Showing posts with label Word Made Flesh --- Flesh Made Word. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Word Made Flesh --- Flesh Made Word. Show all posts

29 June 2019

Esteeming Petitionary Prayer as True Prayer of Praise!

I recently read a blog piece referring to the prayer of praise as a higher form of prayer than the prayer of petition. I have to say that first of all I don't much care for establishing some forms of prayer as "higher" than others. I know the whole practice has a long and regarded history in the area of spirituality but despite the fact that I can understand some of this ranking business, I just can't accept it as I once might have. But we are just finishing a Bible Study class on the Lord's Prayer (part of the series on the Sermon on the Mount) and the very first thing commentators ordinarily point out is that this prayer, this model and paradigm of what Jesus knew as prayer and desired to teach us is that it is ALL petitions. With the exception of the invocation itself (Abba, Pater! or Our Father, Who art in heaven) every line of Jesus' Prayer is composed of petitions --- and even then, I think we must hear the invocation as also implicitly petitionary! To call upon God by Name is to (responsively) give God a place to stand in space and time, specifically in our own lives and this, after all, is what God has desired of us --- that we become God's counterparts in God's own enterprise of Love; we therefore ask God to be sovereign (to hallow --- something only God can do --- his own name) in our lives!

Each line of the prayer is meant to assist us in opening our hearts, minds, and lives to the powerful presence of God who wills to work in and through each of us. So, if this is the case, and this Lord's Prayer is a model or paradigm of the very essence of prayer, the model or paradigm which represents "the mind of Christ" and the way we "put on the mind of Christ" then can we really argue there are "higher forms of prayer than petition"? To put it another way, isn't opening ourselves to another in love and trust the greatest praise one can offer another? And isn't petition, especially as Jesus articulates and orders these in any of the three or four versions we have, an invitation to genuine praise, namely, by putting God's needs first, and our needs/desires second? We are not, in other words, to being people who merely say, "Lord, Lord" (or "Praise God!"), but to BE (the) people who, petition by petition, give our whole selves over to God as the field from which God will bring forth the hidden treasure of God's Kingdom! In this way we are allowed to participate in God establishing God's very life on earth as it is in heaven. We are called, by every petition to open ourselves to the unremitting hallowing of God, to become, that is, living instances of Divine Praise!

One of the theologians who most influenced me when I was a young theologian myself was Gerhard Ebeling. Ebeling wrote a lot about theological linguistics and about human beings as Word Events. Each of us is called to become language events. An event differs from a mere occurrence  in terms of meaning; an Event is something filled with meaning where a mere occurrence is relatively empty of significance. Like Jesus (though only in and through Jesus!!) we are to become incarnate Word of God --- meaningful Word Events created by and for God's Word, especially in the form of Proclamation. Most often I think of all of this in terms of becoming an articulate expression of the Gospel of God or becoming God's own prayer in our world. (Some theologians speak of Jesus as the Parable of God --- an identity that grounds and thus characterizes all he is and does, especially in preaching and teaching.) In light of what I have said about becoming a Word or Language Event, perhaps it would not be far off to suggest that we are to become articulate songs or hymns of Praise. As we pray the petitions of the Lord's Prayer, we open ourselves to the Presence, sovereignty, and will of God, don't we thus praise God in truth as well as in our words and become ourselves "Words of Divine Praise"? Could there possibly be a "higher" form of prayer?

I say this as a contemplative whose primary form of prayer is quiet prayer, but for whom other forms of prayer are meant to be equally contemplative, equally the work of the Spirit of Stillness or hesychasm. What I recognize is the dynamics of petitionary prayer and quiet prayer, for instance, are essentially the same: in each form of prayer we pose the question of (i.e., which is) our own incomplete lives and open ourselves to God's dynamic presence so that God might act within us, to touch, heal, strengthen, sanctify and complete us. Prayer is always God's own work in us. Isn't it time to let go of the notion of higher and lower forms of prayer?

29 February 2016

Addressibility: Called by Name to be that we Might Call Others by Name to be

[[Hi Sister, could you say a little more about what you call "addressibility" and the way that refers to what it means to be made in the image of God? I have never heard this before and don't know how to think about it. I don't know who Gerhard Ebeling is. Thank you!]]

Sure, I would be happy to say a little more about it. I have probably written about this before in posts about the invocation to the Lord's Prayer. It is critical to the notion of prayer, for instance, that it is understood in terms of the capacity to address God by name and to be addressed by name ourselves. When we address another by name or are addressed by name ourselves it implies giving one or being given a personal place to stand in the life of the other. Without this act of address we might impinge on another in a less than truly personal way with our physical presence, but we do not have a personal place to stand in their lives. Address by name empowers and summons to personal presence. It is an implicit promise to allow the one addressed to be themselves and more, to reveal themselves in whatever terms they may do. Since names include and transcend any characteristic or collection of characteristics a name symbolizes the indefinable mystery of the person and it was this that Semitic peoples especially saw and reflected in their Scriptures.

To call upon God by name as Abba, is not to describe God as fatherly (though it may also do this); it is to give God a place in our lives which respects God's mystery and allows (him/her) to reveal (him/herself) on God's own terms. In last Sunday's first reading God reveals his name as "I will be who I will be" (often translated as I am who am despite this lacking the dynamism of the original). This Name captures both God's indefinability or mystery and the dynamic of revelation on one's own terms.   Likewise, to call upon God by name is to enter into a covenant relationship where God calls us by name as well and therefore allows that loving act of address to summon us to be our truest selves. To be called by name is to have the entire mystery of our personhood addressed, not just the characteristics which make us successful in the world around us, not just our strengths and virtues, not even just our weaknesses and sins. It is the way God creates, loves, and shows mercy --- and it is  the way we share in that power. (It is no small matter that God is portrayed as entrusting us with the naming of the animals in the Genesis account of creation.) I don't think other beings share in this capacity to name, call by name (or tragically and sinfully, to betray this capacity and to distort or otherwise deprive others of a name or the gift of being called by name). It is unique to us as imago dei.

Again, name symbolizes the WHOLE person who is always more than the sum of her parts and invites her to be her truest self. When God calls us by name to be it is a creative act. It recognizes and even mobilizes the entire mystery of the person in a way no other word does. When we act similarly it is similarly creative; it gives others a place to stand in community with us which the person cannot create herself. Again, to call another by name is to constitute them in freedom not least because it extends membership in a human community to them, a necessary condition of possibility of human growth and fulfillment. It is an act of profound compassion, perhaps the highest we can exercise.

I would argue that the basic truths of our faith can be understood to some extent, either directly or indirectly, in terms of this act of address and the empowering of addressibility. Addressibility and the spoken Word of address is a key to understanding creation, creatio continua, redemption and reconciliation,  the nature of mercy, revelation, and justice because all of these hinge upon the dynamics involved in and symbolized by being called and calling upon another by name to be. For instance the imperative that we transform aliens into neighbors literally depends upon this dynamic.  It is a task we are called to undertake as part of the ministry of reconciliation. The notion that Christ calls us friends not servants reflects this same dynamic since we address friends differently and with a different level of intimacy than we do servants.

When I wrote the piece you are asking about (cf., Embracing a Surpassing Righteousness) I had used parts of it as a reflection for a Communion service. One member of the assembly was reminded of a song she knew and sang it for me afterwards. I think it captures perfectly what I have described here --- with the addition of the great yearning we each have to be called by name and made true by God --- or, to a more limited extent, by anyone else who might do similarly.

Please call me by my true name,
Please call me by my true name,
That I may wake up,
wake up,
And the doors of my heart can open wide, the doors of compassion.
The doors of compassion.

P.S., Gerhard Ebeling is a Lutheran systematic theologian. Besides writing about the nature of faith and a full length commentary on Galatians, one of the areas in which he specializes is that of theological linguistics. His focus on the Word and on the human capacity for Word is very powerful. His small book of nine sermons on the Lord's Prayer with a profound insight into the nature of the invocation is wonderful and very readable. His Introduction to a Theological Theory of Language is equally profound --- though I wouldn't suggest this for the casual reader! Several of Ebeling's other books focus similarly on Word and on Proclamation. God and Word is a small and precious gem of a book for theologians and non-theologians alike. I'm afraid I haven't kept up with him or his work beyond the 1970's-80's.

03 September 2014

"Personal Noisiness" and the Silence of Solitude

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, I thought your reference to forms of "personal noisiness" in your post on the destructiveness of physical solitude was intriguing. You said, [[ The personal "noisiness" (physical, emotional, and spiritual) of your isolation is NOT what canon 603 is talking about when it refers to the silence of solitude.]] Could you please say more about this? I am used to thinking of external and inner silence and solitude but I have never thought in terms of "personal noisiness" as being contrary to the solitude of a hermit. Makes sense though.]]

I have written here before about human beings as language events and I may once have referred to times in our lives when we are screams of anguish rather than articulate words. I have also written in the past about not only the Word becoming flesh, but flesh becoming word in Christ. (When this occurs a person becomes authentically human and a living embodiment of the Gospel of God.) When I wrote the comment you cited I was thinking about someone I experience or perceive as a scream of anguish and often, one of outright despair. A person who has reached such a place in their lives seems to me to be "noisy" rather in the way Pigpen carries a ubiquitous cloud of dust around himself. Their pain and whatever else is part of the anguished "scream" they are oozes out of them no matter what they do. Even sitting silently in prayer or other pious practices may be about or at least involve calling attention to themselves and their needs. The problem with a scream is that it cannot be tolerated by others for long; it calls attention to one's pain and anguish and people will initially try to assist the anguished person in some way but it also pushes people away --- not only because they cannot communicate with the one in pain to determine what is needed, but because it leaves them truly helpless to resolve this in any meaningful way.

When I write, therefore, about "the silence of solitude" I am speaking first of all of the physical environment of the hermitage. The normal "air" a hermit breathes is first of all that of the physical silence of being alone. But it is far more than this as well. On another level it involves being silent with God, listening to and for God, learning to attune oneself to the voice of God both within one's heart and in the various other ways that voice comes to one in solitude.

Scripture, Eucharist, silent prayer, spiritual direction, friends and parishioners at Mass and those special times when the hermit socializes or recreates with these important people in her life --- all of these are ways God speaks to the hermit in her solitude; the silence of solitude here refers to the absence of distractions from this dialogue between oneself and God as well as to one's commitment to refrain from unnecessary distractions (some recreation is necessary to the vitality of the dialogue). On a final level then, the silence of solitude refers to what is created within the hermit, or better put perhaps, it refers to the person (hermit) who is created by the dialogue with God in the hermitage.  This is what I referred to when I spoke of shalom, or the wholeness, peace, and joy that is the fruit of an eremitical life. Much of the "noisiness" of human yearning and striving is silenced; so is the scream of self-centeredness and the inability to listen to or hear others. One is at peace with God and with oneself; one is at home with God wherever one goes.

In the past I have also said that the silence of solitude is the environment, the goal, and the charism of eremitical life. What I have just described in the above paragraph is what I mean by environment and goal. When a person is made whole in solitude, when their life breathes (sings!) a resultant sense of peace and the security, joy, and rich meaning of communion with God, then that life is also a gift to the Church and world. This gift (charisma) is what canon 603 calls the silence of solitude; it contrasts radically with the personal noisiness that is linked to the alienation and brokenness of sin. It reminds us all of the completeness we are called to in God. But this is not achieved in the hermit's cell for one not called to eremitical solitude. Instead the personal disintegration which is already present is exacerbated and the scream of anguish one was (if in fact that was the case!) becomes either more explicit or more strident, more expressive of neediness and greater self-centeredness, as well as becoming even less edifying for others. In such a case flesh (sinful existence) remains scream and never rises to the level of Word (graced and articulate existence); that is, one never effectively proclaims the Gospel with one's very life nor reaches the goal of the silence of solitude (the silent dialogical reality we are in union with God) either. Instead the false self and one's own woundedness remain the center of one's life and the content of one's putative 'message'.

I hope this serves as a beginning to explaining my reference to "personal noisiness."

04 September 2011

Hermits and Eucharistic Spirituality, Pointed Questions

[[Dear Sister Laurel,
How is it that hermits reflect the centrality of Eucharist in their spiritual lives if they do not attend Mass daily? I heard you remark in another context that you didn't attend Mass if solitude required otherwise. My understanding is that religious are required canonically to attend Mass daily if that is possible, and you yourself say on this blog that Eucharist is the center of everything that happens at your hermitage. So, how is it you can skip Mass just because it is more convenient to remain in solitude and still claim the title Sister and assert how central Eucharist is in your life? My other question is how do you receive Communion if there is no one there but yourself? Isn't self-communication forbidden to Catholics?]]

These topics, as you apparently are aware, came up on the Catholic Hermits list. One person there argued that hermits, like anyone else, should get to Mass as often as possible (daily!), and should not miss simply because it was "inconvenient" to one's solitude. Since, they argued, religious are required to participate at Mass in this way it makes sense that diocesan hermits are also so required. Others have argued that in today's world of easy transportation and numerous parishes people should be able to get to Mass daily one way or another and that hermits certainly should do so. Some know hermits who attend the parish Mass each day, or at least most every day and argue on that basis. My own argument was that fidelity to solitude sometimes meant not getting to daily Mass. I believe it is possible to develop a strong Eucharistic spirituality in solitude even without getting to Mass daily and that is what I want to look at in this post.

On the Place of Solitude in the Hermit's Life

However, before I say more in response to your question I need to clarify one critical point. Your comments include a misconstrual of what I said, and a misunderstanding regarding the nature of eremitical solitude. Namely, hermits do not skip Mass merely because it is inconvenient to their solitude; they do so because solitude is their full-time calling and the actual occasion, environment, and resulting quality of whatever union with God is achieved in their life. Solitude is not just a means for the hermit, but a goal as well. In this perspective, solitude (or what Canon 603 refers to as the "silence of solitude") is not a self-indulgent luxury which just happens to provide an environment for other things in the hermit's life (though external silence and physical solitude will certainly serve in this way). It is instead the reality which is achieved together with God when a hermit is faithful to (among other things) long term external silence and solitude. Thus, it is important that the hermit  maintain her faithfulness to this long term external silence and solitude. Solitude is, again, both the means to and the goal of the hermit's existence because eremitical solitude itself is a form of communal or ecclesial existence and an expression of union with God and all that is precious to God.

In saying this I mean that the hermit's life is to give witness to the union with God which is achieved in solitude as well as the "silence of solitude" which is an expression and sign of this union, and so, to the redemption of all forms of human isolation, alienation and estrangement achieved therein. They are called to come to wholeness and holiness in solitude and their witness is to the most foundational relationship present in the human being, the relationship with God who is creator and ground of all existence. In other words, although community is important to the hermit, it is primarily the koinonia (communion) of solitude that is their vocation. They are called by God through the agency of his Church to the very rare and paradoxical reality of eremitical solitude --- a form of union with God and others marked by and grounded in aloneness with the Alone. Unless we understand that solitude is not isolation, not alienation, nor a feeble excuse for the misanthrope, and certainly not a luxury for the hermit, we may believe that it conflicts with a truly Eucharistic spirituality. My argument is that it does not and that the way the hermit approaches attendance at Mass is dependent upon this way of seeing things.

Eucharistic Spirituality in General

When we speak of Eucharistic Spirituality what is it we are talking about then? And for the hermit who claims that the Eucharist is at the heart of everything that happens in the hermitage, what is she really talking about --- especially if the Mass is not (or is rarely) celebrated at the hermitage? Of course it means a spirituality focused on the Eucharist itself and the hermit will usually (not always) reserve Eucharist in her hermitage, pray in the presence of the Eucharist, celebrate Communion services (Liturgies of the Word with Communion), and so forth. But even more than this everything at the hermitage will be geared towards Christ's incarnation climaxed in his cross and resurrection. It seems to me that the focus involves two particular and interrelated processes: first, that, in a dynamic of kenosis or self-emptying, the Word is made flesh, and second, that, in a dynamic of conversion, reconciliation, and transfiguration, flesh (in the Pauline sense) is made Word. Everything that happens is meant to be an occasion of one or both of these and at the center of it all is the Presence of the Risen Christ in Word and Sacrament, reminding, summoning, challenging, nourishing, and consoling.

Eucharistic Spirituality, The Word Made Flesh

God has chosen to come to us as a human person. More than that he has chosen to be present in a power perfected in weakness (asthenia). He is present in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. He enters into sin and death, the truly or definitvely godless realities and transforms them with his presence. In other words he makes what was literally godless into sacraments of his love, his being God for and with others. For me the Eucharist is a symbol of this specific process and presence (and I mean symbol in the most intensive sense as that reality which does not merely stand for something else (that would be a sign or metaphor) but rather as something that participates in the very reality it mediates). While Mass is the place where we literally re-member all of this, where bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, where the Word of God is proclaimed with power, Eucharistic Spirituality seems to me to be that spirituality where all this is worked out in everyday life so that every meal is holy, every reality is looked at with eyes that can see God's presence there, and where one is nourished, challenged, consoled, etc, with that presence in the unexpected place and way.

Eucharistic spirituality, is a spirituality which is open to God's presence in ordinariness, not only to his presence at Mass or the more exalted moments of prayer, etc, but in the humbleness of human life generally. And for the hermit this means in the solitariness of ordinary life --- for it is in solitude that we are generally weakest, and our brokenness is most clearly revealed. My own focus in the hermitage is the transformation of ordinariness into Sacrament. This is essentially Eucharistic. Everything should serve this. Everything within the hermitage serves the Word becoming flesh, the allowing of God to dwell within, to love, minister to, and to transform with his presence. Everything becomes a matter of dying to self and rising in God, to learning obedience (hearing and responding to the Word of God) in a way which leads to purity of heart. Yes, often (though not always) Eucharist is present in the hermitage, but whether or not it is present it remains the living symbol of what everything in the hermitage can and is meant to be if given over to the purposes of eremitical life. I sincerely believe that if the hermit practices Eucharistic spirituality she recognizes that her hermitage itself is meant to be a tabernacle situated in the midst of her community and that her own life is bread broken and wine poured out for others.

Eucharistic Spirituality, Flesh Made Word

The second and interrelated process which makes up a genuinely Eucharistic spirituality focuses on what happens to the hermit --- or really, to any Christian for whom Eucharist is central --- namely, that they become a Word Event which embodies and proclaims the Gospel of God in Christ. For the hermitage to become tabernacle, for the hermit to become bread broken and wine poured out for others, the hermit herself must, over time, be transformed and transfigured.

Flesh, in the Pauline sense of the term, means the whole person, body and soul, under the sway of sin. It means being a person of divided heart, one who is enmeshed in processes and realities which are resistant to Christ. It means being less than fully human, and in terms of language, it means being distorted forms of language events which are less than a univocal hymn of praise and gratitude --- screams of pain and anguish, lies or hypocritical formulations and identity, utterances (of anger, prejudice, arrogance, indifference, selfishness, etc) which foster division, insecurity, and suffering for others, a noisy or insecure presence which cannot abide silence and is unable to listen or respond lovingly and with compassion --- all are the less than human forms of language event we are, at least at times. These are also examples of what Paul would have termed "flesh" (sarx).

In the power of the Spirit, these can be transformed, transfigured into articulate expressions of Gospel wholeness, joy, peace, hope, and challenge. That which is less than human can become authentically human; sinners are reconciled to become persons who are truly and wholly authored by God. As one steeps oneself in and seriously contends with the Word of God one is transformed into an expression of that Word. In silence and solitude flesh can become Word just as the Word becomes Flesh. All of this is genuinely Eucharistic spirituality I think, and it remains Eucharistic even if the hermit does not celebrate Eucharist with her parish community daily. For the hermit, those privileged celebrations lead back to silence while solitude and the silence of solitude prepare for the hermit's participation at Mass. But they are all part of a single spirituality in which Christ is received as guest and gift and ordinary reality is transformed into an expression of his presence. Such a spirituality is open to anyone who cannot actually get to Mass more than once a week, and sometimes less frequently.  It is inspired by the Eucharist and modeled on Eucharistic transformation, life, and hope. In fact, I suspect it may well be an instance of genuinely Eucharistic spirituality our world truly needs.

Hermits and Self-Communication

Your last question was also raised on the Catholic Hermits list. It is customary that people do not self-commu-nicate and there are very good theological reasons for this, but solitary hermits are an accepted exception. Canonists are apparently clear (according to a clarification offered on the Catholic Hermits list) that this is a unique situation which calls for such an exception to general custom and theological wisdom. It is also, it seems to me, a sign of how truly esteemed and unusual is the hermit vocation for such an exception to be made. The Church allows this exception precisely because of the importance of eremitical solitude lived in the heart of the church. I would argue that eremitical solitude, to whatever extent it is lived authentically, is essentially Eucharistic --- even when the hermit is unable to leave her hermitage to attend Mass --- and is therefore a very good reason for this singular exception to be made.

In any case, hermits should certainly be careful of their use of this permission. Their own communions must always be seen as extensions of the parish and/or diocesan liturgy, their hermitages must be understood as tabernacles of Christ's presence, and the silence of solitude must be embraced as a natural expression of communal life and love. While the hermit does not literally receive Eucharist from the hands of another during Communion services in the hermitage, she does receive this Sacrament as a gift of the parish community and so, from their hands. The communal nature of the eremitical life is constantly underscored by the presence of Eucharist in the hermitage, and the quality of being "alone with the Alone" FOR the salvation of the world is underscored in this way as well. Eremitical life is not selfish, not individualistic or privatistic, and emphatically not a matter of merely living alone -- much less doing so in whatever way one likes. The presence of Eucharist both symbolizes and so, reminds and calls us to realize this (make this real) more and more fully everyday. I should note that it is entirely reasonable to expect that should a hermit ever tend to take the Eucharist for granted or become arrogant or simply lax in her praxis and perspective, then, at least for a time, she should forego even the reservation of the Eucharist, and get to Mass more often, until she recovers her proper perspective and devotion.

Summing Things Up

For me the bottom line in all of this is that while the celebration of Eucharist is indeed the source and summit of ecclesial life --- and it certainly is that for the hermit as well --- a truly Eucharistic spirituality does NOT necessarily require that one go to Mass daily. The hermit's life will be imprinted with the cross, be emptied, broken and given to others precisely insofar as she is faithful to eremitical solitude lived in the heart of the Church. She will celebrate every day, and do so with her faith community, even when the demands of solitude mean she cannot be physically present with them at Mass. If this is not the case, then we are implicitly saying to many people who pray, suffer, and love at least as fully and well as do daily Mass  participants (or diocesan hermits!) --- but who cannot get to Mass regularly --- that they cannot be said to have or even be able to develop a truly Eucharistic spirituality. I am positive we do not want to do that, wouldn't you agree?

see also: Notes from Stillsong Hermitage: On the Reservation of Eucharist by Hermits