Francis of Assisi | Subversive Thomism

My faith in the basic goodness of humanity is often renewed by children — not just my own, although in this case, it was.

MY 11 year old daughter was a little sneaky this year at Christmas time. She had $20 to spend for Christmas. The children passed out their gifts first, and after all of Tesa’s were opened, I realized they did not add up to $20 – yet she had called me and asked for more money. So I was suspicious about what happened to her money. Well, we continued to open presents. I was passing out presents, and I cam across these presents marked “From Santa.” Since I’d wrapped or helped wrapped all the presents, I couldn’t figure out what these were. Then it dawned on me after a minute, that the 11 year old had hidden these presents under the tree with “Santa” on them instead of her name.

The funny thing here was the mix-up: she’d mislabeled her and her mom’s gifts: so the 11 year old opens her present to find a pair of socks — the look on her face was confusion mixed with sadness. Later on, my wife opened her present from Santa to find glowing bouncing balls. Santa got confused.

Of course, we all figured it out in the end; and she did get something for herself from Santa. But that’s not the point — we all have motives for what we do, and the question isn’t whether we gain something or have some reason for what we do. Aristotle and Thomas believed that every act is for some end — something we see as good. Yet, we can still act altruistically when the good we aim at is, not our own, but that of the other. And here, this wonderful thoughtful 11 year old tries to make everyone happy by giving them a present from Santa. I almost cried.

None of which is to say that she doesn’t fight with her sisters or doesn’t have a snarky voice, or anything else. We’re all human, which means we all have faults. The question before us is whether we focus on the faults — as Augustine did — or focus on the goodness, as Thomas Aquinas and Francis of Assisi did.

Christmas time is a good time to remember that it’s better to follow Thomas and Francis. It’s also a time to live out that subversive character of giving to the other.

Our Novena to St. Nicholas has received some national attention via NCR. I am very happy about this. I want to take this opportunity to point out two things.

First and foremost, St. Nicholas may have been the inspiration of Santa Clause, but it was only in the way that, say, filet mignon is the inspiration for a quarter pounder with chesse. Culture, of course, transforms the original into something that is not quite like it but we pretend it is. Originally, back before capitalism, Santa Clause may have been a symbol for true Christianity and love. Today, he is a tool for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. St. Nicholas, however, stands for and with the poor.

Second, we have to recall at this time that St. Nicholas is not about giving handouts to those who are undeserving. We must model our selves after Nicholas — doing what we can in the situation at hand. We are well to remember this in light of Bishop Lynch’s decision to kill health care for his thousands of employees rather than risk allowing someone to practice contraception which may in some small case lead to an abortion. What would St. Nicholas do in this situation: he would find someone to subvert the system and make sure that everyone receives health coverage while not funding possible abortafacients. How many people seek an abortion out of fear that they cannot afford the health care for themselves while pregnant or their children once born. We have to make sure a no-win situation becomes a win-win situation by undermining the culture that seems to allow us no choice.

If nothing else, we as Catholics must resist the reification of the status quo — that is the true meaning of saintliness, the subversion of the status quo, from St. Nicholas and St. Augustine, to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assissi, to Dorothy Day and Oscar Romero. It requires sacrifice — but notice that saints always sacrifice themselves and never the other.

Subversive Thomism

Living Justly and Loving Kindness in a World on the Brink of Collapse

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