Amazing growth of the early Church

Recently, I read a post on a theology forum where someone was puzzled that, when Peter gave the Pentecost sermon described in Acts, there were only a few hundred people present. He (the contributor, presumably not Peter) questioned, on this basis, why the growth of the infant church was 'so slow.'

I'll admit that, engrossed though I have become in scripture studies, there are times when it's slightly disappointing to realise that some of the New Testament includes insights from Christian prophets and from the awareness of the early Church herself. It would be stunning to think that Peter (whose behaviour on the night of his ordination was not precisely exemplary... and, yes, I know the Last Supper was neither the Eucharist nor an ordination, but allow me some nostalgia), just fifty days after the crucifixion, with Caiaphas still high priest and Pontius Pilate still governing, would have been so filled with the Holy Spirit that he gave a sermon for all times. Romantic though I am, nonetheless, I know it is very likely that Acts is capturing what would take place in the very early church - this is not necessarily a literal account of a sermon.

Still, the post I mentioned in the first paragraph was rather puzzling to me. I am amazed at how quickly the early Church grew. It is astonishing that, by the time Paul wrote his epistles, just a few decades after Jesus' resurrection, there were Christian communities in Rome, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and so forth. No glory had come to Christian believers - there had been no toppling of Roman rule - hardships were no less (and, for many, had increased as a result of their Christian commitment.) Even today, it is easy to wonder if the world is any better than it ever was - and Christians await the parousia yet know they have no more idea of what it entails than... well, first century Palestinian Jews would have expected a Messiah who was cursed by hanging on the tree.

Indulge me once again, because, though this may seem silly, it is a thought that always strikes me when I hear the gospels about Jesus' temptations - which mostly are to power. Jesus' being the divine Person did not mean that he did not accept full humanity, with all the limitations that entails. I can picture Satan, in saying he'd give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he'd fall down and worship him. "Who do you expect to embrace that Trinitarian theology - certainly not the Greeks?! Look on the glories of Egypt - you certainly cannot imagine your message will get a foothold in northern Africa. Above all, it would be total folly to think your message would ever have any effect in Rome."

I know my history - know my theology - have had the privilege of reading the works of the greatest theologians of the patristic era and of studying the New Testament in depth. I shall never write this on an exam paper, of course, but only divine power, only the Holy Spirit within the Church, could explain why the message of an itinerant preacher - a prophet, like many others, in life - a man who worked wonders, but who was not alone in doing so - could have a massive effect on most of the civilised world within a few centuries.

Recently, in my Old Testament studies, I've gone into great depth about Deutero-Isaiah, as I mentioned in a previous post. There is no consensus on who is "The Suffering Servant," and indeed it appears that there is more than one 'servant' in the passages. Christianity can claim Christ for the servant with a strong basis - he was the representative of Israel, the fulfilment of promise, a great prophet. (The passages in Isaiah do not refer to an Incarnate Logos, which was not a concept at that time, nor to a Messiah who was divine.)

Why am I rambling so? Well, I was partly teasing before, when I said it was hard to read, for example, Peter's Pentecost sermon and allow for that it might not be literally true, for all the truth it embodies. What is in the scriptures is truth - but not history as we would call that today in many cases. This is no threat at all. Jesus hardly appeared on the day of the resurrection and said, "Happy Easter - I am the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity," then devoted the next fifty days to giving the fishermen et al a crash course in systematic and sacramental theology. Divine revelation allows for our human capacity. Christ speaks through His Church, and, if for example the Trinity was not formally defined for several centuries, that does not mean it was untrue.

We (the Church) grasp many truths at prayer before definition is possible. The awareness of Jesus' divinity, of the Trinity, and other points of doctrine which would have been unthinkable during Jesus' lifetime (grasped by others only in light of the resurrection), was beginning in worship long before it was discussed at an oecumenical council.

Deutero-Isaiah, and the Hebrew scriptures which were revised substantially following the same Babylonian captivity in which Isaiah found himself, hardly contained any smugness or certainty. Yahweh was the only God to be worshipped - but it still was unclear that the Hebrews thought there were no other gods. In fact, many of them feared offending Marduk in Isaiah's time! Isaiah's faith was one of awareness of divine glory and power. All of the Old Testament, for all of its confusion, shows that human beings could not know God fully (whether he walked in a garden with Abraham or appeared in a burning bush), but that our calling was to be icons of the transcendent God. We were to worship, and to act, in a way to make this reflection of his glory present.

Deutero-Isaiah (as elsewhere, but here particularly emphatically) stresses Israel as the servant, the nation bound by sacred covenant, the messianic agent - what I term the Icon. Jerusalem was to be the light to all of the world. This may have no connection, but since the blog, unlike my essays, is just a recording of reflections, I see an interesting paradox. Jerusalem has at no time been an empire or major world power, on a par with Persia, Alexandria, Greece, Babylon, or Rome. Lord knows that the history of the Jews was (and still is) a tragic but inspiring tale of fidelity despite constant trouble and oppression. Yet the three great monotheistic faiths all see Jerusalem as the holy city.

Jesus, though himself divine, had this "icon" calling in his Incarnation (naturally to a degree that we cannot match.) Perfect creative power submitted to being powerless amidst human misunderstanding and intrigue. Perfect love saw betrayal, violence, scapegoating, mockery, abandonment by those whom one loved best. The King of Kings was mocked in a crown of thorns - the Second Person of the Trinity condemned for blasphemy.

I have no 'answer' here - but, for those looking for a Passiontide meditation, it might be interesting to ponder what Jesus taught us not only of our own calling but of the nature of God.

Mind, heart, and soul, anyone?

Here I have not had so much as a cold since New Year's Eve 1997, and I have had two sinus infections since December. I'm not suggesting, of course, that this is of general interest, but, with its being unexpectedly debilitating, I'm not quite up to the Passiontide posts I'd love to be creating. (Let alone the essays I'm planning for my Internet site.)

So - this is a mere 'rant' - flavoured with puzzlement. I enjoy good company, and love very few things more than a decent conversation. I'm not the sort for clubs, and I'm weary of such things as volunteer service, of which I've already done enough for five lifetimes. I gave myself permission to have some fun, finally, a few years back, and am sorry that it's very difficult to find anyone with which to share this. My generation have become frumps, and, worse yet, totally health obsessed. People have feared death since the expulsion from Eden, but, until recently, I believe they were resigned enough to its inevitability not to constantly be dwelling on sickness and death unless these were a present, personal reality. Those of my age group, who have reached the age that would have been considered 'old' a century ago, cannot admit to a fear of decline and death, but rather seem to think that the right 'fitness programme' will mean being still in middle age at 90 and never dying at all.

A few years ago, I saw an Internet site which was about meeting new friends. (It was not a romantic site.) My interests are many and varied, and I had hoped that I could find a few new companions with which to talk, hear a concert, share a gin, watch an art exhibit, and so forth. I posted a summary of my interests at the site... and the few responses I received made me resigned to being a hermit.

Recall, now, that they came to me! Responses were along the lines of "had I changed my entire lifestyle" since I posted. (Note that my description did not describe a degenerate - merely one who has the sort of interests listed in my profile here.) Others wrote "I am concerned that you did not mention a health and fitness programme." (John Cassian's version is good enough for me. Not to mention that, if I take after my dad's family, at age 80-93 my heart will stop, and that, if I take after my mother's, I'll eventually be 104 wishing it would stop.) A few "helpful" souls thought that, for example, my mentioning an interest in the arts was a plea for someone to get me to abandon such pursuits to spend more time out running.

Of course, judging from the few Yahoo groups of which I've been unfortunate enough to be a temporary member, lots of Internet junkies are in "self help" mode. They seem to thrive on being self absorbed, having all sorts of meddling to justify as "concern," and to enjoy playing at being mentally ill. In case this was not obvious, the groups on to which I would sign were on topics of interest to me, but the nut cases always find their way.

I'm not disparaging people's having an interest in sport, fitness and the like. One of my blog members is a marathon runner. What I'm criticising is two-fold: first, an obsession with "fitness" which blots out all other interests and, second, a degree of self absorption which makes one assume the new, improved 'you' is so wonderful that everyone on the planet is looking for your advice. (With this infection, I just don't have the strength to write a scorching denunciation of capitalist gimmicks - false needs which are presented to turn some vendor into a guru on which one's life depends - but I'll get to this at another time.)

Earlier in this post, I mentioned John Cassian, a great master of ascetic theology. His wise emphasis was on disciplining thoughts, to remove distractions to intimacy with God and love of neighbour. It is quite difficult, but a great gift, to embrace the asceticism of this type, because it means letting go of the false self. Yes, this is a process for a lifetime, and I'm not suggesting I'm far along. But love is ultimately about self forgetfulness, not self absorption.

Brief reflection for the feast of Saint Joseph

He is Holy Joseph,
because no other saint but he
lived in such and so long
intimacy and familiarity
with the source of all holiness,
Jesus, God incarnate, and Mary,
the holiest of creatures.
- John Henry Cardinal Newman

I'm a bit unwell today - unable to write the meditation I'd love to present. In Italy, of course, this is a great feast day, marked by celebration. After all, how many fathers had to put up with the likes of what Joseph faced? I remember well how distressed my mother used to be at the incident of the 'finding in the temple,' where the child was so busy confounding the scholars of the temple that he was oblivious to his parents' great worry.

So - for the moment - I'm leaving you this tiny reflection from Cardinal Newman. Blessings to all for this great feast.

Pain that cannot be shared

Be forewarned that this is not likely to be a witty, or perhaps even insightful, post. Yet I am sharing this for two reasons. First, it might lead some one of my readers to not be ready with 'all the answers,' and to realise that smug (if well intentioned) responses do not facilitate communication - they only chop it off. As well, the particular example that I am going to cite is one poorly understood, and perhaps this post can cause someone to think twice.

It is 26 years this week since I was forced out of convent life, against my will. I shall never forget receiving that horrible letter: "Easter is coming. New dawn, new resurrection. You will be going home, and can rejoice in knowing God's will for you." Charming, is it not? It was several years before I could meditate on the resurrection (previously, and later, a favourite topic) without chills and tears. Granted, there is no kind way to tell someone "we don't want you," but to imply that one expects the other to be 'rejoicing' in such knowledge is about as crass as it gets.

I am a very private person, and am not about to share all of the heartbreak which followed. Yet it was an especially intense, dreadful pain because it could not be shared with others. Friends and family were delighted that I was 'out,' and thought I had come to my senses. (One Roman priest, who saw me shortly afterward at a funeral for a mutual friend, had the gall to say to me, "Oh, you left - oh, good! Keep the veil off, honey, you'll have a lot more fun." I shall reserve comment on what that might indicate about his attitude towards his own vocation.) I had hoped that religious Sisters would be compassionate (one or two were), but the usual attitude from that camp was either that I should be relieved that God had not willed my religious life, or that 'all these new lay ministries' (of which I knew plenty - I'd filled many of them) were replacing religious life, or that some 'new theology of marriage' meant that celibacy was passé and that "God might want you to be a married woman."

By far the most painful, and common, response was along the lines of "with how they need people today, what did you do that they would dismiss you?" (My own father insisted "there must be something you're not telling us.") I suppose I was lucky - today, those dismissed from religious life are probably assumed to be criminals. Yet I have known many in the situation who are of impeccable moral character, devotion and so forth. People can be dismissed from religious life for any reason and no reason. It is based on a superior's (not God's!) assessment of whether one 'fits in' to the life, agenda, whatever.

Why do people love to hear details of others' pain? Here, I am not referring to compassionate listening, but to a love for 'the dirt.' Ask anyone who has been a victim of a crime, or suffered through a painful divorce, or who was sacked from a job. Those who hear of a death want to know all the details (they'll ask the widow at the funeral), and half of them also will decide what the deceased did 'wrong' to be such a failure, as if death could be avoided. On the other hand, the fools who want to have all the answers (either shrugging it off with 'everyone has problems,' or 'God's will,' or 'you're just feeling sorry for yourself - or the mega-fools who think everything can be cured by therapy, doctors, nutritionists, self help groups, or exercise) just make one want to hide, rather like a hedgehog.

It is a denial of another person's pain! Smug, silly ego games - because we fear having situations we cannot handle, and it helps to think this cannot happen because we know what everyone else should be doing. The uncertainty of life is frightening to everyone. All of us know that any misfortune can be round the corner. In our fear of this, we want to believe that we have all the answers. Anyone who had misfortunes did something 'wrong' - and we would know better, or would never let it happen to ourselves.

The rarest of gifts, I believe, is to truly listen and to have compassion. God grant us this.

Brief thoughts about Rafaellina and Padre Pio

It is astonishing how popular devotion to Padre Pio has become, considering that he died less than 40 years ago. Unfortunately, much of what is written of him centres on the weird - inevitable, I suppose, for those who have stigmata and were alleged to bilocate. In all fairness to Pio, I have no idea if he actually made the 'predictions' which his devotees quoted during his lifetime (and which were about as accurate as those on a psychic hotline). The other side of Pio should be better known - the mystic, the pastoral father, the earthy Capuchin who wrote candidly of normal spiritual struggles, not only diabolical appearances and bearing the wounds of Christ in his hands.

Now and then, I will receive a gift of a well-worn devotional book, and I happened to come into a copy of letters between Pio and Rafaellina, the latter a lady for whom he was spiritual director. His letters to her are lengthy, insightful, loving, and wise. Since I'd always heard that Padre Pio was (if you'll forgive the terminology) a holy terror as a confessor, I'd expected his letters to be strong, and was surprised that quite the contrary was true. (I'm wondering if his reputation for roughness stemmed from that many people visited him as if he were an attraction - rather like the Roman house where lots of visitors from Purgatory left hand marks in the walls - and were not truly 'confessing' but wanting to say they once made confession to Pio.) My surprise doubled when I read Rafaellina's missives. She was unquestionably devout, probably contemplative, and possibly saintly, but she wrote a 'wicked letter.' The correspondence contained many an example of what might be termed 'correction' - but it always was directed to Fra Pio.

Rafaellina, dramatic as is usual amonst those who have southern Italian blood coursing through their veins (myself included), did attempt to write humbly; but, with the possible exception of Francesco, the naturally humble Mediterranean is as likely to be encountered as a pterodactyl on one's front porch. Our friend would, in one paragraph, bewail her wrethedness: "Ah, Fra Pio, I ask your counsel, though a worm like myself realy does not deserve this..." In the next, one may read, "Now, Father, I really don't think you are answering my questions, and I have already asked you twice, to I would appreciate a response at this time. Your last letter was much too short..."

All of us who sincerely desire spiritual guidance can be disappointed when that which we receive does not seem 'special' or original enough. Fra Pio, who assuredly had a double dose of the proverbial patience of a saint, once wrote a beautiful letter (six pages, typeset) in which he spoke of divine love, detachment, and resignation to the divine will. (The letters date from the early decades of the 20th century - when Pio was often barred from public exercise of his apostolate.) Rafaellina responded to the effect that he was not answering her questions.

Sad but true: even if we taught 60 first communion classes that the way to holiness was prayer, common worship, fasting, almsgiving, and the like, we personally would prefer a more novel approach. Whether we receive direction from a living confessor or a canonised author, we refuse to accept that the way to intimacy with God, constant for centuries, must be the same for us as for countless other 'saints.'

Rafaellina, probably irritated that Padre Pio's long and eloquent letters of direction contained concepts that are as old as the Church, must have thought he was throwing her a bone. I wonder if the stigmata was the most painful and inconvenient cross our Servant of God had to bear. (Of course, there is one bright spot. At least Rafaellina did not add the tired line that Fra Pio was talking down to her because she was a woman.) Though the relation between the two topics is strained, I'm recalling how the only confessor who Margery Kempe found acceptable was a man who spoke only German... and heard her daily, general confessions (naturally, in English.)

I think my own director, a man of few words but insightful ones, will not mind my quoting a line which, in full, was a response to one of my own flights into Rafaellinadom. "Try to repose in God's care and shut up your internal monologue so He can participate in the dialogue which is the point of your vocation anyhow."

Some sins we all find quite capital

(The link in this title refers to a previous blog entry about how pride takes weird forms.)

It must be the winter blahs - I'm wondering seriously if it may be Eastertide before my brain thaws out and I can get back to this blog. Just yesterday, when I was engrossed in a study of Deutero-Isaiah, I had all sorts of marvellous ideas about divine transcendence and immanence, and of our being his icons, if you will. One of the most challenging parts of studying the Hebrew Scriptures is detaching oneself from the Christian interpretations... but entering into a spirit of exegesis in the spirit of the time is difficult, considering that the Old Testament is just so ancient and edited. So, my treatise on the Suffering Servant (who could be Israel, an ideal Israel, God Himself, the prophet... fortunately, in my programme of studies we are allowed no shortcuts, and must consult all the scholars), shall have to wait for a time.

To divert myself, and to remind my readers (are there any left?) that I am still among the living, I'm lapsing into one of my sillier modes. I read recently of a distinguished church which was presenting a series of talks on the seven capital sins (I'm a medievalist, so it sparked ideas of journeys through purgatory and the like... I'd hate to end up in what Dante pictured as the location of the lustful). This brought back a memory of when I was a financial manager for a major archdiocese. When a priest who was on the archbishop's staff (a delightful man, but sometimes a jokester) phoned me to ask if any one of my own staff were free to serve as chauffeur during a visit from Cardinal Sin, I commented that I'd see if Lust or Avarice were free, but doubted that (two elderly couriers) Anger and Pride were available.

Naturally, had the reference been to the 4th, 14th, or even 19th centuries, I might have had a clue that Cardinal Sin was primate of the Philippines. But I'm useless in the 20th and 21st centuries. Current events stymie me - because I think we need perspective, hindsight of a century at the least, to see anything clearly.

Well, enough of that diversion. I shall begin my series on the 'principle defects' with a sin which most of us find to be quite capital: pride. I received a noble inspiration, from a most unlikely source, which prompted this reflection. In view of my own great humility, writing on this topic is not easy, but I shall make my best effort.

The source of the inspiration was a dinner at a fine restaurant, to which a friend was kind enough to treat me. Friend, who had been unable to finish the ample and expensive main course she had ordered, took the course of action I would take were I ever to find myself in that situation (which is unlikely, since those who live on scrambled eggs and minute steaks with the consistency of shoe leather never leave a restaurant plate full), by asking that it be wrapped for her to take home. However, to my great annoyance, the request was ended with the despicable phrase "...for my dog."

Naturally, my irritation was piqued not only by the thought of what it would be like to have a dog who enjoyed Shrimp Creole (imagine walking it!), nor by the action of lying. It was an illustration of the vice of pride, albeit a minor one: one like said friend can order a gourmet dish in a restaurant, yet feel compelled to insure that the waiter believes that one finds it fit only for an animal once it makes its initial appearance at table. (Where I come from, one can recycle the rare joint of good beef for a week.) You can imagine what I think of the odious characters who really do give fine food to a dog, but that is a topic for another lecture.)

While those who live holy poverty (...best to call it something other than raw poverty) do not have problems related to prawns, and assuredly never give fancy food to four legged friends, even Religious have been known to have problems with pride. If you doubt it, watch the weak ones around you now and then. Herewith I present some of the major varieties of this malady:

(1) "I am not canonised only because I am still breathing" Syndrome: Seen in those who, after reading of the seventh mansion of Saint Teresa or gulping "Spiritual Canticle" on a day or recollection, comment that they remember when they went through "that," years before. (Those making this statement, incidentally, are often 19 at most.)

(2) "Worm and No Man" Syndrome: This form of internal pride makes one's faults attractive because one feels one is practising heroic humility in admitting them. (Even to God, who would not know about them unless we told Him.) Major symptons include the tendency to silently begin one's confession with "Bless me, Father, for I am a saint with a delicate conscience...," the desire to publicly accuse oneself of minor 'failings' (such as not reading the seven penitential psalms last night, not that anyone ever really had to be penitent) whilst acting as if one fears eternal condemnation for this omission; the sense that making one's confession is evangelisation rather than accusation, since one's confessor must be edified greatly to encounter anyone with such enormous humility and zeal.

(3) "Hotline to Heaven": Found in all who tell others that the grass is green and believe that, in doing so, they will attain a reputation for having an unlimited measure of infused grace. Varieites include those who quote prominent theologians sans source (as if these ideas just popped into one's head); those who decry any learning or intellectual pursuit (they get their daily jolt of the Holy Spirit in the 10:00 vision); those who learn what others should do with their lives in visions; and charismatics who pray, endlessly, in every language except one known to earthlings. All should beware especially of dreamy pronouncements begun with "God is here - right in this room!" (Whether what follows is divinely inspired may be open to question - but is there any doubt that He is there? )

(4) Feast and Fast Dilemma: Found in those who do not need to eat, and make sure everyone knows their degree of self inflicted deprivation, because they are over fed by the admiration they assume others have for their starvation.

(5) Swoon School of Mysticism: Similar to disease number 2, except that it requires one to preface one's profound statements with gulps, sighs, a facial expression cum hand pressed to forehead reminiscent of an advertisement for paracetemol, and the description of what colour auras one sees at the moment.

(6) All Things to All People: A popular dance number, dependent entirely on the company of the moment - slide to the left, dip to the right, take a bow.

(7) Mount Everest: "Well (sigh)... if that's what is important to you... I've no objection.... we cannot (sigh) expect everyone to reach our level.."

(8) Self-Righteous Indignation: Self-explanatory, an example being found in nuns who pretend shock if a student uses mild profanity, or a Sister uses a handkerchief without holes in it, or any Religious laughs out loud. Characteristic is the intense feeling that anyone who watches anything on television except the news, or listens to anything on radio except a weather report, is a Communist and/or Freemason. Those who love art, as I do, will come under fire - we're supposed to pretend that anything on a wall except a poorly constructed crucifix distracts us from prayer.

(9) Regular Guy: One who thinks that, since one never acts like a Religious, everyone will envy one's relationship with Christ, which is 'beyond' that of others.

(10) Shirley Temple Revisited: This causes one to desire that one be known for extreme cheerfulness and pluck, but only if it is understood how much one suffers and always has.

(11) We Are Not Amused (apologies to Queen Victoria) : Manifested in those who lower their eyes and slightly smile when some peasant speaks; or who make comments such as "Oh, I am so horribly embarrassed! The superior just told me she has never known a nurse more dedicated than I!"

(13) Hey, Look Me Over: In the early stages, this is evidence in the pressing thought, en route to receiving Holy Communion, that everyone in the church is watching one's obvious piety. Later, it advances to one's making profound genuflections and kissing the floor, or reciting the rosary with arms extended... but only in the parish church, and only if it is full.

The treatment, I suppose, is to remember that humility is truth. But that is quite hard, because we cannot bear being that real. It's so humiliating!

"Living and radiant things we can become"

Having been away from the blog for nearly two months (I'm sure to no one's distress), I was prompted to return today when I read the following brilliant quote from Evelyn Underhill's The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today. It is in the context of a chapter entitled "Psychology and the Life of the Spirit."

The tendency of the unconscious self to realise without criticism a suggested end lays on religious teachers the obligation of forming a clear and vital conception of the spiritual ideals they wish to suggest... to be sure they are wholesome, and tend to fullness of life. It should also compel each of us to scrutinise those religious thoughts and images.. on which we allow our minds to dwell: excluding those which are merely sentimental, weak, or otherwise unworthy, and holding fast the noblest and most beautiful...For these ideas, however generalised, will set up profound changes in the mind that receives them. Thus the wrong conception of self-immolation will be faithfully worked out by the unconscious - and has been too often in the past - in terms of misery, weakness, or disease. ...(The) idea of herself as a victim of love worked physical destruction in Thérèse de l'Enfant Jésus: and we shall never perhaps know all the havoc wrought by the once fashionable doctrines of predestination and of the total depravity of human nature. All this shows how necessary it is to put hopeful, manly, constructive conceptions before those whom we try to help or instruct; constantly suggesting to them not the weak and sinful things that they are, but the living and radiant things which they can become. (Bold emphasis mine.)

I'm deeply tempted to continue with what follows, regarding what Evelyn terms "hymns of the Weary Willie type," but I'll save that for another day. However, I shall comment that, considering this book was a collection of lectures from 1921, she must have been in quite progressive circles. I was exposed to some of the ideas against which Evelyn cautions more than a generation later. (In 1921, my parents were still learning to talk.)

As my readers will recall, for all that I cherish my early education with the nuns from Cork (who indeed were excellent teachers - perfect for the budding doctor of humanities), I regret the constant emphasis on sacrifice, suffering, self-denial, and how God afflicts his friends. (To be sure, hell or at least a lengthy term in purgatory may have awaited the wicked, but, unless one was very sinful indeed - highly unlikely at the age of seven or ten - being God's friend was nearly the more frightening prospect. I still remember how I shivered, hearing of how little Jacinta at Fatima had begged Our Lady, "Must I die all alone?!") Now, certainly the history of the church in Ireland gives me an inkling of why faith was thought of as a battle, and the tragic Calvinist influence (which would turn the best vintage Catholicism into vinegar and gall) gave a picture of us as so depraved that anything we could find pleasant or appealing was the work of Satan. Yet the idea of a cruel, punishing God, who does not allow, let alone promise, any sort of happiness except in the next life has never fully left me, for all that it is a theology I despise. The penal laws were long past... and some, I believe, thought more's the pity, because at least martyrdom guaranteed admission to heaven. With the stake and block out of commission, we happily (ahem!) were taught to create our own martyrdom.

I don't know if anyone worked this out in depth (in fact, I doubt most of the Sisters who taught me at such a young age would have studied these ideas at all), but there were great elements of Gnostic dualism underlying much of what we were taught. (For all my later love of C. S. Lewis, even his works verge on the Manichean at times.) The world was a battlefield between Christ and Satan (the former presumably with a brogue, the latter with the drawl of Oxford) - and perish the thought that we 'soldiers' were not well armed and preferably wounded, because, even if we all knew Jesus would win in the end, he was going to keep Lucifer guessing until the last judgement.

My parents, southern Italian and hardly ones to dwell on guilt or a punishing God, certainly accepted the natural 'sacrifice' which is part of any decent life - in their case, largely connected with responsibility for immediate and extended family. I still shudder at much of their lives - not in relation to one another, but in endless, backbreaking labour and poverty. It would not be until perhaps five years ago that I myself had an idea that life was anything except an endurance test. (I had hopes it would be something other than that during my university years... but my convent days reinforced the idea, and the horrid jobs I had when I was forced to exit from the convent were on a par with dad's.) Certainly, they were not looking to create make-believe 'sacrifices' beyond those which already existed. But I saw much of that amongst the 'churchier' sorts.

To my knowledge, the grace of the Eucharist does not lose its potency as the day progresses, but everyone knew that attending at 11:00 was greatly inferior to doing so at dawn - it was a bigger sacrifice. If one was watching and enjoying a film, a really good soul would turn it off. People who truly have to deal with poverty have no illusions about its being glorious or a path to sainthood - but those who do not, and never have, will see to it today that nutritionists, trainers, scolding books, etc., reduce them to starvation, thereby giving them sufficient punishment for their prosperity.

In these Internet days, even if the tendency to self punishment is expressed a bit differently, I'm sorry to say I've noticed it is alive and well. On one forum on which I participate, for example, people are constantly moaning about being 'too comfortable,' and one gets the feeling that one should hate oneself (and take the blame for all affliction of the third world) because one has plumbing, electricity, Christmas presents, or clean clothing. On another (where I did not remain for long!), a young woman, who is a convert to Catholicism and afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, wrote of how she asked God to increase her physical pain for 'the salvation of her four children' - the eldest of whom is seven. (She is a generation younger than I am, and I wonder where she heard these concepts in the first place. But the idea that we must ask for crosses to achieve 'salvation' for others was old hat in the days of the brilliant and well educated Fulton J. Sheen.) I could quote scores of other examples, all current.

Soon, indeed, the forum crowd will be looking for new ways to torture themselves for Lent. Fasting will not be seen as a means to remove distractions from prayer, but as a punishment for 'gluttony,' and a way to force one to save grocery money to give to charities. (Ah, memories! We were working class kids, and really too poor to be gluttons, but the nuns had us convinced that our souls would be destroyed if we ate a piece of chocolate rather than putting its cost in the mite box in Lent.)

I may not be able to live this very well (yet - there's still hope, I'm sure), but I know all too well that one is far better off with gratitude than with guilt. I'm not referring to the healthy, genuine guilt one may feel for sin, of course - that is a grace. But feeling guilty that I had chicken tonight rather than pease pudding when people in Biafra are starving does no good. My guilt does not feed them - it only will eat me.

We are far better off with our lives being eucharistic. If there must be 'sacrifice,' let it be of praise and thanksgiving.

Hi-ya, Monkeydoodles!

What has happened - that I cannot write some marvellous reflection on Thomas Becket today? Well, I suppose that I occasionally must go from the sublime to, if not the ridiculous, at least the less than ethereal. Christmas is a wonderful season, but, I suppose inevitably, it can lead one who is well past the halfway mark of life to nostalgia, memories of good times that cannot be recaptured. How often I miss the 1970s - when I would have had no shortage of others with whom to share laughter, tobacco, a few drinks (well, for me - some of my companions had far more than a few), steaks and plum pudding and the like.

It is rather hard, at my age (since I am not old), to see that a number of ones friends have died, and that others have been drawn far away, not by conflict but by circumstances. This Christmas is a lonely one for me, because I am far from most of my friends (for reasons I'll not get into here.) But, on another level, the fact remains that the baby boomer generation have largely evolved into overly earnest, conservative, fearful frumps. I was trying to divert myself from being a bit down, and found a 'baby boomer' site, at which I'd hoped to see humour, memories of the Beatles and tie dye and protests... and what I found were endless posts on health and retirement savings, and, for those who got a late start at parenthood, "our children." (Apparently, 'our children' are eternal infants who need to be protected from all of the world - though I, the most innocent of creatures, was more sophisticated when I was five.)

So, if I cannot be with most of those whom I love, I can still share the memories - and this of people who were not frumps. :) I am thinking of Tom right now - a dear friend from thirty-odd years ago, and indeed a man I loved. (We had a number of good times - but he left me in the dark because of a maddening habit of inviting my younger sister along on occasions which otherwise would have been very nice 'dates.') Tom was a sentimentalist - the sort who would begin crying over Christmas songs (especially after a bit of wine.)

I'm remembering one New Year's Eve, which we celebrated in my home. It was quite lavish (though no one else besides us was there, save for my omnipresent younger sister and one of her boy friends.) Tom was from a family of six children, and the age difference between him and his youngest brother was enough for them to have been father and son. Tom thought the baby was the most wonderful, beautiful child on earth (a topic which was his constant megillah.) At midnight, Tom phoned his mother - and it happened the baby (aged perhaps six months) had awakened. I still remember Tom, weeping with sentimental fervour, speaking to the baby over the phone, beginning with, "Hi-ya, Monkeydoodles!"

In case this sounds like mockery in any sense, be assured it is nothing of the kind. I wish I had someone capable of being in a condition to say Hi-ya, Monkeydoodles, on New Year's Eve this year. (Of course, another dear male friend, whom I rarely see but whose company I enjoy immensely, does manage to weep a bit at the thought of Mary Poppins and "Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag." I'd love for him to drop by...)

Perhaps part of why I mention this is that my avid devotion to prayer, theology, and the like has no element of Calvinism - I believe the pleasures of the earth are gifts of God, and that our attraction for them need not be feared because of suppositions about our 'depravity.' My life indeed has its ascetic side, but this in a sense of removing distractions from love of God or neighbour, not excessive deprivation, certainly not punishment.

I wish to raise a glass to those whom I love, living and deceased, with whom I have shared good times. Any of you who might be reading this blog - know that I cherish the memories, and wish they had not faded into the past. Cheers.

Christmas Musing

The link in the title is to Pope Benedict's sermon from Midnight Mass this year. This being a time of year when, between reflection, prayer, sentimentality, waiting for Father Christmas, and so forth, anything, including such a delightful sermon, can led me to record vaguely related thoughts. :)

Here is an excerpt from the sermon:
"God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will – we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him....The Son himself is the Word, the Logos; the eternal Word became small – small enough to fit into a manger. He became a child, so that the Word could be grasped by us. In this way God teaches us to love the little ones. In this way he teaches us to love the weak....How are we to love him with all our heart and soul, when our heart can only catch a glimpse of him from afar, when there are so many contradictions in the world that would hide his face from us? This is where the two ways in which God has "abbreviated" his Word come together. He is no longer distant. He is no longer unknown. He is no longer beyond the reach of our heart. He has become a child for us, and in so doing he has dispelled all doubt. He has become our neighbour, restoring in this way the image of man, whom we often find so hard to love."

I believe that Benedict is one of the greatest theologians of the past century. He could deliver a talk on the Incarnation which could win applause from every doctor of the Church in the heavenly courts. Yet here he is writing as "Papa," and indeed, for a moment, practically sounds like a Franciscan. (For one of my favourite recollections of a friar's sermon at Christmas, see this past post. ) God's 'becoming small' and being 'no longer distant' has many implications, and I shall mention a few ideas (more feelings... at Christmas, I allow myself to display those publicly) which entered my own mind.

Francis of Assisi's devotion to the 'babe of Bethlehem,' honoured to this day in the nativity scenes in parishes and elsewhere, is well known. Some of his contemporaries note that, when he spoke of the poor child in the manger, Francis would be so moved that he would begin to dance for joy. Personally, and nearly always, I prefer the gospel of John to Luke or Matthew. I feel the tears and awe far more at the image of "In the beginning was the Word..." than at thoughts of mangers and the ox and ass (possibly because I'm a city girl who shrinks at the smell of animals and at how dreadful it would be to give birth in a stable.)

I love my Franciscan Order dearly, but my intellectual side (which predominates - I have plenty of feelings, but do not trust them) :) always did concede that, popular and widespread though Franciscan preaching was and is, it tends to reduce the Incarnation to a babe in a manger and a desolate man on a cross. The Logos can get lost somewhere. But 'the Logos' can often be too remote for us, where a helpless child, a Galilean carpenter, bread and wine which somehow is His body and blood, can speak to the heart.

My own spirituality tends towards the apophatic. It is inconvenient at times - I should like to tell Jesus of my woes and have him embrace me, but I am left with the Logos in a cloud of unknowing. I believe every word of Christology and doctrine, but don't think we can understand what it means. As I've said in the past, I have no notion of who God is, yet believe I received his body and blood this morning. It inspires awe, adoration, worship indeed, but it can be qutie lonely. In the very awareness of how beyond us is true perception of divinity, God can seem very far away.

I have no idea what the total connection is here, but I shall share an experience which is loosely connected to this general post. Yesterday, I received a wonderful birthday surprise. A dear friend sent me a collection of CDs, recorded by an order of Sisters of which I'd never heard (but whose voices were angelic), which included many a popular hymn from my youth. I'm a musicologist, trained as an operatic singer, and, were I to remain totally 'true' to this background, I'd have to say the music (though not its performance) was dreadful. (I'm not going to do so - bear with me a moment.) Most of it was a combination of poetry which could come from the hands of Father Faber or Victorian ladies with vapours, and music which all calls to mind "Come Back to Erin Mavaurneen."

Listening to this music brought me to tears (and those which spring from warmth, memories, and even that sentimentality which scholars and musicians are supposed to eschew. I'm giving myself permission to record this publicly because even Papa Benedict did not wince at "God becoming small.") It removed the remoteness of the Logos for a moment (though I cherish the Logos immensely), and brought back memories of a God who eased our pain, wished the adoration with the warmth of a little child. "Speak the word of comfort; my spirit healed shall be." "How can I love Thee as I ought? And how revere this wondrous gift, so far surpassing hope or thought?" "Of all friends, the best thou art. Make of me thy counterpart."

It just occurred to me, only in writing this, that those simple hymns captured a great deal of what 'it's all about.'

Happy and Blessed Christmas.

Sailing on the wide accountancy - a Christmas story

(Apologies to Monty Python - but 'sailing on the wide accountancy' is probably not the worst pun you'll hear from me today. If you wish to see more profound words about Advent and Christmas, click my archives for November and December of 2005.)

Yes, it is awful but inevitable - with one month till Christmas, I once again am pining for boughs and holly (the latter not to be brought in because it would be the cat's snack). I long for stacks of presents (more for the love they show than their financial value, but one who is in my state of life, and relatively poor, just loves having a few items which are not bare necessities but are fun. The first thing I bought with my inheritance money was a cheese.) I'm already figuring out how to most lovingly, tastefully decorate my tiny tree and wreaths with the cherished ornaments I've collected through the years, many of which are attached to memories. Yet this week was already ruined, because, for the first time in 2006 (undoubtedly the first of many), I heard someone say that "Christmas is only for the children."

Of course, as my readers know, I have no addiction whatever to children, but I do think it unlikely that they understand the Incarnation or parousia, so I'm wondering how Christmas could be 'just for them.' I do know, and this with certainty, that none of them could possibly cherish their presents as much as I do. For me, time with friends, being remembered, perhaps having a friend with greater means give one a treat they know one would love but cannot afford, calligraphing Christmas cards to send blessings to those whom one loves, all are very important to the Advent and Christmas seasons. I do not have nostalgia over a bunch of (to borrow my late friend John's term) sticky little bastards who are pretending to believe a mythical creature brings them all they want... because who could disappoint them if they really believe this?

Admittedly, I'm an oddity for my family. (Maybe that was already obvious, but bear with me as I explain.) Their approach to Christmas, as to everything else, had an extreme degree of pragmatism - common to southern Italian peasants, who have refined the pragmatic to an art. Sorry to say, though they indeed were very concerned with family, and generous people when someone was in serious need (they'd have worked three jobs if their kids were needy), holidays and gifts were pure bother and obligation.

I shall explain the details, for the sake of the uninitiate. (Excuse me - I coin words when I am upset, and few things get my romantic back up more than that old "Christmas is for the children.") We did receive some presents (including underwear in our stockings) from our parents, but other family members (1)gave only to children, with one becoming disqualified once one was of age to be employed, (2) gave only money gifts, which were immediately turned over to one's father, never to be seen again, and (3) had a dreary system of accounting which not only took any spirit of love and joy from giving but... which I shall explain.

Presents were in no way based on love, what item might delight the recipient, or that poor Aunt Lizzie might go into gushes of pleasure over a cheese. There were no 'gifts' - only loans. So, if you are my sister and have three children, I owe a certain amount per head to the kids (depending on the family, there may not be anything given to one's siblings who are past employment age), and 'you' owe my kids that same amount back. Deplorable! Had there been a concept of Father Christmas, I suppose an accountant might have donned his costume to manage the books. (Of course, if there were anything left over... that would be capital.)

My generation of the family, some of whom ended up comfortably middle class, sometimes were a source of distress, purely because they messed up the balance sheet. My dad's family had no taste for the aesthetic, certainly no love for luxuries (by "luxury" here I mean a bar of Yardley soap when another brand was less expensive by pennies). Anything that was not an absolute necessity was a 'waste.' Presents they might receive, useful and appropriate though they were, became a burden. First, the value had to be calculated to determine how much was 'owed back.' Second, the gift might be worth more than one had intended to give, and therefore was seen as placing the recipient under an excessive obligation. (Little things could unbalance the system. Bring someone a box of strawberries, knowing she loves them, at a time when no account receivable was on the books, and this caused undue stress until the perceived debt was paid.) Third, and this perhaps worst of all, Melillos (excepting a few... one of whom writes the blog) had an attitude of "if I have a cardigan already, I do not need another, much less a pretty shawl." Ergo, the person who gave them the lovely cardigan or shawl was seen as giving the recipient the burden of taking it back.

I was just looking about my flat, thinking of a few presents which I cherish, so much so that just looking at them warms me with the glow of friendship (and I haven't even had a sherry today.) One friend, who knows I love royal memorabilia, has sent me items from every monarch from Victoria's day onward. I have a wonderful medieval plaque another gave me for a housewarming gift - and which my friend knows full well I could not afford to have in my payables section. I have lots of things I love, which most of my family would have considered wasteful. In fact, just those remembrances I cherish most would have prompted my dad to tell a friend, "don't send me anything." He would have thought this was proper, so no one had the obligation to reciprocate.

On another note, I believe that adults tend to greatly overestimate the delight they think they remember from childhood, or which kids experience now. (Well, granted, I doubt too many kids fall asleep with visions of underwear dancing through their heads...)There is an Internet forum on which I participate, and I'm sure within a week or two there shall be the annual whinge contest ("I don't need all the presents, people should just give them to charity where they would do some good.." - as if the love for friends is worthless.) Others will want to eliminate adult presents so the children have everything - though those who start this usually make it obvious that their kids have a great deal coming to them already. Others, thinking their kids have too much, will want to ruin the kids' Christmas by having no presents or dinner and spending the day in a homeless shelter. (Yes, I spent seven Christmases cooking for the homeless, but I was a middle aged Franciscan Sister.) I wish they'd focus on gratitude rather than guilt.

Do they really think it's 'all for the children'? (I hope not - I'd like a few presents this year...) Or is it just nostalgia for a time when (at least in memory) one had a chance of getting something one wanted? Most of the people who go on like this are in a situation totally foreign to me: there seems to be nothing at all they need, and nothing much they want (at least, not that they could not obtain if they wished.) The few things for which they might pine (a new Rolls, perhaps?) obviously are not going to be in their stockings, so they resent the gifts which others' love might prompt because they 'have no value.'

My family was far from over-privileged. Yet they did not even have the joy of appreciating what they were given, because it was turned into a dreary obligation. The well-heeled depress me all the more. My family's approach was not joyous, but, in their simple way of seeing things, it meant guidelines for obligations. Hearing people moan 'give it to charity' when the reason behind this is that they have a great deal and have no hopes of getting the Hope diamond in their stockings is somehow all the more bleak.

So little is really in records

One with my passion for history always would be sadly aware that there is a good portion of it that one can never know, because the majority of people affected would not have been so important that there words would be recorded. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I often wish I had a gift for writing fiction. There is much I could have treated of in a novel (pretending, of course, that no one in it was 'real') about the religious life in my earlier years. Much, which I heard at 'workshops,' read in articles one could never locate in an archive, or, most of all, observed personally and heard in conversations with many Sisters and friars, one would not find in official documents.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail about a blog entitled John One Five, which is maintained by a priest in California. I am not acquainted with him, and, though his blog is interesting, some of the views expressed would differ from my own. There are matters of which he writes of which I would have no particular knowledge. Yet I did want to note here that it is worth a visit, to see (for example) the struggles of one who is dealing with a crisis within his sister church. I'll comment no further on the content - but did admire the soul searching expressed.

Generation gaps

The heading on this post is not to suggest that I believe there ever have been anything except generation gaps. Since ancient Rome (at least, as far as documents to which I have access show - I cannot read cuneiform, but it must be there as well), each generation fears a moral collapse of the next, and cries out how dreadful things have become. The business about "our children" needing protection is much later in its current incarnation, but the sentiments must predate Alexander the Great. And now ++Rowan is saying children are forced to mature too quickly. (Well, I suppose I'm sympathetic, being his contemporary. Our generation showed little desire to mature at all, and I'm not sure we have.)

The trouble with many of my own generation, and even more so with those who are perhaps in their 30s today, is that many of them got started late with having children. Too many are so fearful of their children being corrupted or harmed that they create a magical, idyllic view of childhood, from which no one should emerge until it is time to receive one's Masters, and tremble to think that their son of 12 does not believe in Santa Claus, or that their teenaged daughter has noticed the existence of boys. I gather that many people have such paranoid fears that everyone past puberty is a paedophile that they fear having kids (including those who of the age when, in my mother's day, they may have been married) out of their sight for ten seconds.

My life has been light-years away from being wild. Yet, compared to the over protective, 'let her be a child' (at 16), standards of some parents today, one would think I was something bordering on licentious. (I am a shocking example for children, of course - especially when I do not happen to be in church or the library, where I am about 75% of the time. I smoke, drink a bit of wine, do not consider Shakespeare or Chaucer to be offensive.) Then again, many of my generation indeed were involved with much wilder pursuits than my own, and I suppose that they have mental pictures of how their mistakes (who has made none?) harmed them.

The Victorians made much of childhood innocence, of course - I suppose that the little ones, just having come from heaven, resembled a pretty version of angels or nymphs and could satisfy romantic visions. Yet I'm surprised that the Archbishop of Canterbury (who is in my age group and who, like myself, has been known to retain religious commitment and respectability) recently preached on not letting children 'grow up too fast.' I would hate to see this ever happen again, but, again in my parents' time, many a youth of 14 was already employed in the factories. Amongst lower class people, marriages before 20 were hardly unusual. My own impression, frankly, is that too many of the youth today are not 'growing up too fast' - they are not being permitted to grow up at all.

When I was very young (in fact, before I even was a teenager), I often discussed neighbourhood happenings or items in the news with friends. Unless I have lapsed into senility and my memory is totally gone, the young could converse about the less-than-pretty side of life with a realism which those who want to paint them as flower faeries would deny. I was - and am - more innocent than average (more because of my own romantic inclinations towards the ethereal than because of ignorance), yet I was not troubled by knowledge of the full scope of the human condition. In fact, those who pretended to be shocked at everything often were the ones to watch - it was calculated, to win the approval of adults.

I'm inclined to agree with Augustine - if children get into fewer messes than adults, it is more weakness of limb than purity of heart. Kids can be very cruel, deceitful, delighted with others' misfortune, etc., etc.. The childlike innocence seems more a cherished myth of adults than anything about reality.

I'm going to be silly for a moment, and recall my own fearful mother's steps to keep me from turning into what I believe at one time was called a 'flaming youth.' (It's funnier if one realises that, then as now, my pursuits were cultural and intellectual, and I spent a good deal of time in church. I later would become a nun.) I had a curvy figure - the sort which resembles a sack of cantaloupes at 50, but quite attractive in one's first youth - which I sought to flatter when I made my clothes. Chip, who (without understanding or seeing their inadequacies) occasionally dipped into the 'wisdom' of armchair psychologists, was troubled because, according to said charlatans, a young woman is supposed to be embarrassed about, and try to hide, her breasts. Though mine were hardly on display, indeed my clothes were designed to set off the curves - so I suppose that tagged me as one who was looking to bonk the neighbourhood.

I smiled, when I read Susan Howatch's "Glamorous Powers," at how well she captured how generation gaps can be huge in relation to fashion. Jonathan Darrow, hero of that novel, enters his second marriage when he is well over 60, and his new wife is slightly younger than his own children. Jonathan, prior to meeting Anne, spent 17 years in a monastery, which followed time in military service in India. He has not been in the company of women for a full generation - and styles in 1938 are drastically different from those in 1915. Anne, whom he initially takes for 45 (she is 30), is intentionally frumpy because she's had a bad time at the hands of men after her money. Ruth, Jonathan's daughter, is dressed fashionably - but Jonathan finds Anne to be elegant, where Ruth's high heels, lipstick, and curled hair he finds 'cheap.'

My own mother, though well dressed and impeccably groomed, had a fashion sense which stopped around 1940. (Her only concession to later developments was wearing trousers, which she preferred because she was always cold.) In Chip's time, women wore lipstick, but, if they wore eye makeup at all, it was only mascara, and that only for evening. Any other makeup was supposed to be undetectable, and was used solely to hide the effects of aging. If a woman coloured her hair, it was a secret on a par with the plans for the D-Day invasion. Perish the thought one actually changed one's hair colour, even if only to recapture the more flattering shades one had ten years earlier. Colour (again, a secret on a par with sneaking opium) was only for covering grey hairs.

My generation, of course, wore colourful, dramatic eye makeup - day and night. (One without it was either a plain Jane or trying to be prepubescent... with the rare exception of those who wore neither makeup nor shoes and had just changed their names to Star Glow.) We had great fun with hair colour - green mascara - and so forth. Did my mother, who wanted me to wear no makeup and have my hair chopped like a baby's, really think she was fooling me when she'd pretend to fashion magazine terminology and say, with what was supposed to be appropriate dramatic emphasis, "I like The Natural Look." In truth, she feared both that I'd be thought a tart (young men are equipped with radar, and there was no danger that I'd be any sort of blip in that department) and that I was "growing up too fast" (when my problem was that, since my full height was very short, I was often mistaken for being much younger because those of taller stock thought I was still growing.) More so, she feared that others would think she was making me grow up too fast. (My mother, herself, never did grow up - and she lived to be 84.)

Her much older sister, Mary (who first saw the light of day circa 1903), was more intelligent than the other sisters, and indeed had quite a flair for fashion in her day. As is often the case when one sibling has gumption, interests, and intelligence beyond that of the others, Mary was the family oracle. I loved Aunt Mary, but often had to stifle a giggle when she would show me how to 'sit' - the way girls were taught who went away for 'finishing.' (I never did ask her where she met any of them... I knew it was nowhere near the old neighbourhood, but I digress.) Indeed, the pose she demonstrated may have been flattering with the floor length skirts of 1915, but, in my own time (or even my mother's), it would have made one seem artificial and affected.

Mary's own daughters were quite a bit older than I. It did not occur to my mother or theirs that their not having worn eye makeup during the 1950s did not mean that they were the 'nice little girls' where I was the budding slut. Or that the awful socks women wore during and after the war were a fad prompted by silk's being unavailable, not the mark of the perpetual sweet child. But it made my mother fear criticism all the more. My cousins (to whom I was and am close, by the way) would brand me (the daughter of the 'baby sister' of the family) as the 'little cousin' in perpetuity. To this day, I still am viewed as a precocious child. Seeing me in nylons, lipstick and the like was a shocker, though most of my school chums would have thought me to be a late bloomer. (I am not sure I ever did bloom....)

My suggestion to parents of today would be to remember one's own youth - and stop expecting young adults to behave as if they were not out of the cradle. Then again, that shows my own innocence still. Probably most of those who are fretting indeed do remember their own youth...

Smashing the "Rolex"

In my travels, I find, as most urban creatures do, that one encounters delays with the train or bus, or has 'waiting room' time before appointments. I therefore often have the disadvantage of reading whatever materials are at hand. (Serves me right - I should always be sure to have a book with me - but most of mine are a bit large to fit in my bag.)

I cannot recall in which magazine I read this gem, but it incorporated two of the least attractive qualities one may have. First, though I am all for 'causes,' and have a number of my own, I dislike when a cause is (1) illustrative of having little common sense and (2) a preoccupation which one inflicts on others. Second, as my readers know I have little tolerance for those who do not mind their own business - nearly as little as for those who do not tell them to go play in traffic.

The woman who was more or less honoured by the media exposure is so troubled by 'fake brand names' that one would think life, death, and salvation depended on this. She proudly spoke of how a friend of hers purchased a 'counterfeit' designer watch. This meddling pest brought in a hammer and would not leave until her friend smashed it. (Nowadays, one must be careful with figures of speech, lest anyone shout 'violence' and call for police - so please understand that what follows is purely a figure of speech. Had anyone pulled that nonsense with me, I would have - figuratively speaking - smashed her.)

I am fully aware, of course, of rules about intellectual property (I was not a web designer for nothing) and copyright, trademark and so forth. But the 'crusader' whom this article sadly profiled seemed little acquainted with the realities of life. She seemed to have an idea that cheap plastic imitations of Gucci handbags were taking huge profits away from Gucci.

My idea of an expensive handbag is... well, on a par with what one might pay for a pub lunch, without even considering the cost of the pint. Yet, being a working class kid, it does seem to me that those who buy the plastic "Gucci" would never be so stupid as to mistake it for an original. (Once, a cousin gave my dad a "Rolex" imitation as a joke. Not only was it clearly a cheap imitation, but indeed a fine joke, because no one who has the real thing was wearing it with a grocer's apron.) Viewing both sides of the issue, I am inclined to doubt that those who pay a fortune for a genuine Gucci would have the thought, "Oh, here is a plastic imitation for about the cost of Tea Tree and Mint Bath Gel ... I think I'll pick up one of these and not spend what I would have on the real one."

On the rare chance that anyone out there thinks the faux model (it always amuses me when people who do not know the meaning of the word are impressed with that adjective...) will fool anyone - that is impossible. I have no counterfeit 'designer' things, but do have rather a nice wardrobe, which is largely a tribute to my having a good hand with a needle and not sparing the starch and iron. I once walked through Harrods, impeccably dressed (by my standards), and no one mistook me for a real customer. (Maybe I should have borrowed dad's "Rolex.") On the happy occasion when I managed to amass enough travel miles to have an upgrade to business class, and sat in the Club World lounge savouring the sandwiches and gin, one of the staff delighted me by bringing me a tray of wonderful snacks from the First Class lounge. She obviously had similar class origins to my own, and had recognised the common one and given me a treat. No one, I'm sure, mistook my sueded rayon for real silk. (And I talk posh and all...)

Nagging friends means that one is not a true friend in the first place. Save the messages. Refrain from ego games along the lines of 'I know better than you.' Don't mistake a playful action for fraud (on the part of a buyer.) And leave the policing to those who are in that business.

As a side note... even if I could afford designer items, I doubt I'd wear them. I have no desire to walk around with emblems and such, becoming a walking commercial for the designer.

Odd thoughts about Nostradamus

I shall concede that Nostradamus long has fascinated me. The subject is one, like varied others that stir my curiosity, where my feelings are totally ambivalent. I suppose I enjoy the mysterious - and also have to admit that I believe there may be much we do not know about 'what is out there.'

My rational side (and apologies to Nostradamists who write many scholarly works on the subject) tells me that Nostradamus wrote in total riddles. Impressive ones, indeed, and with a tone of wisdom about them - but no coherence. To compare him to a prophet of the Old Testament would be quite off track, and not only because of questions about from where the inspiration came. The prophets were celebrating divine fidelity, God's acting in history, how the divine kingdom would be an inspiration to the world, and so forth. They were writing mostly of what already had happened, and of conviction that the power of Yahweh would endure forever.

I have no idea of whether Nostradamus truly believed he was predicting the future, or whether he was a charlatan, social commentator, or odd individual. I read his works with fascination, but believe every 'interpretation' of them is a huge stretch. Still, a part of me will give him benefit of the doubt. The only time I was absolutely certain a prediction of his was untrue (and indeed it appeared in none of his writings) was, around the time of '9-11,' when Nostradamus' supposed prediction of Osama's action was circulating on the Internet. Suffice it to say that even one who believes there just might be faeries and unicorns is not about to accept a prediction made in 1645 by a man who died in 1566.

I know I am saying 'the grass is green,' but anyone (who is not specific about names, places, and times) who predicts world catastrophes, wars, natural disasters, tyranny, and so forth naturally (however tragically) is going to be correct. Such have always existed. It is for later enthusiasts to decide who 'the old lion and young lion' are, or that Hister (the Danube) is Adolf Hitler.

The prophets of old were calling people to trust, gratitude for creation and salvation, fidelity, and repentance. This too, of course, is timeless. Of course, during the patristic era, Christians perhaps were a bit too enthusiastic about seeing every line in the Hebrew scriptures as having been about Christ. :) They were not talking in riddles.

That, perhaps, is why romantics such as myself need to dabble in reading about Nostradamus, astrology, and the wee folk (and this whilst admitting that there is no scientific proof for a bit of this.) We love our Christianity with a passion, but it really seems so banal at times. (Wryness tag is on here!) It is far more fun to look for secret knowledge and the mysterioso than to merely accept that calling which the prophets knew so well.

All Hallows' Eve thoughts

The link in the title is to last year's post, Dwelling on the mysterioso, which is a bit more theological than tonight's probably shall be.

My taste in clothing is far from conservative (fifty does not mean frumpy, and my tastes are half Paris, half Woodstock.) One of my prized possessions, being a medievalist, is a purple cape, the front of which is decorated, right near the closures, with the symbols of alchemy. I well remember when a young man, seeing my cape, told me he sensed that I was "a very powerful witch." Stifling a giggle, I told him I was not a witch at all. He then asked me if I could predict the future. Smiling now, I said, "I am Christian - that's not in my line." He responded, "But that is very powerful, too! Do you do laying on of hands?"

With the combination of romantic and mystical that beats within this heart, I'm the last person who could do laying on of hands. I'd probably try to raise the dead or something. No - I'm someone who has to stay with liturgical prayer, lectio divina, and all that other boring and banal business. :)

My wicked side will share a story from my convent days. We still wore the 'old habit,' and I must say that our congregation did not have one of the more attractive models. Our dress was a near duplicate of the garb of the Friars Minor, and the veil was very unattractive - stiff headband across the forehead, a coif that came round about the ears.

My congregation was based in Italy, where I hoped to remain, but I was stationed at a mission in the States. (Serves me right for speaking English well... but at least it wasn't the leprosarium in Africa.) Halloween, at least then, was the time of avid 'trick or treating' for the younger set. Coincidentally, it was the 31st of October when I had to go grocery shopping with Sister C.. I'm not being unkind saying this, because it must be mentioned if the rest of this tale is to make sense: C., though she was probably aged all of 32, was one of the ugliest women I've ever known - the picture of the story book witch.

We were waiting on the queue for the till, and a young mother behind us was horrified when her daughter, aged 4 or so, saw C. and piped up with, "I'm going to be a witch for Halloween, too!"

November is a wonderful month liturgically - beginning with the remembrance of the communion of saints, ending with the feast of Christ the King (the latter an image I dearly love.) Advent to follow is better still. But the part of me that loves folk tales and the like does see an appeal that is not... specifically liturgical in All Hallows' Eve. I'll spare you the history of the holiday (there are sites which can show you that far better than you'd find in my impromptu writings.) I'll just make 'public confession' of what I'm doing this week. :)

I have a great fondness for the monster films (the entire Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man bunch) produced by Universal studios during the 1930s-40s. I cannot abide later 'horror pictures' - they are too gory, frighten me terribly, and (using, as one example, the theme of exorcism, which I wish were as popular now as anything related to the reign of Christ) too often draw on what is just too explicitly 'real.' I'm having a little film festival now, watching those films once again.

They have great humour in them - police tend to be very colourful cockneys, which is quite interesting for Transylvania and Germany, and I suppose I'm always happy to hear someone whose accent is worse still than mine. The history behind the legends is often interesting. The films do not frighten me, because they remind me of the reality of life rather than merely evil. Many of us struggle with the problem of evil - the sense of sources beyond us that we cannot control - the uncomfortable awareness that fear (of death, of being separated from those whom we love, and so forth) can become an idol and drive one to desperation. As long as I don't dwell on genetic engineering and cloning and to what they may lead (that really frightens me, though I hope that my own life will have ended before the results are produced - I'll be gone within fifty years at most, and far less than that unless I take after my mother's family), I can weep when Frankenstein's monster cries, "Friend! Friend!" when he seeks love and inspires terror. In fact, I can almost feel sorry for Victor Frankenstein (renamed 'Henry' by Universal, for reasons I've never discovered), who is so wrapped up in the thought of a scientific breakthrough that the outcome of his experiment is far from what he'd expected.

Of course, my greatest sympathy is reserved for Laurence Talbot (the Wolf Man), and I'm glad that, in "House of Dracula," he finally is restored to health. I find the gypsy woman's wisdom, and "The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own," very moving.

How is "Spirituality in Universal Monster Flicks" as a topic for my next dissertation? Blessings to all. May the saints, in heaven and on earth, be bound with the love to which Christ calls us tonight... while Gloriana takes a night off with the monsters.

What is the attraction of bullies?

This is not likely to be one of my more insightful posts. I live in a basement flat, and the cat has been in one of the windows, howling in a manner which makes me think there is something to black magic at this season. It's more likely that a stray found his way to the outside, but the annoyance of the noise is worse than that of my CD-ROM drive, which also has gremlins and has been opening and closing, of its own accord, for three days.

I never was one much for varied Internet fora. In the earlier days of the Internet, I did belong to some highly interesting mailing lists, about theology, books, humour, and other areas that I love. Yet it takes very little for some pest to derail entire lists. Nonetheless, now and then I drop in to Yahoo chat groups and the like... I seldom stay long.

I have stayed long enough to see that (regardless of the list topic, since any bully can derail a thread) there are many people out there who thrive on being bullied. It seems to boil down to "this is what I am 'supposed' to be doing - I hate it - so, if someone abuses me, treats me as if I were a liar, traps me in every word I say, this will 'motivate' me to spend my time on what I hate, out of fear of the abuse. Someone who treats me like trash must really care."

Yes, that is true charity and friendship... to destroy other people's sense of self-worth, play ego games, help them to feel terrible about themselves, perhaps doubt their own integrity. It makes me shiver to see how popular this can become. It reminds me of a sad but prevalent idea that dominated my own youth. Many people in authority (not only 'high up,' but parents or teachers, for example) were interested only in conformity to rules and standards. If the person under authority did not comply, it meant that he was not afraid of the authority enough - so he had to be brutalised.

I heard a very sad story recently. A young man, in his teens, has bipolar disorder. He has been doing what the self help books would call 'acting out.' His insomnia disturbs his parents - the profanity that sometimes spews from the mouths of the mentally ill is 'disrespectful' - the anxiety is taken for an act - the depression for not realising what a wonderful home he has. He probably is crying out for help when he shouts, but it is mistaken for a desire to 'scare' his parents. They are trying to find ways to be more brutal because 'he has to learn.' (If their child had cancer or heart disease, I suppose that he could get that to disappear with sufficient punishment.)

How narrow and self centred we mortals are capable of being! We cannot see the suffering of those around us, because all we see are the effects on ourselves. Sadly, too many of us have a notion of God that is of a bully who will punish us unless we do what we hate. Perhaps that forces many of us to turn, not in love but in fear, to an image of God which makes us want (and often create) punishments for ourselves.

Though I had seen such examples, many times, in my youth, I was amazed to see that, on Internet fora with people much younger, the idea of 'temporal punishment in reparation for our sins,' asking God to increase pain for the sake of one's salvation, and so forth apparently are still in fashion. To return to the idea with which I began today, no one would want to be mistreated unless one hated what one was 'supposed' to do in the first place. What is this, in the spiritual life? The practise of virtue? Seeming deprivation? Wanting to suffer here lest we have to suffer in eternity?

I received an e-mail today with a quote from Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe. It is quite lovely, and also reminded me of a truth I'm slowly learning. Gratitude, not guilt, not fear of punishment, tends to foster love of God and neighbour, and true worship. I should like to share the quotation with you"

"To see ourselves as gift from God is just to look deeply into ourselves, to see ourselves for what we really are. You cannot love yourself, your real self (as distinct from valuing your price or what you will fetch) without being grateful to God, without thanking him, thinking him through yourself. And it is only when you do this, when you thank God for yourself, for the gift of existence, that you are released from the prison of self-seeking to value others for their own sake, which is to value them too as gifts of God. That is why Jesus tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves. He is asking us to love our neighbour in the way we love ourselves — in gratitude to God.

But there is much more to it than this. For when you do it, when you actually thank God for your being and for others (not just when you think about it but when you do it), you discover a further truth: that the thing you are most grateful for, the greatest gift of God, is the gratitude itself. The greatest gift of God to you is not just that he made you, but that you love him. The greatest gift of God to you is that you can speak with him and say ‘thank you’ to him as to a friend—that you are on intimate speaking terms with God. God has made us not just his creatures but his lovers; he has given us not just our existence, our life, but a share in his life.

Media should love this one

I shall caution my readers that, contrary to custom, I shall not be having great theological reflections today. I'm going to indulge my rather naughty side for a moment. I just read that there will be a webcast, plus satellite coverage, for the installation of ++Katharine Jefferts Schori as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. I know nothing of Washington DC, but recall watching the broadcast of Ronald Reagan's funeral from that cathedral - a singer who sounded as if he belonged in a tavern, jokes, an odd treatment of the 'city on a hill' gospel as if the evangelists had Reagan in mind. I am hoping this service will be dignified, glorious - everything that Cranmer plus the Oxford Movement would have intended. (I doubt it - a Washington e-correspondent led me to anticipate a far different picture.) And I do hope it is treated, liturgically, no differently than were it any other bishop. I saw too many 'relevant' liturgies turn into circuses in my day. It certainly is a monumental event, and one which should be quite interesting in the right hands of the press.

My immediate thought was the potential for boring, predictable media statements from those who believe themselves to be newsworthy. Not to mention any names, of course, but I can think of at least one US priest and Sister (prolific, if not deep), both "American Catholic" (therefore technically Roman), who would love a spotlight to go on about how Catholic women have to endure job discrimination (not being priests) because the eleventh commandment (US separation of church and state, which somehow is more sacred than anything at Sinai) prevents their suing employers and demanding equal rights. Then there are those, along the lines of Falwell (who somehow thought Osama bin Laden's action five years ago were divine punishment - God having lifted a 'veil of protection' - for the US being a place where abortion is legal and gays exist), who can see anything involving the Episcopal Church as somehow connected to abortion and gay rights, and therefore the work of Satan. (Sadly, there is another variety of Roman Catholic - as some web sites to which I'd never link would show, which would be Falwell with a rosary in hand.) And I'm sure there will be some loud-mouthed ECUSAns who will relish the thought of a split with Canterbury because it is a remnant of 'colonialism'...

...Yawn... Talk about old news... :) .... Considering that, from all my studies, I have seen that, in the first generation after Jesus's earthly life, apostles (beyond the Twelve, such as Paul) were specifically those who gave witness to the resurrection and all that this meant for the new church. The first witness to the resurrection, and the one who shared this news, was Mary Magdalene, so women as apostles seems a longstanding tradition.

Spare me "God's will"!

Note that the link in the title is to last year's post about San Gerardo Maiella, whom I am recalling on his feast today.

Gerardo had a childlike simplicity which it is difficult for me to grasp. I heard something quite interesting about him just this week. A Redemptorist Father, who wrote a biography of his Order's most famous saint (yes, perhaps more famous than Alphonsus Liguori, as far as devotion goes), stated affectionately that Gerardo was a child of God - indeed, a spoiled child. Consequently, he tended to get that for which he asked. I heard that, in praying with a dying woman, Gerardo told her basically - "let us get God to do what we want."

How refreshing! How often have all of us been exposed to the idea that there is a dismal, unknowable oppression called "God's will." One never knows what it is, until one become heartbroken, gravely ill, sees everything one cherishes taken away - whatever.

Note here that I am not speaking of God's true will - or denying that this is beyond our grasp. God truly willed creation, the Incarnation, the resurrection, our deification, his presence in Church and sacraments. We have no answer to the pain and suffering in this world, but what I resent more than an idea that everything is God's will (with Archbishop Runcie, I'm agnostic about Auschwitz) is the one about how God sends us suffering.

Gerardo was a simple man - and he was young enough to be my son when he died. Unlike most saints of the modern era (he died in 1755), he was known for many miracles during his lifetime. My family was from the neighbouring diocese, and all thought of him as a very powerful saint, to whom they turned with woes, unembellished, and their needs, unashamed.

Since whatever wit and insight I possess has been sadly lacking in my recent posts, it may be apparent that I am troubled at the moment. I mention this because, contrary to my usual theology and such logic as I possess (let alone the fear of "God's will"), I lit my candle to Saint Gerard this week, entrusting my worry to him. I wish I had my mother's faith - she'd be sure she'd get her petition answered... and would.

Sufficient to each day is the trouble thereof!

I have to admit that, whenever I read the scripture passages about 'consider the lilies of the field,' I wish with all my heart that I could believe God provides for our temporal needs. (For the benefit of someone just dropping in to this blog, I am not speaking of lavish spending, but of basic needs.) Unfortunately, I worked with the homeless for seven years - saw the homeless huddling together trying to not die of cold near the office where I worked - and knew, all too well, that this was in the 'prosperous west.' I am too aware of poverty (disease, war, etc.), not to mention the horrors humans can inflict on one another, to have that sort of trust.

Yet Jesus (who 'had no place to rest his head,' and was undoubtedly dependent on others for his subsistence when he was an itinerant preacher... I wonder how much his family complained about his abandoning carpentry) certainly was spot on with his question of to what it avails us to be anxious. I'm a case study in anxiety, so I am hardly suggesting that I have an answer for this one. Still, it amazes me (since I deal with fear every day of my life) that I often encounter people who, rather than wishing diversion from anxiety (as I do), seem to relish discussing not only how bad things are but how much worse they could be.

In recent weeks, I have been at what one would think were celebrations of happy occasions - a christening party, a feast at a church with many Italian immigrants. They were the sort of settings where I can picture the wise Jesus of Nazareth changing water into wine. My spiritual director keeps trying to get through my thick skull that much of what is most valuable in our relationship with God is trust and gratitude - and the occasions I mentioned were just the sorts where one would think gratitude and joy would be prevalent.

Instead, the conversations (which were among people at celebrations, not military leaders...) tended towards the dangers of germ and chemical warfare; it is a matter of 'when, not if' Iraq, Osama or whomever wipes out the west; that social services are going bankrupt.... and so forth, and so on. Some days, there is not enough gin in the entire world...

Why can we not enjoy the joy that might be on hand today?

Admittedly, I might be too earnest and scholarly (as my father used to say, 'book learning, but not the ways of the world') to see that some of this talk is... well, just talk. It is possible, I suppose, that people bring up such topics because it makes them look well informed. (I noticed that my nephew - the one very learned in current affairs, whom I mentioned in a previous post - had the good sense not to participate in this conversation.) Perhaps not everyone who is talking about such things as germ warfare is thinking about it later in the day.

Years ago, when I first studied the Holocaust, which took place in the decade preceding that in which I was born, I was stricken with such horror that it took me years not to awaken in fear of ending up in a concentration camp. My horror is no less today, but I think it best not to contemplate the transportation when it is highly unlikely to ever happen. Still, I remember a wise comment from the Diary of Anne Frank. She was hardly more than a child, and Lord knows, with Bergen Belsen ahead, this poor girl soon would know hell on earth. She mentioned, in one part of her diary, 'how does it make anything better today to think about how much worse it could be?!' Her family already was in constant danger. The outcome would be a horror. Yet making the best of the time in their 'secret annexe,' and hoping for safety in the future, was far wiser than adding the terror of the future.

I wish I myself could attain this degree of separation from anxiety, so please do not think my comments to be smug. I've dealt with a great deal, throughout my life but particularly in recent years, and I sometimes awaken with nightmares of some of what happened, terrified of being in the situation again. I saw the horrid suffering of my mother's final illness, and shiver at facing the same myself. (I probably don't think much of having the atomic bomb dropped on me, only because, to my way of thinking, it would be nothing to fear since I would be dead. I sometimes forget that, for many people, the worst thing that could happen would be death. Not me - I think the worst hells are right on this earth.) I'll not mention any more of my personal experience here, but I dealt with fears for good reasons. Nonetheless, there were worse things that indeed could have happened that did not.

Deep down, I wonder, do people feel so guilty that others have it worse than they do that they cannot give thanks for today?

A word about 'the present moment'

Just recently, I was reading a treatment of the approach of Pierre De Caussade, in a book which was summarising various approaches to spirituality. In a nutshell, the brief treatment of DeCaussade spoke of how he focussed on worshipping God in the 'present moment' - which, of course, is the only place we can find God at the time. A dear priest friend of mine is very much one to refer to this spirituality - where thoughts of past and future can blind us, whether through desire, discontent, fear, anxiety and the like. (This, of course, is far from an exhaustive treatment of DeCaussade - I never favoured him much, because he seemed chilly to me, and I saw dangers of quietism... but neither is that what came to my mind today.)

The dangers for a Romantic such as myself is that, much as we pine for heaven, we always tend to feel, deep down, that we can find a better 'place' than where we are at the moment. This can inspire a great deal of creativity but, in the spiritual life, it tends to cause pain, jealousy, and, at the top of my own list, dreadful fear. I think one of the hardest things in this life is its total uncertainty. None of us know if we'll be here tomorrow - yet it is not death that I fear. (If my religious beliefs are true, I'd be closer to God - if I've been totally wrong, at least it would mean no more suffering since one would have no existence.... that is, oh please God no, unless those who believe in reincarnation are correct...) My fear is suffering, here - of wishing one could die just for the pain to cease.

It occurs to me, thinking of some wonderful, highly artistic people, some spiritual into the bargain, who are Romantics like myself - and the 19th century had a great many. The sort of knots of fear into which we can tie ourselves make me think that, for all that I despise Freud, a Romantic era may have been one that led him to assume everyone was neurotic.

Yet what I wish to share for a moment was a thought I had about DeCaussade's own time - post revolutionary France. It must have been frightening, with the (real) monarchy and Church having tumbled, and a few weak imitations of both coming forth. But a very sad part, focussed on 'merit' and 'reparation,' was clear in some of the works I studied about the 19th century. The Counter-Revolutionaries sought to replicate the suffering of Jesus Christ, and thereby save the nation which participated in the revolution’s crimes, and particularly murder of the monarchs. (Ideas of this type still emerge, albeit in an altered form. Just study any site today where people see the sole mission of Catholics, Baptists, whomever as to be to make reparation for abortions - which they did not have, but which seem to be on their conscience if they live in nations where it is legal, as where is it not? And I say that as one who does not believe in abortion.)

Perhaps DeCaussade's stress on the 'present moment' has larger dimensions, if we consider that he lived in a time and place where people were looking for 'vicarious suffering' left and right. It must have been difficult to remind people of the present moment - where they could meet God, but also where they could confront the distractions, weakness, and sinfulness which hampers such intimacy - in a time when one could be a noble victim in one's own mind by making supposed atonement for 'national sins' which dated to long before one was born.

Francis, poor and humble, enters heaven a rich man

Well, I just carted out the rubbish (yes, for all) once again... and, as if on cue, found that the cat had taken an untimely crap, which necessitated my cleaning her box again and making another trip to the bin. I then found that, possibly because there are gremlins on the property, my casement windows were stuck open, and managing to close them meant cranking as if I were pulling up the anchor on the Titanic. I then prepared a cup of hot tea, only to find that the milk had curdled when I dropped it in. Small things, I know - but such is the world of Franciscan poverty on the practical level. (If you are looking for words on Francesco which are slightly more edifying, and certainly more warm, click the link in the title to this post to be transported to the essay on my site.)

I love Francis with all my heart, though he and I are hardly alike. Yet two things about him, currently popular (and one long popular) seem quite distorted to me. First, why do statues, pictures and the like of Francis make him seem (not only tall and handsome, when he was short and ugly) like a slightly 'spacey' dreamer whose main companions in life were birds? (Actually, a few of his companions were vultures, but I'll leave that for another day.) Even the rare picture of him with the stigmata would make one think (apologies to Padre Pio) that they were for decoration.

But the second is from the "Oh, I love what that mediaeval saint wrote... but s/he didn't mean that, now?!" It is popular now to say that Francis believed in only spiritual, not material, poverty. I doubt that any reading of Francis' works, or of anything written of him by his contemporaries, would make that interpretation possible. I would be the first to say that the degree of poverty which Francis observed would be unwise for most - but he was totally serious (even if impractical on some levels) about "Lady Poverty" whom he revered.

I have not the slightest desire to sleep in the street or have lice crawling over me - Francis would not wince at either. Yet he was essentially right, for all (Franciscans or not, called to high poverty or otherwise) about how possessions can possess us. I am not referring only to extravagance. I am of a working class background, have no notion of what a lavish life is like, and one does not miss what one never had. Still, I ache for a lost 'possession' - the respect and esteem which I had when I was a promising young musician, writer, and scholar / lecturer.

Francis was no stranger to material wealth - indeed, he would cost his father a fortune, and not only when he took it upon himself to distribute priceless silks from the Orient to beggars (who undoubtedly had a good laugh within the next ten minutes.) He knew full well that having property meant taking care of it... having arms for its defence.

I am very happy to have decent food, running water, enough heat so that I only have to climb under a duvet during the day time in winter. I have no desire to live the extreme poverty which was suited to Francis. Still, I have enough of the Franciscan spirit in me to know that vowed poverty can be liberating, if sometimes difficult. (I know what it is to lose everything, to have anxiety tearing one's body over poverty, so I hope this does not sound glib.)

The value of poverty is that it smashes idols and teaches us gratitude. One can enjoy whatever is at hand - there is no indication in Francis' life that he did not believe in companionship, or that he imposed excessive austerity on his friars (even if he did on himself.) As for humility - it is a difficult virtue to practise (aren't they all?), but is truth, not the humiliation, derogatory nonsense passing as 'correction,' or instruction in self hatred which I learnt in my convent days.

How I long to be witty and insightful today, as I reflect on my dear Francesco! But it is one of my off days for this, so I'll just close with a funny story from the days in which I served in a Franciscan parish.

The cook, Mary, was a talkative, no nonsense sort - possessed of a certain folk wisdom. The chief sorrow of her life was the corns on her feet, a woe which she shared, upon meeting, with all and sundry.

Well, someone had told me a stupid joke which I shared with a few parishioners. It was about a man who always made the wrong decisions. Once, when he had to take a flight, he was relieved that only one aircraft went to his destination - without a choice, he felt safe. Sadly, he ended up having the little aircraft falter and toss him out the window. As he fell, he called out "Saint Francis, help me!" A big hand came from the sky, grasped him, and asked, "Did you mean Francis Xavier or Francis of Assisi?"

One hearer said to me, "It must have been Francis of Assisi!" The next said, "Oh, whichever Francis it was, do you think he would have dropped him?" (You now know a bit more of what Franciscan poverty can entail... Lord, can I be a little snob...)

But Mary, in no nonsense tones, had the most interesting response to the joke. "It's no use talking to Saint Francis! Do you know how many times I have told him about the corns on my feet?!"

Pax et Bonum. And pray for this lady who once said that she "a poor sinner, begs for a life of penance." Little did I know just how true that is... :)