Gosh, I realized we never finished Robert Cardinal Sarah's book The Day is Now Far Spent. Looks like the last time I offered excerpts was way back in July! Well, as my husband always says, "There's only two days in a year: Christmas and the 4th of July. Right after the 4th of July is Christmas, and right after Christmas is the 4th of July." So maybe somewhere in my mind it's only the day after I wrote that last blogpost on the book.
In the eighth chapter of the book, Sarah speaks in an interview about the new form of totalitarianism: "In the 21st century, totalitarianism has a more pernicious face. Its name is the idolatry of complete and absolute freedom, which is manifested in its most aggressive forms in gender ideology and transhumanism . . . The atheistic ideology of the 20th century (Nazism, Communism --ed.) intended to detach man from God. The new ideologies now hope to mutilate and control his nature . . . The Church must now protect the weakest persons from the madness of transhumanism and from gender ideology, with which the capitalist and liberal forces seem to be perfectly satisfied . . . Augmented man will ultimately be diminished man."
This demiurgic pride thinks it will create the best of worlds, but Sarah opines, "In the postmodern world, eternity becomes a commercial affair. In this best of worlds, charity will disappear inasmuch as the whole world will be strong and eternal. A hell on earth." Think for a moment about a world of eternal and eternally amoral beings. No charity will be necessary; no sacrifice, no suffering, no diversity, no love, no hope. Truly, it will indeed be a hell on earth, which is exactly why there are cherubim and a flaming sword guarding the way to the Tree of Life. The transhumanist project is doomed to failure, but oh what misery it will sow on its way to that failure!
We often fail to recognize that Mother Eve did not only bequeath us the gift of mortal life--she also bequeathed us the gift of death. Indeed, we are told Christ could not have died had He not been the son of Mary, His mother. With subreplacement birthrates testifying to the world's rejection of the first of the great gifts of women--posterity--is it not also true that in the quest for immortality the world is rejecting the second great gift of women--death?
Sarah notes that this was not the way of Christ, and for good reason:
"[H]ow can we return to wisdom? It is necessary to listen to God. To accept our finitude. Through the Incarnation, Christ teaches us that the way of happiness is not the negation of our creaturely state. On the contrary, he came to take on our flesh. He shows us the way. He is the perfect man. Now, he did not decide to free himself from any limit of our human condition. No component of our humanity is foreign to him. Even suffering can be experienced in love after his example. To alleviate suffering is a work of charity; to deny it is an illusion. Christ shows us that death itself can open unto eternal life if we accept it. The transhumanist ideology is inspired by the unfortunate temptation to ape the resurrection. Only God-made-man can conquer death. And by passing through it by love, he conquered it definitively. By his death, he conquered death. He offers us his life, which is the only eternal life."
Amen. Satan has a counterfeit for everything, even eternal life and the resurrection. We must not be tempted by these false idols. We must accept both gifts given to us by women, the daughters of Eve.
It is so important to be grounded in the Gospel! Only then can we make our way through the darkness. As technology progresses, we can say what we will and will not accept. We can say that we will accept life-saving therapies, but we will not accept man-given immortality. We can say that we will utilize treatments to overcome infertility, but that we will not buy eggs or sperm or rent a woman's womb. To accept our God-ordained finitude is to accept not only death, but also red lines beyond which we must not step, no matter how tempting.
Fortunately we have a prophet who underscores where those red lines should be. Truly, I feel myself so completely blessed that two missionaries knocked on my family's door 50 years ago. To be unmoored in this day and age is to be at the mercy of great evil with terrible earthly power. I am so grateful for the Restored Gospel of Christ, which gives me the mooring necessary to know what is of Babylon, and thereby to know that which must not be touched.
I hope you have a wonderful sabbath evening . . .