https://ondemand.ewtn.com/Home/Play/en/GBE23005

Commentary

This episode in the EWTN series called Great Books Every Catholic Should Know supposedly focuses on one of my favourite themes, that of Love & Responsibility.

While in many respects, Joseph Pearce’s analyses of the calamitous political backdrops of these plays might be absolutely “spot-on”, his take on alot of the characters & substance is startlingly unredemptive and in some parts, severely lacking in depth. For example, although he highlights the fact that Desdimona in Othello is not guilty of adultery, he unfairly castigates her for being roguishly tricked into submitting to “being wooed” by Iago. It’s clear she was gullible and so was deceived by the wretched Iago, into falling for his tall-stories. She is more of a hapless victim of lustful deception on the part of Iago than someone ‘who ought to be punished for their lack of foresight’ as Pearce sees it. It should be understood that nobody is ‘justifiably punished’ for being gullible. God’s righteousness and mercy don’t work that way. Rather, we need to convey sympathy where sympathy is due, and that includes towards those who are unwittingly deceived. It must also be added that, it is of the utmost importance to recognize that victims of deception cannot always be considered to be “as guilty as Eve”, simply because it is just not true that we can afford to impute to all these poor people the stain of guilt re: disobedience towards God’s commands that is rightly attributed to Eve within the context of Genesis 3 : 2-6. In Desdimona’s case, instead of deliberately being rebellious against God per se, she falls for the shennanegans of Iago, the deceitful wooer. Pearce asks this question about Desdimona, “Is she as pure and chaste as many critics tend to believe?” Well, let me reflect this question back to you Dr Pearce….“Was Mary Magdelene as pure and chaste as the Blessed Virgin before encountering Jesus in the midst of the angry mob? And how about St Paul’s great one-liner that “there is not a single one, who is righteous before God, no, not one!”¹ ? And the great Saint goes on to say “therefore no one will be justified in His sight by works of the law. For the law merely brings awareness of sin.”²

In the light of Shakepeare’s plays, of course, we can count many villains and decry much treachery but we must be careful not to overlook those places where the treachery was unwittingly encountered by those more naiive characters caught somewhat unintentionally in the cross-fire of villainy, like Desdimona, who on account of bearing little or no public reputation, receives alot more guilt-bearing scorn or attention – unlike the big-wigs on the political scene in Hamlet that Dr Pearce acquits or dissolves of blame, such as Hamlet himself, for example. And then what are we to make of all this in the irridescently bright & everso humbling light of Jesus own words that “there will be more rejoicing in Heaven over one lost sheep who returns than over the ninety-nine others who never strayed.”³ ?

Another and most poignant observation gleaned from this episode of Great Books Every Catholic Should Know, is the fact that Dr Pearce’s review of Twelfth Night was appalling! I was heartily disappointed because this was the one and only work of William Shakespeare’s that I was enthusiastic about relative to watching this episode. I just love Twelfth Night and was so pumped to read that it was going to be talked about on this show. But, oh, to my profound and utter disappointment, it was not even gone into a great deal, because Joseph Pearce severely truncated any exploration of the story and reduced it to an in-depth look into the ill-willed character of Malvolio! I mean, how utterly absurd that is because for one thing, the character  Malvolio is not ALL there is to know about the play Twelfth Night  –  he certainly cannot be and ought not to be equated with a summation of the play’s entire plotline anyhow for he is not even the main character! He is what you would call a side-figure, someone who flits in and out of the story’s main terrain, and who causes severs and rifts to happen in the course of unfolding events. But the overture of Twelfth Night could hardly be said to revolve entirely around the stupendously annoying cantankerous antics of Malvolio. Dr Pearce did a great disservice to this beautiful and heartening take of William Shakespeare on the bountiful thematics of Christmas and for this I reproof him stridently.

There is just something about many of those people like Joseph Pearce, that by a long trail, as it were, of that which we might call discernment-incontinence have, time after time after time after time, down through myriads upon myriads of decisions-made over days upon days, months uppn months, years upon years, decades upon decades, centuries upon centuries – tended to cast wrong judgements – albeit very Phariseic ones dare I say it, and that because of both the insideously unbroken chain coupled with the sum of all that collective discernment-incontinence, the relational threads of my life re: the positive human encounter with others in the Church at large, has been reduced to tatters….! Now, I will be surely accused of ‘shifting the blame’, of ‘not being willing to take personal responsibility’ for my poor choices, lack of foresight in decision-making, and even for my own sufferings under the weight of childhood demonic oppression and obsession, little did I realize at the time what from Hell was engulfing me, threatening to scoop my life up and wisk it away….

That said I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE CATHOLIC FAITH AND ALL IT HAS TO OFFER and I am of the core conviction that the Church is so much more than just an impersonal collection of motley others whom I don’t know, and who do not wish to know me or even welcome me to know them but who congregate under the same roof every Sunday morning for Mass at this location or that, here, there and everywhere the world over! It’s way more than that!! It’s the lives of all who have gone before us and who are here today with us in the midst of Heaven itself, those who keep watch with God, over us here on earth, and who intercede for us in our deepest, innermost trials and necessities. They are what the Bible calls the Great Cloud of Witnesses⁴ and, it is they, along with the Angels who comprise the Church Triumphant in Heaven. They act in solidarity with those of us who are conscientiously and wholeheartedly devoting their lives to “fighting the good fight” here on earth – for we are called the Church Militant, as this descriptor denotes the fact that we serve God by and through our spiritual warfare – for the sake of contributing to the building up and perpetuation of God’s holy reign here on earth. We are also intimately tied to the Church Suffering in Purgatory. And Purgatory, I might add, is sometimes co-joined with our experiences here on earth so that we who are here on earth, can avail ourselves of the opportunity to tap in to the soul-perfecting graces of Purgation and Illumination which will eventually lead us – when consistently prayed into & for, practiced, and persisted in – to perfecting our Union with God and with all creation.

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Other References:

¹ Romans 3 : 10

² Romans 3 : 20

³ Matthew 18 : 13

⁴ Hebrews 12 : 1