Fire Within chapter 07

Scylla + Charybdis

Fire Within: Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and the Gospel on Prayer (Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.) https://ignatius.com/fire-within-fwp/

(If you are catching up: chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6,)

Chapter 7: “Conditions for Growth”

Wednesday 2/19 n.b. I am sick [on that date] and have not been to Mass since Friday 2/14 (morning). The first thing I would note before commenting on this chapter, Lord, is that “union” (the unitive state) is in essence a union of the soul’s will with Your will. So if we want to grow toward that state then we should expect growth to look like what St. John the Baptist said, “he must increase + I must decrease”. I must stop doing “whatever I want” and stop wanting things that I know are not what You want. And instead I must start wanting what You want (this is variously called “nada” or “abandonment to divine providence” or etc.) — it is a conforming of my will to Yours (for my own good!) But to know this in the abstract is 1. different from what to do about it right now, and 2. knowing how is different from wanting to! So we might have to begin, Lord, by asking for the grace to want to become saints! ...

It is very kind of You, Lord, to put a sunbeam here on the kitchen floor where I can sit in it. I am reading the chapter but I will not have anything useful or interesting to say unless You give me something to say. [After this, evidently I attempted to say useful or interesting things anyway.]

— Humility is important, Lord, because Your love is unmerited and it never will be earned; the more of it we receive the more we “owe” and cannot pay back... and the closer we come to You the greater the depth, or height, that we see between You and us, which is humility ... if a person does not love humility then they are not going to have a good time (however, You give people humility very readily if they as for it. So we ought to ask.)

Determination is necessary for the same reason: to not turn back when this [i.e. when seeing one’s distance from God] happens.

... we ought to be willing, figuratively speaking, to sit on the floor, if that is where the sunbeam is, ... it has moved out of the room now, however, and I am cold.

FRIDAY [crossed out] SATURDAY (what day even is it? [It is Chair of St Peter day.]) 2/22

My Lord, I am very happy to be here, at my parish church. I was very happy yesterday to go to Mass at the next parish between two obligations [i.e. necessary errands] and I am even happier to be here now. I am also very happy to think that I will go to confession after Mass. Last Saturday I was sick at home. I am still not recovered but at least not contagious — and I would not want to have driven farther than here and I do not think that I will stand in line. However, Lord, sometimes Your ideas are not what I have planned (actually all of the time but sometimes I notice it.)

I notice that this week Your theme for me is: “you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood” which in memory I have attributed to St. Paul. I have looked it up for reference now [on my phone] and it is Heb. 12:4. (I will write out the Greek later.) I say this b/c I have: 1. Looked up “the imperfections of beginners” (in DN [Dark Night. I am still not fully recovered on Sunday when I am typing this up and am making plenty of typos not much improved by autocorrection, such as: Darn Night] and in Life of St. T [St. Teresa of Avila]) ... 2. I have been reading chap. 7 + 8 in Spiritual Theology (Aumann) [of which I purchased an ebook after lending out the book itself to a friend] + halfway through 8 went back to write out some notes of practical tips presented by the author. Really there is a lot more that I ought to be doing but it could also be summarized by a quote I will put in w/ regard to the purification of one’s motives.

“try to do all things with the greatest purity of intention, with the greatest possible desire of glorifying God, with total abandonment to God so that the Holy Spirit can take complete control of our soul and do with us as he wishes.”

But my actions also are not what they should be. (Now we are all praying a perpetual novena [to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal] — I will not stand but at least stop writing.) [I was not in shape to keep up with a novena, although it is a familiar one, so I did not do more than generally desire to “help out”, but I was struck by a sentence in it even though it is familar.]

“And that purity of heart which will attach us to God alone so that every word, thought, + deed may tend to His greater glory”: here also, the same thing. What I need is: purity of intention; to more vigorously resist temptation from the enemy; and one other thing I was going to write down but forgot. Well, anyhow, You’ll remind me after Mass if it was important. [Evidently it was not important.] I would like to just stare at You for a bit [i.e. at the tabernacle]... also You will have to tell me after Mass what to confess (it is probably my job to know + to keep track but today You will just have to tell me; sorry.) One ought to do away with the defeatist attitude “but I shall fall into this same sin again” and really resolve that “with Your help I will not sin again” and should prefer to die. [This I picked up from ST, above.]

[After Mass] Looking back at the chapter [7 in Fire Within] I see this in the 1st and 4th paragraph in “basic principles”: conformity of will is aligned with purity of intention; resisting temptation (which, as I say, I have not done as I should) is aligned w/ purification, the rooting out of defects. Earlier (last night, scrawled in the dark) I identified three temptations that I ought particularly to be aware of: (ends of an axis) “sloth vs. activism” [these two are not the right words at all, but it is what I wrote for lack of the right ones and I will have to explain some other time what I was thinking]; and, “against charity” (impatience w/, or sarcasm toward, the most trying member of my household). Today reflecting after Mass it seems to me that the first two are Scylla + Charybdis because in abandoning prayer all is lost: the ship sinks. It is better to lose the six best men at the oars as Odysseus says he did. What does this mean in practice, Lord; You will have to tell me. But also it seemed to me that faithfulness to prayer is not unrewarded and that I ought to trust You to make up whatever thing it is I am afraid of (FOMO [fear of missing out]). [Also the often substantiated fear that if I do not write something down I will not remember it.] Such as “let me just write down what I was about to do” (at work) “so that I do not forget”... [and, in practice, this idea is immediately followed not by writing a sentence or two, but by just continuing to work and putting off praying the breviary for at least 15 minutes, or possibly 2 hours, until something else reminds me to stop working. At home I have also often wandered around the house doing small errands, anything that came into my mind in the moment, while allegedly praying the breviary.] — I ought to just throw it into the fire rather than rate activity over prayer.

Further, rather than sin again against charity I ought to prefer to die and I assure You, Lord, that at present my habits are so bad that it will feel like dying! to get up when called over to see something, uncomplainingly + immediately — this is a very little thing for You to ask and I regret that I have so many times refused it to You. I ought to be resolved, as St. Paul says, or whoever wrote this letter (St. Thomas Aquinas says, endearingly, that he thinks St. Paul wrote it in his native tongue and St. Luke translated it into very good Greek.) [Here I looked up the interlinear on my phone and commented “I know 2 of those words” in the margin.]

Οὔτω μέχρις αἵματος ἀντικατέστητε πρὸς τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἀνταγωνιζόμενοι
(not yet) (unto) (blood) (have you resisted) (against) [definite article] (sin) (struggling)

This entire chapter (Heb 12) is probably very good. As for the rest of Fr. Dubay’s chapter: at the end we find just what I have said here: better for the monastery to burn down and everyone in it, St. Teresa exclaimed, than for someone in it to habitually sin against charity — well, I will go home and, with Your grace, Lord, begin again. (St. Philip Neri: “Well! When shall we begin to do good?”) [Here I am thinking of Jan 1: http://liturgialatina.org/oratorian/maxims.htm ]

Sunday 2/23 - readings https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022325.cfm “... for the measure w/ which you measure will be measured out to you.” [Here I drew Scylla + Charybdis before Mass as a reminder to myself. The ship is not running aground, but rather I did not think it would look like a ship if I did not draw it from the side.]

[These were my notes from the Gospel. Cf. Luke 6:29-30.] Allow the Lord to take not only your cloak but also your tunic. What He takes, do not ask for it back.