Four Loves: Another Version

I have long found C.S. Lewis's famous four loves (affection, friendship, agape and eros) a rich source of illumination into the unfathomable, inexhaustible and fascinating Mystery of Love. Lately, however, I have been considering a different model, rooted in the logos or structure of the family, which always entails four quite distinct, if interrelated loves: filial, paternal/maternal, fraternal-sororial, and spousal. For us as creatures, the primal love is filial: receptive, trusting, respectful, obedient and grateful. This is the love of child for father and mother, and of course for God. It is love as needy, poor, endearing and precious. This love, also known as piety or pietas, expresses itself as loyalty and affection to country, Church, family, the boss, older friends and siblings, priests and a variety of superiors and communities. The obverse of this love is paternal or maternal love as: generous, delighted, nurturing, protective, and tender. This is love as gentle strength. It finds expression far beyond biological parenthood in a myriad of spiritual, emotional and social relationships: boss, teacher, coach, priest, leader, and so forth. This love can be understood as a fusion of elements of what Lewis called affection and agape. Fraternal love is thelove of equals, brothers and sisters, who share the bond of blood and family, and cooperate and compete with each other accordingly. Normally, of course, one sibling is older and therefore a filial and parental dimension presents itself. But this love is essentially "philia" or friendship as understood by Lewis and entails a sharing of interests, values, and intentions and essentially an equality of status before the shared good. Lastly, spousal love as the love of husband and wife includes but is not exhausted by eros, desire for intimate union with the beloved. Spousal love, alone among these familial loves, includes sexual communion, but is much more also. As faithful and loyal love it is informed by agape as sacrificial and generous love. Spousal love is at once agape and eros: without agape it is fickle and self-destructing, without eros is becomes dry, sterile and joyless. Every love relationship is a mix of all four in an infinitely delightful diversity of surprise and delight. For example, the spousal relationship needs to be friendship more than eros, but at times either husband or wife properly become filial or parental towards the other. Likewise, every rich and thrilling friendship will partake, at times, of the filial, parental or spousal. Clearly, however there is an abiding structure to the family as it arises (as God intended) from the sexual union of the spouses and all other relationships are preserved in uncompromising chastity. These loves, in contrast to those of Lewis, are more real, concrete and less abstract. In this year of the Synod of the Family and the Supreme Court's deconstruction of family, these loves deserve our deepest reflection.

Priorities

With his usual insight, David Brooks of the NY Times last week contrasted two conservative reactions to the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage: Rod Dreher and similar "traditional radicals" call for a retreat into our own communities of faith and family while Robert George and kindred spirits associated with First Things urge us to continue the fight as we have with the abortion war. Brooks admits he is to the left of us on these cultural issues but identifies with conservatives and advocates a third option: engage with those who are most hurting in the restoration of family life and wholesome moral and communal values. My opinion is that the Church has to do all three...and at the same time. And people will be called to focus on different concerns. But given the limitations of energy and stamina, we need to set priorities. From where I stand, Dreher and the "trad-rads" are right: first and foremost we must strengthen and thicken our Catholic identity and solidarity in the face of an increasingly hostile society. Secondly, we need to follow the leadership of Pope Francis in going out to the peripheries and reach out to share our (spiritual, moral, emotional, social, intellectual) wealth with the needy (including the most needy...the 1 percent!). Isolation like the Amish is not possible for the Catholic Church. Actually the Mormon paradign (despite its narrow "Americanist" focus) is more helpful. At this point, it is probably good for us to divert energies from the Culture War and enter into a "cold war" phase in which there are less heated, inflamatory clashes even as we stand firm in our own beliefs. We will persevere in the culture war but in more covert, subtle and subversive fashion, much like the way St. John Paul II fought the Nazis, the Communists and later the Cultural Liberals. Focusing more on micro than macro-politics, we must be modest about how much we can directly impact the broader society as we avoid the twin ideological temptations to attribute saving efficacy to the state (the left) or free markets and individual freedom (the right). Regarding Church policy, we must avoid setting our current pontiff against his two predecessors. Rather, let us cherish the JP-Benedict heritage even while we follow Francis to the margins of society. They need not be in conflict. A genuinely CATHOLIC ethos will include both in a mutual enrichment.

Homosexual Marriage

While hardly a fan of Jesuit Tom Reese, I largely agree with his view (NCR July 2,2015) on the Supreme Court ruling on homosexual marriage. He is right: we will learn to live with this as we have with other now-commonplace misguided practices like divorce-and-remarriage, cohabitation and so forth. Homosexual practice is basically in the same boat as premarital sex, pornography/masturbation, contraception in marriage and other varieties of sterile, non-unitive, extrinsic and mutually manipulative interplay. It is no better and no worse! The sin of Sodom is essentially the same as that of Onan. My own view is that intercourse between two men in a faithful, tender and generous relationship is a thousand times less disordered than the Clinton/Lewinski dalliance which was at once a desecration of his marriage, a predatory violation of a young woman who could be his daughter and abuse of his unbounded presidential, which is to say paternal status and power. The court's ruling is not an unmitigated evil and it is helpful to look on the positives: some may well benefit from a faithful and sanctioned relationship; many young people may experience enhanced self-esteem with the lifting of the social stigma; and lastly, the development is itself a strange and confused witness to the deep appeal of marriage. Perhaps because I am aging, aware of the limitations of my energy, and less the cultural warrior I was 20 years ago, I see that we must marshal and use our stamina in positive ways. As a "communio" Catholic and protege of St. John Paul II and Benedict, I see our first priority as deepening our own spiritual union with Christ our Bridegroom. Secondly, we need to strengthen our own marriages, vows, families and communities of faith, including our service of the least. Thirdly, we must remind ourselves that very few have been give the grace to understand the deepest, sacred and iconic meaning of sexuality and marriage and so we grow in gratitude and surrender to this blessing. Forth, we are free to appreciate those we love who experience and live out this attraction, as we deepen our own allegiance to what we know to be true. Lastly, we are clearly moving towards a more counter-cultural position as the society becomes actively hostile to the gospel vision of sexuality. Our disappointment and even alienation from the mainstream must surrender to our deeper Joy in our communion with Christ in His Church, our families and communities.

Masculine Loneliness

Loneliness and solitude, it seems to me, structure the masculine psyche in a most pronounced manner. I am only a man and know the feminine psyche only from a distance so my thoughts are tentative. Perhaps some women will enlighten me! Consider these three: First, paternity, in contrast to maternity, involves greater distance from the strange, fascinating and discomforting little creature. Intrinsically, naturally, the father lacks the enveloping intimacy the mother shares in the womb, on the breast, with the overflow of oxytoxin, and the entire maternal endowment (physical, social, emotional and spiritual). Secondly, the baby boy of necessity needs to break this profound bonding, already by the age of two or so, in order to develop a masculine identity. The female, by contrast, maintains a more integral, unfractured communion with Mom. Last, partially as a result of the previous two, the male psyche is characterized by enhanced independence and autonomy and an inclination to separation, solitude, and competition in contrast to woman's propensity for cooperation, inclusion, and communion...in friendship, family, work and all relationships. This male loneliness can finally be eased in a twofold manner: communion with God and a plurality of wholesome relationships including friends, family, and spouse-or-celibacy/virginity. Being-in-love with God and with others are distinct but mutually infuse each other: without the one, the other will be insufficient and defective. A man loves Mom first, then Dad, then brothers and sisters and friends, then mentors, and then spouse (or sublimated spouse which is Christ and His bridal-Church) and then children and spiritual children. But at some point (or actually, at many points) the man goes into the desert, and faces loneliness and sadness, and confronts the devil and his own poverty, and surrenders in love to our heavenly Father. When this surrender in love to God and friend is incomplete, the male faces one of two contrasting temptations: towards weakness and passivity or towards violence. Those of a weaker constitution will be drawn to regress to the breast and womb in things like lust, pornography, inebriation through chemical substances, laziness, inaction, isolation, and general discouragement (lack of courage, lack of strength, lack of spirit!) Those endowed with excessive testostronic energies will seek release in the opposite direction: aggression, violence, dominance, high-risk behavior like gambling, workaholism and reckless and irrational activism. On the one hand, the man is demasculinized and impotent, on the other he is disordered and destructive in a bogus machismo. The path to authentic masculinity...to gentle, loving, tender, paternal and Christ-like strength...is the cultivation of wholesome relationships of all sorts. But particularly, the man must own his loneliness, his sadness, his isolation...and bring this into a trusting intimacy with our Lord and our heavenly Father in the Holy Spirit.

Is There a Problem with Harry Potter?

Dedicated to Brigid. Catholic Catechism (2015-2016) on sins against the first commandment, “Thou shall not have false gods before me”: “Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone...All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion.” Is there a problem with our children reading Harry Potter? Catholics are divided: some (e.g. Michael O’Brien) see it as gravely evil; others as harmless, even educational entertainment. Some years ago, Monsignor Fleetwood (sounds like a character out of the series!!!) of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council of Culture praised the Harry Potter series. Later, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he became pope, in a letter wrote: “It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.” If Vatican heavy weights can publicly disagree, then so can the rest of us. After watching the first Harry Potter movie, my view is that it is somewhere in between these: not entirely evil but certainly not harmless either. But what are the “subtle seductions” against which the then-Cardinal (our own real, actual Dumbledore) warned? The underlying problem can be approached from two perspectives: the plot line of the series and the attitude of the author and many who view the series positively. The plot line is an ongoing conflict between dark magic and good magic, with the appealing and in many ways admirable protagonist wizard Harry eventually prevailing. The problem is, as the Catechism clearly states: in the real spiritual world, there is no white or good magic. ALL magic, sorcery or recourse to preternatural or supernatural powers is deeply dangerous, evil and sinful…even if used “for good purposes” such as to heal or defend against dark powers. J.K. Rowling has said that she does not believe in magic, that it is not real. The sophisticated, enlightened view agrees with her: the series is harmless because magic is not real. But this is NOT the Catholic view. We believe there really are dark powers, demons, Satan and his cohort…and they are powerful, super-intelligent and ravenous to draw us from God into hell. And a major tool of theirs is magic, sorcery and divination in all its forms. This includes Ouija boards, palm reading and fortune telling…things that are innocuous to the secular or liberal mentality. In other words: Magic is real! The Dark World is real; and the answer is not white magic but conversion, prayer and the sacraments! How is Potter different from Lord of the Rings and Narnia and other mythical fictions avidly appreciated by many critics of Rowling’s work? An insightful post, Harry Potter vs. Gandalf, (http://decentfilms.com/new/articles/magic) contrasted the classical literature of enchantment (Tolkien and Lewis) with the popular but pernicious modern genre of magic (think Buffy the Vampire-Slayer or The Craft). He noted that the staunchly Christian English authors built seven literary characteristics or “hedges” into their stories which vigorously protect against the idealization of sorcery. For example, the protagonists themselves are not wizards; the wizards are usually non-human and of a different species from us (think white-bearded Gandalf); the story takes place clearly in a mythical world, outside of our space and time, and without direct relationship to our actual realities of damnation, sin and salvation; and the magic powers are powerful and dangerous (the fate of Frodo!). By contrast, Buffy is current, very appealing, free from the evils of magic, and very much the protagonist. What 14-year old girl would not like to be Sarah Michelle Geller? Now: is Harry more like Gandalf or Buffy? That is what makes it so interesting: it is somewhere in the middle…not as good as Gandalf and not as bad as Buffy! Unfortunately, the heroes are wizards and are located in our world (England to be specific). Rowling lacks the “hedges” of Lewis and Tolkien. But fortunately, it is silly and corny enough (flying on broomsticks!) that the 12-year olds obsessed with it are unlikely to emulate it literally. It is ambiguous enough to be interesting! That is why Fleetwood and Ratzinger could disagree! That is why there is no “Catholic” position on Harry Potter. I would not forbid my children from reading it. But nor would I lightly dismiss the concerns! So much of modern culture…especially movies and books…is fascinating, thrilling, valuable, and dangerous. Our children need to learn how to navigate this wondrous but perilous world and to renounce the bad and embrace the good. That’s what it means to be catholic and Catholic! Hollywood is especially adept at romanticizing things that are gravely evil: romantic sexual intimacy outside of marriage, revenge action movies, and the list goes on. These books and movies are like rock-climbing, mountain biking, traveling in Israel…thrilling, enriching, worthwhile activities…but dangerous…and you MUST be trained, prepared and vigilant! We raised our seven children in a dangerous neighborhood of Jersey City. They weren’t sheltered or taxied to school and activities. Our boys were mugged; they had bikes and basketballs stolen. They had to learn to be street-smart and vigilant and travel in groups. They are the better off for it! I would encourage my children to read and enjoy Harry Potter. But I would equip them to unveil its dangers, deceptions and untruths…and distinguish the good from the bad!

Christian Zen?

A dear friend says she found her way back to the Church through the practice of Christian Zen so I listened respectfully and attentively to “Jesus and Buddha: Practicing across Traditions,” a DVD of presentations by Fr. Robert Kennedy, SJ, Chung Hyun Kyung, and Paul Knitter. My reservations about Christian Zen were intensified. The claim, of course, is that Zen is itself compatible with our faith because it is not itself a competing system of dogma; rather, it is a practice and a way of seeing and knowing that is beyond our theological or cognitive thoughts. What I heard, however, was surely mysticism but by no means an irrationalism; rather an affirmation of a coherent system of interlocking truths…in other words, a real philosophy of life or religion. And these I found to be alternatives to and incompatible with Christian beliefs…albeit in a gentle, non-direct manner. Questions for Christian Zen: 1. Do you have the faith of a child? Christian faith, in the persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, is first of all childlike: profoundly analogous to the trust of a child in a good father. A common refrain of the practitioners was the disparagement of “a Santa Clause figure” or “god as a being up in the sky next to other beings.” The sense conveyed by the presenters is that each had lost childish faith, been in some way “scandalized,” but not been graced with a mature but childlike faith in the person(s) of God in the way of our saints. 2. Creator/creature? The doctrine of creation is absolutely the foundation of our faith. We know, first of all, with 12-steppers, that “there is a God and it’s not me!” This is basic! I am not God; but I am created and later redeemed and destined for eternal glory by a God out of His generous, abundant love. In Zen there is no talk of God; He is their “null curriculum.” Instead, there is talk of being “one with all being.” To me it is clearly pantheism, even if they refuse to acknowledge it. By neglect if not by assertion, there is a denial of a transcendent God and a re-direction to seek release from the false self and union with “all” as the enlightened path. 3. Time and history? Christianity is all about remembering and hope. The present, paradigmatically in the Eucharist, is always a remembering of the past actions of God, in time and history, and a hope in God, eventually an eternity in heaven. Zen seems to have no use for the past or the future but seeks abandon to the “NOW.” With John Lennon they prefer to “imagine there’s no heaven.” Again: there is no explicit rejection of Christian eschatology; rather an intentional glance away into a mystified “NOW.” Again, the “null curriculum,” although politely and graciously. 4. What’s the problem: sin or delusion? For the Christian THE problem is sin: a deliberate, decisive decision of the will to prefer something to God. Sin is personal above all else: a rejection of God’s overtures of love, like the spurning of a Lover. It is distrust and unbelief; the refusal to receive, surrender, and obey; the decision to take control of life and become my own god. Zen seems indifferent to sin. Rather it identifies false consciousness as the problem and enlightenment as the solution. This enlightenment is a mystical state of union with Being, a release from the illusions of the “false self” into a state of peace. 5. Who is Jesus Christ? The Zen practitioner speaks of Christ but this seems not to be the actual man Jesus who agonized and was tortured and murdered on that cross on that hill. “Christ” becomes a word suggesting a state of enlightenment, peace and release. For us, on the other hand, Jesus Christ is the man on the cross. And we all stand level before Him: we are either killing Him, again and again, or we are repenting. Zen does not deal with repentance and conversion, but with enlightenment; and they are NOT the same thing. 6. Word and words. Ours is a religion of The Word: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Pope Benedict is one of many who have helped us to see that the Hellenic concept of “logos” as reason, reality, truth was providentially available for St. John and the Fathers as they understood the Mystery of Christ as Logos, combining the Hellenic wonder before Truth with the Hebraic sense of God’s Word as dynamic, creative, powerful, fruitful, and merciful. For us then, all our words and thoughts and theories need to somehow lead to and spring from our communion with The Word. By contrast, Zen seems tired of words as empty, ephemeral, and deceptive. And so, rather than seeking to be penetrated by the Word and all words that flow from Him, they seek release into “wordlessness.” 7. Prayer or Meditation? For us prayer is always an interchange with a Person: some kind of dialogue between the I and the Thou, be it petition, intercession, thanksgiving, praise, meditation or the silent and loving glance of contemplation. Christian meditation (for example, many of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola) is attention to a specific text or scene/drama from salvation history in order to pierce beneath the concrete details to the deeper Mystery manifest in the word or actions or image. Zen seems to mean something different: a technique to empty the mind of images and distractions to arrive at a state of peaceful emptiness. What that is I don’t know! It sounds more iconoclastic than iconic! 8. The eternal soul or the real self? Our belief is simple and clear: each of us is created out of nothing as an eternal (bodied) soul destined for an eternity of participation in the life of the Trinity. Zen talks about the false self (egotism, anger, desires, etc) in contrast with the True Self but what the latter is remains obscure. It is a state of peace, of dissolution of the false self, and of union with All but not God as we understand. 9. What is desire? Zen seeks release from desire as delusion and the root of suffering. For us it is different: we are created to desire…to desire God and to desire all that is true and good and beautiful. For us the problem is not desire: our very substance is the Eros desire for God; and (again Pope Benedict instructs us) God Himself is Eros as desire for us (understood with all the safeguards of analogy). We seek to direct, sublimate and eventually sanctify our desire. 10. Holiness? Zen has a pronounced sense of reverence for life and for Mystery. But this is not “holiness” as we know it. Holiness applies only to God Himself and by extension to the things of God: Moses before the burning bush; Jesus transfigured, talking with Moses and Elijah before Peter, James and John. Holiness is a Mystery of “otherness”…of goodness beyond goodness as we know it in reality as we know it. And so, to become holy is to be set aside, to separate from life as we know it in order to be in union with a higher life, supernatural life. Zen seems to have no use for the supernatural or for holiness in this sense. Yet, it is the heart of our faith. 11. What about the basics like the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit? Perhaps the worst aspect of Christian Zen is that it uses words precious to us with a different meaning. For example, there is much talk about the Spirit in a way that sounds like Christianity. But for us the Holy Spirit is the one that affirms that God has come in the flesh and is the Spirit of Love between the Father and the Son. Zen has no mention of “in the flesh” or the Trinity except in that they are redefined as alternate, pantheistic realities. 12. Esoteric? With this we return to our first concern: the Gospel is for the childlike, the simple, and especially the poor. Notice that Marian apparitions are always to poor children. Zen, as practiced in our culture, seems to be the practice of an elite, mostly highly educated and sophisticated people who are searching for truth and meaning because they lack the “faith of children.” Zen is gentle and passive. Unlike other versions of liberal Christianity that draw from feminism, Marx, Freud or Nietzsche, it can coexist in Catholicism because it lacks the fierce aggressiveness against our faith. On the down side it therefore lacks martial, passionate, masculine zeal. I am not a professional theologian but I have spent a lifetime trying to hear the voice of Christ in His Church. What I heard in these presentations was reverent, gentle, gracious, and peaceful…admirable in many ways. But I did not hear the voice of my Lord.

Draw Me to Yourself, Lord

Lord, Draw me to Yourself; fill me with your love. Draw me to Yourself; cleanse me of my sins. May my weaknesses, longings, sadness, mistakes, failures and sins draw me to You. Safeguard my heart in peace, purity, poverty of spirit and prudence. Strengthen me by the indwelling of Your Holy Spirit. Make me humble, holy, loving and pure. Make me quiet, still, peaceful, calm, attentive, alert, watchful, and vigilant. Make me receptive, docile, pliable, “disponible”, responsive, obedient, and thankful. Make me patient, painstaking, long-suffering, persistent and persevering. Make me sensitive, compassionate, kind, generous, merciful, magnanimous, joyous, zealous, fierce, and fearless. Make me steadfast. Make me trustworthy as I place all my trust in You. Let me sing Your praises forever!