AMOR

My Anglican priest friend, Father Frank Julian Gelli, recently went back to his Catholic roots with a trip to Italy’s city of love. While there, he says, he read again Charles Dickens’ novel, “Dombey and Son,” and was struck by this passage: “Money causes us to be honoured, feared, respected, courted, and admired and makes us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men.” Young Paul Dombey’s father was answering his son’s question, “What is money?” “Money, Paul, can do anything,” the senior Dombey proclaimed. “Why didn’t money save me my mamma?” Paul asked, meaning the mother who died giving him birth. Father Frank rejoined: “The Eternal City has a secret name. No kidding. Rome was only the public, exoteric name of Rome. Ancient Roman writers like Pliny tell us that the city’s true name was hidden from the masses. Only a few chosen ones knew it, such as the high priest of the state cult. Should an enemy have got intelligence of the mysterious word, Rome would have fallen. Hence, the penalty for such abominable betrayal was death. A certain Valerius Soranus, Pliny informs us, actually did the unthinkable act. He disclosed the name to the uninitiated – a crime he paid for with his life. “What was that secret name? Nobody really knows, because the secret was well kept. But, imagine I knew, dear reader. I would be faced with a dilemma. I am a Roman. And a priest. In a sense, I am connected with the ancient priesthood of my birthplace. So, if I were to blab out the secret name…how do I know the ancient curse would not fall on my head? Call me superstitious but, like Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce once put it, it’s safer ‘fare le corna’ –- namely, to do the old misfortune-averting gesture… “Consider Rome ’s name in its proper Latin spelling -- Roma. Now read it backwards. Amor. Love. Geddit? “Too simple, eh? Of course. That is why amor cannot have been the mysterious, hidden name. Uncovering it would have been too easy. Amor is simple but…simplicity is the mark of truth, a useful Latin saying goes. And so I feel it is fitting I should have happened upon the wonderful passage from Dickens in the City of Love. “Love, yes. Love. Not money, mind you, nor sex. Those who equate the two are idiots, because love and sex cannot be the same. If they were, love of country and love of music would mean sex with country and sex with music, which is nonsense. “Whether they realise it or not, by doing so such people fall below the beasts with apologies to the latter, which are at least innocent of good and evil. Also, Rome ’s ancient emblem shows a she-wolf, so I have to be nice to animals. “The Creator fashioned human beings in his image, to follow virtue and knowledge and love. Whenever they deviate from those, they soil and profane the maker’s work, as well as fouling up their own nest. “Love, a simpleton’s hope for 2008? Probably. The media are full of violence, as usual, and those who can read the runes are not optimistic. But love is prescriptive, not descriptive. When Christ commands his disciples to love one another, and indeed our enemy, He is certainly not describing what is actually going on. “Maybe Luther was right. There are two cities on earth, he claimed. One composed of true Christians, true disciples of love, who follow the sublime prescriptions of the Gospel. The other city is people by a very different, nasty crowd. They are the children of Cain, the first murderer, he who slew his own innocent brother. “Saint Augustine of Hippo, himself a proud Roman citizen, did not scruple to equate pagan Rome with the second city – hadn’t Romulus killed his brother Remus at the city’s very inception? “Luther, however, was too pessimistic. He gives no hint whether the citizens of the City of God might not go about converting the inhabitants of the wicked city to better ways. To win them over to the ways of love. I submit that way is itself, well, figure you’d divine it, love. “Love, not money. Mr Dombey found that out too late. Only saints and hypocrites can afford to despise money, of course. Most of us need it and appreciate its advantages. But money ain’t enough. Money itself will not only not save us from death, it isn’t enough to keep us alive, either. “Doomed little Paul is partly a vindication of that eternal truth. Indeed, even animals –- snakes and insects excepted -- will not prosper without an atmosphere of warmth and love. Unloved babies certainly don’t flourish at all… “After losing his beloved son, his firm and being forsaken by his second unhappy wife, Mr. Dombey seems damned. But Dickens believed in happy endings. Thanks to young Florence, the slighted and humiliated daughter, whose love has stayed steadfast despite her father’s many cruelties, he at last grasps the enormity of his inhuman selfishness and begs for forgiveness. Love has saved him. “Methinks the old, unfeeling Dombey lives on unredeemed, though. In the spirit of our stupid age -- an age, a civilization that teeters on the brink of an abyss. Does it stand a chance? “Yes. If it responds to Divine Love.” Happy New Year in that spirit, not in the materialist secular humanist spirit of Mr. Dombey.