St. Augustine

“Try Harder!”

“Try Harder!” on November 13, 2010

A non-Catholic friend that I have known for over 50 years said to me recently, “How I envy you your certainty!” By that I took him to mean that he wishes he could believe what Catholics believe, but feels he cannot. I was tempted to reply, “Try harder!” but in the circumstances I kept quiet.

Nevertheless, while believing is an act of the mind and not of the will, if the human mind is to believe the supernatural truths of the Faith which are intrinsically above its natural reach, the mind does need to be pushed by the will. Therefore while supernatural believing is not an act of the will, it is not possible without an act of the will. “Nobody believes against his will,” says St Augustine. That is why to “try harder” with the will, as advice for somebody whose mind does not believe, is not as unreasonable as it may seem to be. Nor, if the beliefs towards which the will is pushing are objectively true, will that advice, as such, result in wishful thinking.

Firstly however, if a man really and truly envies the certainty of Catholic believers, he should apply his mind to studying how reasonable are Catholic beliefs. They may be above human reason, but they are not against it. How could they be? How could God both be the creator of our human reason and then impose on it to believe truths flouting that reason? He would be contradicting himself. St Thomas Aquinas in his “Summa Theologiae” is constantly showing how faith and reason are quite distinct, but in perfect harmony with one another.

Then what human reason can do, and what my friend should do, is to build a natural ramp towards the supernatural Faith by studying for instance the entirely reasonable arguments that prove the existence of God, the divinity of the man Jesus Christ, and his divine instituting of the Roman Catholic Church. These arguments are well within the grasp of natural reason, as long as the will is not pushing against, because the mind misapplied will never recognize the truth in front of it. The will must want reality, otherwise the mind will never find the truth. Truth for us men lies in the conformity of our minds to reality.

Once a man has done all he can with right reason and upright will to grasp the reasonableness of the Faith, he still does not have the supernatural faith, which remains a gift of God. However, how can God require of us to believe (on pain of eternal damnation – Mk.XVI, 16), and yet refuse the gift of faith to a soul which has done all within its natural powers – but God is not deceived – to prepare itself for that gift? Especially if, as is reasonable, after doing what I can, I then humbly ask him for the gift in prayer? He resists the proud but he gives his gifts to the humble (James IV, 6), and he lets himself be found by those who seek him with an upright heart (Deut.IV, 29; Jer.XXIX, 13; Lam.III, 25, and many other quotes from the Old Testament).

Dear friend, read and ask. The certainty is most likely yours for the trying.

Kyrie eleison.

Calming Confusion

Calming Confusion on December 12, 2009

It has taken three issues of “Eleison Comments” to disentangle why the alleged death-bed testimony of Cardinal Lienart (EC 121) could easily be true, given that it corresponds exactly to how the validity of the Catholic sacraments has been imperilled by the Conciliar sacramental Rites introduced after Vatican II (EC 124, 125, 126). A friendly critic thinks that I have been too concerned to defend the validity of the Conciliar sacraments. But I no more want to exaggerate their validity than their invalidity.

For indeed no reasonable person who loves the truth wants to do anything other than conform his mind to reality, because truth is defined as “the matching of mind and reality.” If a situation is black, I want to call it black. If it is white, I want to call it white. And if it is varying shades of grey in between, I want to make that grey in my mind no more grey-black nor grey-white than it is in reality.

Now it is true that any one sacrament administered in real life will have been either valid or invalid. There are no more shades between valid and invalid than there are between pregnant and not pregnant. But if we consider the Conciliar sacraments being all the time administered throughout the Newchurch as a whole, we can only say some are valid, some are invalid, but they have all been placed on a slide towards invalidity by the Conciliar Rites’ total thrust to replace the religion of God with the religion of man. That is why the Newchurch is on its way to disappearing altogether, and why the Society of St. Pius X can in no way allow itself to be absorbed into it.

But at what exact point on that slide any given priest or priests, for instance, so lose the true idea of the Church that they can no longer Intend to do what the Church does, God alone knows. It may well be that to reach that point takes more than I suggested in EC 125. Maybe it takes less, as our critic suggests. In any case, since only God can know for sure, I do not need to know. All I need to have clear in my mind is that the Conciliar Rites have put God’s sacraments on a slide away from God, and once it is clear to me that they are helping to destroy the Church, that they were even designed to destroy the Church, I should stay away from them.

Meanwhile, as to just how far down the slide is this or that priest, or even the Newchurch as a whole, I will apply the great principle of St. Augustine: “In things certain, unity; in things doubtful, liberty; in all things, charity.” And within the framework of certainties such as, within the Newchurch neither already nothing, nor everything still, is Catholic, I mean to extend to my fellow-Catholics the same liberty to judge of things uncertain as I hope they will extend to me. Mother of God, obtain the rescue of the Church!

Kyrie eleison.