🎙️ Intro Welcome to VirTrue, where we work together to turn away from vice and adopt the virtuous life we are all called to.I’m your host, Jethro Higgins. 🌿 Virtue Description Today on VirTrue, we’re talking about the virtue of Heavenly Contemplation (Contemplatio Supernorum), a sub-virtue of Hope, which directs the intellect and will toward God and the eternal realities of Heaven. St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica, II–II, Q18) teaches that contemplation involves meditating on divine truths, the beatific vision, and our ultimate fulfillment in union with God. Contemplation isn’t an escape from the world — it is strength to act within it. Heavenly Contemplation: * Orients us toward God as the source of truth and fulfillment * Deepens faith and strengthens perseverance * Produces moral clarity and detachment from temporal distraction * Invites stillness that leads to surrender, not self-focus True contemplation lifts our soul beyond passing desires to what is eternal, aligning our lives with God’s will and leading to a virtuous life grounded in eternal perspective. ⚠️ Vice of Deficiency: Worldliness Definition:Worldliness is an excessive attachment to temporal things and concerns that blinds the soul to eternal realities. It focuses on pleasing the senses, pursuing comfort, and chasing status at the expense of the soul. Why it fits:Where Heavenly Contemplation lifts the soul toward God, worldliness drags it downward — chaining the mind to distractions, ambitions, and pleasures that vanish like smoke.Like Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, the worldly soul finds itself bound in chains of its own making. Description:Worldliness forgets that life is a pilgrimage. It turns comfort into an idol, success into a false god, and stillness into boredom.It avoids silence, dreads prayer, and fills every moment with noise, screens, and striving.Rather than contemplate God, it contemplates trends, profits, and appearances.At its heart, worldliness is a rejection of the eternal for the immediate. “Do not love the world or the things of the world... The world is passing away with all its desires, but whoever does the will of God remains forever.”— 1 John 2:15–17 🔥 Vice of Excess: Immanentism Definition:Immanentism is the vice of seeking spiritual fulfillment, truth, or peace entirely within the self or the created world, rather than through relationship and communion with the transcendent God. Why it fits:Heavenly Contemplation lifts the heart upward — to love, to listen, to receive.Immanentism turns inward. It collapses the divine into the self, seeking peace through consciousness, emotion, or nature — not grace. It replaces revelation with sensation, adoration with introspection, and faith with personal technique. Description:Immanentism appears in many forms: * Meditation aimed at emptying the mind of all thought * Fourfold logic that dissolves the real distinctions of God’s creation * Yoga or mindfulness that seeks inner peace or self-realization * Chakra alignment, crystals, and communion with “universal energies” * Any spirituality that praises stillness while avoiding the Cross These practices may seem peaceful, but their aim is to find meaning within the self or cosmos — rather than from the God who transcends them both. “In the religious sense [of the Modernist], God is no more than a product of the inner sense of man... not something objective and distinct from man.”— Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, §7 The immanentist may feel enlightened, but their soul is enclosed.As Plato might say, they meditate on shadows, not the real.Where Christian contemplation receives truth, immanentism constructs it. The mystic prays, “Thy will be done.”The immanentist whispers, “I am enough.” 🙋♂️ We Interrupt These Notes to Ask for Your Support VirTrue is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new episodes and support our work, consider becoming a paid subscriber at socialcatholic.substack.com to help us to continue to make new episodes. Or support us directly through: * PayPal: @TheSocialCatholic * Venmo: @jethrohiggins * Zelle: @SocialCatholic Your gift — no matter how small — helps us continue our mission to fill the world with virtue. 🛍️ Also check out this week’s sponsor:The Mariner-Themed Hope Rosary — a handcrafted devotional from our collection of paracord rosaries. 🪞 My Life My personal struggle lies more with worldliness than with mystical errors. I was raised in a secular college town in Oregon, where the noise of the world is constant and contagious. But in my work — even within Catholic apostolates like Oregon Catholic Press — I’ve also encountered many who try to integrate immanentist practices into the faith. Some Catholic leaders attempt to bridge mindfulness, yoga, or Eastern meditation with Christian prayer. Let me be clear — there is no place in Catholicism for Eastern religious philosophies.By “Eastern,” I mean those of Eastern Asia, not our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Christ. God is not discovered through breathwork, inner light, or dissolving into “the One.” He reveals Himself — and we receive Him through grace, not method. 🌍 The Secular Perspective Our world craves immanentism.Yoga. Mindfulness. Self-care. Crystals. “Finding your truth.” These are marketed as spiritual but are deeply opposed to true contemplation. This obsession stems from a rebellion against Western, Christian thought. It’s animated by modernism — a rejection of tradition, beauty, and objectivity. Modernism could itself be a contender as the vice of excess for contemplation. It substitutes faith with feeling, truth with subjectivity, and contemplation with personal affirmation. At its core, the secular spirituality of our time exalts the self and erases the transcendent God. 🌟 Example Saint: St. Teresa of Ávila Carmelite Mystic and Doctor of the ChurchÁvila, Spain (1515–1582) St. Teresa’s life was one of radical surrender through deep interior prayer, spiritual reform, and fearless action. * Interior Castle:She described the soul as a castle with many rooms, each drawing us closer to the King’s chamber. We go inward not to find ourselves — but to find God. * Fought immanentism:Teresa wrote in a time of mystical confusion. She combated false spiritualities that were emotional or self-centered. She anchored her teaching in Christ and the Church. * Prayer as love, not technique:For her, prayer wasn’t about calming the mind. It was about growing in love — and it always bore fruit in humility and service. * Union with God, not absorption into self:Teresa constantly warned that visions or mystical experiences mean nothing if they don’t lead to obedience, repentance, and deeper charity. True contemplation preserved identity in relationship with God — it never dissolved the soul into the divine. * Mystic and reformer:Teresa suffered illness, slander, and spiritual dryness. Yet her love of God led her to reform the Carmelite order and become the first woman named Doctor of the Church. “Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends.It means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.”— St. Teresa of Ávila Teresa reminds us: contemplation is not technique. It is friendship. 💬 Tell Me What You Think Share your thoughts in the comments or send a message.I may feature your reflections in a future episode or invite you to join as a guest. ✝️ Act of Contemplation O my God,I will turn my thoughts toward You,not to escape the world, but to see it more clearly in the light of Your grace.I will seek silence not for its own sake,but to hear Your voice above the noise of the world and my own desires.I will lift my soul beyond the passing things of this world,to dwell on what is eternal, true, and good.I will not seek to find peace within myself,but will rest my heart in You, the source of all peace.Let every moment of stillness lead to surrender,every insight to humility,every breath to praise.In my interior life, I will seek Your love and friendship, not self-knowledge.Draw me deeper into Your mysteries,that I may know You, love You, and live for You alone.Amen. 🙏 Closing Prayer Lord, bless us with faith, hope, love, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice,that we may live as You intended man to live, in all virtue and righteousness.Help us to flee from sin, and avoid all temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.Protect us with a spiritual hedge in front of us, behind us, above us, below us, to our right, to our left, within us, and all around us.Seal it with the blood of Your precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.Help us to keep You in everything that we think, say, and do.Amen. 🕊️ Go out and fill the world with virtue. 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