Greetings, loved ones.
We all agree it’s kinda odd that I still do little intro paragraphs, right? There’s no purpose here—I’m still alive, and you’re still reading. Anyway,
To Love is To Be Beaten Down
I am indebted to the great people at Twitter Dot Com (okay, mostly Jake) for my introduction to St. Oscar Romero, who has become a personal patron and mentor for me in the spiritual life. I grew really attached to him after reading an edited collection of his homilies, shockingly titled The Violence of Love. It is a very beautiful collection, and free for anyone to access here, but I want to focus on the titular reference. Here is the snippet the book gives:
We have never preached violence,
except the violence of love,
which left Christ nailed to a cross,
the violence that we must each do to ourselves
to overcome our selfishness
and such cruel inequalities among us.
The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword,
the violence of hatred.
It is the violence of love,
of brotherhood,
the violence that wills to beat weapons
into sickles for work.
NOVEMBER 27, 1977
For me, the notion of love as violence was particularly striking—no one looks to swing a sword around haphazardly screaming “I LOVE YOU!” (Please DM me if this interests you.) On the other hand, the violence of love could not be more obvious. The crucifix is literally right there. St. Oscar explores this concept beautifully in the tearing down of self that needs to occur for us to be purified, the internal violence between Christ working in us and the darkness we let build up in our hearts. I am not going to try to speak on that because I am not a saint. I want to talk about the violence….of tenderness.
[theme music plays]
I’ve spent probably the last five years of my Catholic life (I guess it’s all Catholic. But you know what I mean) feeling like I have been floundering—still struggling with the same sins, maybe to varying degrees, but I haven’t found any new vices to latch on to. Still praying as I want but never as I need. Getting really good at doing The Catholic Things! And then getting very bad at them again. It’s been a real temptation for me to look back at that period (post-reversion, feeling like an Adult Catholic who’s locked in) and see a bunch of wasted time. I know the quote about crawling forward on the path to heaven but it really feels like I have broken ground and am building a house right on the path. It’s not even a moving sidewalk. I’m just chilling.
I was praying lately about how I feel like I am just banging my head into a wall again and again, and that it is getting harder and harder for me to perservere in these times. There was this beautiful moment where the Lord revealed to me that although I was still struggling with all the same stuff, I had really grown in love and tenderness toward others the past couple years.
There’s a tendency sometimes to reduce the stories of the saints and holy men and women of history to a simple formula. They grew up a reprobate sinner/rebellious child/anti-Catholic/Just Plain Bad. They had a ~conversion experience~ that was instant and dramatic (think Paul getting knocked off his horse or the centurion at the Cross). Then they lived a holy life, the end.
We miss so much of the beauty of sin and grace intertwined when we tell stories like this. I have lamented so often in prayer that I didn’t have a big conversion experience that shook me to my core and immediately all my temptations went away. It sounds so nice! Have an encounter with God and then BAM you’re holy! But I can get so lost in this thought that I can blind myself to the slow, gradual changes that are happening in my heart.
Which is why I think the stories of the saints, mess included, are so beautiful. St. Mark Ji Tianxiang is someone that sticks out to me. Outside of Paul killing Christians, this is about as messy as you can get. St. Mark was a faithful Catholic who struggled for at least half his life with an addiction to opium. He confessed this regularly until his confessor withheld absolution from him because he “did not believe that St. Mark Ji had a firm purpose of amendment to stay away from the opium pipe”. (Side note: obviously I don’t think St. Mark was culpable for this—he lived in late 19th century China, addiction rewires your brain and gives you less free will on the matter, etc etc) St. Mark still attended Mass but did not receive the Eucharist for the rest of his life—over 30 years. As far as he knew and was told, he was living in a constant state of mortal sin. And yet, he showed up. He prayed for deliverance from his addiction for his entire life, and it was never taken from him on this Earth.
People like to put emphasis on the end of St. Mark’s life, but I think they’re missing the point. He prayed for martyrdom as he thought it was the only way he would get to heaven, and was eventually martyred. Let’s be absolutely clear though: St. Mark would have been a saint, recognized by the church or not, regardless of his martyrdom. His story is so beautiful for all Christians, but especially those who struggle with repeated sins. St. Mark became holy—so holy, in fact, that he is in heaven right now—in spite of never having achieved material progress against his addiction. In Him, hope abounds!
I write all this to say that the Lord has granted me the knowledge lately to know that I am growing in the right ways even though I do not see progress. And I think tenderness is our ultimate hope to love better and better while we’re still here.
Here is my soap-box on tenderness: Tenderness is NOT vulnerability, but it is the act of repeated cheek-turning and loving at all moments, in all occasions, especially toward those or in those places we find difficult. It means doing tasks that are thankless and having conversations that disproportionally suck for you. Literally, it can mean a physical sensitivity to pain, which I think implies a true outcome of tenderness: it is often directly painful or indirectly unfulfilling. There are very few, if any, earthly rewards for tenderness. It is difficult to practice, you have to bite your tongue CONSTANTLY, and it can often make things worse for you in the short run. It absolutely, unequivocally, kicks ass.
I am not an expert on tenderness, but I know what it is like to be hurt because you are trying to love. That’s another thing they don’t tell you. No one is really good at loving. You simply just have to apologize and forgive and pick yourself up and try again. And let others try again! The whole thing is supremely and indisputably messy, but I have a deeply permeating suspicion that it’s all worth it. We’ll see!
I also want to encourage those who feel like it is impossible to make progress here—it is not! You may work at it for years and never feel anything change but find your progress elsewhere all of a sudden spike up. I have been trying for years to work on a single relationship where I find it very hard to love a person, and often cannot stand to be near that person for a while. I have not felt any progress although I make repeated attempts at being calmer and better around them. And yet! I found that I am able to respond better in so many other situations as a result of slamming my head into the wall at that one. Tenderness is a fickle thing, and it doesn’t respond too well to marking-sticks!
Anyway, many of you have been so kind over the past few months about my feeble attempts at writing, and for that I am very grateful. It motivates me immensely, and I do hope to put out more writing soon. Even if it sucks! Now that’s what I call a callback.
In Christ,
Hunter “motion sickness by phoebe bridgers” Lastname