“Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.” — Thoreau
Much as we love Easter, I think many Christians enter the season with a little nostalgia for Lent. If only I’d been just a little better about saying my Rosary… If only I hadn’t made those “exceptions” for Sundays… And I probably could’ve given a little bit more to those Poor Clares…
If this feeling is spoiling your Easter, it’s from the Devil. There’s no two ways about it. We have a duty to feast as well as to fast. It seems odd, but it’s true. When the King invites you to His Son’s wedding, you can’t “make light of it” (Matt. 22:5). But that pining for Lent may not actually be a bad thing. Maybe we’re developed a taste for fasting.
The fasts and feasts of the Church calendar both serve the same purpose. They order our loves. St. Augustine says that the ordo amoris is really what this life is all about. We really don’t know what’s good for us, so Holy Mother Church has to set out a strict meal-plan for us.
Really, when you think about it, the cycle of feasting and fasting doesn’t really make sense otherwise. At 5:00 p.m. on April 16, we were in the depths of Lent. In the Medieval Church, many Christians wouldn’t have eaten a crumb since Maundy Thursday. Then, by 8:00 p.m., we’re in the heart of Easter. Candles burn bright. Church bells were ring out. Once the vigil is over, the feasting begins. There’s meat and wine and cakes for everyone.
If it seems arbitrary, that’s because it kind of is. Obviously, Christ didn’t rise from the grave last Saturday. But compared to the Resurrection of Our Lord, whatever did happen last Saturday is small potatoes. It doesn’t matter. The first Easter was so all-consumingly important that it bleeds through time, the way ink bleeds through notepad. If we think we have more important things to think about—like the farmers and merchants in Matthew’s Gospel, who made light of the Prince’s nuptials—well, we’re wrong.
Through her cycle of feasting and fasting, the Church trains us to adopt God’s priorities as our own. She teaches us to see time through His eyes.
That may seem impossible. Left to our own devices, it would be. Even with God’s help, ordering our loves is the work of a lifetime.
I think that’s why we sometimes pine for Lent, even in the middle of Easter. Our loves were a little more orderly. Our whole existence was pointed in the general direction of Heaven. The good news is, the ordo amoris isn’t just a Lent thing. It’s the everyday life of a Christian.
If this is a topic that interests you at all, I highly recommend a short essay by Joseph Pieper in the anthology published by Ignatius Press. It’s called “Concupiscence of the Eyes.”
Pieper begins with Aristotle’s observation that all men, by their nature, desire to know. He then distinguishes between two kinds of knowing: studiositas and curiositas. “By these are meant temperateness and intemperance, respectively, in the natural striving for knowledge,” Pieper says.
The studious seek to know things that will make them wise. They read the Scriptures, consult the Church Fathers, etc. The merely curious take an inordinate pleasure in information, the way gluttons take an inordinate pleasure in food. Pieper says of curiosity,
It may be the sign of complete rootlessness. It may mean that man has lost his capacity for living with himself; that, in flight from himself, nauseated and bored by the void of an interior life gutted by despair, he is seeking with selfish anxiety and on a thousand futile paths that which is given only to the noble stillness of a heart ready for sacrifice and thus in possession of itself, namely, the fullness of being.
The low-brow version of curiosity is gossip. We take pleasure in gathering up and dolling out (usually embarrassing) information about other people. Gossip is one of those sins we despise in others but hardly notice ourselves. We can always dress it up as a virtue, even if nobody falls for it—nobody, that is, except ourselves. Sally is a busybody; I just relate useful information to members of the community.
The high-brow version of curiosity is called “checking the news.”
One of the things I learned as a professional journalist is that, even when there appears to be substance to our national debates, that substance is beside the point. We spend hours and hours a day chattering about Joe Biden, Pope Francis, etc. But what does any of it actually do? What do we really accomplish?
We tell ourselves that we’re “staying informed.” Yet, still, we have to ask, Why? Are you afraid that, if you don’t watch Fox News, you’ll start voting for the Democrats? Are you afraid that, if you don’t read Church Militant, you’ll forget that homosexuality is a sin? Shouldn’t you have a little more confidence in your worldview?
Or is it possible that we simply enjoy glutting ourselves on information? Is it possible that we suffer from curiositas, from “concupiscence of the eyes”?
We talked about how the Church trains us to adopt God’s priorities as our own, to see time through His eyes. The media trains us to do exactly the opposite. The Church puts current events in the perspective of Eternity; the media puts sacred things in the perspective of current events.
For instance, we’re taught to see the Church, not as the Body of Christ, but as a battleground between orthodox bishops and heretic bishops, between liturgical traditionalists and liturgical modernists. And there’s some truth to that view, of course. But we already know there’s a crisis in the Church—and in the world. Why do we spend so much time bathing in the sewage?
The Church is very clear on this point: we don’t have the right to consume information just because it pops up in our newsfeed—no more than have the right to eat a whole pie just because it happens to be sitting on the counter. It’s just not good for us. It’s harmful to our bodies, our minds, and our souls.
A good way to test whether we suffer from curiositas might be to ask ourselves two questions. First, how much time do I spend reading the news? Second, how much time do I spend in spiritual reading? Of course, the answer to #2 should at least be the same as #1. If not—if we spend most of our day reading the Times rather than the Eternities—then how can we hope to take a sane, balanced, Christian view of the world?
The late Dr. John Senior used to talk about giving a tithe of our time as well as our goods. We should spend at least ten percent of the day—about two and a half hours—at Mass, in prayer, reading Scripture, etc. How many of us can claim to do that? How many of us even come close? I know I don’t.
So, if you’ve developed that taste for holiness, if you want to keep drawing nearer to Christ throughout the year, this might be the place to start. If you’re the sort of person who reads a newsletter written by a journalist, you might find it helpful to spend the next couple of months trying to curb your inordinate appetite for information.
Not that I’m accusing you of anything, dear reader! But if you feel personally attacked by this article, maybe your conscience is telling you something? I don’t know. It’s not for me to say. Just don’t shoot the messenger.
Friends, if you’re looking for suggestions for good reading, here are three books I read recently that really made a difference in my spiritual life.
1.) The Little Book of Holy Gratitude by Father Frederick W. Faber
2.) Not As the World Gives by Stratford Caldecott
3.) Creation in Christ: Unspoken Sermons by George MacDonald
Use your prudence, of course, when reading MacDonald. He was a universalist and all that. But I think he’ll profit you more than all the newspapers (and newsletters) in the world.
Peace and the Good!