Some Fasting Encouragement from Scripture

I have been practicing lectio divina in my halting, broken way, and here are two passages I had been lingering on to help me with fasting this week.

All the commandments which I command you this day you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God had led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:1-3)

Jesus cites this passage to Satan during his temptation in the wilderness. Satan taunts Jesus, saying that if he is the Son of God, then he could turn a stone into a loaf of bread. But Jesus responds that "Man does not live on bread alone" (Luke 4:3-4).

As our 40 days of Lent parallels Christ's 40 days in the wilderness (which also recalls its type in the 40 years in the wilderness of the recently freed Israelites), it helped me to think of myself in union with him, and to think of my nourishment as coming from the word (and The Word) of God.

I also found comfort in thinking about my hunger as being a way of opening my heart (or as the Jerusalem Bible translates the passage, my "inmost heart") to God. And the humbling aspect of it is important, especially for me.

The manna, which was later kept in the Ark of the Covenant, was a type of the Eucharist, and we see how ultimately our hunger is satisfied in the Eucharist, which brings us in intimate union with Jesus.

There is a passage in the Gospel of John that complements the Deuteronomy passage quite nicely:

Meanwhile the disciples besought him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat of which you do not know." So the disciples said to one another, "Has any one brought him food?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work." (John 4:31-34)

When I would feel hungry, I would think about making my food doing God's will and accomplishing his work. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:9-10). "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matthew 26: 39). Again, to do God's will rather than our own, usually takes some humbling, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

I also pray to St. Anthony of the Desert, who knew a thing or too about hunger, and about shedding the comforts and distractions and lures of this world to concentrate on God instead.

Lenten Thoughts - Accidie

Jason Fisher has a fascinating blog called Lingwë: Musings of a Fish. While Lingwë is not a religious blog, Fisher does write about the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Of particular interest for my purposes today is his entry on accidie. In reflecting on Lent, I appreciated Fisher's reference to St. Thomas Aquinas, who said that accidie was a torpor mentis (a "torpor of the mind"). Lent is a time to rouse us from our mental and spiritual complacency and reinvigorate our relationship with the Lord.

A while back I talked about St. Anthony of the Desert and the Desert Fathers. Accidie figures prominently in their recorded sayings. Here is the first saying from St. Anthony, found in Sr. Benedicta Ward's The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (pp. 1-2).

When the holy Abba Anthony lived in the desert he was beset by accidie, and attacked by many sinful thoughts. He said to God, ‘Lord, I want to be saved but these thoughts do not leave me alone; what shall I do in my affliction? How can I be saved?’ A short while afterwards, when he got up to go out, Anthony saw a man like himself sitting at his work, getting up from his work to pray, then sitting down and plaiting a rope, then getting up again to pray. It was an angel of the Lord sent to correct and reassure him. He heard the angel saying to him, ‘Do this and you will be saved.’ At these words, Anthony was filled with joy and courage. He did this, and he was saved.

Lent is a time to be reassured that God wants us to draw closer to him, and that the ways to do that, while challenging to be sure, are not extraordinarily complex. And God is there to help us.

In St. Anthony's vision, making God the focus of our lives is the way to him. To modern minds, St. Anthony's vision looks like a division of the day into what is oriented toward God (prayer) and what is not (work). However, that is not the case. St. Anthony is being shown that prayer and work are two sides of the same coin. If we do it right, work has a spiritual dimension. Pope John Paull II, in his encyclical, Laborem Exercens (On Human Work), wrote that through work man contributes "above all, to elevating unceasingly the cultural and moral level of the society within which he lives in community with those who belong to the same family." The last section of the encyclical concerns "Elements for a Spirituality of Work" (24-27). The motto of the Benedictines is ora et labora - pray and work. In The Practice of the Presence of God, it is said of Brother Lawrence: "That with him the set times of prayer were not different from other times; that he retired to pray, according to the directions of his superior, but that he did not want such retirement, nor ask for it, because his greatest business did not divert him from God" (Second Conversation).

The plaiting of the rope that St. Anthony does is a metaphor for the intertwined nature of prayer and work when they are united for the greater glory of God. Proper work and prayer take us out of ourselves, out of our torpor of mind, and direct us toward God. May our Lent follow such a path.

Spiritual Communion - Vinny Flynn's 7 Secrets of the Eucharist

Secret #7 of Vinny Flynn's 7 Secrets of the Eucharist is about spiritual communion. It may be my favorite part of his book. I wanted to highlight some of the sources he quotes which I found the most meaningful.

Flynn says:

Sacramental Communion brings us into union with God, and spiritual Communion helps keep us there (pp. 88-89).

He quotes a vision of St. Catherine of Siena, where Jesus is holding two chalices:

In this golden chalice I put your sacramental communions. In this silver chalice I put your spiritual communions. Both chalices are quite pleasing to me (p. 89).

Flynn quotes St. Padre Pio:

In the course of the day,...call on Jesus, even in the midst of all your occupations.... He will come and will remain always united with your soul by means of His grace and His holy love.

Fly with your spirit before the tabernacle, when you cannot stand before it bodily, and there pour out the ardent longings of your soul and embrace the Beloved of souls, even more than if you had been permitted to receive Him sacramentally (p. 91).

He gives the prayer for spiritual communion from St. Alphonsus Liguori:

My Jesus, I believe that you are really present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I desire to possess you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace you as being already there and unite myself wholly to you. Never permit me to be separated from you (p. 95).

Flynn talks about some of the wordless images he uses for spiritual communion. I especially like his image of Mary visiting him as she did Elizabeth in the Visitation, but bringing her Son into Flynn's heart.

Someone who engaged in nearly continuous spiritual communion was Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century French Carmelite whose Practice of the Presence of God talks about how he did this:

That we should establish ourselves in a sense of God's presence by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation to think of trifles and fooleries.

More on Brother Lawrence later.

J.R.R. Tolkien Gives Us Insight into Abortion

In his "Introductory Note" to Tree and Leaf, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about the inspiration for his story "Leaf by Niggle," which comprises the second portion of the book. Tolkien writes:

One of its sources was a great-limbed poplar tree that I could see even lying in bed. It was suddenly lopped and mutilated by its owner. I do not know why. It is cut down now, a less barbarous punishment for any crimes it may have been accused of, such as being large and alive. I do not think it had any friends, or mourners, except myself and a pair of owls.

Of course, the context for Tolkien's passage has nothing to do with abortion. And yet, it immediately struck me as applicable to abortion. Unfortunately, women who commit abortions are duped into thinking that they are "owners" of a "fetus," rather than mothers of a baby. The "crimes" of these babies--being large and alive. While the mothers (and fathers) often later come to mourn these babies, at the time, such babies may indeed have no friends or mourners, other than perhaps some sidewalk pro-life witnesses.

Lying Prostrate Before the Blessed Sacrament

In listening to Vinny Flynn's CD, Seven Secrets of the Eucharist (have you gotten this yet? perhaps I've been too subtle--order it now; I'll wait), he talks how the Angel of Peace at Fatima in 1916 appeared to the children, suspending the Host and chalice in the air and then throwing himself prostrate on the ground. Flynn contrasts this with how we usually receive Jesus in Holy Communion, full of distractions. In the comparison, Flynn says: "But an angel, a pure spirit, who lives constantly in the intimate presence of God, prostrates himself before the Eucharist in adoration!" (pp. 9-10 in Flynn's book). Flynn then goes on to say: "I'm not suggesting that we all run up and throw ourselves on our faces in front of the Eucharist the next time we go to receive. But interiorly we can. Whether we stand or kneel to receive, we can always, in our hearts, minds, and souls, be prostrate in adoration of the living God in the Eucharist" (p. 11).

In thinking about Flynn's comment, I went to the tabernacle at our parish for a brief period of adoration today. I thought, too, about the time last October when I went on retreat at a local Jesuit retreat house in Milford, Ohio, and spontaneously prostrated myself before the tabernacle in their chapel during adoration. It was an amazing feeling. So today, I again prostrated myself before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I was with my son, who is five years old, and he was puzzled and thought what I was doing was funny. I tried to explain my actions. Again, I had a wonderful feeling--of peace, of the rightness of it. And then, my son made a moving, loving gesture. He laid himself across my back. We were both prostrate before the Lord.

It was a good day.

Heirloom Catholicism

I was re-listening to Vinny Flynn's CD, Seven Secrets of the Eucharist today. (Order it TODAY.) Flynn is so good at trying to rouse us from our complacency, our lethargy, our ignorance, our indifference regarding the Eucharist. His talk got me thinking about the term "cultural Catholic." This term is typically used to refer to people whose Catholicism is a legacy rather than a lived faith. They go to mass, but not generally every week, and perhaps only at Christmas and Easter. The sacraments are rites of passage that "connect the dots" of their lives, but the long stretches between the dots are lived in a predominantly secular way. They tend to be selective about which of the teachings of the church they follow or agree with. This is a broad brush, and some people will fit some of these categories and not others. For an example of cultural Catholicism, see this posting by Creative Minority Report about Joe Biden. (Regardless of your political inclinations, the general portrayal of the nature of a cultural Catholic is helpful.)

However, I began to think more about the term, "cultural Catholic." On the one hand, we may go to mass every day and if the Eucharist does not change our lives, then we are in a sense a cultural Catholic. (Vinny Flynn talks about this idea without using the term "cultural Catholic.") On the other hand, we actually want to promote Catholic culture, which is the "body" of the "spiritual" life of Catholicism. The website Catholic Culture is devoted to the development of such a culture. David Gibson wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal describing Pope Benedict XVI's advocacy of a vibrant Catholic culture. We should all strive to be cultural Catholics in the best sense: sacramentals around the house (holy water, images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, a crucifix in every room), blessing your children each day, crossing yourself when you pass a Catholic church which has the Eucharist reserved, saying grace before meals in public, etc.

I think perhaps a better term is "heirloom Catholic." By that I mean those who treat their faith like a family heirloom which rests on a shelf, gets dusted off and brought down from time to time to look at and remember past times, then to be put back on the shelf. It is itself a treasure, but it is something distant, something outside of one's self. Again, perhaps all of us are such Catholics at one time or another in our faith journeys. But it is a matter of life or death that we not remain such Catholics.

Typically the term that has been opposed to "cultural Catholic" is "devout Catholic." I also think we need to re-think that terminology. There is nothing wrong with being a devout Catholic; we want to be devout Catholics. However, the way the term is used has become increasingly meaningless. Mark Shea has a commentary on this point. I would suggest that we should oppose "heirloom Catholic" with "Eucharistic Catholic." If we are devoted to Christ in the mass, Eucharistic adoration, and spiritual communion, then we cannot help but move outward toward others (this was Mother Teresa's approach); we cannot help but create a Catholic culture that makes the spiritual visible, which is a sacramental way of living in the world.

From Irritation to Blessing

I have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia books to my children (who are six and five). We have gotten through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. We have also seen the recent movies of those books. We just started Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

As someone who thinks that C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity is simply an amazing book, I am fascinated by the Narnia novels. Lewis was clearly a better expository writer than novelist (as one would expect from a scholar), but he does create some wonderful moments of dialogue and imagery.

One of those moments came to me at mass last week. My kids like to sit in the front row so they can see what is going on, but we arrived too late to mass to sit in the front row. We sat toward the back, but the kids were upset because they could not see the altar. So we took them into the "cry room." The cry room is on the second floor, with a plate glass window overlooking the main aisle of the church and the altar. I was irritated because now, instead of sitting in the front row, we were now in the cry room with several children who were up there for the reason that we have a cry room - because they were being too loud or too mobile for the main part of the church.

But God changed my irritation into a blessing. From that angle, we could see the altar surface. Normally, we are a little below the altar and cannot see the surface. Suddenly, seeing the table top of the altar, the image of Aslan's sacrifice on "the stone table" in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came to me. Aslan, the lion, is an analogue to Christ in the novel, and I had been extremely moved by the scene of his sacrifice. I had understood the symbolism of the slaying of Aslan as paralleling the Crucifixion. But what I had not appreciated was the simultaneous symbolism of the sacrifice of the the mass, of the Victim upon the altar. Suddenly, the "stone table" upon which Aslan was killed, so clearly shed light on the altar that I had looked upon each week but had not really seen.

God has this uncanny way of changing our point of view, even when we wish to remain stuck in our current, limited ways of seeing. There is a great 17th-century Japanese poem by Mizuta Masahide that illustrates this truth:

Barn's burnt down
now
I can see the moon.