New Standing Fast

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In Extremis

All these things, which I have securely in mind to the extent that in this life I have been able to understand them, are, compared with what I have said, extremely great.  Beside them, all the sights and sound and justice and truth of this world seem to me lies and nothingness.  I am left confused because I cannot find words extreme enough for these things (St. Catherine of Genoa, Treatise on Purgatory).

St. Catherine of Genoa (+1510) was a great mystic who was given insights into the plight of our poor brothers and sisters in Purgatory.  Like all mystics she was given an understanding of supernatural realities that she had a hard time putting into words.  The pain of the Poor Souls in their purification was beyond her ability to describe.  But so was the love and joy of these souls who were so drawn to God by the bands of His love and who were so eager to be delivered from the imperfections that hindered them from uniting themselves to Him completely and freely.

The world lies to us about happiness and about the relative value of the experiences of this life as compared with those that exist beyond the veil of death.  Every time we sin we make a false estimation of the consequences of our actions.  We take imprudent risks to our own detriment.  We sell our inheritance for a bowl of porridge.  All the while we settle on a transient relief from suffering and purification, like addicts getting their next fix only to crash harder than before.

Even on the night before Our Blessed Lord and Savior died, just after the apostles had received the first Eucharist they preferred sleep to His company. He underwent purification for them, suffering the pain of pure love, not because He had no other choice, as those of us who wind up in Purgatory, but because he willed to undergo pain and suffering so that we might be delivered from that necessity . . . and worse.

Cardinal John Henry Newman spoke of the mental sufferings of Christ, by which He assumed not only our guilt, but the very experience of our compromises, as He sweat blood in the garden, and how like a myriad of demons they all descended upon Him as though He was the depository of every iniquity:

Hopes blighted, vows broken, lights quenched, warnings scorned, opportunities lost; the innocent betrayed, the young hardened, the penitent relapsing, the just overcome, the aged failing; the sophistry of misbelief, the wilfulness of passion, the obduracy of pride, the tyranny of habit, the canker of remorse, the wasting fever of care, the anguish of shame, the pining of disappointment, the sickness of despair; such cruel, such pitiable spectacles, such heartrending, revolting, detestable, maddening scenes; nay, the haggard faces, the convulsed lips, the flushed cheek, the dark brow of the willing slaves of evil, they are all before Him now; they are upon Him and in Him. They are with Him instead of that ineffable peace which has inhabited His soul since the moment of His conception. They are upon Him, they are all but His own; He cries to His Father as if He were the criminal, not the victim; His agony takes the form of guilt and compunction. He is doing penance, He is making confession, He is exercising contrition, with a reality and a virtue infinitely greater than that of all saints and penitents together; for He is the One Victim for us all, the sole Satisfaction, the real Penitent, all but the real sinner.

And the apostles slept, as we sleep, content with the thought that there is still time for us to change and that our compromises are small.  How we deceive ourselves.

St. Catherine has no words for the extremity of our danger . . . and of the love that is the cure of our torpor. The souls in purgatory when they were alive thought too little about their danger and too little about love.  Now they think nothing of their pain and only about the love of God.  They will their purification.  They do not sleep and they have no desire for it.  Yet for all their love and joy in the midst of their pain, it is for them no merit, for their time has passed.

Remembrance of the holy souls is self-forgetfulness.  It is the cure . . . for them, and for us.  Unless, God forbid, we go to hell, someday we will forget ourselves and remember the ultimate realities:  God and our obligations toward one another.  We can do it now or we can do it later.  The souls in Purgatory would have us do it now.

They remember us.  Do we remember them?  This is no time to sleep.  Rest will come, but until now, we have not toiled for God nearly enough.

The good men we have canonized at their funerals will not thank us for the kind and laudatory eulogies.  We forget the sufferings of others so as to console our families, and ourselves and in this no one is served, not ourselves, not our families, and certainly not the souls of the departed.

Oh, sweet sleep.  How we crave rest, yet we will not find it unless we give it.  During this November we would do well to do more than a casual visit to a cemetery or a  write a check  and conveniently hand it to our pastor for yearly masses, though both of these we should do.  Indeed, nothing can be more efficacious than the Mass, except a Mass that is dedicated by the stipend of our own hearts.

The apostles slept through Our Lord’s agony and we sleep through the agony of the poor souls.  It is so easy to do.  Perhaps we could offer time with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, or more frequent communions for the grace to understand better the extremity of the situation and how the deliverance of the poor souls from their suffering will help protect us against our own peril, and how our imitation of their selfless desire for purity may save us from their present distress.

Love is not loved.  But it need not be that way.  Now is not the time for us to rest.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.  May they rest in peace.  Amen.

Theology of the Tango?

I kid you not.  I would have thought it was satire, if I did not know better.  It is an old piece from Crisis Magazine, regurgitated, I guess, to capitalize on the  interest drummed up by West’s reply.  From my point of view it could not come at a better time because it is perfect example of how Team TOB USA has wandered off the track and got lost in the wild.  Too much.

In the new covenant, Jesus elevates marriage to a sacramental sign. Marriage no longer simply represents the natural union of man and woman but makes visible Christ’s total and irrevocable gift of Himself to the Church. Just as He gave Himself away to the Church so that He could be one with her (cf. Ephesians 5:31-32), so husband and wife are called to give themselves away so as to image the oneness of Christ and the Church. This self-gift doesn’t happen in some ultraspiritual realm but in the body. Christ said, “This is my body, given up for you.” So, too, man and woman say to each other, “This is my body, given up for you.”

How could this possibly apply to tango? Danced in all its beauty and artistry, Argentine tango expresses the theology of the body: The man gives himself away to the woman, the woman gives herself away to the man, and suddenly the two are no longer dancing as two but as one. Right before our eyes we see union and communion, two and one, giving and receiving. The man and woman are a visible sign of the self-giving union between Christ and the Church.

Despite the many times I’ve been tempted to throw in the tango towel, this is why I continue: Tango is not just a dance, it’s sacramental. It constantly propels me toward my heavenly calling — union and communion with Christ through a total gift of self.

Every time I re-read it I scratch my head.  I am in that sort of surreal state, where I know this stuff is nothing to be surprised at, but then I wonder if the very sense of commonness is an indication that I must be dreaming, or hallucinating.

But my real reason for posting this is the gem of a comment  from Father George Rutler:

I respond to a request that I comment on the religious significance of the tango dance. First, I have found that the “theology of the body” is widely perceived as an unsystematic melange of theology, philosophy, and frail romantic poetry, which can be problematic even in skilled hands and is commonly invoked by people who are limited in their knowledge of the subject, Secondly, I am relatively ignorant myself of social activities which cause perspiration. With those advisories, I think I may assume that all of us are familiar with the Kaiser’s condemnation of the tango in 1913, for fear of its effects on his Crown Princess. More pertinent to the theological aspect, is Pope St. Pius X’s informal condemnation of the tango after he had watched an exhibition performance at the request of Cardinal Merry del Val who thought the Pontiff might approve a sober version of it as choreographed by the Roman dance master Professor Pichetti. The Pope did not at all approve and recommended instead the “Furlana,” an Italian folk dance which goes back to the early seventeenth century in Friuli Venezia Giulia and with which he had been familiar in his youth.

Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I read that.  That second sentence is about the best and most concise summary of the situation I have read.

Capuche tip to Terry.

A Penitent’s Reflection on Halloween

Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that Thy faithful people may ever rejoice in honoring all Thy Saints, and may be defended by their unceasing prayers (post-communion prayer, Solemnity of All Saints).

After Holy Communion has been received during the Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints, the priest asks Almighty God that the prayers of the saints be a defense to all the faithful.  All the saints are our elder brothers and sisters who have been victorious over sin and death through Christ’s death and resurrection.  These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (cf. Ap 7:14).  They have passed through the fire and have come out the other side unscathed (cf. Dn 3:26).  Now they are present to us in the Holy Spirit as our defenders and protectors.

But we must want to be protected.  He who loves danger will perish in it (Eccl. 3:27).  And danger is everywhere.  We have a real enemy who is bent upon our destruction and all of sacred history is a chronicle of this endless war. Our enemy is our constant foe and our better in the art of war.  For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places (Eph 6:12).  We are not strong enough to resist this enemy, unless we want to be protected by one who is stronger.

A Response to Christopher West

In his long-awaited reply to his critics, West honestly admits that he did not want to say anything until he had received the all clear from the bishops, a boon given in abundance by Cardinal Rigali and Bishop Rhoades.  While the bishops’ endorsement is significant, it does not mean that West’s teaching is magisterial or that it is on the level of those who themselves hold the teaching office of the Church. Even a theologian who has gained the endorsement of a pope, such as Hans Urs von Balthasar or Cardinal Walter Kasper, is not considered above respectful criticism when he articulates views that may legitimately be shown to be difficult to reconcile with the Church Fathers and Doctors.

West is gracious for thanking his supporters, but his reference to the “profound consolation” proffered by the faithful is a bit off-putting.  He has chosen the path of controversy of his own volition, and for him that it is a matter of truth.  Speaking the truth has its consequences, as does making mistakes as a teacher.   It must be difficult to the focus of so much criticism, so I do pray for him. Nevertheless, he is considered, the authority on Theology of the Body, even more so now that he has been so strenuously defended.  Constructive criticism is in order.

The Pivotal Obfuscation

In my opinion, his concentration on the question of concupiscence is, for the most part, a straw man.  It seems evident that since Cardinal Rigali has blessed his entire work without qualification, West considers it is sufficient to reply to what he considers the central issue of contention.  Thus, he conspicuously omits any discussion his crusade against prudery or of any of the practical matters that have been dealt with at length by the critics (e.g. the phallic symbolism of the paschal candle, his treatment of interlocutors, his interpretation of his writings of the saints).  I will even grant that the question of concupiscence is central to the discussion.  However, West mischaracterizes the objections of his critics.

Standing Fast Widget

Ave Maria!

You will notice in the side bar a new widget which will allow you to watch Standing Fast without my turning the videos into individual posts here on MaryVictrix. You see, my commitment to vlogging belongs to AirMaria, so all my videos get posted there and then uploaded to various share sights. I am grabbing the videos from our YouTube account so that they can be played in the side bar.

I am sorry the formatting of the widget is not the greatest.  I will work on it when I have a chance.

The most recent video is “Guarding the Heart,” and expands on what I wrote in my latest post.

The Armor of God and Guarding the Heart

I have been reflecting lately on the notion of Dom Chautard concerning that aspect of the interior life that is Englished in his book “custody of the heart.”  Perhaps a more militant way of translating this notion in modern English would be “guarding the heart.”

It is the duty of a knight to guard and protect, and we often associate this role with his perennial preoccupation with the Damsel in Distress.  Elsewhere I have noted that the Blessed Virgin is the personification of the Damsel in Distress–not so much because She is helpless, which She is not, nor is that an essential quality of any such damsel, but because She personifies everything true, good and beautiful.  She does this precisely at the foot of the cross as the personification of the Bride of Christ and as Mother and exemplar of the Church.  Ultimately the Christian Knight must be at Her service.

But the curious fact is that the knight, while an image of Christ, the Bridegroom and Savior, is first of all a sinner and one who must identify with the needy Bride as much as any woman should.  This is not to say that the knight must become a woman spiritually, but that his masculinity need not be threatened by whole-hearted honesty about his dependence on God.

In fact, nothing could be more important.  In order to stand fast in the breach that has been blasted in the wall of the City of God, Our Lady’s knight must first repair the breach in his own heart.  How can a knight defend the City of God, how can he fight for the honor of the Immaculate Heart and guard it from the dishonor of the heathens, if he has not first mastered the art of guarding his own heart?  In fact, there is nothing more urgent than the attention we pay to our own vulnerabilities.

To this end, I would like to associate the notion of Dom Chautard with that of St. Paul concerning the Armor of God.

Happy Feast of Mary Victrix

The Feast of the Holy Rosary is a feast of prayer and recourse to the Blessed Mother. It is also a feast of the action of brave men who were men of prayer. That is why it is also the Feast of Our Lady of Victory.  On this day we pray for the Spirit of Lepanto.

In the current postcommunion oration for the Mass we find the closest thing in the current formulary to reference to Our Lady of Victory:

May we be helped we beseech Thee, O Lord, by the prayers of Thy most holy Mother, whose Rosary we celebrate; that we may draw strength from the Mysteries which we commemorate, and likewise obtain the fruit of the Sacraments which we have received: Who livest and reignest with the God Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.  Amen.

We are to draw strength from the paschal mystery, the mystery of the sacrificial love of Christ for all men.  The mysteries of which the oration speaks are the death and resurrection of the Lord.  But the feast integrates into these mysteries the mystery of Our Lady’s victorious mediation, and the “strength” which we draw from our participation in the Mysteries of Christ through Her mediation.

On this occasion I have returned to vlogging my series Standing Fast which you will be able find each week in the side bar on the right.  (It should be up momentarily.) Well I guess the widget won’t fly yet, so here is the video:

Here is the link to The Soul of the Apostolate that I mention in the video. And a Google Books version here.

You will also be able to find it on AirMaria as a regular post in a larger format.  I have delayed my post today due to the learning curve with some new video software.  My apologies for not posting sooner on Our Lady’s feast day.

The above painting was created by Tony Stafki and is available in various kinds of prints.  Tony sent my some information about the painting:

The battle formation of the ships just before the main clash.

The Catholic ships form a cross and the Muslim ships form a cresent.

The standard of the Holy Cross which was blessed by Pope Pius V can be seen on Don Juan of Austria’s ship which is leading the charge

Papal ships (St. Peter’s keys)

The miracle of the wind: just before the armies met the wind completely switched in favor of the Catholic ships.

Devils can be seen amongst the Muslim ships (they were summoned from hell by the Muslim leader).  The devils have peacock feathers as swords, a manifestation of their pride.

Our Lady of Victory with a sword in one hand ready to crush the devils and the other hand outstretched to the Muslim souls.

St. Michael leading the Angels

There are small white lights by the oars on the Muslim ships representing the souls of the Catholic prisoners.

The image of Our Lady with the sword reminds me of this:

The King looked up, and what he saw
Was a great light like death,
For Our Lady stood on the standards rent,
As lonely and as innocent
As when between white walls she went
And the lilies of Nazareth.

One instant in a still light
He saw Our Lady then,
Her dress was soft as western sky,
And she was a queen most womanly—
But she was a queen of men.

Over the iron forest
He saw Our Lady stand,
Her eyes were sad withouten art,
And seven swords were in her heart—
But one was in her hand.

I have always been a little put off that the image of Our Lady of Victory does not have a sword:

Nor images of our Lady at Lepanto, such as this:

Hats off to Tony.

St Patrick and the Chieftains

On the great vigil of Easter in 433, which was also March 25th, Feast of the Annunciation, St. Patrick determined to meet the Celtic chieftains and High King Leoghaire  on their own ground at Tara by and challenge their superstitious and idolatrous druidism.  The pagans were prepared for the messenger of Christ, as their demoniac prophets had divined his presence.au

St. Patrick made his presence known opposite Tara on the summit of the hill of Slane where he kindled the Easter fire.  The druid priests responded by appealing to Leoghaire:  ”O King, live for ever. This fire, which has been lighted in defiance of the royal edict, will blaze for ever in this land unless it be this very night extinguished.”  By order of the king the druids were sent to the hill of Slane to put out Patrick’s fire and slay him, but by miraculous intervention, both the fire and the saint were protected from all harm, much to the consternation of the pagans.

In the morning the saint accompanied by his Christian band formed the Easter procession and proceeded from the fire on the hill of Slane to the Tara.  St. Patrick was arrayed in full episcopal attire.  As he approached the stronghold of Satan, the druid priests made use of their black incantations to cover all the land in darkness, but at his prayers this wile was undone and the sun shown gloriously in the Easter Day.  In the light the druid high priest was then raised off the ground into the heights only to be brought down again by divine power and dashed on the rocks below.

In this way St. Patrick defeated paganism in Ireland and proved to all the cheiftans the truth of the Catholic religion.  Through his great faith and his willingness to risk his life before the minions of Satan, the Saint one the admiration of the King and obtained from him permission to spread the true faith throughout the realm.

Life is always a struggle between light and darkness. It is the story of mankind.  It is the story of Ireland and it is the news of the week:

more about “BBC NEWS | Europe | Ireland backs EU’…“, posted with vodpod

God bless Dana Rosemary Scallon, a modern day Joan of Arc, who in the past was not afraid of being attacked by the Irish bishops in defense of the right to life.  Read her largely unheeded exhortation to the Irish people:

This is no longer about the politics of right and left, it is about right and wrong. I can no longer stay silent about the wilful betrayal of Ireland’s Constitution.

BTW, the preamble of that constitution reads thus:

In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,

We, the people of Éire,

Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,

Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,

And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,

Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.

In effect, the Lisbon Treaty offers no protection to the unborn and largely eliminates Ireland’s judicial sovereignty.

What about “acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ”?

Pray for Ireland.  Ask St. Patrick to bring light into the darkness and exorcise the Great Snake from the Emerald Isle.

In Defense of Purity 1

As promised, here is my first post on Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Purity: The Mystery of Christian Sexuality (originally published as In Defense of Purity).  It is probably longer than will be my other posts on the book.  We will see.  I thought there were some basic ideas about “shame” that I wanted to establish from the beginning.  Part of my work here will be to do a comparative study of von Hildebrand’s writing on Purity vis-à-vis John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

Book I: Purity; Part I: Sex; Chapter I: Sex Distinguished from Other Bodily Appetites

There could be no greater mistake than to explain the tendency to conceal sex as exclusively, or even primarily, an endeavor to hide something disgraceful or ugly (Purity 6).

Catholic tradition describes this tendency to conceal sex as “modesty.”  It is a certain kind of shame.  We would do well to understand what it is and what it is not.

The shame of English

In his book, Purity: The Mystery of Christian Sexuality, Dietrich von Hildebrand distinguishes between different kinds of shame.  Some kinds of shame are, in fact, a reaction against what is “disgraceful or ugly.”  Yet not all shame is so.   Some kinds of shame are a form of reverence.  For example the French word pudeur is translated into English as “shame”; however, it has the nuance of “holy bashfulness” for which there is no equivalent in English.

This limitation of the English language is an impoverishment of our ability to speak of this basic human experience in a precise philosophical way.  We call both the fear of the ugly and disgraceful and the awe of the holy and mysterious, “shame.”  In other languages this is not the case.

The particular problem with the English word is that it has a primarily pejorative sense.  Very few people would ever consider using the word “shame” in reference to a reaction which actually positive.   When, for example, we are caught an evil deed we might admit that we are ashamed of ourselves.  However, if someone complemented us in public unexpectedly, most of us would not say that we were “ashamed,” but “embarrassed.”  But even this latter word is ambiguous, because sometimes were are embarrassed also because we look foolish or out of step.

My use of the phrase “shame on you,” in a previous post was meant to underscore the limitation of our use of the English word.  Hence, among English speakers, when we are discussing our reaction to holy things, mysteries and aspects of our lives that are deeply personal and intimate we often use the words “modesty,” and “reverence.”

In matters of sexuality these ambiguities are particularly crucial because of the depth at which we experience our sexuality and, thus, because of the way in which the experience of sexuality, can have tremendously positive and negative values.   We might very well be “ashamed” of sex, because we are intuitively or meditatively aware of how holy and mysterious it is, or we might be “ashamed” of sex because our experience of it has been unspeakably debauched and profoundly disrespectful of God, ourselves and others.  We might also be ashamed of sex—it is true—because in our sinfulness we are no longer able to perceive its beauty and begin to project onto it the disorder of our own heart.  Or finally, we may be ashamed of sex, because we hold the heresy that sex and the body are evil.  Whatever our experience in this regard might be, our heart tells us that the matter in question is profoundly important.   We cannot afford to confuse these various experiences, because they are truly different and touch directly upon our practice of the virtue of purity.

Our Secret

In the first chapter of von Hildebrand’s Purity, he distinguishes sharply the sex drive from other bodily appetites on the basis of the depth at which we experience these various appetites.  Our other bodily appetites such as hunger and thirst are experienced on a relatively superficial level and ordinarily do not become the focus of our deep and serious attention, except when we they become a question of our survival (3).

It is one thing, for example to give one’s attention to the preparation of food in proportion to the general welfare of individuals, say a family and both its nutritional and social needs.  It is another to be obsessed with food and the particulars of its preparation.  It is still another to become profoundly aware of how dependent we are on food, when one is starving to death.  The fact is that we generally experience such bodily desires on a superficial level and only experience them deeply in a moment of crisis.

On the other hand, von Hildebrand says that our sex desire is essentially deep:

Every manifestation of sex produces an effect which transcends the physical sphere and involves the soul deeply in its passion. . .  The positive and negative values attaching to sex belong to a level far deeper than those which attach to the other bodily appetites.  Indeed, these sexual experiences are characterised by a specific character of mystery . . . (4).

Von Hildebrand says that the depth of sexual experience is established by two factors: the uniqueness of the manner in which body and soul meet in the experience of sex; “the particular intimacy of sex.”

In this chapter of the book, he focuses on the second factor and calls sex “the secret of the individual”:

It is something which the person concerned feels to be altogether private, something which belongs to his inmost being.  Every disclosure of sex is the revelation of something intimate and personal.  It is the initiation of another into our secret.  It is for this reason that the domain of sex is also the sphere of shame in its most characteristic sense.  We are preeminently ashamed to unveil this secret to others.  Whether and man is modest or immodest depends first and foremost on his attitude to sex (5-6).

It seems to me that von Hildebrand’s analysis accord’s exactly with universal experience of man and is so close to us that generally most people never examine the causes of our reactions.   But when we hear a wise man like von Hildebrand express the truth of it, we say, “Yes, that’s it.”

The fact is that our sexuality is tied to our deepest identity as a person and to the mystery of what it means to be a person.  We are vulnerable in our sexuality because we are vulnerable as persons who desire to love and to be loved and who never wish to be used.  We “expose” ourselves to others in the degree to which it is appropriate to communicate our person and we leave the most intimate revelations to a select few and in some cases to one alone.  Our secret is ourselves, and in the end it is the only thing we really can call our own.  It is the only real gift we have.

The Spousal Meaning of the Body

Dietrich von Hildebrand’s analysis seems to me to be in full accord with that of John Paul II, though the emphasis is different.  Von Hildebrand emphasized the positive aspect of shame relative to the mystery of the person, whereas John Paul II emphasizes the negative aspect relative to the danger of objectifying the person.

When in the Theology of the Body the pope writes about the “spousal meaning of the body” in the context of original innocence, in which man, male and female, were naked and felt no shame, he is speaking of the fact man, male and female, is created for love and is oriented by creation toward making the gift of himself to the other (14.5).  It is in this way, as Genesis tells us, that man is created in the image and likeness of God (1:26).  In other words the communio personarum (communion of persons) to which man is called is a reflection of the life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinitarian communion of knowledge and love (9.1-3).

This truth is written in the human body, differentiated as male and female, and the bodily union to which man is called in marriage is a sign of the deeper communio personarum of spouses.  That deeper communion is charity and the conjugal embrace, as it was intended from the beginning, is not only its sign but through chaste love and sacramental living it becomes a particular means of achieving it (29.3; 131.2-3).

In the state of original innocence the deep meaning of the body was not distorted by the subordination of the gift meant to be loved to its use for selfish gratification.  The interiority of man shined outwardly in its entire splendor, with no confusion of its meaning.  Not only was the gift unthreatened by the tendencies of fallen nature, but we might also say that for that reason it was less mysterious and more radiant.

Veiling and Unveiling the Mystery

In terms of the importance of this appreciation for the state of original innocence relative to our own state of fallen nature, which we are offered in the Theology of the Body, it is necessary to define and understand the dimensions of the analogy which the Holy Father is using.  There is, of course, the sense that Adam and Even represent universal man, male and female, and are a paradigm for the relation of the sexes in general.   But there is also the sense in which Adam and Eve as two real persons are created male and female for each other personally.  In fact, Eve is specifically created as a person to be the helpmate of the only other human person, Adam.  So, it seems to me, that while the relationship of Adam and Eve can be used analogously to represent the relationship of all men and women in general, they are more properly an analogy of the relationship of husband and wife specifically.  The importance of this is relative to the origin of shame and, what John Paul II (prior to his elevation to the papacy, as Karol Wojtyla) called the “absorption of shame by love” (Love and Responsibility, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981. 181).

The consideration here is that is that prior to the fall there was only husband and wife, who were, in fact, called to that intimate revelation and communion of persons to which spouses are called.  While we might speculate on what the relationship of the sexes in general might have looked like had our first parents not fallen and then proceeded to propagate the human race, I think we are at somewhat at a loss to know what the lack of shame might have been relative to individuals who were not called to reveal the full mystery of their person to others, e.g. unmarried persons, persons relative to others who were not their spouse, persons called to virginity.

Or on the other hand, in a world before shame, were we all called to reveal ourselves completely to each other, even to others who were not our spouses?  Does the redemption of the body, then, mean that not only is shame resolved relative to the body but that we are also called now to not fear being vulnerable to a lack of privacy regarding our person?

John Paul II’s description of shame, resulting from the fall of our first parents, emphasizes the need to protect the value of the person and to defend it from being objectified.  Shame is, then, a kind of fear, and a “defense reflex” which arises out of our vulnerability caused by the effects of original sin.  Now, while John Paul II analysis does tell us what life would be like for spouses if that vulnerability were absent, it does not tell us what the relationship of the sexes would be like in general, since all men are not all spouses of all women.

By their vocation spouse are called to reveal their person and become an unreserved gift to the one to whom they have vowed themselves.  But that revelation and gift is not meant for everyone.  Since before the fall there were only two people, one male and one female and these two were, in fact, spouses, the state before the fall does not offer us a perfect paradigm for the relationship, say of men and women who are courting, or who may have no relationship at all but must treat each other with the respect of modesty.

While the human body always has a spousal meaning, that meaning as it pertains to my body specifically is not meant to be revealed in the same way to all.  And, therefore, a reluctance to reveal too much to the wrong person is merely defensive of personhood against one who might be disposed to use me; it is defensive of personhood toward one who does not properly belong to that level of intimacy.

Vindicating the Mystery of Personhood

In the Theology of the Body John Paul II seems to recognize that shame is not only a defense mechanism against the possibility of being used, but also a vindication of the mystery of personhood:

A person of developed sensibility crosses the limit of that shame only with difficulty and inner resistance.  This is clear even in situations that otherwise justify the necessity of undressing the body, for example, in the case of medical examinations or operations (61.2).

In no way does this spontaneous and intuitive “inner resistance” represent prudery or Manichaeism or an ignorance of the truths contained in the Theology of the Body.  The Holy Father says that this reaction is found in those of “developed sensibility.”  It is perfectly wholesome and compatible with great virtue.  In fact, in the context of defending this “inner resistance,” the Holy Father says that original shame “is a permanent element of culture and morality.  It belongs to the very origins of the ethos of the human body” (61.3).

According to the Theology of the Body, shame acts as a “veil” over the mystery of personhood in which man discovers himself as the guardian of that mystery and the defender of the “freedom of the gift” (19.2).  This action, it seems to me, is not primarily negative, because wherever something is defended against abuse, there is more fundamentally an affirmation of inherent value.

Interesting to note in this regard is that in Love and Responsibility, which is not a document of papal magisterium but is the work of the man Karol Wojtyla, we find more about this positive element of shame than we do in the Theology of the Body.  One reason for that may be because the specific context of his remarks on shame in TOB is the examination of our first parents before after original sin in the context of sacred scripture; whereas, in Love and Responsibility Karol Wojtyla reflects on human experience in general.

In Love and Responsibility, Wojtyla vindicates the preservation of privacy in certain matters and argues that the desire for this privacy is not primarily motivated by fear, but by a certain “fittingness.”  Fear, indeed, arises when that appropriate privacy is endangered, but it is indirect and secondary (174-175).  He says:

The essence of shame goes beyond such fear.  It can only be understood if we heavily emphasize the truth that the existence of the person is an interior one, i.e. that the person possesses an interior peculiarly its own, and that from this arises the need to conceal (that is, to retain internally) certain experiences or values, or else withdraw with them into itself (175).

Again, this seems to perfectly accord with what Dietrich von Hildebrand says about the interiority of the person, about sex being the “secret of the individual” and the tendency to protect that secret as one that perfectly corresponds to the mysterious and precious nature of the person.

Emotional Shame

In Love and Responsibility Karol Wojtyla makes the distinction between two kinds of shame relating to sexuality:  physical shame and emotional shame.  Physical shame seeks to conceal certain parts of the body to the extent that the value of the person is vindicated and defended from being used, while the sexual values are able to “still be a point of origin for love.”  Emotional shame seeks to conceal “reactions and feelings” that tend to move one to reduce persons to objects of use by way of their body and sexuality.  In particular, but not exclusively, physical shame is the province of women, while emotional shame is the province of men (187).

It is in regard to emotional shame that the popularization of the Theology of the Body has particular resonance, because it is men, more than women, who struggle with issues of sexual temptation.  Karol Wojtyla points out that

[t]his internal ‘shame of feelings’ has nothing in common with prudery.  Prudery consists in the concealing one’s real intentions with regard to persons of the other sex or with regard to sexual matters in general.  A prudish person intent on exploitation tries to make it appear that he has no interest at all in such matters—indeed he is prepared to condemn all, even the most natural, manifestations of sex and sexuality.  Such behavior is, however, very often not to be explained as prudery—which is a particular form of hypocrisy, a way of disguising one’s intentions—but by some prejudice or other, perhaps the belief that everything to do with sex can only be an object for use, that sex merely gives the opportunity for sexual release and does not open the way to love between people (188).

In order to understand what belongs to a healthy reaction of a man to the sexual values of a woman one must appreciate fully what Wojtyla is saying here.  Wholesome shame is to be sharply distinguished from prudery.  And further prudery is not the same thing as the Manichean tendency to devalue or repudiate the goodness of sexuality.

In fact, Wojtyla goes on to say:

True emotional shame cannot possibly be identified with prudishness.  Emotional shame is a healthy reaction within a person against any attitude to another person which disregards that person’s essential value, degrading him or her to the level of an object for sexual use (188).

All this points to the fact that the possible reactions of men to the sexual values of women are many and the psychology of those reactions are complex.  Certainly, there is nothing in the Holy Father’s writings that would suggest that the tendency to conceal sexual values or to practice custody of the senses relative to sexual values is prudery, or that it only belongs to a lower level of moral behavior.  Nor does seem to me that John Paul II says anything to encourage the students of the Theology of the Body to analyze individuals or make generalizations about practical behavior where the individual conscience must be the judge within its own domain.

Voyeurism

If I might be indulged for a moment for a bit of cultural commentary, I would say that our age is at particular risk of living shamelessly, not only because of the reduction of people to mere sexual values by so much of culture, but also because the general cultural tendency to keep nothing private.  We are almost constantly broadcasting with cell phones, email, instant messaging, text, picture and video messaging, Facebook, Twitter and reality television.  Is there anything about our persons that we choose not to broadcast to the world anymore?

Please, no angry comments.  This is not a condemnation, just an identification of a risk.

It would be a complex task to unravel the cause and effect relationship.  More than likely, the relationship of sexual shamelessness and, if you will, psychological shamelessness is reciprocal.  Whatever the case may be, the coincidence of these two aspects should send up a red flag.  We are culturally shameless.  I cannot help to point out that the cultivation of purity and a healthy, enlightened and exalted view of the body and sexuality will be undermining itself if it minimizes the role of wholesome and sensible shame.

Victorious Secret

In a book published much later (1966) than Purity, Dietrich von Hildebrand, writing the original work in English (Purity was original published in German), choose to speak about wholesome shame in with different vocabulary than he had in the past.  In Man and Woman:  Love and the Meaning of Intimacy he writes the following:

Shame wants to hide ugly things, whether they are physical or psychical.  We feel shame when others speak of our cowardice or our weakness.

But shyness, which is often confused with shame, reveals our reluctance to exhibit beautiful and noble things if they are intimate. . . . This shyness, referring to things which we hide not because we believe them to be ugly but because they are intimate and their specific value calls for secrecy, is absolutely the right response to the sphere of sex (Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 1992. 58).

So, von Hildebrand opts for the use of the word “shyness” to describe that kind of shame which is protective of one’s secret.  That particular word does us the favor of eliminating the connotation of the word “shame” that is so easily identified with prudery and Manichaeism.

Abandoning this kind of shyness is like abandoning mystery.  True, one day the mysteries of God will be revealed, but never fully because they are infinite and eternity is not long enough to exhaust them.  For an even greater reason, then, are these mysteries to big to be fully revealed in this life.  Not even in the great saint, theologian and mystic, Thomas Aquinas, were the mysteries fully revealed, at least not in a way that could be expressed in speech or in a body of teaching.  After an extraordinary mystical experience St. Thomas referred to his great work of theology, the Summa Theologiae, as “so much straw.”

If the truth about sex is such great news, because it is so beautiful and sacred, then this is a reason for holy shyness, not a reason to take everything off in public.  Such unveiling certainly is not the answer to prudery as von Hildebrand writes:

So, we must understand that the true antithesis to Victorian prudery is a reverent attitude towards sex, seeing  in it something great, deep and mysterious, whose existence one should not try to deny, but which by its very nature is intimate, and has the character of a secret (59).

Sex is something deep and mysterious that touches the heart of what it means to be a person and to be called to love and be loved.  Holy shyness or modesty is the vindication of those values, or as Karol Wojtyla wrote in Love and Responsibility:

sexual modesty is not a flight from love, but on the contrary the opening of a way towards it. The spontaneous need to conceal mere sexual values bound up with the person is the natural way to the discovery of the value of the person as such (179).

Dietrich von Hildebrand and John Paul II are kindred spirits.