Kool-aid of Culture

How saints help us rise above our culture

08/20/2021

Mt 22:34-40 When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

It is very easy to drink the kool-aid of our culture without knowing it. We all think like the world around us, and I would suggest to you that happens without exception. That is why we love the music we listened to growing up and think other music is mediocre. I love the rock and roll of the 80’s, which was the greatest of course, but a teenager told me recently when she heard it, “Why are they just screaming all the time?” And I have to admit 80’s rock is a lot of screaming. But notice how I drank the kool-aid of my culture without knowing it.

Do you find yourself criticizing the young people today saying how they are growing up in a Godless and pagan culture? We can clearly see how they are a product of their peers and what is popular today. They drink the kool-aid of their modern culture. By contrast, we self-righteously assert that we are immune to these cultural tidal waves and would never do what our kids do. But are we so impervious?

Those of you who grew up in the 1950’s, when the culture was carrying the flag of faith and family and freedom, are also the product of your peers and the popular culture that shaped you. You drank the kool-aid of the culture back then, just like the children of this age drink its koolaid. You like Elvis, I like John Cougar Mellencamp, and kids today like Taylor Swift. We all drink the kool-aid.

I am convinced one of the reasons God sends us saints is to help us rise a little above the cultural tidal waves of our times. Saints stop us from drinking the kool-aid down to the dregs. August 20 is the feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the great Cistercian monk who reformed the Benedictine order. Why? Well, the monks of his day were drinking the kool-aid of their culture and losing their faith.

St. Bernard lived from 1090 to 1153, and died at the age of 63. In 1953, on the 800th anniversary of his death, Pope Pius XII wrote an encyclical on St. Bernard called “Doctor Mellifluus,” meaning, the doctor whose “speech is like honey.” Listen to these lines where the pope describes the culture of the 1950’s, and it is not flattering. He wrote: “Wherefore, since love of God is gradually growing cold today in the hearts of many, or is completely extinguished,” – that was the 50’s – “we feel that these writings of the ‘Doctor Mellifluus’ should be carefully pondered.

“Because from their content, which in fact is taken from the gospels, a new and heavenly strength can flow both into individual and on into social life, to give moral guidance, bring it into line with Christian precepts, and thus be able to provide timely remedies for the many grave ills which afflict mankind.” In other words, the popular culture of the 1950’s was far from perfect. And the saints, like Bernard of Clairvaux, help us to accept the good and reject the bad. That is, the saints remind us not to drink all the kool-aid of our culture.

Folks, how to do the saints help us not to drink the cultural kool-aid? Well, I believe they constantly have one foot on earth, but the other foot in heaven. That is, even if they live in the 12th century (like St. Bernard) or in the 50’s, 80’s and today (like me and you), they are more interested in the culture of heaven than in the culture of their day. The saints would rather drink the wine of the Mass than the kool-aid of the masses. They would rather listen to Gregorian Chant than Elvis, John Cougar Mellencamp, or T. Swift.

My friends, be careful not to jump on your high horse and criticize the contemporary culture of your children and grandchildren. They are the products of their popular culture and think like their peers, just like you and I are and do. There is no “Golden Age” on earth, not even the 1950’s here in the United States, as Pope Pius XII pointed out. And God sends us saints to help us stop drinking the kool-aid of our culture, and start drinking from the fountain of salvation of the Scriptures and the sacraments. Although, I have to say, I do like me some T. Swift sometimes.

Praised be Jesus Christ!