Pride, the Root of Man's Destruction

Classical Christian morality has always said that pride is the root of all evil. As Ecclesiasticus(also known as Sirach) 10:14-15 tells us "The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God. Because his heart is departed from Him that made him: for pride is the beginning of all sin: he that holdeth it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end. "

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us "hence it is that pride fulfills the conditions of a first thing, and is the beginning of all sins"-Summa Theologica II-II Q 162. Art 7

Before us then is the witness of not only scripture, but also the witness of the saints. But what makes pride, the bottom-of-the-barrel evil, very fountainhead from which evil flows? Why can't programming computer viruses, or killing bunnies be the root of all evil?

The answer is really quite simple. The man who sins places his own Will above the Will of God. That is, sin is moral evil. God is goodness. He is, as scripture tells us, Truth. And thus we all know that obviously sin is incompatible with the will of God.

Next we all know from kindergarten CCD that God rules. He is sovereign Lord and all things are to be conformed to His Will. This is our purpose and our end, to conform without deviation, our will with God's. As Lesson 1 from the Baltimore Catechism answers the question: "Why did God make us? God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in Heaven"-BC L. 1, Q 3.

So to sin is to reject the Will of the God, and we are made to conform to the Will of God. And not only this, but to sin is to give primacy to our will instead of God's. And what does a man think who does this? He believes that he knows better than God. He believes that his own judgement is superior to the One who made him. And here in lies pride.

In each sin we commit, we falsely believe that our own decision, which does not bend its knee to the Will of the Infinite Creator, is superior to His. Thus, with every sin we choose to commit, we reject the authority of God and set ourselves up, even if only momentarily, as our own god.

On a Broken Heart and an Abandoned Church

I am a church hunter. Wherever I go I am always on the lookout for beautiful churches to stop into. In fact before I enter into any city or town, even if I am just passing through, I often do a brief skim of the web to see if there are any notably beautiful churches that I can stop into. And it is like Easter morning when I find a beautiful church that I can stop by, even if just for a few minutes, to admire and to pray in.

So why do I love beautiful churches? Firstly I love beauty. There is a notable and distressing lack of true beauty being produced in out modern age, from music to paintings to architecture, our age is no competition when paired against our forefathers. The regrettable scarcity of transcendent beauty in our day and age makes that which has survived our iconoclastic era all the more radiant.

But more than just the natural beauty, beautiful churches radiate faith. Last summer I spent a few days in Cincinnati working on pro-life outreach. We spent our nights at the Knights of Columbus Council hall attached to St. William Parish on the West Side of the city. We were blessed one evening when the pastor gave us a tour of the church.

The church had been built after World War I. When all of the soldiers of the families belonging to the parish came back from the war alive, the people celebrated by building a new church. The church, by todays standards, looks like a cathedral. Resplendent with beauty, truly these people in their faith left no detail unaccounted for.  And to this day the diamond in the rough that is St. Williams is cared for by a community who is still thankful.

More than the fine artistry, it is the incredible faith that is built into churches like this one, that make it come alive. Infinitely more than just marble, glass and stone, these buildings were a labour of love, and are a testimony to the faith of generations past. Generations who would sacrifice, who gave of themselves that magnificent buildings could be realized and brought to fruition, all for the glorification of the generous All Mighty. From these places, built by faith, proliferates not only faith, but an intangible primordial beauty, that is more than brick and mortar. It is truly the beauty of that faith, that is built into the meticulously carved marble, into the carefully, delicately crafted stain glass, into the stone, cut with devotion. This is what brings me to these Churches, and what makes, even their corporeal appearance superior to the greatest monuments and museums, the faith that was put into them now exudes out of them.

A few winters ago I traveled to Germany, and while there I was blessed to be able to stop in a small city by the name of Ulm. It is located in southern Germany along the Danube River. In the city there is a "cathedral" called the "Ulm Minster", which holds the record for the tallest church steeple in the world. The church has unique beginnings, instead of the Catholic Church funding the construction, the faithful of Ulm chose to fund the church themselves, and thus they created one of the most beautiful, and certainly the tallest, church in the world.

Built in(my personal favorite) the High-Gothic architecture, with the distinct flying buttresses, the church is a sight to be had. It was certainly built with the same love, attention, fealty and reverence as St. William. But as I walked through the church I felt a sadness, the Church has been stripped down. On the interior, on either side of the apse, there are store piles of pews and other materials; just from looking one can tell that the apse, once held a grand high altar, but has now been deprived of its former beauty with choir stalls in disrepair on either side. 

But what of it? Some may say, there are far greater injustices in the world than the non-pristine upkeep of an ancient church, and I would agree. But my heart laid heavy when I walked through Ulm Minster. You could feel the devotion under dirt on the walls, crying to break through. I could sense the devotion of the faithful who built it, but it was muted, restrained, and stifled by the absence of faith, that now filled the cold cathedral. It had been turned into a tourist destination. No longer did it serve its purpose, that for which it was built with all faith. It was not created for tourists to buzz through on their way to Munich. It was made to edify the people of Ulm, to give glory to Christ, and to enliven the faithful to the mysteries that the Church there in celebrated, especially the august sacrifice of the Mass.

The church that is no longer treated, firstly and chiefly as a house of prayer, especially for the Mass and other sacraments, has lost its meaning and its purpose has been muddied. What I see, is the faith of the ones who built it, that is now insulted by the lack of faith in present times. All over Europe and the whole world, there are beautiful churches, built with the faith that I have talked about, that are falling apart, because that faith no longer lives there in. What a contradiction, a palace built for the glory of God, now treated as a museum for us "enlightened" folk. The physical mark of faith remains, but the faith is gone.

I hope that one day the world will once again be full of the faith that once built these magnificent edifices. Then when people like myself in times to come, will enter these exquisite buildings, they will no longer be saddened by the beauty of a faith that has passed, but be filled with the joy of a church full of faithful, once again serving the purpose for which it was built.