Advent Thoughts: Artificiality and Its Kin

Blue Nile image | 4.01 Carat Marquise Cut Diamond

A diamond symbolizes permanence, purity, uniqueness, the brilliance of the sun, and authenticity. Artificial diamonds? Not so much.

The darkness of carbon transformed into the brilliance of a diamond can serve as a metaphor that reminds us that fallen nature can be redeemed. The ordinary can be transformed into the extraordinary. Sins can be forgiven. Grace perfects nature. The likeness of the soul to God can only be restored in Christ Jesus, Who is the way, the truth and the life (St John 14:6).

It takes immense heat and pressure to convert carbon into diamond. We should not be surprised that, during the course of life, crises of one kind or another might provide pressure to change, to abandon the darkness of sin and to choose the life God wills for each one of us, a life of truth, goodness and beauty. 

Struggles can be signs of possibility. The experience of dissatisfaction hints at an openness in the person to embrace change. There is a fine line, however, between receptivity and resistance to change. Receptivity to guidance is greatly enhanced by a daily commitment to examining one's conscience and to resolving to follow God's will wherever the Holy Spirit leads. Resistance to correction, however, is the more frequent choice of those eager to keep the company of the devil they know: complacency; acquiescence; compliance with the familiar; comfort and the consolation of going along to get along.

James 4:14

Whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

In a day and age when many people in western societies shun anything that smacks of artificiality, the non-organic and the unsustainable, many happily tolerate blatant contradictions propped up by selfishness, insecurity and competition. The need to control others distracts from the responsibility to control one's passions. The need to appear hip or woke or with-it trumps honesty, reality and justice.

Diffident people often do not find it difficult to acquiesce to another’s decisions either because they are reluctant to assume responsibility for important decisions or because they fear failure and criticism. - Fr. Thomas Dubay

In one moment, we have a curious way of embracing the natural. Yet, in another moment, we impose upon ourselves (and others) inauthentic ways of acting. Man is a hypocrite, or an idiot, or a bully, or all of the above. Or, he is humble. The truth about the human condition, saddled as it is with sin, only surprises those too timid or unwilling to confront the truth about themselves.

Socio-political artificialities

• Social scientists and politicians indulge fantasies and create policies that are dangerous to the wellbeing of those struggling with gender dysphoria, depression and other ailments of the mind, policies that purport to defend the persecuted or disadvantaged yet too often suppress the fundamental freedoms of all citizens. Trapped in the same net are medical practitioners who have prescribed drugs, and who have happily complied with their mental health colleagues to conduct damaging surgeries on youth, and yet sing a Nuremberg defense when hauled before the courts by young people - Chloe Cole, Helena Kirschner, Cat Cattinson and a multitude of others - whose bodies have been altered and lives harmed in the name of an evil ideology.

The humble person is open to being corrected, whereas the arrogant is clearly closed to it. Proud people are supremely confident in their own opinions and insights. No one can admonish them successfully: not a peer, not a local superior, not even the pope himself. They know - and that is the end of the matter. Filled as they are with their own views, the arrogant lack the capacity to see another view. - Fr. Thomas Dubay

Socio-cultural artificialities

• The media and academia manufacture identities that are inhibiting fictions that distract individuals from maturing into adults, from transcending narrowmindedness and grotesque and obscene behaviours, and from achieving emotional balance.

Boredom comes not from reality but from people who are only half alive. - Fr. Thomas Dubay

Psycho-sexual artificialities

• Pseudo-sexualities and identities - that are merely a disordered libido unleashed - demand acceptance and approval. The result or consequence of the libidinous 1960s and 1970s is a massive tragedy rife with casualties: the loss of childhood innocence; exploitation of minors; AIDS; sexual disorders entrenched in societies now crumbling under the burden of having accommodated intrinsically disordered behaviours; the disintegration of family life; the decoupling of sexual expression and procreation; the destruction of innocent unborn human beings.

The worldling will not face his colossal inner blah. He multiplies experiences in an unending and desperate attempt to numb his spirit. It hurts so much not to have attained the very reason for his existence, an immersion in God, that he uses things as a narcotic. The worldling pursues prestige or comfort or wealth or sexual encounters not because they basically satisfy him (if they did, once would be enough) but because they dull his inner aching. Always and eventually he is faced with his personal failure. But the sight if it is so revolting and painful, he dives once again into the aspirin sea of frantic pursuits. - Fr. Thomas Dubay

Liturgical-ritual-spiritual artificialities

• Clergy and laity enabling man-ufactured Masses. It is true that we have inherited many pious practices trusted by our ancestors. We should not equate the slash and burn apologetics - which support the uninformed attitudes and practices of the 'Spirit of Vatican II' crowd - with the centuries-long delicate winnowing and prudent discernment effected by the Holy Spirit, and the careful promotion of practices inspired by the same Holy Ghost, that comport with the liturgy founded by Jesus Christ and handed on by the Apostles.

The acute experience of great beauty readily evokes a nameless yearning for something more than earth can offer. Elegant splendor reawakens our spirit’s aching need for the infinite, a hunger for more than matter can provide. - Fr. Thomas Dubay

Contemporary violence in the streets encouraged by leftist brownshirts, and the unjust antics of cancel culture fanatics, are but two symptoms of a complacent culture's giddy descent into artificiality that will culminate in complete societal disintegration. That is, disintegration that will worsen if Catholics and people of goodwill fail to risk engaging the mission of treason and truth, the mission of Jesus Christ and, emboldened by reason graced by God, engage students, governments and other institutions that rely on an informed citizenry, a citizenry informed by the Gospel, for stability, cohesion and progress.

The humble listen to their brothers and sisters because they assume they have something to learn. They are open to correction, and they become wiser through it. - Fr. Thomas Dubay

The Catholic Church has plenty of gifts at her disposal to elevate conversations, to ennoble souls and to draw the lost into relationship with Truth Himself, Jesus Christ. Among those treasures is the supreme gift of Holy Mass. The prayer of the Mass is Jesus Himself praying in our midst. Let us attend!

St Matthew 18:20

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

May this Advent be a time of recollection, of dusting away the ironies and contradictions that have settled around the precincts of our hearts and minds. May the condition of our souls be seen through the aperture of the Holy Gospel. The light of the Gospel exposes the deceit and complacency that hinders a fuller, more faithful response to the action of the Holy Spirit.