The Glorious Cloudiness

I love the scene in the first reading today. Solomon presides over the dedication of the Temple, the Ark is brought into the Holy of Holies, and the glory of the Lord appears.

"When the priests left the holy place, the cloud filled the Temple of the Lord* so that the priests could no longer minister because of the cloud, since the Lord's glory had filled the temple of the Lord. Then Solomon said, "The Lord intends to dwell in a dark cloud." (1 Kings 8:10-12)

I imagine the priests unable to minister because of the cloud of God's glory. Perhaps some simply stopped and adored in wonder. Maybe others missed out on the glory of God all around them because they were fretting about the ritual tasks and 'rubrics' they found themselves unable to complete.

The scripture reminds us that there is a moment in prayer when there isn't anything left to do, not because we have done everything we could have, but because God, in his mercy toward us, draws us into the mystery of himself. We are drawn, even seduced, into the glory of God which we, in our limited and temporal state, can only experience as a cloudy darkness. But we know this cloudiness is the Glory addressed by all our doxology, this glorious Cloud the desire of our minds and hearts. At this point there is nothing left for the intellect to do. There is only our will in the sense of our desire for the One who has been conforming us to his own Beloved since our baptism. Religion, in the human sense, ends.


Sometimes folks think they can go straight to this sort of prayer and experiential contact with God without first making use of the ordinary means of prayer and sanctification which God has revealed. On the surface this attitude seems enlightened and progressive and a way to avoid the conflicts that obtain between religions and between religionists and so-called secular humanists. But really this idea is a symptom of the shallow and pornographic nature of our culture, in its belief  that personal intimacies can be acquired quickly, even instantly, and without ascetic struggle and work on the part of those willing to let go of selfishness in order to love another precisely as other. We want to be loved and accepted just as we are, as if we were God himself. We confuse love with the various and often very subtle lusts that only make others into players in our own dramas, immaturities, and confusions. We want to be instantly matched with our 'soul-mate' without letting go of ourselves for the sake of another, just as in the same way we want mystical experiences without ascetism.

The good news is that prayer is the best school for learning the chastity that can love another precisely as other rather than as a pathological extension of ourselves. This is because God, in all his cloudy Glory and glorious Cloudiness, refuses to be a commodity, cannot be manipulated, and, to be a little silly but right to the point, has the best boundaries of anyone in the community.



*I apologize both to God and to readers for the inadequate style. I don't know how to make small caps.

Vel Congruat Festo

I'm famous for not having the Christmas spirit, at least as the world conceives it. But today was an exception. After Mass I was to offer the traditional blessing of throats associated with St. Blaise. In thinking ahead about how I wanted to do this, I thought that after the final blessing I would put aside the green chasuble and stole and put on the red stole appropriate for Blaise, bishop and martyr.

Only after doing this did I realize that I ended up wearing a red stole with the festive green cincture I use for Sundays in Ordinary Time. So I felt very Christmas-y for once.

For the rubrical reference made in the title see the praenotanda of the De benedictionibus (Book of Blessings) number 37.

House Cooling

I'm moving into a transitional space at the end of month in preparation for my big move to Rome in the spring. So in these days I've started to think about how to deal with and store my stuff. In this effort, I'm trying to give some things away. The student friars in the neighborhood can make good use of some of the books and religious equipment. It's better than packing things up to sit lonely in a friary basement.

I love the feeling of letting go of stuff. There's a liminality to it, and  a certain primal sensation of freedom. I always feel curiously alive when I'm packing up and moving.

So for any of the brothers who check this blog, come by if you can use: a brand new, black, Samsonite backpack, a complete set of astonishingly ugly Roman-style vestments, also black, a set of gaudy cruets complete with plate, or a baseball card display case. (See this old post for why I had such a thing.)

The Ascent of the Holy Spirit

This is a little window at one of the places where I celebrate Mass regularly. I find it fascinating and like it very much.

The dove rises from the fire, a double image of the Holy Spirit. It's almost phoenix-like, isn't it? (Does one say, 'phoenician'?) Beneath the fire is the Holy Name 'IHS' and then the label: "Resurrection."

And yet, it's not an image of the Resurrection, but of the Holy Spirit. It reminds me that when we talk about, pray on, and find ourselves invited into the mysteries of the Resurrection, the accounts of the appearances of the Risen Lord to the apostolic generation, the various handings over of the Holy Spirit as they are recorded in the New Testament, it is actually quite difficult to know just how it is we are talking about different things.

The sacrifice of the Cross, the Lord's death and descent to the dead, the passing of his divine humanity into the new life beyond history but now erupted backwards into it, and the handing over of the Spirit who is the abiding presence of this Event among us and the animating principle of the Church, all of this is the one Paschal Mystery of Christ.

On Pot Roast and Black Vestments

This post may get me in trouble and I don't care. It's all in fun. Some of it anyway.

Yesterday it was my turn to make supper here at the friary. As I spent the afternoon mashing potatoes and attending to my pot roast simmering away amid onions and carrots, I thought that the brothers were really going to like their meal. And indeed, they ate it all up.

As I was cooking something funny struck me. As generally 'left-of-center,' 'liberal,' or 'progressive' mainstream religious life is about religion and liturgy, it is certainly traddy about what it wants for dinner. Religious might be slightly or not-so-slightly allergic to the traditions of the institute and those of the faith in general, but they sure seem to prefer a traditional meal.

Some real-life examples will bring my point into focus.

One might be scolded or 'corrected' for his failure to adjust the words of the liturgy according to the intuitions of feminism, but he would be in just as much trouble--if not more--if he suggested that feminist theory ought to critique and adjust what we have for dinner. (See the classic treatment, The Sexual Politics of Meat, by Carol J. Adams.)

It would be just as transgressive to wear black vestments, or, God forbid, want to pray in Latin or sing Gregorian Chant (even though these remain norms to this day), as it would be to try to serve a meal that wasn't in accord with the traditional, American, meat-centered diet.

This is amusing to me in part because of one of the doctrines I was taught in my formation in religious life: that of the 'two tables.' It was said that our common life revolved around an axis formed by two tables: the one being the altar of the Eucharist, and the other being the table of the dining room or refectory. Now like a lot of things I was taught early on in my religious life, I have come to critique this teaching. I think it has been to easy a path to certain enervating errors from which we suffer, but that's another post.

I just think it's funny that at one table traditionalism is prized and unorthodox experimentation condemned, while at the other table things tend toward being the other way around.

I guess I would feel a little more at home if things fell the other way, but who knows. But don't mind me, I'm going to put on my black maniple and make some quinoa for lunch.

A Dubium for the Feast of St. Brigid

Here's a liturgical question. I'm interested in hearing thoughts and opinions.

I've been helping out with Masses in two South Boston churches lately, St. Brigid and Gate of Heaven. They are separate parishes canonically, but have one pastor, one parish office, one staff, and one bulletin. Thus, though they remain two parishes, they are very much associated with one another.

My question has to do with the observance of the liturgical day tomorrow.

It's a ferial day in the general Roman calendar, as well as in the proper calendar for the United States, the plain old weekday in Ordinary Time that is the standard example of low solemnity. It is also, however, the feast day of St. Brigid.

At St. Brigid's, the answer is simple. It's their titular feast day, and so the Mass of St. Brigid would be offered, either with the Commons from an American edition of the Roman Missal, or with the proper prayers, which I suppose one could use if he considered South Boston to be a suburb of Ireland. I checked my Commonwealth English breviary; Brigid is a feast day there, as well she might be as patroness.

I, however, have the Mass at Gate of Heaven tomorrow. Given the strong association of the place with the other parish, as well as the fairly intense Irishness of the place, ought I to use the Commons to offer a Mass of St. Brigid? As I said, the day is otherwise free to select 'any Mass' for just cause or pastoral advantage. Or would it be better to respect the individuality of the place by not doing so?

Of course, should he say anything, I will do as the pastor directs.

St. Brigid, pray for us. Happy spring, happy Imbolc, and happy whatever else you would like to be happy about.

Per Ardentissimum Amorem Crucifixi

I'm always fascinated by the way words and phrases swirl about and reiterate and recombine not only in the mind but also in community. One brother articulates something, and the words or phrase can enter the general discourse of the community. Sometimes this can be constructive, giving the group a common critical vocabulary. Other times it can be destructive, as when we reduce each other to labels and explanations.

Anyway, that's not my point today. I was just thinking about how, according to this sort of phenomenon, a title from a few posts ago perhaps came to me from a song without my being aware of it. The song is "The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane" by Jeffrey Lewis:

The seventh rule (I hope you understand)
Is not to look to deep into your soul
Or you might find a hideous, hopeless hole
Of hatred, hunger, infinite, idiot
Mindless, meaningless, nothingness, nothingness,
Nothingness, nothingness, nothingness, nothingness
Nothingness, nothingness, nothingness, nothingness
Nothingness
And that's what I did

And every aspect of life that I selected
Was instantly and brutally dissected
I saw the horrible emptiness within
The reasons behind everything
And it was at that moment that I went insane.

That's the trouble with the ersatz spiritual experiences one might have through drugs, or with the endless journey of personal archaeology to which we are invited by the therapeutic culture: You arrive at the searing experience of your interior poverty, but with no good news on the other side.

The spiritual life, that is, a life lived in and according to the invitations of the Holy Spirit, reveals the saving discovering that our horrible interior poverty is not a cause for insanity or even sadness, but something to be embraced because it is exactly where God wills and delights to meet us in the burning love of Christ crucified.

The self-emptying of God who is Jesus Christ is the healing of our horrible emptiness within, the poverty of God in Christ condemned and crucified is the redemption of the poverty of our hearts.

Via autem non est nisi per ardentissimum amorem Crucifixi.

"There is no way but through the burning love of the Crucified." (St. Bonaventure's Itinerarium, prologue)

Hope from Hyacinth

Today at the Poor Clares I offered the Mass of St. Hyacinth Mariscotti, about whom I know nothing.

Sister sacristan gave me the following brief account of Hyacinth's life and holiness, from which I drew great encouragement.

Here's what sister told me. I have not checked any of it, but I do try to capture sister's hilarious tone in telling the story:

When Hyacinth was growing up, she went to a certain convent school. The sisters found her to be a difficult and conceited child. Everyone found her very trying and annoying, and the sisters were glad to be rid of her when she graduated.

Having grown up, she wanted to marry some important man, but was spurned. Out of spite, she decided to become a nun. (I guess there were wider limits on what counted as a 'vocation story' in those days.) When she returned to the convent seeking entrance, the sisters were alarmed. Somehow or other she was admitted, and the sisters discovered that the difficult and conceited child had grown into an even more difficult and conceited woman.

After some years of religious life, Hyacinth had some sort of illness, and had a conversion experience. She apologized to the sisters for all of the years she had been such a pain, started to do penance, and thereafter became an exemplary religious.

I find this story very hopeful. May God grant me to accept such a grace of conversion!