Little sermonette - to remind my readers I'm still here!:)

It happens to all of us, I suppose - one waits for something interesting to write, and weeks pass. I'm aching to include some wit or insight, but none seems to be at hand. So, just in case anyone is looking for a bit of a 'sermon' to divert them, I thought I'd share a few thoughts. I had prepared this summary about some lectionary readings for an upcoming Sunday, but since the site did not need it in this form, perhaps some of you will find it useful. Fear not - this does not indicate there are sermons ahead on this blog!

9 July 2006
Ezekiel 2:1-5 – Mark 6:1-6 – II Corinthians 12:2-10

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”


One eternal truth which is common to our lessons today is that divine revelation is not likely to find a ready ear in the congregation – whether its messenger is a visionary prophet, an apostle witnessing to the Risen Saviour, or the Incarnate Word Himself. Often, this is not for a lack of initial enthusiasm. People clamour for the exotic quality of the ‘mystical’ or miraculous, and indeed may be self-congratulatory (only in the interests of sharing the good news, of course) for having an association with those who manifest such gifts.

Mark, not being one for angels or Magi, makes clear at the outset that Jesus’ own earthly vocation was to proclaim the kingdom by preaching repentance. (In earlier chapters, we see Jesus exercise authority over various human ills, demons, and even death – but we shall see in chapter 7 that the apostles he commissioned, despite their glorying in the delegated authority, did not grasp his message much better than the hometown boys whispering about the carpenter’s kid.) Ezekiel was God’s voice to those, caught in the power and tumult of the Babylonian empire, who had descended into pagan ways, and needed to be turned back to trust in God and to worship. Paul, whose own demonstrations of charisma were assuredly beyond the amateur class, was addressing ardent Christians who were a pastoral nightmare. The word of the prophet is always a summons to repentance – that is, to constant transformation. Indeed weakness is the strength, for it is only in being stripped of self-deception and recognising the limitations of one’s own vision that one may respond to grace.

The Corinthians provide pastors of any era with a capsule course in idolatry, gnosticism, false mysticism, iniquity, and internal discord. They were an impossible lot – and, judging from Clement of Rome’s epistle a generation later, so they would remain. In his delightfully insightful Paul: A Critical Life, Jerome Murphy-O’Connor notes that “Virtually every statement (Paul) made took root in their minds in a slightly distorted form, and from this defective seed flowered bizarre approaches to … the Christian life.”

II Corinthians is a combination of two epistles. The total number of Paul’s letters to Corinth, allowing for those to which he refers for which we do not have extant texts, was five. The bane of Paul’s existence were the ‘spirit people,’ a group whose members believed that their superior wisdom made them perfect. The preoccupation with wisdom had led them to theism, and Paul needed to remind them of the importance of Christ. Their belief in the irrelevance of the physical (hardly a viewpoint in accord with the Incarnation), led them to shrug off such small matters as incest or eating meat which was sacrificed to idols. The wealthy clique were feasting, leaving only the bread and wine for those less fortunate. It appears that they saw growth in the spiritual life as a matter of achievement and power rather than metanoia. The Corinthians had seen ample manifestations of healing, prophecy and the like in Paul’s own ministry – indeed, one has the sense in this chapter that he is being rather ironic about those who stole his thunder – yet these had become distractions for them rather than leading them to worship of the Author of the gifts.

Idols come in many forms – and one may not worship at the altar of the true God if one is offering homage to one’s false self. It is unlikely that many of us are building temples to Ba’al, but our own idols are the more dangerous, perhaps, in being less easily recognised. One affliction of the devout is that we can come to see our weaknesses or sins as virtues, our distractions as evidence of unusual commitment.

Benedict of Nursia:

“If we are eager to be raised to that heavenly height, to which we can climb only through humility during our present life, then let us make for ourselves a ladder like the one Jacob saw in his dream. On that ladder angels of God were shown to him going up and down in a constant exchange between heaven and earth. (There is) this difference for us: our proud attempts at upward climbing will really bring us down, whereas to step downwards in humility is the way to lift our spirit up towards God. Paradoxically, to climb upwards will take us down to earth, but stepping down will lift us towards heaven. The steps themselves, then, mark the decisions we are called to make in the exercise of humility and self-discipline.”


In II Corinthians 6:16, Paul had written, “Can there be a compact between the temple of God and idols? And the temple of the living God is what we are.” Grace is a share in the divine life itself. We, the Church, are the temple – before the transcendent God emphasised in Ezekiel and the Incarnate Saviour who assumed and deified our humanity. Our offering is repentance – the disposition to hearing the truth which smashes the idols we create and leads us to the loving response which is transformation. Our sacrifice is to make our lives a Eucharist – a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

Paul, who had been privileged with contemplation, had a glimpse of the divine, transcendent glory, to which the natural accompaniment is an awareness of the limitations of one’s vision. Always a devout Jew, a Pharisee who saw Israel (and, later, the new Israel where all nations worshipped the true God) as a priestly people, he knew as well that even what is good in itself (such as the Law, or the charismatic gifts of the spirit) could become an idol.

His ‘thorn’ well may have been knowing, as pastor, that he was powerless to stop the factions in his community – or perhaps, as one whose zeal could exceed his prudence, that he had contributed. Paul knew that mystic consolations can become a distraction – and, since perhaps no other local church had seen more manifestations of charismatic gifts, the Corinthians were proof enough that these are no guarantee of virtue. He would not found his apostolic mission on calls to ‘the third heaven,’ but only on witness to the resurrection.

The temptation shall ever endure to build ‘altars’ to our own honour and glory, in memory of God. The idol can be, as at Corinth, a sense of superiority which excludes love, an attraction for the magical rather than the ‘banal’ actions of gratitude and worship, or a false idea of the life in Christ as ‘achievement.’ It is only in repentance, thanksgiving, and praise that we can assume our vocation as a priestly people – our calling to be the Temple. Humility, that is, truth, unvarnished by the distractions of the false self, must dispose us to see our ‘weakness’ and embrace the divine life of which we are offered a share.

Karl Rahner – “Current Problems in Christology,” 1954, Theological Investigations

"Ultimately, an individual human recognition of truth only makes sense as a beginning, a promise, of the recognition of God – and this latter, whether in the beatific vision or elsewhere, can only be genuine and a source of blessing when it is recognised at the point where the act of apprehension and the act of limitation specifying the thing known surpass themselves and move into what cannot be grasped and is unlimited. All the more does any truth about the self-revealing God open us up into what cannot be beheld: it is the beginning of what is limitless. The clearest and most lucid formulation, the holiest formula, the classical concentration of the Church’s centuries of work in prayer, thought, and struggle about the mysteries of God – these draw life, then, from the fact that they are beginning and not end, means and not goal, one truth that makes freedom for the – ever greater – Truth."

Our Father, Our Mother, which art in heaven

Anyone who is turning up the heat under the oil to burn me probably will be dissatisfied with what follows. I am no more a 'gender feminist' than I ever was, and I'm one of the last people on earth who would be looking for controversy. However, when I heard from someone who was irate that the newly elected Presiding Bishop of the ECUSA had referred to Jesus our mother, I thought I'd save my readers time by providing a link to selections from Julian of Norwich's writings on that topic.

Since Julian's book was focussed on, and derived from, visions she had of Jesus in his Passion, and her words related to the Trinity express relationships of a family, there hardly could be more of a treatment of Jesus in his humanity (very common in the Middle Ages, and, I must add, to this day sometimes an excess for Franciscans, which Julian was not.) But Julian was a mystic, and those who are know well that becoming totally immersed in divine love involves being stripped of attachments. One attachment which ultimately must be sacrificed for the mystic is any pre-conceived notion of God.

I must make this clear: the images of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which so enrich our prayer and are extensive in the liturgy are extremely important. Jesus' referring to God as Father (a topic I'll treat in more detail some time, I'm sure), and to our status as adopted children, is one I would never care to see minimised. Those who are in mystic union, nonetheless, are beyond images. They realise how limited is our vision in recognising the transcendent God. Jesus of Nazareth, of course, was a male - and Julian was not at all questioning that.

I am sorry to sound a bit silly today. Yet I did wish to take the opportunity to perhaps introduce some of you to Julian's writings on Jesus our Mother. The intimacy and unity they express are often a balm for my own weary soul.

Musical minims make me crotchety

Dreadful pun containing a misused word, I know - but this post was inevitable, so bear with me once more. I am a trained musician, skilled as an operatic singer, holding a Master's degree in musicology and Bachelor's in voice. During the 1970s, much of my concentration was on liturgical music, and my MA thesis was on that topic. With the liturgical changes in full force - and, in theory, they were very promising, even if we've all lived to see that they can be quite different in practise - it seemed an exciting time. I was involved with associations of church musicians, a budding institute of liturgical music, a hymnal commission, and other efforts, all involving highly competent musicians, which gave promise of a renaissance for Roman Catholic worship.

I still cannot say precisely what happened which brought about the later conditions, which were dismal. Yet I know very well that, when I had to leave the Religious life, the situations had changed greatly. There are exceptions (and I'll get to that in a moment), but, overall, soloists were regarded with a contempt normally reserved to those who poison popes. Choirs were relegated to being only there to 'support' congregational singing. Anyone sitting in the congregation who was any good at singing was expected to quietly croon, lest those nearby hear a decent voice and not sing. Funerals (as I first saw when attending one for a priest friend in 1986) meant song leaders and congregational singing of the worst sort.

I personally believe that Westminster Cathedral has one of the best choirs in the world, and their music programme, even at the packed daily services of Vespers and the Eucharist, is outstanding. According to the viewpoints which led to the demise of any musical vision for parishes, the cathedral does everything wrong. It should be empty! The marvellous choir performing classical pieces is 'supposed' to be a travesty. Accomplished organists who do not merely play softly in the background are 'performing' rather than supporting the worshipping community. People cannot 'relate' to wonderful music, and will run away crying if there is any piece in which they do not participate (participation being narrowly defined as 'everyone must sing everything'), since that means it is not 'their' liturgy. (Following that line of reasoning, no one should feel part of a liturgy at which s/he is not celebrant, lector, et al combined, but I don't want to go off on too many tangents today.)

Why, then, is every service so well attended? Pews are filled with people of all ages and backgrounds. Many join in chants, most in hymns - and there are no song leaders (though, at Vespers, there is the rare presence of a genuine Cantor.)

I realise, of course, that most parishes would not have the resources to present music as splendid as that at the cathedral. My point is far simpler. Church music, which had such promise thirty years ago, was killed not by serious musicians but by those who actually had an animosity towards music. Oh, indeed those influential in parishes often wanted hymns and more hymns, none of which could be more than 5 years old, all of which had to be within the range of those tone deaf. In an unwitting insult to the intelligence of the congregation, it was assumed that no one could 'relate' to anything above the dismal.

This would not lead to empty pews, of course. Roman Catholics, I would say more than those of any other sister church, are quite likely to attend weekly Mass because it is an 'obligation.' An obedient lot by comparison with others, they also will not disobey the regulation about attending Mass in one's 'own' parish (defined by post code.) Nor would people be likely to complain - those who did would be treated in a condescending fashion, as if they had not sufficiently participated in the 'educative process for the people,' or could not accept what was outside their 'comfort zone.'

Recently, I attended an Anglican Eucharist where two young men were seated very near me. I was singing full voice, knowing that, on this territory, that did not place me in danger of excommunication - and the fellows, who obviously were trained musicians as well, joined in the rather intricate tenor and bass parts. I found it very uplifting - I really felt wrapped in prayer and praise. Had it been a Catholic service, at best we'd have been censured for destroying 'community.'

Thomas Day's "Why Catholics Can't Sing" is a worthwhile book, but it needs a companion volume. Day deals only with congregational singing, not with the valuable role which can be played by accomplished musicians. Of course, RC parishes often can learn much about music from the C of E, but might be misled by seeing that the latter's attendance is lower.

The Roman Catholic Church has as rich a heritage of the aesthetic as any other institution. Perhaps one day this will be reclaimed... but I have no hopes that this will be in my lifetime. Too many of those who became very influential in parishes had no background in music, theology, or liturgy, but in the religious education of children. They were locked in a mindset where everyone was just beginning to read and had trouble singing "London Bridge is Falling Down" without falling into three keys in the process. (In class, that is. Kids can sing anything on the playground.)

For once, I shall quote a lyric from a musical composition which is not outstanding by any standard - Don McLean's "American Pie." "I knew that I was out of luck the day the music died."

Let us not search for the Golden Age

I've mentioned in the past how it is often incredibly tempting to picture the early Church as a time of unparalleled peace, love, and harmony. As those who read my blog well know, I have spent much of the past two years studying worship, ministry, and sacraments in the very early Church - a bit of a disappiontment (syllabus was revised) for one who had been hoping to get all the more deeply into the patristic era, when the three concepts were far more developed. With exams past, as usual, the areas which I studied are becoming more vivid for me. The discipline of the course and the papers to write is superb, and I would not care to miss this - the more because, were it not mandatory, I would not have read the excellent works of those with whom I disagree. :) Yet with the stress of accountability removed for the moment, my recognition is heightened.

I was privileged to read the works of many great scholars, and, though even a cursory reading of Paul of Tarsus would make even a romantic like myself wary of the lovey-dovey image of the early Church, I began to see just how much the early days of the Church were on shaky ground. It is amazing how much things have changed even during my lifetime. The 20th century was a time of great discovery, and of huge strides in scripture scholarship. (The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered only a short time before I was born, and scripture scholarship was widely seen as a threat until well into the second part of the century.)

In my childhood (and by no means only for the young!), it was easy to have an image of Jesus' having appeared in the upper room and saying, "Happy Easter. I'm the second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Now, for the next 50 days, the lot of you are going to have a capsule course in theology and rubrics." We had the impression that the gospel of Luke had all the details of Jesus' infancy because he'd been a friend of Mary's. I cannot recall in which film this appeared, but there was one 'scriptural epic' in which the apostle Matthew was shown already making notes for his gospel... dramatic licence, to be sure, but it did not enter any of our minds that Matthew not only would not have had post-resurrection understanding but would hardly have been writing the gospel for a church which did not exist. It was popularly believed that, on the night of the Last Supper, the apostles arose from the table knowing they'd been ordained priests for a new Church.

By the time I was a young adult (all of us well primed with the Holy Spirit, who had been so powerful during the Vatican Council that plenty of individual inspiration was leftover to be distributed to all of us humble creatures), the adulation for the early Church was at an all time high. Anyone who thinks there was no penance in the 1960s and 70s never sat through interminable choruses of "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love." (I comforted myself with the thought that things could be worse - on any night when it was not "Kumbaya.") Though I myself never participated, I knew some young Christians who had glowing ideas about living in Christian communes - and some indeed did so. There was an underlying idea that, if we could strip away everything that happened since and get back to that pure Christianity, we'd all live up to our calling to be the love generation.

(Don't shake your head at my bit of sarcasm! One can criticise groups broadly provided one was a member of same. There was a period during the late 1970s when I nearly thought I could raise the dead, and everyone else in my prayer group thought they could cure the blind at the least.)

Admittedly, I do wonder how the Christian movement became so popular. (I'm giving the Holy Spirit his due, but could ponder what drew the many Jews, Gentile God-fearers, and eventually pagans.)It certainly was not peace and harmony. James, Peter, and Paul had conflicts about the Gentile mission to work out at Antioch. The Corinthians were making all sorts of messes with their newfound Christianity, and the Letter of Clement of Rome shows that, a generation later, they were no better behaved than in Paul's time.

The Church was in its infancy, and indeed it was a time when revelation and response was at a peak which only divine inspiration can explain. But, apart from Christology, there was ecclesiology with which to contend. James questioned if the Gentile mission should have equal footing with the Jerusalem Church, or if the Gentile Christians would have a different status, as did the uncircumcised who worshipped at the temple. (Of course, we all know what soon happened to the temple.) Paul and the others worshipped in the synagogues, but Paul himself must have been totally maddening to get into all the scrapes he reports.

What was the definition of 'apostle,' prevalent in Paul, absent in John? How did God speak through his Church? I had a strong sense, reading the Johannine epistles, Paul's letters, and the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, that it was very possible that the 'false teachers' who were leading everyone astray may well have been, for example, the Johannine Christians who were side by side with the Pauline mission in Ephesus. And, though Paul never mentions the elders, Acts does give the impression that he spent a good deal of time instructing them.

The conflicts varied, sometimes because of human weakness (as in Corinth), but often because of legitimate theological matters, or sociological factors which were quite crucial. Indeed, God is Truth, and inspires His Church (I'm not about to define how, because one needs a few centuries of hindsight, at least, to see when that happens.) However much we may be dedicated to prayer, to knowledge, to worship, we shall always have to deal with the limitations of our own vision.

We cannot recapture a golden age - it never existed. Remembering that conflict is as old as the Church at least reminds us that we need the humility to admit that we never know how the Spirit is working.

Time travel

I shall caution my readers that this is likely to be a post filled with loose associations. I have fallen behind in my writing, and decided that, were I to wait until I had something interesting to say, it may well be the judgement day. I keep intending to write about the wonderful feasts (can one top Corpus Christi?), but I cannot help feeling sad. When I was a young woman, I was a gifted lecturer - I still am, but with no place to take it. Preparing such comments makes me sad, now and then, for knowing that I myself have had enough of soup kitchens, yet churches which would welcome talks from one with theological knowledge would have no interest in a 'nobody.'

I have always had a weakness for literature in the 'time travel' genre. It ranges from the profound to the silly (actually, the only one who did it reasonably was Dickens - and notice that Ebenezer was able to change the outcome), but the common threads always are there. One cannot change what has happened, or how what happened in the past affects conditions today or in the interim.

I have never desired to, for example, live in the Middle Ages, to be sure - yet I sometimes wish, when I think of incidents in history, of how I'd love to have a monitor to peek at how it really was. Documents are wonderful, but tell us so little compared to the totality. Here is a simple, perhaps trivial, matter of which I was telling someone this week. She had asked me about certain circumstances in the religious life a quarter century ago. I was saying how I know many things from the hundreds of Sisters and varied communities with which I had contact, as well as from my own experience. Yet things, however pertinent, are long forgotten or cannot be mentioned. One needs to use references in writing, and past conversations, 'workshops,' articles in obscure publications, or letters do not have that 'validity.' (Unless, of course, one was important enough to have influenced the outcome and have such things documented.)

The 'time travel' theme often includes having the visitor from the later period wish to warn those in the past of a negative outcome. It cannot happen, of course - one cannot change the past. Yet I can only imagine being transported in a time machine! "You'll all be slaughtered in that battle... This will split the Church in pieces... You'll be poisoned if you go there... The effects of the radiation and the blast will be utterly devastating... You are going to hit an iceberg!... Throw the money changers out of the temple and that will be a last straw - you'll be crucified."

I find studying various periods totally fascinating. As I have grown older, I have found, for example, that the patristic period in theology beckons even more to me than it did in the past. It is more difficult for me than the mediaeval and renaissance periods, not only because I know those so well but because many of the matters of conflict which existed in 1500 still are alive today. I need to focus very strongly to go back to the early centuries of the Church - Rome and France pagan, North Africa strongly Christian - empire booming theb crumbling, etc..

I have yet another challenge now, which makes the early Church nearly contemporary in my mind by comparison. I have just begun a thorough study of the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the hardest parts for me, as it indeed was for the Fathers, is not to 'read in' the Christian element. I must not read the first chapter of Genesis and immediately 'hear' the first of the Gospel of John. :)

Last week, when I went to the library to begin some of my reading, the Jewish division was closed. Naturally, 90% of my reading will be in that library, but, not to lose a day, off I went to Humanities. I read some very inventive words about Genesis, to say the least. They were not even Christian, but were 'literary criticism rather than history or theology,' aimed at making Eve a feminist hero. In one book (probably someone's dissertation - all dissertations, including mine, are farfetched and boring by definition), God seems far more helpless and confused than the might Eve.

Well, I'll get to the Jewish scholars this week and begin to find out what Genesis really means. But the treatment of Eve, so slanted by having to show that misogyny was based on her being misunderstood (a nice change, I suppose, since most of the time it is the big, bad males' interpretation of either Mary or Mary Magdalene which is responsible for all evils afflicting womankind), was rather too imaginative...

Lord have mercy, if I only could quote all of what I heard in my Religious days! One cannot climb into the time machine and, by changing, let us say, perceptions of Eve, Mary, or Mary Magdalene, make centuries of misogyny disappear. But neither can one 'make up for' the past. We only can work with what we have now. Attempts to make up for past injustice are doomed to fail, because there is unintentional but inherent dishonesty.

Many nuns suffered at the hands of superiors or other Sisters - in the 1970s, that had to be shelved, because all had to be blamed on the men. A false image, as if 'you' could know exactly how 'I' feel merely because we are of the same sex, meant a boycott of the men from whom we could have learnt a great deal, and women being automatically qualified for anything by virtue of their sex. (I must make this plain! Many women were highly competent, and I'll include myself in that number! I am referring to cases where, for example, suddenly just being female made one qualified as a spiritual director.)

The lie is that, whenever one tries to make up for the past, whomever was the 'loser' in the past becomes a victim. History can become distorted, as if the 'victims' were blameless or perfect. Whomever oppressed them becomes the enemy - and, if those oppressors are long dead, the guilt has to carry to the innocent of much later generations.

I'd best not go on about this, because I just don't have the wits about me at the moment to express myself clearly enough. I'll just ask my readers to say a prayer for me. I cannot go into even a small scale time machine and recapture the talent and zeal I had in youth. :) The intervening years cannot be cancelled. Pray for me, not only that I develop enough gratitude that the past (and my present pain) not distract me, but that I somehow find ways to use these gifts today rather than feeling my past failures make that impossible.

Put that in 'frid'

I am totally hopeless recently, and ignoring that this undoubtedly means that my prayer life is out of joint. Wonderful feasts have dotted the calendar these past few weeks - the Easter season, Ascension, Pentecost, and now Trinity Sunday. It does not get better than that, I'm sure. Yet I have not written a blog entry on a one of them... so off to a bit of trivia, just not to get completely stale.

If you are with me this far, by now you are wondering who or what is 'frid.' My dad, a grocer descended from a long line of farmers, had a love for fruits and vegetables which bordered on (or perhaps was) reverence. He would not just eat an apple, for example. First, he would hold it up to be admired, turning it so its beauty and symmetry might be appreciated (not that Sam had any taste for the aesthetic, as his musician daughter here knew well). Second, he would be sure to let anyone present know not only of its quality but, depending on whether the item was bought or home grown, either what a wonderful price he paid or how much benefit there was from whatever new compost he was compiling. Lest my readers picture vast acreage, I shall note that Sam's garden was about the size of a small sitting room, but that, had all the earth he owned fit into a teacup, he'd have planted a tomato there. Unlike me, a dreadful gardener but one who loves wild-looking, multi-coloured flower beds, Sam would have considered it a total waste to plant anything one could not eat.

Sam's English was not the best, and his word for a refrigerator was 'frid.' With his respect for food being what it was, he constantly reminded us to 'put that in frid.'

My mother (Chip) was basically a terrible cook. (For some reason, the only thing she could make well were manicotti shells, which tended to come out thin as crepes.) I think the problem was a total lack of confidence - she would be puzzled that I was an innovative cook, or that I could make a dress in a different colour from that of the pattern illustration. As well, her fate was sealed when someone gave her a dreadful cookbook (of the 'gift for a bride who cannot boil an egg' category) as a wedding present. Chip never seasoned anything - she cooked pasta (which was her favourite food) till it was of the consistency of a damp rag. (When I fixed it for her, she'd wrinkle her nose and say, 'it's... good... al dente,' as if that were the worst of insults.) Her idea of a meat dish (which is not to say that meat dishes were ever her idea) was 'drop it in the pan and just let it cook.' Herbs, gravies, spices - were not in her vocabulary.

Whether the two are connected I would not say, but in a bizarre fashion Sam was a good match for Chip's cooking. His inherent frugality made him praise cooking which did not 'waste' (that is, add anything that was not absolutely necessary.) He'd become annoyed if I cooked, complaining that, if I added anything, I was 'wasting.' I was puzzled, considering it is not as if I fixed an item then poured it down the drain... it took me years to realise his definition of 'waste.' (Odd definitions, I suppose, are to be expected of someone who puts everything 'in frid.')

Years ago, when I saw the play The Fantasticks, I suddenly had an insight. The fathers in that play sing about 'plant a radish, get a radish, never any doubt. That's why I love vegetables, you know what you're about.' At least Sam's vegetables were predictable. A firstborn who was passionate about the aesthetic, had jars of spices in every spare inch of the cabinets and a few on the stove next to the collection of Twining's special edition teas, was mad about the English language, and had a weakness for recipes where one drops in a bit of Grand Marnier and serves the product next to truffles... well, was not in the 'plant a radish, get a radish' category.

I love to cook. (I have a sister who also loves to bake, a talent which she has in good measure and I lack. For all my enjoyment of meat pies, I always end up making stews because I cannot bother with a crust.) Trouble is, many dishes just do not work when one lives alone.

This past week, one of my recurring odd actions was inevitable. When it has been raining, chilly, or both for any period, I have to get out my crockpot and whip up one of my 'pies sans crust.' This often tends to be oxtail stew. My crustless pies are (if I must say so) actually delicious, but unusual for some reason (maybe it's obvious.) I think that, when it is well made, English food is perfectly delicious. (I'll save comments about when it is not well made for another thread.) But I always have to add an Italian fillip. My steak and Guinness version contains both garlic and basil.

Well, this week the oxtail stew simmered all day, filling the kitchen with a lovely scent. I do not like potatoes much, and prefer zucchini, eggplant, and other Italian staples to what others put in stews, so I included turnips, zucchini, carrots and more, and wonderfully succulent portabello mushrooms... port in the gravy, yum! It is only after these pots stop simmering that it strikes me (one would think I'd have caught on by now) that, unless I have four good-sized men drop over for dinner unexpectedly, I shall be eating oxtail stew with no crust for the next week. (Leeks, which I adore, were on sale this week, as were 'baby' portabello mushrooms. I'm trying to ignore it, but know with a horrible certainty that, by week's end, I may be confronted with a massive pot of chicken, leek, and mushroom... stew.)

Though pasta, salads, and other Italian staples are popular today, most people I knew when I was young (who were not of Italian background) rarely ate them. I love Italian food, if one is speaking of veal, salads and such, but loathe pasta. (The only thing funnier than pasta's being a current 'gourmet' treat, which we ate four times a week because it was so cheap, is that polenta is carried in posh restaurants. Polenta was even lower on the social scale.) I'm afraid I'm going to have to clue everyone in on a fact of life which I knew at age 2 but is ignored today, when everyone is 'eating healthy' and, I hear, gaining so much weight. The much lauded "Mediterranean diet" is terrible! It means being ravenous for at least 21 out of 23 hours... because eating starch when one is hungry is comparable to drinking salt water to ease thirst. (Ask your waiter friend why restaurants place bread on the table before meals are served. Yes, to stimulate appetite.)

The kids I knew who ate meat three times a day (and perhaps even junk food, though fast food did not yet exist in my childhood) did not have weight problems. Our 'healthy', constant hunger diet led many of us to have weight trouble, though we seldom had sweets and a can of tuna was Friday dinner for four.

Lord have mercy, I have gone on many a tangent today! Yet there is one secret to attractive meals which Chip, with her fear of seasoning, and Sam, who thought everything was a waste, would never have known. A combination of flavours can make even a poor table seem rich. Mixing in an olive here and there, a bit of goat cheese, mustards, whatever - having a little pickle on the cheddar, and odd greens on the side - can make one feel like a gourmet... even on a budget akin to, or less than, Sam's.

Without variety, everything can seem barren and boring. Which finally leads me to the point I've been trying to ignore... I need to get back to the richness of my prayer life...:)

That might be worth a lot of money...

I am a bit embarrassed. With both the Ascension and Pentecost having been celebrated within the past few weeks, I should like to produce a wonderful reflection of some sort. But my mind still is not in gear... I think I'm still recovering from finding that Mirielle (my cat) broke my collectible Catherine of Aragon doll.

Recently, a member of an Internet forum on which I participate had asked for suggestions from others who had moved house recently. (I did so last summer.) I am hoping that my advice was useful. First, I suggested she look through items she's been saving, and (based on their condition) either discard or donate those which she had not used in 20 years (or had never used at all.) Second, and this is more important, do not let anyone you know have any hint that you have discarded or donated anything, anywhere. The aggravation of moving is difficult enough without having everyone you know (including those who have never seen a computer) insist that anything with which you would part would be worth a lot of money if you sold it over the Internet.

What is it, in the nature of some, which thrills to make others think that they have made the wrong decisions? Oh, you know the sort. Mention anything you purchased, and this type will insist you were charged too much - 'you should have told me - I could have found you the same item at half the price.' (Note that never have they actually done so, though this line is a recurring disease.) Most people in this category begin many sentences with either "You should have" or "I would have." The Internet has opened an entire new world of possibilities. It matters not that the item in your hand is identical to one which has been in the window of a charity shop for the past 18 months, unsold though the price is tiny. The book into which you have not so much as peeked since your school days has secondhand copies on Amazon.com for sale beginning at a price of a penny. Your mother's pots were not worth much in the first place, and have been obsolete since around the time of V-E day. But the busybody will assure you that you could get a lot of money for it if you sold it on the Internet.

If you listen to their advice, by the way, you will find that, with moving day very close, you will end up having to pay a substantial amount for someone to cart away all the stuff for which you'd hoped to get this fortune...

As a postscript, I must add that busybodies, more than any other breed, will insist they wish to help you (1) find the new home and (2) complete the actual moving. Wrong move, I assure you. They will be sure to tell you that you are buying property in the wrong area - that, if you are buying, you would have a better deal renting (and vice versa) - that rural properties are appreciating at a higher percentage (even if your tastes run to anything other than the rural) - etc., etc. It does not matter if you are very happy with your decision. The people who use these tactics thrive on getting others to question their own judgement.

Now, why do I mention this on a site which is basically concerned with spirituality? Because, however one lives their spiritual lives, there will be many who either think the spiritual life in itself is illusion or a waste, or who have a better way for one to pursue the path. Listening to them is a distraction and therefore a waste of time.

...and I have a first edition of Newman's Grammar of Assent... I'm sure that I could get a lot for that on E-bay...

Being 'open' in speech

Bear with me - I'm very sleepy, and not sure I'll make all that much sense today. :) Last night, I was reading a souvenir insert in the Daily Mail, celebrating Carnaby Street and the sensational 60s. Funny, the things that enter one's mind - though I'm still, in many ways, 1960s to the core. It was a big time for being 'open,' and this indeed was an improvement of conversations in which previous generations engaged, which tended to be all politeness, no content, and, all too often, manipulative. (For example, women of a previous generation would 'go with' men in which they had no interest, indeed whom they may have despised, just to be 'seen' and have the opportunity to meet other men. People who ostensibly were friends for decades never shared much about their true lives.)

Well, all right, that is a bit of balderdash - we are working class people, so those rules did not apply, and our solidarity was strong if our refinement was non-existent. :) But I did have a thought. It is very difficult to strike a balance between openness and honesty and self-absorption. Today, when pop psychology is the rage, and everyone fears violation of 'boundaries,' paradoxically many are becoming so self absorbed that I am tempted to remind them that the population of the planet is more than one.

Pop psychology did not exist during my early adult years, but the 'openness,' which, depending on which speeches one heard, either would lead to closeness with others or foster an appearance of what today would be called self esteem (we called it being 'together'), was a double edged sword. Coming from an Italian background, where people are gregarious, hospitable, and generous, yet the first sentence one learns is 'don't tell anybody your business,' one could imagine the conflict.

Recently, two dearly loved friends of mine experienced having elderly parents become very ill. Lord knows I know that story well - I watched my dad decline for three years after a major heart attack, then saw my mother's suffering, mental and physical, as I cared for her over four years following a colostomy. Why I thought of this I do not know, but it may be worth a mention. In my convent days, when we were supposed to have smiles like plastic dolls to look 'recollected,' and speaking of oneself, even in an indirect fashion, could figuratively land one in the brig, I wonder if our pat answers ('God's will' and such) really did anyone to whom we listened any good. We must have seemed unreal.

I very much dislike when people who hear of another's problem try to 'top them.' That is self absorption at its worst. But genuine honesty can be supportive. For example, it was hard for me, when my mother was very bad, not to be able to confide my own pain and exasperation to anyone. The 'rule' was that all I should care about was her suffering - my own should not matter. How well I remember, when she was in hospital, how I'd return home, totally exhausted, and have endless phone messages. Ostensibly, and in accord with Italian 'respect,' these messages were caring - but the conversations were more often along the lines of 'you have the wrong doctor - do they know what they're doing...'

I think it can be valuable for us to share our own pain, provided we do not desire a medal for endurance. It is far easier for another to admit to his own exasperation if he knows that others with ill parents do not have to polish their haloes daily and congratulate themselves for thinking Mum the most loveable Alzheimer's patient on earth.

Exams finally finished

I am quite exhausted, of course, and today's entry may be of little value. I've been glancing at some headlines this week (post exam collapse), and just had to shake my head. Why do people assume that the words of 'professionals' may be taken as gospel? I'm remembering one friend of mine, who had five children in the course of 12 years. She freely admitted that whatever the doctor told her about her pregnancy or newborn care with any one child had changed by the time the next was born.

So... now women who have pain relief during childbirth will have yet another reason to feel guilty, imposed by midwives who have to justify their own existence beyond deliveries. It appears that the latest wisdom is that, if any of the agony is compromised (I suppose it has some mystic significance, beyond any other dreadful pain), the woman later will 'feel she missed something' and fail to 'bond' with the baby. Ah, yes, the 'bonding' thing again. Until recently, for example, when families often shared quarters or at least saw each other frequently, it was perfectly respectable for family and friends to hold babies... now, isolation is the name of the game to some extent, lest another's holding the child ruin the bonding with the mother.

Has common sense expired? Last week, I saw a programme about a teenaged mother, whose midwife not only did not want her mother or sister to feed or hold the baby, but insisted that the little one had to be up and dressed very early before he was fed. I have enough experience of babies to know that they need to be changed most after that morning feed... who would wash and dress a baby before then?

I recall, years ago, knowing a couple from Spain who had infant twins. The twins did not talk as early as they expected (that everyone is different is never considered), and the couple were told by a doctor that, if the little ones heard both English and Spanish, they'd never learn English. It did not occur to the couple to question this, though more people grow up bilingual than do not... after all, they'd heard this from a doctor...

Why does this so annoy me? It is not related to children per se at all. What angers me is the false premise. People have always had problems - and we've all been different from day one. But each generation expects to produce the breed, finally, which is perfectly well 'adjusted.' That never shall happen. If anything, all that this approach will produce are other reasons for parents to torture and blame themselves.

Gospel of Judas and the like

Christ is Risen!

I am so bogged down with revisions for exams that I am sure none of you will mind if you hear from the Archbishop of Canterbury rather than myself for the moment. Click the link in the title to read his excellent sermon, "Doubtful Mysteries blind us to real faith."

Here is a brief excerpt, referring to the holy gospels:
When the Jesus of the Gospels comes back from the dead, he doesn’t go and crow over his enemies, he meets his friends and tells them to get out there and talk about him — about what his life and death have made possible, about forgiveness, making peace, being honest about yourself, checking the temptation to judge and condemn, tackling your selfishness at the root, praying simply and trustingly.

This is flesh and blood. It’s not about exotic mysteries. It is about how God makes it possible for us to live a life that isn’t paralysed by guilt, aggression and pride. It asks us to come down to earth and face what’s wrong with us. Is it surprising that some people found this too direct, too in-your-face to cope with? No wonder they preferred to go on about the names of angels and the secrets of how the world began.

Let’s ask ourselves why we’re sometimes more comfortable with such stories about conspiracies and stories about mystical gurus. Is it perhaps because when we turn to what the Bible actually says, Jesus challenges us pretty seriously? What if this is a story we haven’t really listened to before? And what if everything could be different because of this particular story?

Since I may not be writing much these next few weeks, I cannot resist linking to:

• When I was young and Gnostic


• Dwelling on the mysterioso

They may not be my best, but I cannot resist quoting myself at times. :-)

I wish you a blessed Easter season.

What is this with the "DaVinci Code"?

I understand that cautions about this novel were included in Easter sermons from both Rome and Canterbury. I, for one, cannot understand why this book had such popularity in the first place. Wondering what the fuss was about, I (a lover of history, of course, and known to enjoy historical fiction as well), I took a look at the book in a library. I barely got through 30 pages - the history and theology were so off the mark that I was becoming annoyed. Some parts may have been inside jokes, I suppose - "The Gnostic Gospels" being not a secret document from the time of Constantine but a recent book by Elaine Pagels. (Then again, the author showed little indication he knew much about Constantine or Nicaea, either.)

Of course, I am not one for detective stories (the sole exception being my collection of Jack the Ripper books and Umberto Eco's brilliant "The Name of the Rose," which is all too accurate a picture of the Middle Ages.) Yet people seem to be seeing the DaVinci Code not as a thriller in poor historical garb, but as a key to all sorts of secrets and inside information.

There is one thing for which to be grateful. At least this is an openly imaginative novel - not presented as a newly found gospel or book of secret revelations.

I was saying last week that it is unfortunate that Jesus' humanity makes many Christians uneasy. I'm afraid that 'revelations' (by which I mean visions, not his speaking through his Church at places such as Nicaea) about him can be a far worse. For example, with all due respect to Margaret Mary Alacoque, her vision of Jesus shows an effeminate whinge bag. The 'unapproved' revelations are worse still.

Then again, if Jesus gets a raw deal here, his mother tends to do far worse. The apocryphal books, for all that the influence of Gnostic, Persian, or other ideas is strong, have a certain charm. It is rot such as Mary of Agreda's "City of God" which makes me sigh. Were Mary anything like what she is in that godawful collection (four volumes, if I recall correctly), she would have been insufferable. She was allowed even less humanity than Jesus - a prissy sort who ate nothing but a few grapes, a housewife whose manual labour was performed by angels...

I would imagine the author of the DaVinci Code banked on that people cannot resist thinking they have inside, previously hidden information... and has been laughing all the way to the bank since.

Mysterium Fidei

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again... The new and everlasting covenant, the mystery of faith.

It is late, I'm rather exhausted if a bit exhilarated, and I have shed more than my share of excited tears at the "Christ is Risen!" part of the wonderful Easter Vigil.

Tonight, listening to the readings from the Hebrew scriptures in the darkened church, obviously I was thinking of far more than 2,000 years. One of the points of ascetic theology, on which all the greatest mystics would agree (and not only the Christian ones), is that one of the most difficult attachments from which we need to be freed is that of our images of God. They are useful, indeed, but never adequate.

As I listened to the verses about creation, about Noah, Abraham, the Exodus, Ezechiel - I realised, once again, that God is so beyond us that we can only catch a glimpse of the glory. Abraham, for example, had an intimacy with God (to the point of haggling - which the former purchasing manager in me loved) which is warm and lovely. Yet Abraham had little 'theology' on which to draw. My impressions, from the Old Testament, is that, for many centuries, the Chosen People were not even sure about monotheism. By the time of Sinai, indeed they would know to 'have no other gods before' the God of Israel - but it seems they still admitted the possibility that others existed, even if they were not to be worshipped. The God of Abraham, even with the puzzling test of the command to sacrifice Isaac, left Abraham with knowing He was not El. The God of Moses would identify himself with "I Am Who Am," and I doubt that He was anticipating Thomas Aquinas' pondering this to decide that the nature of God is to exist.

Throughout salvation history, we can see a great deal of God's gifts - His action within creation, with the Incarnation being the ultimate example. Yet even if we can recognise how God acts, we do not know precisely who God is. Divinity is beyond our comprehension.

I sound pedantic tonight... well, don't think I'm any less confused than the next person. I, too, have nearly lifelong images of God to which I have attachments. Oddly enough, many of these images are far from attractive! A God who loves to inflict suffering - who wants our lives to be an endurance test to prove obedience - who is always looking to make us grovel - I do not 'believe' in such a God intellectually, but the goblins haunt me all too often.

Yet even the beautiful images of God are never adequate. (I shall concede that I sometimes cannot reconcile "love" with divine power doing nothing to stop evil... another topic for another day.) The 'leap in the dark' to admit the limitations of our own vision can be frightening. I'm an avid believer who, in exploring aspects of the divine, could sound agnostic.

I wonder what the feelings were of the women who found the empty tomb - of Mary Magdalene when she saw the Master (whom she did not recognise.) Nothing in the disciples' understanding prepared them for Jesus' resurrection. He certainly met no common images of the Messiah, and the business with Rome was no different after his death (until a few centuries later, of course, when Rome would bow low indeed!) Images of the Messiah never included his being God himself.

The scholastic theologians would debate the aspects till kingdom's come :) (I have it on good authority that 'it's all straw'), but, men of prayer that they were, they knew what could not be defined. God is always full of surprises. Thomas, of course, defined what God was not. And the scriptures make that seem wise indeed: I am not one whose knowledge you can obtain by eating forbidden fruit, I am not El, I am not Ba'al or one of his relatives, I am not the liberator of Israel from Roman domination...

I am beginning to see why Francis of Assisi, whose images of Jesus' humanity endure to this day, had a favourite prayer through the mature years of his short life. "Lord, who are you? Lord, who am I?"

"They're kissing the feet!"

Recently, I have been studying the Victorian era in great depth, as I've mentioned in other entries on this blog. (It indeed is quite fascinating... though even a virginal hippie has to admit that she would have found the rogues and rakes of the 18th century to be far more fun. Human nature is rather constant, of course - the Victorians had to be either pompous, self-righteous, undercover, guilty rogues and rakes, or perpetual adolescents wrapped up in sports, hero worship, soppy words about marriage, and 'all for queen and country.) Being of the working class, yet having had the good fortune to have more education than the norm (...slight pause for others of my class to comment that theology 'will never get you bread and cheese'... and they are correct, though I do not regret how I live in the least), I smile at much of what I read. The oh-so-devout (translation: "respectable") middle class and wealthy of the Victorian times shook their heads at the 'wicked' poor (and by this I do not at all mean criminals.) I cannot recall the author (indeed, it may have been anonymous), but I read a delicious statement (off the mark, but still worth a note) about how all the poor wanted, as regards worship, was penny pamphlets and high Masses.

There is some truth to that, I am sure - though many of the poor had no pennies to spare, and little time or energy for Mass at all. But one misconception, which I say as one who sees deep faith in the sort of folk religion which was my own mother's mainstay, was in the wealthier sorts thinking the poor had only superstition, not real faith. (I'll save my comments about whether obeisance before one's mother and father, an Evo speciality in that era, is faith anyway.) One interesting study, of such spots as Southwark and Bermondesey, presented by Sarah Williams did not surprise me in the least. The poor may not have been crowding the churches (most who were thought that God had blessed England with special protection and prosperity post-Waterloo - poor in any era know better), but they did want the church to mark special occasions of their lives - did value their being part of the Church - and often expressed blessings and gratitude in the very actions which the highbrow would have classed as superstitious.

With this being Good Friday, any Franciscan is entitled to ramble a bit. Of course, the flaw in Franciscan preaching is and was that, vivid though the images of Jesus and his poor family are in relation to his birth and death, the divine and resurrected Logos can get lost somewhere. I understand this, of course. Many of the poor, and a substantial number of those of any class who are not given to contemplative ways, cannot identify all that well with anything as impossible to describe as the resurrection. Struggle, suffering and the like - in some way a part of every life - make Jesus seem far more a part of one's life.

My mother, a lady of extreme devotion, did attend Sunday Mass, but was not one for any services during the week. (It is possible she might have made sacramental confession had she ever had anything to confess... which, as she told me more than once, she never did.) Yet, on Good Friday, she did want to know the local church's schedule for when "they're kissing the feet." I doubt my mother could have sat through the lengthy Good Friday liturgy, but she was one of many for whom 'kissing the feet' was of great value. (Indeed, there were, and I believe still are, some churches where one may come to do precisely that, outside of service times or the main church.)

I kiss relics, my bible or Prayer Book after reciting the Offices, and my profession ring which was blessed by John Paul II. Yet I never was one much for 'kissing the feet.' I always found it vaguely embarrassing, perhaps because the very thought of kissing anyone's feet is totally revolting to me. It also seldom seemed all that reverent. The priests would walk about the altar rail, presenting the crucifix for kissing - it was wiped directly afterward. I might have been more comfortable with a profound genuflection.

Heavens, am I rambling today! Well, I attended a service (from noon to 3:00) of the Seven Last Words of Christ. (I love how, on this blog, I never give a hint of locations - I therefore can have a candour I could not have elsewhere.) The church which I attended has outstanding music and impeccable liturgy - yet this service was vaguely disappointing. There was no wonderful choral liturgy - just the sort of hymns which the Victorians love.

The preacher was one I'd hoped would be outstanding. Since he is a professor of homiletics in a very prestigious university, I had imagined deep exegesis, thought provoking reflections and exhortations... where he was one whose style centres on "as my friend Suchandsuch was telling me." I am not one for the anecdotal in preaching - nor am I much one for Good Friday sermons that seem centred entirely on 'us,' and on forgiveness. Most of the talk was about our reconciling with others, though there was a reference to Mary's constant worry about her son which almost reminded me of my friars.

On another note - what has happened during the past 25 years or so? Previously, if anything western preaching centred too much on Jesus' Passion (to an extent where the resurrection seemed an afterthought.) Yet I would see, in my adult years, evidence that we are rather afraid of looking at the Passion at all. (I suppose when the slogan "we are an Easter people" became fashionable, it became de rigueur to bypass that he had to be dead first.) Oh, I remember the arguments! Morbidity had to be avoided. Sin must be ignored lest self esteem be damaged (though those on the pop psychology crazes conveniently ignored that our internal recognition of moral difficulties, which one may learn to gloss over 'in therapy,' must be faced for any sort of health, spiritual or psychological.) Various books popular in my young adult years emphasised that 'guilt and worry' were 'useless emotions' - though it is my observation that those totally free of both are likely to be serial killers. I have had people complain to me about Julian of Norwich's writing vividly of the Passion - and, in the next breath, disliking her 'all shall be well.' (I'd best write an entry on the parousia, just for them...)

We must face the Passion of Christ - and not only to share in his pain, or to think 'my sin caused this.' Jesus' crucifixion came about through conflict, and that related to his vocation to preach the kingdom. The 'players' in the drama were not puppets, nor were they wicked. They were motivated by fear, or intolerance, or jealousy, or various other very common human traits. Recognition of that is something from which we shrink - because, created though we are in God's image, and deified though we were in the Incarnation, we still have that tendency towards violence, and always have.

The earliest Christians were all too well acquainted with the horror and shame of crucifixion. Yet the primitive church was built on the memory of a crucified man who rose from the dead. There is nothing else which is totally distinctive. It is amazing how the faith would spread, and in little time, on the memory of an executed criminal and his resurrection.

Buona Palma

I do not know the history behind this, but, in Italy, Palm Sunday is a major feast, with much good food, family visiting and the like. (In fact, I know of no other country where many women actually are named Palma.) I well remember, in my childhood, when we made the rounds of visits (to the living relatives, but also to where the deceased were buried.) It was the custom to present everyone whom one met with a piece of palm.

Sadly, the fate of my current palm is bleak. Mirielle (my cat) has a great affection for palm... and already chewed the piece I placed behind the crucifix, so I must hide it in the drawer once again.

I cry (from being moved, not sad) a great deal during Holy Week. It is a very special time for me, when I immerse myself in the services (renaissance or mediaeval Masses preferred.) There was a period, some years back, when I had a great anxiety about attending church (odd, for one who'd been a daily communicant from adolescence.) I would love to say my first day 'back' was, perhaps, Pentecost or Easter - but, as it happened, it was a 12-to-3 service on Good Friday. And, no, it was not the 'community celebrating itself.' I blush to admit this, but God works as he will - and what drew me back was not only my faith but love from several special friends who encouraged me - and music! Dignified liturgy and music will keep me when nothing else can.

However, Holy Week is no time for a pure sermon on the aesthetic. I was in tears this morning, during the procession, seeing the cross decorated with palm, and the palm branches we raised, and hearing "All Glory, Laud, and Honour." Throughout the Eucharist and Evensong today, I kept thinking, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" And the warm tears returned - to think we've been singing this for 2,000 years, about one whom John Dominic Crossan (whom I rarely quote!) aptly terms a 'peasant, nuisance nobody.'

John (my favourite gospel) leaves us with the picture that a crowd, thrilled by the raising of Lazarus, hailed Jesus as He entered Jerusalem. It all is rather exciting. My cynical side reminds me that the apostles would have been careful to be in the limelight - even if they'd all run in fear a few days later. And I'm afraid, knowing human nature as I do, that I'm all too aware that the same people who called out "Hosanna" probably were the same ones soon to be yelling "Crucify him."

Holy Week makes everything so vivid (when the liturgy is well done.) I'll go on weeping - through Tenebrae, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday - and cry the most during the Easter Vigil. It has been decades during which I've sat in dark churches, hearing the history of salvation, but I never fail to have tears rolling down my cheeks when we cry out "Christ is Risen!"

I'm wondering what would make me enter anything on the blog about my tendency to cry during Holy Week. I suppose because my recent tears are from being moved, and from gratitude. In the days when the liturgy was poor - and centred more on 'us' - it was plain torture for me. So, if anything, this blog is begging for dignity in liturgy - and music that is not mediocre. Worship deserves more than that.

A thought from Titus Brandsma

Click the title to read of his history

Now and then, usually unexpectedly, I am moved beyond description by words. I had known nothing of Titus Brandsma until someone gave me a prayer card about him. It contained a brief history, and cited a letter Titus had written right before he was transported to (his death at) Dachau. He reassured his sister, "At Dachau I shall meet friends, and our God Almighty is everywhere."

I cannot think of any image of hell that would be worse than Dachau. Yet Titus, facing this horror with serenity, could grasp that human violence does not remove the presence of God. I would not care to pursue this knowledge in the way in which did Titus - but I suppose, deep down, I know as well that Jesus' crucifixion should remind one of that reality.

Gloomy images are hardly a staple of my blog - and I'm not so pious that I shall pretend that thoughts of concentration camps do not make me ill, no matter how much spiritual insight those such as Titus may bring. I am writing of this not only because Titus' words brought me to tears, but because it strikes me how often we can distort our vision. Titus was not suggesting that Dachau was 'God's will,' or that he was taking punishment for the sins of the world, but was recognising that God was still with him - and (not that I could explain this) that the divine image of the Creator remains in all of his people.

As I've mentioned in the past, it is vaguely amusing that hagiography (at least the sort in vogue in my childhood... when saints were depicted as perfect Victorian children for us to emulate... and Jesus was referred to in hymns as such a perfect baby that 'no crying he makes,' and otherwise as perfectly meek and mild... an image to which the gospels woudl largely give the lie) would lead one to think that holiness leaves everyone in awe - rather in the manner of a 1960s scriptural epic. Many of the saints were not the ... meekest and mildest of creatures, and the amount of trouble they had from their close associates often shows that they were hardly recognised as great ones in their own day. It never occurred to anyone (except perhaps myself... I always was a difficult child for unimaginative teachers) to question why the saints supposedly were invariably loved and esteemed, where the Son of God was sent to execution.

Trouble was, the 'scriptural epic' mode was applied to Jesus of Nazareth. Though there was no doctrine to this effect, we rather had the idea that Jesus' death did not come about naturally, and that there was no conflict surrounding him which led to the circumstances. No, he only went to the cross because it was 'God's will.' (Do not get me started on the gruesome notion that God's anger needed to be appeased...)

It was doctrine that Jesus was both true God and true man, but, to quote the splendid Raymond E. Brown, "Many Christians tolerate only as much humanity as they deem consonant with their view of the divinity." Along the way, this truth was enhanced by an odd idea (perhaps born of the idea that Jesus was not a hermit but should have been, or some Jansenistic remnant which blushed at Jesus' having been at enough parties for anyone to be complaining) that Jesus had no genuine human relationships. He was cast in the role of the perfect monk (in some vaguely morbid style - not the concept which great saints would have conceived), where seeing family is a pure duty to edify them, and friends are only targets for sermons.

I see no indication that this is true, of course. Yet we tend to shy from the idea that Judas, far from being some demonic figure, was a trusted and well loved companion. Or that Jesus' 'could you not wait one hour with me?," in which love and anguish are vivid, was merely a line to be recorded for future Perpetual Adoration manuals. Or that "why have you forsaken me?" was not merely a scriptural quotation, which would lead us all to read the pertinent psalm.

I'm almost embarrassed to hit the Post button - there is so little wit or insight in this entry. Yet I believe there is at least a concept here that is worth noting. The holy - even one who was Holiness itself - are not spyhnx like figures who have no natural human feelings, whether of self or for others. They were not smugly saying, "I do not fear - nothing can happen that God does not will or permit." Nor is wickedness part of the divine plan, and the worst victims oblations. Evil we shall never understand - but it is not a force competing with divinity.

And please remember me with laughter

I come from a large, extended family, and, since fortunately most tended to live to an advanced age, as it happens my parents, aunts, and uncles (some well into their 90s) all died within a relatively brief period. Grateful though I am for their lives, it can be difficult, when one was part of a close (and enormous) family, to face that nearly everyone of my parents' generation is dead. Just yesterday, I attended a funeral for my aunt, and (aside from groaning inwardly at to what dreadful depths the liturgy for Roman Catholic funerals has descended) I could not help but notice who 'was not there.'

Yet there was a development for which I am grateful and glad. Afterward, my cousins, sister and I had hilarious conversations, remembering not only my aunt who just died but all of those who are no longer with us. Deo gratias! I know that, when I have left this life, I want others to remember me with affection and humour.

When I was a child, two of my grandparents were still living. My dad's father had died, but Sam remembered him pleasantly. It was quite another matter for my mother. Her own mother died at age 75 (quite a life span for someone born in the 1870s), and had many children and grandchildren, yet, to listen to my mother speak of her, one would think the only thing Grandma ever did in her life was die.

All children fear losing their parents, of course. Yet I do regret that, in my very early life, my mother gave me the impression that, once one loses a parent, the rest of one's life will consist of mourning. When my mother was elderly, she still could not speak of grandma without great sorrow - and this after 40 years and more.

It was quite different, when I was 16 or so, and a dear friend lost her father. It had been quite a shock - Jack was only in his 50s, and had died of a sudden heart attack while playing with his youngest son (who was no more than 10.) Still, within months, and certainly after years, all of his children remembered him with laughter, and regularly shared memories of good times. I am sure that later, when they married and had children of their own, they may have felt some sense of loss that dad was not there - but I would far rather live in the memory of others with joy than in a house of perpetual crepe.

Bereavement is a key example, but heaven knows there are others. I have seen many times how tragedy can break us - but how we may make things worse if we fear that letting go of the mourning eventually is a lack of tribute to the love we had (whether for people or anything else which is precious to us.)

A few years ago, I attended a memorial for the British nationals killed at the World Trade Centre in 2001. I have always remembered the very moving message from HM the Queen, which included the very true reflection that "grief is the price we pay for love." I do hope that, when I am gone, there is someone left to grieve for me (for a time) - one of the hardest aspects of a life totally devoted to the Church is that one may have no one to remember oneself in anything other than a capacity of 'service.' But let the grief be one not to endure. I wish to be remembered with laughter and warmth.

For those who have gone before us: may they rest in peace and rise in glory.

May the angels lead you into Paradise,
May the martyrs come to welcome you, and take you to the Holy City,
The new and eternal Jerusalem, where Lazarus is poor no longer.
May you have eternal rest.

Laughter, anyone?

Franciscan jester here! Lord have mercy, did I have a time this past Sunday! I had awakened extremely early, without meaning to do so, and both the cold weather and my having a mild stomach upset made me decide to attend a local church's quiet 8:00 Eucharist. (It was my first time entering that church.) I am by no means a 'morning person,' and I now am beginning to wonder if my absent-mindedness means I've reached the seventh mansion, lapsed into senility, or merely come to embody the proverbial scholar's role. A blind man was present, with a huge, jet black dog for a guide - and I somehow managed not to see the dog (who probably was as big as I am) and tripped over him on my way to communion. Oh, well, that was not as bad as when I had a shoulder bag and, not realising it had pulled up my skirt en route to the altar rail, treated the congregation to the sight of my knickers...

Foolish though I must appear, I am sharing these silly stories because I think a bit more laughter at our own expense would do us a world of good. Certainly, it is not at odds with the faith. Somehow, I picture Jesus inwardly snickering when, in the parable of Lazarus, he said how those who will not obey the law and prophets would hardly listen to a man who rose from the dead. His saying he 'did not come to call the righteous,' considering it was 'the righteous' whom he was addressing. How about "can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Jeroboam? Aaron's just not knowing what happened - they threw in the gold and this golden calf popped out. And heaven knows there are many stories of the saints which are hilarious. (Forgive my Latin, which is always dreadful - but even the earnest Augustine can be remembered for 'inter urinam et faeces nascimur.')

I loathe political correctness. One must 'walk on eggs' today, not knowing what perfectly good English word suddenly has a new and derogatory connotation. I remember referring to diversity (meaning 'of thought'), and having someone become angry, thinking I meant race. (I'd had no idea that this was the current meaning of the word.) Actually, the politically correct terms often are more offensive than not in many cases. It vaguely reminds me of a smug bitch I used to know who loved to insult others, but would coach it in terms she thought 'inoffensive.' Somehow, where accidentally saying something that just popped into one's head is universal, when someone carefully crafts the insult to use the 'inoffensive' term, it is all the worse for the obvious pre-meditation.

But the other side of the political correctness is that one cannot laugh at the human condition. Perhaps the Orthodox have the right idea, enjoying, even revering, the 'holy fools.' (Francis of Assisi among them.) We need to be so careful today, not to say anything that could be construed as offensive, that we take ourselves far too seriously - when we should not.

I was at a church service once which was exceedingly boring - lots of preaching of the 'guilt trip' variety. I was on verge of going out for air or dropping off to sleep, though the annoyance factor was high. Thank heavens for the unexpected relief! The dreadful homilist, warming up for another round of 'we have it too good - we may be headed for hell,' made a reference to the apostle Peter. A retarded girl who was sitting near me said, in fairly projecting tones, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter!" Yes, I laughed, as did others - and what a blessing. (Before anyone brings me to court for supposedly degrading the mentally challenged, may I add that I doubt this was any funnier than my incident with the shoulder bag. Oh, well, that's how Marilyn Monroe got started, I hear... and I have four times as much to display as she had.)

I laugh at my own hearing impairment. So, someone asked the way to All Souls... and I heard 'gallstones.' And I laugh at my being in 'outer space.' I well recall when Doris was proudly showing me a necklace which was a gift from her sons. It was the type where one can add little charms, and hers had many a memory - I was enjoying hearing what each charm symbolised. Yet I'm sure Doris was puzzled when I saw one charm which was a capital D, and asked "500 what? What does the D stand for?" (It never occurred to me, after wrestling with so much Latin, that it stood for Doris.)

One of my favourite memories is of a senile priest whom I knew. He was far too off with the faeries to handle Mass or confession any longer, but the two other priests hoped he could manage Benediction on his anniversary, provided they stood at his sides. Fr M managed to bless the congregation with the monstrance, but, when he returned to facing the altar, rather than beginning the Divine Praises, he immediately and hilariously began singing "Sweet Violets."

One of the greatest benefits of laughter is that it reminds us of our weakness - without making us guilty or afraid. Once we have a good look at universal human frailty, we can set all personal superiority aside and perhaps take a step towards love of neighbour - or see our own limitations and develop some sense of divine providence.

Politically correct or not, I shall laugh to my dying day at the memory of once hearing a Franciscan priest (deadpan, and obviously unaware of his error) say, at the point of lifting the Host, "Behold the leg of lamb!"

Give me a topic, please

My faith in humanity has been very slightly restored today. I visited a theology forum where some very knowledgeable (if rather pedantic) people, most young enough to be my children, were debating whether it is sounder, theologically and liturgically, for the Eucharist to be offered facing east or west. I felt rather like a potted plant being watered after a long interval. It made me long for the days when pub conversations (and how I love those!) in the East centred on such tit-bits as whether Arius was correct about the nature of Christ.

I mention this because I remember a quotation, though not the source, to the effect of how fruitless it is to attempt a battle of wits with an unarmed man, and heavens is there an excess of those! Most people seem so self absorbed that trying to have any kind of a conversation is fruitless. Yet I also suspect that, if they have any grey matter at all, it has atrophied from lack of use.

Though I could provide many examples, this one seems appropriate to illustrate typical dimness - it is a boring conversation which I've had so many times, and with a vast variety of people. I have had curly hair since I was born - it is one of few of my attributes which is obvious at first glance. One would think that those whom I've previously met, much less those who have known me for thirty years, may have observed the curls at one time or another. Yet this is a typical conversation, whether it is someone I've only met once in the past or one who has known me since the Beatles were in the top ten:

Dimwit: "Did you get a permanent?" (If it is someone who knows I'm not well heeled by any means, the opening may be, "You have financial problems, and you still got a permanent?)
Me: "No. I've always had curly hair."
Dimwit: "They are not wearing curly hair this year." (I suppose it is permissible to have such only if it cost one considerable money, but I digress..)
Me: "It came with my head."
Dimwit: "Have you ever tried blow drying it straight?"
Me: "Only from 1965 to 1993."
Dimwit: "My (sister/daughter/friend) blows hers out straight."

I suppose that it might be pleasant to be a fascinating sort... but I, unlike inhabitants of the self help aisle, have no such illusions. Yet I would think that anyone with an IQ exceeding that of "Lucy" (from the British Museum) would have more interesting topics to discuss than my curly hair. (Those who are less evolved than Lucy will begin their sentences with, "They taught us in Weight Watchers...," "My son/daughter is the best adjusted child in her (kindergarten) class,"... "They say...," or "I've been exploring my inner child.")

However, one who is tempted, as I am, to say (in a more polite fashion) "get a life," refrain from doing so because dimwits will turn it back on me, to suggest that I do not have one. :) Mention anything in the arts and humanities (which, after all, are my areas of specialisation), and the retort will be, "Oh, I don't have time for ..." Or the assumption will be that I wasted time on all those useless pursuits and degrees, when I could have been... making more money, going to Weight Watchers, blow drying my hair straight. It is not, of course, that I respect the opinions of members of the dimwit set - only that I do not wish my personal Vesuvius to erupt.

Sadly, situations such as these tend to exist in the Church as well. Preoccupation with some trendy topic, focussing only on one issue, instilling guilt trips and deprivation parties, all are just as boring as the nonsense I have mentioned. It is sadder still if 'the people can only relate' (in the minds of the speakers) to the mediocre and stupid.

I suppose I don't expect everyone to love Shakespeare, Chaucer, Bach, Verdi... I'd best stop there, or I'll be here all night. :) My point is that one should have real interests, and not insult others by assuming they have none.

Give me the pub days when there were arguments about the nature of the Trinity, as heated as if the debaters had been wearing football colours...

Do this in memory of me

Christianity is very simple. All it requires is a memory and a vision; and, if you can get them, some bread, and wine, and water. - Kenneth Leech

I am very involved with exam revisions now, and one of my courses has to deal with worship in the primitive church. Simplicity is hardly my strong point - yet bread, wine, water, vision, and memory are perhaps the only universal factors which have united the Christian Church since its earliest days. Looking back to a 'golden age' is a favourite pastime of everyone in every era, yet such have never existed.

I am not likely to call the Last Supper an actual celebration of the Eucharist - there can be no anamnesis of what has not yet happened. :) Yet the event is one for which something approaching Ignatian meditation is exceedingly tempting.

One wonders what the apostles were like. (I am also a peasant, yet the intellectual snob in me turns up her nose at the thought of their not being able to grasp the simplest parables and that most of them smelled of fish...) Right to the end, the apostles were tossing about the idea of who would have the highest place in the kingdom. Ah, yes, arguments about authority...

It is all too easy, particularly if one not only watches the scriptural epics and reads the 'Lives of Christ' of another time, and has been exposed to the 'see how these Christians love one another' myth, to picture twelve intense young men, in great awe at having been first to see the ritual which would sustain the Church until the parousia. Actually, what was present at the Last Supper was a prototype of another sort. :)

I am sure that at least one traditionalist was frowning that Jesus had changed the form for the Pesach meal with all this "cup of my blood" business. Those who were either simple or highly observant would question why the Passover was anticipated a day early. (Well, at least, in that day, they were spared the irate vegetarian's protests about the lamb, and no one offered the cup would have irately commented, "But wine is a drug!") Judas was on verge of betraying the Master. I would imagine that Matthew was still sensitive about why Judas held the purse, considering all of his own experience as a tax collector. The disciples were conflicted about who would be the kingpins (I suppose when the Messiah toppled Roman rule.) "The Rock," who had learnt insufficient humility from that sad incident of attempting to walk on water, was making bold promises he'd soon find were beyond him. The lot of them would scatter in fear before the night was out.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Church.

Still, whenever I heard the words of consecration at the Eucharist, it moves me to think that the perpetual memorial has endured for two millenia. For all the conflict, persecution, quarrels, heresy, whatever, which the early Church faced, that bread, wine, and water was the catholic element - and these rituals of common worship kept the Church from crumbling when many a reform movement of the time would die out quickly enough. Jerusalem would fall - the Word would spread to Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, Gaul, etc., with Christians being the odd ones who conformed neither to Jewish nor pagan society.

All that was common, then or now, was worship - praise and thanksgiving - water, bread, and wine - the memory and vision, and the scriptures. We shall never accept that, of course. :) Till the end, I'm sure that those of us who are avid believers will think that some ideal of unity and love will prevail. Yes, at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow... but not everyone will be happy and grateful at that gesture. :)

Lord, you are holy indeed, and all creation rightly gives you praise. All life, all holiness, comes from you, through your Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord, by the working of the Holy Spirit. From age to age, you gather a people to yourself, so that from East to West a perfect offering may be made...

A few jokes for St Patrick's Day

Best that you look here if you wish serious information about Patrick, inspiring as he is. But today I'm remembering my good friend Tom (who died in 1993) - a son of Kerry and Franciscan priest - by recording a few of his favourite jokes.

While in the pub with some cronies, Mike raised a toast: "To the best years of my life, spent between the legs of my wife." Later, Mike felt a bit sheepish about what he'd said, and though he told wife Katie that he'd remembered her, Mike said he'd raised the glass with, "To the best years of my life, spent in church beside my wife."

Next day, one of Katie's friends, who'd learnt of the toast from her own husband, congratulated Katie on the way Mike had complimented her. "Aye, and I wish it were true," sighed Katie, "But really it only happened twice - one before we got married, and once after. And the second time I had to wake him up when it was all over."

---

Paddy and Brigid, having kept company for 30 years, decided it was time to marry. When Paddy consulted his pastor about the ceremony, he admitted that he found many of the liturgical changes confusing and troublesome.

"Well, you can have the old rite if you wish, Pat, but it's so cold and informal. Now, with the new rite, there is warmth and love and real participation! So, were I in your place, I would take the new one." Ever obedient to the clergy, Paddy agreed.

On the day of the wedding, Paddy was driving to church alone when he got a flat tyre. Paddy removed his collar, tie, and jacket, rolled his trouser legs to the knees, and fixed the tyre. By then he was late, and, fearing Brigid would think he'd stood her up after 3 decades, he panicked a bit. Though Paddy remembered to adjust the rest of his clothing, he did not realise that his trouser legs were still rolled.

As he entered the church, quite breathless, the Monsignor, noticing Paddy's disarray, called to him, "Paddy! Pull down your trousers now!"

The indignant Paddy called back, "Father, I'll take the old rite!"

---

"Have you seen Mulligan lately, Jim?"
"Well, I have and I haven't."
"How's that you say?"
"On Thursday, I saw a chap I thought was Mulligan, and he saw a chap he thought was me. But, when we got to each other, it was neither of us."

--

Blessings to all for the feast of Saint Patrick.

Colette of Corbie

Click the link in the title for a brief biography of my dear patron Colette (my religious name being Elizabeth Colette, the former name for Elizabeth of Hungary). I'm afraid nothing I could think of to write in the blog today, the anniversary of Colette's death, to match this wonderful paragraph from the Poor Clare site to which I have linked:

Colette lived in, what some have called, the most hideous selection of time and space in history: the Hundred Year War in France. The English came, robbing, pillaging and taking hostages, needing to be bought off. The French came to drive out the English; they, too, lived off the land. The Strippers of the Wheat: the marauding private war bands came, fighting their own vendettas, torturing, burning, raping; indiscriminately hiring themselves to either side and exacting tribute. The crops failed, the plague came. So many died there were none left to bury the dead. The Church was in fragments; it was the age of the "Babylonian Captivity." There was one Pope in Avignon and one in Italy. Yet the well-nigh atheistic illuminators of the millionaire Duc de Berry's Books of Hours mainly depict rose gardens, hunting dogs and banquets, all under the signs of the Zodiac in a fallacious chivalric bubble.

My passion for the Middle Ages is by no means to be taken as a sign that I would have cared to live then! Yet I particularly love the quote above, because too many people later (particularly Victorians, including the fathers of the Oxford Movement... when they were not to busy disappearing into the romances of chivalry) had a quaint, picturesque image of the period as a time of romance. Though I would agree with Eamon Duffy that devotion was very high at the time, and join the liturgical scholars in shaking their heads at how the liturgy excluded people from communion and such, it is amusing that a time of such tumult is depicted as nearly a storybook period.

Yet there is a part of the 14th century that touches my heart deeply (besides, of course, the writings of the mystics whom I mention on my site.) It was the last age of true 'pluralism' in Catholicism. For all the benefits which, however indirectly, would come in wake of the Reformation, Trent would close the door on debate, inquiry, and the like - the church had been shattered, and all that could keep it from breaking into pieces entirely was canon law. In the 14th century, amongst those with the slightest pretense to orthodoxy, :) everyone agreed that the Eucharist was essential, and was the Body and Blood of Christ - but it was all right to say one had no idea how that was so.

Colette was a strong woman - in an Order where, from the time of Francis and Clare, strength in the women was not only common but often saved the men from excess. (Francis was many wonderful things... stable or strong not being among them. Had he not consulted Clare - and Leo - he well may have cut short the magnificent birth of the Order by retiring to a hermitage.) Mediaeval saints are orthodox indeed, but they happily were of the last time when obedience was not the "be-all and end-all" of religious existence. It is fortunate that they did not invariably defer to bishops... considering the quality of some of the hierarchy (the more in an era where there were at least two, sometimes three, popes).

When I chose Colette for a patron (heavens, was it over a quarter century ago?!), I knew little about her save that she had reformed the Poor Clares. Little did I know, then, that both her religious path and mine would hardly be 'textbook.' Like myself, Colette had an unconventional life. She received approval for the (still strong!) Poor Clare Colettines from a false pope, and, at the time, was the only member of the new congregation.

Do pray me for, dear readers - that I can possess one tenth of Colette's sanctity. (I'm afraid I already have her tenacity and tendency to 'go my own way' as a very enthusiastic lover of Christ... but that gets one into all sorts of messes when one does not have the holiness to match. Nor was the 20th century the best time for religious dedication that could be interpreted, wrongly, as obsession.)

Confusion of 'fasting' and 'fast track'

However few are certainties in this life, one highly predictable, annual occurrence is here once again. Those who are in training for spiritual gymnastics are looking for new variations on the Lenten fast. Based on threads on a theology forum on which I participate, one would think that fasting was a combination endurance contest, punishment, means to free oneself of all passions (foremost those for chocolate), solution to the economic situation of the world, and major means for ego stroking. I suppose that those who manage to faint win a daily door prize.

This is not to say that fasting is not a valuable spiritual practise. The best exposition of this which I have seen is that which Margaret Mary Funk gives in her book "Thoughts Matter for Practicing the Spiritual Life." (No, I neither know her nor receive royalties. My regular praise for this little book is based on its being the best capsule course in ascetic theology I have seen. I can only hope that no one, reading my favourable review, will think that it is a shortcut to the Seventh Mansion.) She bases her explanation on the works of John Cassian, and also on the adaptation of the related concepts in the Benedictine Order (of which she is a member.)

Were I to be asked what is the primary benefit of fasting (...I'm going to tell you anyway, though you did not ask), I would say it is the essential awareness it fosters. When fasting is a manner of placing thoughts in proper perspective, it removes distractions to our prayer lives and love for others. Placing a simple drive - that for food - in such perspective can help us to deal with thoughts which are greater and more dangerous distractions.

The forum I mentioned had enough participants who wish to embrace vegan fasting (such as is common with Orthodox Christians)... because they think the 'western fast' is not difficult enough. I am no expert on Orthodoxy, but my understanding is that, first, those embracing strict fasting in that tradition do so in consultation with a spiritual father or mother. Presumably, in such a context, were pride, self hatred, heroism, or a distorted, excessive sense of either one's sin or virtue to intrude on the practise, such guidance would keep it 'in check.' As well, when one is part of a sister church where this is the common practise, it is stripped of any glamour - it is orthopraxy, as with Jews who observe Kashruth, not a personal obsession.

Why do I say 'obsession' about an ascetic ideal which is nearly as old as the Church? I'm basing that on the sort of comments I've heard or read, such as were on that forum. Too many people were not seeing underlying gifts one can receive from fasting at all. Fasting is not a contest in starvation or deprivation. (Trappist monks, vegan for centuries, certainly saw to it that they had sufficient nourishment to work in the fields.) The more enthusiastic Christians whose contributions I read went on and on about how they were 'too comfortable' (I wish they'd try some gratitude instead of guilt), how what they are doing lets them make large donations to the poor (all, of course, in a larger scope of not recognising one's limitations), how much weight they lost, etc., etc..

If one finds secondary benefits from fasting, fine - but that should not be a focus. It is intended to remove distractions, not create new ones.

No Franciscan is going to deny the importance of caring for the poor (though, equally, none of us have any illusions about having huge means for alleviating poverty of others.) Yet Francis, by comparison with other founders of religious Orders, in no way imposed rigid ascetic practises on his friars. (I think Francis, who later would admit that he'd damaged his health, always remained aware that some of his own excess in that direction came from a preoccupation with his own sinfulness. He would have a lifelong struggle with self hatred, yet it was accompanied by a delight in divine grace.) It was a Franciscan custom to see whatever was on one's plate as a blessing - and, indeed, in many Franciscan houses, the grace before meals ends with "May the Lord bless this gift of charity."

I see no benefit in thinking of food as evil (all too common today, when, based on the sites one consults, one can think that all the evils of the world stem from what one eats, or even that eternal life and youth can stem from not eating.) Rather, we should take a tip from Francis, and approach the table with not only enjoyment but, most importantly, gratitude. Franciscans know that both feast and fast are important customs on the calendar. We seldom have the wealth for the table to be groaning, but there is no sense of 'I'm eating chicken tonight, when I live in the First World and therefore am an oppressor of the Third.' Gratitude for that chicken (tomato, bread, apple) and for the people who raised it is a fine practise! Over time, and this without directly giving it attention, the gratitude for others and for the fruits of creation inevitably will lead to greater concern for those who do not have them in sufficient measure.

My cynical side tells me that a love for deprivation is more often a sign of avarice than of detachment. I well remember once reading a work on the spiritual life (name escapes me) which mentioned how, in the highly austere life of the Carthusians, now and then a new candidate has unusual 'fervour.' The life just is not austere enough for him - he needs a harder path. Members of this set normally find the life unbearable within a short period of time.

If everything is 'too easy' in the spiritual life... then I'll believe there is a parallel universe! Most of the practise is simple, 'banal,' and actually difficult - but not tortuous! It is not a shortcut to the crown and glory of the martyrs. Someone who is proud of how she, more so than any other Sister in the house, is highly abstemious may well not need to eat - because the glory she assumes she has in the eyes of others is sustaining enough. (Actually, in religious Orders, it would be highly unlikely that anyone would be allowed to add their own further austerities...)

I'm laughing at a memory. I once heard a lecture (not, I must add, in accord with the 2,000 year history of the Church) about 'meditation' about thirty years ago. It all was based on 'energies' - and supposedly one who did whatever the lecturer was suggesting would 'be at the Prayer of Quiet' within thirty days. (I'm not at the Prayer of Quiet after 30 years... and for some reason, which perhaps is obvious, I doubt that quiet is ever going to be my own strong point.) This appealed to the crowd in which I occasionally moved at the time (fledgling mystics, pre-shrunk), who were inclined to such statements as, "I read John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul last weekend. I remember when I went through all of that, a long time ago." (This though none of us had been born a 'long time ago.')

There are no 'instant fixes' in our lives. Fasting had no glamour until it became relatively rare amongst Christians. Let us use it as a way to remove the distractions that keep us from the true essence of Lent - the Incarnation, eschatology, the resurrection, and all the other blessings that can die in the light of our seeking our own glory.