise you know like a variety of options where you experience great liberty and sometimes you know it's it's tough to chart a course through that uh through that decision and uh sometimes you wish it were more simple well the purpose of the law is basically to make it simple because it promulgates it makes it um kind of like immediately um and concretely known what one is to do or what one's often to omit or not to do in this situation and so it's not an appeal to prudence right it's an appeal to obedience it's an appeal to justice and if that law is you know valid just which is to say if the law is passed by the one competent for making the law if it's you know with an eye to the common good um if it is uh you know like reasonable basically an ordinance of reason and if it's promulgated then it's binding right um and in that case we are bound to obey it now there's some laws that are unjust but it may actually even be in our best interest to follow those laws because the type of disruption uh or the type of civil disorder which would eventuate were we to disobey them uh could be yeah it could actually be more distracting or could uh militate against the common good in a way that uh yeah could be bad he says with great profundity um so sometimes we're meant to endure unjust laws rather than to repeal them or to seek to overturn the government for instance but then there are other unjust laws which need to be um confronted or which need to be every effort needs to be made to repeal them and then the question is how do you go about repealing them you can think about the civil rights movement you know malcolm x and martin luther king jr have different approaches certainly in the 20th century the example of gandhi is one or like you can think 19th century henry david thoreau this idea of civil disobedience so there are a variety of opinions um and you can look at it pragmatically like what works uh or you can look at it principledly or you can look at it kind of in the theoretical order as to like for what can you render or for what can you kind of give a sound a coherent argument and i think there yeah um i think that what we want is ultimately a just order but bringing about a just order may oftentimes mean suffering of injustices um and that's that's not just to say like you're a doormat you need to be victimized by reality just deal with it yada yada no i think that like there are certain ways in which by being obedient you can actually exercise um yeah like a greater commitment to justice than even those legislators do who pass laws which might fall short of the standard of probity so at this point you know some of my comments are a little bit scattered are a little bit disorganized but i think here the point is to say what is a just law a just law is an ordinance of reason given by one competent for the common good and promulgated just laws okay are kind of the standard but all law has a prima facie we have a prima facie responsibility to follow it provided that it is not at face value manifestly unjust um manifestly order to the undermining of human dignity or the upsetting of the state things like that okay so in that event then if we recognize something is unjust but that we are bound to a political regime in which such laws continue to per door the question is how to address them and i think that oftentimes disobedience is an easy personal way by which to address it but i think that the danger there is while it may be called for while may be a good prophetic sign that this thing need be resisted okay you can think about the way in which um kind of counter-abortion protests were lodged in the late 70s early 80s um you know with these uh kind of more forceful attempts uh to raise awareness about the issue right and and many people in the pro-life movement were imprisoned during that time um so yeah things like that okay so um if i am to repeal this unjust legislation what are the best means whereby to do it and i think here you need to address the fact of our many of us feeling disenfranchised we don't feel like we can exercise um a legitimate place in the governance of our municipalities or you know cities or states or countries or whatever so i think it's because of a tacit despair that we feel that the only means that we have our about have at our disposal is just to not follow it kind of in our own personal way or within our own limited social circle but i think that um the experience of an injustice even if we choose to abide by that law ought to motivate us to take measures or to deploy means which are more effective for repealing it kind of in total or gross motor um so yeah i think uh i think sometimes like the suffering of an injustice in a peaceful way right even in an obedient way when it's uh coupled with you know like um unapproved means or an ordinary means or a good means of addressing it on a more kind of societal level i think that those are that's a good that's a good combo factor um because it strengthens the character of your witness um yeah i honestly i'm still kind of thinking through this when it comes to masks right is the big one because it's on everyone's mind as the mask mandate is repealed um but yeah i know that there are people who think that that wearing a mask is akin to like wearing a swastika armband and the other people if you if you don't wear a mask as it were you're like tantamount to a murderer so there's a wide variety of opinions um and we can argue as to the merits of those opinions as it were but i think that um yeah but i think that these principles that we've enunciated are at the very least a good way of starting the conversation okay um one last question any post-secondary education college university that would be beneficial for pursuing religious life specifically that of working with the poor hey great question from karina tachyuk um so i think that um where i mean my big thing with religious life is don't assume any debt okay the biggest obstacle to entering a religious life is often debt okay well sin right insofar as it obscures from god's purposes but debt because it'll often delay the timeline along which are according to which we can enter religious life so i think it's good to pursue post-secondary education if you don't incur any debt or if it doesn't if it wouldn't your entry if it wouldn't slow your entry into religious life by any appreciable sum um and in that event i think you want to go to a place where you can get good intellectual human formation okay intellectual and human formation spiritual formation too would be great but oftentimes you would look for that type of formation elsewhere so a university is supposed to teach you so i think it's good to go to a place where you can be taught don't just go to a place because it's you know very catholic right because you can make good friends there all of which are excellent things but the lord has given you indication perhaps and a calling that um you're called to a particular form of communion and it may involve leaving those friends behind so as to whether it's better to kind of like go and make them and then leave them i don't know i'm not sure because it depends a lot on particular circumstances but i think that if you if you go to university it's to learn right it's to to grow as a human being particularly in this intellectual register and so you should go to a place uh that can they can supply you with that um so i think that like you know you start with newman guide schools and then you just kind of talk with students there about the type of academic programs which would be best suited um to your pursuits right so if working with the poor maybe you're going to do so as a nurse or maybe you're going to do so as a social worker maybe you're going to do so where a professional training could actually be very beneficial and then you want to go to the place that has the best of those programs um so yeah those would be some initial thoughts i said that was going to be the last one but i can't help myself i struggle with how i am or am not obeying jesus and following him because i cannot stop all the sin i do so at what point if even can you say you are obeying jesus even though you still sin i think that um kind of like following the lord is characterized by a habitual desire to do so so for instance in the gospels we read the lord's summation of the two greatest commandments or what he calls the one greatest commandment which is this double love command so to love the lord your god with your whole heart soul strength and mind and then to love your neighbor as yourself what does it mean to love god with your whole heart soul mind and strength i think i just varied the order there whatever um well it means to be to have all of oneself habitually referred to god as his or her end because like you're going to go to sleep and you're not going to be actually loving god in those moments right but you can be habitually referred to god right you can commend your life in its entirety to god and not do anything which contradicts that trajectory or contradicts that intentionality so i think that is the basic shape that's kind of like what it looks like in the most simple sense um and as a result of which what does it mean then so we bring sin into the equation i struggle with how i am or i'm not obeying jesus and following him because i cannot stop all the sin that i do so with respect to sin you have to have the desire to root it out with the recognition that it will take time uh and it may continue to plague you because that may be part of the lord's designs for for drawing you close to him in a more profound way than you can presently understand because sometimes the lord permits imperfections to abide because his plans are uh yeah his plans entail a kind of healing a kind of elevating a kind of recovery as it were from the life of sin which makes you more dependent upon him more holy given to him ultimately you know like better friends with him so um yeah you do what you can what falls within your power to consent to and cooperate with the grace that god gives but you don't you know kill yourself if it doesn't always work out perfectly in its particular details because the evil one wants to discourage you he wants you to rely overly much on yourself but god says yeah i mean you fall but you just get back up because nothing should disturb your interior peace because that interior peace is coupled to the lord's presence which remains which abides so if it's a big sin right you go to confession you have forgiven if it's a small sin right you make a small act of repentance you make regular use of the sacrament of confession you receive holy communion in a worthy state you make good christian friends who can call you on you study the faith you undertake penances to kind of mortify your flesh and then you love god and do what you will right and he'll uh he'll take care of the rest the rest is not our business okay so with that sorry for the blinking again i have no idea what concept but it seems to have stopped so uh god bless technology especially this technology here before me may uh may it work better and always um in the meantime though i'll probably continue to make a variety of technological mistakes but hey so please do like this video if you haven't yet please do subscribe to the channel if you haven't yet and push the little bell so that google will be forced to remind you each time a new thing comes up do check out godsplaining which is a podcast of the dominican friars to which i contribute there's five of us weekly episodes 30 minutes simple stuff good engaging i think you'll like it and also god's planning is hosting a retreat for those through 21-33 it's this summer july 23rd through 25th in huntington new york on long island um yeah so if you can i'd love it if you signed up it's 350 first come first serve there's a few spots left i've been saying that for a couple of weeks which sounds disingenuous like i'm trying to like drag you along but uh we just keep getting more rooms from the retreat center and i think we've basically gotten all the rooms that we can so at this point there genuinely are a few spots left so thanks so much for listening and i'll catch you next time on pints with aquinas

Channel: Pints With Aquinas

Views: 9,628

Rating: 4.9730186 out of 5

Keywords: aquinas, catholicism, catholic, pints with aquinas, matt fradd, theology, debate, religion, st. thomas aquinas, thomas aquinas, philosophy

Id: loS2CFh3dcM

Length: 63min 19sec (3799 seconds)

Published: Wed May 19 2021