tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192580971664762668.post9120038643732543100..comments2023-06-01T09:22:18.917+01:00Comments on Liturgiae Causa: Sympathy...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192580971664762668.post-17072252668690414682010-12-20T07:08:10.024+00:002010-12-20T07:08:10.024+00:00Patricius, your very thoughtful post reminded me o...Patricius, your very thoughtful post reminded me of a passage from CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters.<br /><br />In the sixth letter, Screwtape is advising Wormwood thus:<br /><br />As regards his more general attitude to the war, you must not rely too much on<br />those feelings of hatred which the humans are so fond of discussing in<br />Christian, or anti-Christian, periodicals. In his anguish, the patient can, of<br />course, be encouraged to revenge himself by some vindictive feelings directed<br />towards the German leaders, and that is good so far as it goes. But it is<br />usually a sort of melodramatic or mythical hatred directed against imaginary<br />scapegoats. He has never met these people in real life—they are lay figures<br />modelled on what he gets from newspapers. The results of such fanciful hatred<br />are often most disappointing, and of all humans the English are in this respect<br />the most deplorable milksops. They are creatures of that miserable sort who<br />loudly proclaim that torture is too good for their enemies and then give tea and<br />cigarettes to the first wounded German pilot who turns up at the back door.<br />Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice,<br />in your patient's soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate<br />neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the<br />remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly<br />real and the benevolence largely imaginary. There is no good at all in inflaming<br />his hatred of Germans if, at the same time, a pernicious habit of charity is<br />growing up between him and his mother, his employer, and the man he meets in the<br />train. Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the<br />innermost, his intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy. You can hardly<br />hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the<br />Enemy: but you must keep on shoving all the virtues outward till they are<br />finally located in the circle of fantasy, and all the desirable qualities inward<br />into the Will. It is only in so far as they reach the will and are there<br />embodied in habits that the virtues are really fatal to us.Geraldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02204199533749851084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8192580971664762668.post-55900435251547509322010-12-14T15:49:59.353+00:002010-12-14T15:49:59.353+00:00Thank God a Christian blogger is talking about sym...Thank God a Christian blogger is talking about sympathy rather than bitching or swiping at other Christians. Makes a nice change, keep it up!ex_fidehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11966214834164246079noreply@blogger.com