Always Advent

I wrote recently about Helen Fielding’s novel Bridget Jones’s Diary (”Juxtaposition Review: Bridget Jones’s Diary and Children of Men“) and after reading the book I didn’t think I would enjoy the movie adaptation of Bridget Jones at all, so I put off watching it, with no real plans to do so.

However, I was at the library the other day and it was there, so I checked it out and watched it.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Don’t get me wrong: the movie is definitely not for children or even for teens. Like the book, it’s very very funny (especially if you enjoy British humor) but it’s vulgar, loaded with profanity, contains somewhat explicit sexual references and images and, on its surface, presents a view of human sexuality that is opposed to the Catholic understanding of it. For these reasons I probably wouldn’t recommend it for most adults, frankly.

Except for the fact that it is a pretty good fictional explication of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

“Huh?” you say.

As I was watching it, I kept thinking of Christopher West’s image of the dumpster versus the banquet. JP II says in Theology of the Body that men and women long for communion–true communion with one another and especially and ultimately with God. We are wired to long for that communion–the hope of Heaven. We are starving for love and connectedness.

Christopher West says that the modern world presents to love-starved men and women a vision of human sexuality that is equivalent to leading a food-starved person to a dumpster and telling him that’s as good as it gets. Modern sex–hooking up, shacking up, and so on–is dumpster diving. It is rubbish fed to people so desperate for love that they’ll settle for anything.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, presents love-starved men and women with a banquet of true love and connectedness in the practice of chaste married love and the understanding that all human love is a mere glimpse into the perfect communion of Heaven.

Bridget Jones is a stand-in for all men and women: she doesn’t want to be alone. She longs for connection. Daniel Cleaver is the dumpster. Mark Darcy is the banquet. Early in the movie, Bridget dives head first into the dumpster, gorges herself on garbage, and thinks she’s happy this way. The banquet is always there, in view. At first she can’t see it for what it truly is (the “sin makes you stupid” concept. Hat tip to Mark Shea.) but eventually she comes to see that the banquet is what she was really longing for.

To perceive this TOTB angle in a movie like Bridget Jones, you must be able to forgive quite a lot of vulgarity and crudity, but TOTB is there, and I’m glad for it–this was an extremely popular movie, so apparently a lot of people were exposed to the positive message that the dumpster does not satisfy and they should keep looking for “something extraordinary.”

The performances were excellent. I’ve seen the movie several times now and the principal actors are “something extraordinary,” especially Colin Firth, who plays Mark Darcy–the banquet. A subtle and fascinating performance.

Definitely not saying you should all go rent it and watch it. It might be offensive. The happy ending to the story is that instead of fornicating with the insufferable prat Daniel Cleaver, Bridget will now proceed to fornicate with the good man Mark Darcy. Oh well. That’s the way modern stories portray it. Perhaps the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, upon which Fielding based her novel, would be a better choice because it ends with the heroine marrying the right guy. (Firth plays Darcy in that one, too–LOL!)

Here is part 3 of 3 in a series by Melinda Selmys called “Catholics and Divorce”:

Link:
Part 3: Seven Sanctifications for Spouses
http://ncregister.com/site/article/6282

Part 3 quoted in full:

Seven Sanctifications For Spouses

Catholics and Divorce, part 3
BY MELINDA SELMYS
October 14-20, 2007 Issue | Posted 10/9/07 at 10:48 AM
National Catholic Register

For the last two weeks, we’ve been examining the problem of divorce, its nature and it’s causes. Last week, we looked at “7 Worldly Wisdoms.”

Today we will seek out the cure.

1. “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47).

A heavy weight of grudge, complaint, injustice and remembered wrongs can sink any marriage. Wrongs remembered in times of anger are fuel thrown on the fire. Take time in prayer to recall old wounds that you haven’t healed and set them before the cross. Everything in marriage should be brought to God — whether it is something as trivial as laundry left undone, or something as serious as adultery.

Real forgiveness, like real contrition, expects no recompense: If you have forgiven, you will not be bitter about being the one who had to forgive. Rejoice. Marriage gives us many opportunities to cash in on God’s promise that we will be forgiven as we forgive.

2. “Love issues from a pure heart” (1 Timothy 1-5).

Be chaste in thought and in deed. If you rehearse adultery in the theater of your mind, you will find it difficult to resist temptation when it comes. Pornography, prurient entertainment and steamy romance novels all replace your real spouse with a figment, a sexual automaton who possesses no personality or needs beyond your own.

If your spouse is involved in these behaviors, be gentle and patient: They may be compulsive, and quite humiliating.

3. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Work together, play together, relax together, fight together — and make sure that you make separate time for each of these activities. We are often inclined to try to do the wrong things at the wrong time. If you want to rip your husband’s head off and eat it with ketchup, it isn’t the time to fight. Go calm down, then go for a walk in the park, or take the kids to the zoo.

When you’re getting along again, then it’s the time to talk about the problems in your relationship and get them resolved. I suspect that most divorces are the result of couples littering the floor with each other’s emotional entrails when angry, and then trying to keep a tight-lipped peace when they’re not.

4. “Pride goes before destruction” (Proverbs16:18).

No divorcee is ever responsible for the divorce. If they committed adultery, it was because their husband was distant and emotionally abusive. If they asked for the divorce, it was only after years of putting up with their wife’s frigidity. Marriage requires the humility to admit that you are wrong. Say, “I’m sorry,” and don’t add a “but …”

Remember that pride is the invisible vice; you can see it easily in others, only with difficulty in yourself. Frequent the sacrament of confession and get into the habit of knowing your own faults.

5. “The measure you give will be the measure you get” (Mark 4:24).

Money is always a means to an end; people are ends in themselves. It is therefore a severe perversion of the moral order to allow money to undermine a relationship. Put first things first.

If you tithe, give alms, lend to those who cannot repay you, and invest your treasure in your faith and your marriage instead of your property, then God will provide you with everything that you really need (and often with much more). Have faith in divine Providence, and there will be no need to fight or worry over money.

If your spouse cannot do this, don’t fight, and don’t worry. Discuss it reasonably and charitably and let them have their way. Better to lose your house and gain your marriage than to surround yourself with baubles and lose your spouse.

6. “Whoever would save his life will lose it” (Matthew 16:25).

If you cling to your spouse, and try to hold him captive with threats of private detectives, or with the latest tricks from the magazines at the grocery counter, you will suffocate your marriage.

Be faithful, and trust your spouse to be faithful. It is much more difficult to disappoint someone who loves and trusts you than to defy someone who holds you on a leash.

7. “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

Be open to filling your house with children. A child is an incarnation of your love for each other. They confirm that love, and each one is an incarnation of a different aspect of your union.

If this has not proved true in your marriage, spend more time really interacting with your children (i.e. not watching television or playing video games with them, or watching them inertly over a frazzled cup of coffee). You will find in them a reflection of the spouse you fell in love with, and they will find in you an image of God’s unconditional love.

Melinda Selmys is a staff writer at vulgatamagazine.org.

Jennifer Roback Morse writes and blogs extensively on this subject:
http://www.jennifer-roback-morse.com/

My article on my experience of divorce:
A Word That Means Divorced

Retrouvaille: help for troubled marriages
http://www.retrouvaille.org/

Here’s part 2 of 3 in Melinda Selmys’s National Catholic Register series “Catholics and Divorce”:

Part 2: 7 Worldly Wisdoms of Marriage
http://ncregister.com/site/article/4757

Part 2 quoted in full here:

7 Worldly Wisdoms of Marriage

Catholics and Divorce, part 2
BY MELINDA SELMYS
October 7-13, 2007 Issue | Posted 10/2/07 at 11:12 AM

Last week, we looked at marriage and divorce in the light of the cross. This week, we look through the fog of the world to see some of the misconceptions that lead families to self-annihilation.

1. A marriage is something that sometimes “just can’t work out.”

We all know that marriage takes work, but advice on how to “work out” your marriage is usually painted in such saccharine terms that it is of little use to couples in crisis. “Understand each other.” “Remember the person you fell in love with.” “Share your goals and dreams.” “Laugh together.” Recall the time when marital strife was most severe in your marriage. Was it even remotely possible to “share your goals and dreams” or “laugh together”?

Of course, many couples do find solutions here. But many others attempt this advice, and understandably they fail. Out of this springs a sense of despair and the conviction that in spite of their best efforts the marriage “just didn’t work out.”

2. Being “in love” is a necessary precondition for a good marriage.

The temporary madness that we call “being in love” is a powerful and moving experience, but a poor foundation for building a life. Emotions are fickle, and marriages built on them are houses built on sand. When someone divorces because they “fell in love” with someone else, we can safely bet all our worldly wealth that their second marriage will also fail. If you erect an idol to Eros in the center of your home, you may expect him to lead you from one fling to another, and never give you the time to build a love that can survive both abundance and dryness.

3. Sex is about personal fulfillment and expression.

Modern notions of sexuality look something like a business relationship. Two people use each other in a way that is theoretically mutually satisfactory, but usually tends towards exploitation. Sex is supposed to be about communion: The meaning of sex, like the meaning of life, can only be found by losing yourself.

A person focusing on himself will ultimately find frustration when the mechanisms of physical pleasure break down. He may also neglect the needs of his spouse — and as Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II) points out in Love and Responsibility, such negligence ignores the dignity of the other and undermines the cohesion of marriage.

4. You can fix your love life with pornography.

A lackadaisical love life is often associated with marital breakdown, but the world reassures us that we can “bring a little spice” to the bedroom through mild forms of sexual perversion.

A lack of real emotional connection is to be fixed with an artificial injection of titillation, lust, danger or novelty. This is like white-washing a moldy structural support and thinking the new paint will prevent the collapse of your house.

Sex is a reflection of your love for one another, and it can often serve as a thermometer for suppressed problems in a relationship. Replacing love with tawdry tricks can only serve as a distraction while the relationship crumbles away.

5. Too many children cause chaos and family breakdown.

A houseful of wild banshee-children circle a couple who fling abuse at each other while a pile of bills builds up in the middle of their kitchen table. This is the image most people have of large families — but it is founded on a fallacy.

A family where the marriage is secure and well-balanced, and the family size is built on generosity, may be messy, but is fundamentally built on love. Every relationship in a family is a bond that holds it together. Two people share only one bond, three people share three, four people share six, and so forth.

6. You ought to prepare for possible divorce before you get married.

A man who signs a pre-nuptial agreement is saying to the woman at the altar, “I give you my entire self, for life — but I am not willing to risk losing my money for you.”

The demons of greed and mistrust, having been invited to the wedding feast, will be well equipped to tear such a marriage apart.

7. Even if there is no abuse, there is a point when you should just leave.

The world would have us imagine that divorce is often necessary, and that women in particular should be on the look-out for signs that it is time to put the stake in the heart of their family life. This can be valid.

If your spouse tortures your pets and threatens your children, you should leave — but leaving does not nullify your marriage. A battered woman may dream of finding new love and a second chance at happiness, yet those who are abused in one marriage notoriously seek out other abusive partners.

Instead of playing another round of nuptial roulette, women in this situation should remain faithful to their spouse in spirit. Remember, you once loved your abuser. Your prayerful chastity will not only bring you peace, it may also save his soul.

An examination of symptoms should always be followed by a prescription for the cure, so next week we will look at seven powerful antidotes to the ills that plague marriage.

Melinda Selmys is a staff writer at vulgatamagazine.org.

Jennifer Roback Morse writes and blogs extensively on this subject:
http://www.jennifer-roback-morse.com/

My article on my experience of divorce:
A Word That Means Divorced

Retrouvaille: help for troubled marriages
http://www.retrouvaille.org/

There’s a good series of articles by Melinda Selmys in the National Catholic Register. I’ll post part 1 today, part 2 tomorrow, and part 3 the day after.

Link to the first article in the NCR archives:

Part 1: Divorce: In the Image and Likeness of Hell
http://ncregister.com/site/article/4675

Part 1 quoted in full here (in case the permalink ever goes defunct…)

Divorce: In the Image and Likeness of Hell

Catholics and Divorce, part 1
BY MELINDA SELMYS
National Catholic Register
September 30 – October 6, 2007 Issue

I never intended to fall in love.

For a long time, it was not something that I believed in: the portrayals on television and in books seemed trite and shallow. Those who claimed to be in love seemed to be living out a fantasy that was destined to crumble. Love, therefore, was something that happened unexpectedly, like a flash of sunlight on a winter pond.

When I decided that I was going to marry my husband, it was not a rational discourse, weighing the advantages of financial unity, or a bid for an end to loneliness. It was a bold resolve, made in the knowledge that I was forging something beautiful and irrevocable, that I was taking a step, like Ulysses setting sail for home, that would end either in shipwreck or in glory.

I had no delusions that I was wedding myself to Galahad. I had known my husband for some time, and I had seen there was evil in his soul — every bit as much as in mine — but I loved him, and I knew that this was the one man with whom I could stand before God and vow my life away. I knew that this loving would be enough, and that in all of its darkness and suffering and beauty we would find the means to save our souls.

It was years later, after the ring was locked upon the finger, that I was sitting in a car with my husband’s divorced aunt. She said, “You know, no one will blame you if you divorce my nephew.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was as though someone had said to Frodo, “You know, no one will blame you if you just put on the One Ring and become like the Nazgul, half living and half dead.” The dignity of the quest is too great to justify such an ignominious end.

This is not to claim that there have never been times when I have considered leaving.

Early in our marriage he was usually out of work. There were days when I was in tears because we didn’t have enough money to buy milk for our daughter, and I considered walking out, telling him to call me when he had found a job and was ready to support a family.

But I knew that it would never happen: the motive for change would come from seeing me and his family with him, day by day, and that however humiliating it was to ask my parents for loans that I would never be able to repay, it would be more devastating to go home and admit that the project on which my life was built had failed.

In every marriage, there are moments when it seems impossible. I am sure that when Christ fell on the road to Cavalry, the thought of lifting his cross again and dragging it the rest of the way to the top of the hill seemed like madness. Perhaps it is different through divine eyes, but for men, there are always moments when we turn to heaven and say, “Are you insane?” When we are hardly able to see the top of Golgotha through our dust-bitten tears, we derive no comfort from reassurances that crucifixion isn’t all that bad, and that, seen in perspective, it’s really a beautiful expression of love and self-giving.

Unfortunately, this is how many tracts on divorce come across.

The theologians remind us that our married life is an image of the union between the soul and Christ in heaven. We hear of the wine of joy being mixed out of ordinary water, and of the bliss of two becoming one. We are offered the promise that if we just stick with it, it’s all going to get better, and we’ll enjoy a happy old age sipping lemonade on the front porch of a yellow house while our grandchildren play in the sun. We are told to improve communication, fall in love with each other all over again, observe the tender moments, etc., etc.

But how are you to fall in love again with an insensitive beast who has broken your heart and slept with another woman? How can you see your sex life as an image of the intimate life of the blessed Trinity when your wife consents only on a full moon when Mars is in Virgo, and makes love with the enthusiasm of a dead frog?

Marriage is, absolutely, an image of the soul wedded to God. It includes the same agony, the mingling of tears and blood, the same thorns digging into our skulls, the same nails plowed through our palms. And yet this yoke is easy, and this burden light.

This is the mystery at the heart of the Gospel, and it is the mystery at the heart of marriage: Only in dying do we live. Often we look at the spouse to whom we have vowed our life, and we think, “This is not the person that I married. This is not what I wanted.” And yet, it is what we were promised: the sickness, the poverty, the worst.

We are often tempted to abandon the project — to call on the angels of divorce to come with their golden ledgers and take us down from the cross of nuptial defeat.

It is when this temptation is strongest that we have the greatest capacity to strengthen love.

Everyone experiences this at some point in their life, whether they are contemplating divorce, or adultery, or suicide, or abortion. There is a despair that tears the soul apart, a raging fire that consumes everything, and then the will consents, just a little, to the sin proposed. Then there is quiet. The soul looking down into the surface of the river Styx, and seeing its reflection writhing amongst the tortured ghosts.

It is not peace: it is death.

But when peace has been absent for a long time, it can seem to be a good alternative.

In this moment, there are two paths set before us. God tells us to choose life, so that we and our children may live. And yet, often enough, we choose death.

God allows us to survive these little deaths, just as he allowed Adam and Eve to survive when they were cast from the garden. Yet this is the more difficult path. I have met divorced people who, out of this confrontation with the image of hell, were eventually able to transform a lukewarm faith into a life of penance and service to Christ. One day one of these people will be canonized, and we will all be able to beseech them to save our marriages.

Yet it is unquestionably better to choose life — even the life that comes through the cross. God does not try the soul beyond her means. He does not condemn divorce without giving us the graces necessary to avoid it.

Next week, we will make an honest appraisal of the obstacles that stand in our way, and consider why so many people in the modern world are choosing the wide path to the end of marriage.

Melinda Selmys is a staff writer at VulgataMagazine.org.

Jennifer Roback Morse writes and blogs extensively on this subject:
http://www.jennifer-roback-morse.com/

My article on my experience of divorce:
A Word That Means Divorced

Retrouvaille: help for troubled marriages
http://www.retrouvaille.org/