A hard but necessary question.
A hard but necessary question
W e live in this age of anxiety that draws people to anger and depression. The presidential candidates are clearly playing on both. But this is also an invitation for us to practice courage.
That’s what’s mostly maddening about politics these days — the lack of courage. The Republicans drive me the craziest because they supposedly believe that abortion is a human-rights issue, and yet they’ve dropped it in the hopes that doing so will help them in November.
A young man I knew in recent years would have run to martyrdom if he’d had the opportunity. I told him to slow down. But he saw evil and was all in to try to alleviate suffering. I appreciated the sentiment. There’s a reading that always floors me, from Saint Ignatius of Antioch in the Liturgy of the Hours of the Catholic Church. Here’s one of the fathers of the church begging the faithful to let him die like the first martyrs, if it comes to that:
I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread. Pray to Christ for me that the animals will be the means of making me a sacrificial victim for God.
Saint Ignatius knew who he was, with an authenticity many of us long for:
No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire.
In the Christian tradition, death is a new birth. It’s not to be feared. We’re human, so we fear it anyway. I’ve been amazed by the courage of those who face the possibility with grace — and walk the journey confident that their prayers and sacrifices will somehow help others along the way.
Ignatius continues:
Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish. You will sympathize with me because you will know what urges me on.
So many of our lives consist in doomscrolling and trying to make ends meet. But there’s more. And the presidential election will likely distract us from it. Ignatius says,
I am no longer willing to live a merely human life, and you can bring about my wish if you will. Please, then, do me this favor, so that you in turn may meet with equal kindness. Put briefly, this is my request: believe what I am saying to you. Jesus Christ himself will make it clear to you that I am saying the truth. Only truth can come from that mouth by which the Father has truly spoken.
Even to speak of truth now is countercultural. But Ignatius was so confident in truth that he was willing to die for it. His words shock me every time I read them. So much of our news is about us; he was looking outward. He knew his life was not simply about himself. He had not only gratitude but also a longing to give back to the Creator.
Both presidential campaigns are using and abusing emotions. Hope and joy and anger and resentment.
Pope John Paul II wrote in 1978:
Fear sometimes deprives of civil courage men who are living in a climate of threats, oppression or persecution. The men who are capable of crossing the so-called barrier of fear, to bear witness to truth and justice, have then a special value. To reach such fortitude, man must in a certain way “go beyond” his own limits and “transcend” himself, running “the risk” of an unknown situation, the risk of being frowned upon, the risk of laying himself open to unpleasant consequences, insults, degradations, material losses, perhaps imprisonment or persecution. To attain this fortitude, man must be sustained by a great love for truth and for good, to which he dedicates himself.
Courage. Fortitude.
Politics, like a reality-TV show, cannot deliver hope and joy. It cannot be therapy for your anger. Even as we vote, we can do things that transform the world — with a little courage. Have courage. It will help us all.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.