Saint Athanasius, Epistle to Serapion.
Note: We didn't know him, nor do we know all of his beliefs, only that he was pro-life, but whatever his beliefs, we don't need to agree with everything to condemn the treacherous murder that left two young children orphaned and an inconsolable widow and made him famous in ways he never imagined in life.
“This is the Virgin who conceived in her womb, this is the Virgin who gave birth to a son… She is the gate of the sanctuary, which no one shall pass through except the God of Israel alone. This gate is the blessed Mary; of her it was written: ‘The Lord shall pass through her,’ and it shall be shut after her childbirth; for she conceived as a virgin and gave birth as a virgin.”
~Saint Ambrose (Epist. 42,4 PL, XVI)
Lope de Vega, born in 1562 and one of the most representative poets and playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age, composed the following:
Let the angels sing today,
for You are born, great Lady,
and let them rehearse, from now,
for when God Himself is born.
Let them sing today, for they come
to behold their lovely Queen,
for the fruit they await from You
is He through whom they find grace.
Let them proclaim, O Lady, of You,
that You shall be their Sovereign,
and let them rehearse, from now,
for when God Himself is born.
For in fourteen years’ time,
when You reach that blessed age,
they shall see the good You give us,
the remedy for so many ills.
Let them sing and proclaim, through You,
that from today they have their Queen,
and let them rehearse, from now,
for when God Himself is born.
And we, who await with longing
that Bethlehem may soon arrive,
let us prepare as well
our hearts and our hands.
Go on sowing, O Lady,
peace within our hearts,
and let us rehearse, from now,
for when God Himself is born. Amen.
“Be free, don’t tie yourself down.”
That is the catechism the modern world endlessly repeats to young people. It has convinced them that promise is a chain, that commitment is a prison, that sacrifice is madness. The entire culture has become a school for fugitives: no one must ever say “forever,” no one must embrace the cross of fidelity, no one must remain.
And yet, the paradox bursts forth in every heart: if everything is so free, why does everything feel so empty? If there are thousands of “contacts,” why is no one truly known? If love is so liquid, why does loneliness echo so loudly?
The new commandment of evasion does not liberate—it enslaves. The young person who flees every commitment does not conquer freedom, but condemns himself to the perpetual anxiety of never having a home. A ship without a harbor does not sail farther: it is lost. A heart that never binds itself does not soar higher: it bleeds out in the air.
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I. THE EMPTINESS AS PROOF
No theory is needed to confirm it: just look. The generation that boasts most of its options is the one least able to choose. The one that proclaims freedom the loudest is the most enslaved to anxiety. The one that talks the most about connections is the loneliest.
The emptiness is no coincidence: it is evidence. The human heart was not made to jump from one experience to another, but to remain in love. When that permanence is denied, one falls into nothingness.
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II. THE DISORDER OF THE END
St. Thomas teaches clearly: every being acts toward an end, and man’s ultimate end is beatitude—that is, God. But the evader has twisted the scale: he has placed his happiness in what is fleeting. He seeks fulfillment in pleasure, in comfort, in immediate gratification.
It is not that he loves evil, but that he seeks the good where it is not. And thus his life becomes constant frustration: because he tries to drink water in the desert. Evasion is, metaphysically, the absurd attempt to find happiness in nothingness.
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III. THE VICE THAT ATROPHIES THE WILL
Evasion is not an accident: it is a vice. And vice, as the Angelic Doctor would say, is not merely a bad habit but a corruption of nature. Virtue perfects the will; vice mutilates it.
The culture of escape has bred young people whose wills have atrophied. It is not that they do not want to commit: it is that they no longer can. Their will, tamed by flight, has become incapable of a definitive “yes.” Thus, the evader is not a rebellious hero, but a weak slave, unable to embrace his own vocation.
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IV. LOVE REDUCED TO INSTINCT
Love, in its fullest sense, is an act of rational will. Animals move by instinct; man, by reason and choice. But in the culture of evasion, love has been reduced to feeling, to appetite, to passing chemistry.
That is why bonds are so fragile: because they depend on emotions that change with mood. “Love without metaphysics” is not love: it is appetite disguised. And appetite does not build homes, does not sustain marriages, does not give children.
The other is no longer an end, but a means. No longer a soul created in the image of God, but an object for consumption. That is why modern relationships look so much like store windows: one chooses, one uses, one changes, one discards.
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V. SOCIETY AS A SCHOOL OF EVADERS
The young person did not invent this flight: he was trained in it. The weakened family did not teach sacrifice; the school suppressed rigor; the contemporary Church preferred silence to truth; the market turned the neighbor into a product; technology fabricated a virtual world where everything is reversible, ephemeral, disposable.
Never have there been so many “friends,” and never so little friendship. Never so many couples, and never so little love. Never so many freedoms, and never so much fear. Evasion is the unwritten commandment of a system that needs men without roots, without permanence, without home.
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VI. THE SIN OF EVASION
Evasion is not neutral: it is sin. It is the denial of sacrifice, and therefore the denial of love. It is the vital heresy of a generation that rejects the cross. But without the cross there is no love, and without love there is no life.
The Gospel said it centuries ago: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Evasion whispers the opposite: “There is no greater mistake than to lay down your life for anyone.” A culture that lives this way has already condemned itself to sterility.
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VII. GRACE AS REMEDY
Here St. Thomas is blunt: wounded nature cannot rise on its own. The will sickened by original sin has no strength to pronounce a definitive “yes.”
Grace is not an ornament: it is the only medicine. Confession, the Eucharist, prayer—these are not accessory rites, but the very places where man receives the strength to promise and to remain. The “yes forever” of marriage, of religious vocation, or of faithful friendship is not a human feat but a miracle of Grace.
Without God, every commitment ends in flight. With God, even the impossible—perpetual fidelity—becomes a path of holiness.
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VIII. THE BEAUTY OF PERMANENCE
It is not enough to speak of truth and goodness. Beauty too unmasks evasion. Because evasion is ugly. A life made of flights is like a broken painting, like a symphony interrupted at every bar: it lacks form, integrity, harmony.
Commitment, on the other hand, is beautiful. The fidelity of a long marriage is more splendid than any showcase of fleeting pleasures. A vocation sustained over time has the majesty of a cathedral standing tall. A friendship that endures years and trials is more melodious than any passing song.
Evasion promises youth but delivers ugliness. Sacrifice seems harsh, but shines with splendor. Tradition knew it: the Cross, terrifying to the carnal eye, is the highest beauty of love, for in it is revealed the perfect order of self-giving.
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IX. BEING AND PERMANENCE
Modernity has divinized change, the ephemeral, the reversible. But St. Thomas teaches that being itself is permanence, that mutability is accidental, and that human fidelity participates in the very being of God, who is eternal and unchanging.
The evader does not know it, but when he flees every commitment, he renounces not only love but being itself. He dissolves into nothingness, because nothingness is the only thing that does not remain. The man who promises and fulfills, on the other hand, partakes in the stability of God himself.
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CONCLUSION: FROM “MAYBE” TO “YES”
The modern commandment of evasion has turned the world into a graveyard of broken promises. It has produced empty homes, fragile friendships, weary souls.
But the heart knows what ideology denies: that only the one who promises and remains is happy. Evasion leaves ruins; commitment raises cathedrals. Flight produces ugliness; fidelity engenders beauty. Caprice is smoke; promise is rock.
The young person has before him two paths: to keep worshiping the idol of the ephemeral and end up lost in nothingness, or to dare to say a definitive “yes” and discover therein the only true freedom.
For only the one who gives himself without fleeing lives; only the one who remains loves; and only the one who loves already participates, here and now, in eternity.
Oscar Méndez O.
- Father Reginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, OP.
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