Lecture Notes for September 15
Date Tuesday, September 13, 2005 Topic: Life in Christ and The Monasticism
Learning Objective: Distinguish how Christ is the way the truth and the life and describe how early monks understood monasticism as a following of Christ.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion.
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, EBB, Blog and Midterm.
Assignment due Sept. 15: Spiritual Theology, Chapter 4, Christian Spirituality, Chapter 6
Date: Thursday, September 15, 2005 Topic: The Supernatural Organism and the Scholastics
Learning Objectives: Provide an explanation of the supernatural organism. Describe the relation of the different kinds of grace, virtues, gifts, fruits and beatitudes. Provide understanding of why the scholastics began to develop teachings on the supernatural organism and the divine indwelling.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, EBB, Blog, and Midterm.
Assignment due Sept. 20 : Spiritual Theology, chapter 5 and 6, Christian Spirituality, chapter 8 and Blog and EBB.
Date: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 Topic: Christian Perfection and The Catholic Reformers
Learning Objective: Define the nature of Christian Perfection and explain mystical experience in relation to it. Identify the basic teachings of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila in relation to Christian Perfection.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, EBB, Blog, and Midterm.
Assignment due Sept. 22: Spiritual Theology, chapter 7
Review
In our last lecture we considered how Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life (Spiritual Theology, pp 49-65). We ran out of time to properly review Christ our life. Under this aspect, Christ is the meritorious, efficient, and ecclesial cause of our spiritual life.
By meritorious cause, we mean that Christ merited our redemption through his obedience to the Father in his passion and death in such a way that our weakness serves as the basis of appealing to God’s mercy. This, along with Christ as the exemplar cause of the spiritual life, is foundational to the theology of St. Maximus the Confessor – we grow to spiritual maturity principally because the Word did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at but rather emptied himself; thus, the work by which we were redeemed is the pattern we must follow: we must imitate Christ (See Christian Spirituality, p. 56).
By efficient cause, we mean that all grace comes through him; his divinity is the source of the power that saves (sanctifying grace) and his humanity is the instrument through which that power acts. This means that if we are to become holy, we must have some kind of contact with Christ involving his sacred humanity.
As ecclesial cause of the Spiritual life, Christ leads us to see that nothing created can separate us from “the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” because the reality of what the Church is. Christ is the head of the mystical body, meaning that he has primacy of order (everything ordered to him), he has primacy of perfection (in him is the fullness of grace and truth), and he has primacy of power (the whole Body and each of its members draws its life from his fullness). The primacy of Christ’s perfection and power in the Church are the most important aspects to consider for the spiritual life because they touch on the life of grace. Christ communicates his power chiefly but not exclusively through the sacraments – the visible signs of grace that when received with the right disposition effect contact with Christ. This kind of contact is that which is given through a faith vivified by charity. St. Thomas teaches that “by faith Christ’s power is united to us” (ST III, q62, a5, ad 2).
Jordan Aumann also discusses the role of Mary as mother and mediatrix of graces. This is the proper subject of our Mariology course but for now we will simply observe that her maternal role is related to Christ as efficient cause in terms of her maternal relationship to him and to Christ’s ecclesial causality because of her unique relationship to the Church.
As we go into the next subject, we will see that imitation of Christ involves on the one hand the life of grace and on the other the cooperation of our freewill. How does God’s grace and our free will work together towards spiritual growth? The monastic and scholastic movements of the West explored this question and developed a theological understanding of this question that became identified under the term, “supernatural organism.”
Western Monasticism
Cassian
His contribution was to stress the importance of one’s freewill in spiritual growth. By renunciation of the everything that leads from Christ, we imitate Christ in his self-emptying love. For him, what we choose determines whether we will grow. As we choose well, we become capable of deeper prayer.
Three phases of asceticism:
1. reject all pleasures and vices
2. renounce one=s very self B bad habits, unruly affections
3. withdraw from all things present and visible, apply self to eternal and invisible
Four kinds of prayer
1. Prayer for Mercy - or Prayer of Compunction (beginners)
2. Prayer of Good Resolutions (Proficient)
3. Prayer for the Salvation of souls (spiritually mature)
4. Thanksgiving (contemplatives engaged in the prayer of fire)
These kinds of prayer ultimately lead to what Cassian calls the Prayer of Fire, scriptural contemplation. This prayer begins by reading the Scriptures and leads back to it.
St. Augustine: From the Confessions, we know that Augustine was drawn to the communal life even before his conversion. He came to realize that apart from the grace of Christ, fraternal fellowship based on the pursuit of the truth was subject to futility. He saw that true fellowship was to be realized through a pursuit of Christ. His contribution to spiritual theology lies in his attempts to formulate a rule for the common life, a theology of grace, a theology of prayer, and a theology of the active and contemplative life. We will not be able to discuss his thoughts on the common life, but his theology of grace, prayer and modes of life deserve attention.
Theology of Grace and Spiritual Growth
This is his most controversial contribution, but perhaps the most important, at least for the development of the theology of grace in the West. In fact, Cassian reacts in his writings to what he perceives as an over-emphasis on grace in the writings of St. Augustine, an emphasis that seems to obscure the role of freewill. But it can be argued that St. Augustine actually presents a more balanced picture because he distinguishes between different kinds of grace. In his theology, grace is divided between sanctifying (a disposition of soul) and actual (a moment of action). Actual graces precede, aid and increase good choices. For Augustine, spiritual growth is primarily growth in grace. Grace grows in us through:
1) docility to the Holy Spirit in prayer
2) doing everything out of love for God, the imperation of charity (perfect charity is perfect justice), charity transforming natural virtues
Charity leads to union, union is the source of wisdom and spiritual maturity. He proposed 7 stages of growth:
(1) vegetive, (2) sensitive and (3) rational levels of life
(4) virtue and purification
(5) tranquility B control of the passions
(6) ingresso in lucem
(7) indwelling (mansions of the Soul)
Theology of Prayer
In his Letter to Proba, a widow whom he was advising, he discusses ceaseless prayer. Prayer without ceasing can be achieved by cultivating holy desires. This insight helped scholastic doctors understand that holy desires produced by the Holy Spirit as the cause of prayer.
Modes of Life
He also begins to work out a theology of the active and contemplative life. He uses Scriptural exemplars: Peter/Martha active (makes progress) John/Mary contemplative (attains goal)
But he never insists that these be completed separate expressions of the Christian life. The ideal is integration. Thus, he presents three modes or states of life: Active, Contemplative and both together.
St. Benedict: His contribution was to popularize monastic discipline in the West by producing a rule noted for its prudential balance in terms of discipline and human needs. He observed that there were four kinds of monks and of these only the first kind who lived in community were closest to the ideal of the Early Church: (1) cenobites B live with rule, (2) hermits B from cenobites ready to live in desert, (3) sarabaites B self-willed monks, and (4) gyrovagues B no stability, on the move.
The way to grow in holiness for Benedict is through obedience, practice of silence, and humility. The practice of humility unfolded in stages of maturity he envisioned in terms of twelve degrees and he described these in very practical terms.
Twelve Degrees of Humility:
(1) fear of God B no forgetting
(2) love not own will
(3) submit your superior
(4) obedeince under tough circumstances
(5) does not conceal from abbbot thought os heart confesses these
(6) content with bad treatment
(7) believes he is inferior to others
(8) does common rule
(9) controls tongue and keeps silence
(10) not given to laughter
(11) speaks gently and seriously
(12) heart and actions the same
The Middle Ages and Scholasticism
A priestly spirituality emerges first with the Norbertines and eventually with the Domincans in response to the reforms initiated by Gregory VII and the call to renewal of Innocent III. Along with the emergence of these clerical forms of spirituality, there were also lay movements, some of which were organized by St. Francis and his followers into new forms of religious life. For the purposes of our discussion, we note that Dominican and Franciscan scholars rose up with the development of the University. Their scholastic teaching was different than the monastic tradition in that they attempted to better organize and systematize the great theological questions monastic schools left unresolved. They did this by carefully integrated philosophy with theology and by returning to patristic and scriptural sources for theology. Concerns about how following Christ is both a matter of grace and freewill were organized into a body of teaching that would be called the supernatural organism.
The Supernatural Organism
This body of teaching utilized the gifts of the spirit, the fruits of the spirit, the beatitudes, and virtues derived from Greek philosophy to explain how grace and freewil were related to man's happiness, the perfection of all his powers. It presumes that man is called to a perfection of his powers which he is naturally not capable of. His natural life needs supernatural life to realize its destiny.
The Seven Gifts of the Spirit, The Virtues, The Fruits
Types of Life
Contemplative Life (Union)
Active Life (Illumination)
Life of Pleasure (Purification)
Messianic Gifts of the Spirit:
Wisdom
Understanding
Knowledge
Counsel
Fortitude
Piety
Fear of the Lord
Virtues
Charity
Faith
Faith
Prudence
Fortitude
justice
Hope
The Fruits of the Spirit from Galations
Love, Joy Peace
Faith
generosity
kindness
Patient Endurance
gentleness
chastity
Beatitudes of Matthew and Luke
the Peacemaker
the pure of heart
the merciful
hunger and thirst for justice
Blessed are the meek
the sorrowful
poverty of spirit
1. The whole moral life is oriented to union with God and is impossible without the life of grace.
2. The Life of Grace consists of the (1) its formal principal, sanctifying grace, the grace that makes us holy (2) infused virtues and gifts (3) the indwelling of the Spirit. (4) actual graces which spur is into action at specific moments.
3. Sanctifying grace gives physical, formal, analogous, and accidental participation in the divine nature the chief effects of which include chiefly divine adoption, rights to merit and the beginning of glory, and rights to the paternal blessing of the Father to the Son.
4. Secondary effects of sanctifying grace include the communication of supernatural life, Justification and sanctification, the capacity for supernatural merit, degrees of intensity of intimate union with God, and the indwelling of the Holy Trinity.
5. The purpose of the Indwelling is the mutual possession in love of the Trinity and the Soul, and its consequence is great joy and the power to do great things for God.
6. The power God provides comes in the form of infused virtues and gifts, [and other gifts freely given (charismatica) that are not properly part of the supernatural organism but for the building up of the Body of Christ].
7. Gifts are disposition to act under the impetus of the Holy Spirit. With this disposition, actual operative grace when freely sanctioned moves us from the possibility of acting (virtue) to action (the good act).
8. Actual grace can be operative or cooperative. Human effort aided by the life of grace allows us to fulfill the precepts of the law but not perfectly. This aid to human action is called cooperative grace and prepares for special operative graces when the soul chooses to cooperate with the gift that has been given.
9. This perfection is only possible through the divine mode of existence conferred through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We are divinized to the degree we more continually operate under the Holy Spirit=s impetus.
10. The purpose of these gifts is to (a) purify, (b) illumine and (c) unite us to God and to our neighbor.
Command of Christ to Perfection
We will lecture on this on September 20
Review
St Thomas “Beatitude constitutes mans ultimate perfection” see I-II q 3 a 2 and 4; I, q 26
Christ is the efficient cause, meritorious cause, and mystical head of the spiritual life: That is life in union with Christ by which we enter into beatitude.
The glory of God is the ultimate end, our sanctification is the proximate end and incorporation in Christ is the only way of attaining both ends. Everything depends on living the mystery of Christ with ever increasing intensity because Christian spirituality is nothing other than an intimate participation in the mystery of Christ.
In this context we know that Christ commanded us to be perfect in this life. Given our sinfulness is this really possible? To answer this question we must consider the nature of Christian perfection.
Lecture The Perfection of the Christian Life
Perfection is the condition of being completed or finished without excess or defect – the end of a process, a totality and plenitude, a fullness of being – sense these words have many meanings depending whether we are speaking about specific or a totality of acts, the term perfection is analogous.
Perfection is absolute and relative – absolute perfection is found only in God, creatures are relatively perfect (in relation to him)
Relative Perfection can be
(1)essential (a perfection of the very substance of the soul),
(2)operative (a perfection of the psychological actions of a soul),
This is transitory in the life, permanent in the life to come.
(3) final (a permanent state, the beatific vision), instrumental, primary
(pertaining directly to charity) and secondary (pertaining to other virtues formed by charity).
In Christian perfection, it consists primarily, but not exclusively in charity, in charity friendship love of God. Essentially sanctifying grace and operatively charity either in itself or through other virtues. The acts of other virtues attain to a secondary perfection that serves the union with God that charity establishes. Instrumental perfection is expressed through the evangelical councils – they are instruments that aid in the pursuit of perfection.
St. Thomas explains that Christian perfection consists especially in charity because charity alone unites us with God while the other virtues initiate or prepare for this union. Summa II-II, 184 a 1.
How do we attain this perfect love – is it really possible in this life? Summa II-II, 184, a. 2
Not in terms of the object loved, that is God, we can’t love God perfectly as he deserves – this is absolute perfection possible only to him.
Not in terms of the lover, that is the soul in relation to God, we can’t always have our affections turned toward him – this is a final perfection possible only in the beatific vision.
However, on the part of the lover in relation to things impeding a perfect love, perfect love is possible in two ways:
1) By removing anything contrary to charity like mortal sin
2) By removing any desire that hinders one’s affection for God – these would not be sinful desires, but desires for otherwise good things that distract us from loving God.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
September 13 Lecture
Our Life in Christ and Mary
Introduction
We began by reviewing biblical and gnostic Christian Spiritualities and a common thread emerged. Both kinds of spiritualities - one from semitic culture and the other from hellenic culture - are built around an imitation of Christ that is made possible by an experience of him: Jesus of Nazareth, the Risen One, the Logos. We could claim that Christian spiritualities are build around the idea that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Spiritual Theology: Biblical and Early Church Spirituality
Biblical Spirituality - a life changing encounter with the Word of God
Spiritual experience is understood as an encounter with the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, risen from the dead, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s presence in creation and salvation history, the incarnation of the Word, the Community and its teachings, Scripture and Tradition, the sacraments and especially the Eucharistic banquet, the divine indwelling and prayer, and the desire for his return in glory were all means by which early Christians encountered the Word of God in a transformative way. All were called to take up their Cross and follow in the footsteps of the crucified God, imitating the pattern of self-emptying love revealed in God’s Word. The Christ, the apostles and the sacred authors used different kinds of anthropologies and cosmologies that, while appearing primitive to the hellenic society, were culturally current for both the Jews living in the Land, those in the diaspora, and the God-fearers (Gentiles who believed in the Lord God). At the heart of this spirituality was a cry for mercy, a humble and filial bold petition to the Father, through which alone opened up the possibility of following Christ’s teaching and following his example as handed on by the apostles.
Gnostic Christian Spirituality - the pursuit of true spiritual knowledge
Because of how they worked out philosophical questions surrounding ‘the one and the many’, Greeks tended to look at concrete particulars as lesser realities. As the Gospel was received by Greek culture, the historical concrete experience of Christ revealed in the scriptures became understood as something not really involving ‘lesser realities’ but actually transcendentals of truth and goodness. Thus, there was a shift from devotion to the Risen One from Nazareth to a devotion to the eternal Word of the Father who is Thought-Reason of God, true Relation (ratio), and Rational Truth. With this shift in devotion, there was a shift in the practice of prayer where petitionary prayer is subordinated in importance to contemplation, a beholding of the Truth who is Christ.
Clement of Alexandria
Stages of Perfection – mansions of the soul:
Holy Fear, Faith, Hope (stages of ordinary faith) and Love (the stage of gnostic faith)
Gnostic Faith or Perfect Faith is characterized by contemplation, obedience to precepts, and the instruction of good men.
The summit of gnosis is
1) contemplation - the beholding of God – and so he understands prayer in terms of contemplation
2) charity - love establishes or roots gnosis, true spiritual knowledge
Spiritual maturity consists in realizing a rational life. Irrational passions and desires are the chief threats to realizing this maturity.
The fruit of mature charity is a peace and unity of soul that Clement calls "B"2,4" (from which our English word apathy derives). This is a disposition of soul towards a healthy detachment from created goods so that desires for ‘things’ and the passions do not distract from Reason, the Logos. The insight is that being detached from the things of the world makes the soul holy, ‘sets the soul apart,’ frees it from distractions and other efforts that dissipate its energy. By a holy indifference the soul has more energy to attend to God, to contemplate and enjoy union with him. The Word can only be contemplated by rational souls, souls who live in relation (ratio) to the truth rather than living by irrational passions. As irrational movements are eliminated, the pathos of Christ’s self-emptying love takes over the soul. With this movement of love, the saints are logikos, rational - beings in relation to the Word, to Reason.
Origen - disciple of Clement sees growth not so much in terms of the acquisition of various dispositions of soul, like apatheia, but more in terms of the ultimate end of the divine economy, perfect unity with the Holy Trinity realized even in this life by a deifying participation in God’s life opened up through Christ. Imitation of Christ and participation in his mystery are the keys to growth. Thus, some of the hellenic prejudice against the body and the material world is put in better perspective. Origen originates the idea of prayer being the rising of the mind to God so that it is possible to pray without ceasing if in all your activities you are continually aware of God. It could be said that he sees contemplation and prayer as essentially the same activities. This way of looking at prayer is different from the biblical inclination to see prayer in terms of petition, an asking for the blessing of God.
Three stages:
Beginners
-imitate Christ, fight against self by detachment from the world and consistent examination of self
Proficient
-imitate Christ who battled against the devil and overcome his deceptions.
Perfect -through participation in the Word are formed in wisdom, are divinized by contemplation of the Trinity that union with Christ makes possible. This union is termed a mystical marriage, meaning a total mutual possession of God and the soul, a communion of wills in love.
Christ is the way, the truth and the life:
How can this be if Christ’s life and death are in the past? The 16th Century reformer Cardinal Berulle (and after him the many inheritors of the French School of Spirituality) started explain that what Jesus of Nazareth did in time redounds to the divine Person of the Word forever, or in other words, because the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures in Christ divinize every human action of the Son of God, the events of his human life remain as eternal states to which we have access. Thus, the power of the Messiah’s saving actions in history continues in mystery and it is available through faith in the Risen One who at the Right hand of the Father continues to sanctify us. This power is opened up to us in faith because of the infinite merits of his life, passion and death, and by means of this powerful grace we identify with Christ just as Christ has identified with us. On this basis, Christ’s proclamation that he is the way, the truth and the life can be explained.
Christ the Way “The life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in me.” (Gal. 2:20)
Only to the degree that we are configured to Christ, participate in his mystery by imitation, do we have access to the Father, our beatitude. This is why Origen insisted on moving beyond the contemplative gnosis of Clement of Alexandria to actual imitation of the Logos. Preoccupation with imitating Christ becomes the mainstay of the Desert Fathers and Monasticism in the East. How do we attain this imitation of Christ? Not by simply following his moral example, but by truly encountering him. Gregory of Nanzianzen explains, “I must be buried with Christ, rise with him, inherit heaven with him, become son of God, become God ... this is what is the great mystery for us; this is what God incarnate is for us.” (Christian Spirituality, p. 46)
To truly encounter Christ includes radically following him to the point of joining him. Thus, the counter cultural witness of Antony of the Desert begins with a radical response to the very dynamism of Christ’s person that calls out through the Scriptures and the Liturgy, “Go, sell all you have” and “Come, follow me.” Joining Christ is incorporation and this begins with Baptism. But this encounter is manifold: although principally sacramental and liturgical, it is also personal, interpersonal, scriptural, and ecclesial - all of these are powerful dimension of the experience Christ. This is why Jordan Aumann teaches that all conclusions pertaining to Christian spirituality flow from the dogma of our incorporation in Christ. He calls this “the basis of our sanctification and the very substance of our spiritual life.” (Spiritual Theology, p. 53)
Christ the Truth Gaudiem et Spes #22
As we advance in prayer, Gregory of Nyssa explains that there is a transformation in our knowing. In doing so, he advances a teaching set forth by Evagrius Ponticus. Namely, since the battle for the heart is waged in the mind, in the mind logismoi (fantasy) must be put to death so that the logoi (the true ideas) can be contemplated. What they are getting at is that we normally live in a myth, an imagined worldview, that helps us navigate through life (e.g. the two car garage of the American Dream). This fantasy is not the truth and we can only live if we are transformed to know the truth. We might call this transformation a pilgrimage from the senses to the intellect and from the intellect to the heart. In his Life of Moses as well as Homily XI on the Song of Songs, St. Gregory describes three progressive stages of encountering Christ - the burning bush which represents the cosmos through which God’s glory shines without destroying it (this gives us the sense that there is something more to life than the myth we are living in), the cloud covers what can be known through the senses to prepare the soul for what is hidden from the senses (here we let go of what we think we understand about God’s plan for us and abandon the comfort of this life’s fantasies), the darkness shrouding Mt. Sinai, the very sanctuary of God in which the human way of knowing gives way to a divine knowledge, theognosis, true theology(we are enveloped in the mystery of God’s love that surpasses understanding). (Spirituality, p. 49)
A. Reveals the Truths about Man
Primarily, the exemplary cause of our divine sonship
Secondarily, the exemplary cause of our holiness
B. Reveals the Truth about the Father
The Desert Fathers and Origen
Teacher of Truth from the Father
All his words are from the Father - the authority of his word
All his words lead to the Father - the content of his word
Christ the Life - We introduced this theme and will come back to it in our next lecture.
A. As meritorious Cause - he obtained the life of the Spirit for us (instrumentality),
B. As Efficient Cause - the very source of the life of grace (kenosis), and
C. As Head of the Mystical Body - communicates grace to the members through his perfection (kenosis) and power (apophasis).
The Role of Our Lady- We will also review this as part of Catholic spirituality in our next lecture, although it is the proper subject matter of a separate course.
Introduction
We began by reviewing biblical and gnostic Christian Spiritualities and a common thread emerged. Both kinds of spiritualities - one from semitic culture and the other from hellenic culture - are built around an imitation of Christ that is made possible by an experience of him: Jesus of Nazareth, the Risen One, the Logos. We could claim that Christian spiritualities are build around the idea that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Spiritual Theology: Biblical and Early Church Spirituality
Biblical Spirituality - a life changing encounter with the Word of God
Spiritual experience is understood as an encounter with the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, risen from the dead, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ’s presence in creation and salvation history, the incarnation of the Word, the Community and its teachings, Scripture and Tradition, the sacraments and especially the Eucharistic banquet, the divine indwelling and prayer, and the desire for his return in glory were all means by which early Christians encountered the Word of God in a transformative way. All were called to take up their Cross and follow in the footsteps of the crucified God, imitating the pattern of self-emptying love revealed in God’s Word. The Christ, the apostles and the sacred authors used different kinds of anthropologies and cosmologies that, while appearing primitive to the hellenic society, were culturally current for both the Jews living in the Land, those in the diaspora, and the God-fearers (Gentiles who believed in the Lord God). At the heart of this spirituality was a cry for mercy, a humble and filial bold petition to the Father, through which alone opened up the possibility of following Christ’s teaching and following his example as handed on by the apostles.
Gnostic Christian Spirituality - the pursuit of true spiritual knowledge
Because of how they worked out philosophical questions surrounding ‘the one and the many’, Greeks tended to look at concrete particulars as lesser realities. As the Gospel was received by Greek culture, the historical concrete experience of Christ revealed in the scriptures became understood as something not really involving ‘lesser realities’ but actually transcendentals of truth and goodness. Thus, there was a shift from devotion to the Risen One from Nazareth to a devotion to the eternal Word of the Father who is Thought-Reason of God, true Relation (ratio), and Rational Truth. With this shift in devotion, there was a shift in the practice of prayer where petitionary prayer is subordinated in importance to contemplation, a beholding of the Truth who is Christ.
Clement of Alexandria
Stages of Perfection – mansions of the soul:
Holy Fear, Faith, Hope (stages of ordinary faith) and Love (the stage of gnostic faith)
Gnostic Faith or Perfect Faith is characterized by contemplation, obedience to precepts, and the instruction of good men.
The summit of gnosis is
1) contemplation - the beholding of God – and so he understands prayer in terms of contemplation
2) charity - love establishes or roots gnosis, true spiritual knowledge
Spiritual maturity consists in realizing a rational life. Irrational passions and desires are the chief threats to realizing this maturity.
The fruit of mature charity is a peace and unity of soul that Clement calls "B"2,4" (from which our English word apathy derives). This is a disposition of soul towards a healthy detachment from created goods so that desires for ‘things’ and the passions do not distract from Reason, the Logos. The insight is that being detached from the things of the world makes the soul holy, ‘sets the soul apart,’ frees it from distractions and other efforts that dissipate its energy. By a holy indifference the soul has more energy to attend to God, to contemplate and enjoy union with him. The Word can only be contemplated by rational souls, souls who live in relation (ratio) to the truth rather than living by irrational passions. As irrational movements are eliminated, the pathos of Christ’s self-emptying love takes over the soul. With this movement of love, the saints are logikos, rational - beings in relation to the Word, to Reason.
Origen - disciple of Clement sees growth not so much in terms of the acquisition of various dispositions of soul, like apatheia, but more in terms of the ultimate end of the divine economy, perfect unity with the Holy Trinity realized even in this life by a deifying participation in God’s life opened up through Christ. Imitation of Christ and participation in his mystery are the keys to growth. Thus, some of the hellenic prejudice against the body and the material world is put in better perspective. Origen originates the idea of prayer being the rising of the mind to God so that it is possible to pray without ceasing if in all your activities you are continually aware of God. It could be said that he sees contemplation and prayer as essentially the same activities. This way of looking at prayer is different from the biblical inclination to see prayer in terms of petition, an asking for the blessing of God.
Three stages:
Beginners
-imitate Christ, fight against self by detachment from the world and consistent examination of self
Proficient
-imitate Christ who battled against the devil and overcome his deceptions.
Perfect -through participation in the Word are formed in wisdom, are divinized by contemplation of the Trinity that union with Christ makes possible. This union is termed a mystical marriage, meaning a total mutual possession of God and the soul, a communion of wills in love.
Christ is the way, the truth and the life:
How can this be if Christ’s life and death are in the past? The 16th Century reformer Cardinal Berulle (and after him the many inheritors of the French School of Spirituality) started explain that what Jesus of Nazareth did in time redounds to the divine Person of the Word forever, or in other words, because the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures in Christ divinize every human action of the Son of God, the events of his human life remain as eternal states to which we have access. Thus, the power of the Messiah’s saving actions in history continues in mystery and it is available through faith in the Risen One who at the Right hand of the Father continues to sanctify us. This power is opened up to us in faith because of the infinite merits of his life, passion and death, and by means of this powerful grace we identify with Christ just as Christ has identified with us. On this basis, Christ’s proclamation that he is the way, the truth and the life can be explained.
Christ the Way “The life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in me.” (Gal. 2:20)
Only to the degree that we are configured to Christ, participate in his mystery by imitation, do we have access to the Father, our beatitude. This is why Origen insisted on moving beyond the contemplative gnosis of Clement of Alexandria to actual imitation of the Logos. Preoccupation with imitating Christ becomes the mainstay of the Desert Fathers and Monasticism in the East. How do we attain this imitation of Christ? Not by simply following his moral example, but by truly encountering him. Gregory of Nanzianzen explains, “I must be buried with Christ, rise with him, inherit heaven with him, become son of God, become God ... this is what is the great mystery for us; this is what God incarnate is for us.” (Christian Spirituality, p. 46)
To truly encounter Christ includes radically following him to the point of joining him. Thus, the counter cultural witness of Antony of the Desert begins with a radical response to the very dynamism of Christ’s person that calls out through the Scriptures and the Liturgy, “Go, sell all you have” and “Come, follow me.” Joining Christ is incorporation and this begins with Baptism. But this encounter is manifold: although principally sacramental and liturgical, it is also personal, interpersonal, scriptural, and ecclesial - all of these are powerful dimension of the experience Christ. This is why Jordan Aumann teaches that all conclusions pertaining to Christian spirituality flow from the dogma of our incorporation in Christ. He calls this “the basis of our sanctification and the very substance of our spiritual life.” (Spiritual Theology, p. 53)
Christ the Truth Gaudiem et Spes #22
As we advance in prayer, Gregory of Nyssa explains that there is a transformation in our knowing. In doing so, he advances a teaching set forth by Evagrius Ponticus. Namely, since the battle for the heart is waged in the mind, in the mind logismoi (fantasy) must be put to death so that the logoi (the true ideas) can be contemplated. What they are getting at is that we normally live in a myth, an imagined worldview, that helps us navigate through life (e.g. the two car garage of the American Dream). This fantasy is not the truth and we can only live if we are transformed to know the truth. We might call this transformation a pilgrimage from the senses to the intellect and from the intellect to the heart. In his Life of Moses as well as Homily XI on the Song of Songs, St. Gregory describes three progressive stages of encountering Christ - the burning bush which represents the cosmos through which God’s glory shines without destroying it (this gives us the sense that there is something more to life than the myth we are living in), the cloud covers what can be known through the senses to prepare the soul for what is hidden from the senses (here we let go of what we think we understand about God’s plan for us and abandon the comfort of this life’s fantasies), the darkness shrouding Mt. Sinai, the very sanctuary of God in which the human way of knowing gives way to a divine knowledge, theognosis, true theology(we are enveloped in the mystery of God’s love that surpasses understanding). (Spirituality, p. 49)
A. Reveals the Truths about Man
Primarily, the exemplary cause of our divine sonship
Secondarily, the exemplary cause of our holiness
B. Reveals the Truth about the Father
The Desert Fathers and Origen
Teacher of Truth from the Father
All his words are from the Father - the authority of his word
All his words lead to the Father - the content of his word
Christ the Life - We introduced this theme and will come back to it in our next lecture.
A. As meritorious Cause - he obtained the life of the Spirit for us (instrumentality),
B. As Efficient Cause - the very source of the life of grace (kenosis), and
C. As Head of the Mystical Body - communicates grace to the members through his perfection (kenosis) and power (apophasis).
The Role of Our Lady- We will also review this as part of Catholic spirituality in our next lecture, although it is the proper subject matter of a separate course.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Syllabus -- Where we are going and what we need to do
Date: Thursday, September 8, 2005 Topic: The Spirituality of the Early Church
Learning Objective: Provide insight into Christian perfection as an imitation of Christ and description of development of ascetico-mystico teaching through the 4th Century including the concepts of deification and divinization.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, Blog, EBB, and Mid-term Exam.
Assignment due Sept 13: Spiritual Theology, Chapter 3; Christian Spirituality, Chapter 4 and 5; and review class notes on Blog and submit questions (http://theo6105.blogspot.com), and entry into discussion on Electronic Bulletin Board (referred to from here on out as ‘Blog and EBB’).
On Tuesday, we will describe the teaching on deification/divinization that emerges in the 4th century. We will also look at the relation of Christ to the Spiritual provided by Jordan Aumann in Chapter 3 of Spiritual Theology.
Date Tuesday, September 13, 2005 Topic: Life in Christ and The Monasticism
Learning Objective: Distinguish how Christ is the way the truth and the life and describe how early monks understood monasticism as a following of Christ.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion.
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, EBB, Blog and Midterm.
Assignment due Sept. 15: Spiritual Theology, Chapter 4, Christian Spirituality, Chapter 6
Lecture notes for Sept. 13 were in a previous posting by I have reproduced them here for reference.
Lecture on Our Life in Christ
The Scriptures are a source of encountering Christ, but they in fact reveal that he is present in more wonderful ways than even the written word. On the level of divine revelation, it is appropriate to say that Christ has come once and for all. There is no new revelation objectively speaking. But subjectively, the coming of Christ is still being realized and in the power of the Holy Spirit this coming is dynamic and continual. This means he is always present to us in the world in new ways. Presences of the Word in the World can be distinguished in seven kinds - the presences are experienced in ever new ways by each and every soul searching for Christ – because Christ is searching for each and every soul. 1. Creation2. Hypostatic union3. Personal, the Grace of Indwelling4. Ecclesial, the holy synaxis gathered in prayer5. Scripture and Tradition6. Eucharist and other Sacraments7. Eschatological, all things are ordered to Christ’s power and authorityOur Life in ChristReasons for the Incarnation – (1) salvation, (2) to reveal Father’s love, (3) to provide example of obedience, and (4)to deify humanityAchieved through the visible and spiritual missionsComing of Christ established his mystical BodyIncorporation-- members of the mystical bodyB the Way (Christ as means of holiness)Through his mystical Body he communicates himself to us:Exemplar of Holiness B the Truth (the following and the imitation of Christ)Efficient, meritorious, mystical head B the Life (union with Christ)Mystical Headorder (hierarchy)perfection (full of grace)Power (all comes from him)How do we receive this?sacraments and living faithEucharistThe glory of God is the ultimate end, our sanctification is the proximate end and incorporation in Christ is the only way of attaining both ends. Everything depends on living the mystery of Christ with ever increasing intensity because Christian spirituality is nothing other than an intimate participation in the mystery of Christ.Spiritual Experience and the Divine IndwellingHow are the invisible missions of the Son and the Spirit distinguished and related to each other? According to St. Thomas (ST I, q. 43) To be sent means to be present in a new way, the Word and the Spirit are present whenever we become more like them in knowledge and love. Hence, the Word comes or is sent with every new knowledge that stirs up love for God, and Spirit comes with the stirring of the affection of our love for God. These missions always go together meaning that with every new increasing in knowledge there is an increase in affection. Through this knowledge and love, the Word and the Spirit avail themselves to the soul to be enjoyed and to be of service. The Father sends his Son and the Spirit so that souls may enjoy union with God and be enabled to accomplish some great work. The Son and the Spirit place themselves at our disposal for this purpose. The missions of the divine persons are the source of the divine communion and personal vocation of each soul.
Date: Thursday, September 15, 2005 Topic: The Supernatural Organism and the Scholastics
Learning Objectives: Provide an explanation of the supernatural organism. Describe the relation of the different kinds of grace, virtues, gifts, fruits and beatitudes. Provide understanding of why the scholastics began to develop teachings on the supernatural organism and the divine indwelling.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, EBB, Blog, and Midterm.
Assignment due Sept. 20 : Spiritual Theology, chapter 5 and 6, Christian Spirituality, chapter 8 and Blog and EBB.
Learning Objective: Provide insight into Christian perfection as an imitation of Christ and description of development of ascetico-mystico teaching through the 4th Century including the concepts of deification and divinization.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, Blog, EBB, and Mid-term Exam.
Assignment due Sept 13: Spiritual Theology, Chapter 3; Christian Spirituality, Chapter 4 and 5; and review class notes on Blog and submit questions (http://theo6105.blogspot.com), and entry into discussion on Electronic Bulletin Board (referred to from here on out as ‘Blog and EBB’).
On Tuesday, we will describe the teaching on deification/divinization that emerges in the 4th century. We will also look at the relation of Christ to the Spiritual provided by Jordan Aumann in Chapter 3 of Spiritual Theology.
Date Tuesday, September 13, 2005 Topic: Life in Christ and The Monasticism
Learning Objective: Distinguish how Christ is the way the truth and the life and describe how early monks understood monasticism as a following of Christ.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion.
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, EBB, Blog and Midterm.
Assignment due Sept. 15: Spiritual Theology, Chapter 4, Christian Spirituality, Chapter 6
Lecture notes for Sept. 13 were in a previous posting by I have reproduced them here for reference.
Lecture on Our Life in Christ
The Scriptures are a source of encountering Christ, but they in fact reveal that he is present in more wonderful ways than even the written word. On the level of divine revelation, it is appropriate to say that Christ has come once and for all. There is no new revelation objectively speaking. But subjectively, the coming of Christ is still being realized and in the power of the Holy Spirit this coming is dynamic and continual. This means he is always present to us in the world in new ways. Presences of the Word in the World can be distinguished in seven kinds - the presences are experienced in ever new ways by each and every soul searching for Christ – because Christ is searching for each and every soul. 1. Creation2. Hypostatic union3. Personal, the Grace of Indwelling4. Ecclesial, the holy synaxis gathered in prayer5. Scripture and Tradition6. Eucharist and other Sacraments7. Eschatological, all things are ordered to Christ’s power and authorityOur Life in ChristReasons for the Incarnation – (1) salvation, (2) to reveal Father’s love, (3) to provide example of obedience, and (4)to deify humanityAchieved through the visible and spiritual missionsComing of Christ established his mystical BodyIncorporation-- members of the mystical bodyB the Way (Christ as means of holiness)Through his mystical Body he communicates himself to us:Exemplar of Holiness B the Truth (the following and the imitation of Christ)Efficient, meritorious, mystical head B the Life (union with Christ)Mystical Headorder (hierarchy)perfection (full of grace)Power (all comes from him)How do we receive this?sacraments and living faithEucharistThe glory of God is the ultimate end, our sanctification is the proximate end and incorporation in Christ is the only way of attaining both ends. Everything depends on living the mystery of Christ with ever increasing intensity because Christian spirituality is nothing other than an intimate participation in the mystery of Christ.Spiritual Experience and the Divine IndwellingHow are the invisible missions of the Son and the Spirit distinguished and related to each other? According to St. Thomas (ST I, q. 43) To be sent means to be present in a new way, the Word and the Spirit are present whenever we become more like them in knowledge and love. Hence, the Word comes or is sent with every new knowledge that stirs up love for God, and Spirit comes with the stirring of the affection of our love for God. These missions always go together meaning that with every new increasing in knowledge there is an increase in affection. Through this knowledge and love, the Word and the Spirit avail themselves to the soul to be enjoyed and to be of service. The Father sends his Son and the Spirit so that souls may enjoy union with God and be enabled to accomplish some great work. The Son and the Spirit place themselves at our disposal for this purpose. The missions of the divine persons are the source of the divine communion and personal vocation of each soul.
Date: Thursday, September 15, 2005 Topic: The Supernatural Organism and the Scholastics
Learning Objectives: Provide an explanation of the supernatural organism. Describe the relation of the different kinds of grace, virtues, gifts, fruits and beatitudes. Provide understanding of why the scholastics began to develop teachings on the supernatural organism and the divine indwelling.
Teaching Strategy: Lecture and Discussion
Evaluation Technique: Class participation, EBB, Blog, and Midterm.
Assignment due Sept. 20 : Spiritual Theology, chapter 5 and 6, Christian Spirituality, chapter 8 and Blog and EBB.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
The Goal of our Striving
These are my notes for our first lectures on Spiritual Theology in spiritual theology. Feel free to comment.
Spiritual theology is the queen or servant of all theology dogmatic and moral, speculative and applied. It applies the doctrines of the faith to the perfection of the moral life to determine the nature and analyze the parts of Christian perfection, mysticism and asceticism, their specific elements, stages of growth, the means to attain it, aids, the stages of prayer, discernment of spirits, ordinary and extraordinary mystical phenomena. As such, it takes up both the questions of ascetical theology and mystical theology. In the methodology of our class, these questions are taken up from the perspective of the ultimate end of the divine economy.
What is the ultimate end of the divine economy?
Perfect unity of creatures in with the Trinity
What is the mystical life? This is the object of mystical theology.
1. Unity with the mystery of Christ through the mysteries of the Church unto union with the mystery of the Holy Trinity
2. All activity under the impetus of the Holy Spirit that by grace attains union with God.
3. Ordinary operative graces that flow from baptism when not impeded by personal sin.
4. There are also extraordinary operative graces or charisms that do not ordinarily flow from baptism, but are granted to support the normal development of baptismal grace.
What is the ascetical life? This is the object of ascetical theology.
Asceticism means exercises or discipline and includes all human activity that freely cooperates with grace to dispose to God’s actions.
Lecture on Spiritual Experience and the Goal of our Striving
Spiritual Experience is deeper than thought, desire, imagination, memory –
It is of the heart: communal, ecclesial, liturgical, Christological, Trinitarian – as such what characterizes it is always the glory of God.
The Glory of God
Divine Glory is the radiant dynamism of God’s truth and goodness, his beauty that evokes the gift of self in total love. This glory is intrinsic and extrinsic in kind.
Inner life of the Trinity has an intrinsic glory that whose dynamism evokes a response
The response is the extrinsic glory manifest in the Work of the Trinity outside itself.
Greatest glory given by the human person – one’s salvation
Ultimate End: The Glory of God
Proximate Ends: Christian Perfection: Salvation B Beatitude
Means: Pursuit of Holiness: Sanctification B Life of Grace
St Thomas
Beatitude constitutes mans ultimate perfection I-II q3 a 2 and 4
I ,q 26, a1: Final beatitude in glory depends on
1) total perfection
2) knowledge of the good possessed in glory – the beatific vision
How can the intellect see God since it is not proportionate to him?
The encounter of God’s glory in the heart unleashes supernatural power purifying and transforming our faculties – this is only brought to completion in the life to come through the light of glory but it begins now in the life of faith. Spiritual experiences relate to this encounter insofar as they are purifying, transforming and uniting to God. These experiences include operative graces (God’s action that we receive and sanction) and cooperative graces (God’s blessing and aid to human efforts directed to preparing the soul for His action.)
Key Concepts:
Purification - sorrowful experiences by which the soul empties itself or is emptied for life with God
Transformation – yearning experiences by which God prepares the soul for a union of love
Union -- joyful experiences by which the soul enjoys the God’s friendship
Operative Grace - Gifts of God’s operation
Cooperative Grace - Gifts that allow Man’s cooperation
How do we get there?
The kenosis of Christ reveals the dynamism of Gods glory and the pattern of realizing it in our lives. It is the pattern of radical and reckless self-gift, of self-emptying out of a merciful love for the plight of a friend who suffers. This pattern reveals the nature of Christian holiness – friendship love of God. Affectively this is what God gives to each Christian and effectively it is what Christians share with one another and the whole world in response. The response is apophatic – a letting go of this world and a leaping into the love of Christ.
Key Concepts
Kenosis – Christ’s total self emptying love
Apophasis – leaping into the mystery of Christ’s love, an imitation of Christ’s kenosis, purifying inordinate attachments to this world, transforming the heart for a unity with the Trinity of which this life is meant to be an anticipation.
The Scriptures and the Spiritual Life
Why are the Scriptures dynamic for the Spiritual life?
To understand the role of the Scriptures in the spiritual life, we must begin with the premise that these writings are the Word of God, and that this Word is, above all, the divine person who became flesh and dwelt among us. The Scriptures are not static for the spiritual life but dynamic. That is why different saints throughout the centuries have had their lives completely transformed by just one verse: ‘go sell all you have’ for St. Anthony, ‘make no provision of the flesh’ for St. Augustine. The encounter of Christ in the Scriptures evokes apophasis and this is the beginning of the spiritual life.
What is apophasis and how is it related to kenosis?
The human leap into the mystery of God’s love follows the same pattern of the Word made flesh who emptied himself, it is also a response to the dynamism of Christ’s gift of self.
Preaching and the Beginning of the Spiritual Life
How do ministers of the Word lead souls to encounter Christ in the Scriptures, to begin the spiritual life?
This Word is self-emptying, it comes to us through kenosis (he emptied himself) and invites us to leap into the mystery of his reckless love. This is implicit in every word of the Word of God. That is why the Church recognizes that beyond the literal meaning of the text, there is also a spiritual meaning even when the literal meaning does not seem spiritual. We search for this spiritual meaning by asking, not only literal questions, but also allegorical, moral, and anagogical questions:
Allegorically, we can see a given text in relation Christ and the work of redemption, or in relation to the liturgy and the sacraments.
Morally, we can see a given texts in terms of exemplars to imitate or patterns for the Christian life.
Anagogically, we can see a given text in relation to the ultimate end of the divine economy, the final eschaton. Sometimes an anagogical truth calls on us through all the senses of the text: literal, allegorical, and moral. We demonstrated this in terms of the holiness of God revealed Exodus 3 and 4.
Lecture on Our Life in Christ
The Scriptures are a source of encountering Christ, but they in fact reveal that he is present in more wonderful ways than even the written word. On the level of divine revelation, it is appropriate to say that Christ has come once and for all. There is no new revelation objectively speaking. But subjectively, the coming of Christ is still being realized and in the power of the Holy Spirit this coming is dynamic and continual. This means he is always present to us in the world in new ways. Presences of the Word in the World can be distinguished in seven kinds - the presences are experienced in ever new ways by each and every soul searching for Christ – because Christ is searching for each and every soul.
1. Creation
2. Hypostatic union
3. Personal, the Grace of Indwelling
4. Ecclesial, the holy synaxis gathered in prayer
5. Scripture and Tradition
6. Eucharist and other Sacraments
7. Eschatological, all things are ordered to Christ’s power and authority
Our Life in Christ
Reasons for the Incarnation – (1) salvation, (2) to reveal Father’s love, (3) to provide example of obedience, and (4)to deify humanity
Achieved through the visible and spiritual missions
Coming of Christ established his mystical Body
Incorporation-- members of the mystical bodyB the Way (Christ as means of holiness)
Through his mystical Body he communicates himself to us:
Exemplar of Holiness B the Truth (the following and the imitation of Christ)
Efficient, meritorious, mystical head B the Life (union with Christ)
Mystical Head
order (hierarchy)
perfection (full of grace)
Power (all comes from him)
How do we receive this?
sacraments and living faith
Eucharist
The glory of God is the ultimate end, our sanctification is the proximate end and incorporation in Christ is the only way of attaining both ends. Everything depends on living the mystery of Christ with ever increasing intensity because Christian spirituality is nothing other than an intimate participation in the mystery of Christ.
Spiritual Experience and the Divine Indwelling
How are the invisible missions of the Son and the Spirit distinguished and related to each other?
According to St. Thomas (ST I, q. 43) To be sent means to be present in a new way, the Word and the Spirit are present whenever we become more like them in knowledge and love. Hence, the Word comes or is sent with every new knowledge that stirs up love for God, and Spirit comes with the stirring of the affection of our love for God. These missions always go together meaning that with every new increasing in knowledge there is an increase in affection. Through this knowledge and love, the Word and the Spirit avail themselves to the soul to be enjoyed and to be of service. The Father sends his Son and the Spirit so that souls may enjoy union with God and be enabled to accomplish some great work. The Son and the Spirit place themselves at our disposal for this purpose. The missions of the divine persons are the source of the divine communion and personal vocation of each soul.
Spirituality of the Early Church
The spirituality of the Early Church derives from this reflection on how Christ is encountered. Their spirituality was Christ centered, eschatological, ascetical, liturgical and communal. It was based on an imitation of Christ, seeing in his coming, his death and his resurrection a pattern to be imitated and a mystery to plunge into. The community waiting for his coming and in liturgical prayer was vital to this imitation of Christ, it enabled it because it provided the dynamism of His presence.
Accordingly, through imitation of Christ, the early Church understood that it was realizing Christ’s command to perfection and the teaching of the Apostles to imitate Christ.
Key Scripture passages:
Command to perfection
Some pertinent passages:
Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Mt. 5:48, Col 3:14, 1 Jn 4:19
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful Lk 6:36
Enter through the narrow gate Mt 7: 13-14
Be imitators of God. Ephesians 5:1
N.B. Notes for the lecture on the supernatural organism will be provided in a future posting.
Lecture on Command of Christ to Perfection
Review
St Thomas “Beatitude constitutes mans ultimate perfection” see I-II q 3 a 2 and 4; I, q 26
Christ is the efficient cause, meritorious cause, and mystical head of the spiritual life: That is life in union with Christ by which we enter into beatitude.
The glory of God is the ultimate end, our sanctification is the proximate end and incorporation in Christ is the only way of attaining both ends. Everything depends on living the mystery of Christ with ever increasing intensity because Christian spirituality is nothing other than an intimate participation in the mystery of Christ.
In this context we know that Christ commanded us to be perfect in this life. Given our sinfulness is this really possible? To answer this question we must consider the nature of Christian perfection.
The Perfection of the Christian Life
Perfection is the condition of being completed or finished without excess or defect – the end of a process, a totality and plenitude, a fullness of being – sense these words have many meanings depending whether we are speaking about specific or a totality of acts, the term perfection is analogous.
Perfection is absolute and relative – absolute perfection is found only in God, creatures are relatively perfect (in relation to him)
Relative Perfection can be
(1)essential (a perfection of the very substance of the soul),
(2)operative (a perfection of the psychological actions of a soul),
This is transitory in the life, permanent in the life to come.
(3) final (a permanent state, the beatific vision), instrumental, primary
(pertaining directly to charity) and secondary (pertaining to other virtues formed by charity).
In Christian perfection, it consists primarily, but not exclusively in charity, in charity friendship love of God. Essentially sanctifying grace and operatively charity either in itself or through other virtues. The acts of other virtues attain to a secondary perfection that serves the union with God that charity establishes. Instrumental perfection is expressed through the evangelical councils – they are instruments that aid in the pursuit of perfection.
St. Thomas explains that Christian perfection consists especially in charity because charity alone unites us with God while the other virtues initiate or prepare for this union. Summa II-II, 184 a 1.
How do we attain this perfect love – is it really possible in this life? Summa II-II, 184, a. 2
Not in terms of the object loved, that is God, we can’t love God perfectly as he deserves – this is absolute perfection possible only to him.
Not in terms of the lover, that is the soul in relation to God, we can’t always have our affections turned toward him – this is a final perfection possible only in the beatific vision.
However, on the part of the lover in relation to things impeding a perfect love, perfect love is possible in two ways:
1) By removing anything contrary to charity like mortal sin
2) By removing any desire that hinders one’s affection for God – these would not be sinful desires, but desires for otherwise good things that distract us from loving God.
Spiritual theology is the queen or servant of all theology dogmatic and moral, speculative and applied. It applies the doctrines of the faith to the perfection of the moral life to determine the nature and analyze the parts of Christian perfection, mysticism and asceticism, their specific elements, stages of growth, the means to attain it, aids, the stages of prayer, discernment of spirits, ordinary and extraordinary mystical phenomena. As such, it takes up both the questions of ascetical theology and mystical theology. In the methodology of our class, these questions are taken up from the perspective of the ultimate end of the divine economy.
What is the ultimate end of the divine economy?
Perfect unity of creatures in with the Trinity
What is the mystical life? This is the object of mystical theology.
1. Unity with the mystery of Christ through the mysteries of the Church unto union with the mystery of the Holy Trinity
2. All activity under the impetus of the Holy Spirit that by grace attains union with God.
3. Ordinary operative graces that flow from baptism when not impeded by personal sin.
4. There are also extraordinary operative graces or charisms that do not ordinarily flow from baptism, but are granted to support the normal development of baptismal grace.
What is the ascetical life? This is the object of ascetical theology.
Asceticism means exercises or discipline and includes all human activity that freely cooperates with grace to dispose to God’s actions.
Lecture on Spiritual Experience and the Goal of our Striving
Spiritual Experience is deeper than thought, desire, imagination, memory –
It is of the heart: communal, ecclesial, liturgical, Christological, Trinitarian – as such what characterizes it is always the glory of God.
The Glory of God
Divine Glory is the radiant dynamism of God’s truth and goodness, his beauty that evokes the gift of self in total love. This glory is intrinsic and extrinsic in kind.
Inner life of the Trinity has an intrinsic glory that whose dynamism evokes a response
The response is the extrinsic glory manifest in the Work of the Trinity outside itself.
Greatest glory given by the human person – one’s salvation
Ultimate End: The Glory of God
Proximate Ends: Christian Perfection: Salvation B Beatitude
Means: Pursuit of Holiness: Sanctification B Life of Grace
St Thomas
Beatitude constitutes mans ultimate perfection I-II q3 a 2 and 4
I ,q 26, a1: Final beatitude in glory depends on
1) total perfection
2) knowledge of the good possessed in glory – the beatific vision
How can the intellect see God since it is not proportionate to him?
The encounter of God’s glory in the heart unleashes supernatural power purifying and transforming our faculties – this is only brought to completion in the life to come through the light of glory but it begins now in the life of faith. Spiritual experiences relate to this encounter insofar as they are purifying, transforming and uniting to God. These experiences include operative graces (God’s action that we receive and sanction) and cooperative graces (God’s blessing and aid to human efforts directed to preparing the soul for His action.)
Key Concepts:
Purification - sorrowful experiences by which the soul empties itself or is emptied for life with God
Transformation – yearning experiences by which God prepares the soul for a union of love
Union -- joyful experiences by which the soul enjoys the God’s friendship
Operative Grace - Gifts of God’s operation
Cooperative Grace - Gifts that allow Man’s cooperation
How do we get there?
The kenosis of Christ reveals the dynamism of Gods glory and the pattern of realizing it in our lives. It is the pattern of radical and reckless self-gift, of self-emptying out of a merciful love for the plight of a friend who suffers. This pattern reveals the nature of Christian holiness – friendship love of God. Affectively this is what God gives to each Christian and effectively it is what Christians share with one another and the whole world in response. The response is apophatic – a letting go of this world and a leaping into the love of Christ.
Key Concepts
Kenosis – Christ’s total self emptying love
Apophasis – leaping into the mystery of Christ’s love, an imitation of Christ’s kenosis, purifying inordinate attachments to this world, transforming the heart for a unity with the Trinity of which this life is meant to be an anticipation.
The Scriptures and the Spiritual Life
Why are the Scriptures dynamic for the Spiritual life?
To understand the role of the Scriptures in the spiritual life, we must begin with the premise that these writings are the Word of God, and that this Word is, above all, the divine person who became flesh and dwelt among us. The Scriptures are not static for the spiritual life but dynamic. That is why different saints throughout the centuries have had their lives completely transformed by just one verse: ‘go sell all you have’ for St. Anthony, ‘make no provision of the flesh’ for St. Augustine. The encounter of Christ in the Scriptures evokes apophasis and this is the beginning of the spiritual life.
What is apophasis and how is it related to kenosis?
The human leap into the mystery of God’s love follows the same pattern of the Word made flesh who emptied himself, it is also a response to the dynamism of Christ’s gift of self.
Preaching and the Beginning of the Spiritual Life
How do ministers of the Word lead souls to encounter Christ in the Scriptures, to begin the spiritual life?
This Word is self-emptying, it comes to us through kenosis (he emptied himself) and invites us to leap into the mystery of his reckless love. This is implicit in every word of the Word of God. That is why the Church recognizes that beyond the literal meaning of the text, there is also a spiritual meaning even when the literal meaning does not seem spiritual. We search for this spiritual meaning by asking, not only literal questions, but also allegorical, moral, and anagogical questions:
Allegorically, we can see a given text in relation Christ and the work of redemption, or in relation to the liturgy and the sacraments.
Morally, we can see a given texts in terms of exemplars to imitate or patterns for the Christian life.
Anagogically, we can see a given text in relation to the ultimate end of the divine economy, the final eschaton. Sometimes an anagogical truth calls on us through all the senses of the text: literal, allegorical, and moral. We demonstrated this in terms of the holiness of God revealed Exodus 3 and 4.
Lecture on Our Life in Christ
The Scriptures are a source of encountering Christ, but they in fact reveal that he is present in more wonderful ways than even the written word. On the level of divine revelation, it is appropriate to say that Christ has come once and for all. There is no new revelation objectively speaking. But subjectively, the coming of Christ is still being realized and in the power of the Holy Spirit this coming is dynamic and continual. This means he is always present to us in the world in new ways. Presences of the Word in the World can be distinguished in seven kinds - the presences are experienced in ever new ways by each and every soul searching for Christ – because Christ is searching for each and every soul.
1. Creation
2. Hypostatic union
3. Personal, the Grace of Indwelling
4. Ecclesial, the holy synaxis gathered in prayer
5. Scripture and Tradition
6. Eucharist and other Sacraments
7. Eschatological, all things are ordered to Christ’s power and authority
Our Life in Christ
Reasons for the Incarnation – (1) salvation, (2) to reveal Father’s love, (3) to provide example of obedience, and (4)to deify humanity
Achieved through the visible and spiritual missions
Coming of Christ established his mystical Body
Incorporation-- members of the mystical bodyB the Way (Christ as means of holiness)
Through his mystical Body he communicates himself to us:
Exemplar of Holiness B the Truth (the following and the imitation of Christ)
Efficient, meritorious, mystical head B the Life (union with Christ)
Mystical Head
order (hierarchy)
perfection (full of grace)
Power (all comes from him)
How do we receive this?
sacraments and living faith
Eucharist
The glory of God is the ultimate end, our sanctification is the proximate end and incorporation in Christ is the only way of attaining both ends. Everything depends on living the mystery of Christ with ever increasing intensity because Christian spirituality is nothing other than an intimate participation in the mystery of Christ.
Spiritual Experience and the Divine Indwelling
How are the invisible missions of the Son and the Spirit distinguished and related to each other?
According to St. Thomas (ST I, q. 43) To be sent means to be present in a new way, the Word and the Spirit are present whenever we become more like them in knowledge and love. Hence, the Word comes or is sent with every new knowledge that stirs up love for God, and Spirit comes with the stirring of the affection of our love for God. These missions always go together meaning that with every new increasing in knowledge there is an increase in affection. Through this knowledge and love, the Word and the Spirit avail themselves to the soul to be enjoyed and to be of service. The Father sends his Son and the Spirit so that souls may enjoy union with God and be enabled to accomplish some great work. The Son and the Spirit place themselves at our disposal for this purpose. The missions of the divine persons are the source of the divine communion and personal vocation of each soul.
Spirituality of the Early Church
The spirituality of the Early Church derives from this reflection on how Christ is encountered. Their spirituality was Christ centered, eschatological, ascetical, liturgical and communal. It was based on an imitation of Christ, seeing in his coming, his death and his resurrection a pattern to be imitated and a mystery to plunge into. The community waiting for his coming and in liturgical prayer was vital to this imitation of Christ, it enabled it because it provided the dynamism of His presence.
Accordingly, through imitation of Christ, the early Church understood that it was realizing Christ’s command to perfection and the teaching of the Apostles to imitate Christ.
Key Scripture passages:
Command to perfection
Some pertinent passages:
Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Mt. 5:48, Col 3:14, 1 Jn 4:19
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful Lk 6:36
Enter through the narrow gate Mt 7: 13-14
Be imitators of God. Ephesians 5:1
N.B. Notes for the lecture on the supernatural organism will be provided in a future posting.
Lecture on Command of Christ to Perfection
Review
St Thomas “Beatitude constitutes mans ultimate perfection” see I-II q 3 a 2 and 4; I, q 26
Christ is the efficient cause, meritorious cause, and mystical head of the spiritual life: That is life in union with Christ by which we enter into beatitude.
The glory of God is the ultimate end, our sanctification is the proximate end and incorporation in Christ is the only way of attaining both ends. Everything depends on living the mystery of Christ with ever increasing intensity because Christian spirituality is nothing other than an intimate participation in the mystery of Christ.
In this context we know that Christ commanded us to be perfect in this life. Given our sinfulness is this really possible? To answer this question we must consider the nature of Christian perfection.
The Perfection of the Christian Life
Perfection is the condition of being completed or finished without excess or defect – the end of a process, a totality and plenitude, a fullness of being – sense these words have many meanings depending whether we are speaking about specific or a totality of acts, the term perfection is analogous.
Perfection is absolute and relative – absolute perfection is found only in God, creatures are relatively perfect (in relation to him)
Relative Perfection can be
(1)essential (a perfection of the very substance of the soul),
(2)operative (a perfection of the psychological actions of a soul),
This is transitory in the life, permanent in the life to come.
(3) final (a permanent state, the beatific vision), instrumental, primary
(pertaining directly to charity) and secondary (pertaining to other virtues formed by charity).
In Christian perfection, it consists primarily, but not exclusively in charity, in charity friendship love of God. Essentially sanctifying grace and operatively charity either in itself or through other virtues. The acts of other virtues attain to a secondary perfection that serves the union with God that charity establishes. Instrumental perfection is expressed through the evangelical councils – they are instruments that aid in the pursuit of perfection.
St. Thomas explains that Christian perfection consists especially in charity because charity alone unites us with God while the other virtues initiate or prepare for this union. Summa II-II, 184 a 1.
How do we attain this perfect love – is it really possible in this life? Summa II-II, 184, a. 2
Not in terms of the object loved, that is God, we can’t love God perfectly as he deserves – this is absolute perfection possible only to him.
Not in terms of the lover, that is the soul in relation to God, we can’t always have our affections turned toward him – this is a final perfection possible only in the beatific vision.
However, on the part of the lover in relation to things impeding a perfect love, perfect love is possible in two ways:
1) By removing anything contrary to charity like mortal sin
2) By removing any desire that hinders one’s affection for God – these would not be sinful desires, but desires for otherwise good things that distract us from loving God.
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