Fides et Ratio

When We Fail Repentance, Discouragement, and Beginning Agai

We have been learning to see the predominant fault, to practice the opposing virtue, to discern the movements of consolation and desolation, and to give our good intentions the structure of a simple rule. All of this work is real. Yet even with these helps, we will fall. The fall may be in the same area we have been fighting for weeks or months. It may feel like proof that nothing has changed.

In that moment, two dangers present themselves. The first is to minimize the fault: to treat it as insignificant, to move on without contrition or amendment, as if grace excused habitual failure rather than healed it. The second is to collapse into discouragement: to turn the gaze inward, to rehearse the failure, to conclude that the effort is useless or that God has grown tired of us. Both responses leave the soul occupied with itself. Neither returns us to God or to the concrete work of restoration.

The Catholic spiritual tradition offers a more direct path. Failure does not disprove the work of grace. What matters is what we do in the next five minutes. True repentance is not a feeling or a long interior drama. It is a swift, humble turning back to God through concrete acts: a sincere act of contrition, reparation for any harm done to others, one small practical amendment, and an immediate return to prayer or duty. Sacramental confession follows as needed. This sequence keeps the soul from both presumption and paralysis. Grace restores the soul through fidelity in the next good thing.

Good thing. I think that we have to take some level of consolation from this cross, and in that we know that falls are to be expected. Our Lord fell. The first time that He fell, let’s learn from that. We shouldn’t be astonished when we fall.

So that first failure. “I’m sorry. Again today, I shouted at my children. I just did not get myself motivated. I just sat down and looked at my phone. I burst into tears when my husband told me that I looked terrible in the dress I was wearing.” Whatever it is, right? That first fall, my reaction was not appropriate.

Our Lord fell, and Our Lady was there to help Him. You’re going to fall again. What happens on that second fall? What happens to Our Lord? Simon and Veronica, right? There’s always going to be someone.

When you fall, okay, it doesn’t matter if you fell as much as it matters how you respond. And I loved how you pointed out those two temptations that you’re going to fall into. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that I yelled at my kid. It doesn’t matter that I burst into tears. God understands who I am,” right?

Or, “Oh my gosh, I yelled at my kids again. Oh my gosh, I burst into tears again. Oh my gosh, I sat on my phone again. I’m never going to get any better,” right?

These tendencies that we have to minimize our transgressions or overmaximize our inability to change will become true impediments to our growth in the spiritual life.

And we are weak. This has to be recognized as what’s going to happen, right? We have to intend not to fail. We have to intend to correct a fall, right? The fall is going to happen, and what is our intention? Our intention is going to be able to grow from each failure.

Know what your tendency is going to be, to excuse yourself or to accuse yourself. And when you know yourself, know your habits toward excuses or accusation, be prepared with an alternative, right?

I lived in Northern Virginia, and we would have these lovely exchanges, and I could always rely on traffic. Your best friend’s last name is Early. Obviously there’s a concern there at times, right?

But I do remember, it was a really important moment in my life. I had really been going through this kind of element where I was trying to understand who I am before man, really, right? And I arrived late and I said, “Oh my gosh, Mary, I’m sorry I’m late. It was terrible.”

And I stopped and I said, “No. It actually was fine. I don’t even know why I told you that traffic was terrible. I just got a late start, and I’m sorry for that.”

In this instance, my tendency at that point was going to excuse myself, to find some way that I could cover for it, to not look bad in someone else’s eyes. But the reality was, you knew that I had three small children. You knew that I was pregnant. To show up late was like, “Oh, you made it.” Right?

It is going to happen. I’m going to be late. I’m going to be angry. I’m going to be short tempered. It’s not so much that that’s going to happen. It’s having the foresight to know how we’re going to respond.

Look at Our Lady, Mary. Really a good place for us to start, to really go to our Mother and to find our Veronicas, because those will be given to us

The five-step sequence:

Karen Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where have I minimized my faults after falling? Where have I allowed discouragement to keep me turned inward instead of returning to God? Where have I delayed the next good act because I wanted to feel worthy or fully understand first?

Repentance is practical faith. We turn again, without delay, to Christ, repair what was harmed, and take the next small step in fidelity. Repeated falls, met with prompt repentance, can deepen humility and trust in the grace that raises us.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, receive us each time we turn back to You. Give us sincere contrition, courage to make reparation, and fidelity to return to prayer and duty after every fall. Protect us from presumption that minimizes sin and discouragement that paralyzes the soul. May prompt repentance deepen our dependence on Your mercy and strengthen our resolve.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources

Francis de Sales. Introduction to the Devout Life. Translated by John K. Ryan. New York: Image Books, 1972. (Part III, Chapter 9, “On Gentleness towards Ourselves”).

Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Translated by George E. Ganss, S.J. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1992. (Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, especially SE 318–321 on conduct in desolation).

The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006. (Luke 15:11–32; Psalm 51:1–19).

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A Rule for Ordinary Life Prayer, Order, and the Duties Before Us

Restoration does not remain in moments of insight or fervent resolve. We may recognize a fault clearly, choose the opposing virtue sincerely, and even understand something about the interior battle, yet still discover that good intentions disappear under the pressure of an ordinary day. The phone rings, work expands, family needs change, fatigue arrives, and what seemed clear in prayer is easily forgotten. Restoration becomes durable when good intentions are given a concrete structure.

A simple Christian rule of life protects prayer, strengthens freedom, and helps us remember the good we have already chosen. It does not attempt to control every hour or remove the unpredictability of vocation. Instead, it gives the day a few faithful anchors: time with God, a concrete resolution, attention to duties, and honest examination. These modest practices create room for continuity when enthusiasm fades or circumstances change.

This is not a rigid schedule that turns the spiritual life into another burden. It is a gentle framework that makes us more attentive to grace and more ready to respond to it. The duties of our state, including work, family, and household responsibilities, are not obstacles to holiness. They are the very material in which holiness is lived. A rule of life should help us become more faithful within the life God has given us, not make us resent that life for interrupting an ideal plan. Grace restores the soul through fidelity in the next good thing.

Just a couple. You know, we often think that this whole process is initiated by us and is within us. That really, it’s not. Right? We are being called into this process of growth. It’s really God calling us out of ourselves to be with Him.

And we know that God is fundamentally order. Right? We see it in the 60 second minute, I mean the 60 minute hour, the 24 hour day, the seven day week. Right? All of these things allow us to develop habits that are reliable. And we want to, in some small way, begin to mimic that routine, that orderliness, that reliability that God has provided us in our day, to bring that into our own life as kind of our own. I mean, God has given us His rule, per se, and now we need to find that sort of in a micro way.

And it doesn’t need to be complicated. Right? There doesn’t have to be anything. We don’t have to sit down and write out every single day, ordered time. What we’re looking for is a rule that can serve our vocation. Most of us, probably everyone in the show, I am a mother. Many of us either have children or different things, our natural vocation, and whatever rule we create must not compete with it.

None of us are called to go into a particular vocation, hours in silent adoration of the Church, right? So don’t create something that is not at the disposal of your own personal vocation.

I think a priest once said that to me once, as I was kind of wondering, how does one know whether or not one is carrying a vocation? Because I said, for instance, I could go to daily Mass every single day. This was back when I had very small children. I could do that, right? But at what cost? Right? And he said, so if I don’t, because I could, is that a sin of omission? He said, “No. Your vocation is to the needs of your family and your children. If you go to Mass and you fail to feed your children breakfast, then you have committed a sin of omission, and your mission is to not meet the needs of your vocation.”

I thought that was really helpful. So think about this. We need to be looking at what serves and does not compete. This beautiful book, right, what is considered a practical rhythm, something that we can follow easily. What does that look like to you? Like to me, maybe something very different. But it just means that that first motion of the heart is God in prayer. Just pause at the beginning.

Then create one concrete resolution. And this particular resolution, because we are talking about this particular spirit and trying to be attuned to our own sin, should be something that is specifically directed toward combating that particular sin, to be at the service of creating a new habit that is going to fight that vice.

Finally, once we have done that, created that concrete resolution, now do an examination, which goes back to that discernment of the spirit, right? And that leads us back to what we said before. Notice what you’re thinking of. Pause. Is this concrete resolution truly from God. Then, know where is it coming from? What kind of thoughts is it leading me to? And then respond to that.

That’s always going to be that pause, that prayer, that test, that response. Those are really, that’s going to kind of be our mantra as we’re trying to develop this new habit of virtue, right?

So, you know, when you have this rule, remember that sometimes will put in front of us. And I read this beautiful book, Saint Catherine of Siena. Sometimes our Lord will put an interruption into our plans. Saint Catherine really believed that all God wanted [her] to do was to be in the bedroom praying, and also she was [unclear] with your family. But we just have this great conversation about how, “I’m just going to spend my time with you.” This really beautiful plan, and we even did it, you know, thinking that we’ve done it with God’s permission.

Sometimes God’s just going to send an interruption, right? So when that interruption comes, “Oh, I just laid out all my beautiful prayer books. I put the baby down for a nap. Awesome, I’m going to have this time with God.” Ring! There goes your telephone call, and it’s a friend who’s weeping because something happened, right?

Okay, we have two responses there. One, to say, “Lord, it’s not what I planned. It’s not what I foresaw. I’m going to change my rule because I think that this is what you want me to do right now.” Or, ring, the phone. Stop. “If I answer that now, our Lord just gave me this quiet moment that I can really spend with Him.”

There are times when you are going to accept the interruption as coming from God, and then there are going to be other times when you must reject the interruption because it’s not of God. So, be prepared for it. Be prepared in that examination of time, flexible as to where God wants me to go.

Because as long as, and I loved what you said at the end, you know, Jesus, you’re always docile, and that’s where real charity is, right? That next good thing

Guiding Question: What small structure in my ordinary day would make me more available to grace and more faithful in love? The same principle applies to every state in life: the structure should protect what matters most while remaining supple enough to serve real duties of charity.

 Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where have I expected holiness to happen only in extraordinary moments? Where have I let good intentions remain vague and unmoored? Where have I treated my daily duties as interruptions rather than the place where love is lived?

A simple rule of life is not a burden but a help. It gently orders our days so that we become more attentive to grace and more ready to respond to it.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, You who sanctified ordinary life by Your hidden years in Nazareth, help us to order our days in a way that serves You. Give us a simple rule that protects prayer, strengthens fidelity to our duties, and opens our hearts to Your grace. Teach us to offer every task, however small, as an act of love. May our ordinary days become the place where Your kingdom quietly grows.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources Francis de Sales. Introduction to the Devout Life. Translated by John K. Ryan. New York: Image Books, 1972. (Part I, Chapter III; relevant chapters of Part II).

Josemaría Escrivá. Christ Is Passing By (especially no. 20).

The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006. (Colossians 3:23–24).

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As we begin to resist our predominant fault and practice the opposing virtue, something important happens: we become more sensitive to the movements within our own soul. The combat is not only about outward behavior. Thoughts, desires, fears, attractions, discouragements, and sudden impulses accompany the choices we make. The Catholic tradition calls the prayerful testing of these movements discernment of spirits. We learn to recognize which movements lead us toward God and greater freedom, and which pull us away from Him.

Discernment is not merely a modern decision-making technique, nor is every passing thought a message requiring elaborate analysis. It is the deeper, ongoing work of learning to recognize the direction and fruit of interior movements. St. Ignatius teaches that how these movements work depends on the direction in which we are already walking. For someone earnestly trying to grow, which is where we find ourselves in this series, the good spirit strengthens, steadies, consoles, and encourages perseverance, while the enemy often attacks with discouragement, anxiety, false obstacles, and reasoning designed to make us abandon the good course.

This matters because the struggle often becomes most confusing after we have begun to change. A good resolution may be followed by resistance. A failure may be followed by a voice of accusation that sounds convincing precisely because we did fail. A success may invite vanity. Discernment helps us neither obey every impulse nor fear every thought. We learn to notice, pray, test, and respond faithfully. Grace restores the soul through fidelity in the next good thing.

Yeah. You know, one of the things that I was just thinking about there was this, you know, this circle of vices, right? The way that you just articulated that, where, how did you actually say it? “A good resolution may be followed by resistance.”

Just think about how pride is vanity, and charity. Why do we [unclear] in certain ways? Pride can lead us to vanity. Pride can make us be vain because now we think, “Oh, I’m doing so good,” right? Or it can lead us to sensuality. “Well, I’ve done enough for today.”

So when we’re finding these root sins, right, it’s no guarantee that just because you conquer one, that you’re going to fall into another, right? Because we always like to try using [unclear] vices that also can lead you into, to pull you away from this progress towards virtue.

That’s one of the things, one of the keys of learning here really is, while they’re happening, be present enough to yourself to be able to resist while you’re doing them. It’s kind of only in hindsight that this is. And don’t be so proud that you won’t stop yourself. If you hear yourself yelling or with a sharp tone, stop and, in front of the person in front of you, with an apology: “Oh, I am so sorry that I spoke like this. I yelled, but I’m really trying to work on my tone.” Present. It’s that impulse to become an impulse virtue. We don’t always want someone else to correct us, but we want to be the hero winner.

Now, [unclear] talking about these thoughts that kind of come in as we’re trying to discern these spirits, right? I mentioned it a minute ago, sometimes. He tells us that thought is not consent. Crazy thing, and actually I’m kind of meditating on this. I know that God, divine, He is the only who knows our thoughts. I find it intriguing that the devil can introduce a thought. That to me is really, I’ve really been kind of struggling with that, right?

But it’s true that the thought, that’s not necessarily itself. I mean, obviously there’s a whisper to our ear that it is. Maybe to yell, maybe to watch, maybe to pick up our phone, What is consent? Thought is consent.

And there’s the easy, simple method, right? The first is notice it. Pause. Two: pause. Three: pray. So this is to screen. Discern. And after that test, respond to it appropriately. It’s really important that we do these things in the moment. We don’t always want to be correcting after the fact. It’s good. I mean, it’s not a bad thing to correct yourself after the fact. Virtue comes from it.

Like climbing the hill, right? Let’s say you’re running to the top of the hill, like you get really tired at the three quarter mark..

I mentioned before too that if the thought is positive, while you’re doing something today, one of those is necessarily an impulse to [unclear]. Have to discern. Satan is the father of lies. Really good, he may trumpet really, really good. going any further, he can discourage you, like by saying, “Oh, you’re never going to get to the next level. Why are you even bothering?” Right? He just uses both things to find about where we are. He will tempt this attack.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Great. The book, I bought to listen a few times, because there’s several gems there.

Guiding Question: Where is this thought, desire, fear, or impulse leading me: toward God or away from Him?

Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where have I acted on impulse without testing the spirit? Where have discouragement or false reassurance clouded my ability to see clearly? Where have I mistaken strong feeling for the voice of God?

Discernment is a gift of grace that grows with humble attentiveness. It does not make the spiritual life easier, but it makes it truer.

Let us pray.

Come, Holy Spirit, Spirit of wisdom and discernment. Quiet the confusion within us. Teach us to recognize what leads toward You and what draws us away. Give us light to test every movement, courage to resist what is false, and hearts attentive to Your gentle voice. May we grow in the freedom of those who walk by Your light.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Translated by George E. Ganss, S.J. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1992. (First Set of Rules for Discernment of Spirits, SE 313–327).

Evagrius Ponticus. The Praktikos and On Thoughts.

The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006. (1 John 4:1).

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Once we begin to recognize our predominant fault, the question naturally arises: how do we actually combat it? Recognition alone is not restoration. We may become very skilled at naming pride, vanity, impatience, or disordered appetite while continuing to repeat the same habits. The Catholic spiritual tradition does not counsel mere suppression of vice, nor does it leave us with a vague instruction to try harder. It teaches that, under the action of grace, a predominant fault is gradually weakened as we cooperate with the opposing virtue through concrete, repeated acts.

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that repeated acts form lasting habits in us. Under grace, the good acts we choose repeatedly strengthen us in the practice of virtue and help reorder our desires toward the good. If pride repeatedly turns us inward, acts of humility train us to receive truth without defending the self at every turn. If appetite demands immediate satisfaction, acts of temperance strengthen the freedom to choose according to reason and love. If vanity seeks notice, hidden charity teaches the heart to act for God rather than applause.

This is not self-improvement by willpower alone. Grace comes first, sustains the good act, and brings it to fruit, but grace does not make our cooperation unnecessary. We are invited to respond. The saints show us how this looks in daily life: not usually through dramatic victories, but through small acts repeated faithfully and offered to God. The opposing virtue becomes concrete in the next conversation, the next irritation, the next opportunity to choose love over self-protection. Grace restores the soul through fidelity in the next good thing.

As you’re reading that, because it follows the old adage of knowledge is not causation, right? So simply because, and I think that we can all assent to this, we’re really, really, really good at naming our faults. Boy, do I know when I see it in you. Boy, do I know such a sin when I see it in you. To be able to engage with a person, to be able to come to that, I was saying, it is not to conquer it, right?

There was a sense of beast that is tameable. It’s mild within us and can be tamed through the process of virtue, too. That, you know, suppressing the vice is not enough, right? God doesn’t want us to just stop sinning. He wants us not just to stop the vice, but to positively express virtue.

express pride is remember, humility is not just, like, being self-denigrating. Being humble is truly knowing yourself. Without any pride, [Mary] could say, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” False humility is saying, “Oh, look at me,” right?

So pride/ humility, that friendship. Friendship. If you look at a beautiful cake, a wedding feast that a friend is inviting us to, and take all of it, right? To enjoy the meal that they are inviting us to, to taste the cake, to receive the, all of that.

Temperance. No, temperance. It’s again that suppressing of vice without suppressing virtue. And I love this one because it seems so odd to virtue. But it does. Rightly defined, it really does allow you to engage with the right humility.

Humility is not just self-knowledge. yes. And then you are this faith. Not about looking at me. What can I do for God? And it’s really, those are really powerful.

It’s important that when you are moving from that suppression of the vice to the expression of virtue, that must be a concrete, decisive action that you make. Right. So when you are, when you have kind of come into the knowledge of what vices might be, or where you’re tending to see the vast majority of faults, find something during that morning offering where you’re going to say, like if pride is your issue, just say, “My tongue, do that,” right? So I am not going to have a second portion today, right? Or if it’s vanity.

Knowledge only moves from the possession of information to the actual practice of virtue by the habit of action. Must do. It is always active. Must do. Passivity to action. That’s really, that’s important.

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In our last series, Discernment in an Age of Disorder, Sara and I began with a fairly simple premise. Much of the disorder that we see around us does not begin out there somewhere, in politics, institutions, or culture. It begins much closer to home. It begins within the human person.

We looked at pride and the intellect, sensuality and appetite, and vanity and our relationship with others. And throughout those discussions, we kept coming back to the question of discernment. How do we recognize what is true and what is counterfeit? How do we begin to see clearly again?

But that leaves us with a very practical question.

All right. I can see the disorder. What do I actually do about it?

And that is where Sara and I want to begin today.

This series, Practical Restoration of the Soul, takes that next step. We want to look at what the Catholic spiritual tradition actually gives us to work with. How do we recognize the patterns in our own lives? How do we cooperate with grace? And what does restoration actually look like in the very ordinary circumstances of an ordinary day?

Because ultimately, if we are going to talk about the restoration of the soul, it has to become very personal.

Where does God want to begin restoring me?

There is a temptation, even among those seeking holiness, to treat every sin as an isolated failure to be fixed. We see a sharp word, an impatient reaction, a moment of vanity or escape, and we address each one separately. We apologize for the sharp word, resolve to be more patient, or promise ourselves that next time we will do better. These responses may be sincere, but if the same failures keep returning in different forms, the Catholic spiritual tradition invites us to look more deeply. Beneath the scattered sins there is often a predominant fault, a governing weakness that shapes our thoughts, desires, and responses again and again.

Honest self-knowledge, received in the light of grace rather than self-condemnation, is the beginning of real spiritual combat. The Psalmist prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps 139:23–24, RSV-CE). This search is not morbid introspection. It is a humble opening of ourselves to the God who already knows us completely and who alone can heal us. We are not searching for reasons to condemn ourselves. We are asking for light so that grace can reach the places where our freedom is repeatedly narrowed.

When we begin to notice recurring patterns, we are not merely cataloguing faults. We are learning to see how one deeper disorder may appear in many ordinary situations. Pride may surface as defensiveness, resentment, or the need to be noticed. Disordered appetite may appear through different objects while the same demand for immediate relief remains underneath. Only when the pattern becomes visible can vague striving become targeted combat. Grace restores the soul through fidelity in the next good thing.

And you had said before at the beginning, right, that we’re not to treat each individual sin as sort of an isolated event. And I do think that Satan is invested in us doing exactly that, right? He wants us to think that everything that we do is one individual offense, and each pile just keeps piling up and piling up and piling up. But it’s important that we move from the sense of each individual sin and begin to note a pattern.

I think back to when you go to a spiritual director or to confession and you find yourself feeling frustrated because you keep confessing the same sins. And I remember one wise priest once saying, “What, you want new ones?” No, no, you don’t, right? But what you are doing when you’re confessing these same sins over and over again, you’re starting to see, and you’re able to develop, really, a possible predominant fault.

And I would like to pretend that we have one predominant fault that we tend to see throughout our lives, and all the stuff, because we just master that one. [Unclear.] Satan is always willing to reach and tries to test us. But in general, we’re going to find ourselves falling into the same sins.

You had mentioned them: pride, sensuality, vanity, or that sensuality, which is that disordered appetite that is within us. And you start to notice those things. Like, let’s say pride is the one that really keeps coming back to you. When you notice that you’re being defensive every time somebody criticizes you, or you’re overwhelmed with joy when somebody praises you, or that disordered passion, that you’re bored. All of those things: vanity, you’re waiting to be praised, or you’re waiting to be honored, or you walk into an environment and you’re always really nervous, you have to either be the most or the center of attention.

Each of these particular emotions, these movements—I think you really use “movements”—movements within the soul, we need to be able to start, through examination, trying to target: Where are these faults? What are we seeing on a daily basis? You might see the same movements over again. How do I respond to them? Do I always respond the same way? Am I always argumentative? Am I always silent? Do I brood? Do I pout? Find those instances of ourselves.

And then once we become more aware of them, we don’t vaguely try and change pride or vanity. We have to tackle these much more slowly and much more concretely. Did I pout? Did I smile on my face? Right? Go to the refrigerator, find something you can do, right? Build concrete actions.

And then at the end of the day, you know, don’t be in a rush to name your sin yourself, to identify these things, right? You’re trying to lead to their correct files. Everything is not one sin. You’re going to be able to start to group them, and through them, you’re going to be able to identify them and start to concretely build actions to fight them.

Guiding Question: What recurring pattern in my daily life is revealing the deeper disorder God wants to heal? The purpose is not to diagnose ourselves hastily, but to gather honest evidence before God. Over several days, the same movement often becomes easier to recognize, and the particular examen gives us a practical place to begin.

Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where have I avoided honest self-knowledge? Where have I treated scattered sins as isolated problems rather than symptoms of a deeper weakness? Where have I feared to look, lest I see too clearly?

True self-knowledge is a gift of grace. It does not leave us in despair but leads us to deeper dependence on the mercy of God and the concrete work of restoration.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, You who know us better than we know ourselves, search our hearts. Give us light to recognize the recurring fault that most hinders our freedom to love. Grant us the humility to see it clearly, the courage to name it, and the fidelity to begin the combat against it through prayerful observation and the particular examen. Protect us from both self-condemnation and self-deception. Draw us by Your grace into the freedom of the children of God.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald. The Three Ages of the Interior Life. Translated by M. Timothea Doyle. Vol. 1. St. Louis: Herder, 1947. (Part II, Chapter XXII, “The Predominant Fault”).

Ignatius of Loyola. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Translated by George E. Ganss, S.J. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1992. (Particular Examen, §§24–31).

Cassian, John. The Conferences. Translated by Boniface Ramsey. New York: Paulist Press, 1997. (Conference 5, “On the Eight Principal Faults”).

The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006. (Psalm 139:23–24).

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Discernment in an Age of Disorder

Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits

Episode VII

Restoration: The Renewal of the Soul and the Hope of Civilization

Episode Thesis

The renewal of civilization begins not in panic, outrage, or domination, but in the quiet restoration of rightly ordered souls attentive to truth, contemplation, grace, and rightly ordered love.

Karen Opening Reflection

Throughout this series, we have explored the disorders that weaken both the soul and civilization itself. We have examined pride as a disorder of intellect, sensuality as a disorder of appetite, vanity as a disorder toward neighbor, and the rise of counterfeit transcendence in a culture increasingly detached from contemplation and truth.

But Christianity does not end with diagnosis. Christianity is ordered toward restoration.

This series has rested upon a central conviction: civilizations reflect the spiritual condition of the human person. When intellect, appetite, and love become disordered, discernment weakens and counterfeits replace truth, beauty, and transcendence. The renewal of culture begins not in panic, outrage, or fear, but in the restoration of rightly ordered souls attentive to grace and truth.

The modern world often tempts people toward despair. Many feel overwhelmed by cultural fragmentation, confusion, noise, and spiritual exhaustion. Yet the Christian tradition has never taught that panic renews civilization. Fear may awaken attention briefly, but it cannot sustain wisdom, charity, contemplation, or peace.

The saints understood something deeper. Renewal begins quietly, often invisibly, within the soul itself.

The restoration of civilization begins not in panic, outrage, or domination, but in the quiet restoration of rightly ordered souls attentive to truth, contemplation, grace, and rightly ordered love.

Christ Himself reminds us, “The kingdom of God is within you.”[1] Christianity has always understood that grace transforms the world by first transforming the human heart.

St. Augustine taught that peace is “the tranquility of order.”[2] Much of modern suffering arises from disorder within the soul itself. When loves become disordered, perception becomes unstable. But when the soul begins returning to right order under truth and grace, peace slowly becomes possible again.

St. Ignatius of Loyola understood that discernment requires attentiveness, humility, honesty, and spiritual discipline.[3] Restoration does not happen instantly. The soul learns slowly through prayer, silence, repentance, contemplation, and grace.

St. Thomas Aquinas taught that grace perfects nature rather than destroying it.[4] Christianity does not erase the human person. It heals, orders, and elevates the person toward communion with God.

A civilization is renewed not by panic, but by rightly ordered souls.

Perhaps the greatest act of resistance in an age of disorder is to remain contemplative, truthful, charitable, and spiritually attentive amid the noise.

Sara

Yeah, and there is a lot of noise everywhere. So there is

Guiding question:

Karen Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where in my life is God inviting restoration rather than fear? Where have I allowed noise, panic, distraction, or disorder to weaken peace within my soul? Where is the Holy Spirit inviting me toward greater contemplation, humility, discernment, and rightly ordered love?

The renewal of civilization may not begin dramatically. It may begin quietly through prayer, truthful living, humility, charity, contemplation, repentance, and fidelity to grace. The soul becomes steady again when it learns to remain rooted in truth rather than fear.

Let us pray.

Come, Holy Spirit, Spirit of wisdom, truth, and peace. Restore right order within our hearts, our minds, and our loves. Teach us to remain contemplative amid confusion, faithful amid disorder, and hopeful amid discouragement. Quiet the fears that distort discernment and strengthen within us the courage to live truthfully and love rightly.

Grant that our lives may become instruments of peace, clarity, charity, and hope in a restless age.

May we seek not panic, but wisdom. Not domination, but holiness. Not despair, but faithful communion with You.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources

[1] Luke 17:21, The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).

[2] Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950), XIX.

[3] Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. George E. Ganss, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1992).

[4] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981), I, q.1.

Episode

“A civilization is renewed not by panic, but by rightly ordered souls.”

The post Discernment in an Age of Disorder Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits Eps VII appeared first on Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective.

Discernment in an Age of Disorder

Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits

Episode VI

Counterfeits: False Transcendence in an Age of Disorder

Episode Thesis

When transcendence weakens, the human soul does not cease searching for meaning. Instead, counterfeits emerge, offering emotional intensity, identity, distraction, or ideological certainty in place of truth, beauty, holiness, and communion with God.

Karen Opening Reflection

Throughout this series, we have explored how disorder enters the soul through pride, sensuality, vanity, and the loss of discernment. We have seen how the intellect weakens when detached from truth, how appetite begins governing the soul when desire replaces contemplation, and how identity becomes fragmented when external approval replaces authentic charity.

But the human person cannot live without transcendence.

This series rests upon a central conviction: civilizations reflect the spiritual condition of the human person. When intellect, appetite, and love become disordered, discernment weakens and counterfeits replace truth, beauty, and transcendence. The renewal of culture begins not in panic, outrage, or fear, but in the restoration of rightly ordered souls attentive to grace and truth.

The hunger for transcendence does not disappear simply because a culture abandons God. Human beings are still made for meaning, worship, communion, beauty, sacrifice, and truth. But when authentic transcendence weakens, counterfeit forms quickly rush in to occupy the empty space.

When transcendence weakens, the human soul does not cease searching for meaning. Instead, counterfeits emerge, offering emotional intensity, identity, distraction, or ideological certainty in place of truth, beauty, holiness, and communion with God.

This is why modern culture often feels spiritually restless even while surrounded by stimulation. People seek transcendence through politics, identity movements, entertainment, consumerism, outrage, self-construction, emotional intoxication, and endless distraction. These substitutes may produce intensity, but they cannot produce peace.

C.S. Lewis warned that “if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”[1] Counterfeits become powerful precisely because they imitate genuine spiritual hunger while redirecting it toward lesser things.

Josef Pieper observed that modern culture increasingly loses the contemplative foundation necessary for authentic human flourishing.[2] Without contemplation, the soul becomes vulnerable to constant agitation and substitution. We remain active, reactive, distracted, and emotionally stimulated, but spiritually unanchored.

Scripture warns repeatedly against idols not because human beings stop worshiping, but because they worship falsely.[3] The soul always bends toward something ultimate. The question is whether that orientation leads toward truth or toward illusion.

St. Augustine understood this profoundly. Human beings are not merely rational creatures. We are creatures ordered toward love. What we worship eventually shapes what we become.[4]

St. Thomas Aquinas taught that every human action ultimately seeks some perceived good.[5] The tragedy of counterfeit transcendence is not that human beings stop seeking the good, but that they begin seeking it in distorted and insufficient forms.

A civilization is renewed not by panic, but by rightly ordered souls. And rightly ordered souls must learn again how to distinguish authentic transcendence from the many counterfeits competing for the attention of the modern heart.

Sara

Yeah, and boy, do we see that. You see it. Political ideology has become the replacement for civic engagement. Modern political engagement has become the replacement for what had once been an authentic civic engagement. Instead of having ideology present itself, there was an authentic sense of patriotism that bound people together under a common ideal, not an ideology.

I saw this interesting poll that I think really encapsulates it. In 2002, which was a year of political upheaval and a pretty tumultuous election, they took a poll and asked, “How many people are extremely proud to be an American?” Eighty-nine percent of those right-leaning people said they were extremely proud to be American. Those who leaned left, more progressive or liberal, it was still eighty-four percent who were very proud to be an American. And this is where you can see that the connection between the ideals overrides partisanship and ideology.

But now these counterfeits are presenting themselves. We are not talking about an ideal anymore. We are talking about ideology. And the ideals still remain, apparently, according to this poll, on the right side. Even today, eighty-nine percent of right-leaning people still say that they are extremely proud to be American. But where the ideal has been replaced by ideology, this is where we are talking about that concept of a counterfeit transcendence. Not the ideal anymore, simply the ideology.

There has been an unbelievable plummeting, and only twenty-five to twenty-nine percent of the people on the left who are more progressive are proud or extremely proud to be American. And you can see that because even in that same poll, when asked “Are you happy?”, the people on the right are going to say yes, and the people on the left are going to say no. And really, I think that the only overarching difference between those two sides is going to predominantly be the faith in God. Because if you had asked in 2002 the people who are left-leaning whether or not God was important, they probably would have said yes. Now those same people have replaced the ideal with the ideology, and there is a discontent there.

But it becomes even worse, because when you fall into that ideology, you no longer will have any relationship with those who cling to the ideal. The ideal is the enemy of ideology. And because beauty is always going to be opposed to non-beauty, they are just not compatible. And that becomes very challenging. I think this would make a very important question for both religious people and even just philosophers to ask: how is it that only half of the population right now is aggressively under attack from this loss of transcendence, or not even loss, but a misplaced transcendence, putting all of your hope and trust in vanities, in sensualities, and in pride because you refuse to assent to the truth?

The ideals upon which America is founded, if we just put them into a box somewhere and shook them up and did not tell anybody where they came from, and we pulled them out one at a time and you had to put into the pile “Is this a good idea or a bad idea?”, invariably ninety-seven percent of the ideas that form the basis of our form of life would fall into the good pile. But all of those elements, you can really see how pride, that first turning away from the truth, that sensuality where the sirens, the beckoning of the appetites, the anger, the malice, the envy, all of those things that they stoke up, and then finally the performative element. And right now, boy, that performative element is becoming very frightening to behold in our formerly civil society. Because the more polarized we get, the more ideological that some people get, the more tendency that there is going to be to act only for the cause of ideology

Karen Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where have I sought transcendence in things incapable of giving peace? Where have distraction, ideology, performance, or emotional intensity replaced contemplation and truthful communion with God? Where have I consumed substitutes while neglecting the deeper hunger of the soul?

The human heart was not made merely for stimulation, distraction, or self-construction. It was made for truth, beauty, holiness, and love rightly ordered toward God. Counterfeits may briefly excite the soul, but they cannot ultimately sustain it.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, free us from the counterfeits that distort our loves and distract our hearts. Teach us to recognize what is false, shallow, and spiritually empty. Restore within us a hunger for truth, beauty, holiness, and communion with You. Quiet the noise that scatters the soul and draw us again toward contemplation, wisdom, and peace.

May our hearts seek not passing intensity, but enduring truth. Not substitutes, but sanctity. Not illusion, but the fullness of life found in You.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources

[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 136–37.

[2] Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 46–52.

[3] Exodus 20:3–5, The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).

[4] Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

[5] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981), I-II, q.1.

The post Discernment in an Age of Disorder Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits Eps VI appeared first on Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective.

Discernment in an Age of Disorder

Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits

Episode V

Discernment: How the Soul Learns to See

Episode Thesis

Discernment begins when the soul learns to distinguish truth from counterfeit, consolation from illusion, and the movements of grace from the impulses of pride, appetite, and fear.

Karen Opening Reflection

Throughout this series, we have explored how disorder enters the soul through pride, sensuality, and vanity. We have seen how intellect becomes unstable when detached from truth, how appetite begins governing the soul when desire replaces contemplation, and how identity becomes fragmented when external approval replaces authentic charity.

This series rests upon a central conviction: civilizations reflect the spiritual condition of the human person. When intellect, appetite, and love become disordered, discernment weakens and counterfeits replace truth, beauty, and transcendence. The renewal of culture begins not in panic, outrage, or fear, but in the restoration of rightly ordered souls attentive to grace and truth.

But recognizing disorder is not yet the same thing as discernment.

Knowing and doing are not the same thing. Awareness alone does not heal the soul. Discernment requires formation, humility, attentiveness, and grace. The Christian life is not merely about possessing information. It is about learning how to see truthfully.

St. Ignatius of Loyola understood this deeply. In the Spiritual Exercises, he teaches that the movements within the soul are not morally neutral.[1] Some movements lead us toward greater peace, humility, charity, and truth. Others lead toward confusion, agitation, self-absorption, and illusion. Discernment is the patient work of learning to recognize the difference.

Modern culture often confuses emotional intensity with authenticity. If something feels powerful, urgent, expressive, or emotionally validating, we assume it must therefore be true. But not every strong feeling originates in wisdom. Not every interior movement leads toward God.

Discernment requires silence because noise weakens perception. It requires humility because pride resists correction. It requires self-mastery because appetite distorts judgment. And it requires honesty because vanity constantly tempts the soul toward performance.

Discernment begins when the soul learns to distinguish truth from counterfeit, consolation from illusion, and the movements of grace from the impulses of pride, appetite, and fear.

Josef Pieper warned that contemplation becomes nearly impossible in a culture dominated by distraction and constant activity.[2] The soul loses the ability to remain interiorly attentive. We react constantly, but rarely perceive deeply.

Scripture reminds us to “test the spirits to see whether they are of God.”[3] Christianity has never assumed that every impulse, desire, or emotional movement should simply be trusted. Discernment requires patient formation under truth.

St. Thomas Aquinas taught that prudence is perfected not merely by knowledge, but by rightly judging how truth should guide action.[4] Wisdom requires more than information. It requires rightly ordered perception.

St. Augustine understood that the heart itself must become properly ordered before the soul can perceive peace clearly.[5] The soul cannot discern rightly while remaining captive to disorder.

A civilization is renewed not by panic, but by rightly ordered souls. And rightly ordered souls must learn again how to see clearly before they can live wisely.

Sara

Yeah, you just think about the desensitization of a person. An infant, even mildly warm water will be shocking to very sensitive skin. But by the time you are our age, we basically put our hands in very warm, hot, soapy water with very little reaction other than just a quick, “Oh, that hurt,” and then shake it off and go back in. Because that constant exposure requires you to have more and more input to get the same sensation.

This is why when the human soul, I mean the human body, follows its appetite, it always leads itself deeper and deeper into the pleasure. The early pleasure that came quickly then at the end becomes much harder to achieve because the body itself will make itself immune to those sensations. And I think really there is a reason for that, and that is because God is very intent on allowing you the freedom to be able to make a free will choice. So if you are getting less and less rewards for something, and it becomes less and less pleasurable, then hopefully there is a moment where you can kind of intervene and wake up and come to your senses.

But at the end of the day, and I liked what you said at the very beginning, knowledge is not causation. Simply because we have more access to information than any people ever, and we are fundamentally more unsatisfied. To whom much is given, much is required. And we really do not have the capacity to process all the things that we have access to. You see all of these really wealthy people, how many times do we hear the stories of some of the richest people in the world, some of the most famous people in the world, who get all the adulation in the world, and we wake up tomorrow and find out that they committed suicide? Because at the end the human person is not made for pleasure. We are made to be in the presence of God. We are made for happiness that is an eternal happiness, not something that is sensationalistic. And if knowledge were all that were necessary, Satan would be the greatest of saints.

But it requires a cooperation of both knowledge and action. I was thinking about that before, and I just want to quickly say this. You were talking about vanity and we were talking about performativeness. Just to be clear, we are not saying that you should allow your house to descend into chaos so that you do not compare yourself to others. The point is that we are looking for that happy medium where the soul is at peace within the framework of the body.

So when is a home peaceful? When it is rightly ordered. Does that mean that every single toy has to be in its place at all times? No. There are times during the day when the toys should be out. There are times in the day when there should be dishes on the countertop. But should the dishes be on the countertop in the morning when you wake up because you just threw the entire day away and did not order your life rightly so that you had to do tomorrow what you should have done today? That is what we are talking about in terms of being able to order yourself. You do not put your dishes away to impress your friend.

I have this great line upstairs. It is a very cute little image, and it is a quote from Mother Teresa. It says, “Wash the dish not because it needs to be washed, but wash the dish because you love the person who will use it next.” And that is a rightly ordered element. When you are doing something, not just because it needs to be washed, which is a good, but washing it for the sake of another, that is where you really enter into charity.

Guiding question:

Karen Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where have I mistaken emotional intensity for wisdom? Where have fear, distraction, or pride weakened my ability to perceive clearly? Where has noise made me less attentive to truth, grace, and the quiet movements of the Holy Spirit?

Discernment does not happen instantly. The soul learns slowly through prayer, humility, contemplation, honesty, and grace. God does not force clarity upon us violently. He teaches the soul patiently, often through silence and attentiveness.

Let us pray.

Come, Holy Spirit, Spirit of wisdom and discernment. Quiet the confusion within us. Teach us to recognize what leads toward truth, humility, charity, and peace. Free us from illusion, fear, emotional instability, and counterfeit consolation. Form our hearts in patience and our minds in truthful perception.

Grant us the grace to become attentive to Your movements within the soul and faithful in following where You lead.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources

[1] Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. George E. Ganss, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1992).

[2] Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 46–52.

[3] 1 John 4:1, The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).

[4] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981), I-II, q.57.

The post Discernment in an Age of Disorder Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits Eps V appeared first on Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective.

Discernment in an Age of Disorder

Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits

Episode IV

Vanity: The Performance of the Self

Episode Thesis

When identity becomes performative, discernment weakens because the soul begins seeking validation from the crowd rather than truth from God. Vanity disorders our relationship with neighbor, replacing authentic charity with image, performance, and external approval

Karen Opening Reflection

In our last episode, we explored sensuality as a disorder of appetite, the moment when desire begins governing the soul rather than serving the good. But human disorder does not stop within the self alone. Eventually it begins shaping the way we relate to other people. The soul becomes increasingly concerned not merely with satisfaction, but with appearance.

Vanity is often misunderstood because we reduce it to superficial concerns about beauty or status. But the Christian tradition sees vanity much more deeply than that. Vanity is the temptation to construct the self through external approval. The soul begins performing rather than living truthfully.

Modern culture intensifies this temptation constantly. Social media trains people to curate identity, measure worth through visibility, and seek affirmation through performance. Even suffering can become performative. Even morality can become performative. We begin presenting ourselves rather than offering ourselves.

Christ warned repeatedly against this disorder. In the Gospel of Matthew, He speaks of those who perform acts of righteousness “to be seen by men.”[1] The problem is not merely public action. The problem is the relocation of the heart. The soul slowly begins seeking its center in applause, affirmation, attention, and visibility rather than in God.

C.S. Lewis observed that pride and vanity are intensely competitive because “each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride.”[2] Vanity traps the soul inside comparison. Peace becomes impossible because identity now depends upon reaction, visibility, and affirmation.

When identity becomes performative, discernment weakens because the soul begins seeking validation from the crowd rather than truth from God. Vanity disorders our relationship with neighbor, replacing authentic charity with image, performance, and external approval.

Josef Pieper warned that modern culture increasingly destroys the contemplative foundation necessary for authentic human life.[3] The result is a society constantly performing, reacting, consuming, and comparing, yet rarely remaining interiorly still enough to encounter truth honestly.

St. Augustine described fallen humanity as becoming “curved inward” upon itself.[4] Vanity intensifies this inward curvature because every relationship slowly becomes filtered through self-consciousness and performance.

St. Thomas Aquinas taught that vainglory disorders human action by directing it toward external praise rather than toward the good itself.[5] The saints understood something modern culture often forgets: authentic charity does not constantly seek witnesses.

A civilization is renewed not by panic, but by rightly ordered souls. And rightly ordered souls must learn again how to live truthfully rather than perform constantly before the eyes of the world.

Sara 

Yeah, and we are inundated with constant images and constant sound. You go to the gas station, there is a skinny woman telling you about the latest diet drink. I mean, that is at the gas station. You go to the grocery store and they are piping music in. You go to a restaurant, even some of our high-end restaurants, and you are inundated with the television.

I was shocked a couple of months ago. My husband and I went to Mass in Wisconsin, and we went in and on either side of the altar there were screens advertising Menards. I kid you not. That was before Mass, I will say that it was before Mass, but it is just astounding. So everything is a distraction. Everything is noise.

We only think of noise as sound. But noise is not just noise. It is anything that distracts the soul from God. Visual noise, all of the eye-popping images. You are looking at your phone or the computer and the side screen is just bleep bleep bleep, that kind of element. It is an exterior presentation of vanity. The phone demands, “Look at me.” The computer demands, “Look at me.” The screen at the gas station demands, “Listen to me.” The radio at the grocery store says, “Hear me.” All of these things are the world demanding our attention when that attention, particularly in those moments, should not be given to something abstract. It should be given to something concrete and real, either the person that is directly in front of us, to God, or if we have to have a moment of introspection, to ourselves, our true selves.

But that noise prevents that and ushers in unnecessary comparisons between how we look, how we feel, how we should act, how we compare, how do we rate. Everything feels like a competition. There is just not a moment.

I was talking to a priest yesterday, and I just had the opportunity to be at a Latin Mass again, which was very pleasant. But the one thing that I really noticed about the Latin Mass is that our Lord speaks to us in mystery. So all of the words that are thrown at us on the television screen, on the radio, from our phones, words either spoken or written, we understand them, quote unquote, and so we become inundated by them.

But when you are put into the Latin Mass, our Lord allows the body itself to rest so that he can communicate directly with the soul. We do not have to worry about understanding. We can enter into that comprehensive element of meditation and contemplation, and in that the soul will settle itself. It will take itself out of the worldliness.

I love the way that you drew those connections. Pride being a negation of truth. Sensuality being a disordering of listening to the appetite rather than informing it, using it to inform ourselves. And then vanity puts us into constant performance mode and competition with the other, which is not what we are called to. Instead of vanity, we are called to communion with one another. And that is a real sorrow when we become inundated by the things that stimulate us to performance instead of to communion with one another

What happens when identity becomes dependent upon performance and external approval?

Karen Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where have I sought visibility more than truth? Where have I become performative rather than authentic? Where has comparison weakened charity or disturbed peace within my soul? Where have I allowed the approval of others to shape my identity more than the love of God?

The Christian life does not ask us to construct a false self for public display. It invites us into freedom, integrity, and truthful love. The soul becomes peaceful again when it no longer needs constant applause in order to know its worth.

Let us pray.

Lord Jesus Christ, free us from the temptation to live performatively before others. Quiet the restless need for approval, recognition, and comparison. Teach us to love sincerely, serve quietly, and remain rooted in truth rather than appearance. Restore simplicity within our hearts and integrity within our lives.

May we seek not visibility, but faithfulness. Not applause, but holiness. Not performance, but love rightly ordered toward You.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources

[1] Matthew 6:1–6, The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).

[2] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 122.

[3] Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 46–48.

[4] Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), XIII.

[5] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981), II-II, q.132.

The post Discernment in an Age of Disorder Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits Eps IV appeared first on Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective.

Karen Opening Reflection

In our last episode, we explored pride as a disorder of the intellect, the moment when the self no longer submits itself to truth. But once the intellect weakens, something else quickly begins filling the vacuum. Appetite begins demanding authority it was never meant to possess.

The Christian tradition has never taught that the body is evil. Christianity is not hostile to desire, beauty, pleasure, or human affection. The problem begins when appetite ceases to serve the good and instead begins governing the soul itself.

Modern culture increasingly teaches people to trust appetite instinctively. If something feels urgent, expressive, emotionally satisfying, or pleasurable, we are told it must therefore be authentic. Desire itself becomes a kind of moral authority. But appetite cannot discern truth. Appetite seeks satisfaction. Discernment belongs to a rightly ordered intellect illuminated by grace.

St. Thomas Aquinas understood this deeply. He taught that the passions are not evil in themselves, but they must remain properly ordered under reason and directed toward the good.[1] Once appetite becomes detached from truth, the soul becomes unstable. We begin living reactively rather than contemplatively.

When appetite begins ruling the soul, discernment weakens because desire replaces contemplation, emotional urgency replaces wisdom, and pleasure begins masquerading as fulfillment.

This disorder reaches far beyond obvious indulgence. It shapes entire ways of living. Constant stimulation, outrage cycles, compulsive entertainment, emotional dependency, consumer excess, and even panic itself can become forms of appetite-driven living. We begin feeding impulses while starving the deeper life of the soul.

Josef Pieper warned that “the inmost meaning of leisure” is not escape or diversion, but “a condition of the soul.”[2] Modern people often know how to consume, react, and distract themselves, but many no longer know how to remain interiorly still. We fear silence because silence forces encounter with the self.

St. Augustine famously wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”[3] Much of modern exhaustion comes from trying to satisfy spiritual hunger with things incapable of nourishing the soul.

A civilization is renewed not by panic, but by rightly ordered souls. And rightly ordered souls must learn again how to govern appetite rather than be governed by it.

Sara 

Appetite is the matter upon which the intellect must contemplate. And when our stomach rumbles, we know that we need to feed ourselves. And then the intellect comes forth and says, well there is a Snickers bar or there is an apple. The intellect then processes those two things and determines at that point which one of those is going to be the best for that situation. Now, neither is better than the other necessarily in any given moment. The Snickers bar at one point might be appropriate to eat. The apple might be the appropriate thing to eat.

So the appetite can go both ways. You can have people who become obsessive about the appetite. They become very rigid. And those are the people who tend to have anxiety. People often think that the appetite only rules to excess. But in a lot of people, the appetite goes to deficiency. We really need to pay attention to that. Recognizing that the intellect is what takes charge of that competing information. And the appetite is giving us information.

If I only feel the sadness, if I only have the ache, if I never then take that matter which is being given to me from my own personhood, receive it in the intellect so that I can feed the needs of myself with what my appetite is telling me, I will be a mess. I will allow myself to fall into self-harm. I will allow myself to only seek pleasure. All of those things. If the intellect does not take the matter that the appetite is providing for it and educate itself, it will rule itself into really a state of what we call self

Karen Closing Reflection and Prayer

Where have I allowed appetite to govern my life? Where have I confused immediate satisfaction with genuine peace? Where have noise, stimulation, or emotional urgency weakened my ability to remain contemplative and attentive to truth?

The Christian life does not reject desire. It restores desire to right order. True freedom is not the ability to indulge every impulse. True freedom is the ability to desire rightly.

Let us pray.

Come, Holy Spirit, Spirit of wisdom and self-mastery. Teach us to govern our appetites with humility and discernment. Quiet the restless impulses that pull us away from contemplation and truth. Restore peace within our hearts and order within our loves. Grant us the grace to seek what truly nourishes the soul rather than what merely distracts or consumes us.

May we hunger not for constant stimulation, but for truth, beauty, holiness, and communion with You.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources

[1] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981), I-II, q.24.

[2] Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998), 46.

[3] Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), I.1.

The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006).

The post Discernment in an Age of Disorder Ordering the Soul in an Age of Counterfeits Eps III appeared first on Fides et Ratio | Reflections on life from a theological and rational perspective.