Category Archives: Spiritual Reflections

August 8, 2020 · 9:39 pm

Story of a Photo

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St Therese June 1897?

I have had this photo of St. Therese on my desk the last few months while I have worked from home.  It has become my favorite picture of her. There is something about the look, a certain resolve, expression of concern, etc. that I find compelling.  I usually take a break a few times a day just to stare at it a little while.  This is strange, because I have my doubts whether the photo is even authentic. Perhaps you can solve the mystery for me?

It is a close up of a photo that I first saw in the book The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Therese of Lisieux, by Ida Friederike Gorres, which I purchased and read in March. It is hard to categorize the book. It is a study of the Saint’s time on earth, her spirituality, her canonization process, and the public reaction. It was originally published in 1959, and resissued in English by Ignatius Press in 2003. The book was a deliberate response to earlier biographies or portrayals of the Saint that the author believed were shallow or not a true representation of her life. I am not an expert on the Saint, so its possible that some of her findings have been eclipsed by more recent scholarship..

The author says the book was prompted in part, by a colleague sharing the above photo with her and a group of colleagues:

During a meeting at Burg Rothenfels, then the centre of the Catholic Youth Movement in Germany, a student showed me a small picture, like a passport photograph. “This is the true appearance of Little Thérèse”, he said. “Dom Willibrord Verkade, the monk-painter of Beuron, discovered and published it.

The Carmel at Lisieux, and a French bishop as well, protested vehemently against its publication.” A small group of young people gathered around him; the picture passed from hand to hand. In stunned silence we gazed at the familiar and yet so alien features, and someone said: “Almost like the face of a female Christ.” From that August morning on I was determined to pursue the riddle of her look and her smile—so different from the honeyed insipidity of the usual representations of her. Who was Thérèse of the Child Jesus in reality?

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We have photographs of St. Therese as a nun because her birth sister, Celine Martin, brought a camera with her when she joined the Lisieux convent.  As Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face (her name in religion), she took 40 + photos that included St. Therese.  These photos may all be viewed at the online Lisieux archive at this website.

This photo corresponds to none of the photos in the Archive. It is well documented that St. Therese sat for a photo session on June 7, 1897, and the Archive includes three photos. But she is facing the other direction in all three.

I have not found any records of any other photographer being granted admission to the Carmel in June of 1897.  I checked two autobiographies by Dom Willbrord Verkade, but he makes no mention of the Saint or any visit to Lisieux. Nor can I find any other source of information on his publication of the photo, how he came to have it, and the alleged controversy it produced.

It is well documented that Therese’s blood sisters were careful custodians of her writings and images for many years after her death. They were very reluctant to release unedited correspondence and photographs of her.  I believe I read that Sister Genevieve was sometimes disappointed at her photos not capturing her true likeness, perhaps due to the Saint’s illness or fatigue.   She separately made a number of paintings that she felt were a more true representation of how she appeared to her, perhaps before she got sick.   She also retouched a number of the photos, which are also available at the Archive.  One theory of mine is that Sister Genevieve flipped on the horizontal one of the three photos from June 7, 1897, and then retouched it.  However, I do not even know if this was technically possible in 1897, and none of the other retouched photos shows that level of alteration.  The closest match would be the photo below, which I have flipped (please note that this photo was found on the internet, and not taken from the Archive website. Those versions are copyrighted). But the photo in the book shows St. Therese against a completely gray background, which appears almost artificial, as opposed to the foliage in the picture below.

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A horizontal flipped version of one of Sister Genevieve’s photos of Therese from June 7, 1897

Other possibilities:

  • This was a genuine photo taken by Sister Genevieve that was stolen from the Carmel, which might explain the alleged controversy and why it does not appear in the Archive.
  • Someone much later in time copied and altered one of Sister Genevieve’s photos, when it was technically possible to do so.
  • There was another, unknown (at least to me) photographer who was given access to the Carmel and took the photo that appears in The Hidden Face.

If  you know the answer, please share your comments. I may do another post about The Hidden Face in the near future, and how its discussion of Saint Therese might guide us in these difficult times.

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September 6, 2019 · 11:29 am

The Church has always been a Children’s Crusade

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Thomas Cooper Gotch, “Lantern Parade”

I have read or heard bishops or priests say in the last few years that the laity need to speak up  in regard to the various troubles and scandals of the Church. So this post will include some suggestions, which I acknowledge are probably ill-informed or naïve.

I was thinking about the Children’s Crusade in connection with this post. The Children’s Crusade was an early 12th century popular movement that became embellished in subsequent retellings. In legend, a large group of young people from western and central Europe marched down to the Mediterranean Sea inspired by private revelation. They expected the Sea to part, and they would then go to the Holy Land to preach to the Muslim peoples. No miracle occurred, and most of the children either died due to various misadventures or were sold into slavery. Historians think the actual events were less dramatic. Rather, it was a spontaneous movement of poor people and young adults inspired by the religious and political climate of the day that roamed the French and German countryside for a few years, and then faded away.

While whatever the Children’s Crusade  really was was probably a misguided, unnecessary event, I think it helpful to imagine the temporal history of the Church as a child’s mission. It is something pure, perhaps reckless in its trust and reliance on God’s grace.  Faithful and loyal to its own short-term disadvantage. Not so concerned with power or control or organizations. Very transparent and open too.

So here are some probably childish questions or suggestions I have been thinking about:

1. Close down all the institutes of consecrated life, lay apostolates or other Catholic ministries whose founders were later convicted of, plead guilty to, or otherwise widely accepted to have committed sexual or other serious crimes

I would recommend starting with Life Teen, the Legion of Christ, and the Institute of the Incarnate Word.  Their respective founds or co-founders are Dale Fushek, Marcial Maciel, and Carlos Buela. You can read about what they did at the links above.

I was a bit unnerved when I read an article about a vocation discernment day in my diocese that involved the presence of the Servatores, the female branch of Buela’s organization.  If you go to their various websites there is no acknowledgment of the sanctions against Carlos Buela. See here and here. They still offer his books for sale, etc.  And I just came across this website today that points out connections between McCarrick and Buela.

I wonder if these groups were all started by their founders as elaborate grooming operations?

I accept that the vast majority of people who belong to or participate in these orders and apostolates have done so with good and holy intentions. Many conversions and vocations have come from them. God can draw straight with crooked lines, or bring good things out of bad.

But I don’t believe these bodies can shake the taint of their founders.   There are other worthy orders, apostolates, etc. that these people can transfer to. Buela’s group can dissolve and reconstitute itself with a new leadership, rule of life, habit, etc. that carries on an effective mission in service to the Church without his shadow hanging over it.  The good memories, traditions and histories of these groups, however important they are to their well-intentioned members, are really not that important.  What matters is Christ.

 

2. Can we make “the Vatican” a hardship post?

In reading articles about the McCarrick scandal I came across persuasive accounts of McCarrick holding out a Vatican assignment to young person as a plum, or suggesting that the Vatican was an environment people of his ilk do well in.

Is Rome too comfortable a place to lead the Church from? Is a Vatican assignment so desired that it becomes an incentive to compromise, to “look the other way”, to “go along to get along”?

Rome will and should always be a place of pilgrimage for the churches, the relics and museums.  But lets move the papal household, the bureaucracy, the “Curia”, etc. somewhere challenging, perhaps poor and a dangerous. At least for the better part of the year. They can come back for Lent and Advent, maybe.

How about somewhere in Asia or Africa that has a young and growing Church?  Let’s really put our money where our mouths are and go to the margins.  People might die, I know.  But I think we will get a different type of person to serve the Church in these roles.

 

3. Disband the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (and rebuild it I guess…)

My understanding is that the nations have to have episcopal conferences composed of their bishops. But lets start over.  Has the USCCB done a good job the last 50 years? Does the collective nature of this organization inhibit or discourage real leadership? Does it just encourage a convergence to mediocrity and the lowest common denominator?

Watching the proceedings on TV reminds me of work conferences I have attended in hotel ballrooms in big cities over the years. It shouldn’t.

Reconstitute it in a more Catholic and demographically diverse city.  D.C. is not representative. A more affordable, family friendly city. Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee?  Maybe they can have their regular meetings in a cathedral instead of a hotel ballroom. And perhaps have the Lord in the Monstrance on the Altar when they discuss and vote on things, if that’s permitted and not disrespectful to the Lord.

No federal contracts either.

4. Can we have transparent and local bishop selection?  I always liked the stories of how St. Athanasius became bishop:

Frances A. M. Forbes writes that when the Patriarch Alexander was on his death-bed he called Athanasius, who fled fearing he would be constrained to be made Bishop. “When the Bishops of the Church assembled to elect their new Patriarch, the whole Catholic population surrounded the church, holding up their hands to Heaven and crying; “Give us Athanasius!” The Bishops had nothing better. Athanasius was thus elected, as Gregory tells us…” (Pope Gregory I, would have full access to the Vatican Archives).

T. Gilmartin, (Professor of History, Maynooth, 1890), writes in Church History, Vol. 1, Ch XVII: “On the death of Alexander, five months after the termination of the Council of Nicaea, Athanasius was unanimously elected to fill the vacant see. He was most unwilling to accept the dignity, for he clearly foresaw the difficulties in which it would involve him. The clergy and people were determined to have him as their bishop, Patriarch of Alexandria, and refused to accept any excuses. He at length consented to accept a responsibility that he sought in vain to escape, and was consecrated in 326, when he was about thirty years of age.”

From his Wikipedia entry.

So post the banns of marriage between the shepherd and his flock. Let the faithful weigh in with written comments.  Have a public input session.  Break up whatever patronage or networking systems that might exist.  Let Rome serve as a court of appeal if us local yokels screw up the choice. But Rome doesn’t get to pick all the bishops through a secret process.  That’s how we got McCarrick and some other bad bishops. No Pope and his advisors are wise enough or well-informed enough to make good choices all the time.

I have just started to read a new book by a scholar and deacon who I am sure has much better reasoned and meaningful ideas than me. Its called “Everything Hidden Shall Be Revealed: Ridding the Church of Abuses of Sex and Power.” Its by Adam DeVille, and I hope to review it in a future post.

 

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Thomas Cooper Gotch, “The Sandbar”

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June 21, 2019 · 9:43 pm

The Word: A Meditation on the Prologue to Saint John’s Gospel

Prologue

Ignatius Press reissued Adrienne Von Speyr’s The Word: A Meditation on the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel earlier this year (it is available in paperback or Kindle).  It was first published in English in the 1950s.  The entirety of Adrienne’s commentary on the Gospel of John was later published by Ignatius as a four volume set in the 1990s. If you own Volume I of this series, The Word Becomes Flesh, this meditation on the Prologue is already included there. The set is in print.

The Word is a good introduction to Adrienne’s commentary on scripture, in terms of both style and substance. And if you had to pick just one work to read, it would be entire four volume commentary on the Gospel of John.  Its been a while since I read it, but the John commentary seemed to capture all the main points of her theology that is repeated elsewhere in her various books.

She apparently used her standard approach to meditations with The Word. She would read and briefly meditate on lines of scripture during the afternoon at her residence, and then dictate to Hans Urs Von Balthasar. He said he made limited edits to what she gave him. One line of scripture would yield several pages of commentary on average. They would do this for half an hour a day for many years. She and Von Balthasar did tend to organize these commentaries in very long paragraphs, usually only two per page. I found I needed to focus more than I normally did when reading her works.

I will include an extended quote from the first chapter that I liked, which is all derived from meditating on John 1:1:

“In this sense the revelation of the Word of God always makes too great a demand upon the creature. At first the Word that God addresses to us looks harmless, like a human word. But instantly the fire within it begins to stir, insatiably embracing everything, demanding everything, consuming everything. At first the Word of God appears to be a word one can answer; it seems as though the balance between speech and reply could be maintained, But as one begins to understand that the Divine Word is eternally in the beginning, it becomes more and more clear that man’s starting point never reaches the point of beginning and falls farther and farther behind. Skill and art of a human kind can always be learned, even though the purpose of the first lessons may not be clear. But gradually we acquire confidence, survey the subject as a whole, and with practice learn to master it. In learning the language and the art of God, in contrast, our view of the whole progressively diminishes. All our supports are wrested from us, and what remains are an ever-deeper insight into our failure and an increasing longing. We lapse farther and farther into the beginning.

All human accomplishments develop in an orderly manner according to some method or following some plan. Anyone wishing to learn a foreign language adopts a definite method. We imagine we can approach the Word of God in the same way and grow perfect in relation to him. But as often our plan in relation to God seems to us to be bordering on the maximum, it turns out to be the minimum from God’s point of view, a method that has not even grasped the first word of God’s language. Our own program will call for the performance of maximum of devotions but a minimum of real devotion. We confuse devotions and devotion, offering God the former in order to withhold the latter. Our whole performance before God is a pharisaical program, the center of which is our own perfection, with the result that it is blind to the Word spoken to us, the ever-new and ever-unexpected Word. The whole of man’s progress consists in perpetual destruction of the human center thus making way for the ever-new beginning in which is heard the Word. For the Word alone leads to God and to the beginning. Man can be led to the beginning only if he himself is in the beginning. The only way to love is to overcome one’s own point of view.

Man lives in three stages: beginning, center and fire. But since man has no center in himself and may not have one, he is led by the Word into the fire, so that he may come to the beginning, which is God. Beginning and fire are one.”

(emphasis added)

A common point in Adrienne’s writing is that God is always the “ever greater.” This would seem self-evident to a Christian, but it leads her and Von Balthasar to express discomfort with the description of our life as a spiritual ascent, or with the notion of measurable progress. They tend to see our life as more like a descent or kenosis. There are no proofed systems of spiritual development.

‘The commentary on the “fire” and loss of one’s “own point of view” also points to Adrienne’s meditation on the particular judgment and Purgatory in this and different books, which I will include to demonstrate the consistency and unity of her writing:

“Stepping into the realm of his manifest reality, a man steps into his ultimate destiny and is so drawn into the eschatological fire … Fire is an essential trait of the triune God, who cannot endure anything impure and must devour it.”

“Our average view of sin on earth is anthropocentric, I am accustomed to fashioning and arranging my actions according to my own views. Now this has to stop. Self knowledge becomes unreliable, since all assessment has passed to God.”

“In the face of God’s radiant evidence, man says Yes, but this is not the yes of insight; it is the surrender of my sight to the way God sees things.” “Purgatory has, as it were, a great stratagem … the ‘I’ is so disintegrated that the ‘Thou’ gradually acquires contours; what comes into being is a ‘a hope’ (which resides totally in the Lord) which is the end of my knowing better and the beginning of my surrender. I have to be extracted from being with myself so that my ‘I’ can be ‘situated’ in God.”

From the Theo-Drama, Volume 5: The Last Act, by Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Von Balthasar quotes from Objektive Mystik, by Adrienne Von Speyr (yet to be published in English)

We will live in God’s truth, and not our own narrow viewpoint. We will have no need to ask any more questions as Truth is self-evident. We see with new eyes. The part about keeping God at a distance with a program of “devotions”, as opposed to true Devotion deriving from obedience to the Word …. I find reflective of my own experience.

As you read her works its like seeing a great structure slowly coming into view on the horizon. There is unity, harmony, connection. I do not recall contradictions. This doesn’t happen by accident across so many books if you are making it up as you go along.

I would recommend this for anyone interested in Adrienne looking for a representative work that is not too long.

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May 31, 2019 · 11:43 pm

Marie-Antoinette De Geuser: Consummata

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This post and any that follow about this subject is for anyone who might be interested in Consummata, and are looking for more information than is available in Wikipedia. Perhaps you came across references to her in one of Von Balthasar or Adrienne’s books, like I did. Its hard to find much about her in English.

Marie-Antoinette De Geuser (1889-1918) was a French Catholic woman who wanted to become a Discalced Carmelite but could not due to family obligations and health problems. Yet, so moved by her were the nuns at a Carmel that she was apparently allowed to become first a Postulant, and then a Novice, though she lived out her vocation in her family home. She left a number of letters or diary entries that were collected and published in several volumes in France in the 1920s and 1930s. The only volume ever translated into English was a 1931 edition translated by George Baker: Consummata: Marie-Antoinette De Geuser, her Life and Letters, by Raoul Plus, SJ.

The book is in two parts. The first is a partial biography, more spiritual in focus than on the events of her life. The second part is a selection of diary entries and letters to relatives and other correspondents. The book is out of print but I was able to obtain it through an inter-library loan, and thus this blog post or posts is possible.  Religious and scholars at the time were very impressed with what she shared, and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was among those who read and studied her letters.

Marie-Antoinette had two religious names. “Marie of the Trinity” was the religious name she chose as a Carmelite, and what she often signed her letters with. “Consummata” was a nickname she chose for herself.  This is Latin and can be translated as “complete”, “lacking nothing” or “perfect.”  This was not a commentary on her own perception of her value. She was fond of describing herself as “God’s little nobody” in her letters. Rather it was probably a reference to how she perceived the effect or result of God’s grace on her.

Consummata was born to a respected, devout and financially secure family in Le Havre, in the Normandy region of France. She was the eldest of twelve children. She had three uncles in religious vocation, and one, a Jesuit, was her spiritual director later in life and the recipient of many of the letters collected and published. She had another cousin who was a Carmelite nun. At least two of her brothers became priests or religious. World War I was very hard on the family, and two brothers died and one was crippled.

She seemed to be troubled with poor health her entire life. But I could not find a specific reference to what her trouble was in the book. There is a mention of attack of rheumatism of the joints as a child. She had a bad case of appendicitis as a teenager. It seems she spent the last 3-4 years of her life confined to home in great fatigue and often in bed.  Her health problems caused her to be denied entrance to the Carmel at Le Havre in 1909.  There is no mention of any course of treatment. Perhaps they could not diagnose it. Was it an autoimmune disorder?

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Near the end

She had another opportunity a few years later to enter Carmel, at Pontoise, but her mother became very sick (and remained sort of an invalid at least through the time of Consummata’s death in 1918). She felt that she needed to stay home to care for her siblings and help manage the house. She perceived her vocation would be to suffer in a quiet and anonymous way in a domestic setting for the salvation of souls and increase in vocations.

She was very intelligent and learned Latin. She corresponded frequently with her relatives who had vocations, and with nuns at different convents. She seemed particularly interested in the writings and spirituality of Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity.

I will include an episode from the 1909 visit to the Le Havre Carmel that shows how they passed in the night, like two ships:

Within two or three days of that time I went to the Carmel here that I might know definitely what their decision was. Chatting, the Prioress told me among other things that she had just received photographs of a young sister who had died in the odour of sanctity at Dijon a couple of years previously. She offered me one of these. Though I took it, I scarcely glanced at it: only one thing interested me then – was I, or was I not accepted?

The photo was of Saint Elizabeth of the Trinity. Presumably Marie-Antoinette later realized who this photo was of. She started using the religious name of Marie of the Trinity in her correspondence in 1911.

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Last photo of Elizabeth of the Trinity

A common point of discussion in her letters was the unity of the Trinity, and of the soul joining with that unity, and being transformed into it. She described the difference between her and Elizabeth’s focus of contemplation of the Holy Trinity as follows:

The difference between the way of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity and my own is, as I perceive from her book, roughly this: for, as she herself says, the fascination of that greatest of mysteries lies in converse with “her Three Persons.” For me, it is their Unity that has the great appeal. Her master is S. Paul, while I am a pupil of S. John.

I think it is generally accepted that St. Paul’s letters were of great influence on St. Elizabeth, and I do perceive, in my own layperson’s way, a Johannine feel to Marie-Antoinette’s writings.

I think the way she lived her vocation may have a particular message to or appeal for Catholics in Third Orders, particularly Secular Carmelites or Lay Carmelites. She lived in the world, in a demanding domestic setting.

I will try to do a few more posts with excerpts from her letter and diary entries, and try to expand on some of the themes she discussed.

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November 19, 2018 · 9:06 am

The Temptation to Despair

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The shadows beckon,

Pledging no expectation

And oblivion.

 

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November 13, 2018 · 3:02 pm

The Furrow

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He drags the wood along the ground,

Carving a furrow in the soil,

A valley. Dark at the bottom.

We must follow the path

He has made for us.

 

If you do not follow the path,

You will not see the furrow.

Unless a grain falls in, nothing will grow.

We lose bit by bit if we follow ….

If we choose to follow.

The earth is wet with his blood and water.

Ready for us, waiting to give birth.

 

We do not climb a mountain in life.

We descend into a valley,

Which is really nothing,

(Not the chasm he leapt into)

To join the dust.

Give away every crumb

to this hungry earth.

For the bread is a gift.

We did not make it.

Take it in,

and let it go.

 

The furrow climbs up at the end, to him.

He will reach down and raise us up,

Grasping our empty hands.

 

 

 

 

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August 31, 2018 · 10:51 pm

Cluny Media: Recovering the Catholic Tradition

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If you have read or follow this blog, you have noted that I tend to post a lot about Catholic poets, novelists or theologians, many of whose work has been out of print of late. And I have complained about this more than once.

Well, thankfully, I learned in the last year of a publisher that is bringing many of these titles back into the light.

Cluny Media is a publishing house that, in their words, is “dedicated to promoting the Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition and enhancing Catholic education by publishing quality editions of scholarly and popular works of theology, philosophy, literature, history, and science.”

They have reissued many (formerly?) well-known works from the 19th and through mid-20th century in the areas of fiction, poetry, philosophy, and theology.  I have saved myself a fair amount of money already by buying their very affordable and solidly printed editions, as opposed to paying $100 for a used and battered copy.

You will find names such as Bernanos, Bloy, Mauriac, Benson, Maritain, Peguy, etc. among their catalog. I am looking forward to reading several Sigrid Undset novels that are long out of print in America, but apparently will be reissued soon.

You will also find other, respected non-Catholic authors like P.G. Wodehouse or George MacDonald in their catalog.  Apparently the adoption of “print on demand” technology now allows small publishing houses to make long out of print books available for a reasonable price. They are adding new titles at a fairly rapid rate and I am not aware of any similar effort right now in the publishing community.

Their books are available at Amazon too, but it probably helps them if you order directly from their website. I will try to remember to do that too.

http://www.clunymedia.com

 

 

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April 10, 2017 · 10:47 am

Eve, the Eternal Housewife

 

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By artist Edward Burne-Jones for William Morris’ A Dream of John Ball. Illustrating the couplet “When Adam delved and Eve span/ Who was then the gentleman?” (Public Domain)

The translation of Ève continues.  To recap, I am translating Charles Péguy’s poem, Ève, from French to English. In the poem, Jesus delivers a long monologue to our ultimate mother, and humanity generally, about Paradise, the Fall and the Redemption.

Below is my first draft of the section of the poem where Jesus compares Eve to a housewife whose work is never done, partly because she can never be content with leaving anything alone.  This part led me to an insight about some of the people in my life, and might cause me to be more compassionate about the things they do that get on my nerves. The word Péguy uses in various forms in this section is “arrange” or “tidy up.” According to Péguy, we are plagued by an insatiable urge to bring order to chaos of the world, even though it is futile

Péguy humorously asks us to imagine Eve as the hard-charging homemaker who would ask God to wipe the mud of his shoes and then wash his hands if he ever popped in for a visit:

Woman, I tell you, you would arrange God himself

If he came to visit your house in the season.

You would arrange the shame, and the blasphemy,

If he came to visit and flatter your reason.

 

You would have tidied up the wrath of God divine.

You would have washed away the great iniquity.

The time has long since passed. You cannot take your leave,

When you are stuck in the bottom of the ravine.

 

Women, you would clean up after the explosion

If God threw a bolt down at your lowly dwelling.

You would arrange for grace, and the absolution

If God visited you in this lonely lodging.

 

You would have tidied up the first anathema,

When it came upon you in your bleak loneliness.

You would have soon placed it within your formula

Of benign government and deceptive meekness.

 

Women, you would arrange for a renewed baptism,

If John the Baptist came and entered the Jordan.

You would tidy up the host, oil, and the chrism

If the men of the world returned to the garden.

 

Women, you would sweep up like crumbs from your kitchen

The bread from My body, of the Resurrection.

Instead you have stored up from your false religion,

The dry crumbled leaves from the tree of rejection.

 

You would sweep up the leaves from the red Tree of Life

Even after I sprang into the deepest womb.

You would demand to be the attending midwife

Even after I stepped from the mouth of the tomb

I know one woman I will call the Narrator. The day’s schedule is narrated to everyone several times a day. “First we are doing this, and at 4 o’clock we have to go to dinner, and then … ” If we are at a restaurant, the menu selections are read aloud and recommendations given to the other members of the dining party.

Another one I will call the Arranger.  If you leave a half-empty glass of water, tea or coffee by itself for five minutes, it will magically disappear, and reappear, emptied, in a kitchen sink.  Half-read magazines will be put away if left unattended too long.

There is another I would call the Director.  As you can guess, she likes to give directions to everyone about just about everything, no matter how small.

There is a certain lack of self-awareness in these behaviors. And they persist despite objection. And I can see now that it’s not really their fault, as it’s a consequence of original sin. Eve was not content in the garden, she felt she had to arrange for man’s destiny through knowledge of good and evil. Her daughters are cursed, on an almost unconscious level,  to try to put Humpty Dumpty back together for the rest of human history, and it shows up at the micro level in the most mundane things.

I don’t intend to leave men off the hook. Men have tried to “arrange” the world and humanity throughout history, though our errors are more apparent on the macro level: the misuse of political power, the abuse and exploitation of natural resources, or unethical scientific research and discovery, to name a few.

If we are listening to Jesus and his Mother, the best attitude includes letting things be. Yes, we must fulfill our daily obligations and take care of what has been entrusted to us, but you will never achieve perfection.  Whatever leisure or “free time” you have been gifted by God can always be consumed by an inordinate desire for order, if you let it.

 

 

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April 9, 2017 · 10:11 am

What Follows Politics: De Lubac Responds to Charles Péguy

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(This is more a note to myself, connecting some dots as I work my way through Péguy.)

One of Charles Péguy’s famous quotes is: “Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.”

This was something he learned from the Dreyfus Affair, a political controversy that tore France apart for about a decade.  While Péguy was on the right side of the conflict, he felt that the winners wasted their victory through an unjust and unworthy political power grab.

He made this observation years later in his book, Notre Jeunesse (translated as “Memories of Youth”).  Péguy reflected that great movements often spring from a mysterious, almost spiritual, yearning to set things right. However, because of original sin, whatever victories or progress we win harden into a rather ordinary political party, program or bureaucracy. Many idealistic young people who vote for a politician wind up being somewhat disappointed within a few years. The lesson is that it is beyond our ability to permanently “set things right”, and therefore we must be very fluid, very pliant to where the Holy Spirit wants to take us next. Don’t rest on any worldly laurels.

Cardinal Henri De Lubac responded to Péguy, I think, years later.  In the essay titled “A Christian Explanation for Our Times”, published in 1942 (and collected by Ignatius in  Theology in History), he described what follows the politics that had succeeded mysticism:

It is then that substitute faiths inevitably present themselves to fill this tragic void. Such is the fourth and final period of the process. Man is not satisfied by ideologies cut off from any source of real efficacy: the hour must come when he is disenchanted with them. He lives still less from criticism and negations. He does not live by laicism and neutrality. Inevitably something like a great call for air is produced in his inner void, which opens him to the invasion of new positive forces, whatever they might be. The latter conquer him all the more quickly, the more coarse and virulent they are. Cut off from a higher life, he gives in to the brutal pressures that, at least, give him the feeling of a life. Having abused criticism to make truth itself vanish, he now dislikes using it to protect his mirages.

A troubled credulity succeeds his faith. Rationalism has expelled mystery: myth takes its place. We know great examples of this.

(emphasis added)

Writing in 1942, De Lubac was referring to the mythology of Nazi Germany: its Aryan race doctrine, its occult pageantry, etc.  Mysticism had been expelled, but politics and reason were soon banished as well.

I find De Lubac’s observation to be an excellent lens through which to view subsequent history.  Reason and science were too dry for our taste buds, and we have embraced a host of myth “isms” as a substitute. They are not a religion in name, but are so in practice. Daedalus, Sisyphus and Tiresias stride the earth once more. And their progeny follow: a new Talos,  a new Chimera, etc.

And if you oppose them, you are an enemy of that myth.  You cannot beat these new mythologies purely with reason or politics. You must return to faith, and the tools of faith, to respond. The ancient world was laid to rest by Jesus, but the de-Christianization of the world has allowed it to return as a revenant.

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March 11, 2017 · 10:23 am

Sinner and Poet: The Diamond Tears of Charles Péguy

 

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Charles Peguy by Jean-Pierre Laurens

“I am a sinner, but there is no sin in my work.” – Charles Péguy

This guy. But since he was French, he might have been this “Guy.” But rather, his name is Charles Péguy.

Be careful with this guy, cause if you read him, you might actually start writing poetry. I know nothing about poetry, but after reading him, I was inspired to write some of my own. As I said, I know nothing about poetry, but some people who do think he might be the best Catholic poet of the last few hundred years. Those who like Gerard Manley Hopkins would probably disagree. Hopkins was a genius, and smart people who truly understand poetry can explain why he was. I am not a genius or a poet, so don’t ask me to explain Hopkins.

Péguy perhaps was a peasant genius. He wrote in free verse, with little to no rhyme or consistent meter. His poems were long, used simple vocabulary, and much repetition. If this were Seinfeld, he would be Charles Festivus, the “Poet for the Rest of Us”, the 99%. His work is accessible.

But he is largely unknown right now.

Why? He had too much integrity. He came from very modest beginnings, and when he grew older became a socialist and agnostic. He was a very much a defender of Dreyfus, a famous French Jew wrongly accused of treason. However, he fell out with most of his friends on the Left over time due to what he perceived as their pursuit of political advantage over the truth. “Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics” is a famous quote of his.

He came to occupy a lonely place, neither trusted nor wanted by the Left or the Right. He was a patriot, and a French nationalist, and his basic politics was one of solidarity with the common man. Unfortunately for his reputation, and despite his defense of Dreyfus, the fascists of the 30s and 40s later tried to claim him as a patron for their twisted politics. And when you put God first, you eventually realize that there is no ideology or political party that can really express what you want. So you hang there, suspended between two thieves, one on the right and another on the left.

But he had integrity, and so when the Great War came, he enlisted, even though he was 41 years old, married and his wife pregnant with their fourth child. He was a little guy too. Because while he was a French nationalist and a patriot, he was not going to let some 18 and 19-year-old kids do the dying for him. And so he died for them, leading from the front, shot through the forehead in 1914.

But the politics are less interesting  than the faith. When he married he did not believe, but by 1908 he had come back to the Catholic faith of his baptism. But his wife was an atheist, and refused to allow their children to be baptized. And because he was not married in the Church, his conscience did not allow him to receive the Sacraments, ever. And out of solidarity with his family, he did not go to Mass.  But that did not stop him from making a forty mile pilgrimage on foot to the Cathedral of Chartres in thanks to Our Lady when his son recovered from an illness. Integrity.

A man in such a situation can get lonely. And you might find yourself falling in love with the young Jewish girl (and she with you) who works at your literary journal. But a man with integrity doesn’t have an affair. Instead, like Péguy , you play matchmaker and find her a husband.

All this pain and sadness generated great diamond tears of words, a series of poems and plays written during the five years before his death. Much of it is out of print, of course, because that’s the way things are right now. The real treasures of the past have to be unearthed.  I am going to copy a few excerpts of his poems in some future posts (My understanding of U.S law is that there is no copyright for the works of foreign authors who died before 1923).

Oh yes, his family … His wife converted after he died, and had their children baptized. As it will always be, a man and father will die for the sake of his people.

 

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