St. Clare of Assisi firmly took on a commitment to poverty when, at the age of 18, she heard St. Francis preach in the church of San Giorgio in her hometown of Assisi. She left behind all her possessions and went on to serve as the first Abbess of San Damiano with the order of religious sisters known today as the Poor Clares.
The Poor Clares own nothing and spend their time in prayer and penance. It’s a difficult life, marked by complete focus on spiritual discipline.
This is why it’s so odd that St. Clare is the patron saint of television.
As so often with these strange, seemingly random pairings (St. Bernardino and advertising, St. Columbanus and motorcycles, St. Eligius and gas station employees ...), St. Clare had absolutely nothing to do with television. She lived long before its invention and if she was around today I suspect she wouldn’t be a couch potato. But she’s the patron saint of television for ... reasons.
I do find the pairing worth thinking about, though. What’s the connection of Franciscan poverty and television?
It seems to me there are two kinds of poverty – one that takes and one that gives.
When I was growing up back in the 1980s, my brothers and I would watch a local Christian television station. Ironically, one of the most frequent advertisements shown on that channel depicted children sitting on the couch and mindlessly watching television. The local garbageman came in and dumped trash directly into the television set while they stared blankly at the screen. He chuckles and says “kids these days,” before letting their mother know that the television is all ready to go for another week. She thanks him as he leaves.
I mention this story for a few reasons. First, I really like watching television. I grew up watching Mr. Rogers and Saved By the Bell and Cardinals baseball games. Second, when I say that television is impoverishing, I don't mean it in the same way that commercial did. I mean to say it’s a tool that, like any other tool, takes away even as it gives. This is the case with all tools and there’s nothing we can do to avoid the trade-off.
When the written word was popularized, for instance, people’s memories grew worse, and the invention of the word processor caused a decline in the skill of handwriting. When it comes to television, some shows are pretty good, some are “trash,” but anytime we choose to watch television we’re choosing it over some other activity. It’s important to know what the trade-offs are. Sometimes they’re worth it. Often they’re not.
Trade-offs
One thing I’ve noticed about my own viewing habit is that television moves me into a state of passivity. I don’t contribute anything to the entertainment. I simply absorb it. Television shapes us, not only culturally but also in how we receive information. This is how it impoverishes, by putting a boundary around our senses and imagination. All our senses are focused on the screen and we become insensible to everything else. The limited world created by the television engages all our attention.
This is why I’ve found that even shows that have value need to be consumed in moderation. For instance, these days I’d rather go outside and play catch with my son than watch baseball on the television. Watching baseball isn’t the same as actively playing. The one is active and the other is passive. This isn’t to say I never watch sporting events on television anymore, but it does mean that I’ve come to realize it isn’t healthy for me to watch hours of sports night after night, or ignore my family to watch a game.
I find it fascinating that St. Clare has become the patron of television because she saw Holy Mass played, as it were, on a television screen when she was too sick to personally attend. It’s great to be able to watch Mass on television when the need arises, but anyone who has lived through the experience of a live-streamed Mass knows it isn’t the same as being there. Participation is much more difficult, the senses more limited, the experience less vibrant. Something vital is missing.
Active poverty
Contrast the impoverishment of television with the impoverishment of St. Clare’s Franciscan penance. She and her fellow Poor Clares renounce possessions, practice mortifications, and discipline themselves to periods of prayer and silence. Their poverty is active and participatory. Through it, they are seeking out a great mystery. They desire poverty in order to remove distractions and enable them to focus more intensely on the meaning of their existence, love of God, and what it means to have an eternal destiny. If they are sacrificing something, they do so out of the greatness of love.
Television is what I retreat to when I’m exhausted and struggling to focus on something more worthwhile. It’s a (hopefully) temporary indulgence and I’m not sure if it’s helping or harming me. I do know that it makes me feel safe. There’s a comfortable feeling in watching a re-run of an old, familiar show or watching my favorite sports team. Maybe, for an hour a day, I simply need the comfort of those boundaries. It would be a shame, though, if I did so all day.
My preference is to remove the boundaries as much as possible, engage fully in life, and accept the danger of not always quite knowing how to entertain myself. Maybe it isn’t all that bad a thing to occasionally feel the poverty of silence, or unease, or not knowing what to do. These are human feelings, part of the experience of being alive.
St. Clare says that we become what we love. She’s quite right. This is why it’s worth thinking about poverty, what space we make in our lives and how we give our love away. We only have a few short years on this planet; let’s be sure we’re living them to the fullest.
