A Lesson from Savonarola

When I was at school, I used to line up for lunch just across the hall from an enormous painting that hung outside the dining room. It was called: The Cleansing of the Vanities by Savonarola. It depicted gaudy artworks, clothes and jewellery being piled up outside an opulent palace.

I was to later discover that the Dominican friar Giralamo Savonarola was behind this mass burning of the opulence of renaissance Florence. He saw around him a people who were possessed by materialism, including many members of the church. The only way around this for him was to destroy all that was leading people astray, in other words, the material goods. Then, he deduced, all would return to normal. He was so successful in this that he became the leader of the Florentine republic, whipping the whole populace into a zealous frenzy. This went the way of most frenzies and passed. The people were then left with a zealot whom they had made leader and who, by this time, was oppressing them. They wanted back a few cultural pleasures, but were not allowed. There was a revolt, and then Savonarola was deposed.

Savonarola had good ideals. The culture he lived in became self-destructive, inner looking, selfish and weak. The reaction he elicited from people tapped into their hopes and their desire for a meaningful life that was not dictated by material goods or aspirations. The people of Florence knew, as we know, that all we see around us will perish, and all that will be left is inside our hearts and souls.

That is at the heart of our liturgy today. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. If we spend our lives building up a castle around us, the only thing that we can be sure of is that it will fall apart around us.  Material goods will pass, positions of influence will fade, but matters of the soul will endure. Our society seems to encourage us to build up material and consumer goods alone. The unwritten rule seems to be that if we have enough, we will be happy or at least stifle or sufficiently mask our unhappiness. Fortunately it does not take a lot of reflection to realise that this is a hollow way of living.

This is not a call to go and destroy the cultural artefacts of our society. Savonarola did that and he was wrong. It is a matter of balance. Is our spiritual life and practice dictated to by our work, sport or material ends, or do these contribute to our spiritual life? Only one of these will endure, and only one is worth putting our greatest effort into. The gospel challenges us to remember that all we see around us will fade. Only what is within us will remain. The challenge is to have a sufficiently strong spirit, and for this to happen we have to be decisive and determined.

Where will be our focus?

Homily, 1st August 2010, 18th Sunday of Year C, OLQP Cathedral Broome.