Pints With Aquinas - How to Heal and Grow beyond Envy w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Episode Date: May 20, 2023

Fr. Pine talks about growing beyond Envy. 🟣 Join Us on Locals (before we get banned on YT): https://mattfradd.locals.com/ 📖 Fr. Pine's Book: https://bit.ly/3lEsP8F ✝️ Show Sponsor: https://hallow.com/mattfradd 🖥️ Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ 🟢 Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas 👕 Merch: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com 🚫 FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ 🔵 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd We get a small kick back from affiliate links.

Hello, my name is Fr. Gregory Pine and I'm a Dominican friar of the province of St. Joseph and this is Pines with Aquinas. In this episode I thought that we could talk about the vice of envy. Why? Well, because it's a capital vice, sometimes called the seven deadly sins, and it threatens to undermine our spiritual good in a particularly potent way. So it's one of those vices from which other vices issue. But also because, I mean just speaking simply, practically, it's one of those vices from which other vices issue. Um, but also

because, I mean, just speaking simply, practically, it's something that many of us struggle with and there are ways that we can seek to cultivate the virtues which help us to heal and to grow beyond it. So let's think about it in those terms. Here we go. Okay. So what is envy? Well, when we talk about envy, we're talking about a vice, and when we're talking about a vice, we're talking about like a stable disposition, a kind of habit of mind or heart, which fixes us in what is evil. Okay, not in the sense that it makes you evil, but it gives you a kind of inclination towards

what is evil. All right, and there can be sins which issue from that vice because we're in the habit of doing it. So envy would be both a sin and a kind of habit. So what is it opposed to or what is it working against in our spiritual life? St. Thomas says that it's working against charity, which is to say love.

So we know when we talk about charity, we're talking about the love of God poured into our hearts whereby we can love him with his own love and love our neighbor with the same And when we're talking about love we're talking about a kind of friendship. All right, so we're talking about a kind of Benevolence or a kind of goodwill towards the other person which is made manifest in good deeds that seeks to cultivate a kind of communion with the other and and envy threatens that communion it works against that benevolence that that goodwill or those good deeds which would

build up a culture of life a culture of flourishing so it's important all right it's one of those most spiritual sins. So I think pride is often considered the most spiritual of sins, but envy is also a spiritual sin, or it need not have bodily parts to it. So like when St. Thomas talks about the sin of the angels, I was about to say the first sin of the angels, but there's really only one sin of the angels.

So the angelic fall, or the sin which precipitated the angelic fall, he says it could either be pride or envy and one of the reasons for which he says that is because these are the most spiritual sins and when we're talking about angels we're talking about spiritual creatures. So Dante for instance when he's working his way up the mount of Purgatory after he goes through some initial circles of anti-purgatory that is A-N-T-E before Purgatory. Once he crosses into Purgatory properly so called, he passes first through the circle of pride and then next arrives at the circle of the envious where those souls who suffered

you know the effects of their envy at this stage are kind of hunched under large stones and their eyes are sewn shut as they weep for their sins which is brutal and Dante he sympathizes with their vice on the one hand but also their punishment and he kind of imitates it in his own body as a way by which of admitting that he himself was envious. I think that's true or maybe I've confused things. Oh I have confused things. Oh, I have confused things Oh my gosh The people stooped under large stones are on the circle of the prideful and he identifies with them and it's the envious who have Their eyes sewn shut and they're weeping through their sewn shut eyes. I combine two circles my bad. Okay clarified

Okay, so what are we talking about with envy? I think we all have a kind of sense like this is jealousy and this is envy and envy's bad and jealousy is like Less bad but can have some good elements. But what are we talking about with envy? I think we all have a kind of sense like this is jealousy and this is envy and envy is bad and jealousy is like less bad but can have some good elements. But what are we talking about? We're talking about envy. We're talking about a kind of sorrow at another's good. So you see another person and they have a good thing, whether that be wealth or fame or glory or honor or power or pleasure or virtue or whatever. They have something good and we feel it, well, we don't have it or at least not the same way and so we're sorrowful because it's like their good represents a kind of threat to my good or their good represents a kind of evil for me insofar as they have it and I don't and I want to have it and I don't want them to have it.

It's kind of what it amounts to. The problem with this type of thinking is that it's crass and it's kind of materially reductionistic because what it does is it cultivates us in a certain sensibility like there are only so many goods in the world, they're scarce, which is true of certain things, specifically of material things, but there are only so many goods in the world, they're scarce and in is true of certain things, specifically of material things, but there are only so many goods in the world, they're scarce, and insofar as somebody else has one of them, that's one fewer that I myself can accumulate, and so it's a threat, or it's an occasion of sorrow, an occasion even of hatred. So there's a kind of eliminative thinking that goes on with envy, where you're not actually disposed to or open to the prospect that

another's good is in fact good, because you think of all goods as limited and therefore as to be accumulated and therefore as to be jealously guarded against our neighbors. Which just isn't the case, okay, or at least it oughtn't be the case. And this is, you know, cultivating this type of thinking, this type of, what, choosing, is a way by which we ourselves can heal and grow beyond the limits of our envy. Because we have to grapple with it, we have to be honest with ourselves if we're dealing with it, but then we have to progress beyond it, by God's grace and our cooperation therewith. I just used the word therewith. Who am I? I have no idea. So one way in which we can do this is by cultivating a genuine appreciation of the common good. So when we talk about the common good, we're not just talking about like,

you've got a pot of goods and then you've got to divide up that pot of goods so everyone gets the same amount. We're talking about a common good, a genuinely common good, which isn't diminished when it's dispersed to its members. So like the good of family life, for instance. When you say you have a mother and a father, they have sexual intercourse, they conceive, they have a child. Okay, the good of that family isn't diminished because there's one more person now in the family who is you know, drawing from the store of family excellence. No, the good of the family is increased and so too when they welcome their second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh. Now right, now there might be material constraints on their attention and their solicitude

for their children, but in ordinary circumstances they are able to love all those children and the greatest richness in each of those children's lives is probably the love that they have for their brothers and sisters. So the common good of the family is something which is transcendent, which is distributed to the members of the family which is not diminished and being partaken of by many. So it gets us beyond the bounds of this eliminative thinking where we envision all goods as if they were scarce resources which we need to cash out on lest somebody else deprive us of them. Okay, so we're seeking to cultivate a sensibility vis-à-vis the common good. Now when we do this in the Catholic tradition

we think often in terms of family or polity or church But it's also something that we can we can exercise or we can practice in our relationships. So when Dante finds himself on the circle of the envious, he, in speaking with one of the other souls there, I think it's the soul says, and this is a rough translation slash paraphrase, here is where we learn to say no longer mine and thine, but rather to say ours. So it gets us beyond this kind of mine and thine thinking and into a genuine sharing without being patronizing or condescending. So that's one of the most noble and dignified things that we can say, beautiful things that

we can say is ours and genuinely mean it. To be invested in common projects and to be in the pursuit of common goods, genuinely common goods. So one place where we find this in our experience is in the friendships which we seek to cultivate. So when I was talking about love I was talking about friendship because that's how St. Thomas defines charity. First article of the first question in the treatise on charity in the Summa Theologia just asks whether charity is friendship and he says yes. So what do you have in friendship? You have mutual benevolence. So I will your good, you will my good and we do so in the context of a common life. So mutual

benevolence with communion. And in the context of that relationship these walls of competition kind of break down. I'm thinking of a passage from C.S. Lewis's Scroop-Tape letters where the one demon is counseling the other demon to get the soul, the person whom he's tempting, to use the personal possessive pronoun and then to flatten all of reality in such a way that it all falls under the appellation of mine. So you start with my boots and then you work your way through my time and then eventually you arrive at my God. We think about things as possessive or we think about ourselves as possessing those things and when we possess them we take them out of the common stock.

We make it impossible for other people to enjoy them, to participate in them, to live that life. So when we engage in friendship we're broken of this kind of thinking, what we've called a limited thinking or scarce resources type thinking. And we begin to think of what we can contribute to the friendship, how we can love in the friendship as a way by which to make the life of the beloved wonderful, but also to make of our own life something wonderful. Because we don't enter into a friendship thinking what we can get out of it. I mean there are certain friendships for which that's the case, like friendships of use or friendships of pleasure, but in a truly noble friendship, a virtuous friendship, we're thinking not like only of how I can contribute to it and like, Oh, I will

sacrifice everything type sense, but we find ourselves caught up in it. We find ourselves drawn into it and it begins to grow as if by its own organic logic and in the process we become noble. The other becomes noble as we are kind of called together into a noble pursuit. And so it's in this sense that, you know, we can talk, the other becomes noble as we are kind of called together into a noble pursuit. And so it's in this sense that, you know, we can talk about the friend as another self or our, you know, ancient tradition will speak of having like one soul in two bodies, but it's a real intimate union. It's a real genuine sharing that makes of our lives something yet more excellent. And in the process, it actually increases our capacity for enjoyment.

Because not only do I enjoy the things that I myself experience But I enjoy the things the other experiences because the other is like unto me and I am like unto Whatever him or her in the context of a friendship so I think that that this experience of friendship helps to break us open and break us of the negative thinking Which would otherwise cause us to be envious. I'm thinking here of a passage from G.K. Testens, the man who was Thursday, where he's talking about the protagonist Gabriel Sime, who was infiltrated like the high anarchical council of Europe, or something like that. So he's one of seven members, and he is Thursday, that's the name.

And he's about to duel one of the other members, whom he thinks to be an anarchist, a bomb thrower, a nihilist, a destroyer of sorts, only to discover that this individual is not an anarchist, but also PS backstory. This guy, Gabriel Syme, I said he infiltrated it. Well, he's like a police officer detective kind of thing. Well, he finds that this other guy that he's about to duel is also like a police officer detective kind of thing. So they're both infiltrating this higher anarcho-cal counsel. And so they're friends.

And so Chesterton has this beautiful line in that particular section of the book where he says, Throughout the whole ordeal, his root fear had been isolation. He says, I concede to the mathematicians that 4 is twice 2, but 2 is not twice 1. 2 is 2,000 times one. And there he's being, you know, Chestertonian, paradoxical. But the point is this, that like our experience of life in solitude is, you know, difficult, nigh unto impossible. And then when we cultivate friendships, it's not like it becomes slightly less difficult

or slightly less impossible. It becomes wonderful and it becomes possible. So friendship is a force multiplier. It's not just twice as good or one half as bad, if one can speak in such terms, right? It makes something which formerly was not because it breaks us open to the possibility of a genuine sharing, which is the very purpose of human life. We're made for communion. It's such that God, who is a communion of persons, invites us through friendship with our Lord Jesus Christ to participate therein. And that's meant to ramify

through every aspect of our human life. It's communion all the way down from top to bottom. And so envy represents a threat towards this kind of communion-based mentality of human existence. And when we can cultivate these habits of mind and heart through friendship, through investment in our family, our polity, our church, then we can heal and grow beyond those limitations which would keep us from the fullness of life which God has ready for those who love him. Boom. That is what I wanted to share. Okay, if you haven't yet, please do subscribe to the channel, push the bell and get email

updates when Matt posts other things. If you haven't yet check out God's Planning, which is a podcast which I contribute with four of the Dominican friars. And we actually did a series last year on the seven deadly sins or the seven capital vices. So you can listen to all seven, which will be awesome. Maybe. And then also, a cool announcement. We, the friars of my province, are hosting a Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage in Washington DC at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on September 30th.

So like a big rosary jamboree. It's gonna be awesome. I'm gonna preach a couple things, and I hope to see you there. So you can find out information if you just Google Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage, and you can sign up and then join us in a novena in anticipation of the event. Okay. Know of my prayers for you. Please pray for me and I'll look forward

to chatting with you next time on Pines with a Coiness.