LIVESTREAM - What is Health for the Soul? - Fr. John Corbett, O.P.

by the Corbett I saw a someone sent me something that a team in the media recently saying without health nothing else matters something like that what would you as it as atomistic moral theologian what I agree with that would you agree no I wouldn't agree with that actually sometimes the loss of health can be the occasion when you do discover what matters hmm so explain why that would be the case well I mean it seems counterintuitive doesn't it it does but I'm thinking I mean I can understand why people would say health is at a certain sense everything because it's attached to a kind of a state of being it's the kind of a coordination of order among the parts a good habit again and you're right kind of ready to spring into action you know when you're in good health you're ready to go you know but when you're not in good health when when things aren't working well it's not like you are ready to spring into action to go someplace in a way you're already there a Flannery O'Connor once described sickness as not so much a state as a place she said I've never been anywhere else but sick and and it's a place of solitude where some of the deeper questions about your life can emerge can can actually be heard so I think that for example in the case of Flannery O'Connor who suffered a lot from lupus it took her life eventually but I think in some ways she found her vocation as an artist in that then that solitude you know yeah so I mean isn't it true though that if you don't have bodily health you're not really going to be able to achieve all kinds of other you know human excellences well I think that's true and that's why of course you don't want you what don't want to say anything less than that for health it's a it's a state of readiness it's a state in which you some of the various forms of human excellence can be realized but it's but because those various states of human excellence can be can become idols can become things valued supremely and for their own sake health also in that sense can become something that's valued and it seemed basically for its own sake it can become the focus of all your energy all your work it's what you worry about it's what it's it's a kind of possession that claims worship from you and as it becomes a kind of an idol in that sense or can it doesn't need to but it can well I mean certainly we live in a culture that does seem to idolize health fitness mm-hmm you know something like that the youth appearing young appearing fit appearing young appearing fit you know 70 is the new 60 or you know 90 is the new 70 however whatever numbers you choose to come up with there's always the anthesis upon battling signs of aging and the reason for that of course is that aging as a reminder of death so basically the and again health is a marvelous thing and I don't do not want to be without it but it can be associated with the possession of health and the anxiousness to preserve it in the face of anything else can be a symptom of an overriding fear of death and the fear of death can in some way keep people from living yeah I mean health is allows you to live but making health an idol so that you turn into a kind of a hypochondriac and can more so that you're afraid to really live on that is itself a form of death I think so and so I think with the current crisis I mean you do we all need to follow all the sensible guidelines about social distancing you do need to pay very strict attention to this because our neighbours lives and our honor on the line and that's no trivial matter that's a matter of utmost seriousness but at the same time you can you can see how a phobia about germs or a phobia about sickness can actually keep you bottled up beyond the point where it's reasonable to be so cautious you know and yeah you can be so constrained by the fear of the loss of health that you can't you can't live well so a priest you know in priests not not often but occasionally do face situations in which they have to risk their risk their well-being for the sake of the spiritual well-being of their people you always have to be prudent but if a priest will never go out to where people are in danger you've basically said you're a euro you are Shepherd for hire you're a higher then you're not tied to the goods good shepherd so I mean let's talk for a minute about the health of the soul I mean we can say something like that is it really useful to talk about having a healthy soul well I think it is but you know it's a talking about a healthy soul for a Thomas tis really talking about the the reality of grace you know if your if your soul is healthy for someone who pays attention to st. Thomas you're thinking about someone who is living in the friendship of the Father Son and Holy Spirit and there's no higher state that you can be in them of course there are degrees of intensification of that fellowship with father son and but as an object of your love and knowledge there really is nothing higher you know so yes that's health I mean if you describe health as order among parts potency poised for action then you would say that the state of grace is the whole self gathered together in friendship and love for God ready to spring into actions that will deepen that friendship so yes of course grace is health of the soul in that sense now there's another kind of health of the soul which is also which is akin to physical health which is I suppose a Kenda unproblematic functioning you know there is such a thing as being in good psychological condition without being in a state of grace or without being in friendship with God so there are people who are very calm methodical they diet they exercise they they they they trim their hair in just the right way as they wear the right clothes but they are capable of ghastly on charities you know they are there's no problem with their functioning they know who they are they know what they want they're efficient in their pursuit of what they want and they don't have to be pursuing very obviously wicked things in order to be in bad health it would be enough to be pursuing on things less than God you know I mean it would be enough to be overly attached to making money or overly attached to any of the your reputation for example I'll overly attached to how many hits you get on Facebook any one of these things they're not they're not going to get you in a war transcribe you know nobody's going to hang you in effigy for these kinds of things but they the WoW function is operating in a in a prime sort of way still the ends that you've devote your life - are less than you less than worthy of you and so in that sense state of the soul is in bad shape what are you and what are you about to do what are you about to become there's a way in which your funk you can be poised for action but poised for action to pursue things that are not evil exactly but are less than worthy of a human beings full Allegiance and so you are healthy because you're you know there are no neurosis crippling you you're not overcome by anxiety you don't have unrealistic fears that everybody hates you you know you're not Agra phobic you can leave your place you can leave your house you don't project your problems onto other people you know you're not paranoid you don't think people are talking about you and they're not all those things are in order but you're still not in good spiritual health because you're focusing on things that are just taken as absolutes unworthy of you so what about psychology and the spiritual life I mean people are sometimes very interested in this it does seem to have there does seem to be some I mean that there's a dimension of the person that's not just bodily that verges towards something immaterial and our psychology seems to be something to do with that but the spiritual life is not just psychology what's the what's the relationship between like somebody's psychological health and their spiritual health well that's a very deep and important question and it's one that's very hard to answer when I was I know how to answer it badly such as well here's I mean here's a bad answer or an inadequate answer you got mites that was what was given to us by some guest speakers when I was a novice at Dover the novice master didn't endorse this and the people in formation didn't but there were people who came in to give lectures on just this topic and their basic point was holiness is wholeness and there's a way of reading that which in which it's true but what they meant was the the person in touch with their feelings the person who could name their in our conflicts and work to resolve them and do so in a holistic way was by that very fact holy and I think that's simply untrue some of the holiest people I've known have been borderline crazy ok I I yeah I mean what's holiness or being close to God it's about loving God it's about loving Jesus and neurotics can do that you know people who have all sorts of false ideas in their heads about their own unworthiness for example or people who have I misunderstood their relations with their parents on some deep level people who are deeply insecure for one reason or another and who thank God is ready to drop all other business in order to punish them for the slightest sin I mean those kinds of people exist but they but God is dear to them and they are dear to God I think that if you say that a healthy psychological life is another name for holiness you do an injustice to all of these people who do try to love Jesus and who do in fact love Jesus but who do so carrying their own peculiar cross as long as I say I think that a person could be well integrated and yet devoted to not the saving mystery of God in Jesus Christ but you know satisfying relationships equitable wealth you know comfort other things none of them bad but none of them really adequate to describe the the burning bush that is threatening to burst out in front of any human being who who is open to it you know what I mean yeah so if we I mean you can think about this sort of people you've encountered in your long you know long time as a confessor or a spiritual director sometimes people have a psychological issue that may seem like it's a spiritual issue or may seem to them like it's a spiritual issue but perhaps it's not that's right what kinda gotta help scrupulous person for example you're hearing confessions blast my father I've send I went to confession about ten minutes ago you know you're in trouble when a panic ensues I went to confession ten minutes ago because you know exactly what they're going to say and I'm not sure they will say I made a good confession inadequate confession I'm sure I almost I'm sure I left something out that was important I can't think what it was but I'm but the reason I can't is of course because I'm sinful and and then of course they start digging themselves in this quicksand and you've got you help them but which you have to help them realize is that what they've got is not a case of sinfulness or not a situation of sin you've got a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder which which manifests itself in spiritual language but it's not but but this person though who thinks they're going to be made holy by getting rid of their sin will actually become holy and will become only because they want to become holy but they'll become actually holy through another route when they learn to trust God despite what their psyche is shouting at them you're unworthy you're sick you're evil that's I know there's there their consciousness shots to them their holiness comes when they say oh you know stop it yeah I'm just polite language stop it I know and trust and believe in my saviors love for me despite how guilty I always feel see and therapy may clear the way for that you know a psychological counselling or medicine or gut goodness knows what form of therapy a professional might decide is adequate or helpful I mean the humility to go through that and the humility to believe what God says about how He loves you that's how this kind of person gets to be holy so and maybe by accepting the suffering that this mental affliction can bring yeah because it's my it's my experience isn't in this realm I didn't psychological wrong I'm not trained about weight but even so I believe that people with disorders who come to love and trust God in the middle of their disorders go very far towards path on path of holiness so let me change the subject slightly and talk about you know someone who's at home right now and dealing with all of the all of the stress of the situation that we're in your recommendations for growing in like improving the health of your soul I mean what what what constitutes the plan for improving your spiritual health well that's a good question if you're home it depends on your circumstances of course but if you're let's say you're single and you're on your own and you have some you have the scriptures with you you know you could in these days pray and solidarity with all the people who are suffering you know biblical authors often thought that plagues were a sign of God's judgment you could be agnostic about whether this plague is is an emblem an emblem of God's judgment or not of them and who knows that you'd have to be receive a revelation or something to have anything definite to say about that but you could definitely say that this bill this kind of a virus that spreading is a providential God permits it for a reason and you can in prayer transcend your own particular situation and pray in the name of all the people of God who were so afflicted and so what you and there's a collection of songs about the penitential Psalms I've I've just been saying some of them lately and I'm in solidarity with the people who are really sick you know Psalm 6 is one of those psalm 32 so I'm 38 51 and so forth there any number of Psalms where a sick and a sinful person cries out to God and since we are all part of the same people we can pray not only for ourselves in this situation but for everybody else who is suffering and who may not have the words that we do who don't know these words are inspired who don't know that these words carry us into God's presence where he does in fact promise to hear so that that's a way of growing I mean we're we're you the boundary between you and the people that the rest of the people of God is loosened a little bit and you enter into a kind of a collective person but Christ in fact the Saint Agustin said you know the Christ praying to his father we get in on that through the Psalms so there's nothing like growing in the spiritual life by having yourself transported into someone much greater than you yeah well let me ask about the virtues because you've taught the virtues here at the Dominican House of studies for for many years you know if when you look at the world around us now what are the virtues I mean from atomistic perspective yeah what are the virtues that you would say the typical American most needs to work on or what's the vise that the typical American most has to overcome maybe besides the ones that are the most obvious to everybody well that's a good question this is kinda this is like you can kind of hardly go wrong and answering a question like that there are not so many different things that could be said I'll say what comes to mind immediately I would say that one of the great sins of that one of the areas that we need to really grow is with outgrowing pragmatism you know our approach to matters of faith is I think in the more technical sense of vicious because we think of faith as a kind of therapy or something that works for me everyone knows that you need to cultivate some sort of interior life but people that we Americans I think are peculiarly tempted to believe that because faith has sometimes therapeutic effects that it is therefore a kind of therapy but you know what you need to realize is that it's not about therapy per se religion isn't meant to be essentially comforting it's meant to be the vehicle by which Almighty God puts you before his very presence where you are singed with the holiness of God you know and if Americans FFI think that so in other words a virtue here that we need is to overcome the virtue of religion falsely understood and to move into the territory of of actual faith where you where you're measuring not the the growth in your own soul but where you are focused on the word that you receive from God and grow into and allow yourself to be converted by that word something you know in other words the word of God is something that isn't reduced to your own measure instead you are broken open and raised to its measure so there's a very popular course at Yale which has gotten some press which is of course on happiness but it's really a kind of pragmatic course on positive psychology ya know ways that you can come up with strategies to be a better person to be more satisfied to be you know to overcome your bad habits yeah to get out of the bed in the morning and have something productive to do you talked about Peters well Jordan Pederson is another example of someone who's I think he has more to say than than just that kind of this course I think is doesn't have the day he I think he he actually has some depth okay but could you I mean could you just say something about the search for happiness I mean from atomistic perspective how how does the search for happiness go deeper than that well I don't search for happiness you have to recognize at least if you're gonna be a following st. Thomas you have to realize that the best happiness you can have in this life is imperfect happiness that you can possess relative goods health of Fame good reputation among them you know or power if you're devoted to good as I mean there are there are some proximate goals of human life that are really worthy but if you're going to be informed by the gospel or more approximately formed by st. Thomas's teaching about the gospel you have to realize that all of these forms of happiness and and purposeful activity that bring you to this kind of happiness are in the end of the day I'm not going to be enough you know in other words you have to realize that with the prime penises that we can find here are partial if you have that knowledge then you don't beat yourself up for having failed to reach impossible expectations I mean there are people who think that if they haven't won the Nobel Prize run the you know the 600 are - - backwards in a way that gets them the gold medal they think that their life has been a failure I haven't approached it with sufficient intensity or skill or dedication I have not been noticed I am a failure no you're not you just had ridiculous standards so if you haven't if you know that if you know the the weakness of the human condition and the limits of the range of every person's abilities then you know that you can only do so much and then you trust God you say aye it's true that I can't be perfectly happy here but God has got something wonderful in mind and he is able to transcend anything I can ask with for think of or imagine he can do that for me and will so in the meantime and then we time enjoy yourself you know in the meantime be happy as you can be you know by living by all the obvious ways yeah uh can you talk for a minute about the way people have been handling the stress of the crisis I mean in the first weeks we saw massive runs on toilet paper yeah which didn't seem to be especially that puzzles me yeah so puzzled me a lot my toilet paper why not hand sanitizer why not something else anyway I mean what do you think is happening there when people are well they're panicking they're they're they're expressing a really primordial fear of death what happens if civilization collapses what happens if that nice grandmother or grandfather that is my neighbor suddenly turns into a grunt a gun-toting maniac you know to get the last roll of toilet paper what happens if all my neighbors become beasts that's really the fear there they want to circumvent that by by increasing their supplies now that's not a real noble response but it's an understandable one but I think in recent days there's it's been superseded by something better solidarity and new york every night at 7:00 they they gather and on their windows and they applaud the healthcare workers you know so the doctors the nurses they salute the courage of these people who are really risking their own lives and so of the the health care workers are really showing real virtue and real courage and the people of New York are showing real appreciation this is good this is humanely very good so what is the I mean when you talk about solidarity that's a theme that john paul ii spoke about often it's a theme that Catholics will will speak about from time to time could you say a little bit about the I mean you have that on a human level in like a city but can that how does that be brought how can that be brought into the supernatural level oh well through the body of Christ through membership through believing the gospel through membership of the church it also can be brought into this onto the supernatural level I think Rahner wasn't wrong about this I think that there are people who love God sometimes who don't really realize their loving God you know by loving their neighbor they are loving the Christ who lives in their neighbor so I think that and by would by will it by being willing to serve in that way to go beyond themselves in that way I think the chances are good even if they're not believers that a hidden grace is at work opening them up to Christ yeah I mean it and their solidarity of that now you can't make that an absolute principle because you can mistake I mean when as soon as human solidarity closes in on itself and closes off the supernatural then you've got another issue and I remember many years ago there was a group Peter Paul and Mary I they had and they they were big in the 60s you weren't you weren't the round I was not around then but I know who they are okay this is really amazing how how old you got anyway I like their stuff I did they sang songs like if I had a ham and social justice songs and you could get all wrapped up and excited about it and you know this would make you feel virtuous and and in solidarity and and I always thought they were great songs but something bothered me about them later on and I think that what bothered me about later on was the idea that there was a call most a self-conscious project of creating solidarity without God yeah in other words well in in the human endeavor and in it alone we can find solidarity and I think that experience shows that that is an illusion so typically Catholics would here speak about the Eucharist yeah but this is a particularly acute you know void in many people's spiritual lives right now all right so there it can be solidarity there I'm Bible via what the old practices of a spiritual communion where you you wish to receive and you can't sacramentally but the intense desire to be one with Jesus one in the church with fellow believers at and an act of worship yeah I think you're taken up into that mystery in another way it's important to remember that although we are bound to the sacraments God is not and can can't approach us and he does remain master of his gifts after all so we're not free to make up new sacraments or to say things like call me up and I'll give you absolution women we can't do that there are limits that are constrained on us by revelation but just because we can't do something doesn't mean God can't so though we're never far from him so say something about the efficacy of the Mass this came up actually at a dinner that I was having with another Dominican recently just about whether whether the mass can be helpful to you even if you're not present oh well yeah I if you well let me put it this way actually it's also true that a mass could be unhelpful to you even if you were present okay so a lot depends upon the disposition of the person who is there the the Lord is at work in the sacrament of the Eucharist subjectively but however object he's present there I won't do you any good if you don't believe or approach the sacrament with faith or love you know in fact it could be an occasion of sin it works the other way too you approach the Lord he's you can't you can't go to communion there's no benediction to go to but you can still pray you can read for example John 6 I am the bread of life and make an act of faith in the Eucharist and so the Lord you would like to receive the res you know not the res Taunton which is I'm sorry I shouldn't and you can receive the point the goal of the sacrament which is communion in the union with the BA in the body of Christ the unity of the body of Christ which is that you know the the final reality that the Eucharist points to I think to ask for that grace is at normal circumstances to receive it and there's no priest there to guarantee it efficaciously but the Lord is generous and and can do what He wills yeah so he could give you the grace of the Eucharist without necessarily having to go through the medium what about like mass offerings of that kind of thing I mean having a mass offered for someone for example Oh I said spiritual reach of the oh I say sacrifice well I believe I believe is this is a matter of faith but I believe in it I've the Lord when he died gave this he said I interpreted that on the Last Supper he said this is my body given for you and we've always understood you to me not just the twelve gathered around the table but everyone he died for which is everyone I mean that we're asked to enter into a realm here that is hard for us to imagine we can think it but imagining it is another thing I think that's beyond our power to know how the Lord could actually know each of us by name I'm the Good Shepherd the Good Shepherd knows his sheep right well that he's very particular about that but what what that actually is like is forever beyond our Ken you know but it's an object of faith so that means that we wouldn't we go to communion and for someone or we pray in that way for the sake of someone you know the Lord has heard it and he heard it at the moment when he offered his life to the Father on the cross and he prays can I prove that and absolutely not but I believe it a church believes it so you can efficaciously pray for someone in the mass yeah okay good well for the Corbitt we have some questions coming in from our viewers and I don't know that we have any who are video questions but we do have some that have been sent in so Elena fyke asks how practically can we drill in holiness or closeness to God when in isolation from other people how can we grow in virtue when isolated from other people now you can experience the price of your isolation I mean if you're if you're alone and you feel that what does it mean to be alone one thing that you might discover is that things start bubbling I mean depending on how long the solitude is you might notice find yourself thinking about something that you hadn't thought about for a while or a teacher I had in high school do it once described this as like going to the top of a tall building in New York City is standing on a skyscraper and and from that position you can really hear the noise below which you couldn't hear in your more normal setting solitude is like that a period of solitude allows you to hear your internal noise and when you hear a name the demons that bother you you know you might notice that you are really angry about something or really afraid of something and when that surface is in a painful way which often happens in solitude you can bring that to prayer and that means that you're confronting something real in you becoming more real and therefore becoming closer to God because you know God is supreme is cream reality and the more real we are the closer we are to him so solitude can do that for you that's why monks go into the desert that's the whole point of monastic life they go into the desert not to avoid the demons but to face them and beat them let them have their say in banishment banish the illusions yeah well we have another question this is this one this comes in from one of our YouTube viewers how do we take the initiative to grow the health of the soul versus receiving God's gifts or His grace to grow in the health of our soul don't we receive more in prayer when we put more effort in pull well I think that are putting more effort in is the occasion for our growth in prayer I do uh if just to discover how much we need to grow in prayer you know you you work at it and what happens well then you get a look at yourself this can be deflating you know but I think what but it but that still prepares ground I don't think you can there's no direct stairway to walking into heaven i responding to God's and I should have walked myself up the steps and into the divine presence no I think that mostly in our life we don't walk steadily into God's present we slip on a banana peel somewhere and fall and and tumble and somehow we fall on tumble upwards I mean we are certainly our own efforts but play an important part certainly our best efforts are required of us by God but what but often the useless God makes of our efforts is disproportionate to what we thought we were doing yeah well let me ask another question this one that comes in from Hope keen who's one of our test against two students she asks should we be more worried or concern for the physical health of non-catholics than for catholics depends on what state of soul the Catholic or non Catholic are in you know obviously you worry about people who aren't in a state of grace or who were at odds with God we have no way of knowing who they are so I think that the best thing to do is go to God and say you know who they are and you know who I need to pray for even if I don't know their names there's somebody out there who needs my prayers Catholic or non Catholic and so here I go when you say a rosary or something like that or you faster you do something along those lines but yes objectively Catholics are in a better position because I have the sacraments but but as to how someone really is before God only God knows that there's a reason he reserves that to himself so I think it makes a lot of sense to spend some time in prayer when you do pray asking God to direct your prayer to the person in his Providence he knows to be blessed by it that makes sense yeah yeah let me ask you another question this also coming in from YouTube for the corporate please elaborate on our secular societies attempt to create solidarity without God hmm I mean obviously it's good to have solidarity right I mean I'm from Seattle the Seattle Seahawks create a certain solidarity among the people in the city when you're on the street corner during football season you know everybody's wearing a Seahawks Jersey you make you makes you feel like you belong to something that's amazing better City that's right it depends I say now so so can see Hawk fans be in a state of grace that's the real question we have to struggle I think it's all about the answer is yes of course but they're basically probably is the answer well they're probably know most certainly well they most certainly could be in a state of grace so that's great no but that's because being a sefa Hawk fan isn't proposed as an alternative you could have saving grace or you could be a Seahawks fan take your pick I think I can be a better human being by being a Seahawks fan see then when you do you think you could you could be a better human being if you are Seahawks right but anyway sorry continue well okay what about the Browns fans the heroic long-suffering brown fans who have displayed Hugh for superhuman faith okay but all these years but you're right I think if the football fans started really treating what they were up to as human solidarity you know it claimed more for it then you would further the faith if you were to claim no no the the the faith you proposed is illusory real authentic human solidarity is what it's all about when you make that move and then you start singing if I had a hammer you're really singing an anti gospel anthem but if I had a hammer can be perfectly Christian you know it's tied to social justice and that's tied to the love of God I just had the fence just an impression but I had the feeling that the some of those songs came politically from the left and the left was interested in in all sorts of forms of human solidarity that purposely excluded references to the supernatural they thought that was a distraction from the real business of peacemaking at hand well I think this is the theme that you see actually in a lot of political theory circles right now yeah there's been a pretty vigorous debate over liberalism and seeing liberalism as inherently secularizing that is you know what did liberalism do in the Enlightenment it was an attempt to to take God out of the picture uh-huh and to create a kind of this world a place where we can all meet yes and and where where we can find common ground despite religious disagreement right and therefore to say well that's the highest that we can aspire to actually other than in a purely private sphere and therefore those purely private concerns about God become just things that you can't even bring into the public square no and therefore they become unimportant I mean that means that all the substantial human goods are really tied into the public square which has become a secular arena this is a way in which secularism and that that in this sense becomes anti theistic it becomes something that is designed to choke off the approach of grace and that for that reason it's really problematic so I mean you think of the Communist Manifesto attempting I mean they're they're gonna talk about solidarity no but it's specifically a solidarity over against religious solidarity or a solidarity rooted in ultimately in God that's right solidarity as such is not intrinsically sanctifying we're social animals and so anything that excludes solidarity is anti human but it doesn't follow that each and every form of solidarity is properly human there was plenty of solidarity at Nuremberg remember yeah well I'm happy to say we have a live question and this comes from Louie Gilardi who is it last last I saw you Louie you were at Brown University are you still there we can't hear ya I think we may have a little problem with the sound there for Louie let's let's try again we're working on the sound on on our end okay we're here can you hear us Louie way of EPs you can hear us we can see you so it may be just that we can't hear him and it may be so well maybe why don't I ask another question while we work on that technical problem so we get another question from YouTube what mix of productivity or activity versus contemplation should we shoot for many people are urging this time of being at home or solitude of being at a time for great work productivity but it this viewer wonders if that's a missed chance for contemplation it depends on your vocation there won't be one answer that's right for everybody everybody could use some more contemplation of Caesar I think that we live at an act of this society and so it's not common that people overdo the contemplative dimension of their lives but there's no formula that will fit every person some people are called by God to be creative artistically or let's say and in that moment that's where they they come to grips with who they really are and who God is other people find that in gardening's other people find it in in silence and stillness it depends on your own vocation so let me go to another question I don't know if we have a sound for Louis yet but let's um Louie can you hear no I think where I'm getting from our team over here that we're having a problem with with our end of the sound so let me ask you a question coming from Vani Kapil Dayal going back to the the intriguing question of the toilet-paper hoarding might the toilet-paper question be rooted in distrust of the body or a fear of shame rather than a fear of competitive neighbors and if so how could you could how could you address this issue of embodiment and fear or shame from a theological perspective well that's a good question I think I I think that that's very much on the mark I mean I think there is a fear of the of the neighbor you know which is operative in this situation but it but there is also a bodily dimension of this fear shame disgust I don't want to be caught without any underwear well I I suppose a perfectly virtuous person would rise above that not feel that but I think that person is very very virtuous indeed you know I think that there are pre rational things at work in us and taboo and shame is part of that and I I don't think that well I don't think that this is particularly virtuous I mean those kind of fears I think there's they're pretty deeply rooted and I don't think that it would be profitable to worry much over over much about them about it but what we do I but if that shouldn't take away from the fact that there is shame about the body and that that needs to be addressed sooner or later because that is who we are before God were bodily Beansie made us that way so I think this is a major growth area for us we're taking it particularly in our kind of society where everything is sort of sanitized you know Louie has typed up his question for us so we can even you know we can we'll get to you in any case so this is what he writes I'm wondering about the distinction between psychological and spiritual health and especially about father Corbett's early point about idol worship taking as an idol our own health or our achievements or anything conditional anything in this world Lee he writes it strikes me that anything short of dropping all such idols would indeed lead to a deep lack of psychological or mental health even if it doesn't come until a midlife crisis or at worst at death when when death becomes imminent even more interesting to me having no such idols seems to leave to it lead to a kind of surrender and communion and even love of existence and others around us so I'm interested in whether perfect mental health might indeed be the same as spiritual health even if people don't see that on its face because it's not inherently religious sounding well that's interesting there is there's something about that that sounds vaguely Buddhist to me where where the goal is detachment and lost yeah loss of attachment to things I think that there is and we are so profoundly and wrongly attached to so many things that this this kind of purgation is is necessary where we were we lose inordinate attachment to things but I think that just as st. Teresa of ávila was would worry about someone who found in their spirituality a way of bypassing the cross or the the humanity of Jesus I think that we should be skeptical about any attempts to pursue detachment in such a way that we that we effectively regard our surrounding world as illusory and an illusion to be overcome so we have another question this from one of our students from Cornell Carmen ku who asks it would seem that scrupulosity and other tendencies like excessive exercising extreme diets workaholism legalism that these are symptoms of perfectionism but at the same time we ought to honor Christ through our faithfulness to our vocation or state in life and good disciplines like healthy diet getting sleep and so forth so how can we determine the proper right ordered disposition we should have in our daily lives I don't know that's that's an ongoing problem an ongoing situation you want to that's it's what TS Eliot talked about in his poem four-quarter knows an Ash Wednesday I think where he wrote the lines teach us to care and not to care you know both of those are essential teach us to care but most of all for our neighbor love them you know love them in God and teach us not to care it's a pursuit of detachment and love at the same time and I don't and I think that those kinds of that kind of patience is unique form of the grace of God I think that it's when you get into the caring and not caring the detachment and the attachment that you find later stages of prayer and jonatha cross gifts of dominican language to give sue the Holy Spirit operating I don't think that you can be attached and not attached at the same time without growing and deep holiness I don't think you can do it and I so that's why I don't think people should be overly worried if they find themselves too attached or too detached if you're too detached then you'll grow towards proper attachment if if you're too attached then you'll make a way towards a healthier detachment but I think we're almost incurably mixtures of both okay another question this comes from a priest who's writing in he says I hear lots of confessions many young men have problems with intemperance and particularly are dealing with addictions to pornography and self abuse what advice would you give to them for their spiritual health well that's a difficult question first of all to be patient these are habits and habits get to be that this is particularly a kind of a vicious habit a by vicious I don't mean horribly grey by vicious I just mean habitual easily given to habituation so that once it's it's like a cluster of peanuts you know nobody just takes one peanut the tendency is to eat them in clusters and eat and I think sins of in temperance are all like that so if you've found one it's very rare that you find just one sin like that you where you find one you usually will find more and then the temptation is to think well my goodness look at my life through so many sins here I must really be at odds with God and that made that if you were worried if you were that might more likely be true if you were not worried about it at all do you know what I mean I think that a person who was really alienated from God wouldn't worry about being alienated from God so I think that what you have to do in a situation where you're battling a bad habit is to realize that it is a habit that is likely compromising the voluntary so that you should remember to have confidence that God is at work in you even now helping you overcome it it's not a battle that's going to be won in one moment it's going to be many victories over a long period of time but you should have no doubt about the efficacy of God's grace and his love for you and the power at work and turning you into a holy person it's just probably not going to happen by next Tuesday yeah I mean I've found that it's very important to encourage people in those circumstances because often they can be quite describing not to minimize the gravity of the sin of course not to suggest that it's not a problem because of course it is problem yeah but but that that there is a way forward and with the with the help of God's grace you really can't overcome it I think that that is the message that is often you know it's often not what they're thinking Oh swell and I think there's a reason they're not thinking that and that is because just on a human level they're embarrassed you know they would be far less embarrassed by a sin of on charity you know III said something really clever and very funny but also cruel to someone give most people to chant a choice between confessing bad and confessing sin of impurity in terms of sheer embarrassment they're much more embarrassed by the impurity than they are by the clever malicious remark so our sense of shame doesn't always attach to an objective order of guilt so you have to realize that your emotional reactions to your own behavioral is of only limited spiritual significance you have to learn just to ignore it and go ahead with confidence in God's grace and not allow the shame of it to either keep you from the sacraments because I think that's a shame you know what you and the most people think the priest thinks what were you here again and of course they don't realize that we've you know we don't think that way don't experience it that way let me ask just to follow up on that this isn't coming from a viewer but I mean from could you just give a perspective of the priest from your side of the grill and the confessional I think that the from my perspective on the side of the grill hearing confessions is a great occasion for growing in faith in this one that sounds pious what do I mean by that I mean this have you ever been to sat on a seashore and you hear the ways walk hearing confessions is like that last my father I have sinned wash I masturbate I thought impure thoughts boys I thought evilly about my neighborhood I wanted something that wasn't mine okay so you say all right then you if you're a young priest you give a homily sort of you know you give them your spiritual wisdom well you know of course you say it's very important to keep a sound line in the sound body and get plenty of relaxing and don't because you give your homily and then you think my goodness I sure would knock that out of the park and then the next guy comes in and he says now you know it'll actually that these are two different guys are two different people but you don't see them and so you hear them basically as one person and then you you stop your cell phone saying wait a minute didn't I just tell you what to do but it's another person but you experience it so then the next I thought I'd dealt with this you say what about the grace of God then the next person comes in and then they say the same thing and then you deal with it again then the next person comes in and you deal with it again and then you're thinking to you it's an absurd thought but you know most of the thoughts that occur to us are on some level kind of unreasonable unreasonably you tend to think wait a minute I've talked I was here last week I heard confessions haven't we dealt with sin already you know you underestimate the persistence of it and you begin to doubt your own homilies they intent when you give get people in to interrogation if you're a counterintelligence officer one of the things they always do is they make you repeat your story 15 20 30 times and then after a while you lose your grip on it so when I say well when you're hearing confessions you have your story you know about God's love the triumph of mercy all of that and you but they make you say it many times and as you repeat it you begin to psychologically lose your hold on it and you can even be brought to the point where you don't really are not sure you believe it anymore I thought I was dealing with sin but these people keep sinning I thought aren't we getting anywhere it's useless you think to yourself it's not useless but and you are making headway and God is making headway but you can get an the sheer volume of confessions can create an illusion that where you lose your grip on your own narrative about God's love and that's what I mean when I say from the side of the point of view of the Confessor hearing confessions it can be an occasion for a trial of faith deepening the faith yes it really does make a difference it really is helping I think we have time for just one final question this is from another viewer who writes I'm able to attend private masses right now in my parish but I feel guilty receiving the Eucharist when so many other people can't but I don't want to give up the opportunity to receive the Eucharist and I'm grateful that I can I I feel like this guilt is spiritually unhealthy could you shed some light on why why I might feel this way and how to come to terms with it well you feel privileged that of course you are how do you come to which is all right God wants to give us privilege every once in a while that's this is good I mean you actually are important you do have a place in God's plan that's special on one of the things that he's doing for you now has given you the Eucharist so be grateful that's one thing another thing to say is that you never go to communion alone I mean the fact that you can go to communion means that all your friends and people you love can go to communion too with you virtually you know you can go for them and a kind of solidarity you don't go for your self alone that's after all what communion means well without I think we're going to have to end our conversation this evening but let me make just a few final announcements to everyone watching from home first of all don't forget to subscribe to the quarantine like the quarantine lecture series by going to two mystic institute.org and also liking us and following us on facebook facebook.com we have another quarantine lecture this time a real lecture with father Thomas Petrie that'll be at 8 p.m. Eastern Time 5 p.m. Pacific the title a Catholic guide to passing through death to eternal life plus what to do when a friend is dying and then on Wednesday April 8th also at 8 p.m. Eastern Time I'll be speaking on is the coronavirus a punishment from God and after that starting on Thursday and running through Sunday we will have our two mystic Institute Holy Week retreat and there that will feature two conferences per day with Dominican friars you can look at our website and find out all the details and also sign up to receive the little guide for following the retreat at home with some prayers and scripture readings and that sort of thing so thanks very much for joining us this evening and we look forward to having you back tomorrow night and from the Dominican House of studies on behalf of father Corbett i'm father dominic legs signing off thanks very much and God bless you all right

Channel: The Thomistic Institute

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Length: 61min 26sec (3686 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020