Shunning Over-Familiarity

DO NOT open your heart to every man, but discuss your affairs with one who is wise and who fears God. Do not keep company with young people and strangers. Do not fawn upon the rich, and do not be fond of mingling with the great. Associate with the humble and the simple, with the devout and virtuous, and with them speak of edifying things. Be not intimate with any woman, but generally commend all good women to God. Seek only the intimacy of God and of His angels, and avoid the notice of men.

We ought to have charity for all men but familiarity with all is not expedient. Sometimes it happens that a person enjoys a good reputation among those who do not know him, but at the same time is held in slight regard by those who do. Frequently we think we are pleasing others by our presence and we begin rather to displease them by the faults they find in us.

(Imitation of Christ, Bk. 1, Ch. 6, Thomas à Kempis)

There is a wisdom in this particular writing of Kempis that would be utterly lost on my age. This age is one that has no use for contemplation of divine things: superficial familiarity is the hallmark of the age. There is also an implicit notion of chivalry in these words: and it is do not use or manipulate people.

Moreover, Kempis is certainly correct in his analysis that how we treat our friendships (i.e., how and with whom we initiate them, how we maintain them, and what we value in them) says as much about us as it does about our friends. Pride, as is so often the case, can be a motivating factor in how we go about forming and maintaining certain associations. To be well-regarded - by our friends and because of our friends -- is an all-too human trait. We gravitate towards the attractive, the wealthy, the intelligent, and the interesting: we shun their opposites. In many ways, this shunning runs directly contrary to our Christian vocation of love and charity. Obviously, we should gravitate towards the virtuous and avoid the wicked -- but to avoid human beings (even subconsciously) for reasons essentially superficial demonstrates worldly attachments.

While his advice towards women may be have been geared towards the religious and celibate, it still holds true today for those living out a married vocation. One of the casualties of modernism is a familiarity between men and women that is virtually without historic precedent. The consequences has been great with the so-called liberation of women is that men and women often share more time and companionship with their office colleagues than they do with their own spouses. A forced familiarity is a modern-day expectation of professional people today. In a sense, we are literally in a cultural prison of immodesty. There are, however, mechanisms to combat it -- namely, keep the opposite sex at a good distance and, if forced to associate, do so only professionally.

One could say that modernist notions of relations between the sexes is as naive as it is dangerous. I disagree with that assessment: it is not as much naive as diabolical. This type of mass immodesty -- one that is implicating in immodest opposite sex friendships as well as so many other things today -- has Satan's fingerprints all over it.

The traditional manner of living -- i.e., the right way to live -- is one where this type of familiarity is confined to spouses and family. Moreover, the necessity and sense of only maintaining good Christian friends is unimpeachable. We are all in the constant state of conversion and re-conversion: friends who help us on the path towards heaven and the virtuous life are friends to whom we should cling. If others (family members included) operate to pull us from that path -- we should earnestly avoid them.

A thorough-going examination of conscience as it relates to every aspect of our associational life is a necessary part of purifying the soul. I suspect that many (myself included) require a lot of improvement here.

Deo gratias.

Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver

This is another book about the dissolution of the West.

Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver.

While Ideas Have Consequences is another book about the dissolution of the West, it is by no means just another -- it is a beautifully crafted series of interconnected essays about the folly of modernism and its theoretical underpinnings and how a restoration might be attempted. It is one of those rare books that is simultaneously a theoretical treatise offering practical guidance (albeit on an abstract goal: restoring a culture). It is not a religious treatise per se, but as its primary interest is in cultivating a culture that seeks transcendent truth, it necessarily has religious overtones.

While Weaver was not a Roman Catholic, he certainly sympathized with Catholicism to a large degree. It is amazing to me that someone like Richard Weaver who identified the Catholic middle ages as the high-point in man's social development and the medieval philosophic doctor as epitome of culture did not convert to Catholicism. Indeed, he wrote, in obvious reference to the Reformation, that "[f]or four centuries, every man has been not only his own priest but his own professor of ethics, and the consequences is an anarchy which threatens even that minimum consensus of value necessary to the political state." Weaver died at fifty three in the early sixties. As such, we are deprived of knowing whether he would have eventually became Catholic. I genuinely suspect he would have.

Like so many things, I understand this particular book much better as a traditional Catholic. I read it ten or so years ago and vaguely remembered it. But at that time, I was a political conservative and, although I did not know it, an ecclesial liberal. Indeed, politics were at that time probably more important to me than the state of my soul. As such, I was a shallow thinker and a much more shallow person. Oh, how much has changed. I threw my television out, and I came to terms with my sports addictions. And I started to seriously read -- and read the classics at that. I really had no idea just how ignorant I was. It is almost as if I read this book ten years later as a different person. While that is an exaggeration, my life as a traditional Catholic with its liturgical and devotional emphasis on the ancient faith and the centrality of truth in one's life make this particular book more relevant. I have a better idea of what is to be restored than perhaps the author himself knew.

Simply stated, Weaver was a traditionalist. He would have been right at home with Catholic traditionalists and the ideas that are current among them. His cultural critique is theirs. His economic critique is theirs. And his political critique of the limitations of democracy is also theirs. In short, Richard Weaver might be the best Catholic traditionalist writing out there -- at least in his evaluation of the cultural disintegration of man through modernism. Weaver has many similarities to Hilaire Belloc, and a traditional Catholic today will certainly enjoy Weaver. Weaver is more of cultural critic than Belloc was: Weaver is only incidentally an economist or historian. As the American Weaver wrote nearer in time to us, he may be more accessible to us than Belloc is.

Weaver was more than merely a cogent critic of a dying culture: he was prophetic in seeing the debauchery to come. More than a few instances in the book demonstrate Weaver's ability to see how a cultural chain of logic will eventually play out (e.g., obscenity). Written in the late 1940s, Weaver anticipated the cultural disintegration about to occur in full force beginning in the 1960s. He could see it coming because he understood what ideas (or lack there of) stood at the basis of our hollowed out culture.

Ideas Have Consequences is essentially framed around one question: "The issue ultimately involved is whether there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of, man; and the answer to the question is decisive for one's view of the nature and destiny of humankind." Of course, we all know, that modernist culture and ideology answer this question negatively. As such, as Weaver initially points out, modernism is a materialist dogma that denies truth and further denies than mankind has any real purpose or meaning.

The embrace of modernism by the West has brought about a cultural wasteland that any sentient creature cannot deny. Weaver said we have been programmed by the Whig theory of history to believe that the latest point in time represents the greatest point of human development: as if each successive generation moves towards a further progression of human culture and development. (It is fascinating just how ingrained that theory really is.)

Weaver rightly shows that this Whig theory is demonstrably false: and he believes we have to show it is, in fact, false. Weaver argues that we can show our cultural degeneration by deduction, and through a series of questions the answers to which are difficult to deny. First, is man wiser today? Second, is man happier today? Third, is man more powerful today? Weaver categorically denies that technological feats of the West inform answers to these questions. Are we modernists a happy and wiser lot? Do we even think in those terms anymore? Weaver's answer is that we are undeniably not wiser -- for we do not know why we are here and to what purpose we should apply our lives. We are much less happier than previous ages: we toil in anxiety as wage slaves in an effort to obtain greater and greater material comforts that, in fact, do not deliver what they promise.

Anxiety is the hallmark of this age, and Weaver wants to know why. If we are so powerful, why are we anxious? We are because we are not -- power may reside out there, but to any particular individual -- he has never been more powerless. In short, Weaver demonstrates quite convincingly that our modernist culture has deadened man's intellect, and caged him in an environment that prevents him from wholly being man. And this is progress? Collectively, this deadening is part of the alienation of modernist culture -- in the midst of people, we are utterly alone; in the midst of instant push button information, we are wholly ignorant of our purpose; and in the age of plenty, instant gratification, and comforts of every conceivable kind; we have a depression epidemic.

With this introduction the book is organized around first describing who "we" are -- and we refers to those who admit that modernism is a cultural toxin that must be resisted and replaced with an authentic culture which values the truth and virtue. Weaver's description of the cultural man -- the gentleman -- is refreshing. He has a deep respect for forms and convention: he is a man of style in the sense that he understands measure in time or space. He is everything that modern man is not: he is chivalrous and disciplined. In short, he transcends the sensory data of his existence and passes from knowledge of particulars to that of universals. What strikes me most, and it is not language that Weaver uses, the man of culture is modest. I imagine to Weaver, the man of culture was the Southern gentlemen (perhaps, R.E. Lee or someone like him).

Compared with the man of culture is the barbarian (man without culture) and the philistine (the barbarian living in the midst of culture), these men are immodest -- they seek immediacy; they seek to unveil all -- evidently ignorant that "knowledge of material reality is a knowledge of death." Here the veil that Weaver discusses plays a prominent role. Whereas the man of culture is modest -- using the veil to as a tool of refinement, the barbarian wants life as it is. Traditional Catholicism has helped me understand the "veil" reference in a way I could not have understood otherwise. The ancient Latin liturgy is itself a veil -- a half revealed anteroom of a worship that transcends Earth's very bounds. In ways that are not explainable, the ancient mass is in and of itself a reprieve from the materialism of the world. It is wholly otherworldly -- and, for that reason, this lazy culture will not have it.

Whereas the man of culture rises above his sensual base nature -- the barbarian does not understand why it is necessary to rise above it all. What is amazing, is the barbarian does not even know what the question is. Here, Weaver discusses especially the inability of our modernist culture to understand what obscenity is. Considering that he expressed that view in the 1940s, I can only imagine his dismay at how our culture tolerates obscenity on a scale almost unknown in human history. Anecdotally, it is has been a number of years since I jettisoned my television: what amazes me when I visit a family member or friend who has one is just how vulgar mainstream media has become. Indeed, I am not alone in wondering how long God will tolerate this filth and perversion -- how long? How prophetic was his identification of obscenity as a fault line exposing the enervation of this culture.

Per Weaver, the glue of any culture is the recognition -- at an early stage of human development -- of the sentiment that the world is good. Sentiment in that sense antedates reason. Pre-cultural periods express these sentiments without form, and post-cultural periods express these sentiments in a contest of forms (i.e., confusion). The unity of forms and convention mark cultural stability and metaphysical consensus that make community possible. Authentic communities require consensus on moral and ethical questions, of beauty and art, and, perhaps more importantly, a shared sense of man's purpose. In essence, this consensus is culture. Modernism is the rejection of this truism -- it is the absence of any culture. It is an individualistic free-for-all.

The waning of this metaphysical "dream," as Weaver call is, as well as the loss of religion, begin the cultural disintegration, which never ends until complete dispersion. Indeed, as Weaver argues, "[h]ow can men who disagree about what the world is for agree about any of the minutiae of daily conduct?" (emphasis added.) What strikes me about the gross superficiality of the "talking heads" of political punditry is that none address this foundational question when debating this or that policy.

Today, we live in a modern Babel in which meaningful community is simply not possible. The construction of new communities in which civility and culture are preserved and passed on until this terrible virus of modernism leaves us is now the goal. Seemingly parochial, but our home schooling groups centered around the ancient liturgy are powerful salt against a society and culture actively committing suicide. Here we pass on timeless truths and virtues strikingly out of vogue.

Weaver spends a considerable amount of time describing the nature of our cultural suicide. We know modernism involves a relativism and denial of transcendence. It further abhors distinctions and hierarchy because they rub at its "equalitarian" sentiments that all men are essentially equal. In many senses, i.e., before the law, all men are equal -- but in many more ones, they are not equal. They are not equal in character, in thrift, in discipline or in charity. Per Weaver, failing to recognize where men or even cultures are not equal is tantamount to denying the values that serve to distinguish them. We have to recognize better and worse in men and societies-- an ideology that enjoins us from doing so can never have a community based upon values.

In what could be drawn from "The Matrix," Weaver posits that the modernist beast is tied together by "The Great Stereotopicon," which projects those feelings and intuitions that modernism wishes us to have. We are -- in some literal sense -- being anesthetized by a cultural machine that is the mass media. All one has to do to test this premise is shut out the mass media for a relatively short period of time -- and one will never look at it the same way again.

Another aspect that Weaver spends a considerable amount of time dissecting is the fragmentation of society. Man today specializes: we all know more and more about less and less. The generalist is eschewed. We are thus tiny cogs in a monstrous creation in modernism -- no one in particular has any idea of the entirety. The "whole" of society moves without purpose or reason. I can speak to the fragmentation directly -- the economic atomizing is really one of the primary ways that man is emasculated. He has no control over his life. Events seem to move around about him without his control in the slightest. Fragmentation is synonymous with the alienation man senses today.

Economically, fragmentation has so divided man's labor that the idea that work is a type of prayer is a foreign concept. The pride of man's work -- the pride of man generally -- flowed from the connection between what he did and what was produced. The carpenter saw his furniture made, the builder saw his house, etc.; with specialization, we do not make the whole -- only contribute often an invisible part to an economic unit of production. Work is not something we pride ourselves in any longer -- culturally, we do all we can to avoid it, because, after, the implicit purpose of life is meaningless comfort. Weaver makes the further point that the further man is pushed from the soil, the more alienated he becomes. There is, per Weaver, something medicinal for man's soul in the soil. In his economic analysis, Weaver is positively Bellocian.

Because men are wholly equal, modernism implicitly tells all men that they are equally entitled to whatever any other man has. Resentment and what Weaver calls the "spoiled child psychology" abound. Modern man is concerned with himself and his rights -- he has no concept or patience for his duties. After all, what are those? How prescient this critique is considering that it came into fruition in the last thirty years. We are a people obsessed with our rights -- we define our very existence by what we claim as rights. How inverted is this mentality from our right relationship with God? Correctly stated, all we have is duty toward God -- we have no rights whatsoever upon him. That recognition builds up our humility and reduces our pride. Modern man and obsession with "rights" predictably builds up his pride and reduces his humility.

Just as modernist is obsessed with his rights, the bourgeoise likes its comfort. Really, Weaver's pen makes one disgust the self-serving bourgeoise -- truly, through his pen, I can understand Whittaker Chamber's lament that, for him, the contest really was between communism and God. The bourgeois milquetoast does in fact summon less than charitable sentiments. I recently walked through an affluent American mall -- the same kind that would be found in any upscale community -- and was disgusted in a visceral way by the soft and pudgy men in their expensive casual clothing, manicured nails, and costly trimmed hair. It was almost as if they struck me as wholly emasculated -- these are the sons of men who embarked in fourth class steerage for a better life? Weaver more or less puts his finger on the pulse of these soft "almost" men -- and why modernism so uniquely and metaphorically castrates them. Really, is there anything more pathetic as a rights-obsessed, comfort-seeking and obscenity-loving man?

Weaver makes the point that the idea of the hero has diminished in proportion to modernism's ascent. While undoubtedly a harsh critique above, the soft middle class mentality of America is a disgrace. The cultural explosion of thrill-seeking -- from climbing dangerously high mountains, to skate-boarding, to surfing, to bungee-jumping, etc. -- is, in part, a reaction to this social phenomena of national enervation. Young men have a longing for more than a safe and comfortable life -- it is in their bones. In other words, young men naturally tend toward the heroic. When God is removed, when the authentic hero in Christ is no longer taught, young men will fill that "God-void" by jumping off train tressels or out of airplanes. Ultimately, the restoration will be brought about by young men because their idealism when coupled with virtue and direction will move mountains.

For Weaver, the restoration begins with what he calls the last metaphysical right: property. Property is anachronistic in a modernist world because its existence does not depend on use: it simply is "his" without reason. To Weaver, property rights are dogma -- and he revels on how those rights stick in the craw of the utilitarian philosophers of this age. His views on the soil and his distrust of urbanity inform his views on property; but property really appears to be a staging ground for the restoration. From here, we can dissent. Perhaps he sees property as a type of cultural monastery similar to those that preserved the West during the sixth and seventh centuries.

The second point of restoration begins with language: insisting on the universal and teleological nature of language. "In fact, the whole tendency of empiricism and democracy in speech, dress, and manners has been towards a plainness which is without symbolic significance. The power of symbolism is greatly feared by those who wish to expel from life all that is nonrational in the sense of being nonutilitarian, as witness the attack of Jacobins upon crowns, cassocks, and flags." Weaver continues further on: "We live in an age that is frightened by the very idea of certitude, and one of its really disturbing outgrowths is the easy divorce between words and conceptual realities which our right minds know that they must stand for." Indeed, "[u]ntil the world perceives that 'good' cannot be applied to a thing because it is our own, and 'bad' to the same thing because it is another's, there is no prospect of realizing a community." The final point of restoration for Weaver is piety. He wishes us pious to nature, neighbor, and our past. Interestingly, he wishes us to have respect for our past much as Chesterton equated tradition as democracy for the dead.

Ideas Have Consequences is much more relevant today then when it was written sixty years ago. Richard Weaver gave us -- the survivors of a cultural holocaust -- an accounting of what the modernists have done. And in the wasteland we live in, we can begin the restoration. To his point of property, we have added home-schooling, where we say "no" to the state to indoctrinate our children. To his point of piety, we have rejected the modernist innovations of religion that seek to make peace with the barbarian. We have begun the restoration, and we have to continue it by all necessary means. Richard Weaver deserves our gratitude and admiration for taking on this beastly machine of modernism.

Deo gratias.

A Map of Life by Frank Sheed

You do not truly know what anything is until you know what it is for…. Apply this principle to man himself: we cannot use ourselves aright nor help any other man till we know what man is made for.

A Map of Life by Frank Sheed.

A Map of Life by Frank Sheed is an economical and refreshing overview of Catholic doctrine and Catholic living. At his core, Sheed is a synthesizer: he condenses the whole of Catholic thought into a logical and pleasing presentation. A Map of Life is not an apologetic work per se; rather it assumes that the reader is seeking to live a richer Christian life and explains many of the fundamental “why’s” of Christian thought. As to these latter explanations, Sheed is as imaginative as he is concise.

A Map of Life was written in 1933, and, as such, was composed in a time much less depraved than our own. The modern world’s descent into confusion and darkness was certainly evident during Sheed’s life; it simply has increased exponentially in velocity. Sheed’s work is more fitting and relevant now than when he wrote it. Sheed presents a tightly woven logic to the most important questions in a man’s life: who am I, and how should I live. The whole of the book is to point the Christian in the proper direction and help him understand why.

This book assumes Catholicity in the reader, and, in that sense, it does not seek to defend Catholic doctrine. After all, it is not the book’s purpose. That said, non-Catholics would find much they agree with in it, and, I assume, A Map of Life, would further spur further interest in Catholicism.

While the book addresses a number of doctrinal points, three particular treatments stand out: his work on man’s purpose, the “law,” and Jesus Christ.

The chapter on man’s purpose, the first of the book, is fascinating. He argues convincingly that until we know what man is made for, we cannot know what is good for him. Either things are made accidentally or they are made with a purpose. Per Sheed, “Catholics know that man was made, and made by an intelligent being who knew the purpose of his action.” He rightly observes that without being told by God what we are for, we really cannot know. We can guess – which is what people and societies do when they abandon God’s revelation – but we cannot know. Those who do not know can only guess what their life’s purpose is, and, as they will often guess wrong, they have the capacity to injure themselves and others in the process.

The consequences of not knowing “what men are made for” is a profound one. Crucial moral questions simply cannot be answered, or worse, answered tragically wrong. Whether it is right to divorce your spouse, lay with another man, abort your baby, or kill your sick and elderly parent are questions that cannot be answered until the foundational question of man’s purpose is ascertained. Those who answer these questions affirmatively have a purpose in mind – perhaps it is a warped sense of man’s freedom or overactive sense of freedom from pain and suffering. Whatever it is, Sheed argues, it is (1) at variance from God’s revelation and (2) based on man’s own flawed supposition. The one common theme that Sheed sees in virtually all such thinking is for the relief of suffering. Sheed makes the point, however, that while suffering is often bad, it is not the worst evil in the world (it can even be a good if it furthers man towards his real purpose of union with God).

Today the relief of suffering – in its many forms – appears to be a prime motivator in the greater liberal culture. Their moral sanctimony in a discussion on euthanasia stems in part because they believe they have identified a great evil (suffering) and wish to relieve it by allowing the individual freedom from that evil. Because they elevate “relief of suffering” over sin in their relative importance (if they even have a concept of sin at all), they cannot understand that their counsel is actually doing far more harm than good. Other similar cultural flashpoints have the same logic. Simply stated, modern man – devoid of God’s revelation and purpose for man – is often addressing the wrong problems, and, in any event, solving them with the wrong answers. The end does not justify the means.

Here is a example of Sheed’s trenchant thinking that emphasizes his demand for coherent answers: “Two questions, then, are to be asked of any religious or social teacher who offers some system of life for the acceptance of men: The first is: What, according to you, is the purpose of man’s life? The second is: How do you know? When he answers the second, be very insistent. Unless he says “God has revealed it”, then he is wasting time.”

Only God can reveal man’s purpose because he is the creator of all, including man. Without this revelation – or in the face of this revelation, man gropes about for meaning, often mistakes it, and ruin follows. We live in an age that prides itself on the self-defining man (as if that were possible). What follows in the wake of that utter nonsense are two things: mass confusion as to the right purpose and way and utter moral decline. Chesterton was certainly on to something when he observed (and I paraphrase) that once man stops believing in Christianity, he doesn’t start believing in nothing, he starts believing in everything.

We take it for granted in this society – almost as a part of the ether – that man defining his own purpose in life is esteemed. It is a hallmark of Americanism. It is not true that any man's purpose could be different from other men’s purposes. Because these people reject God’s revelation as definitive on points of right moral thinking and action, they reduce any view on moral thinking and action as merely subjective. What follows is a gross relativism in which not only are “purposes” subjective and personal, moral thought and action are likewise subjective and relative.

That is not to say that man’s small “p” purposes may differ; indeed, they do. My purpose might be a marital vocation and toiling work – your purpose might be a priestly vocation or academic work. But “man’s” purpose – his ultimate aim – is to spend eternity in bliss with the Lord and Creator of the universe. Because this purpose is man’s true one, any social order at variance cannot ultimately make him happy.

This notion of purpose is properly stated by Sheed as the first step in analyzing where we are going, and why we are choosing to go there. Proceeding in life without a grip on “purpose” is like traveling without a destination in mind.

Sheed’s thoughts on God’s law are likewise illuminating. How often do we hear complaints that traditional moral laws (like those on proper sexual relations) limit freedom and suppress the man. What nonsense – Sheed is masterful in juxtaposing the relationship between the physical laws that govern the material universe and those spiritual laws that govern the soul. Man has true freedom in the context of the physical laws by learning to live within them. In the same way, man has true freedom in terms of the moral laws governing his soul. He may not like it but to deny the law of marriage is as absurd as denying the powers of gravity. He makes the further point that no human force – individually or collectively – can change the law of God.

Far from inhibiting man’s freedom, God’s law enables it. He likens God’s law this way as something akin to a user’s manual. Without knowing it, we would not know how to use our bodies correctly. That this fact presupposes our dependence on a loving Creator should not be limiting to us. Moreover, it is a reality that we should embrace.

Finally, Sheed’s thoughts on Jesus Christ are instructive. He precedes it by addressing man's need for redemption by revisiting man's fall in Adam -- how man became a lost race in need of finding and unable to make satisfaction for his sins. Only God could do that, and, so an incomprehensible gift was offered in the Incarnation. In discussing the Incarnation, Sheed states the following of our Lord: "To such a [broken] world, Christ who came to make all things new, said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." In those three words -- way, truth, life -- Christ related himself precisely to what man had lost: as precisely as a key fits a lock. In the precision of that threefold relation, we are apt to overlook the strangest word in the phrase -- the world "am". Jesus is more than revealer of truth -- he is the embodiment of it. Sheed spends a good deal of time developing the themes of way, truth and life -- those things that were restored to us by a good God.

Sheed's book might have been aptly titled "Way, Truth, and Life," because the entirety of it is about developing how man needed these three things after forfeiting them -- how God restored them to him, and how man might keep them so as to stay true to his purpose.

There are many things in Christianity that are revolutionary. We forget how incredible the notion of incarnation is -- we further forget how different the Christian theology of God is. God is love -- we were made by a Creator who loves us and desires us to be close with him freely. Where other religions (old and new) have depicted God as imperious and distant, our God -- the true God -- is anything but. He knows what it means to be a human being.

Deo Gratias.

Unbridled Affections

WHEN a man desires a thing too much, he at once becomes ill at ease. A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace. An unmortified man is quickly tempted and overcome in small, trifling evils; his spirit is weak, in a measure carnal and inclined to sensual things; he can hardly abstain from earthly desires. Hence it makes him sad to forego them; he is quick to anger if reproved. Yet if he satisfies his desires, remorse of conscience overwhelms him because he followed his passions and they did not lead to the peace he sought.

True peace of heart, then, is found in resisting passions, not in satisfying them. There is no peace in the carnal man, in the man given to vain attractions, but there is peace in the fervent and spiritual man.

(Imitation of Christ, Bk. 1, Ch. 6, Thomas à Kempis)

Speaking from experience, the foregoing is only too true. We live in an era of the Church in which mortification is seldom preached -- it is even frowned upon as some sort of Jansenist anachronism of medieval Catholicism. Officially, this anti-mortification attitude is reflecting in the great relaxation of the corporate fast and abstinence days in the Church's liturgical calendar (see here). It is reflected more generally in an attitude that doubly (1) stresses mercy at the expense of justice and (2) minimizes the extent of man's fallen nature.

Ironically enough, this age, perhaps more than any other, needs a strong emphasis on corporate and individual mortification because the depraved sensuality of this culture is near-ubiquitous. Clearly, the Christian today is bombarded with carnal images and messages. No Christian in history had more need of mortification in light of what is around him. What I have written is subject to a necessary caveat: fallen man generally always needs mortification. He always tends towards sensuality, towards comfort, and towards leisure -- in short, away from the Cross. So Holy Mother Church was right to robustly teach mortifying the flesh -- but the society and age we live in (not unlike the friends and company we keep) accordingly modulate the need for mortification. And because our society is a rapidly deteriorating moral abyss, the Christian's sanctifying road is that much more arduous.

Sometimes misfortunes can help re-evaluate our worldliness (like the one described here), which is why such events can really be blessings. Other times, repenting of our sins can be painful to steel our resolve. The irony of these markers in the Christian's life is that he will nonetheless endure his own fallen nature while he walks among the living. While the project of our sanctification is ongoing and while it is does indeed manifest change for the better (sometimes vastly better), we Christians will forever and always needs God's grace to please him.

So no one could possibly argue with à Kempis: true peace is found resisting our unruly passions. And this task requires all of our effort (mortification, prayer, and self-denial) -- and more (God's grace).

Father of Mercies, we ask you to bless our efforts in the long road of sanctification. Help us, O Lord, control our unruly passions and grant us true and eternal peace that can only be found in your embrace.

Deo Gratias.

The day everything changed.

[NB:  This blog has never been an online journal.  While undoubtedly events of my life, perhaps significant ones, percolate in my thoughts on books and other things (indeed, how could it be otherwise), I have never written so personally as below.]

November 6, 2009.

I had been steadily tying up loose ends; it was after all a Friday.  I had also meant to call the dermatologist.  It had been one week since he cut off a lesion from my forehead, which I begrudgingly determined had been a wart.  He warned that if it “grew back,” I would need to come in and have it “frozen off.”  I called his office – in the midst of taking care of so many outstanding things – to make an expedited appointment.  The receptionist fumbled to find my records and look up my existing appointment.  She put me on hold, but she did not return – the doctor did. 

Surprised that the doctor would pick up a scheduling call, I introduced myself.  He said rather bluntly that the biopsy had come back – the biopsy that I had thought nothing of had come back.  It showed that I had skin cancer.  That (euphemistically) unattractive lesion was cancerous. 

Cancer:  it is an ugly, ugly word.

My mind initially did not process the information provided.  He quickly gave me instructions; the new specialist that I should call to make an appointment for its removal.  I was utterly speechless.  I took the information down and as quickly as the conversation began, it was over.  The only difference between the moments he got on the phone and the moment after was that I had previously considered myself a fairly normal and healthy thirty-eight year old man and now I was a thirty-eight year old man with cancer.

It is a moment in my life that I will never forget.  Dullness seemed to pervade my thinking, but, at the same time, thoughts flooded into my head.  The very first thought was, if I am dying, I wished I had been a better husband.  Not a better son or father or brother (although all of those would be true) – no, the first thought I had in my new status as cancer sufferer was an immediate regret over my marriage.  Fitting I suppose because my vocation here on earth was first to be a husband.  Not that I distilled it analytically, the thought simply came to me.

Few things have the power to clarify like the thought of death.  Suddenly, the problems and annoyances I had immediately been consumed with vanished.  Suddenly, the thought of meeting my maker seemed very real – and disturbingly close.  The anxieties I have suffered for a lifetime seemed downright silly.  And then a moment later, the thought of my children came to me.  My five beautiful children – energy and love and life in little bodies – came to me.  And when I thought of death, and I mean a sooner rather than later death, I thought of my premature separation from them.  The thought that they might not have a father to help them, to guide them, to walk them down the aisle or love them was gut wrenching.  It tore at the very fabric of my soul.

So in a moment on a Friday afternoon – on November 6, 2009 – my life was irrevocably changed.  The reminder of Friday was difficult.  I struggled through the rosary and petitioned our Lady for her intercessory prayers for courage and strength.  Then something happened – I woke up on Saturday and felt alive; I felt alive in a qualitatively different way.  I felt even more alive on Sunday.  The sore on my forehead was now even more rancid to me, but I felt – it’s hard to explain – but I felt empowered.   It is almost as if that the last dozen years of studying theology crystallized for me in one brief painful moment.  The thought of death – other than the separation from those in my life who need me – did not paralyze me.  I also began to see this "thing" as a gift on multiple levels.

How could such a diagnosis be a gift?  Because it permeates death -- and the thought of death reminds men just how finite they really are.  I want to live; yes, I desperately want to live.  But to live authentically means to live in the embrace of the Living God.   

And here really was the amazing -- even life-changing -- thing that happened.  Only God knows the painful extent to which I have failed as a Christian.  I write it devoid of hyperbole or melodrama, I am a selfish, selfish sinner.  My sojourn has been one very rocky -- sanctification has come to me in fits and starts.  It would appear that the part of me that resists obedience, that recoils at pain, that seeks pleasure, that thinks only of self is very hard to kill indeed.  One might surmise that the twofold knowledge of my many failings juxtaposed with death would paralyze me.  But it didn't -- for the first time, the themes of redemption, mercy and forgiveness became alive in my soul.  I do not want to overstate it, but these ideas have sometimes been abstractions to me.  But death is earthy -- death has no time for abstractions, and in the thought of death -- real death -- I felt forgiven by a gracious and loving God.  Suddenly my failings, while still revolting, seemed very insignificant before the awesome power of forgiveness of the Lord.  In a way that was different than any other previous experience, I felt loved by God.  And in that moment, I was not afraid of anything.

Any other life without God as its center is a cheap and profane counterfeit -- the bread and circus of this age seemed clearer in a way that I had not yet seen.  I have always loved the idea of "bread and circus;"  the great swath of people inebriated in mind-numbing distractions.  Sometimes I have felt like a man walking the midnight streets of a deserted city -- only I was walking down a crowded corridor in my office building.  People are "alive," at least in a biological sense, but are they really living?  Obsessed with the nonsense of this age -- sports, politics, entertainment, work, money, and material things -- are they really living?   All of this is said for one point:  I thought I understood the concept of "bread and circus;"  I can honestly report that I understand it far better.  Because the moment after my death became real in my mind, the moment I thought seriously to myself I am really going to meet my maker after all -- that is the moment I saw the absurdity of all of it.  And in that moment, the resolve to change much in my life was steeled.  Yes, I do want to live; but now I want to live very differently.

In the aftermath of this news, and upon a few days of reflection (reflection still clouded by some uncertainty), I have realized in a more profound way how blessed I am.  I have realized how fragile this life really is.  If I had only a short time to live, I take solace in my little ones.  I take solace in my marriage, which, although surely not perfect, was the place that those little ones were created by a loving God.  I take solace in the gift of faith that God so freely gave me. And death is not the end anyway – having a wife of so high a virtue also gives me solace.  She would do her utmost to raise our children exactly as I would have them raised. 

Only our Lord knows the future – and my future.  Perhaps He will bless me with thirty-eight more years or perhaps my time is coming to an end.  While a “gift,” this news is scary.  I do not want to be separated from my wife or my children.  I feel as if I have much still left to do and much more to give.  And considering this particular skin cancer, I should be able to do those things.  Still my mortality – something first tasted in a moment – is unnerving

As I researched my particular skin cancer, I have learned that while serious, it is overwhelmingly not the type that kills -- at least 95% of the time.  I will get it cut out, and, God willing, I will be fine.  But I will never be the same.  The day that youth in my life was finally and definitively punctured has occurred.  The day that my own death became real in my own mind has also occurred.  But the gift here – the gift of this cancer – is that it reminded me of how far I have come; warts (metaphorically anyway) and all.  We are all going to die, and now I have been giving a glimpse of how that death might come.  How it now comes is really irrelevant.

O Lord, be with me as I struggle with this fear.  Protect my wife and children, O Father of Mercies.  How I long, O Lord, for eternal bliss in your majesty’s presence.  Change my heart, O Lord, and give me one pleasing to You.

Deo gratias.  

Reading The Holy Scriptures

TRUTH, not eloquence, is to be sought in reading the Holy Scriptures; and every part must be read in the spirit in which it was written. For in the Scriptures we ought to seek profit rather than polished diction.

Likewise we ought to read simple and devout books as willingly as learned and profound ones. We ought not to be swayed by the authority of the writer, whether he be a great literary light or an insignificant person, but by the love of simple truth. We ought not to ask who is speaking, but mark what is said. Men pass away, but the truth of the Lord remains forever. God speaks to us in many ways without regard for persons.

Our curiosity often impedes our reading of the Scriptures, when we wish to understand and mull over what we ought simply to read and pass by.

If you would profit from it, therefore, read with humility, simplicity, and faith, and never seek a reputation for being learned. Seek willingly and listen attentively to the words of the saints; do not be displeased with the sayings of the ancients, for they were not made without purpose.

(Imitation of Christ, Bk. 1, Ch. 5, Thomas à Kempis)

Read with humility: treat Holy Writ with great respect. Simple enough, but is this really the spiritual admonition that à Kempis has in mind? More important seems to be the warning against spiritual curiosity. It is a curiosity that is an unholy interest in holy things -- or, perhaps said differently, it is a curiosity for reasons other than truth-seeking. When we read the Bible, and especially the Gospels, we should be in awe. God is speaking to us -- God is relating reality. To read it any less prayerful manner or for any other purpose is to do shortchange in kind, not degree.

à Kempis also counsels a "generational humility." When we spend time with the Church Fathers, which, unfortunately, few do today, we should accept them as our Masters and learn from them. Their writings are not canonical, but many have been accepted by the Church as powerful witnesses to the Early Church.

If one were to have this humility -- humility of person and in respect to biblical exegesis and patristic study, surely, we would have less divisions among Christians. The era we live in today especially lacks these virtues (especially that of obedience).

O Lord, may I approach Holy Mother Church -- her works and teaching -- with an authentic and abiding obedience. May I abase my prideful self.

Deo Gratias.

Prudence in Action

DO NOT yield to every impulse and suggestion but consider things carefully and patiently in the light of God's will. For very often, sad to say, we are so weak that we believe and speak evil of others rather than good. Perfect men, however, do not readily believe every talebearer, because they know that human frailty is prone to evil and is likely to appear in speech.

Not to act rashly or to cling obstinately to one's opinion, not to believe everything people say or to spread abroad the gossip one has heard, is great wisdom.

Take counsel with a wise and conscientious man. Seek the advice of your betters in preference to following your own inclinations.

A good life makes a man wise according to God and gives him experience in many things, for the more humble he is and the more subject to God, the wiser and the more at peace he will be in all things.

(Imitation of Christ, Bk. 1, Ch. 4, Thomas a Kempis)

It would appear perhaps odd that Kempis focuses in his fourth chapter on something as seemingly innocuous as "gossip," but, upon reflection, it is not odd at all. Our lives are relational -- horizontally in our relationship with God and vertically with neighbor. And in light of the command of Jesus that the two most important commandments are love of God and love of neighbor, "gossip" is pure poison in the well of love of neighbor. It is a two-fold problem in that (1) it is so easy to do and (2) it is a noxious habit that kills charity in the gossiper and participants.

Again, as is almost always the case, pride is a primary culprit. When we "gossip," we repeat the faults of others in usually the most negative light and often with a dubious basis. In short, gossip is typically the very serious sin of detraction. (When gossip is merely passing of personal information more benign, it still is sinful in that it displays an unhealthy and immature curiosity.) While we often have no trouble seeing the worst in others and the worst in their motives, we, of course, see only the best in ourselves and give ourselves the benefit of the doubt -- even when we know we do not deserve it. In short, we use a radically different measuring stick for ourselves than others.

While I do not consciously seek out gossip, I am not vigilant enough when others gossip around me, and, sometimes, I often add to it. What can be a funny anecdote about another human being common to the group can become, in an instant, very mean-spirited. My sense of humor, which most seem to enjoy, can trend this way. This problem of "gossip" is something I have begun to combat in fits and starts.

Silence. When a traditional Catholic envisions saintly conduct, it probably entails someone who speaks rarely, and, when he speaks, does so with simple honesty and directness. Garrulousness is no virtue -- it shows we fail to realize the dignity of ourselves and others. I am not suggesting that we have to be grave or severe at all times; but, at the same time, we would be wise to be less garrulous if we act that way at times. I have rarely regretted when I was silent -- I cannot count the times I have regretted opening my mouth.

O Lord, that I might exhibit true charity towards my neighbor. That I might never "gossip" about another human being and take the dignity of my creation seriously in all things.

Deo Gratias.