The St. Austin Review

Sample Article: The Quixotic Catholic

Hailed by many as both the first and the greatest novel ever written, the immortal adventures of the very mortal Knight of La Mancha are so indomitable and unique that they earned and engendered their own adjective. But the quixotic is not merely the stuff of impossible dreams but is also the broken reflection of bright truth that shimmers through the glass darkly.

Though Quixote often errs in his ideas—mistaking windmills for giants, sheep flocks for enemy armies, barber basins for mythical helmets, and strumpets for grand ladies—his ideals are always correct. Though his actions prove unreasonable in the last analysis, the faith behind them is reasonable, showing that the union of faith and reason can withstand the mistakes and the madness of imperfect creatures. Let it be said that this is not an excuse or an argument for error or irrationality, like a barrel of soul-buttering hogwash from Dickens’ sycophantic Mr. Skimpole.

Such unctuous apple-polishing has nothing to do with being quixotic, for being quixotic has nothing to do with being quaint or cracked. It means being committed to the epitomes of reality and the intrinsic indissolubility of faith and reason. It means being a lover of sublime truth and being unafraid to suffer for it. It means enduring rejection while rejoicing in the journey. It means using the imagination to clearly see and understand the divine subsisting in the things that have been made. To be quixotic is to be Catholic, as not only the life of the novel shows but also the life of its creator.