Repost: "Modesty Is Simply Thoughtfulness"

Great post on modesty. A very good analysis and take on how the collective cultural and philosophical thought has led to this tension between total autonomy and mutual manipulation.

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Huffington Post is promoting a story about Mark Frauenfelder's daughter being told by a TSA agent to cover up. According to Frauenfelder, the agent said,

"You're only 15, cover yourself!"

The latter link includes the single public photo of how she was dressed. Of course it was unprofessional of the agent to remark on anything personal. But except for that, it's about time someone says something to young women who dress revealingly. Even in that one photo in which she's "covered up," it's clear that the leggings don't leave much of the shape of the girl's lower half to the imagination. We also might suspect that the photo is not exactly what the agent saw: it's clear that the top is the kind that tends to ride up revealing the navel, and we can't see (Deo gratias) how revealing the top might be close-up despite its apparent thickness here. So we shouldn't rush to judge the remark based on a single photo.

Of course, the subsequent reaction is typical of our times: that the agent's remark was creepy, that it's up to a woman how she dresses, that they want to force women to wear burkhas, etc.

A while ago, a friend posted a story about women protesting rape and sexual harassment. Any civilized person has to agree wholeheartedly: men are fully responsible for their actions and need to control themselves, regardless of the context. But then the photo showed the women dressed scantily, immodestly. Clearly these women weren't getting a deeper point.

People these days forget that we dress not only for ourselves, but also for others, to ease our common life together: we dress decently to make others comfortable. Men are naturally attracted to women's bodies; more visibility means more attraction. That this was something that could only be controlled with effort used to be a fact widely understood. It's just in the nature of men and women, how we're put together. (In fact we owe our continued existence as a species to this aspect of our nature.)

In saner days women dressed modestly to make life easier for men. But no more. I think our modern attitude comes from two ideas that stand in tension with each other:

1. We think of ourselves as entirely rational, autonomous agents, transcending the gross corporeal world.
2. We identify ourselves with our inclinations and desires (and fail to acknowledge that we can resist our desires, and that some should be resisted).

From these two sides of Enlightenment mind-body dualism, we conclude by divinizing our desires and choices, placing them above doubt or question. Women tend to think that there's nothing wrong with using their sexuality to manipulate men; that they can dress however they wish, the rest of the world be damned. Men tend to think that satisfying their base desires is necessarily good; that getting what we 'want' is victory, the rest of the world be damned. Clearly the actions of men here, being direct violations of another person, are more condemnable, but both selfish tendencies, unchecked, add up to a war between the sexes and the splintering of society. But peace won't come from answering power with power, but from answering power with peace.

The irony is that Mark Frauenfelder presents himself (as do his supporters) as socially conscious. In actuality, by failing to teach his daughter about the social implications of dress, he is contributing to the impoverishment of community. In a world so individualistic that it's off-limits to comment on another's dress, if the parents don't teach their children about such things, who will?

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Source: Lawrence Gage, "Modesty Is Simply Thoughtfulness," Real Physics, June 19, 2013, accessed April 14, 2014, http://realphysics.blogspot.com/2013/06/modesty-is-simply-thoughtfulness.html.

Gold Nuggets from Dr. Jeannot on Catholic Identity and Education

I don't know what the context of this essay was, written by my former philosophy professor at Gonzaga University Dr. Tom Jeannot, but I thought he brought up some really brilliant points. I can hear his voice in my head as he meanders slowly and windingly but surely to his point, stopping at the necessary points that establish his thesis. You have to bear with him to see the gold. Unfortunately the class setting often didn't allow enough time for him to do this, but an essay perhaps is a freer environment (in some strange way).

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But what it means to call ourselves "Catholic" can aspire to the objectivity of a comprehensive viewpoint at the level of institutional identity only if the corporate body itself is asking the relevant question, actively inspecting the relevant issues, submitting itself to serious study, and following out the leads of the further relevant questions that would inevitably arise once the institutional fuse of inquiry was lit. (I understand that "corporate bodies" do not ask questions but only persons do; but at the institutional level, persons would have to be authorized--conceivably everyone--if an institutional answer were to be sought; sought more profoundly than the bromides entailed by the "branding" of our "label.") What I think calls for an explanation, then, is why the question is not being asked on this level and in this way. My hypothesis, offered under a fallibilist constraint, is that Lonergan has an answer: what he calls the general bias of common sense makes the inquiry seem irrelevant to our everyday lives at work and institutional norms and practices. Therefore we can safely ignore it. (8-9)

On the other hand (in consideration of Fr. Cook's reference to "a Western-centered Church"), there's something comical about the fashionableness of westerners deploring an undifferentiated fictional monolith called "the West" (as if it too were a Platonic Idea in the cartoonish sense); especially when in their majority they're breast-beating "white" people prattling on endlessly about "globalization" and "diversity" while they happily imbibe the blessings of their bourgeois affluence (in an environment it would be embarrassing to call "diverse" in the sense in which they typically mean the term); and when the terms and relations of their critique are derived from the pedigree "western" virtues themselves of liberal tolerance and celebrating diversity. (12-13)

Moreover, just as a binary opposition between inclusion and exclusion turns the interlocutors into ships passing in the night, so too does a one-sided emphasis on either unity or diversity. Prof. McCruden used the term "countercultural" twice in his essay, but Apple and Google bear witness that an uncritical, unprincipled multiculturalism is not in the least countercultural. Perhaps he would accept an amendment, then, to the effect that the dialectic of unity and diversity privileges neither term against the other. (14-15)

So while communion with Rome and the guidance of the Holy Spirit do distinguish Catholicism, ecumenism is a generic movement as alive for Thich Nhat Hanh as for the Catholic aggiornamento. Likewise, an appeal to the Mission Statement can only qualify as generic as well, as alive (or not) on other campuses as Gonzaga's, secular as well as religious, in the absence of a prior grasp of the Mission itself, which it does require an Ignatian composition of place in order to understand as a gestalt on the institutional level. A decontextualization of the sources explains the breakdown of communication between ships passing in the night, which it seems to me has happened in a more or less obvious way by virtue of a failure to answer the initial question. Jim Infantine quoted from Ex corde Ecclesiae, arguing that the provision requiring a "majority Catholic faculty" counts as an important factor in the Catholic identity of the university. He did not give an argument; rather, he appealed to the authority of the Apostolic constitution itself. But in the further discussion, neither were there rebuttals of Ex corde Ecclesiae (except in the way of a subtext). The Apostolic constitution simply dropped out of the picture, to be replaced by a misleading distinction between inclusivity and exclusivity. And the reason why the distinction is a miscue is that inclusivity is not a synonym of diversity and exclusivity is not a synonym of unity. (15-16)

[...] it wasn't until the blessed trinity of publicists for militant atheism, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, achieved their cultural (not countercultural) cachet, that it came home to me momentously that there was a difference in kind between one kind of grounding for academic freedom and another, one grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition and the other grounded in the flattery of the age. This difference also gives rise to the further question of what is countercultural about Gonzaga. The University of Central America in the San Salvador of the eighties was countercultural, but it seems reasonably clear that Gonzaga is not the UCA. What then is it that makes our institutional Catholic identity a countercultural one? (16-17)

Past the theatrics of the dramatic pattern of experience, a hermeneutics of suspicion might lead us to suspect that what I've recounted here is really a sideshow. The President will not convene a faculty plenum for 2015. The Academic Vice President will not enjoin us to a more faithful witness to our Catholic identity and mission (a "Moment for Mission" showing up in our inbox notwithstanding). It's hard to imagine how the memorandum would be written without being read as a causus [sic] belli ["an act justifying war"]. But the deeper reasons are impersonal, not on account of malevolence, bad faith, or ill will. I think they reflect some characteristic features of the nature of administrative-bureaucratic rationality, which are related to the sedimentations of the general bias of common sense. In terms of general bias, it is hard to see how the question of Catholic identity is relevant to the work we actually do in teaching chemistry or accounting. (18)

It can be argued that the general bias of common sense has set in at Gonzaga, together with its implications for a longer cycle of decline. Such an argument would be predicated on the breakdown in the intelligibility of the meaning of its Catholic identity: who knows what it means? In the limit, as Lonergan put it, society would have no need of the university. That is, not only would it have no need of theology, philosophy, the humanities, and the arts pursued for their own sake (as a necessary component of the rumor afoot that we "educate the whole person"), but it would have no need of mathematics and the sciences as well, except for their immediate relevance to technical and commercial applications. (19)

One friend told me that in a conversation with another faculty member as they walked away from one of the endless meetings, the question came up: why are you here? It's true that this question could be asked in the spirit of an inquisition, but my friend was sincere and the question came up naturally enough because they'd been talking about Catholic identity. In the end, the other party answered, "Because they offered me the job." This answer is good as far as it goes; it's the "hardheaded practicality" of the situation we're in. Offers are scarce, but it could have been Eastern (a good university that happens to be neither Catholic nor Jesuit). So the trouble is that as an answer, it isn't good enough. (20)

Another friend told me about a different answer: Gonzaga is Catholic because Catholicism is "adjacent" to it. This answer seems good too as far as it goes: there's a chapel that offers conveniently located daily mass, there's campus ministry, there are crucifixes on the walls of the classrooms, there's a beautiful new grotto of Our Lady, there's a retreat program, there's a University Vice President for Mission, and so forth. Sarcasm would be unworthy: these signs, including the university logo itself, do in fact signify Catholicism. But the adjacency of Catholicism to the university is also not a good enough answer when it comes to the heart of the matter. (21)

Another friend told me about a third answer to the meaning of our being a Catholic and Jesuit institution; namely, that it is a "heritage." On being pressed, a distinction was drawn between a "heritage" and a "living tradition." Once the distinction came into play, the conversationalist turned out to mean the past tense, a synonym of "bygone," like an artifact in the Rare Books Room at Foley. Since the past has its admirable qualities, everyone with a curator's heart is free to admire them in their pleasing aesthetic way. It's a beautiful heritage, we can all agree, and it's a better way of living if the aesthetic pattern of experience enriches all of our lives. But then we'll go to the beautiful chapel in College Hall as tourists, and tourism also isn't a good enough answer to the question of conserving our institutional Catholic identity, especially considering that the remembrance of things past can have a profound effect on the present if we let in the light. (21-22)

My point will be that we may be coherent to ourselves individually when we say such things--we know "in private" what we mean by them-- but on the institutional level and corporately considered, there's an institutional incoherence attributable to the settling-in of the general bias of common sense. (22)

For example, the diction of the whole person is a cliché that borders on meaninglessness if we don't know who the whole person is. Lonergan concludes his presentation of common sense with an allusion to the tower of Babel. We say that we educate the whole person in body, mind, and spirit. With respect to the terms and relations of this formulation, what does it mean? As a corporate body, what is our philosophy of mind? Worse still, considering the ubiquity and also the importance of cognitive science, what is our philosophy of spirit? My point is not to answer such questions but to observe that as a corporate body we don't ask them. It would probably be inexpedient to ask them in an intellectually serious way. Besides, someone will say, their meaning is obvious (when it isn't). The dismissive gesture characteristic of the general bias comes next: why make a mountain out of a molehill?  (22-23)

Next, we say that our charism is the care of the person. But what is a person? We can give any answer we like, but with respect to our corporate identity as Catholic, can many of us say that we know what this means, besides "superior customer service," as an "outcome" of our sustained study of Ignatian spirituality in its historical roots and contemporary interpretations? [...] Are we religiously, theologically, and philosophically personalists? If we're not, then presumably we have some other answer on offer. So what is it? (23)

Is the care of the person consistent with the Google engineer and futurist Ray Kurzweil's forecast of a "technological singularity" (based on an extension of "Moore's law") scheduled to occur around 2045, by which time he predicts that "the pace of change will be so astonishingly quick that we won't be able to keep up, unless we enhance our own intelligence by merging with the intelligent machines we are creating"? Would it be our mission to hasten this day of splendor and glory, merely to descry it, or to criticize, repudiate, and if possible to reverse it? Is there a "design flaw" in human biology that nanotechnology holds out the prospect of correcting? Is it the utopian or the dystopian imagination at work? (But everybody know that the real question is: are there grants?) (23)

[...] we say that we are about diversity in a globalized world, but if we say this, we should also carefully study the aerial photograph (digitally down to the pixel). If we then correct ourselves and say this aspirationally rather than indicatively, well then so does General Electric. So what is the meaning of diversity? What are the implications of globalization? And globalization of what? These questions are generically important: what then constitutes the specific difference of asking them in the milieu of a Catholic university? In other words, it's an exercise in the obvious to notice that every institution of higher education is about diversity in a globalized world, as is every corporate organization except for some ranches in Wyoming. (24)

Finally, we say that we are about social justice and that this is what distinguishes us as Catholic and Jesuit (though in fact it doesn't, since virtually the same diction is in play at Evergreen). But if we were to press the point, then how would we link up with the social teaching of the Catholic Church--institutionally and as a corporate body--or with the point of departure of this idiom in the Thirty-Second General Congregation of the Society of Jesus? Or does it even matter whether we draw such links or fail to draw them? On the other hand, if we don't link up in this way, then what we mean by social justice per se is indifferent to Catholic and Jesuit signifiers, and then when we name ourselves Catholic on this basis, the bait-and-switch maneuver has succeeded. (24)

Part of the trouble is the trouble with Catholics themselves when they are asked to say what they mean. But Catholics will continue to have their intramural fistfights whether Gonzaga conserves its Catholic identity or calls it a "heritage" instead. (24)

But when it comes to the Catholic identity of Gonzaga and the general aversion to talking about it (too much), Lonergan's allusion to Babel is apt. In the corporate body, the general bias prevails. We can't say or we don't know what we mean by "Catholic" in a way that gains institutional purchase beyond small coteries, cliques, and factions. (25)

The point is that if "Catholic identity" devolves into marketing slogans and public-relations strategies, but by design we obscure its meaning or can't answer the question coherently as a corporate body, sooner or later someone is going to say that we reek of inauthenticity. (25)

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Source: Dr. Tom Jeannot, "General Bias and Catholic Identity," November 29, 2013, accessed April 14, 2014, personal file. 

Simple Confessional Advice

I went to confession today and confessed that I have a hard time trusting God, and I doubt whether I can turn to Him for strength and consolation amidst my daily stress and pain. The priest gave me a lot of existential baloney, saying things like, "Continue in your search for meaning. Continue in your search for God," and something about my doubts being a sign of something good. I couldn't really comprehend what he was saying, and I'm used to reading dense material.

Later, I opened the book that I have been reading for spiritual reading, Fr. Victorino Osende's Fruits of Contemplation, and came across this passage:

It is possible to be of good will and yet feel the greatest rebellion against the idea of belonging wholly to God. A person's good will and sincerity are demonstrated in the firmness with which he maintains his resolution in spite of the combats and resistances he may experience. [...] 

It must be noted that the goodness and sanctity of man reside basically in the will and in the struggle for sanctity a man always retains power over his will—his intense, absolute, and sincere desire to be good. That is why, first and above all, God asks of man his heart, his will, his absolute and sincere desire. But often a man's actions and even his interior natural dispositions are not in his power fully to control. God sees this and does not demand it of him. However, He does demand that when He shall grant a soul this power, he should be grateful and correspond with divine grace to the fullest extent of his capacity. [...]

What matter the numerous falls through human frailty or the arduous battles and conflicts we may experience? What matter if we do not even feel the desire to be good and holy or experience no attraction for God? Of far greater importance than sentiment or feeling is the sincere will which is manifested by our constancy and perseverance in the midst of spiritual dryness and bitterness. It does not matter if by nature we should be inclined to the worst evil and should experience difficulty only in doing good, for what we lack we can ask for and it will be given us. 

If we lack good will, let us ask for it; if we have no desire for God or for things spiritual, let us ask for it; if we are blind and torpid in regard to things spiritual, let us beg God to awaken, illumine, and vivify us. He who infused life and intelligence into the dust of the earth can also illumine that intelligence and give new life to the heart. All our failure and disappointment in the way of sanctity are due to the fact that we do not desire it enough. From the very fact that God gives all to him who asks, and sanctity more readily than anything else, it follows that if there are few saints it is because few really want to be such. [...] 

Do not fear anything; let nothing terrify or frighten you; do not be afraid of the sacrifices or the aridities of the spiritual life; do not fear obscurities or darkness or fluctuation, still less any danger. If God is with you, who is against you (Rom. 8:31)? He will guide and conduct you across all the chasms with greater security than over firm rock. Fear nothing and let yourself be carried in His arms without knowing whither or how; for "in order to arrive at that which thou knowest not, thou must go by a way that thou knowest not" (Ascent of Mount Carmel, 1.13). Do you wish to know more than God? Let yourself be guided without the least resistance and ask nothing. Do you not know that it is God who is leading you? Do not, then, do Him the injury of distrusting or doubting Him, for that is the greatest injury a child can inflict upon so loving a Father. 

On the other hand, if you are a person of ill-will, that is, if your will is vitiated and distorted; if you worship other gods, other idols in your heart; if you seek yourself; if you desire your own glory, your own ambitions and satisfactions outside of God and do not wish to renounce them but prefer them to God; if you do not even dare to ask God sincerely and whole-heartedly to deliver you from such slavery and tyranny, but on the contrary, you desire to be subject to them because their yoke seems to you sweeter than that of Christ; in short, if you do not wish to conquer and renounce yourself for His love, then the peace of Christ will never be yours and you can expect nothing but constant misery. [...] 

Oh precious soul, if up to now you have hesitated to give yourself completely to God, resolve upon it once and for all! Forget self; detach yourself from all things for the sake of God. And if you know not how or do not have the strength to do so, ask God to help you; ask Him constantly, persistently, and never weary of this petition. If you make it earnestly, I assure you that God will not be able to resist it, so much does He love those who love Him! He desires so greatly to be loved by souls that if He were to fail to heed you, He would cease to be what He is: Infinite Love. [...] 

It is not enough that man make this consecration of self only once. He must repeat it as many times as is necessary to make it true and effective, until God shows Himself pleased with our good will. The abandonment of self will be all the more efficacious as it is made with a greater spirit of detachment and self-renunciation and a greater desire for union with God. God wants nothing from us but our heart. We need not be perfect in order to give ourselves totally to God; rather, we should do so in order to become perfect, even though this be the last thing to be attained, for the last thing in execution is the first thing in intention. The reason why there are so few saints is because there are few generous hearts who will give themselves totally to love, for nothing is more opposed to love than restraint and niggardliness. (92-96)

Granted, the priest wouldn't have had time to say all of this to me, but he could have at least been as clear. He could have said the essence of what Fr. Osende wrote above. Or could he have? It's not my place to judge this priest's soul (or any soul), but I can judge what he told me and how he said it, and it just confused me. If only there were more priests like Fr. Osende to tell it as it is.

Fr. Victorino Osende on Holy Pride

All passions have a good as well as a bad aspect, but by reason of regarding them always from their bad aspect, we forget the good that is in them. Pride, ambition, anger, and all aversions and affections are bad only when they are disordered, that is, when they deal with unworthy objects or when they are wrongly exercised concerning good objects. Pride is evil if it is founded on one's own worth or induces us to despise others. Ambition is evil if it impels us to strive after false honors and dignities or makes us as eager for false as for true honors. Anger is evil if it moves us to act unjustly or, though justly motivated, exceeds due limits. In short, the love of evil and aversion to good are bad because that is the source from which all sins flow.

However, these same passions are good and holy when they deal with worthy objects and are rightly exercised. Even self-love, which is the root and sum of all the passions, becomes good and holy when it is founded on just motives and deals with objects worthy of man. Righteous self-love is the father of holy pride which makes us esteem ourselves and take just pride in our exalted state as children of God. It is the father of holy ambition which makes us despise all things earthly as unworthy of noble and generous hearts that only the immortal, eternal, and divine can satisfy. It is the father of holy indignation which reveals itself with indomitable energy against every action or intention beneath the dignity of a being whose soul is marked with the seal of divinity.

This is what good self-love and holy pride teach us:

Do not occupy yourself with nor attribute importance to anything but the divine, the immortal, and the eternal, for that alone is worthy of you. Do not occupy yourself with anything earthly, not even to despise it.

Do not sell your holy liberty for anything, for you are worth more than the whole world. Do not make yourself a slave of men or submit to their judgments and whims, for they are not your judges nor your God. God alone is superior to you and only He can judge you.

Conduct yourself well and do all the good that you can for everyone, for you are a child of God and you should do as He did; but never expect any recompense from man. To know that one is good is the best reward.

When that which at one time gave you pleasure becomes a source of mortification to you, then you will be perfect.

He who is a slave of his passions is a slave of every tyranny. No one can be free if he does not liberate himself from himself.

To him who has the approbation of God, the praises and vituperations of men matter little. He who has a place among the angels is little concerned about having one among men.

He who realizes his divine greatness can easily humble himself. Contempt humiliates only the contemptible. He who is proud with a holy pride recognizes no other absolute sovereignty than that of God.

Do not attempt to enslave him whom God has made free, for it is a vain attempt. He will forever sing his sublime Magnificat:

I am nothing.
I am miserable.
I am the least of men.
But God has regarded my humility and has done great things to me.
In God I am great.
In God I am free.
In God I am divine.

No; it is vain to try to enslave him whom God has made free. His heart is free, his soul is free, and his spirit is free, for they are slaves of love and of truth.

Be, therefore, proud with a holy pride and do not taint your dignity or sell your sovereignty for all the world.

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Source: Fr. Victornio Osende, Fruits of Contemplation, trans. by a Dominican Sister of the Perpetual Rosary (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1963), 105-107.

The Grandeur of Life

Do not underestimate your life nor yourself, for that would be slighting God and you would be doing yourself the greatest possible harm. God does not do things on a small scale. In Him all things are great. He has created you according to His image and likeness and has given you the power to become His child and, as such, to become God by participation in His own divinity. You will therefore be divine if you will but act divinely.

Do not mark your misery and lowliness and say: "I am a poor mortal born for the things of earth; heaven is too high for me and I am not able to mount to it." Do not underestimate yourself this way nor underestimate the work of God. For if you are part earth, you also have a spark of divinity that makes you greater than the universe.

It is not external things that make you great, but you must magnify or make great all things. The smallest thing, the most insignificant action, will become great if you will perform it with a magnanimous spirit. Before God what is great and what is small in the material order? To Him there is but one greatness in man: greatness of heart. Just as God is equally great when He creates an ant as when He creates the universe, for in each case He operates with the same power, so also the man who acts in virtue of his interior greatness elevates all things to his own greatness.

Wherefore, do not mark the external lowliness of your life; do not mark the servility and insignificance of your occupations and believe yourself bereft of the right to true greatness, which is to become like God. Did He not spend thirty years in a carpenter's shop? He did it in order to consecrate your life. Thenceforth there would be no vile or base occupations. Everything is great, everything is holy, everything is divine if we but do it in the spirit of the children of God. What does it matter, then, if my actions and occupations are lowly, if in them I accomplish the will of God and through them I ravish His heart? For nothing pleases Him more than humility of heart!

Sing, then, O soul, sing with jubilation to your God while your hands sow the seed or carve the stone, for thus you sow seeds of eternal life and fashion your eternal crown.

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Source: Fr. Victorino Osende, Fruits of Contemplation, trans. by a Dominican Sister of the Perpetual Rosary (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1963), 104-105.

Sacrifice: Appeasing Zeus vs. a Loving, Merciful God

Someone I know emailed me about a poetry professor who gave a presentation in class and mentioned that he has an "issue with sacrifice." From the email: "particularly Christ's death on the cross. [The professor] seemed to equate Jesus' sacrifice to the Father with sacrificing an animal to Zeus, trying to appease an angry and jealous god instead of one who can [sic] loving and merciful." My friend wanted to know what I had to say about that, how I'd respond and explain the difference, etc. I thought I might as well include my response here.

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The professor's "issue" with sacrifice is probably less theological-philosophical than it is psychological, i.e. there is an "issue" from the past that makes the idea of sacrifice difficult for him. Did he have an "angry and jealous" parent who acted like a Zeus, demanding sacrifice of some kind? Perhaps it was the "Father"? Without further information, who knows? So that's the first thing.

The second matter is the difference between God and Zeus. Zeus is a fiction of the mind, and even if Zeus existed (hard to prove since there aren't many people getting zapped or raped by huge swans, etc.), he would be only a creature, albeit a powerful one. And actually the Greeks believed that their "gods" were physical, so he wouldn't even been that far up in the hierarchy of beings because angels (and hence demons) are above physical beings and far more powerful. God, on the other hand, is the pure, self-sustaining act of existence itself. Big difference, in fact, an infinite difference.

A sacrifice to Zeus is meaningless because Zeus can't do squat, even if he existed. All he could do would be to threaten us, in which case, sacrifice means appeasing him like an abusive parent who has power over a helpless child.

God on the other hand is pure mercy and pure justice. The idea of mercy is meaningless without the idea of justice after all. Just try to define what exactly mercy is without referring in some way to justice. Mercy, after all, is pardoning someone who doesn't DESERVE to be pardoned; that is, it overrides justice.

Here's where it gets interesting. Sin is an offense against God and hence an offense not only against pure justice but also against pure mercy. The degree of evil is determined by the act, the person committing the evil, and the victim of the evil. In this case, God is the "victim" (although God doesn't actually suffer in any way, God deserves honor and respect instead of rejection by the nature of his being). Sin is a rejection of love. So a sin, no matter how small it seems to us, is an infinite offense because it attempts to violate infinite mercy and justice. Hence Cardinal Newman said quite strikingly,

"The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse."

A farthing was one of the smallest units of currency, by the way, like our penny.

And who would deny that pure justice and mercy should be respected, even if those are merely ideals in our heads?

But remember this key: mercy is impossible to conceive without some notion of justice. Hence, without justice, there is no such thing as mercy. Mercy becomes valuable only insofar as the degree of justice to be administered increases. The more that justice demands, the more merciful the pardon.

Now a sin is an infinite offense. Therefore, any pardon of an infinite offense is an infinite act of mercy. And that is the sacrifice that Christ made. An animal couldn't make it because an animal would just be a victim, literally a scapegoat, where we get the idea of scapegoat today. A sin is a personal act, an act of free will. Hence a human has to make reparation who can freely choose God again. But the one offended is God, so that act of reparation must be infinite. But only God can make an act that is infinite. So the human making reparation to God has to in some way be infinite. Hence in Christ the humanity and divinity were united in one person so that justice could be satisfied. And here's the twist: the same act of satisfying the justice of God was the way that God showed us infinite mercy in pardoning us for every past, present, and future sin. In the Crucifixion is infinite justice and mercy at the same time. It satisfies justice, and in so doing, it bestows mercy.

Because, after all, if we commit sin, we're in the pickle of being unable to do anything to satisfy justice. And we certainly don't deserve forgiveness.

But, could God have simply forgiven us without going through the Crucifixion? Yes. But it was more fitting that God become like us, suffer like us, die like us, to show us an example. In our fallen state, when we are so prone to selfishness and revenge rather than justice, hardness of heart rather than mercy, we need a model of what true humanity looks like, how tall it can stand when it is virtuous and noble.

Because—here's the second interesting thing—St. Thomas Aquinas pointed out that to call sin an offense against God is true but incomplete. Sin is wrong not only because it offends God but because it hurts us, it destroys us, it is contrary to what it means to be fully human. A plant needs water, nutrition, air, and sunlight to grow well. A human has specific physical and spiritual needs. On the spiritual level, the human needs virtue. Virtue alone will make us truly human.

Hence God's act of satisfying justice and bestowing mercy was a double act of mercy. If God simply said, "I forgive you," we would still be left in our same darkness, with no guide as to how to live our lives. But God Himself showed us how we are to find our proper fulfillment, and it is through sacrifice.

Victimization, which is suffering without desiring it, is not sacrifice. Sacrifice is accepting all suffering that comes necessarily from doing the right thing, the thing that will make the individual and those around him more human. Hence, sacrifice is the core of love, and sacrificial love is the core of the family. The family is the core of society. Without sacrifice, love is simply attraction rather than mutual consideration. Without love, the family is simply a game of manipulation. Without family, the society is bored, aimless, and selfish. Without society, there can be no civilization, no leisure, and hence no freedom. Christ freely embraced the suffering that would come.

The Gospel is the most powerful story because it is the story of what happens when infinite Love enters our world. We crucify and reject it because in fact we don't want love. We like Frank Sinatra's song "I Did It My Way." That's why the Gospel is the most poignant story and why every good story is good insofar as it resembles the Gospel. Even B-movie entertainment is good because it resembles the Gospel—we like to see people kicking butt and taking names. Christ did that to Satan. We see huge power, tremendous struggles, high stakes. All of that is in the Gospel. At the heart of it is the notion of sacrifice, which is simply—I'm not a rock. I'm not an island. The only way for me to be happy as a human is to be selfless, to help others, to give consideration to others, to "do unto others what I would have them do unto me." That's love.

In fact, mercy is a sacrifice. I sacrifice the demands of justice and my personal satisfaction at seeing justice administered in order to show mercy. A poetry professor who doesn't understand that must be pretty bad at poetry...

Love's Place in Marriage

This is a follow up post to "Courtship & Dating."

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When I say that love is not necessary for marriage, I emphatically do not mean that true love (charity) is not requisite to have a happy marriage, or a good home, or that it is not commanded by Christ, not only to our spouses, but for everyone. In fact, it is indeed commanded by St. Paul in the context of marriage ("Husbands, love your wives"-Eph. 5:25). So, I am definitely not downplaying the importance of love in a marriage.

But it is nevertheless true that sacramentally, love is not necessary to bring forth the sacrament of marriage, which is the point I was getting at. The sacrament of marriage can be brought about without love. All it that is required for the form and the matter is a Catholic man and a woman free of any impediments, public vows, and a witness of the Church. That is the nuts n' bolts of a sacramental marriage. So, while I agree that love is essential for the practical working out of a good marriage, I maintain that it is not necessary in the least way for bringing about the sacrament of matrimony. I don't think this needs any "proofs" but I will submit two.

First, if we look at annulments (and yes, we all know they are abused) we will see that an annulment regards impediments to marriage that were in place at the time the marriage was celebrated, so that though the couple thought they were getting married in good faith (i.e., putative marriage), they were in fact not getting married at all due to the presence of an impeding or diriment impediment. Now, if "lack of love" was essential either as matter or form to bring about the sacrament, then "lack of love" or "He didn't really love me" would be grounds for an annulment. Of course, even in our modern Church where annulments can be granted for a variety of reasons, lack of love is not one of them. This may be an element in the "psychological" reasons for an annulment, but this alone is not grounds for an annulment and never has been. Therefore, since lack of love cannot annul a marriage, we have to assume that love is not (strictly) necessary to bring the sacrament about.

Second, if love were requisite for the sacrament, none of the world's many politically arranged marriages throughout history would have been valid. Consider in the Middle Ages, where a monarch might bargain with another monarch and receive the other king's daughter in marriage. He would have never seen her, and even the marriage itself was contracted over long distance, via a proxy (an odd rite where the king would ceremonially lay down in bed with a minister of the other family to symbolize comsummating [sic] the marriage). The King would meet his new bride for the first time after they were already married legally and sacramentally and then would proceed to consummate the union with a woman who was practically a complete stranger. This was the norm for Christian marriage among the upper nobility in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, a type which everybody, including the popes, recognized as valid. For example. Pope Julius II regarded the marriage of Arthur Tudor to Catherine of Aragon as valid, though the two had never met and were married by proxy. If love were a strict requirement, the pope could not have done this.

There is, however a degree of fidelity or truthfulness that is required to bring about the sacrament. The vows have to be said in good faith, and the vows of course state that the man promises to love and care for the spouse. We must notice something: in the vows, the man swears that he will love his wife, not that he already does. And how is the love to be manifest in these vows? By what comes next: in swearing to take care of her, defend her, care for her in sickness and in the raising up of children, etc. In other words, this love is presumed not by the affection that the husband bears the bride, but by the practical things he promises to do on her behalf.

So long as the husband promises these things in good faith, the sacrament occurs. But let us not confuse the promising of the things with the things themselves. It is necessary that the hubsand and the wife vow to care for each other in love (which is seen in this sacrament as the practical supporting of each other's physical needs and the raising of children), but it is not necessary that they possess that love at the time of the ceremony. In fact, the marriage rite's conception of love is very different from the modern idea of love as an emotive affection ("romantic fondness"). Therefore, traditionally speaking, it is possible for the paradox to arise of a man loving his wife but not liking her, because his matrimonial love is manifest in the tending to practical and material needs.

Now, let me be frank about something historically: it was always seen as ideal and beneficial for the spouses to have true affective attachment to each other. That was seen as a given. You get married, go off with your spouse and learn to love and cherish them as time goes on. However, people who married "for love" were considered to be fools, ignorant of how their union would affect their later lives. If someone did have a marriage for love that worked out well, it was considered a happy (but rare) occurrence. Thus the sister of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, when she married the Duke of Suffolk Charles Brandon for love, was considered rash and foolhardy, and Henry even considered prosecuting against her for marrying without his consent. But he later relented and Mary and Charles had a happy marriage - that is not unusual, but we must look at how it was perceived, and the people of the day perceived their union as extraordinarily fortuitous, for usually such unions "for love" wound up ruinous, as in Romeo and Juliet, for example. Obviously the play is not a true story, but it demonstrates how people thought: though romantic unions for love were passionate, enticing and sometimes envied, in the end (it was thought) they were bound to turn out poorly.

Therefore, yes, of course we want to have love in our marriages. I never insinuated otherwise. But however much we may want to exalt marital love, we are bound to admit that strictly speaking, it is not necessary to bring about the sacrament of matrimony.

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Source: Boniface, "Love & Matrimony," Unam Sanctam Catholicam, January 20, 2009, accessed April 10, 2014, http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2009/01/love-matrimony.html.