Review: Society and Sanity

The book you hold in your hands is, I firmly believe, the single most useful and important book (outside of the Church’s own official teachings in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the papal encyclicals) that we can possibly read about the single most important field of conflict between the Catholic Church and the increasingly de-Christianized Western world today.

If you care about the “Brave New World” our society is moving toward, and if you want to know the minimum that you must know in order to reverse that direction, this is the book you must start with.

 --- from Foreward, by Peter Kreeft

I’ve read many of the scholarly works written by Catholic philosopher and apologist Peter Kreeft.  He doesn’t mince words, and so when I read the opening words of his Foreward commentary I sat up and took notice.  Society and Sanity, by Frank Sheed, must be a most unusual book, and I found that to be so.

Frank Sheed wrote this book in 1953 --- “old news” you’d be tempted to remark, but Sheed’s wisdom on the underpinnings of our societal problem – and trend – is timeless.  Even as criminal psychologists today know that a youth who tortures animals will likely grow to be an adult menace to society, so Sheed saw the foundations of our society shifting in the ‘50’s and foresaw the looming impact, which we are seeing today in our post-Christian era.

Even before Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote (in Planned Parenthood v Casey), “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of the universe, and of the mystery of life,” Sheed saw its implications in societal trends:  man wanted to replace God.

Sheed’s book is broken into three areas: Man, Marriage and the Family, and Society and State.  In each area Sheed goes back to basics, about what these entities are for, what they were created to be, and why.  And then he looks at societal trends, often driven by “feelings” of what is right or good, without any underpinnings of WHY it is so.  It amounts to men trying to do what they “feel” is good with only their feeling as a reference point.  In effect saying: “I think I am good, therefore if I think something is good it must be,” --- making this declaration as if they were gods.

Sheed takes us back to core Catholic teachings, revelation, philosophy, and reason to get to the “why’s.”  Why does man exist?  Why was he created to relate to God and other men in a certain way, and to family in marriage, and to government?  Sheed talks about the freedom of man, and the responsibility that goes with it, and how man shares his responsibility in marriage and with the government.  He makes clear the limits of that sharing, and why these limits exist and are reasonable.

In short, Frank Sheed leads you to think and reason on what is good for man to do, and how acting on “feelings” only makes us not much above animals --- but we are so much more.

I said (in a prior post) how this past Lent has been a transforming one for me, largely because of a few great books I have read.  This is one of them.  I can’t recommend it enough.

And, of course, I close with a few quotes:

Seneca uttered it: “man should be an object of reverence for man.”

Happiness in a personal relation can abide, if we love the image of God in the person, and love the person and God together.

St. Augustine’s definition of human society: a group, large or small, of people united by agreement as to the things they love.

St. Thomas says that where every man seeks his rights, there is chaos, … there is the certainty that the majority of men will take too large a view of what is their own.

A man had better study what a human being is, because he’s marrying one.

Reverence is due to all men.  It was the Roman poet Juvenal who said that the greatest reverence was due to children.

Vitality flows from Society to State, and not the other way.

Is it the function of the citizens in a democracy solely to elect?  That is the clearest function, … but the duty they must at all costs perform is to create the moral and spiritual atmosphere in which Caesar must operate --- if they do not, their care in electing will go for nought.

Society cannot be really united if it is not united on the fundamental question of what man is, which involves the further question of the meaning and goal of life, and the standard by which we know what actions are right and what wrong.

The Welfare State is noble in nature, but it invariably proceeds by providing more and more things for men which once they provided for themselves; and this involves making decisions for men which once they made for themselves, undertaking responsibilities which once were theirs, and so inevitably making them less capable of decision and choice and responsibility --- and diminishing, in other words, the special qualities that distinguish man from animals and vegetables, the special qualities that make him man.

Personal responsibility is of greater value than either learning or medicaments.

It is growing as a governmental principle: because some cannot be trusted (to act responsibly), a machinery is set up which treats all as untrustworthy, … (and) the way to make a trustworthy man untrustworthy is to mistrust him.

A 95th Birthday Party

Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world, Grant us peace.

My nieces flew across the country last week, as they have done in each of the past six years, to celebrate their grandma’s birthday.  Mom turned 95 last Thursday.

Their visit started out as usual, with the girls stopping at the local White Castle hamburger store on the way from the airport.  (Sometimes, I swear, they value visiting that store more than me or mom --- but that’s another story.)  When they arrived at grandma’s house, she was in bed, as she is always now.  And unfortunately, she did not recognize them that first night.  Sundowner’s Syndrome is a very common thing among the very elderly; it occurs when in the latter part of the day they are not as sharp mentally as earlier.  And Wednesday mom looked warily at them as they approached and hugged and kissed her, but she did not know them.  But they understood

 Later, Wednesday night was the usual round of pinochle games at my house, as we all told stories of events which had happened over the past year, and laughed, and ate, and drank all the weird concoctions that their Uncle Tom had prepared.  It was a good night.
 

On Thursday, we picked up the cake and went over to grandma’s house again, and this time she was more alert, and recognized each one of her granddaughters, including Annie: “You’re the nurse.  You’re my favorite.”  Well, that didn’t go over universally well, but again, everyone understood.  And we all sang happy birthday and ate cake (no, we didn’t have 95 candles).

Fran and Sue, mom’s two caregivers were a little reluctant to have their pictures taken, but as you can see we convinced them --- or ordered them, depending upon your viewpoint.  ;-)

Fran visits four days a week and gives mom regular baths, bed-baths these days, and Sue is mom’s live-in caregiver, with a bedroom across the hall from mom in the small two-bedroom house we rent.  They are both a great blessing for mom, and for me.  They care for her as they would their own mother.

We couldn’t get mom to smile in any of these pictures, but she was happy.  Although she did eat some cake later, you can see that coffee and applesauce are part of her basic food groups, which she has and enjoys every day.  It was Sue who began putting scoops of protein powder into her coffee and applesauce each day, as a means of getting more protein into her body to help with healing her bed sores.

The nieces, Ann, Rose, and Florence are around their grandma’s bed, as they were each during of their 4-day visit.  While their West-coast time zone heads could never adjust to our Eastern Time zone, at least it fit within grandma’s morning wakening time.  They slept late, and so did grandma, and so noon visits each day fit in nicely with all their schedules, (which was long after their uncle awoke, went to mass, did the dishes, and put the coffee on.)   But, my nieces were appreciative of my hospitality, and even let me win a couple of pinochle games.  (And even politely said that they enjoyed the salmon dinner I prepared for them on Thursday afternoon.)  They are truly wonderful nieces, and a great blessing to me and mom.

Our life is over like a sigh.
Our span is seventy years or eighty,
For those who are strong.  (Ps 90)

I guess mom is VERY strong.  Ann said that she may yet live a long while, if she can overcome all the bed sores she has.  Some are infecting, she noted, and that may ultimately get her.  But regardless of how or when, we all knew we were very blessed, for her long life, and for our family. 

Each night after mom went to sleep, we went back to my house for card games, which were always interrupted by calls back home, as the girls had to speak to their children and re-live the events of their day.  Their obvious love for their families just re-enforced how blessed our family is.  I recall the promise we all made around their mom’s death bed, that “it’s okay mom; everything will be okay.  We’ll always remember all you taught us; we’ll never forget.”  My sister was a wonderful lady, and so are her daughters.

And they haven’t forgotten that promise they made to her, nor have I.  We have much to celebrate, each and every day.

Is Your Sunday Bulletin a Waste of Paper?

I can recall many examples of where I saw people pick up the Sunday bulletin at my parish, glance at a few pages for anything interesting, and quickly put it aside --- many examples.  I never really gave that a thought before this week.  The typical parish Sunday bulletin lists parish contacts, weekly masses and upcoming parish events.  These are all good things and, if you are looking for information in these areas, those seemed to be good things.  Our parish bulletin also lists inter-parish offerings of jobs, items for sale or rent, and advertising for services available from parish members.  All good things, I thought.

But more recently, I SHOULD have been questioning if this is the right format for this information.  With virtually everyone who can read now having an electronic device of some kind, why should we consider that the prime source of information on our parish is the bulletin?  When people want information today, most use a search engine to find results wherever and whenever they want.  They don’t have to (nor want to) search for some paper document to find information.  So why is that the primary use of most church bulletins?

This weekend I picked up a copy of the Our Lady of Good Counsel (Plymouth, Michigan) weekly bulletin.  (You can go to their website (http://www.olgcparish.net/) to check out their bulletin for April 28.)  The bulletin contains references to the catechism and its treatment of human sexuality.  It also has an excerpt from a book by a well known Catholic author (Fr. Cantalamessa).  And it has an article by a non-parish member, a wonderful witness of a non-Catholic family celebrating the conversion of their son to be Catholic --- it tells the story of a parish family, as it supports existing and new members.  All in all, it is a wonderful bulletin witnessing to how a single parish can participate in the New Evangelization.

In my business life I was a business analyst, and reasonably well respected.  When I discovered (or it was pointed out to me) that a competitor was doing something new, I took a three step approach.  1) I investigated whether we could do something similar, but better.  Sometimes this turned out not to be feasible, or it would cost too much money or take too much time to develop.  Then 2) I sought to develop partnerships with other companies, to share costs and reduce development time.  I negotiated many a partnership.  Or 3) If we couldn’t develop something better, than we copied our competitor’s offering.  Oh, I don’t mean we ignored patents or copyrights, but we developed something similar in content or looks.  This type of business analysis could be done regarding any parish bulletin.

Any parish could develop a bulletin format focused on the New Evangelization, seeking to teach parish members their faith in more depth.  Many parishes have excellent teachers of the faith and well-read parishioners who would love to share what they have learned.  And if that seemed to be beyond the means of a parish, perhaps they could join with local parishes to share teaching articles common to their bulletins --- or perhaps in a huge degree of cooperation and cost-efficiency, even print only one well-done bulletin, common to all the local parishes.  (This is just a smaller scale of Faith Magazine, the parish newsmagazine for the diocese of Lansing Michigan, which does an excellent job of integrating interesting articles and web-based details.)  Or your parish could just look at what some other parishes have done well (like OLGC), and copy the format.

I think the parish bulletin of today needs to be more than just a listing of information any search engine could find.  In this age of the New Evangelization, it should do more than just inform, it should teach.  We owe it to each other.