One reader who has been following these posts on St. Dominic's Nine Ways of Prayer raised an important concern about the habitual nature of bodily posture in prayer. It is true that this kind of prayer inclines toward the habitual - as it should. We have all kinds of bad bodily habits - the habit of prayer for the body has something to commend itself in this regard. The problem is when our bodily gestures become mindless and empty. A mindless sign of the cross or genuflection when we walk into Church does not help our faith or build up the body of Christ or give glory to God. But this also happens with our words as well. The problem is not with the gestures or the words, but with the lack of heart, the lack of attention to the Lord. The only safeguard is a deeper devotion to Jesus Christ, a devotion that grows as our loving knowledge of Him increases. This is why contemplation is a key to the Nine Ways - beholding the Lord in faith keeps that devotion alive that makes our bodily movements in prayer a true act of worship.
Standing in deep contemplation is one of the ways St. Dominic battled the human tendency to be mindless in prayer. It was a posture of deep engagement with the Word of God. It is not that he would actually have a Bible in hand. Instead, he held his hands as if a Bible were there and would recite to himself from memory passages of the Holy Scriptures. He was fully engaging the texts that he knew by heart. It was an intense conversation with God. It is this kind of conversation that saves our gestures, our posture, from being meaningless. Such conversation is profoundly open to contemplation - a listening with our spiritual ears, a seeing with the eyes of the heart. It is also the posture of someone ready to act on what he has heard.
Today in our liturgy, at Mass, when the Gospel is read, we stand. Standing carries the idea of "taking a stand." We stand at the proclamation of the Gospel because when the Gospel is read in the Liturgy, Christ is present to us in a powerful way, teaching us here and now in mystery just as He taught his disciples in history. Standing is our total response to his teaching, and to his person. We stand in solidarity with Him. We stand to honor Him. On his words, we stake our lives, our honor, all that is of any value to us in this life. We also stand to listen to Him. We stand taking up our Cross to follow him. This too his how Dominic stood - in his holy conversation with the One whom he loved and who loved Him even more.
November 29, 2010
November 28, 2010
A Carthusian View of Advent: Back to the Future
In our liturgical books, the liturgical year begins with Advent: but Advent itself begins with a week which evokes the glorious return of the Lord, the culmination of the whole history of salvaton. We begin therefore with the end! ...we must know where we are going in order to know how to set about getting there. And it is clear that the whole history of the universe is moving towards the second coming of the Lord, where the final judgement of all people will come to pass, where our present world will come to an end, and the new earth and the new heavens to replace it will unfold; in short, the full actualisation of the Kingdom of God, where God will be all in all. (A Carthusian, From Advent to Pentecost: Carthusian Novice Conferences, trans. Carmel Brett, London: Darton, Longman and Todd (1999), p. 13.)
Advent and the Peace Established by God
The liturgy of the First Sunday of Advent makes us unsettled. Something about God's coming is terrifying. Next week and the week after, the great prophet of God's coming - John the Baptist -will only intensify this feeling, urgently calling us to repentance, to make straight the pathway of the Lord. But this Sunday, it is not his prophet, but the Lord himself who unsettles us, comparing his coming to the waters of destruction at the time of Noah. He commands us to be prepared - implying that we are not, and this is unsettling. See Mt. 24:37-44.
Make no mistake. To feel unsettled is a great grace. We are already becoming free of dehumanizing ignorance when we catch the hint that our lives are not as they ought to be. Because of this grace, now is a time of preparation.
This mystery of God's coming into the world evokes a life of conversion, repentance, true piety, forgiveness, and loving sacrifice - not only for the total stranger, but also for those entrusted to us in our own households, even the ones we want to avoid. If you want justice, explains Cardinal van Thuan in his paradoxical fashion, you must work for peace. What can we do to prepare of the Lord's coming, to prepare for the peace He alone provides? Such hard work! And the Church asks us to embrace this cheerfully.
Advent begins with the call to wake from sleep, to live in the daylight, to put on the Armour of God, to put on Jesus Christ. These calls are urgent. We must not stay asleep in a world of buying and selling, of being entertained, of selfish consumption - we are created for better things. The calls of the Word of God wake us to this reality, move us to seek the Lord in places other than our own comfort. They contain the specific gravity of God's grace. He comes to purify and reorder and re-establish. He makes all things new. Never repeating himself, a unique opportunity is before us, one that will never be extended quite this way again. He comes to establish peace, to separate and order things to his rest like in the first days of creation. What is his rest? What is his peace? He, himself, is the peace He gives and leaves with us.
Since such a great prize is offered us, we must not remain indifferent to the coming of the living God into our lives. This season helps us see that each coming of the Lord into our hearts is another renewal and deepening of Christmas and at the same time an anticipation of our final judgment. If there is joyful expectancy in all the prayers between now and Christmas, there is also the holy fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
Make no mistake. To feel unsettled is a great grace. We are already becoming free of dehumanizing ignorance when we catch the hint that our lives are not as they ought to be. Because of this grace, now is a time of preparation.
This mystery of God's coming into the world evokes a life of conversion, repentance, true piety, forgiveness, and loving sacrifice - not only for the total stranger, but also for those entrusted to us in our own households, even the ones we want to avoid. If you want justice, explains Cardinal van Thuan in his paradoxical fashion, you must work for peace. What can we do to prepare of the Lord's coming, to prepare for the peace He alone provides? Such hard work! And the Church asks us to embrace this cheerfully.
Advent begins with the call to wake from sleep, to live in the daylight, to put on the Armour of God, to put on Jesus Christ. These calls are urgent. We must not stay asleep in a world of buying and selling, of being entertained, of selfish consumption - we are created for better things. The calls of the Word of God wake us to this reality, move us to seek the Lord in places other than our own comfort. They contain the specific gravity of God's grace. He comes to purify and reorder and re-establish. He makes all things new. Never repeating himself, a unique opportunity is before us, one that will never be extended quite this way again. He comes to establish peace, to separate and order things to his rest like in the first days of creation. What is his rest? What is his peace? He, himself, is the peace He gives and leaves with us.
Since such a great prize is offered us, we must not remain indifferent to the coming of the living God into our lives. This season helps us see that each coming of the Lord into our hearts is another renewal and deepening of Christmas and at the same time an anticipation of our final judgment. If there is joyful expectancy in all the prayers between now and Christmas, there is also the holy fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.
Advent 2010, First Sunday: The Power of God's Coming
Advent is a powerful liturgical season ordered to the mystery of Christ's coming. He comes as the Prince of Peace to establish the ways of God as the standard of all that is genuinely human - and He does this personally for each one of us. This is what Isaiah 2:1-5 indicates - the mountain of the Lord is not merely raised up physically, but spiritually, above all other human affairs and powers. What is his mountain but the place where we meet Him? It is a place of theophany. It is at once the Temple Mount, and the mountain of our own hearts. The place of encountering the living God is meant to be the center of human activity, the apex of each life. Christ comes into our lives to bring us to this place of deep contemplation where the creative power of God's word is manifest and peace is established.
In this season, He is always coming in mysterious ways, and those who are humble, hidden in the life of faith are made ready for a great joy. He never stops coming in invisible spiritual ways while we await his final coming in Glory. Each of these new comings of the Lord anticipates that definitive moment of judgment at the end of history, but also prepares of for the moment of our own death -the personal judgment we recieve when we come before his Face. If we are not to be overcome by fear, we must spiritually join with, identify with, the lowly remnant who faithfully awaited his historical coming - which they could not know would be in poverty and humility. These are the ones who walked in the light of the Lord, who longed for peace, who lived in the world spiritually awake. When He came in the surprising way He chose, they could not have anticipated his marvelous ways - and they could not help but rejoice.
November 26, 2010
Advent and Pope Benedict
"This powerful liturgical season invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence... the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us signs of the attention he has for each one of us. How often does God give us a glimpse of love!" Pope Benedict XVI.
The loving Presence of the Lord, a Presence that is always coming to us in new ways. It is time to make room for Him in our schedules and in our hearts. When we do, we are never disappointed. The glimpses the Pope refers to make all the difference in life. Thanks to a special publication by the USCCB, we can journey through Advent with the Holy Father. For daily reflections throughout this season and next, check out Advent and Christmas with Pope Benedict XVI.
The loving Presence of the Lord, a Presence that is always coming to us in new ways. It is time to make room for Him in our schedules and in our hearts. When we do, we are never disappointed. The glimpses the Pope refers to make all the difference in life. Thanks to a special publication by the USCCB, we can journey through Advent with the Holy Father. For daily reflections throughout this season and next, check out Advent and Christmas with Pope Benedict XVI.
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