Last movie you saw?

[Greg]

My experience of people like Jerome is when they begin like that they almost never go on to lead productive lives.  They don't become first class priests or religious that inspire people to be holy, nor do they raise large functional Catholic families.

They either become fringe loony priests like Fr. Pfeiffer or fathers of weirdo families living on welfare because they won't work of run a profitable business.  To much temptation leaving their front door.

That's why I tend to ignore them.

There is a balance to be struck and I look to successful people to strike it.

[Mono no aware]

I think the Curé of Ars, though, would be considered a "first class priest" who "inspired people to be holy."  The same would go for almost all the saints and religious and popes cited by Jerome.  I guess you could say "that was then, and this is now," and conclude that their recommendations only pertained to a bygone age, but that's relativism.  It's easy to say that people are "weirdos" or "dysfunctional," but Jerome would probably contend that at the end of it all, salvation is what really matters.  An earthly tenure of 70 or 80 years is nothing compared to eternity, so it would probably be a mistake to focus on (or judge by) material success here.  "Striking the right balance" might be confused with lukewarmness or mediocrity.  (Heaven forbid anyone be a weirdo).

[Greg]

I said nothing about material success.

If a poor super-holy Trad produces 8 children who grew up 5 to a room sleeping in submarine sized bunk beds, wearing SVP clothes but at least 7 are mentally stable and happy and productive, then I consider that a roaring success, especially if his wife is happy too.

However, if they spend a life as a singleton, without a formal religious vocation and have nothing tangible to show other than their pious mutterings, then I don't consider that a success.  Talk is cheap and I've no way to judge whether they are privately very holy or actually hiding a multitude of perversions.  My experience has been that the people who shout about the evils of the internet, books, skirt-lengths, make-up and girls going to university are usually those you have delivered very little in their own lives.

The holiest singleton I knew at church growing up was Ted Atkinson.  He was strict but Jerome made him look like a liberal.

[Greg]

Watched this movie about Edward Snowden

http://putlocker.io/watch/EdZAVpGp-snowden.html

[Mono no aware]

I said nothing about material success.

You had mentioned "running a profitable business," so I took it to mean you considered some measure of material success important.  You're right, though, if a person is "super-holy" but poor, with happy children and a happy wife, that would be a "roaring success."

If you prefer to make it a question of marital success, I will agree that it does seem most of these latter-day Savonarolas are single, but I hardly consider that surprising.  The further away you get from the status quo, the smaller becomes your pool of prospective mates.  That goes for anything.  You can see it even among traditional Catholics who aren't so-called "rigorists."  In many of the romance threads, they concede that the difficulty of finding a good spouse is such that they'll even settle for "conservative Novus Ordo," and in many cases it's recommended that they try finding a mate in a foreign country, such as Poland or the Philippines.  And that's just the people who are on the liberal side of your Ted Atkinson.

It still wouldn't make a difference, though, as far as salvation is concerned.  As I said, Jerome is concerned primarily with salvation.  Given "the fewness of the saved," he does have logic on his side in assuming that the "super-holy" probably have the best chance at the beatific vision.  I would imagine that running a profitable business or winning the hand of a lady are strictly of secondary importance as far as he's concerned.  Rightfully so.

The last movie I saw was The Autopsy of Jane Doe.  It would not, alas, meet with Jerome's approval.

[martin88nyc]

What happened to baby Jane. creepily humorous and captivating

[Greg]

Running an unprofitable business is stupid.

You'd be better off getting a job

[Greg]

Undortunately unless someone makes some spare money along the way there are no chapels for mass or gasoline, car maintenance, airfares, groceries and housing for the priests.

If we don't have children there's no future.

You can run around naked because they'll be no Catholics to scandalise.

[Mono no aware]

Running an unprofitable business is stupid.

Right.  But running a business, whether profitable or unprofitable, is not a criteria for salvation.  So we can table that one.  There is really nothing "tangible to show" except for one's outward behavior and declared standards.  "Heroic virtue."

If we don't have children there's no future.

That is correct.  But I don't see anyone arguing for Shaker-style dogmatic celibacy.  There are "rigorist" families.  I was just offering that the reason there are probably more singletons of that variety is due to the fact of the shrinking demographic: the further out one goes from the norm, the fewer prospective mates there will naturally be.

[Non Nobis]

..
Given "the fewness of the saved," he does have logic on his side in assuming that the "super-holy" probably have the best chance at the beatific vision.  I would imagine that running a profitable business or winning the hand of a lady are strictly of secondary importance as far as he's concerned.  Rightfully so.

The last part of the "Litany of Humility"   says:

"That others become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus grant me the grace to desire it"

Holiness for each of us is to do God's will for us.  He does not want everyone to be a priest, or a hermit, or other things that are "holier in themselves".  He wants us to aim for the holiest things and make them spiritually primary in our lives, but our attention and time may sometimes need to be focused on secondary things, according to our vocation and state in life. A man who makes himself a hermit thinking only of God is not holy if he did not pray to know what God wanted him to do.

[Greg]

Right.  But running a business, whether profitable or unprofitable, is not a criteria for salvation.

[/quote]

It's a criteria.  Just not the only criteria.

People who run profitable businesses, employ others, feed their families and make the economy work to the betterment of all.  That is an objectively good thing to do in comparison with say sucking on the government teat.  Jesus and Mary were clothed and fed because St. Joseph was a manufacturer of wooden items.  He ran a small business.

He didn't go on welfare and spend all day homeschooling Jesus in foreign languages, Jewish history and philosophy.

The chapels we attend are, very largely, paid for by the gifts and endowments of people who had excess wealth they didn't need to spend on their daily living needs.  They either made that excess wealth by living below their means, or, having a successful business so that their income was in excess of what any reasonable person needs to spend.

Jerome might be a saint and super example to us all.  My observation, however, has been that those who suggest Trads should shun the world altogether and live ascetic lives - won't usually lift a finger to help them.  There is too much scolding and not much love.

When does the advice dispenser turn up at the family of 7 children to baby-sit so that the married couple and oldest child can do the five first Saturdays which normally involves a long drive to find a Trad mass?  When does he lend $1000 to a newly married Trad to cover an expensive month?  Something a single man with no plans to ever marry CAN reasonably do because he does not have the same necessary expenses as the married man.  If you can only afford Ramen Noodles because you have decided not to work, then it is not a sacrifice to eat Ramen Noodles.  If you give up a Sirloin Steak and a bottle of wine and spend the money on charity it is a sacrifice.

What I've often seen is immature, rather selfish singletons, in their early 30s with their Tolkien and Star Wars Action character collections lecturing a father of 3 children under 5 that the "Teletubbies are Satanic", "the Sound of Music is evil" or some other dross.

The best way to sell holiness to people is to live it.  Not just preach it on the internet.

In real life people soon work out whether you are Ted Atkinson or Wiggy.

[Mono no aware]

..
Given "the fewness of the saved," he does have logic on his side in assuming that the "super-holy" probably have the best chance at the beatific vision.  I would imagine that running a profitable business or winning the hand of a lady are strictly of secondary importance as far as he's concerned.  Rightfully so.

The last part of the "Litany of Humility"   says:

"That others become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus grant me the grace to desire it"

Holiness for each of us is to do God's will for us.  He does not want everyone to be a priest, or a hermit, or other things that are "holier in themselves".  He wants us to aim for the holiest things and make them spiritually primary in our lives, but our attention and time may sometimes need to be focused on secondary things, according to our vocation and state in life. A man who makes himself a hermit thinking only of God is not holy if he did not pray to know what God wanted him to do.

Right.  I don't think the "singletons" (and that's a good word) are arguing for hermeticism for everyone, or even necessarily for themselves.  In many of these cases they openly lament their lack of a spouse, and wish that their fortunes in that regard were otherwise.  "A good woman is hard to find," &c. 

But I hope I did not misrepresent Jerome (or anyone like him) by giving the impression that he willfully and deliberately eschewed making a living and finding a mate.  I know nothing about him insofar as that goes.  He said he was unemployed (on disability) and single, but nothing else besides.  I don't know what his precise circumstances were; in charity I can only give him the benefit of the doubt.  When I said "running a profitable business or winning the hand of a lady are strictly of secondary importance," I only meant to convey that they would presumably come second to holiness—not that they would be considered inconsequential.  The way I worded it probably came across as flippant (flippancy being a problem I have).  My apologies to Jerome in his absentia if I gave the impression he was a lazy slacker.  It does feel a little awkward and unkind to be discussing him this long after he's gone.  I was only trying to defend him against the latest insult, but now I fear I may've made it worse.

[Mono no aware]

Right.  But running a business, whether profitable or unprofitable, is not a criteria for salvation.

It's a criteria.  Just not the only criteria.

The chapels we attend are, very largely, paid for by the gifts and endowments of people who had excess wealth they didn't need to spend on their daily living needs.  They either made that excess wealth by living below their means, or, having a successful business so that their income was in excess of what any reasonable person needs to spend.

Jerome might be a saint and super example to us all.  My observation, however, has been that those who suggest Trads should shun the world altogether and live ascetic lives - won't usually lift a finger to help them.  There is too much scolding and not much love.

Point well taken.  If there is "too much scolding and not much love," then the tact and approach is lacking.  The person we were discussing was frequently accused of having an "annoying" and "cranky" style (I would offer merely "brusque," personally) which, it was said, hindered his message. 

How best to administer fraternal correction is a tricky business, I guess.  Everyone seems to love St. Nicholas for punching Arius in the face ("now that's some fraternal correction, bro!"), but then if you dispense your own message without a honeyed voice, delicate phrasing, or apparently some cash to spare, they tend to bristle.  At the end of the day, though, all these personality issues are irrelevant.  If a person is citing saints and popes and Church Fathers, then it's proper to address the things those saints and popes and Church Fathers said, not bicker over whether the person offering those citations is married or financially successful or likes Tolkien.  That's why I liked the guy who said, "let's face facts and get real: the Church Fathers were proto-Islamic puritans."  At least that's honest.  None of this needless whining over the personal life of the middle man.

[Chestertonian]

St Nicholas was jolly and generous the other 364 days of the year.  Greg's point is that the self proclaimed modesty/media consumption/homeschooling police are not paying women's dowries and making toys for the needy because they're too busy finding the devil in everything.  They could stand to take a  lesson from Santa but probably think believing in Santa is a mortal sin

[Mono no aware]

St Nicholas was jolly and generous the other 364 days of the year.  Greg's point is that the self proclaimed modesty/media consumption/homeschooling police are not paying women's dowries and making toys for the needy because they're too busy finding the devil in everything.  They could stand to take a  lesson from Santa but probably think believing in Santa is a mortal sin

Yes, I understood Greg's point.  That's why I said, "point well taken."  The bible verse most applicable here is probably James 1:27, where "religion clean and undefiled before God" is not only "to keep one's self unspotted from this world," but also "to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation." 

But I have no idea how we can know whether anyone is doing their almsgiving in public or in secret.  If someone is making arguments against worldliness and citing the saints and popes and Church Fathers, it seems the mature and charitable and reasoned response would be to address those issues and citations directly.  Rolling one's eyes and saying, "you sure could take a tip from Santa Claus, pal—but you probably think believing in Santa is a mortal sin" is a distraction.  I'm just saying this as a dispassionate observer.  It looks like you're deflecting away from his arguments to focus on his style or his character.  It seems like it might be some variation of an ad hominem tactic, but I can't quite put my finger on it.  For all I know, Jerome could've inherited a million dollars from his great-uncle yesterday and given it all to the Church and charities.  Or he could be venturing out of his home to trip blind people and rob old ladies (although that would certainly not cohere with the testimony of his friend).  Either way, it doesn't affect whether he was right or not about worldliness.  But here we are talking about his personality or his approach instead.  See?