JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD RELAX . . .

Here, in the middle of summer, it would be nice to give our minds a break. But today's reading comes from Paul's letter to the congregation in Rome, whose intelligence and alertness he never underestimates. And accordingly, the awesome Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau, Benedictine hermit in Provence, has provided a "meditation" to comment on it which equally refuses to underestimate us. How refreshing. I've chosen J.B. Phillips's New Testament translation to represent the current official French one, which mostly fits. Read with care, because this is not easy. But very, very rewarding.

“Moreover we know that to those who love God, who are called according to his plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. God, in his foreknowledge, chose them to bear the family likeness of his Son, that he might be the eldest of a family of many brothers. He chose them long ago; when the time came he called them, he made them righteous in his sight, and then lifted them to the splendour of life as his own sons.”

(Romans 8:28-30; tr. J.B. Phillips)

GOD, GREATER THAN OUR HEART

Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau, Benedictine hermit

In the space of three verses of extreme density, Paul sketches our ultimate destiny. Thus he opens up for us a horizon that goes far beyond what our spirit can conceive. Moreover, he deals cleverly with the experiences where we have trouble understanding that everything contributes to our good.

Preparation

Lord, “let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort” (Ps. 119:76)

Observation

Right from the start, Paul sets us on another plane than that of feelings, even religious ones. To speak of those who love God he chooses, from among the words available to him, the verb corresponding to “agapè”: the love that has its wellspring in God and has been “flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us.” (Rom. 5:5) So it takes on a level of depth and stability that allows it to withstand storms. Then, Paul mentions those whom God “chose long ago”, thereby expressing his conviction that our being in the world did not happen by chance: we were thought and willed by God before our creation. Finally, there are those whom he “made righteous”: a specifically Pauline approach to salvation, seen as the opposite of condemnation, in other words as reconciliation with God (cf Rom. 5). Hence the restoration of the image and of the resemblance; hence our participation in the very glory of the God who calls for our response of faith.

Meditation

By means of these words we understand that our “good” is not only that which is “pleasant” to us, but also that which is “useful” and “salutary”, in a view that goes beyond the limits of our present horizon and of our singular person. It is not that Paul passes over the sufferings of our current state, but by the standard of this ultimate future he sees them as labour pains (cf Rom. 8).  This connotes a dynamic of life awaiting its fullness. This dynamic we can already experience in our existence when, like Job, we move from a hearsay knowledge to a personal knowledge of God as a result of a drama in our life. Or when, like Paul, we find that our murky ways can, by God’s grace, end up in the light: yes, “though sin is shown to be wide and deep, thank God his grace is wider and deeper still.” (Rom. 5:20)

Prayer

“I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place. The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation.” (Ps. 118:5,14).

THE JOY OF THOUGHT

Today is the Feast of St Anselm of Canterbury, the first to offer an ontological proof of the existence of God. What I found particularly pleasing was that this proof, so far from being an outmoded relic of medieval primitivity, was picked up and elaborated by one of the 20th century's greatest mathematicians, Kurt Gödel. As a Bear of Very Little Brain, I have never been any good at either philosophy or mathematics -- to my great regret, since I understand just enough to glimpse the extraordinary beauty that expert practitioners find in both. However, in the explanation given here, I think I can just follow it, and find it deeply pleasing.

I have cited Benedict XVI a number of times in this blog. I'm an Anglican, not a Roman, Catholic, but Benedict has always impressed me greatly by the quality of his thought and by the fact that he has always directed that thought to the relation of faith and reason in our time -- a problem far more important than the interminable arguments about sexuality and reproduction that seem to obsess churches these days. St Anselm might well be adopted as the patron saint of such endeavours.

In the little daily publication I subscribe to, Prions en Eglise, the admirable Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau recently wrote that in this Eastertide where we read Acts and the Gospel of John, we might fruitfully ponder the language we use to one another as Christians. What, she said, do we talk about among ourselves? What, in other words, do we use our minds on? I once frequented a small charismatic community of considerable devotion and spirituality; but I left them, saying to their leader that they seemed to regard God as having created every part of them except their intelligence.

In Spenser's Faerie Queene the Red Cross Knight, stumbling Patron of Holiness, in mortal combat with the serpent Error, is urged by Una, his companion, to "add faith unto your force!" We might suitably adapt this as an injunction to add thought unto our faith, at the highest level we can manage.

MALKUT

(go to 1:25 in this video)

Re-reading Joseph Ratzinger’s magnificent Jesus of Nazareth, I am struck by his discussion of the Kingdom of God. I’d long worried about one aspect of it: the fact that in English it is called the Kingdom but in Latin regnum and in French règne, which means reign or kingship. It is not a place, not even in Heaven or in the hereafter. In Heaven, we may hope and trust, God’s kingship, His reign, will be complete, thus making Heaven His kingdom; but meanwhile, there is the regnum Dei, the kingship or reign of God.

Jesus talks about it in varied and often startling ways, of which (says JR) the common denominator is Christocentric: for Israel, and from Jesus on for everyone, the regnum Dei is: following him. In the Sermon on the Mount, which is the new Torah – the Messiah’s Torah --, he keeps saying “You have heard it said . . . but I say unto you . . .” He does not abrogate the law of Moses but “fulfils” it: in him it has reached its full range and weight. He is the embodiment of God’s Law, the incarnation of it.

What he has done is to internalise the Law. At one point he says, “The Kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Mt 12:28) In other words, it is present to his hearers, they can enter it at that moment. How? That depends. You have to fulfil the law and commandments with the inner identification with him that the Sermon suggests; and sometimes you have to do something more in your own individual case. The rich young man kept all the commandments, yet he felt shut out of that regnum. So Jesus said to him, “Go, sell everything you have, and then come and follow me.” Not, sell your stuff and go to Temple regularly, or, sell your stuff and pray more; no, sell it and “follow me”.

For us, JR suggests, the true regnum accessible in this life is described by Paul in his letter to the Galatians: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:.” (Gal. 2:20) In other words, we have a lot of baggage to get rid of. Which is sometimes a pleasure: many of us have moments of wishing we could see less of ourselves. We need to become hollow, like a water-pipe or a pen. Hollow in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit, like John the Baptist (Lk. 1:15) . And not just for the Spirit to fill us and remain in us: hollow at both ends, for the Spirit to flow through us to reach others. (What others? Any and all: see the Samaritan.)

Lent, as Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau wrote, means learning to stop taking the relative for the absolute, the partially important for the absolutely important. That’s what turning away from idols boils down to. When we do so – whether by fasting, or seeing our cell phone for what it is (and no more: see video, above), or discerning the relative importance of the next board meeting --, and then, set free, internalise not only the teaching of Christ but the person of Christ; then we are in the basileia, the malkut, the regnum, the kingdom, and it is in us.

After that, Heaven is simply a change of dimension, like going from caterpillar to butterfly.

A GREAT LADY

 

Today is the feast of St Scholastica. I first learned of this in Oxford, where her feast-day in 1355 gave rise to a stupendous riot that left over 80 people dead and the city’s narrow paved streets running with blood.

Scholastica herself, I later found out, was the sister – some say the twin sister – of St Benedict of Nursia, the founder of cenobitic monasticism, in other words, monks living together instead of on their own in a desert. He wrote the great Rule which became the basis for all such communities; and it is said that his sister adapted it to found the first convent for Benedictine moniales or nuns. There is a delightful story about her and her brother, who were very close and used to visit once a year and have lengthy talks about God and the Holy Spirit. One year, when Benedict was visiting, they had talked until supper and beyond. When, finally, Benedict said it was time for him to leave, she protested, and begged him to stay with her for the evening so they could continue their discussions. He refused, insisting that he needed to return to his cell. At that point, Scholastica closed her hands in prayer, and after a moment, a wild storm started outside of the guest house in which they were housed. Benedict asked, "What have you done?", to which she replied, "I asked you and you would not listen; so I asked my God and he did listen. So now go off, if you can, leave me and return to your monastery." Benedict was unable to return to his monastery, and they spent the night in discussion. According to Gregory's Dialogues, three days later, from his cell, he saw his sister's soul leaving the earth and ascending to heaven in the form of a shining white dove – which reminds me of the lovely Spanish song “La Paloma” sung memorably by Caetano Veloso in Almodóvar’s film Talk To Her.

            If you are a 21C non-monastic person, what do you do with someone like Scholastica? I think that first of all you give thanks that such people still exist. On this blog I have once or twice mentioned the admirable Sr Emmanuelle Billoteau, that great intellect of the faith, who is one of Scholastica’s successors, having started as a Benedictine moniale and graduated to being a Benedictine hermit who translates works from the English and writes fine meditations. The religious, as they are properly known, are what you might call the salt of the salt of the earth, the leaven in the bread of the faith.

            Secondly, Scholastica teaches us that it is not only pleasing but good to discuss religion, and to do so intelligently among spirits who fundamentally agree. This is not the same as the difficult and occasionally maddening task of discussing it with those who deny not just its truth but its value: it is the inspiring activity of collaboration between like minds, allowing them to reach further than each would on its own.

The illustration is "St Scholastica" by Andrea Mantegna, from the San Luca altarpiece in Milan.

ORDER LOVE IN ME!

As you will have noticed, I've been finding voices lately that say things in ways I admire and could not equal. I take the liberty of presenting one more: a meditation by Sister Emmanuelle Billoteau, a Benedictine hermit from Provence. She is a fine example of treating our intelligence as an integral part of God's creation. The translation is mine.

“ordinavit in me caritatem” (SS 2:4 Vulgate)

“He ordered love in me”: this remark by the Bride in the Song of Songs, which could become ours, may serve as the guideline for this meditation. The verse has been commented on often, inter alia by St Bernard and by a less well-known author, Richard Rolle. Rolle, who lived as a hermit in turbulent 14^th-century England, experienced God as “warmth, sweetness, song”. It is in one of his many works, The Song of Love, that he examines at some length the ordering of love – a theme already emphasized by St Augustine.

The point is that “God is love” and “All that is of God is ordered”. What is at stake is the proper use of the desire to love that lives in us: a vestige of our creation in the image and the likeness of God. For without charity “no one can attain the supreme joy, no one can be saved”. Indeed, as we know from experience, we are often overwhelmed and, in this area, faced with our limits, our wounds, with our sin, with a kind of chaos that comes from desires dominated by passions. How shall we escape from possessivity, from fusion, from selfishness, so that our capacity for loving can blossom fully to the glory of God, to our own happiness and to that of our peers?  A huge question, which impels us not only to seize all human means that may help us but above all to turn to God and to pray Him to ‘order love in me’. For what is needed is not just a simple psychological change or a moral issue, but the transformation of our being by the presence of the Risen One.

            For Rolle, who unceasingly read and meditated on Scripture, “love well ordered, then, consists of always and everywhere preferring the Creator to every creature”. It is also “loving only God and for God” and “bringing to God all the love we are shown”. This approach, of course, is embodied in concrete choices: a sensitivity in our relation to the Lord which will not let us turn away from Him for what we want ourselves, which will impel us to invest our energy and our time in prayer, and to resist the temptation of getting our own back upon our enemies but rather to call down upon them the blessing of God – to give just a few examples.

            Richard Rolle, who has a living relation to the Word, at once expresses an objection that may already have suggested itself to us. How can one speak of order in love? Should love not be without measure? Rolle distinguishes between love of God and love of men. The former is called to be without limit and to function “at every moment”,  for we can never love Him “as He deserves”; the latter is limited only by this, “never to let the created compete with the Creator”, i.e. never to put the creature in the place of God.

            Let us then, learn to find in the Church’s tradition what we need to support our own quest to let God be, as Rolle puts it so beautifully, ‘the joy of my silence, the balm of my repentance, the force of my prayer, the sweetness of my meditation, the food of my contemplation.’ True, our sensibility is not that of the Middle Ages: the contribution of the human sciences has changed our relation to ourselves and to others. But some truths transcend time.