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Acts of love.

One of the spiritual practices for the Montfortian consecration, for the week dedicated to growing in knowledge of Mary, is to make "acts of love" to her. But the saint doesn't explain what he means by this.  

Catholics are often familiar with the traditional prayer called the "Act of Love," which is directed at God:

O my God,
I love you above all things,
with my whole heart and soul,
because you are all-good and worthy of all love.
I love my neighbor as myself for the love of you.
I forgive all who have injured me,
and ask pardon of all whom I have injured.

Amen.

There are of course many little prayers like this that go by the name of "Acts," which has always intrigued me. There is an "Act of Faith," for instance, and an "Act of Contrition." Quite often the prayer is called an "Act of..." some interior disposition, some thing that cannot really be produced at will. Faith is given to us by grace, we believe, and so is contrition. But I love the idea that no matter what our interior dispositions we can choose to make an "act" that nonetheless contains an infinitesimal spark of grace, seemingly willed into existence by our own choice to speak the words of the act aloud. Maybe we are always carrying just enough of that spark around that to pray these Acts is always a response to an interior, ever-free-for-the-taking grace and that the praying of them is always an effective, if small, demonstration. To pray the Act of Contrition is to be, in a tiny way, contrite. To pray the Act of Faith is impossible unless there is that tiny mustard seed. To pray the Act of Love is a way, a little way, to love God.

But what is an act of love to Mary?  

There are, of course, two meanings of "love." Commonly I say that I love someone when I deem him lovable, when I am attached or attracted to him in some way. At the same time, the technical Christian meaning of "to love a man" is to wish him good, or to act in a way that is ordered towards his ultimate good. I think it was John Paul II who said that the opposite of loving a person is not hating him; the opposite of loving him is using him, as a means to an end; very well then, you might phrase it this way, that the technical Christian meaning of loving a person is treating him entirely as an end and not at all as a means.

At first I thought, well, the first, common meaning of "love" of Mary is too trivial to even consider, compared with the first. Who wouldn't love Mary? Have you ever read that litany? Seat of Wisdom, Cause of our Joy, Mystical Rose, Virgin Most Prudent? But then I thought -- maybe it isn't so trivial to love what is good. Lots of us react with envy, resentment, vanity, and even anger when faced with someone who is, well, truly better than we are. It is hard always to appreciate someone who, we feel, makes us look bad by comparison. So perhaps there is something difficult, and so worthy, in the sincere prayer, "I love you, Mary; I admire your virtues and I aspire to imitate you in everything, and I seek to know you more and be ever close to you," Perhaps this small prayer of affection is a kind of act of real love.

Trying to wish Mary good, or to act in a way that is ordered towards her good, is a bit trickier. What can we possibly do to benefit her? It is not like she is a soul that needs our prayers. She is Queen of Heaven, after all! But if Mary is full of grace, then her will is perfectly aligned with God's will, and that means that what she wants is what God wants. Therefore to try to give her what she wants -- assuming she wants anything -- is to give her something that is ordered toward her ultimate good.  

For an ordinary human, giving him what he wants may or may not be ordered towards his good. He may want something that will harm him. We can try to give him what he "needs," and if we do that and if we have accurately assessed his needs, we can be safely assured that we at least will not give him something bad for him. Mary "needs" nothing. But she may "want" something. And it is safe to give her what she wants, or to wish her what she wants.

And what does she want?

A couple of clues come from Mary's own words in Scripture.

Number one: "Do whatever he tells you." An act of obedience to Jesus is an act of love toMary.

Number two: "All generations shall call me blessed." Another act of love to her, I think, is to acknowledge that she is blessed, "for God has done great things to her." Note how she points to God and desires that we acknowledge not just her blessedness, but the grace of God that is the cause of it. The Ave Maria is the quintessential Marian prayer, and its heart is this declaration and acknowledgment of Mary's blessedness.

If we are willing to look outside Scripture and consider the messages that have come out of worthy apparitions, we find other requests. Fatima comes to mind first, of course. Even if you are not "into" Marian apparitions, the requests made at Fatima have the marks about them of authentic love: make reparations for others' sins and ingratitudes against the Heart of Mary, pray and make sacrifices on behalf of sinners, pray the Rosary for peace, among other things.

When I went Googling around for an "act of love to Mary," I found this short and simple prayer:

"Jesus, Mary, I love you. Save souls."

I repeated it a few times as I was unloading the dishwasher, and I came to believe that it is actually quite a fitting act of love to Mary. Here's why:

- First, it expresses a simple love of Jesus, who is in first place. I think it is clear that Mary wishes her son to be loved, honored, and acknowledged above and before and prior to herself.  

- Second, it expresses simple affection for the Virgin herself.

- Third, it asks for the salvation of sinners. If you follow the Fatima message, you know that one thing Mary wants us to do is to pray for sinners.

- Fourth, it is an acknowledgment of their intimate cooperation, as it is addressed to both.

All this, plus whatever effects there may be of merely praying the prayer -- sacrificing that tiny slip of our much-demanded attention, that moment of thinking our own thoughts according to our own designs, and instead pausing interiorly to align our mind with something that comes from outside it. I did this small thing of my own free will in order to love Mary. That makes it, almost inherently, an act of real love.

With this little prayer, the Ave, and the rosary, plus all the teachings of Christ to follow at any moment, I think we never need wonder how to go about loving the Blessed Virgin.

Networking.

I haven't mentioned yet that over my recent vacation I had a chance to meet the lovely Betty Duffy, her kids, and a nameless black cat.  She let us use her computer so we could find a hotel suite, somewhere on our route between Cincinnati and Minneapolis, that would sleep our family of six (Embassy Suites, thankyouverymuch -- not too expensive when the company is paying.)  Also she gave us coffee, and fed my children orange juice and apples with caramel dip, and kept the scary-sounding dog locked up.  

No pictures or other evidence remains, but it was nice to get out of the car, stretch our legs, and chat for an hour or so in the Indiana sunshine.  

One of the best things about blogging is getting to meet other bloggers when traveling.  I still haven't polished everyone off my list that I'd like to see in real life.  Wonder if I ever will.

Science and history: Part one of a series.

I've been asked privately to write publicly about my perspective as a "person with a strong scientific education and worldview... coming to know or believe in God's reality and divinity."  With an eye toward the "lack of scientific evidence for the divine;" an eye toward the "lack of a need" to rely on supernatural or divine explanations when constructing an appreciative theory of the world.

This will take me more than one post, but I think I will enjoy the assignment.  

Let me turn first to the concept of "scientific evidence for the divine" or a "need" to include supernatural or divine explanations.  I know that many theists, the intelligent-design folks in particular (and maybe also the blokes responsible for that Creation Museum in Kentucky) claim that there is plenty of scientific evidence for the divine.  

I think their arguments are not useful, because they are based upon faulty premises, and most especially upon sloppy definition of terms.

I say there is no scientific evidence for the divine, and no need to include supernatural or divine explanations when constructing a scientific theory of the physical world.  In this post I'd like to elaborate on that, before going on to explain why this has not been an obstacle to my coming to Church practice as an adult or to continuing it -- even as my conviction that there is no scientific evidence for the divine has become firmer.

Begin as always by defining terms: What do you mean by "science?"

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They Might Be Giants can help us out here.  From their kids' CD Here Comes Science:

“As the philosopher Rudolf Carnap once said, 'Science is a system of statements based on direct experience and controlled by experimental verification.'”

That'll do.  A little closer look at that "experimental verification" thing, via the Wikipedia article "Scientific Method:"

Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable, to guard against mistake or confusion in any particular experimenter. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many independently derived hypotheses together in a coherent, supportive structure. Theories, in turn, may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.

Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible, to reduce biased interpretations of results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, giving them the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. 

My working definition of science is the body of human knowledge that is added to by forming hypotheses, constructing experiments or proposing observations that can be repeated or replicated by others, and using the results of the experiments and observations (the "scientific evidence") to test the hypotheses.   The utility of science is its ability to generate predictions about the future:  if I do such-and-such under specified condtions, this outcome will result.  This property of science is intimately bound up in the requirement that experiments, tests, and observations are repeatable:  every test that deserves to be called "scientific" is a test that can be performed under similar-enough conditions to produce a consistent result.  

The result of these tests -- scientific knowledge -- consists of statements about what happens.   Science tells you what happens.  This is the short soundbite.

Note the tense of the verb.

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The definition logically implies two things which we can use to clarify what is not science, even if many people call it that.

(1) If I have a hypothesis and I cannot test it -- if I cannot "find a way to show what would happen if [I] were incorrect" -- then I cannot make any scientific statements about the truth or falsity of the hypothesis.  I have no scientific evidence.

 I may be able to speculate convincingly.  I may be able to estimate the probability.  I may be able to report a gut feeling.  I may be able to present a collection of other scientifically tested hypotheses that are not inconsistent with the hypothesis under study.  In other words, I may have many statements to make about my hypothesis, but none of them are scientific ones.  And so, in the formulation, reporting, and defense of this hypothesis, I am not performing science.

Theoretical physicists find themselves in this boat sometimes.  They are often in the business of proposing hypotheses that cannot possibly be tested with existing technology (and occasionally that can be proved to be impossible to test under any technology).  You can read entire books on the subject of whether string theory, for example, is actually "science" or whether it deserves instead to be classified as metaphysics.    Proposing hypotheses that might possibly be tested some time in the future when technology has improved is an important part of scientific work, but it is not sufficient to be called "science" because it does not generate any evidence and therefore generates no new additions to the body of human scientific knowledge.

(2) If I have a hypothesis and I can test it to produce evidence, but the test cannot be repeated by anyone working independently of me, then the test and the evidence and any statements I make about the truth or falsity of my hypothesis are also not scientific.  If no one can repeat my experiment, then no one can judge conclusively whether I am mistaken or confused or lying.  

(This is different from repeating an experiment but failing to reproduce the result. I mean, the experiment cannot be performed a second time.)  

We have stated that science is based on direct experience.  If I am the only person who can have a particular experience, if the experience cannot be communicated to the wider human community, then it cannot become part of science -- except in a very limited way, as part of the body of my personal knowledge, the so-called science limited by my own head.  It cannot become a part of the body of general human knowledge.

Now it may be that the evidence I present is convincing.  It may be that I have documented my observations in perfect accord with all the procedures accepted by the scientific community.  It may be, further, that I have previously demonstrated trustworthiness, and still further, that I am charismatic enough to cause people to desire to align their conclusions with mine.  Therefore I may be able to cause a large number of scientists and people with scientific training to agree with my conclusions.  My analyses may make their way into scientific journals and textbooks and be taught in science classes.  They may be called "science" according to the common usage of the term ("stuff that gets taught in classes of chemistry, biology, physics, geology, etc.")  My statements may even be true.  But they would not be "science" according to the precise definition of the term which I have proposed.

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And yet there are many such statements which we find useful, and indeed, which we accept and discuss as if we were confident they were true.  We would even say that they are part of the body of human knowledge.  Indeed they are -- just not part of the body of human knowledge that depends on direct experience.  

For example, there is another discipline of human knowledge which we call "history."

If science tells you what happens, then history tells you what happened.  

History is not unrelated to or independent of science.  Like science, it is based on the examination of evidence.  This evidence is not merely imaginary.  It includes a wide variety of tangible material:  natural objects, landscapes, artifacts, documents, linguistic structures, cultural practices.   Historians often rely on technology to discover and interpret evidence; those technologies having been developed, tested, and refined by individuals relying on scientific knowledge and the scientific method.  And so, for example, we have useful technologies such as radiocarbon dating, or x-ray imaging of an artifact to see beneath the surface, or audio recording devices to make it easier to accurately transcribe interviews, or the methods developed by archaeologists to systematically catalogue and describe the remains left at the site of some historical event.

But note this:  You can only dig up the shard of pottery once.  After that, it's been dug up.  No one can ever dig it up from its original resting place again.

The shard of pottery, dug up, is real evidence, but it is historical evidence, not scientific evidence.  It cannot be incorporated into a theory of what happens.  It can only be incorporated into a theory of what happened.

With apologies to George Santayana:  History is not, in fact, replicable.  

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This does not mean that history is inferior to science.  However, it operates under different limitations and different rules.  Because it cannot be replicated, persons engaged in historical  research can and must rely on indirect rather than direct experience.  They must rely on reports.  And they are allowed to (indeed they must) subjectively interpret the evidence they find in order to reach conclusions about it.  As in scientific research, historical researchers can and should strive to be unbiased in the sense of removing sources of error that originate from non-rational attachment to ideas.  But because the evidence they investigate is not in the form of repeatable experiments, there is no analogous way to adequately guard against mistake or confusion (or outright lying).  The best they can do is document their findings as scrupulously as possible and offer a coherent argument to defend their interpretations.  And then show how those interpretations fit, without contradiction, into what is already commonly accepted -- or else, to show that what is commonly accepted should now be rejected.

This looks a little bit like scientists defending their hypotheses and using them to add new statements to a scientific theory.  But because of the lack of repeatability, the evidence is not scientific evidence, and so we can't use the term "theory" as scientists understand it. 

The work of historical research is to add new statements to a narrative.  Historical researchers are engaged in constructing and refining a narrative of what happened in the past all the way up to the present moment.

Normally, the term "history" is only applied to those parts of the narrative that involve human beings, sometimes even only literate human beings.  The narrative before human beings or before preliterate human beings is then called "prehistory."  This distinction is common enough that I wish to note it with some respect, but for these purposes I prefer the more expansive definition of Stephen Hawking's famous title  A Brief History of Time.   Regardless, the narrative under construction is a continuous narrative.  The only discontinuity introduced by human beings is that we produce a new kind of evidence when we start writing. That continuity implies a unified field of knowledge, and so I'm going to go on using "history" to mean the set of statements about what happened -- including what happened before there were people around to comment on what had happened to them. 

The inevitable conclusion is that much of the work we often call "science" really belongs to the construction of that narrative of "what happened" -- what happened once and can never happen again.  Archaelogy, for example, is sometimes considered a science; and perhaps if we look deeply enough we can find some archaeologists testing repeatable hypotheses; but generally archaeology is concerned with using artifacts and other physical evidence to construct a narrative of what happened at a particular site.  Paleobiology "uses biological field research of current biota and of fossils millions of years old to answer questions about the molecular evolution and the evolutionary history of life" -- well, when it is answering questions about what happens when DNA, RNA, and proteins evolve, it is contributing to science, but when it is answering questions about what happened during the evolutionary history of life, it is contributing to the narrative -- to history.  A forensic anthropologist contributes to science when he or she experiments with blades and bones to find out what kind of marks are left by what weapons; but contributes to history when he or she examines a set of remains and expresses a judgment about the cause of death.  We cannot re-animate the corpse and kill it again to see if the same thing happens.

Note that history is not inferior to science.  Historical evidence is not inferior to scientific evidence.  It includes the best available information about much that is important to human beings.  But it is worthwhile distinguishing clearly between the construction of the "theory of everything that happens" that is the domain of what we properly call science, and the construction of the "theory of everything that happened" -- the world-track -- that is the domain of what we properly call history.  The distinguishing mark of science is replicability. 

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If the distinguishing mark of scientific evidence is replicability, there never has been any scientific evidence for the divine.  Because to look for God using the scientific method, to look for scientific evidence of God, is to look for a God who appears at the push of a button:  a God who can be made to seem to obey us.  And this is, I think, not what people mean when they say "the Divine."  

When we find something that appears at the push of a button, so to speak, we call it "a law of nature."   It will never appear supernatural to us because it will only appear natural.  Because, in fact, the natural universe in the present (but not in the past) is precisely the domain where repeatable observations can be made.  

I believe that "the supernatural" has never created any evidence that could ever be correctly called "scientific."  I expect that a real "supernatural," were it real, never would create any such evidence.  Therefore the absence of such "scientific" evidence has no bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsity of the statement "The supernatural is real" (equivalently stated:  "There are realities other than the natural universe").

My interlocutor might object:  Is this a long way of saying "Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence?"  Because if the evidence has no bearing on the truth or falsity of a statement, why say anything about it at all?

No; it's a long way of saying "Common human practice demonstrates that absence of scientific evidence is never in practice taken as evidence of absence, because we persist in pretending to make meaningful statements about what happened in the past."

In other words, there's at least one other kind of evidence besides scientific evidence that we all use.  We stipulate that it is useful even if it is not entirely reliable and even if it is inherently subjective.  I'm willing to rely on it to construct my mental model of the world, and chances are good that you do too.

And this concludes part one.

(Part two is here.)

More on the co-Redemptrix thing.

Here is another Mary-as-"co-Redemptrix" resource I stumbled across recently: a lengthy article on the blog Called to Communion: Reformation Meets Rome.

I can't even decide what to excerpt from it, it is so detailed. But I also want to point out, if you go over and decide to read it, do make sure to read the comments. They feature some very edifying dialogue between Protestants and Catholics who know what they are talking about, and remain charitable while dissecting some fairly thorny points of contention. I found the dialogue very helpful in clarifying some finer and more difficult points of understanding. I will have to read more material from that website; I am really very impressed.

This week has been heavy on the reading, thought, and study, and probably too light on the meditation and prayer. I hope I get a chance for a rosary before bed; as usual, I fell asleep about three Aves in when I tried to say one while nursing the baby down. I guess it is probably better to try and fail than not to try at all, although admittedly it would be better to find a time when I am not half asleep.

Purity -- an issue of vocabulary.

I have been spending some time meditating on (okay, let's be fair, more just thinking about) the virtue of purity this week, and I find myself somewhat hung up on language.

In English, the literal and concrete meaning of "pure" is "unmixed, unadulterated, uncontaminated." But most of the time, when the virtue of purity is discussed, the word is being used to mean something like "chastity" or occasionally "virginity." I almost wonder if it has come down this way as a sort of euphemism, so that people say "purity" when they really mean a more specific sort of purity, i.e., sexual purity, or moral purity in sexual matters. An online etymology dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pure&allowed_in_frame=0) indicates that the metaphorical meaning of the English word "pure," the connotation of "free from moral corruption," first appeared as a reference to mixing of bloodlines -- an ugly reminder of humanity's age-old confusion between moral guidelines and lines of race and class.

The language is poorer for it, if we have lost a general notion of "pure" because the word is exclusively applied as a synonym for "chaste." (Impure thoughts would better be called unchaste thoughts, for example.) Because I keep wanting to go back to a metaphorical application of the more usual concrete meaning of "purity," that idea of "unmixed, unadulterated."

Consider the English phrase "mixed motives."

Its opposite, literally speaking, would be "pure motives."

I am in a time in my life when the usually-meant kind of purity -- sexual purity or chastity in thought and behavior -- is not a big problem for me, thanks be to God. I am deeply infatuated and head-over heels in love with my lawfully wedded husband. I have a passel of little kids. I am one of those weirdo NFP true believers. I am too busy in the chaos of a fundamentally satisfying life to be distracted by illicit temptations to unchastity. Though I hope I retain some sympathy and compassion for people for whom temptations to unchastity are a serious cross, it is pretty obviously not my cross at this time.

But I find I need to beg for the grace of moral purity on a daily basis. Not moral sexual purity, but purity of motive, purity of intention.

I realize it is probably a false etymology to think this way -- the miscegenation taboo is probably the real route by which "purity" became a synonym for chastity -- but it seems to me that chastity is a type of "unmixed-ness" of motives, intentions, and acts, and so the idea that it can be encompassed by a broader virtue, one in which "purity" stands for all kinds of "unmixed" motives, appeals to me.

A young man offers assistance to an attractive young woman in some mild distress. We the observers may speculate: are his motives "pure" or "impure?" We say that meaning "Are his motives chaste, or is he hoping to score?" but we could just as easily mean, "Are his motives purely charitable, or is he partly motivated by selfishness?" In the first, conventional usage, we assume all the young man's motives are either chaste ("pure") or unchaste (which we call "impure"). But if we had a full appreciation of the literal meaning of the word "purity" to call on, we can give him some of the benefit of the doubt. Most young men are not all bad. We wonder instead, are his motives entirely charitable, or charitable mixed with some selfishness? He is doing the right thing, and we assume he does it for the right reasons. The question is whether some of the wrong reasons are mixed in, too.

Not so much in matters of chastity, but I know very well that it is a royal pain to deal with mixed intentions, especially when trying to figure out how to act in even slightly complicated moral territory. Which course of action is most prudent? I have good and just and moral reasons to choose a certain path, but I also have selfish reasons to prefer it to the alternatives. Can I still choose that path? Can I be sure of my own judgment? Maybe my "real" motives are the selfish ones and the apparently good and just reasons to go down the path I want to go down are only illusions, rationalizations. Maybe I should recognize the baseness of my selfish motives and flee from them by choosing another path, so as not to be tricked into sin. But wait -- then I will be deliberately choosing what I already believe to be wrong, just to avoid being sullied myself! Maybe that is another kind of selfishness. And around and around it goes, until the soul is unable to commit any decisive act at all without an uneasy feeling of having screwed up somewhere. If only I could be pure of heart, I could see my way to good, so much more clearly.

This is why a broader purity is a great grace. And whenever a prayer for purity is called for -- as it is for me this the second week of the Montfortian consecration, dedicated to achieving greater knowledge of the virtues of the "Virgin most pure" -- correctly or incorrectly I find myself thinking of my need for purity in this broader sense. I do wrong things lots of the time, yes. But not all the time; often I do good things, mostly the easy ones, occasionally tough ones. But even those, even my most outwardly virtuous actions are sullied by my own mixed motives. I know this so deeply that I can feel it. What it feels like is, well, dirty -- yucky, for want of a better word. It is a place where the abstract concept of "original sin" is realized in me as something sensible (sense-able) and, frankly, kind of gross. Tainted. And in need of the precise word to pinpoint what is wrong with them. And that word is "impure."

Renouncement of will.

I was running on the treadmill in my in-laws' basement and hating it. When was the last time I mentioned that I hate running? A while, then. Okay. I hate running. It starts off all right, but about seven minutes into the running part I start wondering if I will be able to finish all thirty minutes. How can I possibly make myself keep going for 23 more? Because I hate running. I still hate it after eight minutes, and nine minutes, and at ten minutes there is this sort of sinking feeling that ten minutes later I am going to hate it even more than I do right now. Surely I will get fed up and quit. "You know you almost never do quit," I tell myself, but with twenty minutes to go it is always tough to believe that.

So when I had four minutes left, my five-year-old daughter came wandering down and asked, "Can you talk to me now, Mama?"

Jockeying for position as "first thought that came into my mind," one of these:

- "Drat, I'm almost done. Better hold her off for just a couple more minutes or I won't finish my whole workout."

- "Thank goodness, an excuse to quit early."

In truth, I don't remember which thought came first. I am not sure it matters. There was a split-second crisis.

As per the Montfortian consecration that I have been writing about in fits and starts, one of the spiritual exercises for this week is "renouncement of will." No explanation is offered beyond that. I assumed it means to find things that you want to do and don't do them, or do things you don't like to do. Some kind of mortification. Skip dessert. Or maybe if you're hyper vigilant and fearful about gaining weight, you are supposed to have dessert, so that you can feel miserable about it for hours later. Or maybe you are supposed to eat desserts you don't like.

In the moment on the treadmill, my crazy brain, which rationalizes faster than I can keep up with it, said: "Stop now! Your daughter is asking you to quit your planned workout! It is an opportunity to renounce your own will!"

And then it helpfully added: "Don't stop! You know you really want to stop! Therefore, to keep going is to renounce your own will! See how much you hate what you're doing? Offer it up for a few more minutes!"

Thankfully it did not consider the possibility of running for more than four minutes just to spite both of us.

Here is what I told her, in between gasps: "I can't talk to you now, but i will in four minutes.". She waited patiently, I gave her updates every thirty seconds, and then when the clock ticked down I hit the down arrow and puffed, "Okay, now I can talk to you." I decided not to worry about it and to laugh at myself instead.

I think exercise (and food) decisions are not really areas where I am, shall we say, competent to make judgments about spiritual matters. I am not well in the head about this. If I get all stressed about renouncing my own will there, I'll go nuts. Which will should I renounce? The short-term desire to get off the damn treadmill and go pop open an ice-cold Coke instead? Or the will to stick it out and to walk away knowing I can still hang in there for thirty effing minutes three times a week?

I just need to stop worrying about this. It is kind of like how I decided to quit giving up anything food-related whatsoever for Lent (besides the obligatory fasting and abstinence). I am not well enough to make rational decisions.

I need to take a closer reading of Montfort's advice about renouncing your will. I think he means something more than simple mortification, i.e., "doing what you don't feel like doing.". I think when the "will" is invoked he must be talking about obedience to the will of another, because then you cannot get all worked up about the competing versions of the self. Renouncement of will then becomes a docile and accepting obedience to legitimate authorities. The superior, the supervisor, the elders, the law; sometimes, too, the wail of the waking child, or the seemingly unreasonable request of the husband. Even for those of us outside the convent or school, long grown up and supposedly autonomous, there are a surprising number of opportunities for renouncing your will. Sobering, I think, to come to grips with this: it isn't fully renounced if I grumble about it, or seek validation through a vent on Facebook.

Worrying about whether eating a cupcake or running for three more minutes is or isn't a renouncement of my will? I am thinking this is not much more than me trying to be distracted from the real problem. Perhaps willfully.

Know thyself.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the "official" Montfortian consecration to Jesus through Mary, the 33 days of preparation are structured like this:

- a first period of 12 days of prayer aimed at "ridding [oneself] of the spirit of the world," which correlates pretty well as far as I can tell to ridding oneself of attachment to sin a la St. Francis de Sales.

- then a second period of three weeks, in which prayer, penance, and meditation are all aimed at gaining a grace of knowledge.

Which should shed some light, I suppose, on the real end of the first period of twelve days. The spirit of the world is, after all, a spirit of lies. Ridding oneself of attachment to it is, I guess, a necessary step towards openness to knowledge of the truth.

So, back to the three weeks. Each week, we seek knowledge of a particular person.

- in week one, we ask for the grace of knowledge of the self, so we can see clearly our faults and weaknesses.

- in week two, we strive to know better the Blessed Mother.

- in week three, we ask for the grace to know Jesus.

I figure there is something important in that sequence, which maybe I will understand better as I move through it.

Anyway, I am partway through week one. I don't feel much of anything, and am aware that I have not poured myself fully into the effort. But I do think I have become aware of a couple of relevant me-specific truths.

Here is one.

I have occasionally complained about so-called "spiritual dryness," because it is pretty rare that I ever experience the grace of a sustaining emotional reaction in prayer or in liturgy. I just don't relate to emotion-y stuff. I say that my faith is pretty cerebral. I figured that in the joys of spirit ual consolations, usually defined as finding emotional connection in prayer, I have always been, shall we say, among the poor.

But it came to me as part of this introspection that I mustn't call this "dryness" or "lack of consolation." And I especially mustn't use this experience as an excuse for lukewarmness! Far from being poor, I have had consolations poured richly out on me for years. It is just that the graces and consolations I have received are mostly not feelings of joy or happiness or comfort, or indeed feelings of any kind. I don't relate to emotion-y stuff, remember? Well, if that is true, then God would know it, wouldn't He? I am pleased to have thoughts, not feelings, and (I suspect) this is the form of consolations He sends me when He is pleased to send them.

If this is true then it means three things that will, I think, help me.

First of all, I can stop worrying about my feelings. I am not a feelings person. It is not feelings that sustain me in, well, anything. Interesting thoughts are what sustain me.

Second, I can be grateful for these interesting thoughts when they come to me. It is all too easy to attribute them to my own intellect and/or moral character. If they are, indeed, among what is called "consolations" then I must look outside myself for their source and give credit where credit is due.

Third, it turns out that far from being poor I am actually rich in consolations, and so the meanness and poverty of the fruits I produce are my own damn fault. Much ought to be expected of me.

Co-Redemptrix.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had recently read a thought-provoking book about the role of the Blessed Mother. The book is _Mary in our Life_ by Fr. William Most, and it can be read for free online here: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=213

The book treats a number of aspects of Marian theology that I had poorly understood. I took notes while I was reading it. And found myself keeping two lists: one of Catholic dogmas concerning Mary, some of which I never really "got" before this; and a second list of conjectures, not dogmatically declared by the church, but which we are permitted to believe and which Fr. Most argues for in his book.

So, for example, on my first list was written something like "Mary has the title 'Mediatrix of All Graces," and "Christ is the New Adam," and "The Fathers refer to Mary as the New Eve," and "Mary co-operated at least remotely in the sacrifice on Calvary by willingly being the Mother of the Redeemer." On the second list I had "Because Mary is the New Eve, it is fitting that she would have participated on Calvary through her willing offering of her Son in the Sacrifice on Calvary, and so the sacrifice on Calvary is a joint offering. Her Son is the victim, and she it is who provides the flesh of the victim for the sacrifice."

The church does not call Mary "co-Redemptrix," possibly because no one can merit that title, but also possibly because the time is not ripe for her to bear it. There was a time before the Church called her the Immaculate Conception, after all.

Father Most's arguments are compelling, even though I am not sure whether I feel comfortable saying I am convinced by them. As I wrote before, this is the kind of stuff that upsets Protestants, and that we Catholics can get instinctively uneasy about because we know it is going to be tricky to explain to people already wary of Mary in our lives.

I have been turning the arguments over and over in my mind, though, and seeing other angles. Most of his arguments have to do with seeing a parallel between the Fall and the Redemption, a parallel which he insists the Church Fathers saw clearly. The thesis is that as Christ is the New Adam, there must be a New Eve, and Mary is that Eve; that Mary's obedience all the way to Calvary is a participation in the Redemption, and that it is the parallel of Eve's disobedience which was a participation in the Fall.

I find that one reason I recoil from this is that it seems at first glance to give Mary far more responsibility for the Atonement than even Christ bore! But then I realize that this comes from the old feeling that it was Eve, not Adam, who "started it all." Certainly historically the woman has been blamed more often than the man for the way the story goes.

But Father Most notes that the early church understood that Eve's disobedience alone was insufficient to cause the Fall -- that her disobedience was a participation, but a subordinate participation in the fall of the human family. It was Adam who ought to have led in obedience, and instead he followed in disobedience, and that was in a way the primary and sufficient disobedience to seal the Fall. So, as Eve's disobedience was secondary and insufficient, Mary's obedience and offering was also subordinate to Christ's. The least offering of Jesus would have been sufficient to redeem us; but it pleased God to accept a total gift of self from Him, and it also pleased God (says Father Most, at least I am trying to paraphrase) to accept as part of the Redemption a secondary offering, the willing suffering of the Blessed Mother.

I hope this intrigues you as much as it intrigued me! Again, this is not an officially declared dogma of the Church. It isn't something that we must believe. I find myself meditating quite a bit on the "what if?" of this idea. If this is a true explication of the role of Mary, how does this change how we understand Christ's sacrifice? What do the Gospels' depiction of the mother and Son seem to say about this possibility? What is its effect on me?

I had an insight the other day that turned me a little more favorably towards the idea. I often like to think about the image of God as a community of persons: the Trinity is a community of persons, and so are a number of human situations that image God. A marriage is a community of persons, for example. Only when you have a community of persons can there be love. And it occurred to me that if there is a joint offering on Calvary -- if there is a Co-Redemptrix as well as a Redeemer -- then there is a community of suffering on Calvary, too.

I thought: yes, Jesus's suffering was sufficient to redeem us. Still, maybe it is more fitting for God to accept a total suffering that is more than what one person can offer. And isn't it true that to watch another suffer -- especially someone we love -- is itself a kind of suffering? We know that Mary was on Calvary; we know she suffered, beholding her son; we know that he saw her suffering below. There is a sort of infinite recursion there: I suffer because of your suffering because of my suffering... Put it that way and it seems easier to grasp an idea of what "co-Redemptrix" might mean. The love between the two strengthens and sharpens the sacrifice. Without Mary the sacrifice is still sufficient. But perhaps because she is there the sacrifice is more total, more of what humanity has to offer of itself. Jesus' suffering was more complete because he witnessed her presence suffering with him. And if her suffering was willingly accepted, then, could it not be in some way an immediate participation, a cooperation, in the redemption on Calvary?

Blink and you'll miss it.

Thinking ahead to next year, I borrowed some books about kids' container gardens from the library last week, since the children were envying the gardens of some of their friends.  

One of the books included projects for all four seasons, with some indoor activities for winter.  I briefly considered an "autumn" project that involved planting bulbs in a pot and then surrounding them with pansies that would "grow all fall" if you protected the pot from a few dips below freezing.

And then I considered:

• Today is our first day of perfectly crisp, fall-type weather.  Fall may technically start on September 21 or thereabouts, but trust me, if you went outside yesterday and if you go outside today, you'll know that today is the first real day of autumn.
• The weather people tell me it is likely to freeze tonight.

I don't think it's worth setting up a pot of pansies to "grow all fall."  I do like autumn in Minnesota, I just wish it was measured in something longer than hours.

Forgiveness for the sake of forgiveness.

This, at Disputations, struck me this morning:

As Christians, we forgive because God forgives. We forgive in imitation of Jesus, Who forgave because He was God's Son and Image. God forgives because He is love.

God gets no benefit from forgiving us. It doesn't lower His blood pressure; it doesn't free His mind to think on other things. I think you could even say God really doesn't have a reason for forgiving us, in the sense of a reasoned discourse that concludes, "So I'll forgive them." Forgiveness is just what He does.

Now it's certainly true that we do benefit from forgiving each other. We have temporal benefits, of the sort the International Forgiveness Institute (mentioned in the homily I heard) studies. And we have eternal benefits, of the sort Jesus indicates in the Parable of the Wicked Servant.

And it's also true that, forgiveness so often being so difficult, the thought of these benefits can cause us to will to forgive when the thought of being like Jesus and His Father doesn't quite close the sale.

But I'm a little concerned that talk of the benefits of forgiveness can become, de facto, talk of forgiveness as therapy, rather than as Christian discipleship. And once we start valuing something for its natural benefits, we are largely free to set our own value on it. So yes, forgiving your neighbor might lower your anxiety, but hey, if you value your grudge enough, then it's not worth it to forgive your neighbor.

Somehow I never quite thought of that. Thank Goodness "imperfect" contrition is, they say, good enough.