Latest / The Catholic Current / Novel Prophecies Pt. 1: Chesterton’s “The Napoleon of Notting Hill” (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 7/17/26

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Novel Prophecies Pt. 1: Chesterton’s “The Napoleon of Notting Hill” (Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J.) 7/17/26 · The Catholic Current

0:00
This is The Catholic Current with Father Robert Matague.
0:05
The role of a teacher is an echo of Our Lady's fiat
0:10
and her role in bringing this truth to be known in the world.
0:14
Now that the Word of the Father has become flesh and dwelt among
0:18
us, it maddens me why Catholics
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are inclined to be coy about being specifically
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Catholic. You know, our Lord didn't say, go out into the
0:29
world and tell everyone you meet, you do Praised
0:34
be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus, your daily
0:38
host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world
0:41
to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios, your local
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radio station, and the iCatholic Radio mobile app. We proclaim the
0:48
fullness of truth with clarity and charity. As always, let's start
0:52
with prayer. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Almighty God,
0:56
through the intercession of Saint Ignatius Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy
0:59
Spirit upon us, a spirit of discernment that might hear your voice and obey your
1:02
command. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
1:06
Amen. Hey friends, it's Friday. You know what that means at Catholic Current.
1:09
Let's talk about this. You and me, we walk through a complex issue together.
1:12
I'm starting something new. I want to do a series of Friday
1:17
podcasts. I might not be able to do it every single Friday, but I've
1:20
got a bunch of episodes under this heading that
1:25
I want to work through in the coming months. And if something intervenes
1:28
or the asteroid hits that may be disrupted. But I want to call this
1:32
series of Fridays called Novel Prophecies.
1:36
And what do I mean by that? I don't mean that, you know, um,
1:39
somebody in a cornfield in, uh, in Iowa
1:42
had a vision and is making claims on behalf of Our Lady.
1:46
I, I, I don't mean that. I remember when I was a new priest teaching
1:50
at the University of Scranton many years ago, and someone would
1:54
put these little pamphlets inside the winch— on inside the
1:57
windshield wipers of everybody's car, and it was supposedly messages
2:01
from Our Lady. And I said, look, I know English is not Our
2:05
Lady's first language, but I think someone in heaven could have taught her how to
2:08
use spell check. So I don't mean that.
2:11
And I don't mean that I have the scoop
2:16
on which rainy Wednesday afternoon the world is going to come
2:19
to an end. I don't mean that either. So what do I mean by
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novel prophecies? I want to go through a stretch of
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literature going all the way back to the beginning of
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the 20th century, and we might call
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them what? Apocalyptic novels,
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possibly dystopian novels,
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visionary novels, speculative novels about
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not only where the world is in the moment,
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but where it might be going next. Now, why do I do that?
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Well, because first of all, I, you know, the world is
2:58
always in a mess, but I think we're in a special kind of mess right
3:02
now, and we haven't been given a lot
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of guidance about— how shall I put this— about
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how to interpret what we're seeing, what's taking place around
3:14
us and within us, and more specifically, what to do about it.
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Now, I'm a professor and I can nerd out and
3:22
talk for hours. You give me a whiteboard and a box
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of markers and I'm just going nonstop.
3:30
And I would enjoy it because I like thinking out loud and solving
3:34
problems, and some people find that interesting. Some people paid money for it
3:39
at universities, but it doesn't necessarily make great
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radio or podcast, and it's also too open-ended.
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So I want to draw upon novels.
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I want us to be able to read them together.
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I just realized, oh my gosh, I have to do this without spoilers.
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But I want you to read these novels, and then as I say,
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take— think about it, take it to prayer, talk about it with those you love.
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I think it would be great to have a book group, a Catholic
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book group, and go through these novels together.
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Well, why do I say that? Because there is something about
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the power of story. Uh, stories are
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memorable, and even novels are
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part of the ancient human experience
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of oral tradition, of sitting around a fire and
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telling a story. And so, even though I'm sitting around a microphone
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and a fire would be inconvenient, and, you know, in Buffalo,
4:41
the word fire and smoke and so on is very unwelcome these days,
4:45
I think it's important that we go back,
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especially with Catholic literature and some not-so-very-Catholic
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literature, which, by the way, is not anti-Catholic literature, and say some
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smart people and some holy people wrote things
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down and had visions,
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asked questions that I think could be
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useful for us today. And I've been doing some reading recently
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about a lot of people complaining, that there seemed to be a
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lot of people complaining. There are a lot of people doing diagnoses.
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I, I think it was Mark Twain who said, everybody complains about the weather,
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but nobody does anything about it. I know Uncle Sam might be
5:29
saying, hold my beer, but that's another story for another time. So I
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think that reading these stories together can give
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us the inspiration and the motivation to not only interpret our
5:42
times, but help us to see our dangers and opportunities.
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And as communities, especially small communities
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of the faithful, actually do something
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about it. And I think there is something very
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powerful in taking a story from an oral tradition
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and handing it on to another group of people,
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especially to a younger generation. C.S.
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Lewis said that most friendships begin with,
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oh, you too? I thought it was just me.
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So if you think there's something very obviously
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wrong, if you think about the idea
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that the people who are in charge, they— why don't they
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do something about that? It seems to me they are very
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busy. And they are not very helpful. So it's
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up to us, and short of divine intervention, no one is coming for our
6:39
rescue. What's the first novel that I want to talk about? Well,
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it goes back to 1904,
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and it's G.K. Chesterton's first novel, and it's called The Napoleon
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of Notting Hill. And it's set in London, which gave me a tug
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on my heartstrings because I lived in London for 2 years when I was studying
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theology from 1994 to 1996.
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And I want to make clear what it is that I'm not
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doing. I'm not saying set your calendars and your
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timers because Father McTeague has picked out when the end of the world
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is happening. That's not what I mean by, by prophecies.
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When I was a young Jesuit, there was a very popular book among the evangelicals
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called Soothsayers of the Second Advent.
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And this evangelical gentleman said he was very embarrassed that
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in 1988, the most popular book in the evangelical
7:32
world was called 88 Reasons Why He's Coming Back in '88.
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And that was followed in the evangelical world by the even bigger bestseller
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the following year called 89 Reasons Why He's Coming Back
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in '89. And he said presumably the 89th
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reason was because he didn't come back in '88. So regarding the hour and the
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day, our Lord says no one knows but the Father, and I'm going to stick
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with that. But I want to set us up because I realize time is
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passing as we come up on the break. I want to set us up for
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the novel The Napoleon of, of Notting Hill. And as I,
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I mention these other titles for you, I hope Mr.
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Engineer, who may be bored, uh, although I
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doubt it, will grab some of the titles and put them in the resources list.
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First is a book by Alan Jacobs called The Year of Our Lord
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1943. I've spoken about it before. Alan Jacobs
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is an amazing author, and unfortunately he doesn't do interviews anymore because
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he wants to spend all his time writing. And I just say, lucky him.
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I wish everybody wanted that option, could have it. But he
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tells the story of 1943. The Americans have entered the war.
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It's obvious that because the Americans have entered the war, which side
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is going to win. And people are starting to talk
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about what kind of world do we want in the aftermath of
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this war to make sure that this mess doesn't happen again.
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And so he looks at people like C.S. Lewis and Simone Weil and
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T.S. Eliot, and they all more or less agree with
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each other that what we need is a specifically Christian
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anthropology with God at the center.
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Well, suffice to say, immediately after the war, that didn't
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happen. So another book I want to recommend to you is by Robert Reno,
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R.R. Reno, called The Return of the Strong Gods.
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See, after World War II, uh, Karl Popper, who was
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a philosopher of science, said, you know what, the trouble nowadays is people
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believe in too much, and they think that
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there are things worth living for and dying for and maybe even killing for.
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And my goodness, look at the rubble around us. Let's make sure that doesn't
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happen again. So let's relativize everything.
9:50
Let's undercut absolutes, and let's
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agree that the goal of life is to be dumb,
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fat, and happy. And that happened in Western
10:03
Europe with a lot of American money. And then we ended
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up with George Weigel's book from the
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early 2000s called The Cube and the Cathedral. Said, here's Western
10:15
Europe, which has been enjoying unprecedented decades
10:19
of peace and prosperity, And they're not having kids
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because apparently they don't think they have a debt to
10:26
their ancestors and they don't have an obligation
10:29
to the future. And that image of not
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taking things seriously enough, of having no sense of gratitude
10:39
towards the past and no sense of obligation to the future,
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is actually the setting of Chesterton's book The
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Napoleon of Notting Hill, published in 1904. And the
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year that he sets his novel in is— wait for it, maybe you've
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heard this number before— 1984.
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Stay with me, I have a story to tell. Lots of them, actually.
11:03
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTaggart, host here every day of The Catholic Current.
11:07
Remember, our rallying cry here at The Catholic Current is Christus Mundo,
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Mundus Christo, bringing Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
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We do it because our Lord says so, for the greater glory of God,
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relevant. Back in just 2 minutes. Please do stay with us.
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus,
12:24
your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
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the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios,
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fund programs that defend our Catholic faith. Here we are, let's talk about
12:56
this. This is part 1 of what'll probably be 12 or
13:00
14, uh, might not be every week, but it's going to be frequently
13:04
called Novel Prophecies, looking at apocalyptic
13:09
or dystopian literature, much of it written by Catholic
13:13
or Christian authors And we're going to use it to not only interpret
13:17
our present circumstances, but find ways to actually
13:22
do something about it. So we're starting with Chesterton's
13:27
first novel from 1904 called The Napoleon of Notting Hill. Notting Hill was
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a suburb of London. London wasn't a planned
13:36
city the way Washington, D.C. is. It, it's kind of metastasized
13:41
like a cancer. There are a lot of very distinct neighborhoods, and one of them
13:44
was, was Notting Hill. And it's set in 1984.
13:48
You won't be surprised when I tell you that this novel influenced George
13:52
Orwell, who wrote his famous book 1984.
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And in brief, Chesterton asks what happens
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if people just stopped caring,
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if they didn't give a damn anymore. You know, I think
14:08
back to— I'm going to ask Mr. Engineer which Batman movie
14:12
it was where Heath Ledger played the Joker. And, uh,
14:16
and I think Heath Ledger had the best depiction of
14:19
the Joker, and he would always ask the classic postmodern
14:23
question, why so serious? So what
14:27
if the program that was installed
14:31
in the West after World War II— or the movie is The Dark
14:35
Knight, thank you, Mr. Engineer— what if that program had
14:39
taken root, which in fact it has in the United States,
14:43
of Nothing is really that important.
14:47
There's nothing to get excited about. There's nothing to
14:51
commit to. Now, recently, and I'm really going to test
14:55
Mr. Engineer's patience, there was an Italian archbishop who's
14:59
the president of the Pontifical Accounting of something or other, and in
15:03
the past several weeks he said that the very best
15:07
song ever was John Lennon's Imagine.
15:11
Because it said nothing to live or die for, nothing to kill
15:14
for too. And he certainly didn't want to be part
15:18
of any religion for which he would have to die. Well, he got a lot
15:22
of pushback for that video, and he made another video and said, hey, you know,
15:26
I can't be— people call me a heretic. I can't be a heretic. I am—
15:31
I'm an archbishop. And I said, well, gosh, uh, Bishop Arius
15:35
and Bishop Nestorius will be very glad to hear that. It's Archbishop Antonio
15:39
Stagliano. Thank you, Mr. Engineer. Bonus round.
15:43
What is he the president of? So anyways,
15:47
it looks like what Chesterton was warning
15:50
us about, that just being so dumb, fat, and happy
15:54
that we were actually too bored to care about anything, which is
15:58
a pretty sorry state to be in if you're the president of the Pontifical Academy
16:02
of Theology. Thank you again, Mr. Engineer. What will
16:07
life be like? So here's England, he says, in 1984,
16:11
and Everything in England is just bored
16:16
because it's just the same old thing. There's no
16:20
reason to bother. There's no reason to care. There's no
16:24
passion. There's no conviction.
16:27
There's just convenience. And as part
16:32
of that, every now and again, the king dies
16:36
and they just pick somebody at random
16:42
Well, why do they do that? Because Chesterton said people stopped believing in revolutions
16:45
because you have to care about something in a revolution.
16:49
He says revolutions are doctrinal. So if nothing matters,
16:53
then it doesn't matter who's in charge. And some random
16:57
government clerk named Oberon Quinn is unexpectedly
17:02
chosen as king. And he is very much,
17:06
even in 1904, a postmodernist like Heath Ledger's
17:10
The Joker. Why so serious?
17:13
So to show that everything is a joke,
17:17
that nothing matters, that nothing is worth caring for,
17:21
nothing to live or die for, nothing to kill for,
17:26
he says, you know what, as a joke, London has a
17:30
lot of neighborhoods, and I'm going to
17:34
declare that each neighborhood is its own
17:38
duchy or principality. Its own kind
17:42
of nation-state within the kingdom. And we're
17:46
gonna randomly put somebody in charge, and he's gonna be the provost
17:50
of the neighborhood, and you'll have to have guards with halberds
17:53
and ridiculous uniforms with plumes,
17:58
and you'll have a coat of arms and a motto and
18:02
so on. And won't it be part of the joke? And it'll be so ridiculous
18:08
that no one will take it seriously,
18:12
will just kind of play to show that everything
18:15
is pointless. And if you are of a certain age,
18:19
friends, then you might be thinking, hey Father,
18:22
could that have been part of the inspiration for the dreaded clown
18:27
liturgies in the 1970s,
18:31
you know, and Godspell from the 1970s? I'll just
18:34
put that in parentheses for a moment. And everybody is kind of
18:38
in on the joke. And then Jet gets back
18:42
to the boring routine of just sleepwalking
18:47
through life, where there's nothing to get excited
18:51
about, and nothing to care about, and nothing to
18:54
commit to. And as a result of everything being a matter
18:59
of indifference, There is no
19:03
conflict. So on Chesterton's view,
19:07
we have reached the level of the
19:11
lowest common denominator. Now here's what's really
19:14
interesting. Some years ago, I was talking to a
19:18
religious sister. I won't mention the name of her community,
19:23
but she was heroic. She lived in the Caribbean, I think in Trinidad,
19:27
as a surgeon, as a chest surgeon for many years. Was very, very heroic
19:31
in the mission. Came back to the US and found that her community had
19:35
lost its mind. And there were no decisions made
19:40
because being decisive and being in charge was male
19:44
and therefore bad. But when something had
19:48
to be done, they'd get in a circle with an outside
19:51
facilitator, and the outside facilitator would make a proposition
19:55
and go around the table and say, can you live with that? Can you live
19:59
with that? Could you live with that? And if somebody said no, they would just
20:02
lower the bar again until finally you get
20:06
to something that everybody could live with. Suffice to say,
20:10
there was not a lot of achievement coming from this community,
20:14
and nobody was attracted to join them for a
20:17
vocation. Surprise!
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Now here is the fly in the ointment.
20:25
There's a gentleman named Adam Wayne, and he lives
20:29
in in the neighborhood in London called Notting Hill,
20:34
and somehow randomly he becomes the
20:37
provost, and he takes it seriously.
20:43
I mean, he gets a sword, he gets
20:47
real guards with uniforms and, and halberds,
20:50
and he sets up patrols and guards because Notting Hill is
20:55
a real thing for him. It reminds me of a conversation I had when I
20:58
was a novice Now picture this. I graduated with my doctorate
21:02
in May of 1990 in philosophy from the School of
21:06
Philosophy at the Catholic University of America. And then August
21:11
of 1990, on the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady, I go
21:15
to the novitiate, Jesuit Starfleet Academy. And there was a classmate
21:19
there, Jose, and he had a bachelor's
21:23
degree from philosophy at Georgetown University.
21:27
And he said to me, Bob, you know what the difference is between you and
21:29
me and our study in philosophy. He said, for me, they were
21:33
just stories.
21:36
Philosophy was a nice excuse for sitting in the
21:40
library and feeling that you were doing
21:43
something intellectual, and then you could just get on with life.
21:47
And he said, but it's really real for you.
21:51
He said, you really do lie awake at night and worry about the
21:55
problem of the one and the many. And I said, it's a very important problem.
21:58
He says, that's what I mean. So The, the King
22:02
of England gets everybody in on the joke of
22:06
we're gonna act as if neighborhoods matter and they're their own
22:09
little principality or duchy. And one crazy
22:13
guy takes it seriously. He really
22:17
believes, and he gets the people in
22:21
his neighborhood to believe it also.
22:26
And that belief, that sense of commitment,
22:29
things worth living and dying for, there are things worth
22:34
saying yes to and things worth saying no to. And some things
22:37
aren't arbitrary and some things really do matter.
22:41
It turns out that catches
22:45
on. And Chesterton's point is this,
22:49
that there is something in the human soul that
22:53
wants value, that wants meaning.
22:58
And here's, here's the paradox. It's not that people
23:03
are getting excited about empire.
23:06
They're getting excited about their neighborhood,
23:11
about home soil,
23:14
about where they buy their books and their groceries
23:18
and where they get their prescriptions from.
23:21
And the reflection of the sunrise and the sunset
23:25
on the windows that you grew up with. All that
23:29
stuff really matters. Now, what's really interesting and tragic and
23:33
poignant is that at the beginning of World War I,
23:36
people figured out you don't die for abstractions
23:40
when you're fighting a war. You die for the guy to
23:43
the left of you and to the right of you. So they used to have
23:47
what they call buddy brigades, and so people would
23:52
join the army with the promise that they would all join the same regiment and
23:54
then fight alongside of each other, and that was good for morale and a lot
23:59
of courage, but also if a regiment had a bad day,
24:03
all the young men of, of a village or
24:07
some other polity could be wiped out in an afternoon.
24:12
But Chesterton's point, I think, is spot-on.
24:16
There is something in human nature that says my life
24:21
matters. There's things worth living and dying for,
24:24
even worth killing for. My yes
24:27
matters. My no matters. And there are
24:31
boundaries and there are horizons, and I will not cooperate
24:36
with those who want to diminish the meaning of human
24:41
life, the meaning of my life. And the meaning of the life
24:44
of my local community. And if you're
24:48
a bureaucrat or merely a manager,
24:52
that is the beginning of a nightmare.
24:57
And suffice to say, there's conflict in the rest of the book.
25:01
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague, your host here every day of The Catholic
25:04
Current. After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com,
25:08
get our resources list Download our audio as podcasts.
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Wherever you can find audio, you can find us. Follow us on your favorite
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Please do stay with us.
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Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTaggart of the Society of Jesus,
26:22
your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world
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and the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross
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On this Friday, we are starting a multi-multi-part series
26:56
called Novel Prophecies. I'm going to be reading some novels together and
27:00
use them as ways of interpreting our time and protecting
27:04
the near and perhaps distant future. My goodness,
27:08
we're going to be talking about apocalyptic things, apocalyptic things,
27:11
dystopian things, and also talking about what
27:16
we can do about it in light of what we've been reading. So here's why
27:19
I think Chesterton's novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill is
27:24
so important because we live in a world of
27:28
postmodern ironic detachment.
27:32
As the Joker says, why so serious? And even
27:36
senior Catholic cadres of the people who should really know better club,
27:40
up to and including and perhaps beyond Archbishop
27:44
Antonio Stagliano, who is president of the Pontifical
27:48
Academy of Theology, says that the greatest song
27:52
ever written was John Lennon's Imagine, and he doesn't want to be part of a
27:56
religion where he has to die for God. So friends, we're in trouble.
28:00
We're in serious trouble because
28:03
people just want us to fall back asleep into
28:07
the matrix and just let it all happen.
28:11
I don't think we should do that. And Chesterton
28:16
says, hey, wait a minute, There is something in the human soul
28:20
that wants heroism, that wants struggle, that's willing to
28:23
endure conflict for a greater good. And there is a
28:27
great awakening that can take place within us if
28:32
we decide to stop doom
28:35
scrolling, if we decide to stop drugging
28:38
ourselves with devices and substances.
28:42
And if, I don't know, we do crazy things like take our baptism seriously
28:46
and do that serious taking with other people who take their baptism seriously.
28:50
So yeah, so there's
28:55
a conflict between the buffoon who is the king and
28:59
Oberon Quinn and the young Adam Wayne who
29:03
is the provost of Notting Hill who really takes it all seriously
29:08
and convinces other people to take it seriously and he
29:11
organizes an army composed of local citizens,
29:15
and they set up barricades and ambushes, and there's
29:19
medieval war tactics taking place,
29:22
and contrary to the ironic
29:26
detachment and amusement of the king,
29:30
he discovers that his joke triggers something that he didn't
29:34
think possible, things like courage and sacrifice and
29:38
patriotism, and civic pride and willingness to die for
29:43
ideals. And this accidental king wanted to be a prankster
29:47
and a skeptic and maybe even a little bit cynical,
29:51
the embodiment of what is postmodern.
29:55
And then here we have Adam Wayne, who turns out to be
29:59
the true hero of the story. He's romantic, he's fearless,
30:02
he's idealistic, he's uncompromising. He's patriotic,
30:07
and the bureaucrats hate him because
30:13
he gets in the way of efficiency
30:17
and bureaucracy and mechanization.
30:23
That's the problem. So, what does
30:26
this have to do with us? And why am
30:30
I insisting on novels rather than, say, treatises?
30:35
Or manuals. Well, we know from Aristotle's rhetoric that
30:39
3 elements of public speech are ethos,
30:44
pathos, and logos. Logos is the truth.
30:48
If you're not committed to the truth, then you're just a sophist.
30:52
You're just a bamboozler. You're a blowhard.
30:56
And Aberon Quinn is a blowhard. He's just shooting his
30:59
mouth off to get a laugh, or as we'd say today, clicks.
31:04
And then there is ethos. There's credibility.
31:09
You know, if I wrote a speech in favor of the dignity of the unborn,
31:12
it would be true because I wrote it. And if Hillary Clinton
31:16
read it, no one would believe it because she doesn't have the credibility.
31:21
And then there's pathos, in which we get emotion, feeling.
31:26
I always told my seminarians, you failed if,
31:30
or better said, you didn't make the connection, your sermon didn't land—
31:35
use common parlance— if after Mass people just
31:38
limply shake your hand and say, nice sermon, Father. What you want
31:43
is to have people run up to you afterwards and say, oh my God,
31:45
we've got to do something about this. And so we need to again engage
31:49
the imagination and the emotions. And for this,
31:53
I'm going to ask Mr. Engineer to add to the
31:57
resources list 2 books by John Senior. The death
32:00
of Christian culture and the restoration of Christian culture.
32:04
We know John Senior was a great advocate of the restoration
32:07
of the, of the Great Books programs, and he did that very, very effectively.
32:12
So effective that he got fired because he was so effective. And he
32:17
said that he wanted to correct some academics who said, oh my gosh,
32:21
you know, we got rid of the old morality and
32:25
now the kids are barbarians. I know, we'll fix it. We'll dump a Great Books
32:28
program on top of it. We'll just put it on like a hood ornament.
32:31
He goes, no, no, no, no, unless and until you
32:34
have the moral imagination of young people properly
32:38
formed, if you put them in a Great Books program,
32:41
you're just going to end up with well-read skeptical dilettantes.
32:45
The great books won't reach deeply because the soil hadn't been
32:49
prepared by the cultivation of great moral imagination.
32:53
That's why in his, uh, the first of the 2 books, The Death of
32:57
Christian Culture, He ends with a list of 1,000
33:01
books you should read with your children between the ages of 5 and
33:05
18 that will cultivate moral imagination.
33:09
We want people to grow up knowing you can really,
33:13
really be a hero and you can really, really be
33:16
a villain. And sometimes those images that come to
33:20
you through the senses and through story are very powerful. Let me give you you
33:24
an example. I had a very great privilege
33:28
once of offering a Missa Cantata at
33:32
a Carmelite monastery, and it was my anniversary
33:37
in the Society of Jesus. It was on the Solemnity of the Assumption, and I
33:40
walked out with 2 adult male servers, and the Carmelites,
33:44
you know, behind the grill were intoning the Introit,
33:48
and they were doing it so beautifully in their resplendent
33:52
Carmelite garb. That the 3 grown men standing at the foot
33:57
of the altar just had— we just had tears streaming down our faces.
34:00
We couldn't control it until finally I said,
34:03
guys, we have to start the prayers at the foot of the altar. They're running
34:06
out of Introit to sing. We got to get moving. But what really
34:09
stood out for me was at the end of the Mass. We go back to
34:13
the sacristy. I give the adult servers a blessing,
34:17
and I hear coming through the sacristy door the sisters are
34:21
singing something. And the server said,
34:24
Father, just peek out across the sanctuary.
34:29
So if I'm looking straight ahead, the high
34:32
altar would be to my left with the tabernacle, and then straight
34:36
ahead would be the grill, and there would be the sisters in
34:39
their regalia, their beautiful Carmelite habits, and they're
34:43
all carrying small torches and they're chanting
34:47
a solemn Salve Regina,
34:50
and for a moment I lost
34:54
the present. I lost the here and
34:58
now, and I was transported to
35:02
a time when men saw what
35:06
I saw, saw brides
35:10
of Christ consecrated to Christ the King.
35:14
Christ their King. And they decided
35:20
that the virgin brides of Christ should
35:23
be safe and should be able
35:27
to sing the praises of their Divine Spouse
35:31
without interruption. And because they saw
35:35
that, and because their souls were still alive,
35:39
they got on horseback and and rode from England
35:43
and Spain and France and Germany across
35:47
half the known world to liberate
35:51
Jerusalem and the holy places and to stop
35:55
the onslaught of, shall we say,
35:59
the misunderstanders of the religion of peace.
36:03
So in that flash, in that instant, I said, I got
36:07
it. I know now why those men did that. Now, I'm not to say that
36:11
I have the raw physical courage to do that,
36:14
but I know why men did that.
36:18
And what I want for you in reading this book
36:22
and attending to this series of novels
36:26
is I want to spark your imagination.
36:31
I want to expand your capacity for wonder,
36:36
for awe, for fear, for hope,
36:39
for love, for anger.
36:43
You know, St. Irenaeus said, the glory of God is a man fully
36:46
alive. And bureaucrats say, cut that out.
36:51
No more of that fully alive stuff. See, this is why
36:55
totalitarians always hated the church.
36:58
This is why the communists always hated the church,
37:02
because the church as the champion of the transcendent,
37:07
the servants of Christ the King, whose kingdom is not of this world,
37:11
who referred only to heaven as our common home,
37:15
who saw the common good as setting
37:18
up communities that made it possible to live and die as saints.
37:22
If you're a bureaucrat, if you're a totalitarian,
37:26
if you're a sophist, if you're a blowhard, then people
37:29
who really believe, people who can't be
37:33
bribed or seduced or cowed,
37:37
Those people are dangerous because
37:41
they will disrupt the plans of the orderliness of
37:45
the bureaucrats, of the paper pushers,
37:49
of the ideologues, of the sophists.
37:53
So friends, we have some work to do.
37:57
This book, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, it's only 145
38:01
pages. You, you could read it
38:05
in an evening, and it's Chesterton. So it's laugh-out-loud funny.
38:09
It's poetic. Read it out loud with a group
38:13
of friends. Take turns a page at a time, a chapter at a time,
38:17
but do this. I believe most people
38:21
need to have the paddles put on the chest of
38:25
their soul. Remember,
38:28
C.S. Lewis said in The Abolition of Man that we're raising a
38:32
generation of men without chests. Men without hearts, men who
38:36
were cerebral in the worst possible way,
38:39
paper-pushing bean counters who
38:43
lived and died for spreadsheets, and men with viscera,
38:46
men with appetites, men with concupiscence,
38:50
but no heart, with no passion,
38:54
with no capacity for love. And it is
38:58
a frightful, stultifying thing when men
39:02
without chests lead worship.
39:05
Believe me, I will quote again from A.W. Tozer: Men unwilling
39:10
to worship, a congregation unwilling to worship,
39:14
will demand entertainment, and pastors
39:17
who are unable to call a people to worship will offer
39:21
to provide the entertainment. And they will use the excuse of,
39:25
you've got to meet people where they're at, as if
39:30
as if you would meet them anywhere else. And my response is always, fine,
39:32
Father Cheerful, and once you meet them where
39:36
they're at, what is your plan to lead them?
39:39
Where will you take them next? And never in my life have
39:44
I ever gotten an answer from anyone when I've asked that
39:48
question. Friends, our moral imagination has been stultified
39:52
by our and sickening culture. We're going to read books together and
39:56
have conversations together, and we are going to fight back.
40:01
I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTeague, your host here every day of The Catholic Current.
40:05
Be part of the conversation. Follow what we're following by following
40:08
us on Gab. That's gab.com. The channel
40:13
is The Catholic Current, and you can influence the conversation. Contact us
40:17
at thestationofthecross.com.
40:21
Thestationofthecross.com/askfather. I said some challenging things today. I want to hear from you. What do
40:25
you think about this series of novel prophecies? I've got a long list of
40:29
books. If there's one that you think that I should read that should be part
40:33
of the series, please do let me know.
40:34
thestationofthecross.com/askfather.
40:38
Let's do this good work together. We're certainly more than merely relevant.
40:41
Back in just 2 minutes. Please do stay with us.
41:01
Have a question or feedback about today's episode?
41:04
Want to suggest a guest or a future topic?
41:07
Go to thestationofthecross.com/contact.
41:11
Ask Father and help influence the conversation.
41:20
Praise be Jesus Christ. This is Father Robert McTeague of the Society of Jesus,
41:24
your daily host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and
41:27
the world to Christ. You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross Studios,
41:30
your local radio station, the iCatholic Radio mobile app.
41:33
We proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
41:37
Here we are, the last section of a Friday. You know what that means,
41:39
you and me? Weekend readiness, reviewing the headlines of the week in light of the
41:43
upcoming Sunday scriptures so we're all prayed up for Sunday Mass. If you've missed
41:47
any of today's episode, please go back to the podcast, uh, platform of your
41:51
choice and listen to the whole hour because we've started a new series. It might
41:56
not be every Friday, but for the next several weeks
41:59
I want to do a series called Novel Prophecies, and I want to review with
42:03
you you some very important novels that I think
42:07
give us a window into our present, into our future,
42:11
and what to do about it. We started with Chesterton's novel,
42:14
uh, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which came out in 1904,
42:19
and we're going to follow up with an even shorter novel— might even be called
42:23
a novella— called A Short Story of the Antichrist by
42:27
Russian author Vladimir Solovyov. And he
42:31
died in 1900, but his— this wasn't translated until 1915.
42:36
So we're treating it as after Chesterton. We have that to
42:40
look forward to. My goodness, what's going on in the world? Well, you should know
42:44
that I'm recording this not on Friday, July 17th,
42:48
but on Thursday, July 16th. And I know that President Trump is
42:52
going to speak to the nation this evening and have a big announcement. And I
42:56
don't know what it is yet. Yet. So I've heard rumors that he has evidence
43:00
that China interfered with the 2020 presidential
43:04
election, uh, to his loss.
43:07
We'll have to see what that is. But if I don't have detailed comments about
43:10
it, because the speech, uh, the speech hasn't happened,
43:14
uh, yet. The other thing that I saw that disturbed me greatly, because, you know,
43:18
from the Chesterton novel, we're talking about the absurdity and
43:23
the bizarreness of politics, uh,
43:26
I saw a disturbing story that apparently as
43:30
we speak the Ukrainian Parliament has legalized
43:35
the production and distribution of pornography. So let
43:39
that sink in. The country is at war, men are dying
43:44
on the front lines, and the
43:48
Parliament has decided to pass a law legalizing the
43:52
production and distribution of pornography. I— we're
43:56
living in clown world where Heath Ledger's
44:00
the Joker says, why so serious? And in that
44:03
absurd world, into that absurd world, we have to recall
44:08
what the Carthusians said: the world spins and
44:12
the cross stands. So I say Ave Crux Unica.
44:17
Hail to the Cross, our only hope. Let's look
44:21
at the scriptures. If you're following the Novus Ordo calendar of the
44:25
Pauline Rite, we're looking at the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time,
44:29
Lectionary 106.
44:33
And in particular, I want to focus on
44:36
the Gospel, Matthew 13. Now there is a
44:40
long-form reading and a short-form reading And as
44:44
you can imagine, uh, when I'm at a parish, we always
44:47
do the long form. It's a series of parables,
44:52
and the first parable is, uh, the kingdom of heaven is likened to a
44:57
man sowed seed in the field, and there was good seed
45:00
and there was wheat, but an enemy came in during the night and sowed
45:04
weeds. And then his, uh,
45:08
employee said, hey, What the heck?
45:11
Uh, you sowed good seed in the field. Where have the weeds come from?
45:15
And his answer was, an enemy has done this.
45:19
Well, yes. And friends, this is,
45:24
this is the story of the creation and the fall.
45:28
God saw that what he had made, and he saw that
45:33
it was good. He made it through his internal word the,
45:37
the, the Logos, the only begotten Son of the Father, the second
45:41
person of the Blessed Trinity. So of course it was good,
45:45
and it was made for a good purpose,
45:49
including us. And then an enemy comes and
45:53
messes things up, hijacks it, spoils it, and we
45:57
end up becoming idolaters who transfer our loyalty
46:02
and our sonship from God Almighty to Satan.
46:07
And the employees say, well, do you want us to pull up the
46:10
weeds? And this is really interesting.
46:14
He says, if you pull up the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat
46:18
along with them. Let them grow together until the harvest,
46:21
and at the harvest time I'll say to the harvesters, first collect the
46:25
weeds and tie them in bundles for burning, but gather the
46:28
wheat into my barn.
46:33
So, very understandably, people sometimes cry
46:37
out and say, why doesn't God do something about this?
46:42
Or why don't senior Catholic cadres of the People Should
46:46
Know Better Club do something about this?
46:50
And humanly speaking, I don't have an easy answer.
46:54
I know that things will not get settled
46:58
and set right unless and until there is
47:01
a significant divine intervention,
47:05
until we see the triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate
47:09
Heart. And so the disciples
47:13
ask him about the parables of the weeds in the field, and he says,
47:16
he who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the
47:19
world. The good seed, the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of
47:23
the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is
47:27
at the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
47:31
And he said you either would— you either on his side or
47:34
you're not. You're either weeds or you're wheat.
47:38
You're either fruitful or you're destructive. Now,
47:42
on a smaller scale, in our own lives, you've heard
47:46
me speak often about examining our own soul for weeds
47:50
in our own garden. And we have to get rid
47:54
of those weeds because they choke off life. And we're responsible for
47:58
our own little part of the vineyard, our own little personal garden. The larger—
48:03
the, the whole field, the whole harvest— ultimately,
48:07
that's up for God to handle. And we
48:11
do have to be clear about what we perceive to be wheat and what
48:14
we perceive to be the weeds. And how
48:18
it is that God sorts it out, we commend everyone to God's mercy.
48:22
I will say this: I know that I am
48:26
a sinner, and I know that whenever I encounter
48:30
some serious challenge in Scripture,
48:33
the first thing I have to do is examine my own conscience.
48:38
I have to be like the apostles at the Last Supper when
48:42
he said, one of you will betray me, and they all cried out, Is it
48:45
I, Lord? And then we have to get busy
48:49
teaching people, raising people, forming people properly.
48:54
We also have to get on our knees and intercede,
48:59
intercede for those who don't yet know the truth,
49:03
and also sadly make reparations
49:08
for those who had received good seeds
49:12
and gave their part of the vineyard over to the weeds.
49:16
There is a story involving the Diocese of Buffalo came
49:20
out on Wednesday that is so shocking,
49:24
so scandalous, that not only will I
49:27
not speak it on the air, I can't even let the words
49:31
pass my lips. It's that bad.
49:34
So let's make reparation for what went wrong in
49:38
the Diocese of Buffalo, New York, and pray for the healing
49:42
of those who have been injured, and pray for the conversion
49:47
of all. We are sinners.
49:50
We are loved sinners. There is a kingdom for those who will
49:54
follow Christ through the narrow gate. May God's holy name be
49:57
praised now and forever. I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTaggart, host here every
50:01
day of the Catholic Current. After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com Get
50:05
our resources list, download our audios, podcasts. Please do join us
50:09
on Monday at 5 PM Eastern. Another great conversation with a great
50:12
topic and a great guest. That's how we roll here
50:16
at The Catholic Current. And we want to hear from you, especially my
50:20
idea of the series called Novel Prophecies. What should I include?
50:24
What do you think I should live out? Should it be every week,
50:28
intermittently? I want to know. Contact contact us, please, to thestationofthecross.com/askfather.
50:34
Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may Almighty God bless you,
50:37
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Go in peace, and please do pray
50:41
for me and pray for my dear friend Father Casey Jones, who appears on Ask
50:45
a Priest Live. When you hear this, it will be his birthday today.