{"id":4862,"date":"2013-09-05T20:28:57","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T19:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/?p=4862"},"modified":"2013-09-05T20:32:39","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T19:32:39","slug":"de-profundis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2013\/09\/de-profundis\/","title":{"rendered":"De profundis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Confessione\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Coming Out of the Depths<\/strong><\/p>\n

It sometimes\u00a0happens that youthful souls allured by the poisonous glamour of sin, or even souls long tormented by deeply rooted patterns of sin, seek out a spiritual father and ask for his counsel.\u00a0 Our Lord knows their confusion, their fears, and their searchings.\u00a0 He will not leave such souls in darkness. So often they do not know why they are beset by certain temptations.\u00a0 They stay away from the Church for fear of condemnation and because, instinctively, they recoil from anything that may push them over the edge into despair. To knock at the door of a priest or show up in a confessional may be an act of heroic courage.<\/p>\n

Refuge of Sinners and Mother of Mercy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Church must be for all the refuge of sinners, the mother of mercy, and the comforter of the afflicted.\u00a0 She must offer hope and consolation to souls in the throes of persistent temptations.\u00a0 It is a great pity that, so often, her message is perceived as one of condemnation and rejection. Monks, in particular, are bound to intercede for those who struggle with these things, asking Our Lady (whom the Church calls Spes nostra<\/em>, Our Hope) to send them consolers and emissaries of hope to show them the way to lasting happiness.<\/p>\n

First Prayer<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first thing that a spiritual father must teach such souls is how to pray.\u00a0 Without the light that comes in prayer, nothing else makes sense.\u00a0 It is, I think, a waste of breath to begin by speaking of natural law, of commandments, and of precepts while a soul is still in a kind of outer darkness.<\/p>\n

The Rosary<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rosary, for example, that simple repetitive prayer that sophisticated types disdain, obtains light for souls immersed in darkness. The effects of the rosary are deep and far\u2013reaching.\u00a0 I remember the assurance that a wise old Irish\u2013American Dominican, Father Cajetan Sheehan, used to give his penitents in confession. (I was one of his penitents!)\u00a0 Invariably, after hearing the sad rehearsal of one’s sins, he would ask, “Do you pray the rosary, son?”\u00a0 “Yes, Father, I do” would whisper the penitent from the other side of the confessional grille.\u00a0 “Ahhh, then,” said Father Sheehan, “you’ll be alright!”<\/p>\n

Conversion<\/strong><\/p>\n

A soul who begins to pray the rosary humbly and perseveringly will very quickly begin to change.\u00a0 Evil will lose its grip on such a soul. Light will overtake the darkness. Anxiety will give way to peace. Conversion of life is a fruit of prayer, not a condition for it.\u00a0 I tell souls to begin by praying; the grace to change one’s way of life will follow.\u00a0 When a spiritual father begins by telling a soul to pray, he must emphasize that one begins by praying as one can, and not as one thinks one ought.\u00a0 Too many souls avoid praying because they think they cannot pray well.\u00a0 Prayer is a cry from the heart.\u00a0 Even the Holy Ghost prays in us with unutterable groanings (cf. Romans 8:26).<\/p>\n

The soul who says, “Jesus, mercy!” has already begun to change, for such a cry from the heart is the first sign of grace at work to restore a soul’s freedom and to draw her to Our Lord’s Heart.\u00a0 The more a soul prays, as Our Lord gives her grace to pray, the more will she receive from Him the grace to see what sin is, to turn away from it, to detest it, and to walk in the light.<\/p>\n

Right and Good<\/strong><\/p>\n

Long explanations of what is wrong and why it is wrong are not necessary when a soul has begun to pray.\u00a0 There will be time for that later. Let the soul first\u00a0 begin, in prayer, to see and to know for herself that what is right<\/em> is good for her, and that what is good<\/em> is right for her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming Out of the Depths It sometimes\u00a0happens that youthful souls allured by the poisonous glamour of sin, or even souls long tormented by deeply rooted patterns of sin, seek out a spiritual father and ask for his counsel.\u00a0 Our Lord knows their confusion, their fears, and their searchings.\u00a0 He will not leave such souls in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-priesthood"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-1gq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4867,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions\/4867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}