REVERSIO MORAE: Ten habits of highly successful people who regress deeper into their false selves.

There is no free will or the ability to choose anything if there is only one choice. Animal Nature has only one choice, that of being what Nature intended as a part of their natural progression. With the transition from animality to rationality, there is a paradigm shift. The new variables are human reasoning and the ability to choose between two possibilities. I can choose my will or God’s will. To do that, I must die to self, something entirely foreign to human reasoning and needs.

One of the constant struggles of my Lay Cistercian experience has been dying to self or conversio morae. This dying is not the end of physical life but rather the beginning of new life because I got rid of something toxic that prevented me from loving others as Christ loved us. In one of my Lectio Divina (Philippians 2:5) meditations on dying to self, these thoughts came to mind about what that “false self” actually is. Why must I die to myself each day and take up my cross? Why can’t I just do it one time and then have done with it? The corruption of my Nature (matter and mind) will not allow me to do that.

• Each day, I must seek God.
• Each day, I must die to the self that says, “You don’t need to do Lectio Divina, Liturgy of the Hours, Eucharist, and seek the presence of Christ through silence and solitude of my heart.”
• Each day is a new beginning, a new lifetime, a new chance to be present to the totality of all that matters in matter.
• Each day I realize that I am not the person I was yesterday, although I must still punch through the sameness of the martyrdom of ordinary living.
• Each day, I choose God’s will be done instead of my own inclinations, the greatest gift I can give the Father, my free will, mingled with the body and blood of The Son, in fulfillment of all Old Testament and New Testament covenant relationships.
• Each day, I am the only one who ever lived who can give thanks and praise by doing those Lay Cistercian practices that I can, as only I can.
• Each day, I realize that God is to be feared as I sit on the backbench at Church (or in my upper room with doors locked), eyes lowered, and reflect in the silence and solitude of my heart on how much the invisible God loved just me by becoming visible, and not only that but to die for the ransom of many. (Philippians 2:5)
• Each day, I get older as this citizen of the World completes his preordained path of corruption (everything has a beginning and an ending, plus all matter deteriorates) while preparing to continue the citizenship as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father and so fulfill my intelligent progression as intended from all eternity.
• Each day, I join with two or more people as a community (through Eucharist, Liturgy of the Hours, online contact via Email, by linking my prayers to the intentions of others.)
• Each day, I must seek power from a source outside of myself to combat the inexorable encroachment of original sin on my center, The Christ Center. If I do nothing, I may lose my balance and my center. Such is the daily battle of this Lay Cistercian and maybe yours.
• Each day, I seek the simplicity of simply sitting on a park bench in the dead of winter and waiting for Christ to sit next to me (in fact, I am waiting for me to wake up to the reality that Christ has been sitting there waiting for me to show up all this time). No words are necessary. No thoughts are necessary. I am present to the pure energy of the Holy Spirit and open to the warm blanket of Love that covers me from the cold of this World until I read home.

THOSE HABITS, TEMPTATIONS, IMPERFECTIONS, AND SINS THAT KEEP ME FROM CAPACITAS DEI

THE HERESY OF THE INDIVIDUAL— I have often wondered about the statement, “The wages of sin is death.” I invite you to take your time and read this passage on the seemingly invisible effects of sin and the equally invisible but powerful results of righteousness. I offer the entire passage rather than a sentence so that you might read and reread these words and see how they fit into the way you love others as Christ loved us. All Scriptures are for us to assimilate how to follow the way, what is true, that leads to a life beyond this world but one in which we must live until we claim our inheritance as adopted sons (and daughters) of the Father.

Freedom from Sin; Life in God.

1^* What then shall we say? Shall we persist in sin that grace may abound? Of course not!^a

2How can we who died to sin yet live in it?^b

3Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?^c

4We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.^d

5For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.^e

6We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.^f

7For a dead person has been absolved from sin.

8If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.^g

9We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.^h

10As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.ⁱ

11Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as [being] dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.^j

12^* Therefore, sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires.^k

13And do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons for wickedness, but present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness.^l

14For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.^m

15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Of course not!ⁿ

16Do you not know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves,^o you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?^p

17But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted.^*

18Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

19I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your nature. For just as you presented the parts of your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness for lawlessness, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

20^q For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.^*

21But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.^r

22But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification,^* and its end is eternal life.^s

23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.^t

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/romans/6

As a human being, I only live a short time, maybe seventy or eighty years, if I am lucky. During that time, I must make choices that define who I am. I am the Lord of my life, and no one can tell me what to do, but I often like to tell others what to do. This enigma is a characteristic of original sin. I have reason and freedom to choose what I consider to be meaningful to me during my existence. I am indeed the Lord of my life. But existence is not so simple. I live in the World, one that is the base to sustain me. We share the matter with all others composed of matter, those inanimate, those with animal natures, and other humans who possess human Nature. There are only two choices that I can make, one is that I use my power, kingdom, and the glory that I have as an individual or, and this choice defies logic, I give away my power, my kingdom, and give glory to God, someone beyond my Nature.

My Nature keeps wanting me to choose what is good for my body, what is good for my mind, and what makes me happy. Nothing wrong with that. After all, I am Lord of my Kingdom, ruler of the time I have on earth. This seduction is the heresy of the individual.

When I become the center of my own universe, and that is how Nature intended it to be, religion makes no sense, especially one that says, “To live, you must die to self.” One of the awarenesses I have gained from my being in the presence of Christ consistently and constantly is that the kingdom of my experiences is the price I must pray to God for being counted worthy to be called adopted son (daughter) of the Father and heir to the kingdom, not of my eighty years of experiences, but the kingdom of heaven.

This is why St. Paul admonishes us in Romans to die to sin (our false self) and live for God in Christ Jesus. 10As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. ^I 11Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as [being] dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.^j The question for you and me is, “Do I do this?”

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• Only when I give away my individual freedom to choose a power greater than myself that I am set free.
• I have the power to say NO to God with no repercussions from God.
• The heresy of the individual means I have the authority to say NO to the Church and the teachings of the Holy Father. Who am I to say NO to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit chose Pope Francis to guide the Church, not me.
• The Great Accuser uses our power to choose to select those things that will give us pleasure but may not allow us to reach the next level of our intelligent design.

THE HABIT OF PREFERRING SELF TO GOD

A habit is a pattern of behavior that I choose, something I do without even thinking. I can have good habits and bad habits. I might even think my habits are good when they are not. The Church Universal, in its quest to be a bank for the truth of Christ, sets forth the parameters of what it means to be a believer. This truth is forged in the blood of early martyrs and continued with our own martyrdom of the ordinary each day. G. K. Chesterton says, “I know what is bad that I do is bad. What I need is a church to tell me is what I think is good, is bad.” One of the bad habits I can acquire is thinking that what is pleasurable about life is what drives my center. If I experience the individual’s heresy (above), I choose what makes me happy, what gives me pleasure, and what I think fulfills me as a human being.

It would be a mistake to think that God is against us having feelings, emotions, and pleasure when it plays such an essential part in our choices. Sexual pleasure and its satisfaction remain the most dominant and overpowering feeling we have. In a recent conversation about sexual morals, I was shamed by some pro-lifers who said both the Catholic Church and I are archaic and out of touch with what it means to be human by denying pleasure and sexual fulfillment. Granted that the Church always moves as the turtle in a race where all the hares are bolting ahead of it. By the time the turtle catches up to these profligate hares, they have already moved on to the next fad, one that only ends with death.

I don’t think the Church or me, for that matter, is against pleasure and embracing guilt by doing “bad things.” I think pleasure, a good emotion for humans, is not the core center of making choices that lead us to be fully human. My false self wants to keep pleasure as the center of all meaning and purpose. My choice is, “Do I prefer my own pleasures of this world as my purpose, or do I choose the hard way, one that places The Christ Principle at my center and pushes away my false self?”

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• These are dark times, and we are called to choose between what is right and what is easy. (Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
• My power of Love comes from me putting myself in the presence of Christ (the awareness that God is God and not me) each day.
• Simplicity is the fruit of silence and solitude.
• Place your trust in God and not in princes or politicians.

THE HABIT OF THE HALF-EMPTY HEART —

If you want Love in your heart, you must put it there yourself. Being in the presence of Christ is where we fill up our empty tanks. We must do it each day. The half-empty heart is one where Catholics settle on doing the minimum of what they consider a Catholic to be. Deuteronomy 6:5 and Matthew 22:38 tells us to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves.

A half-empty heart yearns to be made whole and is restless. It is not complete, or is it what was intended to be by its Creator. Only two persons had full hearts, Jesus and His mother, Mary. The rest of us are sinners and seek to fill our hearts drop by drop as long as we live.

Love is defined by the one who loves us. In the case of Christ, there is a love that we citizens of the World can never fathom much less make our own. I have selected as my center, Philippians 2:5, “Have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” It is when you love others that you are most loved. This transferral of Love from God to humans happens because, like Christ, we empty ourselves of what human Love is (whatever the World says it is) and replace it with the energy of the Holy Spirit.

The bad habit of Love without the cross, Love without the sacrifice of self to grow in Christ Jesus, and Love of others without the Holy Spirit leads to human Love but nothing more. Human love, good as it appears, only fills half our hearts. This is the yearning that all hearts have to be restless until they rest in God. (St. Augustine).

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• If I want Love in my heart, I have to put it there. There is Love that comes from the World, and I put it in my heart to fill it up with what I think is my need. This Love doesn’t have any energy in itself. Only the Love comes from loving others as Christ loved us that has the energy to lift us up and sustain us as adopted sons and daughters of the Father.
• “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” –St. Augustine
• This bad habit means I don’t do anything to convert myself from what I know to be my false self to my true self because it takes work and resolving to stay the course.
• As one who follows The Lay Cistercian Way, as much as I know of it, I use the habit of seeking God every day to refill the bad habit of the half-empty heart.

THE HABIT OF DENYING THE CONSEQUENCES OF SIN-–

A bad habit I try to eliminate is thinking that I can do whatever I want because I am baptized and thus saved from the fires of hell. No matter my sins, I can do them without any consequences because I have accepted Christ as my Savior. I can “sin bravely” knowing that I get a free pass into the pearly gates with no questions. I only wish it were true.

What is confusing about the statement above is that some of it are true while other parts assume something with which I can’t place my trust. You make your own conclusions. Here are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Baptism takes away the original sin that we inherited from Adam and Eve. One thing it does not do is remove the effects of that first sin of disobedience from us. We still must die. We have to feel pain, suffering, and health-related problems plaguing humans. We must fight against the temptations of the flesh and the mind that lead us astray. Galatians 5.

Christ left us the Sacrament of Reconciliation to remove those sins that we make after Baptism and renew our hearts with grace. If there are no sins after Baptism, or if I can sin boldly as much as I want, there is no need to pick up my cross each day to follow Christ. There is no need to struggle to have in me the mind of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5) each day. There are no consequences to my sin, none. I am a rotten nature with no free will that is not responsible and accountable for my actions. It is true that no matter my pattern of sinfulness or individual sins, they are forgiven. There is still the punishment due for sins that are not confessed. The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick (to include viaticum at the time of death) is a gift from Christ to wipe away all those sins before we die. That is why the priest anoints those gravely or terminally ill in preparation for death. Matthew 25 gives us a view of the particular accountability we face after we die and the universal judgment at the end of time.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

There are two possible approaches to life:

1. One is that of the World, which says that you, the individual are the center of the physical and mental universes, which means no one can tell you what to do; plus, you have the supremacy of free choice to choose what you think is good for you with no consequences, and additionally, your are your own principal for morals and values.

2. The second way is the opposite of that, which is at odds with Human Nature. You take his most precious defining characteristics of human Nature, free choice, and give it away purposefully to a greater power. This is the abandonment St. Charles de Foucauld speaks of when he prays:

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures –
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the Love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

Saint Charles de Foucauld, Former Trappist of N.D. de Neiges, Killed December 1, 1916, Canonized May 15, 2022

The unintended consequences of the Reformers, noble though their interventions are, were that they gutted long-standing assumptions held by the Church, and inserted the individual alone as the Church and the pope, that you are infallible in faith and morals;, that the Body of Christ in the Eucharist is no longer needed to communicate with the Father and you can do it alone. No one can tell you what to believe. If you don’t like your religion, you use the Principle of Individuality to start something that makes you happy. Your whole reason for religion is more to justify that what you chose is correct rather than using the Scriptures as a way to find the truth and live the life Christ intended for you, in your heart.

THE HABIT OF NO ONE IS GOING TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO —

This is a habit that is at the heart of human Nature, and one that I must struggle mightily to overcome. It is tied to all these other habits and they all act together to pull down any good intentions I might try to introduce. If you look at Genesis 2-3, that archetypal story of what it means to be human, next time notice that Adam and Eve are saying to God that they have that feeling in the pit of their stomach, much like the formative teenage years, that rebels against anyone telling them what to do.

The depiction of Satan in the garden is exactly someone who is angry at God and wants others to be angry, too. I can even feel the anger, the hatred, and even the rage to choose just the opposite of what God wants, just because you don’t want to be told what to do. Where does that part of our human Nature come from? In my view, the reality is the result of the choices we make or didn’t make to bring us into resonance with what our Nature intended. This is why the World can never be a choice that fulfills us as humans. We are created to know, Love, and serve God in this World and be happy with God in the next. –Baltimore Catechism Question Number 6. If you remember I suggested earlier that there are two choices we can make, one where we are the center of all reality, and the second one where we freely give our will to someone outside of ourselves. One of those choices fulfills us as human beings, while one does not. In choosing The Christ Principle as my center, contradictory though it might seem to the World, in order to fulfill my humanity, I must give away my will and choose the will of a being I have never seen. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. This is the emptying (kenosis) that Christ underwent when he assumed human Nature in addition to divine Nature, mingling them forever into the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant, and opening the gates of heaven for all humans. Some will see this, while others will not have a clue. I must die to my false self each day in order to become more of what human and divine Nature intended me to be.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• I am fortunate that God accepted me as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father at Baptism, giving me all the help I need when I call upon the name of the Lord.
• Baptism is just the beginning of my journey into a new world, a New Jerusalem that makes me a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. The problem is, I still have citizenship on the earth, much like dual citizenship in two separate companies. I live in the World but am not destined to exist past my death in the World.
• As a citizen of heaven, my preparation to enter that realm begins with my Baptism, with my practice to love others as Christ loved us, with being a part of a School of Love (the Church Universal, my Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, my parish of Good Shepard in Tallahassee, and with being a professed Lay Cistercian of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit {Trappist} in Conyers. Georgia.) All of these help me discern what to take with me to heaven.
• I must be aware of my dual, competing citizenships and actively choose The Christ Principle over The World, put another way, moving from my false self to my true self as an adopted son (daughter) of the Father.
• What I choose each day is so critical for my sustained citizenship in heaven on earth. The Lord of the Earth (Satan) goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
• Like a watchman in the night, I must be vigilant against the forces of Evil and the seduction of the World that I follow what is easy rather than choosing what is right. The Lay Cistercians are one way that I have to give me structure and discipline through Cistercian practices and charisms.
• I don’t like people telling me what to do. The danger I fall into is that I become what I don’t like and begin judging other people’s motivation and acting like a god.

THE HABIT OF NOT ACTING MY NATURE—

My first recollections about God come from my study of the Cathechism and learning what God is like. I learned that God has a divine nature, that I have a human nature, that animals have a nature and the rest of reality is composed of matter, gases, time, energy, and how they react together using the forces of Nature. I was content with that description, and still am. The difference is that I know much more about what I know and also what I don’t know.

I try not to be sin-centered in my approach to morality. Rather, my center is “To have in you the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5) Not everything is a sin and not everything that the World does is bad. The World (what I call just living in the physical and mental universes) doesn’t produce the energy that leads us to fulfill our destiny and thus our terminal purpose of the species. I will offer chunks and pieces of my latest Lectio Divina on “Acting My Nature.” You be the judge of whether any of this makes sense.

In the compendium of my view of what is real and what is fiction, the notion of Nature is very crucial. I hold there are four areas of Nature. Remember, all of these concepts come from a human mind informed by Faith. Who God is and God’s attributes are only intelligible to us with human concepts and imperfect images. St. Paul likens it to looking through a foggy glass. This photo is one that depicts me (the cup) looking at heaven (through the window).

1. NATURE OF MATTER– This is the Nature of everything that is, including humans. The laws don’t depend upon humans for their existence but come from Nature itself. They are God’s DNA contained within each atom, each molecule, all gases, and all energy.
2. NATURE OF LIFE– Animal Nature. Withing the Nature of Matter, life exists, from one-cell creatures to humans. The laws are those of Nature, not humans, although humans use this Nature as a base.
3. NATURE OF THE MIND– Human Nature. Only humans live with this Nature. Nature are those attributes that make humans human. Although we progressed from what went before us, what we are as humans is a new paradigm from everything not human. The laws we use come from human reasoning and the freedom to choose what we think is good for us. Humans organize ways of behaving that are good for society and require those who follow morals to regulate acts. There is a constant battle for supremacy of thought and the suppression of freedom of the individual.
4. NATURE OF THE DIVINE– Divine Nature. Divine law is pure knowledge, pure Love, and pure energy (service). It is who God is by Nature, one Nature and three persons (by revelation). Energy at this level is Love.

The importance of NOT acting my Nature means I don’t have the energy (power) to lift myself up to the next level of my evolution. I can only push this up, higher to God. I can only push so high by myself. God’s Nature (Christ is both divine and human Nature) can lift both ways, pushing up, but more importantly, reaching down from the fullness of that Nature to life up a lessor nature to a higher level. Looking at the history of our relationship with God, there are several points of nexus where we evolved to the maximum by our own human Nature and needed help.

1. GOD REACHING DOWN TO LIFT US UP FROM ANIMALITY TO RATIONALITY. This reaching down from divine Nature to help humanity comes at a point where we received reason and free will. Genesis 2-3 is an archetypal story of how we are still learning how to control the effects of human Nature. We not only needed help getting from animality to rationality but with how to use the freedom to choose evil and its consequences and what is good.
2. REACHING DOWN FROM THE DIVINE NATURE TO REDEEM HUMAN NATURE FROM ITS SELF-DESTRUCTION. God sent Jesus (Philippians 2:5-12) to use to show us how to act and why it is important. This is the second intervention where humans needed help. God, though, with, and in Jesus.
3. REACHING DOWN FROM THE DIVINE NATURE TO SHOW US THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. Baptism is the fulfillment of the Resurrection Event. All of reality, all that Jesus came to tell us to save us from being an unfulfilled humans, is created just for me (and any others who wake up and find themselves on this rocky ball of gases and life). God reaches down to me to cloth me with the white garment of energy which allows me to believe that I am an adopted son of the Father and my kingdom is not of this world, after I die.

There is a temptation, because I can’t or don’t know who God is or if it is the Holy Spirit speaking to me our my own ego, to dismiss the whole troublesome idea of God as irrelevant. It makes my way tortuous and a struggle each day, it renders truth foggy and subject to the whim of each individual human, it is a life that asks its adopted sons and daughters to die to themselves each day and become more like Christ. (capacitas dei)

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• These are bad habits that I am constantly trying to replace with the energy of God.
• I battle my Nature each day because I have two citizenship in two universes; I am from and of the World with all that it implies.
• My God is a God of Second Chances. Throughout my life, I have the Sacrament of Reconciliation to help me start out again, to make all things new. Even after I die, Purgatory is the safety net. God wants me to survive the gauntlet of being human so much that there is a place of Second Chances where I can go and try it again.

THE HABIT OF CHOOSING SEVEN DEADLY SINS RATHER THAN GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT—  

I learned about the Seven Deadly Sins from my catechism lessons in Grade School. (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth). I never actually paid any attention to these deadly sins, relating them to a notch under thinking about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. About eight years ago, when I took on the mantel of righteousness to move from the banket of deadly habits to those of my true self. The difference was that now I consciously wanted to get rid of these seven deadly sins by replacing them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They are wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. I try to replace in me a habit of penance and repentance for my sins by seeking these gifts from the Holy Spirit to crowd out my bad habits. I am a work in progress, each day.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• Human Nature is good. Choices are either good for us or bad for us.
• Our Father (we are adopted sons and daughters of the Father) will let us make mistakes because to be truly free, each of us must not be coerced into doing either good or evil. In Philippians 2:5, the text reads:

1If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in Love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy,

2complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same Love, united in heart, thinking one thing.^a

3Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves,^b

4each looking out not for his own interests, but [also] everyone for those of others.^c

5Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,^*

6Who,^* though he was in the form of God,^d

did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped.^*

7Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;^*

and found human in appearance,^e

8he humbled himself,^f

becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.^*

9Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name^*

that is above every name,^g

10that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,^*

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,^h

11and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,^*

to the glory of God the Father.ⁱ

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/philippians/2

If I attempted to epitomize the one passage in Sacred Scripture that captures my life, center, and fulfillment as a human being, it would be this quote in Philippians by St. Paul. When struggling to keep the one command Christ taught us, “Love others as I have loved you,” this is The Christ Principle for me. It details what I must do if I am to accept the sign of the way, the truth, and lead the life of an adopted son (daughter) of the Father. I must not be coerced into believing but instead choose it out of fierce Love and belief.

Free choice is such an integral part of the mission of Christ that he had to put on hold that he was God while he was human, lest that divinity overwhelms his humanity, thus rendering his free choice invalid. I am not suggesting Jesus was not fully God as much as inadequate human language and concepts can describe such a phenomenon.

Moving from my false self (seven deadly sins) to my life in Christ (gifts of the Holy Spirit) is a daily effort. If I get into a pattern of bad acting, I fall victim to the wages of sin–death. They don’t call them deadly sins without reason. This is so insidious that you won’t even realize that you have been seduced by The Great Accuser until you notice that your actions are not consistent with those who “…have in them the mind of Christ Jesus.“

THE HABIT OF THINKING THAT EVIL IS GOOD — A consequence of the original sin of Adam and Eve is that humans, in particular each individual, determines what is good and what is evil. This is made more complicated because each individual can reason and have the freedom to choose either what is right or wrong for them. This habit is so insidious that individuals assume that they can choose and that what they choose is right automatically. There are only two sources of what is good for us. Both of these principles come from the heart. The first is that what is good comes from each individual’s heart. The second say is that what is good comes from The Christ Principle, the source of what it means to be human. These two sources are the origin of what is good. What we choose is good if it comes from The Christ Principle. If we choose what we think is good, but The Christ Principle says it is bad for us (will not lead us to grow from our false self to our true self), then this is evil. Evil and good are not equal partners of the truth. The Church is the living depository of what is good or bad, so we can measure our actions against Christ’s. G. K. Chesterton, the late and might I add great (both girth and human intellect) apologist for what is true, said, “I know when I do something bad is bad. What I want the Church to tell me is when I do something I think is good is bad.”

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• I must convert my heart from thinking that I am the center of the universe. This is made more confusing because I actually am the center of the universe, but I get to place at my center something that is outside of me which is more significant than me. This choice is one that I make by Faith alone. It is a choice that says to God, “Your will done. Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”

THE HABIT OF LIVING IN JUST TWO UNIVERSES-– If you only live in two universes (physical and mental) instead of three (physical, mental, and spiritual), you won’t be able to look in the one place where the answers to the Divine Equation are answered.

Living in two universes is the awareness that you know that you know. It is the awareness that what you are looking at in the physical universe does not know that it does not know.

This is the habit of most people who have no idea what it means to be the Father’s adopted son or daughter.

To enter the third universe, to see a reality beyond human reasoning or outside of the mere human will, adherents must die to their false self, both in Baptism and then for each day for the remainder of their lives.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• Living in a two universe approach to reality seems so normal that you would not even notice anything is wrong if you did not know what to look for,
• The Divine Equation is how you solve the mystery of being human. Both your questions and answers come from outside of those two universes. It is called The Divine Equation, not because it solves who God is, but because both the questions to ask and their correct answers come from outside the two universes.

THE HABIT OF HATRED IN THE HEART–

If hatred becomes a habit, am I a hoarder of hatred? Cleaning out that room in my heart where I go to pray and lock the door (Matthew 6:5), is there hatred? If you agree, as I do, that the wages of any sin are the death of the spirit in you, then you might need to take a fire hose to clean out your Augean Stable of hatred and other seven deadly sins before you ask Christ to sit in a chair and have a conversation.

The habit here is not cleaning your upper room or, like your own home, failing to cut the grass or make repairs regularly. You can ask God for many favors, but don’t ask Him to cut your grass.

When you replace hatred in your heart, be sure to add the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and not your own requests for power, special treatment, money, or adulation that is our filling.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• Hatred, like Love, is not the freedom to choose but a free choice to put something in your heart that is not there already.
• Hatred is not the default of the human heart but an emotion that you must place in your heart.
• Each day, our lives begin at zero, except that we contain the sum of all that went before us as learned experience. In this sense, we live each moment slightly ahead of ourselves because of our momentum toward The Christ Principle.
• The habit of penance combats the habit of hatred. Each day, these two poles battle each other for a spot at our center. I must actively and purposefully pray and do penance to keep hatred at bay.

THE HABIT OF REVERTING TO ANIMALITY–

Although the differences are dramatic, there is but a thin line separating humans from animals. In terms of the intelligent progression of our Nature, humans were somehow raised up to a level of Nature not possessed by animals. This is why we can revert to our animal behavioral tendencies while animals can’t assume any characteristics of human Nature. Seen in the context of three separate universes (The Rule of Threes), in the physical universe, animals and humans share procreation, sexual emotions, and pleasures; in the mental universe, only humans exist, so humans, while sharing emotions with animals in the physical universe, have reason and free will to choose what animals cannot. An unintended consequence of humans is that they can revert to their animality in emotions surrounding sexuality and procreation. The sexual urge is, rightly so, our strongest inclination. Animals do not have the power to control it. Humans have reason and free will to help manage these strong urges, but even humans do not themselves have the power to act as intended by their Nature. Humans were not getting it, so God had to send His Only Begotten Son to tell us and show us how to use our minds and hearts to love others as Christ loved us.

What makes this usually good habit inappropriate is choosing purposefully to live in the animal part of our nature rather than the gift of adoption as a son (daughter) of the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.

LEARNING POINTS FROM BEING A LAY CISTERCIAN

• God has no part in this way of thinking.
• The center of your life must be based on what the World says is an appropriate center. It might be power, sexuality, money, fame, adulation, or nothing.
• This habit is deadly because I am tempted to replace my center with one of the seven deadly sins. I call this daily struggle a battle. Christ has won the war.