My daughter reads the New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism for school. It's a great book, with clear, crisp statements of dogma offering rich fodder for thought for years to come. Most of the time. But recently, my daughter came to the lesson on states of life, and to these three dyptichs, with left side labeled "THIS IS GOOD" and the right side "THIS IS BETTER":
First, a graphic explanation of the vow of obedience. On the left we have the lay vocation: as the family sits around the breakfast table, someone remarks, "I want to spend the day the way I think best." On the right we have the religious vocation, with a monkish looking fellow who says, "I want to spend the day the way God prefers." This ridiculous panel has become an inside joke in my family: every time I have to stop cooking to change a poopy diaper while talking with my boss on the telephone about the job that just can't wait, I comment to my wife, "I want to spend the day the way I think best!" And every time she scrubs vomit off the floor while keeping a toddler at bay with one foot before heading upstairs to wash dishes yet again, she says to me in her best infomercial voice, "I want to spend the day the way I think best!"So here's the skinny: yes, the lay life brings more day-to-day responsibility for how you spend your day. No, a lay person is not free to spend the day in whatever selfish way he wants. Yes, a lay person can spend the day the way God would prefer him to spend it--in fact, a lay person may think that the best way to spend his day!
Next we have a graphic illustration of the vow of chastity. On the left we see a bride and a groom in church, and one of them says, "I want to marry the person of my choice." On the right we see a nun in the chapel, and she says, "I choose Christ as my spouse." Here's the problem: both the lay woman and the nun married the person of their choice! The right hand picture does show what is better, but freedom to choose whom you will marry is not the difference!
Finally, my favorite: a graphic explanation of the vow of poverty. On the left, under the heading "THIS IS GOOD", a little boy points to a sporting goods store and says, "I want an air rifle. I want a car. I want jewels. I want pretty clothes." On the right, under the heading, "THIS IS BETTER", St. Francis of Assissi says, "You can have all that. I want Christ."Reality check, folks: this left-hand scene is NOT good. It is self-centered materialism, and it does NOT represent the ideal of the lay Christian life. If that little boy were mine, I would dock his allowance!
In all three dyptichs, the religious life is depicted fairly well, but each time the difference between the lay and the religious life is made out to be the difference between self-centeredness and Christian maturity: I want to spend my day doing what I want! I want to marry the one I want! I want to have all the stuff I want! I want what I want! Me, me, ME-E-E!" So the Baltimore Catechism elevates the religious life by denigrating the lay state.
The problem with this approach is that it implies that lay people can be selfish and that's OK. Christian maturity is for other people. Take that route, and not only will you have a lackadaisical laity, but few Catholic children will really understand the nature and attraction of the religious life. Why be good, when being bad is one of my legitimate options? But if sanctity is the goal for everyone, then the religious life will take on its real and almost irresistable attraction.
8 comments:
Ah, yes, the perennial problem--to teach the superiority of religious life without denigrating the lay state. It really has been a nearly continual problem in the Church, and remains so today. There is also sometimes now the reverse tendency to praise the lay state by denying any real superiority of religious life, leaving it (at best) some symbolic superiority.
The third graphic doesn't strike me as all that grievous. Despite the single set of quotation marks, it seemed obvious to me that the desire for an air rifle and car was meant to express the boy's desire, and the desire for jewels and pretty clothes the girl's. Maybe it doesn't change the essential point, but at least it is less expressive of totally unrestrained desire; he isn't actually saying, "I want, I want, I want everything!"
It seems to me the problem with these three graphics is that they present the difference between lay and religious life in terms of motivation. The difference between the two states as states is not the motivation with which one enters them, whether selfish or unselfish, but the actual activities proper to each without regard to motive. One could well enter the religious life out of selfish motives, and one could well enter the married state under the conviction that this is the best thing for one to do.
A better set of contrasts would be between doing the right thing under one's own judgment and doing the right thing out of obedience; between marrying a fellow Christian and marrying Christ; between rightly ordering material goods to God and forgoing material goods altogether.
The religious life is OBJECTIVELY better; whether it is subjectively better depends on the subject.
Your point is well taken about the third graphic. Next time I rant about the Baltimore Catechism I will take that into account.
I was raised on the BC, yet the first time I encountered this difficulty was after I graduated from college. The mother of one of your classmates, actually, found one in my office and immediately launched into a vigorous explanation of why she never intended to expose her children to it again - based on this lesson. I was baffled then - I had never had any of the difficulties she enumerated. While now I better understand the objections, I still don't share them.
First of all, since the panels are labeled "good" and "better," it seemed clear to me that everyone's goal was God. And frankly, I do feel that by getting married, I "get" to spend the day the way I think best. I took no vow of obedience, I have no religious superior, and I adhere to no written rule of life. Every day I (by which, of course, I mean the two of us as one flesh) attempt to fulfill my vocation as I think best - praying the while that my judgement in this is in line with God's will for me and my family. I am grateful to God for calling me (as I believe) to the married life, since having a passel of children WAS one of the things I wanted, and spending the day with them is, in fact, the best way I can think of to spend it. Don't you change those diapers, cook those meals, take those phone calles, etc., because YOU think it best? Just because the way you think it best to spend the day is the way you believe God prefers you to, doesn't negate the fact that you are determining the course of your day to day life much more than someone in the religious life can. (Okay, that last sentence is probably completely unintelligible. Sorry.)
On to the vow of chastity. Yes, clearly the nun is choosing to marry Christ. But we're comparing vocations andthe accompanying vows, right? So the woman who marries is free to accept as her husband any man who proposes; the woman who enters the religious life gives up that "freedom."
Finally, it seems unfair to assume what it being depicted in the last scene as "self-centered materialism." Regardless of the paucity of quotation marks (does anyone really think the little boy wants jewels and pretty clothes?), I'm not sure why wanting things that are good is self-centered. My boys pour over Lego catalogs, selecting the set that appeals most to each of them and building castles in the air. If I were to ask one of them if he wanted an elaborate set, he would undoubtedly say yes. If I were to ask him if he was going to get it, he would undoubtedly say no - and just as unconcernedly. I myself may have a hankering for pretty clothes and jewels (not so much the air gun, thanks). I may even possess some. I hope this does not mean I am hopelessly self centered and materialistic (I feely admit to being so - just not hopelessly so). My point is that I can buy a special treat for dinner, a new sweater, a book to read, without vitiating my vocation. These things are all good. The monk who relinquished these lesser goods is surely not doing so because he doesn't "want" them - but because he chooses something higher. After all, if he didn't want those other things on some level, it wouldn't really be that much of a sacrifice.
I admit that their comparison of the religious and lay life may not be perfect. But to say that it depicts something bad as a "legitimate option" seems very unfair. And I've always appreciated the clear message that the religious vocation is a higher calling - something I have not found widely accepted among even the most conservative Catholics. Those very dyptichs were the reason that I prayed as long and hard as I did about my vocation; I dreaded blithely accepting marriage without being very sure God was not calling me to something higher.
Sarah - Just for clarity, I fully intend to go on using the BC with my children. It's a glorious work. So please don't read into my post the animosity you experienced from the mother of one of my classmates!
Now for the vows.
Yes, of course I change all the diapers because I think that best. But the BC contrasts doing what I think best with doing what God prefers, and that is a FALSE DICHOTOMY. No getting around the falseness.
What you say about the vow of chastity is false. Before vows, both women are free to accept the proposal of any man who approaches; after the vows, neither woman is free to accept proposals from anyone. The difference has nothing to do with freedom, but with the person freely chosen.
With regard to the vow of poverty, I admitted in a previous comment that I had misunderstood the tone of the BC because of the botched punctuation. This third panel is probably the best because it puts the difference in terms of the thing chosen rather than in terms of the motivation.
As I said in the same comment, I am strongly in favor of a clear presentation in terms of "Good" and "Better". My objection to the BC is that it does not present that contrast strongly enough! Only if the real glory of lay Christian virtue is displayed will the superhuman desirability of the religious state emerge in all its clarity.
Again, I think you are reading into my post the anger of someone else. I have no beef against the BC. I laughed when I read those panels and wanted to share the joke with other people, but I love the BC and intend to use it with all my kids.
Fair enough. I was so startled by the first criticism, those many years ago, that I may have overreacted (what? me? overreact?).
I'm still not sure I see the false dichotomy, but it's most likely because I'm not a very precise thinker. I guess I take their phrasing "what God prefers' to mean not "what God prefers for me" but simply "the way of life closest to God."
I guess I was thinking of the two women as choosing vocations more than spouses...so the woman who chooses the religious life simultaneously chooses her Spouse, while the woman who chooses matrimony (as a vocation) could pursue that vocation with (potentially) any man. Are you saying that a woman wouldn't "choose" matrimony as a vocation until she had also accepted a particular husband? Maybe I'm making a false distinction there.
Anyway, I didn't mean to come across as defensive or combative - and I'm glad you love the BC. Makes me feel better using it!
Sarah - Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt on this. I'm really a big fan of the BC!
So I'm trying to work through your take on spending the day "the way God prefers." So it's not "what God prefers to me" but what is closest to God, i.e., "what God prefers absolutely"? In that case, does "I want to spend my day the way I think best" mean "I know God thinks X, but I disagree"? Have I misunderstood?
I like your take on the vow of chastity, which is more charitable to the text than mine. However, even if we read it that way, it makes the difference between lay and religious states seem to be freedom to choose one's spouse; and that is not the difference. The fact that there is a possible extra step in the lay life (choose vocation THEN choose spouse) is not the reason why the religious life is better.
Also, until a woman has actually chosen a husband then she has not made a final decision to enter the lay state: the possibility remains open to her of choosing otherwise. So while a woman may be inclined to the lay life, and resolve to enter it, I'm not confident we can say that she has really chosen it in the sense that a nun has chosen the religious life when she enters an order.
I guess "what God prefers absolutely" was what I was thinking. Something along the lines of granting a special grace to certain people, and not others. Just because God has called others to a higher path, or granted others extraordinary graces, doesn't mean that I, in my lower calling and ordinary life, am "disagreeing" with Him. Nor does it mean that I am not called to sainthood, just because I am not called to be Catherine of Siena or Leo XIII.
But as I think more about it, yes, "prefer" is not the greatest word. But finding the right word does seem to be a problem that hounds me when speaking of God.
Speaking to my husband on this point, he made what I think is probably a helpful distinction. The graphics and statements in italics that are provided beneath them are not elements of the BC, per se, but rather editorial enumerations/interpretations of the BC. As such, I think we may consider them interpretations of the text and thereby much more legitimately contestable than the BC itself.
Also, . . . hmm, how do I put this? I myself found that the St. Joseph BC was indispensable in teaching children - I used it to teach some CCD classes in Ojai during my school years. However, I only found it a productive tool when used correctly. I knew lots of people during my homeschooling years who used the text incorrectly, and as a result raised children who had memorized responses to questions but never been asked to think critically about the ever-important "WHY" - they never internalized the truths, and many of them have lost their way in the end. The question/answer format is not simply an easy way to get your kids to memorize items by rote, but it is an extremely helpful teaching tool with which to encourage objection, sed contra, respondeo, one on one. Perhaps, having had the formation we have had, we always consider a text something to be discussed, but not all persons consider it so, and some people, like the woman you encountered, Sarah, may have had a knee-jerk reaction against such an abuse of the text (which, I might add, is an very common abuse, at least in my part of the world). I'm anxious to give that woman the benefit of the doubt, mainly because, well, some five or six years ago, that would probably have been me, too. :)
Anyhow, there's my two cents.
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