Oh Felix Culpa, or Giving up on Holiness: Ash Wednesday 2012

I love Ash Wednesday. There is nothing better than a nice wallow in shame, scruples, and self-condemnation to lift the heart. Also, I get to feel super holy by not eating… ALL DAY LONG. Love. it. Every time my belly growls I get to feel close to Jesus, because look how hard I’m working! If warning bells aren’t going off right about now, please go find your spiritual director. Every one of those statements puts me in blown heresy, and the worst part is that if I’m honest, I can’t denounce them are as sheer sarcasm.  I’ve been learning that the hard way all bloody day long today. I’m not engaging in what I personally consider a sufficient fast. I would normally not eat anything, and subsequently enjoy the glowing light inside that is one part Jesus and two parts unmitigated pride. Instead, not because I’m smart enough to have figured that out but because my superior ordered me to fast from excess in self-denial, I’m allowing myself to eat coffee and bread. It’s tasty and the equivalent of about half of one meal. It isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to jar me into realizing where my fasting focus has been the last several years. As I’ve read my usual procrastination gambit of blogs, emails, and Facebook statuses today it’s been a Thor’s-hammer-sized blow to my pride. One blog claimed that people who don’t wholly abstain from food on fast days are “what’s wrong with the western Church.” Ouch. I’m what’s wrong with the church. Another called out those who lack self discipline with pictures of Navy Seals- my coffee and bread won’t make me a navy seal for Jesus, I’m crystal clear on that now. The more I read, the more I felt like– well– super un-holy.

Like my scruple-wallowing practice, Ash Wednesday sometimes becomes a day for folks a day to beat their heads against the wall of self-condemnation (which we mistakenly name “the cross”) so that tomorrow when we stop it will feel so much better! But hopefully, I’m learning (and feel free to steal this lesson) one facet by which to one day enter into a properly ordered fast. Nothing about our practices on Ash Wednesday or lent have to do with “working for” our salvation or Jesus love. There isn’t anything about it designed to make us feel holy – or even unholy for that matter. In fact, it shouldn’t be about us at all. The crux of Ash Wednesday is turning our attention back toward the Cross and the Face of our Hope who hangs upon it. The words of Augustine and Paul- and the words of Jesus in today’s gospel- won’t let us get away with it. Instead Paul tells us via the Corinthians to focus upon reconciliation with God at all costs. Yes, we abstain, but the focus must always lie on reconciling with God our estranged Lover. Augustine reminds us that in Jesus, Adam’s fall becomes our fortune because it opened a door for Christ’s redemption and the sanctification of humanity. Morever the gospel reminds us that we shouldn’t fast like hypocrites– not because we should hide our witness– but because our witness isn’t to self-destruction or our own power but to the redemptive power and love of God.

Embracing the Cross today and every other day must finally be an act of unrestrained hope that clings to the promises of God. We fast to remember with gratitude that Jesus has given us his own body to sustain us. We abstain not make ourselves stronger in the battle against evil, but in order to remember that in God’s great Love we are already more than conquerors. We seek the Cross not as a weapon to use against ourselves, but as the means by which God draws all people into Jesus’ saving embrace.

I’m far from learning my lesson. I readily acknowledge that a full-blown Pelagian tendency won’t let me rest today. But- oh felix culpa, oh happy fall-  the wheel’s begun its turn. The long and graceful shadow of the cross stretches out ahead, inviting me out of myself and into its embrace. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, help me grab on.

Ave Crux Spes Unica.

Augustine: Sermon 272

Augustine’s Sermon 272 somehow gets assigned to me every Spring semester. Every spring it seems to mean more, and with every new year I find myself amazed at how God has taught me to understand these words in fresh ways after living another year. 

This is a snippet of my perennial favorite part for everyone else’s enjoyment: 

The reason these things, brothers and sisters, are called sacraments is that in them one thing is seen, another is to be understood. What can be seen has a bodily appearance, what is to be understood provides spiritual fruit. So if you want to understand the body of Christ, listen to the apostle telling the faithful, “You, though, are the body of Christ and its members” (1 Cor 12:27). So if it’s you that are the body of Christ and its members, it’s the mystery meaning you that has been placed on the Lord’s table; what you receive is the mystery that means you. It is to what you are that you reply “Amen,” and by so replying you express your assent. What you hear, you see, is “The body of Christ,” and you answer, “Amen.” So be a member of the body of Christ, in order to make that “Amen” true. 

-Augustine; Sermon 272, “On the day of pentecost, To the Infantes (baby Christians)
On the Sacrament

With Love,
A 

Prayer to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

What is it that I said to you, in the mirror, at Havana? Were you not perhaps the last one I saw as the steamer left, you standing on your tower with your back to the sea, looking at the university?

I have never forgotten you. You are more to me now than then, when I walked through the streets reciting (which I had just learned) the Memorare. I have forgotten all the things I have prayed for to you. I think I have received them, but I do not remember. More important I have received you.

Whom I know and yet do not know. Whom I love, but not enough.
Prayer is what you bring—for prayer is your gift to us rather than what you ask of us.

If only I could pray—and yet I can and do pray.

Teach me to go to this country beyond words and beyond names. Teach me not to pray on this side of the frontier, here where the woods are.

I need to be led by you. I need my heart to be moved by you. I need my soul to be made clean by your prayer. I need my will to be made strong by you. I need the world to be saved and changed by you. I need you for all those who suffer, who are in prison, in danger, in sorrow. I need you for all the crazy people. I need your healing hands to work always in my life. I need you to take me, as your Son a healer, a comforter, a savior. I need you to name the dead. I need you to help the dying cross their particular river. I need you for myself whether I life or die. I need to be your monk and your son. It is necessary. Amen.

-Thomas Merton (found in Thoughts in Solitude and in The Intimate Merton)

What’s Mary without St. Joseph?

By and large, the Advent season and Christmastide are heavily Marian. I have no complaints about this. I’m a Marian devotee and rosary collector through and through. So I would like to think that her intercession, along with the grace of her Son, who happens to be God, that should be credited with my growing devotion to her most saintly spouse, St. Joseph. Ever since preaching on St. Joseph for my ordination sermon a few years ago, I can’t shake a burgeoning devotion to him.

Enter: the Feast of St. Andre Bissette, a brother of The Holy Cross (cheers to my favorite order), and a devotee of St. Joseph. St. Andre’s greatest virtues mirror that of his patron, Joseph– obedience and obscurity-especially in the face of burdens, pain, and frustration. When people asked St. Andre for help, the ‘miracle man of St. Royale’ never pointed to himself, but to Christ and to the intercession of St. Joseph. I suspect it would have been easy for Saint Andre to let the miracles and healings “raise him in the ranks” of the world. Not only credited with miracles and healings, St. Andre raised the funds and supervised the building of the Oratory of St. Joseph, the largest shrine to Joseph in the world. Not too shabby. Clearly he lacked no charisma or force of character. Which makes his self-imposed holy obscurity all the more impressive, but what else would we expect from a man devoted to St. Joseph?

St. Joseph’s story, or the very little of it contained in scripture, points not at all to him, but to his blessed wife and especially towards his foster Son. Joseph is a good man, not immaculately conceived and not the rose of Sharon. Joseph isn’t translated into heaven or assumed or even wheeled away in a golden chariot. There’s no proto-evangelium of James to tout Joseph’s awesome family. Nope. Joseph is a good man, in the Genesis 1 sense of the world good. If all generations call Mary blessed, they might equally call Joseph good. Joseph hears God’s call. Joseph does what God says. Rinse and repeat as long as is necessary to raise the Son of God. Pretty normal, excepting the part that he’s God’s foster-father, not just any foster-father.

Not many of us are called to be Marys, I suspect. Most people aren’t immaculately conceived. Most of us are ordinary, plain, and obscure. If it weren’t for twitter and blogs we couldn’t even delude ourselves into thinking the world really cared about our thoughts and opinions. Our greatest deeds rank on the lists of simple and ordinary goodnesses. We’re not the “ring bearers,” to use a nerdy Lord of the Rings reference. We are the gardeners in Hobbiton. But the ordinaries have a part to play too we bear of our holy friends. We can’t carry their special holy deeds for them, but we can carry them. Through our prayers with the prayers of the saints, we lift others up to claim their vocations in God. Through our care and compassion, we help our friends who labor to bring Christ into their lives. Through our love, we build a home for Christ and his servants in the spaces of our own lives. Not too shabby for a bunch of obscure simple folks.

Were it not for St. Joseph, a good man and for St. Andre, his devotee, it might be easy to look at superstars of the faith and say, “pin a rose on your nose,” before going our merry way. We may not all be the shining stars of faith like Mary or the great patriarchs and matriarchs in Hebrews 11, reflecting the brilliance of the Son with in your face virtue and grace. That’s the beauty of St. Joseph and the ordinary grace to which we are all called. Some of us embrace our God-given identity along with the St. Josephs and brother Andres of the world who live in the painfully obscure light of God with all the obedience and goodness God helps us muster.

After all, Mary wouldn’t have got very far without St. Joseph.
St. André and St. Joseph, pray for us.

A Hermit’s Soup

First: a host of happy holiday greetings, friends! Happy solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, a very happy eighth day of  Christmastide, and happy secular new year! Sorry if that last one sounds a bit odd, but this is a liturgy blog, and I most unfortunately am a “scary liturgical terrorist” so I feel like I should stick to the liturgical year and we’re a month in at this point. So wishing you happy “new year” didn’t seem right. Anyway- take you pick of which day you’re celebrating, and I hope it’s a very happy one and that you’re all very blessed in 2012!

My parents gave me this awesome cook book for Christmas:

I tried one of the winter soups tonight, “A Hermit’s Soup.” It’s pretty basic, but delicious! so I thought it’d share. I made mine a little differently, so I’ll give you the real recipe and then tell you how I made mine so you can enjoy your own on some cold night, if you’d like! I’ll also tell you that it pairs very well with fresh sour dough bread. I didn’t try it, but I imagine it would go well with a nice red wine, if you’re not home alone or not actually trying to be austere and if you like a good Chianti.

A Hermit’s Soup: 

1 potato
1 turnip
half a small cabbage
2 carrots
1 onion
3 Tbsp. oil of choice
1/3 cup rice
2 qts. water
salt and a pinch of thyme to taste.

Wash and trim vegetables. Cut and slice them into tiny pieces.
Pour oil in a soup pot, add vegetables, and sauté for a few minutes Add rice and water, stirring well. Cook over low heat for one hour. Add salt and thyme just before serving. Stir well and serve hot.

I made several adjustments, but it still worked. Which is good, because it means the real thing must be amazing. All the grocery store had were huge cabbages, so I used only 1/4 of the cabbage. So I can try my next soup which also calls for cabbage and not even need to buy another head of cabbage! Yay frugality! I don’t like turnips so I left those out, and I didn’t have rice on hand so I left that out as well. Also, since I exercised a lot today and am trying to take better care of myself I added beef broth, instead of water, for extra protein. IT WAS DELICIOUS. I’m going to try to stop by the grocery store tomorrow and pick up some rice, which I’m sure will only improve the taste. I may also try adding just a few pieces of stew beef (again, protein. We don’t want any hermits with eating disorders!). If you like veggies and a good hot soup, this one’s for you!

Much Love for the New Year,
A