Fr Ron Rolheiser
Mar 1 2021
THE philosopher, David Hume, once made a distinction between something he called as genuine virtues and something he termed monkish (relating to a monk) virtues.
Genuine virtues, he said, were those qualities inside us that are useful to others and ourselves. Monkish virtues, on the other hand, are qualities that do not enhance human life, either for society or for the particular person practicing them. As monkish virtues he lists, celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, and solitude. These, he attests, contribute nothing to society and even take away from human welfare. For this reason, he affirms, they are rejected by “men of sense”. For a religious person, this is not easy to hear.
But what follows is even harsher. Those practicing monkish virtues pay a stiff price, he says, they are excluded from health and human community: The gloomy enthusiast, after death, may have a place in a calendar, but will scarcely be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as himself.
As brutal as this may sound, it contains a healthy warning, one that echoes what Jesus said when he warned us to fast in secret, to do our private prayer in secret, to not put on gloomy faces when we are practicing rigorous self-denial, and to make sure our piety is not too evident in public. If Jesus is clear about anything, he is clear about this.
Why? Why should we avoid all public display of our fasting, self-discipline, and private prayer?
Partly Jesus’ warning is against hypocrisy and insincerity, but it is more. There is also the question of what we are radiating and of how we are being perceived. When we display self-discipline and piety in public, even if we are sincere, what we want to radiate and what is read by others are often two different things. We may want to be radiating our faith in God and our commitment to things beyond this life, but what others easily read from our attitude and actions is lack of health, lack of joy, depression, disdain for the ordinary, and a not-so-disguised compensation for missing out on life.
And this is precisely the opposite of what we should be radiating. All monkish virtues (and they are real virtues) are intended to open us to a deeper intimacy with God and so, if our prayer and self-discipline are healthy, what we should be radiating is precisely health, joy, love for this world, and sense of how the ordinary pleasures of life are sacramental.
But this is not easy to do. We do not radiate faith in God and health by uncritically accepting or cheerleading the world’s every effort to be happy, nor by flashing a false smile while deep down we are barely managing to keep depression at bay. We radiate faith in God and health by radiating love, peace, and calm. And we cannot do this by radiating a disdain for life or for the way in which ordinary people are seeking happiness in this life.
And that is a tricky challenge, especially today. In a culture like ours, it is easy to pamper ourselves, to lack any real deep sense of sacrifice, to be so immersed in our lives and ourselves so as to lose all sense of prayer, and to live without any real self-discipline.
Among other things, we see this today in our pathological busyness, our inability to sustain lives of private prayer, our growing incapacity to be faithful in our commitments, and in our struggles with addictions of all kinds: food, drink, sex, entertainment, information technology. Internet pornography is already the single biggest addiction in the whole world. Prayer and fasting (at least of the emotional kind) are in short supply.
But we must practise them without public exhibitionism, without disdaining the good that is God-given in the things of this world, without hinting that our own private sanctity is more important to us and to God than is the common good of this planet, and without suggesting that God does not want us to delight in his creation. Our practice of self-discipline and prayer must be real, but they must radiate health, and not be a compensation for not having it.
And that, a health that witnesses to God’s goodness, is exactly what I see in those who practise the monkish virtues in a healthy way. Prayer and fasting, done correctly, radiate health to the world, not disdain.
So we need to take more seriously Jesus’ words that self-discipline and private prayer are to be done “in secret”, behind closed doors, so that the face we show in public will radiate health, joy, calm, and love for the good things that God has made.
Used with permission of the author, Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser. Currently, Father Rolheiser is currently serving as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio Texas. He can be contacted through his website, www.ronrolheiser.com. Follow on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser.
