The difference between a habit and an instinct is that a habit is acquired, whereas an instinct is infused. A duck never has to acquired the instinct to swim but a man has to develop it. Habit then means not only the facility of doing a thing because one has done it frequently but it also implies the impulse of the will to do the action. Because of the lack of will, no inanimate creatures ever develop habits.

 A clock does not go by continued repetition of its movements. But habit is developed by the will. A drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying: "I won't count this time", he may not count it but it is counted nonetheless. The nerve cells, fibers and the molecules are counting it, registering it and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. A man becomes a permanent drunkard by separate drinks and he becomes a permanent saint by separate acts of virtue.

No man becomes bad at once. Evil is not native to the soul; it has to become domesticated. Any evil desire or affection repeatedly acted upon receives less and less attention from the conscience until at last it almost becomes automatic, like reaching for a cigarette after one has acquired the habit. At first, an act of vice requires an effort and is speedily followed by regret. This voice of conscience is more and more diminished after the evil deed is multiplied.

A man may eventually reach a point where he has a memory of the knowledge of morality, as well as the memory that it exercised over his conduct at one time. But the power of moral cause is gone, though he may falsely justify himself by calling moral precepts superstitions or the relic of a bygone age or a mark of his immaturity.

It would seem that Our Blessed Lord did not recommend a gradual breaking of a habit but immediate: "If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna". He did not actually mean a physical plucking out of the eye but a complete break with the evil habit. A short time ago a drunkard stopped me on the street and said: "I am a bum; I have no job and I drink too much. What would you recommend?" I said to him: "The first thing that you must do is to want to be sober and decent and hardworking". He said: "Oh, no. That is too hard: Though Dr.Jekyll made up his mind to have done with the hateful life he carried on in the form of Mr.Hyde, he did not destroy the cup and the liquid which enabled him to transform himself onto a safe disguise. It is the destruction of the cup and the will to be better which is the condition of breaking the evil habit.

J.Arthur Thomson well emphasized this necessity of suppressing the animal in us in order to encourage the angel: "Man often seems like a creature whose wings have been smirched with oil or bedraggled with mud, so that it cannot fly... There are gratuitous handicaps which can be got rid of, so as to leave the developing human spirit to go forth with a new freedom on this quest after adventures in the kingdom of the spirit".

So many say it is their weak wills which keep them from rising. It is not just the will that is weak; it is rather the refusal to accept the truth that the will has the power to rise, particularly when there is power supplied from the outside, namely the power of grace. In breaking evil habits, man does not act alone; he acts in conjunction with help from God, if he but claims it. The wise of Pythagoras used to say: "Choose that course of action which is best, and custom will soon render it the most agreeable". If we kept a tiger alive and expect to manage him, the best thing to do is to feed him; but if we desire to kill him, the only thing to do is to stop his food at once and for a little while he will roar and tear but will soon grow weak.

BY ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN ( 1895 to 1979 )

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-25 -