The Psychological & Spiritual Effects of Being Negative ~ Fr Ripperger

in nomine Patris affiliates better to sound to you Ave Maria gratia plena Dominus tecum Benedicta tu in mulieribus et Benedictus fructus Ventris tui esos Our Lady of Grace pray for us name of father son of a ghost amen okay so the conference is on negativity and the reason we want to go into it is because of the fact that when people are negative it actually has a very distinct effect spiritually and even psychologically so to that end the first thing we want to do is talk about the psychological faculties we talked about this one's already didn't we I think okay so you have five senses right five exterior senses in those five exterior senses are unified by what's called Taconic common sense power and basically what this power does is it takes all your sense experience and unifies it into one image and expresses it into your imagination in the form of an image okay and we know that by the way this is all part of the the material side of a human being this is all material and the reason we know it's material that it's part of the brain is there's an actual part of the brain that when it dysfunctions people hear things at a different time in which they see it okay so expresses this image into the imagination then and at the same time it also expresses it into the memory okay then there's this thing called the cogitate of power and basically what it does is it has the power of association it looks at the image look at the image in the imagination and then it goes back into memory and compares the images or finds images that are similar to it and then takes the information from those images and merges it back into the imagination so how do we know this actually happens all the level of the brain it's pretty simple so when your mother walks into the room the image in your imagination is this figure of a woman in here you have this image of a woman in your manager nation the conscious state of power goes back into memory brings the information that this is your mother merges it back from past experience merges it back into the image and so you immediately recognize it she's your mother this happens almost instantaneously it's very quick the more intelligent you are the quicker that it actually occurs okay so then this is and we also know this because Alzheimers patient's they can't with people that they've known all their life the plaque builds up on the neurons and so as a result of that they can't make those associations and they can't remember certain things and so they people that they've known their whole life they don't recognize and they don't know who they are so we know this all occurs at this level then of course we have an agent intellect which is the ability to abstract but that the agents like abstracts the concept by the way don't worry about this this will all become important you'll see wise extracts the conceptual content late in the image so I see a bunch of dogs it extracts the nature of a dog out presses that concept into what's called the possible intellect and this is the part this is immaterial this is why father hard and said you can have a mind you can have intellectual attracts people and haven't have intellectual activities but they don't have their body so we can actually have a activity intellectually that's not court does not correspond to that is sorry that there's no filing org and performing anything relationship to it this concept then once I under once that concept enters my mind I have other of understanding then the possible inflates makes an action judgment it does that by looking back at the image so if I someone tells me all dogs are four footed okay except for the guy that happens to gets legs chopped off we're talking about normal dogs okay so the dog I have this concept of dog and then I have to go back to the image and think about four foot and I conjugated part of goes back into memory and charge with it you know tries to make any association of any dogs that by nature only have three legs or something of that sort right and it doesn't have that brings that information back in and it recognizes that I don't have that so that I know that proposition that all dogs are four footed is true because of the content of the stuff contained an infra and the amad in it okay so truth is when my possible intellect looks at something in the concept and goes back to the image and judges whether it pertains to reality or not that's how we know the truth so it also judged a good you know this is morally good or morally bad that's presented to the will the will that makes a choice and if it does that it to do something that it can move the lower faculties okay now what happens is is that when we have an experience of something the constituted power not only makes an association but it also can make an assessment about whether something is actually good or bad for me on a physical level and that assessment that perspective that perspective that it puts on the image that it clips on the image that particular perspective that is good or bad or what-have-you is what ends up moving my emotions so I have my appetites who sit and watch what's in the imagination and then when they get moved I have an emotion okay and that's that emotion is determined by the perspective that you take in relationship to it so if it's something that's future and it's evil and you can't overcome it you're going to have the emotion of fear if it's something that's future but you probably attain it and it is a table and you actually want it then you have the motion of hope okay so this is this is basically all how this that's a us in a nutshell okay now well is this guide what's this got to do with negativity here's the thing there's actually four kinds of negativity that I want to talk about but the first one is the person who just simply always sees what's negative now assuming from any particular content this is the person who spiritually is always looking at everything that's wrong instead of everything that's right okay so this is the person that why is this a problem because if I'm focusing on what's wrong what I am as I'm focusing I have to have the image of the things that are wrong from that I have then the emotions arise right and so the negative emotions arise like hatred which you see I mean among some of the traditionalists hatred anger anger is a perception of of injury with a desire for vindication as a result of that because they see the church getting hurt they get very angry very quickly and they're always focusing on everything that's wrong in the church or they'll flow and or they'll just focus on everything that's wrong in their family or in their amongst their kids or their parents or whatever the cases always focusing on what's negative and then they're angry they wonder why they're angry all the time right well it's because of the fact that the image the perspective on the image is causing the emotion of anger and so is your continent so you're always looking at it that way but then you got another problem on your hands if you keep doing it then you end up habituating the emotions and disposing them to easily move to anger or sorrow or despair or hatred or whatever the case with idiot negative emotion you disposed it to easily move that way and then you also have a tit so that it's very easy to do it so then basically what happens and this is basically what depression is these people just focusing on the negative all the time okay but then also the other thing is is that when you make the choice to keep thinking about the thing the will moves the imagination to stay focused on the thing and so the conjugative power learns that when certain things come into your experience or your family members or whatever the case is comes into your experience that the Koch State of power because you're looking at the negative all the time the cogitate of power gets habituated into doing what going back into the memory and finding what not the good stuff about the individual the bad stuff about the individual and so it's constantly bringing stuff back into it this is when people if they've had a bad experience of somebody that they've kind of given in to the thought and thinking about it they'll say why is it that every time I'm around him or her I just want to strangle her I don't even know why you know the thing she did was long here in the past yeah the problem is is that you've obituaries akak state of power to look at it that way the second thing the next thing is that the possible intellect when it makes an active judgmental here to know the truth of something we can habituate our intellect to make specific kinds of judgments in relationships specific kinds of things so that if we're always looking at something in a negative way we're going to habituate the possible intellect to look at everything from the point of view of what's negative now then let's put the will it's a blind faculty it can't we'll anything on its own so this negativity this negative judgment that we have of people or things or whatever the case is which is in a possible effect is presented to the will which then means that the will is going to suffer sorrow and things of this sort and it's going to be painful to our will or we'll start taking delight in it where does that come in st. Thomas says he says when we act according to the disposition that's in our faculty regardless of whether the object causes pain or not we get a pleasure out of it they discovered this in modern brain studies that people who are depressed their brain actually releases pleasure drugs when they think about negative stuff okay and we can get into the habit and the converse of that is the case we know is the case because if we're in a negative disposition and then somebody comes along and tries to cheer us up we find the guy at no laying and we don't want to go that direction we find it painful right we find it the opposite okay so basically if you're focusing on the negative all the time now it doesn't mean that you put your head in the sand it just means that you only give something the degree of tension that it's necessary usually what drives the negativity is some kind of an attachment of an attachment to the church the state of politics or the state of their family or whatever the case is and so as a result of that they're always looking at the negative and always trying to purge the negative out of the individual alright so and this is something that can be a bit of a problem because I've met families where the father or the mother is extremely hard on the children because they think if I keep on top of them eventually they'll become perfect that is absolutely absurd from a very basic principle I mean no no don't get me wrong I mean it's a very easy kind of kind of mindset to kind of fall into why is it absurd it's based upon the principle of the sufficient reason that the existence of a thing is accountable either in itself or in another does that mean it means you can't give what you don't have if you're not perfect you're not going to make your children perfect if you're not perfect you're not going to make the church perfect if you're not perfect you're not going to make the politics perfect so the first thing you have to accept the fact is that you don't have the capacity to render even yourself perfect so that's what you have to do it just realize okay I can this isn't my and part of the negativity is getting sucked into that idea if I just keep on top if I keep thinking about it I keep working at it it'll get better it's not going to happen that's the first thing we have to have to kind of realize and all you're doing is by focusing all that it's just habituating your faculties to a bit of a bra to becoming disordered ultimately we're only thinking of things that are evil in fact that's really what people are in hell are all the people in hell and all the demons in the only thing they think about is stuff that's negative all the time so I tell people we'll look the more you think about this stuff the more you're just kind of approaching hell is what hell is like just you know you're always thinking everything is negative and evil whereas everybody in heaven even when they see bad things happening there's still joy now okay so what does this mean it means that part of this negativity is only focusing again on the things to the degree that's necessary under state in life which is going to be the series of things we'll talk about later but necessary but in your state life and don't spend any more time thinking about it not any more time than is absolutely necessary in order to for you to fulfill your duties or whatever the case is or to pray whatever but you don't focus on it this is a this negativity where you're focusing on the thing and then things become disorder by the way when you're focusing on the thing that's negative what happens is over the course of time and you're always looking at the thing negative if the reality is that the thing changes it isn't as bad as you think it is eventually you stop knowing the truth about the thing this is this is actually this is this is what happens all the time when I talk to people about the papacy everybody is looking at the situation in the papacy and they're all there's just constant negativity if they knew what the limits were of papal infallibility and also you know the fact that historically there have been Pope's that have held heretical ideas they wouldn't they would realize okay as long as it's within this confines it's not an issue they would focus on the positive aspect under these conditions he's infallible are these I don't worry about it God take care of it okay so and it doesn't mean I don't pray for him it just means that I can't be focusing on it but what's happening is is now they're getting to the point where their judgment is getting drawn to one extreme or another Saint Thomas says the truth is judging a thing not greater than it is not less than it is but as it is and what's happening is is we need to become really negative you tend to judge things based on upon defect to where you don't fully grasp the truth of the situation this is true about practically everything it's very true about traditionalists even in relationship to their own interior life which we'll talk about here in a minute but it gets to the point where they stop being able to see the truth of the matter and of course because they're thinking to the negative they're having these emotions all the time and over the course of time the emotions start getting the better of them to where they're not thinking clearly at all in the end of it something like said of a cognate ism or the light because they're not thinking clearly they just don't want the emotional pain or whatever the case is that goes a lot of it even though they're constantly thinking about how bad the Pope is or something of that sort okay so then then we if you look if you look at the different kinds of negativity so in other words basically what it boils down to is if you're constantly think of things negative you're never going to become perfect you're not going to make the thing that you want to become perfect that you see the defect in any third of all you're just going to develop bias your emotions are going to be out of control and you're gonna be angry you're going to do this you're going to be that you're just you're never going to fully conquer those things until you get your mind off it I tell people who are scrupulous you know they're looking at their own problems and their own thus in their own think that's that's just a form of negativity but part of it basically boils down to is that you've heard me say this before you're not that important that's what I tell people we're scrupulous you're constantly thinking of yourself right which brings up a very important point demons have a principle they got several of them and one of them is anything but God anything but God and that means even stay to the church thinking about spiritual matters anything like that as long as it's not God they don't care if they can get you totally hung up about some particular spiritual issue and get you focused on that and spending all sorts of time they know they've got you derailed if you're not focusing on God okay negativity and then the traditional movement one of the reasons we see so little advance in the among the traditionalists in holiness is because they're all getting bogged down in the negativity of all the stuff that's wrong instead of focusing on God ultimately and if you tell them that they just kind of look at you like you're from outer space but the point is is that that's part of the difficulty there are so it with negativity the demons try and get you negative in order to get your mind off of the thing that's really important which is God ultimately there's four kinds of negativity I want to tell talk about the first is a relationship to self now negativity and relationship to self is usually based upon our own sinfulness we look at ourselves we were sinful we got these vices we got this problem I got that problem etc but the difficulty with ourselves is st. Thomas says that when we think of ourselves God inclined us to see that we're actually good in some manner at least and so as a result in by natural law by the way and as a result of that he says that it's very easy for man in the state of fallen nature to think himself better than he actually is to become intoxicated with the pleasure a Q gets out of thinking about himself he says okay now the converse of that can be true most negativity that I find a relationship to people in themselves is rooted actually in overestimation of themselves now it sounds counterintuitive but there's there's a real logic to it basically what it is is they look at themselves and they'll say to themselves I cannot believe I did that in the past I cannot believe you know in other words they look those things in the past that they did it's painful they don't like it they think of themselves I should have been better than that really you think so you think without grace that you're going to be better than that and that that's the real key point and so when they start looking on themselves when people beat themselves up constantly and have this self-loathing and think they have to beat themselves up in order to but that's negativity towards themselves it's because of why they're not focusing on God God is the one who's going to get that corrected God's the one who's going to heal that God's the one who's going to do those things through His grace to get you straightened out you're focusing on yourself and beating yourself up is never going to correct it fully it's impossible again because we're back to the principle sufficient reason you can't give what you don't have you would like to think that you should have been perfect all right look you're not the Blessed Virgin Mary so you can cut yourself a little bit of slack it doesn't mean that you just say okay then I don't have to worry about any of my sins in the past that's not what I'm saying what I'm saying is is that when it comes to the correcting of the problem all of the Saints say there comes a point especially at a turning point towards the end of the passive primitive way where the surrender to God to correct the problems has to become total and complete because we can't get our defects are so deeply rooted that we cannot root them out ourselves he has to do it he's the only perfect agent that can root them out fully so that means that in relationship to ourselves there's two things that have to happen one is the other could think of yourself it's not that important but also give if you know if you beat yourself up you're thinking about yourself if you're low think about yourself you don't know then I hate myself you're still thinking about yourself you're just again you're not that important start thinking about God the second thing is God gets more into your faculties ironically these other faculties the disorders that you've caused from the negativity and thinking about those negative things will start to get correct it's just from thinking about him because the habits will start to be slowly broken but there's another thing too and this is the year of mercy although something tells me that at the end of this year of Mercy we're going to get mercilessly whopped but but anyway we have to have mercy ourselves what is mercy this is a huge question right now because everyone's running around saying we should be merciful to the merciful to them which really is just another way of talented in some people's minds just saying it's okay to let people remain in their sin that's not true that's not that's false mercy true mercy is what st. Thomas says that mercy is the loose of the bonds of justice for the sake of the individual to whom justice would be applied in other words with us with God it's better for us spiritually for him not to make us pay the full effect of all of our sin in order so because if we did you know it would just be brutal and we would never advance spiritually it's better for us to be loosen to those bonds of justice so that we can be freed of that so that we can move towards God right in other words we can actually advance towards him so when we're talking about mercy to other people it just basically means that what that we recognize that we shouldn't be so harsh and severe on them because we recognize that in ourselves we would be just as bad without grace but it doesn't mean that we just leave them there true mercy is I want what's best for the person I'm letting them off I'm not going to hold the bond of justice against them I'm going to forgive them for their sake now this is important because this means that on the external level st. Thomas's should I extend charity to everybody and he says well interiorly you have to have charity for everybody and interior we have to have mercy for everybody or forgiveness for everybody however in relationship to the external manifestation that he says it's governed by prudence because there's some people if you just if you're merciful to them they're just going to get worse so or in the case of charity if you're charitable to them it's just going to confirm them in their sins which makes them worse this is a very key point because just letting people out to exams okay you know they're living together don't worry about it you know have mercy on them or give them communion as a matter of Mercy you're actually harming them it's not merciful because you're not seeking after what's good for them in fact what you're doing is you're confirming them in their disorder which is actually vicious okay so that all being said the same actually applies to ourselves why do we have to why do we have to let loose of the mercy in relationship to all right we have to have mercy for ourselves or to our past sins well because it's for our spiritual well-being in a couple in a few ways the first is is that when we are harsh on ourselves again we're not going to correct ourselves and it were acting contrary to charity we have to have charity for ourselves where we love ourselves not for our sakes but for God's sake and for harsh on ourselves we've lacked charity the second thing is is that if you're holding on to the dead of justice in relationship to yourself that you violated you're still holding on to your sin there's an attachment to your sin and to fully let loose of that sin from the past you have to have mercy on yourself and say okay I forgive myself which means out I'm going to not try and force myself to pay the full debt because I can't so I'm just going to let loose of it trust it to the mercy of God and ask him to correct it and ask him to applies mercy to me okay this if we don't do that if we're just constantly negative in relationship for our salvation those traditions are then and it's because of this subtle Pelagianism play jainism says that I can reach perfection on my own and that is simply not true we cannot reach it because we don't have it right so we that means that the first step to one of the first steps and you'll see this there is transformational changes in people's spiritual lives when they forgive themselves for stuff does it mean they let themselves off the boat they stuff to do reparation and there's certain things that they have to do these stuff to work and try to correct it but they're not going to beat themselves up about it they're just going to set about the task by the way if you're beating yourself up about it it means you're beating yourself up it doesn't mean you're correcting the problem correcting the problem is working on the specific actions to overcome that vice beating yourself up it's not performing those actions so that's again why you have to forgive the debt as you have to have mercy on yourself so that you can actually move forward but that mercy is like any other mercy and many people ferment conferences where me say this versus for two kinds of people the stupid in the contrary we snow from the Old Testament God says if you're sorry I'll let you off this why because when we're sorry in relationship to something what happens is is and when we committed a sin we've looked at under the aspect of the good which was false and so once we recognize it's evil and take ownership of it and recognize that it's evil and express our sorrow for it our sorrow is incongruity with the truth of the matter and so as a result of that God will let us off the hook he realizes you know it's evil and so you won't be doing it again in the future whereas if we don't have sorrow for it he's not going to let us off this is why this whole business of having mercy for people who are obstinately you know living together or doing these things without marriage etc you don't extend mercy to them I mean anteriorly you might forgive them but externally you don't do that because the fact that it's harmful to them ultimately because they're not going to get their act together so then they'd so it's basically for those who are sorry for the stupid you just didn't know any better so you know the contents of slack - people just don't have and have a clue now in relationship to us it's usually a bit of both we usually kind of clueless and at least in the initial stages when we do stuff and we sometimes don't realize how damaging this in particular saying we might commit is going to be but then also we actually have to have to forgive ourselves in relationship to these things and holding on to the debt because that as I mentioned then we're not actually moving forward and we're not developing charity relationship to ourselves the other part of that is is that if we don't forgive ourselves very often people will go to confession look and Festus in Alaska did you confess the same gasps but you want for yourself no that's the sin of usurpation use your super usurping the role of God you're telling God you forgave me but I'm not going to forgive myself you're standing in judgment even of his forgiveness which is a problem so you have to be we have to be willing to forgive yourself in relationship with that just as a matter of being humble before God letting loose of the debt because in heaven everybody's forgiven themselves they've let loose of the debt they've let loose of all these things and to allow God in order to perfect them because if you keep holding on to the defect that you've committed or the Senate you've committed you're still holding on to the sin which means you're not getting rid of it okay at least interior you psychologically so this is a big this is a big point for trad they can't perfect themselves beating themselves I think if I beat myself enough I'll make myself perfect no you won't you're just going to make yourself a bloody pulp that's all in the end and in the end all you're going to do is just increase your disorders because you're going to keep thinking of all this negative stuff and then in the end it's going to be bad by the way in heaven everybody judges themselves as good does that mean we should have in charge ourselves as good in this life yes but from a very succinct cause we should not look at ourselves as good in ourselves and so and because of anything we've done but we should look at ourselves as good isn't so far as what god has caused in us by beating ourselves up and by refusing to see anything good in ourselves is contrary to humility you're not willing to leave the life in accordance with the truth God has caused some virtue even in the worst people st. Thomas says that there's no man who is completely devoid of the truth there is also true in virtue there's only there's always some area even in the worst people's lives whether there's some semblance of virtue okay but that's not from there cause it's from God so that the humility is due to look at the good recognize it but refer it back to God and when you do that feeling preset whereas if you're going to beat yourself up you're basically telling God I will make myself good anyone you're trying to basically take credit for making yourself good so you got to stop that okay this means therefore that we have to have charity for ourselves okay now charity means love of neighbor God for the sake of God but charity st. Thomas as it says if you look at the fruits of the Holy Spirit that is in the fruits of charity charity is love of God which means that you're willing to go to you're willing to good and you're willing yourself good by the way to punish yourself non-stop it's not willing yourself good it's kind of a disordered finger I think I can purge myself no that's not how you purge yourself okay so this love is this love is st. Thomas we have love he says when the thing that we love is present to us or that we think about it in some way and so as a result of that we have this love which he says is kind of a in Latin it's complan tendency it's a kind of a pleasing us with this thing that we have so when we love God and love our neighbor for God's sake then he says from that proceeds the next one which is joy why he says because joy is the result in the will it's the effect in the will of the beloved being presence to the beloved to them to the lover so when we when we love God regularly there's going to be a certain joy and a peace and joy that will overtake us as a result of that then he says and by the way this is one of the ways you know there's practically no charity in the traditional movement because there ain't nobody happy everybody's miserable while they're beating up on all the Magisterial members and each other right okay and then of course st. Thomas says that when our will is focused on God and perfectly order towards God there's peace which is the tranquility of order because of the fact that our will is now ordered in the way that it was designed to be ordered and so as a result of that this is another sign that you know there's very little charity in the traditional movies there's very little peace you know when you go to Mass and you see people people look miserable they don't look joyful they don't look happy they just look miserable because they're all focusing on everything wrong okay and not just it not just relationship to themselves okay by the way when you're in the habit of always looking at everything that's wrong in yourself you still have a look at what's wrong which means when you go to other people are you do as little what's wrong okay so in order to combat this negativity let's put it this way the negativity is the opposite of the charity because chair the negativity is looking at everything that's dead it's looking at evil all the time rather than looking at the good because love is willing the good of another she always looking at the good okay so this is one relationship for ourselves you have to have charity for self you have to love yourself for God's sake which means if you love yourself for God's sake you are not the terminus of the good that you receive God is which means you're not going to work things towards your pleasures and your delights and your comfort and things of that sort you're not going to do that you're going to look at and say what is best for me spiritually what's best for me spiritually is to get up and go pray what's best for me spiritually is is to go and read right now because that's what my duty is right now whatever the case is okay so if you really love yourself you can uphold yourself to a bit of a task but you're not going to beat yourself up okay then the next one is a relationship to other people others now there's there's two groups I want to talk about the first is family members I have rarely met a traditional family we're a charity joy peace and all this stuff is and love is all part of it and where they look at each other benignly they realize okay the guy's got his defects but he's got this virtue in that virtue in this virtue in that virtue and this is one of the reasons why you know he makes a good father a good husband or a good son whatever the case is they focus so much on what's wrong why okay because we're back to that discussion we had in the conference on perfectionism it's they're looking for the perfection externally to themselves and they think they can be get it by riding the person and make trying to control them and make them do it okay but also it this the the negativity is going to do what well the negativity is going to be the cause of various things it's going to be cause of all the negative emotions that we have in relationship to our family so we're going to get angry bitter sad disappointed all those things were relationship to them because of the fact that we're looking what's negative all the time and then in the end we just basically the person commits one little thing and then that becomes their whole persona that's the only thing we see in relationship to them we just see the negative parts of relationship to them which is actually not the case but that means that de facto charity is not going to have charity for them if we love them the will will the good of them and that means that we'll want what's good for them and seek what's good for them not look at what's negative and want and basically want to see what's negative in many traditional families they go around looking for the negative you know what that guy's problem is you know or they'll try they're kind of figuring out what's his problem right first of all as my sister's fond of saying that's not your monkey basically that basically this is a phrase if she started to I don't that's not my responsibility right one person told me oh yeah I know another presea says that's not your dog to lock okay the point being is is that the defects the defects that you see among your siblings it's not your monkey to beat him or to ridicule him or to ride him or to bring him down to the point where he finally gets his act together that's not your bunkie what your responsibility is is to see when you see that your first responsibility is to pray and only fraternally correct when you know it's going to be helpful so this is the this is something to kind of keep in mind the other side of it is is that the more you try and control the external the more you're going to realize it's out of your control and therefore the more pain it's going to cause you and the more you're going to hate the thing and this is one of the reasons why if you're going to have any semblance of charity or peace there has to be a complete relinquishing of the control over okay so in the family st. Thomas says that the charity has to follow the order the more of that principle proximity which basically means that you have to be more charitable to the people you're closest to than those who are neighbors I find in traditional families there it's kind of like the Mafia right they're shooting each other beating each other up and hammering each other but anybody outside of it they're very kind or what-have-you or the opposite can be the case is that is that they can kind of tolerate or they'll beat each other in the family up but if somebody says anything negative against their family they get all tore up about it but the point is is that people will be actually kinder to the people outside their family than in this is completely disordered and again this is a sign of the negativity because they just see the negative and the people that they live around the one thing we have to realize is in dealing with people's defects the person's defects are there to purify you they're not there for you necessarily to get rid of about your job I mean you're supposed to pray and you might have to correct them given the proper circumstances but your job is to help the person spiritually and so that may mean that you don't necessarily point out their defects and and if you're just focusing it on all the time then you're never going to gain any joy in relationship to you know to st. res it's something very interesting she said when she was in choir stalls there was this one nun who would make this clicking noise and it drove her out of her mind and then she made a choice I'm going to choose to find that clicking noise something that it's kind of like a thing of affection right she did she kind of like a determine thing of endearment that's her she kept choosing to do that and eventually she liked hearing the little done making her clicking noise okay so what does this mean I'm not suggesting that you like the defects of your family members what I'm suggesting is is that you have a choice of how you're going to relate to that and if you choose to for piss on the negative you're just going to bring your faculty down here bring your spiritual life down you're going to bring your boil life down because you're you're not going to be advancing in virtue and you're not going to be advancing in grace the other one is those outside the family now what I've noticed here is that traditionalists will look at the state of the world they look at everybody and they'll basically come to the conclusion that it says in Scripture which is kind of interesting it says in Scripture in excess of male omni's homo men Doc's in my excess I said all men are liars right and and it's specifically pointing out look not all men are liars not everybody is evil every so often you'll come across people who are actually needing really good lives and they find this whole situation in our country absolutely alarming right but they don't say much they're hidden people etc it's the it's the vociferous obnoxious disordered evil people there are all people entering in the public eye all the time it seems these days not all but many of them I should probably say that because that people sort of thinking I'm evil because they're listening to my conferences alright but the point is is that you have to begin to realize that not everybody is evil it just means it as a society begins to deteriorate you just have to be more cautious but you still have to give people some what the better for the doubt and don't get hung up on the negative all the time and even and this is this is true of anything from our employees the people we work around all those things is don't keep focusing on the negative because then in the end you're not going to be able to extend that charity to them the next place I see that the negativity is really overtaking people is in the area of politics is it bad yes it's probably far worse than we can possibly even imagine the people I've talked to then it works back in in Washington they're going to details but they say it is so corrupt and so bad that if the people knew how bad it was they would be hanging the politicians from lampposts okay that's probably true the thing is is what I can't let that get to me one of the things I learned in the first few years as a priest is that if you keep focusing on how bad everything is it's just going to take you down spiritually because you're not going to be thinking of the good you're not going to be thinking of God you're not going to be thinking of the virtues to develop or the good and other people so that you can love them more instead what you're going to do is you're just going to let this thing slowly consume you and in the end you're going to end up like a devil basically who they'll all you thinks about all day long is everything that's bad and so I just realized okay I'm not going to let them do that and so when it comes to the politics again it's nowhere that saves you pay enough tension in order to understand what's going on but if it starts getting to you spiritually and how do you know it's starting to get to you spiritually it starts affecting your ability to pray or it starts affecting your trust in God or it starts affecting the charity that you might have for people you know some of the politicians that are particularly evil if it's going to affect that charity than you know okay got it back away a little bit from it until I get that short up and then the last one is in the church now first let me say one thing it has been a constant teaching of the church until recently it's been a constant teaching of the church that all grace comes into the world by means of the Catholic Church all of it which means even if a Protestant or someone else gets any grapes whatsoever it's by me the church is the medium through which that passes okay this means when we look at the state of the world or the politics or are these other things and realize how bad they are what that really tells you is how bad the state of the church is of the members of the church so when you look at things you realize the church is a very bad way okay obviously we see this everything from this last Synod to the behavior raishin ship to that you know the stuff we hear out from every office from the top all the way down coming out stuff that's just completely contrary to what the way the church is taught etc those of us who have a love for the church you're going to find this very painful so this means that in relationship to this you got you don't have to do what it's things we're just going to have to develop an ability to suffer God is wants you to suffer the state of Church as it is doesn't mean you don't pray for it doesn't mean you don't do those things to help it it just means that you have to be willing to suffer it the second part of it is is that you can't be too focused on it either anything but God that's a principle anything that God you'll get these traditionalists who will spend I actually know a man who knew systematically neglects his family to lecture and to write about the church and its state and what's wrong with it and politics and stuff and he's completely neglecting his family because he's so focused on it well and he's a very negative individual everything but practically everything if you're coming out of his mouth negative just about not all of it but just about and part that is because of the fact that he's focusing on the church when he should really be focusing on his family by the way but the point is is that the church you have to be detached even from it the church is a created thing in the sense that it's a created participation in Christ's mystical body it is his mystical body but for us it's a creative participation in that were part of it as a result of our creation and so we just have to realize that really it's all about God again in the church in fact you even see this among the traditionalists they go to Mass they're spending the entire time at mass negatively judging the server's how they're serving the priest he's not doing it right he should do this you know he should be you know his beretta should be held this way not that way it's you know everything down to these little things just constantly focusing on all that and who's the guy getting left out of the process god it's totally I mean if you just focus on God things would be a lot easier but these things can also take us down spiritually where it just it robs us because the demons want to do that they want to rob you of your joy and your peace and ultimately you love that you have for other people and forgot but they want to do that and so even in relation to the church you just have to do your part for the church to disagree as you can and then you just have to be detached from it because God will straighten out the church in the end but we just have to be willing to let him do it because he's the only one that can do it don't get so focused on the negativity part because again it's going to bring your charity down it's going to be in virtue down it's going to in the end you're going to end up becoming very unmerciful and angry this is one of the main things I see among the traditions are very angry people and it's because they keep harping on the sins that other people have committed against them and how bad the situation is a church and how bad the politics are well then if that's the case you know you're becoming more like the demons than you are God the Blessed in heaven and so quite frankly I'll take the place of less time it doesn't mean you put your head in the sand it just means that you you don't have to sit there and read every last book that's come out about the state of the church that's what that's what that was a turning point for me I realized I don't need to read this book about the state of the church first of all I know how bad it is I probably don't have more about that it is in the person writing a book I don't need this what I need to do is focus on God in my spiritual life and helping people rather than on on how bad the state of the churches okay so negativity is one of those things in the end it just brings you down and so you have to make a choice oh you're going to focus on that or not you're going to focus on the defects of your family or the church you're going to focus on these things are you going to focus on God what's good the other side of it is to is is that at a certain stage you know this is one of the reasons why most sanguine people can't be really angry for any length of time so ours too much energy it was too painful so yeah I don't want to bother so you should give up on it right okay so it's kind of the same thing here we just have to realize look if I'm thinking about all the negative stuff I'm doing is keeping myself in pain I'm keeping the knife in me just let loose of it forget about it and focus on the stuff that's good it doesn't mean where your head in the sand just means you only look at stuff only pay attention to those things that are negative to degree that's necessary for your state in life okay any questions you got will have that hair blow back yep yeah when you say that the state of the church affects everything else we as church people Church men and women yeah we must have some effect on that as well part well what it means is is that now God can use the church without any specific members of the church however the that means that de graced its merits in Therese our politics of so bad is because Catholics aren't leading lives of grace and meriting the brace for the politicians it's basically what that means and so the fact that we don't pray for these people with fact that we don't do anything for them in fact we're not leading the holy lives then we wonder why they're you know committing fraud and doing everything under the Sun and lying to us every time they open their mouth etc well sorry but that's it's partly our own fault in fact like as I said the state of the world is in the end really the smallest with responsibility in the state of the church it's really based on how the church so that means it is the best way to get the church straight on the politics all this other stuff is for us to become holy because then we can merit the grace for this stuff to get better the thing is too is is if we get the leaders we deserve you know and that ought to tell you something about the members of the church because the the people running the church right now are not that they're not good people most of them yes yes but in order to get better what do you have to do you have to shift away from the mistake you made in the past to doing what yes exactly you have to shift your attention away from the thing in order to do it right if your only thing that this is hot is the wrong this is wrong this is right is right if I can just repeat them you have to look at no this is the right way so there so you can use it in fact and that's where you spiritual life should be when you fall in the center those things are sins from the past they should be a motivation for you to beat yourself up they should be able of Asia I'm going to work more on that virtue under competence rather than letting it come for you in a certain sense yes what would be the recommended like percentage amount of time to beat yourself up to just kind of look up you know news or stuff about the church or whatever that could you know you know new like 9 percent of my partner should be like yeah so I have some people do like big it really depends on your state in life and your personality yes I mean obviously personality wise because you can you know certain personality types is just going to get sucked into other but you know a lot of it has to do with your state in life like I think that husbands and fathers have no obligation to be more knowledgeable about like state of the financial affairs the state of the of the church and state of the politics and or governor family it shouldn't be about it shouldn't be you know in order to get more money it should just be about make sure that they're being prudent with their money and making sure that if for the sake of their family and the same thing with the politics is this what they can know - you know vote the right way and do things of that sort but and in relationship to church they have to be knowledge more knowledgeable about it usually than the lives even they should be because of the fact that it's their obligation to keep protected show their wives their child morally and spiritually so there it's more incumbent upon them so it just depends so I mean I think your average father or husband he probably shouldn't be spending no more time than 30 - 30 minutes to an hour a day watching this stuff keeping track of it and it that will heaven flow you know a bit much more than that and it's you're basically just feeding curiosity which is another thing you have to be careful about but just getting kind of sucked into that we're just watching and looking at all the different things in order to because you're feeding the curiosity so that's one of the things you have to be really careful in relationship to politics but it really depends on the person's state in life in the beginning stages sometimes people are so ignorant they're gonna have to spend the time coming up to speed but then once they kind of come up to speed you don't have to spend that much time on so myself I only spent about 15 30 minutes a day watching what's on the news and that's it both in the church and out and that's just to keep a price of it because inevitably someone's going to ask me about something right so yes in relation to politics you know things get so bad in the political world I can say well what's the use I what's using voting law you know what's going to be a negative outcome one way or another anymore so what's what's your take on that well john paul ii basically enunciated a principle that had been in the tradition the church the whole time which is yeah that when you're in a position where you are you have an obligation to vote you must vote and you must vote for the lesser to yields as a means of preserving the good so you should vote now my only the only time I tell people that you wouldn't be responsible is if the vote ah it's it's clearly manifest that the fraud committed in the voting process is such that your vote it's not really voting so you know so for example let's just say for the sake of argument we discover that the presidential elections were completely red that they had completely manipulated them and then yeah people are voting and they might use some of the votes but really that the numbers of who they're putting in is all predetermined then you wouldn't be obligated to vote because you're not there's no it's not really voting right you just go into this motion on the other hand if you don't have that sort of food than you should vote so and that's and it's in order to preserve the good that otherwise would be lost which is what we need to do because some people say oh I'm voting for something evil no you're voting preserve the good any other questions just to follow up on that because it looks like someone who's running for president this time when I might be that the candidate that most people in their right mind would be voting for but he's he's not a what you call a social conservative right um so what exactly is your clue so voting for that person is basically voting for the lesser of two evils I guess and down sounds yeah yeah I mean he's going to be a little bit more socially conservative than the other candidate but not by much very often and you just have to preserve a little good you can so and if are you know that we get the leaders we deserve and you're looking at the candidates for privacy it's not a good a lot of our people alright female I'll give you a blessing that is a showdown report auntie's poetry said feely it's produced in silver voltage but it's Empire on

Channel: Sensus Fidelium

Views: 222,318

Keywords: Catholic, Christianity, God, Jesus Christ, church, family, politics, voting, joy, heaven, demon, hell, mentally, spiritual, grace, behavior, psychology, ewtn, bible, gospel, traditionalists, problem, suffering, penance, devotion, religion, beauty, hope, faith, honor, worship

Id: RoEWGSa6bxE

Length: 54min 44sec (3284 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 16 2016