Semper Fidelis

Fidelity is a virtue that is not much heard of in these days - it means faithfulness, or loyalty.

The word popped into my head when I attended a Catholic mass, recited in Latin. In midst of the ceremony, it is easy to imagine people gathering together to perform it for almost two thousand years, a chain unbroken from Roman times. Candles have been lit in front of the cross, the Lord’s prayer recited, and the Eucharist taken by a community of the faithful from generation to generation, during good times and during times of persecution. Semper fidelis.

Faith belongs to the kind of objects that you keep, like a promise - "keep the faith". It is not a single extraordinary act, but a constant duty. Keeping a faith is a responsibility that changes the bearer. It requires you to look ahead, seeing with the eyes of eternity in order to plan for events long after your own death. The charge must be guarded and passed from one generation to the next, like a torch-flame. Each generation must be imprinted with the gravity of it so that they can instill the motivation to keep it into their own children and grandchildren.

As the responsibility of raising a child changes a parent, so too does the practice of faith-keeping transform its bearer into something grander. (The transformative power of long-term thinking is the raisson d'être of the secular Long Now Foundation)

It is remarkable that the mass, a practice originating in Roman Civilization, comes down to us still alive, constantly living, over all these years. “Keep doing this in remembrance of me”, a man once said. And so it has been. It is in my nature to love a thing that lasts.

Is it not possible to love Christmas, for the same reason? I know of people that treat Christmas with disdain - bright intellectuals that view it as an ignorant and outmoded ritual. But is it not worthwhile to keep an ancient flame alight for its own sake? Like an endangered animal species, when it becomes extinct we will not again see its kind. And while we now take it for granted, we may burn with regret when it is gone.

Can we start new traditions, more suited to our present values? It can be done. But not every age has the same capacity for laying foundations. It requires the strength of will not only to bind your own life to the task, but also to bind all future generations. It can only be done in the spirit of the greatest solemnity. The characteristic emotion of our time - irony - is poorly suited to the task.

So I choose to keep the Christmas traditions for their own delight and as a reminder that mankind can build things that endure. I am grateful to those who passed it down to me. I do my own small part to keep the flame alive, and will pass it to my own children someday.

Someday the will to continue may be lost. Mankind may shrink in moral stature and lose the capacity for fidelity, and all of this may be forgotten in the depths of time. But as long as a single member of the faithful draws breath, that day is not yet.

Anno Domini 2013