The occasional, often ill-considered thoughts of a Roman Catholic permanent deacon who is ever grateful to God for his existence. Despite the strangeness we encounter in this life, all the suffering we witness and endure, being is good, so good I am sometimes unable to contain my joy. Deo gratias!


Although I am an ordained deacon of the Catholic Church, the opinions expressed in this blog are my personal opinions. In offering these personal opinions I am not acting as a representative of the Church or any Church organization.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Narcissism, an Epidemic

This morning, as I was reading through Matthew 6 in preparation for our weekly Wednesday Bible Study, I found myself dwelling on one brief passage: "When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you" [Mt 6:3-4]. After mulling over these two verses for a while, I began to get a bit uncomfortable, recalling all those instances when I had pretty much ignored this command of Jesus and allowed my ego to get in the way. Yes, humility is tough. As my father used to say, "Humility's a strange commodity; once you know you have it, you just lost it."

At about that point in my morning meditation, I remembered that I had canceled Bible Study this week because of a conflict with our Mass schedule for Ash Wednesday. This revelation (which quite likely came from below and not above) gave me the excuse I needed to stop thinking about my personal sins and do something more enjoyable. And so I clicked on the website of my favorite journal, First Things, to check out any new articles. And there it was, an article by Aaron Kheriaty, M.D. entitled "The Era of the Narcissist." The title should have tipped me off, but I didn't make the connection with my earlier meditation until after I had begun reading. By then it was too late and I accepted the fact that I had been purposely guided to this particular web page.

Dr. Kheriaty begins by remarking how the architects and builders of the great medieval cathedrals didn't seem to want any credit for the remarkable work they had done. Their names are not carved into cornerstones. They aren't immortalized with bronze plaques. No portraits of architects hang on the vestibule walls of cathedrals. These men preferred to be anonymous. Now, I had already known this interesting fact, but unlike Dr. Kheriaty had never given it much thought. The author goes on to describe how such personal humility is completely at odds with today's attitudes, and traces the change to the kind of self-adulation typical of Rousseau and his Enlightenment contemporaries. The article -- actually a review of the book, The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell -- is well worth reading and can be found here: The Era of the Narcissist.

It's refreshing, however, to note that not everyone in modern America has fallen prey to narcissism. A few years ago, when I was still living in Massachusetts, a couple approached my pastor and offered to build a separate adoration chapel on our parish grounds so we could have perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. At the time we used a side chapel in our church building for adoration, but could not use it 7x24. This couple also offered to provide a substantial amount of funds to complete needed renovations and additions to the diocesan school located at our parish. They explained that they had achieved some measure of business success and believed strongly that they should give a substantial amount of their earnings to the Church. I can't recall the total amount of their gift, but it was in the millions.

The interesting thing about this couple was their insistence on remaining anonymous. To my knowledge only our pastor and bishop knew their identity. I suppose, as a deacon assigned to the parish, I could have figured out who they were if I'd set my mind to the task, but I decided not to. I can recall being so impressed by this rare display of true humility that I thought it only right to honor their wishes. I'm sure there are many others like them, people who live their lives in quiet imitation of Jesus, bringing the Sermon on the Mount to life.

I've included photos below of the beautiful adoration chapel that this couple built. What a wonderful gift to God and His people!

Adoration Chapel Exterior

Adoration Chapel Interior

Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomine tuo da gloriam. [Ps 115]

One of the great movie scenes, from Shakespeare's Henry V, is the scene after the Battle of Agincourt, when the exhausted survivors sing that glorious hymn from Ps 115, "Non nobis, Domine." It depicts a time, before the "Enlightenment," when men actually placed God first. I've included the clip below.




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