Another feature of the Friday traditio is that I often post about something that's been on my mind. Sometimes these thoughts prompt a song and sometimes the chosen song prompts a thought or two. Like today, the thought and the song aren't always so integrally related. But a relation can almost always be found.
As long as the mystery of iniquity is at work in the world, the shadow of the cross will hover over it. More than a poetic image, those words express a reality about suffering and God's response to it. Considering the mystery of suffering, I was heartened that Pope Francis, recognizing her heroic virtues, elevated Sister Lucia dos Santos to the status of Venerable. Her two cousins, Jacinta and Francisco de Jesus Marto, who shared in her experiences with the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima a little more than a century ago, both of whom died young, were declared saints by Pope Francis in 2017, the centenary of their visions.
In the decree, promulgated this week, recognizing Sr. Lucia's heroic virtues, the Holy Father wrote something deeply moving. Discussing the difficulty of cleanly distinguishing her 90 years of subsequent life from her experiences with Our Lady as a child, the Decree states, “is also difficult because much of her suffering was due to them: she was always kept hidden, protected, guarded. One can see in her all the difficulty of keeping together the exceptionality of the events of which she was a spectator and the ordinariness of a monastic life like that of Carmel.” Most of her subsequent life was lived as a Carmelite nun.
Some theologians take issue with some of the horrors the children claimed our Blessed Mother showed them and also with some of the resulting penances these children performed. Such concerns are understandable both from a human and a theological perspective. Mysteries remain mysterious because we cannot explain them, though this does not stop us from attempting to neatly sort, categorize, and clearly explain them, or even to try explaining them away.
There is perhaps no more dangerous idea to the spiritual life of a Christian than the idea of I'm going to call here reciprocity. What I mean by "reciprocity" is the belief that if I pray, fast, give alms, and receive the sacraments, no evil, or at least no serious evil, will befall me. But "Take up your cross and follow me," too, is more than just a poetic expression. Make no mistake, there is also no reciprocity between sinful behavior and obvious divine punishment. After all, the psalmist complained a long time ago about the affliction of the righteous and the seeming flourishing of the unrighteous.
Practicing the spiritual disciplines does not put God in your debt, does not "placate" God in some magical (pagan) way, or any such thing. Nonetheless, God always seeks to bring about your good. But since God's ways are not your ways (or my ways), his ways and means are not easy or often even possible to understand. In the spiritual life, for any given X, X being something good you do, there is no automatic Y, Y being the realization of some desired end, even if the end you seek is a demonstrably "good" one.
Venerable Lucia dos Santos
As far as music goes, in the run-up to this year's festival, Alexis Petridis, writing in The Guardian, seeks to identify the Top Twenty sets ever played at this legendary music festival (see Glastonbury headline sets – ranked!). Of those Petridis identifies, the ones I wish I had there to experience are:
1971- David Bowie
1985- Echo and the Bunnymen
"The kind of intriguing, slightly off-beam set you probably couldn’t get away with in the headline spot these days: Echo and the Bunnymen unexpectedly interspersed their own material with covers of the songs that inspired them, by the Modern Lovers, Television, the Doors and the Rolling Stones"
1987- New Order
1990- The Cure
1997- The Prodigy & Radiohead
1999- REM
Thanks to YouTube, I can at least listen to all or some of these sets. Since yesterday, I have made my way through a lot of these sets and songs. As indicated above, I was most intrigued by Echo and the Bunnymen's 1985 set. The entire performance is available on YouTube. The sound quality isn't the best, but it's good enough. There is also a remastered track of The Cure's 1990 Glaston bury set.
Of the bands mentioned above, the most obscure remain Echo and The Prodigy. Despite not being able to find an isolated video of "She Cracked" from their 1985 Glastonbury set, I am going with it as this week's traditio. Hey, it's still a 1985 live recording. Some weeks it's just about the music. This is one of those weeks.
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