Spiritual direction: grace, prayer, purity after sin

I'm too tired to blog all night so I'm going to try to get back into a more normal sleep time pattern starting in about twenty minutes :-)

But first I wanted to share some thoughts that came up while I was discussing a book idea with a colleague.

Grace is a complicated topic, not because it is difficult, but because there are so many ways to be fruitful in grace. Grace is a gift from God and its best description is St. John's, who describes it as the "indwelling of the Holy Spirit." In other words, grace is the presence of the Holy Spirit within a person, provided by God in the form of gifts. Gifts is not the same as talents, since obviously some of the most grace filled people who ever lived did "nothing" but pray, and didn't even have an education. I could write alot about these gifts but I would summarize them as being all related to the capability of "understanding God."

Now, while one cannot do anything to earn or obtain grace on one's own, one can "cultivate" grace by preparing yourself to receive it. God will fill the person who desires grace with grace, to their capacity. So if you prepare the space within you for the receipt of grace, God is able to send more grace according to his will and perception of your needs.

So what I want to share with you is that in this "achievement" oriented mindset of society, you might be surprised to see how easy it is to cultivate your inner space to prepare for grace. All you have to do is read scripturally sound material that promotes your understanding of God. So I am certainly not saying to read "history of religions" or other academic types of books for this grace cultivation. The way to cultivate grace is to "imprint" in your inner self continual exposure to the pure words of God, and words by those who have walked the same grace path as you. So reading the Bible is an obvious daily activity that promotes grace, even if it is just a small section, and even your favorite sections over and over. It's not an academic exercise, it's the continuing nearness to both God's words and the works of people who author prayers, devotionals, and sermons. For example, reading works by the saints, writings by the present or previous Pope, reading prayers and hymns, books by priests and other religious, and the sermons of the great doctors, founding fathers and others who preach the word of God. So there is a vast amount of prayerful material available that you can select from, including online.

I'll make some more specific suggestions from a reading list, especially if I am the one who has to write my book idea if I cannot persuade my colleague to do it (I'm trying to delegate!) :-) But for now I just wanted to put in front of you the idea that simply prayerful reading is an activity that cultivates grace, and is an easy action to take that can result in much fruitfulness and benefit.

As part of my continuing work at helping readers, especially my teenage and young adult audience, to develop better faith and reasoning skills, I want to jump a little bit onto a tangent in order to clarify a Church practice that has been greatly misunderstood. One of the things that the Catholic Church was attacked about at the time of the Reformation, several hundred years ago, was the "selling of indulgences." An indulgence is a forgiveness or remission of part of the personal punishment that may be due to a person due to previous sins. The Catholic Church believes, and has scriptural reference that supports its belief, that even if God accepts a confession of sin that there is a need to purify, through a commensurate penalty, the lasting effects of one's sins. This is because that even if one feels sorry and has the ability to make amends, it is rare that the effects of a given sin can ever be contained to not cause damage. And so the Catholic Church recognizes that there is a "purgatory" process after death that takes place before the individual is allowed into God's presence. (I've written about some of the scriptural support for this previously, in other posts on this blog). The Church developed an understanding, therefore, that prayer with the intention of being "directed toward" the effects and purification of one's own sin (and on behalf of others) can be performed as a way to remedy and reduce the amount of purgatory needed. That is called 'an indulgence.'

In order to help the faithful, most of whom were poor and simple people with no education, the Church tried to categorize the "amount" of purgatory someone might experience in terms of days and years. That may seem naive and quaint now, but it was a sincere effort to help people "manage" their own salvation. So a person might have a card with a prayer on it, or a prayer would be printed in the Missal, and the prayer might have a footnote saying something like (100 days). What that meant was that for each time that one said that prayer, they could hope for 100 days of their "purgatory penalty" to be removed. Of course no one can characterize the individual process by which a soul will be purified from sin before entering heaven in terms of activities or earthly time measures, but the Church fathers understood that sincerely, remorseful prayer has a real salvatory effectiveness on reducing one's stain of common everyday sin (we aren't talking about original sin). So this is the point I am making in this blog, except I'm talking about the "here and now." Prayer is a method for cultivating your inner self so that more grace from God can be received, AND prayer diminishes the stain of sin that every human has, even if that sin has been fully forgiven. So my point is to show that the Church throughout its 2000 year history has always understood that prayer is not just "the right thing to do because God expects it," but it is also of practical and real spiritual health benefit, not just for now when one is alive, but when one dies and seeks to be reunited with loved ones in the presence of God.

So just to finish the tangent about indulgences, and then wrap up with my point about cultivating grace for the here and now. Corrupt individuals and poor situations of leadership within the Catholic Church resulted in some religious actually "selling" indulgences. For a monetary donation these religious claimed to be able to grant a number of days or years of indulgence! This is outrageous and corrupt and of course everyone was right to be scandalized. However, the Reformation threw the baby out with the bathwater, as the old saying goes. When attacking the Catholic Church for indulgence selling, they lost track of the basic understanding that prayer does have desirable and remedial effect on one's purity which has been compromised by sin. This is because the age of reason was also dawning at the same time as the Reformation, and so the idea of 100 days per prayer seemed silly at the same time that the selling of indulgences was a scandal. But a huge misunderstanding resulted and this is one of the philosophical chasms between Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church. I'm going to make a generalization, but my point is to help you young people have the full outline of the problem and then fill in the details of understanding as you wish. Protestants left the Church carrying away a general disposition that 1) prayer is good because God expects it 2) you read the Bible and have study groups to better understand God, specifically through Christ and 3) there is no punishment or purification for sin that you are sorry for because "it's between you and God" and "Jesus paid the price."

However, Catholics continued with their understanding that they have maintained for two thousand years, which is 1) God expects prayer that is fulfilled via the Mass 2) Bible reading is good, and that's why there is 2-3 readings from the Bible each day in Mass 3) prayer is an essential activity in one's own purity and salvation, not just something "God expects," and 4) being forgiven of sin by God is not the same as being pure to enter heaven, especially if one is not able to contain and recompense for each instance of one's sin those who have been harmed. This is why the priest "prescribes" prayers after Confession (the sacrament of Penance & Reconciliation). The priest is ensuring that the penitent is at least doing THAT much prayer that is "directed toward" cleansing one's self of the stain of sin that has been committed, albeit forgiven. So while the Catholic Church stopped the scandalous and appalling sale of indulgence practice, and also dropped the attempts to "measure" amounts of potential indulgence, thankfully they did not lose sight of their doctrine about the real and salutatory effects of prayer.

So prayer, in the Catholic church doctrine and tradition, is much more than the valid functions of 1) worshipping God because he expects it and 2) your personal dialogue and communion with God. The Catholic Church recognizes a prescriptive, remedial, purification, and penance fulfilling power of prayer that is an essential activity as part of one's own cooperation with God in one's own salvation. This is why the Church knows that "at least" they are getting the person who comes to confession once a year to "do those five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys" with the intention of atoning and purifying the stain of forgiven sin. Obviously one must be sincere and not just rattle the prayers off without having sorrow for the damage that one's forgiven sins have nonetheless done (damage to innocent parties and to one's own purity). But with even one's average level of belief and faith, prayer works in this purpose. Protestants are very generous in prayer, because they very much believe in the power of prayer as directed toward what we call "intentions," which is to support individuals or institutions in their time of need. So the children of the Reformation are a very prayerful people.

But the difference, so you can better understand and bind the wounds that have been made between the denominations and the Catholic Church, is that they are purposeful in their generosity of prayer, but do not have the same understanding of the other purpose of prayer that is a centerpiece of the Catholic Church's sacramental understanding of the Apostolic church of Jesus Christ, which is that of being a co-participant in one's own individual salvation and in the purification now and in the hereafter of the stains away from sin.

So the next time you have coffee with a detractor of the Catholic Church and they throw in your face that the Church "was corrupt and sold indulgences, and you are the fake church anyway," sigh, as I do, but do not be defensive. Generations of Protestants don't know the reasoning behind the continuity of the Catholic doctrine and tradition (and many poorly formed Catholics don't understand it either, but at least if they are Church attending they are still doing it, albeit minimally!) I want you readers, especially the young people who are seeking to better understand the fullness of situations, rather than have tradition knee jerk reactions, and those of you who seek to better understand not only God, but why the Catholic Church is sacramental in orientation, the way that it surely is, to understand the context of the misunderstanding. Protestants, in general, think that Catholics are somehow "insulting" Jesus by "not having faith that he paid for all our sins." They miss the point; that is original sin. Jesus didn't die on the cross so that people can swindle the bank they work for. Jesus didn't die on the cross so you can lie about your neighbor, or sell drugs. Even if you are "sorry" and "confess to God" personally for those sins, there is genuine damage that has been done to your neighborly community (society), the individuals (victims) and one's own soul. The Catholic Church understands that prayer is your "skin in the game" to "correct" the damage done by forgiven sin and to purify your soul in anticipation of salvation in God's presence.

Here's how it works, using an analogy. Jesus Christ died for all humanity and to remedy the effect of original sin. Therefore, Jesus reopened the door to heaven for all who believe in him. Jesus freed those who believed from the laws of the Old Covenant and brought the New Covenant. However, obviously the Ten Commandments and all of the admonitions of God remain valid regarding human behavior. So we know that Jesus Christ was not a "free pass to sin and it's all OK so long as you say the sinner's prayer and are truly sorry." Jesus consistently warned that the way to heaven is narrow and that temptation is everywhere. He even makes a point that one of his miracles required prayer and fasting in order to be efficacious (this was when the disciples could not cure someone and had to turn to Jesus to do it). Notice that Jesus himself needed the power of prayer and fasting to perform a specific type of miraculous cure. So prayer is continually demonstrated by Jesus to be more than worship but also a sacramental and healing device.

So, imagine that you swindled your bank, you were caught, you had to pay the money back, and you either went to prison or had a severe fine and probation. Imagine you are a Christian (obviously lapsed or very weak in the face of temptation) and so you tell God you are sorry and you mean it. In your heart you know you are forgiven. Is everything "OK" then? This seems to be the stance of non-Catholic Christians of non-sacramental denominations. But as far as the Catholic Church's understanding? Is everything "OK?" Not exactly!

The Catholic Church understands that you have no way of knowing that when you swindled your bank that in the trail of damage: several people lost their jobs and reputations, investors lost money that cannot be repaid, elderly may have had to cash in their pensions, the bank decided to shut down a department as a result, a young intern watched you and decided 'he could get away with it while you didn't and maybe he'd try that improved swindle at a different bank..." and so on and so on and so on. Sin is very rarely a "one victim" event. Crime may be, as someone steals money from a bank. But the sin of coveting and stealing has a ripple effect on people you do not even know, for only God sees all the effects of a sin. So you can be forgiven of having committed that sin, but you owe a debt due to that sin that is not "covered by Jesus dying on the cross," because it is the wrong that has been done to the many that you do not even know. This is why the Church teaches penance based on prayer. The prayer is not "punishment." The prayer is for the intentions of the damage that one's sin has done that one cannot remedy first hand. So if you are the swindler who then was a Catholic and repented, you would go to confession and receive a prayer penance. That prayer penance is applied by God to the benefit of purifying your soul from the stain of that sin's effect AND toward the unknowable victims of the sin. They are like the "collateral damage" to use a military term. You, in this example, meant only to steal the money, and you have no way of knowing about the intern who watched you and wants to now go forward modeling himself after you, even after you've regretted your sin! God "applies" all penance prayer that you do toward healing and recovering the collateral damage of the sin. This is why the Church has derived its understanding of the power of prayer to not only pray for one's own benefit, talk to God, pray for others, but also to offer up to God prayer for God to use to purify one's self and protect others from the ripple effect of sins you committed and now repent.

Nothing cheeses me off more than when people insult the Church by invalidating huge precious insights we have about our obligations to God and neighbor as being "corrupt" or "wrong" just because they don't understand the theology. So I don't mind the insult that "nah nah nah, YOUR Church used to sell indulgences!" I mind, though, the smugness of people who do not understand that they have an obligation to clean up and purify the effects of sin in their own soul and their neighbor's well being as a result of even regretted and "forgiven by God" sin. But hey, I do not question their faith or love of God, even though the children of the Reformation broke away from the tree trunk of the Church that Jesus Christ and the Apostles established. It's when they throw the first stone in our direction that I want to go, "Um, hey buddy, um, do you realize that you just don't get it?"

Anyway, I meant this to be a quick note about grace and its cultivation, but I realized as I typed this that I needed to plug the gap in understanding about why prayer and prayerful reading has a purposeful efficacy in several situations, beyond being for personal intentions or a form of worship. Prayer is an almost prescriptive activity in the Catholic Church because of the Church's many years of understanding based on scripture and tradition that greater purity can be restored through its sacramental, penance, and indulgence intentions.

As usual, I hope this helps in bridging misunderstandings, as information for those who want to learn more about the Catholic Church (for both ecumenical or for faith searching reasons), and to provide spiritual direction helping to better understand God's richness of relationship with humanity. God bless!