BE RELIGIOUS OR BE DAMNED!...
A SAINT ON DANCING
A SAINT ON DANCING
A Sermon by St. John Vianney
There is always the person who says to me: "What harm can there
be in enjoying oneself for awhile? I do no wrong to anyone; I do not want
to be religious or to become a religious! If I do not go to dances, I will
be living in the world like someone dead!"
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| St. Ephrem, one of the oldest Fathers of the Church, said this: “Who invented the dances and balls? Was it St. Peter? Was it St. John or some of the Saints? Certainly not, but rather the Devil, the enemy of souls.” |
You know as well as I do that these kinds of follies and wild extravagances
are not ordinarily indulged in, but on Sundays and feast days. What, then,
will a young girl or a boy do who have decided to go to the dance? What
love will they have for God? Their minds will be wholly occupied with their
preparations to attract the people with whom they hope to be mixing. Let
us suppose that they say their prayers–how will they say them? Alas, only
God knows that! Besides, what love for God can be felt by anyone who is
thinking and breathing nothing but the love of pleasures and creatures?
You will admit that it is impossible to please God and the world. That
can never be.
God forbids swearing. Alas! What quarrels, what swearing, what blasphemies
are uttered as a result of the jealousy that arises between these young
people when they are at such gatherings! Have you not often had disputes
or fights there? Who could count the crimes that are committed at these
diabolical gatherings? The Third Commandment commands us to sanctify the
holy day of Sunday. Can anyone really believe that a boy who has passed
several hours with a girl, whose heart is like a furnace, is really thus
satisfying this precept? St. Augustine has good reason to say that men
would be better to work their land and girls to carry on with their spinning
than to go dancing; the evil would be less. The Fourth Commandment of God
commands children to honor their parents. These young people who frequent
the dances, do they have the respect and the submission to their parents'
wishes which they should have? No, they certainly do not; they cause them
utmost worry and distress between the way they disregard their parents'
wishes and the way they put their money to bad use, while sometimes even
taunting them with their old-fashioned outlook and ways. What sorrow should
not such parents feel, that is, if their faith is not yet extinct, at seeing
their children given over to such pleasures or, to speak more plainly,
to such licentious ways? These children are no longer Heaven-bent, but
are fattening for Hell. Let us suppose that the parents have not yet lost
the Faith. . . . Alas! I dare not go any further! . . . What blind parents!
. . . What lost children! . . .
Is there any place, any time, any occasion wherein so many sins of
impurity are committed at the dancehalls and their sequels? Is it not in
these gatherings that people are most violently prompted against the holy
virtue of purity? Where else but there are the senses so strongly urged
towards pleasurable excitement? If we go a little more closely into this,
should we not almost die of horror at the sight of so many crimes which
are committed? Is it not at these gatherings that the Devil so furiously
kindles the fire of impurity in the hearts of the young people in order
to annihilate in them the grace of Baptism? Is it not there that Hell enslaves
as many souls as it wishes? If, in spite of the absence of occasions and
the aids of prayer, a Christian has so much difficulty in preserving purity
of heart, how could he possibly preserve that virtue in the midst of so
many sources which are capable of breaking it down?
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| St. Basil describes dances as a “shameful showroom of obscenities.” |
"Look," says St. John Chrysostom, "at this worldly and
flighty young woman, or rather at this flaming brand of diabolical fire
who by her beauty and her flamboyant attire lights in the heart of that
young man the fire of concupiscence. Do you not see them, one as much as
the other, seeking to charm one another by their airs and graces and all
sorts of tricks and wiles? Count up, unfortunate sinner, if you can, the
number of your bad thoughts, of your evil desires and your sinful actions.
Is it not there that you heard those airs that please the ears, that inflame
and burn hearts and make of these assemblies furnaces of shamelessness?"
Is it not there, my dear brethren, that the boys and the girls drink
at the fountain of crime, which very soon, like a torrent or a river bursting
its banks, will inundate, ruin, and poison all its surroundings? Go on,
shameless fathers and mothers, go on into Hell, where the fury of God awaits
you, you and all the good actions you have done in letting your children
run such risks. Go on, they will not be long in joining you, for you have
outlined the road plainly for them. Go and count the number of years that
your boys and girls have lost, go before your Judge to give an account
of your lives, and you will see that your pastor had reason to forbid these
kinds of diabolical pleasures! . . .
Ah, you say, you are making more of it than there really is!
I say too much about it? Very well, then. Listen. Did the Holy Fathers
of the Church say too much about it? St. Ephraim tells us that dancing
is the perdition of girls and women, the blinding of men, the grief of
angels, and the joy of the devils. Dear God, can anyone really have their
eyes bewitched to such an extent that they will still want to believe that
there is no harm in it, while all the time it is the rope by which the
Devil pulls the most souls into Hell? . . . Go on, poor parents, blind
and lost, go on and scorn what your pastor is telling you! Go on! Continue
the way you are going! Listen to everything and profit nothing by it! There
is no harm in it? Tell me, then, what did you renounce on the day of your
Baptism? Or on what conditions was Baptism given to you? Was it not on
the condition of your taking a vow in the face of Heaven and earth, in
the presence of Jesus Christ upon the altar, that you would renounce Satan
and all his works and pomps, for the whole of your lives–or in other words
that you would renounce sin and the pleasures and vanities of the world?
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| St. John Chrysostom calls them the “school of impure passions.” |
Was it not because you promised that you would be willing to follow
in the steps of a crucified God? Well then, is this not truly to violate
those promises made at your Baptism and to profane this Sacrament of mercy?
Do you not also profane the Sacrament of Confirmation, in exchanging the
Cross of Jesus Christ, which you have received, for vain and showy dress,
in being ashamed of that Cross, which should be your glory and your happiness?
St. Augustine tells us that those who go to dances truly renounce Jesus
Christ in order to give themselves to the Devil. What a horrible thing
that is! To drive out Jesus Christ after having received Him in your hearts!
"Today," says St. Ephraim, "they unite themselves to Jesus
Christ and tomorrow to the Devil." Alas! What a Judas is that person
who, after receiving our Lord, goes then to sell Him to Satan in these
gatherings, where he will be reuniting himself with everything that is
most vicious! And when it comes to the Sacrament of Penance, what a contradiction
in such a life! A Christian, who after one single sin should spend the
rest of his life in repentance, thinks only of giving himself up to all
these worldly pleasures! A great many profane the Sacrament of Extreme
Unction by making indecent movements with the feet, the hands and the whole
body, which one day must be sanctified by the holy oils. Is not the Sacrament
of Holy Order insulted by the contempt with which the instructions of the
pastor are considered? But when we come to the Sacrament of Matrimony,
alas! What infidelities are not contemplated in these assemblies? It seems
then that everything is admissible. How blind must anyone be who thinks
there is no harm in it . . .
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| St. Ambrose declares them “choirs of iniquity, destroyers of innocence and sepulchers of purity.” And he exclaims, “The daughters of infamous mothers may go to dances and balls to become like them, but those who are chaste must avoid dances if they do not want to perish.” (Lib. III de Vir.). |
Listen to St. Augustine and you will see if dancing is a good action.
He tells us that "dancing is the ruin of souls, a reversal of all
decency, a shameful spectacle, a public profession of crime." St.
Ephraim calls it "the ruin of good morals and the nourishment of vice."
St. John Chrysostom: "A school of public unchastity." Tertullian:
"The temple of Venus, the consistory of shamelessness, and the citadel
of all the depravities." "Here is a girl who dances," says
St. Ambrose, "but she is the daughter of an adulteress because a Christian
woman would teach her daughter modesty, a proper sense of shame, and not
dancing!"
Alas! How many young people are there who since they have been going
to dances do not frequent the Sacraments, or do so only to profane them!
How many poor souls there are who have lost therein their religion and
their faith! How many will never open their eyes to their unhappy state
except when they are falling into Hell! . . .
Related:
Pope Francis' "Tango Mass" condemned by Pope St. Pius X
On behalf of Pope St. Pius X, the Vicar General of Rome Card. Basilio Pompili issued a Pastoral Letter in 1914 denouncing the tango as highly damaging to the soul. The Cardinal stated:
"The tango, which has already been condemned by illustrious Bishops and is prohibited even in Protestant countries, must be absolutely prohibited in the see of the Roman Pontiff, the centre of the Catholic religion." He urged the clergy to courageously raise their voices "to defend the sanctity of Christian customs against the threatening danger and overwhelming immorality of the new paganism." He also warned parents that if they do not protect their children from such corruption, they will be guilty before God of failing in their most sacred duties. (The New York Times, January 16, 1914)
Card. Aristide Cavallari, the Patriarch of Venice, also strongly condemned the tango, referring to it as moral turpitude, adding: "It is the worst that can be imagined. It is revolting and disgusting. Only persons who have lost all moral sense can bear it. It is the shame of our days. Whoever persists in it commits a sin." The Cardinal ordered all ecclesiastics to deny absolution to those who dance the tango and do not promise to discontinue the practice. (The New York Times, January 22, 1914
http://traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A518-Tango.htm
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