An acuteness of love and attention...

In Sarah Bachelard's recent book A Contemplative Christianity for Our Time, she quotes from the epilogue to Christopher Fry's play A Sleep of Prisoners:

Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere,
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul we ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.
The enterprise
Is exploration into God.

We do live, as did the WWII soldiers in Fry's play, in just such a time. Archimandrite Sophrony wrote, some years ago now, as if he were writing yesterday:

It has fallen to our lot to be born into the world in an appallingly disturbed period. We are not only passive spectators but to a certain extent participants in the mighty conflict between belief and unbelief, between hope and despair, between the dream of developing mankind into a single universal whole and the blind tendency towards dissolution into thousands of irreconcilable national, racial, class or political ideologies. Christ manifested to us the divine majesty of man, son of God, and we withal are stifled by the spectacle of the dignity of man being sadistically mocked and trampled underfoot. Our most effective contribution to the victory of good is to pray for our enemies, for the whole world. We do not only believe in - we know the power of true prayer... 

The Jesus Prayer will incline us to find each human being unique, the one for whom Christ was crucified. Where there is great love the heart necessarily suffers and feels pity for every creature, in particular for man; but our inner peace remains secure, even when all is in confusion in the world outside... 

As Bachelard points out, there is no sense in which prayer, let alone contemplative prayer, is to be thought of as a substitute for human endeavour, scientific, political, or whatever. But it is not less than those things. So far from a retreat from or a defence against pain, our calling may be to an acuteness of love and attention so keen and detailed as to constitute prayer itself; an entering, in effect, into the pain of the cross of Jesus that, as Helen Waddell shows in her novel Peter Abelard, goes on and on throughout all history, like a ring in the trunk of a tree; Calvary being only the visible bit, the saw-cut that reveals the ring. The cross, in all of its pain and desolation, continues through all time, the pain itself by which Christ's mercy is present always as redemption and grace.

Whatever technical interpretation we place on the theology of crucifixion and atonement, the direct spiritual experience of "an entire universe of horrifying anguish" (Rebecca Tope) is, to me at least, the most fundamental call to prayer, and the reason why for me only a contemplative practice can come anywhere near answering that call. Not for the first time I am reminded of this passage from Praying the Jesus Prayer by Br Ramon SSF:

We have seen that the Jesus Prayer involves body, mind and spirit... The cosmic nature of the Prayer means that the believer lives as a human being in solidarity with all other human beings, and with the animal creation, together with the whole created order (the cosmos). All this is drawn into and affected by the Prayer. One person's prayers send out vibrations and reverberations that increase the power of the divine Love in the cosmos.

The Christian is well aware of the fact that the world is also evil. There is a falseness and alienation which has distracted and infected the world, and men and women of prayer, by the power of the Name of Jesus, stand against the cosmic darkness, and enter into conflict with dark powers... The power of the Jesus Prayer is the armour against the wiles of the devil, taking heed of the apostle's word, 'Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayers and supplications...' [Ephesians 6.18]

To Pray as We Are

The Jesus Prayer is also called the Prayer of the Heart. In Orthodoxy, the mind and heart are to be used as one. St Theophan tells us to keep our "mind in the heart" at all times. Heart means the physical muscle pumping blood, and emotions/feelings, and the innermost core of the person, the spirit. Heart is associated with the physical organ, but not identical with it. Heart means our innermost chamber, our secret dwelling place where God lives. "The heart is but a small vessel; and yet dragons and lions are there, and there poisonous creatures and all the treasures of wickedness; rough, uneven paths are there, and gaping chasms. There likewise is God, there are the angels, the heavenly cities and the treasures of grace; all things are there." So says St. Macarius. Someone said the heart is a dimension of interior consciousness, awareness, where we come in touch with an inner space, a space of no dimensions. This consciousness is timeless, the place where tears reside and deep contact with the present moment abide, and from which restful movement comes. Acting out of our heart means to act lightly, with vigour and enthusiasm. When not in that inner awareness, we are restless, agitated and self-concerned. There is within us a space, a field of the heart, in which we find a Divine Reality, and from which we are called to live. The mind, then, is to descend into that inner sanctuary, by means of the Jesus Prayer or wordless contemplation, and to stay there throughout our active day, and evening. We descend with our mind into our heart, and we live there. The heart is Christ's palace. There, Christ the King comes to take His rest.

Albert S Rossi,  Saying the Jesus Prayer

There is that in the Jesus Prayer that lives in the very brokenness of the human heart. When we pray the Prayer, we are not trying to pray as we would like to be, or as we think someone else might think we ought to be, but as we actually are. If our hearts are full of pain, full of the darkness of temptation or of betrayal, distracted, covetous, or grieving, then that is how we will pray. This is one reason why, incidentally, I always use the form the the Prayer that includes the final phrase "a sinner" - for that is who I am, and the two words include all these emotions, and more. For in acknowledging myself a sinner, I am acknowledging my identity, my solidarity even, with the rest of humanity, fallen as we are, and even with the rest of creation in the mysterious brokenness it shares with us, in the pain of the mouse in the owl's claws, of the grasslands in drought. And so the Prayer becomes a prayer for all who suffer, human or otherwise; a true intercession, a stepping into the mercy of God on behalf of all that is.

Perhaps this intercessory dimension of the Jesus Prayer may help to explain the difficulty sometimes encountered in its practice. I don't mean the ordinary kind of distraction, shopping lists or fantasies drifting across the field of prayer, but a real and painful struggle that sometimes makes it all but impossible inwardly to pronounce even the words of the Prayer. This kind of struggle seems not to be written of much in recent literature, though it crops up often enough in the writings of St Macarius (300-391AD) and others of his period. In his now out of print booklet Praying the Jesus Prayer (Marshall Pickering 1988) Brother Ramon SSF, though, wrote,

The Christian is well aware of the fact that the world is also evil. There is a falseness and alienation which has distracted and infected the world, and men and women of prayer, by the power of the Name of Jesus, stand against the cosmic darkness, and enter into conflict with dark powers. 'For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.' The power of the Jesus Prayer is the armour against the wiles of the devil, taking heed of the apostle's word: 'Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.' [Ephesians 6.12,18 RSV]

But I don't want to make too much of this aspect of the use of the Prayer. It does happen, and so it is as well to be aware of it, but it is not what the Prayer is all about. We are praying for the mercy of God in Christ, and it is only through the cross of Christ that God's mercy can heal us, and the wounds for which we pray. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1.5 NIV) In the repetition of the Jesus Prayer, we are ourselves walking the way of the cross, playing our own small part in its mercy.

"A fathomless ocean of pain..."

The low, repetitive bawling was a distant throb of distress that Lilah had never grown used to, even though  it happened every time a cow gave birth. Sometimes, at night, it was unbearable, the bereft mother calling and calling for her baby, the embodiment of despair. Sometimes it seemed to Lilah that in her short life she had been party to a fathomless ocean of pain and misery, that all this suffering was there inside her, barely supressed by her flippant ways and habitual optimism. And sometimes she couldn't stop herself imagining every hurt and cruelty; every experimental laboratory; every horse used in war; every animal ill-used in the service of man; every creature sent terrified to the abattoir. All of it added up to an entire universe of horrifying anguish, and she had to breathe slow and deep to be able to carry on.

This passage (the wider context of the narrative makes it clear that the character's experience is not confined merely to questions of animal husbandry, but relates equally to her grief at the murder of her father, and to the inhumanity of humankind generally) from the murder mystery A Dirty Death, by Rebecca Tope, reminds me of the assertion, explained so well in Helen Waddell's own novel Peter Abelard, that the cross of Jesus goes on and on throughout all history, like a ring in the trunk of a tree; and that Calvary is but the visible bit, the saw-cut through the tree that reveals the ring. The cross, with all of its pain and desolation, continues through all time, the sacrifice by which Christ's mercy is present always as redemption and grace.

Whatever technical interpretation we place on the theology of crucifixion and the atonement, the direct spiritual experience of "an entire universe of horrifying anguish" is, to me at least, the most fundamental call to prayer, and the reason why for me only a contemplative discipline comes anywhere near answering that call. Not for the first time I am reminded of this passage from Praying the Jesus Prayer by Br Ramon SSF:

We have seen that the Jesus Prayer involves body, mind and spirit... The cosmic nature of the Prayer means that the believer lives as a human being in solidarity with all other human beings, and with the animal creation, together with the whole created order (the cosmos). All this is drawn into and affected by the Prayer. One person's prayers send out vibrations and reverberations that increase the power of the divine Love in the cosmos.

The Christian is well aware of the fact that the world is also evil. There is a falseness and alienation which has distracted and infected the world, and men and women of prayer, by the power of the Name of Jesus, stand against the cosmic darkness, and enter into conflict with dark powers... The power of the Jesus Prayer is the armour against the wiles of the devil, taking heed of the apostle's word, 'Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayers and supplications...' [Ephesians 6.18]

Kinds of simplicity…

One biblical description of poverty is simplicity. People poor in this way are centred in chosen values instead of possessions. And because their life is so centred in clear values—usually God, family, and physical work—they normally don't need to compensate by spending their afternoons in shopping malls, buying more things, or filling up their boredom with distractions.

Few things are needed or desired by the one who lives simply because life is centred on another level of value. And maybe it isn't always specifically religious; maybe it's music, art, nature, volunteerism, or working for a great ideal.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 254, day 265 - Source: Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction

This is one of the best expressions I’ve encountered of the very practical call to simplicity that many of us seem to stumble across on the way, if we seek to follow Francis on the way of the Cross. As Rohr points out, it isn’t in itself specifically Franciscan; it isn’t even specifically Christian, though as many artists, writers, and maybe particularly musicians have discovered over the years, it’s a hard road without a lived and passionate faith to strengthen you…

Brother Ramon SSF says (Franciscan Spirituality, p. 68):

In the Church… we are confronted by the fearful and blazing light of Francis. We can either turn away like the rich young man faced by Jesus’ radical demand, or allow the Franciscan light to dispel our avaricious darkness…

It was not that Francis was a social reformer or an ideological politician warning what love of money would do to the fabric of our society. Rather, he was a follower of Jesus who saw what it would do to spiritual awareness and sensitivity.

The compulsive worship of capital leads the individual and society to a denial of the compassion that relinquishes more than is necessary and shares in simplicity.

It is all there in the gospel. Jesus preached and lived such radical simplicity clearly, and Francis showed it could be done. But no doubt we shall find ways to evade them both!

Br. Ramon has put his finger on it. The Franciscan, the gospel, call to simplicity is not all call to change society—how could it be?—but a call to rescue ourselves from the sinking ship, to put put out the call to everyone we meet, “Save yourselves!”

St. Francis’ Day

This world’s no blot for us,
Nor blank; it means intensely and it means good…

(Robert Browning, from ‘Fra Lippo Lippi’)

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching…

Where there is mercy and discernment, there is neither excess nor hardness of heart…

Where there is inner peace and meditation, there is neither preoccupation nor dissipation…

St. Francis of Assisi

Today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. I had meant to write something erudite here about the way that St. Bonaventure interpreted Francis’ teachings, and applied the mystical and Platonizing mode of thought to his experience of the living power of Christ in the heart of mankind. But, as it is our Revive! all-age service this afternoon, I walked down to church for the 8am Communion, which is always from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

On the way, I was half-thinking, half-praying about St. Francis, and thinking of the events of his early life, and of the way Francis received, and showed, God’s mercy and his grace in all he did and said. Surely if there was one great reformer and theologian of the church who embodied Christ’s mercy for a broken world, it was Francis of Assisi.

During the general confession in the BCP Communion service, I always stumble over the words, “Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.” They always conjure up for me an image of my headmaster at my Preparatory School, speaking in Assembly about some new transgression on the part of the boys, and spluttering, “I will not tolerate it…!” God as my old headmaster? What better argument for secular humanism! The trouble is that I usually find myself so caught up in inner arguments, and in remembering the words of Julian of Norwich, “Suddenly is the soul oned to God when it is truly peaced in itself: for in Him is found no wrath. And thus I saw when we are all in peace and in love, we find no contrariness, nor no manner of letting through that contrariness which is now in us…” that I miss the glorious statement of trust and abandonment to God that follows: “Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, Forgive us all that is past…”

It is on the Cross that we see the mercy of God, and the healing of Creation. It is in the blessed wounds of Christ that our peace is found, and our reconciliation. In his death is our life, for as he rose we shall also rise with him! Francis lived this truth from the day of his conversion to the day of his death, to such an extent that he was eventually marked himself with the wounds of Christ.

For me, Francis, like Christ, is all about mercy. Seeing that, I can’t but try and live out my life as a Franciscan. The Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” is a prayer that originated long before St. Francis walked the hills around Assisi, back in the days of the Desert Fathers and Mothers; but it so perfectly encapsulates the heart of Francis that it is no surprise that Brother Ramon SSF, and many other contemporary Franciscans, have taken it as their own prayer. It is perhaps no coincidence that I was myself taught the Prayer, back in 1978, by another Francis, Fr. Francis Horner SSM, whom I remember today with joy and thanks along with Little Brother Francis himself.