Vain Repetition?

24 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by John Charmley in Anti Catholic, Book Club, Catholic Tradition, Faith, Julian of Norwich, Lent, Marian devotion

≈ 4 Comments

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Lent Book Club, Our Lady, prayer

In the Facebook Lent Book Group one member has noted that Sheild Upjohn is very reluctant to take sides in the various theological issues she herself raises. In the chapter on “prayer” this is clearest on two issue which readers of this blog will recognise – praying the Rosary and praying with the Saints.

Our old correspondent, Bosco, was very hot on these issues. Like many Protestants of an Evangelical bent (if that is what he was), Bosco objected to praying the Rosary, reminding us that we had been warned against vain repetition, adding for good measure that we shouldn’t pray to the Holy Virgin (whose virginity he, in rather poor form even for him, denied) or the saints. Ms Upjohn’s delicacy is perhaps understandable. New readers here need only to put “Bosco” into the search bar on the blog to find some prime examples of prejudice uniformed by knowledge, allied to a firm refusual to rethink once informed. It’s a way of being, but not one which commends itself to anyone who does not already hold such views.

Catholic actually pray “with” the Saints, not to them; the same is true of the greatest of the Saints, Our Lady. If you do not believe there is a “great cloud of witnesses” then so be it, but at least do fellow Christians the courtesy of informing yourself what they say they believe. Can devotion be misinterpreted? It can, and those Anglo-Saxons who feel uneasy with overt displays of emotion, may well find themselves feeling that way about some of the devotions practised by those whose culture makes them very easy with such displays; but they might like to reflect that understanding requires more than observation uninformed by knowledge. Empathy matters, and before we rush to judge others, we might think to exercise it.

It raises the issue of what prayer is for? Mother Julian is a good guide here, writing in chapter 41:

Our Lord himself is the first to receive our prayer, as I see it. He takes it, full of thanks and joy, and he sends it up above, and sets it in the treasury, where it will never be lost. It is there before God and all his holy ones – continually heard, continually helping our needs. When we come to heaven, our prayers will be given to us as part of our delight – with endless joyful tasks from God.
chapter 41

I have found praying the Rosary whilst walking an excellent way of taking two forms of exercise, and I know Jessica has found it useful after I recommended it to her. In so praying it helps my mind focus on the Scriptural passages behind each part of the Rosary. The idea that it somehow raises Our Lady to divine status could, I suspect, be raised only by one who brought it with them because of a suspicion that Catholics do that. There has been a very long history of anti-Catholicsm in the Anglo-Saxon world, and even though we are now in a more secular age, traces of it linger, and added to that we have the aggressive secularism which finds all religion a survival of what it dismisses as medieval superstition, without ever understanding it.

Here, again, Julian is helpful. In chapter 25, Jesus offers her a vision of the Blessed Virgin in heaven:

And with this very same expression of gladness and joy, our good Lord looked down on his right side and brought my mind to where our Lady stood during his Passion, and he said, ‘Would you like to see her?’ … as if he had said, ‘Would you like to see how I love her, so that you can rejoice with me, in the love that I have for her and she for me? … Would you like to see in her how you are loved. For the love of you I made her so exalted, so noble and of such worth; and this delights me, and I want it to delight you.
Chapter 25

Sheila Upjohn’s approach is irenic in the best way. Experience has taught he what it has taught others, which is that you cannot really argue about this issue, all you can do is to try to enter into an understanding of why, for so many of us, Our Lady is so loved. That is not a bad pattern for us during Lent.

#lentbookclub is on Twitter as #LentBookClub, Facebook as https://www.facebook.com/groups/LentBookClub, and is using The Way of Julian of Norwich by Sheila Upjohn which can be bought here rather than Amazon. It runs from Ash Wednesday 20210219 to Easter Sunday-ish 20210404 and we are doing a chapter a week, roughly. Folk who are blogging about this are: Graham, at https://grahart.wordpress.com/, Andrew at https://www.shutlingsloe.co.uk/, Eric at https://sundrytimes2.wordpress.com/, Soobie at https://soobie64.medium.com/, Ruth at https://becausegodislove.wordpress.com/. Come join the pilgrimage with Julian to Norwich!

Spiritual Direction in a Pandemic

18 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by cath.anon in Commentaries, Faith

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Apostle Paul, Christian, Peace, prayer, rejoice

Every now and then, a Biblical writer gives a snippet of wisdom that pulls together a host of theological ideas into a short space of words. It is like a tinny dose of a vaccine shot inside the body to help protect the whole of it (ok… bad analogy for anti-vaxxers, but you get the point).

One of these passages stuck out to me the other day and seemed conspicuously apt for our bizarro pandemic time right now.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.
May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.
1 Thess. 5:16-24 (NRSVCE)

Rejoice Always…Give Thanks in all Circumstances

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

Is it ok to mourn the many who have died or lost their jobs during this pandemic? Of course. Can we voice our frustration? Absolutely, and we should.

But somewhere in our hearts, maybe buried deep, there needs to be at least an ounce of rejoicing – a peaceful acknowledgment that Jesus is still king and we are going to be ok because of this. We need to dig and dig until we can find that little piece of thanksgiving, not for some future time that will be, or the past that was so much better than the present, but for right here, right now.

Paul feels the need to not simply request patiently that we rejoice and give thanks in all circumstances. He does not plead with us. No, he commands us, because even though it is true that things suck right now, it is also true that there is something in all of this that we can be thankful for.

What is that for you?

Pray without Ceasing

I am embarrassed over how little I have gotten on my knees with everything going on in 2020. How lax I have been in pleading with God for this scourge to end.

Every day brings new reasons to pray. For us in the states, after months of dithering, Congress is FINALLY pushing through a bill that could bring some financial relief to citizens on the verge of losing their homes or businesses. The political climate over here is still terribly divided. Masses in many places are still not being celebrated publicly.

Even on a good day, Paul commands us to pray without ceasing. How much more should we do it when the world is falling apart?

If this seems difficult to do (and it is), something that has helped me fulfill this at least partially is to pray some of the short, powerful prayers throughout the day that have been used for centuries. Here are two.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners both now and at the hour of our death.”

“Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” You could pray that one in the plural for the world as well.

You might counter that Jesus told us not to “heap up empty phrases” when we pray. Fair enough. But they are not empty if you mean them. Is there ever a minute we could not use Mary’s intercession on our behalf? Is there a minute that goes by that we and our world are not in need of mercy?

Do not Quench the Spirit

God is trying to tell us something today. He is speaking to our heart. Are we listening?

He speaks in all sorts of ways. He speaks through our pastors. He speaks through our friends. He speaks through our circumstances.

There is definitely something mystical about this, and we need to be cautious – “test everything.” God will never contradict himself by saying one thing in Scripture and Tradition and then saying something different to you personally. But we need courage in our daily lives to follow the promptings of the Spirit of God.

I confess, again, that I do not listen to him as well as I should. The day slips through my fingers and before I know it, I am lost in a YouTube video at 11pm about a guy whose comedy sketch was edited out of the Late Show with David Letterman. Fascinating, yes, but seriously, what in the world am I doing?

On the days I do listen, what a difference! I see his hand moving in one of my children, or I experience a breakthrough with my wife. I see things I didn’t know were there. I experience a depth of living that I did not have on a typical frenetic day.

Abstain from Every Form of Evil

Another spiritual practice that I give less attention to than I should is the examination of conscience. One priest, Fr. Sweeney over here in California, counseled us in the evening to look over our day with Jesus and ask him what he sees there. Where did I not love as much as I should have? What did I look at that took me a peg down spiritually? What conversations remain with me? Did I speak as I should have with them? Should I pray for that person?

I cannot abstain from evil if I cannot see the evil I need to abstain from. More often than not, I just don’t slow down long enough to see it. If I did, the pitfalls and stumbling blocks that pepper my day would not hinder me so much.

May the God of Peace Himself Sanctify You

Is it entirely our responsibility to make sure we rejoice always, give thanks in everything, pray without ceasing, and abstain from every form of evil? Thank God, no! We needs God’s help, and he is right there with us to give it. As St. Patrick prayed, so can we.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
From the Prayer of St. Patrick

When we attempt to live the Christian life in our own strength, we fail. We burn out. When we come to the end of ourselves and ask God for his grace, his strength in our lives, we mount up with wings like eagles. We run without becoming weary. We walk without becoming faint.

How often I think I am alone in all of this – especially now. Physically we have to be separated from others. Spiritually, for many of us, it feels the same.

Being an introvert, that might not bother me as much as others, but that probably makes it even worse. I can turn inward like a turtle and never come out which isn’t a good thing.

Whatever our condition, though, the God of peace is with us.

Even in Prison

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It is amazing to think about these passages in light of what Paul himself actually went through. In his lifetime, he was imprisoned, stoned near to death, shipwrecked, hated by his fellow countrymen, I could go on.

Knowing how much he went through, his words mean even more. I need to rejoice. I need to be thankful. I need to pray more. I need to abstain more from evil. I need to do it all in God’s strength and not my own.

If Paul could do all this locked in a prison and in chains, we can do it locked in our homes. And I think the same comfort and peace it brought to his own spirit will come to us as well.

The church’s banquet

11 Tuesday Aug 2020

Posted by JessicaHoff in Anglicanism, Blogging, Catholic Tradition, Faith, poetry, Prayers

≈ 12 Comments

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George Herbert, prayer

quote-prayer-should-be-the-key-of-the-day-and-the-lock-of-the-night-george-herbert-13-5-0552

I hadn’t realised how long I’d been away, and if you asked me ever so hard, I’m not sure I know why now broke the writer’s block, but people have been sweet, so thank you. I think it helped with Audre here. Having another female Anglican voice was somehow comforting – again, don’t expect me to say why, it just was.

I’ll apologise here for the passive-aggressive tone in some of my early responses on Newman. I don’t mean to come across that way, and don’t know I do it, so thank you to Phillip and C for both, courteously, pointing it out. As I said to Phillip, I will try to be good rather than be good at being trying! I have been reading back a bit, and would like to thank Nicholas and C who have done a great job of keeping this going, as well as Scoop and others who’ve played a noble part.

Writing, and reading a blog, as I discovered, is either a routine you get into, or it doesn’t happen at all. Is that just me? I say that because I find the same is true of prayer. Prayer can seem an odd thing to outsiders. If God knows everything we need, why are we telling him? If God is omnipotent, why do we have to praise him and flatter him all the time? Such questions and comments fail to understand prayer, and I want to say why I think that.

Prayer is, for me, tuning into the God who is always there, and it’s about nurturing the relationship I have with him. That’s where church is vital to me, as the church is Christ’s. Routine helps me here in two ways. I pray the same three Offices every day at about the same time: Morning Prayer; Evening Prayer and Compline. It was C who recommended the habit to me and I am grateful. It helped me overcome two of my natural reactions to private prayer, one of which was that it was a bit of chore when I was tired or busy and couldn’t think what to say, and the other was an anxiety to try to be good for God and in some way win his approval. The words of Common Worship provide me with a text which I have come to love, and in the repeating of the words, I find they mean more to me; it is as though whatever ‘tuning in’ is happening deepens. It’s the same when listening to a beautiful piece of music, the more you play and listen, the more you get out of it. My prayer seems to me to become part of a bigger and ongoing prayer and the more I do it, the closer I feel I get.

And that’s where the bit about adoration comes in. When I say the Psalms or the Litany I’m not flattering God, I’m simply expressing my love for him. Prayer is who I am at those moments, it takes me deeper into the reality of Jesus. I feel as though I am stepping into an ongoing conversation. I marvel at God’s love and his glory. Its why I like that bugbear of some, icons. I look at him in my icons, in the same way I look at the Eucharist when, in church, I practice Eucharistic Adoration; looking is important. As some saint or other (someone here will know) once said about prayer: ‘I look at him and he looks at me.’

I love him and in those precious moments I can feel the love he has for me. I repent of my sins, but they pale because the overwhelming feeling is of his love and connectedness. I can set aside, because he has, my sins and concentrate on being in his presence, feeling his gaze on me, bathed in love. That’s the point I offer up my prayers for others, not because I think he doesn’t know, but just because being human, that’s the way I express my love for others too. And even though I am often alone in my room when I pray, I know I am praying with the whole church, here on earth and in heaven – so it seems natural to use ‘we’ rather than “I.’

Prayer is the way the church gives me to deepen my communion with Jesus, and I think of my beloved George Herbert’s poetry and want to finish this little piece with a poem of his which expresses all I just tried to say much better than I can:

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,

God’s breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth

Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

The silent God?

04 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by John Charmley in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Newman, poetry, Prayers

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

George Herbert, Newman, poetry, prayer, T.S. Eliot

Newman image

“Thus religious truth is neither light nor darkness, but both together; it is like the dim view of a country seen in the twilight, which forms half extricated from the darkness, with broken lines and isolated masses.”

Religion without dogma made no sense to Newman; without that it was “mere sentiment” – and that was a foundation of sand. But he was well aware of the limits of humanity and acknowledged that the application of the intellect to religious matters might well produce a diminution of faith. It was, he commented, as though it was assumed that theologians were “too intellectual to be spiritual” and thus “more occupied with the truths of doctrine than with its reality.”

For Catholics the Church is the rock upon which dogma rests; we accept the historical reality of the Revelation it transmits to us. But intellect alone will not suffice; that is where prayer and devotional practices are needed; we do not worship by brain-power. For Newman,“Revealed religion should be especially poetical – and it is so in fact.” Prose was inadequate to convey the Truth of revealed religion, but, without an Authority to pronounce on revelation and tradition, private judgement would simply lead to the sort of chaos he came to discern within the Church of England in his own day. Thus, the mixture of light and dark in the quotation which heads up this essay.

Although we are each the subject of our own experiences, and whilst Christ came to save each of us, our egos are but a vehicle when it comes to understanding that Christ Himself is at the centre of our Faith. The central truth of the Christian Faith is the Incarnation. God became man and died that we should have eternal life. And yet knowing this, we can, nonetheless, in times such as this lose sight of this and, in despair, wonder why God is silent in the face of our prayers for healing and safety.

Much prose has been given over to the problem of why God allows mankind to suffer – the technical term is theodicy. But the intervention which speaks most to my heart is the poem, “Denaill” by George Herbert:

When my devotions could not pierce
Thy silent ears;
Then was my heart broken, as was my verse:
My breast was full of fears
And disorder

This is no intellectual exercise, it is the heart-felt anguish of the poet who agonises at what he feels is God’s refusal of his prayerful requests. He feels abandoned, as though his soul has no mooring. It is only in close reading that we see that the poet is, himself, in “denial”. Each stanza concludes with a last line which does not rhyme – except for the last one which concludes:

O cheer and tune my heartless breast,
Defer no time;
That so thy favours granting my request,
They and my mind may chime,
And mend my rhym

Which, of course, is a rhyme. God has answered, it is the poet who has been in denial. God’s answer may not be the one we expect; it maybe that we are not listening.

We are made in God’s image; but we are not God. How much we long for a God whom we can understand, as well as worship, how often we think that God is absent; but how often to we think that it is we who are absent, we who are deaf?

T.S. Eliot, as so often, expresses it best in the first part of Little Gidding:

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

We have to put away our worldly concerns. Our intellects can rest secure on the rock of the dogma proclaimed by the Church. What should concern us is prayer, and even the best of prayers is but the antechamber to our encounter with God. We intersect with the past and the present, the living and dead, and above all with Him whose Kingdom shall have no end.

God is not silent; we lack the ears with which to hear Him if we think so.