← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Christian Stoicism (Can You Be a Stoic Catholic?)
00:09:09
Stoicism has its roots in Ancient Greece and Rome (300 BC) but it's seen a resurgence on social media in recent years. Stoic virtues like prudence, fortitude, and self-control can be very attractive, and Christians might wonder, "is Stoicism compatible with my faith?" The answer is: yes and no. Fr. Mike breaks down the good and true aspects of Stoicism—and he also uncovers where it falls short, and only Christianity can bridge the gap.
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Father Mike Schmitz
I'm personally drawn to that mentality or that philosophy of stoicism because there's something that's helpful for me as a human being, but also something helpful for me as a Christian. If you want to sum up stoicism, it might be something like this indifference. It might be a lot like acceptance. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension presents. So remember reading a book years ago by a man named Father Romano Guardini? And in it he talks about. And I've talked about it here on this channel, he talks about the gift, the virtue of acceptance. And stoicism has a lot of that, that acceptance, that recognition that my circumstances might not be the circumstances I want. My situation might not be the situation I want. The relationships I have might not be the relationships that I want. I might not even be the person I want to be. In the midst of that, my first movement has to be acceptance. I have to accept, okay, this might not be the circumstance or situation or relationship, whatever that I want it to be, but this is the one. It is. This is the circumstance I'm in. And so if I'm going to do anything with it, I have to first accept the fact that, okay, this is reality. It's such a realistic view of the world, such a realistic philosophy that just says, okay, I might not like it, but this is how it is. So this crossover between stoicism and Christianity, where as Christians, we have to, of course, accept reality. I might not like the ways my heart is broken, but I have to accept that these are the ways my heart's broken if I'm going to ask the Lord into my heart as it is. That makes sense. Another connection point is indifference. So not. Not the I don't care indifference, not the indifference of apathy, but what Christians would call holy indifference. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, he had that great prayer that said, God, I don't ask for either health or sickness. I don't ask for wealth or poverty. I don't ask for fame, good reputation or bad reputation. I just want you. And again, there's something about that holy indifference that is connected to stoicism, right? That. That sense of, okay, however things are, I accept them as they are. I'm not going to lose it if they're not the way. I mean, there's something, again, as I said, something so good and so human, so mature about that willingness to accept our situations, a willingness to accept people as they are, a willingness to accept our circumstances, a willingness to even have this indifference. You Know the concept of being hangry? I'm sure, of course we do. You know, you're hungry and angry at the same time. Or because you're hungry, you become angry, you become irritable. It's the whole basis for the Snickers commercial. Like, hey, you're not yourself when you're. When you're hungry and you give the person a stickers. Well, I remember just kind of having that thought of, like, well, you know, being hangry is just normal. And it is. It's pretty. It's pretty common. It's just like, you know, I'm tired, so I'm irritable, or I'm hungry, so I'm irritable. But I heard someone talk about that and said, you know what? While it's very normal, it's also really immature that one of the tasks of the human person is to become able to regulate our emotions so that, yeah, I'm not hungry. The temptation is to be irritable or I'm tired. The irritation is to be, you know, kind of short with people. But I can regulate my emotions well enough that. That's not what it means. It doesn't automatically mean that. Right. It means that even when I'm hungry, even when I'm tired, even when things are not going my way, I can rise above those emotions. I can regulate my emotions. And I really love that concept because that part of that is stoicism. And I think that's one of the reasons why I really like this connection between Christianity and. And stoicism. There's this quote, a quote from a woman. Her name is Marisa McCoy. She's a Christian, and she said it like this. The capacity to let go of what doesn't help me to love God or others. This is holy indifference. The capacity to let go of what doesn't help me to love God or others while staying engaged with what does. I just. I love that it's so good. That's this holy indifference. That's a certain kind of stoic mentality. The capacity to let go of what does not help me to love God or others, and the willingness to stay engaged with all that does. At the same time, there's a diverging point between stoicism and Christianity. The number one diverging point is that a person is stoic whether or not they believe in God. A person can be a stoic person to say, I accept my. Accept reality, accept things as they are, because I'm just me. The Christian recognizes that the reason why we can accept things as they are the reason why we can have holy indifference is because we believe that we're living in a dynamic and loving relationship with God, our Father, Son and Holy Spirit, right with the Trinity. We believe that God is intensely involved in our lives. And therefore I can have this holy indifference because I know all of it can be used for God's purposes, not just, you know, I can regulate my emotions, not just simply. I can be impassive in the face of sorrow, or I can. I can be unmoved in the. In the face of fear, but that sense of, I can trust. I can trust in good times that this was brought to me by the Lord because I need it. I can trust that in bad times, I can accept this and trust in the Lord because I need this. There is something remarkably unique about the Christian perspective of acceptance and holy indifference that is so different than the Stoics, because again, I can see everything as coming from my Father's hand, whether that's from his perfect will or from his permissive will. All of it comes to me because God wants to make me into something more. He wants to make me like Himself again. That's the goal of Christianity, right, is to become like Jesus. So salvation is not simply I'm saved from. From. From hell. I remember hearing. I think it was. Michael Barber wrote this in a book called Salvation A Catholic Church Perspective. He said, salvation is being saved from being unchristlike, that God's grace is given to us. We're brought into this relationship with God so that we can become like Him. And there's something so powerful. So I have holy indifference. I can have acceptance because it all came from him again, either from his perfect will, I want you to have this. Or from his permissive will, where he says, I'll allow this in your life because I know that I can use it for something greater. So the number one difference between Stoics and Christians is there's a relationship that Christians, we live out of. We live out of this relationship with God, who we know is deeply involved in our lives and who loves us very much. And again, that's the next. I guess you'd say distinction is love. The Stoic can be impassive in the midst of a difficult and dangerous world. But the Christian is called to love in the midst of a difficult and dangerous world. We're called to not only deny ourselves, pick up our cross and fall after the Lord Jesus. We're called at the same time we're doing that. We're called to love the Lord our God with everything we've got in our neighbors as ourselves. So the key difference between a Stoic and Christian is this relationship with God. Another key difference is we're called to more than just being impassive and more than just being indifferent. We're called to love. Not only that, we're called to hope. Again, that's this recognition of a Stoic and say, no, I find myself becoming interiorly free when I am most indifferent to my circumstances and most indifferent to my situations. That's powerful, that's wonderful. But the Christian has hope. And the hope the Christian has is that God is here. And regardless of what happens to me, God will be here. God is with me right now, and regardless of whatever happens, God will be with me later. And so we have hope as Christians. And maybe there's more things where we diverge from Stoics, but maybe the last one is grace. And maybe grace is encapsulating everything else I've said up to this point. But grace is what enables us to have that relationship with God. Grace is what enables us to have love. Grace is what enables us to have hope that we're not on our own again. There's something powerful about people who have that will of steel, right? Those people who have incredible interior fortitude, the miracle of Christianity. And part of the great news of Christianity is that when we don't have that incredible strength, we don't have that incredible fortitude. That when we're at our worst, God's grace comes to us. That when I actually have run out of strength, God's strength is given to us. That actually, you know, when there is nothing left, I have to offer nothing left, I have to give. God himself is the one who's giving. He's the one who's offering. He's the one who's supporting and sustaining all of us. Now, you don't have to go through this difficult and dangerous world on your own, but God is with you. And that is so, so incredibly powerful. And that's one of the many ways where Christianity diverges from Stoicism. There are points of connection, and those points of connection are good and true and beautiful. But there's many points of divergence as well. And those points of divergence when it comes to the life of the Christian are even better, even more beautiful and even truer. Also, how about this? I mentioned about a bunch of people who are like, fans of Stoicism, maybe friends of Ryan Holiday, who, again, great author. I really like his stuff. I have other thoughts on this. Put them down in the comments. Let me know what you think. Anyways, as I said, God bless. Who knows what the heck is going on here. Also, I've tried this. Who knows if it's anything's going to.