VERBUM SERAPHICUM
PAX ET BONUM MAY -- 2000 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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INTRODUCTION This is the fourth issue of VERBUM SERAPHICUM: a newsletter for vocations to traditional Franciscan life. The purpose of this publication is to provide information that assists in the discernment of a supernatural vocation to religious life and to the priesthood. O Mary, Mediatrix of every Grace, pray for us! On Mortifying the Carnal Mind St. Hilary of Poitiers, (c. 315 - 367 A.D.), a Father and Doctor of the Church, wrote a admirable defense of the dogma of the Trinity. In that book, De Trinitate, he explained how it was a spiritual necessity that the True Faith would be opposed by carnal men (Bk. X, n. 2): . . . For between the assertion of truth and the defense of pleasure there is a pertinacious battle. In the Prologue to his famous theological treatise, The Four Books of Sentences, Master Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Paris (c. 1150) quotes St. Hilary at length, to explain to the student of theology, why love of Truth is opposed to a life of indulgence and intemperance. It is no coincidence that the greatest Doctors of the Church are Saints renowned for their penitence of life, their mortification of their senses, and their temperance. The necessity for such virtues is rooted in human nature. The human mind was created to know truth. On account of human nature, composed as it is by soul and body, the mind knows things naturally by grasping them through the five senses. It is the sense which feels and senses, all manner of qualities. Truth then can not be known by the senses, they only know what can be sensed; and the mind cannot know pleasures, it can only know what is true or false. The will knows good and evil by desiring it; but it is the intellect which knows it properly speaking by understanding it. And hence the senses do not know what is true or false, good or evil; they feel only what is painful or pleasurable. How unreasonable is then the life of man after the Fall of Adam. Wounded in his powers to good, he is left bereft of internal order and harmony. Without sanctifying grace, the lack of charity leaves the will to roam towards evil; |
the lack of faith leads the intellect to roan towards error; and the lack of temperance and fortitude leaves the senses to become accommodated to an inordinate desire for sensing. Hence it is that the sons of Adam, born sons of wrath, devolve into a carnal mind. Instead of seeking to know truth, will good, and use their senses for these purposes; their interior life is turned upside down. The intellect seeks not to know truth but pleasure; and the will seeks not what is good, but what is pleasing. The senses, which should serve the intellect become the master, and the light of reason which should guide the will becomes darkness. "Woe to you if your light is darkness," says the Lord, rebuking carnal men. In such there is only reasons and arguments and proofs and demonstrations to justify the internal disorder of their souls. Hence they cannot but abhor and detest the Truth made known by Christ and His Apostles, passed down in the Catholic Church, since it is this very Truth which dethrones the world, the flesh ,and the devil; and which restores sense to intellect, intellect to will, and will to God by virtue, faith and charity. In a Christian life there ought to be, there must be, a life of mortification. Mortification means subduing every inordinate movement contrary to charity, especially in the sense appetite. No servant of Christ and Mary should every desire to see, hear, taste, touch, or smell anything without reason; still less, anything which would be an occasion of sin. The sons of God ought not desire to know evil, as did Eve, but good; and hence, as St. John of the Cross says, they are disturbed by no report or news, even the events that will surround the end of the world; for being secure by charity in God, who can do all things and who will do all things for those who love Him, nothing can take away their joy that Christ has risen and conquered the powers of death and darkness and error, forever. The sensation produced in the sensory powers is not irrational; and hence there is no room for Puritanism in Catholicism. But the sensation produced in the sensory powers is subrational; and hence there ought to be no room for a carnal mind in a Christian soldier. For this reason the great Saints, such as St. Alphonsus dei Liguori and St. Vincent Ferrer, teach that it is more important to undertake a life of penance and mortification that any single occasional act of penance and mortification; since one does not cease to be afflicted by the weakness due original sin, (turn over) |
VERBUM SERAPHICUM
PAX ET BONUM MAY -- 2000 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
|
the weakness due original sin, just because one is a disciple of Christ. As long as there is breath there is struggle against the world (corrupt human society), against the flesh (our own inordinate humanity), and against the devil (the liar and murderer from the beginning). So let us not put off to the morrow the penance we ought and must undertake in all our actions today; seeking not what is pleasurable, but what is reasonable for the sake of our salvation and that of our neighbors. St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us! RECOMMENDED READING The Spiritual Exercises by St. Ignatius of Loyola Each of these books can be ordered either from your local bookstore, or from TAN Books of Rockford, Illinois, 61106, USA. A PRAYER TO ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL by Pope Leo XIII O Glorious Archangel St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, the spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil. Fight this day the battle of the Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was their place for them any longer in Heaven. That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition the souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impiety, and of every vice and iniquity. |
These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions. In the holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered. Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so well conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Therefore having confided ourselves to thy protection and tutelage, we sacred ministers by our authority [if one is a layman, or a cleric who has not yet received the order of exorcist, say instead: by the authority of Holy Mother Church], trusting and secure in the Name of Jesus Christ Our God and Lord, we approach to repel the infestations of diabolical deceit. V. Behold the Cross of the Lord; be
scattered ye hostile powers. R. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has
conquered, the root of David. Let us pray : O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy Holy Name, and as supplicants we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin Immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel St. Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen. Published by The Franciscan
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