Mgr. Delassus: Two Irreconciliable Conceptions about Life
Oct 19, 2019 13:45:07 GMT
Post by Admin on Oct 19, 2019 13:45:07 GMT
TWO IRRECONCILIABLE CONCEPTIONS ABOUT LIFE
Taken from Monsignor Henri Delassus', The Antichristian Conjuration. The Masonic Temple Raised Above the Ruins of the Catholic Church
Christianity reversed the concept the pagan had about life. The divine Savior teaches us with his word and persuades us with his death and resurrection, that the present life is a WAY and not THE LIFE to which his Father has destined us.
The Christian civilization comes from a conception of life completely contrary to that which gave rise to pagan civilization.
Paganism, having pushed humankind down the slope that original sin had driven it, said that man is on earth to enjoy life and the goods that this world offers him. The pagan did not ambition, did not seek anything beyond the enjoyment of life; and the pagan society was organized in order to procure these abundant goods and those pleasures so refined or even rude that they can reach, and only for those who were in a position to obtain them. Ancient civilization was based on this principle, all its institutions were based, above all, on two pillars, slavery and war. And since nature was not generous enough, and above all, because at that time, it had not been cultivated for a long time and well enough to obtain all the desired enjoyments, the strong people subdued the weak people, and the citizens did slaves to foreigners and even their brothers to provide themselves with sources of wealth and instruments of pleasure.
Christianity came instead to tell the man that he should look in another direction for happiness whose need does not cease to torment him. He reversed the concept that the pagan had about life. The divine Savior teaches us with his word and persuades us with his death and resurrection, that the present life is a way, and that this is not THE LIFE to which his Father has destined us.
The present life is nothing more than the preparation for eternal life. That is the path that leads to it. We are on track, the Scholastics told us, walking ad terminum, on the march to heaven. Today's scientists would express the same idea by saying that the earth is the laboratory where souls are formed, where the supernatural faculties of which the Christian is received and developed, after having finished his passage in this life, will enjoy in the heavenly dwelling.
Just as the embryonic life is in the mother's womb, since it is also a life, but a life in formation, and where the senses that will have to work in the earth stay are elaborated: the eyes with which you will contemplate nature, the Heard that he will gather his harmonies, the voice that will speak his songs there, etc.
In heaven we can see God face to face, this is the great promise that is made to us. All religion is based on it. And yet, no created nature is capable of this vision.
All living beings have their way of knowing, limited by their own nature. The plant has a certain knowledge of the liquids it needs for its maintenance, since its roots extend to them, they look for them to introduce them into it. This knowledge is not a vision. The animal sees, but does not have the intelligence of the things that its eyes encompass.
Man understands these things, his reason penetrates them, he abstracts the ideas they contain and for them he rises to science. But the substances of things remain hidden, because man is nothing more than a rational animal and not a pure intelligence. The angels themselves, who are pure intellects, can directly contemplate substances of their own nature and fortiori inferior substances. But they can't see God either. God is a separate substance, of an infinitely superior order.
The greatest effort of the human spirit has come to qualify God as being "Pure Act" and revelation tells us that it is a Trinity of people in unity of substance, the Second begotten by the First, the Third coming from the other two, all within a life of intelligence and love that has neither beginning nor end. Seeing God as He looks, loving Him as He loves himself - this is the promised bliss - is beyond the reach of all created and even possible nature.
To understand it one should be nothing less than equal to God.
But what does not belong by nature to man can be provided by a free gift from God. And so it is: we know it because God has revealed to us to have done it this way. Both for angels and for us. Good angels see God face to face, and we are called to enjoy the same happiness.
We can only get there by some over-adding that elevates us above our nature, that makes us capable of this, being radically impotent for ourselves, such as the gift of reason to an animal or the gift of sight to a plant . This something is called here, in this life, sanctifying grace.
The apostle Saint Peter says that it is a participation of the divine nature. It must be so; We have just seen that, in no being, the operation of a given being is not exceeded and cannot exceed the nature of that same being. And if one day we will be able to see God, it is because He will have placed some divine in us, it will have become a part of our being, and will raise it up to make it similar to God “Blessed, says the apostle Saint John, we are now children of God, and what we will be one day does not seem yet; we will be similar to Him, because we will see him as he is ”(I John, III-2).
This something, we receive it down here from the holy Baptism. The apostle Saint John calls it a germ (I John III-9), that is, a life in principle. It is what Our Lord pointed out to us, when he spoke to Nicodemus of the need for a new birth, of a generation to a new life: The life that the Father has in himself, that He gives to the Son and that the Son gives us and He exercises us together with Him for Holy Baptism. This word that gives such a vivid picture of the whole mystery, St. Paul had taken it from Our Lord when he said to the apostles: “I am the vine, you are the branches, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself if it is not attached to the vine, so you also do not remain in me. ”
These high ideas were familiar to early Christians. That is demonstrated by the fact that when the apostles speak in the Epitres, they do so as being a thing already known. And in fact, it was so because they were presented in long catechesis the rites of baptism.
Then, the white clothes of the neophytes symbolized that they began a new life, that they were this way returned to innocence: Spiritual children, they were told, as newborn children, they ardently desire the milk that should feed their supernatural life; the milk of faith without alteration, sine dolo lac concupiscite, and the milk of divine charity. When this germ they received has come to an end, this faith will be transformed into a clear vision, and charity into the bliss of divine love.
All present life must tend to this development, to the transformation of the old man, of the man of pure nature and even of the decayed nature, into the deified man. Here is what is done in this world in the faithful Christian.
The supernatural virtues, infused in our soul in baptism, are developed day by day by the exercise we do of them with the help of grace and we thus make it capable of supernatural activities that are to be completed in heaven. The entrance into heaven will be like a birth, which with baptism was begotten.
This is what Jesus did and what he came to teach the human race. Therefore, the conception of the present life was radically changed. Man is not on earth to enjoy and die, but to prepare for life from above. And to deserve it.
ENJOY, DESERVE, are the two ends that characterize, that separate, that oppose the two civilizations.
It cannot be said that from the moment that Christianity began to be preached, men no longer thought of anything other than their own sanctification. They continued to follow the secondary aims of the present life, and exercising, in the family and in society, the functions they ask for and the duties they impose. On the other hand, sanctification is not only operated by spiritual exercises, but by the performance of every duty of state, by every act done with purity of intention. "Whatever you do, says the apostle St. Paul, whether in words or deeds, do them all in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ ... Work to please God in all things, and you will bear fruit in every good work." (Ad Colos ., I-10 and III-17).
It should be noted, however, that the number of bad people decreases and the good number increases as faith takes more empire in society. These, because they have faith in eternal life, love God, do good, observe justice, are the benefactors of their brothers. And for all that, they make security and peace reign in society. Those, because they have no faith, because their eyes remain fixed on the earth, they are selfish, without love, without mercy for their fellowmen: enemies of all good, are in society cause of disorder and stagnation for civilization.
Mixed with each other, the good and the bad, the believers and the unbelievers, form the two cities described by St. Augustine: "Selfishness brought to the contempt of God constitutes the society commonly called" the world ", the love of God brought to contempt of himself produces holiness and populates the "heavenly city."
As the new conception of life brought by Our Lord Jesus Christ to earth penetrated intelligences and hearts, society changed: the new conception of life changed customs, and under the impulse of these ideas and customs , the institutions were transformed. Slavery disappeared, and instead of the powerful submitting their brothers, they are seen sanctifying themselves to heroism to procure the bread of spiritual life, to raise souls and sanctify them.
The war was no longer made to seize the territories of others and take men and women as slaves, but to break the obstacles that opposed the extension of the kingdom of Christ and obtain the slaves of the devil's freedom from Children of God. Facilitating, favoring the freedom of men and peoples in their progress towards good, became the objective towards which social institutions were led, although not always as an expressly determined purpose. And souls aspired to heaven and worked to deserve it. The possession of temporary goods for the enjoyment that can be obtained from them, was no longer the sole and even main objective of the activity of Christians, at least of those who were really imbued with the Christian spirit, but the possession of spiritual goods, the sanctification of the soul, the increase of the virtues that are the ornament and the true delights of life from below, and at the same time garments of eternal bliss.
The virtues acquired by personal efforts were transmitted through education from one generation to another; and so, little by little, the new social hierarchy was formed, founded, no longer by force and its abuses, but on merit; in the lower part, the families that applied to the virtue of work; in the middle, those who, knowing how to combine the moderation in the use of the goods they obtained at work, founded the property through savings; Above, those who denied selfishness ascended to the sublime virtues of dedication to others: people, bourgeoisie, aristocracy. The society was established and the families staggered in the ascending merit of the virtues transmitted from generation to generation.
Such was the work of the Middle Ages. During its course, the Church performed a triple task. he fought against the evil that came from the different sects of paganism and destroyed it; he perfected the good elements that were found in the ancient Romans and in the different races of barbarians; and finally, he triumphed the ideal that Our Lord Jesus Christ had given of true civilization. To achieve this, he had tried first to reform the heart of man; from there came the reform of the family, the family came to reform the State and society: the opposite way to which we want to follow today.
Undoubtedly, to believe that, in the order just mentioned there was no point of disorder, it would be wrong. The ancient spirit, the spirit of the world that Our Lord condemned, never was, and will never be completely overcome.
Always, even in the best times, and when the Church obtained the greatest ascendant over society, there were men of pleasure and men of ambition; but families were seen to rise because of their virtues or decline because of their shortcomings; the people were seen to distinguish themselves by their civilization, and the degree of civilization was taken from the dominant aspirations in each nation: they rose when these aspirations were purified and rose; they retreated when their aspirations led them to enjoyment and selfishness.
It happened, however, that nations, families, individuals abandoned themselves to the instincts of nature or resisted them; but the Christian ideal always remained inflexiblely kept under everyone's eyes by the Holy Church.
The impulse given to society by Christianity began to be delayed in the thirteenth century: the liturgy confirms it and the facts prove it.
Adapted from the Spanish here: Source