The World is Quiet Here

My friends, it has been a rough couple of weeks. You may have noticed that my posts here of late have been few and far between. For this I apologize.

I have been in the grips of a mild depression, which may have even risen to the sin of acedia. Certainly I plan to Confess the same a little later this afternoon. In the words of the Doctor Angelicus:

[Acedia]… is an oppressive sorrow, which, to wit, so weighs upon man’s mind, that he wants to do nothing. …

Now this sorrow is always evil, sometimes in itself, sometimes in its effect. For sorrow is evil in itself when it is about that which is apparently evil but good in reality, even as, on the other hand, pleasure is evil if it is about that which seems to be good but is, in truth, evil. Since, then, spiritual good is a good in very truth, sorrow about spiritual good is evil in itself. And yet that sorrow also which is about a real evil, is evil in its effect, if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds.

(St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II.2, Q.35, A1)

The proximate cause, as it often is for me, was a malignant cocktail of pride and frustration leading to stress and sorrow.

The general groundwork was laid in the recently concluded election in the United States, with its nasty tone and constant, daily, barrage of bad behaviour that I would never have countenanced in a ten-year-old child, much less an adult of seven times that age. This was depressing enough.

And then there were the stresses that went with our parish Quasquicentennial. I find that planning and rehearsing and celebrating these big events can be stressful, but I would characterize it as “good stress”. After all, it does end in the event itself and will all have been worth it.

I went into quite a funk the week following the Quasquicentennial, for reasons that probably wouldn’t have bothered most other folks. I can be persnickety and exacting, and I can get frustrated when things don’t go as planned. This can in my case sometimes lead to a kind of spiritual pride that I know better than anybody else.

Well, we just had our “onions and roses” review of the event at our Liturgical Commission meeting this morning. Clearly I wasn’t the only person who had legitimate issues that we need to address before the next time we do something like this. Lessons learned!

And then came the earthquake in Norcia.

The monastery there, of which I have written here on numerous occasions, was particularly hard hit. They had just put together a plan for dealing with the last earthquake, and now came this one.

Every church in the town, including the Basilica over the tombs of Saints Benedict and Scholastica, was leveled.

I was heartbroken. I can only imagine what the people of the town and the monks are going through.

And after that, things kept piling up. And I let them pile up on me.

I was positively scandalized when a priest, whose work I had respected, committed sacrilege and violated all sorts of canon law – and possibly civil law – by posting a video of an aborted child on an altar. I was sad and furious at the same time. It is a monstrous betrayal of the very lives he claims to hold dear as well as the Sacrament.

Several bishops have down hard on this action, and this gives some small measure of relief.

And then the election itself, and the fallout on social media where half of the posts are cries for mercy and justice, and half are taunts and threats. I haven’t posted anything to my Facebook feed since, and I think perhaps it’s a good idea for me to stay away for awhile.

Still, our hope is not in the things of this world, our hope must be in Christ and in His work of redemption. So I’m off to Confession now.

And hey – the Cubs did win the World Series after all, so how bad can it be?

The antidote for me is more prayer, more study, more work, more trust in the Lord.