Late have I loved Thee..

"O Lord, do I love Thee. Thou didst strike on my heart with Thy word and I loved Thee.... But what do I love when I love Thee? Not the beauty of bodies nor the loveliness of seasons, nor the radiance of the light around us, so gladsome to our eyes, nor the sweet melodies of songs of every kind, nor the fragrance of flowers and ointments and spices, nor manna and honey, nor limbs delectable for fleshly embraces. I do not love these things when I love my God. And yet I love a light and a voice and a fragrance and a food and an embrace when I love my God, who is a light, a voice, a fragrance, a food, and an embrace to my inner man.... This it is that I love when I love my God...

That same voice speaks indeed to all men, but only they understand it who join that voice, heard from outside, to the truth that is within them. And the truth says to me: "Neither heaven nor earth nor any body is thy God." Their own nature says the same They see that the substance of a part is less than that of the whole. And now I speak to thee, my soul. Thou art my greater part, since thou quickenest the substance of my body by giving to it life, which no body can give to a body. And thy God is the life of thy life to thee....

Late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and so new! Too late have I loved Thee. And lo, Thou wert inside me and I outside, and I sought for Thee there, and in all my unsightliness I flung myself on those beautiful things which Thou hast made. Thou wert with me and I was not with Thee. Those beauties kept me away from Thee, though if they had not been in Thee, they would not have been at all. Thou didst call and cry to me and break down my deafness. Thou didst flash and shine on me and put my blindness to flight. Thou didst blow fragrance upon me and I drew breath, and now I pant after Thee. I tasted of Thee and now I hunger and thirst for Thee. Thou didst touch me and I am aflame for Thy peace...."

Undoubtedly, I shall be writing more of my good friend Augustine in honour of his upcoming feast. For today, I (who only read this passage 100 times a year for the past three decades) am thinking that Augustine captured the essence of detachment in this passage. I'm sure it would have occurred to him that Jesus of Nazareth's curing the blind and deaf on earth, wonderful though it was, was an action more pointing to how divine grace can remove our own, figurative inability to hear and to see.

(Slight diversion which a medievalist cannot resist: Augustine would say that the Incarnation came about through Mary's hearing. Those more literal than Augustine would adapt this into fanciful and delightful pictures of the tiny Jesus-foetus sliding down a beam of light into Mary's ear as she encounters Gabriel... so, now we know how the virginal conception was managed...)

Now, shall I detach myself from mediaeval fancies. :) The very word 'detachment,' which was stressed by every great spiritual writer since the catacombs, always made me shiver a bit. Candidly, I have known a few religious in my day who used 'detachment' as a way to glorify their own coldness and indifference to others (God protect anyone from superiors who brag of their detachment... and indulge their cruelty saying it is 'good for the soul.') Far more commonly, and as anyone who's spent time in convents knows, the concept as explained in noviciate was (in practical application, not necessarily 'text') likely to produce a wimpled Stepford Wife. None of us had the slightest concept of detachment then - and my earlier confession about Augustine's words shows that, well into middle age, I'm only beginning to 'get it.' It seemed to mean that one loved no one, and insisted that one's own family did not really matter (even if we made the sacrifice, for their edification, of seeing them on visiting day.) It meant living with raging hunger yet pretending one did not want the apple - being dead on one's feet, and making sure one signed up to sit the vigil from 3-4 AM - of having an expressionless face that was supposed to be recollected but made one look more like a frightened, prissy little fool.

(By now, it is probably apparent that I was never the darling of novice mistresses, but that is another topic for another day.)

My own spiritual director (who shall have a seat in heaven next to Francis of Assisi for not giving up on me) speaks of detachment as being freed from distractions. "Late have I loved" even making the effort of being freed, though this is the true ascetic life. Ever since Satan whispered to Eve, "is it true you cannot eat of any tree in the garden?," distortion and fear are the main distractions. I know that I can be sent into a near panic, whilst offering prayers of gratitude for my solitude, fearing that no one will ever love me because God wants me behind a grille (of sorts), or that I'll lose my warmth and caring for others...

My rare display of humility this evening (...please, don't be so literal... I know full well that humility is not my strong point...) is intended for those readers (who write the loveliest e-mails) who are just getting past their honeymoon period in the life of prayer. (Don't think I should not like to recapture mine! However, I have had a sense, from dealing with my married friends, that honeymoons do fade, and that anyone seeking a perpetual one is soon acting like a half-wit. In the end, it is all about covenant and responsibility.) I can write of 'my' mystics, and of Francis, et al, see their insights, and believe every word. (That anyone, knowing Francis, could think that one's warmth, love, or passion will fade with growth in the spiritual life is amazing. I just hope, with all the sad state of the Near East at the moment, I do not take Francis' tack and try to convert modern day equivalents of the Sultan...)

Why is what is simplest beyond us? The best capsule course in ascetic theology which I have seen was Margaret Mary Funk's "Thoughts Matter in Practising the Spiritual Life." Using John Cassian's principles, she explains the gentle moderation that actually underlines clearing us from distraction. (Fledgling religious may skip this sentence: I am only beginning to see that it is work for three lifetimes. I have this vivid mental picture of how people who are drowning will struggle in such a fashion that they sometimes need to be knocked out for a companion to save their lives...)

Augustine always pined for the control of reason and will mankind would (in his estimation) have had in Eden. He ached for that intuitive longing for God's will, knowing how much we do fall short. The error which we all tend to make is to believe that there was a Paradise (in the sense of perfect bliss on earth.) We long for that form of Paradise - believing that a world without pain, suffering, evil, and so forth would make us respond to God's will. (Didn't work too well with Adam, did it?)

Sigh... I'm going nowhere, or perhaps in too many directions. "Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped..." Perhaps Augustine, even as early as the Confessions, had the inkling that (as Thomas Aquinas would later well express) it is the will which can choose and love. I'm only beginning to truly see this - and it is off-putting. God seems vague, remote, so incomprehensible that all there is can be silence.

...Silence is hardly my natural state. Quiet until tomorrow...