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January 22, 2006
12 Apostles
Not a novel observation, but one that occurred to me as I was listening to the homily at Mass.
12 is a number of completeness. So why didn't Jesus pick 11 apostles? Why 12?
12 is the number of completeness, the completeness of the body of Christ and as its head, Christ leads the body but is more than just another part of it. When He ascended to His Father, tweleve were still left--completeness, headed by Completeness.
Not astounding, but well worth considering.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:24 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 24, 2006
I Love Sobering Thoughts
So here's another. Sobering and at the same time uplifting and joyful.
Listen to the Silence: A Retreat with Père Jacques
TR/Ed Francis J. MurphyWe follow the opposite path. Christ started out from contemplation to come to the perfection of obedience. We must start out from the perfection of obedience to arrive at contemplation. This is the reverse route we must follow. In the depths of our being our prayer is worth what our obedience is worth. Our embrace of God will be in accordance with our embrace of his will.
This follows from the discussion of the other day. If God is simple and uniate, His will is not separable from Himself. We cannot find a way to God without embracing all of God. This includes his will. Thus, the measure of our prayer and embrace of God is the obedience and humility we show in following His will completely.
This said, there is always some difficulty knowing exactly what His will is for us because we see now "as in a glass darkly." We certainly know the outlines of His will for us, and we can discern the "danger areas," the arenas of temptation. Sometimes it is difficult to know whether God wants us to do this one thing or this equally worthy other thing. Obedience consists of praying it through, seeking the counsel of a wise spiritual director, and listening with all our might before one makes a choice. When one does this, one has done everything within one's power to discern the proper end. God will either direct us, or, as I often think the case, leave us to choose, desiring both ends and giving us the delight of choosing the end that most suits us.
Obedience is so important that St. Teresa of Avila advised the sisters in her foundations to follow instructions they knew to be "wrong" (I assume this meant interior knowledge of their impropriety) so long as they were not sinful. For example, if a spiritual director told you to do something you were not inclined to do and that you knew was not something you should do (speaking only prudentially)--it would better to do it anyway and demonstrate obedience to those God has put in authority over you AND at the same time to show humility and meekness in your approach to God. St. Teresa pointed out that if God wanted the circumstances to change, he would cause the director's mind to change, or would replace the director with one who better understood the circumstances.
This is radical obedience--the perfection of obedience that is demanded from those who would embrace God's will. What does this mean in practice? Well, let's take a simple, but controversial example. Let us say you go to a parish where the Priest, in contradiction to one understanding of the rubrics tells the congregation to hold hands during the Our Father. Our immediate obedience is owed to the most immediate director. St. Teresa did not contradict her own director because her Bishop or the prior general said she could do otherwise. Perfect obedience would require that we obey the immediate authority.
Fortunately, I have almost never heard a Priest tell everyone to join hands, even if he does so as example on the altar. This isn't usually an issue. But it is a test of your willingness to be obedient. We understand it to be technically wrong, but we are told to do it anyway.
The measure of our prayer is the obedience we show to those whom God has placed in legitimate authority over us. This is scary and very, very difficult. But it is also liberating. If I know that it is not sinful, even if it seems wrong to me, I do better to follow the instruction than to follow my own lead. It is a training ground for humility, patience, meekness, and obedience and it is a very direct way of saying "I love you," to God.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:34 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 25, 2006
A Timely Continuation
from Listen to the Silence: A Retreat with Père Jacques
Tr/Ed Francis J. MurphyWhatever brings us to this point [obedience[ be it a superior or a sorrow, a sickness or a job, it is alway God who comes and speaks to us. When we embrace obedience, we embrace God. When we obey with a smile, we smile at God and welcome him joyfully into our home. To dream of profound prayer, like that of the saints, while withholding the obedience of the saints, is a contradiction.
It's remarkably simple. We cannot pray like saints if we do not live like saints. Or more simply stated, one cannot be a saint without being a saint. Period. One can't hope for deep, profound, unitive prayer while one is chasing every idle pleasure that passes by. Every licit pleasure is not necessarily something to be pursued or obtained. Licit pleasures should be used as a means to the end, which is God. A hike in the mountains should have as its end, a closer walk with God. A cruise in the Caribbean should have as its destination close communication with God. There may be any number of intermediate "ends," for example strengthening and revivifying the relationship one has with one's spouse; however, this in intself becomes a further means to closeness with God. All service, all leisure, all joy, and all sorrow should lead inevitably to the All in All. And one of the ways this happens is when we humbly obey.
What this leads me to is to ask myself, where am I lacking in obedience? Where do I fail God? He alone knows how many ways I fail in obedience, and in my prayer, if He is willing, He will show them to me one by one. Disobedience isn't always obvious. I have many clever ploys to protect myself and my habits from change. But if I wish to live in God, I must ask Him to reveal to me all these places where I fail in obedience.
Obedience is a critical means to the most important of Ends. What we start in obedience ends in growing love.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:11 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Deus Caritas Est
Encyclical Letter "Deus Caritas Est"
Obviously, I can't comment as I just received notice of it--but for those who would like to look, the first encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI--his Christmas present to the Church.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 26, 2006
Love is Patient. . .
I have not read more than the introduction to the new encyclical, but the title alone was enough to make me think and to consider all of the misconceptions and difficulties that center around the idea of love.
When we begin to talk about love there tend to be two very strong reactions. Amongst the intellectuals and those who are emotionally distant, we tend to get the "Love is an act of will," school of thought. Among those who find things too rigorously logical and emotionally sterile, we get the notion that love is an emotion. On the part of the first opinion, I find the thought of God conforming to that definition of love frightening and off-putting. Gritting one's teeth and enduring despite the desire to be elsewhere is certainly an act of will, and it can encompass one motion of love, but it certainly doesn't define the fullness of love--one grits ones teeth and endures because there is a link or a bond there worthy of preservation. On the other hand, the "love is emotion" school, leaves us abandoned to the vagaries of whim. When the feeling of love comes over us, we'll pay attention, otherwise, you're left on your own--there's a bond, but where the will is not united the bond is merely how I feel at the moment. Neither extreme gives us a very appealing notion of what it might mean when we say that God is love.
Neither of these perceptions is entirely correct on its own. Rather it is the combination of the two that gives us some sense of the dimensionality of love. It is interesting that the word used for love with respect to God is not "amor" but "caritas." In fact, this caritas, for a very long time, was translated as "charity." And charity is perhaps closer to the spirit of what is intended than is "amor," linked as it is to eros. Caritas and charity both carry with them the very word "caring." Caring is love in action--it is both an act of will and a movement of will toward the other. Caring implies a bond--in some cases a bond of emotion, but certainly a bond of duty, depending upon the nature of the caring. A nurse might not be emotionally bonded to her patients, but one of the reasons many people become nurses is that there is a deep seated desire to help others. A priest may not particularly like all of his parishioners, but out of duty he cares for each one to the best of his ability.
We are human. Duty fails, bonds are strained, emotions come and go, the strength of desire and will fluctuate. God is God. He is, in this sense the unmoved mover--not that He is emotionally distant, but rather, none of these things that strengthens or weakens the bonds that join humans change His universal caring one iota. The horrors of a Hitler, a Pol Pot, or a Saddam Hussein do not alter God's intense salvific love one bit. His desire, His bond, and His will to save and care for are just as strong for these people as it is for Mother Teresa. I know, there is something frightening about the notion. Is it fair that He should love these who have spread so much sorrow as much as He loves His saints? Fairness is an odd human concept that attempts to right the balance of things. God is a God of justice, mercy, and love. And He is the God of all of these at once without any bars or separation. Remember, God is not the God of parts, but the God of the whole, undivided unity and simplicity. His Love, Justice, Mercy, caring--all of these things are one thing in God, indivisible, uniate. God cannot help but care for all of His children with equal fervor. There are some who cannot return the love and there are some who are exalted to great heights by it. How high we rise in God's kingdom is not so much predicated on how much God loves us (He did so even unto death) as by how much we are willing to respond to that love--by how much precedence that love takes in our own lives. Each is made differently, but God loves all equally. He will welcome any prodigal with the joy that He welcomes any saint. It's just that prodigals, thought they may realize their sin, often repent only insofar as is necessary to get back into good graces. (Being one myself, I speak with authority.)
I'll stop for the moment and gather together the rest of this thought which I may post later; however, for the moment, I think it is sufficient to leave with the thought that love is not a things of extremes in human experience, rather it is the perfect balance of bond and caring with action of will. One must have both the tie and the willingness to accept and act upon the tie for love to exist and grow.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Love Walks on Two Legs
But let's get back to love. Love walks on two legs. It needs both--will and feeling. They are not always operating. Just as when you take a step both feet are not simultaneously on the ground, so it may be with love. There are times when both are operative, but more often one or the other aspect predominates. For some, love hops around on one leg--will. There is a distrust of the emotional world, of the dimension that really is the consolation of God that helps to feed and "restock" the will. Love that seeks to operate on will alone will soon run dry. The emotion is the lubricant, rather like the fluid in the knee that keeps the joint moving smoothly--it is critically necessary. But we must also acknowledge that too much fluid is also a bad thing, the knee swells up and ceases to operate well.
Love as a human faculty has these two equally important, mutually intertwined branches. They feed each other, will and emotion. If I will someone good, the emotion will tend to fall in line. If I like someone, I am inclined to will good things for them.
Likewise, we do not say that God is will, we say that He is love. Nevertheless, God is His will just as He is His love. In God they know separation or boundary, but in humanity they do. Indeed, even in the spiritual world apart from God, they must know division or a fall from grace would not be possible.
Love walks on two legs, which like all legs, are a gift from God. The will is strengthened by the grace that is partially expressed in the consolation of emotion. We can will to love what we are not attracted to, but this will is a feeble thing and only held in place by His overwhelming grace and favor. Likewise, emotion fades, and without the will to hold us steady to the course our "love" becomes nothing more than our lust.
When we say God is Love, we must also acknowledge that God is Justice, Mercy, Prudence, Temperance, Grace, Kindness, Will, etc. etc., no part separate from any other nor extricable from it. Nevertheless, God sanctified the divided human person when He took human form and deigned to experience and participate in the full spectrum of what it meant to be human. And this means love--emotion and will, will and emotion, the two bringing to fullness the greatest of the three theological virtues.
Love is patient (will--to wait), love is kind (emotion--meeting the needs of another with empathy for the situation). . .
More later as I can think more about it, but I'm sure you're all tired by now. Hope I can make it to sentence two of the encyclical. But if not, it has already proven a great gift for me.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 27, 2006
Prayers Please. . .
For Katherine and her family as they continue to struggle with the difficulties of her mother's illness. Pray for peace and blessings particularly on Katherine and her father, and for solace for Katherine's children who are coming to understand how terrible this struggle is.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack