My thanks to everyone who responded to my request yesterday. A special belated thanks to all those who commented on the Trust post and helped me to identify some areas where I need more precision in language and accuracy in conveying my thoughts.
Also, an invitation to all. Many wrote expressing that practical application would be helpful. I often think that I have included that because when I write I pass into a kind of fog. I absolutely concur with you all and I make a point of this to my Carmelite group--what we read should help to change our lives or there is no real point in reading it (speaking of spiritual works.) There is no point in reading St. John of the Cross to say that you have done so. The only point to reading St. John or about St. John is to manifest a real change in your relationship with God. So too with much that appears here--you all know the posts I mean. And so, if I have been vague in means, please ask. I may not know the answer, but because there are so many who are seeking the same path, the multiplicity of views about how one does one thing or another will help those who are seeking. As I said in another post--the strait gate and narrow way are at once narrow and tiny and as broad as God's Love itself. The way to find deeper prayer, humility, patience, meekness, whatever, is very probably a little bit different for each person. So when we hear and share those different ways with one another we become more aware of the fact that God wishes us to find our own way in the broad array before us. We have the gifts and talents He has given us, the path of perfection will perfect those gifts and talents for use to His Glory. We find these steps in the experiences and companionship of others who tread or have trodden the same road.
In sum: Tell me I've been vague about means, and I will either amplify, or ask others to help. The reality is, you all know everything I can tell you, you just don't realize that you know it. In conversation and communion with others, we discover the truth that we long have known through the nourishment provided in the Word of God and in the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church.
On Humility
Laura asked in a comment to a post below
What does humility look like in our everyday lives? What do we think it is, but is really only a disguise for pride.
And there were a couple of very fine answers. I particularly liked Tom's:
St. Catherine of Siena wrote that "humility proceeds from self-knowledge." I think self-knoweldge is necessary and sufficient for humility -- if you know who you are and who you aren't, what you can do and what you can't, you will be humble, and if you are humble you know these things. So I'd take signs of self-knowledge as signs of humility, and their absence as an implication of pride.
And Alicia's point is a powerful one and the specific case of Tom's more general answer:
sometimes humility is in silence, sometimes in speaking up. what it isn't is aptly described by charles dickens in david copperfield - mr.micawber (I think) - the one who was 'so 'umble!"
Humility will look quite different on different people depending in large part on their personalities and on the gifts that God has given them. Because humility is at its core truest knowledge of the self and knowledge of the self with respect to the grand Other that created all that is, humility is best displayed when we are not wearing one of the many masks that we don for purposes of moving through society. A truly humble person does not change in demeanor from one interaction to another. Paraphrasing from what you must all (by now) recognize as one of the great "sacred texts" in my life, "(Being a Gentleman) Isn't so much a matter of treating one person better than another, but treating them all the same. You treat a flower girl as a duchess and I treat a duchess as a flower girl..." (Henry Higgins).
That is the reality. Humility is self-knowledge and true self-knowledge allows us to look at others and see Christ. When we can do THAT, then what can we do but treat everyone equally and show ourselves for what we are, lowly servants, "Not fit to undo the strap of His sandal."
However, you can fake this as well. You can be in public service oriented and mild and meek and smiling, and return to your house kick off your shoes and say, "Thank God, that's over with, what a unwashed mob." Humility must be carefully nurtured and cultivated. It starts from knowledge of self, as St. Catherine of Siena and countless others have pointed out. But it grows through prayers (as do all virtues and habits of sanctity) and it grows through aligning our will with the will of God and (to quote another Text of some considerable import) "Looking for the Good in people." (Pollyanna). Because when your look for the good in people (as the film shows), you will surely find it. And why is that so? Because Christ is in our fellow human beings. So we sheer away all the prickly surfaces, all of the personality that we don't care for, all of the tics and quirks that irritate us and we embrace Christ in that person.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux cultivated humility with a smile. Everyone knows the tale of the nun whom no one cared for--a particularly, prickly, sour, disagreeable nun all the other nuns did their best to avoid. St. Thérèse went out of her way to smile at this person though she had no real affection for her. She smiled brilliantly every time she met her to the point that the nun once commented to St. Thérèse, "You must have a most special affection for me. Everytime you see me you give me such a broad smile." What Thérèse loved was the image of Christ in this person and she subdued her own natural inclination to dislike the nun so that she was able to recognize Jesus.
Humility must be cultivated through prayer, love (expressed in works, even so small a work as a smile at someone you dislike), and detachment. These four and others are constant companions. It seems, and I may be very wrong here, that none may grow long without the others and they all grow with the cultivation of one. Cultivating humility drives one toward prayer--when we really look at ourselves and see ourselves as God does, when we have solid self-knowledge that includes both our wretchedness and the fact that despite our wretchedness we are prized as much as or more than the most precious Person who ever lived, we come to understand the supreme value of every living soul. We cultivate humility through knowledge of Christ--in the scriptures, in the writings of the great saints, and in prayer. We also cultivate it through a daily (or more frequent) examen to see how we have been greeting God in our fellow human beings.
Tom's post mentioned St. Gaspar del Bufalo's "Maxims for the Pursuit of Humility" (available courtesy of Father Keyes at the excellent New Gasparian site. Posted on this site is a kind of examen list, St. Josemaria Escriva's Seventeen Evidences of a Lack of Humility. If you are not disinclined to Opus Dei spirituality, you might visit this site and use the very fine search engine to look up and read the brief passages on humility.
Humility is "Something Beautiful for God," it is ultimate self knowledge, and at the same time, paradoxically, self-forgetfulness in the beloved. It is a garment cut to the individual and expressed quite differently by different people. It might appear shockingly off-putting, as when Mother Teresa spoke at the Presidential prayer breakfast and raked the people there over the coals for the culture of death they supported and cultivated. Humility is true love so that it never lies, nor does it seek to wound or hurt.
That's as much as I can say to help you on the way. All of the saints address it, many of them tell you how to cultivate it far better than I can do. (After all, I have to spend some time doing so before I would know what to tell everyone else.) But humility is the important garment that holds many of the virtues together and allows truthful expression of them. Humility guides us in what to say and how. Humility may show up as humor, as when St. Teresa of Avila spoke to the Almighty after falling from her horse, "If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few." Humility speaks the truth in love, always. I pray for this virtue, but do not spend enough time actually seeking it out. I pray for an increase in the resolution to cultivate and express humility for by so doing, I can help the lives of those around me to be just a little better.
E-Books for All--From the Bruderhof Community Website
I've never been quite sure what to make of the Bruderhof communities, and because I do not know, I will refrain from advancing an opinion. What I can say of the collective is that I have very much enjoyed some of the books they have published. You now have a chance to sample some of their work through an extensive e-book collection (perhaps as many as 28 titles.) This includes such works as a sampler of Soren Kierkegaard titled Provocations and other books that might appeal to some in St. Blogs. Go to this site and click e-books. I hope you enjoy them. Warning to the Nervous: Very Social Justice Oriented and VERY Anabaptist.
From Morning Prayer
And incidentally from the First Letter of Peter:
1 Peter 4: 10-11a As generous distributors of God's manifold grace, put your gifts at the service of one another, each in the measure he has received. The one who speaks is to deliver God's message. The one who serves is to do it with the strength provided by God. Thus, in all of you God is to be glorified through Jesus Christ.
What really struck me this morning, although I know it sticks somewhere in the back of my mind most times, is the wonderful notions that we are "generous distributors of God's manifold grace." That is, we are instruments of His grace, sometimes unwillingly, most times unknowingly, but nevertheless it is true. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could be more aware of it more of the time and act in accordance with the responsibility that implies? I mean many organizations and groups have dress codes and requirements for the people they send out to represent them to the public. Shouldn't our dress code be love, patience, humility, and prayerfulness?
Over the last couple of days, I have posted some rather strongly worded posts that I would characterize, perhaps, as exhortations. The silence on some of these has been deafening. (I'm surprised by how much feedback came on the issue of trust and everyone's comments have helped me to start rethinking exactly how to say what I'm aiming at--thank you). Now, I've come to expect that in certain cases, but as these pieces are part and parcel of a continuing work, what I'd like to make certain of is that they are not too shrill or angry. Having come from a long line of preacher-men, I'm always concerned about sounding too much like pulpit thumping and not enough like loving exhortation to do what I know God can make possible for all of us. So, if these posts have caused offense or hurt, please let me know ASAP and accept my apologies in advance. If there are specifics that you find offensive, please do not hesitate to let me know. My work can only improve if I know where it fails in its intended goal. Thank you all so much for being the patient, longsuffering audience you have been and continue to be.
Mr Serafin sends readers to a wonderful site Dovesong Foundation. At this site one can download for one's own use, apparently legally, recordings of western Classical and Sacred music and Classical music of other traditions. In addition, there appears to be a collection of sheet music. If you have not already discovered the riches of this site, you may want to make your way over to it.
Why is it when I say this in some very faithful Catholic groups, I get looks of doubt and a "not me!" sort of shoulder shrugging? Why is it that people refuse to believe that we are all called to be Saints, and by that, I do not mean the little "s" saints that seem to have no real meaning other than belonging to Christendom at large? We are called to be capital "S" Saints, even if we are never canonized or recognized. We are called to lives of heroic virtue--every single one of us by virtue of our baptism. We are called to lives of sacrifice and praise, lives that honor God not in the acquisition of material goods, but in the salvation of souls through corporal and spiritual works of Mercy that bring the grace of God to the individual.
Did Jesus not say, "Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect?" If Jesus commanded it, is it impossible to do? Even if it is impossible for us alone, Paul reminds us in Philippians that "I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me." So why is it that so many people deny their responsibility in this? Why are we so reluctant to believe that all are called and chosen--that sanctity is not merely for the few but for all people everywhere at all times.
Well, I say once again, we are called to be Saints, and we don't get there alone. We only achieve the seemingly impossible by complete cooperation with grace in the Will of God the Father through the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We must recall the famous formula for sanctity, given by Our Lord and incumbent upon all of us even though it was spoken of Him in particular, "I must decrease so that He might increase." Might here is not an expression of probabilistic formulation, it is a given. If we decrease, get out of the way, and turn ourselves to cooperation with God's will, He will increase in us so that our lives will be lives of heroic virtue.
How do we do this? Each Order has its own formulation of the principle, but it all boils down to the same thing--Prayer, prayer, prayer, service, service, service, and humility, humility, humility. By the habitual exercise of Faith, Hope, and Charity, we begin to align ourselves with God's will. In prayer, we being to make out vaguely what shape that Will may take for us as individuals. We may not see everything clearly, and we certainly won't see more than a step at a time, but we will be given enough to move forward. In prayer we also express our deep love for God and by expressing it, help to make it more real to ourselves and thus help it to grow. You may love someone deeply and completely, but if you do not say it, then it is not real for that person, and in a very real sense it isn't even very real or valuable to you. When we say that we love someone it comes as both a true statement and a reminder of the truth. In prayer when we tell God we Love Him, we remind ourselves of the fact, and incidentally what the fact demands of us--"If you love me you will keep my commands."
Prayer and love of God leads very naturally to service. James told us "Faith without works is dead." St. Thérèse tells us that "Love without works is dead." And that great theologian Eliza Doolittle reminds us in no uncertain terms of this understanding, "Don't talk of stars burning at night, If you're in love, show me!" So too with God. If we're in love, we must show Him. We show Him by acts of love and service toward his people here on Earth, most particularly the oppressed, the imprisoned, the ill, those less capable of caring for themselves, the underprivileged, and those who suffer from every form of mental illness and oppression. Not one of us is free of the obligation of service in some form. The forms will all be different dependent upon our talents and upon the people whom we are called to serve. But service is an active, powerful sign of true love in the heart. It is the powerful manifestation of our heart of love.
And humility. Humility is the key ingredient so that we don't start patting ourselves on the back for our excellent service and show of our love for God. We are not permitted pride in our work. Pride will kill love any day in our weak human natures. We must exercise humility, valuing ourselves little and God within us greatly. We must see our works exactly at they are, very small in the large scheme of things and hardly a dent in the surface of the misery of the world. Nevertheless, these works we must do and this service we must perform and we must do it in love of God and humble thanks to Him for the opportunities He grants us.
So, we are all called to be Saints. It's time. If you haven't started, get in Contact and find out what kind of Saint you are called to be!
I sent him wishes from all of St. Blogs. He sounds as good as circumstances can warrant.
Special prayers for him on this day of days.
John da Fiesole is ably defending the truth against various detractors. In response I found this absolutely irresistable piece of anti-Catholic diatribe, enshrined in the archives of Catholic-hating protestants everywhere. Ms. Monk purports to give a true account of the awful goings-on in a Canadian Nunnery. (Although given a recent post by Mr. de Vere at Catholic Light, it would seem that Canada has enough to account for on its own.)
I sometimes wonder if many of us actually trust God. Let's face it, His track record isn't great--He allowed His own son to die--something few of us would allow had we any ability to prevent it. What then does one make of such a God? Is He reliable? Can we be certain of what we are getting from Him?
The answer is, of course, yes. However, we more often than not do not act as though we can or do trust Him. We act on the principle that we know better how to arrange and organize things for the benefit of all. That, of course, is out of fear--fear of the loss of control, fear of the unknown, sometimes fear of God Himself. We are told the "Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Of course, it may also be the font of enormous foolishness as well. Fear of the Lord can lead us to do all manner of idiotic things.
The problem is this--from the time we were children many forces in society and personal experiences have taught us time and again to trust no one. I truly believe that a principle espoused in the Bible works here as well--"If you do not love those around you whom you can see, how can you hope to love an invisible God?" So too with trust. If you cannot trust what you do see, how do you being to trust what is invisible and largely unknowable--shrouded in mystery after mystery, glimpsed dimly but poorly understood?
The answer is that despite potential vulnerability, you begin to trust what you do see. We may make mistakes in where we place our trust. We may put our trust in a good place, but all human and created things are fallible, and they will eventually fail us. However, we cannot begin to understand and practice trust without taking this step. We may say that we trust God, but look at all the bulwarks and supports we put in place in case God does not come through. The Saints of the past had unending trust in His Wisdom--we need to cultivate the same. Whatever happens to us is at least allowed by Him for some good that we may not completely know. We trust surgeons to cut into us and remove bits and pieces or alter us in some way--knowing that we may suffer pain as a result. Some of the pain we feel we bring upon ourselves, and some is the pain of the surgery that will ultimately restore health.
Trust is difficult, but it is essential. You do not speak from the fullness of your heart to someone you do not trust. If we do not trust God, how then can we hope to pray effectively.
Perhaps the most difficult part of trust is discerning where it is we do not trust God. To which questions do we demand firm and absolute answers? What things do we refuse to leave alone, do we continue to worry? We need to look deeply into ourselves and recognize our deep lack of trust and pray with the man of the gospels, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief."
Sometimes silence is more difficult than at other times. Sometimes silence is comfortable--a space to be with God. Other times silence is merely being alone. God may be present in the silence but circumstances preclude the recognition of His hand in what is going on. Silence is simply emptiness. It may be good to experience these times of emptiness, but more often than not it is a trial. Worse yet is to be within a pocket of silence while everything around you seems to be in a whirl. You see life going on outside the little vacuum that defines your present world and you wonder what it is you do to join that boisterous, seemingly fun crowd.
Silence, however, does always nurture dependence on God, and it may be one reason that we try so hard to avoid it. We fill our time and space with noise, sometimes small, insignificant noise, but sometimes enormous, overwhelming noise. We seek to avoid too close an encounter. We reason, we think, we fill our time with small disputes, argumentations, conversations, thoughts. Or we fill silence with music, television, telephone conversation, anything to avoid facing the reality that sits immediately beneath the surface. Much of our business is simply the flurry that gives us excuse to ignore the invitation from the Almighty.
Still, we are human, silence is only ocassionally comfortable, and as one progresses, silence becomes progressively less comfortable. As one is weighed down under the normal routines and burdens of life, silence becomes the time when all the cares, concerns, troubles, and potential disasters rush in at once. How do we avoid the press of concerns and move through the silence to the place we ought to occupy--an awed and loving gaze at the Father, Creator, King of All?
I have no simple answer, but I do have the advice of a great many pray-ers from the past that tells me that you do not seek to avoid these things. Rather, you let them flow over and through you into the hands of God Himself. In itself, this is a form of prayer. God knows our concerns and they will come like harpies to pick and distract. If we hand them over immediately, they may still return. But the process is continual--every time they stop by to interrupt us, we hand them over to God. Eventually we will be able to entrust them to Him, and we will stop being distracted. More than that, the things that concern and frighten us will begin to have less power over us. We won't dismiss them, but we will being to understand that they are in hands far more capable than our own.
Another splendid passage:
from Anger
Thich Nhat Hahn"Happiness Is Not an Individual Matter"
This does not mean that you have to hide your anger. You have to let the other person know that you are angry and that you suffer. This is very important. When you get angry with someone, please don't pretend that you are not angry. Don't pretend that you don't suffer. If the other person is dear to you, then you have to confess that you are angry, and that you suffer. Tell him or her in a calm way.
In true love, there is no pride. You cannot pretend that you don't suffer. You cannot pretend that you are not angry. This kind of denial is based on pride. "Angry? Me? Why should I be angry? I'm okay." But, in fact, you are not oaky. You are in hell. Anger is burning you up, and you must tell your partner, your son, your daughter. Our tendency is to say, "I don't need you to be happy! I can be on my own!" This is a betrayal of our initial vow to share everything.
Even though Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist, he once again touches gently upon some central Christian themes here. The commentary that follows has little to do with the actual passage, which I find true and meaningful, but with meanings that come from its title and its ramifications in the emotional life of the individual.
The beatific vision does not occur in utter isolation from all other human beings. Nor can we truly be happy on Earth so long as one who is near and dear to us is suffering. We can rejoice in God, but like Mother Theresa, we will work to alleviate the unhappiness. And as we grow in our Christian vocation, more and more of humanity becomes near and dear to us, until, separated from all, we become All and every person is valuable to us.
This is why the matter of hoping for the salvation of all is such a major issue to many of us. The thought of even a single soul not sharing the beatific vision is actually painful. As much as part of us lusts for vengeance and proper treatment of those who have done wrong, as much as part of us longs for justice, another part, perhaps much smaller, longs for mercy. We recognize what wretched people we all are and we pine for the blessing of God's grace and mercy. We hope for this grace for ourselves and as our hearts become more like the Sacred Heart, we long for this same mercy to be received by all souls.
Part of us knows that there are a great many hardened, hurt souls who might possibly refuse this grace and mercy, continually offered, continually showered down upon all. Part of us knows that Pride makes us want to "make it" on our own. But still we hope that grace is ultimately irresistable. Certainly God will not force Himself on any, but perhaps the flow of grace will draw people into it, however unwillingly. I think of the miser in Fraçois Mauriac's marvelous novel Tangle of Vipers and the way that grace eventually works its way upon him.
And I do hope because happiness is not achieved in isolation. Although I suppose if I were the only person in heaven with God, I would be happy in some way but I cannot imagine it. Again, St. Thérèse spoke lightly (but meaningfully) what means more and more to me as time goes on, "I want to spend my heaven doing good on Earth." I begin to know God's hunger for all to return to Him, for there not to be a single soul lost and alone.
In this counsel we hear the echo of the great St. Francis of Assisi:
Strive always to prefer. . . Not that which is consolation, but rather that which is disconsolateness
Always keep in mind that introductory phrase of the counsels--it is critically important. "Strive always to prefer" is an explicit injunction to habit of mind, training in thinking, feeling, and doing. In this case it is not a command to go out and make yourself miserable. As in all things, when we have a choice of spending time with those who are mourning and grieving, who are hurt and wounded, or those who are "making merry," we should prefer to spend time with those who are hurt. When we have a choice between hard work and leisure, we should prefer the hard work. When we have a choice of working with great emotional satisfaction and having our work constantly criticized and demeaned, we should choose the latter. Why? Again the refrain--because it is a discipline that teaches us to value our work for what it really is. It teaches us to let go of anything connected with us and let it rise to praise God. When we are enormously attached to our work we can only do as well as we can do. When we let go of it, we let it rise to God in splendor and He perfects the work--perhaps even unto the salvation of souls.
Why disconsolateness? Because the lack of emotional reward and even emotional hardship causes us to lean more heavily upon Him who bears our burdens and carries us over the difficult track. When we take great satisfaction and contentment in our work and our lives we are less inclined to look at Him. When we are downcast and not focused on ourselves we look at the Face of Glory and in it have some great respite from our Earthly trials.
Prefer always to serve without notice, to serve those who are unappreciative, to serve without emotional reward, to seek out those who grieve and mourn, those whom we find less pleasant company, and like St. Thérèse bestow upon them a small benediction--a smile, a handshake, a hearty good morning, some sense of that person being welcomed. Do not seek to rest in pleasant and easy emotions, but seek to work through rough periods and to put everything into God's hands. In not seeking consolation we attain the very greatest consolation there is--God Himself.
I have only recently discovered the liturgical and religious music of Pärt and Penderecki. Pärt hails from Estonia, I believe, and even as I write I am listening to a wonderful, mysterious, and moving Magnificat. I read a short musicological sketch that suggested that Pärt experimented for a time with a twelve-tone system á la Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg. From this he developed a distinctive musical style that some have labelled minimalist and others (perhaps Pärt himself) have called the tintinnabuli style. He seems to limit himself to a very restricted range of notes and frequent repetitions. The end result sounds like something between Gregorian Chant and more elaborate Renaissance Polyphony. It isn't strict Chant because there are definite harmonies in the voices, and yet there is something about it, perhaps all voices together with no additional "background" lines against which lines are sung, that suggests Chant at times.
Anyway, if you have not encountered Pärt, I would heartily recommend him as some of the very finest sacred music of recent times. It is in many cases beautiful and mysterious beyond words. There is a blend of the serene and the exalted that transports the listener into another realm.
One of the most superb collections of Americana available to all may be found here. Incorporating collections of literary works, presidents papers, photographs, films, and sound recordings, the collection is an invitation to the study of American History. You can view films from the Pan-American Exposition that marked the final days of William McKinley. You can see footage of early New York City. You can see letters by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in their own hand--a couple of them taken from the blotter rather than the original. You can read about the Donner Party. The collection is searchable and it is also organized into "special exhibitions." Truly worth the time anytime you have something you want to research. (Oh, and if you wish to see it, there's even a famous fragment of a "Gertie the Dinosaur" cartoon.)
My very good friend Gordon goes for the last of a series of grueling interviews today. It is hoped that he will receive an offer and will be able to start ASAP. Please pray for this eventuality.
One sometimes puzzles over why there seems to be less of a masculine presence in the Church today. Yesterday, I had something of a glimpse of the reason.
Every year on Mother's day, the church I attend goes out of its way to have literally thousands of roses all over the altar area. This year there was something on the order of twelve-thousand roses decorating the Church. On mother's day a long blessing and much of the homily was dedicated to the role of mothers in our lives. Don't get me wrong--so long as the liturgy is not warped and the theme can be worked into a reasonable homily, I don't have any real problem with this--it is right a proper to give all due respect and dignity to mothers. However, when we got to Father's day, on the Feast of the Holy Trinity--certainly a day in which one could easily talk about the image of Father that men are all called to emulate--not a word. Not so much as a recognition that it was Father's day. Certainly no blessing, no special recognition , no flowers. (Not that I'd care for roses anyway--Dendrobium orchids seems appropriate--in fact, orchids of any sort, given the etymology of the name). I find this dismaying--dismaying and yet entirely predictable. When we view the Holy Family, although we pay a moment of lip-service to Blessed St. Joseph, the model of all fathers, we quickly pass over him to Jesus and His Mother.. All well and good--but utterly damaging in service to the family. A Marian emphasis is wonderful, uplifting thing--but a Church that does not recognize fathers for their contribution to the family is not a church that invites men in. This is only one of many ways that the Church, perhaps in an attempt to undo a perceived wrong in a completely male hierarchy, actually overlooks men and chooses not to invite them equally if they are not part of the clergy.
I'd like to think that what I observed was an anomaly, but I have noted it in nearly every parish I've been to. Mother's Day is made much of, Father's day, if it is mentioned at all, is usually some sort of joke. This may reflect societal influence, but the point of the Church in culture is not to reflect society but to direct it. If you want to invite men into the Church, then the day that celebrates the vocation of the vast majority of men should have the same or similar degree of celebration as that which celebrates the greatness of Motherhood. At a minimum, it seems appropriate to read a special blessing for fathers or to say a single prayer for strengthening fathers in their vocations. So long as the Church continues to slight this important vocation, we will have failed families--divorce, child abuse, and adultery. All vocations take great strength and perserverence. To expect once a year a blessing to help strengthen that vocation does not seem to be asking overmuch.
(Oh, and then I should probably say something about the way the Church treats those who are childless through no fault of their own--or in many cases even worse, those who are single either temporarily or by vows, and yet not part of the Religious. These are imperfections of the practice, not of the institution, and they can and should be addressed and remedied.)
I've been reading Thich Nhat Hanh's marvelous book Anger. In doing so, this passage leapt off the page:
Anger
Thich Nhat HanhPunishing the other person is self-punishment. That is true in every circumstance. Every time the United States Army tries to punish Iraq, not only does Iraq suffer, but the U.S. also suffers. Every time Iraq tries to punish the U.S., the U.S. suffers, but Iraq also suffers. The same is true everywhere; between the Israeli and Palestinian, between the Muslim and HIndu, between you and the other person. It has always been like that. So let us wake up; let us be aware that punishing the other is not an intelligent strategy.
What I am sometimes amazed by, more often encouraged by, is the wisdom that echoes of Christianity found in nearly any sincere practitioner of his or her faith. This echo, this strain, reminds me of the passage in the creed: "One holy, apostolic, and Catholic Church." It casts new meaning on "no salvation outside the Church." It would seem to me that Christ reaches out from the heart of the Church to embrace people who are looking for Him though they may not know His name. Nhat Hanh certainly knows His name, having written several books in which Buddhism and Christianity are laid side by side and explored. But there are a great many Buddhists for whom Christ is unknown. Jesus still reaches out to these people through the truths of their faith. These are sheep that hear His voice and know it, but who have never seen the Shepherd and do not know His name. Or so I think--naturally, I have no proof of this, and I do believe that they would be even better off were they to know the fullness of the Catholic Faith. But sometimes people are born into a place where that is not a possibility--I believe that even in those circumstances the voice of Jesus is heard. I pray for the salvation of all, that all may be brought into the fullness of faith by our loving Father.
I had the opportunity to see The Matrix Reloaded this weekend. While I found it enormously entertaining and quite beautiful, I do wonder what all the buzz is about. I saw nothing particularly Christian in it, nor did I find long patches of dialogue about causality and free-will particularly compelling evidence of a Christian foundation. On the other hand, neither were there any evidences of a strongly antipathetic approach to religion and Christianity. So, for a film-goer looking for amusement, entertainment, and some beauty, the film was a marvel--the fight choreography stunningly beautiful at times, the plot a relentlessly messy tangle of picaresque chess-playing motions that seemed to have no real end in mind (not that that bothers me in the least).
No, that it is a beautiful film is probably undeniable. As to a meaningful film--not for me.