Memory and Identity

Memory and Identity is one of the last books Blessed John Paul II wrote. It represents some of the most profound meditations he offered on history, politics, evil, redemption, Vatican II, and modern philosophy. It echoes his homily from his first Papal visit to Warsaw. The ultimate root of evil is the exclusion of God from history and specifically the exclusion of Christ from history.

Pope John Paul II gave one of his most inspired and impassioned speeches during a homily at Victory Square in Warsaw when he returned to Poland as Pope in 1979. (The homily may be found here; a documentary may be found here.)

In Memory and Identity John Paul II references this homily (p. 15) as a statement of the fundamental and most important limit to evil, namely the presence of Christ. To exclude Christ is make ourselves vulnerable to the power of evil. John Paul II saw Christ excluded on a daily basis by totalitarian ideologies and he feared the creeping exclusion of Chris in the west by liberal ideology. Let's look at few passages from the important homily.

In this homily he said: "To Poland the Church brought Christ, the key to understanding that great and fundamental reality that is man. For man cannot be fully understood without Christ. Or rather, man is incapable of understanding himself fully without Christ. He cannot understand who he is, nor what his true dignity is, nor what his vocation is, nor what his final end is. He cannot understand any of this without Christ.

Therefore Christ cannot be kept out of the history of man in any part of the globe, at any longitude or latitude of geography. The exclusion of Christ from the history of man is an act against man. Without Christ it is impossible to understand the history of Poland, especially the history of the people who have passed or are passing through this land. The history of people. The history of the nation is above all the history of people. And the history of each person unfolds in Jesus Christ. In him it becomes the history of salvation."

"The history of the nation deserves to be adequately appraised in the light of its contribution to the development of man and humanity, to intellect, heart and conscience. This is the deepest stream of culture. It is culture's firmest support, its core, its strength. It is impossible without Christ to understand and appraise the contribution of the Polish nation to the development of man and his humanity in the past and its contribution today."

This homily serves as a very nice context and focus for a reading of the book.

Learning Love from St Francis de Sales

St Francis de Sales, photo by Lawrence Lew, OP (Flickr Lawrence OP)

In 2002 Blessed John Paul II, in a letter to Bishop Yves Boivineau, said the following of St Francis de Sales:

"A man of great goodness and kindness, who knew how to express God's mercy and patience to those who came to speak with him, he taught an exacting but serene spirituality based on love, for loving God "is the sovereign happiness of the soul for this life and for eternity". With great simplicity he formed each person in contemplative prayer: "You must prostrate yourself before God and remain there at his feet: he will certainly understand by this humble attitude that you are his and that you want his help even before you can speak about it"  He was concerned to lead souls to the heights of perfection, in his concern to unify the person around the heart of existence: a life of intimacy with the Lord, through which the human being can receive perfection and become better  He was desirous of enabling each person to return to Christ and to set out anew from Christ to lead a good life, for God has given each one the government of his faculties, which he must rightly place under the direction of the will." 


Francis de Sales was very practical, and thorough, in his teaching about living a holy life. In Introduction to the Devout Life, he puts before us the virtue of  meekness. How hard meekness is; how telling anger is. He explains the difference between humility and meekness thusly: "Humility makes our lives acceptable to God, meekness makes us acceptable to men." He then famously uses figures of nature to indicate the spiritual virtues: "Balm, as I said before, sinking to the bottom of all liquids, is a figure of humility; and oil, floating as it does to the top, is a figure of gentleness and cheerfulness, rising above all things, and excelling all things, the very flower of Love, which, so says S. Bernard, comes to perfection when it is not merely patient, but gentle and cheerful."


Yet Francis de Sales warns how difficult it is to possess these virtues truly, especially when provoked or really tested. "Give heed," he says, "that you keep this mystic chrism of gentleness and humility in your heart, for it is a favourite device of the Enemy to make people content with a fair outside semblance of these graces, not examining their inner hearts, and so fancying themselves to be gentle and humble while they are far otherwise." He brings his teaching home with a penetrating look in the human heart with practical advice for improvement.

If, when stung by slander or ill-nature, we wax proud and swell with anger, it is a proof that our gentleness and humility are unreal, and mere artificial show. When the Patriarch Joseph sent his brethren back from Egypt to his father’s house, he only gave them one counsel, “See that ye fall not out by the way.” And so, my child, say I to you. This miserable life is but the road to a blessed life; do not let us fall out by the way one with another; let us go on with the company of our brethren gently, peacefully, and kindly. Most emphatically I say it, If possible, fall out with no one, and on no pretext whatever suffer your heart to admit anger and passion. S. James says, plainly and unreservedly, that “the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” . . .

Depend upon it, it is better to learn how to live without being angry than to imagine one can moderate and control anger lawfully; and if through weakness and frailty one is overtaken by it, it is far better to put it away forcibly than to parley with it; for give anger ever so little way, and it will become master, like the serpent, who easily works in its body wherever it can once introduce its head. . . .

Moreover, when there is nothing to stir your wrath, lay up a store of meekness and kindliness, speaking and acting in things great and small as gently as possible. Remember that the Bride of the Canticles is described as not merely dropping honey, and milk also, from her lips, but as having it “under her tongue;” that is to say, in her heart. So we must not only speak gently to our neighbour, but we must be filled, heart and soul, with gentleness; and we must not merely seek the sweetness of aromatic honey in courtesy and suavity with strangers, but also the sweetness of milk among those of our own household and our neighbours; a sweetness terribly lacking to some who are as angels abroad and devils at home!

Joan of Arc, born Jan 1412, a saint for our time

Chapel at which St Joan prayed, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
(A donor acquired and moved the chapel to Marquette University in 1965)

This month marks the six hundredth birthday of Joan of Arc (Jan 6 1412). The figure of Joan of Arc continues to attract our attention and to inspire men and women of many nationalities and walks of life. Friedrich Schiller, Bernard  Shaw and Mark Twain all wrote admiringly of her. 

I continue to find the reflections of Jacques Maritain most insightful about the significance of this great saint. In his book, On the Church of Christ, Maritain considers a number of lessons from history, concluding with the life of Joan of Arc. (See link to the Jacques Maritain Center here) (Scroll down to section V, The Funeral Pile of Rouen, or "On, On, On, Daughter of God, On!") Of course, that was the voice she heard -- "On Daughter of God, we will help you." And she discoursed with St Catherine of Alexandria, St Margaret and St Michael. The supernatural burst forth in great glory in her life, challenging all reductionistic accounts of the world, of human nature, of politics. As Maritain reminds us, "The three who composed her 'counsel,' -- she saw them 'really and corporeally,' they were like us physically in space. St. Michael appeared for the great directives concerning her mission, the two saints each day. She untiringly repeated 'that her Voices came from God, that she heard them every day, several times a day, that she saw them with her eyes, heard them with her ears, "just as I see you, judges, believe me if you will!"' She knelt down before St. Catherine and St. Margaret, 'kissed them and embraced them, -- taking their knees between her arms; she smelt their good odor; felt their figure, which did not vanish at the touch.'" Smelt their good odor? This woman was insane, a tremendous liar, or . . .  a holy saint of God for whom and through whom the the glory of God shone forth. The apparitions of heaven are a gift from God to our dreary lives and an inspiration to "go on, on" despite our grubby compromises with the world. Well, yes, such apparitions must be tested and set before the authority of the Church -- and Joan submitted, in truth and love.

Her life abounds with significance. Maritain considers her execution/martyrdom by officials of the Church to be a sign of the end of the medieval period and the beginning of a new era. Maritain says:

This blessed icon was that of an executed girl criminal, -- executed by priests of Christ: and the gift of Heaven brought also to earth a sign of the divine severity toward the blunders and the violences which so stained with blood medieval Christendom, -- especially toward that Inquisition of which the atrocious caricature exhibited by the trial of Rouen was signed with the wrath of God. Causae ad invicem sunt causae [Causes are the causes of one another (in different lines of causality)]. The end of medieval Christendom entailed the end of the medieval Inquisition; and the medieval Inquisition was one of the irreparable historical mistakes by which medieval Christendom was to perish. The adieu of the King of Heaven to medieval Christendom, -- the primordial aspect of the mission of Joan and of her passage upon earth, -- was at one and the same time an adieu of sublime gratitude and an adieu of inevitable chastisement.

From time to time I teach a course on medieval philosophy. The beginning and end of this period are murky and disputable. Josef Pieper (Scholasticism) marks the beginning in the year 529, the year in which we find the closing of Plato's Academy and the founding of Monte Casino and writing of Benedict's Rule. Of the end of the middle ages, he is not quite sure. Philosophically, the age just fades away or ends in quibbling. Not with a bang but a whimper.  But Maritain may be right -- the era does end with a bang, that is to say, the age ends in 1431 with the fiery death of Joan of Arc. Neither the fires of Savanna Rolla nor the fires of the countless reformers of the 16th century burn with as bright a purity as the funeral-pile of Rouen. (Here is a picture of the spot of execution)

Maritain thinks that life of St Joan signifies not only the end of the medieval era but the beginning of the modern age, and begins the long rise of a laity formed and inspired to fight for the kingdom of God in temporal affairs. Hers is a pivotal life in history. 

The key to her life is adherence to the truth of God. As Maritain explains -- she was asked: "Joan, do you submit to the Church? It is with this question that the judges of Rouen most harassed her." Joan "does not fail to add to her replies: I am ready to obey the Church, God first served, or if one does not command me anything impossible." God first served. That means --  Witness to truth before all else. Coherence and consistency of life -- or unity of faith and life. It also means -- holiness before all else. Purity of life -- or devotion in all walks of life. A remarkable thing emerges in her simple statement -- "God first served." It is the cry of all the saints. But to bring this into temporal affairs, to witness, "God first served," in all venues and  paths of life -- we may say that St Joan is a patron saint of Vatican II.  That is, Joan is the harbinger of unity of faith and life and the universal call to holiness; the sanctification of the everyday, at the crossroads of the world, by the laity. 

Their weapons will now be prayer and faithful witness to the truth of God (this is what stands out in Joan's life after all). Thus Maritain leads us to the brilliant conclusion:

I think that Joan of Arc -- who failed, but not forever, in the secret mission of which it was a question above --is par excellence the saint and the patron of the temporal mission of the Christian; in other words the saint and the patron of the Christian laity: for this temporal mission is the affair of laymen, to be conducted under their initiative and at their risks and perils,  -- on condition that in their collaboration with men of every belief and of every nation for a common temporal work they keep in their hearts a faith as pure, total, and absolute as that of Joan. (This is required not only by loyalty toward God, but also by the loyalty -- and for the efficacy -- of a true friendship with non-Catholics and non-Christians). Let us note that in the temporal work in question it is not a question of bringing about the happiness of man upon the earth. In a civilization more and more dehumanized by technocracy, it may be that this temporal work, of the necessity of which we have finally become conscious today, occurs quite precisely, in our historical age, to compensate the greater evils and to avoid the greater destructions which threaten the world. I think also that Joan is par excellence the saint of the last combats of the Church; and that it is by small flocks faithful to God first served that these combats will be conducted; and that from the supreme torments of the world, in the midst of which she herself will be assailed on all sides, the Church will emerge radiant and martyrized. It will be the hour of Joan.

 May the small flocks keep feeding on the truth of faith and sacrament. God first served. Easier said than done. Six hundred years after the birth of Joan, we still can hear those voices echoing down through the centuries, "Va, va, va, fille de Dieu, va"*

On, On, On, Daughter of God, On!

*"Fille De, va, va, va, je serai a ton aide, va."