From the Ascetical Theology entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia 1913, this is point #1 in the section "Means for realizing the Christian ideal"; note please the second half, which I've bolded:
It's very, very interesting to me that the section on "Prayer" is itself made up primarily of a lengthy discussion of "examination of conscience"; clearly, the church believed these two things were and are intimately related. (And so, of course, does A.A.) I will be exploring this idea in more depth at some point; from an initial read of the article "Repentence and Confession in Orthodoxy," which contains comments on metanoia from numerous early Christian writers, I'd say this is a very old idea.
Meanwhile, notice the introductory and summing-up sentences:
And there you have a concise summary of A.A.'s Step 4 and Step 10, folks.
The church, in fact, does offer something that isn't found anywhere else: a true kind of metanoia - an authentic new life. A way of life that "the world cannot give" - because it truly doesn't know anything about it. It's "a completely unknown social reality [that has] started to instantiate itself in our midst, thus entirely altering our understanding of the social reality which we took for normal."
It would be nice, I suppose, if this new reality occurred spontaneously - but I see little evidence that it does. At the moment, for instance, the church itself is not very different from the world; it's full of rancor and rage. This, I think, happens because the church is focused on righteousness - which at the moment has morphed into self-righteousness. No surprise there, since self-righteousness is the basic human modus operandi to begin with. It does seem to me this has been the major failing of the church throughout its history; perhaps because the church is run by people who are themselves especially worried about/desirous of the condition of righteousness?
In any case: the "new reality" referred to above does seem to take some work to conform ourselves to it - perhaps it needs work for us even to be able to see it. And the work, it seems to me, involves a slow, methodical effort to kill off the deadly grip the ego maintains as it attempts to control us from cradle to grave. It simply won't let go on its own, as far as I can tell.
Prayer, above all, in its stricter meaning, is a means of attaining perfection; special devotions approved by the Church and the sacramental means of sanctification have a special reference to the striving after perfection (frequent confession and communion). Ascetics proves the necessity of prayer (2 Corinthians 3:5) and teaches the mode of praying with spiritual profit; it justifies vocal prayers and teaches the art of meditating according to the various methods of St. Peter of Alcantara, of St. Ignatius, and other saints, especially the "tres modi orandi" of St. Ignatius. An important place is assigned to the examination of conscience, because ascetical life wanes or waxes with its neglect or careful performance; without this regular practice, a thorough purification of the soul and progress in spiritual life are out of the question. It centres the searchlight of the interior vision on every single action: all sins, whether committed with full consciousness or only half voluntarily, even the negligences which, though not sinful, lessen the perfection of the act, all are carefully scrutinized (peccata, offensiones, negligentioe; cf. "Exercitia spiritualia" of St. Ignatius, ed. P. Roothaan, p. 3). Ascetics distinguishes a twofold examination of conscience: one general (examen generale), the other special (examen particulare), giving at the same time directions how both kinds may be made profitable by means of certain practical and psychological aids. The general examination recalls all the faults of one day; the particular, on the contrary, focusses on one single defect and marks its frequency, or on one virtue to augment the number of its acts.(Again, I'm not mad for the word "perfection" here - although I'm very happy with the statement elsewhere in this article that "The essence of Christian perfection is love." I certainly wouldn't argue with that.)
It's very, very interesting to me that the section on "Prayer" is itself made up primarily of a lengthy discussion of "examination of conscience"; clearly, the church believed these two things were and are intimately related. (And so, of course, does A.A.) I will be exploring this idea in more depth at some point; from an initial read of the article "Repentence and Confession in Orthodoxy," which contains comments on metanoia from numerous early Christian writers, I'd say this is a very old idea.
Meanwhile, notice the introductory and summing-up sentences:
- An important place is assigned to the examination of conscience, because ascetical life wanes or waxes with its neglect or careful performance; without this regular practice, a thorough purification of the soul and progress in spiritual life are out of the question.
- and
- "The general examination recalls all the faults of one day; the particular, on the contrary, focusses on one single defect and marks its frequency, or on one virtue to augment the number of its acts."
And there you have a concise summary of A.A.'s Step 4 and Step 10, folks.
The church, in fact, does offer something that isn't found anywhere else: a true kind of metanoia - an authentic new life. A way of life that "the world cannot give" - because it truly doesn't know anything about it. It's "a completely unknown social reality [that has] started to instantiate itself in our midst, thus entirely altering our understanding of the social reality which we took for normal."
It would be nice, I suppose, if this new reality occurred spontaneously - but I see little evidence that it does. At the moment, for instance, the church itself is not very different from the world; it's full of rancor and rage. This, I think, happens because the church is focused on righteousness - which at the moment has morphed into self-righteousness. No surprise there, since self-righteousness is the basic human modus operandi to begin with. It does seem to me this has been the major failing of the church throughout its history; perhaps because the church is run by people who are themselves especially worried about/desirous of the condition of righteousness?
In any case: the "new reality" referred to above does seem to take some work to conform ourselves to it - perhaps it needs work for us even to be able to see it. And the work, it seems to me, involves a slow, methodical effort to kill off the deadly grip the ego maintains as it attempts to control us from cradle to grave. It simply won't let go on its own, as far as I can tell.
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