Augustine was not saved through Navel Gazing
I have been following a volley of debate for the past seven weeks between Kevin O’Brien and Matt McGuiness. At points, it has been entertaining to me, but I’ve been holding my tongue in hopes that the downfallen would see the error Kevin was trying to call out. I haven’t seen that epiphany in the gaggle of howlers, and instead, I’ve seen Kevin get scorn, derided, and a lot of other things (and another reaction here). I would liken the way he was treated to the last beatitude. I hope Kevin has found some merited grace for it.
At issue is an article written by McGuiness and published on January 15 (see it here if you must, but I will cover the salient points). I think the most important part of the article is in the aside at the bottom, when McGuiness states his motives. He says, “This series grew out of conversations with friends and our common frustration with the way pornography is treated by good, faithful Catholics. […] This [article] is [an] attempt to understand it in a deeper way.” What?
Why in God’s infinite expanse would anyone who is striving to know Jesus Christ need to understand porn in a more intimate way? Even if McGuiness was sloppy and the actual antecedent of the word “it” referred to “deeper issues” of reacting to pornography, there is a problem here. It doesn’t require any navel gazing to understand why people get addicted to porn. If McGuiness is serious in his motives, then I think he should be gazing at Our Lord’s navel instead of his own (and certainly not the ones on the internet).
Saints and doctors of the Church, as far as I can tell, have never encouraged anyone to explore the deeper issues of hell, temptation, or evil. Notwithstanding some new revelation I’ve never heard anyone mention, they were all wide-eyed with attention fixed on the good things of Heaven and Jesus Christ, His Mother, and His saints. Following their advice, I’d rather spend my time contemplating the words of Jesus, such as “from the beginning He made them man and woman.” It is from seeing truth that the errors become apparent, not by diving headlong into the abyss.
Nevertheless, Kevin reacted with fair criticism based around the mechanics of McGuiness’s advice to people. McGuiness said that those wanting an answer to porn addiction should follow their desires all the way down. The erroneous implication being, as Kevin observed, that staring into the abyss of porn will help the person find Jesus. (!)
Quite frankly, I think McGuiness is not understanding St. Augustine. Augustine described his pursuit of pleasures as waste – that’s why he did so much penance. Augustine wasn’t saved by following his pleasures into the abyss – mortal sin did not lead Augustine to Jesus. Salvation came from outside of him (hint: it always does). It was caused by an interesting piece of history overlooked by McGuiness that tradition has long regarded – the intercession of Saint Monica for her lost son. Sadly, McGuiness writes of Augustine as if it was some mere human exercise that brought him to truth. It was only after the intervention of God, merited by the prayers and fasting of his mother, that Augustine was able to find God in his depths. Augustine admits that on his own, he was only able to ask questions and waste his life. No, McGuiness misses the point of Augustine’s tale because McGuiness forgets that there was a “Catholic moralist” (as he calls people like St. Monica) interjecting miraculous grace.
Augustine had an intervening cause, a miracle. Fr. Hardon recalled that Fatima implicates that sinners are converted only through miracles – not by navel gazing. That miracle for Augustine was not a moment of epiphany obtained by his own power meditating on the desires for pleasure. No, Augustine tells us that following his desires only lead him into deeper sin and waste. Staring into one’s navel will not help you climb to Heaven. As Fr. Hardon reiterated again and again in his talks and lectures, a person in mortal sin cannot save himself — without Jesus, he can only destroy.
There was no human power that saved Augustine, rather, the miracle for Augustine was the appearance of Jesus as a little child. Augustine himself needed a miracle – something from outside of the abyss had to drag him out. The cause was the prayer and merited graces of his mother, St. Monica. Only after encountering the little child and – get the next step – responding to the call of the child did Augustine desire to find a bible. In that bible Augustine found his answer. He reported that the first phrase he saw in the bible was this passage from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, “Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in quarreling and jealousy. Rather, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”
I don’t see any advice from St. Paul to explore deeper issues and meanings of sin there.
Instead of chasing his desires anymore, Augustine became Saint Augustine when he chose to follow St. Paul’s real advice: namely, putting on Jesus Christ. He took his eyes away from wanting to understand the “deeper issues” of porn and away from trying to understand “it in a deeper way” and turned his eyes onto Jesus Christ. From that point on, St. Augustine had his eyes fixed upwards to his Savior, Jesus. Seeing the beauty there, he turned his will to follow what he saw. Only there, with the bright light of Jesus shining into him was the abyss of his heart made bright enough that he could even see the depths of his person. He is depicted in images as eyes heavenward for this reason, as exemplified here:
It is sad to me, however unwittingly this comparison was made, that McGuiness chooses to calls St. Monica a “moralist” and his own self-proclaimed approach of navel gazing as being a “Catholic realist.” Given her role in bringing about the miracle that saved him from his own navel, I’d like to see St. Augustine’s reaction to that possibly insulting choice of words. Hopefully, they will be retracted before Augustine has a say about it, though.
Kevin O’Brien sees the error of navel gazing as leading people to waste and destruction — McGuiness called this view “Catholic moralism.” I call it compassion on Kevin’s part — much like St. Monica, he wants to see people pulled out of the abyss, not deeper into the reality of it. Kevin was pummeled by commenters who frankly insulted and beguiled him for trying to point out that there is nothing of merit to be found in exploring sin and evil. Error is error. And those captured by error are not able to wind themselves out of it – they need a savior, they need someone like a St. Monica and a Kevin O’Brien to bring about an encounter with Jesus Christ.
This article, Augustine was not saved through Navel Gazing is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/augustine-was-not-saved-through-navel-gazing/
Do not repost the entire article without written permission. Reasonable excerpts may be reposted so long as it is linked to this page.
