Eleison Comments

Modern Art – I

Modern Art – I on April 17, 2010

Why is modern art so ugly? Does it have to be so ugly? Cannot artists of today do something nice for a change? And why, when they do something nice, is it normally second- or third-rate as art, sentimental, somehow not authentic? Such recurring questions are raised by a painter like Van Gogh, considered last week, who was on his way to modern art. The questions are easy to answer if God and the human soul are for real. They have no reasonable answer if the spiritual God and the spiritual soul are fictions of self-deceiving man.

If God is the invisible but real “Father Almighty, Creator of all things visible and invisible,” then he created the invisible human soul, most intimately united at conception to a visible body to constitute every human being that ever was or will be. His purpose in creating creatures with a spiritual reason and therefore free-will is his own extrinsic (not intrinsic) glory, which increases with every human being who uses that free-will so to love and serve God in this life as to deserve at death to be unimaginably happy, by giving to God glory without end in the next life.

And how does a man love and serve God in this life? By obeying his commandments (Jn. XV, 10) which constitute a moral framework of good and evil for all human acts, a framework which men can defy but not evade. If they do defy it, they will put themselves in more or less disharmony with God, self and neighbor, because God created that framework not arbitrarily, but in perfect harmony with his own nature and the human nature bound by him to act within it.

Now art might be defined in its broadest sense as any confection of materials (e.g. paints, words, musical notes, etc.) over which man takes special trouble to communicate to other men what he has in his mind and heart. So if mind and heart belong to a soul which at any given moment must be in a state of greater or lesser harmony with that moral framework set by God for all its acts, then any artistic product proceeding from that soul is bound to reflect the objective harmony or disharmony within it. And now we are in a position to answer our original questions.

Modern arts are so ugly because all modern souls belong to a global society falling daily deeper into apostasy, such that a huge and influential number of these souls are at war with God, consciously or unconsciously. The artistic products of souls immersed in such an environment can only reflect their internal disharmony with God, self and neighbor, which is why they are ugly. Only from any genuine harmony still remaining in their souls can anything genuinely beautiful proceed. Wilfully “nice” art proceeds from a disharmonious wish to feign harmony, which is why the effect will always be in some way false or sentimental, not authentic, and second- or third-rate as art.

On the other hand if God, and the immortal soul coming from him and due to go to him, are mere fictions, then there is no reason why beauty should not be ugly and ugliness beautiful. That is the mind-set of modern artists, but from the moment that I recognize any ugly artifact of theirs to be ugly, I am implying that there is a framework, not theirs, which they are defying.

Kyrie eleison.

Van Gogh’s Popularity

Van Gogh’s Popularity on April 10, 2010

At the recent exhibition of the modern Dutch artist, Vincent Van Gogh, soon to close at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, there have been continual queues of people waiting for hours to get in. How is such popularity to be explained? Certainly Van Gogh is modern without being too modern, a combination that appeals to many souls anxious today to make some sense of the crazy world around them, but surely there is also in him an even more attractive combination – he is religious without being religious – religion for apostates!

He was born in Holland in 1853, the eldest son of a Protestant pastor. For nearly three quarters of his short life all he thought of was giving himself to the service of religion, because only at the age of 27 did he discover his outstanding talent and vocation as an artist. However, from then on he devoted himself with a religious intensity to the mastery of drawing and painting, so that he would be able to express in art what he had found himself unable to express in any outwardly religious form. He said, “In all of Nature, in trees for instance, I see expression and a soul.”

He made that soul almost tangible in the painting chosen by the Royal Academy for their Exhibition flyer, “Hospital at St. Remy.” Gnarled tree trunks point upwards to their dark foliage which crowds over the bright yellow hospital building below, and interlocks with the dark blue sky above. The few human figures seem insignificant amidst a whirling dynamic of Nature, all the more dramatic for the picture’s brilliant colour-scheme, typical for Van Gogh. The same dynamic is still more visible in his famous painting,”Starry Night” (not included in this Exhibition), where landscape, cypress-trees, mountains, stars and sky are all locked together in a wild, rhythmic, yellow and violet dance, seeming to make the whole cosmos whirl.

Both paintings date from Van Gogh’s intensely productive last five years, between his move to Paris in early 1886 and his death in France in the summer of 1890. One may not like modern art, one may not like Van Gogh, but nobody can deny that his paintings from this period represent a profoundly individual and human reaction to what Wordsworth called “something far more deeply interfused” in the world of Nature that surrounds us human beings. What else is “art”? Only, whereas at the beginning of the 19th century that “something interfused” had inspired the English poet to “reflect in tranquillity,” on the contrary by the end of that apostatizing century the Dutch artist, who had also left overt religion behind him, found beauty but little peace, which makes him that much more sympathetic to our own still more restless age.

Alas, Van Gogh paid a heavy price for recognizing the prime movement in Nature without identifying the Prime Mover. The movement without the motionless Mover, the fierce dynamism without the King of Peace, ended by overwhelming him, and he died of a self-inflicted gun-wound. Divine Lord, have mercy, have mercy, on millions and millions of souls who sense you and need you, but cannot – or will not – find you. You alone know just how dangerous is their religionless religion without you!

Kyrie eleison.

Truth, Farewell

Truth, Farewell on April 3, 2010

Another voice of truth risks falling silent in the United States. It is not, at least overtly, a voice of Catholic truth, but are not the great problems for truth today not problems specific to Catholics, but problems so basic that they are common to all men? Therefore when a columnist and writer of the stature of Paul Craig Roberts, who has outstanding Establishment credentials and who was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, announces that, apparently out of discouragement, he is laying aside his pen, it is a sad day for all of us.

His farewell article of about ten days ago deals precisely with the universal loss of truth. Its opening section deserves to be quoted at length: “There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword . . .when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal or financial interest. Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. They have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it” (my underlining). “Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off-limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.” Truth is an inconvenience for government . . . and for ideologues.”

He goes on, “Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it.” Examples from many domains prove that “wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money. Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda and short memories finish the job.” Further examples confirm that “Intelligence and integrity have been purchased by money . . . Americans, or most of them, have proved to be putty in the hands of the police state.” They have been brainwashed by the mainstream media which “do not serve the truth. They serve the government and the interest groups that empower the government.”

Fascinatingly, Roberts argues that “America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, that defining event of our time, which has launched the USA on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media.It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise on which they are based” (my underlining again). I would only add the religious dimension: how can souls grasp the one true religion of God when they accept the premises on which their whole godless environment is based? In the early 2000’s many Catholics in the USA did not want to hear sermons emphasizing the fraud of 9/11, but how can souls that are unconcerned to get to the truth, get anywhere near to the true God? How can souls losing their taste for reality keep any taste for the supreme realities of the soul and the after-life?

Roberts concludes sadly, “As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off.” No, dear Dr. Roberts. The pen is still, despite all appearances, mightier than the sword, only not if it is dropped. Keep writing, however few be the souls that will still read you for the sake of the truth, because such souls, like the Truth, “are mighty and will prevail.”

Kyrie eleison.

Jeremiah’s Politics

Jeremiah’s Politics on March 27, 2010

As Jeremiah is the Old Testament prophet for Passiontide, so he is also the prophet for modern times. His being the prophet for Passiontide is apparent from the Holy Week liturgy where, to express her grief for the Passion and Death of Our Lord, Mother Church draws heavily on Jeremiah’s “Lamentations” for the destruction of Jerusalem in 588 B.C. Jeremiah’s being the prophet for our own times was the view of Cardinal Mindszenty, no doubt because the Cardinal saw the sins of his own world calling even more for the denunciations of Jeremiah than did those of Judah, and leading just as surely to the destruction of our present sinful way of life.

Now in the domain of politics and economics, a number of commentators today (accessible on the Internet) clearly see that destruction coming, but they do not connect it with religion, because either they, or the bulk of their readers, starting from below, do not think upwards. Jeremiah on the contrary, starting from above with his dramatic call from God (Chapter I), sees politics, economics, everything, in the floodlight of the Lord God of Hosts. Thus after denouncing at length the horrifying perfidy of Judah and its sins against God and after announcing Judah’s punishment in general (Ch. II-XIX), he makes political prophecies in particular: the Judeans will be taken captive to Babylon (XX), with their King Sedecias (XXI), and Kings Joachaz, Joakim and Joachin will all be punished (XXII).

Such prophecies do not make Jeremiah popular. The priests of Jerusalem arrest him (XXVI), a false prophet defies him (XXVII), King Joakim himself seeks to destroy the prophet’s writings (XXXVI), and finally the princes of Judah throw him down a muddy well to die, from which he is only rescued by an Ethiopian (XXXVIII). Immediately Jeremiah ventures back into politics, by urging – in vain – King Sedecias to surrender to the Babylonians, which would have spared the King great suffering.

Obviously the secular and religious authorities of decadent Jerusalem did not like what the man of God was telling them, but at least they had enough sense of religion to take him seriously. Would not today both Church and State dismiss him as a “religious nutcase” and tell him to “stay out of politics”? Have not Church and State alike today so cut politics loose from religion that they are blind to how profoundly their godless politics are branded by their very godlessness? In other words, men’s relation to their God impregnates and governs everything they do, even when that relation is on men’s part one of utter indifference towards God.

So if any of us follow this year an Office of “Tenebrae” (“darkness”), let Jeremiah’s grief for Jerusalem laid waste evoke for us not only Mother Church’s sorrow for the Passion and Death of Our Divine Lord, but also the Sacred Heart’s own measureless grief for an entire world sinking into sins which will bring down its utter destruction, unless we heed the plaintive cry of “Tenebrae”: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn to the Lord thy God.”

Virile Distress

Virile Distress on March 20, 2010

Let me make no apology for coming back on a profound disorder of our wretched times: the dominance in public of women over men. That woman – the mother – should be queen in the home over things of the home – nothing more normal. But when she queens it in public, then there is something seriously wrong with the menfolk: they are giving to the women no lead or direction towards God, and the womenfolk are reacting, as is their nature, instinctively.

It is an intelligent young man from a distant land who reminds me of the problem. He observes around him that there are many more publications for women than for men; that in schools which are co-educational all the way to university, the girls, being more docile and diligent, regularly get better marks than the boys, who are in general disordered and do not apply themselves. My young friend asks, is co-education such a good idea?

He observes that it results in the girls succeeding better in school and coming out on top as the new “stronger sex,” manipulating the new “weaker sex” now at the mercy of their beauty. In all domains of the emerging “civilization of woman,” women are taking over the positions of leadership. Even to have children, a laboratory will now enable them to do without men, who no longer mean anything. Men are a failure. My young friend concludes with the agonizing questions: “What are the rules for being a true man? What is the meaning of virility? How should the strength of men differ from the strength of women? What is the truly “strong woman”? And the strong man?”

My dear young friend, you were born into a Revolutionary world which is defying God, and therefore seeking to overthrow the nature and natural order of things as God created them. God’s basic design is as follows: he created man and woman with profoundly complementary natures to marry and so populate the earth, in order to populate Heaven. To woman he gave superior feelings to be the heart of the home by having and looking after the children. To man he gave a superior reason to be the head of the home, and to lead all the family to Heaven. She is designed for domestic life, in the family. He is designed for public life, in society.

Therefore as much as the woman and mother should be listened to and heeded in affairs of the family for which she was gifted (see Proverbs XXXI for the Word of God’s own portrait of the truly “strong woman”), so little should she normally be seen or heard in public affairs, for which she was not made. The problem today is that godless and gutless men leave a leadership vacuum into which women almost have to flow, good women reluctantly. My dear young friend, pray 15 Mysteries a day of the Holy Rosary of the Mother of God, maker of true men. Fill yourself with God, with God, with God, and then you will be able to give to women the three l’s which they absolutely need: to be listened to, to be loved, to be led. Without God, you will have them walking all over you.

I am absolutely serious about 15 Mysteries a day. No less is needed.

Kyrie eleison.

Seventy Years

Seventy Years on March 13, 2010

First and foremost, many thanks to a number of you that sent greetings in one form or another for my completing 70 years of life at the beginning of this week. I can truthfully say that ever since I was ordained priest in 1976 by Archbishop Lefebvre, I have had a great deal of happiness, and it has all come from God. He is the one to be thanked.

Nor was the first half of those years unhappy, on the contrary. With the wisdom of hindsight I can see how God was all the time leading me towards the priesthood, without my having had the least idea of what he was up to, so to speak! He is infinitely good, infinitely more good than we can ever imagine, and “His mercy endureth for ever.” Boys, remember the French saying: “If you want to be happy for three hours, get drunk; for three months (some say three weeks), get married; for the rest of your life, become a priest.” The life of the priest may be tiring, but it is luminous and happy, in the words of the “Poem of the Man-God.”

Many of you also wrote a few words of encouragement or consolation for what you see as the heavy cross of this year-long “internal exile” which was caused by my casting public doubt on a fundamental dogma of the New World Order. Worry not! Firstly, recall that wherever that New Order is in control (and that is almost everywhere), as little room for manoeuvre as possible is left to its enemies, and if we find that to be a painful condition, we must recognize it as being a just punishment coming from the hands of God for our having made him out to be as liberal as we are. His friends have today strictly limited room for manoeuvre.

And secondly, be reassured that this year has not meant for me the suffering that some of you imagine. In the English headquarters of the Society of St Pius X here in Wimbledon, I have been more than well looked after for the past year, I have been positively cosseted by SSPX colleagues. After 32 years of the ascetic life of a seminary professor or rector, it has been a great rest to have no duties and a minimal apostolate. In addition, one advantage of returning to my homeland as a geriatric is that I have had a right to free travel on public transport in London, which gives me the run of my home city, something I never had in my “green and salad days.” Altogether this “exile” so far has rather been what the French call a “sweet violence,” or a delightful pain.

In any case it will last as long as God wills, and no longer. Spring is coming in the northern hemisphere. I see already several kinds of birds flying around in pairs outside my window. Let the Third World War come at the hour appointed by God (and not by his enemies), still Hamlet has it right when he paraphrases the Gospel: “There is a providence in the fall of a sparrow . . . The readiness is all.” In context that is the readiness to die. May God bless each of you that sent greetings, and each of you that meant them.

Kyrie eleison.