VERBUM SERAPHICUM
PAX ET BONUM MAY -- 2003 A. D. AVE MARIA
"If thou wilt be perfect, go,
sell what thou hast, and give to the poor,
. . . and come follow Me." Matthew 19:21
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O Mary, Mediatrix of every Grace, pray for us! The Sacred Power of the CrossA Power of Sobriety Much has been said of the Triumph of the Holy Cross throughout the ages; but rarely do we hear that the chief effect of the Sacred Power of the Cross is in the perfection of the sobriety it induces. Sobriety is twofold: corporal and spiritual. We are familiar with what is commonly called sobriety: the abstention from intoxicating drink. Corporal sobriety includes this, as well as abstention from intoxicating foods, drugs, herbs, medicines, etc., which can induce a state of stupor. This kind of sobriety is corporal and it is part of the virtue of temperance, which inclines one to self-restraint in the face of what is good, enjoyable, pleasurable etc.. Spiritual sobriety is the abstention from vain joy in created things, whether they are natural or supernatural. Great evils come forth from a lack of sobriety: drunkenness, impurity, adultery, fornication, debauchery, gluttony, vanity of dress, vanity of life, vanity of spirit, immodesty, boasting, etc.. These sins have their particular causes, but one general cause of them all is the disorder in the sense appetite, the will and the intellect, which result from these powers being undefended by sobriety. St. John of the Cross, a Doctor of the Church on the spiritual life, says that the disorder of the appetites causes 6 great evils in the soul: |
first, they deprive it of a holy spirit, then they weary, torment, darken, defile and weaken it. The lack of sobriety in the soul leaves it undefended against the loss of a holy spirit, because the perfection of the soul, as said last month, consists in its return to simplicity through a rectification of its being, powers, and action in the Simplicity of God; whereas the disordered movement of the appetites, will or intellect toward or about a creature is directly opposed to this, and hence vanquishes this holy spirit from the soul. Second the lack of sobriety in the soul leaves it undefended from becoming weary in the quest for rest where it cannot be found, that is in creatures; it leaves it undefended from being tormented from disordered movements, which bind it more and more to a concupiscence for things that are passing away; it leaves it undefended from being darkened in its intellect by the preoccupation of creatures; and the will, in turn from being weakened by this darkening of the intellect which guides it. Finally, the lack of sobriety in the soul leaves it undefended from being stained in its powers through their misapplication to creatures, which cause them to become every more carnal, worldly, and bestial. The Sacred Power of the Cross, which consists in the merits of Christ, triumphs over all these enemies of the soul through faith, even as the Apostle write, "This is the power which has triumphed over the world: your faith!" For by assenting with our minds to the fullness of revealed truth, we enable our souls, rectified in their intellects, to put into practice the penance and mortification that will free us body and soul from the world, the flesh and the devil. And though it is faith with penance that justified us in Baptism, it is St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle! |
VERBUM SERAPHICUM
PAX ET BONUM MAY -- 2003 A. D. AVE MARIA
"If thou wilt be perfect, go,
sell what thou hast, and give to the poor,
. . . and come follow Me." Matthew 19:21
|
St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us! contrition, penance and mortification with the Sacrament of Penance that justify us by an every increasing rectification of the powers of our soul. The chief fruit of penance and mortification, working with contrition and the Sacraments, is a vigorous sobriety in the will, and through the will against disorders in the appetites and intellect. This sobriety guards the soul in a holy spirit, keeps it from wearying itself in seeking rest in creatures, in being tormented by concupiscence for them, from being darkened in the preoccupation of thinking about them, from being weakened in will by the lack of faith's dominance in the intellect, and from being stained by them by a conformity of its powers to a carnal, worldly or bestial manner of living. The sober man, therefore is the strongest of men and the wisest of men and the most prudent of men. Scoffed at by the world, despised by the carnal, and ridiculed by the sons of the Devil, he alone stands firm and steady in the spiritual warfare against the powers and principalities, the lords of the air, who brook no rest. Christ Jesus is the Exemplar of the Religious, and hence of the sober man: His exalted contemplation of the Father, His boundless eagerness for the Cross, His immutable steadfastness in corporal sufferings, poverty, and austerity: His magnificent abstention from all satisfaction in creatures! |
St. Francis of Assisi, similarly as a replica of Christ, is an example of sobriety to his sons: how many vigils in prayer, kneeling and sleeping on rock, fasting 7 lents each year, sleeping in unheated caves during the winter and long illnesses, eagerly submitting to the physicians cautery, when even the healthy fled at the horror of the sight! Hence the absolute and most grave necessity of a penitential and mortified observance in religious life. For since a religious is called to the following of Christ's perfection, and is hence not only obliged to obtain the remission of all his eternal and temporal punishment through the Sacrament of Penance and through an abundance of penances; likewise he is obliged sub gravi as a consequence to live a sober life, in both body and soul. This then is the stupendous wisdom of the unmitigated observance of the Rule of St. Francis, which obliges forsaking all, even money, for God's sake, that the Lord might be our "Deus meus et omnia!", "My God and my All!". O most glorious Seraphic Father, St. Francis, intercede we beseech you for your sons, who have wandered so far from your perfection and grant us the grace to be restored in sobriety, by the Sacred Power of the Cross, that we may follow your footsteps more closely in the present age! Published by The Franciscan Archive |