The 21st Ordinary Friday

It has been several days since my last post, because sometimes a person really has nothing much to say. Since this blog is not read by masses of people, and no one is paying me to do it, I am free to post when I actually have something to say.

Today is the 21st Friday in Ordinary Time. Those who know me, know that the period of Ordinary Time is trying on my nerves. It's full of great readings and should properly be called the Season of Miracles. However, the overarching plot lines of the Gospel readings, as well as the OT and NT, apparently do not make a well defined season. Oh well.

On a side note, I have been pursuing diligently the development of a Prescription Assistance Program for this area. After prayer, discernment, and more prayer, the answer has come in the form of a unanticipated, but very real job offer. It also takes the burden off of my shoulders alone.

There is the feast of a Doctor coming up on September 3. St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor. So we will talk some about him on the third.

Sunday Morning

The pre-dawn hours are the best of the day. There is nothing like the absolute silence of being the only person awake. I am not alone in believing that God is closest to us before dawn, that we are more apt to sense God, and hear God's voice in those moments. God repays even the most paltry efforts to keep Vigil.

Before the world rises to start the day it is a wonderful time for intercession. Our hearts are most open at this time, and our prayers go out freely. Vigils help us to learn that prayer does not depend upon word choice. Prayer issues from our hearts without words. Words are for our own understanding, God already knows. We are the ones who need words. Learning that prayer does not require words may be the most important part of Vigils.

I speak the words of the psalms, but nothing else. Sometimes I only read the psalms while I drink coffee. The most important thing is staying with the Lord during those few and precious moments. To join with the Church for the Liturgy of the Hours requires our spoken words, but to keep watch for Christ requires no words at all.

St. Bernard, Doctor

Today is the feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. It is celebrated as a Solemnity in Cistercian communities around the world. Bernard is a great light to their order, and to the entire church. In the the greater liturgical calendar, today is a memorial. Meaning, there is a prayer specifically for Bernard, in the Liturgy of the Hours, and in the Missal.

I suggest a stop by the old style Breviary. It is a site with exquisite art work if nothing else. As always, I would encourage you to try the Responsories, and think about them. If you read the first paragraph of II. The Responsories Of The Divine Office, it will be clear that as liturgical history, or, the history of our worship, they are worth remembering.

I took this novel approach in order to take a new look at how I do the Doctor's. It's possible to click on many links and find enough information to make even the most heart-devoted Reference Librarian weep for joy. That is not the information I want to learn about the Doctors of the Church. And, some people would say after their first encounter with Bernard's writings that he was not worth the effort. Or, what is he talking about?

Bernard founded a lot of monasteries, and was involved in many of the major issues of the day. By all accounts he was good looking and must have had a lot of personal charisma. When he entered the New Monastery at Citeaux, he had thirty-one men with him! He helped settle the issue of two Popes simultaneously. Dealt with heresy, and so forth. All the typical things the Doctors we've looked at so far have had in common.

What's much more interesting about Bernard is his prayer life. I'll close today with this article link, by Pope Benedicit XVI.

A Long Week

A long and difficult week makes for poor blogging. My high blood pressure, the stress of things in my personal life, and getting my feelings hurt have all conspired to make my brain a dry clod. The hurt feelings stand out only because of my reaction. I felt like someone who had just been found guilty of a great offense and publicly humiliated. I promise you, the feelings had no relation to how minor the incident really was. That got me to thinking about how tricky our feelings really are.

In the past year it has become ever clearer to me that feelings are not the reality of who I am. Feelings/emotions lie. Fr. James told me that one of the past Abbots used to say "go by faith, not by feelings." What I've come to believe is that feelings, when paid too much attention, draw us away from God. It is a kind of idolatry of self.

Now that I'm aware of a Solitary calling, I am able to let my feelings come, observe them, and let them go. Constantly remembering that God is my protector, friend, lover, and shield, I have no need to try and understand my feelings. They just come, and they go. So, whatever it is you wish to call it -- evil power, mental captivity -- feelings can be a trap that turns our eyes from God to ourselves.

That doesn't mean feelings have no reality, for they do. Another reality of feelings is how they are a tool of damaged psyches to keep us in the captivity of "self." Feelings can lead us to believe that we are unloved, unlovable, and beyond redemption! Those feelings are disordered, and clearly the weapon of "the dark side."

If the Lord wishes me to understand something from these feelings, then it will be shown to me. Otherwise, I'm going on with my life, and my prayers, just as before, making no changes.

SteveT is Renovating

Today is the public announcement of something new that has been in my spiritual life. My prayer life has undergone a significant change. It's like stepping into something that I believe to be the deepest calling I've ever heard in my life. After stepping off a deep end of the faith docks, I'm finding out that to sink, is also to swim! It doesn't feel like anything in particular; in a physical sense. The sureness comes form within me. I'm not going to be an exhibitionist about this. If you really want to know you may write me, but words aren't going to cut if any longer.

That does not mean I have abandoned the rest of the Doctors of the Church, but I'm going to do them now on their feast day. That means Bernard is coming up on Monday, August 20.

I am publicly taking on the vocation of intercession. If asked to pray, I will pray. That has always been my understanding of what intercession was, to pray. The closest thing that comes to mind is

Rejoice in the Lord always.
I shall say it again: rejoice.
Your kindness should be known to all
The Lord is near.
Have no anxiety at all,
but in everything,
by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving
make your requests known to God.

Philippians 4.6

There is a joy in life now, that no matter how I feel emotionally, or even physically, that cannot be robbed.

While I was researching all type of intercession I came across many bible studies of the subject, by of the Pentecostal schools of thought, and some of was quite good. This one stood out especially. You must check it out.

A vice that has been with me since 1978 is now out of my life. Thanks be to God.

It is possible that in my own life I may yet live out that calling which has been with me since I was old enough to think. In fact, that's the best description of what this is like. The person I was who as a child sensed God beyond all reference to self and physical feelings--is back.

In the end, all I can say is that the closer I consciously moved toward the stand of intercessor, the more things began to move in my life.

Can I pray for you?

O Lord, you have given me grace thus far, I wait upon your will.

Litany of Humility

I did not write this Litany, it comes from EWTN


O Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Hear me.



From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others,
Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, O
Jesus.

From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, O
Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, O
Jesus.

From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being ridiculed,
Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, O Jesus.

From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, O Jesus.



That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease,

Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be praised and I go unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.





Charity

"Charity is patient, is kind; charity does not envy, is not pretentious, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, is not self-seeking, is not
provoked; thinks no evil, does not rejoice over wickedness, but rejoices with
the truth, bears with all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things. (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

To have Charity is to love God above all things for
Himself and be ready to renounce all created things rather than offend Him by
serious sin.

( Matt. 22:36-40)

Praying Alone

Often in my life I have bemoaned that I pray the Liturgy of the Hours, alone. In the last year a solitary dimension of my soul has developed. For the first time in my life I am finding joy in the "recitation of one alone." When I attend any of the hours at Gethsemani, the experience is the borderline of overwhelming. The music, the length and height of the Abbey church, monks in late medieval clothing, chanting; all of it is deeply moving. Without doubt it contributes to the mountain top experience so many retreatants experience while visiting the Abbey. It is part of the experience we try to take home with us.

Alas, it fades. We cannot take home with us the reality of an experience that is comparable to an extended stay at the Abbey Retreat House. Life is a noisy thing, many voices louder than the voice of God, compete for our attention. They broadcast over the voice of God within the soul. The result is that we forget about the voice of God, which for all intents and purposes, is now buried under the rubble pile that is the psyche.

The most important voice to hear is God's voice. Other people's needs and voices, our own voices, we already know how to listen to them. It is remembering to go back and listen to God's voice again that makes intimacy with God possible. The remembering is good, but in itself is not enough. I have to become an expert at making etudes, or
exercises to develop a virtuosity in an intimacy of prayer I did not ever suspect was possible in this body.

Something is happening in my desire to sin. Every time I approach an 'area' of sin with a firm intention of doing 'it', something says 'no, don't do it.' Almost certainly this will not be permanent. Yet, it is achievable.

I do not possess this new and more intimate prayer, but it has been shown to me. I have seen that not only is it possible, it is possible in my own life. It is not yet of perfection, my job is to seek it. It has drawn me to risk, and I have done. This is a grace which will leave me profoundly changed.

Which leads to a discernment. Can an eremitic lifestyle be lived with an active apostolate. With deep regret I affirm that I was not meant to live in community. However, I now see that this life of solitude is a community! So it is upon God and the Church that I must depend.

The bottom line: can I live into this new way of prayer and being, while giving myself to a corporate work of mercy.

* To feed the hungry;
* To give drink to the thirsty;
* To clothe the naked;
* To harbour the harbourless;
* To visit the sick;
* To ransom the captive;
* To bury the dead.

The spiritual works of mercy are:

* To instruct the ignorant;
* To counsel the doubtful;
* To admonish sinners;
* To bear wrongs patiently;
* To forgive offences willingly;
* To comfort the afflicted;
* To pray for the living and the dead.

My spiritual history is almost entirely centered in the ransom of the captive, and the praying for the living and the dead. To the situation I see, ransoming the captives would be helping those who cannot buy medications connect with the drug companies with programs that will indeed help them. The need is overwhelming, but I am only one person. It could easily become a paper work empire, and at the same time a nightmare?

What does it mean to be willing to place myself in the spot for all these people? Wouldn't that much involvement destroy a centered mind?

The most wonderful part of this is that I don't have to find the answers. I only have to wait, and keep my attention squarely on God and off of myself. God will provide.

Who Is an Intercessor?

When we pray for someone else we stop being people who say "me, me, me," and become people who say "your will, Lord." When we intercede on behalf of someone else we become intercessors.

I've had some thoughts on the subject.

1. Keep a book of Intercession. Any notebook will do, and list

• people
• nations
• regions
• events

2. When entering people on your list, write small summary of why you are praying for them. The memory is not enough. Words have power, let the written subject remind you of their situation.

3. Intercession eases the burden of suffering in the world by purposefully lifting it up to God. We gather it and send it to God, we hold it with our faith. We do not hold suffering within either our souls, or our bodies.

4. The Holy Spirit is always ready to receive prayers, so when you pray for others faithfully, the Holy Spirit will dwell near you.

5. Intercession has a rebound in the moral world.

Discernment

O God, you have brought me to this point by delicate threads of faith.
Hearing your voice takes life and uproots it. You call out to us to look at you,
and to love you. But we do not.

Lord, have mercy.

How do I turn, O Lord, my heart to you without ceasing, and still live in this body which you have given me? You present gifts to the mind and heart, but I am too insensitive to always hear your voice.

Lord, have mercy.

Hear my prayer, O holy God.

Holy God,
Holy and Mighty
Holy and Eternal one,
Have mercy upon us.

Anselm, Father of Scholasticism

Relations between the Church that is in England, and the Church that is in Rome, have been strained since Gregory the Great saw his first Anglo. Kings in England are notorious for their historic efforts to control whom exactly is installed as Archbishop of Canterbury. William the Conqueror, then known as King William I, gave problems to the Archbishop of Canterbury, by continuously mucking about in church affairs.

William I, aka William the Conqueror, died in 1087. The Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1089. His name was Lanfranc. King William Rufus left the see of Canterbury empty so he could collect the revenues himself.

Meanwhile, in a monastery in France, called Bec, there was a prior named Anselm. Along with his duties as prior of a monastery, Anselm wrote the Monologion, which is a restating of all the logical arguments he could find written by someone else, that proved God's existence. A significant task. But he did yet more. The Prosologion is a set of his own proofs of God's existence and attributes. To this day college students read the Prosologion in philosophy classes. And, just in case you thought he might be lazy, he also wrote essays on truth, free will, origin of evil, and even on the art of reasoning.

Insignifcant man, escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles, and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. Make a little time for God and rest a while in Him.

Enter into your mind's inner chamber. Shurt out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek Him; and when you have shut the door look for him. Speak now to God and say with your whole heart: "I seek your face; your face, Lord, I desire."

That is from the Prosologion, and what a lovely statement it is. Anselm did a number of important things, so tomorrow will be devoted to him also.

St. Peter Damian, Continued

Yesterday my hand hurt too much for me to say much at all about poor Peter Damian. As part one no doubt made clear, I'm not all that interested in what any Doctor, Peter included, had to say on the subject of sex. Religious discourse is absolutely gorged on discussions of sex. The only reason I have brought up in the first place was it turned up in my Google search for Peter Damian.

Peter did all the things you'd expect of a saint, heroic fasting, vigils, etc., but he did something else too:

He sought out poor people to eat with and liked to minister personally to their needs.

Do you know anyone who does that? Do you do that? It would seem there was a charism at work in him as well. Which is safe to say, because after St. Romauld died, Peter was made Abbot. It took an act of obedience to make him do it. And, apparently he was well loved.

That says something about a person. He was a person who said let me be there in the mess of the great open wound of creation, the pain of the poor and the passion of the suffering. While Peter said no such thing, at least never wrote it down, it is the overwhelming message I get from his life. What convinced me though was this quote

the well prepared mind forgets the suffering inflicted from without and glides eagerly to what it has contemplated within itself.

I take that to mean that no matter what happens in life,
--whose fault it is,
--why it happened
--and all the rest
do not destroy the peace of the soul, because that which we "have contemplated within" is not disturbed. We forget it is there. We forget at that moment of "inflicted" suffering that God is still present within our souls.

Peter was more than able to back up his opinions with copious amounts of ink. He wrote:
--Liber Gomorhianus, attacking the vices of the clergy. Some of the sites yesterday said that he wrote a Liber Sodom, but it is not in John F. Fink, so I discount validity.
--Liber Gratissimus. This supported the grace given at ordination, and saying you still may say mass even when a man paid money for the office. The sacrament is not dependent upon the priest for validity.
--some 153 letters
--53 Sermons

Tuesday Week 18 Ordinary Time

On the 18th of this month I will have a ganglion cyst removed from my left hand. It is painful and make typing very, very difficult. Still, The Second Millennium Doctors need to begin, or this process will take too long. Although it does hurt to type, it's possible to prepare a reflection by taking longer at the task.

St. Peter Damian is not someone that you want to breeze past without stopping for a closer look. He was living the religious life with St. Romauld, best known for the order he founded, the Camaldolese. In a way that shouldn't surprise us, because his mother had refused to suckle him, and an older brother protested to the parents that it was just another mouth to feed. However, another brother, the kinder brother, and the archpriest of Ravenna, showed Christian mercy; housed, fed, and educated young Peter.

And thanks be to God that he did so. Now, there is something here for both sides of the abortion debate.

CON: You never know but what the child in question is to become a Doctor of the Church.

PRO: The child in question might be born, not fed, and left to die.

All I can say is I do not know the answer. But, Peter Damian came near to dying before he could distinguish color from shapes. So it should not surprise us that Peter had a deep attraction to the hermitic lifestyle. So, after his mother refused him food from her own body -- I ask you, who else is going to use that milk? -- a kind woman from the lowest class allowed him to drink life from her.

Now, it seems that Peter Damian is used by anti homosexual lobby for whatever reason they need. What is interesting is that he preached against all the sins against celibacy, not just man/man sex. His point was that priests need to stop having lover, male and female. The church wasn't a pretty place back in the 11th Century. As always, it's so much more fun to pick out the things to wound your "enemy" than to discover any aspect of the Love of God.

Peter's life was a life of obedience. At heart, he was a hermit, but in the Love of God he was a superstar.

Harry Potter and the Doctors

The following quote is from Tunku Varadarajan's article Generation Hex

Some have asked whether we should fear, or cheer, for a world whose kids have derived some elements of their childhood morality from Harry Potter's Manichaean world. I think the question is overblown. For one thing, the movies have ensured -- as movies often do -- that the stories have acquired the shape of pure fun, detached from the darkness and light that can reside within private readings of text.

On the surface of this quote is a very agreeable thesis; there is nothing to fear in Harry Potter. But one word changes everything, charges the paragraph with meanings that can be prayerfully plumbed. The Manichaean world was a dark place, or so it seems to be to me.

It's also a modern day appearance of a very ancient word--Manichaean! If you have read any of the early fathers you already know that Manichaeanism is one of the early heresies. It was Augustine's heresy, for nine years. A good power(?) and a bad power(?). There was a complex cosmology, which was rather scary. At any rate, more than one Doctor fought against them. Certainly, after his conversion to the Catholic faith, Augustine picked it all to pieces.

When Harry Potter came out, everyone got involved in the hoopla, including many Christians. Other Christians felt that the books were bad, or worse. I did at the time, and still do believe, that the Harry Potter books are nothing more than good fun, and have brought reading to an entire generation of children. And just as Mr. Varadarajan said, "the movies have ensured -- as movies often do -- that the stories have acquired the shape of pure fun"

The scary world of Mani, the founder of Manichaean's, Gnostic to the core, is no longer the world we have to fear. For the Doctors it was. And, interestingly, the word still serves to arouse feeling in modern discourse. We have the advantage of seeing the world simply, without having to know about, or how to use, five shields of light, that Manichaean cosmogony tells us.

Thursday, 17th Week of Ordinary Time, Week One Psalter.

The Abbey provides a printed Ordo

The Ordo is the Liturgical Calendar of the Church according to a given calendar year. For any given day, the Ordo contains a listing of the feast to be celebrated with its liturgical rank and colour, together with the liturgical rubrics to be observed in the recitation of the Divine Office.

Each morning, except Monday and Friday, they provide an Ordo, a printed card with the fixed parts of the mass, and a book that holds all the chants for the changeable parts of the mass. It allows a great deal of participation on the part of the congregation. On Monday and Friday there is no music at all. Those are the very best days to be present. Don't get me wrong, the music is always good, but the silence is just as delightful.

It is while worshiping there that I actually feel the most Catholic. Isn't that odd? Maybe it's because I sit up near the icon of the Virgin. It can be surprising after opening your eyes, to find her there, staring at you from the corner of your eye -- the icon. It packs enough wallop to make me look to be sure. What's even more strange is when I hadn't noticed the monk who comes round after mass begins (usually before the confession) but that day we were into the readings. I opened my eyes after the silence and see him standing full length in front of the icon. It seemed like she was there! Just for a second until my brain figured it out.

Why did I talk about that icon in the first place? Because it is the crux of the faith. She has to be Mother of God if Christ was born, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone. And every morning that I attend mass, her icon is there, right where I sit. That mystery accompanies me at each mass.

I am very glad that people like St. John Damascene, stopped the iconoclasts.

Speaking of Doctors, it is time to move on with the series. There are fourteen to go.