The Importance Of Detachment

The ancient discipline to draw us closer to Christ

It is becoming clear that maybe one of the habits of ancient Christendom fell by the wayside and that is a source of our problems in the Church.

I am referring to detachment. It is the actual use of the world’s goods without being obsessed or attached to them and only using those goods of the world that are necessary. In our rich, American economy, detachment seems old-fashioned.

When we practice detachment, then we disengage from that which can easily consume us so that we may be more engaged with the things of Christ. For example, it is the act of pursuing financial gain for the purpose of need and to the level of need and not as a sign of success or to be comfortable.

In our country today, financial gain and its trappings are the signs of success. Christ gives us a mandate to evangelize the world and we cannot do that if we are just like everyone else.

Dorothy Day taught that to evangelize the poor you had to be like them, to evangelize the rich, you had to be unlike them. We as leaders of the Church must detach from anything that leads us to be attached to the riches of our culture if that leads us to be an ersatz disciple of Christ.

This does not mean to live as luddites but it does mean that we need to live differently than others.

For example, one of the latest trends in our country today is cord cutting. It is recognizing that if you have cable in your house, you are paying for a host of channels you are not watching. That is a waste. People will boast of having 168 channels but do not watch a vast majority. You are paying for a luxury for you are consuming what you do not need.

There are many services that provide programming that is free — like the simple antenna upgraded for digital television — or streaming a la carte for a minimal price, this allows you to pay for what you watch and not what you do not watch or do not need to watch. It also limits television watching by default.

One of the great issues in our country is consuming pornography. The use of pornography is a form of attachment. It is consuming that which is of the world that deters one from seeking Christ. Many will tell you that every person engages in pornography. That is not true, but if you are a Catholic you have no reason to view porn. Indeed, in light of the current issues in the Church there is an admonition: Not every person who looks at pornography is a rapist, but every rapist looks at pornography.

However, that is one of the many forms of attachment that has no place in a Catholic community.

The question for our times that defines this lack of appreciation for this ancient virtue is: “What do we do with priests engaged in consensual sex?”

Are you kidding me? You must mean a priest who does not seek holiness and who does not understand the need to embrace and seek Christ over all other desires? He does not practice detachment.

If we understood detachment better, we would educate people better on the faith. For example, many believe that certain behaviors are, by default, sinful and others are fine, but Jesus did not say that. He calls us to be transformed in Him that means to see our whole life including priorities change. He calls us to better model Him and love God and neighbor. Therefore, when we teach some people that their behavior is sinful by default and others that their behavior is not, it completely misses the point and causes great damage.

Am I going to Heaven because I do not sin like you do? No, I plan to enter Heaven because I choose to live my life in service, love and obedience to Him. That means, if I do not sin like you do, but I also do not love as He calls me to do, then I am just as distant from Him as the worst of all sinners, may be even more.

Jesus never says, I will cast you into Hell, when describing those who do not get into Heaven, He says: “I never knew you.” Why? Because I was attached to other things and did not choose to seek and be transformed by Him in the joy of the Gospel which nothing else can provide.

Living as serious Catholics includes understanding and practicing the ancient virtue of detachment which is to seek that which we need and to eliminate from our lives that which we do not need all in the interest of serving Christ more and more every day.

photo: Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]