The Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766-1853) was a former slave who certainly had a noble soul. Once free, with impressive idealism, he went so far as to help his former mistress in financial difficulties.
Even among his hecklers, there are some
who admire him.
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
In This Chapter
Our Father, the prayer Our Lord taught us, is a sublime appeal to disinterestedness and, therefore, idealism.
It first beseeches that God’s name be hallowed, that His Kingdom come to us, and that His will be done. Only then does it ask for bread and forgiveness of sins, not falling into temptation, and the grace of a happy death.
So, graces for one’s spiritual life should come second to our longing for the glory of God.
This is the order of priorities we must have in our lives if we desire true nobility of soul.
The Our Father is a lesson in detachment, which is the subject of this chapter.
An Albatross on the Deck (a meditation)
The albatross, a sea bird of great class, is a kind of eagle in that privileged realm of nature where air and water meet.
It has a huge body but small feet and walks with a ridiculous gait because it was made to fly.
There is a poem [The Albatross, by Charles Baudelaire, translation by Eli Siegel] describing an albatross that fell on a ship deck because it was wounded. The sailors ignobly kick it about, insult it and hit it. The albatross tries to escape from the laughter.
Like it or not, a faithful Catholic is and will be an albatross to the end of his life; it burns my mouth to say it, but he will be an albatross even in hell if he loses his soul.
What is the upshot? When a faithful Catholic gives himself over to a ridiculous little life, he deserves the scorn shown to the albatross on the deck.
He causes a feeling of frustration and sadness. How atrocious! This man, made to look at the broadest horizons to pursue the grandest designs and see the greatest acts of heroism, suddenly finds himself all worried about a spat. My God in heaven, how petty and embarrassing!
An ordinary man in this posture is less ridiculous than a faithful Catholic.
When grace blows and invites the albatross to fly, he would want to fly in a splendid flock but sees all his companions squawking and walking on the ground. [Sept. 12, 1973]
Often, to amuse themselves, the men of the crew
Lay hold of the albatross, vast birds of the seas-
Who, sluggish voyage companions,
Follow the ship gliding on bitter gulfs.
Hardly have they placed them on the planks,
When these kings of the azure, clumsy and shameful,
Piteously let their great wings in white,
Like oars, drag at their sides.
How awkward and weak this winged traveler is!
Formerly so handsome, how comic and uncomely he is!
Someone bothers his beak with a short pipe,
Another imitates, limping, the ill thing that flew! …
Banished to the ground amid hooting,
His giant wings hinder him from walking.
The Self-Interest Fiasco
The Book of Maccabees has a beautiful text on the warfare they waged on foreign rulers who tried to reduce their people to idolatry. They staged a successful revolt, a real crusade against idolatrous foreign rulers.
Seeing the Maccabees’ success, two individuals thought it was a nice opportunity for them to distinguish themselves, make a career and gain prestige. So, they, too, started fighting against the cursed enemy, but on behalf of a different principle than the one that caused the Maccabees to rise up.
The cry of the Maccabees was: “It is better to die than to live in a land devastated and without honor.” [Quoted from memory. The exact text is: “Why was I born to see the ruin of my people? What good is it to go on living? (I Mac. 2:7 & 13)] They were led by more than love of the country. They loved their country’s honor and considered religion the honor of the land. To them, devastated religion was the utmost suffering and torture. If they were to watch the devastation of Israel – a prefigure of the Catholic Church—with their arms crossed, their life would lose its reason for being.
As a result, God blessed these selfless and unassuming men who saved with heroism and courage the people of Israel from domination by Gentile oppressors.
However, some fought not to defend the people of God but to propagate their own name. They were conceited and sought to make a career by harnessing the zeal for religion that some Jews still held. As a result, God abandoned them. They were defeated and crushed and carried before God’s judgment responsibility for the death of two thousand of their countrymen.
What lesson should we draw from this? Any concern for one’s own personal projection undermines, annihilates and devastates our work.
God does not bless the apostolate of an ambitious person. God blesses only those who do the work out of love for Him, not those who do apostolate out of self-love. [July 6, 1968]
Idealistic Nobility of Soul
The matrix of all nobility is this basic attitude of the soul whereby it can love all things and even itself for God’s sake. In so doing, it detaches itself from man’s animalistic love of self, the matrix of all vulgarity, the baseness of soul and turpitude. [May 4, 1988]
We must seek to love God without self-love. We must not be selfish or want anything for ourselves: neither posts nor positions, admiration or situations.
Let us be interested only in God’s Cause. If this happens, our gaze will see Him, so to speak, and display Him as well.
We do not love God because He will give us success. We love God because God is God!
In this era of ambition, self-interest and depravity, we must be pure idealists, moved by the most idealistic ideal.
Our entirely disinterested position does not ask for any kind of reward.
Instead, it becomes more radical when the risk is great.
Here, we have the idealist in the highest sense: The courageous idealist.
Increasing One’s ‘Credit’ with a Saint…
There are peculiar ways of considering certain devotions.
For example, someone decides to spread devotion to St. Jude Thaddeus or Our Lady of the Perpetual Help. Usually, such resolutions are expressions of purely individual feelings.
A person receives a grace from a particular saint—or thinks he has—and embarks on a campaign to disseminate that devotion moved by a sense of gratitude.
Underlying these attitudes may be some “do ut des” or “facio ut facias”: Since this saint has done me a favor, I will spread his devotion. Thus, I will increase my credit and have better chances of obtaining future favors.
One cannot say that this behavior is always bad. It is not infrequent for some Catholics to organize pious activities in this way. [Circ. 7-05 (out of print)]
“Because Thou Art Whom Thou Art…”
A sentimental position without idealism makes us love God only because He loves us, and so we put ourselves at the center of love. Ultimately, we love God out of selfishness.
The act of contrition says: “Because Thou art extremely good and deserving of all love,” but a sentimentally pious person only notices the “extremely good”!
In other words, extremely good to me, good to ‘number one.’
Yet, if I were to give a thousand lifetimes, they would not suffice to thank God for the benefit of Redemption! Let’s go to the bottom of it: It is because God is God. [July 23, 1966]
God’s Glory, a Favor He Does Me
This idea is very well expressed in the Gloria in Excelsis:
“Gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam: [from the Gloria of the Mass] I give Thee thanks, O my God, for Thy immense glory.
This is magnificent! It means that I love God so much because He is God that I thank Him for being God as if it were a favor done to me. [Oct. 21, 1970]
A Mother’s Idealism
“To my dear and unforgettable mother, Lucilia, who taught me to say “Jesus” even before “mommy” and to place devotion to the Catholic Faith and to the Holy Church above all earthly possessions, with gratitude overflowing with affectionate nostalgia and, above all, hope. Plinio.” [dedication of the book Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira (cit)]
Litany of Humility
The Litany of Humility was written by the illustrious and venerated Cardinal Merry del Val. Below, we transcribe two of its entries, followed by comments from Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in Italics.
— From the desire of being praised, deliver me, Jesus.
Give me, oh Jesus, an ardent and efficacious desire that men praise the Church Militant above all things.
— From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, Jesus.
Give me, oh Jesus, holy indignation at seeing the Church Militant forgotten by her internal or external adversaries and her lukewarm children.
St. Teresa and Pure Idealistic Love
The complete disinterestedness expressed in this poetry by St. Teresa of Avila can apply to all areas of a person’s life. We would then have a perfect idealist, as Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira expounds in this chapter.
To love Thee, my God, I am not moved
by the Heaven Thou hast promised,
Nor am I moved by the fright of Hell
Not to offend Thee.
Thou movest me, Lord. I am moved
by the sight of Thy crucifixion,
Seeing Thee debased,
The sight of Thy wounded body,
How Thou hast been affronted, and Thy death.
Lastly, I am moved by Thy love
In such a way that I would love Thee
Even if Heaven did not exist,
And would fear Thee even if Hell never existed.
Thou needst give me nothing to love Thee because,