Pints With Aquinas - Save Yourself From This Wicked Generation

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Support the Show: https://mattfradd.locals.com A talk given by Matt Fradd in Sydney, Australia.  A big thanks to https://www.parousiamedia.com for filming this talk.

In the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, St. Peter gives a sermon which converts 3,000 people. In that sermon, he says something that I haven't heard in any sermon, namely, save yourself from this wicked generation. St. Peter's words were true then and they're true now. But we don't like to think of this generation, this culture, these people as wicked. It strikes us as too negative, too regressive. We would much rather like to believe that really things are on the up and up. The world really is friendable. We would like to believe that as the title of a recent article from the Atlantic put it, the world really is getting better.

We keep quoting Fulton Sheen, there aren't a hundred people who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be. Maybe that was true in the 50s. Call me a pessimist. I do not think that is true anymore. Saint Paul tells us that, quote, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. Nowhere is this more true than in the realm of sexual morality. One

of the ways our enemies, and we indeed have enemies, give approval to these evil deeds is through the abuse of speech. Masturbation is not self-abuse, they say, it's self-care. People don't fornicate, whatever that old word means, they sleep together or hook up. Adultery is called cheating, as if this were a game. Surgeons don't perform genital mutilation, they offer gender-affirming care. Think of this, the facade. The sin of sodomy was and is so disgusting that we had to drape it in a rainbow flag and call it a name that used to mean happy. And abortion, they call that essential women's healthcare instead of what it actually is, child sacrifice to Moloch. Rather than participating in our culture's

bastardizing of language, we should continue to use ugly words for ugly behaviors. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. This generation has become increasingly godless or rather has replaced the true God for other gods

who are of course no gods at all. And if at this point you think I'm being rather too pessimistic or that I'm out of step with scripture, St. John John says quote, we know that we are from God and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. The loss of God leads inevitably to the loss of man. What do I mean? I mean what the Second Vatican Council meant when it said, when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible. All of us, atheist, Christian, male, female, young and old, find ourselves within this story of life.

But without God's revelation to ground and guide us, we begin to seek for a different narrative or lens to try to make sense of things. But to quote Aristotle from the De Cello, the least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. Modern man does not know what he is or what he is for. And if you meet a man who does not know what he is or what he is for, it can truly be said of him that he is lost. The reason our life does not make sense is because we have not yet understood what it is, or if we have, we keep forgetting. The story in which we find ourselves is not the incoherent ramblings of a postmodernist

where the journey is the destination. Nor is it an episode of Survivor where the point is to outlive our acquaintances. Nor is it a hedonistic, debauchuous romp like Sex in the City, a poorly written sitcom for post-menopausal feminists who are on account of their feminism, often husbandless, childless, and brimming with impotent rage. Told you this would be funny. Stop. So what is this life in which we find ourselves? How do we make sense of the pain and the wounding we've received, of our desires and our fears?

I would submit to you what the scripture does. It is a brutal spiritual war. Your adversary the devil, says St. Peter, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. The battle we are engaged in, whether we wish to be or not, is against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And unless you understand this and accept it, your life will not make sense.

The same is true for Christianity. Trying to explain Christianity without reference to spiritual warfare and the demonic is like trying to explain the Lord of the Rings without reference to Sauron. How would you do that? You know, there was this ring and it was the worst and it wasn't conducive to the flourishing of Hobbiton and so these different races from Middle-earth got rid of it and then things were better. Well that is what happened but that is a woefully insufficient way of describing the Lord of the Rings. And we kind of do something with Christianity.

We often say things like, well, God loves us and he sent his son to die for us so that we can be reconciled with him and in so doing find eternal life, which is a great explanation for an elevator ride, but it leaves out a lot, namely the spiritual war. We are at war. As Aragorn Phaedon says, open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not. So we are at war and we have two options. We can fight or we can go to hell. And just

so we're clear, the enemies we are called to fight are not principally those human beings who hate the church and want to destroy it. As St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10.3, though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. Christians ought to desire the conversion of the godless for their salvation, whereas the godless very much want your conversion for your damnation. Our battle is with the world, the flesh, and the devil. I think that serious Christians have a moderately good idea of the devil, an acceptance of the devil.

That is, a real personal enemy. A fallen angel who the Bible identifies as the father of lies, who with his fellow demons of hell labors in relentless malice to twist us away from salvation. And again, I think that serious Christians have a basic understanding of what we mean when we say we have to battle the flesh. That is, our obvious tendencies to gluttony, sexual immorality, and corrupt inclinations.

Disordered passions which blind us and make us stupid and lay us open to greater sins. But this world thing, this idea that we have to battle the world, I think seems rather murky to most Christians. What is it that that means? The term world is used I think like three different senses in scripture. So we have the created world, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, that's good. The world can be used to mean humanity,

as in, for God so loved the world. And then it can mean what? What does it mean to say as St. James does that anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God? Think of just how serious that statement is. Or when St. John says do not love the world or anything in the world. When we talk about the world as an enemy and object of battle we mean indifference and opposition to God's design, the embracing of empty passing values and that is why St. Paul says do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed

by the renewal of your mind. Easy to say, difficult to do. I heard one preacher describe the world this way. He said, it's like you're in an elevator with a bunch of people and everybody else has a cold. And it's very difficult not to catch that cold. Likewise it's very difficult to know whether or not we are giving in to the pressures of the world. Here's another way to summarize these three sources of sin. Deceitful

ideas you might say come from the demonic that play to disordered desires, the flesh, that are then normalized by a sinful society, the world. So the world normalizes and even celebrates deceitful ideas that play to disordered desires. They celebrate it, they normalize it, which is why they hate good men like Cardinal Pell. Pray for us. Take the example of a man who wants to commit adultery. He may come to believe that monogamy is unnatural, which plays into his disordered desires for sexual pleasure, which is normalized by a sinful society that says you only live once and deserve to be happy or something.

Here's what Thomas Merton said of those Christians in the third century who were fleeing the world to go and live in the desert. In those days, again the third century, so before YouTube and TikTok and television and whatever else, men had become keenly conscious of the strictly individual character of salvation. Society, which meant pagan society, limited by the horizons and prospects of life in this world, was regarded by them as a shipwreck, from which each single individual man had to swim for his life.

If this was true in the third century, why are we so opposed to the idea that it could be true now? What must we do? Ah. How do we survive the shipwreck? What must we do? How do we survive the shipwreck? We have to go contra mundum, that is against the world. I'm going to suggest seven small things that I think I need to do in order to follow Christ with my whole heart and to hate the world like scripture commands me. And if you agree with them, then you should apply them to your own

life as well. Number one, read the scriptures more than you consume news media. That would be good. You won't do it, but it would be good. But you should do it, and so should I. Number two, find a small community of other Christians you can live in relationship to. We often mock little groups of Christians by calling it a bubble. Find a fricking bubble immediately. Because you know what another word for a bubble is? A community.

And that's what human beings have been doing forever. An isolated Christian in the modern world is almost always a soon-to-be apostate. Third, recover leisure time from the totalitarian work state of mind. Leisure, not dissociation, not scrolling, but re-creation leads to wonder. And wonder leads to the recovery of innocence, which is that child-likeness without which no man will enter heaven. Next, stop rationalizing and justifying your cowardice and sin. As one spiritual father once said to me, Matthew, you have to go to war with your ego.

Yes, father. He was right. You have to go to war with your ego. Yes, father He was right Stop justifying it. This is my fear. Hey, like here's here's a fear I have about me st. Paul says don't let there be a hint of impurity among you and There's something in me That likes that when it's general but doesn't like it when it's specific And I think many Christians today are like that. don't tell me I can't watch that show don't tell me that this is too immodest we get very defensive I think this is the flu with caught from the world I would rather bend towards

scripture than towards the world I hope I would rather that. Jason spoke about this beautifully. We should repent manfully or wonder womanly, whatever, of your sin. Repent. This is nice. Here's a lovely quote from Saint Claudeude de la column here Who was the spiritual director of st. Margaret Mary alacoc and I share this to you my beautiful brothers and sisters Especially those of you whose heart is weighed down for those of you who feel oh man who feel like you're fractured at the core and That no amount of anything will heal you, that healing is available for others but not you, that you're different.

I glorify you, says Saint Claude de la Colomier, in making known how good you are towards sinners and that your mercy prevails over all malice that nothing can destroy it that no matter how many times or how shamefully we fall or how criminally a sinner need never be driven to despair of your pardon it is in vain that your enemy in mind sets new traps for me daily he will make me lose everything else before the hope I have in your mercy. Brothers and sisters, here's the next thing. Have patience with yourself. You and I have been born into the aftermath, the rubble,

the apocalypse that followed the stupid sexual revolution. Many of us have been sexually abused or exposed to pornography at a young age, which is a form of sexual abuse. And we've been raised on, like, high levels of bullcrap. I was raised on that TV show, Friends, which was funny but despicable. It would have been a much healthier show if they had of demonized fornication the way they demonized cigarette smoking, that our parents just put us in front of it. And all the magazines, this is this is

like religious propaganda from the enemy. And we've been raised on it and we find ourselves with disordered passions, having justified our sin, rationalized it. Maybe you find yourself very threatened by the harsh language I'm using now. And maybe that's because it's inappropriately harsh. It could be my fault. But maybe it's your fault. Maybe it's that you feel very defensive

when you know that something true is being said and you don't want to accept it. But we have to have patience with ourself. St. Francis de Sales said this, have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instead set about remedying them every day,

begin the task anew. Final point, brothers and sisters, if we are to remain Christian in this toxic age we have to remember the personal love that God has for you. Sometimes I think it's not that Christianity is too hard to believe, sometimes I think it's that Christianity is too hard to believe Sometimes I think it's that Christianity is too good to believe Everything else in my life that has said they will give me this or that and has let me down How do I know that this will really do what it says? Because I don't love me a lot of the time. How can you possibly love what I find unlovable? I

a lot of the time. How can you possibly love what I find unlovable? I think Christianity is the long story of God disagreeing with us when we tell him we're crap and unworthy of his love. It's like, yeah well, stiff bickies. I actually love you. You're like, well you're an idiot. No I'm not and you can repent of that when you learn more, you know. Get away from me Lord, I'm a sinful man. That's what it is, that's what we should say, you know. away from me Lord I'm a sinful man that's what it is that's what we should say you know but he keeps coming whoo he keeps coming like in song of songs chapter 2 he just keeps coming he's very good and he's very kind he's kinder than I am you know that but maybe you don't maybe you don't you, because if you pulled me aside and told me you'd committed

some heinous thing, I'd know you were sorry, and I'd be like, you know, I'd agree with you that what you did was shameful, but I'd love you, and yet we think that somehow Christ is different to us. That he's some, this one who is infinite in mercy couldn't possibly, yeah? So why don't we close with this beautiful quote. This comes from an excellent book called I Believe in Love and I'd highly recommend you getting it especially if you're somebody who struggles with scrupulosity. I believe in love. I'm not gonna say his name because it's French and I can't do it but it's a

retreat based on the teachings of Therese of Lisieux. Here we go. Listen. Listen. We think about examining ourselves. You know, nightly examine before you go to confession. Good. Yet we do not think before the examination, during the examination, and after the examination to plunge ourselves with all our miseries into the consuming and transforming furnace of his heart, which is open to us through a humble act of confidence. I am not telling you, you believe too much in your own wretchedness.

No, we are far more wretched than we ever realize. But I am telling you, you do not believe enough in merciful love. We must have confidence, not in spite of our miseries, but because of them, since it is misery which attracts mercy. and ultimately only in trusting and submitting ourselves to the love and mercy of God will we have any hope of saving ourselves from this wicked generation amen thank you