The enemy of the cross is what Pope Benedict XVI referred to as the dictatorship of relativism. It is, in fact, what spiritual writers in the last century, like Coleridge, Chesterton and Belloc, referred to as the return to paganism, a return to idolatry. The cross says: “Deny oneself.” The dictatorship of relativism says satisfy one’s every desire.
St. Paul writing to the Phillipians described this enemy as a spiritual malaise wherewith the mind is set on the things of the earth, where their glory is their shame and their god is their belly.
A simple illustration: a germ that has survived a dosage of anti-biotics becomes resistant to the medicine. We will need a stronger anti-biotic or at least a higher dosage of the same to hopefully overcome the virus. If, as some scientist had predicted, we have made the strongest anti-biotic and some germs or virus develop resistance to this then the world is in trouble.
The Catholic Church had conquered every evil in the world during her earlier history. A potent anti-biotic. But present Catholics who have been born within the Church (the anti-biotic) have developed resistance to this watered-down church and have become evil. The consoling thought is that the Catholic Church had been watered down through the centuries and it was understandable that she could not cure certain spiritual illness. Well, the only way to cure her, today, is to apply the full dosage of Catholic doctrine. And hope the illness of the dictatorship of relativism which is the enemy of the cross might be healed.
Their god is their belly. Monasticism is the only medication for such a terminal case. Well, there is fasting and Christ’s command to “deny oneself,” to cure the idolatry of the belly. And there is “fuga mundo” that should separate men from the world thus curing their sickness of having minds that are focused on the things of the earth. And there are the different monastic practices, spiritual readings, lectio divina, divine office and meditations that should make them realize that their sins are not the sources of glory but of shame. Chesterton and co. foresaw the coming doom of civilization. They proposed some semblance of monasticism in distributism but failed to prose monasticism as a whole.
Monasticism is an imitation of the 30 years of hidden life of Joseph, Jesus and Mary. By its very nature it must be hidden; that is why Christ, when preaching about good works, fasting and prayer, the three elements of the life of repentance, bade us to do all these “in secret.”
“You have cancer.” A doctor will truthfully declare to help you prepare yourself spiritually. “You need monasticism.” The Holy Father had declared to enable us to be free from the dictatorship of relativism and attain the freedom of true children of God.