One of the most useful and pertinent posts I read by my friend Fr. Dave Nix on his blog was The Over-Intellectualization of the Catholic Faith. It spurned me to write The Time For Preaching and Teaching Is Over, the gist being to question the premise that "if we just catechize people better, or present the beauty of the faith in a more media-friendly manner, or up our homily game, or get out there and evangelize more, etc..." we would have a better 'conversion-rate.'
I wasn't trying to be dire, just bringing light to the fact that the house is on fire and we're quibbling about God's permissive will versus His perfect will (or whatever). I think all these things do have the potential to save some people, or bring them deeper in their understanding or practice of the faith when also moved by grace, but on a mass scale (in the way of St. Francis Xavier in Japan, say) it is dribs and drabs, one-off saves (which, by the way, is never to be discounted either).
Fr. Nix nailed something I couldn't put my finger on, especially as I reflected on my Catholic formation as a young college student, and in years of spiritual direction with a Jesuit priest after college, being told things like "it's very rare anyone ever actually commits a mortal sin because of limited knowledge, habit, [fill in the blank] which would negate their culpability and thus render a sin venial." How I *heard* this as a 19 year old college student was, "Soo, masturbation (as one example) is ?not? a mortal sin if it's a habit?" (which it was). Nuance and grey gave way to permission and license.
It took about a decade of essentially unlearning everything I had been taught, and years more of a kind of Augustinian wrestling, and a flood of grace opened up by way of sacramentals (like the Miraculous Medal, for one) to arrive on the shores of Continence. And the vantage point in the distance, as I stood drying off and catching my breath, open to the colors and vividness with which a state of grace affords, made me realize just how off course what Fr. Nix refers to as a kind of "loophole" Catholicism had taken me off course.
Loophole Catholicism is a kind of nuevo-Jansenism is disguise which employs dogmatic theology at its disposal. It's how you get the "gift and blessing of children" spoken of in the Psalms which has given way to a liberal discerning of "grave reason" to keep them at bay by way of NFP. Is it a sin to use NFP to space children? No. Can it lead to a kind of theological acrobatting in a couple's marriage to replace trust and abandonment (a recipe for good sex) with fear and trepidation (a recipe for bad sex)? It can. I wouldn't say it if we hadn't lived it out.
This is just one example of course, and there are others of the way we 'dip the toe in' the water to test it. There is an alternative way of getting wet, though, one that I tend to employ now whenever we go to the beach--just jump in. The initial shock is acute but the body seems to acclimate quicker in full body immersion in the ocean. I can't help feeling kind of effeminate when I wade in and complain about how cold the water is, especially when it gets to waist level. At least when you just dive in, the shock is over quickly, akin to essentially "taking it like a man."
Fr. Nix writes about this 'over-intellectualization' in the context of the traditional Mass, and how even a common peasant or laborer was catechized by the Mass itself, even if he didn't have access to Formed or some other program. But I've also experienced this excessive "theologizing" in grad school, where I naively thought that studying Theology (at a more or less not-orthodox Catholic university) would make me a better disciple of Jesus Christ. What I found was that it was not the questions I had that would be answered (through study and dogmatic teaching), but "asking the questions" for their own sake, or better yet, "questioning the answers" which became the pen ultimate and mark of a contemporary student of Theology today. To paraphrase Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting says, "I dropped thirty Gs on an education I could have gotten for $1.50 in late fees at the public library (reading the Church Fathers)"
As a result, I have become wary of theology as a discipline when it seeks to justify itself not in the pursuit of Truth (which can be known by Revelation, and is a worthy end), but to find the loopholes to rationalize things contrary to the Truth. Sometimes, it's not that things are so hidden that we need advanced degrees to recognize them; it's that they are in plain sight, and contorted by a kind of Pharisaical intellectual pride and the sin of curiosity compounded by deliberate obscurification. The truth is not meant to confuse us, but set us free as it's primary goal (Jn 8:32).
Anyone who has done labor-type work knows that the fence post holes don't dig themselves, the dirt doesn't move itself, the oil doesn't change itself. You could set to pontificating about the best way to actually set a post, move a mound, or unscrew a plug, but these aren't complicated tasks. They do, however, take a degree of work and subsequent discomfort, which is how I have come to think of the work of virtue despite the wiliness of sin--often times, we're just looking for ways to suffer less, or delay the work that needs to be done. And in the process, we often suffer more, just in different ways.
Our Lord sometimes takes the 'blue collar' approach to making his teachings clear--if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If you have something against your brother while offering your gift, leave the gift and make amends. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Etc.
Sometimes we have just have to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Theology can inform, and certainly in the field of things like bioethics, things are not always so black and white. But when it becomes an end in itself, or seeks to subvert the Truth, it's purpose has become wayward. When it seeks to widen the path, rather than employ the tools needed to walk the narrow way, it fails to serve it's intended purpose. Pursuing holiness may be hard, but it doesn't have to be complicated.
No comments:
Post a Comment