Attitudes toward desire

 

October 31, 2023

Hi!  How is each and every one?  Yesterday I was going through files in my laptop and flash drives and I came across a movie that was shared with me last year.  I found the title interesting.  I thought I could watch it sometime after I get a review of the film.  So I searched and found out it is an old movie 2004, with a simple plot entitled The Magic of Ordinary Days. 

It is a World War II film about the father of an unwed mother marries her off to a farmer who will raise her baby as his own. Personally I found the movie slow and yet able to hold your interest and curiosity up to the end.  Indeed there is magic in ordinary days when there is love and respect, and persons are true to themselves and to the others.  “I’ve learned more about love in my six months with this family than in the 25 in my father’s home”, confessed Livy, who finally delivered her baby.  It is love that gives meaning, intimacy and virtue into everything we do in our days that usually are ordinary.

Following is the continuation of the previous post on the longings of the heart (From Broken Gods, Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Gregory K. Popcak, Ph. D. Ch 2).

The Three Attitudes Toward Desire     

We desire a lot of things:  wealth, status, power, sex, security, affirmation, and health are just a few of the longings almost every person aches to fulfill.  Sadly, we often have a complicated relationship with our desires.  In his book Fill These Hearts (2012), Christopher West notes that, in the face of their desires, people tend to become addicts, stoics, or mystics.

The Addict

Those who adopt the addict mind-set tend to unquestioningly surrender to their desires, whatever they may be.  Although the term “addict” could involve actual addictions, West uses the term more metaphorically.  The addict tends to assume that his or her devotion to sex, food, money, status, esteem, emotional extremes, drugs, alcohol, and the like is a good thing and is largely beyond his or her ability to control it.  Many of us adopt the posture of the addict in some area of our lives when we find our passions or desires consuming us and complicating our lives in some way.

Addicts tend to think that the strength of their desires is the problem.  But, properly understood and gracefully ordered, strong desires can actually fuel our divinization!  The real problem is that instead of seeing that desire points to something greater, the addict makes an idol out of desire itself (Pargament, 2011).  The pursuit of these idols—whether chemical addictions, habitual obsessions, or codependent relationships—can imitate the feeling of transcendence we have when we experience an authentically sacred moment, but, ultimately, these compulsions cause disintegration and conflict instead of the integration and peace that come from the real thing (Pargament, 2011).  The problem with these common idols is not that they are sources of pleasure, but that ultimately they are not pleasurable enough.

God created us so that every desire we have will ultimately point to our essential longing for deep intimacy with him.  Unfortunately, instead of reaching for the encounter with the sacred hidden on just the other side of our earthly desires, addicts settle for the pleasure of the moment.  Ironically, the more we settle, the more unsettled we feel.  The result is an even more obsessive relationship with the idol.  We return again and again to the dry well hoping that this time our thirst will be quenched.  In the words of culture commentator and author Mark Shea, “You can never get enough of what you don’t really want” (2001).

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Question for reflection:  In the face of what desires do you tend to adopt the attitude of the addict?

Tomorrow November 1 is All Saints’ Day. The ORDO 2023 reads:  Originating in the 4^th century Eastern feast of all Martyrs, and attested to by St. Ephrem (+373), Pope Gregory IV established this commemoration for all the Saints of the Roman Church in 835.  Originally celebrated on Easter Friday, it came to be held in Rome on 13 May; later, in the 9^th century, it was transferred to 1 November, the date of its celebration in Ireland where it countered the Celtic pagan feast of the Druids.

A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, is granted to any of the faithful who 1) on one of the days from 1 to 8 November visit devoutly a cemetery or who simply pray mentally for the dead; 2) on All Souls Day (or else with the permission of the Ordinary, on the Sunday that precedes or follows, or else on All Saints’ Day) visit a church or chapel with devotion and there recite the Our Father and the e Creed.                                                                                 

A partial indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, is granted to any of the faithful who 1) visit devoutly a cemetery or who simply pray mentally for the dead; 2) pray devoutly Lauds or Vespers of the Office of the Dead, or the invocation Eternal rest grant… (Requiem aeternam dona…) (Enchiridion of Indulgeneces, edition of 1999, concession 29).

 Allow me to take advantage of sharing with you the contents of Circular No. 2023-87 on Family prayer for the faithful Departed and on the proper and Reverent regard to Cremeated Remains

 The days that we set aside for honoring the faithful departed might be a good opportunity to re-catechize our faithful on the proper and reverent regard to cremated remains. The Liturgical Guidelines on Cremation issued by the Episcopal Commission on Liturgy of the Catholic Bishops ‘Conference of the Philippines provide:  “The cremated remains should be buried in a grave, mausoleum, or columbarium…the urn should not be kept permanently at home or family altar.”

 “We hold on to our faith in the Communion of Saints and to our oneness with our beloved dead.  We believe that death does not totally separate our loved ones from us.  In physical death life is changed, not ended…We will set aside time together as a family…for those who have gone ahead of us…It would also be good if we can share with the family members our recollections about our beloved dead so that their memory can bind us closer to each other” (Pastoral Instruction, One with Our Beloved Dead).

 Personally, I have cultivated the practice of reading through my short list of family, relatives, and friends who have departed from this life in the memento of the dead of the Mass everyday. The Communion of the Saints refers to the Triumphant Church composed of the Saints in Heaven, the Suffering Church composed of the Holy Souls in Purgatory and the Militant Church composed of you and me, the saints in the making, on earth.  It is a good practice to have an ardent devotion to them.  The Communion of Saints is an article of our faith. All of us belong to the family of God, the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. We pray for one another.

 See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”

Affectionately,                    

Guadalupinky