The Feast of Fools: Jesus Circumcised

The Catholic Encyclopedia on The Feast of Fools:

The central idea seems always to have been that of the old Saturnalia, i.e. a brief social revolution, in which power, dignity or impunity is conferred for a few hours upon those ordinarily in a subordinate position. Whether it took the form of the  boy bishop or the subdeacon conducting the cathedral office, the parody must always have trembled on the brink of burlesque, if not of the profane. We can trace the same idea at St. Gall in the tenth century, where a student, on the thirteenth of December each year, enacted the part of the abbot. It will be sufficient here to notice that the continuance of the celebration of the Feast of Fools was finally forbidden under the very severest penalties by the Council of Basle in 1435, and that this condemnation was supported by a strongly-worded document issued by the theological faculty of the University of Paris in 1444, as well as by numerous decrees of various provincial councils. In this way it seems that the abuse had practically disappeared before the time of the Council of Trent.

The Feast of Fools took place, it seems, on the date of Jesus's circumcision, providing, I am sure, much material for pantomime, tomfoolery, and obscene mirth. Apparently, the Lord of Misrule entered the Church  to invert the social order, letting the worst possible taste reign. Erotic frenzy and overt violence, replaced for one day the disguised violence and covert pleasures of solemn hierarchy. What have we gained and what have we lost,  in making our religion so humorless, so life denying and so responsive, or even subordinate, to the worldly powers that be? 

Satire, I think,  the most moral and obscene of the literary arts, is rooted in the saturnalian or Dionysian spirit, one that makes its own moral points about humanity, equality, justice, dirt, and fecundity.   "Come let us drink!" as Rabelais said, raising high the chalice in blasphemous parody of all that is holy.  "Come, let us celebrate the Circumcision of our Lord," says he making slicing off a wafer from the long loaf of  sacred bread. "Come let us eat!," says, he as the whore kneels before him dressed as Nun. Jonathan Swift is perhaps in the same company. On Saturday he throws excrement in a madhouse among the politicians chained to the walls. On Sunday he preaches a plain sensible sermon. How better to help us appreciate that we are all, the mighty and the commoner,  just so much clay or dust? When you hold yourself out as a morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families, the highest art would be as a Lord of Misrule. If only I  could rise to that, rather than paltering about as a pennyante moralist in the dour spirit of Bill Bennett.

Where does philanthropy fit? Surely, some generous soul will fund a Feast of Fools? We could stage it at Hudson Institute with Lord Black as the Lord of Misrule, with a Lapsed Priest, a Trusted Advisor, an Attorney, a Trained Monkey, a Fundraiser, a Philanthropic Consultant, and a troupe of Think Tank Thinkers, dancing about on Lord Black's leash while Old Nick (or a retainer costumed as him) plays the bagpipes. We might as well learn to laugh, else who knows where it would end, short of jail or a Dungeon for one and all. I am no better. When the rich man calls me Whore,  I answer, "How may I serve you, Sir?"   As long as your money is good, your morals are fine with me.

We are just playing here, appearances to the contrary. Serio ludere. Mingling delight with instruction, secreting  medicine in candy, as Horace said we poets must if are are to inculcate morals in the higher ups, as the nursemaid does with a child. "So kiss my boots," as my Mistress Candidia said to the Pope, banqueting  in his private quarters, on peacocks' tongue. "Kiss my ring," laughed he, raising his jocund glass, as the mitre tipped from his head into the suet pudding.  We all know that money rules and religion follows with philanthropy and politics on all fours. "Let us drink to the Market!" And we all raise our glass, the golden chains dangling from our wrists.  Who will stand against it? (Jesus, you died in vain.)

Comments

[Gerry]

From: Reading from Needleman's Money and the Meaning of Life

In the introduction to his 1991 book, Money and the Meaning of Life, the philosopher Jacob Needleman writes about the role of money in a person's search for meaning and how money can trap us or liberate us:

I remember some conversations about money that also involved the businessman whose advice I quoted at the beginning of this introduction. The setting was a conference I had helped to organize in Madison, Wisconsin about 15 years ago. He had eagerly accepted my invitation to join a panel of distinguished scholars, religious leaders, and local civic and government officials on the theme "Money, Power, and the Human Spirit."

In fact, he spoke very little during the three days, but when he did speak, there was such a remarkable evenness and authority in his words that invariably a special atmosphere of listening prevailed. Yet the things he said seemed more often than not slightly baffling to the panelists.

"I was thinking," he said at one point. "It's a real question for me. Is there a way of looking at money, of educating myself, and educating our children to look at money so that it is actually not dirty, so that it is a unifying factor in every scale, in every sense? Or is money only a problem? Money is dealt with by economics. That's treating money as a problem. But is there a way of reconciling ourselves to money, so that we actually discover an attitude, an idea with which one can approach money, educate people to approach money, in a way that gives it a place in the life around us as a unifying influence? That, to me, is the question."

At another point, several of the panelists had been excoriating the rich as greedy and selfish, and condemning the American economic system for making wage slaves out of everyone, including teachers of young people, forcing them to sell out their ideals.

Addressing the most vocal of these, he broke in: "Could I probe you about that—because I am very moved by your concern for the materially poor people. Is it impossible that you would be concerned for the spiritually poor people who have a lot of money? Because if you could get some of them on your side they might be able to help you accomplish what you have to do."

This was met with sarcasm: "Tactically, I wouldn't bother with them!"

With the slightest shade of impatience in his voice, he replied: "I have been listening with good humor to the categorization of all rich people as being completely selfish and unintelligent. But, in fact, it takes a lot of character, a lot of imagination, a lot of determination to build a large fortune. It's not that easy. True, it is just money, but to work at it day after day in the changing, stormy, difficult economic climate we have—it's not that easy. You have got to allow that somebody who gets to the top of Continental Bank, or whatever, cannot be totally and hopelessly unintelligent.

"I think there are exceptions in all classes. There are morons among the poor and among the rich. Yet it seems that one needs to enlist the help of the privileged class in order to get anything done, even spiritually. It seems very odd, but even in the spiritual realm, money really does seem to help. I am being rather practical and this is the nub of my interest. It is very good to say that one should be poorer, but money seems to help."

[Phil]

Excellent, thank you. A fine quotation. How to integrate wealth into a meaninful life for self, loved ones and society, that is what Tracy and I call "inspired planning." But how do we elicit the vision? That more than the "tactics" of planning strikes me as the challenge. Who will play the role of
Socrates, or a good liberal arts teacher, on the client's planning team? What are the venues in which the viewpoint expressed in your qoutation could be cultivated?