bearing blog

Big-person questions.

Yesterday morning my daughter, who was sitting in a wheelchair next to her IV pole, looked across the rumpled hospital bed at me and asked, with a nearly expressionless face, "Is this the kind of sickness that can make me... that can make people... die?"

I said: "When people have an appendix that gets as sick as yours did, if they don't get the surgery you had, then yes, they do sometimes die. You were very, very sick before your surgery. But we took you to the hospital, and the radiologist figured out what was wrong, and right away you went into surgery, so you are going to get better. Almost everyone gets better after they have the surgery you had. And this is a very good hospital."

She thought about that for a while.

I said: "Were you worried about that?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad you asked me about it so I could answer you."

She looked back at me with almost no expression on her face. There had been no hint of weeping or of anger or of anything else.

Then she said: "Why does God make some people get sick?"

My first thought was: Am I living in some kind of schlocky TV show where children get sick and ask "Why does God make people get sick?"

And then I thought, I just got handed a major Catholic-parent pop quiz. Better get this one right.

So I said something I keep in my pocket to buy myself time:

"That is a question that many very smart people have been talking about and discussing for a very long time. It is one of the most important questions that people have ever come up with. So I am glad you are thinking about it, because everyone has to ask it eventually."

And then I said:

"Some people think that it isn't God who makes people get sick. They have the idea that it was when original sin came into the world, that sickness and suffering came into the world with it."

She looked at me expressionlessly.

I continued: "And other people say that God lets some people get sick so that all of us can learn how to be compassionate and kind to each other. By helping the people who are suffering."

She nodded -- not in a "yes, I agree with you" way, nor in a "That makes sense, Mom" kind of way, but in a "That's enough out of you" way. She looked down into her lap.

I waited a moment and then I added, "That really is an important question. People have been talking and wondering about the answer to that since before Jesus was born, even. It's in the book of Job."

She asked to be put back in her bed. I helped get her in -- she is able to scoot herself around a little bit, and I am able to lift her a little bit, so together we can do it -- and soon she dropped off to sleep.

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I sat back down in the vinyl recliner in the dimmed room -- the sunlight filtered through the curtains we had drawn across the east-and fired up iBreviary for the first time since we got here. Yesterday was the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, one of my favorites. I clicked the "Lauds" button and decided on the common of martyrs.

The reading was second Corinthians 1:3-5:

Praised be the God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation! He comforts us in all our afflictions and thus enables us to comfort those who are in trouble, with the same consolation we have received from him. As we have shared much in the suffering of Christ, so through Christ do we share abundantly in his consolation.

What do you think? Did I pass the quiz? I think maybe I got a fifty percent.

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This morning things are looking up. Catheter is out, although she has a job to do before she can be sure that she won't have to have it in again; also, she has been promised a chance to try mashed potatoes at lunchtime. Mark went to work for a couple of hours. I am about to comb her hair while she sits in a wheelchair and watches The Price is Right.

The surgical team is optimistic that she will not develop a secondary infection, since there has been no fever. We are basically waiting for the digestive system to start working again, including fluids in and out, before she can come off the IV and be discharged.

Thanks for all your prayers. If you feel moved to add more, let's all ask that she not need another catheter because that part wasn't any fun at all....

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Brief request.

Frequent commenter Jamie of Light and Momentary is begging your prayers:  here, here, and here.

My husband has three sisters. The middle sister ... and her husband agreed to be our children's guardians in the event of disaster.... Now they have one little girl who will be 2 in July and another who turned 1 earlier this month.

Her husband was just diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. It's stage IV...

She is asking for prayers:

• first, for miraculous healing; 
• second, for strength (both physical and emotional); 
• third, for a peaceful transition as they ease their younger daughter out of their bed and into a crib.

 ...Initially they told him he might have a year, but it is looking more like a matter of days until the end. 

The third intention, in its everyday disguise, almost undid me.  Please offer what you can.

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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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.

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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?

Post secondary education questions: the religious education.

_{(This post is part of the series on postsecondary education.)}

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This post is the third in a set that includes "The provider's education" and "The humanist's education."

I want to emphasize again, as I did in the other posts, that I am aware that the three "educations" don't separate neatly, that they are overlaid upon one another and every element supports every other (and in some ways contains every other). It is really a sort of trinity, and carving it up into three separate purposes necessarily obscures the whole.

That doesn't stop me from trying, because I think it will help. Here is a carefully chosen subset of the elements of the necessary content of education that relates most directly to religious and spiritual development and the reception of the sacraments.

Elements of moral, religious and spiritual development that THE FAMILY is expected to inculcate and teach

That true happiness is found in God alone, the source of every good.

The family teaches that the material and instinctual dimensions are subordinate to interior and spiritual ones.

The family must teach children a sense of true love, understood as sincere solicitude and disinterested service.

The family must introduce children to personal dialogue with God.

The family must teach children to know God, to worship, and to love their neighbor.

The family must teach children the Gospel.

The family should educate children so that, if they marry, they can by means of that education establish their family in moral conditions which tend to promote or facilitate the establishment of that family.

The family is called to give children a sex education that is built on the premise that love is self-giving.

The family must educate the child for chastity.

The family must teach children to know and respect the moral norms of human sexuality.

The family builds the proximate preparation for the sacraments of Christian marriage upon the foundation laid in the remote preparation for marriage.

The family will teach, in that proximate preparation, that marriage is an interpersonal relationship of a man and woman that has to be continually developed.

The family will encourage, in that proximate preparation, the study of the nature of conjugal sexuality.

The family, in proximate preparation, will prepare young people for the family apostolate, for collaboration with other families, and membership in groups set up for the human and Christian benefit of the family.

The family must begin the formation of the child's conscience, awakening the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law.

Elements of religious and spiritual development that THE INDIVIDUAL is enjoined to seek for himself

Each person must form his conscience to enjoin him to do good and avoid evil.

Each person must form his conscience to bear witness to the authority of truth in reference to God.

Each person must form his conscience to welcome the commandments.

An individual becomes capable of respecting and fostering the nuptial meaning of the body by building on the virtue of chastity.

An individual grows responsibly in human sexuality by building on the moral norms that are taught by the parents.

An individual learns control and right use of his inclinations by building on the moral norms that are taught by the parents.

A layperson is encouraged to receive a sufficient formation in theology.

 

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To these I should add that, on the cusp of entering into marriage, the individual is responsible for obtaining the educational content of immediate preparation for marriage.

Recall that we have been restricting the discussion mostly to the case of young people who will likely be called to marriage and family life, so preparation for holy orders need not here be considered. In the Roman rite, the formation in the sacraments of baptism, Eucharist, penance and confirmation generally take place under the parents' auspices, unless for some reason confirmation was delayed. (It isn't unheard of for Catholic parents to agree to let a young person decide for himself when -- if ever -- to be confirmed. Let's not debate right now whether that is a good idea, and simply point out that it could happen that a young adult might put off confirmation until later.). But the immediate sacramental preparation for marriage is educational in nature and is the responsibility of the engaged couple.

It seems pretty clear that a complete foundation in moral and religious training -- as distinct from "theology," which is an academic subject -- is the responsibility entirely of the parents. Latent competency in practically every aspect of the Christian life, married or single, ought to be developed before the child is emancipated.

In this day and age, it seems to me, parents need to anticipate future challenges and aggressively head then off by equipping their children with the tools to find answers to those challenges. This may mean stepping outside comfort zones and being more frank than parents of earlier generations would have had to be.

Here is an example that is highly specific to Catholicism. Parents can expect young adults to encounter aggressive promotion of contraception as a necessary and good part of a healthy marriage. Unfortunately, we can expect them to encounter the viewpoint that contraception is healthy and necessary even from organizations that are directly connected to the Catholic church. Many of us have heard stories from people who claim they were given permission to use contraception in the confessional itself.

Because parents can expect young people to encounter this view, parents have (I would argue) a serious responsibility to equip their adolescents with clear information about trustworthy sources of Catholic teaching, to provide enough medical and biological information about licit means of family planning to counteract common falsehoods about its efficacy and difficulty, and to discuss family planning as a specific area in which to live the truth that love is self-giving.

That is just one example.

Parents should not count on a religious college to inculcate values that they have failed to pass on. It seems plausible that parent and offspring together could come to the conclusion that a particular private religious school could offer necessary support to a particular young person's development, and that the extra cost would be well spent. But it doesn't seem plausible to conclude that a private religious school is objectively necessary.

Very little of the religious and spiritual formation delineated here is dependent on formal enrollment in an institution of higher education. Mostly, it seems, the individual is called to maintain and build upon the foundation laid in childhood and adolescence: to continue forming his conscience, to distinguish good from evil in ever thornier dilemmas, to deepen his resolve through constant practice of right living.

Remember that the young person not enrolled in a private religious school still has access to a parish (and that needn't be the one his parents and younger siblings attend); he still has access to voluntary religious associations and clubs; he still has access to religious publications; he still has access to the sacraments; he still has access to private prayer. If he is enrolled in a public college or lives near one, there are likely student religious organizations available. Many of the same advantages of studying at a private religious college can be found in these other environments.

Mysterious nouns.

Why do we say "the Annunciation" and "the Visitation?"

Why don't we say "the Announcement" and "the Visit?"

I mean, look at the other Joyful Mysteries. Sure, "nativity" and "presentation" are kind of highfalutin words, but with "Presentation" there isn't any common synonym I can think of, fand as for "nativity" I am sure I have heard people announce the third mystery as "The Birth of our Lord" without so much as a hiccup. And come on -- we have never to my knowledge used a fancy word for the fifth mystery. It's "the Finding."

If "Finding" is good enough, and we don't have to say things like "the Location of Our Lord in the Temple" then why can't the first mystery be "the Announcement" and the second "the Visit?" As far as I can tell, Mary is unique not only by virtue of her immaculate conception -- she is also the only person in the history of the English language ever to "visitate" anybody.

Yes, this is what passes for meditation in my brain sometimes. I have to roll with what works.

Past, present, future in the Canticle of Zechariah.

I try, imperfectly, to pray at least some of the Divine Office every week. It suits me, and it doesn't, and that is probably good for me. I like the parts that change from day to day; I get tired of the parts that are the same day after day. I usually speed through the Invitatory at a quick mumble, unless it has been a few days since I have managed to pick up the breviary, and then it is like a cool drink of water. I don't mind the Canticle of Mary, because I don't get to Evening Prayer as often as I would like. I get very tired of the Canticle of Zechariah.

Jen Fulwiler at Conversion Diary once assembled a stable of bloggers to post about the Our Father, one word at a time, a series which turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself (I hammered out a meditation on "Earth" in about twenty minutes, and I rather like it). More recently another blogger, Sarah Reinhard, did the same thing for the Hail Mary.

These meditations are useful because they breathe a little new life into a prayer that we have all said so many times that it risks becoming empty, wasted, like exhausted soil. I am not the one to do this, at least not right now, but maybe those of us who pray the Divine Office could use a little of that for the 95th Psalm and the Canticle of Zechariah. Every day is just a little too often for me to keep getting something new out of these (and YES I have already noted the irony implicit in the 95th Psalm being about the stubborn Israelites complaining about the same old same old every day for forty years and their hearts going astray and all that).

Anyway, the last time I opened the breviary to the Canticle of Zechariah I did notice something somewhat new to me, so I thought I would share. Here is the text as it appears in the LOTH:

Blessed be the Lord,The God of Israel; He has come to His people and set them free.

He has raised up for us a mighty Saviour, born of the house of His servant David.

Through His holy prophets He promised of old that He would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us.

He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy Covenant.

This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham:

To set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship Him without fear, holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our life.

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our Lord the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Glory to the Father,and to the Son,and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, Amen.

 

This time, the structure of the canticle stood out to me, the way it speaks of past, present, and future. Check it out:

Present: this has to do with the stuff that is happening in the moment that Zechariah speaks.

He has come to His people and set them free.

He has raised up for us a mighty Saviour, born of the house of His servant David.

The Savior is still in utero at the moment, but the setting free has already begun.

Past: This has to do with the whole history of Israel, which is characterized here entirely as a promise by God to Israel (although you will note that the Covenant, which took two to tango, is mentioned, it is entirely in the context of mercy):

Through His holy prophets He promised of old that He would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us.

He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy Covenant.

This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham:

To set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship Him without fear, holy and righteous in His sight all the days of our life.

Look at those promises: to save Israel from its enemies, from all who hate it; to show mercy -- at the same time as He remembers the covenant in which they made promises that they would keep only imperfectly. Also to set Israel free "to worship Him without fear," which could be characterized a couple of ways: it could mean that they are free from persecution from those enemies, so that it isn't dangerous to openly worship the God of Israel; or it could mean that even if there is persecution, that they can worship without "fear" of the persecution, perhaps firm in the knowledge that those enemies can destroy body but not soul, can strike at the nation but will not exterminate it; or it could mean that somehow they can worship God without fearing God. One or all of those is linked with a promise that the people will be "holy and righteous in his sight."

Future: This is the part that has not yet come to pass, and remains indefinite, as Zechariah moves from revelation of the present and rumination about the past to prophesying of the future. It is in two pieces.

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Here we have the very specific prophecy aimed at the infant John the Baptist, followed by something further on. Note that "the dawn from on high shall break upon us" is presented as a future event, while the raising up of the Savior is presented as something that has just happened now -- so I am inclined to think that the breaking of the dawn does not represent the birth of Christ, but something else. The proclamation of the kingdom of God -- the central of the five Mysteries of Light -- seems to fit.

These three parts of the prayer -- past, present, future -- are bracketed by, shall we say, two timeless bits. The introduction is eternal:

Blessed be the Lord,The God of Israel;

...and the conclusion, which isn't part of what Zechariah said, of course, but we add it to the end of all the canticles, is, er, also concerned with past, present, and future, reminding us that the whole shebang is eternally the doing of the Three-in-One:

Glory to the Father,and to the Son,and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, Amen.

I am not sure why the overall structure jumped out at me just then, but it did, and I rather appreciate the canticle a bit more now. It seems a coherent whole: less a prayer to be mumbled through, and more a piece of poetry. Something composed.

Imperceptible change.

From today's Office of Readings (Prime).  I arranged the paragraph breaks and indentations to highlight the parallelism.

We are afflicted...

but we are not crushed;

full of doubts, 

we never despair.

We are persecuted 

but never abandoned; 

we are struck down

but never destroyed....

While we live we are constantly being delivered to death for Jesus' sake,

so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh.

 

This is, of course, part of the "earthen vessels" discourse in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians (chapter 4).

 I am particularly taken, this morning, with 

[F]ull of doubts, we never despair.

The common conception of faith is that it is the opposite of doubt -- that we have faith in just exactly the measure that enjoy freedom from doubt.  Not so.  

It's true that "never despairing" is technically the flowering of the virtue of hope, but it's in the face of doubt that hope does all its work -- and you can't tell me that hope only blooms where faith fails.  Doubt, therefore, cannot be a failure of faith.  

Like the afflictions, persecutions, and blows with which it is made parallel in the passage, doubts are, I think, something that happens to us.  

Faith and hope are among the possible responses to such doubts, those responses being something that is  engendered by us -- that  comes from us -- in cooperation with grace.   

I maintain that it's quite unfortunate that fides -- faith -- has come in English to connote mostly "belief" or "lack of doubt."  Much better to think of it via its cognates fidelity and faithfulness.  These carry a connotation of action, of a series of decisions.  "Faith" in English has come to mean something that happens to you.  "Fidelity" and "faithfulness" still mean something you choose daily -- like hope and charity.

I'm also taken, today, by

While we live we are constantly being delivered to death...

and, along with it, the line a few paragraphs later that goes

We do not lose heart, because our inner being is renewed each day even though our body is being destroyed at the same time.

Probably those lines were originally meant to encourage and strengthen people who are looking death right in the face.  I come at it from another point of view, at least now.  If we are healthy and feeling pretty good, it is possible to forget that "while we live we are constantly being delivered to death."  

It's true, though.  The cells die every moment.   The collapse has been going on for a long time.

If only my inner being could be renewed each day, as imperceptibly but steadily as my body is being destroyed.    Hope is, I think, believing that it can be so; faith is deciding to live as if we are certain.

More on First Saturdays: the results of an experiment I didn't know I was doing.

Some time ago, while I was working on the Total Consecration, I wrote about my reluctance to enter deeply into Marian devotions -- a reluctance that was brought into high relief when I encountered a certain online book by Fr. William Most that discussed Mary as "co-Redemptrix":

"This is the kind of Marian writing that makes the tops of Protestants' heads blow off. ...[A]s I read it, I found myself struggling with some of the concepts, precisely because of the Protestant, anti-Marian influence in American Christian culture. It was very edifying, because intellectually, Father Most's arguments make a great deal of sense to me. And yet the logical conclusion of his arguments suggests an attitude toward the Blessed Virgin that feels radical to me. Deep down, it seems, I feel a sort of repulsion against fully embracing the idea of Mary as intercessor, which as I search my history seems can only have come from contact with American Protestantism. I didn't even realize that I felt that internal repulsion until reading Fr. Most's arguments forced me to confront it."

 

I have long had that feeling about many Marian devotions. Take, for example, the Five First Saturdays devotion. Originating in a request that Our Lady reportedly made in an apparition to Lucia Santos, it is a superficially pleasant-sounding-enough activity: Attend Mass, say a rosary, go to Confession, and spend fifteen minutes in meditation, all with the intention of making reparation for sins committed against the mother of Jesus. Do it five first Saturdays in a row, and you are done. A simple little thing, not terribly demanding, a one-time commitment, like making a pilgrimage.

But I was always bothered by the fact that, in recommending it to us, the Church, or Mary, didn't stop there, but instead went on to promise something in return. Here is a direct quote of what Sister Lucia reports that Mary told her in her vision:

"I promise to assist at the hour of death, with the graces necessary for salvation, all who on the First Saturday of five consecutive months confess their sins, receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to my Immaculate Heart."

One resistance:  I felt that this promise ...cheapened the devotion somehow. And that Mary had made it that much harder to do it with the purpose of making reparation, by dangling a carrot of promised graces before us.

It felt presumptuous too. All I have to do is check off these items, and I get the graces necessary for salvation? (I hadn't noticed the subtle difference between promising salvation, and promising the graces necessary for salvation.)

Finally, it seemed disturbingly superstitious, which is to say that I could not see any logical or natural connection between "do these things now, and when you die, possibly far off in the future, after who knows what temptations have assailed you and after you have failed in who knows how many ways, you will get something you don't deserve, just because you checked off the boxes." Even if I mean it now, suppose I become hard and unrepentant later? How can doing this now protect me and help me then? This put it in company with a number of other Marian devotions, e.g., the wearing of the Brown Scapular (what? Die with your magic necklace on and you're good to go? How does THAT work?)

Okay, well, I decided to try to do it anyway. I get Saturday mornings off, at least if Mark isn't traveling, and so I didn't have much excuse not to give it a whirl. I prayed for the grace to purify my intentions, so that I really could do it with the purpose of making reparation; I found a local parish that had a Saturday morning Mass; and off I went, on the first Saturday in July, which turned out to be the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I went on to complete the devotion over the next four months as prescribed.

For the benefit of anyone else who is creeped about Marian devotions because they smack of superstition, presumption, and illogical connections, I want to report back on two results that had the effect of removing my creeped-outedness completely. The caveat is that they are specific to me -- I haven't the foggiest idea whether other people would get similar results. Another caveat is that I can only speak for this moment in time -- for all I know I may think differently after life has thrown more curveballs at me. I am just throwing it out there, as a sort of personal testimony, in the now.

Direct result #1 of doing the Five First Saturdays: I discovered that I rather like going to Mass and confession once a month. This was a bit of a surprise. I rather thought I would be ready to have a "Woo-hoo, I did it, now I'm done!" party. Instead, by the time I had been through five of them, I wanted to keep it up. And so now it is sort of an established habit of mine. I go to Mass on the first Saturday of the month, if I can. I show up early enough to say the rosary with the other folks who are there. I go to Confession. After my penance I stick around for fifteen minutes. I like it. I don't know why I never thought of going to Mass on Saturday mornings before, along with the trip to the gym and the library and getting my hair cut and running personal errands and all those other things I try to do in those few hours I have to myself each week. It was a great idea that I somehow never came up with on my own. I don't know for sure if I will keep it up for the rest of my life, but it has certainly lasted longer than the five Saturdays I originally signed up for, and who knows how much good I will get out of it? Maybe exactly what is necessary.

Direct result #2: On the second Saturday, the priest in the confessional advised me to make the Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary. If you have been following along at all, you know that the Total Consecration, encompassing as it does pretty much all authentic Marian devotion, feels to me transcendently more radical than something like the five first Saturdays. Here I was, just trying to check off the boxes and asking please for the grace to do it with the right intentions and not the wrong ones, and now I was being invited to go deeper. I went away knowing I had at least a responsibility to find out more about the Consecration and to discern whether I should make it. You know by now that I did this, and that I made the Consecration in the fall.

Has it changed me in any real way? I can't know that for sure. I hope so. But its totality, inherently, promises more than five Saturdays seems capable of promising. The Five First Saturdays seemed so mean a commitment; so much more might happen to me afterwards; it seemed insane to accept that in any natural way, in any just way, they could be part of the cause of graces received maybe fifty years from now or more. But the Total Consecration promises to be a bridge across the unknown future, between now and that hour of my death, across all the pitfalls that could still swallow me, across the pavement of my good intentions. It is not a guarantee, but it is an accessible path from here to there. And there is no doubt that the invitation came as a result of the First Saturdays.

Obviously there is no way I can generalize from my experience to anyone else's. I only know what is inside me. And I have written before that I am fully aware of the proclivity of the human mind to see patterns wherever we want to see them. Perhaps I am only unconsciously justifying my irrational decisions by overlaying a perception of rationality that comes from outside myself and cannot be falsified by any external test. Like persisting in the belief that my spouse loves me; I can't prove its truth or falsity, but it is certainly convenient to think so.

It is just that I tried something that I couldn't make sense of, and received a result that -- well -- not so much made it make sense, as left the possibility that it could make sense. And as a result, I am not sorry I tried. YMMV.

 

Par, avec, en, pour.

I posted a couple of days ago about being bothered by the difficult-to-parse prepositions in liturgical phrases, such as in the Doxology and in scriptural passages like "in Christ shall all be brought to life."

One of the things that pleased me about St. Louis de Montfort's True Devotion to Mary was a little section near the end, where he really delved into four different prepositional phrases with Mary as their object.

[T]here are some very sanctifying interior practices [of this devotion] for those whom the Holy Ghost calls to high perfection.

These may be expressed in four words: to do all our actions by [or through] Mary, with Mary, in Mary, and for Mary; so that we may do them all the more perfectly by [or through] Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus."

Let's first take the phrasing back to the original French to clear up some ambiguities in the translated text. It goes like this: par Marie, avec Marie, en Marie et pour Marie.

I have two different translations of the text, one of which gives us "by" for par, and the other of which gives "through." If you had more than a little French then you know that par can be translated with either word; the sense is "by way of" or "via" or "mediated by." It does not signify "next to" (as "by" sometimes means in English) nor "from one side to the other" (as "through" sometimes means in English). Avec and pour correspond closely with "with" and "for," respectively. En is one of two common prepositions translated as "in" (the other is dans), and it can mean in a place, or in a state, or in a period of time -- or by a type of transportation vehicle: as English speakers would say you go somewhere by car or by plane, the French say en voiture or en avion. it isn't in the literal sense of "enclosed within."

But we are not stuck speculating on meanings just based on our high school French, because St. Louis goes on to explain more precisely what he means by each of these four prepositional phrases.

Take the first of the four. "faire toutes ses actions par Marie" (to do every action through Mary, or "all through Mary"):

We must [il faut] do all our actions by/through [par] Mary; that is to say, we must obey her in all things, and in all things conduct ourselves by her spirit, which is the Holy Spirit of God...

In order that the soul may let itself be led by Mary's spirit, it must first of all renounce its own spirit and its own lights and wills before it does anything...

Secondly, we must deliver ourselves to the spirit of Mary to be moved and influenced by it in the manner she chooses. We must put ourselves and leave ourselves in her virginal hands, like a tool in the grasp of a workman, like a lute in the hands of a skillful player.... This can be done simply, and in an instant, by one glance of the mind, by one little movement of the will, or even verbally, by saying, for example, "I renounce myself, I give myself to thee, dear Mother..."

Thirdly, we must, from time to time, both during and after the action, renew the same act of offering and union...

The second of the four phrases is "faire toutes ses actions avec Marie" (to do every action with Mary, or "all with Mary").

...that is to say, we must in all our actions regard Mary as an accomplished model of every virtue and perfection[,] which the Holy Ghost has formed in a pure creature for us to imitate according to our little measure. We must therefore in every action consider how Mary has done it, or how she would have done it had she been in our place. For that end we must examine and meditate on the great virtues which she practiced during her life...particularly ...her lively faith... her profound humility... and her divine purity....

The third of the phrases is "faire toutes ses actions en Marie" (to do every action in Mary, or "all in Mary." Significantly, the saint does not tell us how to do everything, or anything, "in Mary." It is the only one of the four that lacks specific instructions. He seems not to know how one "does" an action "in Mary." Apparently there is no tip or trick that we can perform that, along with an action, makes that act happen "in" Mary.

But he does tell us that, if only we can know certain truths, perhaps we can "understand this practice." What follows is a lengthy description of what Mary is, what kind of "place" she represents. Here is an excerpt:

Thoroughly to understand this practice, we must first know that our Blessed Lady is the true terrestrial paradise of the New Adam, and that the ancient paradise was but a figure of her...

The Holy Ghost, by the mouth of the Fathers, also styles the Blessed Virgin the Eastern Gate, by which the high priest, Jesus Christ, enters the world and leaves it.... The sanctuary of the Divinity, the repose of the Most Holy Trinity, the throne of God, the city of God, the temple of God, the altar of God, the world of God...

..."My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed... a fountain sealed up."...in that virginal bosom, the soul shall be nourished with the milk of grace and maternal mercy... it shall be delivered of its troubles, fears and scruples; it shall be in safety against all its enemies...it shall be formed in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ in it.

Maybe the saint means to say that "in" Mary is not a way of doing things so much as it is a state of being, a state to which we can aspire through intellectual meditation and acts of trust and self-abandonment.

Finally, the fourth phrase: "faire toutes ses actions pour Marie" (to do everything for Mary, "all for Mary," the "Totus tuus" of Pope John Paul II's personal motto).

As we have given up ourselves entirely to her service, it is but just that we do everything for her as servants and slaves... [W]e must not remain idle, but, supported by her protection, we must undertake and achieve great things for this august sovereign. We must defend her privileges when they are disputed; we must stand up for her glory when it is attacked; we must draw all the world, if we can, to her service... we must speak and cry out against those who abuse her devotion to outrage her Son... we must pretend to no recompense for our little services, except the honor of belonging to so sweet a Queen, and the happiness of being united through her to Jesus her Son...

I think there are several interesting things to be taken away from this discussion.

First, although (probably because of the Pope's motto) the object of the devotion is often summarized as "Totus Tuus," or "All for You" -- all for Mary, or for Jesus through Mary -- it is actually a bit more complicated than that. It's not just "all for," but also "all through, all with, all in" Mary -- and all of that in order that everything we do, we do "through, with, in, and for" Jesus, the ultimate end.

Pondering the four prepositions, I find it easiest to think of them in terms of Mary's role with respect to us. If we do all through Mary, we renounce our own spirit and take up her own, to be led and guided and employed as she pleases. If we do all with her, we are her imitators, she our model. If we do all in her, we trust ourselves to her protection. If we do all for her, she is to us a mistress and a Queen.

It is sort of tempting to think: well then, being "in" Mary is a sure path to being "in" Jesus, and doing our actions "through" Mary is a sure way to do them "through" Christ, and so on. I am not sure that the four prepositions can really be separated out that way. But I do think it is a very simple first step to try that "one little movement of the will" so that an act may be done "through" Mary: "I renounce myself, I give myself to thee." That is a place to start, even if we are puzzled by the saint's advice about "in," and if we are overwhelmed at the thought of imitating the summit of created humanity, and if we are unsure what she requires of her servants. St. Louis says that the important thing about renouncing ourselves is that we do it, that it doesn't matter if it feels any different; it is still real. No one on earth, no barrier at all can keep us from mentally renouncing ourselves in this way at every moment of our lives. And so even if "for" or "in" or "with" doesn't make sense, we can all start with "through." And since what it means is simply to be led by the Holy Spirit in everything, what Christian could object?