Confirmation, also known as chrismation, deepens the Trinitarian imprint on our new lives. The Holy Spirit descends upon us, and a more ‘public’ mission is enjoined upon us. Unfortunately, it is rarely understood today in the light of this commissioning. It is instead understood as a personal choice and commitment. But when the Holy Spirit descended on Christ, we read nothing of His personal choice. We see rather the revelation of Who He truly is, and afterward, He is impelled into the desert by the Holy Spirit. In the sacraments, we are reborn as the ‘real’ person that God intends us to be. We certainly can refuse, but just as certainly we are not free to cast about for ideas to create our own identity. If we are earnest about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we will find ourselves driven into spiritual combat as Christ was after His reception of the Spirit: a combat from which we are certain to emerge victorious in faith.
Articles under Contemplative Prayer
Who Gave You This Authority?
The rosary is a quintessential devotional prayer for Catholic laity and even for some religious, and has been for over seven hundred years. While at first glance, the repetition of Ave Marias can give the impression of the multiplication of words at the expense of genuine devotion, anyone who prays the rosary will tell you that the important activity is not the recitation of the words, but the meditation on the mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ. Busying the lips with familiar words allows the spirit to be freed up to attend to consideration of the meaning of Christ’s presence and action, how His very being communicates God’s love and our salvation.
This is in interesting contrast to a different type of devotion to the Word of God, also edifying in its way. At some point after the invention of the printing press, someone had the idea to set the words of Jesus in red. Most of us have seen such versions of the gospel. What stands out are the teachings of the Lord, and of course these can no more be neglected by Christians than the mysteries of His life.
It happens that the past century and a half have seen the rise of a view of Jesus of Nazareth that exalts Him as a great teacher of wisdom, without admitting to the traditional Christian claims of His divinity. While it would be an unfair exaggeration to say that ‘red-letter’ gospel editions are the cause of this emphasis on Christ as mere human teacher, they certainly offer support to the idea that what really counts are the teachings. The signs performed by Jesus, so important especially in John’s gospel, are muted along with the rest of the narrative material.
Yet the authority of Jesus is dependent on just these signs. De-emphasizing Christ’s mystery has the effect of undermining the legitimacy of the very teachings that the red-letter edition is meant to underline. Jesus Himself pointed to the necessity of the signs: “Even though you do not believe me, believe the works [that I do], that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” [John 10: 38]
Hence the importance of meditation on the mysteries of the rosary. Seen in this light, the addition of the Luminous Mysteries by St. John Paul II appears even more providential. Just those sorts of legitimating moments in the life of Christ are added, particularly the Baptism, the Wedding at Cana and the Transfiguration. These mysteries of light ‘illuminate’ the mind to ‘know and understand’ that Christ was indeed sent by God the Father. In turn, this illumination makes it possible for us to accept the ‘hard’ sayings [John 6: 60] and to grow in holiness, growing up to be true ‘spiritual’ men and women, not merely wise in the teachings of the wise, but sanctified in the Truth.
Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Finding in the Temple
The Presentation and Finding of Jesus in the Temple both foreshadow Christ’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. Here, after three days in which He is missing, He is found once more ‘in His Father’s house’. As Christ grows in wisdom and power and transforms us from within, we often experience this as a loss of ourselves; we no longer quite know what to expect of ourselves, where we ought to turn, how we should act in certain situations. This mystical dying and rising finds its meaning when we find ourselves in God’s house, either in the liturgy of the Church, or in fervent interior prayer.
Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Presentation
Inevitably, mission within the Church will require making an offering of ourselves to God. The Virgin Mary presents the child Jesus in the Temple in order to fulfill the requirement of the Torah that each first-born son must be given to God. This is a reminder that God spared the first-born of the Israelites, ransoming them from Pharaoh. In Christ, then, the Church makes each of us an offering to God. This is perhaps best experienced when the precepts of the Church prove difficult, when fasting or tithing or adhering to moral teachings gives us reasons to ‘go where we do not choose to go’. This act of faith, the interior oblation of the will, is the ‘obedience and not sacrifice’ that is acceptable to God.
Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Nativity
Obviously, Christ’s birth corresponds in one clear way to baptism again; but in the images that I have offered so far, we see that a time comes when we are no longer nourished passively within the Church. We must venture out into the world, still as children, perhaps, but with an eye toward mission. As the Father sent Christ into the world, so does Christ send us. This mission does not mean that we are separated from Christ, but it does mean fully accepting our responsibility for the Church, for spreading the faith and giving witness to God’s love.
Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Visitation
This is perhaps the easiest mystery to interpret ‘ethically’. Meditations on the Visitation typically offer Mary as a model of selfless service to others in need, even when our own needs are real. That surely makes for an edifying reflection. In this series, however, I would like to go to a mystical level. Where is Jesus Christ in the Visitation, and how do I recapitulate His life?
If we are always being nourished in the womb of Mother Church, do we consent to be carried along with her? To be identified with her, not only in good works, but even when it seems to be at cost to ourselves? When others, in the role of Elizabeth and John the Baptist, see us, do they point to us as examples of the Church’s gifts and nourishment? Or do we merely give the impression of belonging to a voluntary organization, one that perhaps takes the man Jesus as a role model, but does not actually make Christ present?
Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Annunciation
Mary, hearing the Word of God as spoken by Gabriel, said, “Yes,” and the result was the Incarnation of the Word within her. We participate in this mystical reality when, in our baptisms, we say, “I believe.” The life of Christ is conceived mystically in our hearts, and we are conceived in the womb of the Church. Like the life of an unborn child, our spiritual life needs the nourishment of the Church’s sacraments and teaching, so that we will eventually grow to maturity in faith. How does my life change when I truly and inwardly consent to the gift of faith? How do my actions change when I recognize the presence of Christ within?
Incarnational Meditations on the Mysteries of the Rosary: Introduction
[Today I am embarking on what I hope will be a series of meditations on the mysteries of the rosary, from an ‘incarnational’ viewpoint. This first post will serve as an introduction to the series.]
What do I mean by an ‘incarnational’ meditation?
In fact, I mean to communicate several interlocking ideas, with the intention of countering a root difficulty in modern spirituality, our struggle with the concept of communion. We bristle—at some level, at least—at the notion of communion these days, whether it be with God or with the Church. There are many reasons for this. I suspect that a main problem is fear: fear that communion will mean losing ourselves, opening ourselves to ‘inauthenticity’ or, worse, being used by those who would claim to desire communion with us but in fact seek to dominate, to stamp out the uniqueness that each of us possesses by divine grace.
What does this leave us with, spiritually speaking? Well, there is a tendency to reduce Christian spirituality to a kind of ‘do-gooderism’, a series of ethical exhortations and practices and prayers. The purpose of these things—when they really do take place—is for God to communicate (just enough?) grace to allow us to do some good in the world, or at least be assured that we are not completely depraved.
Now, good works are not to be disparaged, and Christians are obliged to practice them. But we stumble when we notice that there are many persons in the world who achieve good works without being Christian. So if Christianity consists in showing that we are nicer and kinder than others, we founder on the empirical reality that this is, alas, often enough not the case. Here I should insert, in keeping with the overall goal of this proposed series of posts, that meditations on the mysteries of the rosary tend, in my experience, exactly toward an ethical model: we imitate Christ or Mary in order to become ‘better people’. This, in itself, has much to recommend it, but at some point this tack will, I believe, reveal its limitations in bringing us closer to the mystery of what it means to be Christian. What, then, does actually separate us as Christians from others in the world?
The answer is baptism: in baptism, we receive the very gift of God’s own life. In this communion of the divine and human in our own hearts, we recapitulate the reality of the Incarnation of God’s Word in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and indeed all the mysteries of the Life of Christ. We do not merely ‘imitate’, if we mean by this an effort (often conceived of as our own effort) to do things that we think Jesus would do. Imitation, in modern parlance, has something of a bad name. ‘Imitation’ wool or leather means ‘inauthentic’, a rip-off of something of superior quality. But when St. Paul exhorts us to “become imitators of me, as I am of Christ” [1 Cor 11: 1], we might hear that we are two steps down on the ladder of sanctity even before we begin. But Paul’s own imitation of Christ was so intense that he was able to become alter Christus, another Christ. Let me allow St. Gregory of Nyssa to emphasize this point for me:
“[Paul imitated Christ] so brilliantly that he revealed his own Master in himself, his own soul being transformed [my emphasis] through his accurate imitation of his prototype, so that Paul no longer seemed to be living and speaking, but Christ Himself seemed to be living in him. As this astute perceiver of particular goods says: ‘Do you seek a proof of the Christ who speaks in me?’ [2 Cor 13: 3] and: ‘It is now no longer I that live but Christ lives in me. [Gal. 2: 20]’”
—On Perfection, FOTC 58, trans. by Virginia Woods Callahan
What we have the privilege of being, already in this life, is the very Body of Christ alive and sanctifying the world. To do this, good works are necessary, but we also must be ‘renewed in mind’, not that we might be the only persons in the world who do good, but that we “may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” [cf. Rom 12: 2] Being renewed in mind requires meditation, training the mind to see reality in a way different than we do by the sloth of habit. The Mysteries of the rosary have proven over many centuries to be a most efficacious means of meditation, especially for the laity. But meditate we must, not only on what we ought to do to improve ourselves with God’s grace, but to come to the understanding of the hidden growth of Christ within us. In living out the life of Christ in our imaginations, guided by the tutelage of His glorious Mother, the Virgin Mary, we attune ourselves to the quiet unfolding of grace in our lives, and are thus able to cooperate with grace more readily and gratefully. We no longer carry out good works to justify ourselves or salve troubled consciences, but truly as co-operators with Jesus Christ, alive in our hearts and present to the world in our actions.
The Holy Triduum
We have arrived again at the holiest time of the Church’s Year, the annual celebration of the Paschal Mystery, our Lord’s Passover. It’s hard for me to believe that this will be my 27th Triduum at the monastery. The liturgy for this holy time can be bewildering when we first encounter it, but also exhilarating–and for the same reason. Everything is new, slightly disorienting. Time is suspended. Melodies and rituals suddenly appear that remind us of our first childhood memories of Easter.
Over time—and this is especially true for monks who must study the liturgy and practice it regularly—the ceremonies become more familiar, even if they remain special to this time of year. For some of us, there is a temptation to a bit of boredom—the old feelings no longer emerge with the same intensity. Every Triduum features a liturgical blunder or two–sometimes the same one many years running, and this can tempt us to cynicism. But these temptations should be dealt with in the same way that we deal with every temptation: with resistance. When we begin to understand the liturgy, not as a prompt for good and edifying feelings, appropriate as these might be, but as central to our permanent identity as children of God, we can transition into a deep sense of belonging to Jesus Christ and His Church. This identification and belonging will remain with us and inform the rest of our lives as Catholics throughout the year.
Once again, this applies especially to monks and nuns, who have espoused themselves to Christ. The transition of which I am speaking is analogous to one that we see in certain married couples. They begin their lives together with excitement, expectation, even a kind of infatuation with each other, and the joy of having been loved and accepted. There are new experiences of owning a home, of pregnancy, childbirth, school, in-laws, new family rituals at Christmas, and so on and so forth. This gives way eventually to routines, and as the new and exciting becomes the familiar and dull, there is a risk of each spouse focusing on the small annoyances of any relationship with inherently limited and even flawed persons. There are heartaches with children who suffer health problems, disappointments with careers and there are compromises. The temptation is to boredom and even a sense of resentment. But if this temptation is resisted, what emerges is the beauty of belonging to one’s spouse, of totally identifying with that person with whom I have made a lasting covenant, and struggled to live those vows in fidelity. These are the couples who can sit together for long periods of silence, simply content to be with their “better half,” appreciating the presence of the long-beloved.
The Holy Triduum is like the Church’s wedding anniversary, the annual reminder that we have been espoused by the great Bridegroom Who laid down His life for us, Who poured out His Blood to cleanse us and make the Church a worthy Bride for Himself, spotless and beautiful. When this reality is newly embraced, it can move us to great torrents of emotion. It can so move us even after many years. But it can also carry us away to a different kind of experience, that of profound and peaceful contemplation, the silent adoration of the Holy Trinity, to Whom be glory and honor forever. Amen.
The Mystery of Christmas
I have received many positive comments about the article that led our newsletter for Advent, so I would like to share it with a slightly different readership. I will preface this with a few more thoughts of Christmas, and why this celebration led me to my vocation. What gives coherence to the meaning of Christmas for me is the deep mystery of life itself. How is it that we–each of us a self, an “I”–observing the world and “All things counter, original, spare, strange; [Hopkins]” see things similarly, see things differently, see and understand anything at all? How often do we stop and wonder at it all? Something about Christmas always stopped me in my tracks and forced these questions upon me. The answer to this mystery is not the solution to a puzzle, but the sheer gift of love, of shared life and wonder. At the center of all that it, is a God Who wishes to be included in all things with us, our joys, sufferings, our boredom, weariness, excitement, community, loneliness, the whole labyrinth of life that each of us experiences. And in sharing the beauty of all that He created, He does so in most unprepossessing way possible, as a poor child of poor parents in a poor village, but rich in wonder and observation (read any of Christ’s parables and see how He never outgrew the child’s power of noticing things). We need not cross the sea to discover mystery–it is right in front of us and opens the way to participation in the Source of life.
Merry Christmas!
[The article from our newsletter, entitled “Christmas and Everyday Life”]
One of the brothers recently asked me if there was a particular Christmas song that evoked strong memories for me. I couldn’t really answer the question because there are many such carols, in addition to the sublime arias and choruses of Handel’s Messiah and the magical dances of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker. I eventually settled on one carol, not because it is my favorite, but because it somehow summarizes the importance of Christmas to me: O Little Town of Bethlehem.
With a bit of imagination, the music of this lovely carol takes me back to decorating the house in preparation for the holidays. I always wanted to help set out the traditional nativity scene as well as the Christmas “village,” a tradition picked up from my father’s Polish family. We had pieced together this village over several years, and it included tiny houses, into the backs of which were inserted bulbs from strings of lights that would shine through the colored film windows. Miniature cars drove down snowy streets and sat in the parking lot next to the village church (which had a detachable steeple that occasionally was knocked over by our Labrador retriever). A mirror served as a skating rink, and a model train traversed the circumference of the town.
And of course, the were the tiny people there to celebrate winter by skating and skiing. In setting them up, we had to thread a tiny “rope” attached to a sled through the mittened hand of a bundled-up and straining adult. And then there were two blanketed children to be perched upon the sled. A thumb-sized collie ran alongside the family.
Perched behind all of this activity was, incongruously, the thatched barn giving shelter to the Christ child in the manger, adored by Mary and Joseph, and a motley band of shepherds. A variety of beasts kept the watch. To my eye, there was nothing quite as beautiful as these figurines, especially the shiny apparel of the Wise Men, the haughty camels, and the one poor shepherd, kneeling and offering a few coins resting in a cap in his hand.
Not only were these scenes separated by two millennia; they were not to scale. And yet, somehow, the ensemble spoke perfectly to me of the mystery of Christmas. The Son of God came, not only for the salvation of persons of the first century, but for every human being, for every human community. Not everyone in the Christmas village was in the church at that moment, but the church was there, its steeple pointing the way to heaven, or, in our humble tableau, to the angels singing above the newborn King.
Bethlehem was much like any other village, with its public spaces, rows of homes, families, children, pets, and other animals. When God sent His Son to redeem us, He came, not with spectacular show of “shock and awe,” but quietly, into a small home, beneath the same stars that we see today in the midnight sky. God thereby demonstrated that to be His child, it is enough to be human like anyone else.
The celebration of Christmas eventually had a profound effect on my own vocation. The beauty of God as a child, as an adolescent and young man, making friends, attending family weddings (I attended many weddings, as best man and as a musician)—the whole lot of everyday human life—made Christ especially present to me and made me want to respond by offering my life to Him as best I could, with the hope that perhaps others could experience what I had intuited: that into the darkness and obscurity of our quotidian existence, has shone the everlasting light. Now all the humble details of human life, the joy and tears, the sweat and rest, sowing and harvest, are illuminated from within by God’s Word. And that Word is Love.