"I have not come to bring peace, but the sword." John 10:34
"Peace I leave you, my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give you peace." John 14:27
Jesus left us his peace, but in a perpetual state of war and wars...until he returns in the Parousia.
War these days has an undeserved bad reputation. Popes like to exclaim: "War no more!" In our youth we sang "All we are saying...is give Peace a chance!" Pumper stickers announce: "War is not working."
The progressive or liberal narrative is: War is optional. We can chose peace over war. By our own agency and volition we can move beyond war to a state of peace. We simply: redistribute wealth so no one is hungry, reasonably negotiate and compromise, disarm enemies by our compassion and understanding, follow the science, provide education and therapy, empower the oppressed (especially women, people of color, sexual transgressors,) and above all overthrow the white, male, homophobic, misogynist, Zionist, rich, Republican, fascist oligarchy.
This thinking is delusional.
War, struggle, la lucha, combat, Agon...is the core of Reality, of History, of Being. War is inevitable, inexorable, unavoidable. The only question is: do we capitulate in weakness and cowardice? Do we fight viciously and violently? Or do we engage heroically, truthfully, virtuously?
Let's bring back VALOR, CHIVALRY, HONOR, COMRADARIE IN ARMS, HEROISM, SACRIFICE, BOLDNESS!
I am not talking about Hegsethian militarism or masked ICE agents. I am talking about the evangelical ethos (poverty, chastity and obedience) of the medieval Knights Templars and Teutonic Knights who were elite warriors in the spiritual and the military realms. I am talking about the generations of Spaniard Crusaders who reconquered the Iberian Peninsula for Christendom. I am talking about our fathers who defeated the Japanese, Nazi and Soviet Imperialisms.
Let's identify the main wars being waged now: the spiritual, the cultural, and the global.
(Yes, patient reader, another top 10 list!)
1. Spiritual Combat
This conflict is threefold: with the world, the flesh and the devil. ..The primary and defining battle in every age. The rest are subordinate and more superficial.
"The World" here is not the splendor of Creation, but human life as organized without and against God. It is autonomy, pride, arrogance.
"The Flesh" is our own personal disordered tendencies, physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. Every person is in this fight.
"The Devil" is of course Lucifer and his demons: created persons, spirits with intellect and will, but without bodies, who rejected God and are desperate to bring us into the dark kingdom.
And so, we on this earth are always the Church Militant, the Church in combat. We are not the Church Triumphant (in heaven) or the Church Suffering (in purgatory), although we participate by anticipation in those states. Above all we are NOT the Church at peace, or the world at peace!
2. Culture Wars
The civil war within our own society, "the West," has four different theatres which indwell each other: cultural progressivism, technocracy, gigantism, and class conflict/poverty.
Cultural Progressivism assaults the foundations of our common life by sterilizing sexuality, deconstructing gender and family, killing incompetent human life, disparaging tradition, and isolating the individual.
Technocracy vacates Creation and especially the male/female person of interior worth and meaning by instrumentalizing all of life. This leads in all directions: pathologies of social media, threat of AI, environmental toxicity, energy crisis, transgenderism, reproductive technologies. Perhaps the most significant breakthrough of all is artificial contraception which thrust a poison into the sacred sexuality of the binary, generous/generative human person.
Gigantism assaults the dignity of the person and human communities by a cancerous malignancy whereby institutions inexorably grow to inhuman size, overwhelming the person, vitiating agency, and destroying natural bonds. This includes centralized government, multinational corporations, unions, universities and even the Church. Here our tradition proposes subsidiarity: preference, where possible and prudent, for the small, the intimate, the concrete.
Class War is a reality in any advanced, industrial society. Without accepting the entire Marxist narrative, we recognize in our society systems which favor specific privileged, powerful class and disadvantage others, not only the working class but those trapped in cultures of deprivation. Part of this, then, is also the battle against poverty, including beyond our national boundaries, and sickness.
3. Global Wars
Our three antagonists here are: Communism, Jihadism and Fascism.
Communism includes North Korea, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam but above all China which is brutally repressive of human rights and imperialistically ambitious.
Muslim Jihadism takes two forms: Shiite in Iran and Sunni which includes terror groups around the globe but especially violent in Africa. It is fortunate that the two fight each other. So, there are hopes for an alliance in the Middle East of the West, the gulf states and Israel.
Fascism which is a perennial weed, seen today in Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.
Our adversaries enjoy significant advantages over us. They are amoral totalitarianisms: unrestrained by popular opinion or moral principles. The Jihadists are religious and so do not fear death in the way that seculars do. But also: they know that they are at war. They are not blinded by the progressive delusion that peace is an option.
Conclusion
And so, as I write, we are engaged in...not one, not two...but at least ten wars: world, flesh, devil, cultural progressivism, technocracy, gigantism, class war and poverty, communism, jihadism and fascism.
Jesus assured us that "the gates of hell will not prevail" against the Church he would build upon Peter, the rock. (Matt 16:18). We are not on the defensive. It is the Dark Kingdom of Lucifer that is gated and vulnerable. With Christ our King, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are on the offensive. The gates of hell will not prevail before our assault.
And so, let us stand with Aragon at Black Gate:
There may come a day when the courage of men fails,
when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship,
IT IS NOT THIS DAY!
An hour of wolves and shattered shields,
when the age of men comes crashing down.
BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!
This day we fight!
By all that you hold dear on this good earth,
I bid you stand, Men of the West!
No comments:
Post a Comment