The Catholic Book Club discussion

6. This book is The Awakening of Miss Prim and current progressive political beliefs are often referred to as "woke." What's the difference?

I think you can be "woke" but not "awakened." Woke describes one who is not asleep. Awakened implies some awareness of one's situation and that the one who is woke has some thoughts or perspective on it.

Wokeness is awareness of the current political issues, very much tied to virtue signaling and pride.

Awakening in the book means an opening of the eyes of the soul to the realities that one may have been blind to before. Maybe the vision has been clouded by the noise "out there" and reason has been influenced by ideologues or propaganda. It takes silence and detachment to undo that influence or at least gain a different perspective. This awakening is the opposite of wokeness in that one needs to start (or restart) from a place of humility.

Stef wrote: "Wokeness is awareness of the current political issues, very much tied to virtue signaling and pride.

Awakening in the book means an opening of the eyes of the soul to the realities that one may ha..."

I think that's right. There was a reference at one point to San Ireneo as being contra mundial, against the world. So "awakening" in this sense very much involves being countercultural, and perhaps requires a separation from worldly affairs, thus the perennial value of retreats and pilgrimages.

"Woke," on the other hand, is very much a sign that one is very much with the world, with whatever current progressive ideology proclaims, reaching the depths of insanity where one is now supposed to refer to sex as something assigned at birth rather than recognizing that it is assigned, by God, at conception.

Well put, Stef and John. Interestingly, “wokeism” is often described as a religion (think of the kneeling, the judgment, the “doctrine,” the public worship/protests, etc.). Yet as Stef points out, it is a religion tied to pride—and we all know where that leads! I remember St. Padre Pio saying somewhere that the most important of all the virtues is humility, because without it none of the other virtues is truly possible. I think he's right. Either way, the wokeism of today and the “awakening” experienced in San Ireneo are based on very different ideals and have very different aims, as John notes.