The penitence of Mr Head

Mr Head stood very still and felt the action of mercy touch him again but this time he knew that there were no words in the world that could name it. He understood that it grew out of agony, which is not denied to any man and which is given in strange ways to children. He understood it was all a man could carry into death to give his Maker and he suddenly burned with shame that he had so little of it to take with him. He stood appalled, judging himself with the thoroughness of God, while the action of mercy covered his pride like a flame and consumed it. He had never thought him self a great sinner before but he saw now that his true depravity had been hidden from him lest it cause him despair. He realized that he was forgiven for sins from the beginning of time, when he had conceived in his own heart the sin of Adam, until the present, when he had denied poor Nelson. He saw that no Sin was too monstrous for him to claim as his own, and since God loved in proportion as He forgave, he felt ready at that instant to enter Paradise.

Flannery O’Connor, The Artificial Nigger

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This, the last paragraph but one in Flannery O’Connor’s strange, disorienting story, comes close to describing what Alan Jones, in Soul Making, describes as the gift of tears, and which I understand to be the root of true intercessory prayer. It is the realisation of our complete identification with our sister and brother creatures, no matter who they may be.

Quoting part of this passage from O’Connor’s story, Jones says, “Flannery O’Connor, in story form, describes the double action of the gift of tears. I am able to see in such a way that I not only judge myself with the judgement of God, but I am given the grace to love myself with the love of God. My tears, then, are the tears of joy as well as of sorrow.”

But there is more than this. As Mr Head sees, there is no sin too monstrous for us to claim as our own. All the we are grows from the same root in Adam, and his and Eve’s sin is our own, and all the sins that follow, ever. For this reason we cry, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”; and for this reason our cry is valid for all that lives, and we are ourselves no more than one of the little watercourses by which Christ’s mercy comes to comfort a creation lost in uncountable pain (see Romans 8.19ff).

Christe, Eléison…

The wrecks of comprehension…

Mary’s understanding of her nothingness is also saying something about you. Your worthiness is given. It is not attained. It is God in you searching for God. It is God in you that believes and hopes and cares and loves. There is nothing that you can take credit for. It is something you just thank God for!

Eventually you will not be inclined to say, “I prayed today.” Rather, you will want to say, “Prayer happened today—and I was there!” Whatever you do in communion is prayer. When your mind, your heart and your body are all present; that kind of full presence is automatically prayer. At that moment God is able to use you and speak to you.

I believe Mary is the model for being used by God. And we, like her, are just standing here saying, “Let it be done unto me” (Luke 1.38). All we can do is let it happen.

Richard Rohr, from an unpublished talk

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The longer I go on in this life that is about prayer, the less I realise I know about it. As Rohr says here, prayer happens. Sometimes, I’m not even sure I am there. Prayer is all wrapped up in dreams, these days, too. Some nights are so filled with dreaming that is prayer, or prayer that is dreaming, that I’m not always sure what is sleep and what is not. But these are not dreams of the prophetic, “God gave me a dream – better sit up and write it down!” variety. They rise out of sleep like the wrecks of crippled warships rising out of sand and silt, full of pain and the memory of pain, and sink again in the half-waking susurration of the Jesus Prayer. They are nothing I do; their content has generally nothing to do with my life or even my experience.

My day-life goes on, filled with light and truth as never before. My Susan and I are engaged now, and our parallel Third Order vocations are calling us into a “community of two” – we are so excited to see where God might take us in this path together. The more obscure and baffling these sleeping prayers become, somehow, the more blessed are these long days of early summer.

But this mystery of prayer continues darker than ever. It’s as though my mind has no reference for what is going on, rather as something illuminated by radiation outside the human visual spectrum appears dark to us, and yet may be bathed in a light we cannot see. I feel like Abram asleep after meeting Melchizedek, blanketed by “a deep and terrifying darkness” that I don’t understand. And yet I know that it is God’s darkness; that it means nothing but good, and peace, and healing for things that are not in my experience.

All I can do is be here, try to be present to what God is doing, as best I can, and leave the outcome up to him. Our Blessed Lady is my guide and mentor; she went this way before, to an extent no-one else has ever been called to go. From the Annunciation, to the Cross, and on to Pentecost, she was present in silence to God’s highest doing. From the beginning, her life was a surrender more active than we can comprehend, more passionate in its stillness than our hearts can embrace. No wonder all generations call her Blesséd…

Light in darkness…

In this state of self-abandonment, in this path of simple faith, everything that happens to our soul and body, all that occurs in all the affairs of life, has the aspect of death. This should not surprise us. What do we expect? It is natural to this condition. God has plans for souls and he carries them out very successfully, though they are well-disguised. Under the name of ‘disguise’ are such things as misfortune, illness and spiritual weakness. But in the hands of God everything flourishes and turns to good.

Jean Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence

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I am sometimes surprised when I hear people say, ‘How can you believe in a God that would let something like that happen to me (to my sister, brother, friend, lover…)?’

I know some people, some of whom I respect and admire, who have felt this way. For some reason I never have. I have not led a particularly sheltered life, at least for someone who has lived most of his life in England in peacetime, and I have been close to those who have suffered.

Why don’t I feel this rejection of God? Why don’t I turn away from the one who created this world in which there is such great pain, such injustice, such cruelty? Why don’t I blame him for the suffering of the innocent, the defilement of beauty, the loss of hope?

Of course it’s not because of any spiritual qualities of mine, and I don’t think it’s because I am unusually insensitive to others’ pain. I think the answer, so far as there is one, must have something to do with this ‘self-abandonment’ de Caussade speaks of here.

For some odd reason the sense has become clear to me – in some ways I think it has always been there – that God does have plans for us, and that these plans are indeed, ‘plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.’ (Jeremiah 29.11) God, it seems, would rather do this gently, in peace; but he will do it, no matter what we do, or what is done to us. The Prophets, Jeremiah particularly, make this pretty clear, in their stories of hope and blessing on the far side of war and exile; but the Cross makes it blindingly clear, and, through the grace Christ brought to us there, it opens the door to hope and blessing, to restoration and peace beyond all our trials.

Paul wrote, ‘I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us… We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.’ (Romans 8.18,28)

All things. For me it has somehow always been so. Oh, it’s hard to express this clearly enough without somehow seeming to rebuke those for whom it is terribly different, and I truly don’t want to do that. I just know that God has blessed me even in the worst times with his presence and his love, and he has shown me things I could not otherwise have seen.

Somehow – and for me it has always seemed to be caught up in the practice of the Jesus Prayer – these blessings have come about in the conscious, if not intentional, abandonment of my own self-interest. Somehow, as far as I have been able to respond to God’s call to set down my own instincts to self preservation, and abandon myself into his hands, I have been blessed with ‘treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places.’ (Isaiah 45.3)

‘God is light and in him there is no darkness at all…’ (1 John 1.5) But his light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. (John 1.5)

Sister Death

In the desert tradition, death is a companion, a friend. St. Francis of Assisi called death "sister." He was a believer of extraordinary power, at home with the desert way of believing. Death, far from being the terror we encounter at the end of our earthly existence, is the companion and friend who walks with us now. Sister Death is with us always. Her shadow marks and influences every moment.

To live our life from the point of view of our death is not necessarily a capitulation to despair, to withdrawal, to passivity. Rather, it can become the basis for our being and doing in the world. The more we refuse to look at our own death, the more we repress and deny new possibilities for living.

Alan Jones, Soul Making

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We don’t talk enough about death. We talk endlessly, in a kind of grim voyeurism, about killing, but we try hard not to mention death, our own death. Even we Christians tend to shy away from the subject.

If we avoid the subject of death, we avoid the subject of dying more. I know the feeling. As I get older, the time of my own death, my own dying, draws nearer. I am now much closer to the end of my life, whenever that is to be, than I am to its beginning. Since I enjoy life, the love and company of my fellow creatures, the delights of nature and art, I don’t like to think of leaving them. Besides, there is no guarantee that my dying will be peaceful, or pleasant. It might be violent; or it might be messy and protracted, bereft of dignity and intelligence.

Yet our dying is not something outside God’s mercy. By the grace of the Incarnation our Lord went this way before us, making clear the path through the sacrifice of the Cross. There is no moment that we are without Christ’s mercy, for in Julian of Norwich's words, “the sweet eye of pity and love is never lifted off us.”

I keep coming back to last Sunday’s Gospel reading from John 14:

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‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’

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The way leads through death to eternal life. It did for Jesus; it will for us, if we love him. Of course Death is our Sister. It is she who will lead us home, to the place our hearts have been longing for all these years. I truly believe, from my own close experience as well as from everything I’ve read, that Death is gentle, however un-gentle may be the means of our dying. We are far from perfect, even the best of us, and yet Christ’s mercy is everlasting, and without limit; mercy triumphs over judgement.

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But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in
the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 1.20-21)

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him. (Psalm 103.17)

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures for ever. (Psalm 136.1)

Balance and the Franciscan calling…

Franciscans... Wordless witnesses of life...
These are faithful who, in the midst of their own community, demonstrate their capacity for understanding and acceptance, sharing of life and destiny, solidarity for what is noble and good. They radiate their faith in values and their hope in something that is not seen.
We stir questions in the hearts of those who see how we live:
Why are they like this?
Why do they live this way?
What or who is it that inspires them?
We are who God calls us to be: witnesses to the Gospel by action. Servants of the unworthy servants of God.

From Wrestling with Angels

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Every great secret makes one poor, it seems.  Like a powerful sexual encounter, it cannot be shared and therefore it cannot be understood or valued by others.  As a result, it is almost always misunderstood, especially by those who have not yet discovered their own secret or found their own “private room.”  The secret of divine intimacy is by definition unshareable, ineffable, and mysterious even to the one who enjoys it.  It makes you great, but it also makes you very lonely, and often the subject of cruel accusations, comparisons, and spiritual competition.

Being a beloved son [or daughter] will not make you fit in, but in fact will make you an outsider in almost all circles—sometimes even to yourself, as you question your own self-assuredness and doubt your own best moments.  Every secret makes one poor and lonely, living alone in rooms of doubt—the doubt that comes from an unshareable ecstasy.

Richard Rohr, from Soul Brothers: Men in the Bible Speak to Men Today,
pp. 91-92, 93

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I’ve been much troubled, recently, by the need for balance in my life. Balance between prayer and action, between music and (non-musical) writing, between solitude and community, between Church and the world, and especially between the expectations of others and my obligations to them.

In our daily Third Order cycle of prayer, the 24th of the month is the day for praying for one’s calling as a Franciscan, and so these things were on my mind and heart as I came into my time of silent prayer. Three quarters of that prayer time were, predictably, anything but silent, and were divided perhaps equally between distractions and turmoil. However, in the last quarter a great peace settled on me. Here am I, writing about the Jesus Prayer, about the intercessory dimension of contemplative prayer, and all things like that, and the answer to all these things is right there with me, only I hadn’t seen it…

It is so simple. If I come to the Lord with these things on my heart, with anything on my heart really, all I need to do is trust, and the answers will be given me. I don’t need to know how they’ll be given – directly, through the words or actions of others, through circumstances or the movement of my own longing – I just need to trust that they will be given, and go on with the Prayer. As Michael Ramsey once wrote, “Contemplation is for all Christians... [It] means essentially our being with God, putting ourselves in his presence, being hungry and thirsty for him, wanting him, letting heart and mind move towards him; with the needs of the world on our heart…” And am I not myself of the world? Only too clearly I am!

Anguish and mercy…

A person may go on pondering deeply in intense emotion about his needs, about the need of the moment. That is not yet prayer. Adding "in the name of God" to it will not make it prayer. It is the cry of anguish which becomes a realization of God's mercy that constitutes prayer. It is the moment of a person in anguish forgetting his anguish and thinking of God and God's mercy. That is prayer.... It may last a moment but it is the essence of a lifetime.

Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Insecurity of Freedom with thanks to inward/outward

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This comes very close to the heart of why I pray, and how I pray. For me, it is only this coming together of our human anguish and God’s mercy – which would be a possible description of the Cross – that makes prayer possible. If God were to allow me to feel the anguish of the world as keenly as he does, but were not to let me see how his mercy was poured out on the Cross, my despair would be beyond bearing, truly.

Perhaps this is why the Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,’ is prayed so passionately so many years after it was first formulated in the time of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. I have written of this before, but I cannot think that I have seen the need for such a prayer more clearly than in these words of Heschel’s. The degree of anguish that we see in the world, that we suffer along with (which is what the word ‘compassion’ means) doesn’t permit any lesser prayer, and certainly cannot be comprehended in our words. I always think it was something like that that Paul was getting at when he wrote, in Romans 8.26-27: ‘Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God…’

Terra incognita…

Much of what we find in the eyes of Jesus must first have been in the eyes of Mary. The mother’s vision is powerfully communicated to her children. Mary had to be his first “spiritual director,” the one who gave the vision to Jesus, who taught Jesus how to believe. What was in Jesus’ eyes was somehow first in hers. And in both of their eyes is what they both believe about God.

Mary holds us naked at each end of life: the Madonna first brings us into life, and then the grief-stricken mother of the Pieta hands us over to death. She expands our capacity to feel, to enter the compassion and the pain of being human. She holds joy deeply, where death cannot get at it. Jesus learns by watching her.

The mother teaches us by the way she suffers his birth and then stands at the foot of the cross. Not a word is spoken in either place; she simply trusts and experiences deeply. In other words, she is present. Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations,
pp. 153-154, day 163

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I’m only too well aware how long it is since I updated The Mercy Blog, and this passage from Richard Rohr goes some way towards explaining why I don’t seem to have been able to bring myself to write anything here.

This Lent was most definitely a time for experience rather than words. I wrote quite a bit in the weeks leading up to Easter, and when Easter Day came, with its joy and new hope, I posted the few photographs I’d taken at the dawn service on the beach, had breakfast, went to Mass at St Mark’s, and found myself incapable of writing a word. The time after Easter was a time of extraordinary joy, and a deep, unexpected, at times painful, cleansing.

The lengthening spring days have been filled with laughter and sunlight, and the nights with complex, baffling, often distressing dreams. There have been no words for this process, no way to describe it to myself, nothing for the mind to grasp and handle. I have had merely to let God – and it has been hard enough at times even to name him – get on with it. For almost the first time in thirty years I have found it hard even to pray the Jesus Prayer; or should I say it has been hard to bring myself to begin. Once started, my heart has often clung to the Prayer as to a lifeline, and I have found a thread of light on this dark ocean. Mary herself, I think, has been the Sea Star. I have discovered her waiting sometimes, at the edge of vision, when I was least looking for her. “Hail Mary, full of grace…” She is.

I have never known this before, a time of light, and growing peace, when my rational mind was dark, not with “dark thoughts” but with an absence of thought, and an inability to comprehend the changes God has been working in me. Truly this has been a time when the glory has been God’s alone, for I have not been able even to understand what he has been up to.

Time and again I have turned to the Psalms, to Psalm 131: “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me.” (v1)

and to Psalm 145: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.” (vv8-9)

Of course I don’t quite know where I am in all this: since I have no maps for this terra incognita I have no idea of the extent of this land. God’s goodness to me continues to astonish me, his faithfulness is absolute. Here are blessings I never imagined, depths of love I cannot sound.

I will try to post here more regularly, try to find words at least to indicate the edges of what is quite beyond words.

“The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfils the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry, and saves them.” (Psalm 145.17-19)

Dawn at the Banjo Pier–He is Risen Today, Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!

Alleluia!

Liminal…

Limen is the Latin word for threshold. A “liminal space” is the crucial in-between time—when everything actually happens and yet nothing appears to be happening. It is the waiting period when the cake bakes, the movement is made, the transformation takes place. One cannot just jump from Friday to Sunday in this case, there must be Saturday! This, of course, was always the holy day for the Jewish tradition. The Sabbath rest was the pivotal day for the Jews, and even the dead body of Jesus rests on Saturday, waiting for God to do whatever God plans to do. It is our great act of trust and surrender, both together. A new “creation ex nihilo” is about to happen, but first it must be desired. . . .

Remember, hope is not some vague belief that “all will work out well,” but biblical hope is the certainty that things finally have a victorious meaning no matter how they turn out. We learned that from Jesus, which gives us now the courage to live our lives forward from here. Maybe that is the full purpose of Lent.

Richard Rohr, from Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent, Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 2010

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Reading this passage from Rohr, I was suddenly reminded of an Easter Saturday poem I wrote many years ago. The weather’s wrong for this Easter – it was an early Easter that year on the North-East coast – but otherwise it says what I’m feeling better than I probably could today, in this glorious late spring sunshine…

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LIMINAL

Shallow sky’s thin edge
with sea and grey – lost
with pattern layers
into distance, thread cold
in no reckoned afternoon –
hatches its waiting
in a slow tide quick
with dunlin.

Stitched frail attributes
the day brought down
to no rain yet, or
given back over so long
to a rim the sea
asks across,
finding and finding
no thing to keep.

The land’s seasons fail
across surface, picked
over the rocks into stippled days.
Downshore, parallels repeat
out of seeing, as dim as far.
Wrack-line and sea’s edge,
limen and littoral hold,
patched and rotted with light.

Michael Farley, Lucy’s Ironworks, Stride Publications, 1990

How can God die?

PILATE: Claudia, Claudia, tell me—what was this dream of yours?

CLAUDIA: I was in a ship at sea, voyaging among the islands of the Aegean. At first the weather seemed calm and sunny—but presently, the sky darkened—and the sea began to toss with wind…

Then, out of the east, there comes a cry, strange and piercing…

(voice, in a thin wail:
”Pan ho megas thethnéke—
Pan ho megas thethnéke—”)

and I said to the captain, “What do they cry?” And he answered, “Great Pan is dead.” And I asked him, “How can God die?” And he answered, “Don’t you remember? They crucified him. He suffered under Pontius Pilate” …

(Murmur of voices, starting almost in a whisper)

Then all the people in the ship turned their faces to me and said: “Pontius Pilate”….

(Voices, some speaking, some chanting, some muttering, mingled with sung fragments of Greek and Latin liturgies, weaving and crossing one another:
“Pontius Pilate… Pontius Pilate… he suffered under Pontius Pilate… crucified, dead and buried… sub Pontio Pilato… Pilato… he suffered… suffered… under Pontius Pilate… under Pontius Pilate…”)

… in all tongues and voices… even the little children with their mothers…

(Children’s voices: “Suffered under Pontius Pilate… sub Pontio Pilato… crucifié sous Ponce Pilate… gekreuzigt unter Pontius Pilatus…” and other languages, mingling with the adult voices: then fade it all out)

…your name, husband, your name continually—“he suffered under Pontius Pilate”.

PILATE: The gods avert the omen.

CLAUDIA: This day is like my dream, Caius—this darkness at mid-noon… Hark! What was that?

PILATE: Nothing, Claudia, there is nothing to hear… Come away from the window.

Dorothy L Sayers: The Man Born to be King, Gollancz, 1943; Ignatius Press 1999

Maundy Thursday…

The sacrificial instinct is the deep recognition that something always has to die for something bigger to be born… we gradually get closer to what really has to be sacrificed—our own beloved ego—as protected and beloved as a little household lamb! We will all find endless disguises and excuses to avoid letting go of what really needs to die. And it is not other humans (firstborn sons of Egyptians), animals (lambs or goats), or even “meat on Friday” that God wants or needs. It is always our false self that has to be let go, which is going to die anyway.

Richard Rohr, from Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent, Saint Anthony Messenger Press.

Slowly the sun begins to set over the hills behind the sea. I cannot understand how I have been blessed to live in this most beautiful place, this little liminal town on the bay at the very tip of the Isle of Purbeck, filled with sea-change and the pure light of an endless sky.

In a few minutes I shall walk down to St Mary’s Church for the Maundy Thursday evening service. I’m a little hungry, and as puzzled as I always am about how the Lord of all could have gone through these days of Easter for someone like me, for people like us all. God’s good hand is there in all of the creation that lives around us, the air we breathe, the gravity that turns the worlds. Through Jesus all things were made – it was his hands, the maker’s, healer’s, gentle hands, that were nailed to stained and riven wood, in a real place, on a recorded date, in bloody fact.

The air has its own grain…

The air has its own grain,
its patterns the eye cannot follow.
Long ago the gulls learned to read
these maps our senses guess at best.

It seems we walk in ways the heart opens,
that the mind cannot follow,
does not even read.
We are blind to our own steps.

God’s arm lies across our shoulders
softer than air itself,
a thing we have no senses for
but strong as death itself.

God’s touch outlasts the act of dying,
remakes stars,
and yet we cannot read it,
only follow

blind to our own heart
that knows as sure as love
what God’s hand says,
loose about our shoulders,

piercèd though with grace.

Michael Farley

What he is not…

Jesus’ whole life is a life that moves from action – from being in control, preaching, teaching, performing miracles – to passion, in which everything is done to him. He is arrested, whipped, crowned with thorns and nailed to the cross. All this is done to him. The fulfilment of Jesus’ life on earth is not what he did but rather in what was done to him. Passion.

Henri Nouwen, from a recorded conference

This is the essence of the Desert. The Desert is, spiritually as well as physically, a place of subtraction. In theology this is sometimes called apophasis, the process of describing God to ourselves in terms of what he is not, rather than trying to say what we conceive him to be. God is so far beyond our capacity to know him that any way we attempt to describe him to ourselves tends merely to limit our understanding still further. We cannot limit God, however we try to know him or speak of him, but we can limit ourselves. This way lies fundamentalism, religiosity and self-deception.

If we are trying to follow our Lord Jesus on the way of the Cross we must, like him, consent to being stripped of all that has defined us, all that we thought we were, all the good and useful things and talents and gifts that gave us value in our own and others’ eyes. This is a journey on which we can, truly, take nothing with us. It is a journey so like death that I’m not sure I can tell the difference. It certainly will not end except on the far side of the act of dying.

How am I worthy to follow my Lord so closely? I’m not. Only his grace leads me where I could not have conceived of walking; only his own blood can wash me clean enough to even see the stones of the path…

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy one me…

Desperately seeking…

We could not seek God unless He were seeking us. We may begin to seek Him in desolation, feeling nothing but His absence. But the mere fact that we seek Him proves that we have already found Him.

Thomas Merton, A Merton Reader, ed. by Thomas P. McDonnell, Image Books 1989; Bantam Doubleday Dell 1994, p. 134

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

(Psalm 63.1-8)

God is never hidden from us except by our own blindness – even though it may be the blindness of tears – but even then he comes asking, as Jesus asked Bartimaeus, ‘What do you want to me to do for you?’

Oh, Lord, let me always listen. Let me never turn away.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…

Winter in April?

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvellous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.*

O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and for evermore.

Psalm 131

This is being a strange Lent. You would almost think Holy Saturday had come early. The Holy Spirit’s wind seems to scour a barren expanse, like the surface of some far off, unexplored moon. Christ’s warmth, his living voice, seems more like a memory…

So much is happening that I cannot name, cannot even see clearly. It’s as though there is a ferment of change, and something like growth, that is occurring in a place inaccessible to my mind – to my conscious mind at least. Can you imagine something that is going on illuminated by a light imperceptible to your eyes? Ultraviolet, perhaps, or lower down the frequency spectrum: infrared, or radio waves? Somehow, I know that I am not supposed to peer too closely, that I am merely to trust.

Change the metaphor. A gardener prepares his vegetable plot. He marks out the ground, digs it over, breaks down the clods with his fork, and finally rakes the soil level. Now he can sow his seeds. He covers them over, waters them in. Now it is late autumn, getting on towards winter. For months now, he will do nothing. The beds lie quiet under frost and wind, rain and snow. There is nothing to see. And yet the gardener must trust the long process of vernalisation. How can do nothing. If he digs up the seeds to see what’s going on he will destroy them. He must wait, leaving it all up to weather and time. Come the spring there will be shoots. In the end, harvest.

How hard it is to wait! How I long to answer the anxious questions of friends, to speak of purpose and intention, to say something inspiring. I am dumb and helpless, foolish and indecisive. This seem not to worry God.

Pray for me – I’d appreciate that.

Falling into tears…

Only the tears of repentance are able to cleanse the soul – St. Anthimos of Chios

A soldier asked Abba Mius if God accepted repentance. After the old man had taught him many things he said, ‘Tell me, my dear, if your cloak is torn, do you throw it away?’ He replied, ‘No, I mend it and use it again.’ The old man said to him, ‘If you are so careful about your cloak, will not God be equally careful about his creature?’

Abba Sarmatas said, ‘I prefer a sinful man who knows he has sinned and repents, to a man who has not sinned and considers himself to be righteous.’

St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, McKinney, Texas

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All too often we forget the power of tears. Claire Bangasser has a wonderful post on the gift of tears, in which she writes:

‘Tears are another way, a tangible way of addressing our pain and our panic,’ explains John Chryssavgis. So, on many occasions, tears are the very best prayer I can tell my loving Beloved Godde. Tears are a grace, and not just a sign, as some think, that I am feeling sorry for myself.

Tears are also a sign of repentance, helplessness, or complete surrender to an impossible solution; an indication that my wilfulness leads me nowhere.

But more than that, tears are the moment when I fall in the arms of the Beloved, admitting powerlessness and my inability at controlling the overwhelming challenges in my life. They are a blend of shame, confusion, repentance, call for help, end of the rope, cul-de-sac, – you name it.

A few years ago now, I wrote myself on this strange gift:

I am slowly coming to realise that my perennial soppiness, or brokenheartedness, is just exactly the way God wants me to be, and that's pretty much that.

What do I mean by "perennial brokenheartedness"? Well for me, it appears outwardly in the way that I cannot ignore suffering, real  or fictional, human or animal, which gives rise to my rather antisocial inability to watch or read much in the way of TV, films or novels. Inwardly, it is an inability, especially in prayer, to turn my heart away from pain.

It gets embarrassing too. Once, years ago, appalled at my own hard-heartedness in prayer, I prayed for the gift of tears. Bad idea. That's the kind of prayer God seems to take a particular delight in answering. Now, of course, I can't stop my helpless tears when I pray, or get involved in certain sorts of conversations.

Of course I've often tried to minimise such things. Even these days, it's embarrassing enough for women to be this way. When men do it it's downright odd. Besides, the more I can minimise it to myself, the more I can insulate myself from the transferred suffering of others, as well as from whatever internal suffering of my own is going on.

This Lent God seems to be removing pretences from me like a shipwright scraping barnacles off an old trawler. It's most uncomfortable. It's also scary, since, accepting it, as I have to, as being from God, I have no alternative but to accept where it may lead. It's out of my hands.

You see, for me at any rate, this process seems to have a lot to do with what Jesus meant when he spoke of taking up one's cross to follow him. Jesus' accepting the way of the Cross is the original pattern. When we accept to follow where he leads, we cannot avoid this pain. It is the same as love. Naming evil as the absence of love, our only weapon against it is love, and love, confronting evil, is pain; ultimately, traced to its very root, it is the pain of the Cross.

I think this is even more true for me now than it was when I wrote it. Certainly what is clearer is the implication of my own repentance. It is not enough to grieve for, pray for, the sufferings of others. I need to repent also. I am of the same material as those who suffer, yes, but I am also of the same material as those responsible for their sufferings. I cannot stand aside and judge them, or even consider myself as separate from them. They breathe the same air, stand upon the same earth; if we are wounded, our blood flows equally red. What I pray for them, I pray for myself; if I pray for myself, shall I not pray for them also?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…

The cell of one’s heart…

A brother in Scetis went to ask for a word from Abba Moses and the old man said to him, ‘Go and sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.’

From the Catholic Information Network subsite, The Paradise of the Desert Fathers.

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I keep wondering what for us are our cells, if, like so many people of prayer in this century, we are called to a more contemplative life, and yet are not members of a formal religious community, nor vowed to a formal solitary life. I wrote about this earlier, and yet I am no more clear on the matter. I find I need increasingly to look for ways to ‘be on retreat in the midst of a crowd’ as someone memorably remarked in a Facebook comment on a friend’s post.

The formal practice of the Jesus Prayer, sitting for a period quietly repeating the Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…’ often using a Latin rosary or a prayer rope, tends to lead, after a time, to the habit or practice of praying the Prayer – often it feels more like the Prayer praying itself – when one is engaged in other things: walking, perhaps, or some repetitive task. I wonder if allowing this to become more conscious may not be a door into the cell of one’s heart – a place of solitude not so dependent on external conditions as most kinds of contemplative prayer.

Transubstantiation…

This is what Abba Daniel, the Pharanite, said, 'Our Father Abba Arsenius told us of an [old man who had lived a long] life and of simple faith; through his naiveté he was deceived and said, "The bread which we receive is not really the body of Christ, but a symbol. Two old men having learnt that he had uttered this saying, knowing that he was outstanding in his way of life, knew that he had not spoken through malice, but through simplicity. So they came to find him and said, "Father, we have heard a proposition contrary to the faith on the part of someone who says that the bread which we receive is not really the body of Christ, but a symbol." The old man said, "it is I who have said that." Then the old men exhorted him saying, "Do not hold this position, Father, but hold one in conformity with that which the catholic Church has given us. We believe, for our part, that the bread itself is the body of Christ as in the beginning, God formed man in his image, taking the dust of the earth, without anyone being able to say that it is not the image of God, even though it is not seen to be so; thus it is with the bread of which he said that it is his body; and so we believe that it is really the body of Christ." The old man said to them, "As long as I have not been persuaded by the thing itself, I shall not be fully convinced." So they said, "Let us pray God about this mystery throughout the whole of this week and we believe that God will reveal it to us." The old man received this saying with joy and he prayed in these words, "Lord, you know that it is not through malice that I do not believe and so that I may not err through ignorance, reveal this mystery to me, Lord Jesus Christ." The old men returned to their cells and they also prayed God, saying, "Lord Jesus Christ, reveal this mystery to the old man, that he may believe and not lose his reward." God heard both the prayers. At the end of the week they came to church on Sunday and sat all three on the same mat, the old man in the middle. Then their eyes were opened and when the bread was placed on the holy table, there appeared as it were a little child to these three alone. And when the priest put out his hand to break the bread, behold an angel descended from heaven with a sword and poured the child's blood into the chalice. When the priest cut the bread into small pieces, the angel also cut the child in pieces. When they drew near to receive the sacred elements the old man alone received a morsel of bloody flesh. Seeing this he was afraid and cried out, "Lord, I believe that this bread is your flesh and this chalice your blood." Immediately the flesh which he held in his hand became bread, according to the mystery and he took it, giving thanks to God. Then the old men said to him, "God knows human nature and that man cannot eat raw flesh and that is why he has changed his body into bread and his blood into wine, for those who receive it in faith."Then they gave thanks to God for the old man, because he had allowed him not to lose the reward of his labour. So all three returned with joy to their own cells.'

From the Catholic Information Network subsite, The Paradise of the Desert Fathers.

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Sometimes we forget what an extraordinary thing we are part of in the Eucharist. Our Lord said, ‘This is my body, which is given for you,’ and ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood…’ not, ‘This might remind you of my body…’ or, ‘This cup symbolises…’ (Luke 22.19-20)

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On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews…

Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, Harper & Row, 1982

Gentleness and mercy…

While Abba Macarius was praying in his cave in the desert, a hyena suddenly appeared and began to lick his feet and taking him gently by the hem of his tunic, she drew him towards her own cave. He followed her, saying, ‘I wonder what this animal wants me to do?’ When she had led him to her cave, she went in and brought her cubs which had been born blind. He prayed over them and returned them to the hyena with their sight healed. She in turn, by way of thank offering, brought the man the huge skin of a ram and laid it at his feet. He smiled at her as if at a kind person and taking the skin spread it under him…

One of the beloved of Christ who had the gift of mercy used to say, ‘The one who is filled with mercy ought to offer it in the same manner in which he has received it, for such is the mercy of God.’

From the Catholic Information Network subsite, The Paradise of the Desert Fathers.

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As I have tried, very falteringly, to follow Jesus these last 30-odd years, it has gradually been borne in upon me how much of the Christian life is, or should be, simply a matter of gentleness and mercy. However much we may study, meet in fellowship, write, discuss and even pray, unless we grow in gentleness we are not growing more like our Saviour.

I have so very far to go: I am still so prone to anger and to judgement, to defensiveness and assertiveness. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Discipline and discipleship…

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
   remove the evil of your doings
   from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
   learn to do good;
seek justice,
   rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
   plead for the widow.

(Isaiah 1:16-17)

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Discipline follows from being a disciple. It is our effort to do as our Master does. Jesus gave space for the Father to give him what he needed. When you and I are fearful and anxious, we want to take control of our lives... When we follow Jesus we practice a discipline that gives space to let the Father touch us, forgive us and receive us.

Henri Nouwen

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Discipline, by perhaps almost as many within the Church as without it, tends to be seen as the opposite of freedom: as restriction, the enforcement of arbitrary rules, the abnegation of free-will, self-determination and honest thought. Chambers Thesaurus lists it as a synonym of punishment, castigation and strictness.

These things may be so in penal and educational contexts, at least in places. A quite different picture emerges when we read Nouwen’s words quoted above. Following Jesus is, at root, our only discipline, and it is a discipline that sets us free from the endless need to control our lives, defend ourselves, secure ourselves – free from the things we fear and that wake us in the night with chest-constricting worry, or keep us from love because we dare not risk the wounds. As Jesus said himself,

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (Matthew 11.28-30)

Faith, works, and grace…

The roof of any house stands upon the foundations and the rest of the structure. The foundations themselves are laid in order to carry the roof. This is both useful and necessary, for the roof cannot stand without the foundations and the foundations are absolutely useless without the roof – no help to any living creature. In the same way the grace of God is preserved by the practice of the commandments, and the observance of these commandments is laid down like foundations through the gift of God. The grace of the Spirit cannot remain with us without the practice of the commandments, but the practice of the commandments is of no help or advantage to us without the grace of God.

St. Symeon the New Theologian, with thanks to the Balamand Monastery

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Slowly, I have begun to understand the truth of this: the old conflict, so dear to those who are grateful that they are not Catholics, between faith and works, is so neatly subverted here. Of course there is no conflict – and grace is the means by which any appearance of conflict is resolved:

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God… (Ephesians 2.5-8)

I dunno…

Once some of the old men came to Abba Anthony and Abba Joseph was among them. Abba Anthony wanted to test them, and so he began to talk about the Holy Scriptures. He began asking the younger monks the meaning of one text after another and each replied as best he could. But he said to each of them, ‘You have not found the meaning of it yet.’ Then he said to Abba Joseph, ‘What do you say this text means?’ and he answered, ‘I do not know.’ Abba Anthony said, ‘Indeed, only Abba Joseph has found the true way, when he said he did not know.’

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

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O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
   my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
   too great and too marvellous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
   like a weaned child with its mother;
   my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord
   from this time on and for evermore.

(Psalm 131)

Carry that weight…

They asked Abba Macarius, ‘How should we pray?’ And the old man replied, ‘There is no need to speak much in prayer; often stretch out your hands and say, “Lord, as you will and as you know, have mercy on me.” But if there is war in your soul, add, “Help me!” and because he knows what we need, he shows mercy on us.’

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

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This is the beginning of what we now know as the Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ The discipline is so simple that our sophisticated minds rebel against it – as no doubt did the minds of many of Macarius’ sophisticated Greek and Egyptian intellectual hearers – but it is simplicity alone that can carry the weight of of our brokenness, and the world’s:

Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

TS Eliot, Four Quartets: 4, Little Gidding

Avoiding responsibility?

One of the elders said: A monk ought not to inquire how this one acts, or how that one lives. Questions like this take away from prayer, and draw us on to backbiting and chatter. There is nothing better than to keep silent…

One of the elders said: Pray attentively and you will soon straighten out your thoughts.

from Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, New Directions Publishing Corp., 1960

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How true this is – increasingly, this Lent, I find I’m being drawn to silence, to stillness, to withdrawing from the busyness of so much of church life. I am fortunate, in having only recently moved to this town, to be relatively free of the kind of commitments I too easily make, and so I’m able to do this without causing too much inconvenience to others. But it is hard, sometimes, because one is inevitably misunderstood, even in the kindest of ways, and it is hard to avoid hurting good people by one’s seeming rejection of things that are, in themselves, perfectly good and useful.

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‘Time after time, the old men brought [Abba Theodore of Pherme] back to Scetis saying, “Do not abandon your role as a deacon.” Abba Theodore said to them, “Let me pray to God so that he may tell me for sure whether I ought to function publicly as a deacon in the liturgy.” This is how he prayed to God: “If it is your will that I should stand in this place, make me sure of it.” A pillar of fire appeared to him, stretching from earth of heaven, and a voice said, “If you can become like this pillar of fire, go and be a deacon.” So he decided against it. He went to church, and the brothers bowed to him and said, “If you don’t want to be a deacon, at least administer the chalice.” But he refused and said, “If you do not leave me alone, I shall leave here for good.” So they left him in peace.’

The instant temptation is to say that figures like this were avoiding responsibility, or setting impossibly high standards to justify their refusal of office… The issue is not about whether or not someone should assume their ‘proper’ responsibilities in the church (or society for that matter); the primary responsibility in the desert is… responsibility for your own and each other’s growth and truthfulness before God.

from Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes, Medio Media / Lion Books, 2003

The warfare of Lent…

When a man walks in the fear of God he knows no fear, even if he
were to be surrounded by wicked men. He has the fear of God within
him and wears the invincible armour of faith. This makes him strong
and able to take on anything, even things which seem difficult or
impossible to most people. Such a man is like a giant surrounded
by monkeys, or a roaring lion among dogs and foxes. He goes
forward trusting in the Lord and the constancy of his will to
strike and paralyze his foes. He wields the blazing club of the
Word in wisdom.

St. Symeon the New Theologian, The Practical and Theological
Chapters, with thanks to the Balamand Monastery

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Let us charge into the good fight with joy and love without being
afraid of our enemies. Though unseen themselves, they can look at
the face of our soul, and if they see it altered by fear, they
take up arms against us all the more fiercely. For the cunning
creatures have observed that we are scared. So let us take up arms
against them courageously. No one will fight with a resolute
fighter.

St. John Climacus, with thanks to the Balamand Monastery

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I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that "all that I am," I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God…

Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in his compassion raised me up and exalted me very high and placed me on the top of the wall…

St. Patrick

Saving sinners…

God is the life of all free beings. He is the salvation of all, of believers or unbelievers, of the just or the unjust, of the pious or the impious, of those freed from passions or those caught up in them, of monks or those living in the world, of the educated or the illiterate, of the healthy or the sick, of the young or of the very old. He is like the outpouring of light, the glimpse of the sun, or the changes of the weather which are the same for everyone without exception.

Abba Pambo said, “If you have a heart you can be saved.”

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

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I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God;for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now;and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8.18-27)

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The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Timothy 1.15-17)

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Then Jesus cried aloud: “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge, for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me…” (John 12.44-50)

Scaring off the demons…

There was an anchorite who was able to banish the demons; and he asked them, “What makes you go away? Is it fasting?”

They replied, “We do not eat or drink.”

“Is it vigils?”

They replied, “We do not sleep.”

“Is it separation from the world?”

“We live in the deserts.”

“What power sends you away then?”

They said, “Nothing can overcome us, but only humility.”

Do you see how humility is victorious over the demons?

Amma Theodora

After praying that God would take away his passions that he might become free from care, Abba John the Dwarf went and told an old man; “I find myself in peace, without an enemy.”

The old man said to him, “Go beseech God to stir up warfare so that you may regain the affliction and humility that you used to have, for it is by warfare that the soul makes progress.”

So he sought God and when warfare came, he no longer prayed that it might be taken away, but said “Lord, give me the strength for the fight.”

Abba Poeman

(Quotes with thanks to The Ecumenical Benedictines of Heartsong Hermitage)

I wonder if this has not something to do with the difficulty I find myself in when I am blessed by God? I pray God will teach me how to live truly in Christ’s own humility this Lent – for it is only so that I will be able to serve him as I am called to do, of that much I am sure!

Fish on dry land…

Abbot Anthony said: Just as fish die if they remain on dry land so monks, remaining away from their cells, or dwelling with men of the world, lose their determination to persevere in solitary prayer. Therefore, just as fish should go back to the sea, so we must return to our cells, lest remaining outside we forget to watch over ourselves interiorly.

from Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert, New Directions Publishing Corp., 1960

It seems to me that we who do not live in monastic communities, or as formal solitaries, and yet are called to the contemplative life, need to consider very carefully – and Lent is as good a time as any for this exercise – just what constitutes for us our cell, and what constitutes “dwelling with men of the world.” I’m sure that for most of us, “dwelling with men of the world” is something far more subtle than loose living or luxury. It may even be a church community that is for us, however good and nourishing it may be for others, antithetical to the contemplative life.

I expect we shall sometimes be misunderstood – though I am equally certain that we shall meet with love and understanding from often unexpected quarters – but we need to persist, gently, in obedience to God’s call.

It seems that for me at least, this Lent is to be just such a time of discernment. I should be grateful for your prayers as I struggle to make practical sense of God’s increasingly insistent call to draw closer to Christ in prayer and silence.

Pure hope…

We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human and visible means, nor rests in any visible end. He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination.

Merton, Thomas, No Man Is An Island (New York: Harcourt, 1955) p.14

…in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8.24)

Living by Grace...

The roof of any house stands upon the foundations and the rest of the structure. The foundations themselves are laid in order to carry the roof. This is both useful and necessary, for the roof cannot stand without the foundations and the foundations are absolutely useless without the roof – no help to any living creature. In the same way the grace of God is preserved by the practice of the commandments, and the observance of these commandments is laid down like foundations through the gift of God. The grace of the Spirit cannot remain with us without the practice of the commandments, but the practice of the commandments is of no help or advantage to us without the grace of God.

St. Symeon the New Theologian, with thanks to Balamand Monastery

Truly we live by grace, and it is only by grace that we survive at all in our Lord’s calling. Even for the surrender without which we cannot receive grace, we depend upon grace, and upon the prayers of the saints.

On not abusing grace...

A brother asked Abba Poemen, “If I see my brother sin, is it right to say nothing about it?” The old man replied, “Whenever we cover our brother's sin, God will cover ours; whenever we tell people about our brother's guilt, God will do the same about ours.”

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

I often think we  abuse the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we are trying to follow him, how is it that we think we can withhold from others the grace which he has freely given us, and at such terrible cost?

The acquisition of Christian books…

Epiphanius the Bishop said, “The acquisition of Christian books is necessary for those who can use them; for the very sight of them renders us less inclined to sin, and incites us to believe more firmly in righteousness.”

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

At last! The excuse for which I’ve been searching all these years!

But seriously, experience teaches that this is true: even unopened, godly books we have read before stand like silent confessors on our shelves, and turn our hearts again to Christ...

Thomas Merton on Ash Wednesday « Dating God

“Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast.”

In 1958 Thomas Merton wrote an essay titled, “Ash Wednesday,” which offers a reflection on the relationship between penance and joy found in the celebration of the beginning of Lent and the marking of our foreheads with ashes. Instead of me rambling on and on here today, I thought it would be good to share more from Merton himself. You can read the entire essay in Seasons of Celebration (FSG 1965), 113-124.

“Ash Wednesday is for people who know that it means for their soul to be logged with these icy waters: all of us are such people, if only we can realize it.

“There is confidence everywhere in Ash Wednesday, yet that does not mean unmixed and untroubled security. The confidence of the Christian is always a confidence in spite of darkness and risk, in the presence of peril, with every evidence of possible disaster…

“Once again, Lent is not just a time for squaring conscious accounts: but for realizing what we had perhaps not seen before. The light of Lent is given us to help us with this realization.

“Nevertheless, the liturgy of Ash Wednesday is not focussed on the sinfulness of the penitent but on the mercy of God. The question of sinfulness is raised precisely because this is a day of mercy, and the just do not need a saviour.”

Thomas Merton on Ash Wednesday « Dating God

Ash Wednesday

The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future.

Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, SPCK, r.e. 2006

In God's reign, everything belongs. Even the broken and poor parts; the imperial systems of culture, however, demand 'in' people and 'out' people, victors and victims. Until we have utterly faced this battle in our own soul, we will usually perpetrate it in the outer world of politics and class. Dualistic thinking begins in the soul and moves to the mind and eventually moves to the street. True prayer nips the lie in the bud. It is usually experienced as tears, surrender or forgiveness.

Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, Crossroad Publishing, 2nd r.e. 2003

The holy Syncletica said, “I think that for those living in community obedience is a greater virtue than chastity, however perfect. Chastity carries within it the danger of pride, but obedience has within it the promise of humility.”

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988.

Living into a new way of thinking…

The second point I would like to make about the desert fathers and mothers is that they did not see Christianity as a set of propositions to be agreed upon, because there were no propositions yet—just the Scriptures.  Most were not even aware of the soon to come “Creeds” of the church, even less the “seven” sacraments, which would be centuries in the making.  By today’s criteria, one wonders how they could even be saved!

For them, Christianity was not something that was taught nearly as much as it was “caught”—by lifestyle itself!  This continued as the “Catholic” form of evangelization for centuries to come.  Not preachers on street corners as much as going into a new area and building a loving community that shared, lived “beautifully” on the land, and did not seek wealth or status.  Eventually, that whole area of Austria, or Italy, or Belgium would be Christian!  This can be historically proven.

The desert period knew that you did not think yourself into a new way of living, but you lived yourself into a new way of thinking.  Let’s allow ourselves this Lent to seek new life settings for ourselves, much more than new ideas to discuss and shelve.

Richard Rohr, February 2011
Adapted from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (1975),
with permission of Cistercian Publications, and
The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton (1970),
with permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Tomorrow I shall, God willing, start to post material from the actual Desert Mothers’ and Fathers’ writings – but this from Richard Rohr was just too good to pass up. I have myself actually found that the only way I have actually managed to change for the better – rare though that may be! – has been by allowing God to change me, through obedience and suffering, rather than by thinking how I ought to change myself.

A Prayer from the Desert

Lord Jesus Christ, whose will all things obey: pardon what I have done and grant that I, a sinner, may sin no more. Lord, I believe that though I do not deserve it, you can cleanse me from all my sins. Lord, I know that man looks upon the face, but you see the heart. Send your Spirit into my inmost being, to take possession of my soul and body. Without you I cannot be saved; with you to protect me, I long for your salvation. And now I ask you for wisdom, deign of your great goodness to help and defend me. Guide my heart, almighty God, that I may remember your presence day and night.

From: The Desert of the Heart: Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers ed. Benedicta Ward SLG, Darton Longman & Todd, 1988. (Now out of print, but you can usually find second-hand copies on Amazon for around £5)

The Way of the Desert

The spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers is a very early form of Christianity which largely refers to the gatherings of very dedicated Christians that took place after 313 AD, when the church allowed itself to be more than a bit co-opted by the Edict of Constantine.  Great numbers of the deeply faithful moved off into Egypt, Syria, Cappadocia (Turkey), and Palestine during this period.  St. Anthony of Egypt, who died around 369, is called the father of monks.  He was a layman and a Coptic Christian.

In 313 AD, the Roman emperor Constantine, perhaps thinking he was doing us a favour, made Christianity into the imperial religion of the Roman Empire; and a whole lot of things changed, frankly because our viewpoint changed—from the bottom looking up, to the top looking down.  The next Councils of the Church were even convened (controlled?) by emperors and not by bishops or Popes.

So as we draw close to Lent, let’s go back to some of this primitive Christianity before systematic theology and highly centralized/Romanized Christianity had made both its good and bad marks.  The desert fathers and mothers were able to see and know some things that we can not so easily see anymore.  Maybe we need some of their spirit now. 

Richard Rohr, February 2011,
adapted from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (1975),
with permission of Cistercian Publications, and
The Wisdom of the Desert, Thomas Merton (1970),
with permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Starting here, I think I’ll try and follow Rohr’s lead by posting snippets from the Desert Fathers and Mothers throughout Lent – as well as I can manage to keep it up!

No use till we are broken…

The Hebrew people entered the desert feeling themselves a united people, a strong people, and you'd think that perhaps they would have experienced greater strength as they walked through. But no!  They experienced fragmentation and weariness; they experienced divisions among their people. They were not the people they thought they were. The Jewish exodus is a rather perfect metaphor for spirituality.

When all of our idols are taken away, all our securities and defence mechanisms, we find out who we really are. We're so little, so poor, so empty—and a shock to ourselves. But God takes away our shame, and we are eventually able to present ourselves to God poor and humble. Then we find out who we are and who God is for us. That is how an enslaved people became God’s people, Israel.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 130, day 140

It’s that shock which breaks us open to the grace and the mercy of Christ, like the tax collector in Luke 18.9-14, who cried out, “God have mercy on me, a sinner!” and was the one who went home with his heart right with God, rather than the self-righteous Pharisee.

Like bread, we are of no use till we are broken…

Swanage Bay

I love this place – I am just so blessed to be living here!

More holey than righteous?

Real holiness doesn’t feel like holiness; it just feels like you’re dying.  It feels like you’re losing it.  And you are!  You are losing the false self, which you foolishly thought was permanent, important, and you!  You know God is doing it in you and with you, when you can even smile, and trust that what you lost is something you did not finally need anyway.

Many of us were taught to say the no without the deep joy of yes.  We were trained just to put up with it and take it on the chin.  Saying no to the self does not necessarily please God or please anybody.  There is too much resentment and self-pity.  When God, by love and freedom, can create a joyous yes inside of you—so much so that you can absorb the usual no’s—then it is God’s full work.  The first might be resentful dieting, the second is spiritual fasting.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 334, day 34

I am so grateful for Rohr's words here. I find it all too easy to imagine holiness as a state of having all one’s spiritual ducks in a row, and so I am continually aware of how very far I am from such a state. So much of the time I have felt exactly as Fr. Richard describes – I feel socially inept, spiritually incompetent, as though I am in way over my head in something I don’t even understand.

And yet somewhere, somehow, that “yes” gets said. I don’t know that I am saying it – probably I don’t have what it takes to say it, come to that – and yet it is said.

Regular readers of The Mercy Blog will know that the last couple of years have been difficult at times, and I have not always known where to turn. Underneath it all, though, at some level far deeper than the anxiety and confusion and pain, joy has never stopped, like an underground stream steadily flowing, splashing over unseen rocks, its unceasing song its own light. I know it isn’t me, it could never be me; I’m not like that. Far down below the threshold of understanding God has placed his Spirit in us, and we who love his Son pray in him always, even when he have no idea how to pray: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes* with sighs too deep for words.”  (Romans 8:26)

How odd that the phrase “prayer and fasting” should lead us by these ways. Yet as Meister Eckhart once said, “God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself, in so far as you are a created being, and let God be God in you.”

Opening up…

We are told that St. Francis used to spend whole nights praying the same prayer: “O God, who are you?  And God, who am I?”  Evelyn Underhill claims it’s almost the perfect prayer.  The abyss of your own soul and the abyss of the nature of God have opened up, and you are falling into both of them simultaneously.  Now you are in the true realm of Mystery and grace, where everything good happens!

Notice how the prayer of Francis is not stating anything but just asking open-ended questions.  It is the humble, seeking, endless horizon prayer of the mystic that is offered out of complete trust.  You know that the prayer will be answered, because there has already been a previous answering, a previous epiphany, a previous moment where the ground opened up and you knew you were in touch with infinite mystery and you knew you were infinite mystery.  You only ask such grace-filled questions, or any question for that matter, when they have already begun to be answered.

Richard Rohr, adapted from Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate

I’m almost afraid to add any of my own words here, in case I spoil it! Rohr is so very right when he says you can only ask such questions when you are already living, however imperfectly, in the answers. Like Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple (1 King 8:22ff) we cannot pray like this unless our Father shows us how by his Holy Spirit living in us. That’s why it’s so hard to explain these kind of things to the sceptical – it just doesn’t make any sense without the grace of God already drawing us into this particular path of prayer.

What I love is that open-endedness – that refusal to put limits to the answer God might give. It’s like all of the different ways of contemplative prayer: our questions, our intercessions, our longing, even, are not articulated – but we allow God access to all that we are at the very innermost place, that only the Spirit knows, not even we ourselves (Romans 8:26-27). All we know is that we change, gradually or suddenly, becoming imperceptibly more like Christ, following him more closely, longing for his presence, longing to know him for who he is, not for what he might give. The prayer, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” becomes as intensely personal as it once seemed lost in eschatological distance.

We cannot do any of this ourselves. We can’t even want to do it without the Spirit drawing us, filling us, longing within us. It is all grace, all from God himself…

Consolation…

Consolation is a beautiful word. It means “to be” (con-) “with the lonely one” (solus). To offer consolation is one of the most important ways to care. Life is so full of pain, sadness, and loneliness that we often wonder what we can do to alleviate the immense suffering we see. We can and must offer consolation. We can and must console the mother who lost her child, the young person with AIDS, the family whose house burned down, the soldier who was wounded, the teenager who contemplates suicide, the old man who wonders why he should stay alive.

To console does not mean to take away the pain but rather to be there and say, “You are not alone, I am with you. Together we can carry the burden. Don't be afraid. I am here.” That is consolation. We all need to give it as well as to receive it.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

I often think that this consolation is at the heart of all pastoral care, and at the root of all intercessory prayer. Just as we cannot ourselves, and are not ourselves called to, mend what is wrong for other people (except in certain very specific senses, for instance in the work of a doctor or a fire-fighter), so we are not called to work out how God can best mend things for those for whom we pray. We are called to come before God with them on our hearts, to hold them, and hold them in God’s presence, for as long as it takes. Very few words are required. All it takes is a heart willing to be broken in love for a broken world, for all who suffer, human or otherwise.

I am sure that this has a lot to do with praying “in the name of Christ”. We Christians are in Christ, all members of the same body, sharing in the one Bread of Life, Jesus. Our consolation is in his passion, his suffering for this broken creation; and it is all we have to give, all we have to share, with anyone. Our prayer stands in this, if it stands at all.

This is what is at the core of the ancient practice of the Jesus Prayer. As we pray, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner…” we are actually standing in solidarity – more, in identity, with the brokenness of all our sisters and brothers in all of broken (fallen) creation – see Romans 8:18-27.

Pea-sticks…

We operate with the assumption that giving people new ideas changes people. It doesn’t. Believing ideas is, in fact, a way of not having to change in any significant way, especially if you can argue about them. Ideas become defences.

If you have the right words, you are considered an orthodox and law-abiding Christian. We burned people at the stake for not having the right words, but never to my knowledge for failing to love or forgive, or to care for the poor. Religion has had a love affair with words and correct ideas, whereas Jesus loved people, who are always imperfect.

You do not have to substantially change to think some new ideas. You always have to change to love and forgive ordinary people. We love any religion that asks us to change other people. We avoid any religion that keeps telling us to change.

Richard Rohr, adapted from How Men Change: A Thin Time (CD, DVD, MP3)

At our Third Order local group meeting last night, we were discussing, as part of our current study of the Principles, how a certain untidiness is a necessary and inevitable part of the Franciscan charism. We do not, cannot as followers of Francis following Christ, have everything cut and dried, all our words precisely right, and all our actions in line with them. To do so would be the way of the fanatic or the fundamentalist, not the Franciscan.

As Rohr says, Jesus loved people, in all their imperfection and all their untidiness. Look at the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman by the well at Sychar (John 4:1-30). Hers was a life with all kinds of loose ends—a life that didn’t conform to expectations, especially not orthodox Jewish expectations, and yet here was Jesus sharing with her the living water, and trusting her to share it with her fellow citizens.

We cannot allow ourselves to grow unless we are prepared to allow ourselves a little untidiness, What matters is love, rigorous, sacrificial love, not having all our ducks in a row.

And yet we are members of a religious order; we live by a rule. How does that square with this necessary untidiness? One of our group, a Tertiary of many years’ experience, told us of a wonderful expression of her late (Tertiary) husband’s: our rule is like a set of pea-sticks—a framework up which we can grow. But, just as in a vegetable garden, it is the peas that matter, not the pea-sticks!

Coming close…

God desired me so I came close. No one can come near God unless God has prepared a bed for you. A thousand souls hear God's call every second, but most every one then looks into their life's mirror and says, I am not worthy to leave this sadness.

Teresa of Avila: Love Poems From God, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, with thanks to inward/outward

I keep thinking of Teresa’s words, for I am indeed one of those who has looked into life’s mirror and said, I am not worthy to leave this sadness.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. By your grace, help me to say yes to you—open my knotted hands that I might receive your blessings…