We’re too distracted to know what’s most important. Ash Wednesday can help.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE ‘E verything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.”

That’s a semi-famous quote from Charles Péguy, a French poet, who was born 150 years ago this month. Reflecting on his thinking, Robert Royal recently explained on his website The Catholic Thing: “What he meant is that every powerful movement begins as a spiritual force, and then is ‘incarnated’ in concrete action.”

Royal additionally pointed out that the context of the mysticism-politics quote is not as well known. “The interest, the question, the essential is that in each order, in each system, the mysticism not be devoured by the politics to which it gave birth.”

Royal reflects:

Many politicians privately mock this sort of idealism — either regarding it as impractical or using it for personal or partisan purposes. But, says Péguy, it’s the mystique that provides whatever real life there may be in public affairs. And it’s the mystique that’s really practical, that gets something done.

There’s something in Péguy’s words that beckon us. Maybe especially as we watch the passing political scene in the United States today. New non-Trump presidential candidates are slowly stepping up on the Republican side. It remains a mystery what Democrats will do. But the more important question is what we will do. Each and every one of us. Because our lives are more than what’s in the news — balloons or anything else we are distracted by today.

The Covid shutdowns were an opportunity to consider a renewal of priorities, and yet so many of us declared that in Purell and masks and vaccines we trust. There’s reason to believe that our trust was misguided. Even Dr. Fauci admits as much. But a look to mysticism isn’t about political or medical recriminations. It’s about the essence of who we are and why we are here.

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You are probably reading this around Ash Wednesday. For many Christians, it is a day of fasting and abstaining from meat. It begins a 40-day commitment to penance and renewed generosity — of remembering what it means to follow Jesus Christ — the Sermon on the Mount and all. Post-Covid, Post-Trump, post–Roe v. Wade, the season of Lent this year brings with it added challenges. How will each of us  better reflect Christianity in our civic lives?

Speaking of Roe and the Supreme Court Dobbs decision that ended it in June: Politics is the absolute worst place to talk about and debate abortion. So much of the debate falls on women’s lives like salt into open wounds. Women have had abortions because they felt coerced, feeling that they have had no other options. Women have had abortions because they have been told that it is the responsible thing to do. Women have had abortions because doctors have been on a “search and destroy” mission, as described by one friend on the front lines of providing resources for real choice to pregnant women — doctors pushing the message that a poor Hispanic or black young unmarried woman has no business having a baby. This is the eugenics upon which the abortion industry was established in the first place.

Women are so much more resilient and amazing than abortion gives them credit for. When Rihanna unveiled her special guest at the Super Bowl half-time show this year — her unborn child — she made a cultural contribution that many a pro-lifer couldn’t help but cheer. I have no doubt that Rihanna and I disagree on much, but not about motherhood. She has talked about its life-changing power. There’s a mysticism about that.

In the Catholic tradition, the Catechism describes mysticism as the journey to an “ever more intimate union with Christ.” The Christian is called to continuing “spiritual progress.” That’s why we need an Ash Wednesday and a Lent every year, to reconsider who we are and where we are on that journey, in relationship to God.

Politics today cannot claim to manifest any kind of maturity, spiritual or otherwise. Politics has a bipartisan way of using and abusing religion to manipulate. What if, for 40 days this year, we didn’t think about who we are going to support in the next presidential election and who we consider our political enemies, whatever we believe or not about God? None of us created ourselves, whatever we might do to make changes or reinventions. All of us have people who got us where we are, for good or for ill. What are we grateful for? What have we learned? How can we make a more fruitful contribution to the people and community around us? How can we grow in virtue?

That’s what we really need, a revolution of virtue. And it’s going to take not a national leader to do that, but decisions we make individually in our lives today and tomorrow and the day after that, for as long as we have on this earth. That’s not a political platform. But it is life-giving and -changing — for a family, an institution, and society.

In New York City right now, a dozen Catholic schools are closing at the end of the school year, it was just announced. I have deeply personal ties to two of them. What more can we do to make sure that children are nourished in the fundamentals? Sex-abuse lawsuits (both legit and not), people moving out of the city, and men and women raised Catholic not going to church anymore — that all plays a role. But I know I could have done more to support my grade school that’s closing. What do we cherish? Taking time to reflect on this will help us grow in mysticism and help us change the world we are so obsessively reading about on our phones.

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.