The where and how of conversion

This morning finds us one day short of the First Sunday of Lent, which will begin this holy season in earnest. Last night I read a post over on Cahiers Péguy by my friend Sharon that struck me as being what Lent is all about. Lent is not about doing things we don't do the rest of the year, including not eating meat on Fridays and, ideally, even fasting. On my view, it is about doing these things more intensively and conscientiously, which means striving to live more in the awareness of destiny. This brings up, yet again, the reality that the disciplines we intensify during this holy season are means to an end, namely starting from image and moving to likeness, a movement only made possible in Christ, with Christ, and through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sharon's post, A vocation to the real, takes this up in a very concrete way. She points out that the where and the how of Christ at work seeking to make you over into His likeness is staring you in the face at every moment.

On this interstitial Saturday in Lent I want to turn back to my fellow deacon, the Syriac, St. Ephrem, who brings up the need we have to die to ourselves, giving it the gravity it deserves by putting it in the context of destiny:

"On that dreadful and amazing day, You shall say to us sinners, O Lord: ‘You men know well what I have undergone for you; what have you suffered for Me?’…The martyrs will point to their wounds, their sufferings, the severed parts of their bodies… The ascetics will point to their asceticism, to their long fasts and vigils, to their liberality…But I, idle, sinful, transgressing as I am, what shall I be able to point to? Spare me, O merciful One! Spare me, O Thou Lover of mankind!"

I am always dismayed at the amount of what I can only call silliness that spills forth on and around Ash Wednesday concerning Lent, thus trivializing what is a solemn and holy season. As one who sees the benefit and even the need to be interconnected, I suppose much of this has its place, given the tremendous pastoral need. So, I can deal with those efforts that don't consciously strive to be merely entertaining. Efforts aimed at entertaining, as well-intentioned as they may be, only serve to add more clutter to a culture increasingly made up of distractions.

Starting this Monday I will be posting less, at least over the remainder of Lent. I will definitely continue our Friday traditio and I will put something up on the Sunday readings. I take a kind of odd pride in posting something everyday. So, I will be working on that over Lent. One feature that I am discontinuing altogether is the U.S. hierarchy updates. The best resource for keeping up on these events is the Catholic-Hierarchy News blog, which I feature in my blogfeed over on the right.

I have never judged the success of this endeavor by any quantitative method. Suffice it to say, I do not see myself as an entertainer, but as a deacon who hopes he is providing a service. One service I hope I provide is a blog that has some continuity and coherence from post-to-post, day-to-day, week-to-week, etc., even if I run the risk of being a little repetitive. After all, continuity requires overlap. It also bears mentioning that being serious does not mean being either joyless or humorless.

One cannot post during these days without continuing to ask for prayers for the people of Japan. This morning an explosion was reported at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant that was damaged by the 8.9 earthquake. The explosion raises the concern that one of plant's reactors has started to meltdown. Lord, hear our prayer.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

"O God, cleanse me a sinner"

-Lenten Prayer, by St. Ephrem the Syrian:

O Lord and Master of my life! Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk+

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant+

Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; For Thou art blessed unto ages of ages. Amen+

+= prostration for first recitation

St. Ephrem the Syrian, deacon

Monday through Friday during Lent this prayer is read two times at the end of each service in Orthodox and many Eastern Catholic churches. When recited the first time a prostration comes after each petition. Between the first and second recitation everyone bows twelve times while saying, "O God, cleanse me a sinner." After this, the prayer is said again followed by a final prostration.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

"Some say we're born into the grave"

Former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr died in Salt Lake City last Tuesday, 8 March 2011. Starr waged a difficult battle against drug addiction for many years. So, Them Bones off Alice in Chains' album Dirt is the first Friday traditio of this Lent.

Spencer Roddan, Starr's friend, with whom he was living in SLC at the time of his death, said that he preferred to remember his friend "as a fun-loving jokester who loved eating gyros at local fast-food chain 'Mad Greek.'"

Here's the part that gets me: "The night before he died, he said to Roddan, 'Spencer, I love you.'"

"He was messed up and I didn’t know what to do," said another of Mike's friends, referring to a conversation that same night, "I gave him a hug and said I loved him."

Dust rise right on over my time
Empty fossil of the new scene
I feel so alone, gonna end up a
Big hole pile a them bones

Last night I had dream about the last time I saw my Dad alive. It was exactly how I remembered it: I was looking at him and he was looking up at me. I kissed him on his forehead and, with tears, I said "Dad, I love you." He took my hand, held it tightly, and said "I love you so much." I told him I needed to leave, but that I didn't want to. He gently said "Go." I told him I was worried that wouldn't be there when I returned.

Memento mori, indeed!

In either case, love is stronger than death, which is what keeps death from turning us into a pile of them bones. In Psalm 51, which recite each Friday at the beginning of Morning Prayer, we say, "Make me hear rejoicing and gladness, that the bones you have crushed may revive. From my sins turn away your face and blot out all my guilt."

Of course, this morning we pray for those affected by the tsunami in northeastern Japan, caused by a 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of that island country.

Jesus, I trust in you.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

What is penance and why do it?

After the big production that is Ash Wednesday, believe it or not, Lent continues today. Each year I am aware of the incongruency between reading the Gospel for Ash Wednesday, in which Jesus teaches us not to pray, fast, or give alms in manner that can be seen, and then coming forward and having a big, black cross, or, like Deacon Greg, a smudge, smeared across my forehead. As you awoke up this morning, slightly hungrier than usual from your fasting, and looked at the faded ashes on your forehead, how did Lent look to you? I hope the prospect of seeking to draw closer to Christ over these weeks still looks attractive. I think it is necessary to point out that Lent is very straightforwardly a penitential season. Having been corrupted not only by Philosophy, but by what is often termed linguistic philosophy, and more specifically by Wittgenstein, I always find it useful to define terms. One of the reasons I find the writings of both Don Giussani and the Holy Father, both as pope and prior to stepping into the shoes of the fisherman, is that both go to great pains to define terms.

A good example of this is that just before Lent I re-posted something I originally put up on my parish’s RCIA blog, There really is something about Mary. My post sparked a comment about seeing the Blessed Mother as an archetype. I responded by saying that to see Mary as an archetype is to reduce her. The subsequent discussion highlighted the fact that both Hans Urs Von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger refer to Our Lady as an archetype, or at least employ the term archetype, in their writings. Hence, I was forced to clarify by pointing out that the word archetype has two distinct meanings, one that I would say simply refers to the term in its original, or received, sense and another that indicates a reference to a specific aspect of the psycho-philosophy of Jung. In short, I accept the latter and reject the former because to see Mary as a Jungian archetype, in my opinion, reduces her because it de-historicizes her.

With that background I want to look at what the word penance means in the ordinary sense, that is, how does the dictionary define it? According to Merriam-Webster, penance is "an act of self-abasement, mortification, or devotion performed to show sorrow or repentance for sin." While this definition helps narrow down what we mean by "penance," it doesn’t define the term clearly. On a Christian view, we can certainly eliminate self-abasement from our definition of penance. This leaves us with penance as acts of mortification and devotion. I believe that here we are on quite solid ground.

To mortify simply means to kill. Through mortification we seek, with God’s help, to die to ourselves, to put all our selfish, death-dealing, tendencies to death. It cannot be pointed out too often that the paradox of dying to self in order truly live constitutes the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. The purpose of Lent is to bring us face-to-face both with this reality in general and, more particularly, with what needs to die in you so that you can live.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in answer to the question what is the sacrament by which we are reconciled to God and the church called, we are told that it is called both the sacrament of conversion and penance (par. 1423). It is called "the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion": "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand…" (CCC par. 1423; Matt. 3:2). The Catechism goes on to say we also refer to it as "the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner's personal and ecclesial steps" towards being converted, that is, changed (ibid). These changes make us more like Christ, who is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). I would only note that the word Christian implies sinner, albeit a redeemed one in the process of being sanctified!

Contrition differs from and comes prior to penance. To be contrite is to be sorry. To be sorry means to recognize the wrong I have done, to see the harm it causes me as well as others, and to see the damage my sin inflicts on the church's communion. Being contrite about something I have said, done, or failed to do entails a commitment on my part to do everything in my power to avoid doing it again, which is not enough. To be penitent means being willing to make those changes in my life that will enable me, with God’s help, as the Act of Contrition indicates, to overcome whatever sinful tendencies I discover in myself by examining my conscience.

I want to double-back and focus on the phrase, "with God’s help." We need God’s help in order to realize our potential, for image to become likeness. Our likeness to God is forfeited through sin, whereas the imago dei, the divine image we bear in the very core our being, is ineradicable and is what makes conversion always and everywhere a possibility. In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster notes that St. Paul uses the word "righteousness" in his Letter to the Romans thirty-five times. In every instance, Foster goes on to point out, the apostle is emphatic that righteousness "is unattained and unattainable through human effort."

If we do not become righteous through our own efforts, then why bother with these disciplines at all? In the same vein as Kushiner’s succinct summary of why we practice the spiritual disciplines (i.e., as ways to overcome our ego, thus opening us up to God’s grace), Foster insists "God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace." Being wary of analogies, I nonetheless suggest that a good way to think about our practice of the spiritual disciplines is tuning into God’s frequency. Foster, dealing with the matter more directly, writes, "The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us."

As we begin our Lenten journey, let’s not lose sight of our goal and remember that penance leads to conversion, conversion leads to gratitude, and gratitude leads to joy. It is never too early in Lent to note that we celebrate our joy in all its fullness at Easter.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Image and likeness, what Ash Wednesday is all about

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.‘ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26-27- ESV).

In his book, The Orthodox Way , Bishop Kallistos Ware, wonders about what Scripture clearly teaches regarding human beings created in God’s image and likeness. This brings up an interesting question, in the above verse from Genesis, do image and likeness represent a repetition employed to highlight our deep, abiding and ineradicable relationship to God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or is there a distinction to be made between image and likeness? In keeping with what has been handed on by tradition, Ware holds that there is an important distinction to be made. However, this distinction only serves to highlight our relationship to God in the very depths of our being.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, like St. Ignatius of Antioch, was a disciple of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, who, in turn, tradition indicates, was a disciple of the Apostle John, wrote in his seminal work, Against the Heresies, that "The glory of God is a human being fully alive." As Bishop Kallistos notes, the Talmud also teaches that "The glory of God is man." As to being created in God’s image, as noted on Monday, human beings are a tri-unity of body, soul, and spirit. Or, on another view, with reference only to our spiritual soul, we are memory, will, and intellect. In either instance, or in both instances, human beings are an ikon of the Triune God, that is, each bears in her/his own person the divine image, the imago dei, which is ineradicable. Nonetheless, being a bearer of the divine image indicates not merely human potential, but the potential to be what God created, redeemed you, and is now sanctifying you to be, namely like God, who is love, that is, agapé (1 Jn. 4:8.16- ESV). More contemporarily, this is often called "becoming who you already are."

So, if image is potential, likeness is the realization of your potential. In short, likeness is destiny. Bishop Kallistos points us to Origen, who discerned, "Man received the honor of the image at his first creation, but the full perfection of God’s likeness," what is called theosis, or divinization, "will only be conferred upon him at the final consummation of all things."

Pater Tom, who immersed himself in the study of the Desert Fathers, and whose own view of the human person remained very rooted in their take, writes about this reality in his characteristically deep, but accessible way:

"At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak his name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely" from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander.

You must verify what Pater Tom writes through your own experience, or it only remains a sentimental thought, a kind of daydream. Verification is no easy task, but it is not an academic exercise; it is purely existential. For example, I think George Carlin verified at least part of this- the part about there being "a point of pure truth" at the center of our being- when he famously averred, "Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist." In other words, we have an inherent sense of how things are supposed to be. The part about being cynical, I believe, verifies what Pater Tom wrote about our center being impervious to illusion.

All of your Lenten disciplines are merely means that serve the very end for which you were made. This is why we begin Lent with a communal memento mori. Or, as James Kushiner, himself an Orthodox Christian, succinctly put it: “What the discipline is meant to do is to help you get yourself, your ego, out of the way so you are open to His grace.” Practicing the disciplines taught us by the Lord and verified through the experience of men and women over two millennia serve no other purpose than teaching us to live in the awareness of our destiny. Ash Wednesday puts us face-to-face with the inescapable paradox that in order to truly live, you must die to yourself.

Meum cum sim pulvis et cinis

Knowledge and ignorance: Northwestern & BYU

Over the nearly five year history of Καθολικός διάκονος I have only had one guest post, that is, until today. Last week my good friend Dan Szynal suggested a topic for my blog. So, I suggested he write something and I would post it. He did.

After a long period of formation, Dan was recently commissioned as lay ecclesial minister for his diocese in Illinois. With no further adieu, below is the fruit of his diligent effort:

_______________________________________________________________________

St. Paul, in his epistle to the Corinthians, gives some very pastoral teaching when he tells them, "'Everything is lawful,' but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is lawful,' but not everything builds up" (1 Cor. 10:23).

No truer words could be spoken this week in light of two controversies that have been reported in the media this at two separate college universities. These two stories have some strange similarities, and yet travel along polar opposite lines. That these two stories stand in marked contrast to each other points to the great divide in this country about worldview. However, I think that both point to something that hasn’t been covered in the media blitz.

The first case comes from Northwestern University; a well known school in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Earlier this week, a demonstration was conducted in a course on human sexuality that is offered for academic credit. This demonstration, which was conducted after the class had ended, involved a volunteer woman who had a sexual act performed on her, while nude in front of the class, by a "sex toy". The reason given for this demonstration was that the accompanying lecture in course discussed different sexual experiences and offered this knowledge to the students so that they could have a more whole understanding of human sexuality. The subsequent demonstration was described during class, and the students were given the option to stay or leave afterward as it was characterized as information that would not be tested on. The controversy was reported all over the local Chicago land media with the professor as well as the volunteer giving statements that they felt this was a positive experience for everyone to give them the knowledge to make informed decisions about their own sexuality.

The second case comes from Brigham Young University in which star forward Brandon Davies, has been suspended for violating the school’s honor code of living a chaste and virtuous life. The countrywide publicity that has come from this did not stem from the fact that a young unmarried man was having sexual relations with his girlfriend, but instead came from the suspension from BYU as it chose to enforce its honor code that students are asked to affirm.

There are several angles to this story; the way in which the media covered both stories; a comparison of sexual attitudes in America, the public reaction and any consequences to each University from the publicity (whether good or bad). However, I think that St. Paul hints at something that applies to these stories here. In a way, a common thread to both of these stories revolves around the question of "knowledge"?

We live in a time and a society that respects the value of knowledge and the free exchange of ideas. I don’t think that anyone would deny that one of the core freedoms of our country is contained in that ideal. However, St. Paul, in a certain way, gives some guidance to the beneficial limits of knowledge to those who follow Jesus Christ.

There are two types of knowledge, an intellectual knowledge which seeks to know and understand facts and truths. There is another kind of knowledge which is experiential, a knowledge of the heart, if you will. It is a knowledge that seeks to integrate the experience into part of whom we are.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a course on human sexuality. There is nothing wrong with academic pursuits that seek to gain knowledge so that a person can learn to think critically, solve problems, and make judgments about different situations. This is, after all, the goal of higher education.

Then there is experiential knowledge. Is all experiential knowledge beneficial? Does it build up the body? Does it lend to make a person whole? Does the integration of that experiential knowledge benefit the person, or can it be destructive?

Such is the kinds of questions that revolve around the acts of Brandon Davies and the demonstration at Northwestern University.

I think that Archbishop Fulton Sheen, of blessed memory, speaks directly to this when he says,

“The words of Jesus and Mary suggest there is value in not knowing (evil)... The great fallacy of modern education is the assumption that the reason that there is evil in the world is because there is ignorance, and that if we pour more facts into the minds of the young, that we will make them better… How often the disillusioned say, ‘I wish I had never tasted liquor’. Think not that in order to know life, you must experience evil” (1)

Forgetting, for a moment, whether or not society, in general, would characterize the Northwestern or BYU incidents as "evil", the question becomes, how do these experiences of knowledge help integrate the person into the wholeness of the person that God has created us to become? How will the experiences of knowledge affect the students at Northwestern in their future relationships? Will the tacit approval of alternative forms of sexual expression lead them to a fuller integration of their sexuality as an icon of the inner life of the Trinity as a mutual giving and receiving of love and life that is free, total, faithful, and fruitful? Will this demonstration lead them to being able to integrate a healthy and wholesome sexuality who’s end is not self gratification, but a true giving of self and deep intimate communion with an other to whom

How will Brandon Davies move forward from the consequences of the actions that led to his suspension? There is no doubt that his conscience, which led him to act in telling the school of his actions, will also guide him to reflect on his experience, and will hopefully lead to a teaching moment that will lead him closer to God, which always makes one more whole, more human. Good can always come from our wrong actions. That is the mystery of grace.

Never should knowledge be banned. However, there can also be wisdom in “not knowing”. There were two people who never knew sin; Our Lord, and Our Blessed Mother. Let us pray that we may truly possess the ignorance of sin so that we may be filled instead with the knowledge of God’s love.

(1) Seven Words of Jesus and Mary, Fulton J Sheen, Ligouri/Triumph, 2001, pgs 14-18

"A little lower than the angels..."

Bishop Kallistos Ware, writing in his book, The Orthodox Way, about the tripartite nature of our common humanity (i.e., body, soul, and spirit) says that while the human being can be viewed as body and soul, a three-fold schema is the most accurate way to understand the human person, especially in our own time because we have a tendency to confuse soul and spirit. Besides, many today seem completely unaware that they posses "a spiritual intellect." At least in the West, our educational system is solely concerned with the brain, with instrumental reasoning. Hence, we are, to a very real extent, alienated from ourselves, from God, and the world in which we live.

Body, soul, and spirit constitutes a kind of a three-in-one and, as such, serves as something of an ikon of the Blessed Trinity. Similarly, St. Augustine, the greatest among the Latin church fathers, posited that intellect, memory, and will, which together make our souls spiritual, as an ikon of the Blessed Trinity. God created two orders, the noetic (i.e., spiritual) and the material, the seen and unseen, as we say when we recite the Creed. Human beings are unique because we inhabit both orders at the same time, which makes us even superior to the angels. Beyond that, each human being, precisely because we inhabit both realms, is an imago mundi, meaning a small universe, also known as a microcosm.

I think our intensification of the spiritual disciplines during Lent is meant to remind us of all of this at a very fundamental level, to reconnect us, to make us hale and hearty, which is what the English word "holy" in essence means. In a word, the holy season of Lent should help to make us whole. Sure, we are dust and to dust we will return, but we are not only dust and, more importantly, we will rise with Christ from the ashes. In fact, in baptism, we have already done this. So, we do not enter or observe Lent as if Christ has not already conquered sin and death. Just as I go to confession knowing that I am always already forgiven, but go in order to more fully realize this for myself, I observe Lent to more fully realize that Christ has conquered sin and death in me and to help me experience in my very person the great paradox that it is only by dying to myself that I truly know what it means to be alive.

As Richard Foster observed, the reason we practice the spiritual disciplines is to gain "liberation from the stifling slavery to self-interest and fear."

By way of a preview, on Ash Wednesday, I will post a little something by Pater Tom, which he, in turn, gleaned from his study of the Desert Fathers, that illustrates more fully what Bishop Kallistos writes about, with some thoughts on the oft-overlooked distinction between image and likeness.