https://saintmartinsacademy.org

Commentary

I thought this was a primer in monastic formation somewhat like the Cistercian charism….but I took a look at the website and was shocked to see the word “softness” being equated with “sloth”! For goodness’ sake, what are you trying to do?? Re-create a cultish boys club based on principles that have more in common with the beliefs of the Exclusive Bretheren than authentic Catholicism?!

At first, prior to checking out the official website, it looked quite promising in some respects from what I saw of the video* but seriously, to read on the school’s website that “softness” or “tenderness” is equated with “sloth” is akin to making a terrible mistake. For Jesus taught compassion to be at the centre of service and that real charity was based on love that stems from a heart which values mercy as complementary to righteousness. To instill piety together with self-mastery but omit love is antithetical to Catholic moral and social ethos and has much more in common with classical Stoic philosophy than Gospel values. 

It’s time to take Veritatis Splendor, Laudato Si, and Dilexit Nos seriously as texts which ought to be emulated in daily life in such a way that gives glory to God, proclaims the coming of His Kingdom to all creation, and demonstrates that the Gospel values can be apprehended through these texts thereby allowing them to speak to our inner most depths “as mirrors of each other” in different and divinely inspired creative ways. For Dilexit Nos ties together pearls of thought fished from deep inside God’s own heart and as formerly expressed in Veritatis Splendor and Laudato Si – for His heart is an Ocean of infinite treasures, of infinite love that He beckons us to immerse ourselves in, to partake of in such a way that we will be so transformed from being fallen human selves into co-sharers of the divine humanity – that fullness that only Jesus’ own Heart can truly lead us into. And for this to happen, we need to guard our hearts and live our lives out of the deep wellsprings of virtue and goodness that God has planted inside these hearts which He has so graciously given us. It will NOT do us well to discard them and trash our emotional cores as though they were only ‘waste’. To cultivate hardness of heart is not what Jesus is asking. For that was how the Scribes and Pharisees tended to approach their own cultivation of the spiritual and intellectual life. They lived predominantly in their heads and did almost exclusively according to the mastery of the head. That was following Law apart from Grace. And that is not good enough. Even the Apostle Paul warned about the danger of being spiritually haughty and practicing faith by being rigorous, legalistic, conceited on account of achieving ‘excellence’ in the efficiency rating of the way one goes about ‘serving’ God. You can meticulously “tick all the right boxes” and become so sophisticatedly adroit in how you practice your devotions, observances, and duties but you can at one and the same time be doing all that without caring from deep in your heart about love, about what real service in the name of compassion actually means. (1Cor 13:1-3) Jesus illustrated this perfectly in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The priests and levites did not dare touch the injured man because they believed it more important to be law and duty-bound than to risk “losing face” by helping someone in dire need. Their hearts were trained to be hard and “softness” or “mercy” was not an option. Jesus turned the tables on all of that and made it clear that compassion was not only an option but a Commandment hence the moral behind the Two Greatest Commandments. 

In view of this then, it would be far better for St Martin’s Academy to do justice to their role in the Great Commission by omitting the word “softness” from being set alongside “sloth” and replace it with “tepidity” or “luke-warmness” as these latter two descriptors are much more in line with the vice of sloth. Softness is rather, a virtue, and not a vice for it prepares the heart to receive the Holy Spirit’s guidence and it enables us to know real love as akin to both righteousness and mercy embracing.

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Additional Reference:

*https://youtu.be/DsAPkjFHz5c?si=WIwd7iTkhaLZroq5

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