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Between the 12th and 14th centuries, the Christian heresy of Catharism gained momentum in northern Italy and southern France. Like the heresy of gnosticism in the first few centuries, Cathars were dualists who believed reality consisted of two opposing cosmic forces. The spiritual realm (like the soul and the heavens) was good while the material realm (like the body and world) was corrupt and inherently evil.
St. Anthony of Padua faced daily challenges with the Cathars when he was assigned to preach in southern France from 1224-1227, as Father Pat McCloskey, OFM, points out. St. Anthony’s skilled preaching in combatting the Cathar heresy would earn him the nickname “Hammer of the Heretics.” As preachers like St. Anthony demonstrated, heresies like Catharism that demonize material reality simply did not compute with Church teaching or the ethos of the Franciscan movement which invites prayerful gaze upon creation as a source of divine beauty. Creation, as St. Bonaventure would note, contained divine vestiges (or “footprints”) that can lead the soul into contemplation toward union with God.
So, what does any of this have to do with today? The medieval heresy of Catharism may have been buried in the past by, yes, Church-sanctioned military crusades, as well as convincing preachers like St. Anthony, but if I’m honest with myself, this failure to see beauty in the material realm has taken on different forms in my own life.
During my years in conservative evangelicalism there was such an emphasis on salvation and the afterlife that it fostered a certain blindness to how God could be experienced in the here and now: through friends and family, through creation, through work, through play, through music and art and even sports. In this form of spirituality, the body could not be trusted; thus, neither could our hearts and minds, our emotions and our thoughts, all these human aspects that, sure, were not without brokenness but were also fundamental portals to divine beauty. During my years in progressive Christianity, that evangelical emphasis on salvation was simply replaced by “justice”: our material reality was doomed until this politician was in office or this initiative was achieved. In a sense, the material realm of America was portrayed as corrupt and inherently evil. But writing off a person as evil or ignorant who voted differently from me was its own self-centered theological disposition: divine beauty only radiates from an individual if they align with my worldview and politics. That’s a small conception of beauty, of grace, of God.
To be clear, I think that both conservative and progressive camps within the broader Christian church can emphasize important doctrines and actions that add to the beautiful diversity of Christianity. But, like the Cathars, when one believes they have “insider knowledge” to ultimate truth, this can cultivate a dualistic view of people and the world: one of “goodies” and “baddies,” one that blinds us from experiencing divine beauty where we may least expect it. St. Francis of Assisi modeled an openness to divine beauty taking on unexpected forms in his relationships with lepers, with Sultan Malik al-Kamil, and with creation.
Cathar-like dualism can take on its own dimension in my personal life as well. With a 1-year-old and 3-year-old, my wife and I are in the thick of parenting (and exhaustion). Yes, it is beautiful. But it is also maddening. It is the most challenging thing I’ve ever done and, as I’ve told my wife, not a natural skillset for me. There are many days when I find myself coasting to the finish line, self-medicating just to get to bedtime. I should be creating or writing, I think to myself as I explain multiple times in multiple ways to my 3-year-old about why he can’t have ice cream for dinner. As exhaustion settles, all I’m craving is Netflix in bed with a bourbon: get me out of this hell into what I’ve defined as heaven. Human, perhaps. Integrative, no. Not unlike the Cathar heresy, this mode of being can become its own form of escapism where reality is parsed into good and bad. There are tear-filled eyes before me that long to be seen with compassion and grace, even in my umpteenth “no” that he cannot have ice cream.
Many times I’ve seen my creative and professional life take on a similar dimension. It is easy to think to myself: Once there’s clarity, I’ll be at peace. Once I achieve this thing I’ve been working toward, then I’ll be happy. Once this wrong is acknowledged, I’ll forgive. Yeah, maybe. But creativity is inherently messy and anything involving people is inherently complicated. I think of the great quote from Toni Morrison that Murray Bodo, OFM, often references: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That’s how imagination heals.”
Might there still be vestiges of divine beauty in the messiness?
Of course there are aspects of existence and this dark world that are intrinsically evil and should be named as such. But most things in life, I’ve learned as a creative and now as a father, are beautifully messy, where wheat grows among the weeds, where the transforming power of grace never ceases. It may be worth asking oneself: What am consciously (or unconsciously) labeling as heaven or hell? How are my own labels closing off my soul from experiencing beauty in the here and now?
St. Anthony of Padua, that Hammer of Heretics, serves as a model to me that I am to preach against any dualism within myself that blocks an openness to beauty. And I pray he helps me awaken to a deeper understanding of beauty in this divine-saturated, albeit messy, reality.
Questions for Reflection
✦ What in your life are you consciously or unconsciously labeling as heaven or hell? What would it look like to open your heart to divine beauty in the messiness? Maybe things are difficult at work, but can you remind yourself of the co-workers who you love and can support? Maybe you’re navigating an exhausting phase, but can you open your heart to savoring the beautiful moments along the way?
✦ What dualistic tendency within yourself do you need to preach against? What would you say in this sermon to help open your heart to beauty?
