Live Devout: Traditional Catholic Spirituality
 

"These days it seems that our culture has become obsessed with the idea that everyone and everything should be equal. This ideology has taken root in the Church, leaving many Catholics ignorant (or disdainful) of the hierarchies found in our Tradition—particularly the patriarchal structure of the Christian family.

Now a new title from Saint Benedict Press, The Three Marks of Manhood, reveals that the time has come for men to re-discover Church teaching about patriarchy and take up their God-ordained role as priest, prophet, and king of their families.

“The establishment of a new Christian patriarchy is the most urgent need of our times,” states Three Marks author G. C. Dilsaver. “The Church, and . . . the family are under attack as never before.”

The Three Marks of Manhood challenges the modern world’s preconceptions of marriage and the family. “We must adopt a new and untainted kind of patriarchy in which the husband’s authority is unequivocal, yet formed by humility and self-sacrificial love,” Dilsaver explains. “Only then can men lead their families to become what God intended.”

This not-to-be-missed title offers sound counsel for both men and women to build strong marriages and families.


About the Author
Dr. Gregory C. Dilsaver, Psy.D, MTS is a psychologist and the director of Imago Dei Clinics (www.idpsy.com). He is the developer of Imago Dei Psychotherapy, the first fully integrated Catholic clinical psychology, and author of the groundbreaking book of the same name. Dr. Dilsaver received an advanced theological degree from the Pontifical Institute on Marriage and Family where he was a McGivney Scholar and did his undergraduate at the original St. Ignatius Institute of the University of San Francisco where he majored in philosophy and the Great Books."

from the official press release from Saint Benedict Press/Tan Books
 
 
In Belloc's work, "Survivals and New Arrivals: The Old and New Enemies of the Catholic Church", he identifies a number of enemies of the Church, including what he hesitates to call, "The Modern Mind".  He identifies this problem in the following:


"Upon dissecting it we discover the "Modern Mind" to contain three main ingredients and to combine them through the force of one principle.  Its three ingredients are pride, ignorance, and intellectual sloth;  their unifying principle is a blind acceptance of authority not based on reason.
Pride causes those who suffer from this disease to regard whatever they think they have learned, whatever they have absorbed, through no matter how absurd a channel, as absolute and sufficient.
Ignorance forbids them to know with any thoroughness what men have discovered about these things in the past, and how certainly.
Intellectual sloth forbids them to examine an argument, or even to appreciate the implications of their own assertions."


What is sad about this issue is how prevalent it is.  Speak to any person of any background and you may quickly identify how much they have been infected by these three identifiers.  For instance, open a conversation on politics and it quickly turns partisan usually based on sound bites.  A great example of this occurred during the last presidential election.  If one were to state they were voting for, say, Ron Paul, the immediate response was, "that is a vote for Obama!"  Could they explain the rationale of this without quoting talking heads and pundits?  No.
Another instance can be called to mind when discussing traditional Catholicism.  Who hasn't spoken of the beauty and grandeur of the Tridentine Liturgy to a modern catholic, only to have them state that their parish is "nice" or their pastor a "good preacher, friendly"?  Push a little more and you get the following, "Oh, that is nice for you, but it's not for me."  This is a great example of intellectual sloth, in that the person is stating they cannot engage in a reasonable discussion based on facts...they will have it their way, you can have it your way...both are ok.


I think all of us modern people are infected with this virus to some extent.  Who among us doesn't at times act as if we have absorbed all the deposit of Faith?  Which one of us can honestly say we are open to learning where we might have learned something wrong or simply not learned the truth about some aspect of the faith?  As a graduate of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, I thought I had learned all the most important truths of the faith and how to live them out.  I had embraced a theological pride and ignorance based on what I thought to be a stellar Catholic education paired with a strong spiritual formation.  Recently, I have been challenged on a number of things I took for granted, and my first response was to reject engaging in the argument.


As a person truly trying to grasp the traditional faith, I had to face where I might have been deceived.  The question is, am I willing to put down my pride, push aside my ignorance, and embrace the rigor of intellectually grasping with the faith so as to become more and more Catholic and ultimately holy?  Or will I just sit and fritter away my time on the internet?



 
 
Just a note...yes, I have finally found the time to work on the Liturgical Calendar.  I have completed it up through July and hope to finish the rest of the year soon.  I have added the Sunday Scriptural texts when you click on the Epistle or Gospel of that day.  I have also added some brief bios of the saints on their feast days.  I am trying to figure out how to include the entire Sunday Propers on the calendar, but have not figured on a good way to do that yet.  

I hope this is a help to you, I know it has helped us, as it is hard to find a Traditional Calendar following the 1962 Roman Missal in a simple, easy format like Google Calendars.  Thanks for all 
 
Lent in Mystery 02/18/2010
 
"Um...you have a little smudge on your forehead..."

"Oh, my, I forgot it was Ash Wednesday!"

"Hey, you got your ashes, God bless you!"

"Do you have any Fastnachts?"

These are just a few of the comments I recall from my day yesterday in your typical retail environment.  I was able to squeek away from work for Holy Mass at noon and receive my ashes.   After returning to the store I spent the next eight hours,  only sometimes conscious of the black mark on my head.  When someone would make a comment I would recall this little mark traced on my person by the priest. 

It gave me pause today while sitting here thinking and praying.   This little mark is so odd...ashes on the forehead.  It made me thinking of the incensing of the altar during the High Mass.  The priest swings the thurible back and forth over and around the altar.   What is he doing?  Is the incense making the altar smell better?   Is it coating the altar in "holy smoke"?  Don't take me as speaking sarcastically here, but rather, pondering the mystery before us. 

These liturgical actions are part of the Sacred Mystery, as opposed to the pragmatism of modernism.  The smoke and fire, ashes and water, of course represent things, they are symbols...sacramentals.  On another level, they lift the spirit to God through the mystery itself.  While I watch the priest incense the altar, something is happening deep in my soul that is drawing me to God...in a way, my soul's altar is being incensed and prepared to receive our Blessed Lord.    This is the heart of contemplation, where the soul is receptive to the minute movements of grace.

When it comes to the cross traced on my forehead by the priest, again, this represents a great moment of contemplation.  We are not tracing the cross ourselves, but rather only kneel there, receptively.  We receive from the priest, "in persona Christi",  the cross...as well as Christ Himself.  We are like St. John, leaning on the chest of our Blessed Jesus...receiving what He gives...and accepting all.

 God bless you this Lent as you wait upon the Lord.
 
Liturgical Blah 01/04/2010
 
I have usually tried to stay away from any type of complaining or blogging about problems in the Church.  I have found that many "traditionally minded" sites tend to do enough of this sort of thing and it does not need repeating.  I have tried to focus my energies on developing something focused on spiritual growth through accessing the wealth found in traditional Catholicism.  So I will make my rant brief and try not to repeat it.

As our liturgical life is so important to our development as saintly human beings, it has irked me that modern Catholicism has embraced such a painfully lousy form of worship.  From warehouse-like architecture, to teenagers singing showtune-like songs, the modern Catholic is stuck in a liturgical winter "blah".

Two weeks ago I had the unfortunate experience to have to attend a modern Mass at a local church (known for its orthodoxy).  The church was filled to overflowing, which amazed me for a Sunday evening Mass.  The architecture, typical for a church built in the 70's was some sort of geometrical hodgepodge with the Tabernacle hidden away in a side chapel.   There were attendees from all walks of life (mostly middle class families and baby boomers), and the girl altars servers were almost reverent (with the ever so slight nod to the altar).  The priest began Mass with congratulating the local Catholic high school football team on their victory the previous night despite a snowstorm. 

My point is not to focus on all the things wrong with this liturgy, but rather the people's response.  As I endured contemporary protestant music, fluffy preaching, and a general irreverence for Our Lord, I looked around and tried to take stock of those around me.  No one appeared excited...no one appeared intrigued...um,...no one appeared even the slight bit interested in this liturgy for the "modern man".  Most individuals looked more like teenagers enduring a lecture from a zealous parent...they just endure.  This is the fruit of a man-made liturgical "reform" that has stripped the Divine Mass of its beauty, reverence, prayerfulness, devotion, and other worldliness.  I just wonder why the modern priest does not see this devastation in the pews?  Does the priest not see the looks on the faces of those in the pews as they endure another root-canal like rendition of "City of God"!?  Sometimes I wonder if the modern priest wants his parish to be lukewarm...is this possible, or is it the old saying that "misery loves company"?

As traditional Catholics we are so blessed to assist at the Mass of the Ages, the same Mass that St.Therese, and St. Francis prayed.  This wonderful liturgy draws one's attention away from oneself (after facing our sinfulness during the Confiteor) and gently lifts us to worship and adoration of the "little King" born in Bethelehem and present through the words of Consecration.  This divine worship with its latin chants from solid male voices brings each person to a participation in Divine Life itself, unlike the sham of participation in the modern liturgy.  How else can I put it, except, I love the traditional Mass!  Can any modern attendee say the same...I wonder?
 
 
The Epistle for this great feast states that "grace" has appeared to all men and has given us instruction, namely we are to:
1. deny ungodliness and worldly desires
2. live soberly
3. live justly and godly
4. look in hope for the coming of Christ.

This epistle struck me as a confrontation to living a life of fantasy.  What do I mean by fantasy?  I mean, living in such a way as to avoid a confrontation with reality.  Let me give some examples.  First, we love entertainment...a good movie, an exciting football game, a rousing orchestration.  These things are not bad in themselves, however, what is the effect of a "good movie"?  If the effect is to take us "outside of ourselves" and our daily troubles by immersing us in a fantasy world than we could argue that that is not "living soberly".  This is especially true when the movie also has us "accepting and approving" immoral behavior by watching it on the screen.  (Ps. 118:37 says "Turn my eyes from vain things.")

What is so bad about enjoying a little fantasy world?  The trouble is the escapist attitude that often comes with this type of entertainment.  It turns the heart off, and the soul gets put on the back burner in a way.  Our pleasure receptors are teased and everything is focused on this non-reality - this entertainment.  Anyone only need watch children after an exciting action movie to see the fantasy world bleed over into reality.  The children start to act out what happened in the movie and try to make it more real to themselves.  In avoiding reality, adults are ultimately avoiding God and His reality.  Jesus, in His Passion and Death, is the ultimate acceptor of reality, namely, the reality of sin, damnation, and of course redemption.

Now don't get me wrong, fantasy has its place.  The great classic moral fantasy tales can teach children lessons that cannot simply be injected into their minds and hearts with prolonged lectures.  I would point one to Micheal O'Brien's book "Landscape with Dragons" for a wonderful exposition on good vs. evil fantasy literature.  But, to stretch fantasy into adulthood is to keep adults childish.  I picture grown men crying at the loss of their football team in the finals, or a mom fidgeting this her new iphone like a 5 year old plays with a new toy on Christmas day!  It is a new drunkeness, an avoidance of the realities that come at us, and the epistle for today calls us to a new soberness.

So let us live sober, embrace reality, especially the ultimate Reality, Christ Himself in His fullness and Truth. 

God bless you!

 
Advent 2009 11/29/2009
 
Here we are...Advent 2009. 

Have you given any thought to how you are going to prepare to meet your Lord and God, Jesus Christ?

Lately I have been feeling a bit "under the weather" both physically and spiritually.  It seems to me that God has set me up just for this time of penitence and preparation.  My wife and I have decided that we not only wanted to do something penitential and personal, but we also wanted to commit to some type of service.   Unfortunately, we have decided to do such things in the past, only to be frustrated and find ourselves on December 25th not having done anything special and fallen into the same rut that most modern Catholics fall into...consumerist celebratory chaos.

So, we dropped the big plans of serving the poor Christmas ham on our Lord's birthday and instead decided to do something close to home.  Since my wife has eight siblings, all with large families, we decided we would go and help out a family a week...whatever kind of help they need: cleaning, cooking, watching kids, washing windows, whatever.  Will it work?  I don't really know, but we will give it a try and see.

What are you doing this year?  I would love to hear your ideas.  God bless you!
 
 
Today my family and I just returned from a brief visit with my family in Michigan.  It was a delightful but short visit.  The traveling is always a challenge with six children and usually one of them ends up sick while on the road.  Of course, this time was no different.  However, the trip as a whole was a great blessing, especially "car conversation".

My wife knows how I get after hours of driving and always tries to revive me through deep conversation.  She might start off with some difficult scripture quote or some passage from the Illiad to try to bait me into a discussion.  This drive was no different.  She thought she would start with a quote from Genesis, "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh."   (Genesis 2:24 - drbo.org)   She then proceeded to ask me what I thought of this in light of the many instances both in scripture and in modern life where a man ends up under his father's house (or farm or business) and the wife is the one that forsakes family.

So what do you answer to a question like that after being on the road for 5 hours in a mini-van full of kids?  Well, I saw it as a chance to talk about the spiritual significance of authority and paternity - here are my thoughts.  This is a statement of revelation about the man's authority rather than just his physical location.  It is more about his new found paternalistic authority as the head of his household rather than him having to move away from his parents.  He is now the head of his household rather than subservient to his father.  One can see how this took place historically when the son would still be in his father's tribe, but would be given his own flock of sheep or other animals. 

This authority structure finds its fullfillment in Christ in the famous quote from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians, "Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord:   Because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. He is the savior of his body.   Therefore as the church is subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their husbands in all things."  (Ephesians 5:22-24 - drbo.org)  The husband's authority is now his responsibility in Christ to live as Christ and for the wife to live as an image of the faithful Church.  They shall "cleave" to each other, and yet, the husband bears the ultimate responsibility for the holiness and salvation of his wife and family.

This scripture always brings up the issue of subjection.  I have been reading a beautiful book about the cloistered life called,  "A Right to Be Merry" by Mother Mary Francis.  She opens a delightful window into the life of a Poor Clare nun back in the 50's.  She speaks of obedience in these terms, "An obedient religious simply cannot blunder while she obeys.  The superior may be wrong in commanding, but the subject is still right in obeying.  It is a wonderous alchemy by which the brass of an imprudent order is unfailingly changed to gold for the one who obeys it.  Too many persons think of being bound to obey.  Actually, it is the headiest exercise of our liberty to be free to obey.  Adam was the lord of the world when he was free to obey.  When he surrendered that glorious freedom in order to disobey....well, which human heart does not keep the record of his sorry loss?"

Unfortunately, we could echo her sentiments with relation to modern marriages, too many feel that Ephesians 5 is such a negative thing.  In fact, I once attended a Mass where they omitted the part on subjection of women!  However, this scripture and call from God Himself is a great gift of freedom.  Obedience may be a cross that is difficult to bear at times, but also allows a great freedom and joy in knowing that you are following God's will by being obedient to your rightful superior, be it your spiritual director, your religious abbot or mother, and yes, even your husband!  Think of the great gift that has been given to us, simply because of Jesus' obedience to the Father....and what damage was done because of one little act of disobedience in the garden of Eden!

Live obedient - live devout!
 
 
I wanted to spread the word that I am currently working on producing an audio course on the Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis De Sales.  It is my hope that in both mp3 and CD format that you will be able to learn more about living for Jesus and the teachings of St. Francis De Sales.  I hope to have this course available on the website soon.

Please continue to pray for us!

God bless you all, Live Jesus, Live Devout!

Chris Fifelski
 
 
"Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he who humbleth himself shall be exalted." 

What is it that we exalt in our lives?  Is it ourself?  Is it our job or our spouse?  Maybe it is a imaginary version of God in which He is more of a servant of ours rather than a God that deserves our total gift of self?  Do we ever think of exalting the Cross of Christ in our life?

Let's face it, the Cross is no fun.  Jesus didn't trudge up the road of Calvary with a smile on His precious face.  Mary didn't dance under the "gibbet of shame".  In fact, most of the disciples were so scared they ran away and hid.  This Cross, this terrible Passion of Jesus Christ was indeed a terrible thing, unlike anything we have seen represented in wood, paint, or porcelain.

This feast gives us pause to realize that we MUST exalt the Cross of Christ in our lives.  There is really no other way.  "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Mk 8:34  To follow Christ is to "take up" our cross and follow Jesus all the way to the ultimate culmination of that road to Calvary, that is, to be crucified with Him.  We must echo St. Paul when he stated, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me."  Galatians 2:20

So let us make a couple observations: 
 1.  The Cross means suffering (pain, discomfort, work, trouble, etc) 
2. We are to "take up" our cross, which means total acceptance, grasping, encountering, etc - we cannot take up our cross by keeping it at arm's length.
3. Carrying our cross leads to the crucifixion.  We die with Him so as to reign with Him...there is no other way.  That way we can repeat the words of St. Paul mentioned above.
4.  The Cross and Crucifixion ultimately lead to the Resurrection.  Of course, there can be no Resurrection without the death first.

Some practical measures: 

1. Stop treating your body (as St. Francis named his, "brother Ass) as if it were the most important thing in the world.  Sometimes it may need to be tamed.  (Recall St. Francis and other saints many austerities and penances - is it so bad to imitate those whom the Church gives to us as models of virtue?!)

2. Start giving prayer and the works of Christ priority in your life.  Dedicate time to these things and never let a day go by without meditating on the Cross.

3. Do you have pain and suffering in your life?  Accept it as a gift from God and imitate Christ in carrying this Cross in serenity and composure.  You may suffer, but can you do it without whining and with a courageous spirit?

4.  Open yourself to God's will...what is He asking of you today?  Be fearless in your following of His will, no matter what the cost.  Above all, submit this to your spiritual director's competence and be willingly obedient.

5.  Take the Cross in your hands and be a like the "good thief" crucified next to Christ.  Acknowledge your faults and failings and stop blaming God.   Do penance and amend your life.  Live for Jesus - Live Devout!