[…] For such boasters are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. Their end will be according to their deeds. (2 Corinthians 11:10-15)
When I was a ten year old boy I used to watch The Saint. The British series played Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. That was back during the days we had four channels. The Saint played on channel 13. Fortunately, my father liked the mystery series and I was allowed to watch it.
The protagonist was Simon Templar, a sort of a modern Robin Hood who always managed to solve the crime, return the money to its rightful owners, and disappear without a trace leaving only a card with the stick figure of a man donning a halo.
Later in life, I learned that certain men never actually forget their early fantasies of being Robin Hood. Simon Templar is a representation of that fantasy. The author, Leslie Charteris described him as “a buccaneer in the suits of Savile Row, amused, cool, debonair, with hell-for-leather blue eyes and a saintly smile” but the Saint is no saint at all. He is only a part-time saint. His motivations are noble but he transits in and out of legality following his own moral code.
Becoming a man requires that we bury the Robin Hood fantasy. It is OK for a young lad but it does not fit well with grown up men. We are meant to recognize that we men are moral agents in a very limited way until Christ removes sin from our race. Our moral model is Jesus. He can fix the world without violating moral limits in the slightest. His sanctity is the kind of model real men have to look up to. Hanging from a Roman cross is not a job for sissies. Achieving that without uttering a single insult while still caring for the welfare of Mom and friends: that’s a real man, that’s a real saint. How far is yours truly from that splendid model!
In the last few hours I learned of the demise of a man who tried to personify that Robin Hood model even in his older years. There he seemed to have taken refuge from the sins of his youth. That’s my impression. I never liked him personally. It appeared to me he had taken on a persona that was not him. Some wiser people thought along those lines as well. The English word for “persona” comes from an old Latin term which literally means “a mask” of the kind actors used in antiquity — isn’t that remarkable?
Since my entering the Catholic Church, I was accused many times of wearing a mask. I must admit that my ugly sinful self forces me to work hard hiding some traits. Bad temper is one of them. There are others but that one is the ugliest. Progress has been made in the last two decades. But the mask falls in the Confessional. It’s got to fall there in that little Calvary where we confront the sight of our souls naked. There we dare to show ourselves as we are: not innocent and guiltless as Our Savior but as convicts of His very death. He took that death because we are guilty and deserve exactly what He took. Because He loves us, He took our place. His Mother wished to take His place on the Cross because she loved Him perfectly. Spes nostra and still her perfection is very far from our miserable state!
That is why grown men should abandon the Robin Hood complex. Riding a white horse wielding the large sword of justice is not fitting for a sinful man. In our human wars we strive not to die for justice but to make our enemy die for it. We are not Christ. Most times our swords are swords of injustice tainted with all our vices. Here on earth, the man who lives by the sword dies by the sword. Get down from that high horse and work for peace.
The Internet universe — its Catholic realm at least — has had too many Robin Hoods, and (beware) a number of them are robbing hoods. “Their end will be according to their deeds” goes the Apostolic dictum. We should all tremble reading those words. Going around accusing our brethren of real or imagined faults is the business of the satan. If you wish to help the cause of the Cross, allow the saint to enter. It takes a real man to accomplish that.
For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. (Saint Paul of Tarsus, in Romans 7:22-23)
Quod scripsi, scripsi 