Mother of the Lord, Father of the Buddha

34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
Luke 2

A hermit, who lived in the mountains not far away, noticing a glory about the castle and interpreting it as a good omen, came down to the palace and was shown the child. He predicted: "This prince, if he remains in the palace after his youth, will become a great King to rule the Four Seas. But if he forsakes the household life to embrace a religious life, he will become a Buddha and the world's Saviour."
The Buddha's Life


There have been many attempts to draw parallels between the lives of Jesus and the Buddha. In particular the narratives about the birth and early lives of these two figures have been compared. The argument essentially is that many of the elements found in the stories of the Buddha can also be seen in the much later figure of Jesus. The inference being that the Gospel authors borrowed the legends and incorporated them into their narratives. That being so it casts grave doubt on the reliability we can place on these documents as being at all historically accurate since they contain fabulous elements within them.

The problem with this approach is that it assumes that since the Buddha pre-dates the Messiah then so to do the legends and stories surrounding him. That, I think, is far from certain. The Gospel accounts of Matthew and Luke received pretty much their final form and were circulated within a century of the events they describe. The provenance of the Buddha legends is less clear and it has been suggested that some of them post-date Jesus thus demolishing the argument. All of this is well outside my range of expertise and I cannot comment intelligently about it. My purpose here is to focus on an obvious anti-parallel in the stories. The different approaches of Mary and King Suddhodana to the respective missions of their children. I do not intend this to be a negative reflection on Buddhism, the King did not become a Buddhist until much, much later, but a way of highlighting the radical demands which the Gospel makes upon our deepest and most fundamental feelings and relationships and the way that Mary displays to us the perfect Christian response to those demands.

In addition to the prophecy of Simeon our Lady had also heard that of the Archangel Gabriel concerning her Son-
31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’
Luke 1
So both the King and the Nazarene maiden were presented with the prospect of a child who would or could be associated with royal glory and also with religious mission. The difference being that King Suddhodana had an either/or choice and the Blessed Virgin a both/and prospect. For Jesus to enter upon His royal throne He must first become a sign of contradiction and source of scandal and Mary herself would have to feel a sword piercing agony. This was not only implicit in the two prophecies which were spoken to her but was clearly explicit in the earlier words of Isaiah with which she would have been familiar.
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
    and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others;
    a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him of no account.
Isaiah 53

So, what happened next? The King did his very best to shelter the young Siddhartha from contact with the world of suffering, old age and death. He surrounded him with beautiful, healthy people and gave him access to all kinds of pleasures and the training required to be a king and a warrior. It could be argued that our Lady did not have these options and simply lived as she had to live but that is not so. She, and the most chaste St Joseph, had choices to make and they made them with a view to fitting Jesus for His appointment with the Cross. St Matthew tells us that they were given great gifts by the Magi but is silent as to what the Holy Family did with them. Catholic tradition has it that the Virgin gave them away to the poor. in any event she could have claimed sanctuary from these wealthy travellers and doubtless they would have been glad to shelter and provide for the future King of the Jews. Instead she and the holy patriarch fled into exile in Egypt, to escape Herod, and lived the life of asylum seekers. If God wished our Lord to be raised into poverty and obscurity then Mary and Joseph would willingly do as He required. When the danger was over there is no suggestion that the Holy Family were materially obliged to return to the Holy Land. Faced with the horror that awaited both her and her Son Mary could have chosen the option of the prophet Jonah and fled still further afield hoping that God would relent and spare them the Passion, finding some other means to save the people of the world from the consequences of their own malevolent and malicious actions. She did not. She was faithful to her calling as Mother of the Redeemer.

One day the young Prince went for a walk alone in a garden and was resting under a jambu tree. Almost without realising it, the he drew his legs into meditation posture, his mind became stilled and free of worldly thoughts and he was filled with peace and serenity.
Life of Shakyamuni Buddha- Childhood 

46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.
Luke 2

Again there are obvious contrasts to be seen in these youthful experiences of the two world teachers. The Buddha had this solitary experience despite his father's best efforts and it proceeds in an atmosphere of stillness and silence. Jesus was situated in the more raucous surrounding of the Temple. More pertinently, for my purposes, is what led up to this episode. Although it was neither engineered not desired by Mary and Joseph all that they had done prior to it led to its being possible. They brought Him up to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem amid the thronging crowds and all that could be expected from such gatherings when they could, like King Suddhodana, have kept Him secluded and far from such scenes. And they were happy for Him to mix with other children and other families as we see from the manner in which they lost Him-
44 Assuming that he was in the group of travellers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends.
Luke 2
This was not carelessness on the part of the Virgin and her spouse. This was a willingness to give Jesus to His mission by granting Him the freedom to grow into it as the Spirit led Him.

Worried by this turn of events, the King's advisors suggested that a wife and children would help to turn the Prince's attention to worldly matters and so the search for a bride was begun
Life of Shakyamuni Buddha- Childhood

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 4 And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’
John 2

The King sought to deter Siddhartha from his religious mission by tying him into the world of ordinary royal ambitions through marriage and paternity. Our Lady on the occasion of another marriage by her prayers prompted to Jesus to finally embark upon that journey which would result in her agony and His Passion and Death. She showed that she valued marriage and that she wished that the happiness and joy of that couple should begin with the unblemished felicity of a happy wedding feast. And she showed too that she knew that that path was closed off to her Son so she played her part in encouraging Him to bless the one path by an action that would set Him of on a totally different one.

In the very differing figures of the Mother of the Lord and the Father of the Buddha we see rival motives at work. King Suddhodana had to choose between a natural ambition to have a son and then grandsons who would be great as he himself was great but only more so. And he understood happiness to consist in possessing an ever more abundant treasury of riches, material and emotional of the kind that he himself possessed. Against that he could only set a vague aspiration to better the whole world through the medium of a son who was a religious teacher but nothing more. I do not wish to be harsh about the King, no doubt he was a compassionate and kindly man but this compassion for him, as for most of us, was largely of an active kind so far as it concerned his family and of a passive one so far as it affected strangers. Mary, for her part, made her choice when she said "Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done to me according to thy word" When she accepted her Son as a gift from God she accepted too that her life and His were to be lived in accordance with the will and to achieve the purposes of the Divine Father.

If a contrast is to be made here between Christianity and Buddhism I think it is that which must exist between a religion of Revelation and one of self discovery and self improvement. Christians see a God who intervenes in human history and who prepares for each stage of Revelation concerning the truth about Himself through the previous stages. Our Lady chose and freely chose of her own free will to undertake her task of pointing herself towards the soul piercing sword and her Son towards the heart piercing lance of Calvary. But she did so in the context of her own Immaculate Conception and centuries of prophecy concerning the Messiah which she had the wisdom to understand in spiritual and not nationalist military ways. King Suddhodana and Shakyamuni Buddha had to find their way by trial and error. Christians believe in an actively compassionate and loving God who seeks to create and actively compassionate and loving People of God in His image and on that we are happy to stake our lives in both time and eternity.


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Did Jesus Use a Racist Trope?

Older readers may recall my Was Jesus Judgemental? post from a few years back. A discussion on a similar theme is taking place in the Ship of Fools Forums, Jesus had to transcend his culture too? I thought it would be appropriate to re-post one of my responses to it here. It also allows me to mention the Beatles for the first time on this blog and thus eliminate a glaring ommision-

Barnabas62

quote:

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In Luke, from the very start, Jesus is proclaimed, by Simeon, in the hearing of Mary and Joseph who marvel at it, that this child will be "a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel"

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This is an echo of Isaiah

quote:

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6 I the Lord have called thee in justice, and taken thee by the hand, and preserved thee. And I have given thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles:

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Isaiah 42 

So clearly the people of Israel were expecting their Messiah to have such a role but not in the same way that we as Christians might interpret it. If the Messiah was one who restored the glories of the Davidic kingdom and was endowed with the wisdom of a Solomon then he could be thought of as a light to the Gentiles in the sense of demonstrating that the God of Israel was the one true God and that the children of Israel had a unique covenant relationship with Him. So the Gentiles would be enrolled as worshippers of the Lord but in a subsidiary and supplicant position Vis-à-vis the Israelites.

The point at which Jesus grew in wisdom to grasp beyond that expectation and see that His mission involved incorporating the Gentiles into a New Israel is a matter of speculation. He did say that Salvation is of the Jews (Jn 4:22) and that certainly would have been the expectation not only of His disciples but also of pretty much all the Jews to whom He preached. Had He begun His mission by proposing for belief all that we who know the end of it understand His project to have been He would have got no following at all. His mission had to unfold its purposes in a progressive manner in order for Him to build up a devoted following who could carry that mission on after the Easter events.

In some ways it is rather like the trajectory of Beatles albums. Fans who followed the band all the way from the first pop albums through to Abbey Road went on a remarkable musical journey who's end was very different from the beginning and could not be foreseen but which was rooted in the complex personalities of the creative songwriters of the band. Of course the Beatles had no idea at the beginning what the end would be and to some extent Jesus, who is definitely still bigger than the Beatles, did.
I incline to the believe that, like the Cana episode, our Lord had clearly decided to follow a particular path, in the one case the public performance of miracles and in the other the extending of His mission to the Gentiles. What He was undecided about was when to do so. He needed to encounter an event that would precipitate the change of direction, to act as a catalyst. In one instance it was His inability to refuse a request from His mother and in another it was His inability to resist an appeal to His compassion. Something similar happened when He took His disciples for a quiet retreat and ended up healing, teaching and feeding thousands of others instead. It might be useful to bear that episode in mind when considering this one of the Syro-Phoenician woman. Mark 6:31-44 

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Enlightenment Too? Who Needs #Buddha 3?

Part of the quest that points people Eastward as the desire to achieve enlightenment. This is understood as a moment in time when suddenly one "gets it". Everything which before was seen as in a glass darkly suddenly becomes limpidly clear and understood not only as an idea in the mind but as an entering into the ultimate truth such that from that moment one inhabits and is inhabited by that truth, that reality behind the reality. A model for this is provided by the Buddha. After experiencing this moment he reputedly said-

153. Through many a birth in samsara have I wandered in vain, seeking in the builder of this house (of life). Repeated birth is indeed suffering! 

154. O house-builder, you are seen! You will not build this house again. For your rafters are broken and your ridgepole shattered. My mind has reached the Unconditioned; I have attained the destruction of craving

Dhammapada 11 

Leaving aside the belief in reincarnation, which is something many Westerners who attach themselves to Eastern spiritualities are more than happy to do, the questions that interest me are-

• Does this moment of satori, as it is referred to in Zen, consist of a genuine and genuinely valuable insight of life changing significance?
• Is there anything analogous and arguably superior to it within the Christian tradition?

Only those who have actually experienced such a Bodhi Tree moment can really answer the first question of course and I can make no such claim. Basing myself, however, on the description of the effects of such moments and the subsequent life paths of some who have claimed to have them I can draw some tentative conclusions.

Firstly, making having such an experience a primary goal of life leads to practices of self discipline, self control, benign (if detached) compassion and an emphasis on the non-material non-passionate aspects of life which are on the whole beneficial spiritually and emotionally. For the reason that they are also rather challenging more people, perhaps, desire enlightenment than pursue such paths seeking to shortcut the process with the aid of drugs, ritualism or the gadfly practice of flitting from teacher to teacher or book to book. This creates something of a spiritual version of the dieting industry which relies upon repeated failures leading to new attempts to avoid doing the obvious thing of eating less and exercising more or its Buddhist/Taoist/Vedanta equivalents.

Secondly, satori certainly sounds like a final snapping of the threads. A reaching of the point where one is definitively, so far as it is ever possible for frail humans to do anything which they don't subsequently undo, detached from the desire for things or for sensual pleasures as an end in themselves. That being so it simply must be a life changing experience and a valuable one too since it is a heart-recognition of the simple truth that we can all profess with our lips that the ownership of things and an enslavement to desires and whims is no route to happiness. The caveat to that is, once you are detached what then? Is it an end to growth and if not then into what do you grow? If you have realised the truth then repeating the same realisation again and again achieves nothing but if your understanding can grow then what you recognised in the first place was but a fragment of truth.

It seems to me that Christianity can offer two analogues to this own well known and one less so. The first is that which is pretty much accessible to all and is the initial conversion experience, like that of St Paul on the road to Damascus. Most Christian traditions afford examples of this and it is variously referred to as conversion, being born again,  personal assurance of salvation and so on. The experience of St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, is interesting in this context-

It was while here that the ideas for what are now known as the Spiritual Exercises began to take shape. It was also on the banks of this river that he had a vision which is regarded as the most significant in his life. The vision was more of enlightenment, about which he later said that he learned more on that one occasion that he did in the rest of his life. Ignatius never revealed exactly what the vision was, but it seems to have been an encounter with God as He really is so that all creation was seen in a new light and acquired a new meaning and relevance, and experience that enabled Ignatius to find God in all things.

A Brief Biography of St Ignatius 

These Christian experiences sometimes come like a bolt from the blue, as in St Paul, and sometimes after a time of searching and prayer, as in St Ignatius and also St Augustine. What is common to both is that they are experienced as a gift. They come by an act of the grace of God, they are the work of the Holy Spirit. They are certainly life changing and definitive but they are not the pure product of self directed effort they are rather a turning point in a relationship, a moment where love deepens. They are also, therefore, the foundation for growth since it is a relationship which never ends and a love which can never be exhausted.This is because, in Catholic understanding at least, conversion is not an event it is a process albeit one which can incorporate more or less dramatic event within itself.

Unlike Christian mysticism this kind of conversion experience is not a hard to find secret buried deep in the Church's repository of ways to know God. Most Westerners with a Christian background will be at least vaguely aware of the type of thing which I have described. Yet they eschew it in favour of the spiritual athleticism of the Eastern spiritualities, or its faddish diet-like equivalents. I would hazard that this is because it is a dependent process, it is a violation of the individualistic autonomy which is the prize possession of the modern Westerner. We must accept that we are wholly reliant on the initiative of God to make real progress. The Little Way of St Therese, where we make ourselves very small so that Jesus can easily pick us up and carry us up the stairs is an anathema to this mindset. Humility is one of the least popular of the virtues in our times. I think, incidentally, that this is peculiar to the Western approach to these traditions and that Asian understandings of their own faiths are much more open to being humble.

The second analogue to satori is Union with God. This is the high point of Christian mysticism and represents the peak of the notion of divinisation, God became Man that Man might, by grace, become God. St Catherine of Genoa, quoted by Underhill, said  “My me is God, nor do I know my self-hood save in Him,” or as she said elsewhere.My being is God, not through participation, but through true transformation and through annihilation of my own being...So in God is my me, my I, my strength, my bliss, my desire. But this 'I' that I often call so - I do it because I cannot speak otherwise, but in truth I no longer know what the I is, or the Mine, or desire, or good, or bliss. The point being that the mystic is caught up into the mystery of God and the boundaries between self and God cease to exist. She has realised the oneness of creature with Creator, realisation meaning not an intellectual understanding but a whole person submerging in what is beyond all finite understanding. She may return to earth as it were but never after loses that consciousness which she has gained, provided only she remains humble and accepts as gift and not earned reward all that she has experienced.

These mystic peaks, however, only qualify to be called enlightenment in the sense that the knowledge of the fact that we really know nothing is the fullest enlightenment that we can have. The idea of Union transcends the notion of satori. It is an entering into the Divine life and it's entering into us. As conversion is relationship so Union is consummation. Technique plays a part in helping us reach this point but to be melted in the embrace of the beloved ultimately requires His initiative so humble love and hopeful patience are the greatest techniques we can deploy. And these are seldom highly desirable to the Western seeker.The Christian, however, might argue that with such a goal to aim for these virtues are a small price to pay.


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Storm and Spirit, High Tides and Haiku

The wind howls, herald
Of a fearful, dreadful day.
A crashing of waves

Waves, wind-goaded, whirl
And twist in frenzied fury
Helpless rainclouds weep

A lull between storms.
The cry of birds mourning their
Shattered nests. Dark clouds.


Storm wreckage, strewn in
A casual disorder.
Dull grey morning light


Storm battered coast, an
Unleashed cocktail of furies
Howl and twist with rage.

Distant sound of a
Radio floats on the breeze.
Ripples on a lake

Winter's uncertain
Sunlight, wavering and brief,
Is always welcome


Sound of a raindrop,
Tiny splash, barely noticed
Unheeded moments

The insistent thrust
Of a restless, longing heart
Only love can meet

Shards of narrative
In swift tumbling confusion
Whirl through fevered dreams

Frostbound field, lightly
Touched by the early sunrise
As shadows retreat

The passing of hours
Where nothing at all happens
Tranquil tedium

Unfashionable
Happiness, finding joy through
Jesus, Lamb of God

The simplicity
Of suggestions to the mind
Zen calligraphy

Pure Zen garden. Dry
Rock cascades, land-locked islands
Trick the mind with ease.

To be intently
Still is to be journeying.
All movement is Mind


Blood on jagged glass,
Dripping in slow viscous drops
A young life blighted

Peopled loneliness,
Many headed solitude,
A despairing heart.

A sleep resembling
Death, the heart's feeble flutter
Soon, the final rest.

Incense, in lazy
Wisps, drifts through sunlit spaces
Rising to heaven

Winter-born despair
Child of a mind buried deep
In long, cold, darkness

He will lift you up
On eagles wings, you will see
A new day dawning

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Pearls of Wisdom- Who Needs #Buddha 2

The spiritual seeker is often also a great reader. The ancient tradition of seeking out a spiritual teacher or guide and placing oneself under their authority has, in large part, been replaced by an omnivorous consumption of books or a visiting of websites (I don't knock this, it might be the reason why you are reading this blog after all.) The Western seekers frequently find their way to classic texts like the Gita, the Dhammapada, the Tao Te Ching or the Tibetan Book of the Dead. More often though people find pleasure in reading collections of pithy wisdom sayings or wisdom stories. Here Sufi Islam, through writers like Rumi, joins the field along with Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism.

Christianity does not, are at least should not though some fundamentalists might disagree, deny that wisdom and truth can be indeed perceived if only in glimpses and flashes in these texts. What practically all Christian traditions do assert, though, is that the Bible is the spiritual text above all other spiritual texts and that every other spiritual writing is at best an auxiliary to it. St Benedict put it this way-
For what page or what utterance 
of the divinely inspired books of the Old and New Testaments 
is not a most unerring rule for human life? 
Rule of Benedict, Chapter 73

And here we have a problem. Many may indeed pick up the Sacred Scriptures seeking insight but will, like I once did, soon put them down again as being way too full of Angry God and not full enough of Hippy Jesus. Not only this but the jumble of formats- Histories, Laws, Prophecies, Poetry, Gospels, Letters and so on is confusing and daunting. The legacy too of the "Reformation" is that many of us start from the assumption that all the equipment we need to understand the text is the ability to read since every man or woman is qualified to be their own Pope. The fallacy in that argument should be apparent as soon as it is stated. Unless we are historians and lawyers and poets and textual critics how could we expect to grasp the complexity of this interwoven fabric composed and compiled over centuries? Catholics at least are urged to read the Scriptures "with the mind of the Church" which is to say that there have been 2000 years of reflection and commentary on these texts and we should be aware of the fruits of that while we read. This is less daunting than it sounds, study Bibles, like the Navarre Bible series or the little Christian Community Bible (Downloadable), contain brief (-ish) notes alongside the text summarising the content of these commentaries.

Seekers might wonder why it is necessary to take such trouble when all these pearls of wisdom from the East are so straightforward and readily to hand. But appearances are deceptive. What is presented is pre-digested, broken down into McNugget sized chunks and taken out of its context. Those who do read full Eastern works like the Gita discover that they have their own problems which have the same dimensions as our Angry God issues. Arjuna, for example, being urged by Krishna to kill people rather than abstain from violence. We can skate over this because, as I said in the first part, we view Eastern Religion from a distance and can carry the baggage of their history more lightly than that of our own. Nonetheless the problems are there and they are real. If our spiritual hunger is content to be fed with de-contextualised feelgood quotes then we can mine the Bible for them just as easily as any other text so wherein lies the superiority of the East apart from our ability to ignore its 'hard sayings' and difficult texts?

 As I mentioned in the first part one major draw of the Eastern approach is the practice of meditation. There are two methods of using Scripture which, with the help of God's grace, can bring about the kind of states or spiritual experiences which will confer that limpid peaceful clarity and insight that the seeker is thirsting for. One is the use of the Psalms which is too large a subject for now, I hope to address it in a future blog, the other is Lectio Divina a contemplative reading of Scripture. There is a certain amount of confusion when considering this subject because although the word meditation is used frequently in Catholic discourse in this area it traditionally means a different thing from that ascribed to it by the East. Here it has referred to thinking deeply there it has referred to an emptying of the mind. Lectio is a method which is open to being used in either way or in both. Meditation, meaning thought, can lead to Contemplation which means reflecting in the sense that a mirror or still waters reflect.

Guigo the Carthusian wrote what may be the classic exposition of the technique in his The Ladder of Four Rungs  It contains this handy summary-

Understand now what the four staves of this ladder are, each in turn. Reading, Lesson, is busily looking on Holy Scripture with all one's will and wit. Meditation is a studious insearching with the mind to know what was before concealed through desiring proper skill. Prayer is a devout desiring of the heart to get what is good and avoid what is evil. Contemplation is the lifting up of the heart to God tasting somewhat of the heavenly sweetness and savour. Reading seeks, meditation finds, prayer asks, contemplation feels.

Here, indeed, we might feel the lack of a personal Spiritual Director since some passages are more apt to Lectio than others. People trying the technique for the first time would be well advised to seek advice either from a trusted guide or from a good book or website dealing with the subject. And, too, they should bear in mind the advice to read the Scriptures 'with the mind of the Church.' Having said which some of the less obvious passages can lead into the deepest meditation (in either sense) precisely because their meaning makes less immediate impact on the discursive part of our minds. The gentle little Book of Ruth, for example, might fit into this category.

Again I would make the point that with Christianity we should not allow our familiarity with what we suppose it to be to breed contempt and to counter-pose against it a less contaminated Eastern Wisdom. The East is not so pure and the West not so massively flawed as we might at first assume. And finally I will leave you with the words of Guerric of Igny

Search the Scriptures. For you are not mistaken in thinking that you find life in them.....From these gardens the Bridegroom will lead you, if I be not mistaken, into others where rest is more hidden and enjoyment more blessed and beauty more wonderful. When you are absorbed in his praises with accents of exultation and thanksgiving, he will take you into his wonderful tenting place, into the very house of God, into the unapproachable light in which he dwells, where he feeds, where he lies down at midday. 


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Who needs #Buddha?

How the Mystic Heart of Christianity has been hiding in plain sight

At one time or another many Westerners, myself included, have rejected Christianity and looked for answers to our spiritual needs in the wisdom of the East. The clear market leader here is Buddhism in many and various forms. The Hindu tradition around the Bhagavad Gita also has its Western niche audience. There is too a thriving trend for mix-and-match a la carte Eastern spirituality where consumers buy into the ideas that stroke their spiritual erogenous zones while ignoring any inconvenient ballast that accompanies them. The then Cardinal Ratzinger once suggested that European Catholics who converted to Buddhism were guilty of a kind of spiritual auto-eroticism a statement which sounds harsh but, like Buddhism itself, has a distinct portion of truth contained within itself.

My purpose here is not to criticise these major world faiths. The Catholic Church, in the document Nostra Aetate , recognises that these ways of seeking God are not without glimpses and flashes of Him who cannot be hid. No, my business here is to suggest that we are often too eager to discard a Christian faith which contains within itself precisely those elements which we most like about the Eastern faiths and moreover does so in a far more incarnated ie fully human sense. In part also this easy abandonment of our own historic faith is assisted by Christianity itself hiding its mystical light under a bushel. An added attraction about the Eastern faiths is that by looking at them from a distance we are not bothered by the vulgarisation of them in actual Eastern societies or by the abundant failings of their practitioners and these perhaps are the very things that distance us from Christianity. We in the West get the refined essence of Buddhism and the dirty washing of Christianity.

One of the biggest selling points of the Eastern traditions is the habit of meditation. The clearing of the mind from cluttering thoughts, feelings and distractions so that an inner light, a tranquil crystal clear lake, a pure lotus blossom or whatever other metaphor of choice springs to mind can manifest itself and we can enter into a personal zone of peace. In this state we can encounter the Reality which underlies the bewildering, deceiving surface aspects of our lives and our selves and so become Real in all that we are and do. This is a worthy project but few who embark upon it consider for even a nano-second that by far and away the most popular form of meditation in the West is the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

It is, perhaps, in this meditative format that we come up most clearly against the incarnate and disincarnate contrast between the two modes of spirituality. In the Rosary the mind is indeed emptied of clutter. This is done to focus upon Jesus and Mary and the God who intervenes directly in human history thereby strengthening our relationship with Him. Other historic Christian meditative approaches have a similar sort of focus. The Orthodox Jesus Prayer or Prayer of the Heart, popularised in the wonderful little book The Way of a Pilgrim, the single word focussed upon in the Cloud of Unknowing, the dry, barren desert St John of the Cross writes about in The Dark Night of the Soul. Each of these, all of these, in some way or another encourages us to leave behind the distractions and delusions of the everyday world to centre ourselves on that which, or rather whom, is the very centre and cause of our own being and all being.

The aim of Eastern meditation, be it self, Self, Overself, Atman, Nirvana, is ultimately impersonal or even a simple nothingness. That of the Christian is profoundly personal, it is all about relationship. For the Western seeker after inner peace who picks up a smattering of Buddhism or Vedanta this is all hypothetical. What they want is what works, what offers the sand for the white dove to sleep in. Often they turn to the East because it offers a series of techniques which promise to deliver the goods and which they have never found to be on offer in Christianity. Yet when it comes to the simple mechanics of it all the techniques that the West uses are in many respects more or less identical to those of the East. But the West holds them as a well kept secret and the East proclaims them from the housetops. In part this is a necessary consequence of the fundamentally different approach between a faith which is missionary and active and sees its raison d'etre precisely to be incarnated in the hurly burly of daily life and ones which see withdrawal and a passive fatalism as more suited to their genius. In this sense Christian meditation is viewed as a process by which one recharges ones batteries before returning to the fray rather than as an end in itself. Which is more or less exactly what Westerners who turn East want it for too and did they but know that it was there they might turn to it instead.

Its not all about technique though. Whilst both Eastern and Western approaches promise an inner calm, a rest for the restless heart, a way of renewal, a discovery of meaning the Christians does so not on on the basis of an ever increasing spiritual athleticism leading to the winning of a spiritual gold medal. Rather the basis for success is a surrendering, a clearing the way to enable the Grace of God, the still small voice, to speak clearly to us. It is not a technique which transforms us it is a gift. The Christian way claims to be superior, I personally believe that it is so having experienced something of both, but the proof is purely experimental. My only suggestion are these, the Church should make more widely available the treasures of mystic spirituality she possesses and people from a Christian background should not be quite so eager to throw out the baptised baby with the admittedly grubby bathwater.

End of Part One

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Conceited Hearts and an Immaculate One

51 He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.
Luke 1:51


The concept of 'heart' plays a prominent role in the opening chapters of St Luke's Gospel account. Most Catholic attention is focussed on those references which show our Lady as a contemplative-
But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart. (Lk 2:19)
 And his mother kept all these words in her heart. (Lk 2:51)

Its first appearance though is in the mouth of the Archangel Gabriel
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people. (Lk 1:17)

It is also applied to those Judeans who heard the events surrounding the birth of St John the Baptist
And all they that had heard them laid them up in their heart
(Lk 1:66)

Indeed, the only time that the concept is used negatively is by our Lady in the quote that begins this reflection from her Magnificat. In this, as you might expect, Mary has a sound basis in Jewish scripture and tradition-

16 Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth:

17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

18 A heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into mischief,

19 A deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and him that soweth discord among brethren.

Proverbs 6

What is meant by heart is something like what we might mean by 'mind' but incorporating within it feelings and emotions. That is, reason plays a prominent part in it but not an exclusive one. These words of the Blessed Virgin have been translated in various ways each giving a slightly different take on the same thing-
Arrogant thoughts (Common English Bible)
Scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts (English Standard Version)
the imagination of their hearts. (Authorised Version)
those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. (New International Version)
The proud in mind and heart (The Voice)
And so on and so forth.

So, we have arrogance, pride, conceit and imagination each of which is deemed apt to describe the inner workings of those whom our Lady contrasts with the humble ones whom God delights to honour. This has a resonance with the Messianic Psalm 2
Why do the heathen rage,
and the people imagine a vain thing? (Psalms 2:1 AV
The point here, which Mary above all others is qualified to make, is that in some sense 'humility' means the same thing as 'truth'. In understanding herself as being fragile and vulnerable and dependant upon the mercy of God, subject to an innumerable number of hazards of nature and man's design, any one of which could strike her down in an instant, the Virgin recognises the absolute truth about her status as a human. By contrast those who believe themselves capable of making the will of God and the inescapable facts about our limitations subject to their own will and power are making false assumptions about themselves. And these assumptions proceed from an arrogance, a pride, that imagines things about themselves which are entirely untrue.

One of the delusions of our own age is the notion of autonomy. Each person is considered to be a wholly independent unit who should only concede to limitations on that independence, if they concede them at all, entirely by their own free and unconstrained choice. And if these limitations become irksome then they should be equally free to revoke the concession whenever they want. In many ways it is an attractive image. It is also, as it happens, a conceit of the heart. From the moment of conception onward we are not independent or autonomous nor is there any reason why we should be. We are dependant upon others and other become dependant upon us. Even the language of 'rights' where we demand this or that right as a freedom that necessarily flows from our position as a citizen tacitly acknowledges that the achievement of each right for each individual always flows from other individuals fulfilling a duty or discharging an obligation.

To exercise a wise human freedom we must always begin, as the Mother of God began, by acknowledging the basic truth about ourselves. Here humility is not an affectation nor a conscious attempt to be virtuous, though it is the virtue above all other virtues, it is a simple recognition that we are limited and dependant. This is not to advocate timidity it is to say that we should do all that we can do but to accept that in order to achieve all that we can achieve we must act on the realistic acceptance that all true success depends more upon others than upon self. And all true rejoicing must be in the benefits that all our successes confer upon others.

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Disappearing into darkness

22 These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. 
Deuteronomy 5

10 And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord,11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.

12 Then spake Solomon, The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.

1/3 Kings 8

Idols are visible. They attract our senses and stimulate them. An invisible idol would make little sense. Surrounded by nations of idolaters the children of Israel worshipped an invisible God whose inmost sanctuary was behind a veil and whose presence was manifested by thick darkness. It can be discouraging to see obscurity when you look for clarity, to find that all your senses have become functionless. It is no surprise that the history of Israel consists mostly in a falling away from the One who is hidden from us and a falling towards those idols who caress the senses. The surprising thing, perhaps, is the faithfulness of the Father who never stops trying to win back the love of His children by one means or another.

Modern folk who have little desire to overtly worship anything find the attraction to idolatry as incomprehensible as the attraction toward the God of Israel and wander what all the fuss is about. They are happy to tolerate either, meaning they are contemptuous about both. It must be a vain God or gods who constantly demand praise and sacrifice and a credulous person who responds willingly they reason. The crucial point, easily missed here, though revolves precisely around the appeal to the senses. There was not a competition between various cultic deities each offering the same basic goods like McDonald's or Burger King. This was people choosing to follow a way that promised to give sensuous fulfilment now or to obey a law which demanded a high ethical standard and which could only be complied with through a programme of self discipline. And all this for a God who was hidden from sight in thick darkness. At this stage of revelation there was not even the promise of heaven and the resurrection to act as an incentive.

The nature of the different ways is given dramatic point in the Book of Daniel. The King of Babylon, a city emblematic of licentiousness, arrogance and luxurious living sets up an image of gold, emblematic of wealth, and commands all to worship it. Three young Jewish men refuse, preferring instead to offer their praise to the invisible God of Israel who is even more invisible than usual since His Temple has been destroyed and His people taken captive. They say simply
17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
Daniel 3

The final clause being the crucial one. They believe their God to be all powerful and the one true God and therefore they cannot fathom His purposes, He is obscure to them, nonetheless they will put their lives at risk rather than deny Him because He is God and the golden image is just a golden image.

So, the division between idolaters and worshippers of the God who is hidden exists as much in the West today as it did in the Middle East 3000 and more years ago. The modern idols of the materialist, consumerist, celebrity obsessed world are no less potent and no less worshipped because they do not get called gods. And ultimately, since each of these idols feeds our sensual appetites, what we worship is ourselves since it is the fulfilment our greedy desire for pleasure which will, we hope, be the outcome of our fervent acts of worship. Unless that is we turn the eyes of our hearts to the One who dwells in thick darkness, who spoke and then said no more.

And why should we strain our eyes for what we cannot see or listen for what will not speak? Because we desire heaven? Because we fear hell? Well, perhaps, but neither of these are the deepest reason. It is not said that God created the cloud which obscures Him. Maybe, indeed, there is no cloud, the darkness is of our own fashioning. Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, said
22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness
Matthew 6

If God disappears into darkness it is not because He is dark but because we are. The reason we have for seeking Him and no other is that only thus can we transform our darkness into His light or, rather, can we allow ourselves to be liberated from a dark kingdom and transported into the realm of light in which, and in which only, we can live and move and have our being in happiness and joy all the days of our lives.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
 2 Corinthians 3
 


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Running down the beard

Behold, how good and pleasant it is
    when brothers dwell in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil upon the head,
    running down upon the beard,
upon the beard of Aaron,
    running down on the collar of his robes!
2
Psalm 133


29 and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 And they spat upon him, and took the reed and struck him on the head.

Matthew 27


The psalm is a Song of Ascent, sung by pilgrims on their way to Zion to rejoice together in one of the festivals of God. In it David, an ancestor of Jesus, refers back to the first anointing of the first High Priest-
12 And he poured some of the anointing oil on Aaron’s head, and anointed him, to consecrate him.
Leviticus 8:12

It is a joyous song and brings together three great occasions for happiness among God's people. A remembrance of the past institution of the priestly office to forever offer praise and thanksgiving to the One who rescued His people from slavery and bondage, an enjoyment of the present companionship and love of the pilgrim people and a looking forward to the celebrations in the Holy City before the Tabernacle of the Blessed One. One can easily imagine the caravan of returning exiles or those of the diaspora blending their voices together in the same sort of harmony with which they had blended their lives and their journeys together for many days, perhaps weeks or even months and now the end of all their efforts was in sight.

How different and how radically similar was the anointing of our Lord and Saviour. The blood trickling down His scalp from the cruelly stabbing thorns driven ever deeper by the blows from His mock sceptre. This harmony of mockery from the brotherhood of Roman soldiery. This final anointing of the ultimate High Priest.  

In contemplating this mystery of the Crowning with Thorns we too can see three occasions for happiness since we have a God who can bring good out of evil and great good out of great evil. By His Passion and Death Jesus took up His role as both High Priest and Sacrifice being forever before the Father that we might be forever freed from the penalty rightly due for our sins and our selfishnesses.  We can see that never for  moment in the deepest depths of His passion was Jesus separated in love and tenderness from Mary His suffering Mother. The bonds of love united them so strongly to each other that each felt the suffering of the other. And through Mary we too can be firmly united to our Lord whether He is visible before us or hidden from our sight. Love acknowledges no barriers of time, place or distance. And we can see that at the end of this dreadful journey, through the torment and the Cross awaits the Resurrection and the Ascension, Jesus goes before us and we can rejoice that He will not leave us bereft but extends to us the sure and certain hope that one day we shall accompany Him.

The Song of Ascent on our lips is the one that David sung but it is of David's Son that we think while we sing. And the Zion to which we ascend is a holier mountain and a more pure city. There we will find rest for our souls. 

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October Rosary Haiku

October is the month of the most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mysteries of joy
Of sorrow, light and glory
Mary guides us home

@stevhep #haiku #rosary