Some Marian Prayers

I know it annoys the Protestant readers, I'm sorry, but Marian devotion is a large part of Catholic spirituality, so I'm going to post stuff on it. I've sort of been trying to understand the catholic doctrine of Mary as mediatrix lately, and Newman has been helpful as usual. Currently I'm in grave sin and so these might reflect that reality (Our Lady obtain for me a good death). Marian devotion (mainly the rosary) in the last year for me has been the main change in my spiritual life.

"You will comfort me in my discouragements,
solace me in my fatigues,
raise me after my falls...
You will show me your Son,
my God and my all.
When my spirit within me is excited,
or relaxed,
or depressed,
when it loses its balance,
when it is restless and wayward,
when it is sick of what it has,
and hankers after what it has not,
when my eye is solicited with evil
and my mortal frame trembles
under the shadow of the tempter,
what will bring me to myself,
to peace and health,
but the cool breath
of the Immaculate..." -Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman

"I pray also that, at the end of my life,
you, Mother without compare,
Gate of Heaven and Advocate of sinners,
will protect me with your great piety and mercy.

and obtain for me,
through the blessed and glorious Passion of your Son
and through your own intercession,
received in hope,
the forgiveness of all my sins. "- St. Thomas Aquinas

Aristotelian Thomism

"Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse" - Romans 1:20

I get why philosophers convert to Catholicism frequently. Aristotelian Thomism makes sense of the above verse. I find that all of life makes the most sense in that system. As I dialogued with 3 atheists today, all of them seemed to be surprised by how rational Aristotle's virtue ethics are, and by consequence how Catholic Christianity really teaches it's morality because it promotes human flourishing.

Obviously it can't be stressed enough that Christianity is not Ethics, it is an entire explanation of everything, it is a sacramental life, it is a union with God only made possible by the grace of God and the work of Jesus Christ. But, the more people see how Plato, Aristotle, and all of Philosophy seem to be pointing to Jesus, the more they'll understand that an even greater possibility for eudaimonia/happiness exists, namely the Beatific Vision - the eternal enjoyment of God's unending goodness.

But for a start, Eudaimonia and human flourishing work, sometimes a spark can start a fire.

Not everyone has such a 'conversion' experience with Aristotle and/or Thomas, but I am grateful that I did. I didn't have to check my brain at the doors of the Cathedral, or have to claim my brain was totally depraved by Original Sin.

It is also important to remember the idea I found in a First Things article I just read as well: "As Benedict has often pointed out, the morality must be, and be seen as, motivated by love and beauty: exemplified by witnesses who rejoice in the Lord, not just by teachers who rejoice in being right." That is important.

Fides quarens intellectum - St Anselm of Canterbury
Faith seeking Understanding

... I really need to read "After Virtue" by Alasdair MacIntyre

How Philosophy Changes Our Lives

I was taught as a teenager the Worldview of C.S. Lewis, for which I am grateful, as there are many worse starting points. I think my view of faith and reason as well as the neo-Platonism of Lewis that we learned in philosophy allowed me to fit well into the Catholic faith. Unlike the nominalists (anti-rationalists) Luther and Calvin, Lewis fell more closely to the Angelic Doctor (Aquinas), through Lewis' study of Dante, and in his clever use of reason, I understood how Christianity shouldn't be afraid of philosophy.

But I did learn many unhelpful views that I'm only now philosophically unpacking. Our epistemology (method of finding truth) was Berkeleian Immaterialism. It was basically this argument:

Ideas are true or false
Matter/Material Objects is/are not true or false
Therefore ideas are not Matter/Material

This gave us "spirit" which wasn't material, or 'idealism' at least. Then we would go on to attack Empiricism with the typical Cartesian methods, as well as Berkeley's which sought to show how the senses were unreliable. Ex:

How do you know you have proper vision?
you hear the doctor say you passed a vision test
How do you know you have proper hearing? , etc to infinity where one can no longer believe anything based on the sense, but by the mind alone / reason.

This is the argument Bishop (Anglican/CofE) Berkeley used to argue for immaterialism, the idea that the only 'real' existent things are ideas perceived in one's mind. This then led to the problem of: 'what happens when someone isn't thinking about an object? does it cease to exist?' - we know the things don't cease to exist, as we do not when we sleep, etc. This means a universal mind must be perceiving everything at once (a Term Lewis uses in Mere Christianity for God - he was a Berkeleian after all). This universal mind is God.

Thus cometh the famous phrase that "we are all just thoughts in the mind of God".

This was a fun worldview because it was diametrically opposed to materialism, the worldview of the modern university. Then I remember reading Nietzsche's "Twilight of the Idols" and his chapter on how the real world became myth, etc. It wasn't so much of a logical argument that disarmed me / immaterialism, it was just an interesting approach which many people would prefer to my pseudo-platonic arguments.

Like I said, Nietzsche never really convinced me logically of anything (that's kind of his whole point really), but it did much to shake my thinking. Subsequently I've read Christians who attack his post-modernism from a Modernist Christian standpoint, and I've seen other Catholics and Protestants accept postmodernity and understand Catholicism within it (Kearney, Vattimo, MacIntyre also kind of).

I then started studying Aquinas, and I began to love his way of doing things. He mixed the 'best' of neo-platonism with aristotelianism, and made it all Christian. But there was one problem... He was an empiricist (the view, you'll remember, of my oldest enemies). He described the intellect and soul ascending to God from perceiving sensible things. But when I read "Nicomachean Ethics" by Aristotle last year and his "Politics", I felt like I "gave my mind to Aristotle" (like I gave my heart to Christ), because he was such a genius. But I'm still trying to figure out Aristotelianism and my own life.

The advantage I do see in St. Thomas - aside from his legacy and centrality in our Holy Roman Church - is the way his system seems so true in everyday life. It is a challenge though to my normal Platonic system which has a heavy emphasis on distinguishing between mind and body, matter and spirit. This has been a key theme in my life (probably why I'm obsessed with learning and education, but morbidly obese, or why I am great with faith, but terrible with works). Aristotle, and St. Thomas always make sure that the internal and the external are linked, and that grace perfects nature. That sounds really simplistic but in reality it's REALLY profound. In my previous worldview matter was almost evil, corrupted by the fall, grace abolished nature, it didn't perfect it. The material world was the fake and transient world, the world of the forms or ideas was the 'real world'. Aquinas will have none of this. God is reconciling even nature to himself, and evil is only a privation of good, Christ gave us physical things - sacraments (baptism, eucharist, etc) - to change our spiritual reality by grace. This means faith and works, nature and grace, the natural and supernatural, are all married to some extent. For instance he writes on the Law of Christ:

"The kingdom of God consists chiefly in internal acts: but as a consequence all things that are essential to internal acts belong also to the kingdom of God. Thus if the kingdom of God is internal righteousness, peace, and spiritual joy, all external acts that are incompatible with righteousness, peace, and spiritual joy, are in opposition to the kingdom of God; and consequently should be forbidden in the Gospel of the kingdom." - St. Thomas Aquinas (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2108.htm)

I didn't go to church/mass today, even though I could've, because "I didn't feel like it", and because I couldn't receive the sacrament anyway (I'm as usual, in mortal sin). I figured regardless of whether or not I sat in church today, my relationship with God would be uneffected. But Aristotle reminds us that virtues are formed by habitual action and repetition. St. Thomas and Catholicism likewise oblige us to attend Mass regularly because this physical habit changes our spiritual reality, it makes God's Word more prevalent in our mind, it makes our Will more easily inclined towards the work of God, and it brings us into deeper fellowship and even allows us to spiritually partake in the oblation (Sacrifice of the Mass) of the priest/Christ.

But in my own choice of will, I demoted my intellect to my passion of laziness, and thus missed another chance at grace. This is how philosophy changes my life, and our lives. Perhaps you should look over your own philosophy, after all, according to Socrates: "the unexamined life is not worth living".

Tridentine Justification & Neo-Thomism

I understand and believe Catholic/Tridentine soteriology / doctrine of justification, but man is it repellant. I have to write an essay partially on it, and when it sits there next to the Lutheran doctrine it's so painfully bad. Not in the sense of innaccuracy or lack of Patristic support etc, but just sad, difficult, and scary.

When you read things about 'killing grace in your soul' versus 'Christ's free gift of salvation' and the overwhelming mercy of the Lutheran gospel, it sometimes makes you wish you could have all the Ecclessiology and Tradition of Catholicism and just take Lutheran justification... I guess that was the Anglican dream really.

Anyway, while it's easier and easier to read (Trent that is), it still strikes a bad note, it's all the 'worst' parts of Catholicism together.

By contrast I'm reading a book by Etienne Gilson called "The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy" and it's amazing. Obviously it's on a really different topic, but it's awesome how he describes the scholastics and how attractive he makes the doctrines rejected by the Reformers seem.

I've found out in Thomism too, they traditionally talk in a way about salvation and predestination that leaves little to free will. NOT that they deny it, or that St. Thomas doesn't write about it elsewhere - after all they firmly believe in it. But they err on the side of Grace and predestination rather than the side of free-will and foreknowledge.

They recognize that it's a mystery how free will works with efficacious grace, but they teach it. And that's the great gospel I always need to hear. That even when I'm completely sinful, Christ is still giving me grace, and has chosen me ante praevisa merita / unconditionally.

The one interesting thing I've found is that describing justification in terms of grace, merit, cooperation, etc is more passe now. It seems like after Jansenism the Church got stuck with how it could talk about it. Thus they've gone to the Greek Fathers and are now big on understanding soteriology through Trinitarian theology and participation in the divine nature etc.

Mastering Sin

I always wondered why I constantly failed as a Christian and then even as a Deist/Nominal Protestant and then as a Catholic. It never made sense to me if things were just as simple as: Satan and the Holy Spirit fighting it out for my soul. Certainly I believe that's part of it, but so many decisions seemed completely arbitrary or worse, completely up to me.

I've since studied Aquinas' view of the Fall (through that lovely website Called To Communion) and have entertained the notion that sin is a disease that goes against the natural order of your body and the subordination of the will to Reason. Thus all sin is basically failing to use reason to act in accordance with Virtue and the Spirit instead of simply gratifying desires.

All theories are just theories until you start applying them, and in my constant losing battle with lust and excess of all kind, I'm going to try to reason with myself when I enter temptation. Free Will is much bigger than I'd previously thought and it somehow survives the influence of concupiscence and of grace.

St. Augustine prays:
"O Lord, grant me the power to overcome sin. For this is what you gave to us when you granted us free choice of will. If I choose wrongly, then I shall be justly punished for it. Is that not true, my Lord, of whom I indebted for my temporal existence? Thank you, Lord, for granting me the power to will my self not to sin."

Obviously Scripture is infinitely above even holy Augustine, and so I hope to memorize this verse I've needed to make a way of life:

"If thou do well, shalt thou not receive? but if ill, shall not sin forthwith be present at the door? but the lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt have dominion over it." - Genesis 4:7 Douay-Rheims

"If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it." - Genesis 4:7 RSV

It was interesting looking at the Rheims translation here: http://www.latinvulgate.com/verse.aspx?t=0&b=1&c=4 because I could understand much of the Latin. The Vulgate says "et tu dominaberis illius" - lit. and you will have dominion of it (sin).

In one translation it's a moral imperative (RSV), and in the others it's a rhetorical question and promise / result clause. You will master it if you do well, if not it will be at your door, etc.

This I will have to combine with verses I found in studying the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the passage in 1 Pet 2:5 "offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.". May my struggle against sin be a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God through Jesus Christ's sacrifice.

... knowing me, I'm going to give in right away next time as I've created this big dramatic statement hah.