Avoiding the Blackpill Temptation

The Charlotte diaconate ordinations occurred last weekend. Ours is a diocese that has been the subject of an abundance of articles over the past couple of years, ever since the newly-appointed Bishop Michael Martin instituted controversial changes. He sequestered the Latin Mass to a remote chapel and attempted to institute a litany of changes to the Novus Ordo Mass in what amounted to the discouragement of reverence and tradition.

The music at this weekend’s Ordination Mass was grossly inappropriate. Even that phrasing is somehow an understatement, for little can capture the spiritual contrast of black gospel singers bellowing alongside a piano, singing their praise and worship music in the place of the Offertory Antiphon while the newly ordained were attempting to serve Mass.

Then, during the Consecration, the bishop held up the Host weakly with one hand, as he is now known for doing. It’s a posture that is difficult to understand as anything other than indifference. Thus, the projection of such casualness is a source of pain for many faithful Catholics.

A woman in a red choir robe sat in the sanctuary throughout the Mass, when she wasn’t singing therefrom, which she did replete with exaggerated hand signals to entice others to join in the spectacle. It was the enactment of what Bishop Martin had described in his infamous liturgical norms document.

Yet despite all of this, four men became Transitional Deacons. They stepped forward on their journey toward the priesthood, even in a diocese that has appeared darker in recent years for those who wish to make an offering of their lives. Despite the acts of irreverence that should not have been, it is difficult not to be moved by the gravity of the good. In fact, the contrast becomes ever starker.

All of this occurred in the midst of challenging symbolism: Over 70 percent of the parishioners received on the tongue, from a bishop who does not understand why. Half of them knelt on the hard floor, kneelers having been banished since last year.

Even in such an imperfect situation, people can still choose, can will, only to serve God—and to do so through their grief. Just as in times of persecution, some have chosen to allow the circumstances they endure to bring them closer to Him who was so unjustly treated; we, too, can choose to be united to Him by our minor sufferings.

Watching a man say yes to the call of the priesthood is always stirring. It is all the more so in a diocese plagued by uncertainty and in which personal piety and reverence are discouraged or outright sneered at. But those men did so because God called them now, not later; and they were formed well enough to hear his voice.

It is almost countercultural even in the Catholic sphere because the undercurrent of the Catholic Internet is to identify the bad within liturgies and speak ad nauseam about them. The complaints are valid and need to be articulated, but we must not drown in them. When experiencing such a problematic liturgy in the flesh alongside something as spiritually wholesome as ordination (or four), the torrent of Internet battles becomes mere background noise. As we witness the Transcendent action through the sacrament, wherein Heaven touches Earth, despite every act that could impoverish the moment, we see just one more triumph of the Good.

To make a more dramatic analogy, imagine being at the very place where Christians are being killed for their faith, whether back in time or at another place in the modern world. As you watch a good man get thrown into the flames, do you witness an unjust murder or do you watch the birthday of a saint? Yes. Just yes.

That’s the beauty of choosing the good in an environment of evil or even lived indifference. It means that the very contrast of our choices can provide an illumination that our world so desperately needs. We can bear witness by our rejection of “blackpilling” or despair-infused commentaries as we move to embrace good where it may always be found.

We can reject evil not only by rooting it out directly but by making the right decisions wherever we are able. If we move our eyes away from Him and the eternity of the landscape, then we allow the darkness to limit our view of the horizon.

We are not all called to the priesthood, of course; but we are all called to choose Him. Part of doing so lies in our disposition—by choosing whether we keep our peace in difficult scenarios and on whom we rely for our consolation. If we spend too much of our time rolling in angry commentaries about the state of the Church and the world, we might blind ourselves to how we are supposed to confront those things. In that blindness, we can ironically choose the darkness in our attempt to defend the Light.