In their recent CWR article, titled “The Scandalous Synod Report: a Betrayal of Trust,” Theresa Farnan and Mary Hasson did us all a great service in shedding a spotlight on the dangerous thrust of the recent final report from Synod Study Group #9. Their analysis illuminates the implications of this “working document,” a report with no ecclesial authority, but one that they argue will probably have an impact on pastoral practices throughout the Church. That is no doubt absolutely true.
The authors tell us that the Synod report proposes a “paradigm shift” in the Church’s approach to “the most difficult doctrinal, pastoral and ethical questions,” a change that is needed, say the Synod Fathers, given the seemingly intractable moral questions plaguing the Church. Farnan and Hasson provide an excellent analysis, leading to the indisputable conclusion that the main concern of the report is an “appalling effort to normalize same-sex sexual relationships,” and to settle the other “emerging” issues that seem to challenge the moral framework within which the Church has operated for centuries.
Study Group #9 wants us to believe that the old ways simply don’t work anymore–not if we are going to respond adequately to the demands of the times.
Paradigm shifts and emotivism
Thus, the most troubling and truly dangerous issue identified by these two expert scholars (and our focus here) is the Synod’s proposal concerning the method by which the Church’s theologians and pastoral ministers are to go about achieving this “paradigm shift.” Our authors quote the report itself: ‘“What is at stake,” it declares, is the “overcoming of the theoretical model that derives praxis from a ‘pre-packaged’ doctrine, ‘applying’ general and abstract principles to the concrete and personal situations of life.”’
The Synod Study Group suggests we set aside established doctrine and instead rely on “a process of continuous theorization and implementation” that permits the Church to set “the discernment process in motion, and accompanying it to reach the expression of a consensus – even one that is differentiated – when this contributes to furthering the common good.”
Translation? As our authors aptly put it: “Doctrine is out, Experiences are in.”
The “paradigm shift” proposed by Study Group #9 presents us with a manufactured “either/or” proposition, a false choice between two loci of wisdom that are meant to inform one another in the search for what is so: human experience and reasoned judgment informed by both faith and reason. As such, the proposals in the Report reflect a woefully inadequate understanding of how the Church arrives at her teachings in the first place. In fact, they represent an attack on human reason itself. It is this that we must ferret out and be on guard against, for its implications go well beyond the Report from the Synod’s Study Group #9.1
In his classic work, After Virtue, Alistair MacIntyre argues persuasively that all contemporary moral disputes are driven by a kind of “emotivism,” the conviction that at the heart of our seemingly interminable debates is the assumption that personal preference–and not self-evident first principles–is the starting place of all moral discourse.2 The truth is now what “I” say it is, or at least what I prefer it to be, and anyone who disputes my right to hold to “my truth,” no matter how ill-considered or arbitrary, can only be a bigot or an ideologue.
MacIntyre’s analysis sheds light on a critically important feature of the current state of public discourse. We now face a situation in which personal, subjective experience trumps reasoned argument of any kind; the language of lived experience has become the linguistic currency of our era.
The signs are all around us. They are reported in the media, signaled by both students and faculty on college campuses, invoked by politicians, family members, friends, and co-workers. They reveal the manifestly evident fact that the language of subjective personal experience has displaced rational argument in both private and public discourse. Indeed, personal experience has become the lexicon of our era; it is now considered the only valid touchstone of truth. Claims about the existence of universal truth or an objective moral order often cannot find a foothold when confronted with the argument that such realities do not resonate with a particular individual’s personal “experience.”
Rather than a starting place in self-evident first principles, the arbiter of what constitutes right thinking and moral human behavior, assuming that question is even asked, has become a matter of personal preference.3 This is a reality confronted daily by persons in all circumstances, no matter what their philosophical persuasion or worldview. It is a position advanced by our culture and encountered in the media, in education, in academia, and in our political discourse. And now, it seems even to have entered into the deliberations within the Catholic Church.
This is a dangerous development, for to traffic in this conversation is to accept the terms established by those under the sway of a faulty premise: that there is an unbridgeable gap between one’s subjective experience and the exercise of reason. This is a false dichotomy, one that we have allowed to permeate our discourse for far too long. Like a poisonous mist, it has seeped silently into the common sense of the culture almost without notice–and without any overt exercise of power or coercion. It actually has confused the human community literally for centuries, but particularly in this one, preventing a full-throated search for the truth and truncating the quest for self-knowledge and wholeness.
The proper place of personal experience
Our aim here is to confront this false dichotomy. Faithful Catholics must make an effort to reclaim the language of lived experience from those who would have us believe that it supplies a complete and adequate guide to achieving the fullness of human happiness.
For while attending to one’s own experience is certainly one step in coming to understand oneself, it provides but a glimpse–a partial clue–into the mystery of who one is and is meant to be. Indeed, experience is not alienated from human cognition, but integral to it. Wisdom is the fruit of both experience and reason. But contrary to the claims of those who would give primacy to subjective personal experience over and against the conclusions of right reason, it is only possible to arrive at the full truth about oneself if the intellect is allowed to pursue its proper end, not mere knowledge but understanding. A grasp of the whole of who one is: a creature, brought into being by a loving God, and meant for holiness and for greatness.
As anyone familiar with the Church’s own methods should know, experience is not a separate category in the search for truth; it is the starting place of the search for truth. The Catholic intellectual tradition does not base its investigation on the methods of Cartesian rationalism; nor does it reduce knowledge to its twin, the deadly “sensism” of David Hume. The Church’s proposals regarding the path to human happiness are not derived from thin air, nor do they reflect a radical reduction of the person to merely his material existence.
Rather, they are derived from both faith and reason, both Scripture and the evidence of the senses, as well as centuries of reflection on their significance for man’s life and his actions in the world. The Church—and those who seek to further her vision—subscribe to a particular form of realism: the conviction that truth is arrived at through contact with reality itself. She upholds the view that it is the direct experience of the real that prompts the questions that then drive us all to pursue knowledge of the truth and an understanding of God’s word. And further, that this more comprehensive understanding of man and of his place in the world is the only sure road to human happiness.
In arguing that subjective human experience should take priority over and against reasoned argument, proponents of this view–be they in the Church or in the wider culture–are rejecting not only the possibility of objective moral norms but the very possibility of ever arriving at them. Lived experience is not a separate, distinct realm that operates in isolation from human cognitional acts; it is integral to them. Knowledge begins in the senses, which prompts the intellect to seek the meaning of the world and of our experience of it.4 Experience might be the launching pad and, when properly integrated into the whole of who one is, may lead one to grasp the truths embedded in the natural law or the Church’s own doctrine.
But it cannot be confused with the truth itself. As Father Bernard Lonergan used to say, “insights are a dime a dozen.” Their true value is discerned through a deliberate, reasoned inquiry and the scrutiny of judgment. The same can be said of experience. Sometimes it leads to a dead end.
The path to authentic human flourishing
Now, having said that, one is justified in being sympathetic to the deeper concerns reflected in this new paradigm. Surely, we can all acknowledge the kernel of truth at the heart of the shift under consideration in this new approach: the argument that abstract ideas, however carefully reasoned, are not enough to live the Christian life. With this, we can all agree. Further, it is essential to recognize that the starting place of any pastoral encounter is not likely to be a reiteration of doctrinal statements, no matter how carefully articulated. Clearly, abstract ideas must be translated, often in real time, into the lexicon of the pastoral minister, the psychologist, the parent, the friend.
The starting place of such interactions–which are, after all, not with man per se but with concretely existing persons–will surely not be abstractions but their personal lived experience. The question that remains is how to properly integrate that experience–which can only ever be partial–into the whole of who one is.
It seems clear that those who seek to give priority to experience over truths arrived at through reason are proceeding without an adequate theory or understanding of the place that “lived experience” really does hold in a coherent account of the person. It is not enough merely to assert its place; one needs a full account of the person, one that includes the recognition that he is distinguished from all of creation by his power of reason, so that we can grasp the principles that govern our use of it in pastoral encounters.
Perhaps they are unaware of Pope St. John Paul II’s own proposition that the category of lived experience is an essential element in a full account of the moral life and the search for the whole truth about oneself.5 Perhaps if they could be alerted to it, they would find a way to address the pastoral needs of their flock without appearing to subordinate doctrine to lived experience. Perhaps they would find it helpful in their fervent wish to assist those they encounter to arrive at the wholeness all persons seek. Perhaps this could be the basis of the “paradigm shift” that Pope Francis himself suggested in the course of his papacy.6
Indeed, the fact is that the “experience” that generally grounds the arguments that Catholic teaching is too hard, too rigid, too strict for human persons, is primarily that of women and men who dissent a priori from the Church’s teaching on the meaning and telos of human sexuality, Humanae Vitae in particular. Overlooked in this calculus is the lived experience of those who are faithful to it. For there are many whose own experience has led them instead to the opposite conclusion–that the Catholic understanding of the human person and the meaning of human sexuality lead, in fact, to authentic human flourishing.7
Though it must never be allowed to replace reasoned discourse, we cannot ignore the place of lived experience in arriving at the full truth about the human person. Above all, we must prevent any further advance of the idea that experience and reason do not share a common root in the mind of man. It is time to explode the myth that “lived experience” contradicts the foundational understanding of the Church on these matters.
Indeed, it has been demonstrated that “lived experience,” once integrated into a more coherent account of the wholeness that is the birth-right of every person, actually illuminates the validity of the teaching proposed by the Magisterium, a framework that has been articulated by a wide swath of philosophers and theologians, demonstrated by scientists, and relied on by the clergy and pastoral ministers, literally for centuries.
We all know people whose discovery of the beauty of Catholic teaching has led them to transform their lives. They provide living evidence of the results that come to those who come to accept it and live by it. This is so not because the teaching imposed unnecessary limits but because it illuminated the reality and telos of an authentically human existence. Moreover, it helped them to arrive at the wholeness of their personhood and brought coherence to their lives.
The “new paradigm” suggested by the Synod is a cul-de-sac, a trap that would lead those who subscribe to it inevitably into an ever-deepening darkness. We must help our contemporaries resist its pull.
Endnotes:
1 The rest of this essay is adapted from the Introduction to Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality, ed. Deborah Savage and Robert Fastiggi, En Route Books: 2024. The volume is a collection of essays ordered toward demonstrating that lived experience, when properly understood, leads those who live it to the manifestly evident conclusion that Catholic sexual morality is precisely what leads to authentic human happiness and human flourishing.
2 Alistair MacIntyre, After Virtue, (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), Chapter Two.
3 A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), especially Chapter 1.
4 Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, Vol. 10 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990) 13.
5 As the sainted philosopher-pope states in one of his writings, “the category of lived experience must have a place in anthropology and ethics – and somehow be at the center of their respective interpretations.” See Karol Wojtyła, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible in the Human Being,” Person and Community, New York: Peter Lang, 1993, 213
6 Pope Francis, Veritatis Gaudium, 3.
7 That this is the case is well demonstrated in Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality, (En Route Books, 2024)
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Paradigm shift?
Heresy.
A regular “Plan 9 From Outer Space”.
An oldie but a goody.
Somehow we have to work in “Attack of The Killer Tomatoes”.
Of course, reworking “The Philadelphia Experiment” in to “The Synodal Experiment”..
This is the progressive legacy Pope Francis left us with, his so-called synod on synodality: immorality attempting to becoming moral.
Do you still get judged, at least when you pass on?
Only in Hell, continually for ever . . .
Never-ever in Heaven . . .
About study group #9 and their imposed polarity between “abstract” truth and “concrete” experience, how about this “concrete” connection: “It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Luke 17:2).
The very tenuous connection (barely a couple of words in only two places) in Pope Francis’s Veritatis Gaudium (2017) with St. John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor (1993) IS the problem by which subjective experience then replaces personal truth.
Instead, Veritatis Splendor: “A separation, or even an opposition [!], is thus established in some cases between the teaching of the [allegedly ‘abstract’] precept, which is valid and general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision [no longer a ‘moral judgment’] about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ [‘concrete’] solutions contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept [thou shalt not!]” (n. 56).
Sounds like we are living during a deep, modernist controversy, Peter… Just as during the Arian Controversy, there are those who have control of the buildings (the lavender modernists) and those who have sacrificed all to hold on to the Apostolic Faith of their fathers (SSPX).
“No one, ever, will prevail against your faith, beloved brothers, and we believe that God will give us our Churches back some day.”
St Athanasius, pray for us.
Spot-on!
State of necessity again. The wolves are eying the sheep and the shepherd isn’t even shaking his crook at them. SSPX consecrations come at the right time. At the very least, they will challenge the Vatican to get its act together.
Mr. Cervantes, remember that a pack of wolves circles its prey. The Lefevbrist bishops are no less a threat because they might come from the right rather than the left. Disobedience, pride and deceit are always the work of Satan.
In Christ, there is no left or right; if you are not with Christ, you are against Christ.
Now that The Veil Has Been Lifted and the apostates exposed, it is clear that The SSPX has remained Faithful to Our Savior, Jesus The Christ, as He Reveals Himself to His Church, Through Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, And The Teaching Of The Magisterium, grounded in Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, The Deposit Of Faith, Christ Has Entrusted To His Church, For The Salvation of Souls.
Those who have defected from Christ’s Church , denying The Word Of God and thus Catholic Teaching on God’s Commandment regarding lust and the sin of adultery, and in denying The Sanctity and Dignity of the marital act, within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, which affirms God’s Will, that we respect The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life from The Moment of Conception , have defected from The Catholic Church by denying that The Most Holy Blessed Trinity Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage hold no authority in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church.
The Faithful have both the right and the duty to anathema the counterfeit church that is attempting to subsist within The One Body Of Christ while denying The Unity Of The Holy Ghost🙏✝️💕🌹
Lucy,as Catholics we are not bound to believe or follow error. Blind obedience is not Catholic.
Nick, the disobedience to which I was referring is that of Lefebvre and the bishops he consecrated, primarily in the illicit consecrations themselves and in the illicit and sometimes invalid celebration of the sacraments where they have no authority to celebrate them. Their only justification for their disobedience is the incredibly prideful assertion that they had to act disobediently in order to save the Church.
In as much as there is a “right” and a “left” (the idea that political sentiments are unidimensional and can be plotted on a line segment with Nazis and Communists as diametrically opposed is a common error embedded from older seventh grade social studies classes-from the same era that showed the infamous “Duck and Cover” films as a proper safety protocol to a nuclear attack) that is a description of political theory, not theology.
TPR, “left” and “right” are directions. The image at play is wolves attacking. The point is that they attack from more than one direction: they surround their prey.
In a similar manner, Satan does not come after us from only one angle. If the evil which we see in the Church causes us to follow renegade clergy like the Lefebvrist bishops and priests, who have no legitimate authority in the Church, we are fleeing one evil only to embrace another. Don’t be fooled by them. Stay with the pope and the bishops in union with him.
Lucy writes about the SSPX whom she disparagingly refers to as “Lefevbrists’: “who have no legitimate authority in the Church”.
I would remind Lucy that their Sacraments are VALID although not licit. If you were on your deathbed, Lucy, and the only priest within a thousand miles was a “Lefevbrist”, wouldn’t you want that priest to hear your last confession and give you Viaticum?
The wolves attack from one direction, Lucy – by subverting doctrine and morals. Is the SSPX “proud” for not joining in or merely standing by?
Dear ‘Lucy’ – please read a bit of good Church history!
On such unthinking ‘loyalist’ precepts Saint Anthanasius is gone!
In Australia, our Saint Mary of The Cross McKillop would be gone!
Saint Paul would be gone for opposing Pope Saint Peter!
With ever-so-many other examples of integrity correcting power.
Please refer to Acts 5:29.
Of course obedience is essential but never like lemmings.
Ever in the love of King Jesus Christ; blessings from marty
Wolves separate the more vulnerable out of a herd. Satan can work in a similar way through dividing the Body of Christ & targeting our vulnerabilities. It’s true that he will use whatever material’s available, whether from the Right or Left. Whatever increases doubt, fear, and outrage. Whatever lessens morale.
I believe that the Shepherd has a strong grip on his crook and with his Augustinian formation will begin to set things right. We must be patient and give him all the time that he needs. We must be aware of the possibility of an over correction by the Church however which would also be dangerous. Perhaps the Francis legacy will help in this matter. He sure left us with a lot to THINK about. 😰
What part of “thou shalt not” do synodalists not understand?
Don’t understand or don’t CARE?
Touché!
If our Catholic Church continues with this synodal madness, the SSPX can expect a very bright future as the number of disaffected Roman Catholics will swell beyond belief. I predict the hierarchy of the Catholic Church will wake up one morning and ask themselves, “How did this happen?”
Very fine essay. Thank you.
Pope Leo is institutionalizing what Pope Francis started after decades of incubation after Vatican II. One may suspect that the initial inoculation was provided by Duns Scotus who gave us the form of thought that suits the mystery: Potuit, decuit, ergo fecit. He could do it, it was fitting, therefore He did it. St Thomas unified Faith & Reason, the Synod replace reason with opinion and faith with presumption.
The recent emails soliciting donation phrased the issue in the starkest of all terms that synods as proposed are the Ape of the Church, the ultimate heresy subordinating Tradition to modernism.
Today Bishop Sheen alluded to the ssme issue “ The dignity of the human person is fully understood only in the light of the truth that man is created by God, wounded by sin, redeemed by Christ, and called to eternal life. Human flourishing alone cannot be the ultimate horizon of the Church’s teaching. Our final destiny is not merely a just society, but union with God.
Lived experience has become a varied codeword for assassinations as well as skewing settled Catholic doctrine. Truth, no longer principled now subject to emotive whimsy.
Making that whimsy a formidable contention is the rapid spread of same sex relationships. Among youth it has become a feature of tolerant, fair mindedness. Of freedom from the questionable strictures of convention.
After all, our academics have long spread this good news to the nascent, developing mind. Coupled with the abandonment of churches with their bland, everyone is good messaging, our culture is suffering a moral breakdown.
Moral principles are now formed by consensus. If everyone is doing it, it must be okay. Study Group 9 is more a symptom of a disease that already exists. Only the Church can heal the illness. Although a cure requires much greater conviction, clarity, and effort.
Deborah Savage does well to sound the alarm. Lived experience has become a varied codeword for assassinations as well as skewing settled Catholic doctrine. Truth, no longer principled now subject to emotive whimsy.
Making that whimsy a formidable contention is the rapid spread of same sex relationships. Among youth it has become a feature of tolerant, fair mindedness. Of freedom from the questionable strictures of convention.
After all, our academics have long spread this good news to the nascent, developing mind. Coupled with the abandonment of churches with their bland, everyone is good messaging, our culture is suffering a moral breakdown.
Moral principles are now formed by consensus. If everyone is doing it, it must be okay. Study Group 9 is a symptom of a disease that already exists. Only the Church can heal the illness. Although a cure requires much greater conviction, clarity, and effort.
“Our authors quote the report itself: ‘“What is at stake,” it declares, is the “overcoming of the theoretical model that derives praxis from a ‘pre-packaged’ doctrine, ‘applying’ general and abstract principles to the concrete and personal situations of life.”
What is at stake here, “in meeting people where they are at”, is , in essence, the denial that pornographic acts that deny the inherent Sanctity and Dignity of all our beloved sons and daughters, and are physically , psychologically,emotionally, and spiritually harmful, and thus, devoid of Love, in all cases, regardless of one’s desire/inclination/orientation, will not be met with the proper response, “Now, Go and sin no more”, because of those who claim demeaning sexual acts, which deny the Sanctity and Dignity of all human persons, can somehow serve for Human flourishing, which we can know through both Faith and reason, grounded in our Catholic Faith, is a lie that denies the essence of God’s Salvational Love, a lie that cannot possibly serve for Human Flourishing, because all pornographic acts, even if consensual, deny our inherent Sanctity and Dignity and The Inherent Sanctity And Dignity Of God, In Who’s Image we Are Created, equal in Dignity, while being complementary as a beloved son or daughter, Willed By God, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity, worthy of Redemption.
Thus exposing their pre-packaged Paradigm shift, “and we can be like gods, declaring that if your conscience tells you pornography serves for human flourishing, so be it”, even though only Divine Law, grounded in Perfect Divine Eternal Infinite Love can serve for Human Flourishing, and thus only God’s Divine Law, Has Both The Ability And Desire To Take Us From Death To Eternal Life.
A well formed Catholic Conscience, to be well formed and Catholic, must first and foremost, be in communion with God, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost.
“When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker Himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man.” – Pope Benedict’s Christmas Address 2012 , right before he resigned The Ministerial Office, while retaining the “forever” Office Of The MUNUS, illuminating the darkness of the counterfeit magisterium that was attempting to subsist within Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, while denying The Unity Of The Holy Ghost and the fact “it is not possible to have Sacramental Communion without Ecclesiastical Communion”.
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they no doubt would have continued with us: but they went out, that they may be made manifest that they were not all of us.”
ND,
You quote Study Grope #9: “What is at stake [is] overcoming of the theoretical model that derives praxis from a ‘pre-packaged’ doctrine, ‘applying’ general and abstract principles to the concrete and personal situations of life.”
Yours truly is reminded, here, of how the progressive cockroaches within the Church continue to chew on old timber. As a charter for Catholic education in one American archdiocese, in September of 1983 a cleric dumped a 23-page, single space, tract in front of the archdiocesan school board, wherein it disparaged “heteronomously imposed [!]” attitudes while mentioning not even once the name of Jesus Christ. Cooler heads prevailed (a layman acquaintance) and the board members insisted on actually reading the tract before voting on it! The tract was analytically shredded in a paper that eventually made its way into very high places, and meantime the cleric never appeared before the board again.
In retrospect, the Study Grope #9 ploy to crosswire/couple the human brain with “pre-packaged” genitalia got an early pointy-headed trial run over forty years ago. Some of today’s red hats are old hat.
About which, we read that it was only cockroaches that survived the even earlier atomic bomb blasts at Bikini Atoll (1946-1958).
“The progressive cockroaches within the Church” are not hidden within, but rather blazenly running the formerly Catholic apparatus:
“…the more violently they try to occupy the places of worship, the more they separate themselves from the Church. They claim that they represent the Church but in reality they are the ones who are expelling themselves from it and going astray.”
St Athanasius
Right-on, again, dear Shell-Less one . . .
Excellent essay!
Why “lived” experience? What other sort would there be? Can’t we just say “experience?”
A good question, Lucy. Pope St. John Paul II distinguishes “experience” from “lived” experience in his account of consciousness and what he refers to as the two dynamisms that cut across its orbit in man’s inner life: “something-happens-in-man” and “man-acts”. Only in the latter case is man’s freedom and agency implicated. Things “happen” in us – for example, the reaction we have when someone cuts us off on the freeway – but my freedom isn’t implicated until I choose how to respond. This is an example of “man-acts.” I determine who I will become in such moments; they are either a movement toward the good – or not. This principle is also at work in our experience of the sexual impulse – it appears – often unbidden. But the moral implications appear in how I choose to act as a result. This is the moment when the exercise of the intellect is called for – a moment when I am called to – or have an opportunity to – govern myself in a way that corresponds with the judgments of right reason. This is the moment when any particular experience can be seen in relation to the whole of who I am or could be. My progress in the moral life is made up of an infinite number of such moments.
Dear Deborah Savage, thank you for an excellent & insighful article.
Regarding: “My progress in the moral life is made up of an infinite number of such (exercise of the intellect) moments.”
I agree but must confess that for decades my personal progress was small. Then, by GOD’s mercy, my life was totally re-set for real progress!
The Holy Spirit was GOD’s agent of transformation in my life. This transformation is a process of sanctification – with us progressively formed into images of our LORD Jesus Christ: much more joyfully obeying GOD’s commandments and witnessing to Christ’s Gospel of Love.
The Holy Spirit works within believers to produce spiritual fruit [love & joy & peace & patience & goodness & kindness & faithfulness & humility & self-control] plus forgiveness of those who have offended against us (Christlike characters enabling us to overcome sin & live righteously as servants of GOD, with victory over this world’s spirit).
Cooperating with The Holy Spirit within us, we find more joy in spiritual disciplines such as prayer, Scripture study, praise & worship, service to other believers in The Church, passionate participation in her sacramental life, & wider service to those in need.
The Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification involves setting believers
apart for God’s purposes with wonderful gifts of apostleship, prophesy, teaching, miracle-working, healing, sacrificial giving, church administration, & even speaking-in-tongues.
In it all The Holy Spirit intercedes with The Father for us, teaches us all things, reminds us of Jesus’ instructions, counsels us, comforts us, and calls us to unity in The Body of Christ.
The Intellect & Religion itself are important; but as Saul of Tarsus found, on the road to Damascus, they must yield to The Holy Spirit. To such an extent that in Romans 8:9 St Paul instructs us that lacking The Holy Spirit is lacking Christ.
One of the signs of GOD’s Holy Spirit at work in us, is a desire to know Jesus more and more (e.g. Ephesians 1:17); SO beautifully expressed in this song – an Aussie favorite.
I Want to Know You Song by CityAlight YouTube
I’ve tried in vain a thousand ways
My fears to quell, my hopes to raise
But what I need, Your word has said
Is ever, only, Jesus
You died, You live, You reign, You plead
There’s love in all your words and deeds
This weary heart finds all it needs
In ever, only, Jesus
I want to know You, Jesus my Lord
King of the Heavens, King of my soul
I trade my treasures and all my rewards
Jesus to know You, then know You more
Though some should curse me for Your name
I have no fear, I have no shame
You stand with me for all my days
My ever, only, Jesus
I want to know You, Jesus my Lord
King of the Heavens, King of my soul
I trade my treasures and all my rewards
Jesus to know You, then know You more
Like wave after wave on the ocean
Like all of the sand on the shore
Your beauty and glory are endless
O Jesus I must know you more
Like wave after wave on the ocean
Like all of the sand on the shore
Your beauty and glory are endless
O Jesus I must know you more
I want to know You, Jesus my Lord
King of the Heavens, King of my soul
I trade my treasures and all my rewards
Jesus to know You, then know You more
I want to know You, Jesus my Lord
King of the Heavens, King of my soul
I trade my treasures and all my rewards
Jesus to know You, then know You more
Jesus to know You, then know You more
[Songwriters: Michael Farren, Rich Thompson, Jonny Robinson. For non-commercial use only.]
Deborah,
Thank you for this reference to Wojtyla/JP II’s “The Acting Person.” Where some speed readers might see his thesis as a step toward moral relativism, this would be to overlook how in the introduction up front he frames the entire book:
“This book is not a study of ethics [….] As to the position of the relationship of anthropology and ethics in this approach it may be formulated—by analogy to operations used in algebra—as placing a term before brackets. We place outside brackets those factors of an algebraic expression which in one way or another are common [!] to all terms of the expression, that is, which are somehow common to everything that remains within the brackets. The aim is…not to reject what is withdrawn or to sever the relations of what is outside to what remains in brackets” (“The Acting Person,” D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1979, p. 13).
TRANSLATION: Ethics “outside the brackets” of analysis are set forth in JP II’s “Veritatis Splendor” (1993), the encyclical which explicitly incorporates the natural law and moral absolutes directly into the Magisterium of the Church (Veritatis Splendor, n. 115):
(n. 115: “This is the first time, in fact, that the Magisterium of the Church has set forth in detail the fundamental elements of this [‘moral’] teaching, and presented the principles for the pastoral discernment necessary in practical and cultural situations which are complex and even crucial.”)
I’m a Brazilian Priest. I ask you forgiveness for my poor English.
I always think one problem, among many others, with this sinod is that the process of a flow of thoughts for implementing discernement is wrong. There is no mention of the four kinds of Saint Ignatius’rules. One of those is Feeling with the Church (I am translating from my Portuguese edition of the Spiritual Exercises and don’t know the equivalent English translation). Discernement needs conversion, love of the poor, freedom from ilusions and fidelity to the Rule of Faith. May God help us to walk and work with His Light! Thank you!
Thanks dear Father Antonio Paulo Ferreira de Castilho for these good words.
If only all our Church heirarchs were as conscientious as you!
Sadly: a crop of homophilic schemers has seized the reins; according to a plan (according to satan’s mind) that they’ve long been incubating.
This is a time for great patience: our LORD Jesus Christ has told the harvesting Holy Angels to allow the weeds to grow with the wheat for the while. But the Day of Separation is coming . . . Praise GOD!
The paradigm shift is intentional beginning with Amoris Laetitia.
Right on JP.
The freemasonic-friendly agenda has been unfolding for some time, hijacking the Catholic Magisterium to serve an alternative cause…
“The freemasonic-friendly agenda . .” – well noted, dear Mr Crackecd Nut.
From much study & really close observation: I’d want to add that the freemason ‘degrees’, starting from the inducting ‘Blue Lodge’, to the highest, always involve subjection to demons of higher and higher orders. This is the common spirituality that fms have with satanists & witches.
Grossly immoral acts and criminal behaviors are mandatory for advance through the degrees. This is the real reason for fm/wc secrecy – not protection of ‘secret’ grips & passwords, which are all on the web!
Saint Paul calls these world spirits (fallen angels) principalities, powers, dominions, rulers, authorities, thrones, and evil in high places. Collectively also called Stoikheia. All serving the prince-of-this-world, the power-of-the-air, satan: deceiver, robber, murderer, & destroyer.
Let no one underestimate the powers that are unlocked. They are real and substantial. Increasingly sought-for my women & men in this increasingly troubled world. And they do get substantial worldly advantages from their occult fellowship. It is not only misled Catholic clergy who have called on this deadly occult power; in every Christian church I’ve studied the same fatal lure thrives.
Catholicism and Christianity in general mandates for a total rejection of such powers and utter dependence on King Jesus Christ as GOD, creator, sustainer, provider, protector, saviour, teacher, healer, deliverer, giver of The Holy Spirit & eternal Life, and Judge. We are commanded by GOD to love Christ and to show our love is genuine by lovingly obeying His commandments, no matter what may come against us. No alternative offered.
So, whilst occultist (including clergy at all levels) have chosen Death, let us together {faithful clergy & lay} choose The Life of believing, trusting, adoring, worshipping, & obeying King Jesus Christ, both now & forever, free from all occult defilement & pollution.
Amen!
Spot on Dr M.J.R. And when we consider that the Vatican is flanked by 2 lodges, 1 either side, there is room for concern.
Interesting to note that Bergoglio closed down yet another investigation into freemasonic activity at the Vatican… begun under ppBXVI.
“They (signs) reveal the manifestly evident fact that the language of subjective personal experience has displaced rational argument in both private and public discourse.”
Men without chests are in control.
As for the pontiff, Jesus assures Peter: “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail.”
Jesus prayed that Peter’s faith would not be permanently destroyed by his denials, or in today’s terms, heterodoxy
No Pope has ever lost the faith. Recent Popes have been swayed by fashions in ideas and powerful lobbies, and the results are there. Catholics on earth always live in a Tower of Pisa that never falls and a ship full of holes that never sinks. Very frustrating at times!
So, Pope John XII was a sincere Christian and faithful disciple?
He didn’t lose the faith. Judging the morality of others is boring.
‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him ,who have been called according to His purpose’.
Came across the other day about the format of therapy called EMDR – said to be used by Prince Harry for PTSD related issues , plenty of online articles on same being helpful in variety of issues – Alzheimer’s to childhood trauma that can manifest as sexual disorders as well .
https://www.womenofgrace.com/blog/75160
Pope Francis as well as others moved by desire to bring deeper sense of compassion as essential in bringing help and healing for the many afflicted in the vast area of trauma , its connection to various disorders . The Holy Spirit operation as ‘finger of God ‘- one can wonder if such is the case in the above format of therapy .
Does its simplicity also help to free persons from the vainglory /self glory, its idolatry that harden hearts !
God alone to know for now about all the benefits we all receive from the blessing gestures & good will in holiness of our Father figures !
Hope there would be more studies, its good applications at wider levels with help of centers of good wisdom to bring its benefits as His peace into persons of all walks of life ! FIAT!
In all our relationships, in all our experiences, we are Called to be, first and foremost, Temples of The Holy Ghost, thus it is true that no validly elected Pope has ever lost the Faith, and that the election of Jorge Bergoglio, who denied our Call to Holiness is God’s Call that we be Temples Of The Holy Ghost in all our relationships, could not possibly be valid.
“If there is a union of a private nature there is neither a third party (The Holy Ghost) nor is society affected. Sin is an offense against God, The Most Holy Blessed Trinity, and mankind, because si denies The Sanctity and Dignity of the human person, Created In The Image Of God
.
A Call To The Church Militant is A Call To Perfect Divine Eternal Infinite Love, The Communion Of Love That Is The Most Holy Blessed Trinity, Who, we can know through both Faith and reason, Exists For The Salvation Of Souls, “For God so Loved us that He Sent His Only Son…”.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/episodes/now-its-our-turn-a-call-to-arms-in-the-crisis-of-the-church/
My pastor once said that the biggest problem with sin is that it is so boring and predictable. And so here we are again (and again, and again, and again.) This controversy is straight out of the first pages of Genesis – and you shall be like Gods. No matter the time, the place, the lived experience or whatever the latest catch phrase, we humans never progress one iota from Original Sin (and of course we wouldn’t because there is no “progress” past Original Sin – only redemption through Christ.) In making a god of lived experience, we break the First Commandment – and first, sadly for the same reason – we are always seeking the easy way around obedience – and there isn’t one.
Dear ‘praywithoutceasing’: brilliant statement of eternal Truth.