Thomas Augustine Judge-A Pioneer of the Lay Apostolate Augustine and Isocrates. John K. Ryan 289 Theodore A. Opdenaker 293 Eugene Kevane 301 Religious Brothers: A History.. Franciscus Willett, C.S.C. 322 Family Structure and Religious Orientation Raymond H. Potvin 330 ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R., and John P. McCormick, S.S. Published monthly by The Catholic University of America Press, Washington 17, D. C. Subscription price in U. S. currency or equivalent: United States, Canada, $6.00, Foreign, $6.00, 60 cents per copy. Second class postage paid at Washington, D. C. Business communications. including subscriptions and changes of address. should be addressed to The American Ecclesiastical Review, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington 17. D. C. Please address all manuscripts and editorial correspondence to The Editor, The American Ecclesi astical Review, The Catholic University of America, Washington 17, D. C. 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FRANCIS DE SALES' THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE MODERN WORLD Almost 350 years have gone by since the Traité de l'amour de Dieu passed from the printer's hands1 into those of its first readers, and in these three and a half centuries changes that St. Francis de Sales could not have dreamed of have come over the world. Yet knowing his book and life we can without presumption state some of the judgments that he would make on what has come to pass and some of the conclusions that he would draw as to future needs. Changes for the better have assuredly taken place: there have been the greatest advances in all history in the material conditions of life. Food, clothing, and shelter in greater abundance and of higher quality than ever before are available to the mass of men. Many diseases, whether those that afflict the young or the old or those that strike indiscriminately at all ages, have been brought under control. Century after century, and now almost day after day, the physical sciences bring forth new wonders. Forms of civil government have grown in power and wealth and seemingly have firm command over their subjects. Education is no longer restricted to the few, but has become the right of the many. There have been great achievements in music, literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture. The gospel has been preached to all men on a scale impossible in simpler times. Such things are to be recognized and praised, although with various needed distinctions and qualifications. But for all his great triumphs man himself has suffered defeat after defeat. He celebrates his conquest over certain bodily diseases only to find that his flesh is heir to new ills, and not his flesh alone but his mind as well. Mental diseases have taken deeper root and have spread wider than in any previous age, and if it is true that This article is part of the introduction to On the Love of God by St. Francis de Sales, translated with an introduction and notes by John K. Ryan, 2 vols. (Garden City, New York: copyright © by Image Books, a Division of Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963) and is reprinted with permission of the publishers. Msgr. Ryan is Dean of the School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America. 1 The book was first printed in 1616 at Lyon by Pierre Rigaud, who had published St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life in 1609. there is a causal connection between the vices and the bodily diseases prevalent in different eras, it is even truer that the immorality that plagues our time is a potent cause of present sickness of the mind. How deep has been the modern world's moral and mental decline is shown by the spread of savagery and of crimes of lust, avarice, and hatred. Contemporary civilization grows more and more splendid in its outward pomps and works and the state waxes in power, but in the dominant nations there is less true freedom and security than in the most primitive societies. Ours is in truth a murderous earth,2 for never in history has there been such slaughter as in the world wars, the world revolutions, and the programs of certain planned societies of our time. It has been slaughter not only of men in war, but of whole classes and groups, and not only of the legally guilty but of the surely innocent, especially of the myriads of unwanted children who are slain before seeing the light of day.3 In its most powerful instances the state is secular, and its secularity can range from neutrality and cold indifference towards God down to militant atheism. Hence everywhere the Church of God, together with its doctrine, moral code, and view of man and human culture, is under attack. Sometimes the attack is open and sometimes it is covert; sometimes the Church's enemies attack from outside and sometimes they bore from within; but they are always at work. Individuals have apostasized, nations have apostasized, and an apostate world is what many men work for and many others do little to prevent. Man is looked upon as the measure of all things* and as the true supreme being,5 and with this rejection of God and deification of man our new disasters have come upon us. Loss of faith in God and of hope in his promises has been followed not only by loss of love of God but also by loss of love for our fellow men. Repudiation of the greatest and the first commandment of the law-"You shall love the Lord your God"-has led to repudiation 2 The phrase is Thomas De Quincey's. 3 Abortions in Japan are stated to have reached 400,000 in a single year, and have been estimated at 1,000,000 a year in the United States. Attempts are now made to condone infanticide. 4 The most famous saying of Protagoras, the fifth-century Greek sophist. 5 Cicero (On the Nature of the God, vi, 16) quotes the scornful question of Chrysippus the Stoic: "If there are no gods, what can there be in the universe superior to man?" of the second commandment, which is like to the first, "and your neighbor as yourself." In the face of present realities and future possibilities and probabilities, St. Francis offers us instruction and encouragement. "Nothing is impossible to love," he says," and the whole of his Treatise tells us that this love must first of all be love of God. Such love is the first cause and last end of all that is good and holy and efficacious and profitable in every other form of love. With love of God as their source of life, all licit loves grow and flourish and multiply; without it, they decay and die. Hence if peoples once Christian but now paganized are to be brought back to a life of faith and hope and charity, it must be through the agency of men and women who themselves possess the supernatural virtues of faith and hope and practice the virtue of charity. So also if nations to whom the gospel has not yet been preached are to hear it, it must be from those who are on fire with love of God and therefore of their fellow men. If a just society in which men can live in freedom and safety and according to the moral law is to be built up, it too must be the work of men of faith and charity. If such things are done, then a new Christian culture will emerge. In it theology will gain new life, philosophy, still learning and profiting from its great past, will develop fresh creative powers, and music, painting, architecture, and the other arts will take on newer and nobler forms. A higher literature will be produced, because "scribes instructed in the kingdom of heaven will bring out of their treasure new things and old.8 This renewal of human society can only be that restoration of all things in Christ which Pope St. Pius X envisioned, and it can come only from great leaders and loyal followers. As this renewal in Christ is accomplished, it will see a host of great minds and hands in philosophy, theology, and the arts, and of masters in the physical and social sciences and in the work of government. Even more so, it will see geniuses and heroes in the moral and spiritual order, for in the end this great renewal and its continuance will be the 6 Cf. Matt. 22: 36-39; Mark 12: 28-31; Luke 10: 25-28; Deut. 6: 5. 7 Cf. his letter to André Fremyot, archbishop of Bourges, brother of St. Jane Frances Fremyot de Chantal. Cf. Oeuvres de saint François de Sales. .. Edition complète. 26 vols. (Annecy: 1892-1932) XII, 299. 8 Cf. Matt. 13: 52. |