Antithesis of Franciscanism

ANTITHESIS OF FRANCISCANISM One of the most striking proofs of the singular appropriateness of Franciscan spirituaüty to modern needs of mind andsoul is the existence of Existentialism. This curious and fashionable cult of rationalized despair and studied pessimism is typical of de-Christianized Western man. In almost every one of its aspects it is the dark opposite of Franciscanism as Satan is of the Seraphic Saint. It is a sort of Wailing WaU towards which many wilfully turn their faces. It appeals to many perverse folk who prefer — to use an Irish bull — to walk in the light of their own shadows. Unlike Communism, to which it is often compared, it is not a petrified philosophy. Indeed, it is not, properly speaking, a philosophy at all, but ah amorphous thing in the moral atmosphere resembling a November fog. It is a proof, e contrario, that modern man is hungry for holiness and holiness, for light and laughter, for some code that will give point to existence, dispel the terrible Angst that corrodes the heart of man and make death, with which he is obsessed, a door to fullest existence. Existentialism, as the Victorian novelists use say in a memorable labor-saving phrase "is better imagined than described." It is certainly easier to describe than define. There are several Existentialist philosophers , such as Jaspers, Heidegger and Sartre, but no phüosophy. Sartre, who is the present high-priest of the cult, describes it as "nothing else but an attempt to draw all the consequences from a coherent position ," and admits that there are two types of Existentialists — atheists, like himself and Heidegger, and Christians, such as Jaspers and Gabriel Marcel. That gloomy Dane and "cragsman of Christ," Soren Kierkegaard, is regarded as the founder of Existentialism, and the scholar who gave it its name. AU that we can know, he said, are the moments of our experience in the here and now; we feel, endure fatigue and fear, anxiety and frustration in a succession of moments. These moments — our "existence" — are the only real things we know. He broke with all previous phüosophical methods in seeking more immediate and intimate 9 Franciscan Studies. 1958121 122LIAM BROPHY contacts with life. In place of the principles and ideas of other systems he sought to comprehend "being" in man's intimate existence. In place of the accepted categories of quality, quantity, substance, accident, etc. he substituted those drawn from experience — Angst, fear, frustration and death. His phüosophy was itself a reaction against Hegelian rationalism, an existential view of life set against one of essence. As against the speculative phüosophy of Hegel, Kierkegaard places emphasis on the individual and on freedom of choice. It is sometimes fondly imagined that metaphysics should be as aloof as physics from human temperaments and the complications of environments and conditioned reflexes. In point of fact philosophies are as impregnated with the moods and tensions of their creators as musical compositions. Since melancholy marked Kierkegaard for her own, Existentialism grew up melancholy and has since developed into a veritable cult of accedía. The poetic temperament of Kierkegaard hungered for God and was "hot for certainties." But the Lutheran atmosphere of Denmark was inimical to suoh a mind. Instead of the living Christianity for which he instinctively longed, he saw a rigid formalism, incapable of growth or development and impotent to minister to the mind or spirit diseased. As he grew older Kierkegaard took harder and harsher views of Luther, and on his death-bed refused the ministrations of the Lutheran clergy. It was tragic that having rejected the Lutheran Lie he had no opportunity of knowing the Light, for the Catholic Church had been in total eclipse for three centuries before his time in Denmark and he never experienced a living Catholicism. Kierkegaard's cult might have vanished like so many others of its kind were it not for the fact that there was a spiritual vacuum in Lutheran countries, where youth was still eager for some news of God and the hereafter. A general Weltschmerz had spread all over Europe, it is true, but it was a fatally real fact in Germany, while the...