If I were to ask you what qualities you find most attractive in a potential partner, what would you answer? As someone who has spent quite a bit of time browsing online dating apps (ok, I’ll admit, “quite a bit of time” is an understatement…) I can tell you that I’ve seen all kinds of answers, ranging from very superficial things like “must be tall,” or “must be able to plan fun dates,” to deeper things like kindness, emotional maturity, being a good listener, and among the more religious ones, having a shared commitment to the faith. I would be greatly surprised if someone said “vigilance.”
I think that the word “vigilance,” like the word “obedience,” has taken on a somewhat negative connotation in progressive churches these days, even though objectively, I’m sure most would agree that those are good things in themselves. The readings for this Sunday, much like those in the First Sunday of Advent, speak of wisdom, keeping watch, and staying awake, in other words, vigilance. The Church Fathers had many varied and colorful interpretations of this Sunday’s Gospel reading, the parable of the ten virgins, as do many priests I have heard who have given homilies on it.
In my own very lay opinion, I like to think of spiritual vigilance as the opposite of spiritual entitlement. Whereas the spiritually entitled person thinks, “I’m a good person, so surely I’m going to heaven,” the spiritually vigilant person asks, “Am I really all that good though?” There is a quote whose exact source I can’t quite find, but it goes something like this: “A good man is never sure he is good, because he measures himself by the Perfect. The evil man is quite sure he is good because he measures himself by himself.” I think spiritual vigilance is like that. This is not to say that I’m endorsing a view of humanity as being totally depraved (a view held by some Protestant denominations, which is totally not part of Catholic teaching). Rather, I am simply applying to one’s own goodness the same kind of scrutiny that the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russel applied to one’s own intelligence, when he said that the intelligent are so full of doubts, while the ignorant are so sure of themselves.
During my graduate studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston, one of my fondest memories was that of teaching my own undergraduate class in solfege, that is, sight-singing, specifically the ability to sing an unfamiliar piece of music at sight without the aid of an instrument. Yes, believe it or not, that is a skill that can be learned! So, as a former sight-singing instructor, one thing I do when I assess new choir members is to ask them, “how would you rate your sight-singing ability on a scale of 1 to 10?” Well guess what… I’ve found that a lot of the ones who rate themselves highly tend to actually be less proficient than they think, and a lot of the ones who rate themselves lowly tend to be more proficient than they think.
Likewise, it is probably not surprising that, of the various people I’ve met, I’ve found that the ones who are most critical of their own goodness tend to be the most compassionate ones. On that note, allow me to circle back to the question I posed at the start—what do I find most attractive in a potential partner? Well, I will admit that like any other human being, I have my own set of surface-level preferences, one of which is if that person sings like an angel haha. But surface preferences aside, I’d say I find it very attractive when someone has a healthy amount of self-scrutiny. There’s a song by the boyband One Direction entitled What Makes You Beautiful, and the chorus ends with “You don’t know you’re beautiful. Oh, oh, that’s what makes you beautiful!” I think that those lyrics could just as easily apply to spiritual beauty.
With my peace,
Carlo Serrano, Music Director
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