THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS

I came upon this poem again, by the matchless Emily Dickinson, and could not resist putting it up here. It has everything: mystery, beauty, and faith. We sometimes tend to see "the beauty of holiness" as "the holiness of beauty": let this small gem, where the two are in exact and perfect suspension, be a lesson to us. 

The feet of people walking home

With gayer sandals go ---

The Crocus --- till she rises,

The Vassal of the Snow —

The lips at Hallelujah!​        

Long years of practice bore,

Till bye and bye these Bargemen

Walked singing on the shore.

  

Pearls are the Diver’s farthings

Extorted from the Sea ---​        

Pinions --- the Seraph’s wagon

Pedestrian --- once, as we —

Night is the morning’s Canvas

Larceny –- legacy ---

Death, but our rapt attention​        

To Immortality.

  

My figures fail to tell me

How far the Village lies ---

Whose peasants are the Angels ---

Whose Cantons dot the skies ---​        

My Classics veil their faces ---

My Faith that Dark adores ---

Which from its solemn abbeys

Such resurrection pours.

THE FIRST PETITION

Travelling for a conference has the virtue of jet-lag. One wakes up at 4.30 a.m. and has time to think, meditate, pray and generally attend to things that usually fall by the wayside. What presented itself this time was, as so often, the Lord's Prayer, and notably the First Petition:  sanctificetur nomen tuum, "hallowed be Thy Name". 
A syllogism presented itself. Premise 1: Christ tells us, on a number of occasions, that if we pray for the right things, they will be granted to us. "Knock, and it shall be opened; ask, and you shall receive." If you are capable of giving your child bread when he asks, and not a stone, "how much more" will your Father give if you ask. Understood always is, "if you ask for the right thing, and preferably in the right way" (I don't think the latter is mandatory -- even crude ejaculations are accepted -- it's not a magic spell that has to be right in every word). 
Premise 2: Christ, when asked, told the disciples how to pray: the Pater Noster. Endless ink has been spilt on the Pater; but what struck me this time was its status as Premise 2, which with Premise 1 leads to a Conclusion: a Conclusion with several layers and articulations. In the first place, the major conclusion is that if we pray as Christ taught, if we pray the Pater Noster with all our heart, it will be granted, we will receive neither stone nor scorpion. 
BUT -- that raises new problems, especially concerning the first two petitions. Let us look at these, in this light. Sanctificetur nomen tuum, Hallowed be thy Name. Quite apart from the cultural difficulties, for a 21st-century person, of the "Name" (see Athanasius Kircher's diagram of the Names of God, above), this contains a number of questions. Most importantly, in this context, it sounds like a wish: a wish for God's Name to be to be hallowed -- to be held holy, to be acknowledged -- universally, throughout all the world. Noble, of course, and pious; but not something that we can count on being granted -- so not consistent with Premise 1. 
The Church, these days, tends to overcome such optatives by turning them back on us and changing them into imperatives: it's a task, it's up to us. Noble, but hardly a comfort; and we are told, and shown, throughout the Bible that to pray is to ask for something -- even insistently. So how can "Hallowed be thy Name" be a request? 
Perhaps what, in the First Petition, we are asking for is Faith -- the faith to fulfil the First Great Commandment, to love The Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our mind, and all our strength. So whether I pray individually, or we pray communally, "hallowed be thy Name" might then mean a petition that whoever is praying may be granted the faith to fulfil that Commandment.. That is all -- it isn't a pious wish for the world -- but that is already immense, and worthy of standing at the head of all we pray for. 

OFFERING

In the admirable little book Missa Est by Daniel-Rops (the nom de plume of Henri Petiot 1901-1965) with stunning photographs by Laure Albin-Guillot, which I have had occasion to mention here before, I found a little text that moved me and that I thought I'd share. In the section on the preparation of the bread and the wine -- of the offerings ---, after the explanation of the history of this part of the Mass, he writes the following:

If you have nothing else to offer the Lord, only give him your efforts and your pains:

it took much work by many men, the piece of bread lying there on the paten. 

If your hand is empty and your mouth painfully dry, offer your wounded heart, all that you have suffered:

for the wine to be poured into the chalice, did the grapes not have to be crushed and their seeds opened?

If you have nothing in you but sin and bitterness, the distress of living and all the anguish of being human,

let your hands lift up those pitiful things to heaven, for Mercy has received them already beforehand, at His Supper.

And if you no longer have even the strength to offer and to beg, if there is nothing in you but absence and abandonment,

merely accept in silence that Another take care of you for your sake and accept you, so that the Offering and the Offerer may be one gift. 

For those who read French, I'll give the original, which is far better than I can translate:

Si tu n'as rien d'autre à offrir au Seigneur, présente-lui seulement tes travaux et tes peines,

à beaucoup d'hommes il a coûté beaucoup d'efforts ce morceau de pain qui repose là sur la patène.

Si ta main est vide et ta bouche douloureusement sèche, offre ton coeur blessé, tout ce que tu as souffert,

pour que le vin fût versé dans le calice n'a-t-il pas fallu que la grappe fût broyée et le grain ouvert?

Si tu n'as rien en toi que le péché et l'amertume, la détresse de vivre et toute l'angoisse humaine,

que tes mains tendent au ciel ces pitoyables choses car la Miséricorde les a reçues par avance à sa Cène.

Et si tu n'as même plus la force de présenter et d'implorer, si tout en toi n'est qu'absence et abandon,

en silence accepte qu'un Autre se charge de toi pour toi et t'assume, pour que l'Offrande et l'Offrant soient un seul don.

UNSENTIMENTAL AND ABSOLUTE

The feast of St Bruno is particularly interesting. This ecclesiastical administrator from Cologne who went from Rheims to the Alps and founded the Grande Chartreuse was one of those admirable people, so unlike most of us, who went all the way, but also created a structure (and what a structure!) in which later people inspired by his example could go all the way too. The idea of combining the hermitage – which had worked for the Desert Fathers but may not have left much in the way of locusts and wild honey for their successors – with the monastery, where essential tasks could be shared and in part performed by Brothers, was a brilliant one, and still works today. The Charterhouses and their inhabitants, the Carthusians, are a magnificent example of pure spirituality. They have never been reformed (unlike the Cistercians, the Franciscans, and other orders) because they have never needed reform.

‘But what do they do?’ They pray. They also read, and study, and chop firewood, but essentially they pray. Their job, their function, is to pray for the world. To most of us today this probably seems either a cop-out or arcane beyond belief; but if you take prayer seriously, then they are the cutting edge. What’s more, there is a secondary benefit to what they are and do: to be visible, if only just, to the rest of us as an inspiration. I remember, when I first read one of their books, The Wound of Love, thinking ‘I’ve been part of this faith, off and on, most of my life, but these guys make me feel the way Reinhold Messner makes a weekend limestone-climber feel. Or Roger Federer a member of the local country club.’ Even having read some medieval and Renaissance mystics, I simply wasn’t prepared for the sheer – what would one call it? the French word envergure comes to mind: wing-span, range, sweep – of these minds and souls, writing in our own time.

A Carthusian, when he takes his final vows, dies to the world. All religious do this to some extant, but the Carthusian goes further. If one of them publishes a book -- and some do, to the great joy of many of us – it is not signed ‘Joseph Winnicott’ or even ‘Brother James’, but ‘a Carthusian’. I do not know if they still maintain the tradition of having the bottom plank of their bed become the base of their coffin when they die, but there is no reason why it shouldn’t be so, and it fits perfectly into the Carthusian life.

At the same time, they seem a remarkably cheerful lot. Within the monastery, each has a little house, with a main floor where he eats, sleeps, and prays; and a basement where he stocks and prepares wood for his wood-stove and stocks other needments. Often it also has a postage-stamp garden. The monks meet for services and certain meals, and once a week go for a walk of several hours in the countryside.

In 1984, German director Philipp Gröning proposed to the Carthusians of the Grande Chartreuse that he make a film about them. They thought about it, then answered that they weren’t ready for that. ‘Come back in 15 years,’ they said. So, fifteen years later, he came back, and this time they said Yes. But no crew, no intrusive equipment: just Gröning with a handheld camera. So he lived there for six months in 2002 and 2003, filming quietly with no artificial lighting, then spent two years editing the film. The result, Into Great Silence, is stupendous and wholly surprising. No music, no tricks, just a record of the daily lives of these quiet, good-humoured absolutists.

In celebrating St Bruno, let us celebrate also the ones who follow his lead a thousand years later, and who still go all the way, into great silence, to inspire us and pray for us.

ABSOLUTE AND UNSENTIMENTAL

A lot of sentimentality surrounds Francesco Bernardone of Assisi. What that means is that he attracted -- and attracts -- much unsophisticated affection, which is a Good Thing. He wrote the Canticle to the Sun, and a few other texts, but scholars do not believe he wrote the one below, often attributed to him. My own feeling is that the word "tristezza" gives the game away: it seems 19th-century at the earliest. But on the other hand, it is not attributed to St Francis for nothing: it reflects his spirit perfectly, and is satisfying, moving, and inspiring (though monumentally more difficult to put into practice than its exquisite sound makes it seem -- but then, Italian is the planet's most seductive language). Let's say that he would certainly have written it had he thought of it.

Oh Signore, fa' di me un’istrumento della tua pace

dove è odio, fa' ch' io porti l'amore

dove è offesa, ch' io porti il perdono,

dove è discordia, ch' io porti l'unione,

dove è dubbio, ch' io porti la fede,

dove è errore, ch' io porti la verità,

dove è disperazione, ch' io porti la speranza,

dove è tristezza, ch' io porti la gioia,

dove sono le tenebre, ch' io porti la luce.

Maestro, fa' ch' io non cerchi tanto

di essere consolato, quanto di consolare,

di essere compreso, quanto di comprendere,

di essere amato, quanto di amare.

Perchè si è dando, che si riceve,

perdonando, che si è perdonati,

morendo, che si resuscita a vita eterna.

Oh, make me, Lord, an instrument of Thy peace

where there is hatred, let me bring love,

where there is offence, let me bring forgiveness,

where there is discord, let me bring unity,

where there is doubt, let me bring faith,

where there is error, let me bring truth,

where there is despair, let me bring hope,

where there is sadness, let me bring joy,

where the shadows are, let me bring the light.

Master, make me not seek so much

to be consoled, as to console,

to be understood, as to understand,

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

in forgiving that we are forgiven,

in dying that we rise to life eternal.

The image is by Giotto (1267-1337): 'St Francis preaching to the birds' in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi. 

GUARDIAN ANGELS

Today is the Feast of the Guardian Angels -- a celebration of which I confess I was unaware until this morning. Most Anglicans don't think about angels much: their metaphysical specificity is a little embarrassing. However, only a churl would deny their existence, and the thought of there being one heavenly being assigned to each human is a comforting one. They must work awfully hard at keeping us from the worst consequences of our actions and omissions; one feels a certain sympathy for them, and one wonders what they do after their human dies. Do they get another one, or do they go back to eternal praise? Curious: the merest touch of irony creeps into any Anglican discussion of them, all by itself. It's as if there is something vaguely childish about belief in them, and we have put away childish things. On the other hand, childlike is not childish, and childlike is what we are urged to become, by an Authority higher even than St Paul. So perhaps, like a very small child crossing the road, we should just put our hand up without looking, in the absolute trust that there will be a protective hand to grasp it. 
It is pleasing also that Sir Thomas Browne, definitely a man of the seventeenth century with whom one would like to have dinner, liked guardian angels:

Therefore for Spirits I am so farre from denying their existence, that I could easily believe, that not only whole Countries, but particular persons have their Tutelary, and Guardian Angels: It is not a new opinion of the Church of Rome, but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato; there is no heresy in it, and if not manifestly defined in Scripiture, yet is it an opinion of a good and wholesome use in the course and actions of a man's life, and would serve as an Hypothesis to salve many doubts, whereof common philosophy affordeth no solution.  (Religio Medici)

Image: Raphael, "The Deliverance of St Peter" in the Vatican. Peter's was the most famous guardian angel in the New Testament.