<\/p>\n
The Cistercian Charity is the only good reason to do anything, but it also \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Cistercian monk, philosopher and theologian Isaac of Stella (1100-1169) was featured in the Office of Readings today: Charity is the reason why anything should be done or left undone. Charity is the only good reason to do anything, but it also sometimes demands that we not do something we might think we want to … Continue reading Charity is the only good reason to do anything<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2222,1756,2669],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmonk, philosopher and theologian Isaac of Stella (1100-1169) was featured in
\nthe Office of Readings today: Charity is the reason why anything should be done
\nor left undone.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n
\nsometimes demands that we not do something we might think we want to do. There
\nare a lot of fine distinctions one has to make in this area to live spiritually
\nin common life and ministry. For example:<\/span><\/p>\n\n
\nbut not to enable maladaptive behaviors<\/u>, debilitating addictions, and sins. We
\nmust bear with the burdens of others, and be willing to wash feet, but<\/b> we
\nshould not take responsibility for the feelings of others.<\/span><\/li>\n
\ninvite both individuals and institutions to benefit from our strengths, and
\ninvite them into the success that derives from them,<\/u> but–again–we should be
\ncareful not to take interior or exterior responsibility for situations that the
\nHoly Spirit<\/u> has not, or not yet, seen fit to put in our care<\/b>.<\/span><\/li>\n
\ngreatest charity<\/b>–and often the most painful–is not giving someone what he
\nthinks he wants<\/u>.<\/span><\/li>\n
\nthat doesn’t mean taking it easy and just ‘being nice’ to ourselves<\/u>. On the one
\nhand, we must not be so hard on ourselves that our whole spiritual life becomes
\na rehearsal of faults and sins, for this is one of the devil’s tricks in making
\nus fail to notice God, and on the other we must also be careful not be overly
\nforgiving of ourselves so as to effectively give up struggling with certain
\nselfishnesses and sins.<\/span><\/li>\n
\nnourishes our gifts and virtues<\/u>, and is ruthless in the unwillingness to put up
\nwith sin.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n