The Silence of Pentecost

 And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him: but you shall know him; because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you
(John 14:16-17)

St Luke in his dramatic account of the first Christian Pentecost (Acts 2:1-41) focuses, naturally enough, on those whom the Spirit had called to active life. The disciples who spoke in strange languages, St Peter fulfilling his Apostolic function as preacher. We can be sure though that amongst those gathered in the Cenacle there were some followers of Jesus, like Our Lady, Mary of Bethany and St John, who were contemplatives. For those whose mission that day was to talk the Spirit appeared as a tongue of flame. Perhaps for the contemplatives it was more akin to an arrow point which was to descend and transpierce their hearts with the fire of divine love.

We each have a unique relationship with the Father through the Son, and the Holy Spirit guides us into that on the path which He knows to be best for us. We can, perhaps, infer from the Gospel how it was that He guided those saints whom He called primarily to the inward, silent life on the day that the Church, with all her vocations, was born.

In the first book of his two volume history of the primitive church St Luke tells us how the Blessed Virgin responded to the things of God "Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19) and "Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." (Luke 1:46-47) Which is to say that the Theotokos held all these things before the eyes of her heart and this led her to pour out to the Almighty her grateful thanks and abiding joy. Her lips sang sometimes but her grace-filled spirit sang all the time. Perhaps on this historic Pentecost it was for her Son above all that she was grateful as the Spirit led her ever deeper into knowledge and understanding of Divine things. Mindful also of the commandment to love her neighbour as herself she no doubt too reflected with thanks on the new children which Christ had given her from the Cross. All who could be called a beloved disciple of Jesus were also now beloved children of Mary.

Tradition has identified Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany though some now dispute this (primarily for political reasons.) However that might be, of her Luke says "a certain woman named Martha, received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sitting also at the Lord's feet, heard his word. But Martha was busy about much serving" (Luke 10:38-42) If Mary sould sit still and give her undivided attention to the Son in the midst of all the bustle created by her sister and the Apostles it would not surprise us to learn that she did precisely the same thing when it was the Spirit that called for her entire focus. An upper room filled with busy Martha's would not distract her from the one thing that mattered.

About this same Mary the Evangelist St John wrote "Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment." (John 12:3) This was an act of much self abasement and a devotion of things of great value and beauty to God. Many of those seeing it, especially the traitor Judas, decried it as needlessly extravagant but the Lord praised it highly. It was impractical and unworldly and on Pentecost day when we recall the eminently practical business of preaching in all the tongues of the world and converting souls to the Church we should remember too the witness borne by the Magdalene. Through silence, humility and the creation of beautiful things in the service of worship the Holy Spirit works just as effectively and powerfully as He does in all the other charisms which He gives to the faithful.

Not many days before the Holy Spirit descended, by the Lake of Tiberias, St John was the first of the Apostles to recognise the Risen Messiah "That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved, said to Peter: It is the Lord" (John 21:7) The quick eyed love born of contemplation gave the young Evangelist a power of discernment greater than that of his companions. On this same occasion St Peter had been confirmed as chief of the Apostles and shepherd of the Church which is why, within a few weeks, it was he who preached to the people at Pentecost. We see here, again, that different people are led in different ways by the Spirit, some to be active leaders and teachers, others to be devoted to quiet love and contemplation. Peter laboured to give us the Church, John allowed the Spirit to flow through him and gave us the most sublime of the four Gospel accounts which we now have.

It is sometimes asked what useful purpose the Catholic contemplative orders serve. I like to think that on that birth day of the Church the efforts of the missionaries on the streets of Jerusalem were strengthened by the prayers of the contemplatives in the Cenacle joined to the power of the Spirit. Furthermore, whenever from time to time the active disciples and the new converts ascended to the Upper Room the sight of the contemplatives absorbed in silent prayer both inspired them more and filled them with a sense of the peace of Christ which passes all understanding. And as she began so has the Church ever continued down to this day with the devoted lives of those called to bear silent witness to the faith through an enclosed vocation serving the spiritual life and health of Christians in a hidden but powerful way.
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Why Are We So Foolish?

 Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which doth not satisfy you?
(Isaiah 55:2)

During the course of our lives the one object which puzzles us more often than anything else we encounter is likely to be our own self. Why we do the things which we do is often opaque to our reasoning, logical consciousness. We continually pursue things, people or experiences which have repeatedly proven themselves unable to give us satisfaction in the apparent belief that this time it will be different. What's that all about?

It is conventional for religions (and not just Christianity) to depict the normal life of wordlings, a wonderfully expressive word, as being a continual nightmare of sorrow and pain. This, of course, is not the full story. It is no doubt true that at a deep place within ourselves alienation from God produces great distress but most of us live on more shallow levels than that. Occasional intimations from out of the depths may alert us that all is not right but more immediately our direct experiences of anguish and grief alternate with those of delight and pleasure.

It is through our senses that we encounter the world and our sensory experiences have a power and immediacy that can overwhelm and subdue all the other facets of our personality. We know that if we give way to this or that sensual urge then within a measurably short period of time we shall experience a surge of pleasure which is not obtainable in any other way. Although Memory and Reason inform us that the medium to long term consequences of not resisting such urges will be bad; and although Mind tells us that we are, as humans, more than merely the sum total of our sensual experiences we nonetheless give way to them because the present moment and its pleasures is certain in a way that nothing else is.

The Church, which has a role to play in directing people towards higher things, can be tempted to counter morally bad sensations with good ones. Dancing around waving your hands and shouting Alleluia to the backing of of pounding rock track while under the impression (possibly correct) that the Holy Spirit is at work in you is preferable to the more purely carnal alternatives. Nonetheless useful as such exercises may be the primary function of Christianity is not to offer a good apple in order to replace a bad apple.

 While what the Church does offer, Jesus, is certainly our daily bread He is also, as the old translation puts it, our supersubstantial bread too. If our sensory experiences are the base upon which we build ourselves as individual humans the spiritual realm is the source and summit of our lives. Against the visible and the immediate the Church points us towards the hidden and the eternal. In yielding too much too frequently to our senses we drown out what is not only deeper and higher within ourselves but that which is the best of ourselves.

To purchase this bread and labour for this satisfaction we must pursue the path of self-denial and self discipline. Our Lord put it like this "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the earth, and should sleep, and rise, night and day, and the seed should spring, and grow up whilst he knoweth not.  For the earth of itself bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear" (Mark 4:26-28) That is, the Spirit will work within us, the corn will become bread, if we do not keep disturbing the earth. We allow God's grace to do its work when we stop avidly seeking sensation and start patiently, faithfully and lovingly giving Him our full attention out of the stillness of silence.
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The picture is Wise and Foolish Virgins by William Blake

Mary & the Poets: 5 The Air We Breathe

Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet
       Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through,
        God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so
(The Blessed Virgin Mary compared to the Air we Breathe)

This is a long poem by Gerard Hopkins which I can only briefly touch on here. I highly recommend that people read it in full when they get a chance.

Our Lady has one task, the unique privilege of being the channel through which the Glory of God, the Word of God, enters the world as flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone while yet remaining wholly Divine. This is not a vocation that began at the Annunciation and ended at Christmas. Mary and Jesus were intimately united throughout their lives on earth and death cannot defeat such a union. God does not change His ways, if He came to us through Mary once then He comes to us through her always.

She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense
      Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air.

The Blessed Virgin is mediatrix of all grace. Through her hands flow the gifts of love, forgiveness and mercy which the good God pours out upon the world. One cannot add to His gifts so she herself is part of that gift. She comes to us with God's grace. She enters our lives with her gentleness, her smile, her maternal solicitude. With her presence the gift is fully complete and we enter into the life of Christ with her by our side.

A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are
   What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him
       Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.

If we saw God as He is we would be terrified by His power, by His glory, as the children of Israel were at Mount Sinai when Moses ascended to receive the Decalogue. So He comes to us as a child with a mother, as the Crucified One comforting the stricken Mary. Where He is she is. And when we see Him through her eyes, in her presence, it is the human Christ we see. We learn to love Him as she loves Him and this perfect love casts out fear.

World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled,
       Fold home, fast fold thy child.

Holding fast to Mary we can be raised by her to her Divine Son. Mary is our mother as she is His mother. Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as can become like children. Mary was protectress, teacher, wise counsellor to Our Lord in His childhood if we make ourselves children for the sake of the kingdom then she will be our Protectress, Teacher and Wise Counsellor too.
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The painting is The Virgin of the Navigators by Alejo Fernandez 

Doing Good Because It Is Good?

Was it not thy duty to have mercy on thy fellow servant, as I had mercy on thee?
(Matthew 18:33)

It is sometimes argued that we should do good simply because it is good and not out of any desire for reward or fear of punishment. And, it is frequently added, the most powerful force preventing people from doing good is often religion. Although the argument is superficially plausible it contains multiple flaws.

One of these is the assumption that 'Good' is a category which is immediately obvious to all and that everyone shares the same understanding of it. That being so, where Good is 'common sense' or a thing that 'stands to reason' or an inherent 'natural' quality, then only an irrational counter-balance, like religion, can lead people astray. But it is not so. I propose to look at three concepts, Forgiveness, Mercy, and Duty, to make the point more clearly.

The philosopher Hannah Arendt, who was no Christian, wrote "The discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth" This does not mean that the concept had no prior existence what it suggests is that Jesus injected it into the everyday practice of ordinary people in a way which had not previously occurred. Rather like rock and roll existed before Elvis but until he released the single Blue Suede Shoes it did not enter the American mainstream.

Forgiveness is not a 'natural' reaction. Retaliation is the impulsive response to injury. While a case in Reason can be made to justify forgiveness one at least equally strong can be made to justify its opposite. So, a decision has to be made as to which of these is Good and it is by no means obvious to 'common sense.' Arendt put it like this "The freedom contained in Jesus’ teaching of forgiveness is the freedom from vengeance, which incloses both doer and sufferer in the relentless automatism of the action process, which by itself need never come to an end." This is a fairly subtle point, albeit a significant one, and would not have entered into the current of daily life in the West had it not had a powerful agent promoting it. By which I mean, specifically, the Catholic Church.

The case may become clearer if we consider Mercy. Unlike forgiveness which anyone can practice Mercy is a quality which only the powerful can exercise. It means restraining that power when one could use it, not because such restraint benefits the strong one but because it benefits the weak one. Again, this is not something obvious to 'common sense' In ancient thought, summarised by Thucydides in the Melian Dialogue, it was held that the strong ruled because they could and the weak obeyed because they must.

Christianity introduced the idea that even the very powerful are themselves recipients of Mercy from God and if they desire to continue to receive that Mercy then they must themselves be merciful. Once more, the concept of mercifulness existed apart from the Church. The Stoic Seneca, who was to the Emperor Nero much like Steve Bannon is to President Trump, wrote an essay on Clemency. But the suggestion was not that Nero was under a binding obligation to be merciful simply that it befitted him as an adornment to his rule, nor was the principle capable of infinite extension to everyone with the least little power over another human being.

The Christian notion that we should give mercy and forgiveness because we receive it does not come from the realm of 'common sense' or 'nature.' There is no 'because' to be logically derived from a set of relationships where A receives mercy from B and then mercilessly denies a request for mercy from C. Why should A be merciful to C, from whom he has received nothing, just because B has given him something? Well, because he has a Duty to be merciful. But this Duty does not emerge from the realm of pure thought alone, it comes from the spiritual realm, that is, it is a religious Duty.

For more than a thousand years almost everyone in the West frequently repeated the words "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." More than that from early childhood they were catechised into owning these words, into making them a reality in their daily lives. They became and have remained part of the furniture of the Western mind and Western sentiment. If they now appear to Westerners as 'common sense' it is not nature which has effected this level of understanding, it is the Christian Church, it is Jesus Christ.

At its highest possible expression Absolute Good is not a series of propositions we can deduce from our immanent surroundings. It is a transcendent reality which we encounter. God is Absolute Goodness and if we have a duty to do Good apart from considerations of reward and punishment it is because God is Good not because we are.
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On my *other* blog I have looked at this from another angle in- Are Atheists More Moral than Christians?

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The painting is The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant by Barent Fabritius.

Virgin Most Serene

Have recourse to her in thy temptations,
And the serenity of her countenance will strengthen thee
(Psalter of the BVM II)

Catholics often explain their devotion to Our Lady by saying that it is easier to gaze upon the moon than it is to look directly at the sun. That is to say that we know that the source of light and strength, love and wisdom is God and that He has, through Jesus, made it easy for us to approach Him. Nonetheless when we think how hideous and ugly we have made ourselves by our self-willed wickedness and repeated failures to act as we know we should our heart fails us. Reason and the teachings of the Church make it clear that we can turn to Our Lord but the heart has its own logic and will not be convinced by mere words and thoughts.

Knowing this weakness of ours and longing for us to turn to Him the Good God has given us Mary to be our companion, guide and teacher on the path towards Him. As the moon receives all its light from the sun so to the Mother is a perfect mirror of the virtues of her Son. The moon  has its own features and characteristics, likewise Mary unites her own maternal solicitude to the light of the Spirit which illuminates her from within. Her purpose is to bring us to Jesus and our purpose in turning to her is to be covered by her mantle so that we may appear before Him without shame.

St Bonaventure (to whom the Psalter of the BVM is attributed) wisely advises us to draw strength from the serene countenance of the Blessed Virgin when assailed by the storms of temptation. How can we do this? One option is to take his advice literally. Never be far from an image of Mary, a picture, an icon, a statue, and when the need arises stop what we are doing and simply look at her. Focus our attention on the Virgin in her serenity until the storm subsides and we can resume our normal business.

We can also through our prayers meditate on her countenance as reflected in her life. The mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary or those of the Seven Sorrows, her attributes mentioned in the Litany of Loreto and the accounts of her in the Gospel are things we can spend time with. Immersing ourselves in these will weaken the hold of satan upon us and help to drive temptation far away.

Most profoundly we can, in the depths of our hearts, wordlessly and silently simply contemplate the one who can say of herself "I am the Immaculate Conception." Looking at the night sky on a clear, still night can fill us with a wonderful sense of the infinity of the universe. Similarly gazing with the eyes of the heart upon the Immaculata can open up to our sight the wonders of the Blessed Trinity to whom no one is closer than Mary, daughter of the Father, spouse of the Spirit, mother of the Son. In the battle against darkness Our Lady of Light, the Most Serene Virgin Mary, is a powerful ally and source of strength.
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The painting is The Immaculate Conception by Carlo Crivelli 

Finding Peace

I am become in His presence as one finding peace.
(Song of Songs 8:10)

Medieval Catholic mystics loved what was then known as the Canticle of Canticles because it has so many layers of meaning. It can be read as the relationship between the soul seeking union with God and the Beloved object of that search. There is a transcendent dimension to this quest, a longing to  'dwell in this translucent darkness and, through not seeing and not knowing, to see Him who is beyond both vision and knowledge' as the writer called Dionysius the Areopagite put it. This indeed would be the very summit of peace, to be in the presence of the Blessed Trinity; adoring and loving.

Yet such a high aspiration seems very distant and enormously difficult to all but a handful of ordinary, simple Christians. Reflecting on this Pope Benedict XVI said 'in the end, the path to God is God himself, who makes himself close to us in Jesus Christ.' That is, to find peace in His presence it is only necessary to find Jesus. Or, to put it another way ' none knows the Father truly except the Son, and those to whom it is the Son’s good pleasure to reveal him.' (Matthew 11:27)

One of the effects of the Incarnation, of Jesus being both fully human and fully divine, is that heaven has been brought down to earth so that we who are earthy can be raised to heaven. When we become clothed with Christ we can enter into the presence of His Father and ours and so find the One who is Peace, Peace Himself. The mystical union ceases then to be the business of merely a few ascetics or philosophers and becomes the achievable object of all the baptised.

To find Jesus, though, doesn't mean simply to know His name or to profess faith in Him with our lips, though both these things are necessary. It is to enter into a loving relationship with Him in each of the places where we encounter Him. In the sacrament of the altar, in the liturgy, in the Gospels, in our prayers, in the depths of our own hearts. This continual exchange of love is both the path to divine union and the achievement of that union. We are in His presence always but it is only when we realise that presence through an outflowing and inflowing of love that we can say that we are also at peace now and forever.
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The painting is Christ in the House of Martha and Mary by Rembrandt van Rijn.

Wicked Thoughts

Jesus read their minds, and said- 
Why do you cherish wicked thoughts in your hearts?
(Matthew 9:4)

Although Our Lord had a specific audience when He asked this question it is as apposite for us now as it was for them then. There is no record of them attempting an answer but I think it is possible for us to do so. The key words to think about, it seems to me, are 'cherish' and 'hearts'

The thoughts which we hold in the fully conscious part of our minds are open to be comprehensively analysed by our Reason. That is, we can examine them from all angles and consider their rightness or wrongness, their fitness for purpose. New ideas are easy to treat in this fashion, older ideas, which have become habitual, are more difficult to see fully because we have ceased being aware that they are ideas. Nonetheless, even with them, searching self-examination allows for their flaws to be spotted and corrected if we have the courage or imagination to do so.

This is not so with the thoughts of the heart. These exist in part below the level of our awareness, we know the conclusions but the process that led to those conclusions being reached is hidden from us. They cannot then be fully examined by Reason but they can powerfully influence what we do and say. The concealed root for many of our heart-thoughts is what Buddhists call desire and Christians lust. Although this last word is usually associated with sex nowadays it really means a strong want or longing for something attainable in this material world. When our lust for something is attached to our will so that we both desire and seek to obtain that something then our heart gives birth to its thoughts.

 We can be said to cherish them when we hug them close to ourselves despite the warning which we receive from Reason. Which is to say, because our heart-thoughts are linked to an insatiable lust and a fixed will they constantly present themselves before us (and others) as the wellspring for our actions in the world. To the extent that they do so we can apply our Reason to them and notice their wicked origins and outcomes. Yet Reason alone is powerless to defeat them because, as the Christ noted, we cherish them so.

Only the gift of God's grace through Jesus gives us the strength to defeat the thoughts of the heart. Alone we lack the strength though we may possess the desire. For most of us the last heart-thought to which we most stubbornly cling is the pride that imagines we can win our own battles with ourselves. Once we have the humility and realistic self-understanding to let go of that and allow the Holy Spirit to do His gracious work in us then we can hope to be set free from bondage to sin.
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The picture is Bathsheba bathing from a Book of Hours in the Morgan Library 

Salvation: Is It Relevant in 2017?

                                                 Only in Him is there salvation
                                                  (Acts of the Apostles 4:11)

If people have no concept of themselves as personal sinners and no belief in the existence of an eternal hell does the Christian doctrine of salvation serve any useful purpose? One could argue that disbelieving in a fact, like for example the law of gravity, does not make a person less exempt from the effects of that fact. So if the doctrines are true (which they are) then people will discover that, for themselves, in due course. It is, however, the business of the Church to save souls in time not to follow the (reputed) example of Scottish presbyterianism-
"There will be people cast into the pits of Hell, crying 'oh, Lord, we didna ken!' And the Lord will reply, 'well, ye ken noo!'"

The obvious angle of approach, I suppose, is to persuade people that they are wrong by urgently preaching about the wickedness that truly does abide in each person's heart, leaving them vulnerable to temptation, and about the eternal consequences of indulging that sinful inclination. It is important that this path is pursued vigorously but Christians should have more than one string to their bow.

Another line of argument can, I think, be found if we consider the significance of the words "in Him" from the text. To be saved is to be in Christ and to have Christ in us. "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." (Pope Benedict XVI) When we rest in Him life is transformed, we see things and people and our very selves differently. We have entered into a new relationship. We are in love and will be so for eternity. That is what salvation is.

It is no coincidence that the romantic language of lovers mirrors the language of our salvation relationship with God. The first is an as yet imperfect icon of the second. As the Pope Emeritus put it "God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love" When He saw our estrangement from Him this desire He has for us led Him to travel the infinite distance from divine glory to abandonment, shame and death on the Cross for no other reason than for to win us back to loving Him. He does not dazzle us with His power but He shares with us our vulnerability and weakness.

As romantic love changes into conjugal love over time so our life in Christ alters from our first experiences of it. We discover "in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to “be there for” the other."(Deus Caritas Est 7) Since God is not physically present to us here below we can only, as it were, do good to Him through our neighbours whom He loves as thoroughly as He loves us.

This then is the beginning of salvation, to experience in our limited way infinite love here and now and to share that infinite love with all those, both the good and the bad, who are around us. The end of it is to experience the same in an unlimited way for eternity. Is salvation relevant to you, now, today? Of course it is.
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Mary Magdalene: The Beloved of The Beloved

Give therefore your hearts and your souls, to seek the Lord your God
(1 Chronicles 22:19)

At His appearance by the Sea of Tiberias there is one Apostle who recognises the Risen Christ ahead of all the others 'That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved, said to Peter: It is the Lord' (John 21:7) Quick-eyed love is more clear sighted and faster to apprehend than any other of the senses when it comes to the beloved object.

Although the Evangelist talks of the love that Jesus had for the disciple not of the disciple's love for his Lord there can be no doubt that it was a mutual relationship. God loves each of us infinitely but we experience that divine hunger for us in different degrees according to what is in our own soul. The powerfully felt and strongly expressed love of St John for the Christ called forth such a strong response from Jesus that His love for the Apostle was apparent to all.

The same principle was at work in the events of the first Easter morning. Mary Magdalene became witness to the Resurrection and Apostle to the Apostles because her passionate and chaste devotion to Him drew her to seek Jesus and drew Him to show Himself to her. 'For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart' the psalmist had said (Psalm 72:26) and the Magdalene lived these words with her entire being.

Tradition has applied to her the words 'Many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much.' (Luke 7:47) and also ' Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of right spikenard, of great price, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair' (John 12:3) Modern scholars question this interpretation of the texts but the Christian ancients intuited a great truth which academics don't concern themselves with. That is, Mary Magdalene received the unique privilege of becoming the first recorded witness to the Resurrection not by happy chance but because her consuming, burning, fiery love for Jesus the Saviour gave her the position of first among equals of all those who had come to know Him since His Nativity.

This bright love,though, has its dark places. The Magdalene came to the joy of the Risen life by travelling through the valley of the shadow of death. Because she loved so much she suffered enormously on the hill of Calvary when her beloved had died an agonising and shameful death. Long and dreary too were the bleak hours that passed between His entombment and that moment 'very early in the morning, the first day of the week' (Mark 16:2) when she became the glad bearer of Good News that the world had changed forever. She bears witness too that for all of us however close we may be to the Lord (or think ourselves to be) there will be no Crown if there has been no Cross.
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The picture is Noli Me Tangere from a 15th Century Paris Missal.

Lectio Divina for Holy Week

Wikipedia tells us that 'Lectio Divina (Latin for "Divine Reading") is a traditional  Benedictine practice of scriptural reading, meditation and prayer intended to promote communion with God and to increase the knowledge of God's Word. It does not treat Scripture as texts to be studied, but as the Living Word' Which, I think, means that we need not be overly bothered with context but that if we find a passage, clause or word then we hold it in our mind and simply gaze at it with the eyes of the heart. That is to say, we don't do the intellectual analysing which we might do in other situations but we hear it as a lover speaking out of the fulness of His heart directly to our own heart.

One such text for Holy Week, when we recall the turbulent events culminating in the drama of Easter, might be this-
 I abode in the wilderness.
I waited for Him that hath saved me
(Psalm 54:8-9)

On the Cross our Lord told the penitent rebel "I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43) The Creed informs us that Jesus descended to Hell that same day from which we can conclude that paradise is where He is. The opposite case, then, is that where He is absent we are cast out into the wilderness there to wait His coming. When we, by mortal sin, kill grace in our soul we place ourself apart from Him in the desert. Sometimes too we experience abandonment even when we have done nothing amiss since such is the Father's will for us. In either event all we can do is compose ourselves to wait for the One that has saved, is saving and will save us, our dear Lord, Jesus Christ.

An icon of this text is the Blessed Virgin Mary on Holy Saturday that agonising time between the burial of her Son and His rising again. Of the first of those events she was certain with the certainty of sight of the second she had only the certainty of hope for things unseen. In the wilderness, without Jesus, waiting in sorrow and in faith was all that she could do.

How often during that day must she have said 'O Jesus, O my Jesus, O Jesus' Words that came from the centre of her grief laden being. Repeated over and over with an emotional and personal force that came from more than thirty years of loving relationship with her Divine Son. The word Jesus had for her all the associations that flowed from the great joy of Annunciation and Nativity through the hidden years to the apotheosis on Golgotha. There is much debate about the use of mantras in Christianity but if we could say them as Mary said her Son's name on that day of darkness we would be nearer to heaven than we are. As we can't it might be wiser to use the texts and prayers that our mother the Church gives to us.

At all events full of grace and virtue as Our Lady was she still had to abide her sorrow in patient waiting. The gifts of God come to us when He wills to send them. We cannot call them down simply by the strength of our own efforts. We must give of ourselves in our sorrows and in our joys and then wait.The Spirit visits us not because we deserve Him but because we need Him and He comes only at the times which He knows to be best for us. Until then we are in the wilderness, but we do have this sure and certain knowledge, the One for whom we are waiting loves us more than we can possibly love Him and His blood has been shed for us.
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Sixth Sorrow of Mary: She Receives Her Son's Body

The Blessed Virgin was overwhelmed with sorrow and love. Once more, and for the last time, did she hold in her arms the body of her most beloved Son
(Dolorous Passion LI)

Hail Mary, who held the pierced and lifeless body of your Son next to your Immaculate Heart

Sacred Scripture itself is silent as to the state of mind of the grieving Virgin. "Her soul is in anguish, and the Lord hath hid it from me, and hath not told me." (4 Kings 4:27) It does tell us, though, about her ancestor David's response to the death of his son-
"My son Absalom, Absalom my son: would to God that I might die for thee, Absalom my son, my son Absalom."
(2 Kings/Samuel 18:33)
If David was nearly destroyed with grief over the death of his guilty child how much more must Mary have suffered in being bereaved of her Innocent One?

In the modern era there is a distaste for the focus on the sheer physicality of the Passion and Death of Our Lord that characterised so much earlier piety. It is felt to be morbid to spend so much time considering every aspect of His suffering and the attention paid to the empty shell of His corpse. After all, it is reasoned, the main point of His mission was the teaching He gave us and the reconciliation He wrought for us in the heavenly places. This is a dangerously misleading approach to take. The entire essence of the economy of salvation is that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

If Jesus had been crucified without giving the Sermon on the Mount we would still be saved, if He had given the Sermon without being crucified we would still be lost. His body matters. A lot. Of course He did both, and we should never consider the two things, His teaching and His suffering apart from each other. When Mary hugged the body of the dead Saviour close to her Immaculate Heart she was not only transported with her own unimaginable sorrow she was also acting as our plenipotentiary. We to need to come near to the Man of Sorrows in all His humanity as well as in all His divinity.

Jesus had said, referring to His body,  "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19) About the Temple of Solomon the psalmist had sung "Its stones are dear to your servants; its dust moves them to pity" (Psalm 102:15) If the Spirit of God had moved the children of the Old Covenant to sigh over the very dust of its Temple how much more must it move us to join with Mary and lament over the bruised, battered and pierced body of our own most lovable and eternal Temple, Jesus Christ.
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Fifth Sorrow of Mary: She Stands at the Foot of the Cross

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen
(John 19:25)

Hail Mary, who fully entered into the agony and death of your crucified Son.

St John is the only Evangelist to record the presence of the Blessed Virgin on Mount Calvary. He too is the only witness for her role in the wedding at Cana where Our Lord's public mission began. At that time Mary's compassionate heart was moved at the thought of the suffering the newlyweds would endure if they were shamed by being unable to provide for their guests. And what of Mary's immaculate and compassionate heart now as she watches her beloved Son die slowly in front of her eyes?

Then she had said "they have no wine." Now the Precious Blood of Jesus flows like the new wine of the new covenant. Then she had instructed the servants, and through them all the Church for all time "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye" (John 2:1-11) Now it was His will that she should fully enter into His agony, and what He willed, she did. So complete and total was her perfect love for Him that not only the gross suffering of His Passion- the nails in His hands and feet, the thorns pressing deep into His skull, the raging thirst- were felt by her but every single breath, every bead of sweat rolling down His skin, every flicker of emotion from compassion to abandonment which He felt was felt with equal force by her, His afflicted mother. Theologians tell us that, were it not for a supernatural act of power by the Spirit, Mary herself would have died on Golgotha so completely was she immersed in her Sons final agony and bitter death.

At Mary's instigation the nuptial feast at Cana had been the gateway to the public career of Jesus. At His instigation the Cross at Calvary has become the gateway to the "marriage supper of the Lamb" (Apocalypse 19:9) His Body and Blood are the foundations of our feast in the Eucharist and the reason for our hope in eternity. The Apostles consumed Him under the appearance of bread and wine at the supper of Holy Thursday. Mary, His Mother, whose flesh was His flesh and whose blood was His blood consumed Him and was consumed by Him through her most perfect union with Him on that darkness-shrouded hill. That union has never been broken since which is why we can approach Mary in prayer with such perfect confidence. There are many reasons why Jesus will listen to her petitions and not the least of them is the unbreakable bond formed between them on that dreadful day.
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The painting is Crucifixion by Robert Campin

Fourth Sorrow of Mary: She Meets Jesus Bearing His Cross

He was almost sinking under the heavy weight of his cross, and his head, still crowned with thorns, was drooping in agony on his shoulder. He cast a look of compassion and sorrow upon his Mother, staggered, and fell for the second time upon his hands and knees. Mary was perfectly agonised at this sight; she forgot all else; she saw neither soldiers nor executioners; she saw nothing but her dearly loved Son

(The Dolorous Passion XXXII)

Hail Mary, who deeply distressed encountered your cross-bearing and suffering Son.

It is one of the mysteries of love that the presence of a beloved one can both increase and diminish suffering at the same time. For Jesus it would have immeasurably added to His affliction when He saw the anguish His mother experienced when she saw Him. It was also infinitely consoling to Him to have the one He loved and honoured above all others near at hand and touching Him with her total compassion. Similarly, for Mary it was exquisite agony to see Jesus sinking under the dark weight of the world's sin. Yet it was, too, a source of strength for her to feel that He knew and appreciated the depth of her love for Him.

This highly intense drama lasted for only a few seconds and most people on the Via Dolorosa would have known nothing about it. Yet what immensity of feeling, of emotion and of perfect love was packed into those precious instants. The agonies of Christ in Gethsemane and on Calvary lasted for longer but they never sank deeper into pain or rose higher in silent appeal to the Lord and Father of all.

The liturgies of the Church ascribe to Our Lady of the Passion the words of Jeremiah the prophet-
"O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow" (Lamentations 1:12)
And how could there be? To see your beautiful, perfect Son being led away to a shameful and painful death after having been tortured, mocked and unjustly condemned, knowing that there is nothing you can do to save Him. What anguish! What torment! And to know also that this is far from the end of both His sufferings and yours. Ahead lie the hours on the Cross and the final mystery of death.

So we have the two great mysteries, love and death, on this Good Friday it will be resolved which has the final victory. On the road to Golgotha Mary might have used to Jesus the words of Solomon "Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death" (Canticles 8:6)
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Master Thomas de Coloswar: Christ Carrying the Cross

Second Sorrow of Mary: Flight Into Egypt

An angel of the Lord appeared in sleep to Joseph, saying: Arise, and take the child and his mother, and fly into Egypt: and be there until I shall tell thee. For it will come to pass that Herod will seek the child to destroy him. Who arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt
(Matthew 2:13-14)

Hail Mary, who for love of your Son fled into darkness and exile.

There is a world of frantic activity covered in the few words Who arose, and took the child and his mother by night, and retired into Egypt. It is also a sadly familiar picture. Thousands of times over the centuries families have been roused at night and hurried out of house and country through fear of the Gestapo or Islamic State of their day. We can picture the scene, Joseph wakes the sleeping Virgin and after a some hurried words of explanation they pack their few small belongings together with whatever food and drink they can collect, lift up the sweetly sleeping infant Jesus and head out into the darkness for an unknown destination.

In the 21st century it may be difficult to fully comprehend the significance of their escape commencing at night. There were no electric lights, no headlamps, only the moon and the stars often hidden by clouds. Especially when travelling over unfamiliar roads alone and without a guide, as the Holy Family were, it was a course of action so hazardous that only the extreme nature of the danger they were escaping could justify it.

Imagine the state of mind of our Lady. She went to sleep with her beloved Son near at hand, St Joseph providing for them both, the memory of the visit of the Magi fresh in her mind and only the prophecy of Simeon casting a vague shadow on her happiness. Then within an incredibly short time she finds herself, baby in arms, travelling through an impenetrable blackness towards a strange and hostile land pursued by a malevolent hatred whose nature she, the sinless one, the pure one, the loving one, could not begin to comprehend.

It is significant that in this situation the Blessed Virgin unhesitatingly trusted herself and her Jesus to St Joseph. She did not doubt his testimony anent the Angel's warning and she did not doubt his ability to protect and guide them through the difficult times that lay ahead. In her life Mary not only illustrated the beauty of loving devotion to God but also the importance of the family as the strong basic unit of human life. To love the Divine One is to love ones neighbour and to share one's life with others in a continual mutual giving. Being driven into sudden exile was a great shock and sorrow to Mary, bringing a thousand worries and fears in its wake, but she had the consolations both of Grace and of nature through the constant protecting love, in their different orders, of God and of her husband.

The Evangelist John, to whom Mary was an adopted mother by the express instruction of Jesus, wrote "If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen" (1 John 4:20) No Christian can look upon the second sorrow of Mary with true sympathy and love if they harden their hearts against those who today are driven from their homes by fear of persecution and death. Christ is present in the midst of all suffering and Mary, His Mother, is with Him. You will be sentencing them to another exile if you fail to extend to hand of neighbourliness to the refugee who flies to your country, your city, your street. You cannot truly meditate on the things of God with your mind if you do not perform the actions God requires of you with your body.
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First Sorrow of Mary: Simeon's Prophecy

Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.

(Luke 2:34-35)

Hail Mary, who accepted that your own soul would be pierced by a sword for love of your Son.

There are forty days between Christmas and the Presentation in the Temple. Out of the thirty-three years that Mary was mother to Jesus on earth these were the only days of unalloyed joy. After that she could never be entirely clear from the shadow of the Cross. Doubtless there were many moments, perhaps whole weeks when the shadow was only at the back of her mind but it never departed entirely. She knew. She could not help but know. Her beautiful Son would be a source of scandal to the world and because she loved Him so entirely everything which fell upon Him would fall upon her also.

Since humans are weakened by sin and by their vulnerability to temptation human love is an imperfect thing. If we examine it closely we see it is a compound made up of a mixture of emotions and desires, some selfless some demandingly selfish. Mary was sinless so her love was pure and therefore perfect. She loved her Son as no other mother could love a son. This meant that the pain she felt when He was hurt is something beyond the scope of our sinful human imagination to grasp in its entirety. This applies also to the pain by anticipation which she would have experienced when she heard the words of old Simeon and on the many occasions afterwards when she would have pondered them in her heart.

When Mary uttered her fiat to Gabriel "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." (Luke 1:38) she did not know in detail what it would entail but she did commit herself freely and completely to do the will of the Father in everything concerning the mission He had entrusted to her. From Simeon she had now learnt in part what this would mean. This did not cause her to retreat from or to regret her commitment. Flesh and blood might not be able to face up to such an ordeal, it would seek to escape or be crushed by despair. But Mary, like all of us, was more than mere flesh and blood she was spirit too and in her case spirit full of Grace. God who sent her both the gift and the trial also sent her, in the Holy Spirit, the means to endure and to triumph. Her obedience to the Father, love of the Son and strength from the Spirit would help her in her sorrow. If we, now, today, in the 21st century gaze upon the Blessed Virgin as a mirror for ourselves then, learning from her, imitating her and imploring her intercession we too can fulfil our particular missions relying not upon ourselves but upon Mary's Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
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Seventh Sorrow of Mary: She Buries Her Son

And the women that were come with him from Galilee, following after, saw the sepulchre, and how his body was laid

(Luke 23:55)

Hail Mary, whose Son was hidden from you by the darkness and silence of the tomb.

For Jews and Christians alike the psalms provide the natural language of prayer. In His final extremity Jesus had directly quoted two of them. By His grave His afflicted mother might have added a third-
Thou lightest my lamp, O Lord:
O my God enlighten my darkness
(Psalm 17:29)
The One who was the Light of the World and the light of her Immaculate Heart had been sealed into the total blackness of the sepulchre. Only God, in His power and compassion, could console her now. What did she have left in the world. All was gone. All gone.

Now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13:13) Bereft of everything else Mary still firmly possessed the three theological virtues, which by the Grace of God she held to a superlative degree. Properly speaking faith is not belief in a thing; it is trust in a person. Had our Lady not, even as a girl, been firmly united in faith to the Father He would not have entrusted her with the privilege of becoming mother of His Son and our Saviour. That faith never wavered even in the bleakest moments of the first Good Friday. It stayed with Mary and strengthened her as the stone closed over the corpse of her beloved Jesus.

Likewise properly speaking, hope is not an optimistic feeling that things will somehow be alright in the end. It is an inner certitude that the promises we have received will be fulfilled. The Archangel Gabriel had told the Theotokos anent her Son-
"He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever"
(Luke 1:32)
Mary did not know how these promises could be kept in the wake of the seeming total failure of her Son's mission and His shameful and agonising death. That they would be kept she knew with the firmness of a supernatural hope. Her part was to await their fulfilment and this she would do in the presence of sorrow but the absence of despair.

And charity, caritas, love. The compassionate Virgin had around her the Holy Women, not least the inconsolable Magdalene, as objects for her outgoing, generous love even in calamity and as sources for incoming consoling love at her time of greatest need. She had the young St John, a new son for her as Jesus had said. And more than these she had her love for the Christ, her child. A love too powerful for death to overcome. Too powerful to end in time. A love, she knew which would shine throughout eternity, living and unconquerable. As that love had so recently led her to stand at the foot of the Cross now it would lead her to wait for Him to redeem the time and to re-unite Himself to her. And so, Mary waited.
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Third Sorrow of Mary: Searching for Jesus

Thinking that he was in the company, they came a day' s journey, and sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance. And not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in the temple

(Luke 2:44-46)

Hail Mary, who filled with anxiety desperately searched for your Son.

After the shadow cast by Simeon's prophecy and the shock of the sudden flight into Egypt the Holy Family were able to spend some years enjoying the tranquillity of order. This enabled them to do the thousand-and-one tiny things that make up the quiltwork of quiet happiness. Following the great and joyful celebration of Passover Mary and Joseph could set off on the journey back to their Nazareth home in high good humour and deep contentment.

We can see this third sorrow coming upon our Lady not suddenly but slowly by degrees. First, a little surprise that Jesus is proving so hard to find. Then some doubt whether He will be found. An ever growing anxiety and anguish as it becomes more and more certain that He has been lost. A long day's journey back to Jerusalem filled with worry and thoughts about all the things which might have gone wrong. 'Is this,' Mary perhaps wondered, 'the prophesied sword, and my Son so young?'

There has been much speculation and debate as to why our Lord acted as He did. This need not detain us here, our concern is with His Mother and her response to Him. St Luke records it for us-

"His mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing."

She does not reproach or berate Him, though a good many mothers might feel she would be justified in doing so, instead she simply asks Him for His reasons and lays bare her emotional condition before Him. She had been sorrowing with all the sorrow that her perfect love for her perfect Son could experience. A sorrow beyond the power of mere words to describe or for the imagination of the imperfect to fully comprehend.

The Evangelist tells us two further things relevant to our Lady after Jesus had replied to her petition-

"They understood not the word that he spoke unto them" and "His mother kept all these words in her heart." Sorrow does not always give birth to wisdom but it can do. With Mary no doubt it did. As she reflected on her experience and the 'hard saying' of our Saviour she would, enlightened by Grace, more and more fully come to understand it. And when the time came for her Son to leave home and begin the journey that would end in the shame and death of Calvary that hard-earned wisdom would have given her strength and purpose to aid Him in His salvific mission.

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The painting is Christ Discovered in the Temple by Simone Martini

A Better Resurrection

My life is like a broken bowl, 
A broken bowl that cannot hold 
One drop of water for my soul 
Or cordial in the searching cold; 
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing; 
Melt and remould it, till it be 
A royal cup for Him, my King: 
O Jesus, drink of me. 
(Christina Rossetti)

It stood among the tumbledown, discarded jumble of the family in a rarely visited room at the back of the house. Every now and again someone would come in to add new junk to the pile of unwanted things. More rarely a servant would seek to retrieve something useful from the mass or a child would look for an unusual object with which to play, allowing her imagination to make up for the deficiencies and blemishes of the unwanted-by-grown-ups item chosen.

The broken bowl sat upon a shelf and she was a sad sight to behold. At some time in the long, long distant past careless hands had let her slip from a great height and she had fallen hard upon the tessellated floor. The favourite of her mistress an attempt had been made to put her back together but it had not been a success. Great gaps were left in her fabric and long cracks, visible and ugly, criss-crossed her face. For sentiment's sake she had not been cast out into the darkness but had been allowed to remain, if only just, within the family home.

Yet what use was a broken bowl? However perfect she had been when leaving the hand of her maker now she was marred and unable to fulfil the purposes for which she had been created. Yet she waited, patiently she waited. Who knew but that at some point her time would come. Perhaps the accident would turn out to be a happy fault and a new and better destiny awaited her. No one could see what good she could ever be but many things that seemed impossible to men nonetheless were true.

Night had long fallen after a pleasant day in early spring. Still she sat on her shelf. Still she waited. Still she was patient. Suddenly the room was infused with a transcendent light. A tongue, as it were of fire, descended upon her and a fierce heat penetrated every fibre of her. She was melting and being transformed from above. Every molecule, every atom danced and moved and changed. Broken no more, dullness and dust banished and clear brightness shining from her.

The next day Kyrios the Greek servant came into the lumber room grumbling to himself as was his way when made to work harder than he liked.
"Quickly he says. We need another cup he says or we will not have enough for all the guests. Where does he think I can find another cup at this time? Am I a miracle wor..."
Suddenly he stopped. He had seen the reforged bowl. His jaw dropped and his face, never handsome at the best of times, acquired a gaping, stupid ugliness. Picking the bowl-turned-chalice up almost reverentially he appraised it with expert eyes.
"The gods must highly favour this banquet" he said (his Judaism being only skin deep) "they have left us this golden thing which will perfectly suit the Principle Guest." Kyrios then hurried away with the reforged bowl to add it to the table setting for the newly arrived party of pilgrim guests,

The meal proceeded, in turns solemn and merry as often happens when friends gather together to celebrate their friendship and recall their shared sufferings. Finally the Principal Guest took up the reforged bowl. After thanking God He raised it saying
"This is my blood"

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The Birthday of Our Lady

One is my dove, 
my perfect one is but one, 
she is the only one of her mother, 
the chosen of her that bore her. 
The daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed:
the queens and concubines, and they praised her.
(Song of Songs 6:8)

Since ancient times Christians have understood the mystical sense of the Song of Songs (also known as the Canticle of Canticles) to refer to the relationship between Jesus and His Bride the Church. Generally what can be said of the Church can also be said of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the first and for a time only Christian Mary literally was the Church of which she is also mother. So, as we celebrate her nativity, what can this verse teach us about our Lady?

Sacred Tradition tells us that Mary was the first child of St Anne but not, perhaps, the only one. She was, however, in a unique sense the Daughter of Zion. The Chosen people of God, as a people, gave birth to only one daughter and that was Mary. Through her the fulfilment of the Covenant relationship between God and Israel would enter the world. She was therefore both the only one and the chosen one of the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It could also be said that she was the only pure child of the human race since Mary, uniquely among us all, was through the merits of her Son, conceived fee from the taint of original Sin. This makes her, in Wordsworth's evocative expression, 'Our tainted nature's solitary boast'. (Jesus, of course, was perfect by nature not by grace.) We can also think of Mother Earth as rejoicing in the birth of Mary ' for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God' (Romans 8:20-21)

The daughters who call her most blessed, as St Elizabeth did, are all the children of God who have received the Spirit with gladness and see in Mary the light before the dawn, the one whose faithfulness and love will bring heaven down to earth. Mary is she in whom the Father delights, to whom the Holy Spirit is espoused and from whom the Son is born. The word 'most' is a superlative which means that no one ever was or ever shall be more blessed than Mary. None more blessed with joy as the mother of Jesus. None more blessed with the Cross as witness on Calvary of the Passion and Death of her beloved Christ.

The Queens who praise her stand for all who are involved in the world, the workers, students, parents, homemakers who find time each day to turn to God with thanks and prayers. For who can praise God without also remembering beloved Mary full of grace who has found favour with God?(Luke 1:30).

The concubines who praise her stand for all those deeply sunk in sin who have been or are being led from vice to virtue through our Lady. As a model and icon she stands without rival in inspiring us to change our ways, to conform ourselves to her and through her to Christ our Lord. As our Advocate she stands before the just judge, her Son, who can refuse her nothing. As mediatrix of all grace she sends to us the Holy Spirit who revives us and leads us via repentance, contrition and conversion to the Father.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is gentle as a dove. She is also like the dove of Genesis 8:11 who brought to Noah the bough of an olive tree with green leaves on it. Its coming was a sign of hope, the bough symbolised the Cross, the leaves the new life in Christ and all of these can be found in our Lady. She is perfect in her response to the grace of God which fills her so completely and so is without sin or stain. And she is but one, the only one, Mother of God, Mother of the Church, Mother of Christians, Queen of Heaven. Our beloved Mary, let us rejoice in her and with her as we celebrate her birthday.

Appare, dulcis filia,
nitesce iam virguncula,
florem latura nobilem,
Christum Deum et hominem.

(Appear, sweet daughter,
Grow verdant, little branch.
You will bear the noble flower:
Christ, God and man.)
From the Morning Prayer of the Nativity of Mary

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I Hate My Life!

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple
Luke 14:26-27

We can, I think, draw a useful distinction between harshness and austerity. Many commentators on these words of our Lord have gone to great lengths to demonstrate that they are not as harsh as they appear at first sight. This is necessary work but in performing it too often the austere nature of the programme outlined by Jesus has been under-emphasised. By way of redressing the balance I propose to completely ignore the harshness aspect and focus instead on the austerity. To do so I will be using (apparently) erotic poetry to help me.

I sleep, and my heart watcheth;
 the voice of my beloved knocking: 
Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove
Song of Songs 5:2
Our lives are usually wrapped up in immediate earthly concerns to do with ourselves, our families, our work, politics, celebrities and so on. We are asleep to the things of the spirit with our active consciousness yet there is a part of our being which is awake and alert. At least once and sometimes many times the Lord will come and whisper to us as we are sunk in material slumber. Our heart will leap in joyful response and wake the totality of our being to the Presence that seeks us. What happens next?

I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on?
I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?
Song of Songs 5:3
We do not respond instantly to the call. Instead we think of this thing and that thing. Our everyday concerns, mundane earthly matters intrude between us and our Divine lover. Often that is where it ends. We remain in bed and fall asleep again. Yet, sometimes eventually after dealing with these trivia we are sufficiently curious to make our tardy way to the doorway from which our lover called us.

I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved: 
but he had turned aside, and was gone.....
 I sought him, and found him not: 
I called, and he did not answer me.
Song of Songs 5:6
And this is the message that Jesus was hammering home. If we do not cast aside the things of this world when He calls us, if we do not hate them, then we shall lose Him altogether. It is not that these things are bad in themselves. On the contrary some, like loving ones parents are positively virtuous. No, what they are are the things of sleep and He invites us to the things of wakefulness, the better part. Once we know Him and are united to Him we can return wakefully to the things of sleep and so bring what was dead into life by infusing it with His Spirit.

The keepers that go about the city found me: 
they struck me: and wounded me: 
the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.
Song of Songs 5:7
This is what it means to carry the cross. In a world asleep when we wander around, awake and in search of our Beloved, we can expect to be buffeted. The words found, struck, wounded, took away, express the sorrow, pain and humiliation that we can expect from life. We can escape from this if we fall asleep again and abandon the search, if we embrace with love those things we had begun to hate for the sake of the Beloved. But then our heart will remain awake and impart its restlessness to us, the sense that there is an emptiness where wholeness should be. Alternatively we can shoulder our cross and persevere. Why though? To what end are we journeying?

I am become in his presence as one finding peace.
Song of Songs 8:10
A peace passing all understanding, a transcendent peace will possess our souls, fill our spirits and rejoice our hearts when we encounter the Beloved and contemplate Him with adoration. The fullness of this experience must wait until we have put of mortality and been clothed with immortality, left time and definitively entered eternity. Nonetheless we can experience in part now what we will enjoy to the full then. The Beloved is to be found in the Sacrament of the Altar, in the Eucharist we can meet Him, consuming the One whom we long to consume us. In Tabernacle and Monstrance we can sit at his feet like Mary of Bethany, drinking in His peace and love. In prayer we can meet with Him and share the silence of deep things beyond speech. In the saints, those who are in heaven and those who are our neighbours, we can catch glimpses of Him. And in Mary, His Mother, the mirror of perfection, seat of wisdom, Queen of Angels we can find a sure way to the Son of the Father.

The austere way proposed by Jesus is not austerity for the sake of austerity. It is a simple truth that she who travels light travels fast. Let us cast aside all that is superfluous that we might the sooner catch up with the Beloved and become one with Him, now and forever.
@stevhep

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The paintings are The Church as Bride of Christ by the Illustrator of Petrus Comestor's Bible Historiale and Christ as gardener appearing to Mary Magdalen by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostanen