- Feb 5, 2002
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St. Augustine teaches, “If you believe what you like in the gospel and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” The problem he describes is, of course, the false prophecy opposed to the Christian era, one that’s particularly acute in modernity. Because of our ego and radical individualism, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we get to be arbiters of the truth and whatever current feelings the in-crowd is signaling have priority over the plain teaching of the Church.
False prophecy, Our Lord warns, arrives in sheep’s clothing. In other words, it’s seductive. It seems right. It seems honorable. I cannot help but notice that false prophecy is most effective when it disguises itself and weaponizes virtue. It takes our instincts, such as they are, to be kind and agreeable and turns them against. us. False prophecy does this again and again: It isn’t nice to be so prudish about the covenant of marriage and who can or cannot be married. It isn’t nice to offer Holy Communion only to Catholics. It isn’t nice to exclude women from the priesthood. And so on.
A few weeks ago in my homily, I insisted that talking about and maintaining a strong belief in the existence of hell is actually the nice thing to do. Deacon Pieper and I were talking after and he mentioned that the background to the word, “nice” is quite interesting. I did some research because I was curious (“curious” is another word that has a conflicted background), and it turns out the word “nice” comes from the Latin nescius, a compound word meaning “no knowledge.” A nice person was thought to be foolish and ignorant. It was only in the 18th century it shifted to meaning a person who is agreeable. Notice, even with this shift, that to be always agreeable isn’t necessarily a compliment, because it indicates a person who lacks knowledge, has no firm morals, and so goes along with others. It was only in the modern era that this sort of lack of opinion came to be considered commendable.
Continued below.
False prophecy, Our Lord warns, arrives in sheep’s clothing. In other words, it’s seductive. It seems right. It seems honorable. I cannot help but notice that false prophecy is most effective when it disguises itself and weaponizes virtue. It takes our instincts, such as they are, to be kind and agreeable and turns them against. us. False prophecy does this again and again: It isn’t nice to be so prudish about the covenant of marriage and who can or cannot be married. It isn’t nice to offer Holy Communion only to Catholics. It isn’t nice to exclude women from the priesthood. And so on.
A few weeks ago in my homily, I insisted that talking about and maintaining a strong belief in the existence of hell is actually the nice thing to do. Deacon Pieper and I were talking after and he mentioned that the background to the word, “nice” is quite interesting. I did some research because I was curious (“curious” is another word that has a conflicted background), and it turns out the word “nice” comes from the Latin nescius, a compound word meaning “no knowledge.” A nice person was thought to be foolish and ignorant. It was only in the 18th century it shifted to meaning a person who is agreeable. Notice, even with this shift, that to be always agreeable isn’t necessarily a compliment, because it indicates a person who lacks knowledge, has no firm morals, and so goes along with others. It was only in the modern era that this sort of lack of opinion came to be considered commendable.
Continued below.
