Luceat!

“Shun the luxuries and pleasures of this life and the attacks of vice will be enfeebled, their force being drawn from the love of pleasure.
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Keep therefore the words of Holy Scripture before your eyes: ‘He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world keeps it unto life everlasting.’ (Jn 12:25). ‘Therefore brethren we are debtors, not to the flesh that we should live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live’ (Rom 8:12).”

Dom Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat, 33:6

The Spiritual Combat has been my constant companion since October of this year. I feel I’m in good company reading it with St. Francis de Sales who carried it with him and read from it every day for 18 years. I’ve certainly never picked up a book that has challenged me and enlightened me in such a compact and thorough way (excepting scripture). However, I’m not writing this post to sell a book.

I’m writing this post to combat the forces of evil.

“Paul, the Devil wants to kill you!”
- Janet Wolf

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Devil wants to kill us. In his raging jealousy He wants to deprive us of eternal life, and one of the easiest ways he has to steal the hearts and minds of human beings in modern America is comfort and luxury.

Are nice things bad?
One day I was flipping through channels and the lady who swims in makeup was on talking about Jesus. I paused just to see what was going on. That day she was flabbergasted, for someone had written in to criticize her and her husband about their extravagant spending and lifestyle, all of which was gained through the support of viewers like me. She said with much flabbergastation that, “God wants us to have nice things! He wants us to be happy!” Well, the health and wealth gospel’s still alive and well, I thought.

Weeping profusely, she continued to talk with her jewel-encrusted hands. I began to look at her and the set on which they were filming. There were chairs spray-painted gold, silk and plastic flowers, and shiny bling that must have been cut from the most expensive melted silicon. A not-quite-Monet print, framed in a faux-wood plastic ring, adorned one wall, while beneath it sat a bowl of potpourri of the sort that could make an entire warehouse smell like Grandma spilt cinnamon, fresh dirt and a migraine all over the place.

The entire scene - from the fake crown-moulding to the sweat that was quickly eroding ten years worth of foundation on my poor friend’s face - screamed at me. It told me about man’s desire for beauty and truth, and it revealed that we’re so starved for both of them that we’ll settle for cheap knock-offs and surrender our blood sweat and tears to fill our senses with them.

Are nice things bad? Of course not, inasmuch as there are no bad things, only evil purpose. In the same measure, neither are they good except that their very matter is crafted by the hand of God. Whether or not there are actually any nice things is a better issue. There are some pretty good efforts, but it seems that God has already trumped them in any given bit of creation.

Most of what we call “nice” seems to be determined by the extent to which it paints over the fact that we live in a world ravaged by sin and death. Nice clothing is simply a facade to decorate the shame of our nakedness. Nice houses are petty attempts to regain a lost garden of delights and happiness. Nice food bought in sterile stores covers over the fact that it all comes from the toilsome labor that is the curse of man. Nice people never suggest that we might need a little course correction on the narrow path to holiness.

Beauty is an aspect of God, and therefore we pursue beauty, but I propose that if the “beauty” of “nice things” enthralls us, it is because we have forgotten the beauty of God, who makes St. Peter’s itself look as tacky as the set of the aforementioned televangelist’s set. In humility, at least we can say that St. Peter’s is some of the best we have to offer.

Pleasure and Luxury: NOT WORTH PURSUING
Since it is God’s will to make us one with Him for all eternity and he is our lasting joy, it is only pursuit of God that is worthwhile. No car brings us to God. No shoes make the path any easier. No meal can satisfy us for long.

Pursuing luxury, comfort and pleasure is exactly akin to handing the enemy the reins of our life. Remember what Scupoli says: the force of the attacks of vice come from the love of pleasure. Every moment I spend giving myself to the pursuit of things that I pretend will make me happy (or will at best give me pleasure for a moment or even a few years) is a moment that I do not spend myself for you, dear reader, in charity, prayer or gratitude. And at the same time, my vices are strengthened against those gifts.

Holiness and Virtue: The Only Ways to Give
If I want to give myself away in Christ-like love, a love that sacrifices and a love that bleeds raw, untempered joy, I must have virtue. If I want virtue, I must throughout my life rid myself of vice. If I want to weaken the attacks of vice, I must finally renounce the world and its vanity. If I don’t, I’m just kidding myself, like the alcoholic who keeps whiskey around “just in case.”

As persons, we are not called to love what does not deserve love. We mustn’t give ourselves away to just anything. We are not free to love that to which love has no meaning. There is no cause, machine, animal, tree, political party, country, nor planet that deserves our sacrificial love. These things are remembered only in history books when their end comes - if they are remembered at all.

John Paul II tells us that only other persons are worthy of the love that Christ asks us to give. Persons are eternal and molded after the Eternal. Christ Himself is a person, and under Him, His body, the Church, and you, you are deserving by His infinite grace. I will love Christ and you best if I decide to pursue virtue and simply show gratitude for and indifference to things that pass away.

“Good choice, bad choice …”
-Kevin Clausius

Let’s make up our minds to live according to the spirit, putting to death the deeds of the flesh. The promise is clear: if we pursue that life, we will live. If we pursue the opposite, we die.

Thanks St. Paul for making things easy for us!