Saturday 10 August 2013

MEDJUGORJE WEB UPDATE: Holy Obedience???


MEDJUGORJE WEB UPDATE: Holy Obedience??


..in the spiritual life the virtue of Holy Obedience provides a framework from which all the other virtues may burgeon...the contrary to Holy obedience is blind obsequiousness which out of the weakness of a poorly informed conscience turns the soul into a slave of presumption...such a one fears the loss of heaven and the pains of hell however does not live in love since they do not trust..they are a slave to fear and act from the primitive brain according to the flight or fight stimulus...without trust there can be no love...what they feel as pleasant they believe to be good what they feel as invidious to their sensibilities they believe bad..however this is the opposite to true spirituality....such blind obedience makes one a slave and entombs every holy appetite so one is held hostage by the pretense and whims of others...this in turn binds the will and bends it in upon itself..so such a person becomes a castaway marooned on their own island of bodily desire...since to reach out is to share the love of Christ..if we cannot share we cannot keep the living body of Christ alive within us and among us...we must be KERYGMATIC in essence in order to make our being a sublimation of the Gospel..if we are bound in upon ourselves through blind obedience which is what we see happening in MEDJUGORJE the unity message of the Gospel is in danger of inchoate internalizing which may strangle the germinating seed of love....adherents are bound by the whims of others and so cannot evince the variety of God’s creation through their slavish spirituality..hence without Holy obedience to a living magisterium the works and devotions are subverted... indeed we see a union among the proponents of MEDJUGORJE yet it is superficial... emotionally it is fruitful but spiritually at the core it is poisonous...like cactus in the desert who also put forth flowers...the outward flowers are appealing to the eye however the spikes of discord and division to church authority do not allow the intimacy of Christ to prevail among their counterfeit spiritual communities.....as well such a collection of followers eventually cut off from the living water of the church reveal a unity  as a swamp of stagnant overgrown bodily desire and emotion...such a swamp becomes home to insidious spiritual creatures symbolic of bad practices and ugly habits..which eventually scare off many good habits..however due to pride such people do not see the transformation and regard every practice they are undertaking as edifying since they lack discernment and live according to fear in opposition to love...instead of a verdant garden of virtue pruned by Holy obedience they become spiritual sinks attempting to hoard every grace...Holy obedience quickens one to proceed by right reason on the true paths of God...while blind obsequiousness transforms one into a slave without free will an animal operating out of fear and instinct incapable of love..these people hoard what they receive according to primitive survival instincts and due to self-love unconsciously thwart the flow of grace as it emanates from the Church..however the grace of God is ever living and directly or incidentally a good end is always met....such a one is unable to actualize themselves fully and eventually loses the scope of their vocation due to dryness and the normal crosses of life....since they do not know how to suffer out of love....amen

 

..let us see what the wise spiritual fathers and mothers of the church have to say...






 
"The Devil doesn’t fear austerity, but the Devil fears holy obedience.”

– St. Francis de Sales



 
 “Holy Obedience unites us so closely to God that in a way its practice transforms us into Him, so that we have no other will but His. If holy obedience is lacking, even prayer cannot be pleasing to God.”
– St. Thomas Aquinas


 
 By holy obedience a man is guarded against pride. Prayer is given for the sake of holy obedience. The grace of the Holy Spirit is also given for holy obedience. This is why holy obedience is higher than prayer and fasting.

-St.  Silouan the Anthonite

 
Holy Obedience is necessary not only for monks, but for all people. Even the Lord was obedient. The proud and self-regarding do not allow grace to live in them, and therefore they never have spiritual peace, while in the obedient soul the grace of the Holy Spirit enters easily and gives joy and peace. Whoever bears even a little grace in himself joyfully submits himself to all direction. He knows that God directs even the heavens and the netherworld, and himself, and his business, and everything in the world, and therefore he is always at peace.

-St. Silouan the Anthonite


 
 “Some have afflicted their bodies by asceticism

 but they lack discernment, and so they are far from God.”

-Abba Anthony the Great




Our vow of chastity is nothing but our undivided love for Christ in chastity, then we proceed to the freedom of poverty-poverty is nothing but freedom. And that total surrender is holy  obedience. If I belong to God, if I belong to Christ, then he must be able to use me. That is holy obedience. Then we give wholehearted service to the poor. That is service. They complete each other.
That is our life.

                                                                  -Mother Teresa


 
“What do you think is the easiest way to become saints?” ....... “To recognize the Will of God in our Superiors and to submit entirely to it.”"

-      St. Don Bosco

 
"We've been deceived by the thought that we would be more pleasing to God in our own way than in the way God has given us."

                                                        -St. Catherine of Siena

 "Obedience and her sister patience show whether the soul is in truth clothed in the wedding garment of charity." Dialogue 163.

-St. Catherine of Siena

 
 “THE more the Religious abideth beneath the yoke of holy obedience, for the love of God, the greater fruit will he give of himself to God; the more he shall be subject to his Superior for the honour of God, the more free will he be and clean from sin. The true obedient Religious is like unto a knight well armed and mounted the which overcometh and breaketh the ranks of his enemies, safely and without fear, because none of them can hurt him. But he who obeyeth with murmuring and on compulsion, is like unto an unarmed knight and ill-mounted, the which,when he entereth into the battle, will be cast to earth by his enemies, and wounded by them and taken, and sometimes imprisoned and slain.”  -The Little Flowers of St. Francis

......amen

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