A short history of Envy, from hero to scapegoat

4The modern world keeps presenting us with scapegoats. Lance Armstrong, Richard Millet, Jérôme Kerviel, John Galliano, to name but a few, each in a field, with completely different causes and reasons, have recently embodied the scapegoat, the justly punished culprit, the impediment in a circle put back in its place. The scapegoat is linked to egalitarianism, itself linked to envy. From hero to scapegoat, only the desire does not change. The modern world has the spectacle in its blood, the scapegoat has a cathartic function there.

In the era of modern democracy, everything goes through Twitter or Facebook. The real information is there. Not being there is tantamount to disappearing, to maintaining a life in the shadows, a shadowy life. On social networks, the height of modern democracy is allowed: rub shoulders with the idol, live with the idol, to the rhythm of the idol, knowing everything about her, seeing her when she gets out of bed, embracing good evening; only tactile contact is missing. This proximity transforms the role of the idol that has always been known, it changes it forever. If the idol were a simple statuette, it would not speak, it would not respond, it would only occupy the place left to it, it would gather on its effigy all the mental images that the brain can produce. The modern world does not know the mental image, it is beyond fantasy. He hates what is hidden, let alone what is secret. Hence the often-used phrase: fantasy come true. The fantasy - phantasmata , the mental image for the ancient Greek - cannot be, must not be, a reality. Otherwise horror awaits. Otherwise we can only pray while waiting for everything to return to its place. There is a possible wildness in rubbing shoulders with the idol too closely. Through this proximity, the modern world has undertaken to create a cathartic lever to control consciences. The idol can be a hero or a scapegoat, it can serve the society of the spectacle and its soft dictatorship. It also allows you to fill in boxes: hero, scapegoat, fallen, condemned, victim... A sheet of cigarette paper separates these qualifiers. Against a background of moralism, society shows its cards and distributes the good or bad points. All areas are affected, but some are more “popular” than others. The scapegoat allows you to get a makeover, to deceive, or to affirm your responsibility and your incorruptibility. But no one should be fooled by such schemes. The society of the spectacle is a simulacrum of society based on intrusion, indecency and denunciation.

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Christian testimony

When I started this blog, very quickly the idea of ​​writing on the liturgy came to me. Not to claim specialist status, but to share my experience about what is at the heart of a Christian's life. There were therefore two paths that had to merge: It was necessary to tell the mass (and its benefits), and then entrust the journey that had revealed it.

Part 1: Which mass for which Church? - In front of the church

priests in cassocksDuring 1987, I thought my time had come. My life was falling apart. Life never falls apart, it will take me a few years to figure it out; either it stops, or it is transformed. My life was therefore transformed, violently, intensely, it offered me the enantiodromos as the Greeks say. The enantiodromos is this road which splits, which separates, which becomes two, and confronts us with a choice. The enantiodromos allowed me to understand what freedom was. It was an unprecedented situation, I was about to realize it. This crossing where life takes a completely unexpected turn marks the passage from childhood to adulthood. This moment has no age. I mean you can experience it at any age. What you shouldn't do is not live it. Not understanding what differentiates the freedom experienced in childhood from the freedom chosen in adulthood. Because the choice made, we become another; the experience reveals to us and gives a framework and foundations to the personality.

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In the heart of darkness, life

The-Tree-of-Life

After seeing "Tree of Life", I have long forbidden myself to write about this film. Two forces clashed in me. Subjugated by poetry, by the state of bliss in which I was plunged, I was afraid of disturbing the surface of this work. I got so tangled in the mystery of this film that I did not understand the negative reactions and was unable to have a critical mind 1 . "Tree of Life" is based on a book from the Bible, "Le Livre de Job". And this dark book speaks of the life and relationship of man to God. Which is present in many books in the Bible. But Job's book begins with a dialogue between God and Satan who play man. The impression that this inaugural dialogue leaves us is strange. Of course, the start dialogue would not be entirely from the same era as the central story. No matter in fact, the impression left is during the book. How can God play with his beloved creature? A hasty conclusion reports on the improbable of the situation. In truth, once the bark has been removed, Job's book delivers the heart of the relationship between God and man. And "Tree of Life", the film of Terrence Malick, has this same ambition.

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What is Steve Jobs the name of?

"Steve Jobs 1955-2011", could be read on the Apple website on October 5, 2011. Until the end, this unique signature, minimalist, elegant and efficient. His signature. The noise created by the death of this American business leader took the world by surprise. A little, and the comparison has been made, as for Lady Diana a few years ago. Yet the comparison stops there, Lady Diana had ended up embodying the face of the oppressed in the face of a nomenclature; true or false, this portrait took more pleasure in a dream of a broken princess with evocative power but without any real connection to reality. The death of Steve Jobs is in no way the fate of the oppressed. The death of Steve Jobs is essentially about intimacy and therefore modesty. The death of Steve Jobs resounded with planetary noise. The life of Steve Jobs is an ode to intimacy.

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A year that ends...

Over a year that ends, we often take a stealthy look. Do not dwell too much. You never know how many things that we forced to bury the memory could once again appear, like these impromptu, malpolated and irritating "pop -up" windows on the internet. The exercise that can be carried out is to concentrate very strongly to extract important events; The events that will understand why they have counted so much; How they proved to be decisive. It is also important not to lose sight of the moment when the event appears.

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In the shadow of Ernesto Sabato

When Ernesto Sabato died on April 30 at 99, he repeated the words of Maria Zambrano: to die this elusive action that is carried out by obeying, happens beyond reality, in another kingdom . In his house in Santos Lugarès ("holy places" near Buenos-Aires), Ernesto Sabato obeys this last injunction. He prepared for a long time. In Resistance , his moving literary will published in 2002, he wrote: I forgot great sides of my life, but, on the other hand, certain meetings, moments of danger and the names of those who have drawn me depressions and Blepitum still piles in my hands. And yours too, you who believe in me, who have read my books and go help me die.

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Monsignor Centene...

The Vannetais are well off people. The homily of Monsignor Centène in the Saint-Pierre de Vannes cathedral last Sunday is invigorating. This is not the first time that the homilies of Monseigneur Centène have been cited on Catholic sites, and given the quality of these, it is not about to end.

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Priest "Generation Benoit XVI"

Dear Father,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome your departure. Not that I am happy that you are leaving the chapel of Notre-Dame du Lys, but because I am happy to have met you and that you are continuing your priesthood by showing the example of the priest according to Benoit XVI.

Yesterday, for the feast of the Holy Trinity, you celebrated your last mass according to the extraordinary rite in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. In this pious little chapel, where you arrived in 2009 when the diocese of Paris began to assume responsibility for the chapel and to appoint priests to its service. And while you had already been ordained a priest for almost ten years, you learned to celebrate Mass according to the 1962 missal! A great lesson in humility! You have cast yourself in the mold of the bi-millennial form. To meet the request of your superiors, but also that of a group of die-hard faithful lovers of the extraordinary rite.

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Newman and Socrates

The links between ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity are numerous. The most famous of the Greek precepts: Gnothi Seauton , "Know thyself", inscribed in Delphi retains a certain mystery. Another end of the sentence has stuck with us: “But not too much”… Know yourself… But not too much! Plato leads Socrates to reflect on the Delphic formula in the Philebus :

SOCRATES: In short, it is a species of vice which takes its name from a particular habit, and this part of vice in general is a disposition contrary to that recommended by the Delphi inscription.

PROTARCHUS: It is a precept: know thyself, that thou speakest, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Yes, and the opposite of this precept, in the language of the inscription, would be not to know oneself at all.
"Know thyself" in order to improve yourself, to erase in you what hinders your development. Not knowing himself is already a fault for Socrates. "But not too much", because man so easily believes himself much more than he is, son of Adam, man is the plaything of his presumption. “But not too much” so as not to take yourself for a god.
This is one of the foundations of Greek culture, the idea of ​​knowing oneself, the idea of ​​wisdom, of advancing in wisdom, but also the feeling that if you dig too deep, surprises can arise, and not necessarily good. The Greeks were very aware of man's weaknesses, his shortcomings. The Greeks are even, with the Christians, those who have most highlighted the possibility of human weakness, it is also what makes them so close to us. The weakness of man is expressed in their gospels, the tragedies. Pity and terror are the two pillars. Know yourself… but not too much.

Commemorative phrase

A friend contacted me to ask me for the exact quote from Ernst Jünger (taken from Orages d'acier ) that we liked to repeat among officers of the 2nd foreign infantry regiment. I write it on this blog as I remember that General Antoine Lecerf liked this quote and it fits him like a glove:

It has been given to us to live in the invisible rays of great feelings, this will remain our priceless privilege.