I recently finished reading Father Neuhaus's last book, American Babylon. I love that man. I always said to myself that if I ever got to New York, I'd go to one of his masses and listen to him preach. That will never happen now, sadly. I mourn his passing. I pray, I trust, that having fought the good fight, having run his race, he has reached the longed-for home, the goal he describes in such moving language: "The pilgrim destination is not so much a place as a person. How do Christians envision their final return from exile? It is the personal encounter and eternal dwelling with one who is no stranger, for we knew him in his humility and will then see him in his triumph. The finite, once receptive to the infinite, is now received into the infinite. Received, not absorbed or subsumed, for we continue to be creatures, but now creatures perfectly attuned to the love by which and for which we were made."
I'll be reflecting on his book in my next few postings. In this, as in everything he wrote, there is a lot to chew on. But today, I just want to quote the last two paragraphs:
"Throughout these pages, the proposal is that the whole creation groans for the glory that is to be revealed. With the resurrection of Jesus, a genuinely new world order has been inaugurated, and we are on the way, out from exile and on the pilgrim way toware the City of God. We are sustained on the way by faith's embrace of the presence in time of the End Time, who is the Alpha and Omega, the logos of all that has been, is now, and ever shall be. We are moving toward our destination, and our destination is moving toward us. At the very end of the very last book of the Bible are the words of Jesus, "Behold, I am coming soon." To which all the saints respond: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"
"... we seek to be faithful in a time not of our choosing but of our testing. We resist the hubris of presuming that it is the definitive time and place of historical promise or tragedy, but it is our time and place. It is a time of many times: a time for dancing, even if to the songs of Zion in a foreign land; a time for walking together, unintimidated when we seem to be a small and beleaguered band; a time for rejoicing in momentary triumphs, and for defiance in momentary defeats; a time for persistance in reasoned argument, never tiring in proposing to the world a more excellent way; a time for generosity toward those who would make us their enemy; and, finally, a time for happy surrender to brother death -- but not before, through our laughter and our tears, we see and hail from afar the New Jerusalem and know that it is all time toward home."
Amen to that, Father! Richard John Neuhaus. Requiescat in pace.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Silence
I've been trying to track down something I read in Thomas Merton a long time ago on contemptus mundi. No luck so far. But in the process, I came upon some wonderful passages in his book, Contemplative Prayer on the importance of silence. I'd like to share a couple of these. The first is from Isaac of Niniveh, a Syrian monk:
"Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence ... Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself ...
"More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this 'something' that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence .. after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence."
Further on, Merton quotes one of the Desert Fathers, Abba Ammonas, a disciple of St. Anthony:
"Behold, my beloved, I have shown you the power of silence, how thoroughly it heals and how fully pleasing it is to God. Wherefore I have written to you to show yourselves strong in this work you have undertaken, so that you may know that it is by silence that the saints grew, that it was because of silence that the power of God dwelt in them, because of silence that the mysteries of God were known to them."
In relation to the subject of contemptus mundi and withdrawal from worldly attachments, this passage is not exactly what I had in mind, but it is very relevant (I'm quoting Merton himself this time):
"Far from establishing one in unassailable narcissistic security, the way of prayer brings us face to face with the sham and indignity of the false self that seeks to live for itself alone and to enjoy the 'consolation of prayer' for its own sake. This 'self' is pure illusion, and ultimately he who lives for and by such an illusion must end either in disgust or in madness.
"On the other hand, we must admit that social life, so-called 'worldly life,', in its own way promotes this illusory and narcissistic existence to the very limit. The curious state of alienation and confusion of man in modern society is perhaps more 'bearable' because it is lived in common, with a multitude of distractions and escapes -- and also with opportunities for fruitful action and genuine Christian self-forgetfulness. But underlying all life is the ground of doubt and self-questioning which sooner or later must bring us face to face with the ultimate meaning of our life. This self-questioning can never be without a certain existential 'dread' -- a sense of insecurity, of 'lostness,' of exile, of sin. A sense that one has somehow been untrue not so much to abstract moral or social norms but to one's own inmost truth. 'Dread' in this sense is not simply a childish fear of retribution, or a naive guilt, a fear of violating taboos. It is the profound awareness that one is capable of ultimate bad faith with himself and with others: that one is living a lie."
It's a very strong idea in monastic spirituality that life in the "world", if it doesn't actually force us to live a lie, does tend to keep drawing us up to the surface of things. We have to break contact at times if we want to get down to the depths of reality, where the encounter with God can occur. Again, Merton says this better than I can: "[the monk] plunges deep into the heart of that world of which he remains a part although he seems to have "left" it. In reality the monk abandons the world only in order to listen more intently to the deepest and most neglected voices that proceed from its inner depth."
"Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence ... Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself ...
"More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this 'something' that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence .. after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence."
Further on, Merton quotes one of the Desert Fathers, Abba Ammonas, a disciple of St. Anthony:
"Behold, my beloved, I have shown you the power of silence, how thoroughly it heals and how fully pleasing it is to God. Wherefore I have written to you to show yourselves strong in this work you have undertaken, so that you may know that it is by silence that the saints grew, that it was because of silence that the power of God dwelt in them, because of silence that the mysteries of God were known to them."
In relation to the subject of contemptus mundi and withdrawal from worldly attachments, this passage is not exactly what I had in mind, but it is very relevant (I'm quoting Merton himself this time):
"Far from establishing one in unassailable narcissistic security, the way of prayer brings us face to face with the sham and indignity of the false self that seeks to live for itself alone and to enjoy the 'consolation of prayer' for its own sake. This 'self' is pure illusion, and ultimately he who lives for and by such an illusion must end either in disgust or in madness.
"On the other hand, we must admit that social life, so-called 'worldly life,', in its own way promotes this illusory and narcissistic existence to the very limit. The curious state of alienation and confusion of man in modern society is perhaps more 'bearable' because it is lived in common, with a multitude of distractions and escapes -- and also with opportunities for fruitful action and genuine Christian self-forgetfulness. But underlying all life is the ground of doubt and self-questioning which sooner or later must bring us face to face with the ultimate meaning of our life. This self-questioning can never be without a certain existential 'dread' -- a sense of insecurity, of 'lostness,' of exile, of sin. A sense that one has somehow been untrue not so much to abstract moral or social norms but to one's own inmost truth. 'Dread' in this sense is not simply a childish fear of retribution, or a naive guilt, a fear of violating taboos. It is the profound awareness that one is capable of ultimate bad faith with himself and with others: that one is living a lie."
It's a very strong idea in monastic spirituality that life in the "world", if it doesn't actually force us to live a lie, does tend to keep drawing us up to the surface of things. We have to break contact at times if we want to get down to the depths of reality, where the encounter with God can occur. Again, Merton says this better than I can: "[the monk] plunges deep into the heart of that world of which he remains a part although he seems to have "left" it. In reality the monk abandons the world only in order to listen more intently to the deepest and most neglected voices that proceed from its inner depth."
Friday, April 24, 2009
Ambrose Autpert
The subject of the Holy Father's general audience for this past Wednesday (April 22)was Ambrose Autpert (Ambrosius Autpertus in Latin), an 8th century monk and theologian. He was born in Provence of a noble family, and served for a time as an official in the French court of Pepin the Short. His duties also included acting as a tutor for the future emperor Charlemagne. After leaving the service of the French king, he made his way to Italy, where he joined the Benedictines. He wrote a number of theological works, some of which were wrongly attributed to St. Augustine or Gregory the Great. His most important work was a commentary on the Apocalypse in ten books.
Autpert saw the Book of Revelation as reflecting chiefly on the mystery of the Church. He was less interested, in his reading of this work, in the Second Coming of Christ than in what His first coming, His Incarnation, means for the church of the current age. He says: "Christ must daily be born, die, and be raised in us, who are His Body." In this, Mary is the model of the Church, and a model for each of us, because it is also through us that Christ must be born. It can be reasonably argued that Autpert was the first great Mariologist of the Western Church, anticipating later writers like St. Bernard in some of the formulations inspired by his love and veneration for the Blessed Virgin. At the end of his commentary, Ambrose addresses God in the following words: "When you are scrutinized by us intellectually, you are not uncovered as you really are; when you are loved, you are attained." Study is important, especially study of the Sacred Scriptures, but love has the primacy.
Another of his works that enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages is Conflictus vitiorum et virtutum (The Conflict of the vices and virtues). He describes a kind of spiritual warfare in which 24 pairs of vices and virtues contend, the vices trying to seduce the soul with subtle arguments, while the corresponding virtues strike back using, for the most part, the words of Scripture. In this conflict Autpert opposes cupiditas (greed) with contemptus mundi (contempt of the world). This is almost the defining virtue of the monk. (Thomas Merton has some profound things to say on this somewhere. I'll try to dig that up.) As the Holy Father explains: "This contempt for the world is not a contempt for creation, for the beauty and goodness of the created world and the Creator, but a contempt for the false vision presented and suggested to us by that very vice of greed, which suggests to us that "to have" is the highest value of our existence, what gives our life its seeming importance. And in this way it falsifies the creation of the world and destroys the world. Like St. Paul, Ambrose denounces greed as the root of all evil. He imagines the objections that the rich and powerful might raise, objections like: "We are not monks, the ascetic demands made on you don't apply to us." Autpert responds: "What you say is true, but for you also, according to your manner of life and the measure of your strength, must walk the steep and narrow way, because the Lord has proposed only two gates and two paths (the narrow and the broad gates, the steep and the easy paths); He has not indicated a third gate and a third path."
Autpert saw the Book of Revelation as reflecting chiefly on the mystery of the Church. He was less interested, in his reading of this work, in the Second Coming of Christ than in what His first coming, His Incarnation, means for the church of the current age. He says: "Christ must daily be born, die, and be raised in us, who are His Body." In this, Mary is the model of the Church, and a model for each of us, because it is also through us that Christ must be born. It can be reasonably argued that Autpert was the first great Mariologist of the Western Church, anticipating later writers like St. Bernard in some of the formulations inspired by his love and veneration for the Blessed Virgin. At the end of his commentary, Ambrose addresses God in the following words: "When you are scrutinized by us intellectually, you are not uncovered as you really are; when you are loved, you are attained." Study is important, especially study of the Sacred Scriptures, but love has the primacy.
Another of his works that enjoyed great popularity in the Middle Ages is Conflictus vitiorum et virtutum (The Conflict of the vices and virtues). He describes a kind of spiritual warfare in which 24 pairs of vices and virtues contend, the vices trying to seduce the soul with subtle arguments, while the corresponding virtues strike back using, for the most part, the words of Scripture. In this conflict Autpert opposes cupiditas (greed) with contemptus mundi (contempt of the world). This is almost the defining virtue of the monk. (Thomas Merton has some profound things to say on this somewhere. I'll try to dig that up.) As the Holy Father explains: "This contempt for the world is not a contempt for creation, for the beauty and goodness of the created world and the Creator, but a contempt for the false vision presented and suggested to us by that very vice of greed, which suggests to us that "to have" is the highest value of our existence, what gives our life its seeming importance. And in this way it falsifies the creation of the world and destroys the world. Like St. Paul, Ambrose denounces greed as the root of all evil. He imagines the objections that the rich and powerful might raise, objections like: "We are not monks, the ascetic demands made on you don't apply to us." Autpert responds: "What you say is true, but for you also, according to your manner of life and the measure of your strength, must walk the steep and narrow way, because the Lord has proposed only two gates and two paths (the narrow and the broad gates, the steep and the easy paths); He has not indicated a third gate and a third path."
Thursday, April 23, 2009
"But perhaps it is true after all"
"An adherent of the Enlightenment, a very learned man, who had heard of the Rabbi of Berditchev, paid a visit to him in order to argue, as was his custom, with him, too and to shatter his old-fashioned proofs of the truth of his faith. When he entered the Rabbi's room he found him walking up and down with a book in his hand, wrapped in thought. The Rabbi paid no attention to the new arrival. Suddenly he stopped, looked at him fleetingly and said, "But perhaps it is true after all." The scholar tried in vain to collect himself -- his knees trembled, so terrible was the Rabbi to behold and so terrible his simple utterance to hear. But Rabbi Levi Jizchak now turned to face him and spoke quite calmly: "My son, the great scholars of the Torah with whom you have argued wasted their words on you; as you departed you laughed at them. They were unable to lay God and His Kindgom on the table before you, and nor can I. But think, my son, perhaps it is true." The exponent of the Enlightenment opposed him with all his strength; but this terrible "perhaps", which echoed back at him time after time broke his resistance."
(I quote this from Pope Benedict's book, Introduction to Christianity, written when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger. He in turn took it from the works of Martin Buber, a noted twentieth century Jewish scholar, perhaps best known for his work I and Thou.)
(I quote this from Pope Benedict's book, Introduction to Christianity, written when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger. He in turn took it from the works of Martin Buber, a noted twentieth century Jewish scholar, perhaps best known for his work I and Thou.)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Saint Anselm, Bishop and Doctor
Today is the memorial of Saint Anselm of Canterbury. He was born in Aosta (the first town on the Italian leg of the Via Francigena) in 1033. This is from today's Office of Readings, taken from his Proslogion:
"The light in which you dwell, Lord, is beyond my understanding. It is so brilliant that I cannot bear it, I cannot turn my mind's eye toward it for any length of time. I am dazzled by its brightness, amazed by its grandeur, overwhelmed by its immensity, bewildered by its abundance.
"O supreme and inaccessible light, O complete and blessed truth, how far you are from me, even though I am so near to you! How remote you are from my sight, even though I am present to yours! You are everywhere in your entirety, and yet I do not see you; in you I move and have my being, and yet I cannot approach you; you are within me and around me, and yet I do not perceive you.
"O God, let me know you and love you so that I may find my joy in you; and if I cannot do so fully in this life, let me at least make some progress every day, until at last that knowledge, love and joy come to me in all their plenitude. While I am here on earth let me learn to know you better, so that in heaven I may know you fully; let my love for you grow deeper here, so that there I may love you fully. On earth then I shall have great joy in hope, and in heaven complete joy in the fulfillment of my hope."
Saint Anselm, ora pro nobis!
"The light in which you dwell, Lord, is beyond my understanding. It is so brilliant that I cannot bear it, I cannot turn my mind's eye toward it for any length of time. I am dazzled by its brightness, amazed by its grandeur, overwhelmed by its immensity, bewildered by its abundance.
"O supreme and inaccessible light, O complete and blessed truth, how far you are from me, even though I am so near to you! How remote you are from my sight, even though I am present to yours! You are everywhere in your entirety, and yet I do not see you; in you I move and have my being, and yet I cannot approach you; you are within me and around me, and yet I do not perceive you.
"O God, let me know you and love you so that I may find my joy in you; and if I cannot do so fully in this life, let me at least make some progress every day, until at last that knowledge, love and joy come to me in all their plenitude. While I am here on earth let me learn to know you better, so that in heaven I may know you fully; let my love for you grow deeper here, so that there I may love you fully. On earth then I shall have great joy in hope, and in heaven complete joy in the fulfillment of my hope."
Saint Anselm, ora pro nobis!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Humility
Archbishop Anthony Bloom has interesting things to say about humility in his book Beginning to Pray. He leads up to it by making a point that is not often heard: that the perceived absence of God (of course, He is never really absent) should be regarded as a blessing, for which we should feel gratitude. To come into the divine presence is to enter into judgement, a judgement most of us could not endure, a judgement that would be condemnation. We should pray like the Publican, aware of our unworthiness to come before God, pleading for mercy, asking that by His grace He might form us into people fit to be received into His Kingdom as friends. He puts it this way:
"What we must start with, if we wish to pray, is the certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation, that we are cut off from God and that we cannot live without Him and that all we can offer God is our desperate longing to be made such that God will receive us, receive us in repentance, receive us with mercy and with love. And so from the outset prayer is really our humble ascent towards God, a moment when we turn Godwards, shy of coming near, knowing that if we meet Him too soon, before His grace has had time to help us to be capable of meeting Him, it will be judgment."
This leads in to his meditation on humility. Not the false humility practised by those who constantly dwell on their sinfulness, and are quite pleased with their own piety. True humility is incompatible with feeling good about yourself, because it is incompatible with thinking about yourself at all. Self-forgetfulness is key. To paraphrase a thought of Simone Weil: it is not our business to think about ourselves, but about God. Leave it to God to think about us, trust in His care for us. This is the kind of humility we should pray for. Here is Father Bloom again:
"The word 'humility' comes from the Latin word 'humus' which means fertile ground. To me, humility is not what we often make of it: the sheepish way of trying to imagine that we are the worst of all and trying to convince others that our artificial ways of behaving show that we are aware of that. Humility is the situation of the earth. The earth is always there, always taken for granted, never remembered, always trodden on by everyone, somewhere we cast and pour out all the refuse, all we don't need. It's there, silent and accepting everything and in a miraculous way making out of all the refuse new richness in spite of corruption, transforming corruption itself into a power of life and a new possibility of creativeness, open to the sunshine, open to the rain, ready to receive any seed we sow and capable of bringing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold out of every seed... this is the weakness in which God can manifest His power and this is the situation in which the absence of God can become the presence of God. We cannot capture God. But whenever we stand ... outside the realm of 'right', only in the realm of mercy, we can meet God."
"What we must start with, if we wish to pray, is the certainty that we are sinners in need of salvation, that we are cut off from God and that we cannot live without Him and that all we can offer God is our desperate longing to be made such that God will receive us, receive us in repentance, receive us with mercy and with love. And so from the outset prayer is really our humble ascent towards God, a moment when we turn Godwards, shy of coming near, knowing that if we meet Him too soon, before His grace has had time to help us to be capable of meeting Him, it will be judgment."
This leads in to his meditation on humility. Not the false humility practised by those who constantly dwell on their sinfulness, and are quite pleased with their own piety. True humility is incompatible with feeling good about yourself, because it is incompatible with thinking about yourself at all. Self-forgetfulness is key. To paraphrase a thought of Simone Weil: it is not our business to think about ourselves, but about God. Leave it to God to think about us, trust in His care for us. This is the kind of humility we should pray for. Here is Father Bloom again:
"The word 'humility' comes from the Latin word 'humus' which means fertile ground. To me, humility is not what we often make of it: the sheepish way of trying to imagine that we are the worst of all and trying to convince others that our artificial ways of behaving show that we are aware of that. Humility is the situation of the earth. The earth is always there, always taken for granted, never remembered, always trodden on by everyone, somewhere we cast and pour out all the refuse, all we don't need. It's there, silent and accepting everything and in a miraculous way making out of all the refuse new richness in spite of corruption, transforming corruption itself into a power of life and a new possibility of creativeness, open to the sunshine, open to the rain, ready to receive any seed we sow and capable of bringing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold out of every seed... this is the weakness in which God can manifest His power and this is the situation in which the absence of God can become the presence of God. We cannot capture God. But whenever we stand ... outside the realm of 'right', only in the realm of mercy, we can meet God."
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Icons of Mary
I have great admiration and love for Eastern Orthodoxy: the beautiful, ancient liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and Saint Basil, the importance of monastic spirituality, icons, the strong Marian piety. These last two are combined in a meditation in one of the appendices of the book I talked about in my last blog entry, Beginning to Pray by the Russian Orthodox archbishop Anthony Bloom.
There are two basic types of icons of the Mother of God in the Orthodox Church. By far the most common is the one representing Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms, a picture of maternal tenderness, but also of contemplative awe and wonder at the Child Who is the Son of God, born for us, an offering to the Father for the remission of our sins. But there is a second type, where Mary is standing alone, her grief apparent less in her face than in her hands. They are 'hands of anguish', as Father Bloom calls them, placed in an anatomically impossible position in the example from the 17th century which he describes. Faintly visible behind her, in the distance on a hilltop, is a bare cross. The Mother, mourning, contemplates the loss of her only Son. Archbishop Bloom comments:
"When we turn to the Mother of God in prayer, we should realise more often than we do that any prayer we offer to the Mother of God means this: 'Mother, I have killed thy Son. If you forgive me, I can be forgiven. If you withhold forgiveness nothing can save me from damnation.' And it is amazing that the Mother of God, in all which is revealed in the Gospel, has made us understand, and made us bold to come to her with this very prayer, because there is nothing else we can say. ... We love her, we feel perhaps in her in a peculiar way we see the Word of God spoken by Paul who says,'My power is made manifest in weakness.' We can see this frail virgin of Israel, this frail girl, defeating sin in her, defeating hell, defeating everything by the power of God which is in her. And this is why at moments like persecutions, when indeed the power of God is made manifest in nothing but weakness, the Blessed Virgin stands out so miraculously, so powerfully in our eyes. If she could defeat earth and hell then we have in her a tower of strength and one who can intercede and save, and we mark the fact that in her there is no discrepancy with the will of God, that she is in perfect harmony with Him, by using a formula of prayer which we use only for God and for her, 'Save us'. We don't say 'Pray for us'."
There are two basic types of icons of the Mother of God in the Orthodox Church. By far the most common is the one representing Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms, a picture of maternal tenderness, but also of contemplative awe and wonder at the Child Who is the Son of God, born for us, an offering to the Father for the remission of our sins. But there is a second type, where Mary is standing alone, her grief apparent less in her face than in her hands. They are 'hands of anguish', as Father Bloom calls them, placed in an anatomically impossible position in the example from the 17th century which he describes. Faintly visible behind her, in the distance on a hilltop, is a bare cross. The Mother, mourning, contemplates the loss of her only Son. Archbishop Bloom comments:
"When we turn to the Mother of God in prayer, we should realise more often than we do that any prayer we offer to the Mother of God means this: 'Mother, I have killed thy Son. If you forgive me, I can be forgiven. If you withhold forgiveness nothing can save me from damnation.' And it is amazing that the Mother of God, in all which is revealed in the Gospel, has made us understand, and made us bold to come to her with this very prayer, because there is nothing else we can say. ... We love her, we feel perhaps in her in a peculiar way we see the Word of God spoken by Paul who says,'My power is made manifest in weakness.' We can see this frail virgin of Israel, this frail girl, defeating sin in her, defeating hell, defeating everything by the power of God which is in her. And this is why at moments like persecutions, when indeed the power of God is made manifest in nothing but weakness, the Blessed Virgin stands out so miraculously, so powerfully in our eyes. If she could defeat earth and hell then we have in her a tower of strength and one who can intercede and save, and we mark the fact that in her there is no discrepancy with the will of God, that she is in perfect harmony with Him, by using a formula of prayer which we use only for God and for her, 'Save us'. We don't say 'Pray for us'."
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