By DONALD DeMARCO
There is a scene in the movie Moonstruck (1987) in which Rose Castorini puts to Johnny Cammareri, her near son-in-law, the question, “Why do men chase women?” It was a question that had bothered her for some time. Rose, played by Olympia Dukakis, knew who she was and was happy about her station in life. She was a wife and mother and found no reason to stray from these roles.
Why would her husband and other men she encountered chase women? Johnny, played by Danny Aiello. is a weak and indecisive character. He tries to accommodate Rose and fumbles for an answer. He suggests that men want to get back what God took from Adam so that they can become complete. Rose shakes her head in disbelief.
Slightly exasperated, she repeats the question. Finally, he says, rather uncertainly, “Because they fear death?” “That’s it,” Rose blurts out, “Thank you, thank you for answering my question.” It is interesting to note that Moonstruck begins in a funeral parlor. We hear strains from La Bohème throughout the movie, a tragic opera which concludes with the death of Mimi, Rodolfo’s beloved.
Had she asked either Archbishop Sheen or psychotherapist Rollo May the same question, she would have received the same answer, though more directly and more finely articulated. In referring to our aphrodisiac society, Sheen said: “Sex smothered the reality of death by making the intensity of an emotion atone for the absence of a goal or purpose in life, and the fact that one must die.”
According to Rollo May, “Death is the symbol of the ultimate impotence and finiteness, and anxiety arising from this inescapable experience, and calls forth the struggle to make ourselves infinite by way of sex. Sexual activity is the most ready way to silence the dread of death.”
Realistically speaking, sex cannot defeat death. Hence, Rose’s realism makes it difficult to understand why men chase women and is confused as well as pained by her husband’s lack of fidelity. Death, especially for Christians, however, has a utility. On the one hand, there is death as the termination of life. This is the death that we all fear and how, at times, we try to blot it out by pleasure, the accumulation of possessions, or by some other anodyne. Death, however, persists.
On the other hand, there is the living death through the acceptance of the cross. In Matt. 16: 24-25 we read: “If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind; he must take up his cross and come with me. Who cares for his own safety is lost; but if a man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will find his true self.”
“I die daily,” exclaimed St. Paul.
By dying to ourselves and making room for Christ to dwell within us allows us to live more abundantly. This is a paradox, but it is also a truism. T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land, may be understood as portraying two types of characters. The worldly type that experiences death-in-life and the Christian type that experiences life-in-death. The former contributes to the death of culture while the latter provides it with renewed life. Death surrounds us. But it is to the credit of the perceptive Christian to find life within death. This enables him, ultimately, to accept the Resurrection.
The conjugal union between husband and wife demands that in dying to themselves they live to each other. Given this perspective, there should be no need for either spouse to stray or to be unfaithful to the other. They have enlarged their respective lives through sacrificial love. They know their place. The desire to “chase” others is greatly reduced or entirely extinguished. Dying to one’s self, in this sense, does not diminish the person, but enlarges him. The man becomes a husband, the woman a wife.
To welcome death is necessary even to exercise the will so that one can make a choice. As G.K. Chesterton has remarked, “Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. In that sense every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.” If you choose to marry one woman, you die to all the others. If you choose the priesthood, you die to getting married. Unless one is prepared to make this small self-sacrifice, he is not capable of choosing at all. In fact, he is not capable of living.
The legendary Don Juan is not content with one woman. He must have them all. Therefore, he cannot give himself to any one woman and deprives himself of a true friendship with any member of the opposite sex. One can never be content unless he is prepared to give up things. And he must give up a great deal every time he makes a choice. This dying unto one’s self is requisite to the moral life. For the will to act, it must be able to die to something. If I purchase a car, I should not continue to regret all those cars I did not buy. We will not enjoy the car we bought unless we die to all those that we did not buy.
The central paradox of Christianity is that by dying to ourselves, we gain ourselves. To say “yes” to Christ is to say “no” or to die to everything opposed to Him. Our little deaths to what we do not need allow us to live truly by all the things that we do need.
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