The Greatest Schism

This post's title does not refer to the Greek schism, nor to the Great Western Schism of the 15th century, nor even to the tremendous modernist crisis within the Church today. The schism I am referring to is the unfortunate fracture between theology and ascesis, between spirituality and mortification. The more I reflect upon it, the more I am convinced that this division is at the heart of all our other problems, even the modernist crisis.

In Christianity, our beliefs influence our manner of life, and our manner of life reflects our beliefs; both come together in our communal worship. This is the much commented on connection between the lex orandi and the lex credendi, and if I can coin a third term, our lex vivendi. All three must be united. In other words, it is not possible to have a proper intellectual understanding of Catholic theology without participation in Catholic liturgy; likewise, attempts to enter into Catholic spirituality apart from adhering to the Church's doctrinal teaching wind up going astray, and neither our liturgical experience, our intellectual formation, nor our spiritual life can be rightly ordered if our personal, moral lives are imbalanced. I am thus referring to the inalienable nature of any one element of the Catholic Faith. 

The Church was traditionally compared to the seamless robe of Christ; this comparison is true on many levels. While it certainly applies to the Church understood in terms of her unity, it also demonstrates the interconnectedness of the different parts of the Faith and teaches that no one aspect of it can be compartmentalized or abstracted from the others without doing grave harm. G.K. Chesterton once noted that all major heresies arise from someone taking one aspect of Catholicism too far and breaking it off from the rest of the Faith.

The great schism I spoke of earlier refers to the fact that those who study and write on Catholic theology and spirituality today are, by and large, divorced from any sort of regular ascetical life. Let us reflect on the lives of some of our greatest saints and doctors. We know Benedict, Aquinas, Augustine, Bernard mainly from their writings, and that being the case, we often neglect to meditate upon the physical conditions in which they lived and how ascetical their lifestyles truly were. Benedict lived in an inaccessible cave for two years; Aquinas was a friar, in the early days when the lives of the friars were still lives of true poverty and want; St. Bernard lived under the most severe rule then known in Europe. The lifestyle of St. Teresa of Avila or John of the Cross would discourage even the most ardent soul today. This is to say nothing of the life of St. Anthony or the other early desert fathers.

Yes, their lives were harsh, their penances strict, their loneliness must have been overwhelming at times. But it was in that cave on Subiaco that Benedict first conceived his great Benedictine Rule, the masterpiece that created western civilization. It was through her fastings, vigils and mortifications that St. Teresa received the spiritual insights that made her a doctor of the Church; the same with John of the Cross. It was under the blazing Egyptian sun that Anthony worked out principles that are still foundational in Christian spirituality. Aquinas was austere in his personal life, went about barefoot, lived his life in drab, clammy cells that most of us could not tolerate a weekend in, and died prematurely, wasted away by a life of penitence and asceticism. But it was in the midst of this ascetical regimen that the intellect of Aquinas was flooded with the divine light that gave the Church the Summa.

To put it bluntly, the saints can talk the talk because they walk the walk.

Ah, but what can we say of our modern spiritual writers? In what crucible of mortification were our current spiritual writers formed? Not a drizzly cave or a scorching desert or atop a pillar, but in a cozy little diocesan institute of higher learning. Their authority comes not from sleepless nights of anguished prayer, bodies wracked from fastings or feet calloused from walking this earth unshod, but because they have obtained a certificate from a diocesan-approved two-year program that says they are "qualified" to be a spiritual director! At night they go home, not to a drab monastic cell to catch a few hours of sleep on a stiff board, but to a suburban home somewhere to enjoy all the comforts of modernity. Or, if they are more fortunate, to a larger home purchased with the income derived from their latest books on how to "unlock" the secrets of the spiritual life.

And what of our theologians? Do they walk the earth barefoot? Do they abstain from meat for six months out of the year, as did the early Franciscans of which St. Bonaventure, one of the Church's greatest theologians, was part of? Do they die prematurely because of the rigors of their penance? Alas, no.

Our modern spiritual thinkers have talked the talk, but they have not walked the walk, at least not in the manner that it was walked by the saints.

Thus there is a tremendous divorce between theology and asceticism which is choking up the channels of grace. This means that our theology and spirituality is more man-centered, more the product of human reason and human feeling than on divine truths and spiritual light. I realize I am being absurdly vague here, and that it is difficult to generalize - and that people will post comments saying, "How do you know what so-and-so does in his private life?" My friends, I do not know what so-and-so does privately or how much he fasts, but I know that most of our theologians and spiritual writers today are not living anything close to what even the simplest monk or priest would have endured a millennium ago. I understand there will be exceptions, but on the whole, I think this thesis is correct. In the past, we had theology and spirituality that proceeded from a life of faith actually lived out in all its rigor; today, it is largely the domain of "experts" whose approach is extremely anthropocentric because it is book-learned, based on the "latest theories" and the product of unaided human reason.

We need holy monks, holy hermits, holy nuns - men and women whose capability to speak on these matters comes from a life which is crucified and hidden with Christ, which is something that cannot be earned with any certificate program or degree. Who will reconnect our spiritual life with our intellectual life? Who can refasten the chain that once held the sun to the earth? Who can repair this schism?

I am speaking clumsily and with great imprecision here. Perhaps, by God's grace, some of you will see through the mist what I am trying to get at and be able to reword it more concisely. You see, I really have no place talking about theology or spirituality either.