Thinking
of things French on Bastille Day led to the French writer from the era of the
Revolution, Père Jean Nicholas Grou.
While his comments are from over 200 years ago, they seem to me to be
very pertinent to our condition today.
In The School of Jesus Christ he wrote:
If we look
into our hearts, we shall be filled with confusion when we see there the mean,
mercenary ideas that form the bond of our intercourse with God.
Are we not
of the number of those who, like [those of other religions], have no object in
their prayers but temporal benefits, those who pray earnestly for the fatness
of the earth, but never ask for the dew of heaven? Are not our churches full [1795] whenever
public calamities overtake us, and quite deserted in times of prosperity? When our domestic affairs are disturbed, or
we are involved in a vexatious lawsuit, or are in danger of some serious loss
we become very devout, we resort to prayer, and ask our priests and pious
friends to help us. When our life, or
the life of our husband or a beloved child is in danger, we have Masses said
[refers to an offering to the priest with the understanding that the Mass [worship/communion
service] will be celebrated for the donor’s intention - the offering considered
a gift toward the priest’s salary], we begin Novenas [nine successive days of
public or private prayer for a special intention, accompanied by an offering -
the offering considered a gift toward the priest’s salary] and invoke the
Saints [asking a deceased person whom the Church has recognized as being in
heaven to intercede with God in prayer for a personal concern, such asking
often accompanied by lighting a candle in the church and making an offering to
the church to pay for the cost of the candle].
Events and circumstances awaken our religion, as though there were no
need to pray to God except in illness and sorrow. As soon as affairs take a turn for the better
and the danger is past, our devotion vanishes; the most we think of doing is to
thank God for the successful end of our troubles; after a short act of
gratitude we forget Him, and think of nothing but our pleasures. Speaking generally, it is true to say that
the necessities and accidents of life form the main subject and the actuating
motive of the prayers of the ordinary Christian.
Do you
blame us, they may ask, for thus appealing to God in times of temporal
need? I am very far from doing so, since
it is God’s own intention to call us back to Himself by such needs, and we can
do nothing better than appeal to Him on these occasions. What I blame is that he is never invoked
except for these needs, as though there were no other blessings and no other
evils than those of the present life.
What I blame is that God is forgotten as soon as these needs are
supplied, as soon as these evils are averted and these blessings secured. Truly it is altogether too material, too
carnal, to make piety a matter of such aims and events as these.
Just a
reminder for those who might wonder about the [un-needed] explanations, that
these notes go to several younger people for whom certain terms and/or
historical information are not familiar.
Yours & His,
DED
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