Murder in the Heart

Tonight I watched the movie "The Quick and the Dead" (1995), a movie I thought I'd seen before, but it turns out, well....I hadn't.

It's not the kind of movie I normally watch, but tonight I did so with theological themes in mind, and I have to be honest; under the influence of the philosophy of Flannery O'Connor. I can't explain exactly why, but I think she would have loved this movie.

While there are themes of vengeance and outright violence, it takes place in a town seemingly-improperly named: "Redemption".

The characters are all fallen, none are necessarily likeable (outside of the little girl who suffers an unspeakable offense), and even that child displays the concupiscence of the world that surrounds her, yet none of the protection given to other children her age.

The film juxtaposes those who are murderous by nature, those who have reformed and are trying to overcome their nature, and those who are there by choice but truly have a more benevolent nature. All are fallen, all have sinned, and in the same way, but not all share the same level of depravity.

The lone voice of reason and holiness is quiet (but far from silent), is vilified by all sides and even falls himself, seemingly a discredit to his own attempted reform. In this movie, that which is holy is chained, disarmed except to be armed for battle for the enemy, and then forced into that battle, forced into a temptation so strong he cannot overcome it.

The protagonist enters with a vengeance, but in the process, learns the soul of the antagonist and seeks to flee. She is bolstered by a voice from the past, the only one who knows who she is and what she seeks. That, too, is a temptation, and she returns to the  battle, only to learn that her chance to stand down is gone. It is a metaphor, at this point, for addiction.

"Your chance to back out is gone."   The words of evil Herod are clear.

The duel scene between Herod and his son, "The Boy", are the antithesis of the Gospel, for in this movie, the Father not only directly kills his son in a town named "Redemption" but does so for his own glory, and then denies his patronage to the deceased boy. The Boy was somewhat of a town hero; if anyone should have won the duel, it should have been him, but in Redemption, evil holds court, reveling in a taste of Hell that just continues.

It's no surprise that the Woman, the protagonist, deals the killing blow, crushing Satan beneath her heel, and in so doing, passes on the star that represents the Law into the hands of the Holy Man, the lone representative of moral law.

I don't know if the author of the original story, Simon Moore, is a Catholic, but based on this movie, I see Catholicism, I see Christianity.

Now, before you object, I am not saying that the moral play-out of this movie is Christian, or that what the characters did was right, or that it didn't twist Christian themes a bit. However, I do see an allegorical nature to it and think we might legitimately take notice and use it to examine ourselves.

Examination of Conscience

The protagonist, the female gunslinger, came a bit too close to home for me, although I'm not willing to express all the dimensions of that. Certainly, as a woman who once ventured into law enforcement and worked hard to harden myself to the world around me, the main character here could "speak" to me.

In all honesty, I sought to be what she was:  cool, collected, tough, and a great shot. She could play with the big dogs and still maintain her femininity while placing them at bay.

Tonight, as I watched the movie, though, the scene that most stood out to me was her response to the vermine that stole the innocence of the only innocent character in the movie. She struggled with justice and mercy, opted for mercy even as "Satan" egged her on, then found herself in a position of self defense. She was triumphant, but struck to her very being. She was not innocent and had entered into this walking her daddy's line.

I'm no different.

When she blew the pedophile's *ss away, I said to myself that I would have done the same thing, but I would have had no mercy.  I would have taken him out piece by piece, slowly and with great relish to ensure he suffered as slow and painful a death as possible.

That's murder, folks.  That's murder in the heart, and yes, I'm capable of it. I hold a hatred and anger so deep within myself that I could look you straight in the eye and tell you in person what I stated above, and I'm neither the victim of such a crime nor the relation or friend of one who has suffered it (to my knowledge).

But oh, yes, I know it is within me and in that knowledge, I am brought to my knees by the words of Christ, who, in Matthew, 5 asserts that sin in the heart is as real as that sin made manifest. As we give life to temptation, so that temptation becomes sin and therefore palpable in the eyes of God, even if not physically committed.

Yes, I have committed murder in my heart, I did so tonight and have done so many times before. Too many to count.  I know I could and will kill in hatred and vengeance; my own conscience tells me  it's possible. What I learned in psychology tells me this: That which we can conceive in our imaginations we have the propensity to commit.

I recall standing in the early morning corridor of an apartment building, a gun in my hand, loaded, pointed at a man who had just drawn on us. I did not want to kill him, for truly, he was just being stupid and had no intent, on his own part, to kill anyone else, certainly not us. We were to learn he was a regular guy, if a not-so-bright-one and in my professionalism, I had no desire to pull the trigger. Although I knew I might have to kill, I had an innate sense that the level of force we offered was sufficient.

I can't say, though, that if I was emotionally involved I would have the same restraint.

Yes, I have it within me to pull the trigger. I have it within my fallen nature to take a life.

I have it within my nature, for I have, through the trials of life, been formed in a murderous culture that fed into my own propensities, making it possible to give license to such murderous evil.

I have had murder in my heart, and therefore, in God's eyes, I have been guilty of murder.

Lord, have mercy on me, and defend me from evil.

Sed libera nos a malo. Sed libera nos a malo....

Rocky Soil, Virtues and Sin

This last summer when I went out to Connecticut to visit a religious community or two, I fell in love with the countryside we passed through. The roads of that New England state have no shoulders and stone walls were everywhere.

It actually made me want to get on a horse and see how many stone walls we could leap, but I digress. (And I neither have a horse nor have ever formally learned to jump. Informally, though... heh heh...)

Although of course I'd seen many pictures of our Eastern states throughout my life and recall from early elementary school a discussion on the rocky soil that contributed to the hard life of the pilgrims, I admit I never really gave any thought as to how the land itself ends up forming the "character" of certain places. Sure, it should be obvious, so I'll admit to my shallowness here and now.

A few days ago a co-worker and I were discussing the characteristics of the narrow roads and stone walls, and she told her own stories arising from having lived there for some years.

She described how each spring they would go into the garden (or fields, for some!) and "pick rocks". The previous fall when the harvest was in, the soil would be spotless, but for the remnants of plants, stalks, anything. She always thought, "Oh, that's so nice, next spring we'll just have to till it and plant!"

Then spring came around, and where only a few months before there had been nothing but soft, welcoming soil, now there would be a huge boulder! Many huge boulders, in fact!

And so they would heave-ho right back to work, picking barrels and barrels of rocks from the fields, once again. This, she said, is why there are so many stone walls; they will continue to be built as long as the earth continues to heave up the rocks she contains. It's simply a part of life out there, for if they do not set to work to eradicate the rocks on a regular basis, the growing season would be wasted, the fertility of the ground useless without the requisite labor to make it fruitful.

Virtues and Vice

This semester we are studying Moral Theology, which, of course, involves a close study of the Virtues. (So far we haven't discussed Vice...thank God. I don't think I can handle that yet!).

Virtues have to be cultivated. We can't just rest on maybe what we've done before, thinking, "Oh, I'm more patient now than I was six months ago, so now I have that virtue."

We can never rest. As soon as we work to obtain a virtue, we find that all the habits we've developed over time block us. Maybe we have a habit of impatience, or intemperence, or something else. When we put the spotlight on a particular virtue, we so often realize that we don't have it because we haven't worked on it, or perhaps we've directly worked against it!

To use the metaphor of the rocky fields, we find that, each time we try to refocus anew on growing in holiness, in obtaining virtues, we have an awful lot of rocks to heave out of the way! It's hard labor, not an easy process, for it involves doing something contrary to the habits we've cultivated, perhaps over years.

Oh, and some of those habits might require a backhoe and a team of neighbors to completely unearth!

Growing in Holiness Involves Massive Labor

The road is rocky, the soil seems to be nothing but boulders. But below that, if we work diligently, and with fortitude (another virtue!), and persevere (!), we will finally reach that fertile soil and may find a few other things coming together as well. All of the virtues are linked in some way, so if we focus on one, it affects the others. And the more we grow in virtue, the fewer BIG sins we seem to find, although with them out of the way we can more easily spot the smaller ones which also inhibit growth.

This, though is where the metaphor departs, for just as one can't rest on one's laurels when one facet of the job is done, well, there's always more toil awaiting.

We can see, in a garden, the results of our labors. We can watch plants grow, we can observe the flowers budding and bursting forth. We can pick the raspberries, the tomatoes, dig the potatoes, etc. We can SEE results and enjoy them. Although it still involves a certain labor of love to water the garden and pull up weeds, we are encouraged to continue this because of what we observe arising from the ground; the fruits of our toil.

It is not so with virtues; the more we grow in holiness, the more we grow in attention to detail to our true spiritual state. We don't "see" our own progress in quite the same way, and the very moment we think we can say we have a particular virtue, we can be certain that, in fact, we do not.

That is not to say we can't notice that maybe we've progressed some; I mean this only as a caution. For example, if I were to announce that I've acquired the virtue of humility, finally, at long last...well...Oh, I can hear ALL my readers laughing at that one! To make such an announcement would be the antithesis of humility! Agreed?

And so, my friends, I don't know about you, but I've got a HUGE field of rocks in front of me, and if I don't start picking, I'll never be able to plant, and God will have nothing to harvest when He calls. I just have to figure out where to start, which Virtue to choose....and I think I'll go get rid of that big boulder right....there.

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FYI: The other day Fr. S. at Clerical Reform posted on this general topic and included, in answer to a request, an Examination of Conscience based on the Theological Virtues. I found it to be very helpful when I went to Confession yesterday morning, especially in that it includes some great advice from St. Ignatius of Loyola.

I hope it will be helpful for you, too.

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Making a Mockery of Christ

From the Divine Office today, from a sermon by St. Peter Chrysologus, bishop:

There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting, and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other.

Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you open God's ear to yourself.

When you fast, see the fasting of others. If you want God to know that you are hungry, know that another is hungry. If you hope for mercy, show mercy. If you look for kindness, show kindness. If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery.

These words condemn me, and it's excruciating. On every level, every word...I fall short.  

One of the things I'm trying to work on is forgiveness; more and more, I realize how much I hold on to grudges. I realize how much I complain about people who have wounded me, but forget how much I have wounded others.  I think of offenses both ancient and recent, and my self-righteous attitude towards those who have offended or injured me in some way, both big and small. 

And this runs the gamut;  serious offenses from childhood, things that have formed me through abuse and injury, and more recently, offenses that have simply wounded my pride. 

True holiness asks us to regard others as more important than ourselves, to defer to them even to our own detriment. And I've found myself having to do this, and it's not easy. Especially when I believe I'm right, and even more especially...when I KNOW I'm right!  But sometimes it's better to back off and acquiesce for the sake of the other;  if the lesson is important enough, we'll BOTH get the message God wants us to receive. And it is in those moments we need to sacrifice our own will and allow God to take the lead. 

But what really  convicts me is this:  "If you want to receive, give. If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery."

How often have my prayers been a mockery?  

How often have I harbored a grudge against another, while asking God for mercy for my own transgressions?  

How often have I approached the altar at Mass while feeling and resenting the sting of a rebuke of another, just or unjust?  

How often have I expected kindness, even if I have been unkind?  

How often have I held myself up as judge, jury, and executioner, and resented those SAME actions in another?

How often in the actions of others have I been shown a mirror of myself, and even though BOTH of us have been wrong, have I  held my own position up as the superior one? 

How often have I asked for mercy, even as I have refused mercy to another? 

How often have I pounded the nails into the hands and feet of Christ, even as I have condemned others, even to their faces, of doing the same thing? 

How often have I held both the hammer and the nail, failing to realize it was my own soul being pierced, and each action was to my own condemnation?  

How often have I looked into the loving eyes of Christ and directed my gaze from the wounds I have caused in order to avoid responsiblity for my own actions? 

How often have I directed my gaze away from others because, in my faulty judgment...they didn't look enough like Christ to satisfy me? 

How often have I condemned others, even though Jesus has done nothing but forgive me? 

How many times have I gone about my day, and my prayer and have done nothing but make a mockery of Christ?

How many times in my life have I struck the Rock and Crucified Christ because of my own unwillingness to kneel at His feet in humility?  

How many times, in a single day, have I made a mockery of Christ?

Ecce Homo!  

Behold the Man!

Behold the Man...