Scrupulosity: "A Thousand Frightening Fantasies"

My seven year old son has a big personality. He is insightful, tender, and sweet. He can also be a fireball, with a larger-than-life presence that can be commanding at times. My wife and I tend to think his emotional state is very attuned and in many instances his acting out is a result of him not being able to express himself adequately. He also can get "stuck in a rut" where his mind sort-of "loops" in a closed circuit on particular thought. This has happened on more than one occasion where he had gotten so worked up and upset he couldn't get out of it, mentally. It was all we could do between bear hugs (restraining him) and calmly reassuring him to bring him back down. Those behavioral-type instances have lessened in the past couple years, but he still gets a bit obsessive about things sometimes. He will tell my wife and I that he "just can't get it out of my brain," whether it's a toy or a fear. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree in our family. My father has mild-OCD and I have some tendencies myself, as well as my son. It's not severe "As Good As It Gets" style, just an inclination towards obsessiveness.

I'm not super type-A though, am more of a generalist than a specificist, so it could have been a lot worse. But being prone to anxiety and having been trained in the art of worrying from a young age (a habit learned from my father), I can say that at the root of such struggles, when you drop down in the well, you find the issue most prevalent revolves around control. Loss of control can be an nauseatingly fearful thing. The Israelites were constantly falling into the trap of not trusting God and preferring the illusion of control that idols and false gods gave them.

I certainly fell into the trap early of the self-reinforcing "worry trap": if you worry about something enough, you can change the outcome. When you worry about something and the bad thing doesn't occur, it reinforces the erroneous thinking that your worrying is what prevented it. And so you learn that worrying can change things, when in fact nothing could be farther from the truth.

I tend to believe that worry, anxiety, fear, and scrupulosity are all cousins. Early in my conversion, I struggled with scrupulosity of the religious type. The priest who instructed me in the faith and the catechism as not a particularly healthy (psychologically, emotionally) man. I remember the fear of being hit by a bus before I would make it to Confession, and living in the fear of Hell. Religion is a poor antidote to such dispositions when it is not accompanied by a real relationship with the Living God.

Over the years such scrupulosity melted away and was not as much a struggle for me. I think this was in large part due to grace, to a deepening prayer life and friendship with the Lord, and also in meeting me wife, who is as Type B as you can get. Loosening the reigns on feeling I had to control everything was aided by having children. I distinctly remember when my daughter was born and feeling overwhelmed at how to raise two kids. I drove to a Wawa while my wife and newborn baby were asleep at the hospital, sitting outside my car smoking a cigarette and just saying to God, "this is too much. There's too much that can go wrong and if I think about it or worry about it I'm going to go crazy. So you take it. I'm turning it over to you." Because we believe in a loving God and Father, we can do this in full confidence that He WANTS to drive for us, wants us to trust Him. His yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

As my own scrupulosity gave way to trust and confidence in God providing for us, I had a friendship with another guy who suffered from religious scrupulosity as well. He struggled with sin, as I had, but also in feeling forgiven. He felt, erroneously, that God was tired of him and tired of his crap and just didn't want to be bothered anymore and that he wasn't worthy of God's love. I gave him information about Scrupulous Anonymous and encouraged him to reach out to them. Unfortunately this also translated into our friendship, and I felt there became more and more distance between us. When I finally brought it up to him, he confessed he didn't feel "good enough" for me or worthy of our friendship. I tried to reassure him that wasn't the case, and while I felt hurt I respected whatever distance he wanted to maintain and we eventually fell out of touch.

There is a kind of hellish neuroticism in scrupulosity that wants the lock-tite assurance of being saved. It is also a tool of the Devil. I think Martin Luther had these kinds of OCD tendencies and this motivated him to develop his theology of justification. As a Catholic, I trust in the mercy of God. I trust that I have been invited to share in the Heavenly Banquet but that this does not depend on anything I can accomplish on my own. And yet, I cannot just sit back and not cooperate with grace. I trust that I am saved, I am being saved, and I will be saved. That freedom, when it trusts and is based in the confidence of a child for his father, and is motivated by love rather than fear, has the potential to burn away the restricting sterility of scrupulosity when it is the presence of the burning Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Salvation is not a human endeavor, but is a gift that rests completely on the goodness of the Giver. Christ as man both human and divine synthesizes this need in our human economy as a counter to the rote Law and the limits of wooden idols. He became fallen man so that we might become divine. Spiritual health requires moving beyond mental obsession or spiritual fixation and invoking the heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit in synthesis. This is what makes us human beings able, in freedom, to fall rather than test-taking robots. The Devil does not want us to trust our Father. He does not want us to live in love, but in fear and servitude. He is a legalistic and will flex the Law if it helps him in his purposes. Don't let him. Relish your humanness, know that you can fall but trust that God is greater than your sin and failings. Exercise your will in a way that offers your choices as a gift, an oblation to God, in loving obedience. Trust in the unfathomable Divine Mercy of God in Christ. If you struggle with scrupulosity, I pray you will grow in love, trust, and confidence so that you can leave behind such mental legalism like a cicada's shell, a snake's skin, and just rest. It can be hard to rest in Love. But once you have, you know there is no place better to be as the antidote.

"I know longer fear God, but I love Him. For perfect love casts out fear (Jn 4:18)." 

--St. Anthony the Great.

Night At The Mausoleum

About a month ago a friend and reader of this blog alerted me to a Satanic "Black Mass" taking place in Philly in mid-October. Now, I don't know the ins and outs of the occult and Satanic rituals, but I know they are not good! I used to live in Philly, and knew the area where it was taking place. I am young enough where I can still get into shows without looking like an old guy. I live about half an hour from the venue. I've been known to do a few, how shall we say, unorthodox things. So, I was kind of used to God saying (not audibly), "I need you to do something for Me." And I know enough to know that when God calls you to something, you do it. You can always say no thanks to free-will. But regret is a real possibility, as well as missed graces that come from obedience. So, I said Lord I will go.

The blasphemy against Our Lord was scheduled to take place 8pm Friday, 12 October at the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art at 12th and Spring Garden. It was sold out by mid-September. They opened up another one at 10pm. Sold out. A friend forwarded me the Facebook event page. 1,200 people interested in attending. So disheartening, first for those who know what they are doing and looking to get into, and those who don't. The occult is NOTHING to mess around with, and it does not take much to open up a door to evil.

This was the kind of thing I didn't want to go off doing half-cocked. On 9 September I wrote to Archbishop Chaput to alert him of the event (he was already aware) and to run by him the idea of sealing the perimeter prior to Friday the 12th, to seek his permission and blessing to undertake something like this. He gave it. I reached out to two traditional priests familiar with spiritual warfare, who both also gave their blessing, provided I was in a state of grace. I wrote to my spiritual director and told him of the plans, which he supported. I wrote to an well-known exorcist in Denver and told myself if he said, "not a good idea," I would drop it. I waited weeks for his reply, but never got one. So I figured no news was okay news, and decided to move forward.

I prayed. And prayed. But I also felt I was in a position to take action. I noticed on the venue's calendar there was a band playing on Thursday evening, 11 October. I bought a ticket and got down to planning. I ordered one hundred blessed and exorcised St. Benedict medals. After our experience with the power of the Miraculous Medals, I know that sacramentals activated by faith have great power to impart grace. They are not charms, they are not superstitious, but gifts of grace that can literally work miracles. I wanted to throw a stick in the spokes of these blasphemers wheels, but co-vertly. I heard once from a friend that one exorcised St Benedict medal was enough to drive a demon from a woman's house that he knew. The plan was to clandestinely place them throughout the venue and seal the perimeter with the exorcised salt and holy water.

I also found through a friend a contact for a traditional priest and was able to make an appointment with him to bless and exorcise in the old rite salt and water to use. I met with him on Monday 8 October--he heard my confession, prayed over me, gave me a blessing in Latin, and blessed and salt and water. I knew these were powerful sacramentals as well. A friend who is trained in spiritual warfare wrote this to me:

"I don't know if you remember the case of the coach who was told not to kneel and pray on the football field at a public school, but it happened in my town. The satanists aided by a teacher in the school had protested and forced him to stop, which he refused on legal grounds. The satanists in the region(we are a center for the cult)promised to show up to the next game to cast spells and oppress the coach and people.

Myself and a couple others from my Church and a couple from a local protestant church decided to go and pray over the field and area. We took blessed salt and Holy water and walked the perimeter, praying prayers of intercession and warfare prayers. We went into the stands and anywhere we knew people would be gathering. The only place we werent able to go was the upper parking lot because the band was practicing there. The next evening when the satanists gathered they simply were unable to step foot wherever we had walked, prayed and anointed. The ONLY place they could stand to be was the small parking lot were were unable to get to. The wrapped it up pretty quickly because it was very uncomfortable for them.

Here are warfare prayers suitable for this situation, and remember, you represent the power and authority of the Holy Creator of the Universe who wields all power and authority to overturn anything the enemy seeks to do. ONE drop of Christ's shed blood is more than enough to overturn all the death,destruction and evil of the enemy and sin. First say the prayer of St Patrick, pray for each other, then launch into warfare prayers"

I want to stress that this whole thing was an act of obedience. It seemed crazy. I don't know why God was calling me to the things He calls me to, but that shouldn't be my concern. We all have a part to play in the Divine plan, and the question is, will we carry out our part. But the closer the event came over the course of the past month, the more I did not want to do it. I felt like the son in the parable whom the father asked to go work in the vineyard and who said, "I won't," but ended up going (Mt 21:28-32).

On Wednesday evening, I got the spiritual artillery ready. The exorcised St. Benedict medals I placed on small 1"x1" tabs of black duct tape, 12 of them (for the 12 tribes of Israel), and mixed the exorcised salt in with the holy water in a spring water bottle.

This morning I went to Mass and prayed my daily rosary, had a work event, and got home from work a little early and prayed my prayers of deliverance, the Prayer of St. Michael and St. Patrick, the Litany of Humility and the Litany of Saints (in Latin), blinding prayers and prayers of adjuration. Many many friends were praying as well. I rested for a bit, and then headed to the city. I wore cargo shorts with side pockets where I kept the medals concealed in duct tape and a bag of salt, a green scapular touched to the true Cross of Christ, and a relic of St. Martin de Porres. I had been checking the forecast all day and was sure I was going to get dumped on, but miraculously the thunderstorms held off and it was completely dry. I also found a parking spot a block from the venue.

Doors were at 7:30, and I arrived right then. I had been studying the insides from google maps 360 degrees to get an idea of the layout. Tonight, though, they had the upstairs closed off. I got my ticket at Will Call and there were just a few guys hanging around, one selling beers and sodas, another at the front. I was early, and it was a small show and small venue. First stop was the bathroom.

I went in and immediately took out the medal tabs and placed them: above the door jamb, behind a framed picture on the wall, behind the sink. I splashed the holy water/salt solution on all the walls.

When I came out, it was still not crowded at all. I pretended to tie my shoe and managed to lodge a medal between a baseboard and wall panel. I moved over to where an inverted 6 foot cross was in the corner in preparation for tomorrow event. I couldn't believe my good fortune. The two or three random guys working the show and concession were not paying attention. I kicked a medal under the stage (right where the BM would be taking place), and placed another taped medal behind a piece of art on the wall. The venue was so small, there were not many other places I could place them without being conspicuous, but I figured that was better than I could have hoped for.

"What time is the show?" I asked the guy at the front, "Eight." "Okay," I said, "I'm just going to run out for a minute to get something." He nodded. I left through the front door and pretended to take a drink from the bottle of holy water/salt, but instead spilled it all over the front entrance stoop. I hung around front for a minute or so out front and found a small font where I also was able to place a medal. I couldn't believe it. I was in and out in less than 20 minutes. The place was sealed.

There was a woman and a young handicapped man praying the rosary out front. A friend had told me this woman would be there, coming up from DC where she was praying for the Red Rose Rescue trial. I nodded to her and placed a medal in the palm of her hand. Then I started walking away to my car. As soon as I got to my car, the skies opened up and it began to pour.

I did what I was asked, and now the rest is in His hands. I'm glad to be home and to have been obedient--there is peace in serving the Lord. So many graces. I would like to thank all those who prayed for this mission. I can honestly say this would not have gone as smoothly and without incident if this small army or prayer warriors were not interceding and covering me in protection.

Let us continue to pray through midnight 12th October that this event might be foiled and in reparation for the offense against the Most Holy Body and Blood of our Lord. I will be going to the FSSP parish in Conshohocken tomorrow evening for Holy Hour and Latin Mass in reparation.  The Devil hates Latin, as they say.

May His Holy Name be praised, now and forever. Amen.

The Habit of Virtue

My latest article at Catholic Stand:

http://www.catholicstand.com/the-habit-of-virtue/

A Glutton And A Drunkard

"Heretics are unhappy men."

--St. Jerome

Once a month I have the privilege of visiting men at our local prison for two hours. I go by myself and pretty much have free reign, a set up I appreciate because it gives room and freedom for the Holy Spirit to set the agenda rather than having a scripted program. Because Christ is present in the Word, I find it typically suffices and is most beneficial to simply read scripture to the men, rather than giving any kind of "life lessons." I do take the opportunity,  if the Spirit leads,  to instruct on Catholic teaching using the particular scripture we are listening to that evening. For instance, when I started the book of Job, I spoke about trial and how God allows us to be tempted, about suffering and righteousness, and about counsel.

Last month I was reading from Romans chapter 5, where Paul speaks of Christ as the new Adam, when a couple of the men brought up the Trinity. I forget how it came up, but I used it as an opportunity to mention that Catholics do not believe in "sola scriptura" (Scripture alone). "We believe in One God in Three Persons, but the term 'trinity' never appears in the Bible. That is because the theology was developed over time and in the context of tradition to help explain this concept." But still, I told them, such a thing is a Christian mystery, and it is easy to slip into heretical explanations...even priests inadvertently do it in their homilies from time to time!

So, you have this complex and precarious idea of three persons in one God that we can use our reason to explain to a certain degree, but something that should also be appreciated and understood as a mystery that can never completely be comprehended by reason alone. This is faith and reason, will and grace, the humanity and divinity of Christ, feasting and fasting...these are the beautiful "both/ands" that marks Catholicism and which we hold and celebrate in healthy tension.

But sometimes tension can be hard to sustain, and we are faced with the temptation to veer harder in one direction or another. The will > grace. Piety > charity. Christ's divinity > Christ's humanity. Justice > mercy. And so on.

I've always been fascinated by the almost immediate cropping up of various heresies not only in the early Church, but throughout Her history, and how the Church has survived them all. Some were more pernicious than others and harder to stamp out; others were a 'close but no cigar' that drove home the importance of getting it right when it comes to Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology. Two in particular come to mind that I think have something to teach us today: Donatism in the 4th century AD, and Jansenism in the 17th century AD.

Rather than retype a summary of the principal points of both heresies, I'll relate some background from Catholic Answers. Regarding Donatism:

"His predecessor, Majorinus, was elected as a rival bishop in Carthage because the bishops who had elected Caecilianus had dealt leniently with the traditores, men and women whose faith was compromised during Diocletian's brief but bloody persecution, initiated in February, 303. The Catholic Church was outlawed, and professing the Catholic faith was a crime punishable by death. Those who refused to offer incense to Roman idols were executed. Churches were razed, relics and sacred vessels were seized, and any copy of Scripture that could be found was burned.
The traditores were those who renounced Christ to avoid martyrdom or who, when their churches and houses were searched by the Roman authorities, handed over sacred artifacts rather than face death. In light of the many who endured martyrdom rather than renounce Christ, those who survived the persecution (which ended in 305) were outraged that priests and deacons who were traditores were allowed to resume their ministry after being reconciled to the Church through confession. This perceived injustice provoked a popular backlash with grave theological implications.
Majorinus and other leaders of this faction asserted that the sacraments were invalid, even wicked in the eyes of God, if dispensed by a traditor bishop, priest, or deacon. This view expanded to include clergy who were in a state of mortal sin of whatever sort.
By denying the intrinsic efficacy of the sacraments the Donatists claimed the sacraments could be celebrated validly only by those in the state of grace. They required the re-baptism of any Catholic who came over to their sect."

On Jansenism:

"In the wake of the Reformation, theologians turned much of their attention to the issue of grace and to reconciling the efficacy of grace with man's free will. One tradition, the Augustinian, saw the divine role in providing grace as primary and the human capacity to receive and act on grace as real but weak, owing to original sin. The newly-formed Society of Jesus put forth a more optimistic view. Summed up in the writings of Luis de Molina, this view ascribed a greater role to man's free will.
In the universities, where the Augustinian tradition was firmly rooted, there arose a movement against the new Jesuit ideas. Cornelius Otto Jansen, better known by the Latinized "Jansenius," rose to become the spearhead of the conflict. A professor at Louvain University in Belgium, Jansenius became convinced of the Augustinian position in 1619 and eight years later set out to produce a great work presenting the complete thought of Augustine on grace. He was appointed bishop of Ypres in 1636 and completed his work, Augustinus, shortly before his death in 1638. What we know of Jansen shows him to have been a thoroughly orthodox Catholic. Ironically, it is quite possible he would have recoiled at the heresy which was to be his namesake.
His multi-volume work covered the heresies of the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians, as understood by Augustine, and tried to connect Pelagianism, which overestimated man's role in his own salvation and was clearly heresy, with the teachings of Molina and the Jesuits. Though condemned by the Holy Office in 1641, a year after its publication, and again in Urban VIII's 1643 bull In Eminenti, and dismissed by many as nothing but a rehashing of the errors of the reformers, Jansenius's ideas as expressed in Augustinus gained a small but loyal following of Jansenists, who became known for the extreme moral rigorism which is today commonly connected with the name."

When we are living in an age of severely compromised prelates and clerics not in a state of grace, the Donatist heresy helps us to remember that the ex opere operato (by the work worked) nature of the sacraments do not depend on the work of the minister, but on Christ's work. The Jansenist heresy helps temper the rigorism that downplays the need for grace that is so easy to slip into when one starts to undertake practices such as fasting and various mortifications as a way to sanctification. We must never forget that we are helpless without grace.

And yet I don't think most people living uncritically in a post-modern 'meh' age today have the intellectual integrity or fortitude to challenge the doctrinal foundations of Catholicism outright. As a result, the dominant heresies of the immediate culture today are less based in the theological questions about the nature of God and Christ and more in a kind of relativistic cultural passivity, especially among the young. The term Moral Therapeutic Deism comes to mind to describe this phenomenon.

For those inside the Church seeking to change accepted traditional practice--laity and clergy alike--we see a push for a kind of 'relaxing' of doctrine and pastoral approach to issues such as divorce and remarriage, Communion for those living in a state of adultery, and backhanded acceptance of homosexual unions, among others. Charges of rigorism and legalism rise up in such factions when those concerned with the integrity of Church teaching raise the point.

From a practical and personal standpoint, it can be hard to navigate these various moral and theological dangers today when we are not grounded in prayer and the Holy Spirit. So, that's where I start. Always pray, every day. When you let that slide, you open yourself up to the potential to be lead astray. He who does not pray will certainly be damned (St. Alphonsus)

Secondly, strive for balance. Jesus had balance. He feasted and fasted. He picked grain on the Sabbath and still asserted that the slightest letter of the Law will never pass away. He instructed his followers to observe and do what the Pharisees tell them, but not to follow their example.

Thirdly, maintain a sense of humor, charity, and humility. Take to heart when you do fast to wash your face and anoint your head. Don't be grumpy. Give alms generously recognizing everything you have is on loan, and that you can truly encounter Christ in the poor person as much as you do when you receive Him in the Eucharist. Keep in mind the publican's disposition in the Temple, not raising his eyes but striking his breast saying "God be merciful to me a sinner."

Fourthly, be willing to live for Christ as much as you might be willing to die for him. Doctrine is important, and the martyrs went to their death rather than deny Catholic teaching. So don't downplay it. But keep it in it's proper context and don't clean the outside of the cup while neglecting the inside.

Finally, be ok with the tension of mystery. Don't try to figure everything out. Marvel and be awe inspired by the Incarnation, the Eucharist, the Trinity, and Creation itself. Mystery is what makes life worth living.

Don't be intellectually or morally lax, and don't be a rigorist unless Christ calls you to it. For most of us, we would do best to find a balance, always maintaining the integrity of teaching and tradition while making room for grace, forgiveness, and human frailty in how we live it out. We can't save ourselves. We need Christ. We need grace, mercy, and forgiveness. We need Our Lady to help lead us to Christ. We need the friendship of the saints, and the poor to remind us of our duty to the least among us. Fast when you feel called and when called for. Have a dance, and have a drink.  Remember your death, and remember to live.