On the Sanctification of Time

In “Processing through the Courts of the Great King,” I spoke of how the many courtyards and chambers of the King’s palace prior to his throne room, or the many precincts and rooms of the Temple leading up to the Holy of Holies, could be a metaphor of a healthy Catholic spiritual life that culminates in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, but surrounds it with concentric layers of other kinds of prayer, devotion, and piety. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is the fons et culmen (font and apex) of the Christian life, but it is not the sum total of it — nor can it bear the weight of every need. I concluded the article thus:

We owe it to our King to prepare ourselves for His royal banquet, His wedding feast, and the Church has given us an abundance of ways in which we can do that: the Divine Office; Eucharistic Adoration; Lectio Divina; Confession; the Rosary; and so forth. The Mass is the crown jewel, to be sure, but it is not the entire crown; indeed, the jewel is given its appropriate place by the other materials that hold it and complement it.

The Divine Office

After the Mass, the most important public prayer offered by the Catholic Church is the Divine Office, a “sacrifice of praise” consisting of psalms, prayers, canticles, hymns, and readings divided into particular “hours” such as Lauds (morning prayer), Vespers (evening prayer), and Compline (night prayer). The shape and content of these magnificent liturgies come down to us from the monks of antiquity — in the West, above all from St. Benedict and the monastic empire inspired by his example and his Rule.

Characteristic of the Benedictine way of life is the sanctification of time through a calmly recurring cycle of prayer that permeates the day and night. In addition to the celebration of the Mass, the traditional Benedictine monk or nun prays communally seven times a day and once in the middle of the night, with the long office called Matins. In this way they fulfill what is said in the Book of Psalms: “Seven times a day I praise you” (118, 164), “I rose at midnight to give praise to thee” (118, 62), and “the just man meditates on the law day and night” (1, 2).

How beautiful is this patient, persevering dedication to set times of prayer, in order that the whole of time — the whole span of the day and stretch of the week, the month’s reach and the cycle of seasons, the passing years and decades and centuries, all of this human time — may be divinized, offered up to its unchanging Lord, penetrated with His grace, pregnant with sacred meaning and fruitful with a host of virtues!

This is the monastic life, this is the angelic life (says the Byzantine tradition), and we lay people are called to imitate it in some fashion, according to our ways and means. While the schedule of most modern lay people does not make it particularly easy to pray the Divine Office, it is often possible to find enough time in the morning for a short office like Prime, or in the evening for Vespers, or before bedtime for Compline. In fact, I am given to understand that before the Council, some used the expression “Prime and Compline Catholics” to refer to laity who made these two short hours the bookends of their day.

Being composed almost entirely from Scripture, the Divine Office is the most natural way to become intimately familiar with the Word of God, which will form our minds and hearts as Catholics. Lectio divina and the Divine Office fit together like hand in glove.

Sacred Conception of Time

It has struck me over the years how infrequently Catholics reflect on, or are even aware of, the difference between the secular conception of time and the sacred conception of time. Isaac Newton introduced the notion of absolute space and time, where space is seen as a giant grid of Cartesian coordinates, and time is seen as an equable ticking of a clock, all seconds, minutes, and hours being equal. This may be called temporal egalitarianism.

The premodern notion of time, in contrast, sees it as hierarchical, organic, and malleable. The day is understood to have a spiritually significant rhythm from dawn to noon to dusk to night, and each one of these parts has its own character, its own “weight” and role in the spiritual life, not to mention its function as a sign. The week has an internal dynamism emanating from the Sunday past and straining towards the Sunday to come, with certain days connected customarily to certain mysteries or saints, above all Friday’s connection to the Passion (hence, the rule of abstinence from flesh meat on the day when the flesh of God was crucified). Into the seasons of the year the great mysteries of the Catholic faith are woven, so that the cycle of nature mysteriously symbolizes the cycle of grace, each providing a key to the other. In short, the Catholic mind sees time as differentiated by days and seasons of feasting and fasting, by Sundays and Solemnities, by memorials, novenas, and processions.

As individuals and as communities, we should strive in big and little ways to live out a properly Catholic sense of time, understanding the calendar of days, weeks, and months as a recurrent cycle of celebrations of different persons—especially Our Lord and His Mother, but also the saints and angels. We should try to be aware of the Church calendar. “Whose feast is it today?” ought to be a question we ask every morning. Do we know when it is a major feast, e.g., the Nativity or Birthday of Our Lady, or the Exaltation of the Holy Cross? On the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, one might choose to pray the Stations of the Cross or the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. If it’s the feast day of a saint, we should invoke that saint in our prayer, think about him or her, and congratulate a fellow Catholic who shares the saint’s name.
 

The traditional Roman calendar

Levels of Time: (1) The Year

At the level of the year, numerous and profound are the differences between ecclesial time and secular time, especially in an explicitly secular country like the United States. For example, our secular year begins on January 1st, but the Western Church’s year begins with the First Sunday of Advent, while the Eastern Church’s begins in September.

The weeks before Christmas are a time of quiet expectancy (even called by the Eastern tradition “little Lent”), whereas they are an orgy of fake Christmas music and commercialism in the surrounding secular culture. Americans celebrate a Puritan Thanksgiving once a year, whereas Catholics celebrate thanks­giving every day with the Eucharistia, a Greek word that means “Thanksgiving.” Nowadays there are witches who dance around on the summer and winter solstices, but we have always celebrated these astronomical events by our own feasts: the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ in December and the Nativity of St. John the Baptist in June. As St. John himself said: “He must increase, I must decrease.” John’s birthday is observed right around the time when daylight begins to lessen; Jesus is born right around the time when daylight begins to lengthen. Easter, for us, lasts two months, whereas in the secular world it lasts for one weekend of bunny rabbits and chocolate.

The United States gives days off for things like dead presidents, dead soldiers, and labor; we Catholics celebrate the living saints who are at rest in heaven. When you start to think about it, the whole mentality is different. We need to be spiritually attuned to the universal Church calendar rather than taking our bearings from the secular and American. Not that we should disdain our secular holidays, but they are not holydays, and our own true and proper holydays should take precedence.

Levels of Time: (2) The Week

The week has a kind of sacred rhythm, beginning from and culminating in Sunday, the “Little Easter.” The secular world’s week is five days of work and two days of rest and relaxation to kick back and do whatever you feel like doing (which usually means taking it easy on Saturday and mowing the grass or doing other forbidden manual labor on Sunday).

The Christian perspective is different. There are six days of work, and one day of genuine rest—a rest of worship and prayer, of feasting and rejoicing with one’s family and friends. That is more than, and better than, mere “R&R.” We resist the reduction of the Lord’s Day to mere “time off” when we make Sunday Mass the pinnacle not only of Sunday but of the entire week. We get dressed up. We take time to prepare before Mass and make a thanksgiving afterwards, circumstances permitting. Perhaps one can come back to the chapel later on in the day to pray. In any event, one should not be thinking “what’s the most convenient way to get Mass over with so that I can get back to work or get out to play.” Sunday is not merely a means to something else; it is an image or echo of the ultimate end itself. In fact, for the Church Fathers, Sunday is a symbol of heaven and eternal life, so the way we treat Sunday is a bit like telling God what we think of the end or goal of our lives.

Levels of Time: (3) The Day

The day has its own internal rhythm. Not all hours are equal.

The morning, upon first waking, is the best time to consecrate our day to the Lord. When we retire for bed is the best time to examine our conscience, express sorrow for our sins, and commend our day’s work and our soul to God before entering the “little death” of sleep.

The source and summit of the day should be the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Eucharist is the sun from which all grace radiates, so if we want to be in the sun, we have to put ourselves in its direct rays. If one goes to morning Mass, one is establishing the day on its foundation, and the rest of the day flows from it. If one goes to Mass at or around noon, one is approaching it as a kind of peak or summit towards which the morning rises and from which the afternoon descends, a centerpoint on which the day is poised. If one goes to Mass in the evening, one is gathering up the day’s work into an offering to be made to the Lord.

It’s good for us to be consciously aware of the meaning that belongs to the choices we make and the actions we perform, so that we can leverage that awareness for our spiritual benefit. Moreover, it is highly praiseworthy to form a specific intention for each Mass one attends: “Lord, I desire to offer up this Holy Sacrifice with you for [X, Y, or Z].” By doing this, you have invested yourself in the Mass—something is at stake for you.

Holiness Above All

A last word about holiness. Blessed Ildefons Schuster, Cardinal Archbishop of Milan until his death in 1954, said this to his seminarians a few days before his death:

I have no memento to give you apart from an invitation to holiness. It would seem that people are no longer convinced by our preaching; but faced with holiness, they still believe, they still fall to their knees and pray. People seem to live ignorant of supernatural realities, indifferent to the problems of salvation. But when an authentic saint, living or dead, passes by, all run to be there…. Do not forget that the devil is not afraid of our [parish] sports fields and of our movie halls: he is afraid, on the other hand, of our holiness.

In the battle for souls that is raging in the world around us (and within us), holiness will always take precedence over any other weapon we can fight with. If we want to make the kingdom of God present in time, our holiness, which is inseparably linked with our life of prayer, is truly what comes first and last. Without it, we do not make God’s kingdom present, no matter how much we build, how much we persuade, how much we campaign and conquer the field. With God’s grace in our souls, however, even the smallest things we do gain inestimable value, while the great things we attempt are blessed—not necessarily with success as the world understands it, but with a fruitfulness that touches many souls. In the words of Blaise Pascal:

Do the little things as though they were great things, remembering that the majesty of Christ within us works them and lives our life; and do the great things as though they were no more than little things easily done, remembering the power of Christ within us. 

A Meditation on Fra Angelico’s Mocking of Christ by Br John Paul Puschautz O.P.

This is the second of two posts featuring meditations on frescoes painted by Fra Angelico on the walls of the cells at San Marco monastery in Florence, by Br John Paul Puschautz, a Dominican of the Western Province in the United States. Last time, we featured his meditation on the Annunciation; this week it is the Mocking of Christ.

John Paul has just completed his STL, and his thesis title was “Visio Divina with the Art of Fra Angelico as Mental Pilgrimage: A Way of Beauty and Perfection.” It is a scholarly development of a method of prayer analogous to lectio divina that uses sacred art for meditation rather than scriptural passages.

As I mentioned last time, contact Br John Paul through opwest.org if you want to publish his thesis. If it was published as a book. I would buy it and promote it.

A Meditation on Fra Angelico’s Annunciation, by Br John Paul Puschautz O.P.

This is the first of two posts featuring meditations on frescoes painted by Fra Angelico on the walls of the cells at San Marco monastery in Florence, by Br John Paul Puschautz, a Dominican of the Western Province in the United States.

The first is the Annunciation. John Paul has just completed his STL, and his thesis title was “Visio Divina with the Art of Fra Angelico as Mental Pilgrimage: A Way of Beauty and Perfection.” It is a scholarly development of a method of prayer analogous to lectio divina, but which uses sacred art for meditation rather than Scriptural passages.

If by chance any publishers read this, it strikes me that his thesis would be excellent material for a book. Certainly, I would buy it and promote it if it was published! You can contact him through opwest.org.

Thank you, Br John Paul, I learned a lot from your presentation.

Lectio Divina (5): Liturgical Proclamation and Personal Reading

Citing the words of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Ambrose, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum reminds all members of the Church of our responsibility to cling to the Word of God:

25. Therefore, all the clergy must hold fast to the Sacred Scriptures through diligent sacred reading and careful study, especially the priests of Christ and others, such as deacons and catechists who are legitimately active in the ministry of the word. This is to be done so that none of them will become “an empty preacher of the word of God outwardly, who is not a listener to it inwardly” [St. Augustine], since they must share the abundant wealth of the divine word with the faithful committed to them, especially in the sacred liturgy. The sacred synod also earnestly and particularly urges all the Christian faithful, especially religious, to learn by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures the “excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ” (Phil 3:8). “For ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” [St. Jerome]. Therefore, they should gladly put themselves in touch with the sacred text itself, whether it be through the liturgy, rich in the divine word, or through devotional reading, or through instructions suitable for the purpose and other aids which, in our time, with approval and active support of the shepherds of the Church, are commendably spread everywhere. And let them remember that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that God and man may talk together; for “we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine saying” [St. Ambrose]. 

This exhortation is something we all need to ponder—including those of us who love and cherish the usus antiquior. We, too, need to pay close attention to the readings read or chanted at Mass; it’s not as if taking Scripture seriously is some kind of Protestant or modernist innovation! In fact, Scripture’s “home” is most of all the liturgy, the Divine Office and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It will not do to react against charismatic excesses or the flaws of the Ordinary Form Lectionary by swinging to an extreme that fails to give to the Word of God the profound reverence it deserves—the homage of our minds and hearts, the deliberate attentiveness and personal application that causes the seed to take root.

I have noticed a strange phenomenon, namely, that traditionalists tend to swing to the opposite extreme on a lot of things, as if overreacting to the abuses around them. "The congregation singing at Mass? Oh, that's a Novus Ordo thing"—forgetting that St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, to name just the most outstanding, repeatedly urged the faithful to chant the Ordinary of the Mass, as indeed is completely fitting and easily done through regular exposure to the chant. "Read Scripture devotionally? Oh, that's a Protestant thing"—forgetting that the Bible is a Catholic book and that the saints of the Church were doing lectio divina for fifteen centuries before the Protestants ever showed up. "Follow along with the readings and prayers at Mass in a Missal? I can't be bothered, I'd rather just pray individually, and be in a pleasant holy haze for an hour." I'm not denying that the old Mass wonderfully promotes interior prayer, and certainly I would never say we should always be reading or singing, but it's no less true that we ought to put on the mind of Christ by joining in the public worship offered by the Mystical Body—and this involves at least some effort at getting acquainted with the content of that worship!

To get back to our main point: Scripture is most of all at home in the Mass, where it is like a jewel placed in a setting of precious metal, and it is our privilege as Catholics to attend to the voice of Almighty God when His very words are being offered up before Him as a sweet-smelling incense. Like everything else in the liturgy, the proclamation of the biblical readings is both for God's glory and for man's sanctification.

A contemporary author has spoken eloquently of these connections:

“Liturgical proclamation is obviously the place and privileged means of contact with the sacred text. There the living and active Word is returned to me in all its fullness. . . ‘It is he himself who speaks when the holy scriptures are read in church’ (Sacrosanctum Concilium 7).”[1]

This is because the Church’s worship is the activity of the Risen Christ, Head of the Church, together with all the members of His Mystical Body. The liturgy is His personal action for, and with, His people: He saves and sanctifies them, He gives them the grace to respond to Him in adoration, praise, blessing, contrition, supplication, thanksgiving. However, “the Church does not actualize its mystery or carry out its activity only in liturgical acts. It follows from this that, in the liturgy, the Word is living and active maximally though not exclusively”[2].

Of course the book itself is not the Word of God, only the means by which it is transmitted to me. But the reader of the book is a member of the Church. That reading takes place in the context of the ecclesial mystery, where the same Spirit who inspired the prophets and sacred writers is present and active. Therefore the text can be read in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.

Because we are members of Christ’s Body, we can continue to hear God’s Word outside of the liturgy—and in fact that continuation is what makes the public proclamation bear fruit within us as well as prepares us for the next reception of the Word. “All personal reading of the sacred text finds its center in liturgical hearing—as preparation for it, or as its continuation.”

Let me give some examples about how we might prepare ourselves for, or derive further fruit from, the liturgical hearing of the Bible.

• On Sundays or Holy Days, we might look at the day’s readings ahead of time, either the evening before or in the morning, and/or look at them again later that day, to impress the word more firmly on our souls. I have been amazed, personally, at how much more I get out of the reading or chanting of the Scriptures at Mass when I have already gone through the text, even if only cursorily, beforehand. It’s as if the ground had been plowed, and now there are furrows where the seeds can fall and find moisture.
• During Lent, where both the Roman Rite and the modern rite of Paul VI offer us daily readings at Mass, we might take as our lectio divina the very Epistle and Gospel of the day.
• I have seen it recommended to do lectio divina with the entirety of the Mass, from the Introit through the readings to the Communion, and this has indeed been very fruitful for me on the occasions when I’ve done it.
• If one is fortunate enough to be able to attend a public Divine Office at a monastery or parish, one may do the same thing: look over the psalms and other parts of the liturgy ahead of time and/or afterwards.

In such ways, we are nourishing our souls from the feast of the liturgy, preparing better for its celebration, returning to it in memory and love. Archbishop Magrassi comments:

A kind of spiritual exchange will take place. The soul, in its moments of prayer, will easily remain influenced by what moved it during the liturgy; it will relive it, probe it more deeply, personalize it in one-to-one dialogue with the divine speaker. On the other hand, what the soul experiences in these moments of prayer will, as it were, flow back to it as it listens during the liturgy. It will be totally present to the reading; it will listen more receptively and be more fully open. The two moments become complementary aspects of a single act.[3]

Lectio divina is an essential instrument in the life of the traditional Catholic. It has been a fundamental element (or better yet, foundation) of monastic life since the very beginning. It has been the recurrent life-giving devotion of countless saints. It has shaped the great theologians and mystics. It is recommended to us again and again by the popes and enriched with indulgences. It is a spiritual bread that feeds our hunger and yet causes us to hunger more and more for the Bread of Life, our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Eucharistic Presence and in His heavenly glory. “It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face from me.”

NOTES

[1] Archbishop Mariano Magrassi, O.S.B., Praying the Bible: An Introduction to Lectio Divina, 3.
[2] Ibid., 4. The next two quotations are from the same page.
[3] Ibid., 9-10.

(Part V of a multi-part series. Links to the other articles: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.)

Lectio Divina (4): Tools of the Workshop

Kate Edwards, of Saints Shall Arise, wrote a thoughtful piece, “Lectio divina: On memory, study and the Rule of Faith,” concerning the dangers of what might be called “raw” or “individualistic” lectio divina—that is, taking up the Bible without preparation, reading it without guidance, trying to figure it out completely on one’s own. This is the kind of thing that has led, in past centuries, to wild new heresies, and, among many people, to confusion.

She starts off by agreeing with the main theme of recent articles and talks on lectio divina:

Every Catholic should know the Bible well, for as St Benedict says in his Rule, "what page or utterance of the divinely inspired books of the Old and New Testament is not a most unerring rule of human life?" And how can we seek to know and imitate Christ if we don't actually really know what he did or taught? The various posts also emphasize that you don't have to have any special knowledge or training to do lectio divina, it is open to everyone.

But then she comes to her difficulty.

All the same, I'm not convinced anyone can or should just open the Bible and read, trusting only to the aid of the Holy Spirit. . . . Most modern advocates of lectio divina point to a twelfth century Carthusian source on the practice, which seems to advocate doing just that.  But can I suggest that a twelfth century Carthusian monk was not exactly operating in the same poorly catechized, theological vacuum that most twenty-first century lay Catholics are?
          St Benedict's monks, when they did their lectio, surely had the model of the Fathers to work from, with their careful probing of issues such as the reasons for differences between the various Gospel accounts of events, and ability to draw in a web of related verses to explain the one under consideration. When a medieval monk pondered a few verses of Scripture, he could draw on a vast volume of memorised knowledge to help him interpret what he was reading in the light of Scripture as a whole. Most monks knew the psalms by heart, and at least large chunks of the Gospels, so could use the common technique of interpreting a verse through others that used the same key words and ideas. They might also have been familiar with the patristic commentaries on the verses, not least from the readings at Matins each day. Above all, the monk would also have been well aware of how to look for the spiritual meaning of verses, looking at Old Testament people and events as 'types' of the New for example.

She turns to the situation today:

Few laypeople people, though, even those relatively well catechized, have much familiarity with the Bible as a whole. Fewer still know it well enough to be able to call to mind related verses. Moreover, for monks and laity alike, more than a century of historico-critical interpretation of Scripture has, as Fr Cassian points out in his talk, rather stripped us of the ability to read Scripture other than in the strictly literal sense, effectively stripping the Old Testament of its Christological content, and the New of its eschatological content. . . . We today, alas, rarely have such knowledge in our mind to draw on. … Accordingly, I really strongly urge readers to consider using in their lectio with something that helps set the verses of Scripture in the light of ‘the rule of faith’.  St Thomas' Catena Aurea, for example, a compilation of Patristic commentaries grouped by Gospel verses, can provide an excellent starting point for study and meditation.

I completely agree with Kate Edwards that taking up the Bible without a strong catechetical foundation and at least some rudimentary theology would be undesirable, and that modern Catholics are often not well situated in this regard. I also agree that there is a place for well-chosen commentaries and reference works in connection with our daily lectio—if not consistently, then at least when we hit a passage that perplexes us or confuses us. My all-time favorite work for this purpose is exactly the one she mentions—St. Thomas’s Catena Aurea, which is always next to me when I’m reading one of the Gospels, whether I happen to use it or not on a particular day. Perhaps it’s become such a familiar companion that I don’t even think to mention it, which is certainly a mistake, and I am glad that Ms. Edwards has prompted me to mention it explicitly.

While we’re at it, let me recommend a few other valuable tools for the Catholic who wishes to do lectio divina. As a true bibliography could go on for pages, I will make this list short, mentioning things that have proved useful to me. Maybe some readers could list their own favorites in the comments?

The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament — There is nothing in the Catholic realm that can compare to this one-volume edition of the NT with copious notes, word studies, essays, maps, etc. The use of the RSV translation is not the least of its many strengths, as we should avoid Nabbish as much as possible.

Catholic Bible Dictionary — A comprehensive reference work; good for those occasions when you read a Hebrew place name or person name and wonder: "Who or what is this? Is it significant?" (hint: the answer is always yes), or you want a short account of God's anger as depicted in the Bible, or the nature and work of the angels, or an introduction to one of the OT prophets, etc.

A Textual Concordance of the Holy Scriptures — This unique concordance doesn't merely give you huge lists of individual words but groups verses by theme, under two major divisions--Moral and Doctrinal. In the moral part, when you look up, e.g., "The Poor," you get such entries as "The poor are pleasing to God," "God is the helper of the poor," "We should do justice to the poor," "Against defrauding the poor," "Oppression of the poor," "Punishment of oppressors of the poor," etc. In the doctrinal part, if you look up "angels," you see all the verses in the Bible about the nine choirs, guardian angels, etc.; or if you look up the Mass, or Justification, or Christ, you get comprehensive collections of verses pertaining to those topics.

And just so you have the link — The Catena Aurea of  St. Thomas Aquinas. If you haven't yet experienced the joy of reading this work, you are in for a treat. St. Thomas acts here not as the scholastic theologian but as the lover of the Fathers of the Church (Eastern and Western), patiently gathering their incisive comments on the individual verses of the Gospel and weaving them into a continuous commentary. There are a lot of cheap editions out there, but do yourself the favor of getting the Baronius Press edition. It is not much more expensive and yet it is completely re-typeset, with nice paper and hardcover binding. Look, this is about God's Word, so we might as well splurge a bit.

The Douay-Rheims and Clementina Vulgata — A parallel edition, with the English and Latin side by side, and some useful notes. This is the Bible I use for lectio divina, not because I prefer the Douay to the RSV, but because for a long time I've wanted to familiarize myself with Scripture in the Latin version that shaped the Western liturgy and the entire Catholic tradition. I want to see and hear and internalize the language that the Western Church prayed in and thought in. (It's a delight to me, as a singer of Gregorian chant, to see where the verses of the Propers come from, their original context.) My Latin is far from fluent, but it's reliable enough to read the text with an occasional glance over at the English column, which faithfully translates the Vulgate.

Walking with God: A Journey Through the Bible — There are several good books out there in the "introduction to the Bible" genre, but this one, by Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins, is certainly one of the best: a highly readable, reliable, and insightful tour of Scripture. A friend recently reminded me that a major obstacle to lectio divina can be the frustration good Catholics feel when they try to read a little piece of Scripture without sufficient familiarity with the entire narrative arc and theological "main points" of the Bible. If this is the position you're in, Walking with God is going to set you up for success.

*          *          *

If I have a slight disagreement with Kate Edwards’ position, it would simply be this: prayer and study, although by no means contradictory, are different kinds of activities. They seem to me (and to many other authors) to go in different directions, each having its own origin, medium, and goal. Study originates in a desire to know something intellectually; its medium is our thoughts about things; its goal is conceptual understanding. Prayer originates in a desire to be united to the beloved; its medium is the things themselves; its goal is to get closer to the reality and to conform oneself to it. When we study, we are taking things into our mind; when we pray, we are being drawn to the thing itself, which, at least at times, forces our mind to be quiet.

These activities absolutely support one another and can even flow freely into each other, but the difference is pronounced enough to make it possible that one might spend a while studying Scripture and never really pray, just as one might spend a while praying over a text, without doing what most people would describe as study. Undoubtedly others have expressed this point more pithily; I’m only noting that we should be careful not to turn our lectio time into a scholarly exercise or a self-catechesis class. This would be, I think, to run the risk of depersonalizing the encounter with the Word of God—which is perhaps the risk contrary to that of reading the Bible in a theological vacuum.

A middle course would be that we continue to consecrate a certain time to the slow, prayerful, personal reading of Scripture (in other words, lectio divina), but that, as we are going along, we flag, with a pencil mark in the margin, something that begs for further study later on. When our time of prayer is through, we can then get the commentary off the shelf and pursue a more intellectual grasp of that particular point. In this way, we gain two great goods, each of which has to remain itself: the good of engaging God's Word as a message spoken directly to me here and now, and the good of an ongoing intellectual formation.

Finally, the only adequate solution to the "Edwards conundrum" (if I may call it so) is to make sure that we are lifelong students of our Catholic faith and that we make time for study as well, which can take many forms: listening to audio books or good lectures while commuting to work, reading a few pages daily from a theological textbook or primary source (recall that Flannery O'Connor used to read an article of the Summa each evening—and no, it wasn't to help her fall asleep), or even reading trustworthy blogs. Everyone would do well to read the classics by Frank Sheed, particularly Theology and Sanity or its little brother, Theology for Beginners.

As many people have pointed out, it seems strange that in our world we expect professionals to be educated through college or graduate school, and yet our knowledge of the Catholic faith usually stops at a grade-school level—if that much. And given that the mysteries of the faith are infinitely knowable and beautiful, why would we stop even at graduate school? We are enrolled in the school of the Faith for our whole life, so we should "redeem the time" by praying well, studying well, and working well.

(Part IV of a series in five parts.  Links to earlier articles: Part I; Part II; Part III.)

Lectio Divina (3): The Agony in the Garden

Many Catholics who first attempt lectio divina find, perhaps to their surprise, that it can be something of a struggle. We hear it extolled to the heights, only to discover that it takes hard work, at least in the initial phase of growing into a new habit. It is one thing to read Scripture at a comfortable trot, following the story line and feeling moved by the events, much as one might feel reading a short story or a poem; it is quite another thing to walk slowly through half a chapter or to linger over a few verses, asking, seeking, knocking on just a few words. We start to feel impatient; we want to “get on with it”; we think we know what the text is saying already, because we’re heard it (or something like it) countless times at Mass; and worst of all, our mind begins to wander.

For those who know, in faith, that Scripture is God’s very own Word spoken to our hearts—why, otherwise, would we desire to draw so near to this burning bush?—it can be something of an agony to find that we are neither quickly ignited nor easily kept ablaze. And yet, we know that we must keep our place near the Word; we stay at our post, and we ask, we seek, we knock, trusting that the Divine Master will speak to us when we are ready to hear—indeed, that His Word, of which our mind is a far-distant echo, has the power to make us ready to hear what He will say.

Once, when meditating St. Mark’s account of the Agony in the Garden (Mk 14:32–42), I noticed that Jesus issues four sets of commands to his disciples, as indicated by the imperative verbs:

1. v. 32: “Sit here . . .” (This is addressed to all the disciples.) 
2. v. 34: “Remain here, and watch [or keep awake].” (This is addressed to Peter, James, and John.)
3. v. 38: “Watch and pray.” (This is addressed to Peter.)
4. v. 42: “Rise . . . See.” (This seems to be addressed to Peter, James, and John.)

Those four imperatives struck me as closely bound up with the four steps of lectio divina:

1. “Sit here.” — Lectio
2. “Remain/abide here, and keep awake.” — Meditatio
3. “Keep awake and pray.” — Oratio
4. “Rise . . . See.” — Contemplatio

The first step is simply to sit down to the banquet of the Word: sit HERE. Do not wander elsewhere looking for wisdom; do not think it is vaguely all around you, like an invisible benign gas floating in the air. No, wisdom will be found in one particular person, Jesus Christ, and at one particular time, this moment of your prayer, and in one particular place, the inspired word He speaks to you. It is an act of faith to accept that this is true and that it will be fruitful for us, just as it was an act of faith for those three apostles to follow Jesus into the heart of the dark garden where he would be handed over for the life of the world.

The second step is a continuation of the first—you were already sitting here, now remain here, do not go away when you get distracted or tired or afraid or bored—and yet goes further: keep awake. Turn your mind actively, questioningly, to the word in front of you. Turn it over and over, bang your head against it and stay awake, alert for what it is trying to tell you.

The third step again continues the prior step (keep awake!—we can’t ever give up our vigilance and just go to sleep), but adds, tellingly: pray. Out of your abiding in the Lord’s word, surely a prayer will begin to rise in your heart. Let it rise, let it swim into your consciousness, into your own words, so that it can be the response you make, from your heart, to the Lord speaking to you. Pray—pray for yourself, for your loved ones, your enemies, your rulers, anyone and anything you have a desire to pray about or pray for. In so doing, you will not only stay awake, you will become an instrument by which the Lord spreads His wakefulness and his peace to others beyond yourself.

The fourth step is a surprise: Rise, the Lord says, and see. Here is where the Lord lifts us up by His own strength, for we cannot raise ourselves to His heights. Yet He commands us to rise, because if we intend to rise by His grace, He will raise us up, for He is gracious and He loves mankind. SEE, see what there is to see in His mysteries: He will begin to show them and share them with us by an unexpected insight, an unmerited immersion into His simple truth. This is the gift of contemplation, and it begins with our willingness to rise up and see.

In the garden, Jesus himself prays three times, using the same words—a model for us, as we wrestle with the angel of God, as we accept the chalice we must drink, as we discover that the Father’s will is our sustenance and our life.

(Part III of a four-part series.  Part I is here; Part II, here.)

Lectio Divina (2): What, Where, and When

Last week, we saw St. Gregory the Great speaking about the immense value of the practice of lectio divina or praying with the Scriptures, and I gave a simple sketch of how it works, recommending it as a practice to take up this Lent (and then to continue beyond Lent!) if you are not already doing it.

Naturally, questions arise. How do we decide, in practical terms, what to read each day—where to go in the Bible, how much, and for how long?

What we should bear in mind is that lectio divina is not meant to be an elaborate, burdensome obligation, but a childlike encounter with God in His Word, something that will refresh us and give us light for our journey. It will stretch us and challenge us, to be sure, but in such a way that we are still led to the peace of Christ. It’s not an academic study or a rote recitation. A personally fruitful lectio divina can be done by everybody.

I

First, as to quantity. Usually several verses, up to about half a chapter, is the right amount for people living in the world. A person could read an entire chapter, but that’s a lot to read slowly and meditatively, and it’s far more important to be able to ponder what we're reading and pray about it than to “get through” a certain book. Even one verse can furnish enough material for lectio divina, if the verse really hits one in the gut. The Gospels are ideally suited to lectio for many reasons, one of which is the way they are divided into small chunks or pericopes (e.g., a parable, miracle, or conversation) that can be taken by themselves.

It is important to read slowly, really thinking about what we are reading, and if something strikes us in a new way, or if we have a sense that this particular “word” (phrase or sentence) is what we need to take to heart, we should stop and ponder that word. There is no requirement to “finish” a section of the text; one can always resume there next time. On the whole, it will do us more good to meditate and pray than to continue reading. Indeed, our powers of concentration are limited, so even if we had all day at our disposal, we would do better with several shorter times of reading mixed with a variety of other activities.

The great Thomist Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange once stated:

One single sentence from Sacred Scripture can nourish the soul, illuminate it, strengthen it in adversity. Sacred Scripture is something far superior to a simple exposition of dogma, subdivided into special tracts: it is an ocean of revealed truth in which we can taste in advance the joys of eternal life.

II

Second, as to choice of text: there are 73 books in the Bible. They fall into groupings that are extremely different from one another, not only in genre—historical or narrative, prophetic, poetic, epistolary, legislative, apocalyptic—but also in their immediate accessibility or usefulness for personal prayer. The Fathers, Doctors, and mystics of the Church reached a level of spiritual maturity that enabled them to reap a harvest from any verse in Scripture, but since we are not their equals, we need to be more humble and more realistic. Some books clearly lend themselves to lectio divina for beginners, and indeed these books are the ones that all the saints keep going back to. They are: the Psalms (and the Wisdom literature in general); the prophets, both major and minor; and every book in the New Testament, with the Gospels holding pride of place. Simply put, if we choose one of the Gospels or a psalm, it is almost impossible not to profit from meditating on that reading.

Still, there will be dry moments when we can’t make heads or tails of a reading, and that’s also a healthy experience for us: we need to realize that we are not in charge. Any fruit we reap is God’s gift to us, and when we don’t seem to be reaping fruit, it’s because He’s preparing a larger harvest for us that demands a greater faith and trust in him before it can happen. The more experienced we become with lectio, the more freely we can launch out into the deep of other parts of Scripture and find nourishment there, as well.

III

Third, as to when and where: one need not do lectio divina in a church; what is necessary is to choose a time and place of quiet, where we can let our mind and heart go into the Word of God. For some people, this could be a conveniently situated church or chapel—it is one of the few places in our noisy world that is (usually) still recognized and respected as a haven of silence. But if there is a quiet place in one’s home early in the morning, that, too, would be well suited for lectio. Indeed, so great is the dignity of the Word of God that the Church has granted a plenary indulgence, with the usual conditions, to the devout reading of Scripture for one half-hour, anywhere.

The timing is also important: we need to find a time of day that is not so busy that we will be utterly distracted. For most people, this is early in the morning; once we get started with the work day, there’s too much going on. The morning has a special quality to it that strongly recommends it as a time for lectio.

We may conclude with the rousing words of the Benedictine monk Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel (c. 760–c. 840):

For those who practice it, the experience of sacred reading sharpens perception, enriches understanding, rouses from sloth, banishes idleness, orders life, corrects bad habits, produces salutary weeping, and draws tears from contrite hearts . . . curbs idle speech and vanity, awakens longing for Christ and the heavenly fatherland.
          It must always be accompanied by prayer and intimately joined with it, for we are cleansed by prayer and taught by reading. Therefore, whoever wishes to be with God at all times must prayer often and read often, for when we pray it is we who speak with God, but when we read it is God who speaks with us.
          Every seeker of perfection advances in reading, prayer, and meditation. Reading enables us to learn what we do not know, meditation enables us to retain what we have learned, and prayer enables us to live what we have retained. Reading Sacred Scripture confers on us two gifts: it makes the soul’s understanding keener, and after snatching us from the world’s vanities, it leads us to the love of God.

(Part II of a five-part series. Here is Part I.)

Lectio Divina (1): Why Not Try It This Lent?

For many of us, the season of Pre-Lent (beginning with Septuagesima) has already begun to prepare us for the rigors and resolutions of Lent properly so called. For others, Ash Wednesday comes each year like a thief in the night, and we often feel unready for it. The week before Ash Wednesday is a good time to finalize a plan for how we will devote ourselves more fully to prayer during the season of Lent.

Each year, the Gospel of the First Sunday of Lent challenges us with these words: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” The question should arise for each one of us: Is the Word of God truly my daily bread? Is Sacred Scripture a source of life and holiness for me, day in, day out?

It is true that the Holy Eucharist is our daily bread par excellence, without which we must perish; but it is no less true, as St. Jerome says, that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” There is a reason the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has always consisted of two components, whether they be called the Mass of the Catechumens and the Mass of the Faithful, or the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. We need both of them for a healthy spiritual life. This Lent can be a time for us either to begin lectio divina or to renew our commitment to it.

Many are familiar with the traditional four steps of lectio divina: (1) lectio, reading the text carefully; (2) meditatio, ruminating over it, savoring the words; (3) oratio, giving voice to the prayers that well up when one meditates on the text; (4) contemplatio, being lifted up into the peace, wisdom, and love of the Lord, as and when it pleases Him to lift us up. The classic treatment of these four steps is found in Guigo II's Ladder of Monks (available here for those who wish to read it; as you would expect of a Carthusian, the text is pithy).

Once we have mentioned these four steps, however, there is an immediate and important caveat: lectio divina is NOT a “technique.” Prayer is a relationship between persons; and when love is real, we do not implement a “system.” Bureaucracies, which, by definition, are not based on close personal relationships, follow systems. Do we love our dearest friends according to a technique from an instruction manual? So, it’s important to understand that in the spiritual life we are talking about a friendship with the Lord, one that needs to be developed like any other: with time, with sharing, with affection, with attention.

The four steps of lectio divina are not, therefore, a kind of “recipe” for making prayer happen. They are, rather, an articulation of what happens naturally when we take the Word of God seriously. We read it; we think about what we’ve read and try to apply it to ourselves; when we do that, we start to pray spontaneously; and as we pray, the Lord leads us to a new closeness to Himself, and, as it pleases Him, causes us to rest in His presence. These four degrees or steps are more like the parts of an organic living thing—the root, leaf, flower, and fruit of a plant, for example. Plants don’t have techniques; they are living things and they grow from within, as long as sunlight and water and nutrients are present. Our souls are like plants in that way: we need spiritual sunlight, water, and nutrients. Our sun is Jesus Christ; our water is His grace; our nutrients are His Words. Given these conditions, our souls will flourish.

No unusual heroism, expertise, or virtue is required to open up the Scriptures and begin to do lectio divina as a daily and fundamental part of our Christian prayer. I need three things: (1) a living faith, so that I believe God is speaking His word directly to me; (2) perseverance, so that I may continue on, whether my results are magnificent or, as they may seem to me, poor—not forgetting, however, that I tend to be a poor judge of spiritual results; (3) desire or longing for the face and the voice of the Lord, which is the very soul of lectio divina. “Thou hast said, ‘Seek ye my face.’ My heart says to thee, ‘Thy face, Lord, do I seek.’ Hide not thy face from me” (Ps 27:8-9). If we have faith when we take up the Scriptures, if we persevere with holy reading, and if our intention is to meet the Lord Himself, He will never fail us: He will become a fountain of living water rising up within us.

Pope St. Gregory the Great

The only prerequisite (if one can call it that) is a reliable sense of what books of Scripture are most appropriate for lectio divina, since they are not all equally suitable at every juncture in one’s spiritual life. Some are always and everywhere suitable, like the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, and the Psalms, and this is where a beginner ought to start. Some, like the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah, and the Book of Revelation, can work very well, although they will work better to the degree that one is already accustomed to the genre. All books of Scripture, of course, can be used profitably for lectio divina, but it is unquestionably best to begin with the Gospels—and never to stray too far from their wonderful light.

Let me close this brief exhortation to take up lectio divina this Lent with an excerpt from a Letter of Pope St. Gregory the Great to his friend Theodore, physician to the Emperor, dated June 595. How timeless is St. Gregory’s advice!

See, my most noble and beloved son, how we are distant from one another in body, yet intimately present to each other in love. To prove that, I have your letter before me, and the testimony of all your good works. Now I must presume on this mutual love of ours to say something to you which I think you need to hear. God the Holy Trinity has given you so many gifts: intelligence, wealth, compassion, and charity. Because of them you find yourself incessantly occupied with multiple duties and cares; and with that excuse you neglect your daily reading of the words of your Redeemer. But what is holy Scripture other than a letter sent by Almighty God to those he has created? Imagine if the Emperor had sent you a personal letter! No matter where you were or what you were doing, you’d make it a priority to find out what he wanted to say to you. Well: the Emperor of heaven, the Lord of angels and of men has sent you these letters in order that you might draw life from them: yet you fail to make the effort even to read them! Study and meditate on your Creator’s words every day, I beg you! Learn the heart of God from the words of God, so that you may long more ardently for eternity; so that you may be ever more inflamed with desire for the joys of Heaven. Your rest there will be all the greater, the more you have refused to rest from loving your Creator here and now.

(Part I of a five-part series.)

Techniques for Meditation and Contemplative Prayer with Sacred Art

I have made the case in a series of articles (here and here) that a vital part of the antidote to the continued hemorrhaging of believers and failure to attract new converts to the Roman Church is prayer with sacred art. Roman Catholics must once again learn to engage with art in their prayer worship, I believe, if we want the Church to grow faster. And this applies as much to traditionalists as it does to liturgical liberals.

You can read a simple presentation of the argument here; and a discussion of how St Thomas Aquinas’ 4th Way helps us to understand why sacred art is so vital to the mission of the Church, here.

In regard to how we pray with sacred art, the general principle I have outlined is that we pray as we would normally, but engage with art visually as we do it. This is especially important in the context of the liturgy. The simple statement of this is: pray with your eyes open and look at a painting as you do so.

St Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child, by Rogier van der Weyden 1435-40

All the spiritual directors I have had have emphasized the importance of a balanced prayer life which consists of liturgical prayer, i.e. worship at the pinnacle, but also of devotions and para-liturgical prayer, structured prayer done with others, and then personal prayer. While each has value in isolation, the greatest value of the latter two is forming us for the highest form of prayer, which is the first in this list, liturgical prayer. Each of these different sorts of prayers can be done in conjunction with appropriate visual imagery, and will be enriched if we do so.

When books that I have seen talk about prayer with images, they tend to focus on personal prayer, and usually meditation and contemplative prayer. This is good as far as it goes, but they are less helpful if they do not explain the value of this prayer in relation to our pattern of prayer in general and the liturgy in particular. Unfortunately, they usually do not do this. And again, the point should be made, that the techniques described for prayer with sacred art even in the meditation and contemplative prayer are not really very different from those methods used ordinarily without sacred art, the only difference is that one looks at an appropriate painting while doing it.

Take for example a method of visual prayer based on the method of praying with scripture called Lectio divina. The link I supply here is a simple explanation of Lectio - without images - I found on a Carmelite website. One point to note in regard to the use of terminology is that since the days of The Beatles and their association with Maharishi Yogi, the words meditation and contemplation have often been used interchangeably; when people say they “meditate”, they often mean one of the methods of Eastern religions in which one seeks to eliminate thought. In the Sixties, this mode of prayer became fashionable, and a plethora of related meditation techniques were spawned, as all sorts of people tried to offer instant enlightenment for the price of a cup of coffee a day, or something similar. There are even new-age influenced “Christian meditation” methods still around today that began in this period. The intention might have been to draw those seeking nirvana away from Eastern religions and to Christianity by offering something similar, but Christianized; but because they don’t come out of the Christian tradition, they often have the opposite effect. They take Christians away from Christianity to what they see as the purer, older, more traditional form of this sort of meditation.

“Meditation” in the Western Christian tradition is very different, as we can see from the simple explanation given by the Carmelites, above. First of all, meditation and contemplation are two different things. Meditation in the Western tradition, in contrast to the popular understanding of the word, is active - we direct our thoughts to the chosen subject, i.e. we think about something. Contemplation is perhaps closer to the popular idea of meditation, but although passive, we are alert to and receptive to the thoughts that occur.

Back to sacred art: I have seen a number of books that describe an equivalent to Lectio divina for visual imagery called variously Visio divina or Conspectio divina. (Latin scholars can decide which is the most appropriate). Instead of meditating on texts from the Bible, you meditate on the content of a well-chosen painting. I have heard it said that this technique of Lectio with sacred art can be traced back to St Claire of Assisi. (I don’t know the truth of this.)

The common way of considering art is to analyze the content in detail, reading it as though it were scripture.

I suggest that the images should be chosen to harmonize with liturgical practice. These could be images of the Feasts or Saint being celebrated on a particular day. In the ideal (which of course almost never happens in Roman churches) there would be a painting placed in church for that Mass that day, the sight of which immediately brings to mind and compresses all the fruits of the earlier meditation and contemplation into a package that is presented to us in a single moment.

An alternative is to consider general themes of salvation history which are re-presented to us every time we go to Mass. Themes in salvation history are a pattern of events that relate to each of us in our personal pilgrimage of salvation. Once we grasp the idea of the interrelatedness of all things, by understanding how particular and significant episodes in scripture are related to each other, it facilitates a mode of thinking by which we more naturally place our own story, and hence ourselves into that picture. So, for example, the crossing of the Red Sea relates to the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and the descent of the Spirit and then also our own sacramental Baptism and Confirmation, by which each of us dies and rises spiritually and receives the Spirit (1 Cor 10:1-5). Our foretaste of eternal life to come, like Israel eating manna in the desert on the way to the promised land, is our reception of Holy Communion, the pledge of our own future life and resurrection (John 6:54). Each of us has a story by which we die with Christ and as Christians are raised up with him too. I am reminded that this applies to me every time I walk into a church and cross myself with the holy water - ‘Jordan water’. Here is one that I do regularly, just to illustrate. It takes about 15 minutes of meditation and then I allow if I have time about the same for contemplation.

I am not expecting anyone necessarily to do precisely what I do. Just from the passage above, you can see that there are alternative images to the ones that I have chosen below that one could focus on in order to enhance the subject of the meditation. Also, there are many expert theologians amongst you who could develop something far better, I am sure. My thought here is that it might encourage some of you to incorporate something like this into your own prayer lives in a way that will nourish your faith and worship. If you can come up with something than this, then please go ahead!

So my program has eight meditations. I have offered one image per meditation, but there could be more than one some cases as you will see. I have prints of examples of these prototypes in my own icon corner at home and I look at them as I consider each one. I have done this often enough that if I meditate without the images, they appear strongly in my imagination.

This little series of meditations takes me on a path that begins in the world and the leads me into the heavenly realm of the Mass and then I return to the world to complete the cycle. First, by Holy Spirit and the prayers of the saints and Our Lady, I come to Christ. Then through the triple sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and communion I enter into the mystery of the Trinity, partaking of the divine nature, and finally I go out into the world, to love and serve God and my fellows and, one hopes, better able to draw them to the Church each time this cycle is repeated.

Each meditation uses the following structure: first, a statement that characterizes the image I am looking at, second a short hymn of praise (I have memorized Psalm 116(117)), third penitence, fourth petitions. Then there is a brief contemplation in which I repeat slowly the Jesus prayer eight times, ever quieter in my mind, before moving on to the next image.

After the eight meditations are finished, I then I repeat the Jesus Prayer to myself, allowing it to become quieter and quieter as a thought in my mind - I imagine someone else saying it and that I am listening. I observe the thoughts that pop into my mind as I do this. If the train of thought is good I run with it and might even write a note down if I want to remember it. If it is bad, I return more actively to thinking the Jesus Prayer until it is eliminated.

Before I start I do a short meditation of gratitude - in which I list 10 or so items from the day that are good and thank God for them and a review of conscience in which I acknowledge my sins and ask for forgiveness.

Here we go!

1. Blessed be God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three persons and one God.
               Psalm 116 (117): O praise the Lord all ye nations, praise him all ye peoples, for his merciful kindness is more and more toward us; and the truth of the Lord endureth forever.
               Lord have mercy (3 times)
Prayer: Father, may the Holy Spirit lead me to Jesus, in Jesus Name, Amen.
               Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner (8 repetitions)

2. Blessed be God, in His angels and in His Saints.
               Psalm 116 (117)
               Lord have mercy (3 times)
Prayer: Please you saints and angels in heaven, pray for me to Lord our God, that I may have all that I desire and all that is good for me, but only in accordance with His will. Father, hear our prayers, in Jesus Name, Amen.
               Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner (8 repetitions)

3. Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
               Psalm 116 (117)
               Lord have mercy (3 times)
Prayer: Mary, Mother of God, please show me your Son, and pray for me to Lord our God, that I may have all that I desire, and all that is good for me, in accordance with His will. Father, hear our prayers, in Jesus Name, Amen.
               Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner (8 repetitions)

4. Blessed be Jesus Christ, True God, and True Man. Behold the Lamb of God.
               Psalm 116 (117)
               Lord have mercy (3 times)
Prayer: Oh God, take away my sins and the fears and resentments that arise from them. Let me die with you spiritually through baptism Amen. I ask this through Jesus Christ who lives and reigns...etc Amen
               Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner (8 repetitions)

5. Blessed be Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, my Lord and my God.
               Psalm 116 (117)
               Lord have mercy (3 times)
Prayer: Oh God, let me rise spiritually through confirmation and receive the Spirit. I ask this through Jesus Christ who lives and reigns...etc Amen
               Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner (8 repetitions)

Continue Reading this Article. . .

On the Fifth Sunday after Easter: Fulfilling the Law of Love in the Liturgy

(What follows is a reflection on the Proper of the Mass for the Fifth Sunday after Easter in the usus antiquior, celebrated yesterday morning.)

Today’s Mass is a marvelous reminder and summons to give to the Lord the glory due His Holy Name. The Introit bids us: “Declare it with the voice of joy, and make this to be heard, alleluia: speak it out even to the ends of the earth.” In its breathless exuberance, the opening command does not define what “it” and “this” is! One is reminded of Mary Magdalen in the garden, so focused on the Lord that she says to the man she takes for the gardener: “Sir, if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him” — as if he already knows her inmost thoughts. The Introit then tells us what “it” and “this” is: “The Lord hath delivered His people, alleluia, alleluia.”

What has He delivered us from? The Lesson speaks of the man who only hears the word and does not do it. This was — this is — the old Adam who hears the Law but does not keep it, the people of Israel who receive the justice of the Law from without, on tables of stone, not yet the mercy of the Law written on their hearts in tongues of fire. We cannot be doers of the word unless the Lord grants us His grace, that “new law” that does not abolish the old law but brings it to completion in our desires and actions. The people of Israel were just like the man who sees himself in a mirror — who knows his true identity as a son of God — but then walks away from the mirror and presently forgets what manner of man he was. The one who has besought and received the grace of Christ, in contrast, “hath looked into the perfect law of liberty and hath continued therein.”

In the Gospel Our Lord teaches us that we must ask for this gift of grace, if we are to become men whose “religion is not in vain” but “clean and undefiled”: “If you ask the Father anything in My Name, He will give it you.” Jesus tells us precisely how to ask: in His Name. The very pattern of all prayer, the public prayer of the liturgy and our personal prayer in the time between liturgies, is thus established: we are to ask the Father for the grace of sonship, in the Name of Jesus, His beloved only-begotten Son, to whom we are joined in the bond of the Holy Spirit. This is trinitarian prayer, and therefore it is true, pleasing, and efficacious prayer. The liturgy is the most perfect embodiment of this prayer, for it is offered by the whole Mystical Body — by Christ Himself as Head, and His people as His members.

Liturgical prayer was not something human beings cobbled together on their own; it was and is a gift received from above, coming down from the Father of lights like every good and perfect gift. Our Lord implies this much in the Gospel when He says: “The hour cometh when I will no more speak to you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father.” All worship before the Sacrifice of the Cross was like a speaking in proverbs — hinting at and pointing towards the grace of Christ, but not containing it and effecting it. In the fullness of time, in the institution of the sacraments and especially of the Mass, and in the organic unfolding of this worship over time, Christ shows us plainly of the Father, revealing His face ever more to us, His children, “for the Father Himself loveth you.”

Like the Son who “came out from God” — “I came forth from the Father and am come into the world” — so too does the liturgy come forth from the Father into the world, making known His love and making Him known and loved. We are like the disciples who can finally cry out: “Behold, now Thou speakest plainly and speakest no proverb.” In the liturgy, that which was in olden times veiled in riddles is revealed in its saving truth, yet still under the veil of our earthly “rites of tender devotion” (haec piae devotionis officia), as the Secret says, by which we “pass over into heavenly glory” (ad coelestem gloriam transeamus).

As if to offer us a perfect illustration and actualization of the teaching of the Gospel as well as of the Lesson, the Church places on our lips two exemplary prayers that complement one another magnificently: the Collect and the Postcommunion. In the former, we pray:

O God, from whom all good things do come [this includes, of course, our good works, and the grace that anticipates, accompanies, and follows them], grant to us, Thy suppliants, that by Thine inspiration we may think what is right, and under Thy guidance perform it. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son…

To be a doer of the word, there must first be the word, the knowledge, the right thought; so that is the first thing for which we pray: “that we may think what is right.” We ask that our intellects be in conformity with the divine Intellect, for God is the first Truth, the source and measure of all truth, outside of whom there is no truth. So far from truth ever becoming an “idol,” as some have idly suggested, the worship of God and adherence to truth are totally coextensive, practically synonymous, and utterly inseparable. But knowing the truth is not enough; we must actually live by it, or in the semitic expression of St. James, “do” the truth. First, we conform; second, we perform.

The Postcommunion, for its part, looks not at knowledge but at desire, not at the cognitive and executive power of man, but at the appetitive power, by which we are inclined towards the good, seeking it and holding on to it:

Grant to us, O Lord, who are filled with strength from this heavenly Table, that we may both desire what is right, and obtain what we desire. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son...

As St. Augustine cleverly says, the Old Law and the New Law have the same ending but different beginnings: timor and amor. The one stems from fear of punishment, the other from love of God. Christianity is not a religion of the abolition of desire, like Buddhism, but a religion of the intensification of the right desire, the desire for God Himself and for eternal life, that comprises, elevates, and transcends all desires. By the strength of the divine food we have received, we are capable of asking and of receiving right desire, desire of what is righteous, and righteousness itself. We can become, like the prophet Daniel, a “man of desires.”

Thus, the Collect and the Postcommunion taken together sum up the entire Christian teaching about law and love, good works and grace. Lord, make us think what is right and then do it; make us desire what is right and obtain it. And this, not by our own lights or strength, but by Thine inspiration and Thy guidance, and by the strength of the Holy Eucharist.

The marvels of the Proper of this Mass are certainly not yet exhausted! For there is an additional dimension to its teaching.

Earlier we said that the liturgy, like the Son of God whom it brings into our midst, comes forth from God into time and shows us plainly the Father. But exactly how does it do this? Not simply through teaching, for then it would be reduced to a didactic vehicle like the old Law, more of those “proverbs” that Jesus says He will surpass with a more potent gift. No, the great Christian liturgy — all the authentic liturgical rites of Eastern and Western Christendom — proceeds rather by way of fulfilling what the verse of the Introit says (or sings): “shout with joy to God, sing ye a psalm to His Name, give glory to His praise.” We do not merely announce in speech the salvation of God; we chant it; we express it in noble neums and mounting melismas, glorious garments, rich vessels and stately ceremonies. We do not merely praise God; we give glory to His praise. What else does this mean, except that, to the very best of our ability and our resources, we expand and deepen the liturgical praise of God with the glory of the Church’s treasuries that she has placed at our disposal? She has lavishly bequeathed on us the gold and silver mined and refined over millennia, and we, for our part, with all the powers of our souls and bodies, take it up to “give glory to His praise.” In this way we fulfill the injunction of the Offertory antiphon: “O bless the Lord our God, ye nations, and heed carefully the voice of His praise.”

How insistent is today’s Mass on this point can be seen from the series of imperatives that characterize its Propers. In the Introit: annuntiate (twice!), jubilate, psalmum dicite, date gloriam — declare, jubilate, utter a psalm, give glory! In the Offertory: benedicite, obaudite — bless, listen carefully! In the Communion: Cantate, cantate, benedicite, bene nuntiate — sing, sing, bless, proclaim it well! A veritable shower of imperatives, like rain falling on saplings or milk fed to children, that we may grow up into cedars of Lebanon, into the fullness of the manhood of Christ! And in its paradoxical way, the solemn liturgy has the schola chanting about announcing while the priest whispers about singing, as if we are being summoned to pray in every possible way at the same time, so that no manner of praise be lacking.

And how well such full and various praise befits an “Easter people”! For “Christ is risen,” as the first Alleluia chants, “and hath shone upon us.” It is through the solemn liturgy that the light of the glorified Christ shines upon us. We are not left in the darkness of proverbs, to wrestle with words alone; the light of the Word Himself shines upon us, the radiance of His glory peers through the splendor of the Church’s liturgical rites, a foretaste of that “heavenly glory” into which we pray to pass over by our “rites of tender devotion.” If the liturgy leads us to the verge of glory, it too must already partake of that glory, as the heliotrope turns to the sun and in its vivid yellow already partakes of the light shining upon it.

May Christ, who hath redeemed us with His precious Blood (cf. Alleluia), unite us now and forever with His high-priestly prayer, that we may declare with His voice and sing with His lips: “The Lord hath delivered His people, allelulia, alleluia.”