I lifted this remarkable Joseph Ratzinger quote from Mark Gavreau Judge's recent article at Books & Culture:
"Today an illusion is dangled before us: that a man can find himself without first conquering himself, without the patience of self-denial and the labor of self control; that there is no need to endure the discomfort of upholding tradition, or to continue suffering the tension between the ideal and the actual in our nature."
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3 comments:
I really like this. In fact, I'm going to swipe it.
What does he man that there is discomfort in upholding tradition?
By the discomfort of tradition, Ratzinger probably means something along the same lines as Chesterton when he said, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." That is, upholding tradition (and finding truth) requires discipline, which chafes against our human tendency towards comfort and ease - the broad path that leads to destruction.
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