Pints With Aquinas - What to Make of Death + Q&A w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

Fr. Pine answers questions on all things death: what to expect in death, how to understand death as Christians, how death is both natural and unnatural, and more!

Hello and welcome to Pines for the Quietness. I'm Fr. Gregory Pine, coming at you in the usual way at the usual time and saying the usual things, but I hope not uninterestingly. So as you have no doubt gathered by this juncture, having clicked on the link as you have, we're going to talk about death. And this is in response to a request from one of Matt's patrons who asked that we would cover something of the last things, the four last things. I thought rather than address it all in one kind of big topic, which won't do anything approaching justice to each of those four themes, that we could break it up into four distinct themes. Whether I get to all of them remains to be seen. It's kind of to be determined, I suppose. But I thought that we'd start with death, since it's the first thing guaranteed to us all at the end, and then pass to judgment and potentially heaven and hell. We actually already did hell and had to avoid it, but maybe talk about

judgment and heaven in due course. So, when talking about death, we have some principles from St. Thomas Aquinas which help us to illumine the concept, and I thought that we could talk about how it is first natural, how it is next unnatural, and third, how it can be supernatural. So, one way by which to organize it, obviously not the only way, but a way. So, in what sense then is death to be considered as natural? Here, I think that we can begin with a consideration of our peculiar condition as human beings, and that we occupy what St. Thomas Aquinas calls the horizon of creation. So, we alone, among created things things are both material and immaterial. Now, mind you, you know, certain material things have, as it were, immaterial elements, but only we, you know,

kind of occupy this rung of creation which weds like the immateriality of an immortal soul with the materiality of a corporeal body. So, there are bound to be things about our condition which are at the very least paradoxical and maybe better expressed are kind of like vexed or tortured even because each of those kind of composite factors of our nature have their own tendency. So, and beyond that, I suppose I should add that our immateriality in this life will be expressed through material means. So, there's a kind of tension present there. Obviously, it's not an irresolvable tension insofar as we are and continue to be, but a tension nonetheless. And so, because we are composed of a corporeal body,

Because we are composed of a corporeal body, or because we have this material dimension, there's a sense in which we are kind of bound for dissolution. So, anything that has matter is going to experience the toll taken by that matter in the course of an earthly life. So, St. Thomas has his own way by which to explain this, which draws on Aristotelian natural philosophy. So he has this idea of the four elements, uh, which are paired in these contraries, right? So of hot and cold and moist and dry, you know, so he talks about fire, earth, water,

you know, like we don't have to go into it too terribly much. I don't mean to make short shrift of it. I don't really understand it too terribly well, but I think that the kind of current understanding of chemistry has surpassed the yields of fourth century natural philosophers in some ways, though their insights remain helpful, at least in this regard, namely that matter has a kind of dissociative tendency. That's not to say that it's always straining to be other than it is or elsewhere, but that matter just kind of tends to break down. And we have our own ways of describing this. Again, if I knew more about biology and chemistry and physics, I could say more intelligently what that is. But, you know,

in lieu of that, I'll throw around buzzwords like entropy. I think one way to describe this philosophically is that this is just part of the quote-unquote evil that's baked into the universe. So, sometimes we'll make a distinction between physical evil, which is like evil done unto, and then moral evil, which is evil done. And physical evil is the type of evil which is just baked into reality, whereas moral evil is the type of evil that we introduce by our choice. So, in the case of physical evil, it just seems to be such that if you have a material universe, it's just always going to be the case that certain things are built up by diminishing other things.

And that's just how they flourish. And that's just how they flourish. So, like, for instance, lions eat antelope. And what it means to be a lion entails the eating of antelope. So, that's a kind of evil that's baked into reality insofar as one organism builds itself up by the destruction or the diminution or whatever of another organism. So, it's an evil in a certain sense, but it's not a moral evil. And I think when we talk about death, just on its own terms, you know, abstracting from considerations of sin, we're talking about a kind of physical evil, which is to say that, you know, we're tending towards death. I digress his own way of expressing

this, right? We are beings towards death, he says in his extended meditations thereupon. So, this is just a feature of reality which is baked in, something that's immediately present to us as embodied or as kind of enfleshed as kind of enfleshed instances of material creation. So, death is natural in that way. So, what to make of death in answer to the original query is that it's natural. But, you know, to kind of pose an antithesis, there is also a sense in which death is unnatural. And you can think about this philosophically and theologically. I mean, at the philosophical level, we have certain aspirations which seem to go beyond death. Okay, so you think about the fact of our having an intellect and a will, the spiritual powers of the soul. And our intellects are ordered to the truth, universally conceived. Our wills are ordered to

the good, again, universally conceived. So, mind and heart will never be sated by particular or limited instances of the true and the good. So, we have this kind of orientation or tendency to totality, a totality which we never experience wholly in this life. So, it seems like we're driven by a kind of aspiration towards deathlessness, we're driven by a kind of aspiration towards deathlessness, insofar as that deathlessness encompasses an experience of reality which can finally speak to our need for what is universally true or infinitely true, and what is universally good or, again, infinitely good. But I think we get more purchase on this by describing it theologically, and you think about it in terms of God's original plan, which we talk

about in terms of rectitude or original justice. So, it was the case in the beginning for our first parents that their minds, or their higher powers, right, their intellect and will, would have been subordinated to God by the stable presence of grace, that their lower powers would have been subordinated to those higher powers by what St. Thomas calls integral nature, which is to say like the kind of fullness of virtuous life so that we didn't experience conflict at the level of desire in the same way that we do now. So that way you wouldn't be tempted as we are presently to prefer lower goods to higher goods with such a kind of clamorous demand. And then third and finally, and this is the real

pertinent part, our bodies would have been subordinated to our souls by these associated privileges of our original state, which would have included immortality and impassibility. So we would not have died, we would not have suffered corruption. And this is a gift, this third gift, as it were, of original justice or rectitude, which flows from grace, which flows from the life of grace as originally endowed. So yeah, when we forfeit that by original sin, it's lost. And as a result of which, we experience the advent of death or the onset of death as something that could have been otherwise, as something that needn't have been so. And so, death is not part of God's perfect original plan for our flourishing. Rather, he intended it that that original state be communicated to

subsequent generations so that were men and women to have come together in sexual intercourse and begotten, you know, children, that those children, when God infused their souls, would also have infused grace, virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit, you know, these gifts of grace, integral nature, and the associated privileges of immortality and impassibility that come with them. So, we were always intended to have a kind of abiding communion with God, and that is evident in the way in which we were created. So, death dawns upon us, as it were, as a kind of punishment for this original sin. And you can describe that punishment in a variety of senses. And certainly, when you think about it as like something for which we are culpable or something for which one is culpable. It seems unfair that we would be responsible for a sin which anti-dates us by, you know, thousands of

years. But it's, I think, more, I don't know, intelligible if you conceive of it as being left to ourselves. So, by original sin, we are left to ourselves. So, we forfeit those privileges of grace, integral nature, and immortality and impassibility, and we're just left to our nature. But left to our nature in such a way that we have the memory, the kind of theological memory of the way in which we were originally intended to be, like the riches that we have forfeited by our choice. And so, we always have this kind of nostalgia for it, or we have a kind of nagging desire to have it reconstituted in our lives.

So, in that way, death feels profoundly unnatural because our supernatural destiny, which we'll talk about briefly, dictates such that we want to live a life abundant, a life eternal with God in heaven. So, then we'll turn to that point now. So, we've said the sense in which it's natural, the sense in which it is unnatural. What then about the sense in which it is supernatural? And here, we can just cover one aspect of this, and we have to appreciate the fact that Christ has taken our death, has taken human death to himself. So, when the Lord Jesus Christ took human flesh, he did so for the purpose of salvation. But there are certain principles that we observe in the manner of his incarnation which help us to appreciate the saving work that he is about.

And one of those we could call the principle of credibility. So, the Lord takes to himself certain defects of our human condition insofar as they serve the purpose of convincing us as to the truth of his humanity. So, it's not as if the Lord kind of wears a human-shaped cloak about so as simply to masquerade in our flesh, but truth be told, to bring about salvation by other means. Rather, he genuinely, you know, assumes our human condition. And in assuming our human condition, he assumes all the defects associated with sin which don't impede his communication of salvation. So, he hungers and thirsts and experiences fatigue and suffering and ultimately death. And all of these things commend to us the truth of his humanity. But all of these things also become places of encounter, privileged places

of encounter, wherein we meet the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, the incarnate word of God, who came for love of us to save us from the sin whereby we abandoned our original inheritance and left ourselves without recourse to the mercy of God. So Christ himself, you know, makes or takes the initiative in such a way as to draw us back to God. So when the Lord does this or when the Lord chooses this, he makes it such that these privileged places of encounter with him, his hunger, his thirst, his fatigue, his suffering, his death, actually become efficacious for the communication of salvation. Because all of the deeds and sufferings of Christ save. They're not just play acting, right? They're not just a kind of show and dance. They're actually the chosen means whereby the Lord has appointed that salvation be communicated to men and women of all times and places.

So, Christ has truly undergone death. We can even say in a kind of shocking way that God died, insofar as by saying God, we point to the one concrete subject, all right, so the second person of the most blessed trinity, but we refer to him as subsisting in a human nature, which human nature can undergo death. So in this way, we have a kind of hold on or we have a kind of purchase on the fact of gods being in union with us, even in our experiences that are most devastating, most destructive, most desolate indeed. most desolate indeed. And so, what worse experience is there than human death insofar as it represents the termination of all of our aspirations, at least as we know them in this life? But the Lord Jesus Christ inhabits that experience. The Lord Jesus Christ takes human flesh in and through that experience such that it becomes a place wherein we can experience intimacy, we can experience friendship, and what is that but salvation with him, in him,

through him. So, the Lord addresses the mystery of his death to us so that we can be conformed to it, so that we can be assimilated to it. So, now it's possible for us to die in the Lord, to die with the Lord, because not that it ever was, but that experience is not foreign to the Godhead, right? That experience is known, is loved in the Godhead, and it is known and loved in us so that we might be drawn into the Godhead by it. And ultimately, the reason for which we believe, the reason for which we hope, the reason for which we love in the midst of such devastating circumstances is because that we know that it is only by passing by way of death that one can come to experience the fullness of beatific life in God, which is ultimately the horizon of all of our aspirations, the horizon of all of our striving. So, yeah, while it is true to say that death is natural, and while it is true to say, in a different sense, that death is unnatural, it is most true to say, in a different sense, that death can be supernaturalized, provided that it becomes a privileged place of encounter with God, becomes a place in which the grace of God is unleashed in those final moments, those moments, please God, of perseverance, where we come into the fullness of intimacy, friendship, communion with a God who seeks to

save us. So, those are some words about what to make of death. That having been said, let's turn now to answer some questions, and I'll do my best to actually center myself in my frame, because I was reading off some prepared notes and I lost track of where I am. Okay, there we go. Left, right, straight. All right. All right. So, DMT Core, take yourself seriously, Father Gregor. Okay. DMT Core says, let's say drinking alcohol is a mortal sin. I don't say that. If you go to confession wanting to give up alcohol, but you still keep bottles of alcohol at home because you might fall again in sin and drink it. That means a bad confession because you are not fully determined to quit the sin, but because you still keep the objects that make you sin.

So, that's posed in question form, so you should change the intonation of the way in which I read it to reflect that fact. So, contrition entails hatred or sorrow regarding past sins with an efficacious desire to change, right? Just to put it in its most simple terms. And that means avoiding the near occasion of sin. So, if you vow to give up alcohol, or let's just take some other kind of token sin, let's do one that's a little more pressing, like use of pornography for, you know, purpose of masturbation. Now, this is a little bit different in this day and age insofar as pornography is like infinitely available on the internet. But think back to a time, maybe 35 years ago, where you would like buy whatever, like hard copy things for that purpose. So, if you were to swear it off, right, and to confess it with a desire to formulate a

firm purpose of amendment, but you didn't get rid of those things that you use, you know, to commit the sexual sin, then I think that might undermine your resolution. Now, mind you, you could go to confession and have the desire to go right back home and to get rid of all those things, okay, but then falter. Then that may have been a valid confession because at the time of having professed, you may have, you know, kind of basically been on the way, which is what you need in the sacrament of confession. You at least have to have the baseline desire to turn from the things which lead you into

a life of sin, it doesn't mean that you have to have repented perfectly by the time of your confessing. So, the church will say, for instance, that it's sufficient to have attrition or imperfect contrition, and that you can rely upon the sacrament to fill up anything that may be lacking to that. So, I think it's important that we take seriously the call to conversion and the call to remove from one's life those near occasions of sin, the things that pose significant temptations to a kind of relapse, right, or recidivism, to use a kind of technical oldie timey word. you go to confession, because you also rely on the sacrament of confession to make you perfect in an ultimate sense, with the understanding that you will be given any number of days, weeks, months, years on this earth, and that you have the whole of that time to grow in your conversion without deferring it, right? Because the Lord could come in the fourth watch of the

night, right? But with the kind of urgency inspired by the grace which God gives. Here we go. So, GiantsDB1092 says, Hey Father, any advice for a new seminarian? Also in regard to the topic, who are some saints other than Mary that we should ask to intercede for us near death? Thanks for what you're doing with Any advice for a new seminarian? Yes. Pray a holy hour every day. Go to confession every two weeks. Introduce some modicum of penance into your life, and I would recommend fasting in some way on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Study the faith regardless of whether or not it is assigned, and make sure that you have study projects during your breaks at Christmas and over the summer, that you study the faith for at least an hour each day, and that means like theology, not just like light reading, not like Reader's Digest. And then build, cultivate real good friendships among your brothers in seminary, like learn or look for ways by which to share substantively without it becoming precious or kind of tortured or hand-holdy, you know? So smoke cigars, drink beer and whiskey, find ways by which to connect on a more profound level so as to form the relationships that will sustain you throughout the course of your priesthood. Because it's difficult and it's lonely and it can be very sad. So yeah, start there and the Lord will bless you, I have no doubt. Oh yeah, Alexander Winkler, let's go. It's violin time, baby. The question is, high five the pine. How can we live the

spiritual life in a way that the flame does not extinguish and we do not become distracted in prayer or forget to remember constantly God? Short answer is, I don't know. Long answer is just continue to make use of the means that God appoints to the task. So, same things I just mentioned, two, Giants, DB 1092, right? But with a kind of understanding that it is God who gives the grace, God who gives the grace and gives the growth and sees it through to perfection. So, it's not a personal project that we kind of take upon by ourselves and, you know, prove ourselves awesome at by a spirit of kind of like machoism or metaphysical bootstrapping as we attempt to do things on our own steam, but rather the sense of abandonment to the God from whom comes every good gift on

heaven and on earth. Yeah, and with a kind of profound humility or modesty which informs our reception of those gifts. So, I hope that's helpful. Adam Goldberg says, hello, Father. I just made you from somewhere else. Is the little office of the Blessed Virgin Mary a rite? God bless. I think rite can be used in a variety of senses. I mean, it's a kind of extension of the liturgy of the hours. So, I would say it would qualify as a kind of devotion, but it's a devotion that has been used traditionally in religious life and without for many years and has proven efficacious. So, I would say that it's, you know, it's something like the rosary or the Stations of the Cross. So, it's not a rite in the way that baptism is a rite,

but it's a very efficacious devotion. Okay. Here's my question, Father. Is it sinful for men to wear the clothing of women? My sister says that it is not wrong, since clothes do not have gender. I am not sure how to respond. That's a good question. St. Thomas actually asked that question. I've forgotten what he says. I'm just having trouble just focusing right now. I'm forgetting exactly what he says, but I think a general approach is that your outward manifestation should correspond to your inward disposition. So, you think about it in terms of like the virtue of faith, for instance. If you believe, then your profession of the faith should image what it is that you believe. So, if you were to say, I believe in God, but

in these present circumstances in 17th century Japan where the faith is persecuted, I'm just going to step on this image of Christ, because it's not really important, you know, that I say externally what I think internally, because those are just different, right? You know, that seems to me the theory which is proposed or entertained, maybe not espoused at the end of the book's silence. But I think that there has to be a kind of correspondence between interior and exterior. So, of course, one should be on the lookout for hypocrisy, which is a disjunct between the two in which you make yourself out to be better than you in fact are. But in these present circumstances or in the question that you pose, I think it's more so a matter of, yeah, just like observing

custom mores or like tradition of society. And I think now it's difficult to answer that question insofar as custom mores and tradition in society have broken down. But maybe here's a little parallel that helps with respect to your question that I take from religious life. So in religious life, there's this tradition whereby you would avoid so-called singularity because singularity gives rise to admiration or bewilderment. So, like among Dominicans, it's considered virtuous to just kind of blend in. And that's not to say that you set a kind of middling expectation for how, you know, grace-filled or virtuous or gifted people should be and everyone shoots for the middle. But it is to say that, like, you wouldn't wear, you know, those, like, sacrilegious socks which have saints on them and they're really fun and stylish and whatever.

I mean, like, a variety of people who wear them and do so to great effect. But you wouldn't wear that in religious life because, yeah, it'd just be, like, kind of singular. It would just stand out. And then it would become more so a matter of standing out for standing out. So, the idea is a religious habit. There are a variety of ways in which it's useful or helpful. I mean, it's a kind of penance. It's for the purpose of testimony. It certainly reaffirms you are in your own identity. But part of it, too, is to communicate this sense of like we are one of mind and one of heart in the Lord,

and we seek to build up a kind of communion, which in a certain regard is, you know, is bigger than any one individual. So, it's not a matter of kind of carving out a place for yourself or looking to stand out in X, Y, or Z way. It's a matter of just kind of just doing the thing, right? Like, for instance, when I was vested in the habit, you know, so first couple weeks in the novitiate, I would wear those, that Louis de Montfort chain, which signifies your consecration to Mary. And my novice master said, yeah, just consider taking that off. And I was like a little shocked at first because it seemed impious. Like, why would you do fewer devotional things when you could do more devotional things?

But the reason that he gave was, you know, like, you got a habit, and that's enough. And I was impressed by that, you know? You got a habit, and that's enough. I think about this, too, when it comes to, like, naming children. I think a lot of times people are in search of a perfect name, but not only a perfect name, a unique name. I think there's a sense in which, you know, like, conforming to tradition is also a way by which of including a child in something bigger and more beautiful than he or she. Because while you will communicate to your child that your child is uniquely excellent in a way that you are well prepared to recognize and to affirm as a parent, you also want that child to have a patron saint, right, to have beloved, whatever, like great, great grandparents after whom he or she were named and things like that.

It includes them in something. And I think that when we bow to the venerable elements of tradition, custom, mores and things like that, we include ourselves in a living tradition. We include ourselves in an intelligibility that's bigger than any one person. We include ourselves in an intelligibility that's bigger than any one person. And yeah, I suppose my general thoughts about dressing are just that. You know, it's not supposed to be singular. It's supposed to involve you in a culture or tradition in a way by which of conducting human life, which is more broadly reasonable than just the reasons supplied by the individual thinking self.

And the interior and the exterior correspond in a way that's very much incarnate, sensible, sacramental, things like that. So, that is a long answer to a relatively straightforward question, but there you go. Matthew Martinez says, Father Gregory of Pine, how can we know the definition of a God? So, there's certain things that we would reason upon and then certain things that God supplies by revelation. So, by faith and reason. Also, I don't know that we could say that we know a definition of a God because certainly like a robust definition entails some matter of, yeah, like comprehensive knowledge, which we can't have with God, but we can know things that are true about God insofar as we reason to them or they are revealed.

Left, right, left, left, right, left. Hallelujah says, happy nativity of Mary to everyone. Let's go. DMT Core says, we can't hurt God, but Jesus suffered for our sins. So, how our sins affect God and us? We should feel guilty when we sin, even though the sin only affects us. Yeah. I mean, you can wound a relationship insofar as you kind of by mortal sin, uh, banish God from your heart in a certain way. And while that does not hurt God, that represents a kind of injustice, um, and a kind of act

of against charity or a kind of act against charity or a kind of act against faith, which again, while not changing God or affecting God, it somehow detracts from God's glory, which glory ought to kind of reverberate through creation. It's the very purpose for which we are made. Okay. Anne Murphy says, Hi Father, where should I start when beginning to read St. Thomas Aquinas' work? Any recommendations? Hi, Father, where should I start when beginning to read St. Thomas Aquinas' work? Any recommendations? Thank you. Yes, I do have recommendations. I would say you can start with some of these shorter academic sermons, like the Discourses on the Creed, Our Father, Hail Mary, and Ten Commandments. Very approachable. Give you a kind of thumbnail sketch of what St. Thomas thinks about things. And then one of his most approachable,

more systematic works is called the Compendium of Theology, the Compendium Theologiae. And I think that's a good place also to kind of deepen your understanding of what St. Thomas has to say on a variety of topics in a way that's well arranged. So, he was writing it at the end of his life. He didn't finish it, but he finished the entire treatise on faith and started the treatise on hope. So, the treatise on faith is organized according to the creed. So, yeah, it gives you a nice little insight into what St. Thomas thinks. And then from there, I think you can probably move on to the Summa Contra Gentiles and the Summa Theologiae, insofar as those will be most fruitful, and you can, of course, consult philosophical and theological works which give you introduction to St. Thomas and his thought in a way that, yeah, will help you to dive right in. Okay, we've got some super chat action going on, so I'm going to skip down, find it, hope for the best that it doesn't take too long, continue narrating my thoughts on the

matter lest there befall any silence. All right, here we go. Orvin Mendoza says, have the Dominicans ever discussed using their intellectual superpowers on the growing non-religious like Bishop Barron is trying to do? I hear he's considering starting a new order with this focus. Yeah, so, Dominicans do preaching and teaching. That's the wheelhouse. And a lot of the environments in which we find ourselves preaching and teaching are churchy-type environments, so we're preaching to or teaching believers. But I think that we find ourselves more and more in settings where we are encountering non-believers, whether that be in person or by virtual means. And I think that we've found that to be a fruitful engaging or a fruitful ground for engagement. So, I think we're tending in that

direction. As to what will come of it, I don't know, you know. So, things you can look at are the Thomistic Institute, which is based out of Washington, D.C., Thomistic Evolution, which is a project of certain friars of my province, Godsplaining, a podcast to which I contribute with a few Dominican friars. Those would be all apostolates that have arisen in the past 10 years, which have, you know, addressed themselves both to believers and non-believers alike, and I think all to great effect in different registers. So, cheers. All right, I'm going to keep scrolling down because I have another super chat. Jesus, Lord of all creation, just gave $5. So, boom. Love it. All right. Here we go. I'm going to scroll back up to the top. Pick up with Josip Paladin. Cheers to Croatia. Hi, Father. Since

death is the topic, why isn't our intellect or intuition more in tune with the concept of eternity since that is what awaits us? I get we won't be bored, but the feeling of forever is eerie. Yeah. And in answer to that, I would refer you to a conversation that I had with Matt, which is like, holy smokes, like three and a half years ago now. Yeah, but just look. Gregory Pine pints with Aquinas. Will heaven be boring? And that's something. As to why we're not better adjusted to eternity, I think that it's mysterious, right, insofar as it lies on the other side of our present experience,

our present embodied experience, insofar as our minds have been darkened by sin, or kind of by the effect of original sin, which we call ignorance, insofar as we kind of buffer ourselves from that reality, since it's especially difficult to ponder, since death is so terrible a thing. And yeah, for probably other reasons beside, but those are three intros. All right, Mimi H. says, why does God condemn homosexuality? You can go at this from a variety of tacks, but maybe just kind of a natural law argument, a kind of argument that you hear referred to as a perverted faculty argument, namely that sexual intercourse is for procreation and education of children, and that homosexual

intercourse is not ordered to procreation, and as a result of which it is out of step with the natural law, or it contradicts, or it, you know, kind of offends against the natural law. I think if you were to take a more biblical approach, you know, you could do the type of exegesis which St. John Paul II does in the Theology of the Body. There he's addressing more contraception, but you can also kind of get at some of these themes concerning homosexuality from a similar vantage point, but that man and woman were created to be called together in the context of marriage, that that bond is blessed, and that from that bond arises new life, and specifically graced new life. So I think that those are the types of considerations which would orient a discussion about homosexuality.

Boom. Maximilian M. Kegiel says, If you confess that you committed a mortal sin without knowing 100% that you committed that sin, is the confession invalid? No. I think it's fine to be safe, to kind of err on the side of caution, and to confess, even if you're not 100% certain that the thing in fact was mortal. if you're not 100% certain that the thing in fact was mortal. So, it's not, it wouldn't be so much a matter of exaggerating as it would be of just kind of covering your bases. So, I think you can say it and just say just as much to the priest if it makes you nervous otherwise. All right, here we go. James Joseph says, Father Pine, can you explain what is the meaning of Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit,

praising Mary? Blessed is the fruit of thy womb. How can she say blessed is Jesus? So, blessed, like, I mean, there, I'm not exactly what the word is in Greek. I know that, yeah, like a lot of words regarding blessing stem from the word for grace, charis, you know, and so like having been graced is the way in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is addressed by the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation. So, I think the sense in which the Lord is blessed is that the Lord, I mean, the Lord has grace in spades, and so far he has the grace of union, that grace which unites his human nature to his

divine person. Habitual grace, right? The grace, the quasi-infinite grace, which floods his soul and all of his faculties. And then capital grace, that grace which flows into the life of the church. So, insofar as the Lord is graced, we would describe his state as blessed and the Virgin Mary is the one who, yeah, conceived him. There's some hullabaloo going on outside my door. If you can hear that, my sincere apologies. Or brouhaha. Okay, here we go. Jonathan says, when asking saints slash those on earth to pray for you, it often feels like I'm going behind God's back, like he would ordinarily say no. So ask Mary, because it would be harder to say no to her or ask friends, family, cause maybe their prayers slash, here we go, more prayers will be more

effective. Not the same, but similar to asking a certain parent because they're more likely to say yes. What are your thoughts? I think oftentimes we have this experience where we're like nervous to ask somebody or go behind their back, but then we discover that the person whom we were nervous to ask or behind whose back we were going would actually have been delighted to grant the request, but we just got so bound up with anxiety that we failed, you know, to address or acknowledge that fact. I think your example may be an instance of that. So, the reason that we can ask Mary or the other saints or people on earth or whomever is because God has appointed it to be such. God wants us to do that

because he delights to give grace by those means. Because while he could do it directly, he likes to do it through intermediaries because it makes those intermediaries more like him, God, the giver of grace, so that we're not just all passive recipients of grace, but that we become agents in the giving of grace and in the communication of salvation. So, it turns out the reason that you want to ask Mary is because God desires that it be so. Boom. Okay. All right, scanning through for the next question. So, Mark Dilworth asks, why are Anglican and Protestant orders not valid? So, I've read the document with respect to Anglican orders, and the basic idea is this.

Even if you still have validly ordained bishops performing the ordination with apostolic succession, in the case of the Anglican communion, the understanding of the Eucharist has been perverted or changed, right? And as a result of which, the priesthood, which is oriented to the sacrifice of the mass and the confection of the Eucharist, changes in turn. So, even if it were a validly ordained prelate, you know, who was the one ordaining, he does so without proper intention. you know, who was the one ordaining. He does so without proper intention. So, he does so not intending what the church intends by the sacrament of ordination insofar as it is not intended for the sacrifice of the Mass, the ministry of the Eucharist. That's the basic argument. There are other arguments along the same lines. Becky Dirks, Father, any last-minute advice slash encouragement for someone entering the monastery in a few days thanks for all you do

yes my encouragement will be this that you may in fact find your first months or years to be very difficult that doesn't mean that it's not for you so people will try to take your spiritual temperature and determine whether or not you are in the life for you I I wouldn't base it off happiness. I would base it off a metaphysical

sense of fit. So, you will be beaten up, but if God gives the grace, you will have a kind of confidence that God has given you the grace, and you will be able to follow that grace unto the destiny towards which it tends. So, don't base it so much on, you know, like present joy or even fleeting happiness. Base it off a sense of whether or not this is the thing for which you have been made. And I think that you could kind of just like, after a bit, stop discerning and just live. And God will make it abundantly evident to you if this is not the thing for you. But it's not really for you to quote unquote discern that or suss it out. God will make it known. Boom. Dude, greetings from Manila. Love it. All right. Shelly Salasalem

says, hello, Father Pine. Should we always pray on our knees when possible? I remember reading something about our blessed mother saying this to St. Margaret Mary. Thank you and God bless. My answer to this is no. Pray however you darn well please, provided you can pay attention or intend the prayer and pay attention, and you find it to be sustainable, supportable, you know, good in fact. So, yeah, I think praying on your knees is good insofar as it makes manifest an interior devotion and it helps you to stay focused and awake. But on its own terms, it's not necessarily better. All right, saw some super chats go in.

So I'm going to scroll wildly with reckless abandon and just hope for the best. All right, here we go. Christopher Joseph says, Is a fleeting thought of envy a mortal sin? No, it needs to be consented to in some way. All right. I saw another one. And let's see if I can find it.

Love it. Dude. Jesus, Lord of all creation, is just bopping in. All right. Now I'm going to try to scroll to the back of the top and hope that I can find something approaching like the spot where I left off. Such hullabaloo. Such brouhaha.

Okay. Here we go. Oh, gosh. All right, here we go. Hi, Father Gregory. What do we make of seemingly harsh language in Corinthians about women staying silent at church meetings? Short answer is I don't know. The question is, like, what if that pertains to the cultural time, and what if that pertains to, like, the universal body of divine revelation? And in partial answer to that question, I would refer you to a live stream that I did two weeks ago on this channel called Headship of Christ, Headship of Adam, which kind of gets at an understanding of marriage based on an understanding of how Christ relates to his church. So, yeah, I mean, we can all think of ways in which women contribute to the liturgical

assembly, non-ordained ways, right? Whether that be in the singing of sacred music, you know, like chant or polyphony or hymnody or the proclamation of the word in the capacity of a lector. So, yeah, I don't have a good answer to that, but I would refer you to that live stream from two weeks ago. Zip. All right. One, what, three, who's, groovy, sweet answers, Mary's birthday. Let's go. All right. Father Pine, I was curious on what you think are some of the books all Catholics need to read, whether it be biographies of saints, apologetics, anything else. Thank you. Yeah.

I mean, I can think of a lot of things by which to answer this question. Maybe just to take a couple of Barnabas, etc. I think those are good things to read. Oh, some of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Read that. The Confessions of St. Augustine. I would read that. Augustine. I would read that. Maybe skipping ahead a little bit among who else are like kind of go-to wheelhouse, you know, like some of these early patristic commentaries on the gospel,

I think you find very fruitful. Chrysostom on Matthew, I find very beautiful. Augustine on John and 1 John, I also find very beautiful. Those would be good little samplings. And 1 John, I also find very beautiful. Those would be good little samplings. Gregory Ambrose. Athanasius on the Incarnation of the Word, I think is a kind of classic that ought to be read as far as it's kind of just like wheelhouse Catholicism. Among medieval authors, yeah, these things aren't necessarily like things that one has to read. Pseudodionysia's Divine Names is a kind of classic treatise that deeply influences the subsequent tradition.

St. Thomas Aquinas' Theme of Theologiae, I think that most Christians would benefit from some reading of that text. When you get to other classics of spirituality, I'm deeply indebted to the introduction to The Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales, to certain classics of Carmelite spirituality, the one that I love the most is Story of a Soul. At this point, I'm kind of getting into wild list fashion, so that's like 10. But yeah, if you send an email to Matt, he can forward it to me, and I can send you a list of like 25 books. Boom. All right. If you send an email to Matt, he can forward it to me, and I can send you a list of like 25 books. Boom. All right. Happy Nativity.

Father Gregory, have you ever read the Evergatinos? No, I have not. I don't even know what that is. My apologies. So, best Catholic sources slash writings to understand the relationship between human free will and divine providence. Prayers for you. Thank you. I would recommend Gary Lagrange's Providence and then Gary Lagrange's Predestination. Those are the ones that have most kind of shaped me, by which I've been most helped. Elijah Halbert says, what is wrong with Occam's philosophy and

theology? For this, I would recommend that you read Sources of Christian Ethics by Cervais Pincares. That is the one in which he describes a kind of evolution afoot in moral theology throughout the late Middle Ages and into the modern period. So that's a good introduction to what he thinks is especially destructive in the thought of William of Ockham. I've really only read that on it, and then the idea of natural rights by Brian Tierney and some articles apropos thereof. So, a lot of people will take issue on the kind of logical metaphysical side with his understanding of universals, nominalism being this kind of sense that there's no inherent connection among types of things. So like this is a dog and that is a dog, but what do they have in common?

There's no real dogness to speak of, even as an instantiated form. The problem with that is that it ends up kind of drifting towards a quasi-unintelligibility, and it makes it really difficult to explain how we know. On the side of divine attributes, you hear it said that, you know, like Occam is a voluntarist. So, the things, the state of affairs that we observe are because God has chosen it so, but that chosen it so isn't informed by the divine wisdom in the way in which you would find with other authors like St. Thomas Aquinas. So, like Occam will say things like God could command us to hate him. And in those instances or in that case, it would be morally praiseworthy to hate God. So, those are just a couple of small things. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. All right, here we go. Pro-justice. What do you...

Get it on the screen, Father Gregory. What do you do if you don't have access to confession? get it on the screen, Father Gregory. What do you do if you don't have access to confession? I would say you find ways to get access to confession. If there are insuperable obstacles to you getting to confession, then you would make, you know, your best efforts at perhaps a daily examine, followed by, what do you call that, stammering, an act of contrition, and that you would, yeah, make serious attempts to avail yourself of the grace of the sacrament. So, like, just insofar as you can make a kind of spiritual communion, so you might practice a kind of spiritual confession, as it were, but with this kind of movement towards or tendency towards the real deal, with the understanding that just as

soon as it becomes possible for you to go to confession, you will. All right, Luis Rendon says, hey, Father, how do we be charitable to certain Protestants who attack our faith and not let the bitter root of resentment grow within us? That's a great question. My go-to is pray at the beginning of your conversations insofar as you can without making the encounter too terribly fraught, and then try to always seek common ground before arguing. So, I don't think it does anyone any good to just get into a substantive point without encounter too terribly fraught and then try to always seek common ground before arguing so i don't think it does anyone any good to just get into a substantive point without establishing authorities or without establishing the things on which you agree because i think that you're you're just going to find yourself in an intractable dispute whilst getting angry and not accomplishing

much if you launch right in more hullabaloo outside and brouhaha. Okay. Okay. All right. Some wild stuff going on here. Cruising. All right. Here we go. Father, you mentioned in conversation with Matt that when you are out in public in your habit, many people look on you in a very negative way. Can you tell us about some positive encounters? Yeah, sure. What are some recent positive encounters whilst wearing a habit? I think that like, you know, just kind of simple things is you get a smile, which people are smiling at you not because, you know, they know you or not because they want to impress upon you how smiley they can be. But they're smiling at you because you represent God to them in a certain way.

And I think that's, yeah, that's a great gift and a great privilege when those occasions do arise. I was just walking through the parking lot today of a grocery store, and I saw my high school English teacher, my 11th grade English teacher, who would not have recognized me unless I were wearing a habit because it was at a distance. So it makes you more recognizable in a way that typically leads to conversations of a delightful sort. I was walking through the Cincinnati airport the other day and somebody was like, wait a second, are you a Dominican? Do you know the friars at St. Gertrude's in Cincinnati? And I was like, yes, I do. Yes, I do indeed. I lived there for a year. So I think that those are simple and good.

I've had an experience. I mean, like one of the more fruitful encounters that I had was I was seated in seat D and the couple sitting in seats A and B, kind of like, this is a Frontier Airlines flight, by the way, they kind of called over the lady in seat C and said, you know, like, what are you or what's the deal? And I started explaining to them. We got in a little bit of conversation. Then eventually the woman in seat C said, my father just came out as homosexual and moved in with his gay lover and abandoned my mother. Like, what do you make of that? And then we subsequently had like a long conversation, maybe like an hour and a half, talking about that. Started with the Trinity, you know, worked our way through creation, the life of grace, the incarnation, Christ's sacrifice, love, you love, married love, the context for

which. And it was just really wonderful, really beautiful. I just had a conversation with a guy on my way back to the United States this past Friday, who sat next to me. And at first, we were just kind of like joking about the intonation of the stewardess who was speaking intonation of the stewardess who was speaking Schweizerdeutsch, which is always hilarious. Yeah, but soon we got into questions of metaphysics and the common currents and religious traditions. And the guy gave me his card, which I still have to email him. But yeah, he said in the course of the conversation, like, I really like talking about these things, but it's really lonely for me because I don't know of anyone with whom I can talk about it. And he's not Christian. You know, I think he was probably raised in a Christian setting, but he's kind of like more broadly

spiritualist. But we had, I mean, we might've talked for like an hour and a half, two hours. And you could tell that he was really energized by the conversation. You know, like for my part, it was great. It was great to talk to him. So, those would be some small things. Thank you for that question. It is humanizing, lest I devolve into becoming a question-answering robot. All right, here we go. Matthew Devis says, Hi, Father. I've been thinking a lot about entering the seminary. I've been thinking a lot about brushing my hair. Holy smokes. But I also don't want to have to give up the possibility of starting a family. Are there cases where God allows one to choose their own vocation? Would it be okay if I chose to become a priest or to have a family? Yep, do whatever. Do either. Both are good.

And I think that's the main point, that you're genuinely free. The Lord gives you what you need to make solid free choices and to abide by the consequences thereof. Because ultimately the point is to become, you know, to grow in the life of grace, virtue, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and to give unique and manifest expression of God's glory. You could do that in either state. So, I would say that the default position is to get married. And if you find, you know, in your relationships that God keeps ruining them and bringing thoughts of the priesthood back, then it's worth worth looking at but you don't have to just do the priesthood because it's harder or better you would do it because God made

it manifestly evident to you that that such was his will but otherwise yeah go for it all right so raise you goal says similar to the way that demons can possess people has it ever been documented or is it possible that an angel could possess someone? What would the reason be? I have no idea. I haven't heard of that. So, yeah. I've got nothing for you.

Sorry, guy. Oh, nice. Dude, hallelujah. Just killing it. Answering questions better than me. Are trousers milk? These are wild. Billy, who cuts your hair?

Check this out. I cut it myself. So that accounts for some of its erratic nature. Oh, my gosh. Pro-justice. I'm putting this on the screen because God bless you for asking. Question, what's romance life like for religious? Non-existent.

Here we go. It's still too hard to die early, even knowing Jesus went through death early. That is true. Yep. Which is why I think it's true to say that death is, on the one hand, natural. On the one hand, on the other hand, unnatural. And truer still, it can be supernaturalized. But that doesn't make it necessarily desirable for all of the conflictual reasons, which we

entertained. Um, all right. Uh, dude, killing it. Um, oh man. Nice. All right, here we go. Justin Dominick says, if God is life eternal, what is our greatest encounter with God have to be through death? Thanks. Yeah, so death is just a bodily death, right? And then our souls begin to participate in a kind of limited fashion in the eternity of God, and that we are to be reunited with our bodies. So, obviously, death is not the last word, and I think that our being assimilated to God, who is life eternal, helps us to account for why that is so. So, that's a good question.

He's got some sweet back and forth on pants wearing. This is incredible. Um, oh my gosh. Um, all right. Google account, dude, what a modest name. Uh, fathers, is it okay to strive to a deep spiritual life of prayer, even though I don't really understand most church theology as I'm honestly quite stupid? I doubt that you're quite stupid. And yes, God can teach you very profound things, even without a formal education. And maybe that'd be a reason for pursuing it, but it's not the only reason. Obviously, the reason for pursuing a life of prayer is pursuing the Lord. And love of the Lord is mediated through knowledge of the Lord, but the Lord will give you what you need in order to love him as he has predestined you to do. So keep killing it.

All right. All right. Forest Eagle says, man, look at that eagle. Impressive icon. If blood is what constitutes as life of the flesh, does this mean that the word that became flesh was the blood of the flesh? The divine has no blood. How can blood be savior? Yeah, so I would say that those two things are working in different registers.

So when he says that life of the flesh is in the blood, that's a kind of Hebrew way by which of explaining that living things are given to live by God, and to God alone pertains the, like, rule over life and death. And then when it says that the Lord became flesh, I mean, he had flesh and blood, which pertain to his human nature, and the human nature does not change the divine nature, but rather is related to that divine nature. Okie dokie. I have answered that question. nature? Okie dokie. I have answered that question. All right, here we go. All right. I've never come to grips with the concept that we have to go through the test called life to qualify for heaven. I would not so much think about it as a test as think about it as a kind of preparation or think about it as a progressive assimilation or progressive acclimatization. The idea is that we make it to our end by many movements, that we are just the type of creature that does such. And as a result of which, God will afford us the scope for doing so well,

gloriously, and unto beatific life. So, yes, I saw a super chat come in. Now I'm going to scroll wildly like I've never scrolled before. Is it worth getting a degree? There we go. Is it worth getting a degree in theology if it's purely to gain knowledge? Am I better off studying on my own? No, I think it's good to get a degree. I think academia still has a role, a place in contemporary society for ensuring the quality of an education. Unfortunately, it's not just like a degree in theology that any old place will do.

I think you have to shop for a good place, but provided that you find a good place and take classes with good professors, then you'd be really well served by just such a kind of study. And I can recommend the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., where I studied, is available as a place to pursue a master's in theology over the course of two years, and you can get a great Thomistic formation there. That, my friends, is my little, what do you call those things? Advertisement. Public service announcement thing, word, yada, yada. All right, scroll, scroll, the button, the button. I like it when you scroll like the butter

on the muffin. All right, here we go. Um, oh my gosh, I'll never find the place where I was ever again. It's over. It's over. Oh my gosh. We're going to do it. I got this. No, I don't got this. Evidently I failed to get this. All right. I'm just going to start randomly picking questions. Um, he says, and then continues scrolling because he's just so OCD that he can't do otherwise. Okay. Jesus, Lord of all creation, what is the line between making the world a better place, eliminating suffering, prolonging life versus accepting mortality? What will be, will be, and only God can achieve what we all desire. I think that that's, honestly, that's like super circumstance specific. And it's a decision that a lot of families have to make, you know, when it comes

to moving from, you know, like aggressively pursuing health to like hospice care, for instance. But I think that God gives us to know, and I think that it's good to avail ourselves of modern means of medicine. We don't want to be like cranky or like Luddite in our sensibilities. Just because it's new doesn't mean it's bad. And in fact, it can be very good. But then there becomes a kind of tendency towards death denial or clinging to life in a spirit of, I don't know, even despair about what awaits us on the other side. So, I mean, it's like a kind of virtuous mean. You don't want to be cavalier, throwing away your life by not availing yourself of medical means nor do you want to be

yeah mistrustful I suppose of the promises of God in such a way that you forestall the advent of death by means more extraordinary than may in fact be called for in the circumstances so that's a good question um

uh huh uh huh uh huh So that's a good question. Nice, dude. I have a meeting with one today. Dominicans, let's go. All right, people are encouraging each other to like this video. Respect. Hallelujah is just killing it in chat moderation. Hallelujah is top notch.

Top notch live stream moderation. All right, this will be the last question. Given that God is not constrained by time and the Eucharist is the same sacrifice that Christ made 2,000 years ago, does this mean that the sins we commit today increase Christ's suffering? Yes. They do, which is a terrible thing or a terrible thought, but not without its solace insofar as even in those sins you are seen, you are known, you are loved by God who took them to the cross for love of you and saw fit to quench those flames by the infinite tide of his mercy. So, increase with respect to how they could have been, but not increase in the sense of they're constantly mounting because Christ no longer

suffers. Christ is glorious in heaven. All right, folks, that is it for now. Please, if you have not yet, like this here video, or if you didn't like it, then dislike it. And then, if you haven't yet subscribed to the channel, please do subscribe to the channel and press the bell so you can be alerted as to future live streams. Also, if you haven't yet checked out God Splitting, do it to it because it's sweet action and it's getting better and better. And I'm actually really proud of the product. So we have twice monthly guests and twice monthly live streams. The next live stream is this Friday at 3 p.m. You'll see two of my brothers there,

so there are five of us who contribute to the podcast. And yeah, also sweet weekly episodes that drop on Thursdays. You'll see them on YouTube or on any podcast app about all things Catholic. It's kind of like a sweet Catholic miscellany, always casting a contemplative gaze on those things which fill or inform our lives. So, love for you and prayers. Please pray for me, and I will catch you next time. I'm Ponce with Aquinas. Let's go!