Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:06 imagine that you're over visiting a friend one day just sitting around the kitchen table. As you're sitting there, this fly keeps buzzing and irritating everyone and finally in frustration, your friend jumps up, stocks out of the room and comes back with a violin. Now, while you're still sitting there wondering, what is he going to do with that violin? All of a sudden he starts swatting at the fly. Until sure enough, he finally kills the flop. Now, it's hard to imagine that anyone would be that foolish as to use a violin for a fly swatter. Why? Because everyone knows it's going to happen to violence. Choose like that. It'll be destroyed. Filings are made to be used just by squatters. They're meant to make music. What's the point? The point is if we use the delicate instrument, a valuable instrument, like a violin as a fly swatter, if we'll use it for a purpose for which it was not made, then we'll destroy it.
Speaker 1 01:11 Law that applies even more force to our own lives. If we use our life for a purpose for which it was not in the kidney, it meant that not only we acting crazier than some guys, one flies with a fiddle. If we use their life for purpose, for which it was not intended, we'll destroy ourselves and the problems, which means we're going to end up some place. We really don't want to go. Now, what's the purpose? A lot of that's the same as as he what God made me. God made me to know him and love him and seriously miss life and be happy with him forever and the next okay. Everybody knows that that's a foundational truth and if we don't want to wreck ourselves, we need to know that, but not just know that we also have an that accordingly, we have to live in the light of that particular truth.
Speaker 1 02:03 We have to use ourselves properly. Not only does that mean avoiding Sin Veneer occasion as sin, we're not going to look at that today. Today we're going to be concerned with the less obvious danger considered obstacle, the holiness that many men suffer from without clearly recognized Saint Paul's referring to this when he talks in Ephesians about being renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man. So we'll talk about that. This danger is based on the fact that we're all creatures of habit. We're creatures of have. So what? Well, there's one particular habit that's absolutely critical and helping us be happy in this life and in the next, it's our habitual outflow or habitual aim in life, not where we want to go. Obviously everyone here wants to go to heaven, but it's a practical issue practically. Each one of us has a habitual disposition, which determines how we act, how we habitually honest, instinctively thing, what we use as our basis for day to day decisions and it's a happen.
Speaker 1 03:13 So it's a way of approaching life and what we're doing. We don't really think much about it as the late great father Dan pointed out. There are three basic ways that men approach a lot. One of these three ways becomes a habit for each man. Again, we eventually act judge, things in react. What happens to us in accordance with one of these three basic approaches, the first two are natural. The third is supernatural. The first book, men whose basic aim in life is to feel good. Second man whose basic game in life is to look good, and third men whose basic aim in life is to big feel good, look good, being good. The first two are natural. Naturally speaking, we're going to suffer from one of those two unless supernational we do something to put on the third one. Okay, let's take a closer look at each of these categories, but keep in mind before we do that, we're not talking about the standard grace here.
Speaker 1 04:23 We're not talking about the state of grid. What we're talking about is not a state of being. A state of grace is a state of being. If we're in a state of grace, we are in a state of being, but we're talking about not what we're like, but how we do things, how we think or react or respond when we're not particular to pay attention to ourselves. We're considering the particular of motive a man has for his actions, his judgments, his reactions, not how he is, but how he, yeah. Okay, so let's now take a closer look at each group. First group, the men whose principle aim in life is to feel good. They have a habit. Choosing without thinking much about it, whatever makes them feel good. Their goal is to have a good time. If it feels good, do it. Eat, drinking it, be married for tomorrow.
Speaker 1 05:11 We die. They live by indulging their central pleasures. If food isn't just the way they like it, if it isn't disease and just ride cause it can cook, just ride or maybe they didn't get just the right amount, then they're unhappy. If other people don't fuss over them or constantly worry about how they feel, then they're unhappy. If they're asked to do a little bit more work than anyone else, then they're unhappy. If anything interferes with their desire to feel good, then they're unhappy. They may be mad or they may be sad, but they're unhappy. These people typically am hard time saying no to themselves and they suffer, especially from since the flat. The deadly sins of being lost and slow and their principle motivates pleasure. So that's a thumbnail sketch with the man who have a habit of choosing whatever it makes him feel like.
Speaker 1 06:07 Second category, these are the men, which principle aim in life is to look good, so they have this habit of choosing whatever will make him look good. They want to be successful at any cost they can to be preoccupied with retention, popularity, reputation, money, admiration, success. They crave human respect. They want to be the best in whatever area they're focused on, but principally from Odessa, vainglory and not for the greater honor and glory of God. They may be seeking admiration of men because of their gifts, their intellectual gifts, their beauty, their bodies, their financial status, their athletic ability with fancy cars or fancy clothes. What happened? The list goes on and on and on. They tend to make decisions by what seems right to them, what's most to their advantage. If they don't succeed at their particular goal, then they're unhappy. If someone else shines, naming something they should feel particularly gifted in, then they're unhappy.
Speaker 1 07:15 If someone mocks their abilities, then they're unhappy. If someone bumps them off center stage, then they're unhappy. They may be mad or they may be sad, but they're unhappy. These people can't say no to themselves. In fact, they're willing to suffer to achieve success, but they tend to suffer, especially from the spiritual sins, the deadly sins of pride, covetous sin entering their pencil motive as Bangalore, so there's a thumbnail sketch of the man who have the habit of choosing what makes them look the third. These are the man whose principle aim in life is to be good. They have a habit of choosing what helps them to be their motto is seeking first the Kingdom of God and it's justice and all these things shall be added on. They seek to submit to the will of God in all things. Their standard of conduct is not what everyone else is doing.
Speaker 1 08:14 It is not what seems good to me, what God wants and they're striving hard to live by faith, open, shared. They love the truth even when it hurts, as it often does and they're willing to suffer for the truth. They do pendants and practice modification not only to make up for their own sins but for the sins of others and they also do and it's because it's anyone quickly learned. If a person has a regular habit of annoying, even here and changing itself defines other people and other situations a whole lot less irritating. They don't root over their hurt feelings and they're giving ideations in spite of the fact that they heard because they realize that this crush is applied and what you scanning in a way of their bullying and it's socially awkward situations, they're far more worried about what God is thinking about what other men think their principal motive is a love of God.
Speaker 1 09:11 Feel good, look good, be good. Those are the three habitual motives. Should men approach life with the first to feeling good and looking good come naturally. They have to be fought. We have to struggle against him. Being good is a supernatural thing that we have to pray it continually adjust our attitudes. This is why the Benedictans for example, have that idea of daily conversion, daily conversion cause by nature as we know we're children of Wrath, we have to daily convert to turn back. We try to be good. Now why does this matter? Suppose for in the state of grades, that means we're already essentially holy. That's at the state of grace means, and we already all know the purpose of life, but besides that, it's still quite possible for men to live in a way that they're really trying to grow in holiness, but they have the true devotion to the blessed virgin.
Speaker 1 10:05 They're saying the rosary to go into confession. They're doing spiritually. They're doing all the things they're supposed to do as captain. They're really trying, but they're still having a huge amount of difficulties and problems, and maybe they're not even happy. It don't seem to be getting anywhere. Now, all those practices are necessary. They're great. They're not the problem. Here's the problem. Many men, in spite of the fact they're trying to live a good and holy Catholic life or having these struggles because of there's a bitch, will this position, if we have a default setting to feel good, then even if we're praying like crazy when we don't get what we want, when we're asked to do something we don't like, when something interferes with our desires to feel good, then we're unhappy. We'll be unhappy. Maybe we're going to get mad. Maybe we'll be sad, but we're unhappy.
Speaker 1 10:57 Why? Because we've got in our heart eventual expectation that I had to feel good all the time. And then when God hasn't arranged the universe so that everything runs exactly according to our desires, then we've got this problem. Or maybe we have the default setting to look good. We think, hey, I'm the captain of my soul. Then even if we're praying like crazy when something comes along that humiliates us or towards our Kaitlin carefully laid plans or causes us to look bad in front of the people that we're trying to impress, then one will be unhappy and it will be mad. He will be upset that we'll be unhappy. Why? Because in our heart of hearts, we have habitual expectation that we to look good. And then when God wasn't come around to our point of view, it raised the whole universe so that we're right in the center of it at the very probable creation.
Speaker 1 11:52 Then we've got a problem. Huh? So each one of us ought to sit down and ask themselves, seriously, what's My d folks? That what's my provincial basis for judging what I do and what happens to me? Do I tend to judge what I do? What happens to me by my feelings go? I tend to judge what I do and what happens to me by what others will think of me by what seems right to me or do I tend to judge what I do and what happens to me in the light of eternity. Constantly see, to conform my will to God's holy will. The purpose of our life is to know and love to serve God in this life so that we'll be happy with him forever. The next, to the degree that our habitual disposition is an exact line with that person to the degree that our disposition is to be good.
Speaker 1 12:45 To that very degree, we won't be using ourselves like a fly swatting fiddle. We'll be happy and aimed in the right direction, but to the degree that our habitual disposition is not a natural setting, either feeling good or looking good at that very degree, we've impaired our ability to love and serve God in this life will know him, but we won't be able to love him and serve him properly because we've set ourselves up to act in a different way to the degree with impair that ability to love and serve in this life. To that degree, we're also going to be unhappy in this life and possibly even in the next because it's set out, but we can change with the grace of God. We can change it today. Let's pray that our faith increases so that each one of us can indeed, habitually judge both what we do and what happens to us and the light of eternity. Always seeking conformity with God's holy will in all things.
