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We gain knowledge in two ways: learning from someone else or experience. The gift of knowledge is a little bit like both of these, since it comes from the Holy Spirit who gives us a sort of experience of how things are related to God. Wisdom enables us to judge as God judges, and understanding gives us insight into Divine Revelation, so knowledge teaches us how created things are related to God.
It helps us to see that everything comes from God, who is the creator of all that is and the giver of every good gift. Everything is dependent upon God for it’s existence, since God is actively holding everything in existence. When you fill a balloon with helium it will stay floating until enough of the helium leaks out, but if you hold the balloon up it will only stay in the air as long as you continue to hold it up; when you drop your hand it will fall. This knowledge helps to prevent us from worshiping created things, since they don’t have the power of existence in themselves, and leads us to worship God as the Creator and giver of life. When St. Francis of Assisi refers to Brother Sun and Sister Moon, he’s wants us to know that they are not gods, our father and mother, the source of life, but that they were created by the same God who created us, and so are our brother and sister. It helps us to see the nature of all things in their relationship to God. Since God created everything, everything that is reflects or expresses some truth about God. In the mountains we see the stability of God, in the wind we see the freedom of the Holy Spirit, and in the rain we see the God who sustains our life. In the variety of wildflowers we see the artistry of God, and in the trees of the forests and grass of the field we know that God doesn’t grow tired of good things, but continues to delight in their goodness and abundance. It helps us to see the purpose of all created things in leading us to God. All things come from God and all things lead back to God: exitus, reditus. Do we delight in the good things of the world for our own sake, or do we delight in them for the sake of God and how they can lead us closer to God? This knowledge shows us how everything in the created world is an opportunity to give thanks and praise to God, to be sanctified ourselves and to sanctify others. Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon by St. Francis of Assisi Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord, All praise is Yours, all glory, all honor and all blessings. To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your Name. Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who is the day through whom You give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor, of You Most High, he bears the likeness. Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair. Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and fair and stormy, all weather's moods, by which You cherish all that You have made. Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water, so useful, humble, precious and pure. Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire, through whom You light the night and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong. Praised be You my Lord through our Sister, Mother Earth who sustains and governs us, producing varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs. Praise be You my Lord through those who grant pardon for love of You and bear sickness and trial. Blessed are those who endure in peace, By You Most High, they will be crowned. Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death, from whom no-one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are they She finds doing Your Will. No second death can do them harm. Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks, and serve Him with great humility. The lives of the saints demonstrate an understanding of the mysteries of the faith, the life of Christ, how they’re related, and how God continues to work in the world. Have you ever known someone like that? They’re secure in their faith and quickly perceive how the Holy Spirit is moving in their lives and in the lives of other people. This is a result of the gift of understanding, through which the Holy Spirit “gives us a deep insight into revealed truths, without however giving a comprehension of the mysteries themselves” (Tanquerey, The Spiritual Life, 627).
God has revealed the truth to us, but understanding that Revelation is something else entirely. Understanding comes from seeing the truth beneath the surface and spotting patterns and connections. Knowing that Jesus Christ saved us from sin and death is one thing, but understanding the Paschal Mystery of the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ helps us to enter into it more fully and live it out in our own lives. The gift of understanding doesn’t allow us to understand the mysteries themselves, but it does give us a more secure faith in them. This gift helps us to see the true reality of things, so that we can look at the consecrated bread and wine and see the Body and Blood of Christ. When we’re struggling with a passage in the Bible, understanding helps us to grasp the meaning of the words. We know that Baptism forgives our sins and gives us new life in Christ, but this gift helps us to understand how the water of Baptism symbolizes death and new life. By seeing the connections between things we understand their causes and effects, like when we the effects of the mysteries of the life of Christ in our own lives or understand how God is the cause of things happening in our lives today. When I reflect on my Scripture classes in seminary the importance of understanding becomes clear. Knowledge, by itself, is good, but understanding deepens our faith in what we know from Revelation and motivates us to follow it. If you tell me to do something, I may do it just based on your authority, but if you explain why I’m much more likely to pay attention. Many of my Scripture professors had a great knowledge of the Bible, but they didn’t make the connections that would have helped us to understand the Scriptures in a deeper sense, to see what we beneath the surface to the spiritual realities being expressed in the people, places, and events of the Bible. This resulted in study of the Bible being boring and tedious, and inadvertently caused me to separate praying with the Bible from studying the Bible. When, latter on, I had professors who were able to make those connections between Old and New Testament and point out those the significance of those events and mysteries, this made studying the Bible absolutely fascinating. Even more importantly, it showed that studying the Bible should naturally come from and lead to prayer, since we need God’s help to understand the Bible and that understanding moves us to thank and praise God. Finally, that understanding allow us to apply the truths revealed in the Scriptures to our own lives so that they can bear fruit. This type of understanding comes from God as a gift, so we have to pray for it. However, we can also make ourselves ready to receive it. First, spend time praying with and studying the Bible. You should always study the Bible prayerfully and pray it studiously. There is a distinction between prayer and study, but, when it comes to the Bible, they should always go together. Second, you should study the history of the Church and the lives of the saints to see how the faith is manifested in the world through the lives of actual people. Finally, cause and effect apply to spiritual realities just as much as they do to matter and energy. So, think about how God, in His Divine Providence, is the cause of everything, and what the effects of God’s actions are in the world. I think of two different experiences when I think of Christmas. One of them is how my family celebrated Christmas. I remember setting up the Christmas tree every year on my mom’s birthday, December 9, untangling the lights with Uncle Robert, and how every ornament was unique. I remember attending Nanny’s family Christmas party on Christmas Eve, playing with Big Mac boxes to see who could stack them the highest, and seeing Christmas carols. I remember waking up on Christmas morning to open presents, going to the noon Mass at St. Clement of Rome, and having Christmas dinner with Aunt Pat, Uncle Paul, and my cousins at my house because we had the biggest dining room.
On the other hand, I think of my Christmases since I’ve been a priest. I think of all the Christmas parties for the different Church ministries, the PSR Advent Program, and setting up decorations in the Church. Mainly, though, I focus on helping people prepare spiritually for Christmas. Christmas has become such a huge thing in American culture that it’s easy to overlook the religious significance of the day as the turning point of human history. There’s a reason why the calendar changes from B.C. to A.D., or B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) to C.E. (Common Era) at the birth of Christ. Some scholars have switched from using B.C. and A.D. to B.C.E. and C.E. either to keep from offending non-Christians or to deny the importance of Christ, but we don’t number the year from the ascension of Augustus Caesar to Emperor of Rome, or from some major military battle or great invention, or from anyone else’s birth. When Jesus Christ was born, salvation came into the world and the Kingdom of God (not Caesar or Rome) was inaugurated. The promise that was given in the birth of Jesus Christ was fulfilled in His Resurrection. That’s why celebrating Mass on Christmas is one of the most meaningful moments in my priesthood. On the day that Jesus Christ was born into the world in the flesh, I am privileged to make Jesus Christ present on the altar, body and blood, soul and divinity. 12 days after Christmas, on January 6, we celebrate the Epiphany (although the celebration is moved to the nearest Sunday, January 5 this year). The Epiphany is the celebration of the “Light of Christ” coming into the world and spreading to every land and people. May we never forget the Christ is our light, that we cannot truly see unless we have His light in our lives, and that He is calling on us to spread His light through acts of faith, hope, and love. Remember the birth of Christ by always using BC and AD to give the date, but more importantly, honor his birth, death, and Resurrection by attending Mass, in person, every Sunday. The fifth and last of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways is the argument from design, or, as he calls it, the argument from the governance of the world. We’ve already talked about how medieval people saw purpose and meaning in everything around them. Sometimes they were mistaken about the mechanics of how things happen in the natural world or in medicine, but they saw that the world is basically ordered and logical, and they were able to study the natural world and expand their knowledge and understanding. They were able to build amazing feats of engineering, like Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which was built from 1163 to 11 82 AD, even without our modern technology. After the fire in 2019, Notre Dame de Paris was reopened just a few weeks ago.
As our understanding of the natural world expands we find more and more of what seems to be design at every level of creation. Everything has an end, or purpose, that is logical and predictable once we understand it. In the natural world, every member of an ecosystem has an vital function, bacteria, insects, prey, and predators, and removing part of the ecosystem, like when they killed the last of the wolves in Yosemite National Park, or add in something that doesn’t belong, like introducing cane toads to Australia, can have catastrophic consequences. We find design in subatomic particles in the number and arrangement of neutrons, electrons, and protons, and we find design in the structure of the universe itself, from the Big Bang to today, everything holds together. When something doesn’t hold together we don’t assume that it just is that way or that it’s just illogical; we assume that we haven’t yet found the explanation. For example, if you find a hut in the middle of the desert you wouldn’t assume that a tornado stacked up a bunch of rocks and wood and branches that way purely by chance, but that a person had built it. There is far more design in the universe than there is in even the grandest house. If, for example, the explosion of the Big Bang had been one trillionth of a degree hotter or colder then carbon could not have developed, and carbon is necessary for all known life. Also, if the force of gravity had been a fraction of a percent stronger or weaker the stars could not have formed. Out of trillions of possible universes, this is the one we got. St. Thomas Aquinas puts it like this. We see that things which lack intelligence act for an end, so as to attain that end, as the stars and planets move in a certain way. They achieve that end by design, and not by chance. Something that lacks intelligence cannot act towards an end unless it is directed by something that has intelligence, such as an arrow shot by an archer which cannot reach the target on its own but must be directed. Therefore, some intelligence exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end, and this we call God. The arrow’s flight can be explained by the laws of gravity, aerodynamics, etc., but it’s direction can only be explained by the person who directed it. The movement of planets, stars, and galaxies can be explained by the laws of physics, but it cannot explain the fact that it seems to be directed towards the development of human life. St. Thomas Aquinas’ five ways probably won’t convince someone who has different assumptions about existence than Christians do, and they don’t even prove everything that the Bible teaches us about God. They do, however, describe an intelligent, necessary First Cause who is the source of all perfections. We can argue about whether they prove our faith, but they certainly help us to understand it a little bit better. The fourth of St. Thomas Aquinas’ “Five Ways” shows, once again, that we think about the world in a different way than the medieval person did. We tend to look for physical causes for everything, because the success of the sciences, especially physics and biology, have shown how valuable that way of thinking is. We tend to look at abstract properties like goodness, nobility, and beauty as subjective opinions, not something that actually exists in the real world. This is what we mean in the famous saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
The medieval mindset saw meaning, purpose, and symbolism in everything, because they saw God at work in everything. They saw goodness, truth, and beauty as objective, not just subjective. Different people might perceive more or less of that truth, goodness, and beauty, but they’re objectively and really in things in the world. Something is more or less good, true, and beautiful based on how well it compared to the ideal in the mind of God. These degrees of perfection seen in different things lead to an interesting argument for the existence of God. The argument goes something like this. Some things are more or less good, true, noble, beautiful, etc., than other things. Something is more or less good (noble, beautiful, etc.) as compared to something that is the maximum, the most good, as something that is hot is more or less hot compared to fire. Anything that isn’t perfectly good must get its goodness from something outside of itself that causes it’s goodness. Therefore, there must be a Perfect Good which causes goodness in other things, and this we call God. If we believe that goodness, beauty, and other attributes like that are completely subjective, then this argument isn’t convincing, and it may even seem naive. Does beauty depend entirely on our opinions of whether something is beautiful or not? Certainly my experience, education, and preferences have an effect on what I think is beautiful, and what I think is beautiful someone else might think is ugly. However, I don’t think that our opinions are the standard of beauty, because they depend on our experience, education, and preferences. For a long time I couldn’t see the beauty and eloquence in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I simply didn’t like it. Then, I had a teacher who helped me to see the play in a new light, to understand the deeper themes and the genius of the writing, and to appreciate Romeo and Juliet for the masterpiece that it is. My personal preferences didn’t change, and it’s still not my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays, but I came to see the beauty that was already there. That wasn’t based on my opinion. The beauty was there whether I saw it or not, but once I saw it I couldn’t deny it. It reached out and took hold of me. There are people like that as well; people who are so good that their goodness can’t be honestly denied. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was one such person. She dedicated her entire life to the poorest of the poor, even living with them in their poverty, because of the love of God. She was admired even by people who were otherwise enemies of the Catholic Church, and almost everyone, everyone who looked at her honestly, saw her radiant goodness. She could speak in places where you wouldn’t expect Catholic sisters to be welcome, like when she was invited by the Harvard Class of 1982 to address the student body on Class Day. She spoke about the evil of abortion, the beauty of virginity, the importance of family, care for the poor, and our need for the Eucharist, among other things, and she received a standing ovation, because she lived what she believed and radiated the goodness and love of God. That’s what beauty, truth, and goodness have in common; they are radiant. We can deny them, but they don’t depend on our opinions, and once we see the beauty in a piece of art, the truth in a proposition (like 2 + 2 = 4), or the goodness in another person, we can no longer honestly deny it. So, if beauty, truth, and goodness really exist, then they must come from somewhere, “and this we call God.” Last week we began looking at St. Thomas Aquinas’ five ways. It will be very helpful if you read that article first; you can find it own our website (stcletuschurch.com) under the bulletins tab. The five ways aren’t just about making a logical argument for the existence of God; they help us to understand something about God by reflecting on the world around us. After all, an artist leaves something of themselves in their art, so we ought to be able to see some reflections of God in the created world.
The last three ways may be better to cover one at a time, so we have the space to do it properly. The third way is from possibility and necessity. The things in our experience are only possible, but not necessary, like a chair. The chair can exist, but it doesn’t have to exist. At one time it didn’t exist, and then something caused it to exist, and at some point it will stop existing. If everything were only possible, then there could have been a point in which nothing existed. If this happened then nothing would exist now, since nothing can come from nothing. Obviously, things do exist. The alternative is that some things are necessary and must exist, and are not just possible. Logically, they must receive their necessity from themselves or from something else, and we’ve already seen that a chain of causes cannot go on for infinity. Therefore, there must be something that does not depend on anything else for its existence, but is necessary of itself. This all men speak of as God. This is the hardest of the five ways for me to wrap my mind around. I think it’s because all of the things around us are only possible, so it’s hard to imagine that something could be truly necessary. We may think of the universe as necessary, but it began to exist with the Big Bang. Even the laws of the universe are not necessary as many of them began to exist with the Big Bang, and they don’t truly have to be what they are. God, however, is completely self-sufficient and has created everything else that exists. I think what St. Thomas Aquinas wants us to see is that most things depend on other things to exist. We call this contingent existence. God, on the other hand, is necessary. He is pure existence or the act of existence itself, and He is holding everything else in existence at every moment. Last week I used the example of a pool cue striking a cue ball which then strikes the other balls. This is a series of causes and effects that follow in a sequence. Some things have effects that happen at exactly the same moment. For example, when you plug a lamp into a power outlet the electricity causes the lamp to light up, but it happens basically simultaneously. The same thing happens when you pick up a ball. You hand causes the ball to rise, but it’s not one thing and then the other, they happen at the same time. God didn’t just create us and let us go; as a parent holds their child in their arms, He is constantly holding us in existence. The Catechism says: “With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end. Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence” (CCC 301). And as the Acts of the Apostles says, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). This same self-sufficient God, the pure act of existence, without beginning or end, who created all that is and holds everything in existence, was Himself carried in the womb and in the arms of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. The Gospel of St. John begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son from the Father.” During Advent we’re encouraged to prepare ourselves, to make straight the way of the Lord. We can choose to follow God’s will or our own will, to seek the meaning and purpose of life in God or in ourselves. Everything must begin somewhere, and we know in faith that all things begin, and end, in God. So, how can we be sure that God really exists? Do we just have to take the best guess with no real evidence?
There are two ways to know something: in itself or from its effects. For example, you can know a person because you met them or because you’ve seen the things that they did. St. Thomas Aquinas believes that we cannot know God in Himself, because He is mysterious and out of our reach (He does reveal Himself to us, but this is Revelation, not reason). Therefore, St. Thomas Aquinas argues for the existence of God from His effects, that is, from the world around us. First, we have to have a starting point, so we’ll start with something that we can’t prove, but that is obvious and irrefutable. Nothing comes from nothing. To put it another way, you can’t get something from nothing. Everything has a sufficient reason for its existence. This is called, fittingly, The Principle of Sufficient Reason. From this assumption, St. Thomas Aquinas has five ways, or arguments, to come to the existence of God. I’ll summarize two of his arguments today, and we’ll come back to the other three another time. Notice that these ways don’t just try to prove that God exists; they also try to tell us something about God. The original text of the Five Ways can be found in St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, in the third article of the second question of the “Prima Pars,” and I’ll try to do justice to St. Thomas Aquinas’ original work. The Argument from Motion begins with the fact that some things in this world are in motion, that is, changing. We know that whatever is moved, or changed, is moved by something else. For example, in pool the balls move because they are struck by the cue ball; they had the potential to move, but they had to be set in motion by something else. Something can’t be both potential and actual in the same way at the same time. Boiled Crawfish can’t be both temperature hot and temperature cold at the same time, although they can be spicy hot and temperature cold at the same time. The crawfish need to be heated up to become temperature hot and seasoned to become spicy hot. Now, whatever moves the first thing must also be put in motion by something else, just as the cue ball is first put in motion by the pool cue. This cannot go on infinitely, because then there would be no first mover and therefore no motion. Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a First Mover, put in motion by no other, and this everyone understands to be God. This means that God is fully actualized, able to act on others without needing anything to act on Himself. The Argument from Causation is similar to the Argument from Motion. Based on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, we know that nothing can cause itself to exist. An oak tree, for example, comes from an acorn, but the acorn must also be planted in good soul and get enough water for an oak tree to grow. These things are all causes of the oak tree. Now, there’s an order to causes. The acorn that grew into the oak tree came from another oak tree, which came from another acorn, and so on. This procession of causes can’t keep going forever. When you take away the cause you take away the effect, so if there is no first cause, then there can be no subsequent causes, and then nothing would exist. If there was no original acorn or oak tree, then none of the ones that came from it could exist. However, we know that things do exist. Therefore, there must be a First Cause, and this everyone calls God. In a few weeks we’ll celebrate Christmas and the fact that this First Mover and First Cause entered the world as a little baby born to the Blessed Mother. He isn’t only the God of the philosophers; He is also fully revealed to us in the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ. There are two seasons of preparation in the Church calendar: Lent and Advent. During Lent we prepare for the Passion, death, and Resurrection of the Lord by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. In the Mass we cover the statues, remove Holy Water from the fonts, stop singing the Gloria and stop saying Alleluia. At home we fast by giving things up, abstaining from meat on Fridays, and fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. We also give alms by doing extra good works and setting money aside for the poor. During Advent we are supposed to be preparing for the birth of the Lord, but what do we actually do to prepare? We wear purple at Mass and we shop for Christmas presents. We also stop singing the gloria at Sunday Mass, because that’s the hymn that the angels sing to the shepherds. Aside from that? Not much. Like during Lent, we can spiritually prepare for the birth of the Lord this Christmas through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
What prayers can help us prepare for the Nativity? First, pray the O Antiphons. These are antiphons that are used in Mass from December 17 to Christmas that give different titles of Jesus Christ. We can meditate on these antiphons and ask ourselves who Christ is in our lives. You can also take time to read the accounts of the birth of Jesus in the Gospels. They can be found in Matthew 1 & 2, Luke 1 & 2, and John 1:1-28. Another good thing would be to visit our adoration chapel or sign up for a weekly hour in the chapel. After all, what better way is there to prepare for the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh than to spend time in the presence of the Most Holy Body of the Lord? We aren’t officially required to fast during the season of Lent now, but traditionally there were several days of fasting on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the feast of St. Lucy of Syracuse on December 13. They were called Ember Days, and this year they would fall on December 18, 20, and 21. Fridays are also special days of fasting and abstinence in memory of the death of our Lord on a Friday. We sacrifice things on those days to unite ourselves to the Cross of our Lord and to teach ourselves to prefer God to all things. We may not be going to as many parties as normal this year, so we have an opportunity to prepare ourselves spiritually for the birth of Christ by sacrificing something on Fridays and Ember Days of Advent. Finally, prayer and fasting are useless if they don’t lead to a growth in charity. There are so many opportunities to give during the Christmas season, and we should take advantage of them. You can give at St. Cletus either through the special collections or by giving directly to the St. Anthony Boxes in Church, or you can give through any of the many good charities out there. Don’t just give money, though; make a point to do good things for the people around you during this time, especially when they won’t know about it. As the Lord said, “But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your almsgiving may be in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will repay you” (Mt 6:3-4). The gift of wisdom is not like human wisdom, nor is it the same as the wisdom that someone can obtain by studying the Scriptures and the mysteries of God; rather, the gift of wisdom enables us to judge as God judges. Through the gift of wisdom God Himself, through the Holy Spirit, helps us to judge as He Himself judges and to love what God loves. Human wisdom is gained by experiencing things for ourselves, learning from our mistakes, and learning from other people who are wiser than we are. Studying the Scriptures is a higher form of this type of wisdom, since you’re then learning from the Word of God. This can help open us to the gift of wisdom, but it can only truly by gained by surrendering yourself to God and allowing His Spirit to reside in your soul.
It’s like a sort of taste for the things of God. There are certain foods that are naturally appealing to human tastes, like sugar and salt, but there are other things that we need to develop a taste for, like coffee or asparagus. I never like asparagus when I was a kid, because the bitter and astringent flavors in it stopped me from appreciating the good flavors hidden underneath. Then, I had some asparagus that were fresh, very well prepared, and paired with a good steak. That helped me to develop a taste for asparagus so that I can appreciate it and even desire it. I didn’t study the chemical makeup of asparagus, nor was a convinced by arguments of it’s health benefits, but I opened myself to experience it in a new way and was rewarded. The wisdom of this world is more natural to us. It reinforces our natural proclivities and desires, so it’s easy to go along with. The Wisdom of God is supernatural and often goes against our proclivities and desires. As Saint Paul wrote, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:22-25). Study of the Scriptures and arguments about the truth of the faith can open us to a relationship with God, removing barriers to the faith, but only a relationship with God, the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in our souls, can allow us to value what God values, to love what God loves, and to live the mysteries of the faith in a Divine way. Then, the Gift of Wisdom will give us a taste for the things of God so that we will want and desire them. So, we can open ourselves to the gift of wisdom through prayer and contemplation of the mysteries of God, by practicing seeing things through God’s eyes, and by challenging the wisdom of the world. Another way to open ourselves to the gift of wisdom is through detachment and asceticism. If we want to stop thinking in a worldly way, then we need to become detached from worldly things and learn to prefer the things of God. Asceticism is any practice through which we deny ourselves. It’s also called mortification. When you wake up early to say your prayers in the morning, then you’re denying yourself the comfort of staying in bed. When you abstain from meat on Fridays and fast on fast days, you’re denying your preferred tastes and physical nourishment. When you take cold showers, wear an itchy wool scapular, or learn to sit in silence, with the tv, radio, and internet turned off, then you’re training yourself to prefer the things of God. When the Church is investigating someone to see if they should be canonized as a saint, one of the criteria is heroic virtue, but the gift of wisdom helps our virtues to rise to the level of heroism. Through wisdom we see and love God as He really is, see and love our neighbors as God loves them, and then put that into practice in our lives. We learn the value of denying ourselves for the sake of another and of taking up our crosses daily and following Jesus. Here’s the video for the Bible Study on the Altar and the Cross that we had a few weeks ago at St. Cletus Catholic Church. |
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