Roman Catholic Spirituality

Saint Expeditus - A Powerful Prayer for Urgent Financial Needs

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Our Loving and Merciful Father sends the right answer to prayers at the right time through the speedy intercession of St. Expeditus. Be true to yourself and humble to beg your request and God will surely grant your prayers.

Pray to Saint Expeditus

Our dear martyr and protector, Saint Expeditus,

You who know what is necessary and what is urgently needed.

I beg you to intercede before the Holy Trinity, that by your grace

my request will be granted.

____________ (Clearly express what you want, and ask him to

find a way to get it to you.)

May I receive your blessings and favors.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen

Good News To The World

2011-01-20T12:28:00.002-08:00

Good news to the world is the most important phrase that all Christians are looking at. The phrase of Jesus gives significant reflection on our faith. It is our great task to stand firm to the end, to proclaim the good news to the whole world. And to hold on to him who rose victorious from the grave. The raging torrents and waves of our tumultuous times have made it very hard not to lose sight of the light and not to let ourselves drift away into the darkness.

The powers and principalities not only show their presence in the unsettling political and economic situation of our day but they also show their destructive presence in the most intimate places of our lives.

Our faithfulness in relationship is severely tested, our innocence of belonging is questioned again, our anger and greed show their power with new vehemence, and our desire to indulge ourselves in the despairing hedonism of the moment proves to be stronger than ever. It is the good news of the world that will suffice our faith, and will keep our faith always during the moment of adversities.

Yes, the dangers are very real. It is not impossible that we become false prophets shouting ‘look here is the Christ’, or ‘he’s there’, that we’ll deceive people with our self-proclaimed assurances. And that not only others love, but even our own will grow cold.

Our compulsive wordy and mind-minded world has a firm grip on us and we need a very strong and persistent discipline not to be carried away by it.

Silence on the Spirituality of the Desert

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Does the spirituality of the desert lead us to close our eyes into the interesting realities of our time? Around the contrary, solitude, silence and prayer permit us to avoid wasting ourselves and other individuals through the shipwreck of our self-destructive society.

The enticement should be to go mad with those who are foolish, also to go approximately yelling and screaming, telling all people where to go, how to proceed and the way to behave. The temptation is to come and involve with the agonies and the ecstasies on the final times that we are going to drown jointly with these we're trying to save.

Jesus himself has warned us, “Take care that no one deceives you for the reason that many will appear utilizing my title and declaring ‘I am the Christ’, and they'll deceive numerous.

You can expect to listen on rumor of wars. Never be alarmed for this because it is something that has to happen. But the end will not be yet. For nation will fight in opposition to country, and kingdom versus kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes below and there.

Quite a few will fall away. Men will betray each another and dislike one another. Quite a few bogus prophets will shine. They're going to deceive quite a few and aided by the raise of lawlessness, like in most men will grow cold. But people who stand strong towards the judgment shall be saved.

This fantastic news on the kingdom will likely be proclaimed for the whole humsnity as a witness to all countries, then the judgment will appear.”

MINISTERING IN APOCALYPTIC PRAYER

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The question with which I started these straight presentations on desert spirituality and contemporary ministry was ‘how can we minister is an apocalyptic situation’? In a period of history dominated by an all-increasing fear of a war that cannot be won, and an always increasing sense of impotence, the question of ministry is very urgent.

As a response to this question I have presented you with the words, “flee from the world, be silent, and pray always”, words spoken to the Roman aristocrat Arcinius, who asked God how to be saved. Solitude, silence and unceasing prayer form the core concepts of the spirituality of the desert, which I consider of great value also for us ministers as we approach the end of the second millennium of Christianity.

Solitude shows us the way to let our behavior be modeled not by the compulsions of the world but by our new mind, the mind of Christ. Silence prevents us from being suffocated by our wordy world and teaches us to speak the word of God. Finally, unceasing prayer is what gives solitude and silence its real meaning.

Through unceasing prayer we descend with the mind into the heart and thus enter through our heart into the heart of God who embraces all of history with his always-creating and re-creating love.

DISCIPLINE OF HEART IN PRAYER

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This brings me to the conclusion of this presentation on prayer. In our mind-minded world we will need a serious discipline to come to a prayer of the heart, where we can listen to the guidance of him who prays in us.

I hope that I’ve been able to make it clear that the great emphasis on prayer in ministry is not meant as an encouragement to be less involved with people, or to leave our society with its many struggles untouched. Prayer as understood by the hesychasts helps us to discern which of our ministerial activities are indeed for the glory of God, and which are primarily for the glory of our unconverted egos.

The prayer of the heart offers us a new sensitivity which enables us to separate the chaff from the wheat in our ministry and thus to become much less ambiguous witnesses of Jesus Christ. The prayer of the heart is indeed the way to the purity of heart – the purity which gives us eyes to see the reality of our existence. We see better our own needy, distorted and anxious selves, but also the caring face of our compassionate God. When that vision remains clear and sharp it will be possible to move in the midst of a highly tumultuous world with a heart at rest.

It is this restful heart that will attract those that are groping to find their way through life. When we have found our rest in God we cannot do other than minister.

God’s rest will be visible wherever we go or whoever we meet, and before and beyond any words that we speak, the spirit of God praying in us will make his presence known and gather people into a new body, the body of Christ himself.

BREATH OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

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We saw how prayer of the heart is nourished by short prayers, is unceasing and all-inclusive. These three characteristics show how the prayer of the heart is the breath of the spiritual life and of all ministries. We can indeed say that this prayer, as I described it, is not simply an important activity we should not forget, but the very center of the new life which we want to represent and to which we want to introduce our people.

It is clear from the characteristics of the prayer of the heart that they ask for a very concrete discipline. To live a prayerful life we cannot do without concrete prayers. We need to say them in such a way that we can listen better to the spirit praying in us, and we need to continue to include in that prayer all people with and for whom we live and work.

This discipline will help us to move away from a dividing, distracting, fragmentary and often frustrating ministry towards an uniting, integrating, holistic and very gratifying ministry. It will make ministry not easy but simple. It will make it not sweet and pious, but very spiritual.

It will make it not without its many pains and struggles, but nevertheless restful in the true hesychastic sense.

GENTLE AND HUMBLE HEART

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Do you realize that I am here speaking no longer about prayer alone but about ministry as well? The discipline to lead all our people with their struggles into the gentle and humble heart of our God is the discipline of prayer as well as the discipline of ministry.

As long as ministry only means that we worry a lot about people and their problems. And as long as ministry means an endless amount of activities which we can hardly coordinate, we are still very much dependent on our own narrow and anxious heart.

But when our worries are led to the heart of God and have become prayer there, then ministry and prayer become two manifestations of the same all-embracing love of God.

MIND AND HEART PRAYER

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The third characteristic of the prayer of the heart is that it is all-inclusive, that includes all our concerns. When we enter with our mind into our heart and there stand in the presence of God then all our mental preoccupations become prayer.

The power of the prayer of the heart is precisely that through it all that is on our mind becomes prayer. When we say to people, ‘I will pray for you’ we make a very important commitment. The sad thing is that this remark often remains no more than a well-meant remark.

But when we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God, and touched by him in the center of our being. I’m speaking here of a mystery for which words are lacking, but which is no less real.

It is the mystery that the heart which is the center of our being is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the universe and all it contains. Through prayer we can take all human pain and sorrow, all conflict and agony, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness and misery in our heart.

Not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because it is God’s heart that has become one with ours. Here we catch a glimpse of the meaning of Jesus’ words, “Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, that I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.”

Jesus invites us to accept his burden and we know that it is the burden of the whole world, that it includes all human suffering in time and place. But this divine burden is a light burden, that we can carry when our heart is transformed in the gentle and humble heart of our Lord.

PRESENCE OF GOD

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Here we hear another way of coming to unceasing prayer. The prayer continues to pray within me even while I am talking with others or concentrating on manual work.

The prayer here has become the active presence of God’s spirit guiding me through life. Thus we see how true charity and the activity of the prayer of Jesus in our heart, all of our day can become an ongoing prayer.

I’m not suggesting that we should do what the monk Lucius did, or what the Russian pilgrim did. But I do suggest that we too in our busy ministry should be concerned to pray without ceasing, so that whatever we eat, whatever we drink, whatever we do at all, we do it for the glory of God.

To love and work for the glory of God cannot remain an idea about which we think once in a while. But it has to become an interior, unceasing doxology.

UNCEASING PRAYER

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The story offers a very concrete answer to the question ‘how can I pray without ceasing while I am busy with many other things?’ The answer involves the neighbor. Through my charity he becomes partner in my prayer and makes it into an unceasing prayer.

In the 19th century when the problem with the Messalians did not exist a more mystical response is given. We find it in the famous story about the Russian peasant called The Way of the Pilgrim. It starts as follows: “I am by my own deeds a great sinner but by God’s grace a Christian.

On the 21st Sunday after Pentecost I went to the Church for the liturgy. The reading was from the first epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians and it contained the command ‘pray without ceasing’.

The words stuck in my mind and I began to ponder how it was possible to pray without ceasing since a man is obliged to do very many other things.” The peasant went from church to church to listen to sermons but did not find the answer he desired.

Finally he met a holy staretz who said to him, “Continual interior prayer is the spontaneous leaping forth of man’s spirit towards God. You have to pray God to enlighten you about the means by which the spirit may accomplish this activity. Pray hard and fervently. Prayer itself will reveal to you how it can be prolonged unceasingly. But this will take much time.”

Then the holy staretz taught the peasant the Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.’ While travelling as a pilgrim through Russia the peasant repeated this prayer endless times with his lips. He even considers the Jesus Prayer his true companion. And then one day he has the feeling that the prayer by its own action passes from his lips to his heart.

He says: “It seemed as though my heart in its ordinary beating began to say the words of the prayer within at each beat. I gave up saying the prayer with my lips. I simply listened carefully to what my heart was saying.”

PRAYER OF THE HEART

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The prayer of the heart is unceasing. The second characteristic of the prayer of the heart is that it is unceasing. The question how to follow Paul’s command ‘pray without ceasing’, has had a central place in hesychasm from the time of the Desert Fathers until 19th century Russia.

Let me give you an example of this concern from both ends of the hesychatic tradition. During the period of the Desert Fathers there was a pietistic sect called the Messalians who had an over-spiritualized approach to prayer and considered manual work condemnable for a monk. Some of the monks of this sect went to see Abba Lucius.

The old man asked them “What is your manual work?” They said “We do not touch manual work but as the Apostle says, we pray without ceasing.” The old man asked if they did not eat.

They replied they did. So he said to them, “When you are eating who prays for you then?” Again he asked if they did not sleep, and they replied they did. He said to them, “When you are asleep who prays for you then?” They could not find an answer to give him. He said: “Forgive me. But you do not act as you speak. I will show you how while doing my manual work I pray without interruption.

I sit down with God soaking my reeds and plaiting my rope and I say ‘God have mercy on me, according to your great goodness, and according to the multitudes of your mercies save me from my sins.’” So he asked them if this were not prayer and they replied it was.

Then he said to them: “So when I spent the whole day working and praying, making certain pieces of money, more or less, I put two pieces of money outside the door and I pay for my food with the rest of the money. He who takes the two pieces of money prays for me while I am eating and when I am sleeping. So by the grace of God I fulfill the precept to pray without ceasing.”

Roman Catholicism

2010-10-27T10:01:00.001-07:00

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Daily Readings

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Word On Fire

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The Saints Always Belong to the Present: Saints Francis and Anthony

2010-10-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Father Anthony Mancini of Providence, RI discusses the saints. This episode focuses on Saint Francis and Saint Anthony. CatholicTV

Experiencing Paul - Experiencing God

2010-10-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

The 13-part series looks at the life and death of Saint Paul and takes an in-depth look at some of his letters to Thessalonica, Corinth and Rome. Dr. Clabeaux is an associate professor of sacred scripture at Pontifical College Josephinum School of Theology.CatholicTV

Into the Deep

2010-10-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

Bishop Richard Malone (now of the Diocese of Portland, Maine) hosted the series Into the Deep for the CatholicTV Network in 2001. It aims, in a user-friendly way, to bring to viewers the important writing of Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter Novo Millennio Inuente. The letter was the Pope’s first of the new millennium and is to all Catholics. According to Bishop Malone, “the letter helps us move forward into the new millennium as we enter a new era for the church and the world.” The series title comes from words John Paul uses in the letter quoting a passage from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 5, where Jesus tells his Apostles to cast their nets “out into the deep” not to catch fish, but people. Into the Deep has 13 parts and will cover topics discussed by John Paul II including growing with Christ; listening to the Word; proclaiming the Word; our relationship with the Lord; sharing the vision of hope and confidence; and commitment to practical love of every human.CatholicTV

What Spirituality Looks Like

2010-04-22T09:28:00.001-07:00

“Spirituality is like that mortar in the fireplace. Just as the mortar makes the chimney a chimney, allowing it to stand up straight and tall, beautiful in its wholeness, ‘the spiritual’ is what makes us wholly human. It holds our experiences together, shapes them into a whole, gives them meaning, allows them – and us – to be whole.”

Gaps and Glimpses
Watch him, watch him, that man on a hill whose spirit
Is a wet sack flapping about the knees of time …
Yet sometimes when the sun comes through a gap
These men know God the Father in a tree:
The Holy Spirit is the rising sap,
And Christ will be the green leaves that will come
At Easter from the sealed and guarded tomb.
-Patrick Kavanagh, The Great Hunger

Definitions/ Descriptions

The term has traditionally designated that branch of theology which deals with the life of prayer, the Christian relationship with God and the affective states associated with these events. It may also refer to these events as spiritual realities in themselves.

Spirituality is a means by which we express the deepest of human values about ourselves, our communities, all other peoples, and the whole of creation.

Our spirituality expresses many ways in which we as individuals and as groups seek to live in conscious relationship with each other and God. It may include formal practices such as worship, ritual, prayer, liturgy, meditation and mysticism, as well as the complex dimensions of human living.

Spirituality is rooted in whatever we believe has ultimate or transcendent value. For Christians these values reside in God.

Christian spirituality is the living out of faith in the world by the Christian community.

The Dawn of Our Spirituality
Fathers and Mothers of the Desert

The desert Fathers and Mothers have much to teach us about what is called the ‘nomadism’ of Spirituality. It is a nomadism of the spirit which does not allow for any settling down. It is rather a search for fullness and liberation. It means embarking on a path in darkness and emptiness leading to a ‘new creation’ in the likeness of Jesus, a re-integration of love, freedom to do good, an anticipation of the happiness which the mastery of the world gives, as well as possession of evangelical wisdom for understanding events.

Segundo Galileo (The Dawn of Our Spirituality, Claretian Publications, 1990) looks at ‘mediations’ – the means taken to approach God - their value and their limitations. In this way the desert fathers/mothers introduced a permanent question: how to use the mediations in order to be united with the Invisible; and so how to leave behind everything in order to find His mystery in the emptiness of a loving faith. The way of purification of this faith and love is essential in the search to know God, and for it there are three requirements: renunciation, conversion and practice of mercy. Here we see the presence, spirit and importance of this group not only for the mystics but for ourselves too. A call that is constantly present in our lives.

Fathers/Mothers of the Desert is the title given to the early Christian ascetics who dwelt in the desert, most of whom were men. The movement began at he beginning of the 3rd century when these Christians abandoned the world of the city in order to consecrate themselves to God in the deserts of Syria and Egypt. Their lifestyle is known to have been extremely poor and austere, with most of their time given to prayer, silence, works of penance and fraternal charity.

Written records are called ‘apophthegmata’ or sayings which include the deeds of their lives accepted by their contemporaries as examples of Christian witnessing. These reveal to us a spirituality so radical, so strange and novel, so deeply influenced by the oriental Christianity of the period that we tend to regard them as mere objects of curiosity or matters of academic or historical interest only.

A Way of Being Christian
The great mystics in the Church in general and the Fathers of the Desert in particular cultivated a spirituality that is basically Christian. The revolutionized many virtues and values, but for them this was but a consequence of living up to their baptismal promises and not out of a desire to live a ‘superior’ Christian life. This way of being Christian was presented by the primitive patristic Church as a ‘second baptism’, that is, a second call and conversion to live according to the promises made in baptism.

The themes of the spirituality that motivated and inspired their lives are in fact the very basic themes of all Christian spirituality; they coincide with any contemporary spirituality leading to the path of Christian fulfillment: the following and imitation of Jesus Christ. An outstanding characteristic of their lives was the constant reading and praying of the Gospels. The root cause of their spiritual sojourn was their baptism which contained the catalyst of their transformation through renewal in Christ. Their ‘apostolic life’ consisted essentially in the constant practice of ‘double love’: of God above all and of neighbor for God’s sake which was expressed in their numerous works of mercy.

They did not think of themselves as ‘specialists’ in spirituality, not as superior to other Christians. Not did they choose this manner of life as a down-grading of the world out of any reactionary or eccentric spirit. They knew that no particular lifestyle was of itself the source of holiness, neither did they specify certain places to be linked with particular holiness, such as the desert or any other place. “To sanctify yourself, change your inner self and not the place,” is what we read in their apophthegmata.

The goals which they impose on themselves and their renunciation may seem excessive to us, but they also reveal great confidence in the ability of people to conquer themselves and eradicate evil. It is the power of grace rather than the power of sin that constitutes the center of their interest. They practice intuitively that old formula, that ‘the should is naturally Christian.’ They also realize that the evangelical counsels, although most radical, are also humanizing and liberating. They express the conviction that the human being, adequately developed by spirituality, will find that Christian practice, even that of renunciation, will not only be uplifting, but will also be in accord with human nature.

Forerunners of Spiritual Wisdom
The special interest of the Fathers of the Desert to Christian mysticism comes from the fact that they are forerunners of the expression and development of truly great themes in spirituality. If we exclude the NT itself, the first true synthesis or school of spirituality was that which was born of the experience of the desert. It is an accepted fact that this experience constituted also the first collective experience of religious life. And in later centuries religious life developed norms and institutions (with vows, communal structures, rules etc.) and this has continued to the present day

This kind of religious life did not yet exist among the hermits of the desert. We do encounter among them, however, the foundation of the spirituality found in all consecrated life: absolute dedication to God, practice of the evangelical counsels: celibacy, radical poverty and obedience to the spiritual master; fraternal charity, contemplation and reparation for sins – all these as lived through the collective experience of mutual assistance.

The first crucible of oriental mysticism, its cradle and origin, is the Desert Fathers and Mothers. When we read the apophthegmata and their teachings we come across concepts, analyses, syntheses, choices and treatments of themes, encountered repeatedly in all Christian spiritual literature. In many areas of spirituality, much of the essence has been gathered from them. We find their influence in matters of asceticism, in analyses of vices and virtues, temptations and crises, in their treatment of contemplative prayer and its conditions. In matters of fraternal correction their penetrating influence at times is unsurpassed, as is their deep psychological analysis when they saw the need for it.

A Prophetic Vision Within Our Reach

The mysticism of the desert has much to give; it is a reaction to the ecclesiastical and social crisis of its time. Like all mystical schools it is reformative. The Fathers/Mothers of the Desert constituted a movement of Christian and social reform, and this without founders or outstanding spiritual leaders, religious institution or even a clear notion of what they were initiating. The exodus to the desert of a significant number of believers was an affirmative movement, a movement of the Spirit. The factor of a response to a crisis in Christianity must not be dismissed; the living of the faith had been relaxed with the Church’s expansion through massive conversions. The lessening of persecution and martyrdom with the temporal triumph of Christianity, led to laxity. The radical following of Christ was endangered.

The exodus to the desert, then, for many Christians was a way of living for Christ; to tread such a path with Him through daily offering, prepared them for the heroic charity of ‘martyrdom’. This form of evangelical life came to accentuate the values lived by multitudes of Christians in Eastern cities: daily increasing conversion, voluntary poverty, humility, prayer and, above all, love of each other.

This spiritual tradition is known to us today through two sources: the ‘learned’ and the ‘unlettered’ fathers. The unlettered formed the vast majority. They did not write nor did they systematize their spiritual experience. The Bible was the sole read book. If they devoted time to studies they did so in the interest of simplicity of life, of spiritual practice and of wisdom. They transmitted this to disciples through living example strengthened by short teachings engraved on stones, and through symbols and parables communicated orally (the apophthegmata).

SPIRITUAL NOMADISM
Motives are a factor in all decisions. In spirituality these motives must be conscious and predominantly Christian and in the service of God and of others. The desert Christians were very conscious of this problem. The exodus they chose toward solitude was radical and heroic. The reasons: disillusionment, flight from decadent surroundings, dissatisfaction with the prevalent manner of life, and personal crisis. Nonetheless, all of them had the conviction of answering the call of God to follow Jesus, to serve Him and their neighbor, living no longer for themselves.

This calling brought them to the desert with the intent of finding God, since they knew that they had not yet found Him. They knew that every option in life is a turning aside to put oneself on the road in search of greater human fulfillment, which is to seek God. For them the desert was the place where this search for God became their fulfillment.

Spiritual searching is always marked by a path that becomes meaningful when its course is set, that is on the way to Jesus. The desert is a route and journey, but the traveler must know the way and also learn how to tread the way. For this reason it is necessary to listen to and learn from those who are more advanced. Entering the desert for these Christians meant being enrolled in a ‘school’ and they did so with the attitude of disciples. From then on, Christian spirituality also took on the characteristic of a school (school of perfection) and a continuous apprenticeship.

Voluntary Exile

The Fathers and Mothers of the Desert have taught us what Christian spirituality means in terms of exodus and pilgrimage, as well as constant searching, namely, ‘nomadism’ of spirituality, which does not tolerate any settling down. Just as spirituality represents the fullness of humanism, and the spiritual journey is none other than an image of life’s sojourn, they teach us what is implied in the life-journey of every person on earth: an exodus, a pilgrimage, a searching. Implicitly or explicitly, human beings are restless and dissatisfied creatures. They are in a constant search of a better life, of a better place to live, and of aspirations never attained; even in their vices they look for a happiness that constantly eludes them.

The vision of faith places this search in its total perspective: human life has a dimension of exodus and exile, or tireless searching and pilgrimage, a “night in a wretched inn” (St. Teresa).

Spirituality consists in living this human condition according to its true perspective. The mystics made this their radical choice by exiling themselves to the desert. If the human condition is both a search and a temporary exile, the spirituality of the desert accentuates these aspects and integrates them as experiences proper to the Christian life.

The monks of the desert embraced the mysticism of the impermanent doing away with every value that one might like to make absolute, including asceticism of the desert and the desert itself. For them the external was always related to an interior displacement, since the spiritual exodus and nomadism is of the heart and not of the body.

They introduced a permanent questioning of Christian spirituality: how to utilize visible mediations in order to be united to the Invisible.

The Value of Mediations

Communion is achieved through mediations, but exodus and poverty are there without mediation. This is the difficulty of Christian spirituality. God is seen as desert, as cloud, as darkness in the language of Eastern mysticism. But God is, in a certain manner, already present in all signs of life in the created world.

The desert Fathers remind us to utilize all those mediations which bring us to God. But these mediations are relative and quite insufficient to be experiences of God, since they are also capable of dimming and blurring the path to God. God is greater than all these. Since God can only be approached with loving faith, only through this spirit of faith can any recourse to mediations become valuable.
In the final analysis, the use of mediations is concerned with purification of faith and love. In due time, these same mediations may purify the loving faith, which is the decisive locus of the experience of God and the love of neighbor.

Intuitively, the Fathers exiled themselves in the desert to obtain this purification at that moment of their lives when the ambiguity of their Christian experience had become manifest with great intensity. The desert itself then became mediation so that those who understood this overcame the material place when they found their most important concern: the journey into an inner purification. Those who failed to do this became eccentrics and psychological wrecks.
The Way of Purification

For the Desert Fathers/Mothers the journey towards purification of the spirit had three requirements: renunciation, conversion and acts of mercy. Renunciation means they leave behind persons, things, work, lifestyles and plans incompatible with the will of God in their lives – even including their desire of seeking God with all their strength. This change of habits brought them to radical and permanent renunciation not only of what may be harmful, but also of what is unnecessary; thus they embraced a material poverty that was almost absolute. They came to understand the emptiness resulting from their renunciation so that they became filled with the experience of God and the freedom to love.

They understood that all renunciation is vain if not coupled with renunciation of self, of one’s pride and egotism; that is, if it is done without self-abnegation. Abnegation is the heart of renunciation.

For them – and in effect for the whole tradition of mysticism – abnegation is born of the forgetting of self. Abnegation is founded on a correct love of self, and on finding peace and reconciliation within oneself. There is no manner of self-depreciation that is compatible with Christianity.

Compunction of Heart

The first step towards a liberating purification is becoming reconciled with oneself and finding pardon, in the way God loves and pardons us as we are.

Conversion is due to love. For the Fathers this attitude is permanent, a state of the spirit that moves and accompanies a change of habits and renunciation. This is called compunction of heart. Compunction for sins, assumed in the goodness and mercy of God, is an ingredient that is always present in the prayer an in the aspiration toward conversion of the desert spirituality.

The Fathers are well-known for their conviction that this compunction of heart and permanent conversion are a gift from God, for which they must pray.

The Theory and the Practice of the Desert Fathers

By the practice of mercy is meant serving our neighbor in need. Since the NT it has constituted an essential ministry in the Church and a dimension of spirituality. Thus we find it in all movements of mysticism throughout history, even if it is practices differently. This practice of mercy was fundamental to the Desert Fathers/Mothers.

They were continually receiving the needy who sought them, and if necessary, they visited them.

They attended to the sick and they shared what little they had with the poor and beggars.

Aware of their way of life, sinners especially sought them, Aas well as those who had nowhere to go; so did the disturbed, who came to seek consolation and spiritual guidance.

The sayings of the Fathers imply that this ministry was at times taxing. From that time on there began what much later would be called ‘spiritual direction.’

Their practicing mercy toward the needy was profoundly a purifying of the heart. It verifies conversion as an eminent form of renunciation and feeds compunction of the heart.

They demonstrated in the early life of Christianity, what the Church continually proved in the course of history: that the poor evangelize us and provide an important place in spiritual experience through the practice of efficacious love. They called this simply praxis.

St. Catherine of Siena

2010-04-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

Catherine of Siena was a remarkable Christian woman. She stands out in her historical period as a strong, colorful, passionate and enthusiastic personality. She had tremendous zest for life and put all herself into whatever she was convinced about. She was said to be always ‘at full stretch’ whether responding to her loving God or reaching out compassionately to her needy neighbor.

Catherine’s writings have a style which is spontaneous, energetic and passionate with superb use of imagery. She uses images in her efforts to communicate her inexpressible experience of the most profound realities, and hopes that these images will stimulate the dormant intuition of her readers, opening up for them a deeper meaning of human and divine truths. Her images come from the ordinary things and experiences of her life: a fire eagerly consuming the wood thrown on it, light filtering through a narrow street, a tall tree laden with fruit, a bridge across a river, the mirror in which she sees her own reflection, a vineyard, the vast ocean with its peaceful surface.

The context in which she develops her theology and spirituality is SELF-KNOWLEDGE. Her first question is ‘Who am I?’ In order to know who we are or what the meaning of our lives is, we need to go to the One who made us. No matter how much we understand ourselves by looking at ourselves, we can never arrive at the deepest, richest self-knowledge without seeing ourselves through God’s eyes, without gazing at ourselves in the ‘gentle mirror’ of God. Her God is always gentle. The reason we can see ourselves in our gentle God is that we are made in the divine image.

The process or growing in self-knowledge is compared by Catherine to digging a well. If we want to make or uncover a well we need to dig through much soil, even stones at times, before we reach the running water. Likewise in coming to know ourselves, we come in touch with our own inadequacies, imperfections, failures, limitations. These are what she calls the ‘soil of our poverty’, and she encourages us not to be afraid to go down this well, that is, not to run away in fear or disgust from that part of ourselves which is dark, frail or imperfect.

Rather she encourages us to stay with it, for it reminds us of an important truth about ourselves, namely that as created beings, we have to accept that limitations and inadequacies are built into our human condition. In becoming aware of our limitations and incompleteness, we become aware also of our need for God, the running water at the bottom of our well, and we begin to stretch out and reach down towards this bubbling source of life within us. We are like the deer that yearns for running streams, or like a dry weary, land that longs for water. (Psalms 42 and 65).

“I have no intention of parting you from myself, but rather of making sure to bind you to me all the closer by the bond of your love for your neighbor. Remember that I have laid down two commandments of love: Love of me and love of your neighbor… It is the justice of these two commandments that I want you now to fulfill. On two feet you must walk my way.”

Catherine offers some questions which can help us assess whether our love and service of others is ‘freely-given and without self-seeking’: are we inordinately distressed if our love is not returned? Do we draw back in our service if others do not seem to love us as much as we love them? Does it upset us to see people loving others more than they love us? Even the love we have for our friends needs to be evaluated: it is not as gratuitous as we may think it is if we feel excessive pain either when they are absent or when they seem to prefer the companionship of others to ours.

Spirituality – A Dis-ease

2010-04-22T09:24:00.001-07:00

The Holy Longing
Roland Rolheiser

“…there is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full peace. This desire lies at the center of our lives, in the marrow of our bones, and in the deep recesses of our soul. We are not easeful human beings who occasionally get restless… The reverse is true. We are driven persons, forever obsessed, congenitally dis-eased, living lives…of quiet desperation, only occasionally experiencing peace…”
There are other names for this dis-ease: a restlessness, a longing, a disquiet, a hunger, a loneliness, a gnawing nostalgia, a wildness that cannot be tamed… Desire is the straw that stirs the drink!
Spirituality is ultimately what we do with that desire. Spirituality is what we do with our unrest.
Spirituality is not something on the fringes, an option for those with a particular bent. Everyone has to have a spirituality, and everyone does have one, either a life-giving one or a destructive one. All of us are fired into life with a certain kind of madness that comes from the gods and we have to do something with it.
Spirituality is about being integrated or falling apart, about being within community or being lonely, about being in harmony with Mother Earth or being alienated from her. We act in ways that leave us either healthy or unhealthy, loving or bitter. What shapes our actions is our spirituality. And what shapes our actions is what shapes our desire. Spirituality concerns what we do with our desire.
Spirituality takes root in the eros inside us and is all about how we shape and discipline this eros. This is the starting point of John of the Cross, and, for him, spirituality is how we handle that eros.
Few would consider Mother Teresa an erotic woman, but she is so, but not in the narrow Freudian sense. She was a dynamo of energy. She was a human bulldozer, but she was a disciplined woman, dedicated to God and the poor.
A saint is one who can channel powerful eros in a creative, life-giving way. A saint is someone who can will the one thing (Kierkegaard). Mother Teresa did just that in her focus on God and the poor. She had a powerful energy, her powerful eros poured out for the poor. This was the signature of her spirituality.
Janis Joplin too had a lot of energy. She was a woman of fiery eros. But she could not will the one thing. Her energy went out in all directions, creating an excess and a tiredness that led to an early death. Her activities, a total giving over to creativity, performance, drugs, sex, drink, coupled with neglect of normal rest, were her spirituality:

i'm buried alive, oh yeah, in the blues,
I'm buried alive, somebody help me, in the blues.
I beg for mercy, I pray for rain,
I can't be the one to accept all this blame,
Something here trying to pollute my brain,
I'm buried alive, oh yeah, in the blues.
The end result was not integration but dissipation. She, at a point, simply lost the things that normally glue a human person together, and she broke apart under too much pressure.
Looking at Joplin’s life and our own lives, and looking at the definition of a saint as being someone who can will the one thing, we can make a reflection: most of us are like Mother Teresa in willing God and the poor, but the problem is we will everything else as well. “We want to be a saint but we also want to feel every sensation experienced by sinners; we want to be innocent and poor but we want to taste all life too; we want a simple lifestyle but we want the comforts of the rich…”
Thus we struggle with commitment. It is not that we do not want certain things; it is just that we know that if we choose them we close off so many other things. It is not easy to be Mother Teresa. The danger is that we end up more like Janis Joplin, good-hearted, highly energized, driven to try to drink in all of life, but in danger of falling apart and dying from lack of rest.
There is another side. In Princess Diana there are two elements: the erotic and the spiritual. The erotic is obvious: the most photographed woman spending millions on clothes, who had affairs of various kinds, but she had a great energy which made her exceptional.
The spiritual in her was obvious too. Even before she met Mother Teresa she had a will to serve the poor. But spirituality is about how we channel our eros. In her case it was a painful case of struggle for choice and commitment. Hers was a mixed road.
She chose some things that made her integrated in body and soul, and others which tore at her body and soul. Such is spirituality. It is about integration and disintegration, about making the choices Princess Diana had to make and living with what that does to us.
Spirituality, then, is about what we do with the fire inside of us, about how we channel our eros. And how we do channel it – the disciplines and habits we choose to live by – will either lead to a greater integration or disintegration in the way we are related to God, others, and to the cosmic world.
The opposite of being spiritual is having no energy, is to have lost all zest for living – becoming a couch potato, watching football and sitcoms, or soap operas … taking beer intravenously! The task of the spiritual is to glue us together so that we do not fall apart and die. Thus the opposite of a spiritual person is one who has lost one’s own identity, a person who does not know who he or she is anymore. A healthy soul keeps us energized and glued together.

The Non-negotiables of Christian Spirituality

These are essential for a healthy spiritual life:
1. private prayer and private morality
2. social justice
3. mellowness of heart and spirit
4. community as a constitutive element of true worship

What does a fractured Christianity look like? Scenarios
1. Private prayer and private morality but no justice: this happens to many who go to church regularly, pray and have a good private morality but who do not care for social justice. This is a one-sided faith.
2. Social justice but lacking in private prayer and private morality. Does God care about our private prayer, our private grudges and our private morals? God cares because we care and these things make a big difference to God, because they make a big difference for us.
3. Private prayer, private morality and social justice but lacking mellowness of heart and soul. A Sister spoke of her experience of conversion: “There was something cold inside of me. I had become like the older brother of the prodigal son, doing all the right things, but having no celebration in my heart.”
4. Private prayer, private morality, social justice, mellowness of heart but lacking public worship. To be involved in a church community challenges us in living out our beliefs.

The Four Essential Pillars

1.Private prayer and personal moral integrity in things, even in the smallest private affairs, are things that Jesus makes non-negotiable in the spiritual life. To have a personal relationship with God is to keep the commandments. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my commandments.” In the Gospels, fidelity in this is the only real criterion to tell real prayer from illusion.
The spiritual life is not just about ‘Jesus and I’. However, there are equal dangers in not having enough ‘Jesus and I’ within our spiritual lives. The danger is not having the proper interiority and the personal moral fidelity to back up our faith preaching is that we end up turning Christianity into a philosophy, an ideology, a moral code… missing what it essentially is, a relationship with a person.
We will make progress in the spiritual life only if we, daily, do an extended period of private prayer, and only if we practice a scrupulous vigilance in regard to all the moral areas within our private lives. That is the first nonnegotiable within the spiritual life.
2. The call to be involved in creating justice for the poor is consistent throughout all the Gospels. One in every ten lines deals directly with the physically poor and the call from God for us to respond to them. In Luke and James the call is more insistent. We will get to heaven or hell on the basis of giving or not giving food, water, clothing, shelter, and justice to the poor. How we treat the poor is how we treat God. Reaching our preferentially to the poor is an essential component of the spiritual life.
God cannot be related to without continually digesting the uneasiness and pain that are experienced by looking, squarely and honestly, at how the weakest members in our society are faring and how our own lifestyle is contributing to it.

3. Sanctity has to do with gratitude. To be a saint is to be fueled by gratitude. But sanctity is as much about having a mellow heart as it is about believing and doing the right things, as much about prayer energy as about truth. Our task as Christians is to transform the world through love and justice, but we will only succeed if our actions come from a grateful heart. In the Gospels the call to have a mellow, grateful heart is significant.
“Following our wrong God home we may miss our star.” The wrong God is that of both the contemporary right and left, the God who is wired, bitter, anxious, workaholic, neurotic, and unhappy as we are. But that is not the God who lies at the end of the spiritual quest, but the God who, Julian of Norwich tells us, sits in heaven, smiling, completely relaxed, looking like a marvelous sympathy… The deepest revenge on demons that haunt us is to be happy.

4. Jesus teaches us clearly that God calls us, not just as individuals but as community, and that how we relate to each other is just as important religiously as how we relate to God. In fact, how we relate to each other is part of how we relate to God. To really love God is to love one’s neighbor. So, for the Christian, concrete involvement within a historical community of faith is essential for the spiritual life.
Many today want God but don’t want church. By doing so they bracket one of the primary demands inherent within the quest for God. Without church we have more private fantasy than real faith. Real conversion demands that its recipient be involved in both the muck and the grace of actual church life (Lonergan). Spirituality is ultimately communitarian, because spirituality is about the common search for the face of God – which is in a community.
Spirituality is partly a question of balance. Attention to the essential pillars can give that balance. Yet we must walk the earth like gods and goddesses. We want, with our Creator, to continue to create, and with our Redeemer, to continue to redeem. We want to help God bring the planet to completion, to a consummation of all that hope inspires in us. A key part of the spiritual life is to fulfill a vocation, by being part of God’s ongoing incarnation.
Incarnation as Basis of Christian Spirituality
One of the best expressions of incarnational spirituality and its implications comes from Teresa of Avila’s “Christ has no body now but yours…” For us Christians, Christ is the center of everything: our meaning, our hope, our self-understanding, our church lives, our theologies, our spiritualities. He is the guide of our discipleship.
Spirituality is about carefully disciplining the fiery energies that flow through us. Hence a good spirituality requires a certain discipleship – a disciple is one under a master. Jesus is the master for us. What Jesus wants of us is that we undergo his presence so as to enter into a community of life and celebration with him. Jesus is a a presence to be seized and acted upon.
Undergoing Jesus must be the center of any Christian spirituality. Within Christian spirituality we must speak about Jesus, the person and the energy that undergirds everything else. He is the vine, the pulse, the heart while everything else is merely a branch.
The Incarnation was not a thirty-year experiment, a short-cut incursion of God into human history. In this version,God came to earth physically and after 33 years went back home. However, the Incarnation is still going on and it is just as real and as radically physical as when Jesus of Nazareth, in the flesh, walked the roads of Palestine.

Why incarnation? Because we need someone with us who has some skin. A God who is everywhere is just as easily nowhere. We believe in what we can see, touch, hear, smell and taste. And God, having created our nature, respects how it operates. The Jesus who walked the streets of Palestine could be seen, heard, touched. In the Incarnation God became physical because we are creatures of the senses who need a God with some skin. Christ takes on flesh so that every home becomes a church, every child becomes a Christ-child, and all food and drink become a sacrament. God’s many faces are now everywhere, in flesh, tempered and turned down so that our human eyes can see him. God in his many-faced face, has become accessible, and visible, as the nearest water faucet. That is the why of the incarnation.
Why the rawness of this event? Scripture uses the expression ‘body of Christ’ to mean three things: Jesus the historical person; the Eucharist; and the body of believers. To say the word ‘Christ’ is to refer, at one and the same time, to Jesus, the Eucharist, and the community of faith. We are the Body of Christ. We do not represent Christ – we are Christ. The Word became flesh and continues to dwell among us in the body of believers and in the Eucharist.
If it is true that we are the body of Christ then God’s presence in the world today depends very much upon us. We have to keep God present in the world in the same way as Jesus did. We have to become God’s physical hands, feet, mouthpiece, and heart in this world. The community mediates Christ to the world.
The Christian God is in-carnus, has concrete flesh on this earth. Its implications color every aspect of how we relate to God and to each other: how we pray, how we look for healing and reconciliation, how we seek guidance, how we understand community, religious experience and mission.

For understanding how we pray:
As Christians we pray to God ‘through Christ,’ and in trying to answer that prayer, God respects the incarnation. God’s power is partially dependent on human action. We charge ourselves as the Body of Christ with some responsibility for answering the prayer.
“Kneel down and I will bless you. God seems far away. He cannot touch you right now. I know that, but I am going to put my hands on your head and touch you – to let you know that you are not alone, not unlovable, not in the darkness. God is here and God does love you. When I touch you God will touch you.”(The Serpent’s Egg)

For understanding how we should seek reconciliation and healing:
In terms of incarnation, healing/wholeness come by touching the Body of Christ, and we are called upon to dispense God’s healing and wholeness by touching others. We have our sins forgiven by being in community with each other, at table with each other. We will never go to hell as long as we are touching the community… gathered in prayer. We can forgive each other’s sins by the power of Christ within us. God has given each of us the power to keep each other out of hell.

For understanding guidance:
As Christians guidance comes not only from God above but from the community below. When we look for God’s guidance these voices on earth – family, neighbors, church, friends – must complement the voice from heaven.

For understanding community:
Christian spirituality is never something you do alone. Community is the essence of Christianity and spirituality. God calls us to walk in discipleship in a group. You cannot deal with the all-loving, all-forgiving God if you cannot deal with the less-than- loving, less-than-forgiving community on earth.

For understanding religious experience:
The Christian perspective on religious experience is that God who is love and family, who was born in a barn, is a God who is found, first of all, in our homes, in our families, at our tables, in sunrises, in our joys, and in our arguments. To be involved in the normal flow of life, giving and receiving, is to have the life of God flow through us.
Christian spirituality is not so much about admiring God, or even trying to imitate God, as it is about undergoing God and participating, through the taking part in the ordinary give and take of relationships, in the flow of God’s life. The God who became flesh in order to be experienced by the ordinary senses, still has flesh and is primarily to be experienced through the ordinary senses.
For understanding mission:
Our task is to radiate compassion and love of God, as manifest in Jesus, in our faces and in our actions. Our mission as persons of faith is precisely to form our own faces in a correct way. Jesus taught us that the Kingdom works like yeast. We are asked to let the things he taught transform us, from the outside, like yeast transforms dough, and as summer transforms a tree.

For understanding the communion of saints:
We give concrete expression in our lives to those virtues and qualities of our loved ones which they best incarnated in their lives. We will meet the ones we can no longer touch when we put ourselves in where their souls once flourished. Our loved ones live where they have always lived and it is there that we will find them.
As we struggle to channel our eros, to find the spiritual disciplines that can bring us life, we need to bring our egos and our scars, our hopes and our fears, and our joys and hesitancies to Jesus to see what he makes of them. And the fire energy that so burns inside us will come to maturity, creativity, and calm when we shape our live and our bodies in the way that Jesus shaped his… when we help him carry the incarnation forward.

Spiritual Journey

2010-04-22T09:22:00.003-07:00

The Wizard of Oz

In his book, The Yellow Brick Road, William J. Bausch uses the movie, The Wizard of Oz and the Yellow Brick Road as the motif: the pathway of a spiritual journey. (In fact the chapters in this book are a series of reflections about the characters of Oz and what they might represent to us as we travel on our own spiritual journey.) Using some of the insights in the book we will take a look at the spiritual journeys of those renowned searchers and seekers, and what they found, and we will also have time to take a deeper look at our own journeys.

The book begins with signposts of the journey, moves on to detours, talks of blessings in the person of Glinda, follows the Tin Man who is searching for a heart, reveals the presence of wounded hearts among fellow pilgrims. The Munchkins help focus on imperfection, and the Wizards pose four questions to test the authenticity of the journey. The search for the witch’s broom is a symbol of the search for the God who has already found us out. Elmira Gulch threatens our self-esteem to the point of almost making one give up on the journey. Scarecrow talks about guilt – he is no good at what he is supposed to be good at, scare away the crows. Professor Marvel tells us about loss. The Cowardly Lion shows us our spiritual fears, and the flying monkeys represent the capital sins that do mischief on the spiritual journey. Dorothy learns about what really matters as her journey approaches the end, and that there is no place like home, and her uncle and aunt face the challenges of old age before they finish the journey.

As we follow the story of The Wizard of Oz we not only find out more about our own spiritual journey, but we can put in context the spiritual journey of some of the great searchers in Christian spirituality. The use of stories is part of this framework. Stories shorten the journey but evoke revelations about the way. The larger story of the spiritual journey is explicated through individual stories which reveal and challenge.

About the Author

L. Frank Baum was a 19th century writer who collaborated with illustrator W. W. Denslow to produce the original children’s book of the same title. He was born in 1856 in upper New York State. He took journalism courses and after college he dabbled in journalism and started several newspapers and magazines. He became interested in the theatre and wrote a musical play that was quite successful in its time. In 1882 he married Maud Gage and they had four sons. He first moved to South Dakota and later to Chicago where he went to work as a reporter for The Chicago Evening Post. It was about this time that he began to flirt with the idea of writing children’s stories. His Father Goose in 1990 was a great success, but it was his next book that made him famous, a story entitled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. A successful musical from the book toured the country, and in 1910 he finally moved to Hollywood where he continued to produce children’s books. He died there in 1919.

The Wizard of Oz is but a modern retelling of a very ancient myth. It is one of the hero-myths we all know. It is the story of one on a quest who journeys in search of a goal or a treasure or a lady love – or the Emerald City or ‘no place like home.’ In each the hero meets opposition and returns from the journey wiser.

Each of these quests is a metaphor for the search for God. Like all myths, the hero-adventurer myth encapsulates the traditional signposts of the human spiritual journey. The three phases of the journey – departure, struggle, return – describe what happens to us as well when we evolve from self-centeredness to an awareness of the spiritual self. (And how mystics and saints too went through this same evolution.) We will have to look behind the language and the metaphors to discover the spiritual message. What is here describes the usual stages of the spiritual journey, a map which helps us to discern our own way.

First of all, the hero sagas start off with a state of discontent. Things are fine as they are: they are comfortable, but nothing is happening, so there is an uneasiness in the spiritual life. Dorothy was happy at her Kansas farm with Uncle Henry and Auntie Em, yet she was uneasy and wondered what was over the rainbow. For us the question is the same: is there something more? Can I be something more? These questions, these enticements, set up the journey. This is what is called ‘holy discontent.’ Where are we on our spiritual journey? Are we here? (We see it in the story of the Desert Fathers and Mothers who left the modern city of their time and went into the desert for something more. What they found makes us grateful to them for their search. The life of Augustine is another case in point where as he says ‘our lives are restless until they rest in you.’)

The Call

When one senses that holy unease inspired by the Spirit, one is set up for the second step: a call to find out, a call to adventure. For Dorothy this call was the fearsome and hard-to-ignore tornado. (Like God’s call to Moses, Saul, prophets, or Virgil beckoning from the mist to Dante). But for most the call is not dramatic or sudden; it is more subtle – the experience of intense friendship, a stunning sunset, the total trust of a small child who falls asleep in our arms. In such a situation the person is called out of the self and feels a sense of wholeness or harmony. Everything for a moment falls into place. Life has a meaning to it. It all makes marvelous, grand sense. There is internal and external harmony.

And so it is. Someone calls, something makes a claim on us. In other words the human condition is being lost. This often happens to people in a crisis, midlife or otherwise. They discover that the attitudes and goals of the first part of their lives do not quite satisfy anymore, and things have not quite turned out as planned. Mortality looms and they are no longer masters of their homes or workplaces. It is precisely at such painful moments of confusion and doubt that a real spiritual journey is possible. (Note again what the Desert Fathers and Mothers found out and how they dealt with the ‘noon-day devil.’ Dante too had his own crisis which has repercussions for all in this particular stage of growth) We begin from a position of weakness rather than strength, failure instead of success etc. The members of AA know that when one hits ‘rock bottom’ the journey can begin. One has to have the experience of being lost. Behind the song “Somewhere over the Rainbow” lies a deeper truth: the human sense of being lost and of the search for happiness. Are we here on the journey?

The Challenge

Now begins the third step. It is the time of testing, the challenge to insight. The journey begins in an exciting manner but soon the whole venture is seen not to be as easy as we thought. Dorothy meets her inner demons – lions and tigers and bears – and flying monkeys, as well as the Wicked Witch of the West. These represent the sins that block the journey, the evils to be confronted in order to come to insight, to self-transformation. Those lions etc, like our own inner demons of discouragement, depression, addiction, pride and the many forces of evil and temptation are ready to thwart Dorothy’s journey. She soon comes to the realization that she cannot go it alone. She will need allies, friends, on this freely chosen adventure. She needs resources. And suddenly –as in the hero-myths – they appear. The teacher, friend, is usually a wise animal, often a turtle, or a fox, as in The Little Prince. It can also be an angel as in the story of Tobias. Virgil also guides Dante through the Inferno. In our story, the friends turn out to be three: a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion. Personality-wise they are not the most stable group, but they are friends who will come through in a pinch. The subject of these scenes in The Wizard of Oz – Dorothy’s yearning for something more, her summons through a tornado, the meeting with friends – is part and parcel of the human condition. It illustrates the unease of existence, the yearning for something more, the hearts that are restless until they rest in God.

Responding to the spiritual journey is easy at first until sin reminds us of the obstacles, until the wild beasts distract us, block our way. Dorothy is us. So are the lions, tigers and bears. Theologian Robert Barron says: “Christian theology begins, logically, with the awakening to crisis, with the sense that there is something dramatically wrong with us. Christianity is not a nature mysticism or system of contemplation; rather, it is a salvation religion which proposes a solution to a fundamental existential problem. Without a feel for the problem, Christianity’s answer seems absurd… it is essential, as a first step, to wake up, to break out of self-complacency, to sense with dramatic intensity, that all is not right.

Ugly Trees and Sweet Apples

Dorothy meets the Scarecrow first. With her new-found friend she starts out again on the Yellow Brick Road. But she soon makes another discovery. There is a scary forest to go through with grotesque apple trees that frighteningly reach out and try to grab her. As Dorothy barely escapes their clutches, the Scarecrow taunts them into throwing apples at him. The apples turn out to be not as nasty as the trees. They are in fact tasty, And here behind the figure of these distorted trees is a powerful metaphor that explicates a major theme of the spiritual journey.

The trees are grotesque and ugly yet they give out wonderful apples. This is a point to remember. Grace can be found in unlikely places, even in the deformities of our own lives; grace is not always gentle, but often times harsh. We must face our ugliness instead of running away from them in order to discover the grace of broken places. This is a lesson that must be learned on all spiritual journeys. (In one of his books Henri Nouwen tells the story of the breaking of a glass chalice and the statement, ‘I never knew broken glass would look so beautiful.’)

DETOURS ON THE ROAD: Forgetfulness

So far the elements on the spiritual journey are the holy discontent, the call, the beginning of the venture, insight and allies. The journey will not be easy. Even with friends, there still awaits the most potent and most dangerous of all roadblocks on the spiritual journey. It is the temptation that very few heroes avoid. It is the temptation that nearly always works. It is the seduction of forgetfulness. Satan tried this on Jesus in the desert – to get him to forget who he is in exchange for the role of the magician and the self-serving tyrant.

The same happens in The Wizard of Oz. In the movie the Wicked Witch looks into her crystal ball and sees the foursome on their journey. She knows she has to stop them. She thinks of poppies. They will make them forget. Dorothy and her friends are overcome by the poppies into forgetfulness. They stop their journey. This is common in literature as in case of Pinocchio who is on a journey to become “real” but on the way is distracted and gets sent to Pleasure Island. There he forgets who he is and begins to become something different: a jackass! The Lion King is a similar situation. The blurb on the back of the cassette states: “Set amid the majestic beauty of Serengeti, Disney’s epic coming-of-age saga tells of the love between a proud lion ruler, Mufasa, and his son Simba – a naïve and curious cub who just ‘can’t wait to be king.’ Out from the shadows prowl Simba’s envious Uncle Scar and his hyena henchmen. Their scheming for the throne leads to tragedy – and Simba’s exile from the kingdom he should rightfully rule. Befriended by the warmhearted warthog, Pumbasa, and his manic meerkat companion, Timon, Simba forgets his regal responsibilities and adopts the carefree lifestyle of “hakuna matata.” But can Rafiki, a wise mystic baboon, help Simba reclaim his true destiny in the ‘circle of life’?
Simba is but a variation on the prodigal son, who has been seduced into forgetfulness – hakuna matata, a live-it-up attitude – by his fair-weather friends - who was on his way to becoming ‘real’ until he forgot who he was. (One can see this in Augustine too and his famous prayer, “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”)

In much of the early spiritual writings, the primary sin was forgetfulness. You forget who you are. You forget your mission. You forget where you came from. The very atmosphere of your surroundings makes you forget: the crowd, the language, the dress, the attitudes, the values. When you forget who you are, you fall to a lower level of consciousness like the old Sufi story of the orphaned eagle who is raised as a chicken by chickens who can’t hear the call of his mates soaring above trying to tell him who he is. You can forget forever in your forgetfulness. (How many on the spiritual journey get trapped here!)

The breakthrough to this spiritual amnesia is whatever calls you back to your true identity: sickness, trauma, the loss of a friend, a personal crisis, an outside influence, or the hunger of the prodigal for food, for home. Are we here on the journey into forgetfulness, sin? (The lives of mystics and saints again are real examples for us.)

Awareness

It is time to pause – the holy discontent, the call, the allies, forgetfulness overcome – for we come to the critical question. As we negotiate our spiritual journey, as we pause and look at the map, we must take inventory: how do we know we are progressing? How do we know whether we are getting anywhere or just going around in circles? How did Dorothy know when her journey had taken a turn for the better? We know our spiritual journey is on the right track when we come to a new state of awareness. What have I learned? How am I different? What change has been made in me? Glinda, the good witch, raises the awareness issue when she says the following to Dorothy – who is wondering how she will ever get back to Kansas now that the Wizard has accidentally taken off in a balloon:

“You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.”
“I have?” Dorothy responds.
“Why didn’t you tell her before?” the Scarecrow asks.
“Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it herself.”
The Scarecrow asks, “What did you learn Dorothy?”
Dorothy thinks a minute and replies, “I think it wasn’t enough just to want to see Uncle Herny and Auntie Em. And if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any farther than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never lost it to begin with. Is that right?”

Dorothy has learned something. She sees differently. A new inner awareness has taken hold of her. This is how she knows she is on the right track and is now ready to take a major step in getting back to Kansas. Awareness is the engine of the rest of life’s journey. Learning to see is the key, for you see what you are. Robert Barron writes: “Christianity is, above all, a way of seeing. Everything else in Christian life flows from and circles around the transformation of vision. Christians see differently, and that is why their prayer, their worship, their action, their whole way of being in the world, has a distinctive accent and flavor. What unites figures… is a peculiar and distinctive take on things, a style, a way, which flows finally from Jesus of Nazareth… The ultimate goal of the Christian life is a ‘beatific vision,’ (Aquinas) an act of seeing.”

Religion is first and foremost a way of seeing. It can’t change the facts about the world we live in, but it can change the way we see the facts, and that in itself can often make a difference. The inner awareness, then, is the beginning of spiritual transformation. Learning to see outside in the same way you see inside is the way the spiritual life works. The hidden avenues of grace are always there. We have to learn to be aware of them.

One needs to be aware of God’s presence and grace in everyday life. In the movie, Dorothy says about her home in Kansas, “I never lost it to begin with, did I?” No, Dorothy never lost it. What she was seeking was there all the time; she was just unaware of it.

Awareness is the key to the spiritual life. It makes all the difference in how we live and love, how we act. Our challenge and task is to become more aware of what is going on around us; doing so is a sign that the journey is moving in the right direction. A story from Stephen Covey gives a simple example of a change of awareness. Everything changed in the instant of his new awareness. Shelley has a wonderful couplet,

Two men looked out their prison bars;
The one saw mud, the other stars.

Awareness is the stuff of endless movies and novels and epiphanies of all sorts. The awareness metaphor, often used in the Gospels, is seeing. Think of Helen Keller, locked in her own world, the day she discovered she was not alone, the day she associated the wet well water with the funny game Annie Sullivan played in her hand. On that day, she became aware of a whole new world.

Charles Dickens gives us the classic story of a ‘blind’ man given sight, a man scared to death into a new awareness: Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge verbalized his discontent with a loud “Bah, humbug!” His call to something more, a call quite as unsettling as Dorothy’s experience with the tornado, came in the form of the fearsome ghost of Marley, who moaned and rattled chains and locks. Scrooge further encountered ‘lions and tigers and bears,’ that is the dreadful presences of Christmas past, present and future. While reviewing his past, Scrooge discovered them along the way: his sister, Fan; his true love, Belle; his nephew, Fred; his soulful employee, Bob Cratchit; and he life-giving Mr. Fezziwig. Ultimately, however, it was a child who lifted the scales from Scrooge’s eyes and gave him a new spiritual awareness.

Awareness is the infallible sign of progress on the spiritual journey, even though there is a long way to go. This is found especially in the awareness of God, of God’s unconditional love for you, of your own dignity as God’s son or daughter, of God’s nearness: all of these affect your life and your conduct. When you see who you are – my Beloved in whom I am well pleased – a turning point has been reached. (See Henri Nouwen, p.23). Awareness is both the means and the goal. If we have not moved into a new awareness – a new sense of who we are, what we are, a new sense of possibilities, of God’s presence – then we are stuck on the journey.

So what does The Wizard of Oz have to say to us? It tells us that there are well-worn markers, signposts, on the spiritual journey, and that all steps must be negotiated. Remember, it all starts with a divine nagging, if you will, at our troubled state of innocence. This is turn gives way to a call: you can be, ought to be, more than you are right now. God is calling you. You do not have to be stuck in your role, your reputation, your sin, your mistakes. The amazing grace which saves wretches like us is out there beckoning. There is, in other words, a restlessness rooted in Augustine’s famous phrase: our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.

First, we hear the call, feel the inner need, answer the inner compulsion to journey toward the God. Inevitably, the testing comes, a challenge. Obstacles within and without threaten the journey: fears, guilt, mocking companions, and above all, the seduction of forgetfulness. Here we need allies, teachers, companions, soul friends to survive the testing. We need time apart, time spent with the saints and mystics: the day of recollection, the retreat, inner time. Slowly a new awareness – of God, of ourselves as Beloved, of others – signals that the journey, although it may still be fraught with difficulties and uncertainties, is on the right track. The Emerald City is not far away.

GLINDA: Blessing

Esau’s first experience was to have his blessing stolen by his brother, Jacob. He had to travel life’s journey unblessed, without the sustenance of either a heritage or a promise. A blessing is a powerful thing to give, or to withhold. Blessing. It makes the journey light, while its lack makes the journey heavy. The blessing of the good witch, Glinda, made Dorothy’s journey light, which the Wicked Witch of the West made it heavy. Glinda too appeared at moments of crisis in Dorothy’s life. That is what a blessing does.

In life we need to recognize blessings. Blessing means three things. It means to speak well, to see well, and to pass on well.

Munchkinland: Imperfection

After her traumatic trip into the sky on the wings of a tornado, Dorothy lands in a strange place. She opens her black and white door and steps into Technicolor Munchkinland. Hidden giggles finally reveal the Munchkins, the little people. The actors in the film who play the Munchkins are dwarfs and midgets. Through some genetic fluke they have not grown to full height. Seen through images of bodily perfection put forth by the media, these Munchkins could be seen as ‘imperfect.’ Yet imperfect though they be, here they are in a major film, acting, dancing, singing, and bringing delight to countless generations. Using the theme of imperfection – and we are all by our nature imperfect beings – we will travel with the Munchkins and see what they can tell us about the spiritual journey.

The Tin Man: Wounded Hearts

Pilgrims usually carry some heavy emotional and spiritual baggage on their journey. In the discussion in this section we see the wounded, the guilty, those with little self-esteem. The Tin Man had no heart, and he represents the wounded hearts that make the journey so painful.

The Wizard: Four Questions

Our spiritual landscapes can become disfigured and suffer. Cut off from the aesthetics and beauty and nature, the soul shrivels and becomes one-dimensional. And when our spiritual landscape suffers, we can become sick: soul sick. We then need to be made well. We need healing, repairing the soul, mending our bond with the self, at the deepest levels of who we are. In many cultures, people who show symptoms of soul sickness and who have a desire to be healed go to the ‘wizard,’ an indigenous healer or spiritual guru. All over the world the soul-sufferer is invariably asked four deep and universal questions, one by one.

Where in your life did you stop singing? We all go through the gentle muting of our inner songs. Many situations and conditions make us lose our voice, where the fear of peers silences our voices. Over time the soul becomes ill and contracted. No wonder the spiritual guru’s first question is ‘when in your life did you stop singing’?

When did you stop dancing? That is hate and fear of the body
When did you stop being enchanted by stories?
When did you stop being comfortable with silence? The guilt that comes with ‘doing nothing.’

The Witch’s Broom : The Elusive Goal

The first meeting with the Wizard is not a real meeting. They do not encounter him directly. Yet, frightened as they may be, they are nevertheless there with their imperious demands for a home, a brain, a heart, and a dose of courage. They do not know that loaded down with their own burdens the will never see the Wizard they desire to see. So he makes a silly demand: bring back the broom of the Wicked With. The Wizard has no use for the broom. Unlike Dorothy’s slippers, it has no magic. But the task of acquiring the broom will require an emptying out of each one’s desires; it will require risk, a chastening, an adventure. If the four succeed – and they do – they return humbled, with the broom in hand, the Witch destroyed, her minions liberated. Only then will they encounter the real Wizard.

Herein lies a deep truth: the quartet are real seekers, as we all are. Behind the home and the brain and the heart and the courage which they are immediately seeking, however, is something deeper – they seek the Wizard. And in this the four are symbolic of those who seek God. What they, and we, don’t know is that the Wizard – God – is seeking them. What they, and we, don’t know yet is that they have to let go in order to be grasped by the divine reality, which remains elusive and mysterious and cannot be won by their efforts or desires. Going after the broom is basically a call to apprenticeship, to learning the patience, humility, and process of emptying necessary for an encounter with the divine.

The mission on which the Wizard sent the four friends was one of purification. After the emptying, the trial, the quartet get to see the Wizard. The image can’t be pressed too far, for the Wizard in the movie is a gentle manipulator with good in his heart. But then again, come to think of it, so is God.

Elmira Gulch: Self-esteem

In the opening scene of the movie Elmira Gulch comes with a court order to take Toto a way because he has bit her. Dorothy runs away in tears and the woman rides away in triumph with Toto in the basket. Talk about feeling bad. Talk about being buffeted by life’s unfairness. Talk about low self-esteem. We all need self-esteem in life, which often could be another name for God-esteem.

Scarecrow: Failure and Guilt

Scarecrow failed at the very thing he was supposed to do, scare crows, for the birds came and just rested on him. But things get worse on the Yellow Brick Road. Scarecrow was terrified of fire, and so the witch taunted him with a flaming broom. He literally had the stuffing knocked out of him by the flying monkeys. Indeed, something is lacking in his life. If only he had a brain. How do we come to grips with failure and guilt?
We are all in need of redemption. All have sinned. Peter and Judas both met guilt and both emerged from it differently. One turned on his guilt and took his own life, the other turned to Jesus and found life. Guilt can become life-saving if we know how to turn it around. That is what the sacrament of reconciliation is all about. But the reality is still that one may have scars. Guilt, however, can be productive if it leads to new life, noble life as a wounded healer. Imperfect people have the power to make all things new again.

Professor Marvel: Loss

The genial fraud, Professor Marvel, invites Dorothy to his wagon to consult his crystal ball. Dorothy sits down and closes here eyes, awaiting the Professor’s predictions. He looks at the photograph in her basket and goes on to predict things about her auntie making Dorothy head for home in the face of a tornado. The scene invites us to a reflection on one of life’s inevitabilities: as we travel life’s journey we will suffer loss. Auntie Em lost a niece and is swooning for grief. Dorothy has lost a dear aunt whom she has hurt by running away. Loss. There is no way around it. How do we deal with our losses?

The Cowardly Lion: Spiritual Fear

The Lion is a coward despite his early attempts to be in control. His lack of courage will lead him to reverse the journey several times, to run the other way as he does when the four arrive at the Emerald City. Fear is the story of the lives of many in Scripture. It could be our lives too.

In the end the Cowardly Lion got his medal of courage signifying that the Lion’s courage was there all the time. All he needed to recognize his worth and overcome his fear was a good deed. Not the Lion would always be sure of himself, or that being courageous was easy’ but ultimately being faithful earned victory for him. Our faithfulness will yield the same.

The Flying Monkeys: Capital Sins

The Wicked Witch had her minions: the mindless, lock-stepping soldiers and the monkeys. They had wings and could fly off in pursuit of the fleeing foursome. They found the group, de-strawed the Scarecrow, scared off the Lion, knocked down the Tin Man, and carried off Dorothy and Toto It is hard to avoid flying monkeys, especially when there are so many of them.

The devil is just as resourceful. He has his minions, his elite corps of ‘flying monkeys’ to harass us on our spiritual journey. And, truth to tell, they are very effective. We call them sins, especially the capital sins. They are the source of so many other sins.

Dorothy: Priorities

Dorothy clicks the heels of the magic red shoes and closes her eyes. She opens them to wake up in her bed surrounded by Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, who are soon joined by Professor Marvel at the window and the three farmlands. She tries to explain her adventures in the land of Oz but they all just smile and chalk it up to a bump on the head she received during the storm. Dorothy resigns herself to their disbelief and seizes on the wisdom that sustains her. “This is my room and you are all here… I love you all. Oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home!”

When all is said and done, she’s found What Really Matters. We need to take time to ponder on what is important and what is not in our human lives, in our spiritual lives too.

Conclusion

Karl Rahner once said, “If Christianity cannot recover its mystical dimensions, it has nothing to offer. We need a spirituality grounded in real living, grounded in a sense of the sacred hear and now. This will take some doing. We were thought one time to view the world with suspicion if not as a domain both outright dangerous and sinful. Salvation was to be found in fleeing the world. But, on the contrary, if the incarnation has taught us anything, it has taught us that the universe is God’s darling: that it is saturated with the divine presence and therefore, God can be experienced in nature.

The Yellow Brick Road is replete with scary forests, wicked witches, and flying monkeys with kidnapping on their minds. Life can be hard and dangerous and terribly unfair: But there are also intimations of God, hints of the divine. Along the way, the Yellow Brick Road has Technicolor scenes and landscapes. It also gives us engaging melodies, clever lyrics, and a stunning Emerald City at its end. Anyway who ever said it was going to be easy?

And so we are at the end of our journey. Perhaps it is well to end with some words from Rich Heffern. He writes:

No doubt every child’s favorite parable about how enchantment works has been The Wizard of Oz. It’s clockful with towering tornadoes, witches sporting striped socks, officious munchkins, fanged flying monkeys, and bad puns. With its open-eyed gaze at aspects of nature that don’t dance in goodly tow shoes, some tots watch it stiff with fright. As every kid knows, the larger-than-life figures over the rainbow turn out to be the same people found at home, out in our backyard, in the neighborhood.
When yyou know down in your joints and up in your straw-filled head that you live in a sacred cosmos, well, the ordinary is always extraordinary. The way to the Emerald City is an adventure-filled enterprise that tests our courage, compassion, steadfastness, and wit – as good a definition of spirituality as any I’ve heard. Oz the Great and Powerful is revealed to be a bamboozling snake-oil salesman toying with smoke and mirrors. He’s a mapmaker, not an explorer. Yet the quest is not in vain, for the real wizardry of Oz turns out to be the plain insight that our feet are shod with the magic of our heart’s desire, always have been.

Western Monasticism

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Gaul

The first exponent of monasticism in Gaul seems to have been St. Martin, who founded a monastery at Liguge near Poitiers, c. 360. Soon after he was consecrated Bishop of Tours; he then formed a monastery outside that city, which he made his customary residence. His cell was a hut of wood, and round it his disciples, who soon numbered eighty, dwelt in caves and huts. The type of life was simply the Antonian monachism of Egypt and so rapidly did it spread that, at St. Martin's funeral, two thousand monks were present.

Even more famous was the monastery of Lerins which gave to the Church of Gaul some of its most famous bishops and saints. In it the famous Abbot John Cassian settled after living for seven years among the monks of Egypt, and from it he founded the great Abbey of St. Victor of Marseilles. Cassian was undoubtedly the most celebrated teacher that the monks of Gaul ever had, and his influence was all on the side of the primitive Egyptian ideals. Consequently we find that the eremitical life was regarded as being the summit or goal of monastic ambition and the means of perfection recommended were extreme personal austerities with prolonged fasts and vigils, and the whole atmosphere of ascetical endeavor so dear to the heart of the Antonian monks.

Celtic Monasticism (Ireland, Wales, Scotland)

Celtic Monasticism has a purely indigenous growth. There is no direct connection with Gallic or Egyptian monasticism. The first Celtic monasteries were merely settlements where the Christians lived together -- priests and laity, men, women, and children alike -- as a kind of religious clan. At a later period actual monasteries both of monks and nuns were formed, and later still the eremitical life came into vogue. It seems highly probable that the ideas and literature of Egyptian or Gallic monachism. The external manifestations are identical in all three forms. Indeed the desire for austerities of an extreme character has always remained a special feature of Irish asceticism down to our own time.

The chief glory of Celtic monasticism is its missionary work, the results of which are to be found all over northwestern Europe. The observance, at first so distinctive, gradually lost its special character and fell into line with that of other countries; but, by that time, Celtic monasticism had passed its zenith and its influence had declined.

Italy

Italy long retained a purely Eastern character in its monastic observance. The climate and other causes however combined to render its practice far harder than in the lands of its origin. In consequence the standard of observance declined, and it is clear from the Prologue to St. Benedict's Rule that by his day the lives of the monks left much to be desired. Moreover there was as yet no fixed code of laws to regulate the life either of the monastery or of the individual monk. Each house had its own customs and practices, its own collection of rules dependent largely on the choice of the abbot of the moment.
(2) The Spread of St. Benedict's Rule
St. Benedict legislated for the details of the monastic life in a way that had never been done before either in East or West. It is clear that he had acquainted himself thoroughly with the lives of the Egyptian fathers of the desert, with the writings of St. Basil, Cassian, and Rufinus; and in the main lines he has no intention of departing from the precedents set by these great authorities. Still the standard of asceticism aimed at by him, as was inevitable in the West, is less severe than that of Egypt or Syria.

Thus he gives his monks good and ample food. He permits them to drink wine. He secures a sufficient period of unbroken sleep. His idea was evidently to set up a standard that could and should be attained by all the monks of a monastery, leaving it to individual inspiration to essay greater austerities if the need of these were felt by any one. On the other hand, probably as a safeguard against the relaxations mentioned above, he requires a greater degree of seclusion than St. Basil had done.

Perhaps, however, the chief point in which St. Benedict modified the pre-existing practice is his insistence upon the stabilitas loci. By the special Vow of Stability he unites the monk for life to the particular monastery in which his vows are made. This was really a new development and one of the highest importance. In the first place by this the last vestige of personal freedom was taken away from the monk. Secondly it secured in each monastery that continuity of theory and practice which is so essential for the family which St. Benedict desired above everything.

The abbot was to be a father and the monk a child. Nor was he to be more capable of choosing a new father or a new home than any other child was. After all St. Benedict was a Roman, and the scion of a Roman patrician family, and he was simply bringing into the monastic life that absolute dependence of all the members of a family upon the father which is so typical of Roman law and usage. Only at the selection of a new abbot can the monks choose for themselves.
The Wisdom of St. Benedict
The need to plan our day so that, not only prayer, but other necessary elements as well, will be included was a basic principle which Benedict kept emphasizing to those whom he tried to help.

Work

Daily work for St. Benedict was both a social service and a therapeutic occupation for the individual. It is not good for us if there is no work to be done!

Obey Each Other

When Benedict began to help his first group of disciples in their search for God, he realized that they would find him only if they learnt to recognize him in each other. Let them obey each other, let them listen to each other so that each will know how best to respond.

As people were educated in the Benedictine rule, and assumed positions of authority, the principles of Benedict quite frequently became the principles behind much civil legislation too. All life came to have not just a Christian but a Benedictine tone.

Patience
The patience Benedict implied was not just putting up with people when they seem to let us down but also learning to accept ourselves when we are conscious that we, too, fall short of our ideal. If we do not learn to accept ourselves, it will be harder to accept and relate with others who have their own imperfections too. It is only as we learn how to accept ourselves that we discover him who does, and now lives in us and urges us to grow.

God-centered

Benedict would have us recognize the primal fact that it is God who knows and guides all things. His Rule is theocentric. Yes, we can have our own plans but when life insists on flowing another way then it is time to ‘hold fast with a quiet mind to patience’ and to know that God in his eternal wisdom can work all things unto good. ‘Let us therefore gird our loins with faith… and following the guidance of the Gospel walk in the paths of him who calls us to the Kingdom which he now enjoys.’

Meaning of Threefold Promise

Stability: putting up with community and rootedness in Christ
Conversion: acceptance of program of Benedict and allowing the demanding Spirit of the dying and the rising Christ to influence and purify one’s life
Obedience: a listening with the heart to God, the loving Father
Three ways of expressing the desire to make ‘more and more progress, not just to but even into God.’

Julian of Norwich

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All the surface details of Julian’s life could be written on half a page, but the all-embracing greatness of her inner spirit shines out through the words she wrote and which are influencing now more people than they ever did before.

The essence of her experience in her 31st year was that the God who often seemed fearsome to the struggling people of her time was really, as she liked to say, ‘all-love.’ It was one of those ‘near-death’ experiences. The images that she saw implied that all the love which was experiencing came to her through the Christ whom she perceived as wanting to give his own life to her. It was the surpassing love itself which was the essence of her own experience and of the revelation which she did so much to share.

Through the image of enfolding clothes she saw a sign of God’s protective presence. He was a warm and consoling God who could both shelter and sustain her in the midst of all the storms of life and so prepare her for the contribution which she knew she had to make. This God in some ways is a mother to us.

Mary she perceived as what she herself could be and, even if imperfectly, already was. Thus Mary was one who marveled that the One who is so very great should come to her who was so very small. Despite her disappointments and the struggles and at times the doubts, she does appear as one who managed to maintain in her own prayerful life that attitude of grateful marveling.

Other Contributions of Julian:

In an age of emphases on refutation of heresy Julian is entirely positive, focusing on divine grace and not on the errors of His creatures.Suffering in the world was not a punishment but a channel through which God can draw us closer to Himself. There is purification but a joyous one, not the lash!Julian glories in redemption but shows unusual insight in admitting we cannot know precisely how this was accomplished.

 She does not emphasize using intercessors but is keenly aware of the rejoicing of saints in heaven. She however advocates approaching God directly as what best pleases Him.
 Her picture of the devil is of one eternally frustrated. The images of the sinner’s redemption as leading to greater joy in heaven, makes even the evil one an unwilling co-operator with divine providence. All of creation serves its purpose in the divine will’s being fulfilled.
She does not emphasize using intercessors but is keenly aware of the rejoicing of saints in heaven. She however advocates approaching God directly as what best pleases Him.
 Her picture of the devil is of one eternally frustrated. The images of the sinner’s redemption as leading to greater joy in heaven, makes even the evil one an unwilling co-operator with divine providence. All of creation serves its purpose in the divine will’s being fulfilled.

 The idea of the Church as a vehicle of divine revelation is essential to understanding Julian. Her obedience to the Church is a thankful awareness for a divine gift. It is stronger because it does not assume that the hierarchy exceeded anyone else in personal holiness, not that any role in the Church was less vital to its members as a whole (whether shoemaker, gatekeeper or just penitent).
 The trust in God Julian stresses is rooted in our awareness of our limitations.

“I will make all things well, I
shall make all things well, I may make all things well and
I can make all things well; and
you will see for yourself, that
all things will be well.”

“Of all the things we may do for Him in our penitence the most honoring to him is to live gladly and gaily because of his love…“And I saw for certain, both here and elsewhere, that before ever he made us, God loves us; and that His love has never slackened, nor ever shall… Our beginning was when we were made, but the love in which He made us never had beginning. In it we have our beginning…”