Shepherds of Christ Daily Writing

December 4, 2015

Florida Retreat
December 2nd - 5th
1:30pm & 6:20pm
Please tune in!

Pray for special intentions.
  

Pray for Dan & Melanie, Jimmy,
Fr. Joe, Mary, Blue Book 16.

Please pray for funds & grace.

                December 4, 2015

                R. The goal of life is eternal happiness.
                The goal to have the vision of God.
                We don't want anything to take
                us away from the mind and
                heart of God.

                    Men must keep as their vision
                the end, with the goal of living
                to seek eternal happiness, with
                right reason.

                    Man has tendencies toward
                the deadly sins, so St. Ignatius has
                this as the purpose of the
                spiritual exercises –

From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, 
    by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. p.11

21.                     SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

    Which have as their purpose the conquest of self
    and the regulation of one's life in such a way that
    no decision is made under the influence of any
    inordinate attachment

                R. Man must seek perfection in God.
                When a man has a clogged artery,
                a clogged breathing tube,
                etc., he can suffer, if severe
                enough, the loss of physical life itself –

                    How about a man who holds
                onto anger, pride, unforgiveness,
                envy, jealousy, hatred – all
                these are disorders that rob
                a man of seeing the vision of
                God – He is so clogged, his
                reasoning is distorted – he
                has distorted vision –
                pride – seeking dominance over others
                for dominance sake –
                blind the man –
                We see Eve in the Garden –
                She listened to the lies of satan –
                She was lured by wanting to have
                knowledge, be equal to God –
                seeking dominance for dominance
                sake –

                A man of pride is blinded by his
                own ambitions – being over
                others – being high up himself –
                attachment to vain glory

                A person who is prudent wants
                eternal life – this is his ultimate
                goal for his human actions –
                he seeks the vision of God –

                    His reasoning is becoming more
                and more in that vision of seeking
                God eternally – he sees through
                the eyes of the Heavenly Father –

                    When a man is imprudent
                he is taking himself to a road
                that leads to unhappiness.

                    He is attached inordinately
                to something or things that
                are in the way of doing the Father's
                will.

                    A person has a free will to chose
                to not offend God by their actions –
                Jesus healed the deaf man and in
                so doing was teaching us about
                ourselves –

                There is deafness to God's call –

                There is deafness to sins committed
                    out of pride and anger,
                    for the man seeking revenge
                    for his own self hate,
                    revenge of what, he believes,
                    others may have done to him,
                    hating in his heart –
                    or maybe some or
                    all of these.

                Holding on to an inordinate attachment
                    is how satan can enslave a
                    man when he wants to constantly
                    get his foot in the door to use him.
                    The man has this inordinate attachment
                    he won't let go of and live
                    the way God wants him to –
                    so he rationalizes why "it's
                    okay" and "it's a little thing."
                    In effect it can be a big thing
                    that taints his right reason,
                    that throws everything else
                    off.

                    It can become his god. One Jesuit
                called it a 'pondra'. I don't know
                what that is, but it is what keeps
                him stuck. St. Ignatius talks about the
                reasons of affections, wealth and
                honor being at the root of why
                a man stays attached.

                    A prideful man has distorted
                vision of himself (he seeks to be
                up, maybe to make up for how
                he does not see himself lovingly
                through God's eyes and needing
                to raise up his own vision of
                himself, as okay.)

                    A prideful man has distorted
                vision of his brothers for he
                does not recognize how he is to
                respect the dignity of others and
                never use them as an 'object' for
                his own glory –

                    A prideful man does not see as he
                should – God's overwhelming love
                for us – He is in the wrong place
                in his heart in seeing God as
                above him, a Supreme Being
                and the Creator and recognizing
                his own creaturehood and relationship
                of himself under God.

                    Being in the right place in
                relationships – seeing where we
                belong with God and others and
                loving ourselves as God wants
                brings a man to happiness –

                    Eve was in the wrong place when
                she sinned – She wanted to be equal
                to God, she wasn't recognizing
                her creaturehood under God the
                Creator –

                    We need the gift of knowledge of
                the Holy Spirit to see what attachment/
                attachments exist in our lives that take us
                from God. The Jesuit called it
                a 'pondra' –

                    Satan uses these attachments,
                like he did with Eve – so the man
                gives into satan, his life is
                tainted and the desire for the 'pondra'
                is uppermost in his life – not putting
                God first –

                    God wants us to be in relationships
                according to His law. God has a plan
                for us. God does want relationships
                in our lives and using them with
                the ultimate goal of eternal
                happiness, not for fear of abandonment,
                using people as objects because of
                our fear, our anger, our
                unwillingness to forgive, our
                pride or hatred –

                    Pride is really hating oneself
                and others because in right
                reasoning we need to be in the
                right place with God (under Him)
                to seek eternal happiness as our goal –

                We live here in time and space –

                Heaven is eternal –

                We do not give into inappropriate
                attachments when heaven is
                our ultimate goal.

                    For good, according to God's
                will, our actions are performed
                because we always have that
                goal of eternal happiness in
                our mind when we perform them.
                We know our creaturehood and
                we know God is the Creator –
                We are under Him. We know our
                place in this relationship – it
                is in our vision – we perform
                our actions in right reasoning.

                    If a man is prudent he has
                happiness from his actions –
                his ego, vain glory, is not
                the object of his actions,
                he is not concerned with getting
                the affection of others to make
                him feel "okay" about himself –
                He is not motivated by a negative,
                self-serving, spirit and he is
                accountable to God for his actions
                and responsible how he effects
                others in the plan of salvation.
                He sees through the eyes of God
                and keeps his eyes on the everlasting
                goal of eternal happiness with God.

                    Actions we perform are to be those that
                give us peace, according to God's will,
                that are loving and lead us to
                eternal happiness.

                    The foolish man has his sights
                on some worldly pleasure and does
                not have as the vision for his
                actions his end before God.
                His desires are of the flesh, or
                    worldly, they are an inappropriate
                    desire – not the ultimate one
                    of eternal happiness –

                Song: I Am a God of Justice

                R. We cannot see the vast ocean, nor
                take in the beauty there of.
                Our minds are limited now in
                time and space and yet God
                gives us such gifts in baptism –
                We receive a sharing in His life
                in baptism – Our knowing and loving
                capacity is elevated in baptism
                so we can perform God-like
                acts –

                    Our goal for eternal happiness
                is God. Our actions are directed
                to this goal always. The end of
                our actions is eternal happiness –
                We place no person, including
                ourselves and our worldly, selfish
                desires before God.

                Sometimes a man is mad in anger,
                revenge and looking for drama –
                so this emotion fired by negative
                thoughts and energy leads him
                to do despicable things –
                The object of his actions are not
                directed to his final end of
                eternal happiness and right
                reason –

                The account of Adam and Eve in the
                    Garden – show us how they
                    were willing to listen to satan,
                    seek their own vain glory
                    and disobey God –

                We have these tendencies because of
                    our wounded human nature –
                    We absolutely need God's grace to
                    perform good works –
                    But performing all good works may
                    not be God's will for us –
                    God has a plan for us –
                    God has given us talents to do
                        His work –
                    God wants us to do it His way –
                        in His time and do our
                        actions with the vision
                        of our eternal happiness
                        as our goal in right
                        reasoning –

                    A man who lives his life stuffing
                anger life-long and stuffing debris
                in his heart – giving into pride,
                anger, jealousy, envy, desires
                of the flesh becomes dull or
                blinded – his vision becomes
                not more like God's, but becomes
                more and more distorted – like a
                man walking in darkness, in
                a fog – not seeing clearly –
                right reasoning is marred when
                a man is living in the deadly
                sins.

                    We need the increase of faith, hope and
                love and must pray for this. We need
                the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we need to
                see the vision of the Father, His
                will for us, His plan, we need to
                know our faults, we need fortitude
                to be strong and we fear God
                not to offend Him with the slightest
                sin – because we love Him
                so much.

                    We put on Christ, we walk in
                the footsteps of Jesus.

                    A man can just become so
                clogged with lies about
                himself, his life becomes unmanageable,
                his anger and hatred at fever pitch –
                his distorted vision of self and
                others becomes more distorted,
                but holding on to an inordinate
                attachment can be like the
                bad apple in the basket that
                makes the others get rotten.

                    We want to see God as He is –
                seek this vision of eternal
                happiness – our focus is the
                light. We seek presence with
                God.

                    We have a free will to accept God's
                Plan for eternal happiness or to
                reject His plan for eternal happiness.

                God wants us to turn to Him freely
                and to recognize He is the Creator,
                we are the creature –

                God wants us to have relationships
                    for His honor and glory –
                    relationships that are to lead
                    ourselves and others to eternal happiness –

                The man who is lustful holds onto
                    the pleasures of the flesh,
                    here below.

                St. Ignatius narrows the desires to
                    3, of wealth, affections
                    and power.
 

                R. We can be perfectly happy –
                    only in heaven –

                We must die to ourselves to live more
                    and more in Him.

                We cannot have perfect
                    happiness here below –

                We must do the work God has
                    called us to here below
                    and know that we
                    cannot have
                    perfect happiness here -
                    below –

                    God can lead us closer and closer
                to Him by learning from the trials
                He allows us to suffer –

                    The splinter in the foot may
                cause a child a lot of pain,
                but they learn not to walk
                on a wood board full of
                splinters without shoes.

                    We learn from relationships
                and God calls us to relationships.
                God intends us to work in love
                with one another in the building
                of His Kingdom.

                    In suffering and pain, in the
                human condition we walk, the
                walk we learn, we are growing
                more and more, hopefully, in our actions
                more and more, in the image of Jesus.
                We are here to die to our selfish ways.
                We are here to learn to love –
                We are here to seek the will of God
                    and to live to please God in
                    all our actions –

                We are to die to inordinate
                    attachments and live
                    more and more perfected as
                    our Heavenly Father wants of us –

                    We are here – not because we have
                arrived, but a work in progress –

                    In one of Bishop Sheen's talks he
                said he would tell us about the
                spiritual life by talking about
                dolls and he sang this song –
                here is part of it.

                "I'm a little doll who was dropped and broken,
                    falling from my mother's knee.

                I'm a little doll who has just been mended –
                    won't you tell me please.

                Are my ears on straight,
                    is my nose in place?

                Do I have a cute expression on
                    my face?

                Are my blue eyes bright?

                Do I look alright,
                    to be taken home Christmas Day?"

                How are our hearts for the Christ -
                    child on Christmas?

                How are our hearts - are they
                    full of love?

                How are we obeying the
                    will of God?

                Do we judge our actions by seeing
                    it in terms of eternal happiness?

                    "Are my ears on straight?"

                    "Do I have a cute expression
                        on my face?"

                    How is my heart to be
                        taken home today?

                Be prepared –

                You know not the day
                    nor the hour.