Hostage of mediocrity.

Today is the feast day of St. Peter Nolasco in the traditional calendar, born 1189. St. Peter Nolasco was a soldier and founder of the Mercedarian Order. Perhaps the greatest works of his life involved the ransom of prisoner hostages from the Mohammedan forces in the Middle East and Africa. During Nolasco's lifetime, the order freed 2,700 prisoners. Nolasco is said to have gone twice to Africa to liberate Christian captives there and convert many Moors to Christianity. Mercedarians of the time even went as far as to take a vow to trade themselves for ransom in order to free Christian prisoners—a deal that the Mohammedans were more than happy to strike since the ransom price for a priest or layman of high esteem could fetch a far higher score. Mercedarians at the time did imitate our Lord in the way that we are all hostages to sin and the devil. Christ came down from heaven on the greatest rescue mission of all time. He made himself a hostage to the world and death to free us from the snares of hell and liberate those who recognize their need for ransom. As we know, no greater story can be told. It's a story that Peter Nolasco and his followers knew very well. St. Raymond Nonnatus even went as far as giving himself over for ransom, then having his lips padlocked shut by his captors on account he wouldn’t stop preaching the Gospel to them.

It often may feel like, as Catholic men, we are hostages to the world, trapped in the cycle of what can seem like mediocrity. A church held hostage by modernists, a society held hostage by the Devil—everywhere you look, someone is in voluntary slavery to some sort of great evil. We often wish for greatness, wishing to become those spiritual door kickers our church so desperately needs, but it often seems like we can get nowhere. The avenues of power have been shut to all those who wish to make any sort of change. Bureaucracy has run rampant in not just the church but every single avenue of power so that change has become impossible. Our systems of power are held hostage by leeches who contribute nothing and have nothing to offer. So often, these leeches do everything in their power to form a system of parasitic symbiosis, working together to cripple any effort to make lasting change. So, what is it that we can do to become great liberators against these vices? Peter Nolasco, Raymond Nonnatus, and Christ, as well as many great unknown saints, have that profound answer for us: become those voluntary hostages, pawns of Christ. Ready to be sacrificed on the board for the greater good.

Any good father knows the sacrifices he must make in the plague of modernity to give his wife and children everything they need for safety. It is a great sacrifice that one must make, and sometimes it can feel like a crucifixion, making oneself a hostage in that way, but who are we to deny the will of Christ? If he wishes us to be these hostages of mediocrity, then he must have some greater purpose for all of it. To deny oneself, to be forgotten, to be despised, to be irrelevant. Sin constantly puts more pressure on us than the tectonic plates do on the surface of the earth to perform some act of worldly greatness or to have many worldly things at least to show off our status to others around us. But I must ask, what is wrong with being this hostage to mediocrity? Did St. Thérèse see herself as mediocre? Instead, she recognized the undeniable value of her soul in the eyes of God and for her entire life sought to be completely forgotten.

Maybe we as men won't ever be a St. Peter Nolasco, maybe we won't ever be a Green Beret or an influential CEO. It's very much possible most of us will be those simple worker drones clocking in and out every day. Maybe our work won't impact anyone at all except our families and our small communities. Maybe, despite all our best efforts, we will never be able to change the church and burn down the walls of the great societal prison we are in, and maybe at this time, this is what God has intended for us. I know that this might seem out of character for the Catholic action that constantly spews from my mouth. It often seems to me I am spurring on an old deadbeat horse that has no more gallop in him. All he wishes to do is be sent to the glue factory already and recycled into something that at least has some use for the youth. His next application will be on some glitter project of a 3-year-old girl. But in becoming that great hostage to mediocrity, if we do not sin, we become the ransom to those around us. We can do more good than those who set out who use every single ounce of their energy to make some substantial worldly change.

Dostoevsky points out in his works, as a repeated theme, the man who is a prisoner and does not realize he is imprisoned. This is the greatest trickery of the Devil. We have many men who, yes, we can see are imprisoned by typical vice, but also those who are imprisoned in their apparent triumph, who think they are creating some sort of revelation but in reality are stuck on the hamster wheel of spiritual impoverishment. Who think themselves great liberators but, in fact, become the guards they so much despise. I could never see myself in this, and I look with the most earnest admiration at those mothers and fathers who have chosen this cross of mediocrity and do not sin. To do what is necessary, maybe we can't do something great, but we must do what we can now. God looks upon that with infinite value in his eyes and in this “little way” we can become extraordinary saints. Come let us pay the ransom, let us become these hostages and free those around us by our example. Let us pray often and never curse, be moderate in our speech and dress, be kind to those around us, be strong stalwart examples against the onslaught of sin and comfort. To do this is a higher calling.

Luke 6:27-28: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you."