EASTER WITHOUT MARKERS

For a variety of reasons, this Easter season has been very different. No church services, much busyness, absolutely nothing conducive to quiet, ritual, or contemplation. What to do in such a case?

What it has done is make me think more deeply about the Passion and the Resurrection, quite apart from ritual and in ways more individual than ecclesial. On Good Friday I awoke at 5 and spent two hours meditating on the day. I’ll share some of the thoughts.

      1.     The Anglican Communion service reads, in the Prayer of Consecration, “On the night that he was betrayed . . .” The new Catholic version says “On the night that he entered freely into his Passion . . .” At first I used to trip over this last version, but I have come to agree with it and like it (except rhythmically). It emphasises Yeshua’s willed accord with the Father’s will; his clear understanding that this death, grisly as it was, was the whole point of the Meshiach’s life and activity. Contrary to much Messianic thinking that wanted a new David to deliver Israel from its enemies, Yeshua’s interpretation was that of Isaiah. The Meshiach’s role went infinitely further than that of a political liberator: it aimed to liberate humanity from its Enemy – Satan, sin, and death. And this was possible only through the Meshiach himself becoming the Paschal sacrifice. So, human indeed, he quakes, he grieves, but he nevertheless goes forth. The Anglo-Saxon Dream of the Rood is doubtless factually wrong but also spiritually right in seeing Christ as a “young hero” voluntarily ascending the Cross.

      

      2.     I am always fascinated by the fact that his last words were two quotations from the Psalms. That shows, to cite Bonhoeffer, the degree to which the Psalter was Yeshua’s prayer-book. Having tried to say Morning and/or Evening Prayer regularly during Lent, I found reading through the Psalter one of the most moving parts of the experience. It is so wonderfully Jewish in its constant dialogue with the Creator: thankful, suffering, indignant (“Up, Lord!”), cursing, adoring and praising, it shows us how to relate to a sometimes distant and almost always (ostensibly) silent God.

      3.     The Crucifixion was necessary, because without it there could be no Resurrection. Perhaps what it teaches us is that our death too is necessary, and that we too follow him in a resurrection: not in the flesh – as his had to be, temporarily, to make people understand – but in the “body” of our post-mortem life, whatever that may look and feel like. No caterpillar, I suspect, has the faintest idea beforehand of what it feel like to be a butterfly.

      4.     Yochanan, St John the Evangelist, after whom I was named, thrills me, not only because of his mystical understanding and his poetic writing but because he was the only disciple not to have fled the Cross. He and the women stayed till the end. Perhaps that is one reason for the depth of his comprehension? It came to equal Miriam’s, which is why it was he who was detailed to look after her.

      5.     “Give us that peace which the world cannot give.” This impresses itself upon me more and more. The world can give suffering; the world can give comfort, and fun. But it cannot give true peace. When I look at those who live without faith, I mostly see a deep underlying sadness; those who live in faith are not exempt from pain and suffering, but they see meaning and coherence, and know that they are loved. 

      6.     The paradox of the Cross is inexhaustible. Its horror is bottomless, its joy is endless.

      7.     What, exactly, is the Good News that Yeshua preached? That you are not bound nor bounded by your self. That the Kingdom, the Reign, of God is here now. That it is the reign of Love, and that what you have to do, all you have to do, is relax and let it take you over. That you need to open the windows, doors and shutters of your soul and let the Ruach, Pneuma, Spiritus in. That if you live from day to day, hour to hour, by what it tells you, the Father, Son, and Spirit will come and live in you. That you are loved as you are, not as you might be if you were a better person. (That is really and truly hard to take on board!) That you can live day by day in subservience, in filial or servantlike devotion to something, Someone, greater than you are without losing your independence or your pride. On the contrary, it will increase your stature by making it irrelevant.  

COMPLETING THE TRIANGLE

Caspar David Friedrich, "Angels in Adoration"

In my two posts on prayer I wrote about the prayer of petition and the prayer of thanksgiving. The triangle, or trinity, of prayer now needs to be completed by paying attention to what is, in the tradition of the Church, considered the highest and most celestial form of prayer, the prayer of adoration.

In petition, we ask, we beg, we beseech; and we need to learn what to ask for, how to ask for it, and how to deal with the result. In thanksgiving, we say Thank you; and we need to learn about illogicality an d discretion. What is the prayer of adoration?

Latin ad-oro originally means “to speak to”, then becomes “to address a request or prayer to” and eventually takes on the meaning of “to worship, to venerate”. In Greek there are the verbs sebomai and proskunein, the latter implying a physical movement such as kneeling or prostration. Whereas the English word “worship” is originally a noun meaning something like “value-ness”, greatness, honourableness, and later becomes a verb meaning to honour, to venerate.

Somehow, the prayer of adoration is well beyond that. Why? Because it is disinterested, unlike petition and thanksgiving. It is the pure, natural condition for a created being: turning to the light and warmth of its Creator as the sunflower turns to the sun. In part it is simply basking; but there is in adoration a return movement of joy, of pleasure, of active giving. What do we give when we adore? As the Psalm says, “of thine own do we give thee” – there is nothing we can give God that did not come from Him, that is not always already His. And yet there is joy in giving back that borrowed joy.

The prayer of adoration is also contemplation. As the sunflower contemplates the sun, the human soul contemplates the living God. Often, His light is too bright for us to regard directly; so we contemplate Him in His creation. Thomas Traherne, whom I have had occasion to quote before, did so and managed to express it gloriously in human words. Others have contemplated God’s glory and have fallen silent before it. Still others have lost themselves, lost their selves, in becoming one with it, as a comet might fall into the sun.

The prayer of adoration is the prayer of the angels. It is the prayer of all those seen by St John in his vision of Revelation, those who surround the throne of the Almighty, those whose joy is eternal in their unceasing song. Nevertheless, this prayer of adoration has roots. It grows out of the prayer of thanksgiving: part of the joy of contemplating God is the immense gratitude for receiving all that we now give back in praise; for His creation, its beauty, its emotion, all that we see and love in life. And the prayer of thanksgiving, in turn, has its roots in the prayer of petition; for we are given what we first asked, or we are given what it did not even occur to us toask, or what we dared not ask. And so the trinity of prayer is complete; and the immeasurable, unspeakable, huge silent light of God is all in all.

Image courtesy of Abuto George Evangelical Ministry

Looking through Vivyen Bremner's thoughtful little book I Tune the Instrument, I was struck by a passage from Thomas Traherne -- the second of the two below. I made me look again, as I hadn't done for years, at the Centuries of Meditations, and I was enchanted all over again at the wealth of beauty and wisdom in their pages. So I will share some of them in the coming weeks. Here are two to begin with: the first with its allusion to the English Civil War, the second with its almost William Blake-like ecstatic penetrating into the world around us through and in the Spirit.

I.   I will not by the noise of bloody wars and the dethroning of kings advance you to glory: but by the gentle ways of peace and love. As a deep friendship meditates and intends the deepest designs for the advancement of its objects, so doth it shew itself in choosing the sweetest and most delightful methods, whereby not to weary but please the person it desireth to advance. Where Love administers physic, its tenderness is expressed in balms and cordials. It hateth corrosives, and is rich in its administrations. Even so, God designing to show His Love in exalting you hath chosen the ways of ease and repose by which you should ascend. And I after His similitude will lead you into paths plain and familiar, where all envy, rapine, bloodshed, complaint and malice shall be far removed; and nothing appear but contentment and thanksgiving. Yet shall the end be so glorious that angels durst not hope for so great a one till they had seen it.

II. You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins. Till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God as misers do in gold and kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.

Image: Samuel Palmer, "Eventide"

A THOUSAND YEARS AT THE CUTTING EDGE

Girolamo Marchesi, St Bruno

Today is the Feast of St Bruno (ca. 1030 - 1101), the founder of the Carthusian Order, the most complete of the contemplative communities. The Carthusians are hermits living in community; the order has never been reformed because it has never needed reformation. Books they publish are signed not with an author's name or even a monastic pseudonym but "A Carthusian". Bruno may be the only saint never officially canonised because a Carthusian would never accept such an individualising honour. The original monastery, which in an expanded form still exists, is in one of the world's more beautiful places, the valley of the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps:

The Grande Chartreuse, the mother house of the Order

When a German film director Peter Gröning, asked if he could make a documentary of their life, he was told, "No, we're not quite ready. Come back in 15 years." Fifteen years later, he asked again, and was given permission as long as he came by himself with only a handheld camera. The result was the stunning Into Great Silence, of which the New York Times film critic said, "I would not call it the best film of the year: rather, the antidote to all the others." It is a film of surpassing beauty, in both the aesthetic and the spiritual sense. 

Carthusians live completely apart from the world and do not admit visitors, which is sometimes frustrating for those in the world who are attracted by them. But one can read their writings, some of which are published by Gracewing, including the superb The Wound of Love; and there are international virtual communities of Carthusian-inspired lay people, such as the International Fellowship of St Bruno (IFSB) and, more recently and most interestingly, Quies.

There are male and female Carthusian communities; they are divided into full religious (in the male communities Fathers, usually priests), who spend their entire life in contemplation, prayer and study, and Brothers (or Sisters), who perform the community's practical maintenance but share in the liturgical and prayer life. And one of the few activities which touch the world is the making of Chartreuse liqueur, flavoured with herbs, a drink of extraordinary depth and subtlety. 

The Carthusians are those who have gone all the way. They have given up everything to live close to God. One Carthusian wrote, "How does a Carthusian die? Very simply. You go to sleep, as on any night; you wake up somewhere else." It is, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "A condition of complete simplicity / Costing not less than everything." They are well worth getting to know.

A Carthusian praying in cell - from Into Great Silence

3-IN-ONE

Trinity Sunday is the culmination, in a sense, of the Church’s liturgical year. We move from Advent to Christmas, from Christmas to Epiphany, from Epiphany to Lent, from Lent to the Cross, from Good Friday to Easter, from Easter to Whitsun, from Whitsun to the Ascension, and from Ascension Day to Trinity. Then comes what once described as ‘the long green highway of the year’, the Sundays After Trinity with their noble and varied Collects. But what of Trinity itself?

For the human race, apparently mired in death, the Great Event is the Resurrection. But the Resurrection cannot be taken without the Cross; the two together are the great outpouring of the Son’s love for us; and the Son is not, cannot be, without the Father. “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” (Jn 14:10) And beyond that, there is the Holy Spirit: “And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you.” (Jn 14:16-7)

And so, meditating, thinking and praying (and frequently quarrelling), the Church came eventually (381 AD) to the doctrine of the Trinity: the Triune God, one God, three Persons. The Resurrection is the Event; the Trinity is the great Mystery of the faith. In the view of St Basil, his brother Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus, as Karen Armstrong explains in A History of God, “the Trinity only made sense as a mystical or spiritual experience . . . It was not a logical or intellectual formulation but an imaginative paradigm that confounded reason. Gregory of Nazianzus made this clear when he explained that contemplation of the Three in One induced a profound and overwhelming emotion that confounded thought and intellectual clarity. ‘No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendor of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Three than I am carried back into the One. When I think of any of the Three, I think of him as the whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking escapes me.’” 

And yet it is a mystery that Jesus lets us in on, lets us into: because the Spirit dwells with us and in us, and if the Spirit and the Son and the Father are one, we are taken up into that great beating cosmic heart of Love. How do we celebrate it? All (of the Faith) is always present, wrote T.S. Eliot; yet the point of the liturgical year is that we can concentrate on some individual aspects at any one time. When the parable of the Good Samaritan is read, we look on the people we pass in the street in a new way; in Lent, we give a different attention to those who suffer; and on Trinity Sunday we might usefully learn from the Carthusians and other contemplative orders to meditate on the mystery as Gregory did. The more so in that that same Mystery has chosen to dwell with and in us, poor clods that we are.

CONTRA SPINOZAM TRINITAS

 My God, I heard them say

Thy way of being was a Clock of clocks,

A self-perpetuate motion, and that Love

Was, to create by necessary law;

And they reproach’d for Paradox

My words that thou, perfect above,

Didst need no more;

Sure they are blind who do not see

Thy love in this, that being is a gift;

Who do not sense that we

And all the random forms of hill and drift

Are here by no necessity

But by thy lasting Courtesy:

So they forget thy Trinity.

    Out of thy joyous solitude

    And tender in omnipotence

    To shape a world and on it brood,

    Fashioning trees and men of sense;

    From archangelic psalmody

    Mankind having destruction drawn,

    To enter into agony

    And for their healing to be torn;

    And, resurrected, still to dwell,

    Informing our experience,

    Praying in us, Immanuel,

    Unravelling our impotence;

Such thy unnecessary love: can we do less,

Released from death,

Than savour each delight of breath,

Blessing Thy wilfulness?

RK