March 2006 Archives

from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

In the Passion and death of Christ our sins were consumed by fire. If we accept that in faith, and if we accept the whole Christ in faith-filled surrender, which means, however, that we choose and walk the path of the imitation of Christ, then He will lead us "through His Passion and cross to the glory of His Resurrection." This is exactly what is experienced in contemplation: passing through the expiatory flames to the bliss of the union of love. This explains its twofold character. It is death and resurrection.

What more is there to say. The culmination of a life of contemplation is a direct participation in the death and resurrection of the Lord. The passage through the Dark Night means death to the senses (which is not to say that one becomes an unanchored, floating, ethereal spirit) and ultimately leads to Union with God. Said Union is a union in both the Death of Christ, and so a Union on the way of the cross, which, by supporting our own burdens (always with the help of grace), we help to lift some of the burden to the cross itself, and in the Resurrection of the Lord, which is a resurrection into His eternal life while here on Earth. That is the meaning of Spiritual Union--actual participation in the Being of God while we live today--and I can't imagine a state more to be desired and yet which also summons up such great fear. And so the sum of my spiritual life is approach-avoidance. I look in on this wonderful spectacle and desire to participate, but innate fear (and of what I cannot say) keeps me back. Nevertheless, His grace is stronger than my fear, and so I trust myself to Him and know that eventually (I hope in this life) I will come to Him and be what He has made me to be.

You may not be aware of it, but a translation of the Institutes of the First Monks into English has recently become available. It is published in Rome as a hard-cover work by the Edizione Carmelitiana and costs in the neighborhood of $20.00.

The importance of this work is that it was for a long time second only to the Rule of St. Albert as a source book for understanding the Carmelite charism, way, and path. It was enormously important in the reformation of the order brought about by St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, being the main source of inspiration for the "return to contemplation."

I don't know whether or not it could be considered as important a source today, but then, until one reads it, that question must remain unresolved.

from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints
Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity

He will communicate His power to you so you can love Him with a love as strong as death ; the Word will Imprint in your soul, as in a crystal, the image of His own beauty, so you may be pure with His purity, luminous with His light.

In prayer and in surrender to Jesus, we become imprinted with His image as did the cloth with which Veronica wiped His face. But the image imprinted upon us is a living image, full of purity and luminosity--bright beyond brightness, light so light that what we see as brilliance is all dark. In the spiritual union that occurs in deepest prayer, each person assumes the place assigned and does the work appropriate to that part of the body--some the head, some the heart, some the feet, some the hands--all One Christ, one mystical body serving our brothers and sisters in all that is done.

from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

To suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one's feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father's right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels--this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth.

As Brandon said of another post a similar context, sometimes whatthis saint has to say is eerily prophetic. Who would know more about "the dirty and rough paths of this earth" than one who road in the boxcars of a train that emptied at Auschwitz? Who encouraged all, the mothers, the children, everyone as she road that train to an end she well knew? Who better to sing the praises of God, than a woman from among the Chosen People, raised to the honors of the Altar--not in spite of her heritage but, indeed, because she embraced her identity as one of the Children of Israel, suffering with her people and for her people.

Amongst other reasons:

from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints:
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

The cross is again raised before us. It is the sign of contradiction. The Crucified looks down on us, "Are you also going to abandon me?" . . . The fountain from the heart of the Lamb has not dried up. We can wash our robes clean in it even today as the thief on Golgotha once did. Trusting in the atoning power of this holy fountain, we prostrate ourselves before the throne of the Lamb. . . .Let us draw from the springs of salvation for ourselves and for the entire parched world.

A true found poem embedded in the prose-- see it:

The cross is again raised before us
the sign of contradiction--
the Crucified looks down on us,
"Are you also going
to abandon me?"

The fountain from the heart
of the Lamb has not dried up--
we wash our robes clean in it even
today as the thief on Golgotha once
did. Trusting in the atoning
power of this holy fountain,
we prostrate ourselves before
the throne of the Lamb.

Let us draw from the springs
of salvation for ourselves
and for the entire parched world.

It isn't just the trickery of playing with the lines, the words themselves are the poetry of salvation. Mechanics and poetry combine in the Cross and open wide the doors of its saving power--princes, poets, people of all walks of life are invited to walk through. They are invited to add their love to the love of centuries, the love of ages, the love without end--perfecting the perfect by making it present in every day.

Once again I have had the dismal experience of exposure to antisemitism from people who should know better. The usual charges of deicide were leveled and "the Jews" were accused of committing this crime. Once again I pointed out that while some small fraction of the Jewish leadership was indeed complicit in the act, these were individual sins, not corporate sins. Once again I pointed to the fact that Jesus Himself was a Jew and accusing "the Jews" of deicide implicates Christ Himself (which would make Him a suicide), his mother, the apostles, the disciples, and all the faithful community of Jerusalem.

But I realize that I waste my breath. For some, the need to place blame and to shift the focus from our own complicity in the terrible act to the shoulders of another is too great. For people who are trapped in their own closed schema, only prayer is a sufficient remedy. They too often ignore the historic impact of the charges they level at "the Jews" and they seem to imply that there is no anti-semitism in this awkward and untoward charge. If anyone should be charged it is the Romans who actually performed the execution. Certainly some of the members of the Sanhedrin might be accomplices before the fact, but that isn't even all the leadership of the Pharisees, much less of the Jews as a whole.

Jesus was a Jew. Salvation came through the Jews. The Jews are the chosen people and remain precious to Him to this day. They are the wellspring of the Daystar and the Bright and Shining pool from which arose our Lord and Savior. To malign them as a group is to malign Him. To speak ill of them is to strike Him. May God have mercy on each person who knowingly or unknowingly utters once again the sentence of death on an innocent people.

Reading Thomas Howard's Dove Descending and finding the insights helpful in opening up Four Quartets. Obviously in so short a work it is impossible to be exhaustive, but I thought I'd share an insight that came as I was reading the explanation of the "box circle" that occurs in the first division of "Burnt Norton."

Howard offers a very fine explanation of the significance of the box circle, including it as both the hedge and the "box seats" of a theatre performance. But, perhaps because of space, he left out some details that I think add to the density and texture of the poem.

The lines in question refer to a movement in the poem to a garden:

from Four Quartets--Burnt Norton
T.S. Eliot

So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light. . .

We have been called into this "first garden" by the singing of a thrust. Entering we have found it filled with "presences." Now we are moving deeper into the mystery of time encompassed in the garden. The box circle refers to the hedge of boxwood in a formal garden--a formal designed essence. But what Howard fails to mention, and what I believe to be critically important is that the "box circle" often occurs at the center of the formal garden. It is set so that the person looking from the upper story of a house overlooking the garden will seen at it's exact center a circle inscribed in a square, usually with four entrances in the center of the side of the square.

Also, I think there is reason to believe that this "box circle" is an oblique reference to "squaring the circle." That is, using the primitive instruments of geometry (straight-edge and compass) attempting to construct a square that has exactly the same area as a circle of given radius. This is an impossibility unless we cheat and use a rational approximation of pi. And what Eliot is telling us in this box circle is the impossibility of abiding in this perfect garden for reasons that he will go on to articulate. One of which is eerily reflected in The Haunting of Hill House:

"Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality."

So, I add this little aside to a really fine and interesting study of the poem. Using Howard's insights as a leg up, I'm finding passage through this poem a much more reasonable proposition that it was some years ago. Also, I think this is one of those poems that you have to have lived to begin to understand. This pining and nostalgia cannot make a lot of sense to most twenty-year-olds.

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom 6:23

The wages of sin is death--possibly the eternal death of punishment in Hell. But there is a more immediate implication as well. Each time one sins, one alienates oneself from God; one turns one's back on the good, the true, and the beautiful. And for the duration of the time that one's back is turned, one is dead to some of the truth, beauty, and goodness of the world. Sin deadens the sensibilities until it becomes nearly impossible to say what is sin any more.

Sin delivers a double whammy--one offends God and one steals from oneself. All the time spent pursuing the illicit good of sin, the small pleasure that may come from it, is time that is not spent in pursuit of the real good. This may not seem like much, but as with watching television, an hour here, an hour there adds up to a fifth of a lifetime with nothing to show for it.

Sin is so interesting because its illusory pleasure dims with each repeat of the action until the person committing the sin no longer does so for the pleasure, but out of sheer deadened habit. At the same time the sensibilities are so worn down that what once cheered and gave cause for rejoicing now activates a dull echo in the deepest chambers of the heart. Our longing for God becomes a mere dull ache that is terribly hard to reawaken.

But take heart. God promised His people:

And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh Ez 11:18

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. Ez 36:26

Twice within the span of a single prophet, and many other times, God promises redemption from our own hardened hearts. He will give us one heart--His Own heart, the sacred Heart of Jesus that bleeds and is wounded for all of humanity--this is the heart that gives life, that breaks the chains of our bondage to sin, that strikes off the shackles we have so willingly taken onto ourselves. God speaks, it is He who promises redemption--He redeems our stony hearts and gives us hearts that can feel again. When we turn even a little bit, when we even desire to say yes, when we hearken enough to the grace that He showers upon us moment by moment and turn to Him, He can make real blood come from a stone. Just as He caused water to flow from the rock, He can cause our hearts to beat once again with His blood and His life and His redemption for all.

We may be dead in sin, but we are not without hope, for God dogs us, chasing us through the years and the passages of our lives, waiting always for us to turn and accept the embrace of Love that gives life.

First, it should be perfectly clear that Holy Mother Church in no uncertain terms condemned a certain brand of Universalism. (Mr. Sullivan disagrees with me on this, and I acknowledge that, but respectfully disagree with his interpretation of the anathemas.) The type condemned is that which say that at the end of time God will be reconciled even with the fallen Angels and all shall be restored to his good graces. There is a Greek word for this that I have to look up every time I refer to it and the thought has been attributed to Origen, although perhaps incorrectly.

The Church, wisely, is silent on the question of the disposition of any given soul, and although theologians speculate, the Church remains silent on the question of whether or not all people will be saved. There is certainly a good deal of scriptural evidence that can be argued either way on this point.

However, one reason that I am Catholic is that this door remains ajar. Admittedly, it takes a person of strong constitution to deny that there are people who are capable of saying no to God out of sheer cussedness. I believe this is possible, but I do not believe that it is common. Moreover, I do not hold with those who say that a great many shall be condemned. I know that the visionaries of Fatima seemed to see this, but Fatima, being private revelation is not binding on anyone except, perhaps, the visionaries themselves.

The Catholic Church is agnostic on the question of who is saved and who is not, even while remaining adamant that Hell exists and contains at least the fallen angels, and that unfortunate part of humanity that rejects God's mercy and salvation.

Here are some points that I often reflect on. I have no answers, because I can argue back and forth using scripture, theology, logic, common sense, intuition and any number of other even less effective means. Is God's arm too short, or His grace too weak to save those He wills to save? And who does He will to save--only the remnant, the smallest portion of humanity? If the latter, what sort of God is He, who claims to be love, and yet out of hand condemns the majority of His creation to an eternity of punishment? What is the meaning of love, if we can say in one breath God is love, and in the next, but the majority of humanity is damned? What must a person do to be saved if God is so busy keeping track of all of our sins to send us on the express freight to Hell? And what does this say of the image of God as father?

I will suggest answers to none of these, because there is a perfectly legitimate series of counter questions that could be asked: If God is simple and purely Holy, how can He abide what is unholy? How does perfect justice allow the unrepentant sinner to come to the same end as those who lived lives of forbearance and service to others? The list goes on, but I don't ponder that list nearly as much, and there are better people to ask and answer those questions. I point them out merely to indicate that the question is not so cut and dried as I would like it to be.

You might not ever have heard of Baha'ullah; however, back in the before times, this saintly man was very important to me. I considered for a long time whether or not to join the Baha'i faith, and finally decided in the negative because of a logical inconsistency. Baha'i's insist that all revelations of God are indeed revelations of God and they are all paths to God and as such equal, except for Baha'i which is the true path to God. This sort of syncretism appealed to me very much because, as I hope to explain in a later post, in my religious thinking I have always skated around the brink of universalism. However, if all were equally valid, how could one be better than any of the rest; what impetus had I for choosing Baha'ullah over Mohammed or Jesus? (The Catholic Church gets this point exactly right, noting that God has granted to each religion some rays of light, some truth, some of the knowledge of Him, but the fullness of knowledge of Him and salvation lay only in the person of Jesus Christ.)

Anyway, my point wasn't so much to analyze Baha'i as to point out one very concrete realization that was brought home by my assoication with some very good Baha'is. During his lifetime Baha'ullah was "martyred" for his faith, which is a renegade Muslim offshoot (I'm overgeneralizing, and if any Baha'i stop by, please forgive my elision here.) As Muslims don't have a high regard for heretics, he was probably constantly in danger of his life and he was frequently imprisoned. Baha'is would point out to me that Baha'ullah was imprisoned because of the sinfulness of humanity.

I thought about that a lot. Baha'ullah went to prison for my sins. And I contrasted that with Christ died for my sins. With that contrast, I had a new view of the atonement. I was nearly completely unmoved by Baha'ullah's imprisonment. After all, he could have preached elsewhere, gone someplace more hospitable, etc. His martyrdom, which involved very real suffering, was certainly more than I might be willing to bear for the majority of humanity--but months, years, even decades in prison don't begin to convey to me one iota of the sacrifice made even during the trial of Jesus.

While the justice of God may require in some way I don't begin to understand the death of His son. I do understand though that in some deep human way, this sacrifice speaks to me as none other could. The atonement may be required by God, but it is clearly required by the broken, perverse humanity Jesus sought to serve. Jesus was whipped for you sins (even badly), or Jesus went to trial for your sins, or Jesus was imprisoned for your sins simply doesn't speak to me. It is simply a yawn. Jesus died for my sins--THAT gets my attention.

Perhaps I am simply in a minority.

Yesterday I received the final package in an Amazon order I had placed some time ago. In this package was a copy of Thomas Howard's Dove Descending: A Journey into Eliot's Four Quartets.

I haven't been able to read much of the book, but this is precisely the right fit. This was what I had been hoping for back when I read Paglia's Break, Blow, Burn and I had been so sorely disappointed. I wanted someone who would treat serious poetry seriously and at length. Howard does that--covering a twenty-odd page poem in a book of some 140 pages.

Four Quartets is a later poem than The Waste Land written after Eliot had reverted to Christianity of the Anglo-Catholic variety. It is every bit as dense and as difficult to follow as The Waste Land even if there is less of the random throwing-in of multiple foreign languages.

Howard's books pulls away the curtains in the first few pages and uncovers theme after theme and symbol after symbol. I've not gotten half-way through the book, but I'm very pleased at the progress so far, and I am much more aware of Eliot's purpose in Four Quartets than I started out being.

If you're interested in tackling and understanding "difficult" poetry, and attempting to understand WHY it is so difficult, this may prove a useful guidebook in your journey. I'll let you know later when I have had more of an opportunity to digest the contents.

I like Opera. I like it very much indeed and, perhaps as a result, I am not an "Opera Snob." I can't tell you the names of all the great divas on the last fifty years. I can't compare the performances of Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi. I probably couldn't even tell you the range of voice in which various parts are sung. I know that I can't articulate the difference between the various types of Soprano (a defect I shall set out to remedy upon completing this entry).

As a result, I am in a wonderful place to enjoy Opera when it is available--performed capably by Amateurs or professionals.

Friday evening we bundled the family into the car and headed downtown (if Orlando can truly be said to have a "Downtown"--in this respect it is much like a former home--Columbus, Ohio) to see Le Nozze de Figaro, perhaps the best-loved of the Mozart operas, and one of the all-time great comic operas.

When we arrived at the place where the presentation was to occurs, I was taken aback. The building was small, dingy, showing typical Florida wear-and-tear. The parking lot very limited and due to road construction no real alternative anywhere.

Upon entering the building nothing of my first impression was changed. This was a building perfectly suited to the offices of the local gendarmerie. Indeed more institutional and less cultural a center would be difficult to find anywhere. In my mind this did not bode well for the performance.

Then there were the programs that announced that tonight's performance in this more "intimate" setting would be sung by the "second-string" singers. Now, the Orlando Opera Company is not what one would call a world-class performing company to start with. Imagine my chagrin at thinking that we would be hearing from the singers-in-training for this company! Well, actually there was more chagrin with where we were than with who would be singing. I've heard very nice productions indeed from College troupes--so I had no doubt that this group, which consisted of people who hoped to make a living with their voices, could be very good indeed--even if they had the inauspicious name of the "Lockheed-Martin Troupe."

If that were not enough in itself, the entrance to the "theatre" was enough to send even the most sanguine of people into fits. We were ushered into a small room sectioned off from the surrounding cinder-block with black curtains suspended from rings on an aluminum runner. The seating area was perfectly flat and filled in the front with "reserved" seating chairs that looked like inexpensive additional seating for a boardroom. The rear consisted of plastic lawn-chairs with tissue-thin cushion set in them. Overall, the layout reminded me of the cafeteria/auditorium I had in elementary school, where everyone sat at the same level and looked up at a very small stage.

The stage was indeed, quite small. But Figaro is a "bedroom" opera requiring no large sets or stage. It can be performed to perfection (as I was to find out) in even the most inauspicious of locations.

Taking our seats, we awaited with something approaching dread, and with a lot of complaining from all around, the commencement of the opera. The "Orchestra" (of perhaps seven people) walked into the theatre and to the pit via a side aisle. The Opera was about to begin.

All the build-up and dread vanished within a minute as a superb baritone started up the opera by measuring the floor of the bedroom for the bed that the Count had given the couple to be married as a wedding gift. Surprise piled upon surprise as each of the performers both sang and acted their parts beautifully.

Le Nozze de Figaro is really an ensemble opera. That is, there are four parts of about equal importance as the opera plays out. Each of these four parts was sung very, very well. Despite this, a couple behind us, who, we had been informed, "had seen performances at La Scala" walked out at intermission. They hadn't time for these amatuerish performances. And that is really a pity for them because they missed out on some real joy to be derived from people who were really enjoying what they were doing, doing particularly well.

After the opera the cast lined up outside in a kind of receiving line, another real pleasure and joy because we were able to express our thanks and appreciation to each person individually. The person who played Figaro commented to Samuel that he had not been able to attend an opera until he was in college. I think everyone was surprised that there could have been a child so young who behaved so well through the entire performance. And Samuel was very well behaved.

Any way, what started as a dismal, disheartening evening turned out to be a gem of a show, one highly memorable for the quality of its singing and for the opportunity to meet the cast. I could only wish for more such opportunity and for a larger, more appreciative audience for opera as a whole.

from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

More effective than the mortification one practices according to one's own choice is the cross that God lays upon one, exteriorly and interiorly.

The cross shines and is made glorious by our submission and obedience to it. What we take upon ourselves is granted by the grace of God to us. However, the trials that come upon us are strengthening and life-changing in our willing acceptance of them. In such trials, we do not choose the cause of suffering, but in the ultimate imitation of Our Master, we embrace them, carry them, and ultimately conquer them through our resurrrection in Him. We are transformed completely by our obedience through grace. The mortifications that are part of our lives are ultimately new life for us. Embracing the cross is the first step toward union. How each one goes about this will differ according to God's plan and will for that person. But there is no glory without the cross, and there is no increase in God without accepting what God in His mercy has granted us.

from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints:
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

The bridal union of the soul with God is the goal for which she was created, puchased through the cross, consummated on the cross, and sealed for all eternity with the cross.

This is the rejoinder to "Jesus died for your sins." No, Jesus didn't die FOR my sins, as though they might increase, He died because of them. As important, He died to give us an intimate knowledge of the lengths to which Love will go to hold us. He gave up what each of us cherishes most and struggles to maintain throughout its span. He did so willingly as an invitation to understanding God in His fullness.

Union with God was purchased at so high a price so that we would understand how very valuable, how very worthwhile it is. Anything less would have meant nothing at all. But in this sign, God said once and for always, that His love is complete, immutable, and unconditional.

Taking a Lesson from Gregory of Sinai, via TSO: “But he who writes to please men, for fame or for display, loses his reward and will receive no profit from this either here or in the life to come; more, he will be condemned as a sycophant and a wicked poacher of the Word of God.”

What follows will please few, but it is the fruit of my own hard experiences. To reinvent the old phrase: If the artificial exterior covering of the pedal extremity is of adequate but not excessive dimension and geometry, it would behoove one to ornament the anatomy with it.

I don't know how it goes with other St. Blogs parishioners, but when I examine my own habits, I discover some disconcerting tendencies that ally me closely withe the Pharisees. Let's pause for a moment and consider the Pharisees as a group. Why was Jesus so hard on them when he welcomed tax-collectors, publicans, women of ill-repute, adulterers and all manner of other thief and scoundrel. I think the answer lies not in the fact that the Pharisees were particularly bad but in the fact that they had developed an elaborate schema for insulating themselves from God. By raising the Law to the status it had and by carefully observing the exacting letter of the law, but removing oneself from complying with the spirit, the Pharisees managed to insulate themselves against God's grace. The phrases Jesus speaks to the Pharisees are like battering rams, seeking to break through the armor and to open them up to the work of the spirit. "Ye whitewashed sepulchres. . ." he's claiming that they are beautiful outside and ritually unclean on the inside. "But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. (Luke 11:42)" Gosh, He's saying that they aren't really observant. There are many other examples--examples of unparalleled harshness in speaking to people--Jesus does not even speak to those who executed Him in this way. He ardently wants the Pharisees to hear God and return to Him wholeheartedly.

Those of us who are intellectuals and bibliophiles have developed a new Phariseeism. We acknowledge the error of the Pharisees in raising law to the ultimate heights and forgetting about God. However, in recognizing their plight, we disregard our own. How many times do I pick up a book to insulate myself from God? How many times do I read about the bible or read about the Church or read about prayer, to avoid doing anything about these issues? How much Bible Study have I done to avoid actually engaging the text of the Bible?

My tricks are subtle, so subtle that I have difficulty recognizing them. But they are all designed to keep me away from intimacy, away from the true dedication to the "one thing necessary" that should be the hallmark of my life.

How many times do I "not have time for prayer" and yet seem to finish two, three, or four leisure reading books in the week? How many times do I read about prayer rather than pray? How many times do i write about prayer as a means of avoiding it? There is a time and place to every purpose--reading and writing as well as others. But I have to be honest with myself--I spend more time in leisure than I spend in prayer and my leisure time is NOT prayer time no matter how much I want to fool myself into believing it is. I am not "practicing the presence of God" when I'm reading Mickey Spillane, or even when I'm reading Flannery O'Connor. How many people who read Flannery O'Connor are really there to engage her grappling with eternal spiritual truths and how many are there because she has a unique, idiosyncratic and engaging voice? (I tend to think the more people are there for the latter because, while I can build up a case for the spiritual message of O'Connor's story, it is often just as easy to completely ignore them and get on with the reading.)

I recognize the need for moderation in most things, but I also realize that it is important to be absolutely immoderate with regard to devotion to God. I would say that more often I am immoderate in my devotion to literature and subliterature and quite moderate in my approach to God.

But as any 12 step program attendee will tell you recognizing the problem is the first step toward a solution. God will give each person who asks the grace of self-knowledge. How we choose to employ this will certainly be guided by the Holy Spirit if we ask. Perhaps it's time to evaluate those things we do to see it they bring us closer to God or if they are useful tools for keeping us at a distance.

People are amazing in their ability to come up with reasons for not loving God. One of my personal favorites is a quote from Groucho Marx, "I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member." The people who hold the position don't speak it in those terms, it is nevertheless the fundamental reality underlying their stated objections.

The reasoning, not explicit, goes something like this. God loves everyone. God, therefore, has no standards; He is a profligate. If he loves me as much as He loves Hitler, His judgment can't be very good. Do I really want to hobnob with a Deity who marks no differences among people?

Others may refute the error inherent in this reasoning in their own ways. Not having the skill at theological argument, I will present the weaker argument from analogy, knowing that it has inherent flaws.

We all know of human parents who after hearing about the crimes their son or daughter has committed, simply deny the charge, saying that it is impossible for the child to have done so. They are hiding from reality for the sake of their love. They do not stop loving their child because of their crimes. They love their child every bit as much as they did before, equally with all the other children they have.

God DOES NOT hide from our crimes. But being the source and exemplar of love, He does continue to love us despite our crimes and our sins. He cannot stop loving us because it is against His nature to do so. God is Love, if so and acknowledging that opposites cannot coexist in the simple, God cannot be not-love (whatever form that might take.)

In other words, yes God is profligate, and in being profligate, He teaches us the right form of profligacy. Jesus did not spend an hour lecturing the woman caught in adultery. He did not say to Levi, "Go and sin no more, and after you haven't sinned for six months, come and get a check up and we'll talk about you becoming one of my disciples. God knows we sin, He knows we err, He knows we do not love Him as much as we ought. As Parents (and children) we know the same is true with our relationships with children and parents. We don't love our parents as much as they deserve and our children only gradually grow in their appreciation of us (after their teen years). We don't stop loving because our children don't love us as we feel they ought.

So, yes, God sets no standards on His love. He does set standards on our conduct, although He has provided the One who took all standards upon Himself and bore them away. So long as we long to be forgiven and pursue the right remedies according to our faith, God will forgive. So long as we wish to be healed, we shall be healed.

We cannot hide from God's love. We can sit in the shade and say that we don't see it, but just like the sun, it is shining all around us nevertheless. God loves all. He loves all with all that He is, and so He loves all equally, though He endows some with special favors to receive and acknowledge His love.

Yes, God is profligate, but that doesn't mean He isn't to be trusted in His love--it means rather than His love and the reception of His love through grace makes us lovable to the degree that we are. His special grace makes some more readily reflective of His love, but He longs for all of us to return to Him and acknowledge Him as God and Father of all. He places no conditions on His love--we should place none on our love and trust of Him.

Journey: Daily Meditations and Catholic Calendar

I link to this site, just because (1)it is a place that has some very nice scriptural meditations for the readings of each day, in addition to other useful materials; (2) it is run by a cyberfriend from long before the time of blogs or even much of an internet (if anyone recalls the ancient GEnie service, for example); and (3) you need to scroll down to see it, but there's a book that should be of much interest to the parishioners of St. Blogs. I'm anxiously anticipating my own copy and I hope to post a review shortly after receiving it. But I thought y'all might like to know about it in advance of the event.

I include it below as well.

We're a little more than half-way through Lent, and it would probably do some good to look back over the past few weeks and ask ourselves, has there been more rending of garments, more show, more self-esteem improvement in how heroic our sacrifices can be than there has been a change of heart? If so, it's time to change focus.

Our penances and mortifications, our additional attempts at prayer, our striving to make ourselves ready for Easter has allowed God to harrow the desolate earth of our hearts and make them ready for new seeds of faith. Now, as we continue those practices that have brought us to this point in Lent, it is good to focus our attention on what God wants from us beyond these temporary practices. In our practice of Lent, what is God saying about how we should live the rest of our lives? How has love grown in the time we have made our penitential practices? How have our lives been altered by this deeper focus on God? There's probably nothing dramatic, perhaps only a dawning realization of the need for service, or the need to change some aspect of our habits, or of the need for additional prayer or additional Christian practice.

As you fast, pray, and give alms, listen for the still small voice that does not make itself heard in the thunderstorm or the earthquake, but which shouts loud in the silence of the heart. Listen to the things God reveals to you during this time. He speaks loudly if we will push away the sheer brilliance of our Lenten performances only long enough to hear. He tells us this is a good start, but He wants more. In fact, He wants everything--but a step at a time.

So now is the acceptable day and the proper time. Look not so much at how well you have kept to your Lenten practice, but look to what God wishes to make of it. This is the beginning of a lifetime and God wants that lifetime to be productive, beautiful, and completely within Him. He is telling each one of us how that might be done. If we still ourselves for a moment and listen, perhaps we will hear and His grace will help us to fulfill His word to us.

Many people regard the Harry Potter series with a great deal of suspicion. I don't wish to argue the point now (or ever, for that matter), but to lift a major theme from the works for a moment of reflection.

Throughout the six-book series thus far much emphasis is placed by some on being "Pure blood" wizards. In almost every case, those who insist upon purity of blood are at best loathsome and most often outright evil. Rowling isn't writing allegory, but if we look in the world at those who insist upon purity of blood as a mark of rank, we will more often than not encounter ideologies that are antithetical to life.

What brought all of this to mind was a minor passage in Wilfrid McGreal's At the Fountain of Elijah: The Carmelite Tradition, a well-written and brief survey of the history of the Carmelite Order. In the chapter on the contributions of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, McGreal notes:

It is also interesting that both Teresa and John, to use a modern terms, were 'disadvantaged' and were therefore in a special way already poor. Neither Teresa nor John possessed limpieza de sangre--'purity of blood.' They had Jewish forbears, and this ancestry was viewed with suspicion and could be the reason for persecution. By the end of the sixteenth century religious orders in Spain had made limpieza de sangre a condition for admission. Fortunately the Carmelites did not put such legislation into place until 1596.

What a crime against love! Today, many of us can see that this is simply unacceptable for any Christian. It would be difficult to say and believe "You will know they are Christians by their love," under such conditions. And yet, such is the history of humanity--not merely of Christianity. And it is horrifying to think of what we would have lost had this edict been in place some years before.

Prejudice is ugly whenever and however it occurs. We have grown too haughty and proud--we think ourselves beyond it. But prejudice raises its ugly head in every corner and every precinct. Even now, each day, we are tempted to formulate opinions based on appearance, creed, or opinions. Prejudice hates a person for an artifact of that person. Christianity stands in firm opposition--loving the person but showing no mercy to the illicit accidents of the person. Whenever the cry of "Pure blood!" is raised, it is certain the the inevitable end is that blood will be spilled--"pure" and otherwise.

Bible for Palm OS, Pocket PC, Smartphone, Blackberry and Symbian from Olive Tree Bible Software

Olive Tree software has a nice selection of Bibles and Bible study software for PDAs. I opted originally for Laridian's My Bible which may have been a miscalculation. (At the time, I thought the overall software a better buy and appearance). However, Olive Tree has outstripped Laridian in both the functionality of the Software and in the Bibles offered. For example, you can download for free the Douay-Rheims-Challoner with Deuterocanonicals, the Latin Vulgate, a parsed and unparsed Byzantine Greek New Testament, etc. In addition, you can get a number of other Bibles--ESV, RSV, KJV, and even, if you're a glutton for punishment, NAB.

Laridian has many of these and a few Bible Study aids not available from Olive tree, so I'll end up keeping them both, but I suspect the bulk of my reading in the future will be in the Olive Tree.

In the Carmelite tradition, Elijah and Mary are brought together most closely in the image of the cloud that forms over the sea.

1 Kings 18:42:45

[42] So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Eli'jah went up to the top of Carmel; and he bowed himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees.
[43] And he said to his servant, "Go up now, look toward the sea." And he went up and looked, and said, "There is nothing." And he said, "Go again seven times."
[44] And at the seventh time he said, "Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising out of the sea." And he said, "Go up, say to Ahab, `Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.'"
[45] And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel.

Verse 44 is the relevant verse, and how one gets the image of Mary from that, I do not know, except that when one understands it in the way of the Medieval Carmelites, it is a most beautiful metaphor.

Mary is the cloud that rises out of the sea. The sea is saltwater, undrinkable, a vast body of water, next to which the kingdom can still thirst and die. The sea is salty, impure, an image of fallen humanity with its admixture of sin. Mary rises out of this sea, pure and perfect, laden with the water of grace that will pour out through her to all humanity--not the source of Grace herself, nevertheless the container into which all is poured until it overflows out to all people, limitless, and life-giving. Not God, but human, Mary rises from the sea, pure and Immaculate in her conception, formed as a vessel of God's grace and a place of refuge for His people.

Mary may not have made her appearance in the Old Testament, but through years of meditating and contemplating the story of Elijah, the Carmelite monks and friars came to understand this passage in a Marian sense. In so doing, they enriched the understanding of Scripture and provided another key to its depths.

From the same passage as the entry below.

Exodus 23:2-3, 6

[2] You shall not follow a multitude to do evil; nor shall you bear witness in a suit, turning aside after a multitude, so as to pervert justice;
[3] nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his suit.

[6]

"You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his suit.

God desires justice. Even-handed, God-like justice. The poor person bringing a suit is neither to be favored, nor to be thrown out of Court. His suit is to be tried with even-handedness, with fairness, with gentleness and wisdom. The law is to be decided with mercy and justice, but it is not to be changed either to favor or destroy the poor. The preferential option for the poor does not extend to warping justice to give the poor an advantage.

How good it is to know that before God, I am the poor petitioner. I go before seeking justice in my suit, and by the law, I am neither to be preferred nor to be rejected in my suit. How fortunate for me that my advocate, my lawyer, my representative and mediator before God is Jesus Christ--friend, advocate, and Savior. And how good it is that His suffering and death brought about the reconciliation of Mercy and Justice and opened the gates of heaven.

I wish I understood better the deep mysteries of what this means for us. But it suffices to say that poor as I am, when I am brought before the court, God will see not me, but His own son Jesus, whose agonies and death transformed me into a Son of God. He will see not me in my bedraggled state, but me, under the blood of Jesus Christ, transfigured, my garments whiter that any fuller's art could make them.

Oh what a God we have, and what a friend we have in Jesus, His Son.

Exodus 22:21, 23:9

[21]

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

[3:9]
"You shall not oppress a stranger; you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

In this short passage, God begins to Instruct Israel in the law they will observe. Twice in the short span God emphasizes that the stranger among the people shall not be oppressed. There are two points that this passage suggests.

God is already preparing the people to know that there will be no strangers among them, that He is the God of all people and all people are His. His salvation is first for the Jews, and then for all the world. The joy He is preparing, He prepares through the House of David of the people of Israel. This shining Joy will be the source of hope throughout time. But for now, God says simply, "You know what it is to be a stranger."

This passage stands in stark contrast to passages throughout the early history of God's people that suggest hat God commands Israel to go among strangers and slaughter them down to the last of the sheep and oxen. Surely these two statements are not uttered by the same God. How can one and the same Lord say two such utterly different things to the people of Israel--how can His commands be so at variance?

They are not, or need not be. If one takes the passages that demand the blood of children and women to mean that God demands that all memory of their customs of foreign worship be destroyed among the people that they visit, perhaps this is what is required.

This is how the passage works for the follower of Christ today. When we go among a foreign people, we are not to adopt the local worship customs, but rather to bring those customs into concord with our own Christian worship. Throughout time, the Church has done this most effectively. The Church has taken to its bosom local practices and adapted them, showing the people of an area how what they always knew was a shadow of the true God. They were not left in complete darkness, but rather had a sense of God even from the practices they knew. These practices were incomplete, and showed a misunderstanding of the fullness of God but God left no person without recourse to Him. The sacrifice of His Son in time resonates out of time to give rise to "memories" and shadows of it even in times long before Jesus Himself. Similarities of the story of Jesus to tales told of other deities are signs of Jesus throughout time. The people who told these tales understood something about God, but theirs was a dark and incomplete understanding, shadows of the cross without knowledge of it.

The Saint of the Little Way, well known for her French schoolgirl and sentimentality, disliked by the intellectuals, a little repugnant to modern sensibilities, had this to say:

Our Lord died on the cross in agony and yet this is the most beautiful death of love. . . To die of love is not to die in transports.

-St. Thérèse

Spoken by one in the throes of a most excruciating crucible of ravaging tuberculosis, it carries the weight of authority. This is not some starry-eyed Schoolgirl--this is a young woman facing her own death, alone as Jesus was alone, in the midst of the deepest, darkest night any of us can begin to imagine. She neither turned her back on it, nor did she flee to seek refuge in some vain hope or in bitterness. Instead, knowing full well what was at the end, she embraced it and went to it. This she did because of her love and Jesus and her thirst for souls.

The exterior of the package, no matter how much sugary dressing it may have, does not reveal the interior strength, the beauty of the soul that even now "Spends [her] heaven doing good on Earth."

My current Tag cloud. It reads very nicely:

20th Century American Catholic christian--golden age mystery religion.

Mostly true if you count my birthday as my "age."

In part this is a reply to and confirmation of a comment made in the entry below about the Carmelite rule. I had been mulling this over for some time, and the response was the kind of confirmation I needed to go ahead and post these thoughts as disparate and tenuously connected as they are.

from The Rule of St. Albert

Chapter 18

Since man's life on earth is a time of trial, and all who would live devotedly in Christ must undergo persecution, and the devil, your foe, is on the prowl like a roaring lion looking for prey to devour, you must use every care to clothe yourself in God's armour so that you may be ready to withstand the enemy's ambush.

The subtlety of this translation is particularly appealing. Note that the phrase used is "God's armour," not the more usual "Armor of God." This is an important difference, even thought the Latin can usually be translated either way. God's armour is the armour that belongs to God , His own battle gear, as it were. The Armor of God is armor that is not necessarily a personal possession, but rather a creation of God himself.

During our recent retreat, the retreat master went to great lengths to lay out a clear biblical exposition of the meaning and presence of God's armor in the scripture. He took great pains to make us aware that this armor was not our own armor that was "manufactured by God," but it was the very armor God himself wears when he is figuratively described in battle in a number of old-testament passages. When we clothe ourselves with it then, following the whole concept of the Simplicity of God, we are putting on God himself.

Chapter 19 of the rule goes on to give the traditional description of this armor, following closely that in Ephesians 6. What Father John-Benedict pointed out very clearly is that the vast majority of this weaponry is defensive. There is only a single offensive weapon--the sword of the word. We put on the armor to protect ourselves in the midst of the ongoing battle, not to launch an assault ourselves. The battle is the Lord's, He is the victor, and His victory is already won, we are protected by God's own armor as we walk the battlefield--but Jesus Christ wins the battle on His own merits. Our job in the battlefield is to wait and pray for all of those who have not put on the armor, who are not protected and who are not even aware that they are walking through a war zone.

Spiritual combat is never directed at another person, as Joachim notes below, it is always directed at fighting evil within us, and we do very, very little except don the armor and let God fight (see the notes on grace and will below). The spiritual battle is good vs. evil and we fight it every day in the most seemingly insignificant choices we make. Do we give alms, or do we ignore? Do we judge or do we help? Do we choose what is forbidden us, or do we accept God's commandments as a central pillar of our lives? One by one, or all at once, we face these choices in seemingly little things--for some it may be the question of whether they buy the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated; for others it may be returning the extra 5 dollars that came back to you by accident in change. These are small, but meaningful choices and our ability to make them in accordance with God's will is fostered by putting on His armor.

Each moment has decisions enough for a lifetime--accept God's will or reject it. And we can only perceive and understand that will when we are encased in His own armor, one body of Christ fighting the evil within ourselves by allowing the Lord to enter and win the battle, taking back the world one person at a time through His grace. So, as I concluded a day or so ago when I reopened comments--don't look to wage the battle "out there," although the battle rages there also, fight the battle within--your choices there will echo and reecho throughout the outside world, changing it slowly, subtly, bit-by-bit, to be more a reflection of what we choose moment to moment.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20: [19] I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live,
[20] loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."

Perhaps this reminder is only for me, but perhaps there are others out there who are secretly lured into the waters of quietism--I don't know. However, when I pause to think that I can do nothing by myself except sin, the temptation is to do nothing whatsoever, because at least in so doing I won't be sinning. This isn't a realistic attitude, it is fatalistic, and it comes upon us when we forget the dual mechanism of Grace and Will.

It is true that I can do absolutely nothing on my own except sin, that grace powers every good thought or action. Grace inspires them and grace sees them through to completion. Explained that way, it almost seems as if a human mechanism were not required at all. If grace is doing all this stuff, why do I need to be involved at all.

The fact is, grace causes and completes all of these actions, BUT no action is done without the cooperation, however weak, of the will. True, grace supports even this cooperation--nevertheless, at some point along the line we must say, "I will it, let it be so."

Forgive the inept analogy, but grace and will are akin to a person who has long been laid up in the hospital or in a rehabilitation facility. Grace brings a wheelchair to the door, opens the door, puts the wheelchair where we can sit in it, walks around to help us lower ourselves into it, and then simply waits until we decide that we will actually do so--will. Every motion of the will is fostered, supported, and enshrouded by grace, but grace doesn't come and push us into the wheelchair. Grace waits. Not wishing to cripple us and make us less than our human selves, grace never forces the issue, it simply makes available every possible help to accomplish the actions of the will that correspond to God's will. God is the Divine Physician, and grace is His nurse. This is not to imply two different sources or a separation of grace from God, but rather the role grace plays in our healing--helping, aiding, constantly attentive and supporting.

Grace always works to move our will to where it should be. Just as the nurse getting the patient into the wheelchair will say, "Okay, everything is ready, now just slowly lower yourself. . . that's it, keep going, almost there." The nurse may hold the patient's hands or support the patient in some other way as the patient, aided by all of this seeks to comply.

I cannot do anything good of myself. Grace inspires all, supports all, completes all. But the good that I do, I must will to do and I must, at a minimum, cooperate with grace. (I won't go into the fractal nature of this process pointing out that even our cooperation with grace is supported by grace, because it becomes too mind boggling.) Grace makes everything possible even to the point of carrying us when all we can say, is "I want to do it." However, grace of itself cannot accomplish anything in the person who resists it. When we remember this key, the threat of quietism disappears. We can't sit around and wait for grace to do it all, we must move as she coaches.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
Proverbs 9:10

from The Office of Readings: Thursday Second Week of Lent
from A Treatise on the Psalms,St. Hilary, Bishop

We must begin by crying out for wisdom. . . . Then, we must understand the fear of the Lord.

"Fear" is not to be taken in the sense that common usage gives it. Fear in this ordinary sense is the trepidation our weak humanity feels when it is afraid of suffering something it does not want to happen. We are afraid, or are made afraid, because of a guilty conscience, the rights of someone more powerful, an attack from one who is stronger, sickness, encounters a wild beast, suffering evil in any form. This kind of fear is not taught: it happens because we are weak. We do not have to learn what we should fear: objects of fear bring their own terror with them.

But of the fear of the Lord this is what is written: Come, my children, listen to me, I shall teach you the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord has then to be learned because it can be taught. It does not lie in terror, but in something that can be taught. It does not arise from the fearfulness of our nature; it has to be acquired by obedience to the commandments, by holiness of life and by knowledge of truth.

For us the fear of God consists wholly in love, and perfect love of God brings our fear of him to its perfection.

The fear of the Lord is an acquired "skill," one necessary to wisdom, that does not spring from the primordial fear that accompanies us as guardian and protector (although often it gets out of hand and becomes tyrant). Couple that with the fact that this fear is learned and the fear takes on a new name: awe.

In today's world, many seem to have lost the sense of awe. Nothing seems to inspire people to the same heights that have been recorded in the past. We build taller buildings, we launch more ambitious projects, we see more majestic things, and there is a collective sigh and yawn. We are the children of the age of Ecclesiastes--we've seen it all and it is all futile and boring.

St. Hilary points out that to acquire fear of the Lord, at least three characteristics must be present in the life of a person: obedience, holiness, and truth. Awe cannot be present if any one of these is lacking. The order might be stated somewhat differently--a person must know the truth (of God and His commandments) and be humbly obedient to it as a prelude to holiness of life. Truth and knowledge are not the only requisites of a holy life, they are merely the start; but they are a powerful, meaningful start. These begin the "fear" of the Lord, which is perfected in the love that grows from them.

The dailiness of the day, the horrifying ennui of the movement from day to day, is broken by awe. A moment of sitting in the presence of God and recognizing Him who is and I who am not is sufficient for anyone to be revitalized, to regain a sense of awe and wonder at the magnificence of God. Without this necessary action even "billions upon billion of stars," are mere glowing balls of gas in the night sky.

If you look at young children, they have not yet forgotten awe. You see it in their faces as they look at each new thing. You see it in their behavior as they begin to react to these. Gradually, we train children out of this awe--we introduce them to the "real world," and work very hard to remove the stars from their eyes--not usually deliberately, but nonetheless effectively. I remember not so long ago when Sam would ask us what it was like before he was born. "What was it like when I wasn't born, when I was up in heaven with the angels and God?" He would ask this as though he had some memory of being in Heaven--it was magnificent, a breath of awe. Those questions come less frequently now, though we have done nothing consciously to remove them; nevertheless, our lack of response, of even being able to understand the question causes these questions to vanish, this memory of his to fade.

World-weariness, weltschmerz, is the dangerous offspring of a life not lived in holiness, obedience, and truth. One does not see this in the lives of the Saints. Rather one remarks in their every movement and every word a sense of profound joy, of profound peace. This is the proper offspring of love of God inspired by fear of the Lord. And this love of God brings the fear of the Lord to perfection.

O Lord,

This Lent,
teach me to fear you
as the prelude to proper love.
Set my feet in the paths of
truth, obedience, and holiness
that I may spread the light of your peace and joy
and be your humble servant here on Earth.

Amen.

From The Rule of St. Albert

Chapter 16

You are to fast every day, except Sunday, from the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross until Easter Day, unless bodily sickness or feebleness, or some other good reason, demand a dispensation from the fast; for necessity overrides every law.

What seems so wonderful in this simple rule is that it is so moderate. Yes, the long fast requirement is seemingly quite harsh--although it probably reflects the ways in which the hermits of Mount Carmel were already living. What is marvelous is "necessity overrides every law." This remarkably sensible moderation enters at the very foundation of the Carmelite rule. We are to see it surface again and again, with St. Teresa of Avila and her famous, "If you think you are having visions, perhaps you should eat more," to St. Thérèse's "little way" and its manifestation in "small things with great love." The Carmelite Way seems to be one of moderation in all things EXCEPT in the pursuit of union with God, about which it is completely immoderate--it is the goal, the point, and the source of life for Carmel.

What is remarkable is the subtle ways in which we are called to such things. I had no notion of the depths of the Carmelite Way or of the simplicity that is so foundational when I first joined. Indeed, I am only now beginning to understand some of the "mechanisms" of the Carmelite way and I am astounded continually by their sheer simplicity and beauty.

The Carmelite Way is not everyone's way, but it you are called to it, God will make that so clear as there can be no doubt. You may need help in the course of discernment, because it is so difficult sometimes to come to correct conclusions on your own, but then, that is part of what formation is all about.

Reflecting on vocations again, St. Albert writes this in the Rule he proposed for "B. and the other hermits under obedience to him, who live near the spring on Mount Carmel."

Rule of St. Albert

Many and varied are the ways in which our saintly forefathers laid down how everyone, whatever his station or the kind of religious observance he has chosen, should live a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ--how, pure in heart and stout in conscience, he must be unswerving in the service of his Master.

"In allegiance to Jesus Christ" is the Carmelite motto. But it is uniquely Carmelite. Every Christian must live a life in allegiance to Jesus Christ, or risk being overwhelmed by the world. How one finds the proper bonds of allegiance and what outward manifestation that might have will vary. But it is not only the Carmelites who must live in allegiance with Jesus Christ, but everyone.

Also, it would be well to consider the origin of the term allegiance before it is dismissed as too light a bond.

aka The Problem Isn't OUT THERE, It's IN HERE. (points to heart).

I know you must tire of hearing about me. However, I always find helpful any insight, any retelling of the struggles one experiences in the spiritual life.

About a week ago, I closed the comments section for Lent. I did so because I thought that it would eliminate one particular temptation I had against the completion or even the doing of morning prayer. (This is a temptation that has crept into the repertoire or recent date, I not know whereof it comes.) I've received a number of e-mails both supportive and castigating (sometimes in the same e-mail).

What I discovered is that once the comments boxes were closed, new things cropped up that attempted to distract me from morning prayer. As I would deal with these externals one by one, I came to be aware that I was battling not the powers of this world, but the thrones, dominions, and principalities of the world beyond this one. In such a case my own efforts are futile without the aid of grace. God allows these temptations to strengthen my resolve to stay true to the discipline of the Church and more particularly to the Order to which I belong. And so, no amount of cracking down on the externals is going to remedy a flaw internal. Thus, it is better to accept the temptation and pray for the grace to remedy the internal flaw, whatever it may be, that gives rise to them. This is the more direct and useful mode of dealing with them.

As a result, I am reopening comments. Please be aware that if you do not receive a timely response to your comment, it is not because I am not interested, I am snubbing you or ignoring you; rather, it is because I am attempting to keep to my resolve with regard to this temptation.

And my deep appreciation and thanks to all who have commented and who will comment. This is one of the reasons community is so important in the life of every Christian.

Disputations

Tom shares with us the beginnings of thought about God, God's love, and God's simplicity. Simply beautiful. And I thank you once again Tom, God bless you for your generosity in sharing.

Foreign Policy: The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration

Miracle for John Paul II??

I don't usually burden y'all with such things, but I need to look at these later in more detail. The first seems to have enormous implications beyond the suggestions of the article itself.

verbum ipsum

That appears to put blame squarely where it belongs--with us, not God. I don't know about the other aspects of this theology, but I find it far easier to believe that God did not require the death of Jesus, but inexorable humanity demanded it.

It may be a misunderstanding, and if so, I will submit to the proper understanding when I learn it, but I'll keep looking and keep loving, and keep being aware that the problem is squarely centered on ME. I need to stop calling down blood by my own actions. I must cooperate with Grace to lead the life of love God would have me lead.

I have been thinking for some time about a post concerning vocations. Friday, Tom at Disputations, posted an notable entry about the meaning of a Dominican vocation, particularly as related to being a third-order Dominican. Interestingly enough he made the point that the charism of preaching is a charism of the Order as a whole which is supported, emphasized, and perhaps recharacterized by the individual appearances of that vocation. I have no intention of discussing the Carmelite vocation or charism at length, but suffice to say that while there is a single vocation--contemplative prayer, its expression and enunciation differ in a great many ways. No two contemplatives are exactly alike. However, every single Carmelite IS called to be a contemplative. I don't know if this marks a similarity or a difference with what Tom had suggested.

The point I wanted to make about vocation is that everyone has one. It may not be the traditionally recognized vocation to Priesthood, Religious Life, or Third Orders, but everyone is summoned by God to absolute holiness of life and the track of that summons, the path of that vocation, is laid out by God alone. No two people walk the same trail; no two people carry precisely the same cross; all people are made Holy by God's action and by grace, but no two people obtain the same graces, have the same talents, or exercise their abilities in precisely the same way.

This idea is prelude to another, which is more difficult to express. The second notion is that while no two people are called to the same exact track, there are practices, disciplines, and ways of living that are necessary for all people who wish to obtain holiness. For example, attendance at the sacraments and disposing oneself to God's prevenient Grace are necessary components to a Holy Life. Familiarity with and even immersion in the Scriptures ("Ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ") a necessary component. One aspect of this immersion, which has been frequently discussed is Lectio Divina. A certain amount of Lectio is useful for every person. However, Lectio as a gateway to contemplation is part of the Carmelite charism (and perhaps the charism of other orders), it is not a universal gateway, and it may not be the most effective practice of prayer for all people. Therefore, we also have bible study and bible-based prayers such as the Liturgy of the Word at Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours. All of these are ways of exposing oneself to scripture; however, it seems that effort beyond that of attending Mass is often extremely helpful to individuals in their attempts to become holy.

Each person needs to be acutely sensitive to what they are called to within their vocations. For example, St. Thérèse was a Carmelite, but she understood that as the BEGINNING of her vocation. Eventually she discovered her vocation to "be LOVE at the heart of the Church." What St. Thérèse revealed to us in those words is that vocation is not so simple as the surface might indicate. She did not reveal a new vocation, but a new understanding of vocation, and a new understanding of how vocation grows, develops, and changes as one becomes more intimate and familiar with God.

Each person needs to be sensitive to what God calls her or him to. To share an example from my own life--I know that I am NOT called to huge penances or mortifications. When I read about them in the lives of other saints, I'm immediately struck by the apparent psychiatric manifestations they propose. I correct those thoughts with the understanding that God speaks each vocation, and I am obviously not in a place to understand that path to holiness. As a result, I find no affinity whatsoever with some very, very holy people--St. Francis, St. Rose of Lima, and others. That isn't to say anything against these holy people, only that my own path is not marked that way, and this is part of the way I can discern that.

On the other hand, I have always hungered for the desert experience of God. I have always wanted to be with Him and not talk to Him, but simply sit in the loving presence. Anyone who describes anything like this experience is immediately appealing to me. There is greater appeal (for me) in those more firmly grounded in reality. I find St. Teresa of Avila wonderfully refreshing among mystics for her down-to-Earth practicality, "If you think you are having visions, perhaps you ought to eat more." This is the spiritual reality I desire--one firmly grounded in what we experience day to day, but still reaching out for the Cause of that reality.

Pay attention to these leanings and preferences. They are important signposts. But don't hold to them rigidly. For the longest time I avoided St. Thérèse like the plague. The mere thought of that simpering, sweet, sickly, little French girl just about caused treacle nausea. God has worked with me and brought me to a new understanding, appreciation, and love of this great Saint--she is now a mainstay of my spirituality. In short, I love her in a way that I love few others (La Madre and St. John of the Cross are in this select company. If I am to be brutally honest, the Blessed Mother still is not, but God has been leading me that way for a long time, and I trust Him entirely in allowing this to grow organically as it were.) Already, I've told you too much about me, but I simply want to present an example--not good or bad, but demonstrative of God's ability to conform us to His will and His vocation for us if we are willing. It's rather like the obverse of Jesus famous statement--"I will, be healed." It's as though God says to us, "If you are willing, I can heal you." And we respond, "I'm willing, heal me." That is the path of vocation. As Tom said, very wisely, and apropos of every vocation--when you've talked to one Dominican, you've talked to one Dominican. True for every person who seeks holiness by the paths God has laid out for them. Speak to any one of them and you will find a unique vocation. There will be elements of similarity in all vocations, but the distinct flavor, the distinct representation, the distinct expression of that vocation will be unique--no one else will gather together precisely the same elements and weave them in exactly the same way. As God created each of us unique and distinct from all others, so He knows with absolute surety the way each must walk to conform to holiness. And He will show that way for each of us if we are willing to listen and learn.

Google Mars

Thanks to Julie (aka Happy Catholic) who posted this link. Now, I'll be able to visit Mars any time I want!

It should come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with St. Teresa of Avila that her vision of the Cross is completely interpenetrated with love; not the Love of God for humanity, which she acknowledges and exalts, but the love of the person for Christ and His Cross. This is an interesting perspective and one that may help shed some light on the question of "taking up our crosses."

The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints St. Teresa of Avila

They are too attached to their honor. . . . These souls, for the most part, grieve over anything said against them. They do not embrace the cross but drag it along, and so it hurts and wearies them and breaks them to pieces. However, if the cross is loved, it is easy to bear, this is certain.

For St. Teresa of Avila, love is the measure of all things. Everything that a person does is measured by the love lavished on it. When someone loves to do carpentry, the shelves, cabinets, and woodwork of his (or her) house shows the attention given to detail. When a person loves to cook, the meals prepared show the investment of time and love.

Most people's embrace of the cross is summed up in the word endurance. The cross is not to be loved, or even to be examined, and only just barely is it to be borne, and then, often, only with ill grace. What the Saint says here is that whatever makes up the cross for a person needs not merely be borne and dragged along--in this there is mere destruction. But it must be loved, loved as the present it is from the God who gives it. While wearing braces, a person does not love them, but afterwards, for years of straight teeth and good service, the love of them grows. Leg braces are nothing great to wear, causing the owner pain and humiliation, but without them there is no motion of one's own.

The cross is a gift from God. The crosses a person is called upon to bear are to right the irregularities in that person's spirit, to repair the flaws of original sin, and to make that person a perfect vessel of grace. It's hard to love what hurts, but when what hurts leads to perfection, a person can do it. It often hurts to lift weights, to jog, or to engage in other such activities--but because of the benefits that accrue to these activities many people do them, and many people "love" them. If so for things that help make better the life of this world, then how much more so for things that help make better life now and in the world beyond?

We spent the last two days at KSC (Kennedy Space Center) as part of a homeschooling "special." It was indeed special--two days admission and a lunch along with a plethora of special activities just for the homeschooling set. We saw two magnificent IMAX movies and went on two bus tours, one of which allowed us to look down on the components of the Space Station that have not yet made it into space.

I can't begin to convey the sheer excitement and wonder of all of this. I thought about the time I began to like Science Fiction and wondered why my taste for it had palled so--and then I realized. Much of science fiction reaches beyond the sheer excitement of the next twenty years. It takes for granted interstellar flight, and has produced a whole group of novels which disguise various genres in futuristic drag. We have the O'Brien Novels dressed up in interstellar fleet, and we have the soap operas dressed up as alien encounters.

I guess I'm looking for new writers who recover the wonder of those early years of Science Fiction. I think Kim Stanley Robinson might be one of them--Red Mars, Blue Mars, and Green Mars. Perhaps there are others you all might suggest.

But nothing in science fiction is remotely as exciting as the sheer possibility of the next twenty years or so. According to NASA's mission statement/vision, we will begin to see the establishment of a lunar colony as early as 2018. That is reach-out-and-touch it is so close.

Well, I guess you can tell that KSC really lit stirred some embers I had not realized had been so ashed over.

St. Thérèse quoted in Carmelite Spirituality in the Teresian Tradition Paul-Marie of the Cross O.C.D.

Merit does not consist in doing or in giving much, but rather in receiving, in loving much. . . . It is said, it is much sweeter to give than to receive, and it is true. But when Jesus wills to take for Himself the sweetness of giving, it would not be gracious to refuse. Let us allow Him to take and give all He wills.

Our merits increase as we empty ourselves and allow God to fill us. Utter self-giving means utter Divine receiving, and whatever merits we might have accrued dim in comparison to being spouse to God. Once again, St. Thérèse is so right on the mark. And one of the great difficulties of our time is that so many know well how to give, but receive very, very poorly.

This is a test of the blogging alert system. Had there been a real blogging emergency you would have been told where to turn for information. Instead you get this bulletin:

NADA! tomorrow, as Wife, Sam, and the One who Writes, head out for the space coast for a day or so of homeschooling activities sponsored by KSC. Almost as exciting as this morning's furry lobster.

And I don't mean Mr. Coyote. . .

Okay, it all depends on how you look at it. But let me share with you a story of temptation--so far resisted by the grace of God, but undoubtedly to return.

I announced this morning after much agonizing that I was going to close the comment boxes. And I did.

This afternoon, driving home from work, I got this sudden inspiration. The purpose of my blog is to teach and what if the students can't get hold of the teacher. What then? I felt the Earth shift a little in its orbit, presaging some sort of sun-stopping move, or perhaps a cataclysmic shift in the magnetic field.

Grace stepped in and said in her sweetest voice, "You presumptuous buffoon. Why do you think you "teach" anything? When did you ever announce some intention to teach? Where did this vocation suddenly come from?"

And I realized how presumptuous the thought was and how counter everything I do here. Tom, at Disputations teaches, and he teaches well. I maunder, I share my small experience of the interior world, and my understanding of those who wrote texts about it. This does not a teacher make. (first) And second, who summoned these mythical students who long to drink at the font of my prodigious wisdom? I rather think I've acquired a number of very good friends who stop by to see how I'm doing. They will still do so, and I'll be able to drop by their places and the world will neither shift in its orbit or stand still. All will be well.

So, by grace, for the moment, the comment boxes remain closed, but I can see that just that small action fired up a mercenary group of devils (or a lot of psychotropic chemicals) to run an assault against me. Every time we take the smallest step in the direction of obedience, you can anticipate that three thousand very good reasons for not doing what is required will surface. Pray and let them pass by you. God knows what is happening and He will not allow you to be tempted past your ability to withstand.

SQPN.com

Obtained via You Duped Me Lord. Thanks Mark.

Great beauty. The thought and admonition are absolutely beautiful.

St. Thérèse quoted in Carmelite Spirituality in the Teresian Tradition
Paul-Marie of the Cross, O.C.D.

You are not sufficiently trusting, you fear God too much. I assure you that this grieves him. Do not be afraid of going to purgatory because of its pain, but rather long not to go there because this pleases God who imposes this expiation so regretfully. From the moment that you try to please him in all things if you have the unshakable confidence that he will purify you at every instant in his love and will leave in you no trace of sin, be very sure that you will not go to purgatory.

I know nothing of why Saints receive the honors they do of the Church, but I'm convinced that St. Thérèse, who is adored by both traditionalists and by others in the Church, is actually the Saint who most significantly changed our understanding of God and of Salvation. I think that she opened our eyes to the supremacy of love and to the nature of God as Father, in ways that might have been touched upon, but certainly never thoroughly explored before her. While never denying Church doctrine, look at the shades of understanding in the passage above--God "regretfully" imposes the expiation of Purgatory. Certainly not the traditional view of either God or purgatory.

This is certainly not the God one would have encountered in the writings of Saints before Thérèse; and it is an image of God a great many have tremendous trouble accepting even now. The school that so adamantly opposes Hans Urs von Balthasar's contentions in Dare We Hope that All Men Be Saved?, would be disinclined, it would seem, to accept such an image of God. And yet there is part of me that is certain that St. Thérèse got it exactly right. God may allow some of His children to escape His love, but if so, it is done not in anger, wrath, rage, and righteous indignation, but in the way a human parent finally has to let their wayward teenager come to the end of his or her own road in a jail or halfway house. They cannot (and God does not) interfere with self-will, but both parents and God are heartbroken at the choices made by their children.

CNN.com - New animal resembles furry lobster - Mar 8, 2006

Even in the realm of invertebrates, an oddity. This unique specimen represents the first new Family of Decapod crustaceans described since the late 19th century.

(Second link, scroll to the bottom of the page.)

"Rend your hearts, not your garments. . ."

Do my penances and observations of Lent cause me to long for God more, or are they exterior--for all the world to see without interior effect? If my garments show more sign of wear than my heart does of being moved, I must conclude that I am still not where I need to be in my Lenten practice.

Lent is a joyful time of repentence, re-evaluation, and movement toward God. The joy may be solemn, but this Lent, God has granted me such joy in my practices and in the enhancements they make in my family life and in my life in General, that I could only wish the season to last for the rest of my life. God has been very, very good to me--now, how can I be very, very good to Him?

Two Samuel stories.

Yesterday going to work, Samuel said that he was going to make a list of all the bad words and check them off as mom said them. I told him not to make a list but to write them down IF she said them. "I will, and I'll put the time." His mother, predictably was fussing and fuming over this and I was chuckling. When his mother started in with her objection Samuel did a grand salaam, and bowing deeply in his car seat he said, "Hail, Oh Queen of bad words." With that we both broke up in hysterics.

Later that same day, I sent Sam in to ask something of his mother. She figured he was coming in to beg to stay up later (again) and said, 'I'm not talking to you about it." (I found this out later.) He came back and shrugged his shoulders at me and said, "She didn't want to talk to me."

Not knowing what this was all about, I asked why.

"I don't know, maybe she has anger issues."

I really don't know where he comes up with these things, but he keeps us both in stitches most of the time.

Later: I forgot another gem that came up in this discussion. Samuel was discussing his mother's colorful vocabulary: "I'll make a list because she said the S word and the A word and the D word. And the P word."

"The P word?" I asked.

"You never know, just in case there is one," was his reply.

Yes, he keeps us on our toes.

from The Practice of the Presence of God
Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection;

Quote in Carmelite Spirituality in the Teresian Tradition
Paul-Marie of the Cross O.C.D.

We look for methods. . . to learn how to love God. We want to get there by I don't know how many practices. A multitude of methods makes it more difficult for us to remain in God's presence. Isn't it much shorter and more direct to do everything for love of God, to use all the works of our state in life to manifest our love to him, and to foster the awareness of his presence in us by this exchange of our heart with him? Finesse is not necessary. We need only approach him directly and straightforwardly.

It's been my experience that when the means of approaching God are multiplied, my attention to God is divided. The means become the ends; methods become the focus of attention. Brother Lawrence here suggest a "shorter, more direct" way of approaching God, a simpler way. But, as with St. Thérèse's little way, simpler is not easier. The Carmelite way of things is very, very simple, just as most Carmelites are fairly simple; however, the Carmelite way, properly lived, I'm coming to discover, is not at all easy. Nevertheless, in this, as in all that pertains to God, if our hearts are simple and our desires quieted until only one voice remains, it is possible. And these things are possible through Grace alone. We cooperate and prepare ourselves to receive the grace (although even this is not done without Grace) and it is Grace alone which accomplishes all that need be done. We must simply focus on the End rather than all the means, and we must love the End more than any of the intermediary means. Simple, but not easy--apparently a hallmark of the Carmelite way.

3/8/06

I examined my practices for Lent to see if there were something more I could do. Early this morning as I woke, I realized that my desire to see what, if any, comments had been left on my blog, far outweighed my desire to start morning prayer or any prayer.

That being the case, I underwent a major internal battle to remove the comments from my posts. I considered how inhospitable it would appear, how ungracious, how discourteous, how. . . You name it. The bottom line was that I kept thinking of reasons not to remove the comments because obviously, I was ATTACHED to that lifeline. A sure sign that I needed to do something. So praying, and summoning the strength. . . .
From this point onward, I will be posting without the ability to comment. It's extremely important to remember that this is not because I do not value your comments or your presence, but because I value them far too much. I would rather be with you than be with God--and as wonderful as you all are, that is not the proper order of priorities. I must decrease so that He might increase.

So please forgive me for removing the comments boxes.

Be My Lord

In the Glory of the night
be my Lord,
in the beauty of the light upon the waters,
be my Lord,
in silence that is not silent,
be my Lord,
in the stillness that is ever-moving
be my Lord,
in the chill and dark
be my Lord,
in the cold that is cold to me alone,
be my Lord,
in the shade beneath the hollow-bellied moon,
be my Lord,
in the shade of broad branched trees at night,
be my Lord,
in the memory of sound,
be my Lord,
in the lights of passing boats,
be my Lord,
as I slip beneath the black waters,
be my Lord,
in cricket chirp and frog song,
be my Lord,
in the promise of the light
be my Lord.

Let there be no other for me,
in our walking let it be our footsteps alone
that bend the blades and thresh the air,
let my song be a song for you and no other,
let my Lord have no others to stand beside Him.

Oh my heart be silent
for just this moment
and hear his breathing,
the sweet breath of hay-mow breeze
is not sweeter than the gentle
stir of his hushed breathing
in my hair, and in this breathing
be all my heart can want,
all my soul can see.
Be my Lord.

© 2006, Steven Riddle

By the way, I will note that I didn't claim they were good. But this is a way of marking them so that I'll come back and revise--if the spirit leads.

Hosea 2:14

I I
allure and lead and speak
her her her
into the desert/speak to her heart

How do I hear you
when I am so ready to speak?

I have no ears for listening
when my heart is loading up words
that will spill-a cataract-out of the tomb of my mouth.

I stuff my head with the sounds
of my own broken words
like bottleglass on a fence top
they are enough to keep all out.

Oh my heart is full to breaking
full of myself, my thoughts, my ways.
It is not a tender place but a thicket
and forked and poisonous as an adder's tongue.

And still it keeps filling,
filling until bursting--
bursting completely
with my self.
Bursting with the poison of the self.

How can I hear you over
the chirrupping, clattering, clanking,
drumming, roaring, droning,
humming, buzzing, chiming,
ringing, three-ring circus I laugh and call myself.

© 2006, Steven Riddle

At this point we have traveled through nearly an entire week of Lent and its a good time for a reevaluation. The following prayer is the closing prayer from evening prayer for today:

Father,
look on us, your children.
Through the discipline of Lent
help us to grow in our desire for you.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

For those who do not keep to a regular rhythm of morning and evening prayer, spend a few moments with the prayer above.

After you have done so, ask yourself--are my Lenten disciplines actually causing me to grow in my desire for God? Can you say honestly that what you have done up until now really makes you think of God more often? Does your heart turn to Him more regularly throughout the day?

Or does the discipline of Lent simply make you miserable and unpleasant to be around? Are you grousing because you can't have your cigarettes, chocolate, coffee, or cola? If so, your practices may be off-target. Refocus, ask the Holy Spirit what will make you turn to Him more often. How can you have more "Mary" moments in your "Martha" world? This is the purpose of lent. Heroic penances and terrible sacrifices are meaningless if they do not turn you more toward God. They are nothing more than the puffery of spiritual pride--the ability to outdo your neighbor in self-abnegation.

But what is the purpose of that abnegation? If it isn't to bring yourself into the presence of God and to increase your love and intimacy with Him, then it is entirely wasted. If it is more than what the Church demands of her children, it doesn't even have the merit of obedience.

So take this opportunity to make your Lent joyful and productive. Leave yourself behind and move forward. Move constantly toward God.

And use the prayer as a check every day. Are my disciplines really making me decrease that He might increase, or are they having the opposite effect? Remain open to the prompting of the spirit and prepared to change (always strictly obeying the regulations of the Church and the guidance of your spiritual advisor). Be prepared to add to all of your other practices the one thing that will allow you to attend to the Lord in all joy.

. . . made what was to be covert, overt. Thanks Julie for your comment, but I have relegated that particularly entry to the limbo of the drafts from which it should never have escaped.

The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, of The Order of Our Lady of Carmel (iii)

Abandonment to Divine Providence

Dark Night of the Soul

Ascent of Mount Carmel

Catena Aurea - Gospel of Matthew

Catena Aurea - Gospel of Mark

Of God and His Creatures

My Life in Christ, or Moments of Spiritual Serenity and Contemplation, of Reverent Feeling, of Earnest Self-Amendment, and of Peace in God

The Interior Castle

Some of these might hit the spot for self-imposed mortifications, but most of them are very good reading in their season and place--even if the translations are somewhat older.

Of the "legitimate" reasons I have heard from Catholics for not reading the Bible more often, one stands out. There is in a certain sector of the Catholic population a fear of "private interpretation" and of "going Luther" on the Church.

While one should not discount the possibility of this happening, one does well to put the whole thing in perspective. Luther was a highly trained religious, steeped in knowledge of the Scripture and exposed constantly to some real abuses occurring in the Church of the time. Admittedly these abuses were not necessarily pervasive, and I do not know enough history to say whether or not they were condoned by the hierarchy of the time. Nevertheless, they were enough for a man concerned about true holiness to begin to have his doubts about the Church, its laws, its rules, and its structure.

Most of the people who are concerned about this seem to live in fear of what they might find in scripture--as though just beneath the surface is a great Kraken that will drag them under and convince them that all they have known and loved since childhood is mere fairy tale. By turning the pages of this great love letter from God, the thought goes, we become progressively more fundamentalist.

Well, there's a great deal more to fundamentalism than merely turning the pages of the Bible. The Bible was "defined" by the Church and is one of the great gifts of Catholic Tradition to the world of Christians. It is true that after Luther a certain amount of suspicion accompanied the private reading of Scripture, and it did take the Church populace (if not the hierarchy) an unduly long time to get over this--in fact, many are still not over it entirely.

I'm here to tell you, as a former Baptist and a fair reader of scripture, that if you are one of the people worried about reading scripture for this reason, you will find nothing there to trick you into leaving the Catholic Church. If your faith is otherwise secure, if you aren't one of those who thinks that there's a lot of fact around The DaVinci Code, in short, if you are in the solid middle of St. Blogs, there is nothing in scripture that is going to drag you under. The Church will not suddenly transform into the Whore of Babylon and the Pope will not assume the aspect of the beast with seven heads and ten horns.

No, indeed. Proper reading of the scripture will reinforce all you already know from other sources. As a Baptist and a fundamentalist, following the rules of my own Church in the reading and interpretation of Scripture, I found that the Catholic Church had gotten it right and we had it wrong. One dip into John 6 without compromising your fundamentalist principles and you're sunk--the real presence is real, the Eucharist is not a symbol, and so forth.

"Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church," might be subject to illimitable debate in some circles, but as soon as one glances casually at the historical reality, one is struck with the harsh reality of the establishment of the Catholic Church with Peter at its head.

Scripture is filled with reconfirmations of Catholic thought and doctrine because the Catholic Church is built on the dual foundations of Scripture and Tradition. Tradition gave us the scripture, and Tradition assists us in understanding scripture.

If you follow the Church's very clear guidelines on how to read the Bible, (in short--you never read it alone because others have read it before you and all of presently defined practice comes out of understanding it with the mind of the Church) you will not travel off into the realms of private interpretation.

Surely there are problems in the Church of today. And surely the Church does sometimes fail its children in their formation and essential understandings. But the reality of the present-day situation is that we have enough books and enough guides and enough helps for reading the Bible that no one is left completely to their own resources.

In short, the "Luther" excuse for not reading the Bible every day is not a valid one. So a couple of tips for reading the Bible:(1) one may still be in the grip of fear, but pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance before starting, and trust in the Holy Spirit, the same spirit who guides and has guided the leaders of the Church throughout the ages to lead you to the truth. He will not lead you astray. (2) Don't read the Bible looking for an offensive weapon or a way to "combat" protestants, or to lead your fallen Catholic friends back to the Church. The Bible is not a weapon, proof-texting is not a profitable enterprise, wrenching Scripture from its context and applying a single verse rather than an interpretation that encompasses the whole. The Bible is a love letter. Read it as such. Stay with it. Linger over it. Read a passage time and time again. Memorize it--not to use in an argument over the veracity of this or that doctrine, but as a memento to carry with you wherever you go--as words to cherish and savor in those moments when you have nothing else to do and no Bible to hand.

Keeping these points in mind, the reading of Scripture becomes an opportunity for conversation with God, and, for a change to allow God to do most of the talking. Remember in the words of Fr. John O'Holohan, "It is not, 'Listen, Lord, your servant is speaking,' but 'Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.'" You don't need to fill up the silent spaces, you don't need to talk incessantly. Just read and spend time with the Lord in scripture. If for no other reason, read for the poor souls in purgatory--the Enchiridion of Indulgences grants a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions to anyone who spends a half-hour a day reading scripture. For less time a partial indulgence is granted. So, if you can't bring yourself to do it for yourself, offer yourself the opportunity to help those most abandoned, and longest separated from the beatific vision. With this beginning you may find that the habit of scripture reading takes hold and your whole faith life is enriched beyond your greatest expectations. That, at least, is certainly my prayer for those of your who take up this most wonderful of practices.

Amateur Catholic

A group blog--some of these characters you already know.

Psalm 19:7-8

The law of the Lord is perfect,
it revives the soul.
The rule of the Lord is to be trusted,
it gives wisdom to the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right,
they gladden the heart.
The command of the Lord is clear,
it gives light to the eyes.

What then is this command of the Lord?

Deut 6:4-5

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

And what is the natural result of this?

Matthew 22:37

37] And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
[38] This is the great and first commandment.
[39] And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
[40] On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets."

The command of the Lord is clear,
it gives light to the eyes.

or in the RSV

The commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes.

Here's a thought that I am only beginning to come to terms with:

from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints: St. John of the Cross

On this [narrow] road there is room only for self-denial (as our Savior asserts) and the cross. The cross is a supporting staff that greatly lightens and eases the journey.

I have a few minor problems with the first part. Mostly they are problems of proportionality and my role. I must deny myself, but in denying myself, I may not deny others. For example, I may give up a great many things, but I cannot impose upon my wife and child to give up those same things. I can encourage and I can lead by example, but an imposition from without is not self-denial but simply oppression.

Self-denial may be difficult, but I at least understand it. I'm only beginning to sense the truth encompassed in the second sentence, and I probably won't be able to make much sense of it to you, but here I go anyway.

When you love deeply, everything you do in love is made easier by being in love. Self-denial isn't self-denial, it is making a gift of yourself. You want the best of everything for the person you love and you're willing to see to it that they get it. You deny yourself some small trinket or even something necessary in order to fulfill the need you perceive. When your love is Jesus Christ, taking up your cross is part of His being able to bear His. We all participate in being Simon the Cyrene when we choose to carry our cross and deal with the burdens of the world at large. In this sense the cross becomes a staff. It is something we have taken up in love, not in thinking about ourselves, but in thinking about Jesus.

True self-denial denies even the concept of self-denial. It cannot be self-denial if it is given in love. Yes, you are incidentally denied something, but that something you are denied contributes to the welfare of another, if only in the spiritual realm. Self-denial does not always see the denial, it sees only the end for which the denial occurs--Jesus Christ. Thus, taking up the cross becomes not so much a chore as an exertion of love--a sign of our Love for the savior. Indeed, when love carries the burden, it works so strongly that it lifts us up as well.

Do what you do not for fear of hell or hope of heaven, but for the love of Jesus Christ. When that motivates all that we are and all that we do, the world itself is transformed, and what appear to be heroic acts of virtue are baubles, trifles, never enough to satisfy our desire to give. We suffer with the suffering of being unable to give enough, of being mortal and confined and limited. Our suffering greatly increases as our love increases and I wonder if even the suffering is not suffering, but it is part of the transformative union that allows us to share the aloneness of Jesus on the Cross for a single moment. If for an instant I could be with Him when He was most abandoned, what a consolation that would be to the entire world. If I could enter into that dark and terrifying place and say, "I'm here Lord," what a consolation that would be. Suffering would still be suffering, but it would be transformed in Him.

I go on too long. I am only beginning to understand, and my lack of understanding makes many words of what is probably a very simple thing. But it is a thing I need to know better and embrace more completely. Self-denial is meaningless if all I ever look at is my self and what is being denied. Self-denial seeks to look beyond the mere temporal object to the final Glory for which we have surrendered the object so important to us.

What a joyful, wonderful time Lent is. I want to say to all the world, "Come on in, the water's fine. And the company is just grand."

from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints: St. John of the Cross

[W]ho seeks not the cross of Christ seeks not the glory of Christ.

Christ's cross is His Glory. The resurrection, which affirms the triumph of the Cross is also glorious and joyful, but the act in which the separation of humankind from the intimacy of God was accomplished was the death on the Cross. If we seek to avoid the Cross, if we avert our eyes from it, we are averting our eyes from His glory, His great triumph. On the Cross He reunited God and His children. In the great Alone of His suffering, He forged the unbreakable covenant of our Salvation.

Honestly, I can't begin to understand it. I can't begin to tell what it means. But the words echo in my mind and the reality thrills my spirit as few things have done. What a gracious, loving, merciful, welcoming God we have. Isn't it time for all of us to stop rebelling and return home?

Disputations

To demonstrate just how few heebee-jeebies this particular Carmelite has, I direct your attention to a very interesting set of posts chez Disputations. Tom is doing a really fine job of helping us to understand just what it means to take up your Cross and follow Jesus.

Another reason to thank God for the many parishioners of St. Blogs.

Lent is such a time of solemn joy. My heart rejoices in the opportunity for renewal and for reflection and for spending time with God. Rethinking one's life is a critical part of Lent. The fruits of that rethinking are all too soon gone with the coming of Easter and it's great joy.

But I was thinking, shouldn't the coming of Easter actually cement in place those good things we have done, those practices we have established. Shouldn't the coming of Easter be a true resurrection--not of the old habits and ways, but of the spirit within. If I have found a way to build a cell and retire to it during Lent, shouldn't that cell still be strong and vibrant in the Easter light and shouldn't it hold for me the same attractions? Indeed, greater attractions as it has become my home?

The solemn joy of Lent becomes the glorious Joy of Easter, and all the good we have done, all the practices we have begun can become a cohesive part of our lives.

I think the all-too-common problem with Lent is that people see the solemnity, but fail to pick up on the joy. We give things up in a spirit of penitence, but it should be thought of as shedding things that keep us away from the Lord. It isn't penitence, but joy that lights up all those practices that bring us closer to God.

Rejoice in the Lord, always, again I will say it, rejoice. And this is Always--Lent included. So rather than thinking about what we are "giving up," think about what we a shedding, sloughing off. Each little thing we can let go of changes the old person, each moment of grace we take advantage of is a ray of light to that seed scattered on the ground. Each observance of lent, be it a full stations of the Cross, or a single aspirative prayer, helps us to move closer to God, all through His grace.

Oh, Lent is such a season of great joy and great opportunity. Seize it. Seize the day, seize the light that is offered!

Okay, more like Changes in Longitude--Tampa isn't that far south of us.

One thing I derived from my weekend was the need to strengthened my Carmelite vocation in everything I do. As a result, I decided to abandon my daily reading of In Conversation with God. This series of meditation is very powerful, very useful, and very helpful, but it is a different way of spirituality and hence somewhat subversive of the things I am called to practice as a Carmelite.

Carmelites occupy a great middle way of asceticism. The Saints adopted the practices of the Church during their times, but Carmel's way has never been one of extraordinary penance or mortification. Rather, Carmel's way has one ascetical point--prayer in solitude, prayer in the desert of the heart.

Now, this doesn't sound like much, but the practice of solitude and silence in the ordinary day of a married man (in my case) or woman is actually an enormous discipline. Try to find a space of two minutes when one thing or another isn't demanding your immediate attention. Physical solitude is a difficult thing to find, and it is an even more difficult thing to want when one has a spouse and a child as dear to them as mine are to me. Nevertheless, this is the ascetical practice to which I am called, and for which I will need to develop a plan.

As a result, the small mortification of the day, and penances, and other practices suggested by those with an Opus Dei spirituality, simply don't fit into the Carmelite way. They are not bad practices--indeed, they are very, very good practices, but one thing I am learning about vocation is that it must be observed with a laser beam focus if it is to mean anything. To this point I have had the focus of a bare light bulb. Light goes everywhere but does not illuminate much of anything well. A light bulb cannot be used to perform the surgery that true adherence to a vocation entails. The laser focus gives God the tool with which to remove the cataracts and restore vision. With that same light He purifies and refines until I am what He has called me to be.

Twice during my retreat I encountered this phrase from "The Sayings of Light and Love" of St. John of the Cross.

"God spoke one word."

I knew immediately the meaning, but it took a while for the implications to sink in. If God spoke only one Word, what are all those words in the Bible about? Yes, I know I'm slow, but obviously, every one of them is about Jesus Christ. How? Until I meditate on every one of them I cannot tell you. Truthfully even afterwards, I suspect that I will not understand the full mystery of it. Nevertheless, I know that it is true.

To give you an example, in this morning's Office of readings:

"Therefore, say to the Israelites: I am the Lord. I will free you from the forced labor of the Egyptians and will deliver you from their slavery. I will rescue you by my outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment."

There's more, but let's stop there.

What I heard as I read this substituted the words "your sins" for "the Egyptians."

" I am the Lord. I will free you from the forced labor of your sins and will deliver you from their slavery."

How will he do this? "I will rescue you by my outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment." Arms outstretched on a cross--the mighty acts of judgment, those which condemned the savior and brought Him to the cross, but also those that occurred after His death, in which the veil in the temple was torn in two, breaking the barrier between the Holy Spirit of God and His people.

This is an anticipatory reading of the passage. That is to say, it is reading into the passage and not the literal meaning. The literal meaning must be preserved, but the language used eerily forecasts the kind of redemption we were to receive.

Rolling this all into a ball and sending it spinning across the field, we come back to "God spoke one Word."

Praise the Lord!

I'm back.

First, my thanks to all who prayed for us on our retreat. It was wonderful, and while it was very Carmelite, I will share with you some of the fruits of that retreat as seem appropriate and as the Spirit leads.

Second, my apologies to those who commented and did not receive a reply, but you understand the circumstances, and I thank you for all your wonderful comments.

Third--on with the blog.

from Saint Julian
Walter Wangerin Jr.

Blue-eyed with lily-white skin--Oh, how comely was the Lady of the Castle as she ducked her head and grabbed for the sailing linen and laughed at the whirling breezes as if they were sprites or dryads, the children of dreams and memories.

It was upon occasions of such unconscious abandon, occasions when his mother broke her silences and danced with the day, that Julian--watching through some high window or lattice above--was so moved with love for his mother that he fell to his knees and gave thanks unto Heaven for the rain of grace and goodness in his life.

How would you like to be the type of parent for love of whom your children spontaneously fell to their knees and gave thanks. I'm not yet, but it certainly seems a worthy goal so long as they are thanking God for grace and goodness.

from Saint Julian
Walter Wangerin

Julian's mother, gracious in every regard, was a slender woman with slightly caven shoulders and a quick, bright eye. Her face, in sweet descent from the brow to the chin, showed first the temples of stable thought and wise administration; next, the dawn-blush of joy and high-blooded health; and finally the raised taper of noble certitude--which, in her husband's presence, lowered to noble compliance. Ah, and then how glad was the Lord of the Castle to find the gift of such compliance in the face of his lady! And how rich was the issue of Compliance and Gladness commingled together: for the issue was Julian himself, appearing pink and dimpled on the Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel.

If you don't hear much from me in the next few days, worry not, I'll be back to harass you. In fact, I'm going to a silent retreat, Spiritual Combat in the Carmelite Tradition. Please remember all the retreatants in your prayers and we'll remember you in ours.

Thanks.

A hard, joyful word from St. Josemaria Escriva:

from The Way

17 Don't succumb to that disease of character whose symptoms are insonstancy in everything, thoughtlessness in action and speech, scatter-brained ideas: superficiality, in short.

Mark this well: unless you react i time--not tomorrow: "Now!"--that superficiality which each day leads you to form those empty plans (plans 'so full of emptiness') will make of your life a dead and useless puppet.

We can be pushed to and fro by the winds of self and slavish devotion to our own awkward notions of things. As our notions change, so to do our whims, our directions, our motivations, our path of life. Ultimately we do as Dante says of Dame Fortune: "Her changes change her changes endlessly." We become mere avatars of change, waffling, uncertain, and unhappy.

The discipline of Lent is the beginning of a discipline of life that can help us to alter those circumstances. We can choose not to succumb to whatever wind passes our way. We can choose to adhere closely to the truth and not be driven forward on an endless journey seeking our own ends. Simple, humble obedience and a constant recourse to the Lord in prayer and our lives become something other than what they were. We move on toward life. Or we cleave to our own ends and wind up with a life that is truly as meaningless as the postmodernists would tell you it is. The choice rests with each one of us because God's grace alone is sufficient.

Lagaan is another film from India; however, I am uncertain whether it qualifies for Bollywood status as it tends to be far more serious and subdued than many such.

The title is derived from the word Lagaan which means something like "tax", but something more like "tribute." The story is set during the British Raj and features a particularly despicable British Captain who is oppressing the people in one province (state?) in India.

One of the leaders of a farming village, Bhuvan, grows tired of the oppression and ultimately challenges the British to a cricket match. The Captain offers Bhuvan the following: If you win, no lagaan for three years; if you lose, rather than the double lagaan I was going to charge, you must pay triple lagaan.

Just prior to all of this the Captain had informed the village that since he had waived lagaan the previous year, he expected double lagaan this year. One gets the impression that he did this because the local ruler refused to eat meat at his table. Now the Captain knew that the local ruler's religion prohibited the eating of meat, but he nevertheless demanded it. While watching, I thought of the scene in 2 Maccabees with the seven sons of the Jewish Lady.

Any way, we now know that this particular British Captain is evil. What IS nice about the story is that not all of the British are so portrayed. The chief help the village receives as they begin to prepare for the game comes from the sister of the Captain who also, quite bravely, faces up to him several times in the course of the film.

The last hour or so of the film features a cricket match that stretches over three days. On the night before the last day the villagers meet together to pray for success in the game.

Despite the fact that to anyone other than the British and the members of their Commonwealth/erstwhile Empire, Cricket is utterly incomprehensible, the movie is wonderful from start to finish. Beautifully filmed, colorful, and meaningful. Songs occur throughout in English and Hindi. Interestingly, the film is subtitled and features the subtitles even when the characters are speaking English. I suppose it is easier than figuring out when to subtitle.

At any rate, this is one of the more serious films from India I have seen, and it is well produced, exciting, interesting, and gives a most fascinating perspective on the culture and people of India. Highly recommended to anyone interested in recent history and Indian film.

Yesterday I read in In Conversation with God

In order to make progress in the interior life it is a great help to have several little mortifications in mind, fixed, in advance, decided upon beforehand, so that we do them every day. . . .

Other mortifications can be directed toward overcoming our desire for comfort. . . we can have in mind specific mortifications at meals, in our personal appearance etc.

Frankly, I hate advice like this. It comes off as cryptic--guess what I'm thinking. I'm certain the author doesn't intend it--after all in a small page and a half there isn't the room to go into any detail at all. But being of a practical bent I want to know what this person is thinking about. What exactly are these small things.

Well the irritant produced a faux pearl. I was thinking about this passage in particular and one example occurred to. I could eat food exactly as it is brought to table. No salt, no pepper, no additional seasoning, no condiments--simply as it is in all its splendor.

Now, at Erik Keilholtz's table or Julie's table or the Mama's tables this might not be a mortification. But I can tell you as a cook with an aversion to salt--any salt, any amount--at my table most people would be mortified (in every sense of that word!)

From a Homily by St. John Chrysostom

Prayer and converse with God is a supreme good: it is a partnership and union with God. As the eyes of the body are enlightened when they see light, so our spirit, when it is intent on God is illumined by his infinite light. I do not mean the prayer of outward observance but prayer from the heart not confined to fixed times or periods but continuous throughout the day and night.

By which I read the saint to mean not that he thinks poorly of fixed times of prayer, but that prayer of the heart, which involves the whole person is the supreme good to which all other prayer and discipline leads.

--from In Conversation with God

The person who abandons mortification is inevitably ensnared by his senses and becomes incapable of any supernatural thought.

Those are some really tough words--but they aren't so difficult as you might imagine if you really understand what mortification is. Mortification is the abanonment of self in the spirit of self-denial and self-sacrifice in the service of another and in the love of God. When you put up with Ms. Whiny-voice and even welcome her into your home or office, you are excerising the spirit of mortification. When you eat less of what you would like, or allow your children to have the last piece of whatever, you are in the spirit of mortification. The possibility of mortification is pervasive, we need merely reach out to touch it and take advantage of it. We mature in our faith through self-denial and little sacrifices.

The comments box of the post immediately below has the more substantive writing of today. The question of the Cross has a certain prominence in this Lenten Journey and I, for one, am only beginning to come to terms with it. But in our journey here on Earth, I wonder if we ever really get beyond the beginning--it is so deep and wide and broad a mystery that it is unfathomable to those of us with little minds for this kind of thought. I know only the little I am given to know through my engagement with other, more knowledgable souls. But I will continue to share the little I can in hopes that it will inspire those better than me to continue the exploration.

Elsewhere I posted a response that I wish to remember here because too often I forget it. I will not repeat the original questioner's name out of deference to him, but I post the question asked and my response. Not because my response was particularly good, but rather because when I went back and read it, it spoke to me as though someone else had written it--thus I assume God means the message for me. That happens sometimes. (And if by this, I give offense to the original poster, I beg your pardon. Drop me a line and I'll remove this. Otherwise, I thank you for your charity in allowing me to share it.)

Q: Do you equate the routine trials, discomforts, griefs, aches, pains and frustrations of normal human existence as *the Cross*?

A: And I would ask--do you maintain they are not part of it? St. Therese of Lisieux said that there was sufficient mortification in daily life to bring about the detachment necessary to join with God. Many of the Saints have said that the suffering of daily life was enough. Is it equivalent? No. But Jesus didn't say we would carry HIS cross, we were to carry our own. If we were to carry HIS how could he say, "My yoke is easy, my burden light"? A cross is a cross--some part of that comes through the routine of the day and some part of that is extraordinary. That is the principle of the sacrament of the present moment. God sends to us moment by moment what it is He means for us to have, cross and consolation, joy and sorrow--they all come from Him, through Him, and by His grace. So, yes, the ordinary trials of the day are part of the cross we bear--and no they are not nor have they ever been the equivalent of the cross Jesus bore. But then there is no one who ever carried the burden of that Cross save Jesus Himself--nor was there ever anyone who was expected to.

Like physical therapy, the disciplines of Lent that we assume must be customized to the particular faults we aim to remedy. For some, the daily round of Liturgy of the Hours isn't particularly a discipline--it is part of the routine of the day--but to spend a single day without reading the newspaper and tut-tutting over the bad behavior of others is nearly unthinkable. For others it may be that introducing morning prayer is the most that could possibly be accomplished. For still others, there are other disciplines that train us in love and obedience.

A good physical therapist doesn't spend a half-hour working your shoulder if the primary disability is in the knee. Yes, you'll probably have additional body work, but the focus will be on what ails you. So, too, with Lent. Don't look around and see what everyone else is doing and wonder whether you've chosen the right things to get you started. Instead, look at God and ask Him if you're doing the right things. Ask the Divine Physician what your therapy needs to be and adjust your course accordingly. Keep to the minimum of what the Church requires and add as God dictates, not as the disciplines of others dictate. None of us are wounded in the same way--none of us needs the same care and healing--thus, the treatment of each person will be dictated by the person, the nature of the injury, and the relationship that person has with God.

Don't worry that there are some real Olympic-style fasters out there--or some J. Paul Getty alms-givers. Focus instead on looking at the God who loves you and wants you only for Himself. He'll tell you how to get to Him; He will guide you with leads of love. (Hosea 11:4)

"Whoever seeks God while wanting to hold on to his own likes and dislikes, may seek Him day and night, but will never find Him."

St. John of the Cross The Spiritual Canticle

The fast that is acceptable to the Lord is the fast that helps us see Him more clearly. Any other kind of fast is a self-indulgence--a source of spiritual boastfulness. The Lord tells Isaiah that the fast He wants has nothing to do with not eating, but rather, with feeding those who do not have enough and giving justice to those who languish for lack of it.

Joel tells us to "Rend your hearts, not your garments." Rending our hearts helps to break up the stony, dried-up surface. Our hearts like soil without water grow hard and impermeable to grace. When we rend our hearts we make them like the fields of the farmer freshly plowed, we break up the clods and make our hearts arable. The seed will have good soil to fall into.

What form should this rending of the heart take? God alone knows. Each person must follow the path that He has in mind for them. But part of what we can do is turn more often to prayer and to the little things we neglect. In the morning read the Mass reading and take into the day a single verse or phrase to use as a prayer for the rest of the day. Today for example it might be a phrase from the psalm, "Create a clean heart in me, O Lord." Or from the prophet, "Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful."

This little word will help to break up the hardness of spirit that has overcome me. It will penetrate through the dried up surface. It becomes the seed that will take on new life through grace if only I will cooperate.

Now is the acceptable time, now is the season of Salvation. Hear Him and go to Him. Let your fast be a fast that brings a fastness in the Lord. Lent is a time of growth, of renewal in the roots that will blossom forth at Easter. The dead of winter is passing and we are moving into new life. Let it flow. Let God flow, from your lips, from your actions, from your heart.

May God bless all of us with His grace and mercy. May He give us new and human hearts. May He give us eyes that see Him and ears that hear Him in the ordinary circumstances of the day. Seize this day the opportunity to hear Him in all that happens around you. He is there and He is waiting for you to turn to Him with your whole heart. It can be done.