Catholic Candle note: The article below is a “companion” article to these four previous articles:

1. The Hope Given to Catholics in the State of Grace vs. the Hopelessness of Godlessness. This article is found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2019/02/09/the-hope-given-to-catholics-in-grace-vs-the-hopelessness-of-godlessness/

   
   

2. The Devil’s Lies Bring the Devil’s Unhappiness: https://catholiccandle.org/2024/08/28/the-devils-lies-bring-the-devils-unhappiness/

3. The Connection Between Virtue and Happiness – Part One:  https://catholiccandle.org/2023/11/26/the-connection-between-virtue-and-happiness-part-1/

4. The Connection Between Virtue and Happiness – Part Two:  https://catholiccandle.org/2023/12/18/the-connection-between-virtue-and-happiness-part-2/
   

We live in a time of sadness and desolation. Even in most of those homes which are considered “good Catholic homes”, there is a constant exposure to all of the elements of the world which are promoted by the enemies of God, of reason, and of our salvation.

In such homes, the atmosphere is permeated by the world, the flesh, and the devil – even though not to the same degree as in the rest of society. This sway of sin in the home is wrong because the first duty of every Soldier of Christ is to deny the Enemy access to his living room (as well as to his soul). We cannot control the character of the whole of society. But we can control the character of our own home. Our home should be very different from the world and should have a completely different atmosphere (e.g., complete Catholic modesty¹, a regular prayer life (especially the rosary), daily meditation, no TV, no bad music, no video games, etc.).

The influences of the world can wear a person down, as he goes out into the world every day from (what should be) the Catholic haven of his home.² The world constantly splatters his soul with the “mud” of this contact with unwholesomeness. This weakens his soul and make the spiritual life seem empty. In unfortunate contrast, this daily contact with the world tends to make pleasures as well as other earthly matters seem to be the most important aspects of life. The question “How can I save my soul?” can thus seem to be too distant from everyday life. Our spiritual efforts can feel weak and our Catholic duties can seem to be a dry, distasteful burden.

Dear Reader, is this how your own life and daily routine seem to you? This is a classic case of spiritual desolation. Here is how the great spiritual master, St. Ignatius of Loyola, defines this desolation:

I call desolation everything contrary to the consolation explained in the third rule, such as darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to things low and earthly, the disquiet of different agitations and temptations, moving to lack of confidence, without hope, without love, when one finds oneself all lazy, tepid, sad, and as if separated from his Creator and Lord. Because, as consolation is contrary to desolation, in the same way the thoughts which come from consolation are contrary to the thoughts which come from desolation.³

Dear Reader, do you recognize the movements of your own soul in St. Ignatius’s description? So many people nowadays feel this desolation! It is the direction in which modernity is pushing and pulling people.

Although God can (and sometimes does) give desolation in order to test even a very holy soul, the most usual reason for desolation is because of the person’s sins and his negligence in his spiritual duties.

Here is St. Ignatius’ advice for the person in desolation:

Although in desolation we ought not to change our good resolutions, it is very helpful to intensify our good efforts against the temptations that come during desolation, by insisting more on prayer, meditation, on much examination, and more penance.⁴

Dear Reader, you (and all of us) can do this! God will help us all!

Advancing in the Spiritual Life

It is natural for a person to ask himself: “How do I advance in the spiritual life?” After all, we are on this earth to save our souls. So, we know that we must do our best to advance in the spiritual life. This is the main “business” of our life. God did not give more time to our lives so that we can “try” to stay in the state of grace so that we avoid hell when we die. Such “trying not to backslide” is wasting the additional time God gives us! The reason God gives a person “another year”, is so that he can use this time to be one year holier and further advanced in the spiritual life.

Moreover, the greater a person’s progress is in holiness, the greater will be his progress in happiness. But how do we do that? Well, there are a few very important parts of this journey to holiness.

The secret of holiness is generosity with God. If a person asks himself: “What do I need to do to avoid sin and hell?”, that is a stingy minimum! If we seek to only do what “we gotta”, then the spiritual life will feel like a burden. Further, most people who seek to do as little as they can in the spiritual life end up failing and going to hell. For when a person aims so low, usually what he actually achieves is even lower.

But the spiritual life is Divine Friendship⁵ and so we should seek to be completely generous with our Divine Friend. We don’t have to feel generous but nonetheless we should resolve with our will to be generous.

Here is an analogous situation: when a parent is exhausted, is craving sleep, and is taking care of a sick child in the middle of the night, that parent is not doing so because of “warm and fuzzy” feelings, but because of the will to do his duty and to do good for his child! That is how our love and friendship with Christ should be – generous and firmly resolved in our will, regardless of feelings.

We must avoid occasions of sin, including eschewing persons who make it more likely that we will sin. We humans easily fool ourselves and make many excuses to continue to expose ourselves to the sorts of occasions of sin which have led to our downfalls in the past. To break out of this evil pattern, we must be unshakably firm in avoiding bad companions and other occasions of sin.

We have got to pray more, every day. Much more. Especially the rosary – ideally all 15 decades. We recommend the Catholic Candle articles to help you to pray the rosary better.⁶

We should implement and be faithful to making a daily meditation.⁷

We should study our Faith, especially through reading the Doctors of the Church, and most of all, St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church. This study is “meat” which gives us strength to “bear the slings and arrows” of life. The Doctors are the ones that the Church especially holds out to us as our teachers for studying the Faith. Reading a Sunday sermon from one of the Doctors is a valuable part of accomplishing this duty every week.

We should avoid bad music. Church music and real classical music are the best.

Don’t watch TV and movies. We should avoid most things on the internet, especially “social media”. Each of these, even aside from the many sins they involve, also weaken us and make the spiritual life (and prayer) distasteful to us.

In these times of confusion, we should study true apologetics to help us to guard against the errors which are all around us. One way to discover more about how Vatican II is contrary to the perennial, infallible teaching of the Church is to study Lumen Gentium Annotated.⁸ Vatican II’s document, Lumen Gentium, is, in a way, Vatican II’s own overview of all of its errors in its other Council documents. Thus, by discerning the errors of Lumen Gentium, we see in general all of the errors of the rest of the Council.

In addition to studying the doctrines of our Faith, we should do some spiritual reading every day, e.g., at least a chapter of the Imitation of Christ every day without fail. We should prepare for and make/renew the consecration to Our Lady as her slaves according to the program of St. Louis de Montfort.

We should do some extra penances every day. Three really good ones are to take totally-cold showers, don’t eat between meals, and abstain from junk food and desserts, at least when not sharing them with others on a social occasion.⁹

This is a time of great blessings! We hold that this is a glorious time to be Catholic and to live for Christ the King! https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/it-is-a-blessing-to-live-during-this-great-apostasy.html

We must have the Virtue of Hope because God is in charge and everything that happens that is out of our control is God’s Will for us. As a means of encouragement, we should keep in our thoughts that all things “work together unto the good, for those who love God”.  Romans, 8:28. https://catholiccandle.neocities.org/faith/hope-during-the-current-great-apostasy

Again, you (and we) can do this! God will help!