Some recent discussions have made me think again about a subject that I have thought about before, many times. What exactly does it mean to be holy? I guess the saints are holy (even when they're a bit nuts) because they do devote themselves to God as much as they can. A friend who was the Social Justice Minister at my last Catholic parish loved to read about the saints. He was a single man, in his early 40s, totally devoted to serving God by serving the poor and fighting for justice. When he left the the parish and moved to PA our parting gift to him was the biggest, most beautiful edition of the Lives of the Saints that I have ever seen. He was thrilled, genuinely thrilled. But I don't relate to them - that kind of dedication is not something I am capable of doing. But maybe there are multiple ways to pursue holiness. So I decided to see what the dictionaries say. What do you all think? What does it mean for human beings to be holy? Is it even possible for human beings to be holy? Can someone be holy and still live a normal life - working, commuting, coaching the soccer team, taking care of kids and family, etc?
worthy of complete devotion and trust. : divine. 3. : set apart to the service of God or a god : sacred. (Oxford Languages)
exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness.
To say you are holy means that you have been set apart by God's grace for God's purpose. Your allegiance is no longer to the kingdom of your success and happiness, but to the progress of his kingdom of glory and grace. (Meriam Webster)
KJV Dictionary Definition: holiness
holiness
HO'LINESS, n. from holy. The state of being holy; purity or integrity of moral character; freedom from sin; sanctity. Applied to the Supreme Being, holiness denotes perfect purity or integrity of moral character, one of his essential attributes.
Who is like thee, glorious in holiness? Ex.15.
1. Applied to human beings, holiness is purity of heart or dispositions; sanctified affections; piety; moral goodness, but not perfect.
We see piety and holiness ridiculed as morose singularities.
2. Sacredness; the state of any thing hallowed, or consecrated to God or to his worship; applied to churches or temples.
3. That which is separated to the service of God.
Israel was holiness unto the Lord. Jer.2.
4. A title of the pope, and formerly of the Greek emperors.
holy
HO'LY, a.
1. Properly, whole, entire or perfect, in a moral sense. Hence, pure in heart, temper or dispositions; free from sin and sinful affections. Applied to the Supreme Being, holy signifies perfectly pure, immaculate and complete in moral character; and man is more or less holy, as his heart is more or less sanctified, or purified from evil dispositions. We call a man holy,when his heart is conformed in some degree to the image of God, and his life is regulated by the divine precepts. Hence, holy is used as nearly synonymous with good, pious, godly.
I love this topic. I think about this from time to time, too.
ReplyDeleteThese dictionary definitions, in my view, aren't perfect. But they do get at a couple of aspects of holiness (as I understand the concept) which are important, and perhaps - but only perhaps - indispensable.
As I understand holiness, the essence of holiness consists in having drawn close to God. To propose an image: we might think of holiness as God embracing us so closely that he reshapes us to conform with him (or her).
What the dictionary definitions get right are (1) the notion of purity and (2) the notion of set-apartness from worldliness.
Purification is necessary because we are sinful. God gives us sacramental ways to be purified, and then we are instructed to go and sin no more.
As for turning away from worldliness: obviously, this is complicated and difficult for most of us. For example, our marriages can be holy or unholy. So can our jobs and careers. So can parenting. Yet it might not be too much to say that this is the essence of discipleship: finding ways to live holy lives in the midst of the world.
I don't think holiness is reserved only for the few exalted saints who are recognized by the church. I strongly believe it's possible for all of us, and in many different ways.
ReplyDeleteThe dictionary definitions are interesting. They point out that there are many descriptions of holiness, depending on whether we are talking about God, human beings, or places and things.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jim's description of holiness meaning having drawn close to God. I remember a little short prayer or aspiration, "Make my heart like unto thine." I suppose that is the aim of holiness, to love like Jesus.
The NT answer to this question. Saints was the third most popular way for Christians in the NT to refer to one another after brethren (brothers and sisters) and disciples. These words could be use both to address others (e.g., the brethren, disciples, saints) or as self-designations (i.e., we). The use of these terms varies widely in different books, e.g., Paul never uses the word disciple!
ReplyDeleteChristians are holy because they are called, chosen by God who is holy just as the people of Israel where called set apart as a people (laos) from the nations (gentes).
From this was developed the notion of the communion of saints found in our creeds. Because the word holy can apply to things and well as people, the communion of saints was thought of as a communion of holy persons in holy things. The Byzantine communion announcement is Holy (things) are for holy (people).
There is not much development in the NT of some people being holier than others; there is more development of some people being holier (gifted) in different ways than others, e.g., as prophets, teachers, ministers, etc.
I also think that to say, "God is holy", is to say something different than, "God is almighty". God is both; they are two different dimensions.
ReplyDeleteI probably should not put my oar in here. I'm uncomfortable with words like "holy" because I didn't grow up with a traditional religious vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteThis is about as far as I've gotten with any notion of holiness:
When someone performs a service for another creature motivated purely by empathy/love of God and not self-interest, I guess I'd say that is an act of holiness.
Holiness is when God works through you.
When someone sees another person as God does, even for a few moments, that may also be an act of holiness. See Flannery O'Connor's story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find."
Everyone is probably capable of holy acts. But nobody, including the saints, are themselves purely holy. They just tried harder and provided concrete examples of what holy acts might look like.
Praying for more holiness because one yearns for a connection with God may also be a holy act. Thinking of Bernini's Ecstasy of St Teresa.
None of us can act in a holy way without God's grace. We can ask for grace, but we cannot control or conjure it.
Jean, thanks for these thoughts. I agree with them.
DeleteI agree with the many definitions of the holy described here. I try to have truck with holy things and appreciate holiness in the world and others. As for myself, I consider it a good day if I avoid being an a-hole.
ReplyDeleteStanley, you are not alone. My goal at this stage of my life is to exit it having done at least a bit more good for having been here than I’ve done harm.
DeleteI think that is a primary difference between the people the Church designates saints and the rest of us: We are content to do as little harm as possible while making a living, doing the housework, fulfilling family obligations, getting our hair styled, redecorating the house, and entertaining ourselves. The saints were actively engaged in looking for ways to help God even as they were doing all that, and even especially when it meant ignoring those things. Martha vs Mary.
DeletePossibly that's what Jim means by being "unworldly."
That unworldliness requires making radical choices most that most of us won't and that conflict with conventional ideas of "responsibility." Dorothy Day's daughter felt neglected for being fobbed off on others so that her mother could do her work for God. People said Fr Damien didn't do enough about squalor in the leper colony and was unnecessarily filthy. Thomas More's family was angry and faced the possibility of impoverishment when he chose not to sign Henry VIII's oath. Many people hated St Jerome because he was such an SOB to people who disagreed with him. Brigid sold her father's sword to feed poor people.
Well, one wonders sometimes. Neglecting people who deserve your care, like a daughter, does seem to conflict with the command to love. Some might speculate that Dorothy Day enjoyed her reputation a bit too much and needed to delegate enough of her work to others so that she could properly care for her child. I don’t know. I can’t judge her behavior. Selling a sword seems like a good thing though. ;)
DeleteMost saints were single people. Perhaps that’s why they could devote themselves to serving God or at least to activities that they believed served God. But I think that there are a lot of people who are more saintly in some ways than the single folk who are called saints. They are the ones who put themselves last while caring for elderly parents (Jean for example), or raising a severely disabled, handicapped child who becomes an equally severely disabled adult who needs to be fed and have diapers changed. I know a couple of people who have done that. Or who shares their little food with others. My Viet Namese daughter in law was born in a refugee camp in Indonesia after her parents fled Viêt Nam in a boat. Food was very scarce and her mother wasn’t getting enough to be able to have an adequate supply of milk for her baby. She was not gaining weight and was very weak and sickly. When they we’re planning their wedding, she mentioned her grandmother coming. I asked my son about that because I had thought that all of her grandparents were dead. The “grandmother” who was coming to the wedding was called that as an honorific. She had given most of her daily portion of rice to my daughter in law’s mother in the refugee camp in order to help her have enough nutrition to produce milk and save the baby - my daughter in law, mother of two of our grandchildren.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDon’t minimize what you did, I know plenty of people who would have walked away and let mom or dad survive in whatever pathetic care facility their Medicare would cover. I have been fortunate. I was never called on to provide heroic end of life care. My mother died 2 hours after a brain aneurysm burst - she was fine until then. A friend who was with her called an ambulance. She was gone before any of us even knew that she had been hit with the brain bleed. My father died in a hospital, alone, after a brief illness. None of his children had remained close to him. He wasn’t a good father. I don’t suppose any of those relatives who cut you off ever offered any tangible physical help with your mother, or financial assistance?
Delete.
"That unworldliness requires making radical choices most that most of us won't and that conflict with conventional ideas of responsibility". Yes. Sometimes I feel torn between admiration for the saints who make the radical choices, and my exasperation with them for seeming to ignore the needs of those they leave behind. For instance: today is the feast of Sts. Felicity and Perpetua, early Christian martyrs who are mentioned in the Roman Canon, (Eucharistic Prayer I). One can admire their courage, willing to be torn apart by wild beasts rather than renounce Christ (one account has them being savaged by a rabid cow). Perpetua was an educated, well- born young women. She left a diary recounting their stay in prison up to the point when they were put to death. Both were young mothers; Perpetua was breastfeeding while in prison, and Felicity gave birth to her baby only a few days before her death. The children didn't die, presumably they were handed off to family members when the mothers were given to beasts to be killed for the amusement of the crowds who watched. The babies grew up without their mothers, though, and I couldn't help but think, wasn't there some compromise they could have made. Maybe not.
DeleteApropos of nothing, there is a lovely rose bush called Felicite et Perpetue which unfortunately is unable survive Nebraska's harsh winters.
Those roses are very pretty and reminded me I was looking for rugosas, which led to a pleasant sidetrack. One expert says rugosas are considered invasive in some areas. Pretty much everything I have is invasive, so they'd feel at home!
DeleteKatherine, about 15 years ago I took a graduate level course in the development of christian spirituality during the first millennium after Christ. I was the only person in the class who wasn’t somehow officially employed by the church (priests, seminarians, theology teachers etc). It was a very interesting class and I learned a lot about early Christianity that I had not previously known in spite of six required religion/theology courses as an undergraduate. It was very enlightening, At one point we studied “The Spirituality of Martyrdom”, covering the era in which Christians didn’t just accept martyrdom but actively sought it. Perpetua and Felicity actively sought martyrdom in spite of having very young babies. The stories of those who actively wanted to be killed, rather than simply accepting their fate, were a real shock to me - I found it rather horrifying. Jesus accepted his fate, but he didn’t actively seek it and actively hope for a horrifying death.
DeleteDuring our hot, very humid summers we have often headed to New England to cool off - Cale Cod and the islands are favorite destinations, although we usually wait until the schools start again in August/ early September in order to avoid the worst of high season crowds and prices. One of our favorite things about these destinations is the beauty of the wild roses everywhere! They are so beautiful and especially beautiful running wild.
Deletehttps://www.coastalneighborhoods.com/blog/the-history-behind-the-rosa-rugosa-beach-flowers-on-cape-cod/
Anne, I have read accounts of people who actively sought martyrdom. It isn't confined to an era. Have you ever read "To Quell the Terror" which is the historical account of the events which inspired the play Song at the Scaffold? It was the story of the 17 Carmelite martyrs of Compiegne. I admired their courage, but had misgivings because it seemed that their superior was the one who wanted martyrdom (to offer it for the end to the reign of terror). They had a vow of obedience, and even though she didn't tell her sisters they had to, it didn't seem to me that they really had the freedom to say no.
DeleteI don't believe people have to look for trouble. It's different if it is a case like Stanley Rother, or Jean de Brebeuf, who refused to leave their people. Or even like Maximilian Kolbe, who gave his life so that someone else could live.
We don't have Rosa rugosa here, but we have the prairie wild rose, Rosa arkansana. It has a lovely scent, the pioneers used the red hips for jelly. I loved to see it in our pastures in June, but the thorns are fierce.
Delete"We are content to do as little harm as possible while making a living, doing the housework, fulfilling family obligations, getting our hair styled, redecorating the house, and entertaining ourselves. The saints were actively engaged in looking for ways to help God even as they were doing all that, and even especially when it meant ignoring those things. Martha vs Mary. Possibly that's what Jim means by being "unworldly."
DeleteThat unworldliness requires making radical choices most that most of us won't and that conflict with conventional ideas of "responsibility.""
Jean, with your study of the saints, you may know more about this than I do: I think St. Therese's "little way" can be a guide for us: that we can do small things in a holy way. I have a friend who strongly believes that doing the dishes or folding the laundry can be done in an "unworldy" way: in a way in which we are conscious that all these simple, banal acts may bring God's kingdom closer to fruition. E.g. I can fold my spouse's shirts lovingly or resentfully :-)
FWIW, today's morning prayer included this intercession, which I consider a small pearl of wisdom: "Teach us to be loving not only in great and exceptional moments, but above all in the ordinary events of daily life."
Jim, are you familiar with Brother Lawrence? The book The Practice of the Presence of God is a collection of writings that recorded his philosophy. He worked mostly in the kitchen of the abbey, but people were drawn to his wisdom, mostly recorded by others. He dedicated every dish he washed, every floor he scrubbed, to God, with whom he conversed while he worked.
Deletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_the_Presence_of_God
I confess I don't know much about St Teresa. But the idea of doing all work with love is the core of the Benedictine rule.
DeleteI had a little prayer I said silently before class and other occasions. But I am certainly guilty of giving myself a pass for being ungenerous under the guise of "responsibility" or "self-care." Having cancer presents a huge temptation to plead fatigue to weasel out of stuff you don't want to do.
As a rule, we are not a society interested in emptying out ourselves on a cross for anybody else, even figuratively. We tend to think of those people as dupes.
Speaking of Little Flowers: One of my favorite movies is "Brother Orchid" (1940) with EG Robinson, a comedy about a gangster who experiences a conversion and struggles with feeling like a patsy.
Jack, Christians are holy because they are called, chosen by God who is holy just as the people of Israel where called set apart…
ReplyDeleteI believe that every person - and all the peoples on earth, all created by God - are “chosen” by God. History demonstrates that simply being a Christian or a Jew does not make one holy.
Jean When someone performs a service for another creature motivated purely by empathy/love of God and not self-interest, I guess I'd say that is an act of holiness.
Holiness is when God works through you.
When someone sees another person as God does, even for a few moments,
I agree with these understandings of holy/ holiness.
I’ve also pondered the relationship between someone being “good” and someone being “holy”, or at least acting in a holy way, as Jean described. I have known people who are truly good - no meanness, no jealousy, no anything bad, just purely good and kind. Who did things for others motivated by love, (not always by a love of God) rather than self-interest. But one of those people (I count about three whom I’ve known personally) was not a Christian. He didn’t do things out of love of God because he didn’t believe there is a God. He was raised as an atheist and was an atheist when he died, tragically, when about 35. (He was hit by a truck when bicycling to work - a month after he got married.) He treated other human beings with love, without judging, as innately good. He was kind. Pure kindness. The good shown through him. I was almost surprised not to actually see a halo above his head! I first met him when he was four years old and he never changed as he got older. Just pure goodness. Perhaps he saw all people as God does, even though he didn’t believe in God. So while God’s grace may have been what was shining through him, he never asked for it. But it seems to me, that in some way, he was one of God’s chosen.
Peter Brown, a major historian, has articulated the notion of the “holy man” as a particular development in Mediterranean society between 200 and 400 AD under the influence of Christianity in which the supernatural was increasing seen not as simply divine forces acting in nature, often personified as gods, but as “divine power” represented on earth by a limited number of exceptional human agents empowered to bring it to their fellow humans because these holy men had a relationship to the supernatural that was personal, stable, and clearly perceptible to fellow humans, e.g. the apostles, martyrs, and ascetics.
ReplyDeleteMediterranean society had always been dominated by family networks, patrons, and friendship. Holy men were seen as friends and patrons.
So, it appears that the very stratified notion of “saint” that we have inherited is a product of social and culture forces in early Christianity rather than as something from the NT. Maybe Protestants were right in de-emphasizing saints.
The Vatican II Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity gives a good summary of what it means that everyone is called to holiness:
ReplyDeleteThe Church was founded for the purpose of spreading the kingdom of Christ throughout the earth for the glory of God the Father, to enable all men to share in His saving redemption,[1] and that through them the whole world might enter into a relationship with Christ.
All activity of the Mystical Body directed to the attainment of this goal is called the apostolate, which the Church carries on in various ways through all her members. For the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate
One engages in the apostolate through the faith, hope, and charity which the Holy Spirit diffuses in the hearts of all members of the Church. Indeed, by the precept of charity, which is the Lord's greatest commandment, all the faithful are impelled to promote the glory of God through the coming of His kingdom and to obtain eternal life for all men--that they may know the only true God and Him whom He sent, Jesus Christ (cf. John 17:3). On all Christians therefore is laid the preeminent responsibility of working to make the divine message of salvation known and accepted by all men throughout the world.
For the exercise of this apostolate, the Holy Spirit Who sanctifies the people of God through ministry and the sacraments gives the faithful special gifts also (cf. 1 Cor. 12:7), "allotting them to everyone according as He wills" (1 Cor. 12:11) in order that individuals, administering grace to others just as they have received it, may also be "good stewards of the manifold grace of God" (1 Peter 4:10), to build up the whole body in charity (cf. Eph. 4:16).
From the acceptance of these charisms, including those which are more elementary, there arise for each believer the right and duty to use them in the Church and in the world for the good of men and the building up of the Church, in the freedom of the Holy Spirit who "breathes where He wills" (John 3:8).
We all given a variety of charisms, much of life is figuring out what they are and how best to use them. The canonized saints are just people who had unusual charisms, or even a common charism but to an extraordinary degree. It is not necessary or even desirable to imitate them. They merely suggest to us some possibilities and help us to recognize the charism of others which is just as important as recognizing our own.
Jack's comments remind me that my Anglo Saxon group has been talking about cults of the early saints. There was a sense among the newly Christianized northern Europeans that there was, for lack of a better term, magic in the relics of saints. Chad, a 7th century bishop of Northumbria, was buried in a small houses like tomb with a small hole. People would reach in and mix the dust with water as a curative for people and animals. All of that had the effect of emphasizing the saints as a kind of supernatural class of being, not like other people. The Church has tried to curb this idea, but it pops up in voodoo, Santeria, Santa Muerte, etc.
ReplyDeleteAn aside, especially for Jean - Ross Douthat in the NYT today. The comments are very interesting, as is the usual for opinion pieces in the NYTimes.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/humanities-internet-novels.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Paywalled out, but we get The New Yorker. I have been putting off reading the English major story, though I doubt anything in it would be very shocking. Most English profs have been watching Americans sneer at our knowledge base for decades. Now both the Right and the Left are actively burning it down. Just one conflagration in the war between two "alternate realities" that are weakening the unity of the country.
DeleteMy advice to anybody who wants to study the humanities is to lie down in a dark room and practice saying, "Welcome to Walmart. Would you like a cart?" until the urge passes.
Well, Audible works for me for large 19th century novels. I finished "Moby Dick" with no problem. When I got to the final confrontation with the beast, I was stuck to it as if I were watching a captivating movie. I listened to Brideshead Revisited. I thought the travails of upper class British A-holes would put me off, but I was pulled in.
DeleteI'm listening to 'Les Miserable" now. The writing is a pleasure. The descriptive power is amazing, both for physical situations and scenes as well as the internal life of the characters. Good fiction is simply BETTER than movies and TV and I like movies and TV.
I'm afraid that academic institutions are becoming 100% geared toward turning out little units approved by the capitalist overlords. To get rid of liberal arts is to get rid of healthy subversion. I could tell the difference between my fellow engineers who came out of Catholic colleges and those who came from the secular institutions. A fellow physics major from St. Joseph's College and co-worker told me "the Jesuits ruined us". He was being funny but I knew what he meant.
I think this country needs more ruined people. Hooray for liberal arts and literature and the people who teach it.
A recent story in the WaPo outlined how teachers in some districts are allowed to "teach facts, not stances." For instance, you can say slavery was once legal (fact) but not that it was wrong (stance). You also cannot ask questions that ask students to take a stance (do you think slavery was wrong, support your answer with facts).
DeleteIn other words, teachers are not allowed to teach critical thinking.
Yes, extreme examples, but they have a toehold.
More common are teachers and librarians who are quietly culling materials and self-censoring discussion topics that could get them in trouble from jackhammer parents who harass them in social media forums.
I'm glad you enjoyed "Moby Dick." One of my favorites. Read "Billy Budd," also by Melville, quick. As soon as the "don't say gay" crowd gets wind of its supposedly homosexual undertones, they'll purge that out of the liberry.
The students WANT to read and talk about things. They want to think. I didn't make any money at teaching, but there was a lot of satisfaction in it. I fear English teachers now have even that.
My college minor was French - by credit hour default, since I spent my entire junior year in France, every class I took there was classified as a French class . I took multiple French literature classes in college. Most of the French literature courses in my Catholic college included books and plays that were on the Catholic of Forbidden Books, which wasn’t abolished until 1966 - when I was a junior.
DeleteThe Index….
DeleteWe raised a liberal arts major. Two of them, if you count graphic design. The older son was a history major. But they both came out okay employment- wise. A history major (with an econ minor) was enough to get his foot in the door. In the financial sector what counts is passing the state and federal licensing exams. I confess that we tried to get them to think more in terms of practicality when choosing a major. But they're gonna do what they're gonna do.
DeleteOne of my friend's sons majored in philosophy. He works for a software firm now. I don't think it's an obstacle to getting a job.
DeleteI didn't take physics as a gateway to financial security though that's what it came to be.
I took it because I liked physics. Even college didn't cure me of liking physics. They certainly tried their best.
M'okay. Guess I just didn't try hard enough to become a Big Success.
DeleteThe CSRS pension I have was phased out decades ago but I'm grandfathered. The present FERS system relatively stinks. I had the brilliant foresight to be born in the right place at the right time. The only financial plan I had was to keep working and earning money. The rest just happened. I think the greatest inequality lies in health coverage. A lot of financial insecurity and anxiety would go away with a national health system or medicare for all. I'm ready to pay more taxes for that. My selfish reason: it would be nice not to live in a s-hole country which is what we are.
DeleteActually, I wouldn't mind getting less pension if it was placed on the negotiating table with everything else, including the tax boycott by the rich and corporations, obscene profits by Big Pharma, etc.
Does "The Godfather" film, or "The Wire" television series, qualify as literature? Is watching, thinking about and critiquing those productions a lesser activity than reading, thinking about and critiquing Moby-Dick or The Dubliners? I ask these questions sincerely.
DeleteThat comparison (between great video productions and great books) isn't exactly what Douthat was writing about, but it isn't completely unconnected, either.
FWIW, my supposition is: humans are hard-wired to be more "visual" than imaginative. Guys would rather watch a fit young woman in a minidress dancing for 30 seconds on TikTok (or just watch porn) than read a book because that is how the human race evolved: we rely on visual images and sound, two things which the imagination must supply in book-reading. If reading has declined over the course of our lifetimes, it's because there is so much more video content than when we were a kid, and it's so much more accessible and so much more targeted. When there are mountains of sugar all around us, and we have to work hard to grow vegetables, most of us are going to settle for consuming sugar.
"When there are mountains of sugar all around us, and we have to work hard to grow vegetables, most of us are going to settle for consuming sugar." LOL, Jim, I think you have named the problem. I'm afraid I spend more time watching cat videos on FB than reading the ageless classics. I am trying to do more spiritual reading during Lent, but sometimes it's like, "Mom, I ate my two bites of peas, now can I have some cake?"
DeleteJim, while reading has probably declined, how much is due to the proliferation of video content and how much is due to the home environment. My parents were readers - always had a book at hand. TV didn’t appear in our house until I was about 6, but even after it did, I preferred books. Our kids were raised to read - they would ask me to take them to the library. But they had TV, cable, DVDs etc - lots of visual options, yet they still loved to read. Our young grandchildren have endless choices for visual content and enormous TV sets also. But they were given books from infancy, were read to, and the older children also still love to read ( the oldest is a boy, almost 9). Maybe it’s adults who are consuming too much sugar, setting the example their kids will follow.
DeleteI prefer books, and have often been disappointed by the movies made from them. The movies can’t capture the richness and depth of the stories and characters’ and their thoughts, in 2 hours. Very often I prefer the characters I develop in my mind when reading to the portrayals by actors.
Jim, you may be right. But, as with all generalizations, not true for everyone. I watch little TV. We do watch PBS each night. Last night we relived some of our youth watching an old John Denver music video. 😉 I read a lot. Some escape fiction. Some more serious fiction. A lot of non- fiction, especially religious or spiritual. I just received a new book. - paper! - calked Cathonomics. Awful title, but it apparently captures some of Francis’ ideas about ethical and moral economic systems l My husband and I never go to movies. The only time we see movies is on an airplane or at our sons’ houses. But I still mostly download books to my iPad before getting on a plane, and my husband mostly sleeps. At our sons’ homes we are entertained mostly by the Disney movies the young grandchildren like. I have seldom even heard of most Oscar winning movies or actors, which I read about in news feeds. I read The Godfather. It was so awful for me that there was no way I wanted to see the movie! I also never watched the Wire, which I heard is excellent, at least for people who like crime, violence, and cop shows. It was written by a friend of a friend who lived in Baltimore for ten years. Baltimore is very crime ridden and there is a lot of corruption. We deceived to skip it.
ReplyDeleteIs "The Wire" literature? Drama is literature and includes anything that starts on the page with a script. So I'd say so. Most lit conferences have well-attended sessions on popular culture that includes TV and movies. It's pretty mainstream now.
ReplyDeleteI am not normally high on crime shows, but "The Wire" and "Breaking Bad" were among the best dramas I've ever seen. So was "Oz" and "Orange Is the New Black," which were not always easy to watch.
All those shows deal with the Big Issues--life, death, free will, temptation, evil, self-delusion, and redemption.
I got nothing against cat videos. There's also a dog groomer I watch on YouTube who gives dogs baths, and that works better than benzos for me on a bad day. If Raber is watching TikTok girls dancing in their panties, he hasn't mentioned it. But he knows better than that.
I read Douthat on the humanities.
ReplyDeleteI was an English major and philosophy minor in college. That was a Vatican II redoing of the tradition Catholic education of the Latin and Greek Classics, and Philosophy in preparation for profession education (Theology in the case of clerics).
I was very much into math and science in high school and was not interested in literature. While a read a lot of literature in College, I really was not interested in it. My interests had already turned to the social sciences, sociology at Saint Johns, and psychology during summer school at U. Minn. and U. Washington in Seattle.
Karl Rahner the great German theologian said that he thought all of theology would eventually be rethought in terms of the physical and social sciences rather than as currently in terms of the humanities and philosophy.
I guess I have been doing that all my life, except that I regard history as more like the social sciences than the humanities. I have never been very interested in the visual stimulation of TV, movies or the internet. However, I do like a background of music which since the eighties has been classical.
Jim said: "Humans are hard-wired to be more 'visual' than imaginative."
ReplyDeleteReading books is a visual activity. It differs from TV and the TikTok girls as a "hot medium" (thank you Marshall McLuhan). Reading (and listening to audio or other hot media) requires more imagination to fill in the narrative than TV and other "cool" AV media.
Are all humans hardwired to love cool media that does all the imaginative work for us? Generations of parents feared their kids would sit in a stupor in front of the idiot box and become illiterates. Some did, but they were probably already headed that way.
I think TV seduces some humans. Social media with it's "press a button for new stimuli every few seconds" is even more seductive for some people. Scientific studies show they get a little endorphin hit every time they push the button. I guess slot machines have a similar effect.
But I would be wary of saying that humans are hardwired to love and prefer cool media over hot. Lots of people of all ages will get up and go read a book instead of watching TV or poking buttons on the computer.
Careful what you're watching on TikTok, Deacon Jim! Homosexual priests are the main target in the snip from today's WaPo below, but presumably the Denver lay group could track other user data by Catholic clergy and report it:
ReplyDelete"Catholic group spent millions on app data that tracked gay priests
"A group of philanthropists poured money into a Denver nonprofit that obtained dating and hookup app data and shared it with bishops around the country, a Post investigation has found.
"The secretive effort was the work of a Denver nonprofit called Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, whose trustees are philanthropists Mark Bauman, John Martin and Tim Reichert, according to public records, an audio recording of the nonprofit’s president discussing its mission and other documents. The use of data is emblematic of a new surveillance frontier in which private individuals can potentially track other Americans’ locations and activities using commercially available information. No U.S. data privacy laws prohibit the sale of this data."
Yikes! I hadn't heard about that. People worry about the government spying on them, but it takes it to a whole new level if your fellow citizens can do it, and nobody can stop them. Of course that could go both ways, people could spy on the spy-ers.
DeleteReminds me of that nursery rhyme, Goosey Goosey Gander.
Fellow citizens have been encouraged to spy on others by some state governments. The fact that the Texas bounty hunter law that rewards people who report others for getting an abortion or even indirect assistance still stands is incredibly scary. It’s too much like the people getting rewarded for spying on their neighbors in east Germany and reporting them to the Stasi. And this is a self- appointed Catholic group spying on clergy and reporting them to bishops? Pretty soon we’ll all be suspicious of everyone we know.,
DeleteOne of the group's associates, Jayd Henricks, had a defense of the tactics on First Things, as well as a swipe at the Post story:
Delete"As they and similar secular outlets usually do when trying to talk about Catholic issues, the Post has fixated on a small part of what we do—anything that touches on sex. According to them, it seems, you can (even should) have all the sex you like, with whomever and however you wish, but discussing what the effects of this might be for our physical and mental health—to say nothing of spiritual well-being—is somehow weird and obsessive."
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/03/working-for-church-renewal
Also check out Michael Sean Winters' comments in NCR today on this subject: https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/ncr-voices/catholic-group-spying-priests-creepy
DeleteI did read the First Things piece that Jean linked in her comment. Although he claims WaPo only focused on sex, and sexual surveillance is "...only a small part of what we do..." the author failed to elaborate on what else they do as a more major part of their mission that he states is to build healthy community within the church. And more than that, he apparently fails to see why surveillance of any church members, clergy or laity, is a problem.
DeleteHe has said that they use tech to look at characteristics of parish life that retains and draws more people.
DeleteImo, that doesn't offset the spying on the personal behavior of clergy. Nor does it address the use of personal data without consent to begin with, however legal.
The situation does suggest a black comedy in which a Church Lady realizes she can legally get info from her neighbor's computer history, initially to get a secret casserole recipe, and then realizes she can also get other stuff on them, which she holds over their heads in order to edge them off committees, crank up donations to and participation in her pet projects, and in some cases out of the Communion line.
The right wing religious obsession with abortion, and sexuality other than heterosexual, is continuing to create a surveillance culture. In Virginia, the Democrats initiated legislation that would ban search warrants for women’s menstrual history data recorded in wellness and fitness apps. Youngkin vetoed the measure. Apparently this information might be used to track possible secret abortions, including by medication or going out of state. Maryland and DC are right next door to Virginia and abortion laws are very liberal. The public schools in Florida were going to require girls who wished to participate in athletics to report their menses each month. There was a fuss and they backed down. For now. I’m not sure what the current status of the Texas abortion reporting bounty hunter law is - I believe numerous lawsuits have been filed, but don’t know the status. Book banning is growing rapidly all over the country, but Florida is leading the pack.
DeleteThé US is now, for all practical purposes, two countries. MTG is pushing a national divorce. But, the obstacles to that are overwhelming. So what will happen as one part of the country (red states) shuts down more and more freedoms - religious, academic, right to privacy, freedom of speech etc - and the other does not? What will happen if DeSantis, or an extremist like him, becomes President? I doubt that it will be trump again, but the prospect of a DeSantis isn’t very reassuring. The Texas bounty law is frighteningly similar to the actions of the Stasi. Except that our constitution prevents the state government from doing this - instead it’s outsourced to private citizens, with zero protections for the false accused.
It’s not just the church ladies who are a threat, but the entire conservative “christian” movement.
We pray for more vocations at every Mass. Everybody does, including right wing Catholics. What does this tracking app say to any young man considering the priesthood? It tells them that they won't be trusted, that people will always be looking over their shoulder, that there isn't really much respect for the vocation, in spite of what people say. Not a great recruiting tactic.
DeleteThe fact that the USCCB has not issued a united statement against tech spying on priests likely speaks to some fairly big fractures in the American Church that mirror those in the country, as Anne points out.
DeleteBased on what I read, the American Catholic Church is also so divided that it seems to be two different churches. It’s in schism for all practical purposes, just as the country is.
DeleteIf Francis lives long enough, the right wing Catholics in the US may become officially schismatic, although they will so their best to hold on, to continue to undermine Francis as long as they can, hoping to outlast him and work to lobby thé next conclave to elect a successor who will turn back the clock to the 1950s.
I have always been sympathetic to the schismatic Old Catholics. Cardinal St Henry Newman apparently did, too, though he talked himself into the Vat1 papal authority teaching after a lot of mental work.
DeletePope Francis has now apparently tried to make overtures there. Certainly not going to sit well with the ultramontanists who want a pope who kicks ass and takes names.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/30844/pope-francis-reaches-out-to-schismatic-old-catholic-church
I'm sure some people get all warm and fuzzy with spying and surveillance. Great when you think you have divine approval for your pleasure.
DeleteI may have posted this YouTube before. If so, I apologize. In this Outer Limits episode, a congressional investigation of a murder at a top secret government lab reveals that the advanced surveillance technology being used to watch and listen to anyone anywhere has been introduced by an extraterrestrial agent to spread and demoralize the human race. I love this soliloquy by the alien at the end of the episode which captures the perversity of surveillance. Maybe these Catholic private eyes need an Outer Band Individuated Teletracer (O.B.I.T.).
https://youtu.be/qogLcQsRlG0