People in the world do not realize that one can be very detached from all human things and live a keen spiritual life, and yet find sweetness in the interests, occupations, and joys of life. However, it is only when one has rooted oneself in eternity that one can let one’s humble little barque float upon the surface of the waves and rejoice full in the view from earthly rivers. Storms no longer frighten one; the clear sky makes one more bold. The sun is always shining behind the clouds; the light, for all its beauty, does not conceal the eternal and splendid light that guides us to port and waits for us there.
Élisabeth Leseur, from The Secret Diary of Elisabeth Leseur, pg. 102
I’m okay, you’re okay, God just wants us to be happy, all good people go to heaven…
“Moralistic therapeutic deism” was a term coined by sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton in their 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers to describe the “I’m okay, you’re okay” departure from historic Christianity and its message of sin and redemption. For moralistic therapeutic deists, the authors explain, God is
“something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he’s always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process” (pg. 165).
When the term is bandied about in Catholic circles, it’s usually in derision, and rightly so: coming into the Beatific Vision and union with God Himself requires a bit more than self-congratulatory religious and moral relativism. It’s why many Catholics are frustrated by milquetoast “God Loves You!” preaching: they see “feel-good” homilies as a reduction of Jesus’ message and promising people an easy way out.
Our faith is one of constant conversion, and it’s good to remind others of it. But before you do: make sure you know who you’re talking to. When some people hear another complain,
“Man, I wish Father would stop harping on how awesome we are and how God loves us and start talking about sin,”
they internalize it as,
“Meditating on the love of God is for lazy Catholics. I don’t want to be lazy. I’ll focus on the hard stuff.”
Near the end of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises is a curious section titled, “Some Notes Concerning Scruples.” Scrupulosity is one of those pesky spiritual problems that we don’t always recognize but can give us a lot a grief if left unchecked. Believe me, I know!
Never heard of scrupulosity? How about Catholic Guilt? Scrupulosity is Catholic Guilt run amok, or, as St. Alphonsus Liguori explains:
“A conscience is scrupulous when, for a frivolous reason and without rational basis, there is a frequent fear of sin even though in reality there is no sin at all. A scruple is a defective understanding of something” (Moral Theology, Alphonsus de Liguori: Selected Writings, ed. Frederick M. Jones, C. Ss. R., pg. 322).
When you obsess over whether or not something was done “right,” you may be scrupulous.
When a cloud of anxiety and doubt hovers over the minutiae your faith and moral life, you may be scrupulous.
When you fear obsessive thoughts and feelings and use prayer and the Sacraments compulsively in order to get rid of them, you may be scrupulous.
St. Ignatius’ advice for dealing with scruples might surprise the person experiencing them. In a world of excess, greed, and violence, where heinous sin is broadcast publicly and without shame, one might think we Christians need to practice more prayer and penance in order to be effective witnesses of God’s saving grace. I couldn’t agree more.
But for the scrupulous person, asceticism is exactly the wrong approach to living a joyful life with Jesus Christ, St. Ignatius says. His advice points the scrupulous person—and their directors—toward a different solution.
I doubt most people enjoy fighting with their spouse. Yet most couples would see arguing as an unpleasant and sometimes necessary part of marriage. When two people live together, they’re bound to bump against each other’s rough edges. Every couple has issues which need to be addressed honestly. Sometimes—because we’re human—we bring anger into it. It happens.
I have a very, very hard time accepting this fact of married life. I hate arguing with my husband. I hate conflict and (scrupulous me) I especially hate the guilty feelings that come with my feelings of anger. My knee-jerk reaction is to think that my feeling angry is always a sin.
As a consequence, I spent several years of marriage avoiding necessary communication so as to avoid all those yucky feelings. Instead of saying, “Hey, honey? That thing you did? It bugged me,” I’d opt for the much superior and totally awesome passive-aggressive approach of silently tiptoeing around my husband like a wounded victim. Because this…
I’m upset. Can you tell I’m upset? I feel guilty for being upset, but could you please apologize to me, anyway? I’m not going to tell you what you did because that’d be an accusation and I don’t like accusing you. That’s right, you’ll need to guess. Even though I’m not sure I even have a right to be upset, I still want you to validate my feelings even though I’m not going to tell you what they are…
… works, right?
Or not.
Recently, Simcha Fisher raised the issue of scrupulosity, the state of being perpetually afraid of sin, at the National Catholic Register. As someone who battles scrupulosity, I was thrilled to see someone raising the issue. Scruples can plague a person and wreak all kinds of havoc in his relationship with God. (All you priests are probably nodding your heads right now!)
Unfortunately, we don’t talk much about scrupulosity today, and to our detriment. Fisher had to respond to a few confused readers of her article who thought we needed more scrupulosity, not less, given the state of our sinful world. That they misunderstood is completely understandable: on the surface it would seem like having more awareness of sin would always be a good thing.
So what is scrupulosity, and why is it so bad? Let’s delve deeper into the topic.
Read the rest at Integrated Catholic Life.