Author Topic: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism (Read 2067 times)

TakionMalus · « **on:** January 21, 2018, 11:27:38 PM »

So, over the past day(or two days), I've been getting a small understanding of hesychasm and scholatism. Apparently, heyschasm comes from some dude called Gregory Palamas who argued with another individual(forgot his name), and is a direct contrast to Roman spirituality. From my understanding, they take it out of when the Lord says when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray",[1] hesychasm in tradition has been the process of retiring inward by ceasing to register the senses, in order to achieve an experiential knowledge of God". They also have saints like Saint John Climacus(who is venerated by the RCC, Eastern Catholic Churches, and Orthodox) as a Saint. So basically, they focus on the complete repression of imagination, and want to focus on repentance, advancing one's spiritual state over time, and denying the passiosn of the body, with the ultimate aim being "theosis", the complete union with God. Furthermore, they do not imagine stuff because they can be instances of demonica apparitions. God's energies(his grrace) is revealed in the form of Uncreated Light(Light of Tabor). Roman spirituality, with many of our great saints like Francis of Assisi, Igantius of Loyola, Theresa Avila, John of the Cross, etc, all advocate for imagination b/c they see it as a gift of God, and that it will allow us to deeply understand the Gospel. Ik Thomas Aquinas is also considered a big guy on this, however I am confused on him because he seemed to study Aristolean philosophy. I'm not sure why he would do so, considering the fact that (to my knowledge anyway), it's pagan, and we shouldn't connect our sacred theology with something like that(please correct me if I'm wrong). As I look at this things, I see that hesychasm is something that I agree with, but I'm not really sure since there are theologians who disagree with it, and apparently compare it to other heresies that appeared in the Later Middle Ages.

Please help!

Also, according to some of my own research, Orthodox individuals state that scholasticism is rooted with Aristotelian philosophy. Again, help would be appreciated!

victim of the sspx · « **Reply #1 on:** January 21, 2018, 11:41:46 PM »

If you ever read Aristotelian philosophy, such as "Nicomachean ethics" ( get online for free), then it is obvious that he is laying the foundations for a society based on morality, which is perfectly compatible with Christianity.

It is compatible because grace does not operate only upon those in the Catholic church. Even pagans can say things that are true, and they can do acts of compassion and charity as well. Although it is not "Charity" in the strict theological sense because "Charity" means love of God and involves promoting the faith, but I would argue that even a compassionate deed done by a pagan speaks of God because God is manifest in the healing goodness of good deeds. Good deeds lead people to God, whereas silence or refusal to do a good deed or evil deeds turn people away. Christ said you are the light of the world. A lot of trads think this light should be kept from outsiders and enemies. But the parable says the light is put in a high place to illuminate. Again the church is supposed to illuminate those who dwell in darkness in the shadow of death. Spreading the faith is a commandment, and keeping it to yourself or despising other christians ( even orthodox) is not holy.

Shutting out the world when you go to prayer is necessary to help you concentrate, but as for whether or not the imagination should be used in prayer, you dont have a choice. No one can shut out their imagination, it is part of their brain. There are 3 parts of the brain devoted to abstract reasoning, they never switch off. Even if you achieve a state of total blankness and are totally focused on the words you say, your imagination is simultaneously associating those words with concepts, but you think you have clarity through your force of will, yet you only experience peace or contentment because you associate the act with doing something of profit to you. Peer approval can be a hidden motivation for prayer, and social gain. Yet if you do it to seek the approval of God and a better destiny in life through His benevolence then I call that prayer, even if you ask for nothing in it.

I don't pray and I forgot how to, but if I see someone suffering it happens immediately.

(btw I went to eastern orthodox years ago before I was catholic)
(btw 2. nicomachean ethics is very difficult to read due to the old language used.)

victim of the sspx · « **Reply #2 on:** January 22, 2018, 01:02:46 AM »

PS

You can never achieve a state of absolute and total detachment because you will always be attached to
1 your presence within the world
2 the balance of good and evil
You will never be detached because you have a motive of agency which is solicitous for the triumph of good over evil.
If you achieve a sort of impassibility it is because most things you experience, do not evoke emotional investment in how to turn them into a contest between good and evil. That is the paradox of the zealous Christian dwelling in the ordinary.
But your task as a Christian is to make the ordinary into the extraordinary, by turning situations which are neither overtly good or bad into opportunities for the kindling of the fire of true Charity (Evangelize Convert Preach etc), but not from a position of superiority, but from a position of service. The greatest among you must be the servant to all His words say.
You are meant to serve the world by winning souls for goodness, that is what I understand of Christianity, although the numbers of Catholics who do this is abysmal. Most of them confine themselves to "Duty" and when they say "Duty" they mean going to work or college and not sinning. But a faith like that is insular and curtails Charity. Charity is a fire, it radiates from souls who have it and warms all. Most Catholics are stone cold, barren and bitter. Probe deeply enough and you will find that the front most of them have in which they portray extreme piety and sensitivity to dogma goes no deeper than the surface.
Give them a trial or opposition or call them out on a sin they refuse to be sorry for, and you will find the cold hate in them.
A challenge is to be full of charity even when valued peers wont praise for it. Are you Charitable for God, or imitating Charity like an actor just to fit in with peers. If Catholics wont be kindled with your warmth, go to the gentiles so to speak, and be warm to people in the street, and their fire will kindle and increase yours as well. You are a fire.
Set the place on fire.

( source The interior castle st theresa of spain+ st therese of france + st john of God + tomas a kempis)

(btw im not even catholic but want t o be) peace

Nadir · « **Reply #3 on:** January 22, 2018, 05:39:48 AM »

Hesychasm sounds to me to be a minestrone of quietism, buddhism and yoga. At this early stage of your growth in faith, I'd be giving these things a wide beam. Keep it simple till you get the basics of the faith.

VOTS has given a few good reads which I too would recommend.

Quote

The interior castle st theresa of spain+ st therese of france + st john of God + tomas a kempis)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/406639.Interior_Castle

http://www.goodcatholicbooks.org/therese.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_God
(though I wonder if he didn't mean St John of the Cross https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/on.com/Sai/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=on.com/Sai&linkCode=as2&tag=httpwwwchanco-20 )

http://www.catholicplanet.com/ebooks/Imitation-of-Christ.pdf - a real treasure.

Jovita · « **Reply #4 on:** January 22, 2018, 09:43:25 AM »

Quote from: TakionMalus on January 21, 2018, 11:27:38 PM

Please help!

Also, according to some of my own research, Orthodox individuals state that scholasticism is rooted with Aristotelian philosophy. Again, help would be appreciated!

My friend, I do think we are kindred spirits. It is true, scholasticism has a bad root. I am not a Thomist (Aquinas). The 'scholars' kept their noses in their books and tried to figure out the precise meaning of everything. They neglected the biggest gift, God is Love. This scholasticism is what has brought the Roman Catholic Church to where it is today. I am not a Roman Catholic now, though I was in my youth. I am however an Eastern Catholic (long story).

.

I am also not fond of Augustine the Blessed.

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Read the selected stories from this book, free online. I was mentored and re-educated in my Catholic faith by an Eastern Orthodox Monk-Priest. There is a level of understanding that one gains by reading about the lives of Everyday saints.

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http://orthochristian.com/56598.html

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Get the book and read the whole thing.
Edited to add, get St. Faustina's diary.

Nadir · « **Reply #5 on:** January 22, 2018, 02:47:15 PM »

Quote from: Jovita on January 22, 2018, 09:43:25 AM

My friend, I do think we are kindred spirits. It is true, scholasticism has a bad root. I am not a Thomist (Aquinas). The 'scholars' kept their noses in their books and tried to figure out the precise meaning of everything. They neglected the biggest gift, God is Love. This scholasticism is what has brought the Roman Catholic Church to where it is today. I am not a Roman Catholic now, though I was in my youth. I am however an Eastern Catholic (long story).

.

I am also not fond of Augustine the Blessed.

.

Read the selected stories from this book, free online. I was mentored and re-educated in my Catholic faith by an Eastern Orthodox Monk-Priest. There is a level of understanding that one gains by reading about the lives of Everyday saints.

.

http://orthochristian.com/56598.html

.

Get the book and read the whole thing.
Edited to add, get St. Faustina's diary.

The blind leading the blind into a pit? Why are you promoting the "Orthodox" schism?

Jovita · « **Reply #6 on:** January 22, 2018, 02:58:58 PM »

I am promoting Orthodoxy, Catholic Orthodoxy. Right teaching. Sadly lacking in the Roman church today (new church, post V2).

Nadir · « **Reply #7 on:** January 22, 2018, 04:03:57 PM »

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]There is more to say about this, but no time at present. Eastern Orthodox is not Eastern Catholic.[/color]

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Bon08/B8unam.htm[/color]

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]Unam Sanctam[/color]

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]One God, One Faith, One Spiritual Authority[/color]

[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87)]Pope Boniface VIII - 1302[/color]

Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,‘ and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.

We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of the prophet: ‘Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one from the hand of the dog.’ [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church, He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by lot [Jn 19:23- 24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking to Peter Himself said: ‘Feed my sheep‘ [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John ‘there is one sheepfold and one shepherd.’ We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: ‘Behold, here are two swords‘ [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard‘ [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church but the latter bythe Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest.
However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: ‘There is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God‘ [Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards by the other.
For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: ‘Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms‘ and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ‘The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man‘ [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven‘ etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

poche · « **Reply #8 on:** January 25, 2018, 02:11:09 AM »

Quote from: Nadir on January 22, 2018, 05:39:48 AM

Hesychasm sounds to me to be a minestrone of quietism, buddhism and yoga. At this early stage of your growth in faith, I'd be giving these things a wide beam. Keep it simple till you get the basics of the faith.

VOTS has given a few good reads which I too would recommend.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/406639.Interior_Castle

http://www.goodcatholicbooks.org/therese.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_God
(though I wonder if he didn't mean St John of the Cross https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/on.com/Sai/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=on.com/Sai&linkCode=as2&tag=httpwwwchanco-20 )

http://www.catholicplanet.com/ebooks/Imitation-of-Christ.pdf - a real treasure.

St Teresa of Avila said that there is more than one way to union with God. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, St Francis de Sales says pretty much the same thing.

Nadir · « **Reply #9 on:** January 25, 2018, 03:58:14 AM »

Quote from: poche on January 25, 2018, 02:11:09 AM

St Teresa of Avila said that there is more than one way to union with God. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, St Francis de Sales says pretty much the same thing.

Of course there is more than one way to union with God. So I wonder just what point you are making.
TakionMalus asked for our take on hesychasm and I gave mine.
As a matter of interest here is a Catholic viewpoint: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07301a.htm

Viva Cristo Rey · « **Reply #10 on:** January 25, 2018, 06:10:22 AM »

On East coast, I am disappointed by the liberalism among the Othodox. The Orthodox is not so orthodox. Most in our area vote Democrat and are pro abortion. They are just like the Novus Ordo. Many want their liturgy to be modern and in English.

poche · « **Reply #11 on:** January 25, 2018, 11:41:51 PM »

Quote from: Viva Cristo Rey on January 25, 2018, 06:10:22 AM

On East coast, I am disappointed by the liberalism among the Othodox. The Orthodox is not so orthodox. Most in our area vote Democrat and are pro abortion. They are just like the Novus Ordo. Many want their liturgy to be modern and in English.

The tradition of the Orthodox is to have the liturgy in the vernacular.

poche · « **Reply #12 on:** January 27, 2018, 02:06:02 AM »

Quote from: Nadir on January 25, 2018, 03:58:14 AM

Of course there is more than one way to union with God. So I wonder just what point you are making.
TakionMalus asked for our take on hesychasm and I gave mine.
As a matter of interest here is a Catholic viewpoint: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07301a.htm

I think what is needed is good spiritual direction from a Catholic priest.

Author Topic: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism (Read 2067 times)

TakionMalus

Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

victim of the sspx

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

victim of the sspx

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

Nadir

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

Jovita

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

Nadir

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

Jovita

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

Nadir

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

poche

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

Nadir

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

Viva Cristo Rey

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

poche

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism

poche

Re: Eastern Orthodox Spirituality vs Roman Catholicism