Many know that Msgr. Stuart Swetland has been reassigned from St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois to Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, MD. One of his last articles he wrote I think is “spot on” so I thought I would share it:
Putting First Things First
Rev. Msgr. Stuart W. Swetland, S.T.D.
Every now and then I will wander around the ‘blogosphere’ to get a sense of the latest concerns of that part of society. For those who do not know, the blogosphere is the internet environment in which people set up web logs (blogs) that are an ongoing series of entries on whatever topic the author chooses to focus. In addition to staying current, one thing I like about blogs is that I sometimes happen upon good insights. This was the case for a blog post discussing C.S. Lewis’ 1942 article, “First and Second Things.â€
C. S. Lewis was a brilliant, 20th century Christian writer who demonstrated uncanny insight into the human condition. In this wartime article, Lewis began by discussing some Nazi errors that boiled down to sacrificing the greater good in pursuit of a lesser good. He showed that the irony in doing this is that both goods are lost. The details of his Nazi focus are not important here but Lewis’ insight into the relationship between first and second things is timeless. His law of first things states:
Every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made. Apparently the world is made that way. If Esau really got the pottage in return for his birthright, then Esau was a lucky exception. You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.
Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace in our time†is a classic example. In appeasing Hitler, Chamberlain and other European leaders sacrificed justice for the sake of peace; they got neither. Of all the good that modernity has brought, a major fault has been its elevation of freedom to a first thing. Freedom is a necessary condition for human flourishing, but when it comes prior to truth both are lost. I would argue that the pursuit of freedom without reference to moral truth is at the root of many of today’s social problems and leaves mankind without either authentic freedom or life-saving truth.
What then are the things that ought to be sought first? Christians understand the very first thing is right relationship with God. Jesus taught us that the greatest commandment is to love God with one’s whole heart, soul and mind. The second is to love one’s neighbor as oneself (cf. Matt 22:36-39). It is love for God out of which all other love, including authentic self-love, finds its proper ordering. Second things follow from the first.
For those of us in the clergy, this ought never to be forgotten. “First things†for a pastor of souls is their salvation. Helping people to live an intense relationship of love for God must be our first priority. Too often churchmen, including this one, are tempted to treat as first things, very important but still second things such as immigration reform, ecology, and the struggle for social justice. I suppose too that looking back over the years, many of my articles might be criticized as appearing to focus solely on second things. It seems that the more we focus solely on these issues the further we slip behind both in the pursuit of justice as well as in the numbers of believers in our pews. Lewis’ law continues to hold. The more we short shrift first things for second, the more we fail to achieve either.
I suspect C. S. Lewis would admonish us that as pastors of souls, while certainly not ignoring second things, our primary focus ought to be on evangelizing, catechizing, and strengthening the faith of those souls entrusted to us. Love and concern for our brothers and sisters in the human family flows more readily from a strong love of our common Father. I suspect that when we as leaders in the Church focus on first things first, then the faithful will be in better condition to take care of the rest. After all, Jesus himself taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “seek ye first his kingdom…†(Matt 6:33).