Dance me to the end of love

Is love dead, actually? A recent article bemoans the fact that we – well, Americans in particular – are falling out of love with love, and that the traditional notion of romantic ‘love’ no longer comprises a theme for most films, songs and all the other ephemera that constitute – or used to – our recreational hours. Like God, to paraphrase Nietzsche, the rom-com is dead; makes sense, for if God is love, and, as the German philosopher’s prophet Zarathustra proclaimed, God is dead, is not love syllogistically also in the metaphysical mortuary?

It seems that young people are not all that interested in ‘love’, at least of the type into which one romantically ‘falls’, leading to hand-holding and, eventually, a proposal on one knee, marriage, children…

Now the heroes in films are tattooed, muscle-bound, gun-wielding, foul-mouthed solitary loners – and that’s just the women, who are not even remotely interested in the traditional vita domestica.

And this is not just in the media, for it seems that young people – to say nothing of older types – are losing interest in sex, and all the preludes thereto. It’s just too much work, for too little pay-off, and who really wants snotty-nosed children to raise, clean, look after and, gasp, discipline and teach?

Better, as the article claims, just to hook-up without emotional attachment, if one even bothers with that, or just stay home and self-pleasure, as the euphemism has it. But even that gets boring: In Japan, there are millions of thirty-somethings who have never been in a romantic relationship, and have no interest in ever being entangled in one, and this is not unique to the island nation.

This is a deep philosophical problem, with no immediate solution. Without a purpose for which to strive – namely, heaven – and a clear teaching on how to achieve this end – namely, living a Christian life, either in marriage, or some sort of apostolic celibacy – what are we all here for, except to snatch what pleasure we might, before we grow old, and have ourselves euthanized, before that gets too, well, boring?

Life and love go together, or perish miserably apart. Love without some connection to producing life is nothing but more or less refined form of lust. And need I describe what misery a life without love entails?

And the only way love of the romantic sort can be sustained is through having that deep purpose, of seeing life as a path to heaven, requiring sacrifice and perseverance, that whole ‘willing the good of the other’, even, especially, if it means giving up much of our own ‘good’.  Only he who loses his life may find it.

It does warm my heart to see so many of the young people I teach – well immersed in strong, clear, Catholic, metaphysical purpose – falling in love, getting married, and having what beautiful children God sends – whose noses are mostly not snotty, but rather cute – all happy, all full of life and love.

So love is not dead everywhere. Only where God is not.

Carney’s Amoral Majority

After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→

Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress

This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→

A Tale of Two Benedicts

A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→

My Name is Bernadette

April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully

Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→

The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus

As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→

Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→

Saint Gemma Galgani

On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→

An Ideological and Improper Translation

I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→

Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers

Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→