tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91635818920769649372024-03-14T00:54:35.724-04:00Our Lady of Ashesa pilgrim's regressDavid Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-42196927813848395582024-03-06T04:52:00.004-05:002024-03-06T04:55:19.131-05:00Prayer to John the Baptist<p> After composing <a href="https://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2022/05/josephs-angelic-salutation.html">the prayer to St Joseph</a>, in the style of Mary's Angelic Salutation, pulling Biblical language as much as possible, I turned to St John the Baptist. Here is my modest attempt:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Hail John the Baptist, in the spirit and power of Elijah [<i>Lk 1:17</i>], the hand of the Lord is with you [<i>Lk 1:66</i>].</p><p>Greatest of those born of woman [<i>Mt 11:11</i>], you are the friend of the bridegroom [<i>Jn 3:29</i>], Jesus.</p><p>Voice crying out in the wilderness [<i>Mt 3:3, etc</i>], pray for us that we Repent and make straight His paths [<i>Mt 3:2 & 3</i>], now and at the hour of our death.</p></blockquote><p></p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-87354259839126639092023-07-25T10:11:00.005-04:002023-07-25T10:11:34.760-04:00Prayers for Students<p>When I'm not homeschooling the kids, being a stay-at-home Dad and Handy Husband, I teach Theology at a local Catholic High School. As G.K. Chesterton said:</p><p>“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”</p><p>So here are some ways to say Grace before tests/exams/assignments and ask the blessing and aid of Divine Wisdom before you "dip the pen in the ink" and put the pen to the test ... or cursor to the document, as you will.</p><p><b><span style="color: #990000;">Come Holy Spirit</span></b></p><p>Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful.<br />And kindle in them the fire of your love.<br />Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created.<br />And you will renew the face of the earth.</p><p>Lord,<br />by the light of the Holy Spirit<br />you have taught the hearts of your faithful.<br />In the same Spirit<br />help us to relish what is right<br />and always rejoice in your consolation.<br />We ask this through Christ our Lord. AMEN.</p><p><b><span style="color: #990000;">Prayer for Students by St Thomas Aquinas</span></b></p><p>Come, Holy Spirit, Divine Creator, the true source of light and fountain of wisdom.</p><p>Pour forth your brilliance upon my intellect, dissipate the darkness which covers me, that of sin and of ignorance. Grant me a penetrating mind to understand, a retentive memory, method and ease in learning, the lucidity to comprehend, and abundant grace in expressing myself.</p><p>Guide the beginning of my work, direct its progress, and bring it to successful completion. This I ask through Jesus Christ, true God and true man, living and reigning with You and the Father, forever and ever. Amen.</p><p><b><span style="color: #990000;">A Salesian Prayer before Exams</span></b></p><p>Dear Lord, as I take this exam,</p><p>I thank you that my value is not based on my performance, but on your great love for me. Come into my heart so that we can walk through this time together. Help me, not only with this test, but the many tests of life that are sure to come my way. As I take this exam, bring back to my mind everything I studied and be gracious with what I have overlooked. Help me to remain focused and calm, confident in the facts and in my ability, and firm in the knowledge that no matter what happens today you are there with me.</p><p><b><span style="color: #990000;">The Memorare</span></b></p><p>Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.</p><p>Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. AMEN.</p><p><b><span style="color: #990000;">Prayer for the Intercession of Joseph of Cupertino,</span></b> </p><p>patron saint of test takers</p><p>O St. Joseph of Cupertino who by your prayer obtained from God to be asked at your examination, the only preposition you knew. Grant that I may like you succeed in the (here mention the name of Examination eg. History paper I ) examination. In return I promise to make you known and cause you to be invoked.</p><p>O St. Joseph of Cupertino, pray for me<br />O Holy Spirit, enlighten me<br />Our Lady of Good Studies, pray for me</p><p>Sacred Head of Jesus, Seat of divine wisdom, enlighten me.</p><p><b><span style="color: #990000;">Prayer for Students</span></b></p><p>Lord our God,<br />in your wisdom and love<br />you surround us with the mysteries of the universe.</p><p>Send your Spirit upon these students<br />and fill them with your wisdom and blessings.</p><p>Grant that they may<br />devote themselves to their studies<br />and draw ever closer to you,<br />the source of all knowledge.</p><p>We ask this through Christ our Lord. AMEN.</p><p>~from <i>Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers</i></p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-46141041485868316082023-07-25T10:04:00.008-04:002023-07-25T10:04:42.152-04:00<p>In the Liturgy of the Hours there are several canticles, or songs, from the Book of Revelation. These are powerful hymns of praise to Jesus Christ worthy of meditation, and incorporating into your own prayer life, whether on the nights indicated, or as you read the Book of Revelation, or as you feel called to offer worship to the Lamb of God.</p><p><b>from Vespers for Tuesdays — Revelation 4:11, 5:9, 10, 12</b></p><p>O Lord our God, you are worthy *<br />to receive glory and honor and power.</p><p>For you have created all things; *<br />by your will they came to be and were made.</p><p>Worthy are you, O Lord *<br />to receive the scroll and break open its seals.</p><p>For you were slain; *<br />with your blood you purchased for God</p><p>men from every race and tongue, *<br />of every people and nation.</p><p>You made of them a kingdom, †<br />and priests to serve our God, *<br />and they shall reign on earth.</p><p>Worthy is the Lamb that was slain *<br />to receive power and riches,</p><p>wisdom and strength, *<br />honor and glory and praise.</p><p>Glory to the Father, and to the Son, *<br />and to the Holy Spirit:</p><p>as it was in the beginning, is now, *<br />and will be for ever. Amen.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Vespers for Thursdays — Revelation 11:17-18; 12:10b-12a</b></p><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">The judgment of God</span></b></p><p><br /></p><p>We praise you, the Lord God Almighty, who is and who was.</p><p>You have assumed your great power, you have begun your reign.</p><p>The nations have raged in anger, but then came your day of wrath</p><p>and the moment to judge the dead: the time to reward your servants the prophets</p><p>and the holy ones who revere you, the great and the small alike.</p><p>Now have salvation and power come, the reign of our God and the authority of his Anointed One.</p><p>For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who night and day accused them before God.</p><p>They defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death.</p><p>So rejoice, you heavens, and you that dwell therein!</p><p>Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:</p><p>as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>from Vespers for Fridays — Revelation 15:3-4<br /></b><b style="color: #cc0000;">Hymn of adoration</b></p><p>Mighty and wonderful are your works, <br />Lord God Almighty!</p><p>Righteous and true are your ways, <br />O King of the nations!</p><p>Who would dare refuse you honor, <br />or the glory due your name, O Lord?</p><p>Since you alone are holy, <br />all nations shall come</p><p>and worship in your presence. <br />Your mighty deeds are clearly seen.</p><p>Glory to the Father, and to the Son, <br />and to the Holy Spirit:</p><p>as it was in the beginning, is now, <br />and will be for ever. Amen.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Vespers for Sundays — Revelation 19:1-7</b></p><p>The Wedding of the Lamb</p><p><br /></p><p>Alleluia.<br />Salvation, glory, and power to our God: *<br />his judgments are honest and true. *<br />Alleluia.</p><p>Alleluia.<br />Sing praise to our God, all you his servants, *<br />all who worship him reverently, great and small. *<br />Alleluia.</p><p>Alleluia.<br />The Lord our all-powerful God is King; *<br />Let us rejoice, sing praise, and give him glory. *<br />Alleluia.</p><p>Alleluia.<br />The wedding feast of the Lamb has begun, *<br />and his bride is prepared to welcome him. *<br />Alleluia.</p><p>Alleluia.<br />Glory to the Father, and to the Son, *.<br />and to the Holy Spirit: *<br />Alleluia.</p><p>Alleluia.<br />as it was in the beginning, is now, *<br />and will be for ever. Amen. *<br />Alleluia.</p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-74531520625274714842023-07-25T09:57:00.007-04:002023-07-25T09:57:51.684-04:00The Book of Revelation in the Lectionary of the Roman Missal 3rd Edition<p>The Book of Revelation is a rare text to be a part of the Lectionary for the Mass. But it is read under some circumstances and here are some of the notable moments and feasts when that happens.</p><p><strong>The Chrism Mass on Thursday of Holy Week</strong></p><p><a href="http://usccb.org/bible/revelation" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Revelation 1:5-8</a> is the second reading at this Mass at which the Bishop blesses the Oil of the Sick and the Oil of Catechumens and consecrates the Chrism. The reading is likely included at this mass—which is to be "a manifestation of the Priests' communion with their Bishop" and at which the Bishop is urged to make his homily "about priestly anointing"—is likely included because it lauds Christ "who has made us into a Kingdom, <strong>priests</strong> for his God and Father."</p><p><strong>It is the second reading for the Sundays of Easter, Year C</strong>, and in Year II it is the "Epistle"/First Reading for the weekday masses of the Thirty-Third and Thirty-Fourth Weeks of Ordinary time.</p><p><strong>The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Aug 15)</strong></p><p>At the Mass During the Day, the first reading is <a href="http://usccb.org/bible/revelation/12" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Revelation 11:9a; 12:1-6a, 10ab</a>, John's vision of the "woman clothed with the son" that Catholics have typically associated with Mary <em>and</em> The Church (because images/symbols in Revelation are always multivalent). With the juxtaposition of <a href="http://usccb.org/bible/revelation/11:19" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">v. 11:19</a>, the pericope strongly connects "the ark of his covenant" which appears in heaven with the woman. This reading is also an option in the Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary during Easter.</p><p><strong>St Bartholomew, Apostle (August 24)</strong></p><p>Rev 21:9b-14 describes the city Jerusalem descending from heaven whose foundation is made up of twelve "courses of stones" on which are inscribed "the twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb" of which, Bartholomew was. This brings up the interesting point that if you count up everyone whom the Church names "apostle" you get more than Twelve (Judas, whom we're not counting, was replaced by Matthias then you have at least Paul and Bartholomew bringing named "apostles" to 14).</p><p><strong>Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, Archangels (Sept 29)</strong></p><p><a href="http://usccb.org/bible/revelation/12" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Rev 12:7-12ab</a> is the 2nd option for the First reading of this feast. Within the story of the woman clothed with the sun (see above), occurs the confrontation between the archangel Michael and the dragon. At the conclusion of this battle the ancient serpent and its angels are thrown down to earth. Notably, Michael is not specifically mentioned as the actor here, and <em>even if he was</em> the glory is given to Jesus, for it is sung "they conquered him by the Blood of the Lamb".</p><p><strong>Solemnity of All Saints (Nov 1)</strong></p><p><a href="http://usccb.org/bible/revelation/7" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14</a> is the first reading of the Solemnity. This pericope includes the vision of the "one hundred and forty-four thousand" of the children of Israel and the "great multitude" from every nation, race, people and tongue who worship God before the throne—of vision of the uncountable array of saints in Heaven.</p><p><strong>Some other times when Revelation is read</strong></p><p>A lot of the following are only options during Easter. Easter is the preeminent season for the Book of Revelation.</p><p><b>COMMONS</b> - </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>On the Anniversary of the Dedication during the season of Easter Rev 21:1-5a (<em><span class="has-inline-color" style="color: #a30003;">God will wipe every tear from their eyes</span></em>) OR 21:9-14 (<em><span class="has-inline-color" style="color: #a30003;">I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb</span></em>.) are options</li><li>Common of the BVM during Easter can use the <em><span class="has-inline-color" style="color: #a30003;">A woman clothed with the sun ...</span></em> reading from the Assumption or <em><span class="has-inline-color" style="color: #a30003;">God will wipe every tear ...</span></em> from above.</li><li>For the Common of Martyrs during Easter readings from Rev 7, Rev 12 and Rev 21 are options</li><li>Common of Virgins & Holy Men and Women during Easter: Rev 19:1, 5-9a; Rev 21:1-5a (REv 3:14b, 20-22 is another option for Holy M&W)</li></ul><p></p><p>RITUAL MASSES - </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>In the Ritual Mass for the Celebration of Marriage Rev 19:1, 5-9a is an option</li><li>At the Dedication of a Church and Altar, Rev 8:3-4 is an optional reading</li><li>At Masses for the Dead Rev 20:11-21:1 and Rev 21:1-5a, 6b-7 may be used during Easter</li></ul><p></p><figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><ul style="text-align: left;">
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<!--/wp:paragraph-->David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-67046982624750225452022-05-11T20:32:00.000-04:002022-05-11T20:32:51.735-04:00Joseph’s angelic salutation<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgbv5ws8eLTWnQQv4u0XhfY8iLx_IaQjS2wgzX9sVwWMMAf5GsfRSekn9fjyJcj3MOg9pFaVDh2U9mZC6pfXkHZtRGdah8E_7KX_E1RWpfgSkKiPqGRZaX_k-t5w_vF_dsGJVy-mpCgra4z9Y6zFJ4wxdzpyxzmrXSsxCs_PTU1MgQC1B2s7jPfIF_D" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="968" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgbv5ws8eLTWnQQv4u0XhfY8iLx_IaQjS2wgzX9sVwWMMAf5GsfRSekn9fjyJcj3MOg9pFaVDh2U9mZC6pfXkHZtRGdah8E_7KX_E1RWpfgSkKiPqGRZaX_k-t5w_vF_dsGJVy-mpCgra4z9Y6zFJ4wxdzpyxzmrXSsxCs_PTU1MgQC1B2s7jPfIF_D" width="182" /></a></div><br />Wednesdays for many Catholics are dedicated to devotion to St Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and foster-father of our Lord, Jesus. I’ve been trying to grow my devotion to Joseph by asking for his intercession throughout the day, but a lot of the St Joseph prayers I’ve found are longer, not easily memorized, and often a bit … effusive.<p></p><p>Looking for something more like the Angelic Salutation of Mary, aka the “Hail Mary,” I turned to Scripture (what little there is about Joseph) to compose something comparable without sounding totally derivative (it’s admittedly a little derivative…). </p><p>Joseph has his own Angelic Salutation “Joseph, son of David” (Matthew 1:20) during a dream and in later dreams he is repeatedly called to “Rise” (Mt 2:13, 20) which I made part of the petition. That Joseph names Jesus (Mt 1:21, 25), the name above all other names (Phil 2:9) strikes me as key to Joseph’s identity in addition to his betrothal to Mary. “Shadow of the Father” applied to Joseph, I first encountered with Stratford Caldecott (“The Chivalry of Saint Joseph” <a href="https://archive.secondspring.co.uk/articles/scaldecott26.htm">https://archive.secondspring.co.uk/articles/scaldecott26.htm</a>).</p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Hail Joseph, son of David, <br />just and chaste husband of Mary,<br /> Foster father of the son you named, Jesus.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Holy Joseph, shadow of the Father,<br /> As you protected Mother and Son,<br /> Rise and watch over us sinners,<br /> Now and until our happy death.</span></div><p style="text-align: left;">I’m going to give this a try on Wednesdays and see how it goes. Thursdays, dedicated to Eucharistic Devotion, I start working on memorizing the Spiritual Communion prayer.</p><p><br /></p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-82915732193756143212021-12-26T11:57:00.000-05:002021-12-26T11:57:28.974-05:00Edward Scissorhands: A Better Christmas Movie<p><i> Edward Scissorhands</i> is a great Christmas movie. Now I don't mean that it's a great movie set at Christmas time (enter the <i>Die Hard</i> debate), though indeed there is a Christmas party and snow, I mean that it is a movie that brings the meaning of Christmas to the screen.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRRxtk4mjSMYe3cdzB80NI6oqQM4hFcm7QMcCHi_XQAcwr-ZxbTpNNCy074nOGXUWuBo_JYzmeQ7LwnlAOfntugbZtVt0hSR1Q17n37iVd83TZPqQ9D7DIVenvAF-oT66IsLXiHlAMMe8/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="697" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRRxtk4mjSMYe3cdzB80NI6oqQM4hFcm7QMcCHi_XQAcwr-ZxbTpNNCy074nOGXUWuBo_JYzmeQ7LwnlAOfntugbZtVt0hSR1Q17n37iVd83TZPqQ9D7DIVenvAF-oT66IsLXiHlAMMe8/" width="320" /></a></div><br />On the exterior, the suburbian neighborhood where the movie primarily takes place is clean, well ordered, regular as clockwork, as evidenced by the smooth ballet of cars as the husbands leave for work. Everything seems, at least, pleasant. But there are hints that all is not well; bored housewives seduce the handyman, there is a preoccupation with looking good rather than being good, absentee parents deny their children a reasonable share in their goods, justice outweighs mercy, gossip runs rapant, and the only evidence of religion is a judgmental, neurotic religion. Frankly, this is a lot like the world in general<p></p><p>Enter Edward. Peg Boggs, an Avon salesperson, the personification of obsession with appearance and in search of new customers, finds and brings Edward from his "father's" house on the high hill above the neighborhood into the neighborhood ennui. Edward, who is an innocent soul, brings to this stale community of peccadillos and vices new life. He is a garderner who shapes the unkempt bushes in the suburban yards into beautiful topiaries. He brings this same creative energy to the bored housewives directly when he begins styling their hair into more and more elaborate styles.</p><p>This creativity acts as a type of grace in the community, bringing a certain joi de vivre to the cul de sac. Peg finds meaning in her cosmetics work as she tries to help Edward's scarred face. The seductress, though still pretty libido driven, tries to help Edward start a new busniness outside of the bedroom community. But Kim, Peg's daughter is most transformed by Edward's presence, as she goes from being a stereotypical cheerleader, dating the jock, jaded and surly, to finding real magic in Edward's gifts and gentle soul, and shows him gentleness and mercy, and finally love. This love is most beautifully shown when Edward is carving an enormous ice sculpture of an angel with his scissors so rapidly that the ice chips fall like snow, and Kim dances in it as it falls gently upon her.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTr5znBRsA94QLFscDGbhUMXqlnQmYC7IpMKs2CJ_AM25k4FqvRrr8cgl7sYeroECfQ3snEX8cJvhJnUunjIj_AupNO7mpGGrV1v2YVbHcahKCgHjUBuX6khJ63F11Lju30AhEsErsdAxhx4qL0pfeFWCW0V4hrqMJxUvKiy_qIgYDeY66l-OXHZlR=s650" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="650" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhTr5znBRsA94QLFscDGbhUMXqlnQmYC7IpMKs2CJ_AM25k4FqvRrr8cgl7sYeroECfQ3snEX8cJvhJnUunjIj_AupNO7mpGGrV1v2YVbHcahKCgHjUBuX6khJ63F11Lju30AhEsErsdAxhx4qL0pfeFWCW0V4hrqMJxUvKiy_qIgYDeY66l-OXHZlR=w400-h216" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>These transformations of grace are what make Edward Scissorhands a real Christmas movie, emphasized again, by its setting in time at Christmas. Like Edward, Jesus comes from on high into our lives. Edward was created by the inventor rather than born and brought into the community by Peg, who acts as mother to him. Jesus is born of a Human Mother, but of Divine Paternity, Both Edward and Jesus are outsiders, though both human (though Edward is not fully human, represented most dramatically by the titular hands, as Jesus was). The grace Jesus brings is far more transformative than the creativity that Edward injects, but one could see in Edward, like the Old Testament figures of Moses and David, a type of Jesus whose creative actions that transforms shrubbery and hairdos are symbols or foretaste of true transforming Grace that trnsforms the spirit.</p><p>Like Jesus, Edward is also unjustly accused and faces persecution by a mob that once adored him, and in the end ascends again to his father's house, removed from immediate interaction with the neighbors. But in a place where there had never been snow before now each following Christmas snow descends from the mountain upon the neighborhood, blanketing it with purity and magic, as Edward carves new statues of ice. The grace Edward brings is not limited to his direct presence, but because of the event that brought him into the neighborhood, there is a continued grace that descends, renewing by memory the grace he brought before.</p><p>This is the Christmas story: that the Word of God entered into history as one of us, bringing to us his transforming grace. To fix a broken world, he was himself broken on the cross, and after rising from the dead, ascended to his father, from whence he continues to infuse his transforming grace on his church through the sacraments. Edward Scissorhands doesn't mention Jesus once, the only scenes of religion are the neurotic expressions of a spinster, while Christmas in the burbs is a purely secular affair. And Edward at the end murders, rather than transforms Kim's bullying boyfriend. But with its overall story of transforming grace from a transcendent realm that brings new life and love, Edward Scissorhands is definitely a Christmas movie a <b>cut above</b> most.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3n7HZaHGF228ZzA5MrgTumUgHeH2kiyKd0HicQ5tdaXVap6xgiBgIzLwC5Hf-beNifHVkV9_8RVGiJ4oT4di3886EpSGoLEbWdQbgFLcqbi5stKpSkkzgFwsyMrYJUJIE7Je7GII8WtE/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1422" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3n7HZaHGF228ZzA5MrgTumUgHeH2kiyKd0HicQ5tdaXVap6xgiBgIzLwC5Hf-beNifHVkV9_8RVGiJ4oT4di3886EpSGoLEbWdQbgFLcqbi5stKpSkkzgFwsyMrYJUJIE7Je7GII8WtE/w270-h400/image.png" width="270" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-30779894489192065602021-12-23T07:26:00.003-05:002021-12-23T07:26:51.835-05:00O Clavis David: opening the gates of Eternity<p><i> </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZQTidGdNh70Cpaom4FkEQt28LQiKdx8jFB6MN7tcafRF-ChGvjwSecgdrDJ83jp4MUTo5yVxuR91B0QnZwDLETh0hdadU3u4OrJCDIPNrqdV3TMahyphenhyphenxZEEiJiK-FbP5qGpyOByAsV3I8/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="469" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZQTidGdNh70Cpaom4FkEQt28LQiKdx8jFB6MN7tcafRF-ChGvjwSecgdrDJ83jp4MUTo5yVxuR91B0QnZwDLETh0hdadU3u4OrJCDIPNrqdV3TMahyphenhyphenxZEEiJiK-FbP5qGpyOByAsV3I8/w303-h400/image.png" width="303" /></a></i></div><i>O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;<br />qui aperis, et nemo claudit;<br />claudis, et nemo aperit:<br />veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,<br />sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis</i><p></p><p>O Key of David,<br />opening the gates of God's eternal Kingdom:<br />come and free the prisoners of darkness!</p><p>We often speak of having a "God-sized hole" in our hearts, a variation of Augustine's "our hearts our restless until they rest in you." I have been struck this year, even before the O Antiphons began, with the notion that Jesus' is THE key that fits this hole (which means the whole does indeed have a definite shape, only to be fitted by a particular key). But rather than the key turning to open the gates that reveal the mysteries of God, the key is the still point of Creation, and <b>it is we who must turn around him,</b> that is, we must convert, <i>con-verte</i> to <i>turn</i> around (Lat.). Our whole life must make Christ the center, everything must be fitted to him, or the gates to God's eternal Kingdom will not open.</p><p><i>O gates lift up your heads. Grow higher ancient doors. That the King of Glory may come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts</i></p><p>There's also room here to meditate on the idea that the door itself, the heart, is warped, jambed so it simply cannot open, and that this is where the necesity of Mary as mediatrix, whose heart is the gate by which the Glory of God stepped into the world in his incarnation is the only portal by which we may in turn step into Heaven. We must have a heart transplant and allow Mary's Immaculate Heart to replace our own, for it is the only door in which the Key of Christ will still fit snugly. </p><p><i>Loving Mother of the Redeemer, Gate of Heaven ...</i></p><p><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXvAmL9N1CMvmMGghg6BtjQBiQKT8vqGmFsfYLdB3dmdtJ5eqGD3gsF1ko4YczMoIJzStFMSdDO16Pzy007a8HQvj0XbIPr2Eq82Ro0j9WjEJSltpKApBvalF09vp1VbCVVGqA1oHGAM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="474" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXvAmL9N1CMvmMGghg6BtjQBiQKT8vqGmFsfYLdB3dmdtJ5eqGD3gsF1ko4YczMoIJzStFMSdDO16Pzy007a8HQvj0XbIPr2Eq82Ro0j9WjEJSltpKApBvalF09vp1VbCVVGqA1oHGAM/w307-h400/image.png" width="307" /></a></i></div><i><br /><br /></i><p></p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-41912446280342721532021-12-20T13:47:00.002-05:002021-12-20T13:47:36.575-05:00Jesus' healings and Passion: parallels and reflections<p> While reflecting on the Sorrowful Mysteries, and from a small comment in <a href="https://archive.secondspring.co.uk/spirituality/rosary.htm" target="_blank">Stratford Caldecott's reflection on the mystery of the Crown of Thorns</a>, it occured to me that all of Jesus' healing miracles have their infernal reflection in the Passion. This should come as no surprise as the prophet declared that he would bear all our infirmities (Isaiah 53:4) as the Suffering Servant, but I figured it was worth a focused exploration. Not all of them have a one-to-one injury</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-SLUOYxHq9HebYP3hwd58XWLkoIkDMy6UfO2QqG2SeRe4lZNKVQA7bVbcNc2evXfhMK_HY42SQMxYLZ-pSUK55hDTRnj-rWBBIZzFR_fsD3A7bsTrFeI1gGMMuBvh0LklVhqIdjeMhE/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="512" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-SLUOYxHq9HebYP3hwd58XWLkoIkDMy6UfO2QqG2SeRe4lZNKVQA7bVbcNc2evXfhMK_HY42SQMxYLZ-pSUK55hDTRnj-rWBBIZzFR_fsD3A7bsTrFeI1gGMMuBvh0LklVhqIdjeMhE/w200-h146/image.png" width="200" /></a>Jesus who healed the blind (Mk 8:22; 10:46; Jn 9) is himself blindfolded by the Temple guards (Mark 14:65; Luke 22:64) who beat him and ask him to identify who struck him.<br /></p><p>Several times he cures lepers/those with skin disease, while his skin was torn from his flesh at his flagellation at the pillar (Mk 15;15; John 19:1); </p><p>For those healed from paralysis, Jesus is paralized by crucifixion; and while after the healing, he commands those healed to "take up your mat," Before his paralysis, Jesus takes up his Cross; </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv5w0BEgw3ETIMuYt933k3BVzPKWELC68YuFc6QjhDH4hHAp94fLYRUOqmsG44rJEx1LZmNSRXIUDlMbjvt7fsuRBDdoZqDipJD7Dvb7KZ_BAaQWgLPNskVp9r9B2gaH56Hy5ZUEReEfo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="829" data-original-width="1000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv5w0BEgw3ETIMuYt933k3BVzPKWELC68YuFc6QjhDH4hHAp94fLYRUOqmsG44rJEx1LZmNSRXIUDlMbjvt7fsuRBDdoZqDipJD7Dvb7KZ_BAaQWgLPNskVp9r9B2gaH56Hy5ZUEReEfo/" width="290" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>Similarly, alleviating a woman crippled by a spirit, bent over and unable to stand (Luke 13:10), Jesus was himself bent under the weight of the cross as he carried it to Golgotha.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpB6eXp5Lo0wjYTM4sfzJ9nQnpRjFYWc8XR5uZupOnn66Hgax-t8cYHp5cZAWqzQqbFu5wjmsp_1NMXsyAykAs4GDFyBXTowLoTG9HJpNnqAPJo-ITh5W7DNnvMpdId-mYlFkA46yRyCY/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="500" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpB6eXp5Lo0wjYTM4sfzJ9nQnpRjFYWc8XR5uZupOnn66Hgax-t8cYHp5cZAWqzQqbFu5wjmsp_1NMXsyAykAs4GDFyBXTowLoTG9HJpNnqAPJo-ITh5W7DNnvMpdId-mYlFkA46yRyCY/w200-h162/image.png" width="200" /></a></div><br />The healing of the withered hand is reflected in the Jesus' hands nailed to the cross (Jesus' gnarled hands in the Isenheim altarpiece Crucifixion come to mind).<p></p><p>Like the blindfolding, a metaphorical reflection of healing the deaf mute, Jesus intentionally remains silent before Pilate and Herod in the face of accusations and deaf to Herod's desire for flashy miracles.</p><p>When on the way to heal the daughter of Jairus, Jesus heals the flow of blood of a woman from her womb; from his pierced heart, the womb from which the Church is born, blood and water flowed, in addition to the sweating of blood in Gethsemane; </p><div>And of course, in the light of raising the Daughter of Jairus, the young man, and calling Lazarus from the tomb, Jesus himself died for our sins upon the cross and was laid in the tomb in the garden. </div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2XsupyogDFtZ5n-xngVArCl3KEUNnvZ1lsaRNNLQ5rOmDJs2z3n90RvBxYacsDDwW3dqAfpxHIeZERrjXHbCdJUzPolGqZ_rfpAixYLlKtKeD_aV_Z_mYkk4rCy4bu3DMkQ0DsMjONAk/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="1201" height="114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2XsupyogDFtZ5n-xngVArCl3KEUNnvZ1lsaRNNLQ5rOmDJs2z3n90RvBxYacsDDwW3dqAfpxHIeZERrjXHbCdJUzPolGqZ_rfpAixYLlKtKeD_aV_Z_mYkk4rCy4bu3DMkQ0DsMjONAk/w400-h114/image.png" width="400" /></a></div></div><p>There are others, of course, one could include the many exorcisms when Jesus frees people oppressed by evil, in that Jesus became sin for us (see 2 Cor 5:21) and is himself oppressed by whatever feeling of loss he knew when he called out "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me!?"</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9JNvVa3t5SEBFgHfpG0mDXYz9NumLkIshtaHmhucbXbH-jLBngajCfJq7KmQG8ZzVzg-b8HS802Odw6JW7a3IFGWaGPLiL0VASe6bdNyA7OvsiO3ezzQLw5u-cFepW3y34BODfkfcZnw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="937" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9JNvVa3t5SEBFgHfpG0mDXYz9NumLkIshtaHmhucbXbH-jLBngajCfJq7KmQG8ZzVzg-b8HS802Odw6JW7a3IFGWaGPLiL0VASe6bdNyA7OvsiO3ezzQLw5u-cFepW3y34BODfkfcZnw/" width="187" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-85805437018192120392021-12-18T11:52:00.000-05:002021-12-18T11:52:41.654-05:00Mysteries of God and the Church<p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJB0EnYUbCzDDosIKk1-hRE3aL0pHbYUuCVWew3HenvlarsrXQSoxBtMrlO3n54OOrHP-HsLVfg-xZAnxRqkeufXoRaStX-lP8WlrIYRXcI_0VaHeVkHzjdBp1U1vnbu_tJx0RcZvRTpo/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="323" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJB0EnYUbCzDDosIKk1-hRE3aL0pHbYUuCVWew3HenvlarsrXQSoxBtMrlO3n54OOrHP-HsLVfg-xZAnxRqkeufXoRaStX-lP8WlrIYRXcI_0VaHeVkHzjdBp1U1vnbu_tJx0RcZvRTpo/" width="155" /></a></div><p>Lately, I have been finding a lot of great insight in Catholic Theologian Aidan Nichol's <i>The Chalice of God</i> intended to be something of a swan song of his theological thought. One great unifying thought to my life of faith from the book that speaks to often in the book is the unity of the greater mysteries of Christ life with the lesser mysteries of the Church, that is the sacraments. The sacraments re-present the mysteries of Christ to his Body, so their participation in those mysteries grow as they seek deeper communion with the life of the Son, and through the Son life in the Trinity in which He dwells. </p><p>From these lesser mysteries, then comes our prayer life which he sees as an interiorizing of the liturgy that we have participated in. Thus the grace flows from Jesus' life through the mysteries of the Church to the spirit of the individual faithful, where like seeds, the mysteries germinate to bear fruit in the Christian soul. These, then, of the mysteries returns with us to the celebration of the liturgy as offerings, wherein we are drawn deeper into said mysteries through immediate contact with them sacramentally.</p><p>This notion that A) the myseteries of Christ life are present in a real, substantial way in the liturgy, especially preeminently the Eucharist B) that our personal prayer inteiorizes the liturgy, and then enhances our participations in the Mysteries of Christ through the liturgy has enlivened the Rosary quite a bit, and with its emphasis on the saving mysteries of Jesus WHOLE life, in turn paints the movements of the liturgy in bold colors, by bringing our personal encounters and reflections with said mysteries back to the sacraments. No wonder it has become such a prominent prayer form among Catholics (along with Eucharistic Adoration, which extends the celebration of the Eucharist into another liturgical AND personal dimension). </p><p>This aspect of the living mysteries of Jesus life immediately present in the Liturgy, and shared with the faithful through the sacraments (especially communion_), and the relationship between personal prayer and the liturgy (and by extension Jesus life) is not emphasized enough in the liturgy itself, much less in the formation of children or catechumens. It certainly didn't stick out to me in such a profound way til now for me.</p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0Asheville, NC35.584645500000008 -82.559815235.36142129137771 -82.834473403125 35.807869708622306 -82.285156996875tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-68889691024705217252021-07-19T13:37:00.001-04:002021-07-19T13:37:05.555-04:00Hillesum: "a great and growing seriousness ..."<p> From <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/An_Interrupted_Life.html?id=lUhIvaWLIYsC" target="_blank"><i>An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943</i></a></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii-UIkg3KVJ-9xaVARmkMLtStq2VrJaWeRuO0MhLMU5qqWfieT-aVZmQc1n1HdP9DX3vQVkFVqFiK44X3axcgy-QxFhrbRrMYbq-iwE0c7E-BmKeRwtSiW-2slVNjDalKdFq5SSgULf3g/s1687/etty_hillesum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1687" data-original-width="1240" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii-UIkg3KVJ-9xaVARmkMLtStq2VrJaWeRuO0MhLMU5qqWfieT-aVZmQc1n1HdP9DX3vQVkFVqFiK44X3axcgy-QxFhrbRrMYbq-iwE0c7E-BmKeRwtSiW-2slVNjDalKdFq5SSgULf3g/s320/etty_hillesum.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Etty Hillesum at her desk</td></tr></tbody></table><p>“ I keep talking about God the whole day long, and it is high time that I lived accordingly. I still have a long way to go, oh yes, a long way, and yet sometimes I behave as if I were there already. I am frivolous and easy-going and I often look on things that happened as if I were an artist, a mere observer. There is something bizarre and fickle and adventurous in me. But as I sit here at my desk, late at night, I also feel a compelling, directive force deep down, a great and growing seriousness, a soundless voice that tells me what to do and forces me to confess: I have fallen short in all ways, my real work has not even begun. So far I have done little more than play about.”</p><p>—25 SEPTEMBER, 11.00 P.M.</p><p><br /></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEeQKFiqxH9kTMjsuDG4WxHkzaz-Sz4nme4bApr-oooOESF2vEwfPb9K4dd9LY3uE7DE4GJfkAHRQlF8F8StT-9Qia1QccDg7Fk7xI6NsdDXphRlqqoBD358hrGlxYAC0bNK2KI3wJSxI/s2200/hillesum_quote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="2200" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEeQKFiqxH9kTMjsuDG4WxHkzaz-Sz4nme4bApr-oooOESF2vEwfPb9K4dd9LY3uE7DE4GJfkAHRQlF8F8StT-9Qia1QccDg7Fk7xI6NsdDXphRlqqoBD358hrGlxYAC0bNK2KI3wJSxI/w400-h186/hillesum_quote.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-74932189648598229402020-11-30T13:33:00.005-05:002021-04-15T06:41:44.285-04:00St Andrew, Apostle of Advent.<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwQa5Yd-RDwuGCneHQhy4_KWFRh3rarvUQx0NpMRzicNnaK92I8bmq7wXI0opukpoX2y724YYFXPSsWLJVeEVs6-Ul55ej8JGYumcphGKF9GiPwrLAonbL438xUuDkam3Pg06TNuUe0ag/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="350" data-original-width="620" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwQa5Yd-RDwuGCneHQhy4_KWFRh3rarvUQx0NpMRzicNnaK92I8bmq7wXI0opukpoX2y724YYFXPSsWLJVeEVs6-Ul55ej8JGYumcphGKF9GiPwrLAonbL438xUuDkam3Pg06TNuUe0ag/w402-h227/image.png" title="Andrew the Apostle, First-Called" width="402" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andrew the Apostle, First-Called<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> Today is the feast of St Andrew, the Apostle, and I'm rather struck by on this feast's place at the head of Advent. Advent always begins on the Sunday closest to the feast of St Andrew, November 30, and so we might call Saint Andrew the Apostle of Advent. Looking to Andrew and his mission as Apostle, we learning something key to living the spirit of Advent.</p><p>Advent is a season of preparation for the coming of Jesus in a two-fold way. The first is a joyful preparation in expectation of Christmas when we celebrate the first coming of the Son of God, incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary in the city of King David to be our Messiah. The second way of preparation is in expectation of when Jesus comes again in his glory to bring forth the Kingdom of God in its fulness. </p><p>How we prepare for this Second Coming is where Andrew and the other Apostles come in. Now the word "apostle" means one who is sent. The Apostles are those Jesus sent to preach the Good News, the Gospel of the Kingdom of God that he handed on to them. Where he sends is to the nations for their conversion, that is to us.</p><p>Now here is the key to the connection between Advent and the Apostles: Jesus, speaking to his Apostles, told them, "He who receives you, receives me." That's huge because it means that the way we prepare for the coming of Christ is to receive the ones he sent to come to us, that is the Apostles. We receive them by hearing what they preach, and believing what they preach in our heart, as St Paul teaches us in the first Mass reading for today.</p><p>There are two important things to remember here: the first is that all of this begins with God. God sends his Son; the Son calls the Apostles to himself in order to be Sent; the Apostles come to us, and what they preach calls our hearts to faith in Jesus. The intiative here is all God, not ours, in how we become linked to this chain of grace.</p><p>The second thing to remember is that God never calls someone without giving them a mission. In today's Gospel, we hear of Jesus' call to Andrew, along with Peter, from their fishing nets, giving them the mission to become fishers of men. To what mission then are we called, while we prepare for Jesus' coming? St Paul also tells us: we are to "confess with our hearts" what we have heard and believed.</p><p>This confession of faith is more than reciting the Creed at mass—it is proclaiming publicly what we belive, that is, our mission is to be evangelizers. This means that our preparing for Christ, our living out the Advent spirit, is anything but a passive waiting. Instead, it is a vigilant waiting, announcing to others for whom we wait, and calling them to watch together for the One who comes. </p><p>Following this chain of grace from our mission of evangelization to the Apostles, especially to St Andrew who in the Gospel of John we learn was 'the first to be called' as he is named by the Eastern Church, we see how appropriate his feast stands at the head of Advent when we prepare to receive the One to come by receiving those Apostles he sent to herald his reign.</p>David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-31662524712605277292020-03-09T09:29:00.002-04:002020-03-09T09:29:53.948-04:00Prayer for Divine Wisdom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_q8GoZtV8ld0fGLI_CqRHKPPAfiX1iEVC7muNsWUnmCR3PbL1dDc1rE9E_Ed3T6CDZqcwBSLuh1_v_HTMzAirAqp9-n-Xi532D7De2qG-Ll__jQflpF4eDycy9CSSDM7TPpz1E2D3LWA/s1600/Wisdom_of_God.__29762.1394216040.1000.1200_400x.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_q8GoZtV8ld0fGLI_CqRHKPPAfiX1iEVC7muNsWUnmCR3PbL1dDc1rE9E_Ed3T6CDZqcwBSLuh1_v_HTMzAirAqp9-n-Xi532D7De2qG-Ll__jQflpF4eDycy9CSSDM7TPpz1E2D3LWA/s1600/Wisdom_of_God.__29762.1394216040.1000.1200_400x.jpeg" /></a></div>
The Prayer of the Servant of God Metropolitan Andrey<br />
for Divine Wisdom<br />
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O Great and Almighty God, send down upon me from Your high and holy heavens and from the throne of Your holy glory, Your holy wisdom, that sits at Your side. Grant me the wisdom of Your good pleasure so that in my life I may know how to desire fervently, seek wisely, acknowledge in truth and fulfill perfectly that which is pleasing to You, to the glory and honour of You holy Name, “to the praise of the glory of Your grace.”<br />
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Grant me, O God, the wisdom of my state, so that I may do what You desire; grant that I may understand my obligations, grant me the wisdom of my duties, and grant that I may do them as they ought to be done and as is fitting of Your glory and for the benefit of my soul. Grant me the wisdom of Your ways and the wisdom to walk the paths of Your holy will. Grant me the wisdom of success and failure so that I would know how not to exalt myself in the former and not to be downcast in the latter.<br />
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Grant me the wisdom of joy and the wisdom of sadness; may I rejoice only in that which leads to You and be sad only in that which separates from You. Grant me the wisdom of everything that passes and everything that lasts; may the first decrease in my sight, and the second grow. Grant me the wisdom of work and the wisdom of rest; may work for You be luxury for me, and rest without You – fatigue.<br />
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Grant me the wisdom of a sincere and straight-forward intention, the wisdom of simplicity, the wisdom of sincerity. May my heart turn to You and seek You in all things all my life long. Grant me the wisdom of obedience for Your law, for Your Church. Grant me the wisdom of poverty, so that I would never value goods in any other way except according to their real worth. Grant me the wisdom of chastity according to my state and vocation.<br />
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Grant me the wisdom of patience, the wisdom of humility, the wisdom of gladness and seriousness, the wisdom of the fear of the Lord; the wisdom of truthfulness and of good deeds; may I be patient with no complaining, humble without the least pretending, joyful without inordinate laughter, serious without severity; that I may fear You without the temptation to despair; that I may be truthful without the shadow of duplicity; may all my good deeds be free from self-complacence.<br />
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Grant me the wisdom to admonish my neighbour when necessary without exalting myself; grant that I may edify in word and deed without hypocrisy. Grant me, O Lord, the wisdom of vigilance, attention and wariness; may no vain thought lead me astray. Grant me the wisdom of nobleness; may I never be brought down by any impure and unworthy attachment. Grant me the wisdom of what is right; may no selfish intention ever lead me away from the path of my duties.<br />
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Grant me the wisdom of courage and strength; may no storm overthrow me.<br />
Grant me the wisdom of freedom; may no powerful passion ever enslave me.<br />
Grant me the wisdom of the theological virtues and the moral virtues: faith, hope, love, prudence, devotion, temperance and fortitude.<br />
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Grant me, O Lord, the wisdom of the apostles, the wisdom of the martyrs; grant me a priestly and pastoral wisdom; grant me the wisdom of preachers and teachers; grant me the wisdom of those who administer the Holy Mysteries; grant me the Eucharistic wisdom and mystical wisdom – the wisdom of prayer and spiritual wisdom, and above all, O Lord, grant me the wisdom of sincere repentance, imperfect and perfect contrition; grant me the wisdom of to know myself in my weakness and malice; grant me the wisdom of mortification and fasting; grant me the wisdom of self-denial and self-sacrifice; grant me the wisdom of sacrifice, the wisdom of the Cross, the wisdom of Blood.<br />
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O God, grant me, finally, that wisdom which, in accord with Your holy purpose, leads to the unity of churches under one supreme pastor, the Universal Pontiff; grant me the wisdom to cherish the work of holy unity, to love it and to consecrate my life to it.<br />
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Grant me the wisdom of our Eastern rite, to hold it, to renew it and develop it. Grant me the wisdom of the Fathers of the holy Eastern Church and all the great ecclesiastical teachers. Grant me the wisdom of Your great apostle, Paul, so that I would at least well understand his epistles, remember them and know how to explain them to Your people.<br />
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Grant me the wisdom of Your first Vicar that I may understand the designs of Your Divine Providence, which governs the Church through the Roman Pontiffs; grant me the wisdom of obedience to them and to the Universal Catholic Church; grant me the wisdom of church history and theology; grant me the wisdom that I and my people lack; grant me the wisdom of true satisfaction, true happiness. Amen.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-19328197390054886802019-04-09T04:35:00.001-04:002019-04-09T04:35:11.378-04:00Mystagogy: Victory Over Vice by Ven. Fulton J. Sheen<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3epT0ElXiavSMbZ74GZvfd8NhYyGpZq5x7ZwNehPCgkwrMwvAFjlh30l9T_ITbr6pYz8_0U-98gUfCMu7htxSItwjMSEme9TxxD6tOYW2NN7YvyJ9RzX-goi9DH1fgFx9Pf2PSj4Nqo8/s1600/29991861.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3epT0ElXiavSMbZ74GZvfd8NhYyGpZq5x7ZwNehPCgkwrMwvAFjlh30l9T_ITbr6pYz8_0U-98gUfCMu7htxSItwjMSEme9TxxD6tOYW2NN7YvyJ9RzX-goi9DH1fgFx9Pf2PSj4Nqo8/s400/29991861.jpg" width="263" /></a><br />
In, <i>The Seven Sacraments: Entering the Mysteries of God, </i>Stratford Caldecott explores the spiritual connections between the Seven Sacraments of the Church with other sets of seven in the faith: Seven Last words of Christ, <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__PA6.HTM">Petitions in the Our Father</a>, <a href="https://www.loyolapress.com/our-catholic-faith/scripture-and-tradition/catholic-basics/catholic-beliefs-and-practices/theological-and-cardinal-virtues">Theological + Cardinal Virtues</a>, <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P67.HTM">Gifts of the Holy Spirit</a>, <a href="http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/7-days-of-creation-and-their-most-beautiful-illustrations/">Days of Creation</a>, etc. Neither the writers of scripture, nor the Fathers of the Church found sets sharing numbers as these to be coincidental, but reflective of a sacred order to Creation, especially when so ordered by the tradition of the Church. These organic spiritual links between all things bring a depth of understanding when meditating upon these sacred things and cause them to settle more firmly into our hearts, and minds and souls.<br />
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This book of Ven. Fulton Sheen, (included in Caldecott's Bibliography as <i>The Seven Capital Sins)</i> focuses on two of those sets, the Last Words of Christ on the Cross and how those words demonstrate Christ's Victory over the Seven Deadly/Mortal/Capital Sins. Since I already read Adrienne Speyr's <a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2017/11/mystagogy-reading-cross-word-and.html">The Cross: Word and Sacrament</a>, which focuses on links between the Last Words and the Sacraments, I thought a table showing the words, the sacraments, and the conquered Vices might be interesting for comparison.<br />
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<table border="1" style="text-align: center;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Christ Last Words on the Cross</b></td><td><b>Speyr - Sacrament</b></td><td><b>Sheen - Vice conquered</b></td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Father, forgive them, they know not what they do</td><td>Penance</td><td>Anger</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>You will be with me this day in Paradise</td><td>Anointing of the Sick</td><td>Vanity</td></tr>
<tr>
<td>Behold your son, Behold your mother</td><td>Marriage</td><td>Lust</td></tr>
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<td>My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me</td><td>Holy Orders</td><td>Pride</td></tr>
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<td>I thirst</td><td>Eucharist</td><td>Gluttony</td></tr>
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<td>It is finished</td><td>Baptism</td><td>Sloth</td></tr>
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<td>Into your hands, Lord, I commend my Spirit</td><td>Confirmation</td><td>Greed</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-35260674011879653462018-04-26T18:38:00.003-04:002018-04-27T06:15:08.681-04:00On Violence in the Old Testament<div data-originalcomputedfontsize="16" data-removefontsize="true">
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Someone asked me recently what to <i>do</i> as a Christian with all the violence and atrocities found in the Old Testament, many of them seemingly sanctioned if not commanded by God through the Law or the prophets. Even when not directly described there can be an apparently blood-thirst, especially in some of the Psalms (137 being of the worst) which is distasteful to our contemporary morality. How do reconcile that with "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (<a href="http://usccb.org/bible/2timothy/3:16" target="_blank">1 Tim:3:16</a>)?<br />
<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;">First, it's important to do what the person who asked was already starting to do: always read the Old Testament in light of the new, especially in light of the words and actions of Jesus Christ. One text my questioner mentioned was that Jesus said he came to fulfill the law not destroy it, which for him could mean a condoning of the violence within the Law. He's right about Jesus' saying as crucial to interpreting the Old Testament but not as a condoning, but rather it is a revelation of two spiritual realities: </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;">1) <span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>VIRTUE AND INTENT ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN ACTIONS</b></span>. Fulfillment of the law means going beyond the law to locate its intent not just its practice; the individual laws are signs of the interior disposition God wills us to have. Like the temple on Earth was a model of the temple in heaven (<a href="http://usccb.org/bible/hebrews/8:5" target="_blank">Hebrews 8:5</a>), the earthly Law is a model of the heavenly law of Charity encapsulated in the Beatitudes. Jesus gives us examples of this sign and fulfillment: "<a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5:21" target="_blank">do not kill</a>" is the law but eliminating wrath, the desire for vengeance, from one's heart is the fulfillment; sleeping with another's wife is <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5:27" target="_blank">adultery</a>, but the fulfillment is to remove lust from one's heart altogether. Great, that's the contemporary morality that eliminates even the desire for vengeance. Jesus then goes on to say that absence of sin is not enough, true fulfillment of the law is to be merciful as the Father is merciful, and combined with the Beatitudes we can see that he's pointing to becoming virtuous as being fulfillment of the law. Virtue and Intent are what the law is meant to lead to, but as law, in and of itself, it can't create/manifest those things, only grace from Christ Jesus can and the law can only regulate actions. Thus, the law demonstrates this very lack by human effort to make oneself good, but points to the fulfillment that we're to long for.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;">2) <b><span style="font-size: x-small;">THE LAW IS PART OF GOD'S PROVIDENTIAL PLAN</span></b>. When Jesus says he didn't come to destroy, he reveals that in God's providential plan the Law did have its place. If we are to trust in God's providence for ourselves in our time, we have to trust in his governance of the People of God then. But God's Providence isn't about directing people's lives like puppets. Sometimes its about allowing lesser things, even evils, in order to reach a greater good. I want to talk more about this second point in parts.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;"><b>Judging the past</b>: there is a danger that I believe stems from Natural Sin, in our tendency to judge those who came before us, who conveniently are not here to defend themselves. We believe that because we came later along, we're somehow better, and thus worthy of judging those who came before. However, if we follow this, then those 5,000 years will have all right to look at our age and judge us to be barbarians. Frankly, they will have plenty of evidence with the attempted genocide of the Jews, the acceptance of "collateral damage" i.e. civilian deaths during military actions, systemic and legal racism, abortion, etc all occurring within the last one hundred years. To fight the evils of the day, the Law, with all its severity, may have been exactly what was Providentially needed from the mouth of God to create any kind of civility and holiness at all, and we should be wary of judging Him and His people.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;"><b>Because of the hardness of your hearts</b>: There's another saying of Jesus that I think is key in discerning the Law in its time and practice. The teaching occurs while he's discussing divorce. The scribes and Pharisees correctly aver that the Law allows for divorce. But Jesus' <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/19:8" target="_blank">replies</a>, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses <b>allowed</b> you to divorce your wives" What is true of divorce can fairly be applied to the rest of the Law. The severity of the Law was allowed, because the People of God had a hardness of heart when it came to viewing "the other" that the violence was allowed in order that the sin might be addressed at all. Providence was moving the People of God toward true faith, justice and mercy, but for the hardness of their hearts God allowed evil to occur</span></span><span style="color: #313131; word-spacing: 1px;">--</span><b style="color: #313131; word-spacing: 1px;"><u>but did not will it</u></b><span style="color: #313131; word-spacing: 1px;">--in order </span><span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;">that a greater good might come of it, namely Jesus, born of the tribe of Judah of the people of Israel.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;"><b>Addressing the Gravity of Sin.</b> Finally, the Fathers of the Church know that the Old Testament and the Law--because all Scripture is a Living Word that can and does speak to us today--always contains a moral sense that is necessary for us, even under the new covenant. When it comes to the violence, the lesson is to ask <i>how seriously do we take sin?</i> With what violence do we attack the sin within that we might be found "pure of heart"? Are we willing to pluck out an eye or cut off a hand (<a href="http://usccb.org/bible/matthew/18:8" target="_blank">Matthew 18:8-9</a>) ? Are we willing to take a thought when it's only in its infancy, and dash it upon the Rock of Christ so it cannot grow into a sin (this was St Benedict's interpretation of Psalm 137)? The Israelites approached idolotry and sin with a scorched earth policy because they recognized the seriousness of sin. Are we so quick to question their methods because they were wrong, or because we are not willing to take sin so seriously? Probably it's both, but I think the second question is actually the more interesting and important one when it comes to examining growing in my faith, and getting closer to God.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #313131;"><span style="word-spacing: 1px;">We should thank God in light of the Old Testament that by following Jesus Christ he has shown us "a better way" the way of Love" (<a href="http://usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/12:31" target="_blank">1Cor 12:31</a>) and that violence of arms and stoning is no longer needed to show holiness to the world, for he has taken our stony hearts and given us hearts of flesh, the Sacred Heart. But violence is still necessary for<span id="goog_812595795"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_812595796"></span> holiness, for everyone who enters [the Kingdom] does so with violence. (<a href="http://usccb.org/bible/luke/16:16" target="_blank">Luke 16:16</a>); the <a href="http://usccb.org/bible/galatians/5:24" target="_blank">flesh must be crucified</a> (does it get more violent than crucifixion?) that we might put on Christ. So let us still be inspired by the zeal of the Israelites led by Joshua—Jesu in the Greek—who conquered the idolaters that we might allow ourselves to be conquered by Joshua/Jesus Christ.</span></span></div>
David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-40939628439013772702018-04-07T09:09:00.002-04:002018-04-08T23:43:53.302-04:00"I got received into the Catholic Church on the Easter Vigil! ... Now what?"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Octave of Easter is Drawing to a close, and throughout the week, the liturgy has focused on the mystagogy of the Neophytes and the newly initiated into the Mysteries of the Church. But drawing deeper into the Faith is a lifelong journey, and for the newly initiated, it can seem like there's either too little, or too much in the way of suggested direction.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsOMHHXsnn4thA_8w68qJbiZVOnkWxhqlcEjUtDSAjPeqWq_Ol-IhPEMvE9usS_NHfrETX_RL4TKlvc0OhvBIpE2dmZvX3TA6_NJlb2HchALHJljCk4bu32UQzweIeZsySiWWHABrh7kY/s1600/four-signs_350_1__2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsOMHHXsnn4thA_8w68qJbiZVOnkWxhqlcEjUtDSAjPeqWq_Ol-IhPEMvE9usS_NHfrETX_RL4TKlvc0OhvBIpE2dmZvX3TA6_NJlb2HchALHJljCk4bu32UQzweIeZsySiWWHABrh7kY/s200/four-signs_350_1__2.jpg" width="133" /></a><br />
The book <i><a href="https://dynamiccatholic.com/the-four-signs-of-a-dynamic-catholic-free-copy">The Four Signs of the Dynamic Catholic</a></i> by Matthew Kelly [<a href="https://dynamiccatholic.com/the-four-signs-of-a-dynamic-catholic-free-copy">https://dynamiccatholic.com/the-four-signs-of-a-dynamic-catholic-free-copy</a>] would not be a bad place to start. It gives you a "program" so to speak of how to stay engaged in your Faith through Prayer, Study, Generous Giving, and Evangelization on top of regular participation in the Sacraments.<br />
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After that, start reading the daily Mass Readings online [http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/index.cfm] which draws you into the liturgical rhythm of the church and will feed your prayer with the Word of God.<br />
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For spiritual reading and study here are ten books, I suggest getting a hold of:<br />
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1) **<i><b>CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH</b></i>** - <a href="http://store.usccb.org/catechism-of-the-catholic-church-p/5-110.htm">http://store.usccb.org/catechism-of-the-catholic-church-p/5-110.htm</a> Indispensable to any Catholic interesting in knowing the definitive answer on what the Church teaches, and delivered in language geared toward a spiritual viewpoint, prayerfulness, discipleship, holiness, and joy.<br />
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2) <i>Ignatius Press New Testament Study Bible</i> - <a href="https://www.ignatius.com/New-Testament-P417.aspx">https://www.ignatius.com/New-Testament-P417.aspx</a> Too many people think the Bible is a book to be cracked open that will present all the answers the Church wants you know. Unfortunately, this kind of reading can lead to a lot of error (and has). The Ignatius Press New Testament study bible, places the Scripture within the context of the teachings of the Church with sound historical and literary analysis. It will help you draw out the meaning of the text, and draw you in to dialogue with God through His Word.<br />
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3) <i>Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread: A Guide to the Mass,</i> Fr Francis Randolph - <a href="http://a.co/4ySsquW">http://a.co/4ySsquW</a> The Mass is awesome! but it is also filled with Signs and Symbols that without a key can leave one missing out on the full awesomeness of the Mass. This book sets the stage for liturgical catechesis by going through each rite of the Mass, explaining its basic meaning and purpose, and offering ways throughout to draw you deeper into full and active participation in the mass.<br />
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4) <i>Prayer for Beginners,</i> Peter Kreeft - <a href="http://a.co/iVfqUSw">http://a.co/iVfqUSw</a> The first secret of prayer, do it! But there are lot of challenges to prayer (distraction above all) and Dr. Peter Kreeft helps navigate some of the challenges to prayer, while giving an overview of some of the prayer types and spiritualities of the Church.<br />
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5) <i>Learning the Virtues,</i> Romano Guardini - <a href="https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/learning-the-virtues">https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/learning-the-virtues</a> becoming Christian means that pursuing virtue, the habitual and firm disposition to do the good, is a deep part of our path to holiness. Persons of virtue are also persons of happiness, and Fr. Guardini reveals why and how for several virtues that are fundamental to following the great commandment to Love God and Love your Neighbor.<br />
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6) <i>The Screwtape Letters,</i> C.S. Lewis - <a href="http://a.co/2KC83nM">http://a.co/2KC83nM</a> prayer and the pursuit of Virtue is a battles, and the fallen angels, the demons, are our enemy in this Spiritual Warfare. C.S. Lewis has written a brilliant book that shows us the tactics of the enemy from their own viewpoint, in order that we might be prepared when we encounter them, and how to respond in faith in God's victory, prayer, and triumph!<br />
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7) <i>The Everlasting Man,</i> G.K. Chesterton - <a href="https://www.ignatius.com/The-Everlasting-Man-P615.aspx">https://www.ignatius.com/The-Everlasting-Man-P615.aspx</a> After the Catechism, <i>The Everlasting Man</i> would be the first place I'd send someone interested in Apologetics. Not only does the book offer brilliant insights into why Catholicism is the fulfillment of all human history, but it does so with humor and wit, without being spiteful and judgmental to those who disagree. This book completely changed the way I think about thinking about history.<br />
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8) <i>Introduction to the Devout Life,</i> Francis de Sales - <a href="http://a.co/beKptGk">http://a.co/beKptGk</a> St. Francis de Sales's classic, like <i>The Four Signs of the Dynamic Catholic</i> is another book with a program. But its a more advanced program for someone who has at least encountered the basics of Christian living and is for those who are more ready to "go out into the deep." It can be a little dense, but every word is worth it.<br />
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9) <i>Abandonment to Divine Providence,</i> Jean-Pierre de Caussade - <a href="http://a.co/5SMrgT0">http://a.co/5SMrgT0</a> a spiritual exploration of the Biblical truth, "We know that all things work for good for those who love God." Evil and holiness, trial and triumph are all a part of our Christian life. de Caussade reveals how "all things" can be seen through spiritual lenses, or at least accepted with deep trust and faith in God, and the hope that all leads toward our glorification.<br />
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10) <i>The Practice of the Presence of God,</i> Brother Lawrence - <a href="http://a.co/dd0TPag">http://a.co/dd0TPag</a> Beautiful and simple spiritual reflection on how to "pray always" as we are commanded. Helping us to gain Augustine's exhortation to "transcend yourself" and be aware of the spiritual reality of God's presence in every moment and every place, and the consequences of living such awareness in your everyday life.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-55449172100985690102018-01-22T21:31:00.000-05:002018-01-22T21:31:03.506-05:00Mystagogy: The Rod, the Root, and the Flower pt IV<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggs6I9RJ-kepRDh_5ittmzcRwfMiGl8OrN-SlUktHIQsQhTiGlI43so23gtWV926-l9Se-LcJAhHbOyPKrl5Vpss3x7BCPotOuSgQ_943GaNn8fvPVhk7_5Sh4Nz68OhNZPvZuJRaza3E/s1600/tree_of_jesse_louvre_oa10428.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggs6I9RJ-kepRDh_5ittmzcRwfMiGl8OrN-SlUktHIQsQhTiGlI43so23gtWV926-l9Se-LcJAhHbOyPKrl5Vpss3x7BCPotOuSgQ_943GaNn8fvPVhk7_5Sh4Nz68OhNZPvZuJRaza3E/s400/tree_of_jesse_louvre_oa10428.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
Part three of my reflections on Coventry Patmore's short religious thoughts in <i>The Rod, The Root, and the Flower </i>[<a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2018/01/mystagogy-reading-rod-root-and-flower.html">Part I</a>, <a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2018/01/mystagogy-rod-root-and-flower-pt-ii.html">Part II</a> and <a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2018/01/mystagogy-rod-root-and-flower-pt-iii.html">Part III</a>]<br />
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From Magna Moralia:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
IV - 'Merit', as the word is used in Scripture and by the Church, means rather <i>capacity</i> than <i>right</i>. Faith 'merits' because, without faith, there can obviously be no capacity. Christ took upon Himself the flesh and human nature of the Blessed Virgin, 'through whom we have <i>deserved</i>' (or been made able) 'to receive the Author of Life.' Emptiness of self is the supreme merit of the Soul because it is the first condition of her <i>capacity </i>for God. 'My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof and be glad.' The Soul's boast and merit, as it were her vanity, is the God-seducing charm of her conscious nothingness. She becomes through her<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mere emptiness of self, the female twin<br />
Of Fullness, sucking all God's glory in.</blockquote>
The Secret of obtaining and maintaining this humility, which is capacity, is not to deny the graces you have received, but to consider and be thankful for them all. If a sudden splendor shines about you in the night, and you see your Soul 'in the light of God's countenance', as beautiful as a Goddess, never forget it, but remember that you are verily that Goddess for Him so long as you acknowledge yourself to be of yourself nothing but dust and ashes and a house of devils.</blockquote>
Connections with recent readings: emptiness as capacity for grace ties nicely to Houselander's reflections on the Blessed Mother in <i><a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2017/12/recommended-reading-advent.html">The Reed of God</a>;</i> and "self" as block to love in Vanauken's <i><a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-spiritual-autobiography-of-love.html">A Severe Mercy</a>. </i>"He must increase, but I must decrease," said St John the Baptist, and in his decrease he gained so much more.<br />
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But it is the thankfulness, "eucharist," that catches my heart as the means to increase this emptiness. This makes sense the more you place gratitude for anything outside of yourself, and above all in God, it creates the space for grace to work. As long as you are either ungrateful, or thankful only to the self, then there is no room for God. "Humility is nothing thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less." -C.S. Lewis. This focus on thankfulness only increases the importance of Thankfulness at the beginning of the <a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-daily-examen.html">Examen</a>, but changes the focus as I understood it. Thankfulness in the Examen is not so much about avoiding focusing on the negative in one's day, but empties the self up front in order that seeing God's Trinitarian love in the day is not blocked by your own ego.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
XXII - God is the only reality, and we are real only so far as we are in His order, and He is in us. Hell, or Hades, was truly regarded by the ancients as the realm of shades, or phantoms and frightful dreams. We may know this by considering what phantoms, terrified by other phantoms, even the best of us are, in those seasons in which God withdraws His sensible presence and courage from our hearts, and we are frightened out of our wits by shadowy evils which our reason tells us are no evils; when some small prospective loss looks like ruin, some really trifling possible trouble keeps us awake all night with fear, and some little difficulty, which lifting a hand might remove, seems insuperable. All evils are phantoms, even physical pain, which a perfectly courageous heart converts, by simply confronting it, into present and sensible joy of purgation and victory. 'Savages' will laugh and sing under excruciating tortures, and many a Saint has been forbidden by his director to inflict on himself corporeal pain, because it had become a luxury.</blockquote>
When reflecting on our life and our day, the phantoms of evil in the day should be faced head and and acknowledged for what they are. Much less are the annoyances and bruises to the ego. Fortitude is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and when we have ceased to fear these phantoms it is a sure sign of his presence and the acceptance of this gift.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
XXVI - The true Temple has veil within veil, and one is rent for the ingress of God every time the Soul dies upon the Cross, that is, resists interior temptations even to despair. 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints'; and every Soul which is destined for Sanctity dies many times in this terrible initiative caress of God.</blockquote>
"we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." —1 John 3:2. This rending of successful veils points to both God's ingress—his Spirit and grace, that divinizes us when we take up the cross of Christ—but also our capacity to see God, as he is, which comes from being divinized. Our theosis through our participation in the death of Jesus by our own deaths of ego, temptations, etc increases our capacity to "taste AND see the goodness of the Lord" in this life.<br />
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<blockquote>
XXXVII - The Visible Church is like the larva of the caddis-fly, from which the winged truth shall finally emerge, perfect and beautiful, but which at present inhabits a house of singular grotesqueness. Sticks, straws, stones, and shells in amorphous agglutination, giving much occasion for wonder and scandal to the Gentiles, and often causing anxiety to its inhabitant, who is apt to confuse these strange externals with its own life, and to think that attacked when these are criticised. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Have you ever, when riding, near sunset, or soon after sunrise, noticed the shadow of yourself and your horse on the road before you? Such a ridiculous shadow is the visible Church of the invisible.</blockquote>
Being incarnate beings, it can be very easy to get caught up in the passing shadows of this world. I think this cuts right to the heart of C.S. Lewis Screwtape Letters, Letter 2 when the demon's ally is the Church; not the Church "spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners." but "the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics" not to mention the Church of sinners and scandal. But the visible Church is just a kernel, and "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-30514369919302980292018-01-20T21:21:00.003-05:002018-04-27T23:19:40.430-04:00Mystagogy: The Rod, the Root, and the Flower pt III<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9SqHesXykJBM1WWWKBw_EXdxx3WekQ20YSzn3VZciUX3g8cm2Fpt0DYa7ubpeZ6CV9Xk6IH0Gm2QLzIQadcoOzUcLh5dd-5xdqz-gvjtP2kR15d1tfNfOlUkkG0K_9BQicVerg5lq-iA/s1600/Riza_Iessai.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9SqHesXykJBM1WWWKBw_EXdxx3WekQ20YSzn3VZciUX3g8cm2Fpt0DYa7ubpeZ6CV9Xk6IH0Gm2QLzIQadcoOzUcLh5dd-5xdqz-gvjtP2kR15d1tfNfOlUkkG0K_9BQicVerg5lq-iA/s400/Riza_Iessai.jpg" width="295" /></a><br />
'There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.' [<a href="http://usccb.org/bible/isaiah/11:1">Isaiah 11:1</a>]<br />
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'My covenant shall be in your flesh.' [<a href="http://usccb.org/bible/genesis/17:13">Genesis 13:17</a>]<br />
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Part three of my reflections on Coventry Patmore's short religious thoughts in <i>The Rod, The Root, and the Flower </i>[<a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2018/01/mystagogy-reading-rod-root-and-flower.html">Part I</a> and <a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2018/01/mystagogy-rod-root-and-flower-pt-ii.html">Part II</a>]<br />
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From "Homo"<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
VIII - Creation is nothing but a concerted piece, consisting of representative repetitions and variations of and harmonious commentaries upon the simple theme, God, who is defined by St. Thomas as an <i>Act</i>—the Act of love, the 'embrace' of the First and Second Persons, and their unity is the thence proceeding Spirit of Life, 'Creator Spiritus', the Life and Joy of all things. In this divine contrapuntal music, plagues, the sack of cities, and hell itself (according to St. Augustine) are but discords necessary to emphasize, exalt, and illustrate the harmony. If Beethoven and Back are but senseless noise to the untrained ears of the boy who likes to hear Balfe on the street organ; you, though you may be capable of Beethoven and Back, should hesitate to affirm that the sphere-music is not music because to your ears it is nothing but confusion. The first step towards becoming able to hear it is, to fix your attention, as every listener to learned music does, upon the <i>theme</i>, which is God, and '<i>the love which is between Himself</i>', the love of which all other loves are more or less remote echoes and refrains. This 'dry doctrine' of the Trinity, or primary Act of Love, is the keynote of all living knowledge and delight. God Himself becomes a concrete object and an intelligible joy when contemplated as the eternal felicity of a Lover with the Beloved, the Anti-type and very original of the Love which inspires the poet and the thrush.</blockquote>
This first drew to mind J.R.R. Tolkien's "<a href="http://www.evanpalmercomics.com/ainulindale/">Ainulindalë</a>" which is the version of The Creation as told by the elves. The Ainulindalë uses the imagery of music played/sung by the Ainur (Tolkien's angels) based upon themes proposed by Eru (God). The Ainu Melkor, desiring to impose his own will on the symphony introduces his own themes but instead causes discord. This music of the Ainur is taken from abstract to concrete when Eru sends the Flame Imperishable (Holy Spirit) into the heart of their music actualizing into Creation. Right along with Patmore and Augustine's explication of the 'discords' Eru says "thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that has not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall be but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."<br />
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The connection is interesting (Charles William, fellow Inkling with Tolkien and Lewis was apparently a Coventry Patmore fan ...), but I am more interested in Patmore's discussion of discernment of the theme. This ties in directly with what the purpose of the Daily Examen should be, not merely a cataloging of faults to be corrected or virtues to be strengthened but a discernment of God in one's life. In <a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-daily-examen.html">my post on the Examen</a> I used the metaphor of "reading" the day as one my read scripture, looking for the Spiritual as well as the Literal sense of the day's events and images. But that metaphor might be more useful in looking at individual moments and images in a spiritual sense. In looking on the day as a whole, or using the Examen to cover a period of life, long or short, starting with the Trinitarian theme of the "Act of Love" might be more fruitful, or even cause the individual notes to stand out more.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
XXIV - Perfect, easy, and abiding control over the senses is the fundamental condition of perceptive knowledge of God, and this control consists, not in the destruction of the senses and in the denial of their testimonies, but in the conversion of them from smoky torches into electric lights. 'He who leaves all for my sake shall receive a hundredfold <i>in this life</i>.' of the same felicities—which we can only obtain by abandoning the pursuit of them.</blockquote>
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<i>"The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!</i> —Matthew 6:22-23<br />
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The senses are as good as the aim toward which we use them. To what are my eyes trained on, to what am I straining to hear, etc? Daily I can ask myself what I sought with my senses, perhaps comparing them to relevant verses<br />
<ul>
<li>Thou hast said, "Seek ye my face." My heart says to thee, "Thy face, LORD, do I seek." -Ps 27:8</li>
<li>He who has ears, let him hear. ... As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it -Mt 13:9 & </li>
<li>O taste and see that the LORD is good! -Ps 34:8</li>
<li>"Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing." -Jn 20:27</li>
<li>God, your love is better than wine, better than the fragrance of perfumes. Your name is a flowing perfume ... I run after You to the odor of Your ointments. -see Sng 1:2,3,4</li>
</ul>
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And where they have fallen on something other than God, I can pray for their conversion (con-versus "to turn around") to face toward God and desire nothing else. If for no other reason, than it seems my desire for the Examen cannot occur without that "fundamental condition of the perceptive knowledge of God." As such devoting the Examen first in time to discipline, if not first in purpose (to know God's will in one's life), seems prudent.</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
XXXIV - The Foul, puritanical leaven of the Reformation has infected the whole of Christianity, and it is now almost impossible to speak with any freedom and effect on the doctrine of the Incarnation without shocking the sensibilities of those who, like the angels who fell, insist on being purer than God, and refusing worship to 'the fullness of the Godhead manifested bodily.'</blockquote>
Beware of spiritualities and prayer-forms that distance your faith from the Incarnation, instead of bringing it to the font and center of your faith and prayer, meditation and contemplation. The Mass and all the Sacraments engage the Body of Christ feeding our bodies, bathing them, anointing them, touching them and healing them. We must constantly seek to touch even the hem of the garment of him who can save us. The Incarnation is why the Rosary, for all its simplicity remains such a powerful and effective form of prayer for the Word Made Flesh is as at the heart of every vocal prayer, and is the substance of every Mystery.<br />
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I'll conclude my reflections in the next few days. Let me know what you think of this sampling of Coventry Patmore's writings, or let me know what of his you've read and what you've discovered.<br />
<br />David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-42002327955464047782018-01-18T15:26:00.001-05:002018-01-18T15:34:25.166-05:00Mystagogy: The Rod, The Root, and the Flower, pt II<div class="tr_bq">
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<i>Faith is the light of the flame of love.</i></div>
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Continuing my scattered commentary (<a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2018/01/mystagogy-reading-rod-root-and-flower.html">pt 1 here</a>) on parts from Patmore Coventry's <i>The Rod, the Root, and the Flower</i>. The quote above is from the final section of the book, "Aphorisms and Extracts" added posthumously by Patmore's son. Another of these Extracts sums up well the theme of Coventry's theme:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
God, in whose image we were made,<br />
Let me not be afraid<br />
To trace Thy likeness in what best we are.</blockquote>
And this nicely sums up what Stratford Caldecott noticed as Prelude thoughts to the Theology of the Body:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
God has declared to his His mystic rapture in His Marriage with Humanity in twice saying, 'Hic est Filius meus dilectus in quo bene complacui'. [This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased] He expressly and repeatedly calls this marriage, and pronounces the marriage of Man and Woman to be its symbol. <i>This is the burning heart of the Universe</i>.</blockquote>
A few more from the first section, "Aurea Dicta"<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
CX - The great secrets of life lie too far within, not too far beyond, our mental focus to be seen. Philosophy consists in limiting the focus, not in extending it.</blockquote>
I have suspected that I've become quite guilty of this, perhaps even my own mystagogy reading program. Too much time reading commentaries, theology, and treatises on prayer, not enough time with Jesus Christ in Scripture and prayer, themselves. It also reminds me of the advice from the Dessert Fathers:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Joseph asked Poemen, “Tell me how to become a monk.” He said, “If you want to find rest in this life and the next, say at every moment, ‘Who am I?’ and judge no one.”</blockquote>
In asking, "who am I?" I go within, what are <i>my</i> sins, what is <i>my</i> relationship with God. The seed and the seedling must receive water and sunlight long before it bears fruit.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
CXXXIX - The Worthiest occupation of the Wise, in these days, is to 'dig again the wells which the Philistines have filled.'</blockquote>
A call to <i>ressourcement </i>in its own way. I tend to find more of the ring of truth in Catholic authors who look to the Fathers of the Church, or at least have a Thomist background, much moreso in the Church Fathers themselves and the Doctors of the Church. Then in those ancient writers (yet always new) their obvious searching of the Scriptures for Wisdom, again, it brings forth the above self-criticism ... not enough time with Scripture and the Font of Wisdom himself.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
CLV - '<i>Taste</i> and see that the Lord is sweet.' Taste or touch discerns substance. 'It is,' says Aristotle, 'a sort of sight', with this difference that it is infallible.</blockquote>
I can only imagine that Patmore is speaking to some kind of experiential discernment rather than passive perception. Apprehension versus comprehension. Bite deep of the bread of life, drink deep of the cup of salvation. Taste! Go out into the deep!<br />
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From, "Knowledge and Science"<br />
<blockquote>
I - In His union and conjunction with Body, God finds His final perfection and felicity. 'It is not written that He has taken hold of any of the angels; but of us He has taken hold.' [<a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/hebrews/2:16">Heb 2:16</a>] 'Deliciae meae esse cum filiis <i>hominum</i>.' ['My delights were to be with the children of men.', Douay-Rheims, <a href="http://www.latinvulgate.com/lv/verse.aspx?t=0&b=22&c=8">Proverbs 8:31</a>] The great prophecy, 'Man shall be compassed by a woman', [Jer 31:22] was fulfilled when Jesus Christ made the body, which He had taken from Mary, actually divine by the subdual of its last recalcitrance upon the Cross. The celestial marriage, in which, thenceforward, every soul that choose could participate, was then consummated. 'Consummatum est', and the Body became—<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Creation's and Creator's crowning good;<br />
Wall of infinitude;<br />
Foundation of the sky,<br />
In Heaven forecast<br />
And long'd for from eternity,<br />
Though laid the last.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
One of Patmore's repeated themes in this section is that Protestants lost (particularly in the more Puritanical strains), and Catholicism is in danger of losing a full sense of the Incarnation and what it means for our own bodies. <i>He ascended into heaven</i>. including his Body. The body has become a thing divine and dwells in eternal beatitude through Christ. As I read somewhere (probably Kreeft) about sexuality, you don't make rules for things we don't care about, you make rules and boundaries for the things we care about the most. The discipline of the Body, asceticism, isn't necessary and promoted by the Church because she hates the body, but because the Body of the Lord makes our own bodies the means to our salvation, for it is through our flesh that we participate in the flesh of Christ. <i>Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; </i><i>you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.</i> (1 Cor 6:19-20)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
VIII - If we would find in God that full satisfaction of all our desires which He promises, we must believe <i>extravagantly</i>, i.e. as the Church and the Saints do; and must not be afraid to follows the doctrine of the Incarnation into all its <i>natural </i>consequences. Those who fear to call Mary the 'Mother of God' simply do not believe in the Incarnation at all; but we must go further, and believe His word when he rebuked the people for regarding her as exclusively His Mother, declaring that every soul who received Him with faith and love was also, in union wither Her, His Mother, the Bride of the Holy Spirit. We must not be afraid to believe that this Bride and Mother, with whom we are identified, is 'Regina Coeli', as well as 'Regina Mundi'; and that this Queen of Heaven and Earth is simply a pure, natural woman; and that one of our own race, and each of us, in union with her, has been made 'a little lower than the angels', in order to be 'crowned with honour and glory' far beyond the honour and glory of the highest of His purely spiritual creatures. 'It is not written that He has taken hold (or united Himself) with any of the angels'; but of the lowest of His spiritual creatures, who alone is also flesh, 'He has taken hold'; and the Highest has found His ultimate and crowning felicity in a marriage of the flesh as well as the Spirit; and in this infinite contrast and intimacy of height with depth and spirit with flesh He, who is very Love, finds, just as ordinary human love does, it's final rest and the full fruition of its own life; and the joy of angels is in contemplating, and sharing by perfect sympathy with humanity, that glory which humanity alone actually possesses. This, the literal doctrine of the Church and the Scriptures, sounds preposterous in the ears of nearly all 'Christians' even; and yet its actual truth has been realised, even in this life, as something fare more than a credible promise, by those who have received the message of their Angel with somewhat of the faith of Mary, and to each of whom it has been said: 'Blessed art thou because thou hast believed; for there shall be a performance of the things which have been promised to thee.' Let Christians leave off thinking of the Incarnation as a thing past, or a figure of speech, and learn to know that it consists for them in their becoming the intimately and humanly beloved of a divine and yet human Lover; and His local paradise and heaven of heavens.</blockquote>
<i>The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."</i> (<a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1J.HTM#-GX">Catechism of the Catholic Church, 460</a>)<br />
<br />David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-556641328738896302018-01-13T01:11:00.000-05:002018-01-13T01:50:18.182-05:00Mystagogy Reading: The Rod, the Root, and the Flower by Coventry Patmore, Pt I<i><br /></i>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Coventry Patmore, portrait by John Singer Sargent</i></td></tr>
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<i>The Rod, the Root, and the Flower</i> by Coventry Patmore is a collection of aphorisms expounding the culmination of Patmore's spiritual thought. Patmore is a poet of the the late nineteenth century, a member of the Christian Romantics, poets who found the Romantic movement in and of itself, too bereft of religion, intellect and philosophy, but found inspiration in the Romantics' rejection of the Rationalist philosophy, and their return to allegory, symbolism, and medieval imagery. Patmore was considered a mystic and was popular in his day though that waned after his conversion to Catholocism, which still made someone something of a <i>persona non grata</i> in England.<br />
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Stratford Caldecott in "<a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/files/caldecott41-1_final.pdf">Why We Need Coventry Patmore</a>" (<i>Communio</i> 2014) notes that Patmore's writing is a poetic expression of St John Paul II's Theology of the Body almost a hundred years older than the Pope's groundbreaking exegesis of faith and sexuality. And in Patmore's diligent exploration and expression of the ideas of St. Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas, both of whom he quotes often in <i>The Rod, etc.</i> Caldecott also sees a presaging of the ressourcement movement of the mid-twentieth century.<br />
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Since the book is a collection of aphorisms, I thought I would pick out some that particularly spoke to me, and write little commentaries on them over the course of a few blog posts.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
'Searchers of Majesty shall be overwhelmed with the glory.' Blissfully overwhelmed; ruined for this world, yet even in this enriched beyond thought; happy searchers, consumed by the thunder of divine instruction and the lightning of divine perceptions, but surviving as a new creature in the very flesh of her destroyer.<br />
—Aurea Dicta, IX</blockquote>
The opening quote is an English Translation of the Vulgate translation of Proverbs 25:27: <i>sicut qui mel multum comedit non est ei bonum sic qui scrutator est maiestatis opprimitur gloria</i>. When we finally, as Christians, surrender ourselves to the Theological Hope with our eyes firmly set on Heaven as Participation in the Divine Life, Theosis, Divination (see <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1J.HTM#-GX">CCC 460</a>) then the we become "ruined" for this world. Nothing in it will satisfy to the level to which have faith that that God will provide. C.S. Lewis found this longing to be in everyone, for even before we start searching for God we find that nothing in this world fully satisfies our desire, especially our desire for joy, so we must be made for something greater than this world. Lewis calls this the argument from desire. But how much more intense it becomes when we truly "lift up our hearts to the Lord"?<br />
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The imagery of God as destroyer and being consumed, especially by thunder and lightning, are frightful images that call to mind <a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/job/38">Job in the whirlwind</a> (purposefully, I imagine). But they link me back to what Vanauken wrote about in <a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-spiritual-autobiography-of-love.html">A Severe Mercy</a> about the Shining Barrier's most important function was to protect their love from <i>self</i>; we must die to self in order to be reborn "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were [...] so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:3 & 4)<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Hate pleasure, if only because this is the only means of obtaining it. Reject the foul smoke, and it will be forced back on you as pure flame. But this you cannot believe, until you shall have rejected it without thought of reward.<br />
—ibid, XV</blockquote>
"Pure flame" excites the spiritual imagination (did Patmore read <a href="http://ourladyofashes.blogspot.com/2017/10/become-all-flame.html">the desert fathers</a>?). "Hate" here, I take to be in the same vein as Jesus saying "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Not hate as with disdain or wrath, but as an expression of recognizing the order of good. Nothing should come before God and all things should be ordered toward God. If one is not willing to sacrifice familial relationships for God, then we have made idols of family. And if we must be willing to sacrifice family, and even our life if it not ordered toward God, then pleasure too must be "hated." But when it is so hated, when pleasure is enjoyed not in replacement of God, but as a sign of his goodness, then it shall be received as "pure flame" However, just as when pursuing God, it is necessary to at times withdraw from family ("when you pray, go to your closet, close the door and pray"), when pursuing God it is also necessary at times to abstain from earthly pleasure and take delight in the Lord alone.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So give me to possess this mystery that I shall not desire to understand it<br />
—ibid XXVIII</blockquote>
and<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Great contemplatives are infallible, so long as they only affirm. When they begin to prove, any fool can confute them.<br />
—ibid LXXIII</blockquote>
Both of these relate to types of religious knowledge: Understanding and Wisdom, or perhaps comprehension and apprehension. This has been at the heart of my recent mystagogy focus. I'm wanting to move away from an apologetics focused knowledge of the faith, the temptation "to prove" and instead affirm "with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength." I want to "go out into the deep" where I'm no longer just learning about God, but I'm encountering Him: <i>My heart says to thee, "Thy face, LORD, do I seek."</i><br />
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Reading <i>The Rod the Root and the Flower</i> (<a href="https://angelicopress.org/product/the-rod-the-root-and-the-flower/">2013, Angelico Press</a>) is a continuation of my reading the Bibliography, or related readings, from Stratford Caldecott's <a href="https://www.secondspring.co.uk/product/the-seven-sacrements-entering-the-mysteries-of-god/"><i>The Seven Sacraments: Entering the Mysteries of God</i></a> as personal mystagogy. This work is not in the bibliography but Patmore's <i>Religio Poetae Etc.</i> was not available through the library, so I thought this was a good place to start. Mr Caldecott wrote a foreward to the Angelico Press edition of <i>The Rod, etc.</i>, which he rewrote as the article linked above for <i>Communio</i>.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-25655382128980665802018-01-09T20:34:00.000-05:002018-01-09T20:43:15.779-05:00The Spiritual Autobiography of a Love: A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjflWSFXyYPwn6iqhpnRPSJxytXfzV1g-lS0T3VSna7msI_3NpDMIaHRnzPqJ4jAJ4OCMTIEuQQ5X8o2SvhLTOjevzJiZvUGC5EFL0kAH1S7bMKv1TEnZ44iJlmpg55Jvh0PGoYCKE1EvU/s1600/81bfkhUNvlL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjflWSFXyYPwn6iqhpnRPSJxytXfzV1g-lS0T3VSna7msI_3NpDMIaHRnzPqJ4jAJ4OCMTIEuQQ5X8o2SvhLTOjevzJiZvUGC5EFL0kAH1S7bMKv1TEnZ44iJlmpg55Jvh0PGoYCKE1EvU/s320/81bfkhUNvlL.jpg" width="224" /></a><i>A Severe Mercy</i> by Sheldon Vanauken (<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060688240/a-severe-mercy">1977, Harper & Row</a>) is a memoir of the author Sheldon "Van" Vanauken and his true love Jean "Davy" Davis but is self-described by the author as "the spiritual autobiography of a love rather than the lovers." The book has two essential parts, the first "pagan" and the second after the couple's conversion to Christianity while at Oxford up until tragedy befalls their relationship and its aftermath. It also chronicles the couple's friendship with C.S. Lewis including several letters that include outstanding spiritual advice.<br />
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In what Van calls the pagan beginnings of their relationship, Van and Davy, agnostics devoted to beauty and truth, meet and from their first date discover their connection, in a moment Van describes using C.S. Lewis's words defining Friendship: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself ..." From there, their love grows to heights and depths that I recognized as true, even as I have never experience that level of commitment to love in any couple I've ever known. I wanted to be skeptical of the unity and passion their love retained, and yet each anecdote of devotion and every idealistic plan to stay in a state of "inloveness" felt real.<br />
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Van and Davy vow that if their love is to retain its "inloveness" then there must be a constant effort toward unity, maintained through a continual sharing of their likes and passions—if one of them likes anything, then the other must acknowledge there must be something genuine to like in that thing, and discover it for themselves no matter how hidden on first glance—and mutual service, symbolized in their relationship as "a cup of water in the night" retrieved for the other. Both of these are meant to weave "strands" that bind them to greater unity.<br />
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They erect a symbolic "Shining Barrier" around their love which at first glance is meant to keep out all that threaten the relationship—inappropriate feelings for other men or women, of course, but also worldly concerns, over attachment to a like the other simply can't participate in, etc—but more deeply, they recognize that the "self" the all-consuming "I" is the most dire threat against "us" and thus the Shining Barrier is meant to be a sign of the necessity of subduing the self for the sake of their love.<br />
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The Shining Barrier—the shield of our love. A walled garden. A fence around a young tree to keep the deer from nibbling it. An fortified place with the walls and watchtowers gleaming white like the cliffs of England. The Shining Barrier—we called it so from the first—protecting the green tree of our love. And yet in another sense, it was our love itself, made strong within, that was the Shining Barrier.</blockquote>
Monthly, they take time to reflect on the status of their unity, to correct where "self" has risen above their love, and to make major decisions, the outcome of which must always conform to "The Great Appeal" that whatever decision is made singly or together it is whatever is best for their relationship.<br />
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Interestingly, the danger of "self" is the only aspect of their efforts at unity that Vanauken focuses on as immediately relevant to the relationship with Christ. I frankly see in all of their groundwork areas that reflect upon the Christian life. In the sharing of likes, I see not only constantly reading the Gospel to get to know Christ and conform my will to his, but also in the sharing of <i>my </i>likes and passions in daily prayer. The Shining Barrier, both against the exterior and interior dangers, should be erected to protect the love toward God and against sin, a parallel to Spiritual Combat. And in their monthly reflections and "The Great Appeal" I can see parallels to the Daily Examen and Spiritual Discernment.<br />
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Anyway, Van and Davy secretly marry and began to live a life that after their conversion C.S. Lewis called an "'admirably realized' Christian ideal of man and wife as One Flesh."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9sGPEb62Zz-9cZrxbTLy89a3aP4YuXjJZtHYVQiFOJuNoMcD1TWi2juyN3k7wOOVr3G9d9XACENiZ_xgmgG3fPfeLX3ngy5IDXnx0oTF0tvlOrIBcBN69R9Cefuo1lh7rz5U5btwPsg/s1600/8117313262_5b0237185a_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="562" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD9sGPEb62Zz-9cZrxbTLy89a3aP4YuXjJZtHYVQiFOJuNoMcD1TWi2juyN3k7wOOVr3G9d9XACENiZ_xgmgG3fPfeLX3ngy5IDXnx0oTF0tvlOrIBcBN69R9Cefuo1lh7rz5U5btwPsg/s320/8117313262_5b0237185a_b.jpg" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Van and Davy</td></tr>
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Three events lead toward their conversion: the first, Van sees a Cross of shadow fall across Davy and in his thought it is transformed from an ill-omen of an "X" representing antagonism to the Cross of Christ, which causes him to wonder if he shouldn't at some point really explore the Christian faith. Secondly, Davy has an encounter with a flasher that has a threat of rape; and reflecting on the evil in the world experiences her own "conviction of sin" within herself that she feels must be addressed. Finally, when they make their way to Oxford, which they find "breathing the last enchantment of the middle ages" they also find "thoughtful Christians" joyful, caring, and brilliant in conversation about Christianity. With these influences they began to have their "Encounter with the Light."<br />
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During this period of conversion, after reading several of his works, Van writes C.S. Lewis which begins a correspondence of friends that lasts for Lewis's lifetime. In one of Lewis letters, reprinted in the book, he shares bit of apologetics that grabbed me, very much related to his "argument from desire" but about Time. "Notice how we are perpetually <i>surprised</i> at Time. ('How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!') In heavens name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not Temporal."<br />
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Davy converts first, and this is the first superficial break in the Shining Barrier, for now God has entered into the "us" and Van isn't sharing the same experiences as Davy. Even after Van converts, they experience Christ in different ways; Davy appears to advance in the spiritual life at a greater pace than Van. And after leaving the atmosphere of Oxford, which they associate with God, Van struggles more with the day-to-day faith more than Davy.<br />
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From the very beginning of the book, we are told by Van that Davy will die, and it is during this trial of Van's faith that he learns that Davy is dying. What follows is a deep mystery of faith, a magnificent triumph of love, and a heart-rending reflection on death, grief, and God's "severe mercy" which I cannot do justice to, and can only urge you to now go read the book.<br />
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The book grabbed me on several levels. First, that Van and Davy's at once systematic and idealistically passionate way of effecting greater love from love stirs me to be more proactive about the unity of my own marriage. We need not use the same language of the Shining Barrier, et al, and certainly the strands we form of likes will be quite different from Van and Davy's but the substance of what they hoped to achieve can, I think, be imitated if both spouses were on the same page about it. I certainly think both should read the book before even hoping for such a thing. Second, as above, the tools they used to protect and grow in their relationship are transferable to the individual soul's relationship with God and are worth attempting; by reading Van and Davy's story on that allegorical level, I could see its appeal even to single religiously-minded folk. There is also much reflection on Time and timelessness and the latter's necessity in friendship and love. Van relates this timelessness to joy, nothing that the two are often together; and it helps me identify the element I've been straining to define in true friendship.<br />
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Finally, in my recent increasing search for Wisdom, a sacramental worldview, and making that a daily practice in the Examen, there is much discussion of reading signs in one's life that point to God. The shadowy cross and the sin of the man that effects Davy's compunction sit high on those, but there are others. Van questions one such sign, a rainbow that inspired hope, but wondered how much of our psychological baggage causes us to read unintentional meaning into such signs. Lewis's reply gives much to think about: "If an event coming about in the ordinary course of nature becomes to me the occasion of hope and faith and love or increased efforts after virtue, do we suppose this result was unforeseen by, or indifferent to, God?—the total act of Creation, including our own creation (which is going on all the time) meets us, in every event at every moment." Amen.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-35735462177247682322018-01-08T13:06:00.000-05:002018-01-12T09:42:28.689-05:00Tolkien on "The Secret Fire"<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWxDrWqHQUbZTLN37OQ_W6Ea2HCKJj3ptSjpzHSL44ymbrdMH0B8r8rrIPAHXwX5EieZEplhs8HH65XYo4CR7X6i1_q314vijcp8f71EHfCPxxr-TfoMhPhP9ljxsSopaIEt1uWAoH8NE/s1600/JRR-Tolkien-Pic-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWxDrWqHQUbZTLN37OQ_W6Ea2HCKJj3ptSjpzHSL44ymbrdMH0B8r8rrIPAHXwX5EieZEplhs8HH65XYo4CR7X6i1_q314vijcp8f71EHfCPxxr-TfoMhPhP9ljxsSopaIEt1uWAoH8NE/s400/JRR-Tolkien-Pic-3.jpg" width="383" /></a><b><br /></b><br />
<b>The Secret Fire of Middle-earth</b><br />
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<i>"You cannot pass," he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass."</i><br />
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<i>—Gandalf, <b>The Lord of the Rings</b>, The Fellowship of the Ring</i><br />
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<i>"Therefore Ilúvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World; and it was called Eä."</i><br />
<i>—Valaquenta,</i><b> <i>The Silmarillion</i>.</b><br />
<b><br /></b><i>The following is quoted from <b>Tolkien and the Silmarillion</b>, by Clyde S. Kilby [<a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-78/meeting-professor-tolkien.html">via here</a>]</i><br />
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Responding to a letter from Father Robert Murray suggesting Tolkien’s story impressed him as entirely about grace, Tolkien wrote: “I know exactly what you mean by the order of grace; and of course by your references to Our Lady, upon which all my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded. The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first but consciously in the revision. I . . . have cut out practically all references to anything like 'religion,’ to cults and practices in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism. However that is very clumsily put, and sounds more self-important than I feel. I should chiefly be grateful for having been brought up since I was eight in a faith that has nourished me and taught me all the little that I know... “<br />
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Professor Tolkien talked to me at some length about the use of the word “holy” in <i>The Silmarillion</i>. <b>Very specifically he told me that the “Secret Fire sent to burn at the heart of the World” in the beginning was the Holy Spirit. </b>[emphasis added]<br />
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He described his problem in depicting the fall of mankind near the beginning of the story. “How far we have fallen!” he exclaimed—so far, he felt, that it would seem impossible even to find an adequate prototype or to imagine the contrast between Eden and the disaster which followed.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">table from "<a href="https://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+wind+from+the+West%3A+the+role+of+the+holy+spirit+in+Tolkien%27s+...-a0326130678">A Wind from the West: The Role of the Holy Spirit in Tolkien's Middle-Earth</a>" by </span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Gregory Hartley</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicYtozHu79lMIFCwEfZB8kEE1sR02HoF0Vegw8RfOGlRNBmssJLuSW4SRNX0c432Ihd-_YAoTYIeEtJY0F9OXp_yWWk9RsXJBrLN2wdAuuFFbvHMXiDmwBnNLcBdI2pTxQ0oX6OQLsruI/s1600/A037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: start;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicYtozHu79lMIFCwEfZB8kEE1sR02HoF0Vegw8RfOGlRNBmssJLuSW4SRNX0c432Ihd-_YAoTYIeEtJY0F9OXp_yWWk9RsXJBrLN2wdAuuFFbvHMXiDmwBnNLcBdI2pTxQ0oX6OQLsruI/s400/A037.jpg" width="370" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">image from Evan Palmer's <a href="http://www.evanpalmercomics.com/ainulindale/">comic adaptation</a> of Tolkien's <i>The Ainulindalë</i></td></tr>
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David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-82955333405483658212018-01-02T09:36:00.000-05:002018-01-02T09:42:12.212-05:00St Basil and the Daughter of Heradius: from the Golden Legend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The story of Bishop Basil (whose feast, along with his friend Gregory, we celebrate today), the daughter of Heradius, the Devil and the Slave from <i><a href="https://pocketbard.wordpress.com/fun-saint-stories/" target="_blank">The Golden Legend</a>, </i>(<a href="https://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/jacobus.htm">compiled</a> by <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08262b.htm">Bl. Jacobus de Voragine</a>) is so good ... the multilevel, perfidious plan of the Devil; the insight of demonic influence upon our passions; magic as the illusion of the devil that the magician is the one in control; the promise of the power of God's mercy to overcome Sin and Death's oppressive influence on the spirit, as well as our own sins; an exorcism as the demons torment the subject to despair; climatic battle of wills between the saint and the devil, and the day saved by the Sacrament of Reconciliation!</div>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
A highly respected man named Heradius had an only daughter whom he intended to consecrate to the Lord, but the devil, foe of the human race, got wind of this and inflamed one of Heradius’s slaves with love for the girl. The man, knowing that as a slave he could not possible win the embraces of so noble a lady, turned to a sorcerer and promised him a lot of money if he could advance his suit. The sorcerer told him: “I can’t do that, but, if you wish, I’ll send you to the devil my master, and if you do as he tells you, you will get what you desire.” The young man said: “I’ll do it!” Therefore the soothsayer wrote a letter to the devil and sent it by the hand of the slave. The letter read: “Since it behooves me, my lord, with care and dispatch to draw people away from the Christian religion and attract them to your service so that you may grow day by day, I am sending you this youth who is burning with desire for a certain young woman. I ask that he may have his wish, so that in this individual I may gain glory and may be able to win over others to you.”</blockquote>
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When he gave the letter to the slave, he said: “Go and stand on the tomb of a heathen at midnight and cry out to the demons. Hold this letter up in the air, and they will come right away!” So the youth went and summoned the demons, throwing the letter into the air. In an instant the prince of darkness, surrounded by a swarm of demons, was at hand; and when he had read the letter, he asked: “Do you believe in me, that I can bring about what you want?” “I believe, my lord!” he answered. The devil: “And do you renounce your Christ?” The slave: “I renounce him!” “You Christians are a perfidious lot,” the devil retorted. “Sometimes when you need me, you come to me. Then, when your wish is gratified, you deny me and turn to your Christ; and he, out of the abundance of his clemency, takes you back! But if you want me to fulfill your desire, write me a script in your own hand, in which you profess to renounce Christ, your baptism, and the Christian faith; to be my servant; and to be condemned with me at the Last Judgment.”</blockquote>
<blockquote>
The slave wrote as direct, repudiating Christ and indenturing himself to the service of the devil. At once his new master called up the spirits who were in charge of fornication, and commanded them to go to the aforesaid maiden and set her heart afire with love for the slave. They carried out his orders so thoroughly that the girl threw herself sobbing on the ground and cried out to the father: “Have pity on me, father, have pity on me! I am sorely tormented by my love for one of our slaves! Show me your fatherly love, and wed me to this man whom I love and for the love of whom I suffer torture! Otherwise you will shortly see me dead and will have to account for me on the Day of Judgment!”</blockquote>
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Her father wailed aloud and said: “Oh, wretched me! What has happened to my poor child? Who has stolen my treasure? Who has put out the soft light of my eyes? I had hoped to join you to your heavenly spouse, and counted on winning my salvation through you, and here you are, maddened by a lascivious love! O my daughter, let me join you to the Lord as I had planned! Do not drive my old age to the netherworld with grief!” The girl, however, continued to cry out: “Either grant my wish quickly, father, or you will see me dead very soon!” She was weeping bitterly and almost raving; and finally her father, in the depths of desolation and being badly advised by his friends, gave in to her wish, had her married to the slave, and handed over all he owned to her, saying: “Be on your way, my poor, poor daughter!”</blockquote>
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Now, while the couple had made their home together, the young man did not go to church or make the sign of the cross, nor did he commend himself to God in any way. Some of their acquaintances noticed this and said to his wife: “Do you know that your husband, whom you chose for yourself, is not a Christian and never enters a church?” When she heard this, she was filled with dread, threw herself to the ground, tore her flesh with her fingernails, beat her breast, and said: “O wretched me! Why was I born, and when I was born, why did not death take me at once?” She told her husband what she had heard, and he declared that there was not a word of truth in it; what she had been told was entirely false. “If you want me to believe you,” she said, “you and I will go to church together tomorrow!”</blockquote>
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Seeing that he could no longer hide the truth, the former slave then told his wife the whole story from the beginning, and the young woman groaned aloud. Then she hurried to the blessed Basil and told him all that had happened to her husband and to herself. Basil summoned the husband, heard the story from him, and asked: “My son, do you want to turn back to God?” “I want to, my lord,” he answered, “but I can’t! I made profession to the devil, renounced Christ, and my renunciation in writing, and gave it to the devil.”</blockquote>
<blockquote>
“Don’t worry, my son!” said Basil. “The Lord is kind and will accept you as a penitent.” He laid his hands on the youth and made the sign of the cross on his forehead. Then he shut him in a cell for three days, after which he visited him and asked him how things were with him. “I can’t stand it, my lord,” he said. “They shout at me and terrorize me and attack me! They hold up my script as an excuse for their treatment, saying: ‘You came to us, not we to you!’” “Don’t be afraid!” Basil said. “Just believe!” He gave him a little food, again made the sign of the cross on his forehead, closed the cell, and prayed for him. A few days later he visited him and said: “How are things now, my son?” “I still hear their shouting and their threats, father,” the man answered, “but I no longer see them.” Basil again gave him food and blessed him, closed the door, and continued to pray for him. After a number of days he went back and asked: “How now?” The young man replied: “I’m doing well, O saint of God! Today I saw you in a vision, fighting for me and beating the devil!”</blockquote>
<blockquote>
The bishop then led him out of his cell, summoned all the clergy and religious and the whole populace, and urged all to pray for the man. Then he took him by the hand and led him to the church. There the devil came on with a horde of demons and, though invisible, took hold of the slave and tried to tear him away from the bishop’s grasp. The young man called out: “Saint of God, help me!” But the evil one assaulted him with such force that in dragging the one he wanted he was also pulling the saint along. Basil said to him: “Most wicked spirit, is your own damnation not enough for you, that you try to bring down God’s handiwork with you?” “You wrong me, Basil!” said the devil. “I did not go after him, it was he who came to me! He denied his Christ and made his profession to me, and I have it in his own handwriting!” Basil answered: “We will not stop praying until you give up the script.” And as Basil prayed and held up his hands to heaven, the script, carried down by the breeze, came and settled in Basil’s hands as all looked on. He caught it and asked the youth: “Do you recognize this writing, brother?” “Yes, it is my own hand,” he replied. Whereupon Basil destroyed the script, led him into the church, made him worthy to receive the sacrament, instructed him and gave him rules for right living, and restored him to his wife.</blockquote>
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—<i><a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/5182.html" target="_blank">The Golden Legend</a></i>, Volume I, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton Press, 1995)David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-66732386741734582962017-12-31T14:53:00.003-05:002017-12-31T16:46:29.954-05:00Exploring Tolkien's Theology: The Battle for Middle-earth by Fleming Rutledge<span id="goog_796791820"></span><span id="goog_796791821"></span><br />
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Thematically, Fleming Rutledge's <i><a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/2497/the-battle-for-middleearth.aspx" target="_blank">The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings</a></i> (Eerdmans Publishing, 2004) makes an excellent companion piece to Stratford Caldecott's <i><a href="http://www.crossroadpublishing.com/crossroad/title/power-of-ring" target="_blank">The Power of the Ring</a> </i>(Crossroad Publishing, 2005) which I read earlier this year and inspired the formation of The Servants of the Secret Fire. Both books unveil Christian themes in J.R.R. Tolkien's <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>—Caldecott also explores Tolkien's other writings—what makes Rutledge's work unique from other Christian explorations of Tolkien is that Rutledge follows the narrative as it is written of <i>The Hobbit</i> and <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> to follow a deeper narrative, beneath the surface of the text, of the hidden battle between The Powers of Evil, Sin and Death, and God in the interior spirit and will of the characters.<br />
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Rutledge has done more to make real the supernatural drama of <i>LotR</i>, and frankly the Christian life, than I've previously encountered, perhaps because she ably uses specific examples from the novel to demonstrate it in action. What she emphasizes is the <i>active agency</i> of Evil as a Power influencing the interior spiritual lives of the characters, and by extension our own lives. There can be the temptation to reduce the religious life to the primary drama of faith as occurring between God and the individual human soul. Rutledge argues that this leaves out the struggle against "with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens" (Ephesians 6:12). :<br />
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There are three actors, not just two: God, humanity, and the demonic Powers. Everyone and everythign in the created world has become subjet to these enslaving Powers of Sin and Death. God in the person of his Son has invaded this occupied territory and is now operating there by means of his elected and empowered agents, typically formed into groups or cells of resistance [churches]. These groups and individuals are endowed by God with the apocalyptic transvision that we have identified as the gift to see beyond this plane of existence to the "deeper and higher" Power that is not only protecting and guarding, as the rangers did the Shire, but also <i>actively intervening</i> through the elect emissaries, whether they know it or not. —Fleming Rutledge, <i>The Battle for Middle-earth</i></blockquote>
Rutledge also uses Tolkien's narrative to explore this cosmic drama as it pertains to individual human agency and Tolkien's distrust of the human ability to act for good when the will is not directed by grace, which Rutledge also sees as biblical. Tolkien's subtle inclusion of the influence of these evil spirits on his characters becomes downright frightening once it is fully realized. Characters frequently reflect on their actions and decisions using the passive voice, which Rutledge points to as evidence of some higher power, Grace or Evil acting on the person's will, often outside the character's knowledge. The Lord of the Rings, especially at its climax (which I will avoid describing to avoid spoiling it), is a warning then to how much we should trust our own will to choose the good. However the climax is at once also a celebration of God's ability to use Sin and Death's own power over us against themselves in order to accomplish greater good. Rutledge only uses the term once, but the whole of the Lord of the Rings is an exploration of the biblical problem of evil, <i>theodicy, </i>one with a particularly compelling answer.<br />
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The weakness of Rutledge's book is her tendency to describe her points as if introducing them for the first time each time they come up. Her point was to explore her themes as they are woven through the plot, and her argument as presented in the introduction is that these themes themselves build in intensity toward the climax in a devastatingly logical conclusion, but when she herself describes the themes themselves redundantly at each instance in the plot, it actually weakens the argument as it is presented in the book. She lost many opportunities to compare previous scenes to later ones that show how only part of the theological concept was presented before to how it is built upon further along. This repetition got even to the point of using the same language of her own over and again, not to mention quoting the same biblical passages at almost every instance.<br />
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That being said, the argument itself, the presentation of these ideas, the links to scripture, changed both the way I understand The Lord of the Rings and how I hope to grow as a Servant of the Secret Fire. In making her argument about a Higher Power acting on the characters, she pointed out their repeated references to being "called" to their mission in the narrative. It has made me reflective about my own life of faith as "mission" and to what God is calling me, and the other Servants, as his agent. The "cells of resistance" line in the above quote also makes me desire that others might look at the Servants of the Secret Fire and be able to identify us as exactly that by our actions and our character.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-22512182467805491982017-12-14T12:43:00.002-05:002017-12-14T12:45:43.073-05:00Recommended Reading: AdventA little late in the game, but here are a few titles that I recommend for Advent reading:<br />
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<i><a href="https://www.avemariapress.com/product/0-87061-240-9/The-Reed-of-God/" target="_blank">Reed of God</a></i> by Caryll Houselander (Ave Maria Press, 2006) is the most classically "spiritual reading" of these Advent readings. Houselander uses the lens of Mary's life to talk about being drawn deeper into life in Christ, beginning with becoming empty, like a reed that will become shaped by God to become a flute that sings His glory.<br />
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Mary's Advent emptiness made straight the path that Christ might be conceived by the Holy Spirit in her; our emptiness makes way for Christ's indwelling of our hearts. Mary gives the gift of her flesh to the Son of God that he might become flesh; likewise we have become the Body of Christ. Several of the reflections on the Incarnation as being the gift of Mary's flesh affected my own love of Mary but of these the most arresting was Houselander's reflection that by receiving her flesh, Jesus also receives her death without which there is no cross and thus His death IS her death as well, martyred in his own Paschal suffering.<br />
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Unique to this book is the idea that <i>several</i> key moments of Mary's life are rooted in an Advent spirituality, a preparation for Christ's coming: Annunciation and Pregnancy, of course, but also the seeking of Christ in the Temple so that he <i>comes</i> back home, and at the foot of the Cross where in giving the Apostle John to her as her son, Christ will <i>come </i>to her in all Christians. These moments then become our own as we empty ourselves to receive Christ, continue to search for him through our lives, and finally learn to recognize him in all persons.<br />
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Overall the book left me with two key spiritual ideas that I want to foster. First, that while Lent is the season of conversion and catechumens, Advent is the season of the Faith par excellence, because it is a season of <i>waiting</i>. Our spiritual life is often one of prolonged and profound waiting for the coming of Christ, servants holding vigil waiting for the Master to arrive. We must reconceive Christ in our hearts again and again and then be prepared to wait with a patience achievable only by hope and grace. Second, to foster faith that Christ really is in me. "How can this be?" (Luke 1:34), Houselander points out, is as much our question as it is Mary's. It takes continual acts of faith to make that a living truth in our lives ... a practice of the presence of God, so to speak.<br />
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<i>Office of Readings, non-Scriptural Readings: Advent</i><br />
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Putting aside, for the moment, the actually praying of the Divine Office, the non-Scriptural readings of the Liturgy of the Hours-Office of Readings are the Church's own recommended spiritual reading for Advent. Through them the Church unpacks all the themes of Advent through the most powerful writings of the saints and Tradition. During each week, the readings focus on a particular theme:<br />
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Week One: The Comings of Christ<br />
Week Two: Christ as the Fulfillment of Prophetic Promise<br />
Week Three: The New Covenant of Love and Beatitude<br />
Week Four: Waiting in Joyful Expectation with Mary<br />
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While I don't know of any resources that has the non-Scriptural readings by themselves, there is no loss for places to find them either in <a href="http://www.catholicbookpublishing.com/products/95" target="_blank">Volume 1: Advent and Christmas</a> of the <a href="http://www.catholicbookpublishing.com/products/105" target="_blank">four volume Liturgy of the Hours</a> (Catholic Book Publishing Co) or any number of places online: <a href="http://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/loh/loh.htm" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://www.ibreviary.com/m2/breviario.php?s=ufficio_delle_letture" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://universalis.com/readings.htm" target="_blank">here</a>, for example. Unless you're familiar with praying the Liturgy of the Hours I recommend skipping the psalms and Scriptural reading, and just immerse yourself in the teachings of the Church Fathers for now.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaE7JC8jUgEK31IxmH5SoAIIjqKKK2Ow-HGQFV8Khv4qJl0VMGR9Kg81VsnbSqpIWflBsbE5WyeIWLpMjBdTu2m-Od5dBZAaShMOJq6dGvpe9-ADyVMKTZGkiN3ciBdyweAzuApn4xuOs/s1600/JN3-H.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaE7JC8jUgEK31IxmH5SoAIIjqKKK2Ow-HGQFV8Khv4qJl0VMGR9Kg81VsnbSqpIWflBsbE5WyeIWLpMjBdTu2m-Od5dBZAaShMOJq6dGvpe9-ADyVMKTZGkiN3ciBdyweAzuApn4xuOs/s320/JN3-H.jpg" width="213" /></a><i><a href="https://www.ignatius.com/Products/JN3-H/jesus-of-nazareth-the-infancy-narratives.aspx" target="_blank">Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives</a></i> (Ignatius Press, 2012) is Pope Benedict XVI's "antechamber" to his two earlier exegetical works on the portrait of Jesus in the Gospels: <i>Baptism in the Jordan to The Transfiguration</i> and <i>Jerusalem Entrance to the Resurrection.</i> This work, like the others, goes WAY beyond just re-telling and interpreting the events of the Jesus story, in this case the Annunciation through the Finding of Jesus in the Temple. Ratzinger begins this work with the notion that answer the question <i>Where do you [Jesus] come from</i>? (John 19:9) is at the heart of the rest of the Gospel. Without answering that question, the rest of the Gospel can be dismissed as the story of just another messianic, exorcist rabbi hanging out in first century Palestine. So too should we not just idly accept that Advent is the Season of Christ's two comings, but reflect on what we truly believe about where Christ comes from: is he <i>just </i>the carpenter's son (Matthew 13:55) from Nazareth, from where nothing good ever came (Jn 1:46)?<br />
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The work, as can be said of all the <i>Jesus of Nazareth </i>volumes, is systematic, historical, critical and profound. Scholarly enough to be an academic work it is still accessible enough to be a great Advent read for those who want to reflect deeply on the Scriptural answer to the question <i>Where do you come from?</i><br />
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G.K. Chesterton's <a href="https://www.ignatius.com/Products/ELM-P/the-everlasting-man.aspx" target="_blank"><i>The Everlasting Man</i></a> (Ignatius Press, 2008) was a surprise title for even myself that popped up as I reflected on works that would be appropriate for Advent. Advent is, of course, not just preparation for celebrating the specific event of the Birth of Christ. The Incarnation of the Lord is the pinnacle and axis of all human history. In fact, history itself cannot be understood truly except in light of the Incarnation of the Lord, and that is exactly what Chesterton does in The Everlasting Man.<br />
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By reflecting on that truth, when we come to Christmas itself, it will expand far beyond Nativity Scenes, carols and presents, to becoming this momentous moment in history on which the whole world turns. In fact, as Chesterton points out, even the Gospel writers themselves take great pains to tell the story of the birth of Christ NOT as story, but as <u>history</u>: "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus* that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria." (Luke 2:1-2) and "Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod" (Mt 2:1) Our faith should not relegate the birth of Christ to only a Fairy Tale (though, Tolkien would argue that it is a <i>true </i><a href="http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf" target="_blank">Fairy Story</a>), but realize that these events are History of a particular time and a particular place and part of the Human Story and Legend and Myth and Providence that lives and reverberates through our lives at this particular place and this particular time. Advent is Epic people and Chesterton takes us on <b>that </b>adventure with his usual wit and common sense.David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163581892076964937.post-48458831233401700402017-12-06T12:52:00.001-05:002019-08-09T23:41:24.920-04:00Mystagogy Reading: Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread<i>Reading </i><a href="https://www.ignatius.com/Products/KHBB-E/know-him-in-the-breaking-of-the-bread.aspx" target="_blank">Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread</a><i> is a continuation of my reading the Bibliography from Stratford Caldecott's </i><a href="https://www.secondspring.co.uk/product/the-seven-sacrements-entering-the-mysteries-of-god/" target="_blank">The Seven Sacraments: Entering the Mysteries of God</a><i> as personal mystagogy. </i><br />
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<i>Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread: A Guide to the Mass</i> by Fr. Francis Randolph (Ignatius Press, 1998) is a very instructive description of the elements of the mass in the order they're celebrated, with a little prescriptive opinion thrown in to spice things up. The book is non-technical, free of theological or liturgical jargon, and easy to read. Fr Randolph is clear and concise in explaining the parts of the Mass, and several of his insights and explanations have altered the way I will be present to Mass and even the way I live out my every day participation in Christ's priestly office for the better. I recommend this to just about anyone who desires greater understanding and deeper participation of the Most Holy Sacrament.<br />
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Years ago, I led a program called Religious Reflections within the local Catholic Young Adult group, and for a season we went through the parts of the Mass reflecting on out what's going on, who the celebrant and/or the congregation is addressing (sometimes God, sometimes each other), some history of the form the prayers take in the mass, and some thoughts about our interior response or movement. If I'd had this book then, it probably would have been my main source after the Missal itself and the <i><a href="http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/" target="_blank">General Instruction of the Roman Missal</a></i> (GIRM). </div>
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Fr. Randolph mostly uses those two primary sources himself with the occasional foray into the Documents of Vatican II, a Papal document, or historical source, and it grounds his commentary from getting too speculative. Thus, the descriptive parts of his book cover what's actually going on—he even refrains from using a particular translation of the mass so that he can talk about the action of the prayer without getting caught up in particular words—and even the prescriptive comments, which he always clearly announces as personal preference or observations, tend to be backed up by some section of the GIRM or Pope John Paul II quote. When he uses a historical source, it's usually to explain some apparent eccentricity of the mass: about the source and meaning of the fraction and the commingling, and what we mean by "purification" of the vessels, he was especially enlightening. </div>
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The prescriptive parts of the book were a bit odd; not that I didn't enjoy them or find them thought-provoking, but it made the intended audience of the book a little fuzzy. The descriptive parts are straight-forward enough that I can't imagine any priest didn't get something similar in seminary (though, I suppose it's possible) and thus the book seems aimed at the general laity. However, barring a strong-willed Liturgy Commission in a parish, I'd think the prescriptive parts would be relevant only to the celebrant and thus not particularly helpful to the laity, especially if it makes the lay reader think, with even the slightest frustration, "Well, we SHOULD do that!" </div>
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Fr Randolph, in his introduction, self-proclaims himself part of the "reform of the reform" movement, so I was prepared for a little but of concern/grumbling about the Mass as it's celebrated in the Ordinary Form, the Norvus Ordo, but the tone really is more concern. The Ordinary Form is what he's describing and addressing, and for him it's the form of the Roman Rite the Magisterium intends to be ordinarily celebrated which he does so obediently, no matter his concerns. So the book is itself about celebrating the Norvus Ordo more deeply. The book was written during the use of the 2nd Edition of the Roman Missal, and some of Fr. Randolph's concerns were answered by the new translation. But he's obviously got a soft spot for the Extraordinary Rite, regardless of translation fixes, and is sympathetic to those who prefer it. However, he actually warns against enthusiasm for the Tridentine Mass for its own sake and has stern words for those who use the Tridentine Mass as an expression of dissent against the authority of the Magisterium or co-opted to represent certain political stances. He actually seems to balance a preference for the Tridentine with a preference for celebrating the Norvus Ordo in Latin (which would be my personal preference). His concerns are always rooted in the expression of theological concepts in the prayers and actions and how the Ordinary Rite does or does not foster prayer. </div>
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Regardless of which Rite is being celebrated, Fr Randolph wants all his readers to be able to celebrate the Mass more prayerfully, more joyfully, and with greater understanding. This book can only help the reader do so and be more faithfully drawn up into the "source and summit of our faith."</div>
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David Michael Mayeuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15878894421781085604noreply@blogger.com0