The Village of God or the City of God....what do you think is being built? Or anything?
Understanding the American problem
proves to be a simple meditation, but leads to the deeper discussion
of the difference between the City of Man and the City of God.
Being back in the States has revealed,
again, but at a deeper level, the “American Catholic problem”. I
met this years ago (thirty-plus) in a study on the heresy of
Americanism, but the awareness of the “American problem” was
first brought to my attention when I was sixteen, exactly fifty years
ago.
My father, speaking about the growing
accommodation of Catholics to the world told one of my brothers and
me that to be a good American citizen meant being a good Catholic
“first”. I began to think about this and realized that Catholic
values, even in the late nineteen-sixties, were beginning to
evaporate from the Catholic conclaves of Catholic culture. Dad had
said that to be a Catholic was to be counter-cultural. He said that
in 1965.
Already in my Catholic high school,
some students were being taught the New Criticism by trendy priests,
and although the abuses of the liturgy really did not emerge until I
was in college, I was only one of four students from 1963-1967 who
went to high school daily Mass, out of two-thousand students.
The fact that my peers were not as
“pious” as me became more and more obvious to me and others. I
had no one to talk to except one Lutheran boy, keen on religion,
about the Faith. Our conversations, which went on for almost a year,
honed my ability to counter Protestant thought.
Then, some youth began to “rebel”.
But, the laxity of morals in the
sixties did not come from the rebellion of the youth, in my opinion.
The late sixties and early seventies became the time of the first
battles of the new demonic influences in America and Catholicism.
Most Catholic parents simply were not
prepared for these battles. They had not expected that the seeds of
the sexual revolution sown in WWII and the brainwashing concerning
sex coming out of Hollywood and British cinema industries, as well as
the selling out, yes, of both politics parties, to moneyed interests
would undermine Catholic culture. Humanae Vitae was in the
future, but the massive future rejection of this prophetic document
bubbled like a poison in the souls of the adults even of my parent's
generation. Remember, it was not just the Boomers or Gen-Xers who
rejected Humanae Vitae.
The problem is and was this. Those good
priests in the pre-Vatican II Church missed the points of two main
teaching areas, which all good teachers should know.
One, that adults must appropriate their
Faith, not merely by obedience but by study and intense prayer.
In other words, knowledge must be made
one's own and not merely repeated by rote. One must learn how to
think like a Catholic, a constant theme on this blog.
And, two, that to be a Catholic, one
must think and live counter-culturally.
I can plainly see now, in these days of
complete decadence, that most Catholics since 1938, the beginnings of
the last world war, had traded the lie of the American dream for the
truth of Catholic holiness.
This conflict resulted in the
capitulation of most Catholics here in America—they are Americans
first, Catholics second.
One cannot have it all. The American
Dream still remains antithetical to the pursuit of holiness.
Consumerism has created a materialistic
mindset, as I have written here before on this blog.
Materialism is the philosophy which
holds that there is no afterlife. The now is all, the material is the
only real deal.
Daily, I have met people who live as if
there is no God, no heaven, no hell, no purgatory, no particular
judgment.
Daily, I have met extremely wealthy
Catholics who think they are poor because their pool is ten years
old, they have not bought a new car for two years, and they cannot
afford to re-do the living room and dining room this year. They think
they are poor if they cannot eat out frequently or continually buy
new clothes from the most expensive shops in the area.
I have seen more fur coats in church
than I did when I lived in Alaska.
Now, I would have a fur coat, if such
did not cost two-thousand dollars, as this type of coat provides
warmth in these horrible cold climates. But, to have the best and the
most expensive is not the Catholic way.
A family which is close to me, mom,
dad, and six children and two grand-children (young families), could
have afforded the best as the dad is a successful doctor. They only
bought used cars and never had a Mercedes or even a BMW. It was, as
they said, “not the W....way.” The “W....way” is to buy
second-hand or inexpensive clothing, use the same furniture for their
entire married life of thirty-five years, and not ever go on
expensive vacations, going on local pilgrimages instead to local
shrines. Frugally, they use their money for their children and
grand-children and many, many charities. That is the “W...way”.
Money goes for TLMS for those in purgatory, and those who need
prayers, and other good causes. They have given much money to the TLM
cause in their area.
They have never belonged to the country
club like other medical families.
I call the “W...way” the “Catholic
way”. This family understands the difference between the City of
God and the City of Man.
Those of us who have been torn out of
perfectionism by the grace of God know that to pass up the best for
the adequate is a way to saintliness. To idolize the best, is,
simply, idolatry.
Catholics have forgotten, a long time
ago here in America, that the pursuit of money must not be the center
of our lives. They have forgotten that relationships are more
important than money.
Again, for the third time since I have
landed on these shores in the past month, I am living in an area with
no sidewalks.
I am astounded. I never realized how
many neighborhoods in American had no sidewalks.
This suburban development, as all
others, proves that community is and has been not a focus of
importance to Americans. Without sidewalks, one cannot walk to
church. I may have to walk on the highway to get to church on this
coming Sunday.
Without sidewalks, I cannot shop for
food. Without sidewalks, I do not meet the locals, know the area
families, or try and reach out to others.
No sidewalks, no community, no Catholic
thinking....We are community people. And, if we are not building or
living in community, we are not being wholly Catholic.
The American Dream has destroyed
communal life and the pursuit of friendships. The pursuit of the
City of Man has trumped the building of the City of God.
Years ago, when feminism began to take
over the media, a phrase rang out. “Women, you can have it all.”
Catholics think they can “have it
all”. They cannot. One must choose between the City of God and the
City of Man, side by side in this culture. The City of God has shrunk
into the Town of God in most places I have visited in the past month.
In some areas, the City of God is now the Village of God.
Christ warned us of riches. We have the
parable of the Rich Young Man who could not give up his comforts in
order to really follow Christ. He walked away from being a disciple.
He walked away from an intimate union with God. He was given the
choice, and he took the road of things, returning to the City of Man,
after having been invited to the building of the City of God.
I fear for American Catholics. Those
who have chosen the American Dream over God may do so in the coming
trials. How many will choose comfort over Truth, over being told to
accept ssm? How many will choose being comfortable with their pagan
families instead of choosing to build community? Those who have
assidously avoided suffering will not be able to accept the final
suffering of persecution without tremendous graces from God. Will
they turn to Him then? I hope so. But, if the majority of Catholics
in this land, those who have chosen politics over religion and
comfort over suffering, are in the habit of compromising their Faith,
how can they choose at the crucial moment of pain? How many will
persevere in times of extreme trial?
Few, very few, is what I see from my
vantage point in la-la land.
The Village of God Part Two
In one of Dickens' books, Martin
Chuzzlewit, the spoiled young hero,Martin, goes off to America with his
faithful servant to make his fortune. This young man is full of
egotism and pride. He fails because he is duped by evil entrepreneurs
to buy land in a place called “Eden”, which ends up being a
pestilent infested swamp land. Both the hero and his companion fall
ill, but survive and return humbled to England. The swamp land is
described in the book as full of a sickening miasma, a fog of disease
and misery. Of course, all those who are there were equally conned by
the evil men who convinced them that the area would become a thriving
center of commerce in America, with many natural resources and so on.
The young hero is mesmerized by the
siren-song of the American Dream.
There exists a miasma over all the
places I have visited so far here again. There seems to be a dulling
fog of provincialism and gross ignorance, brought on by the satiety
of daily comforts. I can feel this miasma in the air. It is
stiffling.
This fog does not exist in Europe,
because European culture still is rooted in Catholicism, in the
acceptance of suffering, in the acceptance of having less rather than
more. But, this country, rooted in both Protestantism and Masonry,
has worshiped material success to the point of idolatry.
It seems very hard to break out of this
fog of comfort. Those who are poor have fallen into disgrace by
accepting and voting for socialism, which promises heaven on earth,
or at least a phone, food and a place to live, provided by the
government, supposedly with no strings attached.
That families do not take care of their
poor is simply a result of this lie of socialism. The Catholic way of
supporting the old and the sick, the poor and the broken has
disappeared into the idea that the government should take care of
these people.
They do and will, by slow
extermination, hidden and approved by those who no longer take
responsibility for the lowest of the low.
The young hero in the story above
received the gift of an expensive ring from his secret love which he
sold in order to get back to England with his companion. This ring,
he thought, had been a gift to her, but she bought it with a
tremendous sacrifice to herself in case he needed it. She had a gift
of forethought to help him out of trouble. When he finally
understands the depth of her own sacrifice, the young man is humbled
again and finally become the man he was meant to be—a man who can
endure suffering for the sake of others.
That men do not want to absorb the
suffering of those around them indicates that they are not men.
Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman's famous writing on a gentleman as
defined as one who can willingly suffer for the benefit of others
seems a fictive ideal here. The peter pans do not want to suffer. The
loss of the Catholic ideal of suffering as joining in the Passion and
Death of Christ leaves Catholicism emasculated.
In my opinion, it is this running away
from suffering which has caused the man crisis among Catholics and
Americans, not merely feminism. Feminism partly grew out of the
reaction of too many men refusing to be leaders in their families,
letting the women take over simply because it was “too hard”.
The evil of matriarchies lies in the
depth of this hearts and histories of some ethnic groups, but the
root is always the same despite some cultural differences-the
abdication of authority by men. Like the young hero in Dickens' tale,
too many men want easy riches and comforts and avoid suffering at all
costs. The costs include the weakening of leadership in this country,
the adulation of sport, and the millions of children being raised
without dads.
To give in to the handing over of the
apple by Eve was Adam's sin. If he had said “no”, we would not be
living in the detritus of Original Sin on this earth. Sloth? Wanting
to be loved? Idolatry of Eve over God? The root sin does not matter.
Egotism won the day in Eden
Egotism rots manhood. The miasma of
Dickens' Eden represents the siren-song of riches without heart and
the focus on the City of God. That the hero failed proved to be the
turning point of his life.
Dickens' Eden is America's Eden-run by
numerous demons and false gods who have created this fog of
forgetfulness as to why we are all here.
Too many American Catholics have become
successful to the point of forgetting why they are here—to build
the City of God, not merely engage in the City of Man.