Perry Lorenzo

Long Delayed Blog Update

2009-02-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long delays in updating this blog. This last year has been quite busy, and the Blog has been low on the priorities. I am planning to renew it, possibly here or possibly in another form. Stay tuned!

In wind’s burly and beat of endragonèd seas

2007-06-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

The next four stanza's, #s 25-28, ask and answer a question: why did the Nun call out? What is the truth of her cry? "The majesty! what did she mean?" It's all beautifully, artfully constructed: after asking what the Hun meant, Hopkins over three stanzas offers potential answers only to dismiss them, at least dismiss them as not being each alone enough of an answer.

This is a series which begins with "Breathe, arch and orginal Breath," which is an invocation of the Muse of the Holy Spirit--rather like the opening of Milton's Paradise Lost which develops the imagery from the opening of Genesis whre the Spirit of God hovered over the waters------a series which begins with the Holy Spirit and ends with an image of the waters as a Dragon, which of course reminds us of the drama of the Apocalypse as well as the Babylonian creation-myth of Marduk slaying Tiamut or Jehovah slaying Leviathin, underlying the original Genesis account as well. These stanzas, obviously, run the full sweep of God's affair with the world, from Creation to Apocalypse, particularly climaxing in:

"Other, I gather, in measure her mind's

Burden, in wind's burly and beat of endragoned seas."

Other than what? Hopkins implies that een his crazy words fail to fully explain the Nun's call. Options? Love. The Crown. The Total Mystery. Or, as Leonore and Floristan sing in Fidelio:

"O namenlose Freude!" or "O Joy With No Name!"--a set of statements that defy logic, senses, and words:

"What by your measure is the heaven of desire,

The treasure never eyesight got, nor was everguessed what for the hearing?"

Hopkins, in stanza #26, asks this question of Nature, of Day and Night, and the Stars. Silence, I presume is the answer. And the Nun was not motivated by quiet, pious spirituality: Hopkins wittily compares the Nun to the effete spirituality, perhaps, of gentlemanly-kept Jesuit fathers "asking for ease fo the sodden-with-its-sorrowing heart" in #27, while the Hun faces a real threat--"danger, electrical horror." He even dryly referes perhaps to his own piety:

"...then further it finds

The appealing of the Passion is tenderer in prayer apart:

Other, I gather, in measure her mind's

Burden..."

Once again, Hopkins is comparing, juxtaposing himself-at-prayer and the Nun-at-sea. And once again, it must be emphasized, this juxtaposition gives the whole poem's two contrasting parts a unity--the first part on the spiritual conversion of Hopkins, the second part about the Nun in the wreck.

Now in stanza #28, he offers an answer to the question--an answer which is not an answer in words but rather in words a re-creation of an experience, at the very crux of the Cross, at the intersection of all the overlapping lines of this poem's several tales--the Paschal Mystery. Hopkins does not state this: he re-creates the experience by drawing us, quite self-consciously, into the composition of the poem:

"But how shall I . . . make me room there:

Reach me a . . . Fancy, come faster--

Strike you the sight of it? look at it loom there,

Thing that she . . .There then! the Master,

Ipse, the only one, Christ, King, Head:

He was to care the extremity where he had cast her;

Do, deal lort it with living and dead;

Let him ride, her pride, in his triumph, dispatch and have done with his doom there."

This 28th stanza--blunt in their erotic imagery--in its brevity of 8 lines, truncates and concentrates the "First Principle and Foundation" of the first part's 10 stanzas. And what does Hopkins call the object of the Nun's call? Thing. Thing? Thing! Ipse! She encounters, really, the real Thing. Christ. No wonder Hopkins is so amazingly erotic, exciting, even hot. He is describing an experience that surpasses even appealing tenderness or "electrical horror!" He is describing the real encounter with Jesus Christ. And that is what the Nun is calling out!

The majesty! what did she mean?
Breathe, arch and original Breath.
Is it love in her of the being as her lover had been?
Breathe, body of lovely Death.
They were else-minded then, altogether, the men
Woke thee with a we are perishing in the weather of Gennesareth.
Or is it that she cried for the crown then,
The keener to come at the comfort for feeling the combating keen?

For how to the heart’s cheering
The down-dugged ground-hugged grey
Hovers off, the jay-blue heavens appearing
Of pied and peeled May!
Blue-beating and hoary-glow height; or night, still higher,
With belled fire and the moth-soft Milky Way,
What by your measure is the heaven of desire,
The treasure never eyesight got, nor was ever guessed what for the hearing?

No, but it was not these.
The jading and jar of the cart,
Time’s tasking, it is fathers that asking for ease
Of the sodden-with-its-sorrowing heart,
Not danger, electrical horror; then further it finds
The appealing of the Passion is tenderer in prayer apart:
Other, I gather, in measure her mind’s
Burden, in wind’s burly and beat of endragonèd seas.

But how shall I … make me room there:
Reach me a … Fancy, come faster—
Strike you the sight of it? look at it loom there,
Thing that she … there then! the Master,
Ipse, the only one, Christ, King, Head:
He was to cure the extremity where he had cast her;
Do, deal, lord it with living and dead;
Let him ride, her pride, in his triumph, despatch and have done with his doom there.

O Christ, Christ, Come Quickly!

2007-06-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

Picking up from where we left off, at stanza #24 of Hopkins "The Wreck of the Deutschland", we have a moment of intensification and connection. The poet, at first oddly, moves his vision away from the storm and the wreck and takes us away to where he was that fateful day, once again dating the real event to December 7th 1875, in real history, in real fact. And by spiriting us the readers away to Wales, away from the storm, the poet stills down the breathless drama of the poem.

And then the poet connects himself to the Tall Nun. He juxtaposes where he was and where she was on that fateful day. It's as if the Nun IS his heart (and this too connects the second part of the poem, the narrative of the wreck, with the first part of the poem, the intense spiritual experience of Hopkins' response to God): for now the Nun utters the famous cry: "O Christ, O Christ, come quickly!" Hopkins also adds that teh Nun baptizes her own merciless condition in the storm, drowning, and thus reverses its mercilessness: Christens her wild-worst Best."

This stanza is an inspiration to all of us, in the storms of life, real storms: the Cross is our Hope, Christ is our Hope, Christ will save us!

Away in the loveable west,
On a pastoral forehead of Wales,
I was under a roof here, I was at rest,
And they the prey of the gales;
She to the black-about air, to the breaker, the thickly
Falling flakes, to the throng that catches and quails
Was calling ‘O Christ, Christ, come quickly’:
The cross to her she calls Christ to her, christens her wild-worst Best.

Back to Posting and to the Hopkins Poem

2007-06-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

Gentle Readers! I regret having missed so many months of posting on this blog. I will now begin again, so that we can continue reading Hopkins' masterpiece "The Wreck of the Deutschland!" Keep alert, and the postings are beginning again!

At Seattle Opera we are doing a production of Richard Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman," which has inspired me to return to more orthodox art! But a comparison of Hopkins' Catholic vision and Wagner's Romantic vision is instructive. It shows us that Romanticism is really a kind of Catholic heresy: for the Romantic generation was the first generation of European artists who almost completely dumped Christianity and thus created a void in their imaginations' horizons. Suddenly, without a God and without an Incarnation and without a Church, the Romantics still needed a way to express their immortal longings. Romanticism is like a ruined Gothic chapel--the ruins, the fragments, the remains of a Catholic faith, no longer the sanctuary of the Blessed Sacrament, but now a ruin haunted by ghosts and monsters. Hopkins' poetry redirects Romanticism to its real goal--the One True Good and Beautiful God.

Christ is Risen! Allelluia!

2006-04-16T06:11:00.000-07:00

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin,
And having harrowed hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive us to win:
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean washt from sin,
May live forever in felicity.
And that thy love we weighing worthily
May love thee likewise for the same again,
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought:
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
-- Edmund Spenser, Amoretti 68

The Beauty of Love

2006-01-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

It is the most beautiful, most profound thing written on Love since Plato's Symposium; and it surpasses Plato, because it identifies Love with the God who has come to us in Jesus Christ.

Stigma, Signal, Cinquefoil Token for Lettering

2006-01-17T09:41:00.000-08:00

So now Hopkins gives us a long meditation on that Tall Nun, from stanza 19 through stanza 31. This is very much the climax of The Wreck of the Deutschland.

Stanza 19 introduces the theme: “Sister, a sister calling/A master, her master and mine!”

Here the Tall Nun is identified, and she calls out even against the storm. Thus our life of Faith is often opposed by the world; it doesn’t take a storm for us to know persecution, though it may take a storm to remind us. Saints and Martyrs provide us, by the romantic, sublime exaggeration of extreme and heroic virtue against the storms of this world’s life, a drama of inspiration. So too does this Tall Nun. And she is pure of heart, authentically directed, well-oriented: “But she that weather sees one thing, one;/ Has one fetch in her.” One fetch!

Stanza 20—“She was first of a five”—gives us the Religious Order of the nuns but at once meditates on the name of the ship and the homeland—“Deutschland”—by ironically juxtaposing St Gertrude & Martin Luther. So here we have a slam broadminded ecumenists would avoid and Lutherans should resent! But while we don’t want to do cartoon history and do to the Protestants what Schiller did to Catholics in Don Carlos, yet we can perhaps see in the juxtaposition of the two Germans, the “lily” and the “beast” a comment on two ways of life—the former, the committed & authentic & vowed life of the Evangelical Counsels, a true Gospel life; and the latter, the renegade, the rebel, the revolutionary. “Lily”, of course, reminds us of both Easter and virginity. “Beast”, beyond the obvious, reminds us of the three beasts “of the waste wood” of darkness and error at the start of Dante’s Comedy—three bestial roots of sin, to be compared to and countered by the three Evangelical Counsels of the Gospel lifestyle of Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience. Here, again, Hopkins is reminding us that his poem is also about the journey of modern Europe—the voyages to America and the revolt of Luther being flipsides of the same story, the breakdown of Christendom. And Hopkins sees this modern story for what it is in theological terms—sin. “From life’s dawn it is drawn down . . .Abel . . .Cain.” Then there is a final image of sucking on breasts. Yes, I know it means Cain & Abel were both babies of Eve, but we cannot help but see the sucking on breasts as an odd, deliberately evocative image in a stanza focused on the authenticity of the Nun. It is a healthy reminder too that the Evangelical life of the Nun does not reject the body, sex, breast-sucking, baby-making, or human culture as bad in themselves—quite the contrary.

Stanza 21—“Loathed for a love”—traces the event of the nuns’ exile in terms both historical and theological. Hopkins links the Hun’s experience of Bismark’s persecution of the Church to the Passion and Sacrifice of Christ. Again, Hopkins theologically sees the whole thing in terms of Love: “Loathed for a love men knew in them” . . .and . . .”They unchancelling poising palms.” And while human eyes would see the sstorm as a storm, Hopkins sees the snow and ice and wind as “scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers.” Once again, God is termed, as before for both the poet’s heart and the Tall Nun, as “Master”, but now “Martyr-master.”

And this theme continues in stanza 22—“Five!”—in identifying the Five Nuns with the Five Wounds of Christ. This stanza is particularly beautiful, especially in the litany—“Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token for lettering . . .ruddying.” No comment can improve the beauty of these lines, but one ritual perhaps reveals them—the stabbing of the Paschal Candle with the five grains of incense signifying Christ’s “holy & glorious wounds”. The phrase “and the word of it Sacrificed” has a direct parallel in form and position to a phrase in the next stanza: “Lovescape crucified.” This next stanza, #23, continues the whole theme with a meditation on the Stigmata of St Francis.

Sister, a sister calling
A master, her master and mine!—
And the inboard seas run swirling and hawling;
The rash smart sloggering brine
Blinds her; but she that weather sees one thing, one;
Has one fetch in her: she rears herself to divine
Ears, and the call of the tall nun
To the men in the tops and the tackle rode over the storm’s brawling.

She was first of a five and came
Of a coifèd sisterhood.
(O Deutschland, double a desperate name!
O world wide of its good!
But Gertrude, lily, and Luther, are two of a town,
Christ’s lily and beast of the waste wood:
From life’s dawn it is drawn down,
Abel is Cain’s brother and breasts they have sucked the same.)

Loathed for a love men knew in them,
Banned by the land of their birth,
Rhine refused them. Thames would ruin them;
Surf, snow, river and earth
Gnashed: but thou art above, thou Orion of light;
Thy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth,
Thou martyr-master: in thy sight
Storm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers—sweet heaven was astrew in them.

Five! the finding and sake
And cipher of suffering Christ.
Mark, the mark is of man’s make
And the word of it Sacrificed.
But he scores it in scarlet himself on his own bespoken,
Before-time-taken, dearest prizèd and priced—
Stigma, signal, cinquefoil token
For lettering of the lamb’s fleece, ruddying of the rose-flake.

Joy fall to thee, father Francis,
Drawn to the Life that died;
With the gnarls of the nails in thee, niche of the lance, his
Lovescape crucified
And seal of his seraph-arrival! and these thy daughters
And five-livèd and leavèd favour and pride,
Are sisterly sealed in wild waters,
To bathe in his fall-gold mercies, to breathe in his all-fire glances.

Lovescape Crucified!

The Habit of Perfection

2006-01-15T11:42:00.000-08:00

We are pausing at the middle of The Wreck of the Deutschland to consider Hopkins’ vision of the response to the religious Call. And we have been taking a look at earlier poems on this theme—such as Heaven-haven and Halfway House.

And a third early poem comes to mind, while we contemplate the Tall Nun, and while we consider the mystery of The Wreck’s stanza 18—another hymn, perhaps, about a girl joining a convent or a young man joining the priesthood—“The Habit of Perfection.” It’s a gloss on St Augustine’s transfiguration of the senses in “Too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty ever ancient ever new, too late have I loved Thee.” In St Augustine’s beautiful paragraph, each of the five senses is given its full due—touching, hearing, seeing, tasting, even smelling—in full acceptance of the rich sensuous Beauty of the sensation, and then each of the five senses is drawn up towards the source of all Beauty, God. Hopkins’ gloss here is indeed full of the same old, new anarchy of images, of paradox, of contradiction, so fitting for a crux:

ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.

Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb:
It is the shut, the curfew sent
From there where all surrenders come
Which only makes you eloquent.

Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark
And find the uncreated light:
This ruck and reel which you remark
Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.

Palate, the hutch of tasty lust,
Desire not to be rinsed with wine:
The can must be so sweet, the crust
So fresh that come in fasts divine!

The “can” is the Tabernacle, by the way; the “crust” is the Blessed Sacrament, as in the much later poem, similarly a hymn to Beauty, “The Bugler’s First Communion”: “Forth Christ from cupboard fetched, how fain I of feet/To his youngster take his treat!” Back now to the poem, almost vulgarly to nose & toes:

Nostrils, your careless breath that spend
Upon the stir and keep of pride,
What relish shall the censers send
Along the sanctuary side!

O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet
That want the yield of plushy sward,
But you shall walk the golden street
And you unhouse and house the Lord.

Here I imagine Hopkins imagines himself a Priest who takes and puts the Blessed Sacrament into and out of the Tabernacle. And finally, total simplicity; abject simplicity—and here both Schubert’s Winterreise and Eliot’s Four Quartets can join in :

And, Poverty, be thou the bride
And now the marriage feast begun,
And lily-coloured clothes provide
Your spouse not laboured-at nor spun.

Re-read these three earlier poems—“Heaven-haven” and “The Half-way House” and “The Habit of Perfection”—as a study for the contemplation of The Deutschland’s contemplation of the Tall Nun and the mystery at the heart of its 18th stanza—and so much then becomes clear, indeed rich, indeed One and True and Good and Beautiful!

Half-way House

2006-01-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

And another, slightly later poem comes to mind: “The Half-way House” Hopkins, who has desired to go to a place where springs do not fail—in so many senses—and where not storms come—in a prophetic vision of The Deutschland’s wreck—Hopkins finds himself halfway there in this early poem, on a journey urged by Love:

“Love I was shewn upon the mountain-side
And bid to catch Him ere the drop of day.
See, Love, I creep and Thou on wings dost ride:
Love, it is evening and Thou away;
Love, it grows darker here and Thou art above;
Love, come down to me if Thy name be Love.”

Here, the Road to Emmaus is combined with Tristan & Isolde, with Romeo & Juliet. The religious road is perhaps first an erotic road. Hopkins, the homosexual Oxford student, is on a journey of Love whose “local habitation and a name” he yearns for and has yet to know. But he does see his journey from Protestant English heresy through Oxford Tractarianism toward Rome as a Paschal escape from Egypt:

“My national old Egyptian reed gave way;
I took of vine a cross-barred rod or rood.
Then next I hungered: Love when here, they say,
Or once or never took Love’s proper-food;
But I must yield the chase, or rest and eat.—
Peace and food cheered me where four rough ways meet.”

What a journey Hopkins was on! No wonder he later so sympathized with the Tall Nun and her Sisters on The Deutschland’s journey and wreck! And the “four rough ways” do meet at a crossroads—the Cross-Road, the Way of the Cross, the moment of the Cross, the Crux of the Cross. See how these earlier poem’s elucidate the mystery at the heart of The Wreck of the Deutschland’s stanza 18! And then, Hopkins, as he does in “Part the First” of the later poem, sees the guide for his journey, the compass-point of his love’s confusion and sense of loss, his north pole in the Host, in the Real Presence of Our lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist:

“Hear yet my paradox: Love, when all is given,
To see Thee I must see Thee, to love, love;
I must o’ertake Thee at once and under heaven
If I shall overtake Thee at last above.
You have your wish; enter these walls, one said;
He is with you in the breaking of the bread.”

God! How stunning, gorgeous, beautiful is Hopkins’ vision! Here, here is the clue to the meaning we avoid! Here is the key to the mystery of The Wreck’s stanza 18: it’s in the “Lovescape crucified!”

Heaven-Haven

2006-01-11T10:05:00.000-08:00

“Sister, a sister calling
A master, her master and mine!”

These words do sound like Music, even like a madrigal, as promised in the previous stanza’s request for “a madrigal start!”

Here we might pause and remember some earlier poems of Hopkins, poems about the Call, the Response, the yearning for Peace, the erotic desire for a religious life—earlier poems that might shed some light on the mystery of stanza 18 of The Wreck of the Deutschland and on the Voice of the Tall Nun.

Here’s one: Heaven-haven—a nun takes the veil. The fact of the character of a Nun and the reference to a Haven (“Bremerhaven”) reminds me of The Wreck of the Deutschland.

“I have desired to go . . .”

It is the expression of a yearning to go on a journey—a strange link between the chaste longing of a sister entering the convent and the Wagnerian Sehnsucht of Tristan. Hopkins, after all, is a Romantic poet!

“I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.”

The reference to lilies reminds me of the fragrance of the lilies in the poetry of St John of the Cross (also contemplated by Balthasar in his Theological Aesthetics), especially On a Dark Night: “ . . .and rest my cares amongst the lilies there.”

“And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.”

Tristan similarly sings an invitation to Isolde to follow him to a land where the sun shines not. Hopkins penned this Tristanesque lyric as a young man of twenty, while at Oxford, while an Anglican in the midst, like the boy Jesus in amidst the doctors in the Temple, of Walter Pater, Benjamin Jowett, Edward Pusey, Swinburne, Solomon, and John Henry Newman. The meaning is quite clear.

The journey to God is a journey of an erotic desire, from storm to haven, from swelling sea to silent home, from sharp and sided hail to a land of fresh springs and the fragrance of beautiful flowers—that journey of Eros toward the Truth and Goodness and Beauty of God.

St Basil on Beauty

2006-01-10T09:15:00.000-08:00

In praise of the Beauty of God, this passage sings, today, from the Office of Readings—a selection from St Basil the Great:

“What, I ask, is more wonderful than the beauty of God? What thought is more pleasing and satisfying than God’s majesty? What desire is as urgent and overpowering as the desire implanted by God in a soul that is completely purified of sin and cries out in its love: I am wounded by love? The radiance of the Divine Beauty is altogether beyond the power of words to describe.”

Her Voice, Her Heart, Hermeneutics

2006-01-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Beginning with the appearance of the Lioness and remaining until stanza 31, which is the start of the final doxology, the poem The Wreck of the Deutschland stands still in eloquent contemplation of the Tall Nun and her Voice!

Stanza 18 is almost a tease, a clever Oxford-common-orom chat. The poet has already addressed the “lioness” and the “prophetess”—and now he calls her a “heart” at the same time. But he teases us—no, he’s not addressing the Nun only but also his own heart: thus the seemingly flippant manner, so wildly seemingly inappropriate for the storm, the wreck, and the martyrdom, but still iconic of holy wit: “Ah, touched . . .are you! Turned . . .have you! Make words . . .do you!” The link, of course, between the Nun and his heart is the man-woman relationship both within the created human personal soul—each person as a person sharing in the fundamental androgyny of humanity, split by gender into Eve & Adam—and between God and the person —we all being feminine before the divine masculine. (This interior androgyny, with reason and imagination, with an interior father and interior mother, is well explored in Hopkins’ poem dedicated to Robert Bridges, “To R.B.”) This whole stanza is particularly dense and difficulty, seemingly unfitting to the context—a witty puzzle juxtaposed to the tragic tale and the invitation to “a madrigal start.” And one of the phrases is seemingly inexplicable—“O unteachably after evil”—perhaps Hopkins referring to his own sinfulness, or at least the moral ambiguity of his poetry-making in his own eyes. But the ambiguity of what the text means at all is predominant: the words all through could refer both to the Nun and also to the poet—linked at “mother of being in me, heart”. The poet expresses an alarm, a surprise that causes both tears and a madrigal: something pent up is being release: “ . . .such a melting, a madrigal start!/Never-eldering revel and river of youth,/What can it be, this glee? The good you have there of your own?”

Perhaps we might unlock the puzzle of this dense stanza (and the whole poem) if we remember that it is telling a tale on three levels---

---the literal tale of the actual wreck of the ship The Deutschland, and the drowning of the Nuns, and the heroic call of the Tall Nun

---the allegorical tale of modern Europe, of the West in wreck, of Germany in particular as the country of rebellion against God, of the attempt to destroy the Church, of the witness of modern Christians

---the moral tale of the interior life of Hopkins the poet himself, both as an artist and as a Christian, which seems to be most of all the poem’s concern, given the lengthy Part One which is a Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises of the whole

And to this we might add (though not fully yet, because we haven’t finished reviewing The Wreck of the Deutschland in detail) there is a fourth level—an analogical level, which draws the literal story, the allegory of the West, and the personal moral spirituality, all up, up, up into the revelation of the Heavenly reality of the inner life of God the Holy Trinity.

I do think Hopkins indeed intended all these levels, and stanza 18 is the real heart of the puzzle. Perhaps this is best demonstrated by the fact that stanza 18, this enigmatic crux of the poem, is actually the central stanza between stanza 1 and the final stanza 35. No wonder it is a mystery, a question, a strangeness, the place of the intersection of all the ways of reading the poem. It’s the one place in the poem where we don’t really know where we are, where, who, how, what, or when we are. It is the crux of the analogous imagination. And—to risk more complexity—it’s the moment when the poet actually speaks of being so moved as to pen a poem, to utter and to arrange utterances.

Ah, touched in your bower of bone
Are you! turned for an exquisite smart,
Have you! make words break from me here all alone,
Do you!—mother of being in me, heart.
O unteachably after evil, but uttering truth,
Why, tears! is it? tears; such a melting, a madrigal start!
Never-eldering revel and river of youth,
What can it be, this glee? the good you have there of your own?

The Sailor & The Nun

2006-01-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

In stanza 16, “One stirred”, a brave, generous-hearted sailor tries to save the women, is blown and thrown off the ship, and is swung by a rope in the storm. The horror of the remaining passengers “could tell him for hours, dandled the to and fro.” Perhaps a type of Christ, not that he saved them (because he didn’t) but that he sacrifices himself trying to.

The rhetoric of stanza 17 reminds me of “A voice cries out in Rama—Rachel weeping for her children—and she could not be consoled—because they were not.” That’s the effect, in sound and meaning, of fighting with God’s cold, “and they could not and fell to the deck”, and “crushed them” and “drowned them” and “the crying of child without check”.

All this till a brave Tall Nun, a Franciscan, daughter of St Clare, rises up in the darkness of the night, out of this cinematic storm!

“Till a lioness arose breasting the babble/A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told.”

One can almost hear music at this moment: we are not at first aware that the heroine now is the Nun. I suppose we are presumed to know the story already: but nowadays no one does except readers of Hopkins’ poem. It’s like those moments in Titanic when well-known incidents are suggested (the husband & wife drowning, willingly, in bed together, for example). But either way, we’ll know she’s a Nun soon enough. More than enough for now, we see “a lioness” . . .”a prophetess” . . .a tower . . .and “a virginal tongue told”.

Thus suggested too are the Virgin Mary, Judith, Esther, Deborah. In fact, is it not amazing that the figure of Woman in the biblical tradition is not ever a priestess but rather a Judge, a Warrior, a Prophetess, as a figure of the People of Israel?!? In fact, the whole Litany of the Virgin Mary, with its Tower and City and Queen, is in praise of this heroic Woman.

And up she rises, this Tall Nun, this Tower, this Lioness . . .and now, time will stop for several stanzas as we meditate on this Woman.

One stirred from the rigging to save
The wild woman-kind below,
With a rope’s end round the man, handy and brave—
He was pitched to his death at a blow,
For all his dreadnought breast and braids of thew:
They could tell him for hours, dandled the to and fro
Through the cobbled foam-fleece, what could he do
With the burl of the fountains of air, buck and the flood of the wave?

They fought with God’s cold—
And they could not and fell to the deck
(Crushed them) or water (and drowned them) or rolled
With the sea-romp over the wreck.
Night roared, with the heart-break hearing a heart-broke rabble,
The woman’s wailing, the crying of child without check—
Till a lioness arose breasting the babble,
A prophetess towered in the tumult, a virginal tongue told.

Into the snows she sweeps . . .

2006-01-02T09:50:00.000-08:00

The Deutschland plunges into the North Sea. The overall atmosphere, as at the beginning of Hamlet, is cold and unkindness. And here, we have the name of the ship for the first time in the poem—and it is as striking as it would be in a movie if we first saw the ship’s name in snow & ice & lashing sea, perhaps even lit by a flash and accompanied by thunder & the shrieks of the wind—The Deutschland! Later, in stanza 20, Hopkins will underscore the fitting ironies in the ship’s name—“O Deutschland, double a desperate name!” Of course, little did Hopkins know in 1875 how fitting, how prophetic his poem would be! But for now, for irrational arrogance, the ship is ‘hurling the haven behind.” And it goes into a world that is “unkind” . . .”black-backed” . . .”cursed quarter” . . .”widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps.”

At this moment in the poem we see that Hopkins is as good a storyteller as Stephen King or as good a director as James Cameron or Peter Jackson: every word of the poem plunges, hurts, rips us and makes us have this experience of the voyage and shipwreck too.

In stanza 14, we can see the wreck on the sandbank: moreover, we can hear it, as if it had a soundtrack, with effects and music. And now the ship’s power is broken and she is helpless:

“And canvas and compass, the whorl and the wheel/Idle for ever to waft her or winde her with, these she endured.”

Stanza 15 is about hopelessness, as stanza 11 was about Death. And as the people try to climb into the rigging, “To the shrouds they took.” Again, I am reminded of those breathtakingly sublime images in Titanic, as the passengers try so near despair to climb up the last up-ended end of the mightily defeated ship!

And yet, for all these words of Death and Despair, even in the context of Despair, we hear, over and over, like a bell, ringing, singing, almost as if hear or overhear it, the knell of "Hope."

"Hope . . . Hope . . .Hope!"

The word "Hope" may alliterate with "hurling" and "horrible airs", but Hope is still sounding. And amidst this shipwreck, a great Hope is about to sound, the cry of the Tall Nun!

Into the snows she sweeps,
Hurling the haven behind,
The Deutschland, on Sunday; and so the sky keeps,
For the infinite air is unkind,
And the sea flint-flake, black-backed in the regular blow,
Sitting Eastnortheast, in cursed quarter, the wind;
Wiry and white-fiery and whirlwind-swivellèd snow
Spins to the widow-making unchilding unfathering deeps.

She drove in the dark to leeward,
She struck—not a reef or a rock
But the combs of a smother of sand: night drew her
Dead to the Kentish Knock;
And she beat the bank down with her bows and the ride of her keel:
The breakers rolled on her beam with ruinous shock;
And canvas and compass, the whorl and the wheel
Idle for ever to waft her or wind her with, these she endured.

Hope had grown grey hairs,
Hope had mourning on,
Trenched with tears, carved with cares,
Hope was twelve hours gone;
And frightful a nightfall folded rueful a day
Nor rescue, only rocket and lightship, shone,
And lives at last were washing away:
To the shrouds they took,—they shook in the hurling and horrible airs.

Yes, there is Hope to come!

Celebrate the New Year at St James Cathedral

2005-12-26T10:44:00.000-08:00

This coming New Year's Eve, a fantastic way to celebrate the New Year is the gorgeous Mozart at 250 at St James Cathedral in Seattle.

This concert features the 60-voice Cathedral Choir of St James, the organists Joseph Adam and Clint Craus, the beautiful voices of the Cathedral soloists, all directed by Dr James Savage--all singing and making music Mozart composed all through his life for the glory of God's Beauty!

It's Saturday 31 December 2005, at 11:00pm at St James, 9th & Marion, in Seattle. What a beautiful way to ring in and sing in the New Year!

Take Her to Sea!

2005-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

And then the tale, at long last, begins.

A real story, a true story, like that of the Titanic. “On Saturday . . .”sings stanza 12. The true tale of the voyage and wreck of the Deutschland. And the origin and goal of the voyage—from Bremen to America—have their won romantic significance: it is the journey, the quest, the westward expansion, the “American-outward-bound” of the European nations and peoples for four hundred years before Hopkins’ own time. And even with all the details, facts, acts, events of European history, the one Big Story since about 1500 is “American-outward-bound”—a story also synonymous with the break-down of Christendom.

While the passengers believe they are going to America—to newness, to expansion, to freedom perhaps, to the new horizon of “American-outward-bound”—they little know they are doomed, that a fourth of the passengers would die and the others be irrevocably marked, like the survivors of the Titanic, by the forever-altered awareness, in horror, of mortality. Telling this tale as the symbolic meaning of modern European history is fitting, because the ideologies of the modern era—materialism, secularism, capitalism, communism, atheism,--all not only deny God but also deny Death, or rather, not deny Death but ignore Death even while promoting Death.

The chug-chugging along, full ahead, of a big modern engine-powered ship in westward transatlantic crossing is a terrific symbol of the spiritual condition of modern Europe. Of course, we don’t mean, nor did Hopkins, that there’s anything wrong about sea-travel; after all, Dante used the image of a boat all through his Comedy as the image of the soul, the human reality, the Church, and the spiritual life. But the modern powered-ship is rather like an airplane or a rocket—the wonder, near-divine, of modern Man; and something like September 11th or the Space Shuttle disaster, which reminds us of our mortality and fallibility, all the more strikingly glaring in the context of our arrogance. Though modern man be modern, he is no more divine than medieval or ancient man or even cave-man. Man is Man, or “dust!” Yet, yet once we admit Death, then we can start to see the reality of God’s love and blessing.

The 1875 voyage of the Deutschland was as real as the voyage of the Titanic—and on board were those nuns, fleeing the anti-Catholic laws of the newly united Germany (“Deutschland”, by the way, soon to be wrecked!). Thus Hopkins has set up, in this telling of the tale, a real thing which can carry the spiritual significance of the boat in Dante. What magic and what blessing will be in its telling!

On Saturday sailed from Bremen,
American-outward-bound,
Take settler and seamen, tell men with women,
Two hundred souls in the round—
O Father, not under thy feathers nor ever as guessing
The goal was a shoal, of a fourth the doom to be drowned;
Yet did the dark side of the bay of thy blessing
Not vault them, the million of rounds of thy mercy not reeve even them in?

Death in the Wreck

2005-12-14T08:57:00.000-08:00

The opening stanza of Hopkins' great poem's second part is about Death.

Death. A painful, ugly topic--yet a fact, a universal fact for every one of us.

This stanza, stanza 11, is a meditation on Death--putting the entire poem in the context of Death. "Dust!" is our universal, common destiny. Death is a real thing--metaphysical debates aside. Perhaps this is why tales of shipwreck are so effectively romantic--because a tale of a shipwreck mythologizes our common fate. We are all on the Titanic, all on the Deutschland.

Hopkins has Death speak and use the many names, many experiences, by which people encounter Death--sword, flange, rail, flame, fang, flood. But the image of the shipwreck is a powerful poetic image that puts us all on the deck of Death.

Perhaps that is why the greatest cheezey movie of all time--James Cameron's Titanic--was so powerful a film for so many millions of people. Despite the inelegant dialogue, the tale of Leonardo di Caprio & Kate Winslett on the Titanic was a kind of romantic universal myth of the situation of everyone--in the face of the fact of Death, the point is how we face it, what we do, how we act, to what and to whom do we give outselves. Some choose to struggle for life against everyone else, some with a few others; some make their art or their music, while some do their duty of rank or office; some kill thmselves in despair, some just get drunk; and some--Jack & Rose in the movie--offer themselves for each other in a self-sacrificial romantic Love that prefigures Christian love and Christ's sacrifice. No wonder Rose uses words like "He saved me."!

In the face of Death, Leo (Jack) & Kate (Rose) live for Love. Their romantic, secular example in Titanic is a myth for all of us: since we are all on the Titanic, since we are all, inevitably, ultimately, every one of us, going to die, thus how we face that absolutely real fact is the very existential definition of our lives. In Titanic, we weep with a grief that is Joy for Leo & Kate, for Jack & Rose, because in the face of Death they live for Love. And like Titanic, Hopkins' poem is of the same genre--in the face of Death, a Tall Nun calls out "O Christ, Christ, come quickly!" And like Titanic, Hopkins' poem, through exploring the most profoundly sad experience, ultimately expresses not only Hope but joyful, glorious Hope! But for that Hope to be truly Hopeful, we must first risk hopelessness in the real fact of Death. "All flesh is grass, and its beauty is the beauty of the flowers: the flowers wither, the grass fades, but the Word of the Lord remains forever!"

Hopkins' second part of the "Wreck" reminds us that in the midst of life we are on the deck of a sinking ship:

‘Some find me a sword; some
The flange and the rail; flame,
Fang, or flood’ goes Death on drum,
And storms bugle his fame.
But wé dream we are rooted in earth—Dust!
Flesh falls within sight of us, we, though our flower the same,
Wave with the meadow, forget that there must
The sour scythe cringe, and the blear share come.

The Rest of the Wreck

2005-12-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

Hopkins’ great Wreck of the Deutschland unveils the reality of Christ and the human person in the tale of the wreck of a ship, the Deutschland, in a storm in the Thames—a ship coming from Bremen en route to America. Amongst the passengers were a group of Franciscan nuns, exiled from Germany on account of the anti-Catholic German laws of the time. That their exile was also the hour of their death by drowning became a symbol for Hopkins of the reality of human life in our difficult world, but also an inspiring account of the nuns’ witness to Christ by unity with His cross.

As the First Part--the first ten stanzas--served as a kind of “First Principle and Foundation” or spiritual background of the encounter between God and the human person, so now the Second Part tells the story of the ship, the storm, the wreck, and the heroic witness of one of the nuns, whom we will call the Tall Nun, who calls out, “Christ, come quickly” at the climax of the poem.

Hans Urs von Balthasar pointed out in The Glory of the Lord:

“But the ultimate for Hopkins remains still his shipwreck poems, because here the foundering and shattering of all worldly images and symbols yield a final picture of the sacrament of the world: perishing and ascending to God—death as Resurrection: Resurrection not beyond death but in death. The nun on the foaming deck, who from the midst of the tumult of the elements cries ‘Christ, come quickly’—she cries to her Redeemer in and through the elements: ‘christens her wild-worst Best.’ The wreck is as a harvest (‘the goal was a shoal’); everything alive was washed away (‘lives at last were washing away’). Foundering in God—that is the high point of the poem—man finds nothing more to cling on to, not his longing nor reward nor Heaven nor any of God’s attributes, for beyond all that there is nothing but Him alone: ‘Ipse, the only one’—the self beyond any nature. Here the poet rejoices because the ‘heart right’ (cor rectum), the ‘single eye’ of the parable, is capable of the highest: to interpret the formless and unformable chaos of the night as form and in the senselessness of pure question to know the who and the why.”

So let’s explore this “Second Part” of Hopkins’ great poem as we await the coming of Christ!

Godhead here in hiding

2005-11-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

Gerard Manley Hopkins offers this translation of the famed Eucharistic hymn of St Thomas Aquinas, Adoro te devote.

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.

On the cross thy godhead made no sign to men,
Here thy very manhood steals from human ken:
Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.

I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he;
Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move,
Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.

O thou our reminder of Christ crucified,
Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died,
Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind,
There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.

Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;
Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what thy bosom ran---
Blood whereof a single drop has power to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.

Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so,
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light
And be blest for ever with thy glory's sight. Amen.

Hopkins' God, Three-Numbered Form

2005-11-12T09:36:00.000-08:00

So now for the rest of the stanzas of "Part One" of The Wreck of the Deutschland. Remember, these first ten stanzas are rather like a meditation on God and the person, rather like a "first principle and foundation" for the "spiritual exercise" that is the "Part Two", the tale of the exiled & drowned nuns. These ten stanzas explore the relationship of God and the person, climaxing in a doxology to the Holy Trinity.

“Not out of his bliss”—Stanza Six—describes the stress, explores God’s instressing of the World—which Hopkins deems not as easy and cheap grace but rather as a “stroke and a stress” in a moment of time, in reality. We meet God in “stars and storms”, and “it rides time like riding a river.” The “river” here is many things—the river of life, the river of the Red Sea, death & life both, the water of baptism, the moment of conversion and transformation and Paschal Mystery.

And in Stanza Seven, Hopkins describes the stroke as the intervention, the eruption, the love-stroke of God into human history—the Incarnation. Thus Hopkins describes and makes visual in erotic terms the theology of Nature and Grace. And he indicates that this doctrine is a real historical actual thing that not all men actually know, “faithful” and “faithless”. I like the phrase “the faithless fable and miss”, because it implies a real Beauty at first in fables that ultimately remains unfulfilled because unreal; and it reminds me of the phrase in the very first stanza of the whole poem—“I feel they finger and find thee”—because it implies that the Christian relationship with God is no fabling that fails but a real lovemaking, because it is a real thing. “It dates from day of his going in Galilee.” And even the imagery of the river in these two stanzas is erotic—“hushed” . .”flushed” . . .”melt” . . .”riding a river” . . .”waver” . . .”fable and miss” . . .”dense . . .driven” . . .”sweat” . . .”discharge” . . .”swelling” . . .”felt” . . .”high flood” . . .and since it’s all about the heart whose guilt is “hushed”, so now this heart is “hard” . . .and then, in Stanza Eight, is “Is out with it !Oh, we lash with the best or worst word last!” That’s all pretty sexy penning to describe Grace and the specifics of the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery. But there it all is—and Hopkins thus in his poem-making celebrates the very flesh of the God-made-flesh!

And this beautiful penning becomes almost exciting in this Stanza Eight, more so perhaps even than Melville in the famed chapter in Moby Dick, in which the whalers celebrate in the very sperm and flesh of the sperm-whale. Hopkins' image for it here is a plum a "sloe" and how it bursts on the tongue and face. It is the real encounter with the living God, Incarnate, present, linked to the real Calvary, His real “feet”, and it is an experience of real Grace, no mere intellectualizing: “Never ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it—men go!” Our relationship with God is more exciting than anything! And the love-nest of this relationship is the nest of an Altar, the Altar of the Cross.

And the result—Doxology! “Be adored among men” begins Stanza Nine, in an invocation of the “Three-numbered form” of the Holy Trinity, and an act of gratitude that God’s Love can be found even in our suffering, “with wrecking and storm.” And this “lightning and love” is “past telling of tongue”, as St Paul once wrote, but yet Hopkins, in his jammed and crammed and crunched poem tells it.

Stanzas Nine & Ten are a prayer for conversion, like St Paul’s or St Augustine’s. Indeed, for a forging. As is all Christian spirituality—but oh, how much more exciting, more beautiful, more flesh-evocative is Hopkins’ poem than the insipid and pallid phrase “Christian spirituality” which so easily goes Gnostic. Hopkins’ sacramental poetry saves spirituality from itself!

Enough of my commentary. Read it all here for yourself . . .and remember, it’s all an Ignatian First Principle and Foundation for the tale of the exiled nuns, the Wreck of the Deutschland (that phrase itself has multiple meanings!) and real faith in Jesus Christ!

Not out of his bliss
Springs the stress felt
Nor first from heaven (and few know this)
Swings the stroke dealt—
Stroke and a stress that stars and storms deliver,
That guilt is hushed by, hearts are flushed by and melt—
But it rides time like riding a river
(And here the faithful waver, the faithless fable and miss).

It dates from day
Of his going in Galilee;
Warm-laid grave of a womb-life grey;
Manger, maiden’s knee;
The dense and the driven Passion, and frightful sweat;
Thence the discharge of it, there its swelling to be,
Though felt before, though in high flood yet—
What none would have known of it, only the heart, being hard at bay,

Is out with it! Oh,
We lash with the best or worst
Word last! How a lush-kept plush-capped sloe
Will, mouthed to flesh-burst,
Gush!—flush the man, the being with it, sour or sweet,
Brim, in a flash, full!—Hither then, last or first,
To hero of Calvary, Christ, ’s feet—
Never ask if meaning it, wanting it, warned of it—men go.

Be adored among men,
God, three-numberèd form;
Wring thy rebel, dogged in den,
Man’s malice, with wrecking and storm.
Beyond saying sweet, past telling of tongue,
Thou art lightning and love, I found it, a winter and warm;
Father and fondler of heart thou hast wrung:
Hast thy dark descending and most art merciful then.

With an anvil-ding
And with fire in him forge thy will
Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring
Through him, melt him but master him still:
Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul,
Or as Austin, a lingering-out sweet skill,
Make mercy in all of us, out of us all
Mastery, but be adored, but be adored King.

Balthasar on Hopkins

2005-11-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

The remaining stanzas of “Part One” of The Wreck of the Deutschland well sing of that personal wrestling-relationship between the person and God—which Hopkins himself certainly experienced, in his vocation as a Poet, yes, and most of all in his vocation as a Jesuit.

Balthasar, in The Glory of the Lord, describes this relationship quite exquisitely---“the always unique oneness of the individual form that only emerges in the Christian encounter between the absolutely personal and free God and the fully personal creature—here alone truly ‘monos pros monon’ [alone with the Alone]—and just this fundamental experience had to lead Hopkins back to Ignatius and his Spiritual Exercises, where for the first time in the history of Christian spirituality everything is placed on the knife edge of the mutual election that takes place between God and man, behind which retreats any consideration of ‘perfection in general’. Here are dissolved all the confusing clouds of the mythical in order to uncover the absolute, hard reality in which alone the true glory of being shines forth.”

We certainly experience this poetically, most strongly, in Stanza Five—“I kiss my hand”. It is a salute, a loving salute to God in starlight, thunder, and sunset. One is reminded of the chivalric courtesy of Ignatius, as well as the romantic gestures of all poets, the total giving, the gratuitous generosity, the particular hard reality and the sweet spectacular uniqueness of a Vocation and a Response. “I kiss my hand” to God’s revelation of His Beauty, in the here and now, and in the beyond.

We are reminded, too, that gazing upwards at the stars is a sign of Man’s eternal vocation and destiny. And here too Hopkins describes God as the instress of the World—the energy, the be-ing, the let-be-ing that makes the World both that it is and what it is. Hopkins also indicates at least two modes in which he knows God—when he meets or experiences Him, and when he understands Him. And that the poet says “and bless when I understand” hints that real understanding happens only once in a while. But the salute, the generous gesture, is the continual response to the Call, the response to Beauty!

I kiss my hand
To the stars, lovely-asunder
Starlight, wafting him out of it; and
Glow, glory in thunder;
Kiss my hand to the dappled-with-damson west:
Since, tho’ he is under the world’s splendour and wonder,
His mystery must be instressed, stressed;
For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.

Balthasar saw & heard this vision of Beauty in Hopkins' sacramental poetry!

Hopkins' Wreck's Relationship

2005-11-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

These first ten stanzas of Hopkins’ The Wreck of the Deutschland form “Part One” of the poem---and they sing the wrestled relationship of the person and God. “Part Two” sings the tale of the death by shipwreck & drowning of the exiled German nuns.

Stanza Four is repose after sudden climax—“I am soft sift”—but it is an active, acted up repose that is still a responsiveness: and that is the Gospel lifestyle. In these dense, rich metaphors, Hopkins gives us a vision of the Beauty of a lifestyle of Grace. Such a life is like two things—sand in an hourglass, water in a well. Either way, we cling to Him, spent, spending, suspended. “Hourglass”, of course, implies time, irreversible, moment by moment, hour by hour, in which we live. And the Gospel lifestyle is one of motion—like, perhaps,in a third image, a ship roped to the dock, roped with the strictures of Christ, which are described as “a vein”. And we know whose vein, and we know our veins too. Thus Hopkins jams more meaning in, almost more than any one word can carry. Thus he is like Pindar and Virgil.

This lifestyle of Grace—“Christ’s gift.” Hopkins shows us—and this is why Balthasar so emphasizes Hopkins in The Glory of the Lord—the Beauty of the relationship with Christ.

I am soft sift
In an hourglass—at the wall
Fast, but mined with a motion, a drift,
And it crowds and it combs to the fall;
I steady as a water in a well, to a poise, to a pane,
But roped with, always, all the way down from the tall
Fells or flanks of the voel, a vein
Of the gospel proffer, a pressure, a principle, Christ’s gift.

The Wreck's Wrestling-Match

2005-11-09T07:17:00.000-08:00

The first three stanzas of The Wreck of the Deutschland are as erotic as Tristan und Isolde and describe a three-part climax of spiritual movement—1) God’s mastering call; 2) the person’s swooning response; and 3) the explosion of union. And they root this love-making in the Blessed Sacrament at Mass, or in the Tabernacle during an hour of silent adoration, the “Host” . . .and further, “with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host”. This is no mythic generalized spirituality but rather a real thing, a real love-making with the real God Who became a real Man in Jesus Christ, sacrificing Himself on the Cross and rising from the dead, ascending to this Father and sending His Holy Spirit so that we could encounter Him, know Him, and become one in Him in the Eucharist.

I did say yes
O at lightning and lashed rod;
Thou heardst me truer than tongue confess
Thy terror, O Christ, O God;
Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour and night:
The swoon of a heart that the sweep and the hurl of thee trod
Hard down with a horror of height:
And the midriff astrain with leaning of, laced with fire of stress.

The frown of his face
Before me, the hurtle of hell
Behind, where, where was a, where was a place?
I whirled out wings that spell
And fled with a fling of the heart to the heart of the Host.
My heart, but you were dovewinged, I can tell,
Carrier-witted, I am bold to boast,
To flash from the flame to the flame then, tower from the grace to the grace.

Stanza Two confirms this metaphor of the wrestling with God: “I did say yes.” It is a wrestling at night, at prayer, in a chapel—and it is a “swoon” and a “sweep” and a “hurl” and a “midriff . . .laced with fire of stress.” It is a moment when Hopkins says Yes to the call of God—in his own life, perhaps the call to join the Roman Catholic Church or to enter the Jesuits, or perhaps some other night of prayer. It is a moment of a response to God, and an urgent response to an urgent call. This is a real experience, a real thing, . . .and it has been so in the lives of many real Christian persons.

Stanza Three---“the frown of his face” is God’s judgement ahead, “the hurtle of hell” is the penalty, and the person becomes a “dovewinged” dove, “carrier-witted” who flies at the Blessed Sacrament in an aim described as both “fire” and “grace.” Even this climax of rest is an explosion.

Balthasar sees that Hopkins’ poem is the landscape on which the real person encounters the real God—especially in the hour of decision, of choice, of answer, of personal response to a call, of personal vocation, of encounter.

Hopkins' Masterpiece

2005-11-07T07:48:00.000-08:00

The Wreck of the Deutschland, of course, is Hopkins’ masterpiece—an artistic and a moral masterpiece. For in a Crisis of Impossibility, it is a cry of Faith.

The drama of the poem’s occasion—the death of the exiled German nuns by shipwreck—and the drama of the poet’s situation—the wrestling-match of the encounter between the real person and the real God—are revealed in the poem’s first word, “Thou”, and the poem’s last word, “Lord”. The poem is “Thou Lord.” And everything in-between is the Paschal Mystery—the relationship between the human person and Jesus Christ.

The first stanza—“Thou mastering me God!”—sings with an almost erotic frankness of the wrestling-match of God and the person. God is awesome—as master, creator, teacher, dread doom, divine and human savior. Merely the perception of God, merely the experience of God, merely the addressing of God in the daring, wonderful, heatbreaking syllable “Thou” reveals more theology than all the intellectual constructions of the philosophers, as Pascal knew.

And while I’m certain Hopkins did not wittingly intend an erotic aura, I cannot help but notice that this stanza, concerning the relationship between the real person and the true God, all following the invocation “Thou”, includes a progression of words—“mastering me” . . .”breath” . ..”sway” . . .”bound bones and veins” . . .”fastened me flesh” . . .”touch me afresh” . . .”over again” . . .”feel” . . .finger” . ..”find”. Of course, Hopkins pens in the tradition of The Song of Songs and the canticles of St John of the Cross.

No wonder Balthasar chose Hopkins as a star in the constellation of The Glory of the Lord!

Thou mastering me
God! giver of breath and bread;
World’s strand, sway of the sea;
Lord of living and dead;
Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,
And after it almost unmade, what with dread,
Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.

Hopkins

2005-11-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

It is fascinating that Balthasar devotes a whole chapter to Gerard Manley Hopkins, as one of his stars in the constellation of theologies.

Hopkins spies God in a seeing of Beauty. The created world reveals God's Truth, God's Goodness, God's Beauty--God's very being by showing forth God's Beauty. Hopkins' "God's Grandeur" sings of God's glory in Creation, Man's fallen nature, and salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the descent of the Holy Ghost. The concision and crunch of the words forces us to pay attention to it, as if (as if!?!) the poet were talking, singing about real things that matter. This is a vision more true, more real than mere materialism, naturalism, cynicism, or even political ideology.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

The whole Easter Vigil shows itself in this poem!

Pope Benedict on Death

2005-11-03T08:07:00.000-08:00

As Fr Ryan said last night in his homily at St James Cathedral in Seattle, we have been made well aware of death of late, by the deaths of our own loved ones, and also by the disasters of war, flood, & earthquake in this year of far too much death. So how do we, in Fr Ryan's poignant words, make friends with death.

Pope Benedict too addressed this point yesterday, in his audience on All Souls:

"After celebrating yesterday the solemn feast of all the saints of heaven, today we remember all the deceased faithful. The liturgy invites us to pray for all our loved ones who have passed away, turning our thoughts to the mystery of death, common heritage of all people.

"Illuminated by faith, we look at the human enigma of death with serenity and hope. According to Scripture, the latter in fact is not an end but a new birth, it is the imperative passage through which the fullness of life may be attained by those who model their earthly existence according to the indications of the Word of God."

Pope Benedict then commented on Psalm 111 (112):

"Psalm 111(112), a composition of a sapiential nature, presents to us the figure of these just ones, who fear the Lord, acknowledge his transcendence and adhere with trust and love to his will in the expectation of encountering him after death.

"Docility to God is, therefore, the root of hope and interior and exterior harmony. Observance of the moral law is the source of profound peace of conscience. In fact, according to the biblical vision of \"retribution,\" over the just is extended the mantle of divine blessing, which imprints stability and success on his works and those of his descendants: \"Their descendants shall be mighty in the land, a generation upright and blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in their homes\" (verses 2-3; cf. verse 9).

"However, to this optimistic vision are opposed the bitter observations of the just Job, who experiences the mystery of sorrow, feels himself unjustly punished and subjected to apparently senseless trials. Job represents many just people who suffer profoundly in the world. It is necessary, therefore, to read this psalm in the global context of Revelation, which embraces the reality of human life in all its aspects.

"However, the trust continues to be valid, which the psalmist wishes to transmit and be experienced by him who has chosen to follow the way of morally irreprehensible conduct, against all alternatives of illusory success obtained through injustice and immorality."

The Holy Father then juxtaposes death and life and eternal life, by meditating on holiness and blessedness of the good person who loves God and loves neighbor:

"On this day in which we commemorate the dead, as I was saying at the beginning of our meeting, we are all called to face the enigma of death and, therefore, the question of how to live well, how to find happiness. Above all, the psalm responds: Blessed is the man who gives; blessed is the man who does not spend his life for himself, but gives it; blessed is the man who is merciful, good and just; blessed is the man who lives in the love of God and of his neighbor. In this way, we live well and do not have to be afraid of death, as we live in the happiness that comes from God and that has no end."

(Besides the inspiring and evocative meditation on death, the Pope gives us his own example of preaching that is of such breathtaking clarity, integrity, and symmetry, of such marvelous Beauty!)

For All Souls

2005-11-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

Newman's vision is of a soul who desires purgation in order to be made worthy & capable of the vision of God: it is a beautiful vision. It roots our relationship with God, even our relationship through death on such a celebration as All Souls Day, in Love, in Eros even, indeed in our longing and desire for God, a longing God has put in us. Thus Purgatory, for Newman, as for Dante, is Love.

Of course, Edward Elgar famously set this all to exquisite music:

Soul
I go before my Judge. Ah! ….

Angel
…. Praise to His Name!
The eager spirit has darted from my hold,
And, with the intemperate energy of love,
Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel;
But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity,
Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes
And circles round the Crucified, has seized,
And scorch'd, and shrivell'd it; and now it lies
Passive and still before the awful Throne.
O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe,
Consumed, yet quicken'd, by the glance of God.

Soul
Take me away, and in the lowest deep
There let me be,
And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,
Told out for me.
There, motionless and happy in my pain,
Lone, not forlorn,—
There will I sing my sad perpetual strain,
Until the morn.
There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,
Which ne'er can cease
To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest
Of its Sole Peace.
There will I sing my absent Lord and Love:—
Take me away,
That sooner I may rise, and go above,
And see Him in the truth of everlasting day.

--from John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Dream of Gerontius

For All the Saints

2005-11-01T07:48:00.000-08:00

It's the obvious hymn--but as with most hymns, a reading (and singing) of all the verses rewards such close attention. See how the song calls us to a heavenly host, a marching-song, as it were, even as the Church Militant becomes the Church Triumphant. And we sing, as the King of Glory passes on His way!

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the apostles' glorious company,
who bearing forth the cross o'er land and sea,
shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
is fair and fruitful, be thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
and seeing, grasped it, thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
and win, with them the victor's crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
we feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
the saints triumphant rise in bright array;
the King of glory passes on his way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
and singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

On All Hallows' Eve---Benedict XV on Dante

2005-10-31T09:13:00.000-08:00

In 1921, for the 600th anniversary of Dante's death, Pope Benedict XV in In Praeclara Summorum proclaimed:

"Among the many celebrated geniuses of whom the Catholic faith can boast who have left undying fruits in literature and art especially, besides other fields of learning, and to whom civilization and religion are ever in debt, highest stands the name of Dante Alighieri, the sixth centenary of whose death will soon be recorded.

"So that while we admire the greatness and keenness of his genius, we have to recognize, too, the measure in which he drew inspiration from the Divine Faith by means of which he could beautify his immortal poems with all the lights of revealed truths as well as with the splendours of art. Indeed, his Commedia, which deservedly earned the title of Divina, while it uses various symbolic images and records the lives of mortals on earth, has for its true aim the glorification of the justice and providence of God who rules the world through time and all eternity and punishes and rewards the actions of individuals and human society. It is thus that, according to the Divine Revelation, in this poem shines out the majesty of God One and Three, the Redemption of the human race operated by the Word of God made Man, the supreme loving-kindness and charity of Mary, Virgin and Mother, Queen of Heaven, and lastly the glory on high of Angels, Saints and men; then the terrible contrast to this, the pains of the impious in Hell; then the middle world, so to speak, between Heaven and Hell, Purgatory, the Ladder of souls destined after expiation to supreme beatitude. It is indeed marvellous how he was able to weave into all three poems these three dogmas with truly wrought design.

"Therefore the divine poet depicted the triple life of souls as he imagined it in a such way as to illuminate with the light of the true doctrine of the faith the condemnation of the impious, the purgation of the good spirits and the eternal happiness of the blessed before the final judgment.

"There breathes in Alighieri the piety that we too feel; the Faith has the same meaning for us; it is covered with the same veil, "the truth given to us from on high, by which we are lifted so high." That is his great glory, to be the Christian poet, to have sung with Divine accents those Christian ideals which he so passionately loved in all the splendour of their beauty, feeling them intimately and making them his life.

"And you, beloved children, whose lot it is to promote learning under the magisterium of the Church, continue as you are doing to love and tend the noble poet whom We do not hesitate to call the most eloquent singer of the Christian idea. The more profit you draw from study of him the higher will be your culture, irradiated by the splendours of truth, and the stronger and more spontaneous your devotion to the Catholic Faith."

Kneeling Theology, Praying Theology

2005-10-30T08:19:00.000-08:00

We need a listening theology, a kneeling theology, a praying theology--not a hermeneutic of suspician, but a hermeneutic of adoration. Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn put it well, in three points, a few years ago:

"The first interest in theology has to be a common look at the object. It is not of primary interest what this or that theologian has said about Christ; rather, the passion in theology has to be to know Christ himself, to approach his mystery, to approach Christ himself.

"Who is Christ? That is the path of theology. If a theologian can help us find a better approach to Christ, that is good. But it is not my first interest to have my method, my methodology, and to defend it against others. I want to approach reality.

"The second point: Back to the masters. It is so sad to lose time with secondary authors. Read St. Irenaeus, read St. Anselm, read the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure--but do not read all the secondary stuff that floats around our libraries. In Germany there are 7,000 theological titles published every year. Who can read all this stuff without getting indention? It is much better to have read, during theological formation, the Confessions of St. Augustine, than a book about Augustine.

"Third point: the saints are the true theologians. If we consider what theology truly is, we must consider what St. Thomas Aquinas says about connaturality to the object. The study of languages is important-Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, if possible-but this is not enough if the seminarian does not grow in a certain connaturality with the object. That means he learns not only by intellect, but by experience. St. Thomas speaks, with Dionysius the Aeropagite, about the pati divina-not just to approach the things of God, the reality of God-but to suffer it, to be formed by what we study, to be tranformed by the object. This is the meaning of connaturality with what we study: familiarity with it.

"The best formation comes when we become familiar with Christ, when the Holy Spirit leads our thoughts and our heart, and grace transforms our habits. Then we judge theologically, not only by reason, but by the heart. We made a judgment not only through intellectual knowledge, but through a spiritual intuition about what is right and what is wrong. It is vital during theological studies, then, to read the saints. Isn't it true that only great intellectual capacity joined with true sanctity makes the true theologian?

"My last point is the relation between study and prayer. It is an obvious point, but one worth recalling. Theology is sound only if it is a praying theology."

What is the Good of Theology?

2005-10-29T11:36:00.000-07:00

So what is the good of reading & discussing all this theology?

The human intellect, perceiving the Beauty of God's Revelation in Jesus Christ, and receiving the Grace & Splendour of that Beauty, strives to understand it, to make sense of it, both in the context of all the rest of human knowledge as well as in the Glory of God. And it is only thus that human love can be motivated to love God and our neighbor. Thus Beauty, Truth, & Goodness are all linked, all together drawing us human beings up into God through Jesus.

And we must do this theology not in a hermeneutic of suspician but in a hermeneutic of adoration, of beholding, or reception, of bathing in the Beauty of God.

A good start---Hans Urs von Balthasar's Love Alone is Credible!

Sts Simon & Jude

2005-10-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

So little or nothing is known about these two Apostles, except their names, and even there there's some confusion of memory. (And that should be a reminder of humility to not a few bishops nowadays!) So why do we remember them with a Feast?

Well, they were Apostles, chosen, sent, the proclaimers of the New Israel, the beginnings of the new Church. And we are members of the House of God built upon those foundation stones of the Apostles.

Further, they--the Apostles--gave us the banquet of Christ's Body & Blood, the saving waters of Baptism, the cleansing forgiveness of Penance, and the words & deeds of the Sacraments.

And their sound has gone out unto all the world, and it continues to do so in their hand-picked successors the Bishops of the world--who recently gathered in Synod to pray and talk and proclaim the Beauty of the Eucharist.

So even if Sts Simon & Jude are obscure Apostles, well, so too are most of the Bishops. Yet here we are, listening, celebrating, praying, and receiving the Sacraments that draw us closer and closer into the Beauty of Jesus Christ.

Wisdom

2005-10-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

In today's Office of Readings, this beautiful passage from the Book of Wisdom sings of the Wisdom of God---and in it we can begin to explore the relationship between the inner life of the Holy Trinity, the the creation and redemption of humanity, and the pattern of human moral life.

"All that is hidden, all that is plain, I have come to know, instructed by Wisdom who designed them all.

"For within her is a spirit intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
active, incisive, unsullied,
lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, sharp,
irresistible, beneficent, loving to man,
steadfast, dependable, unperturbed,
almighty, all-surveying,
penetrating all intelligent, pure
and most subtle spirits;
for Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion;
she is so pure, she pervades and permeates all things.

"She is a breath of the power of God,
pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
hence nothing impure can find a way into her.
She is a reflection of the eternal light,
untarnished mirror of God’s active power,
image of his goodness.

"Although alone, she can do all;
herself unchanging, she makes all things new.
In each generation she passes into holy souls,
she makes them friends of God and prophets;
for God loves only the man who lives with Wisdom.
She is indeed more splendid than the sun,
she outshines all the constellations;
compared with light, she takes first place,
for light must yield to night,
but over Wisdom evil can never triumph."

Pope Benedict at 6 months

2005-10-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

Of course, it doesn't matter what I think of the Pope . . .at least, it scarcely matters what my evaluation of his first 6 months might review; but I am grateful and joyous for his words, his example, and his beauty. And I would like to point out just three examples: It is easy enough to gain copies of his speeches: if Cardinal Manning once wanted a new Papal Document on his daily breakfast table, it's simple enough nowadays with the internet!

1) On the Church: His homilies, speeches, and messages during his first 100 days as Pope, from the Election through Corpus Christi, all seemed to explore a beautiful theology of the Church. The beautiful communion that is the Church, the inner-relations of the followers of Jesus, the historical and visible reality of the Church, the apostolic communion of all the bishops and the bishop of Rome, and our communion in the Eucharist--all presented and contemplated in an evocative and wonderful manner.

2) World Youth Day: His speeches & messages throughout the visit to Cologne also make a beautiful and enriching read--all pointing toward the transformation we can experience through Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, a transformation of love that is truly revolutionary!

3) Eros & Beauty: Influenced no doubt by the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, Pope Benedict points us continually toward the Beauty of faith, the Beauty of the Love of God, the Beauty of redemption in Jesus Christ.

So much for the Grand Inquisitor! But if a quotation from Dostoyevsky is needed, we might remember the vision of the Prince in The Idiot: "The world will be saved by Beauty!"

Hurray for Pope Benedict XVI in this Springtime of the Church!

What is a Saint?

2005-10-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

With ihs beautiful clarity, Pope Benedict linked the Eucharist and being a Saint--in his homily for the close of the Synod:
"In the Eucharist, we contemplate the sacrament of this living synthesis of the law: Christ gives us, with himself, the full realization of the love for God and the love for our brothers. And this love of his, he communicates to us when we are nourished by his Body and his Blood. This is when what St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in today's reading is achieved: "You broke with the worship of false gods and became the servants of the living and true God" (1 Thessalonians 1:9). This conversion is the beginning of the path of holiness that the Christian is called to achieve in his own existence.

"The saint is he who is so fascinated by the beauty of God and by his perfect truth to be progressively transformed by it. Because of this beauty and truth, he is ready to renounce everything, even himself. The love of God is enough, which he experiences in the humble and disinterested service to the neighbor, especially to those who cannot give back in return.

"How providential, in this perspective, is the fact that today the Church points out to all its members five new saints who, nourished by Christ the living bread, were converted to love and modeled their whole existence to this! In different situations and with different charisms, they loved the Lord with all their heart and the neighbor as themselves to thus become "an example to all believers" (1 Thessalonians 1:6-7)."

The Bread of Life

2005-10-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

Little could be more theologically profound than the concept of the Friendship of Jesus, especially as Pope Benedict explained to the little children who asked:
Anna: "Dear Pope, can you explain to us what Jesus meant when he said to the people who were following him: 'I am the bread of life?'"

Benedict XVI: First of all, perhaps we should explain clearly what bread is. Today, we have a refined cuisine, rich in very different foods, but in simpler situations bread is the basic source of nourishment; and when Jesus called himself the bread of life, the bread is, shall we say, the initial, an abbreviation that stands for all nourishment.
And as we need to nourish our bodies in order to live, so we also need to nourish our spirits, our souls and our wills. As human persons, we do not only have bodies but also souls; we are thinking beings with minds and wills. We must also nourish our spirits and our souls, so that they can develop and truly attain their fulfillment.

And therefore, if Jesus says: "I am the bread of life," it means that Jesus himself is the nourishment we need for our soul, for our inner self, because the soul also needs food. And technical things do not suffice, although they are so important. We really need God's friendship, which helps us to make the right decisions. We need to mature as human beings. In other words: Jesus nourishes us so that we can truly become mature people and our lives become good.

Adriano: "Holy Father, they've told us that today we will have Eucharistic adoration. What is it? How is it done? Can you explain it to us? Thank you."

Benedict XVI: We will see straightaway what adoration is and how it is done, because everything has been properly prepared for it: We will say prayers, we will sing, kneel, and in this way we will be in Jesus' presence.
But of course, your question requires a deeper answer: not only how you do adoration but what adoration is. I would say: Adoration is recognizing that Jesus is my Lord, that Jesus shows me the way to take, and that I will live well only if I know the road that Jesus points out and follow the path he shows me.

Therefore, adoration means saying: "Jesus, I am yours. I will follow you in my life, I never want to lose this friendship, this communion with you." I could also say that adoration is essentially an embrace with Jesus in which I say to him: "I am yours, and I ask you, please stay with me always."

Now here is our great Pope who fulfills his Petrine Office by pointing us to Jesus Christ. These are words of hope. These are words of life.

Going to Mass

2005-10-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

A little guilt can do some good prodding: as the Pope answered a child who asked: Giulia: "Your Holiness, everyone tells us that it is important to go to Mass on Sunday. We would gladly go to it, but often our parents do not take us because on Sundays they sleep. The parents of a friend of mine work in a shop, and we often go to the country to visit our grandparents. Could you say something to them, to make them understand that it is important to go to Mass together on Sundays?"

Benedict XVI: I would think so, of course, with great love and great respect for your parents, because they certainly have a lot to do. However, with a daughter's respect and love, you could say to them: "Dear Mommy, dear Daddy, it is so important for us all, even for you, to meet Jesus. This encounter enriches us. It is an important element in our lives. Let's find a little time together, we can find an opportunity. Perhaps there is also a possibility where Grandma lives."

In brief, I would say, with great love and respect for your parents, I would tell them: "Please understand that this is not only important for me, it is not only catechists who say it, it is important for us all. And it will be the light of Sunday for all our family."

And this little prod is not just a nod for the private family, but also for whole societies and the whole world, as we learn in the Pope's answer to another child's question:Alessandro: "What good does it do for our everyday life to go to holy Mass and receive Communion?"

Benedict XVI: It centers life. We live amid so many things. And the people who do not go to church, do not know that it is precisely Jesus they lack. But they feel that something is missing in their lives. If God is absent from my life, if Jesus is absent from my life, a guide, an essential friend is missing, even an important joy for life, the strength to grow as a man, to overcome my vices and mature as a human being.
Therefore, we cannot immediately see the effects of being with Jesus and of going to Communion. But with the passing of the weeks and years, we feel more and more keenly the absence of God, the absence of Jesus. It is a fundamental and destructive incompleteness. I could easily speak of countries where atheism has prevailed for years: how souls are destroyed, but also the earth. In this way we can see that it is important, and I would say fundamental, to be nourished by Jesus in Communion. It is he who gives us enlightenment, offers us guidance for our lives, a guidance that we need.

The Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist

2005-10-22T10:12:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict instructs us all . . .and would that we were all as the little child who asked:
Andrea: "In preparing me for my First Communion day, my catechist told me that Jesus is present in the Eucharist. But how? I can't see him!"

Benedict XVI: No, we cannot see him, but there are many things that we do not see but they exist and are essential. For example: we do not see our reason, yet we have reason. We do not see our intelligence and we have it. In a word: we do not see our soul and yet it exists and we see its effects, because we can speak, think and make decisions, etc. Nor do we see an electric current, for example, yet we see that it exists; we see this microphone, that it is working, and we see lights. Therefore, we do not see the very deepest things, those that really sustain life and the world, but we can see and feel their effects. This is also true for electricity; we do not see the electric current but we see the light.

So it is with the Risen Lord: We do not see him with our eyes but we see that wherever Jesus is, people change, they improve. A greater capacity for peace, for reconciliation, etc., is created. Therefore, we do not see the Lord himself but we see the effects of the Lord: So we can understand that Jesus is present. And as I said, it is precisely the invisible things that are the most profound, the most important. So let us go to meet this invisible but powerful Lord who helps us to live well.

The Cleansing of the Soul

2005-10-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

Perhaps if we really wanted to learn the best relationship between the Eucharist and Confession, we might all follow Pope Benedict's advice to the little child who asked . . .

Livia: "Holy Father, before the day of my First Communion I went to confession. I have also been to confession on other occasions. I wanted to ask you: Do I have to go to confession every time I receive Communion, even when I have committed the same sins? Because I realize that they are always the same."

Benedict XVI: I will tell you two things. The first, of course, is that you do not always have to go to confession before you receive Communion unless you have committed such serious sins that they need to be confessed. Therefore, it is not necessary to make one's confession before every Eucharistic Communion. This is the first point. It is only necessary when you have committed a really serious sin, when you have deeply offended Jesus, so that your friendship is destroyed and you have to start again. Only in that case, when you are in a state of "mortal" sin, in other words, grave [sin], is it necessary to go to confession before Communion. This is my first point.

My second point: Even if, as I said, it is not necessary to go to confession before each Communion, it is very helpful to confess with a certain regularity. It is true: Our sins are always the same, but we clean our homes, our rooms, at least once a week, even if the dirt is always the same; in order to live in cleanliness, in order to start again. Otherwise, the dirt might not be seen but it builds up.

Something similar can be said about the soul, for me myself: If I never go to confession, my soul is neglected and in the end I am always pleased with myself and no longer understand that I must always work hard to improve, that I must make progress. And this cleansing of the soul which Jesus gives us in the sacrament of confession helps us to make our consciences more alert, more open, and hence, it also helps us to mature spiritually and as human persons. Therefore, two things: Confession is only necessary in the case of a serious sin, but it is very helpful to confess regularly in order to foster the cleanliness and beauty of the soul and to mature day by day in life.

Catachesis & Disputation

2005-10-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

For all the disputations & interventions & discussions at the Synod, one could exchange them all for a few moments with the Holy Father in his First Communion catachesis for children. A child asked him:
Andrea [asked the first question]: "Dear Pope, what are your memories of your First Communion day?"

Benedict XVI: I would first like to say thank you for this celebration of faith that you are offering to me, for your presence and for your joy. I greet you and thank you for the hug I have received from some of you, a hug that, of course, symbolically stands for you all.

As for the question, of course I remember my First Communion day very well. It was a lovely Sunday in March 1936, 69 years ago. It was a sunny day, the church looked very beautiful, there was music. ... There were so many beautiful things that I remember. There were about 30 of us, boys and girls from my little village of no more than 500 inhabitants.

But at the heart of my joyful and beautiful memories is this one -- and your spokesperson said the same thing: I understood that Jesus had entered my heart, he had actually visited me. And with Jesus, God himself was with me. And I realized that this is a gift of love that is truly worth more than all the other things that life can give.
So on that day I was really filled with great joy, because Jesus came to me and I realized that a new stage in my life was beginning, I was 9 years old, and that it was henceforth important to stay faithful to that encounter, to that communion. I promised the Lord as best I could: "I always want to stay with you," and I prayed to him, "but above all, stay with me." So I went on living my life like that; thanks be to God, the Lord has always taken me by the hand and guided me, even in difficult situations.
Thus, that day of my First Communion was the beginning of a journey made together. I hope that for all of you too, the First Communion you have received in this Year of the Eucharist will be the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Jesus, the beginning of a journey together, because in walking with Jesus we do well and life becomes good.

Homily at the Synod, part 4

2005-10-19T18:17:00.000-07:00

"We come to the third element of today's readings. The Lord, in both the Old and New Testament, announced the judgment of the unfaithful vineyard. The judgment that Isaiah foresaw has been realized in the great wars and exiles imposed by the Assyrians and Babylonians. The judgment, announced by the Lord Jesus, refers above all to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70.

"But the threat of judgment affects us also, the Church in Europe, the Church of the West in general. With this Gospel the Lord also cries out in our ears the words he addressed in Revelation to the Church in Ephesus: "I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent" (2:5). The light can also be taken away from us, and we would do well to allow this warning in all its seriousness to resonate in our souls, crying out at the same time to the Lord: "Help us to be converted! Give us the grace of an authentic renewal! Do not permit the light to be extinguished among us! Reinforce our faith, our hope and our love so that we can bear good fruit!"

"At this point, a question arises: "But, is there not a promise, a word of consolation in today's reading and evangelical page? Is the threat the last word?" No! There is a promise and it is the last word, the essential one. We hear it in the alleluia verse, taken from John's Gospel: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, it is he that bears much fruit" (John 15:5).

"With these words of the Lord, John illustrates for us the last, the authentic end of the history of God's vineyard -- God does not fail. At the end, he triumphs -- love triumphs. There is already a veiled allusion to this in the parable of the vineyard proposed by today's Gospel and in its conclusive words. In it, the son's death is not the end of history, although it does not say so directly. But Jesus expresses this death through a new image taken from the Psalm: "The very stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" (Matthew 21:42; Psalm 117:22).

"From the son's death life arises, a new building is made, a new vineyard. In Cana, he changed the water into wine, he transformed his blood into the wine of true love and in this way transforms the wine into his blood. In the Cenacle he anticipated his death and transformed in into the gift of himself, in an act of radical love. His blood is gift, it is love and for this reason it is the true wine that the creator was expecting. In this way, Christ himself became the vineyard and that vineyard always bears good fruit -- the presence of his love for us, which is indestructible.

"These words converge in the end in the mystery of the Eucharist, in which the Lord gives us the bread of life and the wine of his love and invites us to the feast of eternal love. We celebrate the Eucharist with the awareness that its price was the son's death, the sacrifice of his life, which remains present in it. Every time we eat this bread and drink this chalice, we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes, says St. Paul (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:26).

"But we also know that from this death life arises, as Jesus transformed it in a gesture of oblation, into an act of love, transforming it profoundly: Love has conquered death. In the holy Eucharist, from the cross he draws all men to himself (John 12:32) and he converts us into branches of the vine, which is himself. If we remain united to him, then we will also bear fruit, then we will no longer bear the vinegar of self-sufficiency, of the discontent of God and of his creation, but the good wine of God's joy and of love of neighbor.

"Let us pray to the Lord to grant us his grace so that in the three weeks of the synod that we are beginning not only will we say beautiful things about the Eucharist, but we will live from his strength. Let us pray for the gift through Mary, dear synodal fathers, whom I greet with affection, together with the different communities that you come from and that you here represent, so that being docile to the action of the Holy Spirit we might be able to help the world to be converted -- in Christ and with Christ -- into the fruitful vine of God. Amen."

--from Pope Benedict XVI's homily at the opening of the Synod on the Eucharist

Homily at the Synod, part 3

2005-10-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

"In this way, we have come to the second fundamental thought of today's readings. It speaks above all of the goodness of God's creation and of the greatness of the election with which he seeks and loves us. But it also speaks about the history that occurred later, man's failure.

"God had planted choice vines and yet they yielded wild grapes. What are the wild grapes? The good grapes that God expected, says the prophet, would have consisted in justice and uprightness. Wild grapes on the contrary are violence, the shedding of blood and oppression, which make people groan under the yoke of injustice.

"In the Gospel, the image changes: The vineyard produces good grapes, but the tenant winegrowers keep them. They are not willing to give them to the proprietor. They beat and kill his messengers and kill his son. Their motivation is simple: They want to become proprietors; they take what does not belong to them.

"In the Old Testament, what appears first of all is the accusation of the violation of social justice, contempt for man by man. Deep down, however, one sees that with contempt for the Torah, for the law given by God, there is contempt for God himself; there is only a desire to enjoy power itself. This aspect is fully underlined in Jesus' parable: The tenants do not want to have a master and these tenants serve as a mirror for us, men, who usurp the creation which has been entrusted to us to manage.

"We want to be the sole owners in the first person. We want to possess the world and our own life in an unlimited manner. God annoys us or we make of him a simple devout phrase or deny him altogether, eradicating him from public life, so that in this way he no longer has any meaning at all. Tolerance that only admits God as a private opinion, but that denies him the public domain, the reality of the world and of our life, is not tolerance but hypocrisy.

"Whenever man becomes the only owner of the world and proprietor of himself there can be no justice. Only the expedient of power and interests con dominate there. It is true, the son can be expelled from the vineyard and killed to enjoy selfishly the fruits of the earth. But then the vineyard soon becomes an uncultivated plot, trampled on by wild boars, as the responsorial psalm says (cf. Psalm 79:14)."

--Pope Benedict XVI, from the Homily for the opening of the Synod

Homily at the Synod, part 2

2005-10-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

"The first thought of today's reading is this: God has infused in man, created in his image, the capacity to love and, consequently, the capacity to love him, his creator. With the prophet Isaiah's canticle of love, God wanted to speak to the heart of his people and also to each one of us.

""I have created you in my image and likeness," he tells us. "I myself am love and you are my image in the measure that the splendor of love shines in you, in the measure in which you respond to me with love."

"God waits for us. He wants us to love Him: Should not such a call touch our hearts? Precisely in this hour, in which we celebrate the Eucharist, in which we open the Synod on the Eucharist, He comes to meet us, He comes to meet me. Will he find a response? Or will it be with us as it was with the vineyard, of which God says in Isaiah: "he looked for it to yield grapes but it yielded wild grapes." Is not our life often, perhaps, more vinegar than wine? Self-pity, conflict, indifference?"

--Pope Benedict XVI, from the homily for the opening of the Synod

Homily at the Synod

2005-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

"This Sunday's readings, taken from the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel, present us with one of the great images of sacred Scripture: the image of the vineyard.

"In sacred Scripture, bread represents everything man needs for his daily life. Water gives the earth fertility: It is the fundamental gift that makes life possible. Wine, on the contrary, expresses the exquisiteness of creation, it gives us the feast that goes beyond the limits of daily life: Wine "gladdens the heart."

"In this way, wine and with it the vine have also become the image of the gift of love, in which we can have a certain experience of the taste of the divine. And so the reading of the prophet, which we just heard, begins with a canticle of love: God created a vineyard, image of his history of love with humanity, of his love for Israel which he chose."

--Pope Benedict XVI, homily for the opening of the Synod on the Eucharist

Benedict XVI on the Kenotic Hymn, part 3

2005-09-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

"Let us conclude our reflection with a great witness of the Eastern tradition, Theodoret who was bishop of Cyrus, in Syria, in the fifth century: "The Incarnation of our Savior represents the highest fulfillment of the divine solicitude for men. In fact, neither heaven, nor earth, nor the sea, nor the air, nor the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, nor the whole visible and invisible universe, created only by his Word or rather brought to the light by his Word, according to his will, indicate his incommensurable goodness as does the fact that the only-begotten Son of God, He who subsisted in the nature of God (see Philippians 2:6), reflection of his glory, mark of his substance (see Hebrews 1:3), who in the beginning was with God and was God, through whom all things were made (see John 1:1-3), after having assumed the nature of a servant, appeared in the form of man, by his human figure was considered as a man, was seen on earth, had relationships with men, bore our infirmities and took our illnesses upon himself" ("Discorsi sulla Provvidenza Divina" [Discourses on Divine Providence], 10: "Collana di Testi Patristici" [Collection of Patristic Texts], LXXV, Rome, 1988, pp. 250-251).

"Theodoret of Cyrus continues his reflection, shedding light on the very close relationship underlined by the hymn of the Letter to the Philippians between the incarnation of Jesus and the redemption of men. "The Creator worked for our salvation with wisdom and justice. Because he did not wish to make use only of his power to give us generously the gift of freedom, nor to use only mercy against the one who has subjected the human race, so that he would not accuse mercy of injustice, he devised a way full of love for men and at the same time adorned with justice. In fact, after having united to himself man's vanquished nature, he leads it to the struggle and disposes it to repair the defeat, to rout him who previously had iniquitously won the victory, to free man from the tyranny of which he had been cruelly made a slave and to recover his original freedom" (ibid., pp. 251-252)"

--from the Wednesday audience, 1 June 2005

Benedict XVI on the Kenotic Hymn, part 2

2005-09-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

"This radical sharing of the human condition, with the exception of sin (see Hebrews 4:15), leads Jesus to that frontier which is the sign of our finiteness and frailty, death. However, the latter is not the fruit of a dark mechanism or blind fatality: It is born from the choice of obedience to the Father's plan of salvation (see Philippians 2:8).

"The Apostle adds that the death Jesus faces is that of the cross, namely, the most degrading, thus wishing to be truly a brother of every man and woman, including those constrained to an atrocious and ignominious end.

"But precisely in his passion and death Christ attests to his free and conscious adherence to the will of the Father, as one reads in the Letter to the Hebrews: "Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered" (Hebrews 5:8).

"Let us pause here in our reflection on the first part of the Christological hymn, focused on the Incarnation and redemptive Passion. We will have the occasion later on to reflect more deeply on the subsequent itinerary, the paschal, which leads from the cross to glory. The fundamental element of this first part of the hymn, it seems to me, is the invitation to penetrate into Jesus' sentiments.

"To penetrate into Jesus' sentiments means not to consider power, wealth and prestige as the highest values in life, as in the end, they do not respond to the deepest thirst of our spirit, but to open our heart to the Other, to bear with the Other the burden of life and to open ourselves to the Heavenly Father with a sense of obedience and trust, knowing, precisely, that if we are obedient to the Father, we will be free. To penetrate into Jesus' sentiments -- this should be the daily exercise of our life as Christians."

--from the Wednesday audience, 1 June 2005

Benedict XVI on the Kenotic Hymn

2005-09-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

"Every Sunday, in the celebration of vespers, the liturgy proposes to us the brief but profound Christological hymn from the Letter to the Philippians (see 2:6-11). It is the hymn, just heard, which we consider in its first part (see verses 6-8), which delineates the paradoxical "emptying" of the divine Word, who lays aside his glory and assumes the human condition.

"Christ, incarnated and humiliated in the most infamous death, that of crucifixion, is proposed as a vital model for the Christian. The latter -- as affirmed in the context -- should have "the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus" (verse 5), sentiments of humility and selflessness, of detachment and generosity.

"Undoubtedly, he possesses divine nature with all its prerogatives. But he does not interpret and live this transcendent reality as a sign of power, of greatness, and of dominion. Christ does not use his being equal to God, his glorious dignity and his power as an instrument of triumph, sign of distance, expression of crushing supremacy (see verse 6). On the contrary, he "emptied" himself, immersing himself without reserve in the miserable and weak human condition. The divine "form" ("morphe") is hidden in Christ under the human "form" ("morphe"), that is, under our reality marked by suffering, poverty, limitation and death (see verse 7).

"It is not a question therefore of a simple clothing, of a changeable appearance, as it was believed happened to the gods of the Greco-Roman culture: It is Christ's divine reality in an authentically human experience. God does not appear only as man, but becomes man and is really one of us, he is truly "God-with-us," not content with gazing on us with a benign look from his throne of glory, but enters personally in human history, becoming "flesh," namely, fragile reality, conditioned by time and space (see John 1:14)."

--from the Wednesday audience, 1 June 2005

The Kenotic Hymn for the Eye

2005-09-27T08:37:00.000-07:00

El Greco offers this vision of the Great Deeds of Jesus as seen in the image of the Holy Trinity--the joy, the suffering, the glory. Perhaps the picture is worth a thousand words, in the sense that the Beauty of such art reveals the Beauty of the Truth. Gaze . . .and see . . .

Singing the Kenotic Hymn

2005-09-26T08:15:00.000-07:00

Caroline Noel sang the Kenotic Hymn from St Paul's Letter to the Philippians in a famous setting--and singing this version of the hymn is an experience of being caught up into the joy, the suffering, and the glory of Jesus Christ:

At the Name of Jesus
every knee shall bow,
every tongue confess him
King of glory now;
'tis the Father's pleasure
we should call him Lord,
who from the beginning
was the mighty Word.

At his voice creation
sprang at once to sight,
all the angel faces,
all the hosts of light,
Thrones and Dominations,
stars upon their way,
all the heavenly orders,
in their great array.

Humbled for a season,
to receive a Name
from the lips of sinners,
unto whom he came,
faithfully he bore it
spotless to the last,
brought it back victorious,
when from death he passed;

Bore it up triumphant,
with its human light,
through all ranks of creatures,
to the central height,
to the throne of Godhead,
to the Father's breast;
filled it with the glory
of that perfect rest.

Name him, brothers, name him,
with love as strong as death,
but with awe and wonder
and with bated breath;
he is God the Savior,
he is Christ the Lord,
ever to be worshiped,
trusted, and adored.

In your hearts enthrone him;
there let him subdue
all that is not holy,
all that is not true;
crown him as your Captain
in temptation's hour;
let his will enfold you
in its light and power.

Brothers, this Lord Jesus
shall return again,
with his Father's glory
with his angel train;
for all wreaths of empire
meet upon his brow,
and our hearts confess him
King of Glory now.

The Kenotic Hymn

2005-09-25T19:56:00.000-07:00

The second reading at today's Mass is the great kenotic hymn--so called because it sings of Jesus' kenosis or emptying of Himself into the Incarnation: the hymn is also used each week as the canticle for the First Vespers on the Eve of each Sunday:

Jesus Christ, although he shared God’s nature, did not try to seize equality with God for himself; but emptied himself, took on the form of a slave, and became like a man – not in appearance only, for he humbled himself by accepting death – even death on a cross.
For this, God has raised him high, and given him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth,
and every tongue will proclaim “Jesus Christ is Lord”, to the glory of God the Father.

This hymn, re-sung as the Christus factus est during Holy Week, sings of the great deeds of Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. It bears re-singing and re-singing, as every knee bends and every tongue sings.

The Mountains of Israel

2005-09-22T11:10:00.000-07:00

St Augustine saw "the mountains of Israel" as the Holy Scriptures: and he points us to run and rest and feed thereon. This is both a description and an example of the spiritual sense of reading Scripture:

"It was God who brought forth the mountains of Israel, that is to say, the authors of the divine Scriptures. Feed there that you may feed in safety. Whatever you hear from that source, you should savor. Whatever is foreign to it, reject. Hear the voice of the shepherd, lest you wander about in the mist. Gather at the mountains of holy Scripture. There, are the things that will delight your hearts; there , you will find nothing poisonous, nothing hostile; there, the pastures are most plentiful. There, you will be healthy sheep; you will feed safely on the mountains of Israel.

"From the mountains which we have shown you, there have issued the streams of the gospel message, because their voice has gone forth into the whole world, and every habitable place has become pleasant and fertile for the grazing sheep.

"In good pastures and on the high mountains of Israel, I shall feed them. And their grazing ground shall be there, that is, the place where they will say: 'I am happy.'"

--from today's Office of Readings

Calling of St Matthew

2005-09-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

While it is clear that one of the themes of today's feast is the call of the Lord, "Follow me!", we must focus on how such a call is not merely an individual path, though we experience it individually. Yes, when we, like St Matthew, hear the Lord call "Follow me!" we get up and follow and at once begin doing whatever that vocation means in a social, real, historical, even ecclesial sense, involving other persons. As the Venerable Bede points out, in the second lesson of today's Office of Readings, at once St Matthew invited Jesus over for dinner, drawing a crowd of other folks in need of Jesus.

This relationship between our own personal vocations and our ecclesial and public vocations is the reflection of St Paul in the Letter to the Ephesians, today's epistle at Mass:

"I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace: one Body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

"But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

"And he gave some as Apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ."

Perhaps this is also what Pope Benedict means when he invites us to a mature faith.

Melk

2005-09-20T08:29:00.000-07:00

So here is a place on the banks of the Danube whose earliest settlements are rooted in the mist of fable, and whose Christian monastic community pre-dates recorded memory. Age after age, the Christian monks lived, prayed, worked, through the days of Charlemagne, the Babenbergs, the Hapsburgs, Napoleon, Joseph II, Franz Joseph, and the two World Wars.
And now, the buildings stand as a memory of all that time . . . and yet the small but vibrant monastic community still lives, prays, and works, now at a wonderful school that forms young people in Christian and humanistic education, with an emphasis on the arts.

One of the graduates of that school was our guide at Melk. She said, "And now, at the climax of our tour, we visit the Abbey Church, which is where it should be, at the heart and center of the community."

And the interior of that Church expressed the desire of the builders and artists to display the Beauty of God in the sensual material of earth.

Returning from Holiday

2005-09-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

Abbot Ellegast of Melk writes:

"Two towers reaching towards heaven and a mighty dome proclaim far and wide: on this cliff is a fortress of God!"

This spot and community of Beauty reminded me that we are all called to the Benedictine life--of prayer, of work, of the service of love.

On Holiday

2005-08-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

Yours truly will be off on holiday now, till 18 September. Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Dresden, and back to Berlin. "There was and is another Germany."

The Sheltering Love

2005-08-28T06:38:00.000-07:00

“The sheltering gaze that love casts upon being & essence, and its insight into the true nature of spousal love and the genuine love of children in the hearth of the triune fire of the family, its insight into genuine friendship, and genuine love of country, in the danger of its exposure and trials, in its fragmentation into hatred, betrayal, and death, and in its mysterious transfiguration beyond all conceivable success, preserves what we also find sheltered in the golden core of myths and mythical religions, and what remains present even in our ostensibly demythologized world!”

--from Hans Urs von Balthasar's Love Alone is Credible

Augustine & Monica at Ostia

2005-08-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

As the day now approached on which she was to depart this life (which day Thou knewest, we did not), it fell out--Thou, as I believe, by Thy secret ways arranging it--that she and I stood alone, leaning in a certain window, from which the garden of the house we occupied at Ostia could be seen; at which place, removed from the crowd, we were resting ourselves for the voyage, after the fatigues of a long journey. We then were conversing alone very pleasantly; and, "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before," we were seeking between ourselves in the presence of the Truth, which Thou art, of what nature the eternal life of the saints would be, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man. But yet we opened wide the mouth of our heart, after those supernal streams of Thy fountain, "the fountain of life," which is "with Thee; " that being sprinkled with it according to our capacity, we might in some measure weigh so high a mystery.

And when our conversation had arrived at that point, that the very highest pleasure of the carnal senses, and that in the very brightest material light, seemed by reason of the sweetness of that life not only not worthy of comparison, but not even of mention, we, lifting ourselves with a more ardent affection towards "the Selfsame," did gradually pass through all corporeal things, and even the heaven itself, whence sun, and moon, and stars shine upon the earth; tea, we soared higher yet by inward musing, and discoursing, and admiring Thy works; and we came to our own minds, and went beyond them, that we might advance as high as that region of unfailing plenty, where Thou feedest Israel for ever with the food of truth, and where life is that Wisdom by whom all these things are made, both which have been, and which are to come; and she is not made, but is as she hath been, and so shall ever be; yea, rather, to "haVe been," and "to be hereafter," are not in her, but only "to be," seeing she is eternal, for to "have been" and "to be hereafter" are not eternal. And while we were thus speaking, and straining after her, we slightly touched her with the whole effort of our heart; and we sighed, and there left bound "the first-fruits of the Spirit;" and returned to the noise of our own mouth, where the word uttered has both beginning and end. And what is like unto Thy Word, our Lord, who remaineth in Himself without becoming old, and "maketh all things new"?

We were saying, then, If to any man the tumult of the flesh were silenced,--silenced the phantasies of earth, waters, and air, --silenced, too, the poles; yea, the very soul be silenced to herself, and go beyond herself by not think ing of herself,--silenced fancies and imaginary revelations, every tongue, and every sign, and whatsoever exists by passing away, since, if any could hearken, all these say, "We created not ourselves, but were created by Him who abideth for ever:" If, having uttered this, they now should be silenced, having only quickened our ears to Him who created them, and He alone speak not by them, but by Himself, that we may hear His word, not by fleshly tongue, nor angelic voice, nor sound of thunder, nor the obscurity of a similitude, but might hear Him--Him whom in these we love--without these, like as we two now strained ourselves, and with rapid thought touched on that Eternal Wisdom which remaineth over all. If this could be sustained, and other visions of a far different kind be withdrawn, and this one ravish, and absorb, and envelope its beholder amid these inward joys, so that his life might be eternally like that one moment of knowledge which we now sighed after, were not this "Enter thou into the joy of Thy Lord"? And when shall that be? When we shall all rise again; but all shall not be changed?

--from St Augustine's Confessions, Book IX

On Augustine

2005-08-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

The then Cardinal Ratzinger, somewhere, recommended St Augustine's Confessions, because in that book Augustine had somehow captured not only his own personal story but also the general outline of of what it means to be ont he Christian journey. We should all pick it up and read it again:

"Too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new! Too late did I love Thee: For behold, Thou wert within, and I without, and there did I seek Thee; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty Thou madest. Thou were with me, but I was not with Thee. Those things kept me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not. Thou calledst, and criedst aloud, and forcedst open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and chase away my blindness. Thou didst exhale odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after Thee. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace."

On Germany

2005-08-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

From his farewell address:
"These days spent together have given many young men and women from the whole world the opportunity to become better acquainted with Germany. We are all well aware of the evil that emerged from our Homeland during the 20th century, and we acknowledge it with shame and suffering.

"During these days, thanks be to God, it has become quite evident that there was and is another Germany, a Land of singular human, cultural and spiritual resources. I hope and pray that these resources, thanks, not least, to the events of recent days, may once more spread throughout the world!"

Which echoes his address at his arrival:
"Along this interior journey we can be guided by the many signs with which a long and rich Christian tradition has indelibly marked this Land of Germany: from great historical monuments to countless works of art found throughout the Country, from documents preserved in libraries to lively popular traditions, from philosophical inquiry to the theological reflection of her many great thinkers, from the spiritual traditions to the mystical experience of a vast array of saints."

Which is again summarized in his address at yesterday's audience:
"Here we find a very rich cultural and spiritual heritage which even today, in the heart of Europe, testifies to the fruitfulness of the Christian faith and tradition which we must rekindle, because it has within it new strength for the future.
Jesus makes himself our travel companion in the Eucharist, and, in the Eucharist -- as I said in the homily of the concluding celebration, borrowing a well-known image from physics -- effects a "nuclear fission" in the depth of the being. Only this profound explosion of goodness that overcomes evil can give life to the other transformations necessary to change the world. Let us pray therefore so that the young people of Cologne will bear with them the light of Christ, who is truth and love and will spread it everywhere. In this way we will be able to witness a springtime of hope in Germany, Europe and the whole world."

Let Us Go Forward Together

2005-08-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

"I know that you as young people have great aspirations, that you want to pledge yourselves to build a better world. Let others see this, let the world see it, since this is exactly the witness that the world expects from the disciples of Jesus Christ; in this way, and through your love above all, the world will be able to discover the star that we follow as believers.

"Let us go forward with Christ and let us live our lives as true worshippers of God! Amen."

Transformation in Christ

2005-08-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

"Since this act transmutes death into love, death as such is already conquered from within, the Resurrection is already present in it. Death is, so to speak, mortally wounded, so that it can no longer have the last word. To use an image well known to us today, this is like inducing nuclear fission in the very heart of being -- the victory of love over hatred, the victory of love over death. Only this intimate explosion of good conquering evil can then trigger off the series of transformations that little by little will change the world. All other changes remain superficial and cannot save. For this reason we speak of redemption: What had to happen at the most intimate level has indeed happened, and we can enter into its dynamic. Jesus can distribute his Body, because he truly gives himself."

Could Every Day Be Like This?

2005-08-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

Could every day be like this? People from all over the world, side by side, all offering their love and adoration to God? A symphony of diversity in communion? The sentiments of the Schiller Ode to Joy, as set by Beethoven, actually taking place? Peace on earth, almost heaven on earth? All real, historical, visible, because God has become Man in the person of Jesus Christ and has gathered His people to Himself? All with us, because Jesus Christ has called His Church from all the nations, and He has given us the visible symbol of witness and unity in the person of St Peter? All still with us, because Pope Benedict XVI, the holder of that Petrine office, still gives such witness and still brings us all together, diversity in unity, this symphony of praise, this union in communion?

How beautiful to live in this Springtime of the Church!

Vision of Beauty

2005-08-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

One of the most beautiful visions I have ever seen--Pope Benedict XVI greeting the Youth of the World from a boat on the Rhine!

That They All Might Be One

2005-08-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

And he said to an ecumenical gathering of non-Cathoics:

"Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our common Lord!"

"It is a pleasure for me to meet you, the representatives of other Churches and ecclesial Communities, during my visit to Germany. I greet you all most cordially! As a native of this country, I am quite aware of the painful situation which the rupture of unity in the profession of the faith has entailed for so many individuals and families. This was one of the reasons why, immediately following my election as Bishop of Rome, I declared, as the Successor of the Apostle Peter, my firm commitment to making the recovery of full and visible Christian unity a priority of my Pontificate.

"Among Christians, fraternity is not just a vague sentiment, nor is it a sign of indifference to truth. It is grounded in the supernatural reality of the one Baptism which makes us members of the one Body of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:28; Col 2:12). Together we confess that Jesus Christ is God and Lord; together we acknowledge him as the one mediator between God and man (cf. 1 Tim 2:5) and we emphasize that together we are members of his Body (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, 22; Ut Unum Sint, 42).

"It is obvious that, in the end, this dialogue can develop only in a context of sincere and committed spirituality. We cannot “bring about” unity by our powers alone. We can only obtain unity as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, spiritual ecumenism – prayer, conversion and the sanctification of life – constitute the heart of the ecumenical movement (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, 8; Ut Unum Sint, 15ff., 21, etc.). It could be said that the best form of ecumenism consists in living in accordance with the Gospel.

"I see good reason for optimism in the fact that today a kind of “network” of spiritual links is developing between Catholics and Christians from the different Churches and ecclesial Communities: each individual commits himself to prayer, to the examination of his own life, to the purification of memory, to the openness of charity. The father of spiritual ecumenism, Paul Couturier, spoke in this regard of an “invisible cloister” which unites within its walls those souls inflamed with love for Christ and his Church. I am convinced that if more and more people unite themselves to the Lord’s prayer “that all may be one” (Jn 17:21), then this prayer, made in the name of Jesus, will not go unheard (cf. Jn 14:13; 15:7, 16, etc.). With the help that comes from on high, we will also find practical solutions to the different questions which remain open, and in the end our desire for unity will come to fulfilment, whenever and however the Lord wills. I invite all of you to join me in following this path."

Gifts Between Brothers

2005-08-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

And he said to the Jewish community in Cologne:

"Shalom lechem! It has been my deep desire, during my first visit to Germany since my election as the Successor of the Apostle Peter, to meet the Jewish community of Cologne and the representatives of Judaism in Germany.

"Together we must remember God and his wise plan for the world which he created. As we read in the Book of Wisdom, he is the “lover of life” (11:26).

"We must come to know one another much more and much better. Consequently I would encourage sincere and trustful dialogue between Jews and Christians, for only in this way will it be possible to arrive at a shared interpretation of disputed historical questions, and, above all, to make progress towards a theological evaluation of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. This dialogue, if it is to be sincere, must not gloss over or underestimate the existing differences: in those areas in which, due to our profound convictions in faith, we diverge, and indeed precisely in those areas, we need to show respect for one another.

"Finally, our gaze should not only be directed to the past, but should also look forward to the tasks that await us today and tomorrow. Our rich common heritage and our fraternal and more trusting relations call upon us to join in giving an ever more harmonious witness and to work together on the practical level for the defence and promotion of human rights and the sacredness of human life, for family values, for social justice and for peace in the world. The Decalogue (cf. Ex 20; Dt 5) is for us a shared legacy and commitment. The Ten Commandments are not a burden, but a sign-post showing the path leading to a successful life. This is particularly the case for the young people whom I am meeting in these days and who are so dear to me. My wish is that they may be able to recognize in the Decalogue a lamp for their steps, a light for their path (cf. Ps 119:105). Adults have the responsibility of handing down to young people the torch of hope that God has given to Jews and to Christians, so that “never again” will the forces of evil come to power, and that future generations, with God’s help, may be able to build a more just and peaceful world, in which all people have equal rights and are equally at home."

The Beauty of Friendship With Christ Jesus

2005-08-19T09:40:00.000-07:00

Stressing the beauty of friendship with Jesus Christ, Pope Benedict told enthusiastic seminarians;

"It is only when a young man has had a personal experience of Christ that he can truly understand the Lord’s will and consequently his own vocation. The better you know Jesus the more his mystery attracts you. The more you discover him, the more you are moved to seek him. This is a movement of the spirit which lasts throughout life, and which makes the seminary a time of immense promise, a true "springtime"."

From the Rhine

2005-08-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

Fliegt heim, ihr Raben!
Raunt es eurem Herren,
was hier am Rhein ihr gehoert!

Fly home, you Ravens!
Give your lord the tidings
of what you heard at the Rhine!

What could be more exciting, more wonderful, more spectacular, more beautiful, than the vision of the Pope standing on a boat on the Rhine, greeting the Youth of the world in these words?

"With great joy I welcome you, dear young people. You have come here from near and far, walking the streets of the world and the pathways of life. My particular greeting goes to those who, like the Magi, have come from the East. You are the representatives of so many of our brothers and sisters who are waiting, without realizing it, for the star to rise in their skies and lead them to Christ, Light of the Nations, in whom they will find the fullest response to their hearts’ deepest desires."

"Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own "yes" to God, for he wishes to give himself to you. I repeat today what I said at the beginning of my Pontificate: "If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation" (Homily at the Mass of Inauguration, 24 April 2005). Be completely convinced of this: Christ takes from you nothing that is beautiful and great, but brings everything to perfection for the glory of God, the happiness of men and women, and the salvation of the world."

How wonderful it is to be living in the new Springtime of the Church!

Pope Benedict on Brother Roger

2005-08-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict, long a friend of Brother Roger, responded to the great ecuminist's martyrdom:
"We have spoken at the same time of sadness and joy. In fact, this morning I received very sad, tragic news.

"During vespers yesterday afternoon, our beloved Frère Roger Schutz, founder of the Taizé Community, was stabbed and killed, probably by a mentally disturbed woman.

"This news has affected me even more because precisely yesterday I received a very moving, affectionate letter from Frère Roger. In it he wrote that from the depth of his heart he wanted to tell me that "we are in communion with you and with those who have gathered in Cologne."

"Then he wrote that, because of his state of health, unfortunately he would not be able to come personally to Cologne, but that he would be present spiritually with his brothers.

"At the end, he wrote in this letter that he hopes to come as soon as possible to Rome to meet with me and to tell me that "our Community of Taizé wants to go forward in communion with the Holy Father." Then he wrote by hand: "Holy Father, I assure you of my sentiments of profound communion. Frère Roger of Taizé."

"At this moment of sadness, we can only commend to the Lord's goodness the soul of this faithful servant of his. We know that from sadness, as we just heard in the psalm, joy will be reborn.

"Frère Schutz is in the hands of eternal goodness, of eternal love; he has attained eternal joy. He invites and exhorts us to be faithful laborers in the Lord's vineyard, also in sad situations, certain that the Lord accompanies us and gives us his joy."

Give God the Top Place in Your Lives

2005-08-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

John Paul the Great, inviting the world's youth to Cologne, warned them of the spiritual warfare they must undertake:

"Be worshippers of the only true God, giving Him pride of place in your lives! Idolatry is an ever-present temptation. Sadly, there are those who seek the solution to their problems in religious practices that are incompatible with the Christian faith. There is a strong urge to believe in the facile myths of success and power; it is dangerous to accept the fleeting ideas of the sacred which present God in the form of cosmic energy, or in any other manner that is inconsistent with Catholic teaching.

"My dear young people, do not yield to false illusions and passing fads which so frequently leave behind a tragic spiritual vacuum! Reject the seduction of wealth, consumerism and the subtle violence sometimes used by the mass media.

"Worshipping the true God is an authentic act of resistance to all forms of idolatry. Worship Christ: He is the Rock on which to build your future and a world of greater justice and solidarity. Jesus is the Prince of peace: the source of forgiveness and reconciliation, who can make brothers and sisters of all the members of the human family.

""And they departed to their own country by another way" (Mt 2:12). The Gospel tells us that after their meeting with Christ, the Magi returned home "by another way". This change of route can symbolise the conversion to which all those who encounter Jesus are called, in order to become the true worshippers that He desires (cf Jn 4: 23-24). This entails imitating the way He acted by becoming, as the apostle Paul writes, "a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God". The apostle then adds that we must not be conformed to the mentality of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of our minds, to "prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (cf Rm 12: 1-2).

"Listening to Christ and worshipping Him leads us to make courageous choices, to take what are sometimes heroic decisions. Jesus is demanding, because He wishes our genuine happiness. He calls some to give up everything to follow Him in the priestly or consecrated life. Those who hear this invitation must not be afraid to say "yes" and to generously set about following Him as His disciples. But in addition to vocations to special forms of consecration there is also the specific vocation of all baptised Christians: that is also a vocation to that "high standard" of ordinary Christian living which is expressed in holiness (cf Novo Millennio Ineunte, 31). When we meet Christ and accept His Gospel, life changes and we are driven to communicate our experience to others.

"There are so many of our contemporaries who do not yet know the love of God or who are seeking to fill their hearts with trifling substitutes. It is therefore urgently necessary for us to be witnesses to love contemplated in Christ. The invitation to take part in World Youth Day is also extended to you, dear friends, who are not baptised or who do not identify with the Church. Are you not perhaps yearning for the Absolute and in search of "something" to give a meaning to your lives? Turn to Christ and you will not be let down.

"Dear young people, the Church needs genuine witnesses for the new evangelisation: men and women whose lives have been transformed by meeting with Jesus, men and women who are capable of communicating this experience to others. The Church needs saints. All are called to holiness, and holy people alone can renew humanity. Many have gone before us along this path of Gospel heroism, and I urge you to turn often to them to pray for their intercession. By meeting in Cologne you will learn to become better acquainted with some of them, such as St Boniface, the apostle of Germany, the Saints of Cologne, and in particular Ursula, Albert the Great, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and Blessed Adolph Kolping. Of these I would like to specifically mention St Albert and Teresa Benedicta of the Cross who, with the same interior attitude as the Magi, were passionate seekers after the truth. They had no hesitation in placing their intellectual abilities at the service of the faith, thereby demonstrating that faith and reason are linked and seek each other.

"My dear young people as you move forward in spirit towards Cologne, the pope will accompany you with his prayers. May Mary, "Eucharistic woman" and Mother of Wisdom, support you along the way, enlighten your decisions, and teach you to love what is true, good and beautiful. May she lead you all to her Son, who alone can satisfy the innermost yearnings of the human mind and heart."

Go with my blessing!

Castel Gandolfo, 6 August 2004

JOHN PAUL II

We Have Come to Worship Him

2005-08-17T07:50:00.000-07:00

A year ago, Pope John Paul the Great describe the Magi to the Youth of the world and compared the Journey of the Magi to the pilgrimage of the world's Youth to Cologne:

""And the star... went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was" (Mt 2:9). The Magi reached Bethlehem because they had obediently allowed themselves to be guided by the star. Indeed, "When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy" (Mt 2:10). It is important, my dear friends, to learn to observe the signs with which God is calling us and guiding us. When we are conscious of being led by Him, our heart experiences authentic and deep joy as well as a powerful desire to meet Him and a persevering strength to follow Him obediently.

""And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother" (Mt 2:11). There is nothing extraordinary about this at first sight. Yet that Child was different from any other: He is the only Son of God, yet He emptied Himself of His glory (cf Phil 2:7) and came to earth to die on the Cross. He came down among us and became poor in order to reveal to us His divine glory, which we shall contemplate fully in heaven, our blessed home.

"Who could have invented a greater sign of love? We are left in awe before the mystery of a God who lowered himself to take on our human condition, to the point of giving His life for us on the Cross (cf Phil 2:6-8). In His poverty, - as Saint Paul reminds us - "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich" (2 Cor 8:9), and came to offer salvation to sinners. How can we give thanks to God for such magnanimous goodness?

"The Magi found Jesus at "Bêth-lehem" which means "house of bread". In the humble stable in Bethlehem on some straw lay the "grain of wheat" who, by dying, would bring forth "much fruit" (cf Jn 12:24). When speaking of Himself and His saving mission in the course of His public life, Jesus would later use the image of bread. He would say "I am the bread of life", "I am the bread which came down from heaven", "the bread that I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh". (Jn 6: 35.41.51).

"Faithfully pursuing the path of our Redeemer from the poverty of the Crib to His abandonment on the Cross we can better understand the mystery of His love which redeems humanity. The Child, laid by Mary in the manger, is the Man-God we shall see nailed to the Cross. The same Redeemer is present in the sacrament of the Eucharist. In the stable at Bethlehem He allowed himself to be worshipped under the humble outward appearances of a newborn baby, by Mary, by Joseph and by the shepherds; in the consecrated Host we adore Him sacramentally present in his body, blood, soul and godhead, and He offers himself to us as the food of eternal life. The Mass then becomes a truly loving encounter with the One who gave himself wholly for us. Do not hesitate, my dear young friends, to respond to Him when He invites you "to the wedding feast of the Lamb (cf Rev 19:9). Listen to him, prepare yourselves properly and draw close to the Sacrament of the Altar, particularly in this Year of the Eucharist (October 2004-2005) which I have proclaimed for the whole Church.

""They fell down and worshipped Him" (Mt 2:11). While the Magi acknowledged and worshipped the baby that Mary cradled in her arms as the One awaited by the nations and foretold by prophets, today we can also worship Him in the Eucharist, and acknowledge Him as our Creator, our only Lord and Saviour.

""Opening their treasures they offered Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh" (Mt 2:11). The gifts that the Magi offered the Messiah symbolised true worship. With gold, they emphasised His Royal Godhead; with incense, they acknowledged Him as the priest of the New Covenant; by offering Him myrrh, they celebrated the prophet who would shed His own blood to reconcile humanity with the Father.

"My dear young people, you too offer to the Lord the gold of your lives, namely, your freedom to follow Him out of love, responding faithfully to His call; let the incense of your fervent prayer rise up to him, in praise of His glory; offer Him your myrrh, that is your affection of total gratitude to Him, true Man, who loved us to the point of dying as a criminal on Golgotha."

Pope John Paul the Great on World Youth Day

2005-08-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

Just a year ago, Pope John Paul the Great called the youth of the world to Cologne for World Youth Day 2005:

"This year we have celebrated the 19th World Youth Day, meditating on the desire expressed by some Greeks who had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover: "We wish to see Jesus" (Jn 12:21). And here we are now, making our way to Cologne where, in August 2005, the 20th World Youth Day is to be celebrated.

" "We have come to worship him" (Mt 2:2): this is the theme of the next World Youth Day. It is a theme that enables young people from every continent to follow in spirit the path taken by the Magi whose relics, according to a pious tradition, are venerated in this very city, and to meet, as they did, the Messiah of all nations.

"It is true to say that the light of Christ had already opened the minds and the hearts of the Magi. "They went their way" (Mt 2:9), says the Evangelist, setting out boldly along unknown paths on a long, and by no means easy, journey. They did not hesitate to leave everything behind in order to follow the star that they had seen in the East (cf Mt 2:2). Imitating the Magi, you young people are also making preparations to set out on a "journey" from every region of the world to go to Cologne. It is important for you not only to concern yourselves with the practical arrangements for World Youth Day, but first of all you must carefully prepare yourselves spiritually, in an atmosphere of faith and listening to the Word of God."

The Pope's inspiring call is akin to the call from Our Lord to all of us--that we come out on a journey, that we come to worship Him, that we do this with our whole lives, that we do this every day. This is our daily call.

Pope Benedict on World Youth Day

2005-08-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

“ Holy Father, can you tell me what you would like to transmit to the youth of the world? What is the main issue you would like to “bring about”?"

"Yes – I would like to show them how beautiful it is to be Christian, because the widespread idea which continues to exist is that Christianity is composed of laws and bans which one has to keep and, hence, is something toilsome and burdensome – that one is freer without such a burden. I want to make clear that it not a burden to be carried by a great love and realization, but it is like having wings. It is wonderful to be a Christian with this knowledge that it gives us a great breadth, a large community: As Christians we are never alone – in the sense that God is always with us, but also in the sense that we are always standing together in a large community, a community for The Way, that we have a project for the future - and in this way a Being which is worth believing in. This is the joy of being a Christian and is the beauty of believing."

from an interview on Vatican Radio

Mary's Yes to God

2005-08-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

It is Our Lady's Yes to God that is the inspiration and exemplar of our lives! As Hans Urs Von Balthasar says in his beautiful The Threefold Garland:

"Those who have wholly put themselves in the hands of God are also wholly accepted by God and wholly perfected by Him. Mary's total submission was such that, along with her whole sould, she also offered up her whole body, and thuis precisely what God needed in order to realize His plan of salvation. It is just this which is termed Mary's 'anticipated redemption': that already in eternity (when the Son offered Himself to the Father, when the Father accepted His offer and sent Him, and when the Spirit was ready to mediate between heaven and earth) God included Mary's word of assent as an indispensable part of His plan. In order for the Son to be able to take on a genuinely human body, He had for a time to be, inseperably, 'one flesh' with His Mother, but the assumption of this flesh from the Mother's body required nothing less than this word of assent. In a certain sense, within God's plan Mary's word of assent pre-exists even her; to be sure, she will utter it on earth and realize it through her life; but her word of assent will draw her back up into heaven in her totality."

Prayer for World Youth Day

2005-08-14T10:42:00.000-07:00

"In less than a month, I will also go as a pilgrim to an historical European cathedral, that of Cologne, where young people have made an appointment for their 20th World Day. Let us pray that the new generations, drawing their vital sap from Christ, will be able to be in European society the leaven of a renewed humanism, in which faith and reason cooperate in fruitful dialogue in the promotion of man and the making of authentic peace. We pray for this to God, through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, who, as Mother and Queen, watches over the path of all nations."

Pope Benedict XVI, on 24 July 2005

Titian's Assumption

2005-08-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

Balthasar on the Focus of Worship

2005-08-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

"Perhaps there is an allusion to an Old Testament notion: the plan of the temple as the seat of the presence of God recognized degrees of sanctity. Only the high priest, once yearly at the feast of atonement, went into the innermost sanctuary, into the holy of holies. Since the incarnation the temple of God, in whom the fullness of the Godhead is pleased to dwell, has become the physical person of Jesus; in the saying 'Tear this temple down and I will build it again in three days' Jesus shows himself conscious of this change. He becomes the place of God's presence and of the worship of God. 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know: for salvation comes from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is already here, when those who truly worship the Father will worship him in spirit and in truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him' (John 4.2I-3).

"And Jesus is not a worshipper among others, he is the supreme worshipper in whom all worship in spirit and truth is concentrated, is made perfect in truth as it is purified, is transformed in the Spirit; in him everything which strives towards the holiness of God, which desires to participate in it, is drawn into and set alight by the fire of the holy of holies. But why not reserve the phrase 'holy of holies' for God the Father in heaven, why use it to refer to the Eucharist of the Son of God?

"Because it is here that the two flames fall upon each other: the holiness of heaven falling down like fire on the earth, devouring the earthly prayers and sacrifices, and the holiness rising up to heaven of the man who obeys and offers himself and is devoured for the sake of all men, on whom God's pleasure rests and whom God transfigures on the mountain into his uncreated light. It is not possible to conceive of anything more intensive, more devouring, more compelling than this encounter of the two fires which fuse into one."

Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Elucidations

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ, part nine

2005-08-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

True beauty of Christ who loves us to the end

"In this way, we return to the "two trumpets" of the Bible with which we started, to the paradox of being able to say of Christ: "You are the fairest of the children of men", and: "He had no beauty, no majesty to draw our eyes, no grace to make us delight in him". In the Passion of Christ the Greek aesthetic that deserves admiration for its perceived contact with the Divine but which remained inexpressible for it, in Christ's passion is not removed but overcome. The experience of the beautiful has received new depth and new realism. The One who is the Beauty itself let himself be slapped in the face, spat upon, crowned with thorns; the Shroud of Turin can help us imagine this in a realistic way. However, in his Face that is so disfigured, there appears the genuine, extreme beauty: the beauty of love that goes "to the very end"; for this reason it is revealed as greater than falsehood and violence. Whoever has perceived this beauty knows that truth, and not falsehood, is the real aspiration of the world. It is not the false that is "true", but indeed, the Truth. It is, as it were, a new trick of what is false to present itself as "truth" and to say to us: over and above me there is basically nothing, stop seeking or even loving the truth; in doing so you are on the wrong track. The icon of the crucified Christ sets us free from this deception that is so widespread today. However it imposes a condition: that we let ourselves be wounded by him, and that we believe in the Love who can risk setting aside his external beauty to proclaim, in this way, the truth of the beautiful."

Manipulation by presenting a false and deceptive beauty

"Falsehood however has another stratagem. A beauty that is deceptive and false, a dazzling beauty that does not bring human beings out of themselves to open them to the ecstasy of rising to the heights, but indeed locks them entirely into themselves. Such beauty does not reawaken a longing for the Ineffable, readiness for sacrifice, the abandonment of self, but instead stirs up the desire, the will for power, possession and pleasure. It is that type of experience of beauty of which Genesis speaks in the account of the Original Sin. Eve saw that the fruit of the tree was "beautiful" to eat and was "delightful to the eyes". The beautiful, as she experienced it, aroused in her a desire for possession, making her, as it were, turn in upon herself. Who would not recognize, for example, in advertising, the images made with supreme skill that are created to tempt the human being irresistibly, to make him want to grab everything and seek the passing satisfaction rather than be open to others."

Avoid cult of the ugly or fear of deception with the redeeming beauty of Christ in the saints, Christian art

"So it is that Christian art today is caught between two fires (as perhaps it always has been): it must oppose the cult of the ugly, which says that everything beautiful is a deception and only the representation of what is crude, low and vulgar is the truth, the true illumination of knowledge. Or it has to counter the deceptive beauty that makes the human being seem diminished instead of making him great, and for this reason is false."

"Is there anyone who does not know Dostoyevsky's often quoted sentence'. "The Beautiful will save us"? However, people usually forget that Dostoyevsky is referring here to the redeeming Beauty of Christ. We must learn to see Him. If we know Him, not only in words, but if we are struck by the arrow of his paradoxical beauty, then we will truly know him, and know him not only because we have heard others speak about him. Then we will have found the beauty of Truth, of the Truth that redeems. Nothing can bring us into close contact with the beauty of Christ himself other than the world of beauty created by faith and light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom his own light becomes visible."

L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
6 November 2002, page 6

St Lorenzo's Day

2005-08-10T06:59:00.000-07:00

"Turn me over, I'm done on this side!"

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ, part eight

2005-08-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

"Now however, we still have to respond to an objection. We have already rejected the assumption which claims that what has just been said is a flight into the irrational, into mere aestheticism. Rather, it is the opposite that is true: this is the very way in which reason is freed from dullness and made ready to act."

Counterfeit of beauty: falsehood, seduction, evil

"Today another objection has even greater weight: the message of beauty is thrown into complete doubt by the power of falsehood, seduction, violence and evil. Can the beautiful be genuine, or, in the end, is it only an illusion? Isn't reality perhaps basically evil? The fear that in the end it is not the arrow of the beautiful that leads us to the truth, but that falsehood, all that is ugly and vulgar, may constitute the true "reality" has at all times caused people anguish. At present this has been expressed in the assertion that after Auschwitz it was no longer possible to write poetry; after Auschwitz it is no longer possible to speak of a God who is good. People wondered: where was God when the gas chambers were operating? This objection, which seemed reasonable enough before Auschwitz when one realized all the atrocities of history, shows that in any case a purely harmonious concept of beauty is not enough. It cannot stand up to the confrontation with the gravity of the questioning about God, truth and beauty. Apollo, who for Plato's Socrates was "the God" and the guarantor of unruffled beauty as "the truly divine" is absolutely no longer sufficient."

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ, part seven

2005-08-09T08:40:00.000-07:00

Beauty of the icon: fasting of sight

"In a rich way Pavel Evdokimov has brought to light the interior pathway that an icon establishes. An icon does not simply reproduce what can be perceived by the senses, but rather it presupposes, as he says, "a fasting of sight". Inner perception must free itself from the impression of the merely sensible, and in prayer and ascetical effort acquire a new and deeper capacity to see, to perform the passage from what is merely external to the profundity of reality, in such a way that the artist can see what the senses as such do not see, and what actually appears in what can be perceived: the splendour of the glory of God, the "glory of God shining on the face of Christ " (II Cor 4,6). To admire the icons and the great masterpieces of Christian art in general, leads us on an inner way, a way of overcoming ourselves; thus in this purification of vision that is a purification of the heart, it reveals the beautiful to us, or at least a ray of it. In this way we are brought into contact with the power of the truth. I have often affirmed my conviction that the true apology of Christian faith, the most convincing demonstration of its truth against every denial, are the saints, and the beauty that the faith has generated. Today, for faith to grow, we must lead ourselves and the persons we meet to encounter the saints and to enter into contact with the Beautiful."

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ, part six

2005-08-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

The arrow of the beautiful can guide the mind to the truth: Bach, Rublëv
"The encounter with the beautiful can become the wound of the arrow that strikes the heart and in this way opens our eyes, so that later, from this experience, we take the criteria for judgement and can correctly evaluate the arguments. For me an unforgettable experience was the Bach concert that Leonard Bernstein conducted in Munich after the sudden death of Karl Richter. I was sitting next to the Lutheran Bishop Hanselmann. When the last note of one of the great Thomas-Kantor-Cantatas triumphantly faded away, we looked at each other spontaneously and right then we said: "Anyone who has heard this, knows that the faith is true". The music had such an extraordinary force of reality that we realized, no longer by deduction, but by the impact on our hearts, that it could not have originated from nothingness, but could only have come to be through the power of the Truth that became real in the composer's inspiration. Isn't the same thing evident when we allow ourselves to be moved by the icon of the Trinity of Rublëv? In the art of the icons, as in the great Western paintings of the Romanesque and Gothic period, the experience described by Cabasilas, starting with interiority, is visibly portrayed and can be shared."

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ, part five

2005-08-07T06:38:00.000-07:00

Pastoral need of Theological Aesthetics

"Starting with this concept, Hans Urs von Balthasar built his Opus magnum of Theological Aesthetics. Many of its details have passed into theological work, while his fundamental approach, in truth the essential element of the whole work, has not been so readily accepted. Of course, this is not just, or principally, a theological problem, but a problem of pastoral life, that has to foster the human person's encounter with the beauty of faith. All too often arguments fall on deaf ears because in our world too many contradictory arguments compete with one another, so much so that we are spontaneously reminded of the medieval theologians' description of reason, that it 'has a wax nose': in other words, it can be pointed in any direction, if one is clever enough. Everything makes sense, is so convincing, whom should we trust?"

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ, part four

2005-08-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Cabasilas: the wound of the beauty of the Spouse

"In the 14th century, in the book, "The Life in Christ" by the Byzantine theologian, Nicholas Cabasilas, we rediscover Plato's experience in which the ultimate object of nostalgia, transformed by the new Christian experience, continues to be nameless. Cabasilas says: "When men have a longing so great that it surpasses human nature and eagerly desire and are able to accomplish things beyond human thought, it is the Bridegroom who has smitten them with this longing. It is he who has sent a ray of his beauty into their eyes. The greatness of the wound already shows the arrow which has struck home, the longing indicates who has inflicted the wound" (cf. The Life in Christ, the Second Book, § 15).

"The beautiful wounds, but this is exactly how it summons man to his final destiny. What Plato said, and, more than 1,500 years later, Cabasilas, has nothing to do with superficial aestheticism and irrationalism or with the flight from clarity and the importance of reason. The beautiful is knowledge certainly, but, in a superior form, since it arouses man to the real greatness of the truth. Here Cabasilas has remained entirely Greek, since he puts knowledge first when he says, "In fact it is knowing that causes love and gives birth to it.... Since this knowledge is sometimes very ample and complete and at other times imperfect, it follows that the love potion has the same effect" (cf. ibid.). He is not content to leave this assertion in general terms. In his characteristically rigorous thought, he distinguishes between two kinds of knowledge: knowledge through instruction which remains, so to speak, "second hand" and does not imply any direct contact with reality itself. The second type of knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge through personal experience, through a direct relationship with the reality. "Therefore we do not love it to the extent that it is a worthy object of love, and since we have not perceived the very form itself we do not experience its proper effect". True knowledge is being struck by the arrow of Beauty that wounds man, moved by reality, "how it is Christ himself who is present and in an ineffable way disposes and forms the souls of men" (cf. ibid.).

"Being struck and overcome by the beauty of Christ is a more real, more profound knowledge than mere rational deduction. Of course we must not underrate the importance of theological reflection, of exact and precise theological thought; it remains absolutely necessary. But to move from here to disdain or to reject the impact produced by the response of the heart in the encounter with beauty as a true form of knowledge would impoverish us and dry up our faith and our theology. We must rediscover this form of knowledge; it is a pressing need of our time."

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ, part three

2005-08-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Plato shows that beauty entails the pain of discontent

"Certainly, the consciousness that beauty has something to do with pain was also present in the Greek world. For example, let us take Plato's Phaedrus. Plato contemplates the encounter with beauty as the salutary emotional shock that makes man leave his shell and sparks his "enthusiasm" by attracting him to what is other than himself. Man, says Plato, has lost the original perfection that was conceived for him. He is now perennially searching for the healing primitive form. Nostalgia and longing impel him to pursue the quest; beauty prevents him from being content with just daily life. It causes him to suffer. In a Platonic sense, we could say that the arrow of nostalgia pierces man, wounds him and in this way gives him wings, lifts him upwards towards the transcendent. In his discourse in the Symposium, Aristophanes says that lovers do not know what they really want from each other. From the search for what is more than their pleasure, it is obvious that the souls of both are thirsting for something other than amorous pleasure. But the heart cannot express this "other" thing, "it has only a vague perception of what it truly wants and wonders about it as an enigma"."

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ, part two

2005-08-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

Two trumpets of the same Spirit

"Augustine, who in his youth wrote a book on the Beautiful and the Harmonious [De pulchro et apto] and who appreciated beauty in words, in music, in the figurative arts, had a keen appreciation of this paradox and realized that in this regard, the great Greek philosophy of the beautiful was not simply rejected but rather, dramatically called into question and what the beautiful might be, what beauty might mean, would have to be debated anew and suffered. Referring to the paradox contained in these texts, he spoke of the contrasting blasts of "two trumpets", produced by the same breath, the same Spirit. He knew that a paradox is contrast and not contradiction. Both quotes come from the same Spirit who inspires all Scripture, but sounds different notes in it. It is in this way that he sets us before the totality of true Beauty, of Truth itself."

The beauty of truth embraces a love that is faithful to the end

"In the first place, the text of Isaiah supplies the question that interested the Fathers of the Church, whether or not Christ was beautiful. Implicit here is the more radical question of whether beauty is true or whether it is not ugliness that leads us to the deepest truth of reality. Whoever believes in God, in the God who manifested himself, precisely in the altered appearance of Christ crucified as love "to the end" (Jn 13,1), knows that beauty is truth and truth beauty; but in the suffering Christ he also learns that the beauty of truth also embraces offence, pain, and even the dark mystery of death, and that this can only be found in accepting suffering, not in ignoring it."

Ratzinger on the Beauty of Christ

2005-08-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

Truth of Christ: beautiful among men, the man of sorrows

"Every year, in the Liturgy of the Hours for the Season of Lent, I am struck anew by a paradox in Vespers for Monday of the Second Week of the Psalter. Here, side by side, are two antiphons, one for the Season of Lent, the other for Holy Week. Both introduce Psalm 44 [45], but they present strikingly contradictory interpretations. The Psalm describes the wedding of the King, his beauty, his virtues, his mission, and then becomes an exaltation of his bride. In the Season of Lent, Psalm 44 is framed by the same antiphon used for the rest of the year. The third verse of the Psalm says: "You are the fairest of the children of men and grace is poured upon your lips". Naturally, the Church reads this psalm as a poetic-prophetic representation of Christ's spousal relationship with his Church. She recognizes Christ as the fairest of men, the grace poured upon his lips points to the inner beauty of his words, the glory of his proclamation. So it is not merely the external beauty of the Redeemer's appearance that is glorified: rather, the beauty of Truth appears in him, the beauty of God himself who draws us to himself and, at the same time captures us with the wound of Love, the holy passion (eros), that enables us to go forth together, with and in the Church his Bride, to meet the Love who calls us."

"On Monday of Holy Week, however, the Church changes the antiphon and invites us to interpret the Psalm in the light of Is 53,2: "He had neither beauty, no majesty, nothing to attract our eyes, no grace to make us delight in him". How can we reconcile this? The appearance of the "fairest of the children of men" is so wretched that no one desires to look at him. Pilate presented him to the crowd saying: "Behold the man!", to rouse sympathy for the crushed and battered Man, in whom no external beauty remained."

To This We Are Called

2005-07-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

All Creation Our Dwelling

2005-07-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

"Why, then, O Man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God? Why render yourself such dishonor when you are so honored by Him? Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made?

"Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for your sake was the night regulated and the day measured, and for you were the heavens embellished with the varying brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars. The earth was adorned with flowers, groves and fruit; and the constant marvelous variety of lovely living things was created in the air, the fields, and the seas for you, lest sad solitude destroy the joy of God's new creation. And the Creator still works to devise things that can add to your glory. He has made you in His image that you might in your person make the invisible Creator present on earth; He has made you His legate, so that the vast empire of the world might have the Lord's representative. Then in His mercy God assumed what He made in you; He wanted now to be truly manifest in man, just as He had wished to be revealed in man as in an image. Now He would be in reality what He had submitted to be in symbol.

"And so Christ is born that by His birth He might restore our nature."
--from St Peter Chrysologus, in today's Office of Readings

The Beauty of Christ

2005-07-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

"Is there anyone who does not know Dostoyevsky's often quoted sentence'. "The Beautiful will save us"? However, people usually forget that Dostoyevsky is referring here to the redeeming Beauty of Christ. We must learn to see Him. If we know Him, not only in words, but if we are struck by the arrow of his paradoxical beauty, then we will truly know him, and know him not only because we have heard others speak about him. Then we will have found the beauty of Truth, of the Truth that redeems. Nothing can bring us into close contact with the beauty of Christ himself other than the world of beauty created by faith and light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom his own light becomes visible."
---Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, message to Commuion & Liberation 2002

Benedict Our Pope

2005-07-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Singing--the Art Form for God

2005-07-27T08:02:00.000-07:00

Is singing the art-form of our response to God? What is the theology of singing? Does it matter that every morning we pray, "O come let us sing to the Lord?" Here's what Joseph Ratzinger had to say about it:

"The importance of music in biblical religion is shown very simply by the fact that the verb “to sing” (with related words such as “song”, and. so forth) is one of the most commonly used words in the Bible. It occurs 309 times in the Old Testament and thirty-six in the New. When man comes into contact with God, mere speech is not enough. Areas of his existence are awakened that spontaneously turn into song. Indeed, man’s own being is insufficient for what he has to express, and so he invites the whole of creation to become a song with him: “Awake, my soul! Awake, 0 harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn! I will give thanks to you, 0 Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds” (Ps 57:8f.). We find the first mention of singing in the Bible after the crossing of the Red Sea. Israel has now been definitively delivered from slavery. In a desperate situation, it has had an overwhelming experience of God’s saving power. Just as Moses as a baby was taken from the Nile and only then really received the gift of life, so Israel now feels as if it has been, so to speak, taken out of the water: it is free, newly endowed with the gift of itself from God’s own hands. In the biblical account, the people’s reaction to the foundational event of salvation is described in this sentence: “[T]hey believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses” (Ex 14:31). But then follows a second reaction, which soars up from the first with elemental force: "Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord” (i 5: i). Year by year, at the Easter Vigil, Christians join in the singing of this song. They sing it in a new way as their song, because they know that they have been “taken out of the water” by God’s power, set free by God for authentic life." [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 136]

"The singing of the Church comes ultimately out of love. It is the utter depth of love that produces the singing. “Cantare amantis est”, says St. Augustine, singing is a lover’s thing. In so saying, we come again to the trinitarian interpretation of Church music. The Holy Spirit is love, and it is he who produces the singing. He is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit who draws us into love for Christ and so leads to the Father. "[The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 142]

The Light of St James

2005-07-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

How graced we are at St James Cathedral--in fact, in the cathedral parish, we are given the light of all three of Our Lord's messianic offices. His priestly office shines through the splendour of the Liturgy, the daily round of prayer, the enactment of the sacrifice of the Mass, the very presence of Jesus Christ Himself in the blessed sacrament, all lifted up by the voices of music. His prophetic office shines through the articulation of His teaching in the eloquence of Fr Ryan, the apostolic witness of the Archbishop, the handing on of the Faith to children and together with adults, and the listening and longing of the catechumens. His kingly office shines forth in the organism of the communal life of the cathedral parish, in the faces of the people, perhaps most of all in the daily meal for the poor. Yes, this great house of God and gate of Heaven is a moment and location of light for us, and we are graced indeed!

St James Day

2005-07-25T07:48:00.000-07:00

"Let us today hail the bright star which once made Compostella so resplendent with its rays that the obscure town became, like Jerusalem and Rome, a centre of attraction to the piety of the whole world. As long as the Christian empire lasted, the sepulchre of St James the Great rivalled in glory that of St Peter himself." (Dom Prosper Guerenger)

On Pilgrimage With St James

2005-07-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

How good and how joyful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

Happy Festival!

Dance of the Blessed

2005-07-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

St Bridget of Sweden sang praises to Our Lord, as we read in today's Office of Readings, that are like a dance--wave after wave, turn after turn, movement after movement of praise after praise, each introduced by such invocations as "Blessed are You, my Lord Jesus Christ . . .", and then praising Him for the successive mysteries of His Love.

These dancing praises remind me of the great cosmic dance in C.S.Lewis' Perelandra, in which, in a similar fashion, the voices of the angels sing the beauty of God's Creation and His Love, each wave after wave, each movement after movement ending with the musical refrain, "Blessed be He!"
Perhaps Lewis was inspired by such medieval mystics as St Bridget, or perhaps they were both inspired by the same Music and the same Dance.

Lewis' hymn in Perelandra was reset into Spenserian stanzas by Ruth Pitter (found in C.S. Lewis: Poet pp. 275ff.); her first stanza sings of the same Music and the same Dance, the Art of God's Beauty:

"We do not wait till you are gathered in,
You of the little inward earths and low;
We speak not, we, of when it will begin.
Before forever and the long ago,
Before the stream of time began to flow,
We dance before His face rejoicingly.
We at the centre ever praise Him so:
For the great Dance have all things come to be,
And all was made that we might praise Him.
Blest be He!"

B16 at Mount Blanc

2005-07-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

Priceless--you know, I was thinking the other day, that it's as if they'd elected John Henry Newman to the papacy.

But apparently, B16 talked with reporters, chatted about the beauty of the Alps, and expressed sincere hope for the three great religions of Abraham!

Let us go forward, together!

Speak Mary Declaring What Thou Sawest Wayfaring

2005-07-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

The passages offered to us by the Church about her, this Apostle to the Apostles, are rich & beautiful, so much more so than a recent popular novel and a soon to be released popular movie. The tradition that weaves together, probably inaccurately, threads of tales about several women--the woman taken in adultery, the woman who annointed Jesus, the sister of Martha--with the story of the first witness to the Resurrection is an old tradition; and we will not know the truth of it all this side of heaven. Certainly her witness to the Risen Lord is her chief act, for herself and for us. Speak Mary declaring what thou sawest wayfaring! "I have seen the Lord!" But all the other tales too, linked into one tapestry by the name "Mary", make her a figure of the Church herself--sinful, forgiven, loving, adoring. Her tale is thus our tale! This is no "code" but the beautiful imagery offered us by the Scriptures in the Church!

What's He Writing?

2005-07-21T11:03:00.000-07:00

They say he's penning his first encyclical this week while he is on vacation. What will be his theme? What will be his focus? I imagine whatever it is--the Church, the Liturgy, ecumenism, truth vs relativism, Beauty--it will be from the perspective of his Petrine Ministry, that is, witnessing to Jesus Christ.

Manna from Heaven

2005-07-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

Gathering the daily Manna, the Bread of Heaven, the food in the wilderness, the children of Israel ate and had their fill, protected as they were by God's loving providence. This we hear in the first reading, as the Liturgy of the Word nowadays works its way through Exodos. And it's not just a story, wonderful story that it is. Anymore than the lembas on which Frodo & Sam survive is just a story, wonderful story that it is. Such stories point to a reality in our lives that is very real indeed--the daily Manna, the Bread of Heaven, the miraculous lembas that is our daily bread--Jesus Christ Himself, Who comes to us in the Eucharist.

"Give us this day our daily bread" we pray three times a day, at Morning & Evening Prayer, but most of all at Holy Mass. How wonderful it is to go to Mass daily, to hear the Word of God and then to eat the Word of God, the gift of Christ Himself to us.

What He Says About Vacation

2005-07-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

"In the world in which we live it is almost a requirement to be able to restore body and spirit, especially for city dwellers, where the often frenetic lifestyle leaves little time for silence, reflection or the soothing contact with nature. Vacations are also a period in which one can dedicate more time to prayer, reading and meditation on the profound meaning of life, in the serene environment of one's own family and loved ones."
"Through contact with nature, people again find their true dimension, they rediscover themselves as creatures, small but at the same time unique, and 'capable of God' because of an interior openness to Infinity. Driven by the need for meaning which rises from their hearts, they perceive in the surrounding world the signs of goodness and of Divine Providence and, almost naturally, they become open to praise and prayer."

(from his Sunday Angelus message)