Anyone who’s ever been the victim of bullies can understand the sort of helpless rage, the sort of desperate grasping for whatever defense one can find in order to make it stop. And yet, looking to Our Lady of Virtues, looking to the Immaculate Heart, we can recognize that instinct to use absolute force in the face of evil is a temptation, and a deadly one at that.
By Chris Sparks
There are concrete acts that it is always wrong to choose, because their choice entails a disorder of the will, i.e., a moral evil. One may not do evil so that good may result from it (Catechism, 1761).
The Marian Family celebrates the Optional Memorial of Our Lady of Virtues on July 10, a feast inherited from St. Joan of France (1464-1705) and her order, the Annunciades, from whom the earliest Marians had received the rule of the 10 Evangelical Virtues of Our Lady.
How fitting for a Congregation whose patroness is the Immaculate Conception to celebrate Our Lady’s virtues! For Mary didn’t just begin life well with her Immaculate Conception. No — she remained immaculate all throughout her life, and so became maximally holy, since she responded perfectly to grace from the first moment of her conception through to her Assumption to glory.
Light, not darkness
Mary always said yes to God and His graces. That’s the definition of how to “overcome evil with good,” the motto of Bl. George Matulaitis, Marian Renovator. And more.
You see, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the spiritual warfare that we mistake for normal Christian life here below was not inevitable. The devil really could have chosen to serve God. Adam and Eve really could have remained faithful. The world could have remained graced nature, rather than fallen nature. Sacramentality and sanctity could have been transmitted from one generation to the next without the need of the Sacrament of Baptism.
Love God and neighbor
In other words, the love story between God and His creation was always the plan. The war of angels and demons, between St. Michael and devilish Lucifer, between Our Lady and the shadow of sin, death, and hell — all of that is our sad reality, but not the main point of the story.
Take away the war, and the love story remains. Take away the love story, and the devil wins the war.
That is why Our Lady’s obedience to the will of God meant she remained immaculate, sinless. Heaven does not call her servants to a willingness to do “anything in the name of” God. Rather, Heaven forbids her servants and children from evil, especially evil done in the name of God. To exercise power in the name of God is to know there are sharp limits on the exercise of that power.
Say NO in the name of God
The realism of the Cross is the repudiation of the realpolitik of Machiavelli and modernity. The realism of the Immaculate Heart demands the utter rejection of the false realism that says that evil can be done in the pursuit of a good cause. As St. Paul said, “And why not say — as we are accused and as some claim we say — that we should do evil that good may come of it? Their penalty is what they deserve” (Rom 3:8).
Much though I love Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy, I have to acknowledge that the supposed heroism of James Bond and Jack Ryan all too often is a false heroism, a celebration of the triumph of the maculate, or sinful, heart. After all, Ian Fleming himself acknowledged:
Bond is not a hero, nor is he depicted as being very likable or admirable. He is a Secret Service Agent. … He’s a blunt instrument in the hands of the government. He’s got vices and few perceptible virtues.
It’s an easily understood temptation to celebrate absolute force (that is, force exercised with the willingness to do anything whatsoever to stop bad guys, no matter how vicious and cruel, and no matter how many innocent people are brutalized or killed in the process as well—your average James Bond methods, in other words) brought to bear against evil — against Nazis, or Soviet Communists, or international terrorism, or human traffickers, or evil, oppressive totalitarian states of whatever sort.
Anyone who’s ever been the victim of bullies can understand the sort of helpless rage, the sort of desperate grasping for whatever defense one can find in order to make it stop.
That’s the instinct of Boromir in Lord of the Rings, of course, and the instinct that led to the creation of Marxism in the first place. That’s the instinct that gave us the atomic bomb, and the modern security services across the world, and the national security state, with its continuity of government (but not of its civilian population, as Garrett Graff’s Raven Rock makes plain).
Grace, not force
And yet, looking to Our Lady of Virtues, looking to the Immaculate Heart, we can recognize that instinct to use absolute force in the face of evil is a temptation, and a deadly one at that. We must learn the science of the Cross, not the atomic bomb, in order to see peace in the world, according to the Crucified Christ, and Our Lady of Sorrows, and St. Edith Stein, and St. Maximilian Kolbe, and all the saints, and the popes.
So as we celebrated the birthday of our country on July 4, approach the feast of Our Lady of Virtues on July 10, and look ahead to the anniversaries of dropping the atomic bombs in Japan in early August, let us ask Our Lady to train us to be virtuous like her, immaculate like her, and therefore have the world-changing power of her goodness, holiness, and intercession.
Let us explore Our Lady’s Ten Evangelical (or Gospel) virtues with the Marian Family:
Most Pure (Mt. 1:18, 20, 23; Lk 1:27,34)
Most Prudent (Lk 2:19, 51)
Most Humble (Lk 1:48)
Most Faithful (Lk 1:45; Jn 2:5)
Most Devout (Lk 1:46-7; Acts 1:14)
Most Obedient (Lk 1:38; 2:21-2, 27)
Most Poor (Lk 2:7)
Most Patient (Jn 19:25)
Most Merciful (Lk 1:39, 56)
Most Sorrowful (Lk 2:35)
And let us plan to practice these virtues, and take up the Chaplet of the Ten Evangelical Virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Pray for me, that I may practice what I preach. I’ll pray for you.
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