LIVESTREAM - The Presence of God in a Season of Solitude - Fr. James Brent, O.P.

a lot of people are asking what is going on in these days of the corona virus and quarantine and social distancing and all the things that are going on around us and as a number of people have been emailing me about it and I've been in discussion with people about it there seems to be a kind of emerging consensus I suppose you can say that God is calling us to repentance he's calling us to conversion that's the theme that continues to come up again and again when people speak to me about this so when we think about repentance you might think first of all of the need to be sorrowful be sorrowful for your sins and to live differently and that's certainly a good definition it's a beginning definition but there's more to it than that in the scriptures the term is metanoia in Greek so we're in a season of Metanoia what does that mean though the Greek term literally means a transformation of the mind a change of mind we need in our day to have a transformation of our minds that's what people are feeling called to more and more but what does that consist of I mean be over and above being sorrowful for your sins and aiming to live differently well this is a good opportunity to raise a certain objection that's somewhat common commonly raised against Thomas Aquinas and his theology or more generally against theology in the Western Church and it's a an objection that comes from some of the followers of st. Gregory Palamas and the eastern side of the church and what they say is that the Western Church has largely lost the sense of the mind or what the mind is and what transformation of the mind means what the mind is according to these authors and theologians is really the power of the soul to behold the face of God to enter upon spiritual perception but because of a certain kind of rationalism or intellectualism that has crept into Western theology and sometimes Thomas Aquinas is singled out as the culprit they say this notion of the mind as the ability to to spiritually perceive God has been lost and the whole aspect of an experiential knowledge of God of a kind of higher awareness of God that understanding which is common in the Fathers of the Church has been lost and it's been replaced by a kind of rationalistic mode of thinking and a rationalistic theology so let's take up this objection and I want to propose to you that our reply to the objection speaks directly to our situation and it speaks directly to the question of how to find God in a season of Solitude how to come in touch with his presence in a time of solitude like we have upon us now so let's begin with a simple truth from st. Thomas Aquinas he says and this is a quote the ultimate purpose of man is to know God that's from the Summa contra Gentile is a simple truth the purpose of life is to know God now when he says the purpose of life is to know God he does not mean that the purpose of our life is to know God through a kind of philosophical reasoning even though he obviously believes we can know the existence of God through philosophical reasoning he's talking about another kind of knowledge that were called to a knowledge that's beyond our philosophical capacities we can call it a supernatural knowledge of God we can say this because in another passage in his commentary on Peter Lombard sentences he says quote to know the Trinity in unity is the joy and purpose of our whole lives now it's clear from the rest of the teachings of st. Thomas Aquinas that to know that you'd the Trinity in unity that comes about by grace that's a revealed mystery that's given to us we believe by faith and are drawn into knowing that but that's the ultimate purpose of our lives to know the Trinity in unity but again he's not talking about merely philosophical knowledge he's talking about some higher kind of knowledge and it can be called very fairly spiritual perception recently a number of theologians have taken up this question of spiritual perception is there a kind of perception that human beings have over and above what we are capable of by nature and there's even something out there called the spiritual perception project and a number of philosophers and theologians have produced articles and books about it it's a good project and Thomas Aquinas has been one of the topics discussed in the project because in fact he has a very rich account of spiritual perception here's another quote from Saint Thomas he says in the Summa theologia there are two ways of knowing the goodness or will of God one is speculative there he's obviously talking about philosophical knowledge to know through philosophical theology that God is good that's one way of knowing the goodness of God the other he says is effective or experimental knowledge of the divine goodness or will when one personally experiences the taste of the divine sweetness and the benevolence of his will that's awfully experiential language I mean first of all he says there's an experimental knowledge of God and then he describes it as a kind of tasty knowledge like the Psalms say taste and see the goodness of the Lord he also has in mind in the background something in the writings of st. Agustin where Saint Agustin describes wisdom the contemplation of wisdom as savory knowledge there's a kind of knowledge of God which the Saints and the Fathers of the Church were acquainted with and indeed ordinary holy men and women are acquainted with which is a kind of knowledge that's not conceptual per se even though it involves concepts in various ways but it's adequately described as experiential or experimental and it's a kind of perceiving a perceiving of God in a manner beyond our natural capacities this happens when God opens himself up and makes himself available to us by divine revelation he gives himself to us for the knowing but in this act when he gives himself to us by divine revelation so that we can know him he's giving himself to us so that we can know him in a higher way in an experiential way that can rightly be called perception a spiritual perception and this sets us up this gift of God that he gives us in divine revelation and that we received by faith that sets us up for the life of sanctifying grace so we can know God and know his presence so what does it mean to perceive him if you don't see see him with your external senses and if you don't see him by the light of reason but there's some other way that you perceive him if you experientially taste and see him what does that consist of we can call it a higher kind of awareness that's an awareness of his presence that's a word that Saint Thomas often uses here's what he says about those who are living in sanctifying grace he says in the Summa theologia in the very gift of sanctifying grace it is the Holy Spirit Himself whom we possess and who dwells in the human being the gift of sanctifying grace perfects the rational creature putting him in a state of not only freely using the created gift like faith or charity but also of enjoying the divine person himself so st. Thomas is very clear that the object of this higher perception is the divine person himself in this case the Holy Spirit is the one whom he mentions so there's a way in which we can taste and see become aware of the presence of the Spirit in our lives in our hearts in our souls and he says this belongs to those who are in a state of sanctifying grace he doesn't say canonized saints he doesn't say hi mystics he just says those who are in a state of sanctifying grace and one theologian puts it this way quote the state of grace is the habitual possibility of living such a fruition that means an enjoyment a habitual possibility of an experiential knowledge of the divine persons in other words what it means to be in a state of grace is that we are capacitated with gifts of created grace the theological virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that capacitate us to become aware to perceive to become somehow experientially present to God who's present to us and to know that in this experiential way that's how st. Thomas describes it to become as it were present to the presence and live in his presence and abide in his presence that's what the created gifts of grace do they capacitate us for the uncreated gift of grace which is God Himself to know him so there is a kind of spiritual perception that those who are living in God's grace have and can enjoy and it's a perception of God it's a higher kind of awareness how can we understand it well one thing that's very clear is it's it's not external sensation we're not talking about visions we're not talking about Lok ujin's or any kind of phenomena like that it's also not the kind of knowledge we have by the light of reason it's not philosophical knowledge or conceptual knowledge as such he contrasts it with concept speculative knowledge or conceptual knowledge it is then what the only way to describe it is using this term per chip array which means a kind of a higher kind of awareness it's the word that Aquinas uses when he's describing consciousness it's just sort of an awareness of a higher order that's the spiritual perception of the presence of God now can we say anything more about that can we take this mysterious a higher awareness or spiritual perception this experiential knowledge of the presence of God and can we break it open and say anything more about it can we say what's involved in it yes we can say a lot about what is involved in it and Aquinas in fact has a great deal to say about what is involved in this supernatural or spiritual perception of the presence of God the whole thing begins in faith and if you remember st. Thomas defines the habit of faith it's the habit of mind by which eternal life is begun in us making one assent to what is non apparent now let's note the reference to eternal life surely he has in mind there the Gospel of John chapter 17 verse 3 a verse that he loves to quote he quotes it again and again where the Evangelist John says eternal life is knowing you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent and when we study the term there for knowing both in the Latin and in the Greek it suggests it strongly implies a kind of experiential knowledge of familiarity of personal familiarity and that eternal life that knowing God begins in it's begun in the soul that's what that awesome theological virtue is it's the very beginning the seed the root of this higher kind of life which is this higher kind of awareness of God but then in addition to this habit which is only the habit of faith or virtue of faith which is only a beginning of this eternal life in us a beginning of this kind of knowledge there's also the light of faith Thomas talks about and what he says very plainly the light of faith makes us see what we believe now we've got to be careful he does not mean that you and I can see into the mysteries that God has revealed to us the mystery of the Trinity the mystery of the Incarnation the mystery of the Eucharist or anything like that it's not a visible seeing sore with our eyes a sensory seeing it's not a seeing with the mind like when we have knowledge of what a thing is through our natural cognition or the natural light of reason no this is a kind of seeing that's proper to faith where he says we see the credibility of what God has revealed to us and he just says very simply the light of faith makes us see what we believe it makes me it makes me it makes us see these things are trustworthy and worthy of a simple assent and reception from us but then he goes on and says even more about faith not only does this light of faith make us see the credibility or trustworthiness of the mysteries the divinely revealed mysteries but it also makes us to see and in a higher kind of way he says quote in many respects faith perceives the invisible things of God in a higher way then natural reason does in proceeding to God from his creatures that's also in the Summa Theologiae that's a powerful statement faith perceives the vien in many respects faith perceives the invisible things of God in a higher way then natural reason does so Thomas Aquinas one is writing this is taking it for granted that you and I are Christians and acquainted with the kind of higher spiritual perceptual knowledge of God that goes with sanctifying grace but can we say anything more what is involved in this in the way that faith perceives the invisible things of God in a higher way does he mean faith as distinct from let's say the gifts of the Holy Spirit or the virtue of charity or does he mean faith as it's filled out by those things those other virtues and gifts of the Spirit if we take this sentence to mean faith in a broad sense meaning filled out by charity and by the gifts of the Spirit then it's easy to understand what he means because when we consider the virtue of charity and the gifts of the Spirit it's easy to see how there's more involved in our spiritual perception of the presence of God so let's talk first about charity let's suppose we're talking about someone who's living in a state of grace and has formed faith so person has the virtue of faith but is also has the virtue of charity so enjoys a friendship with God acquaintance is quite clear that the virtue of charity has effects in the person who has it and two of those effects are peace and joy now just on the face of it those are experiential terms there's a kind of peace that we know or experience within ourselves thanks to the to the virtue of charity and there's a joy that we have by having so to speak our friend God the beloved with us and in us and being in a friendship with him there's a joy that goes with that but st. Thomas also says that there's a kind of loving kindness that flows from the gift of charity that we have towards others as well and that also I take it is a kind of experience that we have a kind of soft heartedness towards other people in some way so already when we just think about the immediate effects of charity there's an additional level or layer of spiritual experience or spiritual perception this piece that flows from God and God's presence a joy that flows from God and being in a friendship or relationship with him and a kind of loving kindness towards other people towards our neighbor but there's more because when a person is in the state of grace and has the virtue of faith and charity these virtues are also perfected by special gifts of the holy spirit that again are given to all the baptized sanctifying gifts of the Spirit there are two gifts that perfect the virtue of faith the first gift is the spirits gift of understanding and the way that st. Thomas unders thinks about the gifts of the Holy Spirit is that these gifts make us amenable to receiving inspirations or movements from the Holy Spirit we can say that the gifts of the sport spirit are forms of docility so a person becomes very yielding very surrendered to what the spirit does within a person we can't control the impulses and movements of the spirit the spirit blows where he wills but when he comes blowing through a particular person's soul when the person is formed by these gifts that person is able to yield surrender go along with these gifts easily so how does it work for example with the spirits gift of understanding when the spirit comes blowing through the gift of understanding the person receives many lights and insights into the trees of faith that divinely revealed mysteries we're not talking about lights and insights again of the natural order so that you we could actually see what's been revealed now it's more mysterious than that it's a kind of understanding but we call it understanding by comparison with natural understanding it's like natural understanding when you see in into the depths for example of a mathematical figure and are able to solve the mathematical problem there's a kind of light that goes off or an insight there there's something analogous something comparable in the supernatural order of cognition something like those lights and insights that allows the person to grasp the mysteries of faith and to enter into their meaning and their profundity more deeply and all of this happens when the spirit of understanding is blowing this happens without study per se these lights just come they come to us from above so for example if you're sitting in a class or reading Thomas or reading the scriptures or listening to atomistic Institute podcasts and you simply see something or understand something deep about the mysteries of the faith that you never saw before or never understood that could be the spirits gift of understanding working in you and lighting things up for you or if you're just walking down the street one day and you you understand a certain distinction just comes to you oh there's a difference between resuscitation from the dead and resurrection there's a different those aren't the same thing now if you just saw that when you were walking down the street one day that would be a it seems to me a light and insight from the holy spirit in the gift of understanding and the way st. Thomas understands it is that the life of Christian believers those who are living in a state of grace is going to be filled with these lights and insights coming through the gift of understanding some more so people will have it more some people less depending on their place in the church or whatever but it's an ordinary part of Christian life to have these lights and insights come to us from the Holy Spirit but there's also the spirits gift of knowledge and the way st. Thomas describes this gift is it allows us to form solid judgments about creatures the worth of creatures the relative worth of creature is in comparison to God so we can see that no creature is worth sinning for God is greater than all all of them and none of them are worth turning away from God in order to live for them we can see that thanks to the spirits gift of knowledge we can we can get that easily and so we have a proper estimation of creatures we can put them in their proper perspective their their place as second very second in a human life we can see also for example their transitory value so you might if you were to just see one day or notice life is short eternity is long if that were to just dawn on you that would be the spirits gift of knowledge it seems to me you'd see that all the goods of this world created things are transitory and God alone is eternal and he alone is worth living for now in addition to the spirits gifts of understanding and knowledge there's also the spirits gift of wisdom which a st. Thomas describes very clearly as a kind of experiential knowledge of God it goes with charity and when the love that we have for God becomes a kind of light in the soul and illuminates one's intellect and the the person who believes and loves can gaze upon God in the same way that people who are in love with each other gaze upon each other kind of love gazing when they look not only with love but through love upon one another and see each other precisely as the loveable as the good as as the beloved as the good one then they're able to see in each other things that other people can't see and there's something similar that happens in the spiritual life when people love God very greatly love becomes a kind of light in their mind through which they can see or taste and see or experience or perceive God in His goodness and his love ability in a in a radical way and they can form judgments about God and true judgments about God just from out of their familiarity with him or con naturality with him we can think for example of st. Teresa bless you she was not a learned theologian in any way but she formed many many true judgments about God just simply out of the love and familiarity that she had for him in the depths of her heart so if we combine you know and understand faith and faith formed by charity together with its peace and joy and loving kindness and a faith that's perfected by all these lights and insights of the Holy Spirit and the and the gift of knowledge and understanding and also this kind of savory contemplation that we have thanks to the gift of wisdom and this love gazing that goes on between God and the soul who loves God then we have here a more robust account of what this spiritual perception is this supernatural perception but here's what I have to say this is only the beginning of Aquinas as account of spiritual perception there's actually many many many more things he has to say about it if we talk about invisible missions of the word and spirit or the light of prophecy in Cara's Matta that people receive then there's even more to the story of spiritual perception than what we have here the main point though is that the Spirit of God and in the whole Trinity dwells within the depths of our hearts and when the spirit dwells within the depths of our hearts we are able to know the presence of God in this experiential or perceptive kind of way and Aquinas understands this as divine intimacy this is what divine intimacy is that expression is making its way around the church a lot of these days divine intimacy what is divine intimacy that's what we've been talking about the whole time it's this higher awareness of the presence of God and all that goes with that higher awareness here's what st. Thomas says in his commentary on John when he's commenting on the words of the Lord who says that I will send the spirit and he will dwell with you and be in you st. Thomas says he will dwell with you note first the familiarity of the Holy Spirit with the Apostles for he will dwell with you that is for your benefit but your good spirit lead me on a level path it says in the Psalms secondly note how intimate his indwelling is for he will be in you that is in the depths of your heart I will put a new spirit within them it says in the prophet Ezekiel so note the word intimacy there Aquinas understands that the Spirit dwells in the depths of our hearts and establishes us in intimacy with God now you may be asking all of this is well and good but how can I live in this and how can I grow in this and what does any of this have to do with social distancing and the season of solitude that we're in well fortunately st. Thomas has already taken up the question of how do we grow in this experiential knowledge and he actually specifies in one place in his commentary on John four ways to grow in this experiential knowledge of God or the presence of God or the indwelling God here's what he says it should be noted that we can attain to this knowledge and it's clear he's talking about experiential knowledge of God we can attain to this knowledge of God in four ways first by doing good works and then he quotes the psalm when shall I come and appear before the face of God so what's the good work that he has in mind particularly coming before the face of God entering into that heart-to-heart relationship with the Lord secondly by the rest or stillness of the mind interior quiet and then he quotes the psalm be still and know that I am God this is the perfect season for coming before God in that relational kind of way and seeking inner quiet as things around us have quieted down and slowed down we too can slow down and quiet down and be still and know that He is God thirdly by tasting the divine sweetness and he quotes the Psalms again taste and see that the Lord is sweet now that in one sense is this experiential knowledge but in another sense it's a way to grow in it because isn't it the case that the more you know God in this sweet and abiding way don't you want to know him more and enter into this spiritual awareness of God even more and fourthly by acts of devotion let us lift up our hearts and hands in prayer so it's by prayer the fourth way that we enter into this experiential knowledge of God well what form of Prayer obviously he has all kinds of the forms of prayer in mind he has petitionary prayer in mind obviously we can ask for God to come to us and visit us and grant us the grace to enter into his presence and abide in his presence we can can and should ask for that but he also has in mind obviously meditation on the scriptures this is a perfect time to pick up the Bible and enter in to the Word of God and allow God to speak to us through the scriptures obviously he'll he takes that as a given that you and I will do that and we'll want to do that how often we do we do that though these are marvelous days to enter into the Word of God it's far better to spend your time reading the scriptures than watching coronavirus maps on the internet and watching the virus spread in various places and don't don't do that read the Word of God and meditate on that and you will enter into the presence of God more profoundly what aquinas also has in mind contemplative prayer a kind of simple being width right he calls it it as an intuitive simplex very taut on a simple intuition of the truth simply beholding God the truth and just being with him and enjoying him so there's that contemplative prayer as well that way that's a way of entering in to the presence of God but there's one way in particular Thomas Aquinas doesn't mention it per se but it's an awesome way to enter into the presence of God in the season of Solitude and that is the rosary the rosary is a form of prayer that combines all of these things in one that's the that's the brilliance and the genius and the greatness of the rosary it sets before us the Word of God the life of Christ and we can assemble in our minds the elements of the scriptural stories as we as we pray through it we're petitioning with our lady we're asking for God to give us His grace and the slow repetition of it especially when it's done with silence and attention and silence of the soul and quiet of the mind really allows one to enter into those mysteries very deeply and to as it were be captivated by the mysteries of God and we also need that rosary in our day to ask for the graces that we need for ourselves for a world and for other people so if this is what if these are the four ways to grow in awareness of the presence of God if it's through acts of devotion and quietness of soul and and good works and prayer if that's how we grow in the in the higher awareness of the presence of God this is a great time this is the perfect time to enter in and come to know the living and true God more and more and to really enter deeply in to eternal life which has already begun in our souls and in the depths of our minds we need that transformation of the mind well thanks very much father James it's great to hear those beautiful reflections and now we have some time for questions from our audience coming to us through zoom at home and from around the country so our first questioner is Nina Cassady from the University from Oklahoma University so Nina please go ahead hello Nina [Music] hi um so you just briefly at the end kind of mentioned contemplative prayer and I was wondering everything you were describing of what Thomas was saying what the relationship of that is to what some of the more traditional mystics kind of described as good temple of prayer and that really being a grace completely kind of given by God and you can't you can open yourself to it but not like really do anything and then I have a second thing with that more relevant to right now so again this idea of like the grace that God's giving and like in the time of the lack of sacraments how that's like our normal channel of grace and just like in a lot of other ways like there's not a way to presume or like we don't want to presume that God will like do extraordinary works or healing so like the normal way is through like doctors and stuff but how would that be a similar presumption of if we have like we don't have the normal channels of grace right now would it be presumption to assume or expect God to kind of pour out extraordinary graces in this time okay those are good questions let's start with the first one the first one is a big one what does the spiritual perception that I've been talking about this evening have to do with mystical writers like I presume you may have in mind Teresa of ávila or John of the Cross if you do Dominicans and Thomas have already taken up that question at great length and they've studied their writings and the various forms of experience that they have and Thomas asked themselves the question how do we account for these various phenomena in the lives of a John of the Cross or a Teresa of ávila and this answer that became I guess you could say somewhat standard in the school of st. Thomas in the course of the 20th century was to say that these are all manifestations of the spirits gift of wisdom which presupposes the other gifts as so it's really the spirits gift of wisdom that accounts for the deepest most profound forms of awareness of the presence of God now let's note something when st. Thomas talks about our awareness of the presence of God or our spiritual perception he does not give highly specific interior subjective descriptions he leaves the kind of why to open what the details of the experience will be because he knows the experiences are going to be subjective they're going to be personal they're going to differ from one person to the next and no one set of experiences is normative for all people so st. Thomas gives us a kind of inner freedom so to speak by saying well you will experience God you will perceive you'll spiritually perceive his presence in a manner unique to you unique to your place in his eternal designs and his providential plan for the world and for the church and for you and in a manner that corresponds with the graces he gives you and he gives different people different graces I mean Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity will have one form of awareness of the presence of God living in her soul and someone else will have a very different awareness of the presence of God living in his rehearsal so all of the of the writings of the Mystics those writings tend to be very testimonial in nature where an individual is describing or bearing witness to his or her own subjective experience and from a theological point of view we'd say those are various manifestations of the spirits gift of wisdom that's the I guess you could say a standard or somewhat standard answer just to make an important qualification all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit and other virtues and other things that God does like invisible missions or cars Mada those will also be part of accounting for those experiences so what we can say is that the lives and experiences of the Mystics are really an empirical manifestation of these virtues and gifts and spiritual perception that Aquinas describes theologically or scientifically well great we have another question coming to us from Carmen ku from Cornell University so Carmen please go ahead first question where you said your experiences of God will be subjective but we would also hear people say well God spoke to me about this thing or that thing but we can sometimes deceive ourselves so could you say something about discerning between a spirit and presence of God versus the evil one sure that's a great question and a common question when it comes to God speaking to us Aquinas thinks that the the primary and we could say the normative manner in which he speaks to us is through Scripture and that's an objective word that's given externally it's given to the church and it's proclaimed in the church and the scriptures are read in the church so the nice thing about picking up the scriptures unlike any other way of you could say listening to the Word of God is that you know you're getting the Word of God it's all divinely inspired there's no add mixture of truth and error human allusion mixed in with what might be genuine insights or anything like that now when it comes to other modes of listening to God or hearing from God there's a couple of things that are possible one as a person might have a genuine charism of prophecy and one of the ways that a charism of prophecy can work is through loke ujin's and that's a possibility in the spiritual life whether a person has a true gift of prophecy and can hear God in the manner of a location is a big question and how to discern that is a big question the basic answer is don't do it alone other people are going to be involved in this and various signs and criteria are laid out and in play so the first answer would be go seek the spiritual counsel if you think that's happening now other people though can just sort of think that all kinds of things are coming to them from God in all sorts of ways and if it's not tied to the scripture it tends to be a territory that's open to various forms of illusion now if you want signs of the signs of the the Spirit of God actually moving I mean we the scriptures themselves list out the fruits of the spirit law of joy peace orthodoxy consistency with the faith these various criteria are given for discerning things but there's a certain hazard or trap here and that is once you ask the question is this prompting or thought that I'm getting like a word from God or is it from the Holy Spirit as it come from the enemy or is it come from my own spirit as soon as you go down that road you become involved or anyone tends to become involved in a kind of self analysis or self preoccupation and that self analysis and self preoccupation is a kind of dead end in the spiritual life a better way to keep growing into God and going into union with him and going into the light and becoming aware of his presence authentically more and more is by using the gifts that he's given you in your baptism that you can use anytime Faith Hope Love anytime you want you can make acts of faith hope and love anytime you want you can pick up the scriptures in read anytime you want you can ask for the spirit to give you lights and insights and if you just start realizing things that you've never realized before and if they're leading you to God surrender and go with it well I think we have time for a couple more questions and so we have next up Joe Browns Berger from Yale so Joe please go ahead please go ahead thank you so a lot of saints talk about consolation and desolation these periods where and sometimes you really do how you help ibly feel God's presence and times when you don't this time let's talk about this at all and is what can we do when we're in this period of dryness do we kind of try to somehow achieve periods of consolation where we do palpability feel God's presence or do we just kind of sit back and MIT I guess make ourselves ready to receive that grace when God wants to give it that's a great question I'm glad you asked the language of consolation and desolation is very common in the church now Aquinas obviously does use those words in his writings because the Scriptures use those words the difficulty is that the terms consolation and desolation have come in later centuries after Aquinas to have somewhat specific meanings within specific spiritual approaches so for example in the spiritual approach of st. Ignatius of Loyola consolation and desolation have rather specific meanings which are deeper than what might first strike you in just using them according to the common meaning of the terms it's not just about feelings so those are different that's a kind of a somewhat technical terminology all by itself st. Thomas does not equate spiritual perception with being in a state of consolation per se times of dryness or desert can also be a mode of experiencing God's presence and action and he does talk a fair amount actually about something called purification and it talks about how God gives special Grace's to the soul to uproot selfishness to correct bad or disordered inclinations that we've acquired over time through our sins and bad choices and various ways in which we can be self-interested or still subject to concupiscence and God gives us grace to heal the soul of those dispositions at least to some extent in this life gratia son owns healing grace and one of the side effects I guess you could say or manifestations of God's healing grace within us is often that things go dry we feel like we're walking in a desert we can as it were have no felt sense of the presence of God and in ways that we may have memories very concrete memories of being able to know God's presence in that way it doesn't mean that God is absent objectively or that he's gone or left you or fled from you if you if you're in a period where you're going through the desert following the Lord by a desert route so to speak it just means that God's working in a different way he's giving he's working profound purifications at that time so he's present and he's active and he's working it's a question of learning to interpret the experience of dryness or the desert road and in that way to learn to see it as the presence on the hand of God now as to the question what to do in those moments again we can always do those things that have been given to us in the virtues of faith hope and love the marvelous things about the virtues is we can exercise them at will oddly be tombs so you can always make an act of faith you can always make an act of hope you can always make an act of love you can always say God I believe in you Jesus I believe in you Jesus I trust in you Jesus I love you and if you just keep saying that in them even on the desert road you will continue to advance with the help of God our next question is going to come from Anselm LaFave and Psalm is coming to us from Oregon so Anselm please go ahead thank you father James I was sort of mildly surprised that the sacraments are not mentioned in the four ways to grow in spiritual perception and I'm wondering if in the church now so much has been made of you know something like the Eucharist as the source and the summit of the Christian life that perhaps we have maybe excessive or inflated kind of perception of our need for the sacraments and I don't want to you know make it sound like the sacraments are not necessary of course they are but but what what is maybe the kind of proper role for them in the spiritual life of a baptized person maybe separate from the question of you know justification and things like that that's a good question so it goes without saying when Aquinas talks about these four ways of growing in spiritual perception he's taking it for granted that you will have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance he's taking it for granted that you will receive Holy Communion he's taking for granted that you're gonna you know avail yourself of the sacraments now we just should be clear historically and I think this is going to be a topic for discussion and later quarantine lectures the manner in which the church has ministered the sacraments down through history has differed widely from time to time and from region to region so daily Holy Communion is actually a rather recent thing recent to the 20th century in fact if you read st. Elizabeth of the Trinity she was living at the end of the 19th at the very beginning of the 20th century they needed permission from their pastors to receive Holy Communion and so it was a tremendous tremendous gift and she felt it as such to be able to receive Holy Communion even one time and then when she was given the opportunity to receive Holy Communion for nine days in a row making a novena of Holy Communion leading up to Corpus Christi oh that was like the greatest thing that had ever happened in her life so this obviously the sacraments are the primary causes of our growth in grace I mean cornices is very clear about that but the the frequency with which they are used of is going to differ from time to time now what this time seems to be I mean is a time of preparation and the formation for the proper subjective dispositions to make a fruitful use of the sacraments because the dispositions we bring to the Sacrament of Penance make a difference in the fruitfulness that they have in us so I imagine if you haven't received Holy Communion in a long time and you begin really hungry for Holy Communion well that means your next holy communion is going to be more fruitful and likewise if you go to the Sacrament of Penance saying yourself I don't know if I'm going to be able to go to the Sacrament of Penance ever again or when that will be I imagine you're in contrition will be more intense and he's clear that the fruitfulness of the Sacrament of Penance is proportionate to the contrition that a person brings so there's an interplay between things that we do privately and things that we do publicly in the church's liturgy and in the sacraments and they're meant to feed each other okay and I think the way to think about is that these four ways to grow are actually four dispositions you want to be really well-formed in not just for those days when you don't have sacraments but also prepared to prepare you for the good days to come when we will be able to avail ourselves of the sacraments more frequently we have time for another question so Sylvia Chris Chuck has a question Sylvia is coming to us from Yale University so Sylvia please go ahead thank you for your beautiful talk my question is why exactly is it that God would prefer to have a special intimacy with those who aren't quiet and still and recollected within because many of us become easily frustrated saying oh I wish God was louder or would give more evident and obvious signs of himself or an agnostic might say I would believe if God could be heard or seen or felt more clearly by me but we see from the same side Scripture that God typically does not prefer to reveal himself that way so my question is what does this say about who God is and his character in preferring to reveal himself and still in quiet ways and maybe could you give us some practical advice for those of us who struggle to become like recollected and still within ourselves to experience this presence okay that's a good question there's a number a good question there so a lot of times when people say I want God to speak or I want him to give evidence at themself and you ask them well what would count as evidence or what would count as divine speech it's usually some extraordinary sign and extraordinary signs are by definition while extraordinary they're going to be rare I mean we can ask for them and God sometimes gives them but they're there by definition extraordinary and what I've noticed actually in my my priestly ministry is that when extraordinary things are done when God does do extraordinary things it actually causes people to be afraid and want to run away because it's a sign that they're no longer in control of their life or the world and it's actually a lot like the people in scriptures so people demand signs and then run from them very often when they're given so human fallen human nature is very complicated that way what does it say about God that he normally doesn't do that but normally approaches us through this path of inner stillness well I'm thinking first of all of the prophet Elijah and the Old Testament in that marvelous passage where he's in the cave I Mount Horeb and and he and God comes to him but God is not in the fire God is not in the earthquake God is not in the in the raging storm God is in the still small voice or the gentle breeze depending on how you translate it that's the manner in which God comes to those whom he wants to reveal himself to now as to the question of why like is that just an arbitrary thing why did orders inner stillness and inner quiet have something really to do with it I think the idea is that if we allow our thoughts are that in those inner thoughts that are kind of always going over and over and over and continuing if we allow those to die down then we can start to become acclimated or adjusted to a higher mode of communication from God a mode that's truly supernatural where he gives himself in silence because he's giving his life he's not just giving us propositional knowledge he's giving us him very his very self who's beyond propositional knowledge well how do you become acquainted with that how do you become familiarized with that we need to go through a process that's like when you come out of a movie theater for example when you've been in the dark for a long time and you step into the sunlight your eyes are kind of blinded and they need to adjust something similar needs to happen to the human mind or the human soul the mind particularly the intellect and will they need to become acclimated or accustomed to the magnificence the greatness of God and his self communication to us and that happens when we interior ly quiet down and let go of the natural kind of processes and thought processes they're always going going going going going now as to the question how do you do that get get out of the house get plenty of exercise I know a lot of people are experiencing a lot of cabin fever these days so get out of the house get a lot of exercise and that will help quiet down when you do try to let's say sit and be quiet to tell you the truth those st. Thomas Aquinas also suggests fasting he says that fasting enhances contemplation it kind of saps ins to some to some measure excessive energy that gig expends itself in superfluous psychological and biological processes that we don't really need and when we were in a kind of lower energy state we can kind of very quiet down and gradually quiet down in some way so those are two suggestions get out of the house try to walk off the cabin fever but at the same time maybe try some serious moderation of food or are some fasting and watch what happens so for the James we have time for I think just one more question and I'm going to read the question to you because it's coming to us from one of our participants on zoom' who's not on a video line it's a lean Vargas from MIT and she asks this quest father Brent brought up the idea of returning to the Trinity and the importance of prayer as one of the four ways to grow what would be some ways to return to the Trinity specifically in this season of solitude for example now that we cannot receive Communion in person okay that's a good question how do we return to the Trinity is one question and then the other is how do we do so in this season of solitude so returning to the Trinity is a notion that Aquinas has that's in his philosophical sources it's about the reversion upon one's cause and the way that Thomas understands it is that the the the mind the intellect and the will turn towards God who is our object thanks to divine revelation he gives himself to us in faith and he becomes the what we focus on or who we focus on and so it's by turning away from ourselves and turning towards him to gaze upon him and to love him that is return to our cause that is return to the Holy Trinity and that happens precisely by the acts of faith hope and love so if you turn to the Lord and say God I believe in you or Jesus I hope in you those acts of faith and hope are concrete practical ways you can return to the call your source and in this case it's the Holy Trinity so you could pray specifically calling out the three persons of course you'd say glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and will be forever when you do that you are returning to the Holy Trinity and again if we give ourselves to the Rosary or to reading of the scriptures God is going to be placed before us and in the silence and stillness and quietness ah and our attention can become captivated by him and we can begin to gaze on him with increasingly greater simplicity as time goes on

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Published: Thu Apr 02 2020