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Angustia: no way out!

  Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae describes anxiety as a narrowing (from Latin angustia - narrowness): "Anxiety is that which so takes possession of the mind as to leave no opening for escape" It is sorrow so intense it "binds the soul" and "shuts out all hope" The soul becomes trapped, unable to find a way out. This image is precise: anxiety feels like being in a space that keeps getting smaller, the walls pressing in. Aquinas's proposed remedies all point towards "dilatatio" (expansion) : -Grace as "enlargement and strengthening" of the soul. A distraction that provokes a "dilatatio" (expansion) and therefore:  -Joy and love causing the heart to widen -Hope opening what anxiety has closed -Contemplation of truth delighting more than pain saddens This is grace - not as theological abstraction, but as lived experience of sudden release. My frustration:  Around my 20s when I was trying to deepen Catholicism, I bega...
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Don't open that door

 

Once dishonest: dishonesty will always stalk you. Once you trespassed that door, even when you think you have closed it behind you, the groove you have drawn remains. That door will always be lurking in the inevitable shadows of life. In a moment of  inattention, of tiredness, of an unbalanced interior state, the infamous door will wink at you, promising prompt and easy solutions!

If you are not totally honest, it is difficult to leave dishonesty behind!

Therefore be very cautious with people who have been dishonest, even when they claim it was a phase in their life, now over… The door to dishonesty had been opened once, and it will always be lurking in the shadow, waiting for the right moment to wink…

 

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