RAMBLINGS ON LEPROSY, BAD COMPANY, AND UTOPIA

 

Dear Friends and Benefactors of the Society in Ireland,           

Last Sunday we read in the holy Gospel the story of Our Lord and the ten lepers. "There met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off" (Luke XVII, 12).

It made me remember an old motion picture on Blessed Father Damien of Molokai which moved me deeply when I was a child. This heroic Belgian priest died in 1889 in the "colony of death," at only 49 years of age, victim of the very leprosy whose moral and physical effects he tried to palliate during sixteen years of tireless apostolate. His life and death fulfilled the words of Bishop Maigret, who introduced him to his new faithful at the lepers' settlement of Kalaupapa: "This one will be a father to you, and he loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you, to live and die with you."

Rich or poor, erudite or ignorant, regardless of age and class, the lepers of Hawaii were taken from their homes to small islands or secluded compounds surrounded by impregnable mountain ridges. The practice in Father Damien's time regarding leprosy was almost identical to the religious and civil laws contemplating this terrible malady in the time of Our Lord.  In the ancient world, those who were afflicted with leprosy were considered impure, and made to dwell apart from the rest of mankind, in isolated areas amidst dreadful conditions. In accordance with these dispositions, the ten lepers whom the Saviour met on the road to Jerusalem remained afar off. And just as leprosy is an image of sin corroding the soul of the unrepented sinner, the separation of the world from the leper brings to mind the need to keep our distance from the company of those who are a danger for our soul. In plain words, to avoid bad company.

The Greeks of old, speaking about what would be the hardest thing to overcome in the world, would say that nothing is more difficult  than for an honest man to remain good among the ungodly. We seem to have forgotten that ancient natural wisdom, which Holy Scripture confirms again and again. For example, Tobias is highly praised because "when all went to the golden calves, he alone fled the company of all, and went to Jerusalem to the temple of the Lord, and there adored the Lord God of Israel" (Tobias I, 5). He kept his soul pure because he stayed away from the ungodly.

We modern men tend to imagine that we are invulnerable, that we can take care of ourselves and preserve ourselves spotless in the company of the worldly. Is this possible? Let us remember the case of St. Peter. When Our Lord at the last supper foretold His disciples that one of them would  betray him and deliver Him to His enemies, and that they would all be scandalized at Him that night, Peter arose and said determinedly: "Though all men shall be scandalized in thee, I will never be scandalized. Though I should die with thee, I will not deny thee." (Matthew XXVI, 33 ss.); "Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison, and to death." (Luke XXII, 33). And Peter actually lived up to his words shortly afterwards; for as soon as Judas and the soldiers entered the garden of Gethsemani, he drew his sword to protect his Master, and cut off the ear of Malchus, short of actually killing him. But later on, during the very same night, standing with the soldiers around the fire, when a servant accused him of being a disciple of Jesus... thrice he denied his Master and vowed he did not know Him!

Why is it that while Peter at the last supper gave most solemn promises of fidelity, and  in Gethsemani exhibited the courage and fury of a lion, only a few hours later he acted as a coward? It is because there he was in the company of Jesus and the other disciples, but here he found himself in the midst of evil men. A saintly environment spurred him on to good, evil associations led him to sin. Such is the power of bad company. If great St. Peter fell, who amongst us dare venture to approach danger and imagine that he will not fall?

This is what David sings in Psalm XVII: "With the holy thou wilt be holy, and with the innocent man thou wilt be innocent. And with the elect thou wilt be elect; and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted."

Sometimes we speculate about the reason for dramatic changes in our youth's behaviour, who neglect their religious practice, act strangely, and make life unliveable for everybody at home. Or we wonder about why formerly honest fellows descend into the hell of drugs, alcohol, gambling, impurity, even crime. Or simply, we would like to know why solid, traditionally formed cardinals, bishops, and priests can turn into destroyers of the Faith. I believe the answer is: bad frequentations, bad conversations, bad examples, bad readings... bad company!

Saint Paul does not hesitate to exhort us: "And we charge you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that  you withdraw yourselves from every brother who lives disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they have received of us" (II Thessalonians III, 6). Strive therefore to keep good companies and to shun the bad ones. With God's grace, fortified by the sacraments, by prayers, and mortification we all can learn to live in the world without belonging to it.  Not to hide from the world, mind you, but to conquer it.

This does not entail taking ourselves and the family to live in St. Kevin's caves at Glendalough, or to conjure up an utopian traditional Catholic Neverland. But it does require that we cultivate our frequentations, that we make efforts to establish durable links with those who have the Faith, sharing with them common interests and resources towards reasonable common goals. It requires as well that we establish strong Christian friendships with our fellow parishioners, that we cooperate in good spirit and happy heart with parish activities and associations, bringing families and individuals together. It demands that we become fearless and clever apostles of Jesus and Mary in the place of work, in the school, among friends and relatives.

In the incomparable words of Archbishop Lefebvre: "We have to build, while the others are demolishing. The crumbled citadels have to be rebuilt, the bastions of Faith have to be reconstructed; firstly the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of all times, which forms saints; then our chapels, monasteries, our large families, our enterprises faithful to the social politics of the Church, our politicians determined to make the politics of Jesus Christ - this is a whole fibre of Christian social life, Christian customs, Christian reflexes, which we have to restore!"

Only magnanimous souls can hear this call and answer it swiftly. May Jesus, Mary, and Joseph count us amongst this number.

           

                                                                                Father Ramón Anglés