Tag Archives: Passion

St. Catherine of Siena: Even Demons Are Repulsed By Sins Against Nature

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Jesus Expelling the Devil by Duccio

Jesus Expelling the Devil by Duccio

This is a reprint of an article first published on my main blog on December 1, 2012.

I happened across this enlightening quote by St. Catherine of Siena, a Dominican saint and mystic, from The Catholic Church and Homosexuality. I thought it would benefit you to read it. This makes perfect sense to those of us who know about natural law, but is utter foolishness to those who are perishing. I believe that as the Church understands mental disorder more, it will become more clear how weak Satan is in his attacks against the mind, whether in regard to same-sex attraction or something like Bipolar Disorder. Satan fools us into believing that we should be focused on the brain rather than on the heart, but even he is repulsed by an actual sin against nature, because his own angelic nature is, as in human nature, naturally repelled from such a thing, as Jesus explains.

St. Catherine of Siena is here relaying the words of Jesus Christ to all of us, and she was particularly addressing those clergymen of her time who were engaging in sins against nature. As you can see, it is natural for us to be nauseated. It is also because of the sort of sin this is that often the “light of understanding” has gone out of those who commit this sin, particularly if they sin repeatedly. St Paul speaks of God eventually turning them over to sin in the Letter to the Romans.

Again, these are the words of Jesus, according to St. Catherine of Siena.

“They not only fail from resisting this frailty [of fallen human nature] . . . but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them. . . . It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves.”

Certainly, we who have not turned ourselves over to darkness have much to suffer, particularly if even the demons are repulsed. This is why I want you so much to know about St. Gemma, one of our Passionist saints, as she can help you understand the truth of the love of Jesus in the Cross. THE ONE TRUE REALITY is JESUS’ LOVE, and His love is found in the CROSS.

All of the saints understood this, including St. Catherine of Siena.

“Very pleasing to Me, dearest daughter, is the willing desire to bear every pain and fatigue, even unto death, for the salvation of souls, for the more the soul endures, the more she shows that she loves Me; loving Me she comes to know more of My truth, and the more she knows, the more pain and intolerable grief she feels at the offenses committed against Me.

“You asked Me to sustain you, and to punish the faults of others in you, and you did not remark that you were really asking for love, light, and knowledge of the truth, since I have already told you that, by the increase of love, grows grief and pain, wherefore he that grows in love grows in grief.

“Therefore, I say to you all, that you should ask, and it will be given you, for I deny nothing to him who asks of Me in truth. Consider that the love of divine charity is so closely joined in the soul with perfect patience, that neither can leave the soul without the other. For this reason (if the soul elect to love Me) she should elect to endure pains for Me in whatever mode or circumstance I may send them to her. Patience cannot be proved in any other way than by suffering, and patience is united with love as has been said.

“Therefore bear yourselves with manly courage, for, unless you do so, you will not prove yourselves to be spouses of My Truth, and faithful children, nor of the company of those who relish the taste of My honor, and the salvation of souls.”

May the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ Be Ever in Our Hearts

Related: Archbishop Fulton Sheen on Reparation.

 

The Passion of Our Lord

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See, my servant shall prosper,
he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.
Even as many were amazed at him—
so marred was his look beyond human semblance
and his appearance beyond that of the sons of man—
so shall he startle many nations,
because of him kings shall stand speechless;
for those who have not been told shall see,
those who have not heard shall ponder it. — Isaiah 52: 13-15

Study Up On Redemptive Suffering – It Will Change Your Life

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Passion Sign
Regular readers know that I am a Passionist. What is that exactly? The article on the Passionists at Wikipedia is brief but generally accurate. You can find out more at the website and blog of the Passionist Nuns of St. Joseph Monastery, to which I am attached as an oblate associate. Essentially, my relationship with them is that I love them and they love me. There really isn’t any more to it than that. I am not under any obedience to them. I just love them…but…it is true love, not because it is my love, but because it is my love with the love of Jesus poured out to us. This is the love which is found when we offer ourselves for others. My relationship with the Passionist Nuns is one of redemptive suffering. I offer all of my sufferings for their intentions, whatever they may be. In return, they pray for me and for my family.

There is no greater gift than love, and there is no greater love than the love of Christ in His Cross. Jesus said:

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. — John 15:13

My first duty is to my family, especially to my children, but my truest friends are the Passionist Nuns even though they are cloistered and I never speak to them unless it is absolutely necessary. (Unfortunately, due to Bipolar Disorder, my brain sometimes tells me it’s absolutely necessary when it really is not.) We are friends to each other only much as we are Christ to each other, and in my relationship with the Passionist Nuns, which is quite different from that of other friends, Christ is there in fullness.

Since I converted to Catholicism, one of the greatest agonies for me, apart from my physical and mental disorders, has been finding out that so many people do not really know the depth of what happened on the Cross. Even among those who are Catholic, there is very little understanding of redemptive suffering, that our sufferings have value when they are offered in union with the sufferings of our Lord on the Cross. All Christians know that redemption is through the Cross and that the Cross is the source of all graces. All Christians know, even protestants who believe in Sola Fide, that if you truly love Jesus, you will do God’s will. All Christians know, too, that we all fail at this every day, but that Jesus is still there for us in His Cross of redemption. How this becomes manifest to us is where we disagree, but that is because of human error, not God’s error.

How sad it is that even though we all believe these things, we are divided, Catholic and protestant. What separates us, I think, has to do mostly with a lack of understanding about the Incarnation….that we are all PHYSICALLY connected to each other, because the world (including our flesh) was created through Jesus. Our flesh exists because of His Flesh. We are created in His image. We all belong to Him completely. This is why it was possible for Him to save us when He Himself suffered death on the Cross. Because God is not bound by time (only we are), we all were hanging with Him on the Cross. His Sacrifice was the Gift of Himself, and the only way we will not be saved is if we deny this gift of salvation by rejecting the will of God in our lives. We do this when we refuse to take up the cross in our own lives and follow Him.

Jesus said:

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. — Luke 14:27

Bearing your cross is doing the will of the Father, as Jesus did in His Agony in the Garden, but it is also understanding that we are not God. We are His creation, made to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him. We do not have His power. As Mother Teresa said, we are to be as pencils in His hand. Grace comes from His Sacrifice. We Catholics seek to be like our Blessed Mother, sitting patiently at the Foot of the Cross.

Because my flesh (and yours) was hanging with Jesus on the Cross, my sufferings (and yours) endured in doing the will of God are, thanks to His Sacrifice, redemptive. (Click here for Scripture readings on redemptive suffering.) Graces flow from the Cross of Jesus when we offer our sufferings with Him and in accordance with the will of the Father. When we do God’s will, even though it hurts to do so, graces flow and help us to become the people He has created every human being to be – saints. The more we do this, the more we understand how great is His love for us, and the more we see the Cross as joy…as St. Gemma did.

Personally, I have a major problem with free will, due to my Bipolar Disorder. (I am also on the autism spectrum.) In Proverbs, we read that “a righteous man falls seven times,” and Jesus says to forgive “seventy times seven.” That’s 490 times. I mess up way more than that every day. Thankfully, I don’t have to be concerned about whether the things that I am offering my sufferings for are good things, because I have the Passionist Nuns. I offer my sufferings for their intentions, because mine can be so screwy, in the context of my brain. In this way, the intention of my heart is good, even if my brain might not have all the pistons running well. Sometimes, I do ask things of God — most usually when people ask me for prayers. Because my brain is messed up, my prayers for others are almost always the same, that they may come to a greater understanding of God’s will, and that God’s will, whatever it may be, will be manifest in their lives. In this way, I know that I’m not asking for something pointless or wrong. In the end, no matter what we may face in life, God’s will is all that matters.

I am grateful to Leila Miller, my former spiritual director, for being the first person to tell me about redemptive suffering. I had been catechized upon my conversion by a very faithful (and thorough) priest, but even so, I had already been a Catholic for six years before I heard the term “redemptive suffering” from her. What a shame it is to have gone so long without this understanding, but now, I have my life’s calling, to suffer for the Passionists, which brings graces to them, and to be grateful for the graces I receive through their prayers for me.

I realize that this makes my life much different from the lives of most people these days. I am offering everything for whatever some nuns in a monastery, whom I rarely speak to, think is best…but it is the Gospel, to understand what Jesus has done for all of us on the Cross, and to understand our role in the words “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Jesus desires our love, not just for Himself, but for each other. The love He returns to us is indescribably beautiful.

Please learn about redemptive suffering. It will change your life.

Note: I am just a sheep, and a broken one, at that. Please don’t take my word for any of this. Study, and find out for yourself if it is true.
St. Gemma, Pray for Us.

Jeff Cavins Speaks About Redemptive Suffering

God knows every hair on our heads

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Our Lady of Sorrows

At Attracted to the Light, I found a great lesson on the topic of identity in Christ.

Never underestimate how little people care!

I’m not saying that people won’t help out if someone is having a problem. I’m saying that people aren’t interested in the minutiae of other people’s lives. Talk therapies, introspection and knowing yourself are all very popular these days so it’s easy to think other people might share our own fascination with ourselves. If they did, Dale Carnegie wouldn’t have made a fortune teaching people to fake interest!

It’s only when people are in love that the minutiae of someone else’s life suddenly becomes fascinating. We are told that God knows every hair on our heads. This interest in detail is used to show how much God loves us.

Read the whole thing.

How is that related to identity in Christ? It is rather like Perpetua’s Ladder which I mentioned in my post explaining what “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” are. If you don’t keep looking to Jesus because you are too attached to your disorders, to other people, to things, or to issues that are not of Him, you will be pulled away from Him.

This is so very important. So important. If you don’t get this, you don’t get the importance of our identity in Christ and you will be not only the victim of much wasted suffering, but perhaps even the cause of it. Many there are who don’t know about identity in Christ who cause needless suffering.

St. Perpetua’s father came to her in tears to beg her to offer sacrifice to the emperor. He was too attached to St. Perpetua to let her be attached to God. Thankfully, she said no to him.

And as my father stood there to cast me down from the faith, he was ordered by Hilarianus to be thrown down, and was beaten with rods. And my father’s misfortune grieved me as if I myself had been beaten, I so grieved for his wretched old age. The procurator then delivers judgment on all of us, and condemns us to the wild beasts, and we went down cheerfully to the dungeon.

This is how it is in families. Surely, we should at least have the holiness of St. Perpetua when we are dealing with non-family members. People don’t care about every hair on your head, and so it is natural for people to not really care about your trials, even if you are headed to your death, but God cares about every hair on your head. He cares about every aspect of your trials. I share this not just to make you feel better if you are feeling rejected, though making you feel better about it is a bonus. It is mainly so that you will know that there is a purpose in it when you feel that people don’t care about you. Often, it is because people are very naturally absorbed in their own lives. If you feel pain from people “not caring” then you are too attached to the world.

Having said that, it is right and just to sorrow for the souls of people who go beyond simply “not caring” and who blatantly reject you or others close to you. It is healthy and redemptive to sorrow for their souls, even to sorrow greatly for them, because you know Jesus loves them as much as He loves you. Still, it is only in the context of sorrowing for the pain that it causes to Jesus in His Cross, and for the souls who will come into the path of people who walk through life that way. Pray for them all, and offer this sorrow for them, because it is redemptive.

Our Lady of Sorrows is the best model for us in this type of suffering, as human beings, at the Foot of the Cross.

Prayer to Our Lady of Sorrows:

O most holy Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ: by the overwhelming grief you experienced when you witnessed the martyrdom, the crucifixion, and death of your divine Son, look upon me with eyes of compassion, and awaken in my heart a tender commiseration for those sufferings, as well as a sincere detestation of my sins, in order that being disengaged from all undue affection for the passing joys of this earth, I may sigh after the eternal Jerusalem, and that henceforward all my thoughts and all my actions may be directed towards this one most desirable object. Honor, glory, and love to our divine Lord Jesus, and to the holy and immaculate Mother of God. Amen.

PHOTO: Our Lady of Sorrows, Lawrence, O.P.

Jesus, Satan and Mental Illness

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Jesus cast out demons

Today’s Gospel reading reminded me of something that my spiritual director told me about Jesus and Satan, and who I belong to. Because I write about my Asperger Syndrome and Bipolar Disorder, I get a lot of visitors seeking answers regarding mental illness and demon possession. I think clarity is important on this topic. Here is the whole passage from the Gospel of St. Mark.

Mark 3: 20-27

Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

Because I have Bipolar Disorder, it sometimes feels that Satan has my brain, but at the same time, my heart is in love with Jesus. My spiritual director told me that if Jesus has my heart, then He has all of me. No matter what I may think or do that is due to disorder, it is my heart that matters. If I have lost control of my brain, it does not mean that Satan has control of it. It only means that I, Lisa Graas, have lost control of it. Because Jesus has my heart, I have to trust that He has all of me, and so when I lose control of my brain, it means that God is using that for His holy purposes.

The things that I say and do when I have lost control of my brain are not “me” at all. They are disordered, but God is using them. Hanging on to trust during this time is harder, especially since trust has a strong mental component. If my trust is challenged, especially when people I have come to trust to know God are doing or saying things that are not of God, it makes it all the more difficult for me to keep my trust in God. The disorder worsens, the less I am trusting in God. I have ended up suicidal in the crisis unit over shattered trust which spiraled downward, causing me a crisis of faith. But again, as long as Jesus has my heart, I still belong to Him, and He has my heart indeed. That is my salvation in the madness.

I do believe that if I could only explain all this better about the difference between the heart and the brain, that is in all people, not just the mentally ill, then it would go a long way toward helping people understand what it means to “judge” people. Maybe some day I will be able to express that clearly in words, but not today. The bottom line is that you have to love people as children of God no matter what they may believe with their minds, and no matter what they say and do, and whether or not they have a mental illness. At times in our life, we all “speak from the heart,” but most of the time we are speaking from our minds, not from our heart. If we always spoke “from the heart” we wouldn’t be talking as much as we do. I have come to know how important it is to always speak from the heart, because that is where my love for Jesus is, but to always speak from the heart is a heavy cross — heavier for some than for others. What my spiritual director said to me about my belonging to Jesus no matter what I feel is going on in my brain, well, that is true for everyone. You can’t judge people, because you only have what they say and do to go by. God knows what is in the heart, for all of us. And none of us can read hearts.

I hope that makes sense because it’s very important.

People accused Jesus of being out of His mind while accusing Him of working with Satan because He was able to cast out demons. There are people today who believe that mental disorder is demon possession, or vice versa. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that Jesus, Who was casting out demons, was accused of both by people who did not know Who He really is. This passage from Mark is very healing for me since my spiritual director told me what he did about my belonging to Jesus because He has my heart, and in this I have purity of intention. I will also be falsely accused, as Jesus was Himself in this passage, but because I know Who Jesus really is, and because He has my heart, it is all for the glory of God.

A Passionist Hymn, Now We Remain:

Photo: Jesus Knights