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Yale University Archives



<tA Trappist

DOES

A

STARTLING

THING
FOR YOU

by

Finding the F^lue of'X’



FOREWORD
Too many of you are finding SELF, LIFE

and LOVE mysteries.
Too many of you are bewildered by the

swirl of the times.

Too many of you are looking for solutions
in the wrong place.
Here is your SOLUTION for every mys-

tery. It is all done by

* FINDING THE VALUE OF “X’’

Follow the reasoning closely and you will
see that you have every reason to smile, sing
and cheer.
Work out your every problem along these

lines and life will be lovable; fail to take
the value found herein and you will find life
a mess.

May I especially invite the married and
those contemplating marriage to read the

passage on VIGIL LIGHTS FOR MARRIED
PEOPLE? It will pay.



A Startling Thing for You! 5

HERE IS THE SOLUTION
You have presented me your many prob-

lems. Did you know that you also presented
me with their ONE solution? You did. And
it is as sure as it is simple.

For months now you have had me walk-
ing around saying to myself: ‘‘Oh, if they
would only drop their buckets into the sea!
— If they would only drop their buckets
into the sea!” I would have written to you
about it sooner, but I was afraid that you
would not understand. It does sound so
meaningless a phrase. But now I do write.
Now I must write. And now I do say: “Drop
your buckets into the sea,” for when I say:
“Find the value of ‘X,’ ” I am only using a
paraphrase.

Let me explain.
Your difficulties are many and they are

proving most perplexing. Economics are
unstable. Ethics are muddled. The world
is in a ferment. Mankind has taken the
turn in the road and it is proving the sharpest
of sharp bends. It begins to look like a
“switch-back,” and we seem to be taking
giant strides towards barbarity. The inter-
national realm is torn to tatters; the national
situation is far from settled; and even in the
tiny world of your own mind and heart and
conscience you find trouble, turmoil and
tumult.

You seek a remedy. You desire something
steadfast and stable. You ask for a way out.
And I give you all you want in a sentence.
I say: “Drop your buckets into the sea by
finding the value of ‘X\”

Yes, find the value of “X” and you have
found the solution for your every difficulty,
the one stabilizer for your most unsettled
world, the light you long for, the hope you
need and the courage you lack. That is the
prescription I write for you, a prescription
of six words: “Drop your buckets into the



6 A Startling Thing for You!

sea’'; and I tell you how to have them filled
when I add: “Find the value of ‘X’.”

I sound cryptic, I know, I mean to. But I
will clarify by telling you that in the days of
the sailing vessel one was becalmed beneath
a blazing sky on a glassy and seemingly
shoreless sea. Hours dragged into days and
monotonous days went into weary weeks and
still that ship lay motionless beneath that
scorching sky on that glaring and glassy sea.
Water grew scarce. As judiciously as pos-
sible it was portioned out, but the hour
finally came when not a drop was left. Then,
from out blood-shot eyes, the crew looked at
one another with that fierce, mad look that
thirst-crazed men take on. The relentless
day darkened into a mierciless night. There
was no relief from without. There was a
mounting, maddening fever within. The
night was just lifting and frenzy and despair
was almost upon them, when out of the
morning’s mist there lazily loomed a vessel.
With a haste that was frantic the thirst-
crazed crew broke out their signal fiags and
shot a message up that mast calling for
“Water!” Then to the rail they went and
every bulging eye was fixed with a wild
intent on that vessel that lolled in the dis-
tance. After what seemed like an eternity
fiags slowly mounted the mast and a mes-
sage was read that left the crew speechless
and wild-eyed in unbelief. It said: “Drop
your buckets into the sea!” Down came their
own fiags only to be shot up again with great-
er force, as if they would shout: “Water!
Water!” And again that message that seemed
like a taunt from Hell came back — “Drop
your buckets into the sea!”

Curses broke from thirst-parched throats.
Insanity was imminent. But one of the crew
did drop his bucket into the sea. Cackling
like one insane he drew that bucket up
hand over hand, then flinging a look that
was half defiance and half despair at his
fellow companions, he lifted that bucket to



A Startling Thing for You! 7

his lips and drank. He gulped and gulped
again, then throwing bucket and both arms
in the air he shouted, ‘‘It’s fresh! It’s fresh!
It’s fresh! Drink it!”

He was right. The water was fresh. It
was perfectly drinkable. A miracle? No;
the fact is that they had been becalmed on
what looked like a shoreless ocean, but was
actually the mouth of the Amazon River;
and mariners will tell you that that stream
sweeps perfectly potable water great dis-
tances into the sea.

Do you see the point? The crew was go-
ing mad for want of water. Death was al-
most upon them. Yet all they had to do
was drop their buckets into the sea.

I say the same thing to you. I say: “Drop
your buckets into the sea!” for I see a per-
fect parallel in your position and that of
the thirst-mad crew. You flash me message
after message of distress. You say that mad-
ness is upon you; that desperation is in every
eye you meet; that the world is going smash.
I believe you. I think that the world is
going smash, too. And yet my only reply
seems like a taunt. I simply say: “Drop your
buckets into the sea by flnding the value of
‘X’!”

YOU FURNISHED THIS SOLUTION
Here is the situation: For years now your

problems have been mounting. With every
new letter you tell me of some new difficulty.
Some years back you begged my prayers be-
cause of the economic stress. Wall Street
had crashed. Banks failed. Bread lines
lengthened. Work could not be found. This
came on top of your sad picture of a world
gone morally berserk. A world in which
marriage was a mockery; birth-prevention
had actually become race suicide; and the
nation a nation of drunkards. Youth, you
said, was rioting in promiscuity, and nothing
at all was sacred. You put your Anger on



8 A Startling Thing for You!

one of these contributing causes when you
wrote of our stupid educational system, a
system in which every passing fad was wel-
comed, crass materialism the only philosophy
taught, and free-will and personal responsi-
bility held up for ridicule.
With the years your pictures have grown

progressively worse. Now, on the Birthday
of the Prince of Peace, you present me with
a picture that is but the logical climax of
all that preceded: a picture of the world
being blitzkrieged into barbarism.

In what looks like a frenzy of despair you
ask, “What is to be done?” And my only
answer is: You yourself have furnished the
solution. Find the value of “X.”

Yes, you not only presented the problems,
you actually gave me the solution; for be-
fore me is a modest mound of mail. It is
all from you. It contains your Christmas
greetings and your tales of woe. In it I
read much more than you meant to write;
so I am going to give you much more than
you petitioned.
You asked for prayers and penance. You

shall have both; for that is my life. To both
have I been consecrated. My life is nothing
but a life of prayer and penance, a life spent
for a world that will not pray and has for-
gotten how to do penance. And, in passing,
let me say that your letters gave me fresh
stimuli, spurring me on to more prayer and
greater penance; for I see that the world
does less and less of both. My prayers and
penances go to God, to you goes this answer
to what you may have meant as a purely
rhetorical question, but which I am taking as
real.

You ask, “What is to be done?” I give
the answer you furnished me, I say: “Find
the value of ‘X’.” And lest I annoy you too
much with my mysterious way of writing, I
ask: Do you recall your Christmas cards?
They make a motley collection. They are of



A Startling Thing for You! 9

all shapes and sizes, of every shade and hue.
Some are holy and breathe of Bethlehem;
some are pagan and redolent of Hollywood.
I know the thought that was behind them all,
and for that thought I am grateful. It con-
tributed much to making my Christmas what
it actually was — very merry. But the
messages on the face of some of those cards
make my blood boil, send burning stabs of
thought shooting through my brain and set
my pencil racing across these pages. The
cause of my angry indignation contains the
solution for all your difficulties. It is in the
letter “X.”

You remember a little of your mathematics,
don’t you? Do you remember what “X”
stands for? The unknown quantity! In Al-
gebra we often allowed it to equal zero!
Hold those two facts before your eyes, then
add that Emmanuel Kant took that letter
“X” from mathematics and transferred it to
philosophy, talking quite glibly about “igno-
tum X” — the unknown and the unknowable.
Finally, modern man has taken it from both
mathematics and philosophy and brought it
into History, past and present. He has taken
past history’s most important Individual and
present history’s one center of universal at-
tack, and allows Him to equal “X.”
That is the sad story told by many of your

bright and cheerful cards. They read, “Merry
Xmas” and in so doing paint a very accurate
picture of the modern mind, the mind of the
Twentieth Century; the mind to which Jesus
Christ is the Great Unknown; the mind to
which He who fills all life and all literature
equals zero; the mind to which He who is
Truth is unknowable, who is Light is unseen,
who is the Way cannot be found.
At least the card-makers were honest.

More honest than they knew! To our day
and age Jesus Christ is the Unknown Quan-
tity. The first century called Him Blas-
phemer, Wine-bibber and Beelzebub’s Friend.



10 A Startling Thing for You!

The fourth said that He was man, but not
the God-Man. The sixteenth and seventeenth
resurrected all the old errors about Him and
added a few of their own. But it remained
for the highly enlightened and greatly ad-
vanced Twentieth Century to climax all er-
ror by allowing Jesus Christ to equal “X.”
Making Him the Great Unknown!
Do you see now what I mean when I say:

“Find the value of ‘X’ ”? Find it and your
every problem is solved. Find out what
Christ equals and life ceases to be a riddle
and the world a colossal mess. Find it and
you have found the cure for every ill, be-
cause the cause of them is in allowing Christ
to equal zero.

IT IS THE ONLY AMERICAN THING
TO DO

I am most optimistic as I give you this
solution, for I know it is the only American
thing to do. Americans are the world’s
greatest experimenters, a race of optimists.
That is what makes them say, “Try, try
again.” Americans are daredevils who will
always say, “I’ll try anything once.” Ameri-
cans have a determined will-to-win, a spirit
of never-say-die; that is why “Nothing like
trying” is a national slogan.

I have great hope for you as I tell you
to find the value of “X,” for as yet you can-
not say, “There is nothing that we have not
tried.” Since you cannot say that, the only
American thing to do is go on trying. Try
the Great Untried! Try “X.”
Americans have tried free-love, free-life

and free-lancing; they have tried free-
thought, free-speech and free-verse; they
have tried free-trade, free-soil and free-
booting. And the result of all this free try-
ing is this free-for-all, this mess of modern-
ity which is certainly a potpourri. Look at
it! A hash of half-truths and untruths
passes for modern thought; a conglomeration



A Startling: Thing for You! 11

of false and unethical principles is known as
present-day morality; a set of sly and shifty
practices is called a set political policy; and
I look for words to describe our modern
literature and our ethics of love and life.
Freedom is a God-given gift. And Ameri-

ca followed God’s plan when she wrote it
large in the very preamble to her Constitu-
tion; but the word, the idea, the very gift
itself can be, has been and is being abused.
There is a false freedom, and no one knows
it better than freedom-loving Americans. We
have tried it. We have tried every sort of
freedom except one. We have never tried
the freedom of being the children of God.
That is why the card-makers write “Merry
Xmas.” That is why Bruce Barton could
write “The Man That Nobody Knows” and
make it a Life of Jesus Christ.

So as Americans, lovers of freedom and
the world’s greatest experimenters, I bank
on you to find the value of “X.” We have
never limited ourselves to chemistry and
physics. Never. We have experimented
with money, marriage and morality. We
even tried the “Noble Experiment,” Do you
remember? It only cost us the loss of in-
ternational and national respect, made us the
laughingstock of the world and gave us a
generation or two of drunkards. Experimen-
tation does come high. Sometimes alto-
gether too high. The “Noble Experiment”
did. But we must learn from it. Let us
learn that we must go higher. Let us learn
that it is time for us to try the Noblest
Experiment. It is time for us to try Jesus
Christ in our individual, social, economic,
national and international life. It is time to
try the Great Untried if we wish to be the
nation God meant us to be, and to be the
men and women that our souls want to be.

Yes, it is time. It is high time. In fact,
it is almost too late. One page at least we
have taken from Christ’s Gospel. But it is



12 A Startling Thing for You!

not the best page. We have followed that
dictum: “The last shall be first and the first
shall be last.’' What should have been tried
last — if at all — we have already tried and
found wanting; then the only American
thing to do now is to try Him who should
have been and who is FIRST! It is time to
try Jesus Christ, for He, and He alone, can
give us what we want. And when I say
“want,” I mean what we long for and what
we lack.

IS DEMENTIA PRAECOX CONTAGIOUS?
That is a startling question to insert here.

But I have my reasons. You gave them to
me. To date, from the pictures you sent
me, I conclude that modern man’s ultimate
answers to every major problem of life are
infinitely wrong. The cause of their error
is to be found in the fact that they have
allowed Jesus Christ, who is Infinite, to equal
zero. Now, you know that you cannot get
truth from error, nor right from wrong. If I
sail in the wrong direction, I will never reach
my appointed port. If I do not allow one
and one to equal two, and two and two to
equal four. I’ll never be able to multiply.
If I do not allow twelve inches to equal a
foot, how can I measure any man? All of
which is only saying that modem man is
wrong from the start.
However, I am glad that he has used

mathematical terms, for now I can demand
that he use mathematical method. And
that, you know, demands the finest, fiercest,
closest, most intimately linked reasoning
possible. Let modern man be mathematical.
He has allowed Christ to equal “X.” Now
let him find the value of “X.” I tell you
that it is not zero. I tell you that it is what
“X” stands for in Higher Mathematics — It
is INFINITY!
But at the moment Christ equals zero for

most moderns, and you have detailed for me



A Startling Thing for You! 13

the awful results. So I ask: Is dementia
praecox contagious? I begin to suspect that
it is.

You tell me that Europe is a madhouse.
Did you mean that literally? Or were you
only thinking of the war? I wonder if you
have been penetrating enough to realize that
Europe is a madhouse, an asylum for the
insane; and from what you tell me, I see that
it is a house for the violently insane.

No man in his right senses sets himself up
as a god. No individual who is rational ar-
rogates to himself the right to dictate to
a whole people telling them what they are
to do, to say and even to think. No being
in his right mind makes the State an object
of worship. So I say that Hitler, Stalin and
Mussolini are demented; but I must imme-
diately add that it is “dementia praecox.”
Crazy they undoubtedly are, but clever be-
yond dispute. Still, what frightens me is to
see how contagious that dementia praecox is.
I mean it. It seems to me that it is highly
contagious and my reason for saying sO' is
Europe. Look at it. Millions and hundreds
of millions are following these mad men. It
is not only this country and that that has
been infected by the virus, it is the entire
continent. An epidemic has swept from end
to end of that land. In very truth Europe
with its Communism, Fascism and Nazism is
an insane asylum.

But sad to say, we are not immune. Your
letters very clearly tell me that dementia
praecox has touched our shores. When I
see the wealthiest land in the world lead all
others in poverty and destitution; when I
see the land of surprising surpluses abound-
ing in misery, hunger and want; when I
learn that the land of limitless opportunity
is the land where a man cannot find work;
then I know that the epidemic that has swept
Europe has reached America.



14 A Startling Thing for You!

But why should I belabor the obvious?
What you want to know is the antidote.
Let me tell you that it is not war. Never!
It is Jesus Christ. Find the full value of
Him whom you have allowed to equal “X’’
and you have the serum that will kill the
germ and cure the patient. Put Jesus Christ
into the minds, the hearts, the wills and
the lives of the peoples, and mankind is
saved. Shoot this saving serum into the
blood-stream of nations, and our staggering
civilization will right itself, stand up straight
and become strong. Put Jesus Christ into
international relations and the light of sanity
will come back into eyes that are now blaz-
ing with the insane blaze of hate; hearts
that are now beating that mad tattoo of de-
struction and death will slow down and throb
in a unison of uplift and regeneration. Find
the full value of and you have found
Utopia.

Optimism, isn’t it? And in this day when
the world is black with pessimism, when
men and women have lost all hope, when
they are not only disillusioned, disheartened
and discouraged, but actually on the brink
of despair, for a cloistered monk to send
such a message to mankind, sounds as if he
were the madman rather than those in the
world.

I know that. But that is only another
proof that you do not know the value of
'‘X”; that is only another proof that you
know not the transformation that took place
when a little maid, hardly more than a girl,
said “Fiat” and God took flesh. Find the
value of Christ and you will learn that what
sounds like airy optimism is the only true
fact and the realest of realism. With you
who are Catholics I plead: Test my optim-
ism, for you have not realized Christ’s full
value; to non-Catholics I proffer a perfect
solution and say: Try it.



A Startling Thing for You! 15

IF = 0, WHAT DO YOU AND I
EQUAL?

This is the one equation that must be
worked out to the end. This is the one equa-
tion that merits our strictest attention. This
is the only equation that can be called per-
sonal and pertinent.

I could write much about Hitler and Stalin
and Mussolini; but to what purpose? I
hardly think that that trinity will find time
to read the writings of a Trappist. I doubt
very much that they will be interested. But
I want you to make time to read what I have
written. I want you to become intensely in-
terested; for I am intensely interested in you.
This is of paramount importance. It is im-
portant for you. It is important for me. It
is important for Christ.

I could find the value of “X” for the na-
tions; I could show you the tremendous
importance the finding of the value of
plays in the realm of international relations.
But by so doing I would interest you, engage
your attention and for the space of this
booklet entertain you. But that is not my
purpose. I want to do all those things; but
I want to do much more. I want your atten-
tion and interest; but most especially do I
want your introspection. This is a personal
matter.

I am going to write about nations and
things international, but I am going to do
so by writing about you and me. For you
see, you and I make the nations. Absolutely.
For a nation is only a group of united in-
dividuals. Hence, to find the value of ‘‘X’’
for America, IVe got to find the value of
“X” for you and me.

I start with a perfect equation. I say:
If “X” r=r 0; you and I equal the same. Now
let me prove it.
Ours is a day of startling individuals; and

yet, a day in which individuals do not count.



16 A Startling Thing for You!

We have our dictators, and they are striking
individuals; but we also have their move-
ments, and these are demolishers of indi-
vidualism. But lest I wander, let me be most
pointed and practical. Let me ask what you
or I, as individuals, amount to in the estima-
tion of the world’s leading individuals. And
let me answer for you — We amount to
nothing!

Were we in Russia, we would be looked
upon as a pair of hands; that is all, just a
pair of hands for a factory or a farm. Is
not that a dignifying estimation and an up-
lifting evaluation? And know well that if
those hands did not produce what the USSR
stipulated that they should produce, we
would be shot. That is Stalin’s evaluation
of the individal: a pair of hands to produce
for the Soviet Union or else to be destroyed.
The callousness of that individual regarding
individuals makes the flesh creep. It is ap-
palling. When Lady Astor asked him how
long he would continue murdering people, he
coldly answered, “As long as it is necessary.”
The years since have proved that he meant it.

To the Russian, then, we would be a pair
of hands; what would we be to the German?
If you think that you or I would amount to
any more in that mad realm, let me inform
you that Hitler has said that he will sacriflce
seven million men to win this war. Think
of it! Seven million men! And there are
people in Germany who call this wholesale
murderer the savior of their country. Why, to
Hitler, the individual does not exist. He is
just a number to be goose-stepped to death;
just a body to be bulleted and cast into that
yawning moat that separates Hitler from
world domination. Is not that a comforting
evaluation of an individual’s worth?

And what does the other great individual
of the world think of the individual? Let
me tell you. In Italy an individual is as
individualistic as any wave on the Medi-



A Startling Thing for You! 17

terranean Sea or any grain of sand on the
shore of the Bay of Sicily. Yes, that is the
value that Mussolini would place on you or
me. To him a man is nothing more than a
grain of sand to be compounded and com-
pacted with other such grains for the build-
ing of his temple of the Fascist State; and a
woman is only a womb to bring forth more
building material.

Is not all that elevating? Is it not most
heartening to know that we amount to noth-
ing? Is it not inspiring to learn that by the
leading individuals of the world, the individ-
ual is valued as a pair of hands, a body to
be bulleted, or a grain of sand? In other
words, you and I equal zero!
Now, why? Why this dwarfing, dwindling,

annihilating of individuality? Why this
wholesale lowering of value? Why have we
reached the vanishing point of personal
worth? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because
you and I are equated with Christ, and
Christ equals “X” and “X” equals zero. That
is why.
And Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini are right!

For if ‘‘X” r= 0, then you and I are utterly
worthless. Yes, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini
are very right! For if ‘‘X” = 0, then you
and I have no higher destiny than to produce
for Russia, fill the moat for Germany, or
build the temple for Italy. Yes, indeed,
Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini are most right!
For if Jesus Christ merits no attention, then
you and I merit no more; because, strange
as it may seem, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini
have rightly equated; we are equated with
Jesus Christ. That is absolute truth! Hence,
if Christ = 0; we equal the same.
But why go abroad? What do you or I

amount to in our own land? Is it not prac-
tically zero?

I have to smile as I read that last line,
and I will have to change it. What do I,
a Trappist, amount to in Twentieth Century



18 A Startling Thing for You!

America? — Don’t laugh! I know — abso-
lutely zero!

But why? Why is it that the individual
is not more highly valued in this land of
individualism? Why is it that you and I
amount to no more in America, the land of
the free, than we would in the slave realms
of Stalin, Hitler or Mussolini? We are not
Fascists, Communists or Nazists. No, thank
God, we are not; but we have here the same
unsound, materialistic philosophies. We have
not Marx and Engels to the same intense
degree; but we have the Huxleys and Hobbes
and Locke, we have Hume and John Stuart
Mill, we have William James and a host of
his ilk; and we have not nearly enough of
Aquinas, Augustine and Aristotle Chris-
tianized. In short, we amount to no more
in the United States than we would in any
of the Totalitarian States simply because
Jesus Christ equals no more in America than
He does across the seas. Here, as there. He
equals “X”; hence, you and I equal zero.
And again let me say that the equating is
right, but the equation is infinitely wrong.
We are equated with Christ; but ‘‘X” does
not equal zero!

Now all this goes against the grain. We
resent it. We know an instinctive rebellion
against being lost in the crowd. We want to
be someone. We want to do something. It
is in our very vitals. We know that we are
individuals and we burn to express our
individuality. “Agere sequitur esse” is the
scholastic philosopher’s analysis of it; and
the scholastic philosopher is right. Nature
will out. A duck will swim. A bird will
fiy. And a human individual will be an
individual human. We can’t help it. Nature
will out. Actions partake of the essence.
So, despite dictators with their disregard
and practical denial of individuality; despite
collectivism with its myriad groupings, as-
signing us to a “wage-group,” an “age-group”



A Startling: Thing for You! 19

or some other such ‘'group,’’ we know that
we are separate, autonomous, integral be-
ings; we know that we are individuals en-
dowed with our own personal, distinct in-
dividuality; we know that we equal much
more than zero. Hence, we know that the
world is wrong; and the world’s leaders are
wrong. Their equating is right; but their
equation is infinitely awry.

THEIR ANSWERS ENGENDER DESPAIR
We want to be someone and to do some-

thing. But what can we be or what can we
do if we equal only zero? That is the despera-
tion bred by the false equation. We want
to be more than a pair of hands, a body or
a breeder. We want to do something more
than destroy for a Hitler, produce for a
Stalin or beget for a Mussolini. We want
to build. We want to create. We want to
achieve some immortality. Happiness is our
ultimate goal; but we will never reach it as
long as we are nobodies and can do nothing.
Yet the leaders of the day say that you and
I equal zero.

They are wrong. I know it, and you feel
it. But what I want you to- know is why
they are wrong. It is not because they have
made themselves great; it is because they
have made themselves very small. It is not
because they have exalted themselves; it is
because they have degraded themselves. It
is not because they have become dictators; it
is because they have ceased to be men. The
trouble with this triumvirate and with the
vast majority of men is that they do not
know Christ, and hence cannot know them-
selves. They cannot answer that tremendous
trinity of life’s interrogations. They cannot
tell whence? nor whither? nor why? They
have been and are being most consistent in
their materialistic philosophy; but the trouble
is that materialistic philosophy is all wrong!
It does not make sense.



20 A Startling Thing for You!

I have got to be philosophical as I write
to you; for I want to be logical and true; but
I will do my utmost to avoid the abstract and
the purely metaphysical. I say that materi-
alism makes a mess out of life. I say that
it breeds ugly despair. And here are my
proofs:

Stop any of those who have celebrated
their thirtieth birthday and ask them what
is life from a purely materialistic viewpoint;
and do not be too shocked at their answers.
They will tell you that life is not a mystery;
that it is a mess. They will tell you that
life is very long on promises, but very short
on fulfillments. They will tell you that
golden dawns glimmer out into gray skies
and rain; that Springs are rich with fragrant
blossoms but Falls are not mellow with fruit.
They will tell you that life, materialistically
looked at, is a promising prelude, but there
is no play; that it is nothing but a brilliant
overture to nothing!

But why ask others? Why not ask our-
selves? Staying on the purely material
plane, what has life been to us? Can we
not call it a “Swindler,’’ one who tricks and
cheats with a ready flow of brilliant talk
and a dazzling display of attractive samples;
one who takes our order and our money, but
who never delivers the goods? Is it not all
empty if we look only at the material?
The sands in the hourglass of life are run-

ning through, yet countless schemes lie shat-
tered at our feet, numberless dreams have
been rudely broken, and the best of our plans
are as yet unfulfilled. Down from the zenith
drops the sun of our day and still our paint-
ing is only in outline, our statue is only in
clay, our epic, only in the bud. We feel that
we have not achieved or accomplished. We
feel that we have been badly cheated. We
sum up life as a succession of nights and
days spent in a land of shifting shadows and
perpetual mirage. Oases are always shim-



A Startling Thing for You! 21

mering on distant horizons and towards them
we have staggered and groped. We want
water, rest and shade. And yet, at this mo-
ment, the sands still burn our feet, the sun
still blazes our backs as we still stagger and
grope towards distant horizons.

Lest I seem fanciful, let me turn factual.
For most of us life is made up of a multiplicity
of trifles. A woman cleans a house, gets a
few meals, rears a few children, then dies.
And the world goes on. Whether her days
were agony and her nights cruel hours, sleep-
less with heart-break, matters not to that
world. W'hether she suffered and slaved and
sacrificed as only mothers can slave and suf-
fer and sacrifice makes no impression what-
soever on the vast majority of men. She
came; she is gone; and the waters of life
close over her wake just as if she never had
been. In retrospect, her life seems utterly
meaningless and excruciatingly empty.

Look at her husband’s life and you will
see that from a purely materialistic view-
point it is no more meaningful. For the
greater part of his day he works; the few
hours off in the evening find him too tired
to enjoy real rest or relaxation. And what is
true of his day is true of all his years. He
dies. Immediately his place is filled at work.
The waters close over his wake. And the
world goes on. Seemingly it matters not
that he ever existed.

And the children of this couple go through
the same meaningless motions of empty liv-
ing. They marry, they breed, they work,
they die. The waters close over their wakes
and the world still goes on.

Is not that factual? And is not that mad-
deningly empty? That is materialistic phi-
losophy in the concrete; the philosophy that
is being lived by many in America. They
don’t know whence they come. They don’t
know why they are here. And they don’t



22 A Startling Thing for You!

know where they go. Hence, to the thinking
materialist, life is totally meaningless.

They speak of accomplishment, and they
make me laugh. I tell all such materialists
to go to Gizeh. There they will see the con-
crete embodiment of material man’s immortal
accomplishments. There they can gaze upon
the everlasting Pyramids and the quizzically
smiling Sphinx. These are man’s achieve-
ments. These things have lasted. Centuries
on centuries have rolled away into the dust,
but the Sphinx still smiles her quizzical
smile and the Pyramids still point to the
skies. Monuments of material man’s immor-
tal accomplishments. There they stand,
seemingly indestructible; but will anyone tell
me what in the world these things are good
for? Will anyone tell me anything more
useless? I can think of many useless things;
but I cannot conceive of anything quite as
useless as the smiling Sphinx and the proud
Pyramids that stand at Gizeh!

SO WHAT?
Perhaps not so tangible, but certainly as

terrible, is the proof of the emptiness of
purely human accomplishment contained in
the records of the professional historian. Of
all the billions who have lived and loved and
struggled and died, of all the billions on bil-
lions who have sweated and strained over
what they meant to be undying works of
genius, of all the billions on billions of bil-
lions who have labored to achieve immor-
tality, a scant five thousand names remain.
And to climax it all. the present generation
reads that record with lifted eyebrows and
that paralyzingly scornful question: “So
what?”

“So what?” is right! If that is the only
immortality that can be achieved, why strive
for it? If I can’t tell whence or whither or
why, why go on? If I, as an individual,
amount to no more than what the world’s



A Startling Thing for You! 23

leading individuals account me; and if I can
accomplish no more than what material man
has accomplished in a material way, why live?

If the waters of life are only waiting to
close over my wake and the tide of Time
to flow on as if I never had been, why not
follow Schopenhauer? He is consistent and
perfectly logical. He has forced materialis-
tic philosophy to its final logical conclusion.
Life is a struggle. He saw that. But he
looked to see what would be the outcome of
all this struggling; and all materialistic phi-
losophy could do was point to Gizeh and the
grave. Schopenhauer frowns at such an
answer and questions, “We die. Is that the
end?” Materialistic philosophy says, “That’s
the end.” So Schopenhauer laughs his sar-
donic laugh and asks, “Why live?” And to
this day no answer has come from materialis-
tic philosophy. Schopenhauer recommended
universal suicide; and his recommendation is
perfectly sound if materialistic philosophy is
right and we equal zero.
That is the despair that follows from let-

ting Jesus Christ equal “X.” I say that it
is the only logical consequence; for if as
an individual I amount to nothing, and if I
can do nothing of more lasting and practical
value than build Pyramids or the Sphinx,
why should I go on? Obviously, the game
is not worth the candle. Schopenhauer is
right. I do not want to become a dive-
bomber for some Hitler, or a breeder for
some Mussolini, or a worker for some Stalin.
Let the fittest survive if they want to; if
Christ equals “X” and “X” equals zero, sur-
viving holds nothing for me.

Now that is the way any individual who is
more than a follower of a bellwether or a
“brindle-boss” must think. To any individual
who is more than a member of a herd or a
flock; to any individual who will use that
almost atrophied faculty we have for ra-
tionalizing; to any individual who will be



24 A Startling Thing for You!

logical, the despair of Schopenhauer is the
only goal that will ever be reached by stay-
ing in materialistic philosophy. Life, as I
said, becomes not a mystery but a mess. Its
multiplicity of trifles looks like the crazy-cuts
of some jigsaw puzzle. Its pieces of pleas-
ure and pain, accomplishment, and failure,
trouble and triumph, comfort and strain,
heart-break and joy seem to be without pat-
tern or picture; hence, nothing seems to fit.

Thus the equation is worked out: If “X”
= 0, you and I ought to be suicides!
So what? So let us change the equation.

IF “X” = INFINITY, YOU AND I ARE
PARTLY DIVINE!

The equating is the same, but I have
changed the equation by changing the value
of “X.’" I have assigned Him the value that
He claimed for Himself and the value that
He proved Himself to have by a life that
was more than human, a death that was
obviously divine and a resurrection that
stamps Him as God. What He says, then,
is true; for He is Truth Incarnate. No myth.
No mere man, but the Son of God, the Word
Divine, Eternal Truth articulate. And He
says much about you and me.
Now watch the crazy-cuts in the puzzle of

life fall into place.

Jesus Christ says that the man and woman,
whom we saw meant nothing to the reeling
world, mean much to the God of that world.
He says that the stupidity of work and wage,
eat and sleep, suffer and sacrifice has mean-
ing. He says that the inanity of obtaining
and maintaining a roof over our heads,
clothes on our backs and a meal for the table,
is pregnant with purpose. He clearly says
that life’s term is not suicide but sanctity.

He points to the sparrows of the air, the
lilies of the field, the hairs of our head and
says that they all count with God. He tells



A Startling Thing for You! 25

us that the hand that spins the world, stirs
the sea and sets the stars in motion, the
hand that lifts the nightfall and ladens the
clouds with showers, the hand that turns
spring into summer and autumn into snow,
is the hand that keeps your heart and my
heart beating, and the hand that will one
day bring them to rest; for it is the hand
that first fashioned them and gave them
their steady pulse. Jesus Christ says that
we are somebody. He says that we are the
children of God.

That puts lyricism into life. That crowds
romance and high adventure into dull mo-
notony and deadening routine. That makes
an harmonious symphony out of the world’s
ceaseless roar. That makes sense. I begin
to understand myself and to understand all
others when I hear from Jesus Christ that
you and I are more than bone and muscle,
fiesh and blood, that we are very much more
than idle numbers or useless pawns for some
dictator to shunt about trifiingly in the in-
terests of his totalitarian state, that we be-
long to more than a “wage-group,” an “age-
group” or some other such “group.” I begin
to understand life when I learn that you and
I are individuals and that we belong to God.
I begin to see that if “X” = Infinity, then
you and I are partly divine.

Yes, indeed, this makes sense. It answers
that first tremendous question. It tells us
whence. Not from blind fate or haphazard
chance; not from some hidden process of
selection or survival of the fittest; not from
matter alone but from God. Christ tells me
that you and I have been created. That we
are breaths of God going about in bodies of
clay.

That explains our ceaseless yearnings and
those restless cravings of ours for more than
this world can offer; that explains the hunger
that gnaws and gnaws and continually gnaws,
that hunger to be someone and to do some-



26 A Startling: Thing: for You!

thing, that hunger to achieve an immortality.
That explains our gropings for the infinite.
Water seeks its own level; so do we. But
ours is up, high up, away up beyond the
stars. We are not “sod-born and sod-bent”;
we are sons of God walking towards home.

Yes, that is what Christ tells us. He tells
us whence and He tells us whither. He is
ever talking about a “kingdom not of this
world,” of “mansions prepared from all eter-
nity,” Jesus Christ is ceaselessly talking about
“our Father” who is in heaven.

That is the whence and the whither of life:
from God and back to God. That is the
only answer that explains me to myself and
you to yourself. That is the only answer
that makes sense. That is the only answer
that gives pattern and picture to the jigsaw
puzzle of human existence. For in telling us
whence and whither. He also tells us why.
Schopenhauer asked, “Why?” and for answer
was shown Gizeh and the grave. We ask,
“Why?” Why this awful struggle? Why this
suffering, sickness and pain? Why is there
failure, disappointment, disease and death?
Why do hearts break and heads grow gray?
“Why?” And Jesus Christ answers clearly,
boldly, convincingly. He points to heaven.
He says, “For God and for men.” He says,
“Because of sin.” He gives the real reason;
it is because you and I and all of us are noth-
ing but prodigals limping along a hot, dusty,
stony road that leads to our Father’s house.

That makes sense and that inspires. We
are prodigal sons and daughters of a patient-
ly waiting, generous and loving God. He
is looking down the road that leads Home;
looking for you and me. That explains life
to me. Prodigals know what it is to be
weary; prodigals know what it is to be lone-
ly, heart-sick and sore; prodigals well know
what it is to stagger, stumble and fall on the
road that leads Home. But a song is singing
in their hearts and hope flames high; despite



A Startling Thing for You! 27

their weariness, heartsickness and loneliness
they are heavenly happy, because they know
they are on the road that leads to LOVE!
Man has got to be explained to man; and

Christ alone can do the explaining. He, and
He alone, translates those urges, impulses
and importunate longings to be someone and
to do something that ceaselessly harry the
soul of the individual. He does it by telling
us whence, whither and why.
For you see, Jesus Christ is the Light of

the world. He, and He alone, can pierce the
jet blackness that enshrouds mankind. With-
out Him there is nothing left to the logical
but despair; but with Him every gloom is
golden and no horizon ever perfectly black.
Unaided reason often leaves us in a twilight
thick with fog; sometimes even in a dark;
but to the aid of human reason comes Jesus
Christ with His revelation and every dark-
ness is illumined, every fog dispersed.

Where this Light burns fully, there is
never slightest shadow. The individual
knows himself for what he is, why he is,
and where he is going; he knows the reason
for sighs, tears and heart-breaks; he knows
the reason for life. He knows why it is that
his head stays high, his will does not bend,
and his eyes hold fire in the face of a pes-
simism and despair, which, bred of material-
istic philosophy and spread by its false ethics
and politics, threaten to engulf the world.

He has dauntless courage, for he has in-
vincible hope. He knows that he is some-
body. He knows that he is more than animal,
more than man; he knows that he is partly
divine. God the Father made him; God the
Son became Bethlehem’s Babe, Nazareth’s
Boy and Calvary’s Crucified Man all for him;
God the Holy Ghost came down as Fire once
and with grace many times since, all for him.
He is triply related to the Triune God; hence,
the value placed upon him by the leading
trinity of the world stirs him to indignation



28 A Startling Thing for You!

even as it moves him to pity. Materialism is
nonsense and its followers blind and deluded
fools.

But as yet we have not found the full
value of “X.” He is the Truth and He is
the Light; and from His truth and light we
have learned our dignity and our destiny.
But Christ is more than Truth and Light.
He Himself has said so; He said, ‘T am the
WAY.’" And that is tremendously important
for you and for me.
We are breaths of God going about in

bodies of clay. We are prodigal children of
God heading towards Home. But we were
lost; and we would have remained lost had
not Christ become our WAY.

It is a terrifying thing to be lost. It is
life’s most horror-filled fright. If you have
ever seen a child who was completely lost,
you have seen bewilderment incarnate; and
if you have listened to that child, you have
heard a broken heart. Ours is a broken-
hearted, bewildered world, because ours is a
world that is lost. It has wandered from
the WAY. You have seen the results.
But for you and me, Christ has provided.

He does not wish us to be lost again. He
is the Way; He has put us on the Way; He
means to keep us in the Way. He does it
not by holding our hands or guiding our feet,
but by being our Head. Jesus Christ does
not want you or me to wander again. He
is most anxious that you and I arrive Home;
so He does a marvelous thing for you and
me. He does more than stay at our side; He
does more than carry us in His arms; He
makes us part of His Body. Thus our heav-
en is assured, and our happiness guaranteed
if we but live as we are supposed to live, if
we but live as members of the Mystical Body
of Christ.

Now my equation is complete. If “X” =
Infinity, you and I are partly divine. We
are from God and for God; but we could



A Startling Thing for You! 29

never get to God except by God, with God
and in God. That is why Jesus Christ means
life to us. He is God and He unites us to
Himself, so that by Him, with Him and in
Him we walk our way to Heaven and to
Love. He not only tells us whence, whither
and why; He very expressly tells us how.
By Him, with Him and in Him. He is not
only the Way, the Truth and the Light; He
is very especially the Life. He is not only
our Lord, our God, our elder Brother; He
is our very Head! Hence, my equation is
perfect. Christ is Infinity, and you are a
member of His Mystical Body; so when I
touch you, I touch divinity; when I rever-
ence you, I worship God; when I serve you,
I honor the Omnipotent.

Do you now see why I wanted you to find
the value of “X”? Knowing Him, you know
yourself; finding Him, you find yourself;
learning of Him, you learn first that you are
someone, then that

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING WORTH
WHILE

Did you know why Calvary’s Death meant
man’s salvation? It was not because a Man
died. No! It was because a Man-God died.
It was not humanity that saved humanity;
it was humanity united with Divinity. Now
get this concept clearly; it means everything
to you and to me. A Man was nailed to a
cross; that Man died on that cross and His
Heart was split wide open; but all that would
have meant nothing had not that Man been
so united to God that He was the God-Man.
To be of any worth His action had to be
theandric; that is, the action belonging to the
God-Man. Had not Calvary’s awful suffering
and Death been a theandric act, it would
have been more empty and more meaning-
less than Gizeh’s Pyramids and Sphinx.
There had to be an infinity about it all; there
had to be a divinity conjoined to the hu-



30 A Startling Thing for You!

manity to make it valuable; it had to be
theandric.

I repeat and repeat that word and explain
it fully, for I want it to dominate your life.
You can make, and, if you are wise, you
will make, your every action theandric. Yes,
I mean it, a divinely-human act, an act that
has infinity and immortality about it, an act
that will live long after all our suns are
burnt to cinders and our weary world has
spun its final spin and rolled on its side like
a spun-out top. You can do it. You can
make every act eternal by living as a mem-
ber of the Mystical Body of Christ.

I know that most people are frightened by
the very name ‘‘Mystical Body.” I know
that they are mystified and think it all most
mysterious; hence, what I have just said
about your actions will be beyond their
mental grasp. It's a phobia. The doctrine
of the Mystical Body is not mysterious, and
the fact of your action becoming theandric
is not mystifying. I think that I can clarify
it all and simplify it very much if you will
allow me to talk about myself for a little.
I want this truth to be as tangible as fact
for you; so let me talk about myself.
You may feel small and may be made to

feel smaller; you may consider that all your
works are worthless, thinking that you have
done nothing, and can do nothing; you may
consider yourself as useless in the great game
of life, feeling that fate has assigned you
a place on the side-lines, in the dugout and
on the bench; you may feel handcuffed, ham-
strung and completely shackled because of
environment, lack of opportunity and dearth
of abilities; you may find life a burden and
living a bore as you look out on the whirling
world and the teeming millions; you may
even feel disheartened, discouraged and ready
to despair; so I say: Look at me! Look at
me and learn!



A Startling Thing for You! 31

Yes, look at me! I am buried alive. Hid-
den from men. Exiled from life. I am walled
away in a very secluded spot that is securely
tucked away behind Kentucky hills. Judged
by any of the usual standards of material
production, social uplift or civic improve-
ment, I am perhaps the most useless being
in all creation.

The world does not know that I exist. If
it does happen to know, it does not care; for
I do not count. To some few I furnish a
target for ridicule and a subject for abuse.
By many I am laughed at and called a ‘‘lazy
monk,” a “do-nothing,” a “drone in the hu-
man beehive,” one of “humanity’s idlers.”
Nor can you blame such people for such
talk. In fact, they are most right if there
is but one standard for measurement. Why,
look! For almost a hundred years now men
have lived and died in this monastery of
mine, and what can we show to the ma-
terial-minded for our almost a century of
existence? They have every right to lift
the eyebrows and ask, “What substantial
good has come to the county, never mind
the country; what material benefit has ac-^
crued to the State of Kentucky, never mind
the United States, from this monastery dur-
ing the past long hundred years?”

The answer, of course, is: “Nothing!” But
here precisely, is where the value of “X”
comes in, not only for me and my fellow-
monks, but also for you. Here is where our
equation makes life worth living and dreams
come true. Here is where we, being on the
opposite side of our mathematical seesaw,
soar. For remember. If “X” = Infinity, you
and I are partly divine. Now, watch!

It is absolutely true that I and my fellow-
monks do nothing, are useless, and actually
worthless as the world values worth. We
can show practically nothing for our almost
a century of existence. And yet, by one of
those marvelous paradoxes of Christianity,



32 A Startling Thing for You!

we, who do nothing, actually save mankind!
We are the world’s redeemers! And you can
be one, too.
Do you think that an idle boast, a bit of

whistling in the dark? Does that strike you
as a weird fancy? Let me show you how
it is actual fact.

I am incorporated in Jesus Christ, He is
my Head. I am one of His members. My
actions, then, are His actions; they are, there-
fore, divine. Being done through Him, with
Him and in Him they are theandric actions,
the actions of the God-Man. Their value,
therefore, is infinite. They can and they do
satisfy an outraged God for some of the sins
of a very sinning and terribly sinful world.
They can and they do win mercy from God
for men. They can and they do save the
worla. For everything that I do in Gethsem-
ani is joined to what was done on Calvary,
and Calvary, you know, saved mankind. You
see, Jesus Christ was the first and the great
Redeemer; incorporated in Him, being a
member of His Mystical Body, I am a second
and a little redeemer, and so are you if you
are wise.

Does not that completely change the color
of the world? To you mothers, weary from
the maddening round of children, house,
meals and clothes; to you fathers, dulled and
drooping from that killing grind of work,
work and still more work; to you older
brothers and sisters who have sacrificed in-
dividual lives and personal happiness that
younger brothers and sisters might grow up
with greater advantages; to all you who are
entrapped in the fiercely tangled meshes of
this sad world’s stupid economics; to all you
who feel small and utterly worthless, I say:
Look at me! Learn of me! Learn from me!
Learn the full value of ‘‘X.”

Your trifles can be made of infinite value.
Your worthless works can save a lost race of
men. Your nothingness can please God the



A Startling^ Thing for You! 33

Almighty. How? By living in, with and
through Jesus Christ; by living up to your
dignity, your destiny and your duty as mem-
bers of the Mystical Body of Christ; by mak-
ing your every action theandric.

I promised you optimism. I have given
you some. I say lift up your minds; lift
up your hearts and your heads; lift up your
hands to praise, reverence and adore “X”
who for you, as an individual, equals Infinity
and by so doing makes you partly divine.
You have seen two equations and two

sharp contrasts.

Without Christ you are nothing. You are
enmeshed in the tangles of a world that
knows not whence, whither or why; with-
out Him you are tightly gripped and are
being rushed along by a world that is taking
giant strides towards Communism and con-
sequent barbarism; without Him you are
lost in the crowd, a madding milling crowd
that knows not why it is restless nor to-
wards what it is working; without Christ
life is meaningless and human endeavor a
waste of time. Let me be brutally frank.
Without Jesus Christ you can only be a beast
of burden, a beast for slaughter or a beast of
prey. If Jesus Christ equals zero, why live?
Reverse the picture. With Christ, what a

difference! You are not only great, you are
godlike. With Jesus Christ you have a dig-
nity, duty, destiny divine. With Jesus Christ
you have been lifted up above the muck and
mire of this sordid world and can walk with
your head in the stars.
With Jesus Christ you can do something.

With Jesus Christ your unimportant life and
utterly inconsequential works, your com-
pletely valueless sweepings, dustings and
washings, your workings and restings, your
headaches and heartaches, your very breath-
ing takes on a tinge of the infinite and can
be used to win mercy for men, give glory to
God and help save the world. With Jesus



34 A Startling Thing for You!

Christ your every action is theandric, your
life has a purpose and you have a goal. With
Jesus Christ earth is but a stepping-stone to
heaven. Use it.

SINCE “X” EQUALS INFINITY, VIGIL
LIGHTS SHOULD BURN BEFORE

MARRIED PEOPLE
Now that the foundations have been well

laid, the superstructure can rise with
rapidity.

Man, we know, is a social animal. He does
not live alone. He cannot live alone. By a
necessity of his nature he is drawn to others,
and that is why we have conjugal society,
then domestic and finally civil. It is the
plan of the all-wise God. But even this,
modern man has muddled. He seems to be-
lieve that he can have civil society without
domestic; that the race can go on Without
procreation; that men and women can hold
their respective dignities and Command
mutual esteem whilst making of marriage a
mockery.

I am not going to take you to Russia or
Germany where Christ is openly insulted
and outraged in the Sacrament so near and
dear to Him. I am not going to tell you of
Communist and Nazist propaganda for the
promotion of promiscuity, birth-prevention
and companionate-marriage. You have heard
and read more about these things than I,
and you know that even the most conserva-
tive writers have had to label both countries
“sties.” Yes, the animal is in the ascendancy
and will always conquer when Christ is an
unknown quantity. And that tells you why
we have our American Gretna Greens, seven
hundred thousand abortions reported an-
nually, Reno, divorce-courts and an estimated
sale of over a million contraceptive devices
weekly.

I could cry. I could say, “I wish Christ
could equal zero,” for then He would not be



A Startling Thing for You! 35

so outraged by modern men and women.
But he cannot equal zero. He is the Head
of the human race, and that is why these
things hurt so much. Oh, if men would only
work out the equation rightly and see that
Christ equals Infinity, then they would see
why I say that vigil lights should burn be-
fore married people. They would see that
married couples are sacred sanctuaries, that
God is more intimately present to them than
He is to any of His other natural works and
wonders.

Come. Let us look at life with wide-open
eyes. We have found the true value of the
individual by letting ‘‘X” equal Infinity; let
us do the same for married couples. Let us
peer into that special sanctuary of God Al-
mighty, the sanctuary built by love, consist-
ing of two human hearts, the heart of a man
and the heart of a maid. Let us look at the
home of holiness.

I say vigil lights should burn before hus-
band and wife because the Holy Trinity
works in them as It does in no other work
of nature. God the Father creates, God the
Son incarnates, and God the Holy Ghost can
infiame and sanctify; for marriage is God’s
special workshop.

Moderns who are materialistic will not
understand me. They think that marriage
belongs to man; they have never known that
it is God’s particular sanctuary. They think
that love means “a craving to possess”; they
have never known that it only means “give.”
In fact, they have never known love at all;
they have only known love’s counterfeit —
lust.

Love is a sacred word. It does not belong
to earth. It came from heaven. Strictly
speaking, love can be predicated only of
God, for it means “give,” and He alone can
give since He alone truly possesses. That
is why true lovers are godlike and openly
manifest the divine; they give.



36 A Startling Thing for You!

Love gives. You will pardon my pound-
ing the obvious, but I must; for the obvious
has become obscure. When I say “Love
gives,” I am saying nothing deeper or more
original than were I to say, “Fire burns” or
“Water is wet.” But how many moderns
know it? For decades now, if we are to
judge from literature and life, love has meant
“get.” And that is why modern men and
women are so unmanly and unwomanly; that
is why humans are so unhuman; that is why
many married couples are not like God.
You may never have studied Theology, but

you know as well as any theologian that
God gives and that God is Love. I have
always admired the theologian and the artist
in St. John the Evangelist. And I think that
he touched the heights of art and theology
when he described God. He was looking for
something adequate and apt. He coursed
through God’s attributes. He thought of His
omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence;
but he shook his head. He thought of God’s
infinity, simplicity and eternity; but still he
shook his head. He thought of God’s wis-
dom, knowledge and sanctity, of His mercy,
justice and fidelity; and yet, his pen never
sought paper; neither the theologian nor the
artist was satisfied. He wanted something
simple, but something beautiful and true.
He finally found it and with zest he ener-
getically wrote, “God is Love!”

Yes, God is Love, and that is why we have
life, both natural and supernatural; for Love
gives. God is Love, and that is why we have
life’s sustenance, both natural and supernat-
ural; for Love gives. The sun, the earth, the
air and the rain produce for us. The Bread,
the Wine, the Oil and the Water produce in
us; so we live by God and in God and for
God. Love gives. That is why I say Crea-
tion is Love’s overfiow; the Incarnation is
Love’s downflow; and Redemption is Love’s
inflow. I use the present because Creation



A Startling Thing for You! 37

still goes on, the Incarnation is prolonged
and Redemption is now being worked out.
God, you see, is the Eternal NOW, and His
actions partake of His nature. Hence, God
is always giving; for God is Eternal Love!
But God knew most of us to be poor meta-

physicians, so He gave us a Model. Man was
badly muddled, so God the Son became “Love
Incarnate.” He came to show us how to live
and He did so by showing us how to love.
That is why we have an ox and an ass breath-
ing over a Baby in straw; that is why we
have the Village Carpenter sweating amidst
His sawdust and His shavings; that is why
the Wonder-worker sat weary at the well;
and finally, that is why the grass of Geth-
semane was one night crimsoned and the
heights of Calvary the following day incar-
nadined. Love gives. “God so loved the
world that He GAVE His only-begotten Son.”
And with St. Paul we say of Christ, “He
loved me, and He GAVE Himself up for me.”
That is the lesson that God and the God-

Man teach. They say that the art of living
consists in the art of giving; for the art of
giving is the perfection of the art of love.
Now, you and I are sons of God, but “Like
Father, like sons” will never be said of you
and me unless we live like God, love like
God and give like God.
Which brings me to Marriage; for that is

the Sacrament of giving. Marriage is very
dear to Christ; to the Mystical as well as the
Physical Jesus. I see special significance in
the fact that He worked His first miracle
at a wedding-feast; for in marriage life be-
gins. I see very special significance in the
fact that He spoke so many parables about
wedding-feasts, wedding-guests and wedding-
garments, and that He was so often heard
to speak of brides and the bridegroom. Can
you not see special significance in the fact
that His Church is called His Bride and His
union with a soul, nuptials? It could not



38 A Startling Thing for You!

be otherwise; for marriage speaks of life,
union and fecundity, and Jesus Christ is the
Son of God, Life Itself, wedded to humanity
that all men might live and have life more
abundantly. Yes, Christ and Marriage are
perfectly analogous. He made Marriage a
Sacrament and He still makes many mar-
riages sacred. Dear to the Physical Christ,
Marriage is specially dear to tfie Mystical
Christ, for through it He prolongs His In-
carnation by having His Mystical members
multiply and His Mystical Body grow.
Do you begin to see why vigil lights should

burn before married people? — Love is sa-
cred. Marriage is a Sacrament. Lovers are
very like God.

But for most people the sanctity and the
sacredness of the Sacrament seem to end
when the organist plays the recessional and
the married pair march from the church.
They never seem to grasp the fact that this
Sacrament is not administered by God’s
priest. He is only an official witness. The
ministers of this Sacrament are the man and
the maid who give themselves to one another
until death. How few of them realize that
the sanctity and the sacredness of this Sacra-
ment last as long as life! There is a perma-
nency about Matrimony similar to that about
Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders. Not
exactly the same, but very similar. It is a
contract that cannot be broken until the body
and soul of one of the contracting parties are
separated. It is a contract so sacred that it
should be made only in the sanctuary, and
end only when the God of that sanctuary
calls one of the parties home.

Marriage is so sacred that I almost tremble
to write about it. There is no duality about
Matrimony. Never. In its every phase and
aspect it manifests a trinity and the Trinity.
Man and maid make a vow before God, un-
der God, to God and, in a very certain sense,
for God. So it is man and maid and God;



A Startling^ Thing for You! 39

then husband and wife and God; and finally,
mother and father and God.

At the marriage ceremony it is not diffi-
cult to discern more than man and maid and
priest. I can see clearly the Father who is
substantial Love, the Son who is incarnate
Love, and the Holy Ghost who is the Spirit
of Love.

And when man and maid become husband
and wife, then vigil lights should brightly
burn; for there are present, not only the two
who become one, but the Three who are
One. The Father who is the Creator is more
intimately present in this hallowed embrace
than He is anywhere else in the purely nat-
ural order. He is here ready to create again,
to cooperate with His co-creators, to breathe
again the breath of life into another and a
new being. And God the Son is particularly
present, for there can be here another incar-
nation of a breath of God; here another mem-
ber of His Mystical Body can be brought
forth; this can be another Bethlehem where
another redeemer of men is born; here an-
other Christian, another Christ can be con-
ceived. And that is why the Holy Ghost, the
Spirit of Love, hovers over the married pair;
for without Him no Christ has ever been
conceived. He overshadowed Mary, and the
Physical Christ knew being. He overshad-
owed the Apostles, and the Mystical Christ
was born. He must overshadow husband and
wife as another Christ takes flesh. Do you
not see, then, that a bridal chamber is the
special sanctuary of the Omnipoent, the par-
ticular workshop of the Triune God? No
wonder that I order vigil lights for it! And
tell me, would it not be sacrilege to do any-
thing wrong in such sacred surroundings,
surroundings that are permeated with the
presence of the God One and Three?
Once you have found the value of “X,”

once you have learned that Christ equals
Infinity and that you are partly divine, once



40 A Startling TKing for You!

you have firmly grasped the fact that you and
Jesus are not two, but one, then the intimacy
of the Divine Trinity in Marriage and in the
marriage act is recognized as a sacred actu-
ality. Father, Son and Holy Ghost are in
you, beside you and above you; and, re-
sponsibility of all responsibihties, God the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost depend on you!
Frightening, isn’t it? And yet, thrilling!
The Omnipotent God depends upon you!
Without your faithful cooperation He cannot
people His heaven. Without your faithful
cooperation He cannot make His Mystical
Body grow. Without your faithful coopera-
tion He cannot sanctify the race of men.
Often have I heard pleas for purity, chas-

tity and the recognition of the sanctity of
marriage based on the dependence of the
city, state and nation upon the married pairs.
Often have I heard entreaties for decency,
dignity and dutifulness addressed to mar-
ried couples because upon them depended
the future of the human race. Both ad-
dresses are true. Mankind does depend upon
fruitful marriages. National, State and Civic
Society are all dependent upon domestic and
conjugal society. Ah, but the plea of pleas
to husband and wife for snow-white purity,
fiame-red generosity and sapphire-blue fidel-
ity is found in the fact that upon them depend
God the Father for continuing His Creation,
God the Son for prolonging His Incarnation,
and God the Holy Ghost for widening the
sphere of His sanctification.

Yes, indeed. Give me vigil lights for mar-
ried people. They are the sanctuaries and
the sacred workshops of God Omnipotent.

Do I have to draw the practical conclu-
sions? Do you not see them? — SeK-control,
never birth-control. Complete abandonment
when everything is right; absolute repression
and utter restraint when the least little thing
is wrong. The legitimate never refused; the
illegitimate never requested. Soft as velvet



A Startling Thing for You! 41

when God’s ways and God’s works are being
done; unyielding as steel if not. SELFLESS-
NESS is the one word; for “love” means
“give,” not “get” and marriage belongs to
God even more than it does to man.
Moderns are selfish; that is why their mar-

riages are mockeries of God and man.
To selfiessness add a mutual reverence

and a holy respect. The reason? — God
dwells in one and in the other. Jesus Christ is
the Head of you both. Each is a member of
that very sacred Mystical Body. Christ has
united you to Himself and He has made your
union with one another His Sacrament.
From your union He awaits that cooperation
necessary for the prolongation of His Incar-
nation and the increase of His holy Church.
Make the practical conclusions triune by

adding to selfiessness and mutual reverence
that which really makes the three, one. De-
velop in yourselves the cognizance and
the consciousness of the special presence of
God in Matrimony and in Matrimony’s act.
Remember how intimate God is in love’s em-
brace. Remember that He is present, ready
to act more intimately and more immediately
than in any other wondrous work of His
truly wondrous natural world. Remember
that He awaits your perfect cooperation so
that He can breathe forth a new life, another
image of Himself. Remember these truths
and sanctity, not sin, will be love’s fruition.

Do you see where moderns are muddled?
They take no cognizance of God’s ways, God’s
works, God’s presence. There is ecstasy and
rapture in marriage. There is intoxicating
pleasure and heady thrill. God wants them
there. God put them there. He put them
there for you and for Himself. He knew that
in asking you to cooperate with Him in carry-
ing on the human race. He was asking of
you sacrifice heroic. He was asking the
mother to face death. He was asking the
father to face a life of perpetual responsibil-



42 A Startling Thing for You!

ity. So before He burdened you, He would
reward you. It is usually His way. He
wants you to enjoy that reward. But right
here is where moderns are most muddled.
They take all the pleasure and dodge the
pain. They greedily grasp all that God holds
out to them in His wide-open arms; but they
return to Him empty-handed. That is tragic.
That is sin. That is race suicide. That
means death eternal.

Tragedy, eternal tragedy; tragedy for self,
tragedy for society and, in a certain sense,
tragedy for God is written large by moderns,
just because they will not take the practi-
cal trinity of selflessness, mutual reverence
and consciousness of God’s special presence
into their lives and make of marriage a little
bit of heaven.

But now that you have worked out the
equation with me, now that you have found
the value of “X,” you know why vigil lights
should burn in bridal chambers and why
marriage is so preeminently sacred.

Make this unity out of the trinity that I
have given you: I have spoken of self, of
Christ and of God; but you know that Christ
is God and that you are parts of the Mystical
Christ; so everything is founded in Jesus.
He dominates, penetrates, permeates mar-
riage. He is in husband, wife and child. He
made Matrimony a Sacrament, and He wants
you to make of its every act a sacramental.
Yes, everything about marriage can bring
you more grace; and grace, you know, makes
you more like God. That is why vigil lights
should burn, and that is why there is a holy
hush in every rightly sung lullaby; not be-
cause baby is sleeping, but because baby is
sacred. Every child is but a broken syllable
of the Word Divine; every child is meant
to be a prolongation of Jesus Christ.

Need I say more? Can any two who have
found the value of “X” dare look on Matri-
mony for mutual gratiflcation? Can any such



A Startling Thing for You! 43

two fail to see that marriage is for mutual
sanctification, mutual divinization, mutual
making one another like unto God? Can any
such two fail to tell their friends all about it?
What a renovation and immediate restora-

tion takes place when married people learn
that they are sacred. Love regains its proper
meaning, speaking of God and “give,” not
“get”; and lust is recognized for what it is —
sin! With this as an opening wedge, the
whole horror that modern man has made is
split asunder and the awful inner rottenness
of all his words and ways laid bare. Divorce
is seen in its true colors. It is recognized
as a disgusting betrayal of one’s sworn word,
an open admission of one’s defeat by lower
nature; a sad acknowledgment that he or
she is not man or woman, but only an animal,
a thriU-questing body. Divorce is an open
profession that the individual has not intel-
ligence enough to recognize truth, nor will
enough to be faithful to self, society and
God. Divorce is nothing but a public con-
fession of dry-rot in the soul.

Let lovers learn that they are sacred; let
Jesus Christ assume His proper place in
marriage, and the unity and indissolubility of
this Sacrament changes the face of our land.
Divorce-courts are closed, for divorce-laws
are struck from the statutes. Reno becomes
a city instead of a center for animal exchange.
And our nation becomes civilized, dignified
and strong.

Find the full value of “X” for American
married couples and our frightful statistics
on race suicide are blotted out. Think of
it! 700,000 abortions annually in this land
of ours that prides itself on its humanity,
progress and respect for life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. Think of this: sixty
out of every hundred marriages in our coun-
try are childless, and of the remaining forty,
only ten have more than two children. Ani-
mals never live like that! And humanity



44 A Startling Thing for You!

cannot go on living like that. Ten per cent
cannot carry the load!

I do not mean to shout, but I do plead
and pray: Find the value of “X”! Let educa-
tors bend to their task. It is not to banish
illiteracy; it is to banish immorality! And
that can never be done by teaching youth
it is nothing but a conglomeration of atoms;
that can never be done by a Psychology
that denies soul, free-will and consequent
responsibility. That can never be done by
a Biology that teaches hypothesis as proved
fact, and mere theory as absolute truth. That
can never be done by a Sociology that
preaches promiscuity, the legitimacy of pre-
marital relations, companionate-marriage and
free-love. That can never be done but by
bringing Jesus Christ into the classroom and
teaching Him fully; for He is the Way, the
Truth and the Life!

They tell me that the flair for Freudian
Psychology is ended. Good! But what of
the modes of thought and the conduct conse-
quent to a knowledge of his foul principles;
have they ended, too? They tell me that
there is less and less talk about trial-mar-
riage, free-love and biological urges. Again
I say, “Good!” But have the practices of the
same ceased with the preachments? They
tell me that the League for the Promotion of
Birth Control is less militant than it was in
former years. Very good. BUT — birth-
prevention grows! So I say, WATCH OUT!
When the fuse has ceased to sputter an ex-
plosion is near.

That is just about how I feel concerning
civilization. For decades now the spark has
sputtered along the fuse. The physical and
the sexual side of men and women has been
bas-reliefed for everybody in school and out
of school. The stage, screen and radio played
it up; the newspaper, magazine and tabloid
reeked with it; even the street-car and high-
way advertised it. Smart, but not very wise



A Startling Thing for You! 45

or learned professors made the headlines by
lecturing on it; and some writers made a
fortune scribbling about it. The material
side of the universe is the only side that the
vast m.ajority of men looks at; and that is the
result of their education and environment.
I think that the fuse is just about burned
out. It is having its last final flarings across
the waters. An explosion, a cataclysm for
civilization is imminent, unless mankind finds
the full value of “X.”

LET US FIND THE VALUE OF “X”
FOR SOCIETY

Professedly, I have always refrained from
writing for the world, the nation or society
at large. Life is too short for me to be
wrestling with ‘‘straw men”; and the Trap-
pist life is altogether too sacred and too
crowded for me to waste a single moment.
Furthermore, I have too much respect for
myself and my readers to spin out loud-
sounding glittering generalities.

Reading my last few pages, you might sus-
pect that, for once, I had departed from my
usual intimate, direct and personal manner
of address. But know well that my reasons
are personal, direct and intimate. I am
writing of your environment. I am telling
you the atmosphere in which you live. For
I know that atmosphere and environment
affect every living being, even you!
You have a free-will, and it is a tremen-

dously strong faculty; with God’s grace it
can become absolutely inflexible. But know
well that it can be influenced, often bent
and sometimes broken by the pressure of
atmosphere and environment.
That was my reason for my apparent de-

parture; but now I make a real departure. I
am going to talk about the nation and society
at large; and yet, it is not a departure; for
I am going to go on talking about you. I
have found the value of “X” for you as an



46 A Startling Thing for You!

individual. I have found the value of “X’’
for you as a member of conjugal society. I
would be inadequate and incomplete if I did
not find the value of “X’' for you as a mem-
ber of civil society, a citizen of these United
States and of the world. So you see that
when I talk about the nation and society at
large I am talking about you.

I am going to be brief, pointed, and, I hope,
very clear. I am going to touch, only touch,
politics, ethics, economics and education.
Then I am going to end where I began: with
you as an individual, looking for life and
love. But before I plunge I want to say:

THIS IS PIETY THAT IS PRACTICAL!
I know that many will look upon the solu-

tion I offer and the prescription I write as
so much “piety.” They are right. Could
anything else be expected, or could anything
else be published from a Trappist Monastery?
It is piety that I preach; but piety in its root
meaning: a filial reverence for God, self and
neighbor. And that makes it the only prac-
tical solution.

We have had impiety long enough. Look
at the results. We have worshiped and
idolized humanity as humanity and find now
that its cult leads only to irreverence, irreli-
gion and the dehumanizing of the human.
Let us become practical again. Let us be-
come truly pious. Let us take humanity, not
as it is in itself, but as it is when assumed
by the Word, and then let us worship Di-
vinity in humanity. It is highly impractical
and absolutely purposeless to talk of the
human family, unless we make that talk
pious by remembering the Father of that
family. It is utterly stupid to talk about
the solidarity of the human race, unless we
recognize the One who unifies the world’s
billions and gives the race its solidarity. It
is arrant nonsense to tell any man to have
respect and reverence for every other man.



A Startling Thing for You! 47

unless you show him what is worthy of re-
spect and reverence in those other men, un-
less you show him Jesus Christ, the Head
of the whole Mystical Body.

Yes, it is piety that I present, and it takes
faith to accept it. But let no man say any-
thing about “blind” faith; for with the years
I have come to see that Faith is wide-open-
eyed and keenly intelligent, while only the
unbelievers are dull-witted and blind. It
takes a mind to believe. A will is necessary,
of course; but much more, a mind, a mind
sharp enough to pierce surfaces and sem-
blances and get down to realities; a mind
that is persistently and consistently logical;
a mind that knows that when the velvet
voice of a silver-toned tenor comes out of
the mahogany face of a radio receiving-set,
there must be a silver-toned tenor singing
in some broadcasting studio; a mind that
knows that since there is moonlight there
must be a sun; that when there is shadow,
there must be light; that when there is smoke,
there must be a fire. It is only a mind that
is as doggedly logical as that that is capable
of deep belief. A mind that goes from effect
to cause steadily; a mind that recognizes re-
lations because it looks fixedly at the Abso-
lute. That is the kind of mind that believes.
A mind that sees the necessity for the con-
tinuation of creation, since it sees something
of the nature of God; a mind that sees the
necessity for a Mystical Body, since there
was a Physical one; the necessity for the in-
corporation of all in Christ, since there was
a recapitulation of all by Christ. You see.
Faith is only for the simple and the pro-
found; shallow minds and skin-deep hearts
have not the depth to contain it.
So to moderns I say: Be faithful! Be

pious! And if that has too foreign a ring,
then let me beg you to have respect for your-
self! Realize what you are — a breath of
God enclosed in a vessel of clay. Respect the
divinity in your humanity, and respect the



48 A Startling Thing for You!

divinity in the rest of mankind. God made
you, God redeemed you. God adopted you.
God incorporated you. God holds you in
the hollow of His hand. God gives beat to
your heart and breath to your lungs. God
gave you life. God keeps you living. God is
IN you! So respect and reverence yourself— not because you are flesh and blood, but
because you are body and soul; not because
you are human, but because you are partly
divine; not because you are a man of the
world, but because you are a child of eter-
nity; not because you are a member of the
great human race, but because you are a
member of the wondrous Mystical Body of
Jesus Christ.

With that as prelude, let me start on Poli-
tics and Economics by saying:

ROOSEVELT WAS ALMOST RIGHT
Very early in his first term, Roosevelt made

us mindful of the “forgotten man” and in-
troduced us to his National Recovery Act.
He was almost right. Almost. He missed
perfection and complete success because in-
stead of the “forgotten man” he should have
made us discover “The Man That Nobody
Knows”; and his National Recovery Act
should have been ethical rather than eco-
nomical. Had he made us conscious of
Christ; had he made us find the value of
“X”; had he made us all realize that we are
members of divinity rather than of human-
ity, he would have written a National Re-
covery Act that would have brought recov-
ery and an Act that no five to four decision
could declare unconstitutional.

I give you an “N. and I. R. A.” a national
and an international recovery act. You
want international amity, don’t you; you want
national reconstruction and social regenera-
tion, don’t you? I give you all three in my
“N. and I. R. A.” It calls for the national
and international revaluation of all existing



A Startling Thing for You! 49

values, basing everything on the value of
‘‘X.” This act will not regulate the scale
of wages and the hours of work; but it will
detail the amount of our worship and the
extent of our reverence. It will not set
prices and control production; but it will put
the proper price on glory, both here and
hereafter, and lead to the mass-production of
eternal merits by the masses. Its standard
will not be the Blue Eagle, whose wings were
SO soon clipped; its standard will be the
Standard of the Cross, the only Standard that
has never and can never know defeat; be-
cause it is the Standard of Him who con-
quered the world, Satan and death.

Yes, and it is an International Recovery
Act. We all want world readjustment and
we all know that we must have international
union. We can have it if the doctrine of the
Mystical Body of Christ is known, accepted,
loved and lived. Mankind wants to unite.
It is a necessity of our nature. Just as man
cannot live alone but must seek society, so
the nations can no longer remain isolated
and aloof, they must seek a unification and
a consolidation. The innate tendency is
most manifest in this our day and age.
Bolshevism, Fascism, Nazism are only very
false externalizations of a very true tend-
ency. The movement itself is right; but the
auspices are all wrong. We cannot have dic-
tators; we can have only one Dictator, Him
who said, “Come, follow Me. I am the Way,
the Truth and the Life.” The International
Recovery Act is not to be found in Com-
munism; that is destructive. It can be found
only in the Creator and Redeemer, Jesus
Christ.

My “N. and I. R. A.” is the doctrine of the
Mystical Body of Christ. It means world
peace, for He is the Prince of Peace.
Now do not miss my point. YOU have got

to accept and live this “N. and I. R. A.” for
you are a constituent part of national and



50 A Startling Thing for You!

international society. Nations are made up
of individuals, and hence, the program for
the nation is the program for the individual.
The United States is not some entity outside
you and me and the rest of us. No. We are
the United States. And if the United States
is to have a readjustment, a national recov-
ery, a nation-wide revaluation of all exist-
ing values on the basis of the value of “X,’’
YOU and I must do the revaluing.
Never forget that the world is made up of

individuals; hence, if there is to be a world-
wide reformation, it will have to be the
reformation of the individual. Salvation is
not from without. It is entirely from within.
It is Jesus Christ loved and lived that means
national and international recovery. He, and
He alone, spells the regeneration and the
exaltation of the world.

BALANCING MORE THAN THE BUDGET
The Physical Christ, you know, was the

world’s greatest bridge-builder. He was the
unique Pontifex. He was the only One who
could, and He was the One who did, throw
a span across the infinite chasm that yawned
between God and man. The Mystical Christ
is as great a Wonder-worker. He bridges
all gorges, balances all that is unbalanced
and establishes perfect equilibrium.
Do I need to point out to you all the

wonders that would be worked if all men
knew the full value of “X”? Do you not see
the harmony that would be immediately
established between Capital and Labor, Pro-
letariat and Bourgeoisie, between the govern-
ing and the governed, if each could see in
each Jesus Christ?

It is no matter for profound study. It
does not call for deep research and pene-
trating reflection. No. The consequences
leap at you. Justice rules the world again
when “X” is properly valued. Equity brings
amity and amity brings peace. The worker



A Startlingr Thing for You! 51

gets not only a living wage and a share in
the profits; he gets a share in the company.
A Corporation is formed, not of the Board of
Directors, the men who furnish the money;
but of the Board of Directors and the Work-
ers, the men who make the money. We have
our federation of labor; what we need is a
confederation of capital and labor. When
Capital can see in Labor the Carpenter of
Nazareth and the Worker of Galilee, and La-
bor can see in Capital the image of the ever
provident God, then the two hands of the
one body will work together for the good of
the whole.
The same holds true for government. Let

Christ live in the governing and the pans of
the balance, as they now stand, will be com-
pletely reversed. Instead of a swarm of
politicians and no statesmen, we shall have
statesmen and no politicians. The difference,
you know, is this: a statesman is one who
looks to the next generation; a politician
looks only to the next election. Let Christ
enter the governing and every measure in-
troduced will be weighed and looked at to
see what good it will do the people and not
to see what good it will do the politician.
Let Christ enter the governing and not only
will the seven capital sins be held in check,
but the eighth will be completely abolished.
When Christ enters, GRAFT will exit. Yes,
let Christ enter the governing and history
will never again tell of repudiated debts,
treaties looked upon as scraps of paper, and
promises made only to be broken.
But more important than the effect on the

governing will be the effect on the governed.
Let Christ enter, and AUTHORITY comes
back to life again. How we need it! Our
saintly Pius XI, of blessed memory, when
instituting the feast of Christ the King, saw
fit to say, ‘‘They have driven Jesus Christ
out of laws and public affairs. Authority
suddenly appears to be something derived
not from God but from man and consequent-



52 A Startling Thing for You!

ly, its foundations totter. Forgotten the First
Cause, there is no reason why one should
command and the other obey. From this
error indeed come those widespread disturb-
ances in society, when it rests no longer on
its natural foundation.’'

Yes, we need Christ, for we need author-
ity. We have much despotism, anarchy and
very much tyranny today, but very little
real authority. Russia, Italy, Germany have
a unity, it is true; but it is not true unity,
it is not a unity of the multiplicity. And
that is why, strictly speaking, they cannot
be called societies, nor can Stalin, Hitler or
Mussolini be said to have real authority.
Oh, they command and others obey, it is
true; but that does not constitute true au-
thority. No! Authority comes from God.
You know, a hold-up man with a gun can
command me, and I’ll obey; but that does
not prove that he has real authority. Modern
dictators are the hold-up men of the modern
world. They have the guns; their victims
obey; but that is not real authority. They
have the might but not the right. They win
submission but not obedience; and their vic-
tims are slaves, not citizens.

But why talk? What the whole world
needs is RELIGION. And that means Jesus
Christ, for He is Religion Incarnate. He is
the One who binds us to God; and that is
what religion means: a binding to God. How
we need it! For without religion there is
no true morality; without true morality there
can be no real authority; without real author-
ity there can be no law and order; and with-
out law and order there will be social sui-
cide. That is the imminent danger of the
day. Separate the soul from the body and
you have a corpse. Separate religion from
civil society and you must prepare for the
burial of civilization.

If we find that our civilization is dying,
we need no expert diagnostician to name the



A Startling: Thing: for You! 53

cause. Christ said, ‘‘I am the LIFE.” There
is your disease. Christ equals zero, and so
we die. Look! Morality is the lifeblood of
the whole social body, and religion is the
heart. Circulation stops when the heart
ceases to beat; and the heart is at a stand-
still when Jesus Christ equals “X,” the un-
known quantity. If we would live, find the
value of “X”!

THE WATCH AND WARD SOCIETY
IS WRONG

I have touched education as I rapidly
wrote these paragraphs, for in education lies
salvation. Bismarck said: “If you want a
thing in the nation, get it into the schools.”
He was right. Even the devil can tell the
truth occasionally. But, as I said, we must
educate not to eliminate illiteracy, but to
eliminate immorality.

Let me now return to that subject and
say that we must have true education, a
development of the whole man; hence it is
not the head, nor the heart, so much as the
conscience that must be educated. If that
sounds like a strange concept, let me tell
you that to date we have developed only the
memories of most of our students, for we
give information rather than formation; we
give facts and facts and more facts, forgetting
all the time about acts. A graduate from
any of our public high schools can tell you
much about Physics, Biology, Chemistry and
even a little about Astronomy. Some of the
specially apt and interested students can
name every bone in the body and give a talk
on Anatomy that astounds. But ask one
question about the soul; ask one question
about the conscience; ask one question about
morality, and there is silence!
Do you see my point? We have taught our

pupils that they have bodies but have not
told them about their souls; we have proved
that they are animals, but we have never



54 A Startling Thing for You!

proved to them that they are responsible
animals. And that is our greatest mistake!

I have to smile when a Watch and Ward
Society, or some such organization, stirs up
the police of a city and has them close the
houses of ill-repute, smash gambling-dens,
and raid various sections of the city in what
they call a “clean-up campaign.” I have
to smile, but it is a smile of pity rather than
of amusement. These people are locking the
barn-door after the horse has been stolen!
It is not the people of ill-fame that the Watch
and Ward Society should pursue and prose-
cute; it is the people of very fair repute; the
Superintendent of Schools, the members of
the School Committee, the headmasters, sub-
masters and the teachers! It is not the “red-
light district” that needs to be raided; it is
the little red schoolhouse of the district.
Public enemy number one is not the gangster,
the gambler or the grafter. No. Public
enemy number one is, has been, and, until
we find the full value of “X” will be —
the Educator!

A godless education is hardly calculated
to graduate a class of saints. And yet, sanc-
tity is the one end of man’s existence. Nor
can universal godless education ever produce
a God-fearing, let alone a God-loving, people.
And yet, people who neither fear nor love
God have never been known to love and
respect their fellow-man. That is why we
had to coin that nice-sounding but terrible-
meaning term “the socially unfit.” They
were bred in our schools, never forget it!
We have axioms in our language about ‘The
child of today being the citizen of tomorrow”
and “the boy being the father to the man”
and yet we expect respectable and respect-
ful citizens from boys and girls who have
never been taught the fundamentals of
respect!

Look at our schools! We teach every
‘ology’ but one; yet on that one every other



A Startling Thing fcr You! 55

‘ology' is ultimately based, and without that
one every other is like a ship without a
rudder or a kite without a tail. They are
dangerous. Sociology without Theology is
like a man without a mind. He can function,
but not as a rational being; so too Sociology,
it can investigate evils, apply remedies and
give temporary relief; but it cannot effect a
permanent cure. Sociology without Christ
is like Psychology without a soul and Logic
without a mind. It is a shell without the
kernel, the rind without the pulp, the cover
without the book.

I select Sociology, for that seems to be the
crown of all our other 'ologies.’ For some
years now, educators have been more and
more conscious of the social organism and
have rightly looked to the welfare of the
individual through the proper action of that
organism. In a certain sense they have made
the end of education the same as that of
Sociology, namely, the material and intel-
lectual well-being of each and all as mem-
bers of society. They, as educators and
sociologists, have been pointing to social re-
generation. The aim is good. They have
their eye on the heart of the target. Thfeir
hands are steady. But they will not even
hit the target; for their guns are empty!
Why, look! This thing has been going on
for years; yet we grow socially worse! Why?— Because educators and sociologists know
not the value of “X.” Social regeneration is
nothing more than the introduction of Chris-
tian virtues into society. I say “introduc-
tion,’’ for if I said “restoration” I would lie.
You cannot restore what has never been
possessed.

But lest I be barking up the wrong tree,
let me remind you that sociology and educa-
tion, like charity, begin at HOME!

Mother’s knee is the first and the most
important schoolroom, and father’s example
the lectures and the lessons best retained.



56 A Startling Thing for You!

I say this because I know that when I talk
of Education you dissociate it from yourself
and conjure up some non-existing entity —
the Educational System — and think that I
am talking about and to it. Just as when I
talk of the State you never seem to realize
that I am talking about YOU. You are the
State, and, to an extent, you are the Educa-
tional System. So you see I have not wan-
dered from my original proposition: If the
world is to be saved, you must do the sav-
ing! And the only way that you can do that
is by finding the full value of “X.” Yes, it is
an individual proposition and a proposition
for individuals.

It’s YOU! YOU! YOU!
You ask me what is wrong with the world,

and I say: YOU. You ask me what is wrong
with Government, and I say: YOU. You
ask me what is wrong with Society, and
again I say: YOU. You ask me what is
wrong with people, and I say: The home.
And when you ask me what is wrong with
the home, I say: YOU!
That may sound like a merciless condem-

nation, but you have admitted that the world
is shaking. Economics are a mess. Politics
are worse. The social world is filthy. The
domestic world as bad. That is your sum-
mation. But I say that you omitted the last
step in your graduation. There is one more
category. How about the individual? You
know that conjugal society is made up of
two individuals; domestic society of only a
few more; civil society is only an increase
of numbers; and what is national or inter-
national society but a union of a multiplicity
of individuals? That is why the individual
is the prime concern. When a whole build-
ing shakes, don’t look at the towers and the
top-stories; look at the foundation. When
the world is all out of joint, see if the in-
dividual is straight.



A Startling Thing for You! 57

I can paint a pretty picture for you of all
that Jesus Christ, known, loved and lived,
would mean to mankind. But my picture
will lack proportion and perspective if I do
not have the individual as its very center.
Here is the picture: Christ alone bases society
on rock by showing its origin and its end.
He alone teaches that society is from God
and for man. Hence to undermine it, to
render null its purpose and mission, is to
resist the ordinance of God and to harm
self. He alone lays supreme stress on obedi-
ence to authority, insisting on law and order,
without which society cannot be. He alone
obliges men in conscience, teaching that to
disobey the law is to sin against God. He
thus gives a lesson in fundamental morality,
which is the mortar which holds together the
whole social structure.
But Christ goes deeper than this. He, and

He alone, teaches the sanctity and the in-
dissolubility of marriage, setting all His force
in opposition to that plague of divorce, so
ruinous of the family, the fundamental unit
of the whole social organism.

And as yet He has not finished. No. He
goes deeper still. He teaches imperiously
those principles of moral righteousness that
are to rule the individual. He insists that
the individual repress passion and restrain
self-interest, those two fatal foes to the social
body. But He is not merely negative. In
fact, when fully analyzed. He is found to be
always positive; for He holds out to the in-
dividual as the final outcome of earth’s strug-
glings the inspiring doctrine of hope in an-
other life; which alone can dispel despair
and all the ferocious thoughts and acts to
which despair gives birth.

So you see my pretty picture ends with
the individual, for there is where Christ
really begins. Find the full value of ‘‘X”
for the individual and you have saved the
world. So let us have done with talk about



58 A Startling Thing fcr You!

international, national, civic and even con-
jugal society; let us have done with taik
about Sociology, Education and Morality; let
us have done with talk about muddled mod-
ern man and let us talk about YOU. It is
you who wants the cure. It is you who longs
for the solution. It is you who interests me.
To YOU I say: Find the full value of “X,”

and that means: Drop your buckets into the
sea. Yes, it is as simple and as sublime as
all that. The cure for all your troubles is
all around you; is at your very elbow; more!
is actually within you. You do not have to
drop your buckets into an immense sea. Drop
them into Immensity! Try Jesus Christ.
Know that He does not equal zero; He equals
Infinity.

All this calls for the use of a faculty that
is little used. All this demands the use of
the almost atrophied intellect. All this means
that you must act as so few do act, as a
rational animal.

I know you are willing to make the effort,
but I must tell you that your environment is
much against you; for with nice sounding
synonyms and rather flattering euphemisms
the radio, press and platform insist that you
are nothing but animal. Look at or listen
to the high-pressured, national campaign of
advertising; it pictures and preaches noth-
ing but the body, the body, the body. Listen-
ing and looking, you would think that man
was only a body. All you see or hear is
how to clothe it, how to feed it, how to keep
it warm, clean or healthy. How often do you
see or hear anything about the soul? And
yet, it is the soul that is paramount. We
must feed and clothe and clean the body;
but it is much more important that we do
not starve, strip or sully the soul. Animals
we are, and animals we shall ever be; for God
made us such; but we can be, and we should
be, rational animals.



A Startling Thing for You! 59

BE RATIONAL!
My closing words are “Be rational!’’ I

had almost used the slang phrase, “BE your-
self!” for that is exactly what I mean. Be
your real self. And what is that? — A breath
of God going about in a vessel of clay. An
image of the Infinite walking the earth. A
masterpiece of Omnipotence that has been
partly defaced, first by original sin, then by
actual sin; but a masterpiece that can be
retouched and restored by the pigments left
us by the Artist-Divine who painted His
masterpiece in blood-red and died while do-
ing it. Be yourself! your real self, not only
an animal but a rational animal; not only
human but partly divine; not only a mem-
ber of mankind but a member of the Mystical
Body of Christ.
Live up to your dignity and you shall

achieve your destiny. You were made to
becorae like unto God. Life has no other
meaning. But God is accessible only through
the Humanity of Jesus Christ. Hence, all
life consists in clinging close to the God-Man.
You know where He is found: in the Eucha-
rist and in your neighbor.
You crave life. I say: Develop it! Develop

it by the frequent reception of Holy Com-
munion and by a heart-deep affection for
your fellow man; an affection that is not
sterile sentiment, but a real love that gives
birth to act; a love that is theologically
known as “Charity” and ascetically called
“Zeal for souls”; a love that is made mani-
fest, not in words, but in works, works that
are technically known as the “Works of
Mercy.”

The prescription that I have written for
you can be aptly translated in one word. I
have said: Find the value of “X,” and you
have found that “X” equals Infinity. Let
me change that word into a more welcome
one and one that is equally true, “X” ==:
LOVE!



60 A Startling Thing for You!

That is what you need. That is what the
world needs. Our age talks glibly, but quite
wrongly, about love. I say wrongly, be-
cause to our age Love = X. And if anyone
doubt it, let him account for the lives around
us that go crashing down into pitiable ruins,
lives that had been founded on the shifting
sands of lust, though the builders called it
love. If anyone doubt it, let him account
for the nations that have broken out into a
burning, devouring hate. If anyone doubt it,
let him account for the fact that civilization
is corroding and steadily slipping back into
barbarism. If there is anyone who doubts
that our age is ignorant of love, let him
account for whole countries making marri-
age a mockery, ridiculing restraint, teach-
ing youth to give heed to all its passions,
indulging in all forms of unnatural lusts and
calling the whole frenzied mess — love.

We Want LOVE!
Indeed, we need a rebirth of love. But

we never shall have it, for we never can have
it, until Jesus Christ, the greatest Lover of
all times, takes His rightful place as the
center of all hearts and becomes the one
inspiration and the one aspiration of all men.

What you want and what I want and what
the whole world wants is love. We were
made out of love by Love Itself; we were
redeemed by Love Incarnate; we are des-
tined for Love Eternal. Hence, the mystery
of life is the mystery of love. But the
mystery has ceased to be a mystery. It
was solved twenty centuries ago when a
Babe was born and laid on straw, then grew
to be the Man who was laid on wood. The
mystery ceased to be a mystery when it be-
came the Mystical Body; that was when our
Head was crowned with thorns and fell in
death, but rose again, glorious and immortal,
to join you and me and all the world to
Himself in love.



A Startling: Thing for You! 61

Love, you know, means happiness. And
were I to ask you how to insure your happi-
ness in the hereafter, you would promptly
reply, “By loving God. By keeping the Ten
Commandments, and the Six Precepts; by
frequenting the two Sacraments and the one
Sacrifice; by performing the works of mercy,
the seven corporal and the seven spiritual.
By following Christ.” Let me shock you in-
to sensibility by telling you that that is the
answer to the question, “How can I be happy
here?” Let me tell you that happiness, here
and hereafter, is purchased by clinging close
to Jesus Christ.

A member disjoined from the head does
not live. A branch broken from the vine
withers and dies. A human being not in-
corporated in Christ Jesus, a human being
whose veins do not run red with Blood Di-
vine, whose heart does not pulse with the
Sacred Heart, whose soul does not breathe
in union with the Incarnate Word is DEAD!

If you want life and happiness and love,
both here and hereafter — LIVE THE VALUE
OF “X”! LIVE JESUS CHRIST!

MISSION PRESS, S.V.D., TECHNY, II,I<.



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