Flos Carmeli

May 16, 2008

Sadness

I'm reading Jhumpa Lahiri's book Unaccustomed Earth for my book group later this month. The stories are as wonderful as those of her earlier collection The Interpreter of Maladies which won a Pulitzer Prize (well deserved) in 2000. The stories, almost inadvertently, put me in mind of several trends I have been exposed to that sadden me considerably.

I have noted that some of the young people who work in the office I do seem to eschew parenthood. One young man expressed nothing but contempt for children (easily done when you have none yourself), another expressed horror at how much children drain from the family coffers and, jokingly or not, expressed the sentiment that he "would never have any of those."

Where once the expectation was that one would marry and have a family, the present expectation seems to be a perpetual adolescence of worry-free sex and freedom from the responsibility of caring for a child.

I will admit that at one time my sympathies were with these young people. I had a horror of having children that knew no bounds. And I suppose that it doesn't help to say that my horror was of a different sort. My chief concern was that given the father I had growing up, I wondered about my own ability to raise a child in any way that would be beneficial. My horror was not for me and my "lost freedom" (whatever that may be), but rather what a wretched individual I was likely to raise in the wake of what I had learned from my father.

I don't know how common this experience might be. But I do know that as I lived with my wife and I saw those around me with children, I began to wonder what that might be like and wondered (despite my horror) why we had so long been deprived of this. Eventually the longing and desire became so great that when Linda came home and asked me what I thought of adopting the child of a relative of a friend, my heart simultaneously fell (with the thought of what a wretched father I would be) and rejoiced at finally being able to care for one of these most precious ones of God. I had been given a gift that surpasses all other gifts and all other things of value. Within a few weeks we were caring for a new baby boy.

As you all know we named him Samuel, very deliberately, because at that time he had been asked of God for nearly fifteen years. He is a source of constant and unending delight and joy.

I can only hope that those I work with, those who would eschew the greatest of the gifts God has given us, will in time come to their senses and come to realize that the riches gained in a child to share life with far outweigh the passing riches of this world. Like many parents we have had to give up the thought of European Vacations, cruises, and even, for the most part, vacations to places that don't have relatives to stay with. We don't have the luxury of rich food and expensive cars, we can't afford many of the things our neighbors have. In order to homeschool him we have to forego the two incomes many families have and often struggle along on what I alone can make. And there would be some who would view these things as tremendous sacrifices. But I see them as gifts--each one of them--ways of not being quite so enamored and attached to the world at large. Blessings, mitzvahs, things that enrich our life. Because we have Samuel to share our lives, all these other things fade into insignificance.

And what this taught me more profoundly is the lesson Jesus most wished to impress upon us. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you." In a microcosm, when our priorities are rightly ordered to the vocation to which we have been called, we begin to see the light of day. When I look upon my family situation, I see what God is calling me to and I long for it. There is almost no sacrifice too great for what we presently have as a family, because none of it seems like sacrifice. So too, there is almost no sacrifice too great to belong to God's family, because when our priorities are right, none of it seems like sacrifice. Perhaps that is why so many saints longed to suffer for and with the Lord, because suffering is not suffering when it is done in complete, abandoned love. Sacrifice is meaningless when the thing sacrificed loses all value--and so we long to repay in some way the great munificence, the magnificent love showered upon us by God our Father. And there is no way to do so except, perhaps, to love Him and cling to Him as Father forever--as the one who loves us so much that no Sacrifice was too great.

So, today blessing on all of those who accept, welcome, and nurture all the small people God has so generously blessed them with. And blessings on all those, who for whatever reason, have not yet received this gift--blessings that they will change their minds or hearts or be blessed as we have been blessed with an utterly unexpected gift.

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February 25, 2008

Continuing the Theme

Natural and supernatural--the relationship between them is the key to understanding much of the natural world. This excerpt from a longer essay by Orlando's Bishop Thomas Wenski is a hint in that direction:

from an Essay in the Orlando Sentinel
Bishop Thomas Wenski

And so the church supports the teaching of evolution as the best available account of how nature works. But, at the same time, the church rejects certain erroneous philosophical theories that are sometimes associated with it. To insist, as some scientists have done, that evolution requires a materialistic or an atheistic understanding of the human person or of the entire universe is to stray beyond the proper realm of science itself. To argue such a neo-Darwinist conception of a mechanistic universe without any sign of intelligent order is to argue from a philosophical bias and not from the results of any scientific investigation.

The scientific method has proved to be a powerful instrument in assisting mankind to come to a greater understanding of the world and how it works. However, as a method, it is limited to the physical objects and their relationships. Scientific knowledge does not extend beyond the physical, and, therefore, it is not sufficient to answer all the questions that men inevitably pose about themselves and their world.

As Catholics we believe that mankind was created by God for himself; that is, we are destined to share the communion of the life of the Holy Trinity. We are in physical continuity with the rest of life on the planet through the process of evolution. But, because we each have a spiritual soul created directly by God, we also are qualitatively different from other living beings. Science can rightly explore man's continuity with the rest of life, and thus uncover the causal chains by which God prepared the way for appearance of the human race. But, it is theology's realm, aided by Divine Revelation, to explore those dimensions of human existence that cannot be the objects of scientific explanation.

The Catholic Church does not have to reject the theory of evolution in order to affirm our belief in our Creator. As Catholics, we can affirm an understanding of evolution that is open to the full truth about the human person and about the world. With appropriate catechesis at home and in the parish on God as Creator, even our children in public schools should be able to achieve an integrated understanding of the means God chose to make us who we are.

(The Entire Essay)

Properly understood, the natural world takes its essence from the supernatural but its form (existence) from the rule governing the natural. God does not normally choose to intrude upon these governing principles. If evolution is one of these organizing principles, it is not in contradiction to the supernatural.

It has been pointed out before, by many and myriad, that evolution as a scientific understanding of the origin of life and development of diversity is not a problem. What is a problem is the unprovable and unscientific philosophical trappings that come with it. As Bishop Wenski points out--the development of life through evolution does not necessitate a materialistic or atheistic interpretation of the universe. Indeed, such an interpretation is far outside the bounds of science. Science has no intelligible comment to make on the existence or non-existence of God. Science exists to explain the natural world--a subset of the supernatural world. With its instruments and its philosophical underpinnings, it is incapable of plumbing the depths of the supernatural; however, it can occasionally point in that direction. As Gödel pointed out there are propositions and theorems that can be made from within a system that are unprovable with the axioms and corallaries of that system. The existence or nonexistence of God is one of those theorems that are unprovable and therefore beyond the bounds of the natural system we call science.

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The Supernatural Life

Yesterday's gospel reading provoked an interesting series of thoughts:

'The woman said to him,
“Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty
or have to keep coming here to draw water.” '

Reading this, it occurred to me that this is all too often my reaction. I'm told about the beauty of the supernatural life, about its promise and its durability. My immediate expectation is that when I embrace this life things will somehow be changed--there will be no more trials and sufferings and heartache and pain. I shouldn't have to go and fetch water from the well any more. Food should pop out of the oven already prepared and beautifully proportioned and seasoned. After all, isn't that more or less what Jesus promises with the whole "yoke is easy, burden light" rhetoric?

No, it isn't. Yesterday it finally slapped me upside the head. The supernatural life is NOT the counternatural life. The supernatural, as the name implies, sits about the natural and contains the natural as a subset of it. That is the supernatural life, the war in heaven, is the real life that we only catch glimpses of through the sacraments. Only rarely are we privileged to see the supernatural life superceding and counteracting the natural life--we call such moments miracles. But the physcially miraculous is only a very tiny part of the supernatural life.

The awareness of the supernatural life and the constant participation in it does change everything--absolutely EVERYTHING. But it neither contradicts it nor does it normally change the parameters of it. What it does change is our perception of what we are about in this life. That change of perception is critical. Once we have tasted the living water we cannot be satisfied with anything less. Once we have seen the Kingdom we cannot continue to live in the desert. The glimpse and understanding of the supernatural life sets everything around us in context. Pain, suffering, outrage, horror, even psychological stress and disease do not pass away. Rather, they become meaningful in a way that, formerly, they were not. Suffering means something because suffering here and now is part of the war in heaven, the battle of angels. The saints speak of sharing in the suffering of Christ as though it alleviated some of that suffering, and in some sense we can understand that when we see that our little suffering contributes to the overall victory--when we suffer in the knowledge of that ultimate victory and in the embrace of it.

So, the key point--the supernatural life is not counternatural. We should not expect that the embrace of it will immediately change all circumstances and change all those things that tempt us and try us. It won't. It will change us--it will make us amenable to further change, to the transformation that leads to the ability to lead an eternal life. But it will not suddenly undo all the choices we have made. If we enter into it tempted by greed, pride, or lust, we will continue to be tempted. However, we will have an awareness of new resources to draw upon. We will have the ability to turn the leadership of the battle over to someone who knows the path to victory, and we can become the footsoldiers we were meant to be--not trying by ourselves to conquer sin, but meekly following the lead of He who does it for us. In this is our victory and our ability to lead others to victory. We are promised a transformed life, but the transformation is not on the level of not needing to eat or drink or exercise or do all those things we do in a day. Rather the transformation is in knowing that whatever it is we do, we never do it alone--we never do it without help and without being loved into eternity.

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February 14, 2008

"Not Counting Our Trespasses Against Us. . ."

Here is the fundamental ground of hope. God is not a scorekeeper. He is not out measuring every doctrinal deviation or venial infraction. His concern is not with evening things out and making the playing field level. Indeed, His concern is lifting each person, every one of us to Him. He has no interest in finding reasons to keep us out of heaven--indeed His chief interest is to clear the obstacles that prevent us from choosing heaven.

The vast majority of humanity are little children--easily distracted, easily led astray, easily returned to a momentary interest in what is important, and then distracted again. He knows that. So time and again His message of love comes to each one person and encourages a return to Him.

He does not count our trespasses against us any more than we would count a todler's transgressions. And, if we, being evil, know how to give what is good, then how much more so Our Heavenly Father who is good.

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November 16, 2007

Gluttony--Wasichu

Whether or not Wasichu actually means "eaters of fat" or "the ones who take the fat," the myth of the meaning provides entry into today's brief exploration of Fr. Beck's book. The "eaters of fat" were those who were so all consuming that they ate at the expense of everyone else--immoderately and seemingly all-consuming, taking even the last, most precious of ther reserves.

from Soul Provider
Father Edward L. Beck

Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, can kill us not only physically, but spiritually as well. Saint John Climacus says: "Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach. Filled, it moans about scarcity; stuffed and crammed, it wails about hunger. Glutton thinks up seasonings, creates sweet recipes. Stop one urge and another bursts out; stop that one and you unleash yet another. Gluttony has a deceptive appearance: it eats moderately but wants to gobble everything at the same time."

The sin here is not only in the doing, it is is the inordinate desire even when the impulse is controlled.

I have a friend who has lost a large amount of weight; she has adhered especially closely to one particularly program of eating. She is justifiably pleased with how well she has done and she claims that food no longer possesses her. But in actual fact, it merely possesses her in a different way. Everything is oriented toward eating in this way--all thought is about the next meal or this meal and whether it conforms in every particular to the ideal. This isn't gluttony--but it is similar to how gluttony works. And gluttony, hasn't only to do with food. It has to do with any inordinate appetite for goods of any sort. Gluttony is when we rise from the breakfast table asking "What's for lunch."

A later quote from C.S. Lewis in Father Beck's book makes the point more clearly:

"Anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating will admit that we can ignore even pleasure."

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November 12, 2007

Sloth and Acedia

One of the worst things we face is a sense of boredom or the uselessness of doing anything at all. Father Beck addresses this:

from Soul Provider
Father Edward L. Beck

Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
--Dylan Thomas. . . .

In his famous 1978 Harvard commencement address, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned of the West's "spiritual exhaustion": "In the United States the difficulties are not a Minotaur or a dragon--not imprisonment, hard labor, death, government harassment and censorship--but cupidity, boredom, sloppiness, indifference. Not the acts of a might all-prevading repressive government but the failure of a listless public to make use of the freedom that is its birthright." If we are indeed a listless public, what has made us so, and what can we do to infuse our lives with new vigor?

We can do a few things. The authors I have just quoted suggest that boredom is an evil to be conquers it if leads to despondency, hopelessness, and ingratitude. Sloth is clearly the result of a refusal to celebrate the gift and potential of life. But there is another way to look at it. We can embrace boredom, hoping to transform it into something not boring at all. We have been convinced that we always need to be doing something to be happy, usually something other than what we are doing. So if we are driving, we can't simply be driving. We must also be listening to the radio or talking on the cell phone or doing both. Perhaps we are even listening to our 10,000-song iPod, the contents of which could last us our lifetime. What about simply listening to nothing instead?

The "art of doing nothing" has long been extolled by religious traditions. Nothing becomes something when nothing produces results that something cannot.The power of meditation is rooted in the power of nothingness. . . The reason for stillness in the midst of chaos is so that the chaos does not consume us. Stillness gives us distance from what we cannot see when trapped in the never-ending swirl of diversion. . . .

My only response is "guilty." We credit ourselves with "multitasking" when, what is actually happening is that we are not accomplishing any one thing with anything approaching the attention it requires. While I belong to an order that looks to cultivating silence, it seems that we've all bought into the idea of silence while doing something.

Silence, stillness, the embrace of the moment in which there is nothing in particular required of us is an art. We have difficulty, convinced by some inner prompting that such moments are "wasting time." But perhaps it is our railing against them that is the waste of time. Were we to realize that we are bored precisely because nothing is required of us at this time and rather than seek solace in a book, television, or endless iPod, we should seek solace in the silence, perhaps then we might make of boredom the gift that God intends for us.

Limitless diversion leads to limitless ennui, but a few moments of stillness, of letting the swirl and twirl of existence settle down--these have limitless potential--I need to become better at exploiting it.

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November 9, 2007

Bearing Our Crosses

I don't do this often, and probably should not do it even as often as I do; however, this notion has been on my mind a great deal in recent months. This is a meditation composed for another web site.

My thanks to Joachim who maintains the site and who gets a really good proof-reader/copyeditor to help improve each meditation.

Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me . . .
(Luke 14:27)

This passage may contain some of the most difficult words that Jesus shared with us. Hating father and mother, carrying crosses, renouncing possessions--what does it all mean, what sense can we make of it? There is such richness here it's impossible to encompass it all, but what I hear almost every time I go back is "whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." And I am always encouraged to remember that crosses are not "one size fits all."

Sometimes we look at others in our religious and secular lives and wonder, "Why is it so easy for them? What cross are they carrying?" It does us well to remember that what is a cross for one may not be a cross for another. Crosses are not one-size-fits-all. They are individually tailored to the person we are, and they are excruciating (literally) precisely because they are designed to straighten out what we have made crooked--they are designed to rectify what we have corrupted through our poor choices. Sometimes they are to help others bear their own burdens because we all participate in the economy of salvation--what another cannot carry, we help to bear so that we all advance together.

We must always bear in mind that, like Simon of Cyrene, we do bear the cross, but we bear it for the One who takes away all sin, the One who makes the crooked straight and the lame walk. Jesus doesn't say we need to be nailed to it in the way He was. Rather, He tells us that our job, like that of Simon, is to bear part of the burden for all of humanity. We carry our crosses, but ultimately it was and is Jesus who is nailed to it. We bring the burden of sin--He takes it all away.

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The Prayers of Clarence Thomas/Merry del Val

A friend sent this link to a very interesting article on the prayer life of Clarence Thomas.

In the course of it, there is a litany from Cardinal Merry del Val, that struck my friend as a hard teaching:

Litany of Humility

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
From the fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should...

My friend noted that to take it seriously seemed to invite despair. But I pointed out that it was a detailed version of St. John of the Cross' todo y nada. That is, the litany does not prohibit one from accepting such graces as come to one, but asks God to grant us the freedom from fear or desire of these things, because such fear and/or desire was distracting from the "one thing necessary." It isn't that the objects mentioned are not legitimate things to desire or to fear, but rather that in either desire or fear of them we may find ourselves doing things that are not part of our particular vocation--going out of our way to seek or avoid things.

But this seems to be an interesting point and I'd love to hear what others think of the article and especially of the Litany.

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November 6, 2007

Repent

I particularly cherished the following experience recounted by Fr. Beck. It spoke to me intimately and provoked a line of thought that I had never really considered. We start as Father Beck is trying to avoid the eye of a modern-day John the Baptist in Time's Square:

from Soul Provider
Fr. Edward L. Beck

I maneuvered to get around him, but, seeming to sense that I was an unwilling convert, he would have none of it. He made a bee-line for me as I lowered my head and tried to get lost in the crowd that I now appreciated. He held a tattered black Bible that he massaged gently with his thumb.

"Do you know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, young man?"

He was standing right in front of me, blocking my passage. (At least he called me young.) I didn't answer, pretending I thought he was talking to someone else.

"You, sir, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?" he persisted.

I looked up, unable to ignore him any longer.

"What?" I said, though I'm not sure why, since I had clearly heard the question.

"Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?" he repeated more forcefully. A woman bumped me from behind letting me know in her own not-so-gentle way that I was blocking the path.

"Yes, I do," I said. "I do, thank you." I walked around him and started to make my way down the street.

"Hey," he called to me. I looked back. "Isn't it wonderful?" His eyes were glowing.

"Not always," I answered truthfully.

I continued walking and was about a hundred feet from him when he shouted, "Well, then, repent, blue eyes, and it will always be.

I don't necessarily take the street-corner prophet at his literal word here, but it occurred to me that with a good deal more repentance, and a good deal less Steven, that personal relationship might be made more manifest to those around me. And a personal relationship with Jesus is next to useless if it isn't influencing the world around us. Perhaps what I need more of, then, is a spirit of continual repentance--heaven knows there isn't a day I go through that doesn't encourage me to confession before participation in Mass. I'm one of those who wishes that confession were offered moments before Mass so there would be some likelihood of making it to Mass before needing to get to confession again. I often wonder whether I've ever really managed to gain a plenary indulgence for any of the poor souls because the conditions are so rigorous. If Mass immediately follows confession and/or the action that merits the plenary indulgence, there is a remote possibility. Otherwise. . .

Repentance, it's not just a seasonal thing--it's a way to live, really live, a life.

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November 2, 2007

Renunciation

With merely the title of this post I have chased away half of the small audience that might drop by on a regular basis. Renunciation is not a popular subject--most often because it is not fully understood.

However, renunciation is one step on the road to union with God that we all can consider and that with God's grace we all can effect.

There is such a wealth of possibility in Father Edward Beck's Soul Provider, it is difficult to choose among the possibilities; however, for the purposes of supporting the main contention of the chapter, perhaps the conclusion would be most useful:

from Soul Provider
Fr. Edward L. Beck

Renunciation is therefore a kind of purification and asceticism that does not exist for its own sake but rather for the sake of higher goods. Thus, I renounce excessive use of alcohol so that I don't destroy my marriage or my work. Or I renounce consumerism so that I don't lose my soul to what money can buy. . . .

In view of John Climacus's Ladder of Divine Ascent renunciation lights us and frees us so that we can climb less encumbered, ascending without restraint toward the good. Renunciation exists for the sake of freedom. It liberates us and ultimately allows us to love more wholeheartedly. Who of us doesn't want that?

The man who renounces the world because of fear is like burning incense, which begins with fragrance and ends in smoke. . . . but the man who leaves the world for love of God has taken fire from the start, and like fire set to fuel, it soon creates a conflagration.

(Climacus Step 1)

Fr. Beck's book seems to be a very hard-headed, light-hearted, full-spirited survey of how to improve one's life with God. The advice given is solid, orthodox and complemented by insights from other religious traditions that both inform and help to bring out implicit aspects of each topic. Each chapter ends with a set of very hard, very pointed questions that allow the reader to reflect upon his or her own state with respect to the Ascent to God.

In coming days I hope to quote more from this book and to share more of Fr. Beck's insights. In the meantime, if this excerpt interests you, you might do well to seek the book out on your own and not wait for what small portions I might share.

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October 15, 2007

The Thorn in the Flesh

Reading Dark Night of the Soul one encounters a passage in which St. John of the Cross gives the fairly traditional view of St. Paul's "thorn in the flesh." During a recent community meeting, one of the community members asked me, "How did he (St. John of the Cross) know that St. Paul's thorn in the flesh was lust? I'd never heard that before."

I responded, perhaps vaguely, but appropriately, "Because he was male." The ambiguity here is which he I was referring to, but it works for both. St. John of the Cross understood because he was male, and the thorn in St. Paul's flesh being lust was perfectly understandable to any other male.

The human male is a very, very simple animal. If two simple needs/desires are satisfied (one of them is food), we tend to be a pretty contented lot. Upset the schedule of one or the other, we tend to get out of sorts.

Yes, it's a vast simplification, but when I think of the capital vices/capital sins and I look at much of human history and human legend, one crops up more often than any other, and it isn't pride. In fact, if one considers the idiotic things done in the name of "love," one can readily conclude that for most men pride takes a far distant second place to lust as the most common besetting sins. For example, Helen of Troy (admittedly legend), the rape of the Sabine women, the reign of Henry VIII, the reign of W J Clinton and role model JFK--the roll call goes on and on.

Judging by the state of society today, it is fairly evident that everything is set to keep that particular vice at a fever pitch. Now, this is not to say that the impulses in this direction cannot be subdued or with the aid of grace resisted. But one glance at the present state of society which, whether feminists like it or not, is a male-construct to which "liberated women" have foolishly consented in their desire to become more and more like men, shows the basis on which almost everything is done, sold, or considered. Again, I'll grant that it is a simplification, but there is an element of truth to it. That element is sometimes expressed in the outrage against celibacy and its native chastity. Some are outraged over the celibacy requirement, calling it unnatural, unrealistic, and gravely disordered. When I look at the same state, I do see something that is not natural--rather it is supernatural--a state exalted above that of most of us and preserved purely by grace. When a priest from time to time fails at maintaining this state of life, that too is likely in God's grace--a lesson in humility, because his fall is a matter of public notice. He cannot do what many in society do casually without causing scandal. But society at large is threatened by it because it is a sign that the thorn in the flesh can be removed or at least made subservient to the person who experiences it. Presently, one would think that the thorn was, in fact, the entire flesh and that such was a normative existence.

St.Anthony of the Desert heroically fought off the demons of lust throughout his time in the desert. St. Augustine, Blessed (?) Charles Foucault, and a great many others, perhaps many we do not know, spent a great deal of energy fighting those impulses that comprised for them "the thorn in the flesh."

In our conversation, I did go on to confide that I honestly didn't know what might form the most common or besetting sin among female kind. (Some women, exhibiting the need and desire to be more like men, have foolishly accepted the male vision of the world and see promiscuous and untethered sexual conduct as normative, rather than as the degrading objectification of persons that it actually is. Sexual congress outside of the sacrament of matrimony is sinful precisely because of its tendency to turn an person into a object. And, in fact, this can be a problem even within the sacramental union.)

Oh, and by the way, I still refuse to speculate. I'll tend my house, thank you, it's far more than I'm capable of on a day-to-day basis anyway.

Now, there is a theory that pride is more an ur-sin rather than a capital sin. That is pride is considered the source of all the other sins.

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October 6, 2007

The Dark Night of Blessed Mother Teresa

as explicated by St. John of the Cross:

from Dark Night of the Soul I:11:11-12
St. John of the Cross

11. Finally, insofar as these person are purged of their sensory affections and appetites, they obtain freedom of spirit in which they acquire the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit.

They are also wondrously liberated from the hand of their enemies, the devil, the world, and the flesh. For when the sensory delight delight and gratification regarding things is quenched, neither the devil, nor the world, nor sensuality has arms or power against the spirit.

12. These aridities, then, make people walk with purity in the love of God. No longer are they moved to act by the delight and satisfaction they find in a work, as perhaps they were when the derived this from their deeds, but by the desire of pleasing God. They are neither presumptuous nor self-satisfied, as was their custom int he time of their prosperity, but fearful and disquieted about themselves and lacking in any self-satisfaction. This is the holy fear that preserves and gives increase to the virtues.

I am not original in claiming that the dark night had for Blessed Mother Teresa a protective effect, an effect all the more necessary in a world where the entire world is at your doorstep and scrutinizing every action.

This deep and unsatisfied longing for God's presence has the unique attribute of taking away from her the many temptations that come as a result of success in the world. Satan's most effective ploy in dealing with someone like Mother Teresa would be to have them change their focus from serving and saving souls to better the lives of people. These two sound like hand in glove; however, they are as different in focus as a microscope and a telescope.

What if Mother Teresa, not wandering in a dark night of spirit had started to pay more attention to things that mattered, but were no the One Thing. What if she suddenly started to say to herself, "With a few dollars more, I could build a house for twenty more people." What is the focus of her effort became the betterment of lives through better buildings, more technology, what have you, rather than helping people to get what they needed to live a life and leave a life with dignity. No matter how holy the motive, when the focus slips from, "For God and God alone, a gift of His people," to "Look what we can do if we only try," Satan has won.

But the dark night has a paradoxical effect. The longing for and the apparent absence of God in a life, increases the focus on serving Him. It cocoons the person away from some of the yammerings of the world and helps them to see life as it should be seen.

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October 4, 2007

What Can We Learn from Dante?

Reading The Inferno gives one pause at moments. Frequently in fact. It isn't so much the punishments described in Hell as it is a number of factors that stem from that. For example, did Jesus not teach us, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." And yet Dante, with impunity, assigns any number of people to any circle of Hell he chooses. Now, were these living people (at the time of his writing) one could say that this were a cautionary tale; however most of them are dead as of the writing of the work. What then do we adjudge from this seeming infraction of a commandment of love?

Next, we get from the Inferno a God of infernal intellect, delicating designing and manipulating Hell as to be of the most exquisite pain to the sinners assigned there. The lavish and ornate punishments that make up the bulk of hellish existence beggar the imagination. What then was Dante about?

Finally, we have an image of a God of such remarkable sternness, indeed of such profound violence that one is at a loss to figure out what Dante wanted us to understand of God from this.

The last question first. I don't know what Dante wanted us to understand of God, but what one can see of God in this is that the image of God fluctuates in time with the society in which He is seen. In Dante's time a clearly stern judge, devoid of compassion for circumstances, hewing carefully to the letter and not the spirit. In the time of "the enlightenment" a God of watchmakers and mechanists, having set the stars in their courses and the planets in their respective paths, he sits back to observe all and watch it slowly unwind. Today's God, the "Good Buddy Jesus." Everything goes, God is all inclusive, completely open to whatever perversion of justice, thought, or principle we need to feel good about ourselves. The point: none of these are accurate pictures of God. Each shows some feature of God distorted through the lens of the time. Dante's God, is God the Redeemer, picking carefully among the flotsam and jetsam of humanity to select the few, the proud, the elect to ascend into heaven and occupy ornate circles of praise at appropriate distances from divinity. The God of the enlightenment, is God the creator, and only that, an uninterested tinkerer who plays with galaxies and universes and lets them spin away to their natural destruction, never giving another thought to them except perhaps how lovely they are and how nicely they reflect His glory. The God of our times is the Sanctifier, making everything holy and everything whole, compassionate to the point of idiocy, embracing all ideologies and all human choices. Murder? Why not, so long as you don't do it to excess and you have what you think is a good reason for it. Adultery? Well, after all, how can we expect one person to fulfill the needs of an aimless humanity seeking to fill a God-sized hole?

Not one of these images tells us anything useful about God. Dante's comes closest because it is the least distorted--at least His justice is meted out with something approximating the justice devised by the human mind--it is rational and considered and ordered, like everything else about Him. Still, it isn't the complete picture of God. However, looking at Dante's image of God should help counterbalance the lunacy of some of the images suggested by people int he modern world.

On the first question--how Dante assigns to Hell with impunity--we get at the core of the question of Allegory. Dante and Virgil couldn't very well walk through an empty inferno. Nor would it perfectly suit the purpose to invent people to populate the place--it would require enormous work and lengthen the tale to the point of losing the train of thought. Instead Dante says something like--if the tendencies shown in this life went unrepented to the grave, this person, whom you all know, would be exemplary of this class of sins, which is punished in just such a way. This would also help us to better understand the mythological figures who intrude from time to time. While a great many philosophers and poets are in the limbo of the righteous pagan, we meet an awful lot of the classical crew on our journey through Hell. Are we to think that Dante thought that Jason really existed, much less Zeus or Hera or Aphrodite--offenses against whom are being punished in this very Hell? Or rather, he took the figures of well known stories and said, you know what these guys did, well, this is where they would be under the circumstances. The judgment is allegorical. Dante may have believed or even in some cases hoped for his vision of assignments, but their purpose is instructive, to latch on to a universal that can propel the reader through the poem.

And the second point was more or less addressed implicitly in the discussion of the third. Above all else, Dante's vision of God is that of the Person who wrests order from chaos, who delicately balances the tendency toward destruction with the tendency toward elevation. He has ordered the cosmos, down to and including the elaborate, ornate, and poetically apt structure of Hell itself--giving rise to the whole term poetic justice.

There is much more to be learned from Dante, much more. But these were questions that have surfaced for me nearly every time Ihave read The Inferno and I thought I'd take a stab at answering them for those who follow asking similar questions.

And follow you all should--a good version of Dante, with acceptable notes and good typesetting takes very little time to read. I prefer Ciardi's translation because the notes proved most helpful to me. Additionally the set-up in terza rima breaks gives some sense of rhythm to the eye. Others have faulted him for being too free in his translation. Truth is, a translation is a translation, and poetry can only come so close any way because there is always much lost in the course of translation. So you pick the version you will read best and then read it. But by all means, please go to the effort to acquaint, or reacquaint yourself with at least the first division of this great work. By all means, read all three. But at a minimum The Inferno.

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October 1, 2007

What Makes "Great Books" Great

For one thing, continued relevance through time. I can't imagine the novels of Philip Roth, or even Saul Bellow surviving much beyond our present age, though I've been wrong in a great many things and perhaps do not have the breadth of vision required to see them lasting. (I think of John Gould Cozzens, and other such writers so lauded during their own times--but then Bellow already has his academic cultus who may see to his literary survival.)

But on great books, to wit:

from The Inferno
Dante (tr. John Ciardi)

As one who unwills what he wills, will stay
strong purposes with feeble second thoughts
until he spells all his first zeal away--

so I hung back and balked on that dim coast
till thinking had worn out my enterprise,
so stout at starting and so early lost.

A moment, a lingering second in the second canto of The Divine Comedy, but a telling one. I know I can sympathize with one who starts out with vigorous purpose and think himself into absolute stasis if not retrograde motion. And he captures it perfectly. I often pelt myself with all that could go wrong, with all that is imperfect in my suggested enterprise, with all that is folly about it, and with the limited expectations I have put together for it.

Sheer foolishness--but human foolishness, and a foolishness with which the reader can readily empathize.

Of course, it isn't universality of situation that keeps a book in the canon of great books--also required are depth of insight, range of vision, and to some extent ultimate intent.

However you may judge is, Dante's Divine Comedy has these things and many, many more. If for some reason you have missed the opportunity to read it, take the time now--get a good edition with good notes to help you through the more difficult references--you'll be glad you did so. Perhaps then, you can say with Virgil:

"so welcome is your command that to my sense,
were it already fulfilled, it would yet seem tardy."

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September 24, 2007

Why Is Doctrine So Darned Difficult?

For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more. Luke 12:48

I have an interesting love/hate relationship with the doctrine of the Catholic Church. This was brought home to me by an innocuous request that arrived by e-mail this morning and provoked far more thought than I have time for or my correspondent had time to read. Pity him!

In point of fact, I belong to the Catholic Church for several reasons, approximately in this order: The Real Presence, the Church established by Jesus Christ, an ongoing authoritative teaching magisterium. Huh? What was that last? Yes, you heard it, the body of doctrine and dogma and teachings that might be termed advisory or cautionary, having not the weight of doctrine or dogma, but not so easily dismissed as many of our progressive friends would have us believe.

In fact, left to myself, I would be firmly in the ranks of the progressive Catholics. Why? Well, as much as I love the fact that there is firm and clear guidance in the Church, I know enough of the weakness of human intellect to question some of those more outré and far-flung notions that seem to come forth from this wealth of teaching. A case in point--although Jesus clearly teaches that it is wrong to kill in the cause of faith (after all, if it were not appropriate for Peter to defend Jesus forcibly, what can be justified in the name of the defense of faith?), we somehow derive from a relatively clear body of Christ's teaching something called "Just War Theory." Now, I'm not certain this rises to the level of doctrine, but let's just say that there are several aspects of this body of thought that I find disconcerting and unlikely when exposed to the fullness of the teaching of Christ.

However, I also know that in matters of abstract thought about such things, I am more often wrong that I am right. My intuition is guided by the part of me that prefers to be sensually enveloped rather than the part that seeks God. The Base Man triumphs in these matters.

But my own experience of intellect leads me to doubt the conclusions of other. What is the agenda? What are they headed for? Do they have my best interests in mind or were they in the service of some sovereign or power for whom my compliance in vassalage is advantageous? You can see what happens. I have no trust for humanity.

Now the Church informs me that all dogma (with which I have a good deal less problem) and universally taught doctrine is informed by, guided by, and kept on-target by the Holy Spirit. There is a certain amount of comfort in this. The difficulty is to know where that guidance ends and the speculation of theologians guided by more human motives might begin.

So, I'm stuck in this quandary. A little more humility and I would have no problem. a little less intellect (or a little more) and I'd probably see the matter straight. But the reality is that I am the flawed person I am. I have what I have been given. And from what I've seen, I have been given a tremendous amount. God has blessed me with a good mind (not a great one) a certain verbal felicity and flexibility, and a stubborn streak a mile wide.

It is to this last that I owe the greatest debt of gratitude. I do not join the progressive thinkers among us in large part because I have made a commitment to the Church and I intend to stand by it come Hell or high water. Period. My own doubts and questions be damned--I will stand by what the Church teaches.

That's the stubborn streak. Problem is, it means that I often have to put the brain in check for certain issues. I hear people begin to spiel out how war is just, owning weapons is a God-given right and obligation, torture isn't really against God's teaching. . . you name the controversy that rages.

Then you go to find a clear answer--what does the Church teach--and what you get is the muddy water of the millions of interpreters and theologians with their own understandings and interpretations.

So the bargain I thought I was getting in joining the Church--clear teaching--materializes more often than not. But it is insubstantial in a sufficiently large number of cases to be aggravating.

I suppose it is not doctrine I oppose so much as the ornament and filagree frequently attached thereto. However, to someone not sufficiently well versed in the sources and where to go to find the correct teaching, the doctrine and its accretions are indistinguishable.

So when I say that I don't like doctrine, I suppose I mean, I don't like the uncertainty that seems to surround some doctrine. For example, is it a doctrine that women simply cannot be priests? I don't know for certain. Some say yes, some say no. As this happens to be one matter on which a person who I came to trust completely had a clear statement, I can arrive at a conclusion which may not be doctrinal. And so it goes.

To whom much is given, much will be expected in return. For those of us gifted with intelligence, curiosity, and analytical ability, these problems will continue to chafe. Does that mean doctrine is useless? Absolutely not. But it does lead me to rely more on a direct experience of God in prayer and through the prayer and lives of the saints. Perhaps this doubt of mine is simply God's way of making me acquainted with him through a more human element. Perhaps, like St. Teresa of Avila, I should spend more time with Christ's humanity, while not neglecting His divinity.

And finally, why do I share this? Possibly because it is like the grain in the oyster that may become a pearl-malformed and mishapened as it may be. But perhaps others share similar difficulties--and perhaps their paths are likewise being directed to paths of knowing that do not rely exclusively on the intellect, but engage the other parts of our humanity.

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August 30, 2007

Morning Thoughts

You know, poetry really says it all. If you bother to listen to the voice under the voice, if you read between the lines, or if you just enjoy for the moment and let the moment linger--poetry says it all. I suppose that is one reason, one very good reason for praying the psalms. Poetry is, by its nature, closer to God. Which is not to imply that God is a poem--but God is at the heart of every good poem--just as He is waiting to surprise you in every work of art and nature, if only you are willing to be surprised.

It's amazing to me how the night
passes and the morning thoughts
born of dreams pass silently away,
unencumbered by the obligation
to teach, unaffected by the need
to nurture. They present and then fold
passing briefly into the light of memory
and fading with the stronger morning.

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August 29, 2007

The Emptiness of Prayer

We have long known that Blessed Mother Teresa went through a long dark night of the soul. I don't know that anyone knew its extent or depth, and shortly we should all be privileged to be able to find out. Privileged, I say, because such things are the substance of the life of faith and if we ignore them, we do so at our peril. More importantly, they are things that any person of deep faith is likely to experience. Likewise, they are things that ordinary sinners experience all the time. The two have different causes and sources, but the end result is similar. In the case of the sinner, the darkness is troublesome and not peaceful--something fought against, struggled against. In the case of the Saint--well, I wouldn't know that yet.

All of this in preface to a marvelous little passage that says it quite succinctly.

from The Monk Downstairs
Tim Farrington

My mind is a stretch of barren country and swirling dust; my heart has shriveled to the size of a dried pea. But this is all my private comedy. The emptiness of prayer is deeper than mere despair. Preparing us for a love we cannot conceive, God takes our lesser notions of love from us one by one.

Have you really never seen it, Brother James, somewhere in the grim efficiency of your industrial meditation? Have you never once seen all your goodness turn to dust? I tell you that until you do, all your prayer is worse than useless. It is gears of greed, grinding. Love is not fuel for the usual machinery.

What is remarkable is that this is in a work of "light" fiction-- something little more than a romance--what is it doing there? How did the author get it there without sounding preachy and overbearing? What is his point?

I suppose if I sustain my reading, I shall find out the answer and I hope I'll be pleased with it. Either way, I'll let you know.

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August 28, 2007

More Crossover Wisdom

More derived from reading Buddhist books. I should note a caution here--Buddhism is not something that everyone should approach or that the person young in his or her Christian vocation should look into extensively. There is a seductiveness to doctrine and idea, and particularly to the very appealing notions in Buddhism that allow us to overlook certain intrinsic difficulties with the dogmatic side of the religion.

I present here parallels in Buddhism. They are parallels. Buddhists and Christians do not share the same faith structure nor even, in any meaningful sense, the same cosmology. Nevertheless, we are adjured to take what is good among all the good things in the world, and Buddhism has much in it that could strengthen a Christian vocation. For example:

from Cultivating Compassion
Jeffrey Hopkins

In order to value the time we have--to cherish it--it is important to reflect on the certainty of death and the uncertainty of when death will be. In meditation, contemplate: "I will definitely die--as will all of us--but I don't know when I'm going to die. It could be at any time!" Such reflection puts a value--a premium--on the present, on the time you have.

Be prepared and aware of death which comes as the end. An awareness (though not a constant fear) of the end can inform the entire life in ways that bring forth the potential for sanctity. St. Therese of Lisieux has a passage that parallels the above, though not in its memento mori aspects. She notes that all our sorrows are in the past which cannot be rectified or in the future, which we have not seen, but the authentic Christian life is lived mindful of the present, which is all that we have. That is the "premium" of focusing on the end--a realization that every moment is precious, valuable, and important. God blesses us with time--we don't know how much--so it is better to count all the time in the moment and not to look into far futures that may not exist. Not to worry oneself over things that cannot be controlled, but to focus attention on those things which are within our control.

Before continuing to a final point, it is useful to reflect for a moment on a passage immediately preceding the one quoted above.

The actuarial tables say that males as a whole will live so many years and females as a whole will live so many more years, but such figures are irrelevant with respect to any specific individual; if you're going to die next week, it's a hundred percent chance you're going to die then. It's not a such and such percentage that you might live to be seventy-eight. If you are to die on the road today, it's a hundred percent certain you'll die on the road today.

Having quoted the first passage, in which there is nothing objectionable to Christianity, I deftly ignored the sentence that begins an exposition immediately following. I will note it below:

"Since it is obvious that the body and possessions are left behind, on need to put more emphasis on consciousness."

I'm intrigued by this statement as it seems to imply that consciousness does not pass away and if consciousness is the Buddhist equivalent of a soul, that goes without saying. But nothing I've read suggests this to be true. Consciousness is incredibly important in Buddhist thought because of karma. Every conscious act is at once the ripening of one of the potentialities of karma and the setting of new potentialities. And again, we can draw parallels, but this emphasis on what we would lightly read as aspects of the self can be misleading.

Now, to do justice, we must recognize that Buddhists do not think that Mind (consciousness) is equivalent to "self." And so to assume that what is meant by the common usage of the word consciousness is what is meant when discussing Buddhism is an error. However, it is an easy error that can easily lead astray. Hence my recommendation that Buddhist texts are not for everyone. There's too much there when read with the literalist, rational, western mind can be misread or mistaken for something other than what is actually meant. Better, if one is likely to stumble into this trap, to stay out of that forest entirely.

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August 24, 2007

Buddhist Compassion

Go to this link for a further link to a very, very interesting short video about the Dalai Lama and the Pope.

One of the central ideas of Buddhism is compassion, which is equated with mercy. Jeffrey Hopkins explains it this way:

from Cultivating Compassion
Jeffrey Hopkins

Chandrakirti pays homage to three particular kinds of compassion. The first is called compassion seeing suffering beings, because prior to cultivating wishes for person to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, you need to reflect on the dire condition of beings trapped in cyclic existence.

He describes the process of cyclic existence-birth, aging, sickness, and death--as stemming from ignorance and nourished with attachment and grasping. This means that our sense of self is exaggerated beyond what actually exists, and based on the exaggeration, we are drawn into many problems. Once the "I" is exaggerated, the "mine"--things that are owned by the I, mind and body--also becomes exaggerated overblown. . . . It is true that mind, body, hand, head, house, clothing are "mine"; they do belong to us, but we have an exaggerated sense of owning them.

In a word, the deplorable condition of humankind is a result of sinful pride. Buddhism wants to see an end to the deplorable condition of humankind and thus to its causes--sin. Buddhist compassion is not simply about alleviating suffering, but the causes of suffering. The difficulty with Buddhism is not what it wants at the root, but how one proposes to get to this end.

Compassion in Buddhism is a laudable quality. It is laudable in a Buddhist, it is laudable in a Christian. A Christian should desire to see the end of suffering and its causes, and ultimately hopes for this in the beatific vision. The ends are not so different--the means are a world apart.

Cultivating compassion is not an exercise in alleviating suffering--at least not at first. It is an exercise in becoming aware of the suffering of humanity that is directly caused by the fault of humankind--pride and attachment. Only secondarily does one enter a phase that desires to do something about it. Each of the great Christian Saints showed this compassion differently. Some showed compassion by combating the errors about God and Christ that led people into practices that were not pleasing to God. Some showed compassion by remaining in the cloister and praying for all humanity. Some showed compassion by feeding the poor, tending the sick, visiting those in prison.

A desire to see the end of suffering is not incompatible with Christianity. That Christianity recognizes that some good can come out of suffering is an artifact of the reality that whatever is our present condition, God has willed it for His own purposes and "all things work to the good of those who love Him and work according to His purposes." But even the great saints recognize physical suffering as a natural evil--not a good in itself, but good in its possible effects on the receptive soul.

To suggest then this wide gap between the two is to make a distinction where one is not so clearly made. I think part of the popular appeal of Buddhism, a great part, are Buddhists themselves. They are their own best advertisement. When one sees the peace, equanimity and calm that tends to surround a Buddhist who has long been tending to his or her practice, there is a tremendous appeal there. Even the best Christians seem to be washed around by the tide of circumstance--on again and off again. But this apparent imperturbability suggests a great well of calm, peace.

Of course, we don't live with the Buddhists we see in the news 24 hours a day. Few of us know any Buddhists who have come far in their practice. The reality is probably quite different than the appearance, but being one of the many not personally acquainted with a Buddhist deep into practice, I hesitate to say more than that.

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August 20, 2007

Compassion and Christianity

One of my frequent frustration with Christianity (although not especially with the Catholic Church, which as a teaching body does much better than the Body of Christ tends to do) is the lack of focus on the duty of love and on compassion in general. Too often different Christian groups are so busy arguing the merits or faults of their doctrines that they tend not to put those doctrines into practice. Try finding a Christian book about compassion and compassionate treatment of others. This tends to be left to the Buddhists, and so, for refuge, I sometime find myself turning there to learn what their great teachers taught.

Reading Cultivating Compassion by Jeffrey Hopkins, I stumbled across this "daily exercise" in compassion. The following prayer, mantra, reminder (call it what you will) is to be brought to mind six times a day:

I go for refuge to Buddha, his doctrine, and the spiritual community until I am enlightened. Through the merit of my charity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom, may I achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all beings.

This has few parallels in Christian prayer--although the Prayer of St. Francis comes to mind. And because I don't find myself taking refuge in Buddha, I would need to change the prayer:

I go for refuge to Jesus, his doctrine, and the mystical body until I am made holy. Through the merits of charity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom, may I achieve holiness (Saintliness) for the sake of all beings.

What good is personal sanctity if it does not better the lives of those with whom we have the closest relationships?

The Church hits this theme time and time again, but because we are the people we are we tend to regard these teachings with suspicion. Mention Social Justice and see how many good and faithful Catholics look at you askance. If you hear talk about a preferential option for the poor, it is likely to remain just that--talk. How often have we been stirred by understanding these teachings to actually make the lives of some other person better? Often the preferential option for the poor is left at the foot of the altar as the congregation goes out to play parking lot derby. Not only do we not internalize the teachings, much of our behavior suggests that we reject them entirely.

I was musing this morning as I drove my car in to work how much better things might be if every car was equipped as mine is. I have a hybrid civic, and one of the ways you can configure the instrument panel is to give you feedback on your driving to see how certain behaviors help to conserve gasoline and increase milage. As a result of these readouts, I have seen large changes in my behaviors behind the wheel, and coming with those changes, I have experienced a completely different attitude most of the time when I drive. Other drivers don't become obstacles or problems, but people in their cars, just like me, just as scatter-brained as I sometimes am, just as courteous as I can sometimes be. When I see a person driving foolishly, sudden starts, screeching stops, I think about how they might be different if they understood the effects of their actions.

Compassion, understanding that all people at heart want the same things we want for themselves and for their children. Compassion is one of the roots of charity--when we look at people in all their strengths and weaknesses and see ourselves.

Jesus taught compassion through His words and works. The Church extols and sets up institutions and groups to cultivate compassion. Dorothy Day's Catholic Workers are one such group, but far less radical and far quieter are the innumerable Martin de Porres or Vincent de Paul societies that are part and parcel of our Church.

But compassion isn't just for the church or just for a meeting--it is part of a way of life--living in Christ's love, being Christ's heart for the salvation and redemption of a world gone astray. That is part of the imitation of Christ to which we all are called. That is the root and source of sustenance for Christian compassion.

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August 13, 2007

Philippians Again

William Barclay tended toward universalism; that comes through clearly in the passages that follow. His universalism was of the sort that was taught and accepted by the Eastern Church and still has strong undercurrents in the Orthodox Churches. However, the universalist perspective, the underpinning of hope for all sinners, provides a unique and useful perspective on Philippians, the most hopeful, the most truly joyous of all of Paul's letters. There is in the text an undercurrent of such incredible intensity and joy that it's hard to rephrase it to make it more clear.

From William Barclay's Commentary of Philippians

It made certain that some day, soon or late, every living creature in all the universe, in heaven, in earth and even in hell, would worship him. It is to be carefully noted whence that worship comes. It comes from love. Jesus won the hearts of men, not by blasting them with power, but by showing them a love they could not resist. At the sight of this person who laid his glory by for men and loved them to the extent of dying for them on a cross, men's hearts are melted and their resistance is broken down. When men worship Jesus Christ, they fall at his feet in wondering love. They do not say "I cannot resist a might like that," but, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all." Worship is founded, not on fear, but on love. . . .

Php.2:11 is one of the most important verses in the New Testament. In it we read that the aim of God, is a day when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. These four words were the first creed that the Christian Church ever had. To be a Christian was to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (compare Rom.10:9). This was a simple creed, yet all-embracing. Perhaps we would do well to go back to it. Later men tried to define more closely what it meant and argued and quarrelled about it, calling each other heretics and fools. But it is still true that if man can say, "For me Jesus Christ is Lord," he is a Christian. If he can say that, he means that for him Jesus Christ is unique and that he is prepared to give him an obedience he is prepared to give no one else. He may not be able to put into words who and what he believes Jesus to be; but, so long as there is in his heart this wondering love and in his life this unquestioning obedience, he is a Christian, because Christianity consists less in the mind's understanding than it does in the heart's love.

Christianity consists less in the mind's understanding that it does in the heart's love. Doctrine will all be blown away when we stand in the presence--the need for understanding will be gone because we will stand in His presence. And who among us really understands any other human being, much less God? Why do we presume to think that we can better understand God and His commandments than we can understand the person whom we are supposed to love, cherish, and help through life?

And, "Worship is founded, not on fear, but on love." Too often we seem to think the two are somehow related. And yet are we not told, "Perfect love driveth out fear." Fear as we understand it apart from such scriptures as "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. . ." is a negative predecessor to generally even more negative descendant emotions. Next to anger, I would suggest that the fear is one of the principle fountainheads of sin. Fear tends to drive people to despair and to desperate acts born of unreason.

But Worship is born out of love, not fear. Worship is the perfection of love. The adoration and whole-hearted devotion that is the essence of worship is a perfection of love--love unbounded. And Paul, in Philippians, clearly teaches the loosing of love on the world.

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July 31, 2007

One Last Point

Barclay's short study is filled with many rich and meaningful observations. It's impossible to choose among them without also saying that you must read the whole thing. Nevertheless, there are some things that all might benefit from. And for those Christians among us whose inclination is to deride or demean or otherwise detract from other Christians, Barclay has this observation:

from Barclay's Commentary on the Letter to the Philippians

There is a lesson for us here. Paul knew nothing of personal jealousy or of personal resentment. So long as Jesus Christ was preached, he did not care who received the credit and the prestige. He did not care what other preachers said about him, or how unfriendly they were to him, or how contemptuous they were of him, or how they tried to steal a march upon him. All that mattered was that Christ was preached. All too often we resent it when someone else gains a prominence or a credit which we do not. All too often we regard a man as an enemy because he has expressed some criticism of us or of our methods. All too often we think a man can do no good because he does not do thing in our way. . . . Paul is the great example. He lifted the matter beyond all personalities; all that mattered was that Christ was preached.

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Return to Philippians

Another quotation from Barclay's powerful and useful study of the Letter to the Philippians.

When people are in sorrow, one of their greatest comforts is the awareness that others are bearing them to the throne of grace. When they have to face some back-breaking effort or some heart-breaking decision, there is new strength in remembering that others are remembering them before God. When they go into new places and are far from home, it is an upholding thing to know that the prayers of those who love them are crossing continents to bring them before the thrones of grace. We cannot call a man our friend unless we pray for him.

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An Observation

Let me start, apropos of nothing, with a revised line from my journal this morning because it allows me to think about some beautiful things.

"Life without prayer is Life-in-Death."

Originally, I said, "half-life." But then I thought of Coleridge's poem and the remarkable image of Death and a woman casting dice for the Mariner's fate.

from "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Life-in-Death wins the Ancient Mariner. And it's interesting that the first part of the description of Life-in-Death is rather attractive in a seductive sort of way. And even white skin is lovely until we reach "as leprosy."

Life without prayer is succumbing to Life-in-Death--a life of sensuality that misses the point of life at all--not really living, but living in Death.

We have a choice--God or anything else because God has made it clear that He is not a God of half-measures, and He will let us have our choice. Not easily, He'll fight for us, but if we insist, He will not overwhelm us and subdue our wills to his choice.

And so, life without prayer is life without God and not a life at all.

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July 30, 2007

Keeping Perspective

Here's a passage from William Barclay's commentary on (what else) The Letter to the Philippians:

On the day when Christ comes it will be like the coming of a king. On such a day the king's subjects are bound to present him with gifts to makr their loyalty and to show their love. The only gift Jesus Christ desires from us is ourselves. So, then, a man's supreme tak is to make his life fit to offer to Him. Only the grace of God can enable us to do that.

I do not desire the fat of animals--the sacrifice I require is a rended, contrite heart.

Over and over gain we are told that the sacrifice acceptable to God is the sacrifice of a life lived with Him. Like any good parent, God desires not material things that we can "give" Him (because it all belongs to Him anyway), but our love. And our love is best demonstrated in living a life that reflects all that He has taught us of love.

He's not asking the impossible, merely the improbable. We can't do it, but He can, and His grace is both sufficient and efficient.

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July 26, 2007

Evolution and Faith

Once again, the sweet breath of reason is exhaled from the precincts of the Vatican on this--admittedly the least of issues, but a sore point for me.

Pope Benedict XVI on Evolution and Stewardship of Earth

This is the first pronouncement from the new pope that has me really thrilled. All the rest have been interesting or wonderful but haven't inspired me much. This one is inspirational because once again it seems as though the Catholic Church is insisting that one need not check one's reason at the door.

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July 12, 2007

Praise God High and Low

Today was another really interesting day. It started off in a wonderful morning burst of creativity and was kept up by high-octane excitement and participation throughout the day until the very end of the day. Then came the crushing kick in the teeth.

And I wonder now, what God is telling me in the pattern of the day. And what I hear, whether valid or not is, "Praise Him anyway." Praise Him on the mountains, praise Him in the valleys and the pits. No matter how you feel praise Him and thank Him and ask Him to shine His light on the day--only in that way will it become clear what the lesson for the day is.

I still don't know it, but I can choose to wallow in emotive misery or I can choose to praise Him, and it seems that the latter choice is the better.

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Morning Praise

It's not much, but if it is the only thing I do in a day, it is well worth doing. From this morning's morning prayer (and yes, that is a deliberate echo of Hopkins):

Give thanks to the Lord, acclaim his name;
among the nations make known his deeds,
proclaim how exalted is his name.

If each person who believed in God, who worshipped and paid homage to Jesus Christ as Lord and God would spend one moment each day in public acclamation of his glorious name, what might be the effect on the world around us? Not a moment of diatribe, condemnation, doctrinal ranting, triumphalist crowing, or any number of other things that we confuse with praising God, but just a moment spent looking at a flower and saying, "What hath God wrought?" A second with a friend or group of friends when we say, "Praise the Lord," and really mean it.

Sometimes we are too shy about our faith, almost apologetic. One word of praise each day can help the transformation of the world. The effort reminds us of God's nearness and makes us disposed to recognize it in all that is happening around us.

If the Gospel is good news, why do so many keep it to themselves? Praise the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever.

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May 23, 2007

Wandering in the Wilderness of Sin

It's fascinating that the first time the wandering of the People of Israel in the Sinai peninsula is discuss, it is related as follows:

Exodus 16:1

And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.

And it was for some forty years that they wandered in the wilderness of sin. So long that the first generation out of Egypt did not survive to enter the promised land--not even Moses.

Now, we did the Lord rescue a people from Egypt only to send them through a raging desert for forty years and not save a great many who took flight? Why would He act in so perverse a fashion as to half-save a group of people.

The reality is that the people of Israel wandered in that desert because almost as soon as the pillar of cloud and fire vanished, they began to complain and wonder why they had ever left Egypt. They were so confused about what they wanted that they could not have followed God even if He has shown up in person (as, indeed, He did in the person of Moses--not incarnated, but spirit-led).

How similar can I be to this stubborn people. God points the way and I wonder how to find the bar, the brothel, the gambling parlor, the restaurant. What kind of place is He sending us to that doesn't have these minimum niceties of a civilized society?

The chief desire of every person is to find the way home, but sometimes that desire for the comforts of home becomes misdirected into a desire for comforts. The transient and beautiful things of this world look very good to us. They seem to be the comforts of home. But they are mere ghosts of those real things. The realities in the vault that Plato spoke of cast these earthly shadows and so deceive those so ready to be deceived.

I count myself among them: lured by the good things of the world, I am too long diverted from the real Good One. I seek my comfort in those things I can hold and so manage to ignore the fact that I am being held, loved, cared for intensely by the God who loves me.

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May 22, 2007

Scary Matters of the Spirit

Free will can be a bummer.

Yep. Why doesn't God just wrap us up in bubblewrap and carry us home to be with Him. But the reality is that Love lets one make mistakes. I don't know why it does this--perhaps to prove our own reciprocal love when one returns home with tail tucked between legs; perhaps because that is the only way to learn to love.

Love is agony and sin is so easy because it helps to ease the pain of Love. Love takes endurance and sin takes a short-cut to what one thinks one wants. Thomas Aquinas (I paraphrase here) quite rightly says that the even the sinner is acting on a perceived good. Desire, which points the direction home, often leads us through brambles, briars, swampy tangles, and deserts of self. What looks like a short-cut is a convoluted, involved, messy trail of heartache, sorrow, and self-involvement. All, often, in the name of love. Contra Nietzsche, Christianity is not for the weak following the weak, because love, particularly love in the world he helped to forge, can be horrendously difficult.

But the name of love, the real name, the name whispered through centuries and shouted in Heaven--the real name of love is Jesus. And any action of desire that leads in any other direction is, at best, a fault, and often a sin. Many are so tangled in their sins that they cannot see the way home. This was brought to mind the other day when I read at TSO's about a bunch of Democrat politicians who were castigating the Pope because he dare say that they had excommunicated themselves. They have chosen their way and cannot see.

But they are merely a mirror for me and in that reflection I can see my own waywardness, the standards I insist upon, and if me, then I suspect a great many sinners who do not take the time to look inside and see what has gone wrong.

This is the reason Jesus was always so compassionate toward sinners--"They are like sheep without a shepherd," "Then know not what they do." How true is that of people today? How true is that of me? Do I really see what it is I choose when I make a choice. Do I pause even for a moment in my headlong plunge to destruction?

Oh, how I would pray for the bubble-wrap of God that would preserve me and take me home exactly as God would like me to be. That bubble-wrap, that protection against evil, is the Sacrifice of His Son and it is the outpouring of Love of Father and son that dwells within. Oh, but the glass around that lantern, around that inner fire is begrimed and filthy, darkened by all the ways I have chosen less than the best. But my longing, periodically restored, is that the glass be so cleaned that while it is not the light, it does not interfere with the light's transmission and even participates in the light, becoming light as it allows God's brilliant inner stream to light it up completely.

This is not a fairy tale, but a covenant made in blood. It is not an abstract ideal, but the pervasive and fundamental reality of our faith. God will restore me if only I will turn to Him and say, "Please help." Or, in the words of Brother Lawrence, "See what happens to me if I stray but a little way. Be with me, O Lord."

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March 21, 2007

Morning Prayer Thoughts

The antiphon for the first psalm for today's Morning Prayer is My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready.

I read the antiphon this morning and my immediate reaction was a recoil. "No, it isn't. Not even close. My heart is no where near ready." There are too many things in it, on it, around it. At best it is a divided heart, not a simple heart--a singular gift for a Simple God.

I couldn't pray this in all honesty. But also in all honesty, I could say, "I want my heart to be ready, O God, make my heart ready." That, I could say because it true at the core, at the very marrow of bones. I want to be ready, I know I am not. My heart is half hard, half missing--a rocky field fit only for weeds and dodder--a shadow life thrown into relief by the season in which shadows are drawn more sharply and light is more visible.

So even though I needed to pray a different antiphon, my whole heart was captivated by the second line of the psalm--so much so that I spent the rest of the prayer there and carry it forward into the day--

I will sing, sing your praise.

in the hopes that

Awake, my soul

I will wake from my deliberate slumber and see, if only for a moment--a moment is that that it takes for a God as magnificent as the one we stand before every moment. Blind and deaf though I am, He will save me.

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March 15, 2007

Why I Like the Blogging World

A short trip to the local Borders reminded me of why I so cherish the blogging world.

Sometimes I'm in the mood for a bite, not for an entire roast, cake, or sandwich, but a tidbit to tide me over. I glanced over the racks of magazines and saw specialties for sailing, gender issues, computers, finance, beadworking, photography, sodoku, kakaro, vacations, "gender issues," commentary, news magazines, and eastern religions and practice, among other things. Not a single Christian oriented magazine (except Sojourners) peeped around any rack or shield to wag a finger at me. Not a single periodical with some tantilizing small article on . . . well who knows what.

But pick your blog-world stops well and you can get theology as mathematical equation, mathematical equation as theology, satire, book review, serious commentary on issues of the day, nonserious comment on issues of the day, comment on issues of yesterday and WAAAAAAAY before, commentary and insight into almost anything you can begin to imagine in the way of Christian thought and practice. Some better written, prettier, and more civil than others, but all available just for stopping by.

We are gift to each other in this way, and I am most grateful for the gift of each day. Thank you all.

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Continuing Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

In a comment below TSO quite rightly notes that for many Orthodoxy ends at the pocketbook or at the bedroom door. And often orthopraxy never begins. We might say yes with our lips, but our lives are a vivid diorama of the exact opposite.

I thought it apposite to take his example of adoption. And it might be that some people would readily take to the idea of the adoption of children saved from abortion, even the forced adoption. But let's do a little thought experiment. Let's say that the government proposed legislation that would allow a citizen to "buy" a disenfranchisement from abortion. That is, a citizen pays a fee, and the person coming into the clinic is sent home to have her baby, the supposed right revoked. This fee would be a monthly payment, enough to support the child until the age of 18 and then through college. However, the person buying the disenfranchisement would NOT be permitted to visit the child or speak with the child.

Now, assuming money wasn't an obstacle, would we be willing to put our money where the protest signs are? That is, would we be willing to support the children and the mothers for whom we pray? That's a really tough question for me. Sure, if money weren't an obstacle, I'd be willing to do so, but in the absence of any tangible reward?

Let's say that you could protest at a clinic for the cost of taking home one mother and child and supporting them through the child's educational years. Once again, how many would do it, assuming money were no object? Adopting a child, there's some return--supporting another person's child and that person?

Our desire to curtail abortion has consequences--sometimes severe social consequences if a mother has to drop out of school because her family no longer supports her. Are we willing to take on those consequences outside the fatherly welfare state? In other words, we cannot say, "Are there no prisons? Are the workhouse still in order?" Say we have to take personal responsibility for our stands. Where is our orthopraxy. We may still adhere to the orthodox line, but this orthodoxy has real, practical, tangible consequences--consequences that will impact us for a lifetime and beyond.

When we can make this choice without thinking about it, without pausing to say, "No more vacations to Virginia, the Everglades, Cancun, the Bahamas," then we will have begun to walk the road of orthopraxy. But I know I'm not there yet.

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Shamelessly Copying from Disputations's Comment Boxes

St Augustine said that the child of God's enemy is the one who is God's enemy; We therefore pray in Ps 104 "Destroy Thou mine enemy" with the understanding that God destroys His enemies by making them His friends.

--Mark (yet another Dominican--praise God!)

What a joyous revelation--God destroys His enemies by making them His friends--you may all have already known it, but I admit that to this foggy mind today, it comes as welcome news.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Retreat: Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis Redux

Something really interesting about the human condition:

Of the two "extremes" of discipline, Orthodoxy is by far the easier. It's the easiest thing in the world to read through a list of propositions and simply say, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." But the sheer tortuous involution of our nature make this nearly impossible for us to attain, while orthopraxy seems to come, if not naturally, at least much easier. How much easier it is for us to hold, feed, or care for a suffering child, to become incensed and outraged by harm done to the little ones, than it is to acquiesce to a proposition like, "The Death Penalty is, for the most part in the present day, entirely unnecessary to assure justice." One almost never hears of someone arguing against feeding the poor or caring for children, but birth control incites a veritable firestorm of argument and counter-argument. And given the mechanisms of love, perhaps that too is part of God's merciful provision. He has made it easier for us to do as we ought to do that to think as we ought to think, because no matter what we think, so long as we serve His Son, we are His children.

Later--you know, I have to take part of this back, because while one hears few objections to feeding children who have had the advantage of partum, one gets a panoply of arguments pre-partum. And I suppose that is also part and parcel of the human nature. If I don't see it, it doesn't exist and I don't have to acknowledge it. Part of the reason that sonograms and films and photographs so outrage supporters of abortion--by them we make real what they prefer to treat in abstract and in theory.

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Nations and People

from Morning Prayer

(Isaiah 40)
Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor its animals be enough for holocausts.
Before him all nations are as nought,
as nothing and void he counts them.

I know this was not meant as a political treatise, but reading it today something occurred to me that had not in all my other times of reading. "all nations are as nought." God cares absolutely NOTHING for these strange aggregations of society that we call nations. Even the "nation" of Israel is nothing--another mere human construct. What God cares for is people, individuals, souls. He cares deeply and completely about each one of us--but for the entire country of the United States, it is an incidental, dust on the scales, nothing at all. Because of our prayers and because of our love for the society we have, He will honor our prayers and assist us in become what we should be before all people. But His interests are not the interests of the United States, and His concerns are not the concerns of China, North Korea, or India. His interest is in Liu Wenjin, and Sumitra Chakarpanda, and Joseph Smith. His love is for persons, for the reality of souls, a reality that does not aggregate in nations. His love is personal, abiding, and deep.

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March 14, 2007

The Retreat--Orthodoxy v. Orthopraxy

Okay, before we even get fully started, yes, we can say both/and.

However, one of the statements Father made during the retreat caused a great deal less controversy than I had anticipated and it has been the food for much thought for the last several days. He pointed out that Judaism and Islam are religions of Orthopraxy, whereas Christianity tends to be a religion of orthodox.

Now, before I continue down this path, I should make very clear my own stand and the stand that I believe was held by Father Patrick, although I cannot speak for him. Orthodoxy is very important--doctrine defines the boundaries and contours of faith. As such it is the road-map, the landscape, and the surroundings for anything we do within the faith. Improper articulation of the truths of the faith can lead the faithful astray and dissuade those who might otherwise be attracted by the Splendor of the Truth. So I have no gripe with orthodoxy and would like to think that I try to remain clearly within the bounds of those attempting to think with the Church. (Even saying this I realize that I often fail, but I pray to be more successful even in those instances.)

However, the focus on orthodoxy often leads us off-track. If we're so concerned about whether or not someone is holding hands during the Our Father (which, I guess properly is a matter of orthodox orthopraxy) that we fail to make that person welcome in the Church, we have failed in our mission as a Christian. If we stand so firm on doctrine that we tend to drive off all visitors, we're doing something wrong.

When you think about it, as important as doctrine is, it is not in itself salvation. It can lead to salvation--but it is no guarantee.

I think about the parable of Jesus in which he talks about the two sons told by their father to go out and work the fields. The one son says,"No, I won't do it," and then either repents his hastiness or overcomes himself and goes out to work. The other son says, "Yes, I'll be right there," and never shows up. Who has done the Father's will?

As a former Baptist I used to fret about doctrine a lot; but then I was reminded of the final exam. We won't be asked to define hyperdulia and its proper object, nor to give details of the hypostatic union. But we will be separated into the sheep and the goats on a question not of doctrine but of practice: "When I was hungry, you gave me to eat; thirsty, you gave me to drink; naked, you clothed me." God isn't going to be too worried about how we interpret the Vatican documents on Ecumenical dialogue nor its fundamental teachings on interreligious dialogue with nonChristian faiths. These are all important matters. But more important is that if we see our Muslim brother ill, hurting, or wanting and we can do something about it, do we? If we see our Catholic sister in need, do we help her, or do we quiz her first about how Catholic she actually is?

I personally can't imagine any Catholic I know administering some sort of grueling orthodoxy test as a prerequisite for aid. Nor any Christian I know for that matter. But sometimes if you hear us talk among ourselves, we sound as though we would.

I don't need to work on my orthodoxy. But I will admit that I often fail in my orthopraxy and I fail most often because of my lack of compassion and my lack of comprehension of what can be done and what part I can play in it. I hide my head in the sand and pretend not to know what to do. You all may be aware that we have a major problem with citizens of other countries occupying American Domiciles without proper authorization. I struggle with the political question of what we need to do about these people. And yet I consistently refuse to vote for any measure that would deprive them of health care or access to education for their children. I support the organizations that visit them with medical care and food and clothing. But I have never helped one of these people myself--perhaps because the opportunity has not presented itself. But I often think--perhaps I would not do so because I haven't the depth of courage to live out the convictions of my faith in the face of the hostility of my neighbors. And yes, I think my faith would call me to see to it that regardless of the status of their paperwork, these people are treated with the dignity of human beings. Now, this does not prevent me from holding whatever view I care to hold with regard to how we "deal with" such people--I haven't made my mind up on this matter yet. The Bishops clearly teach that we have a right and an obligation to protect the interests of the people of our own country by whatever laws we should happen to make.

My point is not to challenge political boundaries here. I don't know what to do about people who are in this country illegally--except what compassion demands from one human being to another. Should they be returned home? I don't know. What I do know is that so long as they are here they should be fed and their children educated to the best of our ability to do so. Is it a drain on our resources? Yes. But I heard (and haven't yet confirmed) that most of us in the blog world are among the top 5% of the richest people in the world. Perhaps we have resources that could be shared. Perhaps we could live with a little less so that others who have not had our advantages might have a little more. This is an opinion, not a teaching of the Church,but it is an opinion born out of compassion. Every time I look at my son's face, I think about the children of Dafur or the horrendous picture I saw the other day of the children of Zimbabwe picking through the garbage to collect enough to eat. Are they any less precious than we are?

So suddenly, I find myself thinking about compassion and the demand and necessity for me to share in the suffering of others--share in it so as to alleviate it, not simply to make myself miserable as well. That, it seems to me, is the sacrificial love we are called to.

Do we give away everything? No. Do we give away what we are not entitled to give away--the security of our neighbors and of our children's children? No. There are bounds and reasonable bounds. But is there more we can do for others. I think yes, and I don't think it necessarily has to do with money.

Orthopraxy--do I share in the sorrows and the toils of my brothers and sisters in the Lord in such a way as I carry part of the burden? In this Lenten season I realize that I do not do nearly enough. This is a place for transformation that comes only with transformation of the heart,

As I said, nothing provocative, nothing controversial, but much very challenging to the way I presently live my life. Giving money is not enough. Who would be first in the kingdom of heaven must be last among the sisters and brothers on earth--the servant of the servants of God. Now there's a goal to strive for--to allow myself to become such a servant.

Only through prayer. Prayer alone can make so distant a goal even a remote possibility. And when I see that I see how far I am from the Father's love. Not that He is distant from me, but I place the distance between us because like the rich young man. . .

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The Paleness of Words

from the First Psalm Prayer for Wednesday Week Three of Lent

God of mercy and goodness, when Christ called out to you in torment, you hear him and gave him victory over death because of his love for you. We already know the affection you have for us; fill us with a great love of your name, and we will proclaim you more boldly before men and happily lead them to celebrate your glory.

It's actually for the third Wednesday of the Psalter, but that's a detail.

Notice the oddly attenuated language of the second sentence. We have the horrible details of the agony of the crucifixion and then we have, "We already know the affection you have for us." This sounds like something a deist might write about God. He is affectionate. Affection is what I have for my dog and it hardly does justice to:

Song of Songs 8:6-7

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

That is not "affection," something that might well be shared amongst 70 year old retired colonels in an Edwardian Men's Club. This is love. This is the love of Christ--stronger than death, reaching out beyond the grave and demanding the resurrection on the sheer strength of the love for God and for all humanity--for God BECAUSE OF the love for all humanity--loving us so much that He desires to incorporate each of us in all of our diverse ways and forms into His body and thus make His body a patchwork of the nature of love, stronger for its many facets--stronger for the passion of the Scholar and defender, stronger for the passion of the Servant, stronger for the deep devotion of the mystic, stronger for the deep devotion of the missionary.

God's love for us is not affection, nor is it mere fondness. It is a love that burns in cleansing flame, a love that transforms, a love that utterly changes what it touches while leaving it exactly the same. His love is an unquenchable fire that He wants to burn in our own hearts it is the exact image of the love any good parent bears a child, taken beyond the limits of our ability to understand because the Triune, Uniate, Simple, Infinite Being that is God is all Love.

So when we read the wan and etiolated synonyms for the yearning of God toward us, the desire for us, the will for us to join Him eternally, let us recall for a moment the Song of Songs and remember what those words are standing for. The unquenchable, eternal, brilliant, transforming, all-encompassing flame of love whose burning exalts us, lifts us up, and changes us into the One who loves us--if we say only "Let it be done unto me as you will."

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March 13, 2007

The Retreat

First, thank you all for the prayers. The retreat for a variety of reasons was a grueling, penitential, and refining experience from which I derived a bounty of graces. I won't go into those details here because they aren't of universal or even of a minority audience interest. However, there are several reflections that I think may be worth sharing because they caused such a stir.

Our retreat leader was Father Patrick McMahon. Father Patrick is the O.Carm Vatican expert on the Brown Scapular and with Fr. Sam Anthony Morello (OCD) wrote the current brown scapular catechesis. For anyone who knows what this is about, it is enough to set the scene. Fr. Patrick is a very scholarly, very orthodox man--his political opinions tend toward the liberal side of things--a volatile mix easily subject to misinterpretation and misrepresentation. While I did not agree with some of his opinions, I found his teaching solid, interesting, and . . . transforming.

Let's start with something startlingly uncontroversial, that begins with a controversial proposition. It is Father Patrick's opinion (one with which I concur) that politicians who support abortion should not be denied communion. I understand that there is a variety of thinking on the matter and I respect the positions of those who differ from me on the matter. But what Father Patrick derived from this I found most interesting. Reflecting particularly on the Carmelite vocation he stated that it is not the Carmelite vocation to sniff out heresy, expose, and denounce it. He said there was a perfectly good Order for those who wished to do so and recommended all such to look into the Dominicans. Now, it is part of the vocation of all Christians in good standing to correct error in love--but what I appreciated here was the laser sharp focus on the parameters of the Carmelite vocation.

(For those who are interested, his ultimate conclusion was that all Carmelites participate in the vocation that St. Therese identified; that is, Carmelites are called to be love at the heart of the Church. This proposition led readily into certain aspects of social justice and mercy, but also into some unexpected side streams that were quite rewarding.)

I like the idea of not being a heresy hunter. Heaven knows, I'm not qualified for one thing. For another, I'm far better equipped to aid those with the reason and argumentation through my prayers than I am to leap into the fray and muddle the whole thing. I want to welcome those who do not understand or who have a different understanding of Church teaching. I want to pray for them and be their companions on the journey because I started there myself. Drawn by a deep hunger for the real presence that I understood even through my Baptist upbringing, I came into the Church with an enormous amount of fundamentalist protestant and secular liberal baggage. If it hadn't been for those who loved me into the Church I could never have completed the journey. I was completely turned off by the attitude of the apologists who thought they knew it all and who were more seemingly more rigid, unbending, and uncaring than the most rigid Calvinist I had ever encountered. This was my judgment on them and it condemned me; however, there were those who did not argue with me, but gently prayed with me and corrected some of my misapprehensions about the Church.

We need both. We need the strength of reason, of right doctrine, of correct understanding. Those people support the church in reason and in faith. They are probably instrumental in many conversions. But we also need to have those who meet us at the door, broken, dirty, confused as we are; those who show us to seats beside them and who spoon-feed and pray for us as we are gradually healed by the wisdom of the Church, by Love Himself who comes to those of us who are willing. I want to be one of that army, incapable as I am of it--that is my desire to pray and counsel and listen and be with those who really desire the truth. I leave to others the intricate explanations of the details. I know enough of the faith to be a general guide--when they wish to know about the hypostatic union and the exact moment of transubstantiation, I'll send them on to the better informed. Even if I sometimes know those kinds of things, they flee from my head at a moment's notice. In my life, I need to rely entirely upon the Holy Spirit to speak the right words and to be the right person for the people who come to me. Ultimately, they don't matter that much to me, because I don't think that serving Jesus is in those details for me. Indeed, I have been given a clear preview of the final exam--"When I was hungry, you gave me to eat; thirsty, you gave me to drink; naked, you clothed me. . ."

Any way, it served once again as a profound confirmation of my vocation.

If I have time later, I'll write a bit about another really remarkable statement that will probably stir much more controversy than this one.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:38 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

February 28, 2007

Prayer and the Word

from Essence of Prayer
Sr. Ruth Burrows, OCD

But a rich source of theology and prayer at hand for each of us is the Missal. Here we find theology at its purest, theology that is prayed, that is prayer. If we were to absorb the contents of the Missal we would need little else. Study the four Eucharistic Prayers, the prefaces throughout the yearly seasons and the great doxology "Glory to God in the Highest." . . . a wealth of prayed theology, the Church's understanding at its purest consisting of treasures old and new.

*****

It is our precious Catholic inheritance to realize that the essence of worship and prayer must always lie with God's Self-communication to us and that our part is merely response. We who know Jesus do not depend on our own prayers, our own ways of getting in touch with God, pleasing him, atoning for our sins and so forth. We know that all this has been given for us in Jesus. We have to go and claim it. The fountain is there for us, overflowing, and all that we have to do is drink. We notice in the Mass prayers how we are, so to speak, continually "mingling" with Jesus, immersing ourselves in what He is doing. Our offering of ourselves is to become one with the perfect offering of Jesus. We too are to become the perfect offering that the FAther lovingly accepts, an offering that is first and foremost God's own gift to us. O marvellous exchange.

All of the theology in the world starts with God's revelation to us, perfect and complete. The finest teaching of this revelation is the teaching which is prayer--the Mass, the Mass in which we become in a special way "the body of Christ" (Although we are always and at all times part of the Body of Christ. But this is also true because there is not one moment of the day when the prayers of Mass are not rising to God and incorporating us fully, His sons and daughters into His Son.)

Have you ever looked closely at exactly what it is we pray when we pray the full Mass? Perhaps that might be a start for the scripture shy--see how it is structured and why it is the central prayer of faith. In it we are, for a moment, perfected, brought into Union with Him through His Son. As Sr. Ruth says, "O marvelous exchange."

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February 21, 2007

This Lenten Journey--Abridging the Labyrinth

The season has come 'round at last. It seemed as though it would never get here and it is a season that I have come to anticipate with all the eagerness and joy that a small child invests in waiting for Christmas. Why? Because it is the time of year when we are all bound by the same discipline and tend to walk in similar ways; as a result it makes that walk so much easier than it otherwise is. It is remarkably difficult to be a lenten person of purpose outside of the season. As it arrives and as I progress through it, I think, if only this could continue, if only this progress, if progress it be, and purpose could be sustained. But no more than a week afterwards it is as though all purpose has vanished.

So, this year, as in many years, the focus is repentance, but more than repentance in the sense of sorrow--repentance in the sense of rethinking the whole journey of life up until now, seeing where one approached and where one was distant. Life is walked in the path of the labyrinth. You can see the center, the place you want to be, but as you walk this single long path, you at first progress steadily toward the center and then you find yourself compelled right back out to the very edge. With time you find the center, but only after much seemingly aimless wandering. But there must be a straighter quicker path. What's to stop me from stepping over the row of stones that mark the barrier between paths and going straight to the center? Only my own reluctance to transgress self-imposed laws and boundaries.

So this season I shall look at what I can do and what we all can do to step past those self-imposed boundaries and move on the straight path of the arrow to the heart of the labyrinth, the center, the place of intimacy and union with God.

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February 19, 2007

Compassion and Mercy

Father Jim points us to an on-line Thomistic Manual which attempts to make sense of some of the complicated concepts of Christian Theology.

These are compassion for the evil which another is suffering, especially when he suffers without his own fault. But compassion may embrace even sinners, not as regards the voluntary sin, for pity concerns the involuntary evil, but as fault has attached to it that which is involuntary. So the Lord had compassion for the multitude (S. Matt. ix. 36).

He that loves, regards his friend as a part of himself, and his friend's evil as if it were his own.

He "rejoices with them that rejoice;" and he "weeps with them that weep" (Rom. xii. 15). Anger and pride oppose this virtue, because the first lifts above the apprehension of evil; the other, because it leads to contempt of others, and to the notion that they suffer worthily.

(Emphasis added)

Now, the line above is simple enough with regards to those to whom we are naturally inclined, although even then we do not so readily take it on as we might. However, think about it in terms of yesterday's gospel reading. How easy is it for us to love, in these terms, our enemy?

And yet, as Christians to love one's enemy is not an option, it is a requirement. And the gate to that love might be through the natural springs of compassion and mercy. While we may detest the person, what the person does, or the company a person keeps, we can, nevertheless, put ourselves in the place of that person--a beloved child of God and a fellow-traveller and sufferer in this vale of tears. If we can for one moment be selfless, we can see in those who afflict us the children that they are.

Flannery O'Connor demonstrates the operation of compassion in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." At the end of the story the whining and commanding Grandmother who has brought about the extinction of her family looks at the Misfit.

from "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
Flannery O'Connor

She saw the man's face twisted close to her own as if he were going to cry and she murmured, "Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children !" She reached out and touched him on the shoulder.

This action precipitates the finale of the story. It is, in fact, an act of compassion, the first truly selfless act that the old woman takes in the course of the story and, perhaps, in the course of much of her life. In it she becomes aware of an identity, a connection that does not really exist, but which reaches out to the Misfit in an attempt at redemption. While she does not affect the Misfit, the action itself may be seen as her own redemption. She has transcended herself and in a moment of transcendence attempts to bestow some small part of what God has imparted to her.

Compassion is the desire to share the sufferings of another not merely to suffer ourselves but to lift the other out of suffering and into knowledge of the greater good that alleviates suffering.

Compassion is one of the virtues that arises when we learn to love well and properly. And learning to love is a life time occupation.

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February 14, 2007

"Nonviolent Civil Disobedience in the Temple"

The optic through which Fr. John Dear chooses to view the life of Jesus seems to have a curious flaw, or perhaps merely blinders:

from Transfiguration
Fr. John Dear

He was on his way to Jerusalem, where he would engage in nonviolent civil disobedience in the Temple, an act that would lead the authorities to arrest and execute him. On the mountain, in that place of solitude and beauty, God transformed him and gave him a taste of the resurrected life to come. He became the Christ he would become.

I found the first sentence provocative and the second mildly disturbing. Did Jesus "become the Christ" or was He born as the Christ? I didn't know that Jesus was not the Savior from the time of His birth, that this title was only conferred upon Him as He "earned" it or merited it. Perhaps what Fr. John meant to say here is that He was revealed to some of his disciples as the Christ. But that is not my sense of this passage. I won't go on because my Christology is not exemplary, but it just struck me as a very wrong-headed way to go about looking at Jesus.

More than that, was it "nonviolent civil disobedience" that led the authorities to arrest and execute Him? Or was it something more? Certainly one could argue that Jesus did often commit "nonviolent civil disobedience" and it caused enormous discomfort among those in charge of things. But to reduce the cause of Jesus' death to this strikes me as reducing the cause of World War I to the single event of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand.

Tom at Disputations pointed out currents in the book that worked to reduce the Gospel message to one of nonviolent civil disobedience, and this seems an overt instance of it. However, I'm still in the act of synthesizing and thinking about the argument, rereading and trying to understand the focus and the fullness of what is here.

One thing I can say is that the book is worth reading for the points it brings up and for the argument that surfaces. Agree or disagree, it will get you thinking about Jesus and His life and teachings, and that in itself, regardless of whether you end up agreeing or disagreeing with Fr. Dear's arguments, is a worthwhile pursuit.

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Pacifism and Nonviolence: Addressing Comments

Because I love this topic and really want to understand how, if at all, it can fit in with the clear line of Church teaching, and because it appears that I have not explained my point clearly, I will respond to comments on Pacifism and Nonviolence in this post.

First, very politely to Chris who stands a little further inside the boundary than I do. I frankly can't conceive of how overthrowing tables and whipping people can be viewed as anything but violent. "Zeal for thy house consumes me." Righteous anger can be acted upon and may result in fireworks. One further point, Jesus Himself pointed out that "And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." (Matthew 11:12). I won't argue exegesis, but let's just agree that we won't see eye-to-eye on this particular point.

But to this, I have a much more extensive reply:

Comment from Nate Wildermuth

You make a case for violence as a necessary evil in our fallen world.

But if Christ's love hasn't made all evil unnecessary, then in what way has it freed us? If Christ's love has empowered us to love in the face of death - and in doing so, to conquer it. This isn't about nonviolence. This is about Christ's nonviolent love.

"You make a case for violence as a necessary evil in our fallen world." If so, I have failed in what I would like to say. I don't believe that it is a "necessary evil," but that it is an actual evil in the fallen world. I do not know if it is necessary, though I strongly suspect not. I do know that it exists at present and at times in the past and in times to come it has been necessary to preserve the way of life of Christians and others throughout the world. Whether or not this justifies the use of violence is an exercise for stronger theologians than myself.

"But if Christ's love hasn't made all evil unnecessary, then in what way has it freed us?" As I said above, evil isn't necessary--that is, of course, the point of Christ's coming to us. Evil is not only unnecessary it is counter to the action and desire of God. Christ came to free us from our sin and our own self-imposed slavery to the princes of this world. In doing so, He showed us a better way.

I think there are too many passages to go into here in which Jesus clearly shows us that the best way is the way of nonviolent interaction with our brothers and sisters. "Who lives by the sword, dies by the sword." "If thine enemy smite thy cheek turn him the other." And how many times, seven? No, indeed, 7 x 70 times.

At the same time I must acknowledge that there are clear indications in the Gospel of the right and the responsibility to defend the common good. "There will ever be wars and rumor of wars. . ." I am not arguing that Jesus thought this the best way, merely that it was the way things were to be.

Your point is valid. Once all of humanity embraces the love of Jesus Christ we can enter into the time when the lion will lie down with the lamb. It is up to voices like ours to speak of this time and to present the possibility of nonviolence--to show that while it may be possible to legitimately and without sin end things in a violent way (if Just War Doctrine is true), that it is not the best way nor even a better way. My point is that aggressive pursuit of this end, to the point of threats and violent argumentation is counterproductive to the end of nonviolence. Nonviolence must be modeled in our demeanors, in our means of argumentation, in our lives. And nonviolence is a gift given to a few--a gift to be shared and to be encouraged among others as much as we can, but a gift nevertheless. And most of us use and practice that gift very poorly. While I might be an okay pacifist, I would not serve as the poster boy for nonviolence. Any who have witnessed my interactions around blogdom recognize that I have a fiery temperament that can express itself more forcefully than circumstances would necessitate when provoked. That is the root of violence itself. So, while I'm growing toward that end and trying to understand how it fits in with traditional Catholic teaching, I am not there yet.

The truth of the matter is that I am uncertain about nonviolence and pacifism and their interface with Catholic teaching. I would certainly say that the Church has made it clear that there are times when violent actions can be justified. Traditional teaching or war and the death penalty show this; however, I might go further and say that it is my sense that the Church does not see these things as the "better way." While they might be justifiable given the weaknesses of human nature, they are not the best or swiftest way to effect God's will, which, as you noted, is peace, love, and union with all of His children.

Hope that serves to clarify the point and thank you for the comment and the opportunity to try to express better what I intend.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:15 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 9, 2007

Pan-atheism

from Teaching a Stone to Talk
Annie Dillard, cited in The Language of God
Francis S. Collins.

We as a people have moved from pantheism to pan-atheism. . . is is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall t our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it. We are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. Did the wind used to cry and the hills shout forth praise? Now speech has perished from the lifeless things of the earth, and living things say very little to very few. . . . And yet, it could be that wherever there is motion there is noise, as when a whale breaches and smacks the water, and wherever there is stillness there is the small, still voice, God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song and dance, the show we drove from town. . . . What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn't us? What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Aren't they both saying: Hello?

We explore the unknown to find something that is not us while we ignore what has been made known that plainly, unequivocally shows it. We are an amazingly perverse people.

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February 8, 2007

How to Identify Envy

The truly envious person will delight as much or more in your inability to have and enjoy something as in his or her ability to have and enjoy it.

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The Wrathful and the Lustful

In his classic poem about the supernatural abodes, Dante divided the sins into two categories of defects (although he might not have stated it this way): the defect of absence and the defect of excess. Those suffering from the defect of excess were punished much more lightly than those suffering from the defect of absence. In a surprising turn, the Lustful received the lightest of punishments, being whirled around perpetually to simulate in the afterlife the wavering that dominated their lives of lust.

It occurs to me that meditation upon Hell is not necessarily incumbent upon everyone, and is likely to be detrimental to some people. The threat of Hell is for me a far less enticing inducement than the joy of being in the presence of the Lord. I am among the many whose sins tend to be those of excess--lust, gluttony, avarice. To me the threat of Hell is one of those things that makes me think of God as a petty accountant, dishing out eternal damnation because I ogled Mildred Smythe-Hyde at the beach. I'm not saying it won't happen, merely that it has no internal resonance. I am not interested in Hell, and I would expect that those of us who are prone to excess might feel similarly.

Contrariwise, those who are prone to the defects of absence might find the thought of Hell quite salutary. Love cannot induce them to His end, so perhaps threat of powerlessness and emptiness in the afterlife will bring them around.

So, I find in my meditations and thoughts about God, Hell simply never enters the equation. The arrow of desire quickens and points to the delights of love as humans know them and identifies this with the source of love. And then we see Bernini's famous representation of the Transverberation of St. Teresa of Avila, and we begin to understand that what we know of love and transcendence here on Earth pales in the light of what lies beyond.

The wrathful tend not to have this access, love and its delights are of secondary interest. Setting things to rights and making things move the way they ought is much more at the core.

There is much to be gained from the meditation on the four last things, however, there is even more to be gained from sitting in the presence of Jesus and not worrying about things we cannot possibly understand anyway. For some one path will be better, for others, the opposite path. And for one person at different times, the two paths may serve to enrich the walk with God. The important point is to not let what we ought to think get in the way of spending time with God. If your reflection is on the majesty of the Sand Hill Crane and that brings you into His presence, then by all mans, reflect upon the crane. On the other hand if your joy comes from knowing that there is justice, rightness, and right order in the world beyond, reflect upon the four last things.

Most importantly, do what brings you to God regularly, predictably, inevitably. Shy away from what distracts you from His love.

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A Personal Insight that Resonates

from The Faith of a Write
Joyce Carol Oates

I'm a writer absolutely mesmerized by places; much of my writing is a way of assuaging homesickness, and the settings my characters inhabit are as crucial to me as the characters themselves.

Homesickness. Almost all of what we do is a way of assuaging homesickness, of trying to forget for a moment that we are not aware of the presence of the One who loves us. We anaesthetize ourselves against the pain of being far from home, lonely, and cold in a world that, while beautiful, offers cold comfort in comparison to being with the One who loves us deeply and completely.

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Vicki Carr Spirituality

Don't blame me, I can't help where inspiration comes from.

It Must Be Him

I tell myself what's done is done
I tell myself don't be a fool
Play the field have a lot of fun
It's easy when you play it cool
I tell myself don't be a chump
Who cares let him stay away
That's when the phone rings
And I jump
And as I grab the phone I pray
Let it please be him
Oh dear God
It must be him
It must be him
Or I shall die
Or I shall die
Oh hello, hello,
My dear God, it must be him
But it's not him and then I die
That's when I die
After a while
I'm myself again
I pick the pieces off the floor
Put my heart on the shelf again
He'll never hurt me anymore
I'm not a puppet on a string
I'll find somebody else someday
Thats when the phone rings
And once again I start to pray
Let it please be him
Oh, dear God,
It must be him
It must be him
Or I shall die
Or I shall die
Oh, hello, hello, my dear God
It must be him
But it's not him
And then I die
That's when I die
Let it please be him
My dear God, it must be him
Or I shall die
Or I shall die

In a short, melodramatic song we have the summary of the spiritual life of most lukewarm Christians. Or at least how it might look from outside and how it sometimes must seem to God that we react.

I sit and wait for God, praying for intervention, enlightenment, help. I spend my time doing for myself, think my own thoughts and going my own way and telling myself that I can do it alone, completely alone.

Then something happens. Great or little, good or bad, the telephone rings and I rush to it completely devoted now to the thought that this is God's communication to me. He's there, he's calling, finally I'll hear what I've wanted to hear all this time.

And no, it isn't Him, and I'm let down. I die.

If so, I die in ignorance. It's always Him. Always. In every caress of the breeze, in the noise of children playing, in the traffic in the streets, in the snow in the driveway. Not one thing happens that He did not cause to happen. And every day we meet Him in the persons of those around us. Every day.

Nothing happens without His consent, without His will. What we see as catastrophic is His will for the moment and we must recall that "all things work for the good of those who are called to His purpose."

When the telephone rings, no matter who is on the other end, it is Him. There is a task, there is a job, there is a need to fulfill. I just need to learn to hear Him on the other end.

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February 1, 2007

Preparing for Lent--The Nature of Prayer

I was reminded yesterday by Tom at Disputations that it is never too early to begin thinking about Lent. Since I've been thinking about Lent since the day after Easter last year, I would heartily concur with that opinion. I love Lent. I love the spirit of penitence that never seems like penitence because it is such a calm and peaceful sea in which to swim. So many things to give up and then never notice their absence because the faculties are ordered to paying attention to God. For me, the season is a small miracle each year.

I have not yet decided how I will be celebrating the season this year, however, I picked up a book of essays by Ruth Burrows, who must be one of my favorite spiritual writers of recent time.

from Essence of Prayer
Sr. Ruth Burrows, OCD

Prayer. We take the word for granted but ought we to do so? What does the word mean in the Christian context? Almost always when we talk about prayer we are think of something we do and, from that standpoint, questions, problems, confusion, discouragement, illusions multiply. For me, it is of fundamental importance to correct this view. Our Christian knowledge assures us that prayers is essentially what God does, how God addresses us, looks at us. It is not primarily something we are doing to God, something we are giving to God, but what God is doing for us. And what God is doing for us is giving the divine self in love.

When I think of prayer in the common way, prayer itself becomes a form of work. As a form of work, its interest palls as we see no forward motion, feel no sense of accomplishment. But prayer is not a work, it is a relationship. People of our time tend to regard relationships in this same sense of accomplishment and moving forward--a strange malady of the times. "This relationship is going nowhere." Well, of course it isn't, that isn't the nature of relationships. So too with prayer--it is putting aside time so that God may bestow Himself upon us. It isn't a work, it is a way of being with All Being.

Why do we find this concept so difficult to grasp? I think there is something in the modern mindset that is always seeking to get "something out of" whatever is done. But this is a fundamentally flawed way of approaching God and prayer. We aren't looking to "get something out of God" (or at least, we shouldn't be), but rather to be transformed by His Love for us. Our effort is not entirely our own because it is not possible without grace. Moreover, if we look upon it as an effort, we expect a return. Prayer is a time and a place to be--it is no more effort than sitting on our back porch and looking at the sunset.

And yet, we make it a mountain of method and of style, a pound of words and a recipes of all kinds of things that must be done just so. Because Catholicism is so imbued with structured rite and ritual, we have come to ritualize, rubricize and methodize prayer. For example, we confuse the rhythms of the Rosary, the rhythms of a mother singing to a child, with our own feeble efforts at prayer. The Rosary is spoken by us, but it is prayer precisely because it brings us into His presence to receive the love endlessly revealed in each mystery.

Each prayer we say, each action we take, each motion, each method, all of this is about preparing ourselves for Love. We are such awkward creatures. Surely we do similar things for each other, going out of our way to deceive ourselves and the one we love, to make them think we are lovable. But that is something we do not need with God. We are lovable because He loves us. That is a fundamental truth we need to accept at the start and we have to put behind us all the awkwardness and difficulty of pretending to be something we are not. God knows. He knows already. Every fiber of our being is sustained by His Will at every moment. Do we really think we can hide from Him?

So all this effort at prayer is simply a play at telling ourselves that we are really more determined and better than we are. But we are little more than children dressing up in adult clothing and after a while the entertainment palls.

So what must I do? Attend to payer, be there, ready and waiting to receive love in whatever form it may appear. Spend time with His Word, spend time with Him. Don't allow method to intrude upon Being. Be aware of who He is who who I am not. As Saint Catherine of Siena so wisely tells us, "He is He who is, I am she who is not." We do well to remember that. Our reality is grounded in He who is and without Whom all is not.

There is no method to being. We are. We are because He is and in looking at Him we are looking at being. There may be things we can do that will dispose our minds, hearts, and souls to better receive this reality. However, the end is being. And that is also the beginning.

(interesting side note. I composed much of this in my palm and tried to synch it this morning to my computer. For some reason I couldn't get the blue-tooth connection to work. As a result, I had to retype it from the palm screen. Normally my palm is set to go off after a minute or so of inactivity. But in this case it did not go off during the entire typing episode. It suggests to me that the Holy Spirit, perhaps, really wanted this message to get out there. Or, I'm sure, there are other more mechanical explanations. But I'll go with the first.)

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January 31, 2007

Traffic and Grace

Following on my recurrent theme of "you find God in anything," an odd notion occurred to me this evening of the drive home.

I've already explained that I bought a new car that has this neat little gadget that let's you see how your driving affects your gas mileage. This has been a sort of obsession over the past several weeks as I compete with myself in driving to increase the gas mileage. No reason, just want to. Well, my focus is entirely upon the road and making the trip smoother, no lead-foot starts, no screeching stops (pressing the brakes charges the motor battery, so it's good to glide to a stop). What I've discovered in the course of this single-minded pursuit is that things that really bugged me in traffic before don't bother me nearly so much. I don't care about the driver who just has to be ahead of everyone. I no longer have any impulse to race up the ramp just to get in front of someone who I think might go a mile or two too slow to suit me. It's the Nirvana of driving.

So it seems is the life of God. When your entire focus is on Him, the things other people do don't bother you so much. In fact, you may even find that there is more pity than anger as you realize the knots they twist themselves into. Things in the world fall away as you watch that needle climb knowing that you need only cooperate with grace and your "mileage" as it were would increase. There is no competition beyond that you make for yourself--to approach closer and closer to God.

If I get this much relief with the mere hassle of traffic, what must it be like when you off-load all of those extraneous cares and worries. Everything goes by the wayside other than that arrow-straight approach to God. All the other things fall into place and life is more pleasant and perfect. In short, we start to live our Heaven here on Earth.

Lord, let it be so for all those who love you.

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January 30, 2007

Insight from Brian Moore

For a lapsed Catholic, Brian Moore has a good deal to tell those of us who remain staunchly within the confines of the Church:

from Cold Heaven
Brian Moore

"I don't believe in God. I am your opposite," Marie said. "Happiness, for me, is knowing that I am in charge of my own life, that I can do as I choose. Don't you see that you're a victim, as I am a victim? What sort of love is it that's withdrawn from someone as good as you, sending you into despair? What sort of love could I possibly feel for a force which has done these things to me and to my husband?"

The room was still. The question hung in the air. Then Mother St. Jude said, "I know nothing of God's intentions. But I can tell you what St. John of the Cross has written. 'I am not made or unmade by the things which happen to me but by my reaction to them. That is all God cares about.' Do you understand, Marie?"

"No," Marie said. "No, I don't."

The old nun took Marie's hand in hers. "If Reverend Mother orders me to do something, I do it, not because I want to, or because I think it is right. I do it because she represents Christ in our community. It is Christ who commands me. St. John tells us that to do things because you want to do them or because you think they are right are simply human considerations. He tells us that obedience influenced by human considerations is almost worthless in the eyes of God. I obey--always--because God commands me." She smiled. "So I am not a victim, Marie. . . ."

In the matter of Church teaching is this our first thought? I have received a word from the Vicar of Christ on Earth--his word requires special consideration for me because it is God speaking through him. Now, it is always possible that in prudential matters a fallible human has misjudged and so might be wrong. However, I find it more likely that one who is truly seeking to follow God is more likely to be attuned to His Will even in prudential matters. That is, one who spends much time with God seems a more trustworthy guide than one who spends very little time.

However, I often see critiques of encyclicals and teachings that seem more designed to deconstruct them and make them a matter of personal preference rather than a matter for obedience. I will admit (again) that I rant and rave, but I take a certain amount of comfort from the parable in which Jesus asks which son has done the Father's will--the one who says yes and stays at home in comfort and leisure, or the one who says no, but goes out to work the fields as his Father requested. I may rant and rave, but by God's will, I am eventually able to say yes and enter those fields once again.

Accepting another's will is not easy, particularly when we've become overly used to "things as they are." But like that mysterious blue guitar of Wallace Stevens, "Things as they are are changed" when the vicar of Christ or those who wield legitimate authority over us in the spiritual realm promulgate a teaching. It is our duty and responsibility to understand a teaching from the magisterium and to the extent possible incorporate that understanding into our own way of living out the Christian vocation. And, there is a certain comfort in knowing that God has laid a special responsibility on the shoulders of those who watch over us:

Ezekiel 33:2-6, KJV

Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:

If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;

Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.

He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.

But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.

If the watchman sees evil and does not identify it and people fall because of it, they fall because of iniquity, but the fault lies with the watchman. However, if he does see and reports it and we choose to ignore what he has reported, then we fail of ourselves, and he is considered innocent.

The shepherds of souls have enormous responsibilities before God. And I have no doubt that this responsibility is always made manifest. Therefore, it is not in their best interest to issue ill-conceived, inappropriate, or miscalculated teachings in the matter of faith and morals. The teachings may be insufficient at times--perhaps unclear. But knowing the terrible responsibility of the shepherding of souls, and knowing that they will account for all those they have lost, I see that the teaching of the Church is to be trusted as a faithful guide. While I may not always understand why the truth is as it is, I know that I can trust it because my obedience is to those in legitimate authority. They speak with God's voice.

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January 26, 2007

Who Is the Crimson King?--A Catholic Reading

Following in the line of my much "admired" and frequently sited "award-winning" "Devotional Reading of H. P. Lovecraft," I present for your delectation and delight and short excursion into In the Court of the Crimson King. Partly this was driven by the discovery of Robert Fripp's magnificent Pie Jesu album, which is apparently a compilation of other bits and pieces. And there are frequent hints throughout his oeuvre of a religious background if not of a religious feeling. Working on the premise that God uses great art often despite the intentions of the artist, I present this consideration of the first song on In the Court of the Crimson King.

I have no idea who composed the lyrics for this song, but as Fripp was always a leader of the group, no matter how many people swirled around it at a time, and considering that the album is a work of musical genius, we can find in it the fingerprint of the Creator. (All one needs to do is squint and look hard enough.) {Also a caveat: I won't pretend that this is a profound musicological understanding of the work as a whole--I haven't the background for that. I work with words, and so it is the interplay of the words and the music that I shall try to look at and open up for you what I see there.)

For our first class let's consider the first song: "21st Century Schizoid Man." For those who have not heard it, it is a rather grating introduction (as befits the subject matter) to a magnificent album. There is a very astringent guitar line with a voice altered in some way to create the sense of growling or screaming. The song proceeds for the first two verses indicated below in a very rigid, tense semi-melodic line--yes, there's a sort of tune to it, though I don't think one would typify it as hummable.

21st Century Schizoid Man
Robert Fripp/Ian McDonald/Greg Lake/Michael Giles/Peter Sinfield

Cat's foot, iron claw
Neurosurgeons scream for more
At paranoia's poison door
21st century schizoid man

Blood rack, barbed wire
Politician's funeral pyre
Innocence [Innocents?] raped with napalm fire
21st century schizoid man

Dead sea, blind man's greed
Poets starving children bleed*
Nothing he's got, he really needs
21st century schizoid man

Now, if you haven't heard the song, you need to know that the first three lines of each stanza should be read as accented/stanzaic poetry in which there is a pause in the middle of the line--very common to Celtic Epic Poetry. Thus the effect is

Cat's foot
Iron Claw
Neurosurgeons
Scream for more
at Paranoia's
poisoned door
21st Century Schizoid Man.

This detail merely contributes to the image of the song. In addition, this first stanza (as well as the title) give us the immediate indication that whoever the Crimson King is, his court is not a thing of the past, but a very modern, very relevant occurrence. This is in opposition to some of the songs that follow in which there is a vaguely medieval or ethereal sense to what is happening. "I Talk to the Wind" seems a perfectly appropriate follow-up to this song, because to whom else will a schizoid (who, as we shall see, experiences a total psychotic break) talk to?

After the first two stanzas of this song, the music enters into a instrumental break that initially takes the form of a fugue, mimicking the state of some schizoid patients. The saxophone and guitar take off on their own and begin chasing one another in a free-form jazz mode. Initially the structure is quite tight, but the fugue state breaks down to bring about the musical equivalent of a total psychotic episode.

The patient recovers briefly--long enough for the final stanza, which may be the key stanza of the whole song, and perhaps one of the keys to the entire album:

"Dead sea, blind man's greed
Poets starving children bleed
Nothing he's got, he really needs
21st century schizoid man"

And within this one line on which hangs much of my thought about this as a fundamentally religious song--"Nothing he's got, he really needs." At once a biting criticism of modern society and the true schizoid state of the person who is a materialist and who has acquired all that he has through the pain and hardship of others and still seeks to fill the emptiness inside. None of it will. Ever. It cannot. You cannot put gold into the hole in your soul. And everything you acquire trying to fill that emptiness only rips the hole wider until it becomes a wound at the surface of the mind--the materialist becomes a schizoid personality, constantly fleeing reality in the pursuit of filling the void that he only succeeds in making larger.

Now, this is just as easily a secular criticism of a plutocratic society in which the pursuit of wealth is regarded not only as laudable but as something nearly holy. However, as I am a Christian, I tend to place a great deal of weight on "Nothing he's got he really needs," which conversely indicates that what he really needs, he does not have. If he does have all this wealth, if he really is within the Court of the Crimson King, what could he possibly be lacking?

Peace--peace that comes when the mind assents to the soul's prompting to look for what really matters. The 21st Century Schizoid Man lacks knowledge of God and desire for God. And what is truly frightening about this is that from my survey of many people within the Church, this is as true of them as of the hard-core materialist. We have surrendered, in many cases, the one-track, express-train pursuit of God for the pursuit of the legitimate, lesser goods of our present life. While we aren't in the full fledged auto-drawing-and-quartering that occurs to the ardent materialist, we have been sufficiently affected by his disease to have lost our own sense of belonging to God and pursuing His ends over our own. I can think of countless examples just from the blogging world, and I think each of you can as well.

Okay, to finish up--the last verse is sung, brought to a resounding screeching, scraping end, and then there is a total break. The interlude between verses two and three are a fugue state--a loss of self-control and self knowledge. The very end of the song, which features every musician flying off on their own riffs--the saxophonist not so much playing notes as torturing the instrument--the schizoid man has gone psychotic. And then, he "talks to the wind."

The ultimate end of pursuing material things is a total break with reality. In our language, were we to die in that state, it is called Hell. Hell is a state of being utterly opposed to the only reality. Hell is the continued anguish of trying to fill up a gaping hole, when all you are is that gaping hole. Hell is what is left of us when all we have done with our lives is to seek to make more of ourselves.

And the music seems to nicely mimic this as well. Hell is cacophony, the cacophony of self in the total absence of boundaries and freedom. Hell is being chained to our own wills for all eternity. "Neuro surgeons SCREAM for more at paranoia's poison door." All because we cannot surrender to love--we seek love from created things and create more pain for ourselves and for others in our pursuit.

In the Court of the Crimson King is a hard album. It has an adamantine brilliance--a high gloss that results both from the genius of the musicians and from the truth they manage to convey so clearly. Whether or not they buy into the truth, God has nevertheless used their music to convey a strong message to the person who takes it seriously. The flaw with the album is that no way out is shown--the Court of the Crimson King is simply the prison entered by the 21st Century Schizoid Man. In the title song, "In the Court of the Crimson King", the last song on the album, there is an initial promise of freedom:

The dance of the puppets
The rusted chains of prison moons
Are shattered by the sun.

But that is all done away with by the end of the song:

On soft gray mornings widows cry
The wise men share a joke;
I run to grasp divining signs
To satisfy the hoax.
The yellow jester does not play
But gently pulls the strings
And smiles as the puppets dance
In the court of the crimson king.

I cannot say where they were going when they composed this modern masterpiece, but I can say where they go for me. When we surrender to our materialist urges we are made puppets by the things we desire. We will do anything to have them because they will fill the void, or so we think. But that void, unless fill by the One, is a black hole--all that is fed into it strengthens it and enlarges it.

The only way out is to negate "nothing he's got he really needs," and to find the one thing necessary--Our Lord.

*Later Upon rereading this, I found this line very interesting. although it is pronounced

Poets starving
children bleed

I wonder whether it isn't a single thought regarding the starving children of poets? Thus:

Poets' starving children bleed.

Fascinating the way punctuation or lack thereof can lead to a productive and fruitful ambiguity. It works that way in scripture often as well.

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January 25, 2007

The Ur-sin of Pride and Church Teaching

A while back, in another place, I made one of those occasional forays into the wilds of passionate ignorance that mark my journey around God. (I say around because it sometimes seems like a spiral with a very small fractional decrease toward the center.) This particular episode characterized itself by seeming to demean the small-t sense of Catholic tradition.

There were two reasons for this--both of them good; however, what I ended up saying was not really what I intended to say. First, the reasons: we are cautioned against the traditions of men that get in the way of the gospel. And whether or not we like that, it is possible that some of these traditions, which do not fall under the category of sacred tradition can be just such things as throw up a roadblock. In the particular instance I was arguing--the content of the tradition of Church teaching--this was certainly not the case, and thus the point is not germane.

The second and much stronger argument came only after much reflection and refinement of what I was originally trying to say. My argument came down to the fact that the particulars of a church instruction when it was not definitive, dogmatic, or otherwise universal for all times and places, were particulars that related to the time and culture of the place and thus were apt to change as understandings surrounding the circumstances changed. Just as St. Thomas Aquinas is not to be blamed for his opinion about "the quickening" which engendered life--so the Church is blameless in its time and place about a variety of teachings that indeed do constitute tradition. One example of this is the view of the universe that made possible the equitable and just treatment of the incomprehensibly arrogant Galileo. Church tradition in this matter was simply wrong--it was not culpably wrong, but it was required to change as new data entered our understanding--and it did, with time change, because the Church saw that what they taught regarding the structure of the solar system was not, after all, a matter of faith and morals.

So Church teaching and tradition can change--things can fall out of it as the Church's understanding of itself and of the world at large grows and matures through time. But even this point is utterly irrelevant to the argument.

The final place I came to with regard to Church tradition and how it is often invoked to refute, challenge, or subtly alter a definitive teaching was that tradition was not a matter with which I really needed to be engaged at first. Indeed, my initial assumption upon receiving ANY church teaching is that the tradition of the Church's teaching on the matter had already been considered and incorporated into the document at hand. That said, I would give greater weight to "more definitive" documents. That is, I would consider that this tradition had been given a far weightier consideration in the course of the drafting and redrafting of an encyclical than in say a common local pastoral instruction. Which is not to say that the local pastoral instruction is to be immediately scrutinized for errors of tradition.

For myself, the recourse to traditional teaching would mean only one thing--the intrusion of pride, the father and progenitor of all sin. If I find myself questioning a teaching based either upon worldly understanding or my own profound and expansive (not) understanding of tradition, I must see in that merely my own rebellious fleeing from proper instruction. I have related in the past and refer often to my experience with the Encyclical Veratatis Splendor, which I came to question through my understanding of how the world works. I was wrong then, and I have been shown to be wrong in nearly every instance in which I have questioned Church teaching. Most often I am not wrong about what I am saying is true, but rather I am wrong in attributing the "faulty logic" to the Church. Too often I read something and interpret it not in the light of the thought of those who drafted it, but in the light of my own reasoning and interpretation of phrase.

Part of critiquing anything is understanding the statement that is being made in the way it is intended by the person making the statement. For those who venture over to Disputations often, you'll note that when I get engaged in some discussions, I am sometimes simply off-track. I don't fully understand what the person writing is trying to say and so my arguments are not so much counter-arguments to the points being made, but counter-arguments to the ghosts and shadows I have thrown up around the arguments through my own ignorance. I don't necessarily disagree with the real point--I disagree with what I think is the real point.

Which leads back to Church teaching. I have said elsewhere that often upon receiving Church teaching I rant and rave and thunder and moan and lament the vast idiocy of the world that would result in so profoundly ignorant a teaching. I throw myself against the wall of it again and again, seeking to find entrance, battering myself endlessly against the stones of the fortification.

And then, a little later, with some help from some friends and some time for reflection and serious prayer about the matter, I walk around to the other side and go in through the door. It often seems that there are very few people who really disagree with what the Church teaches, but a vast multitude who disagree with what they think it teaches. And very often their recourse is, "Tradition has not taught this." In making such a statement they presume to know tradition and its details better than those who formulate the teaching. Now, this may be the case, I cannot say. But it does seem to me that Jesus promised the protection of the Holy Spirit for the Church and its magisterium, not for every person who thinks they are a theologian.

This is not to say that there can be no disagreement. However, I do believe that the immediate, knee-jerk and continuing disagreement of the rank and file is indicative more or the Ur-sin than it is of the validity of the teaching they are considering. Now that is, I suppose, a form of judgment, which if applied to others certainly applies to me. I rarely question church teaching on the basis of Her tradition, but rather on the basis of the tradition of the reformation and of secular thinkers. When I finally realize which reformation creed or realist philosopher has crept in and guided my thoughts, I can put a filter to screen out that reasoning and suddenly begin seeing the splendor of the truth.

I am so profoundly grateful for the teaching magisterium of our Church. Because of it, it is more difficult for the entire church to go the way of our Episcopalian brothers and sisters. Because of it, I am not left on my own to try to deal with very difficult matters--embryonic stem cell research (although there are perfectly good, reasonable, and scientific reasons to oppose this as well as moral reasons), the problem of the poor, war, the death penalty, and other things on which the Church both advises in the individual instances and gives a profound teaching principle by which to make our own judgments.

Otherwise we are "like sheep without a shepherd." However, for every teaching that I can embrace, there are three I must struggle with to first understand and then, sometimes to force myself into line with. These latter more often fly in the face of personal experience and personal feelings and it takes time to reconcile the teaching with continuing to function as a compassionate and caring person to those whose habits or behavior may come under the scrutiny of the Church in the given teaching.

All that said, the point is simple. When the Church delivers a teaching, it seems both respectful and logical to start with the assumption that the tradition of the Church's teaching on the matter has already been considered and incorporated. If we do not see it, it may be because we are not as profoundly steeped in that tradition and the understanding of it as those who draft the documents.

Questioning is always a good thing--it is a necessary thing to bring about understanding. But a thousand questions are not even a problem, and a thousand problems don't even approach a doubt. And questioning takes two forms--one life-giving, one destructive. "How do I understand this and weave it into my life," is the questioning of obedience that can still sound off-key. "How do I do away with this which does not agree with my mind which is already made up?" is too often the questioning that I see any Church teaching get--this is the questioning of Satan who decided that he knew better how to run things.

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January 18, 2007

During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Some interesting maps sent to me by a friend.

I'm pleased to note that I live in a "blue area" of my state--not what you think!

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January 17, 2007

The Evidentiary Power of Beauty

No, I don't plan to review the very fine book by Father Thomas Dubay. As with all book by Fr. Dubay, this is a dense, thorough study of its intended subject.

I chose this title because it is, perhaps, the most meaningful to me in my personal encounters with God. I would expand it--The evidentiary and experiential power of beauty.

In beauty, true beauty, we encounter God directly, if sometimes at a distance, masked by the surface. God is, of course, the source of all beauty, goodness, and truth. If there is an aesthetic appeal to an object, a true beauty, it is one way God calls to us.

I read great works of literature, view great art, listen to music, great and otherwise, and I experience God speaking through His people. There are times when I am stunned into a real silence, the silence in which I encounter God in prayer.

We've all had this experience--something so lovely it takes the breath away, we are literally gasping at the sight or experience of it. The divine has intruded momentarily into the senses. We see Him, however dimly, however much at a distance.

And what is most remarkable is that this is despite the intention of the artist. The other day I found a You-Tube video by Gary Numan titled something like "Prayer for a Dead Girl," in which he is obviously lamenting a still-born child or a child lost early-on in development and comes to the conclusion that indeed there is and can be no God. And in coming to that conclusion, he uncloaks for a moment God's face, a face filled with love, compassion, and genuine empathy/sympathy--a face that knows and understands what it is to lose a beloved child.

Beauty isn't God. Art is not God. Music is not God. Literature is not God. Nothing of human or natural creation is God and it is a serious error to suppose that it is. Emerson made this error consistently and stridently. No, none of these things is God; however, if we are looking and listening, we can experience God through great and even not-so-great works of art and beauty.

The senses are where we start this journey--but it is not the end. Beauty is not the end--it is merely the signpost pointing to the end. We start by being engaged, called to Him through whatever it is that we find lovely and attractive. But to find Him, what must leave behind the lesser beauties to find the eternal beauty--the perfection of beauty. We must gaze upon the Face of God through His Son, Jesus Christ who while he may not have been beautiful in human terms was the Incarnation of beauty, and who revealed the meaning of beauty--the love of God given us to remind us to come home.

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January 12, 2007

Attending to Our Faults

from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon, OSCO

The predominant fault crystallizes certain aspects of an ego accustomed to act for and of itself. . . . If this egocentricity is not exposed and overcome, it remains like an underground [military group], ready to join hands with the invader in the time of trial, and to betray us into the hands of our enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil. Just as an underground deserves attention in peacetime, because upon its uprooting depends the future security of the country, so the basic evil tendency of the soul, the head of the organism of sin, requires our attention (discovery and opposition) even though it is in hiding.

You know those things you go to confession week after week after week after week until you're so tired of confessing them you're tempted not to? Well, perhaps many of you have never experienced that; however, let me tell you, it sometimes seems like I should just do an Excel spreadsheet and tick off the usual suspects and turn it in.

It isn't that I don't want to do away with these sins (though on some level, I obviously don't or I would find that they would become less frequent), but they just seem to creep up on me. These sins, then, are the fruit of what Father Simon calls the predominant fault. It isn't as though I don't commit others, but I certainly do not commit some sins with the clockwork regularity of others. It is these recurrent sins that give me the clues to the particular virtues I need to cultivate to combat them.

One way to cultivate them is through the use of a gift that Father Simon described and I blogged a few days ago--self-denial--which in reality is nothing of the sort. A correspondent pointed out that we are incapable of doing anything ourselves, particularly anything good, so that self-denial, while engaged and activated by the will is a gift of God, a sort of grace, that gives us the ability to not do what we are accustomed to doing it. A grave mistake would be to consider this work, at least in the early stages, and perhaps throughout, as some sort of righteousness or good work that we effect. It is not. As I pointed out, self-denial is, in one sense the apotheosis of enlightened self-interest, because it is only in the use of this gift that we begin to see vestiges of the true self that God Himself sees.

Self-denial then, is one step, one positive thing that we can assent to, that leads us away from the predominant fault. We can recognize the pattern, recognize the root, make use of the sacraments and pray for the strength to stay away from that fault. Moreover, we would do well in addition to praying against to pray in the presence of what we seek. Looking at Jesus is probably more efficacious in the fight against sin than putting up arms against a sea of troubles. Because no matter what we think, it is not our own opposition that ends them.

Think of it in the manner you might think of correct a very young child. There are many ways to go about it, but one of the most effective is often to remove the child from the arena of the distraction that is causing harm. That is, as pray-ers, we remove ourselves from immediate concern about the temptation besetting us by focusing on Jesus--Jesus in the Garden, Jesus on the Cross, Jesus among the children--whatever image of Jesus speaks to us in the moment and removes us from the path of destruction. God will give the grace, Jesus will supply the strength and the moment. However, none of this will be efficacious if we do not first seek guidance and understanding about what is tempting us and then (with the strength of the sacraments and Grace) resolutely decide not to give in just this one time. When we do this one-time by one-time, God gradually gives us victory over the sin--often allowing us to go our own way to show just how weak we are on our own. But nevertheless, it is the repeated pattern that will give us the focus and the spirit of clinging to God that will gradually lead us away from our sins.

We can do nothing of ourselves, all is Grace, all is gift. But we can do everything through Him who strengthens each one of us.

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Sometimes You Just Need to Be Kicked in the Head Enough

I don't know how many times I may have heard something like this; however, this is the time it finally made sense.

from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon OCSO

The angelic intelligence, superior to the human, sees in one glance the alternatives of choice and their consequences. The angelic will is then fixed in its election. When the rebellious angels preferred disobedience they knew that they had made their final choice. It is not so with us, and to us alone God gave a redeemer.

How awful. How terrible to be able to look upon the magnificence of God and choose something else. How inconceivable. We at least have the story of being persuaded to our doom--a poor excuse, but none the less the effort of a tempter. The Angels had no such persuasion; moreover, they could look upon the Glory of God Himself and see it clearly. Simply incomprehensible.

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January 11, 2007

Trying to Learn

As usual, Tom has a very interesting post on reaction to church teaching.

In another context, I wrote this this morning:

My passion is for the truth, not for being right--so that even though I run again and again at that brick wall, seeking to knock it down, the reality is that I would rather know the truth than be right. (Obviously to have both at once would be ideal--but as we are dealing "a bear of very little brain," I'll accept that I start off more often wrong that right and acknowledge that I'm willing to conform to the truth when it finally gets through my thick skull. ) All you see are the outward dynamics of trying to force it through my thick skull, and I often worry that I am more aggressive about it that is seemly--but is it really possible to be too aggressive in seeking out the truth?

I wrote over at Tom's that I often rant and rave, kick and scream, fulminate and froth, threaten to leave the Church, cry, wail, howl, and do all sorts of other things when I feel particularly put out. (I live a very histrionic interior life--it's really quite satisfying in a variety of ways.)

But the reality is that in nearly every case that I have taken umbrage at Church teaching, I've been shown time and again just how wrong I am. And when you think about it, that only makes sense. After all the Church has two thousand (and more) years of the collective wisdom of some of the most brilliant people humankind has ever known. By the end of my life (god willing) I will have my threescore-ten, or four or five score. So, let's see, perhaps a million years of humankind's wisdom compared to the less than half-century of one person--what should have the greater weight in my consideration. And it is in this sense that I must respect the tradition of the Church in its teaching--knowing that particulars might change, but that the weight of wisdom and thinking demands attention and, eventually, obedience.

What is true about a matter is far more important that what I think about it. This reality is one of the reasons I need a shepherd in the first place.

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January 10, 2007

Bowled Over Aagin

How many times in a day must I be slapped upside the head with something. This from lunchtime reading:

from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon OCSO

He has given us means. . .to overcome this weakness and to strengthen our wills. These means include the sacraments, the infused virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit--and self-denial. In self-denial in particular, we have the means to overcome the obstacles to happiness; by self-denial our wills are given power over our temperaments and faults; we are made capable of change, we are made free.

Ironically, it is called self-denial, and yet it is nothing of the sort; rather, it is denial of the illusion of self that we live. Until we live completely in the image and context of God, we don't even know self, so it is impossible to deny self. Self-denial is actually the embrace of the real self as manifested in God's image of us. We discover that when we have found our identities in Christ self-denial is impossible because we finally have the properly oriented self that does not see self-denial but Christ-embracing.

We so dread depriving ourselves of anything that we have even a remote notion we might want or need that we cannot see the real efficacy of self-denial--breaking the illusion of Maya and embracing the reality of who we are in the Reality of Him Who Is.

You see how language descends to the utterly inarticulate trying even to explain the joyous discovery that we need not succumb to every vagrant thought and idle want. Today has been a good day indeed.

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Two Passages To Say it All

Sometimes I don't know why I post these things because we all know them to be true. Knowing them to be true and living them in their truth often seem to be quite different matters; and, perhaps, the bridge between them lies in such reminders as these.

from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon O.C.S.O.

The Father is the supreme Reality; all other reality is the effect of HIs will; He alone gives existence to all that is. Only the saint is fully adjusted to reality because only the saint if fully conformed to the Father's will. The materialist, on the other hand, excludes from his or her life happiness and true adjustment to reality, for he or she fails to recognize the primary Reality and its chief effects, the soul, intellect, and will, which are of the spiritual order and hold primacy over the material order.

***********

It is true that some persons appear, and consider themselves, to be happy whose satisfaction is not in God but in material things--even in certain cases, when they are conscious that they are abiding in mortal sin and are estranged from God. These people are miserable but may not feel miserable. The hatred and malice of the devil are not directed so much at making people miserable in their feelings, as in fact. Then they are more prone to remain in their pitiable condition without taking the necessary steps to become truly happy.

Book available from Zaccheus Press and also through Ignatius Press. And is, so far, highly recommended.

What bears repeating here is that Satan's tactics are not so much to make us feel miserable as to make us be miserable without realizing the misery in which we live. When we are constantly striving for the ephemeral, the vanishing, the unworthy, the empty, the desolate, the finite, and the broken, we cannot expend the energy for the One who corrects all these absences and frailties. Until we admit how materially driven our lives are, we cannot begin to correct that imperfection and allow ourselves to be gathered (not driven) to the True Shepherd whose voice we know in our hearts. We live in a real misery that we do not feel trying to avoid the miserable feeling that may not reflect reality.

O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. . .

ourselves.

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January 8, 2007

A Word for the Day

from Union with God
Blessed Columba Marmion

Be faithful in little things, not out of meticulousness, but out of love. Do this to prove to Our Lord that you have the love of a spouse for Him.

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January 7, 2007

Three Kings and a Fourth

While doing Lectio yesterday on today's gospel, I received the most interesting and compelling message. Now understand, the messages of Lectio are a kind of private revelation, so I don't claim to speak authoritatively on the matter of meaning in the Gospel passage; however, I did not a rather interesting dynamic.

The story is about the arrival of the three wise men/ kings. First, they go to Herod to ask directions from him and discover that he hasn't a clue. What's more, he's really upset by their arrival. And when Herod is upset, so Jerusalem follows.

The Wise Men go to find the Christ Child and they humble themselves before Him. "They rejoiced with exceeding great joy," and all the heavens and all the humble of Earth through all of time with them.

What then is this dynamic? Each of us, in some little way, can be a Herod or a Wise Man in areas of our own lives. By our choices we can make the lives of those around us resonate with our own emotion. We can choose to eradicate Christ and make everyone around us miserable. We can choose to seek Him out and cause "exceeding great joy" around us. When we look after the things of this world, we inevitable choose the former, but when we divest ourselves of them, giving gift of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, we can find joy, and those around us as well.

That is part of the truth of this gospel tale. Joy or terror, solidarity or disunion, love or hate. We choose bit by bit every day, and turning to this story we can see very clearly the consequences of our choices.

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December 21, 2006

"Be faithful in little things. . ."

I don't know that Blessed Dom Columba was particularly influenced by St. Therese, although he did write a notice supporting the cause of her beatification; however, their messages converge at several points. And I must conclude from this convergence that God chose that particular time in history to clarify the path to Him. For what reason, I cannot say, but it appears that these two great directors of souls really found one very simple way which we still have not come to terms with.

from Union with God
Blessed Dom Columba Marmion

Be faithful in little things, not out of meticulousness, but out of love. Do this to prove to Our Lord that you have the love of a spouse for HIm.

*******

It is a question of giving the first moments of the day to Our Lord or to His enemy, and the whole day bears the reflection of this first choice.

***********

Let us labor to give ourselves to Jesus in the person of others. That admits of much interior renunciation.

Although St. Therese remarked very little on the enemy of God, she certainly taught a lot about doing little things with great faithfulness. Extraordinary measures need not be taken--the ordinary round of life provides ample opportunity for holiness and sanctity. And one of our chief services may be a smile at someone who receives very few.

What these two great spiritual guides did was strip away prolixity, method, and the encrustation of routine. They demanded of themselves and of those who would accept the path they showed an authenticity and a presence that some prior spiritualities tended to obscure. These two stand as great servants of God in the present moment under the present circumstances in present company.

This is nothing new. Brother Lawrence taught sanctity among the pots and pans. St. Benedict's rule emphasizes the "ordinariness" of sanctifying the day.

But these two Saints expressed this simple truth in words for the time. Straightforward, direct, uncompromising--the two tell us in no uncertain terms that the path to holiness is not turning our steps a different direction as we go to market, but turning our hearts a different direction whichever way we go. A transformation of the heart and attentiveness to God in the details of the day is all the fuel we need to accept the Grace of God's omnipresence. We need do nothing extraordinary, we just need to be aware of how extraordinary every moment in His presence is; how every opportunity of the day is an opportunity for grace, peace, love, and security in His presence. He is in every second, every moment of every day. And every moment of every day is His special gift to us.

Generations of teachers have taught this, and still we go looking for the extraordinary. While it is exemplary practice to wake early and spend time in Eucharistic adoration, it is just as extraordinary to recognize Jesus in the presence of our coworkers and to greet Him.

Faithfulness in the small things--in preparing lunch for a hungry child, in taking time out to comfort a sorrowing friend, in smiling at a neighbor, in giving way in traffic although you have every right to continue, in letting God be present through you and in you in every encounter and interaction. Surrender, abandonment of self. And in this season, the abandonment of self to the hope of the Incarnation. We have the face of the baby Jesus to look upon and to delight in. We can join the chorus of the angels in His acclaim. We can sing,

"For unto us a son is given
and his name shall be called
wonderful, counselor, prince of peace, mighty god, holy one,
Emmanuel"

And it is on that last that we should spend a moment in mediation as we practice the direction of Blessed Columba and St. Therese. Emmanuel--"god with us." For indeed He is, in every moment, in every breath, in every person, in every event, in all that comes to us in the course of the day. Jesus, our Emmanuel, ever present, comforter, King and Brother. Come, Lord Jesus, do not delay, we await you moment by moment, let us see your face in each person who greets us, and more importantly let each person see your light shining out from us. Come, Lord Jesus.

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December 20, 2006

Presumption

One of the great sins of the Catholic masses--I include myself among them--and one much in evidence in St. Blogs is the sin of presumption, in the ordinary or prideful sense of this word. I don't mean the presumption of God's grace and the assumption that one is somehow entitled to it, but rather the prideful assumption that one understands what is clearly beyond one's understanding.

I think of this particularly with respect to the "suspect theologians," Hans Urs von Balthasar and Karl Rahner. von Balthasar is often accused, unwarrantedly in my opinion, of supporting a kind of Universalist heresy. Now, in my reading there is only one type of universalism that has incurred any anathema at all--that is sometimes referred to as "origenist." But I am by no means the authority on this or on all the subtleties surrounding it. However, there are many places around St. Blogs where I've read would-be experts condemning von Balthasar on the count of heresy. This seem presumptuous. It strikes me as odd that as intelligent as much of St. Blog's is, anyone here feels a sufficient depth of knowledge to condemn such a theologian. Perhaps it is so, but then it would be presumptuous of me even to be able to decide that much.

The other much maligned theologian is Karl Rahner who has been accused here and elsewhere of denying the real presence in the Eucharist. I'll be honest, I can't read three consecutive sentences of Rahner's in any form without being lulled into a possibly unending trance-like state. After the first sentence an impermeable membrane forms around the dura mater that threatens brain asphyxiation. But I have seen people arguing back and forth with a seeming understanding of the matter, and others standing by the wayside simply taking sides based their fluctuating opinions of the moment. Any such judgment strikes me as presumptuous--at least coming from those who have not been properly trained to read and understand these theologians.

However, we all sit in the place of armchair theologians from time to time. What I've discovered as I have occupied that coveted seat is that my personal likes and dislikes of either the author or perhaps something the author has penned that has nothing to do with the case in point often colors my perception. I think that may be true in broader circles. For example, I hear a lot of people warning others about the later works of Thomas Merton, and while there is a certain "easternization of thought" in the spirituality of the later books, I don't know that he ever abandoned the centrality of Jesus in faith. Even the Asian Journals strike me as clinging to the faith. But then, it would be presumptuous of me to say what his state of mind was one way or the other. Not everything that is written is indicative of the mindset of an individual as he or she struggles with issues.

So I guess I'm in favor of leaving the glorious high-throne of amateur theologizing and trusting the Vatican and their warnings--explicitly issued in the case of Anthony de Mello (although I truly don't understand the nature of the warning), but so far as I am aware, never even whispered in the case of Thomas Merton. We must, each of us, decide what will nurture us and what will lead us astray. It is possible that reading very orthodox, very reliable, very reputable, Saintly figures could just as easily lead some astray as would reading Meister Eckhart and others of the Devotio Moderna school. For example, reading Thomas Aquinas drives me to the point of despairing whether or not I'll ever become Christian much less Catholic. If being a good Catholic requires acceptance of all that, then I am in a lot of trouble. On the other hand, Thomas Merton, even the later, "questionable" Merton, causes hardly a ripple in the pond.

If one makes the assumption that all that is approved is necessarily good for all people, one has stumbled upon the borderlands of presumption. When one asserts it positively, one occupies the throne of the entire realm--at least for a moment.

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December 19, 2006

"Wachet Auf"

Although it has a certain end-times feel, it is still appropriate for those of us who slumber up to and through the great celebration of the Incarnation.

1. "Sleepers, wake!" the watch cry pealeth,
while slumber deep each eyelid sealeth:
Awake, Jerusalem, awake!
Midnight's solemn hour is tolling,
and seraph-notes are onward rolling;
They call on us our part to take.
Come forth, ye virgins wise:
the Bridegroom comes, arise!
Alleluia!
Each lamp be bright
with ready light
to grace the marriage feast tonight.

2. Zion hears the voice that singeth
with sudden joy her glad heart springeth,
at once she wakes, she stands arrayed:
her Light is come, her Star ascending,
lo, girt with truth, with mercy blending,
her Bridegroom there, so long delayed.
All hail! God's glorious Son,
all hail! our joy and crown,
Alleluia!
The joyful call
we answer all,
and follow to the bridal hall.

3. Praise to him who goes before us!
Let men and angels join in chorus,
let harp and cymbal add their sound.
Twelve the gates, a pearl each portal:
we haste to join the choir immortal
within the Holy City's bound.
Ear ne'er heard aught like this,
nor heart conceived such bliss.
Alleluia!
We raise the song,
we swell the throng,
to praise thee ages all along.
*****
1. Wake, awake, for night is flying:
The watchmen on the heights are crying,
Awake, Jerusalem, arise!
Midnight's solemn hour is tolling,
His chariot wheels are nearer rolling,
He comes; prepare, ye virgins wise.
Rise up, with willing feet,
Go forth, the Bridegroom meet:
Alleluia!
Bear through the night your well-trimmed light,
Speed forth to join the marriage rite.

2. Sion hears the watchmen singing,
Her heart with deep delight is springing,
She wakes, she rises from her gloom:
Forth her Bridegroom comes, all glorious,
In grace arrayed, by truth victorious;
Her Star is risen, her Light is come!
All hail, Incarnate Lord,
Our crown, and our reward!
Alleluia!
We haste along, in pomp of song,
And gladsome join the marriage throng.

3. Lamb of God, the heavens adore thee,
And men and angels sing before thee,
With harp and cymbal's clearest tone.
By the pearly gates in wonder
We stand, and swell the voice of thunder,
That echoes round thy dazzling throne.
No vision ever brought,
No ear hath ever caught,
Such bliss and joy:
To raise the song, we swell the throng,
To praise thee ages all along. Amen.

*****

1. Up! awake! from highest steeple
The watchmen cry, Awake, ye people;
O Salem, from thy slumber rise! —
Hear those clarion-voices knelling,
The hour of midnight loud forth-telling;
Say, where are ye, O Virgins wise?
The Bridegroom comes; awake!
Up! lamp and lantern take;
Alleluya!
With ready light ye must to-night
Go forth to join the marriage-rite.
2. Syon hears the watchmen sounding,
Her heart with deep delight is bounding;
Anon she wakes; away she wends:
Comes her Spouse from heav’n, all glorious,
In grace almight, in truth victorious;
Her light doth shine, her star ascends.
Jesu, our peerless Crown,
Strong Son of God, come down!
Alleluya!
Fain will we all obey thy call,
And follow to the bridal-hall.
3. Glory unto thee in heaven
By men and Angel-tongues be given,
With harp and cymbal’s thrilling tone;
Syon hath twelve pearly portals,
Wherein, with Angel-quire, we mortals
On high may stand around thy throne:
Eye ne’er saw aught like this;
Ear ne’er heard tell such bliss;
Alleluya
And we therefore will thee adore,
And hymn thy praises evermore.

*****
1. Wake, o wake! with tidings thrilling
the watchmen all the air are filling,
arise, Jerusalem, arise!
Midnight strikes! no more delaying,
"The hour has come!" we hear them saying.
Where are ye all, ye virgins wise?
The Bridegroom comes in sight,
raise high your torches bright!
Alleluia! The wedding song
swells long and strong:
go forth and join the festal throng.

2. Zion hears the watchmen shouting,
her heart leaps with joy undoubting,
she stands and waits with eager eyes;
adorned with truth and grace unending!
Her light burns clear, her star doth rise.
Now come, thou precious Crown,
Lord Jesus, God's own Son!
Hosanna! Let us prepare
to follow there,
where in thy supper we may share.

3. Every soul in thee rejoices;
from men and angelic voices
be glory given to thee alone!
Thy presence never more shall leave us,
we stand with angels round thy throne.
Earth cannot give below
the bliss thou dost bestow.
Alleluia! Grant us to raise
to length of days,
the triumph-chorus of thy praise.

No matter which translation, the message is the same. Wake up. Become aware. Rise from sleep. Light the lamps and prepare the feast, the Bridegroom approaches. Indeed, He approaches, soon as a babe in a manger, soon as the Son of Man riding on the clouds in glory. Awake, awake--see the lights that decorate the houses and see in them the One light that decorates each of our houses, that lights our soul from within so that light spills out into all the world. Awake!

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December 15, 2006

The One True End

from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon O.S.C.O.

From this account of prayer, we can readily understand its subsidiary value as mental hygiene, and for the resolution of certain mental and emotional problems.

. . . It makes us understand how sublime and noble this end is, and how efficacious are the means. From this comes a spirit of security and confidence, based not upon our own strength but upon the omnipotence and mercy of the Father and upon the help of His grace.

Everything in our life and contacts falls within the compass of this purpose without any distortion or unreality. . . because the purpose of our existence and the existence of the universe is the union of our soul with the Father. The wholehearted pursuit of an end that is able to integrate our entire life makes for an integrated personality and mental health.

[boldface is my own emphasis.] (Go tell Tom that you want Hammer and Fire for Christmas)

Our end, the end of every single person is wholehearted love of God. And it is mind-boggling--the universe exists that this end might be achieved. In thinking about the Christ who is to come, and the Child who already sanctified time, it is awe-inspiring to think that all that is is so that we might love Him better.

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December 12, 2006

Our True End

It is in forgetting our true end that most people make the most grievous mistakes in the spiritual life.

While I can't say must for Fr. Simon's verbal felicity or style, the home truths he tells are worth hearing again and again:

from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon O.C.S.O.

Through persevering mental prayer, the obstacles to our happiness in God are overcome. These are, on the part of the intellect, forgetfulness of our end and purpose, of eternity and the eternal truths, and forgetfulness or ignorance of ourselves, of our motives, desires, and preoccupations, which, more than we may realize are weaning our heart from God and turning hearts unduly to the things of the world.

Besides these obstacle on the part of the intellect, others on the part of the will and affections are also overcome by unremitting mental prayer. Beside the light to know our Supreme Good and ourselves we need the strength to redirect our energies to this Good and away from what is useless, harmful or dangerous to us. We need to overcome worldliness, the undue love of honor, dignity, power, riches, comfort and all forms of selfishness and sin. This mental prayer accomplishes through arousing in us our natural and supernatural powers by directing them to their true ends and objects, and by drawing divine help and strength into our minds and hearts.

In a word, selfishness is the greatest obstacle to peace in God. Selfishness is a very natural condition, a condition in which humanity finds itself not from desire but from uncertainty. It takes a great spiritual maturity to even begin to step away from selfishness. Moreover, even a small step is impossible without the constant aid and support of grace.

The great Saints may have grown to the point where they were able to toddle unaided; but most ordinary people never reach the toddler stage in the spiritual life while here on Earth. That is part of knowing ourselves. Of ourselves we can do nothing, neither stumble nor even crawl toward Grace. We can only choose to fall. But with God all things are possible. He wrought salvation out of a quarrelsome, fragmented, conquered, and humiliated people. He brought a child forth from a Virgin's womb, still preserving in every way her virginity. There is nothing that is beyond Him, and we wait to look upon his face, to see Him as that precious child born more than 2000 years ago in a conquered state amongst an oppressed people.

Come, Lord Jesus. Do not delay.

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December 11, 2006

A Voice Cries Out in the Wilderness

I love this reading because of the productive ambiguity that stems from ancient sources having no consistent means of punctuation. Shall we read this

A voice cries out
In the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord?

Or shall we read it

A voice cries out in the wilderness
prepare ye the way of the Lord?

Either is a valid way to read it. One more directly refers to the mission of John the Baptist; but the other may be more appropriate for life in the modern world. People in the modern world live in the wilderness of modernism and postmodernism. They live in the wilderness of self-aggrandizement and self-promotion; a wilderness of self. They live in a wilderness, wandering alone, without God.

It is given to those who know God, however slightly, to proclaim Him in this wilderness, to make a way for Him in the midst of selfishness and blight, to prepare souls to receive Him.

This is done by welcoming a child, with all that comes from such a welcome--openness, genuine love, joy, peace, tranquility. In a season that the modern world has come to make the apotheosis of disorder, disunity, and chaos, it is time to recreate the still, calm pool that was that night at Bethlehem when Mary bore us all a son.

Isaiah 9:6-7

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called
Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God,
The everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.

7Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end,
upon the throne of David,
and upon his kingdom, to order it,
and to establish it with judgment and with justice
from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

We are privileged to be the courtiers of the great King, the servants of the Most High, of this Prince whose reign is over all forever. We have seen the great light, and like mirrors we are called to reflect and multiply it in the darkness that we live in. We do this in His own wisdom and strength, in His own virtue.

We await His coming, we await the little Child and He who is to come in Glory, treading of the clouds and separating sheep from goats, wheat from chaff. He who is to come, who loves and desire all to come to Him. O, Lord Jesus, come swiftly.

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December 8, 2006

Two Ways of Avoiding Sin

It seems that there are at least two reasonable ways to avoid sin, one, to my mind more desirable than the other.

This came up as I heard a news story about a young woman who had been arrested for taking small amounts of money as she had access to a company safe. I thought, "I would never do that." But then it occurred to me why I wouldn't--I would fear being caught. If I could do it in the absolute certainty that I would not be caught, I cannot say that I would have so firm a conviction as to my integrity. I'm pretty certain that it wouldn't cross my mind; however, the fact that I could consider it suggests that there is always the possibility.

Fear of being caught is the first means of avoiding sin. It is certainly effective for those things that are public and noticeable, but it is a poor means of combatting sins that are private and known but to oneself and God. Still, it crosses most of the big things off the list for us--murder, theft, adultery, even vandalism.

The better way of avoiding sin is for the desire, temptation, or thought of doing it never to cross one's mind at all. For most of us murder, armed robbery, vandalism, direct theft fall into this category. In my right mind I would never consider any of these things--and for me the concept of adultery is just mind boggling--it's more than I can do to manage and maintain reasonable relations with just one woman, the thought of two or more is simply an enigma beyond consideration for me. I think each of us has these places of natural strength and they differ by person. And they are not impregnable--rather they are simply stronger areas in our defenses. Left on our own, we can fail in ways that we simply can't imagine. Fortunately, God does not leave us on our own. He strengthens our defenses and make the feasible unthinkable.

By far it is better if the very thought of a possible sin never crosses one's mind, if one were, in some sense, innocent of the concept that such an act were possible. However, in the absence of that innocence, fear of the Lord, fear of being caught is a sufficient deterrent when strengthened by Grace.

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December 7, 2006

The Incarnation--Baptism of History

It is said that when Jesus received baptism, its effect was the obverse of the usual--rather than Jesus being cleansed of sin, because he had none, the waters of the world were made capable of this sacramental ability because of the power that went forth from Him and charged them to do so. In a sense the Baptism of Jesus was in effect, the baptism of the waters for all of us.

Like wise, when Jesus entered time, our linear perception of events, time became baptized in the waters of eternity. That is, time as we understand it and eternity had always existed together. A privileged few were given the ability to "enter into Eternity" and communicate directly with God. In the Old Testament, most of these were noted as "having a portion of His Spirit." In the New Testament, with the birth of Christ, eternity opened up in the here and now for all to enter into. Through Jesus Christ every person has been given the invitation to approach the Father more closely and love Him more dearly. In contemplation, we are given the privilege of entering for a time into God's timelessness and being there with Him. We speak of "spending time with God." In actuality, we "spend timelessness with God"-- in the ordinary realm of things, linear time marches on, but in our prayer, we are engaged in eternity and time has no real meaning.

This is the gift of Jesus Christ in the incarnation. Not the sum total of the gift, but one of the many aspects of the Divine that are now brought to intrude daily into the life of the believer. God no longer communicates only through one or two chosen prophets or priests--although He continues that mode of communication as well. Now God has chosen to open the doors to all--to allow all people to enter into eternity even as they live.

Sadly, most people choose not to do so. They don't really understand the nature of the gift or what it is they are supposed to do with it. But the entry into Eternity, those sublime moments of prayer, be they in private or in the celebration of the Mass, they are revivifying. If we deprive ourselves too long of them, our lives become wan and sere, dominated by the concerns of the only world we choose to know in any detail.

When Jesus entered into history, it can be said that History entered into the heart of Jesus. We all walk a road that leads directly to the Father, if we only choose to allow His grace to be the predominant force in our lives.

So we continued the advent journey and reflect on the manifold mysteries of the incarnation--that what is all Power and all Time chooses to become human so that what is human may become all Power and all Time even for a time while living. Christ entered history so that we might enter through Him into eternity and that we might become His servants and doormen--showing others the way to the Father.

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November 26, 2006

What We Owe God, and Why

From Fr. Luis of Granada:

from The Sinner's Guide
Fr. Luis of Granada

The design of this book being to win men to virtue, we shall begin by showing our obligation to practice virtue because of the duty we owe to God. God being essentially goodness and beauty, there is nothing more pleasing to Him than virtue, nothing He more earnestly requires. Let us first seriously consider upon what grounds God demands this tribute from us.

But as these are innumerable, we shall only treat of the six principal motives which claim for God all that man is or all that man can do. The first; the greatest, and the most inexplicable is the very essence of God, embracing His infinite majesty, goodness, mercy, justice, wisdom, omnipotence, excellence, beauty, fidelity, immutability, sweetness, truth, beatitude, and all the inexhaustible riches and perfections which are contained in the Divine Being.

This quotation came to me today in a time of struggling to focus, and it made sense for the day, this being Christ the King.

It's an odd thing but the through and through American Baptist Church always seemed to me to have a better sense of what this feast is about than does most of the Catholic Church. Baptists seem to understand the concept of absolute sovereignty with noblesse oblige. Protestants in general tend, if anything, to overemphasize the concept of sovereignty, neglecting the fact that we always have the right to reject His rule, possibly for eternity. Nevertheless, if there's anything a Calvinist knows and responds to it is the sovereignty of God. Catholics, oddly considering all their ritual, seem to be a more casual people God may be sovereign, but that doesn't really mean much of anything. We are more on the terms of the importunate widow--and as a general thing, that's probably a good thing because it is a closer and more reasonable approach to the God who loves us. But it is also good to have a day to remind us of His Kingship and what that means for us.

So I'm grateful today for Luis of Granada and his reminder that we should not sin firstly because it offends justice, the justice of the God he goes on to describe. Now, why in the world would we even consider such an offense?

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November 21, 2006

Compassion--"They are like sheep without a shepherd."

Could there be any more pathetic image than sheep without a shepherd? Sheep are a true example of the herd-mind, not one of them can do anything if all of them do not decide to do it and because they are sheep none of them has the sense to decide anything at all. Even cows are smarter than sheep who will stand and be plucked off one by one by a predator because they simply don't know any better.

Add "sheep without a shepherd" to the answer to the question "Am I my brother's keeper?" and you have the point of compassion. In fact, each of us is responsible for the people around us. We are all the images of Christ. Each of us an image in miniature. If so, then we are each shepherds of a small flock, a small number of people with whom we come in contact and interact every day. It is part of our vocation to holiness to the the shepherds, the tenders, the ones who care for, feed, and guide to the extent possible our brothers and sisters. And like the Good Shepherd we need to do so in truth and in love.

Love is not love without the truth. Compassion is telling the truth in love. Part of this truth-telling is a matter of timing. We don't sit down with the woman who is mourning her divorce and tell her that if she hadn't slept around before marriage, she would have had a better chance. We don't scold the woman who is mourning the abortion that made her sterile by reminding her of the sin--she's already learned the truth, now it is time for compassion and support.

The truths of Christianity can sometimes be very hard truths. Sometimes it is difficult to understand that one cannot do evil that good might come of it. It seems reasonable and logical that if by breaking one person you can save twenty-thousand it is something you ought to do. But "the good of the many exceeds the good of the one," is a principle that may only be chosen, not forced upon a person. If my personal sacrifice might save twenty-thousand, then it is legitimate--but I may not choose to sacrifice another that the twenty-thousand are saved. These are hard truths.

Compassion is about loving our brothers and sisters and speaking the truth in love. More often than not, we need not use words to speak the truth. With a sympathetic ear and a loving heart, they will often work out for themselves where and what went wrong. And our duty and privilege is to be there to help them live through the consequences and set out on a new path where similar things will not happen.

Compassion also extends to loving those who haven't the means or opportunities we have. Some desperate situations are not the choice of the person involved, but the result of societal conditions prevelant in the area. The starving poor of Bombay, Calcutta, or Appalachia do not choose this situation for themselves. In a sense, there is no truth to speak here except that they are beloved children of God. To speak that truth, we must find a way to feed and care for those who do not have enough for themselves. Some theories of government suggest that this is a governmental enterprise. But the Christian truth is that it is our responsibility. The sad truth is that most of us, regardless of our view of the government, do rely upon the government to support these people. As a result, the people never really feel compassion, merely obligation.

We are each sheep and shepherds. Those who know a bit more and understand a bit better are obligated in a greater way--"To those to whom much has been given, much will be expected in return." That means most of us at St. Blogs have a greater obligation than the majority of humankind. Most of us living in the wealthiest and most privileged nation on Earth are required to give of that wealth to help our brothers and sisters. And this giving should not come through the involuntary redistribution of wealth that is our tax-and-spend government system, but through our direct encounter with the needs of those around us who have less.

Compassion is reaching out in love. Shepherding requires sacrifice--sacrifice of time, energy, money, even of self in some sense--that the sheep may prosper grow and follow the right path. Think of our obligation as a kind of peer shepherding. Responding to the call of the One Good Shepherd we, though sheep ourselves, take upon us the duty to shepherd those even less aware of the divine. It is a hard job and not one that is particularly well-paying or recompensed in any way. Indeed, we are often despised and hated for doing it. Nevertheless, it does not remove from us the obligation to serve as we have been served, to be Christ for brother and sister, and to do it personally in whatever way God has given us the strength and wisdom to do.

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November 13, 2006

The Saddest Story I Ever Heard

Okay, so it's an exaggeration. But not much of one.

Overheard in the office this morning, a young lady who had just returned from her honeymoon:

"So, how is it?"

"It's great. You know, it isn't any different."

This is a sad, sad statement. Married life IS different, or at least it should be. And if it is not, it is not because our society has given us license so that it might not be so. What happened to the excitement of getting and being married? Is it any wonder that wedded bliss amongst those who live together before marriage is much more likely to come to an end through divorce?

Marriage is not a cornucopia of bliss, but neither is it "the same as it ever was." If the marriage is sacramental, the two become one and it is in that yoking that both strive to live the life God has envisioned for them.

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November 8, 2006

Praise God in His Holy Places

I wrote what is below for a blogger depressed by election results, I thought it bore repeating, though I've already said much the same thing here today.

My point was that we may have precisely what we deserve; however, even in this God's will is done. And even though it is not His perfect and Ordained will, I will rejoice in His hand in this and in all things because we do not know how He will turn it to good.

To see it as anything other than God's will is the road to being depressed, but there's nothing to be depressed about--if things turn out as you say, then they will change with the changing of the times. If they do not, then we've spent today in tears over a tomorrow that never comes.

All I want to say, is don't lose heart, turn to God, pray and restore what was lost in the process. I wasn't faulting you for an opinion, nor do I fault the attitude, I just want to point out what a waste it is. This is the moment for prayer, the perfect time to turn to God and say, "So what's up with that, Lord? Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done--show me what I can do to ameliorate the consequences."

I know, you don't want to hear it at this time, but that's the time you most need to hear it. Prayer heals all wounds, even these great ones. It heals all ills. God is God alone and Lord of All--what He has fashioned we cannot undo and what He undoes we strive in vain to renew. But we can do all things through Him who strengthens us.

That's my message to depressed Christians today. Pray, pray, pray. Remember this and pray that God raises up Godly leaders who will lead us rather than be led by us.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:39 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

A New Turn--Does God Really Care?

On my way into work this morning I was listening to a "Christian Music Station." I've developed this habit after hearing just too much on nearly every other station that I didn't want to try to explain to Sam and growing tired of the same CDs and being made agitated by the road noises.

Now, the Christian Music station is solidly evangelical with a very cordial relationship with Catholic listeners. But I noticed that certain things about the language and bearing of the station chafed. For example, they were talking much this morning about how a new station out on the East Coast joined their family of stations and how they were growing the ministry and they had prayed and prayed and prayed for a station out in Brevard County.

As I listened to this I thought, "Yeah, yeah. Like God cares if there's a new Christian Music station out in Palm Bay or wherever the heck it is." And "God really wants us to pray for a new radio station. That's a really good use of our time."

And then I thought about it. How arrogant and shortsighted it is of me to consider these things unworthy of prayer or unworthy of the work of people. If I believe that many at the station regard this as a real ministry--and it's hard to judge sincerity, but I do believe that they honestly mean what they're saying--then why wouldn't God want to intervene there as well as in the personal life of an individual or the political life of a country. There is nothing that is beneath His interest, nothing that passes out of His concern. All that is is because He allows it to be so.

What came from this chain of thought is that I need to radically alter my view of God's involvement in the life of the world. He is intimately entangled in every matter, completely involved in every matter that concerns us. His motions are visible in the things that happen around us and there is nothing, nothing whatsoever that He is not interested in if we are interested in it. There may be things He would rather us not be interested in and part of surrender is giving those over; however, every matter is a matter for prayer, and every motion is better determined by a length of prayer beforehand. Yes, God did care about "growing the music ministry of the radio station" and yes, God does care about the constitution of the House and Senate, and yes, God does care if we add a swimming pool to our house or plant daisies and tulips. Not all matters rise to top priority, but as a Good Father, a loving Father, He is interested by the little baubles we show Him. He is interested ultimately in each of us coming and talking about whatever is on our minds--childish though it may seem. And unlike us, He is infinitely patient with our scattered, wandering selves, infinitely interested, infinitely loving, oohing and ahhing over all that we present, occasionally taking from our hands the jellyfish or scorpion we were stupid enough to pick up and bring to Him.

God does care. About us, about everything that concerns us. He cares, intimately, infinitely, eternally. Because God is simple, He cares about everything with all that He is--no matter is too small or too unimportant to talk to Him about. And He is always waiting, patiently waiting for us to come to Him, with fingerpaintings or with the booboos we get from trying to do what we ought not. A loving father with an infinite heart of goodness. Talk to Him.

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November 7, 2006

The Election

Listening to Bohislav Martinu's (pardon--don't even know the name of the accent mark over the "U" to try to reproduce) symphony No. 3 put me in mind of what most people are going through today. And it matches the Florida weather. Grey, somewhat oppressive, rising to a joy here and there that is brought back down to Earth and to its formative elements.

Zippy's reasoning provided ample justification for not voting; however, we are guided in part by our consciences and it simply isn't possible for me not to assume my part in the franchise. It is too terrible an abdication of responsibility. Moreover, I would have missed out on the opportunity to at least register my intention to give the boot to four supreme court justices who saw as the highest good the absolute sovereignty of husband over wife in the absence of any documentary evidence to support his assertions.

However, I did reconcile my doubts because in some races I simply didn't vote, and in others, the new touch-screen system has made it very easy to write in alternatives. NOTA won't mean much to very many, but it will register the fact that we need new and real choices--real men and women capable of leadership, not merely of kowtowing to the demands of a society that has lost its mind.

And I've spent time in prayer for all those going to make a choice today that they may be guided by the Holy Spirit. This afternoon, with the Divine Mercy, I intend to add to those intention the desire of my heart in politics--that God should give us worthy leaders, not the leadership we have come to deserve.

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November 6, 2006

The Wages of Sin

One of the things that isn't said often enough about the effects of sin is the effect sin has on the will.

Habitual sinning, even when one is unaware of the action as a sin, has the dual effect of warping and hence weakening the will. In a sense, sinning is the Christian equivalent of being a couch-potato. The will is strengthened in its capacity when it operates in accordance with the grace given it to act in the manner God has commanded. When a person sins the will is struck a blow and weakened. Grace prevails in the sacrament of reconciliation and the will can be restored through careful and prayerful practice and discipline within the strengthening grace of God.

However, when one falls into habitual sin, one refuses to exercise the faculties of the will in the manner they are meant to be. One in effect resigns oneself to life on the couch in front of the TE. But worse, like a tapeworm, habitual sin leads to a lassitude (in spiritual terms sometimes referred to as Sloth) that makes one torpid and, in fact, virtually unable to do anything to find one's way out of the pit. So lax has the reliance upon grace grown that one forgets that it even exists and that it is indeed the only way out.

I can't imagine that this is a problem for most St. Bloggers, but it is a problem with most of society. Society does not exist as an entity, but were it so, we could accuse it of this sloth. However, the zeitgeist does directly influence the individual and the weltanschauung established by that same spirit of the times is also highly influential. Societal sin does not accrue to the individual but it does shape the environment in which a person forms and from which a person derives essential understandings.

None of which is to excuse the person who abandons the practice of will in the light of grace for the pursuit of pleasure, which often means following ones own desires. Practicing will in the light of Grace is weightlifting; pursuing one's desires is shifting from one buttock to another as the seat cushions get uncomfortable--certainly not formative exercise.

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Praying for our Representation

Following on the post below, and thinking about Zippy's reflections on voting and participatory government, it occurs to me that we may have precisely the government we deserve and precisely the set of laws and occurrences we have merited.

How many people actually pray before voting? More importantly, how many make it a daily offering to pray for better representation, for people who will support the fullness of Catholic doctrine in every decision they make?

Zippy points out, or someone did, that so long as we are constantly choosing the lesser of two evils, we are still choosing evil and constantly lowering the bar. Once upon a time our elected officials had the decency to make the attempt to cover up their extra-marital affairs, at least they were truly and properly ashamed of them. With Mr. Clinton we reached a new low of someone who was ashamed and abashed at having been caught. And so it goes, onward and downward.

And so it will continue until we all take very seriously our responsibility to pray God to raise us up men of virtue and strength who will take "unpopular" positions and make them popular. That is, after all, what leadership is about. It is about uniting the refractory. I think of Ronald Reagan who is reviled ex post facto by all and sundry, but during his Presidency one heard nary a peep--a few words about Voodoo economics, but not much else. Unfortunately, he didn't use that charisma to greatest effect, but he did momentarily slow the slide down the slippery slope.

Now is the time to pray for God to raise up ardent, believing, Christian politicians--a veritable hoard of Mr. Smith's who will go and stand in Washington against the cultural slide that is all but pervasive.

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November 5, 2006

From Evil Comes Evil

From, A Penitent Blogger, a useful reminder:

The scary truth is that evil actions always have evil results even when there was not evil intent or when there was an impeccable excuse.

It should therefore be no surprise that the world around us is piled high with the evil effects of innumerable evil deeds - ours and others. Both the deliberate and the well-intentioned evils of humanity have woven a web of evil consequences that a thousand years of altruism alone could not undo.

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On Spiritual Gluttony

Being a Carmelite can be difficult. Heck, let's face it, it is difficult. The dedication to a life of prayer is all well and good, but it is ethereal and a matter of grace overcoming the tendency one might have to seek more sensible satisfaction.

from Dark Night of the Soul Book 1 Chapter 6
St. John of the Cross

[On Spiritual Gluttony]

2. Such individuals are unreasonable and most imperfect. They subordinate submissiveness and obedience (which is a penance of reason and discretion, and consequently a sacrifice more pleasing and acceptable to God) to corporeal penance. But corporeal penance without obedience is no more than a penance of beasts. And like beasts, they are motivated in these penances by an appetite for the pleasure they find in them. Since all extremes are vicious and since by such behavior these persons are doing their own will, they grow in vice rather than in virtue. For through this conduct they at least become spiritually gluttonous and proud, since they do not tread the path of obedience. The devil, increasing the delights and appetites of these beginners and thereby stirring up this gluttony in them, so impels many of them that when they are unable to avoid obedience they either add to, change, or modify what was commanded. Any obedience in this matter is distasteful to them. Some reach such a point that the mere obligation of obedience to perform their spiritual exercises makes them lose all desire and devotion. Their only yearning and satisfaction is to do what they feel inclined to do, whereas it would be better in all likelihood for them not to do this at all.

3. Some are very insistent that their spiritual director allow them to do what they themselves want to do, and finally almost force the permission from him. And if they do not get what they want, they become sad and go about like testy children. They are under the impression that they do not serve God when they are not allowed to do what they want. Since they take gratification and their own will as their support and their god, they become sad, weak, and discouraged when their director takes these from them and desires that they do God's will. They think that gratifying and satisfying themselves is serving and satisfying God. . . .

6. They have the same defect in their prayer, for they think the whole matter of prayer consists in looking for sensory satisfaction and devotion. They strive to procure this by their own efforts, and tire and weary their heads and their faculties. When they do not get this sensible comfort, they become very disconsolate and think they have done nothing. Because of their aim they lose true devotion and spirit, which lie in distrust of self and in humble and patient perseverance so as to please God. Once they do not find delight in prayer, or in any other spiritual exercise, they feel extreme reluctance and repugnance in returning to it and sometimes even give it up. For after all, as was mentioned,1 they are like children who are prompted to act not by reason but by pleasure. All their time is spent looking for satisfaction and spiritual consolation; they can never read enough spiritual books, and one minute they are meditating on one subject and the next on another, always hunting for some gratification in the things of God. God very rightly and discreetly and lovingly denies this satisfaction to these beginners. If he did not, they would fall into innumerable evils because of their spiritual gluttony and craving for sweetness. This is why it is important for these beginners to enter the dark night and be purged of this childishness.2

Perhaps everyone longs for some surety of the effectiveness of communication; looks for some sign that the message has been received and acknowledged; looks for some hint that love sent out is returned.

In the matter of prayer, such longings are not to be trusted. In fact, in the matter of prayer, such longings are a temptation away from prayer. If one enters prayer with the notion that one needs to "get something out of it," one will fail every time because there will come a time when nothing sensible does come out of it.

But there are several reasons why this attitude is wrong. If someone were invited to a friend's house for a quiet cup of tea (coffee) and a sit out on the back porch watching the world go by, most would not immediately ask, "What will I get out of it?" This simply isn't the way most people look at friendship. Time is spent because it is profitable, in ways untold, to spend the time. If one's fiancé said, "Let's go for a walk" most people would not ask, "What can I expect from it? Will I know that you love me more by the end of it?" Why then, when it comes to prayer, are expectations so different? In prayer, one is invited to spend time with the Bridegroom of the Soul, the closest, most intimate friend anyone will ever have. But the attitude many, if not most, strike is, "Show me how this will be good for me."

Or think of the matter in another way. When one has been spending a great deal of time in physical training, one doesn't enter the weight room with the expectation that there will be any sensible difference by the time one leaves. In fact, if one is wise, one doesn't really desire any sensible difference because the difference one is more likely than not to sense will be pain. So with prayer, the constant practice of which is remotely analogous to weight-training, one does it to maintain one's grace-won place in the Kingdom, not to "be promoted" to Sainthood. The purpose of prayer is not to earn a place at the right hand of God, but to remain in the place that God's grace has fashioned for one. That, in itself, is the life of heroic sanctity--to advance in holiness, to advance in being what God would have one be, to weed out all imperfection from life and to move as God would have one move. These are achieved not through the sensible satisfactions of prayer, but through simple and humble obedience, humility, and gratitude. One advances not by advancing, but by remaining precisely where God would have one be and not questioning one's station but accepting the will of God in the matter of one's place in the kingdom.

Spiritual Gluttony, the desire to sniff out the sensible consolations of prayer and focus on them, stands in the way of accepting God's will. It amounts to saying, "So long as you do what I like, I shall visit. But as soon as you stop paying out the wealth of your generosity, I shall seek other venues for satisfaction." The desire for sensation overpowers the desire to serve and to be with Our Lord to the detriment of each person who succumbs and of all the people that surround them. Prayer is not about sensible consolation, but about obedience, humility, gratitude, and joy in the presence of an intimate friend.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 31, 2006

Prayer: The Beginner's Trials

Those interested in deepening their prayer life might benefit from picking up Hammer and Fire by Fr. Raphael Simon. In addition to the normal tips and hints one might receive in the course of reading about prayer, there is a depth of understanding about the various trials and tribulations of the person beginning to walk in the way of deeper prayer:

from Hammer and Fire
Father Raphael Simon, O.C.S.O., M.D.

Trials are to be expected by anyone who undertakes seriously to make a half-hour of mental prayer, or two periods of prayer, daily, particularly the trials of distraction and discouragement. The human mind has a capacity to wander without realizing that it is off the point. Thus during mental prayer it may happen that we have spent several minutes thinking about some happening of the previous day or even counting the panes of glass in the church where we are making our meditation, before we realize that we are off on a distraction. As in the cases of temptations to impurity and for the same reason, responsibility only begins when we realize with what our mind is occupied, and that, in this case, it is a distraction. Consequently our prayer has not been interrupted at all, since our intention to pray has remained. Without irritation, gently and peacefully, we should bring the mind back to the subject of our meditation, and as often as necessary. . . .Sometimes we may spend the entire time of prayer in returning to the subject. But we need have no misgivings or feel discouragement; our time has been well spent in the sight of the Father, we have been exercising our will to pray all the time and hence have, indeed, obtained the merit of prayer, if not its refreshment. . . .

[I]ndeliberate distractions are of no consequence, and should not be a source of concern or disquiet. . . . They not impair the value of our prayer. . . .

We do not have to have beautiful thoughts and sentiments in order to pray well, nor do we need to keep up the pace set by an infrequent excellent and "fruitful" half-hour.

From time to time I need these sane reminders that what may seem to be distraction may in fact be the purpose of that evening's conversation. In any conversation, we start a one point and end up winding endlessly (if we are engaged with a good conversationalist) to come to a completely unexpected endpoint. As we start to talk to God, the overfullness of the conversation and the desire to say everything and include everything tumbles out of us and jumbles up the deliberate "purpose" we have established for our conversation. The car needs repair, the house needs repair, one of the children is having trouble at school, there are groceries to buy and errands to run. . . and while these are not necessarily the matter for meditation, they are the facts of a straightforward conversation with God. These are concerns that we can bring to Him, and so this early stage of our conversation will be akin to an adult conversing with a five-year-old--there will be unexpected pause, odd turns in the exchange and sometimes complete flustration. On the other hand, it is all in the desire to talk with God and God will give us the strength to return to the conversation if we do not discourage ourselves.

So, distraction can be a problem, or it can be merely another route to where God would have us go--because He is Lord even of distractions--He knows who we are and what deeply concerns us--and He knows what He wants to touch and give us peace about. So accept the distraction, offer it to the Lord and attempt to return to the point. And if not, then engage God about what is driving you to distraction. Whatever you do, remain faithful to the time of prayer and the rewards will be very great indeed.

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October 23, 2006

Sufficiency

Writing to a friend regarding the adage that "His grace is sufficient":

We have an insufficient understanding of the term "sufficient." Because the common usage has come to mean "just barely enough to cover it," we tend to look at "His grace is sufficient" as a kind of wary half-promise.

But the real meaning of "His grace is sufficient," says nothing about the amount of it nor its efficacy. What it says is that it is His grace alone--entirely and only. His grace is sufficient in that nothing need be added to it and we only need a kind of meta-desire for it to be effective. We need to want to want to want to want to cooperate, and His grace makes it possible step by step.

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By the Mingling of this Water. . .

The Eucharistic prayer and symbols are enormously powerful. When the priest mixes water into the wine and says the prayer over the mixed elements, we are to begin to understand a great mystery.

I thought about this while at Mass the other day. When we are in Christ, we are like the chalice of wine and water--a great majority of divinity with our small humanity enfolded within. However, we are a living water. Most of us prefer to stay in the vessel from which the water is poured. If a drop or two of wine should enter that water, so much the better, we wouldn't mind at all. But to become utterly transformed, utterly surrendered, utterly other--for most of us that is a terrifying prospect. We would pray that He would mingle a little divinity with our humanity, while devotion to Christ constantly reminds us that "I must decrease that He might increase." We abandon our preferences for the faults of humanity in assuming the divinity we are meant to be. In some mysterious way we participate in divinity--I can't explain it, but Tom at Disputations might be helpful in understanding this. I only know that it has been taught faithfully by the Church through the ages. In some way we are divinized in our surrender. IF we surrender.

(Note: Post has been changed to accommodate comments received that pointed out a serious error. Hopefully the change does not significantly interfere with lucidity; however, even if it does, it is better than promulgating error.)

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Diwali and Me

Or, what I can learn about Christianity from my Hindu neighbors.

Saturday was the celebration of Diwali, which is the Hindu "New Year" after a fashion. And our local newspaper had a featured book by a local Hindu author about the HIndu pantheon. It had reviews by three Hindu teens, and what one of them said was provocative and interesting. I paraphrase, but the essence is interesting: "I wish the author had taken greater pains to point out that Hindu is not a polytheistic religion. All these faces of gods are the face of the One God."

I found that fascinating. So too a critique of Christianity from a Hindu perspective I read sometime back: The trinity was never a problem for Hindus to comprehend, merely the stinginess of a God who gave only one avatar.

God prepared us for the revelation of Himself in the truths that the Hindus grasped long ago. They great each other with "Namaste." a salute to the God within each person. Indeed, the Holy Spirit dwells within each person and Jesus makes His home with anyone who will invite Him in. The divine in the other is something that the HIndu know well and respect, respect for the most part better than most Christians.

So, a belated Happy Diwali to my Hindu neighbors. May the year be bright and prosperous and lead you all to a closer walk with the One God.

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October 19, 2006

Harry Potter and the Communion of the Saints

In the category of preaching to the converted:

Each book of the Harry Potter series is imbued with great Christian lessons. We might argue over Rowling as stylist or Rowling as successor to Tolkien and Lewis or Rowling as literature; however, to the reader who has spent any time with the books, Rowling as devout and informed Christian is nowhere in doubt. Each book teaches something about the believer in Christ and how that believer behaves in certain circumstances.

The particular event of interest occurs at the end of the fourth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It is spectacularly portrayed in the movie, and caps the book off with a scene horrifying, dramatic, and stirring. Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory have both touched a device that transports them to a place where the bane of the series Lord Voldemort await the arrival of Potter. Upon arrival, Cedric is summarily dispatched and Harry's blood is used to revivify the skeletal, embryonic Voldemort.

Then ensues the duel in which Voldemort attempts to finish off what he began so many years ago--the death of Harry Potter. The two engage.

Now the remarkable instance--in the course of the engagement Harry sees Cedric, Harry's mother and father, and (in the book, if I remember correctly) a whole host of those whom Voldemort has killed over time. Harry's mother tells him, "We can only give you a little time." The host descends upon Voldemort giving time for Harry to run to Cedric's body and transport the two of them back to Harry's world.

If, in this instance, we allow Voldemort to stand-in for sin, which, as we know from St. Paul leads to death (hence the derivation Vol-de-mort or "flight of death"--which will have several meanings in the series) we can see the communion of the Saints as it works. We engage in a battle with sin, temptation. We are the combatants. The fierceness of the battle and our faith summons help from Heaven's throneroom, the Saints, who engage through prayer the powers, principalities, thrones and dominations, that trouble Heaven and our own world. As Harry's mother advises, they can only give respite, it is up to us to flee from sin--but they can and do intercede for us providing the out--we can escape if we move away (of course aided by the Saints and God's will).

This image is reinforced later when Dumbledore, unpacking the experience for Harry, reminds him, "You know, we can never bring back the dead." Harry doesn't seem to understand this for what it means, but it is very clear to the reader that we cannot bring back the dead because, in fact, they never leave us. They are a cloud of witnesses gathered about us thickly and participating in every event of our lives--those tied to us by blood, most fiercely, but aided by all the warriors of Heaven (It is my hope that, undeserving as I am, the chiefest of those warriors is the Holy Mother of God and the Great Redwood of God, St. Therese.)

Thus, embedded, entangled, and completely blended throughout her series of novels, Rowling gives us lessons and views of how Christianity really operates. "But no one ever goes to Church or prays, or anything Christian." And of course, as anyone knows, that is less than nothing as an objection because the same holds true for both Tolkien and Lewis, her forbears in the art of bringing the truth of Christianity to the unsuspecting reader.

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October 16, 2006

A New Hymn for Bibliomaniacs

I suppose I'll have to compose it. After all there are so few of us but we are so much in need of something that brings our distinctive voices to the Church setting.

"One day within your scriptorium
heals every day alone,
O Lord, bring me to you library."

Yep, those of us who take great comfort in the word may be few in number, but we have several venerable lines of work to indulge in.

Someday I may reflect upon the great comfort books can bestow. Coming to this realization brings home one point of Poe's "The Raven"

"Eagerly I sought the morrow,
vainly I wished to borrow,
from my book surcease of sorrow,
Sorrow for the lost Lenore."

Books as class IV addictive substances. Yep. For some of us they should come with warning labels and then, perhaps, only by prescription.

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October 12, 2006

The Amish Schoolhouse

This struck just the right tone for me.

The Amish planned to leave a quiet pasture where the schoolhouse stood.

This strikes me as the almost perfect Christian attitude toward the whole thing. It is not dimissed, it has wounded the community, but the memory of it is abolished entirely from the Earth. For a pacifist people, the Amish have an aggressive way of correcting the wrong and setting things right. The Earth shall claim the memory of this horrendous deed and no shadow of it shall remain.

Now, were this Hollywood, we'd set it up as a stop on the tour, complete with chalk outlines and occasionally touched up blood stains. Remarkable how the sensibilities of the two societies differ. Remarkable, and encouraging. The Amish have made a strong positive statement and witness in their actions. God bless them and visit them with comfort in this time of loss. May the families be healed and the communities be restored.

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October 10, 2006

Office of the Dead

I changed my morning routine this morning and offered the Office of the Dead. A little autistic boy, 5 years old, got away from his family while they were bring groceries in from the car. He liked to run, and he liked water. Unfortunately, where I live, there is no shortage of drainage ponds and other holes filled with water. He found one of them and it took searchers two days to find him. All of this happened within two blocks of where I live.

I am certain of God's mercy, and I hope with perfect assurance, that this small child now sees clearly for the first time ever. But I offer the office for him and for his family. Please join your prayers to my own for the comfort of the distressed family, so sore-wounded by the loss of a child. It never fails to send a shock right through me.

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October 5, 2006

Humor in Middlemarch

One doesn't often see comment on the vein of rich and ironic humor that pervades much of the early part of Middlemarch, just as, again, humor is not much of a discussion in the work of Hawthorne. And that is a shame, because while this humor, in both cases, is not of the laugh-out-loud variety, it provides a certain warmth and atmosphere that makes reading the books pleasurable.

from Middlemarch
George Eliot

And how should Dorothea not marry?--a girl so handsome and with such
prospects? Nothing could hinder it but her love of extremes, and her
insistence on regulating life according to notions which might cause a
wary man to hesitate before he made her an offer, or even might lead her
at last to refuse all offers. A young lady of some birth and fortune,
who knelt suddenly down on a brick floor by the side of a sick laborer
and prayed fervidly as if she thought herself living in the time of the
Apostles--who had strange whims of fasting like a Papist, and of
sitting up at night to read old theological books! Such a wife might awaken
you some fine morning with a new scheme for the application of her
income which would interfere with political economy and the keeping of
saddle-horses: a man would naturally think twice before he risked himself
in such fellowship.

Women were expected to have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of
society and of domestic life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane
people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at
large, one might know and avoid them.

The last sentences of each of these two paragraphs have a certain humor, admittedly somewhat bitter, but not actually biting, that can engage the reader fortunate enough to find the strain and continue.

Humor, and a sense that an author has some knowledge of the matter, are prerequisites in fiction. No work of fiction can be entirely successful without some sense of humor. Even Dante showed it, although maliciously, in some of the people and punishments in Hell and Purgatory. In fact, it is the absence of this strain that tends to make Heaven such a ghastly bore in comparison to the other two works. The author is so overwhelmed by his experiences that, while he continues to compose amazing poetry, he simply isn't engaging at the same level as he is in the other parts of his masterpiece.

Humor stems from a sense of displacement, it is, in a sense, an ultimately Christian virtue. Humor often results from the juxtaposition of impossible events, from the use of a word in two or more ways, from the sudden and unexpected. These are the deep seams of humor, the understanding that things are not as they seem, that we are not what we seem, and that ultimately we are not really where we belong. The recognition that where we belong is infinitely better gives rise to deep strains of humor.

It may also give rise to deep strains of sadness or despair of the human condition. By far a less "likeable" result of the realization. And sometimes, to the untrained eye, they are nearly indistinguishable. I think particularly here of the works of Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy--both fundamentally humorous and joyous, but if one were to read only "The River" for instance, one might be left wondering whether or not Flannery O'Connor had any faith whatsoever. And I am witness to the fact that the hilarity of Love in the Ruins bypasses the majority of readers, who see instead the darkness that the humor masks. The inability to apprehend an author's humor can make of reading an unbearable toil. Probably the reason I find most nonfiction reading neither illuminating nor particularly informative. Most political books inspire me the way Chilton's manuals do. Most works of science are long, dry treatises with nothing of appeal to anyone seeking the imagination behind them. This is the particular skill of the popularizers, and the particular pitfall. They bring into sharp life and relief the humanity and the reality behind the discoveries. For a prime example of their effectiveness compare Gleick's Chaos: Making a New Science with the prose of Peitgen and Richter's The Beauty of Fractals . (I just looked that one up on Amazon and was astounded at its price-tag--$84.00--I'm certain I paid nothing like that for it--I bought it as a grad student and wouldn't think of spending that kind of money on a book at the time.)

Humor then, a Christian virtue stemming from the recognition of the anomalies resulting from our pilgrim status, is one essential for readable fiction. In the case of Eliot, it is subdued and distinctly bitter. In Hawthorne's case, similarly, subdued, but more ironic than bitter, and sometime laugh-out-loud funny if you are paying attention. Like the "clown scenes" in Shakespeare's tragedies, the humor need not be pervasive, merely present. It is ultimately inviting and welcoming to the reader.

Humor, in literature, as in life, is an essential ingredient for success.

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September 27, 2006

On the Virtues of Monotasking

It has become a commonplace in busy lives and in the business place that multitasking is a positive good. The ability to juggle the phone, the computer, a conversation at your desk and preparing for the next meeting is no longer something merely admirable. It is often required to get a job.

But there are daily reminders of the danger of multitasking. There are repeated warnings that conversing on cell phones while driving is becoming a cause of accidents that exceeds intoxication as a cause. Burnt dinners, iron-seared clothing, even missing children can all be attributed to the plague of multitasking that afflicts American society.

There is another ill, far more serious than most of those listed above, that stems from multitasking--wan and sere prayer lives, etiolated communication with the source of love and light.

Prayer demands presence, complete presence. It is very easy, too often, to pray while eating breakfast or while send the children off to school. Now, these events do require prayer, as do all things; however, if this is the only prayer time one has, one's communications with God will be necessarily foreshortened, straightened, and indistinct.

How many of us take the time to, in the words of this mornings petitions, "With single-minded devotion we dedicate the beginnings of this day to honor of your resurrection?" Single-minded devotion? Is it even possible in this day and age to be single minded? I don't refer here to the distraction that come when one sets oneself aside for prayer--they will come and there is, in the course of prayer, much to help the pray-er move on. I refer more to those who "don't have time for prayer." Or for whom prayer is a secondary , hasty background consideration. It is easy enough to console oneself with the thought that "work is prayer," and properly done, that is true. However, prayer is also prayer, and the old adage is often an excuse for not making the time to pursue intimate prayer.

Perhaps you have had the experience of being invited out by a friend or a cherished family member only to have the cell-phone ring (sometimes many times) and call away your friend. The experience is frustrating and painful. Your conversation is fragmentary and goes in leaps and bounds from one subject to another as truncated by the cell-phone calls. And even though the friend apologizes each time he or she answers, there's something a little insincere in it--no one really needs to be so connected that they are in reality disconnected from all. This is the model for many lives of prayer. We sit down to the luncheon table and start to talk. The cell-phone rings rather than glancing at the number and noting it for a return call, we pick up the phone and start talking. Sometimes we never return to the One whom we've invited to dine with us. Sometimes we come back after a while, forgetting where we were and what we were doing.

Prayer throughout the work of the day is a good thing--that isn't what I refer to. What I refer to is the fact that we "have no time for prayer." When we sit down to pray, we immediately rise to some other task that could easily wait twenty minutes. Prayer has no priority in our busy-busy lives.

And intimate prayer requires monotasking. Anything else is like making love while watching Jay Leno--hardly flattering to either one's partner or to Jay. Prayer is the intimate intrusion that we must allow to grow in God's love and to become like Christ. It requires everything we are to be focused for a while on God. And there should be sufficient time to really talk to God and hear what He has to say to us. To begin with 20-30 minutes. As time goes on, greater amounts of time.

I haven't done it yet, but I've considered asking any person who tells me that there isn't time for this kind of prayer in their lives, "How much television do you watch? How much time do you spend knitting, crocheting, reading books, playing sports, playing cards, drinking beer (outside of dinner), gardening, . . ?" You get the point. There is always time for prayer if it is a priority. There never will be time so long as it is a secondary consideration.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:18 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 26, 2006

A Taste of Heaven

from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon, OCSO

As human beings we are a composite of body and soul. Our heats will be captivated by the sweetness of the society of Jesus and Mary, our eyes by the loveliness of their countenances, our ears by their voices. In their company we will be at home at last.

There will be the joy of the companionship of the saints, including relatives, friends, and intercessors.

No one will be lost in this multitude, no one unknown, no one neglected. Each will be, as it were, the center of attraction of all, of all-embracing love and amiable companionship, without trace of discord.

In heaven's ballroom there are no wallflowers,
no last-chosen left standing
for long hours
as the teams are formed.

In heaven's throne room, every child is
an only child with the full
attention of every person in the room.

God loves each as though
each one were His only child.

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September 25, 2006

Spiritual Reading--The Hammer

I picked up Fr. Raphael Simon's Hammer and Fire again last night and it hit me right between the eyes--this is one of those books that it would be easier to blank out what you would prefer not to read again rather than to highlight and comment on all the good points that are being made.

from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon O.C.S.O.

All are invited to union with God. This invitation is applied to the individual whenever he or she reads of hears it, or feels within the attraction of Holy Spirit. Day laborer, machinist, unlettered and learned, children, the aged, single and married persons are all called to holiness. The Father created the universe and keeps it in existence for this purpose, that all may have the opportunity to be united to Himself.

The entire Universe as personal invitation to enjoy the companionship of God. The stars in their courses, the waters in the ocean, and all the created myriad of living things praise Him in their being and call to Him from where they are. More, they call us to Him, constant reminders of His benevolence and kindness, His mercy and grace.

A little later:

from "Hammer: Reading the Scripture"

Half the battle of life--the spiritual life--consists in persevering in spiritual reading. We are constantly subjected to impressions from the world through what we see, hear and read. We are continuously influenced too by our temperament and imagination, which tend to make our thoughts subjective and misleading. We need daily contact with a source of divine truth, and this we have through spiritual reading. Through it we enter into an atmosphere of truth and reality in which the proper perspective on values is maintained and this affects our judgments, desires, decisions, and conduct.

Without spiritual reading, prayer becomes empty and unfruitful, for spiritual reading supplies matter for our prayer. It reawakens memories and recollections, deepens true impressions, corrects errors, and extends our vision. While we continue to do daily spiritual reading, the relish for it increase; but when we let it drop out of our daily life it becomes distasteful, and only be repeated efforts do we recover its enjoyment.

The hammer, then, is spiritual reading. And the reading of spiritual books is a matter not too many are versed in. Most, it seems, attempt spiritual reading in the same way they read a novel or a biography--to get to the point. What does this author have to say to me that I can take away and make a better life? Come on, get to the point.

But often the point of spiritual reading is not to get to the point. That is, spiritual reading, properly conducted teaches patience and rewards consistency in small amounts. While it is laudable to "read the Bible in a year" every year, it is not necessarily salutary. It isn't as though this exercise is a kind of spiritual aerobics that makes us fitter for battle on the spiritual plane. Reading the Bible in a year helps us only inasmuch as we internalize what the Bible has to say. Therefore the wisdom of the church that sets up a three-year Sunday lectionary just to get us through the Gospels.

In spiritual reading, it is not quantity so much as it is quality. I am not a daily devotional person--I've discovered that because even the very best of daily devotionals leaves me rather cold and disconnected. However, a book, read daily, that has a different kind of continuity, helps immeasurably. Taking up The Ascent of Mount Carmel or The Dark Night of the Soul and reading it one paragraph at a time gives me much to reflect on and, God willing, eventually to pray about.

I can read the entire Gospel of Mark in about an hour. However, how much better to spend that hour with a single verse if it should speak to me.

Spiritual reading takes time--usually a lot of time. Consider reading St. Thomas Aquinas as spiritual reading. Say one took the Summa as one's text. It would seem to me that one would not finish even one article in a session. Properly conducted and properly focused and considering the Summa as a prayer text, you might actually read through the question itself and think through the implications of it and reflect on what scripture has to say about it. In an hour you would only begin to pierce the shell of the question.

Now, the Summa may not be everyone's cup of tea, nor might it be the best text for many for reflection and spiritual reading--but it is a text for some, and that is the second aspect of spiritual reading--each person must choose to listen to God as God has seen fit to speak to that person. So for some the Summa would not make good fodder for prayer. Personally, I find many non-Catholic sources rich material for reflection. I feel particularly drawn to certain Quaker and Shaker writers. George Fox, William Penn, and John Woolman have stocked my spiritual reading for years, as have countless Catholic writers--the Carmeliets, Merton, Day, de Mello, St. Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, Richard Rolle, Walter HIlton, The Cloud of Unknowing, The Imitation of Christ, and so on. But in the past I have made the mistake I charge many with. I've read these books as though I needed to get to some point in them, that with swift reading I would find the point and move on. Such reading is a grave mistake in the conduct of spiritual reading.

And this is one reason why it is a discipline any literate person can conduct, no matter how unappealing he or she may find reading. You don't have to read much and reading isn't really the point. The faculties used in reading are employed, but the point is one must also engage the faculties more commonly used in listening. The reading should be conducted in much the same way as the reading from Mass--one should hear, deep down inside, all that is said in the course of the reading. The reading then is a conversation with an author and ultimately and conversation past the author to the Author of all. That is, the good spiritual writer, following the example of the Blessed Mother, directs our attention to God, Father, Son, and Spirit. He does not occupy us with himself, but rather conducts us and introduces us to the Lord of All in such a way as we can begin to speak without uncomfortable pauses and uncertainties. This takes time and a willingness to read as though listening. We must hear what is being said and talk to God about what we hear.

(Note: The book is available through Zaccheus Press, and if it follows true to form, it may be distributed by Ignatius Press as well. Beautiful, well made, and nicely put together--the book will reward careful reading. It would seem to be the kind of book that would make, for a certain kind of person, a very rewarding spiritual reading experience.

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September 20, 2006

Saying the Same Thing

Now that this morning's concerns have been expressed in a way that allows me some reprieve, let me restate them in a way that is more universal, more, if you will, Catholic.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (KJV-Phil 4:8)

If what we are thinking about does not reflect things, then it is time spent in purgatory. It is so terribly easy to find fault with anything or anyone and so very difficult to articulate praise. But the better part is to look upon those things worthy of praise while working hard to correct those things that we would otherwise complain about. This is the Martha-and-Mary principle. Mary's better part always informs Martha's better work. As people living in the real world, in the secular world, in the world outside the cloister, our meditations upon worthy things prepare us for action bringing those real things to the people around us. Contemplation isn't an end in itself, or at least not entirely, for contemplation in the world must lead to works that change the world. As James would note, "Faith without works is dead." Prayer without works is equally dead. But works without faith are useless and futile--building a house upon sand. The two walk hand-in-hand supporting and informing one another.

So, rather than posting my complaints, as I did this morning, I should rather choose to post those things that will build up the body of Christ and allow all to see what a beautiful, loving, kind, and merciful God and Father we have who gave us so great a Savior as our guide and friend.

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Stealing Joy

There are some, probably all unaware of it, who spend their time being Satan's Willing Executioners. They steal joy.

Some of the joy stealers are undoubtedly aware of it, but because their own lives are too small and too unhappy, they only feel camaraderie only in the misery they can spread. These are very, very few in number.

More often than not, those who would steal joy do so out of very good motives. They want to improve things for everyone, they want to return reverence to the Mass, they want things to be like they were when everyone was pious, reverent, silent (and every bit as involved or uninvolved as they are today).

The people I refer to are those who tell us everything that is wrong with the present Mass. Those who write treatises about why this, that, or the other hymn is inappropriate. Why the only good ways are the old ways.

After reading enough of this I go to Mass with a mass of interior griping. I open my hymnal and see the name of Michael Joncas and nearly slam it shut--now there's charity for you. I have echoing in my head all the critiques of "I Am the Bread of Life." In short, I am paying attention to everything except the most important thing. I have Martha'ed away the Mass in a toil of concerns that really do not affect the central action of the Mass. If I sing "I Am the Bread of Life," I am not undoing what the Priest has done. Nor, contrary to some, am I claiming to be Jesus himself. I read one critique that made the nonsensical claim that never before the twentieth century did we sing or pray in the person of God, all song were written "from the outside" as it were. And then I turn to Psalm 95, which I recite every morning:

"Do not grow stubborn in the wilderness
as your Fathers did at Meribah and Massah
although they had seen all of my works.

Forty years I endured that generation,
I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray
and they do not know my ways,"
So I swore in my anger, they shall not enter my rest."

Seems like we pray in the person of God as we recite this, and yet I haven't seen generations of confused monks convinced that they are God.

This is not to say that everything is perfect, nor to say that every selection chosen for Mass is always the most appropriate. It is to say that if one finds it necessary to make a complaint, it should be to the Priest or the liturgy committee and one's discontentment should be kept for oneself--a vintage not to be shared with all. We all have enough gripes about the way things go in our parishes. Last weekend, I thought I'd become apoplectic at a "liturgical motion" that consisted for a pair of barefoot young ladies in red carrying pots of incense through the congregation. (Our parish is Holy Cross, so we deferred the celebration to the weekend at which time we had a big blowout.). And then, I realized that I wasn't there to critique what was going on. That this motion did not detract from the Mass, and for some it might even have acted as a moment of beauty to bring them in to the main course. Apoplexy was conditioned by what I had read and participated in with various Catholic Blogs. It was time to divorce myself from the griping, complaining, and communal unhappiness that typified some sectors of the community. And so, I could happily sing along with "Our God is an Awesome God," well aware that a great many would frown upon it and wonder what place it had in the Holy Sacrifice of Mass. But if they choose to steal their own joy with such ruminations, it is none of my business. It only becomes my business when they make it their business to steal the joy of others.

Less griping, more working with the liturgy committee, with the Priest to effect the changes you would like to see in the Parish. And then sit for a while in the seat of those who receive the complaints, because every change made provokes complaints from one group or another.

Frankly, I don't understand how our good and great Priests endure the panoply of nonsense and complaint that they must be subject to from all of their parishioners-- different ones at different times. Indeed, they have a special grace and a leg up on the way to heaven simply sitting in the seat of authority and hearing all that they must hear.

If you are one--stop stealing joy. Register your complaint, let the liturgy committee know how you'd like to see things change. My guess about the likelihood of change involves an accumulation of solid state atmospheric precipitation and a very warm environment; nevertheless, that is the appropriate venue for discussion of the matters. In a sense, it is their job to receive and assimilate feedback. But it is not the job of the congregation at large, nor any particular member of it outside of those concerned with the planning of liturgy--and it is a form of detraction that can lead many astray--it cultivates unseemly anger and derails concentration on what is truly important.

Or, more likely, I'm simply exposing my own weakness. In which case, so be it.

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September 18, 2006

Silence and Presence

In silence is encompassed presence.

Jennifer Egan has this to say:

from The Keep
Jennifer Egan

Howard: You hear those sounds? Insects, birds, but not even that. Something behind them, you hear it? It's--what? A hum, almost. But not quite. . . .

Danny listened and hear nothing, but it was a different kind of nothing than he was used to. Most quiet was like a pause, a blank spot in the usual noise, but this was thick, like you only hear in New York right after a snowstorm. Even quieter than that.

Howard: I don't want to lose that. I want this place to be about that. Not just some resort. . . .

Danny: You want the hotel to be about silence? . . .

So it'll be like a . . . retreat? Where people come and do yoga or whatever? . . .

Howard: Think about medieval times, Danny, like when this castle was built. People were constantly seeing ghosts, having visions--they thought Christ was sitting with them at the dinner table, they though angels and devils were flying around. We don't see those things anymore. Why? Was all that stuff happening before and then it stopped? Unlikely. Was everyone nuts in medieval times? Doubtful. But their imaginations were more active. Their inner lives were rich and weird.

This sparked a thought. Perhaps Angels do not visit because most people do not make a place for them to visit. Most people move from one event to the next--lives filled with endless clamor--present noise and noise of the future, interior voices shouting the schedules of where one has to be and when. Noise that isn't even perceptible until it dims. And then, in that dome of quiet there is an uneasiness--things to do, people to see, events to plan, future shadows to contend with--there is no time for the present--it is crowded out on both sides by the past and the future. The present is so slender, so tenuous, so subdued itself that it becomes a nothing in the face of the overwhelming tide of what has been and what might never be. These tsunamis crowd out all present thought--they swarm through lives and wash away whatever might be of substance.

And this is the reason that silence is so filled with fear for many. In silence one must face the present, the second hand that ticks along, one tick at a time, one slow stroke that vanishes and becomes the past. Silence encourages presence--both being and being in the present and it is only in the present, the eternal present that salvation is wrought and that Jesus is accessible to us. The Historic Jesus is manufactured for the comfort of speculators and ersatz historians; the Apocalyptic Jesus will be seen when He is present in the linear flow of time. But for us, now, here, at this moment, Jesus is present. He is present when the torrent of sound and event that is used to block him out is dimmed for a moment, when minds are released from the flood of cares to look clearly for a single moment--the eternal benediction of the Present in His Presence.

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September 7, 2006

A Certain Sadness

Today we took Samuel to Tampa to the Florida Aquarium because they were having a home-school family day. It was, overall, a wonderful trip. But in the course of it I was overcome with a certain sadness that has affected me from time to time. I looked around me and saw families of two, three, four, five, six, seven, or more children and I wondered why it was that Linda and I could not have been so graced.

Don't get me wrong, I am deeply grateful for the one child we were able to grab onto and keep. God certainly blessed us beyond blessing with Samuel. And had we had our own children, I don't know if we would have been as open to adopting as we had been--and so in a sense, this was a fulfillment of our particular vocation.

But, like Tevye, I find myself asking, "Would it have foiled some grand eternal plan, if I'd been a larger family man?"

God bless all of you who have been given so many to cherish. Cherish them a little for me and count your blessings, even as I count mine. God is good in all that He does, and perhaps my own desire is thwarted to good purpose. Whatever it may be it is want, not need, and following my own advice, I need to know the difference.

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August 24, 2006

"Lazarus, Come Out!"

Too many are dead in their faith. And there are so many ways to be dead. This is part of what Jesus meant when He said, "Narrow is the way and strait is the gate that leads unto salvation." For indeed, the way of living faith is narrow indeed.

Some are dead in their political faith. While politics should always be informed by religious sensibility, the spiritual life should never be informed by politics. When it becomes so, it goes astray, looking for secular solutions to eternal problems and straying from the narrow way. That is not to say that those with a political faith do not know Jesus, but they do not know Him in His fullness. They have chosen their own way to know Him rather than His way to know Him.

However, the form of dead faith and half-life that is most insidious and most hidden is regret--either conscious or unconscious over things done or left undone. Regret is another killer of faith because regret always lives in the past and faith is the eternal present. The person of faith is informed and formed by his or her past, but that person is not slave to their past. We don't see St. Teresa of Avila dwelling on her past even as she struggles to write her life. There is the constant infusion and interjection of the person St. Teresa is now, and a kind of irritation about talking about the past and all of its dead things.

So too with St. Therese, who wrote of the past in obedience, but whose past and present constantly fuse and intermingle. The past is only important as it exists in who we are now. What we did not choose, what we did not do is part of who we are, but it is not to be dwelt on, merely learned from.

When we enter the land of regret, we enter the tomb. And interestingly, regret is one of Satan's slyest weapons, because often the regret might be over vocations not pursued, spiritual opportunities not embraced, good paths not taken. All of these things can be very good things if they help us to make the right choices for the future. But more often than not regret is a form of creeping paralysis. What I did not do in the past I cannot choose to do now. That opportunity is gone and will never come again and I cannot be whole unless I can go back and undo it. And because I cannot, I am not who I could be and I cannot make the choices I would make.

What utter nonsense! What we did not do in the past, what we rue today, we can choose to undo in different ways. Let the past become present and remember the incorrect choice and use it as a guide, a signpost to make the correct choice. The Road to Joy is marked by many, many self-created sorrows. If we let Satan have control, we can continue down that long dark path, Orpheus descending. But as soon as we learned how to use the past to inform the present, as soon as we push regret out the door and call upon God in faith, Jesus says to us, "Lazarus, come out!" We, who were the people Christ wept over when He learned that we were dead, return to Him, live and vibrant and complete in Him.

But to do this requires complete surrender. It requires us to say, "Je ne regrette rein." I am who I am because of what has gone before. My choices made this person, and even this person is one whom God loves beyond all telling. This person can choose life, can choose God at any moment. This person can shed the dead past and enter into the vibrant, living present. This person can come alive in Christ.

Are there things in your past that you would choose now not to have? Are there things, experiences you would choose to undertake? If so, turn regret into joy by recalling these things and using them as guides. God gave us signposts in His interactions with us. It is time that we came to understand His signposts and used them to move toward Him. Pull off the shroud and join the living. Give up regret, for Lent and forever. Live in light and joy--turn the past darkness into a beacon for the present and thank God for all that you have learned as a result of what has happened in the past.

Narrow is the way and strait is the gate that leads unto salvation. But that narrow way is Jesus Christ, the vast eternity of Incarnate Love. And that straight gate is love of Him and embrace of his life, death, and resurrection. Hardly what we would think of as narrow or strait in comparison to the small prison of self that we choose when we choose regret, greed, politics, or anything other than God. Jesus speaks of a narrow way, but I see a passage the size of a world, the size of a galaxy, the size of the Heart of God. It is narrow because there is only one way to it--surrender.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:15 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

August 21, 2006

Images in Christian Life

from Renovation of the Heart
Dallas Willard

There are many things we need not see and are better off not seeing--thought, if you wish, you have a "right" to see them. Anyone who thinks that if I have a right to do X it is good for me to do X, simply hasn't thought deeply about the matter. Paul's wise counsel, by contrast, was, "Whatever is true, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let you mind dwell on these things" (Philippians 4:8)> Make no mistake; this is a fundamental and indispensable part of our spiritual formation in Christ.

Images, in particular are motivational far beyond our conscious mind and they are not under rational control. We must take care that we are nourished constantly on good and godly ones, without necessarily being able to see and say what is wrong with the others. "What is wrong" with them well may be something we cannot bring before our consciousness, but which works in the depths of our soul and body as an instrument of feces beyond ourselves.

Beauty is essential in spiritual formation. Beauty is not beauty without truth and goodness--it is "as an Angel of Light" whose heart is complete darkness. The most beautiful image in the world that denies God only seems beautiful--it is a seed of darkness. This is probably similar to what Savonarola taught the people of his day, only he made the mistake of assuming that anything suggestive of the beauty of the human form was somehow tainted and evil. There are the Venus de Milo La Primavera and La Trionofo di Aphrodite, all of which portray the female body in its splendor without necessarily provoking the prurient. When one approaches works like The Naked Maja and such like, the question becomes more nebulous, and for some of us none of these images in any amount is licit. That is the individual way and path. Nevertheless, it is part of spiritual formation to dwell upon the beautiful because it bypasses the eternal censor and tells us something that mere intellect cannot tell us about God. God cannot be apprehended, much less embraced by intellect alone but only through the union of intellect and emotion that make up the mind of the person. Certainly our senses feed the mind, but it is ultimately the mind that is the primary gatekeeper and the spirit within us that says, "Let it be done unto me," to God. And these things may only happen when we have surrendered all to God.

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August 19, 2006

Leaning against the Master's Breast

There is a certain kind of person who makes me nearly nauseated with envy; a kind of person from whom I would rob what they have, were it robbable and take it for myself. This isn't laudable, but I may as well admit it. The type of person is one of those who has never for a moment been more than a step away from Jesus. You know them--you really want to believe that all their nicey-nice God-talk is all made up because then you'd have a little surcease from your own inner kvetching--but you also know that it's authentic. You want to think of it as a put-on because that makes it easier for you to pretend that this isn't a real state, the real state that people are called to.

I say you and I mean me. I was born to perpetual rebellion. Jesus lifts me up in His arms and like a recalcitrant two-year-old, I throw myself back in one of those fits trying to escape that prison that threatens to keep me from whatever it is I want--only, of course, I don't know what it is I want. I circle round and round Him, never coming at the front, but hoping to sneak up like the woman with an issue of blood and claim the prize and run away. What a terrible state!

I know full well what I should do, but I also know I cannot do it on my own. I'll never be able to be one of those people who look like they're about to swoon when they speak of the Blessed Mother, or who piously and gently touch the feet of all the Holy Statues in the Church they pass by; people whose faith and devotion sears me because my own is so weak.

That's the angst. But the assurance is that God made me the way I am and He will bring me to Him in the way He wishes me to come. I am not piety and grace embodied--I am not the poster child for the Christian way. Rather, I'm one of those battered circle-with-a-bar in it signs warning everyone else to find a different way. My example is more often than not negative rather than positive. And I know that through the grace of God in time that will change also. But in the meantime, I look upon those who seem constantly leaning against the Master's breast and ask Him, why can't that be me? Why must I go by this other road thick with brambles and barely marked out? What have I done to merit this hard way?

Of course, I don't know how hard the way is of those I look on with envy. It may be even harder. Oh, but this will of mine, unruly, constantly trying to assert its own dominance, constantly singing with the famous atheist poet:

Invictus
William Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

What lies! What falsehoods! But my pride draws me back again and again--and at times I think of Calvin and how some are elect and wonder if I have fallen out of that group. But I remember, no longer Calvinist, I'm free to believe that the elect are those who despite themselves long to be and face that fight and continue to move forward despite themselves. Christ died for all, not for some, not for many. That all do not come to Him is the choice of the all, not His preferred plan. There is no elect separate from humanity, all of humanity has the calling and the possibility. Some of us just don't seem to get it very well.

And so the struggle goes on. The comfort comes from Jesus' words, "To whom much is given, much is expected." And I have been given much and more. I have been blessed beyond reasonable blessing, and I am treasured and cherished as a Child of God. I hold onto this hope even as I struggle with obedience, pride, willfulness, lack of charity, lack of discipline, and anger. God will, in His time and way, bring me home. I trust that, I know that, I rely upon that. He is the Father who loves all of His children, and even when I feel very distant, I know He is near always waiting for the prodigal.

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August 16, 2006

From The Devil's Advocate

I may have much to say about this book when I am finished, as I have very mixed reactions to much that is in it. However, for the time being, I thought the following passage nicely said it all.

"It's not the opinion that worries me, Meredith. It's the tendency: the tendency to elaborate so much by commentary, glossary, and hypothesis that the rigid simplicity of the essential faith is obscured, not only for the faithful but also for honest inquirers outside it. I deplore this. I deplore it greatly because I find it raises barriers between the pastor and soul he is trying to reach.

It is possible to think too much about faith--to think it into a dryness and an austerity that it does not essentially have. To my mind, this is what some very faithful Catholics do. By the time they are finished with the faith it is a dry and useless husk of rules, regulations, injunctions, restrictions, subtle equivocations, and circumlocutions--anything that might once have been said about Christ in the course of it is completely obscured. This tends to be a fault amongst a certain kind of ill-prepared apologist who, rather than coming back time and again to the well and the source of the faith, spends too much time poking about the obscurities of the Second Vatican Council documents and delineating why, exactly, they are in conformity with all that has gone before. While there is some good in this, there is a great deal more in prayer and in turning to the God who gave us Vatican II.

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August 7, 2006

The Dignity of the Human Person

Why it even appears that some Jesuits remain Catholic:

Torture is an affront to the dignity of the individual. And belief in this dignity is supposed to be cherished by the same politicians who proclaim their support of the “culture of life,�? especially during election years. But respect for life does not end at birth; it should continue unbroken from birth to natural death.

From, of all the odd places The Baptist Standard A Texas Baptist Newspaper.

This reference and the one below were courtesy of The Western Confucian--would that there were more such Western, Catholic, Confucians.

Later I just realized that what I wrote above could easily be misunderstood--I don't consider The Baptist Standard an "odd place" just an odd place for a Jesuit to show up.

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Another Day to Remember

The sixth of August is bad enough, often forgotten are the horrors of the ninth of August with the near obliteration of the largest Christian community of Japan.

Such means are never just and never justified--no matter how one argues for the case for potentially shortening the war. And we must stop to consider why these weapons were deployed in Japan and not in Germany--one is led to suspect that it may have been that we didn't really regard the Japanese as fully human.

And are there people that we look upon that way today? Perhaps Arabs? Perhaps Muslims? If so, shame on us--it is time to learn that one cannot abstract a person. One cannot rely upon that abstraction to provide distance from the persons harmed. We owe it to ourselves to live the life of those mothers whose children have been taken from them, those husbands and wives who have lost their spouses. These are personal moments, personal tragedies, intimate and horrifying moments of human destruction and loss. Abstracting a person for a principle results in far too many such moments. The devil is in the details--the details of lives sundered and destroyed, that too often in our comfort we choose to ignore, or more culpably, we choose to explain away or try to justify.

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A Useful Definition of Happiness

from The Saints' Guide to Happiness
Robert Ellsberg

But what if happiness is not subjective, a question of how we feel, or a matter of chance, something that simply happens? What if it is more like an objective condition, something analogous to bodily health? Aristotle took this view. The word he used for happiness, eudaimonia, is not a matter of feelings but a way of being, a certain fullness of life. Happiness, for Aristotle, has to do with living in accordance with the rational and moral order of the universe. It is more like the flourishing of a healthy plant than like Freud's pleasure principle. Because it is rooted in habits of the soul, it is the fruit of considerable striving. But for the same reason it is not subject to the vagaries of fortune.

The Greek-writing authors of the New Testament did not use Aristotle's word for happiness. The drew on another word, makarios, which refers to the happiness of the gods in Elysium. In the Gospel of Matthew this is the word that Jesus uses to introduce his Sermon on the Mount, "Happy are the poor in spirit. . . . Happy are the meek. . . . Happy are they who mourn. . . ." St. Jerome, who prepared the Latin translation in the fourth century, used beatus, a word the combines the connotations of being happy and blessed. Hence these verses are known as the Beatitudes. Forced to choose, most English translators have opted--probably wisely--for the more familiar "Blessed are. . . " The Beatitudes, after all, are not about "smiley faces" or feeling happy. They are not about feelings at all. They are about sharing in the life and spirit--the happiness--of God. In that spirit a disciple (like Jesus himself) could experience mourning, suffering, and loss while remaining "blessed"--happy, that is, in the most fundamental sense.

Happiness, as spoken of in the gospels and in the Bible is not of the moment. It isn't an instant of good feeling. Rather, happiness is the way of living as God would have us live. Outside of God everything is ephemeral, fleeting. Ecclesiastes would tell us that all is vanity, vanity. "If the Lord does not build a house, then in vain do the builders labor."

Happiness comes from what we do, not how we feel. That elation or good-feeling we sometimes experience is a pale shadow of true happiness that becomes apparent only in the light of eternity. Striving after anything else is in vain--only in obedience to His commandments and His word is happiness to be found.

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August 6, 2006

The One Thing Necessary

delightfully exposed.

from The Saints' Guide to Happiness
Robert Ellsberg

What is the "one thing necessary"? Its form is different for each person, though its content is always the same. It is "to fulfill our own destiny according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be."

Tomorrow, if there's time, I'll copy out the passage about happiness itself.

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Farewell to Theology

I tire of theologians who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Those who go on and on about how masturbation is a sin and anyone engaging in it is going to Hell, but then come up with terms to justify the slaughter of the innocents. Theology is supposed to be the divine science, but it is a deeply flawed human endeavor that more often than not seeks to justify the ways of humankind to God.

No more with "just wars" and debates about prudential judgments and subtleties about who can be killed under what circumstances. All justifications for continuing as we have always done, hard of heart and head. No more--I will have no more of it. Tiresome and puffed up like a blowfish and ultimately empty of anything not already revealed, but tricked out to look like a king's wardrobe--indeed, the very Emperor's New Clothes themselves.

Theology--the science of straining at a gnat to swallow a camel. If I thought that great love of God resulted from it, it would have some use. But what I find more often than not is greater love of self and greater love of knowledge. Those who pursue theology often do so as a means of fleeing God.

A pox on it all. Holy Mother church teaches and her word informs more often despite her theologians than because of them. The Church teaches through the Holy Spirit and through the inspired scripture, but when we start dragging in the inventions of the theologians--annulments and just war and original sin and limbo, one quickly loses one's way in the thicket. A fog of confusion, doubt, and questions that lead to no real end.

The more I read of them, the less I need to read of them and the weaker any faith I may have grows. My faith survives despite the theologian's best attempts to extinguish it entirely--to fill my head with the God who allows the slaughter of children and of innocents to further the goals of any particular regime.

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Who Does the Father's Will?

Who better does the Father's will--the one who knows all manner of doctrine and all the subtlety thereof and who can explain it and argue its fine points with other and who completely assents to it, but lives a life in direct contradiction to every one of its tenets?

Or,

The person completely ignorant of doctrine, unable to discern or explain the divine hypostatic union, completely unaware of predestination and justification, unable to make an intelligible statement about doctrine, who yet lives it to the hilt--feeding the hungry and giving to the poor?

Too much knowledge stuffs the head and the ego--it fills us not with knowledge of the Divine, but with knowledge of our own self-importance. Knowledge stored in the head but never acted upon is less than useless. And action in complete ignorance of the whys and wherefores, the rules and the statutes governing it, that action which is within God's will is the action of love, the action of the saving Christ, shown in a way no words will every tell.

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The Joy of the Transfiguration

and the horror of the disfigurement.

from Hiroshima Diary
Michihiko Hadhiya, M.D.

[From the entry for August 6]

Clad in drawers and undershirt, I was sprawled on the living room floor exhausted because I had just spent a sleepless night on duty as an air warden in my hospital.

Suddenly, a strong flash of light startled me--and then another. So well does one recall little things that I remember vividly how a stone lantern in the garden became brilliantly lit and I debated whether this light was caused by a magnesium flare or sparks from a passing trolley.

Garden shadows disappeared. The view where a moment before all had been so bright and sunny was now dark and hazy. Through swirling dust I could barely discern a wooden column that had supported one corner of my house. It was leaning crazily and the roof sagged dangerously.

Moving instinctively, I tried to escape, but rubble and fallen timbers barred the way. By picking my way cautiously I managed to reach the roka and stepped down into my garden. A profound weakness overcame me, so I stopped to regain my strength. To my surprise I discovered that I was completely naked. How odd! Where were my drawers and undershirt?

What had happened?

All over the right side of my body I was cut and bleeding. A large splinter was protruding from a mangled wound in my thigh, and something warm trickled into my mouth. My cheek was torn, I discovered as I felt it gingerly, with the lower lip laid wide open. Embedded in my neck was a sizable fragment of glass which I matter-of-factly dislodged, and with the detachment of one stunned and shocked I studied it and my blood-stained hand.

Where was my wife?

A small memorial to a monumental folly that we still try to think of reasons and ways to justify. We had entered into the age of almost unimaginable cruelty at the beginning of the century, but this marked a new plateau, a plateau that has stayed with us from that day to our own. A plateau that it were better had it never been reached.

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August 3, 2006

Authentic Religion

from Hammer and Fire Father Raphael Simon, OCSO

The human personality can only be transformed by truth, goodness, and beauty. Everyone seeks a real or apparent goodness. Everyone has an ultimate end which actuates his or her life, be it pleasure, self-enhancement, a career, service or goodness itself: God. This ultimate end is the person's religion. But there are false religions and true ones, authentic religions and inauthentic, a complete religion and incomplete religions. . . .

This book is about the authentic, the true, the beautiful and goodness itself--the true ultimate ground of human existence and development. That is known by true philosophy which has the full use of reason and is harmonious with science, but it is known even more by the Revelation of God, Who Himself is the sure ground of truth and goodness. Moreover He has the power to make known to humankind His own inner life, which He has done in sending us His Own Son, Jesus Christ and His Spirit.

The goal of the book is to outline a plan of transforming union with God and thus human happiness. The effectiveness of the book depends upon how well disposed one is to hear and implement the plan despite one's own inclinations to read another book on the same subject or watch another film on any subject in preference to what one really ought to be doing. Nevertheless, it is in the constant remember that one hears His voice and is brought back around to doing what one ought to do. Books such as this one serve the extremely important role of being border collies responding sensitively to the commands of the One True Shepherd. They harry one and nip at one's heels and assure one of the passage to home and safety--the way back to the Shepherd.

May it be so for me as I read it and for all of you who pick it up to try to follow the way back.

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August 1, 2006

Nuance and Ambiguity

I have thought a bit about my tendency to overgeneralize, to leap to conclusions and I have concluded that it comes from my excessively strong "J" aspect personality. I like rules. I like black and white. I don't have much use for the myriad shades of grey, though I admit they exist. I don't care much for nuance in living.

Which is odd because in art I admire fruitful ambiguity--an ambiguity that is deliberate and which gives rise to multiple layers of meaning. But Art is not life, it is not about fashioning a rule-book. Properly done, Art is about discovering the rule-book, uncovering what has always been known through revelation, but making it new again. Art is mimetic, but it is ambiguous in a way that gets us to think and to consider.

There again, I go with the generalizations. Art is probably none of that, but great Art gets at that. Whatever the case may be, I love Art because of the insight I get into God and his mercy through it. I despise nuance because I see it too often misused to side-step the unpleasantness of moral requirements. If one spins it just right. . .

But it is useless to pretend that nuance does not exist and that every rule is always and everywhere exactly the same. It is comforting, but useless. But my role, as artist and even as poor thinker that I am, is to articulate the black and white and leave it up to better thinkers to fill in the shades of grey. We all have our roles, and mine the most humble, but it is mine and it is how I am constructed. No matter how I try, I will be looking for the black and white in everything--and I will accept gladly notification of the shades of grey others discover in between.

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July 23, 2006

Strait is the Gate and Narrow is the Way

Jesus rarely speaks to a crowd as a crowd. Rather, when He makes His statements, it seems that they are made to the group at large to be applied by each person individually. For example, the header to the post above makes no sense whatsoever viewed in the context of the Saints of God. How many ways, how many paths, how many different means of being did they find all within this supposedly straight gate and narrow way.

But the gate IS strait and the way IS narrow for each person. For the gate is knowing and loving Jesus Christ and the way is the particular path designed by God for the individual. There is no deviation from this path which is the Way of Jesus Christ. There are an infinite number of decisions to make as one walks it. However, these decisions are guided by the strict laws of the Decalogue and the words of Jesus Himself. Because the entry is tight and the way is narrow, it is hard to get lost on it.

Many worry themselves over minor decisions in their lives. "What is God's will for me?" They look for some oracle or sign, they play Bible Roulette, anything that will reveal the particular way. But when both choices or all of the choices are licit, it is by no means certain that they aren't all available unless God decides otherwise. There are many ways to serve Him and many, many ways of being ourselves in Christ.

Once again, the paradox of Christianity. The entry is tight, the way is narrow, but the way is Jesus Christ Himself, infinite and complete. It is a narrow way of following Him in all of His broadness. We are not cramped by this narrow way because compared to the way of the world, the avenuse along which the trees of life grow are as broad as the sea itself.

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June 28, 2006

An Unsurprising Thought

Giving something to God means that one has no rights to it anymore, neither to worry about it, nor to think about it, nor to call it one's own. To take back a gift is, at best, ungracious, and at worst an offense. And everything given to God is regarded by Him as a gift. There's a lot of comfort to be had in such a thought.

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June 26, 2006

Private Revelation. . .

is not the Faith. But it sure provides some interesting highlights.

A must read here

Remarkable Story

My father-in-law is in the hospital. Fortunately he is doing well and is out of immediate danger. The subject of prayer came up and the nurse overhead and told of a recent fiery car crash.

He was injured to the point of near death and was rescued and lifeflighted.

He reported to the nurse that he had felt himself leave his body for a time. He had floated above the cars behind him and in the first two he heard people complaining about having to wait. In the third car he heard the woman praying for him and so he remained with her.

He remembered the license plate number and told the nurse. Police cooperated in finding the owner of that third car because the doctor asked them to. She was asked to come to the hospital for a reason they couldn't share. The injured patient introduced himself and his family and thanked her for her prayers.

Wow!

They say people in the medical profession believe in God more many other professions (doctors are far more likely to be believers than scientists) and one can see why.

(From Video meliora, proboque;) Thanks TSO. Keeping this out of sight so I can refer back within the archive.

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June 20, 2006

The Dual Abyss

When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you
--Friedrich Nietzsche

What is an abyss? Simply, it is a yawning chasm, a seemingly infinite and certainly unfathomable depth. For a variety of reasons, perhaps this aphorism among them, the abyss has taken on a negative connotation that it need not have.

The threat or the promise of the aphorism (if true) depends upon which abyss one looks into. Humanity represents a dual abyss--there is an abyss of malice--out of which comes all the depths of evil, thoughtlessness, selfishness, and all the products of fallen humanity. And then there is the abyss of generosity--filled by grace and love, it is the abyss from which all the saints and Saints who do God's will drink their fill. It is an abyss of light, grace, hope, and love. It is the abyss that was opened when the side of Christ, the infinite was opened. It is the abyss that engulfs and swallows the lesser (though still vast) abyss of malice and darkness. It is the abyss of which St. John speaks when he says in John 1: 4-5:

4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

The abyss of light is the light of humanity which is Jesus Christ. The darkness cannot encompass. The promise of this light was first seen in the harrowing of Hell in which the dates of darkness were burst asunder and the light of the Lord shone for those who long lay in the darkness of death.

So, perhaps the aphorism is not so much a threat as a law. When one looks into the abyss, the abyss looks back; it would be wise to assure that the abyss one looks into is filled with the light of Jesus Christ. For few things could be better than to have that abyss look back into oneself.

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June 19, 2006

On Habits

Montaigne's Essays

Essay XXII--Of Custom
Michel de Montaigne

MY opinion is that hee conceived aright of the force of custome that first invented this tale; how a country woman having enured herselfe to cherish and beare a young calfe in her armes, which continuing, shee got such a custome, that when he grew to be a great oxe, shee carried him still in her armes. For truly Custome is a violent and deceiving schoole-mistris. She by little and little, and as it were by stealth, establisheth the foot of her authoritie in us; by which mild and gentle beginning, if once by the aid of time it have setled and planted the same in us, it will soone discover a furious and tyrannicall countenance unto us; against which we have no more the libertie to lift so much as our eies; wee may plainly see her upon every occasion to force the rules of Nature: Vsus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister: (PLIN. Epist. xx) Use is the most effectuall master of all things.

In more recent, albeit still antiquated but lovely, language:

HE seems to have had a right and true apprehension of the power of custom, who first invented the story of a countrywoman who, having accustomed herself to play with and carry, a young calf in her arms, and daily continuing to do so as it grew up, obtained this by custom, that, when grown to be a great ox, she was still able to bear it. For, in truth, custom is a violent and treacherous schoolmistress. She, by little and little, slily and unperceived, slips in the foot of her authority, but having by this gentle and humble beginning, with the benefit of time, fixed and established it, she then unmasks a furious and tyrannic countenance, against which we have no more the courage or the power so much as to lift up our eyes. We see her, at every turn, forcing and violating the rules of nature: "Usus efficacissimus rerum omnium magister."

(More here.)

However it may be said, the endpoint is the same. What we practice we come to be. What we do, we become. We do not so much form habits as our habits form us.

It is from the forms of crucifixion that we impose upon ourselves that Jesus suffered the one crucifixion that makes all things right.

Our habits make us and Jesus frees us from them. Our habits are lovely and soft and kind until it comes time to abandon them; then they are ravening harpies that pluck and shriek and call us back to that sweet slumber that marked our wakeless lives, our lives of aimless drifting.

Through Jesus all of these things are transformed and we are awakened--as frightening and as difficult as it may sound, it is the freedom we are promised--free to be the watchkeepers in a world slumbering to its doom. But first we must allow Him to break the bonds of habit.

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June 14, 2006

The First Degree of Conversion

from Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer
Fr. Thomas Dubay

The first degree of conversion, therefore, is a 180-degree reversal:"I renounce my idol, Lord; I want you instead. I am very, very sorry. With your grace I am going to change my life. I freely choose to repent. I shall receive your sacrament of reconciliation." The perfect portrayal of this basic conversion is found in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). The fundamental friendship with God is restored.

Some books are not really meant to be read through, even though they CAN be read through quite easily. From the beginning, this book has seemed one of those. One could read it easily, in an hour, perhaps two. But were one to do so, there are a great many things that would be lost and a great deal that could help one's prayer life that would be overlooked.

The passage noted above is fundamental Catholic doctrine; indeed, fundamental doctrine for all Christians worthy of the name. The world is a fallen place, fallen because of our ancestors' sin and each person takes his or her place in that fallen world. Every person who chooses to abandon his or her place in the fallen world and take up the gift of a place in heaven participates in the salvation of the entire world. Such people can say with Paul that they make up in their own bodies what was lacking in the sacrifice of Christ.

Perhaps one can think of it as a shift in the center of gravity. For every person who chooses to take up the Christian life, the balance is shifted toward heaven. Everyone who determines to do more than the mere minimum adds the mass of grace to the position held in the kingdom, the center of gravity shifts more. Those who choose to live truly heroic lives of virtue become so great an attraction that they draw more into the life of grace. The intercession of the saints is an enormous force. There is a constant shifting of mass in this balancing of the center of gravity--writers of old have called this "The War in Heaven," the enormous battle waged for each soul in which all of the might of the Angels and Saints is mustered against the Fallen Ones over each soul. And all of that massing becomes evident in the choice a person makes for or against God.

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June 13, 2006

The Egocentrism of Reality as Lived

from Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer
Fr. Thomas Dubay

But for now we need to emphasize how tenaciously, even stubbornly, many people cling to the preferences and sympathies of their own way of life even in the face of strong evidences against these preferences. Elemental truths, the way things actually are, leave little impact on most persons' consciousness and routine decisions. This is especially the case with moral and ultimate realities. People love their desires. Newman made this point in his usual penetrating manner, but other careful observers have also noted the following common assumptions of egocentrism: "i am right because this is my preference. I need not consider your reasons and arguments seriously." This is why many married couples (say the experts) argue and fight over and over again about the same disagreements and often with no happy solutions and healing. Egocentrism is the main root of human conflicts. Hence, Jesus is saying "love truth, the way things objectively are; do not cling to your preferences when they clash with reality."

Love truth--the way things objectively are. The problem is to see with an objective eye. It is not impossible, for with God all things are possible; however, neither is it easy, for with humanity all things are impossible. Many people, perhaps most people, have a vested interest in reality they way they perceive or rather wish it to be. This is an extremely difficult point. How does one begin to see objectively when one is so allied to the pleasant unreality created by oneself? In one sense, this is the question the movie The Matrix asks--is it better to live in subjectively loveliness or face the truth no matter how unpleasant and ugly?

What most seem not to know is that objective reality, truth, is part of the Platonic triad, a kind of trinity of values that perforce exist together--truth, beauty, and goodness. Thus objective truth, ultimate truth, eternal truth, is objectively, ultimately, and eternally beautiful and good. It can be no other way. There may be additional attributes to the triad, but these three go hand in hand. So, in addition to the hard question The Matrix poses, there is an easier question. Suppose you could wake up from the waking dream/nightmare you have created for yourself by your choices of what to do and believe, and suppose upon waking that you would find yourself in a realm far more beautiful, perfect, and peaceful than any you could imagine--would you choose to wake?

If so, now is the acceptable time. God, patient Father, has long waited for each one to wake and come stumbling out of the bedroom in our "footy" pajamas rubbing our eyes and suddenly seeing that every morning is Christmas morning. Every day, no matter what the course of the day, is a gift beyond measure.

Sleeper awake, for night is flying
the time of the dream approaches the end,
open your eyes, wake up, arise
this waking nightmare shall come to an end.

"Wacheft auf ruft uns die stimme
Philipp Nocolai 1599
tr. Catherine Winkworth

Wake, awake, for night is flying,
The watchmen on the heights are crying:
Awake, Jerusalem at last!
And at the thrilling cry rejoices:
Come forth, ye virgins, night is past!
The Bridegroom comes, awake.
Your lamps with gladness take;
Alleluia!
And for his marriage feast prepare,
For ye must go to meet him there.

Zion hears the watchmen singing,
And all her heart with joy is springing;
She wakes, she rises from her gloom;
For her Lord comes down all glorious,
The Strong in grace, in truth Victorious.
Her Star is risen, her light is come!
Ah, come Thou blessed Lord,
O Jesu, Son of God,
Alleluia!
We follow till the halls we see
Where Thou hast bid us sup with Thee.

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June 5, 2006

The Cold Equations

Gas prices, it has been shown, are not by any means extraordinary given the times and the rather slow climb in price up until recently. My experience of this price climb probably parallels that of most of you. It is most painful at the gas station and in the monthly budgeting. But once you cut the grocery bill and the clothing and a bit of slack here and there, it can be picked up. You might have noticed a spike in food prices and in the prices of goods whose delivery depends upon the price of fuel.

The price of fuel has meant economies, mostly not terribly painful, in my own house. What about those households in which there is no slack whatever? I think about a woman I know who lives as a single mother with a somewhat troubled child. She works as a waitress in a local restaurant and before the surge in prices wasn't quite keeping it together in terms of finances. A dollar stretches only so far--an the painful reality is that things that are really necessary must eventually be given up. Perhaps one does without electricity for a while as one scrapes together the money to pay off the amount due. Perhaps one's diet is trimmed just a little bit more. I don't know what measures are taken in such situations--I don't live there. What I do know are the deepening lines on the faces of people who live in these situations.

What then are we called to do in the face of the trials that are daily part of the lives of the people who have to face these price increases? We all shoulder, each one, his or her own part of the burden. And there is a legitimacy to this burden that goes beyond profit into the realm of the need to preserve, conserve, and find alternatives for our dependency.

No matter what argument might be made in support of the present situation, the impact, as usual falls disproportionately on the shoulders of the poor. Those who were able to live in a home, however briefly, now find themselves living out of their cars once again.

Surely it is not so extreme as that? I've seen no reports on the impact, I cannot say what is happening nationally. All I can report are the burdens of those I know personally, the stories that come to me daily from a variety of sources. Since the poor are invisible to most of us anyway, there is a tendency to remain ignorant of the impact of these things. I become profoundly concerned when the attempt to understand the mathematical reality of a situation becomes divorced from the human impact of it.

I have no solution to this perceived problem except, perhaps, that whenever anyone advances any arguments justifying "things as they are" we keep before our eyes the faces of those who are most affected by the way things are.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:18 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

May 31, 2006

Spark and Radionics--Morality and Neutrality

There are really two points to this post. The second is that radionics still exists and is practiced as medicine in some parts of the world. Most interesting. The first follows:

from A Far Cry From Kensington
Muriel Spark

At the time Abigail showed me her Box I was somewhat relieved to find it futile, because, as I pointed out, if the Box could do good it could also do evil. 'It stands to reason,'I said.

'Oh,' said Abigail de Mordell Staines-Knight, "how right you are. But don't let Ian hear you say so. To him it's impossible to do anything wrong with the Box. And in fact, it does nobody harm, let's face it.'

She was a really nice girl in spite of her name. I, too, didn't think you could do wrong with the Box, nor right with it, nor anything.

What I find interesting and worthy of further consideration here is that the ability to do good comes coupled with the ability to do evil. Moral neutrality is moral invisibility and perfect inviability. The only way something can have no moral content is if it is incapable of being used at all, and hence has no content period.

This is interesting to think about. The only object that is outside of moral questioning is the object that is utterly useless to anyone. That is not to say the objects themselves possess morality, but the morality stems from the use of them. If an object can be used and cause good, it stands to reason that it can be misused and cause evil. If an object has no use whatsoever, then it is truly neutral ground. For our present purposes the planet Venus is most likely a morally neutral object. The idea of Venus, however, may not be.

What is remarkable in the passage above is the way that Muriel Spark finds to put a very coherent, difficult, and perplexing question into an amusing scene. This trait, introducing moral complexity, is a key feature of Spark's novels and is one of the things that makes for such compelling reading. One is instructed or persuaded beyond the power of the events in the book alone. In a sense, it is the better part of art to be didactic. Once art has lost its ability to teach, it has lost its ability to mean and it becomes one more useless object. That isn't to say that art is completely encompassed by its didactic nature, but that the teaching element of art is ever-present in any true work of art. If nothing else, art teaches us to see anew. And in that sense Spark's novels are art.

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Reasons to Read Muriel Spark

For one thing, you're probably tired of hearing about her and until I raise a great tide of readership, I shall simply have to continue to regale you with excerpts of her fine works. But for another, there's this:

from A Far Cry from Kensington
Muriel Spark

I had some savings and a small pension, so I had no need to find another job immediately. In the months between my abrupt departure from the Ullswater Press and Martin York's arrest I wasted my time with a sense of justified guilt. I enjoy a puritanical and moralistic nature; it is my happy element to judge between right and wrong, regardless of what I might actually do. At the same time, the wreaking of vengeance and imposing of justice on others and myself are not at all in my line. It is enough for me to discriminate mentally and leave the rest to God.

'Commercial life cannot be carried on unless people are honest.'But no life can be carried on satisfactorily unless people are honest. About the time that the Ullswater Press folded up I recall reading a book about one of the martyred Elizabethan recusant priests. The author wrote, 'He was accused of lying, stealing, and even immorality.' I noted the quaint statement because although by immorality he meant sex as many people do, I had always thought that lying and stealing, no less, constituted immorality.

I think this character would have looked upon TSO's blog (at very least the title) with some great approval.

What is interesting here is that Spark has done something unusual for her works. The book is narrated in first person by a (so far) very likable narrator. This does not allow her the enormous distance she tends to keep from her characters. Nevertheless, this main character is cool, ironic, and sardonic--looking upon things as from a distance. She is among the more engaging characters in the opera so far.

I'll let you know how she gets on as the story continues. At very least expect a review within a week or so.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:59 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 30, 2006

Ontogeny in Faith--A Cause for Hope

Analysis might suggest that society has undergone an ontogeny in faith similar to the development of the individual with respect to his or her relationship with a parent. More succinctly stated, the relationship of God the Father to humanity has changed through time, not because God has changed, but because humankind has undergone a maturation which leaves us, at the present time somewhere in the stage of middle adolescence.

The ontogeny of society with respect to faith began in the infancy of the spread of the Gospel through Israel and to parts beyond. As with most infants, growth was rapid, indeed prodigious, and resulted in a few growing pains--commonly known as heresies.

Through the post-apostolic period, up through the reformation, we can see the development of faith in the stages of childhood--a rocky toddler, learning to stand and walk, gradually coming into his or her own and exercising a kind of power. But all through this time, a dead-level certainty in the wisdom, power, and deep love of our Father. Never any doubt as to His love for us, but rather some questions about what form that takes and what exactly obedience to that might entail.

With the Reformation, we begin the outright rebellion correlative to the teen years. There is a questioning and a refutation of all power figures, because indeed the flaws in the figures are exposed for all to see. Simony, the selling of indulgences, and other figures of a Church gone awry in parts, are all too present blemishes on the facade. So rather than rejecting the blemishes, humankind rejects the entire authority figure, and with it, the idea of God that was implicit in the figure.

With the Reformation, doubt about God's abiding love surfaces. First it makes its appearance in the puritan's fear of the world, then with Quietism, Jansenism, and Deism. (That's probably out of chronological sequence, but you get the drift.)

Present day, it seems we're in the height of the teen rebellion years when the Father (God) and Mother (Church) figures are so stupid as to cause astonishment that they have survived at all to this point. Everything they have said or have to say is immediately suspect because they have said it. There is every possible infraction of every possible rule. We've moved from the Divine Chain of Being to the autonomy of the individual. In this stage humanity shows its indestructibility and arrogance as it stumbles from one disaster or near-miss to another.

This gives cause for hope. There is a saying (I can't find the attribution at the moment) regarding the fact that at 15 I couldn't believe how stupid my parents were, by the time I was twenty-one it was amazing to me how intelligent they had become. So one can hope with respect to the maturation of society. Surely there are no signs of it as yet, but then, when do the "signs" of the maturation of a teenager actually "set-in." Is it not the case that the teen gradually moves out of rebellion and into accord with the manner of his or her upbringing (assuming that it was not abusive) almost completely silently? One day you turn around and discover that this child who had spent ten years making life sheer hell has suddenly agreed with you. (I know it was true for me as a teenager and young adult.)

There may be no signs and symptoms that are readily recognizable. But we have the absolute certainty, the perfect assurance that "The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it."

What does this mean to the Catholic practicing today? Do not abandon hope! Live as example of one faithful to the Father and to the goodness of the Church. Don't preach, don't rail, don't despair, don't fret. All of these things make for ugly siblings. Rather, live in the joy of the Lord, thank God daily for things as they are and pray that they may become ever more as He would have them be, and then live to make it so. Remember the prayer of St. Teresa of Avila

Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing; God never changes.

Patience obtains all things.
He who possesses God lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 26, 2006

Gratitude

First an apology: this theme has probably been beaten into the ground at this blog; however, it is so important and such a help to stability of faithfulness.

When a faith-life enters the doldrums, or even when it is humming along on an even if unenthusiastic keel, one thing which can be very helpful in ratcheting it up a notch is gratitude. Too often I am so self-centered that I forget to give thanks for the myriad of small things that make every day so wonderful and beautiful. Caught up in the tide of what needs to be done next and how do we manage this, that, and the other thing, and where is my next hour of entertainment coming from, and such like petty desires and thoughts, I forget the importance of being thankful and thus lose a certain graciousness, a connectedness that might otherwise blossom and grow more perfect.

Gratitude for small things inclines the heart to God, or at least so it seems. At very last gratitude for small things inclines the heart away from self and directs thoughts to another. Thankfulness for the courtesy of a held-open door or elevator; thankfulness for the smile on a small child's face, brought about by some trifling attention or by nothing at all; thankfulness for one's faithful and loving spouse, who while showing no great act of self-sacrifice or giving, shows constant self-denial and self-giving in the daily acts of living; thankfulness for gainful employment; thankfulness for sun when it's sunny, for rain when it's raining; thankfulness for the birds, the trees, the clear sky full of high white clouds, traffic lights, hibiscus in bloom, sundials, gardens, giant squids, and living fossils.

Thankfulness helps reignite a tepid faith life. Gratitude moves us from the central, fibrous core of self into the realm of God who grants all of these good things.

Gratitude. Thankfulness. Two indispensable words for one essential reality--recognition that everything I have comes to me as a gift from the fullness of the love of God. Even the words I read and write come to me from Another--One whose love completes me by helping to eradicate me and replace me, still myself, and yet now more Him.

Gratitude. Thankfulness. These too are gifts which may be had merely by thinking about them and inclining oneself to feel them. Grace makes this possible.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 21, 2006

The Law of Diminishing Returns

About my own faith-life I have reached a conclusion that emphatically will not apply to all, but which may apply to others.

The more I worry about such important things as justification and the mechanics and details of atonement and salvation, the less capable I am of living anything like a life of faith and belief.

While there is no certainty as to the origins of the problem, it would seem to stem from an inability to atomize, to dissect, as it were, and to regard the object under the microscope as the living fabric of faith that it is. More simply stated, I cannot at once concern myself with these things that strike me as the mechanics and mechanisms of salvation and with the Person through whom redemption and salvation have come. The analytic intellect clicks in and all that looms large is the meticulous reality of the great machine that whirs and clicks away.

It's a shame, but the personal, in this small case in my life, means far more than the theoretical. And it's strange because in most other aspects, the exact opposite holds true. Calculus and higher mathematics were always a breeze so long as they were theory along, once they became "practical," they were a sheer muddle.

Not so in the encounter with the Savior. The Person of Christ looms large, and in that Person all that appertains; they are part and parcel and I need not try to fathom how one works within the Other. I need merely accept that the Person of my salvation cares about me with a love that transcends time and death.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:03 AM | Comments (7)

May 12, 2006

The Secular Scripture

from The Girls of Slender Means
Muriel Spark

This became certain as Selina began to repeat, slowly and solemnly, the Two Sentences.

The Two Sentences were a simple morning and evening exercise prescribed by the Chief Instructress of the Poise Course which Selina had recently taken by correspondence, in twelve lessons for five guineas. The Poise Course believed strongly in auto-suggestion and had advised, for the maintenance of poise in the working woman, a repetition of the following two sentences twice a day:

Poise is perfect balance, an equanimity of body and mind, complete composure whatever the social scene. Elegant dress, immaculate grooming, and perfect deportment all contribute to the attainment of self-confidence.

Even Dorothy Markham stopped her chatter for a few seconds every morning at eight-thirty and evening at six-thirty, in respect for Selina's Sentences. All the top floor was respectful. It had cost five guineas.

Where faith and prayer are absent, something will rush in to fill the gap. Here, it is the seemingly innocent chant of self-confidence/self-esteem, that replaces, say, morning and evening prayer. But it isn't innocent because it is a prayer said to oneself, a chant designed to praise and adore the person within.

This is the form that all worship not outwardly directed takes. In fact, it seems to be the form that much outwardly directed worship takes as well. When one allows oneself to be carried away by distractions of one's own making: constant monitoring of the flow of Mass to be certain that no technical errors are made in the performance of the rubric, analysis of the lyrics of hymns to determine whether or not they are worthy of singing or truly give God praise, concern about the gestures or lack thereof made by one's neighbor, analysis of the homily to be certain that nothing heterodox has crept in, critiquing the voices of the readers as they perform their functions, and so forth, one is concerned primarily with oneself. This concern is expressed in the way of outward things, but the real message from all of this is, "I don't like the way things are going--they are not being done to my taste."

Self-worship creeps in in so many ways--the likes and dislikes that drive one this way or that, the little, seemingly meaningless "preferences" that fill up the worship service, flipping through the prayer book to find a new or different invitatory because one has prayed the old one to death, looking for a new song, a new psalm, a new translation, a new commentary. . . all things that relate to sensation and appetite transform the proper outward focus into a deliberate inner focus. One may as well be praying or chanting the Two Sentences.

Self-worship enters every time the attention is deflected from God to anything not God. And as with temptation, the mere deflection of thought is insufficient, it is the embrace of the distraction that marks self-worship.

I heard tell once of a priest in a parish who upon hearing an infant cry in the back of the Church stopped his homily and said, "Will you take that squalling infant out of here!" The person who told me the story had not been back to Church in twenty years. Nursing that offense is one form of self-worship. The offense itself was a form of self-worship. The error made being always to allow anything to come between oneself and God, and more particularly to allow anything not of charity to do so.

The possibilities of self-worship are endless and endlessly misleading. The reality of true worship, a single fine thread. Truly, "strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, wide is that path that leads to destruction." And each person chooses the way he or she will go.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 8, 2006

Look For God

And you will assuredly find Him. Or rather, you will finally notice that He has been finding us. Recounting his concentration camp experience, Viktor Frankl writes:

from Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor E. Frankl

Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth--that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way--an honorable way--in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

His parents named him Viktor, and indeed, he was. He survived the camps, and not only did he survive them, but he came out of them with a more intimate knowledge of God and of human nature.

For humanity, there is no higher goal, nor anything more sustaining that contemplating the image of the Beloved. Yes, there is much good in remembering the lesser goods, all of our beloved family and friends. But the highest form of contemplation, the form that breeds intimacy and speaks to salvation is contemplation of the Beloved. In this is salvation even in the worst of circumstances. One cannot even begin to imagine what life was like in the long haul of survival in the camps; however, in those same infinitely horrible, infinitely blasphemous camps, one man at least, survived and came to the rest of humanity with the message he received. He redeemed a science by acknowledging that our greatest good does not lie in ordering what is within, but in giving all to that in which we live and move and have our being. One moment of love of this Beloved is better than a thousand years of the bliss of love on Earth, as excellent as that is.

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May 4, 2006

There Is No Small Stuff

Every choice matters.

Any time there is a choice to be made, the way one decides determines to some extent the choices that become available thereafter.

In many cases choices are between two equally legitimate goods. In some cases the choices are between two goods, one of which is a greater good. In some cases the choices are between a good and an evil.

When this last is the case one must take a lesson from Church Teaching and from Harry Potter, one must always choose what is right not necessarily what is easy. The remarkable thing is that when one is trained in such choices, what is right becomes what is easy.

And each choice is a training in choices. That is why each one matters.

Now it is possible to read this too strictly and become paralyzed, uncertain of which way to go--doing the Christian equivalent of consulting the auguries over whether to have the baked potato or the sweet potato. That choice does matter, but it is so small a choice and the relative differences between the two so small that the "wrong choice" whichever it might be does not carry the weighty consequences of an incorrect moral choice. However, to dismiss it as an insignificant choice is to miss the point. Every opportunity to choose is an opportunity to learn. Every chance one has to select one thing over another is a chance to see what the consequences of a choice may be.

Some choices are enormous, thoroughly life altering. For example, on the mundane level, the choice to take a job near family and present friends or to move to a distant place to take a job. This choice does, in effect, shut down a lot of other choices that could be made. Either way, certain avenues are closed off.

So, too, when one is faced with a moral choice, but in an even more profound way. A choice to abuse recreational drugs may start out as a choice and may wind up as a necessity as the body becomes dependent upon them. The choice to cheat "just a little" on income tax, expense reports, petty cash vouchers, makes the next time just a little easier.

Every choice matters. Probably the place where this is most often overlooked is in our entertainment. There are a great many good, licit, and helpful choices that can be made regarding which types of entertainment we indulge in. However, for every good choice there are any number of bad choices. These bad choices, either because of lack of quality or lack of morality, move us downward, ever so slightly. Suddenly, from a life of enjoying Shakespeare and the western classics, one is watching Daisy Duke and reading "Classics Illustrated" comics. These are not things that happen with just a single choice, but a series of choices lead us down roads from which it is hard to turn away.

If beauty leads to God, lack of beauty, lack of goodness, must perforce lead away.

So many things seem not to matter. Watching this film, reading this book, going to this store, all are minor in themselves, but rich in their influence on future choice. When one deliberately lowers standards in order to "fit in" or "get along" or even "take it easy" or "chill out," the compromise has ramifications. It is impossible to guess where they might lead.

Now, all of this would be very dire if there were not recourse to God. Everything matters to God, even the smallest things done. It doesn't matter in the sense that salvation hangs upon every action, but it matters in the way that any good parent is concerned with everything his or her child does. God wants what is best for each person. God wants the proper choices to be made and He wants for each person to approach Him more closely. The choices one makes affect how closely one can approach God, therefore, God cares about those choices. Because He cares, He stands ready to help. Prayer is a constant help. Dedicating meals to God allow the participants to eat and enjoy the food prepared in a proper and balanced way. Prayer at other times helps prevent erroneous choices or redeem poor choices already made.

Prayer is the proper tool, the correct "weapon" in the war of choice. Prayer will guard and protect, advise and inform, and ultimately, the door opened to God and the Holy Spirit through prayer will allow the light to shine needed to see in the darkness of this present world. Whenever a choice is before us, a moment with God will suffice to help ensure the best choice is made. "Who has God lacks nothing."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:34 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Quietism

The genesis of quietism seems to be very easily explained because it is a paradox any Christian of good faith will butt up against in the course of living out a vocation.

If one accepts that there is no good action that does not begin with grace, continue sustained by grace, and end in grace, one is presented immediately with a problem--How do I know that I have the grace to proceed? If proceeding without grace is presumptuous and fruitless, how can one tell precisely when to begin? Telephone calls, post cards, and billet-doux (of a personal nature) from God are rare. How does one know when one is following God's will in a matter as subtle as moving on in prayer?

To this question, there does not appear to be a ready answer. One cannot assume that one has the grace and the go-ahead to proceed, but the desire to move on could probably be taken as a strong indicator that that is the direction one is called.

So what if one starts out on this road and fails? Or what if other things interfere? How do we sort out our presumption from interference by infernal agents?

Again, there seems to be no ready answer. However, this is one reason a person to discuss the spiritual life with is so important. Such a person should have broad knowledge and experience of the life he or she is trying to guide others to; he or she should be aware of the barriers to progress and the nature of these barriers. Is the barrier such that one should return to discursive meditation or vocal prayer, or is it one that requires persistence in the realm of mental prayer.

Quietism is one danger of an extreme interpretation of the doctrine of grace. It is one that is hard to avoid and very easy to give way to; however, we have as one indicator our own knowledge of the possibility. It would be relatively easy to identify extremes of behavior or attitude that suggest quietism--it's just the earlier stages that might present the pray-er with some difficulty.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 12:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 3, 2006

Excellence

from Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer
Fr. Thomas Dubay

There are two kinds of human excellence, the first of which is on the level of natural talents, gifts, accomplishments. . . . The second and higher type lies on the level of personal goodness, integrity, virtue, sanctity. . . .

It is immediately obvious that someone can be eminent n the first area of talent and accomplishments and a moral wretch in the second. There are thew few who excel on both levels: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila. It should be obvious to a consistent theist that to be a saint is immeasurably more important than to be a world class scholar, violinist or an Olympic gold medalist. . . .

This last sentence is the show-stopper. It should be immediately obvious to a consistent theist--first, is it immediately obvious? Do our actions, our choices, our outlooks, our interests, the direction we take on things show that this is our consistent outlook? Or do we rather tend to laud those who write well or speak well or play football well. Am I more interested in the poet laureate than in the saint down the street?

Second, I think we can read this to mean that a consistent theist's life should make this obvious. Do the things we are concerned about, fret about, talk about, lavish time and energy on, all reflect to the unbiased observer our knowledge that moral excellence is the superior excellence? Or do I have to go up to that observer and over the din of my book and television reviews, comments about this and that social agenda, remarks about other Christians and followers of other faith, inform him or her that I value above all else moral excellence.

If I am any measure (and I admit that I am at best a poor measure), our lives are not representative of the truths we claim to hold most dear. Most of us are more interested in the quality of our brew or smoke or dinner or literary circle.

The truth is that there is no harm in enjoying the simple pleasures of life on Earth. But our enjoyment of them should be secondary to our pursuit of excellence. Unfortunately, I know that it is not so for me. I pursue excellence half-heartedly as it seems to recede from me far too quickly.

Nevertheless, there is s remedy. I cannot change myself by myself. But "with God all things are possible." With God's grace and strength, I can begin to live the life that gives witness to the world of His strength and glory. When I can come to terms with my own emptiness and smallness, when those concepts are more than words stolen from other writers, I will have made some progress. When I can pray as consistently and as frequently as I should like to, when I can regulate my entertainments as well as I can my diet, when I can surrender to Beauty and make it known--then I will have made progress. All of these things are possible. Not only are they merely possible, the are potential. That is, a slight tipping of the scales, a moment of exerted will, a dollop of grace, and what could be becomes a reality.

This is true of everyone who has faith in a God who saves. It is true of everyone who wants to make the attempt. It is true of all the saints of St. Blogs. And we are all His saints, now, if we could but live our lives after the fashion of those raised to the honors of the Altar, how much better would our world and all those around us be for it?

As a great spiritual guide once said, "All is gift, All is grace." And All is for all people at all times. Gods grace, like potential energy stored within us, simply awaits our attention to be made active, simply calls for the movement of will that we need to shed our slothfulness to make. And in making that movement, grace begins the transformation of self. All we need do is get out of the way--cooperate to the extent we are able, and move forward in His light.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 3:05 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

The Enormity of Eliot on Love

Reading Howard's wonderful Dove Descending, I am reminded of how much goes into the art of poetry--every ounce of the life of a poet, and all of the skill that goes into summoning words into living, meaningful, vibrant representations of what is in the poet's head. Eliot was one of the last to write truly meaningful "exterior" poetry. After him a seemingly endless parade of posturing, grinning, self-aggrandizing, self-destructive confessional poets who have as their wares only themselves and their numbingly wearing and wearying dreary dull lives. (Any life lived where the sole object of attention is that person in the mirror who hates me is not worthy of the word "life.") Eliot is one of the few with something important to say. And this is what I both love and hate about Eliot. Unfortunately, there are times when he is all too aware that he has something to say. And sometimes it shows.

But putting that aside for the moment. This morning opening up Howard I tripped over a passage that sent me back to the poem leading me to share with you this marvelous sentence.

"Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter."

It is literally dropped in from nowhere at the end of East Coker, and it is a magnificent and true observation. Love is only love when the self is out of the equation. That can only happen when here and now cease to matter. Howard makes the point a different way:

from Dove Descending
Thomas Howard

But what is this about love being most nearly itself when her and now cease to matter? Just that. The man in whom love has been perfected is at home in any place (here or there) and in any time (now or then). He has gone beyond the futility of nostalgia and wistfulness. He is as fully at peace under the lamplight as he was under the stars with his new beloved. No lamenting a lost youth for him. There is a time for this. It is appointed. The wise man of Ecclesiasitcus has already told us so.

(With that last sentence, I'm a little confused, perhaps because I don't know Ecclesiasticus the way I ought, but isn't it the wise man of Ecclesiastes who told us that "there was a time for every purpose under heaven?")

Selflessness allows the person to range freely and comfortably through time and space. No Billy Pilgrim here with the vertiginous careening through Trafalmadorian interference. Even unstuck in time, the person in whom love is perfected is not disoriented by where or when. Because the where and when is eternal. When love is perfected on participates fully in the life of God and thus partakes of eternity while here on Earth.

So once again, I encourage you all--all you fans of Flannery, you champions of Walker, you admirers of Waugh and friends of Spark; in short, all you who love and support Catholic literature--seek out Eliot's poem (you can find it on the web, if you don't care to embarrass yourself with pretentiousness in a library) and read it. And if it makes no sense, read it again. And if there still isn't an inkling, do Ignatius Press and Mr. Howard a favor and buy the book. You really will be glad you did.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 2, 2006

Conversion

from Deep Conversion/Deep Prayer
Fr. Thomas Dubay

An accurate synonym for conversion, as we are using the word here, would be transformation. Put simply conversion is a basic and marked improvement on the willing level of the human person. Even more pointedly, it is a fundamental change in our willed activities from bad to good, from good to better, and from better to best. Anyone who is fully alive will find this a stimulating set of ideas. We can put the matter in still another way. Conversion is a change from vice to virtue: from deceit and lying to honesty and truth. . .gluttony to temperance. . . vanity to humility. . . lust to love. . . avarice to generosity. . . rage to patience. . . laziness to zeal. . . ugliness to beauty.

From the point of view of attention to and intimacy with God, supreme Beauty, supreme Delight, conversion includes a change from little or no prayer to a determined practice of christic meditation leading eventually to contemplative intimacy, "pondering the word day and night", lending to a sublime "gazing on the beauty of the Lord" with all its varying depths and intensities (PS 1:1-2; 27:4).

I love the works of Fr. Thomas Dubay. I have read most of them. Some take a good deal longer than others to internalize. It took me over a year to read and understand The Fire Within. I still have not completed, or even fully started The Evidentiary Power of Beauty. His writing is dense, sometimes difficult, but always fulfilling. So, too, it appears with this book. The passage noted above is one that I've read every day for the last week or so, trying to encompass all that is said here. The surface of it is clear enough. Conversion is the willing change of life for a better, more intimate relationship with God. But the real depths lie in the comparisons and in the things Dubay indicates may happen and in the underlying assumption that an increased intimacy with God will connect us with both with God and with a sense of beauty and wonder at His magnificence.

Significant to me is the last of the list of transformations--from ugliness to beauty. Now, this is an interesting point. By growing closer to God, ugliness will be transformed into beauty. Obviously Fr. Dubay is speaking of something other than mere physical appearance, because we know that God's intimates run the spectrum from the exquisite beauty of Rose of Lima and Elizabeth of the Trinity or Edith Stein, to St. Margaret of Castello. Physical beauty, while surely a gift from God, is not what Fr. Dubay is talking about here. So one assumes that he is speaking of a life imbued with beauty--with the ability to perceive the beauty that is God underlying all created things, and with a life that is lived beautifully--in union with Him. When we look objectively at the life of someone like Mother Teresa, we don't immediately say, "Oh, what a beautiful life." Our initial reactions may be more along the lines of, "What a heroic life," or "What a difficult life." But when we delve a little deeper, we break in upon sheer loveliness, a loveliness that was reflected in the person of this diminutive friend of the poor. She was not beautiful to look at in strictly aesthetic terms, but her loveliness was greater than that of her near contemporary in death, Princess Diana. Her life was a beautiful jewel in the slums of India.

As I continue to read this book, I shall probably return to this passage from time to time. It ignites all sorts of thoughts, and provokes all sorts of inspirations and influences. It serves as a road map and a clear sign marking out the territory. And Fr. Dubay has clearly made growth in sanctity a beautiful and desirable thing. While this is always a vague desire in the background, I sometimes think that it really a pretty boring preoccupation alongside, say, surfing or diving or parasailing. But the interesting point is that none of these things are in conflict with sanctity--only seemingly so. One can live a life completely devoted to God and still partake of the good things of the world--certainly not to excess and not to the point where it intrudes upon ministry; however, the licit goods are good for all. St. John of the Cross went for long walks through the country, enjoying the beauty that gave ample evidence of the glory and presence of God. Pursuit of holiness does not mean that the world is tossed away. Indeed, as the great saints show us, it often means a more authentic and more realistic involvement with all the goods of creation--a proper use, a proper ordering, and a proper caring for the things God has given to us.

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May 1, 2006

T.S.Eliot's Riff on St. John of the Cross

from Four Quartets: "East Coker" III
T.S. Eliot

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

from Ascent of Mount Carmel I.13.11

St. John of the Cross

To reach satisfaction in all
Desire its possession in nothing,
To come to the knowledge of all
Desire the knowledge of nothing.
To come to possess all
Desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
Desire to be nothing.
To come to the pleasure you have not
You must go by a way in which you enjoy not.
To come to the knowledge you have not
You must go by a way in which you know not.
To come to the possession you have not
You must go by a way in which you possess not.
To come to be what you are not
You must go by a way in which you are not.
When you turn toward something
You cease to cast yourself upon the all,
For to go from the all to the all
You must possess it without wanting anything.
In this nakedness the spirit finds its rest,
for when it covets nothing
nothing raises it up and nothing weighs it down,
because it stands in the centre of its humility.

In the third division of East Coker, T.S. Eliot embarks upon the journey into dark. At first this journey is equated with death, "O dark, dark, dark. They all go into the dark," is the first line of the section. He then goes through a litany of who "they all" are and the fact that they all go into the dark. He seems to make the point that the dark comes upon everyone whether or not they are prepared to enter it. Then, at the end of the section, Eliot segues to a different dark, another kind of death--the death, while yet willing, of the self and selfishness, which can only proceed along the dark way, the via negativa the "dark night of the soul." It is a dark night because cherished false images of self must die in the light of God Himself. Indeed, the light of God Himself is so light that it appear dark to those ill-equipped to receive it.

Death to self is not death of self. To travel to God in this life, one must die to self, to selfishness, to self-involvement, to all the illusions and images of oneself that have become so cherished. One must consent to being stripped down to the barest nothingness and reconstructed in God's image. This is terrifying, at least in the abstract. But when one stops to consider that nearly everyone experiences this to one degree or another without tremendous instantaneous repercussions, it becomes less terrifying and more inviting. Children are taught by the parents from very early on not to be selfish and self centered. They are constantly reminded "please, thank you, excuse me." They are constantly told, although not in so many words, to die to self.

When a person behaves in "conventional" ways, following the rules of courtesy or etiquette, that person dies to self a little. It isn't a major, earth-shaking trauma, but a small turning away from serving oneself and toward serving another. When one gives place, willingly or unwillingly to another, one dies to self--sometimes reluctantly and bitterly, engendering rage and a desire for vengeance. Sometimes willingly, engendering love and charity.

The death to self must be complete to continue on the path to God. These many small things add up, but each person is asked for more. Each person is asked, in fact, for everything. But most of the time they are not asked for every at once. It is a slow growth, a gentle path, as yet winding through the foothills that lead up to Mount Carmel. The steep ascent is another matter entirely, and there must be a certain amount of shedding of self that occurs before one can set foot on the mountain proper.

But everyone is called, and in this life or the next, all will Ascend through the darkness of the weight of self into the light of the Father. This is what purgatory and heaven are all about--shedding self to become God while remaining distinctly who one is in Him. Salvation--to be who one is without shame; to shine always with His light. But the path of salvation is dark because people tend to love themselves almost to the exclusion of everything else. So it is through darkness that we arrive at light, although as we travel, God's light is all around--so brilliant one calls it darkness.

Later: One is lead to wonder as well whether the first lines of this section of East Coker are not meant to hearken back to a previous poet. Tennyson seems to be referred to, particularly with reference to this poem:

Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

But following the rule of three, one would have to find other correspondences before anything so bold could be asserted. Notes for a future consideration of the two.

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April 28, 2006

Continuing Conversion

from Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer
Fr. Thomas Dubay

The young abbot was speaking to his community one day and he made a remark that shocked me on my first reading of it. "There are more people converted from mortal sin to grace, than there are religious converted from good to better." Over the years the more I have experienced of life and thought about the statement the more I have been convinced of its truth. Yet one may ask, what is so shocking about it? . . .

Putting the saint's observation in simple contemporary terms may help. Bernard was saying that there are more men who give up serious alienation from God, mortal sin, than there are people who give up small wrongs, willed venial sins. And there are even fewer who grow into heroic virtue and live as saints live. If we are not saddened by this realization, we ought to be. . .

Yet a bit more unpacking is needed. A large part of the sadness is the expectation that anyone who basically loves another (real sacrificing love, not mere attraction) in important matters (for example, a husband loving his wife) would naturally go on to love her in smaller ones. I would assume that he would stop being grouchy and abrupt and harsh, that he would be at pains to be kind and gentle, patient and forgiving. I would assume the same in her behavior toward him.

A step further: We would suppose that a person who realistically and fundamentally loves God would be at pains to avoid all smaller offenses against him: gossiping, laziness, overeating, as well as the venial sins mentioned in our previous paragraph--and myriads of other minor wrongs. . . . But everyone knows that such is unhappily a rare occurrence in the human family. Something is amiss--and on a large scale. Yes, if everything were normal in society, deep conversion would be common, and life would be incomparably happier for everyone.

Something is wrong with the life of a person who claims to love God and cannot leave off those things that offend Him the most. Mortal sins are relatively easy to drop. One knows that one is committing them and knows that they are wrong. The sheer enormity of them, unless habit has dulled us to their grossness, is enough to help us shy away.

But how many claim to love God and then reel out all sorts of pettiness on those around them. I count myself among these people. I know how harsh and unforgiving I can be. I am aware of how easily I am aggravated, irritated, and angered. All of these stem from my overweening Pride--a pride so large I cannot even see its boundaries and recognize it as pride.

That is one of the reasons I love Father Dubay's writing so much. It puts me back in touch with central realities of the faith.

Isn't a life in Christ about becoming ever more like Him? Does that leave room for myself in the equation. The more I am myself, the less I am Him. It is the reverse of kenosis. And a lack of awareness about how full I am of self is the first problem. When this floats up to awareness, my first reaction is to back away and pretend that it isn't true. My second reaction (equally useless) is to read through the book as quickly as possible and thus find all the ways to give the lie to pride, thus avoiding engagement with the problem at all. Reading is rarely prayer, it is an excuse not to have to do prayer. This is one of the reasons that the Ignatian Exercises during which we were given a single verse of scripture to meditate on for an hour, were so difficult. I want to read, not to spend the time meditating. It is the temptation in lectio to keep reading, not to pause over what gives one pause--but to get to the end of something or to find more fruitful territory. All of these are manifestations of spiritual pride.

But the thing to remember, to keep squarely in mind, is that the Lord is in control, if I allow Him to be. I can't see the gross outlines of pride, but He has mapped it, charted it, and knows full well how to fold it back up and stow it away. Alone I cannot tangle with the intricate mysteries of self that produce such unpleasant effects for others--anger, envy, sloth, pride, lust, gluttony, avarice. But He knows the contours of these things and those remedies that are most effective. He is the divine physician and nothing that is wrong with me is beyond His skill to heal. Now, I need merely the grace to help me keep my determination to walk the path and to put myself aside (for if I'm serving myself, I can serve no one else). My joy is in the Lord Himself, who in His mercy will set me free from autotyrrany. He will be Lord, and no longer I. This is the promise He has made those who truly wish to follow Him. As I pray every day, "We are his people, the flock He Shepherds." So let it be with me starting this hour and moving into the future. And when I fail, I must renew the prayer and rely on His grace, for my failures are to teach me as well.

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April 27, 2006

Good Lord, Forgive me

Here is a reconstruction of the psalm to indicate my particular experiences over at Zippy's and Disputations of recent date:

Revised Psalm 131

1] O LORD, my heart is way lifted up,
my eyes are ever raised too high;
I stuff myself full of things
too great and too marvelous for me.
[2) And I have incited and roiled-up my soul,
like a child unfed and squalling at its mother's breast;
like a child that is mid-squall is my soul.
[3] Nevertheless, I hope in the LORD
from this time forth and for evermore.

I don't know why I engage in these ways. I haven't the intellectual wherewithal to do it, and it amounts to mere temptation to pride. But at least the two discussion have been fruitful and I think I begin to understand some things that have never made much sense to me. If you're inclined to do so the comments at ,DNR at Disputations can be quite mind-boggling. The discussion centers around the question of what post-resurrection bodies are/will be/ can only be and whether or not they are the "same" bodies that are present here and now. (I was going to write, that we "possess" now, but that seems rather wrong for a whole raft of reasons I'm unready to reel off.) But the discussion is exemplary of the way an exchange of ideas may take place that helps those attentive to and desirous of the truth to move toward the truth even if its fullness eludes them.

Nevertheless, it would be pure and damnable hubris to claim that I am in any way up to the discussion and that to engage in it is not engaging things far beyond my own capacity. I only hope that by listening and asking questions I can come to fuller knowledge--God will be merciful even as I am not.

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April 24, 2006

On the Film Version of DVC

Around St. Blogs right now there seems to be a couple of issues that surface and resurface. One of them is particularly hot at the moment and that is "Whatever shall we do about the new DaVinci Code movie?" This is a troublesome issue from several points of view: (1) it has a major box-office draw (for others, personally, I haven't liked Tom Hanks in anything since Joe v. the Volcano); (2) The director is high-powered with an enormously popular repertoire (here again, I'm out of the loop--I haven't cared for anything since EdTV).

What I find disturbing are those who rail against the people who say that the movie presents an opportunity for evangelism. My own view of it is that people who talk about the evangelism opportunities have been given lemons and are attempting to make the best of it. I'm not wildly enthusiastic about the conversation that might ensue from The DaVinci Code, but if it fires up interest in those unchurched and I'm there to answer questions and direct them to resources, then perhaps I can make the best of a bad thing.

Will some lose their faith over this? I honestly don't know, but if so, there wasn't much substance there any way and such faith needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up. The best one could say is that it was a jerry-rigged faith that one zephyr or another was bound to topple. It is the disadvantage of living in the age of the poorly catechized church.

However, I do say that we should not be so hard on those who are trying to see the "up side" of the inevitable. Unlike The Last Temptation of Christ which was made by a director who was popular only among the film critics, Ron Howard has a huge popularity base. The only real hope for failure of this film is terrible screen-writing that takes what was always a very cinematic plot and turns it into a boring maundering through the museums of the world. So, I don't think we can hold out a lot of hope for its utter failure. Given that, those so inclined need to consider the opportunities for evangelism and for education. Stock up on the resources out there to combat the serious errors of The DaVinci Code and keep in mind the words of Paul, who says (and I paraphrase), "The sower does not see the seed to harvest; he cannot know what fruit springs therefrom." In other words, your conversations in the wake of this storm are important. Your ability to defend your faith and support Church teaching in a way that is both convivial and accurate are critical elements of any conversation. Your ability to refer truly interested parties to resources that can lead them closer to God can make of this an opportunity for the salvation of souls. It isn't an argument on the best ground, nor is it the way I would prefer to engage those who are seeking; nevertheless, it is what we have been given.

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April 21, 2006

Psalm 51

This is the only Friday of the year on which we do not pray Psalm 51. And, frankly, I miss it. I know that we are in the season of light and joy; and yet, I find psalm 51, despite its penitential tone to be full of light and joy."O purify me, then I shall be clean;/O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow." And these lines are so perfectly consonant with the antiphon for the first psalm on Easter Sunday: "The splendor of Christ risen from the dead has shone on the people redeemed by his blood, alleluia."

In the before times--times before I had become Catholic, and times that were somewhat more conservative and more prone to the influence of traditional thought, there was much emphasis among the protestant crowd on being "washed in the blood of the lamb." I haven't heard this much among the Catholics I've associated with, but it has a long protestant tradition and stems directly from several passages in scripture. This is one of the holdovers I have from the before times, and I still think in these terms. I am redeemed by His blood and it has been placed on the doorpost and on the lintel of the door to my soul--I am marked by God by my confirmation, my baptism, and my reception of the sacraments. I am among His chosen people so long as I choose to be. The only thing my will can effect that is not inspired by grace is to reject this great gift. I can choose at any time to reject the Lord, to say no to His gift, to walk away from His people. This is a very real possibility, AND it is the only possibility that lies outside His grace; however, it does not lie outside of His permissive will. The Lord is not a rapist, He will not force His love on those who choose to reject it.

But in thinking through these things, I begin to understand where the "once saved, always saved" error intrudes into some Protestant thought. When one enters the Church and/or accepts Christ as one's savior (allies one's will to the will of God), the desire to continue in Church, to receive the sacraments, to discover more about this magnificent heritage, to worship the God who gave all this to us grows. Yes, it can be dimmed by our own sin, it can be rejected by pique or by rebellion. But the reality is that it is hard to reject these things once one has partaken of them and understands what one has tasted. They are extraordinary. How many of us converts would return to the fold from which we have come? I daresay, despite the many problems in the Church, it would be precious few. I know what I have found here and what I was never able to find elsewhere, and it is far too valuable to throw away no matter what the provocation. So, too, I suspect with any person who willingly embraces the faith and comes to love God. Salvation is not assured, but it becomes difficult to reject God. There is always the intent to follow. It can be suppressed and crushed, but Jesus is there to revive it, to seek out the one lost.

Truly, once marked by the blood of the Lamb, and accepting that mark ourselves and making it our own, I become one of the sheep of his flock. I grow in love for the Lord by His constant attention. Nevertheless, just as a man can walk away from a woman at any time, no matter how profoundly he has declared His love, it is entirely possible for me to walk away from the Lord. And though the mark is indelible, the gift that comes with it need not be accepted.

These are the thoughts that occur to me with the recitation of psalm 51. Wash me and I shall be white than snow. When I pray that line, I am renewing my humility, my willingness to be near and with the Lord. Each Friday is a day of joy because I can unload that sinfulness (in one sense--though not the sacramental sense) and dance once again in the presence of Him who washes me clean.

Another thought occurs as I write this. When I say "Wash me and I shall be clean," I am also becoming as one of the little ones. Few adults ask others to wash them; some are forced to accept the ordeal, but few take it upon themselves. Whereas we all know that small children are washed and cleaned by their parents. It is a moment of parent/child intimacy that will linger with the child throughout his or her life, even if it is unconscious rather than conscious. When we pray this way, we are admitting our littleness, our infancy in the face of the Lord; how can he help but react as every reasonable parent reacts and take us up in His arms, and hold us tight to Him.

"O wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."

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April 20, 2006

Get Serious About Prayer

That's what I say to myself. Stop the endless fragmented, half-hearted, attempts at prayer and get serious.

Getting serious is, of course, only possible through the grace God gives me. I can't will myself to be serious about prayer, although I can conform my will to His desire for me to be serious about prayer. I can start doing things that would lead me deeper into a life of prayer.

"Such as?" I ask myself. (And I note, lest I be accused of semi-pelagianism, that even these things must start with, be fostered by, and culminate in Grace.)

Fostering an environment, internal and external, for prayer.

(1) The external is less important except as it eventually can help shape the interior space, but I must follow the chain of grace into the life of real prayer. I must fill the space with light from the wisdom of the Saints and from the scriptures. I must take off the shutters that I have long used to deny access to the delicate archive of false self. Let the strong rays burn away what is not of God.

(2) Controlling frivolous and detrimental speech. Too many words water down whatever there is of importance, even when these words are not directly involved in the action. More, overuse of words weakens their essential power to move us. And still more, we tend to start believing what we speak--it is part of the power of the words. That is why Jesus tells us that it is what comes out of a person that makes him or her unclean. When I speak ill of another, I begin to believe what I say and I condemn myself thought lack of charity. The fullness of my heart overflows into my words. So rather than speak every idle thought that enters my head, perhaps a span of time should be placed in front of whatever response I am to make, and in that short span, I should really search my heart for the Gem that I know lies under the ash and allow it to shine forth in whatever words I must use.

(3) Removal of all those things that keep me away from God in whatever way. And by removal, I don't mean mere physical disposal of these things, but true attention once more to God's grace and His call. I've already seen how mere will-power can be utterly ineffectual in weeding out those things that lead us astray. Only grace can allow us to leave all for All. However, grace doesn't work by itself. I mustn't lapse into quietism. My will and my desire is required. Without my consent, grace, unless prevenient is utterly ineffectual. God will not force me to Love, but He is constantly inviting me.

Getting serious about prayer is getting serious about the one thing that matters and the one thing that has any potential to help me and the world around me. So, why do I continue to waste valuable time?

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April 19, 2006

Forget Everything You Think You Know About the Carmelites

(A personal reflection)

I was startled today to realize that for the better part of ten or eleven years of pursuing a Carmelite vocation I have really been pursuing an illusion conjured by my reading of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of �?vila--the dream of the mystic encased in God. But Carmel is really and substantively about total immersion in God's word with resultant service to His people as summarized by this reflection:

from At the Fountain of Elijah
Wilfrid McGreal

Two contemporary Carmelites, Kees Waaijman and John Welch, have reflected on the closing lines of the Rule and have something to say that may help us respond to today's needs. The concluding lines of the Rule are as follows; Here then are a few points I have written down to provide you with a standard of conduct to live up to: but Our Lord at his Second Coming will reward anyone who does more than he is obliged to.

According to Welch and Waaijman this passage seems to refer to the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Carmelite is the Innkeeper and Christ has come bringing the sick and the wounded asking that they be cared for--that everything possible be done to help. Christ will return and then repay the Innkeeper. According to this interpretation the Carmelite has his or her world turned upside down by the visit of Christ. We are asked to care for people with all their needs and wounds. This request, which causes inconvenience, challenges the Carmelite out of any egocentricity and reminds him or her that life is a mess and unpredictable. Spirituality is not a cosy option but is the call to respond to the gift of God's love by our involvement in what is often a dark and difficult world. Waaijman suggests: 'Real giving is essentially dark, and this is 'the going beyond' of the Rule into a desert of love, a night of trust.'

We spend time in the Scriptures to learn how to serve the Lord of the Scriptures and by serving demonstrate what true love means. In this round of life we may taste of the delights that are described by the Mystics. But whether this happens or not what matters is complete obedience to what God asks of us through the rule. Our obedience is its own reward--nothing more need come from God to me save the grace to obey and so to serve and to love.

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Treading the Thin Line

I don't often think about how difficult the life of a priest can be, but they are constantly called to a certain balance and aplomb. This passage from The Collar makes a case-in-point.

from The Collar
Jonathan Englert

As far as the magisterium went, Don's resistance had been in the area of sexual teaching. The Church clearly opposed birth control, but Don couldn't really accept the Church's position. Somewhere along the way, Don had read Pope John Paul II's Gospel of Life, and it had convinced him that birth control, abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty are part of a continuum. The organizing principle is the sacredness of each human life. To be against one of these principles meant that a person was against all four. He had reflected on his own marriage in light of this and had become convinced that part of the reason for its failure had been that his wife had never been open to the prospect of children. They had used birth control from the start, and Don now believed that taking the procreative possibility out of the act of making love deprived it of a profound and holy dimension and risked reducing it to a selfish pleasure. Done knew how complicated this area was and how carefully one had to tread--especially as a pastor in a nation where a reported 75 percent of Catholics did not hold the Church's view. (p. 108)

The priest is in a teaching position, responsible for educating his flock in the truth of the Catholic faith. To do so he must, first of all, not alienate the majority of them. In addition, no matter how well formed, it is entirely possible that a priest may question the truth of some of these teachings himself.

Don's journey describes in part of its arc, my own journey into the truth of the Church, and I cannot but suspect that even for someone raised within the Church, the encounter with these truths often takes some time. I can conceive of a man called to the priesthood in all good conscience who might have some difficulty wrestling with this issue in view of all the problems in the world. Nevertheless, as a man of integrity and as a personal representative of the Church and as the local "official" spokesperson, it is necessary for the priest to try to teach the Catholic truth, even where his own convictions may differ. I know that there are a good many priests (probably all of them) who fail in this in one field or another. Where they are orthodox on sexual teachings, they may have problems on social teachings, or ecumenism, or any number of other areas. Nevertheless, the priest must teach.

Assume for a moment that the priest does hold to the truth of the sexual teachings of the Church. He could walk up to the ambo one day for the homily and harangue his congregation about the evils of birth control. In so doing, he might convince one and alienate a hundred. He must convey the truth, but he must do so in a way that can get through the defenses and bring the people he serves to their own knowledge of the truth. The messy fact about the truth is that it can only rarely be taught, often the best one can do is summon up the arguments and wait for the person one is speaking to to experience the truth. Because, after all, the truth is a person.

The priest finds himself in this delicate situation with regard to nearly every revealed truth the Church has to offer. As one obliged to lead his flock to the truth, it is a difficult responsibility. There is a passage in the book of the prophet Ezekiel (EZ 33:2--see extended entry) in which God says something like, "Woe to the watchman who does not keep his watch and whose people are destroyed because of it, for their sins shall be upon his head. But woe unto the people who do not attend the watchman. . ." You get the point. As appointed watchmen, it is incumbent upon the local priest to reveal the truth as taught by the Catholic Church. And as pastor of souls, it is his duty to try to capture the greatest number possible in the net--so a harangue from the ambo may not serve as the best means of convicting the majority.

I honestly don't often think about this. But in a microcosm, we are all in the same position. If you have a friend or friends who you know are practicing birth control, you can stop your conversation to inform them of the grave sinfulness of their practice. That will be received differently depending upon the degree of friendship, but it is likely to have a souring effect. One must be as "cunning as serpents and as innocent as a dove." Thus, we find ourselves addressing these wrongs in ways that can be heard by the people we love and hope to help. It may take months or years to convey what there is to know. That is the duty and responsibility of each person to the extent they are capable. Each person needs to stand for the fullness of the truth that resides in the Catholic Faith. My approach, more often than not, is not to attempt to correct the error directly, but to express my doubts about a given proposition and suggest where one might find some elucidation on the matter. If someone asks me questions indicating a certain affinity with a position of moral relativism, I might nudge them in the direction of Veratatis Splendor explaining that while I have not the intellectual wherewithal to engage in such a high-level discussion, here is one who has addressed it far better than I could. And so on. I suppose it is a way of copping out, but it is also a way of turning someone on to the truth as the Church teaches it.

Next time you're tempted to ask your priest why he doesn't produce thunderous sermons on the nature of sin and its punishments, pause and think about the make-up of your local Catholic community and imagine how it might be received. There was a time that such sermons were a mainstay of Church life, but today, there are any number of places a person can go, including merely to another parish, to escape the unpleasant reality of Church teaching. It is the job of the priest to convey those truths in such a way as to guide the greatest number of his entrusted soul on to glory--the rest he must trust to providence. At one time, no one would gainsay anything a priest might teach--sometimes this had disastrous consequences. Nowadays, it is not unusual to see a parishioner berating a priest in the Narthex after Mass. There are "champions of orthodoxy and purity in ritual" who don't think twice about upbraiding a priest in public for any abuse, liturgical or homiletical, real or imagined. Given these truths, it is not hard to conceive of why a priest might be somewhat more toned-down than we might consider right and proper. In truth, the position of a priest can be a most unenviable situation somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

Ezekiel 33:2-9

2 Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:

3 If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;

4 Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.

5 He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.

6 But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.

7 So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me.

8 When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

9 Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:30 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 18, 2006

The Mysterious Wisdom of Contemplation

The wise man knows how to run his life so that contemplation is possible. Gabriel Marcel

Although the statement seems to beg a certain amount of chicken and egging, one wonders why it would be a wise person who would choose contemplation. After all, the wisdom of this world informs us that contemplation has nothing whatsoever to do with success. The wisdom of this world is inextricably bound up with notions of success. Resting on one's laurels, as contemplation is often seen, is hardly the road to advancement. And as far as worldly wisdom is concerned with respect to perceived advancement, the argument is essentially correct.

Contemplation does not get the housework done; it doesn't merit promotions in our jobs; it doesn't put food on the table; it doesn't buy a new car, truck, or boat; it doesn't pay for a vacation. Contemplation seems little more than a way to fill the idle hours that one has if one doesn't watch television.

Of course those who bother to read these words don't buy into any of these myths; however, many may not be aware of the true wisdom of seeking contemplation. It is wisdom because despite all the many ways of approaching God, the only real way to intimacy with God, in this life or the next, is through contemplation. We can study God's word, philosophize, theorize, synthezise, metabolize, internalize, externalize, realize, and irrealize, and never approach closer to God than when we take a cup of tea or a spare moment and simply spend time with Him. This can take any number of forms. Those of us with busy minds might like to have a short text in front of us to focus our attention and keep out some of the more distracting elements. Those inclined to a naturally serene modus vivendi may not require such external helps. However it is done, spending time with the beloved is a wise thing to do.

Study, analysis, and rigorous reasoning can bring one a great distance in understanding of God; however, they often don't help at all in understanding God. The only way to begin that is as with any object beloved--spend time. When a person spends the time with the beloved, things once very dark become lighter. Patterns only scarcely discernable in one's own life become marked as though with phosphorescent dye. Questions fade into realizations.

Wisdom comes not from knowing about but from knowing intimately, as intimately and more intimately than one knows one's spouse, because the God one wishes to know dwells inside us and waits only for a moment's turning to open a person up to His hospitality.

There comes a time when study must end and conversation must begin. Growth continues from the information in the mind to the formation of the Soul in the very image of Him who fashioned all creation.

God awaits a moment's opportunity. A moment that can become an eternity even now--timeless and beyond time--a period of intimacy with the Lord who is Love.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 3:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 17, 2006

Lenten Joy/Easter Joy

This post might as easily have been entitled, "What Joy Means to Me."

Easter has come and marked a change in time. Were I to take this very fine post at Disputations at face value, I would be very much concerned. The deeper into penance one goes during Lent, the higher into joy one goes when Easter comes. And this seems very true. However, my Easter season is little different from my Lenten season--there is no profound surge of emotion, no exultation that was not already present in Lent. What there is instead is a quiet reassurance that what began in Lent will continue quietly through the Easter season and beyond. The changes that have started can take root and transform life. This quiet assurance that marked the whole of Lent, marks Easter as well. God is present. He conquered Death to be present to us.

Hence, a word of caution about what "joy" might mean. It may, in its popular understanding be mistaken for happiness; but, that is not the fullness of meaning, and certainly not the fullness Tom was aiming for when He wrote. The essence of Joy is living in the presence of the Lord. As proximity increases, so too does joy. When proximity is such that all that is present is the darkness that comes when God wishes to draw us into Himself, joy is still there in the clinging to faith and the standing firm on God. Easter joy may not come upon one as an emotion so much as a confirmed change in life, a determination to move ahead less full of oneself and more full of Christ.

Easter joy takes many forms, not all of which would be readily understood as such by everyone; however, this joy dwells in the heart and it may affect different people quite differently. As with the gathering at a charismatic prayer group, there will be those who are loud and express God's word in great joy, and those who quietly relish His presence among His people.

If your joy is not the shout out and dance experience, don't worry. Treasure what God has given you in the secret recesses of your heart and determine to take the small gift and make the most of it. Move closer to the Lord with each day, with each prayer. Turn the penance of Lent to good purpose by looking on the face of the Lord. Grow in love with Him--that is part of the season of Easter. The good work begun in you at your baptism is brought each year to this fullness and transformed in His light.

May we all continue to grow in His ways in fullness of heart and great joy at the assurance of His tender love for us.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Seniority at the Seminary

Reading The Collar by Jonathan Englert and found this rather interesting observation:

from The Collar Jonathan Englert

Seniority at the seminary was curious and certainly not the kind of thing found at schools with age-based grades. The diversity of ages and experiences at Sacred Heart turned this sense of the word "seniority" upside down. Nevertheless, a distinct sense of seniority existed at Sacred Heart. The men close to ordination tended to be looked up to and deferred to. More than that, they actually seemed to be more mature than the newer men. Indeed, some men who had been married and had children and grandchildren could seem younger than others who were decades their junior. It was as if upon entering the world of the seminary, bereft of the usual markers of a life, each man somehow betrayed his spiritual age and the distance he still had to go to become a parish priest. A man like Don Malin, a consummate example of the formation process, provided a yardstick again which these "younger" men could be measured and also could measure themselves.

Isn't this true of how many approach a priest in real life? Men who are decades or years younger than oneself are fonts of wisdom and those we go to to solve problems. From the description provided here it would seem that the formation process is a finishing school, a place where vocations are discerned and persons refined and "polished" to a high gloss. There are, of course, as many different kinds of priest as there are kinds of people, quiet, boisterous, wise, foolish, smart, and not-so-smart. From all of this one can discern what differentiates them all from everyone else--if properly formed, they have discerned and nurtured a vocation, a calling from God, in such a way as to prepare them (although I'm sure many would wish for even greater preparation) to support the people of God in all of their wanderings.

Or so it would seem from the course of the book. I don't know how many priests plan to read it. Although as professionals in their fields, I would suspect a great many would look at it as I would a book about palaeontologists--just to see if the author got the details right--whether or not it rings true. There are certainly things here that seem very sound and very well-grounded.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 16, 2006

Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Alleluia

May God through the glorious mystery of His Risen Son grant each of us a blessed, holy, and joyous Easter season.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 13, 2006

More Thoughts on Service

It would seem that the life of service springs from the fullness of love. Recall the scene in Ben-Hur when Judah Ben-Hur encounters Christ on the via dolorosa. Ben-Hur wishes to serve Jesus, just as he was served by Jesus. The impulse may be in part obligation, but it is also gratitude and a true love and awe that has begun to grow in Ben-Hur through his encountering Christ.

When most people meet Christ in the form of simple services, that desire to serve begins to grow, and fed enough, will begin to overflow. The small acts of service received each day blossom into a realization of love and a life of service.

Love is at the center of service. The love of Jesus Christ is the motive for all service worthy of the name. Because of the love of God and person is willing to go out of his or her way to help another. It is only this love that will inspire that kind of service. In the sacramental bond of matrimony, the husband and wife are bound to one another through love, of course, but also by ties of mutual service. The service grows from the love that forms the core of the relationship, or the service does not grow at all.

When anyone begins to seriously consider the life of Christ and His many demonstrations of love for each of God's children, the consideration cannot end in anything less than the desire to imitate the Beloved. The greatest joy of love is to serve another

A person does not start serving to learn love, although that may happen. A person learns love and then starts to serve. Until love is at the center, service is more self-serving and self-satisfying than it is service. A person serves for the small good feeling it gives to be helping someone else, or perhaps from other less gracious motives. However, even this beginning can grow into the service that stems from love. All service to the physical and spiritual needs of others is good and it is a good place to start from. But the service that stems from love is divine--in origin and in effect. God takes the obedience and humility offered in service and transforms them into glory, if only the person is ready to receive it.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:56 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

“Unless I wash you. . . "

What a wealth of meanings springs from this simple phrase. Holy Thursday is a day to think about leadership and about service. It is the day we celebrate the institution of the Priesthood, the body dedicated completely to the service of God's people.

It is interesting that when Jesus was about to go through His passion, he saw what today is called "a teachable moment." The apostles were all gathered for the Last Supper, although they did not know it at the time. When supper had come to an end, Jesus takes off his outer garments and assumes the character of a slave, a servant of no meaning to the apostles. Peter objects to this and Jesus tells him, "Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me."

Notice the phrase was not, "Unless you serve me." It is , "Unless I wash you." And this single phrase seems so replete with meaning that one does well to spend a moment and unpack it a little. The first and most obvious meaning, I shall return to in a moment as the bulk of this post. But hidden here is the knowledge of the death He would suffer and Jesus spoke in the fullness of the revelation of that death. "Unless I wash you," certainly refers to the present situation of washing the apostle's feet, but it refers also to the shedding of His blood--that precious blood poured out as a gift and a libation to all of humanity. When we are washed in the blood of the lamb, we become Jesus, we are transfigured as He was upon Mt. Hermon where Mark tells us, "And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them" (Mk 9:3). So too is the believer transfigured with not only clothing becoming radiant, although that clothing is Christ Himself, but also the person--who is permeated through by Jesus Christ. As John says, this is the inheritance of all the saints: And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Rev. 7:14). There is no white without the crimson of His Blood; there is no share in His inheritance that does not accept His ultimate service to all on the cross. There is no other name by which people are saved and this salvation comes at the cost of accepting that He must wash us clean.

That is only part of the point of this weighted phrase. More immediately, Jesus was showing the apostles and all Christians the meaning of Christian life. He washes the feet of the Apostles, the leader stoops down to service. But no, Jesus tells us that it is the duty of the leaders to be servants to the people of God. Peter, who will become the head of the Church is told with all the others, I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.

The person who would be with Jesus and who would lead others to Jesus must be willing to serve. We have seen that time and time again through history--the great and exalted humble themselves to become the servants of the most needy. St. Margaret of Scotland, Queen and servant to the Poor. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, princess and servant to the poor. These people of high standing, abandoned their thrones and led the people they served through the example of their service. In the Carmelite rule, the Superior of a group of monks or friars is called upon to be the servant of all of the monks. He directs the community, but much of his direction comes through his example of service. he becomes a teacher by virtue of the service he gives to the brother monks.

Every Christian is called to this same servant leadership. Whether a person holds an exalted position in the community or is simply one of the many, each one is called to serve neighbors, enemies, and friends. Each person is called to sacrifice--for family first if the married vocation calls for it, and then for all the rest of the community. The leadership a Christian shows is the leadership of washing feet. As with Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the leadership of her community rested upon leading all the others in service to the poor and to each other.

Servant leadership is an important part of the baptismal call of all Christians. Priests demonstrate this through unstinting service and through the sacrifices they make in the paths of their lives. As they serve God's people giving bread and wine, the Body and Blood, at the banquet of the Eucharist, their example should inspire us to serve others with food, water, clothing, shelter, compassion, and deep and abiding love. As priests serve selflessly, they teach service to one another. But the example of the priest is ultimately the example of the Priest, the single High Priest who presides in Heaven over every service offered on Earth. He is the exemplar of service, giving first His life and then His eternity in service to those who do not appreciate it.

And that is another aspect of service--very often it will not be embraced. The servant will be cast out, rejected, and cut off. The person who serves will be seen as passive, ineffective, not meaningful in a dog-eat-dog society. Quiet service vanishes in the face of self-service. I recall that Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Princess Diana both died at about the same time, and for much of the time the death of the Saint was eclipsed by the Death of the Princess. I recall even seeing posters that linked these two women, and while I have nothing against Princess Diana, who did do much to serve others, she never rose to the levels of service that Mother Teresa showed throughout her life.

Service is the keynote of the Christian message, and it may be one of the most difficult aspects of the Christian life to internalize. Most people do not really want to serve; it is far easier to relax and be served. Few really rejoice in the opportunity to serve unless that opportunity comes with the possibility of being noticed. Most service is a weak and paltry thing outside of the shining spotlight of fame. And yet, that is the lot of the Christian. Each person must consent to be served by our great Teacher, Leader, and High Priest, and then follow the example He laid down for us and serve one another. Our service is not so much to God, although God counts it in our favor, but it is to God's people. The service God has assigned to the Christian is bearing truth, love, and the knowledge of the ways of God to all of His people.

He showed us how to do this when he washed the feet of the apostles in the moments before he was to be taken away forever. Pause for a moment and consider--Jesus did not merely demonstrate service to the Apostles, He demonstrated composure, serenity, assurance. He was in the moments before the long glory of the Passion and resurrection. His mind must have been filled with what was before Him, and yet, rather than impatience, he showed the apostles kindness, loving them at the very end in ways that would become meaningful only after the events of the coming days. Jesus was full of the torment that would surface in the Garden, and He spent His time washing feet rather than wringing hands. His service was His joy, His delight in the moment with the company of His friends. And so all service stems from this central joy. For when anyone does as Christ has instructed, that person is among the friendship of the apostles. God serves each person to give each person the strength to serve others. And so with Peter one might be inclined to excess: “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.�? But Jesus will not rebuke the enthusiasm--merely reassure--you are already clean. Jesus will give the strength and the serenity for service and He will be helping those whom we think we help.

All this so that one day we might say with our brother and teacher Paul:

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. 2 Cor 4:5.

May it be so for all who follow Jesus.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 12, 2006

No Other Name

from Death on a Friday Afternoon
Richard John Neuhaus

If, in the mercy and mystery of God, people can be saved who have never even heard of Christ, they are still saved only because of Christ, "for there is salvation in no one else."

Many Christians are embarrassed by this claim. They are intimidated by a culture that decrees that all truths are equal. Who are you to claim that you have the truth and others do not? That is indeed an intimidating question, unless we understand that we do not have the truth in the sense of its being a possession under our control. The Christian claim is that we have been encountered by the truth revealed by God in Jesus Christ and by his grace we have responded to that encounter by faith. We hope and pray and work for everyone to be so encountered and to so respond.

Christians are often responsible for the common misunderstanding of what is meant when we say, "there is salvation in no one else." We are heard to be saying, "My truth is better than your truth; my religion is better than your religion (Or nonreligion)." But Christ is not my truth or your truth, he is the truth. He is not one truth among many. He is the truth about everything that is true. He is the universal and cosmic truth. Everything that is true--in religion, philosophy, mathematics, or the art of baseball --is true by virtue of participation in the truth who is Christ. The problem is not that non-Christians do not know truth; the problem is that they do not know that the truth they know is the truth of Christ.

To speak of Jesus is to speak Truth, and the one Truth that really matters. We are called to evangelism not as some arcane religious competition to see who can create the largest number of converts; we are called to evangelism to spread the truth. And one important point about the truth is that it cannot be spread at gunpoint or knifepoint, or through threat of a bomb or of annihilation. Orwell's 1984 introduced the reader to the minitruth--a ministry dedicated only to the truth of the day, to the eradication of the contradictory past and the promotion of the present truth. The truth of the totalitarian is not truth at all, but will made into a species of "fact" without basis.

Jesus is not totalitarian, nor is Christianity. A Christian, by virtue of his or her baptism, is required to share the truth--in words, but usually more profitably in the way one leads one's life. But first each Christian must know the truth and understand it to the extent that a person is capable of doing. In knowing and understanding the truth, there is no temptation to grandstand or to get into the "my truth is better than your truth" competition. For truly, to know this Truth, the chief faculty required is not the intellect, but the heart. One cannot know Christ Jesus in the head alone. Unless Jesus is the center and core of life, He is nothing at all to the person who claims to follow Him. If Jesus is not constantly in the heart, He has no home at all, because Jesus is not an idea. Jesus is incarnate love, and such love only has a home in the faculties capable of love--we refer to these as the "heart." If Jesus has not been allowed to enter and transform the human heart into His temple and throne room, then He is a transitory visitor. He will continue to visit, of course, because He is all mercy and kindness. But the person for whom Jesus is not the center is not a person who can witness for Christianity in any believable way. The central truth of Christianity has not taken hold. There is no effective evangelism apart from love. And once love has taken hold, there is no effective eradication. This we can derive from the history of Christianity in Japan, which, although now a small percentage of the population, survived the most ruthless and barbaric oppressions to still emerge, sometimes in strange native shapes, but nevertheless, the light of Jesus is still there.

Where Jesus has been made at home, the person is ready to witness to the truth. And this person is more likely to witness in their service to the poor and dying, to those oppressed or overcome by temporary hardship, by those in need of a friend or a visit. The heart of Christianity is Christ in the heart. Anything less is the shell of Christianity--Christianity as nice idea once it is implemented, Christianity as construct or institution, Christianity as historic edifice. One must first hear of Jesus and learn about Him, but at some point, one must make a conscious and deliberate decision to allow Jesus to take His rightful place at the center of our being.

A person can choose to keep Him out. And in His mercy, He will honor that decision. And a person can choose to allow Him a sort of shadow existence, so long as He promises not to get in the way too often. But this latter never remains for long. Either the person gives way completely, or he or she pushes Jesus out the door. There is no middle way. God's love is all or nothing at all. Half a love never appeals to Him. Someone either accepts God and thus His love entirely, or rejects it entirely.

It often seems too many Catholics, perhaps too many Christians of all stripes, try to walk a balance line--it seems that they want to retain autonomy all-the-while wanting to have God as well. It is as though we wish to be in a driver training car, where we hand over the wheel, but at any point can take back control. Tepid faith, angry apologetics, internecine divisions over every point of rubric or doctrinal interpretation--these are the signs that God has not been given a welcome in too many hearts. For if God were at the center, all other things would fall into place, just as promised, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you."

Catholics are not wont to speaking of "giving your lives to Jesus," or , "Accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior." The language is alien and seems to embody some sort of alien concept of salvation and of religious life. But the truth is that we can attend all of the sacraments and spend hours in Church, but "if you have not love, you are as a clanging cymbal." There is much noise about the religious life, but no substance. The substance of religious life is complete surrender to Jesus Christ. Say this with whatever words are necessary to convince, but there is no deep faith without love. If one fails to look always at the face of the One who loves, one cannot maintain the fervor of faith--one is like the seed on shallow hardened ground which sprouts and then dies in the light and heat of the troubles of the day.

This week more than any other, a Christian has a chance to walk the path of love and see where it leads. It is frightening and it is heartening--because through the many trials, pains, and terrors of the way, the end result is always life, light, and love. When one looks upon the face of Love in trial, and sees how it is set like flint in doing what is right and not what is easy, one can be transformed. Holy Week is an invitation to transformation as the Church journeys once again through the last days of Jesus. His love is shown in the washing of the feet, in the trials before Pilate and Herod, and in his suffering to the last moment and His shedding to the last drop His blood. It is in that blood that there is forgiveness of sins and the spark that will give life to half-a-faith.

"Lord, I believe, help thou, Lord, my unbelief."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:10 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 11, 2006

"Leaving God for God"

Quoting Blessed Titus Brandsma

from At the Fountain of Elijah
Wilfrid McGreal

So the contemplative prayer of the Carmelite is also the strength of the active apostolate. The influence of the contemplative soul is not withheld from the apostolate. . . . So there is no opposition of the contemplative life to the active. The former is the great support of the latter. The mystical life is in the highest sense apostolic.

Titus believed in the seamlessness of the Christian life--prayer and work were parts of the whole. Whenever he was called from silence and solitude to help someone he would say that he was leaving God for God.

In the Lay Carmelite life, prayer should find its expression in service in the world. We go to prayer to meet God and in meeting God we are given our work to do. It is a fine balance--making time for prayer and for the service that springs from it, while actively serving our families and our Churches.

But the apostolate of the Lay Carmelite is not merely contemplative prayer, but showing how contemplative prayer "works-in" with an active life. We are blessed and nourished by our prayer and our example, when lived according to the Rule and in accordance with the disciplines of the whole Catholic Church, allows others to see the integration of the contemplative and active that may occur in every person. One of the primary messages of Carmel is that contemplative prayer is for everyone. The way of Carmel is a special call, a vocation; however, contemplative prayer is available to all outside of Carmel. A person who is part of no lay order is invited every bit as much as one who has joined. God wants intimacy with all of His children. Lay Carmelites demonstrate that it is possible to live an active life of service fueled by contemplation--Martha tempered by and informed by Mary. Perhaps it is not the highest or best calling--that is reserved for those whose entire vocation is contemplation. But we don't really want all the best gifts, but rather the gifts most suitable for us as God sees us.

Thus Blessed Titus shows us that leaving our prayer to help a friend, or leaving our prayer to feed the poor is leaving God for God. In this life of apostolic contemplation and service we can never really leave God.

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Knowing When Enough Is Too Much

Do you ever find yourself writing out a comment on site and suddenly realize that you aren't really saying anything that needed said--that, in fact, you are detracting more than adding to the point?

I just found myself over at another site doing this. I had an elaborate and complicated post full of subtlety, ingenuity, profound reflection, perspectives that St. Blogs couldn't even conceive of, and wit, sparkle, and charm. Most of all the post was full of ME, me, me, me. I was writing to hear myself talk again and so that all the world could admire the sheer brilliance and panache that has come to be known as the Riddle Comment.

Enough was too much. After saying all that I had to say in excruciating detail, I deleted the post. And that was so liberating. I had defined in my head the parameters of meaning, I had conversed with the author of the post in a way that was more edifying for him that it would have been otherwise, and I was done. I'd said all that I needed to and I had thought through my objections and cross queries.

Would that God would grant me the wisdom to do so more often. There's no harm in writing all the comments in the world that never get posted, and so much potential harm in a single comment that goes awry. Too often I am excited or incited by the ideas I see purveyed that I stumble in and make idiotic remarks that add nothing to anyone's understanding or enjoyment. Better that I confine my remarks to things edifying. Or perhaps even better yet maintain in other venues an edifying silence.

Alas! that is not in my personality, so the best I can hope for is to at least offend no one. Because if anyone has an idea, I'm there to talk about it. And I like comments and talking about ideas. So, I suppose I will slip up occasionally--a salutary lesson in how best to go about commenting. I won't stop because of a mistake, but perhaps the mistake will allow me to let go enough to let God take better control of the action. When that happens, perhaps I will be able to edify. But then, it won't be me doing the edifying, it will be the Holy Spirit within me. It is presumptuous and rude to think that of myself I can do anything worthwhile. Whatever is good comes from God, the rest I can claim for my own.

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A Call to Life

from At the Fountain of Elijah
Wilfrid McGreal

The writer Chris O'Donnell is influenced by the theology of von Balthasar when he says that Thérèse has something to teach the post-Vatican II Church. If we want a renewed and missionary Church we need to move away from mere organisational and structural change and live love. We will see then the wonderful reality of the Communion of Saints and learn to understand how much worth there is in an act of pure love--in living the "Little Way". In her discipleship Thérèse is in many ways a wonderful window into the faith of Mary, whose unconditional trust lived through Calvary and then experience the fullness of the Resurrection.

I don't know about the theology of von Balthasar, or even about Thérèse as a mirror of the Blessed Virgin; however, one thing struck me right between the eyes. The only way to change the Church for the better is to live love. No amount of governmental change, or tinkering with rubrics, or modifying this, that, or the other discipline, or arguing the merits of one view of atonement over another, or, in fact any critical or supportive action will mean so much as transforming ourselves first. And by transforming ourselves, I mean the utter surrender to God's will that allows us to learn how to live love. I don't know what this statement means of myself. I know it only through the action of the Holy Spirit in the transformation of my person. I do not now live love. I don't even know how to live love. But I do know that I won't find out from however many books I read or lessons I study. I haven't grown beyond learning more about God in these ways, but I will never find out the essential quality for a life pleasing to God, because this is learned only at the School of His Holy Word, in the presence of Christ the Lord. Unlike the disciples, I must learn to stay awake and heed His teachings. Only in complete attention to Him do I even learn the meaning of love. The phrase God is Love is utterly meaningless without living His life. I can make guesses at what the words mean, but it is only in my living them out that they come to the fullness of meaning. And that may only happen when I turn everything over to God. I learn love by being Love--that is the only sufficient school.

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The Mystery of Redemption

Here is a passage that intrigued me.

And yet. God reconciling the world to himself is also God reconciling himself to the world. In working out the plan of redemption, the Bible does not say that man became God, but that God became man. Further, he reconciled himself to the world by "not counting their trespasses against them." He forgave us not by ignoring our trespasses but by assuming our trespasses. "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." God became what by right he was not, so that we might become what by right we are not. This is what Christians through the ages have called "the happy exchange." This exchange, this reversal, is at the very epicenter of the story of our redemption. In the Great Vigil of Easter we sing of the felix culpa--the "happy fault"""O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!"

God becomes a person so that people may be divinized and assume their places in God. God reconciles us to Him by reconciling Himself with us. This is the great mystery of the incarnation, a deep mystery and one that could be a profitable source of meditation for an entire lifetime. I will never come to understand it completely. In fact, it is so far beyond my comprehension that I simply accept it. In every story one reads about God (with a few exceptions for the Hindu stories of God) the God or God's stand on their rights and demand that we ascend (or descend) to them. Our God descends to us and takes us up with Him in the ascension. We are the constant subject of the table talk of God the Father and Jesus at the eternal banquet. There is not a moment that passes when each one of us is not on His mind. We are emblazoned there and treasured there, mind and heart, heart and mind. God's every thought is for each of us, His tender will--our redemption and restoration to the rights of the throne room. We are carefully nurtured, constantly attended.

All of this from the God we chose to kill and whom I choose to kill each day again with my litany of sins. I speak words with my lips and drive in nails with my hands. I give Him a moment's attention and count myself the best of friends, pat myself on the back for all the work I've done to maintain the friendship. And yet mere guilt and shame, both of which I feel to some degree, are insufficient and counterindicated. Rather than either, He prefers my love, my ardent attention, my devoted heart. He cares more for what I do now than what I have already done. He covers my sins through the act of His Son, but which all sins have been covered. And all He asks of me is that I love Him; because it is not in battling temptations, nor in serving in the poor, nor is preaching the word, nor in a multitude of prayers that I make amends for what has gone before. Rather it is in the love from which all of these things and more spring. God asks only that I give Him love. So rather than guilt and shame, whose good purpose leads me to the confessional, He wants me to put my former life behind me and put on His life. He wants me to cooperate with His grace and put on the life of Jesus Christ my redeemer who comes to me this week as King and whom I kill s thief in my daily interactions.

May it not continue to be so. May I learn the depth of the love of God and so manifest it to all those around me. By loving Him may I love all of them. God rescues me so that I may lead others to be rescued--that is the chiefest sign of my love for Him, that I bring back to Him what He treasures about all treasures, what is more precious than precious, what is His and His alone--the people He died for. When I walk the via dolorosa I will know the weight of what He has done for me and feel that cross squarely on my shoulders to that I might feel what it is like to return to life, to come back from the graveyard of sin and emerge once more into the light.

A blessed Holy Week to you all.

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April 10, 2006

Complicity

from Death on a Friday Afternoon
Richard John Neuhaus

It is difficult to face up to our complicity because the confession of sins does not come easy. It is also difficult because we do not want to compound our complicity by claiming sins that are not ours. We rightly recoil from those who seem to wallow in guilt. The story is told of the rabbi and cantor who on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, lament their sins at great length, each concluding that he is a nobody. Then the sexton, inspired by their example, laments his sins and declares that he, too, is a nobody. "Nuh," says the rabbi to the cantor. "Who is he to be a nobody?"

Who am I to be a nobody? Especially as God has created me to be a somebody in His image and likeness. And yet, so long as I continue in my sins, this sinner is, in fact, a nobody--in direct opposition to God's will I insist and demand that I be nothing at all to the Body of Christ. Sin does that to one--the terrible sense of freedom and of doing everything "My way." And then the terrible sense that my way is long, winding, crooked, unpaved, unshaded, and awfully lonely.

Until I leave off sin and seek to do the will of God, I am a nobody. Unless and until I can surrender to God and take my rightful place in the body of Christ, I am more an infection in the body of Christ, a rogue cell, a carcinogen, than I am a properly integrated member. And outside of the Body, there is nothing at all. If I am not part of Christ, I am part of nothing--literally, for nothing that was created was created apart from Him. Outside of Jesus, I declare my affinity with nothing at all. That is the price of the freedom I insist on in my sinfulness.

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April 8, 2006

A Thirst for Souls

Reading this in evening prayer tonight inspired in me another line of thought:

But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight. KJV

(Of course I didn't read it in that magnificent language.)

It is said that as one grows in sanctity and in the paths of God that the desire for the salvation of souls increases to the point where it is almost a mania. If one looks at any of the great Saints, we see motivating their works love for God and hence love for His people. This love demonstrates itself most practically in how one views other people as regards the eternal things. That is, one may not like one's neighbor, but one loves one's neighbor enough to sacrifice greatly to see to it that the neighbor arrives in heaven.

A sure sign of increasing intimacy with God is increading concern for the flock He shepherds and an increading desire to help those already on the path live more perfectly. This is just one of the signs of growth, but it is an important one, because it marks the beginning of the turning away from self and concern about oneself and marks the beginning of selflessness without which there can be no intimacy with God either now or in the world to come.

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April 7, 2006

The End of Lent Approaches

And perhaps it is time to take stock of how our lives have changed and what miracles God has wrought in the course of our trek.

For one thing, I am not saddened by the sense of failure that often comes to me toward the end of Lent, where I wonder where the initial enthusiasm went, and where all my determination to grow closer to the Lord. The Lord has blessed me with a quiet and profound growth that I feel can survive the end of Lent. My penitence has not been harsh and so it has proven durable. I have found a way of life that will move me a step closer to the way of life I ultimately wish to have. The Holy Spirit has blessed me greatly this season and I hope I can begin to share those blessings with all of you as time goes on and blessings become time-worn habits that tamp down the road that ascends Mt. Carmel.

I would suggest that you spend a little time yourselves and see what fruit you can gather from this season and carry on into your lives. Each lenten season should lead us a little closer to the Lord. And as with approaching a whirlpool, the currents that lead to Him grow stronger as we near, there will come a Lent in which you are caught up in the torrent of His love and drawn inexorably to Him for the joy and the benefit of all of humankind. For there is no closeness to the Lord that does not manifest itself as a closeness and a bond with the people around us. There is no love of the Lord that does not shine out as love and service to all of humanity.

God has been good to me and continues His goodness in the small trials and the small revelations of each day. I only pray that I can continue to see Him clearly and move toward Him through grace. May God bless each one of us with an intimacy with Him and the pure joy that flows from it and sustains us in all of our ways.

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April 6, 2006

Another Word from La Madre--Practical Love

from At the Fountain of Elijah
Wilfrid McGreal

She [St. Teresa of Avila] is aware from her own conversion experience of the need to grow from a solid human basis. Prayer comes from a life of practical love, from detachment and humility. We cannot talk to God if we do not speak lovingly to our neighbour and we need realism, and a grounding of our lives.

What may surprised many, coming from a cloistered nun, is the revelation that prayer comes from a life of practical love. Sometimes we have an unrealistic vision of the cloistered life as one of ethereal and fantastical encounters with God while floating through a day of prayer. And while the life of the cloister is completely imbued with and dedicated to prayer, it has some hard realities. And in St. Teresa of Avila's time, those realities were probably a good deal harder.

What is practical love? What forms does it take? What do our lives look like grounded in practical love? It would depend upon one's state in life, one's means, one's personality and inclination. But regardless of these three it will always show in a willingness to share what God has given us with those less fortunate, less knowledgeable, or less aware of God and His Mercies. A life of practical love will always be a life of sacrifice. We will give ourselves up and surrender to the ones we love much of our energy, time, talent, and the goods of the world that have been bestowed upon us. As parents in means serving our children and bringing them up in a way that will foster their service to God, neighbor, and country. It often means long hours of what seems thankless work and doing things we don't particularly care for in correcting and instilling discipline in our children. Yes, there are great rewards and joys in this service, and that is the consolation of many acts of practical love. But practical love is based on these consolations, but on the purest love of God that makes a person constantly hunger and thirst for ways to show that he or she loves God. Practical love stems from the desire to make manifest to God, to ourselves, and to the world the overflowing love with which God fills us as His own unmerited gift of grace.

Practical love is substantially grounded and completely devoted to "other." And practical love is, well, practical and commonsense. You don't hand a starving many a worn coat. You don't give to the naked a can of baked beans. This should go without saying, but often, we are trapped in our own sense of what needs might be and we don't see far beyond our own borders.

Practical love is simply the natural outpouring of the love God pours into us as we come to know Him better. It overflows, it cannot be contained, and so it spills out in the light of the world in small acts and in large, but all of them flow from a deep and abiding love God has for us. We become Him as we pour out His love on all the Earth, seeking to return some little for the vast fortune He has bestowed upon us.

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April 5, 2006

Errors, Opinions, and Thinking with the Church

Both Tom directly (see link below), and Ryan (indirectly) make a very important point.

While I try to think with the Church at all times, there will be times that I fail. Most often I fail from ignorance, not malice; although I will not preclude the possibility of the latter.

One is wise to question everything and its authority, particularly if it is the opinion of one person before accepting it as a reasonable premise and then to test the reasoning. Mine is, honestly, not top notch. I am a contemplative first, a thinker second. As a result, some of my thought lines can be muddled.

So I guess the caution here as well as elsewhere around the Blog circuit, or even in the world at large is Caveat lector. Whatever you read, ask questions, check it out, think it through.

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Two Wolves

This is one of those things that may be making the e-mail rounds, but it really spoke to me and I wanted to preserve it so I could find it again. Thanks little sister!

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a war that
goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

"One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false
pride, superiority, and ego.

"The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee replied, "The one you feed."

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April 4, 2006

A Story of Transformation

It is useful to look back over one's life to see where one has been. Often one learns new and interesting things by that exercise. Frequently, one is brought to knowledge by a sudden action of God. I'd like to share an instance.

Last week, in conversation over lunch, I suggested to a friend that she might want to focus a bit on the Blessed Virgin and her role at Cana and at the foot of the cross. This friend pulled out her trump card, "I don't see the Blessed Virgin as you do."

"What do you mean?"

"I believe that Mary had other children, that Jesus had real brothers and sisters."

"Well then, you would be wrong, wouldn't you."

My friend didn't notice this comment, but almost upon it coming out of my mouth I was utterly astounded. I was raised protestant--indeed fundamentalist. When I came into the Church the Blessed Virgin was more roadblock than pathway. I wouldn't say a rosary and thought those who did were little short of idolaters.

God has nudged me bit by bit through my interactions with Catholics, through my reading, and through my prayer to come to a more Catholic understanding of the Blessed Virgin. Most influential were toss-off remarks, or fragments of homilies (Priests who read this pay attention) that would get down inside and roll around and around until the logic of them became evident. I recall a Priest at the Byzantine Church TSO often mentions saying something of the feast of the Conception of St. Ann (aka The Feast of the Immaculate Conception) about how the Blessed Virgin was made the vessel for God and in the knowledge of what she had carried could carry no other children because of the infinite merit of the first. I don't remember the exact phrasing, but I remember being impressed by the statement and the argument.

I guess over the years all these accretions have trickled down to the point where I find myself reflexively defending what I would have attacked not so long ago.

God moves us by degrees if we are willing. I remember praying in the matter of the Blessed Virgin, as I was considering becoming a Carmelite, "Lord, I'm not there yet but you lead me to the truth that you would have me know about Our Lady." God will not leave such a prayer unanswered. Even now I pray, "Lord, let me know and understand the teachings and the meanings of your Church, lead me to the understanding you have for me." Because every day requires conversion. Every day requires a change of heart and a change of mind. Every day requires renewing my love for God, and He gives me so many ample demonstrations of it that it becomes impossible to resist.

As He did in the matter of the Blessed Virgin, let is so continue until I am squarely in the center of the truth. May His wisdom so inform me that I cease to rely upon my own and lean only upon His. May His understanding be my own. Step by step and patiently, but may I arrive there in His time according to His will.

God is so good!

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April 3, 2006

The Garment of Immortality

from Office of Readings--Monday of Week 6 of Lent
St. John Fisher

Christ first offered sacrifice here on earth, when he underwent his most bitter death. Then, clothed in the new garment of immortality, with his own blood he entered into the holy of holies, that is, into heaven. There he also displayed before the throne of the heavenly Father that blood of immeasurable price which he had poured out seven times on behalf of all men subject to him.

This sacrifice is so pleasing and acceptable to God that as soon as he has seen it he must immediately have pity on us and extend clemency to all who are truly repentant.

We approach the end of Lent, still having time to move in directions that will carry us away from Lent on an entirely new course, a course that brings us ever closer to God in a deteriorating orbit, as our own stubbornness gives out, as the Gravity of His love overcomes the inertia of our selfishness, we fall into Him as into the gravity well of a planet or star, as the prodigal falls into the arms of the Father who welcomes him back. We can begin to wear the garment of immortality, tasting of it as we taste of God and of His holiness.

Lent passes away, not so our chances to increase our intimacy with God, not so our opportunities to prayerfully serve those around us. They increase daily as we become aware of them. God calls us to Him as we live today. We resist, but let the resistance subside, take a little step, and a little step, and a little step. One step at a time God conquers us when we allow it. One step at a time, He proclaims His triumph and glory. One step at a time, we become the Love that saved us.

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The Dangers of Universalism

I will be the first to admit that the doctrine has a number of pitfalls for the person who holds it. There are the dual dangers of complacency and presumption. That is, if we trust our intuitions that all are led eventually to God's will, it might cause some to think that they are not instrumental in this leading. Some might abandon their efforts or reduce their efforts or make no efforts whatsoever. We are God's present and physical instruments in this world. If people are lost we are, in part, responsible. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. We are charged with making present the awesome love of God. If people do not experience love from us, how can they come to know how God loves them? (Another of many reverse implications of the first letter of John--"If you do not love what you can see, how can you claim to love what you do not see." If people cannot see love in this world, how can they begin to know the love of the world beyond (except of course by the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit).

The second pitfall or error that might result from relying too heavily on this belief is presumption. If God saves nearly everyone anyway, then it mustn't be all that difficult, and I'll wait until the last possible moment and then say yes. Or, more commonly, I can pretty much do anything I want because I've got God on the scopes, so I'm okay.

To say that most or all eventually arrive at God is not to say that the road is either easy or guaranteed. If it is only most, some do not make it. If it is all, who knows how long the sojourn in purgatory for those who took up the offer too late.

No matter what we believe about the ultimate disposition of souls, it is requisite upon us to act as thought the opposite were true. Even if all might be eventually saved, isn't better to work as though they would not? Isn't it also better to cut that "eventually" to a "here and now?" Wouldn't we all be better off if more people recognized right not the necessity for following God's will? Wouldn't each person benefit from all the others who have achieved union with God in this life? Would the world be a worse place for being overrun by saints?

I do not base my actions in Christian life on the basis of what I may think about the possibilities of salvation. Prayers and works of mercy must continue unabated and we all must work out our individual path of salvation, and assist to the degree possible, all of those around us. In fact, most of the time, the question of "how many are saved?" isn't really even a question for me--it makes only the smallest of ripples in the larger ocean of life. It is an incidental, a codicil, a thing that is interesting to speculate, but which cannot be known until after we have died and start to experience God's reality. Our immediate duty is to our sisters and brothers here and now.

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Grace and Salvation--Universalism Revisited

In the previous entry on Universalism, I made what might be a tactical argument in approaching the argument from the negative side. What I hope to present here is the mirror image. The two are of a piece, but they say things in somewhat different ways and perhaps clarify the point of what I was trying to say.

The beginning of this post is in the three below. When we consider God's Sovereignty, God's emeth and hesed and the "power in the blood," things seem to come together in a pattern. To me the pattern suggests that God is reluctant to let anyone go. That is, rather than the great and unmoved judge (which He also is) He is the God who goes out seeking His people and inviting them back.

When I think about sovereignty and emeth and hesed, I think about a fundamental commitment to all of His people. When I concentrate on these aspects of God, I am left to wonder how many people have the strength to resist God's grace. Yes, it can be resisted, but God is the importunate widow for most of us--He accosts us right and left, day after day, every day, every hour, every minute, until we give in. It takes a great deal of resistance to be able to resist so long.

So what I have is not an argument, although on both sides of this issue one could compile scriptural references and quotes from the Fathers and any number of other "proofs" until the cows come home. Ultimately, we must go on what we know about God. If our vision of God is that of a Father, the father who welcomes the prodigal, we might be hard-pressed to envision how such a father would not go to all extremes to assure the safety and integrity of His children. That is not to say that all people will return the Father's love--I will never deny that it is possible. But when someone is wooing you every day of your life, every moment of every day, when someone is completely interested in every aspect of your life and existence, completely devoted to you and to your salvation, it is going to be difficult to escape Him.

Francis Thompson said it rather well.

from "The Hound of Heaven"
Francis Thompson

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat -- and a voice beat
More instant than the Feet --

"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

It's a negative way to think about it, but here is the divine stalker, the one who pursues and will not lose the object of His desire. However, this is not stalking as we know it, because the end of this is rapture in eternity. Does the Hound of Heaven capture every fleeing soul? Perhaps not, but given His strength, His knowledge, His power, and His endless self-giving love, it is my belief that it is a very rare and extraordinary soul who manages to escape this much attention.

Hence, we have not so much an argument as an intuition. It could be wrong. But the image it gives me of God is one that allows me to love God more because I see how much care and love He has lavished on me and on all the people around me, all of whom flee--some at a greater rate than others. The God I see in this is one who prizes each one of us so much that the loss of one is unthinkable. It puts me in mind of the Father who sacrificed everything in His Son to bring us back to Him.

Ultimately it puts me in mind of the fact that I am not grateful enough for so generous a God. My love fails, but His does not. And with enough time and with grace, His love becomes my own.

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Nothing But the Blood

This is the kind of song I did not understand or appreciate enough a couple of years ago, and certainly not in the time when I was far more likely to have sung it than my sojourn in the Catholic Church. And yet, now we sing it in Church and I am compelled to allow it to run through my head and my heart:

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus;
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain

Oh! precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
--Robert Lowry

How utterly and unearthly beautiful. I am made whole by His brokenness, I am cleansed by what is ultimately "unclean." (See the Hebrew ritual laws regarding contact with blood.) My cleanness is purchased by His unclean death, my wholeness at the cost of His brokenness. "Oh! precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow."

Praise God for His hesed. Other words fail me right now.

Later: Here's a link to the melody.

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Emeth and Hesed

I am by no means a biblical scholar, nor a professional student of Hebrew, nor even one who knows very much about Hebrew. But these two words are so important to any understanding of God and most particularly any understanding of God's relationship with His people Israel. By extension, they are "qualities" or attributes of God, and of God in His simplicity who has no separate qualities or attributes that are not part of the wholeness of God.

Emeth is faithfulness. But very often it seems much stronger than what we might call faithfulness. Interestingly enough, in many of the stories of the Golem, it is with word "Emeth" which animates the man-of-clay and he is laid to rest by erasing the first letter (which I'm told is a aleph) so that what is left is the Hebrew word for death. Thus faithfulness and death are close and emeth might be considered faithfulness unto death. Unto our deaths, individually, and unto His own death on the Cross. This is the end of emeth, the faithfulness that is stamped on all the pages of history--the story of God's complete surrender to us, complete faithfulness to us. Emeth, is His promise to be with us always unto the end of time. Emeth is His promise to lift us up from our graves and restore us to our places at God's table.

Hesed is also variously translated. The mildest translation I have seen is "mercy." Mercy seems too light a meaning for such a loaded word. I have heard some say that hesed is "a wrenching of the bowels," a feeling so deep it tears up the guts, as it were. Hesed is sometimes translated as loving-kindness, which goes a long way toward making it sound namby-pamby; but hesed is the love that carves us on the palm of His hand, sets us as the apple of His eye, is announced in the "It is finished" from the cross and then rushes out through the world to causes cataclysmic earthquakes which result in the sundering of the temple veil, the separation of humankind from the all-loving God. Hesed is the font of love and the commandment to love and the fulfillment of love from within the deepest reaches of God. Hesed is touching God's heart.

Emeth and Hesed, the words that describe God's covenantal relationship with the People of Israel, and by extension to all of us. Faithfulness that cannot fail, and love that reaches into death and pulls out life. These are the qualities of God's attention to each one of us. Emeth and hesed--faithfulness and loving kindness from the depth of being. How can we return anything less?

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God's Sovereignty

This may or may not work into later explanations from the bright side on universalism; however, it is a notion that has been brewing for a couple of days and which seems not to want to go away--so it is better to deal with it.

What does it mean when one says that God's will is sovereign or that God Himself exercises sovereignty? How can this statement be reconciled with free will?

I think the simple answer is that it need not be. To say that God is sovereign is to say that His will is done whatever it is a person chooses to do. A person may choose to cooperate with God and thus do God's ordained will, or a person may choose to go against God's will, and find him or herself in the paradoxical position of doing God's will anyway because God permits this action. His permissive will is every bit as much His will and as perfect His will as His ordained will. Either way, whether I cooperate or whether I go against God's will for me, still I do God's will. That's what sovereignty means--His will rules all will. Even when my will is opposed, still He uses that opposition to accomplish His ultimate end of the salvation of the human race. How this happens is deeply mysterious and beautiful beyond description. It is just one of the many things that make you sit in wonder before the majesty of God.

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March 31, 2006

The End of the Road

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.

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The Veil of Veronica

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.

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March 30, 2006

Why She's a Saint and I'm Not

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.

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March 29, 2006

The Illogic of Sin

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.

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Thoughts Skirting Universalism

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.

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Jesus and Baha'ullah

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.

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March 23, 2006

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.

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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.

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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.

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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 20, 2006

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.

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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."

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March 16, 2006

Reflection on the Rule III

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."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Grace and Will

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Fear of the Lord

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 15, 2006

Comments Again

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:55 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

March 14, 2006

Simply, love, redux

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:18 PM | TrackBack

A Theology of Atonement

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:04 AM | TrackBack

March 13, 2006

La Madre's Way of the Cross

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?

Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:14 AM | TrackBack

March 8, 2006

Another Bouquet from St. Thérèse

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.

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The Wily One

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:27 PM | TrackBack

From a Little Flower

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:17 PM | TrackBack

Another Lenten Checkup

"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?

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:21 AM | TrackBack

The Shorter Way to God

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:54 AM | TrackBack

March 7, 2006

Lenten Checkup

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Entering the Word

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.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:21 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 6, 2006

The Command of the Lord

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.

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The Road of the Cross--A Consolation

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."

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Paradoxes of Faith

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?

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Joyful Lent

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!

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Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude

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.

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God Spoke One Word

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!

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March 3, 2006

A Lenten Pause

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.

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Self-Sacrifice Made Simple

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!)

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March 2, 2006

The Comments Box Below

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.

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March 1, 2006

Our Crosses and The Cross

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.

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The Many Disciplines of Lent

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)

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Rend Your Hearts, Not Your Garments

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.

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February 28, 2006

Mardi Gras and Carnival

Of the two "celebrations" that precede Ash Wednesday, I prefer the name "Carnival." Carnival derives from either medieval Italian or Latin and means "to take away meat." Folk etymology (and the etymology I worked out for it) makes it come down to "Farewell, Flesh!" It is this second meaning that I think gives us our best starting point for Lenten reflection. Yes, we have meatless Fridays--and of course during Medieval times, the abstinence was more pronounced because every Friday was meatless anyway. I don't know the particulars of the Lenten regulations during medieval times, but I do know that they were far more stringent than they are today. (People had much less to start with, thus to make a fast meaningful, to make it a deprivation, one would have to restrict far more.) But I am once again off my main point.

The folk etymology is rewarding food for thought because "Farewell, Flesh" is, in fact, something we are trying to achieve within the context of Lent. That is, we are attempting to move closer to God and hence away from the fleshly attraction that keep us far from Him. To do so we practice the disciplines of Lent as prescribed by the Church and our spiritual directors through the Holy Spirit. Lacking a spiritual director, we go directly to the Holy Spirit (although even with a director, it is hoped that prayer is directing all Lenten practices). St. Thérèse of Lisieux advised us that our daily trials and tribulations were mortifications enough--that we needed to add nothing to the mix to become aware of God. That's one of the miracles of "The Little Way." Nothing extraordinary is required. The Little Way is simple but it is not easy and the practices of Lent help us to sharpen our eyes to perceive the actions of God in our every day lives.

And THAT is the real purpose of mortification of the flesh--to put off enough of ourselves that we can begin to put of Jesus Christ. The Lenten Regulations are not in place merely to mark a season; they are positive helps on the way to holiness--gentle suggestions for things we can do that will improve our orientation and disposition toward God.

As you ponder your Lenten "resolutions" this last day before the great day of Ash Wednesday, always keep in clear focus precisely why you are doing anything at all. Obedience is good, but desire for God is even better. Let this Lent be the beginning of an ever-deepening relationship with the Lord. Hold the course and do those things that bring you in touch with Him--clear away all obstacles, and walk forward boldly in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The Lord will aid you mightily if your intent is to see Him.

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February 27, 2006

A Thought for Lenten Preparation

Rather than deciding what YOU will do for Lent, ask God in prayer what HE would like you to do. Your Lent will be a thousand times more productive. You have a couple of days before it starts. Ask God to show the way--He is faithful, He will show you clearly.

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Lent and New Year's

Our liturgical year begins with Advent, but Lent shares certain similarities with the beginning of the secular year.

We enter into Ash Wednesday with a load of hopes and resolutions. I will not eat chocolate; I will watch less television; I will read this, that, or the other abstruse and difficult technical book; I will. . . .

Each of us has our own list and if most people are like me, within three days they have violated one or the other protocols of their list. This is inevitable, because I go in with the idea that I will do these things. Of course I will fail. Moreover, I make unrealistic assessments of what I am ready for and what I can handle in the course of time.

Lent isn't about taking a bunch of spiritual couch potatoes and turning them into triathletes. If I approach the season with that idea of transformation, I will always be disappointed with the result. Lent is about learning to listen again. For this we do not need feats of spectacular spirituality. If we follow the simple provisions the Church has laid out before us, we have a good start. If I observe the fasts on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and the abstinence from meat on Fridays and if I keep in mind why I do these things--in other words, if I spend my time looking for and at Jesus, I will have accomplished more than reading ten million spiritual books. If I attend one stations of the Cross and really pay attention and pray through them, if I make a regular practice of confession, if I pay more attention to the needs of those around me, I need not wear a hair shirt and use the discipline.

The asceticism of Lent is not a call to heroics, it is an invitation to love. That invitation, followed to its full, will inevitably lead to heroic spirituality, but God doesn't expect us to leap from our current habits and practices into the habit of Mother Teresa in one 40 day season. He may cause it to happen, if we are willing and we dispose ourselves to it; however, we can't make it happen, and He most likely won't. This is nothing to be disappointed over. Sanctity takes time and attention. Lent begins to teach us how to pay attention.

So, if all of your noble and high-flown resolutions fall by the wayside, do not trouble yourself. Continue on the quiet path of a little more prayer, a little more attention, a little less selfishness and God will make much good out of this simple obedience. Do not ask more of yourself than God asks of you. This is a form of spiritual pride and disobedience. Instead, before we start on this road, let each of us spend some time in prayer and ask God what He desires. And then, do what you can to make it happen, and pray for God to fill in the rest.

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An Invitation to Intimacy

Yesterday our priest's homily centered around the scripture from Hosea accented by the gospel message. He said we must consider Lent an invitation to a second honeymoon. That is, Lent is an invitation to renew our intimacy with God.

I stand, perhaps in a better place to speak about this than many. Perhaps cradle Catholics have not had this experience. Upon first entering the church, there is a fire, a fervency, a desire to serve God in this new place that burns brightly; however, as the fuel for that fire tends to be sparse the flame is of short duration. Soon, from whatever cause, the fire has died down and is banked, the embers are rarely stirred beneath their fine white covering of ash. Such a faith provides a certain warmth and glow, but not the all-consuming blaze that the Lord would like of us.

Lent is a time to consider how to move once again toward that intimacy, toward an all-out conflagration rather than a simple house-warming fire. It is a time of renewal--not of hardship. The hardships of Lent are incidentals that receive entirely too much of our attention. Fasting, Prayer, and Alms are not strange entities to pull out only at this season--rather they are constants.

Lent is a time to consider all of our activities and to integrate them into the one goal of serving the Lord. This does not mean we abandon our entertainments necessarily, but that we refocus them and make them purposive. We don't stop jogging in the morning, because that is a good thing, oriented toward bodily health which in turn honors God and helps us to fulfill His purpose. But perhaps one changes one's route, or one's music, or one's thoughts during the time. Perhaps in the course of that regular routine, we allow ourselves the luxury of not listening to our Ipods and our white noise, but we take in the ambient and begin to forge a new sense of creation.

The same goes with all other activities. If we like to cook, we do not stop cooking, but we cook with God in mind, perhaps envisioning Jesus as the house-guest we have awaited so long.

In other words Lent is about repentance--literally, rethinking where we are now. This repentance should be more than superficial. It should give us the ground of real substantive change that last beyond the gates of Lent and brings us closer to God, even is only baby steps.

So this Lent it is my prayer that the practices substantively change my spiritual life and the lives of all of those who really desire change and reorientation toward God's way. I also pray for those who are simply going through the motions another year that it awakens in them a thirst, an ardent longing for a better life that is defined by more than material success. May their hearts learn to yearn for the Father. And even for those of us who already yearn, may it become the guiding light and the foundation of the rest of our lives. May the habits we cultivate in Lent take hold and transform us.

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February 22, 2006

Soon Enough-Lent

I know that by this post I am treading in the place of the Rat; nevertheless, I have cause to think that this might give her some delight.

from Sermons Parochial and Plain
John Henry, Cardinal Newman

Sermon 7. The Duty of Self-denial Seasons - Lent

"Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child." Psalm cxxxi. 2.

{86} SELF-DENIAL of some kind or other is involved, as is evident, in the very notion of renewal and holy obedience. To change our hearts is to learn to love things which we do not naturally love—to unlearn the love of this world; but this involves, of course, a thwarting of our natural wishes and tastes. To be righteous and obedient implies self-command; but to possess power we must have gained it; nor can we gain it without a vigorous struggle, a persevering warfare against ourselves. The very notion of being religious implies self-denial, because by nature we do not love religion.

Self-denial, then, is a subject never out of place in Christian teaching; still more appropriate is it at a time like this, when we have entered upon the forty days of Lent, the season of the year set apart for fasting and humiliation.

If time permits, you may wish to consult the entire sermon here
"To change our hearts is to learn to love things that we do not naturally love." This is the core of the ongoing Christian vocation. In this simple sentence Newman speaks of detachment without ever once uttering the scary word. We must learn to love what we do not by nature love--to do so, we must unlearn our entanglement with the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Lent gives us the beginning of an opportunity for this self-denial. But it is the merest beginnings. Many of us start Lent, fresh as triathletes at the beginning of their ordeal, and we end winded and happy to be released from these self-imposed burdens to return once again to our life as we knew it before Lent.

Here's a mental challenge--take what you plan to do at Lent and stretch it out over a lifetime. Can you continue this self-denial? Is it a good form of self-denial? Does depriving yourself of chocolate for 40 days really mean anything? Or could the denial take the form of one day a weak of a Catholic Fast and prayer. Every weak, inside Lent and Out. Eat a little bit less and keep in mind those who have need of more?

Each year I am challenged by Lent to grow, and each year I reach the end with a certain sense of disappointment. I have not kept to what I have promised with the earnestness I would have liked. And each year I realize that I am relying on myself. I did not do..., I did not keep. . ., etc. Each Lent I'm invited to surrender and I use the Lenten practices to build my cozy fortress more tightly around me.

Meditate then upon these words from a different Sermon:

And be sure of this: that if He has any love for you, if He sees aught of good in your soul, He will afflict you, if you will not afflict yourselves. He will not let you escape. He has ten thousand ways of purging those whom He has chosen, from the dross and alloy with which the fine gold is defaced.

Perhaps God's affliction takes the form of my own disappointment and living with less than the best. Perhaps it takes the form of knowing we can do better and consistently refusing to do so. These too are forms of affliction. But as God does love us, He can use these things to transform us. As God does love us, He will use every means to get out attention. Let's face it folks, some of us just need to be slapped upside the head before He speaks so we'll pay attention. Nothing less will work.

P.S. I truly love the opportunities that Lent presents to grow in love. If only I could preserve those wonderful gifts through the rest of the year!

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February 21, 2006

Blog in Haste. . .

repent at leisure. The remainder of the Scupoli/Robinson passage which I only managed to get to at lunch time.

A fall should make us detest the fault "and the unruly passions which have occasioned it." That is, rather than allowing ourselves to be overcome with emotions of self-disgust or anger at ourselves, we should direct our dislike onto the fault itself and the disorganization in our nature that has led us into sin. Too much attention to the fact that it is we who have failed may very well deflect us away from what it is we have done. The sin itself is, as it were, left unscathed and its attractions really unaltered, because our energy has not been directed against it itself.

. . . There must be real contrition, but the energy generated by our reaction to the fall--if I may put it this way--must be spent on hating the sin and resolving to fight it more effectively in the future.

. . . Scupoli says the following:

I would that these things were well considered by certain persons so called spiritual, who cannot and will not be at rest when they have fallen into any fault. They rush to their spiritual father, rather to get rid of the anxiety and uneasiness which spring from the wounded self-love than for the purpose which should be their chief end in seeking him, to purify themselves from the stain of sin, and to fortify themselves against its power by means of the most holy sacrament of penance.

If I may say this in a way that makes a certain sense to me--in the matter of sin, there must be a prayerful metacognition that seeks to separate the fact that we sinned from the sin, the occasion of sin, and the fault that spawned the sin. That is, rather than feeling hurt, wounded, and scared and going to confession on that basis, we need to seek God's insight into what provokes us and prayerfully ask His assistance in the avoidance of future occurrences of the sin. We need to use the mirror of our fall to reflect on the fault that caused it, not upon the hurt sinner. Finding the fault, we must seek, with the grace of the sacrament of penance, to excise it completely and allow God to fill the empty spaces that the cancerous sin had once occupied.

True contrition for sin seeks to track down its cause and eradicate it--always with grace as our foremost weapon. It does not roil about in self pity or blithely excuse the fault and sin on the basis of modern psychology.

Hope this helps to amplify and clarify the previous post in which I may have given the indication of too blithe and nonchalant an approach to sin and sinfulness.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Get Up, Dust Yourself Off, Start Again

I'm looking for things to read during the great Lent. If you are as well, you could do worse than St. Thomas More's The Sorrows of Christ or Fr. Richard John Neuhaus's Death on a Friday Afternoon. But I happened on a book once started, since abandoned, and related to the theme of an upcoming silent Carmelite retreat: Spiritual Combat in the Carmelite Tradition--Lorenzo Scupoli's Spiritual Combat as amplified by Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory. (Jack, get moving. I really want to see the entire original without the extra notes and I can't find it anywhere else.)

Any way, I dipped into this book at the place my marker indicated that I had stopped and I came upon something perfect as a pre-thought for Lent or for any time.

We can examine whether we have developed genuine self-distrust or not by observing the effect made upon us when we sin. "If thou art so saddened and disquieted thereby as to be tempted to despair of making progress or doing good, it is a sign that thy trust is in self and not in God." We make a resolution, for example, to be patient, and we fail; or we make a resolution to avoid an occasion of sexual sin and then enter into the occasion and perhaps fall. In both cases there is often a disproportionate sense of failure and of grief. How could this possibly happen to me? What's the use of trying? The whole thing is unrealistic; I'll never be any good anyway.

This reaction shows we have been depending too much on our own efforts. If we really mistrusted ourselves, we would not be surprised when we fall, nor would we give way to despondency and bitterness. We would recognize that our sin flows quite naturally from the sort of people we are and that our reaction is occasioned as much by hurt pride as by sorrow at having offended God.

In other words, "Cowboy up. Stop yer bellyaching, and get back on the horse." Oops! I ate meat on a Friday--well, then repent and don't do it again. Oops, I meant to give x up and ate some or had some anyway. Oh well, it's time to trust in God renew the resolution and start all over.

Know that you will fail (at times spectacularly)--only God in you will succeed. If I rely upon myself I will find nothing but failure. If I rely on God, then my failings will meet with Brother Lawrence's reaction, "See what happens Lord, when you allow me to go my own way." Our failings are not the end of the world. Let God lift you up, brush you off, and then set out, as any toddler would, to explore the world anew, knowing all the while that there is more falling than standing up. But also knowing that Papa is there to lift us when we fall.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:02 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

February 19, 2006

A Divine Smack Upside the Head

Sometimes the Lord, in His infinite mercy sees fit to smite us.

James 1:5

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him.

I can't begin to say how the truth of this verse has begun to dawn on me after years of being Catholic. The truth is something that it takes a great deal of wisdom to discern. I lack it all over the place. I have so little wisdom, so little capacity to discern for myself. I like to think of myself as exalted and lifted high in the realm of intellect. But I am not. In the realm of thinkers I have an exceedingly small mind, a brain incapable of much in the way of original thought. Wisdom is very far from me and yet still I deny it.

How the stubborn self fights that reality thrashing out now this way, now that way. I write in part as a way of denying that I am nothing special. Graciously enough that very writing has brought home the magnitude of this reality. I write to show how wonderful I am, and in writing, I discover how small I am.

But God does not smite merely to leave us reeling. Indeed, it's rather like the hysterical person in previous times--one good smack upside the head to get my attention, a short point following, and then the embrace of Love. When He shows me these things, I am then the most certain that He loves me because He tells me all of these things not to destroy me, but to bring me home. Unlike the majority of people, God does not fear telling us the truth, He relishes it--not because it is hurtful or difficult, but because it gives us the chance to grow toward Him.

So, smite away Lord, so long as you are there to pick me up, I will know your love. It can be hard to face, but when I look at you I face eternity, not the mirror, and what a glorious sight it is. Thank you!

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 17, 2006

Even Our Amusements Matter

For me one of the difficult aspects of Christian life to internalize is that there are no compartments. It isn't possible to be part-Christian. God is a God of extremes. As I've often said before, it is "all or nothing at all." Too often, I find myself fighting this notion, most particularly as regards my amusements and diversions.

This notion came to mind because I happened to pass a colleague's cube at work. I heard him describing a "game that's like Monopoly only you can unleash viruses and total nuclear destruction on your opponents." I had to physically restrain myself from saddling up my hobby horse and riding it to death. To explain, I have studied psychology professionally, and I have yet to decide on the issue of whether playing such games is a release of aggression or an inculcation of aggression. I tend to think it is something that differs from individual to individual. As a very aggressive individual myself, I have found that playing games such as Doom or Quake tended to reinforce aggressive tendencies. I found I was less cooperative and more strident in my dealing with others, most particularly those close to me. I do not mean to imply that this happens to everyone, but I suspect that there are about half of us for whom this is the rule.

This tendency suggests that we need to be cautious in all of the things we take in as entertainment. We must choose our books and movies and music with a Christian framework in mind. I have recently adopted a standard that if I would not want Samuel doing it (whatever IT may be) I will refrain from it myself.

Our entertainment affects us--some people more than others. Something seen cannot be unseen; something read cannot be unread--the harm is done. I learned this the hard way through sad experience. And there are some things better left unseen, some things better left unread, some actions better never tried. God has been merciful to me, and so I have few of these things in my past, but they act as markers and reminders. When someone asks me if I want to see such-and-such a movie, I simply recall one or other examples and have a ready answer.

Being Christian means that all of our actions are drawn into the Christian realm. Everything we do affects the community of the body of Christ. Our sinfulness, our oversights, affect the entire body--that is part of the need for and meaning of reconciliation or penance. It is not only a private act between penitent and priest, but also a public act which seeks to redress and repair the breeches we have created in the body of Christ through our sinful actions. Our focus is often on ourselves, but the effect of grace is such as to touch both us and the body as a whole. As we are repaired and restored, so the body is healed. We cannot compartmentalize--we cannot separate out certain things and separate them from our Christian vocation. As John Donne said in a different context,

Meditation XVII
John Donne

No man is an island, entire of itself every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.

Our actions affect all who hold to the truth we hold, so our amusements matter. Don't fool yourself into thinking that they are optional or meaningless. There is nothing in the life of a Christian that is meaningless. Even the smallest thing is a matter of great import in heaven. When we keep this in mind, it becomes easier to act in cooperation with grace. If we ask, God always gives us the strength to do what is right, fitting, and to His greater glory.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:37 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Der Hölle Rache

All morning I have heard "Der Hölle Rache" echoing through my head. For those who don't know, "Der Hölle Rache" is an aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute. Even in an Opera as extraordinary as The Magic Flute with its dozens of gorgeous pieces, even in the realm of opera as a whole, "Der Hölle Rache" stands out as a transcendantly difficult and beautiful piece. The aria, sung by the Queen of Night, allows a truly finely trained coloratura soprano to press the limits of her art and voice. Done well, there is nothing in the repertoire to match it; done poorly, there is nothing in the repertoire to match it. Alas, too many who are not truly capable of it attempt it to dismal effect. In the course of this aria, the soprano's voice ascends her entire range and ends up sounding a pure, musical tone at the upper end of the register. Indeed, the Queen of Night's voice becomes the voice of the magic flute--the human element of the voice is gone and all that remains is the pure clear sound of the flute. An extraordinary accomplishment.

What is interesting about the Aria is that its beauty is in direct contradiction to its content. The first line of the aria is variously translated "the wrath of hell burns in my heart" or "the revenge of hell burns in my heart." In the Aria, the Queen of Night sings of her betrayal and adjures her daughter that if one of the characters of the Opera is not killed by this daughter then:

The vengeance of Hell boils in my heart;
death and despair flame around me!
If Sarastro does not through you feel
The pain of death,
Then you will be my daughter nevermore.
Disowned may you be forever,
Abandoned may you be forever,
Destroyed be forever
All the bonds of nature,
If not through you
Sarastro becomes pale! (as death)
Hear, Gods of Revenge,
Hear a mother's oath!

Obviously not a candidate for the mother of the year award. But the aria, gorgeous and corrupt as it is mingles those elements so utterly human so well that it becomes a real metaphor for much that transpires here below. How often do I nurse this very flame? Are there not times when all I really want to do is to even the score? Are there not times when vengeance is justified?

On the contrary, the Lord promises "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." (Romans 12:19) And what form will this vengeance take? It will take the form of a Man on a cross, arms outstretched through all eternity to embrace humankind. God's vengeance becomes love in the person of Jesus Christ. His vengeance is not against the person, whom He wishes to save, but against the passion that seeks to destroy one of His children. There will be vengeance, the flames of hell will burn hotter, but they will burn for the passion, not for the person. For God's vengeance is against evil and takes the form of salvation, of rescuing from the jaws of Hell all who call on His name.

Oddly enough the sequel to the verse immediately above is the proper formula for Christian vengeance:

Romans 20-21

20 Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

When we return kindness for hatred, love for hate, compassion for ruthlessness, we are scourging the demons that drive our enemies, we lend a helping hand to our brothers and sisters who labor under the heavy burden of sin, and we become God's warriors of vengeance against the forces that would deprive Him of His children.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that there is not one, not a single person, no matter how awful, repugnant, terrible, fierce, hate-filled, destructive, out-and-out evil, there is not one whom God does not desire to return home. He wants every one. When we learn how to return good for evil, we become conquerors through Him who conquered death and sin. And as conquerors we become liberators, leading our brothers and sisters out of death and into life.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Opportunities for Discernment

One of the scripture passages I'm always trying to find and which never comes to hand when I need it is Matthew 15: 10-20.

[10]

And he called the people to him and said to them, "Hear and understand:

[11] not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man." . . .
[17] Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and so passes on?
[18] But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man.
[19] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
[20] These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."

What comes out of a person reflect the internal landscape. What I say when I am not prepared to say anything is a suitable indicator of who I am and what I am about and the progress the life of grace has made within me. What I say to the person who is rude to me, to the person who cuts me off in traffic, to the person who aggravates me, all of these are pointers to where Jesus wants to work with me.

It would be a gross overstatement to say that there is nothing I can do about these reactions and statements. There are some things; however, merely suppressing what I would say under the circumstances doesn't really change the landscape. It is a start, because I refuse to cooperate in what would harm another. The reality is, as in all spiritual things, that God accomplishes what He will within me, the best I can give is cooperation and prayer. I must ask that he transform the anger and darkness that is within me and that I become aware of only in these off-instants into true love for my brothers and sisters. I must ask that my consciousness of being part of God's family be more present and that the roughness of the interior landscape be subdued, and brought into proper focus. In short, I pray this sonnet:

Holy Sonnet 14
John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

I cannot know the freedom of God unless God overcomes my own barriers and defenses and brings me to the life He has to me. I can only pray that God break down those things that keep us apart. I can only ask for the gift. But in the asking I know "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. . ." (Matthew 7:7).

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 14, 2006

Blinded by Proximity

One of the most difficult things for me to come to realize in my walk with God is how blinded I am by those things closest to me. St. John hints at this in his first letter when he says:

1 John 4: 20-21

20 If anyone says, “I love God,�? and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

If we cannot love what we do see, how can we begin to love that which we cannot see. But the trap is that if we "fall in love" with what we do see, it tends to blind us to the cause of what we love, which we cannot see. Say we love sunsets, or roses, or the ocean--we might be tempted to spend time enjoying these things, so much time that the pleasure the things themselves produce becomes an end rather than a means to an end. We start by admiring the handiwork of God and end by admiring a sunset. Surely a good thing to admire, but only in its right order within the sphere of allowable things. When we admire the sunset more than the maker of the sunset we have misplaced our priorities.

I know that this is very, very easy for me to do. It is entirely too easy to admire the creation and forget the creation. The senses can be overwhelming and the pleasures that come from the senses can distract us from the real End and true Purpose of all that we see.

In a sense, the ability to see God in creation is what detachment is about. That is, you do not cling to the sensual pleasure that comes from the object, although you do not reject it either, but you see beyond it to the Cause of all pleasures and the End of all Being. You look beyond the surface and embrace the God who has made all of this possible.

Detachment then is not outright rejection of any of God's licit goods, but rather the proper orientation of them so that God is always in the foreground--He never recedes, but our great pleasure in the event is pleasure in the presence of God in that created thing.

It is easy to be blinded by proximity, however, if the Light is always between us and what is being illuminated, it can never fall into another background element. If we allow God to illuminate our pleasures, with will be God who is the focus and not our pleasures.

Or so it would seem.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 4:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 9, 2006

The Sickness Which Is Unto Death

Reading around blogdom, I have come to realize that society is infused with a sickness which is unto death. I'm not unique in this observation: as a people and as individuals, we are distracting ourselves to death.

Not so long ago a work day was fourteen hours plus, then one came home and tended to things on the homefront that needed tending. We had bigger families and more help, but hours were long and recreation limited. Most people worked at least six days a week. (In fact, the Church obligation to attend Mass was set as a kind of charitable acknowledgment of the fact that Lords would have worked their serfs to death if attendance were not mandatory. The penalty was set for those who did not attend AND for those who obstructed another's attendance.)

Now most of us work eight hour days. We come home and probably grumblingly do some housework and then sit down in front of the television. According to one source, football and Harry Potter can be seen as definitive elements of community binding. I read this list from Christian Science Monitor with a kind of heartsickness. Of all of the events listed in the roster only one approached anything like a true community event (Fourth of July Celebrations). Most of the rest were endless distractions and amusements. Where were baptisms? Weddings? Eucharist? Confirmation? Prayer? Service? Where were the true things that help you know who you can really call upon in a time of great trial? I didn't see them on the list. No doubt Harry Potter fans are very generous, but I suspect that if my house burned down, I would turn rather to the members of my Church and my circle of friends for help, comfort, and solace. Are football games and The DaVinci Code and CNN the sum of what binds us together as society and community? If so, what a very sad statement on our culture.

Some have claimed that reading the Bible is too hard. I know that part of what they mean (for me at least, and perhaps for many others) is that it gets in the ways of other more amusing distractions. I can't read my twenty-two mysteries a month, or watch my eighty-nine movies, or indulge in my six must-see series, or play my softball, bowling, or curling matches. Coming up will be an endless cycle of Olympic broadcasts, the results of which I will glean from postings on the Blogs. And Blogs themselves--an amusement that can have a serious side, but really an amusement.

How can we identify when these things are a problem? I think it's fairly simple--do you craft a schedule around them? Does everything stop when the show comes on? Do you get irritated if someone interferes with quality reading time with a request for homework help or housework help? Do you resent giving up the time you would otherwise devote to the activity? Are you churlish, boorish, mean-spirited, or otherwise petty when someone suggests that your time might be better spent? Do you resent, just a little, any interference with your planned recreation?

I know that I can answer a big yes to many of these questions about both reading and blogging. If I am not ready to abandon the amusement at once to attend to important things in life, then the amusement has too much control over me. If my amusement prevents me from having a full prayer life or from reading scripture every day, then it is a sickness unto death--because the amusement has moved squarely between me and the God I must adore, worship, and glorify in all that I do.

This whole post started with the thought that "Bible reading is too hard." I said in a previous post that it has never been hard for me. And it hasn't. But I haven't done nearly enough of it. I began to ask myself why--and it occurred to me that my distractions and my amusements have become the entangling weeds of Jesus' parable. They are good things in themselves that have grown into me and become twisted by my own twisted spirit, my own reluctance to do what is good and right.

So now, for the evening, I'm leaving the blog. I go to do my Bible reading, to spend time with the wife and my beautiful son, and to ask God to give me the strength to do likewise every day of my life. Only grace can save us from our distractions once they have grown too strong and too encompassing.

(Sorry, if this is a downer, but I was commenting to someone the other day that I felt weary. I realize the source of that weariness is the utter sapping strength of my amusements and distractions. I am not doing what is right and good, only what can be good in moderation--and because moderation is lacking in many areas, the very goodness of it is questionable now. I know--typical Carmelite detachment talk--but where would you all be if it didn't come up every now and then?)

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:02 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

January 30, 2006

Deus Caritas Est--Reflections on Love

This is probably premature as I have not yet read the entire encyclical, and yet when a Pope moves toward the Song of Songs (as in section 6, which precedes the excerpt below), it seems to call for comment.

from Deus Caritas Est
Pope Benedict XVI

7. By their own inner logic, these initial, somewhat philosophical reflections on the essence of love have now brought us to the threshold of biblical faith. We began by asking whether the different, or even opposed, meanings of the word “love�? point to some profound underlying unity, or whether on the contrary they must remain unconnected, one alongside the other. More significantly, though, we questioned whether the message of love proclaimed to us by the Bible and the Church's Tradition has some points of contact with the common human experience of love, or whether it is opposed to that experience. This in turn led us to consider two fundamental words: eros, as a term to indicate “worldly�? love and agape, referring to love grounded in and shaped by faith. The two notions are often contrasted as “ascending�? love and “descending�? love. There are other, similar classifications, such as the distinction between possessive love and oblative love (amor concupiscentiae – amor benevolentiae), to which is sometimes also added love that seeks its own advantage.

In philosophical and theological debate, these distinctions have often been radicalized to the point of establishing a clear antithesis between them: descending, oblative love—agape—would be typically Christian, while on the other hand ascending, possessive or covetous love —eros—would be typical of non-Christian, and particularly Greek culture. Were this antithesis to be taken to extremes, the essence of Christianity would be detached from the vital relations fundamental to human existence, and would become a world apart, admirable perhaps, but decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life. Yet eros and agape—ascending love and descending love—can never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized. Even if eros is at first mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination for the great promise of happiness, in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to “be there for�? the other. The element of agape thus enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34).

To clarify his point, and to unite it with some of the earlier ruminations, I simply offer this definition proposed in section 3:

That love between man and woman which is neither planned nor willed, but somehow imposes itself upon human beings, was called eros by the ancient Greeks.

So, the holy Father talks about a love that is neither planned nor willed. Further, he goes on to say that this love, the so-called ascending love of the cited section is critical to our advance in love and in the spiritual life. This ascending love is the arrow of desire. Desire may start with a worldly or human object, but that is not the ultimate aim of desire. The target of desire is always to return home. Desire points the way to something missing. Too often people stop at the point of obtaining what is desired, which is unfortunate because obtaining Earthly desires will never be satisfying.

The Holy Father points out that the fullness of love is in giving and Receiving. That is, the fullness of love is in the outward travel of the arrow of desire and in the shower of agape that comes down to us as the manna of Heaven. Anything less falls short of true love, true caritas.

I find this passage particularly comforting:

The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized.

What it says to me, in a roundabout way is that the human lot is to be tempted by desire. Desire is the siren-call of God, call us upwards, encouraging each person to transcend his earth-bound desire and to heed the desire that gives life and is behind all earthly desire. So, those of us who constantly complain about bodily temptation--yes, it is a very difficult passage to endure, but what it says, indirectly, is that we still hear God's call even though we are yet distant from Him.

Eros is answered by and intertwined with agape. In our present situation, the two are intrinsically bound and cannot be separated without doing radical harm to the very nature of love itself. Eros severed from agape parts passion and sympathy from service--it damages both will and desire.

I'll continue to read, and if other thoughts occur, I'll be happy to share them, but so far in this brief transit, I have met Pope Benedict XVI mystic or protomystic whose first encyclical calls us to a closer relationship with out Lord. The nature of the letter seemed to surprise a great many in Rome, and yet there was no need for it to do so. After all, he was chosen by the Holy Spirit, and we will assume that he has consented to be guided by Him, so what could be more practical than telling a world drowning in the diminution of eros that God is reaching out and calling each person home?

God bless our good Pope, and thanks be to God for the message He inspired of the Holy Father.

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January 26, 2006

Love Walks on Two Legs

But let's get back to love. Love walks on two legs. It needs both--will and feeling. They are not always operating. Just as when you take a step both feet are not simultaneously on the ground, so it may be with love. There are times when both are operative, but more often one or the other aspect predominates. For some, love hops around on one leg--will. There is a distrust of the emotional world, of the dimension that really is the consolation of God that helps to feed and "restock" the will. Love that seeks to operate on will alone will soon run dry. The emotion is the lubricant, rather like the fluid in the knee that keeps the joint moving smoothly--it is critically necessary. But we must also acknowledge that too much fluid is also a bad thing, the knee swells up and ceases to operate well.

Love as a human faculty has these two equally important, mutually intertwined branches. They feed each other, will and emotion. If I will someone good, the emotion will tend to fall in line. If I like someone, I am inclined to will good things for them.

Likewise, we do not say that God is will, we say that He is love. Nevertheless, God is His will just as He is His love. In God they know separation or boundary, but in humanity they do. Indeed, even in the spiritual world apart from God, they must know division or a fall from grace would not be possible.

Love walks on two legs, which like all legs, are a gift from God. The will is strengthened by the grace that is partially expressed in the consolation of emotion. We can will to love what we are not attracted to, but this will is a feeble thing and only held in place by His overwhelming grace and favor. Likewise, emotion fades, and without the will to hold us steady to the course our "love" becomes nothing more than our lust.

When we say God is Love, we must also acknowledge that God is Justice, Mercy, Prudence, Temperance, Grace, Kindness, Will, etc. etc., no part separate from any other nor extricable from it. Nevertheless, God sanctified the divided human person when He took human form and deigned to experience and participate in the full spectrum of what it meant to be human. And this means love--emotion and will, will and emotion, the two bringing to fullness the greatest of the three theological virtues.

Love is patient (will--to wait), love is kind (emotion--meeting the needs of another with empathy for the situation). . .

More later as I can think more about it, but I'm sure you're all tired by now. Hope I can make it to sentence two of the encyclical. But if not, it has already proven a great gift for me.

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Love is Patient. . .

I have not read more than the introduction to the new encyclical, but the title alone was enough to make me think and to consider all of the misconceptions and difficulties that center around the idea of love.

When we begin to talk about love there tend to be two very strong reactions. Amongst the intellectuals and those who are emotionally distant, we tend to get the "Love is an act of will," school of thought. Among those who find things too rigorously logical and emotionally sterile, we get the notion that love is an emotion. On the part of the first opinion, I find the thought of God conforming to that definition of love frightening and off-putting. Gritting one's teeth and enduring despite the desire to be elsewhere is certainly an act of will, and it can encompass one motion of love, but it certainly doesn't define the fullness of love--one grits ones teeth and endures because there is a link or a bond there worthy of preservation. On the other hand, the "love is emotion" school, leaves us abandoned to the vagaries of whim. When the feeling of love comes over us, we'll pay attention, otherwise, you're left on your own--there's a bond, but where the will is not united the bond is merely how I feel at the moment. Neither extreme gives us a very appealing notion of what it might mean when we say that God is love.

Neither of these perceptions is entirely correct on its own. Rather it is the combination of the two that gives us some sense of the dimensionality of love. It is interesting that the word used for love with respect to God is not "amor" but "caritas." In fact, this caritas, for a very long time, was translated as "charity." And charity is perhaps closer to the spirit of what is intended than is "amor," linked as it is to eros. Caritas and charity both carry with them the very word "caring." Caring is love in action--it is both an act of will and a movement of will toward the other. Caring implies a bond--in some cases a bond of emotion, but certainly a bond of duty, depending upon the nature of the caring. A nurse might not be emotionally bonded to her patients, but one of the reasons many people become nurses is that there is a deep seated desire to help others. A priest may not particularly like all of his parishioners, but out of duty he cares for each one to the best of his ability.

We are human. Duty fails, bonds are strained, emotions come and go, the strength of desire and will fluctuate. God is God. He is, in this sense the unmoved mover--not that He is emotionally distant, but rather, none of these things that strengthens or weakens the bonds that join humans change His universal caring one iota. The horrors of a Hitler, a Pol Pot, or a Saddam Hussein do not alter God's intense salvific love one bit. His desire, His bond, and His will to save and care for are just as strong for these people as it is for Mother Teresa. I know, there is something frightening about the notion. Is it fair that He should love these who have spread so much sorrow as much as He loves His saints? Fairness is an odd human concept that attempts to right the balance of things. God is a God of justice, mercy, and love. And He is the God of all of these at once without any bars or separation. Remember, God is not the God of parts, but the God of the whole, undivided unity and simplicity. His Love, Justice, Mercy, caring--all of these things are one thing in God, indivisible, uniate. God cannot help but care for all of His children with equal fervor. There are some who cannot return the love and there are some who are exalted to great heights by it. How high we rise in God's kingdom is not so much predicated on how much God loves us (He did so even unto death) as by how much we are willing to respond to that love--by how much precedence that love takes in our own lives. Each is made differently, but God loves all equally. He will welcome any prodigal with the joy that He welcomes any saint. It's just that prodigals, thought they may realize their sin, often repent only insofar as is necessary to get back into good graces. (Being one myself, I speak with authority.)

I'll stop for the moment and gather together the rest of this thought which I may post later; however, for the moment, I think it is sufficient to leave with the thought that love is not a things of extremes in human experience, rather it is the perfect balance of bond and caring with action of will. One must have both the tie and the willingness to accept and act upon the tie for love to exist and grow.

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January 22, 2006

12 Apostles

Not a novel observation, but one that occurred to me as I was listening to the homily at Mass.

12 is a number of completeness. So why didn't Jesus pick 11 apostles? Why 12?

12 is the number of completeness, the completeness of the body of Christ and as its head, Christ leads the body but is more than just another part of it. When He ascended to His Father, tweleve were still left--completeness, headed by Completeness.

Not astounding, but well worth considering.

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January 20, 2006

Exhortation and Encouragement

I have probably written about this before, but sometimes my mind turns on the same tracks and I think it's important to remind myself of things I rediscover.

When I was with the charismatic renewal, I was identified among the group as a prophet or as having the prophetic gift. But honestly, I didn't feel like a prophet and I didn't act like a prophet. I did not warn of the coming wrath nor did I convict others of their sins.

Over time I considered what I knew of what I had done with the group. (The experience was odd because it would no sooner come out of my mouth than I would forget what it was I had said, so I had to rely on the few notes I had taken and others had given me.) I discovered that there was nothing at all of the prophet about me. I did not announce God's wrath to come, I did not identify the sins of others and encourage them to renounce them and lead a straight life.

Rather then, as now, I announced the Father who loves us, the Savior who cherishes us, the God who slaughters the fatted calf to welcome us back, time and time and time again. At one time I gave the word "exhortation" to this gift. But an exhortation is a hair's breadth from a harangue. I think of my gift now in terms of encouragment.

Time and again people come to me despairing of themselves, of God's love, of God's help, of others, and it is my pleasure and my privilege to remind them of the God who loves each one of us as if we were each the only child He had. Encouragement, always to turn from our present ways which satisfy neither ourselves nor God and rejoice in our privilege of conversation, of deep and abiding love.

I hope always to hold on to this great gift. I derive encouragement from places people see none (St. John of the Cross for one) and I hope always to be a source of encouragement to those who feel that they cannot go on, they cannot progress, they cannot grow. Of course one can't if that is how one approaches the question.

No one can will him or herself to heaven. No one can even will him or herself to better prayer. All that one can do is pray, rely on God, and when the grace comes, seize it and live it. God will perfect our prayers, He will give us the words. He will help us lead lives pleasing to Him, all we need to do is turn to Him and ask. The grace is always there and He rejoices in our little requests. He is the Father who loves us above all things--even above His own self.

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January 19, 2006

Frightening Steps to Loving God

1. God is simple.

St. Thomas Aquinas "discovered" this and the Church teaches this (so far as I can tell.) God is simple. He is not made up of parts. He is one complete unity--one cannot take away a "part" of God. As such God has separable attributes--no qualities apart from Who He is. That is God's will is God, God's love is God, God's mercy is God, God's justice is God. He is at once all of these things and these things are at once all the same in God because God is simple. People make distinctions between these things because humanity is not simple--there are component parts. (By the way, don't ask me how this is true, I haven't a clue. But I do understand that it is true, and I am trying to piece out the implications of this solid and confusing truth.)

2. Loving God Means Loving God's Will
As pointed out above, God's will is His being. God is God's will and at the same time God's love, justice, mercy, patience, power, etc. But in the very real sense God is God's will--they are not separable. Thus, truly loving God means loving God's will. Loving God's will is more than saying , "Thy will be done/on Earth as it is in heaven." We must also seek to do it. When we do God's will, because His Will is Himself, we incorporate ourselves into God in a substantive way that in unmatchable. This is one of the reasons why Jesus tells us, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." His commandments are an expression of the will of God. To love God, we must love His will.

3. Loving God's Will Means Loving My Life

Things get even more frightening. Loving God's will means loving my life, here, now, as it is. That is not to say that we must be fatalistic and accept as inevitable our present circumstances. It does not mean we cannot hope and work for better. But unless and until things do get better, our present circumstances are, for whatever reason, God's present will for us. To love God means to love his will. To love His will means to rejoice in our present circumstances even as we look forward to even better circumstances. We can rejoice in who and what we are and what we have here and now and still hope for a better life. Indeed, the whole Christian vision is reaching for that better life here and now.

The most important part of prayer is loving God. But loving God comes with knowing God and we can know God (in part) by knowing ourselves and our present circumstances because they are manifestations of God's will. Loving our lives as they have been presented to us, as gift and gift alone, is a step toward knowing God intimately. It is a frightening step because it means I must see and accept my present limitations, circumstances, and conditions as God's abiding and loving will for me here an now.

I suppose for some this is not nearly so difficult a prospect as it may be for others. As one who is always looking forward to better times, it is a difficult first step. However, the necessity of this step follows from the logic and beauty of God's simplicity. I need to learn to embrace that simplicity in all of its apparent contradictions--love, will, mercy, justice, compassion, authority--everything that is God and makes up God, not as constituent parts but as a gestalt from which we derive our impression of these virtues and strengths.

Loving God is as simple as coming to know who we really are and always seeking to find what God has in store for us.

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January 16, 2006

Random Thought to Be Continued Elsewhen

It occurs to me that if the end is not Love, then it is not the end, but a stopping point.

In the past I have seen movies and read books that do not really end, they merely stop. If we act without love then we do not reach the End, we simply stop. I wonder if the sum of all this stopping is not the whole notion of purgatory, where all halting and stopping is consumed and we are finally purged of all the faults that do not lead to an end, but rather bring us to a stopping point and allow us to quit.

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January 9, 2006

Random Thought on Mortification

My mortification should not mortify you.

Too often those who undergo strict regimes of mortification end up mortifying not only themselves but those around them. Their diets dictate all and cast shadows on what others eat. Their rules of behavior are the standard and anything less is unsatisfactory--even if nothing is said, it is clear.

I'm a bad mortifier--when I suffer I believe in sharing. But shared suffering often isn't efficacious, and mortification isn't merely about suffering, there is an end to the action--we deny ourselves some positive blessing or good not to deny ourselves, but to open ourselves to the greater good we would remain ignorant of.

Now, if only I remember to come back and look at this when I'm going through my next bout of mortifications.

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January 8, 2006

Epiphany Celebration Epiphany

On this most glorious day of the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ to all the world as seen in the persons of the three wise men I am reminded that we do not work to earn leisure, nor do we work to earn the money to buy things, but, if we are working properly, we work for the glory of God, as a sign to all people. If in the process we have some leisure and some enjoyment of the things of this world, so be it. But it is important to remember that they are secondary, entirely secondary. And if I should be called to work every waking moment of every day with only the reward of getting up to work it all again, and yet I do that work in praise of God and the the Glory of Christ our savior, I have contributed more to the world than any amount of labor in a cause or leisurely creation of the arts.

Each day we are the epiphany for those who do not know Jesus. If I accept that role and act accordingly, I am living in the praise of glory and that is the only end I need.

And so I ask, why is this so hard to remember day by day. Why must I struggle so hard to keep focus and to remember that everything that is not for the glory of God is wasted effort--futile and meaningless?

I note it now for those times when I need to remember and cannot seem to get everything into focus. I note it now for those who have a similar difficulty with focus. And I note it now in great joy and peace because God is with us--He will support us with His grace and help us to work out our salvation and the salvation of the entire world.

Praise Him!

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January 7, 2006

Random Thought on Defending the Faith

I've read here and there about the proper means of defending one's faith. It occurred to me at some time that the most useful, most effective, most reliable means of defending one's faith is to live it as it is meant to be lived, without stint, without quibble, without making a point of it.

It also occurred to me that this is by far the most difficult means of defending one's faith--one that, while not reserved to Saints, certainly most effectively demonstrated by them. Some of these Saints also defended their faith in other ways--in physical battle, in intellectual battle, in protracted debate. But others did not so engage, and yet they still won the hearts and minds and souls of a great many. I guess I would say that living your faith in its entirety is a precursor to being able to defend it in any intellectual capacity.

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December 19, 2005

The War In Heaven

The War in Heaven is already won. And yet the battles continue as though we were lone Japanese troops on some Phillipine island, unaware that the war has ended. And the season of advent, the season of waiting is a good time to recall the the war in Heaven is won.

But battles linger on day to day. And the most insidious thing about these battles is that they are waged on the very smallest of decisions. For those of us who count ourselves friends of God, we will rarely be persuaded by some spectacular sin or crime against humanity. While most of us would balk and blanch at the thought of murdering someone, few of us would hesitate to condemn that person to Hell thoughtlessly. They're only words, they have no effect.

But we are taught time and again that it is not what goes into a person that makes them unclean, but what comes out of the fullness of the heart. When we are not being particularly spiritual what do we say and do? What do we say and do when someone takes the last parking space for miles--a space we had been waiting for for ten minutes while an elderly lady and her three sisters bustled around trying to put packages much too big into the trunk in a drizzling rain.

It is on these small actions--the actions of a moment, the actions that reveal the heart that the major battles are fought and lost. It is what my heart is stuffed full with that flows out in the heat of the moment. Yes, God will forgive it, but I've lost that pitched battle. And sometimes, as in the case above (had it occurred) I can lose it without a word being said.

Spiritual combat is sometihng few of us are really prepared for. I may think I'm ready. But what I'm ready for is to resist the temptations I can readily identify--not those that creep up on me in a blind moment. I'm ready to fight what I know to be the enemy not the disguised one, the event that takes me by surprise.

So, how do I fight these battles, the ones I am unprepared for? That is one of the many, many reasons for prayer. Prayer teaches calmness, serenity, and acceptance. Spending time in prayer tames one's own selfishness and need, it puts one in touch with God in a way that transcends the moment. It breaks down the fortress of evil and builds instead the bulwark of love--a shield against which no evil can succeed. Where love grows, evil cannot rest. Evil is nothing less than the constant attack on love. It started with one prideful boast and rebellion and quickly turned into a loathing for anything that looked like Love.

Prayer causes love to grow. Perfect love drives out fear and fear, with its close relative anger, are the sources of much of sin. Yes, there are other causes, but much of what we do that is wrong stems from either fear or anger. Love breaks the back of fear. It puts us in a place where we can truly fight in the spiritual combat that surrounds us--where we can be warriors in the constant spiritual melee, and with Christ as our companion and shield, we can help others.

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December 13, 2005

Martha or Mary?

Is it possible to be a contemplative in active life?

Is it possible to live a life of service to others, or merely in the course of life to serve others and yet enter into intimate conversation with God.

Is it possible to combine the best aspects of Martha and Mary?

Mary had the "One thing necessary" however, Martha shows us that faith without works is dead. Often maligned, I don't think it is a question of either or. Rather both/and. However, if a person is not called to straddle this boundary the better way is Mary's.

The Lay Carmelite apostolate exists in large part to say that you can live the life of a normal person in (but not of) the world and still respond to God's invitation to intimacy. But, by the fact that not everyone is a Lay Carmelite, we can conclude that the specifics of this vocation are not for everyone. It is safe to say that the Lay Carmelite apostolate, as the apostolate of the Carmelite Friar is to serve as example--to show the world that what they think impossible is not only possible, but blessed.

Not everyone is called to be a Carmelite, but everyone is invited to the intimacy of the Father. And the vast majority of the forty-or-so regular readers of this blog are people who lead active lives with careers, children, and all of the concomittant busyness that goes with an active life.

How then does one "make the time" to spend in contemplation. Once again, we come back to the theme of the past few days. One need merely want to. The desire to show God some measure of the love that He showers on each of us must be more than a back-of-the-mind thing. When God becomes a priority in life, intimacy is possibility.

It only makes sense. When we wish to grow closer to our spouses and loved ones, we make time to be with them--to play games, watch movies, converse. So too, when we want to grow closer to God, one finds a way to make time for Him.

Following on St. Teresa's comment from yesterday--God will never give us as little as we desire. If we want just a little bit to love and serve Him, He will make it possible in ways we cannot even imagine. If we want just a little bit of His life, He will give it to us entirely,

It is all a simple matter of desire, or reordering our priorities until God shuffles to the top in more than our speech. It is simple, but it is not easy. As with "the Little Way" of St. Therese--it is simple, but it is not easy. But didn't Jesus say, "My yoke is easy, my burden light?" Is it not possible that in the course of life He will bless us with possibility and opportunity?

The way is simple and the means easy when one resorts to all means of grace. God will make the path easier, we must respond by walking it.

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December 12, 2005

How Do We Train Desire?

Following on the posts below, one can be led to ask the question--how then does one order disordered desires? How can one fix the compass that points home?

Well, simply, one cannot. Grace does it. But to dispose ourselves to grace--there are any number of ways. The boil down to two words, which themselves are a gift of grace--gratitude and humility.

Until I come to realize that I have nothing of myself--that every gift is a gift from above--every breath is a gift, and riches I have are granted by a gracious Lord, any grace, facility, ability, talent, or gift are His first and given without any merit on my part. Nothing I call "mine" is "mine" by right except my sin. All is gift.

If this is true--if the food I eat, the air I breathe, the gifts I exercise in earning my money, the house I live in, the wife and children I have, everything, everything down to and including this wretched body, everything is a gift unasked for. Some turn this to a bitter turn, but properly seen, these gifts are beyond measure gracious. The only attitude is ecstatic gratitude. Yes, even in the worst times, gratitude is the key to opening the door of riches and grace. I cannot begin to be transformed until I leave off self and self-aggrandizement and turn to Him who is the source of all.

Thus humility and gratitude walk hand-in-hand. When I know am I nothing and nothing I have comes to me through my own efforts, but rather through grace, what can I do but be grateful for everything. And in this gratitude is the beginning of the deepest love. True, human gratitude can sour and become a burden; however, God does not Lord it over us. He does not constantly remind me of how great He is and how small I am. He doesn't constantly crow about how wonderful He is and how small I am. Indeed, He calls me time and again one of His own. I am His dearly beloved child. I am the weaned child, rocked on the breast of the Father (psalm 131). I am loved as if I were His only child. Indeed, each of us is loved with the same prodigality.

When I consider how You say that Your delights are with the children of teh earth, my soul rejoices greatly. O Lord of heaven and erth, what words athese are that no sinner might be wanting in trust! St. Teresa of Avila

His delights are with us! There is no comment, no explanation, no set of words that pierces to the heart of delight centered in those words. You may look each morning in the mirror and say, "You are well and truly the beloved of God--at once one of many and the sole point of all his attention."

God delights in us.
Delights in us--rejoices in us.
As I delight in all the antics of my young son,
so God delights in us--
He is swift to forgive and rich in lovingkindness--
deserving or not, each person is loved as the only person,
each child is loved as an only child.

God's delight is with His people,
to be among them, to be loved by them,
to be present.

God's love knows no bounds
His embrace is limitless
overcoming even our own self-doubt
and our worthlessness.

What have I done to have such a Father?
Nothing--He made me and I am His.\
And He whispers to me:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm:
for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave:
the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
Song of Songs 8:6

Thank you, Lord. Thank you. I wait for you now--hasten and do not tarry. Come Lord Jesus!

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Gifts of the Season

My Carmelite prayer partner brought me a Christmas gift yesterday--and miraculously, if you can imagine this, she managed to find two books I did not already own. One of these is the subject of today's blog.

from Sermon in a Sentence: Volume 4--St. Teresa of Avila

Our most sacred King has still much to give. He would never want to do anything else than give if He could find receivers. And as I have said often-I want you never to forget daughters--the Lord is never content with giving us as little as we desire.

This quotation followed so beautifully on some things I had written last week that it leapt off the page at me.

God is never content to give us as little as we desire. So we needn't desire all and everything all at once to attain to the store of riches He has for us. Rather we grow into desire. We desire a little, and God rewards us richly, He is the Father of the prodigal, ready at a moment to welcome us home, to invite us in, to ask us to stay.

Of course, we often refuse His hospitality, not realizing our own poverty, our own selfishness. We may say a courteous thank you and back out of the throneroom and return to our own business. Nevertheless, God is not a God who sits on His magnificent throne and waits for us. He is the God of Glory who races after us--not content to give as He has gotten, but ready to shower us in all good things.

Desire is the key. Human desire is the faulty arrow that points home. It is a compass in a shaky hand and all too often, the Devil brings a lodestone near--so the needle is not always reliable. But once our heart is set on the Desire of the Ages, that needle in rock solid--it point home, and only to home. The measure of our desire is infintesimal compared with God's desire for us. Time and again--the prodigal son, the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine for the one, the Father who gave us Incarnate Love--we are reminded of His love for us. We are "the apple of his eye." He is our beloved and we are His.

But God is not content to love as we love. Even a slight motion will bring us into his enduring embrace. He will not force Himself on us, but given the slightest opening, He will overwhelm us with grace.

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December 5, 2005

Waiting in Joyful Hope

Advent is a time of solemn waiting. And yet solemnity and joy are not mutually contradictory. It sounds as though they are, but only if we are under the misconception that joy equals happiness.

We wait during the first half of advent for Christ the King who is to come--we know He will return in His time and then the world will be transformed. But during the second half of advent, we "wait" in eternity, our waiting already fulfilled, but reinforced by the waiting and the preparation we make for Christmas.

What a shame, then, so many very good Christians stress themselves out over the Christmas season. It is hard not to be stressed if you're amidst ten-thousand other people seeking the perfect gift for everyone on their list, if you're busy preparing the menu and the guest list for your Christmas parties and Christmas dinner, if you're caught in the midst of the secular seasonal preparations. None of these are bad things, but they divert the focus from the one thing necessary.

So what is the remedy for Christmas preparation stress? Do what you do for love of Christ and do it with great joy that we have this season to celebrate. Perform a short mental exercise. Put yourself in the time before Christ came, in the Babylonian captivity. Now, translate that same state to today. Suddenly even Christmas shopping stress has become an insignificant trifle.

What else can we do? If you're baking Christmas cookies--bake them with Jesus in mind, remembering each moment what we are celebrating. If you're wrapping Christmas presents, thank God that you have presents to wrap and rejoice in wrapping them for His son. If you're making up menus, remember to invite Jesus to that party in some substantial way.

We are waiting, but what we are waiting for has already arrived (in part). As we wait, we rejoice that God's will has been done and is being done now and every day. Each ornament we hang on the tree, we do for Jesus. Each song that's played, each treat prepared, even cleaning our house, we do in preparation for a Baby who has arrived, is arriving, and will arrive on Christmas Day.

As we journey through each day, let us unite our own antipation with that of the Blessed Mother who, day by day, became more aware that the time was upon her. For those of us who are parents, let us recall the joy, fear, and hope that preceded the arrival of our own children. And this was a most special, most unexpected child. Let us rejoice with her that the time has come and salvation is brought forth in all of His glory.

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December 1, 2005

Universalism and Truth

A comment from Psalm 41 on a post below caused a long train of thought that may be worth recording before it derails. It's kind of a personal credo.

I was commenting on the question of universalism and the fallacy of some arguments for and against it. Psalm 41 repeated my oft-invoked recitation of the "soft verses" of the Bible. And I agree entirely with the comment.

However, when we are trying to live God's way, no matter how tantilizing the "truth" of our agenda, there is no ideal that is worth laying aside one iota of the treasury of the Holy Mother Church. (And I do not mean to imply that Psalm 41 thought otherwise--I am here recounting my own thoughts on the matter.) In Gulley and Mulholland's book they first had to set aside Biblical inerrancy, then Biblical Revelation, then the Divinity of Jesus, and finally, it would seem to me, any right to call themselves Christian as classically defined.

If my understanding of universalism entailed dismissing, setting aside, or ignoring any part of the treasury of revelation, I would have to dismiss universalism as a concept. I have done so with a great many lofty, beautiful ideas. No idea of human conception is worth one jot of revelation, one iota of revealed doctrine or dogma.

That might lead one to contend that you could not support universalism at all. Here I would disagree--but that is an argument for another time. But if doing so would require me to reject what is authoratatively taught, then I would have to. Period.

The truth of God's revelation is the foundation of life. I note the progression in many progressives toward discarding first this and then that little notion. (To be just, I also have to note that it occurs amongst the ultra-conservative factions as well--we don't really need Vatican II, it wasn't truly a doctrinal council, it was a pastoral council, nothing said there is binding.) When I begin to chip away at revelation and pick and choose what I like, I make a religion of man, not a religion of God. I left one branch of the faith because I felt that they did not have the fullness of the truth. Why would I cleave to my own truth which is far feebler than the truth of the faith I once held?

Any idea, any human fabrication that requires even a small movement away from Divine truth shows itself in that requirement as falsehood--pure diabolical lie. Surely the devil is clever enough to realize that we aren't going to go whole hog for worshipping Maloch. No indeed, he'll lead us there step by step--small quibble by small quibble, internal reservation by internal reservation, until we are square at the portal. We don't need to take a huge step away. Incremental steps will do just as well--perhaps better because we will not even know by how much we have deviated from the truth.

So, I cling to my hope of universalism with what reason I have and with an intuition that complements reason. I may well be wrong. I will work in this life as though I am wrong in my assumption, that any opportunity offered me to guide souls to God is used to its fullest. If I am wrong, I have worked in the right way, if I am right, I have caused no harm.

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November 29, 2005

Interesting Thoughts Toward Universalism

I'm still reading the book and still thinking about the complete argument in an attempt to evaluate it. But I find many of the issues raised interesting. I'm sure Cardinal Dulles would find much to refute in the course of the logic of the book. But this at least trolls an interesting depth.

from If Grace Is True
Philip Gulley and James Mulholland

I paid homage to God's grace while championing human freedom. Salvation was not dependent on God's decision to save me, but on my decision to accept him. My righteousness determined my status and destiny. I controlled my destiny. I chose whether I was loved and accepted or hated and rejected. God's love was dependent upon my behavior. Grace was not a gift but a trophy.

I had easily rejected predestination's claim that the trophy was randomly awarded. What good was a trophy if you hadn't earned it? Though I was uncomfortable when the power to save or damn lay solely in God's hands, I had no qualms with suggesting the power lay completely in mine. In retrospect, my defense of human freedom was simply plain, old human pride. I wanted to take credit for my choice to respond to God's grace. I wanted to believe I chose God.

Obviously this is not a matter for proof-texting but for understanding in the overall sense and reading in conformity with the tradition of the Church, and in this case the earliest tradition without the accretions of understanding that resulted as historical contingency shaped a world-view. We must understand the debate on its own terms without the triumphalism of one party or another. These earlier fathers give us a glimpse of that thought before accretions had been crystallized. And even among these earliest Fathers there is a strong measure of debate. In fact, there is a line (said to be overstepped by Origen, amongst others) that the Church definitively teaches we may not cross--that of suggesting the fallen angels shall be reunited with God. However, several great Saints of the Eastern tradition held fast to the idea of universal salvation as some members of the Orthodox community do today.

But what is important here isn't so much the mechanics of salvation and whether everyone is saved. Because even if everyone is saved, we still must work as though they were not because we cannot know that universal salvation is a given and there is much to argue against it.

No, what is really important, as TSO pointed out earlier this morning, is that when I take my eyes off of Christ, I will flounder. His face holds me up, His breath sustains me, His love makes me entire, His grace saves me from eternity to eternity.

When I take my mind off of this reality, I find myself in the untenable position of wrestling with matters that are really beyond me. I can no longer assume the place of the child in this--one of my favorite psalms.

Psalm 131

Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.

Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.

Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever.

For my own peace of mind it is far better to focus on intense love of God and following His commandments rather than trying to wrap my mind around mysteries within mysteries within mysteries. As I will not know the fullness of the truth until I have achieved the beatific vision (God be willing!), I should not trouble myself with these difficulties, but rather spend my time in the realities I know and understand. As St. Teresa of Avila said, "The important thing is not to think much but to love much and so do that which best stirs you to love. Love is not great delight but desire to please God in everything." Which is not to argue against knowledge, but to admit that there is a time in every person's life where thinking and knowledge fail and obedience and love must prevail to carry the person through until the end. Teresa's dictum comes at the point where words end and the mind has been trained as thoroughly as possible. For some this will be a longer stretch, for some a shorter. In different matters we may think more and longer with greater fruit than in others. When it comes to the mystery of God's will in salvation, I have thought to the end of my own resources and I turn to love--because love holds the gaze of the beloved and it is in that gaze that I am made lovable. It is God's love and grace that makes any person loveable and while that Grace is constantly supplied and bestowed, it is strengthened by knowing from whence it comes, by holding the eye of the Beloved as we move ahead in faith.

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November 28, 2005

Prisoners Awaiting Freedom

Advent is here, we patiently await the revelation of the Lord and His Kingdom. As we do so it is well to think of what it is like without Him.

from If Grace Is True
Philip Gulley and James Mulholland

We too easily mistake our limited choices for authentic freddom. We are like jail inmates glorying in their freedom to choose their dinner vegetable, oblivious to the guard in the corner and the bars on the window. We exult in our supposed freedom, when in truth we are shackled by selfishness and entangled in evil.

This passage, taken out of context from an argument for universal salvation, is relevant even in its isolation from the surrounding text, for we indeed are like jail inmates. People think they have the freedom to do anything they desire. But if desire is our only lead, if right reason through Grace does not guide it, then desire will always stray. Desire is necessary and good. It is the cupid's arrow to the heart of God, drawing each person closer to Him. That is desire guarded by the intellect informed by Grace.

Too often desire is merely untrammeled, unchanneled, undirected. Desire knows there is a destination, but desire itself works in the night, without the light of grace or reason desire thrashes about endlessly. It causes no end of mischief and harm to the soul that does not accept guidance. Desire teaches us that we are the arbiters of what is good and ill. Desire willingly takes on shackles that we might declare our "independence." But no one driven by uninspired desire is independent of anything. C.S. Lewis depicted this beautifully in The Great Divorce where he shows numerous souls inches from the Kingdom of Heaven rejecting it because they cannot give up what they once loved blindly.

God desires us. He gave us desire in imitation of Him. Desire was always meant to be directed to God. With the fall, the compass of desire became disoriented, it no longer pointed true because our first parents had introduced into the equation the new lodestone of self--a lodestone so stron and so proximate that it effectively overrides the "distant" pull of grace. But God is not so easily dismissed, and in the fullness of time, grace can overcome even the obstacle of self if we show so much as a second of a degree of turning. God takes whatever small steps each person is capable of and uses them to redirect the compass, to more effectively assert the predominant direction.

When we glory in our freedom we wind up with the Reign of Terror, the Holocaust, and the Killing Fields. When we glory in God, we wind up with eternal, unending, perfect love and a home within God's heart and kingdom. So contra Milton's Satan: Better to serve in Heaven than to reign in Hell.

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November 23, 2005

The Unmoved Mover

In some descriptions of God you might hear Him described as "the unmoved mover, the uncaused cause." If I properly understand the latter half of this statement, I can raise no objection. But I have heard the first half too often abused and misconstrued.

Many people say that God cannot be moved, He has no emotion, He is from eternity to eternity. I am not smart enough to argue with those people. But I think they miss something in the argument and in pure reason. Anyone who has any experience of life knows that it is not possible to love without being moved to action. Any love that is unmoved is not really love, but a vague shadow of it. Any parent who has loved a child knows that love means hurting, and longing, and hoping, and praying.

God longs for us. He loved us. He sent us an icon of His love--an icon that shows not the unmoved mover, but the deeply human Jesus Christ weeping--outside of a tomb, over the city of Jerusalem. This is not the unmoved mover. This is the engaged God, the God who loves us. The Icon of God is not the God who examines us with the microscope, but the Father who welcomes the prodigal, the Savior who weeps over our sin and death. Hardly unmoved.

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God Is. . .

. . .as close as the breath in your lungs

. . .as close as the thoughts circulating in your head

. . .as close as the blood in your veins

. . .as close as your own skin

. . .as close as the shadow that precedes you in the morning

. . .waiting, listening, aching

. . .desiring, waiting, longing

. . .loving, endlessly loving

. . .the center and the source of Joy.

Then today, turn to Him, reach out to Him. Let Him lift you to Him and shower you with kisses. Stop your obstinate toddler strut and take up your bower in the strength of His arms in the quiet shade of His love.

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November 22, 2005

God Comes in on Little Cat Feet

Fog
Carl Sandburg

THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

God is like that too. I go through life randomly oblivious to His Mercy and then suddenly I turn around and am struck between the eyes, and God move on to plan His next stealth mercy-blitz.

This has happened to me recently--one incident has spawned a barrage of incidents of awareness. I would like to say that the statue of the Virgin smiled at me. But it was nothing so fantastic, it was merely the obedience of one servant of the Lord serving the others. It was merely the voice of one person to another. It was "merely" the breath of the Holy Spirit, rising, for a moment, to a howling windstorm and then subsiding. And I am caught "under the torrent of His love." Praise God, who is so good to me. His mercy is everlasting and His patience from age to age. Now if He will only make me a servant of His servants.

A moment of conversion, a glimpse of grace. "The moving finger writes and having writ moves on." The rest of that quatrain is rather more gloomy, something about never being able to coax it back to wipe out a line of it. But why would I want to obliterate a single note, much less a line, of His love song for me? Why would I want to change a single syllable of the sonnet He composes as He shapes me?

Change me, mold me, shape me the way you would have me be. Let your light be my light and my only light.

Oh, how I hope that at last His snares have overcome my wiles!

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November 21, 2005

More Thankfulness

I never fail to be impressed at how God's finger always points the way. Even though I am ignorant of it or trying to avoid it, as Omar Khayyam told us,

"The moving finger writes and having writ moves on."

So it is with God, and it is only upon looking back at my life in fits and snatches that I begin to see the patter He has impressed upon it. How thankful I am for His constant intervention that saves me from the disaster of my own free choices. I am filled to overflowing with joy to see in all my life the clear signs of the God who loves us all.

The other day I was conversing with two friends and one of them shared with me a heart-rending and very difficult situation she found herself in. The easiest way out of the situation involved surrender to opposing forces and compromising her own conscience. In the past I had done this for the sake of family peace and for less noble motives. I was there to tell her to hold fast. And suddenly with a stroke of grace I realized that God took even my bad choices and mistakes and turned them to good for someone else. Let it always be so. May God use my own faults as blessings for others.

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Ten Influences meme

De Civitate Dei: My 10 greatest influences meme

I have been asked to name my ten greatest influences. Outside of God and Family. I will name ten, but I have to concede that order of importance would be a very difficult puzzle to work out. Also, I'm afraid this will probably come as a massive disappointment to all of you reading. But then, that is part of humility. I am judging influential by how they helped me make decisions at critical junctures in my history. Some have pervasive influence, others, the influence of a critical moment. But all have been crucially (and I mean that etymologically) important in my spiritual development to date. In addition, I have also chosen not to include the blessed mother in this list. While she is not God, her constant intercession is the sine qua non of life. Even if I do not show the devotion a son ought, I do love her, respect her, and admire her above all other saints, and above all other people, and above all creation, and above everything except God Himself. Too bad I too infrequently make it known.

1.St. John of the Cross--The Doctor of Spirituality. The high-point of the teaching of prayer. This quiet, gentle, generous man, abused, nearly killed in the political turmoil over simply trying to seek God most effectively--his writing called me to Carmel. His spirit speaks to me almost daily. I am convinced that his intercession wins for me daily visions of God's greatness in my own life. If I were to pick a saint to be almost exactly like, it would be this one. But instead, learning from him, I choose to be the saint God would have me be and thus to serve others--not as a copy but as a new example of the paths of sanctity. John of the Cross is my guide, my intercessor, my spiritual companion.

2.John Paul II--A saint, a genius, a man who could do it all and all well. When his prose did not speak, his poetry hit me between the eyes. His writing was magnificent, but completely back-seat to his example. Is it possible to truly forgive your would-be assassin? Is it possible to acknowledge past wrongs and seek present correction? Yes. His example taught the value of confession.

3. St Teresa of Avila--"God save me from sour-faced saints." "If you think you are having visions, perhaps you would do well to eat more." The utterly practical, utterly delightful, completely joyous nun who looking only to hide herself in God completely transformed an Order, the face of Europe and much of the Church. I am only beginning to appreciate the depth and power of this wonderful woman.

4. St Therese of Lisieux--I started out shying away from her and her legions of saccharine followers wandering with a hand out waiting for a rose. Discovered the iron core hidden behind the flowery prose and the lovely face. A lovely soul to match a lovely person. A tower of strength, a true teacher.

5. Coilin Owen--My Grad-School James Joyce Prof--Who, when I advanced Joyce's theory of the Church quietly said, "Well then, you're not at the end of life yet are you? And who knows then?" Perhaps it was unintentional, but he directed my attention to the eternal things.

6. My Little Sister in Christ, who shall go unnamed here. At a critical point in life simply sat me down and said, "Consider the evidence. And then consider it again." I did so I cannot repay her. She is so little aware of her influence and of the fact that her influence is most strong when it is most gentle.

7. Claude Debussy--The impressionists painted light, Debussy composed it. Without him no Durufle whose Requiem I want played at my own funeral. But more importantly, his symphonic poem, La Mer got me through the last three years of teenage life as at least remotely sane. Without him I cannot say. He taught me the beauty of the solid and the shifting, and that one need not make a nuisance of oneself to be a rebel.

8. Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Giorgio di Chirico and the surrealist school of painters in general--who, whether they intended to or not taught me that life is a great deal more mysterious than we will ever know and what we see hides a great cloud of what we do not see. And what we do not see is often more important in life.

9. James Joyce--A genius and largely a genius because of his pervasive, undeniable Catholicity. He became "agnostic" perhaps even "atheist" toward the end of life, but the Catholic Church so shaped him that He could not escape, and as much as he may have hated it or repudiated it, his short story "The Dead" and the first scene in Ulysses (among others)were instrumental in my journey toward Catholicism.

10. Albert Einstein--"God does not play dice." Science and religion are not at odds. The primacy of conscience in all areas of life (refusal to work on the Manhattan project.)

Again, if I have disappointed, I am most sorry. But it is better you see clearly the flaws before you try to appreciate whatever is given to me to convey. By looking at many of these models, you can see what a broken vessel I am. I'm just glad God sees fit to try to put me back together.

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Thanksgiving--A Little Early

Today I give thanks particularly for all of those who bless me every day with a kind word, a thought, an idea, a revelation. I thank God for those in St.Blogs who conscientiously attempt to live out their vocations as Catholics and who bless me by their example. There are too many to count, but know that God speaks through each of you--therefore, strive to be worthy spokespersons. (Most of you haven't much striving to do--but I've got my eye on the rest, believe me, I'll keep you posted! :-)

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November 19, 2005

Because It Is Alicia

and because it has a spiritual bent, I'll respond to this three-meme.

1. Write three things for which we are grateful to God for in this past liturgical year.
--Linda and Samuel
--the opportunities for growth I've been presented with
--F. and K. and their friendship and love which sustains me.
2. Write three ways in which we hope to improve our relationship with God in this coming liturgical year.
--cultivating productive solitude
--devoting more time to Mary and imitation of her
--instilling greater regularity into the details of my prayer life

I won't pass it on. If you'd like to volunteer in comments, I'd love to see it. If you'd like to take it to your own site, I'd love to know about it. This is a nice meme to spend a little time reflecting on and committing to.

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Mary, Queen and Mother of Carmel

Some of what follows is sheer speculation, thinking out loud. If it conflicts in any way with established doctrine and understanding, it should be disregarded, and I would greatly appreciate a note correcting any such error.

Mary, Queen and mother of Carmel and big sister to the Carmelites and to all contemplatives. From earliest times, Carmelites have viewed Mary as both Queen and Mother and as true Sister and exemplar of the Christian expression of St. Elijah. In a certain way, she is the Mother Superior of the Order, chief among the sisters and brothers--example and guide for the attentive.

Also from earliest times, Carmelites have had a special devotion to Mary. The earliest manifestation of this was in the primitive Oaths and Vows that referred to the Carmelite follower of Mary as Vassal and Fief of Mary--the true property and servant, the one owed protection and special care of the Blessed Virgin. Even today, the Carmelite, with his or her habit of the brown scapular, claims the special attention of Mary. (Which is, in no way to imply favoritism on the part of the Blessed Virgin, it is merely reflective of the origin of the Order and its charism.)

True devotion to Mary does not consist of endless prayers to her but of substantive imitation of her way of life and of obedience to her very few direct words to us.

John 2:1-5

1 On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;
2 Jesus also was invited to the marriage, with his disciples.3 When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."
4 And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come."
5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

Do whatever he tells you. These are the words of the Mother and sister who already has reason to know that what is being done is extraordinary. As she pondered the events of her life in an extended thirty year examen, she came to know who and what Jesus is even before there has been any overt sign. It is at a word from her that the prophetic and salvific mission begins. It is as though the Holy Spirit in both unites them at this unique time and place to initiate the Earthly preaching mission of Jesus. At Mary's word, the every obedient, loyal, and loving Son is released just as He had been bound after the finding in the temple.

One of the chief ways in which devotion to the Blessed Virgin is expressed is through praying the Rosary. In the before times, long ago, the Rosary was a device that led to a kind of extended lectio without the necessity of being able to read. One pondered the mysteries of the life of the Blessed Virgin and of Jesus Christ in the course of praying through the Rosary. In addition, the Rosary was a kind of "replacement" for the Liturgy of the Hours for those who could not read. It became possible through the three sets of mysteries of the Rosary to pray through the 150 psalms of the psalter.

Of the rosary, Pope John Paul the Great, of recent memory, wrote:

from the Apostolic Letter "Rosarium Virginis Mariae"

[1] With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer. . .

[3] I have felt drawn to offer a reflection on the Rosary, as a kind of Marian complement to that Letter and an exhortation to contemplate the face of Christ in union with, and at the school of, his Most Holy Mother. To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.

[5][T]he most important reason for strongly encouraging the practice of the Rosary is that it represents a most effective means of fostering among the faithful that commitment to the contemplation of the Christian mystery which I have proposed in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte as a genuine “training in holiness�?

[10] The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in Mary. In a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of her heart already turned to him at the Annunciation, when she conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit.

[15] The Rosary is both meditation and supplication. Insistent prayer to the Mother of God is based on confidence that her maternal intercession can obtain all things from the heart of her Son. She is “all-powerful by grace�?, to use the bold expression, which needs to be properly understood, of Blessed Bartolo Longo in his Supplication to Our Lady.This is a conviction which, beginning with the Gospel, has grown ever more firm in the experience of the Christian people. The supreme poet Dante expresses it marvellously in the lines sung by Saint Bernard: “Lady, thou art so great and so powerful, that whoever desires grace yet does not turn to thee, would have his desire fly without wings�?. When in the Rosary we plead with Mary, the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35), she intercedes for us before the Father who filled her with grace and before the Son born of her womb, praying with us and for us.

I won't belabor the point. The entire letter is worthy of careful consideration--it may be among the most Carmelite of the Letters of this most famous Third Order Carmelite. The understanding of both the Rosary and of what it teaches, strikes me as profoundly Carmelite. We don't recite the prayers of the Rosary as a rote exercise or as a devotion, we pray the Rosary as a model and a source, a root, as it were, of contemplation. For the Carmelite, any other use of the Rosary falls short of its true potential AND, more importantly, falls short of true devotion to Mary. True devotion to Mary, in the Carmelite tradition, consists in imitating her to the extent possible according to our way of life and our present cultural milieu. Yes, through intercession and prayer, we trust her with all of our concerns, but that falls short of the perfection of devotion, which consists of Imitating her, and in the imitation of Her, gazing on and becoming like Her Son. In a very real way, in her thirty years of meditation upon the mystery of her life and the Incarnation, she bound herself to her Son--as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, she already experienced the "spiritual marriage" and "mystical union." In some way that I don't comprehend or presume to explain, it would seem to me that she shared in the sufferings of Christ in His passion AND carried her own weight of suffering (as a Mother losing a beloved child) as well. In the depths of the mystery of the Passion, she seems to play two roles--one in union with the Holy Trinity through the indwelling Holy Spirit and the complete consummate spiritual union, the other as sorrowing mother, observer and witness of the trials, terrors, and horrors, of the Passion. (I hope I don't overstate the case here, forgive me if I have or if I have inadvertently written any error in regard to these deep mysteries. They are truly beyond me, and I hope I do not go beyond what the Holy Catholic Church teaches. Here most of all, I humbly await and accept correction.)

Thus, the Carmelite looking upon the Blessed Virgin sees both contemplative and example. She is Queen and Mother of Carmel. She is the chief protector, guide, and example of the Order. But by virtue of her human birth She is our sister as well as our mother in faith. This is not so odd as it sounds--in many religious order, the Mother Superior, is merely the chief of all the sisters. After her term of office, she returns to the state she had before in the Order. Mary is simply the permanent Mother Superior of all Carmelites.

I hope I've provided some insight into the role and importance of the Blessed Virgin in Carmelite devotion. It explains why a great many Carmelites had difficulty with reciting the Rosary on a regular basis. The common recitation of it does not often lend itself to the depth implied by John Paul the Great in his letter. Too often it is too easy to be carried along on the tide of the familiar and not enter into the depths of what is available in this most wonderful of devotions. Truly prayed, the Rosary should effect a profound change in the pray-er making her or him more like the subject of the devotion and more like Jesus Christ. Too often, the Rosary is a chain of supplication and intercession more than it is an entrance into the depth of the life of Our Savior and His Mother. But, as Saint Teresa of Avila points out, even vocal prayer is raised to the level of mental prayer if we keep in mind always the vastness of great dignity of the One to Whom we speak. And even though we seem to speak to the Blessed Virgin, the Rosary is a continual plea to God through the merciful intercession of the Blessed Virgin. A properly prayed Rosary, faithfully accomplished every day, is as much a gateway to contemplation as faithful following of the Liturgy of the Hours or Lectio Divina. That the latter two along with special devotion to the Blessed Virgin--either in the form of the Rosary or in other special devotions--make up the pillars of the introduction to prayer in Carmel should come as no surprise. That they serve as the gateway to meditation, contemplation, and as God wills, eventual union with God, again should not be the source of any surprise. The Blessed Virgin Mary looks with an eye of special kindness on those who wear her scapular worthily and upon those who invoke her aid in learning to look upon the face of Her son. This is true whether one is Carmelite or not. Carmelite Spirituality merely shows these forth for what they are in a way unique to the Carmelite Order. They are a special gift to the Carmelites and hence to the Church at large--available for anyone who chooses to follow them within the order or outside. The Blessed Mother will not withhold the graces she bestows for the sake of a name.

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November 17, 2005

Living Our Vocation

dedicated to my little sister in Christ, about whom I thought as this idea came to me

Or, the perils of ignoring popular culture.

Coming into work today, I heard this for the zillionth time and thought about it yet again:

Something to be Proud of
Montgomery Gentry

Dad, I wonder if I ever let you down,
If you're ashamed how I turned out?
Well, he lowered his voice, then he raised his brow:
Said: "Let me tell you, right now:

"That's something to be proud of:
"That's a life you can hang your hat on.
"You don't need to make a million:
"Just be thankful to be workin'.
"If you're doing what you're able
"An' putting food there on the table,
"And providing for the family that you love:
"That's something to be proud of.

"And if all you ever really do is the best you can,
"Well, you did it man."

Oddly, I always get a little choked up over the lines about "something to be proud of." Today I gave it a little thought and realized what was trying to poke its head out of the ground.

Too many of us are dissatisfied with where we are in life. I know too many people who want to be something other than what they are--richer, taller, smarter, friendlier, less friendly. They want a career, a home in a different section of town, a new wife, a different wife, obedient kids, smart kids, a new Ferrari--you name it, the human race is expert at discontent.

Let me share with you a moment a list of my own discontents: I didn't beat Mary Shelley to the publishing punch, I haven't published my first novel or first book of poetry, I'm not as wildly popular as Stephen King and Michael Crichton, I'm not as cool and as obscure as James Joyce, I don't have the voice of William Faulkner, I can't express the joy of Gerard Manley Hopkins, I am not living on St. John, or better yet my own Carribean island, I didn't achieve sanctity and sainthood at the age of 24, I didn't write the new Summa, I haven't discovered a new form of prayer, I haven't uncovered a new Cahtolic Doctrine, heck, I haven't even been able to come up with a new sin. If I were of a mind to, I could wander around and recite Ecclesiastes all day long, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." "There is nothing new under the sun." And boy is the latter true--particularly when it come to discontents--none of them are new--only new to us.

This discontent is another trend we are called to buck as Christians. Look back at the lyrics. Dad, did I disappoint you because I didn't live up to some expectations? Dad's answer--"You don't need to make a million, just be thankful to be workin'." And more importantly, the advice we all need to hear, "And if all you ever really do is the best you can,/Well, you did it."

God has carefully selected, cultivated, and chosen the time and the circumstances of every event in our lives. He has fashioned us and our lives. This is the crucible of refinement, the cross of the day. I don't sell as many books as Anne Rice. I'm not as popular as Stephen King. Oh well, buck up and get over it--that isn't my crucible.

Our crosses are custom made. We might think of them as orthopedic devices. Only in fitting to them are we made straight. We can only fit them by who we are and where we are in our life's journey.

And so, to quote the Joyce I am not, "a commodius vicus of recirculation brings us back to" rejoicing. Rejoice in this moment, rejoice in who God made you. Take up that cross. More than take it up, conform to it and be transformed into the image God wishes for you. Take your rightful place in the body of Christ and don't fret if it isn't the place you wanted or saw yourself in--that's part of the crucible too.

So, once again, with Saint Paul, all together now, "Rejoice in the lord always. Again, I say, rejoice."

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November 16, 2005

The Simple Economy of Trust

Another cause for joy in our lives is the simple economy of trust. That's a fancy way of saying that Jesus Christ is either trustworthy or He is not. There is no middle ground. If Jesus is worthy of trust, then He is worthy of trust in every matter and with everything I have and I am. If He is not worthy of trust, then He is not worth the time I spend in prayer--no matter how little it is.

Sometimes, it seems, I like to play both sides of the street. I work as though everything depended upon my effort and I pray as though everything depended upon my effort. A short way of saying that is that I trust God so long as what He does is within my control. When that fails, so too does trust.

But the marvelous reality, the absolute guarentee stems from who God is and how God is constituted. It's amazing how many things depend upon one essential understanding of God articulated some 800 years ago. This understanding is both counterintuitive and amazingly clear and completely consistent. Moreover, it is one that I speak and hold to with only the smallest impression of the fullness of meaning. I speak, of course, of the simplicity of God. St. Thomas Aquinas taught it as foundational in His great work. It is one of the first matters that he articulates in detail and I do him an injustice even reiterating his thought because I cannot claim to understand it. But boiled down for me, it comes to--God is simple. That is God is comprised of a single, pure essence that is utter immiscible nothing that has any trace of not-God may combine with this essence. We know this--God cannot tolerate sin both for its offense and because what God is does not allow for anything He is not.

The end result of this is that God moves one direction with no trace of movement in another. He cannot go both forward and back, not because He is powerless to do so, but because He does not will to contradict Himself. If this is so, we come back to the main thesis. Either God is completely trustworthy with everything I am, I have, or I can do, or He is not worthy of anything at all.

Time and again, He has shown me His worthiness. Being the frail, weak thing that I am, I ask Him to prove over and over and over again that He truly loves me. I ask for signs of His love and miraculously the come, tumbling over one another, a torrent, a cataract, a deluge. And still I stand, either unimpressed or unaware and say, "If you love me Lord, you will show me."

So I rejoice in His fidelity, His faithfulness to so weak a part of creation, His vast love. His love for me and for each of His children is endless and plays out in endless displays. Having the attention span of a very small child I need constant reassurance, constant reinforcement, constant abiding concern and direction. And I get it. And God waits patiently for me to decide whether or not I will choose to trust Him, Who Alone is worthy of my trust.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 15, 2005

Holiness--"A People Set Apart"

1 Peter 2:9-10

9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;

10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

Deuteronomy 14:2

For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.

Holiness. Santification. The call to be apart. In the second reading, in the midst of an array of laws and rules, God pauses for a moment to say why He is granting the gift of the law. And that is something we often forget--the laws of the people of Israel were not arbitrary regulations imposed by an arbitrary God on all of creation. Rather they were a circlet of love, a way of marking His bride for all of time. These laws were a definition, a declaration of His concern and His abiding love. So too, the fulfillment of all laws is a sign for all time of His deep and abiding love. By this fulfillment of law, we are called apart. We are to stand as a chosen people, the somewhat bedraggled bride of the most high. But by His love we are made worthy of love and restored to what we once were.

Holiness is a call to be apart from the people around us. Not apart as in unconcerned or uncaring, but apart as in being distant from their practices. To take another biblical metaphor--modern society is the Canaanites amongst whom we must not marry. Indeed, we are called to destroy them down to the last woman, child, and animal. No, not kill them, not wreak violence upon them except the violence of God's all encompassing love. We are called to break down their society, to demolish the altars of the Molochs and the Baals. To lay the places of their idols to waste.

How do we do this? Holiness. We destroy the molochs and the baals when we refuse to embrace them. We destroy Canaan when we are the people of the Land of Milk and Honey.

I have been reminded twice recently of St. Teresa's famous statement, "Lord, save me from sour-faced saints." If we live our lives as though under restrictive laws and go about with doom and gloom and no hope for sinners on our lips, we will entice no one to live as children of the Most High. No, our proof is to be children of light and joy--in the midst of our trials to love and bring love. In the days of darkness to be a light. Can we be a light if we are in darkness ourselves? Can we light the world if we are of it?

This is what holiness calls us to--separation of kind. We do not give back to the world what it has come to expect. We do not return insult for insult, injury for injury, complaint for complaint. We imitate our Master who endured scourging, and crowning, and spitting, and crowing, and insult, and pain, and suffering, and even relentless, long enduring death, only to rise again and to give life and hope to the whole world. We are His brothers and sisters. We are heirs of the kingdom, and the kingdom is not this present darkness, but the light of life and truth, Jesus Christ.

Holiness calls us apart, not to be isolated and disapproving, but to be of service. A lamp that is only inches from the ground doesn't do much to show the way--but one that is raised up high can spread a pool of light in which many can gather and the journey can begin-- from lesser light to lesser light, until finally all the light is gathered into the one Light, the source of all light, hope, and warmth. As Holy People, God gives us the task of lighting the way for all of those in darkness. To do this, we must be light in that darkness. We will stand apart. We will be peculiar. That is our gift and our privilege.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 11, 2005

Self-Knowledge and Christ's Knowledge

Psalm 131

1 Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.

2 Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.

3 Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever.

from Psalm 139

1O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.

12 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

13 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

14 For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

from The Interior Castle
St. Teresa of Avila

It is no small pity, and should cause us no little shame, that, through our own fault, we do not understand ourselves, or know who we are. Would it not be a sign of great ignorance, my daughters, if a person were asked who he was, and could not say, and had no idea who his father or his mother was, or from what country he came? Though that is great stupidity, our own is incomparably greater if we make no attempt to discover what we are, and only know that we are living in these bodies, and have a vague idea, because we have heard it and because our Faith tells us so, that we possess souls.

The providential conjunction of these three readings led to what follows. It is important to note that what follows is highly personal and highly individual. No two people will follow exactly the same way. Nevertheless, the path followed by one may be instructive or indicative; it may provide guideposts along the way.

Were I to write of the numerous ways in which I have denied knowledge of self or missed the mark, I'm certain we would fall into the realm of too much information. So I'll confine this story to the points suggested by the readings above and to what I have already made public many times. You've heard all of this before, perhaps out of context, and the contextualization will give you a sense of where the journey is guiding me. The three readings together have made me realize that there is often a wide gap between self-knowledge outside of God (mostly self-delusion) and self-knowledge in Christ (the real self). This gap is not overcome merely by recognizing it, but recognition is the first step toward remedy. Grace and prayer will take anyone the rest of the way. Or so I assume, because I am still on the way.

Psalm 131 has, along with psalm 100, long been a favorite of mine. It has spoken to my soul long before it spoke sufficiently to my intellect to provoke any action on my part. The imagery of being stilled and in the arms of God was intimately appealing, an invitation of the first order, a promise of the life I was meant to live.

The reality is that I do trouble myself with things beyond my
capacity, and I do stir around in things that merely dredge up irreconcilable feelings. I recall that one of the first things I wrote over at Disputations was my deep distrust of St. Thomas Aquinas. I further recall picking at the great Doctor's arguments on the basis of empirical understandings that he could not have had at the time.

What I have gradually come to see is that these are defensive postures. I look upon the greatness of intellect and spirit, and feeling intimidated, I try to find ways where I can challenge the Saint. The reality is that I don't have the capacity to even engage the saint in much of what he writes. I read him and my head spins. Ultimately I come down to a huffish, "Who cares anyway?" This isn't apathy, this is merely self-disgust projected outward upon the object that gave rise to this inner light. There is no shame in not understanding St. Thomas Aquinas. He was one of the great intellects of his time and perhaps of any time. His unique mind gave rise to some of the most intricate reasoning and thought ever composed. And more importantly, he spent his time thinking about the good, the beautiful, and most of all the true. That I cannot engage is not a measure of the Saint, but a measure of me. I am not found wanting in that, I am found different. There are a great many people who are utterly turned off by St. John of the Cross. This isn't a reflection on him, but rather on the capacity of the people approaching him. Again, it is not to say that they are wanting, but rather that they are differently constructed. What the saint has to say isn't meant for them directly. They'll find those truths (if it is necessary for them to do so) in another way.

The long and the short of this argument is that we need to allow ourselves to like what we like and to shy away from what has no appeal. God calls us through these differences. This is one of the reasons there is the enormous array of Saints and one of the reasons I was so appreciative of John Paul the Great's recognition of so many Saints. We are called to be all that we are, but we are never carbon copies of some other Saint, and not all of us are called to Francis, Dominic, or Aquinas.

I have been a long time battling this feeling of insufficiency that came when I recognized that I could not engage Thomas Aquinas. I had always thought of myself as reasonably intelligent, reasonably well-versed, reasonably reasonable. But this showed me that I had grossly overestimated some of my capacities. On the other hand I have also learned that I have grossly underestimated others. I have never seen myself as a particularly kind, considerate, or engaging person. I never viewed myself as sympathetic or overly emotional. The veneer of intellect covered up a vast well of emotion. This I discovered as I was meddling in these things beyond me. I read in various blogs a number of different kinds of argument. For example, there were arguments about how one was required to participate in representative government, there have been ongoing debates about the justness of the War in Iraq, and any number of other subtly reasoned but controversial points. In viewing each of these, I realized that I could follow reason so far. I could read the arguments on each side and found myself assenting to nearly every reasoned line. The argument against the war in Iraq made perfect sense to me. So to does the argument that speaks of its justness. The end result was utter confusion. I reached a place that intellect alone could not provide a solution. In all such cases the solution came from the heart, from thinking about all of the people involved on both sides. Such solutions are tricky and dangerous--doubly dangerous if we do not take care to inform ourselves to the best of our capacity. But for some of us there is no solution in the chain of reason, something more must be added to the mix before the solution can be satisfactory. Part of the end result of this is that I can be perfectly comfortable with people who hold views diametrically opposed to my own. I can sometimes perceive the reason that they follow to get to their endpoint and conclude that the person, differing in opinion though they are, is acting in good faith with all the right intentions. Too often in debates, I perceive that the point is not so much to find the truth as to convince someone else that we are right.

So meddling in things that are beyond me has taught me a great deal about the masks I wear and the image I would like to project. It has also taught me not to be ashamed of the fact that I am ultimately driven more by feeling than by intellect. There are those who would have one feel bad about such an arrangement, but so long as the feelings are as informed as one possibly can do, it seems that they may provide a solution when the intellect alone cannot resolve the perceived difficulty.

This dismantling of self is very painful, but also very productive. I discovered in it abilities that I had long thought were beyond me. I found ways of listening and ways around some of my own obstacles. I found in this dismantling a hint of who I am in Christ.

That is the point of this perhaps overly intimate sharing. And it is the point of the second and third readings above. God alone knows me as I am meant to be known. He alone has the knowledge of who I am and what part I serve in the divine economy. He alone can apprise me of my capacities and my shortcomings; He can augment the one and ameliorate the other. He has known me and had a place for me in the body of Christ from before the time the Psalms were written to tell us. Such knowledge, such a realization when it hits home is overwhelming. When the pyramids were being built, I was known and my place in the Body of Christ was fixed.

The only person who does not know me is me. And as Teresa of Avila points out in the third reading, that is entirely my own fault. God did not strike me blind, deaf, and unfeeling; rather, I struck myself blind. I cannot see because to open my eyes and see is too painful--it involves laying aside too much of what I think about myself.

God alone can assist me in finding the way home. He alone can help to deconstruct the huge barriers I have placed in the way of self-knowledge. The amazing thing is how gentle He is and what mechanisms he uses. At the risk of possible embarrassment of a great many here, I want to say how much the parishioners of St. Blogs have helped me along the path to self-knowledge. First among them, I need to thank Tom at Disputations who effectively dismantled what I thought were reasoned responses and showed them to be emotional reactions with little core of thought. Sometimes it hurt and I was hurt--but that was never his intention--and such momentary smarting made the lesson stick all the more. Tom isn't perfect, and he never laid claim to being, but his desire to know the truth has been immeasurably helpful to me. I have also to thank so many people in St. Blogs who have shown me the many different ways of being a faithful Catholic. They broadened my perspectives and my understanding. Chief among these was Karen Marie Knapp who very gently corrected a statement I made regarding her former Bishop and showed me what charity really meant. But others have helped as well. The vibrancy of the personalities and the deep-felt faith of MamaT, JulieD, and TSO (among others) have been mainstays of my consideration of Catholic life. The quiet reflections of innumerable bloggers, including Quenta Narwenion, Enbrethiel, have all helped. I can't continue to catalog, but every person listed in the left-hand column here has done a part of the work of helping me to come to know myself as God knows me. Admittedly, I am very, very far from the goal--but I have at last realized some part of that ultimate goal in terms that are more than academic.

Many in St.Blogs deny that their work is "spiritually valid" or important. But let me say that every encounter with a believer is important and formative. Every association with someone who prizes Christ above other things is healing. Every word exchanged with someone who, if even for a moment, sets his or her mind on the things above is liberating. In Saint Blogs I encounter God every single day in so many ways that I am often awestruck. Too often I have neglected to convey my deep thanks and appreciation to each person. Please consider this that thank you. Each person has helped me immeasurably. and as I open to grace and see God's motions, will continue to help me. That is what community is about. We help one another to God.

So, what is the conclusion of all of this? I have not yet realized the fullness, or perhaps even a great fraction of what God has in store for me. I suspect that this may be the case for a great many of us. God is present in every interaction of every day--we come to know ourselves not by seeking self-knowledge, which is often delusion, but by seeking Him. It is in searching for Him and loving Him that we become who we are supposed to be. The most wonderful thing about this is that we needn't do anything extraordinary to find Him. We continue in the sacraments, we engage the scriptures, and we pay attention to the arc of the day. God is present always and everywhere. He is ready to show us who we are when we are ready to see it. My eyes are slowly opening (I hope) and I count on His grace to sustain me and to take me where I can do His will to the greatest effect. All of you have been and will continue to be a part of this journey--for that alone I thank God daily. For all of your service to me, I dedicate my fasting, my prayer, and my suffering--to some more each day (you know who you are little sister), but always for those I encounter every day, for those who unwittingly are so instrumental in leading me to Christ.

Joy overwhelms me when I think of how much I have to be grateful for even in this place which is hardly real. How much more so in the interactions of the day. Please continue to pray for me and I will continue to pray for you. Pray that I continue to advance in the knowledge of God and that the knowledge makes of me a person who can serve Him as He deserves.

Thank you and God bless each visitor today.

(KOB--you were much on my mind as I wrote this--I hope it speaks to you little sister--I send it with much affection and with all of my prayers.)

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:51 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 10, 2005

The Way of Gratitude

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

--Phil 4:8 (KJV)

You knew that in my extended reflections on Philippians, I would eventually come to this verse and I will. But today, I wanted to reflect a little on this verse because I believe that it is a way of gratitude, a way that will tutor us in how to approach the Lord. As The way of gratitude helps to pave the way of Joy.

Let's first note what this passage DOES NOT say. It doesn't say that we are to hide our heads in a hole in the ground and pretend ugly, evil, and terrible things do not exist. It does not imply that we should withdraw to an insular world of airy contemplation of lovely things and refuse to engage the real tragedies and difficulties present in the world. It does not say that we are to pretend that what is ugly is beautiful or that we are to put on some distorting spectacles that reinterpret all events in the lights of the good, true, beautiful and virtuous. As Christians, we are called to be the ultimate realists about the existence of both individual and corporate evils and we are called to try to demolish both.

However, what it does say, is that when we are seeing all of these things around us, we are not to let them become the center of attention. These things are distortions of the reality God wrought--these are signs of the fall and they are not the food for good meditation. They are not to be denied, but they are not to be central to our time with God. Paul was in prison (actually confined to house arrest in Rome) while writing this letter, and while he acknowledges that situation, he does not dwell upon it. Rather his whole letter dwells upon the faith and the love of the people of Philippi. The joy of the letter comes from the contemplation of the faithfulness of a community. In the letter itself, Paul spells out the meaning and the practice of this piece of advice.

There are probably a great many reasons for thinking about the things that Paul suggests. It would seem that they would feed all three of the theological virtues--faith, hope, and charity. But one of the reasons that comes to my mind is that when I think about these things, there is a natural inclination to humility and its consequent expression gratitude. When I see the beautiful--either the work of human hands or the natural world, I am moved. In some strange way I am called beyond myself and caused to realize, not in a negative way, but in a way charged with grace, how small and inconsequential I am in comparison to all of this. And further reflection would show me how small this is compared to all of these wonderful things. And how small all of these wonderful things are compared to the Maker of wonderful things.

Reflection on the good, the true, and the beautiful is one road to personal realism and humility. I can begin to see myself as very small and yet intensely loved. All of this Universe of beauty and truth was made to be enjoyed and appreciated by the one part of creation (we presently know about) capable of doing so. So far as we know, Dolphins do not contemplate great beauty, nor do worms, nor birds, nor trees, nor fish. Only humanity has this ability to see beyond the immediate circumstances and to discern meaning.

Knowing who we are in the scheme of things is a sovereign remedy to pride. We know who we are in all of creation and how small we are. Then add to that the knowledge that God Himself came and lived and died that we should be redeemed, and we understand that despite our smallness, we are greatly valued. In the right-ordered person, or even in the mostly-not-right-ordered person, the natural destination of such knowledge is intense, life-altering gratitude. God Himself entered my insignificance. God Himself loves me so much that He chooses to make a dwelling-place of my smallness. He fills the space and lights it as nothing else can.

This gratitude naturally begins to flow into deeper and deeper love of God and consequent joy in His presence regardless of our circumstances. It is not an overstatement to say that the purpose of the good, the true, the beautiful, the upright, the pure, and the virtuous are to lead us directly to the throne room of God. They are restorative and they are salutary to any spiritual life. It is important to understand that they are not the end in themselves, but the means to the One Thing Necessary. And as means they are meant to be pondered and to be enjoyed. They are goods that God has granted to transform us into beings more like Him. Eventually, with sufficient time and prayer, we are to become beings not just like Him, but of Him. St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila refer to this divinization as "union with God." I think it's important to note the this divinization does not mean that we all become little Gods, but that we enter into the life of the Most Holy Trinity in a way that allows us our identity even while we become of the substance of God. In some way I do not presume to understand, we become the simple substance of God. Otherwise there would be no union. What is pure can not mix with what is blended in the spiritual world.

So, for those looking for joy, one good place to start is to see what is around you insofar as it is beautiful, true, and good. Ponder these things, not for themselves but for what they tell us about the God who made both them and us. Humility will blossom, and gratitude will be its natural outpouring. Do keep in mind that this is not the only way to humility, gratitude, or joy; however, it is a way that has worked for many over the centuries.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:19 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 9, 2005

A Glimpse of Discernment

Have you ever felt called to a task that you really don't feel fit for? Recently, this has happened to me and it has subtly shifted the course of this blog. (Or perhaps not-so-subtly, depending upon how long and careful a reader you have been). Elsewhere in the blogosphere I had an unfortunate interchange with another blogger. This resulted in a flurry of e-mail on my part and eventually an understanding of where each of us stood. But what alarmed me is the casual snarkiness I allow to creep into my writing. I've noticed it on and off over the past few months and haven't really felt compelled to do anything about it until this momentary crisis opened my eyes to how really bad the problem was.

One result was that it seemed best to do something to change the blog. I wasn't actually certain of what course of action to take, but I knew that I could not continue as I was. You may ask why, and the answer is quite simple. "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matt 12:26. With this warning it is profitable to reconsider words and what they are doing. Now, by idle words, I don't suppose that Jesus meant that every conversation of every day would be scrutinized, but rather that every communication that had at its heart something damaging to another, either directly or indirectly. Nevertheless, caution is indicated. If there had not been idle words, I was tacking awfully close in some of the things I have written and shared.

The problem, however, was two-fold. This blog is auto-didactic. That is, what is written is written because the author needs to learn and internalize some truth or needs to explore the contours of the truth in some way. Words force the thought out of the head and take its formlessness and give it a form. The second problem is that I am going to write something no matter what I am doing and it may as well be something that can help me or others. I cannot not write--that isn't in the programming. Even a day or two off is painful. So, I was going to continue blogging. The question was how to continue without giving offense (a minimal standard) and with giving glory to God (probably not possible from mere words in ether--but better to have a lofty goal and not make it than to fulfill one that calls for nothing from us.)

As noted, Flos Carmeli is auto-didactic. The author learns as he writes for others. This fact gave me the essential piece of the puzzle--the place and the meaning of Flos Carmeli needed to flow from the heart of my vocation as a Lay Carmelite. Great! Now I was ready to go, except for one minor problem. What is my vocation as a lay Carmelite? I can give all the classic textbook answers, but as with many who hear the call, I haven't spent the time to discern the subtleties of the call and what God wishes to offer to anyone through my gifts and my writing (if anything). So the shift you are seeing here is a sea-change in understanding vocation and in seeking to live it out. I've studied Carmelite writers for many years and still I am not certain I understand the fullness of the teaching.

So, by the grace of God, my dear audience, you become the guinea pigs and the sounding board as I walk my road and try to find out what is expected of me, what I can offer anyone, what I can do for God (by His grace, of course). In short, I feel called way above my ability. It is presumptuous of me to give instruction to anyone about almost anything. Yes, I can share a few facts here and there, but in reality, I am not so far along as I would like to be. And I am certainly not so far along that I can feel comfortable trying to tell others how to get there. But remember, at least part of what I do is talk to myself. So you are the lucky (or unfortunate) auditors of what is partially an internal conversation.

I need what I write and I have not found it elsewhere--that is the sole purpose in writing it. If it existed in a form that would fulfill my need, there would be no cause to commit it once again to a medium. There are times when I return to what has been written in a day and discover things that I didn't know were there on first writing. Most of these things are typos and sentences that make no sense. However, some of these things take me by surprise and I recognize that One far beyond me has hitched a ride for a while and guided my hands and mind. I hope the same experience occurs for some of you from time to time. If so, thanks be to God. If not, I pray at least no damage has been done.

So, please continue to journey with me and please continue to pray for me that I can write something worthwhile and in writing learn and in learning become what God wishes me to be. A lot of this is heart learning (my head is filled to the exploding point), and that is the very hardest kind of learning to take root in me. Please bless me with your prayers and please ask that God may bless you through the words He gives me. And let all work to the betterment of every visitor.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:15 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Confronted by Grace

Sometimes the light of grace makes present some very hard truths that I know I try hard to steer around. The great iceberg of the truth is the ever-present menace to my Titanic of pride.

And it is a shame I should view it with this metaphor because the Truth is the ground of our being. Truth is, in fact a Person. "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6). "For in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). The truth in love is where we live. But too often I perceive the truth as a threat. It is a threat to my image of self, carefully built up and preserved over the years--but as with any house built on sand subject to the tide (Matt 26-27). Oh, and how painful the day and the moment and the passage of time during which that great but fragile house falls completely to the ground, utterly vanquished, completely demolished--destroyed utterly. What a terrible day when I slink to the mirror and look in it and see the real reflection, the mask removed. How much I am inclined to regard that great moment with fear because it means the death of self.

But perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). And more importantly I know and trust that unless a grain of wheat should die (John 12:24), it will remain only a single grain, isolated, unfruitful, unproductive, desolate. There can be no growth into the complete organic unity of heaven if I decide to remain an isolated grain, wrapped up in all the devices that I have invented to protect me from the truth and from grace.

For truth is the soil and grace the water and warmth in which a new seed quickens and brings forth life. Planted solidly in the truth, trusting the revelation of Jesus Christ received through the Holy Spirit and nourished by the sacraments, I am given the strength to escape the bondage of self. And the bondage of self is far stronger that the bondage of the one called Legion. He only takes up residence with permission and can be cast out with a word from Jesus. Nevertheless, Jesus will not enter where the door is not opened. He will not force open the closed center of self. He will not break down the walls I have built up to get at me, until such time as I ask Him to remove them. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that the only thing I can do on my own, the only thing that is not a product of grace and God's help is my own refusal to accept grace, to enter Christ's life, to live in unity with God. In short, all I can do by myself is sin and each sin makes the closed castle of self a little bit darker. I'm put in mind of the image at the beginning of The Interior Castle where St. Teresa of Avila tells us of the Castle environs:

from The Interior Castle
St. Teresa of Avila

Chapter 2
You must note that the light which comes from the palace occupied by the King hardly reaches these first Mansions at all; for, although they are not dark and black, as when the soul is in a state of sin, they are to some extent darkened, so that they cannot be seen (I mean by anyone who is in them); and this not because of anything that is wrong with the room, but rather (I hardly know how to explain myself) because there are so many bad things -- snakes and vipers and poisonous creatures -- which have come in with the soul that they prevent it from seeing the light. It is as if one were to enter a place flooded by sunlight with his eyes so full of dust[37] that he could hardly open them. The room itself is light enough, but he cannot enjoy the light because he is prevented from doing so by these wild beasts and animals, which force him to close his eyes to everything but themselves. This seems to me to be the condition of a soul which, though not in a bad state, is so completely absorbed in things of the world and so deeply immersed, as I have said, in possessions or honours or business, that, although as a matter of fact it would like to gaze at the castle and enjoy its beauty, it is prevented from doing so, and seems quite unable to free itself from all these impediments.

But even these souls, who have started on the way to unity, are better off than those who stay securely fastened inside the kernel of self. For a little earlier in the same chapter St. Teresa has this to say:

For, just as all the streamlets that flow from a clear spring are as clear as the spring itself, so the works of a soul in grace are pleasing in the eyes both of God and of men, since they proceed from this spring of life, in which the soul is as a tree planted. It would give no shade and yield no fruit if it proceeded not thence, for the spring sustains it and prevents it from drying up and causes it to produce good fruit. When the soul, on the other hand, through its own fault, leaves this spring and becomes rooted in a pool of pitch-black, evil-smelling water, it produces nothing but misery and filth.

It should be noted here that it is not the spring, or the brilliant sun which is in the centre of the soul, that loses its splendour and beauty, for they are always within it and nothing can take away their beauty. If a thick black cloth be placed over a crystal in the sunshine, however, it is clear that, although the sun may be shining upon it, its brightness will have no effect upon the crystal.

I am the keeper of my own castle, the guardian of the fortress, the single force within that can say no to the God who also dwells within.

But there is the secret. Whether I like it or not, God dwells inside. I may refuse to look at the light. I can disregard all of his gentle leadings, all of his urgings of love (Hosea 11:4). I can remain ungentled, untamed, unredeemed. I do not have to look at the light.

Even if I do not look, it is there, large and glowing at the center. The rays so dimmed by the huge array of obstacles I have placed in its way as to be nearly undiscernable. Nevertheless, it is there, firmly at the center, waiting for me to turn and with grace uncover and recover it.

Every day I wake and I am confronted by grace again. I have lived another night, I have seen another morning. All is gift. Even in my sinfulness and in my waywardness I cannot but see that all around me is His love, His strength, His fruitfulness, His creativity, His brilliance, His light, His Joy. So long as I can resist the lure of all of these good things, I can remain safe in my dwelling place--alone and away from God. Oh, but what strength it takes to stare so firmly into the mirror when there are so many very good distractions from my own carefully sculpted images. What tremendous force of will it takes to deny God entry.

I suppose that leads to the main point of this long "shaggy dog" story. When confronted by grace (as we are every single day) our greatest recourse is to give in. Confronted by grace we learn to love and the seed is plumped by a little water. Soon the seedcoat will burst open and new life will come forth. Fragile, delicate, evanescent--but it too shall be confronted by grace and so long as we do nothing but surrender, it shall grown toward the light, and like the magic beanstalk it shall grow rapidly. It shall grow toward the light until it enters the light and, in fact, becomes light itself.

But only when there is surrender. Only when we are confronted by Grace and we give in.

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November 8, 2005

Where is Joy to Be Found?

Joy is not something that can be willed. We cannot wake up one morning and say, "Today I will be joyful." Joy is the positive organic outgrowth of vibrant faith and life in Jesus.

For those of us who do not lead joyful lives, how can we begin to approach joy? That may not even be the right question because joy is not the goal, but He who gives rise to joy. So let's reorient the question. If we wish to have the joy of the Lord, how do we go about receiving it?

As noted before, joy is not the end, but a kind of side-effect of the end. Prayer seems the most obvious answer to how we become acquainted with the Source of Joy. But perhaps the word prayer needs a little explanation in this context. Perhaps we need a more "active" understanding of prayer. By that, I mean that many seem to think that prayer is often a sitting, standing, or kneeling activity in which the mind is directly engaged in either discursive meditation or recitation of "standard" prayers.

But prayer is not just something we do, it is also a state of being. We can be "in prayer" every waking moment. That, I believe, is what St. Paul meant when he told us to "Pray constantly." Obviously we cannot direct the interior dialogue all day long because there are things in life to which we must apply thought that would interfere with this discursive activity. Being "in prayer" consists of recognizing in the moment God's presence in our lives. It is in the classical terminology, "practicing the presence of God." Now, the term "practicing" is probably difficult and misleading. It sounds as though we can somehow make God appear by practice. The practice--or more appropriately, the discipline--of being aware of God's action in our lives is an "active" form of prayer. It isn't a discursive meditation, it isn't even a recital of vocal prayers. Rather it is a consistent internal reminder--the space of a moment--when we say, "God is here, in this moment too." And then we return to work aware of His presence in what we do.

When we begin this practice, we do well to say a very short prayer of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving flows from a humble heart that knows how much there is to be thankful for. Thanksgiving is an expression of deep gratitude. The expression of thanksgiving, more than anything else gives rise to a very deep feeling of attachment and love. Praise also contains elements of love, but it gives rise more to an exaltation of spirit, a recognition of glory. But thanksgiving is an act of humility that cultivates in its most rarified form true love and true attachment to God. When we realize how naked, alone, and incapable we are, it is a natural human instinct to turn to Someone for comfort, protection, and help. Gratitude teaches us to look to God and to trust Him. It shows us that He has been with us in the past and will continue to be our strength and our support.

Gratitude cultivates love, and love realized takes us out of the shell of self and transports us into eternity. Love is transcendent--it is an act of will and an emotion. It is a recognition of the necessity of the Other. Love is eternal and Love is incarnate. When we love, we live the life of Jesus. It is to be our sign, our banner, our pattern of recognition of one another.

From love flows joy--the serious business of heaven. The assurance of the beloved, the sure knowledge of the truth, the serenity of His presence, the acceptance of His will. All of these are part of joy and yet joy is so much more--encompassing all of this and more.

We will not know joy until we come to love and trust. I am learning these things slowly--far too slowly. But love and joy both come in their own time through God's all-giving grace. I can make small motions toward these, but in the end it is God who grants them in their fullest as we dispose ourselves to receive them.

After all of this it boils down to--where is joy to be found? In gratitude, in grateful acknowledgment of all that God has given me, has shown me, has made of me, has offered me. This is the beginning. It is the small movement of will that disposes us to receive even greater graces. Gratitude--the simple courtesy to say, "Thank you," to the One who loves us.

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"Joy Is the Serious Business of Heaven"

The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

Joy, here and now and in the life to come, is the serious business of heaven. It is part of the warp and weft of God's creation. When we rejoice in the Lord, we move out of the linear time stream of our lives and dwell for that moment in eternity. Rejoicing allows us to become more fully ourselves. We take one step closer to Jesus Christ.

But we do not rejoice alone. When we turn our attention outward even for a moment, all of heaven rejoices in the glory given to God. And God Himself rejoices over us. The Father welcomes His prodigals home--not with a churlish lecture or a grudging acceptance, but with the joy of one whose love has at last been recognized and accepted.

Joy flows out of love. Joy is the offspring of God's deep and permanent love for us. And in a sense, joy is not an emotion. Joy is not happiness nor contentment. Joy runs deeper and more true. I'm not even certain that joy is a faculty of the natural part of us, but rather true joy is expressed deep in the soul, the supernatural part of us--beyond the intellect and its faculties. It is the heart-deep cry of one who has at last what has been waited for so long.

God's joy springs from the deepest core of the mutual love of the Trinity and stretches out to touch us. God is compelled to joy (if the immovable can be said to be compelled to anything) by His deep and abiding love for us. As Zephaniah tells us, "God takes delight in us." His delight flows out in love which quiets us (Psalm 131).

So today, let us spend some time with Him that we can come to know the joy that exceeds all human aspiration. Let us love Him and see how He rejoices in us.

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November 2, 2005

The End of Prayer

from Carmelite Prayer: A Tradition for the 21st Century
Ed. Fr. Keith J. Egan

"Contemplation and the Stream of Consciousness"
Fr. Kiernan Kavanaugh

In the seventh dwelling places of The Interior Castle, Martha and Mary join hands together. Action flows into contemplation and contemplation pours over into action. The two are not at odds, the troublesome disassociation ends, "the cavalry at the sight of the waters descended" (Spiritual Canticle 40:5). God is found present, though ever hidden, in all of life's activities and events. And the little streams of memories and plans about our past and future all flow easily into God. The spiritual marriage "is like what we have when a little stream enters the sea, there is no means of separating the two" (Interior Castle 7.2.4)

When we look at the life of St. Teresa of Avila, we can readily see that contemplation cannot help but to flow over into action. St. Teresa established at least 13 foundations throughout Spain. She ran almost every convent she lived in, and she produced a remarkable volume of spiritual guidance and letters. This spilling over into action is not always transparent. In the case of the cloistered, the action is hidden, but very real. For example, St. Thérèse desperately wanted to become a missionary nun in Vietnam. Given her health and other considerations, this was not a possibility, but it did not stop the longing. Indeed, so great was her yearning that it was recognized in elevating her to Patroness of the Missions.

But how can we love God without wanting to serve in some substantive way? How can we embrace our spouse and then say that His children mean nothing to us? It isn't possible. When we join in spiritual marriage, the welfare of all of his children becomes our overriding concern. Time and again in Carmelite writings we are encouraged to pray for all whose souls are endangered that everyone might join the banquet in Heaven.

The end of contemplation, most particularly for a lay person, is substantive action that builds or at least supports the Kingdom here on Earth. Love that does not spill over into action is mere sentiment. Love that does not honor the beloved in honoring His intent is mere illusion and blindness. Love is, above all else, hard-working, endlessly laboring to please the One who is Love.

And when we love, we join in the vast ocean of His love, still ourselves but much more in His image, and inseperable from the vast ocean of mercy that carries every child home.

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November 1, 2005

To All the Saints. . .

Happy Catholic

From Julie D. at Happy Catholic:
Jean at Catholic Fire is expressing gratitude to her favorite saints for their help on the way by listing them with a few of the traits she admires most. Great idea!

Julie shares her list, and I shall share mine. I'm certain that much of it will surprise no one--but there may be a few surprises.

St Augustine--his real and arduous struggle against the sins of the flesh and his ecstatic love of God.

St. Benedict--level-headedness and clarity, as well as charity in the development of the rule for relilgious life.

St. Catherine of Siena--her determination, her courage, her hard work

Dorothy Day--her sheer grit and determination, her love for the poor, her humility

St. Frances de Sales--his brilliant writing, his pastoral personality

St. Ignatius of Loyola--his missionary zeal, his solid teaching and training in prayer

St. John of the Cross--his poetry, his gentleness, his humor, and his solid, clear teaching.

St. Katherine Drexel--her love for the poor and underprivileged, her life of total self-giving

The Martyrs of Compeigne--their faithful, true and abiding witness to the truth, their prayer for their country, their intercession in bringing about the end of the reign of terror

St. Maximilian Kolbe--his imitation of Christ, his example of love

St. (Blessed?) Nils Stensen--his perfect combination of pastoral ministry as bishop and profound exploration of science. (We have him to thank for the principle of superposition, the principle of original horizontality, his Prodromus--all of which paved the way for the scientific pursuit of paleontology; and Steno's law, or the first law of crystolography [the angles between corresponding faces of a crystal remain constant and characteristic.

St. Paul--his intellect, his will, and his sheer vision and power and his ability to make some of the most complex things simple (and some of the simplest things complex).

St. Teresa of Avila--her down-to-earth humor, her practicality, her rich spirituality.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross--her love for her people, her intellect, and her passion.

St. Teresa Margaret Redi--Her pure and simple love of God, her self-sacrificing service

St. Teresa of the Andes--her pure and abiding love and drive toward God

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta--her joy, her simplicity, her example of service

St. Therese of Lisieux--her strength, her simplicity, her deep love

St. Thomas More--his integrity, his consistency, his nobility, his love of wife and family

My, what a lot of Teresas and derivitives!

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From St. Ephrem the Syrian

A friend sent this to me and it really spoke, so I share it.

Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian

Who will not lament for me, who have renounced the eternal kingdom for the sake of meager pleasures, ignoring the eternal fire?

Having surrendered myself to the passions, I have destroyed the integrity of my soul and become like the unreasoning beasts.

At one time I found myself rich with gifts, but now I have come to love the poverty of the passions. I have become a stranger to the virtues and departed for the distant land of corruption. I am half dead; I have only a tiny remnant of life in me.

Because I am this way by mine own free choice, I cannot even raise mine eyes to the kindhearted Lord.

Lament, O blessed and righteous ones, for me who am caught in the embrace of passions and sin.

Lament, O ascetics, for me who am a glutton and voluptuary.

Lament, O merciful and condescending ones, for me who am hardhearted and cause much grief.

Lament, O God-pleasers, for me who strives to please men (and women).

Lament, O you who have attained meekness, for me who am irritable and wrathful.

Lament, O humble ones, for me who am pompous and arrogant.

Lament, O you who have attained the nonacquisitiveness of the apostles, for me who, burdened by my love for possessions, cling to material things.

Lament, O you who have loved lamentation and hated laughter, for me who have loved laughter and hated lamentation.

Lament, you who contemplate the judgement that will come after death, for me who affirms that I remember the judgement but act to the contrary.

Pray, O saints of God, for my soul which is convulsed by all manner of passions. Inasmuch as you are able, help me, O saints of God.

For I know that if you beseech God, the Lover of mankind, all will be granted to you from the sea of His kindness. And, like our man-befriending God, so also when I, a sinner, beseech you, do not despise my supplication; for I have not the boldness to pray to Him myself because of the multitude of my sins.

Your role is is, O saints, to intercede for sinners; God's role it is to have mercy on those who despair.

O saints of God, pray to the King on behalf of the prisoner. Pray to the Pastor on behalf of the sheep. Pray to Life on behalf of the corpse, that He might lend His hand to aid me and strengthen my humble soul in its feebleness.

So appropriate for All Saints Day.

Note that even as we implore their lamentation, we encourage their joy because, "There is as much joy in heaven over the return of one sinner. . ."

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An End to Anger?

Disputations

Tom has been posting a beautiful series of posts on anger. An excerpt of one of the most recent appears below:

from Disputations

We are, of course, obliged to pray for our enemies, an obligation that would seem to extend to those who aren't our enemies so much as people we flat don't like. It is, I find, a very liberating experience -- animosity and anger being what we're liberated from -- to simply pray that God give them the graces they need to fulfill God's will for them, without reminding God what His will for them is. That is, to pray, "Fill his heart with Your love," without adding, "so that he'll finally stop being such an idjit."

Haloscan appeared to have problems communicating with my browser this morning. I had left the message that follows as a comment in the thread, but I don't know if it ever took. so I take the liberty of posting a response here.

Dear Tom,

Perhaps the best way of avoiding anger--and here I'm talking about the general disseminated anger that is so debilitating--is to cultivate a more immediate response that is not anger.

Often anger emerges from fear. We are angry because it gives us a more "proactive" approach to what we fear. People angry about the liturgy fear the loss of meaning that they perceive. People angry about this or that abuse fear the destruction such abuses may cause. Not all anger stems from fear, but much does.

We turn to the Bible and see that "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment." (1 John 4:18 KJV) Perfect love casts out fear--the same fear that can give rise to this dissipative, poisonous anger. When we look at Jesus in the temple, we can see the difference between His anger and our own. His anger is "zeal for the House of His Father." There is no touch of fear or dread. When His fear was greatest and nearly overwhelming, He poured out His love as drops of blood and was able to do His Father's will in perfect forgiveness, joy, and peace. There is no trace of anger in the passion--though He certainly had cause.

So perhaps if we cultivate this perfect love in prayer, if we spend time with Jesus in the Scriptures, if we learn to trust Him and hold Him up as our example, if, in short we learn to Love Him as perfect Love demands, then anger will become an "also-ran," a secondary recourse, a support from the framework of love--rare, zealous, and perfecting.

shalom,

Steven

I just felt it went with the theme of the day, and the theme on which I hope to rebuild much of my faith and devotion.

God bless and keep everyone who visits here today. And may He bless you especially with the blessings of His Joy, Peace, and Love. May the joy of the Lord be your strength and shield from this day forward.

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Perfect Peace Brings Forth Joy

And who, you may ask, has perfect peace?

Ah, there is an answer:

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3

Perfect peace blossoms forth from trusting God. From love blossoms trust; from trust unfolds peace; from peace flows joy; and on joy the Kingdom of God is built. We make it real when we love, trust, and rejoice. We emerge from the tomb with Lazarus and put on real life when we learn to rejoice.

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Joy for the Day

A couple of favorite verses to get the day started:

Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our LORD: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength. --Nehemiah 8:10, KJV

And, from the prophet who brought you Lamentations and weeping:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Jeremiah 29:11 KJV

For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11 RSV

All our joy is in the Lord here and now in the eternal present. When we lift ourselves beyond the mere passage of time and join Him, however briefly, then we experience joy.

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Love's Last Letter

Love's Last Letter

If I could wish for one thing, I would wish that under similar circumstances, I would have the strength to write such a letter as the one referenced above. Reminiscent of St. Thomas More's great final letters and admonitions, this is the work of Christopher Love, convicted and executed for opposition to Cromwell's government. An excerpt follows.

from Christopher Love's Last Letter to His Wife

11. Rejoice in my joy. To mourn for me inordinately argues, that you either envy or suspect my happiness. The joy of the Lord is my strength; Oh! Let it be yours also! Dear wife, farewell: I will call thee wife no more: I shall see thy face no more: yet I am not much troubled, for now I am going to meet the Bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, to whom I shall be eternally married.

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A Resource for Inspiration

Abbey of the Genesee: Retired Abbot Dom John Eudes' Home Page, Homilies, Conferences, Articles, Book Reviews

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October 30, 2005

Rejoicing

Psalm 122 1:4

I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.

Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together:

Whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD.

In what should we rejoice?

In all things at all times. But we must not confuse rejoicing with happiness, contentment, or any number of other earth-bound "good" reactions to things. Rejoicing can take place in the midst of deep sorrow. Rejoicing is possible in deep pain. Rejoicing is even possible in the darkest of dark nights, when we are not even certain that God is there or ever has been--St. Therese of Lisieux showed us this. When sorely tempted against the faith, she rejoiced in the temptation and chose God.

I rejoiced when they said to me,
let us go unto the house of the Lord,
Standing there O Jerusalem,
In your gates, unto the house of the Lord.

Today I rejoice in all my circumstances. I rejoice that God spoke to me a word of rejoicing. I rejoice that He asked me in the midst of pervasive and terrible pain to turn my life around. I rejoice in what He told me to remove and destroy and in the direction He has laid out for continuing.

If the true and the beautiful is not present, there is no purpose to pursuing it. In accordance, I will be dramatically reducing my time on-line. And it may come to pass that I dramatically reduce time elsewhere in St. Blogs. I have gone looking for a fight, and goodness knows I've found them wide and far. It's time to go looking for the good. And I know that I will find that wide and far also.

Praise God and thank Him in all that you do. In praising Him is the source of all joy, because He comes to rest in our hearts and to carry us home.

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October 29, 2005

The Arrow of Desire

Flos Carmeli: Chains of Desire

I refer you back to this poem--published here previously. Today I delivered a talk to the Carmelites of my region gathered for a day of reflection on "St. Teresa and St. Ignatius." And I glanced at this poem before I spoke. Though it did not influence anything I said to those in the room, it did spark a thought I wanted to share here.

Desire is an arrow to God. God gave us this faculty for the express purpose of building in a homing signal. Our desires are disordered in this world, but all of our desires amount to one desire if we open our eyes to see it. Everything we want, everything we lust after has, at its core, one end--peace and security.

Desire, seeking peace and security, points directly at God even if we cannot see through the veil of things we want more than Him. As much as desire points the way, we thwart desire because we are afraid of what it will mean to want Him more than anything.

Desire points the way home. It misleads us, it betrays us, it confuses us. But it is the homing signal and it can be trained to truly home in on the One Thing Desirable.

Desire is good and honest and true, and we misuse it and pervert it and warp it, and yet we can never take away from it that if we learn to follow it truly, we will find the way home.

Desire is an arrow to God. It is a faculty for our good. It teaches us how to see Him, if we allow it to work with grace.

Our desires can overwhelm us, but not if they are directed as they should be. If we desire Him more than we desire anything else in the world, then desire resolves into the rocket to heaven.

I go on too long. But we must learn to train desire to seek the direction home, and then trust the Holy Spirit to carry us there.

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October 28, 2005

Suffrages for Hitler

Or, the downside of the hope for universalism.

If it is possible that God saves every person, if we may hope for this, then it seems to me that the downside of this, the difficult part, is that there is an obligation on our part to see to it that these very unlikeable people are eventually prayed out of purgatory.

I know that I get slight queasy at the thought of praying Hitler out of purgatory. That's because I lack charity. I can apply suffrages to my mother, my grandmother, a friend's mother or other relative, even to people who I don't know well who served humanity in a neutral-to-good fashion. But, oh how hard it is to think about my prayers going to help Hitler, before say a lesser Mother Teresa. You see my point--there are so many who seem so much more desrving.

Well, what I amply demonstrate in this post is the type of judgment I am supposed to avoid. I have determined who is worthy and who is unworthy of the prayers for release from purgatory. I decide, I judge.

Lord, spare me from my own judgment. God alone knows who is "worthy" or who requires anything whatsoever, and it is He who decides how the trinkets we call prayers and suffrages are used in the economy of salvation. I am not allowed that liberty.

And so, it is best not to examine the matter too closely. It is best to pray our prayers and let God let them go where they go (except as they are especially needed for one of our own acquaintance.) When we pray for the poor souls in purgatory, it is better to cast a blanket of anonymity over the proceedings so that we are not inclined to judgment or to withholding the good we can do.

I know that no one ever gives this serious consideration. I haven't up until recently, and after this post, it will sink back down into the background. But I think the Lord raised the issue so I could be intellectually honest. My reaction to this thought shows me that I am not so inclined to hope for Universal Salvation if I must do something about it for those who I think probably don't deserve it. Or probably better said, for those who fall low on my list of people I would like to serve in any way.

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October 12, 2005

How to Accomplish Miracles

The reality is, we can't.

That's the bad news. The good news is, the reality is God can through us. In a post below one of the readers commented and asked how much of our time should be spent focused on the things we need to do to clear the way for God.

The answer is almost none at all. The miracle of divine union is accomplished by God alone. There is very little we can do to aid its progress. There is remarkably little we can do to achieve detachment. There is very little we can do to deepen prayer.

But our little is the widow's mite. We offer it out of our poverty. And it is the greatest treasure God can have from us. As a father, one of the most precious things my son can give me is something, however naively done that has taken him some time. He has produced reams of art the paper the wall of my cubicle and each piece is precious because each piece represents a time when he was thinking about his daddy. So it is with our Father in Heaven. No matter how poorly done, our little widow's mite is infinitely precious to Him. Praise God there are no cubicles in heaven, but if there were, they would be peppered with these little offerings, the signs of our attention to our Heavenly Father.

So, how do we accomplish miracles? We turn to our Father in heaven and say, "Abba, Daddy, Please!"

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October 2, 2005

Thoughts At Mass

God is passing by. He is not by passing. No, He is truly passing by in the great celestial parade. And that parade is eternal. But our time to join the parade is limited. God is passing by, every moment, every event, every heartbeat, every breath. God is passing by and calling to us continually--"Come, join the pageant."

Rev 22:17
The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come." And let him who hears say, "Come." And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price.

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September 30, 2005

Knocking on the Door

Jesus told us, "Knock and it shall be opened unto you."

Sometimes it feels as though I've knocked on that door until my knuckles are bloody. Was there ever a widow more importunate? Was there ever a person more persistent? Why do I not seem to progress?

I know the answers to those questions. It came to me early this morning. The door opens inward. If you knock on it, expecting it to open, you have to unlock it first. You have to be willing to let it open. And there are so many ways to keep oneself from unlocking the door. I start by ignoring that it needs to be done. Other methods are head knowledge that somehow never makes it to the heart and transforms it.

I now know the answer as to why some times seem so dry and so difficult. What does one do about them? I think the answer lies in simple patience and persistence. I must be patient in my constant application for admission and I must be persistent in pursuing.

But I also have to be patient with myself. I have to recognize that there are things that prevent me from unlocking that door, and I have to ask God what they are. I have to stop jangling the handle fruitlessly. Quite simply, I need to ask God to light up the interior of this great storehouse that is me and I need to oil the hingese, and clear away the cobwebs and chase away the spiders. I say I have to do it--the reality is I must merely be willing to have it happen to me. I must will to do it insofaras I can understanding that it is only the action of grace that accomplishes these things.

So long as I consider my prayer my own, and not a gift from God, I am on the wrong footing. My prayer is my own only as it arises from me. All prayer is God's gift returning to God with interest. The greater interest from those who have already realized what a gift it is and so do not struggle so hard--do not kick against the goad.

None of this is easy for some of us. Particularly those of us who are very interior people, who have grown accustomed to keeping everything inside. People often comment how very open and revealing some of the things I write are--but believe it or not, they don't begin to even scratch the surface. These are the things I am willing to share--the depths, the true reaches that I have yet to thoroughly plumb and acquaint myself with, I dare not even hint at. Such honesty as there is is superficial--whisper thin. But it is helpful for me to articulate that much--it lays out the map of the known territory and from it, I can begin to explore the reaches. And perhaps my map will assist others who are wandering in the same or similar lands. From it they can get a bearing and move forward.

Please pray for me.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 28, 2005

About Prayer

I loved this passage.

from Ascent to Love Sister Ruth Burrows,
quoting Wendy Mary Beckett, "Simple Prayer," in Clergy Review

The simplicity of prayer, its sheer, terrifying, uncomplicatedness, seems to be either the last thing most of us know or want to know. It is not difficult to intellectualise about prayer--like love, beauty and motherhood it quickly sets our eloquence aflow, it is not difficult but it is perfectly futile. In fact those glowing pages on prayer are worse than futile; they can be positively harmful. Writing about prayer, reading about prayer, talking about prayer, thinking about prayer, longing for prayer and wrapping myself more and more in these great cloudy sublimities that make me feel so aware of the spiritual: anything rather than acutally praying. What am I doing but erecting a screen behind which I can safely maintain my self-esteem and hide away from God?

The writing is less than grand, but the idea is perfect. Too often I take any recourse to escape from prayer. What am I afraid of? Perhaps it is the Keatsian, "Being too happy in thy happiness, thou light-winged dryad. . ." Perhaps it is loss of identity, perhaps it is any number of a thousand other possibilities. But the reality is that I use all of these escape mechanisms and more. Do you?

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September 25, 2005

Correcting a Common Misconception

Several times recently, I have seen the Old Testament standard of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," derided as the draconian face of the "Old Yahweh" (whatever that might mean). And indeed, in terms of our present understanding, the standard is harsh. But in fact, for its time, the standard was enlightened.

The Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest sets of written laws, set out the rule for the nation. Nearly everything was punishable by death. If a neighbor killed your son, you were entitled to kill his son. If you lied on the witness stand, you were to be executed. If you stole something of great value, you were to be executed. Hammurabi's code was indeed draconian.

The "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" code is, in fact a moderation of this very strict, very harsh, very difficult code. One could not go from the rule of Hammurabi straight to "turn the other cheek." I suppose if there is development of doctrine among human beings it is because God first led us step by step to the rule of love. As we responded to His gentleness and clear law, we were encouraged to move further, to improve upon it in our behavior. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," was not the "rule absolute" but rather the absolute limits for what one could justly demand. There is no necessity to demand this from another--but in the transaction of law, no more could be taken than was taken originally.

An eye for an eye is not the way we live today, but it was a considerable improvement over the way we lived in Hammurabi's time.

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September 23, 2005

A Grace Note on the Charismatic Renewal

One thing I forgot to say and which ties in with themes that have been running through my mind since earlier this week (there are no coincidences) is that Praying in Tongues is certainly exemplary of "a joyful noise." While I have never done so myself, I am always at home with those who sing their prayers to God--I am buoyed up and brought closer to God on this tide of joy and I am moved to joy myself.

In a very real way the Charismatic movement taught me the beginning of contemplation, of waiting on the Lord with patient fervor.

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September 21, 2005

More Advice from the Psalms

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness
and come before His presence with singing. . .

How much better a world this would be if we would do this even 10% of the time. How much better each of our lives would be. How much better for all those around me. Perhaps this is a commitment I should make.

The other day at Disputations Tom was commenting that we don't do a very good job of preaching Jesus and Him crucified. Perhaps this psalm gives us a place to start that teaching. We start when we make a joyful noise unto the Lord. What better preaching is there than joy that comes from God alone, shared and spread to everyone we meet?

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September 20, 2005

An Aphorism Along the Same Lines

Better the scraps from the Master's table than a feast of my own making.

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A Sobering Prospect--Personal Holiness

I was writing a meditation on a gospel passage this morning when a sobering thought occurred to me. We serve the Lord more by who we are than by what we say. People who see us and know that we are Christians judge both us and the Christ we proclaim by what we do. The look at the concurrence of words and actions to see what it is we proclaim.

What does my life say of Jesus? It isn't a consideration I like to give much thought to. If I am honest, the Jesus I present to the world must be a thin and weedy thing indeed. A spindly weed of a man who pipes up now and then with some heartening consideration about the kingdom of heaven. His Presence hasn't much presence in my day-to-day world.

I am who I am--there is little enough I can do about some things. But does my life convey the joy of knowing Christ? And if not, what can I do about it? To the former question, I can only quake in fear at the answer--if people knew the enormity of my sinfulness and unworthiness, it would make a mockery of Jesus. But as to the latter, I do have an effective answer. As weak as I may be, as sinful and worthless a man as I might present to the world, I can be otherwise through prayer. I cannot change myself for good, but I can be changed by submission to and continuing in prayer. I will remain a sinner, but I will be a sinner who is honest host to God Himself, seeking always to remain in His presence. "If the bridegroom is present, can the wedding guests be in mourning?" In prayer I can be transformed to be a true messenger of Christ. If I spend time with Him, I will become like Him.

It is said that married couples through the years become more like one another. ( I suspect that is mostly in the bad things so that our annoying habits do not annoy so seriously. ) So, if we seek the Holy Spirit through the marriage of prayer and we keep the blessed trinity company through prayer, surely we will become more like them. Or to take another metaphor, one is judged by the company one keeps. The reason is that one becomes more like the company one keeps--it is a natural human inclination to blend in. What then could be better than to blend into the company of the blessed trinity.

Prayer will transform me to become a true disciple of Christ, preaching daily through my actions and through my love.

I have nothing to add to the deposit of wisdom that has been passed down through the ages. In truth, I don't understand a majority of that deposit. Unlike some, I have no wisdom or understanding to share. So I am driven by this to share the only thing I can know well--God's love. I share that not in my words, but by His indwelling presence and by my submssion to Him in the presence of His children. I serve God by loving Him and I love Him best when I show His love to His children--all of His children without regard to how I personally may feel about them.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 18, 2005

Will All Be Saved?

This is one of my favorite Sundays because it always gives rise to the speculative, hopeful side of me. The workers in the vinyard are all paid the same wage regardless of when they come to work. It is this that gives me hope that all of humanity decides to accept that wage. The "I" of TULIP is what I would invoke, were I inclined to flowery theology. As I'm not, I know that grace is a gift, and as with any gift, we can refuse it.

But I'll share something from the Gulley and Mulholland reading I've been doing:

from If Grace Is True
Philip Gulley and James Mulholland

Holiness and love are not competing commitments. God is love. His love endures forever. This enduring love is what makes God holy. . . .

Jesus said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). If this verse was [sic] a command for moral perfection, our cause is hopeless. Fortunately, this admonition follows a command to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). Perfection is demonstrated not by moral purity, but by extravagant love. We are like God not when we are pure but when we are loving and gracious. . . .

The Holy One will never come in wrath.

The Holy One always comes in love.

I love elsewhere their concept of what holiness is. By their definition, and I don't know how well it fits with classical definitions, Holiness is God's ability to confront evil without being defiled. More they say that true holiness delights in restoring the impure. When I think of the great saints of the Catholic Church, they all had largely the same focus, though it may have been expressed differently. Every one of them wanted to save souls, to win souls to God, to confront the impure and to bring it to purity.

It is when I think about this--the holiness of God and yet His tender interaction with me, the greatest sinner I know--that I am most overjoyed. Talk about mercy. Talk about love. Talk about patient endurance. Talk about the shepherd going out looking for the lost sheep. Here I am and I don't seem to be in hurry to move closer. He comes to me. The father of the prodigal, the good shepherd, the Lord, the keeper of the Vinyard--all of these, He comes to me. He condescends to come to me, and most glorious of all, He doesn't even remind me of or think about condescension at all. He does not constantly remind me of who I am and who He is. What could be greater love? He is still the eternal servant. And very honestly, sometimes I treat Him as such. And still, He comes to me. Oh, what a gracious, loving Lord. Surely such a Lord would not allow one to escape His grace. So I hope, so I pray, so I believe is possible. But I stay firmly with the Church saying that we cannot know it to be so with anything other than hope inspired by the Holy Spirit. I will not be a universalist--but I'll get as close as possible, because it is in this image of God among His children that I most rejoice. And I want to be in that crowd of children.

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More on the Difficulty of Orthodoxy

I started this note as a response to Talmida's cogent comment below about how one should read and understand one verse of the decalogue--often translated "Thou shalt not kill." It was getting too lengthy, and it started to raise issues that I wanted to discuss in more detail anyway.

You raise a good point in your first point regarding the technical translation. This has, of course, been said many times and I don't necessarily disagree with it. However, in the judgment of what it is actually saying,the question arises as to what is "murder." We tend to view it in a very technical legal fashion--however, when the state unjustly takes the life of a man who committed no crime, has murder been committed? I think so--a great many do not. When a person has been killed in the course of killing enemy combattants has murder been committed? I think so--a great many do not.

The point isn't so much who is right in the debate, but rather the extended difficulties of orthodoxy. The meaning of every verse of the Bible is (thank heavens) not explicitly spelled out. As a result, much is left to us to formulate. I read "Thou shalt not murder" in a much broader way than some might. "Thou shalt not deprive the innocent of life" would more accurately reflect my understanding. Now, I cannot ask anyone else to accept my interpretation, but as I read the Catechism, this seems to be the understanding they come up with for this verse of the decalogue. Problem is, someone else can read the same source and come to a different conclusion. Three priests explaining what is meant by this will come up with three different conclusions. Which one reflects orthodoxy? Usually, I assume the one that is closest to what I already believe. And that's part of the problem with orthodoxy--there is a tendency to take the answer closest to what we already believe.

However, there is a plus to this. Even if we accept the answer closest to what we already think, by accepting the authority of a voice outside ourselves, we have already shifted our own viewpoint to some degree. By slow steps, one hopes one reaches orthodoxy without stumbling into rigidity.

And there is another stumbling block. Is it possible to be orthodox without being rigid? By that I do not mean that a person holding to orthodoxy should be willing at a moment's notice to jump ships. But does being orthodoxy carry with it a certain baggage that might be off-putting to people who are not so far down the line? I don't think it necessarily must--but I do think, unfortunately, it often does. I think of some of my experiences with some apologists for the faith whose whole demeanor and approach is so alienating that I wonder what they think they are about. They are impolite, impolitic, and inconsiderate. (This does not by any means apply to everyone in the field of apologetics, merely a subset who so thoroughly alienated me early on that (1) I nearly didn't become Catholic in the face of such arrogance; and (2) the whole term Apologetics carries with it certain very strongly negative overtones for me.) The people I speak of were extremely orthodox; indeed, orthodox to the point that they no longer knew how to speak to someone who was not in a way that honored the sincerity of the convictions that they held. Not every person who is in error is stupid or is consciously following an agenda against the faith.

I've wandered off-track here for a moment, but one of the problems of Orthodoxy is the amount of time and study it takes to be and remain orthodox, and the wide spectrum of conflicting opinions as to what consitutes orthodoxy. Who has the clear definition? Where does orthodoxy lie? Some tell me Karl Rahner is a perfectly orthodox theologian--others imply that anyone after Garrigou-Lagrange is suspect. I know nothing of theology--how do I decide? If my opinion is shaped by some neo-rahnerian effusion, how am I to know it?

The desire for believing as the Church believes is real, but fully understanding precisely what it is the Church believes is a much more difficult task than it might first seem. For example, see below some comments about biblical inerrancy and what is required for it to be true. Who is right in the matter?

And with this I come back to my favorite theme. Some people are not daunted by the prospects I have outlined here. They wade in and sort things out fairly capably. Often they don't so in any way that makes sense to me, and so I'm left on the short wondering who is winning this alligator wrestling match. Most of us don't have the time or the inclination to study every point of doctrine in all of its nuances. As a result we don't study much of any point of doctrine, or study those that most need to resolved for us to find a comfortable place to sit.

The reality is, the only comfortable place to sit is at the feet of Jesus. And sitting on the ground, in the dust is only comfortable so long as we are caught up in adoring love. The solace comes from Kierkegaard who, paraphrased out of context, said, "Those who are comfortable with Jesus do not know Him." So a comfortable Jesus isn't really something we will every find. Perhaps this whole struggle with orthodoxy is a series of points and barbs that move us steadily toward the God who loves us. I have concluded that the only way I'm going to find my way is through longing, lasting, lingering, love. My brain threatens to explode every time I open a book of serious theology, so instead, I open a book of poetry, a book of nature, a book of art, a book of revelation beyond the mere word, and for a moment I am immersed in the immensity that is God. It is there that I will find Him, with the guidance of scripture and the Church, not in the thousands (millions?) of tomes of theology that threaten me like the amplifiers that towered over Quay Lood.

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September 17, 2005

Why Orthodoxy Matters to Me

There is a tendency on the part of some to deride orthodoxy--to see it as the strict domain of the ultra-Catholic. Not many, but some. I thought I'd spell out why Orthodoxy is so important to me and why I do try to toe the line, if not always successfully.

I became a Catholic principally because I wanted a guide to what was beautiful and true. In my other faith life, I was told to read the Bible and it would tell me all I needed to know. There was really no reason for someone else to help you understand the Bible because it really was a "priesthood of the believer." In a sense, everyone was to fashion his or her own reality, and hence, in my estimation, his or her own perfectly suited God. This is an unfair representation of the reality and comlexity of Baptist thought, but it is what I finally made of it.

Orthodoxy is valuable to me because I want to believe what is true rather than what is comfortable. My strongest desire is to grab onto the truth and hold on for all I'm worth, because the Truth, ultimately is Jesus, who told us, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." If so, then to believe the Truth is the believe Jesus and to do anything else is to miss the mark.

What I've come to discover is orthodoxy is not so simple as all that. For example, as an Orthodox Catholic, I have as a set of clear guidelines to behavior the decalogue. Among the commandments encoded therein is "Thou shalt not kill." Thus, one could conclude that the orthodox Catholic would say, "Killing is wrong." However, we then face the question of just war and the death penalty, both of which are permitted by the Church (although the latter to be exceedingly narrowly interpreted and applied). Hence, "Thou shalt not kill" is not so clear as the four words might seem to say to the orthodox Catholic. I struggle with this because I want those four words to mean precisely what they say. But nothing is so simple. Everything must be interpreted and understood as the Author intends, rather than as I understand.

Orthodox faith is exceedingly valuable to me. But its articulation is never more valuable that a person. That is to say, where orthodoxy can be hurtful, I must believe the truth, but I feel as though I must not bludgeon others with it. When my opinion or belief is not directly asked for, and where that might hurt another's ability to speak with God, I should not advance it. (TSO posted something the other day that touched upon this, and started this train of thought, but I can't seem to find it now. Later: Here it is. I had merely placed it later in the list in my mind and hadn't gone searching far enough. Thanks TSO.)

Thus, I believe that the Church teaches that homosexuality and a homosexual expression of love is sinful. (Honestly, I struggle with internalizing this truth, but I accept it as the truth.) However, in dealing with a homosexual person, I am dealing first and foremost with a person, not with a walking sin. Sometimes, people I encounter treat the sin first and foremost and the person only secondarily.

Now, I need to make clear that there are those who are called and who have the dispostion proper to reproving and correcting. I do not fault anyone for following God's way. I just am all too aware of the glass walls of my own house to begin casting stones. I know how far I am from perfection of action, thought, or word. I also know that I will be a long time (with the aid of the grace of God) hauling that beam from my own eye--so I'm not out looking for my brothers' motes.

Even writing these words sends up warning flags--as though I am trying to say something about those who do correct and teach. Believe me, I am not. I am not more fit judge for them than I am for people who sin. I am an unfit judge even for myself. So I struggle to avoid judgment and to live, as best I can the orthodox life. And I always find myself overthinking the matter.

In truth, this is the story of my journey to Carmel. Carmel encourages me not to get lost in the incredible labyrinth of my own thought, but to look at God and love Him as He is--the God of love and life. I need to know enough to know Him truly, but I do not need to worry so much about all the details. I may err in my thoughts, as I did when I started out Catholic. But I have complete faith in God and in His good people, that these errors will gradually be remedied and corrected, that I will gradually be freed from the slavery of sin, and that I will eventualy find my way home to Him.

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September 16, 2005

The Dilemma of the Schizophrenic God

A few weeks back, I commented on some difficult passages of the bible wherein we are told that God told the Israelites to slaughter all of a certain group of people for one reason or another. I have to be very, very honest. No matter what his sovereignty, I reject a genocidal god who goes back on his own word to his own people.

But, honestly, I don't think that is what the Bible portrays. I had to spend some time and ask myself, "How do I really deal with these passages without rejecting Biblical inerrancy?" My answer my be akin to verbal sleight-of-hand, I don't know, but it works for me.

Let me give the full answer. Most honestly, I largely used to deal with these passages by eliding them or pretending they don't exist. I still tend to avoid them because they provide a stumbling block, but as I considered the data and Church teaching, I think I've reached a conclusion that is viable.

What I say to myself in the course of these passages is that while the Holy Spirit inspired what was written, it was interpreted through faulty men and women who were desperately trying to understand God, but who had not yet had complete knowledge of God's revelation. These people interpreted events and actions and their understanding in such a way as we get these awkward passages--passages that hint at God's abiding love for at least one group of people, but which fail of the mark of true, all-encompassing love.

I go back to one of St. Thomas Aquinas's most persausive arguments (if I understand it properly) God is triparite, but uniate and simple. That is God is of one essense, there is nothing mixed in Him. Anger and malice do not blend with sympathy and love. When we say that God is Love, that is to say that God is entirely love--the essence of God is love. There is nothing about God that is not love. If God is love, God must be love for all people, not just for me. If I understand God ever to say that He hates anyone then I am just not hearing God, because God is simple, uniate, love. That God "hates" or rejects sin is entirely commensurate with love because sin rejects love, but that God "hates" a person is not commensurate with love, because a person is a creation of love.

So, when I hear someone say that "God hates homosexuals," I think I'm hearing a modern echo of part of the Old Testament. The rulers and leaders and military persons of Israel would naturally assume that God hated what was not Israel.

However, when we get to the prophets, while we still do not have the fullness of the revelation of Jesus Christ, we get far closer to the real message. Jonah is sent to the Ninevites--not a people of Israel, not one of the chosen race. Hosea writes to Israel, but reveals Gods tender and compassionate love, most particularly in chapter 11. Isaiah promises a savior to all of us, lion and lamb shall lie down together both literally and figuratively.

So, while I am an inerrantist, I am not, nor ever have been a literalist. There are faulty narrators and faulty hearing throughout the Old Testament.

Now, does this refute the fact that God may, indeed, choose to punish individuals? No. Entire nations? I am less certain--but I am absolutely certain that He would not do so through genocide. If we can bring ourselves to believe that, it is only a short step away to accepting abortion as a near-sacrament. Why would it be okay to slaughter women and children and yet we would be required to spare children in the womb? Obviously, it doesn't make sense. Nor does a God who, now or then, orders genocide to preserve racial purity (sounds frighteningly familiar, does it not?)

No, the way I see it is that the Biblical text is inerrant, but reading bits in isolation does not allow for the complete image of God. And the complete image of God MUST be simple, uniate, complete. God is love--it is impossible for Him now or ever to be anything other than love or to express anything less than love. It is not in His nature.

At least, this is how I talk my way around this extremely difficult passages. Maybe, as I said, a verbal sleight-of-hand. But I don't think so. I'll research it and come back some time soon if I arrive at any astounding conclusions or find anything that accepts or refutes the notions I have proposed above.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:21 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

September 11, 2005

The Efficacy of Prayer

Some have argued that Katrina is a visitation of the judgment of God. I'm not ready to go there for a number of reasons--not because it can't be, and not because God might not do something like that, but because it would seem to me that a visitation might have been due Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot and any number of other tyrants (Kim il Jong, etc.) before it was due New Orleans. Yes, much bad goes on in New Orleans--I hardly think it compare with death camps and genocide, and I think God, if He were visiting wrath would probably weigh that in the scales. But the reality is that I must admit I do not know the mind of God and He may have something else behind this judgment if it is.

But the main point of this is that I wonder if those who were so quick to reach this conclusion would equally quickly embrace the possibility of the good that prayer can do. Can we, through concerted effort "pray away a hurricane?"

So far our lovely little friend Hurricane OPHELIA has wandered around and around the Atlantic--the shifting course making prediction of anything nearly impossible. First Jacksonville, then Savanah/Charleston, now the outer banks were the target. But look how it skirt the outer banks? Would our prayers be efficacious in moving it more? And how would we know?

Regardless of whether or not we would know, perhaps we should make a concerted effort to pray that this Hurricane miss landfall entirely. Katrina has visited enough destruction for a pretty good chastisement for some time to come. It would be better that no one else suffer because of the weather. Admittedly the storm is relatively weak in terms of hurricanes--but so was Katrina when 7-10 people died in the Miami area.

So, let us all pray together for this storm to follow some as yet untracked course away from land. Surely God can hurry the front along and push Ophelia away from all the possible harm she may do. And if not, then, "thy will, not mine, be done."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 4:25 PM | TrackBack

September 7, 2005

What Does Vocation Mean?

Sometimes I am a very slow learner.

It has taken me a long time to understand the meaning of vocation, and I'm not certain I understand that meaning in its fullness even now.

The Lord has raised up a great many orders with lay associations from which lay people who are called may profit mightily. However, those who are not called can often wreak havoc and distress the communities to which they wish to belong. How do we begin to discern a vocation?

I'm not sure I can answer that question in its fullness, but the other day, while pondering something in The Ascent to Love I suddenly realized one of the reasons I am called to be a Carmelite. Quite simply, I cannot do otherwise.

God uses all that we are--physical appearance, personality, intelligence, charisma, etc. When He calls us those things operate like homing beacons to hear the call. We will be naturally drawn to what best fits what God has made. So for example, it has been my experience that nearly every Franciscan I've ever encountered has been downright giddy. That's not meant to be judgmental, but rather a perception. What I perceive as giddiness is a manifestation of the Franciscan joyous charism. But my perception of that is distinctly negative--I don't want to be that. I don't mind other who are--in fact, I deeply grateful to them because they serve a critical role among God's people. But my temperament is not naturally suited to that sort of effusiveness. Cross the Franciscans off my list.

Then I turn toward the Jesuit/Domincan orders. These are people who are drawn to the rigor of logic and argumentation. (Not solely, mind you. No one is all one thing.) The method of Aquinas appeals to them in its organizational and logical beauty. The preeminence of intelligence and intellect in the approach to God is a hallmark. I thought for a while I was cut out to be a Jesuit or a Dominican. Truth is, I haven't the mind for it. I cannot pursue my quarry with such persistance, and the more I think about some things the more morose, estranged, and distanced I become from God. (As an example--"Just War" theory.) From this, in retrospect I conclude that I was not called to be a Dominican or Jesuit. Now, my comments here should not be taken to define the true Charism of either order--I do not know that because I do not belong to them. I'm only talking about perceptions.

The order that most appealed to me didn't appear to have a lay association. I found out later that I was wrong, the Cistercians actually do have lay associates--but I think that this knowledge was withheld from me until I had found a home. The Cistercian Charism might exacerbate my already extremely low receptivity to others. On most personality indicators and by most measures, I'm just about as far from extravert as one can be and still be breathing. I don't mind being around a small number of people, but I do not seek out company. The Cistercian turn of things might have amplified this tendency to a point where the pursuit of sanctity became impossible because of my reclusiveness. I don't really know. God alone knows why He called me where he did.

I ultimately ended up with the Carmelites. Now it's hard for me to identify why this feels so much like home. But part of the feeling comes from the certain knowledge that St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila described very clearly my early experiences in faith and prayer. They also struck a chord in that I recognized the road to God in their words. There is a certain melancholy, which is not to say depression, but a kind of pleasant longing, which may typify many charisms, but which I could recognize here. The whole idea of "dark night of the soul" and of "dryness" in prayer rang true to me. I knew in hearing it that it was the truth. Now, it may in fact be the truth only for certain types of people. That is, not everyone will go through these spells, nor will everyone need to exprience dryness to experience closeness with God. But, I suppose, in a sense, this "dryness" is honoring and tempering the desire to be alone that so typifies the extreme introvert. God let's us experience that fully without ever allowing us to be alone. I don't know why I am called. I just know that there is something in the charism that speaks in a way nothing else has. I recognized a call.

In recognizing my own vocation, I started to discern the whole sense of vocations. I've had some very promising aspirants to the Carmelite order, who were simply not called. They moved into the group hoping to change and transform it into something else--more charismatic prayer, more thoughtful discourse, more appreciation of the fine points of liturgy, more apologetic, more. . . You name it. Most of these people found for themselves that they were not Carmelite. Some found other orders, other found prayer groups or other Churchly associations that benefited from their gifts.

Sometimes people will say to me that they want to belong to an order. My question to them is, "Does God want you to belong to an order?" Belonging to an order is not a guarentee of sanctity. In some cases it may interfere with our life's journey toward God. Belonging to a lay association of an Order is not the only means to intimacy with God. For many it is not a good way at all. But I understand the longing to find people of similar ways of thought and similar dispositions toward prayer. I think this is what people have in mind when they say they want to belong to an order. If God is calling you, you will belong. However, God may not call you to an order, but may call you to service with others. I would love to belong to St. Vincent de Paul society. But every time I make strides that direction, I find my entire life derailed in one way or another. The limits of my ability to associate consist in giving the goods that the society will disburse to the needy. I am not called there.

And that is another very interesting point. There are a great many vocations that have nothing at all to do with Holy Orders or Religious Communities. Every life is a vocation. God is always callilng, always yearning for us to turn to Him. He calls each one of us and it is in careful listening that we ultimately begin to hear and shape our lives according to His will. For some, matrimony is a vocastion--but it does not end there. In matrimony some will have many children, some a few, some none at all--these circumstances in turn will shape our vocations. Those with few or none who have longed for them will find ways to care for children who would otherwise not have families. Or they will find ways to serve children and be around them as in daycares, nurseries, teaching, nurses, etc.

Our vocation is built into who we are and how God has crafted us. It is the homing signal He built into us to call us home. The very best thing we will be able to say upon entering heaven is "I heard you call and I came." Our vocation is a way of living in response to that call and it may or may not involve association with a group of like-thinking, like-praying people. More often than not, it does not--and yet those who are not called to these aseemblies are still irrevocably called to discern their vocation and to serve God.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:20 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 6, 2005

Aridity and Apaethia

from Ascent to Love
Sr. Ruth Burrows

Almost always God's greatest gifts are wrapped up in the saking of painful self-knowledge. When we 'got on well' in paryer, when there was satisfaction in the mass and sacreaments, when we could talk inspiningly of spiritual things and other showed respect for our wisdom, we had no idea of the true state of affairs. Humility is acceptance of the truth about ourselves, not an effort to work up humble sentiments in spite of our obvious excellence!

I wish I could say that the state I have been in resembled this aridity. It more resembles sloth--that painful condition in which doing anything whatsoever spiritual takes an enormous effort of will and always manages to be distinctly unsatisfying to the point where one says--"Oh, why bother? He isn't paying any attention, why should I?" The truth is that He is paying attention and I am not, otherwise I wouldn't be in that condition.

It would be pleasant and easy to think that I had advanced so greatly in prayer that everything I did was embued with sanctity and I could now rest on the spiritual laurels and wait for the world to come to me for my magnificent, benevolent wisdom. That thought would release me from continuing to struggle.

As it is, I know what I am fighting--apathia or acedia is more the fruit of sloth than of prayer. And sloth exists in intention as well as practice. That is more where my own lies. I need to force myself to read spiritual books, to pray, to go to Mass. It is ever a temptation to give all these things a miss and move on with my own agenda. And I could attribute (in spiritual pride) all of these things to Aridity.

The odd thing is you have to "earn" aridity. That is, you must have been so faithful in prayer that God honors your faithfulness with a purifying fire that makes spiritual things difficult for you. It's odd that this is how it develops in some people (I don't think all, but then I'm not far enough along and it seems that in every Saint's life I read, I notice these lagging times that seem to suggest aridity.)

Aridity is the fruit of constant, faithful, devoted, involved prayer. Apathia and acedia are the result of viewing prayer and attendance upon God as obligation rather than privilege. I go through the motions without a lot of heart.

But part of the cure of any disease is to recognize its symptoms and to deal with the disease. There is much that can be done for this torpor. The first thing that must happen is repentence--both in the traditional and etymological sense of the word. I must think about the privilege of being a servant of God. When I realize what a tremendous opportunity I have been given, it sparks a willingness to see to all the attendant responsibilities of that station. This is grace in action. God reminds me that I am His own precious child and my petulanace and stubbornness are unbecoming the son of so benevolent a monarch. I can love because He first loved me.

Then I can fill my senses with all the things that remind me of His presence among His people--with beauty, with music, with prayer, with good company--all agents of His will.

But most of all, I can see my helplessness for what it is and cry out as did the man before Jesus, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." For what cause could such a condition have except a certain unbelief--a certain lack of trust that God will take care of all things that need taken care of? In one word, the cause of sloth and of its attendant ills is that I do not, in some way, trust or believe the fullness of God's truth. I am no longer simple, one-hearted. I have become duplicitous because I love something other than God more than God. It does not good to try to find out what has become my idol because I'm clever enough to hide that knowledge from myself as it is convenient to do so. What I can do is pray that God show me the idol that has replaced Him and ask Him to remove it from my presence.

I suppose I shouldn't make so public my own failings; however, by so doing, I can encourage your prayers for me and for others in this community similarly afflicted. More, I can show what I really am--a vain, foolish, selfish, hard-hearted slip of a man--rather than what I appear to (some to) be. This is salutary--it puts the universe in right perspective and helps me start all over again.

I thank God for the Carmelite Charism that keeps me going in these weak times. Sometimes it is all that sustains the breathing of my spiritual life.

So if you've seen a dearth of the helpful, the insightful, or the spiritual--now you know why and I will continue to work as I pray. I will continue to write as God works with me and I will continue to ask your prayers on the journey--prayers to relieve the numbness and weariness that come from relying upon my own will to do what God wishes. Because in surrendering to Love, I will be made whole and I will be saved. And there is nothing short of surrender that can make any difference.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 4, 2005

Beauty Amid the Ashes

This couple really knows what hope and joy are all about. Join me in praying for a long and happy marriage for both of them. In the midst of tragedy they helped to remind a lost of people around them that there is still life and there is still hope.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:11 PM | TrackBack

August 25, 2005

Words to Live by

Being an aural portrait, a memory, and a word photograph of EPCOT expeditions. With commentary.

Overheard this evening while standing outside of the Land, photographing some sort of wild berries. A man speaking to wife and at least two children of age of reason. "I spent an effing fortune to get us here. Now shut up and enjoy it." Now, with the golden inspiration summed up in these stirring words of leadership, solidarity, and caring how could anyone fail to have fun?

Then there is my dear father, God rest his soul, whose grim determination and iron will propelled his wife, seven year-old daughter, and teen-aged daughter, along with Linda, Samuel, and myself through a whirlwind tour of all the Nations at EPCOT. Fondly memorialized in family tradition as the EPCOT Death March, it culminated in my father flying into a frothing rage when my younger step-sister wanted to buya pencil as a souvenir. The stuff golden memories are made of.

Contrast these two with the picture of a young father, perhaps twenty-eight, twenty-nine, sitting on the pinkish brown curb outside of the great Globe--Spaceship Earth. Obviously tired and hotter than he'd ever been in Wisconsin, or Iowa, or wherever he came from to visit. He sat there holding his daughter--peaps seven-or-eight sprawled across his knees asleep. And he and his wife were chatting, smiling, and laughing. I wish I'd had the courage to ask for a photograph. A photograph that would serve to remind me that a proper ordering of Earthly goods leads to the same wonderful end--ourselves sprawled across the knees of our loving, indulgent, heavenly Father.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:55 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

Rejection and Detachment

Once again Disputations provides some excellent food for thought. Would that my thoughts were so good as the food that engenders them. Nevertheless, please accept these meagre ruminations for what they are--a kind of riff spun off a more substantial discussion.

The excerpt that caused this spin-off:

(from Disputations)

But there's nothing in this model of the intellect that requires the concepts to be concepts relating to beauty. They can be concepts related to race, or to risk, or to toxicity. An absolute mistrust of perceivable beauty -- of that which is beautiful -- amounts to an absolute mistrust of perceivable creation, which ought to be unthinkable for a Christian. There is no barb in beauty, unless the Author of Beauty placed it there.

It may be, though, that a mistrust of the human intellect, a recognition of the frequency with which it makes mistakes regarding beauty, is expressed as what might be called a prudential mistrust of beauty. If we can't make the intellect work better, we can at least avoid giving it things it works poorly on.

What occurred to me, and what I started to spell out in the comments there is that there is another form of distrust of beauty that occurs in religious circles. That form might be called the seduction of beauty.

The chain of reason goes something like this. To become more like God, we are called to detachment. Detachment is difficult enough in itself, and far more difficult when the good we are attached to is beautiful, therefore as a step in detachment, we must reject what is beautiful even though it might be good because we are held bound by it.

The response to this is multiple. First, detachment is the means to an end, not an end in itself. It is the path travelled, and frankly may be only one of many such paths to travel, whose destination is intimacy with God. To treat detachment as an end is to the miss the point, and to align all things in life to achieve an end which is only a means redefines the means as an end equal to the true end. That's a complicated way of saying that if you do this you are missing the point of detachment.

What I didn't say in my comment, and what is by far the more subtle error in this type of reasoning is that when one does this one has become attached to the idea of rejection. That is, we substitute attachment to a real thing (one that grace can more readily conquer) for attachment to an idea or an ideal (a far more hazardous and difficult a barrier).

If, as a Christian, you think you are being called to reject the beauty and goodness of God's creation my best advice to you would be to seek out a wise spiritual advisor to help you discern what is really going on. God did not put all of the beauty He has on the Earth to be ignored. Detachment from that beauty does not mean rejection of it or lack of recognition of it. There may be some beauty that we are called to prudentially restrain our interest in. (For most males I know, the beauty of the female form is something like this.) Nevertheless, what a miserable and small place the world would be if we did not recognize and relish this beauty as is licit and correct.

So my only real response is that it is a distorted understanding of detachment to suggest that it would require rejection of beauty. (And let me make explicitly clear, this was in no way implied by what Tom wrote--but I respond to what he writes as the person I am and express the interests that I have.) Now, it is possible that particular vulnerability to a type of beauty (aforementioned feminine pulchritude) may prudentially require not so much a rejection but a careful screening of such beauty (If thine right eye offend thee, pluck it out.) But it would be nonsense, and dangerous nonsense, to claim that what is good and truly beautiful is not so. It would be equally dangerous to reject all of God's beauty because some part of it particularly appeals, or because a distortion in our own view and character makes of the object of beauty an object of temptation.

In short, detachment does not require rejection of beauty. In fact, to be able to even consider attachment, immersion in the beauty of the world seems a salutary thing. You would come to realize that you cannot own it, hold on to it, keep it, or even remember it as lovely as it is outside of the moment. It teaches you to appreciate the good things of God and to let them go freely, always knowing that God's goodness ever exceeds His goodness as we come to know and love Him.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 24, 2005

Why I Am NOT a Calvinist

Alicia has a nice post on Calvnism that serves to solidify my primary objections to the whole doctrine.

A "five-point" Calvinist adheres to all of the following:

1. T ~ Total Depravity of Man (effect of the fall)

2. U ~ Unconditional election (God's choice to save some but not all from the effects of the fall)

3. L ~ Limited Atonement (Christ died for only the elect that God chooses to save)

4. I ~Irrestisitble Grace (Grace given to the elect to receive salvation which is effectual and irresistible)

5. P ~ Perseverance of the Saints (the ability of the saints to persevere in saving grace)

When I was studying Calvinism I could never resolve total depravity with the innate goodness of all that God created. That goodness could not be "undone" by mere human action and so the idea of total depravity seemed unwarranted. Now, that is a facile and surficial understanding, I'm certain. Nevertheless, it was one objection. But the largest objection came between U and I. God unconditionally elects only some to be saved and then saves them with irresistable Grace. This is the sticking point for me. If I believed in the God represented by this doctrine I would have to believe in a God who creates without bounds, supposedly loves unconditionally, but who, for whatever reason chooses to damn some portion of the human race before they are born and not to redeem them. My word for this is not God, but rather Monster. How could an all-loving, all giving God arbitrarily determine some number of His Children would be thrown into the fire forever. Sounds like the Uber-Moloch to me.

Now Calvinists do temper these two lines of doctrine and nuance them with subtleties far too subtle for me. But when I boil it all down, the question comes to attempting to reconcile an all-loving Father who deliberately casts away some portion of his children. Well, then, I would say in my naivete, He isn't very all-loving now is He?

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August 15, 2005

T(w)o(o) Hard Truths

In reading Gulley and Mulholland's If Grace is True in two short chapters I've encountered two experiential truths--statements the authors make that are confirmed not by authority, but by my own experience. In fact, one of the experiences recorded by the authors (not detailed below) so closely parallels my own it is nearly frightening.

But let me share with you the truths that I have experienced and that I find ring entirely true. At one point the authors say

I've never experienced a God of wrath. I've heard such a God preached. I've read of such a God. I've encountered wrathful people who claimed to be acting on God's behalf. I've even allowed such sentiments to tarnish my view of God. Yet, in the midst of all these distortions, I never experienced a wrathful God. (p. 11-12)

I couldn't agree more. In times of hardship, bereavement, devastation, despair, sorrow, anger, any negative feelings, the God who has been by my side hasn't been shaking a finger at me and saying, "See what you brought on yourself. I told you and told you and told you, and you wouldn't listen. This is your well-deserved comeuppance." No, the God I've experienced has said, "I love you." When my mother died suddenly, He was there saying, "I am with you through it all. Let me walk with you." I am ashamed to say that while I took Him up on part of that walk, I didn't follow through. And yet He still loves me. This is the God I experience every single day. Not a God of wrath, the keeper of the ledger in the skies, but rather a God of compassion and of intimacy, a God who wants good for me more than I desire it for myself. What a blessing! It hadn't occurred to me to state this truth--but I have never seen a God of wrath. I have not seen "the Glory of the coming of the Lord who is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." I thought I always despised the song because it reeked of Northern imperialism, but I can see what I dislike is that this is not the image of the God I love, but a distortion. My God is more like verse 5: "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,/With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me."

She might have learned what I've learned--that intimacy with God is not about joining a church. It's not about knowing your religion's doctrines, tenet by tenet. It's not about knowing your holy writings, backward and forward, in their original language. It's not about knowing God as a theory or abstraction. Intimacy with God is more like making love than joining a club, hearing a lecture, or reading a book. There are simply some things we must experience for ourselves. (p. 15)

To which I breathe a relieved Amen! If I were required to do any of the things delineated above I would miss salvation by ten-thousand parsecs or more. Even if my beliefs are wrong, seeking God with all my heart will correct erroneous perceptions. Loving Him will help alleviate my misconceptions. Intimacy is not achieved by question and answer, although it may initially help. It is achieved by loving unconditionally, by gazing into the gaze of the one who loves you and seeing yourself as you are loved. His love alone makes us worthy to be loved and we can only know it through knowing Him intimately. Like making love, it is far better to engage in the action that to hear a lecture on its physiology or read a book about the neuro-chemical patterns generated.

God loves us unconditionally. Isn't it about time that we returned the favor?

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:31 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Eyes Wide Open

You might ask, why then, all of the sudden, the rush of pictures. You say, "We're not particularly interested in any more of your flowers or odd pictures." (I know you don't say it out loud, you're far too courteous for that--but it may cross your mind--sort of like, who wants to see your home movies?)

The use of the camera is to train my eye, and hence my mind to see again. In the ordinary business of life, my senses have become too dulled with duty and obligation to serve me the way they once did when I was young as a source of endless delight and novelty.

Yesterday, as I was walking around EPCOT, I must have looked like an absolute idiot, a grin a mile wide plastered on my face. As I looked for things to photograph for images and for "novelties" I saw a thousand new things for every one I actually took the time to photograph. Every flower is different in some subtle way, every arrangement of plants, every rock, every building, every ripple of water. And what is best of all, and you'll probably laugh, every one of them sings out joyfully of the Lord who created them all. Everything I see, every picture I take, every picture I don't take, every person I meet, I see God inviting me into a deeper conversation.

The camera has opened my eyes. It started as something to fill time and record events, and it rapidly became a way of focusing attention and really seeing things rather than just looking at them. The pictures may or may not be good--but the goodness lies beyond the lens in the God who has granted me so many things to see if I will just open my eyes. I have been invited to wander the world eyes wide open to see all that His creation offers and primarily what His creation sings about Him. I am so grateful.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 14, 2005

The New Life and Detachment

I started this once before and the mercy of the thunderstorm spared you its first incarnation. Therefore, you'll have to suffer with this one--at best a poor recreation of the sterling brilliance of both exposition and prose that was my first post. Oh well.

I was thinking. (Stop that! I heard that long drawn sigh. I know I should listen to the words my Grandpappy never said, "Son, before you set out on a mission, you oughta be sure you got the equipment to finish it.") All of your objections aside--it does happen, equipped or otherwise. It occurred to me that in the canons of Carmelite thought there is little (perhaps nothing) so terrifying as St. John of the Cross's insistence upon the necessity of detachment for the proper cultivation of and advancement in true Christian prayer life. The reactions to this pronouncement vary from--"I'm not a Carmelite, what does that have to do with me?" To, "I'd rather lick the driveway clean."

Even most Carmelites try to dodge the teaching. "After all, Detachment is a means, not an end in itself. So I'll just sit over here and do my own thing until detachment comes along and slaps me upside the head." And so they live their lives, completely undetached and nearly perfectly indifferent and unaware of the fact.

Now, detachment isn't going to come along and knock you upside the head. It isn't going to happen overnight. And, honestly, it is continuous, very hard work. So why do it? Well, basically because St. John of the Cross was right, and the thunk I had this afternoon is a stab at trying to show why.

A few weeks back I wrote an entry on Jesus's proclamation, "Behold, I make all things new." All things--everything--that includes us. How can we be new if we are still doing everything we did before? How can we be new if we are completely ingrained in habit? How can Jesus recreate each one of us if we steadfastly refuse to be recreated?

Detachment is our part of the work (aided by grace, of course) that complements the power of Jesus's resurrection. He raises us to new life, and we cooperate with the help of the graces of God by allowing ourselves to be changed.

John of the Cross advises that when we are faced with a choice, we should always choose the thing we like the least. This habit is an aid to becoming detached. It is also an aid to becoming new. When faced with choices, many of us prefer to take the better known route, or the thing we like better. Why do we like it better? Most often because we know it better. The path is clearer and our knowledge of how to navigate it extensive. Or perhaps because we just don't like to try new things.

If we choose what we presently like less, we may find in it certain hardships and graces that do not come from choosing what we know and love. We will nearly always find in it a challenge to grow in love. When we choose the lesser-known path we are learning to surrender bit-by-bit. And we are opening ourselves up to being changed.

Before you first volunteered to work the Sunday Donut line or help out in the distribution of food to those in need in the parish, you probably didn't think that it was anything you particularly wanted to do. And yet, as you grew into it, you may have discovered hidden graces and surprises. "There's joy in them there tasks!" Our lives should be lives of increasing en-joy-ment--not in the sense of entertainment, but rather in growing in an understanding and participation in God's Kingdom on Earth.

When we're asked to do one thing or another for the Parish most of us can think of ten-thousand reasons why we can't or ten-thousand things we'd rather be doing. And yet, if we surrendered just a little bit of ourselves. . .

That little bit of surrender gives Jesus room to get in, move the furniture around a bit and readjust our lives. It gives Him the ability to recreate us, to make us new. And it gives us a chance to experience joy. In detachment, in the deliberate choice of the less appealing of two licit options, we open a gateway to God. By not putting ourselves or what we want first, we begin to see things in a different light.

All habits, even the very best of them tend to create calluses. If we jog every night and run the same route because we know its length, we miss out on what we might see by running a different route. If we read the same kinds of books, we miss out on the huge variety of things available to all to read. When we serve ourselves, we eventually bury ourselves in our habits--wearing a rut too deep and too wide to emerge from.

But Jesus promised, "Behold, I make all things new." Every day provides the grace for beginning the transformation into the new person Jesus wants us to be. Detachment--leaving the old and known behind and choosing the new, different, and difficult--allow Jesus the space and the material to start forming us in the image He sees in us. It is slow. Sometimes it is difficult. But ultimately it will lead to our transformation and the transformation of all the world. God works with us, in us, and through us--He recreates us.

Jesus Himself said, "Cursed be the man who sets hand to plow and looks back--he is not worthy of the kingdom of God." Another hard saying was that we had to leaven Father and Mother, brother and sister, wife and children and follow Him. What does that mean? We are to abandon our responsibilities? No, rather, it is that we must abandon our old selves, our old habits, our old choices, our old ways of doing things and trust solely in his.

And back to the point of all of this--detachment is the discipline that instructs us in how to do this. Detachment is a means of letting go and allowing God to transform us. It isn't the dour, frightening, horrible thing we make it out to be. But too often we hate it because it does demand something of us--it does demand that we change and we make room for God.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 6, 2005

Intemperance, Restraint, and Addiction

Another addendum/gloss on the writings of Tom over at Disputations. In this case he wrote about intemperance, it's remedy--restraint, and childishness. And all that is there seems reasonable to me.

What is not mentioned there is really the crux of the issue. When we inure ourselves to any sin, we become progressively more insensitive to its effects and progressively more possessed by the sin. When we have practiced intemperance long enough, it becomes addiction. This is almost a spiritual law--perhaps it is a spiritual law, but I don't know enough in the realm of this subject to rightly say.

What I do know is that restraint nearly always fails when addiction, particularly physical addiction is at the core of a problem. How many people have you known who have tried to stop smoking? How many times did they try? I know of two offhand who stopped on the first try; however, they are exceptions to the rule. Most people try and try and try and try and try and end up trying the tempers and perserverance of all of those around us.

Restraint works when the sin is young. It may even work when the sin has become habitual--but if the nature of the intemperance is such that it become an addiction, whatever restraint we bring to bear will be insufficient to the cause. In fact, that is true of the other stages as well--and I know that this reasoning underlies all that St. Thomas and probably most of what Tom writes about at Disputations--that is to say, without grace we cannot prevail against sin by our own wills. Our wills must be engaged--that is, we must desire to oppose the sin even if we are too weak to so. We must also seek the grace to oppose the sin. Without grace we can do nothing.

But what happens when the sin proceeds to addiciton--either psychological or physical? How often does that happen, you ask? Too frequently. Look at our society and see people who are caught up in addiciton to sex, violence, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, shopping, sports, and just about every other acitivity or substance you can imagine. There are people who make a fetish of buying things, those who raise eating to nearly exalted heights, those who drink to excess, and those who cannot seem to occupy themselves with one, espoused bed-partner.

Childishness is not merely childishness, unfortunately. It is deadly and deadening. Once we have succumbed on one or another of these things, we are progressively deadened to the metastatic nature of sin. Like cancer, once it's in it tends to spread. We may start with intemperance and proceed to wrath (particularly against those who stand in the way of supplying our present need) and other deadly sins.

Restraint is the answer to intemperance, but it is an insufficient answer on its own. And when intemperance progresses to addiction, "Just say no," simply doesn't work in most cases. We can last a while on our own with grace, but we must seek out the companionship of those who know the spiritual realm and who can better help us seek the grace required to break the back of our addictions. Jesus alone can be our help, but we can find Him in the people of faith around us.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Consequentialism and Why I Don't Engage in Formal Apologetics

I have stated in the past and will continue to state my unequivocal admiration and respect for Tom of Disputations. And here, while I'm away he's posted two points that I would really like to comment on more completely, but find myself restrained by an extremely slow computer/interface. So let me make my little attempt and I'll fill out what is missing somewhat later.

Here he makes a profound point about consequentialism. All I really wanted to say about this is that I respect and admire people who can identify these faults in reason and give them their proper names. I am all-too-often guilty of thought like this (though, I suspect in this case, I would be guilty of the extreme opposite of consequentialism, assuming it has an opposite). Nevertheless, I am profoundly humbled every time I encounter something like this. At one time I used to think I was pretty hot stuff intellectually. Interaction with such people hasn't diminished my own respect for arenas in which I am capable of reasoned discussion, but they have presented to me the fact that those arenas are not all possible subjects of discussion and I need to accept this limitation. In some matters I am a better spectator than participant. And I think that brings up another point--apologetics. Many people who practice rigorous, argumentative apologetics seem to think that everyone is capable of it. I rush to point in that I could parrot the arguments of Keating, Akins, and others, but without any real effect because I would be repeating their words without their knowledge. Even had I their knowledge, my mind does not work in this way of formulation. I would become hopelessly flustered and mired in the labyrinthine paths of those who reach beyond their capacity.

However, there is another form of apologetics--not so much an argument as a way of life. It is in this form that most of us can succeed--assuming, of course, that we are living the life required by such a mode of argument. If we live a life embued by grace, love, peace, joy, humility, obedience, patience, meekness, and prayerfulness and we surrender to God in all of our ways, our lives become a form of apologetics. Even if we are not raised to the honors of the altar, we function in our capacity as messengers of God's love. While many of us can defend this or that proposition, most of us do not have the rigor of intellect and the disposition to properly argue a point of doctrine or dogma. If someone wants to know more or better, I am inclined (depending on the person) to hand them Karl Keating, Donald Currie, Stephen Ray, Mark Shea, or James Akin and say--here it is, they say it better than I could, read away. And after you've read, come to me and let's talk about how it is lived--because that is something I can start to show you. Obviously, I can't show anyone the fullness of the faith, nor even the complete and integral practice of it. But I can show some things, and that is part of the mission of evangelism. I may not be able to argue the truth of the Catholic faith, but I can argue the truth of the Catholic life in the way that I live and the life that results. That, for many of us, is I suspect, the greatest argument for or against our faith.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:48 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

August 1, 2005

"Behold, I make all things new. . ."

Revelation 21:5-6

And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

[6] And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain of the water of life without payment.

How long has it been since you have felt that "all things were new?" One of the sad results of growing older is that it often seems that nothing whatsoever is new. We've seen it all before--played out in a million different ways--the same story, the same song. As we age we are more likely to say with Qoholeth--"There is nothing new under the sun."

In fact, in Jesus each day all things are made new. This is one of the reasons why we are commanded to come unto Him as a little child. A child preserves a sense of wonder of the newness of the world. Everything is new, everything is exciting, everything is a revelation. That is how God calls us to engage the world in Him. In Him, everything is new and wonderful, everything is light and beauty. No matter how many times we have seen it before, the whole worth shines and cries out his glory. Hopkins told us--"Glory be to God for dappled things." He further outlined the beauty, the newness of the world in the exhilirating sonnet "The Windhover." Hopkins had recaptured a sense of the newness of the world in Christ.

It seems too many of us do not take advantage of our family connections (Jesus, our Brother) to seize this wonderful and life altering way of looking at things. I know for a fact that I have grown calloused and jaded with the battery of things that assaults me every day. But yesterday I happened to look up at the sky and a new world waited there for me. Florida has the most beautiful skies in the world--they are filled with every type and variety and shade and hue and shape of cloud you can imagine. I find it difficult to imagine that there are so many shades of white and blue and grey. But there it was--some clouds thins as veils draped over the face of the sky, lightening the intense blue of heaven. Some were shaped as with a laser, the outlines sharp and clear against other. Some appeared to have been applied in a water-color wash of blue-grey--streaking across the front of others. I didn't look so much for shapes or meanings, but at the entire landscapes of cloud-form. Suddenly I was reminded of a time when clouds were new, when the shapes had meaning and I spent a good deal of time looking up at them.

Another example--walking on a local nature trail the other day I came upon some yellow wild-flowers whose stems so blended with the background that they appeared to be merely the disembodied floating blossoms of a plant. Suddenly, this too was new.

I realized I could live a life of newness if only I would turn the driving over to God and I would spend a little time looking at the passing scenery.

"Behold I make all things new." Not some, not a few, not a limited number--all things--all things in nature and in myself. Each day I am a new creation in Him, if I choose to be. Rather than clinging to the old self and its perceptions and prejudices, I can choose to grow and become ever new. I can join the Saints in the newness of the world that Christ recreates each day. The choice is mine, the options are mine. God leaves me free to tread the same weary path every day, or to discover in the day all the newness He has placed there.

"Behold, I make all things new." All things. New. Life becomes meaningful once again in Him and in His path for me--every experience is something new from Him, through Him, and in Him. Now it is time to be renewed and to find this newness in the everyday. To see with my son all that the things of the world around me. To see with God's Son how they reflect and speak of His glory.

"Behold, I make all things new." And I wish to see them as He does.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:37 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 29, 2005

Why Is It So Hard to Love?

Why is it so difficult for us to love unreservedly? Why do we constantly find ourselves embroiled in controversies that divide us and give us the "right" to judge another?

I pick so many ways to judge. Often I am scandalized, stunned, shocked, and secretly gratified that I have found a way to be more pious, more Godly, and more Christian than my neighbors. In the non-relgious realm I do the same, but the qualities that I am improving in myself are somewhat different. It is good that I am more refined, more intelligent, more cultivated, more honest, more loving, more whatever.

It is a problem I find myself constantly combatting. My rush to judgment is nearly always (although often unconsciously) about feeling good about ourselves. I am piqued or provoked than an opinion on some matter differs from our own.

I read a number of so-called "progressive" blogs. One of the reasons I read them is that they challenge me, sometimes strenuously, to enlarge my view of what the Catholic Church is and of the diversity of opinion within the Church. I almost never find my views of the doctrine changing as a result of reading these blogs--but what I often do find are faithful, strong Catholics, who while holding a divergent viewpoint, still want to belong to, and from their point of view, improve the Church. On the more traditional side, I read a number of blogs that wish to do the same things in the other direction. And what I find here is a difference of opinion--sometimes a difference in which one party or another can be demonstrated to be wrong according to all reasonable explications of tradition and Church Doctrine. But still, there is seldom, if ever, any malice in this wrongness.

This is one of the reasons I'm so apposed to "cleansing the temple" of those who disagree. Heaven knows I would ultimately be one of the ones cleansed because so many of my opinions are pressed right against the border of Orthodoxy and I hold on only by will. For example, you all have heard time and again how I feel about "just war." And honestly every fiber of my being repudiates such an oxymoron. Nevertheless, the Church holds and definitively teaches that such is a possibility--therefore, while all that I am rails against it, I stand with the Church. I guess this puts me in a good stead to sympathize with those whose views differ.

Nevertheless, I find judgment creeping into my thoughts. I find that I use myself as the measure of all things and what a poor measure it is! But woe be unto you if I perceive you do not reach my exalted heights and standards. (Not really, but I am sometimes shocked by my own propensity for judgment.) And so I attribute this to many of us. In some cases, people are more willing to articulate and make a point of their judgments. In my case, I pray that I can learn to stop making those judgments. And as with all such prayers, I have ample opportunity to practice the skill.

But learning to love isn't merely about learning not to pass judgment, but it is learning to accept grace and look out of oneself toward the Other. I must look first to God who is the source and image of all love. If I strive to love without grounding in God, I do so in vain because of myself I can do so little. But with His grace I can do all things. With His love I can learn to love. Paradoxically, seeking His love demands that I look beyond myself and my judgments. Seeking His love requires total abandonment to it. I've said before and will say continually, God's love is "All or Nothing at All." One cannot serve God and Mammon or God and _____. One cannot serve two masters because the one less visible will always be the secondary. As money, sex, fame, and food are all overtly present before us at all times, God will always take the back seat to them if we try to serve both.

An answer to my question then--it is so hard to love because I am so bound up in myself and my own concerns. It is so hard to love because original sin has alienated me from love. To learn to love, I must reach out to the Cross and come to an understanding of what love is by embracing Jesus as He offered Himself--not as I would like Him to offer Himself. I must accept the sacrifice of the Son of God as my own and not seek to alter, change, or transfigure it. That is part of taking up my cross. And it is only in taking up my cross that I can begin to learn love.

(P.S., I know this is a lot of I, I, I, but I also discover that the third person plural is not nearly so convicting as is the first person. That "we" do something hides me in a mass of humanity and in some way excuses what I do. But strip it down to what I do, and I need to acknowledge and answer it. And as one of my theories of blogging is that I do it largely for an audience of one who needs to hear over and over again the truths of the faith--well, please forgive me for burdening you with it.)

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:31 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

July 24, 2005

Ordinary Miracles

Who needs speaking, bleeding, or crying statues when you have these kinds of things around you every day? (To protect bandwidth, they are in the extended entry.)

Sandhill cranes mate for life. Beautiful and statuesque, these birds are often seen strutting down the middle of Florida roads. I'm not sure whether that amounts to bravery or stupidity.

In some parts of the world, wood storks are endangered. You wouldn't know it from living around here. Nearly as common as beach rats (sea gulls) these birds can be seen in the nearby fields and open spaces.

I didn't even see the little resident of this plant until I looked at the shots I had taken. With and without flash, the world is quite a different place for the lens.

Miracles are around us every day. Everything we see is sustained by God's breath, held together by God's grace, promoted by God's love, continued in God's mercy. We only need to learn to see. (Or more properly, I only need to learn to see.)

Note to Steven: 400 x 300 pixels.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 22, 2005

Struggling Against Birth

At times it seems that I kick against the goad when it comes to God. There's one metaphor for you. But let's go to Nicodemus and take our substantive metaphor. Jesus says, "Unless a man be born again of water and the spirit. . ."

At times it seems that I struggle against being born. What I need to do is relax (surrender) and cooperate. But let's face it--the womb is a comfortable, sensual place. No child in his right mind would choose to be born over staying in this warm, comfortable, quiet, intimate space. Well, that's probably not true of children. They are ready for the world. But as adults many of us have had enough of it to think that an additional decade or two suspended in an amniotic sac doesn't sound like so terrible a prospect.

That's the way it is with my spiritual life from time to time. For example, I can feel the movement of the spirit within me, coaxing me toward birth and renewal. But the "womb" of the world, the lure of what I know, the delights of the senses keep me pinned here. And pinned is exactly the right metaphor as well. So long as I cling to all the admitted delights of the world, I am pinned as a butterfly is pinned in a collect--beautiful, perhaps, but inert and dead. I am suspended without life.

True life lies beyond the sphere of the merely sensual. It lies within the realm of the spirit living with but not in the world. My struggle against birth is the fight of the Old Man to retain what is his "birthright." My struggle to be born is the struggle of the man renewed in Christ, the New Man, to claim the proper birthright of the one Risen from the Dead.

And all that it requires is surrender, to struggle to supress the urge to stay in the warm amniotic sac of the world and to allow myself to be born again to my true heritage--to my place in the body of Christ. That is the struggle that is what I go through daily--to choose myself and the world, or to choose my place in Christ's body and my spiritual heritage. God knows it is difficult, that is why many of us have been given so much practice in a lifetime. But the world is a more beautiful, more wonderful place when you have entered the new birth and can see more clearly our Father and our Brother in all that is around us.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

July 7, 2005

At the Bookstore--Stanley Hauerwas

My friend here is a lifelong reader. He reads very, very slowly. As a result he is particular about what he reads. However, he has a very nice bookstore nearby--a very large--two story Barnes and Noble which has no rival anywhere near where I live. Also this city (Naples) seems to be stuffed to the gills with used bookstores, once again, the antithesis of where I live.

As we were carefully combing through the store, looking at all the wonders there were to read, I noticed one of the advantages of a very large bookstore. Looking through the "Religion" section, and particularly the section on "Catholic Thought," I found both I Am a Daughter of the Church and I Want to See God on the shelves. I was shocked. In addition, I was able to once again find the full four volumes of the Philokalia--something I haven't seen on the shelves of religious specialty stores.

Of course, this also has its down-side. The complete opus of anti-Bishop Spong pocked the shelves like so many pustules. There were other verminous writings as well. But it was nice that the store was large enough to have balance. Normally one finds the Spong Opus without any relief from the orthodox contingent. And I'm certain that Neil could pull out from Spong's collected works one or another gem. Honestly, that's way too much slogging for me.

Anyway, the whole purpose of writing this was to mention a collection of essays I found by Stanley Hauerwas. Hauerwas is a renowned Christian thinker and a longtime contributor to First Things who left regular contribution after the September 11 attacks. I don't recall the reason at the time, but it seemed logical and integral. Here is a brief piece in which Hauerwas offers a tribute to the work of Il Magnifico (John Paul II).

That said, the book had no price, and I don't spend my time running books to cashier to figure out how much I'm likely to pay for it. So I did not buy it. However, there were some intriguing titles and I did read the majority of one essay. The Title, "Why Gays (as a group) Are More Moral than Christians (as a Group),"

I didn't follow the whole premise because I was skimming, but it seems I must take another look at the chain of reasoning. The whole question centered around Gays in the military and even touched lightly on the question of Just War--a central question I often find myself returning to. And here's the rub--it is very annoying to find oneself with enough intellectual resources to understand the question, but simply not enough intellectual wherewithal to reasonable "encounter" and wrestle with the question. This is the quandary I often find myself in. In high questions of morals, theology, and other such matters, I can often follow the discussion and agree to the chain of reason, but all too often I find myself incapable of making any substantive contribution to the engagement. While I can assent to the reasoning, it seems to me that reasoning merely provides the guidance whereby one ultimately makes a choice and the choice need not always be made on reason alone. Reason must be informed by mercy, compassion, and charity--animated by the whole human spirit or else, it seems, reason becomes a tyrant.

Reason must be consulted and even used to the best of our ability to inform and to decided the correct course of action. But it seems to me that there is room for the rest of the human being in any discussion that occurs. Once reason has spoken, perhaps other factors militate against the decision made in coldest reason. I don't know. But what I do know is that on these matters I seem to be doomed to a life of confusion anyway. I am drawn like a moth to the flame to consider them, and yet I find great frustration in tangling with them because they seem so far beyond me. I love to hear others talk about them, but my capacity is merely interested spectator and that is a great burden sometimes. Nevertheless, to pretend otherwise would be to place myself well beyond my own limits and to give capacity where none really exists.

My, I've wandered far from where I started. But that is the pleasure of writing as one will. Writing is often a path of discovery--it leads to the heart of thought and the heart of prayer. It is a map of many undiscovered countries and looking back over its contours one often finds what one has been looking for a long time. The wonders of blogging and of writing. Now back to the image gathering that I hope will lead to more poetry.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:20 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 24, 2005

Contemplation--Wordsworth Style

For those interested in what exactly contemplation is or does, you could have no better description than this passage from the first book of The Prelude.

from The Prelude
William Wordsworth

Content and not unwilling now to give
A respite to this passion, I paced on
With brisk and eager steps; and came, at length,
To a green shady place, where down I sate
Beneath a tree, slackening my thoughts by choice
And settling into gentler happiness.
'Twas autumn, and a clear and placid day,
With warmth, as much as needed, from a sun
Two hours declined towards the west; a day
With silver clouds, and sunshine on the grass,
And in the sheltered and the sheltering grove
A perfect stillness. Many were the thoughts
Encouraged and dismissed, till choice was made
Of a known Vale, whither my feet should turn,
Nor rest till they had reached the very door
Of the one cottage which methought I saw.
No picture of mere memory ever looked
So fair; and while upon the fancied scene
I gazed with growing love, a higher power
Than Fancy gave assurance of some work
Of glory there forthwith to be begun,
Perhaps too there performed. Thus long I mused,
Nor e'er lost sight of what I mused upon,
Save when, amid the stately grove of oaks,
Now here, now there, an acorn, from its cup
Dislodged, through sere leaves rustled, or at once
To the bare earth dropped with a startling sound.

We have the poet clearing his mind to focus it, and then focusing it upon such things that the imagination leaves off and

"a higher power
Than Fancy gave assurance of some work
Of glory there forthwith to be begun,
Perhaps too there performed."

This becomes the perfect metaphor for the entry into the state of acquired contemplation. One exercises the imaginative faculty and the will in the course of meditation, until suddenly meditation leaves off and a conversation begins. We start to speak with God almost unknowingly. He has entered quietly through the door we have left open by asking His presence. He sits down and when we are focused enough, we see Him and begin to treat Him as the honored guest He is.

For Wordsworth (and for St. John of the Cross, and though I'm less well versed, for St. Francis of Assisi, as well) nature gave entry into this place. Nature is not the end, but it is in reading the book of nature and accepting its welcome that some can enter the realm of meditation and contemplation.

Add to that vision this:

From that soft couch I rose not, till the sun
Had almost touched the horizon; casting then
A backward glance upon the curling cloud
Of city smoke, by distance ruralised;
Keen as a Truant or a Fugitive,
But as a Pilgrim resolute, I took,
Even with the chance equipment of that hour,
The road that pointed toward the chosen Vale.
It was a splendid evening, and my soul
Once more made trial of her strength, nor lacked
Aeolian visitations; but the harp
Was soon defrauded, and the banded host
Of harmony dispersed in straggling sounds,
And lastly utter silence! "Be it so;
Why think of anything but present good?" 100
So, like a home-bound labourer, I pursued
My way beneath the mellowing sun, that shed
Mild influence; nor left in me one wish
Again to bend the Sabbath of that time
To a servile yoke. What need of many words?

Makes a pretty convincing picture of some of the solace captured in contemplation and some of the trial of emerging from it. And then "of harmony dispersed in straggling sounds,/ and lastly utter silence!" This seems to speak of the time that we leave the consolation of acquired contemplation and move into the realm of infused contemplation and spiritual dryness where we no longer "feel" the consolations and yet we are not deprived of peace. We come to undersand "What need of many words?"

God speaks in so many places. When I first read these words, I had no idea of their weight or their meaning. Now I do, although I am not so close as I would like to be to the experience. I understand more fully what Wordsworth speaks of, and it sounds as if he were a "natural mystic" something akin to an Emerson--which to be speaks profoundly of God's grace and His constant reaching out to us to correct our error and lead us to Him.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 17, 2005

Living in this Moment

One of the most difficult things to relearn after a certain age is the ability to live in the moment. As we enter adulthood we often lose the ability to live moment-to-moment in anything like comfort. We find ourselves planning for this expense and that expense, for this vacation and that event, for retirement, for college expenses for children, for hurricanes, for the Apocalypse. You name it, we're planning for it.

Not that planning is a bad thing--it isn't. But too often we are so wrapped up in planning that we forget to live. We're living in the future that is not yet here. In other words, we're not living at all, but waiting for some magical instant when the harmonic convergence will converge and we will enter the age of milk and honey.

Ain't happening. This is Satan's most clever ploy. How many times do we hear, "There will be a better time. Just wait. The time will come"? How many times do we listen. "We should wait to have children." Why? What are you waiting for--more money, better time? It isn't going to happen. "We should wait to get married. . ." Until?

Occasionally there is great prudence in waiting. For example, waiting upon God's will is what we are supposed to do. Of course that waiting isn't an example of mere stasis, it is waiting in the sense of table-waiting--performing then as it were. But even at that there are prudential times and there are times for things to come to fruition. Problem is, we aren't really good at tellilng when these are AND so, as we age we tend to wait.

Well, there's really no point. Even when we're maxed out, as I have been at work recently--those are moments to embrace and live and feel the vbrant, life-giving, encompassing love of God that fills every moment of every day. Seize this moment, this time. Now is the proper time. This instant is the proper instant. Don't think about yesterday and tomorrow--at least don't allow them to loom so large that their shadow obscures everything present. Live now. Live in God's Love which is now, in the present, in the only moment we have. We have lost yesterday and we may not have tomorrow. Now is the time to practice the presence of God. Each time we sin is the time to repent and start up again.

We can stand all summer at the edge of the pool and contemplate whether or not we will jump in. Or we can plunge in, swim and rejoice in that mysterious lightness of body that comes from being present to God, from living in Him.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 25, 2005

Bible Study Non-Revelations

I don't think that it is one of the century's best-kept secrets that many, if not most, men in America struggle with lust on a fairly continuous basis. Our culture is saturated with it. There are constant encouragements of it, and outside of our Christian friends, there is almost an expectation of it.

So imagine my surprise when while conducting a Bible study and talking about those things that most threaten us, I gently suggested that the major difficulty in the world today was the plethora of beautiful women. Some women have merely physical beauty--but almost every woman I see is beautiful in some substantial way. That's just the way God made me and I'm not ashamed of it.

Now, I'll readily admit that despite the huge number of beautiful women, I have little chance or real-life temptation. (This is by the grace of God--I'm not one of the more attractive men around--nothing particularly hideous, just nothing prepossessing.) Nevertheless, the number of women in the world is like a constant low-level intoxicant. And the number of physically gorgeous women who are forced upon our senses by the media is truly astounding.

Anyway, I think I've amply explained one man's view of the world. Well, you can't begin to imagine my chagrin when the women in the group said, "That isn't how men think. That doesn't describe all men. What about gay men?"

Well, I can't really speak for gay men. Nor can I speak for all men. But let me say in my limited circle of acquaintance (admittedly not high-powered CEOs etc.) one of the things I hear quite often is that lust is a top (if not the top) temptation they face day by day. Most of them, like me, having no real opportunity, thus no real temptation, acknowledge nonetheless that it is a constant problem. Some indulge in pornography, others in other means of addressing the problem (read here sublimation, if you buy Freudian theory--which I don't). But the heterosexual men of my acquaintance all admit to facing this problem and trying to deal with it. Now my observation of homosexual men and their world suggests to me that this may be even a greater problem amongst them. (Although homosexual promiscuity may be a by-product of no way to recognize and affirm a committed relationship--about this I cannot speculate, nor can anyone else at this time. And, we must also keep in mind that the heterosexual world only ever gets a glimpse of the true excesses of the homosexual world. It's entirely possible that there are a vast majority of non-promiscuous homosexual men. However, living inside a man's body, I can tell you that this seems unlikely to me.)

Anyway, I spent the better part of the session saying that for men the presence and presumed "availability" of some portion of the female population represented every bit the temptation that most of the women there were telling me food presented for them. Now, I suspect that food is not so pervasive a temptation in the female world as lust is in the male world--but here again I enter upon sheer speculation--in fact my thin ice has become for all intents and purposes nonexistent. I don't know that a majority of men are assailed by lust on a regular (if not daily basis), no more can I know for what percentage of women food represents some sense of comfort and security. And I refuse to speculate as it is none of my business. All I can report are the anecdotal evidence and numbers supported by the very small bible study.

Now, let me say, I don't think lust as a temptation comes as much of a revelation. It drives the reason for a great many things--becoming successful, powerful, wealthy; buying the cars men of a certain age buy; certain, shall we say, "mating plumage" behaviors usually involving minoxidil/rogaine or hair transplants; and the extraordinary success of the drug Viagra (which if one is to trust one's spam e-mail must be the product of choice for half of the men in the world.)

I don't know what part lust plays in a woman's world. I suspect that for most women it is neither the predominant nor the most difficult vice to overcome. But again--what can I say? I live in the wrong body to give any speculation as to that. I do know that our society (driven in large part by men's concerns) does try to foist off on women what men would like them to be and to think. Thus we cultivate the image of the "unchained" woman giving free vent to her caprices. I have to wonder whether that is true or an image superimposed on the world by men who would like it to be true.

Let us end by saying, that I don't think it should come as any surprise to women if men admit to being tempted by lust. It should also not come as any surprise that relatively few of those I know act upon the temptation. I know the numbers are larger in the world at large--but some of us have wonderful wives and families which always serve, by the grace of God and the sacrament of matrimony, as the counterbalance to our wildly swinging urges. Nevertheless, it shouldn't surprise any woman to find that "her man" is appreciating the bounty served up every day by a merciful, loving, and extremely generous God. My only defense is that God made women beautiful--it's not my fault if I find them endlessly fascinating, endlessly appealing. But the rule, as in a shop of expensive translucent china, is look but never ever ever touch (if'n it don't "belong" to you.)

Anway, it surprised me to hear that women did not believe that men very often are distracted by women. I get the feeling that women don't have any idea just how much power they wield by simple existence. The feminist movement bought into the male fantasy and did their best in some ways to remove this power base. Smart women still know they have it and wise women seldom condescend to use it.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:47 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

Becoming Who We Are

from A Path Through the Desert
Anselm Grün

A brother asked Abba Agathon about fornication. He answered, "Go, cast your inability before God, and you shall find peace." Agathon 21

. . . Old father Agathon shows us another path. We are asked, simply to throw our inability to come to grips with the secual aspect of our nature before God. Then we will ceas to be dominated by it. We must not accuse ourselves, therefore, of not being able to come to terms with our sexuality. We must not grit our teeth and think we ought to master it completely. Our secuality is a part of ourselve,s and awe cfannot prevent it from raising its head: indeed, we must expect it to do so. But we must not dramtise it: rather, we should accept it as a fact and hold our inability out to God. This will give us peace.

It may be an exaggeration to say that every man in America (possibly in the world) struggles with his unruly nature. (I can't speak for women, not being Teresius.) However, if it is, it is not much of one. I don't think the struggle is all that tremendous in some--that is, there is never any real "danger point" that one would leave one's vowed spouse (more often enough because we keep the object of temptation someone or something unattainable--but also for other reasons). However, the point of temptation is that you cannot know for certain.

As men, we admire the beauty of women. Admiration can stray over the line when those we admire are closer to us than say, Halle Berry or Faith Hill or Shania Twain. We cannot know for certain that it will not happen.

Or, to quote Sponge Bob, can we? Agathon suggests a way to do so--that is, not to pursue the struggle ourselves, but to cast that whole passel of temptations onto the Lord. If we choose to pursue the struggle ourselves, we will unquestionably lose the battle. There will be no hope for us. But, if we choose not to engage in the struggle, to admit the attraction and to admit that the attraction presents danger, then we can offer that to the Lord who will use the sacraments, most particularly the sacrament of matrimony to strengthen our determination to do what is right. If we rely upon our own will power, we will fail. Without question, we will fail.

And this goes equally for those who are single or who are wrestling with other aspects of their sexuality. So long as it is our will power that we are relying on, we will fail. So long as we make this the defining limits of our lives, we will fail. So long as sexuality is our defining paradigm, we create for ourselves temptations and problems that could be abated by casting all these temptations before the Lord and asking Him to take them up. We don't need to constantly redefine ourselve sexually--we don't need to prove anything to anyone. We need to submit to God's will and to give Him everything that strays from His perfect will.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:15 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

O Felix Culpa

I hope these notes make sense to someone other than myself. This is a matter to which I have given a great deal of thought over the past few days, weeks, months, and years. And as always, I submit them respectfully to correction lest they be theologically incorrect and lead anyone astray--please correct their excesses.

Oh happy fault/guilt that wrought for us such a savior.

Let's start with a premise that I think will be acceptable to most Catholics--God is not stupid and He knew what He was about in the act of creation. All three persons participated as is evident from Genesis 1 and John 1--"the spirit moved upon the face of the waters," and "nothing that is was made without Him [the Word]." Father, Son and Spirit were all present at the act of creation and in the whole of creation.

So, God is not stupid and God knows all things. Thus, when he breathed life into humankind, when He made humanity an order of creation different from all other creation by making humanity self-aware, already was set in motion all of the events that would lead to His incarnation. That is at the moment God gave us the will and the mind to reject us, He understood and foresaw how we would use that gift.

I am overwhelmed by the love it would take to give a gift that would ultimately lead to the giver's rejection. Think about it--who among us could give a gift that would lead our children to despise us (I mean deliberately)? Who could give a valuable and important thing knowing that it would lead to rejection and hatred?

And yet, at the beginning, when God breathed His spirit into us, He knew already the end to which it would lead. He gave us the gift of free will precisely so that He could reveal to us the vastness of his all-encompassing love. He gave us a gift that gave us the power to reject Him entirely. He gave us a gift that gave us the power to kill Him when He came to us to ask us to return to Him.

The gift of self-awareness/free-will is inextricably bound up with the gift of Jesus Christ. The moment it was issued Jesus was taken in bondage until He would assume our form and break all chains forever. Our free will held God captive through the centuries. Our rejection of love increased His love until the time came when one woman did not reject Him.

I've often wondered how many times God knocked before Mary finally answered. The Bible does not tell us how many said no. Obviously, we don't know that anyone did. And yet through the lengthy captivity and especially in the 200 year silence between the testaments am I to assume that God simply fell silent, not speaking to His people? How many women did He send an Angel to, offering them the chance to be Mother to the Entire creation? How many said no?

Sheer speculation. But what is not speculation is that God gave us free will knowing what we could and would do with it. At the fall, we received Jesus Christ as our slave (although we did not know it.) God himself became nothing to serve His own creation. If that is not love, what is?

I think about this and I think that God knew what would happen and committed Himself to giving everything to ungrateful humanity. His love was so vast that he could endure the rejection of ages culminating in His own experience of Death. There really are no words to articulate the feeling this inspires within me. I can say nothing that makes any sense of the overwhelming realization of how much God cared for me and for humanity.

God loved us so much that He made us what we are despite what He knew would result. That happy fault gave us God Himself, whom we rejected and killed, and who, after all of that continued to love us.

Talk about Amazing Grace!

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:55 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 18, 2005

On Atonement

Following on yesterday's post regarding how to look at sin, I had a brief e-mail exchange that resulted in the ideas of the previous post and in some odd notions regarding Jesus and the Crucifixion.

I should preface everything I say here by stating that wherever these statements deviate from the fullness of Church teaching on the subject, they do so not out of malice but out of ignorance, and I would gladly accept any forthcoming fraternal correction so that these thoughts, no matter how slight and poorly attended might not lead one of God's precious children astray.

Our conversation grew out of the sense that God did not so much need Christ to die as we needed Christ to die. I think of it in terms of what Jesus told the Jewish people regarding the law of divorce. It was not that divorce was a good thing, or even really an acceptable thing, but rather that it was a thing granted to them because of their hardness of heart. If there had been any other way to break the hardness of the human heart other than the death of God Himself, God would have used it. Indeed, through time He sent prophet after prophet after prophet to tell the people of Israel how much He loved them and how enduring His love was. They could not hear this--they killed the prophets or ignored them. The hardness of the human heart sets diamond to shame.

In a nutshell this is what I shared with my correspondent:

Before becoming a Christian in (mumble) standing, I was a semi-practicing Baha'i (a faith for which I still have deep love and respect). In the Baha'i faith Baha'u'llah was sent to prison as a result of his faith. Let me tell you--"Baha was sent to prison for your sins," didn't hammer home the truth that "Christ died for your sins." In other words, I've never thought that God needed Christ to die to forgive us (and I may be wrong in that) but that we needed Christ to die to believe it.

You know how you never trust something that is really cheap--cheap grace. Jesus went on trial for your sins is a kind of cheap grace. Death, though, we understand at the root and core of being. Christ died speaks to us. Yes I know there's the doctrine of the atonement, which, frankly I don't completely understand, I merely accept as the truth. But the truth in my heart is that someone loved me enough to die for me. That should provoke some sort of
response.

In short, even if our sins could have been redeemed by anything short of the death of Jesus, we would not have accepted it. Heck, look around you today and see how many accept it. In fact, look at the Muslims, who have enormous respect for Jesus as Prophet--they cannot accept either his sonship nor the fact of his death on the Cross to redeem humanity.

The truth is that the stubbornness of the human heart is so great that only the greatest hammerblow of grace can even start to crack the façade of it. God may, in some mysterious way, require the death of His Son to achieve atonement; however, I think it is safe to say that we require it even more.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:40 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 10, 2005

Willing God's Will

I took up a new book yesterday and was plunged almost immediately into this passage:

from Desiring God's Will
David G. Benner

Looked at carefullly, willfulness is more against something than for something. My willful self refuses to quit as I seek to push through my writing block or finish lecture preparation even when my spirit is dry and my body is telling me to take a break. A spirit of willingness invites me to pause and turn to God, simply opening to God for a moment, lettling God bring perspective and clarity about my need to stop writing for the night or throw out what I've started and wait for the gift of a fresh idea. Willfulness, in either circumstance, is my fight against quitting, against attending to my body, against attending to God's Spirit. The act of willing surrender is a choice of openness, a choice of abandonment of self-determination, a choice of cooperation with God.

Thinking about this yesterday, several things struck me, and looking at it again this morning, I see yet other points. Let me start with the caveats. In the example above, trying to break through writer's block or finishing prep for a lecture one can see a certain amount of willfulness, or one can see tenacity. Breaking through a writer's block requires a certain amount of staying at the computer or writing desk and simply writing your way through. In this particular case it is difficult to distinguish how much is necessary and how much is willfulness. That is the line between tenacity and stubbornness is unclear. There are times at which we are required to stay at a task to achieve the breakthrough we need to attain--and this can go for tasks in the spiritual life.

Now, as to yesterday's thoughts--how often do I allow willfulness to overpower a spirit that cooperates with God? It is far too easy for me to take over, even when God has begun the task, and to run it my way. Perhaps blogging is an example. There are times when God is clearly in control, and there are times in which Steven is running the whole show. Surrender to God shows in the effect the individual pieces of writing have. I have written things on which I have recieved comments that surprised me. I thought it was yet another entry, others thought that it spoke to their hearts. That's when God is in charge. When Steven is in charge its a wandering mess that generally leads me to threaten yet once again that I'm going to take all my marbles and go home. I do that once or twice a year and it seems about time for a fresh crop. But perhaps this year rather than making a fool of myself again, I can listen to what God has to say, stop feeling sorry for myself, and continue to write as He leads.

It's all a balance between willfulness and willingness. Willfulness to conquer the stubborn parts of the self, and willingness to cooperate with God. They blend into the same thing, and yet they take on such different aspects.

I'll keep you posted on the book.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 5, 2005

What I Learned from Blogging--Part DCCCCLXXV

I was stunned to learn something today, that had I taken a moment to ask any one around me probably would not have come as any sort of shock at all. In fact, if I had bothered to look back on my life at all, it would be immediately evident.

I do not make my choices solely, or even predominantly by reason. I use reason to inform my choices and my decisions, but ultimately I trust more how I feel about something than how I think about it. This is life experience. In every case how I feel about something has been far more trustworthy than how I thought about it. Thinking about it makes me like a lawyer, I can find a million ways to shape my thought and reason to justify anything I want to do. But the reality is, how I feel about it is what I should be trusting. Without revealing too much personal information I can tell you that I was once in a situation when I knew in my heart that one choice I could make was a poor, perhaps even a sinful choice. When I considered the matter "reasonably" I considered all of the factors, God's law, family solidarity, possible outcomes, potential meaning, and all the information I could pour into the decision. I made a choice to go ahead and to this thing about which I had grave misgivings. It ended disastrously, with a fragmentation of unity and hard feelings all around. This was the ending my heart saw, not the one I could come to in my thinking.

Reason is a pretty bauble. It makes lovely designs and constructs elegant constructs. The problem is that reason is based on a whole series of underlying propositions you must accept if you are to enter the argument. Once you have accepted them, then you must discover what they are. As you expose more and more of them, you find principles that you question from the very start. For example Aquinas postulates that reason itself is a positive good. On what evidence? It is, in fact, a postulate. I could equally well postulate that reason is a gift--certainly good, but that the good is not complete--that it is the use to which reason is put that confirms its goodness or its ill. I might be wrong in the proposition, but for every thing "proven" by Aquinas, there are several dozen hanging questions about the underlying principles of the argument.

I like well constructed arguments. I love chains of reasoning. But I love them in the same way I love mathematical constructs, for the essential beauty of them not for what they say or do.

But through my life I have been persuaded more by my heart than by my head. I'm told by those around me that this is unreasonable. (In fact it is not--it is merely nonreasonable.) But is nonreasonable necessarily bad? For those who depend on reason to reach their decision its is. But I suggest rather that there are many ways to come to truth. Reason may be more certain, but "Blessed are the pure in heart." The heart will get us to the same end. Obviously we cannot reject reason where reason is clear. But where there is doubt, where there is uncertainty, where there are many possible ways to travel, the heart is as good a guide (for me) as reason is.

Why does this come as such a surprise. Well let me list the pros and cons--I am a trained scientist and an amateur mathematician. Reason is highly prized in both. I am able to reason well, and when I understand all the terms comprehend and accept an argument constructed by reason. However, as a scientist, I was always miles ahead of the facts. My chief way of working was to leap ahead and then backtrack to find the chain of reason that led to my conclusion or that broke down when I tried to connect my conclusion to the known information. I rarely traced a set of data to a conclusion, rather I developed six or seven different models that would fit with the known data and worked backward from the one that "seemed" most probable to the data. When I got there, I was able to understand the arguments that led there.

I am a poet. Poets certainly can be reasonable, but poets tend to rely on intuition and on perceptions of things beneath the surface.

And every major decision I have reached I have always reached by moving beyond the logic to what "felt" right.

Sorry folks, but there it is. My modality is emotional. Anyway, I discovered this in another conversation and also discovered that there are many different modes of knowing and that reason is often a bully--using name-calling and imputations of other people's guilt and sinfulness to force one to accept its ends. Of course emotion is as much a bully saying that such people are hard-hearted and ignorant of the way of being human. We must avoid both such. Those who are led by the head should certainly follow the lead. But those led by the heart should not feel inferior or diminished in comparison.

Some people have claimed that as Catholics you have to check your mind at the door, I find much more often we are asked to check our heart at the door. Reason devoid of passion is the law, and the law kills, just as the spirit enlivens. But the heart without reason is a tyrant, a tenderness that leads to euthanasia and genocide. Every person is a balance of these tendencies. In most one dominates. Be true to it--it is what God has given you to get by on. It is your gift for you and for those around you. I will no longer be ashamed when I make a decision based on how I feel about something. It is as valid as any amount of thinking about it. For another it may not be. We are not all made from a cookie press, so accept who you are and how you come to terms with the world around you. Most of all don't let anyone convince you--head or heart, that it is somehow deficient. And also avoid criticizing those who choose different rule of engagement--even though you will be denigrated by them as one who is anti-intellectual or anti-reason. It simply isn't so--you are simply pro-emotion. Remember, that even as the Church needs its Aquinas's, so too does it need its Bernadettes and its John Vianneys and its Thérèses.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Just Wondering

This is just one of those things that I wonder about. Please don't take it to be indicative of anything but probing at the mysteries of God and Church.

If, in Genesis we are told that God told people to be fruitful and multiply and fill all the Earth. And throughout the old testament we are told what a great blessing children are and how they add to the glory of the house and of the family. And Jesus did not come to do away with the law but to fulfill it, and part of that law was that men should marry and with their wives produce families why is it that we so laud virginity and celibacy? Where does that come from? From a single line of Paul--"It is better to marry than to burn." (And one gets the feeling from Paul that perhaps marriage isn't all that far from burning. And as we know little of Paul's life, yet he was one of the leaders of the people in religious discourse, did he have a wife? Perhaps his marital relationship was akin to that of Socrates and Xantippe. All of that is beside the point. I have read elsewhere how greatly exalted a state virginity is and I must wonder why that should be. If everyone at the time of Jesus had pledged virginity there would be no human race to praise God. Virginity is physically fruitless--not that it is bad, nor is it to be denigrated. But is it exalted because celibacy became the rule.

I just wonder. It would seem to me that both states are exalted if they are the state that one is called to. Why is one better than another--both are sealed in sacrament.

I won't go on because other thoughts might prove too disturbing to some out there. But I really have to wonder about this exaltation and obsession with virginity; it suggests to me a certain hidden dualism--that the flesh is somehow not good.

And perhaps there is just something about me that chafes at a preferential treatement for a few. That is according to the idea of vocation, God picks out His favorite children and holds them in exalted state. (A kind of reverse double predestination.) I prefer to think that God's exalted children are those who fulfill his will most completely--married or celibate. And, if all things are equal in terms of fulfillment of vocation, then perhaps the argument that the celibate life is superior holds some merit.

But then, that is my wayward thinking, and from now on I'll just rein it in.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:39 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

May 2, 2005

The Theology of Sin

Statements like this always bother me.

from My Way of Life
Fr. Walter Farrell and Fr. Martin J Healy

Anything that lessens freedom therfore will also make the sin less grievous. The cold-blooded traitor sins more than the soldier who betrays his comrades under torture.

Fortunately, Tom stops by often enough to explain how a revelation under torture constitutes sin. It seems to lack the key ingredient of will--not under durress. That it is a natural evil, I can believe that it is a sin, and the soul of one tortured might be damned were he to pass on in the course of torture--that strikes me in something like the same way as double predestination. It certainly would give the lie to the statement that "He will not test you beyond your endurance."

Any way, if anyone can explain to me why such a statement extracted during torture is a sin, I would truly appreciate it.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:44 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 27, 2005

A Mystical Poem and Reading Poetry--Part I

My beloved is mine, and I am his; He feedeth among the lilies
Francis Quarles (1592�1644)

EV�N like two little bank-dividing brooks,
That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,
And having rang�d and search�d a thousand nooks,
Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,
Where in a greater current they conjoin:
So I my best-beloved�s am; so he is mine.

Ev�n so we met; and after long pursuit,
Ev�n so we joyn�d; we both became entire;
No need for either to renew a suit,
For I was flax and he was flames of fire:
Our firm-united souls did more than twine;
So I my best-beloved�s am; so he is mine.

If all those glitt�ring Monarchs that command
The servile quarters of this earthly ball,
Should tender, in exchange, their shares of land,
I would not change my fortunes for them all:
Their wealth is but a counter to my coin:
The world�s but theirs; but my beloved�s mine.

Nay, more; If the fair Thespian Ladies all
Should heap together their diviner treasure:
That treasure should be deem�d a price too small
To buy a minute�s lease of half my pleasure;
�Tis not the sacred wealth of all the nine
Can buy my heart from him, or his, from being mine.

Nor Time, nor Place, nor Chance, nor Death can bow
My least desires unto the least remove;
He�s firmly mine by oath; I his by vow;
He�s mine by faith; and I am his by love;
He�s mine by water; I am his by wine,
Thus I my best-beloved�s am; thus he is mine.

He is my Altar; I, his Holy Place;
I am his guest; and he, my living food;
I�m his by penitence; he mine by grace;
I�m his by purchase; he is mine, by blood;
He�s my supporting elm; and I his vine;
Thus I my best beloved�s am; thus he is mine.

He gives me wealth; I give him all my vows:
I give him songs; he gives me length of dayes;
With wreaths of grace he crowns my conqu�ring brows,
And I his temples with a crown of Praise,
Which he accepts as an everlasting signe,
That I my best-beloved�s am; that he is mine.

I often wonder if there is some way in which poetry and mysticism are linked. I tend to think that there is, as many of the great mystics were pure poets, and many poets show a rather mystical bent. I suspect that it is the strength of language and the usefulness of metaphor. The mystical experience, from all accounts, can barely be talked about at all much less explicated in some elaborate treatise. As the experience is interior and not fully accessible to the merely sensory, it is suggestive rather than demonstrative, and so lends itself to poetic expression more than prose delineation.

I could be wrong about this. But I look at the works of great poets--Blake, Whitman, Keats, Tennyson, Shelley, Arnold, and others--some of them doubters and even atheists, and they show evidence of contact with another world. In this way they are rather like theoretical mathematicians who push the boundaries of our knowledge of math. Perhaps it is working in words--climbing inside and seeing how they tick and HOW they mean and resonate. Perhaps this too is the thing about poetry that tends to discomfit readers of poetry. They are used to the solid, sturdy meanings of words. Poetry is like a glass floor over an aquarium--you begin to see through the words and think that they might fail you and you would fall through them. They begin to mean more than they mean, and so simultaneously they begin to mean less. Our initial encounter with the multiplicity of meanings tends to force us back to strict definition. I remember the awe and wonder I experienced as I began to consider the word "still" in this line from Keats:

"Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness."

The first line of "Ode on a Grecian Urn." At first glance the meaning is solid, there is no question about what it means and yet it sets up its own resonance. What does the word "still" mean? Well, for one thing, it means silent. So the line becomes "Thou silent unravish'd bride of quietness." It also means unmoving. In further stretches of the meaning it become nearly synonymous with eternity, as in "Are you still here?" And another meaning--often urns were made to hold wine and other offerings to the Gods. In this sense the still could be the distillation of the spirits, both alcohol and the communion of the Saints. That is, the urn suggests a connection to all of those for whom the urn was used as vessel or as decoration and with all of those for whom the urn had some special meaning. As such, it also suggests the container itself--the thing within which the distillation is made. We would have to see as we continue exploration of the poem which of these meanings is borne out. I could reasonably argue that most of them are meant and used in the depth of the poem.

This kind of fruitful ambiguity is often very disheartening and very uncomfortable for people who want a word to mean one thing and to mean that thing only. But it is really the gateway to an entirely new way of seeing things. Poetry uses simile and metaphor, in a sense it seeks the connections between all things. And I suppose in this sense it IS mystical, because the ultimate, underlying connection between all things is that God sustains each one of them. There is nothing that is without the constant mindfulness of God with respect to its being. Nothing can exist outside His will and His constant care. In one way poetry seeks to explore this truth even if the poet explicitly denies it. Poetry tends to give us transcendentalists--Emerson and Whitman; but it also gives us the Divine--St. John of the Cross.

Those who deny themselves the pleasures of poetry deny themselves one means of seeing God. Poetry engages the reason even as it engages the heart and it speaks in a way that prose simply cannot speak. The Psalms tell us nothing "new" about God, but they tell us in a way that may bypass resistance and go straight to the heart. "The Song of Songs" while definitely about erotic love is also about the soul's communion with God--it tells us something of the person whose life is utterly dedicated to God.

And the Song of Songs brings us back to Francis Quarles who started our little conversation. First, note the turns on a simple phrase that adorn the last, and sometimes the last two lines. These set up the interconnections within the poem. They set up the resonances, the echoes that draw you into what is being said. They emphasize and reiterate the point of all that occurs before them, and they ring changes on the simple theme, "I am my beloved's and he is mine."

Examine carefully the third stanza and particularly the changes it rings on the line. "The world�s but theirs; but my beloved�s mine." Notice how "beloved's" here has taken on a dual meaning. It means not only the possessive of beloved, but it also reflects the opposite side of the semi-colon and suggests that the mundane world belongs to those who search for wealth, but the world of the beloved belongs to those who cling to him. It's simple, it's subtle, but it opens up the world of possibilities in interpreting and understanding the poem.

Go on then to the fourth stanza where we are told in the final line:

"Can buy my heart from him, or his, from being mine."

This is in answer to the temptation of the nine muses--the entertaining and lively arts of this world. The poet assures us that all these passing pleasures could not lure him away from the beloved. But notice the end of the line--"or his, from being mine." That is that the heart of the beloved becomes the heart of the speaker/poet.

Continue through, examine the changes rung on the theme. See how poetry pierces through the clatter of argumentation and elaborate logical constructs. I sometimes wonder if this is what St. Thomas Aquinas meant about his words being "as straw." That is, they couldn't begin to give an insight into the actual experience he had even though they gave one of the great pictures of what God is like. However, he would have been wrong, because his hymns and poetry do climb to those heights. They get under the weight of the disputations and arguments and reasoning and pull out from them the simple straight contours of what St. Thomas is trying to tell us all in his great work. Obviously the Summa and the other great works are not mere passing fancies--they are not straw, but a powerful means of coming to know about God and thus ultimately to knowing God Himself, if one is properly disposed. I suspect St. Thomas was merely trying to indicate to us the depth and breadth and height that is achieved in the vision of God that comes to one who dedicates his entire life to God's work cannot be expressed in the way he chose to express the reallities of theology. And He chose to tell us in a simile--in a line of poetry, because only poetry is strong enough to contain the meaning he wanted to convey. Poetry is an exceedingly sturdy vessel for both thought and emotion--and because it does not seek to divorce the one from the other, it allows a different angle from which to view the Glory of God.

So, you poetry-shy out there. Get started. Read slowly, read aloud. Listen to the words and explore and play with them. Poetry is a play-date. It is an invitation to joy. Accept and enter this miraculous world in which things are said without being said.

Afterword: This is not at all what I set out to write this morning. And that is one of the joys of writing, you discover new things as you go. I really just wanted to present this wonderful little gem of Quarles's with perhaps a bit of commentary, but as I wrote, I discovered new things to say. I hope this was as pleasant for you to read as it was for me to discover in writing. Oh, and do let me know what you think about Quarles and any new things you may find in the stanzas.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:24 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 26, 2005

Newsflash: Radical Rabbi Reveals Self-Expression Can Be Murder!

Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Matthew 5:21-11 (KJV)

News exclusive. In an insider, exclusive interview today, well-known rabble-rouser and sometime blasphemer, Rabbi Yeshua ben Joseph was quoted as saying, "If you have called your brother a fool, you have already committed murder." When asked to comment on this patently absurd teaching Chief Priest and well-known art critic and man-about-town Caiaphas had this to say. . .

Many of the things Jesus has to say to us are hard sayings. In this country we have, through the grace of God, been granted the freedom of speech. Our wise constitutional interpreters have expanded speech to include nearly every form of "expression" possible, from lap-dancing to flag burning. The gift of free speech is a gift indeed; however, the liberty to speak freely must be separated from the license to speak one's mind. License is always an abuse of liberty and the beginning of its downfall, or at very least of the downfall of the person exercising license.

Jesus is very clear in what he says regarding how we speak and feel about those around us. But, it behooves us to listen well, so I repeat the words of Jesus in the exceedingly annoying and prolix Amplified Bible version:

21You have heard that it was said to the men of old, You shall not kill, and whoever kills shall be liable to and unable to escape the punishment imposed by the court.

22But I say to you that everyone who continues to be angry with his brother or harbors malice (enmity of heart) against him shall be liable to and unable to escape the punishment imposed by the court; and whoever speaks contemptuously and insultingly to his brother shall be liable to and unable to escape the punishment imposed by the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, You cursed fool! [You empty-headed idiot!] shall be liable to and unable to escape the hell (Gehenna) of fire.

I think it is fairly clear here that Jesus doesn't want us speaking ill of our brethren. Now, there may be some who would say it is perfectly permissible to say these things if it is done without rancor; however, I question the ability of any human being (other than Jesus himself) to say these things without rancor, The reason I do so lies in one of the mysteries of iniquity that resulted from the fall.

Human beings by their nature seek to feel good about themselves. In many cases they seek this good by comparison with others. To feel good about myself, I must somehow be better than those around me. It is this chain of reasoning that ends in gas chambers, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, and in the concentration camps of North Korea. When we begin to speak ill of those around us, it gives us license to treat them as we speak of them. If they are fools, then we treat them like fools. If they are reckless idiots, then we are better off without them. If they are "filthy" or speak a different language, or adhere to a different set of standards so far as etiquette is concerned, then it is within our rights to dismiss them, and if they are loud or obnoxious enough, to do away with them.

When we open our mouths to accuse the brethren, we become the accuser of brethren. When we speak ill of a person because of race, nationality, intelligence, sex, sexual preference, ideology, or for any reason, we put ourselves in danger. It is clear. Our Lord taught us that the first step on the road to murder is murder itself. When we say, "You idiot," (or, as I do so that Samuel won't understand me in traffic, espece d'idiot--when someone does dome amazingly outrageous tourist maneuver they wouldn't consider for a moment driving about their own home town) we make ourselves fuel for the fire. (But Samuel sees through even the language barrier (tone conveys a lot) and we get our usual theological lecture from the back seat, "Jesus wouldn't like what you're saying." Oh and it's so hard to hear that because it is so true. Everyone who would speak against their brother should have my child dogging their heels--amazing how many ways he is a gift to me.)

It is simply impermissible to think of one's brother this way, to harbor anger, resentment, or even lingering feelings of superiority or of the inferiority of the other. Admittedly, we are provoked, we are made angry and sometimes say these things. The important point is to let go of them immediately. It isn't so much the saying that is damnable, but it is the lingering impression they leave on the mind as we rethink them. Admittedly, we shouldn't be provoked into saying them to start with. Most often we are provoked by those who have somehow injured our pride or otherwise aggravated ourselves. (More often than not the aggravation is a direct result of the similarity of their action to our own in like situation.) We must grow beyond the need to feel better at another's expense. When we set ourselves up in this way, we will only be knocked down.

What we say has real consequences. It affects our moods of the day, it affects the way we think about things, it affects the way we react to people and events. When we say "I can't" then very often, we cannot. When we call the cherished children of God by names not worthy of them, we shape our thoughts to conform to our words. We have murdered the real person with our image of that person.

So, we are never better off in saying some of those things that cross our mind, and often far worse off. Better then to not let the word issue from the mouth and become "concrete." Better to let the thought pass and replace it with a moment of divine mercy prayer, for ourselves and for those against whom we would trespass.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 20, 2005

A Cry for Help

E Tenebris
Oscar Wilde (1856�1900)

COME down, O Christ, and help me! reach thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God�s throne should stand.
�He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel�s smitten height.�
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

This reflects my mood of the day. For some reason I am better at brooding than at sustained celebration. With the great relief of having the new Pope so swiftly installed, I can turn back to the concerns of my life--why am I, despite all good intention, so distant from God? God is not distant from me--why do I choose not to approach more closely?

The answer all boils down to perceived economics. Consciously or unconsciously, I ask myself the question, "What will it cost?" And the cost piles up--I might lose friends (heaven knows I have precious few), I might become "weird" (that's actually much less of a fear as I already qualify in many people's books for that), I might lose esteem from those around me (this one is more difficult to parse, because I don't know why I should care, and yet the question always comes up), but after these surface thoughts we get down to the nitty-gritty--I will have to change. I will not be able to maintain my comfortable routine. I will have to find His way for me, and I do not walk in the dark well.

Frankly, I'm frightened. God loves me, He always wishes my good--He wishes it more than I am willing to see it. A love this powerful is frightening, it's overwhelming--if it were human we'd be thinking Glen Close and Michael Douglas. But it is not human, it is supernatural and transcendent. And that makes it all the more frightening.

I think that is why John Paul the Great's continuing message to us all appealed so much to me. "Be not afraid." My conception of God is not God, my thoughts about God are not God, my fears about God are not God. I am afraid of change. I'm afraid of trusting one to walk in the dark. And I do not need to be afraid.

And all of that wars against this still stronger urge to follow wherever He might lead. He will show me the way home. He will find for me the right path. He will be my friend, my guide, and my Lord.

And vacillating I say, "And what will I have to give up for this great guide?" What will it cost me. Will I, like John Bunyan's Pilgrim, leave my house alone and wander the countryside through Vanity Fair and the Slough of Despond, forsaking what is familiar for what is cold and uncertain? And if I do, what will happen? All of this is colored by past experience, by the antipathy of society for religion, by the antipathy of most for a true follower of Christ. Do I want to forsake what little I possess in the way of positive popular opinion for Jesus Christ? Do I want to sink still lower in the chain of being, so far as those around me are concerned?

The truth is, I am weak. I am led more by my head than by my heart. This was one of the chief reasons St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila spoke so much to me. They are led by the heart. And what is more, my head is not nearly so strong, so useful as I would like to think. I used to have a pretty high estimate of my own abilities, but a few months in St. Blogs will cut that down to proper size. One quickly learns that what one thought to be first rank is once again revealed to be second, third, or fourth rank. That realization is frightening, but in the mysterious way of God it is also heartening.

But all of this is the work of the Holy Spirit, cajoling me along, encouraging me to abandon my opinion of myself, to leave myself behind to emerge as God would have me be.

Inside every single person there is a Saint who desires to be released to effect his or her work on the world. To do so will dramatically change our lives, who and what we think we are. To realize my Saint, I will have to abandon illusion and self-deception. That is why I said that the revelations of a time in St. Blogs are salutary. The self deceptions, the places one uses to hide oneself, are gradually removed. Nothing is left but the raw encounter with the mirror, and with time the Holy Spirit changes our fun-house mirrors into flat reflecting glass. And I, for one, don't much care for the image that is materializing in that mirror. Rather, I should become the mirror that reflects the glory of the Son. That is what Sainthood is all about.

And I become less afraid when I realize that the road to Sainthood is not the road to oblivion, as it would be were I Buddhist. I do not seek the annihilation of the self, but rather I seek to extinguish the false self, the little candle that I carry before me to ward off the dark. And in the darkness that prevails afterwards, there stands revealed the light which is so brilliant that it can be seen only as darkness so long as we are following our own lights. It is like that moment in the old movie Journey to the Center of the Earth when they extinguish their lanterns to discover all around them a phosphorescent glow that gives off far more light that their little lanterns generated. I am afraid of the darkness, but I need not be, because in that darkness I will see the true light, and that true light will show me who I am in Christ. I will not be so much extinguished as lit from within, I will become Light for the World, the lamp to place on a lampstand. And my doing so will not be to my credit, nor will I even see that light. Rather it will all redound to the greatness and the glory of God.

But the human self says, "What will it cost." I'm afraid of spending a few pennies, of losing my hard-won meager human estate because I don't believe that it will result in a wealth beyond imaging. Not mine to hold, but mine to distribute to all the needy--freely given and overflowing--the munificence of God Himself. So I cling to the poverty I imagine as wealth.

This vast "commodius vicus of recirculation brings us back to Howth Castle and Environs,"--the poem that started this chain of thought. Out of the shadows, out of the depths, out of the darkness, I cry, Lord help me. I am drowning in a stormier sea--a storm of my own making in the shallow sea of self--the tempest I toss up every time I want to run away--my good excuse for battening the hatches and closing down all possible access. When I cry out of the darkness, the cry is always the same--save me from my headstrong ways. "My heart is as some famine-murdered land," I am selfish and self centered--completely caught up in me, because after all the vast story of salvation really is all about ME. When I read the Bible, it isn't a message for the world, it's all for ME. I am the center and all circulates about I. I, I. And in a moment it is possible to see that attitude for the ugliness it is. My heart is a famine-murdered land, and yet in that land are the Elijahs, fed by ravens, the Widow of Zarapheth who offers her last food. The sun that burnt this land to dryness because that was the only way to purify it from the weeds that had taken it over, that same Sun will restore the produce of the land, if only I consent to it.

I stand in the darkness of the night of self and call on God to help me out of the shadow into light. I have lived my life in such a way as to swell that shadow to so great an extent that it will require many days' passage to escape from it. And yet, if I am willing, I shall be healed. That is the paradox of the biblical passage. The leper who approaches Jesus and says, if you are willing, I shall be cleansed. But it isn't Jesus' willingness that is the key factor, he is always willing. We learn that he was unable to work any miracles in his homeland--not because He was unwilling, but because those in the land were. It is my willingness that predicates healing. I say in Mass, "Only say the word and I shall be healed." But if I put up a shield and barrier to keep Him out, I will not be healed. I can resist the healing touch, I can refuse change, I can snuff out any candle, and light. But if I am willing, I shall be healed. There is my hope, because I am willing. At the same time as I am frightened, I am willing to be transformed. Like standing at the edge of a vast pool of cold water on the first day of summer, it is only a matter of taking the plunge--of losing my breath for a single moment to emerge in a new world.

Oh, but how the old man resists, how his head is filled with thoughts of how unpleasant that coldness is. How he dips in a toe, perhaps a whole foot. He walks to the pool ladder and lowers himself halfway, but when that cold water reaches his belly, he pulls himself out of the pool as fast as he can. The only thing for it is a trusting plunge--very few make it by degrees. It may not be impossible, but it certainly is the more difficult way. But the old man resists this transformation.

If only I could learn to see the sun and stop staring at the feeble candle I carry thinking it the source of all light. For indeed, it is a greater source of shadow than of light. E tenebris.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:21 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

April 19, 2005

Another Evelyn Underhill Classic

The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-Day

Excerpt:

This book has been called �The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day� in order to emphasize as much as possible the practical, here-and-now nature of its subject; and specially to combat the idea that the spiritual life�or the mystic life, as its more intense manifestations are sometimes called�is to be regarded as primarily a matter of history. It is not. It is a matter of biology. Though we cannot disregard history in our study of it, that history will only be valuable to us in so far as we keep tight hold on its direct connection with the present, its immediate bearing on our own lives: and this we shall do only in so far as we realize the unity of all the higher experiences of the race. In fact, were I called upon to choose a motto which should express the central notion of these chapters, that motto would be��There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.� This declaration I would interpret in the widest possible sense; as suggesting the underlying harmony and single inspiration of all man's various and apparently conflicting expressions of his instinct for fullness of life. For we shall not be able to make order, in any hopeful sense, of the tangle of material which is before us, until we have subdued it to this ruling thought: seen one transcendent Object towards which all our twisting pathways run, and one impulsion pressing us towards it.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 18, 2005

I Know My Redeemer Lives

For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth--Job 19:25

What does it mean to be redeemed? How often have I really considered the depth of the word, and yet paid no attention to what it really meant? How often have I heard the word. Sometimes in various masses one will hear the trinity expressed as "Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier" (a poor expression at best--for where does the creator leave off and the redeemer begin--attempting to define the persons by their functions is doomed to failure as all of the functions belong in greater or lesser degree to all three persons.). We know that we have been redeemed through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. But what does that mean.

I was thinking through this yesterday and came to no startling conclusions, no brilliant summary; however, here are some thoughts. A redeemer redeems or buys back. Through our sins we "sell ourselves." Think about prior times--when one could not afford to pay one's debts, one was cast into debtors prison (hardly an efficacious way to get one's money back, nevertheless, it was done.) We are in debtors prison, sold for a moment's pleasure to the enemy. A redeemer buys back the bond. He purchases what was sold. If difficult times have come, one might sell something to a pawn shop. If afterwards prosperity returns, one might return to the shop and redeem the merchandise.

So the death of Jesus has done for us, should we choose to accept the pledge. Jesus purchased us back from the depths of imprisonment to sin, self, and Satan. We were lost in the world and He purchased for us a way to heaven. But the way does come with some strings attached. We are not our own. If we accept redemption, then we become the "property" of the redeemer. We are His servants, purchased to do His work now and always. We cannot be redeemed and attempt to keep practicing our old ways. Redemption means we do not serve our prior masters, but rather all of our effort goes to serving Him. There is something in this that is frightening. I am not my own, I am at the service of another. I am under obligation.

What does the obligation of redemption entail? I must do Christ's work in this world and in the world to come. Sometimes this requirement threatens to overwhelm me. I have to work for God and still earn my own living and support my family. The truth of the matter is that working for God is a very, very light burden. For one thing, He does most of the work. I merely need drag my carcass to the right place and He provides the words and the music. At Mass, He is my joy, in the presence of the believers, He is my wisdom and my charity, in the presence of the unbelievers He is my joy, my witness, and my truth. In sum He is all in all and He does all that need be done if I simply step out of the way.

There's the trick--stepping out of the way. Too often I want to be recognized for what I am doing. I want the world to know me and see me and speak to me. When I work, I want payment in currency the world can understand--money, fame, glory, happiness. When these things do not happen, when I do not feel some sort of rush because I have done God's work, I am disappointed. Surely, I am supposed to "feel" something as a result of serving God, am I not?

Feelings do not enter the equation. We can serve God with all our hearts our whole lives and never feel for a single instant stirred beyond the ordinary. Or we can spend our entire lives in ecstasies of service and of knowledge of God. That is God's choice. But my choice is simply to accept redemption and work for the Lord, or to continue to haul the incredible burden I have taken on myself.

Rejecting redemption is hauling a sledge through mud. Once the sledge is sufficiently heavy all I will accomplish is further miring. When I choose to follow myself and my own ways, I doom myself, I am destroyed every day. When I choose redemption, however, I am choosing to give myself up completely�every day is new life. There is no middle ground. "Who sets hand to plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom." Redemption is about service. Properly viewed, redemption is also about all-encompassing love. We should be delighted, joyful, and thankful that we have so merciful a God. Redemption is about joy. We take on a new master and shed the grief and the turmoil of the old. Redemption is shedding what is worn with care and worry and putting on what is bright and always new. No doubt, we will have moments when we look back and even actively seek a return to the "fleshpots of Egypt." However, when that happens, I will remember the experience of serving the Lord and the lightness of His burden. Once I have entered redemption, it will be very hard to forget the joys of that state.

So, I know my redeemer lives, and His life is my life. His needs are my service. My duty is to become more and more like Him so that when someone looks at me, they see my Redeemer--Jesus Christ, and they know Him for their own. My redeemer transforms me and in so doing, I am called to become Him and transform the world around me. That also is why sin is so sad a state, our service is rendered fruitless and those who see us are not led to the Lord. If my Redeemer lives (and He does) it is my duty through my life, my work, and my words to make Him known to all the world. When people recall anything I have said or written, it is better that they forget who I am and hear and recall only to Whom they are called. I must decrease so that He might increase, but my decrease is paradoxically and increase beyond all bounds. I grow more powerful in my decrease than I ever was in my ascendancy because I grow into the likeness of my redeemer.

I know my Redeemer lives, and so I should make it known to others. My joy should be the sign that always points to Him and my life should be such as to call all to His throneroom.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 13, 2005

Brush Up Your Shakespeare. . .

Context is not everything, but it certainly changes a lot:

Sonnet XCVII: How like a Winter hath my Absence been
William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December's bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov'd was summer's time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me
But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

I thought about this in the context of my own wanderings toward and away from God. I really like the image of the labyrinth as a metaphor for the spiritual journey. If I keep walking it, I will make it to the center; however, along the way I will have a great many close approaches after which the vagaries of human nature causes me to turn away. Then I am walking directly away, for what seems like a long time before the path switches and I'm on my way back. Human nature is flawed. I think many of us have an approach/avoidance encounter with God. I might get close and then I get scared. I turn away because the cost seems to great--I will be deprived on one or another illicit pleasure. Then, I'm back on track.

This may be why the emphasis of the reign of Pope John Paul the Great appeal to me so much. "Be not afraid." Approach God boldly, as any son who knows that his father loves him will approach his Father. Ask for what you need. Don't be afraid, the only thing you have to lose is your fear. This message resonates in me. In a previous post, I called it marching orders. That's how I view it. I need to break through the labyrinth wall and stop following its arbitrary dictates. Of course, I do not do this alone. Nothing worthwhile is accomplished on my own. Only with God as my shield and help will I be able to withstand the blast that would destroy so strong a wall as makes us the labyrinth in which I walk.

So what has this to do with the poem above. Every moment away from God, no matter how good those moment are, are times of winter wandering, desperately cold and dry. Every moment away from His love--"What old December's bareness everywhere!" Everything done without Him is a falseness, a kind of betrayal--the richness of the widow's womb after her Lord's decease. And yet, isn't even this the promise of what one receives from the hand of a generous God.

Reading, reading anything, can activate the mind in the way few forms of more passive entertainment can do. Shakespeare speaks of his dark lady or lost love, but the Christian who encounters the great poet hears the lament of one turning this way and that in his journey to God. Because we are Christians, context is everything. Every work of art is a cocreation. Because of this, I think we know instinctively when we have encountered art and when we have encountered playtime, mockery, or idiocy. Even those who stood steadfast against God could not create in His absence, and their diatribes and writings are inevitable expositions of Him. From Huysmans La-Bas to Lautreamont's Les Chants de Maldoror, from Joyce's Ulysses to the maunderings of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Heinlein, a gifted writer cannot, despite his own intention, help but reveal the hand of God, because his gift is God-given, and his writing, no matter how overtly directed against God, ultimately shows us who God is, if only as a photographic negative reveals the image.

So, take your pick, Shakespeare, J.D. Robb, Patricia Cornwell, G.K. Chesterton. In the Christian frame of mind you will hear and see things of God. And perhaps one day these things will help crumble the walls of the labyrinth that prevent a direct path toward His glory.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:05 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

April 12, 2005

Losing Trust--Things Modern Poetry Teaches Us--Part I

from "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
T.S. Eliot, 1917

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question �
Oh, do not ask, �What is it?�
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

. . .

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

I have selected the antipodes of the poem, because in them we see the drama of the last century which extends into this one.

As believers we are subject to innumerable challenges. Each of these is God's way of testing us. Testing here means not examining, but rather refining, making us durable--as gold is tested in fire. God does this not to torment me, but rather "to lead us to an overwhelming question." The problem is that too often, like Prufrock, we refuse to ask the question--we divert our attention elsewhere.

God's ways do sometimes seem like a "tedious argument of insidious intent." Indeed, from the point of view of the selfish ego, what God asks of us is insidious indeed. We can see the fear and the crisis it causes in the desires of a million people to reform the Church each in their own image. One group desires ordination for women, another agitates for freedom from contraception, another says that if only we had married Priests we would not have this, that, or the other crisis. Many do not wish to serve the Church as it is. Many do not desire to serve the truth unless they have first recast it in their own image.

But God leads each of us individually to the overwhelming question. He does not ask a gaggle of thousands, He asks me, personally. As a result the events that lead to that question are different for each person. What they call from each person is different.

What is the overwhelming question? I think that the question which has become more pressing and more urgent throughout the last century and into this one, the question that has been prevalent through all of time is "Do you love Me?" The form that this question has taken on more and more is , "Do you trust Me?"

Many of us no longer live in anything recognizable as the neighborhood of our youth. Many have people who live in houses all around them, but there is no communal sharing. In fact, the only contact one is likely to have with one's neighbor is the notice to weed your lawn from the community association, or perhaps a lawsuit for some perceived infraction or another. Some of our priests plunged us into a crisis of trust with the pedophilia scandal. Each day we read headlines that reinforce to us that we cannot be too careful with our money, our children, our possessions, ourselves. In September of 2001 we suffered a tremendous blow against our security which still has many of us reeling. There is nothing to trust. The overwhelming question indeed overwhelms us and we look another way.

But St. Faustina Kowalska taught us, "Jesus, I trust in you." We have so unlearned trust that it is hard to learn this lesson. We need to remake our entire lives to reify this truth--to manifest it to the world. And there are consequences for refusing to do so. There are consequences for not answering the question. These too are spelled out throughout the poem. The person who refuses to face the question turns gradually inward becoming obsessed with everything about himself. "Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?" Who cares? And yet, are these not the truly overwhelming questions that we face and our children face each day? Aren't we often afraid of how we will be judged when people see us? Don't we go out of our way to make a good impression? Look at the advertisements on television--tooth whitener, hair replacement, "natural male enhancement," wrinkle cream, age-spot remover, the list is endless. If you watch enough television you will eventually see an advertisement that leads to a product designed to improve every part of you. All the while we are posing, "I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach." Why? Because it will cut an impressive figure. People will see me and they will comment on how romantic, ironic, dashing, or interesting I am.

All because we refuse to face the overwhelming question.

But wait, there's more. Elsewhere in the poem we see yet other consequences of refusal. "Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,/I have measured out my life with coffee spoons." Our lives are not beautiful, romantic, and perfect. They are the apotheosis of automation, of turning self off and turning autopilot on. Time is measured out in coffee spoons, in the mundane acts of the every day. We are weighed down by our trivia. We are weighed down by ourselves. So much so that, "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.//I do not think that they will sing to me." Perhaps some of the saddest lines of poetry ever written. I have come face to face with the ineffable, and because I refuse the question, because I refuse to look into the abyss of trust, I cannot experience it. I hear them singing to each other, but I am not invited to the chorus. Rather. "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea. . . Till human voices wake us, and we drown." We are submerged once again in the expectations and the forces of those who surround us. We are plunged into a sea of selfishness even though we have seen a better way.

What is the solution? "Be not afraid." Follow Jesus' admonition, listen to how our Holy Father of recent memory explained it. Do not be afraid of the overwhelming question. It is overwhelming precisely because it portends changes. Ask it anyway. "Do I love Jesus? Do I trust Jesus?" And then face the real answer as spelled out in your life everyday. For most of us I suspect the answer shall be, "Not nearly so much as I would like," or perhaps a step beyond, "No, I don't really." Perhaps we love Jesus but we have learned too well from our families not to trust anyone. Life experiences show us that humans are untrustworthy, and perverting the principle found in the first Letter of John, we say to ourselves, "If I cannot trust what I can see, how can I trust what I cannot see?" The irony is that it is precisely what we cannot see that is most trustworthy. We can be certain that under ordinary circumstances hydrogen will form one bond in which it tends to "lose" an electron. We can pretty much rely upon the Kreb's cycle. When we move from the unseen to the seen, we begin to doubt. We are children of the enlightenment. We think Descartes got it right with "Dubito ergo cogito ergo sum." But followed its full length we wind up square in the middle of solipsism, not reality.

Be not afraid. Ask the question. Answer it. And if the answer doesn't suit, choose to do something about it. Trust God. To trust Him you must know and love Him. To know and love Him, you must fill every moment with reminders of His presence. Before you start a new task, you can say, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Before you begin the day, "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad." Upon retiring, "I love you Lord, my strength." Hear His word, tell the story He would have you tell. Substitute the useless, self-serving self-talk with God-talk. What He has to say is true, eternal, and infinite, what you tell yourself is limited by your own narrow perceptions.

Do not be afraid to ask the question. This our Holy Father taught. Ask and ask again. Ask every moment of every day. Ask when you know the answer to be negative and turn your heart around. "If God be for us, who can stand against?" We need to recover trust. The end of trust is being in the company of the mermaids, being in the presence of God. The end of distrust is drowning in our human surroundings. There doesn't really seem to be much of a choice. The Lord commands us in Deuteronomy, "Choose life." To do so, we must choose Him, completely and without any reservation.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:27 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

April 5, 2005

"Blessed Are Those Who Mourn, For They Shall Be Comforted"

from a Sermon by Martin Copenhaver

Leon Bloy once said, "There are places in our hearts which do not yet exist, and it is necessary for suffering to penetrate there in order that they may come into being." This insight comes close to revealing the blessedness of mourning and sorrow. True sorrow opens our being, pierces the smooth veneer of our lives and exposes our inner selves. In sorrow, the depths of our hearts are touched, carved out... carved out to leave a space for God to be received, for it is in the depths of our hearts that God is found. It is when our hearts are truly emptied out, wounded, made vulnerable, that we are able to receive the true comfort which comes from God's loving presence.

The word "to comfort" in Greek is parakalein. The noun form is Paraklete, that is, "Comforter," which is the word John uses to speak of the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised to send among his disciples when he left them. Only by his leaving, and in their mourning, would they have the Paraklete, the Comforter. But parakalein also means, to summoned to one's side, and it is the word which is used to invite to a banquet. It's a wonderful double meaning. To be comforted is to be invited to life's banquet, and there to partake of all that life has to offer, to partake of both joy and sorrow because both are part of the banquet and both are part of the comfort.

The source

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Amen

from A Sermon for Rosh Hoshashana By Rabbi David Stern

Emunah comes to say: if we have not taken the leap of action, then our faith is incomplete. Emunah brings us the Hebrew and English word amen. When we say �Amen� at the end of a prayer, we are affirming our trust in the vision the prayer holds forth, and committing ourselves to making it happen. When we say �Amen� to a prayer for peace, we commit ourselves to working for peace. When we say �Amen� to a prayer of gratitude, we commit ourselves to living with a sense of gratitude that will exceed our sometimes nagging needs. A Jewish �Amen� comes from emunah � and so it means more than �so may it be.� It means, �So may I be.� Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch taught: �Amen does not refer to the contents of the pronouncement, but to the person.�

Find the entire, wonderful sermon here. And first I must say that I mean no disrespect by using this excerpt here. But Rabbi Stern teaches us something important, something that has profound implications if we consider it in light of the Holy Father's reported last word. "Amen" is an obligation, a commitment of person to action. If our Holy Father's last word were Amen, it was not so much a resignation, as an enlistement. As with St. Thérèse, I have no doubt that the Holy Father will spend his heaven doing good on Earth. And so an amen implies.

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On Mourning--from John Wesley

from The Sermons of John Wesley
"Sermon 135--On Mourning for the Dead"

At such a loss, if considered without the alleviating circumstances, who can blame him that drops a tear? The tender meltings of a heart dissolved with fondness, when it reflects on the several agreeable moments which have now taken their flight never to return, give an authority to some degree of sorrow. Nor will human frailty permit an ordinary acquaintance to take his last leave of them without it. Who then can conceive, much less describe, the strong emotion, the secret workings of soul which a parent feels on such an occasion? None, surely, but those who are parents themselves; unless those few who have experienced the power of friendship; than which human nature, on this side of the grave, knows no closer, no softer, no stronger tie!

At the tearing asunder of these sacred bands, well may we allow, without blame, some parting pangs; but the difficulty is, to put as speedy a period to them as reason and religion command us. What can give us sufficient ease after that rupture, which has left such an aching void in our breasts? What, indeed, but the reflection already mentioned, which can never be inculcated too often, -- that we are hastening to him ourselves; that, pass but a few years, perhaps hours, which will soon be over, and not only this, but all other desires will be satisfied; when we shall exchange the gaudy shadow of pleasure we have enjoyed, for sincere, substantial, untransitory happiness?

With this consideration well imprinted in our minds, it is far better, as Solomon observes, to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of feasting The one embraces the soul, disarms our resolution, and lays us open to an attack: The other cautions us to recollect our reason, and stand upon our guard and infuses that noble steadiness, and seriousness of temper, which it is not in the power of an ordinary stroke to discompose. Such objects naturally induce us to lay it to heart, that the next summons may be our own; and that since death is the end of all men without exception, it is high time for the living to lay it to heart.

If we are, at any time, in danger of being overcome by dwelling too long on the gloomy side of this prospect, to the giving us pain, the making us unfit for the duties and offices of life, impairing our faculties of body or mind, -- which proceedings, as has been already shown, are both absurd, unprofitable, and sinful; let us immediately recur to the bright side, and reflect, with gratitude as well as humility, that our time passeth away like a shadow; and that, when we awake from this momentary dream, we shall then have a clearer view of that latter day in which our Redeemer shall stand upon the earth; when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall be clothed with immortality; and when we shall sing, with the united choirs of men and angels, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

I am fine with those who choose not to weep and not to mourn, but to rejoice in our Pontiff's passing. I ask only that they respect that I have lost a great friend, a dear guide, a father, whose passing demands of me something more than rejoicing. I rejoice even as I sorrow. He is in a place now to better aid us all, but I will no longer see him among us. His passing fills me with great sorrow because I delighted in his presence.

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Things John Paul the Great Taught Me--Part I

One of the most important things I learned from the pontificate, the writings, and the life of Pope John Paul II is about loving God.

At one time there used to be a dichotomy, a kind of question, as to how one learned to love God. There was one school that said, "First we love, then we know." and another school that said, "First we know, then we love." What John Paul the Great taught me is that it is not sequential, it is simultaneous. We love and we know at the same time. The two actions are interpenetrating and mutually reinforcing. You cannot have one without the other. They are representative of the "trinity of the body"--body (or heart), mind, and soul.

As a result, is it not possible to know with merely the mind, the heart must also be involved. And it is not possible to love with merely the heart; the mind must be involved. The heart without the mind is the tenderness that leads to the gas chambers; the mind without the heart is the legal system that destroyed Terry Schiavo. One without the other is only half human, never realizing our full potential.

Loving God requires that we know Him with heart and mind together and that we love Him with heart and mind together. Surely there are times when one faculty is ascendant in either knowledge or love; but they are always working together. Indeed they cannot work apart. Knowledge is always informed by love, by sympathy, by compassionate understanding; and love is always informed by deeper knowledge, by seeing what is really there, by intellectual understanding of what we love.

Throughout his pontificate Pope John Paul II showed me these two faculties constantly in operation. His magnificent encyclicals are beautiful minglings of heart and head knowledge, heart and head love. As a result they are not always satisfying to those who demand a rigorous logic in their approach to theology--there is entirely too much reliance upon metaphor and analogy for their comfort. Further, they tend to be disconcerting to those who want to love without thinking about it; the Pope demands a certain intellectual rigor to be understood.

His actions, many of them criticized during his reign show the same dichotomy. There are a great many who criticized the liturgy for the canonization of St. Juan Diego because so many native dancers and rituals were incorporated into the Mass. And yet, it is the heart that became briefly ascendant there with the consent of the head acknowledging the individual differences in cultures.

You could look at any of a myriad of actions taken during this papacy and see in them this deep intertwining of head and heart, knowledge and love. Pope John Paul the Great brought them to their natural synthesis, their fusion, their integration as parts of a person. We are not merely intellect, nor emotion, nor spirit. We are individual trinities, individual reflections of God in our integration, even though we often ignore or deny it. Pope John Paul the Great with his theology of body, with his encyclicals, his pontificate, and his life, showed us this again and again. He led by example, he taught by being. It will take us a long time to synthesize and to integrate all that he has to say.

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April 3, 2005

A Tribute to the Holy Father

The Holy Spirit worked powerfullly through this great man to bring me to the Church and to the great hope of salvation. For a long time I was lost in my own sense of self, not worshipping as God would have me worship, but worshipping as I allowed myself to worship, in a limited, narrow, selfish way.

His encyclical Vertatis Splendor came dangerously close to driving me away from the Church in my pride and great hubris. And ultimately it was the instrument of my conviction and of my coming to love Christ as I love Him now--poor though that is.

As he worked on Earth in my lifetime to lead me and a a great many others to Jesus, so his prayers in Heaven will call a great many to God. He is now a fellow toiler with the great Saints, and Saint Thérèse. Like her, I suspect that He will spend his heaven doing good on Earth. He had such a passionate love for all of us.

May God receive Pope John Paul the Great, great soul, into his heavenly court, and may he continue to pray for us all through all of time.

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March 29, 2005

What Do We Learn from Ms. Schiavo?

I have searched and searched for God's hand in this affair. Why doesn't He intervene? Why does He allow this to continue? Of course, there are no answers to questions about purpose because His purpose is beyond what we can know.

On a lesser plane though, we each receive the instruction we are inclined by the Holy Spirit to receive, and I thought I would share what I have learned through this whole terrible ordeal.

On Good Friday the words "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," resonated throughout the day and throughout the weekend. We still do not know what we do. We are still ignorant, and we are still crucifying the innocent. The thin veneer of civility that we call civilization can be scratched off with a fingernail. Our risible attempts to prove that we are somehow more "advanced," more "civilized," more "compassionate" than the rabble that had Jesus crucified are belied by all of the events surrounding this innocent woman.

What God said to me is abandon your pretensions of culture, civility, kindness, humanity, all of your pretensions. This is what you are and what you ever have been and without My grace what you ever shall be. Humanity is humanity, fallen away from God, dependent upon human abilities to come to decisions and make judgments.

I am deeply saddened, though truth to tell not shocked, at having the curtain drawn back once again from this illusion. The police guarding Terri Schiavo have stated that they would have fought with agents sent by the Governor rather than allow her to live--what more evidence do we need of Roman Centurions? We could go on making analogies, but to what purpose? The point has been made. We think we are socially, ethically, morally, philosophically, and intellectually advanced. In fact, we are nothing more than we were in the time of Jesus, and perhaps a little less.

The real sorrow of this is that it is such a paltry lesson to learn at the price of a life. And yet, if we are to advance in grace, we must learn and relearn and relearn and relearn.

If something does not change soon, Ms. Schiavo will be with God and we will be diminished both for her loss and for its cause. It is our duty as Christians to remind the whole world of this innocent woman's wrongful death and to seek its remedy both legally and by changing the hard and misshapen hearts of those who make our laws.

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March 24, 2005

The Rootlessness of Evil

One of the interesting implications of Hannah Arendt's proposal regarding the rootlessness of evil is spelled out later in the same paper I cited yesterday. The good side of rootlessness is that it is not intrinsic. Humanity is fundamentally good and seriously flawed, but the flaw doesn't go to the root of who we are--it is a serious, potentially fatal wound--but it is not a deformation of the essence of what God originally created.

Now the down side. If evil is rootless, it cannot be radically exterminated by any human means. Something with a root can be uprooted, removed, and destroyed. However, evil is more like a fungus--rootless and vastly destructive of self and others. Ask any of a million Florida homeowners who, after the hurricanes last year had to have the mold in their houses destroyed. This is not an easy procedure.

One way to think about evil is that it is like bacteria--we can introduce an antibiotic, but some strains will survive and eventually prosper in the environment. Tolkien described evil as biding its time, shifting its shape and place, and eventually returning in a form more virulent. We compare the Sauron of The Hobbit in his Mirkwood hiding place with the Sauron of Lord of the Rings. The interesting point here is that the lapse in time is not all that great.

Okay, so we've spell out the worst of it. But what we celebrate this week is the true cure. As anyone can tell you, mold has a serious difficult time growing in the incandescent heat of direct sunlight--the hyphae might still exist "underground" but light and heat are better remedies than anything that can be done in the dark. And it is in this week that we celebrate the brightest light, the greatest heat--the Passion of the Son of God, who by His death and resurrection has set us free. Evil exists all around us, and even has hyphae within us--but if we are open to the Light, it will burn out evil. It will destroy our propensity for self-involvement. When we unite ourselves to Jesus Christ, we have the only specific against evil that can be effective. And uniting ourselves to Him means more than lip service, it means taking action. We can talk about the battle between good and evil till the cows come home. The truth of the matter is (as attributed to Edmund Burke in any one of a variety of ways) "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

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March 22, 2005

Which Apostle Betrayed Christ?

Have you ever noticed that when Jesus gives an answer that is evasive, He is directly speaking beyond His time to our own?

I thought of this yesterday listening to the Passion narrative. Jesus tells us that the one who dips into the bowl with Him will be His betrayer. Judas asks directly, "Is it I Lord?" And our Lord's answer is equally direct while being evasive, "It is you who say it."

Who is the person that was better off had he never been born? Who betrayed Christ? We are so used to the narrative that we seldom think of the huge implications of this question. Yes, we all know that Judas betrayed Christ directly. The Gospels are clear on that. What they are equally clear on, but we are less attuned to, is the question of who else may have betrayed Christ. For example, who stayed awake to pray for Him and His deliverance? For that matter how many actually went even so far as the garden? Did not Peter deny Him three times--another betrayal? Who was present at the foot of the Cross? In Mark's gospel none of the apostles were there. In Luke they were at a distance. In John it is the disciple that Jesus loved.

How many other times did these men (representing all others) betray Christ in little and big ways? Perhaps we need to read the statement that Jesus makes to Judas more broadly as being to all the Apostles as representatives of all of humankind. Woe be unto the person who betrays Christ. It is better for that person had he never been born--UNTIL such time as he or she repents of the crime and turns back to Jesus, who will forgive and forgive and forgive. I believe the one unforgivable sin is the belief that there is something so dire that God cannot forgive it, some sin so enormous that Christ's blood cannot cover it--we doubt that the Holy Spirit can move us to repentance. God is not enough. Nonsense--Christ's sacrifice covers all sin. We are given many opportunities to return to Him. But Woe unto the one who does not, it is better for him or her that he or she should never have been born.

Rather than a direct indictment of Judas (which it may also be) we need to read this as said to us here and now under the present circumstances. Woe to the person who betrays Christ without repentance, with hardened heart and countenance. It would be better had they never seen light. But joy unto the person who hears these words and knows himself for one of those betrayers, because his eyes are opened and his opportunity to return to the Father increased immeasurably. The person who thinks that they can sin against God in such a way as to defy forgiveness, need merely look upon the face of the Savior throughout this week and know that His sacrifice covered all forever. Nothing more is needed.

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March 16, 2005

William Law

Sorry, now I'm started and I can't resist introducing one of my other favorite protestant mystics.

from Of Justification by Faith and Works
William Law

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A Methodist and a Churchman.

[Just-1] Methodist. Say what you will, sir, I must still stand to it, that almost all the sermons of your bishops and curates, for these last hundred years, have been full of soul-destroying doctrine. {Mr. Berridge's Letters, page 20.}

[Just-2] Churchman. Pray, what is that doctrine?

[Just-3] Methodist. It is the doctrine of salvation, "partly by faith, and partly by works; or justification by faith and works." {Ibid. page 13.}

[Just-4] Churchman. Salvation by faith and works, is a plain, and very intelligible scripture-truth. But salvation partly by faith and partly by works, is a false and groundless explication of the matter, proceeding either from art, or ignorance. What sounder gospel-truth, than to say, that we are saved by Jesus Christ, God and man? But, what falser account could be given of it, than to say, that if so, then we are saved, partly by Jesus, and partly by Christ; that Jesus does something, and Christ adds the rest. For is not Jesus Christ, as such, the one undivided savior, with one undivided operation? And who can more endeavor to lose the meaning, and pervert the sense of this gospel- truth, than he, who considers Jesus, as separately, and Christ as separately, doing their parts one after the other, the one making up what was wanting in the other, towards the work of our salvation?

[Just-5] Now to separate faith from works, in this manner, the one partly doing this, and the other partly doing that, is in as full contrariety to scripture, to all truth, and the nature of the thing, as to separate Jesus from Christ. For as the one savior is manifested in and by Jesus Christ, one undivided person; so the one salvation is manifested, when faith is in works, and works are in faith, as Jesus is in Christ, and Christ is in Jesus.

See also the extraordinary and beautiful The Spirit of Love,
The Spirit of Prayer, and his masterwork A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

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Jonathan Edwards

I love innocent comments that give me a reason to ride one of my hobby horses. ~M2~ innocently asked if Jonathan Edwards ever wrote about love.

It is my belief that Jonathan Edwards, along with William Law, George Whitefield, George Fox, William Penn, Jeremy Taylor, and a smattering of others, is one of a very elite group of protestant mystics whom God granted the grace to see far and see hard.

As a result Edwards did produce some remarkable works centered on love, affection, and compassion.

His treatise Religious Affections is one example, from which, the following excerpt:

from Religious Affections
Jonathan Edwards

The evidence of this in the Scripture is very abundant. If we judge of the Nature of Christianity, and the proper spirit of the gospel, by the word of God, this spirit is what may, by way of eminency, be called the Christian spirit; and may be looked upon as the true, and distinguishing disposition of the hearts of Christians as Christians. When some of the disciples of Christ said something, through inconsideration and infirmity, that was not agreeable to such a spirit, Christ told them, that they knew not what manner of spirit they were of, Luke 9:55, implying that this spirit that I am speaking of, is the proper spirit of his religion and kingdom. All that are truly godly, and real disciples of Christ, have this spirit in them; and not only so, but they are of this spirit; it is the spirit by which they are so possessed and governed, that it is their true and proper character. This is evident by what the wise man says, Prov. 17:27 (having respect plainly to such a spirit as this): "A man of understanding is of an excellent spirit." And by the particular description Christ gives of the qualities and temper of such as are truly blessed, that shall obtain mercy, and are God's children and heirs: Matt. 5:5, 7, 9, "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." And that this spirit is the special character of the elect of God, is manifested by Col. 3:12, 13: "Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another." And the apostle, speaking of that temper and disposition, which he speaks of as the most excellent and essential thing in Christianity, and that without which none are true Christians, and the most glorious profession and gifts are nothing (calling this spirit by the name of charity), he describes it thus, 1 Cor. 13:4, 5: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil."

Portions of this Thanksgiving Sermon are lovely:

from "Thanksgiving Sermon"
Jonathan Edwards

1. Proposition. The saints in heaven are employed; they are not idle; they have there much to do: they have a work before them that will fill up eternity.

We are not to suppose, when the saints have finished their course and done the works appointed them here in this world, and are got to their journey�s end, to their Father�s house, that they will have nothing to do. It is true, the saints when they get to heaven, rest from their labours and their works follow them. Heaven is not a place of labour and travail, but a place of rest. Heb. iv. 9. There remaineth a rest for the people of God. And it is a place of the reward of labour. But yet the rest of heaven does not consist in idleness, and a cessation of all action, but only a cessation from all the trouble and toil and tediousness of action. The most perfect rest is consistent with being continually employed. So it is in heaven. Though the saints are exceedingly full of action, yet their activity is perfectly free from all labour, or weariness, or unpleasantness. They shall rest from their work, that is, from all work of labour and self-denial, and grief, care, and watchfulness, but they will not cease from action. The saints in glory are represented as employed in serving God, as well as the saints on earth, though it be without any difficulty or opposition. Rev. xxii. 3. �

To judge by all of his works and his life, he was, like John Wesley, a man after God's own heart and God spoke to him of intimate matters; however, he was woefully misguided in some of his opinions by misunderstandings that accrued as a result of common errors of his time and some Calvinist influences.

With regard to mysticism and divine union, we have, "A DIVINE AND SUPERNATURAL LIGHT, IMMEDIATELY IMPARTED TO THE SOUL BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, SHOWN TO BE BOTH A SCRIPTURAL AND RATIONAL DOCTRINE.'

Admittedly, the majority of his corpus was dedicated to being "a fisher of man" and reeling in the lost souls of the time--so Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is a note struck forcefully and often. Nevertheless, not all of his work is so militant, even though all is strident and forceful. Were I to give a single word to describe Edwards's work, I would say that it is vigorous. There is a tautness to it that sings of Divine Things. Take, for example, "The Church's Marriage to Her Sons and to Her God"--a remarkable sermon that wayward Priests would do well to read again and again. So too with True Saints, When Absent from the Body, Are Present with the Lord:

from "True Saints, When Absent from the Body, Are Present with the Lord"
Jonathan Edwards

And therefore there is a certain place, a particular part of the external creation, to which Christ is gone, and where he remains. And this place is that which we call the highest heaven, or the heaven of heavens; a place beyond all the visible heavens. Eph. iv. 9, 10. �Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended, is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens.� This is the same which the apostle calls the third heaven, 2 Cor. xii. 2. reckoning the aerial heaven as the first, the starry heaven as the second, and the highest heaven as the third. This is the abode of the holy angels; they are called �the angels of heaven,� Matt. xxiv. 36. �The angels which are in heaven,� Mark xiii. 32. �The angels of God in heaven,� Matt. xxii. 30. and Mark xii. 25. They are said �always to behold the face of the Father which is in heaven,� Matt. xviii. 10. And they are elsewhere often represented as before the throne of God, or surrounding his throne in heaven, and sent from thence, and descending from thence on messages to this world. And thither it is that the souls of departed saints are conducted, when they die. They are not reserved in some abode distinct from the highest heaven; a place of rest, which they are kept in, until the day of judgment; such as some imagine, which they call the hades of the happy: but they go directly to heaven itself. This is the saints� home, being their Father�s house: they are pilgrims and strangers on the earth, and this is the other and better country that they are travelling to, Heb. xi. 13-26. This is the city they belong to: Phil. iii. 20. �Our conversation or (as the word properly signifies, citizenship) is in heaven.� Therefore this undoubtedly is the place the apostle has respect to in my text, when he says, �We are willing to forsake our former house, the body, and to dwell in the same house, city or country, wherein Christ dwells,� which is the proper import of the words of the original. What can this house, or city, or country be, but that house, which is elsewhere spoken of, as their proper home, and their Father�s house, and the city and country to which they properly belong, and whither they are travelling all the while they continue in this world, and the house, city, and country where we know the human nature of Christ is? This is the saints� rest; here their hearts are while they live; and here their treasure is.

The geography of the afterlife may be truncated, but the image herein is glorious.

Reading The Types of the Messiah is an intricate and satisfying Bible Study all on its own. Truly remarkable is the thought that this is a small fraction of the work on one man. Reading this treatise sends you through a high-speed survey of the entire Old Testament looking for the signs of the Messiah throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. I won't cite it here; however, were one to read it slowly with reference to each of the Scriptures quoted, there is no doubt but that one we be far better acquainted with the person of Jesus than before one started.

And let me conclude this whirlwind tour with another beautiful fragment of a sermon. Stop and think what it would be like today to be able to here sermons so well constructed, so carefully considered, so well thought-out. It would be this remarkable quality that would serve to draw people toward Christ--the truth presented in all of its beauty.

from "The Peace Which Christ Gives His True Followers"

�My peace I give unto you.� Christ by calling it his peace signifies two things,

1. That it was his own, that which he had to give. It was the peculiar benefit that he had to bestow on his children, now he was about to leave the world as to his human presence. Silver and gold he had none; for, while in his estate of humiliation, he was poor. The foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests; but the Son of man had not where to lay his head: Luke ix. 58. He had no earthly estate to leave to his disciples who were as it were his family: but he had peace to give them.

2. It was his peace that he gave them; as it was the same kind of peace which he himself enjoyed. The same excellent and divine peace which he ever had in God, and which he was about to receive in his exalted state in a vastly greater perfection and fulness: for the happiness Christ gives to his people, is a participation of his own happiness: agreeable to chapter xv. 11. �These things have I said unto you, that my joy might remain in you.� And in his prayer with his disciples at the conclusion of this discourse, chapter xvii. 13. �And now come I to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.� And verse 22. �And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them.�. . .

APPLICATION.

The use that I would make of this doctrine, is to improve it as an inducement unto all to forsake the world, no longer seeking peace and rest in its vanities, and to cleave to Christ and follow him. Happiness and rest are what all men pursue. But the things of the world, wherein most men seek it, can never afford it; they are labouring and spending themselves in vain. But Christ invites you to come to him, and offers you this peace, which he gives his true followers, and that so much excels all that the world can afford, Isa. lv. 2, 3.

You that have hitherto spent your time in the pursuit of satisfaction in the profit or glory of the world, or in the pleasures and vanities of youth, have this day an offer of that excellent and everlasting peace and blessedness, which Christ has purchased with the price of his own blood. As long as you continue to reject those offers and invitations of Christ, and continue in a Christless condition, you never will enjoy any true peace or comfort; but will be like the prodigal, that in vain endeavoured to be satisfied with the husks that the swine did eat.

What is particularly nice about Edwards is that each sermon has this "application" section in which the abstracts of the commentary, the ideals that are pointed out, are given focus and purpose. This might well be called the "exhortation to holiness." It is rarely without reference to God's Wrath (a favorite subject) but also His infinited mercy in welcoming sinners home. Edwards is a nice specific to a time in which sin is seen as "not so bad." We tend to have lost a sense of the enormity of the crime we commit, the immensity of the ingratitude we express when we follow our own lead.

I love the work of Jonathan Edwards. The theology may have its problems, but the prose is sinewy and peppered with startling images and wonderful, powerful language, all crafted with an eye to making the Glory of God known to sinners. A Catholic must tiptoe through the TULIP and other things Calvinist, but there is remarkable fruit to be harvested here.

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March 15, 2005

A Logical Exposition of an Established Church Doctrine

As I said, if you want sin and hell, (among other things much more pleasant to reflect upon) you cannot do better than the great Puritan preachers. This passage from Jonathan Edwards clearly spells out the logic of the Eternity of Hell.

from Remarks on Important Theological Controversies--Chapter II Jonathan Edwards

� 11. If the wicked in hell are in a state of trial, under severe chastisement, as means in order to their repentance and obtaining the benefit of God�s favour in eternal rewards, then they are in a state of such freedom as makes them moral agents, and the proper subjects of judgment and retribution. Then those terrible chastisements are made use of as the most powerful means of all, more efficacious than all the means used in this life which prove ineffectual, and which proving insufficient to overcome sinners� obstinacy, and prevail with �their hard hearts, God is compelled to relinquish them all, and have recourse to those torments as the last means, the most effectual and powerful. If the torments of hell are to last ages of ages, then it must be because sinners in hell all this while are obstinate; and though they are free agents as to this matter, yet they wilfully and perversely refuse, even under such great means, to repent, forsake their sins, and turn to God. It must be further supposed, that all tins while they have the offers of immediate mercy and deliverance made to them, if they will comply. Now, if this be the case, and they shall go on in such wickedness, and continue in such extreme obstinacy and pertinaciousness, for so many ages, (as is supposed, by its being thought their torments shall be so long continued,) how desperately will their guilt be increased! How many thousand times more guilty at the end of the term, than at the beginning! And therefore they will be much the more proper objects of divine severity, deserving God�s wrath, and still a thousand times more severe or longer continued chastisements than the past; and therefore it is not reasonable to suppose, that all the damned should be delivered from misery, and received to God�s favour, and made the subjects of eternal salvation and glory at that time, when they are many thousand times more unworthy of it, more deserving of continuance in misery, than when they were first cast into hell. It is not likely that the infinitely wise God should so order the matter. And if their misery should be augmented, and still lengthened out much longer, to atone for their new contracted guilt; they must be supposed to continue impenitent, till that second additional time of torment is ended; at the end of which their guilt will still be risen higher, and vastly increased beyond what it was before. And, at this rate, where can there be any place for an end of their misery?

This addresses the conception of Hell as a purgatorial waystation on the path to salvation. It says nothing whatsoever of other matters formerly discussed, but it is an excellent exercise in logical consequences.

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Seek and Ye Shall Find

However, I don't believe I shall knock. . .

A Compendium of Resources Related to the Question of Hell

Count on the Puritans: They have the best sermons and the most extensive landscape displays around. But I did get at least one, and probably several equally satisfying answers to my quesitons.

A very protestant site there are articles on antinomianism and legalism, but the chief sources sited, Spurgeon, Owen, Taylor, Calvin, et al. are Anglican or Calvinist; so, beware for some "thar be monsters." (For example the article "Are Roman Catholics Christians" abounds in multiple misunderstandings of Catholic Doctrine, implying that we believe we are somehow saved by works and not by grace--but this is the usual froth of those who examine the surface and practice and don't understanding the underlying principles. It is clear to me that some protestants do--it is not clear to me that they had much to do with this site. Nevertheless some really good and interesting reference materials if taken in proper context.

For those of weaker constitutions, or those prone to wrath or detraction, this site which gives one of Edwards's sermons on the matter might prove sufficient if you had cared about the answer at all. And Edwards is nothing if not wonderful reading. I can scarcely imagine being present at the delivery of one of these magnificently crafted sermons. It was his day's equivalent of the Superbowl, I'm certain.

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March 14, 2005

A Question About Hell

For those who understand better what the Church means by her various pronouncements.

In a comment to Alicia:

Now, someday, I will request that the learned focus their attention on the "eternity" of hell and give that some attention. Because that "eternity" seems quite a bit different than the eternity of the reign of God. But I'm very ignorant in these matters. (My chief problem is that if Hell were eternal, then it would have to be coterminous with God Himself who is the only thing that is Eternal. Angels, Demons, people, and places all have a beginning. They are not thus "eternal" in "always" existent.) If we switch to the other definition of eternal--endless in time, aren't we told that there is a point at which time itself ends?

Anathema was pronounced on those who say that the torments of Hell have an end or that Hell is not eternal. Now, perhaps it really is a technical difference in the meaning of eternity and eternal, but if so can someone explain it. I was under the impression that at the end those who are rejected will ultimately succumb to death--in a sense they would be annihilated. If so, then Hell must have an End. If not, then scripture must mean something else by the passages that state this.

Looking for any input that might clarify the question of what Eternal means here. Do we really mean to say that Hell and God existed if that's the right term outside of creation--because that is Eternity or Eternal, or does the Church mean to say that Hell came into being with the fall of the Angels and exists forevermore from that time forward?

I don't suppose it much matters, but it has been a matter of some considerable confusion to me.

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March 11, 2005

"Dare We Hope that All May Be Saved?"

There is a fascinating discussion going on over at Disputations which is well worth the time of anyone interested in the question presented above.

I need to be absolutely truthful. Were there not a specific interdict against it and anathema pronounced upon it, I would probably be a Universalist. At a time before I understood Catholic Doctrine as well as I do now (still not well), I believed that it was possible for God's love to redeem even Satan. I am obedient to the fact that the Church says this is not so. I am obedient because the Church is trustworthy and guided by the Holy Spirit.

Obedience does NOT stop my wayward soul from hoping that it could be true anyway. Hoping, not in the theological sense, but in the sense of some wild resolve. I know that what the Church teaches is the truth. The specifics of the anathema are against the redemption of the fallen angels and those who are already in Hell. However, the Church does leave me an out. I can believe that Hell's only inhabitants are the fallen Angels. I admit that my knowledge of human nature argues against this conclusion, nevertheless, I can hope that it is true, because my knowledge of human nature is far from complete and my knowledge of God's mysteries even more full of gaps.

But I think it only fair to say that at one time I was a Universalist in the condemned sense. I did not know that the Church taught against this. Knowing now that the Church condemns the proposition, (and yet still desiring that it be true), I can be obedient to her teaching because her teaching in these matters is faultless. Nevertheless, the mind does not control the heart, and the misguided heart still wants God to bring all things back to Him. Yes, He is simple and cannot be reconciled to anything that is not--and yet, with God all things are possible. So the heart says. But the head knows that this reunion is out of the question. So head and heart are at war in this matter. I think the most critical matter is that regardless of what I want (for whatever reason), what I want is not what is real. What is real is what the Church teaches and my desires will no more affect this than will my poor reason.

I don't know why I say this except that I felt the need to expand beyond mere "Yes it is, no it isn't" argumentation of the ambiguous "facts" of the matter to say what guides my interpretation of those facts. I admit that I will ever read scripture to say what most closely points in the direction of this conclusion--it is ingrained, part of who I am. However, I will also guard against ever going beyond the strict line of what the Church permits. Regardless of what the wayward heart wants, I must train it to desire what God desires, and much, if not all, of this is revealed through His teaching voice on Earth--the Holy Catholic Church.

(that little pythonesque voice pops up and says, "But it still doesn't stop me from wanting.")

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March 9, 2005

God's Universal Love

In the course of addressing what I believe to be erroneous assertions made at Disputations regarding the validity of Universalism, I came across this lovely passage.

from William Barclay: A Spiritual Autobiography, pg 65-67

Fourth, I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things will be subject to him, and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor. 15:24-28). For me this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside the love of God at the end of time, it means that that one man has defeated the love of God - and that is impossible. Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of God. If God was no more than a King or Judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if his enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only King and Judge, God is Father - he is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all his family back home. The only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by and in love with God.

Of course, I rush to reassert that these words prove nothing at all, but they do state for me one of the chief lynchpins of my hope in salvation for all.

Read the complete excerpt here.

While I acknowledge that I could be wrong in my belief and hope, I trust that God will look kindly upon the direction of the error and will note that I do not rest idle hoping that this will be the case but work, in my own way, toward making the free gift of Jesus Christ know to all.

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God Speaks in the Metaphysical Night

THE NIGHT.
John, Cap, 3. Ver 2.
Henry Vaughan

THROUGH that pure virgin shrine,
That sacred veil drawn o'er Thy glorious noon,
That men might look and live, as glow-worms shine,
And face the moon :
Wise Nicodemus saw such light
As made him know his God by night.

Most blest believer he !
Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes
Thy long-expected healing wings could see
When Thou didst rise !
And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun !

O who will tell me, where
He found Thee at that dead and silent hour ?
What hallow'd solitary ground did bear
So rare a flower ;
Within whose sacred leaves did lie
The fulness of the Deity ?

No mercy-seat of gold,
No dead and dusty cherub, nor carv'd stone,
But His own living works did my Lord hold
And lodge alone ;
Where trees and herbs did watch and peep
And wonder, while the Jews did sleep.

Dear Night ! this world's defeat ;
The stop to busy fools ; cares check and curb ;
The day of spirits ; my soul's calm retreat
Which none disturb !
Christ's* progress, and His prayer-time ;
The hours to which high Heaven doth chime.

God's silent, searching flight ;
When my Lord's head is fill'd with dew, and all
His locks are wet with the clear drops of night ;
His still, soft call ;
His knocking-time ; the soul's dumb watch,
When spirits their fair kindred catch.

Were all my loud, evil days
Calm and unhaunted as is thy dark tent,
Whose peace but by some angel's wing or voice
Is seldom rent ;
Then I in Heaven all the long year
Would keep, and never wander here.

But living where the sun
Doth all things wake, and where all mix and tire
Themselves and others, I consent and run
To ev'ry mire ;
And by this world's ill-guiding light,
Err more than I can do by night.

There is in God�some say�
A deep, but dazzling darkness ; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that Night ! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim !

* St. Mark, cap. I, ver. 35. St. Luke, cap. 21, ver. 37.

What I love about this poem is the metaphysical conceit that centers around Nicodemus seeking Jesus by night. It suggests either a zeitgeist or the dissemination of the teachings of St. John of the Cross. What is particularly lovely is the couplet:

"And, what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Sun !"

Thus Nicodemus was privileged, in a special way, to speak with the Source of Light under the cover of darkness. The brilliance of eternity comes only under the cloak of night, with the deadening of all the sensate world and the concentration on the things of God.

Once again, in an interesting trope, we see the day turned into darkness, and the darkness that blinds the senses and provides us with real and certain knowledge of God, becoming the true purveyor of eternity:

"And by this world's ill-guiding light,
Err more than I can do by night."

And there is the final turn, the last stanza that wraps it all together and makes the conceit meaningful. It has within it an absolutely lovely turn of phrase, "There is in God--some say--/A deep, but dazzling darkness." St. John of the Cross says that true knowledge of God is darkness to the intellect because God cannot be comprehended by the senses nor by the intellect. The divide that separated us from Him in the fall separated us so thoroughly that we cannot by our own lights see Him in His glory--we can only make out the barest outline. But in the darkness of the intellect, the Light of God shines brilliantly and the knowledge of Him is made secure. Thus Vaughn concludes:

"There is in God�some say�
A deep, but dazzling darkness ; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that Night ! where I in Him
Might live invisible and dim !"

That I might live invisible and dim in the light of eternity and not in the false light, which is really darkness, that I draw around myself when I pretend to greater knowledge than I have!

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More on Lent

from "Sermon XXXIX--On Lent, I"
St. Leo the Great

II. Use Lent to Vanquish the Enemy, and Be Thus Preparing for Eastertide.

Accordingly, dearly-beloved, that we may be able to overcome all our enemies, let us seek Divine aid by the observance of the heavenly bidding, knowing that we cannot otherwise prevail against our adversaries, unless we prevail against our own selves. For we have many encounters with our own selves: the flesh desires one thing against the spirit, and the spirit another thing against the flesh. And in this disagreement, if the desires of the body be stronger, the mind will disgracefully lose its proper dignity, and it will be most disastrous for that to serve which ought to have ruled. But if the mind, being subject to its Ruler, and delighting in gifts from above, shall have trampled under foot the allurements of earthly pleasure, and shall not have allowed sin to reign in its mortal body, reason will maintain a well-ordered supremacy, and its strongholds no strategy of spiritual wickednesses will cast down: because man has then only true peace and true freedom when the flesh is ruled by the judgment of the mind, and the mind is directed by the will of God. And although this state of preparedness, dearly-beloved, should always be maintained that our ever-watchful foes may be overcome by unceasing diligence, yet now it must be the more anxiously sought for and the more zealously cultivated when the designs of our subtle foes themselves are conducted with keener craft than ever. For knowing that the most hollowed days of Lent are now at hand, in the keeping of which all past slothfulnesses are chastised, all negligences alerted for, they direct all the force of their spite on this one thing, that they who intend to celebrate the Lord's holy Passover may be found unclean in some matter, and that cause of offence may arise where propitiation ought to have been obtained.

What may be most helpful, and most a cause for thought and repentence, is the idea that if we cannot order ourselves and we cannot conquer self, we cannot hope to withstand any great trial. Lent asks for little sacrifices that in the age of indulgence seem monumental. It seems that most people cannot wait for Lent to end so that they may resume their former ways. But I have to admit to being a little sad at the ending of Lent because during this time we are all trying and working hard toward the goal. Afterwards, it seems, the tide of energy and intent is dissipated; every step toward holiness is dogged by the mire around my feet. In Lent, I am borne forward by the efforts of all of those trying to will one thing. Afterwards, in the "joyous" time of Easter, I find all of my efforts ineffectual, I slump back into my former mode--perhaps a little improved, but not sufficiently to be doing God's will as my heart inclines me. So, I hold fast to the fact that there remain two full weeks in the Holy Season (as of today) to improve my ability to resist self and go with God. Perhaps for part of that time, I will pray rather for the success of others and thus open my heart more fully to what God has in store. Keep moving forward! In this holy year of the Eucharist, God has great treasures in store for those who endure and deny self.

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March 8, 2005

The Joys of Being Catholic

from Renovation of the Heart
Dallas Willard

Genuine transformation of the whole person into the goodness and power seen in Jesus and his "Abba" Father--the only transformation adequate to the human self--remains the necessary goal of human life. But it lies beyond the reach of programs of inner transformation that draw merely on the human spirit--even when the human spirit is itself treated as ultimately divine.

The reality of all this is currently veiled from view by the very low level of spiritual life seen in Christianity as now placed before the general public. That low level explains why there are at present so many psychologies and spiritualities contesting the field--often led or dominated by ex-Christians who have abandoned recognized forms of Christianity as hopeless or even harmful.

Recently, however, a widespread and intense interest in spiritual formation, under that very name, has arisen among many groups of Christians and their leaders. Why is that? It is mainly due to a realization--confirmed now by many thorough and careful studies, as well as overwhelming anecdotal evidence--that, in its current and recent public forms, Christianity has not been imparting effectual answers to the vital questions of human existence. At least not to wide ranges of self-identifying Christians, and obviously not to nonChristians. And spiritual formation has now presented itself as a hopeful possibility for responding to the crying, unmet need of the human soul. The hope springs once again for a response to the need that is both deeply rooted in Christian traditions and powerfully relevant to circumstances of contemporary life.

Recently Tom (of Disputations) remarked on the difficult transformation facing third Order Dominicans as they moved from being prayer groups to becoming formed and really part of the Order. The same is true for the Carmelites, and perhaps for many secular Orders. Attention has been focused upon spiritual formation of candidates for reception and profession into these orders. And while spiritual formation includes prayer, it also goes beyond vocal prayer to encourage the candidate to transform his or her inner life.

Catholicism may be one of the few places where there is an identifiably Christian spirituality still present and, in some places, vibrant. A tour through any local evangelical Christian bookstore will show the truth of Mr. Willard�s thesis above. Almost to a one the books on the shelves are religious varieties of "self-help books." Being a better husband, serving better, being a better father, mother, teen. And almost none of the advice that is given within these books really focused on following God's will. There is a lot of talk about prayer and awareness and petitions and action and any number of other topics related to getting closer to God, but very little substantive advice about how to do so. And this has been the trend for a long time. Everyone flocks to the Rick Warrens of the world because there is at least the hint of approaching God and surrendering to His divine will. But even there, the surrender is subdued to any number of other actions we must take. For a faith that professes "Sola Fides" there sure seems to be a lot of helter-skelter running about in Protestant Christianity. And I don't fault the Protestants of today as such--when you have been cut off from the streams of tradition that feed a vibrant spirituality you are going to end up with a very works-centered "spirituality." Warren's spirituality seem to be expressed by the number of people who he knocks upside the head with the Gospel story (though admittedly, he is much more gentle than that.) When you refuse the living water of sacred tradition, you will be stuck with the still water of what people can contrive to be spirituality.

The joy of being Catholic is that while there are still a large number within our own faith stricken by the paralysis that afflicts some of the Protestant Churches, there are nevertheless rich streams of devotional and divine literature that feed a healthy spirituality. (And so too even in the Protestant faith, if only they would look closer to the roots rather than to the tips of the branches--Quakers, Shakers, and Anglican divines have tremendous things to say to those who are not chronological chauvinists.) But God has especially blessed the Catholic Church by preserving her ancient traditions and encouraging newer, wonderful writers who lay bare those traditions and build upon them. While we have any number of ancient Saints whose writings support the foundations of the Church and the base of Catholic Spirituality, so too we have many modern writers who translate those documents into living realities for us today. St. Thér&egave;se moved St. John of the Cross from sixteenth century Spain into the 20th century. Thomas Merton explores Cistercian Spirituality for Modern readers. Vanier, Vann, Goodier, Healy, Merton, Day, Nouwen, and many, many others add immeasurably to the wealth of the Catholic Church and her deep spirituality. The list of writers could go on and on--Balthasar, Rahner, Knox, Claudel, etc. What we learn from them is nothing new, but it puts a modern face on what is ancient beyond time.

Catholic Spirituality is alive and well. What is a shame is that so few turn to face it and take any notice of it. Too often we are dragged off-course into the most recent irritations and outright scandals we face.

One of the great things that Ross King's book on Michelangelo did was to reveal the fact that there really hasn't been a "golden age" for the Church. They are all equally Golden and equally lead. In every age there are those who pay attention and follow the eternal and those who follow the promptings of their own minds. We are embroiled in the crisis of the day--as well we should be�that we fail to see some of the wonderful things that are taking place around us, even in the small world of St. Blogs. We must be ever mindful of how blessed we are. On NPR (of all places) the other day they had a short spot featuring the usual "Demise of the Pope" stuff popular in current media. One of the speakers there said that Pope John Paul has provided us with food for thought for many, many years to come--even if there were nothing else to consider during the entire time of his pontificate. And of course there is. Every soul that pays attention and responds to God leaves a mark on the world. Sometimes that mark is in the form of literature, sometimes in the form of action. Either way the marks can be read, interpreted, and followed into the House of the Lord.

So despite the alarums and excursions of the present day, the spirituality of the Holy Catholic Church is intact. It is there for anyone who really wishes to lead a life of holiness. The bottom line--there is no excuse. It is only our own laziness that stands between each of us and the sanctity and spiritual heights God wishes us to attain. He wishes this for us not for our own good, but for the good of all, because if each attain his or her appointed place, the world becomes more Christlike and the Body becomes a living, breathing, resurrected Christ transforming the world into His image.

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March 7, 2005

Another Piece of Advice from CQOD

A long time ago, I don't remember when or where, I signed up for CQOD--Christian Quotation of the Day--to be sent to me daily. This is today's quotation:

Use yourself then by degrees thus to worship Him, to beg
His grace, to offer Him your heart from time to time, in the
midst of your business, even every moment if you can. Do not
always scrupulously confine yourself to certain rules, or
particular forms of devotion; but act with a general
confidence in God, with love and humility.
... Brother Lawrence (c.1605-1691)

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Sobering Thoughts for Lenten Reflection

from Renovation of the Heart
Dallas Willard
Our life and how we find the world now and in the future is, almost totally, a simple result of what we have become in the depths of our being--in our spirit, will, or heart. From there we see our world and interpret reality. From there we make our choices, beak forth into action, try to change our world. We live from our depth--most of which we do not understand.

"Do you mean," some will say, "that the individual and collective disasters that fill the human scene are not imposed upon us from without? That they do not just happen to us?"

Yes. That is what I mean. In today's world, famine, war, and epidemic are almost totally the outcome of human choices, which are expressions of the human spirit. Though vairous qualifications and explanations are appropriate, that is in general true.

. . . Accordingly, the greatest need you and I have--the greatest need of collective humanity-- is renovation of our heart That spiritual place within us from which outlook, choices, and actions come has been formed by a world away from God. Now it must be transformed.

Indeed, the only hope of humanity lies in the fact that, as our spiritual dimension has been formed, so it also can be transfomred. Now and through the ages this has been acknowledged by everyone who has thought deeply about our condition--from Moses, Solomon, Socrates, and Spnoza, to Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Oprah, and current feminists and enivronmentalists. We, very rightly, continually preach this possilbity and necessity from our pulpits. Disagreement have only to do with what in our spirit needs to be changed and how that change can be brought about.

The key to transformation, as I am sure I will discover as I continue to read this wonderful book, is conformity to the image of myself that God has in mind. That is conformity to the daily crosses that shape and mold me to better fit into the places God wants me to occupy. Thus to effect transformation, renovation, if you will, I must not merely pick up my cross and carry it; rather, I must embrace it as God's will for me at the moment. I must hold it close to me and cherish it as God's gift to me, as that which will transform me and make we whole and complete in the body. The Cross is not something to be merely tolerated, it is something that we must desire. I begin to understand all the saints who prayed for things you and I would not think of praying for--greater humiliation, greater suffering, greater trial. They had learned to see that through these things not only do they share in the suffering of Christ, but they become transformed into His living image in the world. Right now, I am too timid to pray for such great hardships, but I do think I have worked my way up to really praying (and meaning) "thy will be done." Whatever I suffer now (in the realm of grace) I do not suffer later. The more I am transformed now, the less painful the later transformation will have to be. "Let it be done unto me according to thy will," knowing, all the while, that His will can only be good for me, no matter what it contains.

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February 27, 2005

On Judas

I don't know why, but for some reason today at Mass my mind went to Judas once again.

Judas was the instrument of betrayal but we are all, each of us individually and every one of us corporately, the cause of that betrayal. We informed that betrayal and daily continue it. Just as Jesus became for us all the embodiment of salvation, Judas became for us all the embodiment of betrayal.

I cannot but think that when Jesus spoke the word from the cross, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do," there was hidden there the forgiveness of Judas for his crime.

Judas betrayed Jesus, and Judas became betrayal--so much so that he even betrayed himself into taking his own life. Whatever his fate and we cannot know for sure, we partake of it and contribute to it with every step we take away from the God who loves us.

Judas is the instrument, all of humanity is the cause. We need to recognize our own part in that and take responsbility for it.

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More on Ms. Schiavo

Today at Mass the homily and the intentions were devoted to the plight of those who are "not worthy" of our attention. Ms. Schiavo's name came up no fewer than three times. There was blessing and relief in hearing her name and in hearing her treatment denounced from the pulpit. At the same time, the Pastor raised our awareness that Ms. Schiavo is only the most prominent of a great many who do not get from us the attention, care, consideration, and concern that they are entitled to through the dignity of being Children of God. Let us use this Lent to remember them in a special way.

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February 15, 2005

Our Crosses

Too often we chafe under our crosses--we want to change them, to make them more conformable to ourselves and to the image of ourselves that we would like to reify. But it is a serious mistake to try to our crosses to fit our warped and distorted figures. Rather, we should change ourselves to fit the cross God has given us. We are strange, misshapen creatures, warped and distorted. The crosses we bear are to shape us to our place of service in the body of Christ.--when we resist them and seek to change them we are, in essence, saying that our appointed place is not to our liking.

We can think of our crosses as orthopedic devices. We may think that we're amblilng along just fine, but in truth we lurch forward in fits and starts, and stumble and fall on a regular basis. The cross is a set of braces, it supports us, shapes us, and allows us to walk upright--not to halt and to lurch. As with the application of any braces there is some pain--sometimes there is considrable pain. But the end result is that we are better able to walk or move, or chew.

As we become conformed to the cross of the day we take on the image of Him who bore our sins on the Cross of Eternity. We bear His Holy Image to all who look upon us on our own crosses. And we achieve a wholeness that cannot be won outside of our battle to conform to the crosses God has given us. As Mr. Gibson showed us memorably in the film, we must not merely endure the cross, we must accept it, embrace it, and make it our own. This is God's shaping of us--sometimes painful, but always with an eye to the eternal destiny that has been wrought for each of us in Him.

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February 14, 2005

The World, The Flesh, and The Devil

Poor reflections on yesterday's readings.

The temptation--the three basic forms of separation from God--the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The flesh is the first temptation and the one to which nature most naturally inclines people. Food is a good thing, it is a necessary thing, but it is neither the best thing nor the one thing necessary. Satan tempts Jesus to use His legitimate power in an illegitimate way. Why change stones to bread to satisfy mere appetite? Bread can be bought or made -- the use of Divine power is squandering for the sake of a trifle.

The Devil is the initiator of all temptation--but this second of temptations is, in fact, the essence of temptation. "Throw yourself down" is a temptation that presents no real good or award whatsoever. It is the invitation to pride and doubt. Should Jesus undertake the action, he acts in pride. Should henot undertake it, then He might begin to think about the situation and wonder about the efficacy of God's power. No legitimate good can come from this action. It seeks merely to test or prove what is already known--God cares for all His people.

The world is the last of the three--Jesus is shown the grand splendor of creation and offered dominion over it if only He will renounce His father. Now, why would this present even the slightest temptation to Christ? He is already master of all creation. Everything belongs to Him, how can He be tempted by it? The temptation is presented for us as a completion of the instruction that might be had from the episode in the Life of the Savior, but it is also presented to show us how poorly Satan understands the nature of God. He seeks to drive a wedge between father and Son as though they are separate entities. But they are not. They are separate persons sharing one will. Thus, we are instructed that right knowledge is an important part of recognizing who and what we are and Who and What Jesus Christ is.

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Another Poem

I'm sorry for yet another, but I came upon it in searching through some other things and wanted to be able to find it again. The best way is to place it here and I will be able to see it in the commonplace book or among the poets. Please pardon my self-indulgence.

Azrael
Robert Gilbert Welsh

from The Little Book of Modern Verse (1917)
ed. Jessie Rittnehouse (available from Bartleby, linked above)


THE ANGELS in high places
Who minister to us,
Reflect God�s smile,�their faces
Are luminous;
Save one, whose face is hidden,
(The Prophet saith),
The unwelcome, the unbidden,
Azrael, Angel of Death.
And yet that veil�d face, I know
Is lit with pitying eyes,
Like those faint stars, the first to glow
Through cloudy winter skies.

That they may never tire,
Angels, by God�s decree,
Bear wings of snow and fire,�
Passion and purity;
Save one, all unavailing,
(The Prophet saith),
His wings are gray and trailing,
Azrael, Angel of Death.
And yet the souls that Azrael brings
Across the dark and cold,
Look up beneath those folded wings,
And find them lined with gold.

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A Poem in Honor of this Month

February is often honored as African-American History month. So I offer this poem.

The Feet of Judas
George Marion McClellan


CHRIST washed the feet of Judas!
The dark and evil passions of his soul,
His secret plot, and sordidness complete,
His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole,
And still in love he stooped and washed his feet.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him,
His bargain with the priest, and more than this,
In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim,
Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And so ineffable his love �twas meet,
That pity fill his great forgiving heart,
And tenderly to wash the traitor�s feet,
Who in his Lord had basely sold his part.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And thus a girded servant, self-abased,
Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heaven
Was ever too great to wholly be effaced,
And though unasked, in spirit be forgiven.

And so if we have ever felt the wrong
Of Trampled rights, of caste, it matters not,
What e�er the soul has felt or suffered long,
Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot:
Christ washed the feet of Judas.

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February 11, 2005

Carrying Crosses

Yesterday was an agony of cross-bearing in the lightest possible sense. Things that should not mean so much, meant far, far too much. Trifles weighed on me heavily. oppressing me all day. A slight shift in viewpoint, a change in policy.

The long and the short of it was that I was big-time looking for a way not to carry these daily crosses. That is, until I read the reflection in In Conversation with God. While I find myself hesitant about the emphasis on making mortifications for yourself, the guide was very helpful in helping me to identify the phenomenon of the day. Suffice to say that i still didn't manage very gracefully, I fear. Nevertheless, I was more aware of what I was facing, and more willing to do so.

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February 9, 2005

Lenten Thoughts

Two thoughts occur to me provoked by things I've read elsewhere.

Some refer to Lent as a journey. If so, it is a microcosm of all of life. The Lenten journey has as its goal Easter, so the fasting and penitence come to an end with the celebration of the resurrection. All of life has as its goal Union with God and so at long last when we have shed this mortal coil and endured whatever purgation remains to us, we arrive at the Easter resurrection. The two journeys mirror one another.

It also occurred to me that lent is not so much about changing daily routine as about making daily routine respond to God. We can do most of what we normally do, but somehow we do it more mindfully, more aware of its cosmic importance, more sensitive to its eternal repercussions.

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Providential Synchonicity

Two readings this morning:

from Morning Prayer, the Intercession

May we abstain from what we do not really need,
and help our brothers and sisters in distress.

And this from my present bookgroup:

from Freedom of Simplicity
Richard J Foster

The life pleasing to God is not found in a series of religious duties but in obedience. The fast that God desired was for the people to "loose the bonds of wickedness" and to "let the oppressed go free." God's word to them were these: "Share your bread with the hungry" and bring the "homeless poor into your house." (Is 58: 5-7)

Fast from what you do not really need anyway. This doesn't seem like such a difficult thing, but many of us, perhaps most of us, are daily indulged in our own wants. We have more than we need and we crave more yet.

God did not set up a given economic system--He is not a capitalist or a communist or a distributist or an economist of any sort. He is God. He points out simple truths. You don't need that. And what we don't need generally weighs us down. Sometimes it does so in real physical reality--we eat more than we need and we increase our girth. But more often it is in psychological and spiritual terms. We have more than we really need and we cease to use or own things and we become the servant of things.

I think back to the time when I rented an apartment or a townhouse from someone else. When something went wrong, I simply called the landlord and it was dealt with, most often quite quickly. Yes, there were some restrictive rules, perhaps some problems with the system, but I had a place to live and it did not loom large in my mind.

Now I "own" a house. This last season I sat through four hurricanes wondering how I was to take care of this house, reroof it, de-mold it, repair it. Early this year I think how I must buy hurricane shutters, or get this thing or that thing removed or adjusted. The house owns me. It demands things of me never demanded by a rented townhouse. It requires of me things that I gave no thought to when I simply rented. And it offers no better surety or security. And thanks to owner's associations, I am even more restricted than when I lived in a townhouse. Some feel the warm glow of ownership--I feel, more often, the shackles of being owned.

The fast that we do today reminds us not only of God, but it should also remind us of those less fortunate than ourselves, those who do not have even a single full meal to eat in a day. The fast that the Church requires today is a fast that, should be choose to do so, we could easily live on the rest of our lives without being deprived. The fast we observe under Church regulation wisely focuses our attention on what we need not on what we want.

Try this experiment (if in ill health, obviously consult your physician first). Take this day of fast and extend it. See what happens to you , to your waistline (if that is a concern) to your health and to your awareness. And see what you save. Then take that and give it to the poor. What you do not eat, what you fast from--that can feed others. As you train yourself to focus on what you need, you can at the same time help others, with no other sacrifice whatsoever. Let this day be a dawning of new awareness. Let your little physical hunger drive the hunger for righteousness and for justice. Open your heart to give God a home. Offer Him your excesses and you will find yourself freed from them. More, you will find in His heart of generosity the spirit of generosity itself and become unburdened in matters that are only of the moment.

God will rescue us from the greatest foe of all--our own desires.

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Two Notes from Today's Reading

Reading In Conversation with God a little series that MamaT recommended last year (and, if I'm not mistaken, again this year). There were two things that struck me. One was the suggestion that we keep in mind over this day the following prayer from Psalm 51:

"A pure heart create for me O Lord, put a steadfast spirit within me."

An excellent choice for bringing ourselves once again into the presence of God int he penitential spirit. It takes but a moment, but it begins the process of "living in the presence of God." More, it prepares our hearts to receive the grace of true repentence which will be spelled out in our confession.

The other point really struck home--it was an incidental, nearly a codicil to a sentence. "He wants us to abandon sin, which makes us grow old and die. . . " This is a powerful insight. The youngest people I know are those who are the most innocent, the most free from sin. This includes people who are truly young in chronological age, but it also includes the "ageless," who are relatively unworn by sin, unlined by age upon age of defying God and having their own way. Sin makes us grow old and it steals our joy. We may not know it at the time because of the momentary pleasure we may have in the commission of many sins. But defying God ages one and jades one, almost to the point of not being able to hear Him any more. Our hearts long for Him and our minds and bodies turn away from Him. Sin destroys youth, it destroys awareness, it destroys the core of who we are--it mottles and scars us and takes away from us the precious life of God.

But we can do something about it. We can confess the sin. We can repudiate it. We may not be suddenly made young again, but we can stop the process of interior death, of growing unawareness, of loss of focus. This is the time and now is the season. Rejoice in this wonderful season the Church has given us and tradition has honored. God speaks to us today as He does every day. Would that we could carry the awareness we cultivate in this Lent into our daily lives outside Lent!

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February 8, 2005

On Simplicity

Richard J. Foster is a Quaker who has quite the ecumenical outlook. He's written dozens of books on faith and spirituality, several of them dedicated to the study of devotional literature. In simplicity he talks at length about one of the most important and most difficult of spiritual disciplines.

from The Freedom of Simplicity
Richard J. Foster

If the first insight into simplicity that we receive from the Old Testament is radical dependence, the second is radical obedience. Perhaps nowhere is this more graphically seen than when Abraham was called upon to surrender his most priceless treasure--his son Isaac. God spoke, Abraham obeyed. No contingency plans, no skirting around the issue, no ifs ands or buts. Through a long painful process Abraham's life had been honed down to one truth--obedience to the voice of Yahweh. This "holy obedience" forms the grid through which the life of simplicity flows.

Radical obedience is possible only when God has our supreme allegiance. . . .

Today we need to hear again that God alone is worthy of our worship and obedience. The idolatry of affluence is rampant. Our greed for more dictates so many of our decisions. Notice how the fourth commandment of the Sabbath rest strikes at the heart of this everlasting itch to get ahead. We find it so very hard to rest when, by working, we can get the jump on everyone else. There is no greater need today than the freedom to lay down the heavy burden of getting ahead.

(from chapter 2)

Following on the theme of several days now--we must make a choice, life or death, heaven or hell, self or Other. "You cannot serve two masters for you will love one and hate the other. . ." The choice is all-or-nothing and that is why it is so difficult. Either we embrace God and His way entirely and experience a radical transformation in our lives, or we reject Him in one way or another. Embracing God is scary because we have been given so many distorted pictures of what that looks like. Strange cultists burn their possessions and go in live in cinder-block communes all for love of Him. Some look for His return in a spaceship. There are any number of distortion to the one truth. And these distortions exist because the worst thing that can happen to the prince of this world is that we should turn our eyes from him toward the One who saves.

But the reality of the matter is that this interior transformation may be propagated to outward things, but the matter of change is our bondage to those things that keep us from being who we are. We do not know our identities until we are identified in Christ. Sin and self-possession keep us away from that possibility.

We cannot begin a life of obedience unless and until we have made that commitment to God, from whom the strength and the grace of obedience flows. That only makes sense--how can we hope to be obedient if we repudiate the source of obedience?

And that ultimate obedience of Abraham is instructive--God does not wish us obedience to destroy us, but rather to strengthen us. He will not take from us all that He has given us, but he will invest it with new meaning. Life will not stop, but the kind of life-in-death we live in bondage to ourselves. The obedience of Abraham teaches us that God does not ask from us the impossible. He may test us, but He will always be with us so long as we trust in Him and rely upon Him.

Simplicity, obedience, charity, meekness, humility, the storehouse of all virtues becomes opened to us by a simple choice. We either choose to unify ourselves to Jesus Christ in as much as we can, relying entirely on grace and His help, or we choose to remain as we are. God will save in due time either way--but it is the difference of a life of Joy in Him or a life of bondage to self with some recourse to Him. It really isn't much of a choice, and yet it is so difficult to make!

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February 7, 2005

Devotional Reading of H. P. Lovecraft

You may think the title above a joke, but it is not. And I right this in thanks for the kindness of the St. Blog's Community in nominating Flos Carmeli for best devotional blog. Heaven knows, I don't really deserve it--Quenta Nârwenion, Laudem Gloriae, Ever New, and a host of other deserve the recognition far more than I do. But I am very grateful, thank you. And now--on with the post.

While wasting some time indulging a vice acquired at a very young age--the reading of H. P. Lovecraft and materials inspired by him--something odd occurred to me. In the course of reading The Children of Cthulhu, an updating of the old Mythos, I recognized what I saw in these works.

H.P. Lovecraft is great Christian devotional reading because he gives the other side of the coin--what is the Universe without God? In many ways the arguments of H.P. Lovecraft and others in this realm were really the first fruits of modernism and atheism. These fruits were to develop into the nihilists, the absurdists, and ultimately the Post-Modernists. This is not to say that Lovecraft in any way influenced Beckett, Ionesco, or de Man (though some of his attitudes would have found good company in the latter). Rather, they were part of the zeitgeist, the "spirit of the times" that gave rise to these other things.

Why do I say this? Well, Lovecraft himself was a dedicated atheist. Some of his letters suggest some contempt for theism as a whole and for individuals in particular. His vision is of a world in which at any moment there can intrude utter chaos, randomness, and complete disorder. These are figured in the Great Old Ones and in the Elder Gods he conjures up in his prose. The effects of these entities are chaos, madness, and destruction for those who experience them. And yet, while the threat of universal destruction is always suggested or implied, the reality never occurs. Small townships are affected by interbreeding with the spawn of Dagon--a scientific investigation in Antarctica is disrupted by the Great Old Ones. One or two people experience the rising of R'lyeh. But in fact, Lovecraft's visitations of the Great Old Ones affect remarkably few people considering the hideous power and the great might and the eldritch evil that drips off of every page. If we bother to examine Lovecraft closely it appears that the doom visits only some.

I would suggest that these some represent those "brave" enough to cast off the bonds of traditional religion and thought and to walk without God. Lovecraft's visitations are, in fact, the vision of life without God. They spell out Yeats's famous dictum, "Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold/mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." When God slides out of the picture, we slide into the madness of fallen nature. Everything is hostile and potentially deadly--the world is filled with fear and with the things that cause fear. Moreover, life does not make sense. Things intrude that make life a horror, a nightmare, lunacy. There is simply no explanation and so we run from one opiate to another seeking to dull the pain that is living in stark reality.

Now there are those who would contend that theism is a flight from that reality. But I think that theism imposes upon that reality the truth of the matter and begins to sort out that most things do make sense. There is still the intrusion of the uncertain and the insane, but not nearly to the degree that there is without God.

The horrors of Lovecraft are an acute example of writing what you know. Metaphorically, Lovecraft spelled out his horror of the world--a horror, I believe formed from his inability to believe in any connecting order, any system, any Creator.

The perils of atheism are given ample play in the works of Lovecraft and his successors, and they provide a good ground even for the Catholic artist to indulge his or her imagination. What is the world like without an underlying order--when even the law of gravity is view as a hegemonic oppressive construct? (As in the famous pastiche of Post Modernist thought-- Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity)

There is much to be gained by looking into the mirror Lovecraft holds up--do we see our own reflections, or do we see the truth and thus see the the mythos for the mask of anxiety, pain, and unease that it is? God is where you look for Him, even in those places that the authors and artists struggled most assiduously to keep Him out. After all, Art is at last, only an action of co-creation. We cannot do anything that is not already possible--we cannot create ex nihilo and so every inventive work is the artist in collaboration with his God-given talent whether or not the artist wishes to believe it.

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February 4, 2005

On Prayer--Fluency Comes With Practice

Prayer, as with any foreign language, is built such that fluency comes with practice. Foreign language? you ask. And I say--without a doubt. It is secretly our native tongue, the communication of the deepest part of us to the God who loves us, but when it comes to conscious application--it is completely foreign. Sometimes I think of prayer like my grandmother's recipes. My grandmother made the greatest food around, but if you asked her for a recipe, you were out of luck. She couldn't tell you for anything--in fact, if you asked, she might not even be able to make the thing you asked because you threw up a mental block. But it would eventually go away as she got into her kitchen and fussed around for a while making other things.

Prayer is at once our native tongue that we know so well we cannot tell anyone about it, and it is the hardest exercise in the world when we set our minds to it.

The Rosary is a practice of prayer that leads to a certain fluency, and in some cases a certain glibness or slickness. Some people fire off those Aves with such rapidity that I can hardly wrap my mouth around the first two syllables and they're already done. In church I hear people fire off responses to the Mass as though they were engaged in some sort of race--how much more quickly can I finish before everyone else around me. The practice of prayer, in whatever form you take it, should not lead to greater speed, but if anything, to greater slowness. Prayer is an activity, kind of like bacci in which deliberation and intent and purpose pays off. Not slowness for the sake of slowness, but deliberation for the sake of knowing to whom you speak and about what. Prayer is the ne plus ultra of stopping to smell the roses, because the Rose you are smelling is the archetype of all roses and of all creation.

The practice of prayer leads to fluency in prayer, which leads to deliberation and a focused intent, which leads to contemplation, which, God willing raises the person eventually through God's direct interaction to Divine Union.

But as we saw yesterday, proper prayer requires making a choice. "Choose life or choose death." It requires that we give it our full attention and a good deal of our time. It requires that we be purposeful in our pursuit of it. It requires our complete cooperation with the power of the Holy Spirit, who teaches us how to pray. It requires most of all that we pay attention. Prayer is giving and receiving. But it too often becomes a monologue as we fill the airwaves with our intent. Recall that the command Eli gave to Samuel was not "Listen Lord, your servant is speaking," but to say, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening." And so this flawed teacher of prayer speaks to us through time and directs us to the proper attitude of prayer--speak Lord, your servant is listening.

And just as it takes a while for your ear to become accustomed to the rhythm of a foreign language so that about halfway through that film in French or German, you're suddenly catching a sense of the language and the subtitles become less essential--so it is with prayer. When we start with a will to listen, God will inform our listening so that we will actually hear. It starts slowly and it feels like sifting air, but eventually we will begin to hear through some unknown faculty, precisely what God has for us to hear. And our obedience to this secret hearing is the next step in the fluency of prayer because the act of prayer always is translated to the prayer of action--working God's will in the world in all humility.

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February 2, 2005

God's Mysterious Ways

A source of endless delight and perplexity to me is the way God works through what we say.

This brought me up short again as I was perusing TSO's Spanning the Globe. While it is always delightful to be mentioned (a good reason for avoiding the reading of that particular post) I was stunned to find an excerpt from a piece written here recently.

Stunned because the piece was an attempt, a not very clear or good one I thought, to articulate a truth I have felt in my bones for a long time and which is just beginning to make a kind of sense to me. But there I see a piece of it.

My point here is that we do not know which of our words will strike people and convict them. Our most carefully planned and deliberately calculated arguments may have no sway at all. All of our clever words and our verbal tricks get trotted out and no one pays any attention. But those words of perplexity, of struggle, of attempting to articulate the truth as we see it--those words are authentic in a way we cannot recognize and they will ring true to others. So, we are all in the position of Moses told to speak to Pharoah--we do not have the words. And yet if we speak the words we are given in truth and obedience, we may find hearts moved unexpectedly. I know I was surprised and delighted that somehow something escaped from what I thought a complete muddle.

God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. You do not know through what or to whom God will speak to in your writing.

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February 1, 2005

Beginning Abandonment

The beginning of the Ignatian Exercises focuses on the fact that despite how you may feel about yourself God loves you here and now--as you are. You don't need to change a thing to be loved. If you are to receive the fruits of that love, things will need to change.

One of the hardest truths of Christianity is that God loves you as you are. The intellectual truth is not difficult--over and over again in the Bible we are told that God loves us. It is almost the breath of scripture--the enduring, abiding, eternal love of God for His wayward chldren. But it is very difficult for that head truth to trickle down to the heart. Few of us feel loved even if we know that it is true. More importantly, few of us feel lovable (and for those who do, they are often insufferable).

The beginning of abandoment lies in understanding the depth of God's love for us. You cannot abandon or surrender yourself to a disinterested party--that way lies disaster. But how do we begin to internalize the reality of God's love for us?

First, we pay attention. To one who is paying the least attention, every moment of every day is a revelation of God's love--in the beauty of the Earth, in the people who surround us, in the things that happen to us. If we trace over the incidents of our lives to our present day, we will see His hand gently guiding us to the present circumstance. Sometimes, that circumstance does not appear to be of the best--it may seem that God's love fails. But is it His Love, or our acceptance of that love? Is it His love or our choices that too often fail?

The beginning of surrender is to know that we are not lovable, and yet, nevertheless, we are loved. This central truth of Christianity must become part of us indelibly before we can become whole. The beginning of surrender is to look at the One who loves you and to acknowledge that you are loved.

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January 20, 2005

Bearing with Other's as God's Will for Us

On nearly every page of Sr. Ruth's book there is something worthy of quotation. Were I to follow my inclination, I would end up retyping the entire book. As it stands, I'm already presenting too much--but there is a wealth of wisdom and richness in what she has to say. And she has a very deft hand at sifting out what is essential and what is optional in the teaching of St. John of the Cross. I don't know that I agree with all of her conclusions, but there is more than enough agreement to make the book helpful to me. That said, this Theresian interpolation of St. John of the Cross through Sr. Ruth is very, very nice indeed.

from Ascent to Love
Ruth Burrows

This making ourselves of little account in a practical way will greatly affect our relationships with others. . . . Nothing so reduces the ego as the realities of living with others and not demanding that they change so as to suit ourselves. . . . God brings people into community precisely in order to purify them as gold is purified with fire and the hammer. . . .

What an enormous difference attitudes make. We shall have to bear many difficulties from other people anyway. To see in all these things God's will for our ascent to him and to make up our minds to adopt a positive attitude makes everything so much easier! John's asceticism taken at one swallow can seem just too much, but lived out it can only be happiness-giving. We are our own misery and affliction. Get rid of the ego and we are truly happy and at peace.

There is so much solid and clear wisdom here. Unless you are a hermit, you will live your life among other people. Living your life in this way means that you will encounter people and aspects of people that you find wearying, annoying, irritating, nauseating, and otherwise personally unacceptable. Our usual tactic in such a situation, if we cannot remove ourselves from the person involved, is to seek to change the person. How many husbands and wives carry on a kind of sparring match over issues like who takes the trash out, whether the toilet seat is down or up, who dumps their clothes where, etc. etc. There are endless irritating and aggravating proclivities in the entire world that is not ME. And if the truth be told, if the world were more like ME, I suspect I would find it all the more annoying.

When we stop trying to change the world and we accept what comes to us from God's hands, that is when the world really is changed. It is changed in that I am changed, and it is changed in that my perception of it has become more Godly. I will not convert my wife by lecturing at her, I may not even convert her by following Sr. Ruth's advice, but I will have converted myself so that rather than being aggravated and constantly looking for my own fulfillment, I am looking in the aggravating situation for a way to show my love to God by loving my wife. And the best way is to accept what comes from His hand as the will for the moment and to rejoice in the attention He is paying me and the path that is being paved to allow my ascent.

In every case, when we can put self aside, we will be serving God. And when we do so we immediately become better witnesses for Him. Our strongest Catholic witness is not necessarily a lecture about the Real Presence or the apostolic succession (true though they may be) but rather our joy in living out our Catholic Faith. Was it St. Teresa who said, "Lord preserve me from sour-faced saints?" Knowing God is real joy, profound joy, life affecting joy. Too often we are caught up in our own agendas, attempting to shape all things to ourselves and to our own convenience to notice that these little miseries, these little hardships are training us up in the way we should go--in enduring them is far greater joy than can ever be had by tryng to put them aside or change them. God is a loving Father and everything He sends, He sends for our good. Problem is, we don't really believe that--we think we can take this good and make it better. The reality is living what God has given us is our highest good.

So, as we will have to deal with people who do not precisely conform to what we think they should be or do, we do best to endure cheerfully and in fact with great humility and love. For by so doing we will be heaping burning coals upon their heads--but this isn't really the point. The point is that we will be showing them and others the way to sanctity as we pick it out ourselves.

We need merely remember St. Thérèse's small service of a smile to a person who irritated her beyond words. And this small action seemed to have effected a change in the recipient through the love shown. But we cannot love with this in mind, we must only love with the idea that what we have is God's gift to us for the moment. Whatever it may consist of, however we must deal with it, God is showing us moment by moment how to ascend to Him. When we abandon ourselves (which, of course we can only do with His help) we can begin to walk that path. The path of detachment will not seem so hard when we see in every step the path that leads to life.

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January 14, 2005

Today's Providence

My PDA has a little screen that hum , whistles, vibrates, or screams at me to inform me of a meeting. When I clear that screen the last application I was using crops us. In this case MyBible with the following words highlighted:

"Christ Jesus has made me his own." Phil 3:12

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Chaos and Weak Determinism

Tom has a very interesting post on determinism as understood by St. Thomas Aquinas. The description is very similar to some aspects of chaos theory. Chaotic systems look random, but they follow a pattern called "weak determinism." The determinism is weak because while the next few steps of the pattern can more or less readily be predicted from knowing initial parameters, small variations in the initial system result in large divergences very rapidly. (The popular name for this is "the butterfly effect"--a term coined by or about the work of meteorologist Edward Lorenz.) Weak determinism is interesting because even though it is weak because predicatability is poor, the determinism includes every variation back to and including the initial stages. That is, the initial stages strongly, if unpredictably, influence the entire "chain of being." What happened in the past is present and influential at every moment. (See Mandelbrot's discussion of the price of cotton in The (Mis)Behavior of Markets.)

The net result of this is that one can start with two objects that to all appearances exist in identical circumstances, subject them to the same influences and still come up with different results because (1) there were differences that were minute, but important in the initial makeup; and (2) there were differences in the influences.

What does this analogy mean for determinism? It means that two people can start at what looks like the same point as far as human eyes can see and wind up at very different places. As Tom points out in his discussion--determinism is in part influenced by free will. That is the choices that we make influence the array of choices that are available to us at the next decision-making nexus. When we choose not to take the job in Seattle--all contingencies based on that job more or less pass away and the path is closed--we are weakly determined by that choice. We may know what lies immediately ahead. What we cannot know is that by not taking the Seattle job we missed out (10 years down the line) on a volcanic eruption that buried our house in 15 feet of ash. That path is closed.

Each choice I make via free will in closes some doors and opens others. When I choose to "sin a little bit" by investing time in pornography, I may find that I subtly alter the current of things in such a way that the door to adultery is opened (or perhaps not). The choice to sin closes some doors (doors leading toward God) and opens others (those leading away) Always keeping in mind, however that all of the doors back to God are never completely closed, there is always at least one wide open--the door of the confessional.

The analogy of weak determinism speaks seems to tread the middle road between complete determinism and complete randomness or free will. Each choice alters parameters and constrains future choices, while at the same time opening other channels. We have some things set in motion about which we can do almost nothing--biochemical factors, certain environmental conditions in youth. However, we do have a choice about how we react to these factors and how much we allow them to guide our lives. An alcoholic may or may not be able to do anything about the biological condition that predisposes him or her to alcohol addiction; however, they can do a great deal about what they choose to do as a result. Free will is not easy, but biological determinism is not the final factor and things can be done to combat predispositions.

This is one reason I'm extremely dubious about the so-called "gay gene" and its deterministic effect on behavior. You may have a predisposition, what you do not have is a requirement to act upon that predisposition--you are, in fact, free. Once again, we should keep in mind that what is freely determined is not necessarily easily undertaken. Carrying the ring to Mt. Doom was freely chosen; however, in the end, it was not easily accomplished. And unfortunately, we all have rings in our lives that need undone--we all have the same quest to undertake to rid our lives of the power of darkness. Christ's yoke is easy, His burden light--choosing to assume them is what is difficult.

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January 13, 2005

Advice from St. Paul

I have a large number of bad habits. One of my worst in the ecclesial realm is that I am an absolute addict of Bibles. I have about 40 of them around the house--every translation, configuration, set of notes, theme, print size, and binding you can imagine. They range from the Good News Bible to the Bible my Grandmother gave me when I was six years old (and which I was expected to carry, read, and use -- the King James Version--says a lot doesn't it?) So last night I indulged my Bible addiction yet once again and updated my Laridian Palm Bible with notes from the Life Application Bible and the NIV study bible. Most pocket bibles do not carry Catholic Editions or Catholic Study notes (are you guys from Ignatius paying attention?--a real market here. Get us a palm-study-Bible and you'll have a corner on the highly lucrative seven or eight person Catholic PalmBible market!)

Well, of course, having purchased the Bible aids and loaded up the RSV and KJV I had to start using the new features (highlighting in six different colors and a new note-taking device.) Given that I had to start work IMMEDIATELY, what better place to begin than. . . you guessed it Paul's Letter to the Phillippians.

And here's what occurred to me to share today:

Phillippians 2:3

Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves.

Count others better than myself? You mean I am not to curse and rail and slam on the horn and hit my steering wheel when someone cuts me off clearing my front bumper by no more than two inches? You mean I should hold a door open for the rudest person in the universe who will then rail at me because I think them incapable of opening a door for themselves? Where does this self-effacement end?

If properly conducted and infused by the Holy Spirit, it ends in divine union. We continue to decrease until there is only God steering the vessel. We give no thought for ourselves, but our entire attention is dedicated to and devoted to others. We do nothing from selfishness and conceit (through grace) and all is directed to the betterment and love of others.

The doctrine of St. John of the Cross is not new. It wasn't new when St. John wrote about it. It wasn't new when St. Bonaventure wrote about it. It wasn't all that new when St. Paul wrote about it. (Okay, it was only thirty or forty years old then--but you get the point.)

Nothing St. John has to tell us about truth is new. What is new is how to approach the truth. What he does have to tell us are things that might help us better execute this admonition of Paul.

So, here is Paul's gift to us for the day--the constant exercise of Christian self-abnegation, aided by grace leads inevitably to the throneroom of God. Of course, the assumption is that all of this is surrounded by prayer and completely supported and led by the action of the Holy Spirit. But we must do our minimum--cooperate with His action in our lives.

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January 6, 2005

Advice for the Day

"Love does not look in the mirror."

Often there is cause to remember this and to remind oneself of it. St. Paul's 1 Corinthians 13 says it far, far better. But sometimes what is needed is simply the short jab of a reminder.

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Human Transcendance

I really liked this passage from early on in Sr. Ruth Burrows's book.

from Ascent to Love
Sr. Ruth Burrows

John is enamoured of human transcendence. 'One single thought of man is greater than all the world; only God is worthy of it.' We are made for the infinite and degrade ourselves if we opt for less.

The whole creation compared with the inifinite being of God is nothing. All the beauty of creation compared with His beauty is sheer ugliness; all its delicate loveliness merely repulsive. Compared with the goodness of God the goodness of the entire world is rather evil. All wisdom, all human understanding beside his is pure ignorance. . . and so it is with sweetness, pleasures, riches, glory, freedom.

This is a hymn to human transcendence not a denigration of created reality. John's pathway up the mount could rightly be entitled, 'On becoming human'.

Later I shall post Sr. Ruth's view of the universality of John's doctrine. (Note, the universality of the doctrine, but not especially of the means. John's teaching on the spiritual realm (as well as Teresa's and Thérèse's) is what had made him a Doctor of the Church universal. But his means of achieving what he describes is peculiar to those pursuing the Carmelite vocation (either within the family or unknowingly on their own. One supposes that it is possible, all unknowingly to follow the via negativa outlined by John).

What is interesting here is the thought that every human thought is exalted above all creation and hence only worthy to be directed for Him who is greater than all creation. Our words have power so too our thought.

I also think it very important to point out that John thinks the created realm is very good indeed. He acknowledges throughout this short passage all the beauty and glory of creation and then moves on to say, nevertheless, these are less than dust compared to the creator of beauty and loveliness.

When we think about the created realm, that is the proper order of thoughts. Not good and evil (although evil does exist and should be acknowledged) but rather in the normal course, the proper ordering of goods. Detachment, in Carmelite thinking is "choosing the better part," or the greatest good. It isn't about rejecting the goodness of creation but more thoroughly embracing it in the embrace of the greatest Good--the God who loves us.

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January 5, 2005

Strait is the Gate and Narrow is the Way

As I was writing the previous post another thought occurred to me and nearly derailed the intent and writing of that post.

As you all know, I love fractals. I play with fractals. I visit the fractal world on every occasion I can set aside to do so. If you get a chance, google "Mandelbrot Set" and see if you can find one of the many sites on which you can play with the set.

The Mandelbrot set is the plotting in a complex mathematical plane of a certain set of functions. The black portion of the plotting are the members of the set--in the infinite space of the coordinate plane, an extremely narrow, confined, limited purview. Think of this as the strait gate.

Now, if you have a "microscope" for viewing fractals and you begin to look very very closely at something like the Mandelbrot set, particularly around the edges, you'll discover an infinite number of self-similar and self-affine copies of the set. That is, the larger image shows up over and over again in the smaller. But even more interestingly, as you focus on the edges, you enter, depending on the area you are looking at unique worlds of shapes. Every space on the set is part of the set and similar to all areas, and yet every area on the set has its own magical uniqueness.

Analogically, Jesus' "narrow way" and "strait gate" that lead to salvation is the "Mandelbrot set." You must belong to the set, be a member of the set to make it to salvation. However, everyone is a unique member of that set and the place that we find ourselves is a unique environment in that set. ("We are many members but all one body.") That narrow way is, in fact, infinite in its complexity and diversity and beauty.

I know this is a difficult analogy to follow, but it is so beautiful because it touches on some many aspects of our lives. Yes, the paths we can choose that lead to destruction are many and varied--infinite in themselves, and curiously, not terribly interesting. The real interest in the world of existence comes as you approach the Body, the Kingdom, as defined by the edges of the set. As you move closer and closer and actually join the set, you find the infinite world of salvation and glory of the Lord, majestic, beautiful beyond words and specially, individually tailored for each one of us.

Who knew how thankful I would grow to be for higher math?

Later: You can go here and try the parameters X min, max (-0.7, -0.5) Y min, max (-0.7, -0.5) for starters just to get a glimpse of what the world of fractals is like. If your computer is java-friendly this site has a clickable Mandelbrot set explorer applet. For those disinclined to exploration this site has a few images that give you the general idea.

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One View of Carmel

from Ascent to Love
Ruth Burrows

The Order of Carmel stands for the mystical. Everything in its teaching and way of life as established by St. Teresa is directed precisely towards this. A full flowering of the mystical life and the Christian life are one and the same thing. The culmination, perfection, fulfilment of the Christian life--'all that the Lord has promised'-- is, in our special terminology, the mystical marriage or the transforming union. The ascent of Mount Carmel is but the fulness of the Christian life, which is synonymous with the fulness of human being. There are not two vocations, one to human fulfilment and the other, if we are special and privileged, to Christian fulfilment. There is only one fulfilment to be achieved either in this world or the next, that which we call mystical marriage or transforming union.

This is essentially what Carmel means to me. It is a view of human life translated into a definite purpose and aim. Climbing a mountain to meet God? Yes. But the mountain itself is God and he cannot be scaled by merely human endeavour. What Carmel does is to disengage the bare components of the human vocation, what is really involved in being human, and tries to live them in an absolute, naked sort of way. So convinced am I that Carmel is nothing other than a living out in a stark manner what is the very essence of the human vocation that, were I to come across any practice, ideal, principle, which has not its correlative in life 'outside' it would be jettisoned as unauthentic. There is a distinction between living Carmel and living in Carmel, just as there is between being a Christian and practising the Christian religion. It is the former that matters, and the later is useless unless it leads to the primary goal.

That is one very clear, very succinctly stated view of what it means to be a Carmelite. And, I think from my brief experience of it, largely true. Living Carmel is more important than being a Carmelite. As with any vocation it is a matter of growing into it.

Carmel's vocation is a unique statement of the universal vocation. We are not all called to achieve this end in the same way, but we are all called to achieve the end defined in Carmelite terms as "mystical marriage or transforming union." The way one goes about arriving at this end is unique to the individual. Some have been so fortunate as to be called to a certain rule and rigor--the path is, more or less, laid out for them. But even within a vocation the paths vary depending upon the individual. This must be so because Saints are not carbon copies of one another. There is only one St. Francis even though the saints among the followers of his way are innumerable. So too with St. Dominic, St. Teresa, and any other saint. While the rule may be clear, within that rule is a magnificent wideness that allows for us to be precisely whom Jesus calls us to be. Those without a vocation in a rule still have the universal vocation to holiness and to growing into God. Frankly, I don't remember what it was like to live that way outside of Carmel. Even though I have not attained even a good standard discipline (never mind perfection) in obedience to the rule that governs my life; nevertheless, it is always there and always a significant part of what I do and think, and God willing, through time, I'll become a better exemplar of it.

But the point or end of life is the same for all. Carmelites call it the Ascent of Mount Carmel, the Mystical or Spiritual Marriage, the Transforming Union, or any number of other things. But it is very simply stated in the words of our Lord, "I must decrease so the He might increase." This is the Christian vocation. We must become less ourselves so, paradoxically, we can be fully ourselves in Him. The only identity we have is in Christ and so long as we try to define ourselves, we are failing to find out who we are. The entire point of all Christian living is to love God and to achieve the personhood God has set aside for us by joining Him. This will happen to everyone who follows Him faithfully--as Sr. Ruth says above, either in this life or in the life to come.

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December 27, 2004

In Preparation for New Year's

and making resolutions that matter and prayers that are worthwhile, I present once again from the writings of St. Josemaria Escriva:

The Seventeen Evidences of a Lack of Humility

1. To think that what one says or does is better than what others say or do

2. To always to want to get your own way

3. To argue with stubbornness and bad manners whether you are right or wrong

4. To give your opinion when it has not been requested or when charity does not demand it

5. To look down on another's point of view

6. Not to look on your gifts and abilities as lent

7. Not to recognize that you are unworthy of all honors and esteem, not even of the earth you walk on and things you possess

8. To use yourself as an example in conversations

9. To speak badly of yourself so that others will think well of you or contradict you

10. To excuse yourself when you are corrected

11. To hide humiliating faults from your spiritual director, so that he will not change the impression he has of you

12. To take pleasure in praise and compliments

13. To be saddened because others are held in higher esteem

14. To refuse to perform inferior tasks

15. To seek to stand out

16. To refer in conversation to your honesty, genius, dexterity, or professional prestige

17. To be ashamed because you lack certain goods

Lord. grant me eyes to see my own faults and to desire to make them good. Let me see how I fail in humility and give me the strength and the courage to make it right. Lord, let me be what you would have me be--nothing more, nothing less. And let me not pretend to anything more than my identity in Christ. And grant me the willingness to abandon myself in the pursuit of that Pearl of Great Price, the One who matters. Amen

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Heaven and Hell

I liked this quotation from Peter Kreeft:

"Jesus says the way to hell is broad and many find it and that the way to heaven is narrow and few find it. And he means it: you don't get to heaven simply by being born, by being nice, or by oozing into an eternal growth experience. But "few" here does not mean that less than half of mankind will be saved. For God speaks as our Father, not our statistician. Even one child lost is too many, and the rest saved are too few. The good shepherd who left his ninety-nine sheep safe at home to rescue his one lost sheep found even 99 percent salvation too "few". "

And this may be the beginning of many pointless maunderings on the subject. They were started by reading at Christifideles (see below). I asked myself, what do I believe about Heaven and Hell.

For one, I believe they exist. What one or the other is, I really don't know, because it occurred to me that while I accept their existence as an article of faith, they don't occupy a large portion of my thought-world. In fact, they occupy practically nothing at all. Except to acknowledge that they exist and either is a possible destination for me personally, they have no real presence in my devotional life. I guess that is because even if they did not exist, I would have no excuse for a lack of loving God. The existence or nonexistence or heaven or hell is not instrumental in my belief structure. That is, I believe them, but my belief is not compelled by either of them. My belief is compelled by communication with God through His revelations and prayer.

That isn't to say that they are unimportant or inconsequential. But it has never occurred to me to spend a lot of time thinking about them. I think that this is one of those places where the empirical "facts" of the matter are so limited and so few that spending a lot of time conjuring up images seems counter-productive. I've said the same before about speculating about angels (and have been chastised for it), but I stand by it. There is so little solid material to go on with regard to what constitutes these realms of being that, for me, they would prove unsatisfactory means for loving God more. And that's really what any sort of meditation and prayer should be about, isn't it? If an action detracts from that end, I would do well either to never take it up or to desist at the earliest possible moment.

Nevertheless, I am interested in the informed speculations of people better placed (intellectually and spiritually) about these realms. I do believe because Jesus believed and taught their existence and the Church upholds that same teaching and reinforces it. And I shall continue to read about them from time to time; nevertheless, they might never constitute a center for my faith or my prayer for all the reasons I listed above. And I wonder if they were ever meant to or if they ever did for anyone in an protracted way. It little matters--and I suppose it is one of the reasons that Jesus told us, "My Father's house has many mansions." That mansion allotted for me is all I need be concerned about.

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Marriage in the Resurrection

Go here to read an interesting speculation about the life of the world to come. I don't know quite what to make of it, but it is intriguing and thought-provoking. Don't remember where I found this link, but I think it was through Catholic Light.

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December 21, 2004

A Spirituality of Reading

This link thanks to Neil, gives some insight to the thought about the spirituality of reading. I think there is much here that may inspire hope for those who feel hopelessly left out of the contemplative world. Perhaps more later.

Reading with New Eyes
Nancy Malone, OSU (Ursuline Sisters)

I suspect that lots of people who love reading have a sense there is something spiritual about it. That was my hunch when I started thinking about "a spirituality of reading." The hunch was based on two simple observations. One, that the acts of reading and of contemplation share many of the same characteristics: Both are usually done alone, in silence and physical stillness, our attention focused, our whole selves - body, mind, and hearts - engaged. And two, that reading scripture and the lives of the saints played a significant part in the conversions of St. Augustine and St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. I wanted to explore the spiritual value to be found not so much in reading "holy books," however, but in good books of all kinds - novels, poetry, biography, history, short stories.

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December 14, 2004

Thomas Merton on Suffering

By the way, much of the recent quotation is derived secondarily from Dwight Longenecker's beautiful study St. Benedict and St. Thérèse

from The Seven Storey Mountain
Thomas Merton

The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you . . . the one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all; it is his own existence which is the source of his pain.

And this extremely powerful note from Longenecker follows:

from St. Benedict and St. Thérèse
Dwight Longenecker

If the vow of stability forces me to stay in one place and face the grim reallitiles of llife, then I am also confronted by the glorious realities. Indeed, if we embrace ther grim reality, then the good reality is more vibrantly alive than we could ever have imagined. The climax of Thérèse's deathbed experience was an excrutiating participation in the suffering of Christ, but it was also an exhilirating participation in the love of Christ. On the afternoon of her death she cries, "Newver would I have believed it was possible to suffer so much!" but her last words are, "Oh! I love HIm! . . . My God . . . I love you!"

The everyday realities of being married, of loving who and where we are--these are the places where we are called to grow in sanctity, in the pain of feeling not appreciated, and in the warm embrace of family.

I go on, but I think you would all do yourselves a favor to acquire and read this wonderful book. It has blessed me over and over again.

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December 13, 2004

Hearts and Minds III

This is my third attempt to make clear something that has long been on my mind. I wrote at length about the problems besetting the two mindsets of the church, those "heart" oriented and those "head" oriented. I went into detail about how exactly each of these might be fixed to bring everything into proper balance.

That done and the previous drafts set aside, I gave myself a moment to think about it and reached a new conclusions about the problems besetting the Church. The reality is that there are so many people in the Church who insist on seeing things differently than I do. This is a serious problem. But it isn't the Church's problem. It's mine. I have all sorts of solutions to suggest to bring the Church and its various members into exact accord with me. Somehow, I find myself questioning the wisdom of that particular direction.

So, the solution to the problems in the Church is this: I need to bring myself into accord with the mind of the Church and not busy myself nearly so much with fixing up everything I see as wrong. Wrong or right, my view is not the wisdom of the ages, the wisdom of the age, or even (very likely) wisdom at all. So rather than tell you all how you can fix your broken church, I think I'll make my way to confession and fix my broken self (at least until the next major goof-up.)

Perhaps someday I will learn that not everything should circulate around me. I pray that that day is sooner rather than later.

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December 10, 2004

A Tale of Acedie

or, What Acedie Looks Like When It Gets Dressed Up and Goes Out on the Town

In some ways, this advent season is a perfect time to talk about acedie because one of the central traditions of Christmas storytelling is a marvelous illustration of its effects. The Fathers have said variously that Pride is the source of all the deadly sins, or that when one of the deadly sins is present all are present. I think another well-spring of deadly sin is very important and pervasive.

If we were to look at the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, we would conclude that the operative sin was avarice. And I suppose to some extent that might be true. But if we look to the roots of the story, we will find haunting (pardon the pun) suggestions of the cause of this avarice. That is, avarice was not the first cause, but the result. In the story of Christmas past we encounter Isabelle who tells scrooge that he is "too afraid of the world." (At least this happens in some of the cinematic versions of the tale.) It is this fear of the world and closing in on oneself that is the core of acedie. And it shows itself in how one conducts one's life. One is more closed in--one may collect and own things (as does Scrooge) but, famously these things are neither cared-for nor valued. They simply are. Scrooge's house is in disrepair, his belongings substandard. This is in part the avarice of not wanting to spend the money, but it is also a sure sign of the despair, the loss of joy that did not happen all at once. That is part of the insidiousness of this deadly sin. That loss of joy can take years and years and years, until one arrives in the dark, bleak wilderness of the end of Acedie.

Famously also, Scrooge is awakened from the slumber of despair. And while the proximal cause is three spirits representing Christmas, outside of our secular culture we can assume the greater cause is the cause of Christmas Himself. That is that grace breaks in. Grace in this case takes the form of visitation from four spirits--one who testifies and three who demonstrate. Now we know from the gospels that the rich man was not released from Hell to go in spirit to warn his brothers and sisters, and yet, we have that story that warns us, and other works through the ages. We cannot expect the visitation of spirits. We must like Dante come to ourselves in midlife and awaken to what has happened to us. We must seek to recover joy and Jesus has promised, "He who seeks finds."

If we are subject to this terrible deadly sin, let us uncover it in the light of day. Let it be confessed and done away with and let us avidly seek "surcease of sorrow" in the presence of God. The only way to do away with Sloth is to recognize it and apply one's will to doing away with it.

And so I end my discussion of Acedie--one of the most insidious of the seven deadlies. All are deadly, and all can go unrecognized. The danger of Acedie is that it builds through a series of seemingly unimportant choices to ultimately rob us of joy.

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December 9, 2004

On Acedie or Sloth

The modern usurpation of terms has left us with the deadly sin of sloth as something akin to laziness. Earlier in the essay by Robertson Davies that I quoted below he notes that the person in thrall to acedie might be extraordinarily busy indeed. So much Martha that Mary hasn't a single moment to be with the Lord.

Acedie is akin to world-weariness. As Davies rightly noted it is the complete death of Joy. The Good News is no longer good, and it is just barely news. It merely is. The world is drained of color and meaning.

Here is an excerpt from an article that gives a clearer view:

from "Spiritual Acedie, Torpor, and Depression" in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, August Sept 1999
John Navone

The term in classical Christian spirituality for life-robbing dreariness or sadness is �acedia.� St. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) included this term among the seven deadly sins (Moralia xxxi, 87, where it is called �tristia� or sadness). This form of ennui or apathy is linked to our greatest possibility. To be oppressed by weariness and boredom is to despair of the glory to which God calls us. The inability to delight in God is the inability to glorify God. If faith is the �eye of love� that �sees� and delights in the beauty of God�s love in all things, acedia implies the absence of the love which both �sees� and delights in the all-encompassing splendor of God�s love.

Acedia shrivels our vision of God�s goodness and love. It is born from a loss of hope in ever achieving what God�s love wants for us: our eternal happiness under the sovereignty of God�s love. It is spiritually fatal because it means that we do not want what God�Happiness Itself�wants for us: we do not want Happiness Itself.

Now, I think we need to be very, very careful equating acedie, which is something remedied by grace with clinical depression, which also might be healed by grace, but which is not of the same substance. Acedie develops from a lack of spiritual discipline, a failure to make use of the sacraments, a gradual abandonment of prayer because of a lack of hope--things around us seem so desperate and so sad that there is little or nothing to hope for.

As Davies said, this can easily creep up on one. You find that nothing whatsoever holds any interest. You flit from spiritual thing to spiritual thing looking for something to fill the time but not the emptiness that you acknowledge but have come to see as unfillable. The most remarkable thing about acedie is that the person in thrall to it will not even recognize it. This person is likely to be wry, witty, sarcastic, intelligent, sophisticated, above the fray and toil of the ordinary, in possession as it were of the real secret to life.

The desert fathers warned constantly of acedie, and its real danger becomes more intense as one approaches or enters the various dark nights. It is possible for one to lose track without a good spiritual advisor and to slip off into hopelessness--at least so we are warned by the spiritual masters.

With this description, it seems as though few would be subject to such a condition. But read the article linked to above and you will see how very easy it is to slip into the condition. And the worst part of all is that you hardly know that you have done so--one might view it is a natural concomitant of aging. But it is not necessarily so. We all can think of older people who are still vibrate, alive, and aware--Mother Teresa of Calcutta comes to mind.

The great bulwarks against acedie are an established spiritual discipline that includes constant recourse to the graces present in the sacraments. I should also think that service would help one to be sufficiently exteriorly directed that one would not normally have time for the self-focus necessary for despair and sadness. We might still go through a terrifying dark night, as it is said of Mother Teresa, but her constant recourse to contemplation and to adoration and receiving the Lord helped her to stay the course.

As a society, I sometimes feel that the general mood is one of acedie--individuals see things differently, but the group mind seems to be endlessly preoccupied with entertaining itself and relieving itself of hardship, pain, and suffering to an unhealthy degree. And yet in our reality television and even in the popular shows such as CSI, we dwell constantly on the suffering and hardship of others because it momentarily takes our minds off our own. The only cure for acedie is a motion of will toward grace--the desire as it were to wake from this waking nightmare.

And lastly, my apologies to all. I thought acedie was well known to all. It has a prominent place in the spirituality of the desert fathers and the subsequent early Christians. Hope this helps somewhat.

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December 8, 2004

Acedia

In common terms, sloth.

from "The Deadliest of the Sins" in One Half of Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies

I have never been able to make up my mind which it is that people fear to feel most--pain or joy. Life will bring you both. You will not be able to escape the pain completely, thouogh Acedia will dull it a little. But unfortunately it lies in your power to reject the joy utterly. Because we are afraid that great exultation may betray us into some actions, some words, which may make us look a little foolish to people who are not sharing our experience, we very often stifle our moments of joy, thinking that we will give them their outlet later. But alas, after a few years of that kind of thing, joy ceases to visit us. . . There is an old saying of medieval teachers which I recommend to your special notice:

Time Jesum transeuntem et non revertentem.

I shall translate it thus: 'Dread the passing of Jesus, for He does not return.' And thus it is with all great revelations, be they relgious or not. Seize them, embrace them, let them engulf you, draw from them the uttermost of what they have to give, for if you rebuff them, they will not come again. We live a world where too many people are pititfully afraid of joy.

Acedie is one of the most dreadful of the deadly sins because it sneaks up on you. It slowly grows until it has a complete grip and suddenly you can't find the way out (if you even recognize your predicament.) Not so lust or gluttony, which while persausive and powerful, are generally of a moment and recognizable. Most people can recognize when they commit these sins--but most are ignorant of any signs of Acedie. In a time of waiting, look inside and see what is there--look for signs of joylessness of being above the fray, sophisticated, and too advanced for those emotions that drive hoi polloi.

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A Vow of Partial Silence

In a comment, Mama T brought up an interesting and, in my experience, largely true psychological insight. When we control our tongues, we go a long way to controlling how we feel and react to things.

This from James:

James 3:6-12

And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell.

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue -- a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish? Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

(An aside: I love the book of James, precisely because Luther so despised it. In order for Luther's theology to work, he needed to divest himself of James and Hebrews--compelling evidence that his system had flaws, if one were only to heed the evidence.)

In the Gospels, Our Lord tells us that it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but rather what comes out of him. For what comes out of him comes out of the fullness of his heart. Think of your instinctive reactions to comments made around you/about you. Is it the reaction of the saints who say, "Thank you Lord for this humiliation, for this reminder of my lowliness in the scheme of things." Or is it (as in my case) more, "Who the heck does that bozo think he is?"

I think we start with an act of will--a vow of partial silence. With Mama T's friend it was, "No complaint shall pass my lips." By not complaining, her view of the world changed--there became less in the world to complain about. I would do well to start here. But I know that I need to go beyond. I need to promise myself never to speak about another person outside of that person's presence. And I'm not referring to gossip, which I have long abhorred, but even the truth in small negative things. Speaking these truths colors my perceptions of the persons about whom I am speaking. And as James says above, may I bless God and curse humanity that is made in his image? May the stream of my speech flow from both sweet and brackish water?

Bridling the tongue is the first step on the path to extending grace in our lives. God will work with us however we are, but when we make this promise of obedience, even though we do not initially feel it, I do believe that grace flows in so that soon we are feeling.

I look around the blogosphere and so much unpleasantness, so many dark things are the result of people "talking" to people they never meet. What flows out of the comment boxes can be vitriol and hell-fire. Not everywhere, not all the time--but it is so much easier to say ill of people we have never met.

Speech is more than what comes out of my mouth. In a very real way what I write each day is speech. It has the power to comfort or to confront, to wound or to heal, to offer a glimpse of grace or a glimpse of hell. Satan would have us believe that what we say is of little consequence. But both our Lord and St. James tell us otherwise.

So perhaps I should consider this vow of partial silence--simply to refrain from saying what need not be said. It sounds like the easiest, most reasonable, most logical thing in the world--and yet it is fraught with such enormous difficulties one wonders if it is even possible. But with grace and through Christ, I can do all things. He will assist if I am firm in my conviction that for love of Him I will offer no harm to any of His brothers, to any of God's children. Let my speech be always edifying, converting the sinner, changing hearts, offering comfort and a place to rest. That is my prayer as I wait for the coming of Our Lord. With joy and expectation, in hope that His time is soon, I wait and I thank God for this season to remind me of what it is I wait for and wait upon.

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December 7, 2004

Restlessness

An insight that startled me:

from St. Benedict and St. Thérèse
Dwight Longenecker

Church-shopping is one of the spiritual diseases of our age. Constantly on the lookout for an excellent preacher, good music, fine liturgy, or pleasing architecture, we become liturgical tasters and our taste becomes so refined that, like the connoisseur who has spoiled his appreciation through snobbery, we can never find a church exquisite enough for us.

These lines were written right at me. One of the problems I have espoused with my present parish is the awful decoration and certain anomalies in practice. What I should have been doing is working quietly and relentlessly within the parish to bring it into line with Church teaching.

Apparently some good souls have been doing so. The expansion of Eucharistic adoration, the suggestion of building a special chapel for exactly this purpose, and the request to alter the configuration of the Church to result in a eucharistic centrality, is evidence of a core of faithfulness that has worked relentlessly to effect the changes necessary to bring the entire parish into line with the Church at large. I should be ashamed of myself for my laxity and my own appetite for comfort, by which I deprived the parish of one more supporter--a supporter who might have made shorter work of the long waiting the people have experienced. I pray that God forgive me my own self-indulgence.

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On Suffering

All of the great saints seem to desire to suffer. Well, perhaps not all, but a great many make a point of desiring to suffer for Jesus. This has long been disconcerting and nearly incomprehensible to me.

But yesterday, as I continued to think about this matter, it seemed a light slowly began to dawn. I'll start with the straightforward ideas before I launch into the theological speculation which may have no validity at all.

Just as any good parent would take upon themselves any of the suffering that faces their children--from physical, suffering a cold or broken bone, to mental, making incorrect decisions--so we desire to shield those we love from suffering. Desiring to share in Christ's suffering is an expression of the desire to offer some comfort, to take away part of the agony of the Passion.

Now, I speculate. God honors that intention. The suffering of the saints may, in some odd way, help to alleviate the suffering on the cross. That is not to say that it makes it more pleasant, but rather that the offering of suffering throughout all of time even made it possible. We all know the story--the scourging, the crowning with thorns, carrying the Cross to Golgotha, and three hours upon the Cross. Christ was fully human and fully divine. Being fully human, it is unlikely that he could have survived even the scourging much less the rest of the ordeal on mere human strength. That goes without saying. He was strengthened by supernatural grace. But perhaps the channels of that grace were tapped into the suffering of Saints throughout the ages and this served in some way to be allied to the sufferings on the cross and allow Jesus to run the entire course.

I've always been a little mystified by Paul's declaration that he made up in his own body what was lacking in the sacrifices of Christ. What could possibly be lacking in that sacrifice. Perhaps what was "lacking" was not atonement or redemption, but rather the human strength to endure the whole ordeal. Perhaps the sufferings of his own body in some way made Christ's own sufferings possible.

Mere speculation, I hope not blasphemous, and I renounce them if against some teaching of the church I do not know. But mysteriously, they provide for me the key to understanding suffering. If I can really believe that my sufferings, little and big are truly united with those of Jesus on the Cross, that they express not just some strange notion of an almost Manichean nature, but rather true and passionate love; then, perhaps I can grow to be like the Saints. Perhaps I can come to understand the necessity of suffering and the beauty of suffering united with Christ. God will undoubtedly continue to work on me, but I humbly offer these speculations and respectfully request correction from those who know better than I do.

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December 6, 2004

The Church of Jesus Without the Cross

What I write below I do in the first person for several reasons. For one, it occurs to me that it is true and I do well by saying so. For another, I suspect there may be others who have a similar problem, and yet it is presumptuous of me to include those who see no problem in my indictment of it. The Holy Spirit has been speaking through a megaphone to me recently. I guess I just need to adjust my own ear-trumpet and try to start listening.

Flannery O'Connor wrote in Wise Blood of Hazel Mote who wanted to found "The Church of God Without Christ." His goal was to undo some of the "damage" done by religion and by the "Christ-haunted" South.

I think too often that I want to belong to the Church of Jesus Without the Cross. That is I really do love Jesus, I accept all that I understand of what the Church teaches about Him, and the rest I agree to by faith even though my understanding is weak. I love the Eucharist and the rich treasury of the Church and I believe what she teaches. I even believe in the necessity of personal sacrifice.

Sort of. I believe in the abstract principle. But when it comes right down to it, I don't really want the cross. Every time its shadow looms, I run for cover. I turn to the gospels and spend time in the Garden with Jesus. I pray with Him, up to a point, and then I say, "Nevertheless Father, my will not thy will." I want protection. I want the "Be Happy" prosperity gospel of Robert Schuller and his ilk. I want to be transformed into the likeness of Christ, but if it involves even so much pain as a leg-waxing, I could do without it, thank you. Change me, but do it gently. Batter my heart three-personed God, but use nerf projectiles.

The shadow of the cross looms and I run from it. Or perhaps eventually I take it up, with long face and long sighs and much lamenting. Take this recent spate at work, where I will need to put in more hours for an extended period in order to accomplish our goals. I do this, but I make sure that the entire world knows how much I suffer and how meaningful that suffering is.

I take up my cross, but I do not embrace it. The sad fact of the matter is that there is no genuine love of Jesus Christ without willingly embracing everything that comes to me from His hand. Jesus did not reluctantly take up the cross, but as memorably portrayed in Gibson's film version, out of love, He embraced it for us all.

St Thèrése of Lisieux told us that the sacrifices need not be monumental. Bearing with the unbearable with a smile, sitting on a hard bench to talk to a friend in desperate need. Listening one more time to what you thought would drive you crazy a moment ago ("Jingle bells, Batman smells. . . " you get the picture). In the words of Don Quixote, "to bear with unbearable sorrow, to fight, the unbeatable foe."

I do not embrace the cross. I run from it. And until my cooperation with graces causes enough change in me to make embracing the cross a reality, my love for Jesus is incomplete. I must love Him as He loved me, even to the death of the Old Man and the resurrection of the new. And if that does not happen in this life, I have wasted my life. There is no love without sacrifice, personal, meaningful sacrifice of what I would rather.

So now I return to my overlong work week with a different perspective, one granted by this meditation. Perhaps I can make a worthy offering of this admittedly minor sacrifice. Perhaps I can start on my way today and embrace the cross as I wait for the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

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December 1, 2004

Two Varieties of Saints

Although he might all-unknowingly be playing his cards right into Nietzsche's hands, TSO has a very interesting post regarding Two Kinds of Saints. What is of interest here is the ring of something substantive just beneath the surface. I looked at the list he compiled and found myself squarely in the "Mercy" camp of things. With the exception of St. Francis, with whom I have enormous difficulty relating--the list TSO compiles accurately represents the Saints who are "accessible" to me. More revealilngly the saints on the "Justice" side of the scales are and always have been either inaccessible (St. Thomas Aquinas) or distasteful (St. Jerome).

The placement of Pascal is an interesting dilemma, for while he was an acute Mathematician, his Pensées seem to fall more directly into the "Mercy literature" than into the more apologetic literature of the many others on the Justice side of the camp. However, that is something worthy of closer inspection and more thought.

At any rate, give yourself a treat and go and see what TSO has thought out. Then e-mail him your thoughts on the matter. This is one of those cases in which I wish he had comments--I would love to see the discussion that would evolve around this very interesting speculation.

And in this line, truer words were never spoken (regardless of my statements above about affinities):

"What of those who have a foot in both camps, who have both right-brain and left-brain tendencies? I think it makes for some unpredictability and a lot of fence-sitting. Steven Riddle maybe? "

Fence-sitting R US! And I sure hope that there is some measure of unpredicatablility--otherwise I might get bored. (TSO, didn't even read that lilne until my third time through!)

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November 24, 2004

Giving Thanks

I will truly be giving thanks when I learn how to give thanks without hesitation for all those things that get in the way and slow me down.

I will truly be giving thanks when I can without hesitation thank God for those who treat me poorly.

I will truly be giving thanks when I learn to give thanks for the things that most aggravate me.

I will truly be giving thanks when I want nothing other than what God has set out before me.

I will truly be giving thanks when I hand what has been so generously given to the next person down the line.

For what I am about to receive, whatsoever it may be, may the Lord make me truly thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

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November 17, 2004

Why So Much About Just War?

I share this bit of correspondence I wrote to a blog-friend:

I realize that one of the reasons I obsess about certain things (homosexual civil unions and war) is that they represent very theoretical very distant things that I'm never likely to do anything about to really sin anyway. It effectively takes my mind off of the more pressing sins that I commit by the dozen without giving it two thoughts. I can agonize at length about the theory and never really have to put it into practice, whereas if I did that for real temptations, I might be provoked to change.

Horrors!

But to give myself credit as well--one of the reason for obsession is to come to terms with Church teaching as it really is, not as I would have it be. Sometimes I have to hit my head against that stone over and over again before I can crack open my mind enough to let in a new conception or a new nuance. Ah, to be like Bernadette. But then Jesus warned us, "To whom much is given, much is expected in return."

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On Just War

This started as a response to Jack's comment below, but I thought it was worth making a full post of.

Thank you. Last night it dawned upon me what my objection to so-called "just war" actually is. The name "just war" makes it sound as though we are taking an intrinsically evil action and trying to make it good.

I think your point is what I state elsewhere somewhat differently. Just war does not magically take evil and make it good, rather it states doctrinally that there are times when a natural evil must be engaged in to prevent an even greater evil. When that must happen the evil of the action is not imputed to the actor as a sin. Thus the evil is always (on the part of those fighting justly) malum and, assuming it is conducted according to jus bellum not corporately culpum. That is not to say that no one sins in the course of the war. But you get my drift. I had always been thrown by the name of the doctrine. In fact it is really a "lesser of two evils doctrine" that is a principled application of a form of double-effect.

I might differ with you on the justness or unjustness of some of the conflicts you mention--that's a different issue and really a moot issue. It little matters how I view the issue, it is how the Lord views the issue that is the essence.

That said, I think it is important to note that there is still room and necessity for the individual in conscience to conclude that any participation in the destruction of human life (whether or not it is labeled "just") is, in fact, a matter of sin. These people are called pacifists and in some ways I believe they have chosen the better part, IF they truly live it out. While it may be just to defend oneself and one's country, it may be more noble and more persuasive to refuse to take someone else's life. I liken it to the Maccabbean brothers who one after another refused to eat pork and died for it.

But this is a matter for the individual conscience, and if the individual is persuaded that it is forbidden to kill for any reason whatsoever, then to kill would be a sin, just war or otherwise.

I think it is the balance between the pacifist voices and those not so inclined that need to try to inform any decision regarding war. What seems to happen too often is that the pacifist voice is dismissed as "cowardly" or shirking duty. I suppose it is possible, but I also think that it is equally possible that pacifists are speaking out of conscientious convictions every bit as deep and as driving as any imperative to war.

The extreme of pacifist doctrine leaves us in a very untenable position in a fallen world. People will always cause aggression and grievous harm to one another. So long as that is the case, we must have means in place to prevent atrocities like the Holocaust or Pol Pot's monstrous reign. And what do we do about Rwanda and Somalia if we must rely completely on non-combative means? Pacifists hold out the very real hope that prayer and virtuous living will change the world. I agree with them, it will. However, it will only change a fallen world, not redeem it utterly. I think we need to stay away from the dangers of neo-Rousseauian thinking. We are not noble savages. Rather the opposite, we are wonderful, fatally flawed creations--we will never create a Utopia and we will never stop war.

That however doesn't mean we oughtn't to try and that those so inclined ought not to argue against every instance of aggression. We need the properly informed, conscientious counterbalance to our wayward tendencies.

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November 16, 2004

A New Perspective on Pacifism

from "Not Quite a Perfect Fit"
Frederica Mathewes-Green

It may be right to die, but it is never right to kill. Christians are called to be something different in the world, a new thing the wearied, bloodied globe had never seen: people who love their enemies. When we twist hot metal around the body of a boy in a jeep, we are not showing him love.

I learned to keep my mouth shut about this in pro-life circles. I would unfailingly be told that refraining from killing was impractical; people would explain to me that of course Jesus didn't mean it literally. (What else did he not mean literally? Was he just kidding about sexual morality, too? This genre of Biblical interpretation reminded me uneasily of the bland, self-serving liberals in my previous denomination.) I was told that principled non-violence was self-indulgent, impractical, and fell short of the noble heights of courage that only war can call forth. The reasoning seemed to be that it took more courage to stand before your enemy holding a gun than it took to stand there empty-handed.

Entire essay

via Verbum Ipsum

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"I'm Sorry, World"

There has been a spate of people taking pictures of themselves and posting them to apologize to the world for the election of George Bush. Well, I'm not sorry and I disavow any such apologies made on my behalf.

On this matter two things: first, get over it. (1) It simply isn't the world's business who we elect in our government. I care very little for what someone in France thinks about who we elected, just as I hope that someone in France gives very little consideration to my thoughts about their candidates for government. I don't live there, I don't have any insight. I'm neither entitled nor equipped for an opinion. (2) Even were it a matter in which world opinion weighs in--we've had worse, we will have worse again. I'm not thrilled with the election of George Bush--but overall I regard it as the lesser of two evils--and all of this pandering to world opinion simply reinforces that view.

But the more important matter I wish to emphasize is a continuation of yesterday's post. What can we do about it? I'm not falling all over myself that Bush was reelected. I have to admit to a huge sigh of relief, but that's because I don't particularly care for change. Bush's policy decisions seem at times questionable, but every time I think that I remind myself that I do not sit in the oval office day to day, nor do I have access to the information that flows through that office every day. I don't know what his motives are or were, nor can I guess at any number of unclear actions or meanings. What's more, that really isn't my concern. My concern is to function as a good citizen of the United States, critiquing and petitioning the government as necessary, but supporting my country first and foremost, no matter what my opinion of any given individual. I endured 8 years of Clinton with the attitude of "respect the office, if not the man." The least I can say of Bush is that I have not been forced back to that gambit. Some things that have happened have been distasteful, and perhaps unnecessary. But the reality is that neither I know, nor does the world for all its second-guessing.

So what can I do? I can pray. As Marion pointed out yesterday, slightly jumping the gun on what I was going to say but never got around to, the essence of the virtuous Christian life lies in prayer. We cannot attain virtue through sheer strength of will. As Paul tells us, "I do the things I would not do, I do not do the things I would do, and I have no strength in me." Jesus tells us , 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." So it is with us. All the willpower in the world will not keep us from sliding eternally backwards. That is not because we are bad, but because we are fundamentally flawed. In some the flaws seem less of an obstruction. (See Tom's post (Disputations) yesterday about St. Catherine of Siena.) We call these people Saints. For the rest of us, it's a case of the Red Queen's race. We run just as fast as we can to stay in the same place. Our will must be aligned with what God desires from us--no question; however, that in itself is insufficient. We must be strengthened, daily, by grace. Without grace we are characters in a Shakespearian tragedy--marked by a fatal flaw--each individually wrapped and bound up in our weakness and on the express freight for Hell. For one it will be pride, for another envy, for a third lust--but the destination is ultimately the same--slavery to sin and death.

Only through grace, transmitted through the sacraments, and through the strengthening that comes through regular prayer and time spent with God, can we hope to change our ways. To use another metaphor, grace is the corrective lens in our flawed Hubble telescope. Grace sharply focuses our attention on the contiguous but not full tangible Kingdom of God--that Kingdom which is right at hand. And grace strengthens the will which is further strengthened by time in prayer--abiding with God.

Prayer is a source of continual replenishment of grace. Prayer is ultimately the one road out of the terrible place we live without it. We are weak, paralyzed, dying, and we do not know it. Grace shines a light on our pitiful condition, and in so doing, makes it possible for us to change.

Prayer opens the soul to receive grace which heals it. Prayer also opens the spirit to hearing what God has to say and to acting on it.

So if you're upset with the election, if you're annoyed with our limited selection of candidates, if you think everything is going to Hell in a handbasket--you have a recourse. Live a virtuous life--contribute to the public good your own private good. And the best way to do this is through constant prayer and through the life of grace in the sacraments.

There are no private actions, there are no private sins. Everything we do affects the world around us in substantive ways. The sooner we start acting on this knowledge and understanding, the sooner we will be able to stop complaining about the poor platforms offered us. If enough Christians are sufficiently discontented to really pray and live lives that lead to good, there will be a change in the system. That's not to say that we will achieve Utopia--that's impossible, but we will make life somewhat better here for more of the people around us. We will do so not through our strength but through the love of God which strengthens all our thoughts and actions. More than that, the Love of God which strengthens our very being--such a love makes us more real than the world we set out to oppose--because it situates us in the very heart of reality.

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November 15, 2004

You Ask, "But What Can We Do?"

Sometimes we feel impotent in the face of political and social realities. There does not seem to be anything we can do about the situation around us. And yet, there is--live virtuously. From Lowery's book again, this moment of hope: "For instance, a Christian living virtuously will have an effect on human history, and numerous Christians living virtuously will have a massive effect."

Withou raising a single protest sign, without signing petitions, without marching on Washington, a simple virtuous life can change the lives of people about whom we know little to nothing. This is part of the need for the sacrament of Confession/Reconciliation. Because if it is true that the virtuous life manifests the kingdom of Heaven on Earth, a life less than virtuous rends the fabric of eternity. Even if our sins are secret, lived out in silence, "victimless" as it were, still, they have deep and abiding effects on the world around us. If we fail in virtue, even though no one but the Lord knows about it, we still harm those around us. This failure takes its toll on the entire world. Our society is in the dire straights it is in because we have chosen individually not to live virtuously. In some cases the choices have been made in invincible ignorance, in other in deliberate defiance. But most of the time, we think that what we do privately has little or no meaning to the world at large. After all our constitution guarentees us a right to privacy doesn't it? (In fact, no, but that is beside the point.) Even if it does, there is no privacy in the Kingdom of God. Every act is a public act with public consequences, even if we cannot see the source. If everyone secretly empties their chamberpots into the gutters on the streets of the City, the effluent will still stink even if we do not know the entirety of the source.

So the next time you think in despair, "What can I do about this or that terrible thing?" recall that the first thing is to live virtuously and to pray always. In doing these things we take the first steps in allowing God to lead us to correct the present situation. We shouldn't stop there, but it is a place to start because living virtuously allows us to hear more clearly what we really can do to stop the present horror.

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The City of God, It's Purpose and Definition

in thirty words or less, care of Mark Lowery.

from Living the Good Life
Mark Lowery

It is essential to grasp the Christian conception of history found in Scripture and tradition, and heavily influenced by St. Augustine's understanding as put forth in his classic work Certainly all humans live within history. But the best way to improve the world is by an awareness--a membership in--another "city" or "kingdom" far more important: the kingdom of God or the city of God.

Those who follow Christ and have grace in their hearts are citizens of this city--and as we'll see later, non-Christians can have some connection to his city. (The "charter of this city is the beatitudes--see CCC 1716-24.) Members of the Church, then, have a dual citizenship, in both the city of God and in the historical, political order. As Gaudium et Spes 43 notes: "This council exhorts Christians, as citizens of two cities, to strive to discharge their earthly duties conscientiously and in response to the Gospel spirit."

Two points here--one germane and one professional.

We straddle two kingdoms, one of which we see "as in a glass darkly." Too often we live out our lives with the notion of WYSIWYG. And yet, it is precisely what you do NOT see that is what we end up getting. We see the kingdom of God rarely, but it does emerge if we are looking. It comes out in small ways and in large. For example, it may emerge in the smile of someone greeting us as we come into work. It certainly does emerge in the Eucharistic celebration, if we are paying attention.

Now to my other point, a trivial one, but one that niggles at me. (And you'll note that it takes up the majority of this post.) Who the heck edits these books? What's with this insane jumble of grammatical oddities:

t is essential to grasp the Christian conception of history found in Scripture and tradition, and heavily influenced by St. Augustine's understanding as put forth in his classic work Certainly all humans live within history.

Why a colon? Then, as the colon is not terminal punctuation, why the capital letter following. And who is paying attention to sequence. Note this: But the best way to improve the world is by an awareness--a membership in--another "city" or "kingdom" far more important: the kingdom of God or the city of God..

Why construct the sentence so that you mention city or kingdom and then reverse the order after a colon (which should be an m-dash).

I'm sorry to bend your ear with this kind of thing, but more and more recently I'm noticing that editors are not doing their jobs. House styles are collapsing in the reign of the Stephen King and Michael Crichton, who have grown too big to be "edited." For example, has anyone read the bloated version of Stephen King's The Stand? Here is the strongest possible evidence that good editors know what they are doing and that the author's original conception is not always the best way to do things. I think Lowery's book is likely to be very helpful in sorting out a great many matters, and it does not pretend to be a handbook of style and grammar. Yet, to quote Tevye, "Would it spoil some grand eternal plan, if it were edited well?" Sorry, tirade ended. Back to sleep mode.

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November 10, 2004

Resources for Living the Good Life

Here--many,many thanks to Dr. Lowery.

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Post 3000!!!!--Participated Theonomy

Those of you who went to Catholic Universities and who studied theology and moral theology already know more about this than I could possibly share. But reading through one of my many books, I stumbled upon this term and concept and felt that it would make a marvelous addition and reminder as I look back over my posts, garnering from it them some of the insights I had a various times.

from Living the Good Life
Mark Lowery

Participated theonomy is a fancy way of saying that God's truth is build for us--his moral law (theonomy) is something we can really participate or partake in.

The notion of "participation is easier to understand if we consider another aspect of the Christian life: God's grace dwelling in us. It has "twin" aspects: First, sanctifying grace is not a thing we have in our souls, but is the very life of the Triune God dwelling--pulsating, if you will--within our very being. Grace is God's love poured into our hearts (see Rom 5:5).

Second, looked at from our angle, when God pours himself into us, we participate in him (see VS [Veritatis Splendor} 73, and CCC 1709, 1987-2016). And part of God's being is his law--not a set of rules only, as a heteronomy would have it, but the whole set of principles that puts our moral lives in order.

Twin moments again: When God pours himself into us, he pouts that "order " into us. (Later we'll see that this is precisely what "natural law" is.) From our angle we partake in that order. It is there for our happiness.

That's what participated theonomy is. When you see this term throughout the book, think "God's truth is friendly to me" or "God's truth is meant to make me truly happy.

Apart from an eccentric use of colons and italics, this passage was a superb introduction to the terminology of moral theology and to the central concept that we participate in God's law, and as God is uniate and simple (even while be triune--go ask the Thomists to explain this one) we participate in God's life itself.

A little later we have this magnificent little zinger.

Source as above

Here is another "pastoral aid" that this understanding yields: When you embrace the Church's moral stance of participated theonomy, expect to be misunderstood by people on both of the opposite extremes. Those who are positioned within autonomy will look at participated theonomy and see it is as heteronomous [control by an exterior rigid set of laws]. Because you claim, with the Church, to have access to truths that are absolute in nature, you'll be caricatured as an intolerant rigid fundamentalist who wants to impose one opinion on everyone.

On the other had, those who are positioned heteronomously will look at participated theonomy as far too autonomous for their tastes. Because you claim, with the Church, that the solution to our current moral crisis in not a return to the pre-Vatican II past, you'll be caricatured as a loose, wimpy Catholic without any moral fiber.

In the midst of these two misunderstanding, be patient and non-polemical. Take some comfort in knowing that when you are misunderstood by two polar opposites, that's a good sign that you�re getting something right!

I wanted this "anniversary post" to be something of substance--not too much substance I hope, but something that might hearken back to some of the better posts that have been made in the course of this long run.

And I implore your prayers that I might continue this endeavor for as long (and absolutely no longer than) God wills and directs. I love being here among bright, witty, talented, interesting people who are so ready to help one another live the Christian life.

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November 8, 2004

From a Moral Theologian--Malum et Culpa

Now Jack can have someone to disagree with other than me.

from Living the Good Life
Mark Lowery

We are understandably afraid of being called "judgmental"--especially when Christ's saying "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Mt 7:1) is invoked--and we end up with what might be called the "can't impose syndrome:" "I would never be able to justify having an abortion, but I can't impose my views on someone else." We might know how absurd such a claim is--substitute slave-holding for abortion, and it's pretty obvious--yet we don't want to be labeled as rigid and judgmental.

The solution is clear: We must steadfastly maintain the distinction between an act that is evil and an evil act for which someone is culpable. Christ demands that we make the former judgment, and prohibits us from making the latter judgment.

To judge that an act is right or wrong is precisely what conscience is supposed to do--in fact, the technical definition of conscience is that it is an "act of judgment" that appliles the universal truth to a particular case (see VS 32.2 and 59.2). Judging that a particular individual is cupable for having committed an evil act is strictly forbidden --that's God's business.

Honestly, I can't say why this issue weighs so heavily on my mind, but my frequent return to it shows that it does. I think I need to understand exactly where I am supposed to be with respect to God's desire for me. As I am inclined to be a very judging person anyway, I think I artificially impose this boundary as a prelude to allowing grace to make it a natural boundary. There is a limit to what I can do myself, but there is no limit to what grace can accomplish in me, but I must cooperate. And this is a form, I suppose of active cooperation.

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October 20, 2004

On St. Thomas Aquinas

Left in the comment box at Disputations, and reposted here to remind me of what I said when I get fed up (again) with scholastic reasoning and St. Thomas Aquinas fans:

Even though I am very sympathetic to your viewpoint [--that much of this reasoning seems to get in the way of actual Christian conduct--I oversimplify, but that was the jist] at times even I can find the merit of St. Thomas Aquinas.

I don't find him much help for the daily encounters at the time of the encounter; however, his articulations of the truths of the faith help to inform how I react to things once I've been able to internalize them.

That is to say, that much of this theorizing and thinking is just that. But some small portion of it can trickle down and change us dramatically. I've experienced this again and again through Tom's presentation of Aquinas's thought.

That said, I find much of it to be straining at gnats. I suspect many do. Aquinas does not add to what has been revealed by Jesus Christ; however, he does provide the reasoning and the informed understanding of it.

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Who cares? Object, Intent, Circumstance--what does it mean? Well, I suppose it means the difference between pursuing Jean Valjean for 20 years over the theft of a loaf of bread for his starving family and Mother Teresa caring for the poor in Calcutta. The reasoning may not appeal to all--but the reasoning can inform the heart.

Nevertheless, it does, at times, seem tortuous.

And unproductive. You ask--"How can this lead to love?" And I answer, I don't really know, I don't understand it. And yet the history of the Saints and of St. Thomas Aquinas himself shows definitively that not only can it, in fact, it often does. This seems to go hand in glove with the first post of the day from the letter to the Philippians--"whatsoever is true. . . think about these things." When we start in thinking and in knowing, we can grow in loving. When we start in loving, we can learn thinking and knowing. The two comprise an ever-expanding cycle of knowledge and love IF we allow them to do so. Thus for every Thomas Aquinas there is a Thérèse of Lisieux. The two end up at the same place but arrive by different routes. Nevertheless both routes involve the cycle of knowledge and love. We cannot avoid them. True knowledge leads to love, overwhelming love leads to the desire for knowledge. Hence the need for the knowledge, not merely of St. Thomas Aquinas, but of all the Saints who have thought and loved through all of time.

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How to Think in the World--from Phillipians

From my favorite epistle of the Bible:

"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Philippians 4:8

I start with an aside: that pretty much lets politics out. And then continue to the main point--our lives are worthy of the gift we have been given when they most thoroughly reflect the manner of thought suggested above. Finally, we make life better for those around us when we concentrate on these things in the people we meet rather than on the darkness, as too often seems our wont.

Think how much more pleasant a day at work would be if you spent it thinking about how many virtues you can find and foster in those around you rather than how awful people can be. We have a choice about how we think about each other and the world that God has created. We can regard everything as implacable enemy of the soul--a constant dreary battle. Or we can regard everything as a flawed but certain indicator of the existence and presence of the loving God.

When we think of these things we perform as kind of Christian "Namaste." When we look at all these worthwhile virtues, we say to a person, "I see and salute the Godhead within you." The source of all beauty, all goodness, all wonderful things is God. Everything that is good derives its goodness from God's ultimate goodness. To see goodness is to see the presence of God and in some sense, to see goodness is to draw it out of a person.

And so, because it is so beautiful, so apt, and so apropos, I leave you once again with Paul's words:

"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

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October 18, 2004

The Importunate Widow

Why is it that Jesus tells us to be persistent in prayer? God knows what we need. Why do we even need to ask for it? If God is a Just Judge, why should we go begging?

Persistence in prayer effects no change in God or in God's will for us, or at least so it seems. If predestination is true, the path is marked out in its multi-fractal brownian way--the currents of prayer will not stir these particles out of the way.

What persistent prayer DOES change is us. As we pray, we start by praying selfishly or semi-selfishly. Persistence in prayer teaches us to talk to God and more importantly to listen to Him as He speaks in ordinary life. God is not changed by prayer, but by persisting in prayer, what we once thought a just cause is progressively revealed to us as what it really is and we can begin to pray God's will, not my own.

Persistence in prayer is a requirement for holiness because only in this persistence are we altered enough to know God and do God's will on Earth.

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October 11, 2004

Twelve Tribes of Voters

From Don Jim a link to an interesting analysis of religious voters. Do you fit in a tribe?

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Further Anecdotal Evidence of the Truth of the Established Church

This morning I was listening through the pledge-week stuff to NPRs report on the Afghan elections. This cause a thought bubble I thought I would share. The mention of the election brought to mind one of those things that I still am angry at--the destruction of the Buddhas by the Taliban. But then I thought, if I truly believed the Koran and the Koran was explicit about making no graven images, would I be serving God if I allowed what offended Him to continue to exist? That is, if the Buddhas offended God, should I allow the glory of men to detract from the Word of God. This, in turn, caused me to think about how one understands scripture. That is there are many ways to read a passage concerning graven images. Does it mean images to worship? Does it mean any image of a living thing? etc. etc. This got me to private interpretation of scripture and the fact that it is always, always flawed because the person doing the interpreting is flawed and is not God nor even close to God-like in his understanding of the fullness of the Word. This thought led finally to the fact that the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of order, not Chaos.

For some reason this suggested to me that the Church that would be founded by Jesus Christ acting for the most Holy Trinity would be a church that would have the minimum chances of this occurrence. God had observed the Israelite people and already had had enough of human factionalism. (And even without observation He would know what humans were capable of.) With Jesus He sent into the world his One Son to establish His One Church. The Church He would establish would be such that questions of interpretation and understanding scripture would have some reasonable resolution short of individual interpretation. Thus the One Church would have a single head in whom would ultimately reside the responsibility (no matter how much he was aided by others) for interpreting and understanding Scripture.

The Catholic Church is this church. As I have said elsewhere on the web, it is, at least, the only Church that has a clearly defined doctrine articulated by a central body. When one speaks out with one's individual interpretation it must be weighed against this central body. In other words, there is a body of teaching and understanding to dissent from--but that is how the view must be taken, as dissent from the learning passed down. You can disguise this any number of ways, by appeal to any number of loopholes, but it remains essentially and firmly dissent from a core defined doctrine.

The fact that there is a revealed understanding from which every view not in accord is, in fact, dissent, is further evidence that the Church established through Peter is the One Church. All other Churches receive the validity they have through this principle establishment. No matter what Her errors and problems, present and past, She is the body of Authority established so that we do not all descend into the abyss of private interpretation and its concomitant--infinite division. 22,000 denominations of Protestantism can't all be correct and it is precisely their differences that show the truth of a body that has stood without change in Doctrine for two thousand years.

Amazing what an election in an until recently god-forsaken place will do to one, isn't it? Who'd have thought that an understanding of God's revealed Church would stem from a news story about accusations of election disparities? But it goes once again to say that when we are listen and docile or pliable, God will speak when, where, and through whatever means are handy.

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October 10, 2004

Languages for Work

Sitting here sipping my redbush tea and reading The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith when I happen across this:

They taught us Funagalo, which is the language used for giving orders underground. It is a strange language. The Zulus laugh when they hear it, because there are so many Zulu words in it but it is not Zulu. It is a language which is good for telling people what to do. There are many words for push, take, shove, carry, load, and no words for love, or happiness, or the sounds which birds make in the morning.

I thought about this with the Wittgensteinian and Orwellian view that words shape reality and the reality shaped by this language. And then, dragonfly-like, having hovered for a moment over that concept, it occurred to me--what if Wittgenstein was even a little bit right? What if Orwell had enough understanding of human psychology to have identified a major factor in our lives?

Hover with me for a moment, glance at the reflection this thought makes, the ripples of our wings in the water. If this is so, even only slightly so, does it not reemphasize the need to speak aloud the words of the Psalms in prayers? Does it not argue that singing psalms and hymns and hearing the words God speaks to us through these inspired works creates a reality more conducive to giving ourselves to God? Isn't this the most important thing--shaping reality (by grace) to receive grace? Perhaps we should not have so many words "for push, take, shove, carry, load." Perhaps, just maybe, we should have more words for love and joy and God and worship and presence and union and, "the sound birds make in the morning."

Do you pray aloud? Do you hear and live in the world the words of the psalms make? Do you voice your reflections in the course of the Rosary, making them substantial and real.

Yes, I suppose it is unusual for a Carmelite to encourage vocal prayer. But St. Teresa of Avila would tell us that one "Our Father' prayed perfectly is worth any number of hours of struggling mental prayer. If one prays with one's heart what one's word speaks, one is already entering the realm of contemplative prayer. There's no trick--our attention merely needs to be on Him. Our words must be real and make the world a different place for us to live. A place that encapsulates everything God would have us be and do.

Enough of the ripples. Let your mind enter those things that are worthy and they will speak--even light entertainment can bring you closer to God if you allow it. I never fail to be amazed that the places God can find and surprise me. He seeks us everywhere.

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September 20, 2004

Moody's Definitions of Love

from Carmel, Land of the Soul
Carolyn Humphreys

Dwight Moody gives these expressions of love: "Joy is love exalted. Peace is love in repose. Long suffering is love enduring. Gentleness is love in society. Goodness is love in action. Faith is love on the battlefield. Meekness is love in school and temperance is love in training."

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Words of Wisdom from St. John of the Cross

Excerpted from a Sermon by Father John Sullivan, OCD

Quite aware of how adversity can erode one's willingness to be kind to others, he [St. John of the Cross] still was able to write the following piece of advice to a religious, a scant five months before he died four centuries ago: "Think nothing else but that God ordains all, and where there is no love, put love, and there you will draw out love." Here one has a reliable recipe for happiness: Instead of waiting for love to happen, put it to work and you will then harvest its fruits.

We can be bitter, suspicious, and dubious. Or we can choose to live the life Jesus has granted us to live.

I found this notion salutary as we enter our season of elections. We do well to bear in mind how our personal preferences affect our view of all parties contending in this election. And "where there is no love, put love," in the substantive form of ardent prayer for all of the people involved and for our nation. "And we will draw love out."

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September 13, 2004

Becoming One in Christ

Today I stumbled across one of the few good things I have found in a book by Alan Jones.

from Soulmaking
Alan Jones

The device of the vocal quartet, becoming a quintet, becoming a sextet, and on and on--until everyone is singing is a vivid metaphor for the truth that each of us sings our own unique melody, and all contribute to one great and glorious sound: all sounds mix and rise together to become unending music. It is thus that I find my "home" in harmony with all other creatures. . .

The Christian understanding of God is concerned with holding together unity and diversity. And the belief in God as the Holy and Undivided Trinity speaks directly to our desire to be one without being swallowed up. . . .

The other day I read a blog post--either a post or a comment in which the commenter suggested that our goal as Christians is to all become one and thus lose any individual identity we would have. I had a number of thoughts about this. For example--then why create individuals? Wouldn't it do just as well to create some sort of syncitial organism (with respect to souls) that incorporates all in one? Doesn't God cherish each of us individually, as we love each of our children for their own unique personalities and aspects? Somehow the idea of being blended together in a big grey mass of personality doesn't seem particularly heavenly or delightful. And why would it entail a resurrection of the body? If one were to simply become one in Christ without identity, what point?

But this notion of oneness--the idea of individual voices all singing the individual melodies that blend together to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. This seems (pardon the pun) sound and accurate. The Saints--those whose lives more closer mirror oneness in Christ than does my own--they are each unique, individual, separate. Each one has a distinct personality, each one distinct talents, each one a special mission.

So perhaps becoming one in Christ is harmonizing with all around--singing our own God-given melody in such a way that it unites those around us and corporately moves all of us closer to salvation. In Calvinist theology, salvation is a very lonely, one-on-one business. And to some degree that is truth (I think). My own salvation necessarily impacts others, but it does not necessarily "save" them. And yet I think there are ways of thinking about salvation that are not so lonely, and the Church has long recognized the communal aspect to salvation. Our actions do affect one another (one of the reasons for the sacrament of Penance/Reconciliation) and we can be effective instruments of grace to our traveling companions. We harmonize with those around us. We learn our own parts, and coach others in learning their's in such a way as to make the greatest sound of joy to the Lord. Imagine the glorious sound of a octogiga-et, a sound, that ironically could be channeled back to the beginning of time (as suggested by the Ainur at the beginning of The Silmarillion and sing creation into being. A truly wonderful ouroboros.

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September 10, 2004

Chaos--Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions--A View of Salvation

Floridians all over the state anxiously check the NOAA site on the web to see where Ivan is heading. If they check with each update they see amazing swings in the five day forecast. Two days ago, Ivan was on a crash-course for Appalachicola Bay; yesterday early morning, he was coming straight up the penisula through the everglades; yesterday mid-morning he was following a Charley-like course; yesterday evening he was back in the gulf. This morning he is crashing into Tampa/St. Pete and heading north.

Why can't they seem to decide what he's doing? This, in large, is the central difficulty with any weather forecasting beyond the most immediate future. Weather, like a great many other natural phenomena is essentially a chaotic system. The truth of this was uncovered by the mathematical models of Edward Lorenz in the 1960s. His work gave rise to the dictum that "The flapping of a butterfly's wings over Peking will change the weather in Washington three days later."

What chaos theory tells us is that most natural situations are weakly deterministic. That is, they are not merely random occurrences, but that what happens today has roots that go back days, months, years, perhaps even to the very beginnings of time. And this is part of what I love about Chaos theory--because whether they recognize it or not, scientists who ascribe to it, ascribe to a reasonable proof of the existence of God.

Chaos theory, in some small part, reflects on the question of free will and determinism. I have not considered deeply enough what the ramifications of such a reflection are, but I find them both intriguing and worthy of consideration. God wishes that all will be saved, there is every possibility that some, perhaps many will be lost, but the driving dynamic of the system is the vector toward salvation. The "unknown" factor in the equation, the variable as it were that introduces the chaotic dynamic, is free will. God may know the outcome, but those of us on Earth see a violent lurching first toward and then away from Home and Heart. These erratic motions make no sense unless we understand them as the motions of free-will on a body already in motion sending it into currents and eddies that are not predictable to the human mind; however, God knows everything. Everything we say can't be known--the famous Heisenberg uncertainty (you cannot know both the velocity and the position of an electron or sub atomic particle)--even the outcome of the day's weather is known and has been known by God from the beginning.

Nothing is uncertain with Him and our hope lies in the fact that He is the dynamic system behind it all. It is His will that is the driving motivation behind all of our motions. Now, we can go with the flow or spin off in any of seven million directions (Strait is the gate and narrow is the path that leads to salvation, but that unto destruction is broad and wide and smooth). Nevertheless, at each stage, at each point along the way, the overriding dynamic comes back into play. And at any point we can choose to abandon our own willfulness and allow the dynamic of Love to carry us Home to Him who drives all things toward salvation.

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September 7, 2004

The "Puritan" Bible? Some Myths Exposed

Apparently King James himself developed fifteen rules for the translation of the Bible that he ordered. In these rules we see a remarkable wisdom, indeed, in one so vain and so full of himself, we see the light of the Holy Spirit Himself, assuring a translation that would guide His people for a great many years and resonate throughout all of our literature for four centuries and more. Much of what we read after this translation of the Bible was deeply influenced by its cadences and its beauty.

There are two major points of these fifteen precepts I want to touch upon. One serious, and one quite humorous.

from God�s Secretaries
Adam Nicolson

4. When a word hath divers Significations, that to be kept which hath ben most commonly used by the most of the ancient Fathers being agreeable to the propertie of ye place and the analogies of fayth.

The Church of England, like the Church of Rome, but unlike the more fully reformed churches of Europe, relied for its understanding of the often complex texts of scripture on the ancient inherited traditions of Christianity, the statements and resolutions of the councils of the early church and the great body of patristic scholarship, in particular those church fathers�above all Jerome, St John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Origen�of whom sixteenth-century English scholars, including several of the Translators, had made a particular study. This instruction is part of that widespread Reformation phenomenon, the search for primitive authenticity, for avoiding all hint of dreaded �innovation,� looking for true meaning in the most ancient and hence most reliable texts. This too is a mark of the moderate: a historical consciousness and a sense that the world now has fallen away from the more perfect state in which it once existed.

Whether we like the fact or not, the King James Version of the Bible was guided by very �Catholic� understandings of the meaning of Scripture. We tend to think of the times as Puritan, and because the translation was eventually embraced by the Protestant Church, we tend to regard KJV as somehow �sullied� by its Protestant provenance. However, if one were to judge objectively on the base of guiding principles, the notion of interpreting scripture by Tradition is very, very Catholic.

This, coupled with another James�s edicts (7) that there should be no marginal notes beyond those required to clarify linguistic difficulties, actually resulted in a translation that was far from partisan. To quote Nicolson, � The words of this translation, then, could embrace both gorgeousness and ambiguity, did not have to settle into a single doctrinal mode but could embrace different meanings, either within the text itself or in the margins. This is the heart of the new Bible as an irenicon, an organism that absorbed and integrated difference, that included ambiguity and by doing so established peace. � The resultant work could reflect both the difficulties of translation and the multiplicity of meanings inherent in written language in such a way as to create both a profound work of literature and a meaningful instance of the Word of God. What is most interesting is that the tension between the Puritan Translators and the Anglican Translators forced the Anglicans into a more �high church� mode resulting in adherence to Catholic Traditions (which, of course, they insisted were �reformed� by the true Church founded by Henry VIII). Whatever the cause, James�s edict for the translation resulted in a deep, meaningful, and fruitful translation that has yet to be equaled in beauty, if not in clarity. (I will point out though, that it was clear enough to my grandfather and his generation�my Grandfather himself having graduated only 8th grade. (This could be likened today to having graduated from a junior college at least.)

Anyway, now for the more amusing point, which was actually a side note to the main body of the text. One of James�s rules stated that the names of persons in the Bible should remain as names and not be translated into what they meant. Thus, Timothy was to remain Timothy and not be translated as �Fear of God.�

Bancroft himself had written about the absurdity of calling your children �The Lord-is-near, More-trial, Reformation, More-fruit, Dust and many other such-like.� These were not invented. Puritan children at Warbleton in Sussex, the heartland of this practice laboured under the names of Eschew-evil, Lament, No-merit, Sorry-for-sin, Learn-wisdom, Faint-not, Give-thanks, and the most popular, Sin-deny, which was landed on ten children baptized between 1586 and 1596. One family, the children of the curate Thomas Hely, would have been introduced by their proud father as Much-mercy Hely, Increased Hely, Sin-deny Hely, Fear-not Hely and sweet little Constance Hely.

Now, would that I had only known this before we had Samuel. Then we could have �The-Lord-is-My-Shepherd� Riddle. Or perhaps If-Thine-Eye-Offend-Thee-Pluck-it-Out Riddle. Can you imagine bubbling THAT name in on those stupid standardized test forms? Maybe we should have a Puritan name-giving contest for our next goldfish or turtle.

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September 2, 2004

"With My Body, I Thee Worship. . ."

Jaime's comment below provoked my interest and I thought I would scrounge around for more information. The following is an excerpt from an article available at EWTN by John Saward.

from " The Grace of God in Courtesy"
John Saward

Courtesy is not strictly distinct from the other virtues, but rather
a quality to be found in them all. It has something to do with
reverence, humility, and chastity. It is shaped by charity, the form
of all the virtues, into the quality of mercy. It is the beauty of a
brave and generous life.

Courtesy is, first of all, reverence for one's fellow man. In the
Christian knight, it is a habit of seeing made possible by faith and
charity, an eye which sees in every man, great or small, the shining
image of the Trinity, the brother for whom Christ died. The courteous
person has an attitude of "worship" toward his fellows: by small
deeds of kindness, he acknowledges their worth, their dignity, as
human persons. In the Sarum marriage rite, the husband vows reverence
and thus courtesy toward his wife in the very acts of married love.
"With my body I thee worship." Chivalrous respect is of the very
essence of husbandly love.

Secondly, courtesy is closely tied to humility. In fact, Chesterton
defined courtesy as "the wedding of humility with dignity" and gave
us an example of the Black Prince, who waited like a servant on a man
who was his own prisoner (). The courteous
man has dignity, but he does not stand on it. He does not lose his
throne, and yet he is ready to leave it. There is something in
courtesy that deserves to be called self-emptying, the noble refusal
of self-worship. The proud or self-centered man may be polite, but he
can never be courteous, because he refuses to serve. is
the defiant cry of the prince of death and discourtesy.

Thirdly, courtesy is the first cousin of chastity, what the Middle
Ages called "cleanness." A man blinded by lust cannot see his lady as
the fitting recipient of his courtesy. She has become a thing to be
used rather than a person to be served. Malory's Sir Lancelot does
not consort with paramours "for dread of God." The debauched knight
will not only be distracted in the short term, but disappointed in
the long: "Knights that are adventurers should not be adulterers or
lechers, for they would not be happy nor fortunate in wars." (Sir
Thomas Malory, Works.)

The whole article is worth your attention. And I find this notion of courtesy very evolved and quite appealing.

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King James Speaking to the Puritans

from God's Secretaries
Adam Nicolson

These were moderate and distinguished men, suggesting moderate changes. But James--and Bancroft who seems to have been in an excitable state at the theatre unfolding around him--was treating them like extreme schismatics from the outer reaches of Anabaptist lunacy. . . .

Reynolds, who had never married, said he didn't like the phrase 'with my body I thee worship,' which formed part of the marriage service. James couldn't resist a vulgarity: 'Many a man speaks of Robin Hood', he said, 'who never shot his bow; if you had a good wife yourself, you would think that all the honor and worship you could do her were well bestowed.'

The picture one gets of King James in reading this book is utterly fascinating. One intimately involved in Church affairs, vain, vulgar, sometimes profance. The times themselves were interesting in their hopes and horrors. But most interesting of all is that providence would lead me to so pointed a passage on the anniversary of my own marriage.

God bestows His blessing when and as He will. We need only keep our eyes open to see them.

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August 26, 2004

Seeking Angels Unaware

Glancing through the unread books that litter too many shelves in my house, I found this one. Leafing through the pages, I found some insights worthy of my attention. Likely it will be next on the list after Dallas Willard.

from A Tree Full of Angels: Seeking the Holy in the Ordinary
Macrina Weiderkehr

I am concerned about he many people today who are lured to extraordinary spiritual phenomena that are manifested, it seems to me, in sensational ways. Stories abound about visions and trances, weeping statues, rosaries turning gold. Celestial beings are emerging everywhere, and angels are in danger of becoming trendy. The fast pace of our lives makes it difficult for us to find grace in the present moment, and when the simple gifts at our fingertips cease to nourish us, we have a tendency to crave the sensational.

A second concern is this: As we pine for angels and the otherworldly, there is the danger of missing a precious aspect of Christiianity. We are an incarnational people. The Word was made flesh in our midst. We are rooted in an earth that God has proclaimed good. Here on this good earth we have become flesh with the seed fo God hidden in us. THe greatest of all visions is to see Christ, indeed, to see God, in the frail and glorious human family of the world.

Too easily I tend to dismiss the everyday, the very essence of God's speech to us. How often have I overlooked His direct word to me in the events of the day, seeking extraordinary guidance by a word, a sign, by bible roulette? I cast about seeking God, and He is right there before my eyes. I need only open them and see His Will displayed in every event, in every action of the day. I numb myself to the world, buying into the Manichean tendency to separate the spiritual (=good) and the material (=bad). Although I know better, I cannot seem to overcome my naturally dichotomous mind. I know the spiritual is good, and that good must have an opposite--the opposite of spiritual is material and the opposite of good is bad. But I deceive myself with the facile syllogism. The reality is that spiritual does not mean necessarily good. Satan and his fallen angels belong the spiritual. Hence, the dichotomy is false; and yet it is embedded. Nevertheless, there are moments when God's sense breaks through and I am enfolded in an epiphany of His revelation in the goodness of the world around me. Hence, the need to open my eyes and to be continual enfolded in the events He has caused to be my life. To learn once again what it is to rejoice in the goodness of the world. To become, in this sense, the litle child for whom all things are wonder and light.

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August 25, 2004

A Revolution of the Human Heart

TSO made an excellent point about the plethora of great Catholic Classics available for us to read. In large part I agree with him; however, I sometimes find that the Catholic Classics fail me, not because they are not good works, but because so few of them come from a time near enough to address the issues I face every day. Yes, they teach immortal principles and should be read for that reason alone. But sometimes it is good to hear a voice, like that of John Paul II who faces what I face today and who gives me some guidance as to how to deal with. For that reason, I do read a variety of spiritual works from all times, not wishing to succumb to chronological snobbery in either sense.

That said, suffice to say that I abandoned the Monks of New Skete, largely because of the company their publishers decided to have them keep. I hadn't noticed the "publicity" on the jacket and when I finally looked I noticed overwhelming acclaim from Rev. Frank Griswold and Peter Gomes. From what I have seen of other works by these two men, I find myself in disagreement with their approach to the Bible, and in all likelihood much of their approach to spirituality. (As to this latter I cannot definitively say as no single work is likely to have spelled out their complete view of spirituality. But as they tend to take the guidance of scripture somewhat lightly, I have sufficient grounds for discontinuing my reading. ) After the first shock of those recommendations wears off, I will likely return to the book. But because I had Dallas Willard's Renovation of the Heart at home anyway, I thought I would pick IT up in preference to the Monks of New Skete for the time being.

from Renovation of the Heart
Dallas Willard

We must make no mistake about it. In thus sending out his trainees, he [Jesus] set afoot a perpetual world revolution: one that is still in process and will continue until God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven. As this revolution culminates, all the forces of evil known to mankind will be defeated and the goodness of God will be known, accepted, and joyously conformed to in every aspect of human life. He has chosen to accomplish this win and, in part, through his students.

It is even now true, as angelic seraphim proclaimed to Isaiah in his vision, that "the whole earth is full of His glory,� the glory of the holy Lord of hosts (Isaiah 6:3). But the day is yet to come when "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14, emphasis added).

The revolution of Jesus is in the first place and continuously a revolution of the human heart or spirit. It did not and does not proceed by means of the formation of social institutions and laws, the outer forms of our existence, intending that these would then impose a good order of life upon people who come under their power. Rather, his is a revolution of character., which proceeds by changing people from the inside through ongoing personal relationship to God in Christ and to one another. It is one that changes their ideas, beliefs, feelings, and habits of choice, as well as their bodily tendencies and social relations. It penetrates to the deepest layers of their soul. External, social arrangements may be useful to this end, but they are not the end, nor are the fundamental part of the means.

What I liked particularly about this description is the revolution of Jesus as a revolution of character which does reflect itself in the transformation of the world, but not a revolution in the world that affects transformation of character. I think it rightly sets the matter in order. First we change, and then through our change we effect change in the world. It is one of the reasons that restrictive laws with regard to very popular things have so little effect--prohibition and anti-pornography legislation come to mind. But the focus on individual transformation in Christ seems exact. What is even better is that Willard suggests, as those of us within any Church community already know, that this transformation does not take place in isolation but in the community of believers. We are affected by what happens around us, good and bad. Witness the calamitous and still reechoing effect of the scandals a year or more ago. We will be living with the pain of that betrayal for some time to come--it inflicted a grievous wound to the Body of Christ.

We understand the communal nature of salvation and of transformation. And again, Willard uses the proper term for this when he speaks of Spiritual Formation, which can only rightly occur within the bounds of a community. (In a sense, this is where the old adage, "It takes a village to raise a child," is fundamentally true. We need a rock-solid foundation in the faith, and part of that comes from seeing different ways of being believers and still functioning in the world. The community of faith offers a great many models for us to observe and to take our lead from. Hence, the Church is especially blessed in her continued recognition of the Communion of the Saints--extending our community of models into eternity.)

I suspect that I will read this book very slowly, and I do hope to share some of the fruits of that reading with you. However, I do expect to read it exceedingly slowly. So expect reports over a fairly long period of time.

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August 24, 2004

On Epiphanies

(in the Joycean sense)

from In the Spirit of Happiness
The Monks of New Skete

Life never seems to prepare us sufficiently for epiphanies. By definition they come upon us suddenly, dazzling us by their raw power. They are not magical intrusions from another world, but reality, naked and without shame. Their very ordinariness shimmers with unexpected depth, which is why they take us by such surprise. It does not matter whether they occur in the majesty of Hagia Sophia or in the elegant simplicity of a wooden chapel, the effect is the same.

Indeed, when God breaks in, it little matter what the location, His presence is profoundly felt.

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On Richard Foster

Since I'm apparently on this kick:

A site for the organization that Richard Foster helped to found--I don't know much about the organization and I have a strong suspicion of "convenant" kinds of things (comes from my days in the Evangelical/Fundamentalist mode. However, I do recommend Foster's writing--most particularly a magnificent little book called Simplicity--a heart-felt practical guide as to how to attain a simple life.

A brief description of Richard Foster's life and work.

An excerpt from one of the newsletters on the Renovaré site.

From a Pastoral Letter by Richard Foster

You can probably detect that I am not overwhelmingly encouraged by the popular expressions of Spiritual Formation today. I�m not; too much is too faddish and too formulaic for me to be optimistic. And yet, we stand at a moment of great opportunity. Human need today is so obvious and so great that no honest person can deny it. People stagger under the burden of human wickedness. Evil is an open, oozing sore. Therefore superficial, half-answers will not do. Not anymore. Today, there is a great new fact in the contemporary interest in Spiritual Formation. And I view it as a source for enormous hope. This great new fact is the widespread belief that we can no longer bypass authentic, pervasive, thorough transformation of the inner life of the human being.

Add to this the fact that the many �spiritualities� that have arisen in our day do not answer the question of how we can become a good person. Nor do they possess the power to make a person good. But genuine Christian Spiritual Formation does answer the question and does possess the power to bring it to pass. And it is an answer and a power that shines brightly throughout the pages of history. It is no accident that the blazing light and life of Christian faithfulness overcame and supplanted all the �spiritualities� of Rome in the early centuries of the Christian Era. They offered a life�a formed, conformed, transformed life�that the Roman spiritualities simply could not match.

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More on Dallas Willard

TSO commented about Dallas Willard and I hadn't thought about it, but I suppose because he doesn't do televangelism, he may be one of the lesser known names in protestant Philosophy and Theology. I can say that with Cornelius Plantinga (whose relative runs the CCEL site), Richard Foster, Charles Colson, and a few others, Dallas Willard has given me tremendous and powerful insights into the spiritual life. What he writes is profound, insightful, and beautiful. If acted upon it can be life-changing in a substantive Christian way.

For those who wish to see more of his work, this link will take you to an array of his articles.
Truncate it to visit his main site.

It appears that he has an article in a book coming out about Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ:

Jesus fully understood the limitations of what could be accomplished by power as understood among human beings. In fact, he had gone through all that with Satan in his famous "temptations"�to food, fame and governmental power�at the opening of his public life. (Matthew 4:3-11) When he now approached his "passion" there were no new issues for him to face. The "ruler of this world was coming upon him," as Jesus then told his closest friends (John 14:30), "but there is nothing in me for him to get a hold of." And that was the reality of the struggle in the Garden. Gibson's film does much to recapture the understanding of the early Church on this point. The Garden was Satan's last chance to keep him from the cross and to foil the execution of The Divine Plan for shutting down the kingdom of evil.

Unless you're just allergic to all protestant writing (I know that Erik, for one, is sneezing up a storm) Dallas Willard is one of several modern writers worthy of your time. I think of him and of Richard Foster in the "C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity Mode." Much of their writing is not about what is different between us, but what unites us all on our Christian Mission.

If you all are aware of others that I should add to my repetoire (this is for you Neil) please don't hesitate to suggest them in the comments box.

P.S. Here's an interesting interview of Dallas Willard by the remarkable contemporary Christian Poet Luci Shaw. Worth your attention.

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August 23, 2004

St. Augustine on Judgment

In the chapter on contemplative prayer in The Holy Way, Ms. Huston discusses St. Augustine's opinion about judging.

from The Holy Way
Paula Huston

St. Augustine believe that one of our most important tasks as human beings is to clean that lamp so that our perceptions are as clear as they can possibly be this side of heaven. In their book Purity of Heart in Early Ascetic and Monastic Literature, Harriet A. Luckman and Llinda Kulzer talk about what he meant. For Augstine, the say, love of one's neighbor "purifies the mind to an incredible degree." They quote his own words on the subject: "When he [the seeker of tranquility] arrives at the love of his enemy he ascends to the sixth step where he cleanses the eye through which God may be seen in so far as he can be seen by those who die in the world as much as they are able."

Augustine, however, believed that to truly see clearly we must go quite a bit further: We must actually embrace a paradox, then try to live in the company of two antithetical notions. . . . [H]e tells us that to see well, we must stop judging our neighbor and ourselves "in the light of the truth." How can we know anything if we stop judging? Isn't it our ability to discriminate that allows us to become wise? Augustine goes on to say, "On this step he so cleanses the eye of his heart that he neither prefers his neighbor to the Truth nor compares him with it." "This state," Luckman and Kulzer add, "brings about peace and tranquility." . . .

This is not merely a restatement of the Gold Rule; apparently our vision is seriously distorted by our habit of passing judgment. We tend to exaggerate the bad in other people and minimize it is ourselves, a practice which Jesus seems to have been fully aware. . .

Though I could not fathom how one stopped judging--we evaluate everything and everybody a hundred times a day, after all--there seemed to be a rock-bottom truth buried here somewhere.

My judgment of others serves only to clutter mental space better used for other purposes. When my eye strays to the sins of my neighbor, it is no longer focused as sharply on the Glory of God. It may be that the Holy Spirit is leading me to reprove and correct; but far more often, it seems like the interference of the Evil One. Distract the person intent on God by showing him clearly the ungodly and the wickedness of the world.

The world is undoubtedly wicked, but for most of us reproving the wickedness leads neither to tranquility nor to deeper love of God. It proves a byway in which we are too easily trapped. We make a short pit stop in judgment and then decide to spend the week there. Next thing you know, we're building a condo near the beach. This is the chief danger of judgment--that it distracts us from more noble and more worthwhile pursuits. After all, isn't a life lead in perfect obedience to God reproof enough of much of the evil we encounter? Did St. Maria Goretti spend her time judging her murderer? Did Pope John Paul II with his would-be assassin? Their unconditional forgiveness served to heap burning coals on the heads of their attackers. Whether it brought about any change or not is not up to the saints, but to the working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the culprits.

So busying ourselves with judging others is a distraction from the one thing necessary. It's yet another example of being Marthas in a world that needs more Marys. We don't need to judge and it disequilibrates us, making it nearly impossible to continue in peace and tranquility toward God. In a sense our prophetic mission is caught up in our vocation to Holiness. For most of us (those not granted the charism of Prophecy as vocation) it is the most powerful expression of the action of God in our lives, the most visible demonstration of presence and sovereignty, and the most powerful condemnation of wickedness possible. If our lives are rightly adjusted and lived they will serve as the chief instruments of the conversion of sinners--judgment is both unnecessary and draining.

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For Those Who Would Too Readily Criticize Our Bishops

From this morning's Office of Readings:

from An Exposition on John
St. Thomas Aquinas

The Good Shepherd does not demand that shepherds lay down their lives for a real flock of sheep. But every spiritual shepherd must endure the loss of his bodily life for the salvation of the flock, since the spiritual good of the flock is more important than the bodily life of the shepherd, when danger threatens the salvation of the flock. This is why the Lord says: The good shepherd lays down his life, that is, his physical life for his sheep: this he does because of his authority and love. Both, in fact, are required: that they should be ruled by him, and that he should love them. The first without the second is not enough.

It intrigues me that our shepherds part with their lives in solidarity with the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. As Paul says, "Making up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ." If this is so, with what a great and tremendous office they are invested--no matter how weak the vessel. One would do well to think twice about what one might wish to say regarding a person whose death contributes to the life of all in some mysterious capacity.

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August 20, 2004

James's Advice on Curbing the Tongue

That ever-popular Epistle of St. James--one of several New Testament books our good friend Martin Luther would have felt just as comfortable without it being in the text. Here's what James says of the tongue:

James 3: 8-12

8But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

9With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God.

10Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

11Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?

12Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

Heading straight back to my theme--when we use a label to demean a person--to, in a sense, curse the person with the label itself, are we not cursing ourselves with the judgment we have wrought?

Some argue that we can know that a person lies. He can even know that the person lies habitually. What of it? Are we so pure that we can point to someone and with impugnity call him a liar? What do we do when we commit this act? In a sense we violate the spirit of the person so that we can lord it over them. Most labels serve a single function--to exalt ourselves at the expense of another.

James goes on to say this:

James 4:11-12

11 Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.

12 There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

To my mind that suggests false and easy labels. Someone tells you a lie. Does that make a person a liar? Absolutely. It does not make that person an habitual liar, but it certainly merits the label by definition. What do we get from labeling the person a liar other than a judgment stamped against us that labels us a hypocrite or worse yet, a judge of others? Have we some harvest of truth in labelling the person a liar? Has the cause of charity and the redemption of the transgressor been advanced?

Judgment is reserved to God alone. We have no right. When we assume the right, we usurp God's own power and become blasphemers. Many of our labels are a short-cut to judgment.

A person tells you a lie. You have several choices about how to respond to the matter. Let's assume that you decide to call them on it. Among your choices of repsonse are: "You are a liar." (Just the tone suggests both anger and judgment--at best an unhealthy combination.) Or, perhaps, "That is a lie." (Said in some degree of directneess.) Now the person can turn back to us with the second statement as say, "Are you calling me a liar?" And the absolutely truthful answer is, "No, I am saying that the statement you made was a lie." There is a difference, and the difference is enormous. In one case we are judging and discerning an isolated action--not the whole person. In the first case we have judged and condemned the person by applying the label.

Some will argue that there is no condemnation in calling someone a liar. But I would ask, if not, why do so? How is the action any different than saying, "What you said is a lie." The fact of the matter is that we know the difference to the core of our being. Calling someone a liar allows us to express our "righteous indignation" against such a profound transgression of God's peace and love. Not that we would ever consider so violent an act against the kingdom. Saying that a given statement is a lie is an objective verifiable or falsifiable statement regarding an action. It condemns the transgression without condemning the transgressor.

At what point does one who tells lies become a liar? I would suggest that it most often occurs when we get angry enough to apply the label. Is anger ever a good reason to do anything? Is calling a person a liar an act of love? I would submit that it is not. I would suggest that saying, "You tell a great many lies," summarizes the truth without the sting. That said, I will open the door a very small amount to say that it is conceivable that in order to be shocked out of behavior the stronger language may be used, but never as it is commonly used and only in the hope of correcting the fault. Hence, the frequent labeling (though almost never of individuals) in the New Testament Epistles. The point here is to use violent language that shocks the person out of his or her habitual slumber. So it is conceivable that you may call a person a liar and not be sitting in judgment, but only if this is done in charity to the person himself. Too often we apply our labels to persons "behind their backs." Rarely are we brave enough to say face to face, "So and so is a liar." More often we say to another , "He's such a liar." In which case we commit the grave injustice of gossip and rumormongering. This person is not present to defend their statements or their integrity. We are condemned by our own backbiting.

So I would say that the most general case calls us never to label, never to judge a person. It calls us equally to challenge those we see going astray by pointing out the actions that transgress, being always mindful about how we do so. Our goal is always charity and must always be the reformation of the sinner. (This label has a certain biblical and Traditional authority for all of us.) I think we should strive to correct the erroneous behavior--a goal that is rarely accomplished by verbally assaulting the person committing it.

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August 19, 2004

A Return to a Favorite Theme

Last night I was reading Divine Intimacy (Probably the wrong week, as I use the modern calendar and don't know how it relates to the "weeks after Pentecost" calendar) when I stumbled across the passage below. I suppose it little matters if I were in the right week or not as the reading had a great deal of meaning for me.

"Judge not, that you may not be judged" (Mt 7, 1). Charity to our neighbor begins with our thoughts, as many of our failings in charity are basically caused by our judgments. We do not think highly enough of others, we do not sufficiently consider their manifest good qualities, we are not benevolent in interpreting their way of acting. Why? Because in judging others we almost always base our opinion on their faults, especially in those which wound our feelings or which conflict with our own way of thinking and acting, while we give little or no consideration to their good points.

It is a serious mistake to judge persons or things from a negative point of view and it is not even reasonable, because the extisence of a negative side proves the presence of a positive quality, of something good, just as a tear in a garment has no existence apart from the garment. . . .

I have said before, and will continue to say--we should not judge people qua people ever. We should have no hesitation in judging their actions, words, or expressed thoughts. For example, it is not only justifiable, but positively charitable to identify a given piece of writing as scandal-mongering and rumor-spreading. Perhaps the individual is unaware of this stream in the writing. However, to call a person a scandal-monger is to reduce the person to a mere label. So too with all of the labels we too-willilngly attach to individuals--fool, anarchist, liberal, conservative, bigot, homophobe, etc. Judgment is reserved to God, and when judge another it is nearly always ugly.

The more I think about this, the clearer it becomes that our judgments should be narrowly confined and reduced to those absolutely necessary for our integrity and the integrity of our neighbors. We are too willing to leap to judgment as to motives and motivations and seeming undercurrents in thought.

Jesus warned us that it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but rather what comes out of him (Matt 15:11) because what comes out of him comes from the fullness of his heart. If our mouths speak this judgment, our hearts are full of it and this judgment weighs heavily against us.

I love the Egyptian sign of the judgement of the dead. In the presence of Anubis, the God of the Dead, the heart of the dead person is weighed in the scales against a feather to determine the path of the afterlife. A heart thickened in, subdued by, crust over with judgment is likely to rapidly tip those scales.

It is not judgment to discern that staying away from certain people is more conducive to our spiritual betterment, but it is judgment to say that those people are evil. How can they be evil if everything God has made is good? They cannot BE evil, but they can constantly and habitually do evil. They must be led from their evil ways by one who knows better, but they cannot be led by one who sits in judgment on them.

Hence we must not judge people with a word or a label. We must learn to separate the person (always beloved of God) from the action (often detestable to God) and love the person unconditionally without judgment even as we condemn the action.

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August 18, 2004

Late to the Table Again

But I come with oh, so tasty a treat. A morsel, a soupçon, a tantilizing taste of a most remarkable book. To wit:

from The Supper of the Lamb
Robert Farrar Capon

But second, he will, by his fasting, be delivered from the hopelessness of mere gourmandaise. The secular, for all its goodness, does not defend itself very well against mindless and perpetual consumption. It cries out to be offered by abstinence as well as use; to be appreciated, not simply absorbed: Hunger remains the best sauce. Beyond that, though, it cries out to be lifted into a higher offering still. The real secret of fasting is not that it is a simple way to keep one's weight down, but that it is a mysterious way of lifting creation into the Supper of the Lamb. It is not a little excursion into fashionable shape, but a major entrance into the fasting, the agony, the passion by which the Incarnate Word restores all things to the goodness God finds in them. It is as much an act of prayer as prayer itself, and, in an affluent society, it may well be the most meaningful of all the practices of religion--the most likely point at which the salt can find its savor once again. Let Harry fast in earnest, therefore. One way or another--here or hereafter--it will give him back his feasts.

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August 9, 2004

St. Romuald's "Little Rule"

Referred to in Paula Huston's book, taken from The Oblate Rule of the Camaldolese Benedictine Oblates

The "Little Rule"
St. Romuald

Sit in your cell as in paradise;
put the whole world behind you and forget it;
like a skilled angler on the lookout for a catch
keep a careful eye on your thoughts.

The path you follow is in the psalms -- don't leave it.
If you've come with a novice's enthusiasm and can't
accomplish what you want, take every chance you can find
to sing the psalms in your heart and to understand them
with your head; if your mind wanders as you read
don't give up but hurry back and try again.

Above all realize that you are in God's presence;
hold your heart there in wonder as if before your sovereign.

Empty yourself completely;
sit waiting, content with God's gift,
like a little chick tasting and eating nothing
but what its mother brings.

Much of Huston's book is a discussion of how this rule can be applied to those who must endure the rhythms and rigors of everyday life.

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On Simplicity

This is one of the reasons that I am reading Paula Huston's book:

from The Holy Way
Paula Huston

. . . I've had to anchor myself in a single, central reality--my longing for God--an allow everything else to arrange itself accordingly.

In doing so, I 've made an interesting, if painful discovery: the path to simplicity runs right through the middle of me. In other words, the world may be a complicated and confusing place, but even if it were as serence as a Japanese garden, I'd manage to stir things up for myself. . . . Most of the clutter, in fact, has turned out to be internal rather than external, a result of the kind of person I am rather than the time and place in which I live.

Now, in point of fact, my internal lack of simplicity reflects itself all around me in my external environment. The interior environment inevitably leaves its marks on the exterior and the clutter I've mangaged to produce litters both landscapes.

Yesterday, praying a bit before Mass, I made the solid determination to return home and to weed out my collection of books. I was going to storm the shelves and relieve them of half of the clutter that simply remains there collecting dust. The reality was not so simple. Yes, they remain and to some extent collect dust--but what is left is too hard to narrow down. I was able to pull a few from the shelves, but really almost nothing in comparison to the huge stacks that fill the floor of one of the spare rooms.

Now logic dictates that even if I have read every one of those books (and I have not as more than half of them are Linda's and I tend to accumulate at a rate that greatly exceeds my reading speed) there is little likelihood of my return to them. And yet my past experience has been that every time I've gotten rid of some part of this core collection, I've spent a small fortune reacquiring it. Part of the collection exists because of the sheer beauty and interest of the books (old PBs of Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A.A. Fair, etc.). These sixties paperbacks have panache, and interesting covers. I see nothing nearly as interesting as my circa 1968 cover of Agatha Chritiie's Sad Cypress. Covers that, in fact, greatly excel the contents of the books they cover. I also have a very painstakingly acquired nearly complete collection of John Dickson Carr and Carter Dickson. My interest here is the enormous numbers of ingenious ways Carr found to have murders commited in essential locked rooms. Of course both Dr. Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale are his images of G.K. Chesterton--how accurate, I haven't a clue. And the covers--once again the sixties cover of The Sleeping Sphinx or Til Death Do Us Part are simply magnificent.

So, I've identified a central material attachment, one that will require long labor and much prayer to do away with--and of course a central commitment to seeking God's grace in the matter. But it is not a matter of my will. In this matter my own will is vanishingly weak, it is only through the grace of God that I will be able to achieve the distance I need from these books and turn this passionate love (mentioned yesterday) to a better object, the Author of Love Himself. Until then, I wait in joyful hope, knowing that He will deliver me.

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August 8, 2004

A Somewhat Disheartening Thought

It occurred to me today as I was irascible and casting about for something to do (I've disallowed trips to the book store because I can't fit my books on the shelves available now) that if I loved God one-tenth as much as I obviously love books, I would not only have ascended Mount Carmel, but I'd have gone back and brought my buddies with me.

As you are all well aware, that hasn't happened. So instead of feeling bad about it, I suppose I should carefully examine the gift God has given me in my great love for books. Perhaps in understanding what exactly I love, I will be better able to move closer to Him.

Too often we leave unexamined what has become routine or ordinary. We never look beyond the surface of what is to discover the spiritual "why." Perhaps it is in the discovery of this why that we are freed to move forward.

I don't know, but I am most hopeful. God made me this way for a reason--now I simply need to seek His purpose in those most intimate channels where love speaks to the heart. Eventually love will speak to Love in those same channels if I only allow it.

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From the Magnificat--Instruction on Derision

When I read this it really spoke to me, about life, about blogging, about how to deal with people.

Magnificat--August 2004--Fr. R. Garrigou-Lagrange

Among the causes of tepidity in lax souls, the tendency to derision should be particularly noted. Saint Thomas speaks of the derider when he discusses the vices opposed to justice: insult, detraction, murmuring against the reputation of our neighbor. He points out that to deride or to ridicule someone is to show that we do not esteem him; and derision, says the saint, may become a mortal sin if if affects persons or things that deserve high esteem. . .

Too often, we tend to use derision as a protective mechanism. It is often easier to ridicule than it is to formulate the statements that would be helpful to the person we are facing. I know that I am too often guilty of this--not usually here, but in my head. Sometimes it slips out of my mouth or through the censor that guides my fingers at keyboard. And it is a symptom of laxity. If I were more aware of the Person who dwells in each person who annoys me, I would feel less temptation to mock or insult. But the truth is, too often I am completely wrapped up in myself--in my hurt feelings and in the depths of my selfishness. I have no awareness of the great God whose spirit dwells in every person.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:44 AM | TrackBack

July 29, 2004

Martha and Mary

I may incur the wrath of St. Blogs for what is to follow. I remind you though, that I am writing from the point of view of one who wishes as closely as humanly possible to choose Mary's part.

I read St. Augustine's sermon in the Office of Readings this morning and had a slightly different perspective on it. Perhaps I am interpreting incorrectly. While I cannot be said to disagree with the great Saint, I wonder about part of his point. Surely Martha will not be busy about corporal works of mercy in Heaven. But part of the communion of Saints, will she not still have an interest in human affairs, in the hospitality of the Spirit? Will she not pray for those who invoke her name and ask for her prayers? In this sense, will she not be feeding the hungry, welcoming visitors, and participating in the healing of the sick? I know that it is a very different participation, it is not the work of the hands. But is it not still a matter of the same interests, the same outward directed heart?

Mary has chosen the better part. But were we all Marys we would have no Mother Teresas. We would have tremendous spiritual benefits and perhaps we wouldn't need Mother Teresas; however, Mary's way is not so easy as it might seem. It is a little way that requires a lot of work.

Is it not possible to integrate the life of the two sisters? Isn't that what many of the great Saints did? St. Francis Xavier, St. Isaac Jogues, St. Katherine Drexel, Blessed Mother Teresa. Did they not have Martha hearts embedded in a Mary life? And even in the experience of the beatific vision, will they neglect the prayers that ascend to them asking for help?

I don't understand the dynamics of heaven, nor can I truly separate the lives of Mary and Martha. If you choose Mary's better part, it would seem that you cannot help but burn with the desire to perform Martha's work. St. Thèrése from within her cloister wished to work in the missions. She wanted to be selected for the Carmel in Vietnam. I think this is the natural outflowing of living Mary's life--the profound desire to bring the message and the reality of peace, caring, and love to all.

(At the risk of irritating Tom) Aren't the great Saints akin to the Boddhisatvas of the Buddhist faith--great enlightened ones who set aside their own transcendance to assist those who have not yet attained enlightenment? Surely the Saints never set Christ aside to assist His struggling brothers and sisters, because they see Christ within each one.

I guess that while I acknowledge Mary's life as the better part, a long history of Saints suggests that Martha's action often flows from the hearts of those who have chosen the better part. For lay Carmelites, called to contemplation in an active world, it would seem a sin to set aside labor necessary in the world in order to retire to some sort of worldly cloister within our houses. And I don't think any lay Carmelite aspires to that. From trying to live the life of Mary, many Martha-hearts are born. God uses our attention and love to point us where we might best serve Him and glorify Him.

In my hurry, I know I haven't expressed the fullness of my intent. But I truly wish to honor Martha, who I believe learned from our Lord's gentle admonishment and whose service began to flow from love of Him and not from the worries and anxieties that rode herd over her.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:55 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

July 27, 2004

Being a Martha

One of the joys (and aggravations) of blogging are the sudden revelations about myself that occasionally stem from where I find myself in the blog-world at any given time.

Take today's revelation--following a series of links I wound up on a site that featured some articles by Sister Joan Chittister. I have long been curious and a little cautious about Sister Joan. I know she espouses some views that I do not hold and I don't much care for the company she sometimes keeps. Nevertheless, everyone is entitled to be heard for who they are not who they know.

The articles were not particularly well-considered examinations of trends Sister Joan sees in American Politics. Like me, Sister Joan does not seem to be a well-qualified observer or commenter on things social and political and some of this muddle comes through in her articles. I was not particularly impressed. But more than that I was frustrated. I was frustrated by the reasoning and by the stridency of such things as a plea for tolerance that seemed, itself intolerant.

But the point of this is not to critique Sister Joan. It is to ask why do I go about subjecting myself to these things? Why do I go to places that I know will frustrate me? Why do I have this compulsion to read things that will knock me out of equilibrium. (You'd think that after I read one of Sister Joan's articles I would simply have ignored the others or the Google links and interviews, etc.)

To bring up other examples. Once I can tell from the header of a post that a particular entry at any given place is about The War that Shall Not Be Named, why do I continue on to read the piece? I know it is likely only to upset me even if it is strictly in accord with my own viewpoint. Why--because for whatever reason, I am upset by this particular topic, I have unduly close ties and interest in it. So why don't I leave it alone?

Well, appropriately enough for this week, I've concluded that the problem is that I am a real Martha. I'm not really big on service, but I'm a real pro when it comes to anxiety and worry. If I am not presently anxious, I seem to actively seek out things to be anxious about. There can be any number of reasons for this, but prime among them is that I still haven't really resolved to partake of the "one thing necessary." I don't really want to learn from Jesus, not down at the core. I want to busy myself with all sorts of things, notions, ideas, objects, events, people, and worldly things. I don't really want to listen and let Jesus lead because it would require of me a certain tractability and surrender. I'm not yet ready to surrender. However, I really want to be ready, but it's very difficult to abandon the defenses and clear the battlements.

I am Martha. I spend too much time meddling in all sorts of things that I haven't any business doing and then I go and complain because others aren't helping me. I go to Sister Joan for the truth. Now is that fair either to me or to Sister Joan. Who proclaimed her the embodiment of truth--she's simply a fallible person with her own viewpoint and agenda. So once I get there do I have any right to complain about how little of the truth I may have discovered in her article? Did she promise to reveal to me the wisdom of ages? No! And yet, I do this time and again.

I fail because I am anxious and worried about many things. I'm worried about having the "right" point of view. I'm worried about the abstract elements of truth and justice, while I continue my life pretty much unchanged. I remind myself in my activity of the Pharisses of whom Jesus said, "You tithe your tithes of mint and rue. . ." I tithe my tithes by announcing so much publicly, but how much have I declared korban; how much do I worry about truth, charity, peace, and justice, and then do nothing to reify these in the world today.

In this light, no matter how much I may quibble with Sister Joan, she is positively acting on core beliefs and prinicples by making the attempt to articulate them and encourage others to act. I do not do as much as this--I'm too anxious and worried.

The solution--sit down for a while, breathe deeply, open the Good Book (as my Grandparents all termed it) and spend some time with the Lord. And immediately, I can give you 10,000,000 reasons why I cannot do that. And every one of them has a certain measure of validity, and every one of them is part of the arsenal that defends the battlements and guards the fortress of the heart. Oh Lord, I want to be changed, but not too much and not too fast and not just yet. But you can change all that!

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:41 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

"I Want to be a Saint. . ."

This expression of the Christian vocation works for some of those great Saints who grew up surrounded on all sides by strong Christian virtue (St. Thèrése) and perhaps some others. I claim this as my goal as well, but recently I've been called to examine that ambition. Do I want to be a saint for the right reasons?

What are some right reasons for wanting to be a saint? It seems there are several, some more valid than others. First, it would seem to me that a right and proper desire to be a saint comes from an orientation of love toward God, the Holy Trinity, and the hosts of heaven. This would be the most proper orientation. A second reason might be that our Lord commanded us to be saints, "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." A third, but more shadowy reason might be to participate fully in Divinity.

It is as we move toward these more shadowy reasons that the question begins to bear full weight. Why might I want to participate more fully in Divinity? Do I want to for the sake of God and His Kingdom, or do I wish it for my own sake?

Let's talk about some less-than-worthy motives for wishing to be a Saint. The one that crops up first and largest in my mind is, "I want to be a saint so I will be remembered as are the other saints." Now, no one who really wants to be a saint would admit to this reason; however, in carefully examining my own motives, I have to admit that this occasionally crosses my mind. It isn't the predominant factor in my desire, but it is enough present that I am aware of it. When I think about the great saints of the past--Augustine, Ambrose, Athanasius, I think how fortunate they were to be Saints so early on because they would contribute foundational that would become the building blocks of the entire Church. No theologian of the twentieth century can be said to have done that--at most they have provided additional understandings of God and Church. The great work has been done, work remains, but not necessarily the kind of work we think of in theology--again I point to St. Thèrése as a Doctor of the Church. Not a theologian in the technical sense, I suppose, but one who had much to teach those who would listen.

However, even less-than-laudable motives for desiring to be a saint can be used by Our Lord to make true saints. The work of sanctity begins with the recognition of Him who sanctifies and with an outward movement, aided by grace, toward the source of All. This outward movement can have the colorings of inward motion because it of necessity seeks to identify and ground the self. Without knowing ourselves and the little tricks and strategems we use to protect ourselves from God's probing and transforming, we cannot begin the walk of the saint. Naturally this examination is in the light and mirror of grace. We can begin to see how we fail and through grace we can ask that God touch and heal those places so that through time that fault becomes less.

I do want to become a saint. I want it for a great many mixed reasons, some good, many bad. But the desire, the longing to know God face to face, is a gift from Him. It is an undeniable grace, and having been given it, I would be less that grateful and less than saintly were I not to act upon it. I act upon it most effectively when I do so least consciously. Self-conscious saints (in the way we understand the term self-consciousness) seem to be an oxymoron. Normally we think of saints as selfless, but I would say rather that they participate in the great Self and this cannot happen if you choose to separate yourself in a self-conscious way.

The long and the short of it is, that God grants the longing to be with Him. He will use, I think, almost any motive and turn it to good. (I must trust and rely upon this as I know many of my motives are poor.) He calls us to sanctity and He lifts us to sanctity and while there is much that we can do to cooperate, there is nothing we can do to speed the process on its way. God will accomplish in His own time His own ends if we open the door and allow Him in. Sainthood is not ever on my own terms, as I have recently been reminded, but always on His. I just need to make up my mind that His terms are good enough. In so doing, I will begin to see just how good they are.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:33 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

July 25, 2004

Questioning Eutrepalia (or am I?)--The Honk and Holler Opening Soon

The second book by Billie Letts (the interview at the end suggests that there may be a movie coming soon on this one as well). Pretty much second verse same as the first. Quirky characters come together in the small Oklahoma town of Sequoyah--In this case a paraplegic Vietnam War Vet, a Creek/Crow Indian, a Mother of a disruptive teenage daughter (same age as Noralee Nation in the first book), a Vietnamese man who is earning money for his wife to move over from Vietnam, etc.

The Honk and Holler Opening Soon is the centerpiece around which these characters convene, emote, and general make mayhem and community for one another.

The prose is smooth, unblemished. The characters nearly uniformly likeable. The bad guy immediately identifiable, and though Letts tries to humanize him through his trauma, he is still one you hope gets what's coming to him.

And while I enjoyed and do recommend this book almost as much as the previous, I have to admit that my first reaction upon finishing it was--"Why did I spend the time on that?" Not that it was a poor book or a poorly written book. But I have had impressed upon me lately the necessity of serving the Lord in ALL things. Now, before I continue, I don't want to say that the message that follows is for everyone. It is NOT. However, I think we could all profit by pondering some of the things I came to realize in the course of thinking about this book.

We all know that our span on Earth is strictly limited--none of us knows how long it will be. If the purpose of our life on Earth is to worship God, then all things in life should be directed to that purpose. Now, things are good in their measure. There is certainly no harm in reading things that give us pleasure (assuming that the pleasure is derived licitly from the reading--that is, it does not appeal to the prurient). However, is it enough?

I think early in the Christian journey all legitmate and licit pleasures are good and should be gratefully accepted. However, as we grow in the faith, it seems to me that the things we take pleasure in should also advance. That is, that while we might enjoy light reading at the start of our Christian career, as our lives move into conformity with God, we might move on from this legitimate interest to more profound things. Perhaps Scripture reading replaces some of the light reading we do. Perhaps reading of Christian classics, theology, and other spiritual helps begins to move in.

I guess I'm suggesting that as we become conformed to Christ we are becoming new people--those new people should not be quite so involved with the old things as they were.

I have said "we" here. What I really mean is "I." I felt a little cheated in reading a book so similar to another that I had recently read. But I also felt that I somehow cheated God of time that was more properly used in His service. For example, in the time that I read Honk and Holler I probably could have gotten through a chapter or so of Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans. I could have read several chapters of one of the least dense books by von Balthasar that I've ever set eyes on--Two Sisters in the Spirit. I enjoy these things as much as I enjoy Billie Letts, but the perusal of these works is also more conducive to moving closer to where God wants me to be, or so it seems.

So, I'm not saying that I shouldn't enjoy things. Rather, I should pick among the very best things to enjoy. If I would have equal pleasure from Agatha Christie as from Walker Percy, but Percy would lead me to think more about God's kingdom, isn't it more proper to read Percy? If all other things are equal, shouldn't I always choose the path that lead more closely to God?

Now, sometimes this might well be Agatha Christie. Perhaps I am overloaded and need rest to become once again the person I need to be. I would think this would be the exception rather than the rule. More than this, I look at the lives of the great Saints who did not indulge a penchant for popular fiction (indeed St Teresa of Avila accused herself of foolish indulgence in the chivalrous Romances of her time). Surely these servants were also seeking God and experiencing His pleasures in their time.

So it leads me to wonder if our indulgence in these pass-times isn't sometimes also a way of avoiding deeper commitment. I know that it can sometimes be that way for me. The matter of how to spend my leisure time is one that I should spend a good deal more of my prayer time and meditation time regulating properly. If God is not at the center, even of those things that I do for pleasure and recreation, then they simply are not worthy of my time.

What do you all think?

Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Choosing A Church in Fear and Trembling

Okay, now that I'm over my regular quarterly meltdown, it's time to get back to business.

The first item of business--Parish Hopping.

I have fought and fought the idea of going to "my parish" church. The first time I was there I saw some really awful liturgical dance. The decoration is abyssmal, and the ambience is not what I best appreciate. That said, I went there today, really asking God what to do. I doubt my willingness to drive nearly twenty miles to cart Samuel to and from CCD. This church is so close that if I oversleep but still have 20 minutes I can get there in plenty of time.

So I asked God to speak to my heart, to tell me what to do. After all, He seems to have ordained this week as a week of blessings for me. I went to Mass this morning, with the idea that this should be my home. I wouldn't walk into my own home and start judging the decor etc. After all decor is secondary even if quite important.

What I noticed was that unlike the Church I really like, this church was truly and wonderfully diverse. I saw several families with mixed race children, a great many African Americans, hispanics and Phillippinos, as well as a white population of all ages. The other parish I go to is on the wealthier side of town, it tends to have a smaller diversity and the pastor, somewhat understandably, tends to cater with those who will give large sums of money to the Church.

At the time of the homily, an African American Deacon came forward and gave the best homily I've heard in a long time. He blessed me and blessed me again because I've been longing for some of the dynamism that is the basis of protestant preaching but with faithfulness to Catholic Doctrine. Here I have it all in one person. But more than that, he launched a direct assault at my most firmly protected entryway to God--the heart of stone I carry around with me. He sent legions and legions that direction, with only a momentary foray into the region of the intellect--another heavily guarded bastion, but one not quite so impervious to trying to listen to God. Oh, how I was blessed by the kinds of things he spelled out. How God spoke to me through him. I rejoice in the Holy Spirit within me who determined that I would try this Church yet once again and set aside my misgivings.

Finally, the Lord opened my eyes to my woundedness. The reason I do not care for this Church is that it reminds of a Church in Columbus that I called St. X's Nearly Catholic Church. A deacon was dismissed from the Church I describe because he dared to speak out against abortion from the ambo on the day dedicated to precisely that cause. And all he said regarding the matter was that we should not look down upon women who have had abortions, but we should regard them with accepting compassion and kindness, welcoming them back into the loving embrace of the Father.

I must place my trust in God that this place is not like that one. But I do believe that he spoke to me today. He had a great many things to say, but amongst them was this most important one: "You've got a very supple, very pliable head but a heart of stone. Get thee to a place where you can work on demolishing the battlements around your heart and leave your head alone--it will watch out after itself. You work is heart-work, not head-work. "

And finally, my wife seems more favorably inclined toward this church than toward the one I am accustomed to attending. If God can work on her through this Church all the more reason for going here.

It's amazing what God will say when we're willing to listen.

Pray for us as we launch into this

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:44 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

July 20, 2004

Caught in the Trap of Our Making

Described beautifully by Charles Williams:

from All Hallow's Eve

She was about a third of the way down when from far off the sound of the Name caught her. She could hardly there be said to have heard it; it was not so much a name or even a sound as an impulse. It had gone, the Indrawing cry, where only it could go, for the eternal City into which it was inevitably loosed absorbed it into its proper place. It could not affect the solid house of earth nor the millions of men and women toilfully attempting goodness; nor could it reach the paradisical places and thier inhabitants. It sounded only through the void streets, the apparent facades, the shadowy rooms of the world of the newly dead. There it found its way. Other wanderers, as invisible to Evelan as she to them, but of her kind, felt it--old men seeking lechery, young men seek drunkeness, women making and believing malice, all harborers in a lie. The debased Tetragrammaton drew them with its spiritual suction: the syllables passed out and swirled, and drawing thier captives returned to their speaker. Some went a little way and fell; some farther and failed; of them all only she, at once the latest, the weakest, the nearest, the worst, was wholly caught. She did not recognize captvity; she thought herself free. She began to walk more quickly, to run, to run fast. As she ran, she began to hear the sound. It was not friendly; it was not likeable; but it was allied. She felt towards it as Lester had felt towards the cry on the hill. The souls in that place know their own proper sounds and hurry to them.

Without question, Williams is difficult and you must read nuance and symbol to get everything. But here, in characteristic fashion, he spells it out to all who are paying attention. "My sheep know my voice and they hear me."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:16 PM | TrackBack

July 14, 2004

Rebuilding the Temple

Following on a quotation from Saint Augustine noted by TSO yesterday, I turned my reading back to the Old Testament last evening, once again to savor the richness of the salvation story. Throughout this testament God's love is made manifest in His gift of the prophets. So I'll share with you a little reflection that came from reading one of the prophets less often read.

Haggai 1:2-9

2: "Thus says the LORD of hosts: This people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD."
3: Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet,
4: "Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?
5: Now therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared.
6: You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes.
7: "Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared.
8: Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may appear in my glory, says the LORD.
9: You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while you busy yourselves each with his own house.

Sometimes I am awed and in deep wonder at what the Lord allowed to come down to us in the Bible. The words here seem so irrelevant to us today. Haggai is told to tell the people of the exile now returned home to rebuild the temple of the Lord. What relevance does the rebuilding of the temple have for any of us today? Why do we hear this word?

I think it's fairly evident that the temple spoken of here is two-fold. There is the exterior temle, which is a powerful sign of God's presence among the people and the interior temple, which is also a shambles. In rebuilding the exterior temple, God is setting in motion a work that will help to transform the interior temple. By using the labor of their bodies, the people of Israel work within their souls to realize how lost they have been.

Look at the words of the passage above. How much more relevant could they possibly be for today? Verse 4: "Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? " We build for ourselves (at least in this country) comfortable, perhaps too-comfortable lives--lives that are in many ways so comfortable that service to the Lord is an inconvenience--an arduous necessity that we do because we have to, but it really gets in the way of our rhythm. I know most St. Bloggers don't feel that way most of the time, but I know there are times when I would rather be doing anything o ther than Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer or any number of things I do to get in touch with God.

Look at verses 6-7 again: "You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared."

I toil at making more money at getting more things. I eat and eat and eat myself into oblivion. I live in a hypersexualized society that seeks to deaden the interior emptiness, the ruins inside, with progressively more perverse passtimes. Our modern fashions dress us in expensive clothes that reveal more and more skin--they don't keep us warm, but they keep us fashionable. And I never, never, never have enough of anything. As a society, we are morally bankrupt. We are attempting to gild the exterior of the ruined sepulchres that many have as souls. We seek to fill the emptiness inside with thngs from outside. We want to be full and propsperous and happy and we go about it in all the wrong ways.

If first I were to "Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may appear in my glory, says the LORD" (verse 8), I would be rightly ordering things. Jesus says later, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." When I build God's temple first, when I please Him, I am starting down the right path. Building His temple by actions in this world, helps to sets to right the ruins inside. Yes, prayer and fasting and attendance at Mass are all necessary and fruitful, but I am enjoined to real action in this world. I must go to the hills and bring the living wood of souls who have not known the joy of the gospel message. I am to build God a house of humanity that worships Him and rejoices in His glory. It is in this substantive work in the world that I set to right what has gone wrong. (Keep in mind, this is all in cooperation with God's grace, I don't mean to say that I do it.)

Finally, in verse 9, it is again summed up. "You have looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while you busy yourselves each with his own house."

Perhaps I have looked for much outside of what is right and proper for me. Perhaps I have not looked for much in the right direction. I've looked inside to myself, rather than inside to the enthronement of the King. All of this comes to nothing. I gather these shreds of self, and the first zephyr that strokes my cheeks sends it all to ash and dust.

And why is all of this true? Because I have neglected God's house, the interior castle in which, too often, my Gracious King sits alone on a cold throne in an unlit room, while I scurry about attending to the emptiness inside by filling it with things, thoughts, and experiences. All the while I neglect my service. I do not render my humble homage of love, my duty of keeping company with the Lord of the Universe.

What can I expect other than the person that I am?

So perhaps Haggai is sent to remind the people of Israel, and the people of today, what the priorities are. Perhaps his words come down to us because they are words for every people of every age. They are a literal prefigurement of Jesus's profound teaching that God must come first. The throneroom must be decorated, lit, and kept warm to welcome Him, and we are to be constant attendants, servants always to the King who reigns over our souls. We are to build a suitable house through the offering of ourselves and those we meet each day. Only in this way will the chllly emptiness we try so desperately to fill be vanquished. He is King if only I will make Him King. He will not force His rule upon me. And I may only make Him King, if I treat Him as such, if I build His house in the world and in my soul.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 13, 2004

Democracy and Catholic Teaching

Tom provides, perhaps inadvertantly, much food for thought for those of us subject to a certain scrupulosity. He states that in voting for a candidate we cooperate either formally or materially with ALL of that candidate's positions. In such a case, there is no candidate on Earth for whom I could possibly vote except for myself as there is no one with whom I would agree on all positions and that agreement would be materially on the substance of the question--is this moral or not; therefore, the conclusion seems to be that a person of properly formed conscience should absent him- or her-self from the voting booth. While this formal or material coooperation is proportionate to the whole spectrum of views a person may hold--the underlying theme is always--"you may not do evil that good may result." If I vote for someone who favors an explicitly immoral stand on one or more issues--say Gay Marriage, then I have committed an evil act.

Yes, the more I hear about the whole thing, the more confused, befuddled and uncertain I become about the morality of participating in such a system at all. It would seem to me that the Mennonites and Amish have it about right--being involved with the government in almost any way is an invitation to sin.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 12:16 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack

July 9, 2004

Hans Urs von Balthasar Responds to Mr. Akin

from Two Sisters in the Spirit
Hans Urs von Balthasar

In recent times [he's referring here to the time of original publication about the 1950's] no religious order has been granted such clear graces for mission as has the Carmelite Order. Such divine favors admonish us and counter recent trends in the world and the Church. In an era of churchly projects and campaigns, they call us back to the one thing necessary, to contemplation, without considering whether it will succeed or be effective. In an age of psychology, we are called back to anonymity, not merely to the anonymity of the veil but deeper into pure liturgical adoration of God for his own sake, where the worshippers seem to be indistinguishable from each other. In an age of emphasis on religious personality, we are called back into the life of a supernatural mission, a mission for which each personal ability and preference can at most serve as material to be used, a mission that demands a readineess to sacrifice one's entire nature.

The well of pure contemplation, which is the innermost source and mover of all life in the Church., must either be kept clean or be restored to purity.

What I read here is that contemplation is the fuel that lights the fire for mission. Not that every person should spend all day or ever much of the day in contemplation, but that contemplation is necessary, indeed the one thing necessary. In real contemplation, which may not be what Mr. Akin is addressing, contemplation leads directly to action. Perhaps the action is small and confined locally, but contemplation and service seem to go hand in hand.

I wonder if Mr. Akin is not addressing a very distorted, almost quietist notion of contemplation that has once again sneaked in through the back door. His particular reference to the "female" nature of contemplation seems to suggest a passivity (at least that's how I read his use of the word) that, if not Quietist , is certainly not truly partaking of the force of contemplation. Who could look at Thérèse's contemplation and find in it something to fault? How was this cloistered nun made co-patron of the Missions that Mr. Akin so ardently supports if she were merely passive before the face of the Lord? And yet it is undeniable that she was indeed profoundly contemplative.

So the contemplation Mr. Akin appears to address is what I would call "in-name-only" contemplation, and kind of ritualized involved self-inspection and passivity that never quite gets off the ground. It is a contemplation that is more a navel-staring than a God-adoring. This contemplation while not culpable is certainly not the great work of past ages that so inspired generations of Saints and Catholics.

Contemplation, meditation, and frequent feeding on the word of God are essentials to evangelization. In fact, if these are done in humility and proper spirit, they are among the most effective forms of evangelization that one can engage in. Far more people are attracted to the visible fruits of the properly lived Christian life than are attracted to words telling them what those fruits must be like. My vocation lived out in the presence of the Holy Spirit is a far more effective witness than my weak words. In that witness I say "Do as I do." In my other witness too often, I must say, "Do as I say, not as I do." And as anyone who has children will tell you, that is the very weakest form of teaching. People will more often follow your example than follow your words.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:34 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

We Don't Need no Contemplation. . .

I was distressed to read the excerpt from James Akin's article yesterday at Video Meliora. It starts with:

"The problem is that the renewal of holiness being conceived of is in feminine terms, placing a greater emphasis on meditative spirituality and 'contemplating the face of Christ.' This seems to me to be if not the opposite of what is needed, only a single component of what is needed."

But, it's just one of those cases when the attempt to make a very important point results in hyperbole that probably overstates what is really in mind. Surely Mr. Akin would not fly in the face of the Lord who said that "Mary has chosen the better part." And yet some of the remainder of the excerpt seems to say exactly this.

Instead of praying and turning inward, the Church needs to be praying and turning outward - evangelistically...It is true that the goal of evangelization and of ecclesiastical activity is union with God, but the primary modality of the average Christian life and of the Church's mandate in this world is evangelistic action rather than meditation or social projects.

This is not a zero-sum game. Turning inward is absolutely necessary. The Church must do so, but that inward turning must lead to an outward flowering and growth. The plant does not grow exclustively from the apical meristem--there is concomittant and perhaps even greater growth at the root-tip. If the roots are not entrenched, well-placed and healthy, the plant is sickly. Reaching outward before reaching inward is a tactic commonly used in certain evangelical circles and it leads to a spirituality that Jesus described in another parable--the grass sown shallowly. The roots dry up and the grass blows away.

I have not read all of Mr. Akin's comments as I do not get the publicaiton in which the article occurs. But one need not abandon nor even etiolate the inward looking contemplative dimension of life in order to serve. But one must pray in all humility that his or her mission is made clear.

Evangelization without true knowledge of the news you are spreading which comes from study of the scripture, but more from talking to the author of Scripture is a very bad notion indeed. (Moreover, I have much to say about Mr. Akin's distorted and highly stereotypical notions of fatherhood as well--but I won't go there because I suspect the point was not to talk about all fathers at all times, but to make a generalization with which I can in large part agree. However, I am inclined to wonder what he thinks all the pslams about "Our God is quick to save and abundant in love" are all about. )

Read the excerpt and if possible, read the article. I'm sure that I have overstated Mr. Akin's case here, and so I have no real basis for strong disagreement, just caution. The growth of a crown of a tree that is not accompanied by the growth of the root, leads only to the ultimate collapse of the tree.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 8, 2004

The Holy Family--An Ordinary Life--The Ordinariness of the Saints

More insight from St. Thérèse via H.U. Von Balthasar.

from Two Sisters in the Spirit Hans Urs von Balthasar

[here von Balthasar quotes from Manuscript B of Story of a Soul]

What does me a lot of good when I think of the Holy Family is to imagine a life that was very ordinary. It wasn't everything they have told us or imagined. Such as the story that the Child Jesus modeled a little bird out of clay and breathed upon it, so that it came to life . . . . In that case, why were they not trasnported to Egypt by a miracle--that would at least have been useful and not at all diffiuclt for the good God. They would have been there in the twinkling of an eye. But no, that did not happen. Their life was the same as ours.

Here the truth of the Incarnation is in question and therefore the truth of our whole life, which is only true when it is lived through to its utmost depths as it comes to us from its source, the Savior. Men always believe that they are supposed to attribute to the Lord every imaginable, superhuman "perfection"; and the fact that they do so may even be a token of their admiration. Yet ultimately this perfection lies in that very humility and love by which he became like us in everything except sin. For he was obedient unto death, learning this obedience through suffering

And what pious nonsense has been talked in the name of Mariology! Rather as if she herself were wielding the thong of cords at the purification of the temple, Thérèse ruthlessly kicks aside all the heaps of pious, well-meant untruths that have been wished upon the Mother of the Lord and in the end leave souls unnourished and prevent them from drink the living waters.

All the sermons on Mary I have heard have left me cold. . . . How I should love to have been a priest in order to preach about the Mother of God! I believe that just one sermon would have been enough for me to show what I mean. I would begin by showing how the life of the Mother of God is, in fact, very little known. One should not relate improbable stories about her, such as, for instance, that she went to the temple when she was a child of only three years in order to offer herself to God because she was so full of burning love and extraordinary fervor. Perhaps she went there quite simply out of obedience to her parents. . . . If a sermon on Mary is to bear tfruit, it must give a genuine picture of her life, as we are allowed to glimpse it in the Gospels, instead of something imagined. And it is surely easy to sense that her life in Nazareth and later must have been perfectly ordinary. "He was subject to them." How simple that is!

Too often, it seems, we may do the same with Saint's lives. We look upon their extraordinary accomplishments and then embellish them so that they become not so much role models as distant figures of impossible faith and piety. We neglect their ordinariness. We admire them, but we can come up with an extraordinary plexus of reasons why we couldn't possible emulate them in any way. How often have I heard, "Oh, I couldn't be like St. Thérèse, she was so holy from such a young age." So who is asking you to be like St. Thérèse? We already have one of those, and there are those in the world who would maintain that one is more than enough. (I used to be among them--no longer).

God gives us Saints not so much for slavish imitation as for encouragement. No one is called to be another St. Francis, St. Benedict, St. Anything. Each person is called to be a unique Saint, just as they are a unique person. The canonized Saints give us a glimpse of how others have achieved this. How they have achieved heroic sanctity despite a less than heroic start; how they have come to love God when they started by dispising Him; how their own persons and personalities are used by God to erect new Saints and new heroes, new examples that tell us--"You can do it."

After all, what is remarkable about St. Thérèse? She grew up a bourgeoise French lady, a potential snob, in a jansenist French society, overwhelmed with the exceeding wrath of God. She was treacly sweet and had a hellish temper at the same time and was stubborn as an ox. Nothing here particularly remarkable. And in that very fact lies our best hope. Just as there is nothing particularly remarkable about any of us, so too God can use that milquetoast or wanness and convert it into heroic virtue.

When I reflect on St. Thérèse this is what I most often think about--her humble beginnings did not stand in the way of her storming heaven, asking for, and receiving the gift of holiness, the gift of love. So what stops me? And when I think like this I realize that there is very, very little in the way--only myself. And if Jesus is willing, I can be healed.

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July 7, 2004

On the Mission of St. Thérèse

from Two Sisters in the Spirit
Hans Urs von Balthasar

Thérèse's mission, at the very first glance, displays the marks of a clearly defined and quite exceptional charcter. This is much less due to the personal drama of the little saint than to the sacred form into which the trickling grains of petty anecdotes are compressed, into a hard, unbreakable block, by a firm, invisible hand. It is contrary to all expectation that the simple, modest story of this little girl should eventaully culminate, as it irretutably does, in the enunciation of theological truths. Originally she herself never dreamed that she might be chosen to bear some fundamental message to the Church. She became aware of it only gradually; in fact, it did not occur to her until her task was almost completed, after she had already lived out her teaching and was writing the last chapters of her book. Suddenly, as she saw it all laid out before her, she recognized its strangeness, that in her obedience she had unwillingly conceived something beyond her own personlaity. And now that she saw it, she also understood it and seized it with a kind of violence.

Some, like St. Paul, know clearly from the time of being touched by God what their mission to the world is all about. They cannot conceive of the repercussions of successfully fulfilling the mission--how the world will be transformed and turned inside out--nevertheless they know it and fulfill it. Others, and I take it von Balthasar would propose Thérèse as an example of this, simply live their mission. It is perhaps possible that such a saint might not grasp their mission even toward the end. Von Balthasar argues that Thérèse did recognize her own; however, it stands to reason that it would be possible to fulfill God's will entirely and not see the contours and patterns of one's own calling. The thought of this fascinates me and intrigues me.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:24 AM | TrackBack

On the Mission of the Saints

Von Balthasar starts his work on St. Thérèse and Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity with a brief discussion of the role of theologians in looking at the lives of Saints and with an analysis of what it means to be a saint. The excerpt that follows is from the introduction.

from Two Sisters in the Spirit
Hans Urs von Balthasar

In a saint, it is primarily the missiion that is perfect; only secondarily is he himself described as perfect, insofar as he integrates the whole of his gifts and strength into fulfilling his mission. Many have grasped their mission joyfully, taking it, so to speak, on the wing; others have undertaken it hesitatingly, almost reluctantly--but the mission proved too strong and compelled them to serve it. Some, at the cost of their flesh and blood, have allowed its complex demands to lay hold on every single fiber of their persons; others have been content to accept the essential demands, levaing many corners of their selves untouched and empty. For the kingdom of the saints knows many degrees, from the lowest limit, where the integrity of the mission is just preserved, to the highest level of all, where the mission and the person become indistinguishable. The Mother of God alone has reached that level.

I find interesting the notion of lackluster Saints--saints who can be prodded into action, but just barely enough to fulfill their destiny as saints. Even these low level saints (let's call them the "Red Dwarfs" of the saint's world --after those suns that just barely keep lit--far exceed the holiness and perfection of those of us who never even think about what our mission might be, let alone consider fulfilling it.

Anyway, von Balthasar, as usual has given me something to consider quite carefully over the next several hours or days. What is my mission? Who am I in God and how I am I called to share and express that with the Church? In short, how do I become the Saint God wishes for me to be? Not the general contours of that proposal, which are taught by the Church at all times, and for which I direct your attention to Disputations, but rather, what are the specific things, talents, ideas, personality traits, yearnings that God wishes for me to share? And how do I go about sharing these? Questions for all who aspire to love God perfectly and to find His way for them in life.

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June 30, 2004

What Does Romans Say to Do?

from Romans 14:

1: As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions.
2: One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only vegetables.
3: Let not him who eats despise him who abstains, and let not him who abstains pass judgment on him who eats; for God has welcomed him.
4: Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Master is able to make him stand.

Now, this would seem the perfect opportunity to jump back on my soapbox of a few days ago and talk about judging, particularly with verses later in the letter; but, I promise you, that is NOT the point of this entry--at least not in essence. While it will be about judging, I will not contend as I did the other day.

One of the problems we often face in Catholicism is strong difference of opinion on matters where there is liberty. For example, I have yet to see a liturgical dance in North America that I thought anything less than abhorrent and distracting. However, except for provisions in liturgical documents that I do not claim to know or understand, I see nothing wrong in theory with liturgical dance. I recall at the canonization of Juan Diego half of St. Blogs went apoplectic over the fact that the Holy Father allowed liturgical dance as part of the celebration. I had no opinion on the matter whatsoever, assuming that the Holy Father knew what he was doing and why. So here is a place where we can disagree amicably over our preferences and interpret the documents to come to a correct understanding of Church teaching on the matter.

On the discipline of an unmarried Priesthood--I am largely indifferent to the matter. I know of married Catholic Priests (usually converts whose faculties have been recognized, restored, or whatever the term one uses for this procedure).They have made perfectly fine priests. Just as with deacons, the wives must consent to this and understand the nature of the obligation--but many wives live similarly stressed lives for different or lesser rewards. I understand that it is a long and valued tradition of the church and that there are certain advantages. But if the Pope were to declare tomorrow that married men would be eligible for the priesthood, I wouldn't bat an eyelash. And in fact, I would be praying hard to hear what the Lord had to say to me in the matter. As that is not the present discipline, I choose not to worry about it.

The issue of female priests has been settled for me. I do not fully understand all the arguments for the fact that it may not be so settled as I think--they are subtle and turn on points of canon law and other issues I do not understand, and frankly don't much care about. But, at the same time, I don't look down upon those who think there should be female priests. I think they may be incorrect, but often they have their hearts in the right place--so it seems to me.

As brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important to pick our battles very carefully. We should not be judging one another on doubtful issues. For example, everyone knows by now that I make a very close approach to pacifism, if I am not actually a pacifist. A verse a bit later in the chapter addresses this directly.

22: The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God; happy is he who has no reason to judge himself for what he approves.
23: But he who has doubts is condemned, if he eats, because he does not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.

In other words, even if I acknowledge the teaching of the Church on just war, were I to participate in any action of a war, I would be condemned by my own conscience if not by the Church. Thus, conscience may add to what the Church teaches, but it is never free to take from it. That is, the conscience must be conformable to the teaching of the church, not vice versa.

I have spent much time thinking about how one should respond to "Catholics for Kerry" and other such enterprises. My conclusion is that outright error should be corrected, healthy debate should be pursued to determine the truth of the matter of what the Church teaches, but that no Catholic has the right, duty, or responsibility to accuse another of being less than Catholic for his or her stand on this issue. I personally find some amazing flaws in the reasoning used to support Mr. Kerry's candidacy, some of which may be culpable, but most of which are simply bad reasoning, or reasoning based on false premises. I will not question Bishops who refuse to extend communion to Mr. Kerry--this is an extremely important part of the teaching mission of the Church. By refusing communion they say not that they are ousting Mr. Kerry, but that he has chosen to remove himself from our communion. So too with others of different communions who are not allowed to partake of our Eucharist. They may not have chosen this individually, but it has been chosen for them historically.

The meaning of Romans for me is that I need to think very carefully about how I look at others' positions on issues. For example, a "Catholic for Choice" may be a very good Catholic in all other dimensions, but has a woefully warped and misinformed conscience on this one matter. Too often, we are ready to deep-six such people as beyond the reach of redemption. This passage from Romans is a slap in the face to those who would do so. "How dare you judge between servant and master." The person is in error, but they have the ability to be moved to the correct view and should never be treated as "sub-Catholic." Neither should their authentically anti-Catholic teaching be allowed to stand unassailed. Our duty is to welcome the misinformed and to correct all his or her error. That may be one of the hardest things in the world.

And strangely, it is so much more difficult with matters that are significantly less serious. Think about how riled some people become when someone dares to suggest that there might be a married priesthood and it might help resolve the vocation crisis. (I'm exceedingly dubious that it would have had any effect whatsoever on the scandals of recent years.) There are good reasons for opposing a married priesthood and those cases may be made. But there is nothing in Catholic Doctrine that requires an unmarried priesthood. So too with a great many issues. If we simply allow people the freedom they have been given under God to make these choices in dubious matters and come together in a more certain unity on the issues that really count--for example abortion and euthanasia (about which there can be no doubt as the Church teaching is abundantly clear and straightforward). Or more importantly in the truth of Jesus Christ, crucified, died, buried, descended to Hell, resurrected, and Ascended to heaven as our Lord, Savior, and the center of our lives. These are the issues that matter. We must correct all error along the way, but the error we correct should be real error and not merely difference of opinion.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 29, 2004

The Psalms of Revenge

Contra T.S.O.'s sly probe into my psyche I am not succumbing to ecumenicalism (actually I probably succumbed years ago) but rather to a penchant for reading books about spirituality based on the Bible written by persons named Wilfrid. And so, the next offering in this Wilfridfest (or is it the first--I know it isn't the first by this Wilfrid--oh well, give it a rest.)

from Nourished by the Word: Reading the Bible Contemplatively
Wilfrid Stinissen, O.Carm

When we let the "I" of the Psalms be widened to a universal "I," to the "I" of all human beings, we'll be less shocked over the psalms of revenge. When we learn to put ourselves in the situation of others, and also in the situation of those who are tortured and humiliated in their human worth, and when we talk to God on their behalf, it is not so strange that we protest vehemently. There is in every person a sound feeling for justice, an insight about the need to punish evil ones who have destroyed order in order that order be restored. The teachings about purgatory and hell are the Christian confirmation of this inherent insight, and show that the protest against injustice and opppression exists within God himself.

If I prayed for revenge for the violence and injustice to which I personally have been exposed, my prayer perhaps would not be entirely blameless. Jesus teaches us that we should not hit back when someone hits us. But he has not forbidden us to defend fellow human beings who have experienced violence; on the contrary, he wants us to be prepared to give our life for theirs. Since the "I" in the Pslams is not only mine personally but humanity's both my prayer and my prayer for retribution are acts of love: I protest against the evil to which my brother or sister have been subjected and desire that justice will be done. . . .

The universal range of the Psalms makes it also an ecumenical prayer book. No person can remain unmoved by it. In fact, it is used in all Christian denominations, and Christendom had it in common with Israel. Nothing points so plainly and so concretely to our Old Testament roots and our ties with our elder brothers and sisters from Israel than just this, that we pray to God with the same words. All Christians form, together with the Jews, one great choir whose common song in and of itself is, whether one is aware of it or not, a prayer for unity.

I can't comment on the accuracy of this passage, but it certainly "feels" right with respect to the tenor of these difficult psalms. Perhaps a new approach in praying them.

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June 27, 2004

Contour Plowing on the Great Plains

"He who sets hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom. . ."

This line stuck with me all through the afternoon. I heard it in Mass and I kept hearing it. And I realized that one of my great accomplishments in life has been to do contour plowing on perfectly flat surfaces. When I look back over my Christian life it is a history of setting hand to plow and looking back. Don't know if I'm waiting for an audience, encouraging others ito join me in the thrilling life of plowing the fields, or just thinking--"It's awful hot out here, and back at the clubhouse I could have a tall iced-tea with mint, or lemonade--you know there's really no need to subject yourself to all this fuss and sun. After all there's others to do the work, and they're far better at it."

Each person probably has different excuses--"I am not worthy." "I am afraid." "I'm bored." "I don't want a menial job." You name it, there are probably a billion reason not to set hand to plow and really only one to start--it is our call in life as Christians. In order to be Christians, in order to serve God, we must do so without reservations.

I think Jesus was well aware that there were likely to be many false starts and many abortive attempts. And so He warned us--don't try this at home with Professional supervision. That is to say, we'll get no where on our own and He knew that. So, with all good will, we need to try once again, and let prayer pull the plow with our eyes firmly set on Him. This done, all other things will fall into their rightful place.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:18 PM | TrackBack

June 24, 2004

A Reflection from St. Robert Bellarmine

From one of the mailing lists I am blessed to participate in.

from "The Art of Dying Well"
St. Robert Bellarmine

To live well, thus to die well, one has to pray well. "Ask and it shall be
given to you. Everyone who asks receive," on condition that one prays well.
"You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss."

Those who pray well for the gift of living well certainly will receive it,
and those who ask well to die well will without doubt receive it. Let us
learn to pray well that we may live well and die well.

We must pray with faith: "Let us ask Him with faith." This faith should not
be understood that we believe with certitude that God will do what we ask.
This would be false faith and we shall receive nothing at all. Faith is
believing that God is able, knows and ready to do what we ask, if it is
fitting for Him to give and expedient for us to receive what we ask for.

Thus Christ asked the blind man: "Do you believe that I can do this to
you?" David prayed with faith when he said: "Who knows whether the Lord may
not give him to me." And God did not give him. Certainly Paul prayed with
faith when he said: "Remove the thorn from my flesh." And he did not get
it.

We must pray with hope and trust. Though through faith we should not hold
with certitude that God will grant us what we ask for, through hope and
trust we cling to the certitude that God might just really grant us what we
ask for; "Let us draw near the throne of His grace." Trust is born of
perfect faith: "Whoever says to this mountain, arise...and does not waver
in his heart, but believes that whatever he says will be done, it shall be
done for him."

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June 23, 2004

The Beam in Your Own Eye

I read the comments of those who defend judgment, and I realize that perhaps I did not include enough of what was said to continue the point--or perhaps we overlook these statements out of convenience.

Here it is then:

Matthew 7:1-5 NAB

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Stop judging, that you may not be judged.
For as you judge, so will you be judged,
and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.
Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye,
but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?
How can you say to your brother,
�Let me remove that splinter from your eye,'
while the wooden beam is in your eye?
You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first;
then you will see clearly
to remove the splinter from your brother's eye."

It seems to me that before I might say anything about the sin of another, I should mind my own sin. That is to say, my own is enough and more than enough to keep me occupied, what am I doing worrying about the sins or lack thereof of others.

It strikes me that those who defend the duty and necessity of judging the sin of others must address this great admonition. How can we begin to judge the state of others when there is so much remaining in our own lives that is so sinful.

I think one of the reasons Jesus calls us to tend to the beam in our own eye is that when one turns ones head with a beam protruding from one's eye, one is likely to smack one's brother upside the head with that beam to the detriment of both parties.

When one undergoes the process of purification, one is given a new perspective on all of these things--perhaps a discernment that is supernatural. One is also given the gifts and the grace to handle the sin of others in ways that do not demean and denigrate.

By this I mean to say that I know that I am not in the position to begin judging others as regards to sin. I cannot make that judgment for others, but I would suggest that the need to make these judgments might suggest something about our suitability for doing so.

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June 22, 2004

The Piano Duet--A Metaphor

I don't normally reprint things like this; however, this one touched me on a great many levels. Samuel recently had his first piano recital at which he played "Twinkle, Twinkle little Star." At his first dance recital, we witnessed a little girl who in the midst of all the dancing succumbed to stage fright and was utterly unable to move on the stage. (Whereas Samuel himself started off in what I consider to be one of the most terrifying situations possible for the very young. He started the routine for his group utterly alone onstage for about twenty seconds. And he had to end it by telling the little girls in the back row what to do. (Everyone was EXTREMELY amused.) So I also hope this touches you all.

Wishing to encourage her young son's progress on the piano, a mother took the boy to a Paderewski concert. After they were seated, the mother spotted an old friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her.

Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked "NO ADMITTANCE."

When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother
returned to her seat and discovered that the child was missing. Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage. In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." At that moment, the great piano maestro made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy's ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing." Then leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child, and he added a running obbligato. Together, the old master and the young novice transformed what could have been a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience. The audience was so mesmerized that they couldn't recall what else the great maestro played. Only the classic "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

Perhaps that's the way it is with God. What we can accomplish on our own is
hardly noteworthy. We try our best, but the results aren't always gracefully flowing music. However, with the hand of the Master, our life's work can truly be beautiful.

Next time you set out to accomplish great feats, listen carefully. You may hear the voice of the Master, whispering in your ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing." May you feel His arms around you and know that His hands are there helping you turn your feeble attempts into true masterpieces. Remember, God doesn't seem to call the equipped; rather, He equips the 'called.' Life is more accurately measured by the lives you touch than by the things you acquire.

So touch someone, and pass this little message along. May God bless You and be with you always. ...and may each of you who reads this story more clearly see the "hand of Master" weaving each of His chosen hues into the tapestry of your lives.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

"Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged. . ."

The man who slanders his neighbor in secret
I will bring to silence.
The man of proud looks and haughty heart
I will never endure. (Psalm 101-from Morning Prayer)

This may be one of the most difficult passages in the entire gospel. As thinking, rational beings, we are built to judge, discern, test, and plumb the depths. Part of the burden of rationality is the necessity of judgment. If this is so, why would Jesus tell us not to use part of our in-born faculty.

I think Jesus has no intention of telling us never to judge anything. Rather, we are never to judge anyone. How does this work in practice? Let me tell you how I try to instruct Samuel in words what this means, and what I am doing in actions to actually try to live it. When Samuel comes home from school and reports on a classmate whom we shall call Tamar, he often says something like, "Tamar was bad today." My response to him is that God created Tamar. Nothing God creates is bad. (I know, there's a loophole there, but I'm talking to a six-year old.) He usually responds "But she made the teacher cry." Or some other report of Tamar's misbehavior. Always I respond, "Then Tamar did some bad things, but that does not make her a bad person." Usually I'll go on to say something about Tamar's family life that tends to precipitate these kinds of problems in a classroom, "Tamar is a very unhappy girl and she chooses to do bad things because they help her feel better when she gets attention. What do you think we should do about that." After the usual panoply of answers which includes, "Call Spiderman," "Mail her to her grandmother so she won't bother the class any more," and others, he usually comes around to, "Maybe we could pray for her and Jesus will make her be better." Theologically perhaps a little totalitarian, but basically on target. So we pray for Tamar.

So what has this to do with operations in the real world? Every person carries within them (or is, depending upon how you view these things) an image of Christ which is indelible no matter how much muck is heaped upon it. No person is intrinsically evil; although I will readily grant that there are some who are so seduced by evil that finding the image of Christ is nearly impossible. However, we start with this premise. From it, we must derive that all persons are capable of redemption. These two together suggest that when we must judge, we should direct our judgment not at the person, "You moron!" (Or worse things as we are driving to work), but at the action. This is incredibly important for me as we are raising a young, impressionable child. I am not allowed to give vent to these judgments (Praise God!), because no matter what my words say, my actions tell Samuel the direction he will take in life. If I spend all of my time judging others in this way, he will do so as well. So, what I do instead (because I still must give vent to my frustration) is that I say, "That person made a very bad choice." Samuel will often ask why and I will explain that in turning left out of the right hand lane across four lanes of traffic endangers not only the person in the car but all of the people who are coming at him. When Samuel himself does not meet my expectations, I say that I am disappointed in how he has chosen to conduct himself. If he says, "I was bad," I always correct that to say, "You did something that was wrong. YOU are not bad, no person is bad."

I know this may seem like an overemphasis on a very minor point, but this minor point is what gives nearly every Christian fits. We spend much of our time using labels that are generally pejoratives. In St. Blogs the term "liberal" in most circles is used as synonymous with mindless, blathering idiot. Jesus informs us that when we pass that judgment we look in a mirror. Before I use ANY label, I would be wise to consider what I am saying precisely. What exactly about liberal ideology is the problem that I want to address, rather than slandering a whole swath of people who hold a great diversity and variety of opinions? A label is a shorthand judgment, either in the negative or in the positive. Many in St. Blogs regard being "conservative" or "Republican" as a patently good thing. I find much in both ideologies as they are currently espoused that is repugnant to the sensibilities of one who holds to the truth of the Catholic faith. So too with "liberal" and "democrat." Now, some of these are labels we give ourselves, for various reasons, and so, in a sense, judge ourselves prior to anyone needing to speak to us. To say that I am a republican will say to someone who holds the opposite ideology, "moron, mental midget, oppressor of the poor." None of these are necessarily true, although they might all be. But why tempt others into judgment?

Eschewing labels is one of the first steps toward abandoning judgment. Further, we can refuse to say anything whatsoever about a person other than the revealed truth that he or she is the image of God and the child of God by adoption, and in general a fallen sinner. We can refuse to identify "moments of sin," instead commenting upon the objective immorality of a given act. I believe Jesus would have no problem with us identifying actions, thoughts, and words as wrong. However, to so identify a person reflects more upon us than upon the person.

People always point out to me that Jesus himself called the Pharisees "whitewashed sepulchers," "hypocrites," etc. To which, I would simply respond, "He who is without sin, may cast all the stones." We stand in no such position, and we are not permitted to follow His lead. We are constrained by the laws He articulated. "Judge not, lest ye be judged," is an inviolable spiritual law. It is like one of the laws of physics. It is a fundamental psychological and spiritual truth: what we tend to judge in others is what we see and hate in ourselves. The judgment may not be unto perdition, and it may not come from God, it may be the pronouncement of our own consciences upon ourselves.

So I encourage everyone to abandon the path of judgment, no matter how difficult it may be. Be aware of idle words for which you will be called to account, and allow your words to and about others to be only words of encouragement, love, and hope. This is one way for us to begin to live the Christian Life, Light, and Hope. Light and Hope can only come from a source that gives them freely, not from one whose gift depends upon meeting certain conditions. In other words, by abandoning our need to judge people we become more Christlike, not less so. In loving without condition, question, or cavil, we serve Him who is the Servant and Master of all.

Judge not, lest ye be judged. To use an old slogan: "It's not just a good idea, it's the law."

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June 18, 2004

Oswald Chambers

One of the great treasures of the Church that is often lacking in the circles of protestantism that have wandered far from liturgy is the richness of liturgical prayer. And honestly, sometimes it is hard to think of things to say and pray about on my own, so I rely heavily upon Liturgy of the Hours to open up the floodgates of prayer, both petition and meditation.

However, the Protestant churches have given rise to numerous devotiionals that are nearly always better than their Catholic counterparts. My thought is that lacking liturgical prayer, God raises up for them certain people who offer the food for meditation and prayer that Catholics have as a natural part of the faith. Catholics, not needing this, aren't particularly good at supplementing the richness of the treasury of faith.

So with Oswald Chambers, about whom I know little, but from whom I have gained much refreshment and much food for thought.

If you would like daily access to the devotional, you can bookmark this site.

I found yesterday's mediation following on the writing of St. Cyprian below most thought-provoking. Perhaps it is meant for me alone, but the question of unity among Christians and what I particularly am doing to foster, nurture, and encourage it has been on my mind for the past couple of days (since an interesting ecumenical discussion of the Eucharist over at Disputations). Particularly, I must consider the delicate issue of how to foster unity without conceding error or becoming indifferent to the profound divisions amongst us. Nevertheless, it is crucial to enter into respectful dialogue and to share the riches of the Catholic Faith, while participating in the varied richness of Protestantism.

from My Utmost for His HIghest
Oswald Chambers

Jesus� instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, "Don�t." The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized. The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.

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June 16, 2004

Meditation and Its End

from Prayer Life in Carmel
Fr. Redemptus Valabek, O. Carm

Rumination on the words of God in the medieval sense, translating them into concrete action, is the final goal of meditation. The author warns that meditation of the Word without its observance will not save a man. "It is not enough to read the Scriptures and commandments of the Lord; the fruit of (resultant) action must be manifested." A mechanical type of meditation that may even commend to memory the whole of the Bible, does not justify a man. Authentic prayer must be animated by operative charity; mediation with no concrete results to show for it is worth nothing.

What might be the fruits of meditation--the concrete results that are so essential to its foundation? I do not think we need to consider this in terms necessarily of "action" as we might consider it, but in terms of "actions" as St. Thérèse might do so. A smile at someone you don't particularly care for, a helping hand where it might be easier not to lend assistance, a kind word, or a private word of warning where something is not going as it should. All of these things can be the fruit that should come from meditation. If meditation is more than memorization and an exercise of the imaginative faculties, it will always result in the desire, perhaps even the need, to do good for others.

You cannot dig very deeply into the word of God before it starts digging into you. It removes years of built up protections and exposes the heart for renewal. And a heart renewed is a heart rejoicing in the freedom to love in substantial ways. All prayer is about loving the Lord and entering into conversation with Him. One sign of the substantial effects of prayer is that one begins to engage in conversation with Christ in other people--people who show no signs whatsoever of knowing Christ reveal Him to those who are immersed in His word.

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June 15, 2004

My Wants and Needs

You may be aware that I write a scriptural meditation that is posted elsewhere Thursday of each week. As I was composing this week's meditation, a thought occurred to me. The Gospel Reading for Thursday had a particularly provocative lilne, "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." It followed in thought--He knows what I need better than I do myself.

I am confused between my wants and my needs. I want to be in union with God's will. Is that presently a need? It seems desirable in this world to be so, and it will ultimately be necessary to enjoy the beatific vision. But do I need that, or is that merely a desire on my part? Do I need the food I eat, or do I merely want it? I'm not speaking about sustaining life, but about eating as Americans tend to eat here and now--enough and more.

I do not know what I need, except ultimately I need God. I think that is called a remote need or perhaps a final need, if I understand the terminology. But what are the proximate needs or means to that end? I don't know.

And this not knowing is in come way culpable. I have not looked hard enough, nor have I spent enough time discerning what it is I need. I do not know the interior landscape so well as I thought I did, and perhaps I need some time wandering this howling waste to make out the contours--what gives life to desires, what calls me home to God. I do not know.

But what I do know about the matter is a great consolation. My Father knows what I need and if I humble myself before Him (and perhaps even if I don't) He will provide it. However, if I do humble myself before Him, I will begin to recognize what I need, embrace it, and live the life of joy that comes from true service and true alignment with God's will. So long as I continue in my prideful way, I will fail to see anything and continue not to be able to separate my needs from my wants--and this way is purgatory here and hereafter. Directionless, waffling, pushed by every minor breeze. And as a son of the Living God, I do not need to accept that fate. Instead I can claim my inheritance by relying upon His grace.

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Debatable, But Interesting, Points

Father Redemptus Valabek raises some interesting points about the Liturgy of the Hours, about which I have some questions.

from Prayer Life in Carmel
Fr. Redemptus Valabek, O. Carm.

[quoting from St. Gregory the Great]

"When the sound of psalmody is guided by the heart's direction, the way for the Almighty to enter man's heart is being prepared, so that He is able to pour into the attentive mind either the mysteries of prophecy or the grace of compunction. Thus it is written: 'The sacrifice of praise will honor me, to him who walks on the right path, I shall show the salvation of God' (Ps 49:23). What 'salvation' means in Latin, 'Jesus' means in Hebrew. Therefore in the sacrifice of praise there is the path of revelation in Jesus because, since compunciton is roused by means of pslamody, the path to our heart is laid out for us, by which we are able to reach Jesus. He says this about his own Father. 'I too will love him and will manifest myself to him' (jn 14:21). And so it is written: 'Sing to God, make music to his name, build a road for the Rider of clouds; his name is Lord' (Ps 67:5). He who rides the clouds is He who by his resurrection trod death underfoot. When we sing we strew a path so that he may come into our hearts and inflame us with the grace of his love."

The interiorization of pslamody is an obligation for the follower of Jesus and follows on the prophetic dimension of his charism.

Lay aside for the moment the unclear antecedent in Fr. Valabek's gloss on the passage from St. Gregory, is the essence of what he has to say true?

Now, I assume the prophetic dimension of his charism, refers to Jesus' charism and not to the follower of Jesus. Does this necessitate the "interiorization of the psalmody?" And what precisely might be meant by "interiorization of the psalmody."

Perhaps Fr. Valabek wishes to suggest that is is a peculiarly Carmelite obligation to interiorize the psalmody. However, the passage says unambiguously, "for the follower of Jesus." This seems to suggest an obligation that transcends that of Carmelites.

Another question must be asked. Is Father Redemptus making this claim, or does his gloss suggest that St. Gregory makes this claim on the attention of Christians? I read in St. Gregory suggestions of the efficacy of this pursuit of prayer, but not overtones of its obligation for all.

Finally, in medieval times (and I may have my history of the rosary confused) the rosary arose in part as a substiture for the psalmody for "those who lacked letters." 150 Hail Mary's stood in place of the 150 psalms. If this interiorization of psalmody is really an obligation, is its spirit captured in the praying of the Rosary?

Just thought I'd ask in case others had some thoughts on the matter. I don't know quite what to think at the moment, because while I do pray the hours, I must wonder whether the psalmody is "interiorized."

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June 14, 2004

Carmelite Spirituality and Its Application to Wider Christian Life

The following is an excerpt from De Institutione Monachorum a text that attempted to trace the lineage of the Carmelite family to monks living on Mount Carmel from the time of the Prophet Elijah.

from Prayer Life in Carmel
Fr. Redemptus Valebek O. Carm

"There is a two-fold end. One end we are able to attain by our own efforts by the practice of virtue and with the aid of divine grace. It consists in offering God a holy heart free from all actual stain of sin. This end is reached when one is perfect and in Carith, that is, hidden in that charity about which the Wise man wrote: 'Charity covers a multitude of sins' (Prov 10:12). And because the Lord wished that Elias reach this end he told him: 'Hide in the torrent of Carith.' The other end of this life is bestowed on us as a pure gift of God. It consists in tasting somewhat in our hearts and experiencing in our minds, not only after death, but already in this life, the power of God's presence and the pleasantness of heavenly glory. This is to drink of the torrent of God's delights, and this is what was promised Elias by God with the words: "'There you will drink of the torrent.'

I quote this because, while it is from a classic of Carmelite spirituality, the words of this particular passage are universal. They don't speak so much as a method or a way of getting to the two ends as to what the ends are in themselves.

Simply spoken the author here says that there are two endplaces in prayer. We get to the one through our efforts aided by grace. But to the other we are summoned by the word of the King of Heaven. There is no way to merit this or to earn it through our works. It is grace freely given and not necessarily reserved for the few, though in actuality few actually attain it.

But I think the comparison here is useful. God's love is a torrent. Within its raging powerful stream, nothing that we have set up against Him can stand. Nothing of human construction could possibly endure the torrent of His love. To be exposed to it unprepared would be to be ripped apart.

This is one of the reasons careful preparation is so necessary. This is one of the reasons why all of the great saints seem to recommend some way of stripping oneself of all of the fragile human constructs of self. If, ultimately, we are to place ourselves in the way of God's love, it had better be in a streamlined way, with as little obstruction as possible. Even when we approach in this simplified way, the transition is tremendously difficult and painful to our human senses.

St. John of the Cross recommends detachment from all things as prepatory to this state. Others may recommend other ways of approach, although they all seem to amount to the same thing--become simple and single-hearted. We have powerful but simple means of accomplishing this task--Prayer, the sacraments, and surrendering our wills to His own.

A torrent will wash away and purify everything that cannot stand in His presence. It will prepare a person for living God's will in a way that will save souls, not only the soul of the person involved, but the souls of all those who can be touched in any way by the person. This is our great end--to participate actiively in the salvation of souls and to live in the torrent of God's love. These ends are intimately linked. We cannot live in the torrent of His love if we do not love those who are around us--and what is the point of love if it is not the desire to see each soul live eternal life in God?

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June 7, 2004

More on Garrigou-Lagrange

I initially started reading this book because a very kind correspondent gave it to me. (Yes, she has much to answer for.) Seeing Garrigou-Lagrange on the cover, I figured I get through about half-a-dozen pages, consider it a valiant attempt and let it slide. Surprisingly in the course of that vacation alone, I got through something on the order of one-hundred pages.

Then it went into haitus, as heavy books are wont to do on my booklist. Interest revived when a Dominican who runs one of the better and more frequented blogs out there, but who shall otherwise remain nameless, suggested that the teachings of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross might not be applicable to all in one sense or another. I took up Garrigou-Lagrange because he was a Dominican writing about St. John of the Cross and making the point that the teaching was for all (in a sense). Not necessarily a noble reason, but God uses all of our idiotic motivations to accomplish His meaningful work. I have already resolved upon an answer to our good Dominican's reservations, and when we are joined in the Beatific vision, we shall share our understandings better in this regard.

But once again, I laid Fr. G-L's book aside. It is too heavy-going to long sustain a reading of it (at least for me.) I need the time to assimilate the ideas and try to see what they say and in what direction they point me. Consistently they point in the direction of my own reluctance to engage God on his own terms. More readily expressed as the fact that while I desire to submit, I avoid submission. I cannot bring myself to the proper regard of God and Christ in my life. I am a weak and useless thing, too readily distracted, too easily drawn away from what should be the center of my life. But I don't feel particularly bad about that. In fact, I rejoice in my recognition of the fact. So long as I think I'm handling it fairly well, I know that I am really not living in reality. That I can recognize this weakness is a source of great joy. Another source of joy is that I'm not the only one in this boat. Many great and lowly people share the same dilemma. The one noted below said it far more succinctly and beautifully than this rambling note:

Holy Sonnet XIV
John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

"Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend," more simply said--I should know better than to do as I do. However, reason, also flawed by the fall, "is captived, and proves untrue." By myself I am nothing, only through God can I be rescued.

This is one of the things that Fr. G-L has pointed out to me time and again. He serves as God's present providence for me. I share what he writes, not necessarily because you would profit from it directly, but because I have profited from it greatly, and perhaps by seeing how, other works may also do the same for you. In some ways it is proving a lesson book on surrender and on submission. I am learning through this magnificent teacher what it really means to be a contemplative and how one reaches out for that end and goal.

The passage that leapt off the page into my head last night was another reminder of what we are called to as Christians.

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

What the interior soul should desire above all else is the ever deeper reign of God in it, continual growth in charity. This is should long for because the precept of love is without limit and obliges us, if not to be saints, at least to tend to sanctity, each one acccording to his condition, and because Christ said to all: "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." This is the goal which St. Teresa has shown us. The greatest tribute that can be given her is that she has marvelously praised the glory of God by making us see, in her wriings and in her life, God's great love for the humble, and all that He wishes to do for "souls determined to follow our Lord and to journey on, in spite of the cost even to the fountain of living water. . . . This is the royal road which leads to heaven."

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Perhaps It Is Because I Am Thinking of Him. . .

But Morning Prayer has hit me time and again this morning.

Bless your persecutors; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Have the same attitude toward all. Put away ambitious thoughts and assoicate with those who are lowly.

Treat all people the same; and treat them all well--as well as you treat yourself. When they rejoice, share in the rejoicing and do not lag behind brooding over how fortune has passed you by in favor of this less worthy one. When they weep, weep with them and and do not consider how this may have resulted from their own choices and actions. Weep because there will be a time, and there have been times, when you have been in the same place. And at the time it was not a blessing to have anyone tell you how you called this upon yourself.

And most of all, do not think of yourself. If you spend your time in the joys and sorrows of others, you will have no time to plot out things for yourself. You will have time for serving God alone. Become selfless. Or better yet, become God's self for others. Your life will be more blessed and abundant. You will find yourself in a world transformed and no different at all. The scales will fall away and you will see the Light as light and the darkness as darkness. All of this simply from loving with a human heart and with the help of grace.

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Psalm 92

12���The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13���Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.
14���They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;
15���To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

These verses of Psalm 92 put me in mind of something T.S. O'Rama wrote the other day about certain psalms he could not pray with any real confidence. (I paraphrase). But this is one that gave me pause to think. How could I ever count myself among the righteous? I can count myself among the "justified," I trust I am in the ranks of those for whom Jesus's salvific act is not without effect--but righteous. That's certainly stretching a point.

I am a sinner, and not by any stretch of the imagination righteous nor entitled by right to those things promised here. I am as lost as anyone who can hear His voice and still choose not to respond.

And yet. . . and yet, I believe that what is promised here for the righteous is given even to those who are not righteous, but to those who attempt to live in His life, who call upon His grace and are "righteous" therefore by referring to the "right" sources for all wisdom and right-thinking.

Alone I have no righteousness, nor any claim to such, but through Him and through His great love, I have claim to all that is promised here and all that is promised beyond. Only through Him do I have claim to anything at all, because of myself I am nothing but a mass of contradictory impulses. He gives life meaning and goal; without Him all that is lost is truly lost and can never be found. Through Him all things are made new and what was not righteous becomes redeemed and a source of hope for all.

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June 1, 2004

"The World Will Become Christian. . ."

Another excerpt from a current read:

from Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God
Fr. Kilian Healy O. Carm.

We often hear and read about "the Christian way of life." For some people, this is a vague and intangible expression. In reality, it means precisely what we have just described--namely, a life of common interest with God; a life in which this love of God dominates all our thoughts, words, and actions. The greater the love, the more Christian the life. Whatever we eat, drink, say, write, or do, it should come from our soul living in conscious union and silent converation with God. It is this union with God that colors our whole life and makes it Christian.

When enough of us are conscious of this union and guided by it in our thoughts and actions, there will be change in our country's philosophy. When men and women, conscious of their calling, actually live in union of love with God in their daily lives, our politics, our literature, and our entertainment will become really Christian.

The world will become Christian when men become Christian.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:36 AM | TrackBack

Praying in Community

Is there any joy as great as the joy in praying in a community of believers?

During the weekend as we gathered as leaders of the Lay Carmelite Family, I was overwhelmed with the beauty of the Liturgy of the Hours read, chanted and sung by a community of believers. I was blessed by the great love of the people gathered to worship the Lord, and I was edified by being among those whose vocation was similar to my own.

There is something about celebrating community prayer that strengthens those who are wavering and reinforces key points of understanding. It leads more readily to meditation and reflection on what is being prayed, and the Liturgy as a communal celebration deepens and broadens the prayer itself.

Every day I pray the prayer in isolation. Some days it is a penance. Some days it is a joy. Some days it is simply a duty, others it is a mysterious privilege. The prayer does not change, it is always an avenue of grace for those praying. But our perceptions of it change. Praying in community helps us regain the joyous sense of privilege and honor. We are allowed and encouraged to address He who created the entire universe. Such a gift is almost incomprehensible. And it is but a small part of the treasure trove that is life in the Church.

Praise God for all that he gives and allows us. Praise His Holy name in high places and in low. Praise Him for the privilege of service and love that He grants us. Praise Him for His love and abiding concern for each one of us.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 24, 2004

Recent Considerations

As you can tell from my recent posts, there is a great battle going on in my sphere. The battle is self-against-self. I would say self-against-God, but as I consciously want what God has for me, it really is about the part of myself that fights against His way.

I think part of the problem I have is fear. I'm afraid that ultimately it is likely to be boring, sterile, or unpleasant. Can I serve God AND go to the seashore and look for shark teeth? Can I properly serve God AND read Aunt Dimity's Death. I know about eutrepalia, but I wonder how much of what I do can be done legitimately, with eutrepalia as justification, and how much is simply what I want to do.

In other words, I suspect the battle I fight is very much like that of everyone out there. "The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." St. Paul said, "I do the things I would not do and I don't do the things I would do." This is part and parcel of human nature.

What Father Reginald does for me is that he provides me with the rational basis for the battle. This is the truth, it resonates to the very core and it rings true, like a silver bell. It's truth is undeniable. When I read him I am convicted by the words and know that what he describes is what I want (or what part of me wants). At the same time, the large gaps in time between readings represent both a refractory period and an avoidance mechanism. "Don't let this get too close or you'll have to do something about it."

All of this as an elaborate way of explaining much of what you read here and requesting your prayers as I struggle to recognize what God asks of me and to fulfill it. I struggle against flesh and against fear. I fear what I do not know, and I fear what I may know incorrectly. All of the Saints saw the service of God as the source of most profound joy. When I'm really there, will Aunt Dimity's Death loom as nearly so important? I think not. However, part of me, the part trained as writer, and part desiring to be an artist, rails at this thought. How can you just give up all those lovely things?

I honestly don't know. What I do know is that of myself, I can do nothing but sin and only through grace will anything of importance or merit be accomplished. Please pray for me in the battle, as I will do for each of you. Thanks.

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Some Astounding Words on Purgatory

Once again from Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. I suppose that by the time I finish reading this book, those of you who are patient with me will almost have it read it yourselves.

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.

Very genergous souls ought normally to suffer their purgatory on earth while meriting, rather than after death without meriting. If we go to purgatory after death, it will be our own fault, it will be because we have neglected graces that were granted us or offered us during life. Purgatory after death, frequent though it may be, is not according to the order arranged by God for the full development of the supernatural life, since immediately after death it is radical to the order established by Him that the soul should possess God by the beatific vision. Hence the precise reason why the soul suffers so great in purgatory is because it does not see God.

Purgatory is not God's intended or normative way. It is there through His great mercy to give those who are uninterested or not sufficiently interested in pursuing Him in this life the opportunity to eventually experience Him in the next. If we make it to purgatory, we shall, in His good time, experience the beatific vision. But the reality is that no one needs to experience purgatory. It exists because of the hardness of the human heart and head. It is not there because God thinks it's a particularly good idea. It is there because it is a training ground for detaching from ourselves so that we can live the charitable life of heaven. How could I possibly live a charitable life or lead a charitable existence in the afterlife if all I can think about is myself and my concerns? People who imagine heaven as endless conversations with the great minds of the past or as a vast library of great works of literature are sorely mistaken. Outside of the vision of God, there is no heaven. That is the reality that either this life or purgatory prepares me for. So, I thank Father Reginald for confirming a deep intuition I had regarding the various "dark nights" but which I had not seen spelled out elsewhere. What I learn to give up in this life, I need not learn to part from in the next. If I cannot do away with my own purgatory, I can certainly make great inroads and decrease its duration both by act of will (strengthened by baptismal grace) and by properly disposing myself to the actual works of grace.

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May 23, 2004

Union with God--Extraordinary or Ordinary?

Just when you thought it was safe another burst of reading Garrigou-Lagrange gives us this tender morsel to chew upon:

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.

On the contrary, in the supernatural life whatever belongs to the normal way of sanctity and in the majority of cases is absolutely or morally necessary to attain it, is essentially ordinary. In other words, whatever in the supernatural life is accomplished in accordance with even the superior laws of full development, is ordinary in itself, though these laws are infintely more elevated than those of our nature. . . .

Likewise here on earth, the summit in the normal development of the life of grace, no matter how elevated, should not be called essentially estraordinary (per se) altlhough it may be rare or extraordinary in fact, like the perfect generosity it supposes. The summit is called sanctity, even lofty sanctity, which implies heroic virtues. . . .

It follows, then, that whatever in the majority of cases is either absolutely or morally necessary to attain this summit is not essentially extraordinry. On the contrary, these things belong to and make up the plenitude of the normal order willed by God. In studying this point, we must take care not to confound what is eminently useful for reaching sanctity in the majority of cases with what is observed in the majority of pious souls, with what is common among them; for many of these are still far from the goal. Consequently, without admitting that the mystical prayers are essentially extraordiary, we can distinguish them from the common forms of prayer, because the former suppose in fact an eminent or superior grace.

The passive purifications of the senses and of the spirit (a mystical state) and infused contemplation, even in its highest degree, which is realized in the transforming union, are, as St. Joh of the Cross teaches, generally necessary to the perfect purification and sanctification of the soul. Therefore they should not be called essentially extraordinary, although in fact they may be quite rare because of the common mediocrity of souls.

"Because of the common mediocrity of souls." What an indictment. As I read it, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange says that, in essence, a person does not achieve Union because they don't really want to. I do not approach God more closely because I have other, more important things to do with my time. My soul languishes in mediocrity, not because I haven't received the calling, but because I've decided to let the answering machine pick up and I'll get around to it when I have more time.

I hate that! I hate to admit it! I deny it! I rail at it! I despise it! And more than anything else I know it is true. I do not approach God more closely, not because He holds me at arm's length, but because I have chosen not to do so. Oh yes, I make excuses and I can think of ten-thousand and more reasons why I need to prepare myself and do other things first. But they are all a fabrication. They are designed specifically to keep me from finding my way to where God wants me to be, and, in fact, I have no one to blame but myself. How humbling to realize that you are one of the "mediocre souls." And by this, I don't think Garrigou-Lagrange means to say that some souls are greater and some smaller (although that may be true as well). But rather, I thnk he implies that there are those who care about the state of their soul more than they care about their finances, their wardrobe, their car, or what have you. And then there are those like me, who find something else more important to care about for a while.

O Lord, what a mess.

Fr. Reginald, pray for me. Your words have awakened me to a fever-pitch state and now I cast about, caught in the net, knowing that I am the only cause of my failure. Pray to obtain for me the graces and virtues necessary--the docility, the humility, the charity, the patience, and the strength of will--to ascend to God as far as will can take me. And then pray for me that I might remain open to God's action and ascend to where He is calling me.

Oh Father, obtain for me these graces through the hand of our most Holy Mother, and even if not, thank you so much for your obedience and your determination to serve God's people. In so doing, you have served me best of all. Thank you. Lord Jesus Christ, if there is anything lacking in this good man's stores, by virtue of the good he has done for me in turning me back to you, please make it up for him and make it overflow with riches. Thank you Lord for such good servants, may I become one as well.

Amen.

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May 21, 2004

Poetry of St. Robert Southwell

I dye alive
Robert Southwell��(?1561�1595)
��
O LIFE! what letts thee from a quicke decease?
��O death! what drawes thee from a present praye?
My feast is done, my soule would be at ease,
��My grace is saide; O death! come take awaye.
�
I live, but such a life as ever dyes; ������
��I dye, but such a death as never endes;
My death to end my dying life denyes,
��And life my living death no whitt amends.
�
Thus still I dye, yet still I do revive;
��My living death by dying life is fedd; ������
Grace more then nature kepes my hart alive,
��Whose idle hopes and vayne desires are deade.
�
Not where I breath, but where I love, I live;
��Not where I love, but where I am, I die;
The life I wish, must future glory give, �������
��The deaths I feele in present daungers lye.

I do well to remind myself that I live in a privileged era and a privileged place. No matter that the media are unrelentingly hostile toward my belief, no matter that prejudice still is rampant in some places. I nevertheless can live a life of relative comfort and freedom compared to those who came before. The poetry of this great martyr for the faith ever puts me in mind of how very good I have it despite facing some difficulties. I am thankful before God for what He has granted, and despite all that is less than it should be, I rejoice in my relative freedom to work for Him. As He said with His own lips, "To whom much is given, much is expected in return."

Lord Jesus Christ, grant that I may return even a small part of the many blessings and graces that have come to me from God the Father through the hands of your Blessed Mother. Let the Holy Spirit guide me in all that I do, and awaken my deadened senses to better heed His promptings. Let me work for the good of your church, for the salvation of your people, and for my own good ever heedful of your divine mercy and love.

Amen.

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Words too Seldom Heard Today

And some, perhaps, would say that is all to the good. I tend to think otherwise. We would do well to hear that a life of holiness is NOT a natural concomittant of the human estate. Rather it is achieved only through rough toil and hard grace.

from Sermons on Black Letter Days or Minor Festivals of the Church of England
John Mason Neale

WHAT ARE THESE? WHENCE CAME THEY?

"WHAT ARE THESE WHICH ARE ARRAYED IN WHITE ROBES, AND WHENCE CAME THEY?"--REV. VII. 13.

ONE of Satan's most favourite temptations, (no doubt because he has found it one of the most useful,) is this, that it is a very easy thing to be saved. "What is the use," he asks us, "of taking so much pains? Other people lead easy lives, and please themselves, and are thought good fathers, and good neighbours, and good Christians, and they will do very well; and why need you try to be better than they? All will come right at last, and your prayers and your efforts to keep GOD'S law so very strictly are quite needless. Do as the world does, and do not pretend to be more religious than your neighbours."

We know that this is a temptation, and we ought not to be deceived by it. We know that to live a good life is a trade, like every other trade; that, if we do not take the utmost pains, we shall never learn it at all; and that, with all the pains we can take, we shall find it a difficult matter enough to succeed; "The righteous shall scarcely be saved." It will, as the common saying is, be a very near thing. "We want all the helps we can have; we must take all that we can get, and thank GOD that we can get so many.

Now, in looking round me to see what help to lead good lives you might have which as yet you have not, I see one which, with GOD'S grace, we will try. And this evening I will explain to you what it is, and how we may use it.

You know that, ever since I first came amongst you, we have always observed those days which we commonly call Saints' Days; that is, those Festivals of Saints for which an Epistle and Gospel are appointed. And they are those of the twelve Apostles, of S. John the Baptist, of the Conversion of S. Paul, of the Holy Innocents, of S. Barnabas, and of S. Stephen, besides the glorious festival of All Saints. Before GOD, perhaps for our own sins, suffered wicked men to take away from us the power of celebrating the Holy Communion, we always, as some of you well remember, celebrated it on those days. And, even now, we go oftener into chapel; and in the evening, as you know, I speak to you of the lesson that we should learn from the Festival which we are then keeping.

But now, if you look in the Calendar at the beginning of the Prayer Book, you will find a great many other days marked with the name of some Saint. Take January, for example. On the 8th you find the name of S. Lucian; on the 13th, of S. Hilary; on the 18th, of S. Prisca; on the 20th, of S. Fabian; on the 21st, of S. Agnes; on the 22nd, of S. Vincent. There are six days, then, which the Church sets before us, as the means of helping us in our way to heaven; and which, therefore, I wish that you should understand something about. I do not like that you should only look on them as names which you cannot understand,--as long, difficult words, with which you have nothing to do. I wish that, when you see the altar vested in red, to signify that it is the day of some Martyr who shed his blood for the Name of CHRIST: or, when you see it in white, to set forth to you that we are keeping the feast of some one of those Virgins whom Holy Scripture teaches us to call the brides of the Spotless Lamb; then that you should know something about that Martyr or that Virgin. It is impossible to love those of whom we know nothing. We may believe, indeed, that they were true and faithful servants of CHRIST, and so far we may admire them, and desire to follow their example; but love them we cannot, unless we know something about them on which our love can fix.

Now, therefore, I intend, by GOD'S grace, beginning from this time, as each of these days comes round, to tell you why we keep it, and who it is that we are then called upon to think about. If we were travelling to some place where we were to live all the rest of our lives, should we not wish to know what sort of people we were going among? Should we not be very glad to find any one who could tell us about them? Should we not beg him to let us know what he could, as to their names, and their ways of going on, and what they liked and disliked? We should say, "They are to be my companions by-and-by, and I should like to become acquainted with them as far as I can, before I really go to see them."

So it is with us. We are journeying to the land which the LORD hath promised to them that love Him.

Much of the work is available here

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May 18, 2004

More from St. Paul

Just one more gleaning from this noonday repast. I rejoice in the word God has set forth for us and I particularly love this "epistle of joy" even when there is something like the passage that follows. We need both instruction and caution.

Philippians 3: 18-19

18���(For many walk, of whom I have told you often and now tell you even with weeping, as the enemies of the cross of Christ.
19���Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and their glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)

Remember these for whom we must pray especially--those caught up in the net of lies that constitutes life in our society. They do not know the truth and could not find the truth if we were to guide them right to it and push them into its embrace. The illusions of this world are too deep, too dark, too entangling. As Jesus said of one exorcism--"This kind comes out only with much prayer and fasting."

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May 17, 2004

Three Cheers for Our Lady of Lourdes Church

Who put their money where their hearts are. In Venice I saw at least one billboard advertising their assistance for women with Crisis pregnancies. A billboard with the cutest, most adorable, most wonderful baby and the words "Because life begins at conception."

I don't know where Our Lady of Lourdes is located--somewhere in the Tampa-St. Petersburg/Sarasota/Venice area. But they deserve kudos for their remarkable work. If anyone from that parish reads this, please know that your efforts are in my prayers and you have my deepest thanks for the good work that you do.

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May 12, 2004

St Teresa of Avila on the Humanity of Jesus

It is interesting to me how there is sometimes a Zeitgeist that pervades portions of blogdom. Yesterday I elided this passage from the quote from Father Healey because I felt it needed further discussion by itself. At the same time Tom, at Disputations is talking about a topic that touches on this peripherally.

from Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God
Fr. Kilian Healey, O. Carm

Now we can understand why it is so helpful to meditate on the life of Jesus and why St. Teresa of Avila could suggest this method to her nuns: "The soul can picture itself in the presence of Christ, and accustom itself to become enkindled with great love for His sacred humanity and to have Him ever with it and speak with Him, ask Him for the things it has need of, make complaints to Him of its trials, rejoice with Him in its joys, and yet never allow its joys to make it forgetful of Him. It has no need to think out set prayers but can use just such words as suit its desires and needs."

Another quotation from St. Teresa:

If Christ Jesus dwells in a man as his friend and noble leader, that man can endure all things, for Christ helps and strengthens us and never abandons us. He is a true friend. And I clearly see that is we expect to please him and receive an abundance of his graces, God desires that these graces must come to us from the hands of Christ, through his most sacred humanity, in which God takes delight.

and this quote from an interesting Oratorian Essay on St. Teresa:

St Teresa insists that assimilating the truths of our faith through meditation, especially on the sacred humanity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, should always be part of our life of prayer. When they become a part of ourselves, they will make us grow in love of God and love of neighbour. Only then are we able to offer a 'real assent' to the faith as opposed to a mere 'notional assent', as John Henry Cardinal Newman put it so well. Even in the Sixth Mansions of the Interior Castle, a state which is close to the highest degree of the spiritual life, we must never abandon the humanity of Christ, especially his passion and death which won the price of salvation for us: 'the last thing we should do is to withdraw of set purpose from the greatest help and blessing, which is the most sacred Humanity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.' Christ is our guide and without him we would be lost even if we had made much spiritual progress: 'For the Lord Himself says that He is the Way; the Lord also says that He is light and that no one can come to the Father save by Him; and he that seeth Me seeth my Father.'

What does all this mean? To be honest, I am uncertain, but it speaks to me and to a certain error I am prone to. I acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, I pray to Him as God incarnate, but I often overlook the fact of His humanity. That is, while I believe that he was fully human and fully God, I behave more as though He were only fully God. While I acknowledge what the theologians say about His humanity and His divinity, I am too often caught up in the Divinity and pay little attention to the humanity. Understand that I am talking about the real conduct of my devotional life. Yes, I acknowledge the nativity, and often when I think about it, I think about it as "God Incarnate." The focus of the nativity for me is not the "sacred humanity" of Jesus, but His divinity. So too with much of His life. If anything, I may be prone to the error opposite that noted by Tom, in which love of the humanity is equated with love of God Himself. I asked about this error because it boggles my mind.

So, for me, and perhaps for many, the necessary corrective isn't to move from the humanity to the divinity, but not to forget the humanity in the course of devotion. Now, very honestly, I'm not quite certain what this means or what the implications are. When I meditate upon passages of sacred Scripture, I think I encounter Jesus in His sacred humanity, but much has to do I suppose with attitude of heart. I must admit that I don't necessarily regard Jesus as the kind of friend St. Teresa notes above. I love Him as Lord and Savior, I am only just beginning to know Him as friend and confidant (as it were.) I think I am so much in awe of Him that it would be similar to being invited to dine and converse with Queen Elizabeth, only a million times more difficult in every way. I guess there is enough of the protestant left in me that I tremble in awe at the Divinity. I wonder at people who so casually regard and partake of the Eucharist, of those jaunty genuflectors who never make it even halfway to the floor but give a kind of bob. Would it not cause scandal and sheer chaos, I would throw myself down before the tabernacle and the altar. For this reason I have long loved the profound bow practiced by the Byzantine rite.

All that said, my "problem" in devotional life is to really get down to Jesus as friend and conversationalist. I do reach that point, I have experienced it, but I am not in the continual intimate communion that St. Teresa implies is possible if one has the proper grasp of both the sacred humanity and the divinity of Jesus.

All of that said, I also trust Him to correct what errors I have in my devotional and religious life as He sees fit. I trust Him to draw me closer through such interchanges and readings and practice of what I learn. I trust Him because I know that He wants what is best for me, and the long, hard trek to His sacred humanity has a purpose that I may not be able to divine at the moment (or ever), but I trust it to be purposeful and the path for my life.

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May 11, 2004

Union with God

from Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God
Fr. Kilian Healey, O. Carm

Since Jesus is one with God the Father, union with Jesus --even in this world--is the purpose of our life. He is the One whom we must love most deeply, so that we may reach the perfection nature and find true happiness. To love Jesus of Nazareth with an intimate, personal love is to love God with an intimate, personal love, for Jesus is God.

Therefore, if we have Jesus in His sacred humanity ever before our eyes, if we look upon Him with love and try to live a life of personal friendship with Him, pleasing Him in all things, we will have already attained to some degree, an intimate love of God. . . .

If we are just a beginner, we might find it advantageous to perform our daily work in the presence of Christ, imagining Him to be nearby, using some holy card or painting for our image of Him.

If we have learned to pray and live a virtuous life, this simple imaginary presence will not satisfy us. We will want to read and reread the Gospels, make a study of Christ, and then try to walk in His footsteps--even to the Cross. Only the continual study of Christ can make us consicious of His presence.

I am too often away from Jesus--off in the airy land of speculative theology or ruminations about spiritual things. It is better always to come back to the concrete center of existence. Through the Gospels, I am given light for life. I am shown the exemplary model of how to conduct myself. And when I read and pray these same Gospels, part of what they say becomes a part of me.

Yesterday's Gospel reading for mass reminded me, "If you have my commandments and practice them, then you love me." So I ask myself, where can I find this commandments? Surely in the Bible--in perfection in the gospels, but throughout all revealed truth.

And then I ask the harder question--do I keep them, do I practice them? I don't think I am alone when I say truthfully that I do not practice them nearly so well as I would wish. I want to love Jesus and He has told me how. But I'm not sure I want to love Him so much that I can give up my favorite obsession of the hour. Jesus is important, but my house, my car, my petiole collection, my _________ (fill in the blank), is presently more time consuming and more important.

So I simply pray,

Lord

I do want to love you. I want to love you more than anything else. But I do not. I fail at every turn to show my love by the practice of love--your commandments. Lord turn my heart toward you. Step by step draw me closer and let me do as you would have me do for your people and for myself. Let your commandments be at the very center of my life so that when I wake I breath and do them, and when I sleep, I live them nevertheless. Banish the idols I have placed in your way, and give me the strength never to miss them.

O sweet Jesus, make me yours entirely--body and soul, heart and mind, to every fiber to every inch. Help me, O Lord to be your loyal and loving servant and by my actions to make you real to the world around me.

Father guide my steps, strengthen within me the abode of the Holy Spirit that I may better imitate and become your Son to this world in darkness.

Through the same Christ, Our Lord, who lives in love and eternity with the Father who begot Him and the Holy Spirit, born of love.

Amen

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Contemplation and Action

In times before, contemplative life and active life were often seen as nearly antagonistic. If one were contemplative, it would seem, one could not also be active. Now, there was a certain truth to this if one were of a contemplative order that was cloistered. There isn't a lot of action possible in the world behind the walls of a convent or monastery. While there is some truth to this, nevertheless, the contemplative was active within the narrow world of the convent, fulfilling the duties that life called them to. However, the world has, since the time of Christ, been infused with active contemplatives. St. Catherine of Siena springs to mind, but the Apostles were also prime examples, as well as many of the early Christians. Katherine Drexel and Dorothy Day come to mind in the modern world, as well as Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

How, then, can we make sense of this blend of life. As long as one is in the world, one has a certain obligation to serve others. Within the cloister there is a limited circle to whom we owe the allegiance and service of charity through corporal works of mercy. This limitation leaves the cloistered person open for constant prayer for all in the world. The presence of cloisters is another infusion of grace in the world--centers of prayer for the redemption and sanctification of the world.

But if one is not confined to a cloister the urging and longing of contemplation, it would seem to me, translates into service to the greatest number of people possible. That is, a truly contemplative life in the world necessitates service of some sort. James tells us "Faith without works is dead." This is as true of a contemplative as it is of any other person. James goes on to tell us that it is insufficient to wish our Brother a good day or even God's peace if we can see that he is naked and hungry. Prayer has its place, an exalted place, a place of overwhelming importance; however, if prayer does not leave my heart open to service, if it does not change me substantially to be a loyal citizen of the kingdom of God, then it is possible that it is not prayer at all, but merely "nice thoughts."

Prayer is a work of transformation. As we pray we communicate and as we communicate, if we are truly listening, we are necessarily transformed. Contemplative prayer is communication par excellance. St. John of the Cross refers to infused contemplation as "divinity by participation."

So what is the link between contemplation and action. I believe a true contemplative in the world will be spurred on to some sort of action by his prayer. That is loving Christ requires keeping His commandments. I cannot keep His commandment to love another in abstract isolation. Yes, I pray for my brothers and sisters, but I must also be present to share their burdens and joys. Contemplation prepares us to do the work that God has appointed us to. If we keep house, contemplation prepares us to do this work without expectation of reward or kind word, merely for the intense love we have for Jesus. If we are communicators, contemplation gives us something worthwhile to communicate.

Contemplation gives each person "the mind of God." It informs actions, thoughts, and prayers. It prepares me to face the world and to find God in the person of Jesus Christ. When I talk of the life of being a contemplative, I am not exempting myself or anyone else from the hard work that is necessarily part of this life. I think of the desert fathers, who retired to their isolated cells, but who also taught and lived by "If you do not work you do not eat."

So, when I talk of contemplation, my focus is necessarily on the prayer side of that life. My expectation is that if contemplation is actually occurring in a person, that prayer will spill out into public view through the actions, writings, or public statements of the person. Contemplation done in the world feeds a violent urge toward active love. This is one of those things I think is meant when Jesus speaks about "From the beginning the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence and the violent take it by storm." This violent love cannot be restrained. "Many waters cannot drown it." And so it must come out, or being held within, it must, like a flame without oxygen snuff itself out. A contemplative serves the world through prayer, but a contemplative in the world also serves through the work of his hands or his mind.

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May 6, 2004

The Fundamental Need for Contemplation

I have read several times in the past week items that convince me more and more of the fundamental need for every Christian to engage in the contemplative life.

At Pax Nortona Joel says I feel the same about abortion: we should concentrate on bettering the world for the children to come so that women who do face the awful choice might be moved to choose single motherhood as a viable option.

In comments at Disputations, Rob says:

Yes! Changing the hearts of prospective practitioners of any immoral behavior is, in the long run, the only fix that rescues both the prospective sinner and that sinner's potential victims. This should be the goal.

At one point I made a comment somewhere about eliminating the perceived necessity of abortion and the retort was "Abortion is unnecessary." That is a statement that is easy to make when one lives in a suburban middle-class neighborhood and has the luxury to spend much time blogging and commenting on world affairs. But I fear it is not the view of most of the young women who are driven to this extreme.

Before legislation will work, the society must be so fundamentally changed as to make the legislation essentially useless anyway. There need to be options for young women who find themselves in this "Sophie's Choice" in which the apparent choice is between "my continued existence on a subsistence level" and "the existence below subsistence I would have with this child." I know it is not the reality, but fear is rarely rational.

But this post is only peripherally about abortion. I bring up the comments above by Joel and Rob to acknowledge a fundamental agreement with the mindset. My solution, as always, is prayer--contemplative prayer.

Why contemplative prayer? How is it a solution? Our society is prone to a deadly invasive species of selfishness. Like fire ants, this selfishness builds edifices strong and large. If you stir it up, through legislation or most other means, as with a fire-ant nest, they immediately abandon the present burrow and set up one even stronger.

The only way to fight fire ants is by stealth. You don't disturb the mound, you quietly poison it. The culture of death is that fire-ant mound, it needs to be quietly poisoned. To do this, each Christian needs to show the alternative. I need to show the joy of the Christian life. Too often Christians are seen as angry, agitated, nearly irrational, in their approach to other people.

Each Christian needs to approach society with deep love, and love that goes beyond anything any person is capable of by himself. Only the instilling of the divine that comes through the intimacy that springs from conversation with God can effect this deep love. Vocal prayers, are a beginning, but not enough. Mediation is great, but insufficient. The only thing that can stand in the way of the juggernaut that threatens to undermine us all is contemplation and perhaps Union with the Divine. I think of St. John of the Cross' description of contemplation as "divinity by participation." Each Christian needs to truly become the hands, feet, eyes, lips, the person of Christ to a world in turmoil. It isn't possible to do this without God. To stand as Christ one must stand with and in Christ. He must be the one who speaks when one speaks to the world.

And I need to be prepared to sacrifice my feeling of comfort and "being at home" in the world. In this post Tom of Disputations is saddened by the number of Christians who seem to accept a life without joy He says, "They draw from the Resurrection not so much the Good News of salvation as an indictment of reprobation." And this is often true. While it is necessary to correct, it is rarely effective to make an indictment. Guilt is only rarely an antidote; more often it is a source of alienation. Jesus did not spend an hour lecturing the woman caught in adultery. Instead, he asked those who would condemn her whether they had any standing to do so. It is far too easy to think that I do.

Contemplation helps to cure this sense of superiority. In contemplation, the person praying encounters God as God and comes to Saint Catherine of Siena's conclusion as stated in the dialogues, "I AM who am, you are she who is not." If I acknowledge and live in this state, then I can have no standing for casting stones. Rather, first I rescue through Christ's redeeming love, and then I guide to the source of that love. Contemplation gives a true mirror of self which helps in all of these goals.

You ask me, "What is the solution to the problem of abortion?" And my answer is "Love Incarnate. Jesus Christ who rose from the dead and who calls us to life."
How do I best know Him? Through talking to Him, through intimate conversation and through abandonment of self.

If we are to change society, we must start by allowing God to change us. We must approach society not as Visigoths but as Michelangelos. We must bring not the promise of destruction, but the light of God's love. I cannot do this if I myself do not know that light.

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May 5, 2004

One Secret to a Happy Life

from In Conversation with God
Francis Fernandez

The virtue of gratitude forms a real bond among men and reveals fairly clearly the interior quality of the person. As popular wisdom puts it: breeding and thankfulness go together. Human relationships suffer in the absence of this virtue. . . .

Whoever is thankful to God is thankful to those around him. He is more prompt to appreciate and be thanful for any small favours. The proud person who is always absorbed with ihis own things cannot be thankful; he feels that everything is his due.

To quote Father O'Holohan, a very holy, very wise, wonderful Jesuit priest who served out community for a long time, "You cannot be grateful and unhappy." I believe him. The grateful heart is a happy heart. How can we be at once thankful and unhappy? I suppose it is possible, but I cannot imagine the two states coexisting in the same person.

Gratitude has as its concomittant happiness, and perhaps even joy. I truly believe that if we could cultivate the habit of gratitude and live a life truly grateful for what we have and what God grants us day after day, we would be a people more full of the joy of the Christian life. We would be naturally buoyed up. We could do worse than to pray for an overabundance of gratitude. Gratitude feeds charity and self-giving. The grateful person is always seeking a way to repay the good that has been done him. We would, in short, bear strong witness to why it is worthwhile to be a Christian. Presently, that witness is far too uncommon--our internal squabbles are aired along with the battle reports from Iraq. We spend too much time in judging and not enough in thanking.

Or perhaps not. But I know that when I am truly grateful, I am at my happiest.

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Intimacy with Christ

Some of what has appeared here over the last several weeks has been pretty heavy going. I do intend to continue my series about contemplation as an essential part of the life of the lay Catholic and how ordinary people can lead contemplative lives. But I thought a more gentle and measured introduction might be in order.

from Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of Christ
Fr. Kilian Healey, O.Carm.

Since Jesus in one with God the Father, union with Jesus--even in this world--is the purpose of our life. He is the One whom we must love most deeply, so that we may reach the perfection of nature and find true happiness. To love Jesus of Nazareth with an intimate, personal love is to love God with an intimate, personal love, for Jesus is God.

Therefore, if we have Jesus in His sacred humanity ever before our eyes, if we look upon Him with love and try to live a life of personal friendship with Him, pleasing Him in all things, we will have already attained, to some degree, an intimate love of God.

Now we can understand why it is so helpful to meditate on the life of Jesus and why St. Teresa of Avila could suggest this method to her nuns: "The soul can picture itself in the presence of Christ, and accustom itself to become enkindled with great love for His sacred humaity and to have Him ever with it and speak with Him, ask Him for the things it has need of, make complaints to Him of its trials, rejoice with Him in its joys, and yet never allow its joys to make it forgetful of HIm. It has no need to think out set prayers, but can use just such words as suit its desires and needs."

I suppose this could start as a form of meditation, deliberately placing yourself before Jesus Christ in His humanity and talking to Him as one would talk to a friend. The practice of this meditation would eventually have transforming effects upon the soul itself. It would become a habit, to take the title of Flannery O'Connor's book of Letters, "a habit of being." But in this habit is a kernel, a core of reality that exists nowhere else. Because my identity is in Christ alone, so it is in Christ alone that I am really who I am--in whom I have my being. So it is only in and through Him that I can attain a "habit of being." Outside of Jesus I have the tendency to falsify who I am, to present the "company face" to the world at large; I wear one of several masks that depend upon the role I may be playing at the time. Obviously this is not always true, but it is true often enough that I should seek to base my identity and my life (if it is to be authentic) upon who I am in Jesus Christ. The only way I can do this is to spend time talking to Him and discovering who He says I am. It's interesting that Jesus asked Peter "Who do you say I am?" Once again, He gave us the model for what we should do. When I go before Him in prayer one of the things I should seek to discover is who Jesus says I am. Then, with His grace and love, I should seek to live out that reality. If more of us really sought our identities in Christ and lived them out, the transformation in society would be apocalyptic and wonderful. But it is both scary and difficult to look in that mirror. So we need a companion, once again the reason to stand or sit with Christ in prayer and talk. He is our companion, the One who can help us be.

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May 4, 2004

From St. Josemaria Escriva--Finding Holiness from Where You Are

The Furrow--182
St. Josemaria Escriva

What compassion you feel for them! ... You would like to cry out to them that they are wasting their time ... Why are they so blind, and why can't they perceive what you � a miserable creature � have seen? Why don't they go for the best?

Pray and mortify yourself. Then you have the duty to wake them up, one by one, explaining to them � also one by one � that they, like you, can find a divine way, without leaving the place they occupy in society.

This second paragraph is the key and it is a key to the entire mission of Opus Dei. You can find a divine way without going out into the desert and living there for months on end. You can find a divine way right where you live now. God is present here and now and all around us. When we were a people of darkness and walking without light, we had good reason for not seeing how to move toward God even as we went about our daily tasks. But through the merciful intercession and sacrifice of our Gracious Lord, the light of God's light flares out through all the world. We are a people who walk in that light and it is our duty and our great joy to be able to show the world how to be holy even as we tend to the workaday world.

I feel called to reach out to all of those who do not know Christ's love as the intimate interior experience that it should be and to show them the way (even if I preach better than I practice). I know the truth and the truth is light, life, and joy. And it is my great privilege as a Christian to point out the way to those who do not know it. If God truly is the source of my happiness and the font of joy, isn't it incumbent upon me by the strict rule of Charity that I share the source of my joy? For heaven rejoices over ever lost sheep that straggles back to the fold and in some sense we are all shepherds serving the one Good Shepherd. It is His voice the sheep hear even if it is spoken from my mouth.

I will rejoice always in my service to the Lord and I will take my joy from his own hand as a life-giving stream and as the strength to do the work of the day. For it is in the accomplishment of all of that work with joy and excellence that the glory of the Lord shines out--for without Him I can do nothing. (The flip side of "For I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.")

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May 3, 2004

Joyful Hope

One of the things I love about In Conversation with God is that it seems to have so much ebullient hope and so fervent an exhortation to those souls (mine among them) wasting away in sloth. Take the following example:

from In Conversation with God Fourth Week of Easter--Monday
Francis Fernandez

We could each ask ourselves: have I a true desire to be a saint? The answer would most assuredly be in the affirmative: yes. But our reply should not be as to a theoretical question, because for some holiness is unattainable, something to do with ascetical theology--but not a real goal for them, a living reality We want to make it happen with the help of God's grace.

So longs my soul for thee, O God We must start by making the desire for holiness flourish in our own soul, telling Our Lord: 'I want to be a saint'; or at least 'When I experinece my softness and weakness, I want to be a saint'. . . .

Consider then how vehement our desire for holiness has to be! In Holy Scripture the prophet Daniel is called vir desideriorum, a man of desires. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all were worthy of such a title! The first thing that souls must do if they embark on the path of holiness is really to want to be saints whatever may come, whatever may happen to them, however hard they may have to labour, whoever may complain of them, whether they reach their goal or die on the road.. . . .

Therefore, we shoujld examine our conscience to see if our desires of holiness are sincere and effective. . . This examination could reveal the reason for so much weakness and apathy in interior struggle. You tell me , yes, you want to. Very good: but do you want as a miser longs for gold, as a mother loves her child, as a worldling craves for honours, or as a wretched sensualist seeks his pleasure?

No? Then, you don't want to.

I love this passage because of its entire tone--the hopeful answer 'Yes', when to all senses and sensitivities the very present, evident answer in the world today is "Absolutely not, I want what's mine by right." And those who side with hope are right. Whether we recognize it or not each of us has a longing, a yearning to become a saint, to spend every moment with God, and at the same time to serve Him by bringing Him to those who do not know Him. This desire manifests itself in many ways. Pick the thing that fills the empty spaces inside: power, money, sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, shopping, cleaning house. You name it and just about anything can and has been used as a substitute for God. When I don't want to face the reality of the call to holiness and sanctity, I have the marvelous opportunity to retreat into the depths of gourmandizing or other sensual pleasures. This is the lure of the good things of the world. Used rightly, they lead most directly to God; used wrongly. they anesthetize the soul and give "sweet oblivion." It is too easy to end up worshipping the creature and not the creator.

But we all do long for holiness, just as God longs for us to draw near. He goes through the most amazing convoluted gyrations to seek us out; but Love knows no boundaries and constantly seeks the good of the beloved. All of my reading in recent days points to God and says, "Look at Him. This is the goal, this is the end, this is what gives life meaning." Outside of God everything, even all the good things are meaningless, empty, ashes and dust. With God at the center, all that is good and beautiful takes on the right proportion and perspective.

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Hearing God in the Everyday

I have assaulted you too much of late with Garrigou-Lagrange. And I cannot promise that I shall not do so in the future. So much of what he has to say is so interesting and relevant to the central interests of this blog. However, today we will not start with him, but with another, who has some helpful advice.

from Awarkening Your Soul to the Presence of God
Fr. Kilian J. Healey, O. Carm.

We often read of visions, apparitions, and revelations in which God spoke to the saints. St. Paul on the road to Damascus is a classic example. And we read in the life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque that, while she was engaged in prayer, Jesus often spoke to her of the devotion to His Sacred Heart.

Such conversations with God are not rare in the lives of the canonized. But must we in our conversation with God await the appearance of Jesus, or some heavenly voice or extraordinary apparition, some heavenily manifestatiion from God? Absolutely not. It is true that God does single out some chosen souls to whom He speaks directly and who actually experience the divine power working in them, but these are very few; it is not the way that God ordinarily uses. We should not even desire that God speak to us in this extraordinary manner. We should not expect it. Visions and revelations are not necessary for us to grow in deep love for God. We may fall deeply in love with Him and practice faithfully the presence of God, yet never receive any extraordinary manifestations from Him. These are special gifts, and God gives them to whom He wills, and when He wills.

I note this merely to make the point once again that even the most extraordinary prayer life may be entirely bereft of visions. Conversely, it is entirely probable that one who is barely out of the starting gate in prayer may get all manner of visions and locutions that are legitimate and real. Why God should do this is certainly beyond my ability to tell; but His will is His will. We should not judge the sanctity of a person by the frequency of their visions or by the presence of even a single such vision. It says nothing whatsoever of the person. God graces whom He will at the time He chooses for His own purposes. These purposes are always to bring His own closer to His heart.

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May 2, 2004

You Thought THAT Was Scary--Garrigou-Lagrange Again

What do you suppose this means?

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

From all this, we see that a meritorious act which is too weak is an imperfection disposing to venial sin, as the latter disposes to mortal sin.

The proficient who is satisfied to act like a beginner ceases to make progress and becomes a retarded soul. People do not give sufficent thought to the fact that the number of these souls is considerable. Many indeed think of developing their intellect, of expanding their knowledge, their exterior activity or that of the group to which they belong (in which there may be not a little selfishness), and yet scarcely think of growing in supernatural chairty, which ought to have first place in us, and ought to inspire and vivify our entire llfe. . . . And many retarded souls end by becoming lukewarm, cowardly, and careless, especially when their natural bent is toward skepticism and raillery. In the end they may become hardened and, as a result, it is often more difficult to bring them back to a fervent life than to bring about the conversion of a great sinner.

I hear in this echoes of, and a deeper intuition and understanding of, Jesus' "letter" to the Laodiceans in the book of revelation. "You are neither hot nor cold, I spit you out of my mouth."

I think in the beginning of prayer life, there is a kind of natural progression. We move forward in the excitement of discovering something new. We've entered unknown territory. I also believe that what is written above is far less a danger for those inclined to pray without considering too much the theology of prayer, than for those inclined to investigate all the nuances and thus not pray as they ought. (I consider myself chief among the guilty here.) Jesus wants enthusiasm. He can work with either love or hate, but there is very little that moves mere indifference. What a dreadful state to be in!

I truly believe that constant reception of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist and Confession, will help to keep these tendencies at bay. I think fervent recitation of vocal prayers help to lift the soul to God.

But Garrigou-Lagrange implies that at the time he wrote this there were a great many proficients who were content to be mere beginners. We must not fail god in prayer. Later Garrigoou-Lagrange quote St. Bernard, "Not to advance in the way of salvation is to fall back." And St. Francis de Sales, " If you follow Christ, you will always run, for He never stopped, but continued the course of His love and obedience 'unto death, even to the death of the cross.'"

This has really gotten me thinking and has moved me toward a better examen. Have I taken advantages of the opportunities God has given me in the day to love and praise Him? Do I love and praise Him in words only, or do I fulfill the duties of my station and vocation in life with the idea that it is for Him that I do all this. Am I truly Mary, even in my working day, or do I spend my day being Martha, complaining that no one will help me? Where did I miss an opportunity to love God more in spirit and in action? How can I be more aware of these opportunities, indeed, how can I become constantly aware of them?

God loves me so much that each day He gives me a million little things I can do to show my love. I am not nearly aware enough of these opportunities. And these are some of the ways in which I can practice meritorious charity that is strong enough for my place in prayer (wherever that might be). What is most interesting is that they almost never require of me anything extraordinary.

Anyway, I guess I'm trying to take the implied advice. Garrigou-Lagrange concludes the arguments of this chapter with the remarkable passage below.

And to think that contemplative souls have suffered so greatly because they willed to doubt God's munificence on behalf of the baptized soul! Rightly their hearts protested against the doubts raised by their souls. In what gentle harmony everything is bound up and united in God's truth! How calm must the soul of a St. Augustine or a St. Thomas have been, living habitually in the peace-giving contemplation of the being and unity of God! What love burst forth also from the seet knowledge of the supreme precept and of the grace offered to fulfil it ever more fully! . . .

The great poetry of the psalms has been revealed to us in order to be understood. To understand it well, however, and to make it vibrate in the depths of the soul, should we not have received infused contemplation which reaise the mind and th eheart even to the fountain of living water and the light of life?

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Infused Contemplation--Garrigou-Lagrange again

I offer the following words from a footnote in the book. I find it interesting. At this point, I do not know if Garrigou-Lagrange agrees, and it is, after all merely the best advice and speculation of good theologians, not Church Doctrine.

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

In virtue of the principle set forth in this article, it can be explained why Thomistic theologians (such as Phillip of the Blessed Trinity, Vallgornera, and Anthony of the Holy Ghost) maintain not only that all may laudably desire infused contemplation and the union of fruition, but that all should desire it.

I quote this because it surprised me. I think I had hoped it was true. The evidence of theologians does not make it true, but it is more substantial evidence than I had to offer anyone. But if true, I guess I'm just a little surprised.

Perhaps I shouldn't be. Perhaps it is fine to desire it and to acknowledge that even if many desire it, human nature is such that a great many probably will not do what is required to attain it. Nevertheless, if it is laudable to desire it, one would presume that it is not a sin against humility (which many people I have spoken to suggest that it might be.)

More from Garrigou-Lagrange in a few minutes.

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April 30, 2004

Spiritual Dwarfism

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

The analogy is evident. To belong to the human race, it is enough to be a child, but that is not sufficient to be a fully developed man. Further, by virtue of a necessary law, a child must grow under pain not of remaining a child but of becoming a deformed dwarf. Likewise it suffices to have a very low degree of charity in order to avoid the transgression of the precept of love, but that does not suffice for the perfect fulfillment of this first precept, which is superior to all the others and to all the counsels. Moreover, if the beginner does not grow in charity, he will not remain a beginner, but will become an abnormal creature and, as it were, a dwarf from the spiritual point of view. For example, he has faith and piety which are, so to speak, embryonic, coupled with highly developed literary, scientific, or progessinal culture. . . . For lack of development, the divine seed which is in the soul runs the risk of dying, as we learn in the parable of the sower.

Two thoughts occurred to me while reading this. The first was, "Of course. One doesn't remain a child forever, time marches one. If one doesn't grow it becomes abnormal." I thought of the hero (was it Oskar?) of The Tin Drum who refuses to grow after the age of three. A deliberate dwarf as it were. I thought too of the grotesque in The Passion of the Christ, the small, aged, hairy, dwarfish baby--the sluggishly selfish soul withholding himself from growth, deliberately remaining small in charity.

My second thought, as always upon reading something of this sort was the uncomfortable realization that Garrigou-Lagrange had held up a mirror and I was reflected perfectly in it. It was as though he looked out his window while writing those words and happened upon my image. Again, the Holy Spirit speaks and convicts when we are prepared to listen. This is a hard thing to listen to, and yet to not hear it would be to remain in the deplorable state I already occupy. A word to the wise is sufficient.

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Ascent of Mount Carmel XI

The Ascent of Mount Carmel XI--Book II, Chapters 13-15

Read pages 189- 199 in The Ascent of Mount Carmel.

Chapter 13

(1) Why is it very important to know the proper time to leave discursive meditation?

(2) What is the first sign that one is ready to leave discursive mediation?

(3) What is the second sign?

(4) What is the third sign?

(5) Note the caution St. John of the Cross makes about the occurrence of these signs.

(6) Why is one or two of the signs insufficient evidence of the time to leave discursive prayer?

(7) What does John counsel about the third sign--the loving knowledge of God?

Chapter 14

(1-2) What are the two reasons for requiring spiritual persons to give up sensory meditation when the three signs are present?

(3) Why does the desire of others for them to meditate cause displeasure in those who are ready to move on?

(4) What is "the rind of the fruit" that St. John of the Cross refers to in this passage?

(6) List the two faculties St. John talks about at the end of this passage. Keep them in mind as you read the next section. He will make frequent reference to them.

(7) What is the difference between the use of the two faculties like?

(8-9) Compare the purity of knowledge in section 8 with the passage about the ray of light in section 9. What is John trying to tell us in these two passages?

(10-11) What do the purity and simplicity of knowledge cause in the intellect and soul? What is the result? Are persons working with this knowledge actually idle?

(12) Why is forgetfulness less frequent than might otherwise be the case?

Chapter 15

(1) What does St. John of the Cross say about discursive meditation among proficients? What can one expect until one becomes proficient in contemplation?

(2) How can meditation help at this point in time?

(3) Why should one abandon the attempt at discursive meditation when one enters into a state of contemplation?

(4) Why is the light never infused while one still has hold of tangible images and ideas?

(5) What should one do when one cannot meditate? Why?

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About Perfection--From the Desert Fathers

via Garrigou-Lagrange:

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.

This is why Abbot Moses says: "Fasts, vigils, meditation on Holy Scripture, nudity, and the privation of external goods are not perfections, but instruments or means of perfection. It is not in them that perfection consists, but by them that one obtains it.

Sometimes I know I am inclined to substitute the means for the end. That is, prayer becomes an end in itself because it is a time of quiet with or without God. Prayer is an important means of communication which should result in the end of loving God more. Or so I interpret this passage.

Human life seems filled with this kind of substitution. How many people substitute excessive alcohol, eating, spending, movies, sex, or anything else for the real and true End that will fill all of that vast and empty interior space. We are incapable of keeping ends and means straight; what is more, we often substitute poor means for good ones. I know that I need to be thinking a lot more about the End and the means that I suppose employ to try to get there. These means are often my own works and they can advance me only so far down that path. It is time to trust a great deal more in Divine Providence and to listen for the "still, small voice," that tells us very clearly what we ought to be doing, if we only give it the time.

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April 29, 2004

How Then Does A Lay Person Live Out a Contemplative Life?

It is my contention that it is possible for a lay person to live a contemplative life.

What does this strange blending look like? What form does it take and what does it entail for the soul so disposed.

I think we could all agree that it would be possible for most souls to achieve at least the lower degree of contemplation. Not all do it, but it seems that such contemplation is the highest rung on the ladder of what we can obtain "through our own efforts aided by sustaining grace."

Perhaps we should spend a moment thinking about what the contemplative life requires from the person. As I tried to suggest in Martha and Mary: A Speculation, I think much of our understanding of the contemplative life is colored by a misunderstanding of the story of Martha and Mary. I think many of us read this story to mean that the active life is necessarily opposed to the contemplative life. As I said in the cited post, I do not think that is the message we are supposed to garner from the story. However, that understanding presents several problems that must be addressed.

To start with, unless we are extraordinary, as is the case of St. Thérèse and the Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, very few of us are born contemplative. That is, we all enter life in the mode of active life. If it were true that the active life was in some way a substantive barrier to the contemplative life, then it would be impossible to achieve it. St. Thomas Aquinas suggests that the active life may be at once a hindrance to some aspects of the contemplative life and not a hindrance. I won't go into his arguments because frankly I don't think I understand them thoroughly. But suffice to say that while an active life might present a hindrance, it does not constitute a barrier to the contemplative life.

A second problem that is commonly noted is that somehow a contemplative life requires us to withdraw from all the responsibilities of our present state. Once again, I believe this proceeds from a misunderstanding of Mary and Martha. Mary sits at the Lord's feet musing, and Martha works. Mary has withdrawn from the responsibility of social engagement and hospitality and has entered into close communion with the Lord.

Well, I think we can readily see the error of this view. Mary is, in fact, actively offering what hospitality really requires--presence. Hospitality isn't merely about food and shelter, although those are important constitutive parts of hospitality, but it is about being present to the person to home hospitality offers in a fundamental, grounded way. You are there to listen, to hear, to console, to advise, to do what is necessary so that the person feels at home. It was this form of hospitality that Mary offered to Jesus. Do we really think that she wasn't already feeling bad that she wasn't helping Martha? Could she really sit there and ignore entirely the hubbub surrounding her as preparations were made for dinner? When Martha accused Mary before the Lord, would we say that Mary's heart did not drop, recognizing the truth of what Martha was saying? Isn't that perhaps part of the reason for the gentle rebuke that the Lord delivers to Martha? More, after the Lord continued His journey, are we to suppose that Mary sat around the house all day mooning about how nice it was to talk to Him.

I don't think that is what we are to take away from the story. Now, perhaps I am reading too much into it, but I believe we are to see Mary as someone who knows when to work and when to be still. She has a base-level understanding of what it means to be hospitable. She has the urge to serve, but curtails her own desire to hear what it is the Lord wishes her to hear. Martha, on the other hand, extremely well-intentioned, hasn't quite caught on to the idea that there is a time for bustle and activity and a time for quiet reflection and spending time with your guests. More, Martha hasn't quite learned what it means to serve with joy and love and to love the opportunity to serve selflessly. She could have prepared the dinner AND still have been present to the Lord, she simply didn't know how; nor did she fully understand the importance of doing so.

Many of us are in a "Martha" state of life. Sometimes I can't quite see how to integrate my activity and my prayer-- my service to others and my spending time with the Lord. I know that by serving others I AM spending time with God, but because He is not necessarily foremost in my mind in the time of service, it doesn't really "count." I think, to some extent we all suffer from the same mindset.

(Unfortunately, time has come to move on to other matters. This evening I have a great deal of work to make up for so this will be continued later.)

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Four Questions Part 2D--What Do I Mean By Contemplation?

When I have used the term in the past, I must admit to having in mind infused contemplation. Perhaps later I will get to my reasoning for that. However, I must admit that not everyone makes it there, nor is everyone likely to--not everyone is called to endure the trials that would result in infused contemplation. That said, I must also say, that we are all, nonetheless invited to it, and we will all eventually participate in it (assuming that we make it to Heaven.)

By contemplation, I mean wordless prayer that raises the soul to God to gaze upon the beloved and to simply be present to the One who loves us. I believe that everyone could and should strive to obtain acquired contemplation, sometimes called "resting in the Lord," in which our intellectual labors have been brought to perfection and now the spirit labors on.

I also must side with Garrigou-Lagrange who said (I think and I paraphrase), "Surely God would not call souls to this high state of prayer only to turn them away from the table." Implying that infused contemplation while a gift given at God's discretion, is not one that is arbitrarily withheld. Most souls that make it to the stage of acquired contemplation are ready for infused contemplation; however, they still may not make it. This they fail to do for any number of reasons, most of them related to their own imperfection and ignorance of how to proceed. But I also not that it is entirely plausible that there could be such a grave defect in a soul that God must proceed exceedingly slowly so as not to harm it. He may indeed need to proceed so slowly that the person would die a natural death of old age before achieving infused contemplation. This in no way condemns the frail soul--it is simply a reality of spiritual life.

To conclude--when I use the word contemplation, I am more often than not speaking of infused contemplation, in which we actively rest from the labors of the intellect and bestow a long, loving gaze upon the Most High, the Father who loves us and calls to us.

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Four Questions Part 4

RC Asked:

Is the idea of a "vocational call" related to the concept of 'charism'?

Would you like to talk about the universal call to holiness as something more fundamental?

This actually needs very little response. A vocational call, when responded to precurs for the respondant the charisms of that call. (Or so I think--it is probably a good deal more complicated.)

And I just second the notion that the universal call to holiness is above all of this. However, I think the universal call to holiness carries within it a certain obligation to exert ourselves in the realm of prayer; perhaps to the point of obtaining acquired contemplation. Again, all is gift, it isn't as though we achieve these things through ourselves. Everything we receive, we receive as pure gift, even though the work we do is meritorious.

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Psalm Prayer

I have prayed this some two-hundred times (or thereabouts) since I began recitation of the Liturgy of hours and this morning it spoke to me:

Psalm Prayer for the Third Psalm of Morning Prayer, Thursday Week III

God, you are the source of all holines. Though no one can see yu and live, you give life most generously and in an even greater way restore it. Sanctify your priests through your life-giving Word, and consecrate your people in his blood until our eyes see your face.

What broke through my early-morning haze was that last phrase "and consecrate your people in his blood until our eyes see your face." There is something about the notion of "our eyes" seeing "your face" that engages the imagination and stirs sluggish hope to rouse Charity to ardor. That is the goal, ultimately. In Heaven we shall see His Holy face and we shall rejoice in it knowing that we are in His presence for all eternity, that we will not fall like the angels, because we've already been given our chance at that in this lifetime. We shall know God, talk to Him face to face. Think of that. In Isaiah we see that not even the great Seraphim do so; we are destined through the grace and the salvific gift of Christ on the Cross to see God face to face and to call Him Father. What joy, what utter joy. Words fail.

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April 28, 2004

Four Questions--Part 3--Is the Contemplative Life a Vocation in Itself?

I initially thought I would answer this question first because the answer seemed so strightforward and simple; but thinking about it caused me to pause. The more I know of vocations the less clear any answer about them seems to be.

For example, one might think that the vocation of St. Thérèse was that of a Carmelite Nun. But late in life she is quoted as saying, "My vocation is love, love at the heart of the church." She spent much of her vocational life searching for her vocation.

So, the real answer to this question is that in my limited understanding, the contemplative life is an aspect of a wider vocation--that of religious, or married. I don't know if it exists by itself as a vocation, but it seems that every contemplative I'm aware of had a larger view of their vocation, that contemplation was part of what they did and were, but not the entirety.

So, this unsatisfactory response is as close as I can come to a definitive answer. Sorry, but this requires one with far greater knowledge and understanding of the meaning of vocation than I have to answer it. I can only answer from one side and say that it certainly can be part of a vocation. As to whether it constitutes a vocation in and of itself, I will trust wiser minds and those with more extensive knowledge to inform all of us.

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April 27, 2004

Four Questions 2C-What is Contemplation?

from the Online Catholic Encyclopedia, 1914

from the article on Contemplation

St. Alphonsus Liguori, echoing his predecessors, defines it thus: "At the end of a certain time ordinary meditation produces what is called acquired contemplation, which consists in seeing at a simple glance the truths which could previously be discovered only through prolonged discourse" (Homo apostolicus, Appendix I, No. 7).

Higher contemplation

To distinguish it from acquired contemplation mystical union is called intuitive, passive, extraordinary, or higher contemplation. St. Teresa designates it simply as contemplation, without any qualification. Mystical graces may be divided into two groups, according to the nature of the object contemplated. The states of the first group are characterized by the fact that it is God, and God only, who manifests Himself; these are called mystical union. In the second group the manifestation is of a created object, as, for example, when one beholds the humanity of Christ or an angel or a future event, etc. These are visions (of created things) and revelations. To these belong miraculous bodily phenomena which are sometimes observed in ecstatics.

Here we have the beginnings of the distinction between acquired contemplation and infused contemplation. You can see that the matter of definitions is not nearly so clear-cut, neat and precise as it might be. However, all of these senses of contemplation are necessary to understand what might be meant by the statement that "everyone is called to contemplation."

To be completely honest, it is my personal belief that a great many more people might achieve both infused contemplation and even mystical Union and spiritual marriage were they inclined to accept the invitation and graces offered toward these ends. Obviously, I cannot know this; however, St. John of the Cross seems also to think it true because many times he addresses those who are "stuck" in a level of prayer and who do not advance because of lack of knowledge about how to effect this advance. But I get ahead of myself. This must all be dealt with in turn, and first we need to complete the definitions. However, this evening or tomorrow I may do a combined treatement of the thrid and fourth questions. The nature of these questions lends itself to such a combined consideration.

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Four Questions 2B--What is Contemplation?

Now we approach formal definitions that come closer to the heart of what we are talking about.

I start with the least formal of these, but one that gives a very good intuitive feel for what it is about. This is Tom of Disputations paraphrase of Fr. William McNamara. Comtemplation is "a long, lingering, loving look at the real."

An excellent start, if a little nebulous.

Here is a portion of Evelyn Underhill's magistgerial discussion. We have here not so much a definition but a delineation of what contemplation is NOT.

from Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness
Evelyn Underhill

Here, the most important work has been done in France; and especially by the Abb� Bremond, whose �Pri�re et Po�sie� and �Introduction a la Philosophie de la Pri�re��based on a vast acquaintance with mystical literature�mark, I believe, the beginning of a new understanding of the character of contemplation. The Thomist philosophy of Maritain, and the psychological researches of Mar�chal, tend to support this developing view of the mystical experience, even in its elementary forms, as an activity of the transcendental self; genuinely supernatural, yet not necessarily involving any abnormal manifestations, and linked by the ascending �degrees of prayer� with the subject�s �ordinary� religious life. This disentangling of the substance of mysticism from the psycho-physical accidents of trance, ecstasy, vision and other abnormal phenomena which often accompany it, and its vindication as something which gives the self a genuine knowledge of transcendental Reality�with its accompanying demonstration of the soberness and sanity of the greatest contemplative saints�is the last of the beneficent changes which have transformed our study of the mystics.

Later in the same work we find this:

This act of perfect concentration, 49 the passionate focussing of the self upon one point, when it is applied �with a naked intent� to real and transcendental things, constitutes in the technical language of mysticism the state of recollection: 64 a condition which is peculiarly characteristic of the mystical consciousness, and is the necessary prelude of pure contemplation, that state in which the mystic enters into communion with Reality.

(Emphasis added to accentuate what I thnk Underhill's "definition" of contemplation entails.) In the following paragraphs, quoted at length here for future reference, Underhill has some interesting points to make regarding the contemplative and the goal of contemplation.

from Mysticism
Evelyn Underhill

We have then arrived so far in our description of the mechanism of the mystic. Possessed like other men of powers of feeling, thought, and will, it is essential that his love and his determination, even more than his thought, should be set upon Transcendent Reality. He must feel a strong emotional attraction toward the supersensual Object of his quest: that love which scholastic philosophy defined as the force or power which causes every creature to follow out the trend of its own nature. Of this must be born the will to attain communion with that Absolute Object. This will, this burning and active desire, must crystallize into and express itself by that definite and conscious concentration of the whole self upon the Object, which precedes the contemplative state. We see already how far astray are those who look upon the mystical temperament as passive in type.

Our next concern, then, would seem to be with this condition of contemplation: what it does and whither it leads. What is (a) its psychological explanation and (b) its empirical value? Now, in dealing with this, and other rare mental conditions, we are of course trying to describe from without that which can only adequately be described from within; which is as much as to say that only mystics can really write about mysticism. Fortunately, many mystics have so written; and we, from their experiences and from the explorations of psychology upon another plane, are able to make certain elementary deductions. It appears generally from these that the act of contemplation is for the mystic a psychic gateway; a method of going from one level of consciousness to another. In technical language it is the condition under which he shifts his �field of perception� and obtains his characteristic outlook on the universe. That there is such a characteristic outlook, peculiar to no creed or race, is proved by the history of mysticism; which demonstrates plainly enough that in some men another sort of consciousness, another �sense,� may be liberated beyond the normal powers we have discussed. This �sense� has attachments at each point to emotion, to intellect, and to will. It can express itself under each of the aspects which these terms connote. Yet it differs from and transcends the emotional,intellectual, and volitional life of ordinary men. It was recognized by 50 Plato as that consciousness which could apprehend the real world of the Ideas. Its development is the final object of that education which his �Republic� describes. It is called by Plotinus �Another intellect, different from that which reasons and is denominated rational.� Its business, he says, is the perception of the supersensual�or, in Neoplatonic language, the intelligible world. It is the sense which, in the words of the �Theologia Germanica,� has �the power of seeing into eternity,� the �mysterious eye of the soul� by which St. Augustine saw �the light that never changes.� It is, says Al Ghazzali, a Persian mystic of the eleventh century, �like an immediate perception, as if one touched its object with one�s hand.� In the words of his great Christian successor, St. Bernard, �it may be defined as the soul�s true unerring intuition, the unhesitating apprehension of truth�: which �simple vision of truth,� says St. Thomas Aquinas, �ends in a movement of desire.�

It is infused with burning love, for it seems to its possessors to be primarily a movement of the heart: with intellectual subtlety, for its ardour is wholly spent upon the most sublime object of thought: with unflinching will, for its adventures are undertaken in the teeth of the natural doubts, prejudices, languors, and self-indulgence of man. These adventures, looked upon by those who stay at home as a form of the Higher Laziness, are in reality the last and most arduous labours which the human spirit is called to perform. They are the only known methods by which we can come into conscious possession of all our powers; and, rising from the lower to the higher levels of consciousness, become aware of that larger life in which we are immersed, attain communion with the transcendent Personality in Whom that life is resumed.

Mary has chosen the better, not the idler part; for her gaze is directed towards those First Principles without which the activity of Martha would have no meaning at all. In vain does sardonic common sense, confronted with the contemplative type, reiterate the sneer of Mucius, �Encore sont-ils heureux que la pauvre Marthe leur fasse la cuisine.� It remains a paradox of the mystics that the passivity at which they appear to aim is really a state of the most intense activity: more, that where it is wholly absent no great creative action can take place. In it, the superficial self compels itself to be still, in order that it may liberate another more deep-seated power which is, in the ecstasy of the contemplative genius, raised to the highest pitch of efficiency.

�This restful travail,� said Walter Hilton, �is full far from fleshly idleness and from blind security. It is full of ghostly work but it is called rest, for grace looseth the heavy yoke of fleshly love from the soul and maketh it mighty and free through the gift of the holy ghostly love for to work gladly, softly, and delectably. . . . Therefore is it called an holy idleness and a rest most busy; and so is it in stillness from the great crying and the beastly noise of fleshly desires.�

. . . This act, this condition of consciousness, in which barriers are obliterated, the Absolute flows in on us, and we, rushing out to its embrace, �find and feel the Infinite above all reason and above all knowledge,� is the true �mystical state.� The value of contemplation is that it tends to produce this state, release this transcendental sense; and so turns the �lower servitude� in which the natural man lives under the sway of his earthly environment to the �higher servitude� of fully conscious dependence on that Reality �in Whom we live and move and have our being.�

Quotations such as these get at the point of contemplation, but fail to define it succinctly. In fact, one could peruse the entire work without becoming much more concrete than this last paragraph.

I've gone on too long as it is, but let me end this post with one, final, much more succinct, if rather dense definition and discussion from St. Thomas Aquinas:

from Summa Theolgiae
St. Thomas Aquinas

On the contrary, Life signifies here the operation on which a man is chiefly intent. Wherefore if there are several operations of the contemplative life, there will be, not one, but several contemplative lives.

I answer that, We are now speaking of the contemplative life as applicable to man. Now according to Dionysius (Div. Nom. vii) between man and angel there is this difference, that an angel perceives the truth by simple apprehension, whereas man arrives at the perception of a simple truth by a process from several premises. Accordingly, then, the contemplative life has one act wherein it is finally completed, namely the contemplation of truth, and from this act it derives its unity. Yet it has many acts whereby it arrives at this final act. Some of these pertain to the reception of principles, from which it proceeds to the contemplation of truth; others are concerned with deducing from the principles, the truth, the knowledge of which is sought; and the last and crowning act is the contemplation itself of the truth.

Reply to Objection 1. According to Richard of St. Victor "cogitation" would seem to regard the consideration of the many things from which a person intends to gather one simple truth. Hence cogitation may comprise not only the perceptions of the senses in taking cognizance of certain effects, but also the imaginations. and again the reason's discussion of the various signs or of anything that conduces to the truth in view: although, according to Augustine (De Trin. xiv, 7), cogitation may signify any actual operation of the intellect. "Meditation" would seem to be the process of reason from certain principles that lead to the contemplation of some truth: and "consideration" has the same meaning, according to Bernard (De Consid. ii, 2), although, according to the Philosopher (De Anima ii, 1), every operation of the intellect may be called "consideration." But "contemplation" regards the simple act of gazing on the truth; wherefore Richard says again (De Grat. Contempl. i, 4) that "contemplation is the soul's clear and free dwelling upon the object of its gaze; meditation is the survey of the mind while occupied in searching for the truth: and cogitation is the mind's glance which is prone to wander."

Now, this is by no means the fullness of what St. Thomas has to say regarding contemplation. Nor could we reasonably end a discussion of the definition of contemplation on such a note. However, this must suffice for the moment as the duties of the day beckon. I shall try to resume this somewhat later.

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April 26, 2004

Four Questions--Part 2A--What Is Contemplation?

I think the best way for me to approach this question is to give some quotes from others that begin to describe at least subjectively what contemplation is and cap it with a formal definition. Then I will try to say what I mean when I use the word--a combination of subjective experience and formal definition.

Once again, Neil's quotations below provide and nice beginning to our discussion. Coming from Protestant writers, they show that the experience of contemplation is not confined to vowed religious or even to Catholics alone; not that anyone implied they were. But sometimes I think that these forms of prayer are seen as so abstruse as to transcend any ordinary individual's ability. Well, of course they do, because they come from God; however, I do believe God invites everyone into at least some aspects of this form of prayer.

Following is an excerpt from Neil's post below in which he includes writings of some of the major protestant mystics and "Divines."

Here are, for instance, a few very insightful quotations from Calvinist authors:

"Contemplation is a prayer in which our entire being is taken hold of by wonder at God�s love."
-- Brother Roger of Taize, meditation, 1 Jan 2004

"The spiritual intense fixation of the mind, by contemplation on God in Christ, until the soul be as it were swallowed up in admiration and delight, and being brought unto an utter loss, through the infiniteness of those excellencies which it doth admire and adore, it returns again into its own abasements, out of a sense of its infinite distance from what it would absolutely and eternally embrace, and, withal, the inexpressible rest and satisfaction which the will and affections receive in their approaches to the eternal Fountain of goodness, are things to be aimed at in prayer, and which, through the riches of divine condescension, are frequently enjoyed. The soul is hereby raised and ravished, not into ecstasies or unaccountable raptures, not acted into motions above the power of its own understanding and will; but in all the faculties and affections of it, through the effectual workings of the Spirit of grace and the lively impressions of divine love, with intimations of the relations and kindness of God, is filled with rest, in 'joy unspeakable and full of glory.'"
-- John Owen, "The Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer"

"God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon and stars; in the clouds, and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon, for a long time; and so in the day time spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the mean time, singing forth with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer. And scarce any thing, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning. Formerly, nothing had been so terrible to me ... But now, on the contrary it rejoiced me. I felt God at the first appearance of a thunderstorm. And used to take the opportunity at such times to fix myself to view the clouds, and see the lightning's play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder: which often times was exceeding entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God."
-- Jonathan Edwards, "Personal Narrative"

All of these quotations define the experience of contemplation and get at the definition, but subjectively; that is, this is what the pray-er experienced in the course of prayer. This is what we might term an "experiential definition." This is what it felt like to be caught up in contemplation. These experiences are probably correlative to what St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila refer to as the "consolations" of prayer. They are not experiences to be sought after in themselves, but they are small foretastes of what the experience of Union might be like. Their purpose is to lead the person praying more deeply into prayer.

Later stages of this prayer are described by St. Teresa of Avila in a very simple phrase, "Mira que tu mira." Which, I'm told, roughly translates to "Look at the One who is looking at you." This implies a gaze of love into the face of the beloved.

(Stay tuned for more.)

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April 23, 2004

Four Questions Part I--What is meant by Union with God?

Before I have even started, I discover four questions or clarifications necessary--an ample demonstration of the drawbacks of the blog for something of this nature. Neverhteless, the questions asked are both intriguing and important. Because I have time to answer only one, and because Neil's comment in the post below goes a long way toward answering it (even though the quotes are about contemplation, they also seem to speak of Union) --I will start with Rob's question about "What do I mean when I say Union with God."

This is an incredibly complex and difficult question. I may only get to start to answer it. If so, I'll start with the succinct version of the most persuasive definition I know: when we reach Divine Union, we "become God by participation."

Now let me extend the explanation by a quote of some length from St. John of the Cross who explains far better what is meant by this. Please forgive the rather difficult E. Allison Peers translation (the only one presently available on the web) and pay particular attention to paragraph six. I reproduce the entire chapter in the extended entry to avoid long scrolling for those who are just looking for an overview.

(I know the text is long, but it is worth your attention. If too much, just focus on paragraph six.)

from The Ascent of Mount Carmel Book II, Chapter 5
St. John of the Cross

CHAPTER V

Wherein is described what is meant by union of the soul with God. A comparison is given.[231]

FROM what has been said above it becomes clear to some extent what we mean by union of the soul with God; what we now say about it, therefore, will be the better understood. It is not my intention here to treat of the divisions of this union, nor of its parts, for I should never end if I were to begin now to explain what is the nature of union of the understanding, and what is that of union according to the will, and likewise according to the memory; and likewise what is transitory and what permanent in the union of the said faculties; and then what is meant by total union, transitory and permanent, with regard to the said faculties all together. All this we shall treat gradually in our discourse -- speaking first of one and then of another. But here this is not to the point in order to describe what we have to say concerning them; it will be explained much more fittingly in its place, when we shall again be treating the same matter, and shall have a striking illustration to add to the present explanation, so that everything will then be considered and explained and we shall judge of it better.

2. Here I treat only of this permanent and total union according to the substance of the soul and its faculties with respect to the obscure habit of union: for with respect to the act, we shall explain later, with the Divine favour, how there can be no permanent union in the faculties, in this life, but a transitory union only.

3. In order, then, to understand what is meant by this union whereof we are treating, it must be known that God dwells and is present substantially in every soul, even in that of the greatest sinner in the world. And this kind of union is ever wrought between God and all the creatures, for in it He is preserving their being: if union of this kind were to fail them, they would at once become annihilated and would cease to be. And so, when we speak of union of the soul with God, we speak not of this substantial union which is continually being wrought, but of the union and transformation of the soul with God, which is not being wrought continually, but only when there is produced that likeness that comes from love; we shall therefore term this the union of likeness, even as that other union is called substantial or essential. The former is natural, the latter supernatural. And the latter comes to pass when the two wills -- namely that of the soul and that of God -- are conformed together in one, and there is naught in the one that repugnant to the other. And thus, when the soul rids itself totally of that which is repugnant to the Divine will and conforms not with it, it is transformed in God through love.

4. This is to be understood of that which is repugnant, not only in action, but likewise in habit, so that not only must the voluntary acts of imperfection cease, but the habits of any such imperfections must be annihilated. And since no creature whatsoever, and none of its actions or abilities, can conform or can attain to that which is God, therefore must the soul be stripped of all things created, and of its own actions and abilities -- namely, of its understanding, perception and feeling -- so that, when all that is unlike God and unconformed to Him is cast out, the soul may receive the likeness of God; and nothing will then remain in it that is not the will of God and it will thus be transformed in God. Wherefore, although it is true that, as we have said, God is ever in the soul, giving it, and through His presence conserving within it, its natural being, yet He does not always communicate supernatural being to it. For this is communicated only by love and grace, which not all souls possess; and all those that possess it have it not in the same degree; for some have attained more degrees of love and others fewer. Wherefore God communicates Himself most to that soul that has progressed farthest in love; namely, that has its will in closest conformity with the will of God. And the soul that has attained complete conformity and likeness of will is totally united and transformed in God supernaturally. Wherefore, as has already been explained, the more completely a soul is wrapped up in[232] the creatures and in its own abilities, by habit and affection, the less preparation it has for such union; for it gives not God a complete opportunity to transform it supernaturally. The soul, then, needs only to strip itself of these natural dissimilarities and contrarieties, so that God, Who is communicating Himself naturally to it, according to the course of nature, may communicate Himself to it supernaturally, by means of grace.

5. And it is this that Saint John desired to explain when he said: Qui non ex sanguinibus, neque ex voluntate carnis, neque ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt.233 As though he had said: He gave power to be sons of God -- that is, to be transformed in God -- only to those who are born, not of blood -- that is, not of natural constitution and temperament -- neither of the will of the flesh -- that is, of the free will of natural capacity and ability -- still less of the will of man -- wherein is included every way and manner of judging and comprehending with the understanding. He gave power to none of these to become sons of God, but only to those that are born of God -- that is, to those who, being born again through grace, and dying first of all to everything that is of the old man, are raised above themselves to the supernatural, and receive from God this rebirth and adoption, which transcends all that can be imagined. For, as Saint John himself says elsewhere: Nisi quis renatus fuerit ex aqua, et Spiritu Sancto, non potest videre regnum Dei.234 This signifies: He that is not born again in the Holy Spirit will not be able to see this kingdom of God, which is the state of perfection; and to be born again in the Holy Spirit in this life is to have a soul most like to God in purity, having in itself no admixture of imperfection, so that pure transformation can be wrought in it through participation of union, albeit not essentially.

6. In order that both these things may be the better understood, let us make a comparison. A ray of sunlight is striking a window. If the window is in any way stained or misty, the sun's ray will be unable to illumine it and transform it into its own light, totally, as it would if it were clean of all these things, and pure; but it will illumine it to a lesser degree, in proportion as it is less free from those mists and stains; and will do so to a greater degree, in proportion as it is cleaner from them, and this will not be because of the sun's ray, but because of itself; so much so that, if it be wholly pure and clean, the ray of sunlight will transform it and illumine it in such wise that it will itself seem to be a ray and will give the same light as the ray. Although in reality the window has a nature distinct from that of the ray itself, however much it may resemble it, yet we may say that that window is a ray of the sun or is light by participation. And the soul is like this window, whereupon is ever beating (or, to express it better, wherein is ever dwelling) this Divine light of the Being of God according to nature, which we have described.

7. In thus allowing God to work in it, the soul (having rid itself of every mist and stain of the creatures, which consists in having its will perfectly united with that of God, for to love is to labour to detach and strip itself for God's sake of all that is not God) is at once illumined and transformed in God, and God communicates to it His supernatural Being, in such wise that it appears to be God Himself, and has all that God Himself has. And this union comes to pass when God grants the soul this supernatural favour, that all the things of God and the soul are one in participant transformation; and the soul seems to be God rather than a soul, and is indeed God by participation; although it is true that its natural being, though thus transformed, is as distinct from the Being of God as it was before, even as the window has likewise a nature distinct from that of the ray, though the ray gives it brightness.

8. This makes it clearer that the preparation of the soul for this union, as we said, is not that it should understand or perceive or feel or imagine anything, concerning either God or aught else, but that it should have purity and love -- that is, perfect resignation and detachment from everything for God's sake alone; and, as there can be no perfect transformation if there be not perfect purity, and as the enlightenment, illumination and union of the soul with God will be according to the proportion of its purity, in greater or in less degree; yet the soul will not be perfect, as I say, if it be not wholly and perfectly[235] bright and clean.

9. This will likewise be understood by the following comparison. A picture is truly perfect, with many and most sublime beauties and delicate and subtle illuminations, and some of its beauties are so fine and subtle that they cannot be completely realized, because of their delicacy and excellence. Fewer beauties and less delicacy will be seen in this picture by one whose vision is less clear and refined; and he whose vision is somewhat more refined will be able to see in it more beauties and perfections; and, if another person has a vision still more refined, he will see still more perfection; and, finally, he who has the clearest and purest faculties will see the most beauties and perfections of all; for there is so much to see in the picture that, however far one may attain, there will ever remain higher degrees of attainment.

10. After the same manner we may describe the condition of the soul with relation to God in this enlightenment or transformation. For, although it is true that a soul, according to its greater or lesser capacity, may have attained to union, yet not all do so in an equal degree, for this depends upon what the Lord is pleased to grant to each one. It is in this way that souls see God in Heaven; some more, some less; but all see Him, and all are content, for their capacity is satisfied.

11. Wherefore, although in this life here below we find certain souls enjoying equal peace and tranquillity in the state of perfection, and each one of them satisfied, yet some of them may be many degrees higher than others. All, however, will be equally satisfied, because the capacity of each one is satisfied. But the soul that attains not to such a measure of purity as is in conformity with its capacity never attains true peace and satisfaction, since it has not attained to the possession of that detachment and emptiness in its faculties which is required for simple union.

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A Correction to Yesterday's Definition

Yesterday I wrote

A contemplative is one whose prayer life is centered around or focused toward contemplation of God, ultimately with the goal of Union with God.

This is an inaccurate representation of my thought. If contemplation is undertaken with some sort of ulterior motive no matter how good, i.e. Union with God, it strikes me rather as the Pharises's prayer which is its own reward and does not result in the righteousness of the sinner. No, the true "goal" of contemplation is spending time with the Lord. The ultimate result of perfect contemplation for those called to it would be Union with God. But to set one's eyes on Union with God as the goal is somehow overlooking the great good that comes of spending time with the Lord. Contemplation is, in fact, its own end. What it may result in is God's gift and graciousness, but not something that can somehow be earned or wresteled away from God no matter how great the effort.

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April 22, 2004

The Contemplative Life--A Definitional Prologue

I'd like to start my discussion of contemplation by explaining, if not precisely defining what I mean by "a contemplative" or "contemplative life" because it may be quite different than other understandings of the same formulations used by others. By the rule of my order all Carmelites are called to a contemplative life. The Carmelite vocation is a contemplative vocation for all of the members of its family. This may seem unusual because you may think of a contemplative as a vowed religious--and these are certainly contained within the Carmelite family. But the family also embraces those who are not vowed. And even those not vowed are called to the contemplative vocation. A contemplative is one whose prayer life is centered around or focused toward contemplation of God , ultimately with the goal of Union with God. Now this may be expressed differently, and perhaps the Union with God part of this vocation is unique to Carmelites. (Although I tend to think not. It would seem to me that while the terminology might be different, it would not be out of order to think that St. Catherine of Siena--a Third Order Dominican--and thus technically not a vowed religious--achieved this state even if it were expressed in other terminology.) Thus a contemplative is any person who is drawn to contemplate God and who acts upon that impulse, which issues from God Himself.

Now, it is my belief that we are all called to be contemplatives according to the definition I have just offered. But even that needs explanation. What I mean when I say "called to be contemplatives" is that God issues the invitation as a blanket invitation to everyone. Everyone is invited to the party. Amongst all those invitees are groups that God has not only invited, but in a very special way, He has urged them to come to the party. These include the vowed religious contemplatives and the lay contemplatives of orders that have such. These are special invitations or vocations. Not everyone has a contemplative vocation. However, everyone does have an invitation from God to come closer, to spend some time in the throne-room, to--as St. Thérèse so marvelously put it--spend some time on Papa's knee. I think that everyone who answers this call, through grace and the Holy Spirit, can achieve the state of Union with God. For example, I think several Protestant Mystics--George Fox and William Law, among them, achieved the state we might refer to as Union with God. I could be incorrect, but their writings suggest an intimate knowledge of the things of God that comes from one who has achieved such union. Thus I would say, all are called or invited to contemplation, some few are specially urged toward it, but the graces are there for all. We know that we needn't belong to a special order or special way of prayer to achieve contemplation or union because it seems from St. Paul's writing that he was in this state. At the time of St. Paul there were no religious orders as such (at least in infant Christianity.)

So, I hope I have established that (1) there is a universal call to contemplation; (2) there is a separate, clearly definied vocational call to a contemplative life. Anyone who answers (1) could, through grace and the Holy Spirit, lead a contemplative life and achieve union with God, even though they do not belong to any particular order.

Let's stop here for the moment and see if there are any strong objections to or any questions about what I have stated thus far. I shouldn't think that there would be because all of this is pretty straight forward; however, I think it useful to let you know what I have in mind when I use language in a certain way. Because I tend more to metaphorical language, it would be easy to interpret "all are called to contemplation" to be the equivalent of "all are called to a lay relgious vocation." I hope that I have clarified precisely what I do mean by that statement.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:37 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

April 19, 2004

Contemplation Again

Tom of Disputations says:

It might be helpful to distinguish between "living in the presence of God," where one's heart is lifted toward God even as one goes about daily life, and "ascending to God," where the soul is more or less captivated by God Himself and any awareness of daily life dims or fades away entirely.

Ascending to God is an attenuated awareness of reality? We call that psychosis, not contemplation. And yet this seems so popular a misconception of what contemplation truly is. Do we really think that the contemplative Saint has some sort of etiolated, breathless, and ethereal relationship with the world? Is the contemplative Saint a wan and otherworldly figure floating through this life just waiting for the gates of heaven to open, unaware, unseeing, unfeeling, a ghost-like wraith? That's not a saint, that's just weird.

If anything, because the contemplative saint has the right ordering of priorities and duties, and the saint that has experienced Union with God becomes God by participation (whatever that means) it would seem that they would see reality as more real. They would love things as God loves them (it would seem.) Their relationship with reality would be stronger, not weaker. They would be able to say as St. Teresa did in advising her nuns, "If you think you are having visions, perhaps you ought to eat more." They would dance in the courtyard and play tambourine. They would sit under the stars of an Andalusian night and see the splendid handiwork of God and love Him all the more for it.

Contemplation is not about breaking away from reality and creation, it is about embracing it in its right and proper order. It is about loving things with the love due them and not with disordered affection. The true contemplative lives constantly in the presence and perhaps even in the heart of God, but he is no less a human being here on Earth. Think of St. Francis among the animals, the canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon. This expresses the fullness of the contemplative life. We mustn't think of it as some sort of attenuation of presence in the world. It is a reification of God's love for the world. He gives us the contemplatives so that we can see what reality is all about. They are our examples of how truly to look at the world.

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April 18, 2004

Martha and Mary: A Speculation

We all know the story of Martha and Mary--how Mary chose "the better part." But why is that so? Didn't the Lord applaud the woman who has anointing his feet? Didn't He tell us that "whatsoever we do for one of these the least of His little ones, that we do unto Him?" Why should Mary have the better part.

Here is what I think the tale is about. Many make it out to be about the difference between the active life and the contemplative life, making the common mistake that contemplation=utter inaction. What I think this is about is where the heart is. Mary is completely lost in Jesus's words, utterly abandoned to Him, listening carefully and simply loving Him.

Martha on the other hand is completely wrapped up in herself, in societal expectaions, in how much she has to do to put on a "good show" for the Lord and how little help she is getting from that lazy-butt sister who's just lolling about listening where she oughtn't to be rather than helping in the kitchen.

If Martha had partaken of the "better part" she need not necessarily have sat at Jesus' feet. If she were truly lost in Jesus, she could just as easily have set a table for fifty and roasted a lamb without so much as thinking about asking for help. She would have been so wrapped up in the wonderful privilege of service, it would not have occurred to her to give the job to someone else. After all, this is what the Lord appointed for her to do, and do it she would with all her heart.

The contemplative life is not an inactive life. Nearly every contemplative I am aware of served an active life of service to a community. Some did solid, substantive physical labor, others swept floors in a convent, made soup, tended to the sick in their communities. A cloistered life is not a life of utter inaction. There are still abundant corporal and spiritual works of mercy to be performed.

Where do we get the notion that a contemplative spends all day lolling about in some sort of opium-dream of divinity? Why do we consistently ignore the fact that great contemplatives like St. Teresa of Avila (who erected 32 "Foundations" or convents in her lifetime), St. Catherine of Siena (who traveled to Avignon to persuade the Pope in Exile to return to his rightful see in Rome), Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, St. Katherine Drexel (who built, bought, and/or establish hospitals and schools for underprivileged persons of color and Native Americans) all spent tremendously active lives. They did not sit around waiting for visions. They didn't carefully walk through darkened corridors so as not to disturb the Divine influence that was showering down upon them.

And this only makes sense. If we read our Bibles carefully (or even not-so-carefully) we hear James telling us that faith without works is dead. How can a contemplative not have faith? Surely then there must be works. Yes the works are often in the form of prayers, but they are also often in the forms of work that we couldn't even begin to think of doing.

Being contemplative perfects union with God. All the works that come from a contemplative in this state are more substantive works because they have their origin at a level above personal desire or volition; they spring from utter abandoment and willingness to do God's appointed work for them.

So I read Martha and Mary to be not about sitting and listening or working, but to be about how we go about either listening or doing our work. If in the course of our work all we think about is how much work it is and how unappreciated it is, and how we ought to have someone helping us, and dadgummit that's the last time I'm going to do something for this groups of ingrates, we are obviously not setting our hearts on the goal of pleasing God. We are being Marthas, complaining to God about how unappreciated and unhelped we are.

But if we set about even the most minor or menial task--vacuuming the floors, picking up dirty clothes (that we've told that spouse/those kids about ten thousand times) without a single hitch in the hymn we're singing, in perfect happiness at doing what needs done in order to life out God's will for us, then we are at once active and contemplative. We are living the life of Mary in the midst of our activity. THAT is what the contemplative life is about. It isn't about setting aside thirty hours to do nothing but stare at the wall of our bedroom or about becoming holy while our children go without meals.

The complete Christian life is never an either/or it is always some form of both/and. The great saints knew this and they told us through their written works and through their lives. We have two mirrors by which to see them--too often we only look at one.

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April 17, 2004

Saying Nada in Dominican

Elsewhere Tom and I have been carrying on an extended dialogue about whether everyone is called to the contemplative life, and IF that is true, is it possible for persons with vocations that require a great deal of preoccupation with everyday matters to fulfill the call.

I quote here from a lesser known work of St. Thomas Aquinas:

from The Ways of God: for meditation and prayer
St. Thomas Aquinas

And last and above all, let us take tender care of God Himself, doing everywhere and always that which He most desires us to do and that for which He has particularly predestined us.

We must, therefore, as much as possible, flee all that disturbs us, for grace cannot dwell in an agitated soul. But to keep inner peace we need ardent devotion to God and love "as strong as death," because these have in us an effect like death, so that, seeing the evil deeds of our neighbor, we do not see them; hearing words that could harm us or that are said against us, we do not hear them; and so our heart is not occupied with these things.

We must, in imitation of David, be like the blind, the deaf, and the dumb, and like men without feeling. "But I as a deaf man heard not, and as a dumb man not opening his mouth."

Let us, then, give ourselves up faithfully and with fervor to the things of God. . .

(much later)

We also should take every care to conduct each of our activities as well as we can, doing them by the virtue of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with all the desire of the Church Triumphant and Militant, and in the name of our Creator, as though our entire salvation and the praise of God and the welfare of all creation depended upon a single act that we do, as if we should never again do a like act, or never again do another act at all afterward.

For each time that an extraneous thought, a turning of the soul toward something else, intoduces itself into our actions, the spirit relaxes in its present work.

Tell me that the middle two paragraphs don't prefigure St. John of the Cross's discussions of "nights of the soul!" It is quite clear that St. Thomas enunciated and described the doctrine, at least in outline. I don't know his work well enough to know if this is expanded upon elsewhere. But here, he very clearly describes what "nada" means. Do not care for the things of the world, but for God Himself alone, and demonstrate that care by living out His will in the particular vocation to which you were called from before time.

Union with God proceeds from three main streams. The most important of these is Charity because it is the source and the strength of the other two. The other are humility and obedience. We cannot achieve union with God as married persons by abandoning our spouses and children and living on a mountain top--this is grave sin and disobedience, and kind of spiritual pride and avarice. Instead, the only path for sanctity is the path that God has laid out for us within our vocation. We must serve and love our families. Now, we know that God makes possible to everyone the closest possible approach. So it follows that union with God is possible within the vocation of marriage. That the living out of abandonment will necessarily present a different face than that of living out a religious vocation goes without saying. But because God calls us to perfection from within our lives and vocations, perfection must perforce be possible from that place. It is the responsibility and the privilege of each of us to attain perfection. Jesus commanded it, it is possible through grace and the merits given us for our works within our vocation.

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April 13, 2004

Puritan Family Advice

For those "head of the household" types some strong words from Richard Baxter:

THE SPECIAL DUTIES OF HUSBANDS TO THEIR WIVES

by Richard Baxter

He that will expect duty or comfort from his wife, must be faithful in doing the duty of a husband. The failing of yourselves in your own duty, may cause the failing of another to you, or at least in some other way as much afflict you, and will be bitterer to you in the end, than if a hundred failed their duty to you. A good husband will either make a good wife, or easily and profitably endure a bad one. I shall therefore give you directions for your own part of duty, as that which your happiness is most concerned in.

Direct. I. The husband must undertake the principal part of the government of the whole family, even of the wife herself. And therefore, I. He must labor to be fit and able for that government which he undertakes. This ability consists, 1. In holiness and spiritual wisdom, that he may be acquainted with the end to which he is to conduct them, and the rule by which he is to guide them, and the principal works which they are to do. An ungodly, irreligious man is both a stranger and an enemy to the chief part of family government. 2. His ability consists in a due acquaintance with the works of his calling, and the labors in which his servants are to be employed. For he that is utterly unacquainted with their business, will be very unfit to govern them in it: unless he commit that part of their government to his wife, or a steward that is acquainted with it. 3. And he must be acquainted both with the common temper and infirmities of mankind, that he may know how much is to be borne with, and also with the particular temper, and faults, and virtues of those whom he is to govern. 4. And he must have prudence, to direct himself in all his carriage to them; and justice, to deal with everyone as they deserve; and love, to do them all the good he can, for soul and body. II. And being thus able, he must make it his daily work, and especially be sure to govern himself well, that his example may be part of his government of others.

Direct. II. The husband must so unite authority and love, that neither of them be omitted or concealed, but both be exercised and maintained. Love must not be exercised so imprudently as to destroy the exercise of authority; and authority must not be exercised over a wife so magisterially and imperiously, as to destroy the exercise of love. As your love must be a governing love, so your commands must all be loving commands. Lose not your authority; for that will but disable you from doing the office of a husband to your wife, or of a master to your servants. Yet must it be maintained by no means inconsistent with conjugal love; and therefore not by fierceness or cruelty, by threats or stripes (unless by distraction or loss of reason, the cease to be capable of the carriage otherwise due to a wife). There are many cases of equality in which authority is not to be exercised; but there is no case of inequality or unworthiness so great, in which conjugal love is not to be exercised; and therefore nothing must exclude it.

Direct. III. It is the duty of husbands to preserve the authority of their wives, over the children and servants of the family. For they are joint governors with them over all the inferiors. And the infirmities of women are apt many times to expose them to contempt: so that servants and children will be apt to slight them, and disobey them, if the husband interpose not to preserve their honor and authority. Yet this must be done with cautions as these: 1. Justify not any error, vice, or weakness of your wives. They may be concealed or excused as far as may be, but never owned or defended. 2. Urge not obedience to any unlawful of theirs. No one hath authority to contradict the law of God, or disoblige any form of his government. You will but diminish your own authority with persons of any understanding, if you justify any thing that is against God's authority. But if the thing commanded be lawful, though it may have some inconveniences, you must rebuke the disobedience of inferiors, and not suffer them to slight the commands of your wives, nor to set their own reason and wills against them, and say, We will not do it. How can they help you in government, if you suffer them to be disobeyed?

I don't know how much of this I agree with, but I do profoundly agree that if a man is to be the head of the household he must earn the respect due that head and not demand it without having demonstrated that he is worthy of it. Too many houses are led by bullying, brutish, unkind men who view wives and children as little more than objects and obstacles. Either trophies or burdens. I know that isn't true among St. Blog's men, but too much of this strain still comes through from the culture. What I like about Baxter's writing is that he doesn't posit up-front that respect is due a tyrant and a bully. He says in a straightforward way, men should lead the household both in domestic matters and in spiritual matters.

If one is of this opinion (and I don't know where I stand) I consider it essential to remember not just the "privileges of power" but the duties and responsibilities of a loving husband and father. If we are to take upon ourselves the leadership of family it should be with an undersanding of what family is and what that leadership entails.

For those interested, the complete excerpt may be found here.

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A Correspondent with Fr. G-L Offers Some Thoughts

Father Lagrange's book is one of those in which the footnotes occasionally exceed the length of the text above. And in a passage regarding how to find union with God, we find this remarkable excerpt from a letter:

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou Lagrange O.P.

[here quoting an anonymous Novice mistress]

". . . In my opinion, many souls remain at the door of the true life because they lack instruction and are deluded in believing that meditation alone is a sure state. Ordinarily when one enters our monasteries with the required dispositions. . . and when one strives seriously to acquire the virtues, the soul is, in a very short time, subjected by God to aridity and powerlessness, the prelude of the passive purifications. It is almost impossible to make those who have been trained according to the method of reasoned meditation believe that this state is good, and that it is made to lead them to the divine union. They do not understand the teaching of St. John of the Cross: 'To apply oneself at this time to the comprehension and consideration of particular objects, were they ever so spiritual, would be to place an obstacle int he way of the general, subtle, and simple light of the spirit.; it would be to overcloud one's spirit. . . .'

"Those who cling to meditation are still waiting after thirty years and more of religious life for someone to lift them up and show them what they are still seeking. They lead a colorless and dull spiritual life. In the contemplative life the secret of happiness is in knowng how to live this life under the eye of God.. . .

Every soul that is even slightly contemplative, instinctively seeks to rid itself of everything personal and places no value on it. . . ."

I have three reasons for quoting this passage. The first is to show that spiritual direction is almost essential at some point along the way. Perhaps one can struggle through much of the experience by oneself, but eventually there comes a time when one requires help to man the rudder and keep the ship on course.

The second is to note that the contemplative life seems to come very rapidly (to the cloistered) who have the proper disposition and desire. I think this extends to the lay life, but perhaps requires more time given that one has other repsonsibilities and vocations to attend to. Persons who are married and who have children have a primary responsibility to their spouses and children. This is their primary vocation and one better "achieves perfection" through obedience to the necessity of one's calling than through all the straining at the bit with concomittant neglect of one's spouse and child. Obedience and humility seem to be virtues very highly prized by God, possibly because they foster a greater life of charity. Thus, in the married state, one sacrifices to some extent, what one would rather do (direct ascent to God) to what one is required (and in my case, at least, priveleged and overjoyed) to do. So those attending to families should feel no remorse at this temporary delay. The prayer of responsibly iiving out one's vocation will ultimately further union when the time comes.

The third reason for quoting the passage is in the last sentence. It seems natural and right that the contemplative soul, the soul seeking constant communion and communication with God, would naturally move toward shedding the obstacles that stand in the way of that Union. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange goes through a great deal of effort to show that this has been the teaching from St. Paul on; that St. John of the Cross is perhaps a more precise articulator of the mechanisms and the meanings of some of the stages of prayer, but that the doctrine springs from the wells of Sacred Scripture itself, and thus, ultimately the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I find this interesting to reflect upon because it verifies my own observations regarding this. And it seems to be true of every Christian tradition.

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April 12, 2004

Father Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. on the Teachings of St. John of the Cross

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

We shall demonstrate that this doctrine of St. John of the Cross, [concerning the unitive way as uniate and the perfection of Christian Charity, hence the destination of all Christians] while clarifying that of the great doctors who preceded him, remains perfectly conformable to their teaching, and that it is contained in the evangelical beatitudes. These propose to us Christian perfection in all its grandeur, and are certainly not inferior in elevation to what the author of The Spiritual Canticle has written. . . .

Is a special vocation necessary to reach the mystical life? In principle no. "The grace of the virtues and of the gifts" suffices in itself by its normal development to dispose us to the mystical life, and mystical contemplation is necessary for the full perfection of Christian life. But in fact, for lack of certain condo\itions which at times are independent of our will, even generous souls would attain contemplation only after a longer space of time than the ordinary span of life; just as some minds, which are capable of a superior intellectual development, never reach it for lack of certain conditions.

Now, it remains to be seen if Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange actually accomplishes what he sets out to do; however, his evidences thus far have been persuasive, if not conclusive.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:17 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Patty Smith, Arthur Rimbaud, and Jesus

Who'd have thought that the person who penned these immortal lyrics:

Because the Night
Patty Smith

Take me now baby here as I am
Hold me close, try and understand
Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe
Love is a banquet on which we feed

Come on now try and understand
The way I feel when I'm in your hands
Take my hand come undercover
They can't hurt you now,
Can't hurt you now, can't hurt you now

Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us

started her work because of the man who penned this:

from "Le Bateau Ivre"
Arthur Rimbaud

Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,
Je ne me sentais plus tir� par les haleurs :
Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles
Les ayant clou�s nus aux poteaux de couleurs.

J'�tais insoucieux de tous les �quipages,
Porteur de bl�s flamands et de cotons anglais.
Quand avec mes haleurs ont fini ces tapages
Les Fleuves m'ont laiss� descendre o� je voulais.

Dans les clapotements furieux des mar�es,
Moi, l'autre hiver, plus sourd que les cerveaux d'enfants,
Je courus ! Et les P�ninsules d�marr�es
N'ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.

La temp�te a b�ni mes �veils maritimes.
Plus l�ger qu'un bouchon j'ai dans� sur les flots
Qu'on appelle rouleurs �ternels de victimes,
Dix nuits, sans regretter l'oeil niais des falots !

Plus douce qu'aux enfants la chair des pommes s�res,
L'eau verte p�n�tra ma coque de sapin
Et des taches de vins bleus et des vomissures
Me lava, dispersant gouvernail et grappin.

"The Drunken Boat" [Le Bateau ivre] (1871)

As I was floating down impassive Rivers,
I no longer felt myself steered by the haulers:
gaudy Redskins had taken them for targets,
nailing them naked to coloured stakes.

I cared nothing for all my crews,
carrying Flemish wheat or English cotton.
When, along with my haulers, those uproars stopped,
the Rivers let me sail downstream where I pleased.

Into the ferocious tide-rips, last winter,
more absorbed than the minds of children, I ran!
And the unmoored Peninsulas never
endured more triumphant clamourings.

The storm made bliss of my sea-borne awakenings.
Lighter than a cork, I danced on the waves
which men call the eternal rollers of victims,
for ten nights, without once missing the foolish eye of the harbor lights!

Sweeter than the flesh of sour apples to children,
the green water penetrated my pinewood hull
and washed me clean of the bluish wine-stains
and the splashes of vomit, carrying away both rudder and anchor.

And what would either the poet laureate of the punks or the premier French poet claimed by the GLB have to teach us about Jesus?

I wouldn't think they would have much to say. However, as I was listening to an interview this morning on NPR, Ms. Smith had something very thought-provoking to say. She said that she started writing her poetry and doing her work because she wanted to do for others what Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan had done for her. She consciously set about providing for others a role-model. Not for everyone mind, but for a small portion of the population.

It occurred to me, what if every Christian thought that way? What if each of us set about deliberately becoming for others what Jesus is to us? In other words, what might happen if we were to live out our baptismal promises and our Easter gift? We could serve as Jesus served us. We could bring people to knowledge of God. (Mind you all of this through grace, but nevertheless with us as active and willing partiipants.)

Wouldn't that transform the world? Rather than bickering and dickering and criticizing and complaining, what if we set about doing something to change the way things were? What if we helped only one person a day? What if we were of service only to a single person in our whole lives? Still, we would have done part of what we are here to do. Our first vocation is to love God most of all. But after that, we are called to bring others to this same love.

So, what if we were to be like Patty Smith and delibereately set about changing the world through imitating our role model. What might happen if we were to behave as though we had internalized the reality of His resurrection? It is precisely the answer to this question that causes nearly every totalatarian regime to crack down on Christianity. If we were to live our belief rather than just talking it to death, we would change the world in a revolutionary way. A revolution of God's love, not of blood and violence.

Now, that is not to say that we would ever change human nature or solve all of te problems that face us. However, we'd be a lot closer than we are now.

So perhaps we should give just a little thought to letting Jesus be not only our guide but our model. And perhaps we should consider each day how we can reflect just a little bit more of Him and a little bit less of ourselves.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 10, 2004

On Prayer--From Thomas Watson

from Renovation of the Heart
Ballas Willard

The first fruit of love is the musing of the mind upon God. He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object. He who loves God is ravished and transported with the contemplation of God. "When I awake, I am still with thee" (Ps. 139:18). The thoughts are as travellers in the mind. David's thought kept heaven-road, "I am still with Thee." God is the treasure and where the treasure is, there is the heart. By this we may test our love to God. What are our thoughts most upon? Can we say we are ravished with delight when we think on God? Have our thoughts got wings? Are the fled aloft? Do we contmplate Christ and glory? Oh, how far are they from being lovers of Gof, who scarcely ever think of God! (Ps. 10:4). A sinner crowds God out of his thoughts. He never thinks of God unless with horror, as the prisoner thinks of the judge.

For more of Thomas Watson, visit this site. You'll be pleased to note that Rev. Watson is yet another of the Puritan divines. Like many, mystical in his approach to prayer and God.

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April 8, 2004

Rejecting the Extraordinary

from The Science of the Cross
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

The darkness that leads to God is, as we already know, faith. It is the only means that leads to union because it sets God before our eyes as he is: as infinite, as triune. Faith resembles God in that both blind the intellect and appear to it as darkness. "The greater one's faith the closer is one's union with God." Its darkness is indicated in sacred Scripture by the image of the cloud, in which God concealed himself in the Old Testament revelations: to Moses on the mount, in Solomon's temple. The light of truth is concealed in this darkness. It will "at once appear when faith reaches its end. . . by the ending of this mortal life."

Temporarily, though, we are totally dependent on faith. What it gives us -- contemplation-- is a dark and general knowledge; it stands in contrast not only to natural cognition but also to the various ways in which the intellect receives distinct and particular supernatural knowledge: visions, revelations, locutions, and spiritual feelings. The bodily eyes may be shown images and person from the other world: angels or saints, or unusual shining lights. One can hear extraordinary words, smell the sweetest fragrances, savor exquisite tastes, or feel extreme delight through the sense of touch. A person should refuse to attend to this, without seeking to examine whether it is good or bad. To be sure these things may come from God but there is no certainty about that. "God's self-communication is more appropriately given to the spirit than to the senses, and the soul finds greater security and make greater progress for through what is received by the sense, as a rule, great danger of deception exists. For the senses then believe they can arbitrate and judge spiritual matters, whereas they are as ignorant of them as a beast of burden is of rational matters."

Two points here: first, the image of the cloud occurs throughout all of mystical literature. One of the great early classics of English Spirituality is called The Cloud of Unknowing. This is a common inheritance.

Second: while God communicates to the soul all that the soul needs, because we are integrated creatures there is some fall-out perceived by the senses. That is, one may have visions or other extraordinary manifestations of what God is doing within. The best practice and soundest policy is to ignore the extraordinary without considering for a moment whether it is a sign of good or bad. Let go of it, let it slip by. The only important thing is continual focus on and ardent love of God. All of these things are extraneous, potential distractions; indeed, they are potential derailers of all the good that has come thus far. If one follows the senses and pays attention to these things as they occur, one strays once again from the giver and ends up pursuing the gift. The gift, as magnificent as it may be, is always less than the giver. The gift is merely a means to an end (or sometimes even less--a sign of the means), the Giver Himself is the end.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:34 AM | TrackBack

Desiring to Live in God's Presence

from Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God
Fr. Kilian J. Healy, O.Carm

You must desire to live in God's Presence

Many people remain strangers to God because they love unwisely the pleasures of the flesh and the world. They would love God, but they want the inordinate love of cretures, too. Having known the pleasures of this life, they find it almost impossible to give them up. They fear, and how foolishly, that nothing can take the place of human loves, money, sports, and carnal pleasures. But, if they were to set out to love God, to live in His presence, they would find their love of creatures gradually diminishing. To one who sees God, all created things are small. having loved a greater good, it is easy to forget the lesser: "If a man should give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing."

In this exercise, as in all progress in prayer, it is most important to persevere. We must have the desire to want to live in the presence of God. We must pray for this desire. We must not be satisfied only to be in the state of grace. We must continually bestir ourselves to realize that is is possible to come to deep love of God.

This is detachment from "the other side" as it were. It is the way to properly look at the process of detachment. I do not seek to leave the things of the world behind as a sort of arbitrary exercise in self-control. I love God first, most, always, and everything else falls away. It isn't as though I do not live in the world, but rather that my primary preoccupation is with God alone, the things of the world fall into perspective and are not nearly so important.

This is the way to view detachment. Increasing love of God causes the love of creatures to fade in importance. I love the giver and all of His gifts assume their proper dignity as created things, but they no longer control me or have sway over me.

Thus, the exercise of detachment isn't one to be performed for its own sake, but rather it is the natural outcome of a growing love of what is truly important. We all know the truth of this. In ordinary life as a hobby or occupation consumes more time, other things, formally quite prepossessing, fade into the background. How much more true when our central preoccupation is love of the Creator of all.

Detachment is the abstract ideal arrived at not by seeking to be detached, but by seeking God first, most, and always. I don't have to work at detachment; I must work at loving God through His grace. This leads quite naturally to separation from things of lesser importance. I will have found "the pearl of great price" and everything I have is too little to pay for it.

Father Kilian will go on to offer us five ways of detecting and loving God in our ordinary lives. These are all ways of communicating with God and, in a sense we are probably not used to, praying to Him.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 7, 2004

A Question for the Day

And I am asking for insight and opinions:

from In Conversation with God
Francis Fernandez

There is a third way of carrying the cross. Jesus embraces the saving wood and teaches us how we ought to carry our own cross: with love, co-redeeming all souls with him, making reparation at the same time for our own sins. Our Lord has conferred on human suffering a deep meaning. Being able, as he was, to redeem us in a multitude of ways, he chose to do so through suffering. . .

Do we co-redeem with Christ? Is this truly church teaching? I don't ask because it sounds bad, but because it sounds big and odd. I accept it as the truth and I struggle to understand how what I do contributes to the redemption of anyone. I could lead someone to Christ, but Christ is the redeemer. Am I co-redeemer in that capacity or in something more? This whole statement puzzles and excites me. To be a co-redeemer is such an opportunity and a challenge. At the same time I must truly understand what it means if I am to undertake and do it properly.

Any thoughts on this matter? Any insights? I'd appreciate anything anyone has to add to this--theological, spiritual, or just casual. Thanks.

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A Meditation on the Cross and Stigmata

Disputations has a nicely timed meditation on the Cross and Stigmata to which I add three notes, one my own and two from my reading.

Of greatest importance in assuming the burdens of our daily crosses is that we seek to conform to them and we do not seek to make them conformable to us. A cross that is comfortable and suits my image of myself isn't really so much a cross that trains in holiness as it is a display piece.

from In Conversation with God
Francis Fernandez

[Quoting J. Aldewicz] Veronica responded to Christ's love with reparation; a reaparation especially admirable because it came from a helpless woman who did not fear the ire of the enemies of Christ. . . Will the image of Christ's face be imprinted on my soul s on the veil of Veronica?

from In Conversation with God
Francis Fernandez

[Quoting St. Josemaria Escriva] It is not too late; nor is everything lost. . . even though to you it may seems so -- even though a thousand doom-laden voices keep saying so. Even though you are beseiged by the furious faces of mocking and jeering onlookers. You have come at a good time to take up the Cross: the Redemption is taking place now! And Jesus needs many more Simons like the man from Cyrene!

You might also spend some time with this during the week.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:39 AM | TrackBack

Loving the God Who Loves Us

from Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God
Fr. Kilian J. Healy, O.Carm

Love arises from awareness of God's presence

It would be a mistake to think that recollection of God and belief in His presence are sufficient to make us His friend. For it is possible to think of God and hate Him. It is possible to study about God, learn all about His divine nature, believe all the divine truths, yet never raise our hearts to love Him. Our relationship with God would be like that of people who live in the same apartment house and remain total strangers. They know each other, talk about each other, but never speak to each other.

Therefore, if the practice of living in God's presence is to unite us to Him in love, it must do more than teach us to think of Him. It must teach us to be attracted to Him, to love and speak intimately with Him, as a child with his father. In other words, it must include acts of the will, affections, by which we long for God and speak to Him in short, affectionate prayers.

The exercise of the presence of God leads us to intimate love of God, and indirectly leads us away from sin and worldliness. The more we grow in this practice the less power the pleasures of the world have over us.

. . . Carried on by enthusiasm like that of Christ with His face set toward Jerusalem and Calvary, outstripping His Apostles on the road, [Cf. Mark 10:32] the soul that has learned to live in God's presence looks continually toward God, unperturbed by the allurements of the passing pleasures of life.

Father Kilian speaks of Brother Lawrence's practice of the presence of God. As yet he has not given clear guidelines about how to do this on a regular basis, but he has laid out the principles by which we should WANT to do this.

God loves us. We cannot hear that enough, nor can we possibly make it real enough in our lives and in the lives of those around us. It is too important a reality to dismiss easily. Every passage of the Bible, every word, breathes out His love to us. The voices of the Saints remind us endlessly that God loves us. But we often feel too unlovable for anyone to pay special attention to us. We feel too small, too immersed in sin, too dirty. But what father or mother ceases to love an infant because she or he has a dirty diaper? So too our Father loves us despite how we may feel about ourselves.

Another important part of what Fr. Kilian is doing here is his approach to detachment. He doesn't even mention the word, but he tells us that by setting our eyes on God and making love of Him our goal, we will very naturally leave behind the things of the world. This isn't an innovation nor a new teaching. St. John of the Cross would agree whole-heartedly. This, in fact, is what almost all Carmelite teaching boils down to. Love God with the focused intensity of a laser beam and all other things fall into place.

If we love God first, most, and always, we will be driven by that love out into the world to demonstrate and carry it to our brothers and sisters. In fact, St. Teresa Benedicta citing St. John of the Cross describes it in this way:

from The Science of the Cross
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

The divine light, then, already dwells in the soul by nature. But only when for God's sake she divests herself of all that is not God--that is what is called love!--will the soul be illumined by and transformed in God. "God will so communicate his supernatural being to the soul that she will appear to be God himself and will possess what God himself possesses." So great a union is caused "that all the things of both God and the soul become one in participant transformation, and the soul appears to be God more than a soul. Indeed, she is God by participation. Yet, truly, her being (even though transformed) is naturally as distinct from God's as it was before."

What does this mean? First, let's properly understand the passage and then examine its implications. The best way to understand what St. John of the Cross said in the quoted passage is to remember his famous metaphor of the light and the pane of glass. When the pane of glass is dirty (the soul in the state of sin and attachment) one readily notices the glass and hardly notices the light at all. As the pane of glass is cleaned more and more thoroughly, more and more of the light shines through until, when the glass is perfectly clean, one no longer sees the glass but only perceives the light that illuminates it. Nevertheless, the glass never becomes light even though it "participates" in light by allowing it through.

If the soul "becomes God by participation" and everything we believe of God is indeed true, then the person to whom this happens cannot help but do things in the world that help to make God more present. Feeding the hungry, tending the sick, preaching to those who do not know God, etc. God's first impulse is ever to reach out to all of His creation in compassionate, serving love. When we participate in God, we become His hands, His feet, His voice to those who may not know Him.

Thus loving the God who loves us demands that the love be expressed. A love that remains entirely interior was never much of a love to start with. If our spouse says he or she loves us, but never lifts a finger to show it, we might, quite rightly, begin to doubt after a while the truth of that expression. So love expresses itself in everyday compassionate concern for the needs of those loved. By loving the God who loves us, we cannot help but love and care for His creation, starting with humankind and continuing with the entire wonder of creation.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:18 AM | TrackBack

The Struggle for Perfection

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou Lagrange, O.P.

Not without difficulty does one succeed in completely conquering selfishness, sensuality, laziness, impatience, envy, unjust judgment, impulses of nature, natural haste, self-love, foolish pretensions, and also self-seeking in piety, the immoderate desire for sensible consolations, intellectual and spiritual pride; in a word, all that is opposed to the spirit of faith and confidence in God; that one may succeed in loving God perfectly with all one's heart, soul, stength, and mind, and one's neighbor (enemies are included under this title) as oneself; in short, to remain firm and patient and to persevere in charity, whatever may happen, when the expression of the Apostle is verified, that "all that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution." (2 Timothy 3:12)

The only problem with the good father's work is the tendency to repeat himself in precisely the same words, three, four, five, or more times in the course of the study. It becomes somewhat more easy to pick out unique passages such as this one. Such a passage offers much food for thought and prayer and much fuel for transformation of life.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 5, 2004

The Will and the Intellect: Something That Surprised Me

Although I suppose, in fact, it should not have:

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

He [St. Thomas Aquinas] tells us in substance [footnote here referring to Ia, q82, 2.3] that although one faculty may by itse very nature be superior to another, as sight is to hearing, it is possible that an act of the second may be superior to an act of the first, as the hearing of a sublime and very rare symphony is of a higher order than the sight of an ordinary color. Thus, although the intellect by its very nature (simpliciter) may be superior to the will which it directs, because it has a simpler, more absolute, more universal object, yet in certain circumstances (secundum quid) and with relation to God, the intellect in this life reamins inferior to the will; in other words, here on earth the love of God is more perfect than the knowledge of God; while it is better to know inferior things than to love them. A profound observantion on which one cannot meditate too much.

I don't know why it surprised me. As I said, I suppose it shouldn't have; however, when reading Thomists I get all twisted around and nothing seems to be sitting at the right angle any more. But all the great saints have said it. Nevertheless it is critical to note as well that one cannot love well what one does not know well. You might start in love, and love would seek to cultivate more extensive knowledge. But love, to some degree depends on knowledge and tends to grow with greater knowledge. So it isn't as though one can forego knowing God in favor of loving Him, one must do both.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 12:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Secondary Question: Then Is the Carmelite Way for Everyone?

I won't need nearly as many words to answer this one. The answer is definitively "No!" While John's teaching may or may not be universal, there is more to being a Carmelite than following John's teaching. If all it took to belong to an order was to follow the teaching of one saint or another, I would have to belong to Franciscans, Salesians, Jesuits, Dominicans, and all the other orders. But obviously an Order is more than the teaching of the saints within the Order (which belongs to the Universal Church) it is the rule of the Order, the tradition of the Order, and probably any number of intangibles that I am overlooking.

Insisting that St. John's teaching is for everyone is in no wise different than insisting that St. Dominic's teaching is for everyone. Because one is theology and the other Mystical Theology does not make them of different character and therefore more or less universal.

More simply put, if it is the truth, it is the truth--always and everywhere for Carmelite or for unordered (notice I didn't say disordered) Catholic.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:37 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Is Saint John of the Cross for Everyone?: Garrigou-Lagrange on the Mystical Life

As it is probably more profitable for a Dominican to address a Dominican's concerns; and, as those concerns pertain to us all, it seems wise to take a look at what Garrigou-Lagrange has to say about the mystical life in general and ultimately about St. John of the Cross. Throughout the bolded emphases are mine.

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

We shall note two important consequence of this doctrine.

1) Since sanctifying grace is the beginning of eternal life and since every just soul enjoys habitual union with the Blessed Trinity dwelling in it, the mystical union, or the actual, intimate, and almost continual union with God, such as is found here on earth in holy souls appears as the culminating point on earth of the development of the grace of the virtues and of the gifts and as the normal, even though rather infrequent, prelude to the life of heaven. This mystical union belongs, in fact to the order of sanctifying grace; it proceeds essentially from "the grace of the virtues and of the gifts" and not from graces gratis datae, which are transitory and in a sense exterior (as miracles and prophecy) and which may accompany it. The mystical life is Christian life, which has, so to speak, become conscious of itself. It does not give us the absolute certainty that we are in the state of grace, a certitude which, according to the Council of Trent, would presuppose a special revelation, but as St. Paul says: "The Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God." He makes us know this, observes St. Thomas, "by the filial love which He produces in us."

2) As the life of grace is essentially ordained to that of glory, the normal, although in fact quite rare, summit of its development should be a very perfect disposition to receive the light of glory immediately after death without passing through purgatory; for it is only through our own fault that we will be detained in that place of expiation, where the soul can no longer merit. Now this very perfect disposition to immediate glorification can be nothing other than an intense charity coupled with the ardent desire of the beatific vision, such as we find them particularly in the transforming union, after the painful passive purifications which have delivered the soul from its blemishes. Since nothing unclean can enter heaven, in principle a soul must undergo these passive purifications at least in a measure before death while meriting and progressing, or after death without meriting or progressing.

These consequences to which we will return, disclose the grandeur of the Christian perfection which can be realized on earth, and they contain the loftiest and most practical teaching. (p. 127-129)

Now, it would seem if we were not all called to perfection, this doctrine would be lofty, but certainly not practical. Nor, it would seem would the "normal, though quite rare summit" would be the direct ascent into Heaven. By normal, one would postulate that this is the way things are supposed to occur. If so, then it would seem that Christians are called to operate in such a way as this would be the normal and less that quite rare result of a Christian life.

Lagrange will go on in the work.

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

As regards the word "call" or "vocation," we will attempt to distinguish in this work the different meanings it may have according as it concerns a general and remote call of all just souls to mystical contemplation or, on the contrary, an individual and proximate call. (p. 46)

One final note:

from Christian Perfection and Contemplation
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Therefore it seems certain that the mystical life, characterized by the predominance of the gifts of the holy Ghost is required for the full perfection of the Christian life. Is this likewise true of mystical contemplation, properly so called?. . . As we have already stated, the gifts of contemplation may as yet intervene in these souls only in a diffuse manner; the mystical life is still imperfect in them. It may be accompanied by a great generosity, which merits the name of perfection without, however, being the full perfection of the Christian life. (p. 367)

The saint [Teresa of Jesus] says in chapter 21 [of The Way of Perfection]: "I maintain that this is the chief point; in fact, the everything depends on their having a great and a most resolute determination never to halt until they reach their journey's end, happen what may, whatever the consequence are, cost what it will, let who will blame them. . . whether the Earth itself goes to pieces beneath their feet." The general call of souls to mystical life could not be more clearly affirmed. (p. 371)

Now, none of this establishes that all souls are called to one order; however, they are all called to the same end--attain it however they may. But it seems that St. Thomas Aquinas and a great many others bear out the words of St. John of the Cross regarding the steps necessary to attaining Christian Perfection and that the attainment of Christian Perfection is a necessary part of the beatific vision and that we are all called to this in our lives here on Earth; however, very few of us answer that call.

Now I am at an end of saying whether or not what St. John of the Cross teaches is for everyone. I believe that it is so. That the path marked up to the summit of Mount Carmel is the path that everyone will eventually tread even if they follow other means to do so and even if such treading is actually being dragged after death up the slopes through the good works and prayers for those left behind. The Ascent of Mount Carmel seems to be a necessary and universal part of Christian life (according to the teaching of the Saints). The only question is whether or not St. John's way is the only way. And my answer there is that I do not know. I assume that it is not, and yet I cannot know because I have read of no other means of ascent, which is negative evidence. It means only that I have not yet encountered anything that suggests another substantially different way.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:54 AM | TrackBack

April 3, 2004

Praying Constantly

Tom expresses some legitimate concern that from the Dominican point of view it may seem as if Carmelites get too wrapped up in the extraordinary experiential aspects of prayer.

I can see how that might occur. I can also say that there is as little to be done about the concern as there is about the equally legitimate concern that arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas on "quickening" are frequently used by supporters of abortion both within and outside of the Church. Some Carmelites may well be caught up in the problem sited; however, St. John of the Cross, and the other sainted Carmelites were not among them.

John's seeming obsession about the experiential aspects of prayer stems from the fact that he was writing many of his works as spiritual guidebooks. He was identifying for many the roadsigns along the path of prayer that indicated the times to stand pat and the times to move on. Naturally his focus would be on the experiential aspects of the prayer life.

However, these guidebooks stemmed from his true statements about the spiritual life, his poetry. And his poetry is a series of lovesongs of the soul for God. These are not about extraordinary prayer (although John uses them as launching pads for his teaching), they are about simple acts of love and living in the abiding presence of the beloved.

Thus much of his work stems from poetry. The language is likely to be overblown, fanciful, or metaphorical. Tom particularly questioned my use of the expression "experiencing heaven on Earth," which will obviously mean different things to different people, depending on their image of heaven. He asks whether this is the goal of everyone or even the proper goal of a Carmelite. And it is a legitimate question. I answer it by saying that the way i see "experiencing Heaven on Earth" might be described in the simpler phrase of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection--"the practice of the presence of God." For me, the experience of heaven on Earth is to abide in the presence of God all the time. As St. Paul tells us, "to pray constantly." Not to pray in an overt prayer that sounds like a prayer, but to pray in the way Mother Teresa did--in acts of service to the poor, to the oppressed, to the voiceless, and in acts of actual prayer, such as the Mass, and Eucharistic Adoration, and the Rosay, and in acts of showering and even sleeping. To make prayer so much an ordinary part of every day that no action can really be separated from it. I have not achieved this goal--but to my mind this is what all the talk about extraordinary states and manifestations is about. It is about knowing that the God who loves me intensely is with me every step of the way and it is about living as though I really believe that. It is about life becoming prayer, not about prayer (in any one form or another) becoming life.

This still probably doesn't alleviate the misunderstandings that are possible, but for that I would suggest consulting Garrigou-Lagrange and allowing a Dominican to explain the Carmelites to another Domincan. Therese--thanks so much for the book, I never knew how handy it would be.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:35 PM | TrackBack

April 2, 2004

Half-Way or All the Way

For the following to make any sense whatsoever, you first need to read the post below and Tom's response to it. (I apologize, I can't figure out a way to link to it) I started this response in the comments box and then decided that it said enough of what I wanted to say that it would be worthwhile to preserve it at an upper level.

Dear Tom,

You are correct in this, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think:

But what I'm willing to say, which I don't think you are, is, "Half-way to union with God is as far as I'm going to get before I die, and that will be enough, since my hope in Christ is that God will cover the rest of the distance then."

I am not willing to say it, not because I don't recognize the truth of it in the case of nearly everyone, but simply because it isn't good enough. And by that, I mean for myself. Yes, you are correct, half-way may be as far as I get, I pray that it is not; I know that it WILL be sufficient because I do believe that is what the Church teaches. So I don't think my salvation depends upon achieving this goal.

However, as a personal matter, I do not want to disappoint the Father who knows I can do this and who calls me to it. The thought of that is probably worse than the thought of sin. Here is one who loves me and trusts me with an enormously valuable and important mission and gives me every possible help and aid in completing it. And I, through my own faults and failings, do not so so. My heart literally breaks at the thought of it. For me to hear the call and not respond with everything I am and with every hope of attaining the end is like spitting on Jesus. (I'm not censuring others, please note, I'm just trying to say how it feels in my gut.)

I do not think anyone should be willing to allow that to happen. I think it is proper to recognize that everything is in God's hands as far as all of this goes. And it might be realistic to assume that by my own efforts I will not advance far along the path. But if I start off thinking that way, then I doom any efforts I may make. So I cannot see the goal in those measures.

But I must make clear that I don't see this as a salvation issue. It is an issue of calling, and God wants us all to do our best along the road to union, recognizing that we are faulty and failed people. He will not punish us for trying and not succeeding. But we should not doom our efforts to failure with the thought that it is not likely that we shall advance.

I guess, just as the Dominicans are the "Hammer of Heretics," the Carmelites might be called the "Hammer of the Half-Hearted." Our job is to evangelize those who are already on the road to salvation, letting everyone know what lies within the realms of possibility, if not probability, for all. The sense of the good news that we convey is that not only is the path open to all, God gives us all that is necessary to walk it. If we start with full measure, we still may not make it, but we at least dispose ourselves to allowing grace to carry us farther along.

I don't much care whether one takes the Carmelite road, the Franciscan Road, the Jesuit Road, or a road that has no name whatsoever. What I do care about is that whatever road is taken it is undertaken full of joyful hope and expectation (not presumption) that there is some possibility of walking it. What I want everyone to garner from any of this is that here is one way the road has been marked out. The trail has been forged and in this way you can find the path to where you want to be. If you choose to follow another guide--God Bless. Follow him or her whole-heartedly and do so with all of your heart, your strength, your mind, and your soul with Love of God the sole destination.

As to your last point--I think the spirituality of the desert fathers is our example. Love of neighbor demonstrated itself not in sitting in your cell, but working in community and offering hospitality. These things are not incompatible with apophatic mediation. Indeed, I think success in the latter requires a concentrated effort to love one's neighbor in substantive ways. Remember, I'm the one who keeps pointing out that for St. Therese love is not idly sitting by and thinking slow and wonderful thoughts about another. Love is active and love has its works just as does faith.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:52 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Perfection in our (life)Time

My chief problem with Tom's critique of what I write about St. John of the Cross is not the critique itself, but "penumbras and emanations" to use judicial language.

There seems to be a very strong suggestion that not everyone is called to be a Saint. And here, if this is truly representative of his thought, he and I must disagree. Everyone is called to be a Saint. Very, very few of us choose to answer the call. And perhaps not all of the Saints are called to the honors of the Altar--that is, to be exemplars for others.

Tom says, "not all of us are called to perfection in contemplation in this life.
Just to keep things complicated: Note I wrote that we aren't all called to perfection in contemplation. I do believe we are all called to some level of contemplation, because contemplation is for everyone. " This in itself is innocuous. But when coupled with the following response, it suggests other meanings.

Of course the goal is perfection in intimacy with the Lord. But not everyone's goal is perfection in this life. Mary chose the better part, but that doesn't mean Martha's part was unnecessary. Nor does it mean that Martha was never able to listen to Jesus.

If we are not all called to perfection, why then did Jesus say, "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." It would seem that the highest perfection, the most important point on which to obtain perfection is not in how you raise your garden nor even necessarily in how you serve the poor (to the best of my knowledge a great many saints never directly served any poor), but in how you love God. It would seem to me that, in fact, this is the perfection to which Jesus is calling us and which MUST be possible because Jesus is calling us to it. That perfection in intimacy is not possible without a perfection in the prayer life, which implies entry into higher forms of prayer and communication with God. I readily admit St. John's way may not be universal--but that actually is a debate for another time.

I take exception to the suggestion that many of us can choose to go only half-way and that's enough--that perfection is not a calling for all in this life. We are not all Marys, but I believe that suggests a false dichotomy--we must be either Mary or Martha, when in fact we must combine the better aspects of both. We cannot be so Mary that we never lift a finger to help those in need, but neither can we be so Martha that we don't ever hear God.

I truly believe every single person is called to perfection of love of God in life AND in prayer. I also believe that not achieving that perfection is in no way damaging to our salvation, so I would acquiesce that perfection is not a prerequisite for Heaven, but, it sure wouldn't hurt.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

"Not Creating It to Be a Waste. . ."

For thus says the Lord,
the creator of the heavens,
who is God,
the designer and maker of the earth
who established it,
not creating it to be a waste,
but designing it to be lived in. (Isaiah 45: 18)

For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right. (Isaiah 45: 18-19)

I thought a pause in our headlong rush through St. Teresa Benedicta and St. John of the Cross was called for. A momentary pause, or to quote the poet:

A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste--
And Lo!--the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from--Oh, make haste!

The purpose of the pause is to clarify what St. John of the Cross teaches and what he does not. This was inspired by an e-mail exchange with a friend in which the friend brought up some points I thought he might have inferred from reading these posts. It turns out rather that he got them from a mission given by Opus Dei priests in his community. Here is his summary of impressions:

For example, the priest last night kept talking about finding ways to make ourselves more uncomfortable, to constantly deny ourselves even basic needs, such as a glass of water when we're thirsty (the priest even make a crack about people who constantly carry around what he called "baby bottles", to ensure that they're never without water), in order to please God. This is why I made the comment I did about fasting until my prayers are answered: if we're called upon to actively cause ourselves pain, then there can be no end to it until we die. Escriva sounds to me like a modern day flagellant. The priest even mentioned that he would try not to see the beautiful, which you counseled against, by averting his eyes when riding through a countryside.

[here follows an excerpt of my reply]
I find the view you describe repugnant, Jansenistic, and very nearly manichean. It suggests a hatred of physicality that is unhealthy. . .I'd like to talk about what St. Teresa Benedicta and St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila were NOT talking about, and what you describe is precisely it. I think if you view it in the way St. John of the Cross does you find a much more faithful way of approaching creation. We do need to mortify the senses by choosing the less appealing rather than the more appealing, but we needn't shut our eyes to the glory through which God speaks to us. That strikes me as just short of sinful--a denial of the [essential] goodness in creation.

As much as I respect the works of Josemaria Escriva and other followers of the Opus Dei prefecture, I've always been a bit cautious regarding their personal approaches to the world. If this priest represents mainline Opus Dei teaching, then indeed caution is called for. I rather hope he expresses extremes of the view. The reason for this is that it strikes me that such suggestions and actions come very close to blasphemy.

The Lord made the world and made it good. He made it to be a world to be lived in. And throughout all creation is the imprint of the Maker. His signature can be found everywhere in nature--in running streams, in sweet grapes, in the scent of orange blossoms or the sea, in the touch of spring-warm breeze, in sunsets, in the sound of the wind in the trees, etc. The Franciscans were well aware that the glories of the Creator were signs of Him and means of access.

To go out of one's way to deny oneself basic needs, to make oneself miserable in the world redounds to whose glory? It is one thing to undertake basic mortifications (the fast prescribed by the church, or such small fasts as we are called to make in the world) but to deliberately shut your eyes so that you cannot see the glories of creations. While this is a severe mortification, if also approaches Manicheeism. It seems to suggest that there is something wrong with participation in the world. And what I quotes from Isaiah above indicates clearly what the Lord thinks about the world--He made it to be lived in, not fled from. We are not called to make ourselves miserable or full of pain. The world will do enough of that for us, and when it happens, we are called to joyfully accept it. However, why go looking for trouble--living presents enough pain and suffering as it is?

No, it strikes me as foolish not to acknowledge what is around you. I don't think the good Lord calls us to make ourselves hurt every day as some sort of memorial to him. In fact, elsewhere in Isaiah don't we hear about the kind of fast the Lord wants?

5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rearward.

(Isaiah 58:5-8, KJV--sorry Bible Gateway doesn't offer Douay Rheims)

There, the Lord speaks through His own prophet saying we should feed the hungry. Well, why should we do that if the Lord wants us all to suffer for Him? Wouldn't it be far wiser to leave them to be hungry because they are already suffering? So too with the yoke of oppression--why throw it off? Just let those who are under oppression throw it off. In fact, if we take the doctrine above to an extreme, we could say that it is our duty to oppress so that there can be greater suffering for all.

Nonsense. This seems, as I said, at best suspect, and at worst something that should be suppressed. I have no interest in administering "the discipline." I have no desire to return to the glory days of mortifications unto sickness.

Nor do the Carmelite Saints. St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Thérèse, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross do not teach this and roundly teach against it. Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity said that if we suffer and can find some alleviation from it, then it is right to do so; but if the suffering is irremediable, we should accept it gladly and unite it for the betterment of all to the sufferings of Jesus on the Cross.

Carmelite teaching is not that the things of the world are bad, but, in fact that they are so good we tend to want them too much. We need to mortify the senses. And by that I believe St. John to mean that we must not seek out sensation, not that we are to blind and deafen ourselves, but that we are to accept the things of the world without taking delight in them. That is to say, we don't seek to linger in the sensation, but we let them pass on by and we continue our pursuit of the path of God. We don't deliberately not look, but we also don't seek to look. This is a world apart from deliberately not looking at God's glorious creation. It may seem subtle, but it makes all the difference in the world.

To be fair to Opus Dei, I've never seen any hint in the writings that we are called to make ourselves miserable. St. Josemaria is said to have administered the discipline frequently, but I don't know if that is the rumor of detractors or what it really means. Nor does it mean we are necessarily to follow his example. Saints can be unhinged and still be Saints--St. Dymphna comes to mind, as do certain actions of St. Rose of Lima (quicklime on the face and broken glass to mar her beauty and prevent vanity). And I do believe that the deliberate infliction of inordinate pain is a sign of illness, not of health in mind and body. A fast, a small mortification, fine; but to daily seek to live a life of misery and pain--that is a definition of mental illness and you can find it clearly delineated in the diagnostic manual.

We need to remember St. Teresa of Avila danced with her nuns at recreation and played tambourine. St. John of the Cross is said to have dearly loved the scenic vistas of Medina del Campo and the Spanish Countryside. Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity was a master pianist, awarded a number of awards at her school. St. Thérèse's sister was an accomplished photographer. John Henry Newman an accomplished poet. These are all joys and creations of the world, and so long as we do not make them the end-all be-all of existence, participation in them and delight in them is a good thing. We learn again about God.

So, lest there were any apprehension about what one is called to in the Carmelite way, I thought I would make this clear distinction. It is one thing to "see without seeing" it is another to deny yourself water because you can suffer more. As Christine said elsewhere, the call to suffering is a gift of the Lord that not all receive and I don't think it should be considered a universal salutary practice. The acceptance of such suffering as comes (and cannot be avoided) with equanimity and with joy, on the other hand, is a practice that leads to wholeness.

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April 1, 2004

From In Conversation with God

We should read our Lord's Passion constantly, said St. John Chrysostom; what great benefit we will gain by doing so. Even if you are as hard as stone, when you contemplate that He was sarcastically adorned, then ridiculed, beaten and subjected to the final agonies, you will be moved to cast all pride from your soul.. . .

One day while he was visiting St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas asked him where he had acquired such good doctrine. . . It is said that St. Bonaventure showed him a crucifix which was blackened from all the kisses he had given it, and explained This is the book that tells me what I should write; the little I know I have learned from it.

How much have I learned from this book? How much does it show? Do I have a crucifix that has been so much as smudged, much less blackened, by the attentions shown it? Do we even pay attention any more in the presence of the Crucified? There is a tendency to take for granted what we see too often. Perhaps we should be more attentive, in our homes and at church. If this is the book that taught St. Bonaventure, how much might we also learn from it? Perhaps the greater part of wisdom is the humility to be taught by what we no longer pay attention to.

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March 30, 2004

A Word to the Wise is Enough

Terry at Summa Mamas made mention of In Conversation with God--a work I had known about but had not paid much attention to thinking that it was another of those questionable works of half-baked piety and rancid new theology. (This is the "word" referred to in the header.) But her recommendation provoked me into looking more closely with the ultimate result that I bought the volume for Lent and Easter. There I found this piece of advice this morning:

from In Conversation with God--Volume II
Francis Fernandez

We Christians must seek the remedy and the antidote--just as the Israelites bitten by the serpents in the wilderness did--in the only place that it is to be found: in Jesus Christ and in his saving doctrine. We must not cease from contemplating him raised above the earth on the Cross if we truly want to reach the Promised Land that comes as the end of this short journey. That is all this life really is. And as we do not want to reach our destination alone, we will strive to get many others to look at Jesus, in whom is Holy Humanity, contmplate him in the Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, in the Way of the Cross, in the scenes that the Gospels narrate for us, or in the Tabernacle. Only if we have great piety will we be strong against the harassment of a world which seems to want to separate itself more and more form God, dragging with it anyone who is not on firm and sure ground.

Later: Mr. White's note in the comment box reminds me that I did not make explicit my clear endorsement of this wonderful series. I've only used it a couple of days, but it has added immeasurably to my devotional life. Highly recommended. (Scepter is a publishing house for Opus Dei works. I have been greatly blessed by the works of St. JoseMaria Escriva, even if I have some reservations about some reported penitential practices.)

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March 29, 2004

On Reading Spiritual Books

Some books pose a real danger to one's complacency. For each person these books will be different, but they all threaten in the same way--they force one to think about God and how one is living life with respect to Him. This is not something I do readily. Often I go out of my way NOT to think about God because it will get in the way of what I really want to do. It's a whole lot easier to get along if God doesn't keep nosing in.

However, the spiritual life is not that way. In fact the spiritual life is enough to make one think that Freud actually got something correct in his hypotheses about the functioning of the personality. We have all experienced St. Paul's, "�For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." (KJV, Romans 7:19) This suggests that there is an internal battle raging constantly between our fallen nature and the nature God wants us to take on. Spiritual reading, properly done, spurs yet another encounter in the battle. This is why many avoid it.

Of recent date one book that has had the full strength of convicting force is St. Teresa Benedicta's work on St. John of the Cross--The Science of the Cross. Perhaps because the work is about poetry, perhaps because it is about St. John of the Cross, perhaps because it is written by St. Teresa Benedicta, but certainly because the Holy Spirit is using some connection between the work and my personality, nearly every line of the book speaks to me. Were I underlining it, the entire text would be underlined and annotated. It is one of those works I wish were readily available in electronic format so I could copy out sections and write all of my thoughts on it. It is a work that calls me to really think about Christ and God. It forces me out of comfort and complacency and into the challenging arena of spiritual warfare.

There are many books like this. Through time some have been tested and found excellent by many sources. The Imitation of Christ is chief among these. While there may be passages that do not speak to you at this very moment, there will be others that direct your attention to things you'd really rather nor look at. I am reminded of the scene of Judas's death in The Passion of the Christ. Just prior to it we are offered a brilliant image of the nature of sin in the form of a maggot-ridden, fly-blown corpse so distorted it is difficult to say what kind of animal it is. We very naturally don't want to look at such things. Nevertheless it is necessary and salutary work. If we are harnassed or shackled to such a thing, surely we would want to be aware of it. And we live in a world of people harnessed just so.

Another work that has helped many has been Fray Luis of Granada's A Sinner's Guide. So too with Scupoli's Spiritual Battle. These are all works that convict. But even those that do not address sin straight on, can still convict. St. Louis de Montfort's True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary Jean-Pierre de Caussade's Abandonment to Divine Providence, St. Thérèse of Lisieux Story of a Soul, in fact all the great works of the saints are designed with one purpose. They are designed for the sole purpose of any great Christian writer: to get you to open your eyes and walk toward God and to get you to see, if only momentarily how far you are from where God would have you be. And then to prompt you to move toward Him. This is true of the works of Flannery O'Connor, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene (at his best), and Walker Percy. When you read this fiction, you should stand convicted.

All reading should be spiritual reading and all spiritual reading should be directed toward the transformation of life. Yes, I know there is a place for eutrepalia, and yes, there is a place for leisure. Nevertheless, we would do far better for ourselves were we not to coddle and nurture these notions. Time spent with what does not lead to God is time wasted. Surely eutrepalia is as possible and even as likely in great works that lead to God as in the collected opera of Dean Koontz, Stephen King, John Grisham, and Michael Crichton. Indeed, I think these latter works, and others as well, serve more to insulate us from God than to bring us to Him.

Whatever it is we do it should be directed toward God's glory. This includes even those little choices such as what to read and what to watch on television. When we surrender to God it must be all the way. It isn't just part of us that goes to heaven, but the entire person. So spiritual reading, as uncomfortable as it may be, should occupy a major portion of our reading time. We should seek our joy and consolations in the presence of the Lord. And where there is great beauty, there also is the Lord. Reading any worthy work with the idea of learning more about God will likely result in learning more about God. Thus, much of our reading can become spiritual reading (assuming of course that the work is worthy to begin with.)

It's obvious I've strayed from my initial point, but these notes should help a bit. Perhaps in the future I'll share some of my favorite works of spirituality. It seems that there is a great hunger in St. Blog's for advice concerning these matters. Or perhaps not. Even if no one else should ever cast an eye over these ruminations to myself they are fruitful as a reminder of the path I should be following. I pray they may also help those who are really seeking after God's will in all that they do.

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March 28, 2004

Missed Opportunities

Lent is drawing to a close and I am overwhelmed with the sense that I have not taken full advantage of the spiritual riches of the season. As with every year, though I anticipate Easter, I almost wish the season could linger a week or two or three. The disciplines instilled, the expected focus, the deliberate positioning of oneself in the way of grace all strike me as critically important, and six weeks is hardly enough to make something of them.

However, this season, the Lord has spoken to me very clearly through my friends in the blogosphere and through the works of His saints that He has had me stumble over. He has given me St. Katharine Drexel and her wonderul fiestiness. He has given me also Romano Guardini and his careful reminders about prayer and the mass. He has given me St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross and her magnum opus--The Science of the Cross. He has given me the blessing of one man's devotion in a moving icon (twice) and He has asked me to reflect upon it. In addition he has showered upon me untold and unexpected riches in the world--responsibilities and opportunities.

Now, I look at this last week and I ask God to sustain me in the vocation to which He has called me. I look forward to Holy Thursday with it's memorial of the installation of the Eucharist. I look forward particularly to Good Friday with its somber reminder of What was done and Who was harmed to make good my sins. I look forward to the joyous season of Easter, and ask God that in its great joy, I do not forget the lessons of Lent, but I sustain them in my heart and in my practice.

Lent is not yet over. I always anticipate too much. But I am half-fearful and half joyful at its drawing to an end. I pray that the disciplines of the season are something I can take away with me and can make a permanent part of my life.

I pray also for all of you that this Lent has been a blessing and that the experiences of it alter your lives so that your paths are more ordered to God's will and to serving Him unstintingly in every facet of your lives.

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March 26, 2004

More About The Passion of the Christ

No matter how one may regard the movie, something of this nature is magnificent and wonderful beyond words. I don't know Mr. Gibson's involvement in the interprise, but simply by allowing images from his work of art to be used Mr. Gibson demonstrates the fullness of heart that gave rise to the film. For him, it is obvious, there is a passionate interest in the saving of souls. First he blesses us with a film that is a moving, iconic experience for a great many. And then he blesses us by properly allowing that work of art to be used to assist many lost souls on the way to salvation. What a tremendous, powerful witness and what an example of evangelism.

A colleague at work brought a couple of the pamphlets distributed by this group in for me to see. They are well done and as moving in some ways as the film, constantly coming back to the theme of our redemption and of Christ's great love for us. They are of a different Christian tradition than our own, but they are doing the work of winning souls to Christ. It is my prayer that by posting this message a visitor who drops in looking for whatever odd thing may have led them here discovers the wonders of Christ's love through this outreach. If I only serve to point the way to others who can help bring one soul to Jesus, I have fulfilled a great purpose in God's plan.

Truly, Mr. Gibson seems to try to live out the fullness of St. Teresa Benedicta's imperative to artists--not just to portray, but to live out the Passion itself. His passionate love should be an example to all of us. This truly calls from the depths of the heart a true thanksgiving to God for the gift He has bestowed upon us both in the film and in the witness of the filmmaker.

(P.S. Take a look at the quotes from Church leaders to get a sense of the breadth of this campaign. )

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The Science of the Cross

St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross made such a splash yesterday and the enthusiastic plaudits were such that I couldn't disappoint by not bringing more. First a definition: "St Paul who already had a well-developed science of the cross, a theology of the cross derived from inner experience (p. 20) And now this passage:

from The Science of the Cross
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

The saving power: this is the power that awakens to life those to whom divine life had died thorugh sin. This saving power had entered the Word from the cross and through this word passes over into all who receive it, who open themselves to it, without demanding miraculous signs or human wisdom's reasons. In them it becomes the life-giving and life-forming power that we have named the science of the cross.

Paul brought it to fulfillment in himself "Through the law I died to the law, that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." In those days when all turned into night about him but light filled his soul, the zealot for the Law realized that the Law was but the tutor on the way to Christ.

It could prepare one to recive life, but of itself it could not give life. Christ took the yoke of the Law upon himself in that he fulfilled it perfectly and died for and through the Law. Just so did he free from the Law those who wished to receive life from him. But they can receive it only if they relinquish their own life. For those who are baptised in Christ are baptized in his death. They are submerged in his life in order to become members of his body and as such to suffer and to die with him but also to arise with him to eternal, divine life. This life will be ours in its fullness only on the day of glory. (p. 21)

There are two points in this that really spoke to me:

(1) In those days when all turned into night about him but light filled his soul, the zealot for the Law realized that the Law was but the tutor on the way to Christ.

The law is the sign that points to the great redeemer, not redemption itself. I know this from all that is taught and yet to hear this revelation from one who would know--a Jewish convert to Catholicism--completely transforms an intellectual truth into a heart-truth. St. Teresa Benedicta lived this transformation and more. She learned the truth of the law, abandoned it, and then learned the fullness of the law in Jesus Christ. She died as a martyr for her people (in her own words), taking them with her in a mystical way in the reality of her own death and rising. She reified the truth of Christ's sacrifice on the cross in her own life and death. And as with all martyrs she is among the best imitators of Christ.

(2) They are submerged in his life in order to become members of his body and as such to suffer and to die with him but also to arise with him to eternal, divine life.

This may be more significant for those of us who had adult, full emersion baptisms. In the Baptist Church, once you accept Christ, you are baptised in a pool of water--not by having water sprinkled or poured on you, but by being completely emersed in the water three times--"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." This is quite a different experience from that of most Catholics (many of whom cannot remember their baptism) and even most adult converts. I've seen many who have had water poured over them, but have yet to witness a full emersion Catholic baptism. That's an aside, but important. In full emersion you are truly submerged, and brought forth again fully symbolizing the death and resurrection into which we are being baptised.

In St. Teresa Benedicta's terms we are submerged into the body of Christ which is the living Church and the body of the resurrection. We die to self to become part of what is greater than we are. In dying we are resurrected as more than self, as a member of the body of Christ.

But I like the sense of submerged for another reason. It suggests the fullness of the truth that Christ is not only completely surrounding us, but within us. When one is completely submerged, eventually the fluid one is submerged in enters the body. Submergence in Christ once again suggests the truth of becoming a new person, of losing the old, false identity and assuming one's god-given place in the body of Christ. In addition, submergence contains within it hints of subordination, of right ordering, and of proper relation between the creation and the Creator. In all, a very satisfying fleshing out of Paul's magnificent, life-giving teaching.

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March 22, 2004

Small Steps on the Path to Intimacy with God

Sophia Press publishes some very interesting reprints of books from the past. Much of the time I am annoyed by their tendency to abridge, edit, or alter any such text. However, the work is often worth reading. So is the case with the book quoted below:

from Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God
Fr. Kilian J. Healy OCD

It is quite possible to come to a profound love of God, but it will not be something that comes to us like a flash of lightning. Ordinarily, it will grow with time. For it is a love of friendship--wishing good to another. It grows in proportion as love for self decreases. Self-love decreases only after a difficult battle, but it is a battle that each and every one of us must fight. We have no alternative, for Christ has said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul." Since God does not command the impossible we can fall out of love with ourselves and in love with God. It is never too late to start.

Fr. Kilian's book seems to be a gloss on Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection's Practice of the Presence of God with some hints about how to do it. The back cover blurb promises "simple practical ways to think of God continuously, to converse with Him intimately, and to please Him at all times." I'll let you know.

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March 20, 2004

"Tell Me Where Is [Silence] Bred, Or in the Heart Or in the Head

from The Merchant of Venus
William Shakespeare

Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.
It is engender�d in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle, where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy�s knell;
I�ll begin it � Ding, dong, bell.

Ding, dong, bell.

I stumbled onto this blog this morning, and I was painfully reminded of a moment in the past that I have thought, at last, to share to help those who are discerning a vocation.

Shortly after I became Catholic, or it could have been in the course of planning to become Catholic the timeline is a bit fuzzy, I conceived the idea of becoming a Trappist Monk. I was inspired by Thomas Merton's work and by a poet friend who had recently become a Franciscan.

This desire for silence and retirement grew and grew within me. At the time I neither understood vocation nor did I have anyone to help me in the discernment process. There were a great many pressures in my life and contemplative silence was very appealing.

Ultimately, as noted by the fact that I have a wife and a child, I decided not to pursue this daydream. And every once in a while I wonder whether I took the right path. That is not to say that I am in the least unhappy in my present life. But sometimes things are seen in just the right slant of light and I have a sharp, sudden, poignant pain--a powerful reminder of what I gave up to pursue my present path. Once again, I reiterate, this is a good life, a life God has graced and blessed, but one cannot help but wonder.

What ultimately decided me in my path? Remember I was either becoming Catholic or just new to the faith. I had no one to help me decide. I was young and feeling pressure from every side. When I thought about retiring to a monastery, there was peace and calm and perfect happiness. Eventually I convinced myself that I had invented this monastery to give myself peace and calm--that no monastery would really be any such thing. This was the equivalent of imagining Caribbean blue water and waves on the shore. It was a momentary calming thing. I decided that the monastery did not represent fleeing into the arms of God, but fleeing away from the world. These are two very different motives for entering a monastery. One is noble and correct, the other perhaps less so. But now, in looking back, I wonder whether the less noble motive wasn't a stronger motivator. That is, still being formed, perhaps God spoke to me in a way that I could understand. His hand may have been extended offering peace in which I would eventually grow to love him.

Those are past regrets. They occasionally re-emerge to remind me of what is now no longer possible. This is my "road less travelled." And practically the only one I ever wonder about. I don't know if my decision at the time was right. However, what I can say definitively is that God honored that decision--He didn't make the rest of my life a living Hell for not hearing His call (if that is what it was). He continued to guide me and be with me and lead me to my present place---a very different place from the monastery.

This is not to say that one should take lightly any of these decisions, but that one should not walk the path alone. Look for a good guide, a good spiritual director who will help you discern vocation. Particularly is you are young and considering vocation, don't think you can or should do it all yourself. Find someone to help you discern the path

People who are Catholic from birth may have an easier time with this than I did, I don't know. But whoever you are, however you are raised, find help and defining your calling. It never hurts to test the spirits and to see which way you are being led. And know that whatever you choose, God will be with you. It isn't one strike and you're out. In fact, it may not even be a strike at all. Outside of sin and defiance, I have come to believe that God's plan and purpose for your life is infinitely adjustable; He only asks that when making the decision you consult Him. Often we sweat bullets over which is the "right path" to take, and sometimes I think there are a great many "right paths." So long as God is first in our lives, He can use all of our decisions to His greater glory. So always pray and discern and listen. Then, if you don't feel or hear any strong persuasion one way or the other, make your choice and wait to see God's working in your life.

Oh, and as to the epigraph. I am not in the monastery. But the call to interior silence is every bit as great as it was. And the call comes now not from the outside, from my thoughts and my stress, but from the inside, from a heart longing to love and to please God. May the heart longing to please God always be your guide into His paths.

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March 18, 2004

Peter and Judas: An Interesting Comparison

from The Passion of Christ According to the Four Evangelists
Thomas á Kempis

Peter did not fall into the deep pit of despair as did the unfortunate Judas, but he trusted in your continuing abundant mercy, which he had often experienced. Thus shedding sorrowful tears, he hastened to do penance, the saving rememdy for sin, and found the gate leading to infinite mercy wide open to him.

And Judas did not seek out this remedy. Surely Judas's crime was by far the greater, and yet the same gate of mercy swung wide for him. He was one of those Jesus trusted with the precious gift of His message, so surely he was assured a place among them even after his dastardly act. But Judas's public repudiation put him squarely in the eye of the world. He judged himself by the eyes looking in upon him (much as those unfortunates in Sartre's world of Huis Clos) and despaired because he could not rejoin the company. He so thoroughly believed the lies of the world that he condemned himself.

And yet it is my prayer that the love of Jesus redeemed him nevertheless. Jesus knew to the core the weakness of this vessel, and Judas fulfilled His every expectation. I pray that Judas had the grace of final repentance and has his seat among the twelve. (Though Dante would tell me otherwise.)

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March 17, 2004

Mysteriously, I Think I'm Falling in Love. . .

with St. Katharine Drexel. I'm reading only the briefest of books and now I'm dying to read the writing of the saint herself. There is so much noble, wonderful, magnificent, strong, frail, in the work that she did. There is such inherent courage. God truly formed her in a way that would make it possible for her to stand up to Southerners who did not want a school for blacks near them. Can you imagine standing up to an imperious Philadelphia Matriarch? What wonders God performs with His broken people.

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Challenging Stories

The empiricist in me always finds stories like this enormously interesting and very challenging. They help me to grow through trust.

from Meet Katharine Drexel
Mary van Balen Holt

Mother M. Mercedes once told an interesting story of their arrival for the ceremony. She said Mother Katharine had been delayed and had taken a later train to Richmond than intended. It pulled in under a dark night sky.

Mother Katharine was willing to remain at the station and wait for morning Mass and a chance to buy breakfast before traveling on to Rock Castle. but the station closed after their train arrived. Forced to stand outside, trying to decide what to do, they were met by an older black gentleman with a horse-drawn carriage. He told them they were expected to spend the night at the Franciscan convent of St. Joseph in town.

Surprised, but appreciative, the two sisters climbed into his carriage. Once at the convent, he carried their bags to the door and left. They rang many times before rousing anyone.

As it turned out, no one had been expecting them, nor had the Franciscans sent the older gentleman to meet the travelers at the station. Mother Katharine commented that he must have been St. Joseph, who did not want them out alone so late at night.

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The Failure of Knowledge, The Failure of Love

"Understand then, that the Lord, your God, is God indeed, the faithful God who keeps his merciful covenant to the thousandth generation toward those who love Him and keep His commandments." (Deuteronomy 8-9)

"What we have here is a failure to communicate." Cool Hand Luke

Another flare-up of the perennial DaVinci Code virus elsewhere in St. Blogs provoked the thoughts that follow. I have noted a strong tendency to rush toward the apologetic books when this particular virus raises its ugly head. And that is well and good to help people combat the misinformation.

But it led me to the question--why should this be necessary? If someone accused your mother of being a slut would you run for the dictionary, to show that by definition she is not? Or would you simply let love take the lead. This is not to fault those who wish to address and correct the errors that are introduced here. It is to fault whatever mechanism gives rise to so weak a love of Jesus that some are inclined to take seriously any calumny uttered against Him.

It seems to me that much of our apologetics stays in our heads and never percolates down to the heart where it can foster true and lasting love. The only true defense against such idiocy is Jesus Himself. If we truly love Him, then nothing said against Him can convince us of anything other than the truth. The purpose of apologetics is to convince, but after conviction, something must help the truth bloom into love.

Where do we fail as Catholics to foster the love that should be the strongest line of defense against this horror? Obviously, those of us in St. Blogs seem to have no real problem with this; however, it appears that a great many outside the community have a faith that falters when assaulted with clever half-truths and glamorous lies. As I said before, if someone calls your mother a slut, the heart rushes in to battle what we know to be a lie. Where is the heart rushing in to battle the lies uttered against Jesus? What is wrong with our system that we should be so weak?

Yesterday I quoted a passage that said, "The family is the first 'sacrament.'" The more I read of the life of St. Katharine Drexel or St. Thérèse of Lisieux, I realize that their early advantage in life that led to lives of heroic sanctity was a devoted, loving family that focused attention on God as loving Father. The heart of love is fostered in the home. Children learn to love Jesus if they see that there is an obvious, passionate love of Jesus in the hearts of their parents.

All of us know that children will learn more from what we do than from what we say. We cannot instruct a child on the dangers of smoking while puffing on a cigar. We can't tell them the dangers of alcohol consumption while we blithely imbibe. They learn more from example than from speech. We can spend all day every day talking about Jesus and teaching the facts of Church History, Christology, Theology, and any number of other disciplines; however, if our children never witness us turning to God with our problems, if we do not take the time to sit down and pray with our children, they will not know Love. And "if I speak with tongues of angels and have not love, I am as a clanging cymbal," my words are meaningless. If I teach the most vaunted truths, and talk all the time of mystical theology, but I never once retire to pray, I have taught nothing worthwhile. Some of the information may stick in the head, but the heart is unmoved.

This, I think, is the position of most people whose faith is assaulted by such nonsense as The DaVinci Code. They may well know the facts they were taught in CCD, through sermons, or at home. However, the head has never transferred the facts to the heart where they feed love. And this often comes about because there is no strong devotion in the home. Parents do not instruct their children to pray first about any problem before trying to act upon it. They do not teach their children to rush into the Arms of Love. If we are armed merely with the technical facts of hypostatic union and transubstantiation, we will be like deer in the headlights when someone approaches with another intellectual construct--say consubstantiation or "the Church suppressed the fact that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus." Complete balderdash, utter nonsense, and completely believable to one whose heart is not fortified by love of Christ and of His Earthly body, the Church.

Our intellects can be persuaded of any number of idiotic and patently untrue theories. This is what the "fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" is all about. Knowledge is based on a series of facts chained together in arrays that make some sort of reasonable intellectual construct. But these constructs are subject to attack on any number of grounds. The principles that form them may prove untrue or unstable, the configuration of facts can be changed to create a new, equally likely construct.

Intellect must be fortified by love. Knowledge must be strengthened by prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and most importantly self-giving. And all of these are fostered not by the institutions we erect to teach and lead, but in the home, in the heart of the family. So, save your children this heartache and pain now, while you may, teach them to pray because Love of God is born in talking and listening to Him, not merely in the facts about Him.

When we hear of those challenged by the DaVinci code or by any number of other heresies, let us rush to their aid armed with facts. Let us show them the untruth of what they see. But let's start our assault with a prayer, either together, or before we ever meet with the one who needs help. Let us surround the intellectual battle with an unpierceable mantle of profound love and self-giving to Jesus the Lord. And when the facts have been arrayed, let us stand ready to lead the one attacked into prayer and into love of Jesus Christ. If we love Him, we cannot believe the preposterous things said of Him and of His church on Earth. Start the battle with prayer, continue the battle under the cloud of the Almighty (just as He shielded the Israelites) and end the battle with prayer. Our final goal should be to move the heart as much or more than we move the mind.

Love then is our strongest defense. Absolute abandonment to God protects us, mind and body, heart and soul from all the nonsense uttered by the greatest intellects on Earth. The proper response to an atheistic neo-Freudian is not a refutation of Freudian theory, but "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. . ." The proper response to The DaVinci Code is a presentation of facts followed by , "For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world."

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March 15, 2004

Truth in Prayer

from The Art of Praying
Romano Guardini

No hard-and-fast rules can be laid down for this; we shall discuss it more fully later. But whatever routine one may adopt, one should carry it out honestly and conscientiously. In matters of prayer we are only too apt to deceive ourselves because, generally speaking, man does not enjoy praying. He easily experiences boredom, embarrassment, unwillingness, or even hostility. Everything else appears to him more attractive and more important. He persuades himself that he has not got the time, that there are other more urgent things to do; but no sooner has he given up prayer than he applies himself to the most trivial tasks. We should stop lying to God. Better to say openly, "I do not wish to pray," than to make such excuses. Better not to resort to specious justifications such as, for instance, tiredness, but to declare, "I do not feel like praying." This may sound less decorous, but at least it is the truth which leaves the way open, whereas self-deception does not.

A word to the wise is enough. Y'all know who you are, so just stop it. :-) And, of course, I'm a big one to be talking. But it is nice to have someone point out to you a few home truths.

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March 12, 2004

On the Desertion of Christ

from On the Passion of Christ According to the Four Evangelists
Thomas á Kempis

May Saint Peter's fall and the apostles' flight serve me as a warning against sin rather than be obstacle in my path. Let their return to repentence instill in me the great hope that I too may seek mercy after my own failings; for there is no one so holy that does not sometimes fall into venial sin. If it should happen that I am deserted by friends and acquaintances or am looked upon, by those whom I love, as a stranger and as one who is worthless, then grant me, as a special remedy, to recall your complete desertion and abandonment, that I may readily forego all human consolation, and in some small measure be conformed to you as you undergo your trials.

Gentle Jesus, forgive me for having so often offended you, for so easily turning to vanities, and for not setting my heart on that which I have proposed to do. How often I look back on the amount of time I spent on so many things, all far from important, while I paid no attention to your Passion. You have preceded me along the narrow road, and with eyes dry I pass by as if your sorrows have no effect on me. Remember my foolish heart and instill in it a loving remembrance of your Passion.

It is entirely too easy to forget what Christ has done for us, even as we remember it. We are too easily distracted by the pretty baubles of God's good world, and too easily drawn away by our own trials.

We abandon Jesus for any reason or for no reason at all. We leave at the slightest provocation. We become wrapped up in ourselves and our trials and we forget Him, though we have promised to stay close to Him. We hunker down for Lent and spend perhaps an extra few minutes a week during which we cast Him a passing thought. Is this how we treat "My Life and my All?"

Unfortunately we do so. But, so then did the disciples when he needed someone most of all. Thomas encourages us to take a lesson and hope from this and to allow our wayward selves to tap into God's grace, as did the apostles. Yes, we will stray away, but let us always return to the straight and narrow path trodden out first by Christ and then by His legion of Saints throughout the ages. Let us give ourselves unreservedly to His Glory that it permeate the entire world. Let us make Love live in the hearts and minds of all who surround us through His grace. Let us rely upon grace and carry His light into the world.

Though we stumble and fall, He is there to pick us up as we were not in His dolorous way.

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March 11, 2004

Suffering for Christ

I don't know about you, but this is an aspect of Saints' lives that always bewildered me. God made life beautiful, wonderful, and glorious. Why would we want to go through it suffering for His sake? Wouldn't it be better to glory in it for His sake? To appreciate the good, and treasure it for all that it is, the gift God saw fit to bestow upon us? Yes, I know that we will return home to the Father, and we should look forward to that wonderful day, but should we discourteously dismiss the wonderful gifts that He has given us so that we can suffer more? Is that the way we treat the gifts of our human parents? Box them up and ship them off so that we can do without?

Last night in my reading, I stumbled across this reminder, which I recall from reading St. Thérèse, but needed to hear again.

from He Is My Heaven
Jennifer Moorcroft

It is well worth quoting this remarkable letter [249] in full, if only because of the superb advice it contains. But it also reveals so beautifully Elizabeth's spiritual outlook. It is full of common sense, taking full account of our human weakness and yet at the same time piointng to the heights of holiness. It is completely without self-pity; far from asking "why me?" her utter assurance that she and others are totally loved by God enables her to see purpose and meaning in suffering. But there is no hint of suffering for suffering's sake. Her conversation with Mother Germaine shows the same commonsense approach; if it cannot be avoided, and we have a duty to look after ourselves, then we must use it for his glory. The whole letter is permeated with Scripture, which she mediatated upon and lived. Above all, this was no theory, but only wat she experienced for herself.

As the Buddha pointed out (incorrectly) "All life is suffering." Well, ALL life is not suffering, but even the very best earthly life comes with its share of sorrow, disappointment, and pain. When these cannot be avoided, as Blessed Elizabeth and a great many other Saints teach, they should be embraced and offered up to God. What a great common-sense approach to things.

We will suffer. That is a given. There isn't a single human being who has ever lived that has not suffered. However, we suffer even more when we try to avoid the reality of suffering and spend our time complaining about it and trying to find extraordinary means of fleeing it (drugs, alcohol-abuse, etc.). If there will be suffering, then it seems better to accept this as part of what has come from God to us--a kind of bitter-sweet gift, and offer it back to Him as a share in His own suffering from us.

So when we read about suffering in the Saints, keep this in mind. Most were probably not masochists, but recognized the wonders and the beauties of life. But they also recognized that suffering is the human lot. If it is to happen to us anyway (even after we have taken pains to avoid it) than the best we can do is to offer it back to Jesus after we have cherished it. Rhonda Chervin has a book that examines this called A Kiss from the Cross. One important point to remember is that we needn't go out of our way to make ourselves suffer--this I suppose would be a sin against God's goodness. We have enough suffering in life that we needn't make more for ourselves or for others.

God loves us. Suffering is a fact of our mortal bodies and a consequence of the fall. By accepting that lot and offering it back in some sense we help to redress the upset in balance that resulted from the fall.

And small acts of mortification, small deprivations of God's goods also help us to acknowledge that God is more important to us that these lovely baubles that surround us. Giving up what is good and right for a time, as we do in Lent, we experience some part of that "suffering." If we are "using" it wisely, we are allowing it to change our hearts and our lives so that they are more closely aligned with God's Heart and His vision for our lives.

Suffering is not purposeless, it reminds us of the transcience of the present world, and it acts like a cattle prod to keep our feet moving on the path toward holiness.

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March 9, 2004

Last one for the Evening, I (Sorta) Promise--Blessed Elizabeth

Sorry, I'm on a Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity kick, and if you would get the book from ICS and read it, you'd see why. In the meantime, let me tell you the immediate cause of my enthusiasm:

from He Is My Heaven
Jennifer Moorcraft

"Pray that I might have his passion for God and for souls," asked Elizabeth, "for a Carmelite must be an apostle." The Carmelite prays and strives for the closest possible union with God, not simply for her own holiness and salvation; she is aware that the more she is living in Christ, the more powerful she is in her prayer for others. Just as evil can pollute and corrupt, even more so goodness and holiness can transform.

Oh, how powerful over souls is the apostle who remains always at the Spring of living waters; then he can overflow without his soul ever becoming empty, since he lives in communion with the Infinite!. . .Let us be wholly His, Monsieur l'Abbé, let us be flooded with His divine essence, that He may be the Life of our life, the Soul of our soul, and we may consciously remain night and day under His divine action. (L 124)

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Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity

Y'all just must spend some time with her. See this quote:

from He Is My Heaven
Jennifer Moorcroft

May Christ bring us into those depths, those abysses where one lives only by Him. Would you like to be united to your little sister in order to become wholly loving, wholly listening, wholly adoring?

To love, to love all the time, to live by love, that is, to be surrendered. (L125)

It really is only one step, but the really hard part is the preliminaries where God prepares you for the step. Our prayer is to Love God and to be Love for God here in the world. As St. Teresa of Avila can be paraphrased, "In the end it is not how much we know, it is how much we love that we shall be judged by." And by "how much," I take St. Teresa to mean both in quantitative (how often it is expressed) and qualitative (the actions by which it is expressed) mode. Some express their love in song and prayer and silence, others express it through strong refutation of error, counsel, and preaching, still others through hospitality. There is no end to the expression of love of God, and it is absolutely necessary for each of us to pursue through grace that end of loving in the particular way that God desires for us. For if we choose to love as we choose, then we do not really love at all.

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One Necessary Prayer

Okay, don't be too hasty in reading that title and jumping to a conclusion. I didn't say "the only" nor do I mean to imply that this is necesarily the very best; however, I do think it is much more necessary than many people seem to think. My nomination for one important prayer that everyone should say hundreds, if not thousands of times a day: "Thy will Lord, not mine."

Why? Well consider this:

1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Now look at the checklist:
patient
kind
not jealous
not pompous
not self-seeking
not quick-tempered
not brooding over injurices,
not rejoicing in wrongdoing
rejoicing in truth
bears all things
believes all things
hopes all things
endures all things
never fails.

Well our prayer pretty much fits the bill-in every particular. In order to pray it and mean it, the attitudes exemplified in this paean to love must be present. And even if we pray it, not really meaning it, but hoping that it may become the truth, then we plant the seed through our prayer, and through grace it will blossom.

To live the Christian live, we need to live God's real life in us. To do this we need to be obedient to His perfect will. And finally to do this, we must Love Him. So constant reminder and pleading for God's will is an inducement to a true love of God. True love of God is the only way to live life. Constant communion and communication with Him is the only desirable goal. To be constantly in His presence is to taste Heaven on Earth.

So one necessary prayer to encourage the humility and patience necessary for growth in the Lord: "Thy will Lord, not mine."

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Love and Grace and Other Really Complicated Things á la Carmel

from He Is My Heaven: The Life of Elizabeth of the Trinity
Jennifer Moorcroft

Let us live with God as with a friend, let us make our faith a living faith in order to be in communion with Him through everything, for that is what makes saints. We possess our Heaven within us, since He who satisfies the hunger of the glorified in the light of vision gives Himself to us in faith and mystery, it is the Same One! It seems to me that I have found my Heaven on earth, since Heaven is God, and God is [in] my soul. The day I unsterstood that everything became clear to me.

For Elizabeth, this was not just a lovely spiritual idea, once she understood it, she lived it with unrelenting persistance, as she said herself, it was how saints were made. It was a way that was typical for her, since there was no dividing line between her spiritual life and her everyday life. In her letter to Guite [stevenote: Elizabeth's sister] Elizabeth went on to reassure her family, who were worried by the thought of the hard Lenten observance in Carmel: "Lent isn't tiring me; I don't even notice it, and then I have a good little Mother who watches over me with a quite maternal heart" (L 109).

And so we have a synthesis of Carmelite teaching. Live with God as with a friend in constant conversation, listening more than speaking; and make your faith a living faith. Perhaps this might be said to BE faith alive. That is when people look at your life they see the fire burning there, the faith that is the love of God shining forth. This should show forth not from what you say, nor even necessarily from what you do, but in how you go about it.

I think of it as the spiritual equivalent for Faith of what Audrey Hepburn was for sophistication, class, and beauty. She didn't need to preach classiness or sophistication--it was simply who she was. And reports have it that part of that may have been because of her faith. But when people look at us, as we conduct ourselves even virtually, they should see the constant striving to make real the presence of God within and among us. They should see living faith. And this only becomes possible when the most important thing in the world is a passionate, all-consuming love of God and desire for His will alone.

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March 6, 2004

The Passion Redux

It appears I was somewhat wrong about the movie. While it had no immediate effect or resonance, I found that at Mass today, it seemed to have imparted to me some greater sense of Christ's humanity. Somehow the events of the Movie made Jesus more of a person to me--it reified His humanity in ways that have not been possible for me before. So at Mass, I was doubly joyful in the Love of the Great God and the Love of the Great, Good Man. I can't explain it, but God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. Thank you Jesus.

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Notes from a Carmelite Meeting

First, I wanted everyone to know that the group today invoked our Lady of La Leche and Good Parturition on behalf of all those who are pregnant and who desire to be. Most particularly I was thinking of JCecil3, Ashli, Davey's Mom, and others of St. Blogs. Rest assured, you are prayed for and cared for.

Second, to Tom of Disputations. You have the heart-felt thanks of an entire Carmelite community. After a brief description of our little interchange (in a larger discussion of Carmelite Spirituality) every person there ferevently thanked God for all the Dominicans and then fervently thanked God for not calling us there. I assured them that the Dominicans very likely felt the same. And so to all my brothers and sisters in lay religious orders, I do thank God for you every day, for the diversity and wonder of His love.

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March 5, 2004

More Reflections on the Passion

from On the Passion of Christ According to the Four Evangelists
"On the shameful arrest and leading away of the Lord Jesus"
Thomas á Kempis

Lord Jesus Christ, Hope of the saints and Tower of strength in every tribulation, I bless and thank you for undergoing so violent an arrest by hateful enemies, for the arrogant laying of sacrilegious hangs on you by those sent to arrest you, and for the brutal looks and menacing shouts of those carrying arms against you. I bless and thank you for your harsh and cruel binding, for your rough and ruthless detention, for your painful pummeling, and for your being so abruptly dragged away. Amid all this tumult, while you were being rushed to your death by mean-spirited and worthless villains, your dear disciples, who had deserted you, looked upon you from a distance with great sorrow.

(book available from Ignatius press)

I was particularly affected by the last line, for I am among those disciples who look upon Him from a distance with great sorrow. I set myself at a distance through my own faults, choices, and sinfulness. And yet, the look that crosses that great distance from the eyes of the Savior himself is not one of condemnation, not one that says, "See what you did to me." Rather it is a look of love that says, "See what I can do for you. Come with me."

And so in Lent we journey with Him. But afterwards, too seldom do we bring to mind the great love that redeems us. Too infrequently do we pause to consider what God has wrought in so marvelous and completely loving a savior. At a word the entire realm of heaven could have rushed down to crush the oppressors. But God stayed His hand, accepting in His human body the pains and suffering we inflict on ourselves and each other in our sinfulness.

Praise the look of love that does not condemn, but speaks new life, "See what I can do for you."

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March 4, 2004

"Remember Thou Art Dust"

The memento mori, the reminder of our own mortality, the whisper in the ear of the Roman Conquerer during a Triumphal Procession--"Remember thou art mortal," is a long, useful reminder of our limited span, the fact that everyone "struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more."

But we must also remember our ultimate value. If we are dust, we are gold dust, or more-infinitely precious to God. So precious that He who was One for whom we are not worthy to untie sandals came and served and died and rose.

"Remember thou art dust. . ." and remember too that you are "The apple of My [God's] eye. Remember the balance between the two. You are not worthy to be loved, but Love Himself raises you to worthiness. God loves us and so makes us worthy of love. In fact, God loved us to death and to new life.

Remember thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return--only this ragged body. Remember thou art dust and by the power of His Gracious Love and through his all pervading Grace to Glory thou shalt return.

Praise God for His endless love that both reminds us of our end and our worth without Him, and raises us to be worthy of Him. God loves us so much.

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March 2, 2004

On Lectio and Openness

A great many people "spend time in the word" every day. But much of the time they spend there seems to be spent fending off any meaning of the word that might have an impact on their lives. People fear the demands of the gospel. They often fear the cost of discipleship.

In the first few chapters of The Imitation of Christ Thomas á Kempis warns us of this tendency.

Here for example is an excerpt from Chapter 2:

from The Imitation of Christ Thomas á Kempis

EVERY man naturally desires knowledge; but what good is knowledge without fear of God? Indeed a humble rustic who serves God is better than a proud intellectual who neglects his soul to study the course of the stars. He who knows himself well becomes mean in his own eyes and is not happy when praised by men.

If I knew all things in the world and had not charity, what would it profit me before God Who will judge me by my deeds?

Shun too great a desire for knowledge, for in it there is much fretting and delusion. Intellectuals like to appear learned and to be called wise. Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise.

Many words do not satisfy the soul; but a good life eases the mind and a clean conscience inspires great trust in God.

The more you know and the better you understand, the more severely will you be judged, unless your life is also the more holy. Do not be proud, therefore, because of your learning or skill. Rather, fear because of the talent given you. If you think you know many things and understand them well enough, realize at the same time that there is much you do not know. Hence, do not affect wisdom, but admit your ignorance. Why prefer yourself to anyone else when many are more learned, more cultured than you?

Many who approach the Bible study it. Study is good and necessary. But if the end result of study is merely that one knows more, it is futile. Study must end in loving more. Study must end in opening oneself to the Word and making oneself vulnerable and useful to God.

This goes for all spiritual reading. If we read only to have read, or if we read in order to understand God, and we do not allow the reading to affect how we live, we have read in vain. There is no purpose in reading merely for more information. We have enough information. People who were illiterate throughout the history of Christianity, those who had no learning whatsoever, had sufficient information. Where we are deficient, universally, is in our willingness to serve the Word, to live the Word as it has been spoken to our hearts.

So, during Lent, spend time in God's word and pray that God enlighten not merely the understanding, but the entire intellect and the will and the heart, that what we read there really changes our lives in fundamental ways. Pray that this season opens us up to the working of the Holy Spirit so that the journey begun here does not end in Easter, but in Eternity, starting here on Earth and moving through all time.

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February 27, 2004

On Siezing the Moment

As usual, Tom says it exceptionally well.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:24 AM | TrackBack

February 26, 2004

On the Many Stings of Anger

In the course of this day I have--

--witnessed an utterly illogical defense of the indefensible,
--been told how wonderful a certain set of products that is designed largely to seem likeit might do something for someone when in fact SEEMS is all it does
--been told that I really have no understanding, despite a great many years in the industry, of what it is I do
--watched a patently unfair and subversive tactic used to deprive my son of one of the very few things we can give to him.

I have been deeply angered and hurt by these things.

And then I read this in a book just obtained from Ignatius Press:

from On the Passion of Christ According to the Four Evangelists
Thomas á Kempis

How great your patience,most gentle Jesus, and how great my impatience!

Alas! How poorly I tolerate a brother when he has said or done something against me. But you, for so long a time and without complaint, have endured your disciple Judas, who would soon sell and betray you, while I, for a platry insult, quickly yield to anger and think of various ways of vindicating myself or of offering excuses. Where then is my patience, where is my meekness?

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A Moment of Grace

An award, utterly unmerited in so many ways, for which I am deeply thankful. The people of St. Blogs rightfully awarded this to Mr. Gerard Serafin of A Catholic Blog for Lovers and if he should ever change his mind regarding it I will, with great pleasure, return it to him.

I would like to point out that not only did I not win this award, but even had I won it, I think it unmerited. Mr. LeBlanc, of the awards committee, defines "most pious" to mean most reverent. I am deeply gratified that many people think of my blog in that way, but I would suggest that there are many other more worthy sites--Mr. Serafin's among them, but perhaps Ms. Knapp's would be my choice for such an award.

I belabor the point. I am humbled and delighted by the expression of support and love that it represents, and I am deeply grateful for receiving it. I only pray that I can live up to the expectation set by it, not only on the blog, but in my whole life.

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On "Giving Things Up"

There are at least two possible ways to think about "giving things up" for Lent. Certainly it is sufficient to think of this as a penance, as a deprivation of a good both as a matter of self-control and a matter of a sacrifice. And I believe that Tom of Disputations has pointed out that this is highly commended by the Church (perhaps even indulgenced). So for the time of Lent we give up something in order to remember the holiness of the season and to put us into a different frame of mind to better approach God.

But another way of thinking about this practice is to consider it a rehearsal for true detachment. Think of it this way--"If I can give up chocolate for forty days, I can give it up forever." Substitute for chocolate whatever it is you have chosen to forego. In some cases the benefits could be tremendous--sweets, smoking, and alcohol come to mind. But the reason for giving them up is not the physical benefit that accrues, but a gradual shedding of those things that too firmly attach us to the goods of the world. As a true penance for Lent, I have chosen to give up the purchase of all books. In fact, I may not enter a library in the course of time. I chose this because this is perhaps my most pronounced attachment. Food, tobacco, alcohol, and other such indulgences have little sway for me. But giving up the purchase of books, for me, would be like Erik making a vow to eat only at McDonalds for the entire season.

One of the possibilities of Lent is to train ourselves in one small thing to become like St. Paul when he says, "I know how to be rich and I know how to be poor." I interpret this to mean that St. Paul was detached from things--when they were available he licitly used them and when they were unavailable he did not mourn the loss. Thus, if we could take a small step, like breaking the habit of a cup of morning coffee--gladly accepting it if we're with someone and hospitality dictates that it is appropriate, but also gladly leaving it behind when there is no such dictate--we would be on the road to detachment.

Now, what makes this possible? Certainly grace, for without His help we can do nothng but sin. But also, we need to focus less on what we are giving up and more on the reason for giving it up. Everything that occupies our attention in any way fills up space and time that could otherwise be occupied by Jesus. Thus each little thing that we can give up makes room to spend more time with Jesus. Spending time with someone increases our devotion to and love of that person. So rather than focusing on what we have deprived ourselves of, when we feel the need for it, think about Whom we are making room for. In this way, the deprivation will seem much smaller than it looms in consciousness if there is no purpose to the sacrifice. Giving things up by our own will is a laudable practice, but giving them up to make room for God in our lives is a salvific practice.

Detachment does not bloom from focusing on the things from which we must become detached. Detachment blooms from ardent love of Jesus Christ. When He is truly important in our lives, everything else is necessarily put into perspective.

So as you continue your Lenten practice, strive to think less about what you are giving up than about for Whom you are making room. Widen the spaces inside to accommodate the Lord who loves you. (And remember too that God is simple, and He cannot coexist with what is not single-hearted and single minded. He cannot dwell within us if we are divided, we too must be simple.)

With grace, work to destroy your need for things and to build your love of the One Thing Necessary. Think like a small child, for whom the greatest comfort comes not from things, but from the loving embrace of mommy or daddy. Then spend time in your Father's loving embrace.

To conclude, one of the intercessions and the conclusion from Morning Prayer:

May our hearts thirst for Christ,
the fountain of living water.

Lord,
may everything we do
begin with your inspiration,
continue with your help,
and reach perfection under your guidance.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with your and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 25, 2004

Beginning Lent--The Beginning of Imitation of Christ

Speaking to a very dear friend yesterday, I was inspired to take one of two paths that seemed to lay before me in Lent. This path wanders down the road of certain classics of a mystical bent. And a good start to this wandering is a small reflection of the first chapter of the first book of Thomas á Kempis's classic The Imitation of Christ. In the first few chapters he is attacking overblown and puffed-up and pretentious knowledge--that is knowledge absent a love of Christ.

In that first chapter we find this reminder for Lent:

"It is better to experience contrition than to be able to define it."

Contrition--"�And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil." (Joel 2:13)

Contrition is perhaps the first turning of repentence. Regret what you have done, the time you have wasted putting a space between yourself and the Lord. And more than mere regret, act upon the knowledge of what you have done. Now is the appropriate time, now is the acceptable season--not merely because it is Lent, but because the present is the only moment we have to make any changes. We cannot walk the path alone, but we can be steadfast in our determination to walk it no matter the cost.

The season of Lent is a gift given to remind us of the necessity and value of walking close to God and speaking with Him frequently. Too often we put everything off for this season and we spend forty days in a workout. (Better forty days than none at all.) But what is the point of Lent if you start a good work and at the end of the time let it go? Lent is about changing your life, not merely for forty days but for all of eternity. It is a time to take a step closer to God and to hold your gains against the ebb and flo of the world. Don't take on the discipline of Lent with a grim determination that you'll make it through these forty days and then it will be over. Take on Lent as a joyous garment, as a coat of many colors, a gift from your Father in Heaven. Dance before the Lord in joy and hope, knowing that He wants nothing more (and nothing less) than all that you are and all that your will ever be. He wants your unstinting love, your total gift of self and in return you will get . . .

Everything. Everything. Everything that the creator of all can bestow upon you--all the love in the outstretched arms of His son, all the love of a true Father's heart, all the Love that gave rise to the Holy Spirit. You will become the true temple of the Lord's delight. You will be the palace of celebration and a sign of joy to all the world. You will be a vessel of the light of Salvation and the apple of your Father's eye.

Reach out in Joy to the Father who reaches out in joy to you. Rend your hearts, not your garments, regret the time together you could have had and let that fuel your desire to come ever nearer. Rejoice that the season of invitation is upon us once again and make good use of that season. Rejoice in the God who loves you and let that love lead to a permanent and obvious change in the way you conduct life. Nothing less is an acceptable return for the wonderful gift God gives us every day.

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February 24, 2004

Scary Questions and Their Scarier Answers about Prayer, Union With God, and Contemplation

Q. So who is called to this union with God anyhow?

A. You are.

Q. What do you mean me? That stuff is for the Saints.

A. And by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ you are among them.

Q. Yes, I'm one of the saints but I'm not one of the Saints. I can't do what they did.

A. True, you cannot because you are you and they are who they were. But you can't get around the call to the kingdom. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads unto salvation." The strait gate and narrow way are Jesus Christ Himself. Contemplation of God is the road to union. Contemplative prayer opens the gate--the way is open to all, but few choose to follow it.

Q. But I can't be a contemplative, I'm too busy.

A. Yes, you can. You need to decide to do so and then lean completely on grace. We are nothing of ourselves, what we do we do through Jesus Christ.

Q. Okay, back to union with God. Why is this so important?

A. Precisely because it is what God has ordained as your destiny. Either in this life or in the next you will be in union or not. And not being in union is like being perpetually unmade and at sixes and sevens with all around you. We call it Hell. Heaven is divine union where the body of Christ functions as a body.

Q. Yes. But isn't union with God something only special people can do?

A. No. It will happen to the faithful who die in God's grace. Some of these lived the life while on Earth. Some will come to live it only after a time of conforming to God's will--a place called purgatory. But all who die in His good grace will get there, one way or another.

Q. Well, I can just wait and let my firends and family pray me out of purgatory.

A. Yes, you could do that. But think of what you are missing now. You could be living in heaven itself while on Earth. You could know how deeply and completely God loves you. You could be the instrument of salvation of thousands of lost souls. You could be the teacher of many who lack any substance whatsoever in thier lives. Union is not a thing to fear and avoid, but a destiny to be pursued relentlessly. "As a deer panteth after running streams, my heart panteth after thee O my God."

Q. Okay. But isn't it a lot of hard work and difficult thinking?

A. Not at all. Is it hard work and difficult thinking to talk to your son or daughter. Is it hard work to meet a friend for coffee and listen to her pour out her heart about her current trials and afflictions? God longs for this from you. He loves you as though you alone were the whole Earth and his desire for you is more fierce than Satan's and more fervent. The difference is that He loves you enough to ask you to come home by your own will. Satan will gladly drag you wherever he'd like you to go.

Q. How do I start?

A. In two words--shut up. Longer, "Be still and know that I am God." And yet more, go to prayer with the expectation that the Lord will communicate as He sees fit, and say it to him, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." Fifteen minutes a day--ten minutes to start--go and wait upon the word of God. Don't expect miracles--it didn't take a week for you to become so mired in the world as you are, it won't take a week to escape from its trappings.

Q. But how do I know it is working?

A. You don't. But it is. Remain faithful to your meeting time and if nothing else happens, simply offer up the time in love and quiet. At the end of it say a short prayer of praise and thanksgiving.

Q. What if I get distracted?

A. Ah, a question for another time. Right now, don't worry about it. Go and wait. Send out love and love will return.

(By the way--I'm in the same place as a great many in St. Blogs--no further along, and perhaps even trailing a lot of you. What I report here I do not report from the fullness of my own experience--I report it from the depth of the experiences of the saints. So do not be disheartened and above all else do not dare to compare yourself with another--the heart cannot be the lungs, the hand cannot be the feet. Rejoice in what the Lord has granted you and live it to the fullest. Aspire like St. Thérèse to return to God empty handed, having given out and passed back all the graces you have been granted. God will see the lowliness of your estate and rejoice in the love you have shared with all.)

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On Christian Prayer

A couple of excerpts from an introductory essay:

from "An Introductory Essay" before Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection
Rev J. B. Dalgairns, Priest of the Oratory

It is very difficult for men living in the modern world to understand a life of prayer; yet they must accept it as a real fact. Thousands of Christians have lived such a life without becoming either praying machines like the Buddhists or fakirs like the Brahmins. The principle of Christian asceticism is as far apart from Manicheism as possible. It is simply the principle of expiatory suffering and prayer involved in the very idea of the sacrifice of Christ. The gulf which separates the anchoress from the fanatic is the love of Jesus. . . .

[quoting from a noted Anchoress]

In another place, after a beautiful and minute description of the crucifixion, and how the "hellbairns" betrayed and crucified Him, she breaks out: "Ah! Jesus, my life's love, what heart is there that will not break when he thinketh hereof; how Thou, that art the Saviour of mankind, and the remedy for all bales, didst thole [endure] such shame for the honour of mankind. Men speak oft of wonders and of strange things divers and manifold that have befallen, but this was the greatest wonder that ever befell upon earth. Yea, wonder above wonders that that renowned Kaiser, crowned in Heaven, maker of all that is made, to honour His foes would hang between two thieves. Ah, how can I live for ruth that see my darling on the rood, and His limbs so drawn that I may tell each bone in His body! Ah, how do they now drive the iron nails through Thy fair hands into the hard rood and through Thy noble feet! Ah, now from those hands and feet so lovely streams the blood so ruefully! Ah, now they offer to my love, who says He thirsts, two evil drinks in His blood-letting, vinegar, sourest of all drinks, mingled with gall, that is the bitterest of all things! Ah, now, sweet Jesus, yet besides all Thy woe, to eke it out with shame and mockery, they laugh Thee to scorn when Thou hangest on the rood! Ah that lovely body that hangs so ruefully, so bloody, and so cold! Ah, how shall I live, for now dies my love for me on the dear rood, hangs down His head, and sends forth His soul? But it seems to them that He is not yet fully tormented, nor will they let the pitiful body rest in peace. They bring forth Longinus with the broad sharp spear. He pierces His side, cleaves the heart, and there come flowing out of that wide wound the Blood that bought us, the water that washes the world of guilt and sin. Ah, sweet Jesus, Thou openest for me Thy heart, that I may know Thee truly, for there I may openly see how much Thou lovedst me. With wrong should I refuse Thee my heart, since Thou hast bought heart for heart. Jesus, sweet Jesus, thus Thou foughtest for me against my soul's foes. Thou didst settle the contest for me with Thy body, and hast made of me, a wretch, Thy beloved and Thy spouse. Brought Thou hast me from the world to Thy bower. I may there so sweetly kiss Thee, and embrace Thee, and of Thy love have ghostly liking. What may I suffer for Thee for all that Thou didst thole (endure) for me? But it is well for me that Thou be easy to satisfy. A wretched body and a weak I bear upon earth, and that, such as it is, I have given Thee and will give Thee to Thy service. Let my body hang with Thy body nailed on the rood, and enclosed within four walls, and hang I Will with Thee, and never more leave my cross till that I die."

If we set our eyes on Jesus and we set our hearts on Him, we cannot fail in prayer or in life. Jesus will carry the burden for us, and our only duty is to walk with Him and talk with Him. We need to listen more than we talk. We need to hear from Him the Father's expiatory, exalting, and exultant Love.

Jesus is the elder brother we do not hear about in the parable of the Prodigal Son. He is the elder brother who rushed out to greet the one coming home and ushered Him into the Father's embrace. So he does for those of us who are willing to spend time with Him. He is the sure sign and the presence of the Father's Love. It is through His tangible and real presence that we come to know what the Father feels for us.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:53 AM | TrackBack

Posting Your Prayer Requests

St. Blogs has shown itself to be a community of powerful prayer "warriors," storming heaven and obtaining by our prayers many graces and blessings, and perhaps even a miracle.

Therefore I encourage all to share their needs either by e-mail or in the comments box of the week-daily prayer requests. (I'm going to try to keep the prayer requests going through the weekend as well, but I've had trouble posting on weekends recently.)

And to all who have been praying--thank you for the breathtaking faithfulness and true Christian love that obtains the graces that come through Mary's hand from God's all-encompassing love. Thank you so much for your faithfulness and perserverance in prayer. I have been strengthened by your powerful witness, and through our prayers God is changing the world one small piece at a time. Please continue in your faithful love.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:43 AM | TrackBack

February 23, 2004

Well, Now That I've Scared Off One Reader

(although truth to tell--I rather think she's off brushing off her platform). it's time to break out the big, medieval guns.

from The Cloud of Unknowing--"Prayer from the Prologue"

GOD, unto whom all hearts be open, and unto whom all will speaketh, and unto whom no privy thing is hid. I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee, and worthily praise Thee. Amen.

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February 22, 2004

The Anatomy of the Body of Christ

At the time of writing his letters, Paul had no greater knowledge available to him than that the body is made up of parts and so his analogy of the individual Christian to the body of Christ. With our greater knowledge of anatomy, we can better understand Paul's intent.

We are each a very small part of the body of Christ. Even the most brilliant person is not a significant part of the "brain" of the Church, rather he or she might represent a complete neuron. A less brilliant scholar a mere axon. (Some of us feel like the synapse--sitting in the void between the cells and watching the messages flash past with a sense of understanding, but no real grasp of the matter.

When we consider our place in the whole of the body of Christ, it gives us pause. We have nothing to boast of--can a single cardiac muscle fiber boast? Of what use is it without all other such fibers? Can a single islets cell exult in producing insulin--the amount made is minute--useless without all the other cells.

We function only when we function in the body with all the other cells of like function. We cannot function outside of the body at all, and if we spend our time wishing we were other cells, we are more a detriment that a help to the body.

We need to learn to accept who and what we really are in Christ and then humbly and boldly assume that role in the body. We are blessed to have a place and blessed to be able to serve. And when we do so we become part of the corporate body of Love--we bring love into the world and we transform the world through God's love working through us.

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February 20, 2004

He Said It--On Holding Hands

Mark at Minute Particulars has summed up what I've always thought about holding hands during the Our Father. And while it may not be in the rubrics, I am quick to point out that frequent confession was not always the practice either and a groundswell of popular opinion moved it into the realm of the blessing that it is.

Too often we cut ourselves off. The very gestures we use in prayer tend to indicate a closed circle, an isolated fortress, a Man alone Before God. I like the connectivity of holding hands, and even if I hold no other hands, I must be connected to the family I love, my lifeline and my tangible, visible, constant, gift from God. But holding a stranger's hand is good as well--perhaps even better because it indicates a willingness to unite our fates, to both go willingly where the Lord leads, and to some extent to help one another. The gesture forces us to break the closed circle of our prayer and to momentarily step into community.

Now, I'm not for forcing this on anyone who is not so inclined. But I have to say that I am always favorably impressed with the congregation, if not necessarily the liturgy in the place where I see this done. I enter into the gesture willingly because it is only in each other that we receive the tangible sign of God's love.

However, not all are comfortable with this, and each must have the freedom of his or her conscience. It is not up to me to impose rules, and I do try to obey those imposed by the Bishops. However, this one always overcomes any qualms. Sometimes it is necessary to express what is in the heart and move forward with it--perhaps the Bishops might perceive what is being silently spoken there and recognize both its worth and its necessity. Perhaps not. But I suppose one of the advantages of not being raised Catholic is I don't have the burden of the past to deal with. I can go with my heart.

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February 19, 2004

"A Voice I Did Not Know. . ."

"A Voice I did not know said to me:
'I freed your shoulder from the burden;
you hands were freed from the load.
You called in distress and I saved you. . ." (psalm 81)

Have you heard a voice you did not know? Perhaps at times it spoke from scripture. At others from life itself. Have you heard the proclamation of your freedom, or has the din of all around you drowned out the voice that would speak to you?

Most of us like to think we've heard God speak. We'd like to think that we know His will. But we deceive ourselves. Often we hear our own wishes speak, we hear our innermost desires articulated. The voice is all too familiar because it is our own.

But wait upon the Lord, tarry a minute or two and be surprised at what jumps out at you. Look out the kitchen window as you work. Pause in the labor of the day and attune your ear to what there is to be heard. The voice of the winter morning, the cry of the bird, the song of cloud and snow and rain, and soon the voice of spring. All these sing His praises for they cannot do otherwise. Wait and listen and the Voice of God will speak--from scripture or from life.

And how will you know its message? The freedom it proclaims wells up from the soul and floods all of life. The joy that comes cannot be repressed. The voice will be unfamiliar, not your own repeated inner longing--rather the proclamation of life itself. The voice of God speaks and burdens are lifted--self-imposed shackles are cut off and we are freed.

Do not pause to refit the shackles (something we're all too good at). Take this voice at its Word--Love incarnate. What He says is truth and life and love. Embrace it and turn toward it.

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February 18, 2004

The Simplicity of Love

We can argue in the scholastic way that God is simple and all that pertains to God to be of God must also be simple and so it follows that God's love is simple or:

from Jesus Loves Me
Calvin Miller

"Jesus Loves Me" is our simple, world-class anthem. It is rooted in our childhood.

Who can chart the varied ways he comes to us? He sometimes comes upon us suddenly in a rush of overwhelming love. His presence is as warm as a desert wind let loose in the Arctic winter of our despair. He sometimes comes more quietly to touch our lives and set God's grandeur dancing with our need. But always his coming brings joy. I have felt it and wept. Why? Because in the midst of a pointless universe I drink of true significance. I feel Jesus' love. No--I more than feel it. I claim it, deposit it at the bank, and draw daily on the account.

"Jesus loves me" is the heart of all I cherish. Indeed from year to year I revel in it. Its warmth lingers about me in every instance of threat or pressure. This simple song calms me, strips off my threats, and drains my stress into reservoirs of God's serenity.

"Suffer the little children and forbid them not, for of as such as these is the Kingdom of Heaven made."

And I am reminded,

"Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer. . ."

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Someone It Would Be Better Not to Know

from The Spoils of Poynton
Henry James

It was hard to believe that a woman could look presentable who had been kept awake for hours by the wallpaper in her room; yet none the less, as in her fresh widow's weeds she rustled across the hall, she was sustained by the consciousness, which always added to the unction of her social Sundays that she was, as usual the only person in the house incapable of wearing in her preparation the horrible stamp of the same exceptional smartness that would be conspicuous in a grocer's wife. She would rather have perished than have looked endimanchée.

It would be better not to know this person, and yet too often we ARE this person. Perhaps not in matters of attire or anything so seemingly superficial. But it seems to be a quality of the human animal that we must make us/them distinctions. "Oh, we would never go to THAT restaurant, they make lima bean souffle with lard." "Oh we couldn't worship at that church, they hold hands during the 'Our Father.'" "We couldn't consider a mass in the vernacular--it is so completely ordinary and devoid of the majesty and true worship of our Lord and King." And so on. This internal riving is ugly and unbecoming no matter what justification we drum up for it. Yes, it's perfectly fine not to care to hold hands during the 'Our Father.' (In fact, it appears to be the "rule.") Yes, preference for the Latin Mass is perfectly legitimate. It is in making a point of these distinctions that we are becoming like the woman in James's passage. We harden and abrade. We choose our own and exclude those who do not toe the line. We ridicule the One who would dine with tax collectors and prostitutes.

It is very difficult to see sometimes. But perhaps a little time could be spent profitably seeing where we build fences rather than bridges. We do our Lord no justice in supporting an idea or artifact, no matter how good, by hurting people. We do ourselves no good if our self-esteem is erected on the thousand little cuts we need to give those around us.

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February 17, 2004

The More than Seven Faces of the Seven Deadlies

C.S. Lewis makes some remarkable points about the sin of gluttony in Screwtape XVII

from The Screwtape Letters XVII
C.S. Lewis

This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on the gluttony of Delicacy, not the gluttony of Excess. Your patient's mother. . . is a good example. She would be astonished--one day, I hope, will be--to learn that her whole life is enslaved to this kind of sensuality, which is quite concealed from her by the fact that the quantities involved are small. But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern? . . . She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered to say with a demure little sigh and a smile, "O please, please . . . all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast." You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognizes as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome if may be to others. . . .

The real value of the quiet unobtrusive work which Glubose has been doing for years on this old woman can be guaged by the way in which her belly now dominates her whole life.

I suppose all of the capital sins show this brand of two-facedness--of excess in at least two directions, one of which is much more subtle and much more difficult to identify than the other. Who would have considered eating a piece of dry toast with weak tea an act of gluttony? But the point is that such a demand focuses all attention on the self and sets one in a habit of thinking about oneself rather than others. Rather than taking what is given, a person is always seeking something other--something bigger, smaller, tastier, less tasty, less fatty, more fatty, less carbohydrate-rich, more carbohydrate rich. It is one thing to eat sensibly and carefully, another entirely to expect the entire world to wait upon you, and yet another except under extraordinary circumstances (highly restricted diets) to "bring your own." And yet people today think nothing of these things.

I am not so clever as C.S. Lewis, but his passage makes me think, what other faces do the Seven Deadlies wear that we might not be quite so sharply attuned to. For example Pride that expresses itself by denying what is ostensibly true in praise coming from another so that the praise is repeated or rephrased. Some call this demurral modesty, but in nearly every case it is fishing for compliments. (There are cases of legitimate surprise--when your work is compared with that of someone you admire deeply and you didn't notice the basis of comparison, or when some other unlikely thing is mentioned that hadn't crossed your mind. Still, the correct response to all of this is a polite, "Thank you, the comparison hadn't crossed my mind before. So-and-so is one of my very favorite [authors, painters, composers, auteurs].

I guess as I approach Lent, I am less concerned about the imperfections I can readily perceive (and thus readily confess) than those that are hidden and mysterious to me. It's easy to see how you might be lustful, but perhaps harder to see how you are being prideful or avaricious. Part of my Lenten preparation and prayer will be to ask that some of these darker, more obscure tendencies on my part be brought to life and healed by the graces of the Lenten journey.

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One Further Note on the Liturgy of the Hours

Before I move on from the veritable hotbed of controversy-praying the liturgy of the hours (more comments on this one than I've ever had on any single post before--didn't realize the depth of feeling regarding it) one final note. Yesterday Tom made a distinction between the full Liturgy of the Hours and any other similar system of praying by the hours. I tend to disagree with him on this one as well. I find the Magnificat nearly perfectly suited for a "little hours."

Throughout recent time the Church has produced abbreviated versions of the hours for a variety of reasons. Most popular among these is the "Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary." Even the Book of Common Prayer has a simplified morning and evening prayer from its earliest editions. I make the assumption that was borrowed from common practice of the time and thus ultimately from Catholic Sources--but that is merely an assumption, I've done no research to document it.

As such, I find the importance of the Liturgy in sanctifying the day. If for whatever reason one finds it difficult to do with the full hours, the point and purpose is certainly laid out in the Magnificat. There you have three full hours in shortened format--Morning, Evening, and Night, as well as a kind of shortened "Office of Readings" in the reading and saint of the day material that appears. I would think that following the format of the Magnificat, while not having the full stature and grandeur of the full Liturgy would certainly serve to sanctify the day with formal prayer of the psalms and scripture after the manner of the Liturgy of the Hours.

After all, I note that Jesus from the cross did not recite the full psalm, but simply prayed it's first line--that being sufficient to convey the intent. So, I would encourage all who can afford to do so and who are receiving the Magnificat, to take full advantage of all that is offered there. Perhaps the stepping stone will lead to fuller participation in the formal Liturgy of the Hours, perhaps not. Nevertheless, it will be a good step. Also recommended for those on the run and on a budget "Shorter Christian Prayer." Derived from the Liturgy of the Hours, but somewhat simplified, without all of the seasonal variations, but including the most important seasonal antiphons.

Regular, formal, "work of the church" prayer is a great step toward making your life more oriented toward God. It need not be wrestling with the four volume (plus if you're a member of religious Order) complete Liturgy, but regular intervals of formal prayer will give you a focus and a support. This works as a mainstay and provides regular fuel for practicing the presence of God.

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February 16, 2004

"Through Him, With Him and In Him" According to St. Teresa Benedicta

from The Hidden Life--"Before the Face of God II"
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

"Through him, with him, and in him in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, for ever and ever." With these solemn words, the priest ends the eucharistic prayer at the center of which is the mysterious event of the consecration. These words at the same time encapsulate the prayer of the church: honor and glory to the triune God through, with, and in Christ. Although the words are directed to the Father, all glorification of the Father is at the same time glorification of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, the prayer extols the majesty that the Father imparts to the Son and that both impart to the Holy Spirit from eternity to eternity.

All praise of God is through, with, and in Christ. Through him, because only through Christ does humanity have access to the Father and because his existence as God-man and his work of salvation are the fullest glorification of the Father; with him, because all authentic prayer is the fruit of union with Christ and at the same time buttresses this union, and because in honoring the Son one honors the Father and vice versa; in him, because the praying church is Christ himself, with every individual praying member as a part of his Mystical Body, and because the Father is in the Son and the Son the reflection of the Father, who makes his majesty visible. The dual meanings of through, with, and in clearly express the God-man's mediation.

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Can We Achieve Holiness by a Plan?

The answer is yes and no. Or perhaps, "Not merely." We achieve holiness by God's wil and grace alone. Without these necessary elements we can plan until doomsday and we won't be any closer to holiness. God wills that we be holy and for that reason alone the goal is within reach.

However we must also will it and that will must take some expression through the grace of God. We must will what God wills for us. We must follow in obedience His plan for us. How do we know what that is?

It isn't so mysterious as many of us like to think. One of the reason we tend to focus on the mystery of it is that we don't really want to achieve it. However, the "plan for holiness" was revealed in Jesus Christ and in His body, the Church. It is really quite simple--atttendance at and participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice and the feast of the Word, frequent recourse to the sacrament of Confession/Reconciliation, attendance to the holy round of prayer known as the Liturgy of the Hours, and the practice of the presence of God in Himself and in His people. The first three elements of this plan strengthen us for the last element. In a sense this last element is the living out of the promise of the first three.

As people in the world we are not permitted the luxury of living as though we occupied a cloister. Our faith must have real physical expression. It must reach out to the world through our actions. It must bring grace where grace was unknown. The only way this can be possible is through taming the unruly self to through the training that comes with obedience to the Mass, Confession, and constant prayer. Our actions outside of prayer are merely our own and subject to all the human failings of anything else we may choose to do. However, our actions rounded with prayer become whole and real. They become an expression of God in godless places.

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February 13, 2004

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross--Later in the Same Essay

from The Hidden Life, "Before the Face of God"
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Carmelites can repay God's love by their everyday lives in no other way than by carrying out their daily duties faithfully in every respect all the little sacrifices that a regimen structured day after day in all its details demands of an active spirit; all the self- control that living in close proximity with different kinds of people continually requires and that is achieved with a loving smile; letting no opportunity go by for serving others in love. Finally, crowning this is the personal sacrifice that the Lord may impose on the individual soul. This is the "little way," a bouquet of insignificant little blossoms which are daily placed before the Almighty perhaps a silent, life-long martyrdom that no one suspects and that is at the same time a source of deep peace and hearty joyousness and a fountain of grace that bubbles over everything we do not know where it goes, and the people whom it reaches do not know from where it comes.

What more need be said?

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The Meaning of Prayer in Work

from The Hidden Life
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

But we have the Savior not only in the form of reports of witnesses to his life. He is present to us in the most Blessed Sacrament. The hours of adoration before the Highest Good and the listening for the voice of the eucharistic God are simultaneously "meditation on the Law of the Lord" and "watching in prayer." But the highest level is reached "when the Law is deep within our hearts" (Ps 40:8), when we are so united with the triune God whose temple we are, that his Spirit rules all we do or do not do. Then it does not mean we are forsaking the Lord when we do the work that obedience requires of us. Work is unavoidable as long as we are subject to nature's laws and to the necessities of life. And, following the word and example of the apostle Paul, our holy Rule commands us to earn our bread by the work of our hands. But for us this work is always merely a means and must never be an end in itself. To stand before the face of God continues to be the real content of our lives.

How then do we pray always? We do so when we have invited God to be with us always, when we have reached a level of unity with Him, when we have surrendered everything to Him.

Praying always is something like a marriage of long duration where it is sufficient to be present together. You needn't jabber each other's ears off with protestations of your love and devotion. Your presence together speaks volumes that no words can speak.

However, that comfortable marriage comes only after years of work and of saying the things that must be said and of doing the things that must be done. One does not achieve unity by ignoring one another--nor by simple toleration. There is always a growth in love fostered by the blessings of the Holy Trinity present at the heart of the sacrament of matrimony.

So too, the union with God doesn't just happen. You must take what pains you can to express your love to God, and perhaps more importantly, (and much more difficult), you must allow God to love you. In this grace alone works to open you up to the love of God--an active, invigorating, growing love. You cannot perceive it by trying to do so.

The only way to receive this love is to be obedient to God's commandments and rely upon His Grace, present powerfully in the sacraments, but also present in "the sacrament of the present moment." We live only in the present, and it is only in the present that we can experience God. God's love is eternal, but its expression is in time, in each moment of each day. Every breath is a gift, everything that comes to us in a moment is a love-letter. We need to refocus our vision to find God in the gift of the moment, and open our wills to accept that grace.

Only in this way is it possible to grow in love. His grace opens us up to His grace. The best we can manage is to not get in the way. And so, when we are in a hurry and stuck in the world's largest parking lot, regard that as a moment from the Lord, the gift of the present moment and thank Him for it. No matter what happens, resolve, with His help, to accept it and to converse with Him about it. In this way, you grow toward that union that requires no conversation to complete it because it is a continual conversation in itself. Like those grown old together in marriage, words become unnecessary because there is a communion and communication of being. Much more so then with our Beloved Father, Spouse, and Comforter. All Earthly marriage is a reflection of the true Divine marriage of God to the individual Soul. All that is good in marriage is expressed in this Union and because God is simple in Good, the Divine Union, unlike the human state, can have no shadow of evil in it. It is pure, holy, and good--the transcendant and encompassing marriage. Moreover, it is a gift, waiting for anyone who is willing to open it. God invites us to come and partake,

And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let him that heareth say, "Come." And let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the Water of Life freely. (Rev 22: 17).

And more, the message is repeated and repeated throughout the Bible and probably most profoundly accented in the Song of Songs.

I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me; I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up nor awake my love, until he please." (Song 8:2-4)

Of enormous interest is that this image suggests at once marital union and the embrace of a father supporting the head of the smallest infant. The other day T.S. O'Rama was commenting on the need for us to become little children. And I would say amen to that--very little children indeed. For little children are simple, they accept what comes to them and, in their way are thankful for it. So too we must learn to be thankful for what comes to us from God who holds us tenderly as a Father holds an only child that he has waited years and years to see. His embrace at once protects, strengthens, and comforts us. He is at once Father and Mother to us combining the very best of both human roles to be truly our All in All.

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February 12, 2004

Entering the Dark Night

I haven't even begun to, and I won't make any pretensions of the sort. I have read much about it, but from experience have no inkling. Although I may have started understanding in a more profound way. All these fine thoughts and sentiments must be crucified and go the way of all flesh until what I desire is entirely and only what God desires for me. Even desiring Him is of my own making and so that desire must be transformed into His desire for me. That is, presently my longing is MY longing. In that dark night, MY longing for Him will be transformed into Jesus's longing on the cross. There will no longer be an I but it will be God within me speaking back to God. I will truly become His servant because I will have become His house. He will dwell in me in a substantial way for all to see. Assuming of course I will to stay the course.

But I ask, and not rhetorically, what other course is there? Where else is there to go? You, Lord, have the words of eternal life--only in you may I be transformed in such a way as to enter eternal life.

All of these are intellectual recognitions. So with the grace of God I must start up again that slippery slope of Mount Carmel, relying entirely on grace, and more on the pull of love that wishes me up that slope. I cannot detach from things around me by my own will. Even the notion of detachment, of leaving behind, of moving upward becomes in its own way an attachment. So I must look at the Father with the intensity of love that I have for the son He gave me and receive that love back. I must dwell in His love and take the elevator to the Father--the elevator of His loving embrace. Because I know for certain that He desires all of His children to ask and to be invited into the circle of His arms. They are open for us all, and His great heart aches and bleeds so long as there is a single one of us outside that loving embrace.

Look at your children and realize the intensity of what is there in your heart and turn that gaze to your Father, loving Him beyond the limits you thought possible. Ask and it shall be answered, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened. Or better yet, the Father awaits the return of the prodigal, watching with careful eye for any sign of his return. And as we make the slightest turn, He bounds out from his palace from the greatness of His throneroom to embrace us and bring us home.

And so I hope I see a sign of turning, and I pray this heart of stone becomes a heart of flesh for Him to do with as He wills. I start by wanting to give all to the Father all the intensity of who am I and what I am capable of doing and feeling, I will to be His. And next, I wait and fast and pray. I thank God for the season almost upon us. Perhaps this awakening or partial awakening is a small indication of what He wants for me this Lent. Please pray for me.

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February 10, 2004

I never fail to be amazed. . .

that God loves me despite my essentially unlovable nature.

Even the best inclined of us has difficulty being around a cocky, self-assured, self-centered young buck who thinks the world is His oyster and whatever he wants is the pearl at the center.

Yes, that paragraph describes me in relation to the God who loves me. Nevertheless, like the loving Father He is, He reaches out to me. He reaches out to me in my sinfulness and in the utter horror that I am. I think about St. Francis kissing the leper, and I see God's gentle metaphor sent to us. Only leprosy is nearly purity compared to the state I often wallow in.

Nevertheless, God loves me. He gives me each day the light of that day. He gives me each moment what is needed to move forward. He gives me my food, my drink, my joy. And always, I fall short in returning to Him these great goods. There is nothing I can do to repay this love but try to love as greatly in return and try to send others into the torrents of His love. As I am swept along, I can reach out and offer my hand to those who cling to the shore, prefering the safer shallows to that divine cataract. And paradoxically our only salvation is in our abandonment to that raging river. The intensity of His love cannot be stilled. It is at once fire and water. In the words of the KJV:

��Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
���Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
(Song of Songs 8:6-7).

Such is God's love. And my strongest desire is to follow His wish--to set Him as THE SEAL upon my heart and THE SEAL upon my arm. For only in utter abandonment to Him may I ever hope to see freedom and light.

Holy Sonnet 14
John Donne

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

I repeat this poem often because its message can never be heard loudly enough nor clearly enough. Our only hope is in His Love and His only desire is for our love--complete, whole, and freely given.

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Opening the Door to God

from My Only Friend is Darkness Barbara Dent

God is busy forming the Son in us in all his completeness, though tailored to our individuality, and we cannot expect his passion and death will be omitted. How can we know what secret attractions, desires, attachmentts are binding us there in the hidden fastnesses of our hearts? We do not know, so we cannot ask to be delivered from them in any specific way of our own choice, but must leave the Spirit to work it out for us.

In short, we are not captains of our own ships or masters of our own fates. We don't even know ourselves well enough to clean house, how can we hope to know God without His help? Day by day He comes to us, almost in supplication. Here is the Father of the prodigal son humbly tapping at the door to our heart and asking for permission to come in. Here is the Lord of the Universe who could, if He so desired take away everything, deprive us of our last breath, and do other things more terrible and wonderful than we can contemplate, asking us to acknowledge our love for Him.

And we do love Him. Passionately. However, there are a few things in the way. For example, we like to read more than we like to pray. We like to run and jog more than we like to pray. We like to eat more than we like to pray. Let's face it, for some of us, we'd rather clean the commode than face our loving Father in prayer.

Nevertheless, to the last day of our lives, to the last second of the last day, He knocks. He humbly begs entry, and he tries the door to see if we at least left it unlocked.

Make an effort to clear a path. Move the debris out of the way so at least the door can swing open a little. Ask for light to see and courage and strength to do what becomes necessary in the light. Turn the key, ask God to come in. Though we are too weak to move this mound of stuff ourselves, surely if we desire it, He can and will move it. He wants us so desperately. To Him we are each an only child--the singular love of His life. He lavishes upon us every possible gift to make this clear. Now pray for a clear eye to see His hand in all that we are and all that is around us. Pray for clear vision to see Him in each day and thank Him for His presence.

Most of us have not yet approached the dark night, though we like to talk of it as though it was near. We know that the dark night means His love. We dread it even as we desire it. We do not think we can stand it, and we are right, because it is only through His strength that we can begin to undergo the purifications that will bring us to Him in this Life, in serenity, joy, peace, and love.

So, while we long for that dark night that means a closer union with God, let us prepare the way, if only feebly by muttering when he knocks, "Come in. Come in and be master of this house. Come in and make it clean, well-ordered, your own abode. Come in and love me, finally I am ready. Come in."

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February 6, 2004

The Practice of the Presence of God

Lift your mind to God today in several moments that you do not ordinarily do so. As you're doing the worst task of the day, thank and praise Him. As you are enjoying the extraordinary beauty of the full moon in the morning, thank and praise Him. As you are shivering and contemplating spring, thank and praise Him. As you are starting the car, thank and praise Him.

A short and simple prayer will do--"I love you Lord, my strength."

Or a longer more traditional one, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Or one of your own derived from the scripture.

Or one of your own derived from your heart.

Let your heart and mind reach out and touch Him, if only for a moment, a reminder that He is right there next to you, above you and below you, in front of you and behind you--within you.

Praise the Lord and thank Him in the traffic snarl you hate, in the broken appliances, dirty diapers, and tasks of ordinary life.

You'd be surprised at how much better your day goes when you go through it with your closest most intimate friend, ally, and comforter.

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February 5, 2004

A First and Last Word on Detachment

I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death. (Phillippians 3:8-9a, 10)

And in this is nearly all the doctrine of the great Carmelite mystics. "I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus," that is, nothing in the world is as worthy of our attention as Jesus Christ--thus every moment spent outside of Jesus Christ is a loss--even if it is a participation in very good things.

"For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and consider them so much rubbish. . ." Because of His preeminent place in the universe everything else is tarnished and weary. Paul at one time was a wealthy citizen of Jerusalem, well known, apparently well connected. But when he became a Christian he lost all of this. And the loss was as nothing--as a mere casting off of outer soiled rags. In fact, other translations have much stronger words than merely rubbish. But Paul is not proposing here some sort of dualism. Everything is brought into focus by the central point of attention--Christ Jesus.

". . .that I may gain Christ and be found in him to know him and the power of his resurrection . . ." There is purpose here in casting off outer things. We do not rid ourselves of them because they are evil. We rid ourselves of them because they are less worthy of our attention. They are distraction on the path to unity with God. Through casting off these lesser goods we make more room for Jesus Christ--we are "found in him" or claim our true identity as a child of God. This is our ultimate and most important identity. In finding Him, we come to know the power of His resurrection--that is the redemptive, saving power of Grace. But more importantly, we come to know it in a way that cannot be merely intellectual. This is heart-knowledge. We know Jesus Christ intimately as indwelling and ever present with us. We commune with Him and we share every aspect of our life with Him.

". . .and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death." And a bit of speculation here--perhaps Paul is obliquely referring to a "dark night." Paul certainly shared Christ's sufferings on a material plane, but if all of this is as dross and as rubbish then it would hardly matter if he knew the constant presence of Christ. The only suffering that would matter is that feeling of abandonment, that moment on the cross when Jesus cried out "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani." That is the true suffering. Feeling abandoned at the shallow surface of emotion, but knowing in the depths of the heart God is there with us and He suffers again in our suffering. One metaphor often used for the dark night is that of the surgeon performing an operation to remove all that withholds us from communion with God. But this is the Divine surgeon, all that we feel, He feels. He felt it at that moment on the Cross and He feels it throughout eternity. And yet, nevertheless, the step is necessary if we are to have health and to be restored to life in Him. We suffer it either in this realm or in the world to come as we undergo purgation that will ultimately allow us to enter into the heavenly abode.

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February 4, 2004

On the Desire for Canonization

Perhaps one of the more disturbing threads of conversation I heard at the Carmelite Congress was one dealing with canonization. After an excellent presentation focused on Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, one person asked whether his cause had been advanced. The reply came that , no, not enough was really known of him for this to be a viable cause. A little later the same question arose. And yet a third time the presenter was asked about canonization.

The matter of canonization is not about getting as many of "your Saints" in heaven as possible. The teaching of Brother Lawrence is no less efficacious for him not being raised to the honors of the altar. What he has to say about living your life is no less meaningful because the Church has not canonized him. And yet there is this nearly obsessive bent many people have with making and recognizing Saints.

There are innumberable saints the Church has not recognized. Most of the saints whom we implore to intercede for us have no names on Church calendars. They are our ancestors, our departed loved ones, our friends, and a huge nameless mass that raises our concerns to God each day. We may ask a certain intercessor to advance our cause to the Most High, but for each one we ask, thousands more implore--all those who have given their heaven over to us in prayer. I imagine sometimes that all of my forbears who entered heaven raise their voices as one when there is a need. Our needs are known and the Saints and the saints intercede for us constantly at God's table. The clamor of our most minor need raises a noise of joy so great that we would be unable to bear it if we could hear it. The chorus of imploring, rejoicing, honoring, praising voices raised constantly in our behalf is part of the great joy of heaven.

So, let's not be troubled by who is and who is not recognized as a great saint worthy of veneration. By all means, let us pray for those to whom we have a special attachment--in my case Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of St. Thérèse. But let us all recognize that there is a great deal to be gained from the works that lesser saints have left us and from the prayers of all the saints in heaven. Think of it this way--just as we pray for all the poor souls in purgatory, raising our voices to God in their favor, so the saints in heaven, while praying also for the poor souls in purgatory, also pray for us still on Earth that we might avoid prolonged time in purgation and make our way speedily to the embrace of the Father.

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Prayers and Praying

It is right and good to ask God for all the things we truly need. It is perhaps less good to ask for the things we want, but so long as those things are the goods of the spiritual realm, it is still right and proper. It is of questionable worth to ask for things we do not need but merely want with no real notion of what we would do with them once we had them. But even this is worthwhile because it exposes us to our own depths. These are mere vocal prayers. And yet we are enjoined to ask for what we need each day and to turn to the Lord to supply those needs. From this prayer, properly said, a more exteneded conversation with the Lord can occur.

St. Teresa defined mental prayer,

Mental prayer in my opinion is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us (Life 8, 5).

Mental prayer is an intimate sharing between friends. Such a sharing is not really possible if we are keeping things back. If we have a person with whom we want to be friends, we find that the roadblocks to friendship can be many. But the greatest of these are things about ourselves that we do not want known. The more we keep back the harder it is to share with a friend because we always fear revealing something that would damage the relationship.

However, God knows all. There is nothing we could possibly keep back even if we wanted to. The important point is that while God knows all, He wants us to share it. Often there is great power and tremendous release in simply saying what we know to be true. That is in acknowledging our weaknesses, we open the door to further intimacy. Thus the practice of confession is both about getting our sins out in the open and opening the door to greater intimacy.

Back to the original point--praying for what we want. When we do this, however frivilous the thing we want, we are at least being honest and opening the conversation. Now, if we become obsessed with what we want and continue like a small child to insist upon it in ever detail. conversation may not continue. If however, we are really ready to talk and listen and we say what it is we want, then even those material desires become the ground for intimate conversation and ultimately for conversion. So long as we are not flippant and we are really speaking our heart's desire, we open the gate for the Lord to enter.

Mental prayer is that extended conversation that comes from well-said vocal prayer. If we pray with sincerity and with earnestness, allowing God to peer into us, we start the conversation. Once it has begun, it can continue throughout the day or throughout a lifetime.

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February 3, 2004

On Reading Great Spiritual Works

Mr. Bogner has just finished St. Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castles and so I took it upon myself to rudely go over to his place and push him about a little. It's what I do best.

There is absolutely no point at all in reading great spiritual books if you think the point is to have read them. That is not the point at all. Everyone in the world could read The Interior Castles and it wouldn't make a bit of difference if their only purpose was to have invested a bit of time in a good bit of spiritual reading. Now there is the possibility that reading a good spiritual book is something akin to prayer and getting at God obliquely, but more often than not it is very precisely a way of avoiding deep prayer and yet feeling good about what we are doing.

The rule in my community is that there is no point in reading simply to say you have read. If what you read does not change your life (particularly if it is a great work of spirituality) it was slightly less a waste of time than reading Agatha Christie, slightly more profitable. But ultimately your time would have been better spent cleaning the bathroom really well (or doing something else that truly reflects your vocation as parent, spouse, etc.).

The point of any great spiritual reading is to change your life. If you get through a great work of guidance and spirituality and are not asking yourself "How do I get there?" for some time afterward, you have missed the point. Great spiritual reading should be done in much the same way lectio is done. Read a little bit. Figure out what is being said literally, and then pray over what you have read to figure out how it applies to the here and now. Then ask God for the grace to implement whatever practical application you have derived from the reading. Reading any great spiritual work in such a way could take months, or perhaps even years. And that is perfectly all right, what else were you going to do with the time? Some do better with continuous rereading, rather than a single slow reading. But whatever you do, the great treasures of spirituality are not to be taken as any other book.

The same is true of the great works of theology. Although there are probably portions of the Summa that are of lesser relevance to the world today, the vast majority of this compendium is not so much to be studied for its own sake. Rather, the real treasure in the Summa are its insights into the nature of God, which, when properly prayed over tend to lead one to long for God and to seek ways to be closer to Him.

So those who are being called to read a book--do so. And as Harold Bloom likes to say, "Let the book read you as well." That is, open yourself to the insights and to the disciplines that are being fostered and ask God continually for the grace to implement them in your life. Put yourself under the microscope and examine in detail where you are failing and ask God to heal those broken places. Look carefully and see your strengths and thank God for them humbly because they are not your own, but gift--given to be properly used for the Glory of God.

Spiritual reading is unlike any other sort of reading. You are not reading for information so much as you are reading for formation--formation of a right spirit and a mind directed to God. This does not happen with the usual way we tend to read things. Let the great works percolate in, let the books fill you with their wisdom, let the Holy Spirit speak. Then unite will to faith and ask for the grace to perservere in the practice of the presence of God as you have learned from the great spiritual masters.

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January 26, 2004

Seeking Grace--The Sacraments

The following entry from Abbot Vonier's study seemed apropos following on Barbara Dent. The human will can make only feeble motions on its own, unstrengthened by grace. We can keep at a work no more than a moment or two without God's strength behind us.

from A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist
Abbot Vonier

The Eucharist ought really to illuminate for us all the other sacraments with its own radiance. The Eucahrist is the sun in the firmament of sacramental grace. Is there not, however, sometimes a danger on the one hand of giving the Eucharist a position such as would hardly retain it in its sacramental setting, while on the other hand there may be the greater peril of our lowering the status of the other sacraments to conventional forms of lesser spiritual power? Yet the Eucharist ought to safeguard for us all the spiritual glories of the other sacraments, by keeping them within the orbit of the divine Presence; while they in turn, being as truly sacraments, although they do not contain the Body and Blood of Christ, will enable us to see even the Eucharist in its true perspective. We may put it in the following way: One sacrament, while remaining entirely a sacrament, and indeed through its sacramentality, and not as an unusual feature or external adjunct, contains the true Body and Blood of Christ; it does this in virtue of its sacramental state, not because it is more than a sacrament. (p. 42-43)

(book available from Zaccheus Press)

And for Vonier and the believing Catholic the importance of the Eucharist being a sacrament is that it is a sign that effects what it signifies. A sacrament is not merely an external ritual or an empty ceremony, but it is a sign that contains the fullness of the meaning of the sign. It is a symbol that causes what it symbolizes to enter reality and transform it. In short, it is a sign that bestows grace and has as its object the bestowal of grace, the strengthening of the connection between creator and creation.

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Wandering the Darkness without Infrared

Barbara Dent's book My Only Friend Is Darkness is an exposition of the teaching of St. John of the Cross from an experiential viewpoint. Ms. Dent makes some remarkable and critically important points about our relationship with God in the following passage:

from My Only Friend is Darkness Barbara Dent

When faced with the summons to reckless self-giving, we make endless qualifications, excuses and rationalizations. John will have none of them.

Our hearts must be purged of all unruly affections and desires arising from the four traditional passions of joy, hope, fear and grief. When we calmly consider what and who does actually arouse in us the extremes of these passions, we shall not often find that it is our personal relationship with God. . . .

The aim of this purging of desires for the not-God is to transform our human will into one fully united with the divine will. The more we are emotionally dependent on created things and on people, the more our will is tugging to get free of God, or is in conflict, or is merely ignoring the directives of his will for us.

If we succeed in fully controlling only one of the four passions, the others will also become subdued and redirected to God as a result. Until we achieve this control, we remain captive and incapable of full union and deep contemplation. . . .

Anyone who thinks this is easy is either (1)severely emotionally inhibited and repressed; (2) naturally unresponsive and cold-hearted; (3) ignorant of what it is to love with all the too, too human heart; (4) a psychopath; or (5) already a saint!

John pushes home his point relentlessly. "There is another very great and important benefit in this detachment of the rejoicing from creatures--namely, that it leaves the heart free for God. This is the dispositive foundation of all the favours which God will grant to the soul, and without this disposition he grants them not (Ascent III, XX, 4, italics added). (pgs. 89-90)

In the end the service of God is all the really matters. While we must take heed of present circumstances, we need not be dominated by them. Love of God stirred by activation of the will in opposing our besetting sin is a step toward sanctity and wholeness. Outside of this all work is futile, all accomplishment only ash and dust. We are transformed in God and in the transformation we become new people and every part of the old man resists this death. Every part of us seeks God and flees Him simultaneously. And grace alone determines the outcome. Do we seek grace? Do we know the fullness of what can be accomplished in us? If we spend a single moment in the Bible we do. In a moment we become Paul when we were Saul. Or we become Ananias and Sapphira. The choice is ours--to seek grace and God's will or to seek our own.

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January 21, 2004

Who Do You Say I Am?

Jesus asks each of this question. And he expects a personal response. It would be enough, I suppose to respond with Peter's answer. But only enough. We need to ask ourselves, "Who is Jesus?" And when we think we have an answer to that question we need to ask the next--how is this displayed in my daily life?

By our baptism we are called to evangelism. But how can we proclaim the good news if we haven't any real understanding of what it means? And we can judge our understanding of the good news only in the light of who Jesus is.

Jesus is not looking for prefabricated answers. We can recite the catechism to our hearts' content, but unless those words mean something more than the abstract intellectual realities they convey, Jesus is not a reality for us.

In quiet time we would do well to answer the question, "Who do you say I am?" And when we answer that question, we should ask Him, "And how, Lord, do I live it out?" Then listen. Just listen. Conversation goes both ways and the still, small voice cannot be heard over the din of our self-important bluster.

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January 20, 2004

Report on the Carmelite Congress--A Homily from a Votive Mass for St. John of the Cross

Here are some notes taken during the homily indicated above. (Yes, I am still sufficiently Protestant in midset to believe that if someone is willing to take the time and effort to prepare a sermon and tell me something worthwhile, I should take the trouble to try to capture it as best I can in the course of the event. [Hope this serves as a warning to all of the priest out there--some of us ARE listening. ;-)]I admit this is but a poor reflection of the fullness of the sermon, but it does give me something to go by.)

Homily for Votive Mass of St. John of the Cross

"In the evening we will be examined in love"

Power and love are incompatible with true love. Love is something mutually and freely given, so there must be some equality.

Our Lord washing the feet of the Apostles is a sign of true friendship. By washing the feet of the Apostles He gives up all power over them. We must love one another as He has loved us. We give up the need to dominate one another and all claims power.

It is this love that was embodied in St. John of the Cross. "In the evening we will be examined in love." He lived a life that easily could have led to hatred and bitterness. His father married beneath his station and died early in John's life.

In 1563 entered Carmelite Order. In 1567 became a Priest of the Order. In Medina del Campo met St. Teresa and began to introduce her reform to the friars. Twice caught and locked up. In prison wrote some of his poetry. "In the evening we will be examined in love"

The spirituality of St. John of the Cross is dependent upon his experience of God. To gain our lives we must lose them in God through self-denial and complete immersion in God.

In the popular mind St. John is known for his austerity and on "nada." He was compassionate, kind, welcoming, and loving. We do not often look at the radiant love of St. John of the Cross.

Absolute abandonment to the will of God. He was particularly scathing of religiosity and of attachments to externals. We must abandon things to make space for God to get in. Our world is haunted by a desire for the interior life. Let us continue to climb-the holy mountain of Carmel where we will find God.

"In the evening we will be examined in love"

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A Prophetic Witness--I hope

One of the things learned at the conference, or perhaps more correctly reinforced at the conference, is that the Carmelite is a prophetic witness to the modern world. We spent a long time talking about what this actually meant, but in sum, we are to bear the message of the Gospel into the world not merely in action, but also in prayer. The Carmelite way is that prayer is always first and prayer informs any action taken. However, prayer is only half formed if it doesn't express its reality in some form of action. So, I offer this reflection. Inspired by the congress and by other factors, it is highly personal, but I also hope that it is provocative enough to help others.

First desire to live a truly sinless life. Only then is it possible to ask the grace of living without offense to God. The reason few of us approach the divine majesty is that very few of us really want to. The price is too high. We would have to abandon common pursuits. We would have to relinquish simple pleasures. There are few great saints who drank or smoked to excess. There are a few portly saints, which may be more a reflection on poor eating habits and bad metabolism than on overeating. But this is all beside the point. We really want to indulge in what we know is forbidden. We simply want to. We want to watch the movies we watch and read the books we read. When we are corrected for it, we look for explanations as to why it isn't wrong. And indeed, so long as we do not seek perfection there is nothing wrong with these lesser goods.

Yet, if we do desire perfection, we need to look to the two earthly human examples of perfection--Jesus and Blessed Mary--and their distant mirrors, the saints. We do not see Jesus sitting about watching television--when He is not preaching or teaching He is praying. Even moments of leisure are purposeful. We are adjured to "consider the lilies" not for the lilies themselves, but for what the lilies have to tell us about the glories of God's reign and the riches of His love.

We are a people who seek to protect our own idleness. We excuse our emptiness with innumerable excuses. The reality is that every moment away from God is a moment away from God. Every second spent in an idle pursuit is a wasted second. Yes, leisure is a valuable time if such leisure is spent in the presence of God. It is a waste (and sometimes a sin) when God is not invited in.

We are not perfect because we choose not to be. We would rather follow our own lead, exercise our own wills, spend time in our own pursuits, and then later try to argue them around to God. Every moment spent with less-than-the-best is a moment stolen from God. . All we have is the present, this moment, this opportunity. All that we have not done is buried in the past. The future is unknown and may not come. So the acceptable time is now, and if more of us chose it, we would have a world far more reflective of the Kingdom of God.

For myself, I know that I have failed time and again to take advantage of Grace. And so I write to remind myself that the first step is a choice--carefully and freely made--to experience God in His fullness right now, to request--no, beg--the grace of delighting myself solely in service to Him through prayer and service to my fellow sojourners. I am tired of darkness, I want to be light for those around me. I want all to rejoice and recognize God in the here and now. I want the grace of perseverance in God's service. I want it enough to make the difficult choice to ask for it and to ask God to help me leave this broken self behind.

From The Imitation of Christ, Book I.1
Thomas � Kempis

HE WHO follows Me, walks not in darkness," says the Lord. By these words of Christ we are advised to imitate His life and habits, if we wish to be truly enlightened and free from all blindness of heart. Let our chief effort, therefore, be to study the life of Jesus Christ.

(Now, will someone kindly bookmark, or otherwise note this and refer me to it on a nearly constant basis? I resemble the grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"--�She would have been a good woman,
if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.� )

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January 14, 2004

The Responsibility of the Artist

I had previously reported reading a book by Jacques Maritain titled Art and Morality In fact, that is a single chapter of a larger work titled The Responsibility of the Artist which is available through the Maritain Center.

I share a brief reflection based on part of the text.

from The Responsibility of the Artist
Jacques Maritain

Artistic value and moral value belong to two different realms. Artistic value relates to the work, moral value to man. The sins of men can be the subject-matter of a work of art, from them art can draw aesthetic beauty -- otherwise there would be no novelists. The experience of moral evil can even contribute to feed the virtue of art -- I mean by accident, not as a necessary requirement of art. The sensuality of Wagner is so sublimated by the operation of his music that Tristan calls forth no less than an image of the pure essence of love. The fact remains that if Wagner had not fallen in love with Matilda Wesendonck, we would probably not have had Tristan. The world would doubtless be none the worse for it -- Bayreuth is not the Heavenly Jerusalem. Yet thus does art avail itself of anything, even of sin. It behaves like a god; it thinks only of its own glory. The painter may damn himself, painting does not care a straw, if the fire where he burns bakes a beautiful piece of pottery. The fact matters to the painter, however, because the painter is not the art of painting, nor is he merely a painter. He is also a man, and he is a man before being a painter.

The last lines of this are the most stirring and dreadful. God will not judge us on fine writing or persuasive reasoning. He will judge us on right thinking, believing, acting on the truth, and ultimately right living that stems from these. Art, as fine and as consoling as it can be, does not save us. That is done by Christ alone, who can begin to be known by art, but who ultimately is known by Himself entirely. He makes Himself known through the power of the Holy Spirit to the person who, through whatever means, becomes aware of Him and seeks Him in fullness of heart and mind.

from The Responsibility of the Artist

Any man who, in a primary act of freedom deep enough to engage his whole personality, chooses to do the good for the sake of the good, chooses God, knowingly or unknowingly, as his supreme good; he loves God more than himself, even if he has no conceptual knowledge of God.

Praise God! I do not need a complete conceptual understanding of God, or even a particularly good one, in order to truly love God in my actions. True, more of these actions are inspired in greater love based on knowledge--but it isn't knowing that is the key--it is ultimately loving. Even if you do not know why you are obedient, obedience to the law of love is love of God.

(Interestingly the passage directly above comes after a demonstration of the "good love" Antigone demonstrates toward her brothers and toward her people through the rebellious act she commits.)

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January 7, 2004

An Excerpts from A Key. . .

from A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist
Abbot Vonier

The urgent problem is, how am I to be llinked up effectively with that great mystery of Christ's death? When shall I know that Christ is not only the Redeemer, but also my Redeemer? Mere membership with the human race does not link me up with Christ, though it be true that Christ died for the whole race. This membership is indeed a condition, sine qua non , of my becoming one day a member of Christ; but a member of Christ I shall not become unless some new realities be brought into play. These new realities which are the link between me and Christ are faith and the sacraments. (p. 2)

One more passage to give a flavor of the power of the exposition and of the ideation--

Saint Thomas divides the life of mankind into four seasons--the state of innocence before the fall, the state of sin before Christ, the state of sin after Christ, and the state of bliss in heaven. No sacraments are necessary in the first and in the last state; sacraments are necessary to man in the two middle states. But it is in the "state of sin after Christ" that sacraments reach their perfection; the seven sacraments of the Christian dispensation are sacraments in the highest sense, because, besides signifying the grace which is the inheritance of faith, they also contain that grace and cause it.* (p. 10)

*Nostra autem sacramenta gratiam continent, et causant." Summa III q. 61, a. 4, ad 2.

It is this sparkling clarity of thought and strongly rhythmic and orotund prose that is one of the chief delights of reading this book. Once again, I strongly urge everyone who is interested in this subject to consider supporting Zaccheus by purchasing the book.

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January 4, 2004

An Important Point to Ponder

If something is very inexpenisve, extremely cheap, a real bargain it is that way for one of two reasons:

(1) It's old and unwanted
(2) It's cheap because of the exploitation of the poor.

Either way, it's not much of a bargain. I'm trying to be more aware of what I buy and what it means in the global economy and in the economy of salvation. All of our choices have repercussions, sometimes we choose to close our eyes to them.

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January 1, 2004

A New Year's Thought

I have an awful habit of purchasing large numbers of prayer books. I don't buy them to actually use the prayers qua prayers, but because many of the prayers are a fruitful beginning to a period of time with the Lord.

Well today I bought another such book for two reasons--it was already incredibly cheap and marked 50% off even the cheap price. And the following prayer struck me right to the heart. I thought the book worth it, even if there were nothing else between the two covers.

New Friends

Lord, today you have made us known
to friends we did not know,
and you have given us seats in homes
which are not our own.
You have brought the distant near,
and made a brother of a stranger,
Forgive us Lord. . .
we did not introduce you.

A Polynesian Prayer

How many opporntunities do we overlook? How many chances do we miss to introduce Him whom we supposedly love to people who have no knowledge of Him? What a wonderful reminder to usher in the new year. In the everyday things of life, in every moment of quiet in every introduction, there should be three involved--you, the new person, and the Lord.

Oh, and just in case you wondered--that wasn't the end of the treasures:

Overcoming Separation

My God and my Lord:
eyes are at rest, the stars are setting,
hushed are the movements of birds in their nests,
of monsters in the deep.

And you are the just who knows no change,
the Equity that does not swerve,
the Everlasting that never passes away.

The doors of kings are locked
and guarded by their henchmen.
But your door is open to those who call upon you.
My Lord, each lover is now alone with his beloved.
And I am alone with you.

Rabi'ah al--Adawiyah,(717-801) India

By the way, if you're interested, the book is called The Bridge of Stars and I found it on the remainered shelves at Barnes and Noble.

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December 18, 2003

On the Use of Imagery

When dealing in spiritual matters, it seems best to me to use the imagery that works to bring you into the presence of God and to keep you from sin. For some, that image is a stern Father whose discipline is swift and sure, but whose love is nevertheless there. Others prefer the image of King and sovereign. Some may have other images that they cling to.

In many cases the images of authority, rightful though they are, do nothing to prevent me from sinning, and may actually encourage it. The idea of a holy and righteous person translated to human terms often comes down to one who wishes to impose a ridiculous and arbitrary system of rules and measures that have nothing to do with reality. (In a very mild sense I am a rebel, I suppose.)

The image that is most effective for me in preventing sin is the image of a deeply loving Father in heaven who can be hurt by what I choose to do. Imagine how you would feel if your own mother or father could see everything you do. Would you do all of it? What things might you choose not to do? This is the image I use to help me in temptation. And it still doesn't work very well; however, the instant the "traffic cop" God crosses my mind, I start jaywalking--just a visible sign of the flaw created in me by the fall.

So my advice to each person is to choose the image of God that most speaks to you. Acknowledge that all are true images, if limited in a way that God is not, but meditate and focus on the one image that most helps you to move toward God. Also realize that through time the image the helps your meditation and aids in resisting temptation will change. At one time it may be loving father, at another just judge. There is nothing wrong with changing images or clinging to an image, so long as you bear in mind that any single image, or even all the images you can bring to mind at once, do not begin to touch the truth that is God. The images are mere aids, to be cast aside when their usefulness has gone. The important thing is to find a way to increase your love and desire for God and to move steadily ever closer.

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December 17, 2003

Letters from The Practice of the Presence of God-I

The classic editions of The Practice of the Presence of God consist of approximately four conversations and fifteen letters of advice offered by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, a SEVENTEENTH century Carmelite. Hailing from the province of Alsace-Lorraine, I suppose there is some question as to nationality; however, he wrote in French and thus we might consider him French.

Ms. Deb Platt has reorganized the material thematically and produced an interesting and recommended "study guide" to the work, which makes for a more coherent reading of the main texts.

However, I will follow the classic line and look at the letters (or so I propose, by tomorrow I may have changed my mind)

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

FIRST LETTER

How the habitual sense of God's Presence was found.

SINCE you desire so earnestly that I should communicate to you the method by which I arrived at that habitual sense of GOD's Presence, which our LORD, of His mercy, has been pleased to vouchsafe to me; I must tell you, that it is with great difficulty that I am prevailed on by your importunities; and now I do it only upon the terms, that you show my letter to nobody. If I knew that you would let it be seen, all the desire that I have for your advancement would not be able to determine me to it. The account I can give you is:
Having found in many books different methods of going to GOD, and divers practices of the spiritual life, I thought this would serve rather to puzzle me, than facilitate what I sought after, which was nothing but how to become wholly GOD's.

This made me resolve to give the all for the All: so after having given myself wholly to GOD, to make all the satisfaction I could for my sins, I renounced, for the love of Him, everything that was not He; and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world. Sometimes I considered myself before Him as a poor criminal at the feet of his judge; at other times I beheld Him in my heart as my FATHER, as my GOD: I worshipped Him the oftenest that I could, keeping my mind in His holy Presence, and recalling it as often as I found it wandered from Him. I found no small pain in this exercise, and yet I continued it, notwithstanding all the difficulties that occurred, without troubling or disquieting myself when my mind had wandered involuntarily. I made this my business, as much all the day long as at the appointed times of prayer; for at all times, every hour, every minute, even in the height of my business, I drove away from my mind everything that was capable of interrupting my thought of GOD.

Such has been my common practice ever since I entered into religion; and though I have done it very imperfectly, yet I have found great advantages by it. These, I well know, are to be imputed to the mere mercy and goodness of GOD, because we can do nothing without Him; and I still less than any. But when we are faithful to keep ourselves in His holy Presence, and set Him always before us, this not only hinders our offending Him, and doing anything that may displease Him, at least wilfully, but it also begets in us a holy freedom, and if I may so speak, a familiarity with GOD, wherewith we ask, and that successfully, the graces we stand in need of. In fine, by often repeating these acts, they become habitual, and the presence of GOD is rendered as it were natural to us. Give Him thanks, if you please, with me, for His great goodness towards me, which I can never sufficiently admire, for the many favours He has done to so miserable a sinner as I am. May all things praise Him. Amen.

For the complete, classic work, see here.

What is remarkable in this is the very straightforward way Brother Lawrence treats common problems in prayer. A simple bullheadedness with one Goal in mind--God Himself and nothing less. "I gave my all for the All."

"I worshipped Him oftenest as I could. . ." meaning that he did not wait until he was in a chapel or an oratory or some quiet place of continued recollection, but throughout the day of work and labor, he worshipped God. As he did the dishes, He called upon His name. As he swept the floors or attended to whatever needed done, He praised God and called upon Him. In a word--he "practiced."

And by practicing he became adept. He points out that when we often turn our thoughts to God, it becomes very difficult to deliberately offend Him. The thought of God is a bit in the mouth, a bridle that trains us to recognize his touch and respond, in the way a well trained horse needs no encouragement from the reins, but merely the pressure and signal from the rider to turn and to jump. When we accustom ourselves to the bridle, or as Jesus told us, "the yoke" we discover in it a holy freedom and an intimacy that does not make us so reluctant to ask for the graces we require to grow ever nearer our Lord.

And perhaps the most glorious phrase of the letter: "In fine, by often repeating these acts, they become habitual, and the presence of GOD is rendered as it were natural to us." What could possibly be a greater source of delight and joy than for God's presence to be "natural." By that Brother Lawrence means, I think, that it is expected, it becomes in the environment in which we live whether or not we are constantly attuned to it. In a sense, it becomes our hope. When St. Thérèse experienced her long dark night, she still did not fail in faith because she had grown so intimate with God His presence was natural to her--it pervaded her. Her human senses and the devil called her to despair, but her soul knew that it lived and breathed in God's Holy Presence--there could be no despair in such living. That is what Brother Lawrence refers to. We may not be constantly aware of God in our intellect or will, but in the deepest part of our spirit we rejoice constantly in His presence. His presence is habitual, and more than habitual, life sustaining. By the practice of the presence of God, we move toward the intimacy taught by all the great Carmelite Saints. By making the effort to turn to Him (an effort that is sustained by grace alone but willed by ourselves with the help of that grace) we grow accustomed to God the way spouses are accustomed to each other in a good marriage. When one is left alone, there is great longing to be again reunited. The difference is that God never leaves us alone. We are always with Him.

There is so much truth here and such a simplicity that we would do well to consider following this advice. Throughout the day hum a hymn, or speak to God, thanking Him for small pleasures, asking advice in any situation. Bless those around us with His presence with us. When we are so moved, we can perform miracles of grace and draw souls toward God inexorably because it is His Will that moves them, His Grace that calls to them, His Presence that beckons. And best of all, we can start this practice today. And if we fail in it for a while, we can start again, and again, and again, picking up with purpose and following the trail of Grace to our Sovereign Lord.

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December 16, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely XVI

I'm sure there will be great rejoicing and a great heaving of sighs that we have at last made it to the opposite shore of our great journey. It seemed at times perilous and uncertain that it might happen, but we are finally there. And we end with the last advice Rev. Flavel has for us regarding the application of the points previously taught.

from Christ Altogether Lovely
Rev. John Flavel

5. Never be ashamed to be counted as a Christian: he is altogether lovely; he can never be a shame to you; it will be your great sin to be ashamed of him. Some men glory in their shame; do not let yourself be ashamed of your glory. If you will be ashamed of Christ now, he will be ashamed of you when he shall appear in his own glory, and the glory of all his holy angels. Be ashamed of nothing but sin; and among other sins, be ashamed especially for this sin, that you have no more love for him who is altogether lovely.

6. Be willing to leave every thing that is lovely upon earth, in order that you may be with the altogether lovely Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. Lift up your voices with the bride, Rev. 20:20 "Come Lord Jesus, come quickly." It is true, you must pass through the pangs of death into his intimacy and enjoyment; but surely it is worth suffering much more than that to be with this lovely Jesus. "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and the patient waiting for Jesus Christ," 2 Thes. 3:5.

7. Let the loveliness of Christ draw all men to him. Is loveliness in the creature so attractive? And can the transcendent loveliness of Christ draw none? O the blindness of man! If you see no beauty in Christ that causes you to desire him, it is because the god of this world has blinded your minds.

And once again Rev. Flavel hits upon ancient themes of Christian teaching. First, be proud to be Christian, because in Christ is the summum bonum, or perhaps, more appropriately He is the summum bonum (as God is simple and cannot consist of parts but is complete unity, if the summum bonum reside within Him, then indeed it is Him, or so it would seem). By our love of Him, let us guide all of humankind to Him, neither being ashamed of our Christianity, nor halting when there are setbacks (scandals in the Church, etc.)

Be willing to let go of everything on Earth that keeps you from completely embracing His loveliness. Be prepared to leave behind prejudices, preferences, and personality. Be prepared to abandon all preconceptions, all restrictions, all modifications, all of our broken notions of God. Be willing to share of our substantial material goods and our wealth of spiritual goods. And be ready to climb out of this world into His embrace, in the next life, if not in this. But better to prepare oneself to this journey here and now. As R. Garrigou-Lagrange points out many times in Christian Perfection and Contemplation--the so called "Mystical life" is in fact the calling of every Christian. Those who obtain it here have a taste of heaven. Those who do not spend some time working it out in the life to come. We have a choice--the bliss of heaven on Earth or the rags of Earth transformed in Eternity.

Finally, we must let the loveliness of Christ speak for itself. We must be exemplars of that loveliness, and by living it, lead all people to it. Through our love, mercy, gentleness, kindness, and true and substantial caring, we should shine out like lamps on a lampstand. We are Christ's body now--His hands, His feet, His capabilities on Earth. We are His instruments, and thus the instruments of salvation to our brothers and sister who still live in darkness. Let us shine light into their lonely and frightening worlds. For once they see light, it is unlikely they will love to remain in the dark.

Thus we complete our cycle with the dear Rev. Flavel. Part of the point is to say simply that much wealth exists in all sorts of sources. We should be willing to mine those veins that yield much worthwhile. Truly there are a great many within the Catholic Church, but sometimes a trumpet from outside is better placed to attract our attention.

So, what to next? The sermons of Johannes Tauler? Van Ruysbroeck's The Sparkling Stone or The Book of Supreme Truth? St. Alphonsus's Uniformity with God's Will or The Necessity and Power of Prayer? I welcome recommendations or requests for any book related to the spiritual life of reasonably short length. I also welcome any conversation that might ensue as we pursue these works. After all, the point is to learn and to practice, we could all do with some reinforcement.

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A Note on the Post Below

I don't much care for the military imagery of Christianity. "A Mighty Fortress" "Onward Christian Soldiers," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," etc. Since I have a tendency toward an extreme pacificism, one might see how these images would fail to appeal.

However, I cannot but acknowledge that we are locked in a battle with powers not of this world, and the victory has already been obtained. I think of us rather like the Ents at the end of The Two Towers our responsibility now is to stand fast against the raging flood waters and to hold our ground. Even this we do not do alone, because of ourselves we can do nothing. We rely completely upon Jesus Christ, Lord, Savior, source of Strength, as we stand in this battle. We also rely upon the prayers of the Saints and the Prayers and actual spiritual armies of the Angels.

So, while I do not care for the language, nor necessarily for the imagery, it is undeniably Biblical, and undeniably given us so that we understand the extent of the siege. So, please consider joining forces with those around the world who in their daily lives stand fast and wage battle against evil, both natural and supernatural.

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December 15, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely--XV

Almost there. We're in the final stretches--the place where Flavel gives concrete advice about what to do in order to demonstrate proper love for and devotion to Christ. And surprise! surprise! It sounds just like what every mystic from the time of St. Paul on says!

from Christ, Altogether Lovely
Rev. John Flavel

APPLICATION

1. Is Jesus Christ altogether lovely? Then I beseech you set your souls upon this lovely Jesus. I am sure such an object as has been here represented, would compel love from the coldest breast and hardest heart. Away with those empty nothings, away with this vain deceitful world, which deserves not the thousandth part of the love you give it. Let all stand aside and give way to Christ. O if only you knew his worth and excellency, what he is in himself, what he has done for you, and deserved from you, you would need no arguments of mine to persuade you to love him!

2. Esteem nothing lovely except as it is enjoyed in Christ, or used for the sake of Christ. Love nothing for itself, love nothing separate from Jesus Christ. In two things we all sin in love of created things. We sin in the excess of our affections, loving them above the proper value of mere created things. We also sin in the inordinacy of our affections, that is to say we give our love for created things a priority it should never have.

3. Let us all be humbled for the corruption of our hearts that are so eager in their affections for vanities and trifles and so hard to be persuaded to the love of Christ, who is altogether lovely. O how many pour out streams of love and delight upon the vain and empty created thing; while no arguments can draw forth one drop of love from their stubborn and unbelieving hearts to Jesus Christ! I have read of one Joannes Mollius, who was observed to go often alone, and weep bitterly; and being pressed by a friend to know the cause of his troubles, said "O! it grieves me that I cannot bring this heart of mine to love Jesus Christ more fervently."

4. Represent Christ to the world as he is, by your behaviour towards him. Is he altogether lovely? Let all the world see and know that he is so, by your delights in him and communion with him; zeal for him, and readiness to part with any other lovely thing upon his account. Proclaim his excellencies to the world, as the spouse did in these verses. Persuade them how much your beloved is better than any other beloved. Show his glorious excellencies as you speak of him; hold him forth to others, as he is in himself: altogether lovely. See that you "walk worthy of him unto all well pleasing," Col. 1:10. "Show forth the praises of Christ," 1 Pet. 2:19. Let not that "worthy name be blasphemed through you," James 2:7. He is glorious in himself, and he is sure to put glory upon you; take heed that you do not put shame and dishonours upon him; he has committed his honour to you, do not betray that trust.

Nothing new here, just what our stubborn hearts and heads need to hear over and over again before it sinks in. If you love Jesus show it by how you esteem Him above all things. Show it by how you represent Him to the world. And by that how you act toward those who have less than you do, or who through no circumstances of their own are in humbler circumstances than your own. Frequent communion, fervent prayer, frequent confession, charity--all of these things fill hearts and minds around us with thoughts and images of Christ. Be aware of your temperament, treat all with respect, show true love to those that you would rather not.

Detach from the innumerable doo-dads and thingummies that fill a life with debris and focus on what really matters. During this season that may be more important that all the other advice. We all know that gifts and lights and decorations and cookies are not what the Christmas season is all about. And yet, we struggle to place the Person foremost in our hearts in our hurry to see that every material desire of those we love is met to the fullness we are capable of. Let us love the lights, the joys, the delights, and the wonders of Christmas, not for the transient material things they are, but for the reflection they given of the wonder of an Infant born more than 2000 years ago in a stable in Bethlehem. Let Him be the source of our hope and delight and our season will have true depth and true light.

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December 12, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely XIV

We're almost at an end. I intend to break the application up into two posts, so after this merely two more and then I may start a discussion of St. Alphonsus's little treatise on prayer or on Uniformity with God's will. We'll see.

from "Christ Altogether Lovely"
Rev. John Flavel

Fourthly, Christ is altogether lovely in the relation of a friend, for in this relation he is pleased to acknowledge his people, Luke 12:4, 5. There are certain things in which one friend manifests his affection and friendship to another, but there is not one like Christ. For,

1. No friend is so open-hearted to his friend as Christ is to his people: he reveals the very counsels and secrets of his heart to them. John 15:15. "Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knows not what his Lord does; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.

2. No friend in the world is so generous and bountiful to his friend, as Jesus Christ is to believers; he parts with his very blood for them; "Greater love (he says) has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," John 15:13. He has exhausted the precious treasures of his invaluable blood to pay our debts. O what a lovely friend is Jesus Christ to believers!

3. No friend sympathizes so tenderly with his friend in affliction, as Jesus Christ does with his friends: "In all our afflictions he is afflicted," Heb. 4:15. He feels all our sorrows, needs and burdens as his own. This is why it is said that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ, Col. 1:24.

4. No friend in the world takes that contentment in his friends, as Jesus Christ does in believers. Song of Songs 4:9. "You have ravished my heart, (he says to the spouse) you have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck." The Hebrew, here rendered "ravished," signifies to puff up, or to make one proud: how the Lord Jesus is pleased to glory in his people! How he is taken and delighted with those gracious ornaments which himself bestows upon them! There is no friend so lovely as Christ.

5. No friend in the world loves his friend with as impassioned and strong affection as Jesus Christ loves believers. Jacob loved Rachel, and endured for her sake the parching heat of summer and cold of winter; but Christ endured the storms of the wrath of God, the heat of his indignation, for our sakes. David manifested his love to Absalom, in wishing, "O that I had died for you!" Christ manifested his love to us, not in wishes that he had died, but in death itself, in our stead, and for our sakes.

6. No friend in the world is so constant and unchangeable in friendship as Christ is. John 13:1, "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." He bears with millions of provocations and wrongs, and yet will not break friendship with his people. Peter denied him, yet he will not disown him; but after his resurrection he says, "Go, tell the disciples, and tell Peter." Let him not think he has forfeited by that sin of his, his interest in me. Though he denied me, I will not disown him, Mark 16:7. 0 how lovely is Christ in the relation of a friend!

I might further show you the loveliness of Christ in his ordinances and in his providences, in his communion with us and communications to us, but there is no end of the account of Christ's loveliness: I will rather choose to press believers to their duties towards this altogether lovely Christ, which I shall briefly conclude in a few words.

Summary--no friend is as open-hearted, generous, sympathetic, impassioned, and constant. No friend is so able to bring contentment, peace and delight to all His friends. No friend loves as this Friend.

Jesus is our friend, our advocate, our constant intecessor, our companion. When we grow unaware of Him, it is not because He fails, but because we are weak and stubborn.

The Friendship of Christ is a prize beyond measure and beyond accounting. And that friendship costs so little. Indeed, even in making friends we gain much. We spurn a spurious "freedom" that enslaves one to the things of this world to achieve a true freedom that allows one to serve as part of God's Kingdom. We abandon the lies that substitute as a life and learn the Eternal Truth. We quit false comforts and seductions, and take instead the true Comfort of the one true Comforter, friend and advocate who prays for us when we do not know how to pray.

Jesus is a friend whose friendship is beyond our reckoning wonderful. His friendship is at once the most important thing and the only thing. Praise Him in His perfection as Friend.

Soon, we'll talk about what this entire long sermon means and how one actually uses anything said to improve one's life in God. That's one of the things I truly love about a well-constructed sermon or homily--one takes away something to act upon.

(And that reminds me of something I was remiss in not saying. I attended only a daily Mass at which Father Jim presided, but he gave a wonderful short homily--not spending the entire time trying to tell me the intricacies of what the particularly Bible passage meant [althought there was some of that], but instead gave me one solid positive thing to act upon. Which I did for about a week, which is why good homilies are important every week. Because, poor mortals that we are, our attention is captured for perhaps a week at a time and then trails off. Anyway, if you're out in the Woodbridge area, you could not do better than to stop in at Our Lady of the Angels. Each priest there is wonderful in his own way, and I was blessed by my attendance.]

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December 11, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely XIII

Now seems to be a good time to continue our reflection on Flavel's remarkable sermon and his vision of Jesus.

from "Christ Altogether Lovely" Rev. John Flavel

Thirdly, Christ is altogether lovely, in the relation of an Advocate. 1 John 2:1, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the Propitiation." It is he that pleads the cause of believers in heaven. He appears for them in the presence of God, to prevent any new alienation, and to continue the state of friendship and peace between God and us. In this relation Christ is altogether lovely. For,

1. He makes our cause his own, and acts for us in heaven, as if for himself, Heb. 4:15. He is touched with a most tender understanding of our troubles and dangers, and is not only one with us by way of representation, but also one with us in respect of sympathy and affection.

2. Christ our Advocate tracks our cause and business in heaven, as his great and primary design and business. For this reason in Hebrews 7:25. he is said to "live for ever to make intercession for us." It is as if our concerns were so attended to by him there, that all the glory and honour which is paid him in heaven would not divert him one moment from our business.

3. He pleads the cause of believers by his blood. Unlike other advocates, it is not enough for him to lay out only words, which is a cheaper way of pleading; but he pleads for us by the voice of his own blood, as in Heb. 12:24, where we are said to be come "to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." Every wound he received for us on earth is a mouth opened to plead with God on our behalf in heaven. And hence it is, that in Rev. 5:6 he is represented standing before God, as a lamb that had been slain; as it were exhibiting and revealing in heaven those deadly wounds received on earth from the justice of God, on our account. Other advocates spend their breath, Christ spends his blood.

4. He pleads the cause of believers freely. Other advocates plead for reward, and empty the purses, while they plead the causes of their clients.

5. In a word, he obtains for us all the mercies for which he pleads. No cause miscarries in his hand, which he undertakes, Rom. 8:33, 34. 0 what a lovely Advocate is Christ for believers!

For the complete sermon, see here

"No cause miscarries in his hand." What a wonderful and powerful reflection. When we consider that Christ's advocacy is an advocacy not merely of words, not merely of action, but of His own Precious Blood, poured out for us--more than sufficient--utterly efficacious. In this we obtain all that we need but know not to ask for. We obtain the reality of who we are in God. Once lame, we walk. Once blind, we see. Once deaf, we hear. All of our infirmaties are encompassed and abolished by the completeness of His offering for us. He is an advocate whose pleading cannot be resisted. He is a Lord who loves beyond all loving and who gives to the very last measure. He is indeed altogether lovely as advocate, as tender brother, Lord, and friend. Praise Him and welcome Him into your home--this most precious advocate, this most generous Soul, this most loving companion, this very Son of God who is the source of our hope and our salvation.

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November 20, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely XII

Here's another passage that needs very little in the way of explication. The vision of humanity is distinctly puritan and somewhat repugnant to Catholic sensibilities; however, if we transfer that description to the description of a soul in sin, we are not too far off the mark.

from "Christ Altogether Lovely:
Rev. John Flavel

Secondly, He is a lovely bridegroom to all that he betroths to himself. How does the church glory in him, in the words following my text; "this is my Beloved, and this is my Friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem!" Heaven and earth cannot show anyone like him, which needs no fuller proof than the following particulars:

1. That he betroths to himself, in mercy and in loving kindness, such deformed, defiled, and altogether unworthy souls as we are. We have no beauty, no goodness to make us desirable in his eyes; all the origins of his love to us are in his own breast, Deut. 7:7. He chooses us, not because we were, but in order that he might make us lovely Eph. 5:27. He came to us when we lay in our blood, and said unto us, "Live"; and that was the time of love, Ezek. 16:5.

2. He expects no restitution from us, and yet gives himself, and all that he has, to us. Our poverty cannot enrich him, but he made himself poor to enrich us, 2 Cor. 8:9. 1 Cor. 3:22.

3. No husband loves the wife of his bosom, as much as Christ loved his people, Eph. 5:25. He loved the church and gave him self for it.

4. No one bears with weaknesses and provocations as Christ does; the church is called "the Lamb's wife," Rev. 19:9.

5. No husband is so undying and everlasting a husband as Christ is; death separates all other relations, but the soul's union with Christ is not dissolved in the grave. Indeed, the day of a believer's death is his marriage day, the day of his fullest enjoyment of Christ. No husband can say to his wife, what Christ says to the believer, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you," Heb. 8:5.

6. No bridegroom enriches his bride with such honours by marriage, as Christ does; he makes them related to God as their father, and from that day the mighty and glorious angels think it no dishonour to be their servants, Heb. 1:14. The angels will admire the beauty and glory of the spouse of Christ, Rev. 21:9.

7. No marriage was ever consummated with such triumphal proceedings as the marriage of Christ and believers shall be in heaven, Psalm 14:14,15. "She shall be brought to the king in raiment of needle-work, the virgins, her companions that follow her, shall be brought unto thee; with gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought; they shall enter into the king's palace." Among the Jews, the marriage-house was called the house of praise; there was joy upon all hands, but nothing like the joy that will be in heaven when believers, the spouse of Christ, shall be brought there. God the Father will rejoice to behold the blessed accomplishment and confirmation of those glorious plans of his love. Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom will rejoice to see the travail of his soul, the blessed birth and product of all his bitter pains and agonies, Isa. 53:11. The Holy Spirit will rejoice to see the completion and perfection of that sanctifying design which was committed to his hand, 2 Cor. 5:5, to see those souls whom he once found as rough stones, now to shine as the bright, polished stones of the spiritual temple. Angels will rejoice: great was the joy when the foundation of this design was laid, in the incarnation of Christ, Luke 2:13. Great therefore must their joy be, when the top-stone is set up with shouting, crying, "Grace, grace." The saints themselves shall rejoice unspeakably, when they shall enter into the King's palace, and be forever with the Lord, 1 Thes. 4:17. Indeed there will be joy on all hands, except among the devils and damned, who shall gnash their teeth with envy at the everlasting advancement and glory of believers. Thus Christ is altogether lovely, in the relation of a Bridegroom.

Just as man and woman are made whole and one, in some sense, through the sacrament of marriage, the Marriage of the Soul to Christ is the sign of being made complete. Christ as bridegroom welcomes us to the completion of our days, and so this may be the loveliest of the image of Christ presented.

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November 11, 2003

Carlos Mesters, O. Carm--Advice on Lectio

In his article "Meditating Day and Night: Keeping Vigil in Prayer," Fr. Carlos Mesters offers five different sorts of helps to those who would like to pray using the Bible. An excerpt of this excellent succinct guide follows:

from "Meditating Day and Night: Keeping Vigil in Prayer"
Fr. Carlos Mesters, O. Carm

When you begin a lectio divina of the Bible, you are not concerned with study. You are not going to read the Bible in order either to increase your knowledge or to prepare for some apostolate. Neither are you reading the Bible in order to have some extraordinary experience. You are going to read the Word of God in order to listen to what God has to say to you, to know his will and thus to live more deeply in allegiance to Jesus Christ (Prologue). There must be poverty in you; you must also have the disposition which the old man Eli recommended to Samuel: Speak, Lord, your servant is listening (1 Sam 3:10).

2 Listening to God does not depend on you or on the effort you make. It depends entirely on God, on his freely made decision to come into dialogue with you and to allow you to listen to his voice. Thus you need to prepare yourself by asking God to send his Spirit, since without the Spirit of God, it is impossible to discover the meaning of the Word which God had prepared for us today (cf. Jn 14:26;16:13; Lk 11:13).

3 It is important to create the right surroundings, which will facilitate recollection and an attentive listening to the Word of God. For this, you must build your cell within and around you, and you must stay in it (VII) all the time of your lectio divina. Putting one's body in the right position helps recollection in the mind.

4 When you open the Bible, you have to be conscious that you are opening a book which is not yours. It belongs to the community. In your lectio divina you are setting foot in the great tradition of the Church, which has come down through the centuries. Your prayerful reading is like the ship which carries down the winding river to the sea. The light shining from the sea has already enlightened the dark night of many generations. In having your own experience of lectio divina you are not alone. You are united to brothers and sisters who, before you, succeeded in meditating day and night upon the Law of the Lord and in keeping vigil in prayer (VII).

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Christ Altogether Lovely IX

from "Christ Altogether Lovely" Rev. John Flavel

How Christ is "Altogether Lovely"

Secondly, Next I promised to show you in what respects Jesus Christ is altogether lovely:

He is Lovely in His Person

First, He is altogether lovely in his person: he is Deity dwelling in flesh, John 1:14. The wonderful, perfect union of the divine and human nature in Christ renders him an object of admiration and adoration to both angels and men, 1 Tim. 3:16. God never presented to the world such a vision of glory before. Consider how the human nature of our Lord Jesus Christ is overflowing with all the graces of the Spirit, in such a way as never any of the saints was filled. O what a lovely picture does this paint of him! John 3:34, "God gives the Spirit [to him] without limit." This makes him"the most excellent of men and [his] lips have been anointed with grace," Psalm 45:2. If a small measure of grace in the saints makes them sweet and desirable companions, what must the riches of the Spirit of grace filling Jesus Christ without measure make him in the eyes of believers? O what a glory must it fix upon him!

He is adorable to both angels and men. Now there is a thought. He is adorable and lovely to beings whose first words to an human are "fear not." These magnificent warriors and messengers of heaven fall on their knees to adore Christ in His humanity and divinity.

Another point here--if virtue is valued in the saints, and such virtue is merely the pale reflection of God's fullness of grace, how much more should we be valuing Jesus Christ. Jesus is the most desirable of companions. Ever present, ever ready to help, always cradling us in a loving embrace--the wisest of counselors, the truest of friends, the only one who will speak the truth to use when others have abandoned truth for gain. Jesus does not merely reflect divinity, He is divinity. The light He brings is the purest of light--so pure indeed that no prism can break or bend it, nor mirror stop its beam. In His light all things are seen as they are. More they are seen in tender love and compassion, so flawed, broken, and imperfect, they are transformed in His light into the image of what they are in God's eye.

As the Holy Father expresses in a letter of 5 August 2002:

from "The Beauty (of Christ) Will Save the World"
A Letter of John Paul II dated 5 August 2002

The radiance of the beauty we contemplate opens the soul to the mystery of God. The Book of Wisdom reproached those who "were unable from the good things that are seen to know him who exists" (13,1), from the admiration of their beauty they should have been able to ascend to their Author (cf. 1,3; 3). Indeed, "from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator" (13,5). Beauty has a pedagogical power that can introduce us effectively to the knowledge of the truth. Finally, it leads to Christ who is the Truth. Indeed, when love and the quest for beauty flow from a vision of faith, we can have a deeper perception of things and enter into contact with the One who is the source of every beautiful thing.

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November 10, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely VIII

from "Christ Altogether Lovely"
Rev. John Flavel

6. All other loveliness cannot satisfy the soul of man. There is not scope enough in any one created thing, or in all the natural universe of created things for the soul of man to reach out and expand; but the soul still feels itself confined and narrowed within those limits. This comes to pass from the inadequacy and unsuitableness of the creature to the nobler and more excellent soul of man. The soul is like a ship in a narrow river which does not have room to turn. It is always running aground and foundering in the shallows. But Jesus Christ is in every way sufficient to the vast desires of the soul; in him it has sea-room enough. In him the soul may spread all its sails with no fear of touching bottom. And thus you see what is the importance of this phrase, "Altogether lovely."

Last week I refrained from comment on the longish excerpt that I noted. However, I need to return to this because I spent much of the weekend thinking about it. "All other loveliness can not satisfy the soul of man." This strikes me as both a wonderful and a terrible thing. If we spend our lives seeking out beauty, no matter how much we find, we will have to find more before we can become satisfied--and if all the beauty we find is merely in the world, no matter how much we find we will not be satisfied. However, if we were confined to a single room, unable to leave, and unable to see anything other than the walls arouind us and we spent the time gazing upon Christ, while we might long to be outside those walls, we would wait upon the Lord and be satisfied with the loveliness of Christ's face and the graciousness of God's will.

"In Him the soul may spread its sails with no fear of touching bottom." In Christ alone is there sufficient depth to bring us to our home port. All else fails. All loveliness, all human works, all human devices and desires, all natural things, all Holy things apart from Christ (an Egyptian Bastet isn't likely to be of much help), everything other than Christ is insufficient. But in Christ alone is depth and height, beauty and perfection, all goodness and all glory. In Christ alone is there sufficient room to move--"we live and move and have our being."

Christ is the vast and beautiful sea of all that is good, holy, and worthwhile. And we do well to spend some time at this oceanside, perhaps finally gaining the courage to take off our sandals and stroll in the surf--perhaps eventually setting sail, with no land in sight, but with great joy in our hearts as we explore all that God has in store for us.

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November 9, 2003

Evening Examen--Sins against the Commandment

From Ikos IV of the Akathist of Thanksgiving by Protopresbyter Gregory Petrov (Martyr)

When the sun is setting, when quietness falls like the peace of eternal sleep, and the silence of the spent day reigns, then in the splendour of its declining rays, filtering through the clouds, I see Thy dwelling-place: fiery and purple, gold and blue, they speak prophet-like of the ineffable beauty of Thy presence, and call to us in their majesty. We turn to the Father.

Glory to Thee at the hushed hour of nightfall
Glory to Thee, covering the earth with peace
Glory to Thee for the last ray of the sun as it sets
Glory to Thee for sleep's repose that restores us
Glory to Thee for Thy goodness even in the time of darkness
When all the world is hidden from our eyes
Glory to Thee for the prayers offered by a trembling soul
Glory to Thee for the pledge of our reawakening
On that glorious last day, that day which has no evening
Glory to Thee, O God, from age to age

Did I miss Mass Sunday or a Holy Day of Obligation through my own fault? Did I come to Mass on time? Leave early? Did I do work on Sunday that was not necessary? Did I set aside Sunday as a day of rest and a family day? Did I show reverence in the presence of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament? Did I fail to give thanks for this glorious day of rest, celebration, and holiness?

How can I come to love God more? How can I hear Him better in the world? How can I carry the spirit of the sabbath day into the other days of the week? How can I show the power of Jesus to all around me? How have I experienced that power in this day? How do I become more aware of His graciousness and His power?

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November 7, 2003

Evening Examen--Forgiveness

As I have it on most excellent authority that I might best ascend to virtue through the regular discipline of morning offering and evening examen, I attempt to reestablish that rhythm here. Be aware that the weekend I may make these prayers, but I'm not certain that I shall be able to post them.

Once again remembering the turmoil of our brethren in the Anglican communion and of those who are presently lost in the riving of the Episcopalian Church:

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen. (BCP, 1622)

Have we forgiven our enemies today? Harder, have we truly forgiven those we love, those closest to us and most capable of really hurting us? Have we offered that forgiveness willingly? Have we forgiven those whose hurt from long ago echoes in our very bones today? Have we forgiven unconditionally, or have we stood on our principles? Have we asked forgiveness of those we have wronged? Have we been able to admit when we have wronged others? Have we been careful of our words so as to limit the times when we inadvertantly offend? Have we offered all our hurt at another's hands to our Lord? Have we asked Him to bind up our hurts and make good of them? Have we turned to Him and asked the forgiveness only He can offer, or have we presumed upon it?

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The Marian Nature of St. John of the Cross

It is often difficult to think of St. John of the Cross in particularly Marian terms. Not much of his writing touches on the Mother of God, and yet, that may be because she touches every part of his writing in so deep a way as to go almost unnoticed. We have the Blessed Martyr Titus Brandsma to thank for helping to bring this to our attention:

from Carmelite Mysticism Historical Sketches
"The Marian "Doctor Mysticus"
Blessed Titus Brandsma

A much loved comparison of the saint which he employs to express the necessity of our being susceptible and pure in order to partake of the grace of God, and even share the divine nature, is the image of the window through which the sunlight passes. The painters of the Flemish country, the land of Memling, of Quinten Matsys made a plentiful use of this image through their wonderful miniatures. No creature absorbed more purely the divine light that came into this world; no creature gave it back with less blemish or spot and grew more one with God than Our Lady. In the cherished metaphor of St. John of the Cross, Mary appears before our mind's eye as the greatest example of all; nay more, as the first pane of glass without spot, who gave us the light of the world. To her, more than to anyone else, may be applied the words of St. John of the Cross explaining the divine communing of the mystic life: "So close is the created communion, if God grants it this excellent and elevated favour, that the soul and everything that is proper to God are united by a participating re-creation. The soul seems more God than soul, even is God, through this participation, although its natural being, in spite of its re-creation, remains as distinct from God's being as before; just as the pane of glass, however lit up by the sun's beams yet retains its proper essence, different from the beam that passes into it." He further explains the image in a way that more directly concerns Our Blessed Lady. If the pane of glass be clean and spotless, the sunbeam will light it up and change it in such a way that it seems to be the light itself and gives out light itself. That is the reason why Our Lady deserved to become the Mother of God; because she offered not the slightest hinderance to the divine indwelling. Like Our Lady we must absorb the divine light.

For the complete series of essays, go here

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Christ Altogether Lovely VI

I will refrain from extended comment after the excerpt, for what can be added that would not detract from its simplicity? I just bring to your attention the recent work of Fr. Thomas Dubay The Evidentiary Power of Beauty and remark that it treads much the same ground at a finer level. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to take some time to experience some of this beauty. Here is Florida it is easily done--the birds that have dispersed through all the states return in droves so every lawn is whited with the whiteness of egrets and ibises, and the blossoms of the short day flowers color all and sundry. The new birth of lizards and snakes gives us the smallest of creatures, and those few deciduous trees we have give us some moments of glittering color and a few leaves drop.

from "Christ Altogether Lovely"
Rev. John Flavel

Fifthly, "Altogether lovely," i.e. Transcending all created excellencies in beauty and loveliness. If you compare Christ and other things, no matter how lovely, no matter how excellent and desirable, Christ carries away all loveliness from them. "He is (as the apostle says) before all things," Col. 1:17. Not only before all things in time, nature, and order; but before all things in dignity, glory, and true excellence. In all things he must have the pre-eminence. Let us but compare Christ's excellence with the creature's in a few particulars, and how manifest will the transcendent loveliness of Jesus Christ appear! For,

1. All other loveliness is derived and secondary; but the loveliness of Christ is original and primary. Angels and men, the world and all the desirable things in it, receive what excellence they crave from him. They are streams from the fountain. The farther any thing departs from its fountain and original, the less excellency there is in it.

2. The loveliness and excellency of all other things, is only relative, consisting in its reference to Christ, and subservience to his glory. But Christ is lovely, considered absolutely in himself. He is desirable for himself; other things are desirable because of him.

3. The beauty and loveliness of all other things are fading and perishing; but the loveliness of Christ is fresh for all eternity. The sweetness of the best created thing is a fading flower; if not before, yet certainly at death it must fade away. Job 4:21. "Doth not their excellency, which is in them, go away?" Yes, yes, whether they are the natural excellencies of the body, acquired endowments of the mind, lovely features, graceful qualities, or anything else we find attractive; all these like pleasant flowers are withered, faded, and destroyed by death. "But Christ is still the same, yesterday, today, and for ever," Heb. 13:8.

4. The beauty and holiness of creatures are ensnaring and dangerous. A man may make an idol out of them, and indulge himself beyond the bounds of moderation with them, but there is no danger of excess in the love of Christ. The soul is then in the healthiest frame and temper when it is most overwhelmed by love to Christ, Song of Songs 5:8.

5. The loveliness of every creature is of a confining and obstructing nature. Our esteem of it diminishes the closer we approach to it, or the longer we enjoy it. Creatures, like pictures, are fairest at a certain distance, but it is not so with Christ; the nearer the soul approaches him, and the longer it lives in the enjoyment of him, still the sweeter and more desirable he becomes.

6. All other loveliness cannot satisfy the soul of man. There is not scope enough in any one created thing, or in all the natural universe of created things for the soul of man to reach out and expand; but the soul still feels itself confined and narrowed within those limits. This comes to pass from the inadequacy and unsuitableness of the creature to the nobler and more excellent soul of man. The soul is like a ship in a narrow river which does not have room to turn. It is always running aground and foundering in the shallows. But Jesus Christ is in every way sufficient to the vast desires of the soul; in him it has sea-room enough. In him the soul may spread all its sails with no fear of touching bottom. And thus you see what is the importance of this phrase, "Altogether lovely."

Find the entire sermon here

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November 6, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely V

from Christ Altogether Lovely
Rev. John Flavel

Fourthly, "Altogether lovely," i.e. Nothing is lovely in opposition to him, or in separation from him. If he truly is altogether lovely, then whatsoever is opposite to him, or separate from him can have no loveliness in it. Take away Christ, and where is the loveliness of any enjoyment? The best creature-comfort apart from Christ is but a broken cistern. It cannot hold one drop of true comfort, Psalm 73:26. It is with the creature--the sweetest and loveliest creature--as with a beautiful image in the mirror: turn away the face and where is the image? Riches, honours, and comfortable relations are sweet when the face of Christ smiles upon us through them; but without him, what empty trifles are they all?

Which brings up the natural corollary--whatever is unlovely in action, word, person, or object is not of Christ. Whence then if not of Christ? Well then it seems two possible causes--the original Fall corrupted not only human nature, but dragged down with it all of nature, and the work of Satan. Satan cannot create, but he can work on what is created to distort. Whatever is unlovely has its source at one of these two fonts. And we are assured by Paul that nature groans for release from the bonds that hold it down. While there are mechanical aspects of a mosquito that are beautiful and remarkable, the propensity for spreading disease and its unpleasant source of food both are unlovely. And Christ has no part in these--we look to the other sources. Now, interestingly, even though He has no part in their production, they do serve His ends as do all created things.

But we should keep in mind, nothing is lovely in opposition to or separation from Jesus Christ. No matter how noble the cause, no matter how deserving the pursuit, if it is not done for the Glory of God at the behest of Jesus Himself, there can be no loveliness in it. Let me give you a prime example. Some people who support the right to abortion do so from a sense of the desperation of the people involved in these situations. They see the poverty and the struggles and the difficulties of the people who are suffering and conclude (erroneously) that their burden would be lightened if only they could relieve themselves of some part of the difficulty. While the motive--alleviation of suffering--might be noble, the effect is evil. It does not come from God nor does it properly fulfill God's commandment to love your neighbor--the quick fix is chosen over the proper thing to do. So too with all our ends. If the proper means is not God's will and God's grace, then the end is likely to be very ugly.

This can lead to long and complicated discussion about God's will in our lives, but I think simple discernment through prayer can help in all of these cases. There are causes that are always good--praying for the good of another, feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for the homeless--these things are things we are obligated to do in some way or another.

The important key is that whatever is beautiful in the world is beautiful inasmuch as it partakes of Christ's beauty. He makes all things lovely. The loveliness of every human being comes from Jesus Christ.

And I sometimes wonder if anyone at all is reading any of these reflections, or if because they come from another tradition, they are not at all interesting. And it occurs to me that it little matters, because this is what I feel God has given me to do here and not to do it would be a far greater folly than to continue in the face of silence.

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November 5, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely IV

from "Christ Altogether Lovely"
John Flavel

Fourthly, "Altogether lovely," i.e. Nothing is lovely in opposition to him, or in separation from him. If he truly is altogether lovely, then whatsoever is opposite to him, or separate from him can have no loveliness in it. Take away Christ, and where is the loveliness of any enjoyment? The best creature-comfort apart from Christ is but a broken cistern. It cannot hold one drop of true comfort, Psalm 73:26. It is with the creature--the sweetest and loveliest creature--as with a beautiful image in the mirror: turn away the face and where is the image? Riches, honours, and comfortable relations are sweet when the face of Christ smiles upon us through them; but without him, what empty trifles are they all?

If the loveliness of a created thing is sought for itself, it ceases to be lovely--it becomes a momentary distraction from the true loveliness that informas all of creation. If our pursuit of art, beauty, mathematics, science, love, or any other good thing is absent an underlying pursuit of the God who created them all, it is ultimately futile--ashes and dust.

All beautiful things derive their beauty from the One Most Beautiful. All things that are endearing and charming receive their essential character from Jesus Christ. How often do we pause and let the realization that the beauty we are perceiving comes from Christ and reflects him. In the blossom of the hibiscus and in the wonder of the small lizard, everything that entrances does so because of His beauty. And what seems beautiful and does not partake of Him is corruption and horror--and there are those things in the world today.

Spend some time today thanking God for the beauty around you and seeing Him in that beauty. Spend some time with Jesus and let Him know that you are aware of His loveliness that knits the world together into a wonderful and glorious place to live.

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November 4, 2003

Evening Examen--Sins Against the First Commandment

"O Lord, I call upon Thee; hasten to me!
Give ear to my voice when I call to Thee!
May my prayer be counted as incense before Thee;
The lifting up of my hands as the evening offering."

Psalm 141:1,2

Sins against the first commandment:

Did I read and believe my horoscope today? Did I give proper time to God in prayer? Did I love God with all my heart and all my strength and all my mind and all my spirit? Did I say anything that would lead others away from the love of God? Did I despair of or presume on God's infinite mercy? Did I rely upon the false gods of money, reputation, pleasure, or property?

Experiencing God,

Where did I hear God today? How did I react? How can I improve my hearing and reaction time? Where did I do well in listening to Him? How did I so so? Did I rely upon grace and upon the Holy Spirit? How can I bring myself to rely more upon God's strength and less upon my own?

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On the Church's Teaching Regarding Homosexuality

Mr. Bogner asks a question below that I fear I do not have the expertise to address properly, but which I feel should be addressed, and so I place it here.

It also reminds me of Catholicism's approach to homosexual clergy - we all know there is a fair number of homosexual priests, but as long as they are celibate then it seems our bishops don't really pay much attention to them. If homosexuality is wrong, then isn't it wrong whether someone is celibate or not? Or is it? I don't have that figured out, not even close to it.

I venture into this area with trepidation, but I am certain that there are many more studied than I am who can correct my understanding of Church teaching. The church teaches that the inclination to homosexuality is intrinsically disordered but not in itself sinful. Just as the inclination to polygamy and promiscuity is gravely disordered, if it is not acted upon, it is not sinful. Homosexuality is not a sin. Being a homosexual is not a sin. Engaging in homosexual acts either physically or, as with heterosexual acts, entertaining thoughts and encouraging them, is sinful. A chaste homosexual is not committing a sin. He is defying no commandment and no law. Just as a person inclined to theft commits no sin so long as he takes nothing belonging to another. To be attracted to something is not in itself sinful--acting on that attraction can be so.

That's how I understand it, and I admit that it is very crude and not terribly nuanced. But the reason bishops care little if a person is a homosexual is that Priests are called to live a chaste life. I introduce this word because often we use celibate, which technically means only unmarried to mean chaste which refers to conduct. It is entirely possible to be celibate and unchaste and uncelibate but chaste. In the Carmelite Order we make promises of "chastity according to station in life." That is a married person is chaste when faithful to his or her spouse. A celibate person is chaste when he or she refrains from indulging the sexual impulse. A chaste, celibate homosexual should present no more problem for a bishop than a chaste, celibate heterosexual. There are theories and expositors to the contrary, but I will not argue that as I am on even shakier ground than this initial discussion. And I do invite those better informed, more aware, or more skillful in conveying proper Church teaching to jump in and help us all understand better exactly what the Church does teach.

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Christ Altogether Lovely III

from "Christ Altogether Lovely"
John Flavel

Thirdly "Altogether lovely," i.e. He embraces all things that are lovely: he seals up the sum of all loveliness. Things that shine as single stars with a particular glory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation. Col. 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Cast your eyes among all created beings, survey the universe: you will observe strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourth; but you shall find none excelling in them all as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, raiment another, medicine another; but none has them all in itself as Christ does. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him, 1 Cor. 1:30.

There is nothing new here. But it helps to think each day about the perfections of Jesus Christ. It gives rise to springs of living water within us. I'm sure many Catholic Saints wrote as evocatively, or perhaps even more evocatively--but few as sustainedly one the single topic of the Beauty of Jesus Christ.

Through Him all things came to be and from Him all things have their perfection of form. A cardinal is a cardinal (bird) because of Him and it differs from a robin because of Him. Herons have their stilty legs, and butterflies their wings because of Him. Through him the frogs and the alligators have their voice, the hibiscus has its blossom, and the palm tree sways in the wind.

In Him the waves break on the shore, filling the air with the smell of salt and sea, the sandpipers dance in the ebb and flow, and the coquina continue their daily chore of keeping up with the ever moving tide.

Everything that is beautiful, all that is, reflects in some way the perfection of the creator, and in the creator is gathered all the loveliness of all created things and more. When we think of awe-inspiringly beautiful things--, the ghost orchid, , appendicularians,, the blue morpho butterfly or the blue-ringed octopus--we see in them a small fraction of the beauty of Christ. Every part of creation partakes of the beauty of the Creator, but in no way does all the combined beauty of creation approach the altogether loveliness of Jesus Christ, whose perfection of love and goodness opens up the perfection of beauty.

Spend a few moments this morning with the beauty of Christ. Revel in it, and bring it into the day to share with all around you. It is far more persausive than any human argument--it convinces to the marrow and convicts beyond question. Many people resist it, but they cannot do so for long. Introduce the unconvinced to the perfection of God in all of His creation, and then invite them into the Word to discover from whence this perfection.

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November 3, 2003

Evening Examen--The Beauty of Christ

"Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen."

Where O Lord did I see your beauty today? Did I bring You to the world as altogether lovely and the perfect vessel of Love? Where did I fail in an opportunity to convey Your love to the people around me? Where did I fail to appreciate Your loving-kindness to me? Lord, give me the strength to love You and to help others to love You. Strengthen my vision so I may see You in Your loveliness, strengthen my voice so that I may always sing of Your loveliness, strengthen my heart that I may always love You in your loveliness, and by loving You make You known to all the world.

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Christ Altogether Lovely II

From the sermons of John Flavel

What is Meant by "Altogether Lovely"

Let us consider this excellent expression, and particularly reflect on what is contained in it, and you shall find this expression "altogether lovely."

First, It excludes all unloveliness and disagreeableness from Jesus Christ. As a theologian long ago said, "There is nothing in him which is not loveable." The excellencies of Jesus Christ are perfectly exclusive of all their opposites; there is nothing of a contrary property or quality found in him to contaminate or devaluate his excellency. And in this respect Christ infinitely transcends the most excellent and loveliest of created things. Whatsoever loveliness is found in them, it is not without a bad aftertaste. The fairest pictures must have their shadows: The rarest and most brilliant gems must have dark backgrounds to set off their beauty; the best creature is but a bitter sweet at best: If there is something pleasing, there is also something sour. if a person has every ability, both innate and acquired, to delight us, yet there is also some natural corruption intermixed with it to put us off. But it is not so in our altogether lovely Christ, his excellencies are pure and unmixed. He is a sea of sweetness without one drop of gall.

Secondly, "Altogether lovely," i.e. There is nothing unlovely found in him, so all that is in him is wholly lovely. As every ray of God is precious, so every thing that is in Christ is precious: Who can weigh Christ in a pair of balances, and tell you what his worth is? "His price is above rubies, and all that thou canst desire is not to be compared with him," Prov. 8:11.

Christ is the apotheosis of loveliness. There is nothing about His person that is unlovely. If we are put off by Him, as sometimes we are, it is because His perfect light exposes the flaws in us--we think for all to see. However, Christ is altogether lovely in this as well, for more often than not, our own unloveliness is for ourselves alone--it is not shared nor bruited about nor a cause for rejoicing or ridicule. Christ, in His loveliness, holds up a mirror to us and asks us to transcend it and to reflect Him instead.

Jesus is without taint of unloveliness. He is perfect and holy, and in His perfect holiness He is not boastful nor self-righteous. He is perfectly hospitable, inviting everyone to share at His table and to rejoice in the triumphs of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is unquestionably welcoming to all who give their hearts to Him, who subsume their fleshly heart in His divine heart.

Jesus is altogether lovely and altogether loving. His love makes us lovable and worthy of love. His compassionate gaze transforms us completely. When we live at all times within that gaze, we become a new people, a people of tender heart and of great mercy.

Jesus Christ is altogether lovely and altogether worthy of everything we can muster in the way of love. Jesus Christ embraces us, loves us, nurtures us, protects us, and gathers us back to the Father.

Jesus is altogether lovely. And all of me, all of my thoughts, all of my goods, all of my feelings, everything I have and am is insufficient to praise His loveliness. Yet, it utter graciousness (and loveliness) He takes the little I offer, accepts it, perfects it and offers it with great Joy to the Father who loves me. And because of this, there is great joy in Heaven over me.

O my Jesus,
altogether lovely beyond words,
let the world breathe a little of your loveliness.
Let me be a vehicle of some small part
of your loveliness. May I decrease so the greater
part shines through. May I transmit
your perfection to all the world
through an unsullied pane of glass.

Let everything about me reflect your loveliness
and bless everyone who is near me today
with an experience of your loveliness.

My blessed Lord, transform me
into your eternal loveliness for the world.
Take what I am and mold it into what you would
have me be--because it must be as you are--
altogether lovely.

Amen.

Later: I note that I have commented upon this in somewhat less detail before; however, there is a litany of loveliness here. Amazing the way we return to certain lovely things.

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November 2, 2003

Christ Altogether Lovely

From the sermons of John Flavel

from "Christ Altogether Lovely"
John Flavel

"Yes, He is altogether lovely." Song of Songs 5:16.

At the ninth verse of this chapter, you have a question put forth by the daughters of Jerusalem, "What is your beloved more than another beloved?" The spouse answers, "He is the chief among ten thousand." She then recounts many of the things she finds so excellent in her beloved and then concludes with these words that I have read: "Yes, he is altogether lovely."

The words set forth the transcendent loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and naturally resolve themselves into three parts:

1. Who he is.

2. What he is.

3. What he is like.

First, Who he is: the Lord Jesus Christ, after whom she had been seeking, for whom she was overcome by love; concerning whom these daughters of Jerusalem had enquired: whom she had struggled to describe in his particular excellencies. He is the great and excellent subject of whom she here speaks.

Secondly, What he is, or what she claims of him: That he is a lovely one. The Hebrew word, which is often translated "desires," means "to earnestly desire, covet, or long after that which is most pleasant, graceful, delectable and admirable." The original word is both in the abstract, and plural in number, which says that Christ is the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting-place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet.

Thirdly, What he is like: He is altogether lovely, the every part to be desired. He is lovely when taken together, and in every part; as if she had said, "Look on him in what respect or particular you wish; cast your eye upon this lovely object, and view him any way, turn him in your serious thoughts which way you wish; consider his person, his offices, his works, or any other thing belonging to him; you will find him altogether lovely, There is nothing disagreeable in him, there is nothing lovely without him." Hence note,

DOCTRINE: That Jesus Christ is the loveliest person souls can set their eyes upon: "Thou art fairer than the children of men." Psalm 14:2.

The entire sermon can be found here. Erik will be delighted to encounter yet another Calvinist with a somewhat greater exposition of the some of the doctrinal infelicities of his ilk; however, what he has to say here is worth our attention.

Jesus Christ is altogether lovely. "Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet." This phrase alone is sufficient for several days of rewarding meditation and prayer. For one thing, do we really believe it? Next, do we act upon that belief? Do we let others know about the storehouse of all that is worthy? If not, how can we do so better? Is Jesus really altogether lovely in our lives. That is, does He take up the greater portion of our time? Do we love Him as though He were altogether lovely? Is He for us the "pearl of great price?" Would we surrender all the material things of the world to Him, surrender our attachment to them and cleave only unto Him? If not, how do we say that He is altogether lovely?

On this day when we honor and pray for those who have gone before us, spend some time seeing them in the embrace of light and loveliness who is Jesus Christ. Be open to their prayers for you and let Him in some small way transform your life.

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November 1, 2003

For All Saints

from Parochial and Plain Sermons Number 32 "Use of Saints' Days"
John Henry Cardinal Newman

I have not yet mentioned the peculiar benefit to be derived from the observance of Saints' days: which obviously lies in their setting before the mind patterns of excellence for us to follow. In directing us to these, the Church does but fulfil the design of Scripture. Consider how great a part of the Bible is historical; and how much of the history is merely the lives of those men who were God's instruments in their respective ages. Some of them are no patterns for us, others show marks of the corruption under which human nature universally lies:�yet the chief of them are specimens of especial faith and sanctity, and are set before us with the evident intention of exciting and guiding us in our religions course. Such are, above others, Abraham, Joseph, Job, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and the like; and in the New Testament the Apostles and Evangelists. First of all, and in His own incommunicable glory, our Blessed Lord Himself gives us an example; but His faithful servants lead us on towards Him, and confirm and diversify His pattern. Now it has been the aim of our Church in her Saints' days to maintain the principle, and set a pattern, of this peculiarly Scriptural teaching.

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October 31, 2003

Yet Another Nail in that Coffin--Obedience

from St Benedict and St. Thérèse: The Little Rule and the Little Way
Dwight Longenecker

Ironically, in rejecting an external infallible authority we are encouraged to embrace the most fickle and fallible of all authorities--our own judgment. We then cling to our opinions like a shipwrecked man clings to a splinter of wood, and before long, our opinions are unassailable. In the end we don't have one objective, infallible authority but millions of subjective "infallible" authorities, and in this absurdity, we rejoice.

While one could read this to referto non-Christians, I find the indictment as pointed, and perhaps more so for Christians--because we ought to know better. I often act as if I am in ignorance of this critical aspect of Christian Life. Sometimes, I think my lack of obedience is due more to my thickheadedness, not understanding what is being said to me. But sometimes I wonder if I simply ignore the all-too-obvious messages that get reiterated time and again because it is convenient to me to do so. To wit--should I stop blogging. I blog because I love it, and yet the calamities of recent days, my reading, "incidental" and "accidental" posts, and any number of bits of circumstantial evidence conspire to suggest that perhaps the suggestion is something stronger than a suggestion. What then does obedience demand?

First, it would seem that obedience demands clarity. To act of suppositions, whims, distortions, and feelings is hardly a substantial basis for obedience. On the other hand, how does one properly discern the proper way to go. I honestly don't really know. I must assume that prayer will put me in the right place and short of that nothing can resolve the dilemma.

So, too, it would seem with all situations calling for obedience--discernment is often difficult, so I ask you all to pray. For several weeks, evidence has been mounting that suggests that perhaps I should remove myself from the blogging world--there is nothing here that cannot be found elsewhere in perhaps more charitable climes. Please pray as I try to figure out what these events are saying. Are they gentle nudges saying,"Clean up your act" or a forceful shove that says "Get off the stage." Obviously you can't answer that question, only God can, please pray that I hear what He is saying and can find the strength of will to act upon it.

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October 30, 2003

St. Bernard on Creation

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

God creates minds to share in himself, gives them life, so that they may experience him, causes them to desire him, enlarges them to grasp him, justifies them so that they may deserve him, stirs them to zeal, ripens them to fruitiion, directs them to equity, forms them in benevolence, moderates them to make them wise, strengthens them to virtue, visits them to console, enlightens them with knowlege, sustain them to immortality, fills them with happiness, surrounds them with safety.

Blessed be the name of the Lord who makes so great a creature and who sustains it undeservedly to life within Himself.

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October 29, 2003

A Reminder About the Efficacy and Necessity of Prayer

A reminder about our daily, hourly, minutely, secondly, duty, privilege, responsibility, and reward. Keep praying. Pray constantly. Pray without ceasing. Pray with trust and courage knowing that God will use your fervent prayer for the good of all as He sees it.

from Treatise on Prayer
Tertullian

Of old, prayer was able to rescue from fire and beasts and hunger, even before it received its perfection from Christ. How much greater then is the power of Christian prayer. No longer does prayer bring an angel of comfort to the heart of a fiery furnace, or close up the mouths of lions, or transport to the hungry food from the fields. No longer does it remove all sense of pain by the grace it wins for others.

But it gives the armor of patience to those who suffer, who feel pain, who are distressed. It strengthens the power of grace, so that faith may know what it is gaining from the Lord, and understand what it is suffering for the name of God.
In the past prayer was able to bring down punishment, rout armies, withhold the blessing of rain. Now, however, the prayer of the just turns aside the whole anger of God, keeps vigil for its enemies, pleads for persecutors. Is it any wonder that it can call down water from heaven when it could obtain fire from heaven as well? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good.

Its only art is to call back the souls of the dead from the very journey into death, to give strength to the weak, to heal the sick, to exorcise the possessed, to open prison cells, to free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleadses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travelers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports those who are falling, sustains those who stand firm.

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October 27, 2003

Life as Pregnancy

As part of another study group, I'm reading Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life. I understand its enormous popularity among protestants--Warren claims to have discovered what the Catholic Church has known for centuries--the purpose of life (to wit--prayer and loving God). So for the most part the book has gone without hitch. Yesterday I ran into a bit of protestant theology of the fundamentalist variety--"to become part of God's family, you must be born again." This was followed with such absurdities as "baptism is a necessary sign of this rebirth and everyone should be baptised." It often appears that our protestant brethren have lost the sense of grace.

But the encounter led me to another line of thought. I can legitimately claim to be a "born again" Christian. I had the experience, was baptised into the Baptist church and underwent some instruction there. But, I wonder--is this really what being "born again" is about.

It occurred to me that all of life is a vast pregnancy in the body of God. That is to say, we are born again only when we are born into the Kingdom, as it were. And what occurs here on Earth determines the outcome of that gestation--whether we are born to life or still-born. Not to go too far with this because it may be very far off track and I haven't yet considered it in the fullness of possible meanings--however, being born again is a life-time process that culminates only when we leave this life to emerge in the life beyond. and everything is directed toward that end. So if we fail and fumble in this life, we are as very small children--children in the womb even. And it is expected of so young that they might not progress much.

Thinking a little further in the metaphor, perhaps our saints are those who have been born into the Kingdom while still here on Earth. And what a stunning thing it is to think of them as infants and toddlers in the faith; however, it is how they always refer to themselves. Consider then what it will be like to be in heaven where we to some extent mature in Christ.

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October 26, 2003

Learning from Ms. Shaivo

There is much to be learned from this case--much of it heart rending--and judging from public reaction, very little of it given anything more than a knee-jerk reaction. But God does allow things to happen and to come to our attention for a reason--and I don't think that the fullness of that reason resides in alerting everyone to the necessity of advance-care directives (an exceedingly dubious prospect, if the persons acting on them act as they do in Ms. Schaivo's case.)

Part of what I need to learn from this is to trust God. One way or another, His will be done. I can't fathom the deep meaning of this case. I don't understand all the particulars of the law. But I do have a deeper and fresher understanding of the arrogance of both legalism (not the law, but the strict letter of it) and the medical profession. Statements are made with no substantiation and no means of substantiation--"There's nothing there." "She died thirteen years ago," "She's not coming back." The last of these may be true, but God willing, it need not be.

The point here is that prayer is the key. Trusting God with everything and that means EVERYTHING is what we are called to. We do need to work and to support what we think is right. We do need to exert ourselves to the extent possible to fight the evil that has crept into our very bones. But we also must trust that God knows what He is doing and that His perfect will is accomplished in this and in all things.

Only in praying for the will of God and working for what we understand the fullness of that will to be do we find the peace that is at the center of every event ordained by Him. From great tragedy comes great learning and we are called to give all our strength and will to God's fatherly hands, trusting that the ends that are already in process will redound to the salvation of all peoples.

Please continue to pray for Ms. Schaivo--the forces of the world at large are marshalled against her, and in her marshalled against all of us when we stand at a juncture where we cannot speak for ourselves. Or even when we can speak for ourselves, but only from the ignorant darkness of the world. May God forgive and bring to right mind all of those who feel they know so well what is best for Ms. Schaivo and may all right minded people be brought closer to the heavenly throne through this time of suffering-by-proxy. May our pain ease that of those immediately surrounding Ms. Schaivo and give them strength to continue to do what is right.

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October 24, 2003

Marvelous Prayer Advice and Guidance

To be found in The Golden Grove of Jeremy Taylor.

3. Never let any one think it an excuse to lie in bed, because he hath nothing to do when he is up: for whoever hath a Soul, and hopes to save that Soul, hath work enough to do to make his calling and election sure, to serve God, and to pray, to reade, and to meditate, to repent and to amend, to do good to others, and to keep evil from themselves. And if thou hast little to do, thou ought'st to imploy the more time in laying up for a greater Crown of Glory.

4. At your opening your eyes, enter upon the day with some act of piety.

1. Of thanksgiving for the preservation of you the night past.

2. Of the glorification of God for the works of the Creation, or any thing for the honour of God.

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From the Orthodox Church

Story Attributed to Bishop Ignatius Byranchaninov

A brother once sorrowfully asked Sisoes the Great: "Father, what can I do? I have fallen into sin." The Staretz answered him: "Rise again." The brother said: "I rose up and fell." The Staretz answered: "Rise again." The brother answered:"How often mt I fall and rise up?" The Staretz said: "Until your death."

We often give much thought to our failures. We are desolated by them--torn apart, destroyed. But falling is part of the human condition. The Great Saints fell, though compared to us their falling is like a misstep over irregular pavement. The fact of the matter is that this will be our experience. If we think into the future it can lead to despair. But all we need to attend to is this moment--right now. The future does not exist and so it is time to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, and move forward to stumble again--knowing that each time Jesus will be there to help us. Rather than a source of despair, each stumble becomes a chance to learn and to love Christ more for His infinite patience. When we look upon that patient and loving face, becoming more and more in love with Him, we are looking upon the face of the Father who loves us. So, let's all get up and move forward knowing that stumbling will occur--we are but infants--but we must not be discouraged by the feebleness of our efforts, but encouraged by the love of God the Father who cherishes each of us as though we were His only child.

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October 22, 2003

Our Choices Matter

Following from yesterday's note that there is purpose to everything, a corollary is that our choices matter. Most orthodox Christians seem to understand this intuitively in the big issues--to sin or refrain from occasion of sin, to support life or to oppose it.

However, where we seem to let it go is in the smaller choices that matter every bit as much. For example, in our choice of entertainment. There is nothing wrong with leisure time, however, it seems that if everything has a purpose, then our choices should also be purposeful. If we choose to entertain ourselves with things that are not worthy of us, we are not doing ourselves any favors. There is nothing wrong with reading the occasional Grisham or Wodehouse as a sort of intellectual palate-cleansing; however, a complete diet of either must be detrimental because we are filling time otherwise better occupied in more edifying pursuits.

Moreover, and this is where it gets sticky, we need to make choices that reduce recreation time. Recreation is supposed to be a break, not the majority of time that we are not at work. Many parents have no problem with this--modern schedules of carting kids to activities, maintaining house and home, participating even minimally in various parish activities--all tend to fill up our time. And yet the average family finds times for 4-6 hours of television a day. There is something wrong with this.

We need to choose as often as possible things that will help us lead Christian lives. So our entertainment, our recreation, and our leisure hours should be spent training ourselves to be better Christians. The things we choose to take in during these hours should strengthen our resolve as well as our minds and bodies.

Everything has a purpose, every choice matters. Every choice has consequences that echo perpetually. So, it would seem, Dostoievski might be preferable to say Agatha Christie, even if I happen to prefer the latter most times. Chesterton might be better than Grisham, and so forth. We simply need to learn to pray before and about everything and let the Holy Spirit be our guide in all the ways we will go.

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October 21, 2003

To Everything. . . There Is a Purpose

Nothing happens accidentally. Everything you experience is a gift given by God. Often I know that I wish there were an exchange counter. There are gifts I'd rather not be given--presents I wish I could return.

Another wish I have is that the gifts came with intelligible instruction manuals. What am I to do with this thing you have given me? We can pray about it, but not being subject to locutions, I rarely have a clear revelation about meaning or purpose.

And that all leads to the core of the matter--trust. We must trust that everything has a purpose. We must trust that God knows what He is doing, because we sure don't. And we must trust that if we truly love God and seek to follow His will, we will find the path He has laid out for us.

To every small incident of every single day, every overheard conversation, every stranger encountered, every trifling annoyance, there is a purpose. We may not be able to discern it--but the purpose is there. Each day, each episode, each moment is a gift to us. For our love of Him, let's open the gifts with joy and sit at His feet to learn how best to employ them for our good and the good of the entire world.

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October 20, 2003

Beach Thoughts on Detachment

I am not a fan of Fort Lauderdale. Sitting in a restaurant on Saturday overlooking one of the many canals that provide access to the city for those with boats, I thought how little that life appealed to me. Walking on the beaches built up with hotels, I thought how little it appealed to me.

Now I am back in my landlocked home and I think, how wonderful it would be to be back there. Without question Fort Lauderdale beach is built up, and I've always disliked beaches that were so commercial. But walking there on Saturday, I realized that there is a good side for those of us who love the sun but don't particularly like being IN it. These buildings provide a wonderful later-afternoon shade that makes swimming in the ocean so much more comfortable.

All of those points aside. I began to consider this whole trip for one reason and purpose--the question of attachment. Recording some of my thoughts after a beach-walk on Saturday, I thought about the question of desire:

But I had a series of questions. Is it wrong of me to want to live near the ocean ? The answer, I think, is no. Would it be wrong to work toward this goal? The answer, I think, is yes--because it would redirect attentions that should be lavished on God. This brings us back to the first question and the answer now seems to be that even the desire must be wrong. I don't really know the answer, but I do know the desire is real. . .

Is it wrong to want something? I believe we are made to want things, that our emptiness longs to be filled with God. Is it wrong to want to live somewhere else or to want to do something else as a means of employment? I don't think so--but the question becomes how much is it permissable to seek these things.

Looking at the lives of the great Saints, we don't see them wanting to live near the ocean or pining because they'd really rather have been carpenters rather than writers or clergy. Because they loved God sufficiently, all other things paled into obscurity. Ordinary life became extraordinary.

So perhaps it is not so much "wrong" to desire these things as it is symptomatic of the need for improvement. When we love God sufficiently everything else is subsumed in this love. When God is the focus of our attention, we no longer think about longer and longer vacations, and spending our time near the ocean or near the mountains, or near anything other than God himself.

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October 17, 2003

From St. Teresa of the Andes

A lesser-known twentieth century Carmelite saint who, along with Thérèse and Elizabeth of the Trinity died very young.

There are three things we will be judged on: Your blessings to us, our sins and our deeds, accord to what our intention was. Oh, my God, I am not a saint even though You filled me with blessings! Pardon me so I may be a saint from now on. My Mother, make me become a saint!

As to the accuracy of the beginning of the statement, I cannot attest. I am certain that at least those three things will be considered in judgment, and perhaps others of which I am relatively unaware. But it is the later part of the statement that I find most interesting and compelling. "I am not a saint. . ." with the implied "yet." Evidently, recognizing how far one has to go is no barrier to sanctity, holiness, and Sainthood. We all sigh and say, "We aren't saints." And we are all right to the extent that we do no more than sigh or pine. St. Teresa of the Andes shows us the next step. We ask to become His Saints. And when we ask we are prepared to act upon what He offers us in the way of becoming a saint.

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October 16, 2003

Working Assumptions

I am not supposing that these assumptions are guidelines for all; however, one must start somewhere:

I will work on the assumption that

(1) those who disagree with me have legitimate reasons even if they are unable to articulate them.

(2) those who disagree with me hold their opinions in good will until further evidence indicates otherwise.

(3) that unless the Church teaches otherwise the Bible means precisely what it says interpreted in accord with the guidance of the Church.

(4) I am not always right.

(5) I have a narrow viewpoint that is not shared by all.

(6) I am not in any position to judge why anyone holds the opinions they do.

(7) the truth is more important than my personal viewpoint or comfort level.

(8) when I am made angry by something, I need to first look within for the source not outside.

(9) I am not the center of the Universe and things are not here for my convenience.

(10) with rights come concomittant responsibilities.

(11) the responsibilities are at least as weighty as the rights.

(12) what I personally dislike need not be made improper, illegal, or unavailable for everyone.

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October 15, 2003

For the Feast Day of La Madre

From The Autobiography (XXV: 22)

O my Lord, how true a friend art Thou! how powerful! Thou showest Thy power when Thou wilt; and Thou dost will it always, if only we will it also. Let the whole creation praise Thee, O Thou Lord of the world! Oh, that a voice might go forth over all the earth, proclaiming Thy faithfulness to those who love Thee! All things fail; but Thou, Lord of all, never failest! They who love Thee, oh, how little they have to suffer! oh, how gently, how tenderly, how sweetly Thou, O my Lord, dealest with them! Oh, that no one had ever been occupied with any other love than Thine! It seems as if Thou didst subject those who love Thee to a severe trial: but it is in order that they may learn, in the depths of that trial, the depths of Thy love. O my God, oh, that I had understanding and learning, and a new language, in order to magnify Thy works, according to the knowledge of them which my soul possesses! Everything fails me, O my Lord; but if Thou wilt not abandon me, I will never fail Thee. Let all the learned rise up against me,--let the whole creation persecute me,--let the evil spirits torment me,--but do Thou, O Lord, fail me not; for I know by experience now the blessedness of that deliverance which Thou dost effect for those who trust only in Thee. In this distress,--for then I had never had a single vision,--these Thy words alone were enough to remove it, and give me perfect peace: "Be not afraid, my daughter: it is I; and I will not abandon thee. Fear�not."

And in a sense, this may be another response to Mr. O'Rama (see below)--that perhaps the ennui that sets in is a trial of sorts--bear up under it, offer it as a small sacrifice to God and make progress in the Little Way. All of our choices have echoes in eternity.

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Seeing All Things New

I didn't want to leave so important a discussion in the comments box below, so I pull it out:

Comment from T.S. O'Rama
I'll have to think about it some more. I certainly am not implying a minimalist or Puritan philosophy! Not in the least. I guess my issue is how to live on a Wednesday afternoon - as Walker Percy put it so beautifully. Living in Central Ohio - mecca of civilization that it is - tends to make life a little dry sometimes. I know you won't believe it, but it's not exactly Florence, Italy. There's a part of me that believes/wants to believe that life is gloriously interesting in Central Ohio if I'd only see the spiritual war more clearly. But perhaps this comment is what I should've said on my blog (I can fix that)...

And my response

I understand what you're saying. I lived there for 10 years. And yet. . . there are places where things are even less exciting. I live in the entertainment capital of much of the East Coast and a Hub for most of the world, but after you've tasted of that spring the water begins to run a bit flat. Not to say that it isn't a wonderful place to be or that there is anything wrong with the wonders that surround me--but, believe it or not, there are aspects of life in Central Ohio that I do miss--to wit--

(1) The summer film series at the downtown theatre
(2) The Shekinah Glory festival with quilt auction out in Plain City
(3) The Bucyrus Bratwurst Festival, The Waynesville Sauerkraut festival, and the Circleville pumpkin festival.
(4) Ready accessibility of the Mounds at Newark, the Chilicothe Mounds and Governor's House, the not too distant Serpent Mound, and the place down near the Golden Lion -- ?Fort Ancient?
(5) The libraries and the booksales for various libaries

So there are delights in Central Ohio or Nearby. (Polka Barns up near Cleveland, for example). It isn't a hopping place--but on the other hand it is no worse than a great many. And life is exciting if one views it daily with the gratitude for the gift that it is.

My greatest anecdote about life in Central Ohio comes from a fieldtrip a friend of mine led when a graduate student there. They had a group of kids from inner city New York in a big bus--they're about twenty or thirty miles WEST of Columbus--you know how that gets, when suddenly there's a huge commotion from the back of the bus and the driver is told to "Stop the Bus, Stop the Bus!" Fearing the worst, he did so, and from the back three kids pile out of the bus. My friend got out with the other counselor to break up whatever is going on and they see the three kids with cameras taking pictures of one of those vast fields between Columbus and Dayton. One of the kids says, 'What's that?" pointing to the crop growing at the side of the road, and my friend answers "Corn." And they said, "Ain't no way that's corn--corn comes in a can." My friend says, "That's what it looks like before it goes in the can."

The point is merely to say that one of Thérèse's chief teachings is that we must become like little children to whom all things are new again. We need to teach ourselves to see that corn as though we had never seen it before--to marvel at its growth , and yes, its beauty. We need to accept what comes to us and rejoice in the great generosity with which it is given. THAT is what gives life savor and interest and THAT is what comes of loving Jesus as a little child--nothing can every be ordinary again.

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October 14, 2003

Poetry and Life

Mr. O'Rama asks a question that I will probably need to think more about:

Do some, for whatever reason, have a higher �minimum daily requirement� of art? Of plays, music, books, theatre, film, paintings, architecture, poems?

I think of the Little Way of St. Therese and wonder: If we could see life as it truly is, as spiritual warfare in which our most insignificant actions have rippling effects -then would not our lives be infused with meaning and art be, extraneous? What need has the soldier on the field of battle for novels when his own life is the stuff of legend?

I do not know the answer, but I do know how I feel. Art is one of the great battlegrounds for hearts and minds. Poetry, literature, music, art, cinema, all vie for attention both as entertainment and as edification. I don't know that walking through the National Gallery of Art actually qualifies for "entertainment" or even really "diversion." I think experiencing art is another way of experiencing a portion of God's creative capacity as doled out in His creation.

I suppose we must take very seriously the question of whether some need Art or whether Art makes life more "real" or more "lived" as I must believe it does. I seriously doubt that the Holy Father would have wasted the time in writing a Letter specifically to Artists if he did not consider the matter vitally important.

Yes, if we visualize all life as a spiritual battleground much of this is true. But if we look at life that way, are we not also missing part of the message? Is life MERELY a spiritual battleground. Isn't it also the time during which we come to awareness of the glory and the grandeur of God. And isn't Art one of the ways in which we can do that? I have seen a great many moving sunsets and sat beside lakes, streams, waterfulls, and rills. I have paddled among rias and aits and even kayaked up the Potomac to Great Falls to take measurements near Difficult Run. I have walked the paths of Hocking Hills and had the great Serpent Mound all to myself for days on end and all of these things are great and glorious. And I have read a poem by Hopkins and been a thousand times more moved and transported than many of these other things have done. I can recite from memory hundreds of poems, thousands of fragments, but only one natural impression has remained so indelibly impressed upon me. Not that all those things I mentioned before are not beautiful, but that beauty in its different forms speaks to different people. "My Father's House has many mansions." I cannot imagine life without art. I am uncertain whether I would have come to know God as well as I hope I do without Caravaggio and Monet, Palestrina and Debussy, Dante and Joyce.

So I think the answer is, yes. For some art is a necessity--it is the lifeline through which God communicates some portion of His grace and presence. Some seem to get it from fishing, others through sports, still others from gardening and simple daily tasks. For some of us it is in the words we use every day. And that does seem apropos as we are told, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. . ."

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Made for God's Pleasure

I read something earlier this evening that I've always known, but which hasn't really meant much of anything to me. We are, in the words of Psalm 149:4, "made for God's pleasure."

Why is this so remarkable? What is so astounding about this revelation? God delights in us--in each one of us. Parents--think about the delight you experience when one of your young ones does anything at all cute. We are God's young ones. When we were born, He was there, grinning like a donkey eating briars. He takes real pleasure in us. Yes, we can be aggravating. It is possible for us to be downright infuriating. But He nevertheless delights in each one of us.

We were made for God's pleasure, at His pleasure, in His pleasure, by His pleasure. We were made to be pleasing and God is pleased with us. We focus on how much we get wrong, but by His grace we do get some things right.

Every day start the day by remembering that God made us for His pleasure, and start the day living to give God cause to rejoice.

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The Right Mirror

I have a very dear friend who said to me, "It hard to believe that the Glory of God resides in me when I look in the mirror." There are a great many Christians who have trouble believing that God loves them as they are right now. We have been trained through years of rejection and humiliation to believe that love comes with a price tag--that acceptance costs something.

In fact, love does come with a price tag--one paid by Jesus, and it does come at cost, the life of the Son of God. Our problem facing these issues is that we are using the wrong mirror. We look into a mirror of glass, but the mirror we should be using is that recommended by the great Madre herself--"Mira que tu mira"--
"Look at the One who looks at you." The proper mirror to judge yourself by is the mirror of the eyes of one who loves you--that comes closest to the way God looks at you. When you look into the eyes of one who really loves you, you see yourself--and when those eyes belong to God, you really and truly see yourself for what you are--a child of God.

We are who we are--with all the drawbacks and payoffs that includes--fat, thin, balding, short--God made us uniquely ourselves and loves us regardless of outer accouterments. He won't love us any more or any less if we gain or lose a few pounds. He won't love us better if our skin clears up, or hate us if we eat onions in our omelette for breakfast. God's mind is not as human minds, God's heart is not as human hearts. God is not fickle nor is He capricious. He is a Jealous God and as such, when all else fails, His love endures.

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October 13, 2003

On Father Dubay--Another from Ms. Knapp's Site

Ms. Knapp is really on a roll, but then I haven't known her to stop except for a brief, unavoidable spell away from the computer.

She reports this interview with father Thomas Dubay from one of the CIN Listservs. Well worth your time, as always.

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A Blogging Examen

Ms. Knapp very graciously gave me permission to reprint her examen question in toto I found them profound and profoundly helpful.

Karen Marie Knapp �
Queries for a Bloggers' Examen II: the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Blogging

In church-bureaucrat-speak, blogs are called "a medium of social communication", and paragraphs 2493-2499 are about us. So, from reading then, what questions do rise up?
2493 is definitions.
2394: Do I consider the common good when I post and publish, or only my own ego-shine? Do I tell the truth? Have I ever omitted or manipulated some of the facts to make them say what I wanted them to say? Do I keep in mind that the people I blog about have rights and human dignity?
2495: Do I truly seek to know and respect others? Do I respectfully challenge ideas, or do I attack people? Do I shout down without a hearing those whose ideas differ from my own?
2496: Do I neglect my duties in real life in order to read sites? Do I keep in mind that not everything I read in the blogosphere may be factual, and that all that may be factual may not be true? Do I discipline myself to avoid those sites that are, for whatever reason, near occasions of sin for me?
2497: Have I ever lied in my blog? Do I acknowledge and respect the distinction between reporting facts and judging individuals? Have I ever defamed anybody by my blogs? If so, have I made amends, insofar as possible?
2498, which is mostly about civil authorities: Have I ever used my blog, or anywhere else on the Net, for illegal activity (e.g., libel, slander, warez, inciting civil disorder)? Or for unethical or immoral activities, even if legal (e.g., porn, spam)?
2499, about totalitarian regimes: Am I thankful for my freedom to write and publish? Do I respect this freedom, and rightly use it, never abusing it?

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On What To do About Your Websurfing

Whether intentionally or otherwise, I cannot copy material from M'Lynn's site, so I send you there to read the last paragraph of so of this entry. What is written there is wise and good advice to us all. Not only should we purge all that plunges us near despair, but everything that provides near occasion of sin. Thanks M'Lynn.

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October 12, 2003

Lip Service

The young man in the gospel today was downcast when the Lord told him that he must go and sell all that he had to follow Jesus as a true disciple. Some of us recognize the difficulty of what Jesus was saying in this particular instance. But let's assume for a moment you are one of those who could say easily, "Oh yes, Lord, I'll do it." Perhaps Jesus has a harder question for you--for example, are you willing to "let the dead bury the dead?" or "to set hand to plow and never look back?" or "to leave mother, father, sister, and brothers" and find them in the Christian communion?

Many of us pay lip service to these ideals, or perhaps conveniently shove them out of the way of the mind's eye. But spend a few moments today and think about the things Jesus could ask of you that would make you as downcast as the young man in the gospels. Then, when you've identified the problem areas, you have the beginnings of understanding, you can move more toward God in all these issues.

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An Examen for Bloggers

Via Fructis Ventris this remarkable help--an examen for what we do as we blog-- from Ms. Karen Marie Knapp--touching precisely on thoughts I have had this day. Thank you Ms. Knapp.

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Every Action Matters

I write this largely to convince myself that it is true. If we are bound for eternity, it would seem that every step toward or away from that goal must matter. This is what sits at the heart of Labora est ora. Every action, no matter how small, has eternal ramifications. Thus, how we keep our houses, how we drive our cars, what we choose to read or write, every action has ripples through eternity. Every action is a measure of how we employ what God has lent us for this time on Earth.

We need to remember the parable of the talents. While we may have been given only a single talent, it is better to invest it for the small interest of a savings account than to bury it entirely. Erik recently posted on the importance of cooking and meals in the Christian life (here's a continuation of the discussion). I thought the post perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but nonetheless essentially true. If one cooks well, then preparing a good meal for a family can be the most loving and Christian act one can do for one's family--it is a perfect prayer of service. So too with all of our talents small or large.

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October 8, 2003

On Confession

Via Father Jim, this wonderful discussion of Confession at Father Rob's place. I will want to come back to this time and again as a reminder.

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October 6, 2003

Odd Ways the Holy Spirit Works

When I first started my entry on the Wesley quote below, my intent was to talk about how we should relate to one another when we disagree. You know, the usual spiel you get here from time to time.

Instead it mutated to a reflection on God's Grace, providence, and gifts to us. I was surprised at what resulted.It's amazing what God can do when you just let Him get through the surface armor.

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Unseen Warfare of Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain

Another excerpt from Ordinary Graces that spoke to me during reading time this morning:

from Ordinary Graces
compiled by Lorraine Kisly

Those who have realized how dangerous and evil is the life they lead, the devil succeeds in keeping in his power mainly by the following simple but all-powerful suggestion: "Later, later; tomorrow, tomorrow." And the poor sinner, deluded by the appearance of good intention accompanying this suggestion, decides, "Indeed, tomorrow; I shall finish what I have to do, and then, free of all care, will put myself in the hands of Divine grace. . . .

Nothing but negligence and blindness can explain why, when the whole of our salvation and all the glory of God are at stake, we fail to use immediately the most easy and simple and yet the most effective weapon, namely: to say to ourselves resolutely and energetically: "This moment! I shall start spiritual life at this moment and not later, I shall repent now, instead of tomorrow. Now , this moment is in my hands, tomorrow and after is in the hands of God. Even if God will grant me tomorrow and after, can I be sure that I shall have tomorrow the same good thought urging me to mend my ways? . . . Moreover how senseless it is when, for example, a sure remedy is offered for curing one's ills to say: "Wait, let me be sick a little longer."

Praise God in His saints and in His gifts to us through them. Now is the proper time, now is the expedient moment. Now is all there is--the past is gone, the future yet to come, we cannot know what is there--so now is the time for healing and for hope.

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Advice for All Christians

from Ordinary Graces
compiled by Lorraine Kisly

Do not condemn or think hardly of those who cannot see just as you see, or who judge it their duty to contradict you, whether in a great thing or a small. I fear some of us have thought hardly of others merely because they contradicted what we affirmed. All this tends to division; and, by every thing of this kind, we are teaching them an evil lesson against ourselves.

O, beware of touchiness, of testiness, not bearing to be spoken to; starting at the least word; and flying from those who do not implicitly receive mine or another's sayings!

Expect contradiction and opposition together with crosses of various kinds. Consider the words of Saint Paul: "To you it is given, in the behalf of Christ [for his sake, as a fruit of his deeds and intercession for you] not only to believe but also to suffer for his sake."

It is given! God gives you this opposition or reproach; it is a fresh token of his love. And will you disown the Giver; or spurn his gift, and count it a misfortune? Will you not rather say, "Father, the hour is come that thou shouldst be glorified; now thou gives thy child to suffer something for thee; do with me according to thy will?" Know that these things, far from being hindrances to the work of God, or to your soul, unless by your own fault are not only unavoidable in the course of providence, but profitable, yea; necessary for you. Therefore receive them from God--not from chance--with willingness, with thankfulness. Receive them from men with humility, meekness, yieldingness, gentleness, sweetness. Why should not even your outward appearance and manner be soft?

--John Wesley

It seems that often we tend to view God as very one sided--He gives only those things that we view with human eyes as good--opposition, crisis, and difficulty come from somewhere else. But they do not--God allows everything that happens to us, He wills, either permissively or ordained, all that occurs. This includes difficulties. Every moment comes from His gracious hand and Paul tells us: "ALL things work to the good of those who love Him." All, not some, not many, not most, but ALL things work to the good of those who love Him. I cannot pretend to know the wisdom of difficulty, the regeneration that comes from crisis--but as I do believe God to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, I cannot shy away from the fact that what I view as bad as well as what I view as good comes to me from His hands. I can trust that He knows what He is doing, or I can presume to know better. In such circumstance, I prefer to believe that what I experience is for a cause, my own betterment, or the betterment of those around me. I also want to believe that it comes to me from God Himself as a gift, the problem is that some gifts are so terribly difficult to accept and to open.

And that leads us back around to St. Thérèse's little way. Perhaps I need to be like a very small child and upon opening up the gift, play with the wrapping and the package more than the clothing or other unknown and unappealing item within. Let God work His will in me and rejoice in it--a skill to learn and apply.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 5, 2003

Hallowe'en is Coming

And many of us do not observe the customary celebrations. For those who do not care for the usual fare, you might look into a wonderful picture book for children. The Pumpkin Patch Parable, by Liz Curtis Higgs, a well-known protestant writer, uses the ancient custom of Jack 'O Lanterns and turns it on its head, making it a parable of God's redemption and the action of the Holy Spirit in human life. Recommended.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:36 AM | TrackBack

October 1, 2003

Doctor of the Church

You all know by now that Thérèse is a doctor of the Church. As such the Church has declared that she has taught valuable doctrine concerning core church teachings. In particular, her "little way" is seen as a valuable contribution to the understanding of the Church.

However, the definition is that of a doctor of philosophy and the original meaning of Doctor. Thérèse is also a doctor in the modern sense. Through her deep understanding she corrects certain ailments in the church that come through exposure to the secular world.

from Spiritual Childhood: The Spirituality of St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Msgr. Vernon Johnson

The word "love" is so often used for something merely emotional or sentimental that we hesitate to use it in connection with our religion. St. Thérèse rescues us from this false reserve and puts the word "love" again upon our lips in its true meaning.

In the midst of us cold and grown-up lovers, with our love hardened by the difficulty of life, dulled by its dreary routine, stilted by convention, and fettered by human respect, God has placed St. Thérèse to rescue us from all that is false in our concept of love and lead us back to that simple, direct, spontaneous love which, in the depths of our souls, we really long for.

As we enter the crypt of the basilica at Lisieux, we find ourselves beneath the great arch which spans the entrance to the nave. At the base of one side of the arch are written these words of scripture: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighour as thyself. On the other side are the words of St. Thérèse: "There is but one thing to be done here below: to love Jesus and to save souls for Him that He may be more loved." Thus does she make the words of Scripture live again, words which we have known from childhood, but whose meaning for that very reason has lost much of its significance.

It may be urged that a love of such simple directness as St. Thérèse's is possible only for special souls, gifted with extraordinary supernatural graces, and that therefore it is not within the compass of the ordinary person. But St. Thérèse's life was not distinguished by anything spectacular. Her way, as she used to say, was very ordinary, fashioned through the normal means of grace common to us all. The extraordinary thing in her life was her simple fidelity to those means of grace.

Thérèse is a gift to us from God. Through her, as through St. Bernadette, He once again showed us that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary sanctity through perfectly ordinary means. In short, He showed us that once again �His Grace is sufficient.�

Of ourselves we can do nothing but sin. But with God we are, each of us, a saint and a source of hope for the people we meet every day. Thérèse has pulled us out of a sense of love that grasps and seeks to fill a great emptiness and shown us a love that comes from a fullness and reaches out to others. More, because she was not extraordinarily gifted�she did not have the mind of a St. Thomas Aquinas, or the high teaching of St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus, or St. John of the Cross�she is accessible to us. Moreover, she promised to make herself accessible. Her heaven would be spent doing good on Earth. The good she does begins with our choice to follow the little way and to show to all around us the loved she showed while on Earth. We will each do this in our own way; however, our best tribute to her today would be one small action, one little sacrifice that takes us away from ourselves and puts us squarely with God and with our neighbor. Thus we can spend our Earth building the Kingdom of Heaven through God�s grace.

St. Thérèse, Doctor and Daughter of the Most Holy Catholic Church, pray for us that we all burn with the fire that you had for God and for the salvation of souls.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:14 AM | TrackBack

September 26, 2003

On Miracles and Simplicity

In this passage, Mr. Longenecker makes some incisive and interesting points:

from St. Benedict and St. Thérèse: The Little Rule and the Little Way
Dwight Longenecker

To speak plainly, the main problem for sophisticated people is not that miracles are incredible, but that they are an error in taste. To profess belief in miracles takes one perilously close to faith healers, the souvenir stalls of Lourdes, and lurid pictures of Jesus with googly eyes. There is a breed of spiritually minded people who reduce Christianity to the highest form of aesthetics. Beauty us to Truth, but beauty without truth is false, and that which is false and beautiful does not remain beautiful for very long. If the faith is no more than a pretty face, then the aesthetes are also atheists. Since miracles are an error in taste, it is far more subversive and therefore far more Christian to accept the miracles. It's also much more fun--rather like wearing a hideous hat on purpose.

If Benedict's biography gives the sophisticated soul miracles to stumble over, Thérèse's story gives tasteful grown-ups an even bigger obstacle. To find Thérèse, the modern soul has to climb over the stumbling block of her style. We modern-day pilgrims are presented with a nineteenth-century teenage nun with a pretty smile and schoolgirl enthusiasms. She speaks in language that seems archaic and sickly sweet. Among other sentimental touches she calls herself a little flower of Jesus and a little ball for the child Jesus to play with. She thinks God is her "Papa" and likens herself to a bowl of milk that kittens come to drink from. It's easy to turn away such greeting-card spirituality in distaste, but this is precisely the first test. Thérèse swamps tasteful people with sentimentality and sweetness, and only when they survive the taste test can they begin to appreciate her wisdom. She is one of the best examples of the secret Catholic truth that says the tasteful cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. (p. 46-47)

There is so much more profound and interesting insight on these pages that I must encourage you all to get the book if you can. This passage continues and says many wonderful and remarkable things about the style and what Thérèse was and what she was trying to do.

I think style is the biggest complaint I hear about Thérèse; how people can't push themselves through the sticky images and the sweetness and light. And I sympathize--greatly. Up until the magisterial translation offered by the ICS, I had similar feelings. The Beevers translation and earlier works were just dreadful and incredibly off-putting. I couldn't find any spirituality for all the treacle. When the Carmelite Group proposed reading this piece of school-girl drivel I just about went mad (although, truth to tell, I was instrumental in proposing it.) But when I read it, and really searched it to find out what the Church saw here, I was truly astonished at the depths that opened up before me. What was school-girl drivel suddenly became something else entirely. I can't explain it. All I can say is that this person who prizes above much else elegance of language and expression, sophistication of writing and idea suddenly discovered the elegance of saying precisely what was right for the person who was writing. It opened a door to riches beyond imagination. From saccharine schoolgirl, my image of Thérèse transmuted into Great Saint, perhaps one of the very greatest of Saints--a true Doctor in the sense of conveying in language anyone who wished to could understand profound truths about prayer and our relationship with God.

And in fact, I think Longenecker has hit upon a key point. Entry to Thérèse means submitting with great humility to the fact that a teenaged "silly" schoolgirl has something profound and life-altering to teach those of us who have been in the world approaching twice as long. Surely this babe in the woods could not know anything we have not already learned. And the barrier that demonstrates approach with proper humility is the ability to get past the language and the image. Until then, you are not really permitted a glance at the profound wisdom and truth that is offered through the writings of this unlikely nun.

Thérèse presents more than anything else a challenge to our sensibilities and our aesthetics, a challenge that offers a small taste of the meaning of detachment. We must detach from our own preferences, our own sense of style, our own love of the high language and great art of many of the other saints, and accept a story-book saint--flat, wooden, and girlish. And as in some fairy-tale story, when we do so, she comes alive and tells us truths that will change our lives and our relationship with God.

(Oh--one additional tip for the hopelessly stymied--for whatever reason, all of this that is so off-putting in English, is greatly subdued if you read it in French--this discipline is finally what allowed me to enter the door and sit for a while at this great teacher's feet. Praise God!)

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:04 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

September 25, 2003

From the Anchoresses Rule

from Ordinary Graces
edited by Lorraine Kisly

The Anchoresses Rule--c. 1220, England

The swine of gluttony has piglets with these names. Too Early is the name of the first, the next Too Fastidiously, the third, Too Freely; the fourth is called Too Much, the fifth Too Often. These piglets are more often born through drink than food.

I talk about them only briefly, because I have no fear that you feed them.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:45 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

From St. John Climacus

The next couple of entries concern "the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.

from Ordinary Graces
edited by Lorraine Kisly

St. John Climacus

When he is angry he gets bitter, and then his bitterness makes him angry, so having suffered one defeat he fails to notice that he has suffered another. He gorges himself, is sorry, and a little later is at it again. He blesses silence and cannot stop talking about it. He teaches meekness and frequently gets angry while he is taching it. Having come to his senses, he sighs and shaking his head embraces his passion once more. He denounces laughter and while lecturing on mourning is all smiles. In front of others he criticizes himself for being vainglorious, and in making the admission he is looking for glory.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:43 AM | TrackBack

September 24, 2003

The Power of Words

In the Boltzmann entry below I mentioned the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster. Did I pause to mention it's cause?

Wind. Yes--one of the great structures of contrete and steel was laid low not by the powerful winds of a tornado or a hurricane, but by ordinary gusts channeled throught the neck of the narrows at the right frequency.

Wind--words. As the ordinary wind has this power, so too do the words we choose to say. We can "make" someone's day, equally we can "break" it simply by what we choose to let out of our mouths.

And the scariest part of all of this is that Jesus tells us that it isn't what goes into a person that makes him unclean, but what comes out of the fullness of his heart. And this is why words are so important, so powerful, and so much in need of careful examination and studious consideration. Nothing should leave our lips, ever, that we have cause to regret. If we are uncertain what to say, the best course is to say nothing at all. James warns us that we shall be called to account for every idle word. He does not say that we shall be called to account for those that grace has given us the strength not to say. Good to confess those, but they have not been unleashed in the whirlwind of words to damage others. We are accountable for the thoughts, but not if we don't brood on them. At most they are an imperfection of our nature--something to be weeded out.

But let's face it. Daily we let loose with a torrent of words that have varying purposes, meanings, and effects. We don't much think about the harm they can do when we make a cutting remark. We don't much consider how our spouses or children might consider not just the word but the tone of what we say.

Words are the human wind that can bring down the Tacoma Narrows bridge. We can choose to gossip and destroy a reputation. We can repeat things that have not been verified and tear a person apart. Because we do not know the strength of the bridge and because we can do nothing about it once the forces are in motion, perhaps we would do better to think carefully about what we have to say--and when it is hurtful to choose not to say it.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Gross Incivility

I'm often stunned by the gross incivility displayed on both sides of any given debate. This was brought to mind this afternoon by the success of yet another ill-titled, conceivably ill-tempered Al Franken book, pumped up by various media interests to match the insidiously vitriolic and questionable accuracy of Ann Coulter. (She does not miraculously become correct if she happens to express many opinions with which I can agree. I have a bad track record as regards my opinions.) As much as I like to look at Ms. Coulter, I think that being in the same room with her (or with Mr. Franken) would likely be a most unpleasant experience.

Part of this is the human tendency to attribute only the most malign motives to anyone who opposes us. And I think this a mistake. For example, I think it a mistake to attribute malign motives to most people who support a limited right to abortion. They can be wrong and even wrong-headed without any intent to be malign.

It seems to me that the better part of any conversation would be to assume the motive of the conversant is basically driven by good-will. (Mr. da Fiesole has disagreed with me in the past on this, but his reasons did not persuade--it seems the better part of charity to start with the assumption that most people act out of good will or at least with no malignant motive until proven otherwise.) Only in this way may one truly address the issue at hand.

Now this leads to a second assumption, one in which I am more often than not truly disappointed. I assume that two disputants who are talking about a serious issue really seek the truth on the issue. That's not to say that anyone's mind will be changed in a sudden stroke, but rather both are seeking input to modify the worldview accordingly. It may not be input to modify the position they hold, but it may be a deeper understanding of why someone would hold the opposite opinion and what the implications of that may be. In many matters, it is unimportant ("Make it pink, Make it blue.) But in a great many issues to not seek the truth is great folly. However, many people see the ideas they hold as somehow personal possessions, and a challenge to those ideas is a personal affront--an attack on the integrity of the person. I recognize this tendency in myself, and often have to back away to consider what has been said and what it really means to the notions I hold. I take a great deal of time sometimes to assimilate new notions and change my mindset and behavior to accommodate them. It is better to take a short period to cool off and then realize that the idea is not part of the self--to relinquish a bad idea is to strengthen one's Christian armor. Truth is far more important than either my personal opinion or the possibility that I might seem foolish to some. Foolish or not, I need to listen and to try to understand, and to seek God's way--the truth in all things.

And so I know that neither Ms. Coulter (whose previous book I did read, and whose present book I made a stab at but found so full of the pestilence of ill-humor and self-righteousness, not to mention a generous dollop of vitriol, gossip, and acrimony) nor Mr. Franken (ditto, ditto, ditto--and add to it that like many for whom he writes toeing the party line is more important than truth) have much, if anything to say that will enlighten my perpetual darkness.

In fact, why should it surprise anyone that the Right lies or the left lies, or the news is slanted this way or that? It may be dismaying, but as we all learned long ago, every story is told from a point of view--there is no perfect objective point of view in the human realm. That, in part, is what the Fall is about. So why should we be surprised if we find that a reporter has obscured this point or that, or that they have told only half of the story. Anyone willing to believe anything printed in a newspaper or news magazine deserves the world view it is likely to give them.

If we seek the truth, then we should seek it in places where it dwells--in the heart of Jesus Christ, in the center of the Gospel, in the message of the ordinary and universal Magisterium, in the lives of the Saints, in prayer. Seeking the truth beyond these bounds is an endless, fruitless, and ultimately depressing, oppressing, and empty endeavor. Knowledge of truth apart from God is not knowledge at all, but opinion, for in Him resides the fullness of the truth, and all else is inconsequential.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 3:10 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

More from Longenecker's Remarkable Study

There are great insights within the book, so many it is impossible to share them all. I thought this excerpt regarding "ordinariness" was especially helpful for those seeking a way.

from St. Benedict and St Thérèse: The Little Rule and the Little Way
Dwight Longenecker

Benedict and Thérèse call ordinary Christians to extraordinary perfection--not by being extraordinarily perfect, but by being perfectly ordinary. Being ordinary means letting go every vestige of snobbery and learning that we are not special after all. Once we grasp this troublesome truth it is easy to make the mistake of thinking that "being ordinary" mean fitting in and becoming "one of the boys." While being ordinary had nothing to do with snobbery it also has nothing to do with being one of the crowd. Snobbery has destroyed many lives through its snooty pride, but the reverse snobbery that will do anything to "fit in" and be part of the hoi polloi is also destructive. It is just as artificial for the aristocrat to affect working-class manners as it is for the social climber to put on an upper-class accent. In that sense, being common is just as false as being uncommon. Being ordinary means being none other than who we are. As a result it is just as possible for a duchess to be as ordinary as a dustman.

Besides noting that Our Sunday Visitor needs a careful copyeditor--the insights to be gained from this passage are enormous. I particularly like the notion of being called to the extraordinary not by extraordinary endeavors but by the perfection of the ordinary. In other words, become who you REALLY are in Christ and you are more than halfway to your goal. Your responsibility is not to perfect the gifts given to others, but those given to you. While I might look on with admiration at some of my very favorites reasoners--John da Fiesole at Disputations, and Mark at Minute Particulars, or with a certain awe at Mothers who want to be and are extraordinary (as there tends to be a raft of blushing among this set, I will not venture names), or any number of other gifts I observe in all my blogland travels--humor, political insight, knowledge of the present state of the world, etc. --I am not called to perfect any of those remarkable talents or virtues. I am called only to recognize those gifts God gave me and to offer them back to Him, well cared for, polished, and in better condition than they came to me.

Too often we deride our own accomplishments and our own endeavors with some sort of apology--either looking for compliments or encouragement, or genuinely reflecting our puzzlement over our own unique constitution. We are, each of us, what we are and that is all we should be, in the sense that we are not called to be other than what we are in Christ. We are called to be perfected in Christ. Anything less does not honor God, it buries the talents He gave us to be returned without interest. However, when we follow our calling in constant prayer and devotion, seeking always to cleave to God's path and not our own, we will, through His grace, return a harvest of souls that we have not been privileged to see--saved and brought to God through our work. Nevertheless, the work of our own perfection must, of necessity affect those around us. In achieving perfection, we drag into the Torrent of His love countless souls whom we may simply have passed in a hallway and smiled at.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:15 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 21, 2003

Trying and Failing

Trying and Failing

Six or seven times this morning I have tried to convey my thoughts about sin and triumph over sin. I have failed miserably each time. This leads me to two possible conclusions--either the thoughts have not yet been brought into sufficient focus to be written down, or I am not sufficient to the task the topic presents. I am rather inclined to the latter conclusion as I think that only those who have seriously faced down their sins (with the help of grace) stand in a position to say anything that would be likely to help others regarding the topic. So, I will leave it alone for the time being and come back when and if the spirit leads, knowing that all that is good starts, consists in, and ends with Jesus Christ. To my mind that is the meaning of Alpha and Omega in our daily human lives. If Jesus is not the capital and the period, there is no point whatsoever in the action.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:49 AM

June 30, 2003

A Moral Lesson from Harry Potter

Yes, I know there is much clamor in the world regarding this, and I don't mean to stir up a wasp's nest, but I couldn't help share this as it occurs to me each time I read the book or see the film. (Several at this point.)

Toward the end of the first book Dumbledore asks Harry why it was that he was so damaging to the enemy. Harry, of course, doesn't have a clue and Dumbledore explains (I paraphrase here). When your mother gave her life it was for love of you. Love like that leaves a mark--no, not on the outside, but in here (touching the heart).

This is so true in merely human terms. We are transformed by this giving in a merely human way. So, what about the Love who gave Himself. Surely that should leave a mark, and surely by the size of the giving, the Mark must be greater. And yet, often when I speak with Christians, I see no sign of that mark. Too often people are so wrapped up in their agendas and in their complaints, that the sign of that great mark is too effaced to make a difference.

There are two quotes, and again I paraphrase, related to this. The first attributed to Mohandas Gandhi, "Christianity is a very fine religion. Too bad so few practice it." The second is Chesterton's, and the experts among us may correct me: " It is not that Christianity has been tried and been found wanting, but it has been found too difficult and not tried."

Again, because this is a morning of it, I accuse myself--too often wrapped up in personal problems, agendas that I don't even recognize, and things of the world, I give a very poor image of Christ to those who might seek Him if they had better examples. Surely the great love that led to the death of Love Incarnate is sufficient to make a mark that will do more than vaporize imaginary wizards. Surely it is a great fire that would consume all and make it Holy, if only I would fan the flames and take it out of the protective glass case I have placed it in. Isn't our mission to spread the light, not merely to preserve it? Good God, help me, I have failed so greatly in this commission.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:45 AM

June 29, 2003

Some Advice for Those Who Would Meditate

It is time again for me to issue a fairly standard disclaimer. I recognize the presumption inherent in giving advice to anyone about anything dealing with prayer considering the state both of my soul and my prayer life. However, if we waited for those who are perfect to hear advice, we would labor long and hard without hearing a word since the time of Christ. So please forgive me both the arrogance and the presumption and take these as intended--mere bread crumbs to help those who may profit from them--myself among them.

Now to meditation advice. Many are reluctant to start on the path of lectio because they see it as more demanding and difficult than they are up to. Many doubt their own ability to "think" of things to pray about. Many say they lack imaginations and so have difficulty getting into meditation. All of these I understand. And yet these same souls are the ones who pray fifteen or twenty decades of the Rosary each day--whatever in the world are they doing all that time. They are meditating--but they have worn that path so often and so long that it is second nature--the territory is familiar and so the meditation is a natural concommitant of the prayer.

So it will become with lectio, but it may take a while and you may need help at the start. In addition to innumerable books in print about meditation and how to do it (most of which have never been much help to me) there are some helps to get you started. One thing I would recommend is a good bible-study guide, such as those now being produced by Ignatius Press. At the back of each printed gospel are two sets of questions for each chapter of the book. The questions for application make excellent meditation starters. Look at the question and then read the passage associated with it. Read the passage listening for the answer to the question and for the other questions raised by the passage. Do not read looking for some literal answer, but read expectantly, knowing that if we knock it will be answered, and if we seek, we shall find. The presence of application questions indicates that at least one other person found something here worthy of your attention--worthy beyond the mere study of words or understanding of the text--worthy to the point of doing something about what is said. Thus you are offered simply a way into the text--a path for initial meditation.

I hope as we go along to post other helps along these lines, but I welcome the suggestions and the helps of all of those already engaged in these kinds of prayer. They will be of benefit to all.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 4:56 PM

June 26, 2003

Training in Love II: Know That You Are Loved

One of the first exercises in the Ignatian Retreat I attended was to focus on the fact that as unlovable as we tend to see ourselves, we are, nevertheless loved. This step was necessary before anything else could be done because recognizing that you are loved unconditinally makes it possible for you to let go of things that you tend to hold onto. For example, it made it far easier to feel contrition. You feel far worse for a trespass against a loving Father than you feel for rebellion against a stern tyrant with an iron fist. You are far more inclined to do something for the former than for the latter. And finally, there is the realization that if there is something truly lovable about you, despite your wretchedness, perhaps the same hold trues for the rest of creation. Perhaps service is not only an option, but a requirement. Perhaps others are as worthy of God's love as you, and perhaps, if they are worthy of God's love, they are worthy of your own weak reflection of it.

The meditation served other purposes in the grueling thirty-two week effort, as well. But it was most important for starting with the proper focus, "God loves me as I am, despite WHAT I am." When this really sinks in, the world begins to change. If it is so, then perhaps I will act in conformity with that love--perhaps I will act lovable to be loved. Perhaps I will love others as a share in this divine love.

Take time out to realize that God does love you. Take moments to see evidences of it. Be aware of the grace that surrounds your life. To use the stock terminology--"count your blessings." But really do it. This flows naturally from yesterday's thanksgiving litany. As you are giving thanks for each of these things, recognize in each one the sign of the Father's all encompassing love. Embrace each one as a cherished gift from the Father and send back a heart full of thanks.

Knowing that God loves you is opening a necessary door to love. But really knowing that God loves you takes much more work than you might think. You must break through years of knowledge of your own unlovableness. You must accept and embrace that as part of you. You must know that the Father loves you tenderly as though you were the only person in existence--His only Son or Daughter.

If you are a parent think of the things your child did as an infant or toddler that defaced, destroyed, dirtied, or otherwise diminished those cherished things around you. And yet, you did not stop loving this child of yours. So too with all the things we hold against ourselves. God does not stop loving us. He picks us up, washes us off, if we're lucky He uses His minister to help guide us, and then sends us on our ways. We are dirtied, but He loves us nonetheless. Dig below your own unforgiveness of self and find there the image of His Son, whom He cherishes and bestows upon us. Know that you are loved and you are lovable because He loves you.

The first step to loving is accepting love and knowing what it looks like and what it does. Learn from the Father who showers every blessing upon us. We all are loved, and in His eyes, despite our terrible rebelliousness and sin, we are all lovable. We are worthy of this love because He loves us.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:22 AM

June 25, 2003

Learning to Become Detached--Training in Love

It seems ridiculous to talk about training in love. We all know what it is, we all know how it goes. Well, true and false. We all know what the emotional aspect of love looks like, but as a fallen people we rarely live out what the emotional aspect calls for.

We all know, intellectually, that love is a movement of will, not merely an emotion. Love can act without an emotion necessarily being attached. More importantly, one of the tremendous pieces of doctrine that St. Thérèse of Lisieux left with us is that love without works is dead. This is a natural outgrowth of the understanding in the Letter of James that faith without works is dead. Faith, Hope, and Love grow together or die together. When one is supported and nurtured, all three thrive. That is why love is so important in approaching God. Love causes faith to thrive and gives birth to new hope that sustains us through the long languors of love.

Training in love seems a good idea. How do we begin to love God passionately if we do not already do so?

Pardon a brief digression here. Wittgenstein is reported by some to have intimated that words shape reality. I do not know if he actually said this, but if it is true, the man obviously needed a psychiatrist. Reality is. The Ground of Being that reifies all that is, is unchangeable, so too the reality built upon His constant attention. That is not to say that things do not change, but that reality is and is discernable and understandable to some extent to the human intellect. (Good thing Wittgensteinian disciples didn't promulgate their nonsense until after we had a firm foundation in the sciences.) At any rate, words do not shape reality. However, they do shape our perceptions of reality. How we talk about or describe something shapes our feelings about that thing. How we talk about or to a person shapes our feelings about the person. Talk is not everything, but it is a powerful way to shape perception. (Hence, part of James's further admonition to "bridle the tongue.")

So my first suggestion for training in love is to change or enhance the way we talk to God. In addition to formal written prayers or spontaneous prayer it might be good to add to our daily routine a litany of thanksgiving. Perhaps the first prayer in the morning could start with a line from Psalms--"This is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it." From there we could move to a simple litany of thanksgiving, being mindful of the presence of God in morning ablutions and preparations. We thank Him for our own being, for another day, for our spouses and children (if any), for our lack of spouses and children (if we lack them), for our material goods, for our health, and then we move on to thank Him even for the challenges of the day--poor health, difficult tasks, even worries. We hand them all over in thanksgiving, knowing that He will support us through them all. The litany of thanksgiving puts us in the mindframe to be grateful and to perceive God's hand in the events of the day. A very wise Jesuit once said, "A grateful heart finds it hard to be unhappy." And a happy heart finds it easier to love the Person who gave it so much happiness.

Thus my first suggestion--start the day with a litany of thanksgiving. Everything you can think of to praise and thank God for say or sing in your own private litany. Thank Him for all that you have, all that you are, and all that is around you. Thank Him for being present to preserve it all. Thank Him for the guidance He gives and the love He pours out.

Perhaps this starts as mere words, but as the practice develops and continues it grows into a yearning to do something to express thanksgiving, to share with others the fantastic joy of knowing God. This is a first step in the dance of love. We are moved to do something, however small, however seemingly meaningless. We are moved to DO something beautiful for God.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:53 AM

Another Short, Hopefully Clarifying Note on Detachment

Here's another very critical point about detachment. Detachment in the sense used here does not have the same definition one might give it in ordinary life. It takes on the patina of a technical term. Detachment is NOT synonymous with indifference. Detachment allows you to separate from creation in order to make room for the Creator. The end result of this will be to love Creation and Creator far more than you could otherwise do. Indifference is the true opposite of love--it is a cool and killing emotion or attitude that can look upon a drowning person and say, "I warned you not to go in the water." Detachment sees the same person and for the sake of the love of God sacrifices itself in order that the other might live, and does so joyfully. Hope this helps somewhat. Please, please, ask questions so I can clarify these points that I kind of take for granted.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:31 AM

June 24, 2003

On Detachment

[Sorry, another long post, but may as well write them as they occur to me--otherwise they're gone.]

You may wonder why I tend to go on so about detachment. Putting aside the fact that it is absolutely central to all of the teachers (and Doctors of the Church) within my Order, there are good and proper reasons for thinking about detachment and taking steps to become detached.

In all of my reading of the lives of the Saints the central theme is one of self-giving love. For one to be able to be self-giving, one must not be too strictly tied down or restricted in motion. One cannot give oneself if one is not free to do so.

Jesus told us, "You cannot serve God and mammon." His statement was not strictly about money, but about split allegiances. You cannot serve two masters. When you are attached to things you are serving the master of self-interest while trying to serve God. These two, while not always diametrically opposed do often tend to take different forks in the road. You cannot travel two paths.

St. Thomas Aquinas has a long discussion of the simplicity of God (practically the only thing from the Summa that I think I grasp). In it, he ultimately proves that God is simple, speaking in the terms of the time, He is of one substance and mind. How can anything that is duple (or worse) hope to unite with what is simple and single? It can happen via miracle, but God prefers methods that are not so invasive of creation and of personal sovereignty. And personal sovereignty, make no doubt of it, is what God is asking us to surrender. We are to give Him rule of our lives. If we are being pulled this way and that by creation, we cannot be drawn as swiftly to the creator.

Detachment is a means to an end. It is a necessary means, but in no way a sufficient means. Grace, sacraments, prayer, and many other attainments of a life lived in accord with God's will are required. But without detachment, all of these other things will not bring one to Union with God--the ultimate aim of all Christians, and an end that is within the grasp of all at God's good pleasure. Every Saint teaches detachment in one way or another, either through their writings or through their practice and the lives that they lived.

Detachment is not easy but it is very simple. On our own it is impossible, with Christ it becomes possible. It is "simply" a matter of learning to live as St. Paul described when he said, "I know how to be rich and I know how to be poor." That is, your state in life becomes meaningless because all meaning is invested in the centrality of God.

Detachment is not easy for several reasons. First, we often don't recognize attachments. Second, even when we recognize them, we often rationalize them. An example--I was in an extended Ignatian Retreat with a gentleman who was very devoted to the Rosary. The retreat master laid out the rules in the first session--there would be no spiritual reading material other than the Ignatian Exercises, the Holy Bible, and The Imitation of Christ. All other habitual devotions should be put aside for the duration of the retreat so that energy could be focused on the intense retreat exercises. The gentleman asked about the Rosary, and while the good Priest praised the devotion, he discouraged it for the duration of the exercise. The gentleman did not return. Now, this could well be a case in which the man discerned through this mechanism that he was not called to the retreat, but equally likely, it could be an example of an attachment getting in the way of a good that could draw one on toward God. I cannot know that, but proper discernment by the person involved could show which was true.

Third, even when we do not rationalize and we do recognize, sometimes we simply do not wish to give up the object, idea, or practice to which we are attached. This is typified by St. Augustine's famous prayer, "Lord make me chaste, but not just yet." Yes, Lord, I want sanctity, but not as much as I want ___________. And the things that fill in the blank vary from person to person.

The first step toward union with God is recognizing that our entire lives are meaningless without it. When we finally come to terms with the fact that God is our meaning and He is the only thing that will completely fill the empty spaces we try to cram with all manner of junk, then we can begin down the proper road. In other words, when love of God takes priority, detachment from things becomes a possibility, but not until then. And detachment is only a means--it must happen, but it doesn't happen necessarily by focusing on it. In some really tough cases, you might have to concentrate energy, prayer, and resources on becoming detached. But detachment is often a natural corollary of loving something else more. I have no difficulty choosing between say flan and chocolate because I have a built-in liking for chocolate. The choice becomes easy. When you prefer God to all other things, it becomes a matter of making choices that reflect that preference--detachment has begun.

Detachment is also somewhat like Zen. If you become aware that you are practicing it, you almost undo its effects through pride and through the idea that YOU are practicing it. Yes, your will is involved and you are actively doing something, but God and the Holy Spirit within you are more important in the overall efficacy. Here again a statement of Jesus applies in context, "Do not let the right hand know what the left hand is doing." Detachment is most effective when you are detached from doing it and its effects.

However, as I pointed out, sometimes it is sufficiently to light wash and rinse the pan, at other times one needs steel wool or scouring pad. At these times, a deliberate, prayer-infused, sacrament-powered pursuit of detachment is called for. Put in the proper context, it is amazing what one person can do. My father-in-law went for a medical checkup one day and the doctor informed him that cigarette-smoking was shortening his life and interfering with his health. He could choose between cigarettes and unassisted breathing. He went home, dumped the cigarettes and never again took a puff. A truly remarkable instance of the power of really making a choice.

So, detachment is necessary--but it is a means that should not be a focus. Detachment comes very naturally when the things to which one is attached are not valued as much as something else. So the next step is to think about the cultivation of active, responsive, all-encompassing love of God.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:51 PM

More About Becoming a Saint

It seems that the first step toward becoming a Saint is deciding to do so. It seems probable that the majority of us in St. Blog's have consciously or unconsciously done so. So, once you've decided what it is you are called to, how do you go about achieving it?

There are several difficult points in this whole formulation, probably more than spelled out below. Here is a start on some disconnected thoughts having to do with the pursuit of holiness.

(1)The very first decision you face upon opting for holiness is the question of your motivation. Why do you wish to become a Saint? There are several possible reasons, all with a psychological validity, but all with different degrees of spiritual efficacy. The worst reason is the selfish one, which will act as an immediate obstacle to your pursuit. You want to be a saint because people will then remember and perhaps even venerate you. Everyone can see immediately what the problem with this is so I will not continue. But I have come to believe that there is a small element of this in most beginners on the road.

The second reason is because you are commanded to do so by Our Lord and Savior. This is a much better motivation, very close to the best, because it is related to the best. But if we act merely under commandment, the will flags and the pursuit fades. We soon are trudging down the road of sanctity in a way that reminds me of one of La Madre's quotes, "Lord, preserve me from sour-faced saints." Pure obedience and doggedness can lead very readily to becoming a sour-faced saint--or, in other words, not much of a saint at all.

However, if that obedience springs from and is constantly nourished by the best motive, it is nearly certain that you will succeed. Naturally, the best motive is sheer love of God. We become Saints out of obedience that springs from our desire to do everything possible for the beloved. We love God so much that we fear to offend Him--not fear in the servile sense, but fear in the sense that we never wish to cause pain to the one we love. I am only now beginning to open up this mystery myself. I have always wondered about the meaning of "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." And certainly some conversions and some part of our turning to God comes from the sense of what He could do if He chose to. However, (and I may be very off-target here) what fear of the Lord is likely to turn into, particularly if it is to be fruitful, is fear of offending the Lord--not because of the consequences meted out by God, but because of the pain it would cause both God and the true lover of God. Obedience that proceeds from and is fed by this spring of love is the well-spring of sainthood.

(2) How do we get to this point of being true "lovers of God?" I would propose that the essential element is self-emptying--"I must decrease so He may increase." And this self-emptying occurs most often through detachment. I will not say that there are not other means; however, it would seem that so long as we are attached to any of the created things of the world, we inhibit progress toward God.

How might one achieve detachment? It would seem to me that there are a great many ways--numerous paths delineated throughout time by different Saints. Let us examine very briefly two that often show up here--Carmelite and Dominican. I will start with the spirituality about which I know nothing, but describe how I believe it to work in part. It would seem that Dominican spirituality is predicated on knowing God thoroughly and intimately through the works of the intellect. These works of the intellect cannot be done without affecting the will. As we come to know and understand better, we gradually learn to leave behind what does not honor God. Seen from outside and interpreted with this Carmelite's mind, I see the Dominican path as a way of gradual detachment from our own agendas and a gradual emptying of self through glorying in what can be known of God. Please understand, this is sheer speculation but I would call it "detachment through knowledge." It is not Carmelite because the detachment comes more in a "via positiva" as knowledge is an essential good. In this sense, I see Dominican and (forgive me John d) Ignatian Spirituality quite closely related. In some sense it is like Jacob wrestling with the Angels--eventually, after enough wrestling, the pathway is opened up to pure and serene surrender. The intellect is sated and one can continue to pursue God's will in a new and uplifting way. Dominicans who have struggled to this point are supremely equipped to tell others of the Glories of God, and thus their charism of preaching.

Carmelites on the other hand pursue a "via negativa" in a shroud of silence. (Though one would not know that by visiting this blog.) Detachment is an active pursuit, aligning your own will to God's through identifying and releasing yourself through the sacraments and prayer from the bonds that hold you in. I have talked some in the past about the Carmelite way of detachment, and will probably do so more in the future. For the sake of abbreviating this post, let me say simply that the Carmelite way of detachment is more like a waltz than wrestling. We seek to know God not necessarily through the faculty of the intellect, although there is nothing wrong with really knowing Who God is, but through Love. As Thérèse said, and the recent Carmelite rule repeats and admonishes all Carmelites, "My vocation is to be love at the heart of the church." Thus, in the body framed for us with Christ as the Head, metaphorically we might see the Dominicans and Jesuits as the "brains" of that body, providing the faithful with good reason for faith and achieving union with God and deep and pervasive Love for him. through truly knowing him. We might see Carmelites, Franciscans, and other contemplative orders as the "heart" of the Church, seeking God somewhat through knowledge, but mostly through ardent burning love. Now, this is merely metaphorical, and it does gift short shrift to the importance of Love in both Dominican and Jesuit vocations, and it does diminish the critical importance of the intellect in the contemplative vocation--but it is for illustration only.

(3) Now, with regard to this second point, people have developed a million and one very clever, very useful means of avoiding the detachment that leads to doing God's will and to sanctity. One of these is hinted at by the quote from Dorthy Day that Mary offered in a comment box below. Paraphrased it says something like, "Don't call me a Saint, I don't want to be dismissed so easily." That is, we have constructed paper Saints--really unholy images of otherworldly sanctity that lies outside the realm of what a real person in the real world could possibly obtain. We look at the real accomplishments of Saints and say, "I could never do that. They were so holy from the very beginning." You know the kinds of things that might spring to mind when you read the lives of the Saints. There is really only one response to this obstacle and that is to crush it. No, you could never do that, I could never do that (whatever it may be), but then why would God want me to--after all I am not that person. My path to sanctity will not be the same, whatever is accomplished in the course of it will be uniquely the expression of God's grace working on the talents He has granted the individual. We should not look at the saints and despair at their actions, reactions, or accomplishments. We should look at the saints as individual mirrors of God's all-encompassing love. Thus, when we see Thérèse smiling at an unlikable nun, we should not think, "I cannot do that," but rather, "Lord, show me how you would like me to bring your love to the world." It may not be your vocation to smile at unlikable people, but rather to help the underprivileged, to assist those who have lost their way, to smile at those who have been confined to nursing homes and psychiatric facilities. Do not despair, but see first the love and know that the same love, the same Holy Spirit lives within each of us and is capable of expressing itself in ways miraculous--if we will get out of the way.

Another way we throw up obstacles for ourselves is that we become attached to the method rather than the goal. Thus it is entirely possible for a Dominican to be one of the great scholars of the age and yet to have that scholarship and study not ever touch his heart. We can have wonderful Carmelites so engaged in omphaloskepsis and nearly fetishistic pursuit of detachment that denial becomes the whole point of what they are doing. Neither the cultivation or the intellect nor the pursuit of detachment is an end, both are merely means to the same end--Union with God and a life of holiness. However, if we do not keep our reason for these pursuits clearly in focus, they quickly become an end in themselves. There is no point to detachment if it leads merely to endless self-examination and scouring to get out this or that tendency. Detachment should very naturally make room for God as we remove the clutter of self, God fits more naturally and more evenly into our lives. So too with intellectual pursuits in a different way. As we come to know and understand and revel in the glories of He who created all, as we get a sense of the complexity and brilliance of the Divine Way, we cannot help but more away from our own things and toward those that He has designed. And I'm sure this works for any number of other ways of approaching God. But we need to clear the path. When a method becomes an obstacle, it must be cast aside no matter how fond we are of it. If Teresa of Avila had spent all of her time detaching herself, she would never have had time to establish her foundations that changed forever the face and character of the Carmelite Order.

I've gone on quite a while here already, so I'll leave off, but I hope it is with some sense that each of us has the means to achieve holiness. We cannot do it on our own. In fact, given our stumbling steps, I would say most of us are just learning to walk. So we cannot take more than a step at a time. And the first step is to cultivate through sacraments, prayer, scripture reading, meditation, and growing selflessness an ardent desire to be God's presence in the world, not for our own sakes but for the sake of the world and for the sake of the many we see about us floundering and without hope.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:07 AM

June 20, 2003

Thanks to All Who Responded

My thanks to everyone who responded to my request yesterday. A special belated thanks to all those who commented on the Trust post and helped me to identify some areas where I need more precision in language and accuracy in conveying my thoughts.

Also, an invitation to all. Many wrote expressing that practical application would be helpful. I often think that I have included that because when I write I pass into a kind of fog. I absolutely concur with you all and I make a point of this to my Carmelite group--what we read should help to change our lives or there is no real point in reading it (speaking of spiritual works.) There is no point in reading St. John of the Cross to say that you have done so. The only point to reading St. John or about St. John is to manifest a real change in your relationship with God. So too with much that appears here--you all know the posts I mean. And so, if I have been vague in means, please ask. I may not know the answer, but because there are so many who are seeking the same path, the multiplicity of views about how one does one thing or another will help those who are seeking. As I said in another post--the strait gate and narrow way are at once narrow and tiny and as broad as God's Love itself. The way to find deeper prayer, humility, patience, meekness, whatever, is very probably a little bit different for each person. So when we hear and share those different ways with one another we become more aware of the fact that God wishes us to find our own way in the broad array before us. We have the gifts and talents He has given us, the path of perfection will perfect those gifts and talents for use to His Glory. We find these steps in the experiences and companionship of others who tread or have trodden the same road.

In sum: Tell me I've been vague about means, and I will either amplify, or ask others to help. The reality is, you all know everything I can tell you, you just don't realize that you know it. In conversation and communion with others, we discover the truth that we long have known through the nourishment provided in the Word of God and in the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:30 AM

On Humility

On Humility

Laura asked in a comment to a post below

What does humility look like in our everyday lives? What do we think it is, but is really only a disguise for pride.

And there were a couple of very fine answers. I particularly liked Tom's:

St. Catherine of Siena wrote that "humility proceeds from self-knowledge." I think self-knoweldge is necessary and sufficient for humility -- if you know who you are and who you aren't, what you can do and what you can't, you will be humble, and if you are humble you know these things. So I'd take signs of self-knowledge as signs of humility, and their absence as an implication of pride.

And Alicia's point is a powerful one and the specific case of Tom's more general answer:

sometimes humility is in silence, sometimes in speaking up. what it isn't is aptly described by charles dickens in david copperfield - mr.micawber (I think) - the one who was 'so 'umble!"

Humility will look quite different on different people depending in large part on their personalities and on the gifts that God has given them. Because humility is at its core truest knowledge of the self and knowledge of the self with respect to the grand Other that created all that is, humility is best displayed when we are not wearing one of the many masks that we don for purposes of moving through society. A truly humble person does not change in demeanor from one interaction to another. Paraphrasing from what you must all (by now) recognize as one of the great "sacred texts" in my life, "(Being a Gentleman) Isn't so much a matter of treating one person better than another, but treating them all the same. You treat a flower girl as a duchess and I treat a duchess as a flower girl..." (Henry Higgins).

That is the reality. Humility is self-knowledge and true self-knowledge allows us to look at others and see Christ. When we can do THAT, then what can we do but treat everyone equally and show ourselves for what we are, lowly servants, "Not fit to undo the strap of His sandal."

However, you can fake this as well. You can be in public service oriented and mild and meek and smiling, and return to your house kick off your shoes and say, "Thank God, that's over with, what a unwashed mob." Humility must be carefully nurtured and cultivated. It starts from knowledge of self, as St. Catherine of Siena and countless others have pointed out. But it grows through prayers (as do all virtues and habits of sanctity) and it grows through aligning our will with the will of God and (to quote another Text of some considerable import) "Looking for the Good in people." (Pollyanna). Because when your look for the good in people (as the film shows), you will surely find it. And why is that so? Because Christ is in our fellow human beings. So we sheer away all the prickly surfaces, all of the personality that we don't care for, all of the tics and quirks that irritate us and we embrace Christ in that person.

St. Thérèse of Lisieux cultivated humility with a smile. Everyone knows the tale of the nun whom no one cared for--a particularly, prickly, sour, disagreeable nun all the other nuns did their best to avoid. St. Thérèse went out of her way to smile at this person though she had no real affection for her. She smiled brilliantly every time she met her to the point that the nun once commented to St. Thérèse, "You must have a most special affection for me. Everytime you see me you give me such a broad smile." What Thérèse loved was the image of Christ in this person and she subdued her own natural inclination to dislike the nun so that she was able to recognize Jesus.

Humility must be cultivated through prayer, love (expressed in works, even so small a work as a smile at someone you dislike), and detachment. These four and others are constant companions. It seems, and I may be very wrong here, that none may grow long without the others and they all grow with the cultivation of one. Cultivating humility drives one toward prayer--when we really look at ourselves and see ourselves as God does, when we have solid self-knowledge that includes both our wretchedness and the fact that despite our wretchedness we are prized as much as or more than the most precious Person who ever lived, we come to understand the supreme value of every living soul. We cultivate humility through knowledge of Christ--in the scriptures, in the writings of the great saints, and in prayer. We also cultivate it through a daily (or more frequent) examen to see how we have been greeting God in our fellow human beings.

Tom's post mentioned St. Gaspar del Bufalo's "Maxims for the Pursuit of Humility" (available courtesy of Father Keyes at the excellent New Gasparian site. Posted on this site is a kind of examen list, St. Josemaria Escriva's Seventeen Evidences of a Lack of Humility. If you are not disinclined to Opus Dei spirituality, you might visit this site and use the very fine search engine to look up and read the brief passages on humility.

Humility is "Something Beautiful for God," it is ultimate self knowledge, and at the same time, paradoxically, self-forgetfulness in the beloved. It is a garment cut to the individual and expressed quite differently by different people. It might appear shockingly off-putting, as when Mother Teresa spoke at the Presidential prayer breakfast and raked the people there over the coals for the culture of death they supported and cultivated. Humility is true love so that it never lies, nor does it seek to wound or hurt.

That's as much as I can say to help you on the way. All of the saints address it, many of them tell you how to cultivate it far better than I can do. (After all, I have to spend some time doing so before I would know what to tell everyone else.) But humility is the important garment that holds many of the virtues together and allows truthful expression of them. Humility guides us in what to say and how. Humility may show up as humor, as when St. Teresa of Avila spoke to the Almighty after falling from her horse, "If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few." Humility speaks the truth in love, always. I pray for this virtue, but do not spend enough time actually seeking it out. I pray for an increase in the resolution to cultivate and express humility for by so doing, I can help the lives of those around me to be just a little better.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:21 AM

June 19, 2003

Called To Be Saints

Why is it when I say this in some very faithful Catholic groups, I get looks of doubt and a "not me!" sort of shoulder shrugging? Why is it that people refuse to believe that we are all called to be Saints, and by that, I do not mean the little "s" saints that seem to have no real meaning other than belonging to Christendom at large? We are called to be capital "S" Saints, even if we are never canonized or recognized. We are called to lives of heroic virtue--every single one of us by virtue of our baptism. We are called to lives of sacrifice and praise, lives that honor God not in the acquisition of material goods, but in the salvation of souls through corporal and spiritual works of Mercy that bring the grace of God to the individual.

Did Jesus not say, "Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect?" If Jesus commanded it, is it impossible to do? Even if it is impossible for us alone, Paul reminds us in Philippians that "I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me." So why is it that so many people deny their responsibility in this? Why are we so reluctant to believe that all are called and chosen--that sanctity is not merely for the few but for all people everywhere at all times.

Well, I say once again, we are called to be Saints, and we don't get there alone. We only achieve the seemingly impossible by complete cooperation with grace in the Will of God the Father through the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We must recall the famous formula for sanctity, given by Our Lord and incumbent upon all of us even though it was spoken of Him in particular, "I must decrease so that He might increase." Might here is not an expression of probabilistic formulation, it is a given. If we decrease, get out of the way, and turn ourselves to cooperation with God's will, He will increase in us so that our lives will be lives of heroic virtue.

How do we do this? Each Order has its own formulation of the principle, but it all boils down to the same thing--Prayer, prayer, prayer, service, service, service, and humility, humility, humility. By the habitual exercise of Faith, Hope, and Charity, we begin to align ourselves with God's will. In prayer, we being to make out vaguely what shape that Will may take for us as individuals. We may not see everything clearly, and we certainly won't see more than a step at a time, but we will be given enough to move forward. In prayer we also express our deep love for God and by expressing it, help to make it more real to ourselves and thus help it to grow. You may love someone deeply and completely, but if you do not say it, then it is not real for that person, and in a very real sense it isn't even very real or valuable to you. When we say that we love someone it comes as both a true statement and a reminder of the truth. In prayer when we tell God we Love Him, we remind ourselves of the fact, and incidentally what the fact demands of us--"If you love me you will keep my commands."

Prayer and love of God leads very naturally to service. James told us "Faith without works is dead." St. Thérèse tells us that "Love without works is dead." And that great theologian Eliza Doolittle reminds us in no uncertain terms of this understanding, "Don't talk of stars burning at night, If you're in love, show me!" So too with God. If we're in love, we must show Him. We show Him by acts of love and service toward his people here on Earth, most particularly the oppressed, the imprisoned, the ill, those less capable of caring for themselves, the underprivileged, and those who suffer from every form of mental illness and oppression. Not one of us is free of the obligation of service in some form. The forms will all be different dependent upon our talents and upon the people whom we are called to serve. But service is an active, powerful sign of true love in the heart. It is the powerful manifestation of our heart of love.

And humility. Humility is the key ingredient so that we don't start patting ourselves on the back for our excellent service and show of our love for God. We are not permitted pride in our work. Pride will kill love any day in our weak human natures. We must exercise humility, valuing ourselves little and God within us greatly. We must see our works exactly at they are, very small in the large scheme of things and hardly a dent in the surface of the misery of the world. Nevertheless, these works we must do and this service we must perform and we must do it in love of God and humble thanks to Him for the opportunities He grants us.

So, we are all called to be Saints. It's time. If you haven't started, get in Contact and find out what kind of Saint you are called to be!

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:13 AM

June 18, 2003

Trust

I sometimes wonder if many of us actually trust God. Let's face it, His track record isn't great--He allowed His own son to die--something few of us would allow had we any ability to prevent it. What then does one make of such a God? Is He reliable? Can we be certain of what we are getting from Him?

The answer is, of course, yes. However, we more often than not do not act as though we can or do trust Him. We act on the principle that we know better how to arrange and organize things for the benefit of all. That, of course, is out of fear--fear of the loss of control, fear of the unknown, sometimes fear of God Himself. We are told the "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Of course, it may also be the font of enormous foolishness as well. Fear of the Lord can lead us to do all manner of idiotic things.

The problem is this--from the time we were children many forces in society and personal experiences have taught us time and again to trust no one. I truly believe that a principle espoused in the Bible works here as well--"If you do not love those around you whom you can see, how can you hope to love an invisible God?" So too with trust. If you cannot trust what you do see, how do you being to trust what is invisible and largely unknowable--shrouded in mystery after mystery, glimpsed dimly but poorly understood?

The answer is that despite potential vulnerability, you begin to trust what you do see. We may make mistakes in where we place our trust. We may put our trust in a good place, but all human and created things are fallible, and they will eventually fail us. However, we cannot begin to understand and practice trust without taking this step. We may say that we trust God, but look at all the bulwarks and supports we put in place in case God does not come through. The Saints of the past had unending trust in His Wisdom--we need to cultivate the same. Whatever happens to us is at least allowed by Him for some good that we may not completely know. We trust surgeons to cut into us and remove bits and pieces or alter us in some way--knowing that we may suffer pain as a result. Some of the pain we feel we bring upon ourselves, and some is the pain of the surgery that will ultimately restore health.

Trust is difficult, but it is essential. You do not speak from the fullness of your heart to someone you do not trust. If we do not trust God, how then can we hope to pray effectively.

Perhaps the most difficult part of trust is discerning where it is we do not trust God. To which questions do we demand firm and absolute answers? What things do we refuse to leave alone, do we continue to worry? We need to look deeply into ourselves and recognize our deep lack of trust and pray with the man of the gospels, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:22 AM

Reflections on Silence

Sometimes silence is more difficult than at other times. Sometimes silence is comfortable--a space to be with God. Other times silence is merely being alone. God may be present in the silence but circumstances preclude the recognition of His hand in what is going on. Silence is simply emptiness. It may be good to experience these times of emptiness, but more often than not it is a trial. Worse yet is to be within a pocket of silence while everything around you seems to be in a whirl. You see life going on outside the little vacuum that defines your present world and you wonder what it is you do to join that boisterous, seemingly fun crowd.

Silence, however, does always nurture dependence on God, and it may be one reason that we try so hard to avoid it. We fill our time and space with noise, sometimes small, insignificant noise, but sometimes enormous, overwhelming noise. We seek to avoid too close an encounter. We reason, we think, we fill our time with small disputes, argumentations, conversations, thoughts. Or we fill silence with music, television, telephone conversation, anything to avoid facing the reality that sits immediately beneath the surface. Much of our business is simply the flurry that gives us excuse to ignore the invitation from the Almighty.

Still, we are human, silence is only ocassionally comfortable, and as one progresses, silence becomes progressively less comfortable. As one is weighed down under the normal routines and burdens of life, silence becomes the time when all the cares, concerns, troubles, and potential disasters rush in at once. How do we avoid the press of concerns and move through the silence to the place we ought to occupy--an awed and loving gaze at the Father, Creator, King of All?

I have no simple answer, but I do have the advice of a great many pray-ers from the past that tells me that you do not seek to avoid these things. Rather, you let them flow over and through you into the hands of God Himself. In itself, this is a form of prayer. God knows our concerns and they will come like harpies to pick and distract. If we hand them over immediately, they may still return. But the process is continual--every time they stop by to interrupt us, we hand them over to God. Eventually we will be able to entrust them to Him, and we will stop being distracted. More than that, the things that concern and frighten us will begin to have less power over us. We won't dismiss them, but we will being to understand that they are in hands far more capable than our own.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:07 AM

June 16, 2003

Observations of a Vietnamese Buddhist

I've been reading Thich Nhat Hanh's marvelous book Anger. In doing so, this passage leapt off the page:

Anger
Thich Nhat Hanh

Punishing the other person is self-punishment. That is true in every circumstance. Every time the United States Army tries to punish Iraq, not only does Iraq suffer, but the U.S. also suffers. Every time Iraq tries to punish the U.S., the U.S. suffers, but Iraq also suffers. The same is true everywhere; between the Israeli and Palestinian, between the Muslim and HIndu, between you and the other person. It has always been like that. So let us wake up; let us be aware that punishing the other is not an intelligent strategy.

What I am sometimes amazed by, more often encouraged by, is the wisdom that echoes of Christianity found in nearly any sincere practitioner of his or her faith. This echo, this strain, reminds me of the passage in the creed: "One holy, apostolic, and Catholic Church." It casts new meaning on "no salvation outside the Church." It would seem to me that Christ reaches out from the heart of the Church to embrace people who are looking for Him though they may not know His name. Nhat Hanh certainly knows His name, having written several books in which Buddhism and Christianity are laid side by side and explored. But there are a great many Buddhists for whom Christ is unknown. Jesus still reaches out to these people through the truths of their faith. These are sheep that hear His voice and know it, but who have never seen the Shepherd and do not know His name. Or so I think--naturally, I have no proof of this, and I do believe that they would be even better off were they to know the fullness of the Catholic Faith. But sometimes people are born into a place where that is not a possibility--I believe that even in those circumstances the voice of Jesus is heard. I pray for the salvation of all, that all may be brought into the fullness of faith by our loving Father.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:47 AM

June 12, 2003

Reflections on the Strait Gate and the Narrow Way

Pursuant to remarks of this morning, this scripture came to mind--and suddenly there seemed to be an enormous depth that opened up. Jesus pointedly comments that the path of salvation is narrow and the path of destruction wide. And yet, here is another paradoxical truth. That strait gate and narrow way are actually much wider and more encompassing than the path of destruction. The path of destruction is our own self-limiting, narrow, wills. The strait gate and narrow way are God's will. God's will is identical for each person in that it demands holiness, but it is unique because it demands holiness of the person. As each person differs, God's will for each is different. Thus God's will is a broad plain in comparison to the road of destruction. But because we experience only a small facet of that broad plain (God's will for us is for us as individuals and therefore a narrow and small way) what we observe as individuals is that the path of destruction seems enormous in comparison with the path of God's will. This is the true beauty of the depths of God's word. What is spoken seems so simple and straight-forward, but what it means has depths we will never in our lifetimes completely plumb.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 11:27 AM

May 8, 2003

An Opportunity

Events in my life have arranged themselves in such a way as to be able to take advantage of the opportunities offered in the passage below:

from Ascent of Mount Carmel Book 1 Chapter 13 St. John of the Cross

6. Strive always to prefer, not that which is easiest, but that which is most difficult;

Not that which is most delectable, but that which is most unpleasing;

Not that which gives most pleasure, but rather that which gives least;

Not that which is restful, but that which is wearisome;

Not that which is consolation, but rather that which is disconsolateness;

Not that which is greatest, but that which is least;

Not that which is loftiest and most precious, but that which is lowest and most despised;

Not that which is a desire for anything, but that which is a desire for nothing;

Strive to go about seeking not the best of temporal things, but the worst.

Strive thus to desire to enter into complete detachment and emptiness and poverty, with respect to everything that is in the world, for Christ's sake.

And I can tell you that this is a lot better in the abstract than in the concrete. Moreover, I suspect that it is a lot better voluntarily entered into rather than being offered such opportunities. However, the Lord has a plan even if it seems obscure to me, and so I can avail myself of this opportunity or not at my choice. It seems that whichever choice I make in the event will fulfill the requirements of this passage--so, that is the long way of asking for your prayers and your thoughts as I enter into the next couple of weeks.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:06 AM

March 8, 2003

A SHORT Poem for the Day-Coventry Patmore-Magna Est Veritas

Coventry Patmore has never been a favorite of mine. I started reading him when some critics mentioned that he was one of the great Catholic Poets of Victorian times. That may well be true, but if so, it speaks to the meagre production of Catholic Poets, or the generally sing-song quality of Victorian Poetry. I find Patmore sometimes to be little better than greeting card verse--rhythms too heavily sustained, rhymes to strongly regular. One would think these hardly faults, but they are when you are looking for music.

But then, I have a harsh ear when it comes to what I like, and it is often better for me to return time and again to things I have not cared for, looking at them with a careful eye for what may be there. And Patmore does have some fine work.

Magna Est Veritas Coventry Patmore

Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.
For want of me the world's course will not fail:
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.

I sat for a while with this small poem and wondered what it was all about. And it occurred to me that it might be a response, in part to Matthew Arnold's great poem of despair, "Dover Beach". And if ever a poem needed the response of ringing faith--"Dover Beach" is the one. Now, I don't know relative dates of composition, etc, so I cannot claim this as truth. However, I have noted that certain eras have a zeitgeist to which many artists direct their attention all at once. And around this central feeling much of the great art of the time may be oriented.

So I offer this small poem with the thought that it is actually a breath of faith in a wind of wondering and despair that was beginning to pervade the modern age.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:33 AM

February 28, 2003

Another Short, Powerful Jewish Text

A quotation from Sayings of the Jewish Fathers, another wonderful selection from the Midrash and the Talmud.

"3. Antigonus of Soko received from Shime'on ha-�addiq. He used to say, Be not as slaves that minister to the lord with a view to receive recompense; but be as slaves that minister to the lord without a view to receives recompense; and let the fear of Heaven be upon you."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:06 AM

February 24, 2003

Cooperating with Grace: a Personal Perspective

In recent days I have found the most extraordinary words coming out of my mouth and thoughts coming out of my head--things that in my wildest imagination, I could never envisage myself saying or thinking. And sometimes these words and thoughts have led to actions that, once again, have surprised me beyond all bounds.

For example, I had heard, and I honestly believed that people could offer up their difficulties for the benefit of others. I knew this was true, but I suppose there was a subconscious codicil to this overall principle--such action was for the saintly, for the cloistered nun, for the priest, for "professionals." If offering things up were televised, it would bear the big legal warning: "What you are seeing is done by trained professionals. Do not try this at home."

Gradually God worked on my hard heart and head. I came to realized that for what it was worth, I could do this also. I have only started doing so recently, in the past few months, and I have heard all around me extraordinary stories of grace. These are perhaps the little consolations that St. John of the Cross tells us are offered early on to beginners in prayer to encourage them to continue in the way of grace and prayer. And they are encouraging--they tell me that prayer and sacrifice works--often beyond our own wildest expectations.

I have always been pacifist in tendency--but a few years ago militantly so. I was a person who felt that those who did not hold my pacifist convictions either did not understand them or was in league with the devil. I never said as much aloud, but I'm sure my attitude must have conveyed something of my contempt for such people. Today, I remain committed to the cause of peace by conscience--I don't know if that COULD change (although I leave all to God), but I also am committed to the cause of individual liberty of conscience. It is not for me to dictate to another where they should stand on an issue that is so bound up in how God created them and the relationship between God and that person. More than that, it is incumbent upon me to support them in their convictions through my prayer and small sacrifices. My prayer must always be for the ever increasing strength of the bond between a soul and God.

Also recently I discovered that I do care about souls. I care about souls and their approach to God in a way that never entered my conscious life before. I am astounded by how much I care and by how much I want to pull others along with me into the Divine Ballroom--first to waltz, and then to tango with God. Strange metaphor, but I see before me St. Teresa and her sisters, tambourines and dancing. I see David who danced before the Lord. I am called to the intimate embrace and the magnificent openness of a dance with God.

I continue to be careless, lazy, self-serving, self-indulgent, and sometimes arrogant. God doesn't change your personality in one fell swoop--but I am more aware of the times these things surge to the forefront, and I am committed to letting God have His way with them. I still have vices and little attachments that I really want to give up, but have not yet the strength to abandon (Lord, let me observe silence, but not yet. Lord, let me pray continuously, so long as I can continue to read my Science Fiction books. . . you all know the drill). These are places where He will work if I will listen, observe, and obey.

There are many other transformations that have taken place in recent days as well. I have done none of these things myself. I'm not even certain that I ever prayed for these things. Had I known they were likely to happen, I might have prayed against them. One thing I am fairly certain of is that St. John of the Cross intercedes for me daily, hourly. I feel like a favorite child, so strong is the impression of his presence in my life. Who could be more powerfully configured to appeal to me? One of the world's great poets who also knew God intimately, almost a perfect match for my exact interests. His prayers are part of the changes in my life of recent date. But there is more than that. I have honestly prayed that God's will be done--that is the extent of my cooperation with grace. I haven't really acted all that much on it. When I try to do it on my own steam, I fail miserably. But when I do pray, I pray for God's will and the strength to see it through. And slowly God seems to be leading me out of myself and into the image of His son. I am very, very far from my goal. But it seems that I begin to understand what Jesus says more. I don't always act on it, but the words begin to make sense--puzzle pieces are falling into place. I am often led to say and write things that I could not possibly have done even last year. I have grown in love with my precious wife and son, and I have become utterly committed to making their lives better regardless of the personal cost. This is a place where I can be entirely self-sacrificing and not make a radical display of it. No one needs to know the hundreds or thousands of little things that take place that are gradual mastery of self and immolation in God.

Cooperating with grace is actually quite easy--surprisingly easy (My yoke is easy, my burden light.). It is a matter of praying the Lord's prayer and meaning it--of hearing the words "thy will be one on Earth as it is in heaven," and willing that I might be the instrument of that will. It is a matter of growing in love with God and relying upon the Holy Spirit and the sacraments to support me when I might otherwise fail. And I do fail, often, daily. Then it is a matter of recalling with Brother Lawrence as I look up to heaven, "It is ever thus when I abandon your grace.," and recommitting to the right direction.

Cooperating with grace is nothing that can be done by oneself. Even cooperating with grace requires grace, but one must make the act of will and one must take steps, even though they are small steps, when prompted. One must seize the myriad opportunities that are all around and humbly, gratefully approach Incarnate Love and show Him how much one loves. Only in this way can God's ultimately effective grace take root and begin to flower in one's life. Meaningful prayer and meaningful small steps toward God are our first, stumbling infant's steps--arms outstretched ready to fall. . . and to be picked back up, dusted off and set on our feet again by an all-loving Father.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:10 AM

February 13, 2003

Spiritual Lessons from My Fair

Take a moment and learn from the inimitable Eliza Doolittle

Words! Words! Words! I'm so sick of words!
I get words all day through;
First from him now from you!
Is that all you blighters can do?
Don't talk of stars, burning above;
If you're in love, show me!
Tell me no dreams filled with desire
If you're on fire, show me!
Here we are together in the middle of the night!
Don't talk of spring! Just hold me tight!
Anyone who's every been love will tell you that
This is no time for a chat!
Haven't your lips longed for my touch?
Don't say how much, show me! Show me!
Don't talk of love lasting through time.
Make me no undying vow.
Show me now!
Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme!
Don't waste my time, show me!
Don't talk of June, don't talk of fall!
Don't talk at all! Show me!
Never do I ever want to hear another word
There isn't one I haven't heard.
Here we are together in what ought to be a dream;
Say one more word and I'll scream!
Haven't your arms hungered for mine?
Please don't "expl'ine," show me! Show me!
Don't wait until rings wrinkles and lines
Pop out all over my brow,
Show me now!

This song seems the basis for a sound spirituality. Think of these as the passionate lyrics that God sings to us--I've heard every word, in every language, in every place, at every time. Stop the flood of words, and if you love me, do something about it. "Don't talk of stars burning above, if you're in love show me!"

How?

"If you Love me, you will keep my commandments." It's time for me at least to shut up and start showing God I love Him. Believe it or not, I actually see this blog as one possible way to do that (but only one, and a small, flickering, feeble light it is). God's people need constant encouragement, a constant reminder of His abiding love. When I spend some time talking here, I am showing concern for my neighbor and expand beyond my own round of petty concerns. If I can bring encouragement to a single soul, to one person a day, or a week, if I can open the door to God for a brief second so that someone can see what lay behind, then the service done through me is incalculable. When I hold a door open, when I smile at a stranger, when I whisper the encouragement to love, when I work to bolster those who are failing, it is not me, but the Spirit within me. Let Him reign.

So, how do I show God that I love Him--I let Him reign in my life. I get out of the way and I do what He says. I follow that most despised of admonitions in my proper relationship with God, "Wives be subject to your husbands as to the Lord." For my spirit is the Bride of Christ, and in fact, He is my brother on Earth and my bridegroom in heaven. (For a man, this has to been one of the most difficult things in the world to say and internalize) But why else would John Donne say:

Holy Sonnet XIV

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

So, I must submit to the Lord, my God, my head, my spiritual spouse, He who loves me and shows me both in words, in the Word, and in the actions of daily life. It is time that I offer Him more than my words, and show Him that I love Him.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:21 AM

January 28, 2003

Recidivism: Beginning to Understand Mortification

One of the most difficult aspects of the spiritual life is our constant backsliding. Now while I'm sure I'm not alone in this, I do know that many who walk this road have progressed far beyond me and what I say here is largely irrelevant. But those of us who are beginning, or even who are a bit progressed find that time after time we commit the same errors or sins regardless of our desire not to do so.

The only good thing about this is that it shows we are human. St. Paul tells us concerning himself, "The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Most of us who return to sin return to a sensual sense. That is the appeal to the pleasure principle is largely responsible for much backsliding. It only makes sense. If a sin causes pain, anguish, or mental difficulty, one is unlikely to repeat it over and over again. However, if a sin gives rise to some form of pleasure, be it gustatory, sexual, or otherwise, then we will be inclined to repeat the sin, not for the sake of sinning but for the sake of pleasure.

St. John of the Cross is always regarded as a very cold and austere Saint--one who might have supported various practices of mortification. In fact, he warned his adherents against excessive mortifications, and charted a road that is a model of moderation and caution in this regard. He pointed out the value of not allowing yourself to have something you greatly desire in order not to feed the fires of the passion that can lead to sin.

Practices of penance and mortification are good in small degree (so long as they do not become obsessions) in that they train us not to seek out the pleasures in life and to accept those pleasures that come without actively seeking them. When we experience a moment of pleasure at a sunset, a concert, or in any of the various activities of life, we should appreciate it and let it go. Mortification allows us to do this to greater degree. In some sense, we train our bodies to be more grateful and more appreciative of the good things that come to us. Fasting, for example, has numerous spiritual effects, but for those of proper frame of mind and prayer, one of the benefits is that it teaches us to be detached from the sensual pleasure accompanying food. This is not to say we should not enjoy the food we have, but we should not seek it out to the exclusion of all else.

In the document "Penitential Practices for Today's Catholics" mortification is described as

radical self-denial and wholehearted giving of oneself to God that Jesus called for when he told his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me" (Mt. 16:24). More specifically, mortification is a form of ascetic discipline that involves denial of some kind of enjoyment in order to gain greater detachment from one's desire. The goal of mortification is fullness of life, not death--freedom, not enslavement.

The word itself suggest dark, medieval practices from the "bad old days" of the Ancient Church. Monks with flagelli, etc. But it need not be so, and indeed, in some cases such practices carried things to such an extreme that mortification became an end in itself.

During Lent we are often called upon to "give something up." In modern Church discipline this "negative" approach has often been replaced with "doing something good." However, the discipline of giving something up, is very beneficial, and the proper practice of it can lead to lifelong spiritual benefits. If the point of the discipline is not simply to deprive oneself of a known good in order to be deprived but to use that deprivation to move closer to the Lord Jesus, "giving something up" can be a very good discipline indeed.

The long and the short of it--if you find yourself in a recidivist cycle, consult your spiritual director. Find out how to gradually increase your detachment from the object of desire, and use the whole practice to put yourself more thoroughly into the arms of our Savior and Lord.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:21 AM

December 12, 2002

Spinning a Metaphor--Potential Energy

T.S. O'Rama in a most excellent post on his site, gives me an opportunity to spin a metaphor than may or may not work. We'll see.

A Baptist pastor continually preaches the following thing on the radio (I don't have a specifically Catholic radio station in tuning distance so I listen to the local Christian one):

"Christians have to spend more time remembering their position in Christ, not their condition."

In other words, focus on who you are - God's - and not your condition, which is often disconcertingly poor. It is interesting to this cradle Catholic that even Protestants have problems with legalism and "position vs. condition".

Now I want to show how incorrect the Baptist Pastor is in this saying. An object has energy by virtue either of movement of the body (kinetic energy), movement of its constiuent particles (thermal energy) or by its position and/or condition potential energy. It is this last that I want to use as a metaphor for the Christian life.

Too often we have great stored energy in Christian life. We make no harsh commitments, we don't drive ourselves too hard, and we don't really challenge ourselves in the things that matter. As Dubay and others have pointed out, the harsh reality is that We are not saints because we have not yet chosen to be. By that, all the writers mean that we have not made up our minds to let God's will be our will and to live our lives in that reality.

That is where potential is. We are all potential Saints. Thus we must move from potential to actual. And our potential is precisely in both our position in Christ and our condition in obeying God's word and will. If we are remiss in the latter, our position in Christ imparts some energy toward our sainthood--but we are like a loosely bound spring sitting on the ground. When we spring up, our motion is done, feeble and not enough to move us very far. However, if we change our condition, we may also change our position in Christ. Right now we wait on the ground near his feet. But as we obey we become like springs more tightly wound and compressed, and God lifts us up. From a height, when the tightly bound spring is released, the energy is much greater, the potential becomes powerful kinetic energy and we are suddenly transformed in Christ and become signs for all people. We are Saints.

Sainthood is possible for each one of us. Not only is it possible, it is necessary. Too often we excuse ourselves saying, we are not like St Therese, or St Teresa. But the reality is, God already made a St. Therese, he doesn't need another. He already has a St. Teresa, a St. John of the Cross, a St. Philip Neri, a St. Swithun--He has no need of more. But what He does need and what He wants is a Saint Steven Riddle, a Saint _______________ (put your name in the blank). We have no excuses for not responding to God's need. We are simply lazy people. We think that Heaven will come to us if we wait long enough.

Now, please bear in mind, though this was spawned by some thoughts at Mr. O'Rama's site, this is in no way a particular indictment of him. It is an indictment of every one of us (myself included) who has not yet made up their minds to be Saints and to tread whatever path God has laid out for us in that direction. I long for Sainthood, but I want it to be easy. It's time to change my position or my condition, because I'll need all the extra energy I can get from that stored potential to overcome the inertia that I allow to keep me in my deadly, ungodly path.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:03 PM

November 12, 2002

What Does Matter?

In the spiritual life it is important to remember that failures are as important, or perhaps even more important, than successes. To know when we will be tempted, and when we will most certainly fall, is a great strength because it gives us the opportunity to resist the near occasion of sin. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection said of failure that it did not dismay him, but allowed him the opportunity for greater prayer because he could look to heaven and say "It is ever thus when I stray from you."

Spiritual "successes", on the other hand, can be a nearly certain road to derailment of spiritual life for those not well-inured and practiced in it. St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross warn about the temptation of seeking consolations in prayer. In seeking, you become attached to locutions, visions, or sweetnesses offered by the Lord, and your attention is distracted from Him. Your focus is no longer pure and true, it is diluted with another pleasure.

The most central pivot of our spiritual lives lies in this: Our entire joy is in the Lord. Everything that is done is done for love of Him. Without this pivot the lever with which we would move the world is merely a stick we use to beat it into submission. There is no loss so great as the loss of our spiritual center. There is no wandering so lonely as wandering away from Christ, for even though He is always with us, we lose sight of Him in a fog of our own making.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 3:47 AM

November 7, 2002

The Conscience of America

After our initial surprise/joy fades, we would do well to remember that we are the conscience of America. While we elect our politicians with the hope that they will do at least some part of what they have promised us, politics is the art of compromise without looking like you're compromising. Most politicians don't seem to start with well-formed consciences anyway (I point to Ms. Granholm as an example; she might in all sincerity cling to her barbaric and ruthless beliefs, but surely that should be a signal that something is malformed in the conscience.) Many of our supposedly Catholic politicians and leaders seem to have little or no conscience or deep understanding of what the Church teaches and what it means. I was shocked when even Antonin Scalia--a supposedly well-informed, faithful Catholic announced his particular brand of cafeteria Catholicism (if it doesn't look traditional enough to me, I'll reject it.)

We must serve as the consciences of these men and women. Voting is the beginning of communication, but it becomes more and more imperative to continue to keep those lines of communication open. We must communicate and pray. The window is open for a very brief period. Everyone seems focused on things other than the issues most of us voted on. It is time to temporarily redirect their attentions to these issues and to get at least some minor relief in place for the unborn. We cannot rely upon the politicians to remember everything they have told us--the pressures of political life are such that it is nearly impossible. And so through our prayers and our letters, we need to remind them.

A suggestion--get a Mass Card from your favorite Church, Cathedral, or Society, and send it to your representative and/or Senator with a note that indicates that you are praying for them daily. Let them know that part of the electorate (a larger part than will be represented by Mass Cards) is truly Christian and truly concerned about both what is going on in Washington and the people themselves. Politics must be a lonely, ruthless, unpleasant business. People do not seem to be particularly happy--but then addicts generally are not. Most politicians are addicts to the power they have received. Sending them a note that encourages them and lets them know that we are thinking about them in something other than wholly negative terms will be a boost. More, it will keep the issues we are concerned with in their minds.

I suggest a Mass Card because it is something within our tradition that both supports our institutions and offers real help for those to whom we give them. But if it seems inappropriate--if your representative is Jewish or Christian of some other variety, buy a specifically religious greeting card that without apology invokes the name of God and send it. Send several in the course of the year. Let our representatives know from whence come our marching orders.

Perhaps we have too long been asleep. Perhaps it is time to be less apologetic (in both senses of the word) about our faith and more demonstrative of it. The best argument against an Evangelical or Fundamentalist who is seeking to convert Catholics is a life of exemplary faith. Even the most Evangelical or Fundamentalist among us would be hard-pressed to say something bad about Mother Teresa. We, that is all of us Christians, are the light of the world, and sometimes I think we've grown very used to the bushel basket secular society asks us to remain within. Now it is time to break out and to express ourselves not in political terms, but in overtly religious terms. The most important part of this expression is to let the person with whom we communicate know that they are loved, prayed for, and cared for by the God who loves us all. We must function as the well-formed conscience of the nation--we must not simply sit back and complain or make commentary, we must pray, pray, pray and let those in Washington know we are praying. Such an outpouring of prayer will certainly call down the Holy Spirit to convict a few who need conviction and to give courage to a few who need to move forward with the torch.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:00 AM

November 3, 2002

Literature as Evangelism

I have thought about this a long time. I have thought about it since the time that Gerard Manley Hopkins convinced me that Catholicism was the way to go. I don't recall precisely how it happened. What I remember is reading Hopkins in a Seminar on Victorian Poetry (taught by one of my most enthusiastic professors). Somehow a discussion evolved, or I read in an introduction to Hopkins that he believed in something called "The Real Presence." Now, I had slim to no notion of what this was, but the notion attracted me, and if the idea gave rise to the glorious poetry I was reading, then perhaps there was some validity to it, perhaps it warranted further investigation. Thus, through the work of Hopkins, and C.S. Lewis, I found my way back to the church of my youth (Southern Baptist), and from there to the Catholic Church.

Dubay makes a powerful argument in favor of beauty as evidence of God in the universe (The Evidential Power of Beauty) and the Holy Father is convinced that Artists, and by that I am certain that he means Artists in the broadest sense of the word, have a great deal to contribute both to the support of the faithful and to the evangelization of the unbeliever.

What then must be the essential ingredients of any work that might help people come to God. First and foremost, I would think, integrity--a grass-roots, at-the-bottom, fundamental commitment to telling the truth as you see it, even if that truth seems to run counter to God. For example, though Wallace Stevens spent much of his life as a professed Atheist, I think much of his poetry deals with the question of the existence of God, and by stating his case honestly, one sees hidden within the poetry the opposite case as well. Some have argued that "Sunday Morning" is the great atheistic paean. And yet the poetry is, as one would say, "Christ-Haunted." One gets the impression that "methinks the artist dost protest too much." That he struggles mightily to make his point only to fall back on ambiguity and uncertainty that ring with a certain theistic tone. The "Disillusionment at 10 O'Clock" appears to be about aesthetics (another obsession of Stevens's) but it can be read to being about the drabness of the world without the Divine Imagination. So truth will out if one is as honest as he or she could possibly be.

The second quality is accessibility. Geoffrey Hill may convert a PoMo, but the man on the street will take one look and answer with "Say what?" T.S. Eliot, in "Ash Wednesday", "Preludes", and "Prufrock" gives us a certain kind of accessibility and encouragement. Hopkins too, though he is quite difficult. Accessibility means the invitation to dine, not spoon-feeding. There must be something at the surface of the poem that is fundamentally attractive and which encourages the prospective convert to read the work. But the surface must not exhaust the purpose of the poem. It can't be a sing-songy rhyme that tells about how lovely are the daffodils and tulips scattered by the saint around the feet of God. A poem like that can work, but most often it becomes a Helen Steiner Rice catalog item.

The third quality is that the work must be literature. It must be much better written than the vast majority of the novels that are being issued from the Catholic Novel Mill. I take a glance and see that the work of Bud McFarlane has actually been given at least one and perhaps two awards for Catholic Writing and I am appalled. Perhaps if the award was for piety in print I would have less objection, but McFarlane's work needs work. The sentences are as sloppy as most of what I publish on this blog. When writing a blog, a certain amount of that is allowable, but when executing a novel it is an unforgivable sin. Catholic and Christian work needs to be judged by the same standards that are applied when one looks at any work of literature. If the work does not rise to that standard, it should be neither awarded nor exalted. There is no reason that a Catholic Writer cannot consistently produce the work of say a Ron Hansen or a Jon Hassler (at a minimum) or a Flannery O'Connor, Shusaku Endo, Graham Greene, or best of all an Evelyn Waugh. We no longer truly encourage writers of this sort. We award our awards to those who can be most "Catholic" or most overtly religious--not a good way to decide any artistic merit.

This is a start at thinking about what might go into poetry as evangelism. And in this impulse, it might be possible to reignite the epic impulse that too long has lain dead. Chesterton did write both "Lepanto" and "Ballad of the White Horse." I am not particularly fond of these as poetry--a trifle overcontrolled and stuffy (Chesterton's best work is by no means his poetry. On the other hand, Belloc had some truly wonderful light verse and some really fine poetry as well.) The Epic impulse requires a single eye, an unfragmented vision. And the only way that is available in the modern world is through a denial of the modernist/postmodernist influence through a solid base in the truth of Christianity.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:19 AM

October 28, 2002

Advice for Readers of Poetry and Scripture

I tried to post the following three times yesterday. I am sorry for the delay, but I am delighted that it appears I shall be able to post it this morning.

Wilfrid Stinissen is rapidly becoming my favorite guide to reading scripture contemplatively (in the more common sense of that word, and I hope eventually in the more narrow definition of the word). The following passage is just wonderful for understanding what it is to read poetry or Scripture.

from Nourished by the Word
Wilfrid Stinissen
It is typical of poetry, as for all art, that it appeals to the reader's (or observer's) creativity. A poem is no tract where the thoughts are already thought out and have received their definitive formulation. A poem opens a door, often several doors simultaneously, and readers themselves decide which way they choose and how far they will take it. It is, among other things, this combination of guidance and freedom which causes one to thrive in the domain of poetry. One feel respected and taken seriously. We ourselves get to think and interpret and associate, to be fellow creators ourselves.

This concerns also our company with God's word, which has breadth and manifold meanings that purely human words cannot cover. As one free child of God, I get to play in the Bible's paradise. I get to make the old text into a new song which corresponds to my personal experience, my present needs. I can be certain that God approves of this way of playing with the text: "Then I was beside him, like a master worker: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always" (Prov 8:30). When I do so, I attach myself to the Church's centuries long tradition. The Church Fathers read Scripture in this way and the Church does it in its official liturgy. It is truly not psychoanalysis which has invented the act of free association. The Church makes use of it with extreme virtuosity. (p. 56)

Admittedly, one must be very careful to make a distinction here between individual application (which subsequent passages show that Stinissen is talking about) and individualistic interpretation, which is dangerous and schismatic. Everyone has individual interpretations, but as Catholics, those interpretations are guided and ruled by the general teaching of the Church and held in line by our understanding of the Magisterium. The Church has spoken definitively on the interpretation of very few individual passages of Scripture, but we are guided by the various Pontifical Councils on the Bible to understand Scripture as the Church has understood it for two thousand years. So casting aside the possible reading of this passage as meaning run with whatever meaning you happen to get from reading scripture, we are left with application.

Harold Bloom, speaking of the great books, has a wonderful metaphor for this act of application. He refers to the great books as not so much being read as reading us. That is, when we are brought into contact with a great work of literature, we bring to it all that we are and all that we know. Our reaction to the book is more often what it says about us than what we read in it. This is multiply true of Scripture. When we read a passage, the Bible speaks to us where we are.

You have undoubtedly had the experience either of hearing in Church or of picking up and reading a passage from the Bible and saying, I never noticed that before. If you're noticing it now, pay attention--it probably has something to say to you right here, right now in your life. Application of Scripture, contra interpretation, is the act of realizing what is being spoken to you personally and putting it into action. For example at one time in your life you may have read, "Go and spread the Good News to all the lands." Now, we all know we are called to do this, but at one time you may have felt called to the Priesthood, or to some other vocation that would more directly bear on this verse. You may have been called to stand outside abortion clinics and pray, or called to help serve the St. Vincent de Paul Society, any number of possibilities. THAT is application, not interpretation. You hear the message and act upon it.

Stinissen concludes this magnificent chapter with the following observation, which I believe sums up the nature of personal application:

The playful, personal reading causes the Scripture to become a splendid and constant new instrument of the Spirit. The Spirit blows where it will (Jn 3:8), and if we are sensitive to his wind in our lives, he will show us unexpected and hidden meanings in the Scriptures, and reveal many secrets about who God is. (p. 59)

This sounds vaguely gnostic, but I think it is more along the lines of meeting a woman for the first time. You may have heard many talk of her, you know what she looks like, you may even know something of her quirks and habits. This correlates to a superficial acquaintance with Scripture. But, as you meet and continue to meet, and perhaps fall in love, you discover that your picture was only a small part of what there was to know about this person. I think this is the light in which to interpret Stinissen's statement about "hidden meanings" and "many secrets." They are open meanings and open secrets, anyone is welcome to partake of them, but few choose to do so because it requires application and the hard realization that the words of Scripture are intended for each of us.

I cannot recommend highly enough this slender book . It is only 118 pages long, but it is packed with wonderful insights and guides for helping us to understand scripture.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:41 AM

October 23, 2002

Jewels in the Reliquary I

Jewels in the Reliquary

I was thinking about prayer, dryness, and trials. Why is life so difficult for so many people? And why are there so many ways for life to be difficult? Why so many trials?

An analogy--we are all gems of God's creation--jewels in the rough. We are all significantly flawed as well. The flaw is different, just as each person is different. When a jewel cutter encounters a stone with a flaw there are two choices--recut the stone or discard it.

God will not willingly discard any stone. We choose that for ourselves. So the only alternative is that the stone must be recut. This requires work with hammer, chisel, saw, and grinder, depending on the type of stone. In addition, we resist the Stone Cutter, we vibrate, buck, and shift, so that He is constantly having to recut and reshape.

We will know when we get to heaven the extent of that recut by the size of the jewel that we are. Great saints who started early and ended quickly, St. Thérèse for example, are huge stones that put the Hope Diamond to shame. We are such that the diamonds in most women's wedding rings will be far larger than we.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:04 AM

October 21, 2002

From Rosarium Virginis Mariae One

From Rosarium Virginis Mariae

One thing I find interesting is a constant reference to what appears to be "course correction" or "focus" constantly uttered by the Popes to the faithful. In the course of this letter, there must be dozens of references to the Christological aspects of the Rosary. I'm certain all the readers of things like blogs have the "proper" focus when praying the Rosary. However, I know of people for whom that focus is not so clear, and for whom, in fact, the communion of the Saints is not terribly clear. When St. Teresa or St. Anthony obtains something for these people, one gets the impression that the given saint is granting some gift, no matter how carefully worded the petition. If this is rampant in the total communion of Saints, how much more true for that greatest of Saints. The reiteration of the Christological focus of the Rosary is an anodyne to many of the anxieties about it that come from converts from more evangelical or fundamentalist mentalities. While the Rosary opens the opportunity to see Christ through the eyes not only of a loving mother but of his Chief disciple and primary Apostle, it remains intently, narrowly focused on the Life , Mission, Death, and Glories of Jesus Christ.

With regard to the new mysteries of the Rosary, to put everyone at ease, article 19 clearly spells out the Pope's intent in promulgating these:

from Rosarium Virginis Mariae
His Holiness Pope John Paul II

I believe, however, that to bring out fully the Christological depth of the Rosary it would be suitable to make an addition to the traditional lpattern which, while left to the freedom of individuals and communities could broaden it to include the the mysteries of Christ's public ministry between his Baptism and his Passion.

(bold-face emphasis mine)

Thus, clearly delineated for even the most skeptical, our Pope makes clear he is offering new mysteries that do not have to be said. But I know that for me the proposed additions do precisely what the Pope would like them to do , "This addition of these new mysteries, without prejudice to any essential aspect of the prayer's traditional format, is meant to give it fresh life and to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary's place within Christian spirituality as a true doorway to depths of the Heart of Christ, ocean of joy and of light, of suffering and glory."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:35 AM

October 17, 2002

Being Who You Are in Christ

Sometimes we treat ourselves very poorly. We may do something foolish and then kick ourselves to next week and back. And to some extent that is a justifiable treatment. But not continuously, and not even if one learns nothing from the experience. And certainly not if it is for the wrong purpose.

All things need to be done in the Light of Jesus Christ. God created each one of us, unique, without match in all the world. And at that moment He had a plan and a purpose for us--a goal to which we could rise. He loved us into existence and loves us to the end of our Earthly lives and beyond. We can choose to follow His plan or our own. Whichever way we choose, He will weave what we do into His plan. But one way we will find happiness and ourselves, and the other way we will find only self-will.

No other person can do what God has for us to do. I cannot be St. Teresa, nor can I be Cardinal Mahony. I cannot be anything other than what I am. Thus, I am limited by what I am, and unlimited by what I can do through Christ. He wants each one of us to be a Saint--to be hope for someone who is in a very similar position. Most of us, in fact, are better encouragement than many saints, because we have lived lives that others can empathize with. I know that as my Carmelite group read Story of a Soul the comment kept coming up that "I couldn't be like that, look how holy she was at the age of four." True--you can't be like that, and the story of St. Therese is a little unearthly for most of us. We can't really empathize with that life. That is not to say that it isn't a profound inspiration and a profound blessing to all of us, but few of us spent our childhoods playing "Vow-of-Silence" Monks!

But take St. Augustine. Here is a saint I can empathize yet. And even in my mature years I find myself praying with him, "Lord make me chaste [I'd say Good] but not yet." Here is a man of passion of true human sympathies from the ground up--imperfect, headstrong, frustrating, in short someone we see when we look in the mirror. Some of us started life and are living lives as Therese (this concept boggles my mind--but I know it is true) the vast majority of us are more like Augustine. And being like Augustine in the modern world, we can offer more hope to those around us. They can see us rise from our merely human condition to become Human in God's eyes. It shows that such an ascent is possible for all. I think about Dorothy Day who, pregnant out-of-wedlock had an abortion and went on to become one a great saintly person (if not yet a Saint). Matt Talbot who spent much of his early life curled up in a bottle came by the strength (through God) to give it up and become another saintly person. Blessed (Venerable, St. ?) Charles Foucauld was reputed to be something of a playboy but he went on to be a Martyr. There are hundreds of examples of such people.

When we assume our identity in Christ, when we start to live that life of heroic virtue, our past life becomes a picture of hope for people in similar circumstances. When we rise above ourselves to assume the place God has for us in His plan, others can see that conquest of self is possible through Christ who strengthens us. Yes, lament your failures, your shortcomings, your own loses and stupidities, but embrace Him who loves you and share that sorrow. Become Who you are rather than remaining who you are. Assume your place in the body of Christ, with all your imperfections, flaws, and failures and let others know that there is hope for them. God has made you who and what you are for a specific mission. We will not see clearly the exact contours of that mission until we stand in His Presence. But trust Him and He will guide you in the paths that will make you what you must be--you can assume your identity in Christ.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:30 AM

October 16, 2002

I Am and Wish Always

I Am and Wish Always to be . . .

I am and wish always to be a true son of the Church. All that I say or do I wish to be in conformity with Her teachings. Where I stray, I pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit to bring me back. However, in all that I say, do, or otherwise make public, I wish always to express Her mind in the issue and I submit all matters of faith and morals to her judgments and humbly accept correction when and where necessary.

I love the Church. I think with the Church, but I am a broken, distant image of Him whom I would follow, and therefore I fail. I struggle with a great many things that the Church Teaches. But nothing in the centrality of the Creed or in the understanding of the hierarchy or teaching authority of the Church.

I like this expression far more than the one I posted before. I believe it to be truer, closer to the heart of the matter, and more personal. The Church is a Mother for me--I cannot bear to see those who would disgrace Her or tear Her down, be they revolutionaries or reactionaries. But being human, I struggle mightily with some of her teachings, to understand and accept them. These struggles are, however, my own. And to the best of my ability to do so, I would always state first and foremost what the Church teaches--it is sheer arrogance and pride to assume that in my span of years I could have accumulated sufficient knowledge to refute what she may teach. The Church is my teacher, in my immaturity, I struggle with some of what She teaches--but that is more a reflection on me that it is on the doctrines of the Church. And as I struggle, I pray I struggle toward truth and not toward self-will. To even begin to do this, I must defer my doubts to the wisdom of the teaching authority of the Church.

And I feel compelled to post even this much because so many would deny the teachings of the Bishops. It seems that every time they open their mouths someone is telling them to shut up. See one of the comments (you'll know the one) on this post at Disputations if you wonder whereof I speak. So, my apologies for the abortive and ultimately unsatisfactory attempt at definition this morning. This afternoon I say simply, I stand with my Bishops until such time as they teach out-and-out heresy (and I do not believe they [en masse] will ever do so.)

Later--Apologies Rereading this blog at a later time I realized that it could have been read to have accused the blogmaster at Disputations of holding some of the views I repudiate. That was not my intention and I hope the clarification above makes more clear what I was trying to say.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:10 PM

October 14, 2002

Vocation is a Vacation I

I hate motivational speaker lines, but I thought this one up myself as I was studying St. Thérèse, and it fits so well (if I do say so myself). Now of course, I am talking etymologically and not literally, but every vocation is in fact a call to vacation. And what primarily we must vacate is our notion of self and our self-centered universe.

We construct certain realities by the masks we wear--father, spouse, teacher, worker, boss, etc. Many of us are five or twenty-five people rolled into one. Not so with the Saints who truly sought after God. They were all, to a person, one person. They may have been bishops, teachers, wanderers, or wayfarers, or one after another of these. However, whatever they were, they belonged to Christ, and were marked by Christ in their authenticity. They did not need masks and had no time for the games that go with masks. St. Catherine of Siena went to the Pope in Avignon when told to do so and told him flat-out that he was wrong to remain where he was, period. No questions, no wiggle-room, just simply, "God says get your butt back to Rome, so what do you think you're doing?" Mother Teresa went to a national prayer breakfast and faced the greatest proponent of the slaughter of children since Herod himself with a speech about the evils of abortion--no punches pulled--just a straight out, "You are committing a great sin and an enormous crime." Unfortunately this saintly woman was not facing a person with the integrity of the Pope that St. Catherine went to see.

Vocation requires that we vacate to make room for God. And once God fills us up, there is no room for masks, pretences, or anything other than the lamp on a lampstand He wants each one of us to be.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 12:56 PM

Dealing with God

Sometimes, in fact more often than not, God seems some very distant figure--rather like a stage director in the tragedy or comedy of our lives. I know that I often suffer from this. When I am saying morning prayer and I'm feeling particularly dry, I imagine the words trailing up like smoke from a fire, taking an idle turn about Heaven and joining those much more grateful, robust strands of incense in the great Throneroom where certainly God can notice them, but does He? I often feel at a very great distance. And the reality is, of course, that I am, because I have placed myself there. I have chosen to be at a great distance for one reason or another that I may not even be aware of.

In the course of a day, or a week, or a month, I can and do move closer, or I should more properly say, I feel closer, because I could not possibly be closer. Because of my baptism and the grace of my confirmation I have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit that proceeds from the love of the Father and the Son for each other is part of my make-up. I may ignore Him, I may not turn a thought to Him at any time. I may choose some other substitute for Him. But He is there, and when I cannot pray, He is praying with groanings beyond human hearing.

But what about the feeling? I've always wondered about this, and it is a very difficult point. We humans place so much trust in feelings that change and transmute, are here today and gone five seconds later. We can plunge from ecstatic happiness to tears in a matter of moments. We can rise from the abyss (but that always seems to take a great deal longer). St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila teach us that feelings are another example of "consolations" in prayer. They are sometimes granted for the purposes of strengthening our resolve, but they are not to be sought after.

My preferred thinking about this feeling of closeness parallels the teaching of St. Thérèse of Lisieux on Love. While Love carries with it feelings of involvement, it is not primarily a feeling, it is a continual series of actions--it is a movement of the will that results in a movement of the person to action on part of the loved one. So too the feeling of closeness to God. We should not trust or rely upon feeling, it is deceptive and potentially destructive. Here we must trust our minds to allow the truth to trickle down to our hearts and change them. Whether we "feel" God's presence or not, we are told that He is present. It is a tenet of our faith that not only is He present, but He lives within us. And if we direct our attention to Him for a moment, we know it--we may not feel it, but we do know it in some way that transcends rational thought. Trust the knowing and forget the feeling. In this case the feelings may be manipulated by any number of factors. Loving God and feeling His presence, is an act of will that results in tangible actions toward those around us. It is something that should occupy our every waking moment. Loving God, who loves us enough to live within us despite conditions that would resemble deepest, darkest Detroit at our very best times, is the one key to life on Earth. Loving Him despite what we may feel about His distance or His lack of concern.

God is concerned about us. He does love us. And sometimes the love He shows us is harsh and difficult. We would prefer to live our own lives than the life of love of God. I think about St. Thérèse and the awfulness of the last 18 months of her life--the terrible darkness in which she lived, uncertain even of the existence of God, and yet, in some mysterious way, never doubting and never ceasing her enormous love for Him. l so much so that her dying words, "O How I Love Him," still resound in the miracles she performs and in the immediacy with which she seems to attend each person who earnestly implores her assistance.

Closeness to God is a reality. Our feelings are untrustworthy. As Scrooge says to Marley regarding why he does not trust his senses, "A little thing can disturb them. You could be a bit of undigested beef or a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you." So too our feelings about God--they are moved by little motions within us--fear and anger are the principle currents that drive how close we feel. We cannot control our emotions, or if we do so they may ultimately turn on us anyway, but we can balance the emotional sense of things with the reality that we face over and over when we open the Bible. We are "the apple of His eye," we are "written on the palm of His hand." We are the people of John 3:16--"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth on Him should not die but should have life everlasting." When our feelings get in the way, we need to retreat, even if only momentarily, to reality.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:01 AM

October 10, 2002

Grasping the Truth

I sometimes wonder why we all seem to be so poorly configured for grasping the truth. Why is it that we are so easily led astray? Why do we not focus on what really matters? Why are we always so distant from the Truth our hearts tell us?

I have thought of two comparisons. Many of us think we are mature. What we are, in fact, is aging. Jesus said, speaking of children, that "Unless you come unto me as one of these little ones, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." I used to view that as a nearly impossible task, having an attitude similar to Nicodemus' when facing the concept of needing to be born again. But now I wonder if Jesus might not have simply been putting things in a very gentle way for us. What I see Him as saying now is, "Look, you can't see it, because your eyes do not see the truth, but every one of you is like these children. You may be adults in body, but in spirit, forget it." In other words, we have no choice but to come unto Him as a Child, because despite our vast knowledge, we keep our eyes and spirits so closed that they do not grow. We are spiritually two-year-olds--most of us.

That is why a Mother Teresa or a Padre Pio seems such a marvel. They've grown beyond the age of two, and they're showing us what has always been there. Think about the way a two- or three- year-old regards their parents. I know my own little boy says to me, "You're my best hero." (Touching the way they express affection--even if ultimately unsupportable--it does make you want to try to live up to that expectation). We look at a Mother Teresa and Padre Pio and we gawp. They are magicians, pulling rabbits out of hats and making people disappear. When, in fact, they simply allowed themselves to be led by grace and to mature. They live in a different realm from the rest of us, because they have entered the Kingdom of God here on Earth. As Jesus told us, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." That means within reach, here and now. Most of us never grow to where we can see the entrance. The great saints have done so, and they constantly try to show us the way. But then, try showing a two-year-old much of anything.

The second analogy I came up with is that we are autistics, but I would call us culpable autistics. An autistic person cannot screen out the figure from the ground in terms of signal. Every impulse has equal importance. A dust mote floating in a beam of light is as significant as a mother's hand. There is no way to filter the sensory data. We have chosen this mode of life. We blind ourselves with the numerous things of the world--the scandals at hand, the improper actions of our brothers and sisters, our new home, our new car, the baseball game, Dharma and Greg, what brand of beer we drink, what kind of food we eat, the clothes we wear. We pay attention to every trivial detail of our lives, and yet we pay no or little attention to those details most important. How am I reflecting God to others? Where do I stand in my prayer life? Do I love my brothers and sisters as I love myself? Do I love God first and foremost, above all and in all? Do I really seek time to pray, or do I flee prayer? We are unable to screen out these motes, from the hand of the Father that beckons us to enter the Kingdom, the door to which is Jesus Christ.

We choose this life, in one sense. We are like Peter Pan's--or worse, like Oskar Matzerath, the vaguely malignant eternal three-year-old of Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum. We refuse to grow up, and we impose this expectation on others, often holding them back. It takes a saint to buck the crowd and to grow despite pressure to stay. It takes courage to walk through the door that is Christ and to live on the other side. It also takes the realization that we are not doing it. We need to drop the lip service and begin the real service. We need to turn to Christ and to not seek out the imperfections of others, but to work with Jesus on resolving our own so that we may help others to see the Door and walk through to new and glorious life.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:18 AM

October 7, 2002

Poem du Jour

Not a spectacular poem, but a nice introduction to what may become a theme for the next few days as I read Fr. Thomas Dubay's superb book, Happy Are You Poor. Holy Poverty is, in a sense, the ideal tonic for nearly all that ails me spiritually. And it has consistently been a calling that I stubbornly resist. Perhaps because I don't understand it, or perhaps because I undertstand it all too well. Anyway, we draw up the curtain on the theme with this poem by Evelyn Underwood, noted writer on spirituality and particularly Mysticism.

The Lady Poverty
Evelyn Underhill

I MET her on the Umbrian hills,
Her hair unbound, her feet unshod:
As one whom secret glory fills
She walked, alone with God.

I met her in the city street:
Oh, changed was all her aspect then!
With heavy eyes and weary feet
She walked alone, with men.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:29 AM

October 1, 2002

Blog and Learn--The Merits of Detachment

Unlike many people I know in the blogworld, at least according to their own reports, I tend to be a nicer person here than in reality (at least I hope that is true). I don't often answer people in the white heat of anger--I may start, but before I send anything, I very carefully consider it and usually delete one or two responses before I actually post anything. (Except when I'm talking about literature, and I doubt seriously anything I might say about poetry is likely to provoke enormous reaction.) I thought to myself, why do I have this restraint on the blogs and not in real life. The answer is two fold--part on it is that the answer or response need not be in real time. I don't have to answer every comment immediately or even at all.

The second reason is by far more important--I am detached from what happens on the blogs. I care about many people, surprisingly intensely considering my real lack of knowledge, but I don't need to control them. I don't need for them to do as I say. My identity is not wrapped up in whether Mr. X or Ms. Y follows my advice. I can advise and let it go. The person being advised can listen or ignore as the spirit leads them, and all is well. At home however, much is wrapped up in my identity as husband, father, coworker. I need to make this impression or that. I have to have validation from all and sundry. In short, I am terribly attached. As a result everyone around me suffers. I need to let go of that attachment. I need to break free from the need to identify myself in others (the Sartreesque "hell is other people") and identify myself only in God. I need to claim my identity in Christ wholly and to have that identity at all times in every place. I hope and pray that my conduct here is more indicative of what that identity in Christ is likely to be, because otherwise, I would be quite likely to be one of the "sour saints" that St. Teresa prays for deliverance from.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:21 PM

September 5, 2002

Mere Surfaces and Sensations

or What Would You Expect from a Carmelite Follower of St. John of the Cross? :-) [Do these blogs have smileys?]
Luis remarks in the comment box below:

We need not apologize that we have a body or throw away its usefulness in pointing to THE Beauty. Just as creation points to our God, let our churches do so, while understanding of course that beauty is in the eye of the beholder to some extent.

My thanks to Luis who has given me the chance and the impetus to clarify my thoughts. I just realized looking over the original what I seem to saying is not what I intended. I was trying to gently say that it is perhaps better not to criticize buildings that do not suit our taste. I apologize for the misunderstanding. Obviously the original context and the language caused me to be overly vague. I do not think that everything should be ugly to accentuate worship, and reading my post, it certainly does sound like that was what I was saying. Once again, my apologies form misspeaking. My point here is a good deal more subtle than the overly blunt language makes it. I was trying, without faulting anyone, to say that we do everyone a disservice when we emphasize aesthetics over Real Presence. Many people are stuck with the Church they have, there is no real viable alternative for them. How are they helped if their Church is held up as an example of an "unfortunate Church?"

There is absolutely nothing wrong with beauty in a worship space. There is nothing wrong with building beautiful churches. I do, however, find something wrong with posting pictures of "unfortunate churches" or "ugly churches." Comments on the aesthetic merit of any edifice can potentially distract the faithful from the most beautiful thing of all--what happens within the building. Beauty is wonderful if it is available, but if not, do we build up the Body of Christ by pointing out how ugly we deem the Church some must go to?

Thanks to Luis and my anonymous poster for pointing out how much my previous post had missed the real point I was trying to make. I do not think, however that I will change either the post below nor the one on Ms. Welborn's blog, as I don't really want to criticize anyone in so many words. I just abjure all to remember that every such comment does potential damage to large numbers of people, and it isn't really worth it.

(On the other hand, I stand by the orginal post. St. John of the Cross teaches that a thing is good insofar as it leads to God and that even a very good, very holy, very religious thing becomes destructive when it stands in the way of our progress toward union. If the appearance of a Church becomes a true impediment to Union with Jesus Christ, it is time to examine priorities. But then--I am a Carmelite and not everyone follows the same way--it is a distinctive mark of Carmelite Spirituality. God Bless you all!)

Posted by Steven Riddle at 4:41 PM

August 18, 2002

The Moral Lessons of Baby Jane

Sometimes cinema gets it right--more often in the past than in the present. I was writing this morning and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? happened to be the television. Whatever you may think of the movie, it is a powerful demonstration, in miniature, of what happens when we are determined to have our own way in things.

Every major character in this movie is manipulative. They push and attempt to control each other. Baby Jane has complete control over her sister Blanche who has manipulated the accident that confined her in a wheel chair--an attempt gone wrong to murder or injure Baby Jane, whose youthful success destroyed Blanche's childhood. Disagreement builds on disagreement, resentment on resentment. "Build on" is the wrong verb. "Erodes the foundation" is probably better.

The entire house of humanity is built on such sand--bitterness, resentment, revenge. We hold petty grudges and we allow them to simmer long enough to become obsessions and hallmarks of our lives. If we drop our masks of civility for a moment, we could not look in the mirror for the horrors we are.

Jesus Christ is the one way to root out these evils. There is no other way. We have the choice of lives that devolve into progressively more vile schemes of vengence and "getting mine back," or ascending with Jesus Christ as our help and mainstay. Most of us choose a path that alternates between these two strains--but how much better off we would be if we could clear our eyes and minds for just a moment and see where the one path leads. How much better if we would sense our own frustrations, aggravations, hurts, and pains, and give them over to our yoke-mate, the great Burden-bearer. Jesus died so that we would not have to carry these weights and so that others would not have to suffer because we were crushed to the ground under them. Wouldn't it be best if we would let Him do what He came to do, so that we would be free to be human?

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:36 AM

The Journal of John Woolman

Among the great classics of religious literature is this remarkable, slim volume. Written by a prerevolutionary Quaker, it is the story of a man who felt drawn to give up nearly all of his material goods in order to follow God. It is also a kind of window into a discussion that was very prominent in the founding of our republic--the evils of slavery. This excerpt comes from the record of a journey undertaken in 1746.

Excerpt from Woolman's Journal Two things were remarkable to me in this journey: first, in regard to my entertainment. When I ate, drank, and lodged free-cost with people who lived in ease on the hard labour of their slaves, I felt uneasy; and as my mind was inward to the Lord, I found this uneasiness return upon me, at times, through the whole visit. Where the masters bore a good share of the burden, and lived frugally, so that their servants were well provided for, and their labour moderate, I felt more easy; but where they lived in a costly way, and laid heavy burdens on their slaves, my exercise was often great, and I frequently had conversation with them in private concerning it. Secondly, this trade of importing slaves from their native country being much encouraged amongst them, and the white people and their children so generally living without much labour, was frequently the subject of my serious thoughts. I saw in these southern provinces so many vices and corruptions, increased by this trade and this way of life, that it appeared to me as a dark gloominess hanging over the land; and though now many willingly run into it, yet in future the consequence will be grievous to posterity. I express it as it hath appeared to me, not once nor twice, but as a matter fixed on my mind.

Joseph Ellis, in Founding Brothers, chronicles further evidence of this underlying opposition. The chapter entitled "The Silence" talks about a very early move toward abolition, proposed, once again by Quakers, in the 1790s.

True humility, true Christianity, means an uncompromising grappling with the present and obvious evils of this world. It means a deep self-knowledge that helps to understand that the evils we see around us are often exacerbated by our own actions. It also means taking definitive action, no matter how small, to help right some of these wrongs.

But true Christianity stems from a relationship with God. Such a relationship starts in prayer, continues in prayer, grows in prayer, and ultimately ends in prayer. And prayer itself grows, it grows from an endless listing of our needs and wants, into a meditative, voiceless prayer, and finally into a prayer of waiting on the Lord.

Too often, we do not pursue this track of growth. Too often, the riches of prayer are left unexplored. Too often our sense of God is confined to a place or event. Too often we deprive ourselves of the sense that God is everywhere and in everything. Too often, it seems, we are afraid to grow. We need to find our security and stability by holding onto the goods of this world. In so doing we limit our progress in prayer. St. Ignatius said (I paraphrase) that we should use the goods of this world insofar as they move us toward God. Once such goods begin to inhibit our progress, we need to cast them off.

John Woolman is an example of a non-Catholic Christian who followed this ancient, well-established path to closeness with God. If more of us did the same here and now we could change the world in prayer. We could serve as beautiful beacons of light and true receptacles of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer is God's perfect gift of communication. He is always listening, always ready to hear from His children. He is always eager to hear from us and to send us many gifts of His love.

As the saints are our models in living, they are also our models in prayer. When we imitate their exterior actions without interior preparation, we may do good works, but we do not do perfect works. And perfect works are what God is after. Our growth in perfection is the life of the world in God. It is our contribution to making the kingdom of heaven present on Earth. This closeness to God is a gift open to all of God's people here on Earth. Not all achieve it in the same way or to the same degree; but, it is in achieving it that we in some small way fulfill Christ's commission to us to go and spread the gospel to all the world. The only way to spread the gospel is in Union with God and in perfect love for all the people around us. God doesn't expect perfection overnight, but He does expect that we would work toward this perfection. As an ardent Lover, God expects that we would delight in returning the myriad gentle signs of His love.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:08 AM

August 12, 2002

The Prayer of Silence

Different book this time:

Meditations Before Mass Romano Guardini

Stillness is the tranquility of the inner life; the quiet at the depths of its hidden stream. It is a collected, total presence, a being "all there," receptive, alert, ready. There is nothing inert or oppressive about it. . . .

"Congregation," not merely people. Churchgoers arriving, sitting, or kneeling in pews are not necessarily a congregation; they can be simply a roomful of more or less pious individuals. Congregation is formed only when those individuals are present not only corporally but also spiritually, when they have contacted one another in prayer and step together into the spiritual "space" around them; strictly speaking, when they have first widened and heightened that space by prayer. Then true congregation comes into being, which, along with the building that is its architectural expression, forms the vital church in which the sacred act is accomplished. All this takes place only in stillness; out of stillness grows the real sanctuary.

While this is undoubtedly true of mass (and one of the reasons I tend to impatience for people who wander in with a hale-fellow-well-met attitude) it is doubly true of all prayer. Prayer is encased in a house of silence. Outside of silence, prayer becomes just more roaring against the sound of the rushing wind of culture. That is not to say that God does not hear it, because of course He does. However, it is not the kind of praise that rises like an incense to the throne of heaven.

For prayer to be truly pleasing to God it must be of the sort that makes one completely present to God. Such prayer is not acquired in the short run, and ultimately its final stage is not acquired at all. However, one must dispose oneself to receive the gift of infused contemplation. One of the ways of doing so is to practice this "prayer of silence." In addition, the prayer offers the person praying innumerable benefits stemming from a "mental vacation from the world." It "recharges the batteries" and makes one more capable of coping with what occurs in everyday life. It helps one to experience the presence of God in all of life's activities. It helps one to empty oneself to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In short, it opens the doors to greater levels of prayer..

But it isn't easy, and it isn't a short road. It may take years, perhaps decades. But, as with the bloom of the Century Plant, it is both spectacular and worth waiting for. In the prayer of silence, we take the first steps toward becoming like our grand model of prayer, the Holy Mother of God. We learn to "ponder these things in our hearts" and to derive from them great joy and peace. The prayer of silence, it would seem to me, is one of the most effective tools on the road to lifestyle evangelism because it causes a fundamental change in the person who is doing it consistently. From agitated and worried to peaceful and trusting, the prayer of silence changes lives.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:34 AM

August 11, 2002

Reading Pascal

Many seem to experience the same thing as John notes below:

I first heard of Pascal and his Pensees a long time ago when learned about "Pascal's Wager" from this book. I tried to read it, but my say that this "average Catholic guy" was a bit intimidated by the high-falutin' language and put it back down. Yet, I think I'll give it another go.

Pensees can be extremely difficult for a couple of reasons. The language (depending on the translation) can be extremely difficult. More than that, Pensees is a series of largely disconnected thoughts. There doesn't seem to be much structure to it. For this, I highly recommend Peter Kreeft's rearrangement of the material Christianity for Modern Pagans. Kreeft deftly edits the material to make a more-or-less coherent flow-through. If I remember correctly, Kreeft adds some insightful comments after either each Pensee or each group. Unfortunately, I think it may be a sllightly abridged version. But as with his Summa of the Summa it makes for a brief, coherent, introductory presentation.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:25 AM

August 5, 2002

John Bunyan Revisited

Disputations today has a brief column (see 11:02) regarding the necessity of saving your own soul before you proceed to that of others. This immediately put me in mind of A Pilgrim's Progress in which Christian is advised likewise. Once might also consider that Jesus kind of advised the same thing "Take the beam from out thine own eye before thou regardest the mote in thy brother's." There are other places where such advice is made explicit as well. Looking to your own salvation is the only way to help show someone the path to his or her own.

Now, admittedly, this can become toxic and obsessive. We could be so controlled by worrying about our salvation that we find ourselves incapable of acting. It becomes morbid. However, it is a good idea to be certain you are at least aware of the path you should be walking (even if you aren't doing a particularly good job of it) before you try showing others the way they should be going.

Even though it is a work of Puritanism at its height, a Pilgrim's Progress is worth a look--even if only to better understand Lewis's A Pilgrim's Regress.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 4:54 PM

The Beauty of the Saints

God has made powerful provision for all his people in the person of His saints. There seems to be a saint for every person and temperament. What is more, we have images from the lives of saints that, while the saint may or may not appeal, the moment speaks to us.

St. Alphonsus Liguori was a prolific writer and among the things presented to the world is a magnificent compendium The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ. Naturally, the lives of saints makes up only a portion of the work. But here is a excerpt that really spoke to me:

Similarly Saint Mary Magdalen de Pazzi, when she held any beautiful flower in her hand, felt herself on fire with love for God, and she would say: "Then God has thought from all eternity of creating this flower for love of me." Thus that flower became, as it were, a dart of love, which sweetly wounded her, and brought her closer to God.

The saints are so steeped in prayer that they are able to show us the world anew. In their innocence of vision they strip away some of the illusions that we have built up about ourselves and the world. Who among us would look upon a flower and conclude that God in His love had made that flower particularly and especially for us at that moment in time? One of our prayers should be to be able to see things as they are--to be able to rip through illusion and see God's particular love and care for us.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:49 AM

August 4, 2002

Memento Mori

Memento Mori

Long called Venerable, St. Bede offers this brief reflection on the four last things:

Bede's Death Song
from The Venerable Bede (673-735)
Fore there neidfaerae naenig uuiurthit
thoncsnotturra than him tharf sie
to ymbhycggannae aer his hiniongae
huaet his gastae godaes aeththa yflaes
aefter deothdaege doemid uueorthae.

[Loose Translation:
Before the inevitable journey there is no one
wiser than him who, knowing his need,
ponders, before his journey,
what good and evil within his soul,
after his death, will be judged.]

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:33 AM

Jean Pierre de Caussade: Teacher of Prayer

Jean Pierre de Caussade is a great teacher of silent prayer and a more complex and, perhaps, subtle expositor of the "Practice of the Presence of God," as conceived by Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection. Many have accused de Caussade of Quietism, but over the years that accusation has been addressed and disproved. What de Caussade teaches is not fatalistic resignation, but enthusiastic conformity to God's will.

Perfection consists in doing the will of God, not in understanding His designs.

The designs of God, the good pleasure of God, the will of God, the operation of God and the gift of His grace are all one and the same thing in the spiritual life. It is God working in the soul to make it like unto Himself. Perfection is neither more nor less than the faithful co-operation of the soul with this work of God, and is begun, grows, and is consummated in the soul unperceived and in secret. The science of theology is full of theories and explanations of the wonders of this state in each soul according to its capacity. One may be conversant with all these speculations, speak and write about them admirably, instruct others and guide souls; yet, if these theories are only in the mind, one is, compared with those who, without any knowledge of these theories, receive the meaning of the designs of God and do His holy will, like a sick physician compared to simple people in perfect health.

There seems to be a certain stream of anti-intellectualism here, but I think it is only seeming. De Caussade, as with any good Christian, does not encourage merely intellectual assent, but actual action based on what is called for in the present moment. His theory, which I believe to be correct, is that understanding the reasons of God is not nearly so important as willingly doing those things that God requests.

Perfection is not perfection of intellect, rather a perfection of duty and activity, even if that activity consists in sitting at Jesus' feet.

The soul that does not attach itself solely to the will of God will find neither satisfaction nor sanctification in any other means however excellent by which it may attempt to gain them. If that which God Himself chooses for you does not content you, from whom do you expect to obtain what you desire? If you are disgusted with the meat prepared for you by the divine will itself, what food would not be insipid to so depraved a taste? No soul can be really nourished, fortified, purified, enriched, and sanctified except in fulfilling the duties of the present moment. What more would you have? As in this you can find all good, why seek it elsewhere? Do you know better than God? As he ordains it thus why do you desire it differently? Can His wisdom and goodness be deceived? When you find something to be in accordance with this divine wisdom and goodness ought you not to conclude that it must needs be excellent? Do you imagine you will find peace in resisting the Almighty? Is it not, on the contrary, this resistance which we too often continue without owning it even to ourselves which is the cause of all our troubles?

And I think the wisdom of this passage is apparent without going into any detail. Those who would resist God's love, God's Teaching through His Church, and God's infinite outreach, resist peace itself. They struggle to upset their own peace, thinking it merely complacency, and having dragged themselves out of it, think it their duty to drag everyone else out as well. Such are the dissenters, the supposed intellectual heroes of the resistance movement, who abandoning God's peace, choose peace only on their own terms. To them, I simply ask the question presented in the second sentence above, "If God's will is not good enough, what will you find that is?"

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:18 AM

August 3, 2002

Father Augustine Baker: One of the Great English Martyrs

And a little known teacher of prayer. His works are still in the sometimes tortured prose of the seventeenth century, but what he has to say holds true now as then.

1. IT was only infinite goodness that moved Almighty God to create the world of nothing, and particularly in this inferior visible world, to create man after His own image and similitude, consisting of a frail earthly body, which is the prison of an immortal, intellectual spirit, to the end that by his understanding, which is capable of an unlimited knowledge, and by his will, which cannot be replenished with any object of goodness less than infinite, he might so govern and order himself, and all other visible creatures, as thereby to arrive unto the end for which he was made, to wit, eternal beatitude both in soul and body in heaven, the which consists in a returning to the divine principle front whom he flowed, and an inconceivably happy union with Him, both in mind, contemplating eternally His infinite perfections, and in will and affections eternally loving, admiring, and enjoying the said perfections.

2. Now to the end that man might not (except by his own free, and willful choice of misery) fail from attaining to the only universal end of his creation, God was pleased to the natural vast capacity of man's understanding and will to add a supernatural light, illustrating his mind to believe and know Him, and divine charity in the will, which was as it were a weight to incline and draw the soul, without any defect or interruption to love God, and Him only. So that by a continual presence of this light, and an uninterrupted exercise of this love, the soul of man would in time have attained to such a measure of perfection of union with God in this world, as without dying to merit a translation from hence to heaven, there eternally to enjoy a far more incomprehensibly perfect and beatifying union with God.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:29 AM

William Law: A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

A wonderful and little know book. Even Edward Gibbon, not known for his Christian sympathies, liked and admired William Law. So much so, in fact, that he made Law tutor to his children.

DEVOTION is neither private nor public prayer; but prayers, whether private or public, are particular parts or instances of devotion. Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God.

He, therefore, is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life parts of piety, by doing everything in the Name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to His glory.

We readily acknowledge, that God alone is to be the rule and measure of our prayers; that in them we are to look wholly unto Him, and act wholly for Him; that we are only to pray in such a manner, for such things, and such ends, as are suitable to His glory.

For the full text go here.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:01 AM

August 2, 2002

More about the Rosary

I must first say that I find much of what goes on at Disputations is well beyond my immediate ken. But I profoundly admire the spirituality and understanding that seems to come from the site. Continuing an extremely fruitful strain on the Rosary:

The goal of the Christian life is perfection in Christ. Praying the Rosary is a tremendously effective aid to achieving this goal, but it doesn't work by magic. If it is not helping you to become perfect in Christ -- although, as I've written before, it takes some time and effort to be sure about this -- then don't pray it.

Insight like this will keep me going back to Disputations even when posts like this make my head spin:

St. Thomas Aquinas, taking up the question of whether contemplation is the cause of devotion, considers this objection:

[I]f contemplation were the proper and essential cause of devotion, the higher objects of contemplation would arouse greater devotion. But the contrary is the case: since frequently we are urged to greater devotion by considering Christ's Passion and other mysteries of His humanity than by considering the greatness of His Godhead.

Yes, I know, it's merely a matter of applying myself. But I must confess a certain sympathy for the woman described in Chesterton's biography, St. Thomas Aquinas:

A lady I know picked up a book of selections from St. Thomas with a commentary; and began hopefully to read a section with the innocent heading, "The Simplicity of God." She then laid down the book with a sigh and said, "Well, if that's His simplicity, I wonder what His complexity is like."

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:39 PM

Art and God

In a comment to a post on the Catholic Novel Dylan comments:

TS O'Rama has raised the question of whether loyalty to art & loyalty to God is a zero-sum game. We can't serve them both with equal fervour. Hmm. I know what he's getting at: we can't make art equal in valence to God, but I don't think it's a zero-sum game. Neither does (if we can judge from his Letter to Artists) Papa.

No, it isn't a zero-sum game because, if one approaches the whole thing correctly one serves God through one's art. It isn't as though one is loyal to one's art in opposition to God--after all, beauty comes from God. The properly aligned Christian artist regards his art as a gift given and returned to God. God expects artists to use their talents to better humankind. (I direct your attention to the parable of the three servants and the "talents"). Art can become an object of worship, but a proper orientation toward art views it as a means of expressing relationship with the Creator. I do not "worship" a Monet for the art, but I am brought a "momentary taste of being from the well amid the waste" in the medium of the Creator-inspired piece of art. Thus "Impression Sunrise" isn't about a canvas but about the supreme artistic vision given by God to one of his creatures to convey to the whole world.

I look at examples like C. S. Lewis and other writers who dedicated much of their writing to the exaltation of the Creator. This is what Art is about. Art is a medium, not an end. It's products are humanly made, often divinely infused creations. They are, at their best, participations with the Creator God in the act of creation.

As a result, works that are not overtly Christian can be read by Christians to their own great profit. For example, the Drayton Sonnet I placed here at the beginning of the day is not overtly Christian, but it can be read by Christians in a way that brings them closer to God. This is because Art is a good given by the Creator for the benefit of His creation. It is good inasmuch as it reveals Him to those who are looking. It is worthwhile inasmuch as it improves the devotional life of those who look upon it.

No, properly construed art is not an end, but it is a means of serving the Creator.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:22 PM

August 1, 2002

Welcoming Poem--"To My Dear and Loving Husband"

Even later at the computer today than yesterday, so I'm confined to a single poem and comment. Here we go:

To My Dear and Loving Husband
Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Some poems speak from beauty of language. Some speak from the beauty of the thought. I love this poem because it surely captures what the Sacrament of Matrimony is about in the Earthly realm, and even provides a glimpse of its continuation. It also is very adept at quoting scripture without quoting. Finally, it certainly puts the lie to what many of us have misconstrued as the Puritan view of life.

But I am fortunate enough to say with Anne Bradstreet about my own lovely wife, 'If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were lov'd by wife, then me." It is my hope that I can make the rest of the poem true for her!

Good morning all, and God Bless.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:50 AM

July 31, 2002

Evangelizing the Culture

Evangelizing the Culture

Once again Video Meliora provides food for thought. (Yes, I will get around to the promised post on the Catholic Novel, just be patient, I'm creeping up on it.--O wait, you will already have read it by the time you get to this point on the page--oops!)

Anyway, TS at Video says,

I suppose I am still thinking along the lines of Amy Welborn's question of how to evangelize the culture and how art could play a role.

And that's what I want to address. Art is art--sometimes it affects people, sometimes it does not. You could read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and not get any impression whatsoever of grace. In fact, my first several trips through Flannery O'Connor, I missed, as my good friend would say, "All the novelistic signposts." Art, it seems to me, is for preaching to the converted--something which must be done, but which makes more sense when you're on the inside.

If we are to evangelize the culture, it seems to me we must do so first and foremost by example. I have a young child at home. Those of you with young children know that you can talk until you turn blue in the face, but the child is going to do what he sees you do. Our culture is much the same. You can preach, you can yell, you can jump up and down until you turn blue in the face, but if you are not living a life of holiness, nothing you say will take root.

Seems to me that a wise Man once said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you." In other words, to evangelize we must first and foremost change our own lives. We must abandon the common recreations of the culture that detract from our thoughts of God, and we must live a life of such peace and beauty in the presence of God that everyone around us says, "I've gotta have that!"

Prayer and lifestyle are our primary evangelical tools. Unless and Until we turn around our own lives--the examples shown to others, we waste our time evangelizing. I always wondered what beet-faced bible thumpers thought they were doing. You may effect a conversion, but like the conversion experienced by Stephen Daedalus after the "fire and brimstone" sermon, it will be short lived. Conversions through anger, fear, or any of a myriad of emotions, are like the seed that lands in shallow soil. It is the soil of a moment and once the moment fades, the roots of the plant dry up and faith vanishes.

True conversion, true evangelization occurs when everyone can see the difference in your own life. When you are having fun with your wife and child so that you do not retreat to the questionable solace of "Sex in the City" or other programs I am appalled to discover many parishioners of St. Blogs seem to revel in. Oh well, perhaps I am missing out and I have too many of my own skeletons rattling about to cast stones.

St. John of the Cross tells us that the key to approaching God is detachment from all worldly things that keep us from Him. To my mind, this detachment is the beginning of evangelization. Through it we obtain a certain measure of peace and calm and become a center of quiet in a world full of disturbing eddies.

In honor of St. Ignatius Loyola, we should consider his instructions from the beginning of The Spiritual Exercises

The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created.

Hence, man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he must rid himself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to him. (p. 12)

[Taken from The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola ed. by Louis J. Puhl. Loyola University Press.]

After all of this, I guess part of my answer is that we evangelize the culture one person at a time through personal holiness, prayer, and example.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:01 PM

Not Subject to Disputation

To fall back on the language of my fundamentalist protestant days, I was profoundly moved and convicted by this wonderful post at the Disputations site.

I am convinced that what he says is probably true, but to expose a dark side of my prayer life, I regard the rosary as a onerous penance--doing a single decade is, for me, like trampling through a lake of liquid lead. Others I know have enormous transports of joy, or whiz through fifteen decades without even knowing they prayed. But for me I find no such "surcease of sorrow" in it. Nevertheless, it is good to do penance as well. I prefer other Marian devotions--the prayer of St. Louis de Montfort, and the Consecration to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. But, as with all things, the Lord will work with me on this as well, and it will be as He wills. (Praise Him for that!)

Posted by Steven Riddle at 6:15 PM

July 30, 2002

Protestant Divines

Protestant Divines

I never fail to be amazed and amused at the various protestant divines and protestants themselves, who while railing at the Catholic Church, continually rediscover much of what had been in her treasury for millenia. I do not know that Richard Baxter did much, if any, railing. But, I share below some excerpts from a slightly modernized sermon-- "How to Spend the Day with God"

Do not let worthless recreations, television, idle talk, unprofitable company, or sleep rob you of your precious time.

Whatever you are doing, in company or alone, do it all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Otherwise, it is unacceptable to God.

Remember every day the special duties of various relationships: whether as husbands, wives, children, masters, servants, pastors, people, magistrates, subjects.

Remember every relationship has its special duty and its advantage for the doing of some good. God requires your faithfulness in this matter as well as in any other duty.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:42 AM

July 29, 2002

Dolan's Image:Jesus as a Baby

Dolan's Image:Jesus as a Baby

I Hope This Is Indicative of What We Can Expect from Milwaukee!"

The newly appointed Bishop of Milwaukee, Timothy Dolan, delivered a catechesis on Reconciliation to the WYD crowd. Among the remarks quoted:

"God comes as a baby, because babies are irresistible," Dolan said. "And God wants us to take him up and welcome him into our arms like a baby."

While the image is an inverse of St. Therese of Lisieux's "Elevator to God," it is, nevertheless an extremely appealing image. And we should recall that St. Therese was St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.

At a shrine near where I live (Mary, Queen of the Universe) there are several statues that show the Child Jesus. One of the most touching is Jesus at age 3 or 4 running toward his Mother's open arms. How could you not pick up such a child and carry him with you? Is there anything more endearing than a child telling you, "I love you"? I suppose this is why the image appeals to me. Often enough we are told that Jesus loves each of us, and sometimes, particularly as a male in society, that is a difficult message to hear. But what father cannot hear that message from their own child? So if we take Jesus up as a baby, as a toddler, as a child, we still have the Son of God, we still have our Brother and our Lord. But perhaps we have an image that can help foster a greater intimacy.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:42 AM

July 28, 2002

Gary Wills Redux

Gary Wills Redux

I know that I am coming in late on this, but I normally don't like to comment much on controversy--I find it makes me exceedingly irritable and not particularly charitable. However, I happened on this article over at Emily Stimpson's blog and was so profoundly annoyed by some of Mr. Wills's comments that I needed to note at least one glaring stupidity. This quote, ". . . and it's also obvious that loyalty to the papacy has been made the test of what makes you a Catholic," must stand as the archicon of idiocy. Whether or not Mr. Wills cares for the point, loyalty to the Pope and to his teachings is, in fact, part of what distinguishes Catholics from every other faith. I will grant that it is not the entirety of the difference; however, if you have the entire doctrine of the Catholic Church without loyalty to the Pope, you are either Anglican of some variety or some other faith--you simply are not Catholic. The Catholic Church, founded by Jesus Christ upon the Rock (St. Peter) is defined by having a single head who speaks with authority for the whole body. Remove the head, and you don't have a church; you have a headless body. Now, how Wills, a purportedly intelligent man, can come up with such a profound piece of religious blinkered thinking, I don't care to speculate. But I do say, that without loyalty to Rome and to the Pope, you cannot be Catholic.

I will go further to say that surely in the course of your investigations, you may come upon things that don't fit right, that you have doubts about. I think doubts offer an opportunity for growth, if approached properly. Where there is doubt, it is best to approach with the idea of finding the truth, not supporting an agenda. Mr. Wills seems to have cast this aside. As with many supposedly informed and intelligent modernists, he has be blindsided by the world and secular society into believing that his vision of the Church is indeed the church. If you stop to consider (after you get over the aggravation) this is sad situation, one requiring more prayer than fury. People who belong to this distorted church miss the fullness of the faith. They have mixed their faith with water--or unfortunately as with Israel entering the land of Canaan, they have sullied their practice with the idols of the Land of Milk and Honey. They do enormous damage to themselves and to those around them without realizing what they wreak.

I trust God in His providential wisdom and great mercy will deal kindly with those who have so wandered. Jesus promised to leave the 99 and go off in search of the single strayed sheep. For those who have strayed, like Mr. Wills and others, I pray merely that he is one brought back into the fold by the great caring of Incarnate Love. I also pray for myself and others incidentally affected by Mr. Wills that our momentary irritation and annoyance does not stray off into judgment. I'm sure that it shall not, but my assurance comes (paradoxically) from my confidence in prayers being answered.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:59 AM

July 26, 2002

Quote of the Day "Reading

from St. Benedict and St. Therese: The Little Rule and the Little Way
Dwight Longenecker

Reading books about the Christian life is often a substitute for living it. If it is easy to read spiritual books without being spiritual, it is not much harder to write them without having the experience behind you. (p.16)

Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:10 PM

July 23, 2002

Reflection on the Introduction to the Second Eucharistic Prayer

Father, it is our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere
to give you thanks
through your beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

Have you ever been surprised by these words? You probably should have been. Sure enough, we can acknowledge that it is our duty to give praise to God. But how often have we considered that it is also our salvation? It is both duty and salvation. How is it salvation? Wasn't that the work of Jesus Christ Himself?

Salvation is the work of Jesus Christ, in which we must cooperate. We cannot be saved against our will. We cannot be redeemed if we refuse to acknowledge that we are slaves. Therefore it is our salvation to give praise to the Father through the Son because in so doing we align our wills with the one Will that would bring us into His kingdom, if only we would allow Him.

The depth of the love of God shows itself in the lightness of this duty. The depth of the negligence of humankind is measured in how poorly we do this. Do we always and everywhere give God thanks? Do we consistently acknowledge His reign over us? Do we rejoice in the wonderful opportunity of turning ourselves over to God?

Always and everywhere--in traffic, in the accountant's office, while facing trial and talking to our attorneys, while facing the boss who is unjustly blaming you for everything that has gone wrong? And yet it really is our duty, and more importantly our salvation. If, in the midst of all our troubles, we surrender to God and turn to Him with thanks and praise, the troubles, while no less troublesome, become less important--they drop into proper perspective.

Jesus, the very name is our salvation. In The Way of a Pilgrim the efficacy of praying the Jesus Prayer and of simply saying the name of Jesus is pounded home time and time again. If we surround ourselves with a wall constructed of prayers, if we follow the proper teaching of Ephesians 6:10 and following, we will find ourselves triumphant and living in the grace of salvation.

To get there, first we must acknowledge that we need to be saved and that we can in no way save ourselves. We cannot dig our way out of the pit. But we can take off the blinders and see the marble staircase, supported by the hands of angels that leads heavenward. This staircase is adorned by the constant praises of all who love Him.

What a wonderful grace-filled duty! Would that we had a hundred such duties! Would that we could devote five minutes of the day to really doing this. I am reminded of an anecdote regarding St. Benedict. While walking with a local farmer he lamented the inability to concentrate on his prayer for any length of time. The farmer averred that he had no such trouble and he could easily focus on his prayer. Benedict quite calmly said that if the farmer could get through a single "Our Father" without distraction, Benedict would gladly give the farmer his horse. The farmer agreed and immediately started, "Our Father, who art in Heaven. . .Do I get the bridle and saddle as well?" So are we all. Our focus is weak and our ability to turn to God further weakened by our constant preoccupations with things less worthy of our time, for example (dare I say it?) blogging.

But we return once again, it is our duty and our salvation always and everywhere to give thanks. Our salvation because while giving thanks we cannot be thinking about ourselves, we must open the door that allows God to enter.

Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:54 PM