Monday, 9 July 2012
Catholic Scot Unveiled
Tuesday, 3 July 2012
Enter the Logos (Pt 2)
At first glance to say "follow me" is much the same as saying "come and see". The Theologian, however, is laying another aspect of his Divine Master before us. Here it is the case that Jesus deliberately seeks out Philip and issues a specific invitation to him. What the Theologian tells us about geography is significant. Jesus is a Galilean from Nazareth, Philip is a Galilean from Bethsaida, at this point they are situated in Bethabara beyond the Jordan and Jesus has taken the decision to return to Galilee. In the Gospels Galilee often stands as a figure for the normal everyday working life of ordinary folk by contrast with the high tensions and festivals of Jerusalem. Philip and his companions have taken a time out from their ordinary lives to seek out the truth and meaning towards which John the Baptist points. Now our Lord seeks him out and invites him to return to the normal and the ordinary but to experience it in a different way. Philip will return to Galilee changed by baptism and will lead a life who's guiding principle has now become the following of Jesus. A Jesus who is present amidst the fishermen and tax gatherers, the sowers and the reapers. It is an invitation that tells us that Jesus is the incarnated one. He is in our midst as one like us and also as God Himself. He is our bridge, He is our vital link between the inward and the outward, time and eternity. He is the strong become weak that the weak might become strong. He is Emmanuel, God with us.
And who is the "us" that Emmanuel is most with? Nathaniel is our model here. "..an Israelite, a true one; there is nothing false in him." To travel in friendship with Jesus to and through Galilee there must be no barriers within ourselves to truth. A true Israelite is not one who pretends. Nathaniel says what he thinks, that is honesty. It is not stubbornness though, what he thinks will change as the facts change. The kind of charge that Jesus will later bring against the Pharisees is not that they are blunt but that they stand by their bluntness in pride rather than examine the possibility that they might have made a judgement based on inadequate information. Nathaniel is honest enough to adhere to things as they are, or as they become, rather than simply sticking to his previously expressed opinion as being once right always right. The prestige of the Pharisees amongst first century Jews rested precisely upon their reputation for honesty and truthfulness. Jesus in his description of Nathaniel and not Pharisaism as true Israel is making the point that inflexibility and an obstinate refusal to see is not truth it is falsehood elevated to a system.
“Before Philip called you, you were under the fig tree and I saw you.” The Theologian allows us to see two things here. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, Jesus possesses great powers which suggest His divinity. Secondly, that He chooses to act through human agency. He could have called Nathaniel Himself but He did not. Philip performed that noble task. This I think links us back to the words of our Lord to St Peter. Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, has a mission as a human among humans using human means. He could, as it were, short circuit everything and achieve all His ends by direct Spirit to spirit contact but the Father does not will it so. It is His intention to save us and unite us to Him not as disembodied entities but as fully human persons with bodies as well as spirits, with weaknesses as well as strengths. And in service of that project He Himself takes on our frailty and uses that frailty itself; directly Himself and indirectly through His Apostles, disciples and friends to bring about the fulfilment of His plan. It would no doubt be more satisfactory to human imaginations if He used only perfect means to achieve perfect ends but He does not. He uses very imperfect means sometimes. Which is to say He uses you and me. If we are willing to do as Philip did.
....you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. And so we come to the end of the Seven First Words. And the end is a promise. The promise of a new beginning. If, like Nathaniel, we follow Jesus into the Galilee of the everyday our journey will bring change. He does not promise and ever repeated sameness but an ever deeper and truer vision of Himself. However long we gaze upon Him He will never cease to be the carpenter from Nazareth. But we ourselves will change and will see that the fullness of divinity and the fullness of humanity are, in Him, not two things but one. And by His gracious gift when He looks upon us He can see that what He is by nature we have become by adoption on the day that we have, in our hearts, understood the question “What are you looking for?”
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And who is the "us" that Emmanuel is most with? Nathaniel is our model here. "..an Israelite, a true one; there is nothing false in him." To travel in friendship with Jesus to and through Galilee there must be no barriers within ourselves to truth. A true Israelite is not one who pretends. Nathaniel says what he thinks, that is honesty. It is not stubbornness though, what he thinks will change as the facts change. The kind of charge that Jesus will later bring against the Pharisees is not that they are blunt but that they stand by their bluntness in pride rather than examine the possibility that they might have made a judgement based on inadequate information. Nathaniel is honest enough to adhere to things as they are, or as they become, rather than simply sticking to his previously expressed opinion as being once right always right. The prestige of the Pharisees amongst first century Jews rested precisely upon their reputation for honesty and truthfulness. Jesus in his description of Nathaniel and not Pharisaism as true Israel is making the point that inflexibility and an obstinate refusal to see is not truth it is falsehood elevated to a system.
“Before Philip called you, you were under the fig tree and I saw you.” The Theologian allows us to see two things here. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, Jesus possesses great powers which suggest His divinity. Secondly, that He chooses to act through human agency. He could have called Nathaniel Himself but He did not. Philip performed that noble task. This I think links us back to the words of our Lord to St Peter. Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, has a mission as a human among humans using human means. He could, as it were, short circuit everything and achieve all His ends by direct Spirit to spirit contact but the Father does not will it so. It is His intention to save us and unite us to Him not as disembodied entities but as fully human persons with bodies as well as spirits, with weaknesses as well as strengths. And in service of that project He Himself takes on our frailty and uses that frailty itself; directly Himself and indirectly through His Apostles, disciples and friends to bring about the fulfilment of His plan. It would no doubt be more satisfactory to human imaginations if He used only perfect means to achieve perfect ends but He does not. He uses very imperfect means sometimes. Which is to say He uses you and me. If we are willing to do as Philip did.
....you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. And so we come to the end of the Seven First Words. And the end is a promise. The promise of a new beginning. If, like Nathaniel, we follow Jesus into the Galilee of the everyday our journey will bring change. He does not promise and ever repeated sameness but an ever deeper and truer vision of Himself. However long we gaze upon Him He will never cease to be the carpenter from Nazareth. But we ourselves will change and will see that the fullness of divinity and the fullness of humanity are, in Him, not two things but one. And by His gracious gift when He looks upon us He can see that what He is by nature we have become by adoption on the day that we have, in our hearts, understood the question “What are you looking for?”
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Friday, 22 June 2012
Enter the Logos [Pt 1]
For many centuries the author of the fourth Gospel has been known to the Orthodox East as Saint John the Theologian. It is an apt title, his is the most highly structured of the Gospel accounts we possess. Each word, each incident serves a purpose and fits into a pattern. They signify themselves and beyond themselves. It is no surprise then to see that the first seven utterances of Jesus in the Gospel of St John, all contained in Chapter 1, constitute in a way an effective summary of our Lords mission and the life of the Church and the Christian. These are His seven first words-
“What are you looking for?”
“Come and see.”
“You are Simon, son of John, but you shall be called Cephas” (which means Rock).
“Follow me.”
“Here comes an Israelite, a true one; there is nothing false in him.”
“Before Philip called you, you were under the fig tree and I saw you.”
“You believe because I said: ‘I saw you under the fig tree.’ But you will see greater things than that.
Truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
(Christian Community Bible, Catholic Pastoral Edition)
His first words are directed to St Andrew and one other (possibly the Theologian himself) who follow after Him because He has been pointed to as the Lamb of God. Few people in the world today know nothing at all about Jesus. The disciples who left John the Baptist to find out more about the Lamb had no clear idea what this title meant and still less did they have an understanding of the One who bore that title. We also when we begin to walk after Jesus, not to obey Him but to question Him, have no clear idea whom it is we are behind or what power for us He carries within Himself. So He first questions us and not we Him. What are we looking for? Truth? Peace of heart and mind? Love? Rest of soul? Perhaps all of these things, maybe others beside. We do not need to know in detail what it is that we seek. All we need to know for certain is that we are restless and will never be at rest until we find that one thing we need. Nor, at the beginning of our journey, do we need to know or affirm that we will find that certain rest in Jesus. What we need is to acknowledge the reality of our permanent restlessness and express the hope and desire that in knowing Jesus we will come to know just what it is we are looking for. Something we can only really know in full at the moment when we see that we have found it.
"Come and see," it is an invitation to abide with Jesus. It is a journey from where you are now to some other place. It is the promise of a vision at journey's end of something unseen before by your eyes. How can we, thousands of years later, accept this invitation for ourselves and walk where St Andrew walked and see what he and one other, beloved of the Lord, saw? We must make the same decisions which they made, for then we shall be in an identical place with them. They first accepted the authority of St John the Baptist, they believed him when he pointed and said "Behold the Lamb of God". There are a cloud of witnesses before us who point in the same way, some famous some perhaps known to only a few within our own little circle. If we accept on the authority of the sanctity and purity of their live's, of the fruits they have borne, that they are a powerful testimony to the One who has changed them then we can seek to learn more about that One also. That is the first decision. The second is a twofold abandonment. Having heard John's witness the companions straightway abandoned him. Later he would say of Jesus It is necessary that he increase but that I decrease. (John 3:30). In a purely human scale this has an inescapably sad ring to it but John himself gave this as a reason for him greatly to rejoice. Indeed, he said that his joy was now full. For if we abandon a truly faithful witness to fly to the heart of Jesus we will find, amidst other treasures, that same faithful witness only now we will understand them better and love them more.
Almost simultaneous with their abandonment of St John the companions abandoned themselves. The direction of travel they left to another. To another they gave the guidance of their eyes so that they would come to see what He put before them to gaze upon. On the apparently slender basis of John's brief witness and Jesus's brief invitation they struck out in a new direction, impelled by a divine restlessness and buoyed up by a divine hope. It has been the fate of many over the centuries deceived by charlatans, misguided by rogues, to set out on similar journeys only to end up bitter and crushed, robbed, deceived, betrayed and themselves abandoned. Indeed, a few short years later that seemed to be the experience of the companions themselves as they saw their beloved one dead upon a Cross. This was, ultimately, what Jesus was calling upon them, and us with them, to "come and see". If we abandon all and stumble at the Cross then we lose all. And if we, with Mary, stand firm at the Cross then we gain all. But for us, without the firmness of a perfect faith, it is always a gamble. If we make the same decisions as the companions then it is a promise that we could see what they saw and abide where they abide. It is not a guarantee that we will though. A journey is not itself an ending.
His first words to Simon are of an altogether different kind. He looks at him and immediately gives him a new title. He is to be the Rock. Almost at the beginning of the Gospel Peter becomes the Rock at the command of Jesus. Almost at the end he becomes the Shepherd “Feed my lambs.” “Look after my sheep.” “Feed my sheep" (John 21) The word reported by the Theologian are never without significance or purpose. If he places Simon Peter in a special place then it is a sure sign that his Divine Master had done so before him. Each of us who seeks Jesus has a reason for doing so, we desire something or a something from Him. But it is a two way relationship, He desires something or a something from us also. And that something is different for each one of us. Some, and not the least important in the Kingdom, spend their lives and fulfil their purpose in obscure well doing, prayer, service, in solitude or in the midst of a bustling family. Others are called, not by themselves, to live prominently. To lead, to guide, to discipline, to exhort, to command. If the first word of Jesus was to call for followers his second was to establish a hierarchy amongst them. We cannot, if we are faithful to the words of Scripture, pretend that the Jesus Community consisted of one Saviour and an undifferentiated mass of followers. It consisted of first Jesus, then Peter. As it was so it now is in the Church He left established with His blood and upheld through His Spirit and that of the Father.
“What are you looking for?”
“Come and see.”
“You are Simon, son of John, but you shall be called Cephas” (which means Rock).
“Follow me.”
“Here comes an Israelite, a true one; there is nothing false in him.”
“Before Philip called you, you were under the fig tree and I saw you.”
“You believe because I said: ‘I saw you under the fig tree.’ But you will see greater things than that.
Truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
(Christian Community Bible, Catholic Pastoral Edition)
His first words are directed to St Andrew and one other (possibly the Theologian himself) who follow after Him because He has been pointed to as the Lamb of God. Few people in the world today know nothing at all about Jesus. The disciples who left John the Baptist to find out more about the Lamb had no clear idea what this title meant and still less did they have an understanding of the One who bore that title. We also when we begin to walk after Jesus, not to obey Him but to question Him, have no clear idea whom it is we are behind or what power for us He carries within Himself. So He first questions us and not we Him. What are we looking for? Truth? Peace of heart and mind? Love? Rest of soul? Perhaps all of these things, maybe others beside. We do not need to know in detail what it is that we seek. All we need to know for certain is that we are restless and will never be at rest until we find that one thing we need. Nor, at the beginning of our journey, do we need to know or affirm that we will find that certain rest in Jesus. What we need is to acknowledge the reality of our permanent restlessness and express the hope and desire that in knowing Jesus we will come to know just what it is we are looking for. Something we can only really know in full at the moment when we see that we have found it.
"Come and see," it is an invitation to abide with Jesus. It is a journey from where you are now to some other place. It is the promise of a vision at journey's end of something unseen before by your eyes. How can we, thousands of years later, accept this invitation for ourselves and walk where St Andrew walked and see what he and one other, beloved of the Lord, saw? We must make the same decisions which they made, for then we shall be in an identical place with them. They first accepted the authority of St John the Baptist, they believed him when he pointed and said "Behold the Lamb of God". There are a cloud of witnesses before us who point in the same way, some famous some perhaps known to only a few within our own little circle. If we accept on the authority of the sanctity and purity of their live's, of the fruits they have borne, that they are a powerful testimony to the One who has changed them then we can seek to learn more about that One also. That is the first decision. The second is a twofold abandonment. Having heard John's witness the companions straightway abandoned him. Later he would say of Jesus It is necessary that he increase but that I decrease. (John 3:30). In a purely human scale this has an inescapably sad ring to it but John himself gave this as a reason for him greatly to rejoice. Indeed, he said that his joy was now full. For if we abandon a truly faithful witness to fly to the heart of Jesus we will find, amidst other treasures, that same faithful witness only now we will understand them better and love them more.
Almost simultaneous with their abandonment of St John the companions abandoned themselves. The direction of travel they left to another. To another they gave the guidance of their eyes so that they would come to see what He put before them to gaze upon. On the apparently slender basis of John's brief witness and Jesus's brief invitation they struck out in a new direction, impelled by a divine restlessness and buoyed up by a divine hope. It has been the fate of many over the centuries deceived by charlatans, misguided by rogues, to set out on similar journeys only to end up bitter and crushed, robbed, deceived, betrayed and themselves abandoned. Indeed, a few short years later that seemed to be the experience of the companions themselves as they saw their beloved one dead upon a Cross. This was, ultimately, what Jesus was calling upon them, and us with them, to "come and see". If we abandon all and stumble at the Cross then we lose all. And if we, with Mary, stand firm at the Cross then we gain all. But for us, without the firmness of a perfect faith, it is always a gamble. If we make the same decisions as the companions then it is a promise that we could see what they saw and abide where they abide. It is not a guarantee that we will though. A journey is not itself an ending.
His first words to Simon are of an altogether different kind. He looks at him and immediately gives him a new title. He is to be the Rock. Almost at the beginning of the Gospel Peter becomes the Rock at the command of Jesus. Almost at the end he becomes the Shepherd “Feed my lambs.” “Look after my sheep.” “Feed my sheep" (John 21) The word reported by the Theologian are never without significance or purpose. If he places Simon Peter in a special place then it is a sure sign that his Divine Master had done so before him. Each of us who seeks Jesus has a reason for doing so, we desire something or a something from Him. But it is a two way relationship, He desires something or a something from us also. And that something is different for each one of us. Some, and not the least important in the Kingdom, spend their lives and fulfil their purpose in obscure well doing, prayer, service, in solitude or in the midst of a bustling family. Others are called, not by themselves, to live prominently. To lead, to guide, to discipline, to exhort, to command. If the first word of Jesus was to call for followers his second was to establish a hierarchy amongst them. We cannot, if we are faithful to the words of Scripture, pretend that the Jesus Community consisted of one Saviour and an undifferentiated mass of followers. It consisted of first Jesus, then Peter. As it was so it now is in the Church He left established with His blood and upheld through His Spirit and that of the Father.
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
Pointless Images
36 Bend my heart to your instructions, not to selfish gain.
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Psalm 118/9 (New Jerusalem Bible)
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In an era where English was used in a more elegant fashion the translator might have written "incline my heart" or possibly "sway my heart". What is at issue here is a change of direction in our life's journey and our willing acceptance of a guiding force or power to be the focal point of our heart compass. To talk about a heart swaying is to acknowledge the always real possibility of first bending one way and then bending back upon oneself to return back whence we came, and beyond, upon the road we so need to abandon. To talk of an inclination is to consider that whatever weaving goes on the final destination towards which we aim remains constant. Simply to bend suggests the adoption of an awkward and difficult to retain posture. Which may not be entirely inappropriate for the plea that David is making here is for assistance in doing something that we cannot do ourselves alone.
The word "heart" is rich with meaning and evocative power in the context of Sacred Scripture and Christian tradition, the Orthodox talk of "prayer of the heart", the Catholics of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Blessed John Henry, Cardinal, Newman chose as his motto cor ad cor loquitur, "heart speaks unto heart." The heart is the true centre of a person. It is their essence, that within them which points always towards the true, because it is always itself true. In fact, the mystics would say that it is God Himself since only He is ever true and pointing towards truth so that our own heart, the wellspring of our individual life, is God. He is within as well as without. This would mean that heart speaking to heart is not two hearts but one which nonetheless in a divine paradox is not a monologue but a fruitful dialogue. The mystery at work here is that of a unity of being containing a multiplicity of persons. We are each within God and He within us so that we are one. We are each created uniquely by the One to abide within Him in just the fashion that we are suited to and no other. Our individual personhood is not lost in unity, it is fulfilled.
When David, then, talks of our heart being bent by God towards God He is not referring to that in us which is always inclined in that direction. He is talking of the imagined heart, the simulacrum of a heart, that we create and establish as a pointless image for our eyes to gaze upon and our desires to follow. This is ever bent in an awkward posture since we have created it, however unconsciously, with the express purpose of turning ourselves away from the light which disturbs us and towards the gloom where all is cool and not at all challenging to our sensual desires. In a sense he is asking that we be un-bent.
To the contemporary mind bending to instructions conveys the unpleasant, apparently pointless, image of the individual exchanging freedom for servitude. Of all the illusions we cherish that of absolute individual autonomy is perhaps the most precious to us today. We demand our rights a hundred or a thousand times before we place the same pressure on ourselves to fulfil our obligations. Or, at least, we appear to since the world only functions as well as it does, and we within it, precisely because so many of us fulfil our obligations and discharge our duties a hundred or a thousand times more frequently than we evade them. In truth most of us most of the time do the right thing because it is what the heart impels us to do even while our head, our vain imaginings, pushes us in a different way. What David is praying for here is just this, to unite our thoughts and our imagination to our heart. The instructions we seek are the words which will express to our mind what the heart already knows to be true.
It is, nonetheless, the case that when we come under these divine instructions that we constrain our actions or potential actions and must do real violence to our desires for selfish gain. We embark upon a path of struggle. It is a commonplace of spiritual writers to say that in service is our real freedom but we cannot pretend that this is any other than a freedom which is experienced as a constraint, a gain which feels like a loss. The wound that Original Sin has made in our natures allows us to desire as good things that which harms us and to experience as harms those things which are good. This is why David calls upon the assistance of the good God to make this submission to instructions, without Him we cannot follow the path that leads to happiness. He it is that strengthens us to see that submission, service and self-forgetfulness, those paths that lead away from the pursuit of moment to moment pleasure, is the one road that leads to happiness. If we seek pleasure alone we do not seek happiness, if we seek happiness who knows what pleasures we shall find along the way?
Among the distractions from that one road which assail our heart are those pointless images of which David speaks. It may be a metaphor for the things which blind the eyes of the heart, but, there are too very many actual images, pointless and aimless, which attract and hold the eyes in our head. It is an often used cliché, sometimes employed even by the fiercest of those partisans of absolute individual autonomy, that we are "bombarded with images". And it is true but not the whole truth. Frequently, daily, hourly, we choose many of those images with which to bombard ourselves. We choose what pictures will distract us. We choose what images will strengthen our resolve to commit actual sin and give us new and varied pleasures of selfish gain. It is not a wholly free choice but a choice it certainly is. Whether it be the Shopping Channel or the Pornography Channel it is a means to reinforce the inclinations we wish to reinforce and drown out the heart voice that calls for us to gaze upon that beyond images which contains all images as realities. The Children of Israel rebelled by creating out of their own resources a Golden Calf to worship. I heard an Anabaptist theologian defining worship is "giving your undivided allegiance to". Like the rebellious Israelites we also give our allegiance to what we produce out of ourselves which is a roundabout way of giving our allegiance to ourselves alone. They are pointless images because they are as insubstantial as our own ego's which a moments careless driving or a day's illness can destroy utterly.
So what we need is life and, moreover, a life which will endure the greatest of traumas and disasters and triumph even over the apparently final drama of death. David asks for that single word of God which is life itself. He did not know what that word was when he asked for it. He did know that there was just such a word and that God would one day speak it and liberate His people by it and through it. And He did. The word is Jesus and praised be His name.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Desire, the powerful enemy of the soul
Reflection on The Letter of James 1:13-16
13No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.
14But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it;
15then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.
16Do not be deceived, my beloved.
There is a popular school of thought which suggests that the major world religions are basically moral codes, guides about how you should live your life, with supernatural bits more or less artificially tagged on in order to reinforce the point. Certainly history can show us examples of rulers of states or heads of families who, irreligious themselves, encourage religion in lesser mortals as a way to ensure their obedience and compliance with the rules. No doubt too there are many practitioners of religion, including religious leaders, who embrace their faith first and foremost out of a love of order, hierarchy, obedience. I think these all miss the point.
Virtue and morality are not burdens that we take upon ourselves to please a demanding and vengeful God. Vice and immorality are burdens that we shed in order to travel more easily towards a realm of perfect love and pure light. The desire for self satisfaction through possessing for oneself material objects or intense sensual experiences or other persons produce more fetters for our bodies and souls than any number of self sacrificing or self denying acts. Jealous anger, frustrated desire, contemptuous disregard for the needs of others these are the things that make of our days a torment and of our desires a prison. It is only when we leave them to one side that we can truly begin to experience a sense of freedom.
Religion, in the Christian sense, is primarily about a relationship of self giving love and the more freely and fully we can give it then the more fully, and fulfillingly, can we receive it. Each desire for selfish goods is narrow and circular, beginning and ending with ourselves, and so limits our potential to receive what is wide. It is not by taking on a moral code that we can come to know God, it is by knowing God that we can take on a moral code which aids us to know Him better and love Him more, a love primarily expressed through serving and loving our neighbours whom He also loves with a perfect love.
The mystical Theologia Germanica has this interesting passage
If there were no self-will, there would be no proprietorship. There is no proprietorship in heaven; and this is why contentment, peace, and blessedness are there. If anyone in heaven were so bold as to call anything his own, he would immediately be cast out into hell, and become an evil spirit. But in hell everyone will have self-will, and therefore in hell is every kind of wretchedness and misery. And so it is also on earth. But if anyone in hell could rid himself of his self-will and call nothing his own, he would pass out of hell into heaven. And if a man, while here on earth, could be entirely rid of self-will and proprietorship, and stand up free and at liberty in the true light of God, and continue therein, he would be sure to inherit the kingdom of heaven. For he who has anything, or who desires to have anything of his own, is a slave; and he who has nothing of his own, nor desires to have anything, is free and at liberty, and is in bondage to no man.
This, I think, clearly makes the point that the primary cause of our spiritual sufferings is not that an unjust God forbids us to be gluttons or serial adulterers or possessors of unjustly acquired wealth. The primary cause is that we desire to possess when happiness, in truth, consists of letting go. This is the clear example that Jesus sets us, as laid out in Philippians 2 by St Paul-
3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
The image of God the Son leaving behind the glory of heaven to become not only a human but a human born into poverty is a sign that we too need to leave all to obtain all. A similar image is also, perhaps, contained in the story of Prince Siddhartha leaving his palace and kingdom in order, eventually, to become the Buddha. The one desire that brings us happiness is the desire to love perfectly and to be perfectly loved. All other desires are lesser and will lead us not to lesser happinesses but to greater unhappinesses.
Note. The title of this piece is from a line spoken by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita 3:43 "Know Him therefore who is above reason; and let his peace give thee peace. Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul."
All scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version.
13No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.
14But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it;
15then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.
16Do not be deceived, my beloved.
There is a popular school of thought which suggests that the major world religions are basically moral codes, guides about how you should live your life, with supernatural bits more or less artificially tagged on in order to reinforce the point. Certainly history can show us examples of rulers of states or heads of families who, irreligious themselves, encourage religion in lesser mortals as a way to ensure their obedience and compliance with the rules. No doubt too there are many practitioners of religion, including religious leaders, who embrace their faith first and foremost out of a love of order, hierarchy, obedience. I think these all miss the point.
Virtue and morality are not burdens that we take upon ourselves to please a demanding and vengeful God. Vice and immorality are burdens that we shed in order to travel more easily towards a realm of perfect love and pure light. The desire for self satisfaction through possessing for oneself material objects or intense sensual experiences or other persons produce more fetters for our bodies and souls than any number of self sacrificing or self denying acts. Jealous anger, frustrated desire, contemptuous disregard for the needs of others these are the things that make of our days a torment and of our desires a prison. It is only when we leave them to one side that we can truly begin to experience a sense of freedom.
Religion, in the Christian sense, is primarily about a relationship of self giving love and the more freely and fully we can give it then the more fully, and fulfillingly, can we receive it. Each desire for selfish goods is narrow and circular, beginning and ending with ourselves, and so limits our potential to receive what is wide. It is not by taking on a moral code that we can come to know God, it is by knowing God that we can take on a moral code which aids us to know Him better and love Him more, a love primarily expressed through serving and loving our neighbours whom He also loves with a perfect love.
The mystical Theologia Germanica has this interesting passage
If there were no self-will, there would be no proprietorship. There is no proprietorship in heaven; and this is why contentment, peace, and blessedness are there. If anyone in heaven were so bold as to call anything his own, he would immediately be cast out into hell, and become an evil spirit. But in hell everyone will have self-will, and therefore in hell is every kind of wretchedness and misery. And so it is also on earth. But if anyone in hell could rid himself of his self-will and call nothing his own, he would pass out of hell into heaven. And if a man, while here on earth, could be entirely rid of self-will and proprietorship, and stand up free and at liberty in the true light of God, and continue therein, he would be sure to inherit the kingdom of heaven. For he who has anything, or who desires to have anything of his own, is a slave; and he who has nothing of his own, nor desires to have anything, is free and at liberty, and is in bondage to no man.
This, I think, clearly makes the point that the primary cause of our spiritual sufferings is not that an unjust God forbids us to be gluttons or serial adulterers or possessors of unjustly acquired wealth. The primary cause is that we desire to possess when happiness, in truth, consists of letting go. This is the clear example that Jesus sets us, as laid out in Philippians 2 by St Paul-
3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
The image of God the Son leaving behind the glory of heaven to become not only a human but a human born into poverty is a sign that we too need to leave all to obtain all. A similar image is also, perhaps, contained in the story of Prince Siddhartha leaving his palace and kingdom in order, eventually, to become the Buddha. The one desire that brings us happiness is the desire to love perfectly and to be perfectly loved. All other desires are lesser and will lead us not to lesser happinesses but to greater unhappinesses.
Note. The title of this piece is from a line spoken by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita 3:43 "Know Him therefore who is above reason; and let his peace give thee peace. Be a warrior and kill desire, the powerful enemy of the soul."
All scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
La Bête Humaine
This report on the school shooting in Toulouse is worth reflecting upon
"According to eye-witnesses, the gun then jammed, temporarily putting a halt to the rampage but the killer swiftly changed weapons and headed into the school. He grabbed Miriam as she tried to escape, grasped her hair and shot her. Then, as she bled to death on the floor, he lifted up her head and fired two additional bullets."
Miriam was an eight year old little girl. Her killer, an adult man. held her by her hair as she tried to run away and shot her in the head. He was carrying a video camera around his neck at the time in order to film his actions.
If one human is capable of acting in this fashion then all humans are, perhaps, also similarly capable. This suggestion is so revolting that faced with crimes of this kind we instinctively recoil from the notion and say "No, this man was no man but a monster, a beast, a madman!" In saying that we say nothing. He was not (I use the past tense as he himself was shot in the head) anything other than human and if he was mad, well if one human is capable of becoming mad in this fashion then all humans are, perhaps, also similarly capable.
All selfishness is radical, that is, all selfishness comes from the very root of what, who we are. Selflessness too is radical. In most of us most of the time there is enough of the latter to wage a lively combat with the former. Yet victory or defeat is never final while we live. What Catholics call Original Sin is never vanquished in the living although God in His mercy always gives us the weapons to best it in any and every given situation. We are not compelled to accept these weapons but the more we reject them the more we find other weapons in our hands. The desire to hurt, even to hurt harmless little girls with long hair, is nothing more or less than the prolonged and anguished cry "Look at Me!" Pride makes us selfish. The pride that says we are the best, or the most totally right or the most totally right-on. It is a long way from eight year old little boys pulling the pig tails of their schoolmates to grown men holding those same tresses to welter them with blood. Remember though that even a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
"According to eye-witnesses, the gun then jammed, temporarily putting a halt to the rampage but the killer swiftly changed weapons and headed into the school. He grabbed Miriam as she tried to escape, grasped her hair and shot her. Then, as she bled to death on the floor, he lifted up her head and fired two additional bullets."
Miriam was an eight year old little girl. Her killer, an adult man. held her by her hair as she tried to run away and shot her in the head. He was carrying a video camera around his neck at the time in order to film his actions.
If one human is capable of acting in this fashion then all humans are, perhaps, also similarly capable. This suggestion is so revolting that faced with crimes of this kind we instinctively recoil from the notion and say "No, this man was no man but a monster, a beast, a madman!" In saying that we say nothing. He was not (I use the past tense as he himself was shot in the head) anything other than human and if he was mad, well if one human is capable of becoming mad in this fashion then all humans are, perhaps, also similarly capable.
All selfishness is radical, that is, all selfishness comes from the very root of what, who we are. Selflessness too is radical. In most of us most of the time there is enough of the latter to wage a lively combat with the former. Yet victory or defeat is never final while we live. What Catholics call Original Sin is never vanquished in the living although God in His mercy always gives us the weapons to best it in any and every given situation. We are not compelled to accept these weapons but the more we reject them the more we find other weapons in our hands. The desire to hurt, even to hurt harmless little girls with long hair, is nothing more or less than the prolonged and anguished cry "Look at Me!" Pride makes us selfish. The pride that says we are the best, or the most totally right or the most totally right-on. It is a long way from eight year old little boys pulling the pig tails of their schoolmates to grown men holding those same tresses to welter them with blood. Remember though that even a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
JOSEPH SMITH AND THE TAY BRIDGE DISASTER
The last
few days of December are rich in important anniversaries. Apart from the
popular one on the 25th on December 29 we recall the Tay Bridge Disaster of
1879 which provoked one of the most truly dreadful poems in the English
language by William McGonagall. Of more significance
to more people perhaps was the birth on 23 December 1805 of Joseph Smith Jr,
the future prophet of Mormonism. It is something of a tribute to his impact
upon the world that most articles about him and his religion can be written by
numbers. The things his critics say being as awesomely predictable as the words
of his defenders. It is with a sigh of relief that we can turn from such
articles, pick up our Mormon Bingo card look at the below the line comments and
quickly tick off "polygamy",
"sacred underpants", "Mountain Meadows Massacre" and so on
and so forth.
Does
there remain anything meaningful to say about this figure, who's influence upon
America and the world has not been trivial, which goes beyond the boundaries of
the preferred narratives used by those who have already made up their minds
about him? I think there is. Discussions about his life confuse the two
categories of saint and prophet as if they were interchangeable. In the
commonly accepted sense of the word Joseph Smith was no saint. His critics harp
on his failings and Mormons deny, minimise or ignore them. But so what if he
was unreliable, sinful and flawed? The same could be said of most scriptural
prophets. Balaam accepted money to curse the Hebrews but God used him to bless
them instead. Jonah was a bad tempered old sod who tried to run away rather
than prophesy something that never came to pass. And the greatest prophet of
them all, Moses, was a runaway murderer who got his brother to do the talking
for him. A prophet does not have to be full of virtue, he or she only has to be
a channel of communication between God and man. They have to convey a spiritual
or theological truth, they do not have to embody it.
In that
sense a prophet is more like and artist than a saint. Caravaggio was a
notorious street brawler and outlaw but his paintings convey something much
greater than himself. Also it is rather beside the point to complain that his
depiction of the Supper of Emmaus or the Ecce Homo were inaccurate because the
actual participants in the original events would not have looked or dressed the
way Caravaggio portrayed them. His painting allow the character of the persons
and events to shine through the mere details of the canvas. Similarly it
doesn't really matter that much if Joseph Smith really was guided by an angel
and some seeing stones to reveal the Book of Mormon or whether those were just
the canvas he painted upon to give a context to his work. It is the ultimate
source of the inspiration not the technicalities of it that matter most.
How does
one judge whether a work is part of God's revelation to man or a human
invention? Ultimately the judgement is a subjective one. What impact does the
work have upon ones heart and soul. Here perhaps the analogy is more with the
poet than the artist. The words of the poet enter the mind and then percolate
throughout the person. Byron was famously mad, bad and dangerous to know but
his poetry changed lives because it spoke truth about life itself. The more
deeply you enters upon the words and they upon you then the more impact they
have. For Latter Day Saints the Book of Mormon conveys information not so much
about the ancient history of America but about the relationship between people
and God and that to them continues to speak to today's lives and relationships.
The message is important the messenger less so. For non-Mormons, of course, the
position is different. Those who feel the need to get beyond the articles by
numbers realm and into reading the actual text make an uncomfortable discovery.
If prophets are like poets then Moses is probably the Byron of prophecy and
Joseph Smith Jr certainly the William McGonagall of the genre.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
The Annunciation
Here is a little soliloquy that I wrote some years ago-
First Joyful Mystery
Most Holy Mary, dear and blessed Mother of our dear Lord. When first you heard that heralds voice were you deep in your prayers as tradition loves to portray you? Were you pondering in your heart the things of God? Were you, the young handmaid of the Lord, busying yourself with the hundred and one daily tasks and duties that our flesh is heir to? We know for certain that at that time you were betrothed to Blessed Joseph and that you lived such a life as to find favour with the Lord. Beyond that we can only speculate.
Of this we can be certain though, before the Annunciation of St Gabriel you loved God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength. You were such a one as responded to the Grace of God in a way that even before the Word took flesh in your virginal womb meant you could serve as a model and exemplar to those who love the Lord in all generations and seek to do His Most Holy Will. You, dear Mary, are a pioneer on the way of the Lord and our best and brightest guide towards Him in all ages and for all ages. There were things at this Annunciation that you did not fully understand, you were troubled, you pondered, you asked. To love Him and to serve Him it is not needful you showed us that we should fully understand Him, simply that we should wholly love Him and this you did then and still do today Mary Hope of Christians.
You showed us in this brief but world changing dialogue with the Archangel of the Most High that it is not great knowledge that is the key to great love and great service. No, it is humility that is the key and possessing that gift you alone of all the world had the highest Angel in the service of the Highest Power come down to you and salute you. You alone had Almighty God come down into your womb to take on flesh for your Divinely inspired creaturely humility proved a fitting home for the Divine humility that did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself taking human form with your flesh and your blood Most Dear Mary.
And what is humility? Is it the false modesty that so often masquerades under that honourable title? God forbid. No, humility is the height of acute self analysis. When, by the grace of God, we understand ourselves truly to be what we are in relation to our Creator and to our neighbour then we are necessarily humble. And the more perfectly we understand ourselves then the more perfectly humble we shall be. It is a sign of your great wisdom, dear Lady, that you were so perfectly humble and by your prayers may we be brought to similar self-knowledge. God knows we greatly stand in need of it
Was it, perhaps, because of your humility that you were troubled by the angels greeting? Did you consider yourself all unworthy to stand high in God's favour? Surely, though all these thoughts would have been swiftly driven from your heart and mind by that stunning promise made to you by Gabriel. A Son! And what a Son, one who would reign on the throne of David forever. And you, Mary, to be the Mother of the Messiah, the highest dream and hope of the maidens of God's chosen people for generations.
The painting is The Annunciation by Dieric Bouts
The painting is The Annunciation by Dieric Bouts
Monday, 17 October 2011
Decidedly Dead at Dinner
The narrative background to this is conventionally recorded in the Books of the Kings. The Northern tribes of Israel fell into the sin of idolatry and all that that entails. As a consequence God permitted them to be conquered by the Assyrians and taken into captivity and exile. Tobit himself was an Israelite in whom, to coin a phrase, there was no guile, he was faithful to the Lord but nonetheless shared in the captivity of his nation. Following their defeat in Judea the Assyrians appeared to take out their fury on random Israelites in Nineveh the Assyrian capital, leaving their bodies to rot in the open. This leads to a sequence of events in which Tobit effectively recapitulates the history of Israel in his own person. Moved by charity and possessing no little courage Tobit buries the dead himself. This leads to anger, betrayal, exile, destruction of the tyrant and return to home. It is probably no coincidence that his nephew Ahiqar who facilitates his return hold the same position, cupbearer, as Joseph had held under Pharoah.
The Pentecost events described here represent something of a foreshadowing of the first Christian Pentecost described in Acts 2. There, after the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord the Holy Spirit descends and moves the Apostles to invite the devout Israelites outside the Cenacle to join them in the prayers, the breaking of the bread and the teaching of the Apostles. Here moved, no doubt, by the same Spirit Tobit issues an invitation for even one Israelite who sincerely worships God to join him in the breaking of bread. Whereas the first Christian Pentecost produced a harvest of three thousand souls this bitter exilic one produced but a single corpse.
The fact that Tobit cannot find a person outside his family to share this feast with him echo's his earlier experience back in Israel. We see in Chapter 1-
5All my kindred and our ancestral house of Naphtali sacrificed to the calf that King Jeroboam of Israel had erected in Dan and on all the mountains of Galilee.6But I alone went often to Jerusalem for the festivals, as it is prescribed for all Israel by an everlasting decree. I would hurry off to Jerusalem with the first fruits of the crops and the firstlings of the flock, the tithes of the cattle, and the first shearings of the sheep.
The motivation that Tobit has to bury the dead and give alms to the poor springs from the same source as that which leads him to worship the Lord God and obey the precepts of the Law. When Jesus recommends His followers to a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matt 5:10) it is of people like Tobit that He is thinking as well as the Holy Family. Obedience is the key that sets Tobit free. He chooses to obey the Law, the Assyrians and his idolatrous kinsfolk are slaves to sin, he exercises choice and they do not hence he is freer than them. Since his obedience springs from his Yes to God it is prior to the Law and not dependent upon it, a fact which will become of crucial importance in the later Christian economy of salvation.
Upon hearing of the unburied Israelite our hero immediately sprang to his feet. This recalls that after the Annunciation our Lady "with great haste" went to her cousin St Elizabeth. This is another sign that the Holy Spirit was a key actor in this Pentecost event. It was the Holy Spirit that overshadowed Mary and if His first fruit was the conception of our Saviour the second was surely Mary's dash to the side of kinswoman in need. The root and source of all uncalculated, spontaneous acts of self forgetful love is always that same Spirit. We can also see in the untasted feast a type of Jesus who left the heavenly banquet in order to reclaim mankind murdered by sin. Tobit returns with the dead still dead, Jesus returns with death defeated in His train. Tobit eats his bread with tears Jesus resumes the heavenly meal with all the hosts of heaven and redeemed man rejoicing.
A significant added factor in the generosity of Tobits character is revealed when we consider that simply by touching a dead body he contracted a form of uncleaness under the Law(Numbers 19:11-13). Which brings us straight to Jesus and His parable in Luke 10-
30Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.33But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.35The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, "Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.'
The Priest and the Levite considered the Law in relation to themselves. They would be unclean if they touched a dead man and unable to function in their positions until purified. They either thought that the man was dead or had a good chance of dying on their hands so they let them be not only because they were respecters of the Law but actually, as it were, employees of the Law. The Samaritan, who also valued the Books of Moses, considered the needs of the man prior to the legal implications for himself. Moses never, under God, prescribed regulations to prevent kindness to the distressed, selfishness is the sole author of any such decrees written or unwritten. Tobit was the good neighbour of whom Jesus might have said "go and do likewise".
When reading it is often easy to regard a sequence of events as just one single one but in the case of Tobits much delayed meal it is worthwhile to break it down into its component parts. Firstly he started to eat "in sorrow". Sorrow that one of his people had been murdered. Sorrow that there were none of his family at hand to openly take him home and do for him what a family should. Then he recalled the prophecy of Amos and that this was a great feast day to the Lord and that it was being celebrated in exile amidst an oppressor who placed no value on the lives of Jacobs descendants. And he wept. Surely he wept over the plight of his people and also over their continued estrangement from the God who could and would save them. Perhaps there was another reason. Jesus is recorded as weeping also and in this fashion, John 11
32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.34He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."35Jesus began to weep.
Since he was about to turn their mourning into rejoicing why did our Lord shed tears? It was not the death of Lazarus that moved Him it was the sight of human distress occasioned by the fragility of life. All life is lived under the shadow of death. All joys pass. No festival is without its mourning no songs are wholly free from lamentation. Only love is stronger than death. We weep because their is a veil now between us and that unconquered, all conquering love. And until that veil is pierced by a divine heart piercing lance then we will always have cause to cry.
Tobit performs his self allotted task. His neighbours mock him. He gains nothing. He gets no thanks. Nonetheless he perseveres, in Medieval Catholic Europe Tobit became an icon for the virtue of patience. He teaches us, finally, that victory belongs not to those who can inflict the most but to those who can endure the most. Jesus and Mary came from a tradition which includes Tobit, like him they were Galileans, like him they were generous with a selfless love, like him they observed the Law. And like him they demonstrated that whatever the limitations of that Law might be the path the Pharisees trod was not its fulfilment and therefore the acme of Judaism but simply another way of misunderstanding God. We have discovered many others since, not the least of which is anti-Semitism.
A Reflection on the Book of Tobit (1:19-2:8)
- 19 But a certain citizen of Nineveh informed the king that it was I who buried the dead. When I found out that the king knew all about me and wanted to put me to death, I went into hiding; then in my fear I took to flight.
- 20 Afterward, all my property was confiscated; I was left with nothing. All that I had was taken to the king's palace, except for my wife Anna and my son Tobiah.
- 21 But less than forty days later the king was assassinated by two of his sons, who then escaped into the mountains of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon, who succeeded him as king, placed Ahiqar, my brother Anael's son, in charge of all the accounts of his kingdom, so that he took control over the entire administration.
- 22 Then Ahiqar interceded on my behalf, and I was able to return to Nineveh. For under Sennacherib, king of Assyria, Ahiqar had been chief cupbearer, keeper of the seal, administrator, and treasurer; and Esarhaddon reappointed him. He was a close relative-in fact, my nephew.
- 1 Thus under King Esarhaddon I returned to my home, and my wife Anna and my son Tobiah were restored to me. Then on our festival of Pentecost, the feast of Weeks, a fine dinner was prepared for me, and I reclined to eat.
- 2 The table was set for me, and when many different dishes were placed before me, I said to my son Tobiah: "My son, go out and try to find a poor man from among our kinsmen exiled here in Nineveh. If he is a sincere worshiper of God, bring him back with you, so that he can share this meal with me. Indeed, son, I shall wait for you to come back."
- 3 Tobiah went out to look for some poor kinsman of ours. When he returned he exclaimed, "Father!" I said to him, "What is it, son?" He answered, "Father, one of our people has been murdered! His body lies in the market place where he was just strangled!"
- 4 I sprang to my feet, leaving the dinner untouched; and I carried the dead man from the street and put him in one of the rooms, so that I might bury him after sunset.
- 5 Returning to my own quarters, I washed myself and ate my food in sorrow.
- 6 I was reminded of the oracle pronounced by the prophet Amos against Bethel: "Your festivals shall be turned into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation."
- 7 And I wept. Then at sunset I went out, dug a grave, and buried him.
- 8 The neighbors mocked me, saying to one another: "Will this man never learn! Once before he was hunted down for execution because of this very thing; yet now that he has escaped, here he is again burying the dead!"
The narrative background to this is conventionally recorded in the Books of the Kings. The Northern tribes of Israel fell into the sin of idolatry and all that that entails. As a consequence God permitted them to be conquered by the Assyrians and taken into captivity and exile. Tobit himself was an Israelite in whom, to coin a phrase, there was no guile, he was faithful to the Lord but nonetheless shared in the captivity of his nation. Following their defeat in Judea the Assyrians appeared to take out their fury on random Israelites in Nineveh the Assyrian capital, leaving their bodies to rot in the open. This leads to a sequence of events in which Tobit effectively recapitulates the history of Israel in his own person. Moved by charity and possessing no little courage Tobit buries the dead himself. This leads to anger, betrayal, exile, destruction of the tyrant and return to home. It is probably no coincidence that his nephew Ahiqar who facilitates his return hold the same position, cupbearer, as Joseph had held under Pharoah.
The Pentecost events described here represent something of a foreshadowing of the first Christian Pentecost described in Acts 2. There, after the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord the Holy Spirit descends and moves the Apostles to invite the devout Israelites outside the Cenacle to join them in the prayers, the breaking of the bread and the teaching of the Apostles. Here moved, no doubt, by the same Spirit Tobit issues an invitation for even one Israelite who sincerely worships God to join him in the breaking of bread. Whereas the first Christian Pentecost produced a harvest of three thousand souls this bitter exilic one produced but a single corpse.
The fact that Tobit cannot find a person outside his family to share this feast with him echo's his earlier experience back in Israel. We see in Chapter 1-
5All my kindred and our ancestral house of Naphtali sacrificed to the calf that King Jeroboam of Israel had erected in Dan and on all the mountains of Galilee.6But I alone went often to Jerusalem for the festivals, as it is prescribed for all Israel by an everlasting decree. I would hurry off to Jerusalem with the first fruits of the crops and the firstlings of the flock, the tithes of the cattle, and the first shearings of the sheep.
The motivation that Tobit has to bury the dead and give alms to the poor springs from the same source as that which leads him to worship the Lord God and obey the precepts of the Law. When Jesus recommends His followers to a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matt 5:10) it is of people like Tobit that He is thinking as well as the Holy Family. Obedience is the key that sets Tobit free. He chooses to obey the Law, the Assyrians and his idolatrous kinsfolk are slaves to sin, he exercises choice and they do not hence he is freer than them. Since his obedience springs from his Yes to God it is prior to the Law and not dependent upon it, a fact which will become of crucial importance in the later Christian economy of salvation.
Upon hearing of the unburied Israelite our hero immediately sprang to his feet. This recalls that after the Annunciation our Lady "with great haste" went to her cousin St Elizabeth. This is another sign that the Holy Spirit was a key actor in this Pentecost event. It was the Holy Spirit that overshadowed Mary and if His first fruit was the conception of our Saviour the second was surely Mary's dash to the side of kinswoman in need. The root and source of all uncalculated, spontaneous acts of self forgetful love is always that same Spirit. We can also see in the untasted feast a type of Jesus who left the heavenly banquet in order to reclaim mankind murdered by sin. Tobit returns with the dead still dead, Jesus returns with death defeated in His train. Tobit eats his bread with tears Jesus resumes the heavenly meal with all the hosts of heaven and redeemed man rejoicing.
A significant added factor in the generosity of Tobits character is revealed when we consider that simply by touching a dead body he contracted a form of uncleaness under the Law(Numbers 19:11-13). Which brings us straight to Jesus and His parable in Luke 10-
30Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.33But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.35The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, "Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.'
The Priest and the Levite considered the Law in relation to themselves. They would be unclean if they touched a dead man and unable to function in their positions until purified. They either thought that the man was dead or had a good chance of dying on their hands so they let them be not only because they were respecters of the Law but actually, as it were, employees of the Law. The Samaritan, who also valued the Books of Moses, considered the needs of the man prior to the legal implications for himself. Moses never, under God, prescribed regulations to prevent kindness to the distressed, selfishness is the sole author of any such decrees written or unwritten. Tobit was the good neighbour of whom Jesus might have said "go and do likewise".
When reading it is often easy to regard a sequence of events as just one single one but in the case of Tobits much delayed meal it is worthwhile to break it down into its component parts. Firstly he started to eat "in sorrow". Sorrow that one of his people had been murdered. Sorrow that there were none of his family at hand to openly take him home and do for him what a family should. Then he recalled the prophecy of Amos and that this was a great feast day to the Lord and that it was being celebrated in exile amidst an oppressor who placed no value on the lives of Jacobs descendants. And he wept. Surely he wept over the plight of his people and also over their continued estrangement from the God who could and would save them. Perhaps there was another reason. Jesus is recorded as weeping also and in this fashion, John 11
32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.34He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."35Jesus began to weep.
Since he was about to turn their mourning into rejoicing why did our Lord shed tears? It was not the death of Lazarus that moved Him it was the sight of human distress occasioned by the fragility of life. All life is lived under the shadow of death. All joys pass. No festival is without its mourning no songs are wholly free from lamentation. Only love is stronger than death. We weep because their is a veil now between us and that unconquered, all conquering love. And until that veil is pierced by a divine heart piercing lance then we will always have cause to cry.
Tobit performs his self allotted task. His neighbours mock him. He gains nothing. He gets no thanks. Nonetheless he perseveres, in Medieval Catholic Europe Tobit became an icon for the virtue of patience. He teaches us, finally, that victory belongs not to those who can inflict the most but to those who can endure the most. Jesus and Mary came from a tradition which includes Tobit, like him they were Galileans, like him they were generous with a selfless love, like him they observed the Law. And like him they demonstrated that whatever the limitations of that Law might be the path the Pharisees trod was not its fulfilment and therefore the acme of Judaism but simply another way of misunderstanding God. We have discovered many others since, not the least of which is anti-Semitism.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Death and Memory
This is the draught of an article I hope to submit to the Guardian. Open to comments on how it can be improved.
If religion did not speak to the deepest sighs and longings of the human heart then it would be as well not to speak at all. Of these sighs few are more profound than those offered up for the death of one we love. My father, William Hepburn, died earlier this year and since by tradition Catholics devote the month of November in particular to remembering our dead this November of 2011 becomes a special one for me . It is one of the examples in Catholic life where theological truths and natural human emotions combine in such a way as to produce the inner peace we all desire and the calm acceptance that what has happened has happened.
It is no coincidence that this time precedes Advent a liturgical season that prepares believers for light to appear in the midst of darkness. We move from the De Profundis of Psalm 129 "Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord" to the anticipation of Isaiah 9 "The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen". Outside the Church we bereaved ones are insistently urged to move on, to reach closure, not to be morbid. Within our faith family we have this time of the year where parishes unite around prayer and remembrance for the dead. It is not considered gauche or uncool to bring to mind those whose passing made us weep. Death is placed in a context not only of eternity but of community. We pray for each of the dead not simply for our own ones. The theological truth we celebrate is the Communion of the Saints. The Church consists not merely of those now alive on earth but of those alive to God in heaven and in purgatory, something marked out by the twin feasts of All Saints and All Souls on 1 and 2 November.
In particular the prayers we offer are for those souls still in purgatory. Whatever one may think of the theological basis for the doctrine of purgatory it offers a psychologically realistic parallel between those gone and those left behind. As we endure suffering after and because of their passing so to they suffer before reaching the goal of the beatific vision. We and they are in solidarity, a solidarity of both pain and hope. We have a promised land to reach but a desert to pass though before we arrive at it. And, again, it is a community event. We remember our dead together, we are on pilgrimage together and we shall rejoice together "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going they went and wept, casting their seeds. But coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves." (Psalm 125 ).
We speak of those who have gone ahead as the "faithful departed". As a convert this raises an interesting not to say vital question. My dear father was not a Catholic. The customary alliance of hard line fundamentalists and militant new atheists will no doubt unite to suggest that the logical consequence of my belief system would thrust him into that third and much less popular destination of hell and so offering up prayers on his behalf represents either hypocrisy on my part or a lack of belief that any of this stuff is actually true. These are questions I faced and reflected deeply upon when my equally non-Catholic mother, Irena Hepburn, died in 1998. My instant response then was what it is now. My parents were always faithful to me and to virtue as they understood it. Selfless faithfulness is a product of love and, consciously or unconsciously, is therefore grounded upon God the faithful and loving. My prayers for them, and for any one else for whom I am asked to pray, are offered up in a perfect trust that love is never wasted and that He who is the fount of all love gladly receives back unto Himself each of His children who follow His model.
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