Some Christians believe that today’s gospel story records a literal miracle of Moses and Elijah meeting Jesus on a mountain. I don’t know about miracles — we historians can be skeptical about evidence when it comes to miracles. But I do recognize it as something else.
This episode sounds like thousands of stories from native religions or a transcript of a contemporary psychedelic therapy session. This gospel passage relates a mystical experience that was shared by Jesus and his closest followers. It includes all the requisite elements of such — prayer, the mountain, “dazzling” light, altered reality, hearing sacred voices.
And clouds. The transcendent zenith of the passage isn’t the appearance of Moses and Elijah — the prophets are the prelude to the real point of the story.
The climax is in the clouds:
While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”
They were terrified as they entered the cloud
That’s a stunning line, if you think about it. Written by someone who never took off in a storm, never descended through rough clouds, it is a metaphor for some experience of God from the ground. Certainly, the author had known violent thunderstorms and desert haboobs. But to describe the divine presence as a cloud — a terrifying obscurity, a kind of blindness — speaks as much to our contemporary experience as it did ancient fears.
The Transfiguration isn’t about celebrating glory. It is about encountering God in the turbulence. You won’t hear God — you can’t know the presence — in temples that commemorate sparkling miracles.
Rather, the Voice speaks in the midst of tumult. And its directive is odd — not “come and see,” a phrase often repeated in the gospels, but is instead, “listen.”
Yes, this is a mystical experience, of the sensory perception of hearing.
And it is also oddly true in its description of life — our ordinary reality these days — and compelling in its practicality. Because the best mystical experiences speak to living with faith in the world. Everyone comes off the mountain, carrying only the memory of what was learned……
Longing for miracles — and building lovely temples on a scenic hillside — might be the delusion of our days. Too much of politics caters to our craving miracles; faith is too often about some magical safe place….
Learning to navigate amid the storm is what is needed. …
Don’t cling to what dazzles, all those glittering images. On Transfiguration Sunday, God comes in the clouds: listen.
When lightning hit the runway in St. Louis, I closed my eyes. We were heading into the storm and there was no turning back. The plane rocked, making a way through the clouds. And I remember hearing inwardly: This is the way home, the only way. Breathe. Trust. You are not alone.
Listen.
It is we who need to be transformed.
That is a good reflection by Diana Butler Bass. And whether one believes in miracles or not, her bottom line that "It is we who need to be transformed" is certainly true. And the part about listening. I am thinking of the Biblical "still, small voice".
ReplyDeleteI am by no means a frequent flyer. But I have had some experiences of flying through clouds. The first was when I was 12 years old. It was my first time in an airplane, one of the old style Frontier Airlines convair prop jets. There was the exhilarating feel of lift off, and then flying by and through white clouds in a blue sky, in perfect weather. It was awe-inspiring experience, I wondered if this is what it feels like to go to heaven.
Another experience was much different. Fifty years later, flying in the night over the Pacific Ocean in a much bigger plane. And seeing lightning in some clouds. An attendant reassured us that the lightning was over a hundred miles away. And that we might feel some bumpiness, but it wasn't going to cause us any problems. And it didn't. But it was a much different feeling than the exhilaration of my first flight. I realized how powerless we actually were at 30, 000 feet over a vast expanse of water. And trusting God (and the pilots!) because what other choice did we have?
I first flew in my early 20's. I usually knocked down two mixed drinks per flight. As time went on, I realized that the worst that could happen was I could get killed and so what? I thought of all the moving and non-moving parts in the plane that had to work right. I pretty much understood the physics and mechanics of planes. Then I thought of the countless processes and members of my body that have to work to keep me alive. A universe of processes I hardly understand but depend on constantly.. So, I figured I was always flying, dependent on a lot of unknowns. Eventually I only drank soda and juice when flying.
DeleteLOL, Stanley, I'm glad 12 year old me didn't know about everything that had to work right. I remember that the stewardesses were nice and gave me a ginger ale with a cherry in it.
DeleteI don’t often drink alcohol and when I do, it’s wine. Occasionally, under the right circumstances, a pina colada, which is like drinking candy. I never drink on airplanes except for a lot of water to prevent dehydration. I hate turbulence and hate taking off or landing during bad weather. Mostly I’ve been able to avoid it by planning flights to avoid certain airports at certain times of year. But I still have to deal with thunderstorms or snowstorms at my home airport now and then. Unfortunately flying is the only practical way to get from here to California several times/ year. Leaving for Cali again on Friday. We had really fierce thunderstorms a couple of days ago, but Friday looks ok, right at the moment anyway. I learned many years ago that what will be, will be. Totally powerless in a plane. But I do keep my seatbelt fastened all the time.There have been a number of injuries of unbelted passengers, and flight attendants just doing their job, recently during severe turbulence.
DeleteOur group didn't do music this weekend, so I was interested to see what other musicians might choose for the feast of the Transfiguration. As expected, they choose Transfigure Us O Lord https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPgGW0jIG6I
ReplyDeleteThe lyrics fit in with Diana Butler Bass' reflection, that we are the ones who need to be transfigured.
But there was another song that I wasn't familiar with; Tis Good, Lord, to Be Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbBqw7RvvFE
I liked it; the hymn tune was "Swabia". It is new in our OCP music edition this year. It has a feel that it might have come from the Anglican or Ecusa tradition.
Hi Katherine - that hymn is in the one-volume Christian Prayer breviary that all of us in the Chicago program were given during diaconate formation. Although I think the tune isn't note-for-note as what is in the Youtube video, but it's pretty close. (On the other hand, I might just be sight-reading it a little wrong in the breviary :-)).
DeleteI don't know the author, Joseph Armitage Robinson. This hymnary.org entry suggests he wasn't known primarily as a hymn writer (although he sounds pretty eminent for other reasons). My guess, based on various titles he held: an Anglican through and through :-)
https://hymnary.org/text/tis_good_lord_to_be_here#Author
Interesting that Hymnary notes two other tunes which are used with the hymn, and also a graph showing frequency of use.
DeleteThe Anglicans do have some good music.
The cloud thing makes it a theophany. I'm sure Diana Butler Bass knows that, but took the reflection in a different direction.
ReplyDeleteI noticed also that the words of the Father, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him" were the same ones spoken at Jesus' baptism. Which is also a theophany.
DeletePrayers for the people in Lahaina, Maui, who have just lost everything. Lahaina was a charming, historic town, the heart of Maui. I’m so sad for them.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid it's just another event exacerbated by climate change. It will get worse if radical changes in our civilization aren't made. With El Nino on top of increased atmospheric CO2 and CH4, it's been estimated as the hottest year in the last 120,000. I'm just waiting to see what this hurricane season will do. El Nino suppresses hurricane formation with high level shear winds. But all that thermal energy in the Atlantic wants to break loose. This is what the world looks like at 1.5°C warmer. We aren't at that level as an average yet but this is a preview of what will be the new normal. Unless we blast past that, too..
DeleteI am sad to hear about the tragic fires in Maui and will keep them in my prayers. I have not been in Maui but was in Oahu and Kauai in 2012. Hawaii is one of my best memories.
DeleteIronically the el Nino has meant that the drought has broken here. We are having one of the best summers in years. Not excessively hot, so far not bad for hail. The grass looks like it's May instead of August. Of course in May it looked like August, the rains came late. My brother shared that the 120 year old pear tree back home had been covered in blooms and is now full of pears. They thought it was nearly dead before.
Seems almost sinful to enjoy the nice summer, but we'll take it when we get it.
I always thought (and still think, when I am flying through clouds) that the primordial wonder of clouds is encapsulated in the fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk". An entire realm beyond the reach of humans - unless one climbs a mountain (or a really tall beanstalk).
ReplyDeleteI forget what sci-fi tv show I watched where people had built a gravity-defying city in the clouds. Would be a nice place to visit, but think I'd rather be on solid ground!
DeleteKatherine, we’ve traveled a lot. Hawaii is a magical place. The natural beauty is breathtaking. Lahaina was once the Capitol of the Kingdom of Hawaii. It was charming and funky, to use a 60 s word. The small business owners have been wiped out.The death count has reached 36. Natural disasters are always heartbreaking. When they happen in paradise, it’s even more heartbreaking in a way. Anyway, if anyone is moved to donate, there is information in today’s WaPo.
ReplyDeleteHere are some of the organizations accepting donations to help those affected by the wildfires: • The Office of the Governor of Hawaii has directed donors to the Hawaii Community Foundation. • Verified fundraisers on GoFundMe are raising money to help residents rebuild and recover. • Shoppers in Hawaii can make donations of up to $249 at their nearest Foodland, which is accepting donations at checkout to support the American Red Cross. • The Maui Mutual Aid Fund is accepting donations to support Maui families, elderly residents, people with disabilities and those with limited or no insurance. • Aloha United Way, a Honolulu-based nonprofit organization, has created the Maui Relief Fund that will go directly toward efforts supporting victims of the fires. • The Salvation Army’s Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Division is accepting donations to provide meals for thousands displaced in Maui emergency shelters. • The Maui Food Bank is providing meals for thousands of displaced residents. • The Hawaii Restaurant Association is organizing donations and volunteer efforts on Maui and Oahu. You can sign up to join relief efforts on Maui here, or fill in forms to help evacuees transported to Oahu here. • The Maui Police Department is calling for donations of bottled water, food etc
Jim, re climbing a mountain to live above the clouds. As you know, I grew up in mountains from age ten on. At 5200 feet we were sometimes at the same level as clouds. Sometimes above them. The schools were on the same piece of land - a k-8 and a High school. Two separate buildings though. All grades on the same busses. The schools were on the Rim of the World Highway, named for the fact that the road from “down the hill” hugged the edge of the mountain. Spectacular views, but deadly if a vehicle broke through the guardrails. Since the highway is a miles long series of hairpin turns it requires absolute focus even when it’s bright and sunny. With the clouds- fog, it was a nightmare. When the clouds were at our altitude, the bus drivers pulling out of the school parking lot would sometimes have an older student walk out in front of the bus.The clouds there were like an extremely dense fog - about 2’ visibility ahead at most.The student could walk ahead of the bus to find the edge of the road as the busses made their turns to go away from the schools and signal the drivers. Once straightened and headed in the right direction with the danger of driving straight off the cliff mitigated, the older student would get back in the bus. Once away from the edge - the Rim - the fog was less dense. My house was a bit higher on the mountain and when we got and above the clouds it was beautiful - blue, blue sky and bright sun with crystal clear air and atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteAnne - we may actually have driven on that road you describe, or at least a similar one. We had visited my sister who lived in Riverside. From there we took a one-lane-each-direction California state highway through mountains to visit Capistrano (where we didn't see any swallows, but it was an interesting way to spend a couple of hours). The road was switchbacks, with the mountain rising up on one side, and falling away steeply on the other side. The guardrails, such as they are, looked pretty flimsy to us. I had a hard time mustering the nerve to drive at the speed limit, which I think was 50 or 55. Some of the locals were a little impatient with us, but there were places here and there where they could safely pass us.
DeleteHmm. I’ll have to look at a map. The Rim of the World highway Hwy 18) is not a road you would take from Riverside to Capistrano. Yes, the guardrails are minimal. I learned to drive in the mountains and was never bothered except for getting stuck behind slow tourists. ;). The first time I drove back to my hometown after a 25 year absence I couldn’t believe that I had once driven that highway without a second thought! It was scary, especially going up. Going down, the mountain is next to the car, away from the edge and the thousands of feet drop. The mountain town I lived in is called Lake Arrowhead. Does your sister still live in Riverside? It gets really hot and smoggy there, unfortunately. But close to the mountain lakes for an escape when needed.
DeleteThe swallows are gone for part of the year, so I guess your timing wasn’t right for them. They “summer” there, when it’s too hot in their winter home in South America.
Did you do the whole mission trail from San Diego to Northern California?
I’ve actually returned to Arrowhead multiple times, almost once/ year in the last ten years or so. I go with my high school BFFs to visit our beloved music teacher from high school ( choir for us). He is now 97. His wife died several years ago. She was also wonderful. I babysat for them occasionally when I was in high school. My friends now live in the LA, Orange County, Riverside area.p, but frequently return to the mountains. I happily turn the driving over to them when we go to visit him.
DeleteWe only get fog occasionally here. The farmers always say to count 90 days from a fog, and you will get either rain or snow, depending on the season. Looks like by that calculation we should get snow around November 1.
DeleteHow is their track record on predicting the rain or snow after a fog?
DeleteWell it isn't unusual to get snow in November even if there wasn't a fog 90 days prior. So I'd say the cause and effect relationship is pretty weak.
DeleteI always pay attention to the Farmer’s zAlmanac predictions for the winter, but then we forget what they were so haven’t checked to see how accurate they are.
DeleteAnne - I don't recall the highway name/number, but just asked Google, and it suggested I was on state route 74.
DeleteYes, I have two siblings in California these days, both sisters, one in that Inland Empire area, the other in the Bay Area. One of my brothers also lived in the Bay Area for a couple of decades but recently moved away.
My most interesting flight experience was on a trip from Muncie Indiana to Chicago in a very small plane would you see out the windows in all directions. We got into a holding pattern around Chicago because of the weather. The frightening thing was not the weather but the hornet's nest of airplanes flying around us. Usually you don't see them.
ReplyDeleteThe closest that I have ever come to a mystical experience was more like the bible story of God's presence in the small whisper than the thunder, lightening and clouds.
ReplyDeleteIt was a one- on-one directed retreat. The woman religious had obvious been trained in a non-directive listening fashion. She nodded approvingly of everything that I said about positively experiencing God in my life, frequently bringing me reading material as a follow-up/. Didn't do much in terms of asking questions, or giving advice, just very good listening on her part.
The end result of all this was unexpected; it was not that I experienced God's presence in this or that aspect of my life but rather in all of my life. It was like I became aware of a quiet presence that had always been there but that I had never noticed. It seemed that I was in a different world but still in the present world. This different world was very beautiful but one that I felt was awesome and that I was not yet ready to live in it. The effect gradually ended as I completed the retreat and drove back home.
I think of it as a transfiguration event because it gave me great confidence that God was with me in all my life even though I usually don't experience that on a day-to-day basis but just at special times.
Jack, that must have been such a beautiful experience.
DeleteJack, that is really lovely.
DeleteYou are a very fortunate man, Jack.
DeleteOne of the things that has encouraged me to think of this as a genuine mystical experience has been the difficulty in putting it into words. It was kind of like the whisper but of course it was not really a sound, etc.
DeleteIgnatius was skeptical of his own mystical experiences because he did have some that were definitely illusions of an evil nature. One of the criteria that he used were the effects on his own life, e.g., that other people had noticed the difference in his behavior. In talking about one experience which he regarded as genuine, he noted that he had not committed a mortal sin since that time. But he says it in a way that if he committed a mortal sin tomorrow, he would probably have rethought the genuineness of the experience.
In terms of my experience in historical perspective it did in fact occur at a turning point in my life at the beginning of my career of positive experiences in the mental health system, right before the positive experiences of being a voluntary pastoral staff member in Toledo which form the foundation for my vision of the Church. Perhaps just a lot of coincidence, but sometimes you just have to go with correlational evidence.
Re Ignatius and mortal sin - I am amazed at how often people - usually the very conservative Catholics - talk about committing mortal sins, especially in discussions/ comments about going to confession. I tend to believe that very few ordinary people commit mortal sins very often in their lives. It does require “grave matter”, full knowledge and, most importantly, full consent to breaking off the relationship with God, which are not conditions often found in the ordinary lives of ordinary people. Since a mortal sin requires a deliberate intent to break off one’s relationship with God, how often do real people do this?
DeleteIgnatius got into big problems with the inquisition over mortal sin. They told him that as a layman teaching catechism that he could not tell people what was a mortal sin. That was reserved to priests. The inquisition in his first diocese told him to cease during so. He left that diocese went to another diocese told the bishop of his experience in the first diocese, and the fact that he did not think he could teach catechism without helping the adults to know what was a mortal sin. The bishop agree with Ignatius and told him he could teach catechism.
DeleteHi Anne and all. Re: mortal sin: Anne, you make some good points. On the other hand, there are some fairly easy, casual (and, I think, frequent) ways to commit mortal sins. Not going to mass on Sunday, or a holy day of obligation, because I don't feel like it, can be a mortal sin, according to the traditional guides. For people like me who are obligated to pray certain Hours of the day, blowing off Morning Prayer or Evening Prayer because I'd rather watch early football or stay out late partying is a mortal sin. The pretty common act of, er, "self-pleasuring" is traditionally considered a mortal sin.
DeleteWe can certainly discuss whether those things really, truly are "showstoppers" in God's eyes (or even in the church's eyes anymore). But - I think their frequency points to deeper malaises: a certain accommodation to the ubiquity of sin, and a certain hopelessness about the possibility living virtuously.
Let me hasten to add: I don't think the remedy for those illnesses is to exhort and shout at sinners to stop sinning. That's Ron DeSantis's stock in trade, apparently. But I do think those malaises are, in a way, outcries of thirst for the saving power of Jesus. And so I think we need to be willing to give thirsty people what they thirst for: we have to be bold enough to offer Jesus to those who want Jesus in their lives.
Jim, really? Skipping evening prayers totally severs your relationship with God?The church teaches that dying without confessing a “ mortal sin” is a one way ticket to hell for all eternity. Is that what you think would happen to you if you watched a football game instead of saying evening prayers and you were struck down in an instant with a massive heart attack - no time to say Sorry, God?
DeleteIt seems totally absurd that Ignatius would accept a judgement that teaching catechism to others as a lay person is a “ mortal sin”. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as everyone thought.
DeleteNot fulfilling a manmade requirement like obligatory Sunday mass attendance is certainly not a mortal sin. God doesn’t care if people go to mass. God may - may, but we don’t really know - want a relationship, usually achieved through some kind of prayer but never commanded that everyone participate in the form of prayer known as the Catholic mass. These are the kinds of things that make people think the Catholic Church is all about priests wanting power to control rather than about helping people in finding their own spiritual path.
DeleteAnne - it's true that there are "official" sectors of the church which would tell me that intentionally skipping Evening Prayer because I don't want to be bothered to pray it, is a mortal sin.
DeleteTo think for a moment about the much-more-widespread phenomenon of Catholics choosing not to go to mass on Sunday: I suppose there are many possible reasons for this choice, but I think the most common explanation would simply be: a loss of faith. They don't believe it's important; they don't see the possibility of any "return" for investing the time; and so they don't go.
As it happens, I think God's mercy is beyond our ability to fathom, so I don't think it's likely that someone whose faith is weak, or completely gone is, by intentionally skipping mass, committing a sin that could cut him off eternally from God
I remember one of the nuns I had for a teacher saying that we don't stand still in the spiritual life, we are either moving forward, or going backwards.It kind of makes sense. I see some of the things like missing Mass or not praying as a kind of "moving backwards". I don't believe they are a one-way ticket to hell. But if it becomes a habit, we aren't going in the right direction. (Of course people who don't identify as Catholic don't have a Mass obligation, but if they are believers in some sense, they need to prioritize staying spiritually connected in some way,)
DeleteIf we are in a relationship with a loved one, but don't prioritize spending time with them, the relationship suffers.
Lol! Or maybe I should cry instead. Jim, It’s clear that nothing I’ve said over the years about people praying and having a spiritual life without going to mass has gotten through. Jim, your whole life revolves around being a deacon at mass. Of course you see it as the most important way to express your spirituality. YOUR spirituality. Sometimes people don’t go because of a loss of faith - but if it is, it’s usually a loss of faith in the institutional church, not faith in God. There is something in the way of you being able to understand this simple reality. Perhaps you can’t allow yourself to think that there isn’t something terribly wrong with people who don’t choose to spend their prayer time in a building with several hundred people, mostly strangers, hearing the same readings they’ve heard dozens of times, homilies that are boring, unoriginal and not with the time, rote prayers, etc, etc, but they might wonder why those hundreds of people put up with it every week.
DeleteI think maybe you should take up reading Mary Oliver poetry to discover how people find God in relation. And read Margaret Renkl.
So, here’s one sample from Margaret Renkl.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/opinion/christians-church-lent.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Sigh. Corrections - not worth the time, and God in creation - the natural world made by God, Gods cathedral. Not the manmade brick and mortar places.
DeleteAnne, thanks for that Margaret Renkl article. A lot of what she writes sounds familiar; have you and she ever been seen together? :-)
DeleteI can respect that she needs a Lenten fast from communal worship. I'll say a prayer that she finds her way back to a faith community. I think, if we leave behind the communal dimension, we're left with walks in the woods and mockingbird calls. Those are fine, but there is so much more to it.
Fasting from communal worship during Lent is not something new and modern.
DeleteMonks from some monasteries in Palestine did this every Lent. They left the monastery at the beginning of Lent and returned on Palm Sunday. The idea was to engage in fasting and prayer for God alone so that your fellow monks would never know what you did, nor whether you found God in the desert.
The monastic tradition has always been wary of the temptations to spiritual pride. That we may end up engaging in all sorts of religious practices in order to appear holy to our fellow Christians rather than to be more in tune with the transcendent. Jesus himself spoke about this when he advised us fast in secret, to pray in the inner rooms of our homes, and criticized the Pharisees for their lengthy public prayers. Merton talks about the spiritual journey as the process of giving up all the sacred things that can become idols that take the place of God.
I think the community spirituality that Jim talks about is only one spirituality within Catholicism, one that is exemplified by the Benedictines. Our parishes tend to be based on that type of spirituality built around liturgy and faith formation. However, there are other major spiritualities that focus elsewhere.
The solitary tradition of spirituality is focused upon God alone. In the desert solitary tradition, the liturgies and communal life of the parishes were left behind for either life completely alone or in a network of hermitages usually along of a pathway. The solitary life was an asocial rather than anti-social spirituality. Desert solitaries were hospitable to people who came out to the desert seeking God, asking for their prayers, or a word of advice. Solitaries were acutely aware of how much of social life can be sinful: envy, jealously, anger, pride, etc. They tried to live a briefer purer social life.
The early church had a complex reaction to the solitary life. Some spiritual authors saw it as the perfection of Christian life, to live for God alone. Others saw it is a preparation for a higher calling of becoming a teacher. Some authors saw communal monastic life as a preparation for a higher life as a hermit. Others saw the hermit’s life as a preparation for a higher calling of becoming a spiritual father, and leader of a community.
There are actually abundant opportunities for living the solitary life in today’s world. Many people live alone for various reasons, e.g., being single, divorced, or widowed. We have really failed as a church to make available the riches of the many forms of solitary life that have existed in Catholicism.
A life of service to others is another form of Christian spirituality; sometimes it can be done with the support of a community; however, it also can be done alone. Many people are dedicated to serving others better in their work and professional lives. Again, Catholicism largely fails to provide these people who serve others outside of church organizations with the riches of spiritualities of service that we have in religious orders.
We are an extremely parochial church, organizing church life around the limited talents of the clergy. We have largely failed to implement the Vatican II universal call to holiness focused as much or more on the world as on church institutions.
I think you can do both; pursue solitary spirituality and be part of a worshipping community. I confess that I find a Lenten fast from communal worship counterintuitive. During the early pandemic we had to fast from communal worship for nearly three months. More lately, recovering from surgery with limited mobility I had to fast from it for six weeks. I did better staying focused during the pandemic, maybe because there was a feeling that it actually was a communal effort during that time.
DeleteExcept for some ethnic communities such as Hispanics which have home altars and the custom of saying the rosary we have lost something which early Christianity had, the household church. There is increasing evidence that household churches survived after the cathedrals, basilicas, and martyr shrines were constructed. We always knew those did not have the capacity to hold all the Christians.
DeleteIn the household churches there was reading of scripture before the beginning of the Eucharist. The reading of the book of psalms was a regular part of that worship, it was not the responsorial psalm linked to a reading that we have now. When cathedrals and basilicas came into being the book of psalms was used for the entrance procession, the procession of the gifts which included offerings for the poor, and the communion procession as well as its traditional position among the OT and NT readings.
I think it is best to see monasticism as a descendent of the household churches. Not only did communities of monks function like households, the single cells of the solitaries also had the character of a house church. Staying in your cell and not wandering about was considered a great virtue. That has continued in contemporary Coptic monasticism. A Coptic monk was asked if the planned to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He replied that all the holiest shrines of Jerusalem were in his cave cell. In this cave Christ was born and from this cave he arose!
Taft in his history of the earliest centuries of the Hours says that what was done pretty much depended on who was around. If you had bishop there was likely to be some catechesis after a reading, if you had a deacon there were likely to be litanies, if you had cantors, there were likely to be hymns, canticles, and sung psalms. If you had a reader, there were likely to be readings.
Among these the most likely was from the book of psalms. There are more ancient manuscripts of psalms that any other book of the Bible. The constant exposure of Christians to the psalms in the cathedrals, basilicas, martyr shrines and household churches meant that solitaries knew many of the psalms by heart and that became the form of the Divine Office in the desert whether by complete hermits, semi-hermits who live along a pathway within ear shot and sometimes chanted the psalms that way.
So our modern experience of liturgical isolation during the pandemic is due to the fact that the only liturgical community most people experience is that in the parish church. Because Betty and I celebrate the hours we did not experience that lack of liturgical community during the pandemic. Every evening we sing Vespers with the Saint Meinrad monks. So instead of having an hour of liturgy on Sunday we have more than three hours of liturgy spread over the seven days of a week. I had always celebrated the hours alone before the pandemic. Celebrating the hours daily with Betty is a great improvement over both individual celebration and liturgy only on Sundays. Liturgical worship has been a part of our daily life rather than a exception to it.
We had online resources, too, during the pandemic. And they were helpful, especially the live streamed Mass from one of the local parishes. It was just such a weird time. Kids were attending online school, which worked well for some of them, but not all. The ones who fared the best had better family or household support. The consensus now is that a lot was lost academically during that time. A similar situation existed with faith communities. Yes a lot of us do have a sort of "home church", light candles and say the rosary or read from the breviary, etc., in addition to the formal worship.
DeleteEastern Christianity (both Catholic and Orthodox) have a much different attitude toward obligations to celebrate the Eucharist and Divine Office. In the East these are fundamentally seen as communal rather than individual obligations. The Canons exist there so that the community will assemble for prayer. It is the community’s relationship to God that matters. This implies that members of the community need to do their part, but it is not an individualistic matter between each person and God.
ReplyDeleteEastern churches usually celebrate vespers on Saturday evening (the beginning of the Lord's Day) and then Matins and the Eucharist on Sunday morning. That does not mean that everyone has to be there for all these services. The Eastern attitude when missing anything is that the community has worshiped, and that they as part of that community have worshiped even if they were not physically present.
In the West these communal attitudes have disappeared under the corrupting influences of clericalism and individualism. In the East for the Eucharist to be celebrated by a priest alone or even with a server is unknown. It takes a community of priests, deacons, subdeacons readers, cantors, and servers to celebrate the Eucharist and Vespers.
In the West it is become of matter of laity being obliged individually to come to Mass celebrated by priest maybe without even a server or reader or choir. Priests and deacons are not obliged to provide the services of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer publicly but are obliged to do them privately instead of the laity.
When Vatican II reformed the Divine Office, it focused upon the clergy rather than the laity. It made the Office easier by spreading the 150 psalms over four weeks rather than one week. It enhanced the two main hours of Morning and Evening prayer by choosing psalms appropriate to those hours rather than going through the psalter consecutively as had happened before.
Little was done to make the Hours available to the laity or make providing them for the laity an obligation of clerics. This attitude was a far cry from the first thousand years of the church. Benedict in his rule (which make little mention of the Eucharist, very few monks were ordained) devotes a substantial amount of time to regulate in detail how the Hours should be celebrating saying "let nothing be preferred to the Work of God" (which was another name for the Divine Office).
While the invention of the breviary allowed clergy to celebrate the Hours alone without the laity, it did little to help the laity. First of all it was in Latin until Vatican II, and the breviary is a complicated book with the need for ribbons to mark the various places that have to be combined to celebrate an Hour.
With the availability of on-line resources, (and now Bishop Barron's monthy worship booklet that reads cover to cover like book) individual Catholics, households, families, ministries, associations and various social networks can celebrate the hours either by gathering in person or virtually.
With the changed situation I think the primary obligations of priests and deacons is to promote the celebration of the hours by the faithful, individually and in groups, whenever and wherever they can rather than to wash their hands of the situation by saying “well I do it for them”. To failure to do so is to be guilty of the sin of clericalism against the people of God, a matter I think God is likely to take far more seriously than whether or not any particular person, clerical or lay, fails to celebrate the Hours.
Jim if we leave behind the communal dimension, we're left with walks in the woods and mockingbird call. Those are fine, but there is so much more to it.
ReplyDeleteUh, no. You really don’t “ get” it. But I don’t think that you are equipped to get it.
There is indeed so much more to it than a pleasant walk through nature.
Jack, I appreciate your reflections on monasticism and voluntarily chosen spiritual isolation.
ReplyDeleteThe desert solitaries withdrew, not from organized religion per se, but from society as a whole. That is not what I am taking away from Margaret Renkl and from Anne, neither of whom seem to have withdrawn from other social aspects of their lives. They have simply disaffiliated from the institutional church and its rituals and community. Certainly, they are not alone in this; I've read somewhere that Generation X in particular is doing this en masse. (And not only from organized religion; from mediating institutions more generally.)
Our society today has managed to achieve something paradoxical: with more people on the planet than ever before, the problems of social isolation and loneliness are being recognized as very large problems. Certainly the pandemic exacerbated this. Probably social media does, too: I've noted before that, unlike traditional media like radio, television and recordings of popular songs, which could be consumed socially, consumption of social media seems to be mostly a solitary endeavor.
I strongly agree with Anne that, when a person disaffiliates from organized religion, the spiritual dimension of their existence doesn't immediately disappear. But if communal Christianity isn't made available to satisfy spiritual hunger, it will have to be satisfied in some other way.
And the eremetical way of life always has been exceptional. Most of us aren't suited for it at all, and for others, it's something to be tried or embraced for a period of time and then left behind. Even the Carmelites, who I think lived in their own cells, came together communally. Christianity is, by its very nature, communal.
I've been reading (in fits and starts) a biography of St. Paul by NT Wright. He makes the point a couple of times in the book that, in Paul's time, our modern idea of privacy didn't exist. The way he puts it is, in any given village or urban neighborhood, everyone knew everyone else's business. If you were Jewish, all the neighbors knew it. If you became one of those followers of Jesus, they all knew about that, too. This notion that I have a private dimension in my life in which I pray or have a spiritual experience, and then I have a public dimension in which I work or shop or travel, largely anonymously: this is all of comparatively recent vintage and would strike the first Christians of the New Testament, and most of our spiritual forebears over the last 2,000 years, as very strange.
Why does someone need communal Christianity to satisfy their spiritual hunger? If it had satisfied my spiritual hunger I wouldn’t have left. It gave me the foundation, but then it was not only limiting my spiritual life, it had become an obstacle.
ReplyDeleteJim That is not what I am taking away from Margaret Renkl and from Anne, neither of whom seem to have withdrawn from other socialaspects of their lives
ReplyDeleteThat’s an observation that interests me.I see allusions toit all the time in my reading - that the main purpose of bei g a member of a religious congregation is social. So people join churches, or the Rotary Club, or the Garden Club or the local little theater group or whatever for social reasons. To meet other people and have social activities with them in between doing whatever the project ts are that are the stated mission of the organization.
I am. It an extrovert and I have never been a joiner, especially not for social reasons. As far as returning to small village life as in the first century of Christianity , no thanks. I loved my lake town, but it was very small - the entire population of the several separate en laves that fed our 300 student public high school was less than half the size of my RC parish in Maryland. Having everyone know your business is NOT a good thing. I like privacy and see no problem with having a public life - job, neighborhood etc that is completely separate from my private, spiritual life. Privacy is one of the best advances in living conditions that has evolved since ancient Christian times.
I am not an extrovert…..
DeleteThis iPad has a lot of keys that need extra pressure so if I’m not paying attention I leaves some letters blank. Sorry!. En laves is enclaves, for example.
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteThe solitaries did not withdraw from social life; that is actually very difficult, either then or now. Everybody knew they went out to the desert, and where they were. Occasionally people had interactions with them in terms of either going out to visit them or having them come into the villages for supplies, etc.
The solitaries withdraw from were certain institutions, i.e., ways of organizing society through certain patterns of behavior. These were both civic and ecclesial. They withdrew from family, property and much of the local economy. They also withdrew from the Cathedral and parish structures of Eucharist and the sacraments!
What they did in the desert was described in the classical words of Athanasius in the LIFE OF ANTHONY, “they made of the desert a city.” The desert was an uncivilized, lawless place. They did not go there to be uncivilized or lawless. Rather they build there a new society, both civil and more importantly ecclesial! That took place in the form of individual hermits, networks of hermits, and also communities.
Why did they feel empowered do so? Because they knew they were baptized Christians who were called to follow Jesus, to love God and neighbor, to proclaim the Kingdom of God. The early Church lived the universal call to holiness, in which holiness was evident in a whole variety of people: martyrs, confessors, widows, virgins, prophets, teachers, as well as bishops, presbyters, and deacons. All of these were saints, brethren, disciples. They were all part of the ecclesia which literally means a gathering, a coming together. I think it is best translated by our modern concept of social network, and referred to networks that existed in houses, cities, regions and universally.
Monastic life as originally formed was a gathering of Christians that was not centered upon the clergy. In fact, both the desert monks and the rule of Benedict discouraged priests from becoming members. The early monks had a saying “beware of women and bishops!” These were representatives of the civil and ecclesial life institutions that make it more difficult to living a life totally dedicated to God.
Athanasius the patriarch of Alexandria, now a Doctor of the Church wrote the Life of Anthony to shape contributions of monasticism to the wider Church. He was a shrew church politician who had many enemies near and far. He valued the monks because they had supported his side in theological disputes and hid him when he had to flee the city. He supported the whole idea of living a better Christian life in the desert rather than engaging in theological disputes or being corrupted by the establishment of the church that was taking place in the cities.
I feel a great deal of sympathy for Anne (as well as Jean) who have encountered great difficulties with the clerical establishments of our parishes. I am so grateful for the freedom that Francis has given us to speak honestly of the evils of clericalism which are far more than just a few bad apples. I have even been reluctant to accept married priests and women priests because the church needs empowered laity far more than its needs more clergy.
If my experience of Catholicism had been limited to what our parishes have to offer, if there had been no Divine Office in my life, no Thomas Merton, no Benedictines, no Jesuits, my life would have been greatly impoverished. Most of my great experiences of Catholicism have taken place outside parishes.
Fortunately I did have one outstanding experience as voluntary pastoral staff member in a Toledo parish which has led me to not give up completely on parishes but to call for their reform, that we should not be satisfied with mediocrity in worship and community, and that the clerical establishment (including all the laity that support them) need to begin to listen and learn from people like Anne and Jean (and those like myself who have had led the best of our Catholic lives outside the parishes.)
Jack . I have even been reluctant to accept married priests and women priests because the church needs empowered laity far more than its needs more clergy.
ReplyDeleteBy excluding women from the priesthood the church denies the feminine in God - in the Divine. But the church not only admits that there are some innate differences between male and female, it actively pushes its ( distorted and wrong) notions of divinely planned complémentarité. Only the church makes complementarity a power hierarchy, as do the evangelicals. A scheme in which men are superior, the act-ors; women are inferior to men, not meant to be act- ors but passive, the recipients of male action, including sexual. Men are to be the leaders. Women are tolerated but only in their inferior roles as helpers. Opening a sacrament to all without gender based discrimination is simply the right thing to do as a principle. However opening holy orders to married people, both men and women, would help to ground the clergy into reality. Celibate priests really have little understanding of the real lives and the real world of the laity. Married clergy with lay spouses and lay children cannot so easily escape reality, they can’t remain in their clerical ivory towers. Clericalism as the church now experiences it would be significantly diminished, even if not totally eliminated. Clericalism does exist in some Protestant churches, especially evangelical , and in the Orthodox. But it is worse in the RCC.
I don’t accept the patriarchal explanation of clericalism, that if we ordained women we would eliminate clericalism. Back a few decades ago, there was a panel at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association where women pastors from various denominations talked about their experiences. They agreed that ordaining women had not changed much. Some talked about the gap in becoming pastors, or bishops.
DeleteClericalism in my opinion derives from hierarchical governance models in which a CEO delegates his authority to subordinates. Robert Greenleaf in Servant Leadership attributes this to Moses. He contrasts this with the primus inter pares (first among equals) model where governance is by a council. He attributes this model to classical Greco-Roman Culture. It is, of course, the Eastern Church model.
Cleveland is the home of FutureChurch which advocates the ordination of married men and women. I have gone to many of their meetings over the years; they have brought some excellent speakers. However, they do just as poor a job as parishes in empowering laity. At one of their planning sessions, the woman at my table suggested that they take communion to the sick in the nursing homes. I thought it was a great idea. It emphasized the lack of priests and gave women a strong role in bringing the Eucharist. But nothing came of it although I pointed out its potential to Sister Schenk who frequently writes for the National Catholic Reporter.
We also had a woman pastoral associate in a nearby parish who started a center dedicated to Hildegard. She and her center have left the church after she was ordained by the woman priests association. Both Betty and I found she was unreceptive to our ideas and offers to collaborate with her.
Both these “progressive organizations” had leaders who functioned much like male priests, collecting adherents rather than empowering talented laity to create a rich leadership environment.
That may all be true, Jack. But I think that these are simply excuses. The women couldn’t be any worse than the men and they would bring a different way of understanding scripture to the homilies, as I have experienced in the EC. The male celibate mind really doesn’t see the world through the same prism as the female mind.p, as I know from listening to a lot of Ho,I lies by women as well as by men. I haven’t observed nearly as much clericalism in the Episcopal parishes we have been involved with as in the RCC. It’s not totally absent (I assume) but it is much less prominent. I know of one woman pastor who was pretty clericalist in a friend’s EC parish, , but she’s the only one I am familiar with. My experiences with the EC include women priests and married priests, both male and female married priests. They have been a very refreshing change from the Catholic priests I have experienced all of my life. Of course, in the EC the laity have both power and responsibilities at the parish level as well as at higher levels. The clergy is barred from doing it all. The priests can be on the Vestry but have only one vote, just as the other vestry members have. The laity also have a role in the selection of bishops and in defining teachings. And, of course, the laity of the parish choose their own priests.
DeleteThe universal call to holiness from baptism is more important that who gets ordained. The universal call should be evident in both church structures as well as in life, e.g. family, professional, work and civic endeavors. I am more interesting that in doing what I can in my own life and assisting fellow Christians than in spending a lot of time fighting against clericalism.
DeleteEach of us has to find our own path and decide on priorities. I believe that clericalism and , yes, patriarchy, have caused tremendous harm to the church and its members. As a lay person, baptized and confirmed, I have no way at all to influence changes that might help undo the harm caused by clericalism. Holiness is not unique to Roman Catholicism. You have your path, which is fine, and I have a different path, based on different priorities.
DeleteSolitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.
ReplyDeleteCarl Jung
A couple of quotes on FB yesterday that relate to this discussion. The futility of words - so true. The unchurched who have walked away from institutional religion have explained the reasons for their choice ad nauseum. They try to explain their own spirituality to the church types, but it falls on deaf ears. The churched who don’t get it, keep wanting to “ blame”:those who leave, without understanding that their own preferred communal expressions of spirituality are simply one choice among several. The futility of words indeed.
Henri Nouwen, a devout priest who stayed in the institution, did understand. That is one reason his writings on spirituality reached so many people. Some years ago I read an article about a survey of clergy from numerous denominations. The survey asked them to name their favorite spiritual books and authors. Henri Nouwen was on all of the lists - of clergy from widely different backgrounds.
So he understood that a walk in the woods is an excellent way to encounter God. And to escape the futility of words.
Nature is not a background of our lives; it is a living gift that teaches us about the ways and will Of our creator
Henri Nouwen