Christ, the Cross, the Crisis

By Caryl, Houselander
THE crisis is two things. To the world the collapse of materialism. To the individual Gethsemane. 1 he collapse of materialism around us dues not imply the collapse of materialism within us : For that, we have habitually made too many acts Of faith in the treasure we hope to lay up upon earth.
Materialism has seeped into our
attitude to religion. We are morbidly afraid of " impractical piety," almost limiting religion to corporal works of mercy, coming dangerously near a Victorian conception of, charity comparable to supplying free lint to-cover the wounds we ourselves inflict.
Everyone cries out for unity. but any 'existing unity between Catholics and non-Catholies to-day. ir at the Ma of .ignoring most of Christ's teaching for a MininiUM Of surface agreement.
With " Feed the .hungry " we all agree. but how many that " the life itself is a greater gift than the food": Ours is utility religion, like a Utility suit, it is utilitarian. there is as little of it as possible, it is had at the minimum cost, it only fits small people. With unconscious irony, the Powers that Be, recognise the existence of only small men. A big man cannel fit inte a utility suit. A man grown to the full stature of his C:hristhood cannot fit into utility religion.
Faced with both world-wide material misery and sheer supernatural evil, utility religion is powerless. We need conciete religion as never before, justice, mercy, charity, but these are the flower of the tree of life. We want sap at the roots. Give us that and the tree must flower.
We need something to knock out complacency. bigotry. exclusiveness with one blow, and imite ever • one. religious and irrretigious, in ths marrow of our bones.
What we need is a sense of aim
A sense of sin means, recognising suffering as the result of sin, and accepting our personal responsibility, as sinners, for the suffering of the world.
It is the disease of our age to be unable to endure the burden of a conscience. Those outside the visible Church have wbrked out fantastic techniques for putting this uneasiness from them, applying diagnoses applicable to " borderline eases" to themselves, preferring to convince themselves that they are not quite " all there to having to live with the responsibility of berg sane. Youth never talked more about freedom yet their inability to endure the sense of guilt often leads from a false conscience to reflection of free will altogether, with it reflection of inner conflict. followed by depersonalisation, then totalitarianism.
Within the visible Body we are met by the bewildering inconsistency pf ever increasing activity, which seems 36 effective against misery as peas thrown against a brick wall. Leaders multiply. but always followed by the same ninety-nine. who need not penance." The sheen and the goats are segregated. perhaps because the sheep in the green pastures are not bleeding with the wounds of the scapegoat.
Catholics and non-Catholics could no; sincerely come together to recite their creed. because we attribute different meanings to the same words. We ceould all contc together to make an act of Contrition. There is only one meaning possible to " Lord have mercy upon ne a sinner !" It is true of everyone. We believe in the Communion of Saints, God give us charity to, believe in ihe COMMUniOn of sinners.
ln the sense of sin. is.communion not only with men, but with Christ, rllinr, who kneW no sin, God has made sin for us."
Suffering is the Cross. It covers our world from end to end. It is Christ, Christ in His members who
carries it. Unless every Christian will give his shoulder to take his full share of the weight, the Cross will crush humanity. It is to Christ that he gives or refuses. This and no less is what is meant by accepting our personal responsibility for the crisis. In accepting the suffer;ng of mankind, as something we ought to take upon ourselves. we are made one with Christ in His sublimest act of love.
This realised, we have no enemies., excepting in the sense of those
Marked out for special love. We are not ecaling with this Gernzam Russian, lap. Jew, or Pole, we are , dealing with Christ. In Christ there is no distinction of race or class. It is Christ who is hungry. exploited, homeless. For Christ that we hunger and thirst for justice. The limit of our self-giving to humanity measures the size of our love of God.
In continual awareness of these facts is the , key to perseverance. Faced by Evil's full magn;tude of misery, nothing else can sustain our will. Policy. organisation, ethics, idealism, all break down before discouragement, disillusionment and multitudinous difficulties. Only supernatural love, grounded in these facts can make it nossible for each man to. go on believing in, hoping for, working for, all, men.
There Must then be a re-orientation of the mind and heart of mankind. It must begin in the ordinary Catholic.
It must begin here and now. in making use of the daily exasperation of everyday life for reraration. •
Rations, shortages, queues. early rising, overtime, anxi:ty. all small "in to PoY down the price of sin. Mortification. not as a spare-tinte hobby, but a willing sharmg and bearing of one .another's burdens, offered, not ostentatiously, but in simple justice. for those in other countries, suffering more than we. In this is the germ that kills depression and braces for good work. In these habitual acts of faith in supernatural, immater'al talus. is the cure for our habitual ma:er.'alism.
We must exorcise the devil of selfpity by meeting the poor old British lion, stumbling along in his harness of red tape, in the spirit with which the early Christians met Nero's friskier and, even hungrier lions, and in communion with the cutentless unknown martyrs of our day.
Next, words. Everyone speaks many thousands of " thoughtless words " every day, those words by which we are judged. §And I say this, that in the Day of Judgment men sell' be brought to account for every thoughtless word they have spoken: Thy words will be matter to acquit or matter to condemn thee." Their power is incalculable, they form public opinion, create atmosphere, they are the drive behind the events that dominate human Words spoken every day by people with no special eloquence, or influence, or even audience, spoken at home, in the office, queues. pubs, buses and trains, listened to inattentively. laughed at, overheard by strangers, they have more power than any from platform or pulpit. They can carry the truth directly into man's heart, as intervenous injections carry new life immediately into the blood stream.
Yet every day. everywhere, words are spoken that destroy peace, increase prejudice, class hatred, enmity, materialism, fear. while Catholics remain silent. They belong to the multitude of weak, silent Catholics, who always wait for someone else to stimulate and organise their soul. To be their voice and for that matter their mind. Let some "Catholic leader " do the thinking and the talking, and have the courage of their convictons, they will be his devoted, if dumb, followers !
We should never be silent when loyalty to Christ is in question. We should never forget that whenever other people are discussed, any other people at all, it is Christ Who is being discussed. Ordinary Catholics are here to be leaven, not to play follow my leader, but to he in the midst, work ing through the mass of humanity from within, like the leaven in bread.
In all this there is nothing new. But we have to face evil in this crisis. Evil is not new, it is as old as Adam. I um pouring very old wine into very old bottles. But I ant coafident in it, in sorrow for sin, responsibility for suffering. penance. Because, the Mother of Divine Wisdom, speaking to the modern world has pleaded these things to .stem our anguish. At Lourdes, Fatima, La Salem., Bois Guyotte, " penance I penance ! penance I"' her reiterated warning and pleading to us. to save ourselves. ' For the individual the crisis is Gethsentene.
We have a choice, each one of us, we can, as the poor anostles did before the Holy Spirit strengthened them, sleep through C.hrist's agony. Shut our eyes, and m;nds. to the real meaning of what is happening in the world, to the responsibility of being both sinner and Christian in the crisis.
Or, we can look facts straight in the eyes, see sin for what it is, accept our responsibility. put on Christ. Christ covered from the crown of His bead to the soles of His feet by the wounds of sin. We can surrender to our mysterious destiny of Christhood. not ashamed of the human , shrinking from it which we share with Him, and by our own lives answer the stranpe, hut no longer baffling question of the Risen Christ.
"Was it not to be expected that Christ should suffer these things and enter so Into His glory?"
• Matthew, ch. 6, v. 26. Trs1:. R. Knox.
f 2 Cor: 5,21.
Matthew 12, v. 36, 37. Irsl.: R. Knox.