- St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mt. Carmel, Book II, XXII:5
Today is the feast day of St. John of the Cross.
- St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mt. Carmel, Book II, XXII:5
Today is the feast day of St. John of the Cross.
Posted on December 14, 2009 at 07:18 AM in Carmelites: St. John of the Cross | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
This is a continuation of a series of posts in The Dove category of this blog about St. Teresa of Avila's use of dove images in her writings.
I have reached the point in writing about St. Teresa of Avila's dove metaphor that made me hesitant for so long to start down the path of explaining it in the first place: the higher mansions. If I write anything, there is a risk of someone saying I have gone beyond my place as a mere blogger. If I write nothing, I will have abandoned the project in the middle. So, of course, I enter this explanation with prayer and some remaining fear.
I last wrote about St. Teresa of Avila's dove metaphor from Interior Castle with a step aside to consider her silkworm and butterfly. She herself connects the butterfly and dove metaphors in a couple of places in Interior Castle (V:4 and VI:11). Early in the Fifth Mansion, looking back at the first four, she describes the silkworm growing and then building its cocoon, where it will die to the life it has known up to that point and will emerge as a beautiful white butterfly.
In the last few posts, I wrote about her image of the
silkworm and its growth, and how that represents the soul's spiritual growth in
the first four mansions. This post
continues with the silkworm image, this time considering the cocoon.
St. Teresa begins her story of the silkworm by saying that she is going to say some things about the Lord's work in souls to whom He grants union with Him. She adds that "though we can take no active part in this work of God within us, yet we may do much to prepare ourselves to receive this grace." (Interior Castle V:2).
After describing the silkworm's growth, she writes, "When the silkworm is full-grown as I told you in the first part of this chapter, it begins to spin silk and to build the house wherein it must die. By this house, when speaking of the soul, I mean Christ. I think I read or heard somewhere, either that our life is hid in Christ, or in God (which means the same thing) or that Christ is our life."
She applies this story to explain what we can do through
God's help to reach union with God, while it is God who does the bulk of the
work:
"This shows, my daughters, how much, by God’s grace, we
can do, by preparing this home [the cocoon] for ourselves, towards making Him
our dwelling-place as He is in the prayer of union. You will suppose
that I mean we can take away from or add something to God when I say that He is
our home, and that we can make this home and dwell in it by our own power. Indeed we can: though we can neither
deprive God of anything nor add aught to Him, yet we can take away from and add
to ourselves, like the silkworms. The little we can do will hardly have been accomplished when
this insignificant work of ours, which amounts to nothing at all, will be
united by God to His greatness and thus enhanced with such immense value that
our Lord Himself will be the reward of our toil. Although He has had the greatest share in it, He will join our
trifling pains to the bitter sufferings He endured for us and make them one.
"Forward then, my daughters! hasten
over your work and build the little cocoon. Let us renounce self-love and
self-will, care for nothing earthly, do penance, pray, mortify ourselves, be
obedient, and perform all the other good works of which you know. Act up to your light; you have been
taught your duties. Die! die as the silkworm does when it has fulfilled the
office of its creation, and you will see God and be immersed in His greatness,
as the little silkworm is enveloped in its cocoon. Understand that when I say ‘you will see God,’ I mean in the
manner described, in which He manifests Himself in this kind of union."
When the soul, through the prayer of union, has become "entirely
dead to this world", she says, "it comes forth like a lovely little
white butterfly!"
The "prayer of union" discussed in the Fifth Mansion is the beginning of the "flight" of contemplation. While the soul is "immersed in God's grandeur" in that prayer of the Fifth Mansion, it is never for as much as half an hour. Yet, for that time, it is a mystical grace of union with God called a union of the will. I will get to that later, when I write about the butterfly. For now, for clarification, it must be distinguished from that full and enduring union that is the highest level of prayer.
The cocoon is thus a symbol of detachment. "Detachment" is defined by Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., in his notes to the Way of Perfection (Study Edition), as "Relinquishing what stands in the way of giving oneself to the All without reserve; in it one embraces the Creator rather than the creature, cares not for what comes to an end but for eternal things" (citations omitted).
P. Marie-Eugene, in I Am a Daughter of the Church,
connects the cocoon to what St. John of the Cross calls the "night of the senses", the first of two nights described by St. John of the Cross. St. Edith Stein, in The Science of the Cross, connects the two nights with the Cross of Christ. The first is a point of taking up the Cross, and the second a sort of crucifixion.
1. The Cocoon Exists Only to Produce
a Butterfly
The union with God – a union of our will with God's will – is St. Teresa's focus in the Fifth Mansion. She is not interested in deprivation in and of itself, but rather for the purpose of enabling the grace of contemplation. Her butterfly image is not mentioned until the Fifth Mansion, which is primarily about God's grace in the prayer of union.
In her chapter "The Message of the Cross" in The Science of the Cross, St. Edith Stein likewise says, "The cross has no purpose of itself. It rises on high and points above." We die on the cross with Christ in order to be resurrected with Him. Detachment, the night of the senses, death to the world, have a purpose as the path to spiritual life. The cocoon is a point of transition on that path.
2. The Cocoon and the Cross in Scripture
St. Teresa specifically mentions one Scripture reference that she has in mind in speaking of the cocoon. At Col. 3:2-3, St. Paul wrote to the Church at Collosae, "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." That is what she specifically says she has in mind in her image of the cocoon: dying to the things that are on earth, setting our minds on things that are above, for our life is hid with Christ.
That death that St. Paul writes about is by implication connected with the Cross, as seen elsewhere in Scripture. Jesus says, "So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:33) and "And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.'' (Mark 8:34-35).
St. Paul thus wrote to the Church at Rome, "I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Rom. 12:1-2).
3. Dryness in the Early Stages of the Spiritual Life
In connecting the cocoon and death to the world with the night of the senses in St. John of the Cross, it is important to draw some distinctions. There are times of dryness in the earlier mansions, and the "dark night of the soul" is generally connected with St. Teresa's Sixth Mansion that it is still ahead of us. Indeed, by the Sixth Mansion, she has returned to her description of the dove in flight, and its trials "make it fly still higher" (Interior Castle VI:2).
The Christian's dying with Christ begins at baptism. St. Paul describes that in Rom. 6:3-4: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
St. Teresa addresses spiritual warfare in the Second Mansions, aridities in prayer in the Third Mansions, and distractions during prayer in the Fourth Mansions. P. Marie-Eugene writes, "Even in the case of beginners this dryness is often accompanied by an intermittent ray of divine light which itself produces contemplative dryness." (I Want to See God, Chapter VI). He adds that "it does not seem too presumptuous to consider that contemplative dryness is possible, intermittently, in the majority of fervent souls, even in their early stages in the ways of prayer."
However, P. Marie-Eugene contrasts those early stages of dryness with St. Teresa's long seasons of aridity in prayer, which he says were "states illumined by a strong divine light that was adjusting sense to spirit and preparing her soul for the marvelous graces that she was to receive."
Thus, trials and aridities exist at all stages of the spiritual life, and can be identified with the Cross. They may also, at early stages, be accompanied by rays of divine light accompanied by contemplative dryness. Yet, it is necessary to distinguish those early aridities from the two nights of St. John of the Cross and thus from the cocoon.
4. The Two Nights of St. John of the Cross
The term "the dark night of the soul" is used widely in secular and Christian discussion to mean something much broader than what St. John of the Cross has in mind by that term. Anyone going through difficulty in their work or family life, may say that he or she is "going through a dark night of the soul", but that is not what St. John had in mind.
He describes, first, a "dark night of the senses", and then a "dark night of the soul", which is different. According to P. Mari-Eugene, in I Am a Daughter of the Church, "The nights are privations and purifications through which the soul must pass to reach union with God".
5. The Cocoon and the Night of the Senses
In Interior Castle, the Fourth Mansion is a point of transition between meditation and contemplation.
St. John of the Cross describes that transition as a spiritual director in The Ascent of Mount Carmel as marked by a particular time of aridity in which the person no longer derives satisfaction from meditation, is troubled about the lack of satisfaction found in worldly images because of the disturbance it brings to their peace, and has a loving general knowledge and awareness of God (Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, Chapter 14).
This general knowledge, he says, "is at times so subtle and delicate, particularly when it is most pure and simple and perfect, most spiritual and most interior, that, although the soul be occupied therein, it can neither realize it nor perceive it." He explains, "Such a soul, since it no longer has those things wherein the understanding and the senses have the habit and custom of occupying themselves, is not conscious of them, inasmuch as it has not its accustomed powers of sense. And it is for this reason that, when this knowledge is purest and simplest and most perfect, the understanding is least conscious of it and thinks of it as most obscure."
In explaining that Dark Night of the Senses, St. Edith Stein writes (The Science of the Cross, Chapter 3):
"Detachment is designated as a night through which the soul must pass. It is this in a threefold sense: in regard to the point of departure, the path and the goal. The point of departure is the desire for the things of this world, which the soul must renounce. But this renunciation transplants her into darkness and as though into nothingness. That is why it is called night."
It feels like darkness, she explains, because we must withdraw from "the firm foundation that supports us". It feels "as if the ground were swept away from under our feet" and yet, in truth, we are being "set upon a surer way", the way of faith which is a "dark knowledge" about something we do not get to see.
In The Dark Night of the Soul, Book I, Chapter 9, St. John of the Cross again discusses the three signs by which to tell whether the soul is in the Night of the Senses and not experiencing some other cause for aridity, and he explains the reason for it. The "sensual part of a man has no capacity for that which is pure spirit", he says. As a result, when it is the person's spirit, and not their senses, that receive pleasure from God's presence, the senses taste nothing and are left weak. "But the spirit, which all the time is being fed, goes forward in strength." Initially, the person is only aware of aridity and the loss of the sweetness formerly tasted by the senses. That is because the new sweetness of the spirit is still unfamiliar to the palate.
St. John then explains the reason for aridity and inability to meditate as God begins to communicate Himself to the soul "by pure spirit" by "an act of simple contemplation, to which neither the exterior nor the interior senses of the lower part of the soul can attain". This Night of the Senses is the point of departure into the mystical life. St. Edith explains, "Our basic attitude toward the world we perceive by the senses must change." What is felt is "the dying of the sensory being", while a "new life that is concealed beneath it" is emerging without the soul's awareness. "The death of the sensory human being keeps in step with the rise of the spiritual human being."
In her description of the silkworm and the cocoon, St. Teresa affirms that most of this transformation is accomplished by God; it is God who constructs the dwelling place that He is in the prayer of union. As quoted above, using the silkworm as her example, she writes about our part in this transition:
"Let us renounce self-love and self-will, care for nothing earthly, do penance, pray, mortify ourselves, be obedient, and perform all the other good works of which you know. Act up to your light; you have been taught your duties. Die! die as the silkworm does when it has fulfilled the office of its creation, and you will see God and be immersed in His greatness, as the little silkworm is enveloped in its cocoon."
Caring "for nothing earthly" is much of our part in the transformation. That is what the Scriptures spoke about as quoted above. While God's action performs most of our detachment from the senses and transition to an awareness of God in the spirit, we have a part in that detachment as we set our minds "on things that are above, not on things that are on earth" as St. Paul wrote, and as we try not to be "conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of [our] mind[s]."
6. Contemplation and the Laity
Like me, most who read this will probably be lay people or members of third orders, and not cloistered nuns, monks or priests in religious orders. So I want to write about detachment and contemplation in the lives of lay people.
St. Teresa wrote about lay people from time to time. Although she wanted her nuns to live in strict closure and in poverty, she did not consider the same way required for everyone. There are places in her writing that may be taken to imply that it is God's will that everyone will reach the Seventh Mansion, and yet she is clear that she does not believe that everyone is called to live a cloistered life. Consider, for example, the Fifth Mansion, Chapter I, where she writes, "Later on you will see how it is His Majesty's will that the soul should have fruition of Him in its very centre, but you will be able to realize that in the last Mansion much better than here."
St. Teresa, who as a young woman left her father's house early one morning without his knowledge, to enter a Carmelite monastery, wrote much later in life that "the question is not whether we wear the religious habit or not, but whether we practise the virtues and submit our will in all things to the will of God." (Interior Castle III:2).
In her Book of the Foundations, she wrote about an encounter she had once had with a businessman who "was kept so busy through obedience with work in occupations and government that in all those years he didn't remember having one day for himself, although he tried the best he could to keep a pure conscience and have some periods each day for prayer." Although this man was a lay person extremely occupied in the affairs of this world, she said, "His soul in its inclination is one of the most obedient I have seen, and so he communicates this spirit of obedience to all those with whom he deals. The Lord has repaid him well; for he has found that he has, without knowing how, that same precious and desirable liberty of spirit that the perfect have. In it, they find all the happiness that could be wanted in this life, for in desiring nothing they possess all." (Foundations 5:7).
St. John of the Cross similarly would not leave the laity out of the higher levels of prayer. His book The Living Flame of Love was written to one of his spiritual daughters "in the world". That is a book that addresses primarily the advanced stages of prayer beyond the Dark Night.
In his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI wrote about third orders, particularly Franciscans, in his discussion of the Beatitudes. What he wrote about third orders living the Beatitude of the poor in spirit is also relevant to living the detachment that St. Teresa saw as a portion of our role in making possible the transition to contemplation.
Pope Benedict wrote, “The point of the Third Order is to accept with humility the task of one’s secular profession and its requirements, wherever one happens to be, while directing one’s whole life to that deep interior communion with Christ that Francis showed us. ‘To own goods as if you owned nothing’ (cf I Cor. 7:29ff.) – to master this inner tension, which is perhaps the more difficult challenge, and, sustained by those pledged to follow Christ radically, truly to live it out ever anew – that is what the third orders are for.” He mentioned St. Thérèse's depiction of herself one day standing before God with empty hands as a depiction of the spirit of the poor ones of God in the Beatitudes, coming with empty hands to receive God’s blessings, and “not with hands that grasp and clutch.”
Detachment and contemplation are thus possible for persons living in the world, and indeed they are God's will for the laity. The way they are lived out differs for the laity, as compared with those in cloistered monasteries, obviously. But it can be lived.
7. In the Evening of Life: St. Thérèse's Empty Hands
In an appendix to The Story of a Soul, St. Thérèse's reference to empty hands appears in her Act of Oblation of Merciful Love. What she wrote is relevant to that detachment that avoids grasping and clutching at possessions and also relevant to that detachment that avoids grasping and clutching at our pride of intellect and even spiritual pride. It illustrates the point of all of the rest, which is the death of a sensual way of living in order to "see God and be immersed in His greatness" as St. Teresa of Avila wrote should be our motivation in "dying" like the silkworm. While St. Teresa explains that she means that we will "see God" "in the manner described, in which He manifests Himself in this kind of union". St. Thérèse of Lisieux here looks tozqrd reaching that even greater union with Christ that can only be experienced in its entirety in the Beatific Vision:
"After earth's exile I trust to possess Thee in the Home of our Father; but I do not seek to lay up treasures in Heaven. I wish to labour for Thy Love alone—with the sole aim of pleasing Thee, of consoling Thy Sacred Heart, and of saving souls who will love Thee through eternity. "When comes the evening of life, I shall stand before Thee with empty hands, because I do not ask Thee, my God, to take account of my works. All our works of justice are blemished in Thine Eyes. I wish therefore to be robed with Thine own Justice, and to receive from Thy Love the everlasting gift of Thyself. I desire no other Throne, no other Crown but Thee, O my Beloved!
Posted on November 22, 2009 at 07:10 PM in The Dove | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"Unto this Darkness which is beyond Light we pray that we may come, and may attain unto vision through the loss of sight and knowledge, and that in ceasing thus to see or to know we may learn to know that which is beyond all perception and understanding (for this emptying of our faculties is true sight and knowledge), and that we may offer Him that transcends all things the praises of a transcendent hymnody, which we shall do by denying or removing all things that are—like as men who, carving a statue out of marble, remove all the impediments that hinder the clear perceptive of the latent image and by this mere removal display the hidden statue itself in its hidden beauty."
- Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Mystical Theology, from Chapter II.
Posted on November 22, 2009 at 12:54 PM in Church History: The "Dark Ages" | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"What is this that has happened to me, O friends, and initiates, and fellow-lovers of the truth? I was running to lay hold on God, and thus I went up into the Mount, and drew aside the curtain of the Cloud, and entered away from matter and material things, and as far as I could I withdrew within myself. And then when I looked up, I scarce saw the back parts of God; although I was sheltered by the Rock, the Word that was made flesh for us. And when I looked a little closer, I saw, not the First and unmingled Nature, known to Itself—to the Trinity, I mean; not That which abideth within the first veil, and is hidden by the Cherubim; but only that Nature, which at last even reaches to us. And that is, as far as I can learn, the Majesty, or as holy David calls it, the Glory which is manifested among the creatures, which It has produced and governs. For these are the Back Parts of God, which He leaves behind Him, as tokens of Himself like the shadows and reflection of the sun in the water, which shew the sun to our weak eyes, because we cannot look at the sun himself, for by his unmixed light he is too strong for our power of perception. In this way then shalt thou discourse of God; even wert thou a Moses and a god to Pharaoh; even wert thou caught up like Paul to the Third Heaven, and hadst heard unspeakable words; even wert thou raised above them both, and exalted to Angelic or Archangelic place and dignity. For though a thing be all heavenly, or above heaven, and far higher in nature and nearer to God than we, yet it is farther distant from God, and from the complete comprehension of His Nature, than it is lifted above our complex and lowly and earthward sinking composition."
- St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration XXVIII (Second Theological Oration).
Posted on November 22, 2009 at 12:48 PM in Church History: The Early Church | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
From the Letters of St. Boniface on responsibility for the impact our actions have on the souls of others (He does not specifically mention purgatory, a doctrine which was not fully developed until the 12th century.):
"If, then, the heathen who, as the Apostle says, know not God and have not the law carry out by instinct the injunctions of the law and show the works of the law written on their hearts, it is time now that you who are called a Christian and a worshipper of the true God should, if you have been defiled with lust in your youth, wallowed in the mire of adultery or drowned in the sea of lust as in the abyss of hell, call to mind your Lord, should escape from the snares of the devil and cleanse your soul from its foul iniquities. Now is the time for you to fear your Creator and to desist from defiling yourself by committing such crimes. Now is the time to spare the many people who, through following the example of a vicious prince, perish and fall into the pit of death. For it is certain that we shall be rewarded or punished by the eternal judge according to the number of people we have led to heaven by our good example or swept into hell by our evil courses."
- From Letter 32, a letter of admonition to King Aethelbald of Mercia (746-7), online at Medieval Sourcebook.
Posted on November 15, 2009 at 08:23 AM in Living Faith | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"We should make our petitions like beggars before a powerful and rich Emperor; then, with downcast eyes, humbly wait. When He secretly shows us He hears our prayers, it is well to be silent, as He has drawn us into His presence; there would then be no harm in trying to keep our minds at rest (that is to say, if we can). If, however, the King makes no sign of listening or of seeing us, there is no need to stand inert, like a dolt, which the soul would resemble if it continued inactive. In this case its dryness would greatly increase, and the imagination would be made more restless than before by its very effort to think of nothing. Our Lord wishes us at such a time to offer Him our petitions and to place ourselves in His presence; He knows what is best for us."
- St. Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, Fourth Mansion, Chapter 3.
And here is a group of Scriptures related, one way or another, to the same concepts:
"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matt. 6:5-8)
"And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone." (Matt. 14:23, about Jesus)
"And Peter said to Jesus, 'Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli'jah.' He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.'" (Matt. 17:4-5)
"And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed." (Mark 1:35, about Jesus)
"Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints." (Eph. 6:18)
"Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving; and pray for us also, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, as I ought to speak." (Col. 4:2-4)
"Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (I Thess. 5:16-18)
"Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his presence continually!" (I Chron. 16:10-11, David's Song of Thanksgiving before the Ark of the Covenant)
"Be angry, but sin not; commune with your own hearts on your beds, and be silent." (Psalm 4:4)
"One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple." (Psalm 27:4)
"Be still, and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth!" (Psalm 46:10)
"But I call upon God; and the LORD will save me. Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he will hear my voice." (Psalm 54/55:16-17)
"Thou dost keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in thee." (Isaiah 26:3)
"Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hid from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." (Isaiah 40:27-31)
"Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD; his going forth is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth." (Hosea 6:3)
"But as for me, I will look to the LORD, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light; I shall behold his deliverance." (Micah 7:7-9)
"Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is at hand; the LORD has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests. . . . Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his commands; seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the wrath of the LORD." (Zeph. 1:7, 2:3)
Posted on October 18, 2009 at 12:04 PM in Carmelites: St. Teresa of Avila, Prayer | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Here are a few things from the Old Testament that help us pray:
Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for thy servant hears.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the LORD came and stood forth, calling as at other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for thy servant hears." (I Sam. 3:9)
Moreover as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way. Only fear the Lord, and serve him faithfully with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you. (I Sam. 12:23-24)
Posted on September 20, 2009 at 09:14 PM in Lectio Divina | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
"My dear brethren, this is how: listen well and you will understand if you have religion as God wants you to have it in order to lead you to Heaven. If a person has true virtue, nothing whatever can change him; he is like a rock in the midst of a tempestuous sea. If anyone scorns you, or calumniates you, if someone mocks at you or calls you a hypocrite or a sanctimonious fraud, none of this will have the least effect upon your peace of soul. You will love him just as much as you loved him when he was saying good things about you. You will not fail to do him a good turn and to help him, even if he speaks badly of your assistance. You will say your prayers, go to Confession, to Holy Communion, you will go to Mass, all according to your general custom"
- St. John Vianney, Sermon: "Have you religion in your heart?", from a collection of excerpts from the sermons of the Curé d'Ars, The Work of God website. Read the rest.
Posted on September 06, 2009 at 08:01 AM in Living Faith | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I just finished reading The Hidden Life by St. Edith Stein. Even though I read slowly, I still felt at times that I set it down too seldom for reflection. Unlike some of her other books, which are more philosophical or theological, this one is an anthology of deeply contemplative writings that have a lot of spiritual food for thought.
It includes a 40-page biography that she wrote about St. Teresa of Avila, which I truly enjoyed reading. I would highly recommend it, especially for anyone who is looking for a short biography of the life of the "Great Teresa".
What struck me most, in reading the last of the compiled writings, was how prepared St. Edith seemed to be for her arrest and death at Auschwitz, at least as prepared as I would think anyone possibly could be. She wrote about the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience of the religious life, and about the cross. When she wrote The Science of the Cross, and when she wrote the short talks published in The Hidden Life, she must have reflected on her own chosen religious name, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, as well as on the great Carmelite saint St. John of the Cross. At times, she applied those thoughts to life in Hitler's Germany and the Netherlands. She clearly thought about the application of those thoughts to herself before she was arrested as a Jewish Carmelite nun.
In her short writing about the life of Marie-Aimée de Jesus of the Paris Carmel on the Avenue de Saxe, she quoted an account of Marie's spiritual state in her last days, relayed by her to another nun, "This soul no longer considers herself superior to others and judges nothing. . . . Indeed she has an unquenchable thirst for suffering and humiliation, but still she wants only what God wants. . . ." I wondered whether she saw herself in that description, the Edith Stein who would have been a superior university student, as compared to the Carmelite she had become, in a time when she had suffered humiliation as a Jew in that era.
Writing "At the Foot of the Cross", she wrote, "The battle between Christ and the Antichrist is not yet over. The followers of Christ have their place in this battle, and their chief weapon is the cross." There, she wrote of voluntary expiatory suffering as not merely a reminder of Christ's suffering, but rather "what truly and really unites one to the Lord intimately".
For the Elevation of the Cross on September 14, 1939, she spoke of the battle with the Antichrist more clearly referencing war, and adding, "If you decide for Christ, it could cost you your life."
The following year, for the same feast day, she asked whether their desire for peace came from "a completely purified heart", for the Father's glory, "without any self-seeking", and wrote that they would not be discouraged in admitting that "we are still bunglers and beginners."
She and other non-Aryan members of Dutch religious communities were arrested on August 2, 1942, in reaction to a protest by Dutch bishops. St. Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, probably on August 9, 1942.
The Hidden Life is published by ICS Publications from the Institute of Carmelite Studies.
Posted on August 22, 2009 at 08:35 PM in Carmelites: St. Edith Stein | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
For today's feast day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, here is a portion of a letter from a monk named Peter de Roya written about St. Bernard's abbey at Clairvaux in 1118:
- From Abbé Ratisbonne, Saint Bernard, American Edition published in the late 19th century. The French original dates to
1859, as far as I can tell. Abbot Ratisbonne's book is now available
in English through TAN Publications.
Posted on August 20, 2009 at 08:24 AM in Church History: The High & Late Middle Ages | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
What
shall we say, O Queen? What words shall we use? What praise shall we
pour upon thy sacred and glorified head, thou giver of good gifts and
of riches, the pride of the human race, the glory of all creation,
through whom it is truly blessed. He whom nature did not contain in
the beginning, was born of thee. The Invisible One is contemplated
face to face. . . .
What countless angels acclaim the death of the life-giving Mother! How the eloquence of apostles blesses the departure of this body which was the receptacle of God. How the Word of God, who deigned in His mercy to become her Son, ministering with His divine hands to this immaculate and divine being, as His mother, receives her holy soul. O wondrous Law-giver, fulfilling the law which He had Himself laid down, not being bound by it, for it was He who enjoined children to show reference to their parents. 'Honor thy father and thy mother,' He says. The truth of this is apparent to every one, calling to mind even dimly the words of holy Scripture. If according to it the souls of the just are in the hands of God, how much more is her soul in the hands of her Son and her God.
St. John Damascene, Sermon I: On the Assumption.
Picture: "The Assumption of the Virgin" by Peter Paul Rubens, from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Antwerp, photo from Wikipedia.
Posted on August 14, 2009 at 08:30 PM in Mary | Permalink | Comments (0)
In his words at today's midday Angelus, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, St. Maximillian Kolbe, and St. Clare of Assisi, whose feast days are this week. In particular, he mentioned Sts. Teresa Benedicta and Maximillian Kolbe, who died in the Nazi concentration camps. He said, "From them, we can learn - especially we
priests - the evangelical heroism that impels us, without fearing
anything, to give our life for the salvation of souls. Love conquers
death!"
Teresa Benedetta has an English translation of the text at Benedetto XVI Forum. The Vatican Press Office's Daily Bulletin has the original Italian text. Asia News has an article.
Posted on August 09, 2009 at 09:20 AM in Pope Benedict XVI 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)
"All authentic prayer is prayer of the church. Through every sincere prayer something happens in the church, and it is the church itself that is praying therein, for it is the Holy Spirit living in the church that intercedes for every individual soul 'with sighs too deep for words.'"
- St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), from "The Prayer of the Church", published in The Hidden Life, ICS Publications.
St. Teresa Benedicta's feast day is August 9. Sunday takes precedence over it. For more, click on the link at the bottom of this post for the "St. Edith Stein" category of this blog.
Image: "Old Man in Meditation" by Jan Olis, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France. Photo by me.
Posted on August 08, 2009 at 12:07 PM in Carmelites: St. Edith Stein, Prayer | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Catholic Illustrator's Guild has new artists' drawings of St. Ignatius Loyola. See here, here, and here. Thanks to John Brown, S.J., who sent the link.
And click on the image above for the Companion of Jesus website, which offers much by way of traditional Jesuit writings, prayers and spiritual exercises from Fr. Brown.
Posted on July 31, 2009 at 07:56 AM in Church History: The Reformation to 20th Century | Permalink | Comments (0)
I went looking for a good video of this old gospel hymn, "Give Me Jesus", tonight after I heard it on the radio sung by somebody while I was driving. The recording that I heard on the radio was not sung by Jessye Norman, but I'm glad I found the video of her singing it. The words to the hymn are "You can have all the world. Just give me Jesus." I was missing some of those old hymns while I was driving.
I have heard her twice singing live. Once was in a concert in San Francisco. She did about 8 encores, and I think the first 5 or 6 had been rehearsed knowing that her audiences would demand them. It was well worth staying to the very last bow. The other time I heard her sing live was in 1987, when she played the part of one of the prioresses the first time I saw Dialogues of the Carmelites at the Met. You just can't beat Jessye Norman.
I've been thinking I would like to see that opera again. When I first saw it, it troubled me a lot. I was still Presbyterian at the time. I didn't know much about the French Revolution and thus didn't understand it. Three years or so later, when I saw it again, it was becoming my favorite opera. I first switched to Anglican in 1997, about 7 years later, and Catholic about 7 or 8 years after that (4 or 5 years ago). But I haven't seen Dialogues of the Carmelites since I became Catholic. So I really am thinking about going to Munich next April or June to see it again, and to plan a trip around it. We shall see.
Anyway, here's the Jessye Norman video.
Posted on July 28, 2009 at 10:39 PM in Music: Today's Music | Permalink | Comments (0)
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