The Reign of Christ

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have long admired the Jesuit priest, Fr. John Kavanaugh. Here's something he said in a reflection about today's observance:

In answering Pilate, Jesus says that his kingdom is not of this world. It is a kingdom not fought for with old means of warfare. Rather, it testifies to truth. It will not kill for the truth, it will die for it. If Jesus is king, he will be a suffering king. He will not demand ransom. He will be ransom. He will win, not by spilling the blood of others, but by offering up his own.

Over the centuries Christians have had trouble with this new kind of king, so much have we hungered for the earthly assurances of conquest and control. But it is equally true that the centuries have seen men and women who recognized in Jesus a kingliness that summoned nothing less than the loyalty of a free human heart. Something was unlocked in them when they discovered a "lord of life" whose ambition was not to dominate humanity but to save and serve it.

Those words, "the loyalty of a free human heart", are very powerful. If this is what Christ wants from us, how can we possibly justify the oppression of others or even stand by passively when we see that oppression?

Love the whole of it

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I may well have shared this quotation with you before but, if so, I think it bears repeating. I also think it's essential that we not just wait to be inspired to this kind of love but, rather, to cultivate it intentionally:

Love all of God's creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will soon perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.

-- Fyodor Dostoevsky

Transcendent solitude

Artist: Odilon Redon

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The silence that Benson refers to here is not at all about isoloation or withdrawal. It is, rather, the stillness that is cultivated by giving ourselves over to the present moment and into which we can tap at any time and in any place - no matter what is going on outwardly:

The silence that I seek cannot merely be the absence of the numbing noise and debilitating detail of life in our society. It must be something more. It must be a solitude that is transcendent, a stillness that can be found in the midst of the noise, a silence that is portable.

- Robert Benson from Living Prayer

An observation to ponder

Artist: Tora Huitfeldt

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's a little wry humor for you today:

Someone has said, "If we could get religion like a Baptist, experience it like a Methodist, be positive about it like a Disciple, be proud of it like an Episcopalian, pay for it like a Presbyterian, propagate it like an Adventist, and enjoy it like an Afro-American -- that would be some religion!"

-- Harry Emerson Fosdick

I must say that I cringe here at the observation that the identifying characteristic of Episcopalians is pride. But, certainly, when Fosdick was preaching and writing, it was to one's social and political advantage to be an Episcopalian. (Not so much now.)

The prayer of gazing

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I decided to look up the word "gaze" and found this definition: "to look steadily and intently, as with great curiosity, interest, pleasure, or wonder." I also found that the word "gaze is often indicative of wonder, fascination, awe, or admiration."

Gazing at icons and the created world, seeing others and being seen through the eyes of Christ are all forms of prayer. Praying by gaze can be practiced in community as in the Eastern Orthodox tradition where icons fill churches and are part of the liturgy. We can also pray alone in front of a painting or by gazing at the created world in the midst of our busy lives. Gazing helps us attend to the holy that surrounds us in art, nature, and other people. Like other methods of prayer, gazing brings us into a deeper and more intimate relationship with God and opens the possibility of union with our Maker, the ultimate goal of the Christian spiritual life.

-- Jane Vennard

I do urge you to click through on the writer's name here. Not only does the link take you to a brief biogarphy but also to an interview with Jane Vennard that is quite marvelous.

About that quest

The Damsel of the Holy Grail by Rossetti

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oh, my. This is so good. And I had not come across that assertion by Robert Bly before:

In the spiritual life, nothing goes away. There is no heavenly garbage dump. It's all here, wherever we are. Everything belongs. Even forgiveness does not mean it goes away. It means we forgive it for being there, nothing more. Even our demons do not go away. As Robert Bly wisely said: You don't get rid of demons, you just educate them.

Richard Rohr from Quest for The Grail

Well, folks, let's get serious about educating those demons! :-)

The saint and the rebel

Joan of Arc (kneeling)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

This consoles me, actually! (Not that I want to be burned at the stake, mind you.)

In religion, it is not the sycophants or those who cling most faithfully to the status quo who are ultimately praised. It is the insurgents. Recall how often in human history the saint and the rebel have been the same person. Socrates was a rebel, and he was sentenced to drink hemlock. Jesus was a rebel, and he was crucified for it. Joan of Arc was a rebel, and she was burned at the stake.

– Rollo May from The Courage To Create

Religion as memory

Canterbury Pilgrims

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Deep in the archives of Psychology Today, I found an excerpt from Thomas Moore's well known book, Care of the Soul. Here's a brief passage that really stood out to me:

There are two ways of thinking about church and religion. One is that we go to church in order to be in the presence of the holy, to learn and to have our lives influenced by that presence. The other is that church teaches us directly and symbolically to see the sacred dimension of everyday life. In this latter sense, religion is an "art of memory," a way of sustaining mindfulness about the religion that is inherent in everything we do. For some, religion is a Sunday affair, and they risk dividing life into the holy Sabbath and the secular week. For others, religion is a week-long observance that is inspired and sustained on the Sabbath.

Which one is it for you? Is it, perhaps, sometimes one, sometimes the other?

Dona nobis pacem

This is by the wonderful choral composer, Paul Gibson.

A relationship in the present

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge. It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now. Spirituality is about this process: the opening of the heart to God who is already here.

-- Marcus Borg

Veteran's Day, 2009

Demetrius, patron saint of warriors

Image from Wikimedia Commons

This prayer was in an email sent out by Sojourners today:

On this day, we remember the peace accord that brought the First World War to a close. And as we honor and thank military veterans around the world for their service, we also remember those who have suffered great physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual damage as a result of such service, and we pray for their restoration. Moreover, we yearn for that day when swords will be beaten into plowshares, and we will make war no more. May it come to pass, Lord, and soon.

And I will say, "Amen," to that. And, "Amen," again.

Increasing the world's happiness

You know, Dale Carnegie is not someone I would generally think of quoting on this blog but here's something he said that I really, really believe:

You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.

Compassion

Artist: Albert Anker

Image from Wikimedia Commons

As I've shared with you before, I think, Buechner is one of my favorite writers:

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

--Frederick Buechner

Renaissance choral music: Willaert and Mundy

The first track, the Willaert, is an "Ave Maria". The second is entitled "O Lord, the Maker of all things".

Someone in the comments over at YouTube said the following:

Beautiful, haunting, uplifting, mysterious.

I certainly agree.

Feast of St. Willibrord of Utrecht

Saint Willibrord

Image from Wikimedia Commons

From this page I learned the following:

Willibrord is a symbol of ties between the Christians of England and those of Holland. Today the historic See of Utrecht is in full communion with the Church of England.

He also strongly campaigned against idolatry. And so I offer you the following:

Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we prohibit and abolish women? The sun, moon, and stars have been worshipped. Shall we pluck them out of the sky?
...
Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.

--Martin Luther

Archbishop William Temple

William Temple was the 98th Archbishop of Canterbury. Here's something that was said about him:

In response to being accused of holding certain beliefs about God because of the way he was raised, he responded, "That is as it may be. But the fact remains that you believe I believe what I believe because of the way I was brought up, because of the way you were brought up."

It's amusing and clever but it's also something to reflect about with some seriousness.

Subversive spirituality

Artist: Renoir

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oh, my. This is so true in our achievement-obsessed society:

Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all.

— Anne Lamott

I developed a real appreciation for the notion of subversive spirituality when I lived in South Africa. Desmond Tutu used to say, "If governments knew how subversive contemplative prayers is, they would ban it."

Leaping greenly spirits

Artist: Paul Cézanne

Image from Wikimeida Commons

I think this is a keeper of a prayer:

I thank God for this most

amazing day;

for the leaping greenly

spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;

and for everything

which is natural, which is

infinite, which is yes.

-- E. E. Cummings

Feast of Richard Hooker, theologian

Some quotations by the great Richard Hooker for us to ponder:

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.

To live by one man's will becomes the cause of all misery.

Whatsoever is good; the same is also approved of God.

Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered.

We had rather follow the perfections of them whom we like not, than in defects resemble them whom we love.

And here's the one that moves and touches me the most:

Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can know him; and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach.

Our safest eloquence concerning the Most High is our silence. Oh, yes.

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

Today is All Souls' Day. And I want especially to remember those who made the great transition into eternity having been oppressed all their lives. To this end, I offer the following amazing video. Mind you, the video itself is technically very poor and annoying (obviously done by some parent in the audience). But the performance itself will just knock your socks off. And these are middle school children.

Here you go. Enjoy!

And from Psalm 116 which is appointed for today:

O LORD, I am your servant;*
I am your servant and the child of your handmaid;
you have freed me from my bonds.

All Saints Day

"Worshop before the throne of God"

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's one of the best quotations about saints I have ever, ever, ever come across:

Christ bears with the saints' imperfections; well may the saints one with another.

-- William Gurnall

Let us each this All Saints Day commit ourselves to bearing with one another's imperfections. If we all did this one thing, earth would be a paradise again.

Ha! And before I move on for today, let me leave you with this one for your reflection:

Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

-- George Orwell

(By the way, the image above was found in The Bamberg Apocalypse, an 11th Century manuscript. The illuminations in it are simply stunning and you can see more of them right here.)

All Hallows Eve

"Snap apple night"

Artist: Daniel Maclise

Public domain image

Some thoughts for the evening:

Backward, turn backward,
O Time, in your flight
make me a child again
just for to-night!

--Elizabeth Akers Allen

~~~
Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.

-- Edgar Allan Poe

~~~
One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

-- Emily Dickinson

~~~
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

-- Ambrose Redmoon

What color is an apple?

"Still Life - Apples and a Jar"

Artist: Samuel Peploe

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I found this on the Spiritual Literacy blog that is kept by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat:

We always like to keep up with what Robert Fulghum is writing about in his online journal. He has a knack for finding delightful things in the ordinary experiences of everyday life. In an entry for May 31, 2009, he shares an encounter with a group of little children out for a stroll after a rainstorm. One of the children steps out of the line because he's seen a rainbow — not in the sky but in a puddle of water. His act of wonder opens the eyes of the other kids and the teacher to the path of imagination. This teaching story reminds us of the boy who, when asks the color of apples, says "white." The teacher says apples can be red or green or yellow, but the boy has looked inside them.

Wonder. Do you have it?

What's inside. Do you look?

For your meditative listening

I grew up on this kind of chant. I must say, I miss it.

Saint Simon and Saint Jude

Saints Simon and Jude and the magicians

Today is the anniversary of my clothing as a novice - the ceremony during which I received the habit. And I was given the name Sister Ellen Jude in religion. I've often joked that it was because my superiors thought I was such a "hopeless cause" but that's not really true. I actually asked for the name myself. I've long had a devotion to St. Jude (the patron saint of hopeless causes) because he represents God's never failing fidelity to me. Seemingly desperate, hopeless, causes are not ignored or written off by the living God. Somehow, in God's timing and according to God's ecomony, those predicaments are never wasted and are truly redeemed and we can count on that.

A devotion to Saint Jude reminds us that, as Christians, we are clearly under orders not to despair. Ever.

"Saint Jude, Hope of the Hopeless, Pray for me."

Deo gratias!

Out of the mouths of babes...

Artist: Meister Bertram von Minden

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oh, my. Look at what I just discovered:

I hate it when people kill animals, even insects, after God went to all that trouble to make them.

-- Jane, age 5

Is that not truly beautiful? And does it not properly bring us to compunction?
(I found it here.)

Healing one's vision

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Remember last Sunday's gospel story about James and John asking to sit at the right hand and the left hand of Jesus in the Kingdom? Here's a quotation I found about this morning's story of healing the blind man:

What the blind man asked was quite different from what James and John asked. The blind man asked not to be seen, but to see: not for honor, but for vision; not to be superior to ordinary people, but to become ordinary himself; not to rule over others, but to join others in their experience of a normal life.

A big breakthrough for me spiritually came when I learned to be okay with being ordinary - and not only just okay but to cherish being ordinary. Learning to be ordinary brings us in solidarity with others. Insisting on being special isolates us.

Transcendent common-sense!

Artist: Renoir

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I did not realize before that the great G.K. Chesterton wrote a piece entitled "A Defense of Baby-Worship". Here a brief passage that I really like:

The most unfathomable schools and sages have never attained to the gravity which dwells in the eyes of a baby of three months old. It is the gravity of astonishment at the universe, and astonishment at the universe is not mysticism, but a transcendent common-sense. The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial. As we walk the streets and see below us those delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body, which mark these human mushrooms, we ought always primarily to remember that within every one of these heads there is a new universe, as new as it was on the seventh day of creation. In each of those orbs there is a new system of stars, new grass, new cities, a new sea.

About icons

Icon of Virgin Mary in Veljusa Monastery, Macedonia
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is the Quote of the Day that Sojourners sent out in an email:

"Icons are like the horizon between heaven and earth. When you pray in front of an icon it is like you are praying in front of a window into heaven. Even those who are not Christians can stand and appreciate and believe there is something holy there, and sometimes this causes them to study about it." (Dennis Bell, an artist, explaining a Pan Orthodox Icon Exhibit being shown in Washington D.C. this weekend.)

That prompted me to go looking for material on the spirituality of icons and I stumbled upon a little piece about icons and pain reduction. Take a look:

For the research, Catholics, agnostics, and atheists were subjected to a series of electric shocks, some while looking at a picture of the Virgin Mary and some without the image. Practicing Catholics perceived less pain when they were staring at the Virgin Mary, Science News reports, and displayed increased activity in an area of the brain associated with “emotional detachment and perceived control over pain.” Agnostics and atheists didn't show the same kind of neuro-activity, nor the perceived pain reduction.

It's not really all that surprising. Intriguing all the same.

Interesting prayer technique

"Madonna with the Long Neck" (detail)

Artist: Parmigianino

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have benefitted from Fr. Edward Hays' writings for many years now. Here's something I just found that I like very much:

The Koran says that God is closer than the vein in your neck. What a beautiful invitation to pray. In fact, it suggests a new way to pray. Begin by placing your first and second fingers on your throat's jugular vein. Linger there as your feel the vigorous throbbing of life within you. Praying with your fingers on your jugular vein can be a sensual affirmation that God is not distant or remote but is pulsating within you. . . Besides being an excellent preface to any prayer, this tactile throat prayer gesture is useful whenever you are in need of God's presence.

-- From Prayers Notes to A Friend

Gratitude for the whirlwind

Painting of the Chinese Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is one of Anthony de Mello's wonderful stories:

"Calamities can bring growth and Enlightenment," said the Master.

And he explained it thus: "Each day a bird would shelter in the withered branches of a tree that stood in the middle of a vast deserted plain. One day a whirlwind uprooted the tree, forcing the poor bird to fly a hundred miles in search of shelter -- till it finally came to a forest of fruit-laden trees."

And he concluded: "If the withered tree had survived, nothing would have induced the bird to give up its security and fly."

This speaks to me today. (I will need to develop why some other time.)

Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist (transferred)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

For Luke, the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth is healing for the world. For Luke, the power of God’s Holy Spirit and the incarnation of God in Jesus is healing for the world. For Luke, the power of evil in the world is overcome by the power of God’s Spirit in the person of Jesus and in the life and work of the faithful. This is true, he says, before and after the resurrection. This is true, Luke claims, from the moment of Gabriel’s good news for Zechariah until this very day. The healing embrace the writer of Luke–Acts offers describes a creation that is healed when God and creation love each other in return.

-- Minka Shura Sprague

God's way

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's a little passage from a sermon on this mornings readings:

Jesus promises his disciples not that they shall be in glory with him, rewarded and happy. He promises that if they will follow him they shall share with him in his sufferings and challenges. Two disciples ask to sit next to Jesus in his glory, one on his right, one on his left. When Jesus came into his "glory," it was not on a throne. It was on a cross, with two thieves, one on his right and one on his left.

This is the message that contemporary followers of Jesus have been reluctant to proclaim to the world, perhaps because we're reluctant to hear this message ourselves! Jesus is not a technique for getting what we want out of God; Jesus is God's way of getting what God wants out of us. God wants a world, a world redeemed, restored to God. And the way God gets that is with ordinary people like us who are willing to walk like Jesus, talk like Jesus, yes, and even if need be to suffer like Jesus. (emphasis, mine.)

-- William Willimon (Methodist bishop)

I am so deeply struck by that statment, "Jesus is God's way of getting what God wants out of us." Not the "prosperity gospel", now, is it?

How not to be broken

Artist: Claude Monet

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Rigidity tends to make us brittle, doesn't it?

I've learned how to not be broken from life's unwanted things by watching a willow in the wild wind tossing and bending rather than pushing back against the storm. It's taught me that I can't always have everything go my way. Sometimes I need to bend a bit.

— Joyce Rupp

A poem on the moon

Artist: Ando Hiroshige

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's something about divine omnipresence. I really like the line, "Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I AM..."

We all need to learn to be still. Really.

Do you need Me ?
I am there.
You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.
You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.
You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.

I am at work, though you do not understand My works.
I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.
Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I AM, and then but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am here. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.
When you need ME, I am there.
Even if you deny Me, I am there.
Even when you feel most alone, I am there.
Even in your fears, I am there.
Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.
I am in you, and you are in Me.
Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for only in your mind are the mists of "yours" and "mine".
Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.

Empty your heart of empty fears.
When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.
You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.
And I AM in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there. I am there because I have to be, because I AM.

Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of ME does the world go forward.
I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law's fulfilling. I am assurance.

I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by.
I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance.
I am your peace. I am ONE with you. I am.

Though you fail to find ME, I do not fail you.
Though your faith in Me is unsure,
My faith in you never wavers, because I know you, because I love you.

Beloved, I am there.

-- James Dillet Freeman

I found the above poem on Inspiration Peak. I also discovered this about it:

This poem received a lot of attention in 1971 when it was taken to the moon by astronaut James B. Irwin on Apollo 15. Irwin's mother gave it to him before the flight and he actually left a copy of the poem on the moon.

Something to think about when we look up at the moon at night, huh?

The Feast of St. Teresa of Avila

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I found an article on Teresa of Avila by Raymond G. Helmick S.J. today. Here's an excerpt:

Teresa's way of prayer, which she taught the nuns of her convents, is the main topic of her writings and one of the principal values she brings to us since. She had been brought up to think of prayer only as recitation of texts, whether of the prayers she had learned to repeat in private or of the Latin Psalms she recited together with her community in choir, and had realized that there was another whole world in mental prayer, the free prayer that breaks away from all these formulas. We misrepresent this prayer if we think of it primarily in terms of visions and raptures. She does report these herself, though far more seldom than do those around her who let their imaginations get away with them. The visions came mostly in the earliest years of her life of prayer, notably the vision of an angel with a fiery dart. But she came to regard even that as far less important than the experience of simply letting herself be quiet in God's presence. From an early stage, she describes her prayer thus:

I tried as I could to keep Jesus Christ, our God and our Lord, present within me, and that was my way of prayer. If I reflected upon some phrase of his Passion, I represented Him to myself interiorly.

So true. The "phenomena" of prayer are of little consequence. Traditionally they are considered to be for beginners. Simply being quiet in God's presence is the deep mystery and condition of utmost beauty.

No small thing

Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I once really wanted to learn German just so I could read Martin Buber in the original. Here is something he said that is deeply true, of that I'm certain:

There are people who suffer terrible distress, and they cannot tell anyone of it, and they go about full of suffering. But if you meet them with a kindly countenance, you may lighten their load with your joy. And it is no small thing to cheer another.

Swimming through fire

Artist: Margret Hofheinz-Döring

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I told you yesterday that Fr. Clyde Glandon had outdone himself with the quotations he sent to his email list this week. One of his offerings was a Mary Oliver poem that I had not come across before and I absolutely love it:

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world

And look! Look! Look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.

And probably,
if they don’t waste time
looking for an easier world,

they can do it.

Ah! Let us not waste our time looking for an easier world.

It occurs to me that looking for an easier world and making a better world are two different journeys. I would submit that Jesus calls us to the latter.

Community and disappointment

"Christ in Majesty"

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Oh my. Fr. Clyde Glandon has really outdone himself today with the lectio quotations he sends out. All of them are simply wonderful. It's hard to pick a favorite but I think I'll go with this one:

Our risk lies in choosing one another over and over again in the face of failure and disappointment. Living in the Spirit means choosing not to live from our resentments and disappointments but from our new life in Christ. And we have to go on choosing right, up until the end. The work of the Spirit is to unsettle us through love. We don’t build community by building community. We build it by having our eye on something else. What is that ‘something else’? God in Christ.

Alan Jones, from Common Prayer on Common Ground

The "rich young ruler"

"Christ and the Rich Young Ruler" (11th Century)

Index of Armenian Art

Today's gospel tells the story usually known as that of the "rich young ruler". Jesus says to him, "Sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come, follow me."

Here's some that I found on a page of thoughts about this morning's readings:

"Oh, but I'm not rich." Try entering your income in the Global Rich List and see where you end up.

I just discovered that I'm in the top 7.16% richest people in the world. It's very thought provoking, really.

Greeting the Holy

Artist: Michel Martin Drolling

Image from Wikimedia Commons

It is so easy in our rushed and busy culture to resent interruptions. Here is a very different approach:

I recall the story about a man whose path was the act of greeting people. Whenever there was a knock on the door he would say, "The Lord is at the door."

— Donald Altman in Art of the Inner Meal

I remember my mother telling me when I was very small that we must always be kind to strangers and unexpected visitors because you never knew when such a person might be an angel. I don't know if she really believed that or not but I do know that one of her highest values was that of hospitality.

Feast Day of Robert Grosseteste, bishop

Robert Grosseteste, Bishop (ca. 1170-1253)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is some wonderful information about this bishop:

During his lifetime, Grosseteste was an avid participant in European intellectual life. His early education had given him a taste for natural philosophy. He began producing texts on the liberal arts, and mainly on astronomy and cosmology. His most famous scientific text, De luce (Concerning Light), argued that light was the basis of all matter, and his account of creation devotes a great deal of space to the the biblical text of God’s command, ‘Let there be light.’ Light also played a significant role his epistemology, as he followed the teachings of St. Augustine that the human intellect comes to know truth through illumination by divine light. Grosseteste’s interest in the natural world was further developed by his study of geometry, and he is one of the first western thinkers to argue that natural phenomenon can be described mathematically. He also played a pivotal role in the introduction of Aristotle to scholastic thought, producing commentaries on a number of Aristotle’s logical and scientific works.
...
During his eighteen years as bishop, Grosseteste became known as a brilliant, but highly demanding, church leader. He insisted that all his clergy be literate and receive some training in theology. His high standards for Christian practice and ministry landed him in a number of disputes with various parts of his dioceses, especially monasteries, and most notably his own cathedral chapter. When the cathedral chapter refused to allow an episcopal inspection in 1239, a long court case began which was eventually resolved in Grosseteste’s favour in 1245.
...
Further disputes over the activities of the archbishop of Canterbury in the 1240’s led to Grosseteste’s appearance at the papal court in 1250, residing at the time in Lyons. He lectured the pope on the major problems of the contemporary church, indicting the papacy as a principal cause for the current malaise.

Hmmm. I do think we could use his intercession during these latter days.

May we be strengthend by his example and aided by his prayers.

Why worship?

Artist: Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337)

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Sojourners offered this quotation in one of their emails today:

I do not go to Mass to make myself "better." I go because, in the dimmest reaches of my scattered, angst-ridden mind, there is something that wants me to get down on my knees and, in spite of my own suffering and all the suffering around me, give thanks. I go because I am beginning to believe that heaven is not in some other world, but shot through the broken world in which we live.

- Heather King, from her essay "Heaven and Earth"

The reason for our existence

"Creation of Adam" from the Nuremberg Chronicles

Image from Wikimedia Commons

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

- Thomas Merton, from A Book of Hours

What would happen if we knew - really knew in our bones - that Love is our true identity? How would that affect our mood, our self-concept, our behavior, our ability to express love ourselves?

Just something rather lovely

Illustration from an Italian breviary, c. 1380

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Breviary: Liturgical book containing the psalms, readings from the scriptures, the Church Fathers or the lives of the saints, antiphons and prayers that constitute the Divine Office for each day of the Christian Church year.

Something about vocation

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Fr. Clyde Glandon just sent out his weekly collection of lectio quotations and the following grabbed my attention. It's from Rowan Williams' book of sermons entitled A Ray of Darkness. I have that book but somehow I did not particularly notice this beautiful and eloquent observation about vocation before today:

Vocation is, you could say, what’s left when all the games have stopped. We shall still need to work to find the structure and form of life that is most our own because it leaves us most alert, most responsive, most open to the never-failing grace of God. We have to find the meter for our poem, the key in which to sing to our God, the cell where we can pray to him, the person in whom we can love him, so as to give “a local habitation and a name,” face and flesh, to our own particular following of Christ.

I like this: "when all the games have stopped." How very true. And how very seductive those games can be. Let us all pray to be delivered from them for the duration. (Duration = life!)

Trust and openness

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The disciples still living in the old order wanted to protect him from the children, but Jesus welcomed them. "This is what I am about," he said. How do children manifest the kingdom? Their lack of status? Their willingness to trust? Their openness to new possibilities?

- Sojourners Sept/Oct. 1994

Kyrie

Undoubtedly the most beautiful plainchant melody for the Kyrie ever. I grew up on this one. (1940 Hymnal)

The real secret

Artist: Benjamin West
Image from Wikimedia Commons

I found this on one of my favorite blogs, Wounded Bird. The blog owner, Grandmère Mimi, found it on a site called Story People:

If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can & there is nothing more to it than that.

The concept of listening to the sound of what cannot be seen is, of course, intrinsic to the "Shema" - the great declaration of faith that begins, "Hear O Israel." And what the "story writer" says above is that the sound truly sings within us.

About speculation

Jesus as the Good Shepherd, 3rd Century

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here's something to ponder:

Theologians have felt no hesitation in founding a system of speculative thought on the teachings of Jesus; and yet Jesus was never an inhabitant of the realm of speculative thought.

-- Walter Rauschenbusch

I don't mean to be anti-theology here. It just seems thought-provoking, that's all.

By the way, if you don't already know about Walter Rauschendbusch, I recommend that you click through and read up on him. Very interesting and compelling figure.

Feast of St. Jerome, priest, monk, scholar

Image from Wikimedia Commons

St. Jerome, of course, is best known for his translation of the Bible into Latin (known as the Vulgate) but when I was a little girl I first heard about him through the legend of St. Jerome and the Lion:

One day a lion came limping to Saint Jerome holding out his paw. On examination, Saint Jerome discovered that the lion's paw had a thorn in it. Jerome removed the thorn, cleaned the wound, and bound up the paw. For this, the lion was very grateful to Jerome. As a result, he took up residence at the monastery and even did chores.

This story mirrors, as you no doubt have noticed, the well known Aesop fable of Androcles and the Lion. The stories are illustrations of both compassion and gratitude.

Michaelmas

St Michael, 12th-century mosaic

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Remember Maslow's hierachy of needs? They are ususally depicted on a pyramid with our most basic requirements for survival and well being at the bottom. Maslow hypothesized that we must get those foundational needs met before we can access the motivation to address the higher ones such as self-actualization and self-transcendence.

After the physiological needs of food, air, water and the like, our most fundamental need is safety. And here's where St. Michael and All Angels come in to the picture. In addition to being messengers, they are protectors - especially Michael himself. We need the assurance of protection, the assurance that our safety matters (not only to ourselves but to the Most High), in order to do the kind of spiritual work that will enable us to be courageously compassionate and faithful to the end. God knows this. The Church knows this. And so we have today's feast.

My favorite safety prayer is the ancient exorcism from the office of Compline:

Visit this place, O Lord, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy. Let your Holy Angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace and let your blessing be upon us always. Amen.

Here's what I want to recommend. Get some holy water (or make it yourself; I think water can be "dedicated" as well as "blessed"). Then walk through your house sprinkling a little water against every window and door reciting the prayer above as you go. It's a wonderful space clearing exercise and, if you let it, will give you a sense of being truly cherished by all the spiritual beings that inhabit creation.

Yom Kippur

"Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur"

Artist: Maurycy Gottlieb

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Here is a traditional recitation for the day:

I hereby forgive all who have hurt me, all who have done me wrong, whether deliberately or by accident, whether by word or by deed. May no one be punished on my account. As I forgive and pardon fully those who have done me wrong, may those whom I have harmed forgive and pardon me, whether I acted deliberately or by accident, whether by word or deed. I am now ready to fulfill the commandment of "to love my neighbor as myself."

Becoming a prophet

"The Gathering of Manna"

Artist: Bacchiacca

Image from Wikimedia Commons

I have long loved the Numbers passage that is one of the choices appointed for this morning's first reading. Moses declares, "Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!"

What an enlightened view for a religious leader and dignitary. The clericalism so prevalent today often simply supposes that the role of the laity is to "Pray, pay and obey." And so we see documents drawn up regarding our recent "unpleasantness" in the Anglican Communion that do not mention the laity or the laity's contribution at all - as if bishops alone are the Church.

How are we to be prophets, anyway?

When a relatively young priest inquired of a saintly retired priest if there were anything he would do differently if he could start over, this was the answer:

“If I had my priesthood to live over again,” he said, “I would be a gentler with people the next time. I would console more and challenge more carefully. I was one of those people who was taught and who deeply believed that only the full truth can set us free, that we owe it to people to challenge them with the truth, in season and out. I believed that and did it for most of the years of my ministry. And I was a good priest, I lived for others and never once betrayed in any real way my vows and my commitment. But now that I am older, I regret some of what I did. I regret that sometimes I was too hard on people! I meant it well, I was sincere, but I think that sometimes I ended up laying added burdens on people when they were already carrying enough pain. If I were just beginning as a priest, I would be gentler, I would spend my energies more trying to lift pain from people. People are in a lot of pain. They need us, first of all, to help them with that!”

The younger priest comments with this astonishing sentence:

We will comfort the world, and it will be comforted, when we show it that God sees its heart with the eyes of the heart, that God feels for it more than it feels for itself, that God never feels frightened by the assertions of human freedom, that God always opens another door when we close one, that God is not put off by all the times when we are too weak to do what is best, that God understands our complexity, our weaknesses, our anger, our lusts, our jealousies, and our despair, that God never stops loving us even when we put ourselves in hell, and that God descends into all the hells we create, stands in inside of our muddled, wounded, and guilty hearts and breathes out peace.

"Breathes out peace."

I'm going to focus today on breathing out peace. Will you join me?

(The above passages are from a powerful relection by Fr. Ron Rolheiser entitled "Prophecy - Challenge and Comfort".)

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester

Perhaps he was our most eloquent preacher ever. Just look:

What will move you? Will pity? Here is distress never the like. Will duty? Here is a person never the like. Will fear? Here is wrath never the like. Will remorse? Here are sins never the like. Will kindness? Here is love never the like. Will bounty? Here are benefits never the like. Will all these? Here they be all, all in the highest degree.

-- Lancelot Andrewes

Maybe it would be good for each of us to ask inwardly: "What will move me?" And then pay attention to our own response.