Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Catholic Living in the Modern World => Topic started by: neto on March 20, 2023, 07:27:29 PM
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I'll try to start a project to grow spiritually in virtue and charity and at least do something to achieve perfection, although that's not a very simple thing to achieve. I'm a 25 y/o lawyer and student and I pray the 3 misteries of the rosary everyday. I have already read the whole bible but I still like to read one or two chapters of the old testament and one or two chapters of the new testament everyday. I pray the morning prayers and I pray before sleep and I attend TLM exclusivelly by a traditionalist priest when it is available (every month I have at least 4 masses). I go to confession once a month. That's basically my spiritual life.
I study 9 hour a day, except on saturdays and sundays, when I decrease the amount of time studying (it is my daily obligation to study like that, because I must study very much to get the job I want, since the test is very hard, and also to provide for my family).
I'm thinking to start by simple things like: never complain about anything and everything I would do, I would try to do it in the best way I can. Maybe consecrating everything I'll do to God before doing it.
Do you guys have anything, books, papal docuмents or anything like that regarding the subject? Thank you.
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St. Thomas More Society to help God defend His people.
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Aspiring to sainthood, you should take unto yourself a patron, probably (though not necessarily) a lawyer, for example St Thomas More. Read the lives of the saints. That's a great program you have. I wish you well with it.
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In the lives of the saints I have noticed two things they all share.
1) The desire to become a saint
2) A lifelong struggle against the venial sin that stands between them and sainthood
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Good replies! Lives of the saints for me, but either way, we must all live our lives striving for holiness, without which it is impossible to please God.
Some of the Saints and How to Become One:
https://youtu.be/sQ9orQxk_4E
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Desiring to become a saint is a starting point, and at some point the love of God and desire to do his will must take precedence over that. For the saint to become perfect, he has to go through a dark night of the soul, at the end of which he wills to become a saint only to the extent that God wills it.
As for how to become one, the quickest/easiest way is the Little or Easy Way of St. Therese.
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In the lives of the saints I have noticed two things they all share.
1) The desire to become a saint
2) A lifelong struggle against the venial sin that stands between them and sainthood
This represents merely the first stage of three, the so-called Purgative Way.
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I'll try to start a project to grow spiritually in virtue and charity and at least do something to achieve perfection, although that's not a very simple thing to achieve. I'm a 25 y/o lawyer and student and I pray the 3 misteries of the rosary everyday. I have already read the whole bible but I still like to read one or two chapters of the old testament and one or two chapters of the new testament everyday. I pray the morning prayers and I pray before sleep and I attend TLM exclusivelly by a traditionalist priest when it is available (every month I have at least 4 masses). I go to confession once a month. That's basically my spiritual life.
I study 9 hour a day, except on saturdays and sundays, when I decrease the amount of time studying (it is my daily obligation to study like that, because I must study very much to get the job I want, since the test is very hard, and also to provide for my family).
I'm thinking to start by simple things like: never complain about anything and everything I would do, I would try to do it in the best way I can. Maybe consecrating everything I'll do to God before doing it.
Do you guys have anything, books, papal docuмents or anything like that regarding the subject? Thank you.
Concretely, you'll need to start engaging in meditation or mental prayer. To this end, a retreat according to the Spiritual Exercises (such as offered by the SSPX) would be invaluable to get started.
Although you study 9 hours a day, perhaps you could break up that time so that you take time every hour or two to mediate a little bit. At some point the goal is to have a constant awareness of God's presence, which is harder to achieve if you go 9 hours without thinking much about God.
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I'll try to start a project to grow spiritually in virtue and charity and at least do something to achieve perfection, .....
I'm thinking to start by simple things like: never complain about anything and everything I would do, I would try to do it in the best way I can. Maybe consecrating everything I'll do to God before doing it.
Do you guys have anything, books, papal docuмents or anything like that regarding the subject? Thank you.
This sermon helped me a lot...
https://youtu.be/uyLs39C86Sg
And Tan has a 40% off sale right now. These pre VII books are great.
https://tanbooks.com/products/books/spiritual-warfare/virtue-vice/cultivating-virtue-self-mastery-with-the-saints/
https://tanbooks.com/products/books/discounts-sales/5-books/the-ways-of-mental-prayer/
Hope this helps, God bless you !
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Do you guys have anything, books, papal docuмents or anything like that regarding the subject? Thank you.
Introduction to the Devout Life by St Francis de Sales.
The Story of a Soul - The Autobiography of St Therese of Lisieux
Christ the Life of the Soul by Dom Marmion
These were all required reading by Archbishop Lefebvre for seminarians in the year of spirituality. As Ladislaus recommended, if you haven't had the extraordinary grace of a traditional Ignatian retreat such as run by the SSPX, then do yourself a favour.
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I'll try to start a project to grow spiritually in virtue and charity and at least do something to achieve perfection, although that's not a very simple thing to achieve. I'm a 25 y/o lawyer and student and I pray the 3 misteries of the rosary everyday. I have already read the whole bible but I still like to read one or two chapters of the old testament and one or two chapters of the new testament everyday. I pray the morning prayers and I pray before sleep and I attend TLM exclusivelly by a traditionalist priest when it is available (every month I have at least 4 masses). I go to confession once a month. That's basically my spiritual life.
I study 9 hour a day, except on saturdays and sundays, when I decrease the amount of time studying (it is my daily obligation to study like that, because I must study very much to get the job I want, since the test is very hard, and also to provide for my family).
I'm thinking to start by simple things like: never complain about anything and everything I would do, I would try to do it in the best way I can. Maybe consecrating everything I'll do to God before doing it.
Do you guys have anything, books, papal docuмents or anything like that regarding the subject? Thank you.
The bolded and underlined needs to be addressed because you may already have the wrong idea. Perfection is not something that is achieved, it is a Habitual Grace and a Gift from God. It might be the way you worded it and you didn't mean it the way it sounds but it kind of came across as the Buddhist way of "achieving perfection" by your own efforts or something to that degree. I know you didn't say that directly but it came across that way and I'm just making sure you didn't mean it that way.
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The bolded and underlined needs to be addressed because you may already have the wrong idea. Perfection is not something that is achieved, it is a Habitual Grace and a Gift from God. It might be the way you worded it and you didn't mean it the way it sounds but it kind of came across as the Buddhist way of "achieving perfection" by your own efforts or something to that degree. I know you didn't say that directly but it came across that way and I'm just making sure you didn't mean it that way.
I don't perceive buddhism here.
Matthew 5: 44 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=44-#x)But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: 45 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=45-#x)That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.
46 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=46-#x)For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? 47 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=47-#x)And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? 48 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=48-#x)Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.
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Matthew 19: 21 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=19&l=21-#x)Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me.
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I don't perceive buddhism here.
Matthew 5: 44 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=44-#x)But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: 45 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=45-#x)That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.
46 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=46-#x)For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? 47 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=47-#x)And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? 48 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=5&l=48-#x)Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.
and
Matthew 19: 21 (https://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=19&l=21-#x)Jesus saith to him: If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me.
I didn't say it was for sure just that it could come across that way and I'm making sure he doesn't have the wrong idea. The quotes are all fine and good but Perfection is still a Gift from God, the quotes don't change that fact. We must also be careful in quoting Scripture that we apply it as The Church does and not our own interpretations of them.
One needs Grace to be saved and Grace is understood as a free gift from God and if one is perfected it would be by Grace that God gives to a soul not just by ones own efforts. This is Church Teaching. The desire to even want to be a Saint comes from God.
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I didn't say it was for sure just that it could come across that way and I'm making sure he doesn't have the wrong idea. The quotes are all fine and good but Perfection is still a Gift from God, the quotes don't change that fact. We must also be careful in quoting Scripture that we apply it as The Church does and not our own interpretations of them.
One needs Grace to be saved and Grace is understood as a free gift from God and if one is perfected it would be by Grace that God gives to a soul not just by ones own efforts. This is Church Teaching. The desire to even want to be a Saint comes from God.
Correction of my above post because I couldn't modify it for some reason. I should have not used the phrase "just by ones own efforts" and just left it as "by ones own efforts." The way I originally worded it could come across as Semi-Pelagian which was definitely not my intent. I used the word "just" in that phrase at first to imply that we still have free will to cooperate with or reject Grace but I was not clear what I meant by that. Sorry about that for any scandal I may have caused.
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I didn't say it was for sure just that it could come across that way and I'm making sure he doesn't have the wrong idea. The quotes are all fine and good but Perfection is still a Gift from God, the quotes don't change that fact. We must also be careful in quoting Scripture that we apply it as The Church does and not our own interpretations of them.
One needs Grace to be saved and Grace is understood as a free gift from God and if one is perfected it would be by Grace that God gives to a soul not just by ones own efforts. This is Church Teaching. The desire to even want to be a Saint comes from God.
My point is that there is nothing untoward in Neto's OP. He has "a project to grow spiritually in virtue and charity and at least do something to achieve perfection".
The verses I quoted are entirely appropriate to his appeal and your misapprehension. Jesus in the sermon on the mount commands from us to take action to achieve perfection. We are not pietists, we are Catholics.
In His communication with the rich young pharisee who keeps all the commandments He invites him to gain perfection through his own efforts.
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My point is that there is nothing untoward in Neto's OP. He has "a project to grow spiritually in virtue and charity and at least do something to achieve perfection".
The verses I quoted are entirely appropriate to his appeal and your misapprehension. Jesus in the sermon on the mount commands from us to take action to achieve perfection. We are not pietists, we are Catholics.
In His communication with the rich young pharisee who keeps all the commandments He invites him to gain perfection through his own efforts.
I've recently learned that we should always be prudent and careful about the things we say and we should take every effort to make sure we are not misunderstood. Now we shouldn't take it to an absurd degree and there's going to be misunderstandings regardless but what comes out in spoken or written (typed) word may be understood differently or come out differently than intended and it can have disastrous consequences. The ambiguity of modernism being an example and what that's done to the world.
Even if you didn't take it that way it's possible he meant it that way, I didn't take it that way either but wanted to be sure he wasn't being Pelagian, or Semi-Pelagian about it (those are both condemned heresies.) I know I said "Buddhist" and that was perhaps not the best example. He hasn't answered and that's fine but I just wanted to be sure he wasn't thinking that way. I've also discovered that many professing Catholics hold to one of these heresies, maybe inadvertently, but holding them nonetheless. I held to these at one point as well many years ago but have since abjured from them.
I also know the Bible quotes wouldn't back up a Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian interpretation so those quotes should never be understood in such a way. Have a good day.