Honorable Festivity: An Oxymoron? | Prof. Michael Foley

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Professor Michael Foley examines the idea of honorable festivity, demonstrating how human culture elevates the basic act of eating into a dramatic, artistic experience. He then explores how Catholic tradition further transforms this cultural practice, particularly through the Eucharist and traditional feast days. Finally, he addresses modern complications to honorable festivity, including the decline of family dinners, socio-economic segregation, and the moralization of food choices, offering potential solutions to these challenges.

This lecture was given on March 8th, 2024, at Our Lady of Corpus Christi Retreat Center.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speaker:

Michael Foley is a Catholic theologian, a Professor of Patristics at Baylor University, and the author of over 400 articles and seventeen books, including the Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity, Drinking with the Saints, and Dining with the Saints. He can speak on a wide variety of topics touching upon Catholicism, culture, and liturgy.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Thomistic Institute podcast.
0:06.8	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:13.1	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.1	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us
0:22.2	at to mystic institute.org. Thank you very much, and it's a real delight to be with you on this
0:28.4	intellectual retreat together. I've had some experiences teaching or talking at Timistic Institute
0:34.6	chapters, but this is the first retreat that I've been a part of.
0:39.3	And what a fun theme. And as father mentioned earlier tonight, perhaps a fitting contrast is
0:46.0	spring break, which is breaking out across the country where we see many examples perhaps
0:51.2	of dishonorable festivity. And that's one of the reasons why I raised the question
0:56.9	whether honorable festivity is an oxymoron,
1:01.3	which you may recall is a figure of speech
1:05.2	in which seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side.
1:18.5	The word oxymoron is an oxymoron, because oxy is Greek for sharp and moron is Greek for dull. And of course, there are all sorts of running jokes about whether
1:26.6	certain terms in our language are oxymorons.
1:30.5	For example, military intelligence, business ethics, cancel culture, which I thought was really astute, because if it's canceling, it's not a culture,
1:47.8	right? It's a negation. But my personal favorite, Microsoft works. So the question for tonight is,
2:00.4	is honorable festivity one of these oxymorons?
2:04.4	Because if I mentioned to you festivity, feasting, partying, what images come to mind?
2:16.0	Are they images perhaps of excess, right, of a lack of decorum perhaps. Whereas if I ask you
2:26.0	to picture something honorable, you might picture something doing the right thing, but maybe
2:32.4	not having a lot of fun.
	...

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