I turned twenty in a graveyard. Literally, because I was alone in a cemetery at midnight; and figuratively, because by that birthday I had already tried college, the military, and the monastery, and failed at all of them. The upside is that, as I came right out of the gate with such colossal disgrace, I've always had some handily ego-crushing memories to keep my pride in check along the journey. (Not that I've always availed myself of that, of course.) Since that bad start, I've been through some things which, at least in my own eyes, have restored my honor; but I haven't forgotten what it is to look in a mirror with deep, deep shame.
St. Paul says there's no remittance of sin without the shedding of blood. File under all-caps YUP. Redemption is a dry, cracked country and a burden of broken glass. But there are easier ways. There's Nietzsche's way, for instance: you just decide you're beyond all that. You're not bound by the bovine morality of the common man, because—uh—because you're so smart! Whew, yes, that's it, because of your mighty intellect, which they fear and envy, and that's why they're upset that you never pitch in for drinks. And therefore, every act of which you were once ashamed becomes a source of pride, a tactical strike in the war against yesterday. And the deeper you go, the more you hate any concept of decency, just as a Nazi despised the Jews more and more as he treated them worse and worse. I toyed with the Ubermensch mentality for a little while in the puddle-deep adolescence that carried well into my twenties, but (thank God) I found martial arts and got my ass kicked a few too many times to escape without at least a smattering of humility.
And then there's the middle way. The tepid way. The way of the other Adolf. The trains to the camps ran smoothly and efficiently, always on time and always cattle-packed with undesirables. Herr Eichmann saw to that, and then he clocked out in the afternoon and went home to his loving family. He gave us a new paradigm for evil, one with a tie and clipboard instead of claws and fangs. How did he balance the Satanic horror with the suburban humdrum? Dunno, but apparently it's not that hard. Click here and you'll see an article by my father (the other James) about a priest he knew in his youth, a childhood hero of such goodness that his example nearly inspired Dad to join the clergy himself—a priest who, after his death, was revealed as a member of a ring of priests who regularly, for years, took trusting young men to a camp in the woods and defiled them. You could pile up examples of depraved double lives, of course; but for me, this one comes home because my own family once touched the very hem of the ghoulish obscenity that continues to scourge the Body of Christ.
The world's crammed to the rafters with rapists and adulterers. How is it that even completely non-religious people instinctively know it's worse when it comes from a priest? Well, whom did Jesus not treat with compassion while He was reaching out in mercy to prostitutes and tax collectors? Whom did He call vipers and sepulchers? Obviously, the paragons of the Faith, whose hypocrisy could lead astray the ordinary people who looked to them for guidance. Blasphemy is the reversal of the sacred, so it's inevitable that there is more carousing in Hell over the ruin of one hero than over the continuing debauch of a hundred already-corrupted hearts. I can't imagine Moloch gets too excited about a bored Planned Parenthood worker vacuuming out his hundred and fifteenth skull this week; but think of the revels when a terrified young woman who came to them for help in planning for parenthood finally gives in to their pressuring and agrees to her first abortion.
By the nature of things, an approach to holiness means increasing proximity to the world of the Spirits, bad as well as good; and the more one grows in the grace and knowledge of God, the harder the Enemy works to twist one's soul. When Jesus was in the wilderness, Satan came in person to offer Him the kingdoms of the earth. When St. Anthony was in the desert, Perdition sent demonic courtesans to curdle his purity. Now by contrast, back in '06 I spent all of Lent sleeping in a drainage ditch in Santa Fe, and nobody offered me any kingdoms or courtesans. My greatest temptation was to trip balls on cough medicine just for a few hours' escape from the crappiness of it all. Clearly, the Devil had bigger fish to fry. There are upsides to being little, as St. Therese of Lisieux well knew.
But not because you're afraid, and certainly not because you're lazy. St. Teresa of Calcutta said (sing along, you know the words) we must do little things with great love; and that demands as much heroism as doing great things, if not more, and therefore comes with temptations as dire as the corruption of great wisdom or power could ever be. There's a reason St. Teresa asked for the Rites of Exorcism near the end of her life, and St. Therese said on her deathbed, "I did not know it was possible to suffer this much." But that is our road, the only one there is. And as Christ told St. Paul: "My grace is sufficient unto you" (2 Corinthians 12:9).
I have come to believe that it is not well for a man never to have stumbled. One who has not failed or fallen (or doesn't acknowledge that he has) can't, I think, be a true hero. Not even Our Lord Himself could carry the Cross without help. That doesn't mean that it's ever right to do wrong. We don't follow the rules because they're rules, we follow them because we love Jesus and we know it adds whip-cuts to His back when we break them. But we also know that all things work to the good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28), and that if we repent of our sins, He can bring fruit out of the fertilizer of our filth. I am not glad of my sins, of my cowardice and selfishness. But I am glad, now that they are past, that God was able to use them to teach me lessons which (perhaps) I would not have learned otherwise, especially the lesson of mercy toward others when they sin towards me and mine. I would like to be a knight, and a saint. I'd like to be a hero to my little girl. And because I've tasted shame, I hope I will remember it when those who look up to me do shameful things of their own, and I hope that I will let God reach out to them in mercy through my hands.
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