A real man on display amid the horror

David Holmes takes Daniel Radcliffe for a drive in his adapted car in the HBO film

The emotional wimps Western culture breeds, the fragile folk who find a micro-aggression in every difficult encounter—it's these types who need to take a page out of the life of David Holmes, who was the stuntman for Daniel Radcliffe in the Harry Potter movies until he flew into a wall and broke his neck leaving him paralysed from the chest down.

Is there anything he gained from the accident? “Yeah, hugely. I will always say breaking my neck made a man of me. For sure, 100%.”

How to find the positive in what was truly horrific, in what led to continuing suffering, seems to be what motivated The Guardian to feature Holmes at the weekend. Some excerpts convey the personal learning that ensued from the accident, and the deepening of his character:

“I knew straight away,” Holmes says, 14 years later. “I knew I’d broken my neck. I was fully conscious.” He had hit the wall at pace and with such brutality that he was left flopping, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. 

After the initial reports about the accident, little was heard about David Holmes. There were no dramatic fallouts, public recriminations, high-profile legal battles. Holmes quietly – and sometimes not so quietly – tried to rebuild his life. Today, the 40-year-old is paralysed from the chest down and lives with four full-time carers. He is wiser and calmer, but in other ways he is little changed.  

Young David was particularly talented, and loved gymnastics: “The greatest sport in the world.” By 13, he was performing in national competitions and hoped to represent Britain at the Olympics. But at school he was bullied for his size: “It’s hard growing up a small bloke. You’re an easy target. I was called ‘titch’ and ‘pipsqueak’, and stuffed in lockers. Gymnastics was my safe space because I was around other gymnasts who were also small.” 

At 14 he was spotted by a stunt manager; at 17, in 2000, he had turned professional and was working as Radcliffe’s stunt double in Harry Potter. In January 2009, Holmes' life changed dramatically:

So stunt coordinators just added weights on the pulley system to enhance the action? “Yes. I’m not going to go into any more detail. The repercussions from my accident mean nobody will be put in that situation again. And that’s enough for me. It’s much more sophisticated and controlled now.”

That legacy of greater safety within the film industry gives Holmes great satisfaction. A second matter that buoys him is that by the time of the accident Radcliffe had become a friend, a friendship that continues today.

Both those elements figure in a film made about how Holmes handled the aftermath of the accident. The film, David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived, screened on TV in Britain and is available on HBO. 

“Listen, thankfully for me, because of this film, my legacy on camera is not now me just hitting that wall 14 years ago. Maybe people will take some positives from the way I handled it, hopefully with a bit of dignity – even though all the dignity is taken away.” Among other things, the accident left him with terrible PTSD. “I’d hear the noise in my head of the crunching of my spinal cord. That would happen as I was falling asleep.”

Through the darkness Holmes called on his sense of humour for relief. One other aspect of his character he counts as a boon during the hard times is that he can recognise that the plight of others can put them in a far worse state than himself:

In hospital, despite being paralysed, he again began to feel he was lucky. “I was a stuntman, I did a risky job, and I was put in a ward with two boys who were there because of hate. One was caught up in the Mumbai terrorist attack – he’s now one of my best friends, Will Pike. The other boy, Oliver Hemsley, was walking on the road in Whitechapel and he was stabbed in the neck and the chest because he’s gay. Then they kicked a bottle of gin into his chest and he had to have his heart taken out [temporarily, and massaged]. They urinated on him as well. So I met real victims. Granted, it was not my fault, but it was a stunt accident and I did that job and I had to accept the risks. No stuntman should ever be doing that job unless you fully accept the risks.” 

Holmes tells me how lucky he is in other ways – to own the house, to have sufficient money through the insurance settlement, to have great friends and support. But he knows in the greater scheme he is anything but lucky. He has rarely talked publicly about what happened to him, and how it has changed his life, but today he makes it clear he doesn’t want to sanitise anything. He campaigns for those who have suffered spinal cord injuries and part of being a campaigner is showing the world what it means to live with such an injury.

In one way, Holmes adapted astonishingly well to his disability – designing his new home from the hospital bed, comforting loved ones, telling his mother there was no point in being angry or bitter. 

Even though he knew he couldn’t return to work, he refused to accept that he had to change his lifestyle after the accident. He talks about a lost decade, then decides “lost” isn’t quite the right word. “It was a decade of decadence and fun. I’d say I wasn’t grown up enough. The thrills I used to get setting myself on fire and jumping off buildings, I was just trying to find that in the way I could.” Such as? “I’d take groups of people to Ibiza and blow thousands of pounds.” He travelled the world, drove ridiculously fast customised cars he could control with his hands, partied, drank and took drugs. “I was fortunate to have those experiences, but I wasn’t really dealing with this. I was putting it on the back burner and not accepting my disability for what it is, which is a life-changing thing.” 

This is where he makes the comment that he has matured enough to make the most of his situation, to forsake a fast and furious lifestyle possible even when disabled, and this maturity allows him to focus on what is important in life.

That maturity also allows Holmes to display a wonderful generosity, drawing the Guardian writer's appreciation. That concern for others is now deeply etched in his character is clear, for one thing, because "Holmes is talking to JK Rowling about introducing a wizard in a wheelchair in the forthcoming Harry Potter TV series." For another, he is intent on ensuring that more devices appear that add to the quality of life of quadriplegics. Third, he produced a podcast series that raised the profile of  stunt people. He also working on drawing together a group who would launch a school to train young Black people for a role in the movie industry.

David Holmes faces the prospect of a shortened life, the Guardian feature states, but he is clearly intent on courageously making the most of his situation, on rising above his material circumstances to make an impact to benefit people who need a helping hand. Truly, he is displaying all the marks of a man.

Joining mothers in push for work-life balance

Contending with “outdated and toxic attitudes around motherhood” 

This is where activists' energy should be invested the most—creating a set of conditions that give mothers and children the greatest opportunity to flourish. In each society parents act on behalf of the whole to contribute new life. A buoyant future, stability in life ensue as the culture's most honoured values are cultivated among the young and deposited in their care as a treasured legacy.

But each society has to act as whole to ensure that the time and money necessary for parents to raise a child are available. Unfortunately, in industrialised socieites there is a lot of mis-directed energy where the political and corporate axis has been captured by a fashionable academic theory. As a consequence, the needs of families, and working people as a whole, are ignored. The fashionable activism so evident in service of cultish ideologies demands far less courage than does the raw fight for solidarity and the sharing of resources, for the tethering of the economic inequality that is running wild.

The Guardian website gives yet further evidence of the neglect of families in rich societies, this time referring to the United Kingdom:

About a quarter of a million mothers with young children have left their jobs because of difficulties with balancing work and childcare, according to a report by an equal rights charity that calls for the end of the “motherhood penalty”.

This juggling act, as well as the punitive cost, has led more than 249,124 working mothers of children aged four or under to leave their employer, according to the Fawcett Society.

A lack of flexible working arrangements and affordable childcare combined with “outdated and toxic attitudes around motherhood” were holding women back, said its chief executive, Jemima Olchawski.

Its survey of 3,000 working parents of preschoolers, conducted jointly with the recruitment firm Totaljobs, revealed that one in five working mothers had considered leaving their job because of the difficulties of balancing work and childcare. One in 10 had handed in their notice because of this, rising to 13% of single mothers.

It's not just mothers who are in this bind:

Alongside the mothers exiting the workforce, the poll also revealed that three out of four working parents have had to take unpaid leave becuase of childcare responsibilities, with higher rates for women from non-white backgrounds and single mothers.

Jane Lorigan, the chief executive of Totaljobs, pointed to critical labour shortages in the economy and warned that the pressures of childcare could ultimately have a longer-term impact on an ever-shrinking workforce.

“There are more mothers in the workplace than ever before, and businesses need to create an environment where they can flourish,” said Lorigan. “Not only do working parents need more support, but we need to ensure this support extends to the people who need it the most.”

The business sector, the government, but also a receptive attitude for change within the overall society must come together to enable a will for support for families to be enacted in reality. Otherwise, the populations of industrialised countries will collapse, as in most parts of Europe, including Russia, as well as South Korea, Japan, and most recently China. 

To a large extent, couples want children but the social and economic support is lacking as individualism and a general nihilistic mindframe take a greater hold.

However, some optimism arises by way of, first, the work-at-home routine necessitated by the Covid pandemic. The pressure from management for all employees to return to the office needs to tbe tempered by consideration for the needs of parents. The other spark of hope for a more human working arrangement, on a par with the 8-hour work day push in its day, is the pressure that is building, because of the mounting evidence of fruitful results, for a four-day working week, at the same level of pay. These are areas where activism would have truly beneficial outcomes rather than in pursuing the trendy issues of the day. 

Ω See also: Marriage disappearing in Britain

Ω See also: Four-day work week on a roll

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified by email when a new post is published.

Beauty: A door to another world

A bright star at the center of NGC 3132, Southern Nebula Ring, viewed by Nasa's Webb Telescope. See in full below.

God is a better everything than we are; therefore, He is also a better artist. That is why nature provides such heartbreaking beauties: sunsets, storms, seas, mountains (Fuji to the Japanese, the Matterhorn to the Swiss). These heartbreaks are usually milder than those brought on by poetry or music, probably because nature is slower, less sudden, and less surprising.

But hearts do leap suddenly into throats when an impossibly glorious vista suddenly appears around a corner or from behind a cloud. This, too, is largely personal, but not wholly: everyone loves stars, seas, and sunsets, and no one gets misty-eyed over worms. (I foresee getting an angry letter from a worm lover and forestall it by admitting that there is indeed a glory even there. I draw the line between art and non-art only where God does, i.e., nowhere.)

For me it is a great crashing wave of the sea that melts and glues my soul to it. (See my The Sea Within.) For many, it is a woman’s face. (This is not an erotic but an aesthetic falling-in-love.) For Dante, it was Beatrice, whom he saw, not as an entity in the world like other entities, but as something like a hole in the world through which the light of Heaven shone. Dante’s door in the world’s walls was shaped like Beatrice. (See Charles Williams, The Figure of Beatrice, and Mary McDermott Shidler’s The Theology of Romantic Love.) 

What was said of cathedrals above could be said of Beatrice, too, and vice versa. They are not merely things in this world but doors to another. They seem to the lover to be not natives to this world but otherworldly visitors. The Iroquois called the quality such visitors emit orenda. They found it especially in rivers, oceans, stars, trees, and mountains. It is the spiritual sugar that lures us to places we cannot live in but only look at and love. 

The wonder and awe can also come from the discoveries of science, especially astronomy and astrophysics, as well as genetics and cell biology; from the astonishing and often literally unimaginable picture of the universe and the human body and brain that it reveals. Surely the most magnificent work of art of all is the universe itself: endlessly mysterious yet perfect in its order, even in its mathematical harmonies. As Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote: “Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare.”

Ω From: Doors in the Walls of the World: Signs of Transcendence in the Human Story  by Peter Kreeft.

While prominent when viewed by Nasa's Webb Telescope in near-infrared light, the bright star at the center of NGC 3132, Southern Nebula Ring, plays only a supporting role in sculpting the surrounding nebula. A second star, barely visible at lower left along one of the bright star's diffraction spikes, is the nebula's source. It has ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years. Credit: Nasa, ESA, CSA, STScI

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified by email when a new post is published.

Jesus is God, as Paul makes clear

The topic of the divinity of Jesus is a favourite stomping ground for the kind of biblical scholars who think it their duty to dismiss the transcendent from the text. But such stalwarts of the academic critical form establishment leave a sterile legacy. Fortunately—shall we say providentially?—biblical scholarship does not begin and end at the doors of the institutions that follow reductionist scientism up the blind alley of their own making.

A rich vein of biblical scholarship that enjoys delving into the legacy of the Church can be found in study Bibles from reputable publishers, and in commentaries such as The International Bible Commentary (1998) and the New Jerome Biblical Commentary (1990).

Consider Romans 9:1-5. The final sentence is an important one as we seek clarity as to how the early Church grew in understanding of the width and length, height and depth, of the nature of the one who was man but not a human being, who had dwelt among them. Paul says with a swelling exultation:

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying, as my conscience bears witness for me through the Holy Spirit  that I have great sorrow and unending anguish in my heart. I would even be willing to be accursed, cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren who are my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites who have the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the Law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, came the Christ, God forever, who is over all. Amen.

Speaking of Christ’s origins and his relationship with the Father arising from the last sentence in the reading, the Jerusalem Bible comments: 

Both the context and the internal development of the sentence imply that this doxology is addressed to Christ. Paul rarely gives Jesus the title ‘God’, though cf. Titus 2:13, or addresses a doxology to him, cf. Hebrews 13:21, but this is because he usually keeps this title for the Father cf. Romans 15:6 etc., and considers the divine persons not so much with an abstract appreciation of their nature as with a concrete appreciation of their functions in the process of salvation. Moreover, he has always in mind the historical Christ in his concrete reality as God made man cf. Philippians 2:5+; Colossians 1:15+. For this reason he presents Christ, 1 Corinthians 3:23; 11:3, as subordinated to the Father, not only in the work of creation, 1 Corinthians 8:6, but also in that of eschatological renewal, 1 Corinthians 15:27f; cf. Romans 16:27 etc..

Nevertheless, the title ‘Lord’, Kyrios, received by Christ at his resurrection, is the title given by the Septuagint [the Greek translation of the Old Testament] to Yahweh in the Old Testament, Romans 10:9, 13; 1 Corinthians 2:16. For Paul, Jesus is essentially ‘the Son of God’, Romans 1:3-4, 9; 5:10; 8:29; 1 Corintinans 1:9;15:28; 2 Corinthians 1:19; Galatians 1:16; 2:20; 4:4-6; Ephesians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; cf Hebrews 4:14, etc. his ‘own Son’, Romans 8:3, 32, ‘the son of his love’, Colossians 1:13, who belongs to the sphere of the divine by right, the sphere from which he came, 1 Corinthians 15:47, being sent by God, Romans 8:3; Galatians 4:4. The title ‘Son of God’ became his in a new way with the resurrection, Romans 1:4+; cf. Hebrews 1:5; 5:5, , but it was not then he received it since he pre-existed not only as prefigured in the Old Testament, 1 Corinthians 10:4, but ontologically, 2 Philippians 2:6; cf. 2 Corinthians 8:9. He is the Wisdom, 1 Corinthians 1:24, 30, and the Image, 2 Corinthians 4:4, by which and in which all things were created Colossians 1:15-17; cf. Hebrews 1:3; 1 Corinthians 8:6, and have been re-created, Romans 8:29; cf. Colossians 3:10; 1:18-20, because into his own person is gathered the fullness of the godhead and of the universe, Colossians 2:9+. In him God has devised the whole plan of salvation, Ephesians 1:3f, and he, no less than the Father, is its accomplishment (cf. Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6 and Colossians 1:16-20). The Father raises to life and judges, so does the Son raise to life (cf. Romans 1:4+; 8:11+ and Philippians 3:21) and judge (cf. Romans 2:16 and 1 Corinthians 4:5; Romans 14:10 and 2 Corinthians 5:10). In short, he is one of the three Persons enumerated in the Trinitarian formulae, 2 Corinthians 13:13+.

The importance of scholarship in support of the truth has been witnessed by the Church's investment of resources, especially its human talent. In the case of the text above, scholars can tell us that it is less likely that Paul intended his final words to be:  “came the Christ. God who is over all be praised. Amen." All is well as long as scholars seek the truth, rather than playing rhetorical games to impress their academic peers. It's clear there is a delight in the exercise of form criticism but little interest in taking a critical stance to that particular form of critically studying a text of significance. 

One reviewer of Bart Ehrman's works has this to say:

This is just one example of Ehrman’s practice of either: (1) inaccurately conveying what the Bible says; (2) accurately conveying what the Bible says, then declaring it’s wrong; (3) arguing the text really doesn’t say what Christians believe it says (why does that matter if what it really says is also wrong?); and (4) citing Scripture in support of his contentions, even though he regularly dismisses Scripture’s validity. 

Another who finds modern reductionist text criticism a barren exterprise offers this thought:

Put simply, the skepticism of Bultmann, Borg, Crossan and Ehrman is out of date. New discoveries have pushed scholarship beyond their fanciful theories and dubious conclusions. The new wave of New Testament scholars readily accept the positive findings of a century’s worth of research, but in the spirit of true scholarship, they have also learned how to be critical of the critics. 

That alternative modus operandi in biblical scholarship is laid out here, describing a new wave of studies that seek the truth in all its dimensions. Go here for one source of balanced scholarship.

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified by email when a new post is published.

Francis: rethink human power, its meaning and its limits

Photo from PxHere

Pope Francis will spend three days at the top-level COP28 climate conference at Dubai, which starts at the end of this month. His latest letter to the world on the climate crisis presents a bleak vision of planet earth as our home, and offers a depth of insight into how to regain the sensitivity to creation the industrialised world lost long ago. Francis titled this letter Laudate Deum, which means "Thanks be to God", and dates it October 4, the feast day of Francis of Assisi.

His first paragraph is this:

“Praise God for all his creatures”. This was the message that Saint Francis of Assisi proclaimed by his life, his canticles and all his actions. In this way, he accepted the invitation of the biblical Psalms and reflected the sensitivity of Jesus before the creatures of his Father: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these” (Matthew 6:28-29). “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight” (Luke 12:6). How can we not admire this tenderness of Jesus for all the beings that accompany us along the way! 

Francis dwells on that need for a fresh set of eyes:

Eight years have passed since I published the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, when I wanted to share with all of you, my brothers and sisters of our suffering planet, my heartfelt concerns about the care of our common home. Yet, with the passage of time, I have realized that our responses have not been adequate, while the world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point. In addition to this possibility, it is indubitable that the impact of climate change will increasingly prejudice the lives and families of many persons. We will feel its effects in the areas of healthcare, sources of employment, access to resources, housing, forced migrations, etc.

The hard-headed drive for a certain kind of development, that where the sole purpose is for the rich to become richer, has been a fundamental mistake in human history:

 In Laudato Si’, I offered a brief resumé of the technocratic paradigm underlying the current process of environmental decay. It is “a certain way of understanding human life and activity [that] has gone awry, to the serious detriment of the world around us”. Deep down, it consists in thinking “as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such”. As a logical consequence, it then becomes easy “to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology”.

It is chilling to realize that the capacities expanded by technology “have given those with the knowledge and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world. Never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely, particularly when we consider how it is currently being used… In whose hands does all this power lie, or will it eventually end up? It is extremely risky for a small part of humanity to have it”.  

[...] a healthy ecology is also the result of interaction between human beings and the environment, as occurs in the indigenous cultures and has occurred for centuries in different regions of the earth. Human groupings have often “created” an environment, reshaping it in some way without destroying it or endangering it. The great present-day problem is that the technocratic paradigm has destroyed that healthy and harmonious relationship. In any event, the indispensable need to move beyond that paradigm, so damaging and destructive, will not be found in a denial of the human being, but include the interaction of natural systems “with social systems”. 

We need to rethink among other things the question of human power, its meaning and its limits. For our power has frenetically increased in a few decades. We have made impressive and awesome technological advances, and we have not realized that at the same time we have turned into highly dangerous beings, capable of threatening the lives of many beings and our own survival. Today it is worth repeating the ironic comment of Solovyov* about an “age which was so advanced as to be actually the last one”.  We need lucidity and honesty in order to recognize in time that our power and the progress we are producing are turning against us. 

Ultimately, we must set goals that rise above the human fault of seeking above all wealth, power and self-interest. Focusing on care for the earth and concern for its inhabitants requires deep change:

In conscience, and with an eye to the children who will pay for the harm done by their actions, the question of meaning inevitably arises: “What is the meaning of my life? What is the meaning of my time on this earth? And what is the ultimate meaning of all my work and effort?” 

The spiritual dimension of our existence on this planet also needs to be recognised:

The Bible tells us: “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). His is “the earth with all that is in it” (Deut 10:14). For this reason, he tells us that, “the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev 25:23). Hence, “responsibility for God’s earth means that human beings, endowed with intelligence, must respect the laws of nature and the delicate equilibria existing between the creatures of this world”. 

The Judaeo-Christian vision of the cosmos defends the unique and central value of the human being amid the marvellous concert of all God’s creatures, but today we see ourselves forced to realize that it is only possible to sustain a “situated anthropocentrism”. To recognize, in other words, that human life is incomprehensible and unsustainable without other creatures. For “as part of the universe… all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect.”

Francis has called on the powerful conglomerates and nations to cease and desist their present environmentally destructive and socially harmful roles and to start afresh to achieve a whole-world rescue effort as the impact of climate change bears down on us. But he also speaks of the individual person and the household as having central roles, There is, he says:

[...] the need to realize that there are no lasting changes without cultural changes, without a maturing of lifestyles and convictions within societies, and there are no cultural changes without personal changes.

Efforts by households to reduce pollution and waste, and to consume with prudence, are creating a new culture. The mere fact that personal, family and community habits are changing is contributing to greater concern about the unfulfilled responsibilities of the political sectors and indignation at the lack of interest shown by the powerful. Let us realize, then, that even though this does not immediately produce a notable effect from the quantitative standpoint, we are helping to bring about large processes of transformation rising from deep within society. 

In closing, Francis states that the criteria for decision-making at all levels must involve the exercise of the human family's spiritual capacity:

[...] we can state that a broad change in the irresponsible lifestyle connected with the Western model would have a significant long-term impact. As a result, along with indispensable political decisions, we would be making progress along the way to genuine care for one another. 

[...] when human beings claim to take God’s place, they become their own worst enemies.

Ω Whereas this post treats Francis's insights into the spiritual motivations we need to preserve our common home, an earlier post gives a general summary of this letter to all people of good will.   

*From The Pillar:

But perhaps the quirkiest reference is to the Russian writer Vladimir Solovyov’s apocalyptic A Short Story of the Anti-Christ. The story, published in 1900, imagines the emergence of an Antichrist who establishes himself as a global authority and seeks dominion over Christians worldwide, but faces heroic resistance from Church leaders and is ultimately vanquished by Christ. The pope doesn’t delve into the story’s plot in Laudate Deum, but limits himself to quoting Solovyov’s “ironic comment” about an “age which was so advanced as to be actually the last one.” 

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified by email when a new post is published. 

To be a Christian: human thriving

Photo by PxHere

To have committed oneself to Christ totally must result in an inner transformation which steers us in the direction of goodness and love. To be in Christ is to be free, not freedom to sin but freedom not to sin. True freedom is the ability to choose the good; sin, as a choice of evil, can never be an expression of true freedom, it is an abuse of freedom.

[[[[[[[[[[[[[

Paul develops the biblical ideas of ‘redemption’ and of liberation from death, and in order to bring out their implication makes frequent use of a metaphor that his contemporaries would find impressive: the slave redeemed and set free who can be a slave no longer but must serve his new master freely and faithfully. Christ has paid for our redemption with his life; and he has made us permanently free. The Christian must be careful not to let himself be caught again by those who once owned him, i.e. by sin; the Law, with its ritual observance; the principles of the world; and corruption.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]

The word ‘obedience’ contains the root of the verb ‘to hear’. To turn a deaf ear to goodness and submit to evil leads to sin and death. To listen to the voice of goodness and submit to it is the way to life. We have a striking example in Jesus who, in obedience to his Father, offered up his whole body in life and in death for our liberation. Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, becoming as human beings are… and he was humbler yet, even submitting to death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8).

]]]]]]]]]]]]]

“Once you were slaves of sin, but thank God you have given whole-hearted obedience to the pattern of teaching to which you were introduced; and so, being freed from serving sin, you took uprightness as your master.” To give ‘whole-hearted’ obedience implies willing submission and not an obedience that is forced, imposed or legalistic.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Christians have changed masters. From being slaves to sin, they have become slaves to ‘righteousness’, to that inner goodness that results from opening oneself to the love of God that comes through ‘grace’.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

When we surrender to a life of sin, we are headed for death [of our spirit, our humanness]. When we surrender ourselves to God it leads to justice, to goodness. Paradoxically to become the slave of “justice”, or righteousness, is to become free. Freedom, as we said, is the ability to identify totally with the good. To use one’s freedom to sin is a contradiction. And that is what true freedom enables us to do – to choose the good and loving act at all times and in every situation.

]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Although some may not see it that way, there is no one who enjoys more real freedom than the one who is totally committed to the Way of Jesus. Because it is the Way, it is the Vision of life, to which we are called by the deepest needs of our being.

By Father Frank Doyle SJ, from his commentary on Romans 6:12-23, which is:

12 Therefore, do not allow sin to reign over your mortal body and make you obey its desires. 13 Nor should you present any part of your body as an instrument for wickedness leading to sin. Rather, present yourselves to God as having been raised from death to life and the parts of your body to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin is no longer to have any power over you, since you are not under the Law but under grace.

15 What then? Should we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Of course not! 16 Do you not know that if you offer yourself as an obedient slave, you are the slave of the one you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

17 Once you were slaves of sin, but, thanks be to God, you have become obedient in your heart to that pattern of teaching to which you have been delivered. 18 Now, having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

19 I am speaking in human terms because you are still weak human beings. For just as you once offered your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to greater iniquity, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free from the restraints of righteousness. 21 But what advantage did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 However, now that you have been freed from sin and bound to the service of God, the benefit you receive is sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift freely given by God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Access the original here - Living Space

Also see Doyle’s commentary on Luke 12:39-48. He writes:

We as Christians, with the guidance of the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church, bear far greater responsibilities for the wrongs we do than others, such as non-Christians or non-religious people, who have less guidance.

Within the Church, there are people who are better formed and better informed and they too bear greater responsibility before God. At the same time, it might be worth pointing out that those who could avail themselves of such formation and information and fail to do so may be also liable to greater accountability. We need to distinguish between nescience and ignorance. Nescience is simply not knowing or not being aware of some truth or value. Ignorance is not knowing what I ought to know and have every opportunity of coming to know.

Ignorance may sometimes be bliss, but not where knowing Jesus and the Gospel is concerned. And wisdom, far from being folly, is a gift to be treasured.

The urgency in Fr Doyle's words arises from his wish that all may have the fulness of life promised in meeting Jesus on our journey to human integrity, that is, wholeness. 

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified by email when a new post is published.

Chastity as a remedy for soul-pain

Diana, the goddess of chastity, yet 'sovereign and free'

Erik Varden* has a new book out this month on chastity, once a central virtue upheld within society generally, and promoted within Christian circles as a value that safeguarded good order, the moral life. But times have changed. 

Given the spoilation of social mores as the sexual revolution enveloped the West, Varden observes that "we have lost the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax required to speak intelligibly about chastity, and have thereby lost sight of a crucial dimension of human flourishing". 

He continues:

Hearing the word spoken today, we are more likely to think of thwarted sexuality than of dew-besprinkled strength of virtue...

Chastity is the virtue which excludes or moderates the indulgence of the sexual appetite. It is a form of the virtue of temperance, which controls according to right reason the desire for and use of those things which afford the greatest sensual pleasures. (Source) 

Chastity involves the unmarried, the married, each having a different manner of exercising that virtue. For the unmarried, that is the single person, abstinence from sexual activity is necessary for personal growth. For married couples, control of each person's impulses is required for the sake of the welfare of the couple. 

 A virtue, by the way, is a state of excellence in the person. Greek moral thought, which has at its centre the notion of the ideal human life, characterised in terms of eudaimonia or human flourishing, understands the virtues as the building blocks of the edifice that is the human person striving to fulfil their potential.

Celibacy is the state of abstinence from sexual relations. In the religious context, celibacy can describe the life decision of all or most monks and nuns of the Buddhist, Hindu and Christian faiths. Catholic religious brothers and nuns take vows of poverty, obedience and chastity, the last signifying their celibacy. Catholic clergy promise to adhere to the historic discipline of celibacy. Exceptions include where men accepted for the priesthood are already married.

Richer than mere mortification of the senses

Varden: 

...To tie chastity down to erotic abstinence, to mere mortification of the senses is to make of it potentially a tool to sabotage the flourishing of character.

...It is a matter of overcoming inward fragmentation, to find wholeness, and thereby freedom. 

...This kind of purity is reached by passing through the mess, owning it.

This is the register of experience for which Latin authors adopted the terminology of chastity. Lewis and Short, in their Latin Dictionary, explain that the adjective castus in Antiquity was synonymous with integer. The term was generally used ‘in respect to the person himself ’, not so much ‘in respect to others’. Chastity, in other words, was a marker of integrity, of a personality whose parts are assembled in harmonious completeness. 

Now, who wouldn’t want a bit more of that for him or herself, or for the societies in which we move? 

From the ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and such Romans as Cicero, the concept of a disposition toward a disciplined life, with a goal of excellence and the fulfillment of potential, was readily taken up by Christian thinkers, though the habitus was already well described in the Old Testament.

Varden continues:

Setting out from the aspiration to wholeness — biblically expressed in God’s call to Abraham: ‘Walk before me and be entire’ (hyeh tamim, Genesis 17.1) — I attempt to evidence the dynamics of ‘chastity’ in relational and sexual life, discourse about which has formed the term’s main habitat since the Middle Ages. I consider the challenge of maturing to chastity through the prism of multiple tensions. Few find their way to integrity without a sense of being pulled in different directions. The experience may recur at different times of life in different ways. There can be joy in it. There can also be a sense of agonising conflict. 

How do we deal with the fact of being at once matter and spirit, two experiential dimensions requiring different kinds of nourishment and direction? How do we position ourselves within the complementarity of male and female? Can a possibly unified path be found between the yearning to be free and the call to ascesis, that is, the conscious education of our passionate lives? 

Given the odium and derision surrounding chastity—and its complement, modesty—efforts to reinstate what is a deeply embedded human experience, both personally and socially, will be difficult. Varden proposes certain steps:

We need pondered, careful, prayerful thought rooted in the Word of God, which alone can explain ourselves to ourselves. 

A longing for the life-giving Logos is implicit in much contemporary sexual confusion, even when it finds expression in terms that seem to have gone off the rails. In a post-secular world, the claims of the soul are as evident as ever they were, for being often expressed negatively, a function of pain, and bodily. Moderns are loath to speak of God, yet readily admit to feeling trapped in creaturely limitation. While giving no explicit credence to doctrines of the afterlife, they are consumed with a yearning for more. While determined to assume their incarnate humanity, they vaguely know that our body points beyond itself, since every apparent satisfaction is but achingly provisional. 

As Christians we have words today’s men and women need to understand themselves at this level. We have no right not to share them. 

Engagement with passions that injure us

More will be provided on that topic later but Varden offers rich pickings in several directions and further clarification as to how chastity fits into the human puzzle is of some urgency as the West increasingly bears the weight of "a two-dimensional account of life and love". 

He states that as a young man "it did not occur to me to see chastity as possessing an intrinsic [and] life-giving attraction". He had not learnt of Cicero's depiction of Diana, the goddess of chastity, as "light-bearing", "roaming everywhere", "sovereign and free". 

He also found Aristotle talking of the process of "purification" leading to an"equilibrium regained by means of engagement with passions which run wild, to bring these back like rebellious horses under reason's sway".

And that's the crux of the matter—the person under the control of reason. Varden puts it this way:

[Chastity is a] term that, at heart, signifies the conscious education of the sexual drive as physical passion, as capacity for tenderness, as the will to live fully, envisaging the gradual attuning of the body, mind and soul.

[It is not] the suppression or oppression of sex, but its maturing, with a view to flourishing and fruitfulness.

Chastity stands for equilibrium. It stands, too, for fearlessness as we find our homecoming to ourselves, which is what chastity amounts to, is not so much an anxious manoeuvring between [...] menaces about us, as the progressive integration of possibilities within.

We are in conflict with ourselves to the extent "Paul bravely confessed to the Romans 'I do not understand my own actions' (Rm 7:15)". We need a lot of markers to resolve the puzzle we encounter within, regarding the affections, the animal impulses, the attractions inspired by cultural standards. However, we need to remember, as Varden writes:

The essence of becoming chaste is not a putting-to-death of our nature, but its orientation, enacted through integral reconciliation, toward fulness of life.

Called to reveal the wealth of our patrimony

Therefore, those who have the welfare of society at heart, both its older generations as well as its young, have a clear commission. Varden explains:

Given the amnesia to which the West has succumbed regarding its Christian patrimony, a chasm extends between ‘secular’ society and the Church’s shore. When attempts are made to holler across, we risk misunderstanding: even when the same words are used on either side, they may have acquired different meanings. Bridges are needed to enable encounter. Christians must present their faith integrally, without temporising compromise; at the same time, they must express it in ways comprehensible to those ill-informed about formal dogma. 

They will often do this most effectively by appealing to universal experience, then trying to read such experience in the light of revelation, weighing their words.

That is how the Fathers preached. That is why their proclamation rings still with such engaging clarity. We must learn to speak likewise, grateful for riches passed down from of old and respectful, at the same time, of our own strange times. No life-giving word was ever uttered with scorn. 

The language with which we proclaim the mystery of faith as it touches the depth of our humanity, our flesh, must be balanced and purified, freed of self-righteousness, anger, and fear — that is, it must itself become chaste.

🞷 ERIK VARDEN is a monk and bishop. Norwegian by birth, he was, before entering the Cistercian Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in England, a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He has published several translations and scholarly monographs and is much in demand as a preacher, spiritual director and lecturer. In 2019 Pope Francis appointed him to the see of Trondheim, Norway. He is the author of The Shattering of Loneliness (2018) and Entering the Twofold Mystery: On Christian Conversion (2022).

Ω See also access to excerpts of Chastity here

Ω Varden discusses this subject here, and here

Ω For Varden's blog, go here

Ω Leave a comment and, if you like this blog, go to my Peace and Truth newsletter on Substack, where you can subscribe for free and be notified by email when a new post is published.