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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?
 Actually, these things have much to do
with a spiritual life.
Lack of trust
in God
Many of these things are symbolic
of our turning to material satisfactions in difficult 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 morally depraved 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 “progressive” liberal agenda is to reduce
the moral sensibilities 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.
Well, Jesus
criticized the Pharisees and Herodians for following the illusions of their
own time. But when He warned the disciples to beware “leaven” of
the Pharisees and the “leaven” of Herod (Mark 8:15), they didn’t
understand.
And so it is
today. Most Christians today just don’t get it when they are
warned—even on this very website—to guard against the leaven of
popular culture.
If you loved the
world and despised Christ, you would be on the path to
hell.
If you loved Christ as much as you loved the world, you would be at the
crossroads of a conversion.
If you loved Christ and despised the world,
you would be a Christian. |
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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.
. . . each person
is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. |
—James
1:14 |
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 desires which lead to
sin—desires 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. The social world defiles God’s beauty by infecting us with
unconscious desires that lure and entice us into sin. As Saint James said,
“Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity
it gives birth to death” (James
1:15).
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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When movies and
television offer us a spectacular glamor of violence and revenge and lust, they
satisfy 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 and lust are 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, the only one who
knows all 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.
Neither shall you
allege the example of the many
as an excuse for doing wrong. |
—Exodus 23:2 |
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.
The text of
this webpage, integrated with other material from my websites,
has been conveniently organized into a paperback book of 350 pages, including
a comprehensive index.
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Though Demons Gloat: They Shall Not Prevail
by Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D.
Though we are attacked by liberal activists from without and by apostasy
from within, the true Church—that is, the body of those who remain
faithful to Church tradition—weeps, and she prays, because she knows
the fate of those who oppose God.
Our enemies might fear love, and they can push love
away, but they can’t kill it. And so the battle against them cannot be
fought with politics; it requires a profound personal struggle against
the immorality of popular culture. The battle must be fought in the
service of God with pure and chaste lifestyles lived from the depths of
our hearts in every moment.
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