Dear Ben,<\/p>\n
Your namesake would not be happy with you.\u00a0 Just because it\u2019s \u201cnatural\u201d to feel certain urges doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s healthy to follow them.\u00a0 Please pause for a minute and think about it.\u00a0 Every sin begins with some kind of an urge \u2013 for pleasure, for recognition, for comfort, for power, for success, or for whatever.\u00a0 These are all natural desires for things that are in themselves, perhaps, fine.\u00a0 But it is possible to desire good things too much, more than we are meant to desire them.\u00a0 All these created things, all these things that are not God, are given to use as means to an end, the end being a life in communion with God.\u00a0 Sin turns these means into ends; it unleashes our desires so they get out of control, so that we pursue them regardless of the higher, moral law that indicates how much of each of these good things is actually good for us.\u00a0 So just because you experience a natural desire doesn\u2019t mean you are therefore justified in acting it out contrary to the equally natural parameters that keep us humans from becoming like animals.\u00a0 Maybe the example of today\u2019s saint will help clarify things.<\/p>\n
Benedict appeared to be a typical son of sixth-century Italian nobility.\u00a0 Sent with his nurse to Rome in order to get an education, he was appalled by the moral and religious laxity all around him.\u00a0 His fellow students caroused in every way and left their faith (those who had any faith to begin with) to wither for neglect or perish for pagan atrocities.\u00a0 The deplorable behavior of Rome\u2019s youth reflected the general disarray that had spread throughout the western Empire since the first waves of barbarians sacked the Eternal City.\u00a0 Schisms, war, plague, and heathen comebacks afflicted a civilization that seemed to teeter on the verge of implosion (sound familiar?\u2026).<\/p>\n
By the grace of God, Benedict was not drawn in.\u00a0 He left Rome and his aristocratic future behind and made his way to an isolated cave on a mountain called Subiaco.\u00a0 There he lived in austerity and solitude, battling temptation and filling his soul with divine light for three years, coached in the spiritual life and materially aided by a veteran hermit named Romanus.\u00a0 Once discovered, he began to receive numerous visitors seeking the benefit of his wisdom and his miracles (which were also numerous).\u00a0 Then the disciples started trickling in, and he began the project that Providence had assigned him: the creation of a rule of life that would enable monasticism to spread throughout Europe, providing Christianity and western civilization with fertile ground not only to maintain the greatness of its past, but to grow a vast new garden of holiness, culture, and prosperity.<\/p>\n
Benedict could have considered it natural to desire the pleasures of the aristocracy, but he recognized that what the aristocracy considered OK in the realms of pleasure and power was not OK in the eyes of God.\u00a0 It\u2019s an important distinction.\u00a0 Remember our Lord\u2019s warning: \u201cHow is a man the better for it, if he gains the whole world at the cost of losing his own soul?\u00a0 For a man\u2019s soul, what price can be high enough?\u201d (Matthew 16:26)\u00a0 I hope I\u2019ve made myself clear.<\/p>\n
Your loving uncle,<\/p>\n
Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Ben, Your namesake would not be happy with you.\u00a0 Just because it\u2019s \u201cnatural\u201d to feel certain urges doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s healthy to follow them.\u00a0 Please pause for a minute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n