Hey Pastor, What are you reading this week?

Thanks for asking.

The Bible of course. Actually, I don't read large sections of it. I read verses and certain passages that I encounter reference to.

For example, I am currently reading An Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales. He warns against anger and gives some tips on avoiding anger. He refers to Luke 21:19, so of course I looked it up in various translations.

I like the King James version

"In your patience, possess ye your souls."

I made a short lecture about patience - you should listen to it.

Do you  know what Jesus means by patience?  He means: don't become resentful. Endurance, perseverance, and waiting are also worthy synonyms. But the main thing to watch out for is resentment. If you are resentful, you are defeated, and you will not have the other virtues. Waiting without anxiety is only possible when you are not resentful. Peace of mind, a positive state of mind, reason, virtue, character, even your salvation all depend on not becoming resentful.

Now read Romans 5:3

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;

and Romans 5:4

perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Do you see all the benefits of being patient--not becoming resentful?

I am also reading

Christ and Time by Oscar Cullmann

Devil at My Heels by  World War II hero and PTSD survivor, Louis Zamperini

Modern Fascism by Gene Veith

Mars and Venus Starting Over by John Gray

The Khaboris  Manuscript - selections from the Gospels in Aramaic

Next on my list (and on request at the library) is Walking from East to West by Ravi Zacharias 


Have you ever read any of the Rules of St. Benedict?  

Here is an excerpt for you:

The Instruments of Good Works

   (1) In the first place to love the Lord God with the whole heart, the
   whole soul, the whole strength...(2) Then, one's neighbor as one's self
   (cf Mt 22:37-39; Mk 12:30-31; Lk 10:27).(3) Then, not to kill...(4) Not
   to commit adultery...(5) Not to steal...(6) Not to covet (cf Rom
   13:9).(7) Not to bear false witness (cf Mt 19:18; Mk 10:19; Lk 18:20).
   (8) To honor all men (cf 1 Pt 2:17).(9) And what one would not have
   done to himself, not to do to another (cf Tob 4:16; Mt 7:12; Lk
   6:31).(10) To deny one's self in order to follow Christ (cf Mt 16:24;
   Lk 9:23).(11) To chastise the body (cf 1 Cor 9:27).(12) Not to seek
   after pleasures.(13) To love fasting.(14) To relieve the poor.(15) To
   clothe the naked... (16) To visit the sick (cf Mt 25:36).(17) To bury
   the dead.(18) To help in trouble.(19) To console the sorrowing.(20) To
   hold one's self aloof from worldly ways.(21) To prefer nothing to the
   love of Christ.(22) Not to give way to anger.(23) Not to foster a
   desire for revenge.(24) Not to entertain deceit in the heart.(25) Not
   to make a false peace.(26) Not to forsake charity.(27) Not to swear,
   lest perchance one swear falsely.(28) To speak the truth with heart and
   tongue. (29) Not to return evil for evil (cf 1 Thes 5:15; 1 Pt
   3:9).(30) To do no injury, yea, even patiently to bear the injury done
   us.(31) To love one's enemies (cf Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27).(32) Not to curse
   them that curse us, but rather to bless them.(33) To bear persecution
   for justice sake (cf Mt 5:10).(34) Not to be proud...(35) Not to be
   given to wine (cf Ti 1:7; 1 Tm 3:3).(36) Not to be a great eater. (37)
   Not to be drowsy.(38) Not to be slothful (cf Rom 12:11).(39) Not to be
   a murmurer. (40) Not to be a detractor.(41) To put one's trust in
   God.(42) To refer what good one sees in himself, not to self, but to
   God.(43) But as to any evil in himself, let him be convinced that it is
   his own and charge it to himself.(44) To fear the day of judgment.(45)
   To be in dread of hell.(46) To desire eternal life with all spiritual
   longing.(47) To keep death before one's eyes daily.(48) To keep a
   constant watch over the actions of our life.(49) To hold as certain
   that God sees us everywhere.(50) To dash at once against Christ the
   evil thoughts which rise in one's heart.(51) And to disclose them to
   our spiritual father.(52) To guard one's tongue against bad and wicked
   speech.(53) Not to love much speaking.(54) Not to speak useless words
   and such as provoke laughter.(55) Not to love much or boisterous
   laughter.(56) To listen willingly to holy reading.(57) To apply one's
   self often to prayer.(58) To confess one's past sins to God daily in
   prayer with sighs and tears, and to amend them for the future.(59) Not
   to fulfil the desires of the flesh (cf Gal 5:16).(60) To hate one's own
   will.(61) To obey the commands of the Abbot in all things, even though
   he himself (which Heaven forbid) act otherwise, mindful of that precept
   of the Lord: "What they say, do ye; what they do, do ye not" (Mt
   23:3).(62) Not to desire to be called holy before one is; but to be
   holy first, that one may be truly so called.(63) To fulfil daily the
   commandments of God by works.(64) To love chastity.(65) To hate no
   one.(66) Not to be jealous; not to entertain envy.(67) Not to love
   strife.(68) Not to love pride.(69) To honor the aged.(70) To love the
   younger.(71) To pray for one's enemies in the love of Christ.(72) To
   make peace with an adversary before the setting of the sun.(73) And
   never to despair of God's mercy.

 
When I read Benedict or Francis de Sales, I am struck by their attentiveness to the details of their life. And they warn us to be likewise attentive.

The inner life is a whole and not compartmentalized. Young people are often very keen to sense when they have done wrong, and they are keen to detect when something is unwholesome. But the temptations today are so ubiquitous and so evolved in cleverness that a person can easily be corrupted before he or she realizes it has happened and is happening. Years later the person is insensitive, jaded, and numb to what as a young person he or she would have found shocking.

Texting is a trivial thing, and it distracts from attentiveness to duty and virtue. If you engage in a little too much texting, surfing the internet, gossip, silly sports talk, television, video games and so on, followed up with pills or marijuana, and you will have wasted away your day and lost dignity and virtue. When you associate with forward, unconflicted, brazen, insincere, distracting people--in person, in video games, listening to them,  or watching their crude antics--you will be little by little disgraced until you become without self control. 

At that point the voices from hell will tell you that you are no good, beyond hope and encourage you to abandon yourself to doubt and the embrace of hell. Don't let this happen. It is never too late, unless death terminates the option. There is no sin so great that honest repentance cannot turn things around. 

If God, through intuition and conscience, makes you aware of your error, then He is making you aware so that you can see what is wrong with the way you are going and repent of it. 

Remember the story of Scrooge in Dickens' Christmas Carol?

I remember watching it when I was a boy. I marveled at what a hard hearted stingy mean old man Scrooge was. 

Now I see that it can happen to anyone--man or woman. It happens through corruption. Through corruption you lose your character. Then you hate others for corrupting you and you hate yourself; and the hate further corrupts you. 

Today's Scrooge is not likely to be a gaunt hook nosed old man like in Dickens work. That Scrooge was corrupted by the hardness of working conditions he had hated. 

Today's Scrooge  might be fit after 50, working out at the fitness center and a vegetarian. Do I have to tell you what corrupted her and left her deflowered, unconflicted, haughty, empty and bitter underneath the smiling face?

Today's Scrooge might be an aging drug addict or marijuana user. He looks fine as he goes to work every day, but his weak voice, his trivialized life, and his lack of honor give him away. He has lost his self discipline, and he hates himself. His comfort is more pills, more marijuana and filthy images he watches that love him just the way he is. 

Today's Scrooge might be a weak man who did not have the honor to marry his wife. He stand for nothing except arguing over who is the best basketball forward of all time.  

Today's Scrooge might be totally corrupted by food. Once a strapping young man, he is now flabby and weak. Too many cheetos, too much soda, beer, and burritos. Too much home cooking.  You've heard the expression death by a thousand cuts? There is also death by a thousand little indulgences.

Kahlil Gibran wrote about how evil comes in as a servant and becomes a master. I wish I could find the reference. But the point is well taken. Yes, marijuana is a gateway drug. Yes, there are gateway experiences that seem small and inconsequential at the time that can lead a person slowly over the years to becoming completely corrupt. 

 Now do you see why such greats as de Sales, Bernard of Clairveau, and Benedict warned and exhorted that we should be attentive to the little things?   

It is hard, I know, to come out from among them. Today just putting on the television, walking through a grocery story, or listening to others who have been corrupted and who feel comfortable with their corruption and see nothing wrong with it. and you will encounter the likes of temptation that a person of earlier generations would never have even been exposed to. 

Even if you don't smoke marijuana or look at obscene images, or browse through  brazen magazines, you will undoubtedly face danger to your soul from knowledge and education. Too much of anything, even raw knowledge feeds pride and leaves our minds awash in images and swimming in thoughts and doubts. 

To survive the dangers and temptations, some of the most crude nature and others very subtle, you have to learn the art of mental distancing through meditation. You must find the way to be in the world but not of the world.