"when your eyes freeze behind the grey window"

I was thinking up some big post for St. Patrick's Day that included a passage from theologian James Mackey's wonderful book Christianity and Creation: The Essence of the Christian Faith and Its Future among Religions, which I have found imaginative (in the best possible sense), informative, erudite, and above all provocative on many levels, about each culture having its own Old Testament, followed by a reflection on Celtic culture. I was then going to proceed, using several sources in addition to Mackey in order get this point across, while reiterating the pan-Celtic nature of St. Patrick, a Welsh-speaking Celt, originally from Scotland, who came to Ireland as a slave from Britain and then returned as a missionary from Brittany. One of the additional sources I was going to use was the John O'Donohue, whose works, along with Mackey's, has been transformative for me over this past year or so.

As Bishop Wester reminded Fr. Silva and I this afternoon, man proposes, but God disposes. A more popular, not to mention Celtic way, of saying this is, "We plan and God laughs." Instead, being true to my prompting, I offer the late John O'Donohue reciting his poem "Beannacht," which means "Blessing" in Gaelic:

Longing, Celtic style

As I remind everyone each St. Patrick's Day or thereabouts, Patrick is a really a pan-Celtic figure. He was originally a Welsh-speaker who first came to Ireland as a slave, but who later returned as a missionary, as a bishop. 1 March is the Feast of St. David of Wales, who, though less well-known than St. Patrick, is another great Celtic-Christian saint. I am sorry that I overlooked Dewi Sant this year on my blog, but I never forget him in my heart.

I am keeping it simple this Lent. So, Lough Erin Shore, performed by The Chieftans and The Corrs, a beautiful tune that draws out the longing of the human heart, a tune that brought tears to my Celtic eyes this morning, is our Friday traditio for this Friday, which is the day before St. Patrick's Day. Speaking of Erin's shore, if our pilgrimage through this world, or even this Lent, is a sojourn through the desert, then heaven must look a lot like Ireland.

Also from the Breastplate of St. Patrick:

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

Sickness shows us the limits of human satisfaction

In his short and profound book, On the Body: A Contemporary Theology of the Human Person, Cardinal Martini, the archbishop emeritus of Milan, in a section of the first chapter entitled "Sickness is part of life," observed: "Sickness is part of life, not like growth or gratification, but more like an interruption, a suspension, a burden, a nuisance even. Far from being an accident, it reveals to us the normal, limited condition of all human satisfaction. Sickness defines me as a fragile, weak, uncertain, and needy being."

"Sickness clearly reveals what is hidden in me even when I am healthy, and I fear it because I am loath to see my limitations and my [weaknesses] revealed." In this way sickness comes to the aid of our desire because, as Cardinal Martini noted, "it reveals to us the normal and limited condition of all human satisfaction."

Desire and God, who is Love

In the first part his encylical letter, Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict XVI deals with the reality expressed so memorably in film and song, namely that "love is a many splendored thing," even when looked at from the divine perspective, at least to the extent we can grasp it.

Eros enrapturing Psyche

After pointing out that the Greek word eros appears only twice in Sacred Scripture, both times in the Septuagint, which is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and so not all in our uniquely Christian Scriptures, originally written in koine Greek, he takes up Nietzsche's argument, which he set forth in his work Beyond Good and Evil, that "Christianity had poisoned eros, which for its part, while not completely succumbing, gradually degenerated into vice" (par. 3). Sympathetically picking up the thread of Nietzsche's critique, the Holy Father went to state, "Here the German philosopher was expressing a widely-held perception: doesn't the Church, with all her commandments and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life? Doesn't she blow the whistle just when the joy which is the Creator's gift offers us a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the Divine?"

It is obvious that the answer to the question posed as a result of Nietzsche's critique is a qualified "No." It is equally obvious that agapé and eros, while clearly distinguishable one from the other, possess "some profound underlying unity." It is also demonstrable that "the message of love proclaimed to us by the Bible and the Church's Tradition" does have "some points of contact with the common human experience of love." Eros and agapé, it is noted, "are often contrasted as 'ascending' love and 'descending' love." All of this leads to what I can only describe as a brilliant synthesis:

In philosophical and theological debate, these distinctions have often been radicalized to the point of establishing a clear antithesis between them: descending, oblative love—agape—would be typically Christian, while on the other hand ascending, possessive or covetous love —eros—would be typical of non-Christian, and particularly Greek culture. Were this antithesis to be taken to extremes, the essence of Christianity would be detached from the vital relations fundamental to human existence, and would become a world apart, admirable perhaps, but decisively cut off from the complex fabric of human life. Yet eros and agape—ascending love and descending love—can never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized. Even if eros is at first mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination for the great promise of happiness, in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to “be there for” the other. The element of agape thus enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even loses its own nature. On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative, descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive. Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift. Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn 19:34)(par. 7)

I can't help but tie all of this to the two ways human love is corrupted as explicated by Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP, in his wonderful book What Is the Point of Being a Christian?, which he identifies as lust and infatuation, with lust correlating to eros detached from agapé and infatuation correlating to agapé similarly cut-off from earthly and human reality, something like exaltation of the unrequited love of the troubadour. As with many things "love" is a matter of holding these aspects in tension in order to maintain a balance. This balancing act can never mean an attenuation, or aim at either dissipation or dilution, but completion, perfect, blissful completion.

Orienting desire

Last week in several of my posts I dealt with desire. More dangerous than desire for the wrong things is a lack of desire for anything. Desire, like love, which is its fulfillment, can easily be mis-directed, misspent, deformed. Taking an inventory of our desires is useful in showing us how imperfect we we are, how attached we are to things and even to other people. For Christians the only point of detaching ourselves is to turn around and attach ourselves to Christ, to adhere to Him, that is, stick to Him.

In his Confessions St. Augustine wrote about "the major forms of iniquity that spring out of the lust of the flesh, and of the eye, and of power." He observes that at times "there is just one; sometimes two together; sometimes all of them at once." Writing about the Ten Commandments, which the Church gives us to consider today, Augustine wrote, "we live, offending against the Three and the Seven, that harp of ten strings, thy Decalogue, O God most high and most sweet." He goes on to ask, "But now how can offenses of vileness harm thee who canst not be defiled; or how can deeds of violence harm thee who canst not be harmed?' Still thou dost punish these sins which men commit against themselves because, even when they sin against thee, they are also committing impiety against their own souls. Iniquity gives itself the lie, either by corrupting or by perverting that nature which thou hast made and ordained. And they do this by an immoderate use of lawful things; or by lustful desire for things forbidden, as 'against nature;' or when they are guilty of sin by raging with heart and voice against thee, rebelling against thee, 'kicking against the pricks'..." Even for St. Augustine desire is not to be banished, just transformed, that is, killed and resurrected.

Here's an experiment, with your search engine setting set to "safe" or at least "moderate" type desire into any search engine, then click on "images." This will give you a decent grasp of human desire.

Rather than be discouraging we should find this encouraging because it gives us a place to start. Think about how dissatisfied you are when, after some effort, you succeed in gaining what you desired, thinking, "Is that all there is to it?" We learn something else through such excursions, namely that the journey, the struggle, the agon, matters. Reaching a destination, after all, requires a journey. In his Lenten pastoral letter of 1962, in which he wrote about the upcoming Second Vatican Council, then-Cardinal Montini wrote about his hope that the council would help the Church "call upon Christ to ... [to] really shape present Christian life as a pilgrimage towards the final goal so that all human experience over time is judged and valued on the basis of this extremely unearthly interaction: what is its purpose for eternity?" This is a good question to interrogate our desires, "What is directed towards eternity?" As difficult as it is, we must live sub specie aeternitatis, or, under the aspect of eternity. When we live "this way" we recognize that eternal life is not life after death, but, in light of our baptism in Christ, our dying and rising with Him, is now: "The kingdom of God is at hand be repenting and believing in the Gospel!"

Father,
through our observance of Lent,
help us to understand the meaning
of your Son's death and resurrection,
and teach us to reflect it in our lives.
Through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.

Desiring God: praying

In our cynical age it it has become vogue to attempt to be hip and ironic even in our approach to matters of faith, especially to God and prayer, which typically results in being either directly or indirectly disparaging of those who seek to cultivate their spirituality according to the spiritual disciplines that for some 2,000 years have constituted Christian living. This is one response to the reality that spiritual life consists of often long periods of dryness, of at least of seeming to wander in the wilderness. Praying all the time, or at least regularly, meaning daily, is a challenge. If we are not aware of all this, it is easy to feel a fool and the take the stance of an outsider, as someone who observes others and who excludes himself, someone who holds back from the fray, from the agon, convinced that it is a fool's game.

Julian of Norwich conveyed what was revealed to her about dryness in prayer: Pray inwardly though thou thinkest it savour thee not, for it is profitable, though thou feel not, though thou see nought, yea though thou think thou canst not. For in dryness and in barrenness, in sickness and in feebleness, then is thy prayer well pleasant to me, though thou thinkest it savour thee nought but little and so is all thy believing prayer in my sight."

When it comes to what to happens when we pray, Metropolitan Anthony tells us that in prayer, as in life, "We must be ready to receive from God whatever experience is sent." He is quite right to observe that when we pray one day and feel God draw close we fall into the temptation of expecting the same thing to happen the next day and are disappointed, sometimes even unto despair, when this does not happen. God does not only draw near to comfort us, to bolster us, to give us a big warm fuzzy, especially the closer we draw to Him. Anthony reminds us that God's drawing neigh occurs in a number of ways; "it may be joy, it may be dread, it may be contrition," or a variety of other ways. So, we have to keep in mind "that what we are going to perceive today is something unknown to us, because God as we new him yesterday is not God as he might reveal himself tomorrow." Always remember, "our God is a consuming fire" (Heb. 12:29).

"Witness to your empty heart"

No Love Lost by Joy Division is our traditio for this Friday as we move deeper into Lent.

You've been seeing things/In darkness, not in learning/Hoping that the truth will pass/No life underground, wasting never changing/Wishing that this day won't last.