EP 12 - The Perfect Spiritual Balance
00:00 No, no, peace, domine, domine. No, no, peace, domine. Se domini, se domini, Gorda rohina!
00:27 When I was at school, a long time ago I may add. However, I remember the examination questions used to begin with contrast and compare and then discuss.
00:46 It was very useful for understanding ideas, theories, isms of one sort or another. Men, it helped to throw the truth out in bold relief.
01:01 And I want to do that now at the beginning of this talk, except that I'm not so much going to give Catholic theories or Catholic ideas, I want to compare heresies, three major heresies that had a determining influence on the faith In the early days of the church, it will help us to see the truth more
01:30 clearly, at least I hope it will. Now, I've already spoken to you about Aryanism. The heresy that taught that Christ was not God, a great man, yes, yes, maybe the greatest man who ever lived.
01:54 ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― � 80% of you have never heard of it and yet it logically follows from Aryanism.
02:32 It is called Macedonianism. Like Aryanism, it got its name from its founder. Its founder was called Macedonius.
02:49 Macedonius I. First, the bishop of Constantinople in the middle of the 4th century. And what he said is this, once again, quite logically, if Jesus Christ is not God, then neither is his love.
03:10 So the Holy Spirit disappears from the scene. Now, a totally different form of Christianity begins to emerge, utterly at odds with the Christianity of the 1st century.
03:34 In the early century, then the Christianity could be conceived as being a circle of light with Christ at its centre, Christ risen and glorified, Christ radioactive with the l'abbal guard, oring that love outwards to draw us up like a powerful magnetic force into his mystical body through a sort of spiritual
04:11 osmosis, into his mystical body then in with and through him to gaze upon the Father, to contemplate the Father In preparation for the union for which God had destined us from the very beginning.
04:40 • BUT THEN, AnotherHeresy began to take over when Christianity took upon itself another a pattern, picture now in your imagination, that after the heresis of Arianism and Macedonianism, then Christ and God were one and the same.
05:12 You remember, but Arianism was defeated by constantly beating the slogan, Christ is God, Christ is God, God is Christ, God is Christ, like the steady beat of a drum in the end, there was victory, but at the end of it, Christianity had a completely different complexion.
05:34 Now, rather than being a certain, with Christ at his centre, radioactive of the love of God, drawing people into his mystical body, now it was perceived rather as being a pyramid, con Christ the pantercrata ruling from the top, Christ the ruler of all, and we deep down at the bottom.
05:57 The Holy Spirit had been taken up into his divinity, lost to sight, at least it played no practical part and eronger in Christian spirituality.
06:12 How, therefore, did we get from where we were at the bottom of the pyramid, how did we get to God to Christ at the top of the pyramid without the help of the public spirit.
06:29 We could only do it by our own turned power, by our own strength! And so another heresy was born. 1835.
06:41 It was called pelagianism by St Augustine, who more than anybody else fought to destroy this pernicious heresy of his life, pelagianism.
06:55 Once again it was called after its founder, pelagious, at least. Lest, at least, sent a Gostin, Paul did's founder Pelagius, but I want to let you into a secret, but try to keep it quiet over here.
07:20 This side of the Atlantic, because the founder, his name was, well, that may be straight, but he was British. British?
07:35 His name was Morgan, brother Morgan, a monk, and unfortunately, it's been a heresy that you find particularly Brits, or particularly fond of.
07:53 It has affected them a deeply. le. Let me explain what I mean. You see, it was we, British, who put the great into Britain?
08:18 We did it ourselves. That's why we don't celebrate Thanksgiving. as you do in America, when so many from different lands all over the world come together and are bonded together as one in a great nation, and you'll give thanks to God.
08:38 Oh no, we brets, we did it ourselves. We pelagians, we did it. We put the great into Britain. Not only that, we built the greatest empire, the world has ever known.
08:54 Hanna, do we have a thanksgiving day for it? No! We did it, ourself, shin fame, as the Irish would say.
09:04 We did it ourselves. Oh, we have, we had an empire day when we celebrated what we had done, what we had achieved, but thanksgiving, no, we did it ourselves.
09:20 Thank you very much. silicon… i amое despond Io Amhes amое demon Amener Am financer Am CR i sem rho Tet Am Am Am ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― ― femmer.
10:43 Ūvi hajua a Lan haja haja haja hajua haja haja haja haja haja haja haja So they do have an halibar, I'm not saying that they did suffer from pelaj甚麼 But I was a student of the the theologian who taught us a brilliant man who had a summerkum laudé in theology from Rome, an extremely great and renowned
11:10 Theonotan, said he believed that all Catholics, actually 95% or more of them actually suffered from pelagianism, influence them in one form or another, …so we don't completely get off the hook.
11:34 …but I'm afraid I'm ashamed to say we don't have a Thanksgiving in this country. …now what I want to show you next is that sadly, these heroses have come back again.
11:57 10. The art shepherd and the sheep on the rather the shepherds who rule the church have been so influence once again by arionism that if they believe in Christ they don't speak about him very much at all and when they do it's as Christ a great man, because you , Hickson was a great man, narrative of
12:25 his father his mother was In the essence of Jesus's wisdom father received this references on the plot of 같아, not his because to date a playskeens Carmuhoria was a very good writer Full of it belonged the chains inn anderer, ann es ird awarded as t dhe nish, but not the holy spirit, who drew people into
13:17 our risen lord of the dawn of time who drew grew as up into his mystical body to our ultimate destination to be one we've got and to all eternity.
13:32 I'm afraid all that has changed. And sadly, although Senator Gostin was had a limited success against Pelagianism in his day, sadly at the Renaissance, when all things classical came back into vogue, irim, Mol あまり, talan upd code tala upd blue dra 코ú 2009 genera sспー pap., h smp smp ho ent 갔 la proposta
14:58 del union. Dimitrating the strings of hypostatic union. There is no place for it. There was no place for it in the early days of the Church with Aryanism and Macedonianism.
15:13 Nor is there a place for it anymore. It has taken out of Catholic spirituality. Now the hypostatic union is so important.
15:28 I'd like to explain it by telling you a story. About 40 years ago, I got fed up of the awful coffee that was served up at service stations along the motorway, so I had a what I thought was a wonderful idea.
15:48 ni la �kett בש —And that disaster happened three months later.
16:27 —What happened was this. The kitchen kettle went bust, and so without thinking about it, I went to the car, got my twelve volt kettle.
16:41 Yeah, you'll guess what's coming next, and I plugged it into the mains. Had a flash, there was sparks, a smell of burning rubber, and my poor twelve volt kettle expired.
17:02 But all was not in vain because I learnt a very valuable truth, a truth that we can so easily forget.
17:14 Firstly, it was the 240 vaults into a 12-volt cattle will not go. Equally, the infinite, limitless love of God will not go into a limited human being That's why we need a transformer.
17:49 As I should have used a transformer in my kitchen, had I only thought about it. Now God sent us a living, breathing human transformer in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.
18:06 He was h過來i barking,elle jianzi, t�� правalitill, askor, come, níti mith young hei and staff, na t水u mith young hei, nei mith jiwier uestuturut Он na quin compare.
18:31 Po sem, shouki b i úi níti nine y Direct bean li didi mith young hei, chi adi l�� increased wëse trilk eciid shimo il eu ze littus mith un', uestuturru co kim وomme latter holy somehow, in his divineيا directly, towards �hu� man� to be united with God.
19:05 So, at least, I learnt something from the disaster and it is exactly for the same with us. That is why it is so important …to understand and to realize the importance of the hypostatic union in early Christian spirituality …and in any orthodox Catholic spirituality thereafter.
19:42 …praging is the kiss of death to that spirituality …because after the victory of Aryanism the question was how do we get from down here to God up there by our own endeavour by our own power, by our own spiritual resources.
20:08 Pelagenism, yes. Particularly affecting, we are British, but affects all Catholics. At least in some form, particularly as I said earlier, through what they call semi-Pelagenism.
20:25 Yes, we have the mass, we have the sacraments, but nevertheless all the emphasis is on ourselves a' what we can do.
20:35 Now, there is in fact only one way to reach out to God through Christ.
20:49 And that is to be taken up to into him, into his prayer, to unite our m'arraoooar aquas' prior accompli'iamол knew WHEN … literature, poetry, it even, it even affected Shakespeare.
22:02 Now Shakespeare said that in peace there is nothing that so becomes a man as humility.
22:16 Dunnaici,PERIÖER ШУМЕН traumaticÖ AP around Wwritt artery POOM — rozum o'un monde, mehuef wyrfef cia He is going to change the world.
23:15 He's going to change the world by destroying people, by warfare, in battle. He's going to break better and burn without God.
23:32 Is this a legionism that seeps into Christian spirituality, ,a belief that we can do it by ourselves.
23:48 Change ourselves, make ourselves perfect. Do you remember I told you the story ,of when I became a novice? I entered the novice and what happened?
23:59 I decided to change myself. What we actually told that we had to change ourselves? The novice master told us we had to acquire all the virtues.
24:10 a library was full of books on the virtues, we had to change ourselves in one year flat and I set about doing it.
24:20 I did give two months to acquiring humility because they said that was the best and the most important of all the virtues.
24:30 Then every month through for the rest of my division, I was to acquire another virtue. — Sardly, Sardly, as I told you before, I didn't quite make it.
24:46 In fact, I endeavour managed to make myself perfect, since. But I told you, remember, I discovered in the nabeshut a little book.
24:59 It was called paks animé written in 1588 by a Spanish Franciscan called a John of Bon Villa. And on the first page I read these words.
25:16 With love, all things are possible. Without it, nothing is possible. iremember the gospels – the gospels don't say with me all things are – without me nothing is possible.
25:35 Or, Father, it does say without me nothing is possible. It doesn't say, well you might be able to do a bit, you might get some of the way.
25:43 It says without me nothing, without me, without my love, without my Holy Spirit, т ― ― ― ― ― larice e bentaliti into the belief that we can change ourselves.
26:19 Thank God for that Franciscan, for that little book that made me realise without God I have no power to do anything.
26:29 So we must be careful now in the spiritual life. Because this pudacious little heresy is always there. es immer trying to sneak in to destroyers' shall be inside a fire to our pride to make us believe that we can't do it by our own power.
26:55 I have already said a short time ago that we think that we can destroy the power of evil within us.
27:09 We can destroy the power of evil in the world. We can destroy the devil and all his works and pumps.
27:20 …sorry, we can't, only God can do it, if we allow him in, through deepening our prayer life, to allow his Spirit to surcharge our Spirit, to surcharge and transform our weak human loving, with his loving, sin hom home HOW TO BE YOU have NO POWER TO DO ANYTHING.
27:56 LAGEN privatism has been so punishous that it can even NOT just seep in't at the spiritual life. It can seep into our prayerWAY interior life.
28:08 The spiritual life. Prayer's life. It can become rather like trying to walk on a tight row.
28:23 On one side there is pelagianism, on the other side there is quietism. An orthodoxy is straight ahead on the tight row.
28:38 We read a book, an exciting book about the spiritual life, we hear a sermon, a moving sermon, see a film, make a retreat, and we suddenly decide, we're going to begin again as I hid it and we're going to change ourselves and before we know where we are, we're back into palagionism, falling off on one
29:02 side now, into pride. And then when we, then when we fail, and become exhausted and give up, become a settle for just seeking our salvation, and become Adam just nominal Catholics with fall off onto the other side into queertism well God, here I am if you if you want to make me holy, you can.
29:37 I'm now putting on the the quietest face. You will be done Lord, I'm here like a suet putting in the middle, on that type rope, between semi-pilagianism and quietism.
30:04 And the balance comes through the Holy Spirit as we persevere in prayer, realising that without God we can do nothing, but with Him, All things are possible.
30:19 It comes through perseverance. So let me end now. By giving you a new definition of prayer. Trish it strange to see a shaman, as to call the Pennicaticism.
30:48 Prrrr is raising the heart and the mind to God, and I introduced, Seas to your здоров Symptoms. Withdrums about trei, it's all in the trei, grei is in trei ing to raise the heart and mind to God.
31:17 But now, in order to retain that balance, I want to introduce a new word to qualify the try'ing, and that word is the word gently, gently.
31:42 There is gently persevering in trying, in gently trying to raise the heart and mind to God.
32:00 The moment you feel, useless, clenching your fish, fists, setting the teeth hard, a Shakespeare said, spreading the nostrils wide, bending up your whole spirit.
32:18 To change yourself for the world, or the devil, or the power of evil, than you are in the urches of semi-balladionism, and you will get nowhere but to disaster.
32:36 Gently is the watchword. Persevering in prayer, knowing that with God all things are possible, but without Him nothing is possible.
32:53 Proven is gently trying to raise the heart and mind to God and persevering until to allow the Holy Spirit to lead you on and give you the balance that only he can give you.
33:20 So, let me end them with the words of Padre Pio. For he used to say and say often, Ray, trust and don't worry.
33:39 Ray, gently, Ray, gently, trust and don't worry.