Building a Spiritual Second Floor without a Foundation

Psychology and spirituality are related as are their root words from the Greek Psyche and Pneuma – meaning soul and spirit. Both being integral to human nature, good psychology leads to healthy spirituality. Since our society has been mired in a culture of death that has now moved into an age of insanity – with Catholics sharing in the mass confusion – it seems pretty evident the Church, or rather leaders within the Church, have taken a wrong and deadly turn by listening to pop psychologists. To save civilization, this must be rectified.

Every good parent (and good authority figure in general) spells out clearly to his chidren what the boundaries are.  Analogously, when children know the acceptable area on which they can play, they then may be free to play to their heart’s content. The fence around the yard keeps them safe from danger.

This is what the forbidden tree in Eden signified. It was coupled with the charitable warning “If you eat from it you shall surely die.” With the exception of this boundary, the first humans had the entire garden paradise at their disposal to enjoy.

One major reason post-Vatican II Catholics have suffered so much confusion is that many leaders listened to the pop psychologists who claimed fear rather than love (as if they’re mutually exclusive) is a detriment to the psyche. Hence, catechesis and homilies stopped imparting holy fear (the ‘beginning’ of wisdom) of offending God by violating the legitimate boundaries of human nature, and maintained a deafening silence on sin and hell. The appeal to love without definition, especially for the spiritually immature, was the cause of great confusion and pain, leading many into the great fog of subjectivism to define sin according to their feelings and concupiscence-formed comfort zone. A skewed “follow your conscience” principle became mantra of the age, interpreted by many as ‘be nice’ and do what you ‘feel’ is right. An inevitable “everybody goes to heaven” mentality followed, replacing the sober meditation on the Four Last Things.

There have been many attempts at fixing this fatal approach to religiosity of the past half century, an approach that began with good intentions: Too many pre-Vatican II Catholics were obedient to the rituals but maintained a disconnect between their faith and how they lived. The REAL spirit of Vatican II wanted to close that gap by encouraging the laity to own their faith. It worked for some who grew beautifully in their faith, but many others are still finding their way out of the sin-infested woods of confusion in the modern world. Healthy formation must begin with defining good and evil and truth from falsehood – all of which emanate from the eternal essence of God. And it must include the consequences of our personal choices, temporal and eternal. This eternal persepctive is the necessary foundation BEFORE a mature faith can grow to know how to properly love God and neighbor.

As Scripture warns us, you can’t build a house on sand. You can’t love God and neighbor without knowing what love means objectively. This requires catechesis that imparts a great fear of offending God – who is all good and deserving of all our love, and whose consequences is eternal separation from Him in Hell. It is good psychology to recognize holy fear evolves into love with maturity. But to begin with love leaves you with neither.

Thanks be to God that Christ left His Church with the intellectual and spiritual mechanisms for His Spirit to right the Ship – which is the Noah’s Ark of the New Covenant moving through the stormy waters of the world. Love without truth is reduced to pure sentiment. With this understaning, deviancy can be defined as love, as per all the "love is love" signage. if followed and practiced (and legitimized, as we see today), this leads to the destruction of souls.

Own your faith, yes; that's extremely important. But first know it. Otherwise you’re owning a delusion that will bring you down, and others with you.