bearing blog

Electing the pope. Dot net.

Since we're coming up on the papal conclave -- the See will be vacant as of 8 pm this Friday -- I thought I'd point you to a project started by blogger, sometime commenter, and web designer Dorian Speed (of Convolare Design).

Electingthepope.net is a question-and-answer site about the papal election:

Electingthepope.net is a collaborative effort among Catholic writers, bloggers, educators, and catechists. We’ve come together to answer the basic questions that many people have asked about Pope Benedict XVI’s unexpected resignation and the upcoming papal election. Our aim is to provide well-researched, clear answers to questions about these topics and to share other reliable sources of information with our readers....

This site is designed to provide accurate answers to basic questions about Catholic beliefs and practices and isn’t focused on speculation about the results of the conclave or theological discussion. We want this to be a resource for students, teachers, and journalists. ElectingthePope.net is an independent project not affiliated with any Catholic diocese or institution.

Dorian asked me to be part of the site, along with some great other bloggers who may be familiar to you, so I've been having fun combing through the questions and looking for interesting challenges.  

The main result, so far, is that I've become very familiar with Universi Dominici Gregis.  

Several of my posts are awaiting SEO checks and things, but I have a few of them up.  So far the longest one has been an answer to the submitted question, "Will it not appear hypocritical if Cardinal Mahony participates in the conclave?  Is there nothing the other cardinals can do to prevent him from participating?"

(Short answer:  (a) The only person who can stop him, under the rules, is Pope Benedict XVI, and he only has until 8 PM Friday. (b) Following rules is generally thought to be a good idea when it comes to elections.)

(Just as an aside -- you think you are facing a long to-do list this Monday morning?  Wonder what the Holy Father's looks like.  Got to get all of this done by Friday 8 PM.)

Translations.

MrsDarwin is reminiscing about having translated Sartre's Huis Clos (No Exit) in college for a theater production, and I am sharing her distaste for English translations of it.

From her first post:

One thing I noticed quickly was that of the small number of translations I could find, none of them made use of Sartre's own phrasing, so essential in creating from the very first lines the ennui of Hell and the cyclical feel of the plot.

Garcin, il entre et regard autour de lui. -- Alors voila.

Le Garçon. -- Voila.

Garcin. -- C'est comme ça...

Le Garçon. -- C'est comme ça.

Stuart Gilbert's translation starts off:

Garcin [enters, accompanied by the Room-Valet, and glances around him]: Hm! So here we are?

Valet: Yes, Mr. Garcin.

Garcin: And this is what it looks like?

Valet: Yes.

You don't have to know French to see that Gilbert is padding here.

 

Even though I read French pretty well, I sometimes would rather read a work in English translation just so I don't have to work too hard to understand it. Not so with Huis Clos. Maybe it is just because the French isn't very difficult, but I have always found it easier to read in the original -- I encountered it first in the original, and all the English translations bug me because they aren't the play I remember.

MrsDarwin posts a sample of her own translation here. I much prefer it to the one she was working from.

Here is a little Sartre-translation story of my own:

In high school, fourth-year French, we read Sartre's Les Jeux Sont Faits, a novel with themes of powerlessness to change past choices. My teacher (really, a great teacher, one of my best) told us off-hand that the title meant something like "The Game is Up" or "The Jig is Up," but she didn't spend much time on it.

I remember being displeased with that rough translation. I knew from the context, roughly, what the title meant (along the lines of "There's no going back now"). I also recognized that neither "The Game is Up" or "The Jig is Up" really captured that meaning perfectly -- those have connotations of guilty discovery, which is technically a theme in the book but is a minor theme, not really worthy of the title. It bugged me.

This is before Wikipedia and Google, you understand.

Some years later I was watching Casablanca, some scene in the casino; extras, gamblers, placed bets in the background, and the real action was happening between the movie stars in the foreground. I would have to watch it again to find the specific scene. Suddenly my ears pricked up, because in the background the French-speaking roulette croupier was announcing that the time for placing bets was over: "Les jeux sont faits, les jeux sont faits."

I yelped, "So that's what that means!" confusing my companion. That is exactly what the title means. There is no going back now; we will only watch as the ball falls into place, and the table will be divided into winners and losers.

Idioms are fun, but you have to be able to recognize them. Googling the phrase now, I discover that the novel's title has been rendered most often as The Chips Are Down. I don't frequent Las Vegas often enough to know what roulette croupiers say there to stop people from betting as the wheel's turning begins to slow.

 

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Starting over and accepting where you are.

I have a routine for each day of the week, but sometimes I say "Oh, screw this" and blow it all off for a few hours.

I am not one of those magazine people who says "Plans?  Schedule?  What-EV" and instead of doing math or hauling everyone to music lessons or folding all the laundry, spontaneously curls up on the couch with a lapful of children and reads stories all morning, or goes to the park and plays tag, or bakes charmingly unkempt cookies, smiling knowingly as she checks herself in the mirror and removes a dab of frosting from her cheek.

I'm more apt to throw out the schedule so I can work on some intense project I've been putting off, not so much because the project needs to be done, or needs to be done by me, but because I miss concentrating intently on something that requires concentration.

It's all about me.  It's about the pleasure I get from that kind of work.  

I get to say to the children, "Go away.  I'm working."

+ + +

But after it's over I usually have a sort of bad taste in my mouth, because I don't have the same things to show for my morning that I would have had if I had stuck to the plan.  

We have lunch.  I make the kids help me clean up.  I put on a pot of coffee.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  Sanity has been restored to my environment:

... here too, at the desk...

... ahh.

 

+ + +

I would be a better parent and teacher if I didn't need quiet, tidiness, and silence for some scrap of time in the middle of the day.   Undoubtedly. 

But I would be a worse parent and teacher if I didn't recognize that need and make it happen.

+ + +

We have lunch around 12:30, finish cleaning up around 1:15, and I try to start up again around 2.  A lot of homeschoolers manage to be done by two, but not us.  It isn't that I'm not a morning person.  I am a morning person.  

That's exactly why I hate to spend my morning homeschooling the kids.

+ + + 

Anyway -- I feel a lot better at two o'clock, starting from the freshly-tidied first floor.  If I get the chance to tidy before bed -- so that I come downstairs to a similar scene, first thing in the morning -- so much the better.  When all that distracting clutter is cleared away, I can blog, or write letters, or plan -- I feel like I can get so much done before the coffee pot is empty.

I try, but it doesn't always happen.  Instead of sweeping up, I sit and have a beer with my husband after the kids go to bed.  Or I read a bedtime story.  Or I try to get the three-year-old to go to sleep first, and I fall asleep next to him.

None of these things are bad, of course.  One choice is not better or worse than the other.   They all have their merits.  

So hard, sometimes, to be serene about choices.   I want all the benefits of all the possible things I could do with my time.  I hate letting go of any of them.  I always long for the things that were incompatible with the choice I made.

I can see why meaningless, circular affirmations like "It is what it is" are popular.  What they really mean is a sort of "Oh, well" -- a refusal to be bothered by the way things turned out.  It all comes down to acceptance --

-- a strange word that I've blogged about before --

-- a word that has many different meanings, depending on its object, all of which come down to "receiving willingly or agreeably."

My time is a gift; I've chosen to use it a certain way; I've received a certain set of circumstances as a direct result of my choices -- so I've received circumstances I've chosen; I acknowledge a truth, that I can't have the might-have-beens.

+ + +

Here's the deal.  I had a jumbly sort of morning because we left the kitchen in disarray before going to bed last night.  

(Don't tell me that I don't have to let kitchen disarray jumble my morning.  It's what happens.)

We left the kitchen in disarray because we stayed up late, chatting over doppelbock, after the kids had gone to bed.  Even the little one had fallen asleep, nursing, in my lap.

We stayed up late because we started late, and we started late because I spent almost two hours that evening going to the gym.  I went because I wanted to say that I made it to the gym three times this week, instead of the two times that's been far more common lately.   And because skiing last week hurt my legs more than it did when I was exercising more.  And because Mark offered to deal with dishes and bedtime snack so I could go.  I went for that long because I wanted to feel the ache that comes from swimming a mile in forty-five minutes.  

I chose all those good things instead of a distraction-free morning, and I need to be thankful for them -- accept them graciously -- rather than complain.

+ + +

And now that I've finished my afternoon coffee -- and taken time to think clear thoughts -- it's time for me to get up and call the kids for math.  I think I'm ready now.  Are you?

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.

 

St. Giovanni (John) Bosco on discipline.

A few days ago on January 31, the Church celebrated the memorial of St. John Bosco. I had known that he was a priest who had founded orphanages and schools, and also that he is a patron saint of educators, particularly educators of boys; but I had never read any of the saint's own words before encountering them in the Office of Readings for that day. Here is an excerpt:

It is easier to become angry than to restrain oneself, and to threaten a boy than to persuade him. Yes, indeed, it is more fitting to be persistent in punishing our own impatience and pride than to correct the boys. We must be firm but kind, and be patient with them...

See that no one finds you motivated by impetuosity or wilfulness. It is difficult to keep calm when administering punishment, but this must be done...Let us place ourselves in their service. Let us be ashamed to assume an attitude of superiority. Let us not rule over them except for the purpose of serving them better.

...[I]n correcting their mistakes we must lay aside all anger and restrain it so firmly that it is extinguished entirely.

There must be no hostility in our minds, no contempt in our eyes, no insult on our lips. We must use mercy for the present and have hope for the future....In serious matters it is better to beg God humbly than to send forth a flood of words that will only offend the listeners and have no effect on those who are guilty.

This all seemed so sensible that I wanted to know more. First I found this translation of an interview that a journalist did with Don Bosco in 1884:

Reporter: Don Bosco, could you comment on your educational philosophy and the methods you use in your schools that are so much admired? How do you manage to maintain discipline when dealing with so many boys?

Don Bosco: The Salesian way of educating the young is quite simple. Basically, I insist on letting boys be boys. Let them play and enjoy themselves as much as they want as long as God is not offended. But if I have a philosophy of education, it consists in discovering a boy’s best qualities and then exploiting them to his advantage. You must admit, sir, that any person is at his best when he is doing what he likes and does best. Children are the same. Promote their positive qualities and they will thrive. As for discipline—love and respect for the young is the answer. In the 46 years I have worked among children, never once have I had to resort to corporal punishment, which by the way is very much in vogue. And if I may say so, all those children who have come under my care have always continued to show me their love and respect.

I am very much glad to file this one away for mental reference. In the Catholic circles I move in, spanking and harsher forms of corporal punishment are not held up as "biblical" requirements of good parenting, the way you sometimes find them in evangelical Protestantism; but I do occasionally encounter it and have seen more than one parish priest advocate it from the pulpit.

Now, I am not saying I always live up to my ideals, but my ideal is never having to punish. And you know, I think if you go into parenting with the assumption that there's always a way to teach and discipline without punishing -- if you take the attitude that it's your responsibility to teach and discipline, and that punishment is a sort of last resort for when you've failed -- I think it's possible to reduce your reliance on it.

(The line between "punishment" and "teaching" is blurry, to be sure. For example, I don't think of requiring a child to pay restitution as a punishment, but others would. I am going for a "know it when I see it" sort of distinction here.)

Four kids in, and looking back, I have certainly learned humility in the "we don't punish" department, because I do fail, from time to time, to proactively teach and set expectations; or I get lazy, or irritable, and I go for the short-term solution. Nor am I above rapping a kid on the head to get his attention -- and if the child in question is a very physical, kinetic sort of child, I suspect that it may actually be an effective way to reach him. But my ideal hasn't changed. And Don Bosco has expressed it very well -- the idea is not to fail to punish, but to obviate the need for punishment.

So maybe in the future, I can mention when I am faced with the "The problem with kids today is that parents don't spank their kids anymore" attitude, I might mention my appreciation of St. John Bosco's wisdom.

Don Bosco once wrote a brief description of his philosophy of discipline, which he called "the Salesian Preventive Method" -- after St. Francis de Sales. (The Salesians were not founded by St. Francis, but by Don Bosco.) You can read it here. This is the introduction:

There are two systems which have been in use through all ages in the education of youth: the preventive and the repressive. The repressive system consists in making the law known to the subjects, and afterwards watching to discover the transgressors of these laws and inflicting, when necessary, the punishment deserved. According to this system, the words and looks of the superior must always be severe and even threatening, and he must avoid all familiarity with his dependents.

In order to give weight to his authority the Rector must rarely be found among his subjects, and as a rule only when it is a question of punishing or threatening. This system is easy, less troublesome, and especially suitable in the army and in general among adults and the judicious, who ought of themselves to know and remember what the law and its regulations demand.

Quite different from this and I might even say opposed to it, is the preventive system. It consists in making the laws and regulations of an institute known, and then watching carefully so that the pupils may at all times be under the vigilant eye of the Rector or the assistants, who like loving fathers can converse with them, take the lead in every movement and in a kindly way give advice and correction; in other words, this system places the pupils in the impossibility of committing faults.

This system is based entirely on reason and religion, and above all on kindness; therefore it excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement...

I may look a bit more closely at this later.

 

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The Goodreads 100-book meme.

I'm borrowing this meme from DarwinCatholic, because I haven't managed to post in a couple of days and I feel bad about it.

In the spirit of the 100 book meme, Goodreads has posted a fairly diverse group of novels for its members to rank, drawn from both the most popular and the most highly rated books from its readers' libraries. And in the true internet spirit of borrowing, I've typed up the list for the rest of us to pass around. Goodreads reports that its average user has read 27 out of the 100; I've read 58 (and Darwin has read 31), and I find that most of the ones I haven't are books I've seen around but haven't felt a great compulsion to take and read.

I copied the list from MrsDarwin and highlighted according to my reading history.  Here's my key:

Here's my key.  Note that if I've read it all the way through, it's bolded; if not, it's unbolded.

 

Read it

Read it, returned, re-read it at least once

 I have read it, but I barely remember it

Never read it (asterisk means I started it but didn't finish)

Interested in reading, based on what I know of it

Don't know enough about it to know whether I want to read it or not

• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Catcher in the Rye
• Fellowship of the Ring
• Pride and Prejudice*
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
• Romeo and Juliet
• Jane Eyre
• 1984
• Hamlet
• The Hobbit
• Brave New World
• The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
• The Great Gatsby
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Fahrenheit 451*
• Wuthering Heights
•  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• The Secret Garden
• Green Eggs and Ham
• Little Women* (in process of rediscovering by reading to children!)
• Of Mice and Men
• The Handmaid's Tale
• Lord of the Flies
• The DaVinci Code
• Frankenstein
• Dune
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Gone With The Wind
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• A Wrinkle in Time
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Slaughterhouse Five
• Anne of Green Gables
• Twilight
• Where the Sidewalk Ends
• Le Petit Prince 
• Memoirs of a Geisha
• The Princess Bride
• The Picture of Dorian Grey
• The Hunger Games
• Sense and Sensibility
• The Golden Compass
• Dracula
• The Color Purple
• The Kite Runner
• The Odyssey* 
• Anna Karenina*
• And Then There Were None
• Interview with the Vampire
• The Book Thief
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• The Joy Luck Club
• Little House on the Prairie
• The Giver
• Life of Pi
• Rebecca
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes*
• Ender's Game
• A Tale of Two Cities
• L'Étranger
• East of Eden
• Les Miserables
• The Bell Jar
• Lolita
• The Road
• The Time Traveler's Wife
• A Prayer for Owen Meany
• The Stand
• Catch-22
• The Sun Also Rises
• The Pillars of the Earth
• Crime and Punishment
• The Good Earth
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being
• The Help
• Watchmen
• Lonesome Dove
• Water for Elephants
• Outlander
• American Gods
• The Poisonwood Bible
• My Sister's Keeper
• The Master and Margarita*
• The Notebook
• Like Water for Chocolate
• Beloved
• Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Invisible Man
• A Game of Thrones
• The Fountainhead
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
• Ulysses
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
• The Brothers Karamazov
• The House of the Spirits
• Fight Club
• Middlesex
• Interpreter of Maladies

 Any comments, arguments, or willingness to take a stab?