Ramblings on comfort and holiness

Why are we so often willing to sacrifice holiness for comfort?

I can look back to the U.S. popular culture in the post WWII era, and see a strong seed starting then. In that era, we began to see the focus on building a comfortable family life, an increase in suburban development, and the desire to protect ourselves and our children from any and all possible discomfort and struggle. Children's goods and toy sales skyrocketed. The desire for upper middle class luxury became commonplace as the "American Dream" (obviously, this is not to be confused with the desire for extravagant luxuries during the 1920's).

As the fifties phased into the sixties, we can really start to see the negative fruits of a culture that promotes false comforts and put the child at the center of his own universe. The so-called counter-culture of the sixties was not counter-culture at all. It was, rather, a predictable result of the previous years' poor child rearing and misguided focus. Those who thought they were being counter-cultural were, in fact, simply being exactly who their culture built them to be.

In the seventies and eighties, the trend continued. By the nineties, we had kids so full of apathy that listening to thoroughly depressing and even nihilistic music actually made us feel BETTER, because we were so jaded that we longed to feel something, even if it was something unpleasant.
The problem is that we didn't seem to learn anything. I am still constantly talking to people who think that a primary goal in life is to be without discomfort and conflict. Their goal is not to be good, it is not to serve others, it is not to be holy, it is not to love God above self. It is to be comfortable.

Granted, part of this is also a result of the perfectly natural desire to feel comfort and peace. We long for perfect joy and happiness because we are made for God, and our ultimate desire and goal is to live with Him in the perfect joy and happiness of Heaven.

However, we must not allow that desire to confuse us into falling into a much more spiritually and culturally dangerous desire, the desire to find perfect comfort and joy in our earthly life by eliminating all difficulties and conflict, and refusing to accept our crosses as they are presented to us.

As I'm writing this, it is leading me to my last post. Praying the rosary. (I truly did not intend for this connection, it simply organically developed in the writing of my entry.) It is in the rosary that we find an understanding of the attributes that we are meant to have as Christians, the desire to humble ourselves in light of our Lord's life, suffering, and death, and the courage to live the Christian life.

Let's close this post with a prayer:


SALVE REGINA
Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae; vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve. Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae. Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle. Eia ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte. Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende. O clemens, o pia, o dulcis Virgo Maria.

V. Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genetrix.

R. Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.

Pax Christi,
Dani