On canonizations and making new friends

..There comes a time in a fellow's life — or, well, at any rate, there has come such a time in my life, and I'm a fellow — when the prospect of making new friends becomes rather a bother. I don't mean the effort, or trying to be friendly; I mean the actual achievement, the success of the endeavor. I'm sure for some, the former struggle is more felt, and maybe has always been that way. But I've always had a bit of an extroverted disposition and happily fall into easy acquaintance with a stranger at the pub or in a queue at the post office or the like. The thing for me is about actual friendship, having new friends. One has to find room to fit them in. . .

I'm not trying to say my social calendar is so buzzing that there's a wait list or anything of that sort. It's just that, by this time of my life, I have my friends and I'm content, and even finding time for them is quite enough to be getting on with. Everybody's busy and all that. I hope I still manage to show the Christian disposition of friendliness to any “neighbor” I meet along the way, regardless, but that's again not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about fast and dedicated friendship, with all its entailments of obligation and interest.

​Anyway, it's on my mind today as I sit sipping my morning coffee and reading about the Anglo-Saxons, because, well, I find as I reflect that, if I may be so bold with a paraphrase that I hope won't be found irreverent, “sicut in terra et in caelo.” I'm studying Alfred the Great recently, and I find that he, too, has indeed become a friend, joining a list of dead friends that dwarfs the list of living ones I've got. And that got me thinking of tomorrow's dual canonizations of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati.

I don't know much about these guys. But, what with Holy Mother Church “raising them to the altars” and extolling them as worthy of devotion and imitation, combined with the large popularity both enjoy — such even that among their admirers there's a bit of holy rivalry and even a little (hopefully not very serious) chagrin for some in having to share the canonization ceremony — I've been feeling a sort of pressure to get to know them more. It's like nothing so much as that feeling one sometimes has at a party where a friend urges you toward a new acquaintance: “You've got to meet this dude, you'll like him. He's your kind of people.”

I hope so. I'll be happy in my Christian vocation if it may be truly said of me some day that such as they were “my kind of people.” Nevertheless, I also feel that very natural and normal sense of social fatigue, just like I would at a party. I hope it is not a species of pusillanimity in me that I sort of just think, “But I just don't need any more friends right now.” Like every Catholic, I already have my roster of ready friends with whom I need to remind myself (when God doesn't more forcibly remind me) that I would do well to check in. Augustine, Aquinas, one or the other Francis (Assisi and Xavier), Catherine of Sienna, Joan of Arc, Theresa (all three, big, little, and late), and of course my beloved Chesterton — these and more; enough, as I said above, to be getting on with. I just find it difficult to break away from the conversation and cross the room to get acquainted with a new set, no matter how rewarding it might prove to be.

There was a time when one of the most devastating critiques one could level in internecine Catholic discourse was that someone was a “Cafeteria Catholic.” The metaphor has somewhat fallen out of vogue, and I am on the whole happy for it. Not that I don't appreciate that there was a valid point being made, but rather I think because the metaphor doesn't really hit the mark. Of course, the usage arose in the 70s or 80s, and back then the phenomenon of veganism wasn't widespread enough to have cultural cache, and so I can't really fault people for working with what they had. Still, I think “vegan Catholic” a better metaphor, because it isn't so much about picking and choosing, it's about being restrictive and demanding, and being a bit smarmy and annoying while doing it. (Half-hearted apologies to any vegans in my audience. But steak is simply good, there's no two ways about it.) Whereas, on the other hand, a cafeteria, or a buffet, really is a good metaphor for what the Church really is, much more than for a wrong way of approaching Her. I'd actually call it “Smorgasbord Catholicism.” Within this metaphor, the real faux pas would be smuggling in food from outside and eating it at the table, rather than selecting from the panoply on offer. That would be a violation of house rules, not to mention basic good manners. So, yes, some things are prescribed, and some proscribed. But I don't like the negative cafeteria analogy because it isn't a prix fixe menu. It's a true smorgasbord, plentiful and varied. You can, if you want, wear ALL the scapulars. But you needn’t be wearing a whole clothier’s stock of sample swatches around your neck to enter in through the narrow gate. If a devotion or particular sacramental doesn't “click” with you, you have plenty else to choose from. Don't harangue others about their choices; neither feel pressured to adopt what others deem optimal. For me, baby dolls that look like a miniature Phil Collins dressed like Liberace don't inspire holy sentiments, they just creep me out. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Maybe a season will come when I find myself inspired to become more acquainted with Carlo and Pier Giorgio. I hope, in any event, God willing I will get to know them better hereafter, and have all of eternity to do it. For now, I am simply grateful to Mother Church for adding even more to what is already a superabundant bountiful feast. Maybe, in God's Providence, either or both of these gentlemen will see fit to introduce themselves to me, and make up for my own reticence. In the meantime, I'll be returning to my second and third helpings of the same comforting fare, and I pray neither He nor they will find fault with that.