Episode 59: The Forgotten Virtue of Perseverance

It's been a long, long day. I got a lot to say. It feels like I'm carrying a two-tonon weight. I go to see your friends. Hello, I'm Mancenior Patrick Winslow >> and I am Father Matthew Calf >> and we are speaking from the rooftop, >> a podcast brought to you by 10 books in which we invite you to join our conversation out here in the open air >> where we look out upon the world around us from the rooftop of the church and share with you what we see. makes me want to scream from rooftop to the screen. >> Well, hello. >> Hello. >> Been a minute, hasn't it? >> I want to uh sincerely apologize on your behalf >> for your inaccessibility this whole summer long. >> It has been a summer. Um, >> but nevertheless, we're back in the swing of school and um that kind of forces me to stay in this chair and allows us to to get back online as it were >> to be tethered. >> Be tethered. I didn't really leave. I wasn't I wasn't anywhere really, but nevertheless, um there was a lot going on with the building and such. So, >> and you were inaccessible as well. So, welcome back everyone. It's good to I don't see you or hear you, but um to be able to to share our thoughts with you and thanks again to to Tan for helping us out putting these um from the rooftops together and um look forward to a good season, shall we say. >> So, I um I decided that today I'm just going to react to you. >> Okay, that's this is a role reversal here. >> Okay. Well, you know, today is the feast of St. Augustine, >> and I was musing on one of his lines from the confession this morning, and he says in there something rather intriguing, which is whenever I use my mind to command my body, my body puts up no resistance. So, if I want to, you know, have spirit fingers, they just they do it. It doesn't put up any resistance, but that the moment that I use my mind to command my will, I am met with massive resistance. And I say that it's intriguing because yesterday I was playing sports with the guys and at some point um we playing ultimate frisbee and one of the guys took off and I knew they were going to throw it to him. So I went to go chase him down and something happened to where I just simply could not run. I couldn't run at all. um up through my back, whatever, my hip and um no idea what it was, but I I I never had the experience of not being able just to push through something, even if you don't don't do it well. I mean, my body just simply said, "No, you're not going to run." So, I I have to disagree with Augustine on this one because he wrote the confessions at 43 somewhere about and maybe what time he was 50, he might have experienced resistance from both sides. Well, as you said, I had been biting my tongue because I'm thinking to myself, no, my body does say no. It puts up a massive amount of resistance in spite of my will. >> Yeah, there's a kind of rebellion in the body. >> Well, yeah. I mean, it does have limits. >> Yeah. I was reading some years ago about a priest who was an eastern right priest and had been adopted really into a program that the church had going to the Soviet controlled regions in Eastern Europe and then in into the Soviet Union. And he had been arrested inside the Soviet Union and put into like these goologs, these camps. And um he eventually after something like 15 years, maybe 20, I mean a long period of time, he's released and he comes back to the states and it's the I think like the early 60s at that point and he decides to write his experiences, his encounters >> and that's what the book was. Uh the book was him writing his experiences, his encounters and he talked about the bodily regimen that they were put through uh under the most extreme circumstances and malnutrition um lack of sufficient hydration and the level and the extent and the intensity of the work they were forced to do for hours on end. when you read about it, your own body starts to ache for him, you know, >> and he said um in his reflection, he said, "You realize the body is a rather remarkable thing." >> Yeah. >> In what it's able to persevere in. And you know, I I think I bring it up because I think it's worth having some balance to the consideration of the limits of the body as we experience them. Um but also his experience which comes along and says yeah however it's extraordinary what the body ultimately can endure >> and uh I it was something that stuck in my mind in terms of his reflection but because he had endured it and I think my sense of reading him was that prior to that experience he didn't think it would be possible for him to to have endured word as he had. >> Yeah. No, I would imagine so. There's um so many great stories out there about about people surviving the most harshest of things in reality body some somehow um is able to able to endure. Um, it reminds me too of a line I think it was Jordan Peterson once said which had really struck me was that uh we get very angry when society doesn't work, when there's traffic, when there's a canceled flight, when the store is closed, um, whatever the case might be. Um, when a pipe breaks or electricity goes out. and his reflection was rather uh solitary in saying that it's unbelievable that any of this stuff works at all. >> The kind of coordination that is required to have a functioning society is not small. >> All of the um infrastructure and the organization and the output, it's insane when you think about it. Any of this stuff actually works and works well. Um then you think about it on the more um micro level in terms of our own body as you say and while we have a kind of governance um over ourselves and try to grow in greater governance relative to relative to the virtues um there there certainly are limits and yet those limits um much greater than than we think. Um I was talking with one of our priests uh who did an Iron Man like he's never in his life. Um, and I was I asked him, "How did you you never swam before in the open water. How did you train for that? How did you get to the point where you could even do it?" And he said, "Everything with Iron Man is just is is is a mindset." >> He's like, "The first half Iron Man he did is he's like not even a hundred yards out in on the lake, right? And he gets a big uh wave that hits him and and water gets in his mouth and he's in the water throwing up. Um, and he's still got to he's still still got to swim >> a long long way. And he just that I just never allowed myself to think that there was any other option than through. >> I'm not sure that I uh have experienced that quite. I think there's always in any great exercises I've ever done, it was certainly pushed to the limits relative to athletics. Um, and I remember that that's where it always came down to. It's like, I don't think I can continue this. Um, and yet the body will actually shut you down in most cases, right? If you're doing biking or running, you actually can't really kill yourself very easily, right? What I read, right? The body will just show shut you down. It's like there's your limit. >> Yeah, it's true. Although I I rarely ever feel >> um the limits at least self-imposed. Well, bad mitten doesn't usually get you to those limits or bowling. >> No. Um although these days it might. Uh you just never know. >> That's where we are in athletic prowess. >> Just the wrong angle of bending down to pick something off the floor. it can become a moment of great endurance just to straighten up the back >> and you >> well and then you can translate all this stuff to you know to the spiritual life and um I I remember this wonder wonderful nun that was a poor cla and I knew her for years I'd gone to a many many times and she was the extrant sister and and I was talking to her one time God rest her she's she's she's gone to God now. Um, but I said to her about vocations cuz we were just starting the seminary up at the time and we had a lot of vocations and and uh she kind of took my hand and tapped it like a grandmother and said, "Father, there's never a difficulty with vocations. There's always a difficulty with perseverance." >> And I I didn't forget it because it's it's true. nine ten of our life as priests as as married men and women. Um it's it's perseverance like the of the long haul. Um waiting for that that bit of a respit or a change that's going to allow you to um to to continue moving forward. >> It's true. Uh I think that perseverance is often overlooked as an essential element uh to most things to be quite honest. >> Yeah. >> And I think we take it for granted really. I think we just assume that there will always be perseverance. >> And you know and it doesn't always feel like in the living out of things that there is. >> Yeah. Yeah, when Thomas talks about perseverance with fortitude basically and you sometimes you think about fortitude as just being strong or white knuckling something and his description of fortitude is a bit different that on the one hand it it um it it does have to do with uh attack to some degree. those things that you have to screw yourself up to do and and go at it and fight that sort of lethargy, inertia on whatever. Um but to do what must be done. But he says in the most part, for the most part, fortitude has to do simply with endurance. and he likens it to um doors on a on a on a castle kind of thing that they can they can withstand a lot the rain, the knocks, the buffeting um and eventually with sufficient amounts of force they're probably going to give in. >> Yeah. And so the level of endurance is how much can you how much can you take basically uh before you just open the doors and say well just come on and take the city I'm done or to do a break >> right >> and so it's not only a cardinal virtue that we're supposed to be employing uh laboring on but it's it's also kind of a a grace that one receives. I I think the lives of the saints manifest that so beautifully. Like how in the world did you endure this? I was just reading about John the Cross did you know when his when his own friars put him in a dungeon. Um like no one knows where he is. He's in house arrest but he's in a dungeon you know without anything. Um no sunlight barely any food. Um sick as a dog. And it's in there that he writes his greatest masterpiece. Um, >> I'm not sure I would have done that. >> Yeah. I I don't know that I want to be crushed like a grape. >> Yeah. >> In order to produce the wine. >> Produce the wine. >> At the same time, is there I don't know that there's much of another way. Um, >> yeah, >> to a certain degree. I mean, I that's basically the way of the cross, saying it just in different terms, but manifested by St. John of the Cross. Um it is uh you know quite a mystery. >> Could you could you remember that we used to talk about because this is a connected virtue obviously relative to hope. I think the difference between those who survived in the camps whether Russia, Germany, Poland um and those who didn't are those who had a sense of purpose >> and and had a sense of hope. >> So do you remember your you just your foray into Charles Bigge? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And I think we've even talked about them here. >> Well, maybe we have. >> Yeah. Or you know, in short, um you know, he he likens hope to to several things. He likens it to sleep. He likens it to um a little girl. Um he likens it to muscle. Um, and so in his poem, which is not a small work relative to poems, he it's about 130 pages long, but he um teases out and uses hyperbole and exaggeration, and he really just sort of assues um the limits of doctrine in order to to use these poetic tools to highlight something you know like for example he'll talk about God hoping and of course you know a good Dominican would come along and say what you know >> sure >> God hoping um but he doesn't he doesn't care because there is an aspect to God's desire or a will for us in in our lives and he's in a certain sorts in a certain sorts anthropomorphizing God such that he puts on he puts hope on the god himself and and it has a value I think in the poetic work >> to communicate that that God is not a disinterested party. >> Yeah. um that that he has associated himself so much with you um that he has hopes for you, you know, in in an interpersonal kind of way, but not as the way in which we typically think about hope. Um and certainly it is uh an analogy really. >> But so he does that he does that with the f he does that with the father with his little girl. He does that with sleep. But in essence um the practical experience of hope does reduce down to a certain degree to importing the future that is known by faith into the present so as to change the perception of the present. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and that's kind of what you're getting after, which is um how people would survive these extreme circumstances. The difference between those people who had a hope and those people who didn't. And how did they how did that hope manifest itself? It manifest itself relative to something out into the future that could be imported with a cert with a certainty into the present. So that the the darkness of the present >> Yes. >> doesn't destroy you. >> Yes. >> Even though it threatens to and even though it endures and even though you don't know the timeline >> on the future that you're importing into the present, >> you still know >> that it is to be and and so that dynamic of present and future is there. Of course that's part and parcel to hope itself, right? And and yet it has a muscle to it. um that can be flexed because it can change the present. >> Yeah, it's muscular in the sense that it can alter your own atmosphere. It can alter your own perception. It can alter your own sense of what's going on and keep you focused and um not lose hope or move toward despair. Although I think the feelings all the feelings are the same you know in the sense that people are feeling the same physical pain or the same other oppression and you know all of those experiences are being had but the difference between the person with hope and the person without hope is extraordinary. >> Yes. I I remember Pope Bennett spoke about that one time when I was at at Vaspers was the first Sunday of Advent and he mentioned the way in which the thing that is in the future um to which we look is the thing that's sort of in large part defining the present >> since Advent is the season uh obviously of looking forward to the Messiah coming. If you thought that he was not coming, then your present is one obviously of despair as opposed to of hope. But the way in which a future reality um can so define your present and for us it's the future's often times the devil's playground. >> You know, since it doesn't exist, >> um you can have all sorts of imaginations or suggestions about you're never going to be able to survive this. you're never going to be able to endure this. If it's like this forever, it's just going to be a drudgery. Um, but life isn't like that. It never is the same. Um, and I don't have the graces of the future uh right now that those graces are hanging on trees waiting for me to to to get to that point in time to pluck them. But >> and nor do we have um a lot of knowledge about particulars in general, >> right? Even even those things that are divine revelation are what we know is really quite bare. We know there is going to be an end time. We know that there is a judgment. We know that there is, you know, heaven, hell, and purgatory. You know, we know that there is death. We know like we have some basic doctrinal points but how that plays out, what that looks like, how that feels, how we will experience it is so outside of our field of vision. >> Yeah. >> Of course, hope doesn't need to have those details. It just seems so that that that will be um and that can alter and change your present. But it's it's extremely difficult. I think when people, you know, when people lose are struggling with their faith, it makes perfect sense that they begin to lose hope. M >> um and it also makes perfect sense that they begin to put their focus on more temporal matters. >> Yeah, for sure. >> Because they need a future anchor. Um I I firmly believe that we should have people with faith should have natural hopes. Uh >> sure. And I think it's so important, you know, I'll go a bit further. I think it's important to have them. I think that many people languish because they don't have natural hopes. Um they don't aspire to something like say they wanted to, you know, explore a language. Why don't they do it? you know, is there, you know, why is it always put off? It doesn't have that certainty of this can be. >> Yeah. >> It's just aspirational often. Um, but why does it have to be only aspirational? Why can't it actually be? >> Why can't it be natural hope that you can realize >> and invigorate you? Um, you know, you can think of books that you might want to read. You can think of things you want to see or and I just think of that as natural like you and I both don't like the whole concept of a bucket list because it just >> of what? >> Of a bucket list. >> Oh yeah. >> I mean I get it and I don't dis I don't disparrage anyone uh who embraces that idea. It does sometimes have a feel like I need to gorge myself on this buffet buffet before it's taken away by >> and it's like no, you know, like I don't think that's how we need to be thinking about this. I mean, if we think about what is uh promised in eternity, um we're we're not going to be missing anything. You know, >> there there is a a buffet beyond our ability to comprehend. Uh, and we're just it's not like we have to gorge ourselves here, you know? So, I don't like that idea, but I do. But what I like about the idea of quoteunquote a bucket list. And I think what people are really reacting to is having some natural hopes, >> things to to realize and to aspire to. It always amazes me that most of our lives um you know as as people of faith so much of our lives are can be in pursuit of whatever we wish to pursue. You know, when you consider what the church says in terms of living the course of your faith, you know, and when you talk about, you know, it's it's you can you you can live your faith in nearly any context. >> Yeah. >> So, what do you do? Um, and why why don't um I I think that we overlook the importance that the importance of this fact that we're given such an enormous amount of freedom to live >> and that God expects us to live and it's in the context of that life where uh so much is learned so much is experienced so much is understood to deeper and more profound levels. But you know with the faith you know um it doesn't it's not as though you're learning apart from the faith but you're learning in it you know in the context of the faith but in the context of this life. But I I sometimes think that maybe, you know, I when I was younger or when younger people embrace faith, they kind of think that they have to give up their life in the sense not in the sense that the gospel commands us to, but in the sense that um that there isn't going to be a life, you know, just just tell me what to do, you know, just tell me and I'm here, you know, odds soon. >> But it doesn't work that way, >> right? >> You have to have a life. You have to be able to put one together. You have to be able to have natural hopes, >> but you have to be able to set a course to realize them. And that that's not nothing. >> It's not filler. >> It's not without its own proper substance for the purpose of the life itself. Anyway, I've been rambling. No, no, it's the creative instantiation of the faith that exists in you, you know, that it's it's not just sort of a um a brand you get simply on your t-shirt like um that now I'm I'm I'm a Catholic. I'm I'm a believer. Um it's a power, right? Right? I mean, grace is obviously a a power to heal, to elevate, but when those powers when that divine power leaks into leaks into your mind as faith, leaks into your heart as as hope and charity, then it's supposed to energize the kind of things that you are, >> God made you to be. And then that's why the saints they build things, they make worlds, they they save nations, they do all kinds of outrageous things because then all of a sudden that which is already in them uh as their own sanctified desires um they take shape and get incarnate. >> Yeah. And I think a youthful spirituality, a young spirituality that needs to mature more might say, why are you wasting your time in so many temporal matters? you know why why that hobby you don't you have something better to do than play the violin don't you have something better to do than to sew or don't you have something better to do >> um I don't know there's something to to those parts of life that are themselves enriching >> and >> uh you know not everything has to be you know um contemplation in in the sense that you're having a direct encounter with God and everything else is sort of out of the way. Well, we that that's just not the path that people have. Now, there may be some who are called to vocations where contemplation to an extraordinary extent of living a Trappist life or um a Carthusian. But that's the exception, not the norm. >> Yeah, for sure. >> You know, even them and even they they do things too. You know, they're working. They're killing the ground. They're >> Oh, for sure. >> Yeah, for sure. We just the longer we celebrated St. Bernard of >> Clarvo. >> I mean, what an extraordinary man he was. How many monasteries sprang from his his initial uh ventures into >> Clarvo. Um I think monks of old they would I think it's a play on words Clarvo, right? Because it wasn't when he found it. Uh it wasn't a a beautiful and clear valley with a view. It was it was like typically the monks would get land that no one else wanted >> and swampy and whatever and they would they'd make it a >> kind of a little paradise by their by their labor. Um, and again, because they're hoping and uh not staying there forever themselves, they they know they're going to die. Um, but isn't it interesting that those who believe most in heaven are the ones that do the most on earth? Yeah, >> that's a good point. >> Yeah. >> Did you make that up? >> I did, actually. >> You should burn that on a pillow. >> That's true. >> Um, all right. Well, I think Yeah, we do. Um, so before we go, I guess I'll start. Um, I just I would encourage people uh to find a natural hope. >> Uh, I don't care how small or great or anything between, but to find some type of natural hope >> indeed. And you know, and what I mean is, hey, like if you want to paint, if you want to join a gym, if you want to, you name it, you know, look for something as an ending goal and set the course and then stick to it. You'll learn a lot about perseverance. You'll learn a lot about the limits of your body. You'll learn a lot about the limits of your mind. You learn a lot about the limits of yourself. And, you know, all of those things are great spiritual benefit. uh even though you might say well I'm just doing it for this end. Well, you know, yeah, but um you cultivate a lot along the way >> and and you ultimately can achieve that end. So that's what I would say. So before I go, I just want to really encourage you. I think it's really important because I think it's a very I think it's quite related to the experience of supernatural gift of hope >> in the sense that we become habituated to the idea of looking forward to something and and become habituated to the idea that you you >> you commit and you go through something you endure on a natural level for a natural end um that experience is a good thing and I think it helps really develop the the practice of the supernatural krypto >> beautiful well I'll just dovetail on that. You know, there's I'm not sure if you've ever uh heard or done the the Pelaton. Um but >> my preferred uh form of exercise if I can't play sports. Um and there's one of the instructors on there always says the same thing which I I I always sort of laugh at which is um today you're investing in a in in your future self. >> Exactly. I thought it was a great line. >> I typically leave the exercise and say that wasn't a great investment, but it was, you know, more than not putting any money in the bank. >> But that's it. It's a start. You got to get rolling. >> Well, good. All right. So, we'll leave it on a note of hope. >> Amen. All righty. Well, see you again. >> All right. See you soon. makes me want to scream from rooftop to the screen. >> Thanks for listening to this episode of From the Rooftop. >> For updates about new episodes, special guests, and exclusive deals for From the Rooftop listeners, sign up at rooftopodcast.com. And remember, for more great ways to deepen your faith, check out all the spiritual resources available at tanbooks.com. And we'll see you again next time from the rooftop.