When I was a wee child, I remember how excited I
would get upon going to dollar stores. The toys would excite me; they looked
really cool, flashy, and they were only a dollar! Sometimes, I would get a toy,
but a day later, it would either be broken, or I would completely have lost my
interest (side note: I’m not trying to knock dollar stores here. I’ve gotten
some awesome things from those places). I’ve been thinking about how evil works
in a similar way. It may appear really cool, interesting, and enticing at
first, but then may lose our interest and will definitely cause some kind of
destruction in our spiritual lives, and perhaps in the lives of those around
us.
I’ve heard lots of people argue before that “the
best characters are the villains, because the villains are interesting and
complex.” While it’s true that villains are complex, and it’s interesting to
see how they work, at the end of the day, the evil that they live is quite
boring. Continually acting on concupiscent impulses, being a slave to sin and
Satan, day after day after day. The truly virtuous character, on the other
hand, is constantly striving for good and holiness, trying to resist evil,
seeking true justice and dignity for all people.
Earlier this week, Matt Fradd gave a talk about the
lies of pornography, and he mentioned that when women leave the porn industry
and strive for virtue, they automatically become more interesting people. No
longer are they living in the lies of sin and evil, but they are striving for
goodness. I was talking with my husband about this the other day at lunch, and
he phrased it quite well: at first, evil may seem really interesting, but that
interest doesn’t last. Soon, it becomes boring. However, good is interesting at first, and it will
continually become more interesting in the long run.
Yes, evil may appear glamorous. It makes me think of
those Halloween costumes I saw trick-or-treaters wearing last night—glitzy, red
sequined devil costumes, the epitome of glamor.
(side note: I
really wanted to walk up to the parents of those kids and say, ‘excuse me? Do
you know that your child is dressed up like the DEVIL??? You know, the Father of Lies, the one that is trying to draw
you away from God, that guy who wants you to be in hell forever. The same guy
who really doesn’t care about you, and just wants your eternal suffering!’)
Cheating, porn,
the occult, stealing, witchcraft, lying, fornication, gossiping, etc. etc. can
all seem to have a certain “glamor” at first. We probably wouldn’t choose sin
if it didn’t appear to have a certain fascination about it. But trust me; the
glamor and interesting-ness will be as flimsy as those dollar store toys. They
won’t last.
The most interesting people I know are the saints,
and the saints-in-the-making here on Earth. Why? Because it’s fascinating that
no matter what kind of suffering befalls them, they try to use everything to
become closer to God (and bring others closer to Him, too)! Instead of falling
into the impulses of Historical Man (concupiscence-which isn’t something gained, but
a loss of grace), they live as Redeemed Man—the one who has been given grace
and strength and redemption by God. Yes, they fall into sin, but that sin
doesn’t hold any kind of goodness or fascination for them. They want to be holy. People
will say, “Oh, I’m only human, so it’s whatever if I sin. I can’t really help
it, I’m concupiscent.” I get it, you’re only
human—so out of all of creation, you have
been redeemed by God, you have been
given loads of grace, you have been
given the sacraments, and you are
loved by Love Himself!!!! Yes, we all sin, I’ll be the first to admit that I am
definitely a sinner. But I can’t really make excuses for myself. God doesn’t
want me to sin, and I really don’t want to either. There are times where I look
at sin’s glamor, and choose it, but it’s really lame. God gives us so many ways
to live a redeemed life—how will we respond to that grace? Will we ignore it,
and fall into sin—or will we act on it, and live as a redeemed people?
“In fact, already in the context of the same Yahwist
text of Genesis 2 and 3, we witness the moment in which man, male and female,
after having broken the original covenant with his Creator, receives the first
promise of redemption in the words of the so-called Protoevangelium in Gen 3:15
and begins to live in the theological
perspective of redemption. Thus “historical” man—both Christ’s
interlocutors then, about whom Matthew 19 speaks, and human beings today—participates
in this perspective. He participates not only in the history of human sinfulness, as a hereditary, and at the same
time personal and unrepeatable, subject of this history, but he also
participates in the history of salvation,
here too as its subject and co-creator. He is thus not merely shut out from
original innocence due to his sinfulness, but also at the same time open to the
mystery of the redemption realized in Christ and through Christ.”
~St. John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body (4:3)
Virtuous people are the most interesting. Let’s look
at St. Francis of Assisi, my awesome patron saint. I love this guy. When I was
a kid, I liked him, but I was accustomed to the whole birdbath/hippie St.
Francis. And while St. Francis birdbaths are awesome (and one totally sat
underneath my bedroom window outside the house before I got married and moved
away), the real guy was so much more than that. When he had thoughts struggling
with his vow of celibacy on one particular occasion, do you know what he did?
He made a snow-family, and said (paraphrased) “this is my wife! These are my
children!” and realizes the anxieties that would come if he left the vocation
that God called him to. Isn’t that interesting? I agree! This is the same man
who decided to go through many dangers in order to try and convert a Muslim
sultan, and would’ve have been fine with martyrdom. However, the sultan was so
fascinated by St. Francis, that he was filled with admiration for him! Yet even
though St. Francis’ life was filled with much suffering, he lived in joy—every day, he chose to accept with
peace and patience all that God put in his life, giving him true joy, faith,
and acceptance of God’s will.
 |
| Photo courtesy of nobility.org |
And then there’s St. Catherine of Bologna. She was born on
September 8 (the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary!) 1413 in Bologna, Italy. Her
dad was a diplomat (her family was aristocratic) and sent eleven-year-old Catherine
to the court of Marquis of Ferrara, so she could be a companion to the
princess. When she was fourteen, Catherine became a Franciscan Tertiary (Franciscan
lay woman), and a few years after that, became a Poor Clare. Catherine strove
for humility and holiness in all things, serving the convent through the
smallest tasks. She also continued to be very artistic (when she was a
companion to the princess, she learned many things about painting and playing
the viola). “With her the monastery became an
increasingly prayerful place of self-giving, of silence, of endeavour and of
joy,” said Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Catherine had some mystical experiences,
like a vision of the Last Judgment, and she offered her work and life as
penance for souls. Catherine was sent to Boogna to found a new monastery there.
On March 9, 1463, she died. Her body buried without a coffin. Eighteen days
later, her body was dug up again, because there was a sweet scent coming from
the grave. Catherine was found to be incorrupt and flexible. Her body is now
seated in a chair, and while her skin has turned dark because of the candles
that surrounded her body, her body is still very much intact.
“She, like us,
suffered temptations, she suffered the temptations of disbelief, of sensuality,
of a difficult spiritual struggle. She felt forsaken by God, she found herself
in the darkness of faith. Yet in all these situations she was always holding
the Lord’s hand, she did not leave him, she did not abandon him. And walking
hand in hand with the Lord, she walked on the right path and found the way of
light.” ~Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
So yes, I would say that the virtuous people are indeed
the most interesting people out there. And there are other perks to the
virtuous life, too! Like when we choose to live for God, we will someday live
with Him forever! Heaven isn’t some
boring place, as Huck Finn was led to believe. Heaven is the most interesting,
most joy-filled, most incredible place ever—because that is where we will live
in the eternal gaze of God. And what could be more incredible than that?
“I see,” she said at last, thoughtfully.
“I see now. This garden is like the stable. It is far bigger inside than it was
outside.”
“Of course, Daughter of Eve,” said the
Faun. “The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets.
The inside is much larger than the outside.”
Lucy looked hard at the garden and saw
that it was not really a garden but a whole world, with its own rivers and
woods and sea and mountains. But they were not strange; she knew them all.
“I see,” she said. “This is still
Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below, just as it
was more real and more beautiful than the Narnia outside the stable door! I
see…world within world, Narnia within Narnia…”
“Yes,” said Mr. Tumnus, “like an onion:
except that as you continue to go in and in, each circle is larger than the
last.”
~C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
