January 22, 2007
A Word for the Day and St. Therese's Prophetic Vision
James 2:13
Merciless is the judgment on the man who has not shown mercy; but mercy triumphs over judgment.
Here we have the glimmering of the love of God that, I am convinced, took us a long time to understand fully. In fact, I would mark the turning point in our understanding of this Lord near the turn of the 20th century, with the still quiet voice of a young French girl hidden away in a cloister of little importance in the small French town of Lisieux. This young girl, raised in the Jansenist, puritanical vein of the Church vouchsafed us all a glimpse of what God is really like; and her revelation, prophet-like, received the endorsement of the Church--first with her unprecedentedly rapid canonization and then with her elevation to Doctor of the Church.
She didn't invent anything new, but she showed in a new light what had been proclaimed since the time of Jesus. God is a Father. Not only is He a Father, He is the exemplar of all fathers. And because at the same time He is all Love and all Goodness, He is a Father whose patience is infinite and whose heart longs for our return to Him. The smallest motion, the slightest leaning in His direction and He is there to scoop us up in His arms and bring us to Him, the very finest "elevator to God" because in the entire journey, we are close to Him.
This is the God that Jesus proclaimed, the God who is the Father of the prodigal Son. He isn't a new invention. But Saint Therese had the courage and tenacity to give us a new insight into Him. We understand Him now as we do largely because of the synchronicity of St. Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Dom Columba Marmion, and St. Pius X. Together the three of these, and probably a host of others, converged upon the vision of God the Merciful and loving Father. The Holy Spirit reawakened this knowledge in a very special way for all of us moderns. And we would do well to recall it frequently and to act with the knowledge that with God as our Father, we are all brothers and sisters. We do well to forgive, put aside our petty sibling rivalry, and show His beautiful mercy and love to all around us.
St. Therese continues to shower roses from heaven upon those willing to receive them.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:37 AM | Comments (0) | 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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
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!
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 19, 2005
Some Notes on Philippians
A few days ago, a correspondent wrote to me and suggested that perhaps the introduction of the letter to the Philippians was not so evocative as I seemed to imply. In the main, I could not disagree. But honestly, I had never prayed trough the introduction and asked God what He might have in store for me there. I wrote back and said that I thought the correspondent might be correct and my enthusiasm perhaps a touch of the over-the-top side. But below is a record of some of the things I derived from praying through the introduction. I hope they are as useful to you as they were to me. If you note any overt errors, either of doctrine or of grammar, drop me a note so that I might correct my thinking or language depending on which one is faulty. So much is just now.
1 Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
2 Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
(RSV)
The verses of greeting seem to offer little enough for prayer, and yet attention to every detail of scripture is rewarded.
Paul extends, as usual, a double blessing of grace and peace. These words are worthy of a moment or two reflection on their own. Grace--God's utterly unmerited gift to us, a gift so powerful and so much a part of Him that it flows from Him to permeate all of reality. Just as the sun cannot perform its fusion and do anything other than to give off light and heat, God, just in being God cannot but give forth grace. It is impossible for Him to withhold it because it is contradictory to His nature. This grace is focused through the Mother of Grace who gave birth to God's most comprehensive sign of His grace, His own incarnation. Mary is not the source of Grace but she is the vessel and distributor of grace. As we pray in the Hail Mary, she is full of grace. Or perhaps more dynamically, she is filled and overfilled with grace, which spills out through her upon the entire human race. The same lens that focused God into flesh and blood reality continues to focus the plentiful reality of God on all the people of today. She is mediatrix of all graces. She is the distributor, but she is so charged out of the love she has for her children and for good, so though she is tasked with the distribution of good, she is a pure and clean lens that in no way distorts, obscures, or denies to any seeker that grace which flows through her. Grace is the unmerited favor that bestowed a son upon a willing virgin. It is the source of all knowledge of good and righteousness; it is, thus, the perfect inheritance and privilege of the Christian and of all of God's children.
The peace with which Paul greets the children of Philippi is not merely the absence of strife or war, though these would be blessings in themselves. No indeed, it is much more than this. This peace is the shalom of integrity and unity. It is the peace of Jesus Christ, first bestowed by Him on the apostles and by the power of apostolic succession, given them to bestow upon the people of the world, which each one does with each prayer of Mass. This peace has as external signs the absence of strife and war between people, but it starts in a far richer, more complex internal reality. This shalom is the blessing of the integrated person--the peace granted is a healing of the breach caused in each of us by original sin. When we live this peace, we are walking the path of salvation laid out in the mysterious plan of our savior's birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, and culminating in His second coming. This peace then is nothing less than the promise of God fully realized. It is the gift of salvation when lived to the fullest. It allows the old man to rest peacefully and cease warring upon the new man who attempts to live out Christ's commands. In these two words Paul offers to the people of Philippi and to those of us who are privileged to share in the message through our reading of the letter. Paul offers nothing less than the fullness of God's love and mercy. Everything that follows these words is simply an explanatory footnote--essential to our understanding and acceptance of the gifts offered in this simple benediction, but incidental to them. If we could, without them, realize and reify God’s gift, we would do so much better. This is what Jesus extolled in the approach of the little children to Him. If we could, in perfect joy and simplicity accept God's most precious gifts we would have little need of words piled on words. As it stands, that is not within the purview of most of us. So Paul goes on to tell us more--to gild the lily as it were with perfect joy.
Who realized that a greeting held so much? In the space of a few short words we are offered the most treasured gifts in the rich hoard of heaven's blessings, AND we a offered a shining example of what it means to be an apostle and a disciple.
And that leads us to the question of application. Are we not all called to be both disciples, or pupils, of the Lord and Apostles--those sent out, peculiarly charged with the duty of sharing the good news of salvation with those immediately around us why do not live it daily? If so, are we not responsible for carrying out the message so clearly spelled out for us in this letter and in others? In short, are we a sign of grace and peace to others? Is our prayer life outwardly projected onto the everyday? Or is our prayer life carefully sequestered and divided from our outward life? As saints, we are offered the gift. As disciples and apostles we are charged with making it manifest in our own lives and thus substantially sharing and transmitting this blessing with others. We are vehicles of grace and peace only when we begin to live the life that grace and peace bestow upon us.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 4, 2005
Let the God of All Creation Be Exalted
I will hear what the Lord God has to say,
a voice that speaks of peace,
peace for his people and his friends
and those who turn to him in their hearts.
(psalm 85 from Morning Prayer for the Feast of St. Francis)
I will hear what the Lord God has to say. Haring means more than receiving the sound. Hearing goes deeper than a passive experience. When I hear in the way the psalmist is claiming for himself I hear with the heart. I am changed by what I hear. I make what I hear my own.
And what a great gift it would be if I would open my ears to hear "a voice that speaks of peace." Rather than trying to create my own peace, my own separate heaven--I would enter His peace. As I pray this psalm, and I read these words, I prepare the ground of my heart for the blossoming of this peace, of this kingdom within.
The blossoming of peace has fruits that extend far outside my own interior realm. When I am at peace, and only when I am at peace, I can bring peace to the world. And the peace I can bring in such a state is not my own, but that of the Lord whom I serve. He blesses me with peace and hears me, not to shower His gifts merely upon me, but so that I may shower his gifts on all of His people. "Peace for his people and his friends." Peace first to those who spend the time to think about Him and talk with Him in prayer. But then also, "and those who turn to Him in their hearts." Even those who do not presently know Him by name, those who may not have become acquainted with Him in their lives--if they incline their hearts toward Him, He will see and hear and grant them also Him peace.
God cannot do other than grant peace. It is in His nature. It is part of what He is. You cannot encounter God and not reach peace. It is impossible to embrace Him and not be at peace.
If each of us were to give peace a chance to reign in our hearts, we would transform the world one person at a time. As my ever supportive wife said the other night when she saw my dismally wimpy results on the "Which General Are You?" test, "Perhaps if more were like you we would have no need of generals." I am not the example, despite her encouragement. Our example, our Peace and our Love, is Jesus Christ the Lord. In Him there is no shadow of turning.
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 2, 2005
Lectio Divina III--An Example
While it is always bad form to use oneself as an example, I thought it might be instructive to present how lectio make take form in one's mind. This session is from this evening when I picked up in the midst of my favorite book, read through about a paragraph and was struck by something at the very beginning. There is nothing stunning, nor even enlightening here for those of you who live outside this body--all that I offer is a look at what might go on in Lectio. Often I create my silence in the midst of writing. When I write the entire world passes away except for the words in my head and whatever I am using to write. I prefer the experience of writing with pen and paper, and thus more often take notes on my palm than at the keyboard. Nevertheless, here is the offering.
Phillippians 1:12
I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel.
These words of Paul force me to reflect--do my own actions, my own life, serve to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ? When people look at me do they see the joy of Christian living? Does my demeanor suggest to the world the fullness of the truth and joy that resides in Jesus Christ? Paul was able to sing and rejoice in prison. He was able to look upon the most deplorable of circumstances and rejoice for what he saw there. When people who know me well look at me, do they see and understand the joy of Gospel life?
What Paul seems to be telling us here is that a life lived in Christ must perforce reveal Jesus Christ. It cannot do otherwise. It is impossible that we cold live fully in Christ and not make Him known to the world. Conversely, that we do not dailymake Him present to others is most suggestive about our willingness to live fully in Him.
I cannot give up self even for Self that is more glorious. To be born again in Christ gives us a "new self" that is already living the kingdom.
So you see the simple fruit of perhaps fifteen minutes with the scripture and another five or so writing it out as it took form. I offer the writing as my prayer to God, not as instruction, not as exhortation, not as anything more than a personal session with the scripture. I think you can understand why I love scripture as much as I do. I only wish I could be as consistent in expressing this love as I am about running my mouth on other matters.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Lectio Divina II--Encountering God in Scripture
The chief part of lectio is listening to scripture. This means engaging the word of God on some level. How does one go about it?
Well, that depends on who one is in Christ. God has made each person different from all others. The means He uses to speak to each of us will vary with the means of the persons He is addressing. In lectio you are practicing listening and so you must find the "posture" that best allows you to listen.
Now, listening is an active process. We've all heard about active listening--listening in which we show our attention by nodding, by looking the speaker in the eye, by asking questions that help to clarify the point. All of these are important skills that engage both the person speaking and the listener. In lectio you can employ some of these skills. In considering a bible text, one does well to follow St. Teresa of Avila's famous advice:Mira que le mira--roughly--"Look at who is looking at you." (Autobiography Ch. 13). Surely the first step in listening is to look at the One who speaks. Take a moment and place yourself at His feet as Mary (of Martha and Mary fame) did. And look at Him while He speaks. You will need to employ the imaginative faculty to do this, but it can be done. Look at His face and listen to the words of scripture, His personal word to you. Look at Him closely enough to see that His exclusive interest is you. His entire love is directed at you and your salvation. His complete attention is devoted to you. In the back of your mind you may also realize that this is true of every single person on Earth. So as you sit looking, you can see what so many on Earth never take the time to see. You can see how Jesus longs for us to bend an ear, to listen--to pay attention.
For some, this exercise can be too much of a trial. The strain of trying to imagine Jesus looking at one can be overwhelming. If you cannot, for any reason, bear the weight of that gaze, then start more simply. There are as many ways of listening as there are people. When Jesus speaks, He often speaks in story. The same is true of much of the Old Testament. The story carries the message meant for you. The story is a small seed meant to grow. To grow it must be planted and watered in the imagination. In the previous post, I mentioned that it may be fruitful to consider the same text on several days. This is particularly true if you are just starting and trying to get the hang of what is going on. As you listen to the words of scripture, picture them in your mind. After your reading, close the bible, marking the place with a marker, or a finger and simply close you eyes. See what it was that you just read. In some cases, for example the Letters, it can be difficult to see things because the letter tend to be doctrinal, and written instruction. For this reason, it is probably better not to start with the letters, but to look first at the Life of the Savior. Nearly everything we know comes to us as pictures. Read a passage, close you eyes and see the scene. Place yourself there--look at every blade of grass, every flower, feel the breeze or the heart, feel the exhaustion or the elation. Be present. In being present we begin to hear. Too often we are troubled with the events of the day or with the constant restless movement of the intellect. If we are concentrating on participating in the event described, the intellect will have no room to wander, we will not be able to stray from the text. If we are seeing it and listening for what God means for us to hear in the text, we will have little time for our own concerns.
This form of imaginative participation in the scripture can bear great fruits for those who practice it faithfully. It can inform your prayer of the rosary and become a constant, higher starting point from which to begin prayer. At first you may not see the point, but eventually as you continue and as you listen, you will begin to hear things that you have not heard from the scripture before.
Another way to listen is to play with the words. Read them and then read them again accenting them differently. For example:
"A voice cries out in the wilderness make straight a pathway for God."
We can read this verse in many ways--but let me present two possibilities.
"A voice cries out in the wilderness
make straight a pathway for God."
In this case it is the voice that is in the wilderness.
"A voice cries out
in the wilderness make straight a pathway for God."
In this case the pathway for God is to be constructed in the wilderness.
Now these two variations have profound resonances against one another. They are not contradictory, they are complementary. Together they ring changes on a theme and broaden the implications of the scripture. We can acknowledge that sometimes the lone voice of conscience cries out to us, "Straighten up, confess, and let God in." This voice leads us to move toward God. And sometimes the voice says to us, "You need a time apart, a time of refreshment, a time to enter the wilderness of self and find there the Pearl of Great price, the seed of the kingdom of heaven."
Much of scripture is this way. You can read it one day and hear one thing, and return to it the next and hear something quite different and quite stirring. For this reason, the version you read for lectio can be important. You need not only to understand it, but to be inspired by it. This is one of the reasons I keep promoting the KJV or the Authorized Version--not because it is the most accurate translation, but because it was the Bible of my youth and the language that I grew to know and love deeply. The words themselves are enough to move me to transports of joy. Sometimes I can sit and just listen over and over again to a single line, to one word from the Lord. "Rejoice in the Lord alway again I say rejoice." "The voice of the turtle was heard in the land. . ." etc. Obviously, this does not have the same resonance through all people and will not have the same profound movement within them. Therefore, find the version that makes your heart sing simply to read it, and then read it, over and over again, delighting in the word, delighting in the line. Delight always to come before the Lord. I think of the hours that I have spent with the single have line, "You see now as in a glass darkly. . ." The sheer magic of that language moves me and speaks to me and it speaks so deeply that I cannot utter the words that it says. They simply invigorate love in a way I do not myself understand, but which I gratefully accept.
Also, with active listening, we ask questions. Do not be afraid to say, "What did you mean when you said, " Why do you trouble me, Woman?" Is that any way to address your mother?' And then listen for the answer--perhaps it is, "I addressed my Mother as Woman, because She is the New Eve, the beginning of all Women and the Mother of those reborn in Christ. She is indeed the archetype of Woman and the exemplar for all time. There is no distance here, there is no denigration. Rather, I have raised her and placed in the place of highest regard." Or perhaps, you will hear something else. But ask where you have doubts and listen intently. If you ask in simplicity, not like the Pharisee seeking to catch Jesus in some trap, the answer will come in time and the answer will change your life.
Lectio will improve your prayer life. Lectio will give strong roots to the depth of your love. Lectio will invigorate your faith and your devotion.
From time to time in the past, I have shared some instances of my own Lectio. You can find the fruits of these, and the methods I used to move toward them by clicking "Lectio" in the side column.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:17 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 27, 2005
On Prayer--Lectio Divina
A few days ago Tom posted on the practice of prayer with reference to cultivating silence and stillness. In the course of it, he suggested the practice of Lectio Divina and as it was an off-hand reference didn't go much further than to suggest that frequent reading and mulling over scripture was a good thing.
But lectio divina is an acquired process, a kind of training in meditation. Tom's point was not to spell out how to do it, but he suggested, and I think rightly, that even spending a little time with Scripture was likely to be a help in cultivating interior silence so necessary to a productive prayer life.
But I thought that perhaps his brief description might have been inadequate for people who really wanted to extend their prayer time and needed a "method." And lectio divina itself isn't really so much a method as it is a context. Sometimes it is called "praying" the Bible. I like to think of it as training in listening. In reading the Bible we take as our cue and perhaps as a preliminary prayer Samuel's words to God in the night--"Speak Lord, your servant is listening." (Not, as Fr. O'Holohan was fond of pointing out, and we all too commonly are fond of practicing, "Listen Lord, your servant is speaking.")
In Lectio Divina we train ourselves to listen to scripture interiorly. We fill that noisy, echoing interior space with the Word of God so that what echoes within us is divine and the divine helps to silence the clatter of ourselves.
How might one go about doing this? First off, Lectio Divina is NOT bible study. It does not employ the same techniques and it is not meant to achieve the same ends. Bible study can make a very satisfactory prelude to Lectio but they are two different uses employed to two different ends (which, properly conducted should lead to the same End). In Bible study we come to understand the literal meaning of the text and the text as it would have been received by the people of the time. This base-level literal meaning of the text is important in Lectio, but it isn't the end toward which Lectio tends. If we have a less-than-complete understanding of the literal meanings of text, we can still, through the power of the Holy Spirit, pray the text and come to some greater familiarity with God and His ways.
Lectio divina is a form of meditation and prayer. Properly practiced, along with all the other requirements of maintaining a life in a state of grace, it can become a form of acquired contemplation. (If one follows the older forms of "classifying" prayer, acquired contemplation is the highest form of prayer in which our active striving can help to engage us. We must remember that all prayer is a gift of the Holy Spirit, strengthened by grace.)
How does one go about it? First one takes a little time to let some of the nonsense of the day pass away. Some say to light candles, to sit in darkness, to find a regular time and place. All good practices for a start. As you continue your prayer, you will be brought to the practice that best aids it. But to start choose a time and a place and make proximate preparations to the event. That is, unplug or mute the phone, sit still for a few minutes, let your mind race, but always gently bring it back to a place of calm or focus. After a few minutes of calming time, pray simply to the Holy Spirit to guide your prayer and teach you what God would have you know.
Read and interact with the text you have chosen. This is not bible speed-reading. You don't need to get through a chapter in a night. When I was doing the Ignatian retreat I often had only one verse on which to meditate for an entire hour. (An Ignatian retreat is a excellent remote preparation for this entire exercise of prayer.) Often it is suggested that you use the text for Sunday Mass or daily Mass. Moreover, you might use the same text for the entire week. Familiarity might allow you to uncover subtle nuances that you might miss upon a preliminary reading. In addition, it operates to help train you in quiet. When we encounter something that is familiar, we are more inclined to interior noisiness than when we are exploring the unfamiliar. Our minds are lazy and we kind of stroll among the words and find our minds whirling off in all directions. If we have a familiar text to focus on, when can bring ourselves back to what is present. It operates as a kind of anchor.
After you read through the passage to get context, it is good to go back and read carefully. Upon ending your first reading pause and think about what you read and consider a word of a phrase that struck you. When you return to reading, return with this metacognition--acknowledge the word and read the passage in the context of that word. Hear what is said now from this new angle. Listen carefully aslant. What is it that God has prepared for you at this time in this passage?
Spend some time with the passage. If you have chosen a reading from the Gospels, spend time with Jesus, wherever he might be. If you read the story of the woman cured of an issue of blood, where are you in the story. Are you the woman, are you a bystander, are you Jesus Himself? What do you learn from being there in that capacity? This is the use of the imagination. Jesus is present to us in many forms, He is especially present to us in meditation upon the Word. But sometimes we must work to see Him. With time and practice this work becomes easier.
After you spend an appropriate amount of time with the scripture (a minimum of 15 minutes, and in most cases longer is better) come out of the reflection with a prayer. Ask God what he intends for you to take away from this passage. Ask Him what meaning it has for you.
Now, this is where some of the more timid balk. They will say, "But that's private interpretation." No, it's not. Interpretation means that you plan to take what you heard in the passage and spread it far and wide as the definitive understanding of the passage. When you interpret something you are providing an understanding for others. What you are doing in lectio is application to your present place in life. Application amounts to listening to the word in the context of the teaching of the Catholic Church and acting upon it in some way.
When you have completed the prayer time or as you approach its end, review it. What went well? What went poorly? What might you need to change next time to enhance the experience? This is another metacognitive exercise, the purpose of which is to enhance the discipline to more clearly place yourself in the heart of the Spirit. We are always seeking with the help of the Holy Spirit to find our way into the Heart of God. Thus we are always seeking to improve our prayer life.
This is only the sketchiest of introductions. I'd like to return to this topic and discuss in a great deal more detail means by which one can "engage" scripture. One is the meditative exercise I have suggested here, but there are other ways to encounter scripture and to deal with scripture in prayer.
As you can see Lectio Divina is not so much a "method" of prayer as it is a mode of praying. The difference may seem subtle, but a mode of praying is an entire school, where as a method is a single very structured class.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:39 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
December 8, 2004
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:23 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 8, 2004
Back to Phillippians
Returning now to the point we left off in chapter 1.
Phillippians 1: 12-18
I want you to know, brethren, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brethren have been made confident in the Lord because of my imprisonment, and are much more bold to speak the word of God without fear.
From His own life an illustration of one of Paul's most hopeful, jubilant, and joyful sayings, "All things work to the good of those who love Him." Here Paul rejoices in his imprisonment because through it he has gained another audience. The whole Praetorian Guard knows that his imprisonment is for Christ. What they make of this, we do not know. But surely they know enough to realize that a man willing to endure such confinement because of his beliefs is a man worth listening to. And if they are listening, they are hearing about Jesus. Paul is always pointing to Jesus. To everyone around him Paul speaks of Jesus and rejoices in Christ.
Rejoicing in chains--it makes one think. Think for a moment of your own chains--most of them are probably self-made. The worst of our captivities is self-imposed. We enslave ourselves to sin, we give in to temptation. Heck, if the truth be told (and I'm sure I'm not alone in this) I downright go out looking for tempations if they can't readily be found at home. We're smart and we're bored and we're looking for something that will fill the vast empty spaces. And Satan will see to it that we will find something that seems for a moment to do so. For a moment--but then the vast emptiness comes rushing back upon us. What could be worse captivity that this?
But Paul rejoices in chains, because his chains are not of his own making. They are merely material chains--the things we chafe against. I can't stand the fact that I can't buy what I want whenever I want. If truth be told, I'm certain that more than half of my dislike for the wealthy stems not from their perceived arrogance and paltryness, but rather from my own desire to have the opportunity to be the same. A little more money, a little more fame, a little more sex, a little more. . . these are the chains that really bind. And Paul is free of them and rejoicing in his imprisonment. He rejoices because in his own captivity he frees those around him. His chains are of the moment and his presence and witness frees many from the chains that are of eternity.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 2, 2004
Communal Lectio
Yesterday Tom shared with us some of the fruit of his reflection on the Sunday scriptures. And it was odd, but the same scripture struck me for quite a different reason.
from Wisdom
For you love all things that are
and loathe nothing that you have made;
for what you hated, you would not have fashioned.
And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it;
or be preserved, had it not been called forth by you?
But you spare all things, because they are yours,
O LORD and lover of souls,
for your imperishable spirit is in all things!
In the spirit of communal lectio, I'll share what occurred to me in reading the passage.
There are some who maintain that humanity is utterly depraved and in the fall from grace all created things were dragged down with him and made low. That is that all creation is in some part bad, unworthy, or a constant spur to evil behavior.
What struck me here is once again the reaffirmation that what God has created is fundamentally good. He would not have created what is evil, it is not in him to do so. More, all of creation is sustained by Him, has life breathed into it by Him. All of creation is fundamentally good. And I think that extends to the fallen angels themselves. They are, in creation, fundamentally good. They have chosen through their own will to deny the good. They are ultimately negative, creating or causing nothing in themselves, but reacting to all that is and negating it. Nevertheless, they cannot negate themselves. God will put them away at the end of time, but until then, they continue in their rebellion against the basic goodness of all things.
Without becoming Pantheistic, we can say that His breath is in all breathing things, His life is in all living things. All things exist because of His constant intense love and attention. Without that all things would fly apart and become nothing. He sustains all with the eternal hope that all things will return to Him and the eternal knowledge that He has made it possible through His son.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2004
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."
Posted by Steven Riddle at 5:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 27, 2004
From the Epistle of the Joy of the Lord--III
Philippians 1:8-11
8: For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.
9: And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,
10: so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
11: filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Verse 8 gives a picture of Paul that belies what his critics would make him--stern, distant, nearly misanthropic. We hear and see Paul yearning for the companionship of those who love the Lord. How sweet it is to be with and among those who truly love the Lord. There is no better company, no better conversation than that which centers on the Lord himself and revolves around Him as the center. To what point any conversation that does not bring us closer to the Lord? Why talk at all if we are not yearning for the truth? Paul yearns for the support and comfort of being among those whose spirit is strong, whose faith is a bulwark against the ravages of the world. He longs to be once again among those who have most enthusiastically supported his mission in the world. And this yearning is natural for all of us. Our chief desire should be to be among those who love the Lord. And acting upon this desire, we should work to be certain that wherever we are, there are those who are ardent friends of the Lord. This, then, is part of the call to evangelism. Wherever there is love of the Lord, we are at home. We are called to leave home frequently and to make a new home wherever we should be brought. Our joy and delight is in the presence of the Lord and where people love Him, He is present. (For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Mt. 18:20)
Enough for the moment--I will extend reflection on these verses somewhat later. Scripture is indeed a fountain. A single verse of it can bring to mind the million things God wishes to tell the believer. However, I see little cause for you all to exposed to all the million things that run through my head. (That collective sigh of relief sounded like Charley at his peak.)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:17 AM | TrackBack
August 26, 2004
From the Epistle of the Joy of the Lord--II
Philippians 1:6-7
6: And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
7: It is right for me to feel thus about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.
Paul, it seems, writes through time. I need to take his words personally and to internalize their relevance for me today. The letter to the Philippians is the perfect place to start doing this. I can imagine myself in one of the congregations, hearing rather than the usual Sunday Sermon, a letter. We do this often today with the Bishop's appeal. But imagine that you are sitting in the Church and a letter from a dear friend who has been whisked off to who knows what fate arrives. Imagine the excitement as you await to hear what it was that he said in the letter. And then, it is read. Right away you hear these words.
"I am sure that he who began a good work in you will see it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ." What a thrill it sends through you. God who has touched me will see to it that his touch does not go unregarded. He who began a good work in me will see it through. Admittedly this may not be without trial on my part. Nevertheless, I will be able to see the Lord complete a work. This is a promise, a word from one I trust--a word from one of the Holy Ones of God--reliable guidance, sure solace in time of trial.
And then he says to me, "It is right for me to feel thus about you all." Why should this be? Why should it be right? And a heartbeat later, "Because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partaker with me of grace. . ." Paul himself holds me in his heart because I am a descendant of his spiritual Fatherhood. Unlike Peter who practiced most of his apostleship within the bounds of his own people (though indeed he served as Shepherd for all of the people gathered to God), Paul was the apostle to the nations that had not known of the God of Abraham and Isaac. All of those of us who are not aware of any Jewish ancestry are descendants of the teaching of Paul, we are his children, the legacy he left to the entire world. As his children, we are held in his prayers before God and loved as children are loved. And more than that, we are brothers and sisters. becasue we are all "partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel."
As a people we are a living defense and confirmation of the gospel. We work presently as the conscience of a nation and the conscience of the world. We are the "angels" (messengers) of God's permanent and abiding grace--of the gift that is given and shall not be withdrawn from humanity. We are defenders of the gospel in that we hold to its truths as best we can in our weak understanding. We cling to the gospel message and to the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church. These teachings started with these early messages of the Apostles.
Rejoice O Child of God,
Rejoice O Child of Paul,
for the love of God
is confirmed again in the heart of a Saint
whose life on Earth and in Heaven
was a life of prayer for us.
His words echo
in the heart, in the world,
and gather all together
in a great ball that rolls toward eternity,
to the encompassing love of God.
Rejoice in our brother,
Rejoice in our spiritual father,
Rejoice in the God He proclaims,
in the gospel he announces,
in the faith he defends,
in his continued and joyous prayer for those of us
as yet confined to Earth.
Rejoice O people of the Lord,
Rejoice in His holy saints who give us such hope.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:11 AM | TrackBack
July 23, 2004
Carlos Mester's Hints for Reading the Bible Prayerfully
Can be found here
Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:31 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
June 7, 2004
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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:30 AM | TrackBack
June 4, 2004
More Food for Thought
Be sure to read the comments box of the prayer requests for yesterday for an excellent selection from the offic of readings. For some reason I don't have that particular Saint in my Liturgy, so it must be the proper of the Carmelite calendar, which I have yet to obtain. Perhaps Mr. Alford or another kind Carmelite can tell me where I can get this resources (Carmelite Liturgy of the Hours)--if such exists. I haven't seen one about. Thanks.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:06 AM | TrackBack
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 KempisEVERY 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.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:57 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 16, 2003
Sharing from Lectio--The Gospel of Mark
In case you haven't noticed, I'm not in any real hurry to get through the Gospel of Mark. The pace is uncannily slow, and yet, every time I open up the Gospel this first chapter screams at me to spend more time and to truly understand the message intended for me. I offer the following not as exegesis or a pretence of some profound explication of the realities of scripture, but as a model of what one can do in the course of lectio and to encourage all to give it a try--daily if possible. Always check your conclusions and "revelations" against the truth revealed in the treasury of the Magisterium, but listen to the Spirit of God breathed out through the words of Scripture as well. The two cannot conflict, and so, if you come to some conclusion counter to that of the Church, discard it as a fancy, a momentary aberration of thought in the course of deep meditation. And always pray and ask God how you might apply what you have gained in the course of your meditation and prayer to the betterment of your life in God. He reveals what He reveals for a reason.
You'll note in the excerpt below, three different movements from three different times of prayer over this scripture. I excerpt to remove much of what is entirely personal and only share the things that may have broader implications and utility.
A Sharing from Lection on the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 1
Mark 1: 7-8 The Preaching of John the Baptist
7 And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."Now we know that these are not the only words the Baptist preached. One wonders what else he was saying at the time. Whatever it was, it compelled a great many people to make a long and hazardous trip into the desert to hear him. He had a powerful and persuasive voice and a way of conveying the urgency of the coming kingdom.
The vast sands of the parched wilderness stretch out to touch the deep blue sky. The river itself is a silver gash, alive with ripples. Where are these people in their masses and hordes coming from? What truth do they see in this strange man? And how do I learn to see the same thing? How can I look past the merely unpleasing and see what God is doing? How do I learn not to seek the favor of others by agreeing where agreement is not required? We all must, to some degree begin or become prophetic and our setvice is to all the world, but most particularly we are called to witness to the efficacy of repentence--we best proclaim the Father's love for us as repentant sinners. Our joy is in the Lord who was at this moment in the narrative still unknown.
[2]So here is the problem for each of us--we need to find the desert in which we must dwell to better hear the sweet name of the Lord who redeems us. He speaks to us continually, and we don't hear it--we long to hear his voice and yet we stop our ears against the sound of it. I fear failure so much that often I do not even try--the cost seems too high. The cost is nothing less than all that I am and all that I have.
[3]Repentance and forgiveness go hand-in-hand
From Barclay's Commetary on the Gospel of Mark
A man must make confession to God. The end of pride is the beginning of forgiveness. It is when a man says, "I have sinned," that God gets the chance to say, "I forgive." It is not the man who desires to meet God on equal terms who will discover forgiveness, but the man who kneels in humble contrition and whispers through his shame, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
Posted by Steven Riddle at 12:15 PM | TrackBack
September 4, 2003
Back to the Gospel of
Back to the Gospel of Mark
Please forgive me as I try your patience with yet more of the Gospel of Mark. This time I've backed up to
Mark 1:3
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight--"
I love the beautiful ambiguity of this phrasing. Is it the voice that is crying in the wilderness or do we read across the line break to hear a different meaning? Read it this way, "It is the voice of one crying 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. " I had read somewhere that much of punctuation is a fairly recent, modern innovation. Ancient markings are exceedingly vague, or so I understand. So what happens when we read across the lines? I think we hear another hidden strand of the Gospel. In the barren and inhospitable wilderness of the human heart, prepare a way for the Lord. Again in that same heart, make his paths straight. This is the announcement of the reign of God that is to bring us all out of the desert. I am reminded through the echoing resonance of this verse from Ezekiel 11:19
"And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh"
So as we prepare a way in the desert for the Lord, he prepares for us a way out of the desert and toward home. We give Him stones and He hands back living hearts. I never fail to be amazed by the richness of God's word in a heart even only barely awake--a heart more stone than flesh, but yearning for His deliverance.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:50 PM
September 3, 2003
A Key to the Gospel of Mark
A Key to the Gospel of Mark
In reviewing the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, I made a rediscovery that seems one key to the Gospel of Mark. Undoubtedly you have noticed in reading the Gospel the sense of urgency that seems to emerge very early on. In the first chapter alone the word immediately is used 9 times.
The key may lie within the second verse of Mark, which is not repeated in either Matthew's or Luke's Gospel. The second verse:
"As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;"
Well, this portion of it is not written in Isaiah but in Malachi (the remainder of the quotation, however, does come from Isaiah). Malachi 3:1a (a refers to the first part of the verse:
"Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts." (RSV)
This verse seems to set the tone for Mark. We read that "the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple." Like a lightning stroke from blue sky, the Lord will come and be revealed.
Mark follows his quotes from Malachi and Isaiah with
"John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. " (Mark 1:4 - RSV)
Is it any wonder that many thought he was the one predicted? He came as Malachi said--he "appeared" in the desert after how many years of prayer and service to God, he suddenly shows up at the Jordan announcing that the time had come and everything was to change. No wonder his first recorded words included that admonition that he is not the one predicted.
And then along comes Jesus, indistinguishable in any ordinary way from the crowd--one of the multitude but oh, His baptism told a tale:
"And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; " (Mark 1:10 - RSV)
I suspect there were very few other Galileans for whom this happened. In fact, I suspect there were no others. So, Jesus suddenly appears--God revealed--in His temple, which is every place and every time because He is Lord of Eternity, of time and space.
Thus Mark is pressing upon us the necessity of Jesus and the urgency of His revelation to the world. He appears suddenly to fulfill the prophecy of the third chapter of Malachi, which in its entirety reads:
1 "Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? "For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; 3 he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the LORD. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years. 5 "Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts. 6 "For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
"He will sit as refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the LORD."
Would that it would be true in my case and in the case of so many Christians around me. I would be refined by God, I would present Him all that He deserves. And all that He deserves is nothing less than all of me all of the time--my complete service to Him and to His people. This was the reason for the baptism of repentance--the days of trial and fire were coming, and have come since, and remain with us. Each of us must be tested in fire and the fire will be one of God's choosing, not everyone requires the same refinement, the same purification. He will use the fire that will burn out the sin and turn dross into silver, electrum, and gold, each to his capacity as God himself has seen and refined it.
Is it any wonder that Mark speaks with urgency? Isn't this what we all desire? Isn't this the promise of ages? To become a new person, to be fulfilled not in ourselves but in our place in the body of Christ, is the promise of salvation. We can assume our place in the throne-room rather than presuming it. We may enter as the wedding guests called in off the streets--and like the wedding guests we should pay some honor in our dress and refinement.
What starts as a certain puzzlement at the pace of the gospel resolves into the vision of the promise of God. God is with Us now and forever, we have seen His face unveiled and know the truth of His revelation. This is what the gospel reveals to us and this is what God promises us.
To Him all praise and glory.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:59 AM
August 26, 2003
Continuing the Reading of the Gospel of Mark
Continuing the Reading of the Gospel of Mark
The other day I reported that I was up to the third verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark. In the subsequent days, I have made it up to the fifth verse and I am puzzled. So I will share some of my thoughts with you.
"People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins." (NAB)" And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins." (KJV)
"The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. " (NIV)
"And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all they of Jerusalem, and were baptized by him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins" (Douay-Rheims-Challoner)
"kai exeporeueto proV auton pasa h ioudaia cwra kai oi ierosolumitai kai ebaptizonto panteV en tw iordanh potamw up autou exomologoumenoi taV amartiaV autwn" (bad transliteration of the Greek New Testament)
"et egrediebatur ad illum omnis Iudaeae regio et Hierosolymitae universi et baptizabantur ab illo in Iordane flumine confitentes peccata sua"(Latin Vulgate)
These verses all suggest that the entire Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to John at the Jordan and after confessing (or in the words of the leaden NAB, which may be more literal, but is certainly less Catholic-friendly "acknowledging") their sins they were baptized. [More on acknowledging--I do not pretend to be a Latin scholar, so I will not advance an opinion on the Latin or Greek. But the sense here must be more than acknowledge. Acknowledge means simply to say, "Yeah, I done it, and whattareyagonnadoaboutit?" Another instance of the utter linguistic insensitivity that constantly surfaces in the NAB. Even if the desire is to be absolutely literal, it would seem that this kind of translation would require a gloss to make a point of the word.]
Now the problem. I have a good blog-friend who will recognize himself as he reads this, who insists on reading "inerrancy" in a rather narrow way. For this passage to be inerrant by the way he insists on reading other passages, every single person in Jerusalem, and the entire population of the countryside of Judea would have had to go to the River Jordan. While this is not impossible, it does strike me as improbably. The Roman legions went to John to be Baptized? Herod the Great? The Chief Priests? As I said, not impossible, but highly unlikely.
And yet we know the Bible is without error in any aspect. This is taught clearly throughout the history of the Church, by Leo XIII and by all other popes, up to and including the present. It is part of the dogmatic definitions of the
Second Vatican Council. We are not to read the Bible as teaching only those aspects related to spirituality as being without error, but we are to read it as being without error in every respect.
What then do we make of such a passage which posits so improbable a thing? There are two possibilities. The improbable did indeed take place and thus must be considered the facts of the case. Or the language here is meant to convey something other than a literal counting and recounting and to suggest something to the largely gentile audience Mark was addressing.
It would seem that this is a lot of exercise over a very, very minor issue. On the other hand, can there be any minor issues when it is the authenticity of God's word that is at the core of the question?
Okay, so is the language metaphorical? It does not, on the surface appear to be, and there would be no need for it to be. If Mark and the Holy Spirit had wished for us to understand this to mean a great many people, there are many ways of saying this without the words that are used here.
So I came to wonder if God is not telling us about a truly miraculous messenger in the person of St. John the Baptist. Perhaps he was so filled with the spirit that all of the living AND the dead came out to him to hear the preaching and to confess their sins. The entire countryside of Judea and all of Jerusalem. Perhaps the statement is not so much about the then-current populations of these two places as about the spiritual centers of the places--the zeitgeist as it were, (I know zeitgeist isn't exactly correct, but you get the drift), the genius loci or Guardian Angel, however you wish to term it--the spirit of the land itself. That is, the spirit of the Nation of Israel finally came to see what it had done before and acknowledged that sin, becoming baptized--with but a few holding back in the present to renew that great sin of old and redouble it.
It seems to matter little how one reads it. One gets to the core question--what does it say to me and what am I called to as a result? I am a person of Jerusalem, I am a shepherd of the hills of Judea. I am called by the Spirit through the voice of a powerful preacher to witness the advent of the great Savior. I am called each day, invited each day. To quote the Book of Revelation: "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. " (KJV-Rev. 22:17) (And the tone-deaf NAB "The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." Let the hearer say, "Come." Let the one who thirsts come forward, and the one who wants it receive the gift of life-giving water.") We are called to be baptised and to drink of the water made holy by the Baptism of the One who saved All.
Each person is issued this invitation, this call from the countryside every single day. And we must respond every single day. I prefer to respond by confessing my sins rather than acknowledging them; however, we are all called to this water to this life-giving stream, to this constant immersion in the cleansing tide of Baptism. So, whatever the intricacies of the literal meaning--about which I am little concerned--it is as it is--the meaning of this passage must transcend the merely literal (although the literal must be understood) and seems to say something about the possibility of the person in the world to be called and to respond to grace. The passage speaks of the enormous and overwhelming mercy of God.
But, you can see that I have only crudely defined the contours of the verse, and so perhaps it is a subject for more reading, thought, meditation, and prayer. Thanks for sitting with me through this much. Your thoughts would be welcome.
And many deep thanks to the friend I mentioned above--by his steadfast insistence (with which I still disagree) he has forced my attention in such a way as to be truly concerned about what is being said in every particular. This is a tremendously valuable gift. Thank you.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:14 AM
June 30, 2003
More on Lectio
More on Lectio
A generous reader contributed this website which is from the Valyermo Benedictine on lectio It includes tips for private consideration of the prayer and for communal forms. Quite often our Carmelite group does this with great effect for everyone--it allows an exploration of the message of scripture in a way that is impossible for a single person. Also, it better helps tease out some of the applications one might make of the scripture. My thanks to the person who so generously sent me this link. (There are a great many links out there on lectio. This one is nice because it is succinct and yet pretty thorough, it seems.)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:19 AM
June 27, 2003
A Thought From Scripture Continuing
Continuing from this morning's post on prayer, this passage from the Psalms for the office of readings for the Feast of the Sacred Heart:
Sin speaks to the sinner
in the depths of his heart.
There is no fear of God
before his eyes.(psalm 36)
If we do not hold His word in our hearts, then it is most likely that we must number ourselves among those derided in this Psalm. Where His Word does not dwell, emptiness is enthroned. And we all know that nature abhors a vacuum--so that emptiness will soon be filled either by cares of the world, or more likely, by sin. And then, rather than contemplating His Word and hiding it in our heart, we are conversing with our sins and seeking clothing behind fig-leaves.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:01 AM
On Prayer and Praying--Lectio Divina
The ancient practice of lectio is a gateway from verbal prayers to the richness of meditation and contemplation. When I think of lectio, I think of the passage from psalms "I will hide His word in my heart that I might not sin against God." (RSV: "I have laid up thy word in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. "--Psalm 119:11). I also think of our model in prayer, "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. " (Luke 2:19).
In the practice of lectio, most commonly done with scripture as the basis, we ponder God's word to hear what He is saying to us. A lot of people I know shy away from this because they perceive that such close communion in the Word borders on private interpretation. I think the fear may be overstated if the practice is rightly conducted. Moreover, the purpose of meditation is not to come up with new doctrine and new explanations for the way things are, the purpose is to talk with God and listen to Him in a way that is transformative. If prayer does not change you then it is not as efficacious as it can be.
How does one "do" lectio? All the standard rules of prayer apply--a quiet place, a few moments to recollect oneself and place oneself in the presence of God, an invocation of the Holy Spirit to guide and inform us as we meditate and to protect us from error and intrusion. And then we turn to a passage of scripture. It needn't be long--a single pericope from the gospels, a passage from daily Bible reading in your plan to read through the Bible, or the daily readings from Mass. Even the short verse used in morning and evening prayer can provide a wonderful foundation for prayer. God's word is loaded, packed, and infinitely expandable and ponderable. We read His word slowly and reverently knowing that His Word resides in these words. Jesus is present in the Word, throughout all of scripture. In the Old Testament, He is foreshadowed, announced, and present in a shadowy way and in images and types. (For example Jesus likens himself to the bronze serpent mention in Numbers 21:9 "So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live." And again in 2 Kings 18:4 "He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Ashe'rah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had burned incense to it; it was called Nehush'tan. ") When we look for Jesus in God's Word we will find Him. When we find Him, we need to listen to what He says.
How do we listen? There are a number of ways--we can pursue active imaginative meditation. We can place ourselves in the scene. For example, read the passage of the Gospel of Luke about Zacchaeus. (Luke 19: 2-10 or so). Where are you in the passage? Are you Zacchaeus, are you in the crowd milling about Jesus? Are you standing off somewhere watching the whole thing? Listen to what God has to say to you as the person you are in the meditation. If you are merely observer, what does that say about your involvement in the things of God?
In addition to meditation, if you take a sufficiently short passage, you can simply repeat the passage, turning it over and over in your mind, worshipping God in His holy word. You might in times of dire trouble turn to the Letter of Paul to the Philippians (4:13) "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. " We might rest in this word, awaiting the strength, taking to us the grace that comes from this promise, recognizing its truth and applying it to our lives.
There are many ways of conducting lectio and many worthy sources and books on how to go about it. But first and most important is to immerse yourself in the Word of God. The Church thinks this so important that a plenary indulgence is granted daily to the person who meets all the usual requisite conditions and spends a half-hour or more reading scripture. By reading scripture, I have always assumed that they meant even so small a portion as a verse considered continuously in meditative prayer for half-an-hour; however, I suppose one should consult a canonist on the actuality of this. Even lacking a plenary indulgence, spending half-an-hour in the Word is much like an entire day of vacation. Many cannot spend that much time, but any time spent is well worthwhile.
One major caution: lectio is NOT Bible Study. Bible Study is a good, necessary, and concomitant action that accompanies lectio, however, your meditative prayer time is not the time to mull over the aorist tense of verbs in Pauline injunctions. It isn't the place to ponder the civilization and achievement of the Hyksos or the Chaldeans. It isn't time to speculate about the kerygmatic implications of the Book of Micah. Bible study is a necessary outside activity that inculcates a base-level literal understanding of the text. In the course of Bible study, you may find yourself drawn off into lectio and you would do well to abandon your trials and worries over the text and vanish for a moment into your "private room" where you might spend a few minutes really speaking with God about what His word means.
Lectio is a very powerful, very fulfilling means of prayer. When we conclude our time of prayer it is well to finish with an "Our Father," and with one firm resolution of what we will take away from the time we have spent and practice in the world at large. That is, lectio should touch you where you live and change your life in some small way. After all, how can one sit with the King of Creation and not be transformed?
More about lectio, keeping a journal, and prayer later. For now, just go and try.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:47 AM
March 6, 2003
The Fruit of Last Night's Lectio
Poor Judas
Luke 22:1-6 especially verse 3.
Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot who was of the number of the twelve.
Poor Judas--weak and broken vessel--most cracked in an assemblage of broken crockery. Even among those closest to the savior, Satan seemed to have his own way. Peter and Judas that we know of, James and John in the Garden, and who knows what we have not heard in the Gospel stories. But Judas worst off of all. Dante has him with Cassius and Brutus occupying the three mouths of Satan, Judas eternally head-in.
And I am so like him. My price is so low. Would I betray Christ for thirty silver pieces? A ridiculous question both in mood and tense. The answer is I have betrayed Him for far less that that. When I speak harshly to someone because my own pride is wounded, is that worth 30 silver pieces? When I ignore the plight of the poor, when I eat more than I need to live, when I lie and cheat to gain my own paltry ends, when I commit any of the hundred or thousand greater or lesser infractions of the day--am I not also rejecting the love of One who wishes more than anything for me to see what Love is? No, I am less that Judas, less than the traitor who surrendered the Lord. Driven by greed, disapppointment, confusion, and who knows what other motives--he at least once loved and listened to the Lord. And the despair of his terrible death suggests that at least he truly regretted the terrible thing he had done. More often than not, I do not regret. It takes enormous work and thought to bring me to a single moment of contrition. God has to work overtime on my hardened heart to move it a single beat closer to His own.
Poor Judas
betrayer of the Lord--
and yet I am less than the dirt
beneath his feet!
Would I ever have chosen to serve
the peripatetic Lord?
This perambulating savior?
If you, poor Judas, are in a place to do so,
please pray for me that I avoid
future instances of our terrible crime.
Amen.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 7:17 AM
August 5, 2002
Meditation on the Office of Readings
"Do not turn inward and live only for yourselves as though already assured of salvation; join together rather and seek the common good. . . .Rather, let us become spiritual; let us be a perfect dwelling place for God." (from a Letter attributed to Barnabas)
What does this dwelling place look like? How does one become such a dwelling place? In what sort of place does God choose to live?
You'd be surprised. God does not necessarily choose palaces, nor even a nice middle-class suburban home, although, of course, He can make His dwelling there as well. No, more often, the places He comes to are humble--tarpaper shacks, a tumble-down cabin, a shallow cave in the face of a cliff. And what He finds there is often unspeakable--wretchedness, dirt and filth, unhappiness, vermin, all manner of things that would offend Him.
How then do these places, our own souls, become suitable dwellings for the Lord of All Creation? Simply, we open a door. We truly open a door. We don't unlock a single lock only to slam a huge bar in place. We don't make the sound of squeaky hinges yet never turn the handle of the door. We ask Christ to be our guest. We ask Him in through prayer and through allying our wills to the first stirrings that He inspires in us.
The present dwellings are too often unkempt, unlit, cramped, and airless. We are unbending, uncompromising, judgmental, unloving, uncaring, self-involved, greedy. We make no room for others. We allow no imperfections in anyone other than ourselves. We are quick to take offense and slow to make peace. We demand our own ways and acknowledge not other possibilities. When we actually open the door, even if it is only a crack, the breath of the Spirit stirs up a new, breathable air and with that air comes light and warmth. When we ask Jesus in, He will enter. And He will do the renovation that makes our dark home His dwelling of light. And we will not like it--no one wants to see what is just beneath the wallboards of their dwelling. No one wants to have exposed the dark workings of the human heart. We do not really want to know about the damage we have inflicted on others or about the harm we do when we are distant, cold, and judging. We are safer in our cramped darkness. This new light and air means we must walk in the open and deal with others in ways we are unused to.
Jesus makes the dwelling of God perfect if we simply cooperate in the venture. If we put ourselves and our considerations aside, Jesus will reform the interior. He will do the remodeling, the rebuilding, the repainting. Sometimes He will have to completely gut what is already present. But all we need do is focus on Him and listen to Him. He will make the dwelling right, but He can only do so by invitation. We cannot expect Him to barge His way in and begin changing things. We must open the door.
And once the door is open, the world is changed. No, it only seems that the world has changed. But once we change, once we become vessels for God, we begin to see as God sees and understand as God understands. No, not fully, but at least darkly, we begin to understand the interconnectedness of our actions. We begin to understand that harsh words spoken even in a good cause are still harsh words. Righteous anger too often is only righteous on the part of the one angry. We begin to see that even our best gestures at welcoming others are, without Christ, awkward and off-putting. We begin to understand that from ourselves we can expect nothing but self, but from Jesus we can expect nothing but Love.
When Jesus dwells in the house, the light is on and it shines out for all to see. If Jesus is not there, we see that as well. When Jesus is in the house, there is no task too large, no injustice so great that we cannot do something to help alleviate it. When God is dwelling in this perfected dwelling, the world has hope and love and light.
How do we start? Prayer, constant prayer. We need at every moment to be aware that God is present and to direct our attention to God. This does not mean we go about in some mystical daze, stumbling into traffic, or causing accidents at work. It does mean that we recognize that work as the gift of God for that moment and that we recognize each person we encounter as a marred image of Christ, another dwelling for God than may need some help in the renovation process. It means that we spend some time thanking God for the many opportunities that come to us and inviting Him to send more. It means that we pray as we live, as we breath, acknowledging that all life, all hope, all goodness comes from Him who took our form to make us One with Him. And it means that we allow that oneness to erase our individuality and to bring forth our reality. Our only real image can exist only when we allow Christ to identify it and to light it from within. All other images are merely masks of the moment. The only reality is the image of Christ with which we may choose to cooperate or against which we can battle to our own detriment and that of the entire world. For a single dwelling without a light can conjure up a holocaust to defy imagination. A single soul that does not know it is loved, can wreak havoc on millions all around it. A single image of Christ left uncomforted and unconsoled by us is, in fact, a blasphemy. And what can be the source of comfort and consolation if it is not Christ within us?
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:17 AM