Pilgrim of the Absolute

Leon Bloy
Pilgrim of the Absolute
(also literary criticism titled “Wrestlers of Christ” by Karl Pfleger)

“The word excess – when it comes to the love one must bear God- it seems unintelligible to me.”

“There is but one sadness, and that is for us not to be saint.”
-Bloy

For Bloy, the ambition of being a saint let to nothing but sadness. This mystic of 19th Century Paris led a life of poverty, suffering, and infamy. His literary genius garnered recognition, but proved an ineffective means of providing for his family, especially as his pen increasing let fly scathing criticisms of the lukewarm consumerist culture of his age. His friends described him as “a Job in the dung heap of modern culture.” The deeper his rebuke of cultural excess, the deeper his isolation and poverty. For goodness and right, Bloy knew no measure. To survive he begged on the streets, begged from associated, and maintained a routine of devout Catholicism. By the time of his death, he’d written 30 books, and lost two children to malnutrition, the fruit of his poverty.

To snag a lyric from Ryan Adams, himself a modern self-martyr, “Is it possible to love someone too much? You bet.” St. Augustine spoke of exceeding the measure of one’s condition as the essence of disorder. Living in the “Absolute” is not for us to do. We are relative, while God alone is absolute. Bloy’s life provides a haunting display of a man ripe with sincerity and authenticity, yet out of order. Like Nietzsche, or other brazen arsonists of their own souls, Bloy’s suffering fire must be quenched by the tears of readers. My tears have been shed, and thanks to the love of my compassionate wife, the spell Bloy cast over my heart has been broken. The tragedy of his pursuit of absolutes only becomes clear when I turn by face back to The Absolute, and give thanks for all that I have been given.