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Wait
a minute. Christ never told us not to smoke or not to drink our diet colas.
What does giving up these things have to do with a spiritual life?
 uite a lot, actually.
Lack of Trust
in God
Many of these things are symbolic
of our turning to material satisfactions in challenging times rather than
turning to God. How can someone even claim to trust in God if, at the first
hint of vulnerability, he or she immediately reaches for a
cigarette or a beer?
So, despite what is written on
our money, hardly anyone in this country really trusts in God. In fact, it
may only be a matter of time before the courts declare that printing “In
God We Trust” on money violates the
constitutional rights of
atheists.
Realize, therefore, that we live
in a culture as pagan as ancient Rome. In the context of a government that
is fundamentally
anti-Catholic,[1] the
news media and the entertainment industries are all fundamentally anti-Christian,
and their underlying liberal agenda is to reduce the morality of this country
to the lowest common denominator of secular hedonism. In the language of
atheistic politicobabble, this is called “diversity.”
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We live in a
world that has so forsaken the divine that most individuals now extol
trivialities so as to provide an illusion that
their lives have some meaning. |
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Unconscious Infection
with Subversive Desires
We are always in danger of being
unconsciously “infected” by the subversive
social desires around us that eat away at religious
values like a malignant cancer. First it was endorsement of
divorce, “free sex,” and
abortion; now the agenda centers on
lifestyles defiant of chastity, and soon—if
not already, in some places—there will be the legalization of assisted
suicide, infanticide, prostitution,
recreational drugs, and public nudity.
If you were to look at sin
epidemiologically—that is, as if it were an epidemic—you
would have to consider the vectors of its transmission. And it should be
perfectly obvious that the cultural values which lead to
sin—values such as
pride, greed,
blame, competition, and
self-indulgence—are spread rampantly by popular
entertainment and
sports.
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 . . . I see that God is
ever ready to give us all the interior and exterior aids necessary for our
salvation, and that He observes our deeds solely for our own good . . . on
the other hand, I see man continually occupied in useless things, contrary
to himself and of no value; and that at the hour of death God will say to
him: What is there, O man, that I could have done for thee which I have
not done? . . . and I am amazed and cannot understand how man can be
so mad as to neglect a thing of such vast and extreme importance. |
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—Saint Catherine of Genoa
The Life and Doctrine of St. Catherine of Genoa
Chapter XX |
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Even though many persons may
have the tacit acceptance of Christ on their lips, in their hearts they are
scooping up all the subversive anti-Christian satisfactions and amusements
that our culture offers us in its veiled hope of seducing us to our own
destruction.
Moreover, when parents
surrender their moral authority to the popular
culture around them, they allow their children to be
brainwashed with popular ideology, and families
disintegrate into moral indifference and corruption—and the children
are left with gaping emotional wounds of
unconscious confusion and
anger, social
disobedience, and a crippling lack of
faith.
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Have no love
for the world,
nor the things that the world affords.
If anyone loves the world,
the Father’s love has no place in him,
for nothing that the world affords
comes from the Father.
Carnal allurements,
enticements for the eye,
the life of empty show—
all these are from the world.
And the world with its seductions is passing away
but the man who does God’s will
endures forever. |
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—from the First Letter of the
Apostle John
2:15-17 |
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Note, however, that when Saint
John speaks of the “world” he refers to the social
world of human construction, not the beautiful physical world of God’s
creation.
Projecting Personal
Failures onto Others
One way—a dysfunctional
and dishonest way—to cope with personal
failures and emotional wounds is to project
them onto others in anger or prejudice. If you want to live a genuinely holy
life, however, it is important to seek truth—beginning with personal
and psychological truth—above all else. Therefore, avoiding the gossip
and the lust for revenge spread by popular
entertainment focuses your attention where
it should be (and where you don’t want it to be): on your own deficiencies
and wretchedness.
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Why was the movie
The Godfather, along with others that followed in its path, so successful
in popular culture? Well, it offered us the spectacular glamor of violence
and revenge. It satisfied our secret craving for the dark joy of unlimited
power that can humiliate and destroy anyone who insults or injures us. Most
viewers would never do such corrupt things themselves, so they see the movies
as “harmless.” Yet the mere desire to
derive pleasure from sin, even vicariously, is a sin in itself, and a deep
wound to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Revenge
is just another stroke of the whip on Christ’s back, more spittle on
His face, another kick in His stomach. |
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Sweetness to
Fill Emotional Emptiness
Cultural frivolities, whether
soda pop or sex—that is, other than
chaste marital sex—are nothing
but “sweetness” to fill the emotional emptiness left by
Original Sin. In fact, much that calls itself
“Christianity” today is just an imitation of the world, and, like
soda pop, is just sugar water of universal appeal and no substance. So, rather
than seek “sweet and satisfying paths,”
learn to quench your thirst for truth and holiness
with the living water from Christ’s merciful
heart.
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 How
were some of the saints so perfect and contemplative? They strove to subordinate
all their earthly desires to heavenly ones, and
by doing so they could cling to God from the very depths of their hearts
and freely attend to him. . . . If we were not so absorbed
in ourselves and if we were less confused in our own hearts, then we might
savor divine things and experience something of heavenly contemplation. The
greatest hindrance to our spiritual development—indeed, the whole
hindrance—is that we allow our passions and desires to control us
. . . When we meet the least adversity,
we are too quickly dejected and we turn to other people for comfort, instead
of to God. |
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—Thomas à Kempis
The Imitation of Christ, 1. 11
(Trans. by William Creasy) |
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Lead Us Not Into
Temptation
So, will
bodily pleasures,
entertainments,
sports, politics, and
militarism send you right to
hell? Well, who can say but God, Who knows the
secrets hidden deep in your heart? But I can say with certainty not only
that none of these things will lead you to the Kingdom of Heaven,
but also that all of them will lead you into
temptation.
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Watch and pray
that you may not enter into temptation. |
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—Matthew
26:41 |
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Notes
1. During WW2, President Roosevelt
privately said to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and a Catholic
appointee, Leo Crowley, “You know this is a Protestant country, and
the Catholics and Jews are here under sufferance.” See The Conquerors:
Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany 1941-1945
(Simon & Schuster) by Michael Beschloss. An excerpt can be found at
“FDR’s
Auschwitz Secret,” by Michael Beschloss, Newsweek, October 14,
2002.
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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Read an opinion of dissent
. . . 