| CHRISTIAN MASOCHISM: INTO THE 21ST CENTURY |
Catholic ritual self-harming behaviour aka "the mortification of the flesh" — it's not just a thing of the past.
I always knew that "self-discipline," not in the simple ordinary sense of getting up regularly, taking exercise, limiting caloric intake to a healthy minimum, and not shirking one's worldly responsibilities, but in the drastic sense, has always been part of the Church, and that it had become less and less favorably-regarded by the hierarchy long before Vatican II. "Don't do it without talking to your confessor!" was the rule, even in old books of spirituality.
What I didn't realize until recently was that it had come back, under the auspices of "Traditional" (or rather, as I have also heard it described, "reactionary" which fits better I must say) Catholicism. Just one more thing about Opus Dei that gives me the heebie-jeebies — I already knew about the secret codes, the ethic of lying-is-okay (for the good of The Cause), the control freakiness, and a lot of other very unChristian behaviours (many of which they share with the Legionaries) from way back. I grew up in this Neo-Traditionalist movement, remember, though none of my family afaik were Opus Dei. (But who would know, necessarily? Since they tell people to lie about it. See, the Illuminati jokes make sense.)
What I didn't know until about a year or two ago was, that they don't dissuade people from self-harming penitential behaviours, the way most people's spiritual advisors do after they reveal that they want to emulate the more extreme behaviours of medieval and later saints. They don't even encourage it.
They require it.
http://www.odan.org/corporal_mortification.htm
http://www.odan.org/tw_inner_world_of_opus_dei.htm
Now note, that although the above photos and descriptions come from an Opus Dei "recovery" site, Opus Dei doesn't deny the truth of the use of the cilice and, erm, "discipline." They laugh it off by saying that it isn't any more painful or difficult than what women put themselves through to be fashionable or men do to stay fit and muscular.
I don't know about you, but while I thoroughly disapprove of the modern version of foot-binding and of athleticism taken to body-damaging lengths, I don't exactly think that a daily flogging and wearing of a spiked chain, tight enough to make permanent lesions, is on the same level as high heels or running. Especially when it's a requirement to "belong" to a group that makes it very hard to leave.
Especially when it goes with such extreme misogyny and sexual segregation as I also learned that Opus Dei indulges in. —Yes, I'm freaked by this. I really did think we (i.e. developed-world educated Catholics) knew better these days.
So then the defense of the practice, as I read in several Usenet posts as well as Opus Dei propaganda, is that we "moderns" who "just don't understand" shouldn't presume to criticize it, because great saints in the past did it and besides, it's always been done, and is presently done, under the guidance of wise, discerning, well-trained spiritual advisors. Shut up and be in awe of those more pious and diligent in their spiritual life, you unwashed half-heretic you, is the implication. Who are you to question the wisdom of Holy Mother Church who has allowed the practice historically, or to criticize those who seek to return to the holiness of past generations in these degenerate days?
So, we are to trust the "discernment" of those wise and holy clergy
of the past? I'm not going to say, in historical snobbery, that what could
they have known back then in such unsophisticated times, before psychology
etc etc. I'm just going to let their words speak for themselves. Here are
a couple excerpts from the bio of Anne Catherine Emmerich, in the preface
to Dolorous Passion, (I put in the paragraph breaks to make it easier
to read) and you can judge for yourself:
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[...] She was accustomed to say that useless actions were sinful, and that when we denied our bodily senses any gratification of this kind, we were amply repaid by the progress which we made in the interior life, in the same manner as pruning renders vines and other fruit trees more productive. [...] In many ways her position in the convent was excessively painful. Not one of her companions, nor even any priest or doctor, could understand her case. She had learned, when living among poor peasants, to hide the wonderful gifts which God had bestowed on her; but the case was altered now that she was in familiar intercourse with a large number of nuns, who, though certainly good and pious, were filled with ever-increasing feelings of curiosity, and even of spiritual jealousy in her regard. Then, the contracted ideas of the community, and the complete ignorance of the nuns concerning all those exterior phenomena by which the interior life manifests itself, gave her much to endure, the more so, as these phenomena displayed themselves in the most unusual and astonishing manner. She heard everything that was said against her, even when the speakers were at on end of the convent and she at the other, and her heart was most deeply wounded as if by poisoned arrows. Yet she bore all patiently a lovingly without showing that she knew what was said of her. More than once charity impelled her to cast herself at the feet of some nun who was particularly prejudiced against her, and ask her pardon with tears. Then, she was suspected of listening at the doors, for the private feelings of dislike entertained against her became known, no one knew how, and the nuns felt uncomfortable and uneasy, in spite of themselves, when in her company. Whenever the rule (the minutest point of which was sacred in her eyes) was neglected in the slightest degree, she beheld in spirit each infringement, and at times was inspired to fly to the spot where the rule was being broken by some infringement of the vow of poverty, or disregards of the hours of silence, and she would then repeat suitable passages from the rule, without having ever learned them. She thus became an object of aversion to all those religious who broke the rule; and her sudden appearance among them had almost the effect of apparitions. God had bestowed upon her the gift of tears to so great an extent, that
she often passed whole hours in the church weeping over the sins and ingratitude
of men, the sufferings of the Church, the imperfections of the community,
and her own faults. But these tears of sublime sorrow could be understood
by none but God, before whom she shed them, and men attributed them to
mere caprice, a spirit of discontent, or some other similar cause.
A kindhearted servant belonging to the monastery attended upon her out of charity, and an aged emigrant priest, who said Mass in the convent, remained also with her. These three individuals, being the poorest of the Community, did not leave the convent until the spring of 1812. She was still very unwell, and could not be moved without great difficulty. The priest lodged with a poor widow who lived in the neighbourhood, and Anne Catherine had in the same house a wretched little room on the ground-floor, which looked on the street. There she lived, in poverty and sickness, until the autumn of 1813. Her ecstasies in prayer, and her spiritual intercourse1 with the invisible world, became more and more frequent. She was about to be called to a state with which she was herself but imperfectly acquainted, and in order to enter which she did nothing but submissively abandon herself to the will of God. Our Lord was pleased about this time to imprint upon her virginal body the stigmas of his cross and of his crucifixion, which were to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Gentiles folly, and to many persons who call themselves Christians, both the one and the other. From her very earliest childhood she had besought our Lord to impress the marks of his cross deeply upon her heart, that so she might never forget his infinite love for men; but she had never thought of receiving any outward marks. Rejected by the world, she prayed more fervently than ever for this end. On the 28th of August, the feast of St. Augustine, the patron of her
order, as she was making this prayer in bed, ravished in ecstasy and her
arms stretched forth, she beheld a young man approach her surrounded with
light. It was under this form that her Divine Spouse usually appeared to
her, and he now made upon her body with his right hand the mark of a common
cross. From this time there was a mark like a cross upon her bosom, consisting
of two bands crossed, about three inches long and one wide. Later the skin
often rose in blisters on this place, as if from a burn, and when these
blisters burst a burning colourless liquid issued from them, sometimes
in such quantities as to soak through several sheets. She was long without
perceiving what the case really was, and only thought that she was in a
strong perspiration. The particular meaning of this mark has never been
known.
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Okay, so the obvious answer doesn't occur to these learned and devout folks back then and now who have put forth her cause for canonization over the decades, that we have a neurotic drama queen here? That sometimes a burn is just a burn, perhaps? If burns and surface abrasions are signs of sanctity, then the kids I knew in school who used to play with their lighters, or stick pins through their arms, to horrify their friends and out of sheer boredom — not even getting into methodical self-harming coping behaviours here — were surely saints. And I know enough sleight-of-hand myself, and about it, to know that people are very unobservant, see what they expect, and you can do all kinds of things "before their very eyes" and get away with it, even without being a practiced magician. (In the non-sorcerous, prestidigitation way.)
Maybe, just maybe it was an open flame, readily available in an age when candles were the the only available indoor lighting, maybe, just maybe that cross of blisters was produced by the application of heat? Just an idea? And whenever I have blisters, from being careless cooking or overdoing walking or whatever, they usually give forth a "clear, colorless liquid" — does that make me a living saint too? She got mystical sores that stopped her from doing normal chores like everyone else? How — convenient, is the word that leaps to mind.
Isn't the fact that everyone else in the convent, including the chaplains and her doctors, thought she was faking and looney, a sign that perhaps she was just that? Though no doubt her ill-health was in part genuine from the start, and became even more so, still remember, she wasn't just living in an age pre-antibiotics and decent health care, she was given to depriving herself and staying in bed due to ill health, and a) anorexia wrecks your body, plus b) coddling weakness by lying down all the time and not getting any exercise and being finicky w/re food generally will make you weaker and more vulnerable to other ailments. Lots of exercise is wonderful for your immune system, and an immune system in good shape is better than antibiotics in all but the worst cases. And this was known even back in the 1600s, as well as in Jane Austen's day, which is why great houses were built with "long galleries" so that the residents could still take walks even when the weather was bad.
Or is it more plausible that she mystically sensed that they were all talking about her behind her back, and saying that she was a fruitcake and an obnoxious spiritually-puffed-up brat, or is it more plausible that she obsessively cared about what people thought of her, and listened like crazy and sneaked around and then denied it afterwards while trying to get sympathy by saying I know you all hate me, and I forgive you—?
They misunderstood her. They were just all jealous. Only her dream-lover Legol — erm, Jesus — understood how she really hurt inside...
See what I mean? Why I'm not impressed by wielding the "authority of revered elders" any more, or why I don't think they were or are qualified to make psyche judgments? And this dates back to even before they used the "stupidity defense" in the sex-abuse scandal, which really damages the authority and credibility of the hierarchy with regard to claims of a deep knowledge of human nature — or the human sexuality aspect of it.
They don't just fail the test under conditions of sophisticated modern science: they fail it by 14th century standards. Chaucer would be laughing his head off at these "wise" clerics being taken in by Emmerich, and by so many other histrionic characters and their charades over the past seven centuries. (Stigmata only go back that far — they never appeared before then. There is a whole school of retconning devoted to explaining this (there were new challenges as people were more immoral and lax then than ever before (even in Byzantium, yeah right) and so God sent new "signs" to bring people to faith. They couldn't be copying them from the newly-popular "realistic" crucifixes showing up in churches and homes around then, could they…? Funny how the exegetes don't seem to have any explanation of why stigmata never look the same from one "holy victim" to another — but often do look like the wounds on the stigmatics' own personal religious statues and paintings!)
Hyperscrupulous, melodramatic, self-centered, using her excessive displays of piety to get out of work and make life hell for everyone else around her, escaping the normal consequences of being a whiny, self-rightous little snot by being helpless and sickly and yet at the same time abusing their bodies in the service of others, unasked-for, defusing or at least avoiding deserved anger by the guilt trick — I know people like this. They're the religious equivalent of the person who is so "nice" and "giving" that they constantly abase themselves and make everyone else miserable at get-togethers, a phony and selfish — yet thoroughly genuine, in the psychological sense, because it's sincere due to self-delusion and denial — and manipulative generosity and selflessness. Needy centers-of-attention, that's what.
"Just a little bit of dry toast!" as Screwtape exults. I'm certain that Emmerich believed that she was special, oh so special, and maybe even consciously blanked out poking and scraping and burning herself to imprint mystical erotic gifts on her body. I'm not so certain that she was favoured by God. But I'm quite certain that if she had been living today, she'd have been a Holy Victim living out her ordeals on the internet via LJ or mail-list...
I'm not naming any names, because there are too many in the fandom. But we've all seen this happen before, and doubtless will again.
And what about that doing "nothing but submissively abandon herself to the will of God," so that "Our Lord was pleased about this time to imprint upon her virginal body the stigmas of his cross and of his crucifixion"—?
Is there not something intensely squicky about all this fascination with bleeding virginal bodies submissive to a godlike male, on the part of old celibate guys belonging to a religion with undeniably-misogynistic strains? It reminds me of some of the weirder of late Heinlein novels, the ones where he fantasizes about being a man in a woman's body, and gets all wiggly about the thought of being penetrated and having periods. Granted, you get that all over the world, with the rituals and freakishness among most males about female biology, from primitive tribes to developed-world college students, and of course the most of it in our culture is connected with religion, coming right out of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and the lingering question into Christian practice of whether or not menstruating women should be barred from attending mass, and the association/contrast between mystical sacrificial animal blood on the altars, and "magical" contaminating women's blood entering the sacred space. "The blood is the life," after all.2 But again, as with Emmerich's dwelling on the bloody, abused body of her Heavenly Spouse, I don't really think the eros is sublimated very far at all, here.
IOW, don't, on my advice, take the words of stigmatized ecstatics very seriously, whether or not the Vatican has refused to declare them false from the start, even if they're saints and venerables. But don't just take my advice. Use your critical thought, examine the evidence that I have provided, seek out more, and make your own assessments, as if you were indeed the Church-appointed Devil's Advocate, on the basis of Occam's Razor (i.e. the simplest explanation may be right) and what is most probable: pious fraud, or God the Divine Sex Fiend, seducing helpless but willing maidens who pliantly, passively await the return of their supernatural lover, marking them with painful-yet-pleasurable wounds as signs of His possession, rendering them ever more weak, sickly and helpless, until they die and are united with Him forever in His harem of nubile Brides beyond the grave…
(Wow, it really does fit the ObRef to Bram Stoker more than I even realized until writing this—! There's a dissertation topic for anyone who wants it: the connection between Gothic Romances, Late Counter Reformation piety, and the Sanctification of the Vampire...)
—And if a spiritual advisor tells you you need to tie spiked chains around your thighs and beat yourself while praying to Mary to control lustful sexual impulses and the weakness of the flesh, and you're feeling inclined to agree — go seek professional help. Either from a psychiatrist, or from your local dominatrix, who is probably much better equipped to handle the safety aspects, and is at least going to be honest about what is going on here. Spiritual pride and the conviction that one is more godly and blessed than one's contemporary coreligionists is less likely to be the automatic result, I should think.
(Though instead of isolating one's self as a defense against "unchastity," the more authentically Judeo-Christian thing to do would be embrace one's physical identity rather than trying to be a second-class, discorporate, immortal — which you ain't and ain't never gonna be, but if you are going to insist on being a Neo-Manichean at least do it with verve and fun and honest humility and poverty, like the Shakers — and like St. Francis accept this rather intractable and mulish and silly physical self, and become properly socialized (which means occasional kicks and snaps and hard knocks, as a herd animal among fellow herd animals) instead of hiding from the opposite sex.)
But better yet — if you feel irresistably drawn to mortification of the flesh to commiserate the sufferings endured by Jesus, there's a far more effective way of sharing in the Body of Christ than shutting yourself up in your room and indulging in self-inflicted injuries. Go help build houses for the poor, volunteer that time instead at the local pantry or shelter, strain muscles in activity and tediousness, stand on hard floors moving things around, learn about shame by being shouted at or ordered about by frazzled impatient fallible human beings, and don't think about how noble and holy and wonderful you are for offering it all up, just do it!
Or if you can't manage that, if your life doesn't allow it for whatever reason, instead of maundering over soft-core religious abusefic, then join in the Divine Mercy by not changing the channel, not turning over the page, when something grim and dreadful and real comes along, but instead reading reports of human rights abuses — and not just the ones that talk about bad things happening to Christians! — and poverty and illnesses and maybe think of something constructive to do to ameliorate the endless suffering on earth, instead of fantasizing about it happening safely in BibleFantasyLand, but at least empathize enough to understand why most of the complaints in the Law and the Prophets about people falling away from their God are specifically about violence, oppression and social injustice — even when it seems at first glance to be talking about idolatry merely. Even the most sacred symbol can be made into an idol: — consider the story of the Bronze Serpent of Healing,3 and its follow-up.4
Remember: "Inasmuch as ye have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto me"5 — and also, "Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and naked and alone, and help you not?"6
It's time to walk the walk, people. The Via Dolorosa is here,
right outside your front door.
2Biblical prohibition on vampirism:
"Only be sure not to eat the
blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the
flesh."
—Deuteronomy 12:20-25
"The doctor here will bear me
out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening
my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through
the medium of his blood, relying of course, upon the Scriptural phrase,
'For the blood is the life.' Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain
nostrum has vulgarized the truism to the very point of contempt.
Isn't that true, doctor?"
—Dracula,
Bram Stoker, 1897
Dracula's slave Renfield here explains his pathological behaviour, and it sounds like there must have been some popular health supplement that used the phrase as an advertising slogan, but I can't identify it. Though it wouldn't be surprising, given that this was the era in which the laxative giant Fletcher's Castoria wanted to be allowed to help pay for the Statue of Liberty — on condition that they were allowed to sling a giant banner all across the base for an entire year. I came across this serious proposal in a century-old magazine: it's no joke.
3 Numbers 21:4-9
4 2 Kings 18:4
5 Matthew 25:40 (KJV)
6 Freely abridged from Matthew 25:44; q.v. & ff.