Literature and it's role of forming the
Christian Mind
By Anthony Malleus
In dealing with precisely the importance of secular literature in the life of
the Christian St. Basil set out some important guidelines (points) which I would
like to us for the basis of this article. These points however can be used in a
wider sense for giving us some solid guidance on how to use and appreciate the
things of this world so as to attain the end for which we have been created,
namely that of heaven.
1. To the Christian the life eternal
in heaven is the supreme goal,- and the guide to this life is the Holy
Scriptures; (and teachings of the Church) but since young men (untrained minds)
cannot appreciate the deep thoughts contained therein, they are to study the
profane writings, in which truth appears as in a mirror.
Those who are mature in the
faith can understand this point, well. To speak often to the youth of religion
for them is boring, - they are childish of heart and so to give them something
so solid all the time can sometimes have the opposite effect of leading them
away from the faith or atleast giving them a distaste for it, and so St. Basil
says that sometimes profane can be used like a mirror that work to enlighten the
mind of the such souls even if it just taking the same issue but just from
another angle. – For example, charity, - there are many examples, in the bible
of charitable and noble men in both OT and NT and so also the same is true in
the secular world, or in fiction works, if the same point is achieved, namely of
leading the soul to charity, then it is legitimate to read or use such things.
2. Profane learning should ornament
the mind, as foliage graces the fruit-bearing tree.
In this sense we must be able to use all
that we learn as a means of safeguarding our virtue and defending the faith we
have been given. In nature, tree’s and animals alike often have an outer garment
or layer of protection. Like the wool of sheep which servers to protect to keep
them warm and protect them from easily having their skin damaged. So to we can
make use of secular knowledge to protect our virtue and then to use example of
things we have learned in the world to defend our faith. – Her for example, how
often the church is attack from historical perspective, if only we knew a little
bit of secular history how we could easily disprove the enemies of the faith,
exposing the harmful lies that are spread in abundance.
3. In studying pagan writings one
must discriminate between the helpful and the injurious, accepting the one, but
closing one's ears to the siren song of the other.
In the world that surrounds us; there
are legitimate things which are beneficial but don’t make that a pretense to
think that all is good – Don’t expose your self to things which will eventually
prove disastrous for your salvation. The pagans without the faith and grace of
God lacked the ability to make the distinctions which we should be able to make
because of the solid teachings of the church we have received. – If it becomes
clear that the book we are reading or movie we are watching is harmful to virtue
then we have stop it.
4. Since the life to come (heaven) is
to be attained through virtue, chief attention must be paid to those passages in
which virtue is praised.
Heaven is obtained by the daily struggle
for virtue, which is the safeguard of faith and the grace of God which is in us.
Whatever in the secular world seeks to improve that, should be given due credit,
but servers to undermine it should be avoided like a plague. Like the bee, goes
around seeing the pollen taking what is need and leaves the rest.
5. In pagan literature virtue is
praised in deeds as well as in words, wherefore one should study those acts of
noble men which coincide with the teachings of the Scriptures.
‘The Children of darkness are far wiser
in their generation that the children of light’ – Learn what is good and noble
from all men, regardless of race, religion, age, or gender. Seek to imitate the
generosity and zeal for virtue that is set out even by pagans. – In this we
often have something to learn; not from doctrine but from the practice. – What
Bishop Fulton Sheen said in His day ‘We have the faith, and the communists have
the zeal’.
In Scripture we often read how Our Lord
would marvel at the pagans who would come to him with absolute confidence and
faith as was the case with the Centurion who asked a miracle for his servant –
His words to our Lord were ‘Only say the word, and my servant shall be healed’
And yet of the Children of Israel what little faith and confidence they had in
Him. – He said the pagan in this regard were a great rebuke to the children of
Isreal– Matthew 8. The same can be said of us today.
We should be on guard against the spirit
of naturalism which sees only the natural order forgetting that all things here
below are there to direct us to buildup our life of grace leading us to our
supernatural end, so that without this view, there is no real happiness.
6. Young men must distinguish between
helpful and injurious knowledge, keeping clearly in mind the Christian's purpose
in life. So, like the athlete or the musician, they must bend every energy to
one task, the winning of the heavenly crown.
How many Christians are in hell, or
spent centuries in purgatory because they spent their time seeking after
pointless and vain knowledge rather then learning from all they gained to better
master the spiritual life and seek after the kingdom of heaven with even greater
fever . Often people forget if we are given a good mind it is not so we can
become successful in this world, nor is it even so we can make discoveries that
will make life more comfortable but that we announced the greatness of God and
their by share with our fellow men, in some way this profound reality, and in
this be a light and guide to them in the path of salvation. In the middle ages
most of the great men of science in every field were priests and religious ,
like St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc, who while studying nature
and the stars, and the natural elements always sought to bring all things back
to God so as to show men how all these things fit in the bigger picture so they
may be able both to grow in knowledge and virtue, things which should ordinarily
be seen as complimentary. In this way says St. Basil we are then able ‘to scorn
riches and fame, and place virtue above all things.’
How few think like this today. Virtue,
who cares about that, how much money does that make you? That won’t make you
popular ! It’s a wonder why most of our leaders today a perverted and senseless.
7. This ideal will be matured later
by the study of the Scriptures, it is at present to be fostered by the study of
the pagan writers; from them should be stored up knowledge for the future.
Point is here is that the goal for all
of us, is the study of scripture and learning our faith ; having in the back of
our minds all that worldly and secular knowledge, so that we may know how to
understand the scripture and our Catechism by means of that knowledge all the
more profoundly and in this we to see the not only the truths in scripture as a
dead letter but as a living reality which moves us on to a greater love of Our
Lord Jesus Christ and what he accomplished for us on the cross; for this pagan
and blind world only confirms for us how perverted and hopeless things are
without Our Lord who alone can saved us from this wicked and perverse
generation.
Modern Schizophrenia that we have.
This principles are so we can come to a
proper Catholic way of seeing and grasping the entire created universe so that
we may set all things as part of one complete master peace of God. Sadly, so
many of us don’t have any sense of a Catholic vision of life and world. Why is
this? Because we fragment our lives, we superficially compartmentalize
everything, - My work, my school, my chocolates-chips, o’h and religion here –
Instead of seeing everything in one unified vision of faith; all is mixed up. -
like one professor summed it up in rhyme - – Peter, when to Mass every
Sunday, Peter died and went to hell for what he did on Monday’ – Sunday and
Monday were different – Sunday is God, Monday is work and ‘real world’ – Monday
evening, that is dinner, rosary time, then well, whatever, - We often lack the
ability to see the whole vision and so we tend easily to fall into mediocrity
despite our good intentions.
Pope Benedict XV
Pope Benedict XV to drive home the
importance of this point, wrote an entire encyclical on the well known Catholic
poet Dante Alighieri and his work the Divine comedy, for he saw that Dante as a
Catholic and as a poet was able to show clearly in his work how a mind that is
imbued with the Catholic spirit can so well set forth for others a proper
Catholic vision of the entire universe and how every action in our lives brings
about an eternal consequence, so that many who read his work were moved on to
virtue or better yet, as he says were moved on to embrace the faith which they
had come to love by means of this marvelous work.
“Dante has the
singular merit that while he fascinates the reader with wonderful variety of
pictures, with marvellously lifelike colouring, with supreme expression and
thought, he draws him also to the love of Christian knowledge, and all know how
he said openly that he composed his poem to bring to all "vital nourishment."
And we know now too how, through God's grace, even in recent times, many who
were far from, though not averse to Jesus Christ, and studied with affection the
Divina Commedia, began by admiring the truths of the Catholic Faith and
finished by throwing themselves with enthusiasm into the arms of the Church.’
Non Catholics have been led to embraced
the faith by means of this literary text because it sets out in such a simple
manner a clear vision of the universe as intended by it’s creator, by showing
the consequences for mans actions which all have a relation to his final
end.
No comments:
Post a Comment