Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible> the father and the son and the Holy spirit. Amen. We're going to spend some time this morning. Speaking about the life of a creator. Grace means free gift was good. Remember, it's a free gift from God. Now, as we all know, there's more than one type of grace. For example, actual praise actual grace gives us the supernatural power to do supernaturally good at it. It's like praying or a making a good confession so forth. So actual grace supernatural is the way we act, but sanctifying grace changes our be it changes how we are sanctifying grace sanctifies. It makes us be Holy. It's actually another kind of life. Incredibly enough. It's actually created share in God's own life that he places into our soul to give us a new type of life, supernatural life. And this makes us be Holy. This is what st. Peter's afraid from second Peter, one four, when he writes of us becoming partakers of the divine nature.
Speaker 0 00:01:15 He's talking about this, creating a share in God's own life, that he places into our soul and makes us be Holy. And that's called sanctifying grace. And that's what we mean when he talked about being in the state of grace. So actual grace gives us the part of, to actual good works supernaturally, good works. Somebody doesn't have to be in the state of grace and they respond to actual racist. They repent. They returned to Christ. That has an actual grids. Sanctifying. Grace is a created share. Goodness is so important. Understand that a created share in God's own life, pretty places into our soul. And that's what makes us the whole, and again, scripture speaks of this as being partakers of the divine nature. Now because of Adam's sin, men fell from grace, accepting for our lady. Men are not concede without sanctifying drips. Men are not concede without the supernatural life.
Speaker 0 00:02:19 Naturally speaking there, isn't a single thing that any of us can do about this. Okay? So what's the big deal. Why, why should this be a concern? Does it, it seem like men can get throughout life without saying define crazy. Well, of course they can varying degrees of success, but here's the problem. It's not enough. Our natural life is not enough. Adam left us in a very real predicament in order to live the life of heaven in order to even get to heaven. When we die, we have to be supernaturally. We have to have sanctifying grace. That's an absolute. If we die of sanctifying, grace, we can live the life of heaven. If we die without sanctifying grace, we can live the life of him. And that mean that we'd have to go to hell.
Speaker 0 00:03:25 Everybody needs to understand that in order for us to go to heaven, when we die, it has to receive powers above its nature, super natural power. The supernatural power only comes from God has his free gift, and we can only get it in this life. The great Catholic author, Frank, she had commented. The sacrifice increase is given to men in this life. What man does with it is the primary story of his life. Everything else is incidental on the fringe of no permanent importance. When you come to die, we are judged by the answer. That one question, whether we have the supernatural life in our soul, if the answer is yes, then to heaven, we shall surely go for the supernatural life is the power to live in heaven. If the answer's no, then we cannot possibly go to heaven for, we could not live there. When we got there.
Speaker 0 00:04:38 What are we saying? We're saying that if we die with this power, I have this supernatural power, the supernatural power of sanctifying, grace, our soul can get to heaven. And once it gets there, our soul can live in him. If we die without this power, our soul can't get to heaven. And even if it could get there, we couldn't live there. If we die with the supernatural power, supernatural power, sanctifying, grace, the supernatural life of sanctifying our soul and get to heaven. If we die and without this Bower, our soul can't get to heaven. And that means that it will plunge into hell that's appearances. Everybody needs to burn one thing into their night. The most important thing I'll ever to is die.
Speaker 0 00:05:35 If I die sanctifying grace, if I die with a supernatural life, I can have even have it. If I die without supernatural life, I can't. Now, today, we're going to talk more about the supernatural life of grace. I'm going to talk more about the life of sanctifying grace, and to do that worldwide, principally on the brilliant work of the last great and domestic Sila, which is for the original character hula Cronje Hopi will start though with an analogy is by st. Thomas himself really quickly for the younger folks here. What does it mean to use an analogy? An analogy is a kind of a comparison. When we draw an analogy between two things, we're trying to understand something. And so he couldn't care. One thing that we're familiar with too, another thing that we don't know much about. So that's the analogy. Yes. So in order to understand the supernatural life of sanctifying, grace, we have to start with an analogy we're in compare the supernatural life of sanctifying grace to the three periods or stages of natural life, childhood adolescence, manhood. So although early childhood or infancy lasts till the age of reason, sometimes somewhere around the age of seven, a childhood itself last somewhere around the age of 13 or 14 til puberty, youth or adolescents last from 1314 from puberty till about the age of 20, roughly CPT and manhood falls upon them.
Speaker 0 00:07:18 These three levels of maturity. So to speak these three stages of natural life or analogous to stages and the spiritual life. But in order to appreciate that in order to really try out the analogy we needed to consider a few more details, character quote, a man's mentality, changes with his development. That activity of a child is not that of a man in miniature. The dominant element in childhood it's different. The child is, it has, it has, has yet. No discernment is unable to organize itself in a rational manner. It follows the lead of the imagination impulses of the senses. And even when it's reason begins to awake and it still remains to a great deal dependent upon it senses most important to be noted for the purposes of our present subject is a transition from childhood tad lessons and from youth to man, the period of puberty, which is the end of childhood, roughly the age of 14 is characterized by transformation.
Speaker 0 00:08:25 What is it? Which is not only organic, but also psychological intellectual and moral. The youth has no longer content to follow. As imagination as the child was. He begins to reflect on things of human life, on the nature of repair himself for some career or occupation in the future. You no longer pass the child's attitude towards family. Social religious matters. His moral personality begins to take shape and he acquires the of honor and the importance of a good reputation or else in the contrary, if he passes unsuccessfully through this difficult period, he deteriorates and falls evil courses. The law of nature store dates that the transition from childhood to you must follow a normal development. Otherwise the subject will assume positive bias to eval, or he'll remain a half, go ahead for the rest of his life. He makes no progress. There's this ground.
Speaker 0 00:09:29 If the physical and moral crisis of puberty is a difficult transition, the same is to be said of another crisis, which we may call the crisis of first freedom, which occurs at this stage where the youth Anders man, who at about the age of 20, the young man having now reached his complete physical development has, has to begin to take his place in social life. It will soon be timeframe to marry, to become an educator in his own term, unless he has received from God, our vocation, still many fail to surmount this crisis of first freedom, like the prodigal son to park from their father's home and confuse Liberty with license here again, the law or dates of the transition must be made. Normally, otherwise the young man either takes the wrong road or his development is arrested and he becomes, one of those of them would have said, he'll be a child for the rest of his life. The true adult is not merely young man. Growing a little older. He has a new mentality is preoccupied with wider questions, questions to which to you who does not get into her clothes clothes.
Speaker 0 00:10:38 Okay. So there are three stages of naturalized childhood. You throw out lessons and man each day has a characteristic mentality. The child either after either after having reached the age of reason is preoccupied largely with his imagination insensitive and an adolescent begins to reflect on the business of human life. On the new age, prepare himself for his future. With some career occupation, he no longer has a child's attitude towards his family towards social religious matters. His moral personality begins to take shape and he acquires the sense of honor and understands says, do you have a good reputation? The adult of course has a different mentality than adolescent constraints itself. So water and in this natural development, they're true transitions to crisis. These that need to be successfully navigated in order to continue to develop. Normally the first crisis is across the purity, which if he negotiates successfully, he'll mature normally.
Speaker 0 00:11:46 But if he passes unsuccessfully through he'll deteriorate and have a positive bias towards evil in our times, and you don't need me to point this out, but we see most commonly this propensity towards evil and crisis that happens in purity that is not negotiate successfully. And that's largely missed, especially cause a result of the breakdown with family and the evil influence of the media and the internet. So this young person gets hooked in fights. It is unbelievable when he's doing that transition or before, and it ends up warping him. We're only speaking naturally supernaturally as can be cured, but naturally it can be, it can only be coped with, okay. The second price is a crisis, the first freedom, and that's that transition from adolescence to adulthood. And again, someone negotiates that successfully or passed with the rag to the normal functioning adults. But if he passes unsuccessfully through this difficult time of his first freedom and falls into the ranks of product, his life will become a struggle. And again, although with grace, this condition can video. His life will become a struggle and he will be to varying degrees of wounded and stunted personality.
Speaker 0 00:13:04 And all this is analogous to spiritual life. The life of sanctifying, grace and the spiritual, the supernatural life of those in the state of grace and the life of sanctifying grace. There are three ages which are analogous to the three pages, naturally speaking your childhood, adolescence and adulthood for the rest of the sermon. That's what we're going to talk about. So the supernatural life, there are three ages of the supernatural life and they're analogous to three natural stages of childhood adolescence and adulthood. We'll start with the bottom. As scripture says, by nature, we are children of wrath. That's the predicament Adam put us into, and that's the significance of baptism baptism. The supernatural life of sanctifying. Grace was poured into those of us that were baptized as children. There's several other possibilities. We'll cover those at a later date. So baptism the supernatural life of grace is poured into us.
Speaker 0 00:14:10 And as long as we don't ever commit a mortal sin, it will remain with us until we die. Mortal sin is in fact supernatural suicide. It absolutely destroys the life of grace. We become spiritually dead, which means if we don't have that condition without the supernatural life, we can't be sick. But when someone has been baptized and put in a state of grace now has a supernatural life, which corresponds to natural childhood. This spiritual life at this stage is known as the purgative life or the life that beginners. And it has a particular focus. Garrett who explained above the condition of heart is sinners above the state of those central souls who live in anticipation. Conversion of justification sets us in the state of grace, great, which sin never destroyed grace, which like a supernatural seed ought to continually grow until it has reached its full development and the immediate vision of the divine essence and a perfect love, which will last forever conversion.
Speaker 0 00:15:19 There ought to be a serious beginning of the provocative life, which beginners love God by avoiding mortal sin and deliberate video's sin through exterior and interior mortification and through prayer. But in actual fact, his prerogative life was found under two very different forms. And some admittedly very few, this life is intense. Generous is the narrow way of a perfect self-denial described by the snakes and many others that the productive life appears in an attenuated form vary from good souls for a little week down to those tepid and retarded souls, who from time to time, fall into mortal sin, the same remark will have to be made for the other two words age of which is likewise. And then tenuated in an intense form.
Speaker 0 00:16:13 Okay? So the first age of the spiritual life, the age of a spiritual child, as it were, is known as the prerogative life or the life of beginners, and the focus on this page should be on continually staying in the state of grace by avoiding all mortal sin and all deliberate venial sin on denying self, on concrete advice. Isn't able tenancies and not growing in the virtues by fatefully, performing exterior and interior modifications and upon developing a true love of prayer. Now at this time, the kind of prayer that a beginner has, the priority of life is called discursive prayer. They think they go from one point to another one, point to another when they're praying and I'm not speaking of the life of prayer, I'm not talking about reading prayers. A lot of times, that's just so much chatter people, pilot, prayer. After prayer, they're not praying.
Speaker 0 00:17:15 Pray is lifting your heart and mind to God. It's not doing a whole list of things. When you're standing rosary, you should try to think about the mysteries because we've fallen. It's quite easy to get me distracted. In fact, it's amazing if you're not distracted, sometimes, maybe infrequently st. Trace that out. Great talk for the church. One of the greatest mistakes in history called her mind, the mad woman in the house, because it went here and there, but we will keep thinking. And when we find out, wait, I'm shopping, she comes back to print. Whoops, I'm over here doing the dishes. She comes back. That's what it is. Distraction. If it's not deliberate is not a problem. If you're trying to throw your rosary and watch baseball, that's not, no, that's not gonna work. You gotta say, okay, but discursive prayers going from one point to the other, we'll talk about mental prayer a little later.
Speaker 0 00:18:11 Cause it's so important. But the one metric everybody should know is the rosary. And the other one is how to unite themselves at mass. And I have talked about prayer. It's not making a bunch of alert, prayers, not getting frantically through 50 prayers that they think they're praying that day as fast as they can. It's better to have one machine do a well than a pile of women. Just chatter away like some chip on cocaine. Cause this is serious. If you want to cry, okay? Now at this point in life, but people are generous in doing these things in the prerogative way, then their mental prayer, the roads and stuff will be marked, uh, by this many sensible constellations. Typically at various times, Garrett who explains then I'll make some scary beginners who are truly generous. Love God with a Holy fierce, which causes them to avoid mortal sin and even deliberate videos by dent, dental modifying his senses.
Speaker 0 00:19:11 And concupiscence in the various forms when they have been engaged for certain time and this generous effort, they're usually rewarded by some sense of a constellations in prayer from the study of divine things. What's a sense of a constellation. It feels good. They're getting warm flood. If something, they feel like, well, this is really great. It's it just, there's something good about that's what's called sensible. It sense consensus. It feels good. Okay. And that's the way God wins over their sensibility for it is by their sensibilities talking about beginners it's by their sensibility, but cheaply live. He directs it. Their sensibility way from dangerous things towards himself at this stage of Genesis beginner already loves God with all his heart, but not yet with all his soul, with all his trunk of all his mind, call this quote. That's scared to explain, but as character plants out there, in fact, two very rare, very different forms of the prerogative life.
Speaker 0 00:20:11 And some who said they were actually very few. This life is intense and generous. They generally are striving and being generous about striking the straight and narrow path with self denial and many others. That prerogative life appears in a weak and attenuated form. Very firm, good souls are a little weak down. Tap, head retarded souls who from time to time, fall into mortals and temporary retarded. So another word for that scriptural word is lukewarm. It's a scary punch to me. People think, yeah, I'll go to mass on Sunday. Look, doesn't really matter what I watch on TV. And I can go with compassion. I'll go to Madison Sunday. Doesn't matter, but drink too much. Doesn't matter if I cuss and swear he is in the Lord's name. It doesn't matter if I steal people. They're trying to make compromise. Let's just make one thing really clear in our minds. Everybody needs to do this. God makes no compromise. God says it. And that's it. What he says is true.
Speaker 0 00:21:19 What he says as far as there are no compromises with God. So we're just lying to ourself. We think we're going to cut a quarter. There are no corners to God. Has he got immersed, but he's not a God. A compromise, no compromise. Okay. So if someone's faithful and it's driving, he's going to come to a transition. It's from the age of spiritual childhood, the prerogative life, the life of the weekender to the spiritual age, which is analogous to the age of an adolescent. This life is called aluminum fly with a life of proficiency. And during the transsexual and spiritual childhood, the prerogative life is spiritual adolescents, illuminative life. There's a crisis. And before we go any farther on every one of you here now, by virtue of your past baptism is absolutely called to the lumen of life. It should be the normal way of development. I have to say, it's extremely rare, but that's always on the side of us on the side of how or silver going to be. How clearly do we see what he put us in the world to do this life just passes through. It's going to be gone before, you know, even if somebody had to live a hundred years and I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, but even if somebody had to live a hundred years, that's nothing compared to your attorney. What do you do on Y?
Speaker 0 00:22:54 So if someone's facial mist is when you get to this transition, it's going to be crisis between the spiritual childhood, the provocative life and the load of life. And that crisis is known as the dark night of the senses or the past with the purification of the sentences. I quote from care, the transition to the limit of life follows upon certain sensible constellations, which did generally reward the courageous effort of mortification as a sole lingers and enjoyment of his constellation, God withdraws. And then the soul finds itself in that more along the long, less prolonged aridity of the sentences, which is known as a passive period of baby purification of sentences. We pause for a moment. What happens is God has constellations in someone Shannon's sensible constellation, but then what are we doing? Our false state. We fall in love with the constellation. So we're double capture while we're praying, because we like how it feels because that's the fall nature.
Speaker 0 00:23:59 Guess what? We're not speaking her, but the rest of us, that's how it is not to be alone. So what does God do? He takes the constellations away. It's not a punishment, but it's an encouragement. We're supposed to be in love with the God of constellations, not the constellations of God. And so he takes him away to encourage us. It is very painful for someone who get us there. Okay? So this probation would go back to take care of her. It's brigade, perdition, persists, unceasingly in generous souls. And it leads you by way of initial infused contemplation to the fulfillment of life. All of a sudden their prayer becomes simpler and simpler instead of going from this point to that point, to this point, to that point, they go to this point and there they are, and they're not doing that by their own power.
Speaker 0 00:24:54 God is working in their soul, their condoms they're actually entering contemplation. That's what's called a nation and then they'll get lights and press to understand the penetrate deeper into particular mystery of the road through here and at some particular event and just something of a Holy mass and something, the Holy scriptures they'll help us understand at a much deeper level. And this isn't little voices and stuff like that. It's actually a light. Okay. So Garrick, this probation perceives on system unceasingly, generous souls him by way of initial infused contemplation to the full element of life and other souls that are left, generous souls that shine the cross, the purgation is off and interrupted, and these souls are enjoyable and attenuated for awakened form of aluminum fly. But we'll see if the gift of infuse contemplation only at long intervals. Plus the past with night of the senses just seemed to be a second conversion, more or less perfect close quote.
Speaker 0 00:26:02 He continues to explain more about it. And then I'll illustrate some more comments. A second conversion becomes necessary described by Saint John of the cross, under the name of the passive. Purgation his senses of this st. John's. It is common. It comes to men. These are beginners and it's purpose is to lead them onto the roadway, the spirit, which is that progressors and proficiency. The way of it fuse contemplation, where with God itself feeds and refreshes the soul. This purgation is characterized by a prolonged dryness in which the beginner is deprived of all sensible constellations in which he had taken him to. Great pleasure. If in the midst of this dryness, there's an intense desire for God. Desire should reign in us together with a fear of offending him. Then this is a second side, which is the divine. <inaudible> still more so to this intense desire for God.
Speaker 0 00:26:56 There's added difficulty in praying, according to discursive method, from this point to that and an inclination towards a prayer of simple regard of love. That's the third sentence. Second conversion is in progress that the soul is being raised up into a higher life that have a limited way. And everyone here is called a, if his soul endures this purgation satisfactory, sensibility becomes more and more subject to the spirit, the soul secured of its spiritual, greedy of the private. I led it to pose as a master. I learned some better directly in as its own needies, not as frequently. In other words, calmly other difficulties arise to pertain to the progress of purgation. For example, in study, in our relations with the persons to whom we are too greatly attached, and for whom God, how swiftly painfully detaches our affections at this time to their offering arise grave temptations against chest pain patients, temptations has got a lot of, so that by reaction against them, these virtues, which were residing sensible of a part of our nature may become more and more firmly rooted in this illness to maybe sent to Tris during this period.
Speaker 0 00:28:05 And this crisis, God TILs have gone to the soul dig deeper and Pharaoh, which he put placed into us at our, at the beginning of our first Cooper upwards, the evil weeds, this crisis is not without its dangers like the crisis, the 14th or 15th year, the development of a natural life. Some proven faith was to the vocation. People will turn back. Even when he tell him this is what you're going through, they don't want it. They want to go back 20 felt good, but she actually can. Can't get back. It's like trying to say, no, I want to go back in the cradle. It could look on that. You know, that that just isn't going to happen. All right? And so they, in other words, they've worked for themselves. And so they don't enter into a little bit of a way. And in them, the words in the scripture are fulfilled in not on the time of their visitation. These falls, especially if they're in the religious or prison, state are not tending to perfections, should unconsciously are stopping others from doing stuff, placing serious obstacles in the way of those who really desire to make progress.
Speaker 0 00:29:14 That's really important. That's really important. Now, why is God doing this passive purification? Because our efforts can only go so far. We modify ourselves, but there's only so much virtual. We can get out of it. We do all these pride selling so much. So, but we're so damaged from original actual sin that he reaches in. And then he's basically realigning our senses. So it's like spiritual bodywork. If you rent a pickup in an Oak tree to total that, then all the banging out of all that, to get that thing. So it's going, let's say, say it still runs me. Can't do anything with the engine. The drive train are fine, but it's, you got to sit there and beat that off. That's a basically analogous to what God's doing in your senses. He's straightened and everything back the way it should have been and never was.
Speaker 0 00:30:04 Thank you very much. So he straightened out your senses and that's why it's so painful. He's in there working. And that's why we have to be generous, but it isn't farming, which a lot of people seem to think. It's not like let's all. And to be happy, go to heaven. It's a crucifix. It's a symbol of our religion. We're being conformed to crucify the Lord. So it is a crucifixion, but there's a joy in the pain. Our board had a spiritual joy and all that suffering. And you'll give that to the people that are generous. They get inspired a red and it's horrible. He'll give them what they need, but she got overwhelmed. I come, we talk about this stuff. You have to win it. I can't boil it for you and where you're going to be on your death bed will never regret being a champion.
Speaker 0 00:30:59 There's a lot of things he's going to regret. Maybe, hopefully not, but you'll never regret being generous. But look what he's done for you. Everyone here is called to this. So they transformed through that crisis and they get to the illuminative way. And so what that happens, character talks a little bit about the of life. It brings with it, the obscure and fuse contemplation on the mysteries of faith kind of place you'd already been initiated in the past that night of the sentences. Okay. So what happens is we have that stars. Now I'm only going to go to this sermon because I don't want to go to there's one more crisis of a purse. These is really chance because that's a crisis on the way to spiritual adulthood and that's the dark night of the spirit. And then they become their unitive way where they're called.
Speaker 0 00:31:59 Perfect. Now I've actually at the exits, I've left a little diagram. I took it from Garrett on what all is any start at the bottom and go up. So it has everything here, prerogative life for beginners eliminative life or proficiency period. Life are the perfect. So you can see what the, what, what a child, or what goes from childhood to adolescence, to adulthood. What would it look like in the spiritual life? And everybody should start surely to climb up that. And as quickly as you can on your side, if you're a generous, he's never out done in generosity, pray, pray to goal and holiness, pray to move up in the spiritual life. Pray for him and well, father.
