A READER writes:

Some months ago I stopped following “the news.” I know mainly what’s going on by following a few blogs but I cannot bear to look at the poisonous culture and vicious propaganda of the new regime. I used to check Drudge, the Daily Mail, the Post or Daily News… no more. I won’t even read the New Yorker for their cartoons, or the New York Times real estate section, which used to be a Sunday morning pleasure. I stopped watching TV years ago. We don’t have cable, I don’t watch modern movies. They turned us into zombies with their toxic mass media, the devils. If I am not already imprisoned in the cell next to yours I will be honored to visit you in jail. Or maybe I could organize a jailbreak — the storming of the Bastille, in reverse. I wonder if I’m too old and cowardly to strap on a sword and ride out for the Lord. All I really want to do is read beautiful books, hear beautiful music, see beautiful art, make beautiful things with my own two hands, and commune with beautiful souls. Is that too much to ask? Yes, it’s an ironic question. :-) The world keeps shoving its ugliness in our faces.

— Comments —

Sam writes:

I haven’t followed your blog for a while because, like the author of the comment, I am prone to anger and despair. At times I don’t know how you can continue to immerse yourself in the present zeitgeist, but you are doing a remarkable job.

I want to affirm the sentiments of the reader commenting and let him know he is not alone. What is going on right now, and what is almost certainly going to start going on, does not merely cry out to Heaven for vengeance but absolutely screams out to Heaven for vengeance. What is happening is a moral outrage of the first order, and I am convinced that God will not long stay his hand. The late Lawrence Auster predicted much of this, and if he were alive he would inform us that America is now officially dead, morally and spiritually.

I have left the university system. I almost had a complete psychic breakdown because I could not come to terms with what I knew was happening. I have two beautiful and precious daughters, and I almost came to blame myself for bringing them into such a world as this.

The millennials are a cultural tsunami of amoral narcissism, and they are getting worse every year. I say this on the basis of 12 years in the University system. We now live in a society which celebrates and rewards stupidity, narcissism, cruelty, and ugliness. As a result, Americans are rapidly becoming a nation of people who are stupid, narcissistic, cruel and ugly.

Plato successfully predicted that democracy is the precursor to tyranny. America has now officially crossed that line, and her rise and fall has been meteoric by world-historic standards. It is such a shame that the good people of this country are now forced to watch this play out in the way that we all know it will. We are cursed to live at the beginning of the beginning of America’s transformation into the Soviet-Union of liberalism.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing.

I hope you defeat this bitterness and anger. God has allowed all this to happen for our own good.

Fr. Frederick Faber, the Victorian-era priest who gave sermons in the London Oratory, addressed this problem of bitterness in his genteel, flowery style on the Feast of the Epiphany in 1860. His sermon was about the papacy, and these words are relevant:

There have been times in the experience of the Church, when the bark of Peter has seemed to be foundering in the midnight seas. There are pages of history, which makes us hold our breath as we read them, and hush the palpitations of our hearts, even though we know full well that the next page will record the fresh victory which came of the fresh abasement.

We are fallen upon one of those evil epochs now. It is hard to bear. But our indignation works not the justice of God, and bitterness gives us no power with Him.

But there is a mighty power in the dejection of the Faithful. It is a power the world might fear, if only it could discern it or understand it. The silence of the Church makes the very angels look on with expectation. We almost must wait in the patient tranquility of prayer. The blasphemy of the unbelieving may rouse our faith. The faltering of the children of the Fold may wring our hearts. But let our sorrow have no bitterness mingled with its sanctity.

We must fix our eyes on Jesus, and do the double duty which our love of Him now lays upon us. I say, the double duty. For it is a day when God looks for open professions of our faith, for unbashful proclamations of our allegiance. It is a day also when the sense of our outward helplessness casts us more than ever upon the duty of inward prayer. This is the other duty.  The open profession is of little worth without the inward prayer; but I think the inward prayer is almost of less worth without the outward profession. Many virtues grow in secret; but loyalty can only thrive in the bare sunshine and upon the open hills.

Mrs. T. writes:

A Reader writes: “All I really want to do is read beautiful books, hear beautiful music, see beautiful art, make beautiful things with my own two hands, and commune with beautiful souls. Is that too much to ask? Yes, it’s an ironic question. :-) The world keeps shoving its ugliness in our faces”.

It is ironic and I feel the same way. For all the ugliness that is continuously shoved in our faces, it is as if my soul cries out for more beauty to counteract the negative effects. The spiritual, mental and physical trials my family and I have faced only seem to deepen this desire and deepen our faith.

I was recently made a fool of on Facebook. A Christian friend was attacked for her beliefs.The issue was regarding homosexuality and the Bible. No one was coming to her aid so I felt compelled to step in. The main instigator wanted secular data proving that homosexuality was harmful. I provided the information that pointed out the high disease rate, drug use, etc. I gave him every ugly statistic and public health data that I have collected over time from reliable sources. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t enough. He put me through the ringer and I had to politely bow out of the conversation for fear of becoming very uncharitable towards him.

However, that experience taught me something. Statistics and data can be twisted and interpreted every which way. Fighting without Christ, without THE TRUTH, is pointless. And I dare say, it’s prideful. It’s ugly and stripped of beauty. I made a mistake that day, but like St Therese of Lisieux I should rejoice. It is a reminder of our weakness and helplessness without God’s grace.

Lovely quote by Fr. Frederick Faber, by the way. I am sending that to my father.

Laura writes:

Thank you.

It’s not prideful, by the way, to argue on the basis of reality. After all, it’s God’s creation. The facts are indisputable. Some people will reject them no matter what. It’s still worth putting them out there. It’s true, at the end of the day these negative facts are not all. The most serious problem with homosexuality is spiritual.

Also, you should stay away from Facebook. There’s such a mob mentality there. It’s sort of like walking into a “gay” bar and trying to convince people that homosexuality is wrong. It’s a company that openly supports sodomy, after all. And people don’t think on Facebook. They emote. I know it’s a convenient way to stay in touch with friends, but you might try and stay away.

Daisy writes:

This week was it for me and Facebook. While I’ve only posted once or twice a year, I’ve used FB to stay in touch with friends. No more. I’m deleting my account. Interestingly, my 19-year-old daughter beat me to it by a few days. She’s reading Dickens and arranging flowers when she’s not at work, and I’m sewing and learning to paint with oils. Freedom!

Laura writes:

Good for you!

William H. from the Netherlands writes:

What a wonderful medieval picture of people working in the field! I am sure the feminists would seethe, foam and boil at seeing those poor women working too. How dare those patriarchal men
in the dark ages put them to work in the fields!

When it comes to ugliness: it is everywhere. The buildings, the clothes, men and women lolling about all over the pavement in an ungainly gait, the design of everyday items, the feel of plastic (even of the computer I’m typing on), the lamp-posts, the highways, the very material of ‘stones’ here, the cars, supermarkets, our compulsory LED-‘lamps’… too much, too much.

I must deny myself to think about it, although sometimes it can make me rather angry and bitter indeed. Thank God He has placed us in a small village in the countryside, in a fairly old
and charming house. I háte the modern buildings, ‘stables’, farming methods and machines around here, but for my neighbour’s sake I will praise what I can about his new ‘John Deere’. “It is err…big, neighbour!” How else can one work to heal a local community or hope for any betterment? Work and pray!

It’s not that I always “want to read beautiful books, hear beautiful music, see beautiful art, make beautiful things with my own two hands” but rather I lament that things are not ‘real’ anymore. Music is not real: we have an overload of electronic RECORDINGS of music. As for Art? I’d be content with good wicker baskets instead of the plastic imitations, however more practical the plastic may be. Things do not always have to be beautiful, rather they ought to be real and good. The Dutch wooden shoe (still) worn here is wonderful and good -better than ‘crocs’, but not neccessarily ‘beautiful’.

Studying the Middle Ages -as I like to do- one sees that people were much more occupied thinking about what GOD thought of something and what He wanted, rather than what théy wanted or thought. Such is the mark of a good disciple, I reckon.

As for the ‘beautiful souls’: be they beautiful or ugly, let us witness to each and everyone of them about the risen Christ and His work.  The soul that accepts Him, will be beautified as well as beatified.

July 6, 2015

Sam writes:

Thank you for the encouraging words. Fr. Faber’s words call to mind of one of St. Don Bosco’s visions. He depicts in that vision a ramshackle naval unit trying to sink the barque of Peter but to no avail. In that prophecy, he mentions that the sailors in this unit are blindly screaming blasphemies and “begging Satan to be their master.”

Thank you for reminding me that, no matter how dark it gets, we need only await our Lepanto.

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