"Back to Church" and the prodigal son

There is a small forum, on which I participate, on which various participants are priests. One ongoing thread is about ideas for sermons. One of the priests mentioned that his parish is having a 'back to church' Sunday, intended to welcome those who have not been members in the past, and that the text on which he is to preach was the parable of the Prodigal Son. I find that parable, even at its most basic level (I'll get beyond the surface a little later), to be enormously moving - an exquisite setting forth of the total love of the Father (whether one son effectively wished him dead by asking for the inheritance, and the other had a public quarrel which would have been nearly an equal insult in the time and place.)

What surprised me was that some comments on the thread seemed very self absorbed. For example, three first-born children disliked the treatment of the elder son. (I am a first-born, but, though I gave away a fortune through the years, I did not fall into squandering in the manner of the son in the parable. The chances of my younger sister's ever being prodigal in any sense are on a par with those of the entire Milky Way galaxy's being wiped out by a mega-asteroid this evening.) Yet it did remind me that this parable, perhaps more than any other, is one to stimulate intense emotional reactions. I would imagine that, in any congregation (particularly one composed of more than the average number of those who have been away from church involvement), images in the parable could strike painful chords. Repentance is difficult but a deep grace and joy - yet those who are on verge of it, or who are still pained by recognition of their sinfulness, could be very shaken. Those who have conflicts with their parent or sibling can find those thoughts intruding. A resentful 'elder brother' could be wary of who among the 'returnees' might not be good company for their kids. A 'prodigal' (or anyone who is in difficult financial conditions) could be shaken by the penniless state that can reduce one to feeding pigs - and may even be lost in thinking that, fatted calf banquet or not, the son in the tale is still broke!

'Back to church' efforts can be laudable, but also have their own problems. Sometimes such efforts are seemingly enthusiastic, yet the newcomers may be disillusioned to find that the only thing they are certain to be given are pledge cards and collection envelopes. The most enthusiastic 'greeters' often head volunteer committees, and will suddenly lose interest in those whom they seemed to find fascinating once the newcomer signs up. Those who would welcome spiritual guidance may find this is not on offer. Others, who may not have had any particular interest in churchgoing (or whose efforts in that direction were not encouraging), may be assumed to be 'alienated,' and pestered by those who assume they know the reason for the alienation (whether the assumptions bear the slightest relation to the truth or not.) If someone had a relatively wild life (at least by the general standards of the congregation), people may at first be moved by their honesty, then avoid them because they don't want the children to think that the past behaviour is acceptable. (Augustine or Francis of Assisi would not be welcomed, for example, in settings where staid lives focused on obedience to parents were the ideal. Matthew may have been outcast in the first century, but I imagine anyone industrious enough to have made a profit on collecting taxes might have a better chance for praise than Il Poverello - who cost his father a fortune I doubt the most prodigal of sons could match.)

I would imagine that one using the parable of the prodigal son would need to tread softly. All of us, however devout, have had reason for major repentance in some fashion - and this is a great grace. Still, those unfamiliar with this constant call to conversion could be uncomfortable if they heard a sermon from which they inferred, however excessively, that they were dredges who had to be converted merely because they had not been ones for parish membership. (Yes, that is a bit 'much' - but no more so than priests hating this parable because they are first-borns!)

Tom Wright, in his excellent "Jesus and the Victory of God," provides much insight, not only into this parable itself but into the larger framework of Jesus' message of the kingdom. The parable is part of a theme of exile and restoration - "What God had done for (Israel) in the Exodus - always the crucial backdrop for Jewish expectation - he would at last do again, even more gloriously. Yahweh would finally become king, and would do for Israel, in covenant love, what the prophets had foretold. Exile and restoration: this is the central drama that Israel believed herself to be acting out. ... But this is a highly subversive retelling. The real return from exile, including the real resurrection from the dead, is taking place, in an extremely paradoxical fashion, in Jesus' own ministry."

Wright goes on to explain that, in the parable of the prodigal son, what both sons did was unspeakable. Asking for an inheritance was tantamount to telling a father one wished he was dead, and to return was huge humiliation for the family. Having a public quarrel, as the other son did, shames the father as well, "and in turn suggests that he wished the father dead so that he could at last enjoy his share of the property; but again the father is astonishingly, unbelievably gentle."

The parable, as Wright notes, "creates a whole new world. Those who object to what Jesus is doing (cannot see that the resurrection and return from exile are happening." The entire parable concerns a complete call to reconciliation.

My brief summary cannot do justice to Tom Wright's excellent explanation, but, as usual, I had an associated thought. Those of you who follow this blog would know that, in the extensive study of the Old Testament (and its worship and theology) which I undertook over the past few years, I was privileged to have much new insight into the Hebrew scriptures. The exile indeed had been a time of loss and confusion for Israel. Yet the redactions which were post-exilic (of which I've written in previous posts) show how very much revelation had been realised through this painful experience and its aftermath. As a few simple examples - monotheism is developed. Redactions of Genesis show an awareness that we are in God's image - indeed, icons of the transcendent God. Yahweh is not territorial, but, even when defeat made the 'old gods' of Canaan, Babylon, or Persia seem the victors, Yahweh remained the God of all creation, working even when we cannot see his glory. Israel cherished the worship at the temple, but had further learnt that common worship can endure when there is no temple or sacrifices - and that would be exceedingly useful knowledge when the second temple was destroyed in 70 AD (not to mention to this day.)

Exile and return seldom would seem glorious for those who had been outside the pale, as it were, in the first place! But they are reminders, not only of God's eternal love and fidelity, but of how the life and worship of the community, not the word of the scriptures alone, are instruments of divine revelation. Worship often is all that unites us (both the Old and New Testaments do not give a rosy picture of warmth and consensus within Israel / the Church.) The history of both Israel and the early Christian centuries show how awareness of the depths of revelation (for example, Yahweh as the only God, or the Trinity) spring forth from worship.

It is all about call and response (and often 'return from exile') in the end. Whichever 'son' we happen to be at the moment, it is the Father's love which binds us to him - which can chase after us before we even are close enough to approach (and sometimes when we aren't even aware we want to be welcomed home, even if we are delighted that this happened when we have a bit of hindsight.)

Et vitam venturi saeculi

My Latin always had major flaws, so I'll ask those with better facility to be kind if my heading is faulty. :)

Recently, I attended Mass at a nearby church which I periodically visit. A very intense young priest mentioned that Pope Benedict had issued a new encyclical about eschatology. (I could not locate this on-line - perhaps it is still in preparation.) I could understand the sentiments expressed in the brief sermon - the celebrant was disappointed because he'd hoped the encyclical would refer to how things would be in heaven.

I can sympathise. Not that I have any idea of what heaven would be like - and I'm not about to speculate about the parousia or our resurrection, even though I constantly refer to cosmic redemption. (I am wondering how Pope Benedict might be expected to be able to describe the next life... but let's leave that for the moment.) I can recognise the truth in the pope's viewpoint, having been privileged to have read both his brilliant work, Eschatology, and having such quotes on hand as this one:

"Heaven, therefore, must first and foremost be determined christologically. It is not an extra-historical place into which one goes. Heaven's existence depends upon the fact that Jesus Christ, as God, is man, and makes space for human existence in the existence of God himself...It is by being with Christ that we find the true location of our existence as human beings...Christ is the temple of the final age; he is heaven, the new Jerusalem, he is the cultic space for God...

If heaven depends on being in Christ, then it must involve a co-being with all those who, together, constitute the body of Christ. Heaven is a stranger to isolation. It is the open society of the communion of saints, and in this way the fulfilment of all human communion."

For the record, all of this fits in neatly with my form of spirituality, which is based on the Incarnation, a dynamic Creator, our deification and so forth. That doesn't mean I really understand - or that I don't pine for a world without the suffering and sadness of this one - or that I even have the slightest notion of what Jesus meant (or his hearers' may have thought) when he said the kingdom of God was present.

I have no answers for my readers - only questions. :) As much as we may pine for union with God, I think we all know that it is a constant quest in which every slight awareness of divine majesty leaves us all the more aware of the limitations of our own vision. Still, considering the bleakness this earth often holds, I think many of us would feel a wee bit dishonest denying that we hope for an afterlife which is total joy. Hands up, everyone who aches for intimacy with the divine, yet still would admit (even with a blush) that we hope such a quest will mean a time when we are unhampered by the pains of this earth.

Not that the pope is in any way denying this! But he is affirming a great truth - that the kingdom of heaven is not 'out there,' and that One who would face the horrors of crucifixion proclaimed that it was at hand.

Wondering if Gennaro's blood liquefied

No, I haven't even done the usual Google search to check. I'm confident that the blood of Januarius liquefied on schedule.

This may seem totally disjointed, but bear with me - it will come together in the course of the post, I'm sure. :) Particularly in my younger days, I greatly enjoyed the writings of C. S. Lewis. He and I have little in common, but I found it fascinating, since I'm a lifelong believer (...even if I sometimes wonder 'are You really there?,' I still believe I just received his Body and Blood), that one who went from atheist to avid Christian was also a highly complex character. (That is a characteristic we indeed do share.) "Jack" Lewis was such an odd combination - one who could fall into Narnia, be inclined to rationalism next, struggle to reduce suffering to an intellectual abstraction then write his most tortured (and bluntly honest) work when he finally, fully allowed himself to love another and lose her. There is much struggle with light and dark in all of his works. For example, it makes me shudder to think that Jack believed that natural disasters could be the work of the demons (seems a bit dualistic to me), but I believe that, for one who is concurrently so romantic and so rational, those who deal with Narnia never forget the White Witch, as it were.

I, too, am quite an odd combination, though the Franciscan jester in me balances out the Dominican-bred Thomist and the surprisingly Benedictine 'banality of orthopraxy' type I've become in my later years. (The orthopraxy is my salvation in the end - I'm still the artist, highly intense, very romantic under the cynicism.) Naturally, I also have the weird 'trinity' of identities in being a passionate, cynical, anarchical, superstitious, renaissance Mediterranean, tempered with English style and flavoured strongly with the 'light and dark' such as C. S. Lewis possessed, which was much a characteristic of the Irish nuns responsible for my early religious education.

My admiration for John Henry Newman is no secret, and I've been asked, now and then, why he never was canonised. I cannot say for certain, of course, though I do wish his version of 'liberal Catholicism' (and, for those unfamiliar with what that meant in 19th century England, please look up references before assuming I mean any lack of orthodoxy!) were more generally known and accepted. He, too, was an odd mix - brilliant in his Catholic theology (well, when he got past the convertitis stage) - never quite able to grow totally free of the dark side of his evangelical youth. I think part of my affection for Newman, as well, is on a plane more human than sublime. His scholarly abilities were the sort I wish that I possessed, but, like myself, he was inclined to have poor judgement and to act rashly because he trusted the integrity of all around him (and Manning and Wiseman were not exactly models.)

But I am surprised that even John Paul II, who all but began a Canonisation of the Month Club, never raised Newman to the altars. Perhaps it is because Newman (who, not being a martyr, would need miracles to his credit for beatification) was English. In his own Ultramontane time, when English bishops who loved the pomp and pageantry, even sentimentality, of Italy, had no real grasp of that Italians were not at all into king, country, or Church in the way they wished to promote, miracles were happening all over the place. Apparitions, some miserable, others wonderful, were at a high point in France, and stigmata was not just a memory of Francis of Assisi. Italy didn't just have tales of liquefying blood, but of saints who flew through the air or bi located, souls from purgatory (to which there was an entrance in Sicily) left hand prints in a Roman building, hosts bled when treated sacrilegiously. England is more low key, of course. France might have a beheaded king and much anti clericalism - Italy changed governments every six weeks and had lots of anti clericals, not to mention many devout souls who were far more into Saint Anthony (or a favourite local saint - it helps to be connected) than church attendance or sacraments. France and Italy were Catholic for too long not to have a healthy way of laughing at one's self built in. (Both had hosted popes, real and false - and that keeps away any adulation beyond what is due.) England had to be low key, lest the Calvinist element swallow the Catholic whole.

Most people who loved, and still love, John Henry Newman (probably the only 19th century English theologian worthy of the name) are not likely to pray for miracles. I myself much prefer Newman's intellectual, low key approach overall. Of course, I have another complication. I'm so intense that seeking miracles (were that anything to which I'm inclined) would be likely to divert me rather than to be helpful.

Yet I shall confess that I envy the sort of trusting, open, childlike faith my mother (and many others) demonstrated. I have a great affection for rather odd devotions, such as my mother's to the Infant of Prague (I still have her statue of him, and actually say the prayers now and then.) I wish I could 'become as a little child' (and I say that with esteem) and turn to God with such simple intercessory prayers, which assume a loving Father (and many heavenly friends) who is happy to hear a child's needs.

Intercession (other than as set forth in the prayer book) is difficult for me. I'm always a little afraid of, perhaps, getting whacked for wanting more than what is on my plate. :) My mother could bring her heavenly friends any need. I find myself getting a bit nervous when I do so. "Yes, Lord, I am asking you for help - but that doesn't mean I don't know that people in Haiti, or stricken with Hurricane Ike, or in Darfur or Afghanistan are not far worse off - and, no, I don't think I'm better than they are - yes, I'm grateful for what you've given me..."

Perhaps, when God is such a showman in Italy at times, it is because people needed the dramatic - or even that, with their being open to odd manifestations, working in that way was a special gift. I'm cautious about liquefying blood, bleeding Hosts, houses from Palestine which angels transport to Loretto for safe keeping, and the lot. I love the devotion that goes into veneration of relics of, for example, Mary's veil or the true Cross - even if I wouldn't have to swear to their actually being these. (I myself hugged my reliquary and relic of the True Cross to me all evening, one night last week when I was fearful.) I carry an Agnus Dei in my tote bag. I sometimes sprinkle my flat with holy water, and I once remembered my Aunt Mary's action of placing pictures of the Madonna in the window during a bad storm... and did the same.

"No, Lord, I didn't meant to be magical... I don't think I'm special... I know there are people dying in the streets of Bangladesh... but is there some way you can help me, since my bathroom ceiling fell in, and the woman above me, who could win a Best of Bitches trophy in a dog show, was in no way cooperative about getting access for the plumber... yes, I know this is nothing like the devastation in some areas, but there is a recession, and I need nourishing food... the ceiling must be fixed before it gets cold, and the cat got so frightened ever since it fell in the very room where she has her litter pan that she shrieks at the sound of water and uses my kitchen for a latrine..."

Notice the conflict. :) The Irish nuns, who more or less had us kids thinking the stake and the block may still be round the corner (in fact, I think some of them wished it were, since martyrdom was the only sure way to heaven), were superb teachers, but left me with the old goblin of a God who wanted sacrifice and suffering, and guilt trips about everything we had. I want to act with the simplicity of my Italian family, but I'm so passionate about theology, and getting more apophatic by the minute, that I am more likely to find Cranmer's approach (in liturgy, not strategy!!) to be better sustenance.

Rome was not exactly a land of promise for Newman, and I doubt C. S. Lewis thought about the Mediterranean much. Yet I somehow feel both of them would understand. :)

Rarest of virtues?

It strikes me, again and again, how very much perspectives vary. I recall, perhaps 12 years ago, when a religious Sister whom I knew, and who was very involved with working with young adults, asked me what I saw as the biggest deficiency in local churches. My response (integrity) left her looking as if she'd bitten into a lemon. She told me she'd expected an answer about a lack of groups.

Groups? All I know is that, just as the slogan "To Jesus Through Mary" was overworked during my childhood, a priest friend who commented that the new catch phrase should be "To Jesus Through Meetings" was spot on. One of the saddest outcomes of the "age of the laity" emphasis often was that the clergy made themselves totally unavailable.

Now on to what I consider to be the rarest of virtues - compassion. I suppose most of the devout would see charity as the most important virtue, and this is correct, but genuine charity requires a compassion which few possess. Perhaps that is because, in one way or another, most of us were taught that compassion was deadly!

I know this may seem a silly example, and it comes from a source which is not religious, but I've mentioned here and there that I often relax a bit with Maeve Binchy novels. Maeve's works may win no awards for plot, but, at her best, she is excellent at depicting human relationships (including misunderstandings, failures in communication and the like) of all kinds. In one of her books, a young bride, whose husband would be considered an overall 'catch,' actually has a very troubled marriage. She struggles with this for many months, then finally tries to confide in her mother. Her mother calls her a selfish, lazy slut... a horrid misunderstanding, but one I'm sure we've all seen in many lives. "Feeling sorry for yourself" (the definition of which extends to any sharing of pain, fear, confusion, or unhappiness, however deep) apparently is the ultimate crime.

Of course, in the religious realm, that extended to a taboo on speaking of any pain - because that meant not "accepting God's will." I recall sickening biographies or hagiography which made saints (or any religious figures, however obscure) seem to be unfeeling sorts who (as one extreme example) couldn't have felt sad even seeing a son slaughtered (or crucified) because this would involve not rejoicing in "God's will." (As I've treated elsewhere, one of my few points of agreement with Bertrand Russell would be in that he commented that, if everything on earth has a purpose, it would be the purpose of a fiend.)

There are few people in whom one can confide - and most of us learn that this can lead to betrayal, distortion, smug comments about "God's will," or the endless "you're feeling sorry for yourself!" Pain could not be shared - and, if it was, it only led to abuse, or disparagement at the least. Though I do not know the exact source of an attitude which grew in the later 20th century, probably some form of psychobabble, kindness to those in pain was unthinkable, because (supposedly) if "I" am loving to anyone who is troubled, he'll persist in the pain in order to manipulate "me" for sympathy.

You realise, I am sure, that I've witnessed these things many times - and would file the attitudes under "balderdash" (since I'm too polite to use words which might have greater impact but fall beyond the bounds of propriety.) Still, I wonder if the reason we mortals sometimes fall into mocking another's misfortune is because we are afraid. Listen to some of the talk at any funeral - even for someone who is 94. He didn't exercise enough - didn't eat right - would never have had cancer were he a vegetarian - whatever. Deep down, we all know we are going to die - but we would like to believe it is in our power to live to be 110 (and this as an extended early middle age) if we only do the 'right' things.

Everyone has suffering in this life, to be sure, but, though I in no way think evil is "God's will," much suffering can have a valuable element if it leads to greater compassion. Too often, it does nothing of the kind. We need to knock others' misfortune, because we fear having the same thing happen to us - and, more often than not, deep down, we know perfectly well that it can.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, though I doubt it is unusual for those with lifelong religious devotion, but, in my younger days, there were problems others had which would have made me avoid them - indeed, I may have judged them to be 'a sham' if they professed to be religious while having such problems. (I'm not about to elaborate, but I'm not referring to those guilty of heinous crimes!) Today, without denying the tragic nature of some such problems, or in any way minimising virtue or sin in any of us, I can well understand - even if the problems are not the same as my own.

That is why I sometimes am stupid enough to confide in others (and I'm a very private person.) I'm saying that with exaggeration, of course - obviously, I have people in whom I can confide with a helpful result, and they in me. But those who have genuine compassion are rare - their own pains, faults, mistakes, and so forth only make them disparage others the more.

A few thoughts about Hildegard of Bingen

I shall caution my readers that this is not one of my well planned, 'take six hours to consider, then write as if it were impromptu', entries. I noticed my 'blogging' was getting a bit rusty, and thought an entry might help to keep me in shape. :)

One of the collections on my library shelves which I greatly value is "The Wisdom Of..." series. These pocket sized books, which contain selections from great saints of every era, are perfect to tuck into my bag, and today, when I was making the brief 'retreat day' I try to do weekly, I happened to select Hildegard of Bingen. I had not even realised that today was her feast day until I attended the midday Eucharist and heard it mentioned.

Hildegard was a fascinating, versatile (and, I understand, quite volatile) mystic of the 11th century. (I must write an essay on her for the site one of these days... I suppose that, with all the work I just completed for my finals, I'm having a period of not wanting to do all the research for the footnotes as yet.) I'm not positive that Hildegard would meet all requirements for 'heroic sanctity,' but, as the brief article to which I've linked in the title will show for those unfamiliar with her, she certainly was not any decorative medieval flower. (As an aside - if you are interested in herbal medicine and the like, as I am, Hildegard's book on the subject is not likely to be helpful. It describes only various animals and plants and their humours... among them the gryphon and unicorn. This was not an era of stressing empirical evidence, and was indeed one where zoology was studied in libraries, but I've no doubt Hildegard would have defended her qualifications as physician much as she did her visions.)

Today, coincidentally, is also the feast of the Stigmata of Saint Francis. It struck me, since I periodically receive correspondence related to my Internet site in relation to mysticism, that many people were, and are, fascinated by unusual phenomena - indeed, the occasional "how do I become a mystic?" queries I receive seem to be aimed at a desire for visions, 'reading souls,' and so forth. Well, I cannot tell anyone how to become a mystic - nor could anyone. It is not a practised art - it is a vocation, and those who have it are hand picked, as it were. We are a Church - yes, even those of us who do not experience the odd gifts - and each of us are called, and serve, in our own fashion. Most of those, such as Teresa of Avila to mention one most famous, who did experience 'consolations' such as visions found them to be more distracting than otherwise, and they always were cautious about seeming revelations. My old friend Julian of Norwich, who indeed recalls a singular vision of Christ (there is no mention of such experiences recurring), did not relate this as if she had a video of the crucifixion to share, but purely to underline spiritual truths which not only the experience but years of dedication to prayer had revealed.

As I've said elsewhere, most who are dedicated to a life of prayer live in what I term 'the banality of orthopraxy.' Most would not have, and certainly would not desire, visions, levitation and the like. (I fortunately have experienced none of these things, and am quite certain that, were most of us to do so, we'd behave like half wits.) Hildegard, Francis, Catherine of Siena, and others, who had unusual experiences, probably would be ruined today - well, no, that wouldn't happen, for they all were too feisty, but let us just note that they'd probably be considered nut cases, and those less committed would end up with psychiatrists who would concentrate on making them doubt their own integrity. (None of the three I've mentioned would have cared a fig about what anyone else thought of them, thank heavens.)

Francis' stigmata, Caterina's being wed to Christ with a ring made from the foreskin removed in his circumcision, Hildegard's visions which today are thought to have come from migraines - all of these indeed may be manifestations of what was within them, rather than divinely bestowed. To choose one example, if Hildegard's visions (which she stormed heaven to publish) were from a physical condition, this would not matter in the least. What does matter is the divine grace and response - to put it crudely, what the result of religious devotion becomes. "By their fruits you shall know them."

Most devout Christians, myself included, have never witnessed miracles (for all that most of us, I would say, indeed have times when, with hindsight, we can see special periods of divine providence. The Master usually says "repent" in some fashion during these!) The great mystics often never experienced odd phenomena - they spent far more time with the liturgical prayer, or scrubbing floors, or engaging in counsel (the anchorhold was second only to the tavern in attracting the long-winded), or tilling soil than in exalted states.

Switching gears, only because this thought suddenly came to me, within the past month or so I had a problem (which I'll not detail here, but which was very nerve racking and involved financial strain), and several people whom I am privileged to know were of assistance to me in various ways. Not all of them are exactly devout - those who are know the 'banality of orthopraxy' as well as do I, and all but one are more generally concerned with rolling up their sleeves for the poor and outcast than with such things as mysticism. Yet I was reminded very much, through the love they showed, of Christ as being near. (Yes, indeed, I need that reminder often!)

Since my own life is centred on prayer, it does irritate me when prayer, rather than service, is treated as 'selfish' or somehow denying a call to 'social justice' (... though Lord knows I've been known to have commitments to the latter.) For those of us whose lives are focussed on prayer, charity is involved in embracing the entire church in reciting its liturgies - but love of neighbour is the natural outgrowth of dedication to praise. More often, active life in some form is more prevalent in a Christian life. Yet I am convinced that the test of whether we have love for God (even if we don't think of this much, or spend time in devotion) is in the love we show for others.

"When I was hungry, you gave me to eat..." I truly think that Christ is more clearly made present in our caring for others than in any mystic experience. (This is not to say that those who truly are mystics do not possess great love!) Prayer must not be centred on trying to achieve exalted states, visions and the like, or it can degenerate into self hypnosis or, worse, a desire for power that belongs more to the world of Gnosticism or New Age practises than to Christianity.

Idols are silver and gold

Actually, that's not the world's best heading - it just came into my mind. I am under huge stress at the moment, so I'm not likely to be at my most creative. No - I'll not mention the source of the stress here, not only because that is not my style but because, over my life, I have found that asking others for support of any kind is more likely to lead to further trouble than to assistance. There are too many out there who, for example, have to hear of a problem and pile on all the further worst case scenarios - or who delight in saying they know better (one acquaintance of mine, now deceased, couldn't speak a sentence without a 'put down') - or who have to enumerate how what happened to you could not happen to them (because they are so afraid it would...)

I'm just going to share an old meditation I wrote for a prayer network. I didn't know that some of my best contributions (one that I cannot find, which related to how speech and other elements of our faculties were mirrors of God's creative power, among them) were never used. It's more a spot where people spout about how a scripture reading reminded them of housecleaning or baseball - and my readers know that's not any place where I'm likely to excel. So, for those who are interested - here's a meditation that came to me, some time ago, about the readings quoted at the top of the entry. (I make things look too easy - meditations take me a minimum of six hours to compose.)

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 home town 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."

Switching gears - I ask anyone who reads this to pray for me at the moment. In a few weeks, if the problem I'm trying to resolve is 'fixed,' I comfort myself with the thought that I'll be able to turn a situation which has had me trembling for several weeks into a very funny story. :)

How do we speak the unspeakable?

I had the oddest memory today - and, as usual, it jarred rather unrelated reflections. It has been thirty years since I received my Master's in musicology, but, naturally, this means I once understood various modern languages. (I love languages - it saddens me that any fluency tends to disappear without regular usage. I cannot converse in any foreign languages any longer.) About ten years ago, I was on a flight from London to Rome, during which I had a brief conversation with an English speaking seat mate. Shortly afterwards, a German lady, who saw I was in the aisle seat and could access the overhead lockers, asked me if I could get her bag, which I was happy to do. (My lack of ability to converse in German any longer did not mean I did not understand.) The seat mate to whom I referred began to expound a theory that humans mainly communicate by telepathy... which I hardly think is proven by that one whose first language is English happens to understand German.

I often have considered how religious concepts can be confusing because of the limitations of language - and here I do not refer only to the limitations of our knowledge. In my recent Old Testament studies, and my continuing pursuit of philosophy, I have become aware of what I've always known but never considered. One who is a Christian, very Catholic in theology, has a faith based in Palestine (with much development of revelation before Jesus' time), philosophy rooted in Greece (and brilliantly used by great Christian theologians, though the ancient Greeks believed in no Creator God), a filter of everything through Latin (I understand no Hebrew, and my New Testament Greek is barely adequate - but the theological and historical works started out in Latin.... except for today, when everything challenging seems to start in German...).

I am far from expert in the philosophies of Eastern Asia (I don't know why, but in recent years it has become taboo to say "Orient," and, as with everyone who has been a theology student, when I say "Asian" the Far East is not what comes to mind.) I shall admit here that, when my philosophical studies take me into the realm of Buddhism, Hinduism, or Confucianism (and what a variety of those there are!), I am completely puzzled. I was reading a collection of Buddhist scriptures this week, and could not understand three pages. (I can read the works of 'mystics in love' of any tradition and feel a kinship - just as I can invoke the Trinity in every one of my prayers without being able to define what it means.)

I was thinking of what the Christian missionaries to China or Japan must have faced. (Even in our own day, acculturation at the time of Vatican II presented special problems. When Latin was no longer used in the parish Eucharist, there were often no equivalent, understandable terms for translation into Japanese.) The entire philosophical system of the East is another world from western philosophy - and, where priests may not be philosophers, let us say that they've had at least a smattering of Aquinas, Augustine et al through the years. I tend to apophatic theology in my own life, yet call my God by many names: Creator, Redeemer, Saviour, Holy Spirit, Trinity, Father, Spouse. For Christians and Jews, certainly the divine essence can never fully be known, but our God is personal, is Creator, is one with whom we seek eternal intimacy. I cannot understand the 'nothingness' of the East, but can sense that this and various other terms in Eastern philosophy probably have a vastly different meaning than they would for the western mind.

I remember hearing that, when Saint Francis Xavier was a missionary, he adapted the Latin term Deus to Deusu amongst the Japanese. It sadly bore a very close resemblance to a Japanese term for 'great lie.' Of course, Jesuits often confuse the best of us, and I can only imagine the difficulties my own Franciscans encountered! It's quite bad enough to have a great saint give the rule of the Order as "live the gospel," thinking everyone would know just what that meant (it is no accident that the Franciscans have by far the largest number of canonised and beatified saints and the most outrageous heretics.) Then again, and here it is only an educated guess, I could easily see Franciscans using some version of any term that appealed to the masses.

There are many lifelong Christians (from backgrounds in Europe and what I call Asia) who would be hard put to even explain what the Eucharist is. (I don't mean the 'how' - I mean even the 'what,' which should have been imparted to them by age 6.) I can only imagine how utterly confusing the new terms, foreign approaches in proofs and arguments (which the East eschews), and catechesis derived from scholasticism must have been for those previously stepped in Confucius.

Of course, my own studies of Buddhism, Hinduism and the like are for a breadth of philosophical knowledge - purely academic, and not intended as a source of religious practise or faith. (My social conscience also reminds me, when I read some moving writing of a Hindu mystic, that I should hardly like to be in a position where caste was determined by past lives, and one could therefore treat the poor like ... in Italian we call it "pig's food." Not that many Christians do not do the same, but at least there's a vague sense that grace can reside in Galilean carpenters, tent makers and fishermen.) My Old Testament studies are fascinating, the more in that I often have been required to 'shelve' millennia of Christian thought and read the rabbinical commentaries, redactions, etc., to capture a glimpse of what these texts meant, and still mean, for those who did not, for example, see the Suffering Servant as Jesus. But that is quite another matter, for all the new territory I had to explore, because my own faith had its roots in Judaism.

I defy any Christian or Jew, unless his familiarity with Eastern philosophies is lengthy and broad, to not be humbled by his lack of understanding when first encountering the East. Humility, nonetheless, is a concept valuable for all and particularly needed by man of us with a passion for theology, so I see an immediate benefit. It is the 'other direction' that fills me with awareness of how concepts and language can limit us. I respect all faiths - but cannot help but wonder if we Christians forgot the limitations of language, did not sufficiently develop how to present the gospel in a manner understandable to those from drastically different traditions, and therefore left the East with a very small Christian population. (Rice runs out... one has to speak to the heart.) I would be less saddened if it were merely a case of honourable men (who more so, for example, than the Dalai Lama?) remaining faithful to ancient traditions and worshipping in a fashion I do not understand in depth. What pains me is that, in recent decades, China was largely left to Mao and atheism.

Footnote: This is no denial of the constant and heroic efforts, and enormous self sacrifice, of the many missionaries to China and Japan! I am just wondering if the limitations their cautious superiors imposed (however good the reason in theory) were excessive. In Christianity, those who believe God's essence cannot be known do not mean that he is 'nothing' - but that He is "My God and my All." Buddhism is not credal but philosophical - they will put no name to God, but I don't know that 'nothing' means for the Buddhist what it does in the west. Christians may have needed the ability to adapt beyond how they were able to speak to the hearts of some who later ended up with a real "nothing," atheism.

I've been too sombre today, so I shall add an anecdote. One of my friends, Anne, taught English language and literature to pupils who were about 12-13 years old. A daily feature of their class was to have a brief, 'fill in the blanks,' test of vocabulary. On one very rainy Tuesday, it happened that one question was "what a (blank) to sleep on a rainy Tuesday morning." Anne was concerned because most of the kids, rather than picking 'luxury' from the list, had chosen 'fallacy.' As you may have guessed, it indicated no deficiency in her pedagogy. As several explained, they indeed knew the meaning of fallacy - and chose this because "you never can!"

All things to all people?

All things to all people

I was reviewing some of my notes regarding the nineteenth century Church situation today. With hindsight, I can see where controversies popular at the time led to misunderstanding, confusion, and conflict which is a perpetual situation since the first Council of Jerusalem, where Paul won out over the highly fallible (and vacillating) Peter over the mission to Gentile Christians. (Most of us would consider Paul's 'victory' to be highly providential...) Just a cursory glance at the 19th century condition shows an odd potpourri! Tractarians were favouring 14th century liturgical practises and patristic theology. (I second the motion.) Modernists, such as the French Alfred Loisy, had a high Christology and great focus on the sacraments, but were trying not to undermine the magisterium but to refute Adolf von Harnack - whose image of Christianity had far too personal a focus. (Loisy wanted the pope to determine how doctrines evolve - the pope declined, but one in the near future would not only condemn Modernism but require all Roman clergy to take an oath against its ideas.) Evangelical Anglicans, who tended to focus on family but also to be what today might be termed fundamentalist in regard to scripture, saw emphasis on apostolic succession, as with the Tractarians, and Modernism as undermining the revelation in the bible.

I think it is important, when we read the works of theologians of any era, to recall that, more often than not, they were actively seeking to refute contrary ideas. As the simplest example, though Augustine's "evil is the absence of good" makes me shudder today (it must have been a small comfort for those thinking of Auschwitz...), Augustine was refuting dualism and defending omnipotence. Philosophical arguments are indeed valuable and essential, but they can be pastoral disasters.

I cannot recall the source now (I had quite a library of books from the earlier 20th century once upon a time), but one Roman Catholic work spoke about how Pius XI's condoning of 'natural regulation of births' was a dilemma for many Catholics - and in a way which would be unlikely to strike a mind today. Where we would be more likely to think of Catholic couples as either opposing the Church's position against artificial contraception, or a minority as promoting "natural family planning" as "marriage enrichment" (devout Catholics burn with no less passion than anyone else, but there is one variety which never speaks of physical desire, only of overwhelming need to express love in imitation of the Trinity.) The very devout, as this work indicated, were troubled in a totally different fashion. Previously, they had seen their vocation as including bringing new lives into this world to honour God (not that this is not a great blessing!) With Pius' allowing 'natural regulation,' and this including consideration for reasons to space or avoid births, they were faced with puzzlement - in their previous thinking, the more souls for heaven, the better, regardless of either hardship or advantages for their families. Those with such an approach well may have had an admirable sense of vocation, self sacrifice, and poverty according to state of life - but they now had to ponder whether their practise, previously lauded, might involve new ideas of what is right and wrong.

Obviously, I am no authority on married life, so let me move into the realm of liturgy - a more comfortable domain. I spent enough years in parish and archdiocesan ministries to know that, even in worship and sacrament, it is impossible to be 'all things to all people.' Westminster Cathedral, where the music and liturgy are impeccable, everyone does not sing everything, certain parts are in Latin, and the preaching tends to be quite rich in content, is packed even at weekday Vespers and Eucharist - but many a Catholic would insist that their approach didn't 'get the people involved' or was not 'relevant.' It might be considered too highbrow, though the congregation hardly consists entirely (or mainly!) of the wealthy or highly educated. I have personally known of parishes who did not want good musicians - it would make the people unlikely to sing (not that they were much ones for doing that in the first place), and 'getting the people to sing' is the highest of goals since talk of salvation went out of style.

In the Church of England, it was long a common custom for children to leave the Eucharist after the gospel for Sunday school (and for them not to receive communion until after Confirmation.) If a church established a creche for the little ones (even though there is no obligation to attend, and many of the children look forward to it all week), there will be those who think it marvellous, others who resent having the children not worship with their families. Some priests aim everything at children, hoping this will bring families into the congregation - some of us, myself at the top of the list, deplore what we find to be an aesthetic and intellectual wasteland.) Liturgists would see barring children from Communion as deplorable excommunication. Others might believe that admitting them to communion would mean insufficient respect and understanding. (The Council of Trent barred the little ones because they had not reached "the age of reason," and didn't need the forgiveness of sin of which the Eucharist was a source. That's rather a dismal opinion in my book.) Some of us cherish Evensong - others see it as not really being prayer because the choir sings the psalms.

Those of you who, like myself, survived the "youth liturgies" of the 1960s-70s, will verify that anyone who doubts there was penance in those days never sat through endless choruses of "Kumbaya." Yet they were popular, because of an entire youth culture of which they were a part. Those in attendance often made the mistake, ten or fifteen years later, of both thinking that what our generation found appealing at that age would still be popular and, worse, urging the kids to bring and sit with parents! None of us would have been there in 1970 had parents been necessary baggage.

I have no deep insights for any of you today. :) I'm only writing this (and, believe me, I could write reams were I to go beyond liturgy to social events, workshops, discussion groups, welcoming committees and the like) to reassure those new to churchgoing that liturgy is our greatest treasure and our eternal headache. But I comfort myself, having that idealism which only those who sat on liturgical committees thirty years ago can have, that, in the patristic era I so admire (and which supposedly was to be revived in the New Order of Mass, chopping out all the Carolingian and Gregorian additions), one was not likely to have Basil, Gregory, or Irenaeus in the next pew.

Distorted views of "God's will"

I doubt any of you will be surprised that, most days of the week, I am not likely to be quoting John Dominic Crossan or Marcus Borg. I have no taste whatever for The Jesus Seminar approaches, for all that I shall concede that, however much one disagrees with his conclusions, Crossan's scholarship well may be the most important research on first century Palestine available. Nonetheless, there are some very enriching points in the Crossan and Borg work, "The Last Week," which focuses on the depiction of Palm Sunday through "the first Holy Week," based on the Gospel of Mark. For example, I very much liked the explanation of how flawed many later notions can be of "atonement theology," since I myself prefer the Eastern emphasis on deification.

What image, for any devout Christian, is more vivid than Jesus' time in Gethsemane? In "The Last Week," there is a very worthwhile quotation: "Jesus prays for deliverance. He prays that this hour might pass from him...Both 'hour' and 'cup' refer to his impending torture and cruel death..Yet he hands himself over...'not my will, but thy will be done.' It is important to add that this does not mean that Jesus' death was the will of God. It is never God's will that the righteous suffer. It was not God's will that Jesus Christ died, any more than it was the will of God that any of the martyrs before and after Jesus were killed. Yet we may imagine them handing themselves over in the way that Jesus did, from Peter and Paul to Thecla and Perpetua to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the nuns in El Salvador. The prayer reflects not a fatalistic resignation to the will of God, but a trusting in God in the midst of the most dire of circumstances."

Fortunately for most of us, martyrdom is not likely to be ahead. That does not erase that the general view of "God's will" is dismal. Once, when I was speaking of Julian of Norwich, I mentioned that I rarely have heard anyone say "God's will" unless someone was dead. (Of course, in Julian's time and place, just about everyone was dead.) It is never used for any happy, joyous occasion, but only when there is great tragedy, or rejection, or heartbreak.

"Trusting in God in the midst of the most dire of circumstances" - that is an image which I can find beauty. (I am not suggesting that it is anything for which I have a knack, more's the pity.) There is no question that there is much that we cannot understand, or that we do not have divine minds, or that our glimpses of God are so short of his true nature that we can speak of a divine plan only in the vaguest of terms. I can strongly subscribe to cosmic redemption, without having the slightest notion of in what this consists specifically. As I have indicated in previous posts about religious philosophy, we have no answers to the problems of evil.

But how did it happen that "God's will" became an image of inevitable pain? Why don't we ever use that term in relation to Creation, redemption, grace? I've yet to hear anyone say to a repentant sinner (that's all of us, my friends - and what a great joy it is...) "you know, it's not what we want, it's what God wants..." As everyone who has known the joy of repentance may be aware, at a point when it was not what we wanted (or at least didn't recognise), the Good Shepherd was coming after us before we even knew we wanted to return. (No, sensationalist sorts, I do not happen to be anyone of whom you would read in tabloids... Sin comes in many varieties, and each of us has had points of major conversion in one way or another.)

I shiver to think of some of what I've heard described as God's will - usually to people who are in the midst of terrible pain. A mother whose child has died does not want a little saint in heaven - she wants her baby! Much worse, I'd like to give forty years in purgatory (and don't think I'm not connected) to those who refer to the untimely death of someone's spouse, child, or other very close loved one, 'reassuring' the bereaved that God may have taken him because the deceased otherwise may have fallen into mortal sin and ended up in hell.

The full scope of God's will is not something I'm about to claim to be able to grasp (nor can anyone.) Yet, if we think of him, for example, as Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier - we don't know what all of that means, either, but continuing creation, redemption, and sanctification is rather a better picture than one who has some puzzling, always painful plan (unknown to the sufferer, of course) - a trickster who loves to slam doors in people's faces - or (thank heavens, this isn't Catholic, so I haven't heard it much) who has some secretive formula for "accepting Him," which, if not recited, means He'll thrown his children into hell.

I'm not at my best today, admittedly. Trust is far from my strong point - and, since love requires trust, my own love for God is not the "white hot" I wish it were. Just to refer to Crossan and Borg once more - martyrs were most valued as witnesses (to the resurrection, I must add.) I have no doubt that they would much have preferred not to have been tortured and killed, though it normally involved, as with Jesus, a reaction coming from quite natural causes (often political.) The earliest bishops, for example, were largely faced with either totally denying the faith (and compromising the faith of their flocks) or execution.

The trust itself must be the gift of divine grace - the response imitating Jesus in great love. Human wickedness is not God's doing - he does not need evil to be the Creator of Heaven and Earth! (A role which he did not abandon on the 7th day described in Genesis - he is the eternal Creator.) God did not turn to Judas, Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate and push a button. In his humanity, Jesus of Nazareth had the vocation of a prophet and of proclaiming the kingdom - and this led to his execution. (Those who sent him to the cross had no notion that he was the Second Person of the Trinity - that may sound like saying 'the grass is green,' but I'm afraid that all he was to them, in the second and last quotation from Crossan of my life, was a "peasant, nuisance nobody.") I don't doubt He indeed could have summoned the twenty legions of angels - but his assuming our humanity precluded such actions (not to mention that, as history proves, displays of power tend to be more destructive than otherwise.)

If I weren't so weary, I would have written today's entry (also one with total puzzlement) about how this miserable world is one in which Jesus tells us "the kingdom" had already come. I'm not that ambitious for the moment. Still, if we think of resignation to God's will in terms of trust, without thinking he cooked up the trouble in the first place, it may help us to get through the veils of our own weakness, anger, fear, and such.

Little thought about Anne Frank

Just this week, I had the good fortune to see an excellent documentary film entitled "Anne Frank Remembered." (This not to be confused by Miep Gies' book of the same title.) It featured various people who had known Anne and her family, and I very much enjoyed seeing how this 'fleshed out' the picture of Anne. For example, one old friend, laughing, said that Anne had been her school mate, and that "God knows all, but Anne always knew better." Another family acquaintance mentioned that Anne had been quite a naughty child, though her beloved papa was one to make allowances for her. The film naturally went into varied details about Anne's eventual imprisonment and death, but today is not one in which I care to dwell on horrors such as the Holocaust. I'm just recording some random observations - since there is a certain detachment one can have when one is not a parent, and is neither an adolescent nor at the age when one's kids are only 13 (and, as many parents do, one falls into the trap of totally forgetting youth and thinking that teenagers fall at parents' feet in homage and invariably praise their brilliance.)

I had read Anne's diary some years ago, and, once I saw the documentary, thought I might wish to do so again. I searched a bit on Amazon (both sites... well, two out of three, since I'm too weary to try to remember my rusty German for Amazon Deutschland). Since most of what I've studied about Anne Frank herself (rather than the Holocaust in general, with which I had a terrified acquaintance long before) was in adulthood, it had not entered my mind that many teachers must use the book in classes where pupils are adolescent. I was amused that certain reader reviews seemed wary about exposure of kids to the book (which I'd think inspiring in many ways) - not because it deals with the Holocaust, nor because the ending is tragic and might frighten readers. The concern was that Anne spoke disrespectfully of her mother and other adults in the Annexe.

I obtained a copy of Anne's diary this week, and had several impressions directly related to that last 'fear.' I noticed, in the very beginning, that Anne mentioned having rather poor grades in her school work. (I did laugh when she spoke of punishment homework for being a Chatterbox.) I wasn't surprised. Much in the diary shows a girl with high intelligence and exceptional literary and analytical ability - her poor grades obviously did not stem from poor academic ability. Yet her candour and sophisticated knowledge of human nature (at least in relation to the 'old folks,' if not to Peter) in the diary, which showed promise of her being a great writer, would not have endeared her to teachers (or indeed to most adults.)

Whether Anne said things outright or not (and somehow I cannot imagine her being reticent), the older crowd well may have been uneasy knowing she could 'see through' them. Certainly, one must allow for that Anne was of an age when one would be unlikely to see 'all sides' of a problem; that the fright and confinement would intensify emotions; and that what she perceived, for example, as her parents' 'loveless marriage' may reflect the limited knowledge one has of love at 13. Still, I am inclined to think some of her assessments were spot on. (In fact, I was less offended by her treatment of the 'old' than of her cheeky evaluations of her class mates - and her sense that all the boys were enamoured of her.)

Even John Henry Newman received his degree with only third class honours... Those with top grades often are not the most brilliant students. Intelligent, yes - but those who have top marks in everything often know just how to tell the examiners what they want to hear. Of course, Anne's diary was intended only for her own eyes - but I would imagine the elders who wanted to be respected could well sense her feelings and insights. The cheeky do not endear themselves to those in authority - yet, had Anne's life had anything like the span of Newman's, I believe her writings could have been really quite splendid.

Spare me the 'feminist ethics'

One of the frustrating parts of 'blogging' is that one tends to find oneself using the same ideas again - not intentionally, but because one's best blog work probably dates back to the blog's beginning. I shall admit that my Mars and Venus Balderdash post, to which I also linked in the header, is of better quality than what I'm likely to dash off today. That post will clarify, in case anyone wondered, that I most definitely cannot be accused of thinking that women are inferior to men. (In particular cases, my question would be 'which woman and which man, and in relation to what?')

I've always had an interest in moral theology, though it is not a topic I have studied extensively in the past. My overall approach is Thomas Aquinas (based on use of our faculties and to where the will is turned), heavily flavoured by Alphonsus Liguori (who treated, in some depth, the factors that could hamper knowledge or use of will.) I have not read much on the subject in recent years, largely because I am weary of everything focussing on sex (not because it is an obsession of moralists, who have their hands full already with medical ethics, but because it is the area about which people are most likely to ask questions or create tumult.) I decided that pursuing the matter in more depth, and incorporating the extensive writings of current philosophers and theologian, was overdue.

Undoubtedly, I shall write more of this along the way, but allow me to 'vent' once more. In case this was not apparent, I am hardly a shrinking female with any lack of confidence or initiative, who needs 'help' to realise that she is 'oppressed.' Yet, in recent decades, studies of any area of theology always have to include a 'feminist perspective' section.

In many of my varied theological studies, I've often found it interesting, with hindsight, that treatment of a particular area, which was perfectly sound in its context, was distorted when it was applied in other treatments. For example, as I've commented in other posts, frequently intriguing, even brilliant, philosophical arguments were used in a fashion which led to pastoral disasters. I'm even amazed at how instructions related specifically to liturgy and the sacraments were stretched out of all shape - a cope becoming a straitjacket.

At the moment, I'm studying some quite fascinating writings on Christian Ethics, and you'll hear about them soon. But I'd like to excise most of what was in the 'feminist perspective' section and use it to line the cat box. What I find tragic is that many women, exposed to such ideas in settings other than the academic (..I've attended many 'workshops' in the past...), can fall into two dangers if the speaker is sufficiently persuasive. First, there is the severe problem of seeing 'what isn't there' - and I don't mean visions. One popular attitude in the 'women only ethics' writings is that a woman's ultimate moral development is caring for her needs as much as those of others... as if all women put others first... I've seen great extremes in that department. I'm thinking of some women I knew well, to whom one could not so much as extend an invitation for a cup of tea without their thinking this was manipulation or some curtailment of their 'quality time,' not to mention a lack of acknowledgement for their enormous schedules. Or of one, whose beau is a charming and generous man for whom many unattached women would queue, who (in a manner I've seen on other occasions - this is merely an example) happened to be rather 'down' one week. When her beau invited her to go dancing on the weekend (a pursuit both of them love), and also committed the unpardonable crime of sending her flowers with a card reading "I love you," she screamed at him, "Don't fix me!"

I'm not suggesting that true manipulation is not to be recognised and avoided. Still, I think seeing manipulation in circumstances where there is none (one is always free to decline an invitation, nor will refusal of a cup of tea break hearts), much less seeing generosity as so inherently negative that it must be seen as brutal (oh, sorry, I forgot... only women are generous... please don't email me for the name of the man I mentioned in the last paragraph, whom I'd snap up in a minute were I in the market), is tragic.

Supposedly, based on these writings on 'ethics,' women sin against themselves denying their self hood (where it would seem to me that, in any life, those whom we love, or with whom we have other relationships, are very much a part of who we are.) Then again, some trends in ethics make it seem that women are guilty of sins only against themselves. Odd - some of the 'sins' condemned in the writings were not those I'd have thought unique to women. Believe it or not, I've known men who were sentimental (especially in the religious realm... I'd no sooner recite "Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue" than I would sing "Good-night, Sweet Jesus") - just as one example.

In the course of my life, I've been happy to know some people whom I would consider to be especially generous to others. Their personalities differed, of course, but there were two traits I noticed all of them possessed. They took joy in the generosity, and they had an obvious element of gratitude (for whatever they had... and if you think I necessarily mean health, wealth, and prosperity, none of which I possess, you must be new to the blog.)

Now on to what will make me lose half my readership.... The women I have known who were the 'martyrs' (and I do not at all mean this is universal) did not at all give me the impression that their 'sin' was 'thinking of their own needs last.' The exasperating ones not only placed their own needs (to play ego games, be honoured, control spouse or children, be known as saints, whatever) above all things, but needed to be sure everyone knew what enormous sacrifices every bit of giving involved. The worst were those who inflicted their 'sacrifices' on others - dragging children to 6 AM Mass and night vigils, for example, with the result that the kids grew up to want no part of church at all (oh, but didn't Mum love how the few people there beamed at her lovely little family.)

Of course, honesty forces me to admit that I've known my share of people, of both sexes, who unfortunately were taught in youth (in Catholicism flavoured by Calvin and Jansenism) that what God most wants is sacrifice. There always is the possibility, especially since everyone was taught the importance of 'good example,' that someone makes sure everything is 'sacrifice' and known as such. But where is the joy and gratitude of true giving?

The idea of 'you know my needs as long as we both are of the same sex' was treated in the previous post of mine, so I'll not expound here. I had not realised to what extent 'feminist ethics' dwelt on how women (apparently unlike men) are 'relational' because of their relationships with their mothers. (Funny - I thought far more women out there were in nasty competition with other females in the family.) The idea that all women understand all other women is absurd. Still, I wonder if the ideas about this approach to ethics, when they were in their infancy thirty years ago, indirectly influenced the disasters I saw when, for example, it seemed every other religious Sister I knew suddenly was promoting agendas by setting herself up as a spiritual advisor - her only credentials being her sex.

I doubt too many people of either sex devote much time to studying moral theology, and that those who do (who well may be confessors and spiritual guides) have a strong dose of pastoral theology into the bargain. Yet the very ideas I found so boring could feed into the 'pop psychology' culture you've often heard me disparage, and make selfishness and self absorption appear to be virtues.

Can't blame the Babylonians any more

Just today, I was working on a meditation, as I periodically do for a prayer network. I noticed that the readings for that Sunday included Psalm 133 - which begins with "Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity!," a sentiment which clearly is liturgical rather than based on experience of this at any time or place in history - and Isaiah 56, one reference of which was "temple as a house of prayer for all nations."

I may have mentioned previously that, during the past two years, I devoted quite a bit of study to Isaiah (mostly "Deutero-Isaiah," comprising chapters 40-55, which are most famous for the Servant Songs.) It is a marvellous book, in its entirety, and I found it all the more fascinating because I had to separate myself from two millennia of Christian interpretations and "place myself" in times of post-exilic redaction. It struck me how very confusing the times of captivity must have been on many levels. Surely, there were those Israelites who wondered if perhaps Yahweh just did not have the clout of Ba'al or Marduk. As well, the pining for a glory of the Davidic monarchy (small nation state... but absence does make the heart grow fonder and the victories more vivid), for the destroyed temple and its rites, etc., would have made the thought of returning to Jerusalem a vision of glory. (In the minds of theologians, of course. Your average Israelite undoubtedly was wondering what the fate would be, considering that the elite were transported and those troublesome lower class people had some hold on the land... but I digress.)

It is true in all history, of course, but the power of "Us vs. Them" is always potent. I am sure that those who were pining for the glory of the Lord revealed in His people Israel saw the Babylonians as the ruling power which prevented the free exercise of Israel's vocation. (Persians, Canaanite pagans, Roman empire... everyone queue to the right - one cross each... Forgive me. My affection for Monty Python made that last, admittedly tasteless, part inevitable.) By chapter 56 of Isaiah, when we've moved from Deutero to Trito Isaiah, the Israelites are back in Palestine. Their leaders are a complete bust - everyone is falling into sin (...as if anyone really thinks that has not been the case since Adam was young...) - the temple worship is not what it is meant to be, though the building (nothing to match remembered glory of Solomon) has been reconstructed.

Everything was as it had been and always would be. It must have been quite a problem, not to be able to blame "them" any more. Remember that tired but apt old saying, "We have met the enemies, and they are us"?

"For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,
Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel..."

By the time of Isaiah, Yahweh was proving to be a most puzzling God. The people of Israel, who had been surrounded by cosmological myths of the Babylonians which stirred an interest in creation, were faced with paradox. Yahweh's transcendence and immanence (with Israel sharing in a glory they could only grasp from afar, though their creation tales show they were called to be its icon) are strong in all of Isaiah.

Yahweh, unlike the other, territorial gods, is lord of all nations and history,
working even through pagans such as Cyrus or Pharaoh. In creation myths of other
cultures, whatever their relationship to Genesis in genre, creation is an accident,
and people here to be the gods' servants. For Israel, the nation makes present, and
this to the edification of other nations, the transcendent God. Israel suffered consequences for her own infidelity, yet, and this being both innovative and
striking in Isaiah, suffering is not a punishment for sin, and indeed may be
vicarious. (The commentators love to debate whether the Suffering Servant was God Himself, Jeremiah, Israel, Deutero-Isaiah himself... but I wish a few Christians would remember that the idea of all pain as punishment died out centuries before Jesus walked the earth.)

Well, by Isaiah 56 the captivity in Babylon and the Persian conquest were in the past, and Israel is centred in Palestine. As the remainder of Isaiah will show, the absence of pagan domination hardly meant that Israel was a shining star! Israel was back in Palestine, and had not found either the splendour of Solomon's day (undoubtedly much improved in legend - though sources would differ on whether the Davidic line were mirrors of virtue or ruthless politicos) or the holiness which collective memory of long-gone days of a holiness which stopped the sun and moon in the sky. "Trito-Isaiah" bemoans the leadership in the temple, and seems to hope that the Gentiles may be a goad for better behaviour on the part of the Hebrews. Indeed, one can picture a sigh as devout Jews read psalm 133, "Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity!" They would have seen this no more than would have Jesus of Nazareth, who the New Testament shows us, 5 centuries later, as reading from Isaiah in the synagogue (even if with some daring in applying prophecies to himself), yet using the very term "house of prayer" to denounces its being still a "den of thieves."

It indeed would strike us, most the very Gentiles who can be stricken with awe that
the divine calling was not exclusive but indeed was extended to all nations (aside - far more are wondering if being in church is a good example for kids or will score them points with potential customers...), that falling short of vocation, having leaders who may be of a degree of virtue somewhat lacking in degree to that of Jesus of Nazareth, and a manner of relation with one another which hardly could be described as living together in unity is all too familiar.

And so it always shall be. God shows a moving and constant tendency to be highly fond of weak, vacillating, sinful people - just as we are.

This is not to say that we should not strive for virtue. Indeed, Israel stressed the
sanctification of all of life. But, in Isaiah strongly as elsewhere, it is plain
that all that binds Israel/The Church to God is freely given, divine love for us.

The call to cosmic redemption, clear in our deification through Christ but long
pre-dating His time on earth, remains to be resolved. As we wait, and though the
perfection on earth will never come, what we have is our response in worship. Let us
see the universe, and every area of our lives, as well as our churches, as the
'house of prayer' in which a God who controls all of creation calls us to praise and
thanksgiving.

And, for the love of God, let's not indulge in the 'us vs. them' business among ourselves, except in pub conversations and with a laugh! The trouble with 'us vs. them' is that 'we' are not only right but highly superior...

The peasant Jesus of Matthew

My readers are asked to bear with me, since I realise that this site is beginning to look like a massive advertisement for Amazon products. Those such as myself who concentrated on scholarly and artistic pursuits, and who delved into things Franciscan all of their lives (with a result not unlike that which I imagine Francesco encountered when he passed out Papa's priceless silks to beggars... one hint, and I don't mean the beggars fell to the ground in adoration of Francesco's Christlike qualities, ) can find that economic recessions - such as the one currently rampant, but which economists deny - leave little left for textbook purchases. My little Amazon commissions help to fill my shelves a bit and keep my mind stimulated, in the process keeping me from, let us say, writing dissertations on Beethoven's use of the augmented sixth chord in Suchandsuch symphony, which deep down we all know Beethoven undoubtedly did not have in mind.

For one such as myself, in whom the theological and aesthetic are inseparable, it probably is not strange that well presented theatre, books, and cinema based on scriptures, church history and the like are appealing. Pasolini's presentation of Jesus, based on the Gospel of Matthew, is generally accepted (by film historians) as the masterpiece of the sword and sandal epics. (Pasolini's beliefs or lack of same, or his politics, are issues that I'm not about to explore here.)

There are things that educated people, especially those with a background in the arts, just are not supposed to admit - but conventional I am not. Between us, I found Pasolini's film boring - not only because it was very stark but because, with the dialogue based entirely on the gospel of Matthew, there was no 'fleshing out' of the characters. I much prefer Franco Zeffirelli's brilliant Jesus of Nazareth, though that one would be criticised for having extra scriptural material.

(As long as this is 'true confessions time,' I'll add that I love Monty Python's Life of Brian - which did not spoof the gospels but was a superb treatment of the nonsense in many popular scriptural epics, Zeffirelli and Pasolini's work not being among them.)

The Jesus in Pasolini's film is rough, blunt, crude, and apparently the type to brook no nonsense. He seems easily irritated (as indeed I think I would be, with how much everyone pestered him and how even his disciples just didn't 'get' anything he taught.) It would be easy for the devout to dislike this characterisation, and I'll admit that the dignified, ascetic, brilliant, collected Jesus in Zeffirelli's version is more to my liking (even if it seems surreal that his intense blue eyes never blink.) Of course, I also dislike much of what passed for 'religious art' (and I don't mean Michelangelo) through the years (centuries...) I hate when Jesus looks like a bearded lady.

I periodically contribute meditations for a prayer network, structured around readings set for a particular Sunday Eucharist. It is a valuable exercise for me (and I hope beneficial to the readers), which involves perhaps twenty pages of notes on exegesis, another twenty of reflection following lectio divina, then a day's worth of editing to condense all of this into about 300 words and hope that a central point comes through. I cannot help but notice, when I go through the readings for any Sunday, that (though my own specialisation was in liturgy, so I love the new lectionary overall), the scripture scholars, however much they bore me with their M and Q source preoccupation, were quite correct in that the 'themes' in the readings as a whole have no exegetical connection. One of the reasons I so need to do extensive exegesis before I begin is to avoid becoming fanciful, or going off on tangents such as Augustine's treatment of the good Samaritan, in which he saw symbolism in everything from the wounds to the inn to the coins.

At it happens (and though I indeed may focus on Isaiah rather than Matthew in my meditation), the gospel for the particular Sunday is my least favourite - Matthew 15:21-28. It's the one where the Canaanite woman begs Jesus to cure her daughter, who is tormented by a demon. The disciples want her sent away, and Jesus, who has none of the aristocratic demeanour with which Zeffirelli would present his character (nor any of the Logos distinction I so love in John), comments that the children's food can't be thrown to the dogs.

All right... I know it ends with Jesus' commending the woman's faith. And I indeed am aware of recent scholarly work which contrasts the Church at Jerusalem (which Jesus' family headed for at least a generation, and was aimed at Jewish Christians) and the Gentile mission of the hot-headed Paul (who could deal with the consistent James better than with that other hot-head Peter.) I know something of Matthew's intended audience... But that line about the dogs, and further the beginning in which Jesus refuses to even answer the woman beseeching him to help her daughter, gets my back up.

I shall concede that, though Pasolini does not show us a polished upper class Jesus of Nazareth (King of Kings, but no aristocrat), his presentation matches the gospel of Matthew extremely well. If one watched the film with the scriptures in front of one (with no distractions from the Missa Luba), one would have to admit that the Jesus in the Pasolini film resembles the version in Matthew aptly.

So, to end this disjointed little post with a little hint of self knowledge, I think there just might be a reason I prefer John to Matthew and Zeffirelli to Pasolini. :) Matthew and Pasolini show us a Jesus of Nazareth who is a... blunt, irritable, wise but brief, compassionate but brooking no nonsense... Mediterranean peasant. Grinning I shall add - deep down, I think that I myself don't care to wear that shoe even though it does fit very well!

Mary Magdalene

In honour of this great saint, who is a favourite of mine, I have (at least for the moment) added a slide show in the sidebar. I did so with reluctance (the truth is that the Amazon sales through my site have been poor recently, and I really could use some funds towards my textbooks), because so much of what is currently written and produced on the ever-popular topic of Mary Magdalene is so very far off the mark. Considering that tradition dates to the time of, at the very least, Gregory VII, I suppose I should not be surprised.

I do love legends, of course, but probably no Christian in history had the negative press which Mary Magdalene had - largely because Pope Gregory, in a most imaginative sermon, confused her with several other scripture characters (Mary of Bethany, the woman of sin who anointed Jesus), and she passed into history as the 'repentant prostitute,' though the scriptures say nothing of the kind. (As an aside, I remember once hearing an historian explain that, in first century Palestine, fully a third of Jewish women bore the names of either Mary or Salome. I wasn't surprised - when I was in school, it seemed that a third of the girls in my class were Mary or Kathleen - even the tally of Elizabeths, Annes and Margarets could not come close, even if a Linda here and there broke the monotony. Yet the confusion of Marys in the New Testament, however inevitable, was excessively creative.)

Yet today one is again diverted from the most important points about Mary Magdalene herself. She was a disciple of Jesus and, above all, the first witness to the resurrection! That seems to me to be quite enough privilege for any life, yet the powerful grace in this is overshadowed by all sorts of speculation about blood lines, whether she was Jesus' wife, if she was a bishop (...bishop? Sorry, guys, all of the disciples during Jesus' lifetime were Jews... so were those in Acts. It took a combination of post-resurrection insight and the Holy Spirit working through Jesus' Church for the lot of us to accept the inevitability of bishops.) For some reason, I'm vaguely reminded of how Pope John Paul II (among others) used a superb turn of rhetoric, intended to show the Christian regard for the female, where he'd speak of how Jesus had not conferred priesthood on his own mother (at the Last Supper.) John Paul knew full well that there is no anamnesis of what had not yet happened - and that it was only in the Spirit's guidance of the church that the Christian Eucharist and priestly ordination arose - the Last Supper was not an ordination ceremony nor Holy Communion. (I'm not going to dwell on how, were John Paul's statement taken for explanation rather than rhetoric, one could draw a logical conclusion that women should not be permitted at the Eucharist.) Yet does it not seem odd that, in using Mary (the mother of Jesus) as the 'one not ordained,' we can forget that this might divert us from remembering that she was the tabernacle itself - that she was the divine instrument for bringing his Body and Blood into the world in the first place?

Sorry... there is scriptural precedent for Elizabeths getting a bit overwhelmed and prophetic when they encounter the Marys.

When one such as Mary Magdalene is unjustly remembered as a prostitute, there still can be a certain beauty in the homiletics. The idea of the repentant becoming great saints is something we had all best remember - we all are the former, and, it is hoped, aspire to the latter. It is speculation that can irritate me overall. First off, it can be smug - along the lines of "What Suchandsuch could have accomplished were she only living in the 21st century...!" (I suppose Magdalene could have sent everyone a photograph of the man she mistook for the gardener on her mobile phone, or, at the very least, uploaded a digital image to Jesus.org, Sonsofthunder.com, or Zebedeefreshfish.com. Then, perhaps the Twelve would not have been so disinclined to believe her message.)

I'll admit that I patronise every cheap, second-hand bookstore I can find. Last summer, on what beastly hot day, I indulged in a copy of the Da Vinci Code (which I obtained, in well worn condition, for a few pennies.) I never was one much for detective stories, and the historian in me kept puzzling at some of the references, even if I found myself wondering what exactly was going on with Opus Dei. Yet it is a gripping novel, very nice for an afternoon on the train. I doubt its author could have imagined it would not only become a 'fifth gospel,' but would lead to having entire sections of booksellers' shelves devoted to 'commentaries.'

Let's step back a moment, if our concern is devotion rather than detective novels. Mary was the first apostle (by which I mean not one of The Twelve, but in the sense in which Paul of Tarsus used the term - witness to the Risen Lord - and to the Twelve.) She also was present at the crucifixion, and clearly was very involved in Jesus ministry (and possibly a source of his support.)

It's rather sad that the first apostle is lost in not only over a millennium of being thought a woman of the streets, but that her identity is totally lost today (because at least a repentant sinner transformed by grace is the identity of every saint) as she becomes the neglected mother of Jesus' illustrious and unknown family (nobility or royalty, I understand - indeed a feat for a carpenter from Galilee... too bad the genuine image of the true King of Kings is lost in the shuffle.) Or one can reduce her to a tragic figure because she had no hopes of being a bishop...

I wouldn't wish being a bishop on anyone, let alone a friend - and since Mary Magdalene is an old and dear heavenly friend of mine, I think her esteem in recorded experience is quite notable in and of itself...

Quoting here from the Revised English Bible, Mark 16: (Words of the angel) "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised, he is not here...But go and say to the disciples and to Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you... And they delivered all these instructions briefly to Peter and his companions. Afterwards, Jesus himself sent out by them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable message of eternal salvation."

Better ending than any of the Grail genealogies or DaVinci code commentaries, is it not? Not to mention that, considering how the Twelve behaved on the night of the Last Supper and day of the crucifixion (no accident that Jesus' first words were those of forgiveness), those women who clustered by the cross are models of courage and fidelity.

"I just haven't been punished enough!"

For the benefit of those who may be reading this entry without any previous exposure to my blog, I'd best establish that the title of this post in no way refers to myself! It came from a biography which I read of the Servant of God Fulton John Sheen. At 83, following times of physical illness and some painful outcomes to decisions he made as archbishop of Rochester NY, he would say, "I have had a great deal of suffering... but I never received the punishment I deserved. God has been easy with me. He has never laid on my burdens equal to my faith."

This hardly is original with our heavenly friend Fulton, of course. Overall, the idea of divine punishments (though I'll get to Augustine in a moment) is not integral to theology or worship, but it was all too embedded in devotion. As one who studied the Middle Ages in some depth, I noticed that, though Christians in general were not likely to consider themselves headed for hell (which, other than fallen angels, seemed to have a population consisting mainly of heretics, sorcerers, and infidels), the spectacle of a purgatory (on the lines of Dante's Inferno - again, not doctrine, but popular) turned God into a most devious jailer. Doctrinally, purgatory means only some purification after one dies - and I don't see this as a negative concept in the least, since God's creative power is eternal, and our constant growth in intimacy with the divine hardly would cease at death. But sermons and writings (possibly based on warning others about the seven deadly sins) indeed could present a vivid image of a God who let the punishment fit the crime in a most extreme fashion.

When I recall some of the teachings I heard in youth (not from family - my parents had a most healthy attitude towards God, and never would have believed they did anything worthy of punishment in any case), the image of creation was beyond dismal. If one combined various ideas, all popular in devotion at the time, it was easy to see why anyone would quickly run in another direction from this vindictive Judge. His anger at human disobedience was such that he not only turned an intended paradise into the painful, wicked world we know, but just unbolting the gates of heaven (without lessening any of the evils on earth) required that He push a button that caused the wicked to subject His Son to the worst of deaths. To become holy, one had to be sent increasingly horrid sufferings, all special delivery from the divine hand. (The wicked may end up in hell - but God's friends had major hell here. Not the pain that indeed can come from holy efforts or natural evils, but a carefully scripted series of agonies, apparently critical to developing goodness.) As well, if one did grow closer to God - and consequently have all the more suffering from His hand - one also had to deal with that Satan, seeking to destroy this good (and ideally get one to commit suicide and land in his own domain), had a free hand in sending all sorts of evils. Even in our own day, C. S. Lewis and Alvin Plantiga, who are far from mental midgets, speculated that such natural disasters as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions may be the work of fallen angels.

Considering the amount of time that Franciscans devote to meditation on the Passion (in fact, our Order's largest fault has been to make it often seem that Jesus, the poor man, basically had an Incarnation consisting only in being born and dying), I doubt anyone will think I'm denying the cruel sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth! However, as such modern, orthodox scholars as Tom Wright and Raymond Brown explore superbly, the horror of the crucifixion came about quite naturally. (It was not a divine trick.) It was a tragic outgrowth of Jesus' vocation to proclaim the kingdom. Meditation on the Passion is excellent and powerful, because it reminds us of how fully human Jesus was. (Before any of my more conservative readers begin to boil the oil in which to immerse me, may I remind them of the passage from the Eucharist, "By the mystery of this water and wine, may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity." It is the deification which is key, not "if there are no Romans around with scourges, I'd best construct a few of my own.")

Augustine was a combination of brilliant and excessive (not to mention prolific) which probably had more impact on Western Christian thought than any other (with the possible exception of Thomas Aquinas.) His idea that punishment remedied wickedness makes my skin crawl at times. Yet Augustine, living in a time (and having experienced as a Manichean) where dualism, an idea of a second, wicked god who was author of creation, was underlying the good of creation and defending divine omnipotence. He never knew when to stop with the explanations, of course - few brilliant philosophers ever do! Yet the neatness of his explanation, acceptable in a philosophical argument which shows that a divine creator is not incompatible with there being evil in this world, can be a pastoral disaster.

Then again (and don't ask me why), even a search of Yahoo groups (related to any topic) can show that there are many people who want to be punished and abused. (No, I have not visited S&M forums - I am speaking of what is childish and pathetic.) I like to cook, and once visited a forum about recipes, never dreaming that the world of pop psychology and the like would have intruded on that space. Participants were not just interested in cooking, but in 'health issues,' nutritionists solving the ills of the world in ways Jesus of Nazareth could only envy from afar, and in cautioning other readers that such items as basil and vinegar are 'poison.' (Artificial sweeteners, I 'learnt,' cause 'brain death.') I did manage to resist the strong temptation to post a response beginning, "This is Elizabeth, talking to you from the grave...", because irony is too blessed a commodity to be wasted.

Some of those on the forum, indulging in symbolic self flagellation in response to the 'obesity epidemic,' posted details of 'grave sins' such as having exceeded ADA portion sizes or having a chocolate as if they had, perhaps, given the enemy the details of the D-day invasion. One irritating bitch on this forum, who jumped down anyone's throat on any provocation (saying she wanted to imitate some "Dr Phil," who must be a major bastard), whipped those who made such 'confessions.' The 'penance' she imposed involved everything down to analysing what inward self hatred would make someone have a bit of tuna salad that was not part of their 'food plan.' Later posts would show the 'gratitude' of those who liked (to quote one of them) that "Suellen gives us what we need - a good kick up the backside!"

Though my guess would be that those courting the favour of this Suellen are rather bent, it's not uncommon, in the religious realm but also in others, for people to want to be punished. I doubt they are thinking of Augustine at the time. They are being exceedingly childish, thinking that what they need to keep them in line is fear of retaliation from some real or imagined authority figure.

With my usual talent for loose associations, I'm thinking of how those such as Martin Luther struggled with angst over the 'perfection' of their contrition. Thomas Aquinas was setting forth concepts about love and response of the will - perfect contrition (that is, conversion based on perfect love) recognises God as the utmost good and source of our happiness. (Perfect happiness would be that which is eternal, perfect, and unchanging - therefore found only in God.) "Imperfect contrition" did not mean a failing grade and being pushed into hell. Since the 'imperfect' sort was that based on a fear of punishment, it does not grasp the perfection of God and desire for union with Him which would mean real love.

People can speak all they wish of Catholic guilt (though there is an odd variety based on Calvinist infiltration, where one feels guilty when one does no wrong but didn't do what was most perfect. I'll get to that on another occasion, probably when I've had a few Irish whiskeys.) Yet it is telling that Thomas Aquinas saw that which is based on punishment as imperfect - yet so much distorted spirituality was focussed on punishment as the means to holiness.