Imitation of Christ
Chapter33
Restlessness of Soul — Directing Our Final Intention Toward God
The Voice of Christ: MY CHILD, do not trust in your present feeling, for it will soon give way to another. As long as you live you will be subject to changeableness in spite of yourself. You will become merry at one time and sad at another, now peaceful but again disturbed, at one moment devout and the next indevout, sometimes diligent while at other times lazy, now grave and again flippant. But the man who is wise and whose spirit is well instructed stands superior to these changes. He pays no attention to what he feels in himself or from what quarter the wind of fickleness blows, so long as the whole intention of his mind is conducive to his proper and desired end. For thus he can stand undivided, unchanged, and unshaken, with the singleness of his intention directed unwaveringly toward Me, even in the midst of so many changing events. And the purer this singleness of intention is, with so much the more constancy does he pass through many storms. But in many ways the eye of pure intention grows dim, because it is attracted to any delightful thing that it meets. Indeed, it is rare to find one who is entirely free from all taint of self- seeking. The Jews of old, for example, came to Bethany to Martha and Mary, not for Jesus’ sake alone, but in order to see Lazarus. The eye of your intention, therefore, must be cleansed so that it is single and right. It must be directed toward Me, despite all the objects which may interfere.
Tag Archives: truth
Into the Hands of Foreigners
Save us, Lord, collect us together from among the nations. Alleluia.
Psalm 105 (106)
They mingled themselves with the peoples,and learned to do as they did.They served the same idolsuntil it became their undoing.They sacrificed their own sonsand their daughters to demons.They poured out innocent blood.The blood of their own sons and daughterswas sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.Their blood polluted the land,and their actions defiled them.They devoted themselves to whoring.The Lord blazed out in anger against his own people,He detested his own chosen race.He gave them into the hands of foreigners.They were conquered by those who hated them.
These words from today’s Office of Readings, I find frightening in light of our society. We are blessed by the knowledge that God, who is near to us, has blessed us, giving us His Son and sending us His Holy Spirit. Sinners get to live as saints should they so desire. What does our society reveal about our desires.
What does our society testify about us as a people? Gifts, even gifts of God, can be squandered by prodigal sons and daughters. His greatest gift, life, we subject to pluralistic debate and countermand by man-made law. ‘Choice’ is elevated above conscience and morality and enshrined as a god to be fed by money-making mills. Is this license the best we can do with the gift of life in a land of freedom and liberty?
Facts about fetal pain.
More facts about fetal pain.
Facts about maternal pain.
Link – Around – Pelosi
Ashes, ashes…the truth will out Pelosi!
The Torture Debate-Continued – Charles Krauthammer
“So what happened? The reason Pelosi raised no objection to waterboarding at the time, the reason the American people (who by 2004 knew what was going on) strongly reelected the man who ordered these interrogations, is not because she and the rest of the American people suffered a years-long moral psychosis from which they have just now awoken. It is because at that time they were aware of the existing conditions — our blindness to al-Qaeda’s plans, the urgency of the threat, the magnitude of the suffering that might be caused by a second 9/11, the likelihood that the interrogation would extract intelligence that President Obama’s own director of national intelligence now tells us was indeed “high-value information” — and concluded that on balance it was a reasonable response to a terrible threat.
And they were right.”
The Wall St Journal Time-line-intelligence trail:
What Pelosi said she knew
- August 2002: Justice Department authorizes waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques (EITs). The CIA uses the technique.
- September 2002: Nancy Pelosi, ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, is briefed on the techniques.
- February 2003: A Pelosi aide attends a briefing with the new ranking member on the committee, Jane Harman. Pelosi later says that she learns after this meeting that the techniques have already been used, and that she ‘concurred’ with Harman’s letter to the CIA protesting the decision to use them.
- December 2007: A news report quotes two officials who say Pelosi was briefed on waterboarding and raised no objections. Pelosi issues a statement confirming she was briefed on one occasion in the fall of 2002 ‘on interrogation techniques the administration was considering using in the future.’
- April 23, 2009: After the Obama administration releases four memos approving the use of waterboarding, Pelosi says that in September 2002, ‘We were not …told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used.’
- May 5, 2009: Intelligence officials send lawmakers a list of 40 congressional briefings on EITs, saying lawmakers ‘will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened.’ The list says Pelosi was told that some EITs had been employed, but doesn’t specify waterboarding.
- May 8, 2009: Pelosi repeats that she was briefed on techniques that would be used in the future
- May 14, 2009: Pelosi says she wasn’t told in September 2002 that waterboarding was being used, and says ‘the CIA was misleading Congress.’
In case you missed it and hadn’t already guessed: “Pelosi: Utterly Contemptible” – here’s Charles Krauthammer, impeccable on the subject, if reason still matters?
Nancy Pelosi Explains What She Knew About Waterboarding
In her own words, you decide!
HotAir on Ed’s Post and More : Pelosi goes nuclear on CIA over torture as Cheney’s memo request is denied:
Meanwhile, as this soap opera’s playing out, Dick Cheney’s request to declassify the two CIA memos which he claims prove that torture works has been denied. Surprise. Exit quotation: “President Obama has the legal authority to declassify the documents ‘with the wave of his hand,’ according to one expert.”
Update: I want to highlight this bit from Ed’s post because it really is the million-dollar question:
And if the CIA really had lied to her in the briefings, why didn’t Pelosi start out with that explanation? In fact, why didn’t she mention that in 2005 when both the EITs and the briefings were made public? Coming four years later, this explanation lacks any kind of credibility.
The killer quote from today’s presser is “they mislead us all the time,” a reference to the CIA’s bad intel on Iraq’s WMD. If there really is a pattern of deception going on, why would she wait until there’s a Democrat in the White House to complain when she could have pinned the whole thing on Bush by screaming about it earlier?
New Majority: Former CIA Sources Respond to Pelosi: Congress Knew Everything
Blazing Anger – Triumphant Day
The crew of Divine Office.org in a “chatter & cheese” segment (spontaneous sharing after prayer), brought up a certain delight in God’s burning anger that we have been hearing about in the readings from the Book of Revelation for the last week or so. The delight springs from a desire for justice that has been long awaited by the saints, martyrs, and, now by us in this Age. Finall, the raging anger and wrath of God lays low all His enemies who throughout time have set themselves against Him, and caused suffering for His People.
One prevalent thought that emerged in the discussion voiced the notion that this Day of Wrath was in fact the Day of the Cross-the Crucifixion and Death of our Lord Jesus- the Day an unsuspecting Satan was conquered for all time and Eternity by the bloody sacrifice on Calvary.
- “Then I saw the heavens opened, and there was a white horse; its rider was (called) “Faithful and True.” He judges and wages war in righteousness. His eyes were (like) a fiery flame, and on his head were many diadems. He had a name inscribed that no one knows except himself. He wore a cloak that had been dipped in blood, and his name was called the Word of God.” Rev. 19:11-13
The discussion voiced another light, “The One on the Horse is Jesus.” Chris, said, “Maybe that battle was fought and won.” This Mystery, still unfolding in the world and in the Church in Time is one of triumph and exaltation of the King of Kings who is at hand and enthroned in Heaven and in His Church.
Another thought reflected the idea of transformation, transformation through the sacraments, through Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Matrimony, Holy Orders. “Burning anger is transformative, purifying.” We are transformed, become new creatures and are yet being fit for the Kingdom, here and yet to come, already but not yet, ”Yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
I image the Mystery of it in this way: it is as a block buster movie being made; when complete, the movie is presented as a whole, but in the process of becoming, it is made up of bits and pieces filmed at different times and different places, yet all part of the complete work and necessary to it. We are being spliced into the triumphant victory of the Day of the Lord, so to speak, as each of us contributes her/his part.
Maranatha!
St. Athanasius – Bishop of Alexandria – Church Father
St. Athanasius is a favorite “all time tough guy” of Fr. Jeff Wharton. Fr. Jeff comments that Athanasius lived in a time of errant teaching among priest and bishops and didn’t flinch in defending the Son as “homo-ousios” (meaning “of the same substance, or nature, or essence”) with the Father. The term, itself, is one that grew out of the Council of Nicea to clarify the Church’s understanding of the Nature of Son as one with the Father. St Athanasius was to spend his life defending the full deity of Christ against emperors, magistrates, bishops, and theologians; James Kiefer explains that for this, he was regarded as a trouble-maker and banished from Alexandria a total of five times by various emperors. Hence the expression “Athanasius contra mundum,” or, “Athanasius against the world.”
James E. Kiefer writes of St. Athanasius:
Outside the pages of the New Testament itself, Athanasius is probably the man to whom we chiefly owe the preservation of the Christian faith. He was born around AD 298, and lived in Alexandria, Egypt, the chief center of learning of the Roman Empire.
In 313 the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, which changed Christianity from a persecuted to an officially favored religion. About six years later, a presbyter (elder, priest) Arius of Alexandria began to teach concerning the Word of God (John 1:1) that “God begat him, and before he was begotten, he did not exist.” Athanasius was at that time a newly ordained deacon, secretary to Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, and a member of his household. His reply to Arius was that the begetting, or uttering, of the Word by the Father is an eternal relation between Them, and not a temporal event. Arius was condemned by the bishops of Egypt (with the exceptions of Secundus of Ptolemais and Theonas of Marmorica), and went to Nicomedia, from which he wrote letters to bishops throughout the world, stating his position.
The Emperor Constantine undertook to resolve the dispute by calling a council of bishops from all over the Christian world. This council met in Nicea, just across the straits from what is now Istanbul, in the year 325, and consisted of 317 bishops. Athanasius accompanied his bishop to the council, and became recognized as a chief spokesman for the view that the Son was fully God, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father.
Those were tumultuous times, the bishops gathered by Constantine were men who lived through the persecutions of the time and bore the scars of living martyrdom in testimony to their faith. Can you imagine their meeting one another in one great hall after their years of torture, lonely exile and torment suffered for the defense of the Faith?
Athanasius is the perfect model for our day. As best I can remember, Fr. Wharton said, “So much is not right in this world. Let it lead us to a zeal for the work and Word of God.” We, too, can bring Truth to the fore with love, leaving off anger that distresses our balance and prayer, that the Holy Spirit may use us mightily, doing great things even in little ways.
Pro-Choice Isn’t Pretty
It was a good day for Life at the Capitol today. It wasn’t that Congress did anything to protect the human life growing in a mother’s womb. Congress it seems is insensitive to Truth these days. However, ordinary Americans continue to demonstrate for Life. Young and old found their voice and pleaded with those who listened to hear the cries of the unborn. Children distributed life calling-cards proclaiming the truth of abortion and pro-choice. Someone dies and it isn’t pretty. The consequence of pro-choice is blood and tears. A banner photograph of the aborted infant offended some who is seems aren’t offended by the act of abortion. Strange sensitivities that allow the actual infant to die but want to spare their consciences, I must think.
Be Holy! 