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Contents © 2002
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

APRIL 2002 CONFESSIONS

IS MORTIFICATION NARCISSISM?

In college, guys would joke about giving up sex for Lent -- ha ha. The joke was that the guy was not only giving up a mortal sin (something he should never do in the first place), but giving up something he never indulged in anyway. Some sacrifice.

Now there's a movie, 40 Days and 40 Nights, about that -- a guy who gives up sex (including masturbation) for Lent. I didn't see it, though I admit I was curious -- the trailer for the film showed the guy struggling with temptation. When was the last time you saw a mainstream hero resist sexual temptation? How novel, how chock-full of comedic potential. A guy who's been swimming in the warm cultural waters climbs out and takes a cold shower.

Of course, the thing couldn't fly. The will -- the "why" -- counts for a great deal in these matters. The hero, a guy named Matt, doesn't give up sex because he believes it to be sinful, he gives it up to show that he can -- pride taking the place of lust. (It's good to escape from slavery to the body, but there are more insidious bondages.) Whatever insight he gains during his dry spell is an accidental good. And I can imagine that by the end, whether he wins his bet or not, he's back in the sack.

I stopped thinking about it until I read the review in the online magazine Salon.com. Reviewer Charles Taylor didn't like the film and took the occasion to sound off on some of its themes. This was part of what attracted my interest -- the reaction that a Catholic practice (chastity) presented in a mainstream film would inspire. Christ promised that the world would reject the Christian, so the nature of the response wasn't a surprise, but it's interesting to note the particulars.

There is the complaint about the celibate preaching to the non-celibate. Matt's brother is a seminarian, from whom Matt seeks counsel. Taylor's dismissal: "Would you want advice about your sex life from someone who's not getting any?" Well, yes. Like any passion, sex -- as anyone who's ever been tempted by lust can tell you -- has a way of coloring the perception. The hero is not seeking advice about technique, he's trying to understand the thing itself. It seems fair to expect a distanced view from a non-participant, in particular, a non-participant who has had to battle the same temptations.

Taylor wouldn't grant this point -- he writes, "the trouble is, as the movie portrays it, Matt's enlightenment derives from his giving up sex -- not from his being able to tell the difference between sex for fun and sex with a connection." And Taylor offers his own prescription, claiming that "sleeping with lots of girls [is] one of the sanest and healthiest things you can do to get over a bad breakup." There is a worldview expressed here -- sex has no intrinsic meaning. Its meaning is the meaning we give it. Non serviam. Nothing new here, but it's not often stated so baldly.

What struck me, though, was Taylor's second paragraph: "Forget the implicit message that spirituality can't survive pleasure. The notion of giving things up -- whether food or sex or shopping -- for spiritual reasons is pretty narcissistic. Isn't sacrifice, in the Lenten sense, mostly just a way of showing your superiority to earthly matters? And never mind that a spirituality strengthened by giving up hamburgers or masturbation or a glass of wine with dinner seems only thimble-deep in the first place."

Wow. I'm used to seeing Catholics trashed for their views on morality, but mortification? My first response to his line about "thimble-deep spirituality" was that he must never have tried to give up anything he enjoyed (wine-with-dinner is one of my Lenten sacrifices, and I miss it dearly). Then I thought, "maybe he has given these things up, and it hasn't proved difficult, because he had no religious intent. The devil, the tempter, would pay no attention to such a man -- what would be the point?"

I find myself wondering about "strengthened spirituality." I don't give things up to strengthen my spirituality. I give them up to please another person, God, and I hope I draw nearer to Him by detaching myself from the world. I don't think much about spirituality. Sacrifice, in the Lenten sense, is a way of showing devotion to Him, not superiority to the world.

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