GOODNESS!

In the midst of Brexit, Trump, ISIS/Daech, and so forth, I found this snippet from St Matthias's Church website in Orange, N.J., entirely refreshing. One never tires of the Psalms.

"I believe I shall enjoy the Lord's goodness in the land of the living." Psalm 27:13

What a wonderful mantra the psalmist offers. Try repeating this belief statement as you go through a typical day. We most often see what we expect to see. Do you expect to see the Lord's goodness as you go through the day?  It takes many forms: a surprise phone call, a random act of kindness, some unexpected good news, or the daisy growing through the concrete. We are invited to one step further, however. After we see the Lord's goodness, we are challenged to enjoy it. That means slowing down to take notice. In this way, we are changed by what we see. Give yourself the gift of being transformed by the goodness of the Lord.

Source:  Loyola Press, May 4, 2016

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER -- A GREAT WOMAN

Thinking about something to write today, I realised that I had completely forgotten June 15, the feast of the Anglican saint Evelyn Underhill. I use the term “Anglican Saint” gingerly but confidently: the Anglican Church officially has no saints of its own, only those shared with the Roman Catholic Church from before the Reformation; but the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music has created a very decent Calendar of “Holy Men, HolyWomen”, and when, a number of years ago, I went to Mass at my old Toronto Church of St Mary Magdalene I heard, in the Litany, among a long list of other saints asked to pray for us, “Saint George Herbert”! So I have little reluctance in calling Evelyn Underhill an Anglican saint, and indeed a Doctor of the Church. I first heard about her from my late mother-in-law Noel Wynyard, a rather saintly woman in her own right about whom my daughter Tessa Kuin Lawton wrote a very fine biography, and who greatly admired Underhill as a teacher of Anglican spirituality.

Reading her famous book Mysticism, first published in 1911, I am struck by the civilised ease of the style and the enduring freshness of her intellectual approach. An example, from the introduction:

“All men, at one time or another, have fallen in love with the veiled Isis whom they call Truth. With most, this has been a passing passion: they have early seen its hopelessness and turned to more practical things. But other remain all their lives the devout lovers of reality: though the manner of their love, the vision which they make to themselves of the beloved object varies enormously. Some see Truth as Dante saw Beatrice: an adorable yet intangible figure, found in this world yet revealing the next. To others she seems rather an evil but an irresistible enchantress: enticing, demanding payment and betraying her lover at the last. Some have seen her in a test tube, and some in a poet’s dream; some before the altar, others in the slime. The extreme pragmatists have even sought her in the kitchen, declaring that she may best be recognized by her utility. Last stage of all, the philosophic sceptic has comforted an unsuccessful courtship by assuring himself that his mistress is not really there.”

And a little further: “the mystics are the pioneers of the spiritual world, and we have no right to deny validity to their discoveries, merely because we lack the opportunity or the courage necessary to those who would prosecute such explorations themselves.”

And it occurred to me that in this current age, when Islamist terrorism has given rise to a whole new materialist atheism that (in order not to seem to discriminate) now considers all religion not only as ridiculous but as inherently toxic; reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting sages such as Underhill – who includes Muslim and Buddhist mystics in her considerations – may be a crucial antidote.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

For those who, despite the coming of the Paraclete, feel obscurely bereft after the Lord’s Ascension because He is no longer with us in the flesh:

Perhaps He has left it up to us to be Him in the flesh.

In compassion for the widow whose only son died;

In the forgiveness of the woman about to be stoned;

In the thought that produced those memorable images we call the Parables;

In the constant, unceasing prayer to the Father;

In the patience with the well-intentioned who act like idiots;

In the occasional flash of real anger at those who blaspheme the sacred;

and in the readiness to go the whole way if the world insists and it cannot be avoided;

Perhaps He has left it up to us to be Him, here, in the flesh.

OMG.

PERHAPS TO SING

HYMN

(tune: Melcombe)

The daily round, the common task

Are not enough for what we ask:

No Martha chose to cook the meal;

The hours of thought are what we steal.

The world is too much with us yet:

We little give and little get;

We lean to keep an even keel;

The hours of thought are what we steal.

Images swirl and whorl and sway

And tempt our eye to fill our day;

We see the world behind the wheel --

The hours of thought are what we steal.

The shouted words of angry men

Pretend that hell is come again

And order us to think them real;

The hours of thought are what we steal.

In hush of waking, barely heard,

Comes murmuring the living Word;

Rich thieves, in gratitude we kneel:

The hours of prayer are what we steal.

R.K.

(with a hat tip to John Keble and William Wordsworth)

A TRUMP VOTER, A COLLEGE PROFESSOR, AND THE MAYOR OF PARIS WALK INTO A BAR . . .

  

Three events.

One: A recent New York Times column by Thomas Edsall who attempted, with the help of some current social psychologists, to make sense of the mentalité of those who enthusiastically support Donald Trump’s election campaign. Much of the general resentment felt by the typical Trump voter, Edsall claims, is the resentment felt by those who feel their freedom, their small liberties of thought and action, being taken away, or at least impugned and contemned, by those who claim to be more intelligent, better educated, more moral and more concerned with the General Good. The freedoms concerned are not necessarily either good or nice; the consciousness of this only adds to the felt resentment when they are taken away. The villain doing the taking-away is named, for want of a better term, Political Correctness; and the vague guilt mixed in only fuels the anger.

Two: On the other side of the coin – perhaps: perhaps just an adjacent side of a polygon – is a recent column by the very humanitarian Nicholas Kristof, on “Liberal Intolerance,” in which he chided American academia for its intolerance toward conservatives, particularly evangelical Christians, and for which he got a flood of furious comments from liberals who felt that “idiots” have no place in their institutions.

Three: On this morning’s French radio news, an announcement by the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, that as of July 1 all cars older than 1997 will be banned from the city of Paris between 8 AM and 8 PM. A laudable anti-pollution measure, to some; for others, a hindrance for the poor who cannot afford newer cars to get to their few and hard-won jobs. Never mind, says the mayor: we will give them free passes on public transit. But that would also force them to trade the small space of comfort and privacy that is a car (even an old banger in a traffic jam) for standing-room-only sardine-space in commuter trains (which also, in France, go on strike regularly).

All this made me – one of the Politically Correct: educated, reasonably moral, reasonably well off – very thoughtful, as I said. If we consider we are objectively right, we have an instant and pressing duty of charity toward those who, we think, are wrong. And the very first part of that pressing duty is to call into question our own opinions and attitudes. Opinions, because it is possible that those we disagree with may not be entirely wrong, and their opinions may at the least be understandable; attitudes, because it is our duty, even in simple human kindness, to approach the bloke or the woman next door, beside us in the waiting-room, or holding forth in a bar, to quote the saying, “as someone fighting a desperate battle you know nothing about.”

What are the consequences for a Christian? At many moments, one could see this as merely the world, shouting. In so far as it is media-speak and does not touch our own lives, we should be right to tune it out. On the other hand, it may impinge, in a waiting-room, in a bar, or during a dinner with friends. And then our hand will show. Have we, in quieter moments, thought about such things? Have we, at times, called our instinctive and even our considered opinions into question? Are we prepared to distinguish between our beliefs and our human understanding and loving-kindness? Do we ask ourselves how our socially responsible opinions and attitudes hold up under the Cross? These are not rhetorical questions. They may hold up; we may distinguish, and love. But what the Cross does is ask the question, and make us ask it also.

As the Carthusians say, Stat Crux, dum volvitur orbis. The world turns: the Cross stands.

IN THESE EMPTY DAYS

I think I've posted this before, but I'm always struck by the moments between the Ascension and 

Whitsun (Pentecost) - rather like Holy Saturday, when the statues are still veiled and the Tabernacle 

on the altar open and empty. A brief time of - well, almost fright, a sudden chill of aloneness. We 

know better, but even so. I had been reading the glorious Latin hymns and their haunting tetrameters, 

and found myself writing something that sounded like the translation of one. So here it is: a translation without an original:

PATRIS AEDEM REDIENS

Returning to his Father's house,

The rising Son our sunset wrought:

leaving us grey and comfortless

to face the day, survive the night

Before he came we had the Law,

harsh, but secure: fulfilling it

he took away our rod and staff

and gave the fearful gift of Love

No rules, no simple precepts now:

decision dwells deep in the heart;

how shall we live with such a weight,

being our own Law, every day?

Peace: for the Father's deathless love

remembers us when we forget;

the Son who sits at his right hand

is mindful of our loneliness

Third Person of the Trinity,

the Holy Spirit, Paraclete,

prepares himself to come to us,

and plunges to our careless world

Welcome among us, Comforter,

strengthen us now from deep within, 

pray in us, rule our hands and lives,

illuminate our wakeful mind

Breathe in our breath, see through our eyes,

speak with our tongue, and let the world

stare at our newness every day,

and praise thy presence in our love.

A LIKEABLE MAN, TO HIS OWN SURPRISE

St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660) (with thanks to St Matthias, Somerset, NJ)


The deathbed confession of a dying servant opened Vincent's eyes to the crying spiritual needs of the peasantry of France. This seems to have been a crucial moment in the life of the man from a small farm in Gascony, France, who had become a priest with little more ambition than to have a comfortable life.
It was the Countess de Gondi (whose servant he had helped) who persuaded her husband to endow and support a group of able and zealous missionaries who would work among poor tenant farmers and country people in general. Vincent was too humble to accept leadership at first, but after working for some time in Paris among imprisoned galley-slaves, he returned to be the leader of what is now known as the Congregation of the Mission, or the Vincentians. These priests, with vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability, were to devote themselves entirely to the people in smaller towns and villages.
Later, Vincent established confraternities of charity for the spiritual and physical relief of the poor and sick of each parish. From these, with the help of St. Louise de Marillac, came the Daughters of Charity, "whose convent is the sickroom, whose chapel is the parish church, whose cloister is the streets of the city." He organized the rich women of Paris to collect funds for his missionary projects, founded several hospitals, collected relief funds for the victims of war and ransomed over 1,200 galley slaves from North Africa. He was zealous in conducting retreats for clergy at a time when there was great laxity, abuse and ignorance among them. He was a pioneer in clerical training and was instrumental in establishing seminaries.
Most remarkably, Vincent was by temperament a very irascible person-even his friends admitted it. He said that except for the grace of God he would have been "hard and repulsive, rough and cross." But he became a tender and affectionate man, very sensitive to the needs of others.
Pope Leo XIII made him the patron of all charitable societies. Outstanding among these, of course, is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, founded in 1833 by his admirer Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (September 7). He is the patron saint of volunteers.