I'm happy to see you returning to this theme. Your writings for the Remnant on all things monastic helped propel me on my journey to become a Benedictine Oblate in 2022. I have a lot to learn myself, and look forward to accompanying you on this journey.
Don't feel bad - we're in the same boat. (You're Latin Catholic, I'm Ukrainian Greek Catholic. 😉) For years I used to tell my family things like "It's (Feast) - make sure you go to church!" "It's the first day of the Great Fast - no meat and dairy products!" "Make sure you go to confession and Holy Communion for Easter!" I felt that it was my obligation to tell them what to do (one of the 9 ways of being accessory to another's sin is by silence).
Now as I am older, I realize that I cannot "eat, bite and devour your fellow man" (St. John Chrysostom). I am slowly realizing that I have to fast from sin, "otherwise you will be likened to demons that never eat !" (Lenten Triodion)
Usually people say what they are "giving up for Lent". About 7-8 years ago, I resolved to give up chocolate for the Great Fast. Now where I work we have lots of bars and other snacks with chocolate. All of a sudden, I would have a desire for chocolate. That was a VERY tough Lent.
Another year I decided to give up coffee ☕. Again, BAD idea. Almost everyone at work likes coffee. I'd go out to eat with my mom (she was still living then). She'd have coffee and I'd smell the coffee, craving a cup of coffee ☕.
Now I don't make resolutions for the Great Fast. I just need to get through each day with God's help.
I'd upgrade to paid, but I can't afford it right now.
Lent with prayer according to the Philokalia! This type of event was created by the Benedictines from Tyniec. I am very pleased with how many monastic works are translated into Polish, but I see how the teachings of the Desert Fathers are missing in homilies, even in the ministries of the Latin Tradition.
While reading various reflections, especially those after the Council of Trent, I noticed that there was a very big difference in the approach to faith and serving God. Everything is based on the severity of the message, punishment, intimidation, and calculation. The Desert Fathers had a completely different approach to these issues. For example, I'm reading Reflections for Lent from 1800 and it's hard for me to reconcile it with what I read in the monastic book: "Abba, tell me a word. A selection of apophthegmatic"
I don't know if it's even valid to have this type of feeling. But I feel like two different worlds are colliding, especially when I read The Desert Fathers.
I don't know what a "valid feeling" even is. If you have a feeling, it's valid. That's how feelings work. It is an intuition worth listening to and thinking about that there was a radical shift in emphasis in the material for the spiritual life offered to the laity after 1563, and one which you are not alone in having.
There was a huge shift in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the western Church. Reading the Fathers and St Thomas on the one hand, and the stuff in print from about 1500 to 1960 on the other, I almost feels like I'm reading about two different religions. (Obviously much post-1960 stuff has huge problems too, but I assume everybody is familiar with those.) I honestly can't read stuff written during this time period. It makes me seriously depressed and despairing. So much of it reads like "God hates you and may decide to save you if you're lucky, but really you're still a dirty little worm who deserves hell". I'm exaggerating only slightly. Mankind contains personality types who find that kind of thing helpful, but they're a minority, if a very loud and influential one. Then I read St Athanasius on the Incarnation, or St Paul, and my spirits lift and I'm good to keep going.
There was a reason that the *laity*, who were not modernists or revolutionaries, fell away so quickly after Vatican 2. Maybe they were relieved to be free of what they thought was the Faith.
Nominalism and voluntarism were the main causes of this 16th-Century shift. John Lamont's essay on Rorate Caeli "A Jesuit Tragedy" is a great place to start understanding this. It talks mainly about the messed-up Jesuit concept of obedience, but the shift affected every area of the Faith. Fr Servais Pinckaers is also well worth perusing.
Thank you for your words. For a long time I have been constantly drawn towards the teachings of the Desert Fathers and to stay there and not go back. As soon as I return to the pre-conciliar reflections (of course, not all of them), I feel like I have a split personality again. Thanks to your words and Hilary's, I know I'm not the only one who has this feeling. I will research this topic and if you can recommend anything, I will be obliged. The link to the article you provided - amazing!
Update: it looks as though Rorate Caeli has taken down the essay I mentioned, without explanation. Shame on them. But it's trivial to find elsewhere, so no worries.
Dr Lamont wrote on the same theme and in more detail here:
Yes, they took it down quite a long time ago. I think Catholic Family News has it. I agree it's one of the most important articles to come out recently, and I've passed it around to everyone I know.
Any idea why RC took it down in this secretive manner?
I wonder if it's because it undermines much of the position that is called traditionalism, the underlying premise of which is that things were fine until V2 (or, at most, the modernist crisis of the early 20C)?
I'm so excited about this new section! "The Wisdom of the Desert" by Thomas Merton was the book that made me decide to become Catholic -- it introduced me an organic side of the faith I'd never been exposed to before. It reminded me of Zen Buddhism (which I spent a lot of time learning about in high school and have always been very fond of) and gave Catholicism a new feeling of wholeness for me, if that makes sense, rather than just saying the recited prayers and going through the motions. It felt like the missing piece to Christianity that I had been searching for my whole life. There isn't enough information about the early Church online -- I'm so excited to read more. Thank you!
Miss White- It is what I often call 'doing all the things' and it probably does have its place, but it is a very basic introductory one. A way of being oriented and beginning purgation. That the Christian path typically ends there is one reason why people leave the Church and move to, say, Buddhism or simply give up entirely. Or just remain stuck for decades wondering what they are doing wrong.
But there is a full-depth and co comprehensive Christia path waiting to be more fully revived. There is no need to look other than in our own house. Anyway, I look forward to more of your thoughts on the matter.
And thank you for recommending my substack. It is much appreciated.
Oh my! You got me right at the start by at that amazing painting by Bradi Barth - my eyes flew open and I felt this mystic and beautiful drawing into what the artist expressed: simplicity, sweetness, great love, majesty, mystery, beauty - and the desire to understand the divine plan. Just from this one painting before I even read your post! Something like this simply opens the heart with longing for the Divine. The terrible thing is that I have not even heard of this artist before. It looked very old, and yet I knew it was a contemporary painting. I am gob-smacked after finding more of her works online.
What you say is so true about the contemplative prayer needed to become a saint - even a very, very small one. Therese of the small and little had the hang of it. I'm a Secular Carmelite, so I find great food for thought in a reassuring and positive way by reading "Divine Intimacy" by Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD (born 1893). This follows the Vetus Ordo calendar. The idea is to draw us inward and develop a deep relationship with Our Lord. Of all the many Catholic books I own, I keep coming back to this one because it removes me from life's distractions and agitation to what is real and quiet and true.
Hilary, you are doing us a great favor by writing in this vein. Please keep on!
I was also struck by the tiny image of Our Lady with the Child. It reminded me of the visions of Blessed Catherine Emmerich, especially those that described the creation of Adam, Eve, and the Promise after the fall.
I recently watched the EWTN exchange of Feb 15 between Raymond Arroyo ("The World Over") and Elizabeth Lev about the question of removing Rupnik's work. She agreed that the work is awful and the abuse horrific, but had concerns about "cancel culture" and the widespread use in removing all kinds of art and statuary, etc, which I do understand in principle. But this seems like a situation in which "cancelling" his art is justified. Unfortunately, Rupnik hasn't been brought to trial for his crimes and instead has been protected. Lev feels that the future should decide and tear it down, just because it's hideous art. What are your thoughts? (Interesting that the point was brought up that it is largely clerics who have pushed for this work to be displayed - that his work is "hot". Yikes!).
So glad I discovered your Substack through Rod Dreher. Thank you for the work you're doing and the beauty you're exploring. I've been looking for opportunities to immerse myself more often in beauty, especially of a spiritual perspective, and this seems like the perfect fit.
Thank you, Hilary! I am looking forward to reading about Philokalia. What a great shame that we in the Latin Church have lost an entire mystical tradition. I am writing this from Val d’Orcia, surrounded by so much beauty and peace, a tiny glimpse of heaven. I want to stay here forever and never “come back” to the world of noise, ugliness, and hate.
Hi Hilary. I’m reading Anton Barba-Kay’s A Web of Our Own Making, about the on-line world. I’ve discovered, in my particular case, that I have become unmoored from my role in life…in nature, as first of all a child of God, a mother, wife, grandmother and neighbour. I believe this is the war against us, to destroy our belief in who we are made to be. The temptation to see all, hear all, judge all, to drink in all the dizzying whirl of the world is akin to Satan’s temptation for Our Lord to be master of it all. Long story short, thanks for your writing about the interior life so clearly. Thanks for being a “conduit” and God bless. Barbara
Another follower courtesy of Mr. Dreher. Just a quick note of encouragement regarding your caveat - I am an Orthodox convert myself, and one constant theme you find running through Orthodoxy's own self-understanding is that healing from schisms cannot be forced from above (practically all attempts to do so have only worsened the divides - the few exceptions prove the rule), but must come through the Holy Spirit working through the Body of Christ - us believers. A significant part of that process's working out is through mutual efforts of us folks in the trenches to re-acquaint ourselves with each other. I would consider your efforts here a part of that.
Start by reading about Benedictine monastic spirituality. Learn what that is. Then start investigating monasteries. I would suggest being extremely cautious though. The Modernist heresy that has taken over nearly all the institutions of the Church is especially strong in the Benedictine world. Learn as much as you can about what that is, how to recognise it.
I am a convert who was baptized 7 years ago. Up until recently I was also doing the external "church-going" in the sense you've described. As a former zen-buddhism leaning person and kind of being tired of this general spiritual-but-not-religious attitude I was happy at first to go to external church, to receive the external sacraments, to say rosary regularly. I think it prepares the ground for more. It certainly made my person and my life more grounded, like a child that needs someone to tell what to do or not to do. But at some point this was no longer sufficient, it became the dry water. I discovered meditation and working on one's own virtues. As you I am very much a beginner in all this but God seems to push me in this direction.
The outer and the inner life, the social, organizational and rational on one side and personal, devotional and mystical on the other are like two sides of the same coin in the life of the Church though it might be out of balance at different times in history of the Church or in our own lives. Definitely better than the above mentioned spiritual-but-not-religious attitude so prevalent in recent times.
I'm happy to see you returning to this theme. Your writings for the Remnant on all things monastic helped propel me on my journey to become a Benedictine Oblate in 2022. I have a lot to learn myself, and look forward to accompanying you on this journey.
Goodness, Patrick. Thanks for telling me that. What a thing to hear!
Don't feel bad - we're in the same boat. (You're Latin Catholic, I'm Ukrainian Greek Catholic. 😉) For years I used to tell my family things like "It's (Feast) - make sure you go to church!" "It's the first day of the Great Fast - no meat and dairy products!" "Make sure you go to confession and Holy Communion for Easter!" I felt that it was my obligation to tell them what to do (one of the 9 ways of being accessory to another's sin is by silence).
Now as I am older, I realize that I cannot "eat, bite and devour your fellow man" (St. John Chrysostom). I am slowly realizing that I have to fast from sin, "otherwise you will be likened to demons that never eat !" (Lenten Triodion)
Usually people say what they are "giving up for Lent". About 7-8 years ago, I resolved to give up chocolate for the Great Fast. Now where I work we have lots of bars and other snacks with chocolate. All of a sudden, I would have a desire for chocolate. That was a VERY tough Lent.
Another year I decided to give up coffee ☕. Again, BAD idea. Almost everyone at work likes coffee. I'd go out to eat with my mom (she was still living then). She'd have coffee and I'd smell the coffee, craving a cup of coffee ☕.
Now I don't make resolutions for the Great Fast. I just need to get through each day with God's help.
I'd upgrade to paid, but I can't afford it right now.
A blessed Great Fast/Lent to you.
I used to work for a charity that used the slogan,
"How would you like to change the world?
One heart at a time?
Starting with your own!"
It always struck me as the right way to think about our time on earth.
Lent with prayer according to the Philokalia! This type of event was created by the Benedictines from Tyniec. I am very pleased with how many monastic works are translated into Polish, but I see how the teachings of the Desert Fathers are missing in homilies, even in the ministries of the Latin Tradition.
While reading various reflections, especially those after the Council of Trent, I noticed that there was a very big difference in the approach to faith and serving God. Everything is based on the severity of the message, punishment, intimidation, and calculation. The Desert Fathers had a completely different approach to these issues. For example, I'm reading Reflections for Lent from 1800 and it's hard for me to reconcile it with what I read in the monastic book: "Abba, tell me a word. A selection of apophthegmatic"
I don't know if it's even valid to have this type of feeling. But I feel like two different worlds are colliding, especially when I read The Desert Fathers.
I don't know what a "valid feeling" even is. If you have a feeling, it's valid. That's how feelings work. It is an intuition worth listening to and thinking about that there was a radical shift in emphasis in the material for the spiritual life offered to the laity after 1563, and one which you are not alone in having.
There was a huge shift in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the western Church. Reading the Fathers and St Thomas on the one hand, and the stuff in print from about 1500 to 1960 on the other, I almost feels like I'm reading about two different religions. (Obviously much post-1960 stuff has huge problems too, but I assume everybody is familiar with those.) I honestly can't read stuff written during this time period. It makes me seriously depressed and despairing. So much of it reads like "God hates you and may decide to save you if you're lucky, but really you're still a dirty little worm who deserves hell". I'm exaggerating only slightly. Mankind contains personality types who find that kind of thing helpful, but they're a minority, if a very loud and influential one. Then I read St Athanasius on the Incarnation, or St Paul, and my spirits lift and I'm good to keep going.
There was a reason that the *laity*, who were not modernists or revolutionaries, fell away so quickly after Vatican 2. Maybe they were relieved to be free of what they thought was the Faith.
Nominalism and voluntarism were the main causes of this 16th-Century shift. John Lamont's essay on Rorate Caeli "A Jesuit Tragedy" is a great place to start understanding this. It talks mainly about the messed-up Jesuit concept of obedience, but the shift affected every area of the Faith. Fr Servais Pinckaers is also well worth perusing.
Thank you for your words. For a long time I have been constantly drawn towards the teachings of the Desert Fathers and to stay there and not go back. As soon as I return to the pre-conciliar reflections (of course, not all of them), I feel like I have a split personality again. Thanks to your words and Hilary's, I know I'm not the only one who has this feeling. I will research this topic and if you can recommend anything, I will be obliged. The link to the article you provided - amazing!
Update: it looks as though Rorate Caeli has taken down the essay I mentioned, without explanation. Shame on them. But it's trivial to find elsewhere, so no worries.
Dr Lamont wrote on the same theme and in more detail here:
http://sthughofcluny.org/2014/05/the-catholic-church-and-the-rule-of-law-part-i.html
http://sthughofcluny.org/2014/05/the-catholic-church-and-the-rule-of-law-part-ii.html
Yes, they took it down quite a long time ago. I think Catholic Family News has it. I agree it's one of the most important articles to come out recently, and I've passed it around to everyone I know.
Any idea why RC took it down in this secretive manner?
I wonder if it's because it undermines much of the position that is called traditionalism, the underlying premise of which is that things were fine until V2 (or, at most, the modernist crisis of the early 20C)?
Yeah, dunno. Not really my business. That's traddie insider baseball politics, and I'm out of all that.
Thank you very much!
Splendid!
I'm so excited about this new section! "The Wisdom of the Desert" by Thomas Merton was the book that made me decide to become Catholic -- it introduced me an organic side of the faith I'd never been exposed to before. It reminded me of Zen Buddhism (which I spent a lot of time learning about in high school and have always been very fond of) and gave Catholicism a new feeling of wholeness for me, if that makes sense, rather than just saying the recited prayers and going through the motions. It felt like the missing piece to Christianity that I had been searching for my whole life. There isn't enough information about the early Church online -- I'm so excited to read more. Thank you!
Miss White- It is what I often call 'doing all the things' and it probably does have its place, but it is a very basic introductory one. A way of being oriented and beginning purgation. That the Christian path typically ends there is one reason why people leave the Church and move to, say, Buddhism or simply give up entirely. Or just remain stuck for decades wondering what they are doing wrong.
But there is a full-depth and co comprehensive Christia path waiting to be more fully revived. There is no need to look other than in our own house. Anyway, I look forward to more of your thoughts on the matter.
And thank you for recommending my substack. It is much appreciated.
I hope you are well. -Jack
Oh my! You got me right at the start by at that amazing painting by Bradi Barth - my eyes flew open and I felt this mystic and beautiful drawing into what the artist expressed: simplicity, sweetness, great love, majesty, mystery, beauty - and the desire to understand the divine plan. Just from this one painting before I even read your post! Something like this simply opens the heart with longing for the Divine. The terrible thing is that I have not even heard of this artist before. It looked very old, and yet I knew it was a contemporary painting. I am gob-smacked after finding more of her works online.
What you say is so true about the contemplative prayer needed to become a saint - even a very, very small one. Therese of the small and little had the hang of it. I'm a Secular Carmelite, so I find great food for thought in a reassuring and positive way by reading "Divine Intimacy" by Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen OCD (born 1893). This follows the Vetus Ordo calendar. The idea is to draw us inward and develop a deep relationship with Our Lord. Of all the many Catholic books I own, I keep coming back to this one because it removes me from life's distractions and agitation to what is real and quiet and true.
Hilary, you are doing us a great favor by writing in this vein. Please keep on!
Isn't she wonderful. I'm already planning an Artist Close-Up on her.
I have that book too and have used it.
I was also struck by the tiny image of Our Lady with the Child. It reminded me of the visions of Blessed Catherine Emmerich, especially those that described the creation of Adam, Eve, and the Promise after the fall.
I'm looking forward to learning more about the artist. Thank you!
I recently watched the EWTN exchange of Feb 15 between Raymond Arroyo ("The World Over") and Elizabeth Lev about the question of removing Rupnik's work. She agreed that the work is awful and the abuse horrific, but had concerns about "cancel culture" and the widespread use in removing all kinds of art and statuary, etc, which I do understand in principle. But this seems like a situation in which "cancelling" his art is justified. Unfortunately, Rupnik hasn't been brought to trial for his crimes and instead has been protected. Lev feels that the future should decide and tear it down, just because it's hideous art. What are your thoughts? (Interesting that the point was brought up that it is largely clerics who have pushed for this work to be displayed - that his work is "hot". Yikes!).
So glad I discovered your Substack through Rod Dreher. Thank you for the work you're doing and the beauty you're exploring. I've been looking for opportunities to immerse myself more often in beauty, especially of a spiritual perspective, and this seems like the perfect fit.
Thank you, Hilary! I am looking forward to reading about Philokalia. What a great shame that we in the Latin Church have lost an entire mystical tradition. I am writing this from Val d’Orcia, surrounded by so much beauty and peace, a tiny glimpse of heaven. I want to stay here forever and never “come back” to the world of noise, ugliness, and hate.
Hi Hilary. I’m reading Anton Barba-Kay’s A Web of Our Own Making, about the on-line world. I’ve discovered, in my particular case, that I have become unmoored from my role in life…in nature, as first of all a child of God, a mother, wife, grandmother and neighbour. I believe this is the war against us, to destroy our belief in who we are made to be. The temptation to see all, hear all, judge all, to drink in all the dizzying whirl of the world is akin to Satan’s temptation for Our Lord to be master of it all. Long story short, thanks for your writing about the interior life so clearly. Thanks for being a “conduit” and God bless. Barbara
This post came at the perfect time for me. Please accept this Eastern Orthodox sojourner as a companion on your travels.
Another follower courtesy of Mr. Dreher. Just a quick note of encouragement regarding your caveat - I am an Orthodox convert myself, and one constant theme you find running through Orthodoxy's own self-understanding is that healing from schisms cannot be forced from above (practically all attempts to do so have only worsened the divides - the few exceptions prove the rule), but must come through the Holy Spirit working through the Body of Christ - us believers. A significant part of that process's working out is through mutual efforts of us folks in the trenches to re-acquaint ourselves with each other. I would consider your efforts here a part of that.
This is the exact same impression I have about how the terrible problems in Christianity will be solved. We have to stop looking to clergy to fix it.
This is amazing. Where can I learn more about becoming an Oblate?
Start by reading about Benedictine monastic spirituality. Learn what that is. Then start investigating monasteries. I would suggest being extremely cautious though. The Modernist heresy that has taken over nearly all the institutions of the Church is especially strong in the Benedictine world. Learn as much as you can about what that is, how to recognise it.
I am a convert who was baptized 7 years ago. Up until recently I was also doing the external "church-going" in the sense you've described. As a former zen-buddhism leaning person and kind of being tired of this general spiritual-but-not-religious attitude I was happy at first to go to external church, to receive the external sacraments, to say rosary regularly. I think it prepares the ground for more. It certainly made my person and my life more grounded, like a child that needs someone to tell what to do or not to do. But at some point this was no longer sufficient, it became the dry water. I discovered meditation and working on one's own virtues. As you I am very much a beginner in all this but God seems to push me in this direction.
The outer and the inner life, the social, organizational and rational on one side and personal, devotional and mystical on the other are like two sides of the same coin in the life of the Church though it might be out of balance at different times in history of the Church or in our own lives. Definitely better than the above mentioned spiritual-but-not-religious attitude so prevalent in recent times.