I have come to the decision to stop writing on Facebook except on groups that are not concerned with politics or religion. My account on FB will stay open and those wishing to correspond with me can do so by private message or e-mail. This is not simply a Lenten observance but my own brennender Sorge about the way the world is going and its effects in my own life. So it is back to blogs and books…

Several factors have combined to shake me to the core. One is finding myself confronted with what is more or less well named “woke” ideology. It is a disease that infects society all the way to certain persons more or less close to me. I smell its fetid breath all over me. It is truly a demon from hell. It has taken over our political and formerly spiritual institutions. It brings our world ever closer to total war.

It is better not to give any more details than that.

Perhaps it is my dribbling short texts on Facebook that has worn down my desire to write more serious blog articles or books, or even to read. Other writers have faced the same burn-out or writer’s block, the feeling of having nothing to write about.

For now, the best thing is to make a good Lent – eat more simply, get exercise, spend more time in prayer and serious reading. The sea sailing season is not yet with us, but there are rivers to explore by kayak in my area. Closeness to nature is essential.

I am thinking of returning to the Northern Catholicism theme on which I have already written but which I need to develop. The notion is usually severely criticised by Roman Catholic apologists for sinning in the same way as phyletism in Orthodoxy, meaning the desire to link the Church to the destiny of a specific nation. This notion could be seen as implicit in Gallicanism and Anglicanism, even though the former remained in communion with Rome and was absorbed into the Ultramontanist mainstream in the nineteenth century.

Another thing that motivates me is the political pressure we are suffering against Christian and western culture. Few people identify with that culture, having become atheists or “woke”. Perhaps my aspiration remains at the stage of Novalis’ fragment Die Christenheit oder Europa. Also read Kleingeld, Pauline (2008). “Romantic Cosmopolitanism: Novalis’s “Christianity or Europe”. Neither Novalis in his time or I in mine are deluded to think we can bring back the European middle ages. It is a parable of principles and ideas that we are called to live in our own time. Our own time is not modernity or modernism, but a pilgrimage to God’s kingdom, all the aspirations and inspirations than built northern Europe.

I believe in Europe, not the bureaucracy in Brussels that is bringing us to a dystopian Orwellian nightmare, but in what emerged from the ashes of the Roman Empire and the so-called Dark Ages. There was a world of harmony, beauty and spirituality – even if there was also human sin, sickness and death.

I am minded to follow Novalis’ example by writing. I am not a poet, but I write reasonable prose. Language is only an imperfect vehicle for conveying ideas, and it must not be poisoned by the ideologies of madness surrounding us like unchained demons. As I have said before, this is my priestly ministry. I must try to focus better as the years have passed from my marital separation and my soul and mind begin to heal.

I regret having been distracted by writing little ditties on Facebook and losing my energy to write more seriously. I am thankful never to have dabbled in Twitter, Instagram and the like. I have a YouTube channel, but my videos are rare and of poor quality, and mostly about sailing trips. I should be able to get back into shape after a short time. Lent provides a perfect opportunity.