Let's Not Neglect St. Joseph

Posted on July 11, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Fr. William Saunders

St. Joseph truly is the silent figure of the New Testament. For instance, the Gospel does not record one spoken verse for St. Joseph. Nevertheless, what this great saint did in his life for God speaks volumes. To appreciate him and his role in salvation, we need to glean the Gospels.

St. Joseph was “of the house and lineage of David” (Lk 2:4). Because of this ancestry, St. Joseph is the link between the old covenant made with Abraham and Moses, and the new, perfect and everlasting covenant which will be made through the blood of Jesus. He brings to a close the notion of the Patriarch’s promised land and King David’s established kingdom, and prepares the way for Jesus, the Messiah, who will establish the new kingdom of God and the new Promised Land – not a kingdom of land, castles and armies, but one that is within oneself, one of shared life with the Lord, lived now and fulfilled in heaven.

St. Matthew identifies Joseph as “an upright man.” The original text uses the word “just” or “righteous,” which better reflect that he lived by God’s standard, keeping the commandments and emulating God’s love.

St. Joseph first appears in the Gospel infancy narratives. While St. Luke’s Gospel focuses on the annunciation to Mary, St. Matthew’s Gospel focuses on St. Joseph. Here St. Joseph was engaged to Mary when he discovered that she was pregnant.

Remember that in Jewish society, when a couple became formally engaged, declaring their intent before two witnesses, they were considered married as husband and wife. After one year usually, the groom went to the home of the bride with great ceremony and took her to his own home where they consummated the marriage and lived together as husband and wife. (This tradition is the basis for the parable of the five foolish bridesmaids in Matthew 25.) Since St. Joseph did not yet know God’s plan, but knew his wife was pregnant not by himself, the Gospel reads that he “decided to divorce her quietly” (Mt 1:19). According to the Torah laws, St. Joseph could have had Mary stoned to death for infidelity (cf. Dt 22). If St. Joseph knew Mary was pregnant, did the town gossip circle also notice? One can only wonder what shame and hurt he must have felt. How his heart must have been broken.

Nevertheless, the angel of the Lord appeared to St. Joseph in a dream, revealed to him that Mary had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and commanded that he take Mary as his wife and Jesus as his own son. Without question or hesitation, St. Joseph did as the angel commanded. Here again, we see the important role of Joseph: He is to take Jesus as his own son and to name Him, thereby giving Him legal recognition and legal personhood.

Please note that the foregoing understanding of the annunciation is the traditional one. Some have speculated that St. Joseph knew that Mary had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and thereby felt unworthy, even afraid, to marry her and accept this responsibility; therefore, he decided to divorce her quietly. However, why then would the angel later tell St. Joseph in the dream that Mary had conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit? The traditional understanding is still the best one.

St. Joseph fulfilled his obligations courageously. Throughout the Gospel he faithfully and unquestioningly obeyed the commands of God: taking his family to the safety of Egypt to flee the wrath of King Herod; returning to Nazareth; presenting his child in the Temple for circumcision and formal presentation; and traveling to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

He accepted the responsibility of his vocation – being a faithful spouse and father. He provided the best he could for his family, whether that meant the stable in Bethlehem or the home in Nazareth. Although the Gospels recount hardly any information about the Holy Family’s life in Nazareth, they were people of modest means: When St. Joseph and Mary present Jesus at the Temple, they offer two turtle doves as a sacrifice, an exception made for poorer families who could not afford the usual offering of a lamb.

To provide for his family, St. Joseph worked as a carpenter. The original word in the Gospel is “tekton,” which means “craftsman” or “artisan,” thereby suggesting that he could have been a builder of homes as well as a carpenter. As a good Jewish father, St. Joseph passed this trade on to his son, and indeed Jesus is known as “the carpenter’s son” (Mt 13:55) and “the carpenter” (Mk 6:3).

Although St. Joseph was not the physical father of Jesus, he was a father in every other sense of the word. Again, as a good Jewish father, he was responsible for the religious education of his son, including teaching Him to read the sacred Scriptures. St. Joseph must have been a fine, masculine example for Jesus considering that God, the Father, had entrusted His Son to his care.

Finally, Jesus must have loved and respected St. Joseph and Mary very much, for the Gospel reads, after the finding in the Temple, Jesus returned to Nazareth and “was obedient to them” (Lk 2:51). In all, he selflessly set aside his own needs for the good of his family.

Tradition holds that St. Joseph died before Jesus began His public ministry. This belief is based two points: First, he never appeared during the public ministry as Mary did, like at the wedding feast at Cana; and second, from the Cross, Jesus entrusted the care of His mother to St. John the Apostle, indicating she was a widow with no other children to care for her. Tradition also holds that he died in the presence of Jesus and Mary. For this reason, St. Joseph is the patron saint of a holy death.

Credit to Fr. William Saunders of CatholicExchange.

The Saints & Overcoming Boredom

Posted on July 11, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Fr. Joseph M. Esper

It is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Romans 13:11

One of the most important conversions in the history of the Church occurred partially as the result of a problem that most of us have faced: boredom. It’s the story of the founder of the Jesuits: St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The youngest of eleven children, Ignatius was born in 1491 at the castle of Loyola in Spain of an ancient and noble family. As a young man, he dreamed of winning military glory and of making a name for himself. During a war with France, while Ignatius and other Spanish soldiers were defending the city of Pamplona, a cannonball injured his leg, and Ignatius was sent home to recuperate. Confined to bed, he understandably experienced boredom, and he requested something to read – preferably a book of romantic stories.

Nothing was to be found except a book of the lives of the saints–hardly what Ignatius was interested in. Yet he began reading, at first just to pass the time, and as he read, he found himself more and more interested, and then inspired, by the lives of the saints. His dreams of military glory and courtly honors were soon replaced by an ardent desire to become a soldier for Christ – and eventually, after many trials and much spiritual growth, Ignatius of Loyola became one of the Church’s greatest saints and the founder of one of her most important religious orders.

A little bit of boredom changed history. This should not surprise us, for God is able to use virtually any experience to help us grow in holiness, no matter how simple or mundane. The saint who understood this truth perhaps better than any other was St. ThÃ©rÃ¨se of Lisieux, known to us as the Little Flower. The nine years she spent in the convent until her death in 1897 at age twenty-four were uneventful and ordinary, yet also heroic – for she did everything, and suffered everything, with as much love as possible. ThÃ©rÃ¨se called this her “little way.” She recognized that greatness in God’s eyes comes not from performing heroic deeds, but from opening ourselves to love as fully as possible. Everyone, no matter how “boring” his life, has this potential to become a saint.

The best way to avoid boredom is to use our lives well, not only in our work, but also in our entertainment. The wrong forms of entertainment, and the misuse of leisure time, can easily lead us into sin.. This truth was particularly well understood by; the widely known saying “Idleness is the Devil’s workshop” contains much wisdom St. John Bosco, the nineteenth-century Italian priest who spent his life working with delinquent boys. It wasn’t enough, he knew, to provide them with education and work; it was also necessary to make these things – including religious education – interesting and attractive. He and his companions went to great lengths to provide wholesome, enjoyable activities for the boys in their care.

A similar approach was used by one of St. John Bosco’s contemporaries, the Spanish priest Bl. Emmanuel Domingo Y Sol. As part of his work with youths, he built a theater and sports arena for recreation – for he knew that interesting, wholesome activities allow sin and temptation much less influence in our lives.

This insight remains true today; whether we are in charge of others or only of our own souls, we should seek to do only those things which will help – or at least not hinder – our spiritual growth. Our lives in Heaven will certainly not be boring, and – as long as we place the Lord’s will first – God is pleased when we also find life on His Earth interesting and enjoyable.

This article has been adapted from Fr. Esper’s book
.

For Further Reflection

“Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly.” –St. Ignatius of Loyola

“Those who love God will find pleasure in everything; those who do not love God will never find true pleasure in anything.” – St. Alphonsus Liguori

“Heaven will display far more variety than Hell.” – C. S. Lewis

(Thus, the “forbidden fruits” that tempt us and that appear so appealing are not only spiritually dangerous; in the long run, they’re actually less interesting and compelling than the glories and mysteries of God’s kingdom.)

Something You Might Try

·According to Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, “If you will whatever God wills, you will always have exactly what you want. When you want anything else, you are not happy before you get it, and when you do get it, you do not want it. That is why you are ‘up’ today and ‘down’ tomorrow. You will never be happy if your happiness depends on getting solely what you want. Change the focus. Get a new center. Will what God wills, and your joy no man shall take from you.” Thus, you can find fulfillment (and, in fact, healthy excitement) only by shifting the focus from yourself and your desires to God.

·When you live within yourself, cut off from other people, it’s no surprise that you become bored. Oftentimes a remedy for boredom is to think of others instead of yourself – to do a favor, to lend a hand, or to surprise someone in a caring way.

Does the Church Know How to Reach the Modern World?

Posted on July 11, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Brandon Vogt

Marshall McLuhan, a 1960s media prophet, was one of the first to predict how digital technology shapes culture. Decades before the Internet became mainstream, McLuhan warned of the unintended effects brought by each new communication tool. His still-famous phrase “the medium is the message” summarizes his thoughts by pointing out that a particular medium shapes a message more than the content it carries.

For example, McLuhan, a late convert to Catholicism, would affirm that a sermon delivered through radio, through television, through a blog, and through YouTube would be received in drastically different ways. The radio sermon would be listened to with sustained attention, the television sermon would be viewed as entertainment, the blog sermon would be shallowly skimmed, and the YouTube sermon would be gauged by its visual and emotional effects.

Many Christians operate out of the belief that we can “communicate the same message through new means.” They assume what McLuhan adamantly denied, that communication mediums can be neutral. For better or worse, however, new media conditions whatever the Church shares through these technologies; how we think, relate, speak, read, worship, and pray are all influenced by these tools and the culture they create.

What does the future hold for the Church and new media? There will certainly be many negative trends, but here are three positive ones to look out for in the coming years:

Springtime of Evangelization

No great evangelists of the past two millennia could have conceived that within minutes they could have their messages beamed to billions of people across the world, cheaply and easily. St. Paul, the early Church Fathers, St. Francis Xavier, and Archbishop Fulton Sheen each would have given their right arm for access to our new media.

This technical ability has, in many secular spheres, birthed a “springtime” of evangelization. People who would never consider setting foot in a church are dialoguing with priests on YouTube. Streaming videos and alluring websites encouraging inactive Catholics to return to the Church have already produced staggering results. And new media is connecting the Church with many difficult-to-reach groups: youth, young adults, the elderly and homebound, and those living in remote locations.

Young people, in particular, are often considered the most difficult demographic for the Church to evangelize. Yet over 96% of young adults have joined a social network, providing the perfect arena for the Church to meet them. Outside of new media, there has hardly been a more powerful evangelistic tool to reach young people.

Also, though many see the internet’s anonymity as a detriment, it can be beneficial. Back in the twentieth century, radio and television allowed Archbishop Fulton Sheen to reach a myriad of people who would never darken the doors of a church. The shows allowed these seekers to engage Catholicism in the privacy of their own homes, avoiding public embarrassment or critique. Our modern new media provides this same dynamic of evangelizing through anonymity. People uneasy about religion feel comfortable exploring Christianity behind the safety of their computer screens.

The Church does advise, however, that true witness is always personal; that online evangelism should optimally lead to personal dialogue and relationship. Properly termed, then, this New media outreach is more “pre-evangelization” than “evangelization, “ but it does provide a monumental first step through doors – and screens – that have long been closed to religion.

Rise in Church Dialogue

Imagine a bishop responding to tweets from people in his diocese, or a priest using Facebook to discuss his Sunday homily. This type of online interaction between clergy and laypeople isn’t too much of a stretch. In fact, it is already happening in many places (follow @bishopcoyne to see what I mean). New media is already breathing fresh life into communications between Church leaders and laypeople.

One major theme throughout the Church’s teachings on media is the value of dialogue. In recent centuries, numerous Church leaders have explained that the Church must be in constant conversation with the world, including both Catholics and non-Catholics. By its very nature, this conversation can’t be one-sided; it must be an authentic, two-way connection.

Credit to Brandon Vogt of CatholicExchange.

Discipleship In a Consumer World

Posted on July 10, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Benjamin Mann

It is hard to live a Christian life in the modern world. But the main difficulty does not come from the overt enemies of the Church, or the issues on which the so-called “culture wars” turn.

Of course, I acknowledge the threat from those who would usurp the Church’s freedom, and degrade cultural morality. In our everyday lives, however, such radicalism is not the main obstacle to discipleship.

The difficulty of Christian life in our culture has more to do with a general atmosphere of indifference to truth, made worse by a culture of consumerism. Our challenge is to live faithfully in a society that tries to reduce everything — even God Himself — to the level of a lifestyle accessory.

Pope Francis understands this problem. In section 2 of Evangelii Gaudium, he warns of “the great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism.” Through the “feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures,” consumer culture forms “a complacent yet covetous heart,” and a “blunted conscience” cut off from God and others.

The Pope also speaks of the “tide of secularism”: a force that can “reduce the faith and the Church to the sphere of the private and personal,” by “completely rejecting the transcendent” in the realm of culture and public life. The outcome is “a steady increase in relativism” (Evangelii Gaudium, 64-65). Technologies and desires count for everything; all higher knowledge is ignored or marginalized.

Consumerism and secular relativism are not merely two parallel trends. They are related forces which support and amplify one another. In modern Western culture, relativism and the market-mentality are combined in the single phenomenon I call “Worldview Consumerism”

Worldview Consumerism has become the controlling principle of culture and public life in the Western world and all other “Westernized” locales. It fuses secular relativism — the insistence that we can have no knowledge of non-material truths — with the obsessive, amoral consumerism of economic super-development (cf. Pope John Paul II,Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 28).

The resulting culture treats everything, even faith, like a product: a purely subjective choice one makes after scanning the shelves. Beliefs about God, and life’s meaning, are treated like ice cream flavors (“simply a matter of taste”) or laundry detergent (“whatever works best in your machine”).

Outright atheism is relatively rare in our society. But the blend of relativism and consumerism is reinforced by most cultural venues. It is the unstated presupposition of the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, academia, and the business world. It is the air we breathe.

This consumer approach to truth and meaning is a dismissal of God, disguised as neutrality. It says: “Believe what you want about life’s meaning, since we can’t really know anything about that.”

“Believe in this Jesus character if you want. Whatever floats your boat,” the voice of Worldview Consumerism says. “Just — don’t start acting like he’s the King of the World or anything.” That, after all, is the kind of behavior that could upset the whole business model . . .

Many of us have discovered that this combination of relativism and consumerism makes evangelization difficult. Drugged into a stupor of religious indifference, many people see the Faith of the Church as simply another product on the shelves — one which they feel no need to acquire.

It is less obvious, but equally true, that this environment harms our own efforts to follow Jesus. Even if we reject the lie, and resolve to serve God as He deserves, we are deeply affected by the surrounding culture.

Sedated by the general atmosphere of Worldview Consumerism, we treat our life in Christ as the kind of thing the world says it is: a personal enthusiasm, a preference, a private hobby.

Christ the Lord, the true King of all creation, is driven from culture and public life. Our Creator and Redeemer is marginalized as just another consumer-choice. If we accept this as normal, we have clearly taken a wrong turn somewhere.

At this point, I should mention that I am not diagnosing someone else’s problem. I am not pointing to “all you slackers over there.”

I am writing about what I see in the mirror. I am writing, in fact, about one of the reasons I intend to become a monk.

I am tired of my own feckless, bourgeoisie mediocrity. It was not what I envisioned when I first turned to Christ in faith.

How can I live without hypocrisy? How am I, personally, supposed to follow and imitate Christ, in this consumer-world of endless, meaningless choices?

We must face these questions. The modern world forces them upon us. Part of the difficulty, though, is that no single answer can suffice for every believer. We each have to work out what committed discipleship looks like, in a world of consumerism and relativism.

Of course, the truth itself is a unity: the Faith is one, and the Church is one, as God Himself is One (cf. Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei, 47), Yet even for the members of Christ’s Mystical Body, there is no single, pre-set formula for living without hypocrisy. This takes discernment — personal attention to God’s guidance.

My own search for a truthful life has led me toward monasticism. But no institution can save me from hypocrisy. That is only possible if one comes before God with complete, unsparing honesty.

I do believe, however, that monasteries are badly needed today. We need them, at a time when relativism and consumerism have been fused into one all-encompassing cultural delusion.

A monastery is an “experiment in truth,” an effort to live the Gospel without compromise. Such a life is certainly possible outside monasticism. But the Church needs the witness of those who explicitly renounce “the cares and riches and pleasures of life” (Luke 8:14).

Christian monasticism, in the formal sense, emerged as a response to the worldliness of the Church in the fourth century. Large numbers of men and women chose to set aside the goods of this world, to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is” (Col. 3:1).

They wanted a completely truthful life: a life that would announce — in word, deed, and silence — that Jesus is Lord. So they gave up everything distracting them from life’s real business: which is simply to live in God’s presence, and to love Him through self-renunciation.

These two tasks are, in a sense, the simplest things in the world. Yet they are the very things we habitually forget, in a culture that devotes nearly all of its institutional energy and attention to “the things that are upon the earth” (Col. 3:2).

No past society has ever pursued the “lower things” more vigorously than ours now does. Perhaps no society has needed monasteries more desperately than ours.

Pope Francis’ interview with La CiviltÃ Cattolica, “A Big Heart Open To God,” was published during my first visit to Holy Resurrection Monastery in September. The portions highlighted by the popular media were not of great interest to me, but I was moved by the Pope’s words on consecrated religious life.

Consecrated men and women “are prophets,” Pope Francis said. “They are those who have chosen a following of Jesus that imitates his life in obedience to the Father, poverty, community life and chastity.” And this vow of chastity, so misunderstood by the world, is “a vow of fruitfulness” in the spiritual sense.

Monks, and other consecrated religious, are “called to be prophets in particular by demonstrating how Jesus lived on this earth, and to proclaim how the Kingdom of God will be in its perfection. A religious must never give up prophecy … Prophecy announces the spirit of the Gospel.”

Like his statements about consumerism and secular relativism in “Evangelium Gaudii,” the Pope’s words on consecrated life are countercultural. The spirit of the Gospel opposes the modern spirit of Worldview Consumerism, which ignores the question of truth and considers only preferences.

In humility and obscurity, the monk testifies against the consumer-world. He makes himself “empty for God” — “vacare Deo,” in traditional Latin terminology — and so proclaims that all things belong to the God Who is Truth.

Pope Francis wants this prophetic witness to be part of the Church’s New Evangelization. Three days after he published “Evangelii Gaudium,” the Pope announced a “Year of Consecrated Life” beginning in 2015. The timing does not seem coincidental.

We need prophets. With every passing day, the relativistic consumer-world exalts itself more and more, taking itself increasingly for granted as the only valid way of life.

Yet every day we move closer to the destruction of this colossal lie, and the full unveiling of the truth.

“I tell you, brothers, the time is running out. From now on, let those having wives act as not having them … those buying as not owning, those using the world as not using it fully. For the world in its present form is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:29-31, NAB).

The modern consumer-world is already doomed. God’s Kingdom comes. Who is willing to declare this now, while there is still time?

Credit to Benjamin Mann of CatholicExchange.

Break Out of the Box: Technology and Prayer

Posted on July 9, 2014 by gpopcak

R. Jared Staudt

Smash the TV! John Senior provides this bold directive in his book, The Restoration of Christian Culture. “Smash the television set. The Catholic Church is not opposed to violence; only to unjust violence; so smash the television set” (22). I’ve taught this text numerous times to students and most immediately recoil and claim that this advice is too harsh and over the top. Even if some should smash their TV, Senior’s statement is at least a call to question the control that technology has over our lives. Do you need to smash media’s dominance?

In particular, Senior argues that TV has

two principal defects . . . its radical passivity, physical and imaginative, and its distortion of reality. Watching it, we fail to exercise the eye, selecting and focusing on detail–what poets call “noticing” things; neither do we exercise imagination as must in reading metaphor where you actively leap to the “third thing” in juxtaposed images, picking out similarities and differences, a skill which Aristotle says is a chief sing of intelligence. . . . There is nothing on the television which is not filtered through the secular establishment.

Senior’s answer is to sit around the fire as a family, singing good music and reading good literature. Rather than experiencing reality through an isolate filter, he wants us to experience it directly, especially within the context of the home. TV intrudes on family life and fundamentally changes it.

The main thrust of Senior’s argument is that technology is not neutral, but its use shapes and molds us. This same claim has been presented by Neil Postman, in his bookTechnopolgy, where he argues that “the uses made of any technology are largely determined by the structure of the technology itself–that is, that its functions follow from its form.” We have surrounded ourselves with a host of media technology–not only TV, but mobile phones, constant music, and especially the internet–to the point of saturation: “When the supply of information is no longer controllable, a general breakdown in psychic tranquility and social purpose occurs. Without defenses, people have no way of finding meaning in their experiences, lose their capacity to remember, and have difficulty imagining reasonable futures” (72).

Postman was writing before the heyday of the internet, but Nicholas Carr picks up where he left off in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr convincingly argues that the internet is literally changing the way our brains work. It overwhelms us with images and short bits of text, which makes it harder for us to concentrate and to think deeply. He makes the point that “we become, neurologically, what we think” (33). In terms of the internet, “when we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning” (116). The internet is changing us!

I’m actually amazed at how many people tell me that technology is neutral. The argument is that nothing has to be used a certain way; it’s only the use that is not neutral. And yet, when we look all around we see clearly that technology has not been neutral it has shaped us and formed to live, act, and think a certain way.

The closest to the teaching of the Church on this matter that I have found is from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (under the direction of then Cardinal Ratzinger) document “Donum Vitae,” which states: “It would . . . be illusory to claim that scientific research and its applications are morally neutral.” This, of course, is speaking about reproductive technology, but the underlying thought is the same: when we introduce a new technology, it will shape and alter us, which in itself is not neutral.

However, I think the real problem with technology concerns time, specifically how we order and shape it. St. Paul says that we need to redeem or sanctify the hours (Eph 5:16). If we allow technology to dominate our schedule than we are not sanctifying the time, but allowing it to be dominated by an outside force. This technological force influences the way we think and act, and also concretely shapes our day.

We need to respond to the dominance of technology, by ordering and shaping our lives through prayer. This means that we need to intentionally unplug every day and enter into a period of silence, and more importantly a time of conversation with God. If TV breaks up the life of the family in the home, then the barrage of media breaks up the peaceful relationship we are meant to have throughout the day with God.

When we think of what media is doing to our brains, we can make the connection that making our minds more shallow directly impacts our ability to pray. If media technology gives us a short attention span and makes it difficult to contemplate deeply in a sustained fashion, then it strikes right at the heart of what is needed for Christian meditation. When it is time for prayer, we will quickly get bored and out thoughts will jump from topic to topic?

Turning back to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (once again under Ratzinger), its document “On Some Aspects of Christian Meditation” recognizes this challenge: Many Christians today have a keen desire to learn how to experience a deeper and authentic prayer life despite the not inconsiderable difficulties which modern culture places in the way of the need for silence, recollection and meditation. . . . The spiritual restlessness arising from a life subjected to the driving pace of a technologically advanced society also brings a certain number of Christians to seek in these methods of prayer a path to interior peace and psychic balance” (1; 2).

The CDF specifically acknowledges lectio divina as a form of prayer that comes from God’s revelation, drawing upon God’s own words and entering into a conversation with Him: “This is why the Church recommends the reading of the Word of God as a source of Christian prayer, and at the same time exhorts all to discover the deep meaning of Sacred Scripture through prayer ‘so that a dialogue takes place between God and man. For, “we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles”’ (Dei Verbum, 25)” (6).

We may not want to take up John Senior’s advice to smash the TV, but we at least need to question the role of technology in our life. We need to make sure that prayer, more than technology, shapes and orders our time. We need to make room for silence and meditation. If we don’t smash the box, then in order to enable our mind’s to be free for prayer, let us at least break out of the box!

Credit to R. Jared Staudt of CatholicExchange.

Theology of the Body vs. 50 Shades of Grey

Posted on July 9, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Judy Keane

With fan-fiction origins, E.L. James book, 50 Shades of Grey, has officially become the most widely sold book in Britain — ever. The book, the first in a trilogy, includes explicit scenes and heavy doses of bondage, dominance and sadism. Here in America, the originally self-published book still stands near the top of The New York Times Best Sellers List with international sales hitting more than 65 million in print and digital copies. So far, it’s been translated into 30 languages making its author, a British housewife and mother of two, a multi-millionaire overnight. With a fan-base of teenagers, college students, along with single and married women over 30 — the critically panned book series dubbed “Mommy Porn,” has launched the way into a largely untapped market of female erotica readers.

I have not read the book and don’t intend to read it. Wikipedia’s synopsis tells the story well enough despite its author’s description of it as an “old fashioned love story.” Plain and simple — it’s pornography. Originally titled “Master of the Universe,” the book, due to “reader demand” can now be found on a waiting list at many public libraries across the U.S. Its wide success has spawned 50 Shades of Grey theme parties, PDF’s, board games, a 50 Shades Album, 50 Shades — The Musical and soon, 50 Shades of Grey — the movie. The trilogy has even become the subject of a university class started this semester at American University.

What is most astounding and frankly disturbing, is the popularity of a book series which features a lead character, Christian Grey, who represents the antithesis of God’s designs for the nuptial (spousal) relationship, along with the utter lack of self-respect its female protagonist,Anastasia Steele, has for herself. Since when did a sadomasochistic, non-committal control freak who finds pleasure in physically demeaning, abusing and emotionally manipulating a naÃ¯ve college girl become a literary hero of so many women?

As ubiquitous as 50 Shades of Grey is these days, I cannot help but think of the vast spiritual, moral, mental and emotional strides women could make (not only for themselves but also our culture as a whole), if they read Blessed John Paul II’s Theology of the Body instead — a series of 129 addresses he gave under the form of Wednesday Catechetical talks in Rome from 1979 until 1984.

As the first major teaching of his Pontificate, Theology of the Body (TOTB) is an extended Catechesis on the truth of God‘s original design for human sexuality and thus the dignity of the human person. As part of TOTB, JPII emphasizes how the dignity of the human person can be distorted through sin — such as pornography — and how it has been restored and renewed through the redemption of Jesus Christ. TOTB additionally focuses on Catholic teachings about the sacramentality of marriage, chastity/virginity, adultery, the resurrection of the body and contraception. The central theme of TOTB is that “the body” is a sign of the invisible mystery of God. In this sense, the body can be viewed as a kind of sacrament — with the mystery of God being revealed through it. Therefore, the body alone is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine.

However, in the case of 50 Shades of Grey, the complete opposite of personal and individual human dignity is presented. Instead, a twisted and false notion of love which reduces the human being to nothing more than an object is presented as something glamorous and dazzling. In reality, Anastasia ceases to have attraction as a person with her only value being a mere object of fantasy to be used for sexual pleasure. While women may feel the book is a harmless form of entertainment, Shades of Grey ultimately gives way to darkness leaving one on a path of deception. In other words, it belittles God’s gift of personhood and the body as the Temple of the Holy Spirit and we ultimately degrade and harm ourselves by reading it. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price.” (I Cor. 6:19-20)

Part of John Paul II’s TOTB explains that lust in its distorted various forms destroys the nuptial meaning of the body and the full awareness of the human being by making it only an article of attraction. Lust depersonalizes and degrades, thereby hindering mutual acceptance of the other as a unique gift and expression of God’s love. In this way, it debases the marriage covenant which constitutes the foundation of the “one-flesh” union. Having our best interests at heart, Christ wants to remove distorted notions of the human body from the nuptial relationship so that in purity of heart, the nuptial meaning of the body and the individual person shines in mutual self-giving within sacramental unity. Thus, true union comes in discovering the true value of the beloved.

John Paul II’s TOTB is not about being prudish — or about me sounding like the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live. Instead, it is about accepting the love that Christ wishes for the nuptial relationship — the type of love he created since the beginning of the world which he called “good” (Genesis 1:31).

Unfortunately, in 50 Shades of Grey, millions of women the world over are instead buying into 50 shades of deeply defective and distorted fabrications of what constitutes real and lasting love.

In his reflections on TOTB, Catholic apologist and founder of Totus Tuus Ministries, Jim Seghers, notes that “such twisted notions of love disconnects the body from personhood and becomes exploitive, selfish and violent, ultimately cheapening and belittling the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit.” When we accept the lie of Shades of Grey and all types of pornography, we are ultimately left unhappy, disillusioned, confused and denigrated. Why? Because we are seeking something that has been designed to prey upon our human weaknesses and draw us away from God. It then becomes harder for us to recognize ourselves as children of God and temples of the Holy Spirit.

Blessed John Paul II gave the world a great gift with his teachings on Theology of the Body which points the way out of the gray and into the light of God’s loving plan for humanity. Theology of the Body is about recognizing, even amid a culture saturated in distorted versions of love, JPII’s personal invitation to all men and women, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, to freely embrace our true dignity.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, “When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to the truth, justice, and goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.” If women would only then take a moment to pause and realize their great value and worth in the eyes of God, I wonder if a book series such as Shades of Grey would still be as popular. I doubt it!

Credit to Judy Keane of CatholicExchange.

How Faith Conquers Worry

Posted on July 9, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Dr. Greg Bottaro

Pope Francis’s encyclical on faith may seem like old news compared to the headlines he’s made since he released it. There is probably enough material in that one little document to keep me writing for the rest of the year though, and I think it deserves much more attention than its been given. Obviously I read it with my psychology lenses on, which is only one perspective.

The introduction to the encyclical reminds us that Christ says, “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.” It is this distinction between the light and the dark that I want to elaborate on.

What we first have to realize is that Christ entered a dark world. What was this darkness? What does Christ give us that we don’t otherwise have? What is the darkness that exists as fear in the deepest crevices of the human heart? Eternal loneliness and misery. Actually eternity itself is pretty scary. Humans exist in time, which means that the human brain is capable of processing reality from moment to moment. Einstein figured out that our concept of time is not actually objective. There are theories about overlapping time, and somehow if you travel faster than the speed of light, when you get back you haven’t experienced the same amount of time as everyone you left behind. That will really blow your mind if you spend too much time on it. The point here though is that we process time in a certain way. In a sense, our brains create time.

Actually our brains create a lot of things, and they also figure out a lot of things that already exist. Science is a process of trying to figure out what already exists. But again since we humans exist in time, it takes time to figure stuff out. Most scientists pretend that we already know everything, or at least they know everything. The best scientists are the ones who realize there is more we don’t know than what we actually do know. Why do some pretend to know everything? Because time is scary! The fact that time unfolds, and the development of thought and truth progresses means that we do not have all the answers right now.

When studying some peripheral reality, like the meaning of whale noises, it might be acceptable to say, “we aren’t totally positive what this means yet. Further study may reveal the full truth to us.” What about when the study becomes more personal? What about when the question is “what will happen to me?” When we are uncertain of our own future, we tend to get scared.

This means we are actually not in control! This means we might be powerless against something or someone that we don’t even know about yet. It’s scary to not be in control, to live in time where things can change from moment to moment. What we take for granted now might be gone tomorrow. We have no idea what will happen tomorrow.

We are made of both body and soul. The body part of us exists in time, and only knows things from this perspective. The soul part, though, is connected to a reality outside of time. It is the part of us that knows only part of us is processing things in time. The soul is the part of us that can anticipate what will happen in the future, AFTER this moment. Our souls can anticipate a whole lifetime ahead of time, and then ask the question, “what happens after we die?” (This is not to say the body and soul are separate, but with our soul we have the unique ability to ascend to the level of the eternal realities that make up the objective world- wait that’s too much philosophy.)

So our bodies are stuck in a moment-to-moment reality and we can only really know for 100% sure what is happening right now, but our souls know there is a point when that will run out. WHAT?!? What was God thinking making us this way? How are we supposed to NOT freak out when we think about the fact that we have no idea what will happen to us in the long run?

There are three basic ways of dealing with this reality. One is to pretend like it doesn’t matter. To ignore the heart’s questions and pretend like all that matters is what’s happening right now. “Carpe Diem!” and sometimes, “c’est la vie” sum up this hippie type of attitude. You can only ignore the nagging questions from the heart or cover them over with distractions for so long. Some people pretend to know what happens based on rational thought. “We turn into dust. There is no soul. Heaven is an illusion.” Really? How do you know for sure? I’d like to see the double blind study that produced those valid statistically significant results. My rational mind won’t let me believe in that kind of idiotic faith in bad science. The third option is real faith.

“I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.”

Christ is the answer to our anxiety. He comes to tell us that all will be well. He is the light for those who believe in him. There are no guarantees here. God doesn’t just wave a magic wand and make everyone happy. There is a huge response on our part that needs to happen — belief. This is faith, to believe in God’s answer to our incessant questioning. He never claimed to answer the specifics of the day to day — how something will turn out, or especially why anything happens the way it does. He only came to tell us that if we believe in him, all will be well for us. Even though our minds can’t figure out how everything is going to happen all at once and hold it in awareness right now, we don’t need to. If we believe in him, all we need is to trust that however it unfolds, it is going to be ok.

Another simple way to think about it is this: God is the all-powerful creator and king of the universe. He is also a father who is madly in love with his children. If your dad was the all-powerful king of the universe, and you knew he loved you, would you ever be worried about anything? He is, and he does.

Credit to Greg Bottaro of CatholicExchange.

Depression and the Mind of Christ

Posted on July 9, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Benjamin Mann

I dislike the word “depression.”It doesn’t evoke the state of mind it signifies. I especially dislike the phrase “Seasonal Affective Disorder,” often used for the kind of depression that strikes in winter.

But we make do with the words we have — especially those of us who must periodically explain why we find Advent to be a difficult time of year.

Even with these psychological terms at hand, I find depression hard to discuss — not because it’s too personal, but because it makes so little sense. Seasonal depression, in particular, is a mystery to me: a sort of black-box, a brute fact I can’t peer into.

But I don’t necessarily need to understand depression. There’s a Buddhist saying I like, in this regard: When you’re wounded by an arrow, don’t waste time wondering who shot it. Just deal with the wound. Be practical, in other words: change your thoughts, your behaviors, your perspective.

Good advice, as far as it goes. Even then, however, relief is not guaranteed. Sometimes there is no way out — or rather, “the way out is through.”

I’m not qualified to offer psychological advice on finding relief from depression. You’ll have to look elsewhere for that — and if you need to, you should. What I can offer are my thoughts on finding God in the midst of mental suffering.

Grace is not an antidepressant or a painkiller. But God’s presence transfigures our pain, and reveals its ultimate meaning. It is never easy, but always possible, to find God in suffering. We can begin by examining a basic duality within ourselves.

Faith and experience tell me that I am, in a sense, two different people. There is the person God intends me to be; and there is person I make myself into, when I fail to cooperate with grace.

St. Paul speaks of this split in terms of the New Man and the Old Man, or the “spiritual man” and the “natural man.” Thomas Merton uses the terms “Real Self” and “False Self” for the same reality — because the self I construct on my own, apart from God, is ultimately hollow and deceptive.

Since we are speaking about psychological matters, we can consider this same duality in terms of the “Big Mind” and the “Small Mind.” Both of these minds can suffer the Cross of depression — but with quite different results.

What I mean by the Big Mind, is what St. Paul means when he says: “We have the mind of Christ.” (1 Cor. 2:16). And likewise, when he says: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 2:5)

This mind judges with wisdom, seeing things as they are rather than projecting desires onto them. The Mind of Christ is joined to God, awake to the present moment, and attuned to other people. This is its “bigness.”

But the “Small Mind” corresponds to what the apostle says of the unspiritual man. He is closed off from the life of the Holy Spirit, trapped instead in his own desires and aims. This also puts him at a distance from others and the life around him. Hence, the “smallness” of this mind.

Experience confirms this divide in us. There is the self-centered “me” who seeks comfort and pleasure, living for himself. He alternates — ironically — between ignoring God and other people one moment, and lamenting his apparent (though only apparent) state of isolation a minute later.

Depression is a disaster for the Small Mind. Comfort and pleasure stop being comfortable and pleasant. Doing what I want isn’t satisfying. My focus is turned inward, but I don’t like what I see. The Small Mind loses its normal satisfactions, but has nothing else to feed on.

Yet this Small Mind is not the only mind in me. “We have the mind of Christ” — the Big Mind, conferred by God through baptism and the other sacraments.

The Big Mind is not self-absorbed or self-centered. It is centered on God, and effortlessly united with him in Christ. This mind forgets itself before the reality of God’s presence; its own desires are eclipsed by the reality of God’s will in the present moment.

This mind is clear and calm, even in the midst of suffering. It does not make irrational choices out of pride or fear. The stresses and labors of life cannot sever its union with God, which it possesses with no effort — for it is Christ’s own mind, given to us.

In the Big Mind, our self-consciousness gives way to “Big Awareness”: consciousness of God, other people, and the present moment. C.S. Lewis summed up this mode of consciousness well, when he taught that the best response to God’s presence was “to forget about yourself altogether.”

Some people assume the Mind of Christ cannot suffer depression — but this is not true. Our Lord was “a man of sorrows,” bearing grief in solidarity with us. Union with God is not an anesthetic: indeed, the Big Mind — our Christ Mind — is often awakened and developed through suffering.

The point is not to escape pain, but to go through it with wisdom, love, and the awareness of God. The Big Mind, joined with God and centered on him, can do this in a way our ordinary Small Mind cannot.

Depression can wipe out comfort, pleasure, my sense of accomplishment, my self-satisfaction. If my life is built on the sand-foundation of those things, I may be swept away with them. But depression can’t overcome our true foundation.

I may feel far from God, but God is close to us; and in the state of grace, I am already one with him in Christ. If God’s will seems elusive, his providence means I can find it in each moment’s duty. And when I dare to forget myself altogether, God makes himself felt, in the very freedom of my doing so.

These are not abstractions. They are realities we can experience, if we are willing to pray, and to live with an awakened and watchful spirit.

Suffering tends to prune away complicated prayer methods — leaving what is simple, and often best. Some of the Desert Fathers would repeat a single phrase: “Jesus, help me.” “God, come to my assistance.” But they did so with patience and perseverance.

In the tradition of Eastern Christian monasticism, I have learned to set aside thoughts, and let them be replaced with prayer: such as the slow, word-by-word repetition of the “Our Father”; the invocation of the Name of Jesus; or simply a wordless silence, acknowledging the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Depression has taught me a lot about prayer. But prayer is not a cure for depression: it is a cure for illusion. Prayer dispels our illusion of separation from God, and removes the impediments that can turn that illusion into a kind of reality.

Suffering is inevitable, and depression rarely has a quick fix. But it is always possible to pray, to forget ourselves, and to attend to the present moment.

Then we can enter effortlessly into the presence of God, who is already with us. We can recall our identity in Christ — who unites us with God, and gives us his own mind.

It is not easy to set aside the self-centered Small Mind, and put on the Mind of Christ. Yet God makes it possible. If we turn to him, we have his promise: even in our suffering, “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).

Credit to Benjamin Mann of CatholicExchange.

Faith, Fear, OCD

Posted on July 9, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Benjamin Mann

This is not the column I planned to write. I had a string of ideas set down, about a different topic. When I began writing, however, God surprised me.

First I sat down and typed this, the intended beginning of the other column:

“Both Scripture and the saints tell us that we should not fear the devil: for even to fear him is to give him an illegitimate power over us.”

But then, I wrote this:

“In fact, we should not have a slavish or cowardly fear of anything at all; even our ‘fear of God’ is simply a kind of loving awe and reverence before His supreme goodness.”

Too much of the time, unfortunately, this is not how I live. Let me explain.

I live with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which means living with fear — a recurring fear that small, everyday mistakes will have terrible consequences:

“I don’t know whether I wiped my feet enough times, when I came out of the snow into the store. Someone could slip on the wet floor, fracture their skull, and be paralyzed.”

“Maybe I didn’t shut the lobby door hard enough when I left the apartment. What if someone gains access to the building and commits a crime?”

“Was that just a bump in the road? What if I actually killed a pedestrian, and didn’t even know it?”

Those are obsessions. Compulsions are the various things we do, either to try and fix these supposed mistakes (grab paper towels from the bathroom and start blottting the floor; drive home and repeatedly re-close the door; drive around in circles “making sure” there is no dead jogger), or to guard against them.

While I have been spared some manifestations of OCD, I have not been spared the affliction of religious scrupulosity. This involves an obsessive fear of offending God, incurring the guilt of mortal sin, and suffering eternal punishment.

Of course, we should be averse to all sin, especially grave sin. But scrupulosity is very different from a healthy aversion to sin. Scrupulosity turns the Christian life into torture, and fosters a warped view of God.

For many people, including myself, scrupulosity is a form of OCD. Thus, it causes obsessive thoughts, and prompts various compulsions: incessant apologizing, repeated and meticulous questions, “checking” rituals, and — for some people — over-frequent, obsessive use of sacramental Confession.

I have lived with OCD from a young age, perhaps 5 or 6. I assumed — wrongly — that it would get better “on its own.” In fact, it got worse during my 20s.

Even during my years as an atheist (roughly ages 9 to 21), I sometimes experienced a kind of “secular scrupulosity,” sometimes called Moral OCD. As a Catholic, I have not always lived with scrupulosity; but the problem has persisted since it first began some years ago.

One of the odd things about OCD and scrupulosity — and similar problems like depression — is how long it can take a person to become motivated to make changes. We become “comfortably uncomfortable”: accustomed to suffering, and able to disguise our problems well enough in most situations.

As far as I can tell, there are two basic reasons why a person will stop living with habitual mental suffering, and do something about it. Either it stands in the way of something desirable, which provides an incentive to change; or it simply becomes unmanageable, and some change then becomes imperative.

For me, the second kind of incentive never kicked in. My OCD and scrupulosity never became unmanageable. I could grit my teeth and “limp along,” narrowly avoiding the sort of crisis that would have forced a change.

However, the incentive to seek treatment finally did come, in three distinct stages.

The first incentive to change was simple: I finally decided to begin the process of becoming a monk. During my first visit to Holy Resurrection Monastery, I saw that “limping along” — managing and hiding an untreated problem like OCD — would be more difficult, or even impossible, in that setting.

The second incentive was more subtle. I began reading authors who stressed the value of living consciously in God’s presence, and committing oneself to his providential care at all times. But when I tried to apply these teachings to my life, I ran into a roadblock due to my OCD and scrupulosity.

Because of these problems, I had grown accustomed to keeping God “at a distance” much of the time, and regarding him (in practice, though not intentionally or in theory) with an attitude that was not particularly trustful or loving. These deeply ingrained mental habits made it hard to apply the wisdom of the saints.

Nor could I simply change my state of mind — from scrupulosity and distance, to trustful divine intimacy — by mere willpower. To progress in my practice, I would have to clear away certain mental obstacles. This was the second incentive to change.

There is a third and final incentive, which has prompted me to begin confronting and changing my OCD and scrupulosity. In short, I realized how much these afflictions had subtly corrupted my image of God, and warped my perception of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Again, this distortion occurred in practice, not in theory. Without denying God’s love and mercy, I let it recede into an abstract vagueness. The “other side of the coin” — our capacity to shut ourselves out of the Kingdom, to commit acts that radically estrange us from Christ — loomed much larger.

In this mindset, daily life gradually ceases to be a source of joy and a place of encounter with God. It becomes more like a grueling obstacle course, or a solitary tightrope-walk.

Thankfully, God had provided me with at least one distinct refuge. In the practice of silent, wordless, non-conceptual contemplative prayer, I was still able to relate to the Lord in a healthy way. If I could not do so consistently in the remainder of life, I could at least do it in that setting.

This non-discursive form of prayer would, at least temporarily, clear away the anxieties that distorted my view of God. When I came before the Lord in this supremely simple way, things were clear. His love was no longer abstract. It was Reality Itself.

However, back in the ordinary world of thoughts and words, life was not improving much. A priest I know well asked me: “Why can’t you carry your experience in contemplative prayer, into the rest of your life?” Something was obviously lacking — not in my prayer life, perhaps, but elsewhere.

There was no single, dramatic “moment of decision” for me. As the incentives to work on my OCD and scrupulosity gradually accumulated, my willingness grew as well.

Some outside factors have also helped push me toward treatment.

One of those factors, it turns out, is Pope Francis. While the Pope is not saying anything fundamentally new, his focus on the essence of the Gospel has helped me return to the basics of what I believe — about the God who is “on our side” and loves us more than words can say.

As a result, I feel motivated to rid myself of whatever obscures this truth — as scrupulosity and OCD (as well as depression) certainly have.

Another outside influence is St. Josemaria Escriva. I am not directly connected to Opus Dei (whose spirituality is very different from Eastern monasticism); but I appreciate their founder’s emphasis on “divine filiation” in Christ — having God as one’s own Father, by grace.

Here, again, I find motivation to do what it takes to be free from anxiety and servile fear — attitudes that are incompatible with divine sonship. “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Rom. 8:15, NAB).

The most powerful outside influence, however, comes from simply reflecting on the person of Jesus.

Through him, we know the supreme trustworthiness of God. His incarnate life is an image of the trust we, too, ought to have in the Father. Through him, and because of him, we know that the confidence of faith is ultimately incompatible with fear: “Do not fear, only believe.” (Mark 5:36, RSV-CE).

Scrupulosity and OCD once seemed like “erring on the safe side.” But this is false. It is not safe to live in the presence of one’s anxieties, moreso than in God’s presence. It is dangerous to confuse the true “fear of the Lord” — adoration and awe before God’s goodness — with an obsessive dread of forfeiting his favor.

Fear and trust are both habits of mind, learned and developed over time. We cannot instantly switch from fear to trust by a single act of will.

For those who live with fear, it is not just a question of “having enough faith,” or intellectually affirming a correct view of God. It is a matter of continuing conversion, often requiring patience and professional help.

But patience is not passivity. That deeper conversion, from servile fear to the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21) rarely happens in some automatic, spontaneous way.

Fearless trust in God will not just appear overnight. We must have the boldness to desire it. That is not the whole journey, but it is a necessary first step.

Credit to Benjamin Mann of CatholicExchange.

Truth Defeats Our Lies

Posted on July 9, 2014 by gpopcak

By: Dr. Gregory Popcak

We believe so many lies about ourselves. We believe we’re hopeless, that we can never change, that things will never change, that nothing we do matters, that we don’t deserve love or goodness or justice or dignity or a million other things. We are trapped by the lies we tell ourselves and the lies that others tell us.

Consolations V. Desolations

Jesus told us that the truth will set us free (c.f., Jn 8:32). St Ignatius of Loyola developed a system of discernment that could help us to determine the difference between movements of good spirits and movements of evil spirits. A million or more times a day, a thought will pop into our head. We have no idea where these thoughts come from but if we own them and take them in, they will affect our emotions and behavior. If we let them pass through our minds without claiming them, they leave us unaffected. In a sense, we could say that these thoughts are the result of good spirits and bad spirits whispering thoughts into our spiritual ear. We have free will, so they have no direct power over us, but if they can persuade us to accept their whisperings as true, those thoughts become part of who we are, how we feel, and how we act. It is our job to learn which of these whisperings we should attend to and which we should ignore. St. Ignatius called the thoughts and feelings that draw us closer to God and his will “consolations.” In spite of their name, consolations don’t always feel good, but they always cause to have clarity of the best and godliest way to respond to our circumstances. If we attend and act upon those consolations, we can discover God’s will for our lives and fulfill our destiny of becoming whole in this life and happy with God in the next.

Similarly, St. Ignatius called the thoughts and feelings that move us away from God and his will “desolations” because they tend to separate us from God and make us feel powerless, hopeless, and self-indulgent. The more we attend to these desolations, the more we pull away from God and become confused about who we are and how we are to live.

Cognitive Distortions

In addition to these spiritual helps, cognitive psychotherapy has identified 15 Cognitive Distortions. These distortions represent the lies we hear in our heads about who we are and how life works. The more we believe these lies, the more complicated, confusing, and unhealthy our life and relationships become.

I would argue that just as God is the author of all truth whether found in revelation or nature, we know that Satan is the Father of Lies. As such, whether the lies we hear in our heads are of a more spiritual or psychological nature, we can understand that all of these lies spring from Satan’s own heart. By uncovering those lies and exposing them for what they are we can begin to live in the truth. Here is a complete list of the 15 Cognitive Distortions that wreck our lives, ruin our relationships and steal our peace. Are you living in the truth that will set you free? Read through the list to see what lies are holding you back (H/T PsychCentral).

1. Filtering.

We take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. For instance, a person may pick out a single, unpleasant detail and dwell on it exclusively so that their vision of reality becomes darkened or distorted.

2. Polarized Thinking (or “Black and White” Thinking).

In polarized thinking, things are either “black-or-white.” We have to be perfect or we’re a failure – there is no middle ground. You place people or situations in “either/or” categories, with no shades of gray or allowing for the complexity of most people and situations. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.

3. Overgeneralization.

In this cognitive distortion, we come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or a single piece of evidence. If something bad happens only once, we expect it to happen over and over again. A person may see a single, unpleasant event as part of a never-ending pattern of defeat.

4. Jumping to Conclusions.

Without individuals saying so, we know what they are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, we are able to determine how people are feeling toward us.

For example, a person may conclude that someone is reacting negatively toward them but doesn’t actually bother to find out if they are correct. Another example is a person may anticipate that things will turn out badly, and will feel convinced that their prediction is already an established fact.

5. Catastrophizing.

We expect disaster to strike, no matter what. This is also referred to as “magnifying or minimizing.” We hear about a problem and use what if questions (e.g., “What if tragedy strikes?” “What if it happens to me?”).

For example, a person might exaggerate the importance of insignificant events (such as their mistake, or someone else’s achievement). Or they may inappropriately shrink the magnitude of significant events until they appear tiny (for example, a person’s own desirable qualities or someone else’s imperfections).

6. Personalization.

Personalization is a distortion where a person believes that everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to the person. We also compare ourselves to others trying to determine who is smarter, better looking, etc.

A person engaging in personalization may also see themselves as the cause of some unhealthy external event that they were not responsible for. For example, “We were late to the dinner party and caused the hostess to overcook the meal. If I had only pushed my husband to leave on time, this wouldn’t have happened.”

7. Control Fallacies.

If we feel externally controlled, we see ourselves as helpless a victim of fate. For example, “I can’t help it if the quality of the work is poor, my boss demanded I work overtime on it.” The fallacy of internal control has us assuming responsibility for the pain and happiness of everyone around us. For example, “Why aren’t you happy? Is it because of something I did?”

8. Fallacy of Fairness.

We feel resentful because we think we know what is fair, but other people won’t agree with us. As our parents tell us, “Life is always fair,” and people who go through life applying a measuring ruler against every situation judging its “fairness” will often feel badly and negative because of it.

9. Blaming.

We hold other people responsible for our pain, or take the other track and blame ourselves for every problem. For example, “Stop making me feel bad about myself!” Nobody can “make” us feel any particular way – only we have control over our own emotions and emotional reactions.

10. Shoulds.

We have a list of ironclad rules about how others and we should behave. People who break the rules make us angry, and we feel guilty when we violate these rules. A person may often believe they are trying to motivate themselves with shoulds and shouldn’ts, as if they have to be punished before they can do anything.

For example, “I really should exercise. I shouldn’t be so lazy.” Musts and oughts are also offenders. The emotional consequence is guilt. When a person directs should statements toward others, they often feel anger, frustration and resentment.

11. Emotional Reasoning.

We believe that what we feel must be true automatically. If we feel stupid and boring, then we must be stupid and boring. You assume that your unhealthy emotions reflect he way things really are – “I feel it, therefore it must be true.”

12. Fallacy of Change.

We expect that other people will change to suit us if we just pressure or cajole them enough. We need to change people because our hopes for happiness seem to depend entirely on them.

13. Global Labeling.

We generalize one or two qualities into a negative global judgment. These are extreme forms of generalizing, and are also referred to as “labeling” and “mislabeling.” Instead of describing an error in context of a specific situation, a person will attach an unhealthy label to themselves.

For example, they may say, “I’m a loser” in a situation where they failed at a specific task. When someone else’s behavior rubs a person the wrong way, they may attach an unhealthy label to him, such as “He’s a real jerk.” Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. For example, instead of saying someone drops her children off at daycare every day, a person who is mislabeling might say that “she abandons her children to strangers.”

14. Always Being Right.

We are continually on trial to prove that our opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and we will go to any length to demonstrate our rightness. For example, “I don’t care how badly arguing with me makes you feel, I’m going to win this argument no matter what because I’m right.” Being right often is more important than the feelings of others around a person who engages in this cognitive distortion, even loved ones.

15. Heaven’s Reward Fallacy.

We expect our sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if someone is keeping score. We feel bitter when the reward doesn’t come.

For Further Reflection

Something You Might Try

Further Reading

Consolations V. Desolations

Cognitive Distortions