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March 20, 2006
To Die of Love
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."
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:17 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Strangers in a Strange Land
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:29 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
The Justice of God
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Elijah and Mary
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:58 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Bible for PDA
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 22, 2006
Pure Bloods
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:46 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
March 23, 2006
Garments or Hearts?
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The Collar
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Reasons for Not Loving God
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spiritual Insulation
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 3:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
March 24, 2006
Spiritual Union on the Way of the Cross
from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints:
St. Teresa Benedicta of the CrossThe 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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mortifications
from The Way of the Cross with the Carmelite Saints
St. Teresa Benedicta of the CrossMore 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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack