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Daily habits of truth and love.

When I was writing about forming new habits for healthy, non-gluttonous eating, I remember suggesting that it was important to  choose habits that you could practice every single day.  

Make a list of behaviors that you can experiment with, starting with one. I really think you can do any sort of thing, but I suggest that you start with something that is clear and objective and that can be practiced proactively and at least daily. The more often you find opportunities to practice each habit, the faster it can become second nature.

We've just been given an example of good "daily" habits in Pope Francis's homilies.  Let me give you some background, and then take you to the ones I mean.

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I admit that I went a bit off the rails with the concept of the "spiritual poverty" that Francis I  means to attack.  In the passage that I quoted when he  was talking about the great "other kind of poverty" of our times, he was specifically referring to moral relativism:  

There is another form of poverty! It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the “tyranny of relativism”, which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples.

And that brings me to a second reason for my name.

 Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace.

But there is no true peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth.

I think it's particularly interesting that F1 asserts that relativism "endangers the coexistence of peoples."  An awful lot of people assert that a relativistic attitude -- one that denies dogma qua dogma  -- is essential for the coexistence of peoples.  This must be rejected, however, because moral relativism admits the legitimacy of an every-man-for-himself, every-people-for-itself philosophy; tolerating a desire for genocide hardly promotes "coexistence."  

Anyway.  According to F1, the great spiritual poverty of our time is relativism which endangers the coexistence of peoples, and its opposite is a recognition of the common nature of all human beings which leads us to "[care]  for the good of others, of everyone."

It's interesting how the one is a sort of flip-side, masquerading as the other.  For the good intention of "coexistence" people reject the idea of absolute good or absolute truth, thinking that it is a belief in absolutes that destabilizes coexistence.  And yet what is really required for coexistence is an absolute belief that other, "different" human beings are equally deserving of recognition of their humanity and a response of love and mercy.  That human beings may never be used as a means to an end.

This comes largely from the legacy of John Paul II.  The moral instruction of his massive work on the Theology of the Body can all be summed up in "Human beings may never be used as a means to an end."  

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The sign of contradiction that today's poverty of spirit requires is a radical rejection of all that objectifies and seeks to use human persons as means to an end. 

• It requires detachment from easy ways of thinking and easy ways of feeling comfortable and satisfied -- not physical comfort and satiation, but emotional comfort, self-satisfaction.  
• It requires a non-judgmentalism of persons based in recognition of our common humanity, which necessarily implies admitting our common heritage of original sin and need for free gifts of grace.

Let's take a look at some of the themes that we've gone over here, of mercy, judging only by loving, and detachment.

- The means by which God judges us is identical to loving us.   Which seems to teach us that the only right way to judge is to love.  

- "If you're going to judge me correctly, you have to understand that I was conceived a sinner -- in other words, that the propensity to do wrong came to me through no fault of my own."  I

- ...None of us can pat ourselves on the back for achieving whatever spiritual riches we have; ergo, even the most objectively horrible people must be reached out to with love and compassion and a recognition of "there but for the grace of God go I."   

- “The Lord will say this clearly: his anointing is meant for the poor, prisoners and the sick, for those who are sorrowing and alone. The ointment is not intended just to make us fragrant, much less to be kept in a jar, for then it would become rancid … and the heart bitter. ” 

-"Living Holy Week following Jesus means learning how to go beyond ourselves... to reach out to others, to go to the outskirts of existence, to be the first to move towards our brothers and sisters, especially those who are most distant, those who are forgotten, those who are most in need of understanding, consolation and help."   That is, not just the physically repulsive but also the morally repulsive, are human too, and deserve to be treated as such.

-One thing we know we do have to be somewhat detached from are spiritual consolations of all kinds.

 

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So here are two "how do we live this every day?" suggestions from recent homilies.

On the theme of detachment:  Complaining too often can distance us from Jesus, says Pope Francis

The disciples had had such high hopes that Jesus would be the one who would redeem Israel, but they thought their hopes were destroyed, he said on Wednesday.

“And they stewed, so to speak, their lives in the juice of their complaints and kept going on and on and on with the complaining,” the Pope said. “I think that many times when difficult things happen, including when we are visited by the cross, we run the risk of closing ourselves off in complaints.”

When all people can think of is how wrong things are going, Pope Francis said, the Lord is close, “but we don’t recognise him. He walks with us, but we don’t recognise him.”

...

“Complaining seems safer. It’s something certain. This is my truth: failure,” he said before adding that the Gospel story shows how very patient Jesus is with the disciples, first listening to them and then explaining things step by step, until they see him.

Complaining and griping, about others and about things in one’s own life, is harmful “because it dashes hope. Don’t get into this game of a life of complaints.”

 

On the theme of radical rejection of objectification:  Quit gossiping and recover the value of meekness. 

Christians need to recover the value of meekness, particularly when they are tempted to speak ill of one another, Pope Francis said during his early morning Mass on Tuesday.

Complaining behind each others’ backs is a temptation that comes “from the Evil One who does not want the Spirit to dwell among us and give peace, meekness to the Christian community,” the Pope said.

...The new life offered through the grace of baptism is something that Christians must work on developing; even though it “principally depends on the Spirit,” he added, it also takes effort on the part of each individual to cooperate with that grace.

...

He said the virtue of meekness, which is a key to harmony, has been “a bit forgotten.”

Meekness, he said, has “many enemies” and the first is gossip. “When one prefers gossiping, gossiping about another, it’s like clobbering another. This is normal, it happens to everyone, including me, it is a temptation of the Evil One.”

The struggle against such harmful chatter, he said, is something that continually sows tensions in parishes, families, neighborhoods and among friends. “But this is not the new life” promised by baptism, because when the Holy Spirit descends, “it gives birth to a new life within us, it makes us meek, charitable,” the Pope explained.

It looks like Francis is going to lead us on a sort of "little way" of detachment and of non-objectification.  Really?  This is what the Pope is going to tell the whole world to detach from?  Griping?  Really?  This is the way the Pope is going to suggest that we begin loving our neighbor as ourselves?  By abstaining from... gossip?

But it's utterly true.  

Griping is a sign of undue attachment to an alternative "reality," something wished-for and unattainable.  If we let go of what we wish would happen, and focus on what is happening, we can move forward.  We should be working toward things that are and that can be, not on things that cannot be.

Gossiping is, really, using another person as a means to an end.  In this case you are "using" another person as a character in a story you tell for entertainment.  

These are maybe ways of starting small, of beginning at the beginning.  The very fundamentals of detachment, of respecting persons as persons.  

And what's great about these is that any of us can begin practicing habits of not-griping, of not-gossiping, today and every day.  These are ways to begin immediately growing in the habit of truth and love.  

And yet, griping and gossiping are such universal behaviours that these habits -- these new "Franciscan habits" -- appear truly radical.  A radical rejection of attachment to what can't be had.  A radical rejection of exploitation of persons.  So radical we won't even talk about people behind our backs.

Augustine and attachment.

St. Augustine, in Book 1, Chapter 7, of The Confessions:

Who is there to remind me of the sin of my infancy (for sin there was:  no one is free from sin in your sight, not even an infant...); who can remind me of it?  Some ... tiny child now, in whom I might observe conduct I do not remember in myself?  

What then was my sin at that age?  Was it perhaps that I cried so greedily for those breasts?  Certainly if I behaved like that now, greedy... for food suitable to my age, I should provoke derision and be very properly rebuked.  

My behavior then was equally deserving of rebuke, but since I would not have been able to understand... neither custom nor common sense allowed any rebuke to be given.  

After all, we eradicate these habits and throw them off as we grow up.... so can we suppose that even in an infant such actions were good -- the actions of a child who

• begs tearfully for objects that would harm him if given, 
• gets into a tantrum when [persons] will not comply with his whims, 
• and tries to hurt many people... simply because they will not immediately... obey his commands, commands which would damage him if they were carried out?  

The only innocent feature in babies is the weakness of their frames; the minds of infants are far from innocent.

Yeah, I know.  It grates on me too.  But Augustine's writing about original sin, and that's not something I can reject out of hand.  Let's see what we can do about it.

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It grates because it sounds too hard on the normal, natural instincts of babies.  These are the instincts that drive maternal attachment and are their only means of communicating their needs to the adults that are charged with their care.  Those "greedy" cries are the same cries that stimulate a mother's milk, that activate compassion and an urge to protect the helpless child.  

You read something like that, and you kind of cringe, because someone is bound to take it too far and try to punish babies for crying.  (Though if they do, it's not Augustine's fault:   he approvingly describes parents and nurses who "charm away" and "cheerfully condone" babies' behavior, and says right there that "neither custom nor common sense" allows for a baby to be rebuked.)

Now that we know what we know about the biological basis of human attachment, can we really say that the "greediness" of babies is anything worthy of rebuke, or even that it is a consequence of original sin?

My edition of The Confessions (Ignatius Critical Editions, 2012) has a footnote here:

Critics of Augustine often point out how harsh he is toward babies... The point here, however, is not to condemn children for their seemingly selfish behavior when hungry or tired, but simply to point out that... we are born wholly "I-centered" with only our own interests in mind.  In a very mundane way, this now shows the noxious effects of the concupiscence Adam brought about when he turned himself and all his descendents away from God.  This is why we must learn to "speak" anew, to come to God with desires and intentions not turned in on self but on him.

Just like the parents and nurses Augustine describes, I'm used to treating infants' demands as necessary and natural communication.   So, if it's necessary and natural, how could it also be worthy of rebuke?  (Even if you add a modifier and make it "objectively" worthy of rebuke, the implication being that subjectively -- considering the infant's position -- it is not worthy of rebuke).

Consider this:  the adults who are charged with care of an infant, any infant -- its mother, father, siblings, other members of the household -- are themselves fallen creatures, self-centered, "I"-centered.  Perhaps we could consider the "wholly I-centered" nature of a newborn baby as a defense mechanism against the I-centeredness of adults.  If babies were not so relentlessly demanding, maybe more of them would be left unfed, unwarmed, untouched.  

And that makes it not so odd, then, to turn it around and say:  If adults were not themselves, by nature, "I"-centered, then babies might come programmed with an entirely different set of mechanisms to communicate their needs.  Maybe they wouldn't even need to communicate their needs because adults would provide for them before a need ever made itself known.

It's kind of like pain.  Pain is, we are told, a consequence of original sin.  Pain is objectively bad, but necessary in a world full of hazards; it communicates a bodily need.   So we can listen to it, and often we should immediately do its bidding.  We should be grateful for it, considering the circumstances in which we live.

• Move your hand away from that hot stove.  
• Stop walking and take the thorn from the sole of your foot.   
• Rest this limb until it feels better.

So it is with the "greed" of babies:   a necessary fault, one we should listen to and respond to immediately -- "cheerfully" even -- and be grateful for, considering the circumstances in which we live.

Once man and woman had fallen, maybe we could not have survived unless the most innocent -- those who have that feature, "the weakness of their frames" -- also shared the ability to clamor greedily from the very beginning.   Unless the greediness of the parents is somehow transmitted to the offspring, perhaps the offspring would not have had a chance in a world full of "I"-centered grownups who have the power to provide food and warmth, or to withhold it.

Parents who stay in touch with our babies know that the "greediness" of babies is something they need to have to make their way in the world, and so we respond to it.   We can appreciate the power they have of making their needs known, of drawing us outside of ourselves by clamoring from their own center.  We regard it, properly, as not a bug, but a feature.

A feature, that is, not of the original code, but instead of humanity's "plan B."  O felix culpa!  O happy fault!

Judging by loving.

Pope Francis's address at the Way of the Cross on Friday contained an element that was, I think, joyful enough to save for an Easter post.

The Cross is the word through which God has responded to evil in the world. Sometimes it may seem as though God does not react to evil, as if he is silent. And yet, God has spoken, he has replied, and his answer is the Cross of Christ: a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness.

It is also reveals a judgment, namely that God, in judging us, loves us.

Let us remember this: God judges us by loving us.

If I embrace his love then I am saved,

if I refuse it, then I am condemned, not by him, but my own self,

because God never condemns,

he only loves and saves.

The last sentence points  to a certain dichotomy of choice.  In the constant presence of the love of God I have the choice to embrace His love, and be saved; or to refuse it, and be condemned.  

This field of love is, so to speak, a self-correcting test.

In the context of the Via Crucis,  what immediately comes to mind is the personification of this dichotomy in the two thieves crucified alongside Jesus, described in Lk 23:39-43.

Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us." 

The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, "Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation?  And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." 

He replied to him, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

The two thieves crucified with Jesus are literally  in the presence of the mercy of God.  One responds by "reviling" Jesus:  If you were really the Son of God, you would get down from here.   (This line parrots what the rulers say, and what the soldiers say, and it's not far from the words Luke puts in Satan's mouth in Chapter 4:  "If you be the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.")  

The other responds, first by defending Jesus, then by making what amounts to a confession ("we have been condemned justly... but this man has done nothing criminal" can certainly be read that way -- perhaps the man does not even realize quite how true it is), finally, by embracing that love:  "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

And he is answered -- canonized from the cross.  

The story of the two thieves is too iconic to mean nothing more than "a story of two thieves."  It shows us two ways to respond to the "problem" of suffering in the presence of a just and merciful God -- the whole problem of pain.  One response is rejection:  God cannot be God, because if He were God, He would not allow this to go on.  The other response is acknowledgement of the debt we owe, embrace of suffering, and entering into a conversation with the acknowledged King.

I suppose either response is equally logical; but one is a response of rejection, and the other is a response of embrace.

Judging by loving is not a dereliction of duty on the part of the judge.  It does not mean "no judging," or "love instead of judgment."  It is a method of judging.

Something to think about. 

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Side note:  I find it interesting that the feast day of St. Dismas, the "Good Thief," is March 25 -- the same date as, and so usually eclipsed by, the Annunciation.  (Another feast of making an important choice to embrace God.)  But the Annunciation got booted till later because it was superseded by Holy Week, and so St. Dismas came out from behind the angel's wings this year.  More on this from Fr. Z.

More on "spiritual poverty."

Melanie picked up my ball in the last post and ran with it:

Especially in the online world it can be so hard to see others’ humanity, to risk being flamed at by approaching what seems like a scoff as if it were an invitation to a dialogue, to risk seeming like a fool for enagaging a “troll” instead of dismissing him with scornful words. And in Catholic comment boxes you also risk being chided by your fellow Catholics for engaging with such angry hurtful people. “Don’t feed the trolls,” they warn you. But perhaps that’s exactly what we are called to do? To feed them? Couldn’t it be that the troll who regularly hangs out at Catholic sites someone who is hungering for the truth but afraid of rejection so is preemptively rejecting those who he feels have already shut him out?

Mind blown by the sudden new meaning of the term "to feed trolls."

You still have a responsibility not to feed the troll on the property of the person who has the "don't feed trolls" rule, i.e., in their comment box.  But you could invite them to your own blog or you could contact them off-blog.  And you could certainly engage respectfully (and skillfully) in a manner designed to be peaceful, all light and no heat.

Having started down that line of thinking, how there is a need for the spiritually impoverished to be fed, especially online I began to imagine that some individuals might have the vocation of doing just that. Then as I talked it over with Dom he said, it couldn’t be individuals. It would have to be people living in community. And as we talked I began to envision a new sort of religious community: the Missionaries to the Digital Continent. A cloistered contemplative order who live the Benedictine motto ora et labora whose days are ordered around the monastic hours and Eucharistic adoration and who are dedicated to bringing Christ to all the darkest corners of the internet. 

Aw, man, you beat me to it.  I've been thinking of this for a long time but haven't written about it here.  Instead I wrote it in Dorian Speed's Facebook comments.  This is what I wrote after she went on her rant about that Vatican website using Comic Sans:

Dorian, I think you're just the person to take this idea and run with it (when you are done with Electingthepope.net of course): The Church needs a new religious order of blogging and HTML-savvy monks and nuns. We need to set up a cloister with high-speed Internet connection and excellent tech support. In between praying the Liturgy of the Hours, attending daily Mass, and working in the refectory and gardens, they'll do pro bono web design for struggling Comic-Sans-using parishes and church organizations everywhere. They'll also surf the Internet looking for combox discussions into which to inject a note of charity and wisdom. Also they will pray for trolls.

and in another comment, an afterthought:

We can put the adoration chapel in a Faraday cage so they don't get distracted from what really matters.

Anyway, not to get too distracted about it: 

Melanie suggests organizing the effort to be "spiritually poor" around the seven traditional Spiritual Works of Mercy.  (You can find these enumerated here.) Since we're talking about an analogy anyway, let me list the seven Corporal Works of Mercy first:

• To feed the hungry;
• To give drink to the thirsty;
• To clothe the naked;
• To harbour the harbourless;
• To visit the sick;
• To ransom the captive;
• To bury the dead.

The seven Spiritual Works of Mercy are

• To instruct the ignorant;
• To counsel the doubtful;
• To admonish sinners;
• To bear wrongs patiently;
• To forgive offences willingly;
• To comfort the afflicted;
• To pray for the living and the dead.

Just as the charism of the Franciscans was to perform works of mercy from a position of being intentionally corporally poor, we are envisioning a charism of performing works of mercy from a position of being intentionally spiritually poor.  

The intentional corporal poverty was a means of demonstrating (among other things) that none of us can pat ourselves on the back for acheiving our material riches, because so much of it was out of our control and all of it, our physical life itself, is a gift.  We may have had a hand in taking and shaping God's good gifts to our profit, in making good decisions along the way (we do believe in free will after all, and that God lets us participate in the development of our own futures) but in the end we owe it all to God.  "No shroud has pockets" indeed.

So the intentional spiritual poverty would be a means of demonstrating (among other things) that none of us can pat ourselves on the back for achieving whatever spiritual riches we have.  The intellect with which we absorb the deep theological musings of the doctors of the Church, and craft arguments to defend her teachings?  Gift from God.  The desire we have to come closer to God?  A gift.  The gift of emotions, of sorrow at the Passion, of joy at the Resurrection?  A gift.  True contrition?  Gift.  Gratitude to God for all his good gifts?  A gift in and of itself.

I am not sure how to demonstrate it outwardly except, as I said, by a radical non-judgmentalism of the person.  Even the most objectively horrible people must be reached out to with love and compassion and a recognition of "there but for the grace of God go I."   

It strikes me that, if the contemplative wing of this order be called to Internet surfing and commenting, that the active wing be called to prison ministry.

Praestet fides supplementum/Sensuum defectui.

I've been humming Tantum Ergo all weekend, ever since the choir sang Tantum Ergo at Benediction on Friday night, up in the church after the fish fry and before the Stations.  Since I started learning Latin several years ago, it's one of the few Latin hymns that I've bothered to puzzle out with a dictionary and grammar, and I'm very fond of it. 

Tantum ergo sacramentum

veneremur cernui;

et antiquum documentum

novo cedat ritui;

praestet fides supplementum 

Sensuum defectui.

 

The last bit is often translated (so that it will scan), "For the failing of the senses, faith must serve to compensate," but even with my cruddy Latin-English dictionary I can catch glimpses of a more precise meaning:  praestare (the "to serve" in the translation) means as a transitive verb "to become surety for, to be responsible for" and has connotations of excellence in its intransitive form; defectus -us is "a failing, disappearing, especially a failing of light, eclipse."  

So it's maybe something more like: just in the measure that our senses fail, let faith fill up the gap between what we have and what we need.  

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Elizabeth Scalia, on Twitter, linked to a page that featured an devious optical illusion:

I've seen illusions like this before, and am familiar with the explanations for them, but I never cease to marvel at them.  In this case, the "blue" and "green" spirals are exactly the same color.  

You could, perhaps, just trust me.

Or...

You can go over to the page and read there the explanation and see the evidence.  You will be easily convinced.   You'll know that there isn't a blue spiral and a green spiral; there are only spirals of a single bluish-green color.  

And then you can come back here, where I have left off the explanation and the proof, and contemplate the image again.  "I now know that the blue and the green spirals are the same color," you can tell yourself.  

You will not see it any different.  You will see the blue color and the green color.  To go on believing the colors are the same color, you will have to defy your eyes.  You will do it anyway, because you remember that some time ago (it was only a moment; but what if you come back to this page in a year, or five years?) you were satisfactorily convinced.

The process by which you carry your conviction from the past, where reason led you to a certain conclusion, into the present, where senses contradict your reasoned certitude -- that process goes by the name "faith."

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You know, there are many things in the study of the natural world, or sometimes in mathematics, which go against intuition.  Our experience takes shape in a world of friction, gravity, and air resistance; when for the first time one sees the feather and the stone strike the floor of the vacuum chamber, it's a shock.  After you file out of the demonstration lab, All objects accelerate at the same rate in a gravitational field becomes an article of faith, because how often do we put feathers and stones in vacuum chambers in daily life?  Days go by, years, in which all falling feathers waft gently downwards and all stones drop like stones.   

But we know better, only because of a determination:  to "remember not to forget" that the whole picture is more complicated than it looks at first glance.

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"In the story, the frog was really a prince, wasn't he?"

"Yes," said Cecilia, "rather a good sort of prince.  He fetched the princess's ball out of the fountain when she dropped it in."

"And if she touched him, he felt like a frog?  And if she looked at him he looked like a frog.  And if she heard him, it was a frog's croak she heard?  That's three senses -- sight, hearing, and touch, and none of them could have told her he was really a prince, could they?  And if she had smelt or tasted him (which I'm sure she didn't!) those two senses wouldn't have told her any more, would they?"

"What are senses, exactly?" said Michael.

"The five ways you have of finding out about things," said St. Patrick, "...If you think of it, you will see that those are the only ways we have of knowing anything about the world around us."

Cecilia and Michael both thought about it solemnly for a moment and then admitted that those were the only ways you could know about things.

"...I'll tell you something about them that not everybody knows.  None of them will tell you what a thing is, only what it looks like, sounds like, feels like, and so on.  And as a rule you know quite well what it is by means of those things.  But it is quite easy to make a mistake now and then."

--from St. Patrick's Summer:  A Children's Adventure Catechism by Marigold Hunt

More crosses for the comfortable.

A couple of days ago I quoted some material from The Imitation of Christ, Bk. 2, Ch. 12, "On the Royal Road of the Cross," and used it to consider what "taking up one's cross" might mean when one is healthy, happy, relatively wealthy, and secure.

Whatever suffering must be borne is the cross.

Even if it's very small.

The small crosses can be the hardest to bear correctly, because we can brush them off so easily without thinking... and when we do, they -- since they must be borne -- land on someone else....

If we imagine that we don't have any "real" crosses, and wonder why we've been so lucky as to do without them -- disabilities, bereavements, chronic pains -- we can fail to take up the cross we've been sent.

• Does your body feel bad or painful in any way, or are you sick or injured? If you can't make the suffering go away entirely, that can be the cross -- whether you know why you're sick, or whether you don't.
• Is there any kind of "tribulation of spirit in your soul" -- any sort of interior turbulence, depression, grouchiness, fear, or any other discomfort, whether from an identifiable cause or whether it seems to come from nowhere? If you can't quite shake it even after reasonable effort -- trying to gain perspective, count your blessings, cheer yourself up, take your meds -- that can be the cross.
• Do you lack spiritual consolation? Does your prayer seem to do nothing? Does your meditation yield no fruits? That, too, can be the cross.
• Do your kids drive you crazy? Do your parents bug you? Does your spouse annoy you? Is your co-worker chewing his gum too loudly in the next cubicle? Is anybody anywhere getting on your nerves? That, too, can be the cross.
• Finally, don't you get on your own nerves sometimes? Don't you ever say to yourself, "Self, you're an idiot?"

...If it must be borne by somebody, it's the Cross.

Because I was interrupted, I ended that meditation abruptly, and I am kind of unsatisfied with it -- especially with the bit about shrugging off your cross and making someone else bear it. I am worried that I implied that you cannot simultaneously bear your cross and allow someone else to help you bear it.

Also, I want to highlight a couple of other crosses that commonly afflict the comfortable.

To do this, I want to turn away from the Imitation's chapter and look at, instead, another via crucis: the fourteen Stations. As a refresher, here is the traditional set, likely to be the one depicted in your parish church:

1. Jesus is condemned to death
2. Jesus carries His cross
3. Jesus falls the first time
4. Jesus meets His mother
5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cross
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7. Jesus falls the second time
8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of his garments
11. Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross
12. Jesus dies on the cross
13. Jesus is taken down from the cross (Deposition or Lamentation)
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb.

Only a handful of these refer to Jesus actually bearing the cross alone -- number 2, when He's "made to carry" it, and then the three falls at stations 3, 7, and 9. Let's take a look at some of the other stations.

In the first station, "Jesus is condemned to death." This station could be taken as the anticipation of a coming cross -- and fearful anticipation itself is a significant cross. I remember a bit from The Screwtape Letters about this, about failing to recognize that fear of the possibilities, and not the possibilities themselves, are the cross:

We want [your patient] to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory images of the future, every one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the Enemy...

Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy's will.... It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of. Let him regard them as his crosses; let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him...

The fourth station is a mysterious encounter: "Jesus meets his mother." Our theology teaches us that Mary is permitted, through the merits of her Son, to participate somehow in the Redemption; at the very least, by her initial fiat, but also that the fiat is bigger than just that moment. So this moment is her cross too, and it is a kind of cross that we can also share: accompanying a loved one on their way of the cross. It is surely a cross to watch someone we love struggle with a burden that we cannot take away, or may even have helped to bring about.

The fifth station is strange, too: it is a bearing-of-the-cross that is not fully bearing it, because Simon the Cyrenian is helping. Jesus said, "Take up your cross" -- but here he allows another man to take up Jesus's own cross. I love this station because through it, Jesus gives us permission, so to speak, to allow others to help us bear our crosses, and in fact this allowing is a way to bear a cross -- the cross of relinquishing a cross to someone else -- and that can be hard, a different kind of suffering, because so many of us hate to admit that we cannot bear it alone, or are unwilling to "be a burden" to someone else. But if we are not to regard the people around us only as potential burdens, we also must not regard ourselves as only potential burdens -- even when we are at our most burdensome.

(You know the notion that we should unite our burdens to the cross of Christ? Simon went about his days doing his duties and suffering whatever troubles came to him, all the days before and all the days after -- but on Good Friday Simon's duty and burden became, for a time, literally united to the cross of Christ -- they were one and the same. Something to meditate on.)

The traditional sixth station may be apocryphal, and is certainly not explicit in the Gospels, but I am comfortable with the notion that the Church has given it to us for a reason. Veronica snatches her veil from her hair, and wipes Jesus's face. She would have been left bareheaded, and indeed a true icon of Christ would have been left on her veil, written in sweat, tears, vomit, drool, snot, blood. This is a human connection, and a humiliating one -- the cross of accepting intimate bodily care. In Veronica I see the sickbed nurse, the midwife or doula, the elder-care provider -- the mother, the spouse, the grown daughter or son -- I think of people who held my hair while I vomited, who've cleaned up the bathroom after I was violently ill. It is hard not to be able to take care of yourself and have to entrust your personal care to others. You may wish they will forget that they have seen that side of you -- but you will leave your mark on them.

I am going to stop here and leave the remainder of the stations as an exercise for the reader. Leave your ideas in the combox.

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If you are looking for spiritual reading during Lent...

...may I suggest you try Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales?

I blogged about it at great length a couple of years ago, and I still think it is wonderful -- astonishingly modern, given when it was written. I particularly recommend the "Everyman's Library" edition that is translated by Father Michael Day. You should look for a translation with a contemporary and conversational tone, because the advice is contemporary and conversational -- avoid a translation that sounds stilted and archaic. If you cannot wait, you can find it online, but believe me, it is worth it to get a contemporary and friendly-sounding translation. St. Francis really deserves it -- he needs to sound as contemporary to us as he would have sounded to the people he spoke with in person.

I recommend, too, either reading the whole thing swiftly (without following any of the advice) to get an overview of the "program" before turning back to digest it more slowly; or else, following the chapters somewhat out of order. There is a clear structure to the book, but a sort of rearrangement of the chapters rings better to the modern ear that is used to self-help books.

Here's my suggestion:

• First, see my post on the overall structure of the book.
• Then, if you like, bookmark my chapter by chapter blog series on it.
• Read part 1, chapters 1 through 3. (One short chapter a day is fine if you want to spread it out.)
• You can skip part 1, chapter 4, unless you are considering getting a spiritual director.
• Read part 1, chapters 5-7. These are more introductory remarks.
• Stop before going on to part 1, chapter 8. Beginning there, you will prepare for a novena of sorts -- nine days, ten meditations. Before reading and especially before trying to follow the advice, I recommend turning ahead to part 2 and going carefully through chapters 1 through 8 in that chapter, taking notes and marking pages. Part 2, chapters 1-8, is a primer on how to pray and meditate, and it will be extremely useful to have read it before beginning the program of prayer that is described in the rest of part 1.
• Now you're going to embark on what I call "St. Francis's Three-Step Program For Getting Rid of Mortal Sin And Attachment To It."
• Step one is to attain perfect contrition. Do this by reading part 1, chapter 8, and then use the ten meditations that follow as a nine-day novena: one meditation per day on the first eight days, and then on the ninth day do the ninth and tenth meditations. While you are doing this, refer to the chapters you have already from part 2 (that is, chapters 1-8 of part 2) if you need to be reminded of St. Francis's method of prayer and meditation.
• Step two is to prepare for, and make, a good confession: a general confession, if possible. (You might want to make an appointment if you think it will be a quite thorough general confession). Prepare for the confession a couple of days ahead with these readings: Part 1, chapter 19; then part 2, chapter 19; then part 1, chapters 20 and 21. (Again, if you are making a thorough general confession, it may be wise to write out the results of your examination of conscience so you can refer to it in the confessional.). Bookmark part 2, chapter 19 for reference in future confessions. Write out a solemn resolution as described in part 1, chapter 20, and bring the resolution with you into the confessional. Make a good confession, accusing yourself directly, simply, and specifically as directed in part 1, chapter 19, and part 2, chapter 19.
• Step three: While still in the confessional, making your Act of Contrition -- in the part where you resolve to amend your life -- refer specifically to that solemn resolution that you wrote out and brought with you. Then, as directed in part 1, chapter 21, receive absolution and then go immediately to an appropriate place of prayer in the church. There, sign and date the resolution, then carry out the penance prescribed for you by the priest in the confessional.
• Finish reading part 1.
• Read the rest of part 2, one bit at a time, and trying to apply his advice in one chapter before moving on to the next: baby steps. These chapters are about everyday prayer and reception of the sacraments. After reading his advice about morning prayer in chapter 10, for example, you might compose a short morning prayer after his method (or choose a traditional formula); write it out; keep it by your bedside; and attempt to pray it for at least a few days before moving on to try the advice about evening prayer in chapter 11. When you get to the chapters about Communion, you might bookmark them and return to them regularly prior to receiving Communion for a while.
• Now you are going to choose just one or two virtues to work on developing in yourself. To discern which virtue you need to work on, first carefully reread part 1, chapters 22-24; then Part 3, chapters 1 and 2.
• Then, quickly and without trying to follow any of the advice in the chapters, read the remaining chapters in part 3 to get an overview of possible virtues that you could choose. I recommend reading the chapters in this order:
• First, a quick reread of chapters 1 and 2, along with 37, 23, and 24. All these deal with how to discern which virtues to focus on, and how to practice the virtues prudently, not to excess.
• Then, the chapters on practicing virtue in everyday life, in this order, taking it in chunks. Again, you are trying to discern which virtue you need to focus on, so don't follow the advice yet, just take it in and consider it. While reading Chapter 3 consider whether you need patience most. While reading chapters 4-7, consider whether you need to strengthen virtue when others are finding fault with you. While reading chapters 8-9, consider whether you need to develop these virtues that help you when faced with faults and frailties in yourself and others. Read chapters 10, 11, and -- note this -- 35, then consider whether you need to develop these virtues concerned with the performance of your duties. Skip to chapters 14-16 and consider whether you need to develop virtues that help you in times of material riches or material poverty. Read chapters 17-22 and consider the role of virtue in your friendships. Return to chapters 12 and 13, then read chapters 38-41, and consider the role of virtues in sexual matters. Finally, read the following chapters that give advice in dealings with society: chapter 25 on dressing attractively, chapters 26-30 on speaking honestly and respectfully, chapters 31-34 on having fun and recreation, and chapter 36 on fairness and reasonableness.
• Choose a virtue, return to the relevant chapter or chapters from part 3, and follow the advice relevant to that virtue alone while continuing to practice the skills taught in part 2 about prayer, meditation, and the sacraments. Do this for as long as it seems to be helping you to develop the virtue and grow in devotion. Give it a little bit of time if you seem to hit a plateau. But when you hit a plateau that seems permanent move on to part 4.
• Part 4 is the "troubleshooting guide" to the devout life. Read it through once quickly, without following any advice, before deciding how to proceed. It might be that you will find one or two chapters somewhere in it that specifically address a problem that you are specifically having, and you can go straight to them and begin following the instructions therein. Or you might decide to go back to the beginning of part 4 and slowly advance through it chapter by chapter, applying the advice in each chapter before moving on to the next, and continuing to try to follow the advice in the chosen chapters of part 3 (not ALL of part 3! Just the ones focused on your specifically chosen virtue!) and the general advice about prayer, meditation, and the sacraments from the chapters of part 2.

I don't include Part 5 in my bulleted list above, because all of Part 5 is an "annual review." You won't need to read it until approximately one year after the date of your signed resolution, or any time you want a "refresher" in the devout life. Or, if you have already gone through the method of the Introduction to the Devout Life, part 5 would make a good study for a spiritual retreat -- or for your Lenten renewal.

 

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Vacation fast.

An odd thing happened to us this year: we accidentally scheduled our roughly-yearly family winter vacation to coincide with the start of Lent.

Technically, there's nothing wrong with this, but it does feel a little bit weird. I am blogging this on Fat Tuesday evening from a charming but wobbly little breakfast table in the kitchen of a ski-vacation condominium that is literally larger than my house, with more yard.

(This is one of the side benefits of deliberately living in a smaller-footprint home: camper cabins, vacation condos, even hotel rooms sometimes feel decadently luxurious.)

On the other side of the great room my three oldest children are playing cards with my husband's parents, who joined us in Montana for a week in the mountains. Mark booked the condo "the same week as last year," remembering the perfect snow conditions and empty trails, and forgetting that Easter is a moveable feast and consequently that Ash Wednesday is a moveable fast. I don't know that we would have done it differently anyway; we have little flexibility in travel plans sometimes, now that business travel has stepped up so much for him, and since we planned to coordinate with the grandparents' schedule too.

I think it worked out, though. Mark and I are the only ones of an age that binds us to the fasting obligation, so nobody else is affected. I can't possibly do any vigorous skiing and touring -- neither of which are necessary duties -- and still keep a meaningful fast. Therefore I must fast from those activities, too, but I don't want to put a damper on the rest of the family. I volunteered to stay in the condo and take care of our 3-year-old, freeing everybody else to do something less toddler-friendly.

Unlike me, Mark can manage outdoor activities and fasting -- his body appears to be perfectly happy to switch over to burning itself for fuel any time he feels like going on a climbing tour, living on the occasional bolus of chocolate-espresso flavored energy gel. So tomorrow, the rest of the family will all drive down to Yellowstone for a snow-coach tour, and I will cocoon with my littlest guy.

I am a little bummed that we won't manage to get to a service with the distribution of ashes, but I have my breviary; I will deal.

I learned over the past few Lents, after my weight loss and after reconfiguring my eating habits, that the "one full meal and two smaller meals that don't add up to a full meal" formula messes with my head too much. (And it's kind of a made-up guideline anyway; that formula doesn't appear in canon law.) It messes with my head because I usually eat that way: my breakfast, lunch and snacks generally add up to less than my dinner. So I switched to having just the one meal in late afternoon, and the rest of the day I sip vegetable broth and hot, milky coffee as needed. As far as I can tell, the law of fasting allows for one meal, and it allows for liquids of any kind, and that is enough to keep my blood sugar to a level where I can, at least, care for my children.

(But not where I can go on a snow-coach tour with my children in Yellowstone National Park.)

So I am going to stay back with one child, and make a pot of soup to feed the family when they return tomorrow evening, but I will probably have mine in the afternoon. And I am going to start a pot of vegetable stock in the morning, to simmer reassuringly all day. And I am going to set an alarm, and pray the Hours, and read stories to the little one who stays with me, and ponder the welcome absurdity of ski-in/ski-out penitence with a hot tub and concierge service, and enjoy some solitude. The boom of the avalanche control teams setting off explosions on the ridge will have to stand in for bells, but I see no reason why I cannot make a sort of retreat anyway.

And if it's possible here, it's possible anywhere.

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit. A humble and contrite heart you will not spurn.

Rend your hearts, not your garments.

Wherever we are -- even in the lap of luxury, in the midst of riches beyond the reach of most human beings, in the comfortable stability of good health and good friendships and good marriage and good family -- wherever we are, we can still crave change within, and we can begin it from the very center. Sometimes it makes sense to transform from the outside in: to wear the ashes, and hope that they soak into the soul. Other times, we have to transform from the inside out: to look like nothing has changed, smooth and clear and implacable as ever, accepting a burden that no one else can see; but still to be changed interiorly, a scrap of flesh born, liberated, from the heart of the stone.

 

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Coming up on Lent.

One weekend left, and in a few days it'll be Ash Wednesday.  

All this spring I've been coming back again and again to this passage from The Imitation of Christ (Book 2, Chapter 12, "On the Royal Road of the Cross").   

What I like about it is that it answers a question I have often had:  But my life is actually pretty good; so many people are suffering so much more than I am; what does it mean to carry my cross when things are going so well for me?

 There is no other way to life and to true inward peace than the way of the holy cross and daily mortification. Go where you will, seek what you will, you will not find a higher way, nor a less exalted but safer way, than the way of the holy cross.

Arrange and order everything to suit your will and judgment, and still you will find that some suffering must always be borne, willingly or unwillingly, and thus you will always find the cross.

• Either you will experience bodily pain
• or you will undergo tribulation of spirit in your soul.
• At times you will be forsaken by God,
• at times troubled by those about you
• and, what is worse, you will often grow weary of yourself.

You cannot escape, you cannot be relieved by any remedy or comfort but must bear with it as long as God wills.

I think this passage kind of functions very similarly to the famous passage from First Corinthians about love ("Love is patient, love is kind...") which we heard in the readings last Sunday.  It's a description that can be thought of as a definition.

Just as "Love is patient, love is kind" can be thought of as implying a definition of love ("Love is that which is patient, love is that which is kind, etc.") or as setting the boundaries of love ("What isn't patient, can't be loving.  What isn't kind, can't be loving, etc.") --- so this can be a sort of description of the cross.

Whatever suffering must be borne is the cross.

Even if it's very small.

The small crosses can be the hardest to bear correctly, because we can brush them off so easily without thinking... and when we do, they -- since they must be borne -- land on someone else.  

Because I was grumbling about some little inconvenience, I've snapped at some poor cashier and ruined her day.   Because I'd failed to plan ahead, I've dragged cranky, tired, hungry preschoolers to the grocery store.  Because I was feeling too tired to cheerfully do the dishes, I've sneaked upstairs and left them for my spouse.

Somebody had to bear a cross here, and in each case it wasn't me.

If we imagine that we don't have any "real" crosses, and wonder why we've been so lucky as to do without them -- disabilities, bereavements, chronic pains -- we can fail to take up the cross we've been sent.

Does your body feel bad or painful in any way, or are you sick or injured?  If you can't make the suffering go away entirely, that can be the cross -- whether you know why you're sick, or whether you don't.

Is there any kind of "tribulation of spirit in your soul" -- any sort of interior turbulence, depression, grouchiness, fear, or any other discomfort, whether from an identifiable cause or whether it seems to come from nowhere?  If you can't quite shake it even after reasonable effort -- trying to gain perspective, count your blessings, cheer yourself up, take your meds -- that can be the cross.

Do you lack spiritual consolation?  Does your prayer seem to do nothing?  Does your meditation yield no fruits?  That, too, can be the cross.

Do your kids drive you crazy?  Do your parents bug you?  Does your spouse annoy you?  Is your co-worker chewing his gum too loudly in the next cubicle?  Is anybody anywhere getting on your nerves?   That, too, can be the cross.

Finally, don't you get on your own nerves sometimes?  Don't you ever say to yourself, "Self, you're an idiot?"

 (This is, in my opinion, the single wisest point in the whole Imitation.  Go read No Exit again:  Sartre didn't get it completely right.  It should have been "Hell is other people.  And yourself too.") 

If it must be borne by somebody, it's the Cross.

The cross, therefore, 

• is always ready; 
• it awaits you everywhere. 
• No matter where you may go, you cannot escape it, for wherever you go you take yourself with you and shall always find yourself. 
• Turn where you will–above, below, without, or within–you will find a cross in everything, 
• and everywhere you must have patience 

if you would have peace within and merit an eternal crown.

It's probably a good idea to look out for these things.

If you carry the cross willingly, it will carry and lead you to the desired goal where indeed there shall be no more suffering, but here there shall be. If you carry it unwillingly, you create a burden for yourself and increase the load, though still you have to bear it. If you cast away one cross, you will find another and perhaps a heavier one. 

It's also possible to choose voluntary crosses, which is part of the point of Lent:  to practice, so that we may better carry the involuntary ones.  

Something to think about as we plan for the next few weeks.

 

The suspension of reliability.

I pray the Divine Office only sporadically, but today I managed to get away to the Perpetual Adoration chapel long enough to "do" Prime and Lauds back-to-back. The D.O. always feels to me as if it'll be a chore to get through, right up until the moment that I finish arranging the bookmarks (or in today's case, a crumpled index card and a stubby pencil) to mark the day's pages and settle in to begin. Then I am always instantly glad, fed and watered when I didn't know my own hunger and thirst. I don't know why this experience has to keep repeating itself; you would think I would have learned by now; but that "chore" feeling comes back day after day, even though it is always followed by the "refreshment" feeling -- that is, when I do manage to trudge over to the chair and open the book. I don't always make the trudge. And every time I do, I wonder why on earth not.

Because of this conversation I keep having with myself, I typically experience the Invitatory Psalm (Ps. 95, the opening psalm for each day's prayer) the same way every time I pick up the breviary: sheepishly, like a kid who's been reminded for the umpteenth time about the same fault.

"Today, listen to the voice of the Lord: Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness, when at Meriba and Massah they challenged me and provoked me, although they had seen all of my works."

Complain, complain, complain. That's me. And surprised every day to taste water in the desert.

+ + +

It's unusual that the Invitatory sparks a new thought, but it happened to me today, so I'll share. The Invitatory psalm contains this text, excerpted by me to highlight what jumped out at me today:

Today, listen to the voice of the Lord:

Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness...

I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways."

So I swore in my anger, "They shall not enter into my rest."

Today (Saturday, week IV) the antiphon repeated after each stanza is

Let us listen to the voice of God; let us enter into his rest.

I got to thinking about the cause and effect implied in these stanzas, and how we are to read them.

One of the problems of interpretation of the Old Testament is how frequently it explicitly depicts God changing his mind about things, reacting in response to some action or plea of human beings. So, for instance, we have God "repenting" or "regretting" that He had made man, in Genesis 6 (the story of the flood); and we have the book of Jonah, where it says God "relented" or "repented" of His threat to destroy Nineveh. Here is another one, where God is angered -- has a change of heart, so to speak -- in response to the stubbornness of the people.

It is not philosophically straightforward to deal with these images of a God who can change His mind, at least not when you take it as an article of faith -- as Christians do -- that God is eternal, perfect, unchanged and unchangeable. Christian philosophers can and do deal with it, but it is one of those mysteries that can be approached many different ways.

The antiphon "Let us listen to the voice of God; let us enter into his rest," which is, by the way, a prayerful response to Scripture rather than Scripture itself, is not just a response we can make with our voices; it's also a suggestion for a response we can make with our intellect to the "problem" of an eternal, perfect being who nonetheless responds and reacts to mortal, imperfect ones. The antiphon voices absolute confidence that, if we listen to the voice of God, then we will enter into His rest. The one follows the other naturally -- as day follows night -- well, maybe it is really "supernaturally," but what I want to get across is this idea: that the very nature of "listening to the voice of God" is that it forms you into a being who "will enter into His rest."

If that's so, then we can look at the Psalm and perhaps perceive the opposite side of the coin, the choice. The opposite of "listen to the voice of the Lord" is "grow stubborn" like the people in the wilderness, specifically as in the episode at Meriba and Massah (see Exodus 17 to delve more deeply into the allusion). A person who fails to listen, who grows stubborn in this way, who "challenges" and "provokes" God despite having seen His works, perhaps causes himself to become the sort of person whose heart goes astray, who doesn't come to know God's ways -- note that the people have "seen all of [his] works" but "do not know [his] ways," an intriguingly deliberate distinction.

It is because of the condition of their hearts and intellects that God is said to swear in His anger that they shall not enter into His rest.

And here I think maybe the "anger" of God is, from within a more primitive concept of God as changeable, anger-able, a way of expressing a consequence that is written right into the nature of human beings and therefore into the nature of the relationship between God and human beings (because that relationship is part of our nature). If we do not listen to the voice of God, if we grow stubborn and our hearts go astray, we will not enter into His rest -- we simply will not because we cannot, because listening to Him is a prerequisite for acquiring the capability.

That the writers of the story understood this as a face of God's "anger" may have been poetic. It may have reflected the limited way that they could conceive of a divine being. But it would be consistent with a belief that God was predictable and reliable. Remember Psalm 19, where the heavens declare the glory of God? Or in Psalm 50, where the heavens proclaim his justice, for God himself is the judge? The heavens are beautiful, vast, and the source of all our light -- but I think maybe the defining characteristic of "the heavens" for ancient peoples was their regularity: the rising of the sun and its setting, the swinging of the stars through the years: the reservoir of lodestars and timepieces; of constellations that appeared exactly where people looked for them, as long as anyone could remember. If the heavens declare the righteousness of God, then surely one aspect of this righteousness is reliability, predictability; each day has its night, and each failing has its consequence.

If this is one way of interpreting the manifestation of divine anger: as the consequence that is only to be expected; well, then what can mercy be but a miracle?