Train the Monkeys

Strategy 2: TRAIN them. Pray at the same time every day so your body and mind learn the routine. Just as your body gets hungry at regular mealtimes, it will learn to "get prayerful" at regular prayer times. Consistency trains the monkeys. Also: limit social media and noise consumption throughout the day — this reduces the monkeys' food supply. (Ep 603, 554, 587)

Catechism sources (PD) teaches:

God's justice by Christ's sufferings and death, and the gaining of grace for men. An effect is that which is caused by something else.

(Source: baltimore_catechism.txt)

St. Thomas Aquinas teaches:

We must recollect too that men receive honor themselves from the witness which they bear to God. He deprives the Prophetical choir of immeasurable honor, whoever denies that it was their office to bear witness to Christ.

(Source: catena_aurea_john.txt)

Doctrinal Foundation

T4.G.010 (Sententia communis (common teaching)): Prayer is a necessary means of salvation for adults. God grants the grace of perseverance to those who pray for it perseveringly. Without prayer, the necessary graces for salvation will not ordinarily be received.

• Scripture: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.

• Fathers: He who prays well, lives well. He who lives well, dies well. He who dies well, all is well.

From the Sources

St. Thomas Aquinas (catena_aurea_john.txt):

We must recollect too that men receive honor themselves from the witness which they bear to God. He deprives the Prophetical choir of immeasurable honor, whoever denies that it was their office to bear witness to Christ. John when he comes to bear witness to the light, follows in the train of those who went before him. CHRYS. Not because the light wanted the testimony, but for the reason which John himself self gives, viz. that all might believe on Him. For as He put on flesh to save all men.

St. Thomas Aquinas (catena_aurea_john.txt):

Or take this explanation: The Jews were influenced by a kind of human sympathy for John, whom they were reluctant to see made subordinate to Christ, on account of the many marks of greatness about him; his illustrious descent in the first place, he being the son of a chief priest; in the next, his hard training, and his contempt of the world. Whereas in Christ the contrary were apparent; a humble birth, for which they reproach Him; Is not this the carpenter’s son? an ordinary way of living;.

St. Teresa of Avila (book_of_foundations.txt):

He was, unhappily, fully persuaded that right and justice were wholly with the friars of the mitigation, and that Fray Jerome and S. Teresa were rebellious subjects in need of restraint and correction.

Additional Sources

St. John of the Cross (ascent_of_mount_carmel.txt):

III. A reaction set in after the death of S. Simon Stock (1265). His successor, Nicholas Gallicus, was undoubtedly one of those who had received their religious training on Mount Carmel, and who were by no means in favour of active work. He resigned his office of General in A.B.

4 THE DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM

St. John of the Cross (ascent_of_mount_carmel.txt):

John had a great advantage over S. Teresa, who at every step was con- fronted with problems the solution of which she had to seek from her friends, especially those of the Dominican Order. The trained mind of S. John ensured also a more methodical treatment of his subject instead of the frequent and sometimes tedious interruptions so prominent in S.

St. Francis de Sales (03_catholic_controversy.txt):

Eoman, just exactly as it is at present ? There was certainly no other, therefore it was the true Church — and yet it erred ; or there was no Church in the world — and in that case asfain he is constrained to confess that this disappearance of the Church arose from in- tolerable error, and error in things necessary for salva- tion.

St. Francis de Sales (03_catholic_controversy.txt):

Why do you not rather declare, says Luther, that it is the confession of faith whicli Peter had made ? But in good truth it is an ill way of interpreting Scripture to overturn one passage by another, or to strain it by a forced interpretation to a strange and unbecoming sense. We must leave to it as far as possible the naturalness and sweetness of the sense which belongs to it.

St. Ignatius of Loyola (autobiography_oconor_1900.txt):

This difference he did not notice or value, until one day the eyes of his soul were opened and he began to inquire the reason of the difference. He learned by experience that one train of thought left him sad, the other joyful. This was his first reasoning on spiritual matters.

St. Ignatius of Loyola (autobiography_oconor_1900.txt):

He was firmly convinced, both then and afterward, that God had treated him thus because it was the better spiritual training for him. The five following points will prove what he says:-- In the first place, he had a great devotion to the Blessed Trinity.

Church Fathers (Confessiones_english.txt):

1) for presuming to speak of questions which divided the Arians and the Orthodox as “unimportant,” while he himself was both unbaptized and uninstructed. On the postponing of baptism with a view to unrestrained enjoyment of the world, and on the severity of the early Church towards sins committed after baptism, see Kaye’s Tertullian, pp. 234–241.

Church Fathers (Confessiones_english.txt):

From this it is sufficiently clear that a free curiosity hath more influence in our learning these things than a necessity full of fear.

Catechism sources (PD) (baltimore_catechism.txt):

God's justice by Christ's sufferings and death, and the gaining of grace for men. An effect is that which is caused by something else. If you place a danger signal on a broken railroad track the effect will be preventing the wreck of the train, and the cause will be your placing the signal.

Catechism sources (PD) (baltimore_catechism.txt):

Mass on that day. "Good of our neighbor"--such as reconstructing a broken bridge that must be used every day; or clearing away obstacles after a railroad accident, that trains may not be delayed. "Necessity"--firemen endeavoring to extinguish a fire, sailors working on a ship at sea, etc.

Lesson 33 FROM THE FOURTH TO THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT

361 Q. What is the Fourth Commandment?