Newman on Friendships

An Article on Mercatornet that delves in deeper into Cardinal Newman's understanding of Freindships, something lost today

Being 15 years Newman's junior, when he died suddenly aged 60, Newman was devastated. "I have ever thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband's or awife's," he wrote, "but I feel it difficult to believe that any can be greater, or any one's sorrow greater, than mine." Some 15 centuries earlier, St Augustine in his Confessions wrote in the same way about thedeath not of his mistress, but of his best friend. "My eyes sought him everywhere, but they did not see him; and I hated all places because he was not in them, because they could not say to me, 'Look, he is coming,'as they did when he was alive and absent."

Newman's desire to share a tomb with St John may seem unusual to the modern eye. Yet Alan Bray in his seminal work The Friend (2003) cites many such examples of friends sharing tombs in previous centuries. Such public commitments to "marriages of the soul" were common in pre-modern times. Bray's conclusion is striking: "Newman's burial with St John cannot be detached from Newman's understanding of the place of friendship in Christian belief or its longhistory."

Reading the final page of Newman's Apologia – lyrically dedicated to all his Oratorian brothers and especially to "Ambrose St John, whom God gave me, when He took everyone else away; who are the link between my old life and my new; who have now for 21 years been so devoted to me, so patient, so zealous, so tender" – the writer George Eliot was impressed. "Pray mark that beautiful passage in which he thanks his friend Ambrose St John," she wrote to a friend. "I know hardly anything that delights me more than such evidences of sweet brotherly love being a reality in the world."

Do we – can we – today applaud such friendship? Do we – can we – make room, now, for such"evidences of sweet brotherly love"? Men and women often have intense friendships with members of their own sex, friendships that have no sexual component; yet we are losing the vocabulary to speak about them, or we are embarrassed to do so. A "friend" is one you add to a social networking profile on the web; or it is a euphemism for a sexual partneroutside marriage. Can a man nowadays own up with pride to having a dearand close friend, another man to whom he is devoted? Can he, without itbeing suspected as repressed homosexuality? I fear the answer to both may be "no". And it is hard to know which is the sadder.

Not everything can be explained

My friend and I were asked recently what possibly can be the benefit of learning a language. As my friend and I come from the same school of thought that learning is an asset that everything has to be looked at not as ‘benefit’ or otherwise but as ‘learning’ and knowledge, we began to elucidate.

Soon we ran out of arguments. While we knew taking up any art form, music, an instrument, language, delicacy or culture only enriches and ennobles life, we fell short of convincing people that evening. We begged them to consider that perhaps if they learned French, one day a client would hire them simply because doing business with them complements his growth as they have familiarity with French. We tried other natural arguments that ‘nothing ever is a waste’ or ‘you don’t know when it may help you’

We reached higher planes too and discussions turned more mystical with having us saying that when we aspire for certain nobilities, it imprints on our character and personality a hint and trace of the nobility. We have a part of nobility within us. Our personality is sealed with nobility and often becomes synonymous with it. Our identities find new expression and a breath of life. They manifest because we aspire to reach a higher goal (than usual sustenance) as to indulge in the enrichment of life by yielding to its calling.

Our friends weren’t convinced. I don’t blame them. My own friend in my team acknowledged that what has taken years to learn, with hard perseverance and effort, cannot possible be explained loosely and nonchalantly in an evening soiree and expect to be understood.

But another thing we learned is that often, when it comes to things we cannot touch or explain because they cannot be studied under a microscope but can only be conceived and experienced, it is often the testimony of God in our hearts. He explains to us the value of things because He is eventually the source of all goodness. If we have been attracted to Him, surely we will be attracted and find Him in all things that His beauty manifests in.

And surely, it wouldn’t be wrong to say His beauty has manifested in music, art, sculpture, architecture, nature, Poetry and literature, theatre to name a few. Thus appreciation of these nobilities often presupposes knowledge of God that God fills these things with meaning. These things then manifest in our personalities and give us Life. Surely, anyone who understands this simply understands this by the testimony God creates in his mind as a witness to all things good in the world. But that doesn’t guarantee that we would be able to explain the same to others. Another reason, we cannot fully understand neither God‘s reality nor explain it to others with clarity. Eventually, some things are left as a witness in the heart and don’t become advocates in expression.

Dr. Vost on Thomas Aquinas and Virtues

You can find the complete interview here

Kapler: I know that Aquinas was very instrumental in bringing you back to Catholicism. How did that happen?

Vost: I was drawn into atheism by various philosophers: Ayn Rand, a philosopher associated with a philosophy called Objectivism was one. Albert Ellis was a psychologist. He had a system called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy; he also happened to be an atheist. These people, Ayn Rand in particular, said her system was based on the philosophy of Aristotle. Albert Ellis said his psychology was based on an ancient system of the Stoic philosophers. Now it just so happened that both those Stoic philosophers and Aristotle were not atheists; they were theists. These were also systematic thinkers that St. Thomas Aquinas knew very, very well.

Well, it wasn’t until my early forties that I first came across the writings of Thomas Aquinas himself. Here I saw an absolute, true master of the writings of Aristotle. There’s a saying I like to quote from Charles Darwin, “My modern peers of the day are like mere school boys compared to old Aristotle.” I had that kind of an ah-ha when I came across Aquinas!

Kapler: Aquinas – I’ve heard you describe him, most recently in your book Unearthing Your Ten Talents, as a master of psychology. What did you find in St. Thomas that you didn’t find in the other great psychologists you have studied, and even taught about as a college psychology professor?

Vost: Much of his work in psychology comes through in the Second Part of his Summa Theologica. Thomas examines in great detail what it means to be a human being. How is it that we think, and how is it that we feel? How does this reflect us being made in God’s image? Thomas looks at things like: Virtue, how do we make ourselves our best possible selves? Sin, how do we avoid those things that pull us away from God and make us less than what we are? There’s a true profundity of thought there.

Kapler: When you talk in Unearthing Your Ten Talents about “the virtues,” they aren’t something we hear a great deal about today – not in pop psychology, not even from the pulpit, at least not in my experience. Why does Aquinas put such emphasis on “the virtues,” this list of habitual qualities; and why do we need to pay attention to that today?

Vost: Thomas wrote in the thirteenth century, and much of theology focused on sins and our fallen human nature, things that are very important. Thomas also wrote a great deal about those, but he also had an emphasis on how we are good, very good – wondrously made in the image of God. So to understand ourselves, we have to understand the powers God gave us. And virtues are basically perfections of those various powers.

The Catholic Church and the upside down faith

The Catholic Church teaches this upside down faith of Christianity. What the world calls popular, The Church shouts it down. When world makes everything a personal choice, The Church cries out for the lack of love. What the world cherishes, The Church reminds will pass away. What the world too easily embraces, The Church reminds to be slow to befriend. The Church fights a lone battle, preaches the love of a God made Man who died to exemplify it. It makes its way to every road and station of the world glorifying the love of God and whistling the praises of his mercy. It celebrates the dignity of life and the nobility of human action. It condemns commoditizing human dignity and rationalizations of the human mind. The Church dances its way to serve and willingly lays itself as a carpet for anyone who has found the love of Christ to enter into its triumphant mysteries. The Church has been doing all these down centuries defending its creeds and guarding the good of Mankind in a passing world which it pilgrims.

for His friends

Giving up your life doesn’t seem so difficult when the question is of a friend that is going to gain. Jesus said no man has greater love than one who lays his life down for a friend. It seems Jesus knew that love moves us to lay our lives down for others without thinking of losing our money, our time, our desires, dreams and our very lives. A patriot dies for his country. He loves his country. And what is friendship but love. We offer a seat to a friend we see in the bus not because we are selfish and couldn’t see the plight of tens of others standing next to us but because giving your seat to a friend is a iota of giving your life in a little way. The train journey only demands your seat. But it is the model derived from Jesus’ example of no man having greater love than one who lays his life down for a friend. And Jesus did the same. He invited us to friendship when he laid his life down. We are his friends. We have no other way to love others than befriending them. Sure, we often are protagonists in a passing act of compassion or generosity. But that is what it is, a passing act, a burst of compassion or zeal of generosity. But the zeal of friendship flows constantly in the blood reminding us “Love…Love…give your life for your friend…lay it down” Friendship affirms a committed heroic love, unlike a passing heroic compassion or generosity, which is always ready when a friend requires to be loved. Friendship doesn’t leave you to the mercy of a heroic leap in virtue. Friendship silently mortifies oneself as a testimony of love. It readily crucifies one’s own passions and interests so that those of a friend can be redeemed.

We just stay where we are

I can understand just staying where you are. It is difficult to take a dip and contemplate how it would be to learn swimming. It is easy to contemplate but difficult to take the leap in to the cold water. It is easy to just stay where you are: I don’t know to swim. But this list is endless. Who really doesn’t want to learn a musical instrument or read a profound and moving book or watch a musical performance that leaves you blushing and child-like, or trek the cold, moist and wet mountain or take children on a camp or listen to a wise person share his experience. We all can contemplate this, but difficult to actually give ourselves to our contemplation. We eventually stay where we are. It is easy to go with life not bothering, not trying harder, not going out of your way to make someone happy, not trying to intervene in another’s life as it is too much of a discomfort and we are afraid of what they will think. Life is good however it is, live and let live. We just stay where we are, believing what we want, doing what we feel, living each day unable to tell one day from another, unable to tell one hue from another on a canvas. It takes courage to feel accountable. It takes courage to grieve and to burst out in enthusiasm. It takes courage to be cheerful all day. It takes courage to believe that one is a child of God and so one has to seek Him in all things. It is easy to stay where you are, to preach a religion of love and brotherhood because everyone loves Love and agrees that we have a common brotherhood but difficult to imagine an undying faith, a sustaining relationship with God and a journey of transformation. This is difficult. Love and brotherhood is easy, they are lofty words, no one tries to delve deeper, what really that love means. So we can keep saying the same things on and on. We just stay where we are.

Faith in a post modern world

Temptations come in strange often creative ways. One of the strongest temptations yet underrated and under talked about is the temptation to think nothing really counts or has meaning or is supernatural or my actions, my smile, my courage, my love was just a passing moment and does not possess eternal consequences and effects. These temptations subtly throw darts on one’s faith and deflate the enthusiasm on a dry afternoon or a sulking evening when everyone is busy doing what is done every day. Conversations aren’t exciting, people don’t have inspiring faces, everyone simply looks like they have come to fill their stomach gluttonously and get back to work in an equally reluctant fashion. Everything around seems lacking significance and just another purposeless moment. It is at these moments when you look around and you see hounds racing toward your heart, what now looks like juicy meat in order to dispel your sense of grandeur about faith, about a Lord who died for you and that it is not worth fighting for, it is not worth living, everything is but a evolutionary process and instinct. Just pass through it and have a good time. This, I believe is the intellectual decoy of The Enemy which he uses when your heart doesn’t seem to be fired up and you have not enthusiasm to go with. This is The Enemy’s world and you are playing an eternal game in his corrupting and perishing backyard. He is going to play hard, on your mind by crushing entirely or making us believe what we hold on to, Love in Creation, Justice in Condemnation and Mercy in Redemption is but a mere delusion and a romantic fairy tale. And he is going to attack your heart with all the shallowness and mediocrity around establishing that the heart cannot love for there is no such thing as love. Each one only looks after himself. There are prayers we say shut within our rooms. There are prayers we say like thoughts shooting out of our heart when we think of people, aspirations. There are prayers we say when we think deeply on a virtue or on an event. But to overcome this temptation of nothing really counts is a battle field prayer, a war cry, choosing ‘faith and meaning’ and standing your ground on enemy line. This is nothing short of an act of faith in a modern and post-modern world.

The man who loves

Love makes us leave everything in order to serve the lover. No sooner has the phone rang, than he has left his books and his pen, he has stopped eating and forgotten himself. Some leave their bath when the phone beeps, for the call they are expecting. Some spend all day waiting for the letter or email. Love makes us cut off all the attachments. Everything else seems unimportant and unessential save the affection of the lover, to be at his or her feet and to serve him.

Prayer requires often at least an iota of such love. Where do I go, Lord, my hope is in you? A man who cuts off all the many little things vying for his heart, those men or women vying for a minute of his time, who switches off the TV or the iPOD, or minimizes the website, or gets off the phone call or stops talking or studying because it is time for Prayer. This man is in love. It takes love to pray, more than anything else. All of us can dance and watch a movie or cuddle a loved one. But many of us cannot always listen to another or talk to another. We are into everything but love. The man who leaves everything and sits down to pray listens and talks. He is in love.

Two contradictions: Sanctity and Comfort

Comfort and sanctity can not go hand in hand. In this world, all pursue comfort whereas in reality, it is a garden to grow sanctity. It is the battle field where soldiers of sanctity are born but what is left of us, comfort-driven men, are merchants and traders of pleasures: one for another. Comfort sees the joy of rest and Sanctity sees the joy of watching the neighbor at rest. Sanctity is always trying to protect itself in a Man who wishes to be always at work. Through work, he guards his sanctity for work is harsh, work has thorns, work has sweat and work presupposes humility. Work and discipline embraces many little crosses which adds more coal to the fire of Sanctity. Comfort avoid all crosses, where there is no cross, there is no sanctity. Comfort seeks the conventions of the world, to live life as a king, sprawled on a couch hands outstretched, a visible glory. But sanctity seeks only greatness. It hides its glory portraying the ordinariness of the man without and greatness of the soul within.

Original Sin: The trophyism of human nature

I have a friend who apologized to me a couple of days ago. A few days later he apologized that he apologized. While digging deeper into his struggles, he shared with me the following. He had neglected a particular favor I had asked of him. He was busy with many things and those things turned into obstacles for granting me my favor. As he realized it, he apologized.

But he said he felt a longing to apologize. Somewhere deep inside of him was an intention however little and dormant that ‘I am a good person as I am apologizing for my mistake. I have the magnanimity to accept it’ we all are no different from my friend

Man can never have a purified intention. This is the doctrine of Original Sin. It says that Man’s intentions and purpose for doing things got corrupted and he since then has to put much effort to have rectitude of intention. He can give but cautiously doubting the other rather than trusting. He can dispense knowledge but liberally wishing to present his eloquence than to edify the other. He can do a lot of selfless work and when it is time for glory, he may be unable to discern how much the work is selfish and selfless. He can help a friend and not know if he wills to do it because he desires the friend’s good, whether he would do it if his friend was his competitor, whether he is doing it because he has spare time and he has anyways nothing more useful to do. He can donate but wonders what point is donation if no one knows about it or if it is not appreciated.

Basically, with Original sin, Man desired self-glory and hence our intentions have been perverted. Whenever it comes to doing anything that does not involve ourselves, we somehow manage to include ourselves whether in trumpeting our contributions, desiring to be the funniest, or simply to be different and seek attention. The first Man desired to be like God, his first sin, known as Original Sin. Its effects today are seeking ourselves through everything.

And this has imprisoned us. Somehow every good thing you want to do will come with a tinge of self-interest which mostly roots in pride: seeking the glory of self. Humble people perhaps the saints may have had more rectitude of intention than most of us. My friend apologized found scores of people to apologize and thank. While it is really noble to apologize, how much of it is caused by a contrite heart that is really sorry for its sin is left to introspection.

We all have perceptions of ourselves. We are fooling ourselves if we think we are awful people. More or less every one of us has some vague perception that we are good people. We think-‘I am not like the bad world everyone is discussing over coffee’. So while we generally or vaguely accept that we are good people, we are concerned when not having said sorry or thanked the person enough, because we are scared people might not think we are good anymore. If we know we are good and others share the same opinion, it is our greatest treasure. “I have to do things faster as they all know me as very efficient and independent”. We don’t ask for help and often mess things up. “I have to study this well as I am known as a good student”. We try to go out of our way to prove people right. Our action or atonement is more caused by worry of our goodness being at stake than our contrition for being fallen creatures.

And hence we are imprisoned by our perception of self- ‘I am a good person’. Many times we are going to do things well or quickly or neatly because we want to showcase to others we are fine people. We want to be little gods everywhere seeking self-glory wherever we can. We are imprisoned by these perceptions and it is not going to go away anytime soon unless one has a humble and contrite heart. For a humble and contrite heart, God does not despise¹. I now understand in so many ways what Jesus means when he says, I am the truth. It means all goodness and grace comes from him.

We have muddled and confounded our intentions and perceptions of things. Often we can say we are good Christians and deep inside of us always aspiring to better our image. Many highly esteem us but we won’t stop until they keep little trophies in their drawing rooms. We really seem to believe that we are good people and it all seems to come from us because we choose it or cooperate with good things we do. Jesus says this truth shall set you free. The truth simply is that the angel said to Joseph: She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins²

We keep forgetting that if Jesus was sent to save the world, of course we are sinful people. If it wasn’t so, then why would a savior had to be sent to suffer and die for our sins? We are imprisoned in our perceptions until we accept mercy that no matter how much we try, how much we try to grow in love, virtue, and grace, we cannot completely get rid of pride.

All of the saints died still considering themselves sinners that God must have mercy upon. They were simply adhering to the truth that set them free. We are all sinners the sooner we know it, the sooner we stop this self-investment of creating trophies of ourselves in the other people’s houses. That is why humble people who don’t have pride allow God to do great things within them. For they go not where glory lies but renounce all those desires being ready to be broken, wasted, and trampled upon so that the path is straightened for God to do his work.

1 Psalms 51:17

2 Matthew 1:21