Getting to the Point: guilt

Showing posts with label guilt. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Mourning Has Broken (But It Hasn't Broken Me)

There are two kinds of mourning. The first is the kind that has lost hope, that has become mistrustful of love and of truth, and that therefore eats away and destroys man from within. But there is also the mourning which is occasioned by the shattering encounter with truth, which leads man to undergo conversion and to resist evil. This mourning heals, because it teaches man to hope and love again.

Jesus of Nazareth 1, 86

Reflection – Well, ‘tis the season to be mourning, right? Fa la la la la, la la boo hoo… Tis the season… for quite a few of you, my Catholic readers, in these last weeks of Lent ‘tis the season for parish reconciliation services, for making one’s Easter duty, the annual requirement to confess all grave sins of the past year.

Mind you, I fervently hope that this is not the only time of year you all go to Confession. To bring your sins to the Lord and receive his mercy is precisely the movement of grace that makes the difference between the two kinds of mourning Pope Benedict describes here.

Our sins, our unloving and rebellious responses to life, to God and neighbor, yield this sadness that ‘eats away and destroys us from within.’ Repentance is precisely the ‘shattering encounter’ with truth, the truth that our sins are met by the love and compassion of our Father in heaven, an encounter that shatters our illusions of self-sufficiency and independence, and opens us up to the hope and love that are his infused gifts to us.

It really is a question of where our life is coming from. If our life is from and for ourselves, if the whole point of life—its source and summit—is our own ideas, wants, hopes, abilities, strength, then we are on a path to the mourning that destroys us. We are not strong enough to bear that weight placed upon ourselves. Sooner or later, one way or another, our number is up—we are defeated, love runs out, trust is betrayed, destruction is upon us and the abyss yawns at our feet.

If our life is from Another, if the source and summit of our life is not us but this mysterious Other, this Being, this God who is so very hidden and yet so very present to us, then the mourning that does indeed come to us—the revelation of our failure, the disclosure of our shame, our guilt, the manifestation of our profound poverty in whatever form that takes in us—this mourning leads us to joy and life.

It is precisely this experience that breaks us open to the God who loves us and who wants to give us everything. We don’t precisely ‘need’ to take this route: Our Lady never sinned, never failed, lived without shame and guilt, and she was open to God from the beginning. But we have to be realistic—for almost of us, the tendrils of selfishness and egoism are such that the path to joy must lead through mourning.

But this mourning, even as it breaks upon us, will not break us. Or if it does break us, the God who loves us will put us back together, this time the right way. ‘There is a crack in everything: that’s how the light gets in,’ sings Leonard Cohen. Mourning is that crack (the crack of dawn?), and so the light of mercy and love gets in to all of us, if we want it to. And that’s what Lent is about, in essence, and what confession is about, in essence.

So git to Confession, y’all. God’s waiting for you there, to turn your mourning into joy.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Talking About Conscience VII

One who no longer pays heed to the fact that killing is a sin has fallen more deeply than one who still recognizes the abhorrent quality of his actions, since the former person is further away from truth and from repentance. It is not by chance that the self-righteous person is revealed in the encounter with Jesus to be the one who is really lost: when the tax collector with all his undisputed sins is more righteous in the eyes of God than the Pharisee with all his genuinely good deeds (Luke 18: 9-14), this is not because the sins of the tax collector were not sins or the good deeds of the Pharisee not good deeds. Jesus does not intend to say that man’s good deeds are not good in God’s sight or that his evil deeds are not evil (or, at any rate, not all that serious).

The reason for this paradoxical verdict by God is directly connected to the question we are examining here. The Pharisee is no longer aware that he too is guilty. He is perfectly at ease with his own conscience. But this silence of his conscience makes it impossible for God and men to penetrate his carapace—whereas the cry of conscience that torments the tax collector opens him to receive truth and love. Jesus can work effectively among sinners because they have not become inaccessible behind the screen of an erring conscience, which would put them out of reach of the changes that God awaits from them—and from us. Jesus cannot work effectively among the righteous because they sense no need for forgiveness and repentance; their conscience no longer accuses them but only justifies them.

Values in a Time of Upheaval, 81-2

Reflection – In short, there is nothing worse than being smug. And I think we kind of know this, even if in our classic human weakness fail to spot it in ourselves. But we know that we can take a lot from a person who is quick to admit his own faults and failings… and not so tolerant towards someone who thinks he is God’s gift to humanity.

It is this whole business of being open or closed to the world outside one’s own ego. The guilty conscience, the troubled mind that reproaches us that we have done wrong—this is actually a great gift to us. There is something within us, something in our very being, that bears witness to us that we are not sufficient unto ourselves, that we are not the center of the universe, that we are not the standard of judgment for all reality.

Now of course conscience, like everything else in us, can get derailed in various ways. We can become beset with neurotic scrupulous guilt, for one thing. But I think it is far more common in our time to see the other thing, what Pope Benedict and I have been reflecting on together: the disabled conscience, the silenced conscience. And this is a terrible curse. It locks us up in the castle keep of our own subjectivity. It prevents us from adopting the basic stance of humility towards life which opens us up to God and man, to the world that is bigger than us.

The inability to admit one’s own guilt, which is held out as such a great liberation by some, actually is the deepest imprisonment possible for human beings. We become trapped in a hall of mirrors, unable to see anything but our own petty judgments and standards for life.

Guilt frees us: “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” even if part of that truth is ‘you done wrong, son!’ For the gift of guilt, then, let us thank the Lord (hey, Lent is coming up, so this is very timely!).

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Talking About Conscience VI

(Ratzinger begins this section by describing a conversation in which the argument was made that Hitler, etc., were in heaven since they were following their consciences.)

…Since that conversation, I have been absolutely certain that there is something wrong with the theory of the justifying force of the subjective conscience. In other words, a concept of conscience that leads to such inferences is false. A firm subjective conscience, with the consequent lack of doubts and scruples, does not justify anyone.

Later, I read an essay by the psychologist Albert Görres that summarized briefly the insights I had slowly tried to formulate for myself and that I wish to set out here. Görres points out that guilt feelings, or the ability to recognize one’s guilt, is an essential element of man’s psychological makeup. The guilt feeling that shatters a conscience’s false calm and the criticism made by my conscience of my self-satisfied existence are signals that we need just as much as we need the physical pain that lets us know that our normal vital functions have been disturbed. One who is no longer capable of seeing his own guilt is psychologically ill, ‘a living corpse, a theatrical mask’ as Görres puts it. ‘In human persons, monsters—it is people like these who have no guilt feelings. Hitler may have had none; nor may Himmler or Stalin. Mafia bosses may have none, but it is more likely that they have merely suppressed their awareness of the skeletons in their closets. And the aborted guilt feelings… everyone needs guilt feelings… everyone needs guilt feelings.’

There is in fact a scriptural text that could have prevented the diagnoses put forward by my colleagues and shown them that the theory of justification by means of an erring conscience is untenable. Ps 19:12 contains words that deserve constant meditation: ‘But who can discern his errors? Clear thou me from hidden faults.’

The wisdom of the Old Testament takes a very different line from my professorial colleagues: the loss of the ability to see one’s guilt, the falling silent of conscience in so many areas, is a more dangerous illness of the soul than guilt that is recognized as guilt.

Values in a Time of Upheaval, 80-1

Reflection – In other words, guilt in itself is a good thing! So counter-cultural, this. Our whole idea is that we can or should be able to do just anything we want, and that the worst thing to do to someone is to tell them they are doing something immoral. ‘Don’t you dare call me a sinner!’ is the general attitude.

And yet once we realize that there is nothing worse than killing one’s conscience, that to do this is essentially to make oneself sub-human, than of course we can understand why one of the spiritual works of mercy is to admonish sinners. If someone (like, say, President Obama) is engaging in an evil course of action, then the bishops are doing him a great act of charity in pointing it out to him with great vigor and resolve. And I think almost anyone of good will can at least see the truth of this. If someone is doing a terrible evil and does not know even slightly that they are doing this evil, something has gone very badly wrong with them at a deep level.

Now of course the implication of this is that we live in a universe where moral behavior is not simply a matter of subjective choice. If morality simply means doing what you think is right, then the above analysis is literally nonsense. And we cannot have it both ways. If Görres is correct then we live in a world of moral order that surpasses our subjective ideas; if there is nothing to morality except our own subjective thoughts on the matter, then we are back to square one: Dexter as moral exemplar, etc…

Ratzinger is about to take this in a provocative direction—tomorrow (God willing) we will see that guilt and what it implies for us actually breaks us open from the prison of our self, and opens us up to a broader and deeper, more beautiful reality. To be continued…

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Why We Choose to Be Sub-Human

Peace in the universe through peace with God, the union of above and below—that is how we can describe the essential intention of worship in all the world’s religions. But this basic definition of the attributes of worship is marked concretely by an awareness of man’s fall and estrangement. Of necessity it takes place as a struggle for atonement, forgiveness, reconciliation. The awareness of guilt weighs down on mankind. Worship is the attempt to be found at every stage of world history to bring back the world and one’s own life into right order.

Spirit of the Liturgy, 35

Reflection – At the end of her wonderful little book The Loser Letters, Mary Eberstadt, in the voice of her narrator A.F.C. (A Former Christian, although by the end of the book… well, I don’t want to spoil it for you…), points out the unsolvable problem for materialist atheism and its evolutionary reductionism of human experience. Namely, why do we feel guilty? What is the evolutionary advantage of remorse, of contrition, of sadness for past sins?

In a strictly materialist universe governed by rigid criteria of evolutionary advantage, survival of the fittest and all that (understood, not in its proper scientific sense, but with a sort of quasi-psychological/ethical/sociological fuzziness), remorse and contrition are enigmas, truly. What benefit do they confer, and how, in a strictly materialistic universe, can human beings find relief for these strong experiences which cause us so much suffering?

The consciousness of sin, of having done some terrible thing wrong which we cannot quite make right, is one of the deeply imbedded indicators in humanity that there is a Bigger Reality surrounding us, to whom we are accountable. That our relationship to this Bigger Reality is somehow key to whole project of happiness, peace, joy, love. And that there is something in us that has badly messed up this relationship.

And so, worship. And in worship, sacrifice, atonement, expiation. This is, as Ratzinger points out, a theme running broadly throughout the whole religious experience of the human race. It is a deeply human experience, and its increasing absence is not a sign of progress but of de-humanization.

To lose a sense of guilt, to consciously suppress, deny, rationalize, the sense every human carries of ‘something wrong in me’ is not the action of an enlightened free person. It is an act of fear, rather—fear that we may need to do something about that, may need to change, may need to turn to God and put ourselves under His authority. That this bigger reality surrounding us not only is the key to our happiness and joy, but that it (He) may make demands on us that may not be easy for us to fulfill. And so we choose to turn aside, to deny this powerful experience of guilt, or wrong.

But what a choice! To suppress our guilt is to then effectively place ourselves outside that ‘something bigger than me,’ the openness to which is the very condition of an authentic human life, as we have been exploring for some days now on this blog. But I think that's why we do it - guilt is a painful reality, and we flee from pain. But the price we pay for that flight from pain is a high one indeed. To choose to be sub-human, rather than choosing to be human, and in need of mercy.

No, worship, and in worship the free coming before God in need of forgiveness, of cleansing, of expiation, is the very heart of human life in the fallen world. But in Christ, this mystery which runs through all religions is made so joyous, so lavish, so simple. He is our expiation, his love and his gift are the cleansing of our sins. Our sole act is to enter into his life through faith in him, so that he can work in us the great work of re-creation and redemption that is his will for us. And this is the true fullness of human life – to enter into Christ’s life and because of that, to be able to love as he loves, to live in the heart of the mystery of love and gift as he lives there. Human life—worship, obedience, love.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Catholic Guilt

The ability to recognize one’s guilt is an essential element of man’s psychological makeup. The guilt feeling that shatters a conscience’s false calm and the criticism made by my conscience of my self-satisfied existence are signals that we need just as much as we need the physical pain that lets us know that our normal vital functions have been disturbed.

Values in a Time of Upheaval, 80

Reflection – Oh, that Catholic guilt! That’s what everyone knows about Catholics, right? Guilt ridden, shame-filled neurotics, one and all!

I don’t know. I’m Catholic (in case you didn’t know…) and I can’t say I’ve been overly troubled with neurotic guilt in my life. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, in a Church climate where little moral instruction was given us (frankly), and the fear of God’s judgment and Hell was virtually non-existent, I’ve actually had to spend much of my adult Catholic life working on developing my conscience and having a proper sense of sin.
Maybe I’m weird. But I really don’t think so. When I hear Catholics of my generation or younger going on about their neurotic Catholic guilt, it makes me wonder, really. Where does that come from? Because it doesn’t come from the kind of instruction we received in our parishes and schools, for the most part. The corner of the Catholic Church I grew up in was a pretty conservative backwater in my day (I mean that in a nice way), and even so there was precious little indoctrination about sin and hell there.
I guess the bigger question might be where guilt, period, comes from, Catholic or otherwise. And is it always neurotic? Is there a proper place for guilt feelings, and what might it be, and what are we to do with them?
This quote from Ratzinger is very helpful, in a nice concise way. By comparing it to physical pain he helps us see what guilt is for. None of us would like to be unable to experience physical pain, I would imagine. We all know that pain is nature or God’s way of giving us immediate information that something has gone wrong in our bodies, so that we can do something different or take care of ourselves in whatever way we need to.
Guilt is a form of pain, but not a bodily pain that tells us our physical plant has gone wrong. It is a moral pain that tells us we have done or are doing something wrong.
Now with physical pain, what do we do? We analyze the pain. We try to figure out what is causing it. We evaluate how serious it is. If we are unsure, we consult an expert (a doctor). And we decide if it’s just something we have to live with or if there is something we can do differently to feel better.
The moral pain of guilt is the same – we are to use our minds to evaluate this feeling. What have I done or not done? Is it truly wrong? How serious a wrong is it? Do we need to consult someone about it? And then, the magic question, ‘what am I to do differently’? In other words, what do I need to repent of?
Guilt can be misplaced or exaggerated or erroneous in some other way. And if we are always suffering from misplaced or exaggerated guilt, we are indeed neurotic, whether we’re Catholic or not! But, as we know not to ignore physical pain (lest we end up prematurely dead), we shouldn’t ignore or stuff down our guilt, either, lest we end up spiritually dead. The feeling of guilt means something has gone wrong in our lives, pure and simple. So, let’s make it right.