TomNaegeleBlogs

Thank you to anyone still reading my blog. I am frankly a little embarrassed by a lot of what I’ve written over the years. I have always been young and dumb, and I have always thought I knew everything there was to know. Ironically, the more I have learned, the more I realize how little I know. And the same thing applies to the spiritual life. The more I have (hopefully) grown in the spiritual life, the more I realize how far off I am from any semblance of true sanctity.

That is probably the reason why I stopped regularly posting on my blog – I don’t really have much of any value to share. I’m certainly not an expert in any field, and the few truths that I have learned throughout my short life are already known and comprehended by many who are much wiser than me. I still think about writing all the time, though. As simple and as basic are the few truths which I have learned, there are many who do not know them. I would like to somehow reach those people. I would also like to further develop the little knowledge that I do have, and writing sometimes provides a means to make that happen. Seeing my thoughts on paper helps to organize, solidify, and confirm them. I can see certain trends and draw certain conclusions based on my thoughts that lead me to deeper and higher truths. Writing also presents the opportunity for feedback from others. I can learn from challenges that are presented to me, and I can also learn from those wiser than me who have already progressed beyond my basic understanding of simple truths.

So maybe it is a good thing to regularly post my poor writings.

I’m not sure exactly what should be the purpose of my writings. I am not really interested in discussing “politics,” whatever that word even means. I haven’t yet been able to fully develop my position on that matter. I know that I believe, with the Catholic Church, that government in general is a necessary good – something ordained and blessed by God. John Adams was wrong when he said that men would need no government if they were angels. If one even briefly meditates on heaven he will see God governing His kingdom of angels and saints. And St. Paul tells us in Sacred Scripture that all fatherhood, that is, all authority, comes from God. So I repeat that government and its God-given authority is, generally speaking, a good and necessary thing.

But government isn’t the best thing. Politics isn’t the highest science. It seems to me that God does not call everyone to participate in politics or government. Those He does call to serve in this capacity should view it as an honor and take their responsibilities seriously. They should endeavor to serve God and their fellow man to the best of their ability by being the best politicians and government leaders that they can possibly be. But I guess the real question remains – does God call everyone to participate in their political government? If He does, to what extent does He want us to participate? I have read a few short sections on voting in some Catholic moral theology handbooks, and it doesn’t seem like voting is always and everywhere required under pain of sin. It seems like we only have a responsibility to vote if there is a clear choice between good and evil and the good needs our support. How often is that actually the case in our elections today?

It seems to me that the best state of things would be a good Catholic monarch who has the three powers of government concentrated in himself. He could then organize society to the best of his wise ability and simply leave the people to pursue their sanctity. He could occasionally ask their opinion or ask for their assistance, but in general the people would not have to focus many energies on the political nature of their society. I think the mind of the Church is something akin to this, but I am happy to be corrected here.

The above situation might be the best state of things, but it is also the most dangerous. That kind of concentrated power would be a constant source of temptation for the fallen human nature of even the best man. It seems that it would only be a matter of time before the monarch inevitably succumbed to temptation and became an evil tyrant. So there would have to be some kind of safeguards to provide for that. A constitutional monarchy could perhaps be one solution.

A monarchy is not the only viable form of government, however. Aristocracies, republics, and some forms or mixtures of all of these different kinds of governmental structures are perfectly acceptable. The people of a nation are free to choose any of these forms of government. What is of paramount importance is that the principles guiding these governments are true Catholic principles. What makes a Catholic monarchy so great is the fact that it is a Catholic monarchy. Any other type of monarchy is going to become the worst form of tyranny because it is not guided by true Catholic principles.

So where are we at in America today? The form of government given to us by our Founding Fathers was perfectly fine and acceptable. They designed for us a constitutional republic with many guiding Catholic principles. What has happened is not the fault of our Founding Fathers or an intrinsically flawed form of government; what has happened is that we have completely abandoned our good principles. With no principles left to guide us, our constitutional republic has descended into a democracy. And now we are descending even lower. As the strong man inevitably seizes more and more power through lying, cheating, stealing, force, and every other base means, we are coming closer and closer to a tyranny. This sad process is not the result of starting with a bad form of government, it is the result of abandoning any form of good principles. That truth cannot be repeated enough.

Anyway, what does all of this mean for us? And how does it help to answer my original question of the extent to which we must be involved in politics? For me at least, it seems abundantly clear that the answer to our problems is not a political one. At best, politics is a stop-gap measure to simply buy us more time. There is value in that, and we should take advantage of it. But the ROI seems very low and hardly worth the effort. In all my wisdom (ha ha) I would say that those who feel called by God to serve Him and their fellow men in the political realm should do just that to their best of their ability with the help of His grace. But those who do not feel called to serve in this capacity only have a responsibility to do the bare minimum – support the good in elections wherever there is a clear choice between good and evil and that good needs our support.

Overall, I wish we could get away from our obsession with politics and government (I still am not entirely clear on what precisely is meant by these two terms). I think it is often little more than a distraction from what is really important. What we should instead focus most of our energies on is the guiding principles of our society. If all believed in the true Catholic ideal of the sanctity of life, pro-life laws would naturally follow. If we all believed in the true Catholic understanding of marriage and family, pro-family and pro-traditional-marriage laws would follow. Politics are downstream from principles.

So maybe that should be the purpose of my blog and my own pitiful attempt at improving society – to promote good principles in the hopes that they will lead to good politics.

But to go even deeper, I don’t want to promote good principles and good politics for purely natural reasons. I don’t want a well-organized society just so that my investments are secure and my personal freedoms are safe. I don’t want a prosperous society just so that my standard of living doesn’t suffer. It is true that I wish for all of these natural goods insofar as they are the Will of God, but they are not my primary concern. What I view as the worst problem with our country is the sad fact that she so egregiously offends Almighty God.

This may seem a bit shocking at first glance, but the primary reason abortion is so horrible is not because it is the taking of an innocent life. The primary reason why the destruction of marriage and the family is so awful is not the devastating effects it has on members of society. The primary reason why all of the cheating, stealing, and unjust business dealings in our economy are so bad is not because they rob us of our financial wellbeing. The primary reason all of these sins are so terrible is because they offend the infinitely good God Who created us. That is what I find myself thinking about all the time.

I detest sin because it offends the God Whom I love. I hate standing by and watching His Name blasphemed and His laws mocked and disregarded. I sometimes feel like I am watching Him live out His passion again while I simply stand in the crowd and look on because I am too much of a coward to do anything. Worse still, even when I do feel inspired to do something, my good designs are frustrated by the fact that I don’t know what to do. So I continue to stand silently in the crowd and watch as He is falsely accused, mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns, made to carry His cross, crucified to the cross, and finally dies upon that cross. I hate watching this play out – it breaks my heart.

I pray for the wisdom to know what to do and the fortitude to actually do it. I wish that I could at least suffer with Him. But to show how perverted and corrupted is my fallen human nature, I actually sometimes join in with the crowd – by my sins – as they cry out against Our Lord. I have sometimes spurned His grace when He attempted to give me the very thing I prayed for. He has often invited me to suffer with Him and I have often declined. Meditating on these failures would be enough to cause despair if it was not tempered with the other half of the equation. St. Augustine’s constant prayer was to know himself and to know God. I have certainly been learning more about myself as described above, but it seems that God also slowly reveals more of Himself in proportion to our knowledge of our own selves.

Some time ago I was rather stuck on the question of sanctity. As I studied humility and learned more about the depravity of our fallen human nature, I was confused about how something so corrupt could become worthy of everlasting happiness. Was a soul in the state of sanctifying grace pleasing to God simply because of God’s presence in that soul? Well, the soul could never earn or merit that Divine Presence, so how could he be rewarded with an everlasting reward? Sanctity almost seemed to be cheapened in my estimation. I really wasn’t sure what was the definition of a saint.

But one day in Mass after Holy Communion it hit me like a ton of bricks – a saint is someone who God has sanctified. It doesn’t matter how corrupt or evil a soul is, the infinitely powerful God Who created the universe out of nothing can of course make a saint out of a sinner. And a soul that God has sanctified is certainly worthy of honor and veneration. A soul that God has sanctified is also worthy of an infinite reward if he perseveres in that sanctity given to him by God. The souls in heaven add to the external glory of God, so their reward is not only for their own glory. I found these and similar considerations to be rather consoling. It seems to me that a saint, then, is someone who does all in his power to be pleasing to God and thus draw down God’s sanctifying grace upon himself. I have made that my own personal mission statement – to please Almighty God and draw down His grace upon myself so that I may become a saint.

In His infinite mercy, God has given me His grace. By virtue of my participation in the Mass and the Sacraments I know that I have already received many graces throughout my life. I hope to someday be able to say with St. Paul that this grace has not been void in me. I hope to be pleasing to God because I love Him and want to increase His Divine Life in my soul. I detest the fact that mankind is almost universally displeasing to Him. I want to do something about it.

Drawing upon the humility and sanctity considerations, I know that God could use whatever means He desired to effect a change in the hearts of men everywhere. I know that He often does use the weak things of the earth to confound the strong. I hope that my little blog could somehow be found worthy to play some small role in that miracle of grace. I don’t know how that would ever happen, but I know that God could make it happen if it was His Will.

I often think that good people everywhere simply need a leader. I pray that God will soon raise that leader who could lead me where I need to go. In the meantime I am simply trying to prepare myself for whatever may come. I am trying to be pleasing to God by living out my vocation with the help of His grace. I am trying to increase His Divine Life in my soul. I am trying to please Almighty God by making my life resemble the life of His Divine Son. I am a bit dissatisfied, though, probably because of my pride. I want to do more for Our Lord. I want to be more closely united with Him. Our hearts were made for Thee, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in Thee. But is it possible for our hearts to truly find rest in this life? Are we always supposed to feel some level of discontentment while we are in this state of banishment? I’m not sure. I just want to go to heaven and be at perfect peace with Our Lord for all eternity. I pray that He will someday make that happen through His infinite mercy. Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in Thee.