SeeingReading Czesław Miłosz’s Nobel Prize Lecture from 1980, I am struck by this paragraph: ‘One of the Nobel laureates whom I read in childhood influenced to a large extent, I believe, my notions of poetry. That was Selma Lagerlöf. Her Read More
CoppéliaCoppélia, first performed in 1870, the year of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, tends to be advertised as a ‘comic ballet’ set to music by Delibes, of flower-duo fame. Coppélia is on the face of it absurd. A young man Read More
Desert Fathers 51You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here. First of all, whatever good work you undertake, ask [God] by insistent prayer to bring it to perfection, that he, already pleased to count us as sons, will not have, at some point, to be grieved by our evil actions. It is our task at all times to obey him, making use of the good things he has placed in us. If we live like this, not only will he not, like some angry father, disinherit his sons; neither will he, like a fearful lord provoked to anger by our evils, give us up to everlasting punishment because we did not wish to follow him to glory. Let us rise up, then, without wasting time, even as Scripture rouses us saying: ‘It is time for us to arise from sleep.’ With our eyes opened to the deifying light and our ears thunderstruck, let us hear how God’s voice is admonishing us with a shout, saying: ‘If today you would hear his voice, harden not your hearts!’. Benedict left Rome in search of solitude, but was not alone when he set out. With him went his nurse. It is a rather nice aspect of his story. The idealist who forfeited his patrimony yet brought his nanny. She ‘loved him very much’; no doubt, he cared for her. Benedict did not shake off all human ties abruptly. He eased this dear person into the new reality his radical choice would create for her. The two of them stayed together for a while; but this was provisional. Benedict left her where she would not be bereft, then proceeded into ‘the wilderness’: Subiaco in the Roman campagna. The site is marked by majestic austerity. The river running through it murmurs now as it did in his day. The crags overhanging Subiaco’s steep, wooded, dark slopes provide a sheltering embrace. At the same time they carry just a hint of menace, recalling the metaphorical precipices from which Benedict chose to turn away in Rome. He settled in a low, narrow cave to keep quiet and pray. He left no diary, but we can responsibly infer something of his experience there from the teachings he later dispensed. The passage above, from the prologue to the Rule, speaks of reorientation. A lost son decides to go home, to learn to see and hear anew. The reference to deifying light, deificum lumen, is important. To grasp what it means, let us consider a parallel construction. The Latin for ‘bread’ is ‘panis’. From it, a verb is derived, ‘panificere’: which means ‘to make bread’. A ‘panificus’ is a baker. Italians still go twice daily to get fresh loaves from the local panificio, it being unthinkable to eat old bread (from midday) at supper. Even as ‘panificere’ denotes production, the bringing about of the object named before the verbal ‘-ficere’, to do with making, ‘deificere’ means to make someone a god, or, in the language of theology, to ‘divinise’ him. The monk is one who wishes to see restored in him the Godlikeness for which his nature is intended. Having first asked us to keep our eyes open to deifying light, Benedict says something odd. He exhorts us to attend to God’s voice ‘attonitis auribus’, that is, with ears thunderstruck by the rumble of ‘tonitrus’. When the Fathers use uncommon expressions in this way, it is usually deliberate. They expect us, their devout readers, to pick up some reference or other to Sacred Scripture. So where in the Bible do we find a coincidence of deifying light (or ‘glory’), a divine voice, and apparent thunder? The match is the passage in St John’s Gospel which marks the end of Christ’s discourse before the sacred Passover at which, ‘having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end’. Jesus said to the crowd: Now my heart is troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify thy name!’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing by heard it and said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him’. Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up, shall draw all things to myself.’ This is the monastic project in a nutshell. A monk has known God’s way of ‘drawing all things to himself’ as a personal reality. Feeling the twitch upon the thread, he freely followed. His free initiative is crucial, for a man is no automaton. He is unprogrammable, possessed of that liberty to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ that is at once our crown of splendour and a potential path to soul-death. The novice who requests the monastic habit has glimpsed the light, heard the thunder, known the Lord’s call, then said, ‘Here I am!’ If he keeps that response alive, his whole life will come to signify the glory of which Scripture speaks. Rising from sleep to watch before God on behalf of half-dozing mankind tossing and turning in anguish, he casts off darkness and puts on the armour of light. That light will, if he is faithful, increasingly not just surround him, but enter and suffuse him. Thus the Lord would refashion all of us gloriously. Not to make us other than we are! His will is to help us become what we are in truth, to abandon what is counterfeit and false, and so to stand before God and mankind integral, solid, radiant, and joyful — mature women and men recognisably formed in the light-bestowing image of God. This is what Benedict sought when he put on ‘the habit which belongs to a holy way of life’. His cave at Subiaco was the womb in which he was silently reborn to life in God.
Brother LawrenceIn a recent interview, Pope Leo spoke of the importance in his life of Brother Lawrence’s writings on the practice of the presence of God. Brother Lawrence, born as Nicolas Herman in Hériménil in Lorraine in 1614, is known as the devout Carmelite lay-brother who sought and found God through manual labour. He was a soldier in early life and knew the horrors of the Thirty Years War. He was held captive by German forces, who thought him a spy; later he was wounded by Swedish soldiers. Brother Lawrence, then, was a man who knew a thing or two about life. Below is a conversation conducted with Edgar Beltrán of The Pillar about his work. You can find the interview online here. What is meant by the phrase “the presence of God”? The quintessential epiphany of God to Moses at the burning bush revealed a name which signifies “I Am Present.” The ineffable Divine Name is more than a metaphysical statement; it assures Israel in exile that the Lord is with them. In Isaiah, which provides many of our Advent texts and refrains, the fulfilment of God’s redemptive promise is indicated in the image of Emmanuel, which means “God-with-us.” After his holy resurrection, Jesus who, during his public ministry had taught his disciples to abide with him, in him, assured them: “Behold I am with you always.” The presence of God, then, is a motif that runs through Scripture. It makes sense. If God is truly the Origin of all there is and Master of the universe, he will be omnipresent to it, the founding Reality in which “we live and move and have our being.” God’s presence is something we can take for granted. We are the absent ones! Brother Lawrence teaches us to return from our own estrangement, to seek communion with God, to learn to be reverently alert to him who is in us and about us. What concrete advice does Brother Lawrence offer to “practice” the presence of God? What advice would you give? We do well to practice attentiveness; to nurture silence when we can; to avoid getting stuck in self-centered mental patterns, constantly rehearsing our plans, wounds, and cravings, projecting our lives into some hypothetical, virtual future instead of living in the present. To learn to pray is to learn to opt for what is real. At the human, natural level I think it’s good advice to spend some time each day doing nothing, simply being still and alert: this is more difficult than it sounds, given the distractions that surround us on all sides, claiming us. Wouldn’t it be good to affirm our personal freedom in their regard? At the spiritual level I’d advise reading Scripture daily. Not too much — if we make too ambitious plans the chances are we shall not realize them; but a chunk substantial enough to nurture us and to assist an encounter with God who is present, not least, in his Word. Of course it is important to frequent the sacraments, Confession and the Eucharist above all; and to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, a Sacrament of Presence. What do you think this book says about Pope Leo’s own way of leading the Church? It is heartening to have a pope who puts the search for God first, and exhorts us to do the same. How should people approach this book? Is it better to read it in one sitting or use it as a book to inspire us in prayer? Given its variegated origin, proposing a reflection matured over a lifetime, it makes sense to give it time. Brother Lawrence writes simply and briefly, but let’s beware of mistaking his texts for casual blog posts to be raced through. In a way, Brother Lawrence seems to be a precursor of an increasingly common idea in contemporary Catholic spirituality, which is that of ordinary holiness, namely, that we can sanctify every circumstance in life. What does Brother Lawrence say about this? It is really an ancient idea, and a true one. Brother Lawrence is a credible mouthpiece. Much is often made about the fact that he worked in the kitchen, and made of it a place of prayer. This is admirable, but not new. The great Saint Teresa, a Doctor of the Church, told her sisters in her “Book of the Foundations”: “God walks among pots and pans.” The book mentions many times the fact that we can do “little things for the love of God.” Is Brother Lawrence a precursor to St. Thérèse’s “little way”? Again, I’d say that both are part of a continuous tradition they were graced to express in characteristic ways. Most of our lives are made up of “little things.” The challenge is to make them great by infusing them with love, even making them into acts of worship. A Romanian Orthodox monk of the last century, cited in Nicholas Stebbing’s precious book “Bearers of The Spirit,” said something I think of often. The remark occurs in a reflection on obedience. In a monastic setting, “obedience” refers to things decreed by the rule or my superiors, but it basically means stuff I have to do, which I haven’t spontaneously chosen, so can equally well refer to making the kids’ breakfast or turning up to work on time. Now, on this subject the monk said: “Obedience without prayer is servitude; obedience with prayer becomes liturgy.” That’s what it is all about. It is what both Brother Lawrence and Saint Thérèse teach: the art of making every aspect of existence an act of worship by consciously, trustfully living it before the face of God, in his presence, for love of him. Back in the day, the book was accused of encouraging Quietism, seeking to achieve sanctity through an inactive mind and will. Do you think this is a fair assessment? No. A key aspect of Brother Lawrence’s teaching is his emphasis on praxis, on translating ideals into concrete living. In general, Quietism (rather like Jansenism) is a term bandied about too easily. It refers to a subtly disordered trend in theology. To understand it, we must have clear notions and a deep knowledge of an intellectual context marked by rhetoric and — it has to be said — rather acrimonious Church politics. The key to understanding Brother Lawrence is given in something he declared at the end of his life, when subject to great pain: “Come what may, I will, for the entire rest of my life, do everything for love of God.” How can Brother Lawrence’s writings advise those with wandering minds during prayer? If our mind wanders in prayer, the first thing to do is to ask: what paths have I opened? It is an illusion to think I can spend 95% of my waking hours in a state of frenzy — running after people, doing chores, scrolling on the phone — then dive into contemplative ecstasy the moment I set aside seven minutes to pray. We prepare our time of prayer by the way we live the rest of the time. That’s where to start the inner work of sorting, tidying, stilling. The book consistently calls readers to place themselves in the hands of God, but it is not always clear how to achieve this. How specifically would you advise readers of the book to practice abandonment in God as suggested by Br. Lawrence? By determinedly trusting in God’s providence; by doing what we have to do peacefully; by not allowing into our hearts thoughts of murmuring and anger; by being conscious that we are called to bring Christ into the world by credible testimony. That testimony needs to find expression in what we happen to be doing right now.
3 Sunday of Advent AIsaiah 35:1-6a, 10: Those the Lord has ransomed shall return. James 5:7-10: Think of a farmer! Matthew 11:2-11: Are you the one who is to come? The man whom we in the Western, Latin Christian tradition call John the Baptist is normally invoked in the East as προδρόμος, the ‘Forerunner’. And that, after all, is exactly what he did: he ran, ran on ahead to make paths, hearts, and minds ready for the appearance of the Lord. While the Word who became flesh was still hidden, an anonymous presence in a crowd, John saw clearly who he was: ‘See, the Lamb of God, who bears the sin of the world’ — for it is by bearing it that Jesus takes it away. John seems to have grasped all this from the beginning. Among the Christmas card we exchange these days, we may find a painting by Murillo, the Spanish Baroque master, that represents John as an amiable, slightly chubby lad radiant with joy as he stands hugging a snow-white, gentle lamb as if it were a playmate. ‘Behold the Lamb of God!’ Perhaps we’d wish for a similarly peaceful outlook on the mystery of salvation. Let us not be taken in, though, by facile tricks trying to make the Biblical drama into a fairytale. The real story of salvation is dense, complex, often dark, the way our lives are; that is why the Bible speaks with authority, about real, lived-through things. Today’s Gospel is a good example. It is tragic, full of pathos. The Forerunner runs no more. He is languishing in captivity after a shoddy arrest prompted by a weak man and an angry women. Soon he will be cruelly executed on a whim of an irresponsible child. The voice that resounded in waste places, awakening people’s half-dead consciences, has long been quiet. A few disciples remain attached to John. But he is now largely forgotten, the way prophets are. And life goes on. John the Baptist’s voice was not an accidental part of him, an expression he was free to engage in or not. The voice was who he was, his essential identity. When some Levites asked, ‘Who are you?’, John answered: ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness’ (Jn 1.23). We only need to think of some things Jesus says about himself, ‘I am the life, the resurrection, the vine’, to sense the strength of the words, ‘I am the voice.’ So what does an embodied voice, made to proclaim, do when forced to silence? It examines itself with furious intensity. John’s whole existence from when he lay in his mother’s womb had been focused on Jesus. For Jesus’s sake he had left everything. In order for Jesus to increase, he had been pleased to decrease, to become, quite simple, voice (cf. 3.30). Held by Herod’s chains he asks himself: ‘Have I then been wrong? Have I wasted my life for nothing? Was the choice that has directed my existence an illusion?’ Dear brothers and sisters, who among us has not at times asked themselves these sorts of questions when life is against us, especially at night, perhaps, when we toss and turn unable to sleep, at about 3 or 4 a.m., that hour which Ingmar Bergman called ‘the hour of the wolf’, when a Lamb seems a poor, even a ridiculous ally. The questions John asks do not, though, go unanswered. And what he gets to hear is more than bleating. It is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah who declares his purpose to him, assuring him of victory. Notice how Jesus comforts John. Not with tender tappings on the shoulder and sentimental talk of ‘It’ll be alright’. Jesus’s answer can seem brusque, as if he said: ‘But open yours eyes, man, and look around! Step out of your inner prison, to which you alone have keys, and face reality: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised. What then do you think all this really means?’ The Gospel does not take us back to John’s dungeon to tell us how he received and experienced the answers he got. But we know him well enough to risk a responsible conjecture. The Forerunner had, after all, foreseen all this somehow. At Aenon by Salim, where there was much water, John had exclaimed to the crowd (Jn 3.29): He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full. John did understand at the end that, no, he had not been wrong. He had done what he had to do. He was no mere reed shaken by the wind; he was the Bridegroom’s friend, dressed for the wedding feast, possessed of an inner freedom no idiotic ruler could compromise. This third Sunday of Advent bids us rejoice. It is good to have John as our example, to see him ahead of us showing how joy can be kept and made to grow even in darkness, how it can bear fruit. We must step out of our myopia, see beyond our wounds and scars, not surrender to sadness. Let us train our ears to hear the Lord’s voice, not always loud; our ears to discern the signs of his nearness. For the kingdom of God is secretly growing in our midst. Joy is within reach. Dawn is calling out to us, if only we would turn our back on the night’s darkness. The pilgrims Isaiah saw return to Zion with shouts of joy were the same people who had suffered in servitude and exile. They were glad because the Lord had set them free. And this reminds us: any experience of unfreedom or confinement is potentially the first act in a joyful work of salvation, if only we let the Lord act freely. Let’s do that, then, and practise our songs of joy. Amen.
SeeingReading Czesław Miłosz’s Nobel Prize Lecture from 1980, I am struck by this paragraph: ‘One of the Nobel laureates whom I read in childhood influenced to a large extent, I believe, my notions of poetry. That was Selma Lagerlöf. Her Wonderful Adventures of Nils, a book I loved, places the hero in a double role. He is the one who flies above the Earth and looks at it from above but at the same time sees it in every detail. This double vision may be a metaphor of the poet’s vocation. I found a similar metaphor in a Latin ode of a Seventeenth-Century poet, Maciej Sarbiewski, who was once known all over Europe under the pen-name of Casimire. He taught poetics at my university. In that ode he describes his voyage – on the back of Pegasus – from Vilno to Antwerp, where he is going to visit his poet-friends. Like Nils Holgersson he beholds under him rivers, lakes, forests, that is, a map, both distant and yet concrete. Hence, two attributes of the poet: avidity of the eye and the desire to describe that which he sees.’ Our time needs such panoramic seers and careful describers.
CoppéliaCoppélia, first performed in 1870, the year of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, tends to be advertised as a ‘comic ballet’ set to music by Delibes, of flower-duo fame. Coppélia is on the face of it absurd. A young man called Franz has the world’s loveliest fiancée, Swanilda. Everything is set for the wedding. But then Franz is intoxicated by a strange creature he sees in the village square, a life-like doll made by the local inventor-cum-magician Coppélius, who is untouched by human affections, living only for his designs. The drama of the ballet unfolds as Swanilda tries to win Franz back; yet such is Coppélia’s gracefulness that we are almost tempted to hope that Swanilda will fail and that love might somehow make the virtual real. This might all have seemed outlandish fantasy 150 years ago. Now the sight of a man made to choose between a virtual and an embodied-ensouled love is terribly real. I was struck by the power of this story when I saw it performed by students of the Roman Opera Ballet last week. Those youths showed us that the drama of Coppélia isn’t just some laughable drivel; it is the stuff of contemporary tragedy.
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