Fr Ripperger is a great genius of our time. I know he would dismiss this, but the fact remains.
In this talk (embedded below) he discusses why you should actually strive for the good life:
“Aristotle said – the reason we develop virtue is because once we have the good habits, the moral life becomes easier. In addition to making us good through that process it also makes things a lot easier.”
Then he mentions one of the great goals (if not the greatest) of spiritual life:
“In order to enter the visible contemplation you can’t be neglecting God. You can’t reach the Transforming Union which is a constant mystical contemplation of God while still fulfilling your duties. You can’t do that without prior habits. And that comes through recollection. Recollection – constantly remembering God. Constantly coming back to God. The habit of always keeping your focus on God. Little prayers said throughout the day.”
So many times in life we wonder, what is the goal, what are we striving for? Money, fame, pleasure? The answer is none of those. It is interesting that what society holds up as the great goals of life are truly irrelevant. We are striving for the Transforming Union – “Constant mystical contemplation of God while still fulfilling your duties.” Now you know. The way to get there (I believe) is through the 9 levels of prayer.
Below are the full notes I took from Fr. Ripperger’s talk on The Rule of Life. I couldn’t get the formatting for the numbers to work so I just posted it all. All words are Fr. Ripperger’s:
Aristotle – the reason we develop virtue is because once we have the good habits, the moral life becomes easier. In addition to making us good through that process it also makes things a lot easier.
Rule of life
Any criteria or rule you use to lead your life. A series of things you use in order to determine how you are going to proceed in your spiritual growth, development, overcoming defects etc.
Its good to have a rule of life because it gives you focus and direction. Convents and monasteries have codes of conducts – this is how we are going to pursue virtue and holiness.
Parts of the rule of life
1 – Must take into consideration any private vows you are under. Consecration to Our Lady is a form of private vow.
2 – Regimen – an Horarium (Latin word meaning “the hours”. – Defines what you going to do during certain times of the day. Consistently engaging in a particular series of activities each day in the same way.
Why a regimen? There are certain things we just want to do. We don’t want to tie up our free time. They want to feed their appetites. This means they have basically dedicated their life to spiritual dissipation because they don’t want to do the ardor and grind of becoming perfect because that means you gotta give up even that little thing. You should be committing yourself to a regimen to overcome spiritual dissipation and get a consistency in your prayer life and in your spiritual reading. Consistent sleep – our prayer is more consistent, its less distracted, our spiritual warfare is easier.
1 – Prayer proscription (prayer life). Consistency in the prayer life.
Morning offering
6 am – Angelus
Rosary
15m of meditation
Spiritual reading – even just 5 minutes
Mass
12 pm – Angelus
6 pm – Angelus
Before bed – Examination of Conscience.
Compline.
In order to enter the visible contemplation you can’t be neglecting God. You can’t reach the Transforming Union which is a constant mystical contemplation of God while still fulfilling your duties. You can’t do that without prior habits. And that comes through recollection.
Recollection – constantly remembering God. Constantly coming back to God.
The habit of always keeping your focus on God. Little prayers said throughout the day. Maybe on the hour.
2 – Go to bed and get up at a specific time. Your day is very consistent so that you develop the habits that makes the spiritual life easier.
There are 2 reasons why the spiritual life advances then it pans out.
1 – Dissipation – they get distracted by worldly considerations.
2 – Not a consistency in the prayer life.
3 – What are you going to do to root out your defects?
Need a systematic approach.
A little prayer to the Lord – help me to be more truthful. (if you want to quit lying, for instance).
4 – The building of virtue. Not just the consistency of life that comes through a regimen. But the perfecting of specific virtues in your life. Choosing a specific virtue and working on that.
If we’re not regimented and structured in our spiritual life we will not achieve habituated virtue. It is through the structure that we end up becoming habituated.
You’re not going to be consistent in your spiritual life, you’re not going to advance until there’s a dying to self in relationship to just doing whatever you want to do when you want to do it.
Questions from the Audience
How to find a spiritual director?
Once you reach the prayer of simplicity to make the transition to the passive purgation you are going to need a spiritual director.
Examples of private vows?
Private vows – can be for a short time. Prefer to do it for a positive thing.
Chastity
Any virtue – charity
Fasting, abstinence
How long should the family pray together?
15-30 minutes a day for family prayer
What you want your children to develop by 18 years old
“Get them to develop virtue. The goal is to get them totally self sufficient without any imput of your own (the parents) at the age of 18.
By the time a guy reaches 18 he should be on his feet in his masculinity, in his virtue and in his catholicity to where he can assume all of the obligations of marriage at that age.
When they are young – up to 6 years old, youre setting up training for the kid. He doesn’t have virtue yet. Once he gets to the age of reason – when he can start committing sin. Then he can start making choices, true choices, they can begin to develop virtue. But they need the external structure bc they don’t enough intellectually.
Once they go through puberty it all shifts and what they need (after the structure has been given to them) is council bc at that stage the virtue is only voluntary – you can’t impose it. The kid has to make a choice if he is going to do it or not. The parent can’t impose it bc then the kid is not developing virtue, he’s just getting good at compliance. They need council and encouragement to get them to develop that on their own.