Within the last few weeks, new developments in my life have brought me into a new time of transition and reorientation. In a post a couple of weeks back I asked your prayers for the situation, and I have been grateful for the strength of that encouragement.
So here's the news: I have been asked to join the ministry of the Order's general secretariat at our general curia in Rome as an English-language secretary. This news came as a complete surprise. As I calmed down inside, however, and was able to start to think and pray about it, I became grateful and happy about this new possibility and direction in my religious life. My spiritual director confirmed these senses for me.
I don't, however, have to move until spring, towards the end of the school year.
As happy as I am about this new assignment, it left me in an awkward condition in my current assignment as a student at Boston College. I'm still in the beginning stages of the STD program there, and so this new assignment necessarily interrupts my studies in some way or other. Exactly how to craft this interruption into shape has been occupying my thoughts and reflection ever since I first got the call about the new assignment three weeks ago. After thinking various things through as best as I could: my own academic situation, the possibilities of the current moment before I move, my relationships with my teachers, and especially the whole history of my successes and--I confess--failures in obedience since I was first asked to apply to BC two years ago, it has been decided that I will take a leave of absence from the BC School of Theology & Ministry. The new assignment seems to have a probationary period of a year or so; applying for leave now could preserve the possibility of returning to BC if I don't work out.
With the time that will open up as I begin my leave and until I am supposed to move to Rome, I will seek further priestly work here in Boston.
Thank you for your prayers as I continue to try to be faithful in these transitions.
Showing posts with label STD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label STD. Show all posts
October 10, 2011
October 7, 2011
A Timely Word From Alvarus Pelagius
An email from Boston College alerts me that something called an 'unresolved balance' could impede my registration for the spring semester.
"[The students] contract debts and sometimes withdraw from the university without paying them, on which account they are excommunicated and do not care..."
(Alvarus Pelagius (ca. 1275-1349), De Planctu Ecclesiae, quoted from Brian Tierney, ed. Sources of Medieval History, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), 297.)
"[The students] contract debts and sometimes withdraw from the university without paying them, on which account they are excommunicated and do not care..."
(Alvarus Pelagius (ca. 1275-1349), De Planctu Ecclesiae, quoted from Brian Tierney, ed. Sources of Medieval History, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), 297.)
September 6, 2011
Thanking God For My Teachers
My first liturgy teacher, whom I realize more and more was a signficant influence on how I've turned out as a Catholic, when he wanted to talk about the quintessential day of low liturgical rank, bereft of solemnity, would speak of the 'rainy Tuesday in Ordinary Time.'
I thought of him as we offered Mass this morning on this rainy Tuesday in Ordinary Time. Maybe it's also because today, as I begin my twenty-third school year of formal education, I feel the slight vertigo of it being my first first day of school with no classes to go to. I'm registered for just one academic entity, something called TM 980. God help me, with a number like that I must be almost done with this stuff.
The further I get along in this journey the more grateful I am for my teachers, and for the quality of education I didn't even know I was receiving most of the time. So today I'm just thanking God for all of them and for the proximate, remote, and very remote preparations for my vocation that God was working for me through their work. I started to write them out, but there are just too many.
I thought of him as we offered Mass this morning on this rainy Tuesday in Ordinary Time. Maybe it's also because today, as I begin my twenty-third school year of formal education, I feel the slight vertigo of it being my first first day of school with no classes to go to. I'm registered for just one academic entity, something called TM 980. God help me, with a number like that I must be almost done with this stuff.
The further I get along in this journey the more grateful I am for my teachers, and for the quality of education I didn't even know I was receiving most of the time. So today I'm just thanking God for all of them and for the proximate, remote, and very remote preparations for my vocation that God was working for me through their work. I started to write them out, but there are just too many.
August 31, 2011
Incomplete to Failing to Passing
The other day I got an email from the kind folks at the Boston College School of Theology & Ministry telling me that I wasn't registered for any classes and wondering whether I was still a student there. You see, I've never been able to figure out how to use the registration software, so at the beginning of these past two semesters I've gone to another nice lady in the school office (or as it seems to be called, the 'Service Center') and had her register me. But in order to get my scholarship money I have to be registered, so the person with whom I was emailing kindly enabled me in my incompetence and registered me from something called "TM 980," which is what you're in when you aren't in any actual courses anymore.
Following this email conversation I thought that the very fact of it perhaps meant I no longer had an 'F' in the Medieval Trinitarian theology seminar from last semester. And behold, when I checked my BC identity online, the F had been changed to a passing grade. So my grade in the course journeyed from an 'I' for incomplete at the end of the semester to an 'F' for 'administrative failure' on August 1 and then finally to a passing grade.
Of course in my vanity I enjoyed having an F in the course, at least for a little while, and even though it wasn't really an F. I had never had an F before. A couple of Ds along the way, but no F until now.
I got to reflecting on this as a metaphor for the spiritual life. We start out with the incomplete; without God there is something missing. Then, having let ourselves be found by God, we discover ourselves as a failure, unable to live up to the desire this new Presence works in our souls. And we live in the hope and prayer that this God who has come into our life is gently renovating our humanity so that in him we will become a passable human being. Perhaps with all of our resistances and hardness of heart we won't succeed in letting God make us into saints in this life, but in his mercy God has provided the searing joy of Purgatory as a mercy for those who need to continue this process after the end of earthly life. Either way, in the humanity of Christ our blessed incompleteness is offered salvation from the failing mess we tend to make of it, and that's what is meant by Christian hope.
Following this email conversation I thought that the very fact of it perhaps meant I no longer had an 'F' in the Medieval Trinitarian theology seminar from last semester. And behold, when I checked my BC identity online, the F had been changed to a passing grade. So my grade in the course journeyed from an 'I' for incomplete at the end of the semester to an 'F' for 'administrative failure' on August 1 and then finally to a passing grade.
Of course in my vanity I enjoyed having an F in the course, at least for a little while, and even though it wasn't really an F. I had never had an F before. A couple of Ds along the way, but no F until now.
I got to reflecting on this as a metaphor for the spiritual life. We start out with the incomplete; without God there is something missing. Then, having let ourselves be found by God, we discover ourselves as a failure, unable to live up to the desire this new Presence works in our souls. And we live in the hope and prayer that this God who has come into our life is gently renovating our humanity so that in him we will become a passable human being. Perhaps with all of our resistances and hardness of heart we won't succeed in letting God make us into saints in this life, but in his mercy God has provided the searing joy of Purgatory as a mercy for those who need to continue this process after the end of earthly life. Either way, in the humanity of Christ our blessed incompleteness is offered salvation from the failing mess we tend to make of it, and that's what is meant by Christian hope.
June 14, 2011
From Confusion to Understanding and Back
It's a funny thing about the Trinity. Before you study any theology, it's a pretty confusing idea. After you study a little, you think you get it. But after you study a little more, you're confused again.
Without solid catechesis or serious study, the Trinity is hard to understand. He's three, He's one. How can that make any sense? A lot of preaching on the Trinity doesn't help much either. My experience of Trinity Sunday homilies is that they take something of this form: 'God is one, God is three, it's a mystery, please stand for the creed.' Too often mystery becomes an excuse for mystification. But that's another rant.
A lot of folks keep themselves from these troubles and cognitive dissonances by being functional unitarians, modalists, or Arians, often unknowingly. And it's usually not their fault; such departures from Christian orthodoxy are sometimes taught by our catechists and theology teachers. I've done it myself. As a volunteer religious education teacher I once gave some kids a lovely and catchy analogy for understanding the Trinity. Trouble was, it was very modalist in implication.
So, if you were in the multi-parish Confirmation prep program that met at St. Lawrence in West Haven, CT in the late 90s, where you had the young, cool teacher, and you now find that your prayer life is inexplicably confusing, or you find yourself in marriage preparation (the kids would be about the typical age now) with a priest with whom you seem to have theological differences that you can't put your finger on, feel free to blame me.
When you study a little theology you are delivered from all of this confusion, emerging into the clarity of claims about the self-diffusive nature of goodness, the necessity of the social Trinity, or the necessity of opposition and comparison for any distinction in being. You are comforted as your pious mind swims in the clear, living water of 'it's all about the overflowing nature of goodness' or 'it's all about the self-diffusion of love' or 'it's all about relationship, in a perfect communion of persons without coercion or domination' or 'it's all about the opposed relations which we imitate by the creative tension of human community life.' Your reflections wax sublime as you realize how original and mutual generativity structure the whole of both created and uncreated being, and so realize how happiness lies in making our own relationships and generativity imitate God himself.
But then you keep going, drilling deeper into the sources of these reflections and the theologians and other sources from which they have come. Cracks start to appear. You start to notice that each effort at a theological articulation of the great Mystery succeeds in taking some of the data of revelation and some of the orthodox confession of faith seriously, but not all of it. Each approach succeeds in avoiding modalism on one side and Arianism on the other, but you realize that this feat alone doesn't mean every problem and question has been resolved.
So you're back where you started, wondering and confused. But perhaps with a greater and more prayerful appreciation of the Mystery Himself. And maybe that's the point.
Without solid catechesis or serious study, the Trinity is hard to understand. He's three, He's one. How can that make any sense? A lot of preaching on the Trinity doesn't help much either. My experience of Trinity Sunday homilies is that they take something of this form: 'God is one, God is three, it's a mystery, please stand for the creed.' Too often mystery becomes an excuse for mystification. But that's another rant.
A lot of folks keep themselves from these troubles and cognitive dissonances by being functional unitarians, modalists, or Arians, often unknowingly. And it's usually not their fault; such departures from Christian orthodoxy are sometimes taught by our catechists and theology teachers. I've done it myself. As a volunteer religious education teacher I once gave some kids a lovely and catchy analogy for understanding the Trinity. Trouble was, it was very modalist in implication.
So, if you were in the multi-parish Confirmation prep program that met at St. Lawrence in West Haven, CT in the late 90s, where you had the young, cool teacher, and you now find that your prayer life is inexplicably confusing, or you find yourself in marriage preparation (the kids would be about the typical age now) with a priest with whom you seem to have theological differences that you can't put your finger on, feel free to blame me.
When you study a little theology you are delivered from all of this confusion, emerging into the clarity of claims about the self-diffusive nature of goodness, the necessity of the social Trinity, or the necessity of opposition and comparison for any distinction in being. You are comforted as your pious mind swims in the clear, living water of 'it's all about the overflowing nature of goodness' or 'it's all about the self-diffusion of love' or 'it's all about relationship, in a perfect communion of persons without coercion or domination' or 'it's all about the opposed relations which we imitate by the creative tension of human community life.' Your reflections wax sublime as you realize how original and mutual generativity structure the whole of both created and uncreated being, and so realize how happiness lies in making our own relationships and generativity imitate God himself.
But then you keep going, drilling deeper into the sources of these reflections and the theologians and other sources from which they have come. Cracks start to appear. You start to notice that each effort at a theological articulation of the great Mystery succeeds in taking some of the data of revelation and some of the orthodox confession of faith seriously, but not all of it. Each approach succeeds in avoiding modalism on one side and Arianism on the other, but you realize that this feat alone doesn't mean every problem and question has been resolved.
So you're back where you started, wondering and confused. But perhaps with a greater and more prayerful appreciation of the Mystery Himself. And maybe that's the point.
April 28, 2011
Homework and the Coincidence of Opposites
When you first start going to school, as a little kid, all the schoolwork is confined to the school. When you get out, you don't have to worry about it until you have to go back. However, you don't appreciate it because you don't understand that you will soon lose these reasonable boundaries.
Namely, as you start to get to be a big kid, the schoolwork starts to overflow into the time outside of school. They call this 'homework.' This is a miserable state of affairs and truly unhappy.
Finally, you get to the point that coincides with its opposite at the beginning, and the occasional trip to school becomes a break from schoolwork. The original and blessed boundaries are restored, if in reverse.
Namely, as you start to get to be a big kid, the schoolwork starts to overflow into the time outside of school. They call this 'homework.' This is a miserable state of affairs and truly unhappy.
Finally, you get to the point that coincides with its opposite at the beginning, and the occasional trip to school becomes a break from schoolwork. The original and blessed boundaries are restored, if in reverse.
March 25, 2011
Notions and Relations
Apart from Sunday Mass, the highlight of my week is the meeting of the medieval trinitarian theology seminar that I have with professor Coolman and four doctoral students from the theology department. The two hours go by so fast.
We've arrived at a kind of notional pause in the course, having spent three weeks with Bonaventure before we begin Thomas next week. Thinking about this on the way home last night, I realized that the course is having both welcome and challenging fruit for me.
On the positive side, I am more convinced than ever that the Trinity is an eminently reasonable doctrine of God. What's more, and to be honest, for the first time I am thoroughly convinced not only of the reasonableness of the filioque, but that it is somehow necessary for an intelligible, robust, and durable account of God.
On the more challenging side, I now suffer with a heightened awareness of problems. I'm starting to see shadings into modalism and subordinationism all the time when the Trinity is mentioned in casual speech or even in homilies. Sometimes I even worry about these things in what I read in the great doctors.
God the Father of Heaven, Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, Have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, Have mercy on us.
We've arrived at a kind of notional pause in the course, having spent three weeks with Bonaventure before we begin Thomas next week. Thinking about this on the way home last night, I realized that the course is having both welcome and challenging fruit for me.
On the positive side, I am more convinced than ever that the Trinity is an eminently reasonable doctrine of God. What's more, and to be honest, for the first time I am thoroughly convinced not only of the reasonableness of the filioque, but that it is somehow necessary for an intelligible, robust, and durable account of God.
On the more challenging side, I now suffer with a heightened awareness of problems. I'm starting to see shadings into modalism and subordinationism all the time when the Trinity is mentioned in casual speech or even in homilies. Sometimes I even worry about these things in what I read in the great doctors.
God the Father of Heaven, Have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, Have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit, Have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, Have mercy on us.
March 23, 2011
God
There are days on which all I do is read. Just for my sanity, I try to get out for a walk when I can. I think about my life. How is that I find myself as a doctoral student in sacred theology? In a certain way it's obvious. The question at the root of it has been with me as long as I can remember, even though I haven't always paid attention to it.
Who is this God? What is meant by the utterance "God"?
It's not an easy question. God has names and definitions. God reveals himself, but in ways that seem to be apart from what we ordinarily call certainty and knowledge. He is somehow undeniable and exasperatingly subtle at the same time. He's isn't a thing, but he isn't nothing either. Somehow God is no-thing, and we say that He 'exists' because we don't know how to talk about Someone who is transcendent to, or the ground and principle of anything else that seems to exist.
He is always there, or to speak a little more precisely, He is always here. He is always now, but in such a way as to be both before and later in His singular now-ness. And yet, this endlessly robust Presence retreats from the grasp of our prayer and intellectual desire. Thus he draws us more deeply into the Light of Himself, but in such a way that it only feels like darkness.
"God is the infinitely rich and fecund mystery whose eternal being is a dynamic ecstasy of goodness and love." -Zachary Hayes, in his introduction to St. Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity
"If you believe, if you make a simple act of submission to the authority of God proposing some article of faith externally through His Church, you receive the gift of an interior light that is so simple that it baffles description and so pure that it would be coarse to call in an experience. But it is a true light, perfecting the intellect of man with a perfection far beyond knowledge." -Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 133.
Who is this God? What is meant by the utterance "God"?
It's not an easy question. God has names and definitions. God reveals himself, but in ways that seem to be apart from what we ordinarily call certainty and knowledge. He is somehow undeniable and exasperatingly subtle at the same time. He's isn't a thing, but he isn't nothing either. Somehow God is no-thing, and we say that He 'exists' because we don't know how to talk about Someone who is transcendent to, or the ground and principle of anything else that seems to exist.
He is always there, or to speak a little more precisely, He is always here. He is always now, but in such a way as to be both before and later in His singular now-ness. And yet, this endlessly robust Presence retreats from the grasp of our prayer and intellectual desire. Thus he draws us more deeply into the Light of Himself, but in such a way that it only feels like darkness.
"God is the infinitely rich and fecund mystery whose eternal being is a dynamic ecstasy of goodness and love." -Zachary Hayes, in his introduction to St. Bonaventure's Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity
"If you believe, if you make a simple act of submission to the authority of God proposing some article of faith externally through His Church, you receive the gift of an interior light that is so simple that it baffles description and so pure that it would be coarse to call in an experience. But it is a true light, perfecting the intellect of man with a perfection far beyond knowledge." -Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 133.
March 2, 2011
Discernment
The more years pass in my ongoing, bumbling attempt at Christianity, I realize that for me discernment means the adoption of my best guesses at God's perspective on things.
The iconic moment in this movement came when one of my professors helped me to know how to discern whether or not to present myself as a candidate for Holy Orders. I went back and forth on this question when I was in the formation program, mostly because I didn't know how to discern it. I didn't join the Order with the idea of becoming a priest; I only knew that I wanted to be a Franciscan. The discernment experience from the religious call didn't seem to apply to discerning the clerical call, and I was kind of at a loss.
Did I feel called to be a priest? Did I desire it? My professor turned my perspective around for me: 'The question isn't whether or not you feel called to be a priest, or whether you want it, but in what way is the priesthood of Jesus Christ trying to take shape in your life.'
It's not about what I want or how I feel--though the presence of attraction and giftedness on the natural level is an important confirmation--but about reading the signs of what God is up to in one's life.
The other night one of our guys asked me if I thought he was ready to be ordained deacon. I said no, and he was a little shocked. What human being is ready to approach the altar as servant of the sacred mysteries? Who of us even deserves the privilege of serving another human being? But I explained my point: the 'am I ready?' question is the wrong approach. The real question is to look at the graces and circumstances of life up to this point, and ask if the next step seems like where God is directing one's life. So, I said to this brother, has God not given you the graces you needed to survive many years of religious formation and theological education? Do you feel the desire to preach and serve that he has put into your heart?
It's important for me to continue to apply this model to myself in these days. I have a lot of doubts about my capacity to fulfill my obedience of obtaining the doctorate. Can I finally unlearn certain bad study habits I fell into as a child? Is my vocation mature enough to be able to spend so much time alone with just the great doctors and my dictionaries? Can I live my religious life well enough here in a formation house, and still be able to give good example to the brothers in formation on a number of levels?
Such questions are important in the sense that they come up in the process of discernment, but I need to keep in mind that they are not the heart of discernment for me. My discernment question is simply this: has God not been pointing me in the direction of this project in many ways and for a long time? When I was a teenager, did He not first begin to call me to Himself through an intoxicating mix of mathematics and Platonic mysticism, inspiring a sort of wonder that I sometimes perceive again as I read the medievals now? Did God not give me the desire to complete the STL degree back when I was in my diaconate year, arranging many other things to make sure it got done? Did God not give me the inspiration, when I was a parish priest, to spend the occasional day off in the library of St. Joseph's Seminary reading Bonaventure's commentary on the Sentences? Who does that?
Again, I think that is the sort of thing that discernment means for me; the attempt to adopt God's perspective and to make our best guess at where God is pointing us. Like all good spiritual practice, it relieves us of the tyranny of ourselves and our feelings.
The iconic moment in this movement came when one of my professors helped me to know how to discern whether or not to present myself as a candidate for Holy Orders. I went back and forth on this question when I was in the formation program, mostly because I didn't know how to discern it. I didn't join the Order with the idea of becoming a priest; I only knew that I wanted to be a Franciscan. The discernment experience from the religious call didn't seem to apply to discerning the clerical call, and I was kind of at a loss.
Did I feel called to be a priest? Did I desire it? My professor turned my perspective around for me: 'The question isn't whether or not you feel called to be a priest, or whether you want it, but in what way is the priesthood of Jesus Christ trying to take shape in your life.'
It's not about what I want or how I feel--though the presence of attraction and giftedness on the natural level is an important confirmation--but about reading the signs of what God is up to in one's life.
The other night one of our guys asked me if I thought he was ready to be ordained deacon. I said no, and he was a little shocked. What human being is ready to approach the altar as servant of the sacred mysteries? Who of us even deserves the privilege of serving another human being? But I explained my point: the 'am I ready?' question is the wrong approach. The real question is to look at the graces and circumstances of life up to this point, and ask if the next step seems like where God is directing one's life. So, I said to this brother, has God not given you the graces you needed to survive many years of religious formation and theological education? Do you feel the desire to preach and serve that he has put into your heart?
It's important for me to continue to apply this model to myself in these days. I have a lot of doubts about my capacity to fulfill my obedience of obtaining the doctorate. Can I finally unlearn certain bad study habits I fell into as a child? Is my vocation mature enough to be able to spend so much time alone with just the great doctors and my dictionaries? Can I live my religious life well enough here in a formation house, and still be able to give good example to the brothers in formation on a number of levels?
Such questions are important in the sense that they come up in the process of discernment, but I need to keep in mind that they are not the heart of discernment for me. My discernment question is simply this: has God not been pointing me in the direction of this project in many ways and for a long time? When I was a teenager, did He not first begin to call me to Himself through an intoxicating mix of mathematics and Platonic mysticism, inspiring a sort of wonder that I sometimes perceive again as I read the medievals now? Did God not give me the desire to complete the STL degree back when I was in my diaconate year, arranging many other things to make sure it got done? Did God not give me the inspiration, when I was a parish priest, to spend the occasional day off in the library of St. Joseph's Seminary reading Bonaventure's commentary on the Sentences? Who does that?
Again, I think that is the sort of thing that discernment means for me; the attempt to adopt God's perspective and to make our best guess at where God is pointing us. Like all good spiritual practice, it relieves us of the tyranny of ourselves and our feelings.
February 9, 2011
Taking the Incomplete
In many ways this first year of doctoral studies has felt discontinuous with my previous experience of formal education. In some sense this has been a welcome liberation, but there's also a certain interior vertigo.
In a very real way, I owe some of the occasional and marginal success I have had in school thus far in my life to my drive to follow directions well and always have my work ready on time. As one of my confreres puts it, my fundamental desire in life is to be "all set."
Thus, it feels very weird to meet with a professor this morning and have him insist that the best thing for my work would be to take an incomplete for his course at the end of the semester and only then begin to work on a term paper. It will be only then, he explained, that I would know how to research and write in this area. He's quite right, of course, but the whole idea of doing things that way feels so funny. It goes against something basic in my nature.
There are many necessary and salutary asceticisms into which God is inviting me through this obedience, and I pray for the willingness to accept their grace.
In a very real way, I owe some of the occasional and marginal success I have had in school thus far in my life to my drive to follow directions well and always have my work ready on time. As one of my confreres puts it, my fundamental desire in life is to be "all set."
Thus, it feels very weird to meet with a professor this morning and have him insist that the best thing for my work would be to take an incomplete for his course at the end of the semester and only then begin to work on a term paper. It will be only then, he explained, that I would know how to research and write in this area. He's quite right, of course, but the whole idea of doing things that way feels so funny. It goes against something basic in my nature.
There are many necessary and salutary asceticisms into which God is inviting me through this obedience, and I pray for the willingness to accept their grace.
December 15, 2010
Time to Find These Library Books
By accident, in trying to download a statement in which Boston College alleges that I owe $3,547 for the beloved privilege of continuing my current association with her, I discovered a link that displays a list of the books one has on loan from the various BC libraries. This will be very helpful in not forgetting to return them. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I have only ten outstanding loans:
Cur deus homo : atti del Congresso anselmiano internazionale, Roma, 21-23 maggio 1998 / a cura di Pa
The love of learning and the desire for God; a study of monastic culture. Translated by Catharine Mi
Magistri Alexandri de Hales Glossa in quatuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, nunc demum reperta
Alexander of Hales' Theology of the Hypostatic Union
The city of God / translated by Marcus Dods ; with an introduction by Thomas Merton.
Doctoris irrefragabilis Alexandri de Hales Ordinis minorum Summa theologica iussu et auctoritate rmi
Proslogion / Anselm von Canterbury ; Untersuchungen lateinisch-deutsche Ausg. von P. Franciscus Sale
Monologion. Lateinisch-deutsche Ausgabe von P. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt.
Pourquoi Dieu s'est fait homme / Anselme de Cantorbéry ; texte latin ; introduction, bibliographie,
Decem opuscula ad theologiam mysticam spectantia / seraphici doctoris S. Bonaventurae ; in textu cor
Cur deus homo : atti del Congresso anselmiano internazionale, Roma, 21-23 maggio 1998 / a cura di Pa
The love of learning and the desire for God; a study of monastic culture. Translated by Catharine Mi
Magistri Alexandri de Hales Glossa in quatuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, nunc demum reperta
Alexander of Hales' Theology of the Hypostatic Union
The city of God / translated by Marcus Dods ; with an introduction by Thomas Merton.
Doctoris irrefragabilis Alexandri de Hales Ordinis minorum Summa theologica iussu et auctoritate rmi
Proslogion / Anselm von Canterbury ; Untersuchungen lateinisch-deutsche Ausg. von P. Franciscus Sale
Monologion. Lateinisch-deutsche Ausgabe von P. Franciscus Salesius Schmitt.
Pourquoi Dieu s'est fait homme / Anselme de Cantorbéry ; texte latin ; introduction, bibliographie,
Decem opuscula ad theologiam mysticam spectantia / seraphici doctoris S. Bonaventurae ; in textu cor
December 11, 2010
Done
Classes are over for the semester. I have one more term paper to go through, fixing and editing, and then it will be time to return library books, recycle and straighten up. It's really one of the joys of the school-based life; that sense of being finished.
One never gets to enjoy that feeling in the parish ministry. A parish is always running. There are individual projects that arrive at completion, but most of the work is continuous and never-ending. It slows down at certain times of the year, like in the middle of the summer and in the last few days before Christmas, but the thing itself never really pauses. It's also true that one gets to feel a little sense of rest and doneness at the end of principal celebrations, but it doesn't last. After the Paschal Triduum there's a great sense of gratitude and relief, but there is almost always a funeral to do on Easter Monday, having been set aside from Saturday or Friday (or even Thursday, when funerals are permitted, but not funeral Masses.) Christmas is a similar thing; the afternoon of Christmas Day is a blessed quiet and relief, but as soon as the office opens on the next first weekday, the new wedding engagements start calling in. (I didn't know this before I was a parish priest, but a lot of people get engaged at Christmas.)
So right now I'm just appreciating the sensation of having finished the semester, and am enjoying all of the little rituals of recycling, filing, and clearing that go with it. Not that there won't be more work to do after another day or two: I've left several mundane projects and errands for the time of the semester break, I have a presentation to prepare for January and a directed reading course for next semester to plan in more detail. And off in the not-so-remote distance is my reading list for comprehensive examination, and (dare I say it) a dissertation proposal to be made.
One never gets to enjoy that feeling in the parish ministry. A parish is always running. There are individual projects that arrive at completion, but most of the work is continuous and never-ending. It slows down at certain times of the year, like in the middle of the summer and in the last few days before Christmas, but the thing itself never really pauses. It's also true that one gets to feel a little sense of rest and doneness at the end of principal celebrations, but it doesn't last. After the Paschal Triduum there's a great sense of gratitude and relief, but there is almost always a funeral to do on Easter Monday, having been set aside from Saturday or Friday (or even Thursday, when funerals are permitted, but not funeral Masses.) Christmas is a similar thing; the afternoon of Christmas Day is a blessed quiet and relief, but as soon as the office opens on the next first weekday, the new wedding engagements start calling in. (I didn't know this before I was a parish priest, but a lot of people get engaged at Christmas.)
So right now I'm just appreciating the sensation of having finished the semester, and am enjoying all of the little rituals of recycling, filing, and clearing that go with it. Not that there won't be more work to do after another day or two: I've left several mundane projects and errands for the time of the semester break, I have a presentation to prepare for January and a directed reading course for next semester to plan in more detail. And off in the not-so-remote distance is my reading list for comprehensive examination, and (dare I say it) a dissertation proposal to be made.
December 1, 2010
Edith Stein
All of a sudden it feels like the end of the semester. Next week is the last of classes. All of my term work is in draft. It's rather uneven, and I'm not even sure how good some of it is, but it all represents a kind of groping and clumsy start at finding some direction in the obedience of this doctorate.
So as time opens up, I can get back to other things I either set aside because of the course work or left for later. But it also means I can find some time for personal reading. Various evidence suggests to me that it might be time for me to read Edith Stein. Does anybody who is better acquainted with her work have any advice? Because of the John of the Cross connection I'm curious about the Kreuzeswissenschaft/Science of the Cross, but I don't know if this is the right place to start.
Thanks in advance!
So as time opens up, I can get back to other things I either set aside because of the course work or left for later. But it also means I can find some time for personal reading. Various evidence suggests to me that it might be time for me to read Edith Stein. Does anybody who is better acquainted with her work have any advice? Because of the John of the Cross connection I'm curious about the Kreuzeswissenschaft/Science of the Cross, but I don't know if this is the right place to start.
Thanks in advance!
November 15, 2010
My New Friends
How much my life has changed in recent months! A year ago I might have spent a Monday morning at a funeral Mass and burial or in the office receiving wedding and baptism inquiries.
Now, instead of giving my attention to the newly engaged or deceased, I give it to Peter Lombard, Anselm, and Alexander of Hales:
Now, instead of giving my attention to the newly engaged or deceased, I give it to Peter Lombard, Anselm, and Alexander of Hales:
November 9, 2010
Some Things I Miss
I've been here in Boston for three months now, and I'm starting to feel adjusted into the assignment. Term papers are starting to take shape and I'm thinking about what to do next semester. Off in the distance of imagination are the first thoughts about my reading list for comprehensive exams, and--dare I say it--dreams for a dissertation proposal.
Settling down into this new kind of student life reminds me of some of the things I miss from parish life. I was just thinking about some of them this morning:
A regular and stable liturgical matrix. At the parish, liturgy had an intense regularity; every day the same chapel, the same church, the same altar. Liturgical time cycled through days, weeks, seasons, and years. The linear time imposed by the steps, grades, and goals of something like school or religious formation starts to fade away. Cycles replace time-lines. In the cycles of prayer, the Now of eternity starts to peek through. I miss that. Here in the student house, liturgical life is very different. I offer Mass at four or five different altars in the course of a week. Not that this isn't without its gifts; I'm really enjoying my weekly visit to the Poor Clare monastery, for example. But it can feel scattering. Here in the house, in the morning we sometimes have Morning Prayer in common and sometimes have Mass, a practice which feels choppy and scattering to me. I like to have a regular early-morning routine, but I can't really because sometimes I have to pray Morning Prayer in private and sometimes I don't. So I miss the regularity and stability of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours in the parish.
Days off. The parish is always going. It's active seven days a week from early morning until the middle of the evening. For a priest, the only way to get a break is to leave, so that's what they do. They 'go on their day off.' I look over my posts labeled 'Day Off Adventures' and I see a certain lightheartedness and freedom from care that I no longer have. When you are a student the books are always there, and the papers always need to get composed. This isn't to say that I never take any time with friends or a day just to relax, but somehow there just isn't the same ability to leave the whole business behind and get away for a little while.
People. The parish priesthood is a personal service kind of job. From the parlor to the confessional, from running meetings to praying with folks at the funeral home, you are always with the people. It's one of the greatest blessings of the parish ministry; the people keep you sane and are very encouraging for the most part. The job is so social that you have to be careful about getting the solitude that you need; it becomes a treasure, really. Here I think of some of my 'Sunday Afternoon' posts. In the doctoral student life, the situation is quite different. It's a solitary life for the most part. Yes, I have new friends at school and I spend time with the brothers here at home, but most of my days are just me and text. I read text, I struggle over text, I try to make text about text. So here I must take the opposite care, of making sure I find some social time. Such is far harder for me than making sure I find time for solitude, so I miss being in the opposite situation in the parish.
Settling down into this new kind of student life reminds me of some of the things I miss from parish life. I was just thinking about some of them this morning:
A regular and stable liturgical matrix. At the parish, liturgy had an intense regularity; every day the same chapel, the same church, the same altar. Liturgical time cycled through days, weeks, seasons, and years. The linear time imposed by the steps, grades, and goals of something like school or religious formation starts to fade away. Cycles replace time-lines. In the cycles of prayer, the Now of eternity starts to peek through. I miss that. Here in the student house, liturgical life is very different. I offer Mass at four or five different altars in the course of a week. Not that this isn't without its gifts; I'm really enjoying my weekly visit to the Poor Clare monastery, for example. But it can feel scattering. Here in the house, in the morning we sometimes have Morning Prayer in common and sometimes have Mass, a practice which feels choppy and scattering to me. I like to have a regular early-morning routine, but I can't really because sometimes I have to pray Morning Prayer in private and sometimes I don't. So I miss the regularity and stability of Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours in the parish.
Days off. The parish is always going. It's active seven days a week from early morning until the middle of the evening. For a priest, the only way to get a break is to leave, so that's what they do. They 'go on their day off.' I look over my posts labeled 'Day Off Adventures' and I see a certain lightheartedness and freedom from care that I no longer have. When you are a student the books are always there, and the papers always need to get composed. This isn't to say that I never take any time with friends or a day just to relax, but somehow there just isn't the same ability to leave the whole business behind and get away for a little while.
People. The parish priesthood is a personal service kind of job. From the parlor to the confessional, from running meetings to praying with folks at the funeral home, you are always with the people. It's one of the greatest blessings of the parish ministry; the people keep you sane and are very encouraging for the most part. The job is so social that you have to be careful about getting the solitude that you need; it becomes a treasure, really. Here I think of some of my 'Sunday Afternoon' posts. In the doctoral student life, the situation is quite different. It's a solitary life for the most part. Yes, I have new friends at school and I spend time with the brothers here at home, but most of my days are just me and text. I read text, I struggle over text, I try to make text about text. So here I must take the opposite care, of making sure I find some social time. Such is far harder for me than making sure I find time for solitude, so I miss being in the opposite situation in the parish.
October 21, 2010
What is Theology?
The other day the director of the STD program asked me to think about preparing a talk on my sense of "the ecclesial vocation of the theologian." I'll have to give it next semester in one the little lunch meetings of the doctoral students. Of course the project is a bit remote right now, but the questions have been in the back of my mind and I have found myself thinking of various texts that could form starting points, illustrations, and apologies.
So, as I have started to reflect a little on what I think theology is and what its purposes might be in my own life and in any service I might be able to give to the brothers or the Church, I was struck by the first reading for Mass today:
Theology starts with prayer born of a desire for God, a kneeling before the Father that seeks the "riches of his glory." Of course, our entering into the Mystery of God through prayer is a kind of optical illusion of the interior vision; it is not we who enter into God but God who enters into us. We experience the logic of the incarnation in reverse, or, better, in fulfillment. That the Word becomes flesh means that our humanity, the enfleshment of our spirits, now seeks to enter into the Word and to find its delight and fulfillment in deiformity.
By our surrender to this life of prayerful desire, our spirit is strengthened, and Christ comes to dwell in our hearts through faith, grounding us in love.
What is this love? It is first of all the love of God. But to love God is to love the love that God is, and his love is for every creature. Thus to love God is to begin to taste and touch the love that embraces every creature. It is to stand in wonder at a Love whose horizon is broader and whose height and depth extend beyond what we can scarcely imagine. Indeed, to even speak of horizons and extension is too coarse.
And yet, we touch this Love. We have glimpses of it in each other, in the beauty and order of creation, in the Providence of God in the paths of our lives, and in the universal human suspicion (contuition?) that at the Center of it all is a Goodness we are always touching but not quite apprehending.
In Christ is revealed God's own desire to join himself to our human upward desire to know this love. God's self-emptying into our humanity allows us to fulfill the great Easter slogan: sursum sunt quaerite! "Seek thing things that are above." Theology is to reason and to attempt to articulate what this means and how this human process may be exercised. It is our attempt, in our context and time, to know what all the "holy ones" knew. These are the saints and doctors who have gone before us and who help us to see, by the reflections and articulations that they made for their time, what it could mean for us to do the same for the people of ours.
Ultimately, like all missionary efforts, the purpose of theology is to make itself useless. It is a means by which the theologian helps us "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge," that "we may be filled with the fullness of God." This fullness is what God has accomplished for us in the incarnation.Theology is a means to understanding how we may surrender to it more and more completely.
So, as I have started to reflect a little on what I think theology is and what its purposes might be in my own life and in any service I might be able to give to the brothers or the Church, I was struck by the first reading for Mass today:
I kneel before the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory
to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self,
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;
that you, rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3: 14-19)
Theology starts with prayer born of a desire for God, a kneeling before the Father that seeks the "riches of his glory." Of course, our entering into the Mystery of God through prayer is a kind of optical illusion of the interior vision; it is not we who enter into God but God who enters into us. We experience the logic of the incarnation in reverse, or, better, in fulfillment. That the Word becomes flesh means that our humanity, the enfleshment of our spirits, now seeks to enter into the Word and to find its delight and fulfillment in deiformity.
By our surrender to this life of prayerful desire, our spirit is strengthened, and Christ comes to dwell in our hearts through faith, grounding us in love.
What is this love? It is first of all the love of God. But to love God is to love the love that God is, and his love is for every creature. Thus to love God is to begin to taste and touch the love that embraces every creature. It is to stand in wonder at a Love whose horizon is broader and whose height and depth extend beyond what we can scarcely imagine. Indeed, to even speak of horizons and extension is too coarse.
And yet, we touch this Love. We have glimpses of it in each other, in the beauty and order of creation, in the Providence of God in the paths of our lives, and in the universal human suspicion (contuition?) that at the Center of it all is a Goodness we are always touching but not quite apprehending.
In Christ is revealed God's own desire to join himself to our human upward desire to know this love. God's self-emptying into our humanity allows us to fulfill the great Easter slogan: sursum sunt quaerite! "Seek thing things that are above." Theology is to reason and to attempt to articulate what this means and how this human process may be exercised. It is our attempt, in our context and time, to know what all the "holy ones" knew. These are the saints and doctors who have gone before us and who help us to see, by the reflections and articulations that they made for their time, what it could mean for us to do the same for the people of ours.
Ultimately, like all missionary efforts, the purpose of theology is to make itself useless. It is a means by which the theologian helps us "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge," that "we may be filled with the fullness of God." This fullness is what God has accomplished for us in the incarnation.Theology is a means to understanding how we may surrender to it more and more completely.
October 17, 2010
Recent Dreams
I've been having a lot of dreams lately about not managing to get where I'm supposed to be going.
The troubles are varied. In one dream I forgot to respond to an attractive invitation because I got distracted. In another I missed an appointment because I didn't leave enough time for travel. Another time I couldn't even begin to get on my way because the vehicle I was supposed to drive was too complex and unwieldy, a huge RV full of different systems and gadgets. In the most recent dream on this theme, the street on which I was walking was blocked off because the buildings were on fire.
The images are very telling, but the question arises: what is this troublesome journey which I am either anxious about beginning, making, or being able to arrive at its destination? What increase in vigilance and mindfulness do I need to adopt? What do I need to let go of in order to be free to begin or continue? What old paths need to be re-routed that I might avoid the destructive forces, inside and out, that impede my steps?
The unwieldy vehicle is probably my own soul, and a warning to me that I need to care for myself better in these days full of new distractions and temptations to the dissipation of my internal attention. But I'm also worried that the unwieldy vehicle might be our province of the brothers which finds itself at a contentious moment and needs to find a way to step forward. The burning block of buildings is also full of possibilities. Probably it's one of the old paths of my prayer and interior habits that has become useless and even dangerous. New and less comfortable paths to God always need to be charted. This, after all, is the journey of faith at its dark and searing heart. But I also fear that the burning buildings might have something to do with BC; I walk the paths of that campus and I always remark on how robust, beautiful, and well-maintained the buildings are. (In contrast, of course, to the buildings of other Catholic institutions and parishes.) I worry that the vision of the dream might have been a glimpse into the actual, spiritual condition of BC. In the dream I remarked on two oddities of the scene: there were some firefighters, but they didn't seem to be doing anything, and there were people in the buildings, but they didn't seem to be trying to escape.
More importantly, though, what is the journey which so challenges me? Is it the STD program? Is it my place in the province and my obedience to the brothers, aware as I am aware of certain forces swirling about me, imagining particular outcomes to this course of study I have begun? Or is it something more fundamental and internal in my own interior journey with the Lord? Am I at one of those places in which I am straining to go to the next level of faith and trust, moments that always come with a lot of confusion and vertigo and grief at letting go of aspects of the false self I always thought were irreducible parts of "me" but which have to be jettisoned if I am to take another step into the Mystery?
The troubles are varied. In one dream I forgot to respond to an attractive invitation because I got distracted. In another I missed an appointment because I didn't leave enough time for travel. Another time I couldn't even begin to get on my way because the vehicle I was supposed to drive was too complex and unwieldy, a huge RV full of different systems and gadgets. In the most recent dream on this theme, the street on which I was walking was blocked off because the buildings were on fire.
The images are very telling, but the question arises: what is this troublesome journey which I am either anxious about beginning, making, or being able to arrive at its destination? What increase in vigilance and mindfulness do I need to adopt? What do I need to let go of in order to be free to begin or continue? What old paths need to be re-routed that I might avoid the destructive forces, inside and out, that impede my steps?
The unwieldy vehicle is probably my own soul, and a warning to me that I need to care for myself better in these days full of new distractions and temptations to the dissipation of my internal attention. But I'm also worried that the unwieldy vehicle might be our province of the brothers which finds itself at a contentious moment and needs to find a way to step forward. The burning block of buildings is also full of possibilities. Probably it's one of the old paths of my prayer and interior habits that has become useless and even dangerous. New and less comfortable paths to God always need to be charted. This, after all, is the journey of faith at its dark and searing heart. But I also fear that the burning buildings might have something to do with BC; I walk the paths of that campus and I always remark on how robust, beautiful, and well-maintained the buildings are. (In contrast, of course, to the buildings of other Catholic institutions and parishes.) I worry that the vision of the dream might have been a glimpse into the actual, spiritual condition of BC. In the dream I remarked on two oddities of the scene: there were some firefighters, but they didn't seem to be doing anything, and there were people in the buildings, but they didn't seem to be trying to escape.
More importantly, though, what is the journey which so challenges me? Is it the STD program? Is it my place in the province and my obedience to the brothers, aware as I am aware of certain forces swirling about me, imagining particular outcomes to this course of study I have begun? Or is it something more fundamental and internal in my own interior journey with the Lord? Am I at one of those places in which I am straining to go to the next level of faith and trust, moments that always come with a lot of confusion and vertigo and grief at letting go of aspects of the false self I always thought were irreducible parts of "me" but which have to be jettisoned if I am to take another step into the Mystery?
September 26, 2010
Sapientia Multiformis
As I've settled down to celebrating Sunday Mass in Spanish, I've begun to appreciate some of the differences between the English and Spanish sacramentaries. Different languages have particular gifts as they express the mysteries their speakers hope to approach through human speech. Within this one also notices the choices of translators.
Today I prayed the eighth preface for Sundays in Ordinary Time, which is one of my favorites:
En verdad es justo y necesario, es nuestro deber y salvación, darte gracias siempre y en todo lugar, Señor, Padre Santo, Dios todopoderoso y eterno. Porque has querido reunir de nuevo, por la sangre de tu Hijo y la fuerza del EspÃritu, a tus hijos dispersos por el pecado; de este modo tu Iglesia, unificada por virtud y a imagen de la Trinidad, aparece ante el mundo como cuerpo de Cristo y templo del EspÃritu, para alabanza de tu infinita sabidurÃa. Por eso, unidos a los coros angélicos, te aclamamos llenos de alegrÃa...
I am intrigued by the sense of the Church being formed into the image of the Trinity, so that it may appear to the world as the Body of Christ and temple of the Spirit. I'm not exactly sure how this makes theological sense, but perhaps that's why it draws me in. I also like the image of the children of God dispersos, 'scattered' or 'dispersed' by sin. I enjoy how that has an exterior and interior dimension.
Here's the soon-to-be-replaced English translation to which I have been previously accustomed:
When Your children sinned and wandered far from Your friendship, You reunited them with Yourself through the blood of Your Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. You gather them into Your church, to be one as You, Father, are one with Your Son and the Holy Spirit. You call them to be Your people, to praise Your wisdom in all Your works. You make them the body of Christ and the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. Now, with the saints and all the angels we praise You for ever...
The differences are subtle, but real. In the English version the Church is called to imitate the unity of Father, Son, and Spirit, a somewhat more pointed assertion that the simple image of being united toward becoming an image of the Trinity as it says in the Spanish. I definitely prefer how the Spanish uses the word 'Trinity.' On the other hand, I like the idea of wandering from the friendship of God. Sin is an erring, a missing of the mark, a departure from the path.
Of course, as a good WDTPRSer, I had to check the Latin...
Vere dignum et iustum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere: Domine, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus: Quia filios, quos longe peccati crimen abstulerat, per sanguinem Filii tui Spiritusque virtute, in unum ad te denuo congregare voluisti: ut plebs, de unitate Trinitatis adunata, in tuae laudem sapientiae multiformis Christi corpus templumque Spiritus nosceretur Ecclesia. Et ideo, choris angelicis sociati, te laudamus in gaudio confitentes...
So there's the Trinity. In the English we are 'gathered' into an imitation of the oneness of Father, Son, and Spirit rather than of the Trinity. What's the difference, you say? I am teasing, I know, but see the end of the post. So let's hope for an improvement when we first have a chance to hear the new version of this preface in the winter of 2012, should the general judgment not come first.
Behind some of this are the daydreams I've begun to have about the dissertation proposal I will be expected to produce within the next couple of years. One of the half serious and half bemused inspirations I have had is something called, "The Use and Abuse of the Social Trinity: A Proposal for Disciplining Our Speech and Imagination."
Today I prayed the eighth preface for Sundays in Ordinary Time, which is one of my favorites:
En verdad es justo y necesario, es nuestro deber y salvación, darte gracias siempre y en todo lugar, Señor, Padre Santo, Dios todopoderoso y eterno. Porque has querido reunir de nuevo, por la sangre de tu Hijo y la fuerza del EspÃritu, a tus hijos dispersos por el pecado; de este modo tu Iglesia, unificada por virtud y a imagen de la Trinidad, aparece ante el mundo como cuerpo de Cristo y templo del EspÃritu, para alabanza de tu infinita sabidurÃa. Por eso, unidos a los coros angélicos, te aclamamos llenos de alegrÃa...
I am intrigued by the sense of the Church being formed into the image of the Trinity, so that it may appear to the world as the Body of Christ and temple of the Spirit. I'm not exactly sure how this makes theological sense, but perhaps that's why it draws me in. I also like the image of the children of God dispersos, 'scattered' or 'dispersed' by sin. I enjoy how that has an exterior and interior dimension.
Here's the soon-to-be-replaced English translation to which I have been previously accustomed:
When Your children sinned and wandered far from Your friendship, You reunited them with Yourself through the blood of Your Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. You gather them into Your church, to be one as You, Father, are one with Your Son and the Holy Spirit. You call them to be Your people, to praise Your wisdom in all Your works. You make them the body of Christ and the dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. Now, with the saints and all the angels we praise You for ever...
The differences are subtle, but real. In the English version the Church is called to imitate the unity of Father, Son, and Spirit, a somewhat more pointed assertion that the simple image of being united toward becoming an image of the Trinity as it says in the Spanish. I definitely prefer how the Spanish uses the word 'Trinity.' On the other hand, I like the idea of wandering from the friendship of God. Sin is an erring, a missing of the mark, a departure from the path.
Of course, as a good WDTPRSer, I had to check the Latin...
Vere dignum et iustum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper et ubique gratias agere: Domine, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus: Quia filios, quos longe peccati crimen abstulerat, per sanguinem Filii tui Spiritusque virtute, in unum ad te denuo congregare voluisti: ut plebs, de unitate Trinitatis adunata, in tuae laudem sapientiae multiformis Christi corpus templumque Spiritus nosceretur Ecclesia. Et ideo, choris angelicis sociati, te laudamus in gaudio confitentes...
So there's the Trinity. In the English we are 'gathered' into an imitation of the oneness of Father, Son, and Spirit rather than of the Trinity. What's the difference, you say? I am teasing, I know, but see the end of the post. So let's hope for an improvement when we first have a chance to hear the new version of this preface in the winter of 2012, should the general judgment not come first.
Behind some of this are the daydreams I've begun to have about the dissertation proposal I will be expected to produce within the next couple of years. One of the half serious and half bemused inspirations I have had is something called, "The Use and Abuse of the Social Trinity: A Proposal for Disciplining Our Speech and Imagination."
September 8, 2010
People and Place
Yesterday was the first day of classes. I didn't have any, but I went to school anyway to explore the library and to find someone to help me register for courses (I couldn't figure out how to do it online.) Everyone was very helpful and it was a good day. The midday Mass at St. Mary's Hall was as devout and peaceful as I remembered; one feels almost hidden in prayer there and I love it.
But here's what was funny about it all: The Boston College School of Theology & Ministry is partly what used to be the Weston Jesuit School of Theology across the river in Cambridge. I spent ten semesters there. So as I wander around this totally new geography, I meet all the same people I used to know from Weston. I walk into an unknown library and the head librarian calls me by first name. I go to the new and shiny school office and I meet the same receptionist I knew from the old place.
All of this is striking because it is the opposite of how it is here at home in the friary. I lived in this neighborhood for five years when I was in studies for priesthood, and so I know the area and the friaries pretty well. But things are quite changed because it's a whole different set of friars. Most of all, the friaries have new guardians. (The guardian (i.e. superior) of a house makes a big difference regarding the mood of the place.)
So I'm grateful this morning to notice that I have something familiar and encouraging in both the school and fraternal aspects of my new assignment.
But here's what was funny about it all: The Boston College School of Theology & Ministry is partly what used to be the Weston Jesuit School of Theology across the river in Cambridge. I spent ten semesters there. So as I wander around this totally new geography, I meet all the same people I used to know from Weston. I walk into an unknown library and the head librarian calls me by first name. I go to the new and shiny school office and I meet the same receptionist I knew from the old place.
All of this is striking because it is the opposite of how it is here at home in the friary. I lived in this neighborhood for five years when I was in studies for priesthood, and so I know the area and the friaries pretty well. But things are quite changed because it's a whole different set of friars. Most of all, the friaries have new guardians. (The guardian (i.e. superior) of a house makes a big difference regarding the mood of the place.)
So I'm grateful this morning to notice that I have something familiar and encouraging in both the school and fraternal aspects of my new assignment.
September 6, 2010
A Dream for the First Day of School
So I wake up on Labor Day, the last day before the real first day of school. (The days of so-called orientation don't count.) I am anxious, for sure, but I also had an encouraging dream.
I am anxious because I am not confident that I can manage the doctoral program. I learned well certain school-going habits as a small child that will have to be unlearned if I'm going to make it to the STD. These were a matter of survival at the time, and so I don't have any grudge against myself about them, but like many survival strategies we learn along the way, they have become maladaptive in later circumstances.
In the midst of this worry I've been having some rich dreams, full of people and places and teachers and schools from the past. As I was praying through some of it this morning, one moment seemed particularly revealing. I was with one of the professors whose disciple I hope to become this year. He had a son with him, maybe four or five years old. The child was babbling like an infant, full of syllables and seeming just on the edge of true speech. "He can almost talk," I said to the professor. It was the joy of the dream to announce it.
In my prayer I realized that the kid was probably me. By the discernment of the friars and the generosity of our benefactors, the transformation to speech is offered to me. If I can overcome what keeps me from working as hard as I can and if I can make myself a fruitful disciple of my professors, perhaps I can become a bearer of coherent theological speech, a doctor.
I am anxious because I am not confident that I can manage the doctoral program. I learned well certain school-going habits as a small child that will have to be unlearned if I'm going to make it to the STD. These were a matter of survival at the time, and so I don't have any grudge against myself about them, but like many survival strategies we learn along the way, they have become maladaptive in later circumstances.
In the midst of this worry I've been having some rich dreams, full of people and places and teachers and schools from the past. As I was praying through some of it this morning, one moment seemed particularly revealing. I was with one of the professors whose disciple I hope to become this year. He had a son with him, maybe four or five years old. The child was babbling like an infant, full of syllables and seeming just on the edge of true speech. "He can almost talk," I said to the professor. It was the joy of the dream to announce it.
In my prayer I realized that the kid was probably me. By the discernment of the friars and the generosity of our benefactors, the transformation to speech is offered to me. If I can overcome what keeps me from working as hard as I can and if I can make myself a fruitful disciple of my professors, perhaps I can become a bearer of coherent theological speech, a doctor.
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