This revolutionary bravado, a relic of the revolts that shook the western world at the end of the Sixties, for a long time dirtied the walls of our cities. Then, the graffiti disappeared. It erased itself. Imperceptibly. These words painted on the walls, having become obsolete, had outlived their usefulness. By constantly passing in front of them and reading them, man had become intimately and unconsciously impregnated by them.
The formula now risked becoming harmful for the progress of revolution. To remind man too insistently that he had to free himself from God and from any master could produce a reaction, a contrary effect to the one intended. The revolutionaries, henchmen of Satan and his disciples in the art of perversion, were not to fall into such error.
Indeed, the devil likes to use this fearsome weapon, the slow and imperceptible impregnation of the soul, in order to stay hidden while he works. St. Teresa of Avila spoke of this action as that “of a dull file” that wears down the soul.
Neither God, nor master. Modern man is his own God and master.
Technical progress has reinforced this idea in him. He is free from any rule and any law: he himself has become the authority on good and evil. The moral distortions of recent years, particularly due to the unrestrained and uncontrolled use of the Internet, provide a sadly vivid illustration of this confusion.
A self-appointed god with unlimited power, our self-satisfied little man thinks of himself as being a superman straight out of Nietzsche’s wild imaginings. And thus, through blogs and forums, he informs an amazed world of the latest discoveries of his brilliant spirit. He has an opinion about everything, judges everything, and allows himself everything. The world cannot do without him, without his thoughts, always far too ignored and insufficiently respected. Usually his genius manifests itself in insults of his neighbor or in judgments that can’t be questioned (or proved). His tone is all the more peremptory as he knows neither the people concerned nor the outcomes of the matter in question, but all this matters little to him. He swaggers and struts about, a laughable and pathetic sight.
He does not, even for a moment, imagine that he is seriously lacking in charity. He moves in a different world: his own. He takes pleasure in it, with an obvious and grotesque satisfaction.
This illusion of power is deadly, as it suppresses in a man any reference to an order higher than himself. Now, more than ever, contemporary man must be reminded of his dependence on his environment.
The awareness cannot be limited to daily, practical things like power failures or mechanical breakdowns. It is not this. It is time to return to the order of things, to believe no more that the progress of the modern world has given us an unlimited moral power. Quite the contrary, this progress, upon which we have become so dependent, has weakened our nature and now more than ever we need rules to support us, especially moral rules.
A man is faithful to his vocation only when he recognizes his God and follows the masters that He has appointed to lead to Him.
Neither God, nor master – this modern demand has crippled and handicapped man by attacking his very essence, which is to be a son.
To free oneself from the supervision of God and of a master is nothing else than the refusal of paternity, reducing man to little more than a base animal enslaved by his passions – a being that does not depend on anyone or anything, a zombie that has lost his soul and become a pawn at the mercy of those preparing the reign which Satan has so long desired.
Nevertheless, the reality established by God will always remain, as will our hope in it:
The work of the wicked shall not remain;
The silver idols they raised on the sand
Shall one day cave by their own weight,
And night shall fall on the dreams of man.
In Christo Sacerdote et Maria,
Fr. Yves le Roux